1/16/2024 0 Comments Houston traffic hours![]() ![]() When told he was finally elected for real, Wheat, 70, said, “That makes me feel mighty proud. Unfortunately, he wasn’t eligible to be voted in by the Veterans Committee because he hadn’t been retired long enough. Wheat was voted into the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1957. He moved with his family to a lakeside house in Sunrise Beach, Mo., and opened a 46-acre hunting and fishing resort. He spent five months in the hospital and retired as a policeman. While on a police call in 1936, Wheat crashed his car and suffered a fractured skull, broken wrist and 15 broken ribs. ![]() Wheat became a farmer after retiring, then became a policeman in Kansas City after the Depression caused him to sell his farm. Wheat was 10th all-time in hits when he retired, with 2,884. He is the easiest, most graceful of outfielders with no close rivals.” He was a great defensive outfielder.īaseball Magazine in 1918: “What Napoloen Lajoie was to infielders, Zach Wheat is to outfielders, the finest mechanical craftsman of them all. 317 career batting average.Īnd don’t think he was only a hitting machine. ![]() Or it might have been any number of other seasons. 335 with 29 doubles, 12 triples, 16 homers and 112 RBIs. Or it might have been 1916, when he hit 32 doubles and 13 triples and led the league in slugging. Wheat’s best season might have been 1918, when he led the league with a. Many voters tell me that they can’t judge someone they never saw, but I don’t need to have seen Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Tris Speaker or Al Simmons to know they were all-time greats. Of course, there aren’t a lot of people alive who saw Wheat play probably hurts him in the voting. He is still the all-time Dodger leader in games played (2,322), hits (2,804), doubles (464), triples (171) and total bases (4,003). Wheat played for the Dodgers from 1909 to 1926 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1959. Become a Los Angeles Times subscriber.Īs I watch the votes for “The 10 greatest Dodgers of all time” pour in (more than 15,000 ballots so far), there is one name who rarely turns up in the top 10, but probably should: Zack Wheat. Your support helps us deliver the news that matters most. ![]()
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