Nine Hall of Fame Outfielders You Should Know

Hall of Fame Outfielders Tony Oliva and Richie Ashburn

Here it is, our sequel to a wildly popular article on the Nine Hall of Fame Infielders You Should Know More About, published earlier this month.

Below we examine nine outfielders, all members of the Baseball Hall of Fame. But for various reasons, none of these great ballplayers is mentioned much when we discuss the best players in history. They should be.

Minnie Miñoso

Miñoso had more than 4,000 hits in professional baseball: roughly 1,900 in Major League Baseball, 1,100 in the Mexican League and minors; and 1,000 hits in the Cuban League and the negro leagues. He’s one of nine hitters to top 4,000 professional hits. The other eight are (in order of hits): Pete Rose, Ichiro Suzuki, Ty Cobb, Hank Aaron, Derek Jeter, Jigger Statz, Julio Franco, and Stan Musial. 

The folks that kept Minnie Miñoso out of the Baseball Hall of Fame for decades failed to appreciate the full measure of his career. The Cuban-born Miñoso had more than 3,000 hits in the top level leagues he played in. 

It wasn’t his fault that in 1944 as a teenager in Cuba he couldn’t sign a contract to play for the Yankees or White Sox. Yet he was one of the best players on that island. It wasn’t Minnie’s fault that after he migrated to the States following World War II, he had to play in the negro leagues. Yet he was a star in that league. 

It wasn’t Miñoso’s fault that after he was signed by the Indians in 1948 the team thought he needed to pay his dues in the minor leagues. Minnie won an MVP award at Triple-A but still spent three years in the minors and the Indians traded him to the White Sox. He debuted in 1951 and finished fourth in American League MVP voting. He was 25 years old and clearly one of the best baseball players in the world but he was forced to travel a circuitous path to the major leagues. 

Paul Richards swindled the A’s out of Miñoso. Yes, the A’s. In 1951, the Indians desperately wanted pitching to keep pace with the Yankees. Early in the season they offered a package of players to the A’s in exchange for several arms. Jimmie Dykes was the manager of the A’s at the time, and when the Tribe made the offer, he rang up his good friend Richards, general manager of the White Sox. Richards advised Dykes to make the deal even if all he got was Minnie. “Miñoso is going to be a star,” Richards said. Dykes explained that his ownership didn’t need or want Miñoso, and Richards pounced. “Make the deal,” Richards said, “I’ll give you two everyday players for Miñoso.” The result was a three-team trade where the A’s got Dave Philley and Gus Zernial from the White Sox, the Indians got pitching from the A’s, and Miñoso went to the White Sox. Dykes never got over his gaffe.

Once, when Miñoso was with the Indians, he lined a pitch into the gap at Yankee Stadium and hustled into second base, sliding safely in a cloud of dirt. For some reason, Minnie had $3,000 in cash in his wallet, and because he didn’t trust the clubhouse attendants, he had that wallet in his back pocket. But when he stood up at second base with his double, his wallet was nowhere to be found, and Minnie called time, holding up the game until it was located somewhere in the grass between home plate and first base.      

In 1959 when they were with the Indians, Miñoso and Vic Power were roommates on the road. “All Minnie does’ is talk, talk, talk,” Power complained. “Sometimes he keeps me up to 3 o’clock in the morning speaking Spanish. Minnie is a very sentimental fellow, so if I don’t listen, his feelings get hurt. He says ‘Whatsa matter, you no like Cubans?’” Power’s batting average fell below .300 that season for the first time in three years. In the offseason the Indians traded Miñoso to the White Sox and Power made it clear that he thought his performance would improve with better sleep on road trips. Power hit .288 in 1960, one point lower than the previous year.

Joe Medwick

Once, Chicago Cubs manager Charley Grimm was going over the St. Louis lineup with his starting pitcher prior to a game. When they came to Medwick, the pitcher asked Grimm how he should pitch him. Grimm replied, “Just throw the ball and back up third base.”

Medwick was Hungarian. He had a ruddy complexion and deep-set eyes, which he inherited from his father. He tanned up pretty quickly, and usually by June every season, the sun had rewarded him with beet-red cheeks. Joe lost his hair on the rear of his head rather quickly. In many photos of Medwick away from the ballpark, he has swept his dark locks over his bald spot. He walked a little funny. So funny that someone said he resembled a duck. That’s why he earned the nickname “Ducky” or “Ducky Wacky,” which he hated.

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Monte Irvin

When Monte Irvin was finally given a chance to play a full season in the major leagues he batted .312, hit 24 home runs, led the league with 124 RBI, and finished third in NL Most Valuable Player Award voting. He was 32 years old when he did that for the New York Giants, but he had been playing professional baseball at a high level since he was 18. The first white MLB team to scout him was Brooklyn.

“When the Dodgers scouted me,” Irvin said, “I thought Mr. Rickey was forming a team to be called the Brooklyn Brown Dodgers. I didn’t think their league would ever give us a chance.”

Irvin deserves far more acclaim as one of the best outfielders in history. He was a hitter in the mold of a Gary Sheffield: a quick bat, strong wrists, and raw power. According to research by Mike Humphreys in his excellent book “Wizards,” Irvin was one of the better defensive left fielders of the post-war era. He was such a great player that he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cuba, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, as well as the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973.

Fred Clarke

One of the most integral figures in the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Fred Clarke was player-manager during the deadball era, establishing the team as one of the most successful in baseball. Leading the team from his position in the outfield, the Bucs won four pennants and one world championship, and his teams won nearly 60 percent of their games. Under Clarke, the Pirates favored defense, pitching, and aggressive baserunning. He engaged in numerous battles with the other two dominant managers in the league at that time, John McGraw of the Giants and Frank Chance of the Cubs.

Clarke’s innovations extended beyond the Burgh of Pitt, he invented a type of flip-down sunglasses, developed a new pitching rubber, and pioneered a mechanical method for rolling a tarp on and off the field. He spent 16 years as the dominant personality of the Pittsburgh club until he retired with wealth and fame following the 1915 season, the winningest manager in baseball history to that point.

RELATED: Pirates All-Time Team

Turkey Stearnes

The official record of baseball in the negro leagues is not as complete as that of the segregated white major leagues, unfortunately. But in the nearly 1,000 league games Norman “Turkey” Stearnes appeared in for which we have boxscores, he batted .349 with a slugging percentage over .600, both of which rate in the top ten all-time for major league baseball.

There are probably three men who have a serious claim to being the best hitter in the history of the negro leagues: Stearnes, Oscar Charleston, and Josh Gibson. Contemporaries, Charleston and Stearnes were in the same leagues for about five seasons, and Stearnes outhit Oscar, .359 to .339, though Turkey was five years younger. 

Stearnes was wiry with long legs, knobby knees, and high cheekbones. He had thinning hair at a young age, and he wore his cap back on his head in that way that many old-time ballplayers did in the 1920s, when he was a star for the Detroit Stars. He won at least five home run titles and captured a pair of batting titles in Detroit, where he was lauded as “The Black Ty Cobb.”

Richie Ashburn

Ashburn won two batting titles in Philadelphia, played a shallow center field, and served as a leadoff man on the 1950 Phillies pennant-winning team. He brought back the headfirst slide, which hadn’t been seen much in the league after Pete Reiser went down with injuries. As a young prospect, Richie was compared to great players, like the dynamic Frankie Frisch, for his baserunning. Once in his rookie season during spring training, Ashburn bounced a routine grounder to shortstop where John Sullivan fielded the ball and tossed it to first. Sullivan was astonished to see Ashburn had beat his throw by two steps.

Enos Slaughter

In 1939 when he was 23, Enos Slaughter led the National League with 52 doubles, hit .320, and got on base more than 240 times. He finished 19th in MVP voting.

In 1940 when he was 24, Slaughter hit .300 again, scored 96 runs, and hit 25 doubles, 13 triples, and 17 home runs.

In 1941 Enos was 25 and he got hurt, but he still hit .311, got on base 39 percent of the time, and was an All-Star.

In 1942 when he was 26 years old, Slaughter helped lead the Cardinals to their first pennant in eight years. He did it all, hitting .318 with a .412 on-base percentage, while leading the league in total bases, hits, and triples. He finished second to teammate Mort Cooper in MVP voting, but the award should have been his. 

Starting in 1943, Slaughter missed three full seasons while he was serving in the Army Air Force in World War II. He was discharged on March 1, 1946, only a few weeks before the baseball season was to commence. Slaughter changed from an olive drab uniform to a wool baseball uniform and had a great season, sparking the Cards to another pennant. He played every game, led the league with 130 RBI, and scored 100 runs. He finished third in MVP voting behind teammate Stan Musial and Dixie Walker. He was 30 years old and played as if he’d never missed any time at all. In the World Series that fall, Slaughter had his famous “mad dash,” scoring from first on a double (some reports still insist he scored from first on a single, but that’s false).

The point here is: Enos Slaughter was a very good player. He was one of the best outfielders in baseball when he was called for duty in WWII. He missed his age 27-28-29 seasons, the best seasons for many ballplayers. He came back and played very well: for the ten years after he returned from the war, Enos posted an OPS+ of 122 with a 302/388/447 slashline. Then he spent five years serving as a spare outfielder for the Yankees. When he was 42, Enos posted an OPS+ of 133 and had a .396 on-base percentage for the Yankees in 160 plate appearances. His home run won Game Three of the 1956 World Series against his nemesis, the Dodgers. He won two titles as a Yankee, to go along with the two he got in St. Louis.

Tony Oliva

In the history of baseball, since they began tossing a ball to a plate and someone with a stick was swinging at it, maybe no more than two dozen men could hit better than Tony Oliva. He was special with a bat in his hands, but physical weaknesses kept him from reaching legendary status. Knee injuries held him off the field often, but Tony eventually earned his rightful place in Cooperstown among the greatest right fielders of all-time.

As a rookie, Oliva won the batting title in 1964, leading the league in hits, runs, doubles, and total bases. He was named Rookie of the Year, was an All-Star, and finished fourth in MVP voting. He won the batting crown the next season too, and in his third season he finished second. He added a third batting title in 1971, and in all he finished in the top three in batting seven times in 11 years of qualifying.

Elmer Flick

Old Elmer was 87 when the phone rang in his Ohio home in February of 1963. A family member explained that it was a long distance call. Flick grabbed his cane and made his way to the phone. He listened, nodded, and said “Are you serious?” It was a representative of the baseball writers telling the former outfielder he had been elected to the Hall of Fame. Flick was so suspicious that it took four more calls to convince him that it was true. Once he knew he was in, Flick was tickled. “Being in the Hall of Fame is better than hitting .400,” he said. 

In his prime, when the first Roosevelt was shouting from the bully pulpit of the White House, Flick was an exceptional hitter. Once, early in Ty Cobb’s career in Detroit when the young outfielder was proving to be a headache, manager Hughie Jennings offered Cobb straight-up for Flick, but Cleveland declined. Oops. 

Flick hit for power, won a batting title, and led the league in steals a couple times. He could do it all as an offensive player. He was also very popular, a handsome star for his hometown Cleveland team after spending his early career in Philadelphia. But when he was 31 years old, Elmer was hit with a stomach ailment (most likely acute gastritis) and never had a good season after that. “There was a time in 1908 [when] I was positive I wouldn’t live another week,” Flick said after getting the Cooperstown call. “And here I am, 87.” He lived nearly eight years as a Hall of Famer.

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