Cap Anson
Cap Anson | ||
---|---|---|
First Baseman | ||
Batted: Right | Threw: Right | |
MLB debut | ||
May 6, 1871 for the Rockford Forest Citys |
||
Final game | ||
October 3, 1897 for the Chicago Colts |
||
Career statistics | ||
AVG | .333 | |
Hits | 3418 | |
RBI | 2076 | |
Teams | ||
Career highlights and awards | ||
Member of the National | ||
Baseball Hall of Fame | ||
Elected | 1939 | |
Election Method | Veteran's Committee |
Adrian Constantine Anson (April 17, 1852 – April 14, 1922), known by the nicknames "Cap" (for "Captain") and "Pop", was a professional baseball player in the National Association and Major League Baseball. He played in a record twenty-seven consecutive seasons.[1] He was regarded as one of the greatest players of his era. His contemporary influence and prestige are regarded by historians as playing a major role in establishing the racial segregation in baseball that persisted until the late 1940s.
Contents |
Early baseball career
Anson was born in Marshalltown, Iowa. Beginning in 1866, he spent two years at the high-school age boarding school of the University of Notre Dame after being sent there by his father in hopes of curtailing his mischievousness.[2] His time away did little to discipline him, and soon after he returned home his father sent him to the University of Iowa, where his bad behavior resulted in the school asking him to leave after one semester.[2] Anson played on a number of competitive baseball clubs in his youth and began to play professionally in the National Association (NA) at the age of 19. His best years in the NA were 1872 and 1873, when he finished in the top 5 in batting, OBP (leading the league in 1872), and OPS. His numbers declined slightly the following two seasons, but he was still good enough that Chicago White Stockings Secretary-turned-President William Hulbert sought him to improve his club for the 1876 season. Hulbert broke league rules by negotiating with Anson and several other stars while the 1875 season was still in progress and ultimately founded the new National League to forestall any disciplinary action.[3] Anson, who had married a Philadelphia native in the meantime, had second thoughts about going west, but Hulbert held Anson to his contract and he eventually warmed to the Windy City.[4]
Chicago White Stockings/Colts
The White Stockings won the first league title, but fell off the pace the following two seasons. During this time, Anson was a solid hitter, but not quite a superstar. Both his fortunes and those of his team would change after Anson was named captain-manager of the club in 1879, hence the nickname "Cap", although the newspapers typically called him by the more formal "Captain Anson" or "Capt. Anson". With Anson pacing the way, the White Stockings won five pennants between 1880 and 1886. They were helped to the titles using new managerial tactics, including the rotation of two star pitchers. After the expression first became popular, in the 1890s, he retroactively claimed to used some of the first "hit and run" plays, and, especially aided by clever base runner Mike Kelly in the first half of the 1880s, had his players run the bases in a way that forced the opposition into making errors. In a modern sense of going South right before a season, he shares credit as an innovator of spring training along with then-Chicago President Albert Spalding. An aggressive captain and manager, he regularly helped players play better, and his contributions helped make baseball a higher-quality sport, while at the same time making it more popular with fans. On the field, Anson was the team's best hitter and run producer. In the 1880s, he won two batting titles (1881, 1888) and finished second four times (1880, 1882, 1886-87). During the same period, he led the league in RBIs seven times (1880-82, 1884-86, 1888). His best season was in 1881, when he led the league in batting (.399), OBP (.442), OPS (.952), hits (137), total bases (175), and RBIs (82). He also became the first player to hit three consecutive home runs, five homers in two games, and four doubles in a game, as well as being the first to perform two unassisted double plays in a game. He is one of only a few players to score six runs in a game, a feat accomplished on August 24, 1886.
Anson was well known to be a racist and refused to play in exhibition games versus dark-skinned players. This attitude was not considered to be unusual in his day, and Anson remained very popular in Chicago while playing for the White Stockings, which were increasingly known as the Colts starting with an influx of new players in the mid-1880s, as well as by a stage play starring Anson and called "The Runaway Colt". By the early 1890s, "Anson's Colts" or just "Colts" was the most-frequently used nickname for the team. Anson signed a ten year contract in 1888 to manage the White Stockings (which, because of a typographical error he failed to spot, ended after the 1897 season instead of 1898), but his best years were behind him. He led the league in walks in 1890 and garnered his eighth and final RBI crown in 1891, but declined precipitously thereafter. On the managerial front, he failed to win another pennant. He also mellowed enough that he became a fatherly figure, and was often called "Pop". When he was fired as manager after the 1897 season, it also marked the end of his 27-year playing career. The following season, newspapers dubbed the Colts the "Orphans", as they had lost their "Pop".
Career hits total
There has been some controversy as to whether Anson should be considered the first player ever to get 3,000 hits in a major league career. For many years, recognized statistics credited him with achieving that goal. When the first edition of Macmillan's Baseball Encyclopedia was issued in 1969, one of its committee's goals was to disregard "gimmick" scoring rules, and this affected Anson's totals. In 1887, it had been decided to count base-on-balls as hits (and times-at-bat) instead of 0's in both categories as they were before and have been since. Since then, Anson's 60 walks have been removed from his 1887 hit total, resulting in a career mark of 2,995.
The other controversy over Anson's total hits had to do with his five years in the National Association. Neither the Macmillan Encyclopedia editions nor Major League Baseball itself at that time recognized the NA as being a true major league, for a number of reasons. There was no argument that the NA was the first professional league. Anson thus played at the top level of professional baseball that was available, for 27 years, and his 423 hits in the NA plus 2,995 in the NL put his professional total at 3,418.
Major League Baseball now considers the NA to be a de facto major league, as the MLB.com website includes the NA years in Anson's record, and his major league hits total as 3,418. Anson is placed at seventh in the all-time leaders in hits.
Other sources credit Anson with a differing amount of hits. According to the Sporting News baseball record book, which does not take NA statistics into account, Anson had 3,012 hits over his career.[5] The National Baseball Hall of Fame credits Anson with 3,081 hits on its webpage[6], a number which credits the bases on balls he earned in 1887 as hits and also does not recognize the National Association.
After retirement
Anson briefly made a return to baseball managing the New York Giants in June and July of 1898, but fully retired afterward. After a number of failed business attempts, he was later elected city clerk of Chicago in 1905[7] and then, after serving one term, failed in the Democratic primary to become sheriff in 1907.[8] After an unsuccessful attempt at owning/managing a semi-pro team, Anson began touring on the vaudeville circuit, which lasted up until about a year before his death.[7] He first appeared in vaudeville in 1913 doing a monologue and a short dance. He next appeared in 1921 accompanied by his two daughters in an act written by Ring Lardner with songs by .[9] Following a glandular ailment[10], Anson died at the age of 69 in Chicago, Illinois and was interred at the Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago.[11]
Anson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939, one of the first 19th-century players selected. Over 100 years after his retirement, he still holds several Cubs franchise records, including most career RBI, runs, hits, singles, and doubles.
See also
- List of MLB individual streaks
- List of major league players with 2,000 hits
- List of Major League Baseball players with 400 doubles
- List of Major League Baseball players with 100 triples
- List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 runs
- List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBI
- 3000 hit club
- List of Major League Baseball RBI champions
- List of Major League Baseball batting champions
- Major League Baseball hitters with three home runs in one game
- Major League Baseball titles leaders
References
- ^ Most Seasons Played. Baseball-Reference.com. Retrieved on 2006-11-22. (Note that Nolan Ryan's 27 seasons are not consecutive.)
- ^ a b CapAnson.com - Chapter 1. Retrieved October 25, 2006.
- ^ BaseballLibrary.com - William Hulbert. Retrieved October 25, 2006.
- ^ CapAnson.com - Chapter 2. Retrieved October 25, 2006.
- ^ 2007 Complete Baseball Record Book - Career Milestones (PDF). Sporting News. Retrieved on 2007-06-05.
- ^ Cap Anson's Hitting Stats. National Baseball Hall of Fame. Retrieved on 2007-06-05.
- ^ a b CapAnson.com - Chapter 5. Retrieved October 25, 2006.
- ^ CapAnson.com - Timeline. Retrieved October 25, 2006.
- ^ Laurie, Joe, Jr. Vaudeville: From the Honky-tonks to the Palace. New York: Henry Holt, 1953. p. 126.
- ^ TheDeadBallEra.com - Obituary. Retrieved October 25, 2006.
- ^ FindAGrave.com. Retrieved October 25, 2006.
External links
- Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference
- Baseball-reference.com – Major league career managerial statistics
- baseballhalloffame.org – Hall of Fame biography page
- capanson.com
- A Ball Player's Career, available at Project Gutenberg. eBook on Anson
Accomplishments | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
---|
Chicago White Stockings (1870-1889) Chicago Colts (1890-1897) Chicago Orphans (1898-1901) Chicago Cubs (1902-present) |
|
---|
P. Rose | T. Cobb | H. Aaron | S. Musial | T. Speaker | C. Yastrzemski | C. Anson | H. Wagner | P. Molitor | E. Collins | W. Mays | E. Murray | N. Lajoie | C. Ripken | G. Brett | P. Waner | R. Yount | T. Gwynn | D. Winfield | R. Henderson | R. Carew | C. Biggio* | L. Brock | R. Palmeiro | W. Boggs | A. Kaline | R. Clemente |