Hugh Duffy while at Boston
1. Hugh Duffy was born in Rhode Island in 1866.
2. He began playing in the New England League, a Minor League, in 1886 and remained there in 1887.
3. In 1888 he joined the National League’s Chicago team (now the Cubs) hitting .282 in 71 games. The average, along with his home run total (7), was third on the team. He had only nine walks.
4. In 1890 he jumped to the Player’s League, leading the fledgling league in both hits and runs.
5. In 1891 he won his only RBI title with Boston in the American Association.
6. With the folding of the Association, Duffy joined the Boston Beaneaters (now the Braves) in 1892. He remained there through 1900.
7. With him in the outfield (along with fellow Hall of Famers Billy Hamilton and Tommy McCarthy), Boston won four pennants (1891-92 and 1897-98), finished second in 1899, and finished third in 1894. They participated in the 1897 Temple Cup series losing in five games.
8. His career year was 1894. He hit .440 (still an all-time record for highest batting average for a regular), led the National League in home runs with 18, in doubles with 51, in hits with 237, and in total bases with 374. His OPS was a league leading 1.196. As noted above the team finished third.
9. In 1901 he managed the American League’s Milwaukee Brewers (now the Baltimore Orioles). He hit well but the team finished last with a 48-89 record. He wasn’t asked back for a second year.
10. He stayed in Milwaukee in 1902 and 1903 managing the minor league team. In 1904 he took over as player-manager of the Philadelphia Phillies doing more managing than playing. The Phils finished eighth in 1904, fourth in 1905, and fourth again in 1906 his final season as manager.
11. After retirement he coached at Harvard, managed in the minors, then had short stints managing both the White Sox (1910-11) and Red Sox (1921-22). After that he turned to scouting. He remained a scout until 1953 and died in 1954.
12. His career number include a .324 average, a .386 on base percentage, a .451 slugging percentage, and a OPS of .837 (OPS+ 112). He had 2293 hits, scored 1554 runs, hit 106 home runs, had 119 doubles, and knocked in 1302 RBI all in 7044 at bats. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1945 by the Veteran’s Committee.
Tags: Billy Hamilton, Boston Beaneaters, Hugh Duffy, Tommy McCarthy
Verdun2's Blog 
July 11, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Weird fact: When he was born in Rhode Island, there were more people in R.I. than there were in Florida, even including the slaves.
Cool post,
Bill
July 11, 2012 at 5:05 pm
Great thing about blogging. You learn all sorts of things you’d never find out another way. Thanks for telling us that.
v
July 11, 2012 at 5:07 pm
Yeah, give me five minutes and I can come up with all sorts of useless information.