The Forgotten Pujols

There are several online historical stat sites that I have used to research the playing histories of players I’ve been reporting on. One of the best is Baseball-Reference.com, or as I will refer to it, BR.

BR has annual statistical breakdowns for virtually every player since Doubleday. Well, not Doubleday, since he really wasn’t a player, but it does have Al Spaulding who played in the 1870’s and went on to fame as the Levi Strauss of baseball. I particularly like the listing of appearances on annual and career leaderboards and awards (MVP, All-Star appearances, Cy Youngs, etc.).

Today I found another extremely cool feature at the bottom. It takes a player’s career statistics and lists other players, active and retired with similar lifetime statistics. It also lists players with similar statistics through his age at this time. And finally it lists the player who had the most similar career statistics at every age of the player.

I was researching a few players I’m going to write about shortly when I found this. Of course, I immediately went to check out the comparable players to Big Al Pujols. The most similar player to Pujols’ annual career numbers for each year of his age were:

Age 21 – Joe DiMaggio
Age 22 – Joe DiMaggio
Age 23 – Joe DiMaggio
Age 24 – Joe DiMaggio
Age 25 – Joe DiMaggio

Now that is impressive. I think Ted Williams is closer in statistics by year of service, but because after 4 years at age 24 he took a 3 year break in service for WWII, the comparison doesn’t work at age 25. Anyway, being compared to Joe D ain’t too bad.

What is more interesting was the list of 10 players who had the most similar stats to Big Al at age 25. After Joe D, it’s another list of the all-time greats:

Frank Robinson
Jimmie Foxx
Hank Aaron
Hal Trosky
Vladimir Guerrero
Orlando Cepeda
Ken Griffey
Mickey Mantle
Joe Medwick

So that top ten includes 7 hall of famers, 2 of the great active players and…

Wait a minute.

Hal Trosky???? Who the hell is Hal Trosky????

Now there is probably somebody reading this who knows the answer to this, somebody who probably grew up in Ohio, or more likely whose father grew up in Ohio, or maybe whose grandfather grew up in Ohio, where Trosky was a star. A big star.

When I started this, I had never heard of him. Hal Trosky was Big Hal in 1938, the Big Al Pujols of the Depression Era.

He was strictly a midwestern boy, the son of immigrants from Bohemia, John and Mary Ann Troyovesky (no, he wasn't Russian). He was born November 1, 1912, and played for Cleveland for most of his career. Here are some of his figures from BR:

..Yr....Age...AB.....H.....D....HR..RBI....BA
1933…20..…44..…13..…1...…1...…8….295
1934…21...625...206...45...35...142….330... ROY
1935…22...632...171…33...26....113….271
1936…23...629...216…45...42...162….343... 3rd Place, AL MVP
1937…24...601...179…36...32...128….298
1938…25...554...185…40...19...110….334

That’s your Age 25 scan, your Pujols scan. The totals at this point:

970 Hits
200 Doubles
663 RBI’s
155 Homers
.314 Batting Average

Oh, that Hal Trosky.

Those are some serious numbers. So what happened?

His playing line stopped in 1941. Then some games in 1944 and some more in 1946. That was it.

World War II, maybe? That’s what I assumed, but that wasn’t it. Hal Trosky suffered from constant, debilitating migrane headaches. He had another good year in 1939, but missed some time, an ok year in 1940, and part-time year with decent stats in 1941. And he quit. He couldn’t take it any more. He was one of the best players in baseball, but the headaches were starting to impair his vision.

He was 4F during World War II, which he spent on his farm in Iowa. The White Sox enticed him to give it a try in 1944, but he was pretty bad, and that was really bad considering the quality of the players in the major leagues in 1944, including the guy with one arm. He gave it one more shot in 1946, but only played part time and hung them up, done at the age of 33.

His career stats:

1561 Hits
331 Doubles
228 Homers
1012 RBIs
.302 Batting Average

Late in life he found out by accident that dairy products caused the headaches. He grew up on a farm and was a milk drinker and butter eater. He stopped the dairy and 2 days later his headaches ceased forever. You wonder what might have been had he discovered it earlier.

Despite all those great seasons, Hal Trosky was never on a single all-star team, a great personal regret. The reason? He was only the 4th best 1st baseman in the American League, behind Gehrig, Foxx and Greenberg. Can you imagine a time when a guy who had 162 RBI's and 42 homers (1936) couldn't even make the all-star team? BTW, those RBI's were the Cleveland club record until Manny Ramirez broke it 1999 with 165. Want to know how American League-phobic I am? I had no idea until today that Manny once had 165 RBI's, which is a titanic number in this day and age.

Trosky's son, Harold Jr. had a cup of coffee with the White Sox in 1957, pitching 3 innings and winning one game. A better career than Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, I guess, but not even as good as Dave Debusschere.

I got most of this information in an article not readily available called “Not Tolstoy, Not Trotsky, But Harold “Hal” Trosky", by Jim Odenkirk. Thanks to him, the University of Nebraska Press and the USF library.

Finally, for conspiracy nuts like my wife and Larry Dot Net, there is an article at corpse.com (follow this link) which suggests that Hal Trosky was actually Leon Trotsky, the great Russian revolutionary. It’s probably true, but since the site is sponsored by the Diebold Corporation, I don’t completely trust it.