Kentucky’s All-Time All-Stars

Ever wonder who were the best big leaguers to be born in Kentucky?  Approximately 150 players from our 120 counties have worn a big league uniform, but fewer than one-third of them played for as long as five seasons.

Performance over time is essential in choosing an all-star lineup, so in picking players for the all-time, all-Kentucky team only those were considered who had played five season or more as a regular — a regular, in this case, being one who (except for pitchers) played in 100 or more games at a starting position.

Our infield is made up of Dan McGann at first, Fred “Dande” Pfeffer on second, Pee Wee Reese at short and Ray Chapman at third.

Two players deserve serious consideration at first base: McGann and Don Hurst. McGann, a native of Shelbyville, played in the pre-“rabbit ball” era, specifically 1895 to 1908, while Hurst, the pride of Maysville, competed when the likes of Babe Ruth, Jimmy Foxx, Hank Greenberg and Hack Wilson were hard at it.

McGann, a switch-hitter, was a regular for eleven seasons and hit .300 or better in five of them. He wore the uniform of eight major league teams. Only twice did he account for more than 200 runs in a season (counting runs scored and runs batted in) but he was a stolen base artist in an era when larceny on the bases was a key weapon. He holds the record among Kentuckians for the most heists in a career with 288 — 56 more than Reese, who played three years longer.

Hurst could be awesome. In 1932, he hit 24 home runs and led the league with 143 runs batted in, while scoring 109 himself and ending up with a .339 average. His 31 home runs in 1929 are the most by a Kentuckian in one season. He hit over .300 for four straight years (1929-1932) and had the highest slugging average (.547 in 1932) of any Kentuckian. But the following year his average plummeted 72 points and two seasons later he was no longer in a big league lineup. Our choice is McGann for longevity (13 seasons compared to seven for Hurst) and speed.

At second, Louisville’s Pfeffer, a regular for 14 of his 16 years (1882-1897), tying Reese for the longest big league career. Though his average for the half dozen teams he played with was only .255, he rapped out 1, 671 hits. He scored 1, 094 times while knocking in 859 runs. Pfeffer was one of 50 Kentuckians to play before the turn of the century, all but three of whom were pitchers.

Reese, of Ekron, at shortstop is one of three Kentucky players enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, New York. He was a whiz from the beginning, inspiring  a writer for the St. Paul Pioneer Press to write during his first professional season at Louisville:  “the Colonels’ 18-year-old shortstop . . . is all they said he would be.”

Never a power hitter, he could get a respectable share of doubles and triples and was always a threat to steal. He had guts, too, recovering from a hit in the head in his first big league season and going on to hit .269 during a 16-year career (1940-1958 with three seasons missed because of military service). He had the most hits of any Kentuckian in the big leagues (2,170) and scored the most runs (1, 338).

The only Kentuckian close to Reese as a big league shortstop was Chapman, who was fatally injured by a pitched ball at the height of his career in 1920. Like Reese, he was a master at covering ground, amassing as many as 528 assists in one season and leading the league in putouts twice.

A team player from the words “play ball,”  Chapman set a big league record for the most sacrifices in one season besides tying the mark for the most in one game. He hit over .300 four of his nine big league seasons and holds the Kentucky record for stolen bases with 52 in one year (1917). He played from 1912 to 1920 and because no other Kentuckian qualifies at third base, we have moved the Beaver Dam native to that position to complete our team.

Our utility infielder, Bill Sweeney, learned the various positions on the sandlots of Covington and, in 1907, at age 21, made the National League team in Chicago when the Cubs boasted of Tinker, Evers and Chance.

He had no chance of becoming a regular so, after one year, the Cubs sent him to the Boston Braves, where he took a turn at each infield slot. By 1911, he had settled down as a second baseman and seemed to be developing as a hitter, batting .314 that season and rising to .344 the following year. But then he skidded to .257 in 1913 and wound up his career the following season back in Chicago with a puny .218. Still, he finished with a career mark of .272.

Our outfield is a manager’s dream and a pitcher’s nightmare, with Earle Combs, Pete “The Gladiator” Browning and Bobby Veach.

Combs, the pride of Owsley County, and Kentucky’s first Hall of Famer, was a tremendously intelligent athlete. He had speed to burn and his ability to draw walks and hit line drives made him an ideal leadoff hitter in the days of the Yankees’ “Murderers Row.”  He was a true gentleman, never thrown out of a game, and his jokes and pranks contributed to the good spirits that permeated Yankee clubhouses during his career (1924-1935).

In eleven full seasons, he hit over .300 eight times including six years in a row, a Kentucky record. He would up with a lifetime .325 average. He also hit more triples (154) than any other Kentuckian. Teammate Babe Ruth, who played beside him for 10 years, said that as a fielder “he could do everything [Tris} Speaker could do, except possibly throw.”  Ty Cobb, that grizzled warrior without illusions, listed Combs as one of a half dozen great center fielders.

Browning, the only Kentuckian ever to win a big league batting title, ended his career with the highest average of any Kentuckian (.343). He won the batting title in 1882, 1885 and 1890, with marks of .382, .362 and .387 respectively, but he failed to win it in 1887, when he hit a career high of .402. This Louisvillian drilled 1,654 hits in 1,185 games from 1882 to 1894.

Veach, who hailed from McLean County, cavorted in a Detroit outfield that featured the immortal Cobb and another fellow who was almost as devastating with a bat, Harry Heilmann. In that company he etched a lifetime mark of .310. Cobb had one word to describe his teammate: “dependable.”

Veach was responsible for more runs scored and runs batted in than any Kentuckian except Reese (2,120). He was also second to Resse in hits (2,064) and the only other player from the state to notch more than 2,000 in his career. He played from 1912 to 1925 and led all Kentuckians in doubles (393).

Our utility outfielder is Arlington’s George Harper, who averaged .303 for eleven seasons between 1916 and 1929. Our designated hitter is Louisville’s Gus Bell, who led all Kentuckians in home runs with 206 between 1950 and 1964. Four times he drove in over 100 runs and finished with a career average of .281.

The hardest job in making up our all-Kentucky team was choosing a catcher, for no Kentuckian ever achieved at that position what any of those already named accomplished at theirs. Paducah’s Phil Roof played the longest — from 1961 to 1977 but batted only .215 during his career. Kid Baldwin of Newport and Bob Clark of Covington played seven years apiece during the late 1800s, but their statistics were little better. Covington’s Johnnie Heving had the best average of any catcher from Kentucky, .265 for eight years from 1920 to 1932. But that is only two points better than Earl Grace of Barlow, whose big league career also spanned eight seasons (1929-1937) but who appeared in 627 games to Heving’s 398. Grace was Pittsburgh’s number one receiver for three years and the Philadelphia Phillies’ for one. The nod goes to Grace.

In contrast to their potential battery mates, our pitchers are enough to make any manager envious. Our starting rotation includes Gus Weyhing, Carl Mays, Jim Bunning, Paul Derringer and Jesse Tannehill.

Weyhing, in 14 season, won 264 and lost 234 between 1887 and 1901. Though he weighed only 145 pounds, he won 20 or more games for seven straight seasons, including four in a row in which he reached or exceeded the magic number of 30. His 1, 665 strikeouts are second highest among Kentuckians.

Mays, who hailed from Liberty, won 20 or more games five times. His 208 wins and 126 losses gave him the best won-lost percentage of any Kentuckian (.623). In 1917, he not only notched a 22-9 record but also an earned run average of 1.74, the lowest any Kentuckian has ever achieved in the majors. He played from 1915 to 1929 and in 1921 led the American League in total games (49), total innings (336.2) and won/lost percentage (.750 with a record of 27-9). Twice he led the league in complete games (1918 and 1926). When in top form, his submarine delivery was invincible and, at his peak, the Yankees parted with two players and $40,000 to acquire him.

In 1996 Bunning became the third player from Kentucky to enter the Hall of Fame. He won 224 games and lost 184 between 1955 and 1971, and was the first player since Cy Young to win 100 games in both leagues. His 2,855 career strikeouts are tops among Kentuckians and rank 11th on the all-time major league list. The Southgate native, now a representative from Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District, led the league in strikeouts in 1959, 1960 and 1967. He pitched a no-hit game in both leagues and posted 40 shutouts during his career.

Physically formidable at 6-foot-4, Springfield’s Paul Derringer was a master of control. He won 20 or more games four times between 1931 and 1945, no small accomplishment considering that for six straight years at the peak of this ability he led a team that never finished higher than fifth. Still, he achieved a career record of 223 wins and 212 losses. His best season was 1939, when his 25-7 record with Cincinnati gave him the best winning percentage in the National League. His record included 1,507 strikeouts and 32 shutouts.

Tannehill, of Dayton, had six 20-game winning seasons in a 17-year career between 1894 and 1911, four in the National League and two in the American. His lifetime record of 195 wins and 120 losses included 34 shutouts. He led the National League in ERA in 1901 with 2.18; the following year it dropped to 1.95.

There is one more Kentuckian whose name is enshrined in the Hall of Fame, Albert B. “Happy” Chandler, who was commissioner of baseball from 1945 to 1951. He could throw out the first pitch for this all-Kentucky team!