Hal Trosky: A Norway, Iowa, Boy Makes Good in the Major Leagues

On a long, lonesome highway east of Omaha lies Norway, Iowa, birthplace of Hal Trosky, who broke into the major leagues 91 years ago in 1933, and spent his rookie season in 1934 with the Cleveland Indians. How did he get there? He was scouted in Iowa. He debuted with Dubuque in the Mississippi Valley League (MVL) in 1931 at the age of 18, batting .302 in only 52 games. He then split 1932 between Quincy in the Three-I League and Burlington in the MVL. At Quincy, he batted .331 in 68 games, with 14 doubles, and 15 home runs. He then batted .316 in 59 games with Burlington, with 15 doubles, and 9 triples.

In 1933, Trosky saw playing time with AA Toledo, where he hit .323 with 25 doubles, 33 homers, and 92 RBIs. This led to a brief, late-season appearance with the Cleveland Indians, where he batted .296 in only 11 games. This cup of coffee set the stage for his breakout rookie year in 1934.

When he arrived in the American League, Trosky joined an already impressive collection of talent at first base, including Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, and Lou Gehrig. His statistical line for his rookie season can be seen in Table 1, below. He very likely would have been the AL Rookie of the Year had that award existed at the time.

Highlights of his season included May 30, a three-homer, four-RBI game against Chicago, a six-RBI and two-home-run performance on April 24 against the Browns in St. Louis, and another six-RBI game against the A’s on June 14, again with two home runs. In a July 23 game against the A’s he drilled a homer and a pair of doubles, driving in five runs. Finally, on September 5, he blasted a grand slam as part of a six-RBI outburst against the Red Sox. The Tribe won all but one of those games.

Trosky’s power was evident both at home, where he hit 17 round trippers, as well as on the road, where he hit 18. However, he batted .384 at home, to .274 on the road, and his OBA and SLA were also significantly higher at home than on the road.

His lefty-righty splits were also extreme. He batted .345 against righties and .280 against lefties, with much higher OBA and SLA against righties. He did have more than three times as many at bats against righties than lefties, which helps explain his 33 home runs against right-handed pitchers, and only two versus southpaws. In 192 at-bats with runners in scoring position, he batted .359 with 12 homers and 112 RBIs. He batted .300 or better in every AL park except Boston’s Fenway Park and Detroit’s Navin Field, and fared especially well against Chicago, Philadelphia, and St. Louis. Despite his exaggerated L/R splits, Trosky was a substantial contributor to the third-place Cleveland Indians, skippered by Walter Johnson, who won 85 and lost 69. Table 2 displays the Indians home and road splits. We can see that the Tribe, like Trosky, performed better at home than on the road.

Cleveland had a .500 or better record against every AL team except for pennant-winning Detroit, against whom they went 6-16. They were 11-11 against the second place Yanks. Thus, their third-place finish was due entirely to their inability to beat the two teams above them in the standings. They did go 15–7 against Boston, 14–8 vs. Chicago, and 15–7 against St. Louis. However, Detroit was 17-5 against the Chisox, and the Yankees were 17–5 vs. Chicago, and 17–5 vs. the Browns, thus beating up the weak links. But they went 10–12 against Detroit. (More on this later!)

Table 3 puts Trosky’s rookie season into perspective by comparing him to Foxx, Greenberg, and Gehrig. Though Trosky was a rookie in 1934, he held his own against these future Hall of Fame first basemen, all of whom were multiple MVP winners. Trosky finished seventh in the AL MVP voting, which was notable, given the stiff competition at his position and considering that Cleveland was not in the pennant race. He finished third in the majors in home runs, and second in RBIs—impressive for a rookie.

Trosky was no flash in the pan. He had a number of other strong years, capped by his 1936 season, when he belted 42 homers and 162 RBIs, with over 400 total bases, and became the first Cleveland batter to drill 40 homers in a season. And he was respected well enough by the club to be named team captain in 1940. But severe migraine headaches derailed a promising career, costing him two full seasons in his prime, and eventually driving him from the game at the age of 33.

Hal Trosky should be remembered as an important player for the Indians, and a stalwart at first base, holding his own at a time when first base was such a strong position in the American League. He also compares favorably to other strong batters. Similarity Scores by age rank him most like Albert Pujols, Vlad Guerrero Jr., Orlando Cepeda, Eddie Murray, and Ted Kluszewski. That’s rather good company!

Trosky had some prominent teammates, such as Earl Averill and Mel Harder. During his rookie season, Trosky hit behind future Hall of Famer Averill, who had a banner year, batting .313, with 31 homers, 48 doubles, 113 RBIs, and 128 runs scored. While there were other .300 hitters who contributed—including Joe Vosmik—Trosky and Averill were the main power threats in the lineup.

Despite the stellar performances of Trosky, Averill, and Mel Harder, who went 20–12 with a sparkling 2.61 ERA, the Tribe didn’t have the depth of talent to compete for the pennant in 1934. Table 4 shows how the Tribe stacked up against the rest of the league. Detroit’s superiority is easy to see. They scored more runs, had a greater run differential, and had a better record in all comparisons to the rest of the league.

Though the Indians finished a distant third, Hal Trosky certainly did his share to make them more competitive in 1934. The boy from Norway, Iowa, (also home of Mike Boddicker) “done splendid,” as Casey Stengel would have said.

STEVE KREVISKY has been a professor of mathematics at Connecticut State Community College, Middlesex Campus, for many years. His students get used to him bringing baseball into classes to make it more interesting for them. He is also President of the Smoky Joe Wood SABR chapter, which has periodic meetings, chapter breakfasts, and trips to local minor league games. He has been attending SABR’s annual conventions for many years, going back to his first convention in Chicago in 1986. He has been a frequent presenter, and will also be presenting this year. He has published articles in the journals and has also been on seven teams that won the trivia championships over the years! He looks forward to returning to Minneapolis for this year’s convention. He is in a simulation/fantasy league, and looks forward to that committee meeting as well as seeing old friends there!

 

Author’s note

The opening line references the Bob Seger song, “Turn The Page.”

 

Sources

Baseball Almanac

Baseball Reference

SABR Biography Project

Daguerreotypes, 8th Edition, published by The Sporting News

Retrosheet