Hall of Famers Abound in 1906

If you were around in 1906 you could have seen 39 Hall of Famers in action at the major league level.

Honus Wagner and Napoleon Lajoie were the best players in their respective leagues. The Philadelphia Athletics had three pitchers who would have made Earl Weaver drool — Rube Waddell, Eddie Plank and Chief Bender. Wahoo Sam Crawford had the distinction of pinch-hitting for a young Ty Cobb. As for the possessed Cobb himself, the 20-year-old batted .320, the first of 23 consecutive seasons the fury in flannels would hit .300 or better.

One Hall of Farner made his debut this year but you won’t be able to find his name in any 1906 box score. Eddie Collins, still a teenager and playing shortstop/ third base, took a break from Columbia College to join the A’s on their last western trip. Playing under the name of Eddie Sullivan to protect his college eligibility, he slashed a single off Big Ed Walsh (a Farner himself) his first at-bat.

Addie Joss had been a 20-game winner the previous two years but tragically would die of meningitis four years later at the age of 30. Bobby Wallace must have been the Ozzie Smith of his day to be considered Wagner’s AL counterpart at short. And Elmer Flick of Cleveland is held in such high esteem that his owner turns down a trade straight-up involving Flick for Cobb. Christy Mathewson and Roger Bresnahan are the most famous battery in baseball. And Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, Frank Chance and Three Finger Brown are making winners of Chicago.

Two young personalities are around who would become so famous in other baseball endeavors that many forget they were once major leaguers. Miller Huggins is known as “Little Mr. Everywhere” for his range as a Cincinnati Reds second baseman. And this is a big year for Branch Rickey, 25, who has his best season as a player (catcher with the Browns), earns his second bachelor’s degree and gets married.

Five famous managers are around. John McGraw, only 33 and years away from becoming a W.C. Fields lookalike, is skipper of the Giants and Connie Mack is a much younger version of the ancient relic we’ll remember as manager of the A’s. Fred Clarke is a hero in Pittsburgh, famed hitter Hugh Duffy is manager of the Phillies and will play his last game when he inserts himself as a pinch-hitter (McGraw too sees the last as a player in 1906), and pitcher-manager Clark Griffith comes within four games of winning the pennant with the New York Highlanders.

Charles Comiskey and Ban Johnson, co-founders of the American League, are powerful executives in the junior circuit and three young Hall of Fame umpires are making decisions on the field. Bill Klem is in his sophomore year as a NL arbiter, little Tom Connolly has been around since 1898 and Billy Evans is a rookie and at the age of22 is the youngest ever to umpire in the majors.

Cy Young has just lost 21 games for the last place Boston club and his fans wonder if age has finally caught up with the 39-year-old pitching wizard. He has already earned 438 wins, more than any other pitcher would ever attain. His fans needn’t have worried for the old farmer hitched up his britches, went on to pitch five more seasons and added 76 wins to his already incredible total.

Father Time, however, did catch up with seven other old-timers. Jake “Old Eagle Eye” Beckley would come within 70 hits of the magical 3,000. Iron Man Joe McGinnity would rust out and have his last great season in the majors. Kid Nichols pitched his last games and returned home to run a bowling alley. Wee Willie Keeler had his last .300 season and the end would come quick for the little guy. Jimmy Collins, on top of the baseball world only two years earlier, would be fired as manager of Boston this year, traded the next and out of the majors a few years later. Joe Kelley played his last and grumbled about how the players of 1906 couldn’t compare to the 19th Century stars. And Happy Jack Chesbro wouldn’t be smiling too much in the future after his last good season.

Our last major league Hall of Famer is Sam Thompson, an old-timer from the earlier century happily retired and selling real estate. His old team, the Detroit Tigers, suffered a rash of injuries and called on the 46-year-old Thompson to help them out. Old Sam responded, played eight games and even hit a triple.

Two Hall of Famers who were not in the major leagues but were definitely of major league caliber were Rube Foster and John Henry Lloyd, sadly barred from the big leagues only because of the color of their skin. Foster was a superb pitcher of the day who one newspaper described as having “the coolness and deliberation of a Cy Young” and Lloyd was so outstanding he was tagged The Black Honus Wagner (or should Honus have been called The White John Henry Lloyd?).