The Bottom Line
"Wahoo" Sam Crawford was one of the greatest baseball sluggers of the dead ball era in the early 20th century. He is the modern major league record holder for lifetime triples and inside-the-park home runs, and despite being overshadowed by Ty Cobb his entire career, Crawford left an impressive legacy as one of its historic dominant forces.
Beginnings
Samuel Earl Crawford was born April 18, 1880 in Wahoo, Nebraska (home of David Letterman's Worldwide Pants, Inc.). Crawford showed a prodigiousness for baseball at an early age, and he left his home at 17 to play in the minor leagues under contract with the National League, taking his hometown with him as a nickname.
Crawford's career in baseball began when he was 19, as a member of the Cincinnati Reds. He showed a tremendous amount of speed, and was named as a starter in 1900. In 1901, Crawford set the existing record for inside-the-park home runs in a season with 12. Following the 1902 season, the NL and American League got together for consolidation talks: a major dispute was that the leagues were signing the other's star players without offering compensation. Crawford was one such player, and he was finally awarded to the Detroit Tigers in exchange for $3,000.
The Best Hitter In Baseball
Playing in the outfield alongside Ty Cobb and Harry Heilmann, Crawford lived in the shadows of the Georgia Peach his entire career. Yet Crawford proved to be just as formidable at the plate as Cobb: from 1905 to 1915, he finished in the top 10 in every major offensive category every single year. Home runs, RBIs, hits, doubles, triples, stolen bases, batting average - Wahoo Sam was a one-man army batting 3rd after Cobb and Heillmann.
Crawford's Tigers made the World Series three years running - in 1907, 1908, and 1909 - but ended up three-time losers. All three times, Crawford struggled, never batting higher than .250 in a single Series. The losses haunted him the rest of his days.
In 1914, Crawford finished 2nd in the MVP voting after taking the Tigers to the playoffs after a mid-season injury to Cobb, batting .314 with 26 triples - still the single-season American League record.
1915 marked one of the better-known tales about Crawford: with Cobb on second, Crawford came to the plate against St. Louis Cardinals hurler Grover Loudermilk. On the first pitch, Crawford sent a rocket back at the mound. Loudermilk made the catch, but the momentum somersaulted him completely over, and he sat on the mound in a daze as Cobb raced around to score from second.
Injuries and age caught up with Crawford in 1916, when knee and ankle injuries limited him to 100 games. Midway through his 1917 season, batting only .173 as a pinch-hitter, Crawford announced his retirement to become a coach in the Pacific Coast League. When he did so, he retired as the American League all-time leader in home runs, extra-base hits, total bases, runs batted in, inside the park home runs, and triples. Although many of these records were later surpassed, he remains the all-time leader in triples.
After Baseball
Crawford continued to play and coach in the PCL for 6 more years. In 1943 he retired and became an umpire for the league. By 1952 he had become a college coach, coaching community colleges throughout the California and Arizona area. After a strong campaign by Tris Speaker and Cobb, Crawford was elected into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1957. It was a travesty he was not elected in by normal procedures.
"Wahoo" Sam Crawford passed away June 15, 1968 in Hollywood, California.
Career Statistics
YEAR TEAM G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA
1899 CIN NL 31 127 25 39 3 7 1 20 6 ? 2 ? .307
1900 CIN NL 101 389 68 101 15 15 7 59 14 ? 28 ? .260
1901 CIN NL 131 515 91 170 20 16 16 104 13 ? 37 ? .330
1902 CIN NL 140 555 92 185 18 22 3 78 16 ? 47 ? .333
1903 DET AL 137 550 88 184 23 25 4 89 18 ? 25 ? .335
1904 DET AL 150 562 49 143 22 16 2 73 20 ? 44 ? .254
1905 DET AL 154 575 73 171 38 10 6 75 22 ? 50 ? .297
1906 DET AL 145 563 65 166 25 16 2 72 24 ? 38 ? .295
1907 DET AL 144 582 102 188 34 17 4 81 18 ? 37 ? .323
1908 DET AL 152 591 102 184 33 16 7 80 15 ? 37 ? .311
1909 DET AL 156 589 83 185 35 14 6 97 30 ? 47 ? .314
1910 DET AL 154 588 83 170 26 19 5 120 20 ? 37 ? .289
1911 DET AL 146 574 109 217 36 14 7 115 37 ? 61 ? .378
1912 DET AL 149 581 81 189 30 21 4 109 41 ? 42 ? .325
1913 DET AL 153 609 78 193 32 23 9 83 13 ? 52 28 .317
1914 DET AL 157 582 74 183 22 26 8 104 25 16 69 31 .314
1915 DET AL 156 612 81 183 31 19 4 112 24 14 66 29 .299
1916 DET AL 100 322 41 92 11 13 0 42 10 ? 37 10 .286
1917 DET AL 61 104 6 18 4 0 2 12 0 ? 4 6 .173
CAREER 2517 9570 1391 2961 458 309 97 1525 366 30 760 104 .309
* Bold indicates led league.
Sources
- http://www.pubdim.net/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/C/Crawford_Sam.stm
- www.baseball-reference.com/c/crawfsa01.shtml
Hall of Fame Index
Stan Coveleski | Joe Cronin