Nap Lajoie
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| Napoléon "Nap" Lajoie | ||
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| Second Base | ||
| Born: September 5, 1874 Woonsocket, Rhode Island |
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| Died: February 7, 1959 (aged 84) Daytona Beach, Florida |
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| Batted: Right | Threw: Right | |
| MLB debut | ||
| August 12, 1896 for the Philadelphia Phillies |
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| Final game | ||
| August 26, 1916 for the Philadelphia Athletics |
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| Career statistics | ||
| Batting average | .338 | |
| Hits | 3242 | |
| Runs scored | 1504 | |
| Teams | ||
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As Player
As Manager |
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| Career highlights and awards | ||
| 1901 American League Triple Crown | ||
| Member of the National | ||
 Baseball Hall of Fame |
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| Elected | 1937 | |
| Vote | 83.58% (second ballot) | |
Napoléon "Nap" Lajoie [la-ZHWAH, or often la-ZHWAY, per the Canadian French pronunciation; or, as he himself usually pronounced it, LAJ-a-way[1]] (September 5, 1874 – February 7, 1959), also known as Larry Lajoie, was an American professional athlete of French Canadian descent from Woonsocket, Rhode Island. In his career as a second baseman in Major League Baseball, he was considered one of the greatest players of the fledgling American League in the early 20th century and the most serious of Ty Cobb's challengers.
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[edit] Playing career
Lajoie started his career in the National League with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1896. In 1901, he jumped to the crosstown Philadelphia Athletics, owned by Connie Mack. Lajoie's batting average that year was .426, still a league record. The same year Lajoie became the second Major Leaguer to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded after Abner Dalrymple in 1881. Only three other players who did it afterwards were Del Bissonette in 1928, Bill Nicholson (1944), and Barry Bonds in 1998.
The next year the Phillies obtained an injunction, effective only in Pennsylvania, barring Lajoie from playing baseball for any team other than the Phillies. The American League responded by transferring Lajoie's contract to the Cleveland Indians, then known as the Broncos and subsequently renamed the "Naps" in Lajoie's honor for several seasons before adopting their current name in 1915 when Lajoie left the team. For the remainder of 1902 and most of 1903, Lajoie and teammate Elmer Flick traveled separately from the rest of the team, never setting foot in Pennsylvania so as to avoid a subpoena. The issue was finally resolved when the leagues made peace through the National Agreement in September 1903.
Lajoie won three batting titles and might have won a fourth if he had not contracted blood poisoning from an untreated spike injury in 1905. With Cobb's arrival in the Majors in 1905, however, Lajoie faced real competition.
[edit] Rivalry with Ty Cobb
Their rivalry reached a peak in 1910, when the Chalmers Auto Company promised a car to the batting leader (and MVP) that year. Cobb took the final two games of the 1910 season off, confident that his average was high enough to win the AL title—unless Lajoie had a near-perfect final day.
Lajoie, a far more popular player than Cobb, was allowed by the opponent St. Louis Browns to go 8-for-8 in a season-ending doubleheader. After a ‘sun-hindered’ fly went for a triple and another batted ball landed for a cleanly hit single, Lajoie had six subsequent 'hits'—bunt singles dropped in front of the (manager-ordered) deep-fielding third baseman. Lajoie also laid down a seventh bunt that was credited as a sacrifice hit.
The subsequent chicanery involved the Browns’ manager and a coach offering a new suit to the official scorer if he changed the sacrifice hit to another base hit. Considering the uproar that followed, the Browns fired their manager and coach.
As it turns out, Lajoie's average is not the only one tainted by controversy - Cobb's average might have been inflated by counting a single game twice in his statistics, as researchers discovered 70 years later. In the end, the Chalmers Auto Company avoided taking sides in the dispute by awarding cars to both Cobb and Lajoie.
[edit] Legacy
Lajoie ended his career in 1915 and 1916 with a return to the Athletics, finishing with a lifetime .339 average. His career total of 3242 hits was the second best in Major League history at the time, behind only Honus Wagner's total. Lajoie's 2521 hits in the AL was the league record until Cobb surpassed it in 1918. Among second basemen, Lajoie posted staggering career offensive numbers; in the history of baseball, only Rogers Hornsby and Joe Morgan can compare.
Lajoie was among the second group of players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, being inducted when the Hall opened in 1939. He died in Daytona Beach, Florida in 1959 at the age of 84.
In 1999, he ranked number 29 on The Sporting News' list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, and was a nominee for the Major League Baseball All-Century Team.
Lajoie is mentioned in the poem "Lineup for Yesterday" by Ogden Nash:
| Lineup for Yesterday | |
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| L is for Lajoie Whom Clevelanders love, Napolean himself, With glue in his glove. |
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| — Ogden Nash, Sport magazine (January 1949)[2] | |
[edit] See also
- List of major league players with 2,000 hits
- List of Major League Baseball RBI Records
- List of Major League Baseball Hit Records
- List of Major League Baseball doubles records
- List of Major League Baseball players with 400 doubles
- List of Major League Baseball players with 100 triples
- List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 runs
- List of Major League Baseball players with 1000 RBI
- 3000 hit club
- Hitting for the cycle
- Triple Crown
- List of Major League Baseball RBI champions
- List of Major League Baseball batting champions
- List of Major League Baseball home run champions
- List of Major League Baseball runs scored champions
- List of Major League Baseball doubles champions
- Major League Baseball titles leaders
[edit] References
- ^ Lee Allen in The American League Story
- ^ Baseball Almanac. Retrieved on 2008-01-23.
[edit] External links
- Career statistics and player information from Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or The Baseball Cube
- Baseball Hall of Fame biography
- Nap Lajoie at Find A Grave
| Preceded by George Davis |
National League RBI Champion 1898 |
Succeeded by Ed Delahanty |
| Preceded by First Triple Crown Winner |
American League Triple Crown 1901 |
Succeeded by Ty Cobb |
| Preceded by First Champion |
American League Home Run Champion 1901 |
Succeeded by Socks Seybold |
| Preceded by First Champion Buck Freeman |
American League RBI Champion 1901 1904 |
Succeeded by Buck Freeman Harry Davis |
| Preceded by First Champion Ed Delahanty Ty Cobb |
American League Batting Champion 1901 1903-1904 1910 |
Succeeded by Ed Delahanty Elmer Flick Ty Cobb |
| Preceded by Bill Armour |
Cleveland Naps Manager 1905–1909 |
Succeeded by Deacon McGuire |
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