Frankie Frisch
Frankie Frisch was one of the great players in the early days of the sport, and his competitiveness helped his teams reach the World Series 8 times in his career, coming away with 4 victories.
He is one of the few players ever to never play in the minor leagues, instead being brought straight to the New York Giants in 1919 at the age of 21 from Fordham University, where he was a 4-sport star. In just his third season, he led the Major Leagues in stolen bases, a feat he would match twice more in his career.
In addition to leading the league in steals, he also led the team to the World Series that year, where they beat the Yankees in 8 games (it was a best of 9 series that year), and a repeat title the following season, this time taking out the Yankees in 5 games. Frisch went 8 for 17 in that Series, his best career World Series performance.
He showed his all-around prowess over the next couple of seasons, in which he led the league once each in runs scored, hits, total bases, putouts, and strikeout average, and those two seasons ended in the World Series as well, though they lost in those appearances.
Near the end of the 1926 season he had a falling out with Giants manager John McGraw after McGraw berated him in front of the entire team for missing a sign, and he walked out on the team for a while, before returning to finish out the season with the understanding that he was leaving. After the season he was traded to Saint Louis for Rogers Hornsby.
During his time in Saint Louis, the Cardinals reached 4 World Series, while the Giants only made it once. He led the league in steals in his first season there, and in 1931 was awarded the NL MVP when he did it again. While they did get to 4 World Series and won 2 with Frisch on the roster, he did not play well in his Cardinal World Series trips.
There are two facets of Frisch's game that stand out above the others. For 15 consecutive seasons, from 1920 to 1934, he finished among the top 7 in the league in stolen bases, and was in the top 5 in 14 of those seasons. His strikeout rate was also remarkably low, with 13 seasons in which he was among the ten lowest in the league in strikeouts per at-bat, and he is still #13 all time in that stat, with only one strikeout per 33.5 at-bats in his career, never totaling more than 28 in a season. Taken all together, he had a great career that deserves to be remembered.
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