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Hank Greenberg
#5
| First Baseman | Detroit
Tigers
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Hank Greenberg |
Just how deep was the first base position in the AL in the 1930s? Consider this: from 1934 through 1939, Indians first sacker Hal Trosky averaged 30 home runs and 127 RBI per season - and didn't make a single All-Star team. The troika above him included Lou Gehrig and Jimmie Foxx, plus Tiger first baseman Hank Greenberg.
Greenberg's career .412 on-base average (27th all time, behind Gehrig's .447 and Foxx's .428) and .605 slugging percentage (fifth all-time, behind Gehrig's .632 and Foxx's .609), don't suffer much by comparison to those of Gehrig and Foxx, and yet he never led the league in hitting or on-base average; he only led in slugging once. He led the AL four times each in home runs (1935, 1938, 1940 and 1946) and in RBI (1935, 1937, 1940, and 1946).
Although he missed time through injuries, military service, and early retirement, Greenberg still ranks as one of the most fearsome sluggers in baseball history. The powerful righthander played only the equivalent of nine-and-a-half seasons, yet produced outstanding career totals - 331 career HR, 1,276 RBI - as well as exceptional season marks, such as the 183 RBI in 1937 and the 58 HR he hit in 1938. In neither of those two years did Greenberg win the league MVP award - he won in 1935 and in 1940 - which gives you a sense of the live-ball era in which he played.
A native New Yorker, Greenberg was the son of Rumanian-born Jewish immigrants who owned a successful cloth-shrinking plant. Greenberg tried out for the New York Giants and impressed manager John McGraw, always on the lookout for a Jewish star to attract New York's large Jewish population, with his hitting; but McGraw decided that Hank was too clumsy and uncoordinated to help the Giants. Hank turned down a lucrative offer from the Yankees, realizing there would be little chance of making the ML with Lou Gehrig on first for the Bombers, and also rejected overtures from the Washington Senators, who had Joe Judge. In January 1930 he signed with the Tigers.
After several minor league stops, he was called up to the Tigers in 1933. In 1934 he cracked a league-leading 63 doubles, batted .339 with 26 homers and 139 RBI, and helped the Tigers to the AL pennant. In the WS loss to the Gashouse Gang Cardinals, he hit .321 but struck out nine times.
He led the Tigers to the pennant in 1935, with a league-topping 36 homers and 170 RBI. He was named AL MVP. He suffered a broken wrist in the second game of the WS and watched from the sideline as the Tigers defeated the Cubs. Off to an excellent start in 1936, with 16 RBI in 12 games, he broke the same wrist in a collision at first base and missed the rest of the season, amid speculation that his career was over. But he bounced back in 1937, driving in 183 RBI (the third-highest total ever), and hitting 40 home runs while batting .337. In 1938, he made a determined assault on Babe Ruth's 60 home run record - with five games to go, he had 58, to tie Jimmie Foxx's record for righthanded hitters, but he was unable to add to that total. He set a record for most multi-homer games in a season, with eleven.
In 1940, Greenberg shifted from first base to left field to enable the Tigers to find a regular lineup spot for hard-hitting but poor-fielding Rudy York. The result was a Detroit pennant, and an MVP for Greenberg - he hit .340 and led the AL in doubles (50), home runs (41), and RBI (150), and many credited his willingness and ability to learn a completely new position as the key factor in Detroit's success.
Greenberg, then a bachelor, was one of the first major leaguers inducted into the service, entering 19 games into the 1941 season. He was discharged from the army on December 5, 1941, two days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. He immediately enlisted as an officer candidate in the Air Corps. Hank served with distinction in the Far East until his discharge in mid-1945. He returned with a bang, with a home run in his first game. His grand slam on the final day of the season won the pennant for the Tigers. In the WS win over the Cubs, he hit two more homers and batted in seven runs.
He led the AL in homers (44) and RBI (127) again in 1946, but a salary dispute developed with the Tigers during the season. Rather than raise his salary, Detroit waived him out of the AL to Pittsburgh. Greenberg deeply resented learning of the deal from the radio rather than being informed in advance of the public announcement. The Pirates coaxed him into playing the 1947 season with a complicated contract that netted him between $100,000 and $145,000, making him the NL's first $100,000 player. A bullpen was built in front of Forbes Field's distant left field wall and fans quickly labeled it "Greenberg Gardens." Although he hit a disappointing .249, he contributed 25 home runs and served as a gate instructor.
More important, he served as hitting instructor and advisor to his protege and friend, young Ralph Kiner. When Greenberg retired after the 1947 season, the left field bullpen became known as "Kiner's Korner."
"Hank was so big for his age and so awkward that he became painfully self-conscious.
The fear of being made to look foolish drove him to practice constantly and,
as a result, to overcome his handicaps."
- Greenberg's high school coach
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