Robert Sydney "Hurricane" Hazle (December 9, 1930 – April 25, 1992) was an American

professional A professional is a member of a profession or any person who works in a specified professional activity. The term also describes the standards of education and training that prepare members of the profession with the particular knowledge and ski ...

baseball player Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding te ...

. He was an

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to c ...

over parts of three Major League seasons (1955; 1957–1958) with the

Cincinnati Redlegs Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line w ...

, Milwaukee Braves and Detroit Tigers. Hazle was a member of the

1957 World Series The 1957 World Series featured the defending champion New York Yankees of the American League playing against the Milwaukee Braves of the National League. After finishing just one game behind the N.L. Champion Brooklyn Dodgers in 1956, the Brave ...

champion Braves. For his Major League career, he

hit Hit means to strike someone or something. Hit or HIT may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Hit, a fictional character from '' Dragon Ball Super'' * Homicide International Trust, or HIT, a fictional organization ...

.310 with 9

home run In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run i ...

s and 37

runs batted in A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the ba ...

in 110 games played. Hazle was born in

Laurens, South Carolina Laurens is a city in Laurens County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 9,139 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Laurens County. History Located in upstate South Carolina, the city of Laurens is named after Henry Laure ...

. He batted left-handed, threw right-handed, and was listed as tall and . He attended

Wofford College Wofford College is a private liberal arts college in Spartanburg, South Carolina. It was founded in 1854. The campus is a national arboretum and one of the few four-year institutions in the southeastern United States founded before the America ...

and signed with Cincinnati in 1950.

Professional career

Hazle debuted with the Redlegs late in the 1955 season. He told reporters that Redlegs manager

Birdie Tebbetts George Robert "Birdie" Tebbetts (November 10, 1912 – March 24, 1999) was an American professional baseball player, manager, scout and front office executive. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a catcher for the Detroit Tigers, ...

said he would be splitting time with

Frank Robinson Frank Robinson (August 31, 1935 – February 7, 2019) was an American professional baseball outfielder and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB) who played for five teams, from to . The only player to be named Most Valuable Player (MVP) of both ...

in the outfield but he only got into six games. The following spring, he was traded with Corky Valentine to the Milwaukee Braves in return for George Crowe, but did not appear in the big leagues. Playing for the Triple-A

Wichita Braves The Wichita Braves were an American Triple-A (baseball), Triple-A minor league baseball franchise based in Wichita, Kansas, that played in the American Association (1902–1997), American Association from 1956 to 1958 as the top affiliate of the M ...

, he was hurt and reportedly considered quitting the sport. Hazle was promoted from Wichita on July 27 to serve as a backup to star outfielder

Andy Pafko Andrew Pafko (February 25, 1921 – October 8, 2013) was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Chicago Cubs (1943–51), Brooklyn Dodgers (1951–52), and Milwaukee Braves (1953–59). He bat ...

after Braves outfielder Billy Bruton suffered an injury. Pafko, who served as a mentor to Hazle, noted that Hazle had the strongest wrists he had ever seen other than

Hank Aaron Henry Louis Aaron (February 5, 1934 – January 22, 2021), nicknamed "Hammer" or "Hammerin' Hank", was an American professional baseball right fielder who played 23 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB), from 1954 through 1976. One of the gre ...

's. In less than three weeks, from August 9 through August 25, Hazle batted .473 with 5 home runs and 19 runs batted in during 14 games. Hazle's sudden an unexpected burst of offense earned him the nickname "Hurricane." The original

Hurricane Hazel Hurricane Hazel was the deadliest, second costliest, and most intense hurricane of the 1954 Atlantic hurricane season. The storm killed at least 469 people in Haiti before striking the United States near the border between North and Sout ...

had killed hundreds of people in North America in 1954. In 41 regular-season games with the Braves, Hazle batted .403 with 12 doubles, 7 home runs, and 27 RBI. The first-place Braves swept the second-place Cardinals on August 9–11, which went a long way towards sealing the

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

pennant for Milwaukee; the first two games of the series were blowouts, and Hazle had seven hits and five runs batted in. He batted .556 in his first dozen games. For the season, Hazle batted .403 in 41 games, with 7 home runs and 27 runs batted in. On the next-to-last day of the season, Hazle broke up a no-hit bid by Cincinnati's Johnny Klippstein with a two-out, eighth-inning single. Hazle appeared in four of seven

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

games that year, hitting .154 for the champion Braves. However, both of his hits came in the seventh and deciding game; Hazle scored the first run in a 5–0 victory. Despite having had just 134 at-bats, Hazle finished fourth in the 1957 NL Rookie of the Year voting.

Later career

After a bad start in 1958, Hazle was traded to Detroit. After a stint in the minors, he retired in 1960. Hazle died in

Columbia, South Carolina Columbia is the List of capitals in the United States, capital of the U.S. state of South Carolina. With a population of 136,632 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is List of municipalities in South Carolina, the second-largest ...

at the age of 61.Bob Hazle
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References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hazle, Bob 1930 births 1992 deaths American military personnel of the Korean War Baseball players from South Carolina Birmingham Barons players Charleston Senators players Cincinnati Redlegs players Columbia Reds players Detroit Tigers players Indianapolis Indians players Little Rock Travelers players Major League Baseball outfielders Milwaukee Braves players Nashville Vols players People from Laurens, South Carolina Tulsa Oilers (baseball) players Wichita Braves players