Frank O'Donnell "Don" Hurst (August 12, 1905 – December 6, 1952) was a

first baseman A first baseman, abbreviated 1B, is the player on a baseball or softball team who fields the area nearest first base, the first of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. The first baseman is responsible for the majori ...

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

. He played with the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago Cubs from 1928 to 1934. In 1932, he led 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 ...

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 ...

with 143. Hurst stood at .

Biography

Hurst was born in

Maysville, Kentucky Maysville is a home rule-class city in Mason County, Kentucky, United States and is the seat of Mason County. The population was 8,782 as of 2019, making it the 51st-largest city in Kentucky by population. Maysville is on the Ohio River, north ...

, and attended

Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly called Ohio State or OSU, is a public land-grant research university in Columbus, Ohio. A member of the University System of Ohio, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best publ ...

. He started his professional baseball career in 1926 in the International League."Don Hurst Minor League Statistics & History"
''baseball-reference.com''. Retrieved 2010-11-05. Hurst had two good years in the IL. He was traded to the Phillies on May 11, 1928 and made his major league debut two days later. Playing in Philadelphia's hitter's park, Hurst put up some big numbers from 1928 to 1932. In 1929, he slugged a career-high 31

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 drove in 125 runs. His best season was 1932, when he batted .339 with 24 home runs and led the National League with 143 runs batted in."Don Hurst Biography"
. ''baseballlibrary.com''. Retrieved 2010-11-05. However, he slumped badly in 1933 and 1934. In June 1934, Hurst was traded to the Cubs for first baseman Dolph Camilli. The deal proved to be a disaster for Chicago because, while Camilli went on to become one of the best sluggers in baseball, Hurst had nothing left in the tank. In 51 games for the Cubs, he batted .199 with only 3 home runs and 12 RBI and never played in the majors again. In a 7-year career, Hurst appeared in 905 games and had a .298 batting average (976-3275) with 115 home runs and 610 RBI. His career numbers include 510 runs, 190 doubles, 28 triples, 41 stolen bases, and 391 walks for a .375 on-base percentage and .478 slugging percentage. He posted a .987 fielding percentage as a first baseman. Hurst spent the next few years in the minor leagues. He managed the Hamilton Red Wings in 1939 and then retired from baseball. In his later years, he worked at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Culver City, California."Don Hurst's Obit"
''thedeadballera.com''. Retrieved 2010-11-05. In 1952, Hurst became ill and died from a pulmonary tumor complicated by metastatic cancer in December, at the age of 47. He was survived by his wife and three sons.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hurst, Don 1905 births 1962 deaths Major League Baseball first basemen National League RBI champions Philadelphia Phillies players Chicago Cubs players Syracuse Stars (minor league baseball) players Los Angeles Angels (minor league) players Ohio State University alumni Ohio State Buckeyes baseball players Baseball players from Kentucky Paris Bourbons players

Biography

See also

References

External links