Frederick William Odwell (September 25, 1872 – August 19, 1948) was a professional

baseball 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 t ...

player. 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 cat ...

over parts of four seasons with the

Cincinnati Reds The Cincinnati Reds are an American professional baseball team based in Cincinnati. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division and were a charter member of ...

. In 1905, 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 s ...

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. He was born in and later died at the age of 75 in Downsville, New York.

Career

1904 was Odwell's first season in the Major Leagues. He made his Major League debut on April 16, and finished the season with Cincinnati with a batting average of .284, with 133 hits, including 22 doubles, 10 triples and a home run, plus 26 walks.Fred Odwell
Baseball-Reference.com. Accessed November 20, 2008. In 1905, Odwell finished with a .241 average, with ten doubles, nine triples and nine home runs, along with 26 walks. The nine home runs hit led the National League that season, edging teammate

Cy Seymour James Bentley "Cy" Seymour (December 9, 1872 – September 20, 1919) was an American professional baseball center fielder and pitcher, who played in Major League Baseball (MLB) from to for the New York Giants (1896–; –), Baltimore Orioles ( ...

who had eight. Seymour led the National League that season in batting average (.377) and runs batted in (121) and was tied with Odwell for the lead in home runs at eight with two games left in the season, and would have taken the batting Triple Crown if the two stayed tied. In the next-to-last game of the season, Odwell hit an

inside-the-park home run In baseball, an inside-the-park home run is a play where a batter hits a home run without hitting the ball out of the field of play. It is also known as an "inside-the-parker", "in-the-park home run", or "in-the-park homer". Discussion To score ...

and took the home run title with nine. The nine home runs he hit in 1905 were the last home runs of his Major League career.Fred Odwell
Baseball Biography. Accessed November 22, 2008. "Odwell leads the NL with 9 round trippers‚ but will never hit another homer." Odwell only played in 58 games for Cincinnati in the 1906 season, finishing with a batting average of .245 with two doubles, four triples and no home runs, together with 15 walks. In the 1907 season, his last in the majors, he hit for a .294 average, with five doubles, seven triples and no home runs, with 22 walks. His last Major League game was on September 12, 1907. Though Odwell was almost exclusively an outfielder during his career, he played one game at second base in 1904 and another in 1907.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Odwell, Fred 1872 births 1948 deaths National League home run champions Major League Baseball outfielders Major League Baseball left fielders Major League Baseball right fielders Cincinnati Reds players Baseball players from New York (state) People from Delaware County, New York Minor league baseball managers Wilkes-Barre Coal Barons players Rome Romans players Montreal Royals players Chester (minor league baseball) players Louisville Colonels (minor league) players Toledo Mud Hens players Columbus Senators players Marion Orphans players Ironton Diggers players

Career

See also

References

External links