Henry Lee "Specs" Meadows (July 12, 1894 – January 29, 1963) was an American 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 played in

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), ...

as a right-handed

pitcher In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw ...

over parts of 15 seasons (1915–1929) for the

St. Louis Cardinals The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals ha ...

, Philadelphia Phillies and Pittsburgh Pirates. He was 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 ...

wins leader in 1926 with

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsylva ...

. For his career, he compiled a 188–180 record in 490 appearances, with a 3.37

ERA An era is a span of time defined for the purposes of chronology or historiography, as in the regnal eras in the history of a given monarchy, a calendar era used for a given calendar, or the geological eras defined for the history of Earth. Comp ...

and 1063 strikeouts. As a hitter, Meadows posted a .180

batting average Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic. Cricket In cricket, a player's batting average is ...

(201-for-1117) with 80 runs, 5 home runs, 75

RBIs 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 bat ...

and 34 bases on balls. Defensively, he was below average, recording a .947 fielding percentage which was 11 points lower than the league average at his position. Meadows played on two National League pennant winners with the Pirates (1925 and 1927), winning the

1925 World Series The 1925 World Series was the championship series of the 1925 Major League Baseball season. A best-of-seven playoff, it was played between the National League (NL) pennant winner Pittsburgh Pirates and the Washington Senators. The Pirates defe ...

. He opposed future Hall of Famer

Walter Johnson Walter Perry Johnson (November 6, 1887 – December 10, 1946), nicknamed "Barney" and "The Big Train", was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 21-year baseball career in Major League Baseball as a right-ha ...

as the Game 1 starting pitchers of that '25 Series. He finished 0–2 in two postseason appearances with a 6.28 ERA. Meadows currently ranks sixth in Pirates history with a .629 winning percentage, with an 88-52 won-loss record. Meadows was one of the few players in the early 20th century who wore glasses in the field, earning him the nickname "Specs." He was born in

Oxford, North Carolina Oxford is a town in Granville County, North Carolina, United States, with a population of 8,628 as of the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Granville County. History The town's history dates to 1761, when local legislator Samuel Benton built ...

and died in Daytona Beach, Florida at the age of 68.

External links

* 1894 births 1963 deaths Major League Baseball pitchers Baseball players from North Carolina St. Louis Cardinals players Pittsburgh Pirates players Philadelphia Phillies players National League wins champions Durham Bulls players Indianapolis Indians players Newark Bears (IL) players Dallas Steers players Atlanta Crackers players {{US-baseball-pitcher-1890s-stub

See also

External links