Milton Joseph Stock (July 11, 1893 – July 16, 1977) was an American

third baseman A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...

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), ...

from 1913 through 1926. The

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

native played for the New York Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, Brooklyn Robins and

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 ...

. Over 14 MLB seasons, he played in 1,628 games and amassed 1,806 hits, with a .289 lifetime

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 ...

and 155 stolen bases. Stock stood tall, weighed and threw and batted right-handed.

Playing career

Stock's first full season was in 1914 with the New York Giants. He was traded the Philadelphia Phillies before the 1915 season and helped them win that year's

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. In the

1915 World Series The 1915 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1915 season. The 12th edition of the World Series, it matched the American League champion Boston Red Sox against the National League champion Philadelphia Phill ...

, Stock went 2-for-17, with the Phillies losing to the

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eigh ...

in five games. It was his only World Series appearance as an active player. Stock was traded to the Cardinals before the season. He responded by hitting .307 that year with a career-best .371 on-base percentage, leading the team with 49 walks. In 1920 he led the National League in games played (155) and at-bats (639), finishing tied for second in hits (204, a career-best) and sixth in batting average (.319). Stock batted .307 in 1921 with 96 runs scored, leading the league with 36 sacrifice bunts. He batted .305 in 1922 with a career-high 5 home runs and .418 slugging percentage. In 1923, he led the Cardinals with 96 RBIs, the highest total of his career. Traded to Brooklyn for the 1924 season, Stock had his worst full season for a team that finished the year only 1 games out of first place; he batted .242. In 1925, Stock bounced back with a .328 batting average, 98 runs scored and a .776 OPS, all career highs. He tied a career-high with 9 triples and was fifth in the league with 202 hits, though Brooklyn finished 27 games out of first place. That season, Stock became the only major league player to get four hits in each of four consecutive games; he performed the feat between June 30 through July 3, 1925, when he had 16 hits in 23 at bats against the Phillies, Boston Braves and Giants and raised his season battling average from .376 to .404. (

Rafael Furcal Rafael Antoni Furcal (born October 24, 1977) is a Dominican former professional baseball shortstop. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Atlanta Braves, Los Angeles Dodgers, St. Louis Cardinals, and Miami Marlins. With St. Louis, he ...

of the Los Angeles Dodgers was the last MLB player with three consecutive four-hit games in .) But would be Stock's last full big-league season; he was seriously injured in a collision with

Lou Gehrig Henry Louis Gehrig (born Heinrich Ludwig Gehrig ; June 19, 1903June 2, 1941) was an American professional baseball first baseman who played 17 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the New York Yankees (1923–1939). Gehrig was renowned f ...

in spring training in 1926, and retired after playing only three early-season games.

Coaching career

Stock remained in the game as a minor league

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities ...

and executive. Then, from 1944 through 1952, Stock coached in the National League for the Chicago Cubs (1944–48), Brooklyn Dodgers (1949–50) and Pittsburgh Pirates (1951–52). His tenure as third-base coach in Brooklyn ended in controversy when Stock was blamed for his decision to send home baserunner

Cal Abrams Calvin Ross Abrams (March 2, 1924 – February 25, 1997), nicknamed "Abie", was an American professional baseball outfielder. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) between 1949 and 1956 for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pira ...

with the potential winning run in the bottom of the ninth inning of the final game of the 1950 National League season. The Dodgers trailed the Phillies by one game in the standings and needed to win the season's last game, against Philadelphia at

Ebbets Field Ebbets Field was a Major League Baseball stadium in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. It is mainly known for having been the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team of the National League (1913–1957). It was also home to five pro ...

on October 1, to force a best-of-three playoff series. With the score tied at one in the bottom of the ninth, Abrams was on second base with none out when

Duke Snider Edwin Donald "Duke" Snider (September 19, 1926 – February 27, 2011), nicknamed "the Silver Fox" and "the Duke of Flatbush", was an American professional baseball player. Primarily a center fielder, he spent most of his Major League Baseball (M ...

singled sharply to center field. Stock was criticized for not holding Abrams at

third base A third baseman, abbreviated 3B, is the player in baseball or softball whose responsibility is to defend the area nearest to third base — the third of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. In the scoring system us ...

on the hit. Instead, he waved Abrams home, where he was thrown out easily by Phils' centerfielder

Richie Ashburn Don Richard Ashburn (March 19, 1927 – September 9, 1997), also known by the nicknames, "Putt-Putt", "The Tilden Flash", and "Whitey" (due to his light-blond hair), was an American center fielder in Major League Baseball. (Some sources give his ...

, who was playing shallow to back up second base in the event of a sacrifice bunt and a wild throw. Had Abrams (or any Dodger) scored, Brooklyn would have had a " walk-off" victory and forced the playoff. But the Dodgers squandered their scoring opportunity, the game went into

extra innings Extra innings is the extension of a baseball or softball game in order to break a tie. Ordinarily, a baseball game consists of nine regulation innings (in softball and high school baseball games there are typically seven innings; in Little Lea ...

, and Philadelphia won the game and the National League championship (their first since Stock's 1915 team) in the tenth inning on a three-run

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 ...

Dick Sisler Richard Alan Sisler (November 2, 1920 – November 20, 1998) was an American player, coach, and manager in Major League Baseball. The son of Hall of Fame first baseman and two-time .400 hitter George Sisler, Dick Sisler's younger brother Dave was ...

. In the weeks following that season-ending game, Dodger manager

Burt Shotton Burton Edwin Shotton (October 18, 1884 – July 29, 1962) was an American player, manager, coach and scout in Major League Baseball. As manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers (1947; 1948–50), he won two National League pennants and served as Jackie Rob ...

was fired and Stock moved on to the Pirates, where he coached two more seasons before leaving the game.

Personal life

Stock settled in the Mobile, Alabama, area after playing minor league baseball there in 1913; he died in nearby

Fairhope Fairhope is a city in Baldwin County, Alabama, United States, located on the eastern shoreline of Mobile Bay. The 2020 Census lists the population of the city as 22,477. Fairhope is a principal city of the Daphne-Fairhope-Foley metropolita ...

on July 16, 1977, at the age of 84. Stock's daughter Myrtle married

Eddie Stanky Edward Raymond Stanky (born Stankiewicz (September 3, 1915 – June 6, 1999) was an American professional baseball second baseman, shortstop, and manager. He played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers, Boston ...

, the future MLB second baseman and manager and longtime

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional p ...

coach; Stanky played under Stock with the

Macon Peaches The Macon Peaches was the predominant name of the American minor league baseball franchise representing Macon, Georgia, during the 20th century. Although Macon did not field teams during and immediately after World War I, the height of the Great ...

of the

Sally League The South Atlantic League, often informally called the Sally League, is a Minor League Baseball league with teams predominantly in states along the Atlantic coast of the United States from New York to Georgia. A Class A league for most of its ...

between 1939 and 1941.

References

External links

Milt Stock
at SABR (Baseball BioProject) {{DEFAULTSORT:Stock, Milt 1893 births 1977 deaths Atlanta Crackers players Baseball coaches from Illinois Baseball players from Chicago Brooklyn Dodgers coaches Brooklyn Robins players Buffalo Bisons (minor league) players Burials at the Catholic Cemetery (Mobile, Alabama) Chicago Cubs coaches Dallas Steers players Fond du Lac Mudhens players Major League Baseball third base coaches Major League Baseball third basemen Minor league baseball executives Minor league baseball managers Mobile Bears players Mobile Sea Gulls players New York Giants (NL) players People from Fairhope, Alabama Philadelphia Phillies players Pittsburgh Pirates coaches St. Louis Cardinals players Sportspeople from Mobile, Alabama

Playing career

Coaching career

Personal life

See also

References

External links