Sherwood Robert "Sherry" Magee (August 6, 1884 – March 13, 1929) was an American

left fielder In baseball, a left fielder, abbreviated LF, is an outfielder who plays defense in left field. Left field is the area of the outfield to the left of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In the numbering system ...

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 1904 through 1919, Magee played with the Philadelphia Phillies (1904–1914), Boston Braves (1915–1917) and Cincinnati Reds (1917–1919). He batted and threw right-handed and in a 16-season career posted a .291

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 ...

with 83

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 1,176

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 ...

through 2,087 games played.

Career

A native of

Clarendon, Pennsylvania Clarendon is a borough in Warren County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 450 at the 2010 census. Geography Clarendon is located at (41.781091, -79.095090). According to the United States Census Bureau, the borough has a total ar ...

, Magee was one of the premier hitters of the

dead-ball era In baseball, the dead-ball era was the period from around 1900 to the emergence of Babe Ruth as a power hitter in 1919, when he hit a then-major league record 29 home runs; only three players since 1890 had even hit 20. This era was characterized ...

. He was picked out by local Phillies scout Jim Randall when he had heard about the exploits of Magee on the local diamond, and it resulted in an impromptu tryout that resulted in a spot for Magee on the Phillies. He started his first game as a left fielder against the

Brooklyn Superbas The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, Californ ...

on June 29, 1904. From 1905 through 1914, Magee finished in 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 ...

top 10 in home runs and runs batted in (RBI) seven times, including leading the

in RBIs four times. He led the league for a fourth time in the campaign, which was shortened by World War I and the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus. The earliest documented case wa ...

pandemic. Magee also hit over .300 five times, including a batting title to his credit as well, while also being known as one of the finest defensive outfielders of his day. He collected 2,169 hits and 441 stolen bases, including 23 steals of home plate. Sherry magee

Magee would play eleven years with the Phillies while spending the last year as team captain. His 85 RBIs in 1905 were a league high. His most productive season came in 1910, when he led the league in batting (.310), RBIs (123), runs (110),

total bases In baseball statistics, total bases is the number of bases a player gains with hits. It is a weighted sum with values of 1 for a single, 2 for a double, 3 for a triple and 4 for a home run. For example, three singles is three total bases, whil ...

(263), on-base percentage (.445),

slugging average In baseball statistics, slugging percentage (SLG) is a measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats, through the following formula, where ''AB'' is the number of at bats for a given player, ...

(.507) and OPS (.952), and finished second in doubles (39) and triples (17). On July 10, 1911, Magee (allegedly drunk) struck umpire Bill Finneran as a result of disputing a called third strike, knocking him unconscious, at which he was suspended for the remainder of the season, although on appeal the suspension was shortened to just over a month, 36 games. In 1914 Magee led the league in hits (171), doubles (39), RBIs (103),

extra base hit In baseball, an extra-base hit (EB, EBH or XBH), also known as a long hit, is any base hit on which the batter is able to advance past first base without the benefit of a fielder either committing an error or opting to make a throw to retire ano ...

s (65),

(277) and slugging (.509). A year later, he was traded to the Boston Braves. He remained at Boston until the 1917 midseason, when he was sent to the Cincinnati Reds. In 1918, he led the league in RBIs (76) for the fourth time. In 1919, Magee was seriously ill for two months and he concluded his major league career by pinch-hitting twice during the

1919 World Series The 1919 World Series was the championship series in Major League Baseball for the 1919 season. The 16th edition of the World Series, it matched the American League champion Chicago White Sox against the National League champion Cincinnati Reds. ...

, which resulted in two hits and a championship for Magee.

Later life

Magee later played in the minors and also umpired in the

New York–Penn League The New York–Penn League (NYPL) was a Minor League Baseball league that operated in the northeastern United States from 1939 to 2020. Classified as a Class A Short Season league, its season started in June, after major-league teams signed th ...

(1927) and the National League (1928). A victim of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

, Magee died in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...

, at age 44. He is buried at

Arlington Cemetery Arlington National Cemetery is one of two national cemeteries run by the United States Army. Nearly 400,000 people are buried in its 639 acres (259 ha) in Arlington, Virginia. There are about 30 funerals conducted on weekdays and 7 held on Sa ...

Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania Drexel Hill is a neighborhood and census-designated place (CDP) located in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. The population was 29,181 at the 2020 census, up from 28,043 at the 2010 census, and accounting for over a third of Upper Darby's population. ...

. In 2008, he was one of ten pre-1943 players to be considered by the Cooperstown Veterans Committee for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

References

External links

Sherry Magee
at SABR (Baseball BioProject)
Sherry Magee
at Baseballbiography.com
Baseball Hall of Fame: Magee Had Live Bat in a Dead Era
at The Deadball Era * {{DEFAULTSORT:Magee, Sherry 1884 births 1929 deaths Major League Baseball left fielders Boston Braves players Burials at Arlington Cemetery (Pennsylvania) Cincinnati Reds players Philadelphia Phillies players Baseball players from Pennsylvania National League batting champions National League RBI champions Major League Baseball umpires Columbus Senators players Minneapolis Millers (baseball) players St. Joseph Saints players Milwaukee Brewers (minor league) players Baltimore Orioles (IL) players Deaths from pneumonia in Pennsylvania

Career

Later life

See also

References

External links