Russell Collier "Rusty" Saunders (March 12, 1906 – November 24, 1967), was an American

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

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 catch ...

who played in with the

Philadelphia Athletics The Philadelphia Athletics were a Major League Baseball team that played in Philadelphia from 1901 to 1954, when they moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and became the Kansas City Athletics. Following another move in 1967, they became the Oakland ...

. He was born and died in

Trenton, New Jersey Trenton is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of New Jersey and the county seat of Mercer County, New Jersey, Mercer County. It was the federal capital, capital of the United States from November 1 until D ...

. He batted and threw right-handed. Saunders began his professional baseball career with the Chambersburg Maroons of the

Blue Ridge League The Blue Ridge League was the name of two minor league baseball organizations that operated in the first half of the twentieth century in the United States. History The first league operated for the better part of sixteen years, from 1915 throu ...

in 1927. He had a .983 fielding percentage playing in 95 games as part of the Chambersburg team that won the Blue Ridge Championship that year. After the Blue Ridge League season ended, Saunders was called up to the baseball major leagues. Saunders had a .133

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 ...

in five games, two hits in 15 at-bats, in his brief time in the majors. He continued to play minor league baseball through the 1931 season. Saunders, at and ,ABL PLAYOFFS, 1926 and 1927
/ref> also played professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

.Bill James, ''The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract'', p. 127. He played in a number of professional leagues, including the American Basketball League and National Basketball League, among others.

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1906 births 1967 deaths American Basketball League (1925–1955) players American men's basketball players Baseball players from Trenton, New Jersey Basketball players from Trenton, New Jersey Chambersburg Maroons players Detroit Eagles players Fort Wayne Hoosiers (basketball) players Indianapolis Kautskys players Major League Baseball outfielders Philadelphia Athletics players 20th-century American sportsmen Small forwards Fort Wayne Chiefs players Portland Mariners players Toledo Red Man Tobaccos players {{US-baseball-outfielder-1900s-stub