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They Sure Were Still in the League

© Harold Friend

He was the last National League player to hit .400, had a higher lifetime batting average than Lou Gehrig, managed the New York Giants to a World Championship, was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1954, but he is rarely mentioned anymore. Bill Terry played for the New York Giants from 1923-1936, and managed the team from 1932-1941. He is one of a handful of Hall of Famers who had short but spectacular careers.

Terry joined the Giants in 1923, appearing in only three games that season and in only seventy seven games the following year, but in 1925 he became the Giants' regular first baseman, batting .319 with 11 home runs. He established himself as one of the top players in the game and in 1930 batted .401, hit 23 home runs, and struck out only 33 times.

Nineteen thirty was the year of the hitter. National Leaguers batted .303 in 1930. Terry's Giants set a major league team record by batting .319, led by his .401. Brooklyn's Babe Herman batted .393, Chuck Klein batted .386, his Phillies teammate Lefty O'Doul batted .383, and Terry's teammate Freddy Lindstrom hit .379. Hack Wilson set the National League record for home runs with 56, a mark that stood until the days of another Cub named Sammy Sosa.

Bill Terry's playing career ended in 1936 when he appeared in only seventy nine games, batting .310. In essence, Terry played only twelve seasons but in his brief playing career he batted at least .320 for nine consecutive seasons, had over 200 hits in six of them, and was the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1930. Terry was an outstanding defensive first baseman and is rated behind only Hal Chase and George Sisler among the greatest of all time, although some contend that Lou Gehrig, Don Mattingly, Gil Hodges and Keith Hernandez were as good.

Terry succeeded (no one could REPLACE) John McGraw as New York's manager in 1932, leading the team to a World Championship in 1933 when New York beat Washington in five games. An interesting sidelight to the Series is that both teams had playing managers. Washington was managed by Hall of Fame shortstop Joe Cronin, who batted .318 in the Series.

Much has been written in the last few decades with respect to how difficult it is to play or manage in New York. Terry was ahead of his time. He was blunt, outspoken, and would not cater to sportswriters. Much resentment was created when he insisted on not giving the writers his private telephone number, which is amazing. It was a different society in many ways but a constant has been the media's belief that all aspects of a public figure's life belong to the public. They don't. They belong to the public figure.

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