Who, You Ask, Was Harry Heilmann?
The greatest hitter you never heard of
In 1913 San Francisco, a 19-year-old bookkeeper would see his fate
take a serendipitous turn for the better simply because he had done
a friend a favor and agreed to play a game of baseball for $10.
Filling in for the Hanford team's sick third baseman, the bookkeeper
slammed an 11th-inning double, winning the game and earning the
adulation of fans and a Northwest League scout who happened to be
in attendance. The scout signed the 19-year-old to a professional
contract and the Hall of Fame career of outfielder Harry Heilmann
was underway.
After hitting .305 for Portland in 1913, Heilmann was acquired
by the Detroit Tigers, who purchased his contract at the end of
the season. The 20-year-old failed miserably, hitting only .225
in 69 games in 1914. Heilmann rebounded the next year while playing
for San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League, hitting .364, and
Detroit recalled him to the big leagues for good.
The 6-foot-1, 195-pound right-handed batter struggled at the plate
from 1916 to 1918, hitting a combined .280 in a league that featured
batting champions who regularly hit better than .380. To make matters
worse, Heilmann missed half of the 1918 season to serve in the military
and seemed to be a man with no position, finding it difficult to
crack Detroit's outfield corps, and shuttling between right field,
first base and second base.
Once the Tigers finally decided to make Heilmann their first baseman
in 1919, he responded with a .320 batting average and career highs
in almost every offensive category, but he continued to struggle
in the field, leading all American League first basemen in errors.
Heilmann followed with a 1920 campaign that saw him bat .309 and
set a career high with nine home runs, but once again, his fielding
failed him and for the second consecutive season he led all A.L.
first sackers in miscues.
Although the Tiger first baseman was improving, he had had a largely
undistinguished career after six seasons in Detroit, batting .291,
while averaging five home runs per season, which was a respectable
total for the Dead Ball Era that ended in 1919.
While a dramatic increase in offense would suggest that there was
a "lively ball" era that began in 1920, a livelier ball
was not the sole reason for the increase. Major League Baseball's
offensive explosion in the Roaring '20s was also directly related
to the ban of the spitball in the winter of 1919. Add to that the
league's insistence that fresh balls be introduced into games more
frequently after an August 1920 game in which Cleveland's Ray Chapman
was killed by an "errant" Carl Mays fastball. It was speculated
that Chapman had had a difficult time reacting to Mays' submarine
pitch because he could not see the ball, which had been stained
by tobacco juice and licorice.
No hitter benefited more from the resultant changes in baseball
than Harry Heilmann, as he was transformed into a superstar virtually
overnight. The rise in offensive production demanded that outfielders
employ new strategies, forcing them to spread out and play deeper;
the line-drive-hitting Heilmann took advantage of the gaps that
were created.
The 1921 season ushered in several changes for Heilmann and the
Detroit Tigers. Ty Cobb replaced manager Hughie Jennings, taking
over a team that finished the 1920 season with a dismal 61-93 record,
finishing 37 games behind the first-place Cleveland Indians. Cobb's
first order of business was to return Heilmann to the outfield permanently.
He then began to refine his teammate's batting style, teaching Heilmann
to crouch more, use his wrists to drive the ball and shift his weight
to his front foot. Cobb, the teammate, had never bothered to help
Heilmann in the past, but Cobb, the manager, took an active role
in Heilmann's development and it paid off in spades.
The Tigers' slugging outfielder improved his batting average by
a staggering 85 points, leading the league at .394 and edging his
teammate and new manager, Cobb, by five points for the batting title.
Not only did he pace the American League with 237 hits, but he scored
114 runs, drove in 139 and became the first right-handed hitter
to lead the A.L. in batting since Nap Lajoie in 1910.
A broken collarbone slowed Heilmann in 1922, but he was able to
manage a .356 average, while slamming a career-high 21 homers in
only 455 at bats. Heilmann would never top his power output of 1922,
but his best days were yet to come.
In 1923 Heilmann reached the .400 mark for the only time in his
career, hitting a league-leading .403, beginning a strange trend
that would find him winning batting titles in odd-numbered years.
He rapped out 211 hits, scored 121 runs and knocked in 115. And
for the second time, he bested a legend, finishing 10 points ahead
of Babe Ruth in the batting race.
Ruth would get his revenge in 1924, winning his only batting crown
with a .378 average as Heilmann slipped to .346. Despite his "slump,"
the Detroit outfielder tied Cleveland's Joe Sewell with a league-leading
45 doubles, while finishing among the top five in runs, triples,
total bases and RBIs. The "slug," as his teammates affectionately
referred to him due to his lack of speed, even copped 13 stolen
bases for good measure.
Heilmann, who was never known for his defense, also had a career
year in the outfield, improving his fielding percentage to .970,
while throwing out 31 base runners and starting six double plays.
He would never throw out more than 18 baserunners in a season for
the rest of his career.
1925 looked to bring an end to Heilmann's odd-numbered dominance
as he headed into September 50 points behind league-leader Tris
Speaker in the race for the batting title. Amazingly, he caught
Speaker and trailed him by only one point on the final day of the
season. Heilmann surged ahead with a 3-for-6 performance in the
first game of a doubleheader, while Speaker sat out his game with
a leg injury. Refusing to sit out the second game to ensure his
victory over Speaker, Heilmann finished the 1925 season by going
3-for-3 to win his third crown with a .393 average.
Again, the right-handed hitter couldn't hold his crown for more
than one season when he batted .367 and finished third in the 1926
American League batting race behind teammate Heinie Manush and the
Babe. Heilmann extended his streak of 40-double, 100-RBI seasons
to four, however, when he slammed out 41 and drove in 103.
Off the field, Heilmann became involved in a potentially volatile
situation when disgruntled pitcher Dutch Leonard wrote him a letter
in the winter of 1926, implicating Cobb in a gambling scandal. Heilmann
showed the letter to Tigers owner Frank Navin and the story went
public. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis eventually cleared
Cobb when Leonard failed to attend a hearing on the matter, perhaps
fearing that Cobb would seek retribution on the playing field. Apparently,
Heilmann's friendship with Cobb was not tainted by this episode,
as they remained close until Heilmann's death.
1927 would bring Heilmann's fourth and final batting title, when
he duplicated his amazing feat of 1925, battling Philadelphia's
Al Simmons to the wire before overtaking him on the season's final
day. Heilmann fell behind Simmons when the Athletics' left fielder
went 2-for-5 against Washington to raise his average to .392.
In the first game of a doubleheader against St. Louis, Heilmann
delivered four hits to pass Simmons and refusing as he did in 1925
to sit out the second game, collected three more hits to finish
at .398.
Alas, Heilmann's incredible run came to an end at the age of 34
as his average dropped 70 points to .328 in 1928. His seven-season
dominance saw him achieve a .400 batting average and fall only nine
hits short of reaching that lofty perch three more times.
But just as Heilmann had achieved overnight success in 1921, he
would achieve an overnight decline after 1930 as arthritis began
to take its toll on his wrists in 1929. He managed to hit .344,
finishing 25 points behind league-leader Lew Fonseca of Cleveland,
while driving in 100 runs for the seventh consecutive season, but
was able to play in only 125 games. In 1930, Heilmann hit .333 in
459 at bats and belted the second-highest total of home runs in
his career when he smashed 19 while playing for Cincinnati. He also
became the first player to homer in every major-league park in use
during his career.
Suddenly, Heilmann's career was over. He sat out the 1931 season
before attempting a brief comeback in 1932, amassing 31 at bats
in only 15 games before calling it quits for good.
After 17 major-league seasons, Heilmann hung up his spikes, having
collected 2,660 hits, 542 doubles, 151 triples, 183 home runs, 1,291
runs and 1,539 runs batted in. Seventy-eight years later, his .342
batting average is still second only to Rogers Hornsby's .358 among
right-handed hitters, and he's tied with Babe Ruth for fifth all
time among modern-day hitters.
As a result of some heavy financial losses that he incurred in
the stock market crash, Heilmann went back to Detroit, where he
made his living as a popular play-by-play broadcaster for the Tigers.
He had a distinguished career for Detroit as their announcer from
1933 until 1951, when he developed lung cancer and became terminally
ill.
Ty Cobb, who had apparently not blamed Heilmann for Leonard's gambling
implication in 1926 and was not otherwise known for his generosity,
spearheaded an effort to have Heilmann inducted into the Hall of
Fame before the 1951 All-Star Game, but Cobb's request was denied.
Heilmann did not live long enough to enjoy his induction ceremony;
he died the day before the game at the age of 57. But one year later
he was officially inducted into Cooperstown.
Mike Lynch,
Ballpark Guy
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