Honus Wagner: The 1900s “Decade Triple Crown Winner”

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Honus Wagner Photo Gallery
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Honus Wagner: The 1900s “Decade Triple Crown Winner”

“Acknowledging that there may have been one or two whose talents were greater, there is no one who has ever played the game that I would be more anxious to have on a baseball team than Honus Wagner. He was a gentle, kind man, a storyteller, supportive of rookies, patient with the fans, cheerful in hard times, careful of the example he set for youth, a hard worker, a man who had no enemies and who never forgot his friends. In his day, he was the most beloved man in baseball.” – Author Bill James

“Spike Honus Wagner? It would have taken quite a foolhardy man.” – Ty Cobb

“There is something Lincolnesque about him, his rugged homeliness, his simplicity, his integrity, and his true nobility of character.” – Sportswriter Arthur Daley

“The only way to get a ball past Honus is to hit it eight feet over his head. You can have your Cobbs, your Lajoies, your Chases, your Bakers, but I’ll take Wagner as my pick of the greatest. He is not only a marvelous mechanical player, but he has the quickest baseball brain I have ever observed, the nearest thing to a perfect player no matter where his manager chose to play him.” – John McGraw

Click on the link to see a nice photo tribute to the Hall-of-Fame career Honus Wagner, featuring some of our favorite Wagner photos:

In my recent post about Rogers Hornsby, I discovered that “The Rajah” was a “Decade Triple Crown Winner” for the decade of the 1920s. In case you’re confused about what that means, it’s a player who leads his league in batting average, home runs, and RBIs over an entire decade. I also discovered that, in addition to Hornsby, there were three other players who accomplished this feat. Want to guess who the others are?

One is the featured player of this post and is no real surprise: the great Dead Ball Era star, Honus Wagner. See if you can come up with the names of the other two (Read on…I’ll reveal their names and their decades at the end of the post).

Which brings me to Honus Wagner and his Triple Crown Decade. First let’s take a look at Wagner’s Hall-of-Fame career stats and a few of his many accomplishments:

The great Dutchman played for 21 years in the major leagues with the Louisville Colonials from 1897-1899; and the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1900 to 1917. Over his career, he hit .328, with 3420 hits, 643 doubles, 252 triples, 101 home runs, 1732 RBIs, a .391 OBP, .467 slugging average, and 723 stolen bases. Wagner was an eight-time National League batting champion, a five-time RBI leader, a five-time stolen base leader, and the star player on four pennant winners and one World Series championship (1909). His Pittsburgh Pirates #33 has been retired, and he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1936.

Now let’s take a look at what Wagner accomplished in the decade of the 1900s (from 1900-1909): In the Triple Crown categories: he averaged each year from 1900-1909: .346 batting average, 96 RBIs (956 total for the decade) and 5 home runs (51 total: the decade was not known for home runs). In addition, he averaged each year 184 hits, 101 runs, 37 doubles, 15 triples, 49 stolen bases, .416 on-base percentage, and .507 slugging average. In all these categories, he was the National League leader a total of 41 times over the decade.

Combine these numbers with his great fielding versatility and rock-solid defense, and there’s no doubt Honus Wagner was one of the greatest players of the Dead Ball Era, and certainly one of the greatest players of all-time.

Other Decade Triple Crown Winners: Ted Williams in the 1940s, and Albert Pujols in the 2000s.

-Gary Livacari

Photo Credits: All from public domain

Statistics: Honus Wagner page on Baseball-Reference.com.

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