HONUS WAGNER, the Pittsburgh Pirates of Baseball

Video: Enjoy the glorious moments of Honus Wagner.

He gripped the bat with his hands inches apart and went the other way on outside pitches or slid his hands together in a more traditional grip and pulled pitches down the line. He was a smart player who could adjust his game to fit the situation. Burleigh Grimes, who as a youngster was a teammate of Wagner, recalled “One day he was batting against a young pitcher who had just come into the league. The catcher was a kid, too. A rookie battery. The pitcher threw Honus a curveball, and he swung at it and missed and fell down on one knee. Looked helpless as a robin. I was kind of surprised, but the guy sitting next to me on the bench poked me in the ribs and said, ‘Watch this next one.’ Those kids figured they had the old man’s weaknesses, you see, and served him up the same dish-as he knew they would. Well, Honus hit a line drive so hard the fence in left field went back and forth for five minutes.”

During the first decade of the 20th Century no player was more dominant than Wagner. He led the majors in hits, runs doubles, total bases, extra-base hits, runs batted in, stolen bases, batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage. John McGraw stated his feelings on the game’s greatest player unequivocally when he said “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”.

http://baseballhall.org/hof/wagner-honus