Our resident deadball expert Scott Fennessy who writes Scott’s Olde Tyme Baseball Update column, suggested this card. It’s Cincinnati outfielder Cy Seymour of 1905.
Seymour’s career is somewhat interesting. For his 16-year career he was a decent offensive threat who hit .303. For six years straight, he hit .300 or better. But here’s the interesting part; during his career, he never led his league in any offensive category ever… except 1905. That was a banner year for Seymour. He led the NL in a multitude of categories including batting average (.377), hits (219), doubles (40), triples (21), rbis (121), slugging (.559), OPS (.988) and total bases (325).
| Year | Tm | G | PA | AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1905 | CIN | 149 | 643 | 581 | 95 | 219 | 40 | 21 | 8 | 121 | 21 | 51 | 29 | .377 | .429 | .559 |
| 16 Yrs | 1529 | 6208 | 5686 | 737 | 1724 | 229 | 96 | 52 | 799 | 222 | 354 | 360 | .303 | .347 | .405 | |
Seymour’s triple threat is a bit disguised with his 1905 double column APBA card. There’s no sexy single column 2 or 3 staring at us. However, if you count the 2s in the second column (there are ten of them) and consider they are behind four 0s, he calculates to have 1.11 triples per 36 plate appearances. Not bad.
Of course, we can’t discount his general hit numbers. Cy Seymour hit a tasty .377 in 1905 so he got his share of ‘em. APBA gave him:
0-0-0-0-7-7-7-7-8-8-8-8-9-9-11
…plus only one 13 and three 14s.
One final note: I mentioned that 1905 was the only year he led his league in an offensive category. However, he did lead the NL in walks given up as a pitcher three years in a row (1897-99). Yes, Seymour was a full time pitcher for the early part of his career. He also led the league in strikeouts twice (1897-98) and had a 61-56 won-loss record in his career.
I won’t try pretend to know why he was moved to the outfield full-time. However, his propensity to give up the walk and the fact that he led the league in wild pitches and hit batsmen might have something to do with it.
