Baseball: Baseball Trivia Question #19---Most Career Putouts

This is, in a sense, the easiest baseball question I will ever post. Not "easiest" in that everyone should immediately know the answers, but "easiest" in that BOTH answers are the absolutely #1 most probable candidates--THE guys who should come immediately to mind as the most probable answers, if you're a fan. So, just guess the two most logical candidates and you will get both guys right.


QUESTIONS:


1. Name the player who holds both the National League and Major League records for MOST CAREER PUTOUTS BY AN OUTFIELDER. And no, it's not Richie Ashburn, because he retired at age 35. This guy was--and every rational fan or historian would agree with me--(1) a MUCH greater player than Ashburn, and (2) someone who played until he was far older than 35. Both of those statements also apply to the guy who is the answer to Part 2.


2. Name the player who holds the American League career record for putouts by an outfielder. This guy also holds the all-time American League AND Major League career records for assists by an OF, and, like the guy who is the answer to #1, is one of the very greatest players who ever lived.


Take your best shots, if you would, please.


BHN

I'm not too good at this baseball trivia, but I'll make a guess.

Tris Speaker?

Another guess, but I'd say Willie Mays for NL & Career (gotta love the "basket catch").

For AL, (just guessing again) I'll say Joe DiMaggio.

You two will have to split the honors, but GOOD JOB BOTH!

The man with most American League career putouts, as well as the overall MLB career record for assists, is Hubbard, Texas's, still-incredible Gray Eagle, TRIS SPEAKER. WOW, what a player he was, and I hope some of y'all, someday, have the time and interest to read the bio I just finished reading on him. Better player than DiMaggio for sure. Better than MAYS? No. Better peak than Mantle? Ha ha ha. Better career than Mantle? Maybe. Better than Cobb? About 20% of those who saw both men thought so, but that means 80% didn't.

Anyway, he was one holy helluva ballplayer, and he modeled both his style of play and his on-field attitude after Ty Cobb, albeit without being nearly so vicious, and was just as much of a bigot as Cobb until the later years of his life, albeit not violently so.


And....


YEAH RIGHT?

You are CORRECT as to the National League, but not as to the A.L. Joe D. had nowhere near Speaker's skills and only played 13 seasons, anyway, cuz of WW II. But Willie Mays is exactly right, not only as the all-time National League putouts leader, but also as the all-time MAJOR LEAGUE putouts leader. I regret to say I don't know who the NL's all-time assist leader is, but I would guess it's someone from the Dead Ball Era, when they played station-to-station ball, tried desperately to scratch out runs, and took chances on the bases which they'd never take today. (For instance, Tris Speaker's SB%, though only part of the record survives, seems to have been awful--and that despite the fact that, as I've said more than once here, he and Cobb are the only two players ever to get 1,000 extra base hits NOT counting home runs (amazing feat).

Cobb, clearly, was a far superior base stealer. He also was a far superior baserunner, as Speaker racked up most of his still-record 793 doubles (!!) by learning to inside-out the ball during his years at Fenway, and thus hit them off the Monster. Then, when he went to Cleveland, where he played the longest and the ball park was Fenway in reverse (290 to RF line, 420 to dead center, 375 to LF line; RF wall 40 feet high), he hit skillions of balls off the RF wall.

Cobb earned his 1,000+ doubles and triples running the bases like the psychopath he was. Speaker did it by hitting balls hard to take advantage of the quirks of Fenway and the park they called Fenway-in-Reverse (real name, League Park).

GOOD JOB, GUYS.

BHN

[Edited on 4/18/06 by BaseballHistoryNut]