George Kelly

George Lange Kelly stood six feet four inches tall and played first base with a thin piece of leather that looked, by the accounts of those who saw it, positively prehistoric. He used the same glove his entire career. John McGraw said Kelly "made more important hits for me than any player I ever had" and that there was no one he would rather see at the plate in a big situation. Frankie Frisch considered him the finest first baseman he had ever seen. Bill James called him "the worst player in the Hall of Fame." Both assessments are part of the record, and neither one tells the full story.

San Francisco

Kelly was born on September 10, 1895, in San Francisco. His uncle, Bill Lange, had been an outfielder for the Chicago Colts in the 1890s and hit .330 over seven seasons before walking away from the game at 28 to marry into wealth. Lange took pride in his nephew's talent and helped steer him toward professional baseball. Kelly's brother Reynolds pitched one game for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1923.

Kelly dropped out of high school to play semipro ball and signed with Victoria of the Northwestern League at 18, batting .250 in 1914. The Giants purchased his contract for $1,200 in 1915, seeing him as a potential replacement for Fred Merkle at first base. He debuted on August 18, 1915, at 19. McGraw saw raw ability and something else, a quiet competitiveness that didn't need an audience. Kelly was a businesslike player who did not seek attention. He just hit.

The Giants

McGraw was patient with him in ways the manager was not patient with most young players. Kelly's early years were rough enough that the press "laughed him out of the ballpark," as one account put it, and he spent time at Rochester in the minors and even a brief waiver stint with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1917. He emerged in 1920, leading the National League in RBI with 94 (tied with Rogers Hornsby) and setting an NL record with 1,759 putouts at first base, a record that still stands.

In 1921, Kelly led the NL with 23 home runs, the first Giants player to hit 20 in a season. He drove in 122 runs and opened the season with a hit and an RBI in eight consecutive games. The Giants won four straight pennants from 1921 through 1924, and Kelly was the first baseman and cleanup hitter throughout. He drove in 100 or more runs five times.

In the 1921 World Series against the Yankees, Kelly's ground ball in Game 8 produced an error by Roger Peckinpaugh that led to the championship-clinching run, and Kelly completed the final play of the Series by catching a throw from Johnny Rawlings to seal the double play. In the 1922 Series, the Yankees intentionally walked Ross Youngs to face Kelly with the bases loaded in Game 5, and he delivered a two-run single to put the Giants ahead for good.

His peak came in 1924, when he drove in 136 runs to lead both leagues, hit home runs in six consecutive games (with seven total in that stretch, a major league record), and became the first NL player to hit three home runs in a game twice. He finished sixth in MVP voting. The Giants lost the 1924 World Series to Washington in seven games, though Kelly led all batters with seven runs scored.

In 1925, McGraw moved Kelly to second base to make room for Bill Terry at first. Kelly hit .309 with 20 home runs and finished third in MVP voting, the highest of his career. His throwing arm was so strong that McGraw had long used him as the relay man on throws from the outfield. "His arm was better, in fact, than any of today's players that I can think of," Frisch said years later.

Cincinnati and Beyond

The Giants traded Kelly to the Reds after the 1926 season for Edd Roush, a Hall of Famer, which said something about Kelly's value. He played four seasons in Cincinnati and drove in 103 runs in 1929, his fifth and final 100-RBI year. The Reds released him in 1930. He finished his major league career with brief fill-in stints for the Cubs (where he hit .331 and witnessed Hack Wilson's 56-home-run season) and the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1932.

In the fall of 1931, he barnstormed through Japan alongside Lou Gehrig, Frisch, Mickey Cochrane, Al Simmons, Lefty Grove, and Rabbit Maranville. He coached for the Reds and the Boston Braves (hired by Casey Stengel), scouted the West Coast for Cincinnati, and managed briefly in the minor leagues. He settled permanently in Millbrae, California, on the San Francisco peninsula, and in his later years was generous with his time and his memories when baseball writers came asking.

The Debate

Kelly's election to the Hall of Fame in 1973 by the Veterans Committee has been scrutinized ever since. The 12-member committee included two of his former Giants teammates, Frisch and Terry. Between 1970 and 1976, the committee elected seven players who had been Frisch's or Terry's teammates on the Giants or Cardinals, including Dave Bancroft, Chick Hafey, Youngs, Kelly, Jesse Haines, Jim Bottomley, and Freddie Lindstrom. The resulting charges of cronyism led to reforms that reduced the committee's powers.

Kelly had appeared on seven BBWAA ballots between 1947 and 1962 and never received more than 1.9 percent of the vote. The gap between the writers' judgment and the committee's verdict was enormous, and it fueled decades of debate about what the Hall of Fame owed to the players of the 1920s and what it owed to statistical thresholds that those players couldn't have imagined.

The counterargument was simpler. Kelly drove in 100 runs five times, led the league in home runs and RBI, played Gold Glove defense at first base before the award existed, and was the anchor of a dynasty that won four pennants and two championships. McGraw, who managed baseball for 33 years and saw thousands of players, said Kelly hit more important hits for him than anyone. The man who would know thought he belonged.

In 16 seasons he accumulated 1,622 games, 1,778 hits, 148 home runs, 1,020 RBI, and a .297 batting average. He suffered a stroke on October 5, 1984, and died eight days later at Peninsula Hospital in Burlingame, California, at 89. He was the last surviving member of the 1921 and 1922 World Champion Giants. He was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma.