Richie Ashburn

Don Richard Ashburn batted .308 across 15 seasons, collected 2,574 hits (86 percent of them singles), led the National League in outfield putouts nine times in 10 years, won two batting titles, walked 1,198 times despite playing in an era when leadoff hitters were expected to swing, and built a second career behind the microphone in Philadelphia that lasted 35 years and made him more famous than any of his statistics. Ted Williams gave him the nickname "Putt-Putt" because Ashburn "ran so fast you would think he had twin motors in his pants." Leo Durocher said, "He's even faster than Pete Reiser in his prime. Anybody who's faster than Ashburn isn't running. He's flying." The Veterans Committee elected Ashburn to the Hall of Fame in 1995, 27 years after the writers first considered him and rejected him with 2.1 percent of the vote. "They didn't exactly carry me in here in a sedan chair with blazing and blaring trumpets," Ashburn said at Cooperstown.

Tilden

Ashburn was born on March 19, 1927, in Tilden, Nebraska. His father Neil was a blacksmith and semipro ballplayer, his mother Genevieve gave birth to two sets of twins, and Ashburn was the younger half of the second pair. He married Herberta "Herbie" Cox, whom he met at Norfolk Junior College, and missed all six of his children's births during playing seasons. "I was a miserable 0-for-6," Ashburn said.

Ashburn debuted with the Phillies on Opening Day 1948 and hit .333 as a rookie, leading the league in stolen bases. A sportswriter cracked, "He's no .300 hitter, he hits .100 and runs .200." On October 1, 1950, the final day of the season, the Phillies' Whiz Kids needed a win against the Dodgers at Ebbets Field to clinch the pennant. The game was tied 1-1 in the bottom of the ninth when Cal Abrams stood on second and Duke Snider lined a single to center. Ashburn charged the ball, scooped it, and threw a perfect strike to catcher Stan Lopata to nail Abrams at the plate. Dick Sisler hit a three-run homer in the 10th to win the pennant. The Phillies were swept by the Yankees in the World Series, and Ashburn batted .176. "I couldn't swallow a cornflake," he said.

Whitey

Ashburn won batting titles in 1955 (.338) and 1958 (.350), edging Willie Mays for the second crown by going 3-for-4 on the final day. On August 17, 1957, Ashburn fouled a ball into the stands that struck Alice Roth, wife of Philadelphia Bulletin sports editor Earl Roth, and broke her nose. When play resumed, he fouled the very next pitch and hit her again as she was being carried out on a stretcher. Ashburn and the Roths became lifelong friends.

Ashburn played his final season for the 1962 expansion Mets, the most famous losing team in modern baseball history at 40-120. Despite the wreckage, Ashburn hit .306 and was named the team's first All-Star representative and MVP. The MVP prize was a 24-foot boat, which later sank off Ocean City, New Jersey. "MVP on the worst team ever?" Ashburn said. "I wonder what exactly they meant by that." During that season, Spanish-speaking shortstop Elio Chacon kept colliding with outfielders on pop flies because nobody could communicate the call. Someone taught Ashburn to yell "Yo la tengo!" ("I've got it!" in Spanish), and the strategy worked until left fielder Frank Thomas, who spoke no Spanish, crashed into Ashburn anyway. "What's a Yellow Tango?" Thomas asked. The indie rock band Yo La Tengo later named themselves after the story.

The Booth

Ashburn joined the Phillies broadcast booth in 1963 and spent 35 seasons behind the microphone, partnering with Harry Kalas for the final 27. Kalas called him "His Whiteness." Ashburn's style was dry, candid, and unpredictable. When Tim McCarver delivered a lengthy on-air discourse about volcanic ash from Mount St. Helens, Ashburn waited for silence and said, "If you've seen one piece of ash, you've seen them all." His column in the Philadelphia Daily News ran concurrently with his broadcasting career, making him one of the few people in sports to work both sides of the press box.

On September 8, 1997, Ashburn broadcast a Phillies-Mets game at Shea Stadium. After the game he declined an invitation from Kalas to go out and went to bed. He was found dead in his room at the Grand Hyatt Hotel early the following morning, September 9, of an apparent heart attack. He was 70. The Phillies retired his number 1 in 1979, named the concourse behind center field at Citizens Bank Park Ashburn Alley in his honor, and unveiled a statue outside the ballpark in 2004. Fan-led campaigns that included 55,000 postcards and bumper stickers reading "Richie Ashburn: Why The Hall Not?" pushed the Veterans Committee to elect him in 1995. His first call after learning the news went to his mother Tootie, then 91, who wept.