Hornsby, Rogers

Hornsby, Rogers, 1896–1963, American baseball player and manager, b. Winters, Tex. He started in major league baseball in 1915 as a shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals and later (1920) became a second baseman, and managed the club in 1926–27. The “Rajah” was the National League batting champion seven times (1920–25, 1928) and in 1924 had a batting average of .424, which is still the major-league record for the 20th cent. He later played for the New York Giants, Boston Braves, Chicago Cubs, and another stint with the Cardinals, before serving as manager of the St. Louis Browns in the American League. A right-handed hitter, he maintained a remarkable lifetime batting average of .358 and was elected in 1942 to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

See biography by C. C. Alexander (1995).

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