Red Sox in Cooperstown Pt. 12: Joe Cronin

JOE CRONIN
Years with Boston:  1935-1945 (.300/.394/.484, 119 home runs, 737 RBIs, 1,168 hits, 270 doubles)
Best Year in Boston:  1938 (.325/.428/.536, 17 home runs, 94 RBIs, 51 doubles, 91 walks)

Joe Cronin had quite an impressive career path.  Cronin started out as a ballplayer for the Pittsburgh Pirates before moving on to stardom with the Washington Senators.  He played extremely well for a couple of years in Washington, becoming one of the best overall players in the game.  In 1933, Cronin became the player-manager of the Senators at just 26.  The rest of his playing career, he continued as a player-manager.  He continued for a couple of seasons as a full-time manager before becoming the General Manager of the Boston Red Sox.  Later on, he became the President of the American League.

Cronin had been a star for the Senators for a few years, making the first two All Star teams in 1933 and 1934 and finishing in the Top 10 for the AL MVP in three seasons, including runner-up in 1933.  After Tom Yawkey took over as the Red Sox owner, he sought out the best players he could buy, and targeted Cronin.  Yawkey bought Cronin for $225,000.00 and shortstop Lyn Lary.  What was most unusual about this purchase was the Cronin had just recently married Washington owner Clark Griffith's daughter.

Cronin did not miss a beat in coming over to the Red Sox.  The shortstop/manager continued to bat around .300 every season in Boston and had some pop.  He played reasonably well defensively though his range declined.  Cronin had a very impressive five-year period from 1937 to 1941 in which he averaged 19 home runs and 103 RBIs with a line of .307/.404/.504.  After the 1941 season, Cronin focused much more on managing and did not play in the field nearly as often.

Cronin quit as a player after the 1945 season.  He lead Boston to its first pennant since 1918 in 1946 and the team stayed in contention for the 1947 season.  He then moved to the Red Sox front office from there and later became the American League President.  Cronin was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1956.  He wears a Red Sox cap on his Cooperstown plaque.

Cronin spent more than half of his career with the Red Sox and his numbers, including his non-counting stats, are all better with the Red Sox.  It is clear that the Red Sox are the team for which Cronin made his most indelible mark.

Glimpses Into My Red Sox Obsession

I was thinking about this recently. Since I just started the blog, I wanted to give some insight into how my Red Sox obsession started out. Which I did on Saturday. Today, I want to show you how deep my obsession goes. It has seeped into almost every fabric of my being. I have tons of Red Sox paraphernalia at home and even more baseball cards.

But this is where it gets a little strange. In my education, I have done four, yes four, school projects involving Red Sox players. That's bizarre.

1. In fifth grade, we had to do research reports. I can't remember if it had to be a biography or just a general report. Anyway, my report was on Ted Williams.

2. In seventh grade, we had to write a biography on a famous person. We then had to dress up like that person in order to do a presentation to the class in that persona. I already did Ted Williams, so this time, I chose Joe Cronin. My memory of this is that since I did not own a Red Sox jersey at the time, I had to take a gray t-shirt and put the words "Red Sox" on using red electrical tape.

3. In my senior year of high school, in Spanish class we had to do a presentation, all in Spanish, of a famous living person of Spanish heritage. My choice this time was the somewhat ambiguous Nomar Garciaparra.

4. Finally, in my senior year of college, I took Conflict Resolution. We had to do a research paper in that class as well. My subject was Kevin Millar. You see, at the time, there was a big controversy because the Florida Marlins had sold Millar's contract to the Chunichi Dragons in Japan. In order to clear the major leagues though, Millar had to be put on waivers and it was an unwritten agreement among the clubs that other teams would not put in a waiver claim on a player being sold to a Japanese League team. Theo Epstein however, decided to put in the claim and bring Millar to Boston, so there was some animosity between Chunichi and Boston.

So there you have it. Not even my education was safe from my Red Sox obsession. At least I got A's on all of those projects.