HEINIE MANUSH

Henry Emmett Manush came out of Tuscumbia, Alabama, in 1901, a left-handed outfielder who hit like the ball owed him money. The papers called him Heinie. Detroit brought him up in 1923, and by 1926 he was batting .378 with 188 hits and fourteen home runs — a line-drive summer that did not ask permission and did not need a speech afterward.

St. Louis Browns picked him up, and 1928 was the year the book still opens to. He played 154 games, collected 241 hits, hit .378, laced twenty triples and forty-seven doubles, drove in 108. Gap thunder in a Browns uniform, the kind of average that makes pitchers check the scoreboard twice. Washington got him next. In 1932 he scored 121 runs with 214 hits and fourteen home runs. In 1934 he hit .349 with 194 hits and forty-two doubles. Same bat, different cities, same answer every afternoon.

He finished through Boston, Brooklyn, and Pittsburgh, last seen in 1939. The career line reads .330 with a .377 on-base percentage and a .479 slug — 2,524 hits, 491 doubles, 160 triples, 110 home runs, 1,183 runs batted in across 2,008 games. Hall of Fame in 1964. Heinie. The nickname was short. The average was not.