RABBIT MARANVILLE

Walter James Vincent Maranville was five feet five and weighed about a buck fifty-five, which in the big leagues of his day made him either a joke or a problem, depending on whether you were the one trying to throw him out. They called him Rabbit, and he played shortstop for the Boston Braves across four different decades of the calendar and about a dozen of the spirit.

He came out of Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1912 and stuck around until 1935, which is a long time to be small in a game that prizes large. In between he stopped at Pittsburgh, Chicago, Brooklyn, and St. Louis, but Boston was home, and Boston is where he was standing in 1914 when the Miracle Braves won the World Series. He went 4-for-13 in that Series and handled the middle of the infield like a man who had been doing it for twenty years instead of two.

The bat was never the point. He finished with 2,605 hits and a .258 average, 177 triples, and 291 stolen bases, numbers that look modest until you remember he played 2,670 games and did it all at 155 pounds. In 1924, at second base for Pittsburgh, he knocked 20 triples and drove in 71.

He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1954, the year he died. Small man, long career, and nobody ever questioned whether he belonged.