RAY SCHALK

Ray Schalk came out of Harvel, Illinois, a little town that never made much noise, and he stood five feet nine and weighed maybe a hundred sixty-five with his pockets empty. Not a big man. Big enough behind the plate for seventeen seasons, which is the only measurement that ever mattered.

He caught 1,727 games for the Chicago White Sox, from August of 1912 until 1928, and nobody in the business worked closer to the ground. He made 7,168 putouts back there, added 1,811 assists, and let pass ninety-eight balls in all that time — a man with a shovel for a glove and a shortstop's hands. At the bat he was no terror: .253 lifetime, 1,345 hits, 199 doubles, 49 triples, 11 home runs, 594 runs batted in, 177 stolen bases. On-base .340, slugging .316. The numbers say steady. Steady is a compliment in a catcher.

In 1917 the White Sox won a hundred games and the pennant and the World Series, and Schalk caught his share of it, going 5-for-19 in six games with no runs batted in. He was never the story. He was the man the story happened in front of.

He finished with the New York Giants in 1929, five games, September, and that was that. The Veterans Committee opened the Hall of Fame door for him in 1955. He died in 1970. A catcher's catcher, and if you don't know what that means, you never sat behind a plate on a hot afternoon.