ROGERS HORNSBY

They called him the Rajah, and he ruled the batter’s box with ash and a scowl for anyone who threw him soft. Rogers Hornsby’s .424 in 1924 still stands as the modern-era batting-average monument—a number that hums whenever someone talks about pure hitting. He took Triple Crowns in 1922 and 1925; when he seized the Cardinals as player-manager in 1925, he stacked an MVP on the dual life and, the next October, skippered St. Louis through a World Series.

The crown never sat easy. He was brash, blunt, and allergic to front-office polish—qualities that wore thin on owners. In December 1926 the Cardinals dealt him to the Giants for Frankie Frisch and Jimmy Ring, a keystone-for-keystone swap that shipped the game’s hardest right-handed bat out of St. Louis. He hopped to the Braves, then to Chicago, where 1929 became thunder: .380, thirty-nine homers, one hundred forty-nine ribbies, a .679 slug, and another MVP in Cub flannel.

That was the Rajah—five clubs in an era when most men stayed put, twenty-three seasons from 1915 to 1937, a trail from Cardinals to Giants to Braves to Cubs and finally the Browns. He never sanded the edges. The Hall called in 1942; the box scores had already carved the legend. Heritage cards you play keep the dust in the air.