Sam Thompson

This article is about baseball player Sam Thompson; for the tennis player of the same name, see Sam Thompson (tennis player) .

Sam Thompson
Rightfielder
Born: March 5, 1860 Danville , United States
Died on: November 7, 1922 Detroit , United States
Suggested: Left	Threw: Left
Debut in Major League Baseball
July 2,  1885  with the  Detroit Wolverines
Last MLB assignment
September 10,  1906  with the  Detroit Tigers
MLB statistics (until end of career)
Batting average	.331
Home runs	126
Runs Batted In	1,305
Teams
Detroit Wolverines (1885-1888) Philadelphia Quakers / Phillies (1889–1898) Detroit Tigers ( 1906 )
Awards
Best batsman in the NL (1887) 2 × batsman with the most home runs in the NL (1889, 1895) 3 × batsman with the most RBI in the NL (1887, 1894, 1895) 3 × batsman with the most hits in the NL (1887, 1890, 1893)
member of
Baseball Hall of Fame
Recorded	1974
Special selection	Veterans Committee

Samuel "Sam" Luther Thompson (born March 5, 1860 in Danville , Indiana , † November 7, 1922 in Detroit , Michigan ) was an American baseball player in Major League Baseball , who mainly played in the 19th century. His nickname was Big Sam .

Life

Sam Thompson began his professional baseball career in 1884 at the age of 24. The trained carpenter played his first game in the National League on July 2, 1885 for the Detroit Wolverines . Thompson played for Detroit as an outfielder who performed outstandingly on both offense and defense. Thompson had his most outstanding season in 1887, when he led the National League with 545 at-bats, 203 runs , 23 triples , 166 RBI (most in the 19th century in Major League Baseball) and a batting average of 37.2%. With the Wolverines he won the championship that year. On May 7, 1887, he got two triples in one game with loaded bases. Thompson was the first player in the Major Leagues to do so. This record has only been set by several players so far, but not broken.

In 1889 he moved from the Detroit Wolverines to the Philadelphia Quakers, who were renamed the Philadelphia Phillies in 1890 . Here, too, he showed constant performance until 1898. After that year he left baseball, but returned in 1906 for eight games, which he played for the Detroit Tigers .

Thompson died in 1922, and in 1974 he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee .

Web links

Commons : Sam Thompson  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Player information and statistics from Baseball Reference  or  Fangraphs  or  Baseball Reference (Minor League) (English)
• Sam Thompson in the Baseball Hall of Fame (English)
• Don Thompson: Sam Thompson's biography on the Society for American Baseball Research website