Baseball Way Back: A DH born too soon
Smead Jolley could have been one of baseball's great designated hitters.
But baseball didn't have the DH in 1930. And that proved tragic for Jolley, whose big-league career ended prematurely because of defensive lapses that verged on the mythological, including an apparently apocryphal story of his committing three errors on one play.
The 6-3 210-pound left-handed slugging outfielder burst onto the Chicago baseball scene in 1930 after four spectacular seasons in the Pacific Coast League with the San Francisco Seals.
Before Major League Baseball arrived in Los Angeles and San Francisco, the PCL was the West Coast's version of the major leagues, a breeding ground for such greats as Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams.
The Arkansas native tore apart the PCL, which, due to the milder climate, had longer seasons - in 1928, in 191 games for the Seals, he won the Triple Crown, with a .404 batting average, 188 RBI and 45 homers. The previous year, he won the batting title with a .397 average and the RBI crown 163.
Baseball historian Bob Hoie once wrote that Jolley may been the finest hitter ever in minor-league baseball - where he had a lifetime .367 batting average and 336 home runs.
Jolley's West Coast exploits caught the eye of the White Sox. The team purchased his contract for $50,000 in cash and traded infielder Frank Sigafoos to the Seals.
Jolley lived up to his offensive billing in his rookie season with the Sox.
In a 9-7 victory in Detroit on April 28, Jolley, batting cleanup and playing right field, drove in three runs and even flashed some defense, making, in the words of the Chicago Tribune's Edward Burns, a "throw to third for a double play that made the Tigers' hair stand on end." Jolley, who threw right-handed and had once been a pitcher, had a rifle arm.
On June 23, the Athletics walloped the Sox 17-9 in the second game of a twin bill in Philadelphia, but Jolley still smacked two 3-run homers and added a double.
Jolley played 152 games for the Sox in 1930, alternating between left and right field. He posted a .313 batting average, with 193 hits, including 38 doubles, 12 triples and 16 homers, and 114 RBI.
But he also committed 14 errors. Burns chronicled Jolley's fielding misadventures in Boston on June 26 during a 9-7 loss, such as "a fluke double credited to (Otis) Miller when Smead Jolley got the seat of his bloomers all dusty attempting to play the ball off an embankment in left field."
Jolley later made an error when, Burns wrote, he "again slid down the embankment on his pants, this time with sufficient lack of grace to get a black mark in the record books."
The sophomore jinx hit Jolley in 1931. Hampered by injuries, including a broken bone in his ankle, he only played 54 games, with a mere 119 plate appearances, mostly as a pinch hitter, although he still managed to hit .300.
Then, on April 29, 1932, after the Sox toyed with the idea of moving him to catcher, he was traded to Boston.
Following the 1933 campaign, the Red Sox shipped him to the St. Louis Browns, who promptly traded him back to the Pacific Coast League and the Hollywood Stars, ending his big league odyssey.
His finished his major-league career with a lifetime .305 batting average, 46 home runs, 111 doubles, 21 triples and 313 RBI. He also had 44 errors and a .944 fielding percentage.
Jolley's minor league career lasted into the 1940s.
Even after he left Chicago, a group of Chicagoans kept his legacy alive - the Smead Jolley Boosters, according to a 1954 article, would take their children to Chicago ballparks and hang a banner emblazoned with the club's name.
Jolley died in 1991 at the age of 89. Interviewed in 1968, he said, "I'll tell you one thing. For every run I let in I drove in three or four.
"I was never the worst outfielder in any league I was in, I don't think. I played all the sun fields, and I didn't drop many balls - I had pretty good hands. I've heard all that stuff for years, and it doesn't bother me. Well, maybe it does a little, but what can you do? Might as well laugh it off."