Willie Kirkland
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Willie Kirkland
Willie Charles Kirkland (born February 17, 1934) is a retired American professional baseball player. A right fielder and a powerful left-handed hitter, Kirkland appeared in 1,149 games in Major League Baseball over nine seasons for the San Francisco Giants (1958–1960), Cleveland Indians (1961–1963), Baltimore Orioles (1964) and Washington Senators (1964–1966). He also spent six seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball as a member of the Hanshin Tigers during his 20-year pro career. Born in Siluria, Alabama, he grew up in Detroit. Baseball career Kirkland signed with the New York Giants in 1952 upon his graduation from Detroit's Northwestern High School. He threw right-handed, stood tall and weighed . A prodigious minor-league slugger, he rose through the organization over his first four seasons, three times exceeding the 35-home run mark, and winning a batting title and runs batted in championship on the way. Kirkland then spent all of 1957 in the military. When he muster ...
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Right Fielder
A right fielder, abbreviated RF, is the outfielder in baseball or softball who plays defense in right field. Right field is the area of the outfield to the right of a person standing at home plate and facing towards the pitcher's mound. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the right fielder is assigned the number 9. Position description Outfielders must cover large distances, so speed, instincts and quickness to react to the ball are key. They must be able to catch fly balls above their head and on the run, as well as prevent balls hit down the right field foul line from getting past them. Being situated 250–300 feet from home plate, they must be able to throw the ball accurately over a long distance to be effective. Of all outfield positions, the right fielder often has the strongest arm, because they are the farthest from third base. As well as the requirements above, the right fielder backs up first base on all throws from the catcher and pitche ...
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Detroit, Michigan
Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 census, making it the 27th-most populous city in the United States. The metropolitan area, known as Metro Detroit, is home to 4.3 million people, making it the second-largest in the Midwest after the Chicago metropolitan area, and the 14th-largest in the United States. Regarded as a major cultural center, Detroit is known for its contributions to music, art, architecture and design, in addition to its historical automotive background. ''Time'' named Detroit as one of the fifty World's Greatest Places of 2022 to explore. Detroit is a major port on the Detroit River, one of the four major straits that connect the Great Lakes system to the Saint Lawrence Seaway. The City of Detroit anchors the second-largest regional econo ...
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Rookie
A rookie is a person new to an occupation, profession, or hobby. In sports, a ''rookie'' is a professional athlete in their first season (or year). In contrast with a veteran who has experience and expertise, a rookie is usually inexperienced and prone to making mistakes. Throughout sports In some sports there are traditions in which rookies must do things, or tricks are played on them. Examples in baseball include players having to dress up in very strange costumes, or getting hit in the face with a cream pie; a traditional rookie's " hazing" procedure in American football involves taping players to a goalpost and dousing them with ice water, Gatorade, and other substances. In Major League Baseball, the MLB has cracked down on hazing by enacting an Anti-Hazing and Anti-Bullying Policy which prohibits players from dressing up as the opposite sex, or wearing offensive costumes based on race, sex, nationality, age, sexual orientation, and gender identify. American football In ...
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Willie Mays
Willie Howard Mays Jr. (born May 6, 1931), nicknamed "the Say Hey Kid" and "Buck", is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball (MLB). Regarded as one of the greatest players ever, Mays ranks second behind only Babe Ruth on most all-time lists, including those of ''The Sporting News'' and ESPN. Mays played in the National League (NL) between 1951 and 1973 for the New York/San Francisco Giants and New York Mets. Mays is the oldest living member of the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. Mays joined the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro American League in 1948, playing with them until the Giants signed him once he graduated from high school in 1950, then won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1951 after hitting 20 home runs to help the Giants win their first pennant in 14 years. After spending most of the next two years in the United States Army during the Korean War, he was named the NL Most Valuable Player (MVP) in 1954 after winning the batting title with a .345 avera ...
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Cleanup Hitter
In baseball, a cleanup hitter is the fourth hitter in the batting order. The cleanup hitter is traditionally the team's most powerful hitter. His job is to "clean up the bases", i.e., drive in base runners. Theory The thinking behind the use of the cleanup hitter is that at least one of the batters before him will reach base somehow, usually via a walk or a base hit. Traditionally, the lead off hitter, the number one spot in the batting order, has good foot speed, plate discipline, and a high on-base percentage. The second batter is usually a contact hitter, meaning he is able to consistently make contact with the ball and put it in play to move base runners forward and into scoring position. The first or second batter might bunt his way on base as they both will be speedy runners. The third batter is usually the best batter, the hitter with the highest batting average. He has the role of scoring runs himself, but his job comes down to getting on base for the cleanup hit ...
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Seals Stadium
Seals Stadium was a minor league baseball stadium on the west coast of the United States, located in San Francisco, California; it later became the first home of the major league San Francisco Giants. Opened in the Mission District in 1931, Seals Stadium was the longtime home of the San Francisco Seals (1931–57) of the Pacific Coast League. The PCL's Mission Reds (1931–37) shared the ballpark with the Seals for the first seven years, then moved to Los Angeles and became the Hollywood Stars. In 1958, Seals Stadium became a temporary home for the Giants for their first two seasons in San Francisco while Candlestick Park was under construction. Less than three decades old, Seals Stadium was demolished in late 1959. Seals Stadium history Early years Seals Stadium opened on April 7, 1931 after a construction cost of $1.25 million. It was of concrete and steel construction and was named after its key tenant, the Pacific Coast League's San Francisco Seals and was uniquely desig ...
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Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn, which later became a borough of New York City, the team joined the NL in 1890 as the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and assumed several different monikers thereafter before finally settling on the name Dodgers in 1932. From the 1940s through the mid-1950s, the Dodgers developed a fierce cross-town rivalry with the New York Yankees as the two clubs faced each other in the World Series seven times, with the Dodgers losing the first five matchups before defeating them to win the franchise's first title in 1955. It was also during this period that the Dodgers made history by breaking the baseball color line in 1947 with the debut of Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the Major Leagues since 1884. Another major milestone was reache ...
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West Coast (United States)
The West Coast of the United States, also known as the Pacific Coast, Pacific states, and the western seaboard, is the coastline along which the Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. The term typically refers to the contiguous U.S. states of California, Oregon, and Washington, but sometimes includes Alaska and Hawaii, especially by the United States Census Bureau as a U.S. geographic division. Definition There are conflicting definitions of which states comprise the West Coast of the United States, but the West Coast always includes California, Oregon, and Washington as part of that definition. Under most circumstances, however, the term encompasses the three contiguous states and Alaska, as they are all located in North America. For census purposes, Hawaii is part of the West Coast, along with the other four states. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' refers to the North American region as part of the Pacific Coast, including Alaska and British Columbia. Although the ency ...
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San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of California cities by population, fourth most populous in California and List of United States cities by population, 17th most populous in the United States, with 815,201 residents as of 2021. It covers a land area of , at the end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated large U.S. city after New York City, and the County statistics of the United States, fifth most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. Among the 91 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco was ranked first by per capita income (at $160,749) and sixth by aggregate income as of 2021. Colloquial nicknames for San Francisco include ''SF'', ''San Fran'', ''The '', ''Frisco'', and '' ...
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Runs Batted In
A run batted in (RBI; plural RBIs ) is a statistic in baseball and softball that credits a batter for making a play that allows a run to be scored (except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play). For example, if the batter bats a base hit which allows a teammate on a higher base to reach home and so score a run, then the batter gets credited with an RBI. Before the 1920 Major League Baseball season, runs batted in were not an official baseball statistic. Nevertheless, the RBI statistic was tabulated—unofficially—from 1907 through 1919 by baseball writer Ernie Lanigan, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. Common nicknames for an RBI include "ribby" (or "ribbie"), "rib", and "ribeye". The plural of "RBI" is a matter of "(very) minor controversy" for baseball fans:; it is usually "RBIs", in accordance with the usual practice for pluralizing initialisms in English; however, some sources use "RBI" as the plural, on the basis that ...
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Batting Average (baseball)
In baseball, batting average (BA) is determined by dividing a player's hits by their total at-bats. It is usually rounded to three decimal places and read without the decimal: A player with a batting average of .300 is "batting three-hundred". If necessary to break ties, batting averages could be taken beyond the .001 measurement. In this context, .001 is considered a "point", such that a .235 batter is 5 points higher than a .230 batter. History Henry Chadwick, an English statistician raised on cricket, was an influential figure in the early history of baseball. In the late 19th century he adapted the concept behind the cricket batting average to devise a similar statistic for baseball. Rather than simply copy cricket's formulation of runs scored divided by outs, he realized that hits divided by at bats would provide a better measure of individual batting ability. This is because while in cricket, scoring runs is almost entirely dependent on one's batting skill, in baseball ...
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Home Run
In baseball, a home run (abbreviated HR) is scored when the ball is hit in such a way that the batter is able to circle the bases and reach home plate safely in one play without any errors being committed by the defensive team. A home run is usually achieved by hitting the ball over the outfield fence between the foul poles (or hitting either foul pole) without the ball touching the field. Far less common is the "inside-the-park" home run where the batter reaches home safely while the baseball is in play on the field. When a home run is scored, the batter is credited with a hit and a run scored, and a run batted in ( RBI) for each runner that scores, including himself. Likewise, the pitcher is recorded as having given up a hit and a run, with additional runs charged for each runner that scores other than the batter. Home runs are among the most popular aspects of baseball and, as a result, prolific home run hitters are usually the most popular among fans and consequently th ...
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