August Richard Suhr (January 3, 1906 – January 15, 2004) was a

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

(MLB)

first baseman A first baseman, abbreviated 1B, is the player on a baseball or softball team who fields the area nearest first base, the first of four bases a baserunner must touch in succession to score a run. The first baseman is responsible for the majori ...

. Suhr was born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " 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 fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, California. The fourth son of August H Suhr and Elise (Nobmann) Suhr, both of

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descent. He batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Suhr was a career .279 hitter with 84

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 i ...

s and 818 RBI in 1435 games played with the Pittsburgh Pirates (1930–39) and Philadelphia Phillies (1939–40). He hit better than .300 twice, with a career high .312 in 1936 and .303 in 1939 with the Pirates and Phillies. Defensively, he recorded a career .992 fielding percentage as a first baseman. Prior to playing in the majors, Suhr played for the San Francisco Seals. In 1929, he hit .381 with 51 home runs and 177 RBI for his team. During that season, he became the only player in baseball history to be sued (in addition to his team) by a fan injured after being struck by a foul ball he hit. The case was dismissed under the legal Baseball Rule, a verdict upheld by the

California Supreme Court The Supreme Court of California is the highest and final court of appeals in the courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly holds sessions in Los Angeles and Sac ...

three years later. In his rookie season with the Pirates, he belted 17 homers with 107 RBI. He produced three 100-RBI seasons in his 11-year career. Selected for the 1936 All-Star game, Suhr played 1,339 games at first base for Pittsburgh, a team record for a Pirates' first baseman. On September 11, 1931, Suhr started a then

National League The National League of Professional Baseball Clubs, known simply as the National League (NL), is the older of two leagues constituting Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, and the world's oldest extant professional team ...

record streak of 822 games played, which ended on June 4, 1937 when he missed a game to attend his mother's funeral. His record stood until June 12, 1957 when it was broken by Stan Musial. The record is currently held by

Steve Garvey Steven Patrick Garvey (born December 22, 1948) is an American former professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a first baseman for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres from 1969 to 1987. Garvey was the National ...

. After retiring from baseball, Suhr became a liquor store owner. He died in

Scottsdale, Arizona , settlement_type = City , named_for = Winfield Scott , image_skyline = , image_seal = Seal of Scottsdale (Arizona).svg , image_blank_emblem = City of Scottsdale Script Logo.svg , nick ...

, of natural causes at the age of 98.

References

External links

Baseball Library
1906 births 2004 deaths National League All-Stars Philadelphia Phillies players Pittsburgh Pirates players Major League Baseball first basemen Baseball players from San Francisco {{baseball-first-baseman-stub

See also

References

External links