Laurence H. "Hack" Miller (January 1, 1894September 17, 1971) was an American professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to cat ...

, who played in

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), ...

from 1916 to 1925. Miller was born in New York City. He played for the

Brooklyn Robins The Brooklyn Dodgers were a Major League Baseball team founded in 1884 as a member of the American Association before joining the National League in 1890. They remained in Brooklyn until 1957, after which the club moved to Los Angeles, Californi ...

Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. Founded in as one of the American League's eight ...

, and

Chicago Cubs The Chicago Cubs are an American professional baseball team based in Chicago. The Cubs compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as part of the National League (NL) Central division. The club plays its home games at Wrigley Field, which is located ...

. He appeared in one game in the 1918 World Series as a member of the champion Red Sox. The son of a wrestler and strongman, he wielded a 47-ounce bat and occasionally used a bat weighing 65 ounces. His nickname "Hack" was due to his resemblance to wrestler

Georg Hackenschmidt Georg Karl Julius Hackenschmidt ( – 19 February 1968) was an early 20th-century Estonian strongman, professional wrestler, author, and sports philosopher who is recognized as professional wrestling's first world heavyweight champion. Hacken ...

. On August 25, 1922, Miller hit two 3-run home runs to help the Cubs beat the Phillies 26–23 in the highest-scoring game in major league history. After 25 years as a

longshoreman A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes. After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number o ...

, Miller died in

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

. In 349 games over 6 seasons, Miller hit .323 (387-for-1200), with 164 runs, 65 doubles, 11 triples, 38 home runs, 205 RBI, 64 walks, .361

on-base percentage In baseball statistics, on-base percentage (OBP) measures how frequently a batter reaches base. An official Major League Baseball (MLB) statistic since 1984, it is sometimes referred to as on-base average (OBA), as it is rarely presented as a ...

,and .490

slugging percentage In baseball statistics, slugging percentage (SLG) is a measure of the batting productivity of a hitter. It is calculated as total bases divided by at bats, through the following formula, where ''AB'' is the number of at bats for a given player, ...

. Defensively, he recorded a .962

fielding percentage In baseball statistics, fielding percentage, also known as fielding average, is a measure that reflects the percentage of times a defensive player properly handles a batted or thrown ball. It is calculated by the sum of putouts and assists, div ...

as an outfielder (almost exclusively in left field).

References

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* 1894 births 1971 deaths Major League Baseball outfielders Baseball players from New York City Brooklyn Robins players Boston Red Sox players Chicago Cubs players Wausau Lumberjacks players St. Boniface Saints (baseball) players Oakland Oaks (baseball) players Danville Veterans players Minneapolis Millers (baseball) players {{US-baseball-outfielder-1890s-stub