Herbert Harrison Hunter (December 25, 1895 – July 25, 1970) was a utility

infielder An infielder is a baseball player stationed at one of four defensive "infield" positions on the baseball field. Standard arrangement of positions In a game of baseball, two teams of nine players take turns playing offensive and defensive roles. ...

– outfielder in Major League Baseball who played parts of four seasons between

1916 Events Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 1 – The British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that had been stored and cooled. * ...

and

1921 Events January * January 2 ** The Association football club Cruzeiro Esporte Clube, from Belo Horizonte, is founded as the multi-sports club Palestra Italia by Italian expatriates in First Brazilian Republic, Brazil. ** The Spanish lin ...

. Listed at , 165 lb., Hunter batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.

Early career

After making his debut for the

New York Giants The New York Giants are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Giants compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. ...

in 1916, Hunter was soon traded by the Giants, along with Larry Doyle and Merwin Jacobson, to the

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 ...

in exchange for Heinie Zimmerman and Mickey Doolan. He played two games with the Cubs in 1916 and another three in

1917 Events Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force's ...

. During World War I, Hunter served in the United States Navy, missing both the

1918 This year is noted for the end of the First World War, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, as well as for the Spanish flu pandemic that killed 50–100 million people worldwide. Events Below, the events ...

and

1919 Events January * January 1 ** The Czechoslovak Legions occupy much of the self-proclaimed "free city" of Pressburg (now Bratislava), enforcing its incorporation into the new republic of Czechoslovakia. ** HMY ''Iolaire'' sinks off the c ...

seasons.

Post-World War I

After the war, Hunter surfaced for another brief major league stint in

1920 Events January * January 1 ** Polish–Soviet War in 1920: The Russian Red Army increases its troops along the Polish border from 4 divisions to 20. ** Kauniainen, completely surrounded by the city of Espoo, secedes from Espoo as its own ma ...

, this time for the Boston Red Sox. Later that year, Hunter organized a team of minor and major league players — dubbed the Hunter All-Americans Whiting, Robert. ''You Gotta Have Wa'' (Vintage Departures, 1989), p. 40. — to go on a barnstorming tour of

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, the first of three such trips he would put together. In

, Hunter made his last big league appearance, a nine-game stint with the St. Louis Cardinals during which he served mostly as a

pinch runner In baseball, a pinch runner is a player substituted for the specific purpose of replacing another player on base. The pinch runner may be faster or otherwise more skilled at base-running than the player for whom the pinch runner has been sub ...

(though not a very successful one, as he was caught on all three of his

stolen base In baseball, a stolen base occurs when a runner advances to a base to which they are not entitled and the official scorer rules that the advance should be credited to the action of the runner. The umpires determine whether the runner is safe or ...

attempts).

Minor leagues and more touring

1922 USA All Stars e5685c99-8d5b-4ccb-b52c-1d97a2020d98-A17179

His major league career over, Hunter put together another barnstorming tour of Japan in , this time with a larger contingent of major league players. Hunter continued to play in the minor leagues through . Then, in , he put together one more tour of Japan, and this time the roster was much more impressive, featuring several future Hall of Famers, including Lefty Grove, Lou Gehrig, and

Mickey Cochrane Gordon Stanley "Mickey" Cochrane (April 6, 1903 – June 28, 1962), nicknamed "Black Mike", was an American professional baseball player, manager and coach. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and Detro ...

Post-baseball life

Financial concerns caused Hunter to get out of the touring team business, turning things over to Lefty O'Doul for future endeavors. After again serving in the U.S. Navy in World War II, Hunter moved to

Orlando, Florida Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County, Florida, Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Greater Orlando, Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, acco ...

, going into the real estate business. He died there in 1970 at the age of 74.

References

Sources

External links

Retrosheet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter, Herb 1895 births 1970 deaths Boston Red Sox players Chicago Cubs players New York Giants (NL) players St. Louis Cardinals players Major League Baseball infielders Major League Baseball outfielders Baseball players from Massachusetts Brockton Shoemakers players Vernon Tigers players San Francisco Seals (baseball) players Little Rock Travelers players