Elburt Preston Fletcher (March 18, 1916 – March 9, 1994) was a
professional baseball
Professional baseball is organized baseball in which players are selected for their talents and are paid to play for a specific team or club system. It is played in leagues and associated farm teams throughout the world.
Modern professional ...
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 ...
. He played all or part of 12 seasons 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), ...
for the
Boston Braves (1934–35) and
Bees (1937–39),
Pittsburgh Pirates (1939–43, 1946–47) and Braves again (1949). Fletcher batted and threw left-handed.
Fletcher made his major league debut in 1934 in an unusual way. A contest was held to determine which Boston-area high school player was most likely to reach the major leagues, with the winner receiving an invitation to the Braves'
spring training camp. With the help of a number of votes from his large family, Fletcher won, and then actually made the team.
Fletcher led the National League in
bases on balls in 1940 and '41 with 119 and 118 respectively and in
on-base percentage in 1940, '41 and '42 with .418, .421 and .417 marks respectively.
During a 12-season career, Fletcher posted a .271
batting average
Batting average is a statistic in cricket, baseball, and softball that measures the performance of batters. The development of the baseball statistic was influenced by the cricket statistic.
Cricket
In cricket, a player's batting average is ...
with 79
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 616
RBI in 1415
games played. Defensively, he recorded a .993
fielding percentage playing every inning of his major league career at first base.
Fletcher died in
Milton, Massachusetts
Milton is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, United States and an affluent suburb of Boston. The population was 28,630 at the 2020 census. Milton is the birthplace of former U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and architect Buckminster Fuller. ...
, nine days before his 78th birthday, and was buried in
Milton Cemetery.
Notes
Further reading
* Honig, Donald (1975
''Baseball When the Grass Was Real: Baseball from the Twenties to the Forties Told by the Men Who Played It'' New York: Coward, McGann & Geoghegan. pp. 58–71. .
External links
*
Major League Baseball first basemen
National League All-Stars
Boston Braves players
Boston Bees players
Pittsburgh Pirates players
Harrisburg Senators players
Wilkes-Barre Barons (baseball) players
Buffalo Bisons (minor league) players
Minneapolis Millers (baseball) players
Jersey City Giants players
Los Angeles Angels (minor league) players
Baseball players from Massachusetts
People from Milton, Massachusetts
1916 births
1994 deaths
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