American baseball player and manager
Baseball player
Tommy Holmes
|
---|
Holmes with the Boston Braves
|
Outfielder
/
Manager
|
Born:
(
1917-03-29
)
March 29, 1917
Brooklyn, New York
, U.S.
|
Died:
April 14, 2008
(2008-04-14)
(aged 91)
Boca Raton, Florida
, U.S.
|
|
|
April 14, 1942, for the Boston Braves
|
|
September 28, 1952, for the Brooklyn Dodgers
|
|
Batting average
| .302
|
---|
Home runs
| 88
|
---|
Runs batted in
| 581
|
---|
Managerial record
| 61?69
|
---|
Winning %
| .469
|
---|
|
---|
|
As player
As manager
|
|
|
Thomas Francis Holmes
(March 29, 1917 ? April 14, 2008) was an American
right
and
center fielder
and
manager
in
Major League Baseball
who played nearly his entire career for the
Boston Braves
. He
hit
over .300 lifetime (.302) and every year from 1944 through 1948, peaking with a .352 mark in
1945
when he finished second in the
National League
batting race and was runner-up for the NL's
Most Valuable Player Award
.
Career
[
edit
]
Holmes was born in
Brooklyn, New York
. As a youth, he trained to be a
boxer
but his father forbade him to pursue the sport professionally. He attended
Brooklyn Technical High School
where he had
batting averages
of .613 and .585 in various seasons, attracting the attention of major league scouts. As a high schooler, Holmes also played semiprofessional games on Sundays for $5 per game (equivalent to $117.69 in 2023).
[1]
Holmes, who batted and threw left-handed, signed his first professional contract with the
New York Yankees
, but could not break into their outfield of Joe DiMaggio,
Tommy Henrich
and
Charlie Keller
. After three over-.300 seasons with the Yanks' top
farm team
, the
Newark Bears
, he was traded to the Boston Braves in February 1942. Given a regular major league job at last, he hit over .300 for five consecutive seasons (1944?48).
In 1944, Holmes was deemed ineligible for service in
World War II
due to an untreatable
sinus
condition.
[2]
Holmes, one of the most popular Boston Braves especially in the twilight of his career, finished second in MVP voting in the National League in 1945 after leading the NL in
hits
(224),
home runs
(28) and
doubles
(47). That season, he set a modern NL record by hitting safely in 37
consecutive games
from June 6 through July 8 (
Bill Dahlen
and
Willie Keeler
had longer streaks in the 1890s), a mark surpassed 33 years later in
1978
by
Pete Rose
with a 44-game streak that tied Keeler's and came the closest to
Joe DiMaggio
's MLB record 56 in 1941. Holmes struck out just 9 times in 1945, and his ratio of home runs (28) to strikeouts that season is one of the best in baseball history.
In
1948
, his .325 batting average in 139 games as the Braves' leadoff hitter help lead Boston to the NL pennant (together with slugging MVP third baseman
Bob Elliott
and the oft-parodied starting rotation of Spahn, Sain and pray for rain).
After the
1950
season Holmes, at 33, was named player-manager of the team's Class A
Hartford Chiefs
farm club. On June 19, 1951, with the injury-ridden parent club Braves floundering in fifth place under manager
Billy Southworth
, he was called back to Boston to manage his old team and serve as a
pinch-hitter
. It was hoped he could arouse the club and bring fans back to
Braves Field
. The team went 48?47 under Holmes for the remainder of 1951, finishing fourth as they did in 1949 and 1950, but when they began
1952
with a mark of 13?22 he was fired on May 31 and replaced by
Charlie Grimm
. The Braves finished seventh, drew only 281,000 fans, and left Boston for
Milwaukee
the following spring. That 61?69 stretch (.469) was Holmes' only major league managing stint.
Holmes finished the regular 1952 season pinch-hitting for the
Brooklyn Dodgers
and playing left field in the final inning of game 7 in the
World Series
against the
New York Yankees
, after which he managed in the Braves' and Dodgers' farm systems from 1953 to 1957. He retired with a .302 lifetime batting average with 88 home runs and 581 RBIs in his 1,320-game, eleven-year major league career. He posted a fine .989
fielding percentage
in the majors, never committing more than 6 errors in any one season (1945), and executing more double plays (37) than errors (33).
[3]
In 1973, he returned to the game as director of amateur baseball relations for the
New York Mets
, a post he held for three decades until retiring at 86.
[4]
Holmes died in 2008 at the age of 91 in
Boca Raton, Florida
.
[4]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]