When Richie Ashburn reported to spring training in 1948, all he had to
do to win the center field job for the Phillies was beat out the man who
had won the previous year's batting championship by 46 points; a man
by theHarry "The Hat" Walker. But Walker fouled a pitch off his foot
and was out of the lineup through for a good part of the first half of the
season.
By that time, Ashburn was hitting .346 becoming the Phils' new center
fielder. The only rookie voted to the 1948 All-Star team, Ashburn had a pair
of singles and a stolen base. Even though he broke a finger in August, no
injury could spoil a year in which he had a 23-game hitting streak, led the
league with 32 stolen bases, hit .333, and was named Rookie of the Year.
In a fifteen-year career, Ashburn hit .300 or better nine times, won two batting
titles, got on base about 40 percent of the time, and posted a .308 career
average, topping Pete Rose, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron, among others.
As an outfielder he set records by recording 500 or more putouts in four
different seasons and 400 or more putouts in nine different seasons. He
tied Max Carey's major league records by leading the league in that
department nine times; he accepted the most chances nine times. He
ranks fifth behind Carey, Willie Mays, Tris Speaker, and Ty Cobb in both
career putouts and total chances.
Ashburn won batting titles in 1955 (.338) and 1958 (.350), but his
greatest moment as a Phillie came in the field. On the last day of the 1950
season, the Dodgers, trailing Philadelphia by a game, played them at Ebbets
Field. With the score tied, 1-1, in the bottom of the ninth inning, Brooklyn's
Cal Abrams tried to score from second on Duke Snider's single; Ashburn cut
him down by twenty feet, setting the stage for Dick Sisler's tenth-inning
homer and clinching the Phils' first flag in thirty-five years.
Since retiring as a player, Ashburn became a broadcaster for the
Phillies, a position he held for some 35 years until his death in 1997.
