Happy Birthday to the late and great Luke Appling, Hall of Fame Shortstop who played his entire twenty-year career with the Chicago White Sox. Appling was a seven-time All-Star and a two-time batting champion. His career started while the world was struggling during The Great Depression.
.310 BA, 2,749 HITS, 45 HR, 1,116 RBIs, .399 OBP, 1,319 RUNS
- 7x All-Star
- 2x AL Batting Champion
Despite having a terrible team around him and poor fielding conditions in the stadium, thanks to their cheap-ass owner Comiskey, he showed up and played hard. Appling was known for his durability despite having headaches, backaches, eye problems, and bad knees. His best season came in 1936 when he hit .388, which included a 27-game hitting streak. He was regarded as a nightmare for pitchers. He could and did foul off pitch after pitch until he saw a pitch he wanted.
He missed the entire 1944 and most of the 1945 seasons for enlisting in the military. Considering that he was still in his prime, had he not missed that time, he likely would've reached 3,000 Hits. Imagine how much better a player Appling could've been had he either had more talent around him or played on a better team.
References:
Luke Appling Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/applilu01.shtml
Berger, Ralph. Luke Appling via SABR: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/luke-appling/
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