Hack Wilson
| Hack Wilson | |||
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| Outfielder | |||
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Born: April 26, 1900 Ellwood City, Pennsylvania |
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Died: November 23, 1948 (aged 48) Baltimore, Maryland |
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| MLB debut | |||
| September 29, 1923, for the New York Giants | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| August 25, 1934, for the Philadelphia Phillies | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .307 | ||
| Home runs | 244 | ||
| Runs batted in | 1,063 | ||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
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| Member of the National | |||
 Baseball Hall of Fame
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| Inducted | 1979 | ||
| Election Method | Veteran's Committee | ||
Lewis Robert Wilson (April 26, 1900 – November 23, 1948) was an American Major League Baseball player who played 12 seasons for the New York Giants, Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies. Despite his diminutive stature, he was one of the most accomplished power hitters in the game during the late 1920s and early 1930s. His 1930 season with the Cubs is widely considered one of the most memorable individual single-season hitting performances in baseball history. Highlights included 56 home runs, the National League record for 68 years; and 191 runs batted in, a mark yet to be surpassed. "For a brief span of a few years", wrote a sportswriter of the day, "this hammered down little strongman actually rivaled the mighty [Babe] Ruth."
While Wilson's combativeness and excessive alcohol consumption made him one of the most colorful sports personalities of his era, his drinking and fighting undoubtedly contributed to a premature end to his athletic career and, ultimately, his premature demise. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979.
Lewis Robert Wilson was born April 26, 1900, in the Pennsylvania steel mill town of Ellwood City, north of Pittsburgh. His mother, Jennie Kaughn, 16, was an unemployed drifter from Philadelphia; his father, Robert Wilson, 24, was a steel worker. His parents never married; both were heavy drinkers, and in 1907 his mother died of appendicitis at the age of 24.
In 1916 Lewis left school to take a job at a locomotive factory, swinging a sledge hammer for four dollars a week. Although only five feet six inches tall, he weighed 195 pounds with an 18-inch neck, and feet that fit into size-five-and-one-half shoes. Sportswriter Shirley Povich later observed that he was "built along the lines of a beer keg, and was not wholly unfamiliar with its contents." While his unusual physique was considered an oddity at the time, his large head, tiny feet, short legs and broad, flat face are now recognized as hallmarks of the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
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