Rudy York
| Rudy York | |||
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York with the Detroit Tigers in 1945
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| First baseman / Manager | |||
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Born: August 17, 1913 Ragland, Alabama |
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Died: February 5, 1970 (aged 56) Rome, Georgia |
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| MLB debut | |||
| August 22, 1934, for the Detroit Tigers | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| September 20, 1948, for the Philadelphia Athletics | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .275 | ||
| Home runs | 277 | ||
| Runs batted in | 1,152 | ||
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| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Preston Rudolph York (August 17, 1913 – February 5, 1970) was a professional baseball player and manager. He played all or part of thirteen seasons in Major League Baseball for the Detroit Tigers (1934, 1937–45), Boston Red Sox (1946–47), Chicago White Sox (1947) and Philadelphia Athletics (1948), primarily as a first baseman. York was born in Ragland, Alabama. He batted and threw right-handed.
With one-eighth Cherokee ancestry and less-than-perfect fielding abilities, York prompted one sportswriter to declare: "He is part Indian and part first baseman".
York's family moved from Ragland, Alabama, to Aragon, Georgia, when Rudy was a small boy. Rudy's mother moved the family to the Cartersville, Georgia, area sometime in the late 1920s. They lived in the American Textile Company (ATCO) mill town on the outskirts of Cartersville, where Rudy began working in his early teens.
In his mid-teens, York was playing baseball with older men on the ATCO mill team and receiving local attention for his prowess at the plate. York became the team's star player from 1930 to 1933.
York received a tryout and was signed as a second baseman by the Knoxville club of the Southern League in April 1933 but was released after appearing in just three games. Rudy returned to the Atco community and briefly resumed play with the mill team. He spent most of June of that year playing for a semi-pro team in Albany, Georgia, before returning to Atco for another brief stint with the mill team. In early July, Detroit scout Eddie Goosetree signed him for the Tigers. Assigned briefly to Shreveport of the Dixie League, he finished the 1933 season with Beaumont of the Texas League.
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