Just a week after posting Luis Aparicio, we come across his good friend and longtime double play partner! I love it when things work out that way.
-A native of St. Thomas, PA, Nellie signed with the Philadelphia Athletics at age 17 in 1944.
-In 1951, his second year in Chicago, Fox broke out with a .313 average and 32 doubles to make the All-Star team for the first of 11 straight seasons (he would add another All-Star nod near the end of his career to make it a dozen).
record with 223 last year! Fox's average of one strikeout per 42.7 at bats in third-best in the modern era.
-Proving his worth as a contact hitter, he led the American League in hits four times and also topped the loop in triples in 1960. He hit ten that year, one of four seasons in which he reached double-digits in three-baggers.
-Speaking of the MVP, Fox won the award in 1959, when he led the "Go-Go Sox" to the A. L. pennant with a .306 average and .380 on-base percentage. He also walloped a personal-best 34 doubles and was second on the club with 70 RBI despite hitting only two homers. He hit .375 with three doubles in the World Series, but Chicago fell to the Dodgers in six games.
-Nellie died prematurely, as skin cancer claimed him in December 1975, just weeks before his 48th birthday. The White Sox retired his #2, and he was posthumously enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997.
The guy was in the lineup virtually everyday during those 154 game years-- a real "gamer" and one of the most respected players of his era
ReplyDeleteLegend has it that Astro owner Roy Hofheinz was upset because Nellie would spit tobacco juice on the Astrodome's Astroturf carpet around the coaches box. He supposedly called the dugout and told Fox to knock it off.
ReplyDeleteNellie also was said to spray sliding runners with juice around 2nd base.
Brox - Heck, some years he went above and beyond 154!
ReplyDeleteBob - That's a hell of a story. To think that some people see gum chewing as a bad habit!