Honus Wagner
MLB debut July 19, 1897 for the Louisville Colonels Last MLB appearance September 17, 1917 for the Pittsburgh Pirates Career statistics Batting average .329 Hits 3,430 Home runs 101 Runs batted in 1,732 Stolen bases 722 Teams As player Louisville Colonels (1897–1899) Pittsburgh Pirates (1900–1917) As manager Pittsburgh Pirates (1917) As coach Pittsburgh Pirates (1933–1951) Career highlights and awards World Series champion (1909) 8× NL batting champion (1900, 1903, 1904, 1906–1909, 1911) 5× NL RBI champion (1901, 1902, 1908, 1909, 1912) 5× NL stolen base champion (1901, 1902, 1904, 1907, 1908) Pittsburgh Pirates #33 retired Major League Baseball All-Century Team Major League Baseball All-Time Team Member of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction 1936 Vote 95.13% (first ballot) Johannes Peter "Honus" Wagner (/ˈhɒnəs ˈwæɡnər/; February 24, 1874 – December 6, 1955 ) was an American baseball shortstop who played 21 seasons in Major League Baseball from 1897 to 1917, almost entirely for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wagner won eight batting titles, tied for the most in National League history with Tony Gwynn. He also led the league in slugging six times, and in stolen bases five times. Wagner was nicknamed "The Flying Dutchman" due to his superb speed and German heritage ("Dutch" in this instance being an alteration of "Deutsch"). In 1936, the Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Wagner as one of the first five members. He received the second-highest vote total, behind Ty Cobb and tied with Babe Ruth. Although Cobb is frequently cited as the greatest player of the dead-ball era, some contemporaries regarded Wagner as the better all-around player, and most baseball historians consider Wagner to be the greatest shortstop ever. Cobb himself called Wagner "maybe the greatest star ever to take the diamond." In addition, Wagner is the featured player of one of the rarest and most valuable baseball cards in the world.