Johnny Frederick (1929-34, .308/.357/.477): There’s not a lot out there about Frederick. Luckily, baseball historian Graham Womack (you can follow him on Twitter here) has done some great research on him that he has allowed me to use as a basis for this recap. Frederick came into the league as a 27-year-old rookie in 1929 and led the league with 52 doubles (to go with 24 homers). He followed it up by hitting .334 with 44 doubles, 11 triples and 17 homers. Then Rawlings introduced a cork-cushioned baseball to the majors and Frederick’s power slowly began to slip. He was out of the majors for good when the Dodgers traded him to a minor-league team in 1934 for Frenchy Bordagaray. “I played bad ball this year, largely because my leg bothered me for a time,” Frederick told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “I told [Manager Casey] Stengel I felt I had played badly. He said, ‘You don’t figure in our 1935 plans.’ So, I warned them to send me to the Coast if they were going to get me out of the majors or I wouldn’t play ball at all. I won’t, either, if Sacramento won’t give me a two-year contract and some good money. I’ll go back to my place in Portland, Oregon, where I can live comfortably.” Eventually, that’s what Frederick did. After holding out in the spring of 1935, he hit .363 for Sacramento. He then hit .322 over five more years with the Portland Beavers, who made him player manager for his 19th and final professional season in 1940. “Becoming manager of my home town club fulfills a boyhood dream and I’m not kidding either,” Frederick told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in 1939. “But after all these years I’m going to give up outfielding and play first base. I wouldn’t think of trying to manager from way out on the grass.” Frederick finished his minor league career with 2,467 hits. Add that to his major league total, and Frederick had 3,421 hits in his pro career. He died in 1977 in Tigard, Ore., at the age of 75.
Source: latimes.com – Los Angeles Times