Sam Thompson
Samuel "Sam" Luther Thompson ( born March 5, 1860 in Danville, Indiana, † November 7, 1922 in Detroit, Michigan) was an American baseball player in Major League Baseball who played mainly in the 19th century. His nickname was Big Sam.
Life
Sam Thompson began his professional baseball career in 1884 at the age of 24 years. His first game in the National League denied qualified carpenter on July 2, 1885 for the Detroit Wolverines. Thompson played for Detroit as outfielder who provided excellent performance, both in attack and in defense. His outstanding season had Thompson in 1887, when he led the National League with 545 at- bats, 203 runs, 23 triples, 166 RBI (most in the entire 19th century Major League Baseball ) and a batting average of 37.2 %. With the Wolverines, he won the championship this year. On May 7, 1887 he scored two triples with charged bases in a game. Thompson was the first player in the Major Leagues to have managed. This record has been entered even from multiple players, but not broken.
In 1889 he then moved from the Detroit Wolverines to the Philadelphia Quakers, the renamed in 1890 in Philadelphia Phillies. Again, he showed constant performance until the year 1898. According to this year, he left the baseball, but returned again in 1906 for eight games back, which he played for the Detroit Tigers.
1922 Thompson died, in 1974 he was accepted by the Veterans Committee in the Baseball Hall of Fame.