Major League Playing Career
Robert Pershing Doerr was born the son of Harold Doerr, a telephone company supervisor, and his wife, the former Frances Herrnberger; his middle name was a tribute to General John J. Pershing, then the commander of U.S. military forces in World War I. He graduated from Los Angeles' Fremont High School in 1936, after having already begun his professional career with the Hollywood Stars of the Pacific Coast League in 1934. Doerr broke into the majors in 1937 at the age of 19 and went 3 for 5 in his first game. In 1938 he became a regular in a powerful Red Sox lineup that included Jimmie Foxx, Joe Cronin, and Dom DiMaggio. Early in his career Doerr was often called upon to bunt and was so proficient at it that he led the league with 22 in 1938. In 1939, Ted Williams' rookie season with the Sox, Doerr began a string of 12 consecutive seasons with 10 or more home runs and 73 or more runs batted in; in 1940 the Red Sox became the 12th team in major league history to have four players with 100 RBI, with Foxx, Williams, Cronin and Doerr each collecting at least 105.
In 1944 Doerr led the league in slugging percentage. The same year, his .325 batting average was good enough to allow him to finish second in the league, two percentage points behind Lou Boudreau of the Cleveland Indians. He was named the AL's Most Valuable Player by The Sporting News, although he finished only seventh in voting for the AL MVP Award, being named on only 13 of 24 ballots and receiving nothing higher than a third-place vote.
Doerr missed the 1945 season while serving in the Army during World War II, being stationed at Camp Roberts, California.
Doerr was an offensive force for the Red Sox in 1946 as they won their first pennant since 1918, driving in 116 runs despite a .271 average, and finished third in the MVP vote (won by Williams). He hit .409 in the 1946 World Series loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, with a home run and three runs batted in. Williams referred to Doerr as "the silent captain of the Red Sox."
Doerr hit for the cycle twice in his career, on May 17, 1944 in a 12–18 loss to the St. Louis Browns in the second game of a doubleheader, and again on May 13, 1947 in a 19–16 win over the Chicago White Sox. In 1950 he led the league in triples with 11; on June 8 of that year, he hit three home runs in a 29–4 romp over the Browns.
Regarded as one of the top defensive second basemen of his era, with observers divided between him and Joe Gordon of the rival New York Yankees, Doerr set an American League record in 1948 by handling 414 chances in a row over 73 games without an error.
Doerr batted over .300 three times, with six seasons of at least 100 runs batted in. Never playing a game at a position other than second base, he retired at age 33 in September 1951 due to a back injury, having 8,028 plate appearances, 1,094 runs, 89 triples, 809 walks, 1,349 singles, 1,184 runs created, 693 extra base hits, 2,862 times on base, 115 sacrifice hits and nine All-Star Game selections. He had enjoyed tremendous success at Fenway Park, hitting .315 there with 145 home runs, compared to a .261 average and 78 HRs on the road.
Read more about this topic: Bobby Doerr
Famous quotes containing the words major, league, playing and/or career:
“No culture on earth outside of mid-century suburban America has ever deployed one woman per child without simultaneously assigning her such major productive activities as weaving, farming, gathering, temple maintenance, and tent-building. The reason is that full-time, one-on-one child-raising is not good for women or children.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)
“Is not the tremendous strength in men of the impulse to creative work in every field precisely due to their feeling of playing a relatively small part in the creation of living beings, which constantly impels them to an overcompensation in achievement?”
—Karen Horney (1885–1952)
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)