Professional Career
Jake Beckley began playing semi-pro baseball while still a teen in his native Hannibal. A former Hannibal teammate, Bob Hart, suggested the 18-year-old Beckley to the Leavenworth Oilers (Leavenworth, Kansas) of the Western Association.
After splitting two seasons between Leavenworth and a team in Lincoln, Nebraska, Jake Beckley's contract was sold to the St. Louis Whites in the Western Association before he was purchased (along with Harry Staley) by the Pittsburgh Alleghenys for $4,500 midway through the 1888 season. After playing one and a half seasons for the Alleghenys, Beckely and eight of his teammates jumped to the Pittsburgh Burghers, a team in the newly formed Players League (PL). Manager Ned Hanlon joined cross over as well. Beckley stated he was willing to go to the PL because after all, "I'm only in this game for the money anyway." The league lasted only one season, and Beckley spent the next five and a half seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
His days in Pittsburgh finished, on July 25, 1896, Beckley was traded to the New York Giants for Harry Davis and $1,000. Beckley was released by the Giants the following season on May 22, and he signed as a free agent with the Cincinnati Reds five days later. In his first season with the Reds, Beckley was unsuccessful in getting rookie Honus Wagner out with the hidden ball trick, a tactic he had been known to use against the opposition. But later when Wagner's Louisville Colonels came to play at Cincinnati, Beckley was successful in getting Wagner out, employing a strategy that involved the use of two baseballs. Against the St. Louis Cardinals, Beckley belted three home runs in the same game on September 26, 1897, a feat not again matched until 1922 by Ken Williams. He played with Cincinnati for seven seasons and was later purchased by the St. Louis on February 11, 1904. Beckley retired after the 1907 season with 2930 career hits, second only to Cap Anson, the Major League leader at the time.
As of the 2012 season, Beckley holds the all-time best batting average amongst Pirates first basemen (.300).
After his Major League career ended, Beckley became a player/manager for Kansas City in the American Association in 1908-1909, Bartlesville in the Western Association in 1910, and Hannibal in the Central Association in 1911. After his playing career, he served as an umpire in the Federal League in 1913 and also served as a baseball coach at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri.
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