Professional Baseball Career
Willard Hershberger signed with the New York Yankees, but did not make his major league debut until the relatively late age of 27, after eight minor league seasons. He was a member of the Yankees' Newark Bears farm team which posted an outstanding 109–43 record in 1937. On December 3, 1937, he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for shortstop Eddie Miller and $40,000.
During his three-year tenure with the Reds, Willard Hershberger was a backup to regular catcher Ernie Lombardi. While Hershberger, who was smaller and more athletic than the lumbering Lombardi, lacked power (he hit no home runs in his major league career), he was a good hitter for average, batting .276 in 49 games in his rookie season, and .345 in 63 games in his second season. He was a part of the Reds' 1939 National League championship team. However, they were swept by Hershberger's former team, the New York Yankees, in the World Series. It was the Reds' first appearance in the "Fall Classic" since the controversial 1919 World Series. Hershberger had one basehit in two at-bats.
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Famous quotes containing the words professional, baseball and/or career:
“The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.”
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“I’ve gradually risen from lower-class background to lower-class foreground.”
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