Remembering Richie Ashburn

Today marks what would have been the 98th birthday of Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn, baseball’s best center fielder in the 1950s not named Willie, Mickey or the Duke.

Ashburn spends the first 12 seasons of his Hall of Fame career in the majors with the Philadelphia Phillies from 1948-59.

He then plays two seasons with the Chicago Cubs before spending a final season in 1962 with the historically bad, expansion New York Mets.

During his time with the Phillies, Ashburn bats .311 in 1,794 games with a then-franchise record 2,217 hits, five All-Star Game selections and two National League batting titles.

No player in baseball during the decade of the 1950s has more hits than Ashburn’s 1,875 hits.

Richie Ashburn with the Mets in 1962

And no center fielder catches more fly balls during the ’50s than Ashburn, who nine times in 10 seasons from 1949-58 leads all National League center fielders in putouts.

Ashburn remains a solid player in his final season in 1962 with the Mets, batting .306 in 135 games for New York and – at age 35 – being selected as their lone representative for the All-Star Game.

The Mets also name Ashburn their most valuable player for that inaugural season, an award that perplexes its recipient.

“MVP on the worst team ever?” Ashburn rhetorically asks. “I wonder what exactly they meant by that?”

The Mets show their appreciation for Ashburn’s performance in their first season by giving him a boat.

“I was awarded a 24-foot boat equipped with a galley and sleeping facilities for six,” Ashburn later says. “After the season had ended, I docked the boat in Ocean City, New Jersey, and it sank.”

Perhaps an omen, perhaps not.

Richie Ashburn entering the Hall of Fame in 1995

Nonetheless, the Philadelphia icon promptly retires after his 1962 season with the Mets and spends the next three-plus decades as a Phillies broadcaster before passing away in 1997 – two years after he finally enters baseball’s Hall of Fame.

Ashburn enjoys his Hall of Fame status for only two years after waiting 28 years to get to Cooperstown.

The forever candid and dry-witted Ashburn did not let that personally interminable wait go without comment during his Hall of Fame acceptance speech in 1995, saying:

“They didn’t exactly carry me in here in a sedan chair with blazing and blaring trumpets.”