By Johnathan
Enos Slaughter, professional baseball player for two decades, is known by all Cardinal fans as one of the greatest players to ever wear their colors. However, few ever actually know what he did in his career. This may be because he is incomparable to the greatest 3 in Bob Gibson, Stan Musial, and Ozzie Smith; however, it is more likely that his career was overshadowed by the Second World War, which he did not participate in. Still, his career is noteworthy, because he shows how hustle (in addition to skill) beats skill alone.
Enos Slaughter finished his career batting right at .300, which is more impressive when you take in the fact that he only finished playing when he was 43. The closest he came to an MVP was in 1942, when he got second place to Mort Cooper, another player on his own team. How did two players on the same team finish top two in MVP voting? The Cardinals finished 106-48 (!) that year.
Enos Slaughter, when brought up, is usually mentioned because of his smooth swing that helped him hit the impressive career average mentioned earlier. He isn’t mentioned for his defense, which brings very unusual statistics to the table. According to Baseball Reference, he had a season in 1947 where he turned 4 different double plays as a Left Fielder, and two seasons where he turned 5 as a Right Fielder; for reference, Jason Heyward (one of the historically strongest arms in the outfield) has only had 1 year where he turned 5 double plays. Does this mean Enos had what would’ve been one of the greatest arms of the century?
Looking at Enos’s batting statistics, it is doubtful. Even though he did have a year where he slugged .511, slugging percentage is often driven by contact, not strength of contact. There are also other ways that Slaughter increased his slugging percentage that required no strength at all, which will be discussed later. Radar guns weren’t a thing back in 1947, so actual measurements are impossible to look at; therefore, I believe homers are the best way to look at arm strength. Just look at the 2000’s- all the players infamously known for jacking up steroids increased their homers dramatically, but not that much else. So, Enos Slaughter had a career high of home runs in 1946; he had 18 homers. To be fair, he still did rank 3rd that year for homers, but it pales in comparison to what was done even before him by Babe Ruth. The earlier comparison, Jason Heyward, hit 27 homers in his career year. I believe this can confirm that Slaughter was definitely not the strongest player on the field when he played- however, he was still one of the greatest defenders on the field when throwing the ball. Right?
The answer isn’t so simple. He led the league multiple years (1940, 1952, 1953) in fielding percentage as a Right Fielder, and he is 25th all-time in career double plays turned as a Right Fielder. He is also 51st all-time in errors made in Right Field, however. You would think that just means he throws the ball, even when he shouldn’t, in the hopes of getting an out. To me, that just shows he put effort into every play, hoping to get something out of nothing. What is there to blame about that?
What I just mentioned, showing effort, plays a big role in explaining Enos Slaughter’s odd statistics. For example, he led the league twice in triples, but stole 12 bases combined in those two years. It’s obvious he never had much speed; Albert Pujols even had two years where he stole 16 bags each. However, it seems like the triples Enos got were based off of him hustling the whole way, something that Albert never did/does. This should also explain his high slugging percentages, as stretching singles into doubles and doubles into triples can have a massive effect on total bases in a year. Just think about it- it increases your total bases, which is what the slugging percentage divides by. This observation is backed up by the cardinals coach of the time, Frankie Fisch, who, according to the Society for American Baseball Research (SABR), called Enos “the most hustling so-and-so in the game today.” It’s true, his smooth batting stroke was needed to show off his hustle, but that’s only half the physical game. The physical game isn’t even seen as the biggest aspect of the sport; As Yogi Berra once said, “Baseball is 90% mental and the other half is physical.” It appears that, even though Enos was before his time, he took this mindset to his heart, and it seems like it took him far.
