Larry Doyle (baseball)

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Larry Doyle (baseball) bigraphy, stories - American baseball player

Larry Doyle (baseball) : biography

July 31, 1886 – March 1, 1974

Lawrence Joseph Doyle (July 31, 1886 – March 1, 1974), nicknamed "Laughing Larry," was an American second baseman in Major League Baseball from 1907 to 1920 who played almost his entire career for the New York Giants. The National League’s outstanding second baseman during the 1910s, he was awarded the Chalmers Award as the league’s best player, and won the batting title with a .320 average. The team captain and top everyday star on three consecutive pennant winners (1911–13), his .408 career slugging average was the top mark by an NL second baseman when he retired, as were his career totals in hits (1887), doubles (299), triples (123), total bases (2654) and extra base hits (496). He ended his career among the major league leaders in career games (5th, 1730), putouts (9th, 3635), assists (9th, 4654), total chances (9th, 8732) and double plays (5th, 694) at second base, and set Giants franchise records for career games, at bats and doubles, each of which was broken by Bill Terry.

Biography

Born in Caseyville, Illinois, Doyle was a third baseman in the minor leagues before his contract was purchased by the Giants for a then-record $4,500. He debuted with the Giants on July 22, , arriving late after taking the wrong boat across the Hudson River; he cost his team the game with a ninth-inning error, though he also had a pair of hits. Doyle moved to Breese, Illinois, where his family owned a motel next to the current city hall. He expected to be returned to the minor leagues; instead, he was retained by manager John McGraw, who named him the team’s field captain in 1908 – a year in which he finished third in the batting race with a .308 average. Doyle, who also became the roommate of Christy Mathewson for several years, followed up with a season in which he led the NL in hits (172) and was among the league’s top four players in batting (.302), slugging (.419), home runs (6) and total bases (239). 1910 saw a slight dropoff, though he was still third in the NL in home runs (8) and fourth in runs scored (97). He then entered the strongest part of his career; in he finished third in the voting for the initial Chalmers Award after hitting .310 and finishing second in the league with a .527 slugging average – the highest by an NL second baseman since Ross Barnes slugged .590 in the league’s inaugural 1876 campaign. Doyle also led the league with 25 triples, the most by an NL player since 1899; it remains the highest total by a Giant since 1900. He stole 30 bases for the third consecutive year, and finished fourth in the league in home runs (13) and fifth in runs (102). In the 1911 World Series against the Philadelphia Athletics, he batted .304; with the Giants facing elimination in Game 5, he went 4 for 5, doubling and scoring an intensely disputed run in the 10th inning for a 4–3 victory. He again doubled and scored for a 1–0 lead in the first inning of Game 6, but the Giants lost the game 13–2, and with it the Series.

Doyle (right) with [[Roger Peckinpaugh (left) of the New York Yankees]] Doyle then had a 1912 season which was perhaps even better, winning the Chalmers Award after hitting a career-high .330 as the Giants repeated as NL champions. In the 1912 World Series against the Boston Red Sox he only hit .242, though he scored the first run in a Game 6 victory and was 3 for 4 with a home run in an 11–4 rout in Game 7. But he was 0 for 5 in Game 8 as the Red Sox won 3–2 in ten innings, after New York took a 2–1 lead in the top of the 10th, to capture the title. In 1913 the Giants won their third straight pennant; although he batted only .280, he stole 30 bases for the fifth year in a row and was eighth in the NL with 73 runs batted in. That year, he became the first player to hit a home run out of the Polo Grounds. He had an even more dismal 1913 World Series, hitting only .150 against the Athletics as the Giants lost in five games, though he did drive in the first run of the Series. In he slipped to a .260 average, but was fourth in the league in runs. On July 17, he hit a home run in the top of the 21st inning to defeat the Pittsburgh Pirates 3–1.