Happy Birthday to the late and great hall-of-fame Catcher Bill Dickey. Spending his seventeen-year career with the Yankees, he was overshadowed, considering he played with guys like Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Tony Lazzeri, and Joe DiMaggio. Also, he wore #8 before Yogi Berra came along.

1939: Bill Dickey, (#8) catcher of the New York Yankees poses for a portrait, 1939. (Photo by The Stanley Weston Archive/Getty Images)

Career (1928-1943, 1946):

.313 BA, 1,929 HITS, 202 HR, 1,209 RBI, .382 OBP

  • 11x All-Star
  • 8x World Series Champion

The Catching position is by far the most challenging position in the sport, so from the standpoint of offensive production, what Dickey did at his peak was incredible.

Bill Dickey peak:

1936: .362 BA, 153 HITS, 22 HR, 107 RBI, .428 OBP (112 Games)

1937: .332 BA, 176 HITS, 29 HR, 133 RBI, .417 OBP (140 Games)

1938: .313 BA, 142 HITS, 27 HR, 115 RBI, .412 OBP (132 Games)

1939: .302 BA, 145 HITS, 24 HR, 105 RBI, .403 OBP (128 Games)

Dickey’s four-year peak from 1936-39; is arguably the most significant four-year peak among any Catcher from an offensive standpoint in the game’s history. Also eleven of his seventeen seasons, he hit over .300. During his entire career, Dickey played every inning as a Catcher, and throughout 14,381.0 Innings behind the plate, he maintained a lifetime .988 Fielding percentage. After 1943, he was 36 but still had some good baseball in him, but instead enlisted into the Navy for the second world war.

Overall, he may have been a little overlooked during his career because of the players he was playing with, but he was Yogi Berra before Yogi Berra ever came. In 1972, the Yankees retired 8 for both Dickey and Berra. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1954. He was ranked #57 on The Sporting News 100 Greatest Players in 1999.

References:

  1. Bill Dickey Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/d/dickebi01.shtml
  2. Bill Dickey via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Dickey#