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Home > Baseball > MLB Hall of Famers > Frank Selee
Frank Selee
Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.
Frank Selee was born on 26 October1859 in Amherst, New Hampshire. He was died on 5 July 1909 in Denver, Colorado. One of the most successful field managers in the history of the National League, Frank Selee led the 19th century Boston Beaneaters to five pennants and transformed the struggling Chicago Cubs into champions. During his 16 years as a manager from 1890 to 1905, his teams fashioned an outstanding .599 winning percentage. Known as a flawless judge of talent and a skillful handler of players, he was the architect of the Cubs' famous double play combination Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Frank Selee compiled the fourth-best managerial percentage, .598, in baseball history. His Boston teams won five pennants. In a sixteen-year career, he never finished lower than fifth. Twelve of his players are in the Hall of Fame and a good case can be made for five or six others. Selee himself was posthumously inducted in 1999.
His teams were expert at such maneuvers as the hit and run, the 3-6-3 double play, and defensive shifts and signals. Yet his most amazing talent was recognizing not only a player's potential, but the proper position for him to play. In his three-plus years remaking the Cubs, losers since 1886, he converted, among others, catcher Frank Chance to first base, shortstop Johnny Evers to second base and third baseman Joe Tinker to shortstop. He was elected to Hall of Fame by Veterans Committee in 1999, as a Manager.
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