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Ross Youngs

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.

Ross Youngs is one of the former baseball players who hold the honor of being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Ross was born on April 10, 1897 and as a player, listed a height of 5 feet 8 inches with a weight of 162 pounds. He acquired left batting style and threw with his right hand. He played his first professional game on September 25, 1917 at the age of 20 years and last game on August 10, 1926. He died on October 22, 1927 in San Antonio, Texas.

Ross had a brief but outstanding career in eight full seasons with the Giants. The lefthanded hitter was consistently among the league leaders in several offensive categories. He topped the league with 31 doubles in 1919. His 0.351 average in 1920 put him second in the National League behind Rogers Hornsby. In 1921, The Texan became the first player in World Series history to connect for two hits in an inning, collecting a double and a triple in the eight-run seventh inning of third game.

The right fielder on New York's four straight pennant winners from 1921 to 1924, Ross’ superb throwing arm and track-star speed helped to obscure his overenthusiastic defensive style. He recorded league-high totals in outfield assists and errors in both 1920 and 1922. In the wake of the Black Sox scandal, claims were made by baseball insiders that Ross had taken bribes from New York gamblers. He is highly regarded in the baseball world and made a quick, calm, and direct denial of the charges, and was acquitted.

Ross never had any equal as a fielder, base runner and batsman, combined with heady work of a quality. Besides being a feared slugger, he was renowned as a superior fielder, revolutionizing play at shortstop.

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