R.I.P: Phil Cavarretta and Walt Dropo

Two baseball R.I.P.s:

Phil Cavarretta, 1945 NL MVP with the Chicago Cubs, dies at 94

Former Boston Red Sox first baseman Walt Dropo dies at 87

Dropo's career was kind of a disappointment. He was one of the greatest student athletes in the history of college sports, excelling in every major sport, and receiving pro offers in football, baseball, and basketball. (He still has the second-highest basketball scoring average per game at U. Conn!)

In his rookie year the 6'5" "Moose from Moosup" lived up to his billing. He knocked in 144 runs in 136 games, while batting .322 with 34 dingers and a .961 OPS. He led the league in RBIs and pushed the 1950 Red Sox to 1027 runs. They hit .302 as a team. They are one of only two teams to top 1000 runs in a post-WW2 season. They also set the all-time AL record for most runs scored at home (625), and that's never been topped. On June 7th and 8th, they scored 20 runs or more in consecutive games, beating the Browns 20-4 and 29-4. In the first seven games of June, all at Fenway, they scored 104 runs (15 per game).

The most amazing thing about that 1950 Red Sox team is that Ted Williams was injured in the All-Star game, missed all of July and August, then hit poorly in September, so the rest of the team set all those records without their stud hoss. (By the way, Williams had an incredible 25 homers and 83 RBI at the all-star break, and was on his way to the greatest power season of his great career.)

Anyway ... Dropo started off with one of the greatest rookie years in history. And then ...

He broke his wrist in 1951 ... and was never the same again.

He never made another all-star team. He never again knocked in 100 runs in a season. He never again hit 30 homers, and only passed 20 once. He never again had an OPS over .800, or batted higher than .281. Just a few years after his debut, in 1954, he hit only 4 homers in 320 at-bats. He kicked around five different teams until 1961, but was never again a full-time player after 1955.

Just for fun, here is the box score of the 29-4 game. Dropo knocked in 7 that game, but took a back seat to Bobby Doerr, who plated 8 teammates. Dropo and Ted Williams hit two homers each, but Doerr stole the show with three! You may have noticed that Dropo was hitting .384 at the end of that game!