page_title: Bob Swift
section_title: Playing career
hierarchical_section_title: Bob Swift / Playing career
caption_attribution_description: English: 1949 Bowman baseball card of Bob Swift of the Detroit Tigers. PD-not-renewed.
context_page_description: Robert Virgil Swift was an American professional baseball player, coach, manager and scout. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher, standing 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighing 180 pounds. He threw and batted right-handed.
  Swift is pictured in one of the most famous photographs in American sporting history. He was the catcher for the Detroit Tigers on August 19, 1951, when St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck sent midget Eddie Gaedel to pinch hit during an actual MLB game. The stunt was inspired by the James Thurber short story You Could Look It Up and Gaedel was allowed to bat when the Browns showed the umpires a legitimate baseball contract. Swift knelt on the ground to receive pitcher Bob Cain's offerings—it is this kneeling stance that is captured in the photo—and Gaedel took a base on balls. He was immediately replaced at first base by a pinch runner and he never appeared in a big league game again.
context_section_description: While Gaedel was a novice, Swift, a native of Salina, Kansas, played 14 consecutive seasons (1940–53) in the big leagues and all or parts of 22 years in professional baseball  (1934–53; 1955–56). A right-handed hitter, Swift was listed as 5 feet 11 inches (1.80 m) tall and 180 pounds (82 kg). 
  During his big-league career, he toiled for the Browns (1940–42), Philadelphia Athletics (1942–43) and Tigers (1944–53), appearing in 1,001 games and hitting .231. His 635 hits included 86 doubles, three triples and 14 home runs. Defensively, he recorded a .985 fielding percentage. Swift was primarily a second-string catcher, although he started 83 of the 1945 world champion Tigers' official American League games. During the seven-game 1945 World Series, however, he started only in Game 3, with Paul Richards handling that assignment in the remaining six contests.
caption: Swift's 1949 baseball card
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