page_title: Zack Wheat
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Zack Wheat / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Zach Wheat, Baseball player
context_page_description: Zachariah Davis "Zack" Wheat, nicknamed "Buck", was a Major League Baseball left fielder for Brooklyn in the National League. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1959.
  A consistent hitter throughout his 19-year career, he still holds many Dodger franchise records. Most notably, Wheat has the most hits by any player while still a member of the team in the franchise's history, with 2,804. His brother McKinley "Mack" Wheat also played in the major leagues, and the two were teammates in Brooklyn for five seasons.
context_section_description: Born in Hamilton, Missouri, he was the son of Basil and Julia Wheat. His father was of English descent, and his mother was a full-blooded Cherokee. Wheat began his professional baseball career in 1906 for Enterprise in the Kansas League, followed by Wichita in 1907, Shreveport Pirates of the Texas League in 1908, and to round out his minor league career, he played for the Mobile Sea Gulls of the Southern Association in 1909.  It was during that 1909 season that the Brooklyn Superbas of the National League purchased Wheat for $1200, and he made his major league debut in September. He batted with a corkscrew type of swing, and held his hands down near the end of the bat, unlike most hitters during his time, a time noted as the "Dead Ball Era". Even with his consistent high levels of hitting, he was also noted for his graceful and stylish defense.
  Wheat played his first full season in 1910. He played every game for the Superbas that season as the regular left fielder, leading the league in games played.  He batted .284 that season, the second-lowest average of his career, which led the team, and was among the league leaders in hits, doubles, and triples.  It was in 1911 that his reputation as a slugger began to take hold.  Along with hitting .287, he finished eighth in the league with 13 triples, and slugged five home runs. In an era when players rarely hit double-digit home runs for a season, five was enough for people to take notice.
  Wheat continued his steady and consistent climb up the batting charts in 1912, hitting .305, and finished the season among the league leaders in home runs and slugging percentage.  Over the next four seasons, he continued to be among the leaders of many offensive categories including home runs, batting average, slugging average, hits, doubles, triples, and RBIs. It was during the 1912 season that Wheat married Daisy Kerr Forsman, and she became his default agent, encouraging him to hold out for a better contract each season.  Players in his day generally signed one-year contracts before every season. Each time Wheat held out, he received more money, the club not wanting to lose one of its best hitters and the team's most popular player.  This tactic of threatening to hold out served him well during throughout his career, including during the World War I era, when he raised and sold mules to the United States Army as pack animals.  He claimed that he did so well, that he didn't need to play during the summer.  The team, fearing that they might lose a great player during the prime of his career, succumbed to his demands every year.
  In 1916, he topped off the string of seasons with a finish in the top ten in all the above categories, topping the league in total bases and slugging.  He also had a career-high hitting streak, which reached 29 games.  The Brooklyn Robins won the National League pennant that season.  In the World Series, they faced the Boston Red Sox, which had the formidable pitching rotation of Ernie Shore, Dutch Leonard, Carl Mays, and Babe Ruth.  The Red Sox won the series four games to one, holding the Robins to a .200 batting average, and Wheat to a paltry .211.
  During the 1917 and 1918 seasons, Wheat hit well, but missed many games due to injuries. He had tiny feet, size 5, and this is believed to be the cause of the many nagging ankle injuries that caused to miss many games in his career.  However, he led the league in batting average for the only time in his career with a .335 batting average, his highest average up to that point.  For a player known as a slugger, and consistently in the top ten in most offensive categories including home runs, he hit none that season, and just one the season prior. Not until Rod Carew in 1972 would another player win a batting title without hitting a home run during the season.
  Starting in 1919, Wheat returned to the league slugging leaders once again, as the baseball began to become livelier, proved by the offensive output by the likes of Ruth and Rogers Hornsby. The Robins made their second World Series appearance in 1920, this time facin
caption: Zack Wheat baseball card, 1911 Gold Borders (T205)
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