finalyear death_date debutyear statvalue finalteam birth_date death_place finaldate image statlabel debutteam name throws caption birth_place debutdate bats position article_title
1915 8 november 1942 1908 .292 11 332 new york yankees 23 october 1882 sunbury , pennsylvania september 21 birdie cree baseball card.jpg batting average home runs rbi new york highlanders birdie cree right '' ` birdie cree '' ' baseball card khedive , pennsylvania september 17 right outfielder birdie cree

birdie cree

william franklin `` birdie '' cree -lrb- october 23 , 1882 -- november 8 , 1942 -rrb- was a major league baseball outfielder .
he spent his entire 8-year career -lrb- 1908-1915 -rrb- with the new york highlanders , which would become the new york yankees .
statistically , cree 's best comparison would be homer smoot .
born in khedive , pennsylvania , cree was a small man at and 150 pounds .
he threw and batted right-handed , and he also attended penn state university .
prior to the major leagues , cree played in the high hat league , then went to play ball in burlington , vermont and williamsport , pennsylvania .
cree made his major league debut on september 17 , 1908 at the age of 25 .
he was a solid outfielder until 1911 , when he had an extraordinary season .
he had or tied career highs in every major category , with the highlights being 22 triples -lrb- which tied him for 32nd all-time in a season and the most in a season for a right-hander in the al -rrb- , 48 stolen bases and a .348 batting average .
he was third in the league in stolen bases and because of his great performance , he was tied with hall of famer tris speaker for 6th highest in the voting for mvp .
as a matter of fact , he was the only non-hall of fame player in the top six for the mvp voting .
he also hit his only career grand slam in 1911 .
cree was on pace for another amazing season in 1912 , but his season was cut short by a wrist injury from a buck o'brien pitch and he only played a total of 50 games .
he hit .332 in that time .
on april 22 , 1910 cree was hit in the head by a pitch thrown by walter johnson .
cree never again lived up to his amazing 1911 season , playing over 100 games only once in the remaining four years of his career .
rejecting baseball disdainfully , he ended his career early on september 21 , 1915 with a .292 career batting average , 132 stolen bases and 62 triples .
in the field , cree had a career .962 fielding percentage .
cree retired from baseball because , `` i had no intention of going to the bush leagues '' .
after baseball , he entered the world of banking .
jack warhop and ed sweeney had been teammates of cree for eight seasons , longer than any other teammates .
on november 8 , 1942 at the age of 60 , cree died in sunbury , pennsylvania , after fighting a long illness .
he was laid to rest in pomfret manor cemetery in sunbury .
at the time of his death , he was a cashier at the first national bank of sunbury .
