George Possum Whitted

Major League Baseball Player. Played Major League baseball as an outfielder (and occasional infielder) for 11 seasons (1912 to 1922) with the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Braves, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates and the Brooklyn Dodgers. After a late season call-up with the Cardinals in 1912, he emerged as a starter in 1913. Playing back and forth between the outfield and infield, he couldn’t adjust to Major League pitching, and was sent to the Boston Braves in 1914 after 20 games for the Cards (he was batting only .129). That trade worked out well for Possum Whitted and the Braves, because he batted .261 the rest of the season, and contributed to the “Miracle Braves” team that went from Last Place in July to capturing the National League Pennant in September. In that year’s World Series, the “Miracle” Braves went against Connie Mack’s heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics and their famed “$100,000 Infield”. He helped the Braves stun the A’s and the baseball world when Boston defeated Philadelphia in 4 straight games. He batted .241 with a triple and 2 RBIs in the Series. Before the beginning of the 1915 season the Braves traded him and catcher Oscar Dugey to the Philadelphia Phillies for disgruntled star Sherry Magee (who had been disappointed in not getting the Phillies managerial job). For the second year in a row, Possum Whitted became an integral piece on a Pennant winning team, batting .281 and playing excellent centerfield for the Phillies as the captured the National League crown. In the World Series (against the AL Champion Boston Red Sox) he would get only a single hit in 15 at-bats as the Sox downed the Phillies 4 games to 1. (Ironically, in 1914 he was a member of the NL Boston team against the AL Philadelphia team, then in 1915 he was a member of the Philadelphia NL team verses the Boston AL team!). He would be a mainstay in the Phillies outfield over the next two season, and would play in only 24 games in 1918 before entering the United States Army to serve in World War I. He returned in 1919, but on August 8 he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Casey Stengel (he would bat .389 in his 35 games with Pittsburgh). After playing two full seasons with the Pirates he finished out his career with the Dodgers in 1919, playing in only 1 game with Brooklyn before retiring. His career totals were 1,025 Games Played, 978 Hits, 440 Runs, 23 Home Runs, 451 RBIs and a career .269 Batting Average. He managed the minor league Durham (NC) Bulls from 1928 to 1932, holding the team record for manager wins (317) until September 2001, when it was broken by Bill Evers.