Billy Southworth Marquee Hall of Fame 2008

He debuted for Cleveland in August 1913 and was still in a lineup in 1929, an outfielder for six clubs. He batted .297 with 1,296 hits, 661 runs and 561 runs batted in, led the National League in triples in 1919 with 14, and had his best year in 1923, when he made 195 hits for the Boston Braves.

He moved from the Giants to St. Louis in the middle of 1926, and the Cardinals won the World Series that October. The Hall of Fame elected him in 2008 as a manager: he had the Cardinals through the war years, when they took pennants and World Series, and later brought the Boston Braves a pennant.

His son and namesake flew bombing missions over Europe, came home to train other crews, and was killed when his aircraft went down into a New York bay. Southworth kept managing through it. He died in 1969, and the Hall of Fame vote came thirty-nine years later, which is a long wait even by that committee's standards.