Frankie Frisch Marquee Hall of Fame 1947

He signed out of Fordham without spending a day in the minor leagues and played nineteen seasons at second base. He led the National League in stolen bases three times and finished with 419 of them. He batted .316 with 2,880 hits, scored 1,532 runs, and struck out 272 times in 9,112 at-bats.

After the 1926 season the Giants traded him to St. Louis for Rogers Hornsby, one second baseman for another. Frisch played eleven years for the Cardinals, won the Most Valuable Player award in 1931, and was on four pennant winners and two championship clubs there. He had already won two World Series with the Giants.

He took over as the Cardinals' player-manager in 1933 and ran the Gashouse Gang to the 1934 championship. That same summer, at thirty-five, he had played in the first All-Star Game. He managed later in Pittsburgh and Chicago, and served on the Hall of Fame's Veterans Committee, where he was criticized for pushing his old teammates through.