Jimmie Foxx Marquee Hall of Fame 1951

He was a farm boy from Sudlersville, Maryland, in the majors at 17 and sitting behind Connie Mack's veterans for three years after that. From 1929 through 1940 he never hit fewer than 30 home runs, a streak nobody equaled for more than fifty years. He hit 58 in 1932, and no one hit more in a season until 1961.

He led the American League in runs batted in with 169 in 1932, 163 in 1933, and 175 in 1938, and was voted Most Valuable Player in each of those three seasons. Philadelphia won three straight pennants beginning in 1929 and the World Series in 1929 and 1930. He drove in 1,922 runs and scored 1,751.

Mack broke up the team and sold him to Boston after the 1935 season. In 1940 he became the second man to reach 500 home runs, and he was out of the game by 1945. He drank heavily and lost what he had earned, working ordinary jobs afterward. He died in 1967 at 59, choking during a meal, sixteen years after his election to the Hall of Fame.