King Kelly Marquee Hall of Fame 1945

He played every position: 750 games in the outfield, 584 behind the plate, 96 at third, 90 at shortstop, 54 at second, 25 at first and 12 in the pitcher's box. He scored 1,357 runs in 1,456 games, collected 1,813 hits, and led the National League in runs three times and in doubles three times.

Chicago won five pennants in his seven seasons there. The club then sold him to Boston for a sum no player had commanded before, and he became the game's first real celebrity: a song, 'Slide, Kelly, Slide,' was written about him, and crowds came to see him rather than his team.

He is credited with inventing tricks the single umpire of the day could not police, though the best-known story, that he substituted himself into a game to catch a foul ball, is probably apocryphal. He player-managed a Cincinnati club known as Kelly's Killers, drank hard, and died of pneumonia at thirty-six. His 368 stolen bases cover only the seasons in which the statistic was kept.