Ray Schalk Marquee Hall of Fame 1955

He was small for the position and his value was in the workload: twelve seasons of 100 games caught, eight of them 125 or more, and 151 in 1920 alone. At the plate he batted .253 on 1,345 hits, with 11 home runs in 18 seasons and 638 walks. He stole 177 bases, which catchers mostly do not.

Chicago won the World Series in 1917 with him catching 139 games, and won the pennant again in 1919. Players from that 1919 club were later banned from baseball for fixing the World Series. Schalk was not implicated. He stayed with the White Sox through 1928, catching for a club stripped of its best men.

On June 27, 1922 in Detroit he hit for the cycle, the only time he did it, which for a man with 11 career home runs took some arranging. When he finished, no catcher had caught more games than he had. The writers never elected him; his best showing was 113 votes of 251, in 1955, and the Veterans Committee put him in that same year.