Red Ruffing Marquee Hall of Fame 1967

A mining accident in his boyhood took toes off his left foot, which ended any idea of him as an outfielder and made him a pitcher. Boston had the worst of him. He lost 25 games in 1928 and 22 in 1929, both league highs, for a last-place club that scored fewer runs than anyone else in the league.

The Yankees bought him in 1930 and he turned into a different pitcher. He won twenty or more in 1936, 1937, 1938 and 1939, led the American League in wins in 1938, in strikeouts in 1932 and in shutouts in 1939, and finished 273-225 with 335 complete games. He could hit, too: .269, with 521 hits and 36 home runs.

Military service took his 1943 and 1944 seasons, and he came back in 1945, at forty, to win seven more games. Fifteen times the writers voted on him. In 1967 he came up seven short of the 219 votes he needed, and a runoff election held that same year put him in with 266 of 306.