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Friday, June 12, 2009

Former Cleveland Indians shortstop Woodie Held dies at age 77

Woodie Held hit lots of homers back when other shortstops didn’t.

Genial off the field and aggressive on it, Held was the first Indians shortstop until Jhonny Peralta in 2005 to launch more than 20 home runs in a season.

Held’s power seemed contagious on July 31, 1963. He hit the first of four Indians homers in a row.

Held died Wednesday at age 77 at his Dubois, Wyo., ranch after seven months’ struggle with brain cancer. His wife and high school sweetheart, Nadine, is fighting the same disease.

RIP, Woodie Held

Baseball-Birthdays.com Posted: June 12, 2009 at 10:58 AM | 8 comment(s) | Login to Bookmark
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1. Ron Johnson Posted: June 12, 2009 at 01:35 PM (#3216046)

"Don't forget to swing hard, in case you hit the ball." -- Woodie Held

2. wjones Posted: June 12, 2009 at 01:55 PM (#3216081)

One of my all-time favorite baseball names! Belongs on the same team with Dick Pole, Jack Glasscock, etc.

3. DanG Posted: June 12, 2009 at 02:25 PM (#3216130)

All players with 500+ games at SS for the Indians

Cnt Player            OPS+  HR   PA  From  To
+----+-----------------+----+---+-----+----+----+
  1 Lou Boudreau       121  63  6707 1938 1950 
  2 Woodie Held        113 130  3226 1958 1964 
  3 Joe Sewell         111  30  6576 1920 1930 
  4 Ray Chapman        111  17  4590 1912 1920 
  5 Julio Franco       103  62  4718 1983 1997 
  6 Jhonny Peralta     100  87  3040 2003 2009 
  7 Terry Turner        91   8  6515 1904 1918 
  8 Omar Vizquel        90  60  6542 1994 2004 
  9 Bill Knickerbocke   82  14  2198 1933 1936 
 10 Larry Brown         81  45  3392 1963 1971 
 11 George Strickland   73  22  2450 1952 1960 
 12 Frank Duffy         70  26  2746 1972 1977 
 13 Felix Fermin        68   3  2248 1989 1993 

4. Hang down your head, Tom Foley Posted: June 12, 2009 at 02:36 PM (#3216143)

Held was the first Indians shortstop until Jhonny Peralta in 2005 to launch more than 20 home runs in a season.

So now Peralta is the first?

5. Pasta-diving Jeter (jmac66) Posted: June 12, 2009 at 05:12 PM (#3216375)

a few notes:

-Held was involved in 2 well-known trades: he went to the A's along with Martin & Terry in the Copacabana trade, and (exactly one year later), was traded to the Indians for an outfielder named Maris (to be fair, this latter trade wasn't a complete loss for the tribe, because they got Held & Vic Power--two good players)

-he always had the rep in Cleveland as a butcher at SS, though he tried hard

-he really did have some serious pop in his bat but was always criticized for striking out too much--that was unheard of for a SS

-they moved him to 2B (mostly) the last couple years in Cleveland

6. Steve Treder Posted: June 12, 2009 at 05:26 PM (#3216398)

Very good ballplayer, quite underrated in his day, because of the high K rate/mediocre BA.

7. Benji Posted: June 12, 2009 at 11:46 PM (#3216998)

RIP, Woodie. I had one of his gloves, that he didn't pick up from a small company in Gloversville. It was so soft and pliable and it led me to a 1.000 fielding percentage at 2B (of course, there was only about 15 grounders to second that whole summer) in 1969. Some low-life bastard stole it at our league's field day, so my father got his buddy to get me one of Frank Malzone's. By that time I was put at 1B so my FP went down.

8. Carlo Paz Posted: June 13, 2009 at 12:36 AM (#3217193)

Once as a kid I was at a game at Comiskey. My dad allowed me to go down to the rail to watch batting practice up close (no one minded in those days). Woody Held was playing catch in front of the dugout when an errant throw came to rest near by. The kid next to me must have obnoxiously screamed "Woody!! Woody!! Throw me the ball!!" for about 10 minutes. Finally when he was done warming up, Woody wandered over to the ball, picked it up and with a wink, tossed it right to me. I'm grinning ear to ear just thinking about it more than 40 years later.

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Friday, June 12, 2009

Former Cleveland Indians shortstop Woodie Held dies at age 77

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