Hint: #1 Less than two weeks after being traded to the Expos. He was named National League Player of the Week.

Hint: #2 He played with or for twenty-eight Hall of Famers in his eighteen seasons in the majors.

Thursday 2’s question answered:

Q. Who was the first player to record three hits in one inning?

Hint: #1 He stayed on the good side of his Hall of Fame manager partly because he didn’t smoke, drink or break curfew.

Hint: #2 In the last year of his playing career, which was the first year of his managing career, he umpired thirty-five games in the National League.

A. TOM BURNS  [Wiki Bio]

– Ans. 3 H/inning = 06-Sep-1883. They were all extra-base hits. No other major-league player had a three-hit inning until 1953.

– #1  Manager Cap Anson was partial to “clean-living” ball players. Anson actually put in writing that Burns would be his ideal successor.

– #2 Umped in 1892.

FCR – Bill Deane, Cooperstown