Batting average .262 Role Baseball player Name Billy Cox | Runs batted in 351 Home runs 66 | |
Died March 30, 1978, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States | ||
William Richard Cox (August 29, 1919 – March 30, 1978) was a Major League Baseball third baseman.
He played for the Newport Buffaloes high school team. Signed as an amateur free agent by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1940, Cox made his Major League debut with the Pirates on September 20, 1941, playing in ten games at shortstop that season before serving in the military during World War II.
After returning to the Pirates, he was the starting shortstop in 1946 and 1947 before being traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers on December 8, 1947, along with Preacher Roe and Gene Mauch, for Dixie Walker, Hal Gregg and Vic Lombardi.
Cox was the third baseman of a Dodgers infield in the 1950s that included Gil Hodges, Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese.
In the 1953 World Series, Cox had a two-run double in Game 2 and a three-run homer in Game 5 against the New York Yankees. He batted .304 for the Series and led Brooklyn in runs batted in with six.
Cox was an infield starter (principally at third base) and leadoff hitter for the Baltimore Orioles for the first half of 1955, but after being pulled for a pinch runner on June 11, was traded at the trading deadline, June 16. Cox, however, would not report to his new team, the Cleveland Indians, reigning American League champions. Even after a meeting with Indians' manager Al López, Cox resolved to retire and did so on June 17. After Cox retired, the Orioles never settled on a starting third baseman until Brooks Robinson won the job in 1957. The Orioles used 13 third basemen in 1955.
The youth baseball park on North Second Street in Newport, Pennsylvania, is named after Cox, and hosts River League games (independent Little League) as well as an annual Pete Howell Memorial tournament during the second week of July. Howell was the local district justice and long-time president of the Newport Baseball Association.