Batting average .264 Role Baseball player Name Harry Anderson | Runs batted in 242 Home runs 60 | |
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Died 1998, Greenville, Delaware, United States | ||
Harry Walter Anderson (September 10, 1931 – June 11, 1998) was an American Major League Baseball player. The native of North East, Maryland, was nicknamed "Harry the Horse," standing 6 feet 3 inches (1.91 m) tall and weighing 205 pounds (93 kg). He batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He is the last player in MLB to lead the league in strikeouts (95 in 1958) with fewer than 100 strikeouts.
An outfielder, Anderson attended West Chester University of Pennsylvania and was signed in 1953 by the Philadelphia Phillies. Anderson played 484 career games from 1957–61 with the Phillies and the Cincinnati Reds. Anderson's first two years in the Major Leagues were his finest. Playing as the Phils' regular left fielder with occasional appearances as a first baseman, Anderson finished in the Top 25 in voting for the National League Most Valuable Player Award in both 1957 and 1958.
During the latter campaign, in his sophomore season in Philadelphia, he batted .301 with 23 Home runs and 97 runs batted in, all career highs. But Anderson's performance went into decline in 1959 and in June 1960 the Phillies traded him to the Reds with Wally Post for young outfielder Tony González and Lee Walls. González would be the Phils' starting centerfielder for much of the 1960s. Anderson, meanwhile, continued to struggle in Cincinnati and was sent to the minor leagues during the May 1961 roster cutdown.
Overall, Anderson recorded 419 career hits in 1,586 at bats in the Major Leagues. He died at age 66 of a heart attack at his home in Greenville, Delaware, six years after his 1992 induction into the Delaware Sports Museum and Hall of Fame.