Batting average .286 Role Baseball player Name Roy Weatherly | Runs batted in 290 Home runs 43 Weight 77 kg | |
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Died January 19, 1991, Woodville, Texas, United States | ||
Cyril Roy Weatherly (February 25, 1915 – January 19, 1991), nicknamed "Stormy", was an American professional baseball player whose career extended for two decades (1934–1943; 1946–1954; 1958). The native of Tyler County, Texas, an outfielder, appeared in 811 Major League games over ten seasons for the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees and New York Giants. Weatherly batted left-handed and threw right-handed. Despite his relatively small size — he stood 5 ft 6½ in (1.69 m) tall and weighed 173 pounds (78 kg) — he hit more than 100 home runs in minor league baseball.
As a Major Leaguer, Weatherly collected 794 hits, with 152 doubles, 44 triples, and 43 home runs. His finest season was 1940, when he batted .303 with career highs in runs scored, hits, doubles, triples, home runs, and runs batted in for the contending Indians, finishing eleventh in the American League Most Valuable Player voting. Traded to the Yankees after the 1942 season, he appeared in one game as a pinch hitter during the 1943 World Series, popping out in the eighth inning of Game 2 against Mort Cooper of the St. Louis Cardinals. Although the Yankees lost that game, that was the only contest they would drop as they won the Series in five games.
Weatherly missed the 1944 and 1945 seasons while serving in the United States Army during World War II.
Popular culture
In the Black Sheep Squadron episode "The Hawk Flies on Sunday," an episode about the shooting down of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto on April 18, 1943, a member of Marine fighter pilot squadron VMF-214 (the "Black Sheep") is portrayed listening to a Red Sox/Yankees game in which the Red Sox led 3-2 until the bottom of the ninth, when Roy Weatherly hits a two-run walk-off home run. The event is fictional. Weatherly did hit a walk-off two run home run against the Red Sox in 1943, but it occurred during the first game in a doubleheader played on August 29, 1943 in the bottom of the tenth, breaking a 4-4 tie and giving the Yankees a 6-4 win.