Joe Gordon - Indians

Indians

While Reynolds would go on to win 131 games in eight seasons for the Yankees, Gordon proved resilient and kept his new team from regretting the deal. In 1947 he returned to his old levels of production, batting .272 and leading the club with 93 RBIs, and again pacing the AL in assists. His 29 homers and 279 total bases were second in the league to Williams, and his .496 slugging average trailed only Williams and DiMaggio; Gordon again finished seventh in the MVP balloting. Additionally, he played a major role in befriending teammate Larry Doby, the AL's first black player, who had been a second baseman in the Negro Leagues but became a center fielder with Cleveland. Over Doby's first two seasons, Gordon became close to the player who was theoretically there to replace him, and Doby would later refer to him as his first friend in white baseball; however, reports that Gordon deliberately struck out in Doby's first game to keep him from looking bad are erroneous. 1948 was even better, as Cleveland won their first AL title since 1920. Batting .280, he was second in the league to DiMaggio with 32 home runs, which remained the AL's single-season mark for a second baseman until Bret Boone hit 36 in 2001. He again led the team with a personal high of 124 RBIs, and was sixth in the league in slugging (.507). Gordon placed sixth in the MVP vote, won by teammate and manager Lou Boudreau. In the 1948 World Series against the Boston Braves, batting cleanup, he had a RBI single and later scored to give Cleveland a 2-1 lead in Game 2; they went on to win 4-1. In the final Game 6, he homered to give the Indians a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning, and they went on to win 4-3 to capture the championship. His seven double plays in the Series are still the record for a six-game Series. In 1949 he slipped to a .251 average, though his 20 HRs and 84 RBIs were still second on the team to Doby. His major league career ended in 1950 as he hit .236 with 19 HRs and 57 RBIs.

Gordon was a career .268 hitter with 253 home runs, 975 RBIs, 914 runs, 1,530 hits, 264 doubles and 89 stolen bases in 1,566 games. His .466 slugging average then placed him fifth among second basemen, behind Hornsby (.577), Gehringer (.480), Lazzeri (.467) and Nap Lajoie (.466), and only Hornsby had more homers among second basemen. Gordon might have had even higher batting totals had he played in other stadiums. His first several seasons were spent in Yankee Stadium, with its immense "Death Valley" in left field that frustrated right-handed power hitters; during his New York years, he hit 69 HRs at home and 84 on the road. Municipal Stadium in Cleveland was also an unhelpful venue, being hostile to power hitters on both sides of the plate. Over his career, he batted 23 points higher on the road (.279) than he did at home (.256). He was selected for the All-Star team nine times, in all but his first and last seasons. He was also selected to The Sporting News Major League All-Star Team in 1939-42 and 1947–48, and was runnerup to Gehringer in 1938 and to Billy Herman in 1943. In 2001 he was selected as one of the Indians' 100 greatest players.