|
Michael Joseph "King" Kelly (December 31, 1857 – November 8, 1894) was an American right fielder, catcher, and manager in various professional American baseball leagues including the National League, International Association, Players' League, and the American Association. He spent the majority of his 16-season playing career with the Chicago White Stockings and the Boston Beaneaters. Kelly was a player-manager three times in his career – in 1887 for the Beaneaters, in 1890 leading the Boston Reds to the pennant in the only season of the Players' League's existence, and in 1891 for the Cincinnati Kelly's Killers – before his retirement in 1893. He is also often credited with helping to popularize various strategies as a player such as the hit and run, the hook slide, and the catcher's practice of backing up first base. In only the second vote since its creation in 1939 the Old Timers Committee (now the Veterans' Committee) elected Kelly to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945. In concluding where to truly give Kelly credit as an innovator, a 2004 book devoted to 19th-century rule bending in baseball—and which came close to exhaustively accounting for all contemporary reporting on various subjects—placed stress on the following: "Kelly's hook slide does sound special, and players probably tried to copy it. Also, he seems to have been the first big leaguer to successfully cut a base (when the usually lone umpire wasn't looking), at least according to the newspaper record." And, "Kelly could have been the first to foul off lots of pitches on purpose. Doing so was a top trick of some Baltimore players of the 1890s. At the turn of the century, that trick was defused when all foul balls began counting as strikes."〔, p. 319.〕 Kelly's autobiography ''Play Ball'' was published while he was with the Beaneaters in 1888, the first autobiography by a baseball player; it was ghostwritten by Boston baseball writer John J. "Jack" Drohan. Kelly also became a vaudeville performer during his playing career, first performing in Boston where he would recite the now-famous baseball poem "Casey at the Bat", sometimes butchering it. Kelly's baserunning innovations are also the subject of the hit 1889 song entitled "Slide, Kelly, Slide" and a 1927 comedy film of the same name. ==Early life== Kelly was born in Troy, New York to Michael Kelly Sr. and his wife Catharine, both Irish immigrants. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, his father joined the Union Army, and Mike likely learned to play baseball while living with his mother and younger brother James in Washington, D.C.. After the war, his ill father moved the family to Paterson, New Jersey. Kelly's parents apparently died within about five years of each other and he was orphaned by age 18. A best guess, based on tracking Paterson city directories, is that his father died around 1871, and his mother around 1876, when Michael was 18. According to the 1870 census, a Michael Kelly of his age was working in a silk mill in Paterson as of that year.〔, pp. 15-17.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「King Kelly」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|