Heilmann, Harry E.
Baseball
b. Aug. 3, 1894, San Francisco, CA
d. July 9, 1951
A four-time AL batting champion, Heilmann was a 6-foot-1, 195-pounder who specialized in line drives. Although he could hit the ball a long way, he was more likely to hit the fence than to drive the ball over it. As a result, he had three times as many doubles as home runs during his major league career.
Heilmann joined the Detroit Tigers of the AL as an outfielder during the 1914 season, but spent 1915 in the minor leagues. He returned to the Tigers in 1916 and was a good hitter, but not a great one, until Ty Cobb became the team's manager in 1921. Cobb had Heilmann move his feet closer together and, with the new stance, Heilmann responded with a league-leading .394 average and 237 hits that season.
During the next 9 seasons, Heilmann batted .356, .403, .346, .393, .367, .398, .328, .344, and .333, winning batting titles in 1923, 1925, and 1927.
He had dramatic finishes in two of those seasons. Tris Speaker was the league leader going into September of 1925, about 15 points ahead, but Heilmann caught fire in the last month, while Speaker was on the bench with an injury. He finished by getting 6 hits in 9 at-bats in a doubleheader to beat Speaker, .393 to .389.
In 1927, Heilmann could have won the batting championship by sitting out a doubleheader on the last day of the season. Instead, he got 7 hits in 9 at bats to beat out Al Simmons, .398 to .392.
Heilmann played with Detroit through 1928, then was traded to Cincinnati. He missed the 1930 season with arthritis and retired after a brief comeback attempt in 1932. He was the Tigers' radio announcer from 1933 until June of 1951, when he had to quit because of lung cancer. He died less than a month later.