Nap Lajoie Bat

Napoleon Lajoie (1874–1959) brought a level of right-handed hitting to second base that the position simply had not seen before, and the American League leveraged him hard during its early war for legitimacy with the established National League. His 1901 batting line — .426, fifteen home runs, 145 hits-per-hundred-games rate — anchored the new circuit's claim to major-league parity. His Cleveland teammates would play under his name (the "Naps") for the duration of his stay there. The "Bat" pose is one of his three T206 White Border cards in the 1909–1911 tobacco issue, depicting him in a hitting stance with the lumber held upright. Lajoie collected over 3,200 career hits, won four batting titles, and managed Cleveland for parts of five seasons while continuing to play the field every day. He died February 7, 1959 in Daytona Beach, Florida. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1937 in the second class of Cooperstown's electors.