Nap Lajoie Cleve 8/10/09

Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie (1874–1959) is captured here in the Sporting News Supplement dated August 10, 1909, when the Cleveland American League club still bore his name. Born September 5, 1874 in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Lajoie was the smooth right-handed-hitting second baseman whose .426 in 1901 stands as the highest single-season average of the modern era. He broke in with the Phillies in 1896, jumped to the new American League in 1901 with the Athletics, then transferred to Cleveland in 1902 and became the franchise's player-manager from 1905 through 1909 — the team rebranded the "Naps" in his honor for the duration of his stay. He led the AL in hitting four times, in doubles five, and finished with 3,243 hits across twenty-one seasons through 1916. The Sporting News Supplements were oversized newspaper-distributed premiums issued from 1909 through 1913, and the August 1909 Lajoie sits squarely in the middle of his managerial run. He died February 7, 1959 in Daytona Beach, Florida and is buried at Cedar Hill Cemetery in South Daytona. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1937 in the second class.