Zach Wheat

Zachariah Davis "Zack" Wheat (1888–1972) appears here on the T206 White Border tobacco set in the uniform of the Brooklyn club then known as the Superbas — and later the Robins, Dodgers, and assorted other monikers across his 18 seasons in left field for the franchise. The left-handed hitter, right-handed thrower had only just broken into the majors in 1909, the season this T206 series began distribution, and his inclusion in the set caught him at the absolute beginning of what would become the longest tenure of any player in Brooklyn franchise history. Wheat would spend 18 of his 19 big-league seasons in left field for Brooklyn, becoming the steady offensive presence around whom successive Dodger pennant pushes were organized through the 1910s and into the early 1920s. His ability to hit National League pitching for sustained averages over a long career — without the strikeout totals that came to define the next generation — made him the prototype of a contact-first outfielder. He finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1927 before going home to Missouri. He died March 11, 1972 in Sedalia, Missouri at age 83. He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1959 by the Veterans Committee — recognition for a body of work that had compiled quietly across two decades in Brooklyn while flashier teammates and rivals collected the headlines.