Elmer Flick

Elmer Harrison Flick (1876–1971) ran down fly balls in the Cleveland Naps outfield long enough to outrace nearly every contemporary into old age. Born January 11, 1876 in Bedford, Ohio, he climbed the professional ladder beginning in 1896, reached the majors in 1898, and held a regular job through the 1910 season — twelve years in the bigs and another two in the pros until 1912. The left-handed hitting, right-throwing outfielder is logged here as an American Leaguer with the Cleveland Naps, the franchise where his peak years played out and where contemporaries reportedly preferred his bat in trade talks even over Ty Cobb's. By the 1909 issue cycle, his appearance on the T206 White Border tobacco set anchored the Cleveland section of any collector's run, alongside teammates Lajoie and Joss. Stomach trouble cut his career short before he turned 35, but the same constitution that ended his playing days proved surprisingly durable in retirement. Flick lived another six decades, eventually outliving most of the men depicted on the same cardboard. He died January 9, 1971 in Bedford, Ohio — the town of his birth — two days shy of his 95th birthday, and is buried at Crown Hill Cemetery in Twinsburg, Ohio (Section 28, Lot 65, Grave 1). He was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1963 by the Veterans Committee, a long-overdue nod to a deadball-era batting champion.