Primary Position: Right field
Birthplace: Tabor City
First, Middle Names: Taft Shedron Nickname: Taffy
Date of Birth: Aug. 10, 1911 Date and Place of Death: Oct. 22, 1981, Orlando, FL
Burial: Meadowbrook Cemetery, Lumberton, NC
High School: Undetermined
College: Did Not Attend
Bats: L Throws: R Height and Weight: 5-10, 180
Debut Year: 1938 Final Year: 1949 Years Played: 9
Teams and Years: Washington Senators, 1938-39; Chicago White Sox, 1940-42, 1946-48; Philadelphia Athletics, 1948
Career Summary
G AB H R RBI HR BA. OBP. SLG. WAR
1029 3583 1115 465 553 38 .311 .376 .423 16.7
Awards/Honors: Boys of Summer Top 100
To be blunt about it, Taft Wright tended to look more like the fat guy at the end of the bar than a ball player. Throughout his 20-year career in professional baseball, he endured all the adjectives sportswriters could conjure: Tubby, stocky, plump, round, rotund, roly-poly. One writer noted he was built like a “beer can.” Burton Hawkins of the old Evening Star in Washington got it right, though, when he wrote in 1939, “Taft Wright will plaster major-league pitching as long as he can waddle up to the plate.”[I]
For most of the nine years that he played in the big leagues, Wright was one of the top hitters in baseball. No less a judge than Hall of Famer Bob Feller ranked Wright among the most-dangerous hitters he faced in the American League, along with Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio and Charlie Gehringer. In 75 career at-bats against Feller, Wright hit .320, about 100 points higher than the league average.[II]