| Marker Text |
(April 10, 1897-October 22, 1927) Baseball Hall of Fame right fielders Ross Youngs was born in Shiner to Stonewall Jackson and Henrie (Middlebrook) Youngs. His father was the railroad station agent and manager of the Shiner baseball team. The family moved to San Antonio, and his father later left Henrie to raise their three sons. At West Texas Military Academy, Ross was a gifted athlete in football, basketball, baseball and track. He turned down college football scholarships to pursue professional baseball. Beginning in 1913, he played infield for minor league teams in several Texas cities.
In 1916 Ross, as a switch-hitting infielder with the Sherman Lions of the Class D Western Association, batted an impressive .362 average. Lions manager Walter Frantz wrote to New York Giants manager John McGraw, who sent scout Dick Kinsella to evaluate Youngs. The Giants bought the rights to the 19-year-old for $2,000. He reported to Giants training camp at Marlin in 1917 and was assigned to the AAA Rochester Hustlers to learn to play in the outfield. Youngs had a .356 batting average in 140 games in the International League and got a call-up to the Giants to play right field on September 25, 1917.
He became the Giants' starting right fielder in 1918 and gave up switch-hitting to be a purely left-handed hitter with a .302 batting average. He quickly became a star, leading the league in doubles and assists in 1919 and finishing second in the National League batting race in 1920 to fellow Texan Rogers Hornsby. From 1921 to 1924, the Giants won four straight NL Pennants and two World Series. Beginning in 1925, Youngs was plagued by health problems. He returned to San Antonio, where doctors diagnosed his illness as Bright's Disease, a then-incurable kidney condition. When he died at age 30, McGraw's eulogy included the tribute "he was the greatest outfielder I ever saw on a ball field." In 1972, Ross Youngs was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. (2018) |
