Larry Gilbert played baseball before McGuire hit seventy or Maris hit sixty-one, before Williams batted .400 or Ruth “built” Yankee Stadium. Gilbert played on the “Miracle” Boston Braves of 1914, the only team in the history of major league baseball to be in last place on July fourth and still win the World Series. Then in 1917 Gilbert embarked on a minor league career as a player and manager that has few, if any, equals. A.J. Heinemann, the owner of the New Orleans Pelicans, bought Gilbert for what was then the highest price ever paid for a minor league baseball player: $2,500. Gilbert performed as a player and manager for the Pelicans for the next twenty-two years. His best season as a player was 1919, when he led the Southern League with a batting average of .349, had 171 hits, and stole forty-two bases. Gilbert became manager of New Orleans in 1923 and won the Southern League pennant in his first season. He went to the Nashville Vols at the beginning of the 1939 season as manager and general manager. Gilbert won five pennants at New Orleans and four at Nashville, also bagging eight play-offs and four Dixie Series titles. Although his achievements are remembered today only to a select few students of the game, Larry Gilbert nevertheless contributed admirably to building the foundation of baseball, and his legacy is forever woven in that grand sport.
