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Dickey Pearce
One could pull up Dickey Pearce’s statistics at the reference sites and be completely unimpressed. His numbers in the National Association and the National League are unremarkable. This is only part of the story; he was 35 years old when the National Association started and 40 when the National League began. Pearce’s reputation and contributions were made long before. He was one of the most famous and respected of all the early ballplayers. He and James Creighton were two of the game’s most recognizable stars. They were also among the first to be paid for their skills. Creighton’s fame blew bright but short because of his early death, but Pearce played until he was pushing 50 years old.
Pearce, a Brooklyn resident, took part in some of the top games in the early era that defined baseball as the national sport. After one of those contests, the Brooklyn Union proclaimed, “Baseball has become permanently established as the most popular and exciting sport of the American people.” Pearce played for and captained perhaps the top team of the amateur era and the game’s first dynasty, the Atlantics of Brooklyn – champion of the National Association of Base Ball Players in 1859-1861, 1864-1866 and 1869.
Pearce’s contributions as a pioneer were numerous. As noted, he was one of the first professionals. Upon joining the Atlantics, Pearce, short and squat (5-feet-3½, 161 pounds), was assigned to the short field position, a roving spot much like the short fielder in present-day softball. At the time the three infielders hugged their bags. Pearce quickly decided he was more valuable moving into the infield to the open spot to the left of second base; hence, he redefined the infield, in the process creating the now-familiar shortstop position. With the bat, Pearce also redefined strategic hitting. He introduced the bunt, and this led to introduction and/or refinement of the sacrifice bunt, squeeze play, fair-foul hit, and place hitting. - SABR
Redid the facegen to give him the mustache AESP noted was missing.
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