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Roger Peckinpaugh played 17 big league seasons, all in the American League. Along the way he played with and against some of the greatest players the game has ever known.

Discovered and signed by his boyhood idol Nap Lajoie, Peckinpaugh played alongside the 5-time batting champ and .338 lifetime hitter in 1910. On the pitching side, Cleveland had 511-game winner Cy Young.

Traded to New York in 1913, he became Yankee captain the following season. When manager Frank Chance was fired late in the year, the 23-year-old Peckinpaugh was named the team’s skipper.

Toward the end of his 9-year stay in New York, Babe Ruth was his teammate. In 1921 Peckinpaugh watched in awe as Ruth hit .378 while leading the AL in homers, RBI, runs scored, walks, on-base and slugging percentage and total bases.

After the season the Yankees dealt him to the Red Sox who flipped him to the Senators three weeks later.

Each of Peckinpaugh’s five years in Washington came with Walter Johnson as a teammate. Peckinpaugh played shortstop behind Johnson in 1924 when the Big Train earned the American League pitching crown en route to Washington’s only World Series triumph.

In 1925 Peckinpaugh was named the American League Most Valuable player as the Senators again captured the pennant. For Johnson, it was the last of his twelve 20-win seasons.

Peckingpaugh thought highly of Johnson who finished with a record 110 shutouts. The pitcher’s 3,509 career strikeouts was the most in MLB history until Nolan Ryan passed it more than a half-century after Johnson threw his last pitch. The 417 wins by the Senators great remains second only to Cy Young.

Though they were never teammates, Peckinpaugh had great respect for Tigers centerfielder Ty Cobb. All of Peckinpaugh’s 17 seasons in the American League were overlapped by the owner of 11 batting crowns, 4,189 hits, and the highest lifetime average.

A fine player in his own right, Peckinpaugh witnessed the game’s finest players up close.

Shown here are Peckinpaugh’s thoughts of baseball’s best performers. He writes, “In my playing days, the greatest all around ball player was Ty Cobb. No one was close to Babe Ruth as a slugger and Walter Johnson was the best pitcher.”

Peckinpaugh adds his signature at the bottom.

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Roger Peckinpaugh played in three World Series, the last two coming in 1924 and ’25 with the Washington Senators. Acquired by Bucky Harris‘ club in 1922, Peckinpaugh held down the shortstop position admirably.

In 1924 he played in 155 games and drove in a career-high 73 runs. Under Harris, Washington reached the World Series for the first time in franchise history. In the Fall Classic Peckinpaugh hit .417 with a .583 slugging percentage to help the Senators bring home the title.

The following season Peckinpaugh was named the American League’s Most Valuable player. Washington repeated as AL champs but dropped a 7-game tilt to the Pirates in the Fall Classic.

Shown here is a letter from Bucky Harris. Dated September 20, 1925, the letter mentions the World Series that would start 17 days later. Peckinpaugh went 1-for-3 with a walk and two runs scored to help the Senators down the White Sox 6-5 the day the letter was written.

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Roger Peckinpaugh winning the 1925 American League MVP Award is a bit of a head-scratcher. The Senators shortstop played in 126 games and hit .294 with 124 hits and 64 runs batted in. His 160 total bases and .746 OPS are rather pedestrian, especially in the high-offense era.

Contrast that with the performance of Harry Heilmann. The Detroit right fielder led the American League with a .393 average and 134 RBI. His 225 hits and 326 total bases far exceeded Peckinpaugh’s totals as did his 1.026 OPS. While Peckinpaugh had a respectable 2.7 WAR, it paled in comparison to Heilmann’s league-leading 7.0 mark.

Peckipaugh’s Senators won the American League pennant. However, no American League player was statistically more valuable than the Tigers outfielder.

In his career Heilmann hit .393 four times, topping the .400 mark in 1923. Though he never won an MVP he did gain baseball’s ultimate honor as a 1952 Cooperstown inductee.

Show here is a government postcard postcard signed by Heilmann. On the back side of this card is a Detroit postmark of April 26, 1949 from Heilmann’s penultimate season as Tigers announcer. That day the Bengals squared off in a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox. In the first game Virgil Trucks got the win behind Vic Wertz’s 3-run homer in the 7th inning.

The Tigers tamed the White Sox in the second game to earn the sweep in Chicago. Pitcher Dizzy Trout earned a save in game one and the win in game two.

As was customary at the time, Heilmann as radio announcer, did not travel with the team. For more on Heilmann, see his page on this site by clicking here.

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As owner of the Washington Senators, Clark Griffith fielded many offers for trades. In this letter of November 29, 1926 Griffith writes to fellow Hall of Famer Eddie Collins. The Old Fox looks for advice on a prospective trade of the Senators’ Roger Peckinpaugh for Chicago White Sox pitcher James Edwards.

Collins replies at the bottom of the letter saying among other things that Edwards, “won’t win 50% of his games”. The Hall of Famer certainly had insight, having managed Edwards for the last two seasons. Collins signs his initials “ETC” at the bottom of the note.

Griffith and the Senators did end up trading the 1925 MVP Peckinpaugh to the Sox two months after this letter was written. Instead of getting Edwards, Washington and Chicago agreed on a swap for Leo Magnum and Sloppy Thurston.

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When Hall of Fame outfielder Harry Hooper was asked to identify his all-time team, Roger Peckinpaugh was the choice at shortstop. Though the two were never teammates, both enjoyed 17-year big league careers in the American league. They played against each other in 15 of the 17 years they were active.

Interestingly, Peckinpaugh got much more consideration in MVP balloting than the Cooperstown man Hooper. The infielder received support in the award’s voting in four seasons, coming away with the hardware for the 1925 pennant-winning Senators. Hooper appeared on MVP ballots twice, finishing 24th and 20th in 1913 and ’14 respectively.

Shown here is Hooper’s handwritten list of his all-time team. In addition to Peckinpaugh, Hooper lists many of his teammates and Hall of Fame players. On additional pages Hooper answers questions about having a plaque in Cooperstown, his hobbies, the Black Sox scandal, .400 hitters, and how he wants to be remembered. All of that can be seen on Hooper’s page which can be found by clicking here.