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Edward James Delahanty (October 30, 1867 - July 2, 1903) was a distinguished Major League Baseball player at the prime of his lifetime.
A Cleveland, Ohio native nicknamed "Big Ed", Delahanty was a first baseman and powerful righthanded batter in the 1890s. He was also the most prominent member of the largest group of siblings ever to play in the major leagues, having four brothers that also played major league baseball: Frank, Jim, Joe and Tom.
Ed Delahanty began his career on May 22, 1888, with the Philadelphia Quakers in the National League, playing 74 games that season with an uncharacteristically low .228 average, 1 HR, and 31 RBI. The next year, in 56 games, he raised his average to .293. In 1890 he jumped to the Player's League, but returned to the Phillies the next year when that league folded. After a healthy .306, 6 HR, 91 RBI season in 1892, Delahanty blossomed in 1893 with .368, 19 HR and 146 RBI, narrowly missing the Triple Crown (the great hitters Billy Hamilton and Sam Thompson lead the league in batting with .380 and .370 respectively).
Between 1894-96 Delahanty continued terrorizing the league, with astonishing batting marks: .407, 4 HR, 131 RBI; .404, 11 HR, 106 RBI; .397, 13 HR, 126 RBI; and despite his high .407 in 1897, the champion bat belonged to Hugh Duffy with an amazing .440. Finally, Delahanty won his first batting title in 1899 with a .410 batting average, adding nine homers and 137 RBI.
On July 13, 1896, Delahanty batted four home runs in a game, being only the second player to do so (Bobby Lowe was the first in 1894). Later, in 1899, he batted four doubles in the same game. He remains the only man with a four-homer game to his credit to also have a game in which he hit four doubles. The same year Delahanty collected hits in 10 consecutive at bats, and in the 1890 and '94 seasons, he tallied six-hit games. After switching to the new American League in 1902, playing for the Washington Senators, Delahanty won his second batting title with a .376 mark.
In his 16 seasons with Philadelphia, Cleveland and Washington, Delahanty batted .346, with 101 HRs and 1464 RBI, 522 doubles, 185 triples and 455 stolen bases. He also led the league in slugging average and runs batted in three times each, and batted over .400 three times. In the years since, Rogers Hornsby has been the only 3-time .400-hitter in the National League (1922, 1924-25).
The greatest natural hitter of his time, Ed Delahanty died tragically when he was swept over Niagara Falls at the age of 35, apparently falling from a train trestle overnight. He was inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945.
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