Remembering Eddie Plank and Joe Munson

Gettysburg’s finest, Hall of Fame left-hander Eddie Plank, passes away 100 years ago today. He is only 50 at the time of his death.

Plank pitches in the major leagues for 17 seasons, winning 326 games with a 2.35 earned-run average in 623 appearances on his way to Cooperstown in 1946.

Most of his success comes with the A’s in Philadelphia, where Plank goes 284-162 in 14 seasons from 1901-14.

Sixty-five years to the day of Plank’s death in 1926, onetime Harrisburg Senators outfielder Joe Munson, who in 1925 becomes the Eastern League’s first Triple Crown winner, passes away in Drexel Hill, Pa.

He is 91 at the time of his death in 1991.

In 1925, Munson hits an even .400 for the Senators with 33 homers and 129 runs batted in.

His franchise record for homers lasts for 74 years before third baseman Andy Tracy hits 37 in 1999.

Tracy also comes within one RBI that season of matching Munson’s team-record 129.

No Senator since 1925 – for that matter no Eastern League player – has come close to matching Munson's .400 batting average.

Munson finishes the 1925 season in the majors with the Chicago Cubs before returning to the minors in 1926, where he stays until retiring in 1932 with a .335 career batting average.

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