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11/15/2018 Irvin HufftSince everyone enjoyed the Gene Lillard Story so much (I took your silence as awed approval), I’ll do a quick one on Irvin Hufft. Hufft has at least two things in common with Lillard: 1) they both put up eye-popping numbers in the PCL for a few years, and 2) the Internet has almost no information on them. Hufft’s batting average during his six years in the PCL was .346. He drove in 187 runs one year and 178 the next. He hit as many as 57 doubles in a season and as many as 39 homers. He somehow managed to never lead the league in anything, but he was always among the league leaders in all the big offensive categories. Looking at his home runs totals during his relatively short career is a quick lesson in park effects, PCL-style.
He hit .311 or better in all of those years except the last one, when he dipped to .283. Basically, he was the same player the whole time, but two of his home parks (Seattle and Oakland) were terrible HR parks during the years he was there, and his other home park (Mission) was a home run hitter’s paradise when he was there. He never played in the majors, and he was only 31 during his last year in the minors (or at least the last year baseball-reference.com has stats for him; he might have played longer in some lower league). He had a great nickname, “Fuzzy”, as if “Irvin Hufft” isn’t already an awesome name. He’s had a decent but somewhat less impressive career in the Redux. The glut of outfielders in our league reduced him to part-time status for what should have been his two best years, 1929 and 1930. He’s hit .325 in our simulation, and was Batter of the Month for April 1931, and Player of the Week this past week. |