The St. Louis Cardinals’ 50 greatest players

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#10 Enos Slaughter

Here we have the player famous for the “Mad Dash” when he scored from first on a single by Harry Walker to win the 1946 World Series. Enos Slaughter was as old school of a player as there probably ever was for the Cardinals. He ran out hits and walks, hustled in the field and was as tough as they came back then. He was the kind of player Pete Rose was, but 20 years before.

Slaughter doesn’t have the gaudy power numbers that some had on this list, but what he was was consistent as any of them. He finished with a slash of .3o5/.384/.463 with the Cardinals over the course of 13 seasons with the club, and a fWAR of 47.0 over his 1,820 games.

Slaughter despite his lack of power was a good compliment to players like Stan Musial and Joe Medwick, helping the team to win titles in in 1942 and 1946. Like Mize and Medwick, you wonder what he could have done had he not missed the seasons from 1943-1945, as he was off at war.

Despite that, his 2,064 hits with the Cardinals ranks third among all Cardinals, further making the case that Slaughter was without a doubt one of the best Cardinals of all time.

Slaughter was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in 1985 by way of the “Veterans Committee”, had his #9 retired by the Cardinals in 1996, and was one of the initial inductees into the Cardinals Hall of Fame Museum in January of 2014.

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