Bob Cerv’s desire to play for the Yankees was roused by a trip to New York with his father, who drove a refrigerated food truck from Nebraska. He was only 11 or 12, but seeing Lou Gehrig hit home runs at Yankee Stadium made him want to play there as well.
Cerv grew into a burly slugger who fulfilled his dream. He made it to the Yankees. Not once. Not twice. But three times. First the Yankees signed him. Then they traded for him. Then they made a deal to get him back again.
My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
Cerv was a very good hitter, posting a career .276/.340/.481 slash line in only 829 games. He was the bat off the bench, the reserve outfielder, and he did the job extremely well. In 1958, playing with the Athletics, he got a chance to play every day and collected 157 hits in 141 games, 65 of them for extra bases, and walked 50 times. That gave him 6.3 WAR for the year, but already in his 30s, he could not repeat that season.
from baseballmusings.com http://ift.tt/2oFbT2o
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