Beals Becker

Born in El Dorado in 1886, Beals Becker played for one of the all-time great minor league teams before an eight-year major league career.

Becker was an all-around athlete at Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri. He played left end in football, was center on the basketball team, and pitched and played the outfield. He was the recipient of Wentworth’s Champion Athlete Award in 1903, his last year at the Academy, in which he was a lieutenant and was also a member of the bugle corps.

Becker began playing professional baseball in 1905 in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1906, he split the season between Little Rock and the Wichita Jobbers of the Western Association. In 1907 the Jobbers were 98-35 (.737), the third-best season in minor league history. Becker hit .310 and won five games on the mound that season.

The next year, Becker broke into the major leagues with Pittsburgh, who traded him to the Boston Doves during the season. The next season he was the Doves’ regular right fielder, hitting .246 with six home runs.

In 1910, Becker was traded to New York and played in the 1911 and 1912 World Series with the Giants. His best seasons, though, came with the Philadelphia Phillies, starting in 1913. Playing a partial season with the Phillies in 1913, Becker hit .324 with nine home runs. The next season, he was second in the National League with a .325 and again hit nine home runs.

In 1915, Becker’s average fell to .246 but he hit 11 home runs and helped the Phillies to the World Series. It was his last season in the major leagues, hitting .276 with 45 home runs in his career. Four times he was among the league leaders in home runs during the “deadball era.”

After his MLB days, Becker played six season for the Kansas City Blues of the American Association. He also played two seasons in the Cuban League.

Becker died in 1943 in Huntington Park, California. He was 57 years old.

In 2009, on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow, Becker’s great-great nephew brought two photographs and a uniform belonging to Becker to the show for appraisal. The items were valued at $50,000.