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“FENWAY'S BEST PLAYERS”  |
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Ike Boone hit .337 for the Boston Red Sox in 1924 and .330 the following year, with on-base averages of .404 and .406, respectively. The Red Sox finished in last place nine years in row, excepting only 1924, when they finished seventh instead of eighth. Ike (Isaac Morgan Boone Jr.) was one of two brothers who played baseball in the majors. He was born on February 17, 1897, in Samantha, Alabama and attended Guntersville High School, in the Alabama city of the same name. Ike enlisted in the United States Navy in July 1918 and served as a seaman second class. Afterward, he attended the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa in 1920. It was that same year that he started playing professionally as well. He played in the Georgia State League for the Cedartown Cedars, and hit for a league-leading .403 batting average. In 1921, he signed to the New Orleans Pelicans, hitting .389 and again leading his league. Ike hit .500 for the New York Giants in 1922, pinch-hitting. In early May he was optioned to Toledo. He hit .273 for the Double-A Mud Hens and in late June he was sent to Little Rock, in the Class A Southern Association. There he hit .329. The Giants placed him with the Texas League’s San Antonio Bears in 1923 and he hit for a.402 batting average, enough to lead the league. He was one of five San Antonio players acquired by the Boston Red Sox in September, Ike being the one who was asked to report immediately after the Texas League season. When he arrived in Boston, manager Frank Chance used him five times over four days, pinch-hitting, and then playing three games in center field and the last of the five in right. Ike played two full seasons for the Red Sox in 1924 and 1925, working exclusively in right field and, in his last 14 appearances in 1925, as a pinch-hitter. He hit a team-leading .337 in 128 games in 1924, and drove in 98 runs. His 13 homers ranked him fifth in the American League, and were more than twice as many as anyone else hit on the seventh-place Red Sox. The 1925 Red Sox as a team scored 639 runs. his RBI totals dropped from 98 to 68. He was still second on the Red Sox and hit for almost the same average, .330. Why did Ike not continue with the Red Sox? Had he been a holdout, coming off two great seasons? Apparently not. Owned by the severely under-capitalized Robert Quinn, the Red Sox were a team teetering on the edge financially, and – while they were very pleased with Ike’s hitting, his defense was considered lacking. In 1926, his contract was sold to the Coast League’s Mission club of San Francisco. In October, he was taken in the draft by the Chicago White Sox. In April he was operated on for appendicitis and was out until June. He had a seriously subpar year and hit for just a .226 average. The White Sox dealt Ike to the Portland Beavers in November. He was slow to get into condition, but was coming around, batting .311 by July, when Portland traded him to the Missions. His hitting picked up in San Francisco, where he had been a very popular player and where he had hoped to land, and he finished the season with a .354 average. He played in 198 games for the Mission Reds in 1929, hitting a league-leading 55 home runs and for a batting average of .407, which also led the PCL. And he was off to an even better start in 1930. Through the first 83 games, he had already hit 22 homers and was batting an extremely impressive .448. In June, the Brooklyn Robins purchased his contract and by season’s end, he’d hit for a .297 average. Though Ike was with Brooklyn the next two seasons, he saw very little action. In 1932 Ike again started the season with the big-league club and played his final game in May. He was released on option to Jersey City. He had finished his time in the majors with an overall .321 batting average in 356 games. The Dodgers sold the rights to his services in January, 1933 and the Toronto Maple Leafs were the buyers. He managed and was a regular in the Maple Leafs’ outfield in 1933, 1934, and 1935. He was named International League MVP in 1934. In his last year, 1936, at age 39, Ike hit .254 and assigned himself work in only 71 games. They were his last games as a player. In 1937 Ike managed the Jackson (Mississippi) Senators, a New York Yankees affiliate in the Class B Southeastern League and then retired from baseball. From about 1952, he worked as head of the plant security force at a foundry in Alabama and worked there for six years, until his death. He had previously worked in real estate and in some capacity with a cotton gin. In 1958 Ike Boone was planning to fly from his home in Northport, Alabama, on August 2nd to an old-timers’ reunion planned for Detroit. He was mowing his lawn the day before, when he suffered a fatal heart attack.
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