Whitey Witt Explained

Whitey Witt
Position:Outfielder
Birth Date:28 September 1895
Birth Place:Orange, Massachusetts, U.S.
Death Place:Salem County, New Jersey, U.S.
Bats:Left
Throws:Right
Debutleague:MLB
Debutdate:April 12
Debutyear:1916
Debutteam:Philadelphia Athletics
Finalleague:MLB
Finaldate:August 18
Finalyear:1926
Finalteam:Brooklyn Robins
Statleague:MLB
Stat1label:Batting average
Stat1value:.287
Stat2label:Home runs
Stat2value:18
Stat3label:Runs batted in
Stat3value:300
Teams:
Highlights:

Lawton Walter "Whitey" Witt (born Ladislaw Waldemar Wittkowski, September 28, 1895 – July 14, 1988) was an American professional baseball outfielder. He played all or part of ten seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) with the Philadelphia Athletics, New York Yankees, and Brooklyn Robins. In his career, he hit .287 (1,195-for-4,171) with 18 home runs and 300 RBI. He was the last surviving person to have played on the 1923 New York Yankees championship team, the first year the Yankees won the World Series.

Witt was well known for having been knocked unconscious by a thrown soda bottle at a game in Sportsman's Park in St. Louis in 1922. The Yankees were locked in a tight pennant race with the St. Louis Browns that year. The person who threw the bottle from the stands was never identified, though the Yankees and Witt came back to win the series (thanks to a key hit by Witt) defeating the Browns by one game for the pennant.