- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJohn Peter Wagner
- Nicknames
- The Flying Dutchman
- Hans
- Height5′ 11″ (1.80 m)
- American baseball player, born in Mansfield (now Carnegie), Pennsylvania. His real name was John Peter Wagner. He played semi-professional ball in Ohio and was given a contract (1896) by the Paterson, New Jersey, club before entering (1897) major-league play with the Louisville (Kentucky) club of the National League, Hans (a nickname also much used) soon anchored himself at shortstop with the Pirates. Wagner, called the Flying Dutchman by his fans, came to be regarded as one of the outstanding players of baseball. He led the National League in batting eight times (1900, 1903-4, 1906-9, 1911) had a lifetime batting average of .329 (batting over .200 in 17 consecutive years), made 3,430 base hits, scored close to 1,800 runs, and played in 2,785 games. Wagner, agile though massively built, excelled at fielding; he also led the National League five times in stolen bases. In 1917 he retired from baseball, but returned to the Pirates as coach (1933-52). In 1936 he was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
- IMDb mini biography by: jefferson-3
- SpouseBessie Baine Smith(December 30, 1916 - December 6, 1955) (his death, 3 children)
- RelativesWagner, Butts(Sibling)
- Incredible speed
- Number 33 jersey with the Pittsburgh Pirates
- The most expensive sports card is the American Tobacco Company 1909 Wagner from its T-206 series. Included in packages of cigarettes, Wagner demanded that his card be withdrawn; only 50 are known to exist. On 15 July 2000 a PSA-graded NM-MT 8 Wagner sold on eBay for $1,265,000, breaking its own record of $640,500 set in 1996. As two of its previous owners were Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall, who bought it in 1991, PSA dubbed the card the "McNall/Gretzky" to distinguish it from the other Wagners. On 31 August 2007, the "McNall/Gretzky" Wagner was sold to an unidentified buyer for a record $2.8 million, just over six months after it was bought for a then-record $2.35 million.
- Played baseball from 1897-1917. All his years were in the National League. All but three of those years he played he played for his hometown Pittsburgh team.
National League record: 8 time batting champ
National League record: 15 straight seasons hitting .300 or better.
Retired with the most hits in 1917 at 3415. - Retired from profesional baseball in 1917 at the age of fourty-three. That winter in late December he got married to his long time love. He never married before or after. The reason he never married when he played baseball was he said marriage and family don't work for a ballplayer. Shortly after he retired he tried acting in front of the camera in short short comedies.
- The Three Stooges Scrapbook states that Moe Howard and Honus Wagner may have made as many as a dozen two-reel shorts together but no record of these films endures.
- One of 5 players in the inaugural class elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936. Induction ceremony was held in 1939 for the first four classes.
- I don't want my picture in any cigarettes, but I also don't want you to lose the ten dollars, so I'm enclosing my check for that sum. - to a tobacco company which had already printed a card with his picture
- I never have been sick. I don't even know what it means to be sick. I hear other players say they have a cold. I just don't know what it would feel like to have a cold - I never had one.
- In all my years of play, I never saw an ump deliberately make an unfair decision. They really called them as they saw 'em.
- Things were changing fast by that time, women were beginning to come to the ball parks. We had to stop cussing.
- I won't play for a penny less than fifteen hundred dollars.
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