When we talk about the greatest athlete of all time, the name Jim Thorpe usually comes up before the second breath. King Gustav V of Sweden literally told the guy, "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world," after Thorpe demolished the 1912 Olympics. Most people know the track stories or his Hall of Fame football career. But then there's the baseball.
People love to call his time on the diamond a failure. Or a "publicity stunt." Honestly, if you just look at a back-of-the-baseball-card summary, you might agree. A .252 career average isn't exactly Cooperstown material. But the real jim thorpe baseball stats tell a much weirder, more impressive story of a man who was fighting his own manager as much as he was fighting the curveball.
The Raw Numbers Nobody Actually Looks At
Let’s get the basics out of the way. Thorpe played six seasons in the Major Leagues. He spent most of that time with the New York Giants, with short stints for the Cincinnati Reds and the Boston Braves.
Total games? 289.
Career hits? 176.
It looks thin. But here is the thing: Jim Thorpe got better every single year he played. Literally every year.
In his 1913 debut season with the Giants, he hit a miserable .143. He was raw. He was a track star trying to hit big-league pitching. By 1917, he was up to .237 while splitting time between New York and Cincinnati. By 1919, his final year in the bigs, he hit .327.
Wait. Read that again. .327.
If a guy hits .327 today, he’s an All-Star. In 1919, that was higher than the league batting champion Edd Roush’s .321 average. The only reason Thorpe didn't win the batting title was that he didn't have enough plate appearances. He was stuck on the bench or used as a specialist.
The John McGraw Problem
Why didn’t he play more? You have to look at his relationship with Giants manager John McGraw. McGraw was a legendary jerk. He was a disciplinarian who hated that Thorpe was "easygoing."
Basically, McGraw treated Thorpe like a gate attraction rather than a ballplayer. He’d use him to pinch-run or play the outfield when the crowds were big, but then bench him for weeks. You can’t learn to hit a major league curveball by sitting on a pine plank.
Thorpe once said he felt like a "sitting hen" instead of a ballplayer. It’s hard to build rhythm when you only get 35 at-bats in a season, which is what happened to him in 1913.
A Breakdown of the Triple Threat
Thorpe wasn't just a slap hitter. He had wheels and he had a cannon for an arm.
- Speed: He swiped 29 bases in his limited career. In 1917 alone, he stole 12 bags.
- Power: He only hit 7 home runs, but you have to remember this was the "Deadball Era."
- Defense: He played 89 games in left field and 72 in right. His career fielding percentage was .951.
One of his most famous baseball moments actually came in 1917. It was the "Double No-Hitter" game between Hippo Vaughn and Fred Toney. In the 10th inning, Thorpe drove in the only run of the game with a swinging bunt—a total "small ball" play that won one of the greatest pitching duels in history.
The Minor League Legend
The real tragedy of the jim thorpe baseball stats is that we don't count his minor league numbers as "official" in the same way. Remember, the reason he lost his Olympic medals was because he played minor league ball for $60 a month in 1909 and 1910.
Down in the minors, the man was a god.
After he left the Majors in 1919, he didn't stop playing. He went to Akron and hit .360. Then he went to Toledo and hit .358. He played minor league ball until he was 42 years old.
Think about that. 42.
He was essentially the Deion Sanders or Bo Jackson of the early 1900s, but without the modern sports medicine or the supportive coaching. He was playing professional football in the winters and professional baseball in the summers. His body was a machine, but the "stats" we see in the MLB record books only show a tiny fraction of what he was actually doing on a ballfield.
Why the "Curveball" Narrative is Mostly Wrong
The big knock on Thorpe was always that he couldn't hit a curveball. McGraw shouted it from the rooftops.
But if you look at his 1919 season with the Boston Braves, that narrative falls apart. He played 60 games and put up a .789 OPS. He was hitting everything. The Braves actually let him play, and he rewarded them by being their best hitter.
So why did he quit?
Honestly, he was tired of the grind and the racism. Let's not dance around it. Thorpe was a Sac and Fox Nation athlete in an era that was incredibly hostile to Native Americans. He was regularly mocked in the press with "Indian" tropes. Fans would do "war whoops" when he took the field.
By 1920, the NFL (then the APFA) was forming, and Thorpe was its first president. He had bigger things to do than deal with John McGraw's ego.
What You Should Take Away
If you’re looking at jim thorpe baseball stats to see if he was a "great" baseball player, you’re asking the wrong question. He was an improving baseball player who was denied the playing time to reach his ceiling.
Here is what we know for a fact:
- He hit .327 in his final season.
- He improved his batting average every single year of his career.
- He was one of the fastest runners in the league.
- He outlasted almost everyone, playing pro ball into his 40s.
Most athletes peak and then fade. Thorpe was just getting started with baseball when he walked away. If he had played for a manager who actually wanted him to succeed—like a Connie Mack or even Christy Mathewson—we might be talking about a .300 career hitter.
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To truly understand Thorpe's impact, you should look up his 1917 season splits or read about his 1912 Olympic decathlon scores. Compare his speed to the average player of 1915. You'll see a man who was physically 50 years ahead of his time, stuck in a game that didn't know how to handle him.
Next Steps for Research
To see the full context of his career, you can check out the SABR (Society for American Baseball Research) biography on Thorpe. It details his minor league stints in the Eastern Carolina League which are often left out of the main MLB databases. You might also want to look into the 1919 Boston Braves team stats to see just how much he carried that lineup during his short time there.