Aaron Ward

Aaron Lee Ward

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 5' 10½", Weight 160 lb.
• School Ouachita Baptist University
• Debut August 14, 1917
• Final Game June 7, 1928
• Born August 28, 1896 in Booneville, AR USA
• Died January 30, 1961 in New Orleans, LA USA

BR page

Biographical Information

"Babe Ruth was great, but then we expect Babe Ruth to be great. Let us give credit where credit is due, and give most of the credit to Wardie and (manager Huggins) ." - Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert after the 1923 World Series

Aaron Ward was the second baseman for the New York Yankees in the days before Tony Lazzeri. Coming up in 1917 at age 20, he was one of the youngest players in the American League. He became a regular in 1920, and was in the World Series of 1921, 1922, and 1923 (he hit .417 in the 1923 World Series, which the Yankees won).

Ward was one of several players who held out at the start of 1922 for better contracts. Ward succeeded in getting a big raise.

When Lazzeri came up, Ward went to the Chicago White Sox for a season in 1927, thus missing the great 1927 Yankees experience. He finished out his major league career with the Cleveland Indians in 1928.

Ward's father was an Arkansas politician, and as a young man Ward had been a page and later sergeant-at-arms at the Arkansas legislature.

Ward spent the 1946 season managing in the minor leagues with the New Iberia Cardinals. The team played as an affiliate of the Boston Red Sox in the Evangeline League, finishing 5th of 8 league teams with a record of 53-79.

After baseball, he ran a tire company and worked for the phone company in Arkansas.

One source is Ninety Feet from Fame: Close Calls with Baseball Immortality, a book which sees Ward's career as not a failure, but not as big a success as it might have been. The book quotes Baseball Magazine as saying "Ward is still plain Ward to most people, and doubtless he will so remain to the end of the chapter", a rather heartless thing to say about a player who had substantial success in major league baseball.

Notable Achievement

• Won a World Series with the New York Yankees in 1923

Related Sites

• Aaron Ward at the SABR Bio Project