George Cockill

George W. Cockill

• School Bucknell University

• Born June 28, 1881 in Pottsville, PA USA
• Died November 2, 1937 in Steelton, PA USA

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Biographical Information

George Cockill was a National League umpire in 1915. He worked a total of 61 games, all as a base umpire as part of a two-men crew. He had played (1B) and managed in the minor leagues prior to becoming an umpire and later coached at the college level.

In addition to umpiring, he managed the Harrisburg Senators of the Tri-State League in 1912-1914 and the Harrisburg Islanders of the New York State League for part of the 1916 season. He was also the coach at Bucknell University from 1915-1917 and 1921-1922; he also coached football and basketball there and coached at Steelton High School.

Cockill was the captain of the baseball, basketball and football teams in college. He played for his hometown Pottsville team in the minors in 1901. In 1905, he played for the Coatsville/Shamokin team of the Tri-State League. He was with the Albany Senators in 1906 and 1907, hitting .292 the latter year, making the top 10 in the New York State League.

During 1908, he hit .290/?/.421 with 16 triples for the Williamsport Millionaires. He was third in the Tri-State League in three-baggers, behind Frank Huelsman and Pop Foster and was 5th with 203 total bases (between Harry Wolverton and Charlie Johnson). In 1909, he made it to the Eastern League, then one step shy of the majors, and hit .247/?/.308 for the Montreal Royals. The Bucknell University Hall of Fame says he once held the International League record for assists by a first baseman; as the EL would soon become the IL, this presumably happened in 1909. He slumped to .201 with a .255 slugging for Montreal in 1910.

Moving back down to the Tri-State, he was excellent for the 1911 Reading Pretzels, batting .360 and slugging .548 with 12 home runs. He was second in the league in average (.003 behind Bud Davis), second in slugging (.015 shy of Davis), first with 144 hits (9 ahead of Guy Zinn), first in home runs (one ahead of Doc Kerr and Dutch Rudolph) and first with 219 total bases (10 ahead of Rudolph). All four of those other players spent time in the majors, but not Cockill.

In 1912, he hit .286 as Harrisburg's player-manager, followed by .287/?/.391 for the same club in 1913. He tied George Mangus for 5th in the league with nine triples. He batted .313 in his last season as the player-manager for the Senators, ending his playing career.

Sources include Bucknell Hall of Fame

Related Sites

• George Cockill at the SABR Bio Project
• George Cockill on Retrosheet.org

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