Wade Lefler

Wade Hampton Lefler

• Bats Left, Throws Right
• Height 5' 11", Weight 162 lb.
• School Duke University
• High School Cooleemee High School
• Debut April 16, 1924
• Final Game September 30, 1924
• Born June 5, 1896 in Cooleemee, NC USA
• Died March 6, 1981 in Hickory, NC USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Wade Lefler was an outfielder for ten years, two in college (1916-1917) and eight in the minors (1918-1925) with cups of coffee with the Boston Braves and Washington Senators in 1924.

He was the first major leaguer out of Duke University. After pitching two years at Duke University, Lefler served in the U. S. Army during World War I (BN).

Although he had only nine appearances in one year of play in MLB his batting line is (.556/.556/.889) for an OPS of 1.445.

Known as the "Dean of Newton Attorneys," he opened a law office in Newton, NC in 1924. He later served as Newton City Attorney and clerk of the Catawba County Superior Court.

He died in hospital at age 84 and is buried at Eastview Cemetery in Newton.

Sources

Principal sources for Wade Lefler include newspaper obituaries (OB), government Veteran records (VA,CM,CW), Stars & Stripes (S&S), Sporting Life (SL), The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs {{{WW}}} (WW), old Baseball Registers {{{BR}}} (BR) , old Daguerreotypes by TSN {{{DAG}}} (DAG), Stars&Stripes (S&S), The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase (PD), The Baseball Library (BL), Baseball in World War II Europe by Gary Bedingfield (GB) {{{MORE}}} and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

• Wade Lefler at the SABR Bio Project
• Find-A-Grave Memorial for Wade Lefler