How much is Johnny Mize worth?
| Net Worth: | $8 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Baseball Player |
| Date of Birth: | January 7, 1913 |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 1.88 m |
About Johnny Mize
American professional baseball player, coach and scout Johnny Mize had an estimated net worth of $8 million dollars at the time of his death, in 1993. Mize played as a first baseman in Major League Baseball for 15 seasons between 1936 and 1953. He lost three seasons to military service during World War II.
- Born: Jan. 7, 1913
- Died: June 2, 1993
- Hometown: Demorest, Ga.
- Height: 6-2
- Weight: 215 pounds
- Bats: Left
- Throws: Right
- Family: First wife, Jene; second wife, Marjorie (1957); son, Jim; daughter, Judi
- Primary position: First baseman
Before the bigs:
- Played college baseball at Piedmont College.
- Was in the St. Louis Cardinals’ minor league system but was traded to Cincinnati in 1934. He suffered a groin injury, however, and the Reds nullified the trade. Mize spent two more seasons in the minor leagues before making his MLB debut on April 16, 1936 with the Cardinals at age 23. He was a .334 hitter in the minors with 81 homers in 533 games.
Career Highlights:
- Had a 15-year career split among St. Louis (six seasons), New York Giants (five years) and the final four years with the New York Yankees along with 13 games from the end of the 1949 season when he was traded from one New York team to another.
- Mize interrupted his baseball career by spending 1943 through 1945 in military service during World War II.
- Hit better than .300 in his first nine years in the major leagues, capped by a best of .364 in 1937. His lone batting title during that time came in 1939, when he hit a NL-best .349 and led the league in home runs (28).
- Was a four-time league home run leader. In addition to 1939, they included his only three seasons in which he hit he hit more than 30 home runs — 1940 (43), 1947 (51) and 1948 (40), the latter year tying Pittsburgh’s Ralph Kiner for the league lead. He finished second in 1946 by one to Kiner after a broken toe limited him to just 101 games.
- Mize holds the major league record for hitting three home runs in a game on six occasions. He was the first player to hit a trio of round-trippers in a game twice in one season (1938), a feat he later matched in 1940.
- He hit 359 home runs in his career and might have added another 100 had it not been for the three peak seasons of his career that he missed due to the military obligations.
- His 43 home runs in 1940 eclipsed the St. Louis record of 42 set by Hall of Famer Rogers Hornsby in 1922. Mize’s record stood for nearly 60 years, finally surpassed in 1998 when Mark McGwire hit 70 home runs. He still holds the Cardinal records for most home runs in a season by a left-handed batter and most games with three or more home runs.
- Led the NL in RBI three times, including a career-best of 138 in 1947, the same season he led the league in home runs and runs scored (137).
- Totaled more than 300 total bases in five seasons, including three in a row from 1938-40 when he led the National League in that category. He was also the league-leader in slugging percentage all three seasons.
- Never won a league MVP award but finished among the top 10 in the voting on six occasions, twice finishing as the runner-up (1939, 1940)
- After his rookie season, Mize was named to the All-Star team in 10 of the next 11 seasons he played, missing only in 1938.
- In 1941, Mize sued Gum Products Inc., a company that manufactured baseball cards called Double Play. He sued because he felt the company did not have his consent to use his image in the set of cards.
- After tying Kiner for the home run lead in 1948, Mize was traded to the Yankees from the Giants late in the 1949 season after he expressed discontent about his playing time with the National League team in New York.
- Mize was mostly a part-time player his final four seasons with the Yankees, only once playing more than 90 games in a season. He did help the club win an American League pennant each season however.
- He hit 25 home runs in 1950 and that enabled him to become just the second player (Hank Greenberg three years earlier) to have a 25-home run season in both leagues.
- Mize was always known as a contact hitter and in 7,370 plate appearances he only struck out 524 times, only once striking out more than 50 times in a season.
After retirement:
- Was voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1981.
- During the 1970s, Mize relocated to St. Augustine, Fla., where he worked at a housing development called St. Augustine Shores.
- He spent the last few years of his life in his hometown of Demorest, Ga., where he died on June 2, 1993 at age of 80.
