Luke Appling Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

Full name Lucius Benjamin Appling
Born April 2, 1907, High Point, North Carolina
Died January 3, 1991, Cumming, Georgia
Buried at Sawnee View Memorial Gardens, Cumming, Georgia (Mausoleum, Chapel West, Crypt 140, 3rd Level from Bottom)
First Game: September 10, 1930; Final Game: October 1, 1950
Managed First Game: August 21, 1967; Managed Final Game: October 1, 1967
Bat: Right Throw: Right Height: 5' 10" Weight: 183

Selected to the Hall of Fame in 1964
Named Minor League Manager of the Year by The Sporting News (1952)
Named shortstop on The Sporting News Major League All-Star Team (1936, 1940 and 1943)

LUKE APPLING
This article was written by Ralph Berger and is presented in part, courtesy of the Society for American Baseball Research

Luke Appling had the misfortune of playing for the White Sox during some of their leanest years. A decade before his arrival, the franchise had been devastated by the Black Sox scandal, when eight players conspired to fix the 1919 World Series and were banned from baseball, and the team did not compete again until the 1950s. Appling, a happy-go-lucky man and a notorious hypochondriac, was one of the Sox' few bright lights. He never got to play in a World Series, as his career was ending just as the team embarked on a period of competitiveness highlighted by their 1959 pennant.

At a time when America, along with the rest of the world, was struggling to cope with the worst depression in its history and the ominous rise of fascism in Europe, baseball provided some diversion from dark times. Appling started his major league career in 1930, just about the beginning of the Depression. The best word to describe Luke Appling is durability, a quality he showed throughout his baseball career and his life. He was emblematic of an America struggling through the Depression and digging into their psyches (perhaps unknowingly) to prepare for another world war. Appling endured and so did America.

"Old Aches and Pains," as Appling was called, was arguably the greatest hypochondriac to ever play the game. Backaches, headaches, bad knees, eye problems would torment him-and then he'd go out and get three hits.