Taffy Wright
Taffy Wright (Taft Shedron Wright) was an American baseball player who was a right fielder in Major League Baseball from 1938 to 1949. Born August 10, 1911 in Tabor City, North Carolina, he batted left-handed and threw right-handed. He debuted with the Washington Senators on April 18, 1938, and played his last game on September 16, 1949 for the Philadelphia Athletics. He died October 22, 1981 in Orlando, Florida.
W right played for the Senators (1938–39), the Chicago White Sox (1940–42, 1946–48), and the Philadelphia Athletics (1949). Over his nine-year career, he appeared in 1,029 games, batted .311 (1,115 hits in 3,583 at-bats), hit 38 home runs and had 553 RBIs, plus 465 runs scored.
In 1940, he became the first White Sox player to hit a pinch-hit grand slam. His career was interrupted by World War II when he served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945, playing on military teams and earning Army Air Force All-Star honors in 1945.
A rookie-season batting leader despite limited playing time helped inspire the informal “Taffy Wright Rule,” which says a batting champion should play at least 100 games in the field to qualify.
After retiring as a player, he worked as a minor league manager. He is buried in Meadowbrook Cemetery in Lumberton, North Carolina.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 16:03 (CET).