Benny Kauff Baseball Phenom And Outcast

Benny Kauff was a major league hitter, fielder, and base runner of great talent. He played with the Indianapolis Hoosiers and Brooklyn Tip-Tops, of the short-lived Federal League, in 1914 and 1915. Often compared to Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, Kauff was a multi-talented outfielder, who could hit for power. His career was abbreviated because of a car theft arrest in late 1919. Benny was later acquitted of the charges by a grand jury in New York City. However, baseball commissioner Landis effectively "boycotted" the slugger. Landis told him not to play baseball for the New York Giants again. Benny had been signed by the John McGraw managed Giants after the Federal League folded following 1915. Various court appeals failed, and Kauff was never allowed to play baseball again. He was active for only a portion of the 1920 regular season. My E-book discusses Kauff's heritage, his parents, ancestral facts, etc., drawn from U.S. Censuses of Pomeroy, Ohio. I have acquired an immense amount of information from contemporary newspaper accounts, i.e. New York Times, Washington Post, from the 1920s and earlier. Kauff is certainly an enigma to baseball fans. It is uncertain what career numbers he might have achieved if he been allowed to play into the 1920s. His was an abridged career, like that of the Chicago White Sox outfielder Shoeless Joe Jackson.