Preston Rudolph York (August 17, 1913 - February 5, 1970) was a Major League Baseball first baseman who played for the Detroit Tigers (1934, 1937-45), Boston Red Sox (1946-47), Chicago White Sox (1947) and Philadelphia Athletics (1948). York was born in Ragland, Alabama. He batted and threw right-handed.
With one-eighth Cherokee ancestry and less-than-perfect fielding abilities, York prompted one sportswriter to declare: "He is part Indian and pa...
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Preston Rudolph York (August 17, 1913 - February 5, 1970) was a Major League Baseball first baseman who played for the Detroit Tigers (1934, 1937-45), Boston Red Sox (1946-47), Chicago White Sox (1947) and Philadelphia Athletics (1948). York was born in Ragland, Alabama. He batted and threw right-handed.
With one-eighth Cherokee ancestry and less-than-perfect fielding abilities, York prompted one sportswriter to declare: "He is part Indian and part first baseman".
York's family moved from Ragland, Alabama, to Aragon, Georgia, when Rudy was a small boy. Rudy's mother moved the family to the Cartersville, Georgia, area sometime in the late 1920s. They lived in the American Textile Company (ATCO) mill town on the outskirts of Cartersville, where Rudy began working in his early teens.
In his mid-teens, Rudy was playing baseball with older men on the ATCO mill team and receiving local attention for his prowess at the plate. Rudy would become the team's star player from 1930 to 1933.
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