Mel Ott- the Little Giant

His Hall of Fame Career

Mel Ott stood only five feet, nine inches tall and weighed but one hundred and seventy pounds. He was the last person anyone would describe as a giant, yet Mel Ott's accomplishments put him among the elite sluggers of baseball history. Ironically, diminutive Mel Ott spent his entire big league career with one team, the New York Giants.

Melvin Thomas Ott was born in Gretna, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, on March 2nd, 1909. His parents were of Dutch ancestry, Charles and Carrie Ott, with his father working as a laborer in a cottonseed oil plant to provide for his family. He and two of Mel's uncles played on a semi-pro team, so it was natural that Mel would take up the game as a youngster. Mel was a fine athlete, even though he was short and stocky for his age. He became a catcher, starring on his high school baseball team, which played twice a week. When he wasn't anchoring the school nine, he plied his trade for a semi-pro squad, also as a catcher, at the tender age of fourteen.

The New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association turned Mel Ott away when he was sixteen, citing his lack of size as the reason. Ott then joined a lumber company's semi-pro team in Patterson, Louisiana, located about ninety miles from New Orleans. When Ott became a star, the millionaire owner of the company, Harry Williams, told New York Giants' manager John McGraw about the kid while he was in the Big Apple on business. Williams arranged a tryout for Ott, who was so skeptical of the whole scenario he refused to believe it. Only when Williams actually bought Mel a train ticket to New York did it begin to dawn on him that it was for real.

The overwhelmed Ott reported to the Giants for his tryout in early September of 1925. The left handed swinging Ott overcame his jitters and knocked the ball all over the park, leaving the amazed McGraw to remark to a writer, "He's got the most natural swing I've seen in years. This lad is going to be one of the greatest left-handed hitters the National League has seen." Even the Hall of Fame bound McGraw couldn't have foreseen how right he would be!