Honus Wagner - Retires From The Pirates In 1917

Wagner played for the Pirates until 1917, when he was forty-three years old. In the latter years of his baseball career, he struggled against the effects of aging and multiple injuries but still managed to perform impressively. He last compiled a batting average of .300 or better during the 1913 season, although his average never dropped lower than .252 in his remaining years of play. In 1916, Wagner married Bessie Baine Smith, the daughter of another professional baseball player. The couple had two daughters, Betty and Virginia. After his retirement from the Pirates, Wagner continued to play semiprofessional ball in the Pittsburgh area until he was well past fifty. His one run for political office—the sheriff of Allegheny County—in 1928 ended in failure, but in 1942 he was appointed deputy county sheriff. In between, he served briefly as sergeant-at-arms in the Pennsylvania legislature. He also returned to professional baseball in 1933, this time as a coach for the Pirates.

In 1936, Wagner, along with Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, and Babe Ruth, were the first players to be inducted into the newly opened National Baseball Hall of Fame. In 1955 Wagner, by then eighty-one years old, attended the unveiling of a statue in his honor at the Pirates' Forbes Field. (The statue was later relocated to Three Rivers Stadium.) Later that year, on December 6, he died at his home in Carnegie, Pennsylvania.

One of the most dynamic forces in baseball, Wagner was active in professional ball for nearly forty years, more than thirty-five of which were spent with the Pittsburgh Pirates, first as a player and later as a coach and manager. One of his greatest admirers throughout his baseball career was John J. McGraw, the longtime manager of the New York Giants. According to McGraw, Wagner had a "sixth sense of baseball" when it came to defense, knowing just where to play certain batters on certain pitches. In perhaps his highest tribute to Wagner, McGraw once observed: "Wagner is a whole team in himself."