FABL BIO OF THE DAY
JOHN LANGILLE
At age 23 and having completed just one FABL season, Brooklyn Kings third baseman John Langille seems far too young to warrant inclusion in the Bio of the Day. However, as good as Langille was as a rookie and all of the attention he received over the season after challenging for the Continental Association batting title there was one accomplishment of Langille's that received less recognition then it should have.
On September 16th in a 15-1 pounding of the Chicago Cougars in the Windy City, Langille set a Continental Association record for RBI's in a game and equalled a FABL mark that had been done just twice before by driving in 9 runs in the contest. No other Continental Association batter had ever driven in more than 8 in a single game. Langille's 9 rbi's that came on 3 homers and a double, equalled the FABL mark set by Ed Watley of Detroit in 1894 and matched by another Dynamo hitter by the name of Cy Lynch in 1924. Langille's 3 homers in the game also equalled a FABL record, a feat that has been accomplished 11 times but surprisingly never by homerun king Max Morris. Interestingly enough, Langille was the 4th player this season to have a 3 homer game, following Rankin Kellogg, Mahlon Strong and Lou Kelly.
Code:
FABL SINGLE GAME RBI LEADERS
1 Ed Watley Detroit 9 09/29/1896
Cy Lynch Detroit 9 04/16/1924
John Langille Brooklyn 9 09/16/1934
4 Calvin Kidd Cougars 8 07/14/1899
Matt Younger Detroit 8 05/12/1921
Dick York Detroit 8 08/30/1922
Dick York Detroit 8 09/07/1924
Bob Marceaux St Louis 8 05/11/1925
Lou Kelly Baltimore 8 06/24/1929
Jack Cleaves Sailors 8 04/14/1931
Dick Waller Sailors 8 09/07/1931
Bobby Barrell Keystones 8 07/02/1934
Lou Kelly Cougars 8 08/29/1934
Detroit seems to enjoy a lot of high scoring games and former Dynamos star Dick York is one of just two players to have more than one 8-rbi game. He was joined by Lou Kelly this season as Kelly became the only player to have an 8 rbi game with two different teams.
As for Langille the 3 homer, 9 rbi game is likely an abberation. He is not expected to develop into a power hitter - he hit just 10 all season but did swat 28 in 152 games of college ball with Commonwealth Catholic. The strength of the Canadian born third baseman is his ability to get on base, hit the ball in the gap and play defense. Despite being limited to 121 games this season because of injury, Langille still led the CA in doubles with 49 and topped the league in slugging percentage (.545) and OPS (.948) while finishing second to teammate Doug Lightbody in the batting race with a .359 average.
After playing high school ball in his hometown of Edmonton, Alberta - a locale certainly much better known for producing hockey players than ballplayers - Langille took the long journey to the east coast to play his college ball at Commonwealth Catholic. The Knights have done a tremendous job in recent years developing pro ball players as Langille was preceeded by the likes of Vic Crawford, Dan Fowler and Barney Meeker - all former first round draft picks.
Langille hit .366 in his 3 seasons in Cambridge, and his .417 average as a junior in 1932 was the fifth highest in the entire AIAA that year. He earned second team All-American honours that year after being named to the first team as a sophomore in 1931. He failed to have his name called in the opening round of the 1932 FABL draft but was selected with the fourth pick of the second round by Montreal - the same team that had drafted former Knight Vic Crawford in the first round the year before Langille arrived at Commonwealth Catholic. He seemed a perfect fit in Quebec, a Canadian player with an opportunity to shine on one of the two Canadian FABL clubs and he debut #51 on the OSA top prospects list in April of 1933. However, his time as a Saint was limited to 16 games of minor league ball before he was dealt to the Brooklyn Kings in a blockbuster deal that brought Milt Fritz north. The deal was intended to aide the Saints in a pennant run but Fritz faltered and the team struggled down the stretch before parting with Fritz just over a year later.
As for Langille, he progressed through the Kings minor league system during the summer of 1933, leapfrogging fellow 1932 second round draft pick Ken Mayhew - the player who beat Langille out for first team All-American status in their junior seasons - and was in Brooklyn as a September call-up. Langille showed great promise for the Kings right away, batting .315 with a homerun in 25 games and cemented his status as their everyday third baseman for the 1934 campaign.
The challenge for Langille will be to avoid the sophomore jinx after a season that saw him finish 4th in the Continental Association's Whitney Award voting and help lead the Kings to within a game of the winning just the fourth CA pennant in team history.