Our final OotS feature for the 1983 EL season shines the torch on another guy of whom little is known, or at least reported.
Nary a word about Lewis Hampton in my various research hidey-holes other than a somewhat perfunctory entry in Jim Riley's tome, from which the only worthwhile tidbit is that Lewis fancied himself in the Zack Greinke mode with regard to his hitting prowess. Rightly so, if the stats are any indication, with his career slash over 508 AB a nifty 303/347/518.
That career, sadly, was a relatively brief one that began in 1921 with the Columbus Buckeyes and ended just six years later. SH has his pitching line over that span at 54-43 / 3.95, which equates to an ERA+ of 110 and he led the NNL in ERA for 1922.
So he could obviously play.
Not even Seamheads can shed light on why he took his leave from the game so prematurely. The only bio info they have for him is that he was born "place unknown" in 1901 and both batted and pitched right-handed, along with some physical details (5'10" / 180). Further investigation is similarly fruitless.
The search will continue.
In the EL, Lewis has to a degree traded quality for quantity. Not that he's been poor by any stretch, with his career mark a solid 128-121 and his career ERA a crisp 3.38 (matching his IRL ERA+ of 110), good for more than 30 WAR.
He was taken 338th overall by Cleveland all the way back in the inaugural Draft and over the course of his 16 EL seasons has played for seven clubs all told including his current one Birmingham, winning a championship ring as part of the 1981 MoStars after being traded midseason.
Perhaps the highlight for him in this timeline was the 1-hitter he pitched in 1973 for the American Giants against the Elite Giants and he's also pitched three 2-hitters.
At age 37, "Pep" is in the twilight of his EL stay but I'll keep you posted how what's left of his career pans out.
As always in the final one of these for the year, here's the career updates for all previous subjects still active in the EL. Back next year with more of these lost diamonds.