Sam Chapman
- David Hegler
- May 1
- 4 min read
Sam Chapman was a man of many talents. Whether he was running roughshod over his gridiron opponents at Cal, teaching fighter pilots how to traverse enemy territory in World War II or using his chemistry degree to make the air a little safer in his beloved San Francisco Bay Area, he left his mark wherever he went. Perhaps his most memorable years were spent in Philadelphia playing for the last teams that Connie Mack would ever manage.
The Early Years
Sam Chapman was born on April 11, 1916 in Tiburon, California. Although he had a slight frame of 138 pounds, he willed his body to compete well in football, basketball, baseball, soccer and track at Talamalpais High School in Mill Valley.
As fate would have it, Chapman's football coach was none other than Ron "Wrong Way" Riegels, thus named due to running the wrong way with the ball in the 1929 Rose Bowl with Cal. Despite not having a scholarship in hand, Riegels urged his young prodigy to enroll at Cal. After some thought, sam Chapman decided to not heed his father's advice to work on a tanker and walked on both Cal's football and baseball teams.
As a Golden Bear, Sam Chapman gravitated more towards football and by his sophomore year in 1935, he had transformed himself into the team's star running back. As a senior, he helped his teammates go 9-0-1 on their way to the rose Bowl. Their 13-0 victory over Alabama was the last time that Cal would ever win the esteemed Bowl game.
After earning All-American honors in football, Chapman turned his eyes towards the baseball diamond where he promptly earned All-American recognition as well. After graduating wit ha degree in chemistry, he was drafted in the third round by the Washington Redskins. However, the NFL was still finding its financial footing so when Chapman heard of the Philadelphia A's offer, he signed the dotted line
The A's
Connie Mack had never even seen Sam Chapman play. Instead, he listened to his instincts as Ty Cobb wrote him a letter detailing Chapman's abilities. Chapman soon proved both men to be prophetic.
In his rookie season of 1938, Sam Chapman averaged .259 while bashing 17 home runs and driving in 63 scores. His numbers went up over the next three years, topping off at 25 home runs, 106 RBI and a .323 average in 1941 while leading the AL in putouts as a left-fielder.
After that season, he spent much of the next four years as a flight instructor in Corpus Christi, Texas. Rather than seeing combat himself, he taught America's next generation of pilots how to take down the Axis powers from the air.
Invigorated from this experience, Chapman returned to Philadelphia late in 1945 ready to continue his rise as a ballplayer. In his first full season back in 1946, he earned his first and only All-Star invitation by hitting 142 times at a .261 clip with 20 home runs and 67 RBI. Over the next three years, Chapman led the AL in putouts from center-field.
In 1948, after more than a decade mired in the depths of the league, the A's actually had a decent shot at the pennant. Led by a hodgepodge group of both young and talented and old and experienced players, the A's waged a war for much of the year with the Cleveland Indians, the Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers.
The A's were in first place in August until they were swept in a double-header with Cleveland. From there, the Athletics slid all the way down to fourth in the league as the Indians went on to beat the Red Sox in a playoff before winning the World Series. It was the closest that Sam Chapman would ever get to the Fall Classic.
Cleveland, the PCL and Later Years
Early in 1951, the A's made their longtime left-fielder expendable by trading for Gus Zernial and Dave Philley. A week later, they traded Chapman to Cleveland in exchange for Allie Clark, a player who would ultimately add no value to the organization. Chapman played well in his abbreviated time in Cleveland by averaging .228 and driving in 56 runs.
He would have returned to the Indians in 1952, but at that point in time, he and his loving with had four children and he really wanted to move back home to California. Thus he spent his last three years as a player in the PCL with the Oakland Oaks. In those final three years, he averaged no less than .263 and driving in 254 runs before calling it a career after 1954.
After his playing career ended, Sam Chapman worked 17 years for the state, using his degree in chemistry as an inspector in air pollution control throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1980's, he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame, the Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame and commemorated on the Philadelphia Wall of Fame. Sam Chapman passed away on December 22, 2006 in Kentfield, California.
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