Early baseball career

Ashburn was born in Tilden, Nebraska. Along with his twin sister, Donna, he was the youngest of four children.^[5] He began playing baseball in 1935 in the Tilden Midget Baseball League when he was eight-years-old.^[6] He played as a catcher because his father advised him that it would be the fastest route to becoming a major league player.^[6]

Ashburn played baseball and basketball for Tilden High School then graduated to American Legion Baseball with the Neligh Junior Legion team while continuing to play as a catcher.^[6] At the 1944 American Legion Junior Baseball East/West All-Star game at the Polo Grounds, Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack advised him to play another position due to his remarkable running speed.^[6]

Ashburn signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians in 1943 at the age of 16, but Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided the contract because the rules then prohibited the signing of players who were still attending high school.^[6] He then signed a contract with the Chicago Cubs to play for their Nashville farm team in 1944, but Landis nullified the Cubs contract because of an illegal clause that would have paid Ashburn if the Nashville franchise was sold while he was playing there.^[6] After the two contracts were nullified, Ashburn decided to enroll at Norfolk Junior College however, after one semester he would sign a contract with the Philadelphia Phillies.^[6]

Ashburn and Nick Picciuto as members of the Utica Blue Sox in 1945

At the age of eighteen, Ashburn made his professional baseball debut with the Utica Blue Sox of the Eastern League in 1945 and it was there that his manager, Eddie Sawyer, converted him into a center fielder to take advantage of his impressive running speed.^[6] During his time with the Utica Blue Sox, his teammates began calling him Whitey because of his light blond hair, and the nickname stayed with him for the rest of his life.^[6]

Ashburn was drafted by the United States Army early in the 1945 season however, he was allowed to finish the season, in which the Blue Sox won the Eastern League pennant while Ashburn led the team with a .312 batting average.^[6] He served with the Army in Alaska in 1946 then returned to the Blue Sox in 1947, where his team once again won the Eastern League championship.^[7] Ashburn finished second in the Eastern League batting championship with a .362 batting average, and had 191 hits in 137 games, setting a league record for the most hits in a season.^[6][8] After the 1947 season he returned to Norfolk Junior College for a second semester, where he met his future wife, Herberta Cox.^[6]

Major League Baseball

Ashburn's 1952 Bowman Gum baseball card

Ashburn's plaque on the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame at Citizens Bank Park

The Phillies purchased Ashburn's contract from their Toronto minor league affiliate on April 8, 1948,^[9] Ashburn made his major league debut with the Phillies on Opening Day 1948 as a 21-year-old rookie. He started as the left fielder and replaced veteran Harry Walker, the reigning NL batting champion, as the team’s leadoff hitter.^[6] He played as a left fielder for the first 12 games of the season before replacing Walker as the regular center fielder.^[6]

By June 5, Ashburn had produced a .380 batting average and had a 23-game hitting streak while his level of defensive play had impressed Shibe Park spectators.^[6][10] Ashburn was the only rookie chosen to the 1948 National League All-Star team where, he hit a single on the first pitch of the game and scored the first run of the game.^[11]

In 1950, in the last game of the regular season, Ashburn threw out Cal Abrams of the Brooklyn Dodgers at home plate to preserve a 1–1 tie and set the stage for Dick Sisler's pennant-clinching home run that sent the Phillies to the 1950 World Series. In the play, Ashburn was positioned in to back up a pick-off throw on a pitchout, but Phillies' pitcher Robin Roberts instead threw a fastball to the Dodgers' Duke Snider.^[12]

The following year Ashburn displayed his fielding skill on the national stage in the All-Star Game at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Associated Press reported, "Richie Ashburn, fleet footed Philadelphia Phillies outfielder, brought the huge Briggs Stadium crowd of 52,075 to its feet with a brilliant leaping catch in the sixth inning to rob Vic Wertz of a near homer. Ashburn caught the ball in front of the right centerfield screen 400 feet distant after a long run."^[13] He was also the last Phillies player to collect eight hits in a double-header when he singled eight times in a twinbill at Pittsburgh on May 20, 1951.

Ashburn was a singles hitter rather than a slugger, accumulating over 2,500 hits in 15 years against only 29 home runs. In his day he was regarded as the archetypal "spray hitter", stroking the ball equally well to all fields, thus making him harder to defend against. Ashburn accumulated the most hits (1,875) of any batter during the 1950s.^[14]

Ted Williams gave Ashburn the nickname "Putt-Putt" because he "ran so fast you would think he had twin motors in his pants". The origin of the nickname also has been attributed to Stan Musial.

During a game on August 17, 1957, Ashburn hit a foul ball into the stands that struck spectator Alice Roth, wife of Philadelphia Bulletin sports editor Earl Roth, breaking her nose. When play resumed Ashburn fouled off another ball that struck her while she was being carried off in a stretcher.^[15] Ashburn and Roth maintained a friendship for many years, and the Roths' son later served as a Phillies batboy.

Ashburn was traded to the Chicago Cubs following the 1959 season for three players. He went on to anchor center field for the North Siders in 1960 and 1961. Anticipating a future career behind a microphone, Ashburn sometimes conducted a post-game baseball instruction clinic at Wrigley Field for the benefit of the youngsters in the WGN-TV viewing audience.

Ashburn was purchased by the expansion New York Mets for the 1962 season and was the first batter in franchise history. He had a good year offensively, batting .306, and was the team's first All-Star Game representative. It was, however, a frustrating year for the polished professional, who had begun his career with a winner and found himself playing for the least successful team in modern baseball history (with a record of 40–120). He retired at the end of the season.

One oft-told story is that on short flies to center or left-center, center fielder Ashburn would collide with shortstop Elio Chacón. Chacón, from Venezuela, spoke little English and had difficulty understanding when Ashburn was calling him off the ball. To remedy matters teammate Joe Christopher taught Ashburn to say "Yo la tengo", Spanish for "I’ve got it." When Ashburn first used this phrase it worked fine, keeping Chacón from running into him. But then left fielder Frank Thomas, who did not speak a word of Spanish, slammed into Ashburn. After getting up Thomas asked Ashburn, "What the heck is a Yellow Tango?" This anecdote inspired the name of the American indie rock group Yo La Tengo.

In his last five seasons, Ashburn played for the 8th-place Phillies, the 7th-place Cubs, and the 10th-place Mets. The infamous first-year Mets club won only a quarter of its games, and Ashburn decided to retire from active play. The last straw might have been during the Mets' 120th loss, when Ashburn was one of the three Mets victims in a triple play pulled off by his former teammates, the 9th-place Cubs. According to Jimmy Breslin, it was the prospect of sitting on the bench that led Ashburn to retire: "He sat on the bench for a while with another team once and it bothered him badly. And he said that if he ever had to be a benchwarmer for the New York Mets he'd commit suicide."^[16]

Throughout his playing career, Ashburn, who lived in his hometown of Tilden during the offseason, officiated high school basketball games throughout Nebraska as a way to stay in playing condition. He became a well-respected official, but retired from officiating when he retired from baseball.