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Hal Finney (baseball)

American baseball player (1905–1991)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ5640759
Source-derived summary

Harold Wilson Finney (July 30, 1905 – December 22, 1991) was an American Major League Baseball catcher. He played all or part of five seasons in the majors, between 1931 and 1936, for the Pittsburgh Pirates. During the 1922 season, he appeared in six games, exclusively as a pinch runner.

Finney held the record for non-pitchers for most at bats in a season without a hit. In 1936, Finney went 0-for-35, with an on-base percentage of .000 as well. This was the overall record for most at bats with a .000 OBP until 2008, when it was broken by pitcher Jason Bergmann. He did score 3 runs and have 3 RBI in his last major league season. Dodgers's infielder Eugenio Vélez finished the 2011 season hitless in 37 at-bats to break Finney's record.

Finney was the brother of fellow major leaguer Lou Finney.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Hal Finney (baseball)” is american baseball player (1905–1991). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Finney, baseball and American, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1905, 1991, 1931, 1936—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1905-07-30. For this dossier, Finney, baseball and American is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “american baseball player (1905–1991)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5640759. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1905, 1991, 1931 and 1936.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Hal Finney (baseball)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Hal Finney (baseball) primary sources, Hal Finney (baseball) archive and Finney research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Hal Finney (baseball)”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Hal Finney (baseball)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.