Ossie Vitt
American baseball player (1890–1963)
Oscar Joseph "Ossie" Vitt (January 4, 1890 – January 31, 1963) was an American Major League Baseball third baseman and manager in the American League for the Detroit Tigers (1912–1918) and Boston Red Sox (1919–1921). Vitt later became manager of the Cleveland Indians (1938–1940), where he sometimes clashed with his players.
Playing career
Ossie Vitt was a product of the sandlots of San Francisco. He broke into the Pacific Coast League as third baseman for the San Francisco Seals in 1911. He later advanced to the majors as a utility infielder for the Detroit Tigers. Through his major league career, Vitt played 833 games at 3rd base and 161 games at 2nd base. As the Tigers' regular third baseman from 1915 through 1917, he never batted higher than .254. But he was described as a smart, scrappy baseball man.
Vitt had a career batting average of .238, and was a talented third baseman with range and a good throwing arm. His .960 fielding average in 10 years at 3rd base was 20 points higher than the Major League average for 3rd basemen of his era.
The public source identifies “Ossie Vitt” as american baseball player (1890–1963). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ossie, Vitt and American.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 28, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q659218. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1890, 1963, 1912 and 1918.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ossie Vitt” 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.