Leland Huffield Dunham was a first baseman

First baseman

First base, or 1B, is the first of four stations on a baseball diamond which must be touched in succession by a baserunner in order to score a run for that player's team...

 in Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

. He played for the Philadelphia Phillies

Philadelphia Phillies

The Philadelphia Phillies are a Major League Baseball team. They are the oldest continuous, one-name, one-city franchise in all of professional American sports, dating to 1883. The Phillies are a member of the Eastern Division of Major League Baseball's National League...

 in 1926.

Career

Dunham was born in Atlanta, Illinois

Atlanta, Illinois

Atlanta is a city in Logan County, Illinois, United States. The population was 1,649 at the 2000 census, and 1,635 at a 2009 estimate.-Geography:Atlanta is located at ....

. After attending college, he started his professional baseball career in 1925 with the Binghamton Triplets

Binghamton Triplets

The Binghamton Triplets were a minor league baseball team in Binghamton, New York, affiliated with the New York Yankees ; the team also had brief affiliations with the Kansas City Athletics and the Milwaukee Braves...

 of the New York-Pennsylvania League. He batted .334, which was the highest on his team. The following season, Dunham earned a roster spot with the Philadelphia Phillies. He got into five games in April and May, getting one hit and driving in one run in four at-bats. He finished the season with the Virginia League

Virginia League

The Virginia League was a minor league baseball affiliation which operated in Virginia and North Carolina from 1906 to 1928. It was classified as a "C" league from 1906 to 1919 and as a "B" league from 1920 to 1928....

's Wilson Bugs

Wilson Tobs

The Wilson Tobs are an amateur baseball team playing in the Coastal Plain League, an NCAA-sanctioned collegiate summer baseball league. The team plays its home games at Historic Fleming Stadium in Wilson, North Carolina. The Tobs were one of the original teams in the Coastal Plain League when the...

 and batted .300 for them.

Dunham played until 1932. Over 910 career minor league games, he had 1,024 hits and a .310 batting average

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

. Dunham died in 1961, at the age of 58.

External links