Hal Smith

Harold Raymond Smith (Cura)

Position: Catcher
Bats: Right, Throws: Right
Height: 5' 10", Weight: 186 lb.

Born: June 1, 1931 in Barling, AR
Signed by the St. Louis Cardinals as an amateur free agent in 1949. (All Transactions)
Debut: May 2, 1956
Teams (by GP): Cardinals/Pirates 1956-1965

Final Game: July 8, 1965
Relatives: Uncle of Tim Flannery
About biographical information

View team uniforms at Dressed to the Nines a Baseball Hall of Fame on-line exhibit / Report an error

All-Star

Standard Fielding

Adv Fielding w/ run summary

Year	Tm	Lg	Age	Pos	G	GS	CG	Inn	Ch	PO	A	E	DP	Fld%	Rtot	Rtot/yr	RF/9	RF/G	lgFld%	lgRF9	lgRFG	PB	WP	SB	CS	CS%	lgCS%	PO	Awards
1956	STL	NL	25	C	66	58	56	516.0	340	300	34	6	3	.982	-2	-5	5.83	5.06	.985	5.83	5.77	1	21	15	11	42%	40%	1
1957	STL	NL	26	C	97	86	77	795.0	515	468	42	5	8	.990	-3	-5	5.77	5.26	.988	5.98	6.02	17	21	28	15	35%	40%	4	AS
1958	STL	NL	27	C	71	61	52	554.2	372	346	22	4	4	.989	0	0	5.97	5.18	.988	6.06	6.02	2	7	25	9	26%	39%	1
1959	STL	NL	28	C	141	128	99	1105.2	827	758	60	9	13	.989	3	3	6.66	5.80	.989	6.34	6.28	5	34	44	32	42%	38%	7	AS
1960	STL	NL	29	C	124	108	74	917.0	732	664	61	7	9	.990	6	8	7.12	5.85	.986	6.58	6.57	2	24	32	34	52%	40%	0
1961	STL	NL	30	C	45	42	29	344.1	291	261	28	2	6	.993	5	17	7.55	6.42	.985	6.39	6.32	1	9	12	11	48%	38%	5
1965	PIT	NL	34	C	4	1	0	12.0	13	13	0	0	0	1.000	0	0	9.75	3.25	.988	6.98	6.98	0	1	0	0			0
	7 Seasons			C	548	484	387	4244.2	3090	2810	247	33	43	.989	9	3	6.48	5.58	.987	6.23	6.21	28	117	156	112	42%	39%	18
	7 Seasons			TOT	548	484	387	4244.2	3090	2810	247	33	43	.989	9	3	6.48	5.58	.987	6.23	6.21	28	117	156	112	42%	39%	18

Note: Fielding stats are a combination of official records and RetroSheet records. Both are likely to have substantial errors and will not match perfectly.

View Complete Notes on Fielding Data

Leagues historically made no effort to balance team, league, and player fielding stats. Since 1990 or so, computers have made this feasible, but prior to that there are hundreds or thousands of discrepancies each year in games played (even whether a player played a position), putouts, assists, double plays and errors.

Pre-1948 SB & CS data for catchers is estimated from catcher assists, games started and opposition stolen bases.
From 1948 on SB, CS, Pickoff, & WP data for catchers and pitchers is taken from play-by-play accounts in the retrosheet files. There are several hundred games without pbp from 1948 to 1973 and for those we may not have any data.
CG & GS come from the retrosheet data and should be complete and pretty accurate from 1918 on.
Innings played (like SB and CS) come from the retrosheet play-by-play data and should be considered mostly complete from 1948 to 1973 and complete from then on.
Stats (PO,A,G, etc) for LF-CF-RF positions (since 1918) is taken from play-by-play or box score data as available.
Stats (PO,A,G,etc) for C,P,1B,2B,3B,SS,OF positions is taken from the official reported totals and may have been corrected at various times since their publication.
For detailed information on which games retrosheet is missing play-by-play from 1948 to 1973, please see their most wanted games list
For detailed information on the availability of data on this site by year, see our data coverage page

Sabermetric Fielding

Year	Tm	Lg	Age	Pos	Rtot	Rtot/yr	Rctch
1956	STL	NL	25	C	-2	-5	-2
1957	STL	NL	26	C	-3	-5	-3
1958	STL	NL	27	C	0	0	0
1959	STL	NL	28	C	3	3	3
1960	STL	NL	29	C	6	8	6
1961	STL	NL	30	C	5	17	5
1965	PIT	NL	34	C	0	0	0
	7 Seasons			C	9	3	9
	7 Seasons			TOT	9	3	9

Appearances

Year	Tm	Lg	Age	G	GS	Batting	Defense	C	PH
1956	STL	NL	25	75	58	75	66	66	9
1957	STL	NL	26	100	86	100	97	97	5
1958	STL	NL	27	77	61	77	71	71	8
1959	STL	NL	28	142	128	142	141	141	1
1960	STL	NL	29	127	108	127	124	124	7
1961	STL	NL	30	45	42	45	45	45	0
1965	PIT	NL	34	4	1	4	4	4	0
	7 Seasons			570	484	570	548	548	30

Appearances table is calculated solely from full RetroSheet play-by-play data available from 1973 on. A combination of RetroSheet (starting with the 1918 season) and non-RetroSheet data is used for other seasons.

Advanced Fielding -- C*

					Pitching Stats						Putouts					Assists					Errors					Double Plays
Year	Tm	Lg	Age	PA	ERA	RAvg	Fld	F2O%	XI	FC	Tot	Cgt	Frc	Tag	SO	Tot	1B	2B	3B	K23	Tot	Cch	Fld	Thr	ROE	Tot	263	n23	GB	bFld	bF2O%
1956	STL	NL	25	2241	4.52	5.35	69	99%	0	0	300	53	1	5	241	33	12	1	0	4	6	0	5	1	0	3	1	0	1	6	100%
1957	STL	NL	26	3419	3.88	4.34	69	94%	0	2	467	52	5	10	399	42	16	0	1	5	5	0	2	3	0	8	0	5	5	5	80%
1958	STL	NL	27	2332	3.46	3.86	47	100%	0	0	348	39	1	7	301	22	6	2	0	0	4	1	1	2	0	4	0	0	0	6	100%
1959	STL	NL	28	4814	4.27	4.68	78	97%	2	0	760	64	4	20	672	59	10	1	0	3	10	0	4	6	0	14	0	1	1	8	100%
1960	STL	NL	29	3853	3.34	3.76	74	97%	1	0	669	49	3	12	604	62	19	2	1	4	7	1	1	5	0	11	0	2	3	14	93%
1961	STL	NL	30	1510	3.61	4.08	18	94%	0	1	261	10	0	6	245	27	6	1	0	2	2	0	0	2	0	6	1	0	2	2	100%
1965	PIT	NL	34	47	4.09	4.09	0		0	0	12	0	0	0	12	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	7 Seasons			18216	3.86	4.34	355	97%	3	3	2817	267	14	60	2474	245	69	7	2	18	34	2	13	19	0	46	2	8	12	41	95%
	MLB Averages				3.78	4.28		95%																							88%

Advanced Fielding -- C Baserunning*

Year	Tm	Lg	Age	PB	WP	SBO	SB	CS	CSctch	CS%	SB2	CS2	SB3	CS3	SBH	CSH	PO	PCS	RBA	RK	SBlev	CSlev
1956	STL	NL	25	1	21	864	15	11	11	42%	14	11	1	0	0	0	1	0	52	16	1.08	0.99
1957	STL	NL	26	17	21	1308	28	15	12	35%	23	13	3	1	2	1	4	0	79	23	1.43	1.55
1958	STL	NL	27	2	7	867	25	9	8	26%	21	8	4	1	0	0	1	0	43	14	1.10	1.51
1959	STL	NL	28	5	34	1917	44	32	30	42%	38	26	5	3	1	3	7	0	113	47	1.04	1.16
1960	STL	NL	29	2	24	1479	32	34	33	52%	28	33	2	0	2	1	0	0	82	40	1.12	1.05
1961	STL	NL	30	1	9	586	12	11	11	48%	11	8	1	2	0	1	5	0	32	18	1.12	1.06
1965	PIT	NL	34	0	1	16	0	0	0		0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	0
	7 Seasons			28	117	7037	156	112	105	42%	135	99	16	7	5	6	18	0	403	158	1.14	1.18
	MLB Averages									39%											1.20	1.18

* Many Detailed Statistics are based on play-by-play accounts accumulated by RetroSheet. These totals may be incomplete (3.6% of all plays from 1918 to 1973 are missing or have incomplete accounts, click link for year and team summary) for some players prior to 1974 and even complete seasons may not match the official totals due to errors in both the official totals and the play-by-play accounts. Pre-1954 seasons have a substantial numbers of games missing play-by-play accounts and should be viewed as essentially incomplete.

Appearances on Leader Boards, Awards, and Honors

Stats are Year-Value-Rank · Glossary

All-Star Games 1957 1959-1 1959-2 *	Def. Games as C s c a p y 1959 NL 141 (2nd) 1960 NL 124 (3rd)	Putouts as C s c a p y 1957 NL 468 (5th) 1959 NL 758 (3rd) 1960 NL 664 (2nd)	Assists as C s c a p y 1957 NL 42 (4th) 1959 NL 60 (3rd) 1960 NL 61 (2nd)
Errors Committed as C s c a p y 1959 NL 9 (2nd) 1960 NL 7 (5th)	Passed Balls s c a p y 1957 NL 17 (1st) 1959 NL 5 (3rd)	Stolen Bases Allowed as C s c a p y 1957 NL 28 (4th) 1959 NL 44 (2nd) 1960 NL 32 (5th)	Caught Stealing as C s c a p y 1957 NL 15 (5th) 1959 NL 32 (1st) 1960 NL 34 (1st)
Caught Stealing %† s c a p y 1960 NL 51.5 (1st)	Total Zone Runs as C s c a p y 1959 NL 3 (4th) 1960 NL 6 (2nd) 1961 NL 5 (3rd)	Range Factor/9Inn as C† s c a p y 1957 NL 5.77 (5th) 1959 NL 6.66 (3rd) 1960 NL 7.12 (2nd)	Range Factor/Game as C s c a p y 1957 NL 5.26 (4th) 1959 NL 5.80 (3rd) 1960 NL 5.85 (5th)
Fielding % as C s c a p y 1957 NL .990 (4th) 1959 NL .989 (5th) 1960 NL .990 (3rd)

Other Resources & Links

Error? Compare Search SABR's Baseball Index Other Links@google.com Baseball Library Baseball-Almanac.com Retrosheet The Baseball Cube The Baseball Page WhatIfSports: Hal Smith

Viewed 9,091 times through May 31, 2012.
Name and misspellings: Harold Cura Hal hank Raymond Smith

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