Heinie Heitmuller

William Frederick Heitmuller

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6' 2", Weight 215 lb.
• School University of California
• Debut April 26, 1909
• Final Game July 23, 1910
• Born May 25, 1883 in San Francisco, CA USA
• Died October 8, 1912 in Los Angeles, CA USA

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Biographical Information

Heinie Heitmuller, in spite of his name, was born not in Germany but in San Francisco. He was one of the first major leaguers out of the University of California, where his time overlapped with that of Orval Overall. He and Overall also played football for Cal. He was, however, stripped of his eligibility to play at the university in 1905 due to supposed professional experience, although Heitmuller denied it. (Source: "Baseball and the American Dream: Race, Class, Gender, and the National Pastime") He toured Japan with an All-Star team of collegians in 1908. A big man, he hit what was dubbed at the time as the longest home run ever hit in that country during the tour.

Heitmuller came up with the Philadelphia Athletics in 1909, at a time they were a good team. He battled Topsy Hartsel for the left field job. In 1910, the Athletics won the American League pennant, but Heitmuller didn't hit as well as in 1909 and Hartsel retained the left field job.

Heitmuller played in the Pacific Coast League in 1912 and was second in the league in batting average at .335 when stricken with typhoid fever in late September. He died from it in October of that year but still won the batting title posthumously when the man ahead of him, Tom "Pete" Daley, slumped over the final few weeks of the season, falling from .338 to .332. Three other players finished ahead of the pair, led by Matty McIntyre at .382, but none of them had enough plate appearances to qualify for the title.

He supposedly got his nickname Heinie from a day when he wore something owned by his brother Henry which had Henry's initials on the clothing. Somebody thought Bill was Henry, and so the trend started to call Bill "Heinie". Bill's brother Henry was manager of the Olympic Club. When Bill came to the attention of Sporting Life, the paper called him Bill or Henry rather than "Heinie" in the early days.

Further Reading

• Matt Monagan: "The player who won a batting title ... while he was dead", mlb.com, November 21, 2025. [1]