Brooks Holder - OF 1935-51
San Francisco, Hollywood, Oakland, Portland

Brooks Richard Holder, the 5'10", 180lb. outfielder played in over 2,404 Pacific Coast League games over his 17 year career with a respectable .295 batting average.

Holder was born in Rising Star, Texas on November 2, 1915. By high school, his parents had moved the family to Crockett, California, where he was an all-star in baseball, football, and basketball.

Brooks began his baseball career in 1935 in the Western League for Des Moines. He moved to the PCL San Francisco Seals near the end of the 1935 season.

He began 1936 as the Seals' second baseman. Later that year, Seals skipper Lefty O'Doul platooned Holder with Dom DiMaggio in the outfield. Brooks hit .289 that year.

From 1938 to 1940, Holder went on a tear, scoring more than 100 runs, with batting averages of .319 ('38), .330 ('39), and .314('40) respectively.

1938 was the year that Brooks had a career high 95 RBIs, almost 10% of his lifetime total of 983.

In 1939, Holder tied the PCL mark for triples with 24. During that year, batters' walks became part of league statistics. Holder was one of the league leaders for 11 of his 13 years. 1946 and 1947 were particularly notable seasons. Brooks walked 131 times in 1946 and 136 times in 1947. Over his career he would take a record 1,195 BOB excursions to first, an average 92 per year. Had the stat been kept for his first three-and-a-quarter seasons, we estimate he would have racked up another 299, making his potential lifetime number an impressive 1,494.

After eight years of that kind of production, he was traded to the Hollywood Stars. He continued to play well for the stars, with a career high 21 stolen bases in 1944 and a batting average in the high two-hundreds. Still, by the end of the 1945 season, Holder was not happy in Hollywood.

In 1946, Holder negotiated his release from Hollywood, buying out his own contract for $2,500. A sizable investment that was quickly rewarded: He signed with the Oaks for a hefty $3,000 bonus.

The Oaks' skipper in 1947 was the legendary Casey Stengel. Stengel's guidance improved Holder's hitting, bringing his average up to .311, the first time that it had been over .300 in eight years.

Holder was a fan favorite in the cities where he played.
Oaks Cartoon Courtesy National Pacific Baseball Archive.

1947 was a banner year for Holder: He hit a career high 16 home runs.

In 1948 a minor injury turned into a nagging problem. Holder was traded back to San Francisco, where he limped through 76 games and still turned in an impressive .312 batting average with 5 home runs and 36 RBI, the highest in his career since 1937.

He played with the Seals through the 1950 season, then was traded to Portland for his final season in 1951.

Over a 17 year career, Brooks batted a lifetime .295, with six seasons over the .300 mark and three seasons at .295 or better at a time when the PCL season was nearly 200 games long. His average comes from a whopping 8,254 at-bats in 2,404 games. He had 2,435 hits. A solid contact hitter, he had 1,831 singles, 403 doubles, 104 triples, and 97 home runs with 983 lifetime RBIs and 159 stolen bases.

Holder never played in the major leagues, despite putting up some of the best numbers that the PCL has ever seen, and outshining some of his contemporaries who were called up.

Brooks' career began in the shadows of World War II (WWII). Unlike many major leaguers of the day, he was not drafted into the military from 1941 through 1945. He was able to play ball through the height of his physical abilities.

He is inducted into the 2004 class of the PCL Hall of Fame for his outstanding career in the Pacific Coast League.