Ken Keltner
| Ken Keltner | |||
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Keltner's 1949 Bowman Gum baseball card
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| Third baseman | |||
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Born: October 31, 1916 Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
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Died: December 12, 1991 (aged 75) New Berlin, Wisconsin |
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| MLB debut | |||
| October 2, 1937, for the Cleveland Indians | |||
| Last MLB appearance | |||
| May 25, 1950, for the Boston Red Sox | |||
| MLB statistics | |||
| Batting average | .276 | ||
| Home runs | 163 | ||
| Runs batted in | 852 | ||
| Teams | |||
| Career highlights and awards | |||
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Kenneth Frederick Keltner (October 31, 1916 – December 12, 1991) was an American professional baseball player. He played almost his entire Major League Baseball career as a third baseman with the Cleveland Indians, until his final season when he played 13 games for the Boston Red Sox. He batted and threw right-handed. A seven-time All-Star, Keltner is remembered for being one of the best fielding third basemen in the 1940s and for helping to end Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak on July 17, 1941.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Keltner began his professional baseball career in 1936 playing for his hometown team, the Milwaukee Brewers, then a minor league team. He made a rapid ascent through the minor leagues, and in 1938, the Cleveland Indians invited him to their spring training camp. The twenty-one-year-old Keltner made the team and played in 149 games that season, posting a .276 batting average with 26 home runs and 113 runs batted in.
On August 20, 1938, as part of a publicity stunt by the Come to Cleveland Committee, Indians' catchers Frankie Pytlak and Hank Helf successfully caught baseballs dropped by Keltner from Cleveland's 708-foot-tall (216 m) Terminal Tower. The 708-foot (216 m) drop broke the 555-foot, 30-year-old record set by Washington Senator catcher Gabby Street at the Washington Monument.
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