Samuel Earl Crawford (April 18, 1880 – June 15, 1968), nicknamed "Wahoo Sam", was a Major League Baseball player who played outfield for the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers. He batted and threw left-handed, standing 6'0" tall and weighing 190 pounds. He was one of the greatest sluggers of the deadball era and still holds the Major League records for triples in a career (309) and for inside-the-park home runs in a season (12). He is second all-time for most inside-the-park home runs in a career (51). He finished his career with 2,961 hits and a .309 batting average, and was the first player to lead both the American League and the National League in home runs (1901 and 1908). Crawford was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1957 and was featured in Lawrence Ritter’s oral history of the Deadball era, “The Glory of Their Times,” published in 1966.

Baseball legend, Ed Barrow, who managed Crawford in his first two years with Detroit, and went on to convert Babe Ruth to an outfielder as general manager of the Yankees, once said that “there never was a better hitter” than Crawford.” One of his contemporaries, Fielder Jones, said of Crawford: “None of them can hit quite as hard as Crawford. He stands up at the plate like a brick house and he hits all the pitchers, without playing favorites.”

Crawford was among the American League leaders in hits, RBIs, extra base hits, slugging percentage, and total bases every year for twelve consecutive years from 1905-1915. Using the “Gray Ink Test,” which awards points based on how often a player is among the league batting leaders, Crawford ranks as the 9th best hitter of all time, ahead of greats such as Ted Williams, Mickey Mantle, and Barry Bonds, among others.