Earl Averill started playing ball at the age of 21, for the Seattle Club of the Pacific Coast League in 1924. He played with three other minor league clubs, Bellingham, Anaconda and San Francisco, before being purchased by the Cleveland Indians in 1928 for a reported price of $50,000. In ten years of baseball, Averill has failed to hit over the .300 mark only twice, his best average being .378 in 1936. Earl led the American League in hits in 1936 with 232 and drove in 126 runs. At the end of the 1938 season, Earl had a total of 1889 hits for his major league career and before the end of the present season will, no doubt, join the ranks of "Baseball Immortals" by getting over 2000 hits. His ten-year batting average for 1486 games played is .322.