Baseball player Richard Carleton “Dick” Hoblitzell (October 26, 1888 - November 14, 1962) was born in Waverly, Wood County, to Henry and Laura Alcock Hoblitzell. While he had a respectable professional career, he is better known for two indirect connections to baseball history.

When Hoblitzell was born, his father was working in the booming Wood County oilfields. His mother died when he was age nine. His father remarried, moved to Parkersburg, and opened a saloon. After Prohibition began in 1914, his father again changed careers and became a shoe salesman.

Hoblitzell was a natural athlete who captained Parkersburg High School’s football team as a freshman and sophomore. About the same time, he played baseball with Parkersburg’s White City team and with a traveling Bloomer Girls team, comprised almost entirely of women. He finished his high school education and football career at Marietta Academy in Ohio. After playing for Marietta College in 1905 and 1906, he went to the Western University of Pennsylvania (now University of Pittsburgh) on a football scholarship in 1907. Earlier that year, he had played baseball under the name Hollister for the Clarksburg Drummers, a pro team in the Pennsylvania-West Virginia League owned by Clarksburg’s Home Furniture Company. In 1908, his services were acquired from Clarksburg by Wheeling of the Central League, for whom he batted .357 in 53 games. However, under the complex reserve-clause rules of the early 20^th century, Clarksburg retained his rights. As a result, even though he played for Wheeling, it was Clarksburg’s Home Furniture that sold his rights to the Cincinnati Reds on August 21, 1908. Two weeks later, on September 5, he was in the Major Leagues starting at first base for the Reds. During the last month of that season, he had a .254 batting average.

In 1909, his first full season in the majors, Hoblitzell hit .308, third best in the league. The next two years, he led the National League in at-bats. Through 1913, he was one of the most consistent hitters on a below-average Reds team. During this time, he also obtained a dentistry degree from Cincinnati’s Ohio College of Dental Surgery and opened a dental practice in the city with his brother Bill.

In the first half of 1914, “Doc,” as he was now nicknamed, slumped badly, and his average fell to .214. The Reds tried to trade Hoblitzell but then released him in July. The Boston Red Sox nabbed him, and he hit .319 the rest of the season. He became part of a stellar Boston infield that won the World Series in 1915 and 1916. In those series, Hoblitzell hit .313 (1915) and compiled a .435 on-base-percentage (1916). After a mediocre 1917 season, he started the 1918 campaign slowly. He was benched with a finger injury and then drafted into the U.S. Army Dental Corps in World War I. This ended his Major League Baseball playing career. His .278 career lifetime batting average is deceptively low because it occurred during baseball’s so-called “dead-ball era,” when pitching dominated and league batting averages dipped as low as .239 in one year.

Despite two World Series rings (and a share of the Red Sox’s 1918 championship winnings), Hoblitzell may best be remembered as one of “Babe” Ruth’s first roommates. Ruth, even in his early Boston years, was well known for late-night carousing. Due to the respect Hoblitzell had earned both on and off the field, Boston manager Bill Carrigan gave him the impossible job of keeping track of Ruth.

Hoblitzell’s daughter Connie later recalled, “He said one of his main duties was keeping Babe from being out all night and keeping him sober enough that he could play ball the next day.” She added that her father would not share more colorful stories but did concede that Ruth was more than a handful at times.

After nearly dying from the influenza epidemic while stationed in Texas in 1918, he was assigned to coach baseball at West Point for the remainder of his service in the Army Dental Corps. After being honorably discharged, Hoblitzell managed and played in the minor leagues, beginning in Akron, Ohio, in 1920. He led the Charlotte Hornets (NC) to the 1923 South Atlantic (Sally) League pennant, and in 1929, became the highest-paid manager in Sally League history up to that point. During his time in Charlotte, he also dabbled in real estate with friend and fellow West Virginia native Lee Kinney.

He returned to West Virginia in 1931 as a manager and player for the Charleston Senators of the Class C Middle Atlantic League but retired for good after that season, except for umpiring some minor league games. His wife, the former Constance Henderson, was from a wealthy Wood County family that owned Henderson Hall near Williamstown. Her great-grandfather Alexander Henderson and his brother had once reported Aaron Burr and Harman Blennerhassett’s scheme to federal authorities. Due to the death of Constance’s father and the onset of the Great Depression, the family feared losing their 540-acre farm. The Hoblitzells moved into Henderson Hall and put itinerant laborers to work raising cattle and growing produce in exchange for room and board.

Over his remaining years, Hoblitzell hosted a sports talk show on WPAR radio and wrote columns for the Parkersburg News. A popular Republican, he was elected Wood County commissioner and sheriff. Although he did not retain his dentistry license, he kept a chair in his living room for minor work on family and friends. He died in Parkersburg of colon cancer at age 74.

Hoblitzell’s name is well-known in the baseball card collecting world. His gold-bordered 1911 card with “no stats” is considered the rarest of the American Tobacco Company’s T-205 series. In 2021, a “no stats” variation of Hoblitzell’s card in “very good” (PSA-3) condition sold for $26,437.