One time in the past, we have looked at .300 hitters in MLB history who are not in Cooperstown. Today on Friday Funday, we will look at another one: John Michael Paveskovich. Baseball fans know him better as Johnny Pesky, the longtime middle infielder for the Boston Red Sox (1942, 1946-1952) who should be in the Hall of Fame for his World War II service alone, really, as it cost him three prime years of his career.

Pesky finished his career with the Detroit Tigers (1952-1954) and the Washington Senators (1954), batting .307 across 1,270 MLB regular-season games. Sadly, he might be best known for the apocryphal legend from the 1946 World Series, and that just is not fair. It’s also not fair that he missed 1943-1945 serving his nation after gathering 205 hits in his rookie campaign of 1942—and finishing third in the MVP vote that season.

In fact, his first three full seasons (1942, 1946-1947) produced 620 combined hits and a .330 batting average. That’s a heckuva start to anyone’s career, even one interrupted by three years of military service. After his average dipped to .281 in 1948, he rebounded to hit over .300 for the next three seasons combined, again: .310 to be exact. Thus, through his first seven seasons in MLB, Pesky hit .315 and made All Star just once.

Tough competition. Considering he was in his age-23 season as a rookie, he lost three seasons of his early prime, and by the time 1952 rolled around, Pesky was in his age-33 season, his prime basically over. Over the final three seasons of his career, he struggled to hit just .259 in 266 games combined as time caught up with him. Still, overall, he struck out just 218 times in those 1,270 career MLB regular-season games. Wow!

Pesky also walked 662 times for a career .394 OBP, which is stellar for a guy who hit only 17 home runs. Maybe that hurt him, too, with Hall of Fame voters. He also stole only 53 bases, so without power or speed, all he had was his batting average and his walks. His 226 doubles and 50 triples did not add up to a lot of SLG magic (.386), either. Alas, what he did well? He did very well, and the other things … well, not so much.

Defensively, he was well above average, too, posting 7.4 dWAR through his first seven MLB seasons to age 32. After that, like his prowess at the plate, his glove took a turn for the worse—but he still finished with 6.6 dWAR for his career, which is fine for being a middle infielder (591 games at short, 460 games at third, 137 games at second). For a seeming utility infielder, Pesky hit well and played the field pretty well, too. Check.

He actually finished in the AL Top 10 for dWAR three times (1942, 1946, 1951), and from what we can tell, the three biggest reasons he’s not in the Hall are the missing three seasons of production from World War II, the lack of a singular playing position for most of his career, and the missing power/speed elements that would have enhanced the value of his batting average and OBP. But we think he should be in Cooperstown.

Sadly, Pesky died in 2012 at age 93. It’s too late to reward him for his service and his skills. Or is it?!