Thomas McLaughlin was a Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

 infielder

Infielder

An infielder is a baseball player stationed at one of four defensive "infield" positions on the baseball field.-Standard arrangement of positions:In a game of baseball, two teams of nine players take turns playing offensive and defensive roles...

. He played all or part of five seasons in the majors, between and . He played primarily at shortstop

Shortstop

Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball fielding position between second and third base. Shortstop is often regarded as the most dynamic defensive position in baseball, because there are more right-handed hitters in baseball than left-handed hitters, and most hitters have a tendency to pull the...

, but also played over 100 games as a second baseman

Second baseman

Second base, or 2B, is the second of four stations on a baseball diamond which must be touched in succession by a base runner in order to score a run for that player's team. A second baseman is the baseball player guarding second base...

McLaughlin debuted with the Louisville Eclipse

Louisville Colonels

The Louisville Colonels were a Major League Baseball team that played in the American Association throughout that league's ten-year existence from 1882 until 1891, first as the Louisville Eclipse and later as the Louisville Colonels , the latter name derived from the historic Kentucky colonels...

 partway through the 1883 season. He played several positions over the remainder of the season, and in he was installed as the Eclipse's starting shortstop. He played well on defense, with a fielding range and percentage well above league average, but batted

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 just .200. In , McLaughlin was moved to second base, replaced at shortstop by Joe Miller

Joe Miller (shortstop)

Joseph A. Miller was an American Major League Baseball player born in Baltimore, Maryland, who played shortstop for two seasons, one for the Toledo Blue Stockings and the other for the Louisville Colonels...

, who was signed from the Toledo Blue Stockings

Toledo Blue Stockings

The Toledo Blue Stockings formed as a minor league baseball team in Toledo, Ohio in 1883. They won the Northwestern League championship in 1883. Their home ballpark was League Park....

, which had folded. He played well again on defense, and nudged his batting average up to .212.

In , McLaughlin jumped from Louisville to the New York Metropolitans

New York Metropolitans

The Metropolitan Club was a 19th-century professional baseball team that played in New York City from 1880 to 1887...

, where he was back at shortstop, backing up 37-year-old Candy Nelson

Candy Nelson

John W. "Candy" Nelson was a shortstop in Major League Baseball. He played 13 seasons between and for nine different teams in three different leagues. In 1890, he was the oldest player in the American Association at age 41.-Sources:...

. Although his defense was still good, his batting average dropped to an abysmal .136 in 74 games. After that, he spent four years out of the majors, playing with the minor league

Minor league baseball

Minor league baseball is a hierarchy of professional baseball leagues in the Americas that compete at levels below Major League Baseball and provide opportunities for player development. All of the minor leagues are operated as independent businesses...

 Toronto Canucks and St. Paul Apostles. After returning for a brief stint with the newly-formed Washington Statesmen in 1891, McLaughlin retired.

Sources