World Series champion Jourdan to be inducted Saturday

NEW ORLEANS – By all indications, Ted Jourdan not only became the first professional athlete to hail from Loyola University New Orleans – he was also its first world champion. 
 

Jourdan played on the first-ever baseball team of what was then known as Loyola College in 1911. He remained a member of the squad until he graduated with a bachelor's degree and special honors in bookkeeping in 1913, a little more than a year after the college was chartered into the university it is now. 
 

Few records detailing Jourdan's productivity on the diamond and in the batter's box for the Wolf Pack exist. The school's student newspaper, The Maroon, had not yet been founded, and the daily newspapers in the city back then did not cover the baseball program that much. 
 

Yet there's no doubt that Jourdan stood out as a "soft-spoken, smooth-fielding first baseman," as his Wolf Pack coach Caron Bell was quoted as saying in a 1947 article of The Maroon. Bell made sure to put Jourdan in front of professional scouts, and he signed a professional contract with a minor league baseball team in Austin in 1914.
 

His rise from there was both steady and, at times, steep. Within two years, he earned a spot on the Chicago White Sox and appeared in 75 games spread out over four seasons with the Major League ball club (1916, 1917, 1918, and 1920). A 21-year-old Jourdan appeared at the plate in 17 games for the 1917 White Sox, who captured the World Series championship that year and set a record for most regular-season wins (100). 
 

Meanwhile, in what can only make Loyola Wolf Pack hearts proud, Jourdan had no activity with Chicago in 1919, the campaign marred by the Black Sox scandal that saw eight members of the team lose the World Series on purpose in exchange for bribes from a gambling ring. 
 

Jourdan as an individual ultimately posted a Major League batting average of .215, hitting in 11 runs during his 196 at-bats. He had 42 hits – including five doubles and three triples – and scored 19 runs. 
 

Defensively, Jourdan took the field for the White Sox in 56 games, accumulating 449 putouts, 23 assists and nine errors in 435 innings of action. He registered an excellent .981 fielding percentage, which is the baseball metric that measures the number of times a fielder handles a ball correctly. 
 

Chicago's 1917 acquisition of former Cleveland first baseman Charles "Chick" Gandil – a slick fielder who reliably batted runs in – all but relegated Jourdan to the role of a backup in the majors. But Jourdan's hand in a World Series title facilitated plenty of work in the minors after his time at the highest levels. 
 

Over 14 seasons in the minors, which included some time with the historic New Orleans Pelicans, he maintained a batting average of .294, just six thousandths short of the .300 mark for which all batters strive. His fielding percentage was again exceptional: .989. 
 

After wrapping up his playing career, Jourdan worked in bookkeeping and lived in Metairie, Louisiana. After Jourdan passed away in 1961 at the age of 66, he was survived by his wife, son and two daughters.

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