The following is from Pirates Prospects contributor John Dreker, as part of his ongoing Pirates History feature. The feature focuses on the history of the Pittsburgh Pirates, and every Sunday, John will take a look at a different piece of that history. This week John looks at George Van Haltren.

George Van Haltren

George Van Haltren was a very good 19th century baseball player who is all but forgotten despite putting up some impressive career numbers. If he was in the Hall of Fame already no one would question the merits of his selection. He scored 1,642 runs in his career, which ranked him 6th all-time when he retired, and just one run scored behind 5th place Jimmy Ryan who retired the same day he did. He amassed 2,544 hits when he was done. At the time only Cap Anson had reached th...

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John Dreker
John Dreker
John was born in Kearny, NJ, hometown of the 2B for the Pirates 1909 World Championship team, Dots Miller. In fact they have some of the same relatives in common, so it was only natural for him to become a lifelong Pirates fan. Before joining Pirates Prospects in July 2010, John had written numerous articles on the history of baseball while also releasing his own book and co-authoring another on the history of the game. He writes a weekly article on Pirates history for the site, has already interviewed many of the current minor leaguers with many more on the way and follows the foreign minor league teams very closely for the site. John also provides in person game reports of the West Virginia Power and Altoona Curve.