Robert Clay Hopper (1970) - Hall of Fame

Robert Clay Hopper

Induction:
1970
Class:
1926

Robert Clay Hopper lettered in football and baseball for Mississippi A&M from 1923 to 1926. He was later drafted to play Major League Baseball.

Hopper played for the Bulldogs under MSU baseball great, C.R. Dudy Noble. He played for the 1924 team that won the last of the six championships in the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association. He was drafted to the MLB in 1926, where he played in the minor leagues until 1941. Upon retiring, he had a lifetime batting average in collegiate and professional baseball never under .300.

After playing in the minor leagues, he became a pro baseball manager, where he won seven pennants and two Little World Series titles while managing in the International League or the Montreal Royals. He also managed in the minor leagues, where he was named Minor League Manager of the Year in 1946, and earned Pacific Coast League Manager of the Year in 1952. He was posthumously inducted into the International League Hall of Fame in 2009.