"In the second inning, Boston managed to get two men on base, with two out, only to have a little Washington outfielder named Pot LaPorte make a shoestring catch and prevent a run from scoring." - from a recounting in the Wilmington Star-News, 1973, about a hotly-contested game on September 6, 1912 between Walter Johnson's Senators and Smoky Joe Wood's Red Sox

In the annals of the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry, there aren’t too many players who started with New York, then played for Boston, and then played for New York again. Frank LaPorte wasn’t the only one, but he was the first.

After bouncing back and forth between the two teams, he also played for the St. Louis Browns and the Washington Nationals, spending nine years in the American League before jumping to the Federal League and then leaving baseball.

LaPorte was born on February 6, 1880, in Urichsville, Ohio, somewhat in the center of a triangle between Columbus, Akron, and Pittsburgh.

In 1903 he began to seriously play professional baseball, in the first of three seasons for the Buffalo Bisons (in the Class A Eastern League) under manager George Stallings, who ranked him high, telling Sporting Life that he was going to be a “great player.” In the September 23, 1905, issue of Sporting Life, Stallings – who by then had managed LaPorte for three seasons – said that he saw him as second only to Napoleon Lajoie.

Frank made his debut on September 29, 1905, for the NY Highlanders (Yankees) against visiting Cleveland. The New York Times said he “made a decidedly good impression at second base for the local team. The little fielding that he had to do was done in a clean manner, while at the bat he hit with tremendous force. He had three trials, and in each instance was put out by sensational catches.”

In 1911, while with the St. Louis Browns, he hit .314 and knocked in 82 runs during his best year.

(excerpted from SABR, BR Bullpen, Dizzy Deane Blog, and Wikipedia)