Haas was born in
Montclair, New Jersey, and attended
Montclair High School. He left school to play for a local semi-pro team. Haas was signed by the
Pittsburgh Pirates as an amateur free agent in 1923 and, after three seasons spent playing in the
minor leagues, he made his major league debut with the Pirates on August 15, 1925 at the age of 21. He was one of six Athletics players to post batting averages above .310 during the
1929 season when he produced career-highs in batting average (.323), home runs (16) and runs batted in (82). The Athletics won the 1929 American League pennant by 18 games over the vaunted
New York Yankees of
Babe Ruth and
Lou Gehrig. Haas is notable for his hitting performance during the
1929 World Series against the
Chicago Cubs. In Game 4 at Philadelphia, as the Athletics trailed 8–0 in the seventh inning, Haas hit a three-run
inside-the-park home run as the Athletics rallied by scoring ten runs in the inning to win, 10–8. This was the ninth inside-the-park home run in World Series history, and the last until
Alcides Escobar did so in Game 1 of the
2015 World Series. Two days later, in what was to be the final game of the Series, Haas hit a two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to tie the score, 2–2, as the Athletics later won the game on
Bing Miller's RBI-
double. With the onset of the
Great Depression and declining attendance,
Connie Mack sought to reduce expenses by selling or trading his best players. In September
1932, he sold Haas, Simmons and
Jimmy Dykes to the
Chicago White Sox for $100,000. After five seasons in Chicago, Haas ended his career back in Philadelphia, playing in his final major league game on September 1, 1938 at the age of 34. ==Career statistics==