In his 14 years in major league baseball, Richardson appeared in 1,334 major league games, compiled a .299 batting average and .437 slugging percentage, and totaled 1,127 runs scored, 1,694 hits, 305 doubles, 126 triples, 73 home runs, 828 RBIs, and 377 bases on balls. His best season was 1886 when he led the National League in home runs and compiled a 7.0 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rating, the fourth highest among all position players in the National League. His career WAR rating was 40.5. In the 1894 Reach Guide to baseball, Jim Hart, who was Richardson's manager in 1889 with the Beaneaters, offered the following high opinion of Richardson: "I think Ed Williamson and Hardy Richardson would pretty nearly make a tie as to being the best ball player since professional base ball has existed." Baseball historian Bill James in 2001 ranked Richardson as the 39th-best second baseman in the history of baseball in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract. Family and later years In January 1886, Richardson was married in a ceremony at Utica, New York, to Lillie M. Davis. In reporting on the wedding, The Sporting News wrote: "Mr. Richardson's fame as a ball player extends from Maine to California, and is only surpassed by his genial gentlemanly bearing and manner, which have earned for him the best wishes of innumerable friends for his future happiness." Richardson and his wife had a daughter, Dorothy, born in 1895. After retiring from baseball, Richardson reportedly operated a hotel in Utica, New York. By 1900, he was living in Utica with his wife, Lillie, and their daughter, Dorothy, and he was employed as an "art glass stainer." By 1905, Richardson and his wife had moved to German Flatts and later to Ilion, both in Herkimer County, New York, where he worked for the Remington Typewriter Company. In late 1910 and early 1911, Richardson wrote about his baseball memories in a series of articles for the Hearst newspapers. By 1930, Richardson was retired and living with his wife in Utica as boarders at the home of cement salesman, Robert C. Weaver. Richardson died in January 1931 at age 75 in Utica, New York. He was buried at the Forest Hill Cemetery in that city. In popular culture Richardson was referenced in a first-season episode of the HBO television series, Boardwalk Empire, in October 2010. The lead character, Nucky Thompson, portrayed