Brandon Michael Crawford is an American professional baseball shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals of Major League Baseball (MLB). He has previously played in MLB for the San Francisco Giants. Crawford played college baseball for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He was selected in the fourth round of the 2008 MLB draft by the Giants.

Shortstop, abbreviated SS, is the baseball or softball fielding position between second and third base, which is considered to be among the most demanding defensive positions. Historically, the position was assigned to defensive specialists who were typically poor at batting and were often placed at the bottom of the batting order. Today, shortstops are often able to hit well and many are placed at the top of the lineup. In the numbering system used by scorers to record defensive plays, the shortstop is assigned the number 6.