Player #123A: Minter C. "Jackie" Hayes. Infielder with the Washington Senators in 1927-1931. 1,069 hits and 20 home runs in 14 MLB seasons. One of his better seasons was 1936 with Chicago as he posted a .366 OBP with 84 RBIs in 461 plate appearances. He also played for the Chicago White Sox in 1932-1940. He was the first player to wear a batting helmet in an MLB game.
Hayes' SABR biography covers his time in Washington: After the 1928 season, the Senators fired Bucky Harris, their manager and second baseman. Owner Clark Griffith and his new manager, pitching great Walter Johnson, awarded the second-base job to the 22-year-old Hayes. Washington had four infielders competing for three positions. By the time Johnson sorted them out in June, he settled on 22-year-old Joe Cronin at shortstop, veteran Ossie Bluege at third, Buddy Myer at second, and Hayes on the bench. “Hayes already has shown me that he is a good ball player and will be taken care of,” Griffith said. “It is simply a case of trying to find a place for Myer and his better batting in my lineup.”
That arrangement didn’t last long. In July a knee injury ended Bluege’s season and resurrected Hayes’s. He wound up playing 123 games in 1929, batting .276/.316/.351. That didn’t impress anybody in a year when the entire American League hit .284.
Hayes never cracked Washington’s everyday lineup again. Although he was a superior glove man, he couldn’t match Myer’s bat or speed. “I want ballplayers with speed on the bases and Hayes didn’t have it,” Griffith explained later. “Hayes could pull his hits to any field, and, for a kid, he used a lot of brains at the plate, but he didn’t have enough natural hitting ability to go along with his headwork.”
https://www.net54baseball.com/attach...1&d=1692090492