Player #136A: Henry E. "Heinie" Manush. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1930-1935. 2,524 hits and 110 home runs in 17 MLB seasons. Had a .330 career batting average. 1934 All-Star. 1926 AL batting champion. Had more than 200 hits four times. In 1964, was inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame. Debuted with the Detroit Tigers in 1923. Leading batter on the 1933 Washington Senator team that won the AL pennant. First and last player to be ejected from a World Series game. Had 241 hits in 1928. Coach for the Washington Senators in 1953-1954.
We will see Manush a few times during his Washington career, but we will follow his SABR biography across his entire career: Mastering the art of the line drive but unable to master his own temper, Heinie Manush burst onto the major league scene with the Detroit Tigers and quickly became one of the fiercest and most feared hitters in the game. . . .
. . . It was 1923 when Manush made his first appearance in the major leagues. He quickly blossomed under the tutelage of teammate Ty Cobb, who holds the career record for batting average (.366), and was a fellow Southerner with a strong temper who was then player-manager of the Tigers. The two, along with four-time batting champion Harry Heilmann, formed perhaps the best outfield in the history of baseball from 1923-27. But it didn’t begin that easily for Manush. When he joined the Tigers, Cobb and Heilmann were joined by three-time RBI champion Bobby Veach in the outfield. Also on the roster were veterans Bob Fothergill and Babe Herman. Detroit began platooning Manush with Veach, who was starting to show his age. Heinie did well under that system and batted .334.
His second season wasn’t as glamorous. Manush wasn’t hitting as well as he had as a rookie, and as a result, had to battle for playing time with Fothergill and Al Wingo, but still managed to hit a respectable .289 in 120 games and .302 in 99 games in 1925. Cobb immediately began working with Manush, urging him to choke up some on the bat, shorten his swing, and hit the ball where it was pitched instead of trying to pull everything. It was hard to argue with Cobb’s instructions in light of Heilmann’s emergence as one of baseball’s premier batsmen … they had become a collection of smart, skilled men at the plate. “In all modesty,” Cobb said in his autobiography, “I could teach hitting.”
In 1926, Manush was out to prove that he deserved a starting job. He finally won it and responded with one of the best seasons of his career. His average jumped from .302 to a robust .378, which led the American League. Even more impressive, was the way he won the batting title. On the last day of the season, Manush trailed not only Babe Ruth, but teammates Fothergill and Heilmann, in the race. But he pounded out six hits in nine at-bats during a doubleheader to overtake all three and win his only batting title.
Things would be different for Manush in 1927. Cobb left the Tigers to play the final two seasons of his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. Cobb was replaced in the dugout by George Moriarty, who played for the Tigers from 1909 to 1915. Manush wasn’t the same without Cobb; his batting average down to .298 — an 80-point tumble. Even worse, he wasn’t getting along with the new manager. After the season, Moriarty prompted the Tigers to trade Manush (to St. Louis). . . .
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