1935 Washington Senators -- Part 2
. . . Buddy Myer's batting title was the best thing to happen on the Washington baseball landscape during the summer of 1935, unfortunately. The team never got untracked. It lost exactly the same number of games as in '34, 86, and won one more game, 67. It stayed reasonably injury-free, but of course, there was no 100-RBI producer at the shortstop position either. There was no ready solution there, with Ossie Bluege, now 34, given some of the work at the position. If Bluege's range was not what it had once been, it certainly didn't hurt the Nats to have him at short.
Red Cress, the old Browns shortstop who hadn't played short with any regularity in five years, ended up with Bluege's job by year's end. This was quite a turnaround for Kress. He had hit poorly after coming over to the Senators during the '34 season, and at mid-season 1935, he was demoted to Chattanooga. While packing his bags, he got a phone call. Buddy Myer had been ejected from the first game of a doubleheader and would not be allowed to play the second game. Kress got four straight hits against Cleveland that day and, with Myer obviously a fixture at second, was promptly installed at short for the rest of the season.
Kress hit .298 for the year, and sophomore Cecil Travis followed up a .319 season with .318. But Travis, almost strictly an opposite-field hitter, had zero homers. Kress had two all year, Bluege none. Buddy Myer had five. The other infielder, first baseman Joe Kuhel, showed some rust after missing half the previous season with his broken ankle. Kuhel had just two homers in 633 at-bats and batted just .261, the lowest mark of his career. Cliff Bolton, always a hitter and given a chance to catch almost regularly, responded predictably well but he too had only two home runs. Joe Cronin, out in Boston, hit nine home runs and drove in 95, while batting .295. However, the Red Sox, like the Senators, didn't improve, winning only two more games than they had in '34.
The lack of power hitting on this edition of the Washington Senators was so pronounced as to be laughable. Rookie Jake Powell was able to wrest the centerfield position away from incumbent Fred Schulte, who'd been one of the few Senators to play in nearly all the games the previous season. A true gentleman in an era when players were, in the main, rambunctious country boys, Schulte was 34 years of age and would be out of the big leagues for good within two years.
Young Powell, a native of nearby Silver Spring, Maryland, who had been plucked off the local sandlots, doubled Schulte's home-run output. That meant he hit only six all year, however, but it led the club. The Senators, playing half their games in the vast expanse of Griffith Stadium, hit only 32 as a team, the lowest collective total in the majors in four years. Right fielder John Stone, who had eight hits in a doubleheader on June 16th, contributed a .315 average, but with only one homer. Heinie Manush slumped badly, and his .273 mark was by far the worst of his career.. . .
|