[GeoPoto]

Player #168A: Charles M. "Charlie" Gelbert. Shortstop for the Washington Senators in 1939-1940. 766 hits and 17 home runs in 9 MLB seasons. 1931 World Series champion. He debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1929-1932 and 1935-1936. In 1930 with the Cardinals, he posted a .360 OBP with 92 runs scored and 72 RBIs in 574 plate appearances. He finished his career with the Boston Red Sox in 1940. He lost two full seasons recovering from a severe ankle injury suffered while hunting. Though he returned to baseball in 1935 and played six more seasons, he was limited to a utility role for the rest of his career.

We pick up Gelbert's SABR biography for an account of his time in St. Louis and then Washington: The (St. Louis) Cardinals placed him with Rochester in 1928 and Branch Rickey himself apparently wrote to Warren Giles, the head of the Rochester Red Wings, “I am sending you a shortstop. If he strikes out every time and boots every ball, I want him to play the first 30 games. He will be the Cardinal shortstop next season.” . . .

. . . Rickey was right; Gelbert was the shortstop for the Cardinals in 1929. The team was so sure of Gelbert that they sold the contract of future Hall of Famer Rabbit Maranville to the Boston Braves in December 1928.

Gelbert played almost every game of the 1929 season (146 of 154), hit .262, and drove in 65 runs, but he was a little porous at shortstop, leading the league in errors at the position. The team finished fourth.

Under manager Gabby Street, the 1930 Cardinals again won the National League pennant (as they had in 1926 and 1928) with a .314 team batting mark; Gelbert hit .304 and drove in 72 runs in 139 games. He had an excellent World Series; though the Cards lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in six games, Gelbert hit .353, and won praise for some outstanding fielding plays.

During the World Series, Gelbert drove in key insurance runs in Games Three and Four, but he shone in the field as well. Tom Meany’s mid-Series column in the New York Telegram was titled “Gelbert Voted Series Hero by Both Cardinals and A’s.” Grantland Rice wrote, “The star of the Cardinal front line was young Charley Gelbert at short.” He handled 28 chances without an error. . . .

In 1931 Gelbert hit .289 in the regular season, playing in eight fewer games due to an injury that forced him to cut back some on his playing time. The Cardinals won the pennant once more and faced off against the Athletics again, this time winning the World Series in seven games. Gelbert collected six more hits and handled 42 more chances without an error.

. . . During the October 1938 major-league draft meeting, the Washington Senators selected Gelbert. He played in about half the Senators’ games (68) in 1939, and assembled 222 plate appearances, compiling a batting average of .255 (with a .361 on-base percentage).