Buddy Myer Part 8
Player #139H: Charles S. "Buddy" Myer. Second baseman with the Washington Senators in 1925-1927 and 1929-1941. 2,131 hits and 38 home runs in 17 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .389. 2-time All-Star. 1935 AL Batting champion. 1928 AL Stolen Base leader. His best season was 1935 for Washington as he posted a .440 OBP with 115 runs scored and 100 RBIs in 719 plate appearances. He was involved in one of baseball's most violent brawls when he was spiked and possibly racially derided by the Yankees' Ben Chapman.
We will follow Myer's SABR biography as we track his career -- Part 8: Myer turned in another gaudy season at bat in 1938, with a line of .336/.454/.465, but he started only 117 games and was on the downslope at 34. When a wrist injury knocked him out of the lineup the next year, a 21-year-old rookie, Jimmy Bloodworth, staked his claim as the second baseman of the future.
In September 1940 Myer told Clark Griffith he was retiring to tend to his construction business in Mississippi. He had gotten a government contract to build army camps. Griffith persuaded him to play another year as a benchwarmer before he left the game for good.
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