Player #87A: Herold D. "Muddy" Ruel. Catcher with the Washington Senators in 1923-1930. 1,242 hits and 61 stolen bases in 19 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. He debuted with the St. Louis Browns in 1915. He was the Yankees catcher in 1920 when Ray Chapman was hit and killed by a Carl Mays fastball. He scored the tying run in regulation and then the winning run in the 12th inning of game seven in the 1924 WS. His best season was 1923 with Washington as he posted a .394 OBP with 54 RBI's and 63 runs scored in 528 plate appearances. His final season as a player was 1934 with the Chicago White Sox. He was manager of the St. Louis Browns in 1947. He was GM of the Detroit Tigers in 1954-1956.
Ruel's SABR biography: Ruel spent the remainder of the 1918 season and all of 1919 and 1920 with the New York Yankees. The Yankees were not yet the powerhouse they would later become. Babe Ruth was still with Boston and the Yankees had yet to appear in a World Series.
On August 16, 1920, Ruel was a witness to one of the most tragic events in baseball history. Ruel was behind the plate when Carl Mays’ fateful pitch struck and killed Ray Chapman.
Later in the season, Ruel described the tragic event in detail to his old friend John B. Sheridan, who used Ruel’s insights for his column in The Sporting News. He made it clear in his eye-witness account that Carl Mays was not guilty of trying to kill Chapman. Ruel’s assessment was that it was a tragic accident.
(Aside: My grandson's surname is Chapman, which has given impetus to a small portion of my collecting. As a result, I wound up with this photo, despite it violating my well defined, but somewhat flexible, collection boundaries. I am including it here out of respect for the 1920 tragedy and Ruel's eventual role in Washington baseball history. This photograph served as the source image for Ruel's 1922 E120 American Caramel card.)
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