Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #139C: 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 3: The Senators’ shortstop, Roger Peckinpaugh, had been named the American League Most Valuable Player in 1925, but he was the goat of the World Series, committing a record eight errors. The next spring Peckinpaugh, 35 years old and slowed by sore legs, lost his job to the 22-year-old Myer. By July the rookie was batting cleanup. He turned in what would be a typical Buddy Myer season at the plate: .304/.370/.380. But manager Bucky Harris, who was also the second baseman, complained about Myer’s defense. His 40 errors were third most among AL shortstops, even though he played only 118 games at short. Harris faulted his feeds on double-play balls, a critical skill for the manager who was on the receiving end.

The respected veteran Tris Speaker, who joined the Senators in 1927, told Harris and Griffith the club needed a new shortstop if it was going to contend. After Myer committed five errors in his first 15 games, Washington shuffled him off to the sorriest team in the league, the Boston Red Sox, in return for the shortstop Speaker recommended, Topper Rigney. Harris said, “Myer is not ready for the majors.”

Myer’s .288/.359/.394 production with Boston was just about league average, but his defense at short failed to satisfy even a last-place club. In 1928 the Red Sox shifted him to third base. He led the team with a .313 batting average and led the league with 30 stolen bases.

In Washington, Rigney had been a bust; Clark Griffith wanted Myer back. After several weeks of dickering, he sent the Red Sox five players for his onetime reject. Counting what he had paid to acquire Myer from New Orleans, plus the value of the men he traded to Boston, Griffith estimated that Myer had cost him $150,000. “I must have been crazy to have let Myer go in the first place,” he said. (Continued tomorrow.)