Washington DC Baseball

[GeoPoto]

Player #156: Lynford H. "Lyn" Lary. Shortstop with the Washington Senators in 1935. 1,239 hits and 162 stolen bases in 12 MLB seasons. World Series champion in 1932. 1936 AL stolen base leader. He debuted with the New York Yankees in 1929-1934. Lary's most productive season may have been 1931 with New York as he posted a .376 OBP with 107 RBIs and 100 runs scored in 712 plate appearances. He also led the AL in plate appearances in 1936 with St. Louis (.404 OBP and 112 runs scored) and 1937 with Cleveland (.378 OBP and 110 runs scored). His last season was 1940 with the St. Louis Browns. Lary had a career OBP of .369.

Lary's SABR biography: Babe Ruth called him “Broadway” because Lyn Lary loved the theater in New York, and Lary’s obituary in The Sporting News said he “tried his best to live up to the nickname the Babe hung on him. He was one of the best dressers in the majors and drove a big eight-cylinder car that had a silver nameplate on the door.” And Lary married Mary Lawlor, who was part of the original 1925 cast in former Boston Red Sox owner Harry Frazee’s Broadway musical No, No, Nanette.

Lary was an infielder for 12 seasons who played for seven clubs in the major leagues from 1929 to 1940 and was part of a couple of the bigger money deals of the 1920s and 1930s, but “never quite lived up to baseball expectations,” despite posting a respectable .269 career batting average. . . .

. . . For Boston (in 1934), Lary hit .241 but drew a good number of bases on balls (66) and had an on-base percentage of .344 (over the full course of his career he had a .369 OBP). And he served as fodder for one of the more momentous trades in team history – to provide the Washington Senators with a shortstop in exchange for Joe Cronin. Washington also pocketed perhaps $250,000 – at the time the largest amount ever spent for a player. Consummated on October 26, this was the second big-money deal in Lary’s career (after his purchase from the Oakland Oaks by the Yankees in 1927), though in this case Cronin was the main man. Lary was not just a throw-in, though. Paul Shannon rated him highly: “[T]he Red Sox gave the Senators a man who practically made the Red Sox infield in 1934. While Lary never rated as a hard hitter, his fine work at short atoned for any weakness with the bat.” His .965 fielding percentage led all shortstops in the American League.

With the Senators, Lary faced some unexpected competition from Ossie Bluege, but won the shortstop job – at first. But with Lary batting only .194 after 39 games, the Senators handed the job to Bluege and traded Lary to the St. Louis Browns on June 29 for backup shortstop Alan Strange. Playing under manager Rogers Hornsby, Lary hit .288 in the 93 games he played as a regular for the Browns. And in 1936 he enjoyed the best season of his career: He hit .289, with a .404 on-base percentage, and scored 112 runs. He led the league in stolen bases with 37. In mid-September Hornsby said he rated Lary the best shortstop in the league.