Washington DC Baseball

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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.

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Player #136D: Henry E. "Heinie" Manush. Outfielder for the Washington Senators in 1930-1935. 2,524 hits and 110 home runs in 17 MLB seasons. Had a .330 career batting average. 1934 All-Star. 1926 AL batting champion. Had more than 200 hits four times. In 1964, was inducted to the MLB Hall of Fame. Debuted with the Detroit Tigers in 1923. Leading batter on the 1933 Washington Senator team that won the AL pennant. First and last player to be ejected from a World Series game. Had 241 hits in 1928. Coach for the Washington Senators in 1953-1954.

Again, Manush's SABR biography takes us back ti the 1933 pennant-winning season: The Senators faced the New York Giants in the 1933 World Series. The Giants were led by a trio of Hall of Famers: pitcher Carl Hubbell, right fielder Mel Ott, and first baseman-manager Bill Terry. Apart from Cronin, the Senators could not get their bats going during the Fall Classic. That included Manush, who after his stellar season managed just two singles in the Series as the Giants won in five games. Before the start of the third game, Manush scrambled to retrieve the ceremonial first pitch thrown by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from his box seat. Ably supported by Cronin, Roosevelt threw the ball and his off-line toss set off a mad scramble. Manush bulled his way through a bunch of souvenir-seeking ballplayers to come up with the treasured keepsake. Southpaw Earl Whitehill’s tosses were more on the money as he scattered five hits and shut out the Giants 4-0. In appreciation of his sterling performance, Manush presented Whitehill with the “FDR ball,” which Earl would treasure for the rest of his life.

It was a thrill to be in the World Series, but Manush was terribly disappointed in his performance. During the Series, he took it out on the umpires. In Game 3, the Senators had the tying run on second with two out in the sixth inning, when Manush hit a ball past a diving Bill Terry that Howie Critz somehow grabbed and flipped to Hubbell to nip Manush — that is, according to umpire Charlie Moran. It was an extremely close play, and an enraged Senators outfielder and his infuriated manager hotly debated the call! The home plate umpire finally broke up the fierce confrontation by ordering Cronin and Manush to take their positions in the field. While Cronin reluctantly sauntered out to shortstop, Manush gave Moran one more verbal blast on his way out to right field and was tossed from the game. It took all of Cronin’s strength to restrain his right fielder from attacking Moran. After being dragged off the field, Manush had to be physically restrained from throwing things at the first-base umpire. Washington fans showed their displeasure at the call by heaving hundreds of soda bottles in the umpire’s direction. Manush recalled the play years later. “It actually was more than an argument,” he said. “Moran had every right to chase me when I tell you what I did. I was too smart to lay a hand on Moran when I was arguing the call. But when he bellied up to me and asked me what I wanted to make of it, there was a temptation that was too great. Moran, like the other umps in those days, was wearing a black bow tie, the kind that comes with an elastic band. What I did was grab the tie and let it snap back into Moran’s neck. That’s when he gave it to me.”

Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who was at the game, disagreed with the umpire’s decision to kick Manush out, and ruled from then on that no player in the World Series could be thrown out without first getting the commissioner’s almighty permission.

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Player #139D: 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 4: Early in the 1933 season, the Yankees’ Ben Chapman took him out with a hard slide, slicing open his shoe and cutting his foot. Myer kicked Chapman and Chapman fought back. Both men were ejected, but as Chapman passed through the Senators dugout on his way to the visitors’ clubhouse, he slugged Washington pitcher Earl Whitehill, igniting a near-riot that was remembered for years. The Senators swarmed Chapman, the Yankees charged across the field to his rescue, and angry fans joined the festivities. Police broke it up and arrested five civilians. Chapman, Myer, and Whitehill were suspended for five days and fined $100 each. (Chapman was traded to the Senators three years later. When he joined the team on the road, he walked into the hotel dining room and sat down beside Myer. They were soon talking and laughing together.)

With 26-year-old shortstop Joe Cronin taking over as manager, the Senators fought the Yankees for the 1933 pennant until August, when Washington won 13 straight games and pulled away. The Senators’ lineup included six regulars hitting over .290, backed by a pair of 20-game-winning pitchers. Myer’s .810 OPS was the best of his career so far. “I wasn’t the best player in the league that year, but I was the tiredest,” he remembered. “I led off in front of three good hitters—Goose Goslin, Heinie Manush and Cronin—and they put on the hit and run so many times, they had my tongue hanging out.”

The club won a franchise-record 99 games on the way to its third pennant in 10 years and a meeting with the New York Giants in the World Series. Before Game 1, Myer was riding in a cab to the Polo Grounds when he witnessed a gory traffic accident in which a pedestrian was run down by a truck and killed. A superstitious man would call it an omen. Myer led off the game by striking out, the first of 10 victims of the NL’s Most Valuable Player, Carl Hubbell. He fumbled the first ground ball he saw in the bottom of the inning, leading to two unearned runs. He was charged with another error on a wild throw and a third when he dropped the catcher’s peg as Mel Ott tried to steal second. New York won, 4-2, and beat the Senators again the next day.

When the Series moved to Washington for Game 3, Myer led off the bottom of the first with a single and scored the Senators’ first run. He added an RBI double in the next inning and drove in another run with a seventh-inning single as Whitehill shut out the Giants, 4-0. It was the Senators’ only victory. New York won the championship in five games.

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Player #157A: Louis N. "Bobo" Newsom. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1935-1937, 1942, 1943, 1946-1947, and 1952. 211 wins and 21 saves in 20 MLB seasons. 4-time All-Star. 1947 World Series champion. 1942 AL strikeout leader. He had a career ERA of 3.98. He debuted with the Brooklyn Robins/Dodgers in 1929-1930. He changed teams 16 times. Almost joined Benton as only to have pitched to Ruth and Mantle. He was known for his eccentricities. In 1940 with the Detroit Tigers, he posted a 21-5 record with a 2.83 ERA in 264 innings pitched. His last team was the Philadelphia Athletics in 1952-1953.

We pick up Deveaux's account of Bobo's zany ways and time in Washington: His (Newsom's) 30-win campaign (in 1933 in the Pacific Coast League) earned him another (after cups of coffee with the Dodgers and the Cubs) shot at the big time with the St. Louis Browns. With the Brownies, a team on the level of the Senators, the rookie led the entire league in losses (20) and walks (149) in 1934. Newsom also regularly led the league in outrageous remarks and sheer color. The man had a flair for exaggeration and a cheerful disposition, and could always be counted upon to vehemently uphold any outrageous declaration he might make. Clark Griffith liked the barrel-chested, boastful Bobo.

The nickname evolved from the fact that Newsom seldom bothered to learn anyone's name. This was understandable, considering that he was the most celebrated baseball traveler of his time. Eventually, Bobo Newsom would make 17 stops along the major-league trail, and Clark Griffith would acquire his services on five different occasions. The old man's best explanation for that would be that he rather enjoyed playing pinochle with the fellow. Buck Newsom's career would span 26 years and include ten different minor-league stops as well.

Another nickname Bobo earned was the "Hartsville Squire," because he told tall tales of owning a 13-room mansion on a plantation back home, where he hunted with hounds and made more money growing cotton than he made playing baseball. Vexed once with a Washington writer who had labeled him "a $14,000-a-year pitcher," Newsom admonished the reporter for making him look bad, insisting he would never have signed for less than the $18,000 he was earning at the time. In actual fact, he was making $13,000.

Money and all of its trappings were what Bobo liked to show off most. As a Detroit Tiger in 1940, he arrived at training camp in a car which had "BOBO" in neon lights on the door, and a horn which played "The Tiger Rag." In 1942, a rookie invited for a drive in Newsom's convertible was astonished when Bobo insisted on paying double the fine after getting pulled over for speeding. He wanted to pay double, he told the officer, because he certainly intended to drive just as fast on his way back. . . . (We will return to Bobo's story when we next encounter him in our progression.)

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Player #149C: Fred W. "Fritz" Schulte. Center fielder for the Washington Senators in 1933-1935. 1,241 hits and 47 home runs in 11 MLB seasons. He had a career OBP of .362. He debuted with the St. Louis Browns in 1927. His best year was 1932 for St. Louis as he posted a .373 OBP with 106 runs scored in 639 plate appearances. He also posted a .366 OBP with 98 runs scored in 622 plate appearances in 1933 as Washington won the AL pennant. He finished his career with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1936-1937.

Schulte's SABR biography sums up his career and covers the 1934 injury that marked the beginning of the end for him in Washington and as a frontline MLB player: Fred Schulte played center field for the pennant-winning 1933 Washington Senators. His three-run homer in Game Five of the World Series against the Giants pulled the Senators even. But New York won on a 10th-inning homer by Mel Ott that tipped off Schulte’s glove. The victory gave the Giants the championship.

In his 11-year big-league career, Schulte hit .291. A solid fielder, he was the regular in center for five seasons with the St. Louis Browns and two with the Senators. He often was among the league leaders in assists and double plays for center fielders; as calculated retrospectively, he twice led the league in range factor for his position. . . .

. . . The veteran Senators lineup was hit with a series of crippling injuries (in 1934), and the pitching didn’t hold up. General Crowder, a 24-game winner in 1933, fell to 4-10 with a 6.75 earned run average and was waived in August. Earl Whitehill went from 22 wins to 14 with an ERA more than a run higher. The team ERA went from 3.82 to 4.68. Washington finished seventh, 20 games under .500.

The injury jinx didn’t hit Schulte until September, a week after Cronin had broken his arm in a collision at first base. Schulte caught a spike when sliding home in a September 11 loss and seriously injured an ankle. He had to be carried off the field and was sent to a hospital. He had torn a ligament and was out for the season, immediately returning home to Belvidere.

At that point, Schulte had been in 136 games and was hitting an even .300, rounded up from .2996 with 157 hits in 524 at-bats.

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Player #155B: John T. "Rocky" Stone. Outfielder with the Washington Senators in 1934-1938. 1,391 hits and 77 home runs in 11 MLB seasons. His career OBP was .376. he debuted with the Detroit Tigers in 1928-1933. His most productive season may have been 1932 with Detroit as he posted a .361 OBP with 106 runs scored and 109 RBIs in 643 plate appearances. His best season in Washington was 1936 as he posted a .421 OBP with 95 runs scored and 90 RBIs in 500 plate appearances.

Back to Stone's SABR biography: Cronin’s departure (following the 1934 season) resulted in the return of Bucky Harris to Washington as skipper in 1935. Bucky was certainly well acquainted with Johnny from their days together in Detroit and immediately announced plans to utilize Stone as the Senators’ clean-up hitter for the upcoming season. Harris commented: “He’s got the power that a fourth-place hitter needs. I don’t mean home runs, but those frequent doubles and triples that roll off his bat.” Stone went on to hit .314 in 125 games.; however, Harris wasn’t pleased with either the team’s sixth place finish or the overall performance of Johnny Stone.

Harris unfairly assumed southern ballplayers had a lazy streak, a trait he referred to as the “Tennessee hookworm.” The Senators manager surmised Stone was simply not giving it his all, both offensively and defensively. Harris even speculated about the possibility of relegating Stone to part-time status, fueling rumors of a potential salary cut for the 1936 season.

Johnny ultimately signed, retaining his $7,500 salary, plus his clean-up spot in the batting order. Perhaps the motivational tactic worked; he went on to post a .341 average with 15 home runs and 90 RBIs as the Senators moved up to finish third with an 82-71 record.

Washington fell back to sixth place (73-80) in 1937, with Johnny posting a .330 average in 139 games. Sportswriter Al Costello described Stone: “He is as colorless as a newly whitewashed fence. Not one bit of showmanship or grandstanding is in his makeup as he goes along his business of fielding almost faultlessly and hitting often and hard. Ask any of the players in the American League what sort of a player Stone is and you’re sure to receive the answer that to a player is the acme of praise. They’ll tell you concisely the words that best explain a good ballplayer to another ballplayer when they explain: Stone is a ballplayer’s ballplayer.”

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Player #149B: Montie M. Weaver. Pitcher with the Washington Senators in 1931-1938. 71 wins and 4 saves in 9 MLB seasons. In 1933 as Washington won the AL pennant, he posted a 10-5 record with a 3.25 ERA in 152.1 innings pitched. He finished his career with the Boston Red Sox in 1939.

Weaver's SABR biography goes on to describe the troubles and criticisms he endured while in Washington: Weaver started strongly in 1934 and had won nine games by mid-July. But the Nats lost 11 of his last 13 starts as they sank to seventh place, crippled by injuries to Cronin, catcher Sewell and first baseman Joe Kuhel.

The sporting press turned on Weaver. He had been portrayed as an oddball, but a respected, educated one; now his quirks were blamed for his poor performance, an 11-15 record with a 4.79 ERA. In September The Sporting News labeled him a “hypochondriac” and made the first mention of his vegetarian diet: “addicted to the spinach habit.”

The next spring Washington Star sports editor Denman Thompson wrote that he “does not resemble even remotely the well-built pitcher bought by Griffith from Baltimore five [actually four] years ago. Monte sticks to peas and carrots and passes up the starches and meats so necessary to the profession that is his. As a result, the gaunt Weaver has been unusually tardy in hitting his stride and fails to promise much improvement when warmer weather comes.” The Post reported that his weight was down to 146 pounds, from 170 when he broke in.

Other writers of the meat-and-potatoes school ridiculed Weaver. Dan Daniel of the New York World-Telegram wrote, “They tell a strange story about Weaver down in Washington… [A] disciple of a certain school of bone manipulation and starvation came to Monte and sold him the idea of taking treatments – for $500.” According to Daniel, the quack showed Monte an alarming x-ray of his sore back – actually an x-ray of a hunchback – and promised to cure him with a vegetarian diet. Months later he displayed an x-ray of Weaver’s own straight back – “a marvelous cure.” Daniel said Weaver was hooked on the diet, and his weight and his pitching declined.

“It seems you can’t throw strikes on collard greens,” the sportswriter-nutritionist concluded.

Whatever the merits of greens, peas and carrots, Weaver was hammered in his first two starts of 1935. In May he was waived by all other American League teams and sent down to Albany in the International League. Clark Griffith said he was too weak to pitch in the hot weather at the Nats’ other top farm club in Chattanooga.