Grid #409

Who finished second to Ted Williams during the 1941 batting race? No, not him...

ERIK: Here’s one of my father’s favorite trivia questions: In 1941, the year Joe DiMaggio hit in 56 straight games and Ted Williams batted .406, who led the American League in hits?

It’s one of my father’s favorite trivia questions because, right, it’s neither of those guys, but also because the answer is one of my father’s favorite players: Washington Senators’ shortstop Cecil Travis, the man in the bottom center square.

Dad thinks if it hadn’t been for the war, Travis would be in the Hall of Fame, and he might be right. From 1933-41, Travis slashed a .327/.381/.427 line from a position where offense wasn’t expected, with 1,370 hits and more walks than strikeouts. He was a three-time All-Star, got MVP votes in three different seasons, and was particularly good in ’41: .359/.410/.520, with 100+ RBIs, 100+ runs scored, and twice as many BBs as Ks. He actually finished second to Williams in the batting race that season—ahead of DiMaggio. And he was still only 28.

And then the war.

While he did what a lot of ballplayers did, play on military teams, in ’44 he served with the 76th Infantry Division and was at the Battle of the Bulge, where he suffered severe frostbite and almost lost his feet to amputation.

A lot of guys returned from the war not the same, and Travis, who was awarded the Bronze Star, was among them. Before he went, he never hit below .300 except for one season, when he hit .292. After he returned, still just 31, he couldn’t hit above .252. But he refused to make excuses:

“Everybody thought it was my feet, but they were fine,” he once told The Washington Times. “But my timing was completely gone.”

On August 15, 1947, hitting near .200 in what would turn out to be his final season, the Senators held a “Cecil Travis Night” at Griffith Stadium, where, before 15,228 fans, he was showered with gifts, and received congratulatory messages from, among others, Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler, and Gen. Dwight Eisenhower.

Of course the Senators lost the game, 3-0, to the Philadelphia A’s; Joe Coleman pitched a 4-hit shutout.

After his playing career, Travis became a scout for the Senators. He lived to see the new century, dying in 2006, age 93.

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TIM: That’s pretty cool. I guess Calvin Griffith was an OK guy once in a while. (Or did he just think Cecil Travis Night would sell tickets?)

For me this was a crappy Grid. I just don’t know the Tigers at all and I’m kind of shocked I didn’t get an empty square in their column as two of three were guesses.

I knew Torii Hunter would be a bad score, but I had nothing else. Yeah, both are original teams with lots of history, but I know basically squat about the Tigers. I know what I remember from postseasons: Kirk Gibson, Willie Hernandez, Verlander, Scherzer, Doug Fister, Whitaker and Trammell, Lance Parrish. And Greenberg because he’s a legend. And Casper Wells because he was part of the return in the Mariners’ trade of Fister. I don’t know if I could name another Detroit Tiger. (OK, the Fielders, Cecil and Prince; Kenta Maeda from this year; um…. Juan Gone, because they moved the fences in for him; Bobby Higginson, because Carl had him on a fantasy team once and that netted him a lot of razzing; Travis Fryman, I think? Er… Curtis Granderson….Austin Jackson…. yeah, I’m out.) Damon was a guess based on some hazy feeling, but how in hell I nailed it with Milt May I do not know. I just was cycling through Pirates from the ’70s and tried one.

The rest of it I just breezed through quickly without putting much time into it, basically using the first guys that came to mind. I actually saw Willie Stargell in person once, he was on a rehab assignment with Portland, which was the Pirates’ AAA team once upon a time, and he played against the host Tucson Toros with me in attendance. I knew he was a big name, but that was about it; I was probably 10 or so and more interested in the packs of baseball cards my friend Zak and I bought at the concession stand.

Interesting that you used Steve Blass, his was one of the Pirate names I was coming up with when searching for anyone that would fit with Detroit. Pretty great score for you today all in all with all those black-and-whites. Have you had an all-B&W Grid yet?