Cecil Travis
Player #158B: Cecil H. Travis Part 2. Infielder for the Washington Senators in 1933-1941 and 1945-1947. 1,544 hits and 27 home runs over 12 MLB seasons. 3-time All-Star. One of two to get 5 hits in first game. Led American League in hits in 1941 despite DiMaggio's 56-game hit streak and Ted Williams hitting .406. His best season was 1941 as he posted a .410 OBP with 101 RBIs in 663 plate appearances. In the Army during 1942-45, he wound up a frostbite victim in the Battle of the Bulge and a Bronze Star recipient. His return to MLB after the war surgery was not the same.
. . . In 1933, Travis was invited to spring training by the Washington Senators, Chattanooga’s parent club. After nearly making the team that spring, Travis was called up from Chattanooga to fill in for injured third baseman Ossie Bluege on May 16. Arriving at Griffith Stadium just one-half hour before game time, Travis had one of the most remarkable Major League debuts in baseball history, collecting hits in his first four at-bats and finishing the day with five hits. It was the first time since Fred Clarke’s debut in 1894 that anyone had collected five hits in his first game; no other player has since managed this feat. Travis hit .302 in limited duty for the Senators that season, and even though he was on Washington’s World Series roster, his teammates voted him a share of the team’s bonus for winning the American League pennant.
Travis won the starting third base job over Bluege in 1934. He hit his first major league home run on June 23 off the Detroit Tigers’ Vic Sorrell. Travis batted .319 in this first full season in Washington, overcoming a terrifying early season beaning by Chicago’s Thornton Lee that sidelined him for several games. (In his first game back, Travis faced Lee again and tripled on the southpaw’s first offering.)
Travis battled injuries throughout the early stages of his career, and he was dogged by criticisms that he was not the defensive player that Bluege was. The team shuffled Travis from position to position in both the infield and outfield over the next two seasons as it sought to keep his bat in the lineup. He was named the team’s full-time shortstop in 1937 and responded by playing solid defense. In 1938, he earned his first All-Star selection but did not play in the game.
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