Charlie Gelbert
Charles M. "Charlie" Gelbert. Shortstop for the Washington Senators in 1939-1940. 766 hits and 17 home runs in 9 MLB seasons. 1931 World Series champion. He debuted with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1929-1932 and 1935-1936. In 1930 with the Cardinals he posted a .360 OBP with 92 runs scored and 72 RBI's in 574 plate appearances.
He finished his career with the Boston Red Sox in 1940. He lost two full seasons recovering from a severe ankle injury suffered while hunting. Though he returned to baseball in 1935 and played six more seasons, he was limited to a utility role for the rest of his career.
Excerpt from Gelbert's SABR biography: “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” featured Charley Gelbert in 1941, noting that he “played 239 major league games with a broken leg.” Shortstop Gelbert put in four full seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals and played in back-to-back World Series, losing one and then winning one. And then an offseason hunting accident nearly ended his career. But he kept on playing, and saw duty in five more big-league seasons.
He had seemed destined for greatness. Hall of Famer and teammate Frankie Frisch said, “If he hadn’t been hurt, he would have been the best.”
Under manager Gabby Street, the 1930 Cardinals again won the National League pennant (as they had in 1926 and 1928) with a .314 team batting mark; Gelbert hit .304 and drove in 72 runs in 139 games. He had an excellent World Series; though the Cards lost to the Philadelphia Athletics in six games, Gelbert hit .353, and won praise for some outstanding fielding plays.
In 1931 the Cardinals won the pennant once more and faced off against the Athletics again, this time winning the World Series in seven games. Gelbert collected six more hits and handled 42 more chances without an error.
In November 1932, Gelbert shot himself with a 12-gauge shotgun. It was an accident. On November 16 he went hunting with four friends and a number of dogs not far from his home in Fayettesville, Pennsylvania. “It could have happened to anyone,” he said afterward. “I was talking along, carrying my gun properly, and my foot slipped. I fell backward, my feet flew up, the gun went off. …”
His foot had snagged on a hillside vine and as he tried to right himself, the other foot turned on a piece of rock. “The gun in his right hand crashed against the rocky mountain side. There was an explosion. The jar had discharged Gelbert’s gun.” The shotgun blast hit him in the left leg about four inches above the ankle. “They were afraid to loosen the boot for fear the foot would fall off. That’s how bad it looked.”
An Army surgeon who had served in World War I evaluated his foot and worried that it would need to be amputated; there were few tendons left. But treatment at Hahnemann Hospital in Philadelphia saved his foot. Gelbert told his wife, “From now on, I’ll confine myself to golf. … I know now there is nothing safe about a gun.”
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