Player #73C: Joseph I. "Joe" Judge. First baseman with the Washington Senators in 1915-1932. 2,352 hits and 71 home runs in 20 MLB seasons. 1924 World Series champion. In 1924, as Washington won the AL pennant and the World Series, he had one of his better years as he posted a .393 OBP with 71 runs scored and 79 RBIs in 593 plate appearances. He finished his career with the Boston Red Sox in 1933-1934. He may have been the basis for the character of Joe Hardy in Damn Yankees, whose author dated Judge's daughter in the 1940's.
Judge's SABR biography has him in the middle of Washington's rise to compete for the pennant: Judge hit a career high.333 in 1920. He had five hits in a game twice, once on May 7 against New York and on May 29 versus Cleveland. He committed 10 errors that season as well, the last time he would record double-digits in that category. The 1920 season was also Griffith’s last as manager.
As the deadball era was ending, Griffith was slowly putting the pieces together for a competitive team, with Johnson, Judge and Judge’s fellow outfielder (sic) Sam Rice, as the foundation. Rice and Judge were teammates for 18 seasons in Washington, which was a record for the longest pairing of two teammates until surpassed by Detroit’s Alan Trammell and Lou Whitaker (1977-1995). In 1918, Judge played a handful of games with the Baltimore Drydocks, a shipyard team he joined in keeping with the pattern for many major leaguers during World War I. Also on the team was young second baseman, Stanley “Bucky” Harris, whom Judge and scout Joe Engel recommended to Griffith. The “Old Fox” then acquired Harris in a trade with Buffalo in 1919, thus solidifying the right side of the Senator infield for many years.
In 1921 Griffith signed outfielder Goose Goslin from Columbia (SC) of the South Atlantic League for $7,000 and obtained shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh in a trade with Boston in 1922. When Ossie Bluege was signed to man the hot corner for the 1923 campaign, the Nats’ infield was being compared to Connie Mack’s famed $100,000 infield in Philadelphia. Griffith admitted that while Mack’s foursome might outhit his, he was confident that “we could outfield them in three of four positions”.
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