Happy Birthday to the late and great Charlie Gehringer. Over his 19-year career, all with the Detroit Tigers put together a Hall of Fame career offensively and defensively. He is regarded as one of the greatest second basemen of all time.

Career (1924-1942):

.320 BA, 2,839 HITS, 184 HR, 1,427 RBI, .404 OBP, 1,775 RUNS

  • 1937 MVP & Batting Champion
  • 6x All-Star
  • 1935 World Series Champion

I have Gehringer ranked as the fourth-greatest second baseman of all time, behind Hornsby, Collins, and Lajoie. During his playing career, he was known for being a quiet guy.

“Charlie says ‘hello on Opening Day,’ goodbye’ on closing day, and in between, he hits .350.” -Mickey Cochrane. 

On the field, he was business as usual offensively, despite not being considered a home run hitter; he drove in 100 or more RBIs seven times, Also seven times, he recorded 200 or more HITS. Gehringer was also never an easy out, and he only struck out 372 times throughout his 8,860 career At-Bats. Of course, baserunning was one of his good assets; in his prime, he averaged over 40 Doubles and double-digit Triples in a season. In 1936, he hit 60 Doubles and scored 144 times.

Defensively, he played a tremendous second base. Gehringer led all second basemen in Fielding Percentage & Assists seven times in his career. Along with Billy Rogell, they played over 1,000 games together as Second Base and Shortstop, and the two had one of the better double-play combos in baseball history.

Had it not been for some nagging injuries in his final two seasons, Gehringer, in all likelihood, would’ve eclipsed the 3,000 Hit and 1,500 RBI milestones. Gehringer was a little overshadowed when you consider that he played in an era with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg as his teammate. But Gehringer is one of the greatest second basemen ever to play. In 1999, he was ranked 46 on The Sporting News list of 100 Greatest Ball Players. Shame on the baseball writers back then for making Gehringer wait until his fifth year of eligibility to be enshrined into Cooperstown.

References:

  1. Charlie Gehringer Career Statistics via Baseball-Reference: https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/gehrich01.shtml
  2. Charlie Gehringer via Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Gehringer#