Was Charlie Gehringer the Best Second Baseman Ever?

If you asked most knowledgeable baseball fans who the greatest all-around second baseman of all-time was, few would answer Charlie Gehringer. But he just may be the answer to that question, as Charlie Gehringer, nicknamed the “Mechanical Man” because of his robot-like efficiency at the plate and in the field, hit for average and power, drove in runs, stole bases, and fielded his position with excellence. While Rogers Hornsby was a superior batter, Ryne Sandberg and Joe Morgan had more power, Bill Mazeroski and Nellie Fox were wonderful glove men, and Paul Molitor and Morgan were better base stealers, Charlie Gehringer combined all these ingredients into one complete player. As good as Charlie Gehringer was, he was the most nondescript and quiet star to ever walk onto a baseball field.

“Fundamentally sound” is how the lefty swinging Charlie Gehringer would be described today, and that he was. He came to the Detroit Tigers after one year of playing baseball at the University of Michigan. Ty Cobb, the Bengals’ player/manager at the time, knew Charlie Gehringer was going to hit when he signed him in 1924. By 1926, Charlie Gehringer was the Detroit second baseman, a position he would occupy for the next seventeen seasons. Sure-handed in the field and with a keen batting eye, Charlie Gehringer did not hit for power at first, but he sure did hit for average. After a .277 rookie campaign, Charlie Gehringer, starting in 1927 at the age of 24, hit below .300 just once for the next fourteen years, and that was .298 in 1932.

In 1929 Charlie Gehringer had the first of what would be seven one hundred RBI seasons. He hit .339 with 13 homers and 106 ribbies. Charlie Gehringer had 98 runs batted in the next year, then missed a big chunk of 1931 with injuries. But Charlie Gehringer rebounded in 1932, knocking in 107 runs. RBI totals of 105, 127, 108, 116, 96, 107, 86, and 81 followed that, as Charlie Gehringer indeed was a machine, a hitting machine. Charlie Gehringer collected 200 or more hits in a single season seven times, 40 or more doubles seven times, led the American League in stolen bases in 1929 with 27, and only struck out 372 times in almost 9,000 at-bats! The six-time All-Star never drew attention to himself. Considered as quiet as a church mouse, Charlie Gehringer was once spiked by his own shortstop, which caught a wind-blown pop-up on the second base side of the infield. All he told the player as he went back to his position was, “I can catch those too”.

Charlie Gehringer was named the American League Most Valuable Player in 1937 on the strength of his league leading .371 average and 96 runs batted in. His best all-around year though was most likely in 1934, when Charlie Gehringer batted .356, collected 50 doubles among his 214 hits, and accumulated 127 runs batted in. Not coincidentally, Detroit went to the World Series, where Charlie Gehringer hit a team leading .379- with a homer off of St. Louis ace Dizzy Dean in Game Five. Detroit, however, lost in seven games to the Cardinals, but returned to the Fall Classic the very next year. In the ’35 World Series against the Cubs, Charlie Gehringer batted .375 and had huge hits in Games Two and Four, as Detroit won their first championship, in six games over Chicago.

On May 27th, 1939 Charlie Gehringer became the first player to ever hit for the cycle in order-single, double, triple, and then the home run. At the age of 39, in 1940, Charlie Gehringer had his last solid season and the Tigers returned to the Series, but Charlie did little in a seven game loss to the Reds. The slick fielding Charlie Gehringer, who seven times led the league in assists and fielding percentage, played on for two more years before joining the Navy during World War II. Charlie Gehringer was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1949, was Detroit’s General Manager from 1951-1953 and Vice President from ’53 through 59. Charlie Gehringer died at the age of 89 in January of 1993, in Michigan.

If you look at the hitting stats of the Hall of Fame second baseman, Charlie Gehringer is up there in every important category. Charlie Gehringer’s 1,774 runs scored trail only Eddie Collins, his 2,839 base hits rank him sixth in this bunch, his 574 doubles lags behind only Nap Lajoie, his 184 homers places him fifth, his total of 1,427 runs batted in is in back of only Rogers Hornsby and Lajoie, and his .320 career batting average ranks fifth. Throw in his wonderful glove and you could easily argue that Charlie Gehringer was the best second baseman in all of baseball history. It is little wonder that Yankee pitching great Lefty Gomez, who Charlie Gehringer hit a ninth inning homer off of in 1933 to ruin a no-hit bid, said of the Tiger great, “He hits .350 on Opening Day and stays there all season”. A mechanical man indeed.