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(Entry No. 11)

Can You Name This Week’s Mystery Player?

How well you do know your old-time players?

My goal with this feature is to shine our baseball spotlight on some very good players from days gone by who have been overshadowed by the likes of Ruth, Gehrig, Speaker, Hornsby, Grove, Greenberg, Robinson, Paige, Gibson, and Williams, among many other superstars the game has produced. Hopefully, we can give them a little exposure before they are totally lost over the passage of time.

Player Identity: Ossie Bluege

As always on Baseball History Comes Alive, we can have some fun while enhancing our baseball history learning experience. Each entry will include a short description of the player and highlights from his career. Some of the entries might require you to do a little research on your own. I might even add a personal comment or two about him.

So as to give everyone a chance to guess without the player’s identity being immediately revealed, send me your answer via e-mail instead of leaving your answer in the comments section. Send your answers to me at: Livac2@aol.com.

This week’s Mystery Player (from Wikipedia):

It’s hard to stump you guys, but maybe this week’s entry will do it!

He was a third baseman, manager, coach, and front-office executive in major league baseball who spent his entire playing career with the Washington Senators franchise from 1922 to 1939. He would remain on the team’s payroll in key on-and off-field capacities until 1971, long after it became the Minnesota Twins. He’s considered one of the greatest defensive third basemen the game has ever seen.

This week’s Mystery Player has to be one of the most underrated, overlooked

players from the 1920s-’30s. He was considered the 1920s-’30s version of Brooks Robinson, but his family considers Brooks Robinson the 1960s-’70s version of him.

A few years ago I was contacted by his daughter Wilor and I’m still in occasional contact with her. She asked me to review the manuscript of the book she and her sister were writing about their father. As I was reading it, I was stunned to discover what an outstanding player he actually was, someone I had barely heard of. Babe Ruth once selected him as the third baseman on his All-Star team.

Here’s a couple good quotes about him:

“Nobody will get ***** from us. He has a job for life. I got him for $3,500. Today I wouldn’t take $75,000!” – Clarke Griffith
“Neither [Pie Traynor nor Brooks Robinson] was the equal of *****.”-Calvin Griffith
“If you’re looking for the best fielding third baseman who ever played, his name is *****.” –Pie Traynor
“I consider ***** one of the best, if not the best fielding third basemen in the majors. -Sportswriter Shirley Povich

This week’s bonus questions:

What city was his hometown?
As Twins farm director, he was responsible for signing two of this year’s Hall-of-Fame inductees. Who are they?
He was a member of three pennant winners with the Senators. What were the years?

Good luck!

If you’d like to take a stab at identifying these players, please send me your answers via email. But feel free to add any thoughts or personal reflections you might have about him in the comments section below. Remember you don’t have to answer everything to submit an answer. Just give it your best shot!

Send your answers to me at: Livac2@aol.com

At the end of the week, I’ll post the names of everyone who go the correct answers, including the winner, the first one to get it right.