1961 Fleer Autograph Project - Part 45

It had taken five years, but I have finally managed to achieve something: I caught COVID.  

Lordy, did I feel like crap.  Christmas day started off normal enough, but as the day wore on, I got more and more tired. By early evening, I was having chills and was achy all over. The next two days were a blur. I tried working from home, but both days I only made it to lunch before I crapped out; Friday I went to bed at 6 PM and basically stayed there for the next 12 hours. I was feeling better on Saturday, better still each subsequent day, and I hope to return to the office Thursday (1/2)

Anyways, in my attempt to not overdo it, I am going to knock another one of these posts out.  

Hughie Critz was considered one of the best defensive second basemen of his era.  A light hitter, his facility with the glove saw him mentioned in the same breath with his more offensively adept contemporaries like Honus Wagner, Eddie Collins, and Frankie Frisch.  What else do we know about Hughie?

1. He was the son of a university president. His father was at various times president of the universities know known as Arkansas Tech and Mississippi State.  Despite being a ballplayer himself, the elder Critz was not happy when his son went out for baseball during his junior year  Mississippi State (nee Mississippi A&M)
2. After graduating college, he started working as a cotton broker in Greenwood, MS but a agricultural depression that crashed cotton prices put paid to that choice. He became a pro ball player when his semi-pro team joined the Class D Mississippi State League.
3. After the 1921 season, his contract was sold to the Memphis Chickasaws of the Class A Southern Association.  Following that season, he was promoted to the Double A Minneapolis Millers where he put in one full, and one partial season before being called up to Cincinnati in May of 1924. He was inserted immediately as the everday second baseman for the Redlegs and hit .322 over the course of the season. This represented his career high water mark for batting average.
4. He went 2 for 4 in his debut game; hitting two singles off of the great Chicago pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander.
5. He had a reputation as a smart player, though in self-effacing style he once said “Such stars as Johnny Evers and Eddie Collins had set the fashion and brains and second base sort of went together, So I decided to appear smart, too. I shifted to the right for this batter, to the left for that one, guessed wrong half the time but got away with it.”
6. In 1929 after a hard slide by Riggs Stephenson took out Hughie, injuring his knee, an on-field fight ensued between the Cubs and the Reds.  Making the incident noteworthy, the teams continued the brawl post-game while waiting for their respective trains.
7. Critz was long coveted by NY Giants manager John McGraw, who finally managed to trade for him in 1930.  This allowed him to make his sole post season appearance with the Giants in their 1933 World Series victory.
8. Critz was very superstitious. One such superstition was the need to move his rival second baseman's glove when he took the field at the start of an inning.  Frankie Frisch would deliberately take his glove with him to the bench and Fritz would have to chase him down to touch the glove in order to satisfy his compulsion.
9. In retirement, he owned a 1,000 acre plantation and a Ford-Lincoln dealership in Greenwood.
10. While not a familiar name today, Hughie was elected to the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame and was chosen by Cinci fans as the second baseman on the Reds’ all-time team in 1969, nearly 40 years after he was traded away.

I suppose I should do a 2024 retrospective and goal setting for the 2025 collecting season.  Perhaps this weekend.  In the mean time...

What I am listening to: Sing by Travis