Baseball history is full of stories of what might have been.
Cecil Travis does have that element in his career, but this story is about what did happen.
On this date in 1946, Travis collected five straight hits as the Washington Senators defeated the Cleveland Indians 12-4. A day later on May 6, Travis added another single off Cleveland pitcher Steve Gromek for six hits in a row.
It was a remarkable achievement for the shortstop who had just returned to the Senators a year earlier after missing three complete seasons due to his military service in Europe during World War II from 1942-44. He survived the Battle of the Bulge.
Travis made his big league debut with Washington on May 16, 1933. He also had five singles that day, ironically against Cleveland in Griffith Stadium as the Senators won 11-10 in 12 innings.
Playing 12 seasons with the Senators until 1947, Travis would be an all-star in 1938, 1940 and 1941. He collected 1,544 hits, 78 homers and drove in 657 runs with a lifetime batting average of .314.
Currently in seventh on all-time batting average list for the Minnesota Twins/Washington Senators, Travis is behind Rod Carew (.334), Heinie Manush (.328), Sam Rice (.323), Goose Goslin (.323), Kirby Puckett (.318) and John Stone (.317). Stone is the only player on the list in front of Travis who is not in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
The 1941 season proved to be the best for Travis. While Joe DiMaggio had his 56-game hitting streak to lead the Most Valuable Player voting and Ted Williams famously won the batting title with a .406 average, Travis topped the American League with 218 hits. DiMaggio finished with 193 and Williams had 185.
Travis was sixth in the MVP voting and finished second in the chase for the batting crown in 1941 behind Williams with .359. DiMaggio hit .357 that season. Travis finished 1941 with seven homers and 101 RBI for a team was the sixth in the AL MVP voting.
Respect From Legends
David Kindred of The Sporting News included a quote from Boston Red Sox legend Ted Williams in an article that appeared in multiple newspapers in 1994.
“I’m not so sure Cecil Travis doesn’t belong in the Hall of Fame,” Williams said. “He was just as good a hitter as John Olerud is today, only he did it longer. But in World War II, he got frozen feet and his career went boom.”
At the time of the quote by Williams, Olerud was a member of the Toronto Blue Jays as he won the AL batting title with an average of .363 helping his team to a second straight World Series Championship.
Even though Cleveland Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Feller wasn’t on the mound the day Travis bashed out five hits in 1946, he witnessed it from the opposing dugout.
Jeff D’Alessio and Furman Bisher of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution talked to Feller when Travis died at the age of 93 in his hometown of Riverdale, Georgia on December 16, 2006.
“He’d be a major Hall of Famer,” said Feller, who also served in military at the same time. “No questions asked. He was a very good hitter and he did a very good job in the war. If he had not been in the war, he would have had a lifetime average of .325, .335.”
According to that story, Feller was going to cast a vote for Travis during the Veteran’s Committee balloting that winter. Travis received 15 percent of the vote, while future Hall of Famer Ron Santo led the way with 70 percent. Santo would eventually be enshrined in 2012.