Wednesday, February 10, 1999 |
By MICHAEL BOYLAN
Sports Editor
There's a baseball legend living in this county and you have probably never heard of him. His name
is Cecil Travis and in the early 1940's everybody knew his name. When Cecil Travis graduated from
Fayette County High School in 1930, there was no baseball team. There was the Flint River League for
those who wanted to play. The teams came from cities like Jonesboro, Fairburn and Palmetto as well
as Fayetteville. Travis was a great hitter and his friends convinced him to go a baseball school in
Atlanta with them. The school was run by Kid Eberfield, a professional player with connections to major
league teams.
Travis's talents did not go unnoticed at the baseball school and Eberfield offered him a chance to
play for the Chattanooga Lookouts, a farm team for the Washington Senators. Cecil had been offered a
scholarship to Georgia Tech when he graduated from Fayette County High but baseball was in his blood.
"My parents were not enthused," Travis recalls. "I think they and my siblings were ready to carry
me off to Georgia Tech." Cecil went his own way and went to Chattanooga with Kid Eberfield. He played
for Chattanooga and Newport for the next two years, building his skills as a hitter and infielder. In May
of 1933, Cecil got the call up to the majors, when the Senators starting third baseman, Ossie Bluge,
had been injured. He rode a train all night to Washington,D.C. and arrived at about 12:30 p.m. He went
to Griffith Stadium, home of the Senators, and was told to suit up. He was starting in the first major
league game he ever saw live.
"It was the biggest thrill," said Travis. "I was only 19 years old and I'm playng with the players that
I had only read about." The game was against the Cleveland Indians and Cecil went 5 for 5. When
asked if batting 1.000 in his debut added pressure, Cecil answered "I was there. There is no pressure
after you've made it." He had made it but he was sent back to Chattanooga when Bluge was healthy again.
It was not the last time that he would play for the Senators. In fact, he got called up again in September
of 1933 and the Senators were in the heat of a pennant race.
Cecil helped the Senators win the pennant that year but because he was not on their roster as of the
first of September (he was called back on Sept. 5), he was not allowed to be on their playoff roster.
The Senators made the World Series that year but lost to the New York Giants. Realizing what Cecil had
done for the team that year, the players voted to give him a cut of the money they received for making
the World Series. Cecil Travis was now a part of the team.
Travis played for the Senators for the next 13 years, eventually moving from third base to shortstop.
He had a lifetime batting average of .313 and made his first all star team in 1937. He played in the all
star game again in 1940 and 1941. 1941 was his best year and possibly one of the best years for baseball
ever. It was the year that Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox hit .406 and Joe DiMaggio of the New
York Yankees had a hit streak of 56 games. Travis, who finished second in the
batting title that year, had 33 more hits than Ted Williams and a batting average that was two percentage points higher than
Joe Dimaggio. Dimaggio was voted MVP of the American League that year with a .357 batting average.
"Nobody was going to catch Ted Williams in 1941 but the race for second place went to the last
at bat of the regular season," said Travis, whose Senators were facing DiMaggio's Yankees to close
out the season. "My roommate was a pitcher,Sid Hudson. Sid struck out Joe DiMaggio at his last at
bat and that helped me take second place." Both Dimaggio and Williams are in the Hall of Fame
but Cecil Travis has yet to make it. He says it does not bother him in the least. "If I had played a few
more years then yes I should have made it. They need to hold higher standards," said Travis. "There's
too many people in there as it is."
Cecil Travis was making around $15,000 a year in 1941 and would have gotten a big raise the
next year if it had not been for World War Two. He and many other baseball players were drafted in
1942. Cecil fought with the infantry until 1945. He returned to the Senators after the war and played
for another two years but he had lost a step.
Rumor has it that he had suffered from frostbite in the war but Cecil chalks it up to being
away from the game. "I lost the timing of it," said Travis. "I was just away from playing for too long and
I lost a few steps."
He did not want to play if he could not continue at the same level that he had played at before
the war. In 1947, Cecil Travis retired from the Washington Senators. On Aug.15, 1947 Griffith
Stadium hosted Cecil Travis Night. He was a scout for the team for a few years and was offered a
managing position with the Chattanooga Lookouts, but he moved back to Fayette County instead. "With
being in the war for close to four years and scouting afterwards, I just wanted to get back to my family
and farm."
And that's what he did and is still doing to this day. He is a Braves fan and continues to watch
and follow baseball. When asked what the major differences in the game were between now and when
he played, Travis reflected and answered, "The game seems faster and the equipment and facilities
are much better, but the players of yesterday could play today and vice versa." He also contends that
the American League and the National League should "get on the same page" and "get rid of the
designated hitter."
Every now and then some reporter, like myself, catches wind of Cecil Travis's story and thinks
the world deserves to hear about it. The world needs to know about the man who had 1,544 hits and
657 RBI. They need to know that there are only two other shortstops in the history of the game who
have higher batting averages, Honus Wagner and Arky Vaughn. The world needs to know what a
kind, gracious and humble man is living rght under their noses.
Cecil Travis was named to the Fayette County Sports Hall of Fame at a banquet on Saturday
and has been inducted in the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame as well. He isn't in the Baseball Hall of
Fame yet, but Ted Williams is a member of the Veterans Board and also a Cecil Travis fan. He
would appreciate the recognition and the honor if he was inducted, but just being a part of the grand
game is thanks enough for him. That is what makes a
hero.
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