Yankees Birthday of the Day: Bob Meusel
· Yahoo Sports
You can definitely say that Bob Meusel made his MLB debut at the perfect time: in 1920, with the birth of the so-called live ball era. From that year until 1929, the hard-hitting outfielder was a key cog of the Yankees’ lineup in a key decade in franchise history, the days of the “Murderers’ Row.”
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Robert William ‘Bob’ Meusel
Born: July 19, 1896 (San Jose, CA)
Died: November 28, 1977 (Downey, CA)
Yankees Tenure: 1920-1929
Meusel was born on this day 130 years ago in San Jose, California, to Charles and Mary Meusel. Robert William was his name, and he was the youngest of six children. One of his brothers was Emil “Irish” Meusel, who was a New York Giants star in the early 1920s.
The family relocated to Los Angeles when Bob was growing up. There, he went to the Los Angeles High School, played ball for Spokane in the Northwestern League in 1917, and then for the Vernon Tigers of the Pacific Coast League in 1917 and 1919. In the middle, in 1918, he served in the U.S. Navy, where he played baseball, too.
Meusel made his MLB debut for the Yankees in 1920, the same year in which Babe Ruth, who would be a close friend of his, was sold to the team. As a rookie, he tied for ninth with 11 home runs and finished fifth with 40 doubles. The power, as you can see, was always there, but one of his most underrated tools was an amazing throwing arm that has been described by some as being in a similar tier to Roberto Clemente, Willie Mays, and Ichiro Suzuki, as the Society of American Baseball Research, or SABR, illustrates.
In 1921, Meusel led the league with 88 strikeouts, but posted a career-high .915 OPS that illustrates just how talented he was and how underrated he was in those Yankees of the 1920s. He increased his home run output to 24, drove in a whopping 138 runs, and helped take the Bombers to the World Series for the first time in franchise history. There, they lost to the Giants with his brother Irish shining.
Meusel wasn’t great in World Series play as a Yankee, accumulating a .225 batting average and a .632 OPS. Still, it doesn’t erase the contributions he made to the franchise and the fact that he helped take them to six Fall Classics, winning three.
It’s important to point out that Meusel got married that year, in 1921, on December 14th. He decided to make things formal with Edith Cowan. The couple had two children. Another anecdote of that eventful 1921 involving Meusel was that he, alongside Ruth and pitcher Bill Piercy, was suspended for going on a barnstorming tour after the Fall Classic.
The 1922 campaign was more of the same: steady production from Meusel (.898 OPS and 16 home runs) and another World Series loss to the Giants. The Yankees and ‘Long Bob’ would finally enjoy sweet revenge in 1923 after beating the Giants 4-2 in the Fall Classic, with the younger Meusel putting up a .731 OPS with a double, two triples, and eight RBI.
Meusel had a nice 1924 campaign, hitting .325/.365/.494 with 40 doubles, 11 triples, 12 home runs, 124 RBI, a .859 OPS, and a career-high 26 stolen bases. Meusel could do it all, including field, and had that elegance that some people mistook for laziness. The Yankees finished second in the junior circuit and didn’t make it to the World Series.
In 1925, despite the Yankees again failing to make it to the last series of the season, Meusel had arguably his finest campaign in pinstripes. He slashed .290/.348/.542 with an .889 OPS and led the American League in both home runs, with 33, and RBI, with 134. It was a down year for Ruth, as physical issues and other problems limited him to 98 games.
The Yankees would return to the Fall Classic in 1926, aided by Meusel’s 12 homers and .842 regular-season OPS. His 1926 World Series was a forgettable one, though. He was fine from a stats standpoint, finishing with a .788 OPS, but he made a key fielding error with the bases loaded in the fourth inning of Game 7 that led to the tying run and then missed several chances with runners on base at the plate to seal the Yankees’ fate that year.
The Murderers’ Row, as a term, can be used to refer to the 1920s Yankees in general, but it mostly refers to the 1927 lineup that won 110 of 155 regular-season games and then took the Fall Classic. The first six hitters, Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Meusel, and Tony Lazzeri, were a handful for opposing pitchers.
Meusel hit .337/.393/.510 with eight round-trippers and a .902 OPS that year. He doubled 47 times, though, and also contributed nine triples. It was the first of two consecutive World Series sweeps by the Yankees, as they easily handled the Pittsburgh Pirates first, and the St. Louis Cardinals next in 1928.
In that 1928 campaign, Meusel started to decline. Yes, he drove in 113 runs, but his .816 OPS marked the start of a downward trend until he retired in 1930. That 1928 World Series would be his last, and it ended in his third ring.
He played exactly 100 games for the 1929 Yankees, but it was clear that he wasn’t the same. He finished with a .683 OPS, and was sold to the Cincinnati Reds, where he wrapped up a brilliant career in 1930.
Even though Meusel fell short of Hall of Fame status, he had a fantastic career that every young player would want. He retired with a .309/.356/.497 slash line, 156 home runs, 1,068 RBI, 142 stolen bases, and an .852 OPS. He racked up 28.7 Wins Above Replacement, per FanGraphs (fWAR). Combs, Meusel and Ruth formed one of history’s most feared outfields from 1924-29. The 1920s decade was when it all started for the Yankees, and Meusel was a huge part of it all. He ranked 50th in our list of the top 100 Yankees a few years ago, and it’s easy to see why.
Upon retiring, Meusel returned to the Navy, working as a security guard at one of its bases for 15 years. He was among those present at the famous Gehrig speech of July 4, 1939. Additionally, and according to SABR, he went on to appear in several movies (generally as himself) such as Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927), Alibi Ike (1935), Pride of the Yankees (1942), and The Babe Ruth Story (1948).
After baseball, Meusel lived a quiet life in California. He passed in 1977, a few days after the Yankees sealed their first World Series win in 15 years.
See more of the “Yankees Birthday of the Day” series here.