Art Fletcher

Infobox MLB retired
bgcolor1=#fd5a1e
bgcolor2=black
textcolor1=black
textcolor2=#fd5a1e
name=Art Fletcher


position=Shortstop
bats=Right
throws=Right
birthdate=birth date|1885|1|5|mf=y
Collinsville, Illinois
deathdate=death date and age|1950|2|6|1885|1|5
Los Angeles, California
debutdate=April 15
debutyear=by|1909
debutteam=New York Giants
finaldate=September 16
finalyear=by|1922
finalteam=Philadelphia Phillies
stat1label=AVG
stat1value=.277
stat2label=Hits
stat2value=1534
stat3label=RBI
stat3value=675
teams= As Player
*New York Giants (by|1909-by|1920)
*Philadelphia Phillies (by|1920, by|1922)As Manager
*Philadelphia Phillies (by|1923-by|1926)
*New York Yankees (by|1929)
highlights=
* Batted .319 in 1911

Arthur Fletcher (January 5 1885 - February 6 1950) was an American shortstop, manager and coach in Major League Baseball. Fletcher was associated with two New York City baseball dynasties: the Giants of John McGraw as a player; and the Yankees of Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy as a coach.

Born in Collinsville, Illinois, Fletcher came to the Giants in by|1909 and became the club's regular shortstop two years later. He played in four World Series while performing for McGraw (1911, 1912, 1913 and 1917). Traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in the midst of the by|1920 season, he retired after the 1922 campaign with 1,534 hits and a .277 batting average. He batted and threw righthanded. His most dubious accomplishment as a player is being the Giants Career Leader in being Hit By Pitch (132) and ranking 21st on the MLB Career List (141) for the same statistic.

In by|1923 he replaced Kaiser Wilhelm as manager of the seventh-place Phillies and led the club through four losing seasons, bookended by last-place finishes in 1923 and 1926. Finally, in October 1926, he was replaced as pilot by Stuffy McInnis.

Fletcher then began a 19-year tenure (1927-45) as a coach for the Yankees. There (beginning with the by|1927 edition of the Yanks, by many estimates the greatest baseball team of all time) he would participate on ten American League pennant winners and nine World Series champions. On a tragic note, he served as the acting manager of Yankees for the last 11 games of the by|1929 season when Huggins was fatally stricken with blood poisoning. He won six of those 11 games, to compile a career major league managing record of 237-383 (.382).

Fletcher retired after the 1945 season and died from a heart attack in 1950 in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 65.

Arthur Fletcher Field, located in Collinsville, Illinois, is named for him. The field is home of the Collinsville High School Kahoks, the Collinsville Miners American Legion team, and the Collinsville Herr Travelers junior legion team.

External links

*baseball-reference|id=f/fletcar01
* [http://thedeadballera.com/Obits/Fletcher.Art.Obit.html The Dead Ball Era]