Michael George Chartak (April 28, 1916 – July 25, 1967) was an American professional

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

outfielder An outfielder is a person playing in one of the three defensive positions in baseball or softball, farthest from the batter. These defenders are the left fielder, the center fielder, and the right fielder. As an outfielder, their duty is to catch ...

. He played in

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

(MLB) for the

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the Boroughs of New York City, New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Am ...

(1940, 1942), Washington Senators (1942), and

St. Louis Browns The St. Louis Browns were a Major League Baseball team that originated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as the Milwaukee Brewers. A charter member of the American League (AL), the Brewers moved to St. Louis, Missouri, after the 1901 season, where they ...

(1942–1944). Chartak was born in 1916, in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, and grew up in

Carbondale, Pennsylvania Carbondale is a city in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. Carbondale is located approximately 15 miles due northeast of the city of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Scranton in Northeastern Pennsylvania. The population was 8,828 at the 2020 ...

. Mike played four seasons in the major leagues: 1940 with the

; 1942 with the Yankees, Washington Senators, and

; and 1943–1944 with the Browns. In his major league career, Chartak appeared in 256 games and had 186 hits, including 21 home runs, in 765 at bats. He appeared as a pinch hitter in two games of the

1944 World Series The 1944 World Series was an all-St. Louis World Series, matching the St. Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns at Sportsman's Park. It marked the third time in World Series history in which both teams had the same home field (the others being th ...

, the second appearance resulting in a strikeout to end the sixth and final game. His strikeout that ended the 1944 World Series was the last at-bat of his career. In the offseason, during a preinduction military examination, spots were found on his lungs that turned out to be

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

. He was sent to a sanatorium, where he would spend most of his remaining life.https://seamheads.com/blog/2009/07/04/whatever-happened-to-the-1944-st-louis-browns/ He died of

on July 25, 1967, in

Cedar Rapids, Iowa Cedar Rapids is a city in Linn County, Iowa, United States, and its county seat. The population was 137,710 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Iowa, second-most populous city in Iowa. The city lies o ...

at the age of 51.

References

*David Alan Heller, ''As Good As It Got: The 1944 St. Louis Browns''. 2003 Arcadia Publishing, *Obituary, ''The Sporting News'', Aug. 12, 1967, p. 38

External links

Baseball-Reference.com page
* 1916 births 1967 deaths Baseball players from Brooklyn Major League Baseball outfielders New York Yankees players Washington Senators (1901–1960) players 20th-century American sportsmen 20th-century deaths from tuberculosis Tuberculosis deaths in Iowa {{US-baseball-outfielder-1910s-stub