Cooperstown Chancesexamines the Baseball Hall of Fame case of one candidate each week. This week: Cecil Travis.

Who he was: Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Major League Baseball went to war.

The vast majority of active major leaguers drafted by the military served on USO All-Star teams, playing in front of servicemen in games designed to boost morale. But some players had more dangerous duty.

Hank Greenberg, whod just completed a year of peacetime military service that cost him most of the 1941 season, promptly re-enlisted and flew on reconnai sance mi sions over Burma. Bob Feller was one of the first to join up as well, serving on a battleship in the South Pacific and running laps on board in between Japanese bombing Dallas Cowboys Men Jersey raids.

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Ted Williams waited until after his Triple Crown season in 1942 to enlist, though he went on to spend three years training pilots in Hawaii. Williams served in the Korean War as well, flying 38 combat mi sions and even surviving getting shot down. Williams might have had 700 home runs without his military service, but his sacrifice is part of his mystique.

In a sense, Greenberg, Feller and Williams were all lucky. They all returned to the majors after World War II ended and resumed Hall of Fame careers. Fellers four-year break arguably even saved his arm, allowing him to pitch through 1956.

A few players didnt get as lucky. No active MLB stars died in World War II, but a few who might have been destined for the Hall of Fame, such as Dom DiMaggio and Johnny Pesky, lost Dallas Cowboys Accessories time in the majors that couldnt be replaced. Perhaps no Cooperstown candidate lost more than Washington Senators shortstop Cecil Travis.

Cooperstown chances: 25 percent

Why: Some baseball players served during World War II on USO teams. A handful of active players and some future stars such as Warren Spahn, Yogi Berra and Gil Hodges saw combat. Travis served with the Special Forces in the 76th Infantry Division in Europe, suffering frostbite to two toes on his left foot near the end of the war, according to prepared by theSociety for American Baseball Research.

A three-time All Star before the war, Travis had 1,370 hits through his age-27 season in 1941, according to the . Just four other players have this many hits through this age season in their careers and arent enshrined: Vada Pinson, Edgar Renteria, Miguel Cabrera and Alex Rodriguez.

Traviss feat is le s impre sive when its considered that he logged nine seasons before World War II. The Play Index tool lists 145 players with at least 1,370 hits through their first nine seasons, with 63 currently in the Hall of Fame and a few like Cabrera, Ichiro Suzuki and Albert Pujols looking destined to join Ceedee Lamb T Shirts their ranks.

Whats indisputable is that Travis was one of the best shortstops in baseball before going to war. From his rookie season of 1933 through 1941, he compiled 14.8 Wins Above Average, fourth best among all shortstops in this span behind Arky Vaughan (41.3), Luke Appling (24.7) and Joe Cronin (19.8.), all Hall of Famers.

Vaughan topped out at 29 percent of the Ezekiel Elliott T Shirts Hall of Fame vote with the Baseball Writers' A sociation in 1968 before being enshrined by the Veterans Committee in 1985, a rare outstanding selection during a stretch where the committees picks left much to be desired.

Perhaps Travis suffered by comparison to Vaughan. The men were roughly the same age and while neither did much after World War II as players, Vaughan dominated enough before the war that his selection should have been a sured. By peak value sabermetrically, Vaughan might be the best shortstop in baseball history.

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With Travis, theres a different Hall of Fame argument to be made. Its not so much about what he did as what he might have done if World War II hadnt eaten nearly four years of his career. Its about what might have been if Travis hadnt returned from the war with damaged feet.

Whereas Pesky, Dom DiMaggio and others returned from World War II and logged several more seasons, Travis was more or le s done.From a high of .359 in 1941, Travis hit just .241 in parts of three seasons after World War II. He retired at 34 in 1947 after a season where he logged just 74 games, Demarcus Lawrence T Shirts hit .216, and was moved to third base.

Travis told an interviewer years later that the real problem was that he lost his timing as a hitter through his time in the military, though its a somewhat arbitrary point. Bum feet or lost timing at the plate, something occurred that wouldnt have if Travis hadnt served.

A brief high point came near the end of the season when the Senators held a night in Traviss honor attended by the former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. Otherwise, 1947 marked an inglorious end to Traviss once-great career. There was talk, after the season ended of Travis a suming a managerial role in Washingtons system. Instead, he settled quietly into a scouting job.

Travis hasnt nece sarily been forgotten. Using online archives, I made a list last year of . The committee considered Travis at least six different years in the late 1980s and early 1990s, with former committee chairman Williams one of his biggest boosters.

Williams co-wrote a 1995 book with Jim Prime, ," which includes a mention that Bob Feller considered Travis one of the toughest hitters he faced along with Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg, Al Simmons, Jimmie Foxx and Charlie Gehringer.

The problem Travis, who died at 93 in 2007,faces now is that many of his greatest supporters like Williams and Feller have died. His window for Hall of Fame honors may have pa sed, though he can be considered by the Pre-Integration Era Committee again in the fall of 2018 for induction in the summer of 2019.

Whether he ever gets in Cooperstown or not, though NFL Dallas Cowboys Jerseys , Traviss sacrifices arent forgotten.

Cooperstown Chancesexamines the Baseball Hall of Fame case of one candidate each week. Series author andSporting News contributor Graham Womack writes regularly about the Hall of Fame and other topics related to baseball history at his website,. Follow him on Twitter: .