Routine moments in Baseball History: July 28, 1935

Welcome to Routine Moments in Baseball History, a running weekday feature that looks back at plays that have been ignored by the history books because history books only talk about things that are important or interesting. Today's installment is "Ossie Bluege Makes a Sacrifice."

By 1935, Ossie Bluege had been playing for the Washington Senators for 13 years as a third baseman. He had been with the team for its dramatic win in the 1924 World Series, the following seasons when the team was usually in contention, and its 1933 World Series loss to the New York Giants. Ballplayers didn't make as much money back then, so Bluege supplemented his income by working as an accountant, and his teammates dubbed him "the Accountant," which wasn't the most creative nickname in the world—then again, he did play third with workmanlike efficiency, so maybe it was appropriate. (A company man through and through, he'd go on to serve as a scout for the Senators, then their comptroller, and he followed them to Minnesota when they became the Twins.)

Bluege couldn't have known it when he took the field at Yankee Stadium on that muggy July day, but the lousy season the Senators were having (they were 38-53 and seventh in the league) wasn't an aberration, but the start of a new trend: The team would never win the pennant again and only rarely be in contention; Washington, DC, began getting referred to as "first in was, first in piece, last in the American League." For Bluege, the game was just another day at the office, the first game of a doubleheader and the third of a four-game series in New York.

This is where Routine Moments in Baseball History hits a snag, because though this was a thrilling game in which the Yankees held off a late rally by the visitors to win 7-6, there's no play-by-play record, at least not one that I could find. Bluege had a lousy day with the bat, going 0 for 4 in five plate appearances, but during one at-bat he was at least able to move a runner up a base. History does not record whether it was a pop fly or a bunt or who he advanced, but I prefer to imagine that he did this during the eighth and ninth innings, when the Senators scored four runs in a furious bid to salvage the game. From the bare facts of his biography Bluege seems to be a loyal, meticulous, hardworking man, someone who would lay down a perfect bunt to move a runner into scoring position, then quietly acknowledge the competency of this feat with a simple nod to his teammates in the dugout. The Senators would lose the game, and go on losing for the next two and a half decades, then pack up and leave for the freezing north, but it wouldn't be right to call Ossie Bluege a loser.

This has been Routine Moments in Baseball History. Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.