Yesterday evening, Paul suddenly said, "Let's find out who you were before you got resurrected!" His criterion was "a person who shows up on Google who died on your exact birthday." Quickly he discovered that Tom had spent a previous life as either a Bulgarian violinist or the low-level sailor on the Titanic who first spotted the iceberg. Paul had spent his own previous life as either an immunologist or a Hammond organist. My choices were either an economist who became an extremely efficient Communist spy or a very bad baseball catcher. It was immediately clear to all of us that I could never have been an extremely efficient Communist spy in a previous life. Thus, I had to embrace my terrible baseball past; and I thought you might like to hear a bit more about the ineptness of my past life, which went far beyond baseball.

Who Was Charlie Armbruster?

This is how sports historian Bill Knowlin sums up Charlie Armbruster's impact on baseball:

After catcher Charlie Armbruster broke into the major leagues, he hit .198 for Boston his first year and was invited back. He hit .144 his second year, and was invited back. He hit .100 his third year and was sold to Chicago, where he hit .000 and ended his major-league career. 

Charlie Armbruster (August 30, 1880–October 7, 1964) was born in Cincinnati (on the same day as Ted Williams, which did not otherwise bring him any sort of luck). He was a stocky man--one sports writer described him as a "Porkopolitan backstop"--who began his career as a machinist while playing local semi-pro baseball on the side.

In 1901 he signed with a team in Poughkeepsie and moved on to teams in Brooklyn and then New London, where he stayed till 1905. Knowlin writes: "On June 27, [Armbruster] earned some attention (and a five-dollar fine levied by umpire Shannon) when he was so angered by a strike call that he fired his cap onto the ground." In New London Charlie achieved his highest baseball success, playing in ninety-one games and and earning a .300 batting average. However, a 1904 edition of Sporting Life also noted that “Armbruster, the New London catcher, and Wee Willie McGill, of the Norwich team, are reported as having recently gone slumming and got lost.”

In 1905 Charlie's batting average was still pretty decent, and the Boston Americans decided to acquire him for $1,750. Things did not go well. A writer at the Washington Post declared that “the general opinion around the American League circuit is that Catcher Armbruster is long on name and short on ability.” Another at the Boston Herald remarked, "His work is characterized as something wretched. Most men who have followed Connecticut League ball have wondered that he has been kept so long."

In Charlie's defense, I should clarify that he wasn't the only rotten player on Boston's 1906 roster. The whole team was horrible: it lost 105 games that year and finished last in the league--45½ games out of first place. Knowlin writes: "One of Armbruster’s battery mates, pitcher Joe Harris, had a 2-21 record. Even Cy Young lost 21 games, winning just 13." Despite Charlie's bad showing, Boston apparently planned to bring him back for 1907. However, in the off-season, he vanished. Eventually a Boston Globe headline announced, “Armbruster Located in Wilds of Ohio,” after spending a winter becoming “grossly overweight.” But spring training apparently did the trick, and the team assured the newspapers that Charlie was now as “fit as the proverbial fiddle.”

Yet the bad karma continued. Manager Chick Stahl had committed suicide in the off-season, which can't have helped anyone's state of mind. Then in August, replacement manager Deacon McGuire suspended Charlie for unknown reasons. In early September, the Chicago White Sox bought his contract. But Charlie played in only a single game that year, getting no hits and managing to pull a walk.

Charlie's career petered out after this. He ended up owing the White Sox money and sank back into minor league and semi-pro ball. Yet in 1910, when his Portland, Oregon, team released him (Knowlin says, "He had only appeared in eight games, and was 2-for-11"), a reporter for the Los Angeles Times defended him: “Armbruster last year could not leave booze alone but McCredie told him he would give him another chance this season if Armbruster would behave himself. The catcher has kept his promise faithfully, and the fans believe he should not have been turned loose now." Why the fans wanted to keep him is a mystery. Maybe he was a nice guy.

After Portland, he seems to have never played baseball again. But he did live on, until the age of 84, when he died, on the day of my birth, from injuries “apparently inflicted when his .22-caliber rifle went off accidentally while he was cleaning it.” According to his death certificate, he had most recently worked as a commercial fisherman.

In sum: in my past life I was a Porkopolitan backstop who played terrible baseball, went fishing, had trouble staying in shape, drank too much, got lost "slumming" in New London, and forgot to take the ammunition out of my gun before cleaning it. Also, someone spelled my name wrong on my baseball card. A strangely compelling history, in its own hang-dog way.