Henry Emmett Manush (July 20, 1901 – May 12, 1971), nicknamed "Heinie", was an American baseball outfielder. He played professional baseball for 20 years from 1920 to 1939, including 17 years in Major League Baseball for the Detroit Tigers (1923–1927), St. Louis Browns (1928–1930), Washington Senators (1930–1935), Boston Red Sox (1936), Brooklyn Dodgers (1937–1938), and Pittsburgh Pirates (1938–1939). After retiring as a player, Manush was a minor league manager from 1940 to 1945, a scout for the Boston Braves in the late 1940s and a coach for the Senators from 1953 to 1954. He also scouted for the expansion Senators in the early 1960s. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964.
A native of Tuscumbia, Alabama, Manush was one of the best batters in baseball in the 1920s and 1930s. He compiled a .330 career batting average, won the American League batting championship in 1926 with a .378 batting average, finished one point short of a second batting championship in 1928, finished among the top four batters in the American League six times (1926, 1928–1929, and 1932–1934) and totaled more than 200 hits four times (1928–1929, 1932–1933). In 1928, he finished second in the voting for the American League Most Valuable Player (MVP) award after leading the American League with 241 hits and 47 doubles, while also hitting 20 triples and compiling 367 total bases. He also placed second in an unofficial vote in 1929—the American League had dropped the award that year, and the National League would drop it the following year. It was the same voters and structure as before however. He also finished third in the MVP voting in 1932 and 1933 and was the leading batter on the 1933 Washington Senators team that won the American League pennant and lost the 1933 World Series to the New York Giants.
Manush compiled 7 five-hit games and 52 four-hit games in his 17-year major league career. Manush holds the record for most hits in 10 consecutive games with 30 hits, occurring between June 10 to June 23, 1933.
Manush was also a solid defensive outfielder, appearing in 2,008 major league games, 1,381 as a left fielder, 312 as a center fielder, and 153 as a right fielder. He led the American League with 356 putouts and a .992 fielding percentage in left field in 1928, and five double plays turned by a left fielder in 1935. His 2,855 putouts in left field rank 21st in major league history.
Manush was born in 1901 at Tuscumbia, Alabama, a city in The Shoals metropolitan area that is best known as the hometown of Helen Keller. His father, George Manush, immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1878 and worked as a cabinet maker and carpenter for a railroad company. His mother, Kate Manush, was born in Wisconsin, the daughter of German immigrants.
Manush was nicknamed "Heinie" due to his German ancestry. He was one of eight children in the family, seven boys and one girl. All seven boys took up baseball, five of them playing the game professionally. His brother Frank Manush was 18 years older than Heinie and played professional baseball from 1907 to 1921. Manush was seven years old when Frank made his major league debut in 1908 and later recalled: "When I was as young as 7 or 8, Frank used to bring home all his baseball equipment and uniform. I would look at that weird paraphernalia and wish I could wear it. From then on, baseball was all I ever had on my mind."
Manush started high school in Tuscumbia but transferred as a senior to Massey Military Academy, located 80 miles northeast of Tuscumbia in Cornersville, Tennessee. In 1918, Manush moved to Iowa to join another brother in the plumbing business. He then moved to California in March 1919 and played semipro baseball with a club in Los Angeles.
Manush began his professional career in 1920, playing six games for the Portland Beavers in the Pacific Coast League. Moving to the Edmonton Eskimos in the Western Canada League in 1921, Manush hit .321 in 83 games. In 1922, he played for the Omaha Buffaloes in the Western League, hitting 20 home runs and compiling a .376 batting average that was second in the league behind only Carl East.
After Manush's 1922 performance in Omaha, he was purchased by the Detroit Tigers. In early February 1923, Manush returned a signed contract with the Tigers, joining a star-studded Detroit outfield that included future Hall of Famers Harry Heilmann and Ty Cobb, as well as reliable sluggers Bobby Veach (.327 batting average in 1922), Bob Fothergill (.322 average in 1922), and Ira Flagstead (.308 average in 1922). During his rookie season with the Tigers, Manush played well enough to appear in 109 games, 79 as a left fielder, sharing the position with Veach. He compiled a .334 batting average, tenth highest in the American League. He also led the league with 17 times hit by pitch.
In 1924, Manush appeared in 120 games, 71 as the starting left fielder, and his batting average dropped 45 points to .289, though he again led the league with 16 times hit by pitch. Ty Cobb later accepted responsibility for Manush's slump in 1924. Cobb believed that, by studying the "science" of hitting, every batter could improve. Accordingly, he took Manush aside for several days early in the 1924 season to work on improving Manush's technique and batting stance. After working with Cobb, Manush's batting average and self-confidence plummeted. Cobb eventually came to the conclusion that, like Babe Ruth, Manush was a "natural" hitter rather than a "scientific" one and that it was a mistake to try to change a natural hitter.
In 1925, Manush moved to center field as a backup to Cobb. He appeared in 99 games, including 45 as the team's starting center fielder and 12 as the starting left fielder, and compiled a .302 batting average.
In 1926, Manush took over from Ty Cobb as the Tigers' starting center fielder, a position held by Cobb for 20 years. Manush had the best season of his career up to then, compiling a .378 batting average to win the American League batting title. He also ranked among the league's leaders with a .986 on-base plus slugging rating (second behind Babe Ruth) and a .564 slugging percentage (third behind Ruth and Al Simmons).
Manush trailed Babe Ruth for the batting championship going into the last day of the 1926 season. On the final day, September 26, the Tigers played a doubleheader, and Manush overtook Ruth by garnering six hits in nine at bats. By taking the batting crown, Manush also denied Ruth the Triple Crown. In a 1964 interview, Manush cited his beating Ruth on the last day of the 1926 season as one of two events in his career (the other was playing in the 1933 World Series) that most stood out for him.
Manush's improvement in 1926 was credited to the mentoring of teammate Harry Heilmann, who won American League batting crowns in 1921, 1923, 1925 and 1927. After Manush slumped in 1925, Heilmann, who had a talent for placing his hits, "took Manush in tow and taught him some tricks." After Heilmann's lessons, Manush developed a talent for dropping hits over second base between the left and center fielders.
In 1927, Manush continued as the Tigers' starting center fielder, appearing in 146 games at the position, but his batting average dropped by 80 points from .378 to .298. He did still rank among the American League leaders, however, with 18 triples (second), 101 runs scored (seventh), 177 hits (tenth), 55 extra base hits (tenth), and 262 total bases (tenth). He also rated among the league's leading center fielders with a .971 fielding percentage (second) and 356 putouts (third).
On December 13, 1927, the Tigers traded Manush and first baseman Lu Blue to the St. Louis Browns in exchange for outfielder Harry Rice, pitcher Elam Vangilder, and a player to be named later. The trade was promptly criticized as being one-sided in favor of St. Louis, and proved as much when Manush had an outstanding 1928 season for the Browns.
Manush appeared in all 154 games as the Browns' starting left fielder in 1928 and compiled a .378 batting average, narrowly missing a second batting title to Goose Goslin who hit .379, one point higher than Manush. The battle for the batting title was the closest in 18 years, and Manush, who appeared in 19 more games than Goslin, led the league with 241 hits, 68 more than Goslin. Manush also led the American League in 1928 with 47 doubles and finished among the league leaders with 367 total bases (second behind Babe Ruth), 20 triples (second), a 6.8 offensive wins above replacement rating (third behind Ruth and Lou Gehrig), 80 extra base hits (third behind Ruth and Gehrig), a .575 slugging percentage (fourth), and 108 RBIs (fourth). He helped the Browns improve by 23 wins from a 59–94 record in 1927 to an 82–72 record in 1928. He also finished second behind Mickey Cochrane in close voting for the 1928 American League Most Valuable Player award, with Cochrane garnering 53 vote points to 51 for Manush.