20 Oct 2014

History:

Lost Capitol Hill: The Demise of ‘Buck’ Becker

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Just as the Nationals story has gone south in October, so does our story of ‘Buck’ Becker take a turn for the tragic in today’s installment. When we last saw him, he was out of the Major Leagues, but still pitching regularly, if only for amateur clubs.

On June 5, 1917, Buck Becker registered for the draft. He was 27 years old at the time, though he put down his age as 26, giving his birth date as 1890 rather than 1889. He gave his occupation as bartender, working for a Mr. Samuel J Stienberg (Probably Samuel J. Steinberger, who operated a bar near Pennsylvania Avenue NW) and generally did not attempt to get out of the draft by explaining that he had anyone ‘solely dependent’ on him – even though he was married and lived with his parents (His brother, on the other hand, had no such compunctions)
It took almost a year, but in May 1918 Becker found himself in the army, and sent to Fort Meade, Maryland. He was assigned to the 79th Infantry Division, in Company K of the 316th Infantry Regiment. Two months later, the 79th was sent overseas. While the unit had been training for almost a year at this point, most of its members had been assigned to other divisions, and thus the majority of the soldiers were, like Becker, relative newcomers who had never been properly trained in the use of gas masks and how, generally, to deal with this new form of warfare.
This lack would end up being a serious problem to the 79th in general and Becker in particular. After a few further weeks’s training, the division was assigned to one of the toughest sectors in the Meuse-Argonne front. When the American offensive began in late September, 1918, the 79th was at the forefront. For days on end, the soldiers survived horrific fire fights – and continuous gas attacks. Of the various regiments, the 316th took the most wounded by gas; one of those affected was Buck Becker.

Charles Becker's signature from his draft registration card.
Charles Becker’s signature from his draft registration card.

His lungs were badly hurt – but not badly enough to be sent home. Instead, he was assigned to the an ambulance regiment, and it is as a member thereof that he returned home in 1919, after having received an honorable discharge at Fort Dix, to go along with a citation for bravery he had previously earned.
The next few years were tough for him. He spent considerable amounts of time in Asheville, NC, as well as Saranac Lake, NY in hopes that this would help his lungs. In between, he worked at his new profession – as a photographer for the Washington Post. However, he had not forgotten baseball, and would spend “hours on the Monument lot, helping scores of youngsters to master the intricacies of the curves and speed balls which carried him to the big leagues,” as it said in his obituary in the Post.
Becker died on July 30, 1928 at his parents home on Foxhall Road NW. His lungs had simply never recovered from the gas he had inhaled over 10 years earlier. One of the people quoted in his obituary was none other than Clark Griffith, the owner of the Nationals: “Mr. Becker was a fine fellow. Everybody in baseball loved him.”


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