Athletes - Art Fletcher

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	Athletes - Art Fletcher

Arthur Fletcher (January 5, 1885 - February 6, 1950) was a shortstop, manager and coach in American Major League Baseball. Fletcher was associated with two New York baseball dynasties: the Giants of John McGraw as a player; and the Yankees of Miller Huggins and Joe McCarthy as a coach.

Born in Collinsville, Illinois, Fletcher came to the Giants in 1909 and became the club's regular shortstop two years later. He played in four World Series while performing for McGraw (1911, 1912, 1913 and 1917). Traded to the Philadelphia Phillies in the midst of the 1920 season, he retired after the 1922 campaign with a 1,534 hits and a .277 batting average. He batted and threw righthanded.

In 1923 he replaced Kaiser Wilhelm as manager of the seventh-place Phillies and led the club through four losing seasons, bookended by last-place finishes in 1923 and 1926. Finally, in October 1926, he was replaced as pilot by Stuffy McInnis.

Fletcher then began a 19-year tenure (1927-45) as a coach for the Yankees. There (beginning with the 1927 edition of the Yanks, by many estimates the greatest baseball team of all time) he would participate on ten American League pennant winners and nine World Series champions. On a tragic note, he served as the acting manager of Yankees for the last 11 games of the 1929 season when Huggins was fatally stricken with blood poisoning. He won six of those 11 games, to compile a career major league managing record of 237-383 (.382).

Fletcher retired after the 1945 season and died in 1950 in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 65.

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