George Binks

George Alvin Binks
(Bingo)

• Bats Left, Throws Left
• Height 6' 0", Weight 175 lb.
• High School Harrison High School (Chicago)
• Debut September 23, 1944
• Final Game July 3, 1948
• Born July 11, 1914 in Chicago, IL USA
• Died November 13, 2010 in Woodbury, TN USA

BR page

Biographical Information

"You never exactly knew what he would do in a game. Would he make a good play, get a key hit, miss signs, forget to take sunglasses to the outfield?" - Casey Stengel

"The real goat wasn't Griffith, though. That honor shall forever be reserved for outfielder George 'Bingo' Binks. In Washington's penultimate game of the [1945] season -- the first game of a doubleheader against the Athletics -- the score was 3-3 in the bottom of the twelfth. With two outs and nobody on, the immortal Ernie Kish hit a can of corn to center field. Binks lost the ball in the sun, Kish landed on second base, and scored the winning run a moment later on George Kell's single. As [Shirley] Povich wrote a few years later, 'The miscreant Binks was in trouble with his teammates. He had neglected to take his sunglasses into the outfield after the sun came out on what had been a gray day. An inning earlier, outfielder Sam Chapman of the A's had stopped the game to call for his sunglasses, but Binks never took the hint that the sun was now present. There were threats to deprive Binks of his World Series or second-place money.'" - Rob Neyer, in his book of Baseball Blunders, on Binks' role in the Senators falling short of the Detroit Tigers at the end of the 1945 season

George Binks played five seasons in the majors, with his best season the final year affected by World War II, 1945. That year, he was second in the AL in doubles, fifth in RBI and sixth in steals with the Washington Senators. Binks was 30 years old when he made his major league debut in September 1944. He played minor league or independent ball from 1936-1950. In 1944, he hit .374 for the minor-league Milwaukee Brewers. A photo can be found here: Historical Society Binks died in 2010 and is buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, IL.

Related Sites

• George Binks at the SABR Bio Project