When the Washington Nationals moved to Washington, DC from Montreal in 2005, Major League Baseball was back in the nation’s capital for the first time in years. There were probably no people happier about the return than the former players of the Washington Senators years ago. One of those players, Herb Plews, is a 1949 initiate of Delta Sigma Phi’s Alpha Alpha chapter at the University of Illinois.

Plews’ career in baseball started when he was a young man in East Helena, Montana. As a high schooler, Plews played for his high school team during their seasons, and played American Legion ball in the summers. In 1945, he was asked to be the representative for the state of Montana in the Esquire game, sponsored by Esquire Magazine, in which one player was chosen from each state to play in a game at the Polo Grounds in New York City. “I met Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb who were the managers for the two teams,” Plews recalls.

His career continued in college at the University of Illinois, where he played second base from 1946-1950. “I had always wanted to play baseball in the Big 10, and I knew a guy who played football at Illinois who told me to go there. I played all four years, and we had good teams each year,” he said. In fact, in 1948, the Illinois team won the Big 10 title, and Plews was a major part of their success.

After he graduated from Illinois, Plews was signed by the New York Yankees in 1950, but was sidetracked by having to go to the Korean War. He was stationed in Japan however, and never had to go into Korea.

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Upon returning to the States, he began his professional baseball career in Class B in Norfolk, VA. Each year, he moved up the ranks, playing in 1954 in Class AA in Birmingham, AL, and in 1955 in Class AAA in Denver, CO. In 1956, he was traded to the Washington Senators where he played in the major leagues for the following four years amassing a lifetime batting average of .270. He continued playing until 1963 in the minor leagues.

During his professional career, the game of baseball was a lot different than it is today. They still had a 162 game schedule, but they traveled from place to place by train. According to Plews, some of the differences were that, “There were very few, if any, agents then. Also, there was no free agency, and there were fewer teams (editor’s note: see sidebar) so it was harder to get picked up and play for a long time in the major leagues. The biggest difference is the salaries. There was no salary arbitration back then, and in 1956, the minimum salary was $5,000. That’s a lot different from today!”

Plews got the chance to meet and play against many great players during his professional career, which spanned from 1953-1963. Those players included Ted Williams, Roy Seavers, Jim Lemon, Bob Lemon, and many Yankee greats like Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra. “I feel lucky to have been able to play at that time with guys like Ted Williams, Stan Musial and Frank Robinson,” he said.

Although his professional career ended in 1963, Plews’ ties to baseball didn’t. His career after baseball was in the cement business, where he went to work for the Kaiser Cement Plant back in his hometown of Helena, Montana. Then, with the help of former Cleveland Indian Bob Lemon, he was put in touch with Dale Mitchell, another former Indians player, who was starting a Martin Marietta Cement Plant in Lyons, Colorado, which is a Denver suburb. Plews went and worked there until he retired.

Thinking back, Plews still remembers his time in Delta Sigma Phi fondly, having been in the chapter with men who had come back from war, and were older than him. The brothers who got him to join, Jim and Bob Wakefield, were fellow baseball players at Illinois, where in the 1940s, it only cost him $96/semester in tuition as an out of state student to attend the university.

Now, 51 years after his first Major League game, Plews and his wife, Shirley, who was his high school sweetheart, reside in an apartment in Boulder, Colorado quietly cheering for the new baseball team across the country in Washington, DC to win.

Herb Plews resides in Boulder, CO with his wife of 51 years, Shirley. They have one son, Reese, who resides in Tokyo, Japan with his wife and their two children.

MLB Career Statistics

Games 346
At Bats 1017
Runs 125
Hits 266
Doubles 42
Triples 17
Home Runs 4
Runs Batted In 82
Stolen Bases 3
Bases on Balls 74
Strikeouts 133
Batting Average .262
Slugging .348

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