1937

Buster Mills was born on September 16, 1908, in Ranger, Texas. He was a football star at the University of Oklahoma and named all-Big Six quarterback in 1930. He lettered in football, basketball, track, and baseball. A St. Louis Cardinals scout saw him playing center field in a game between Oklahoma and Washington University in St. Louis and signed him. He hit for the cycle and more, banging out a single, two doubles, a triple, and a home run.

He was sent to Decatur (Three-I League) and then went to New Orleans (Southern Association), which quickly swapped him to Mobile of the Southeastern League, a Cardinals farm club.

Buster wound up signing with Cleveland and playing with three teams: Class B Mobile, The Elmira Red Wings in the Class B New York-Penn League and to finish his year, with the Rochester Red Wings in the Double-A International League.

By the end of the year, St. Louis had already determined he’d be with the big-league team in the spring of 1934 and got him. He made his Cardinals debut in the second game of the year, in April 1934, against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He had a very nice start, but by July, batting .236, was released back to Rochester. He played a fairly full season with Rochester in 1935.

Buster was then sent to the Brooklyn Dodgers and ended the year with a .214 average over the 56 at-bats. He didn’t make the Dodgers in 1936, but Rochester said they were glad to have him back. He spent 1936 with Rochester once again, hitting .331 with 18 home runs and a league-leading 134 runs batted in.

In November the Boston Red Sox traded with  Rochester and purchased him for 1937. Breaking in on the same day as two other Red Sox, second baseman Bobby Doerr and third baseman Mike Higgins, Buster played right field. It was considered a comeback year for him, and he came back all right with the best year of his career, playing a full major-league season for the Red Sox and batting .295 in 505 at-bats, driving in 58 runs and scoring 85.

Buster was named to" The Sporting News" All-Star team as the best rookie left fielder in the majors. Though he did have his best year, the Red Sox sought improvement, and in December he was traded to the St. Louis Browns to secure Joe Vosmik.

The Browns would be his fourth major-league team and he had a very good 1938 for his second St. Louis team. In late October, the Yankees traded with the Browns for pitcher Oral Hildebrand and Buster. It was Hildebrand they wanted and in early January 1939, New York assigned Buster to  its Double-A Newark Bears farm team. He turned 31 years old by the end of the season, spent entirely in Newark. 

He began 1940 with Newark as well, but with outfielders Jake Powell and Joe DiMaggio both disabled, the Yankees brought him up in May. He hit well, batting .397 for the season, but in just 63 at-bats. When the Yankees tried to send him back to Newark, three clubs put in waiver claims. Buster spent most of 1940 not playing at all, though after the Yankees farmed him back out to Kansas City of the American Association in August, he hit .348 in 132 at-bats for the Blues and then hit .307 for the Blues in 1941.

The Cleveland Indians took another crack at Buster in early April 1942, taking him in trade. As seemed to often be the case, he started off exceptionally well, but then softened. 

Except for military service, Buster stayed in the Indians system throughout the World War II years. He joined the Army Air Force in mid-November of 1942, and was initially stationed in Waco, Texas, recruited there by Birdie Tebbetts, who pulled together quite a group of ballplayers.

He was commissioned a second lieutenant in April 1943 and was transferred to the Aloe Army Air Field in Victoria, Texas, in July 1944, but not before he helped the Waco Wolves win their 14th game in a row. In 1945, now a first lieutenant, Buster was sent to Hawaii, where he managed the 73rd Wing Bombers in a series of exhibition games for the troops in the Marianas.

After being mustered out of the service and coming off the National Defense List in February 1946, he joined those competing for a slot with the Indians. Manager Lou Boudreau announced that Buster would be hired as first-base coach but kept on the active roster, so that he could be used as a pinch-hitter as occasions arose.

He appeared in nine games in 1946, until he was formally released from the active list in July, and coached full time all season for Cleveland. After the season he joined a touring group of American League all-stars.

The Indians offered to give Buster a job managing in the minors, but he took his time to look around for a position that would keep him in the big leagues and by December, was offered a job coaching with the White Sox.

In his second career as a coach, he coached for the White Sox from 1947 to 1950. In January 1951 he was hired to skipper the Superior Blues of the Northern League and in October, he was hired as a coach for the Cincinnati Reds.

Two days after Cincinnati’s season ended, Buster was hired by the Boston Red Sox to coach under manager Lou Boudreau in 1954. But before reporting to Sarasota for Red Sox spring training, he went to Venezuela. Cincinnati had asked him to manage the Pastora club in the Venezuelan league, with which the Reds had placed some players. He was asked to return to the post for another winter in 1959, but declined.

He took up scouting for Kansas City in 1961, and later signed to scout for the Yankees.

Buster Mills passed at age 83, on December 1, 1991, in Arlington, Texas.