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Russell Loris "Buzz" Arlett (January 3, 1889 - May 16, 1964) was an American baseball player, sometimes called "the Babe Ruth of the Minor Leagues." Like Ruth, Arlett was a large man who began his career as a pitcher before becoming his league's dominant home run hitter.
In his career as a minor-league player, Arlett earned a .341 batting average and a .604 slugging percentage. His career totals of 432 home runs and 1786 runs batted in both rank second among all minor-league players. Arlett retired with a 108-93 record and a 3.42 earned-run averageas a minor-league pitcher.
Buzz Arlett in "The House That George Built"
Buzz Arlett was one of the all-time great major league baseball players, a switch-hitting slugger and sometime pitcher. He was discovered in the Pacific Coast League by Dodgers scouts and was brought to Brooklyn in 1922, where he transformed the major leagues and turned the once-lowly Dodgers into perenniel contenders. He rehabilitated all of baseball from the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. Ebbets Field became known as "The House That Buzz Built."
In a fit of melancholy in 1941, retired minor league baseball player and current bar owner George Ruth reflected to one of his customers, the journalist H.L. Mencken, that if he'd only been brought up by a major league franchise while still in his prime, it would have been he who transformed baseball as Arlett had done. Mencken, who believed that truly "superior" people overcame all obstacles, was extremely skeptical.
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