Columns
Small-town Texan wins 1940 batting championship
By Bartee Haile
Debs Garms went two for four on Aug. 25, 1940 in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ win over the Boston Bees and raised his league-leading batting average to a lofty .378.
Garms was born in 1907 in the West Texas hamlet of Bangs a few miles west of Brownwood and named for his parents’ socialist hero Eugene Debs. Like most boys his age, he grew up playing baseball on the dusty sandlots in town but did not take a serious interest in the sport until an older sister married a major-le...