Eddie Brinkman, 66; Senators Shortstop

He said Manager Ted Williams, one of the game's greatest hitters, helped him master the mental part of hitting. "He beat it into my head what I had to do," Mr. Brinkman said. "He never messed with my stance, my hands or my feet."

At the all-star break in 1970, he was hitting .287, "a giddy height he has not approached since eight summers ago when he played for Raleigh in the Carolina League," Post columnist William Gildea noted. He was leading the team with 102 hits.

"Brinkman used to have trouble hitting his weight, which isn't much," Gildea wrote, "and all his hits for a season back to back would have barely reached the Anacostia River. Now they don't even travel as far, but he chokes up and hits 'em where they ain't, a modern-day Willie Keeler."

Gildea said Mr. Brinkman should have made the all-star team and quoted Senators Coach Wayne Terwilliger: "I'd like to see the last out of the ninth inning, with a man on third and the pennant in the balance, go to Brinkman."

He was traded to the Tigers before the 1971 season, with Joe Coleman, Jim Hannan and Aurelio Rodriguez, for pitcher Denny McLain, among others. McLain, the Tigers ace who won 31 games in 1968, was supposed to be the savior of the lowly Senators but turned out to be a bust.

Mr. Brinkman made the all-star team in 1973, a year in which he played shortstop in all 162 games. In his final season with the Tigers, 1974, he hit 14 home runs, the only time in his career he reached double figures.

Edwin Albert Brinkman was born Dec. 8, 1941. As a high school pitcher on a team whose second baseman was Pete Rose, he compiled a 15-1 record, including a perfect game. He signed with the expansion Senators in 1961 as a 19-year-old.

After his nine seasons with the Senators and four with the Tigers, he played briefly for the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees before retiring in 1975.

The White Sox hired him as an infield coach in 1983. He stayed with the team as a special assignment scout until his retirement from baseball in 2000.

Survivors include his wife, Donna Brinkman of Cincinnati; and two daughters.