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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 28, 2023 14:13:12 GMT -5
Index of Players:
Jesse Gonder - This Post
Yankees Reserve Catcher Jesse Gonder (1960-1961) Jesse Gonder: Fighting Fastballs and Racism: He Played for Stengel and with Maris/Mantle
By Edmund Attanasio, Edited by Clipper Former MLB Catcher Jesse Gonder had died on November 14,2004 in Oakland, California at the age of 68. Although his role in MLB was basically that of a journeyman catcher, Gonder found relative success in 1963 and 1964 as the starting backstop for that hapless new gang of lovable dolts known as the New York Mets. After having started the 1963 season with the Cincinnati Reds, Gonder was shipped off to the Mets, where he would hit .302. In 1964, he had batted .270 in 131 games. Having begun his MLB career with the New York Yankees in 1960, Gonder became one of the first players to play for both the Yankees and the Mets during his major league career. More notably, Gonder built a reputation over the years for being outspoken at a time when most African-American athletes were reluctant to do so.
After he retired from the game, Gonder became a bus driver for Golden Gate Transit in the Bay Area, remaining in that position for over 20 years before retiring in the mid-1990s.
A great baseball high school: "I graduated from McClymonds in 1955. That team went undefeated the last three years I was there. We had a group of guys here in Oakland that could play ball. Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson, Curtis Flood....myself. I went to school with all of them. A guy named Curt Roberts was there before us, as was Charlie Beamon. We were all good athletes. And Frank was the first one to sign and he went to the big leagues. And after he signed professional, we all figured we had a pretty good chance of going. We had one guy, a scout, named Bob Madic. He ended up being the General Manager for the Toronto Blue Jays. He signed us all into the Reds' organization. He cleaned up financially, too. We saw small bonuses, but from what I heard, he made quite a bit for signing us."
Racism: "Back in those days, being black, if you couldn't accept being humiliated, or insulted, I should say -- if you couldn't accept being called '****' or 'watermelon eater', 'Amos 'n Andy", any racial insult that they could possibly throw at you - then you couldn't make it."
"I had some good times, but with what I had to go through in baseball, it really wasn't that much fun. Once I got into the game and I found out how political it was, I realized what was gonna hold me back. It ceased being fun, it really did. There was really nothing fun about it."
"In Cincinnati, we were the 1st team to integrate spring training. We stayed at the same motel with the white players in 1962."
"Only the guys with the thick skin made it. Maybe we weren't the best athletes, but we had thicker skin. We knew what we had to do to survive. There was really nothing fun about it. Everywhere you ran into racism. Everywhere. In a lot of the places we couldn't even go in and eat with the white players. We had to sit out on the bus, while they brought us hamburgers and things like that, you know, after they had eaten."
"Jerry Jacobs, a white player from McClymonds High, signed with the Reds a year before I did. Jerry signed a year before me, and then the next year when I signed, we all left here together from the 6th Street railroad station to go to Douglas, Georgia - that's where Cincinnati had their spring training. We all grew up together; we all went to school together in West Oakland. And everything was fine until we got to Chicago. And once we got to Chicago and headed South, Jerry Jacobs and I got on the train. I saw all the black people sitting in one place, so I just went and sat with them. It never occurred to me what was going on; I just went and sat with the black people. Jerry came and sat with us too. And the porter came back there and told him, "You can't sit here. You have to go and sit with the whites. And that was our first taste of racism like that."
The Great Yankees: "They told me, "Casey wants you." And I said, "What? " And they said, "You're going to New York." And I said, "No, I'm not. I don't belong to the Yankees." And they said, "You do now. They just bought you." That night, I'm in Yankee Stadium, google-eyed. I guess that was the biggest thrill I got out of baseball at the time, you know? I'm there with Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. Then, we go on a road trip, we go to Boston. They had already clinched the pennant."
Mickey Mantle: "Mickey drank a lot. We were talking in Atlantic City at a memorabilia show one day (in the 80's.) And he told me, "If I had known I was going to live this long, I wouldn't have drank so much." And I told him, "Mickey, the liquor is probably what's kept you alive." And he thought that was funny."
Casey Stengel: "ESPN wanted to interview me, Johnny Blanchard and Clete Boyer for SportsCentury about Casey a few years back. Clete had declined to be interviewed. He said, "I don't have anything to say about the so-and-so." 'Cause Casey was not a good players' manager, period. He was a media man. He was an ambassador. Blanchard told the guy from ESPN. "Casey did this to me. He told me when I first came up that I could really hit. And I said, "Yeah, skip - I can hit pretty good." So, Casey asked me, "Can you catch?" And I said, "Yeah, Casey, I can catch pretty good, too." So, Casey said, "Well, if you can really catch, then, catch that 12 o' clock plane to Denver. Blanchard had been optioned to Denver."
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Post by inger on Dec 28, 2023 15:42:57 GMT -5
I recently reported in thrives thread that Gonder was the only player to have played in all of the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and Shea as his home park.
Of course I had his baseball card back in the day, too. I’m sure it was a rough road for the early blacks. One of Casey’s quotes when Ellie Howard came up was, “They finally send me a ######, and they send one that can’t run.
But, those were the times…Casey was no more prejudiced than the average man…
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 28, 2023 16:01:11 GMT -5
I recently reported in thrives thread that Gonder was the only player to have played in all of the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and Shea as his home park. Of course I had his baseball card back in the day, too. I’m sure it was a rough road for the early blacks. One of Casey’s quotes when Ellie Howard came up was, “They finally send me a ######, and they send one that can’t run. But, those were the times…Casey was no more prejudiced than the average man… Casey did get away with that one, surprising with Jackie Robinson around complaining about the club being racist. In the early 1960's, I do remember that Giants Manager Al Dark complained about the Latin players did not take the game too seriously. His Giants team had the Alou brothers, Marichal, Pagan and Cepeda on their MLB roster. He would lose his job. Clipper |
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Post by inger on Dec 28, 2023 16:06:24 GMT -5
I recently reported in thrives thread that Gonder was the only player to have played in all of the Polo Grounds, Yankee Stadium, and Shea as his home park. Of course I had his baseball card back in the day, too. I’m sure it was a rough road for the early blacks. One of Casey’s quotes when Ellie Howard came up was, “They finally send me a ######, and they send one that can’t run. But, those were the times…Casey was no more prejudiced than the average man… Casey did get away with that one, surprising with Jackie Robinson around complaining about the club being racist. In the early 1960's, I do remember that Giants Manager Al Dark complained about the Latin players did not take the game too seriously. His Giants team had the Alou brothers, Marichal, Pagan and Cepeda on their MLB roster. He would lose his job. Clipper Also recall Bouton in Ball Four telling of Joe Schultz listening to his Latin players conversing in Spanish, walking away shaking his head and saying “Abadaba, abadaba”… For some reason white folks can have a deal of difficulty adjusting to change… |
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 30, 2023 16:13:47 GMT -5
Where are they now? Former reliever Ryne Duren: one-time Yankee pitcher recalls his playing career and the fear he put in opposing batters with his fastball and poor eyesight
Baseball Digest, Oct, 2004 by Ed Lucas, Paul Post, Edited by Clipper  SOME PEOPLE THOUGHT HE HAD a hard time seeing home plate. Wether it was real or imagined, Ryne Duren's allegedly poor eyesight added to the mystique that made him one of the most feared pitchers in baseball history.
With a fastball rivaling that of Nolan Ryan's and Randy Johnson's, he was a 3-time All-Star, who had helped the Yankees win a pair of world championships during his brief but glorious career in New York.
"In my opinion, he was the hardest thrower that I've ever watched pitch," said Bob Turley, a starter on great Yankee teams of the late 1950s and early '60s. "I don't think anybody threw the ball as hard as he did."
A Wisconsin native, Duren's fastball was so explosive that his coaches at Cazenovia High School made him play 2nd base. "I was very strong and wild," he said. "Nobody wanted to be responsible for me hurting anyone. I did pitch batting practice one day, I hit this kid and broke two of his ribs. So that was the end of my pitching."
"They wouldn't let me play short or third, because I threw the ball so hard across the infield I might have hurt somebody in the stands. Even maybe hurt the 1st baseman," Duren explained.
"I couldn't play the outfield because my eyes weren't good enough to pick up the ball. So they had me play 2nd base, where I could flip the ball underhand to1st base."
He would graduated in 1947 and through sheer will and determination, made his MLB pitching debut on September 25,1954 with the old St. Louis Browns, the same organization that Turley started out with. But it would take another 2 years of minor league seasoning before Duren finally reached the majors for good with the Kansas City A's.
"My 1st start in the big leagues was on May 10,1957 against the New York Yankees," Duren recalled. "The 1st batter was Hank Bauer and the 1st 3 pitches knocked Hank down, certainly not maliciously in any way. The next 3, just painted the outside corner. He was on his butt 3 times, then he took 3 on the outside corner.
"Then Gil McDougald came up and down he went. Strike 3 and he went back to the dugout."
Casey Stengel said, "What's the matter with you guys?"
They said, "Listen, we're married guys with kids. That guy's throwing it over 100 miles an hour out there. You'd better get him over here, or get him out of the league!"
"That's exactly what happened," Duren said. "They traded me for Billy Martin after the Copa incident."
Martin was among several Yankees including Bauer, Mickey Mantle, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra who were at the famed New York night spot, Copacabana, when a fight broke out. Team president George Weiss, who didn't like Martin to begin with, blamed him for the incident and used it as an excuse to trade him away. Martin always denied starting the trouble.
Despite Duren's reputation and live arm, the powerful Yankees already had a well-stocked rotation and sent him to AAA Denver Bears to gain more experience.
"I kind of objected to that," he said. "I thought I was pitching real well and (K.C. Manager) Lou Boudreau said I was probably the best pitcher on his staff and that he didn't have anything to do with the trade."
However, Yankee Executive Larry MacPhail told Duren, "Just go down there, get your feet on the ground and we'll have you right up.
"I went down there and my very 1st start, I threw a no-hitter, and it's the only 1 by a home-team pitcher in the history of professional baseball in Denver," Duren said. "Then I went 13-2. I got beat 1-0 twice on unearned runs and saved about 10 or 12 games. But evidently I didn't get my feet on the ground, because I didn't come up until the next spring. It was a little tough to crack the big leagues in those days."
In 1958, he would led the junior circuit with 20 saves and was named an American League All-Star. In that year's Fall Classic, against the defending world champion Milwaukee Braves, he realized the lowest and greatest moments of his career. In Game 1, the Braves' Billy Bruton singled off him to drive home the winning run in the last of the 10th inning.
" In the 6th game, I had the ball in the 5th inning and was still there in the l0th," Duren said. "I got the win (4-3). If you're talking about the game's importance, that 1958 Series was certainly the highlight of my career."
Hall of Fame catcher Yogi Berra agrees. "Ryne was a good relief pitcher, one of the best," he said.
Only wildness kept him from reaching superstar status. In 589 career innings, Duren had struck out 630 batters, but he had issued 392 walks. That lack of control and extremely poor eyesight (he wore "Coke bottle" glasses) filled even the most fearless hitters with absolute terror.
"I was 200/20 in my left eye without correction and 70/20 in my right," he explained. "Of course, my eyes were quite allergic to light. I wore dark glasses, and tinted glasses in the evening. In the twilight, I had these kind of gold-colored glasses. I guess the doctors and everybody wanted to get into the act, so I had all those different glasses."
This gave Stengel fodder for a great baseball story.
With writers gathered around, Casey said, "We had this guy who couldn't see good at all, and what they did was send him to these fancy New York doctors. He got seeing so good that he was grooving the ball right down the middle all the time. They started hitting him."
"Are you talking about Duren?" a scribe asked.
"Yeah."
"He went on to pitch awfully good, how'd you solve that?" the writer continued.
"It was simple," Casey said. "I just took a dirty handkerchief out to the mound for him."
Duren gained notoriety early in his Yankee career by throwing warmup pitches clear past home plate, all the way to the backstop.
"They did that on purpose to scare the hitters," Yogi said with a chuckle.
"I didn't do it as much as people think I did," Duren laughed. "But the evil that men do lives after them. Somebody said that once."
Actually, the incident happened the 1st time almost totally by mistake. "They flattened the mound, because Turley liked the mound flat," Duren said. "Of course I liked it with a lot of drop so I could get that good stuff down into the strike zone. Turley kind of came from the side. He figured it was better for him to have the mound flat."
"I didn't know it was changed and my routine was to throw the last pitch or two in the bullpen, wide open. Then when I'd come out to the mound, it was kind of an artillery game. I'd fire for effect and adjust from there. So I threw that 1st pitch as hard as I could, and my knee almost hit me in the jaw because the mound was so flat."
"When I released that ball and it went way over the catcher's head, and hit that screen hard, fans got such a kick out of it," Duren said. "Then the coaches, the press and everybody thought it was such a great thing and encouraged me to do it afterwards."
Whether it was real or imagined, his wildness became the stuff of legend. One of his most memorable incidents took place at Comiskey Park, where Duren almost sent a Chicago White Sox hitter to the hospital. "The 1st pitch, down he went," he said. "The 2nd pitch separated his helmet from his head and knocked it clear back to the screen. He went down so fast that the helmet was loose and it really didn't hurt him. I thought I'd killed him.
"Everybody in the stands did, too. He got up and trotted down to 1st base and assured everybody he was all right.
"Casey couldn't stand it any more," Duren said. "He took me out of the game and brought in Luis Arroyo. Gene Freese was the next hitter. He would grounded into a double play and he said he laughed all the way to 1st base, because he didn't have to face me."
Despite the frustrations, Duren said he and Stengel got along quite well. "Casey loved me and I loved him. He knew how to deal with me," he said. "One time, I saved a game in Washington, it was the 1st game of a doubleheader. About the 6th inning of the 2nd game, I'm sitting fairly close to Casey on the bench and he said to me, 'Mr. Duren ..."
"I said, 'Yeah, Casey, what is it?'"
"Where's your glove?"
"It's right under the bench here (I was wearing my jacket there, in the shade)."
"Mr. Duren, you've got to do something for me," Stengel said. "Take your jacket off and grab your glove and walk down toward the bullpen."
"I looked at him kind of funny," Duren said, "because they never pitch you in both ends of a doubleheader. He caught that look and he said, 'Never mind son. I'm not going to use you. Don't get all upset.'
"But he said, 'You've gotten to be a big star around here and some of these people didn't make it to the 1st game. I want them to see what a big star looks like. You walk down to the bullpen and walk real slow with your jacket off, so they can all get a look at you."
Duren said his favorite baseball memory was car-pooling to Yankee Stadium with Mantle during the 1960 campaign. "I can still see him laughing, that sense of humor he had and how much fun it was," he said. In later years, it was painful for him to see Mantle succumb to a lifetime of alcohol abuse, a problem that plagued him as well. "Every night could have been New Year's eve because that's how I interpreted the use of alcohol as a young person," Duren said. "I just got bad information early in life from my family, from the world around me everywhere."
He recently published a 2nd book, "I Can See Clearly Now," and has spent more than 20 years leading drug and alcohol abuse intervention programs. Among other things, Duren heads up the Winning Beyond Winning Foundation that provides cross-training for life for kids in metropolitan New York.
"We put on a summer camp for baseball, and we emphasize social skills, manners and of course alcohol and drug education and awareness," he said. "I give young people the education and information that I would have liked to have had before I got involved with alcohol. I'm not anti-alcohol, I'm just very pro-education. I think drinking and alcohol belong, but you can't use it ignorantly.
"The reason I know that it works is that I've been doing this for 20-odd years now and I get a lot of feedback from people all over the country."
Duren's Yankee career came to an end early in 1961, when he was sent to the expansion Los Angeles Angels. Ironically, he was named an All-Star for the 3rd time and rang up a career-high 115 strikeouts in just 104 innings.
Two years later, he had posted a career-best 6-2 mark with the Phillies. Following a stint in Cincinnati followed by a return to Philadelphia, Duren finished out his MLB pitching career with the Washington Senators in 1965.
He considers the 1959 campaign his best ever. "The day we were eliminated from the pennant my ERA was 0.68. I had pitched 1 streak of 37 innings without giving up a run. But believe it or not, the New York Yankees went 45 innings without getting me a run that same year," Duren said.
The front office apparently wasn't impressed with his statistics. On Christmas Eve, he opened his mail which included a letter from Weiss, a notoriously tough negotiator.
"It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon," Duren said with a laugh. "He sent me a $4,000 cut, from $16,000 to $12,000. He wasn't content to give me a cut, he wanted to ruin Christmas as well."
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 30, 2023 16:37:26 GMT -5
Yankees 3rd Baseman Red Rolfe This article was written by Cort Vitty for SABR. Edited by Clipper
Waving goodbye, the impeccably dressed young man with fiery red hair and ruddy complexion hurriedly boarded the Cleveland-bound train. In the span of 9 short days, The Pride of Penacook had graduated from Dartmouth, signed a contract to play for the New York Yankees and now was en route to join his new team. Place of birth made Robert Abial Rolfe a New Hampshire Yankee; his goal since childhood had been to don pinstripes and become a New York Yankee.
The Rolfe clan was an adventuresome lot, unafraid to leave their deep English/Scottish roots, to pursue opportunity in the newly settled Colonies. Rolfe commented to author Henry Edwards: “My folks just missed the Mayflower back some 300 years ago, but they caught the next steamer.”
Herbert Rolfe was a skilled carpenter by trade when he married Lucy Huff in Penacook, New Hampshire on June 4, 1901. Robert was the couple’s 5th child, born in Penacook on October 17, 1908. The family consisted of 5 girls (4 older than Robert) and a younger brother, surviving only days after his birth in 1910. Herbert successfully grew the business to later include ownership of a working lumber mill.
Bobby Rolfe earned a reputation as a good student – and an even better athlete. As a 7th-grader, he played on the Penacook High School baseball team. It wasn’t a matter of exceptional ability; the team simply didn’t have enough players to fill a roster. By 8th grade, his play helped Coach Jim Steele’s team win the 1922 Merrimack Valley Baseball League Championship. Playing for the Sunset Elks in 1925, Bobby won MVP honors and was the youngest player in the league.
The left-handed hitter entered Penacook High School and distinguished himself at shortstop. By his senior year he was generally acknowledged to be the top player on the team. Planning for the future, career options included pursuing the fields of teaching or journalism, with Dartmouth becoming his school of choice. Bobby’s cousin recommended a postgraduate year at prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy, to gain large-school experience. Founded during the Revolutionary War, the school was a steppingstone for students seeking an Ivy League education. Bobby enrolled and flourished academically. Former big-league pitcher Simmy Murth coached the baseball team; it was here teammates 1st christened him “Red.”
Rolfe was admitted to Dartmouth as an English major in 1927. The school had a formidable baseball team, coached by Jeff Tesreau, another ex-major-league pitcher. Rolfe settled in at shortstop and Tesreau quickly recognized both the offensive and defensive ability possessed by the youngster. New York Yankees Business Manager Ed Barrow had an unofficial working agreement with Tesreau; Jeff was to report talent to his office. Rolfe’s obvious potential resulted in the coach’s contacting Barrow, and recommending that he send a scout to New Hampshire.
Pseudo Yankees Farm Director Gene “White Tie” McCann was given the assignment. Arriving in New Hampshire, the unassuming McCann quietly assessed Rolfe from a distance. Later approaching the prospect, he struck up a conversation and subtly hinted at Rolfe’s pursuing a major-league career, embellished by the suggestion of sharing the limelight with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. Red was enamored, having followed the Yankees and idolizing both the Babe and Lou since his days in primary school.
Red decided to mull over McCann’s proposal while relaxing at the family’s Lake Winnepocket summer home, where his chores included filling the woodbox with kindling for cool summer nights. Older sister Florence was a college student, and regularly invited friends to the lake. During 1 trip in the summer of 1928, Florence introduced Red to Isabel Africa, a brown-eyed, dark-haired beauty studying to become a dietician at the University of New Hampshire. Red was smitten, and visited regularly to ensure that the woodbox remained filled.
By senior year, the campus was overrun with scouts eager to see Rolfe in action. Red’s playing time was limited due to a chronically sore arm. Downtrodden, he figured chances of a major-league career were as dead as his arm. Coach Tesreau sent Red to the Cape Cod League, under the tutelage of former big-league pitcher Patsy Donovan. The veteran systematically worked with Rolfe as the wing slowly healed. By the spring of 1931, the soupbone was better than ever. Red wired McCann: “If the offer is still good, I would like to play with Babe and Lou.” Standing 5-feet-11 and weighing 170 pounds, Rolfe graduated from Dartmouth in 1931. Connie Mack invited the youngster to Philadelphia for a tryout, but follow-up discussions never led to a contract. Red’s friends cautioned against signing with the Yankees, claiming that large contracts secured by Lyn Lary and Frank Crosetti would keep Red stuck in the Minors. Rolfe responded: “Money does not make a ballplayer.” On June 25,1931, Red signed with New York and attained his dream: “Ed Barrow outbid his rivals and landed Rolfe for a 6,000-dollar signing bonus, a fairly hefty amateur bonus at the time.”
Joe McCarthy was in his inaugural season as Yankees skipper in 1931, assuming the post after 5 successful years leading the Chicago Cubs. McCarthy liked giving rookies a brief taste of the big time – then shuttling them to the Minors for seasoning; this was the plan when Red boarded the Cleveland train. Arriving at League Park, Rolfe shook hands with McCarthy, while marveling at the green grass and immaculate condition of the field. Introductions ensued and Red shook hands with both Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig; the magnitude of this moment was never lost on the impressionable young man.
Rolfe made his MLB player debut on June 29,1931, entering the game in the top of the 8th as a defensive replacement for Shortstop Lyn Lary. Gehrig tossed a warm-up grounder to the awestruck rookie; both were college men and would eventually become not only very good friends, but also cribbage partners during long train rides to American League cities. Neither was a night owl; both enjoyed mystery novels and classic literature. Lou recalled Red’s early days as a Yankee: “I never saw a kid with so much spirit and desire to learn as Rolfe has shown me.” Lou continued: “When you start to discuss things, this Rolfe sticks his ear right into your tonsils. He wants to know everything. I think he’s a natural.”
The discerning Cleveland fans gave the rookie a major-league welcome, as a loud round of applause accompanied Red’s slick backhand grab of Johnny Burnett’s infield pop. After Red’s day with the big club, Marse Joe shuttled him down to the Eastern League (Class A) Albany Senators, where he played shortstop, hitting .333 in 58 games. Earning a promotion to the International League Newark Bears in 1932, Red would hit .330 in 147 games, good enough to warrant All-International League honors.
Returning as the Bears’ shortstop in 1933, Red posted a .326 mark in 156 games. Late in the season, he felt his fielding was not up to par. Montreal Royals shortstop Jonah Goldman approached Red and offered a suggestion: Position your left foot behind your right, and face 2nd base, almost perpendicular to the line. Red experimented and remarked, “I adapted Goldman’s style and it helped me a lot.” Wrote Newark Star-Ledger sportswriter Tip Rosen, “It may be somewhat far-fetched to say that Red Rolfe is as much responsible for the lofty place the Bears now hold in the International League pennant race as any other member of the club, but it’s just about the truth.” Red was named the 1933 International League MVP and got manager McCarthy seriously thinking about his infield woes.
Invited to spring training with the parent Yankees in 1934, Rolfe hustled afield, while leading the team in hitting. McCarthy planned to start the season with Rolfe at shortstop, replacing the light-hitting Frank Crosetti, but a painful case of hip boils scratched Red from the opener. Rolfe made matters worse by incorrectly assuming a heat-lamp treatment would improve his condition; it actually made the boils worse. Upon healing, Rolfe was inserted into the lineup at shortstop; former star 2nd baseman Tony Lazzeri was moved over to 3rd, with young Don Heffner getting the starting nod at 2nd base.
McCarthy quickly realized his infield problems were far from settled. Lazzeri did not adapt to 3rd, Heffner was not an everyday-caliber player and McCarthy determined that Rolfe’s arm (and difficulty going to his right) made him unsuited to playing shortstop in the major leagues. Crosetti returned to short, Lazzeri switched back to his natural 2nd base, leaving Rolfe to assume the role of 3rd-sacker. Despite his 1st hot-corner chance blackening his eye, the New York Times reported: “He took to his new position like a duck to water.” A wrenched knee limited Rolfe’s playing time in 1934 to 89 games; he hit .287.
Red and Isabel were married on October 12,1934. Originally from Pennsylvania, Isabel was the daughter of Walter G. and Isabel A. Africa, residents of Manchester, while their daughter attended the University of New Hampshire. Isabel later studied to become a Dietician at Johns Hopkins University. Since his youth, Red had suffered from Inflammatory Colitis, a stomach condition causing his immune system to attack his bowels. Isabel would studied the disease and recommended dietary changes. Doctors warned Red about the stress of a baseball season, potentially aggravating his condition.
Among club wives, the new Mrs. Rolfe quickly became an ardent Yankee fan, learning to keep score and mathematically calculate her husband’s batting average on the spot. Teammate Tommy Henrich recalled: “The Yankees wives were our biggest fans. Maybe the most faithful of all was Red Rolfe’s wife Isabel. She was one classy lady. She came out to Yankee Stadium often and enjoyed the games like any other enthusiastic fan.”
Skipper Joe McCarthy appreciated the quiet demeanor of his new 3rd baseman, and especially admired Red’s habit of writing down game-day observations. Red had an insatiable appetite for information and painstakingly recorded a multitude of facts and figures. McCarthy remarked: “He asks plenty of questions and writes down the answers. He also has a lot of other information in his little black book. For instance, he writes down just what every pitcher throws in the clutch so he can be set in the pinch.”
In the offseason, Rolfe owned and operated a service station in New Hampshire, keeping him reasonably fit until spring; however, it was his fondness for skiing and ice skating that really got him into shape. If the New England winter turned bitter, Red would move indoors to work out on the basketball court or hockey rink. He observed, “Many players would stand up better during the campaign if they did not spend too much time out in the sun.”
Rolfe became the Yankees’ regular 3rd baseman in 1935, playing in 149 games and hitting .300. Columnist Dan Daniel described him as “well behaved, the parson of the outfit. Never raises his voice, always showing a smile, always working hard, the baseball ideal, always studying things out there, always asking questions of McCarthy. A ballplayer in a couple hundred.” Red’s meticulous notes included which field a player was likely to hit to when served certain pitches. He’d communicate this information to teammates, who executed a 1930’s version of the shift.
The addition of rookie Joe DiMaggio to the Yankees lineup in 1936 helped catapult the club to a pennant and ultimately a World Series title, over the New York Giants. McCarthy preferred a left-handed hitter occupying the number 2 spot in the batting order. Red’s bat control and ability to pull the ball made him ideal for that slot. He understood his job as a table-setter for the power hitters, while leading the league with 15 triples and hitting .319 overall.
In 1937, Rolfe played all 154 games and made his 1st All-Star Game appearance, despite suffering from a painful thighbone tumor. He diagnosed his own ailment, noticing he couldn’t sit during long train rides. The Yankees won 102 games, finished 13 games ahead of the 2nd-place Detroit Tigers, and defeated the Giants in 5 games in the World Series. The leg tumor was surgically removed after the season. The McCarthy-men again won the pennant in 1938, this time by 9½ games over the Boston Red Sox. Rolfe hit .311, good enough to earn a 2nd All-Star selection and finished 24th in the MVP balloting. The mighty Yankees swept the Cubs in the fall classic.
The Yankees secured their 4th straight pennant in 1939, chalking up 106 wins, to best the 2nd-place Red Sox by 17 games. Red led the league with 213 hits, 46 doubles, and 139 runs, hit .329 and finished 27th in the MVP voting. From August 9th to 25th he scored at least 1 run in 18 consecutive games. In the World Series, the Yankees swept the Cincinnati Reds in 4 straight. Red’s 1939 World Series ring was the one he proudly wore the rest of his life. The 1936-1939 Yankees completely dominated the American League, winning the pennant by at least 9½ games each season. Connie Mack remarked to sportswriter Red Smith regarding the Yankees and specifically Rolfe: “They talk about all the other fellas on that team, but I notice the man who hurts us when it counts is that 3rd baseman. There is a real ballplayer.” Red led the entire decade of the 1930’s in doubles.
The Yankee would slumped in 1940, finishing 3rd behind Detroit and Cleveland, albeit only 2 games out. Rolfe was named to the All-Star squad for the 4th consecutive year, despite hitting only .250 in 139 games. His subpar performance was attributed to tonsils poisoning his system, along with a case of eyestrain, accompanied by excessive tearing and redness. A tonsillectomy in January 1941 was expected to rectify these problems. The 1941 Yankees were back on top of the American League, winning 101 games, 17 games ahead of the Red Sox. Rolfe’s play was seriously affected by a serious attack of intestinal colitis in September, causing his weight to dramatically drop from 170 to 159 pounds. Physically weakened, he hit only .264, but he would produced at a .300 clip during the World Series, helping the Yankees rout the Brooklyn Dodgers in 5 games. Red ordered his 1941 World Series ring in the ladies’ version, presenting it to Isabel as a gift. Rolfe scored over 100 runs in 7 consecutive seasons (1935-1941), averaging 121 runs a season.
Then came 1942, the 1st wartime season, with teams experiencing player shortages because of the military draft. At the time, Rolfe was 33, married and classified 3-A, making his chances of serving highly unlikely. Colitis struck again during spring training, causing another round of serious weight loss. McCarthy remained patient with his 3rd baseman, knowing Red’s health and on-field performance were not up to par. Clark Griffith of the Washington Senators actively sought to trade for Red, despite his ailments. Rolfe considered playing in a uniform other than pinstripes unthinkable and ended all speculation by announcing his retirement, effective with the end of the season.
In 1942, Rolfe had played in only 69 games, hitting an uncharacteristic .219 for the pennant-winning Yankees. The St. Louis Cardinals won the National League flag and defeated the Yankees in 5 games in the World Series. Rolfe had hit .353 (6-for-17) during the Series, but that performance did not alter the redhead’s decision; he had already accepted a coaching position at Yale University.
Ed Barrow added a poignant comment regarding Rolfe’s departure: “He was sick a long time, you know. He had that stomach trouble colitis and played in spite of it.” The Sporting News reported how Rolfe would be missed in many non-baseball ways: “Red was often sought out by teammates for help with income tax filings, advice on investments, counsel on their bridge game, and even their domestic difficulties.” During his career, Rolfe established a mark for 3rd basemen by appearing in 28 World Series games. Rolfe volunteered to travel overseas as part of an athletic troupe, visiting wartime service camps; his unit conducted sports clinics, as a morale builder for the troops. He would coached at Yale from 1942 to 1946 before returning to the Yankees as an MLB Coach. McCarthy confided to his returning charge: “In about 3 years I’m quitting. You’re cut out to be a team leader. You’ll be the logical choice to succeed me.” Red’s leadership was good enough to add professional basketball coach to his résumé; when he led the Toronto Huskies of the Basketball Association of America in 1946; the league was a precursor to the NBA.
Red never got the job as Yankees skipper. A group led by Larry MacPhail purchased the club in January of 1945 and MacPhail signed Bucky Harris to manage in 1947, with Charlie Dressen and Red Corriden brought in as MLB Coaches. Rolfe became expendable, he left his beloved Yankees to join the Detroit Tigers on August 8,1947, as Chief Scout in charge of rebuilding the farm system.
Detroit Tigers Manager Steve O’Neill was fired on November 6,1948, following a 5th-place finish. None of the club’s upper management – Owner Walter O. Briggs, his son Spike, and General Manager Billy Evans – had a specific replacement in mind, stating they’d look within the organization to find a skipper.
Aspiring candidates came from nowhere, raising the number of applicants quickly from 12 to almost 50. Then Spike suggested a candidate who had not even applied for the job: “What about farm director Red Rolfe?” All 3 agreed and as The Sporting News reported: “Robert the Red knows the game thoroughly. He is a charming gentleman; but was an aggressive player. It was that aggressiveness, which was his chief recommendation for the Tiger managerial post.” Billy Evans came up with a clever way of breaking the news: Entering Red’s Farm-Director office at Briggs Stadium, Evans asked: “How would you like to change your office for another one down the hall? The other one’s a little bigger. You might like it better.” “Well,” answered Rolfe, “I’m perfectly satisfied with this office. It’s big enough, but I suppose I might use a little more space. What office were you thinking of giving me?” Billy replied, “The one reserved for our new manager.” After the shock wore off, Red commented, “this club has its weaknesses, but it is not a bad ballclub. If we can strengthen 2 or 3 spots, we will be up there in the pennant fight.” During spring training 1949, Rolfe “flashed that contagious grin and murmured: It’s great to be back in action again, I missed this terribly. You know it’s been 7 years since I quit playing. It seems like 70.” The 1949 team essentially consisted of aging holdovers from the 1945 World Championship club. George Kell commented in a 1969 Baseball Magazine article: “Red Rolfe showed me things at 3rd base when I first became an All-Star.” Rolfe also shared with Kell a great deal of the baseball knowledge, that he had acquired under the tutelage of Joe McCarthy.
The Tigers started a torrid streak on August 20,1949, winning 18 of 20 games. Rolfe deflected assertions that his managerial skill produced such impressive results. “We just caught on fire,” he insisted. “Our pitchers are pitching, our hitters are hitting, and we’re getting the breaks. All I do as manager is yell my head off when one of the boys’ hits 1 and slap a pitcher on the back after he wins another.” The club improved to 4th place, compiling an 87-67 record. Rolfe won Manager of the Year honors in 1950, finishing with a 95-59 record in 2nd place 3-games behind the pennant-winning Yankees. The exultation was short-lived; the club slipped back to 5th in 1951, falling to a 73-81 record. The bottom fell out in 1952, when the team skidded to 50-104 and last place; Rolfe was fired with the club at 23-49. According to Arthur Daley of the New York Times, “Red was a perfectionist as a player, but that same quality proved his undoing as a manager, when he took over the Detroit Tigers. He immediately became appalled by the complacency of his hired hands and they came to resent his drive for perfection.”
The door was always open at Dartmouth; Red was welcomed back as Athletic Director in 1954. At an English Department dinner, he quickly realized he couldn’t shake his baseball past; seated on the dais next to Robert Frost, Red looked forward to an evening of discussing literature with the renowned poet. To Red’s dismay, all Frost wanted to talk about was baseball. Rolfe learned in 1967 that an intestinal disorder required surgery and he announced his retirement from Dartmouth. Red and Isabel were set financially; his baseball salary was supplemented by postseason money, earned nearly every year during his professional career. They saved judiciously and invested wisely, developing a successful investment portfolio. The couple had no children, didn’t buy a fancy car every year and never took extravagant vacations; their favorite getaway was the solitude of New Hampshire lake fishing, aboard their relatively modest boat.
The Yankees had conducted a fan survey in 1969, to determine their “all-time” greatest team; Red Rolfe was voted the 3rd baseman. On July 8,1969, a little more than a month after Dartmouth’s Memorial Field was renamed Rolfe Field, Red’s kidneys failed and the Pride of Penacook died at the age of 60; he was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Penacook.
Joe McCarthy, upon hearing of Rolfe’s death, remarked, “Red was one of the greatest 3rd basemen of all time.” Sportswriter Red Smith wrote, “He was always a quiet guy, and straightforward, a guy with a good healthy home life, a popular man on the team who never made any trouble and had a good deal of influence on the men around him.”
Isabel lived in the Penacook area for the next 29 years. She aggressively helped support multiple philanthropic causes and was a generous donor to many local charities. She was residing with Red’s younger sister, Marjorie, when she died on December 2,1998, at the age of 90. Rolfe’s MLB career was relatively short, consisting of only 9 full big-league seasons. During that brief period, his impressive résumé included 6 pennant winners, 5 World Championships and 4 All-Star selections. His MLB career numbers included 1,175 MLB games, with 69 HRs, 257 doubles and 67 triples; his lifetime stats included a .289 batting average, a .360 OBP, a .773 OPS, and a WAR (wins above replacement) of 23.5.
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Post by inger on Dec 30, 2023 19:24:36 GMT -5
Weiss was such a jerk…
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Post by inger on Dec 30, 2023 19:38:43 GMT -5
We take Red for granted when we speak of the great Yankees. I never knew his health was such an issue. He should have been on my under rated Yankees list, but I doubt he would have gotten many votes. Almost forgotten…
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 30, 2023 22:18:20 GMT -5
Don't forget he had treated to trade Mickey Mantle to the Indians for Pitcher Herb Score and OF Rocky Colavito in 1957, because that Mantle wouldn't take a $10,000 payout for not winning the AL Triple Crown in 1957. Thank God for Co-Owner Dan Topping for stepping in. George Weiss used to Get a bonus for keeping the Yankees under team budget. Clipper |
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Post by chiyankee on Dec 30, 2023 22:31:16 GMT -5
Great article and very informative.
Credit to Duren for later in life helping younger people who are battling alcohol abuse.
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 30, 2023 22:45:14 GMT -5
Yankees INF/OF Chick Fewster
This article was written by Bill Nowlin, SABR
Re-edited by Clipper
Just 5 months before Cleveland’s Ray Chapman was hit on the head and killed by a pitch, Yankees INF Chick Fewster had his own brush with death. It was during spring training, in March of 1920. He was in his 4th season with the New York Yankees, still hoping to become a regular but coming off a 1919 season where he’d played in 81 games (both infield and outfield) and had batted .283. Manager Miller Huggins had raved, “Chick has everything. I have never seen a greater prospect.”
The Yankees were hosting the Brooklyn Robins in Jacksonville in a March 25th exhibition game. Two players had been hurt before the game, during batting practice. Both Wally Pipp of the Yanks and Clarence Mitchell of the Brooklyns had been knocked out, by a thrown ball to 1st base in Pipp’s case and a batted ball from a teammate in Mitchell’s. It was already a rough day.
Carl Mays was pitching for the Yankees and retired Brooklyn in the top of the 1st. Fewster, playing 3rd base, was the leadoff batter in the bottom of the 1st, facing Big Jeff Pfeffer. With the count 2-1, Pfeffer’s 4th pitch struck Fewster on the temple. “The impact sounded like a cocoanut shell cracking,” The New York Times reported, “and Fewster went down like an ox felled by an axe. He was on the ground unconscious for about 10 minutes before Trainer Woods and a bunch of assistants could bring him.” [New York Times, March 26, 1920] There was immediate worry that he might become gun-shy in future at-bats.
A day later, it was clear that he’d been much more seriously injured than 1st thought. He lost his power of speech at 1st and it was clear that the bruising was far deeper than it had seemed. The Sporting News said that his “life hung in the balance for about 3 days” with a fractured skull and a concussion. [The Sporting News, April 26, 1945] A doctor accompanied him as he was moved to Union Protestant Infirmary in Baltimore and 3 days later doctors said he was slowly recovering his speech. It was 6 days later before it was fully determined that his skull had indeed been fractured and he was bleeding from a hemorrhage. He underwent an operation at Johns Hopkins Hospital on March 31st to remove a piece of his skull about the size of a silver dollar and remove a blood clot at the same time. A silver plate was placed in his skull. [Notes by Ford Sawyer contained in Fewster’s player file at the Hall of Fame.] A report the next day was headlined, “Fewster Not Likely to Play Ball Again.” [Washington Post, April 2, 1920]
Recuperation progressed more rapidly than expected, and by April 9th, he was able to sit up in bed and speak with some degree of coherency. By April 17th, he was reported to be “feeling so well now that he is anxious to get out and play ball again.” [Chicago Tribune, April 18, 1920]
His optimism was not just hollow hope. He rejoined the team and got into his 1st games on July 5th, playing both halves of a doubleheader in Washington. He was hit by a pitch the very next day, but he hung in there. The Yankees had had a special batting helmet made for him, but he declined to wear it. “But something had gone out of his play; the great prospect of the 1920 training season became just an ordinary player.” [The Sporting News, April 26, 1945]
He saw action in 21 games before the end of the season, with 36 plate appearances. He would hit for a .286 average and scored 8 runs, though only driving in 1. He was walked 7 times, perhaps an indication that pitchers were hesitant to pitch too closely to him.
Though widely known as Chick, he was born as Wilson Lloyd Fewster in Baltimore on November 10, 1895. His father was a Marylander, James Fewster, a carpenter by trade. His mother Elizabeth was a native of Ireland who had arrived in the United States in 1884. Wilson was the 3rd of 4 boys in the family. The eldest, James, was 5 years older than he, followed 2 years later by Walter, and then Stanley was born a year after Wilson. By 1910, James was no longer in the picture – perhaps due to death – and Elizabeth was listed as head of household in that year’s census. Her son James was working as a clerk in a grocery store. Two more sons, Russell and Leslie, had both joined the family. Stanley played at least briefly with Portsmouth in the Virginia League, according to the April 26, 1945, Sporting News.
Chick learned baseball on the sandlots of Baltimore, where the trainer of the Richmond Climbers saw him at a tryout and signed him. [Notes by Ford Sawyer contained in Fewster’s player file at the Hall of Fame.] He broke into organized baseball playing 2nd base at Double A with Richmond (International League) in 1915, a team owned by Jack Dunn of Baltimore Orioles, who had moved the team there (and sold Babe Ruth to the Boston Red Sox) while facing competition from the Federal League team in Baltimore. Fewster would hit .253, while playing 2nd base in 48 games. The next 2 seasons he played for the Orioles (Dunn had moved the team back home after the Federal League had collapsed), though only for 18 games (.184) in 1916, at shortstop. Much of the year he had played with the Worcester Busters, in the Eastern League, hitting .233 in 88 games. In 1917, after 22 games with Worcester he was back with Baltimore at 2nd base. He got into 97 games and hit .299 and was brought up to the Yankees in time to debut on September 19th. In 11 late-season games, he hit .222, driving in just 1 run and scoring twice. He played 2nd for the Yankees, a right-hander who stood 5-feet-11 and weighed 160 pounds.
In 1918, he was with the Yankees throughout the season but used only sparingly in 5 games, going 1 for 2 at the plate. As noted above, he hit .283 in 1919, collecting his 1st HR (his drive into the left-field bleachers at the Polo Grounds won the game against the Tigers on August 1) and scoring 38 times while driving in 15 runs. He would played 41 games in the Outfield and divided his other work in the infield between Shortstop, 2nd base, and 3rd base – though he committed 12 errors in 24 games at short.
The year after his injury, Fewster hit a steady .280 in 1921, covering center field much more than any other position, until Elmer Miller took over most of the duties in early August. He was hit by 6 pitches (when he’d faced Pfeffer at Shreveport in spring training, he reportedly slammed a triple off him). And he appeared in the World Series, taking over for Babe Ruth late in Game 3 after Ruth wrenched his knee. Fewster played in 4 games, with a 2-run HR in Game 6 off of Jesse Barnes of the Giants (in 11 seasons of regular-season play, he only hit 6 HRs). In 13 plate appearances, he got 2 hits and walked 3 times, scoring thrice. The Giants would win the best-of-9 World Series, 5 games to 3.
It’s of some interest to note that while still with New York, he’d run into a couple of rough spots on back-to-back days, being fined $11 on April 14, 1922 for driving an automobile without a license and then – more seriously – been faced with a lawsuit seeking $50,000. The suit was filed on April 15 by a contractor in Baltimore, Joseph T. Byrne, who alleged that Chick was guilty of alienation of the affections of his wife, Grace C. Byrne. She had kept a boarding house for Chick and 2 of his brothers some years earlier. When Commissioner Landis was asked if the case came under his jurisdiction as a case involving a stolen car would, he simply said, “Don’t that beat the devil!” [The Sporting News, May 11, 1922] How the suit was resolved is today unknown.
Chick was sent from New York to Boston on July 23rd in a big trade. Miller joined him, as did Lefty O’Doul, Johnny Mitchell, and $50,000. In exchange, Harry Frazee sent the Yankees 3B Jumpin’ Joe Dugan and OF Elmer Smith. They became the 11th and 12th Red Sox players traded or sold to New York, and the Yankees ballclub was now largely made up of former Red Sox players. Fewster had been hitting .242 for New York through 44 games, his 1 HR, a game-winning inside-the-park grand slam on May 12th. It was the loss of Dugan that upset Boston fans the most. The Boston Herald called it a “disgusting trade” and even charged that Miller, Mitchell, and Fewster were all “tossed in to Boston for camouflage purposes.” Frazee said he thought the trade would strengthen his team, adding for emphasis, “I wish I had 6 more players with the ‘guts’ and fight of Chick Fewster.” [New York Times, July 25,1922] About a year later, the Washington Post noted that after Fewster’s recovery, “instead of showing timidity at the bat, he seemed over daring and the pitchers were almost afraid of him. His heart surely was there, and his courage never had been weakened, but the injury left him physically weak and he was unable to play in hot weather” due to dizzy spells when the sun beat down on him. [Washington Post, June 18, 1923]
Chick would joined the Red Sox and Manager Hugh Duffy in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, where the team played an exhibition game. Continuing his work as a utility player, Chick hit .289 in 83 at-bats.
Boston had a new manager in the spring of 1923 and Boston Globe sportswriter Mel Webb said that Fewster was “the most aggressive player Frank Chance has in his baseball caravan.” [Boston Globe, April 10, 1923] He showed some spunk on the bench, too, trading punches with teammate Val Picinich on the bench during the 5th inning of the July 27 home game in an argument over a throw from Catcher Picinich. On August 9th, Fewster had wrenched his back so badly chasing down a fly ball that he had to be carried from the field. He was out of action for 2 weeks. His 90 games in 1923 was his most to date, but his BA fell to .236. Early in 1924 (on January 7th), he was traded to the Indians for Dan Boone, Joe Connolly, Steve O’Neill, and Bill Wambsganss. Accompanying him to Cleveland were George Burns and Roxy Walters.
Fewster would played 2 years in Cleveland, appearing in 101 and 93 games respectively, hitting .267 in 1924 and .248 in 1925. Manager Tris Speaker told him that the 2nd base job was his for 1925, and he played more there than anyone else, but was still limited to just 83 games at 2nd and 10 at 3rd.
In another January deal, he was sold to Brooklyn Robins in 1926. It wasn’t quite that straightforward, however; the Indians had outrighted him to AA Kansas City Blues over the winter, but he said he would refuse to report. So something was worked out and Kansas City would sell him to Brooklyn on April 8th. At first, it again looked like he might have landed a regular job at 2nd base, though he didn’t play quite as much as the season progressed. Nonetheless, he reached a career-high with 105 games, hitting for a .243 average. The Robins brought him back in 1927, but only in pinch roles and not for long. He appeared only 4 times before he was outright to AA Jersey City of the International League on May 5th. On the 7th he rang up some pairs in an 11-7 win over Syracuse, walking twice, singling twice, scoring 2 runs, stealing 2 bases and taking part in 2 double plays. His 6th-inning steal of home in a game against Baltimore on July 21st won the game.
Jersey City would passed him on to Baltimore Orioles before the end of the season, and he would hit .296 in 422 at-bats for both teams. Moving on to Montreal Royals in 1928, he would hit .251 in 338 at bats before he was released in August. Montreal Manager George Stallings, who was ill, reportedly recommended Fewster as his replacement. When Eddie Holly was given the job instead, there was “trouble” between the 2 and Fewster was released. [Atlanta Constitution, August 28, 1928]
In 1929, back in Jersey City with the Skeeters, he would hit .233 in 275 at-bats. That was his last season as an active player. He played 2nd base throughout his 3 later years in minor league ball. The Skeeters would released him on September 7th. On October 10th, he announced his retirement to enter the brokerage business. It wasn’t good timing; on October 25, the stock market collapsed as “Black Friday” kicked off the Great Depression.
Apparently beginning sometime in the late 1930s, Fewster operated his own baseball academy in Brooklyn. His obituary in the New York Times says that shortly after Pearl Harbor, he had joined the Merchant Marine at the age of 46 and participated in the supplying for the African invasion, even surviving the sinking of his ship in the Persian Gulf on one trip. His death came unexpectedly – he was only 49 – of coronary occlusion on April 16, 1945, in Baltimore. He was survived by his wife Annie and 18-year-old son Wilson Jr., who later became lacrosse coach at Johns Hopkins.
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 31, 2023 15:58:57 GMT -5
Yankees Allie "Super Chief" Reynolds
This article was written by Royse Parr Edited by Clipper
Because of religious strictures imposed by his parents, Allie Reynolds did not play baseball in an organized fashion until after he left high school. He overcame that handicap and had an outstanding 13-year career in the 1940s and 1950s as a pitcher with the Cleveland Indians and the New York Yankees.
Allie Pierce Reynolds was born in Bethany, Oklahoma, a suburb of Oklahoma City, on February 10,1917, to David C. and Mary (Brooks) Reynolds; he was the eldest of 3 sons. Allie was three-16ths Creek Indian, descending from his three-quarters-Creek grandmother, Eliza Root Reynolds. He grew tired of explaining the three-16ths and often told reporters he was one-fourth Creek.
Allie’s father was born in Indian Territory in 1890, attended Chilocco Indian School and became a Nazarene preacher. Allie’s parents lived strictly by Nazarene doctrine, staying away from movies and dances. One doctrinal stand that affected their athletic young son was the prohibition of playing sports on Sunday. From an early age, Allie loved baseball. Because most sandlot and semipro games were played on Sunday afternoon, he did not play baseball on a team until after high school, but he had turned to other sports, including softball, track, and football.
Except for football in the 6th grade, Allie did not play any school sports until he entered Oklahoma City’s Capitol Hill High School in the fall of 1933 for his senior year. He weighed 145 pounds and saw only limited action as a back on offense and defense. The Capitol Hill Redskins were an undefeated team that claimed the national high-school football championship by defeating Chicago’s Harrison Tech, 55-13. Allie had completed his high-school class work by going to summer school in 1934, but he would returned to Capitol Hill High School for 1 more semester to play football. As the starting quarterback, he led the team to an undefeated season that was marred only by 2 ties. His father’s meager income as a Nazarene minister meant Allie would have to earn his own way if he wanted to go to college. He was disappointed to learn football coaches at the University of Oklahoma were not interested in him because of his light weight. However, in January of 1935, he had accepted a track scholarship from Oklahoma A&M that paid $20 a month toward his tuition and room and board. Also, because of his Muscogee Creek heritage, he was granted a $400 loan by a foundation.
In May 1935 Allie was the Missouri Valley Conference’s high-point man for Oklahoma A&M in the annual freshman track meet. His times in the 100-yard dash, the 220-yard dash, and his distance in the javelin throw were comparable to those of the great Jim Thorpe in the 1912 Olympics. On July 7, 1935, Allie married his Capitol Hill High School sweetheart, Dale Earlene Jones. He had a summer job slinging a sledgehammer and playing baseball in the outfield for an Oklahoma City oil field equipment firm. Their 1st son, Allie Dale, was born on June 8, 1936. He died in an airplane crash in Wyoming in 1978.
In 1935, Reynolds was the leading ground gainer for Oklahoma A&M’s freshman football team. For the next 3 seasons, he was the starting fullback and a tenacious defensive back on varsity teams that won only 6 games and lost 24. One afternoon in the spring of 1937, Oklahoma A&M’s athletic director and basketball and baseball coach, Henry P. Iba, saw Reynolds throwing a javelin next to the baseball field. Iba had asked the track and football star, if he could help the baseball team by throwing batting practice. Allie agreed, and without any warm-ups, he started striking out batters, throwing as hard as he could. After a few batters, Iba called him in and told him to go to the equipment room and get a uniform. Allie was used primarily as a relief pitcher at the beginning of the season. In his 1st start as a collegian, he pitched all 9 innings and hit a HR in a 3-2 victory over the University of Oklahoma. In late June 1937, in the need for a summer job took Reynolds to Colorado to play on the Leyden Coal Company’s semipro team. With Allie pitching the championship game, Leyden Coal won Colorado’s1st statewide semipro championship. Reynolds had a 5-2 record as Oklahoma A&M won another state conference title in 1938. On May 20th of that year, he and Earlene became the parents of a daughter, Bobbye Kay Reynolds. In 1939, Allie was elected team captain. He was 5-1 in his final college season, including a May15th no-hitter against Southwestern Oklahoma State University.
Coach Iba advised Reynolds to consider a career in professional baseball and set up a meeting for him with Cleveland Indians scout Hugh “Red” Alexander. The Indians would signed Reynolds, paid him a $1,000 bonus, and assigned him to their Springfield, Ohio affiliate in the Class-C Middle Atlantic League. Plagued by control problems, he nevertheless compiled an 11-8 record. Because he had not yet completed his college education, Reynolds returned to classes at Oklahoma A&M for the fall semester of 1939. Later, he took correspondence courses, completing a bachelor of science degree in June 1942.
Cleveland would promoted Reynolds to the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Raiders of the Class-B Three-I League, where he had a 12-7 record for the 1940 season. On March 8,1941, Earlene gave birth to their 3rd and last child, James David. Reynolds would opened the 1941 season at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in the Class-A Eastern League. He appeared in only 3 games with no decisions before being sent back to Cedar Rapids, where he had a 10-10 record. As he had in 1941, Reynolds began the 1942 season with Wilkes-Barre. He became the Eastern League’s premier pitcher with an 18-7 record, including 11 shutouts. He was named the right-handed pitcher on the league’s all-star team (Warren Spahn was the left-landed pitcher). After the Eastern League season had ended, Reynolds was called up to the Indians, and he made his MLB pitching debut on September 17,1942, as a reliever against the Washington Senators. As the 1943 season began, Cleveland had high hopes for Reynolds to replace Bob Feller, who was in the Navy. The 1943 game that established the 6-foot, 195-pound Reynolds as a coming star was a 12–0 shellacking of the Yankees on July 2nd at League Park. He would finished the season with an 11-12 record and a league-leading 151 strikeouts.
Pitching for a second-division ballclub in 1944, Reynolds had posted an 11-8 record, which gave him the best winning percentage among Indians’ pitchers. He was 18-12 for the 5th-place Indians in 1945, but he led the league with 130 walks in 247 1/3 innings. Reynolds got off to a great start in 1946, but he had to win 9 of his final 14 decisions to salvage an 11-15 record.
At the end of the 1946 season, Reynolds was the subject of trade discussions between the Indians and the Yankees. During a World Series game at Fenway Park, Larry MacPhail, the President of the Yankees, asked Joe DiMaggio which Cleveland pitcher would be best for the New Yorkers, Red Embree or Reynolds. DiMaggio said he could hit Embree, but he had never been successful against Reynolds. MacPhail made the trade, sending 2nd baseman Joe Gordon to the Indians in exchange for Reynolds.
Reynolds would started the 1947 season year with back-to-back shutouts, including a 2-hitter against the Boston Red Sox on April 23rd. He duplicated the 2-hit shutout against the Red Sox exactly a month later. He finished the season with a 19-8 record and a .704 winning percentage, the league’s 2nd best. The Yankees easily won the American League pennant and defeated the Brooklyn Dodgers 4 games to 3 in the World Series. Reynolds had a complete-game, 10-3 victory in Game 2 and a no-decision in Game 6. The Yankees had acquired left-hander Eddie Lopat from the Chicago White Sox in 1948, and he, Reynolds, and Vic Raschi became a dominant pitching trio throughout most of Reynolds’s remaining years in baseball.
Reynolds would opened the 1948 season with 5 straight victories and finished with a 16-7 record for the 3rd-place Yankees. He was 17-6 in 1949, as the Yankees had edged Boston for the pennant on the last day of the season. In Game 1 of the World Series against the Dodgers, Yankees 1st baseman Tommy Henrich hit a 9th-inning HR off of Dodgers Don Newcombe to secure a 1–0, 2-hit shutout for Reynolds. In Game 4, he came into the game in the 6th inning and retired all 10 batters that he faced (including 5 strikeouts) to save Lopat’s 6–4 win.
In the 1950 World Series, the Yankees would swept the Philadelphia Phillies. The Game 2 starters were Reynolds, who had a 16-12 record during the season, and 24-year-old future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts. The Yankees scored a run in the 2nd and Reynolds yielded a single tally in the 5th. The score held up until the 10th when Joe DiMaggio homered against Roberts. Reynolds gave up a leadoff walk to start the bottom of the frame, but then he set down the Phils in order, winning 2–1. It was his 3rd World Series victory without a loss
Going into the 1951 season, Reynolds was the Yankees’ main pitching concern. Doctors had told him he had several bone chips floating in his elbow and an offseason operation might be needed, but Reynolds chose not to have the surgery. To combat the pain in his back and elbow, allergies, and a tired feeling that may have been pre-diabetes, he started eating a prescribed 4 oranges per game.
If the Yankees were concerned about Reynolds for the ’51 campaign, they needn’t have worried. The 34-year-old right-hander had one of his finest seasons, which included pitching 2 no-hitters. On the night of July 12th, in Cleveland, he would topped Bob Feller in a 1-0 squeaker. Yankees’ CF Gene Woodling homered in the top of the 7th for the only score of the game. Reynolds ended it with a strikeout of 2nd baseman Bobby Avila.
Going into the final weekend of the season, the Yankees led the Indians by 2 1/2 games. The Yankees had 4 games at home against arch-rival Boston including a Friday doubleheader. Reynolds faced 18-game-winner Mel Parnell in the opener and had an 8–0 lead with 2 outs in the top of the ninth inning. He had issued 4 walks but not a hit as he prepared to face Ted Williams. Williams hit a towering foul ball behind home plate that was muffed by catcher Yogi Berra. Reynolds threw a 2nd fastball in the same spot, and Williams popped it up again. Berra caught it for the final out of the game, preserving the no-hitter. When Vic Raschi had won the nightcap, the Yankees clinched the pennant.
Reynolds became the 1st pitcher in the American League to pitch 2 no-hitters in a season. After the 2nd one, Yankees broadcaster Mel Allen began calling him “Super Chief,” a nickname that stuck.
Reynolds would completed the 1951 regular season with a 17-8 record and a 3.05 ERA over 221 innings. He led the American League with 7 shutouts and, showing his versatility, had 7 (retroactive) saves. The Yankees met the New York Giants in the World Series. Riding the momentum of their amazing late-season surge capped by Bobby Thomson’s storied home run off of Dodgers Ralph Branca, the Giants rolled over Reynolds and the Yankees in Game 1, winning by the score of 5–1.
After the teams split Games 2 and 3, Reynolds evened the Series by shutting down the Giants, 6-2, in Game 4. The Yankees took the last 2 games of the Series behind Lopat and Raschi to claim their 3rd successive world championship. Reynolds won the Ray Hickok Award as the Professional Athlete of the Year. The award was an alligator skin, gold-buckled, diamond-studded belt, which Reynolds kept in bank storage for years because it was too expensive to insure.
The Yankees were confident they could win a 4th consecutive pennant in 1952, a feat accomplished only twice before. The team started slowly but finished 2 games ahead of the Indians. Reynolds had the only 20-victory season of his career at 20-8. He had a 2.05 ERA, 6 shutouts, and led the American League in strikeouts with 160. His 2nd-place finish in the MVP voting was the highest of his career.
In the World Series, the Yankees and Dodgers squared off in Game 1 in Brooklyn. Reynolds pitched well, but lost 4-2 to surprise starter Joe Black. Reynolds got revenge against Black with a masterful 2-0 shutout in Game 4 that evened the Series. The Dodgers won Game 5 to go ahead 3 games to 2. Reynolds relieved Raschi with 2 outs in the 8th inning of Game 6, and saved the Yankees’ 3-2 victory. In Game 7, he had relieved Lopat in the 4th inning. He gave up 1 run in 3 innings and was the winning pitcher in a 4-2 victory that gave the Yankees their 4th consecutive World Series championship.
Reynolds spent the winter in Oklahoma City building his oil business. As a prelude to spring training, he achieved a longtime ambition in mid-February by winning the National Baseball Players Golf Championship, beating Giants shortstop Alvin Dark, one-up, in Miami, Florida.
The Yankees won their 20th American League pennant in 1953. Reynolds, now primarily a reliever, had a record of 13-7 with 13 saves. The Yankees would defeated the Dodgers in 6 games for their record 5th consecutive world championship. Reynolds was the winning pitcher in Game 6 after relieving Whitey Ford in the 8th inning.
By winning his 7th World Series game, Reynolds tied a record held by Yankees pitcher Red Ruffing. It was his last World Series game. He went home to Oklahoma to trade his baseball glove for oilfield gloves. A successful winter in the oil business and an aging right arm combined to convince him that 1954 would be his last baseball season.
Reynolds continued to work as both a starter and a reliever in 1954. On September 23rd, he pitched his last MLB game, beating the Philadelphia Athletics at Yankee Stadium by the score of 10-2. The Yankees closed the season with 103 victories, more than in any of their 5 previous seasons. But the Indians had won 111 games for a new American League record. Reynolds finished with a 13-4 record and a .765 winning percentage, the best of his career. In his 13 major-league seasons, he had started 434 regular-season games and relieved in 309.
At season’s end, he had not made up his mind about retirement. He continued his representation of American League players in talks with baseball management on pension matters. In an interview on February 25,1955, with sportswriter John Cronley of the Daily Oklahoman, Reynolds announced his retirement from baseball.
Living in Oklahoma and working in the oil business all of his retirement years, Reynolds became the sole owner and president of Atlas Mud Company. His active participation in Oklahoma civic and charitable causes was extensive. One of his favorite causes was the YMCA baseball program. In 1960, he headed a fund drive to build a new YMCA in his hometown of Bethany. On April 24,1982, the new baseball stadium at his alma mater, now called Oklahoma State University, was dedicated in his honor.
On October 28,1983, Allie’s wife of 48 years, Earlene, died after a lengthy battle with cancer. On November 16, 1991, Allie was inducted into the Oklahoma Hall of Fame. More than 1,200 people attended the black-tie event that was televised statewide.
Reynolds was a member of the Yankees All-Star team selected by former manager Casey Stengel. In 1989, he was honored with a plaque in Monument Park at Yankee Stadium.
Reynolds did everything he could to promote his Native American heritage. He served as president of the National Hall of Fame for Famous American Indians at Anadarko, Oklahoma. His last public appearance was on October 3,1994, when he was in Anadarko for the dedication of a portrait in bronze of Kiowa Chief Stumbling Bear. Suffering from lymphoma and diabetes, Reynolds had entered Oklahoma City’s St. Anthony Hospital in December 1994. He died on December 26,1994, at the age of 77. He was buried at Oklahoma City’s Memorial Park Cemetery after American Indian services celebrating his Creek heritage. The Muscogee (Creek) Nation erected a statue in honor of Reynolds near the baseball/softball fields on the reservation.
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Post by inger on Dec 31, 2023 16:05:32 GMT -5
Too bad MrG isn’t hers to see this. He was a Super Chief fan beyond all others…
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 31, 2023 16:07:57 GMT -5
Allie Reynolds deserved to be in the Hall of Fame. He had 51-47 record for poor Indian clubs. From 1947 to 1954, he would post a 131-60 record for the Yankees. In the World Series, he would win 7 more games for the team. His 2 No-hitters during the 1951 AL season were against the Cleveland Indians and the Boston Red Sox.
Clipper
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Post by fwclipper51 on Dec 31, 2023 16:47:42 GMT -5
Yankees Pitcher Bobby Shantz (1957-1960) The 1st Yankees Player to win a Golden Glove
Written by Mel Marmer, Edited by Clipper
Almost every scout considered him too short (5-feet-6½) to be a MLB pitching prospect. One scout was not deterred, however, and dared to sign the left-hander, setting off Bobby Shantz on a 16-year odyssey in the MLB. Shantz reached the heights of success early in his career by winning the American League’s Most Valuable Player Award in 1952. He also bore the depths, nearly quitting baseball in midcareer because of serious arm injuries.
During 4 seasons (1953-1956) nursing those injuries, Shantz won just 13 games against 26 losses. He was traded by the Kansas City Athletics to the New York Yankees before the 1957 season, Shantz would enjoyed success again working mostly as a relief pitcher. He pitched in 2 World Series and except for a freakish bad break he might have been a surprise hero of the 1960 Series. In 1964, his career came full circle when he returned to Philadelphia, where he had begun. Shantz figured in that season’s dramatic conclusion, though hardly for the expected reasons.
Robert Clayton Shantz was born on September 26,1925, to Wilmer and Ruth Eleanor (Ebert) Shantz in Pottstown, Pennsylvania a city of 20,000 people 40 miles northwest of Philadelphia. His father worked at a Bethlehem Steel mill. In 1927 brother Wilmer Jr. (Billy) was born, and in 1929 the family moved to larger quarters in the suburbs with a big back yard where they could play sports. Wilmer Sr. loved baseball and was considered a good semipro 3rd baseman. Offered a minor-league contract by the Chicago White Sox, he was advised by his father, Clayton, to “turn it down, and play for the love of the game instead.” Clayton had played baseball, too, and had had a bad experience as part-owner of a local baseball team.
Wilmer taught his sons to play baseball and football when they were toddlers. One of Bobby’s favorite games was devised by Wilmer to reward throwing strikes. Perhaps this early training was responsible for the excellent control Bobby demonstrated in the MLB; in 9 of his 16 seasons he struck out more than twice as many batters as he walked.
At the age of 6 Bobby suddenly became sick one day. He was sent to the hospital with a high fever and was not expected to live through the night. He survived, and his mother remained by his bedside for a week. Bobby recovered completely and enjoyed a happy childhood. In addition to baseball and football, his favorite pursuits were fishing at nearby Sanatoga Lake, taking part in family snowball fights, and trapping small animals. Despite tough economic times, the Shantzes were able to obtain sports equipment by redeeming hundreds of cereal box tops given to them by that a friend of the family, a cook at a local school.
Young Bobby helped to organize a baseball team called the Sanatoga Pee Wees. As a 4-foot-4-inch teenager he pitched for a neighborhood team, Lower Pottsgrove. The family took trips to Philadelphia to watch the Athletics play, and Bobby’s only dream was to play baseball. Could he play baseball professionally one day, being so much smaller than the other boys?
Shantz made the Pottstown High School baseball team as an outfielder. His manager told him to forget about being a pitcher because he was too small. He never showed off the snappy curveball he’d been practicing for years with his brother in their backyard. He played well for the high-school team though it did not have a good record. He was also a fine diver on the varsity swim team. Perhaps Bobby’s serious childhood illness had impaired his growth, for when he graduated from high school in 1943, he was still less than 5 feet tall. He got a job as a busboy in the cafeteria of the nearby Jacobs Aircraft plant, and he made the plant baseball team, though he sat on the bench.
The family moved to Philadelphia when Bobby’s father took a job at a shipyard there. The family’s relocation was a good break for Bobby and Billy. Their new neighborhood was a hotbed of sports activities and gave the brothers more opportunities to play ball. Bobby played sandlot baseball and Pop Warner football, and continued to grow. In 1944, he got a $75-a-week job at the Disston Saw Company as a glazer, shining saws. His draft board called him in, but he was rejected for military service because he was 1 inch below the minimum 5-foot height requirement. Though Bobby was short, his hands were comparatively large and strong which helped him to excel at athletics.
In the spring of 1944, Bobby played for the Holmesburg Ramblers, a youth baseball team that played in the competitive Quaker City League. He played center field, and his brother Billy, who had dropped out of high school in the 10th grade, was a catcher.
One day Bobby threw batting practice, and the team’s manager saw his fine overhand curveball with its sharp downward break and immediately added him to the pitching staff. Bobby compiled a 9-1 record and played the outfield in games he didn’t pitch, batting .485 from the cleanup spot. Shantz continued to excel in other sports besides baseball. “Shantz was a ‘big star’ in the neighborhood who could throw, kick, and run,’ according to Brud Williamson, the son of the Holmesburg Ramblers’ coach. “Without question, he was the most modest guy I ever met. Boulevard Pools used to put on diving exhibitions with professional divers. We talked them into letting Bobby dive one summer, and he stole the show. He was a great gymnast too, and he could beat anyone in ping-pong or bowling, any sport he tried".
Meanwhile, Shantz had grown an inch, enough to pass his Army physical, and was sworn in on December 28, 1944. After 3 months of basic training, he headed to Fort Knox, Kentucky, to be trained to drive tanks. But his feet barely reached the pedals and he was transferred to a mortar outfit. In June of 1945, 2 months before the end of World War II, he arrived in the Philippines. At camp in Batangas, he had played inter-divisional ball, sharing pitching duties with the White Sox’ Gordon Maltzberger. Later, he played against a team of touring major leaguers at Rizal Stadium in Manila. Shantz pitched and lost the game, 4-2, but his performance against established MLB players helped to build his confidence. Shantz also pitched well in games against the highly regarded service team the Manila Dodgers. (The Dodgers gave Shantz a tryout but rejected him, which only inspired him to work harder) Discharged from the Army in 1946, Corporal Shantz had grown to 5-feet-6½ and weighed 139 pounds. He returned home to work at the saw company in the fall of 1946. He had played quarterback and punted for a Pop Warner League football team, but hurt his back and quit football for good so he would not jeopardize his baseball career.
In 1947 Shantz signed to play sandlot baseball for the Souderton, Pennsylvania His Nibs team in the East Penn League, rated equivalent to a Class-B minor league. He went 8-0, and 1-1 in the postseason. In the championship game, Shantz had pitched a 4-hitter, hit a double and scored a run. Fans held a Bobby Shantz Day and showered him with cash and gifts. Shantz’s reputation spread. Admirers arranged a game against a team featuring Curt Simmons, another highly touted left-handed pitcher, who had just signed for a large bonus with the Philadelphia Phillies.
Fans from the East Penn League and their counterparts from the Lehigh Valley League set up the match game for charity. Bobby and his team from the East Penn League faced Simmons and his former team from the Lehigh Valley League. A left-hander from upstate Egypt, Pennsylvania, Simmons had recently signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for $65,000, and had spent the last few months in Class-B ball. The Phillies had called him up the week before and he had pitched a complete-game 3-1 win, a 5-hitter, over the New York Giants.
On the big day, October 6, 1947, fans filed into the stadium. The exhibition game benefited a memorial park, and all 2,500 seats were sold out. Shantz had injured his wrist playing touch football the day before. It was swollen and he had difficulty throwing. Manager Glick worked on the wrist and bandaged it. Bobby asked Glick to warm him up out of sight of the fans, and said that if he felt okay, he’d try to pitch. The thought of disappointing the fans who had come to watch him pitch made him uneasy. After warming up for a while, Shantz was ready to call it quits. Glick, however, got an idea. He produced a book and told Bobby to rest his hand on a flat surface. To Bobby’s surprise, Glick lifted the book and thwacked Bobby’s swollen wrist with it. “Perhaps he figured I had something like carpal tunnel syndrome, and that the sudden smack would fix it. I don’t know. But, it worked! I was able to go out on the mound and pitch.” Shantz won the game, 4-1. He allowed 5 hits, struck out 14, and walked 1. Simmons allowed 8 hits, struck out 9, and walked 3. Bobby and Curt later became good friends and golf buddies.
Scouts from all of the MLBteams admired Bobby’s competitiveness but passed him up because of his height. Phillies’ scout Jocko Collins liked Shantz very much but felt he was too small for the rigors of major-league baseball. “He thought I had one heck of a curve ball but was just too small,” Shantz told a biographer. “When he met me years later, he apologized. ‘I sure made a mistake with you, Shantzy,’ he said. “I told him I didn’t blame him, that I had doubts myself.” The Tigers and Browns offered contracts to play in the Class-D minor leagues, but Shantz was not interested in them. Tony Parisse, a former Athletics catcher and Bobby’s batterymate on the Souderton His Nibs, warned him not to sign a “D-Ball contract,” fearing that teams that offered that wouldn’t take him seriously. Tony recommended Shantz to A’s scout Harry O’Donnell, as did Souderton’s 3rd baseman, Bill Hockenbury.
O’Donnell signed Shantz to an “A-Ball” contract in November 1947. Bobby convinced the A’s that his brother Billy was a good catcher and that they should sign him, too, as a part of the deal. At least he wouldn’t be lonely in Lincoln, Nebraska, in the Class-A Western League. Bobby was 22 years old and Billy was 20. The A’s accepted. Billy was soon sent down to Class-C ball, but Bobby wasn’t lonely very long. He went out on a date with Shirley Vogel of Lincoln, a student at the University of Nebraska, and they hit it off very well. They married a year and a half later. The couple had 4 children: Bobby, born in 1954, followed by Kathy, Teddy, and Danny, born in 1965.
In his 1st year of pro baseball, with the Lincoln A’s, Shantz was the talk of the league. He pitched in 28 games and went 18-7 with a WHIP (walks and hits per innings pitched) of 1.093, struck out 212 batters in 214 innings, and had an ERA of 2.82. In a game against Des Moines, he had faced 32 batters and threw only 17 pitches for balls.
After just the 1 minor-league season, Shantz went north from spring training with Philadelphia in 1949. He was sent down for more experience, but was quickly recalled when another pitcher was injured. After a brief relief appearance on May 1st, Shantz would relieved Carl Scheib on May 6th against the Detroit Tigers with the bases loaded and none out in the 4th inning and held the Tigers hitless for the next 9 innings, though he walked 7. In the top of the 13th inning the A’s went ahead, 5-3. Shantz allowed 2 hits and a run in the bottom half of the inning, but won his 1st MLB game, by the score of 5-4.
Shantz would finished his rookie season with a 6-8 record and a 3.40 ERA. In 1950, he was 8-14 (the A’s were 52-102). For the 1st half of 1951, he was a so-so, going 8-8, then he won 10 of his next 12 games, and was the American League’s most effective pitcher for the 2nd half of the season. He was chosen for the American League team in the All-Star Game, but didn’t get in the game.
In his 1st 3 MLB seasons Shantz improved from year to year. He was doing very well with a fastball, curve, and change up, but felt he needed another pitch. That pitch was the knuckleball. Shantz had experimented with it since he was a boy throwing to his father and his brother in their backyard. Athletics Manager Connie Mack had forbidden him to throw the knuckler in a game, but when Jimmie Dykes, who had succeeded Mack in 1952, he told Shantz, “Throw the knuckleball. I am not Mr. Mack.” Shantz credited A’s Catcher Joe Astroth with helping him perfect the pitch. Some contemporary writers assumed that Chief Bender, the Athletics’ great pitcher, who was working with Shantz at the time, helped him with the knuckleball, but Shantz said in an interview in 2011 that it wasn’t true. “Mr. Bender helped me to become a more confident pitcher, Joe Astroth helped me with the knuckleball,” he said. Shantz also threw a few varieties of the curveball. He was best known for his classic over-the-top curve that broke sharply down, and as much as a foot across. But he also threw a tighter-breaking curveball, and on occasion, what was then called a “nickel curve,” thrown more from the side than a regular curve, and which came to be called a slider. Shantz once said he felt the slider was dangerous to throw because if it did not move as expected, it would come over the plate and be easy to hit.
Shantz had a breakout year in 1952. After 18 starts, he was 15-3. By his 16th complete game, he had racked up 3 shutouts. A person’s size was fair game back then, and sportswriters referred to him in terms like “the midget southpaw” and “toy pitcher.” The press speculated that he could become the 1st 30-game winner in 18 years. Named to the American League All-Star team for the 2nd time, Shantz pitched in the All-Star Game, played that year in Philadelphia. He entered the game in the bottom of the 5th inning and struck out Whitey Lockman looking, Jackie Robinson swinging and Stan Musial looking. Shantz wanted to see if he could duplicate Carl Hubbell’s 1934 feat of striking out the side twice in an All-Star Game, but rain came and washed out the game with the National League ahead, 3-2.
Shantz would finished the season with a 24-7 record and was named the American League MVP with 83% of the vote. Five days before the end of the season, on September 23rd, he broke his left wrist when he was hit by a fastball from the Senators’ Walt Masterson. Connie Mack had warned Shantz that batting right-handed and leaving his pitching hand “exposed” could result in just such an injury. Shantz had tried batting left-handed, but have gave up the idea because he could not control the bat as well. The injury would healed over the offseason.
Shantz started 33 games, completed 27, and pitched 5 shutouts. In 279 innings, he had struck out 152 batters and allowed 77 earned runs, for a 2.48 ERA.
On May 21, 1953, while pitching against the Red Sox, Shantz would injured his left shoulder. A tendon had separated from the bone, and it was the beginning of 3 difficult years. His shoulder eventually healed, but it would require treatment for the remainder of his MLB playing career. Among treatment possibilities, a novel experimental surgery was proposed: A tendon would be taken from another part of the body to replace the one that had separated. Shantz rejected this idea and opted to let nature take its course. Until his body healed completely, it was rough going. Shantz made only 16 starts in 1953 and was 5-9 with a 4.09 ERA.
On Opening Day 1954, Shantz had a 5-2 lead over the Red Sox, when he would re-injured his shoulder. He pitched in only 1 other game that season. In 1955, the Athletics’ 1st year in Kansas City, he was 5-10 and in 1956, in which he pitched almost entirely in relief, he was 2-7, There were occasional flashes of brilliance. On April 29, 1955, Shantz pitched a shutout, his 1st since 1952, before a crowd of 33,471 fans in Kansas City to defeat the Yankees, 6-0. On April 19, 1956, in one of only 2 starts, that he made that season, Shantz 5-hit the Tigers and the A’s won, 4-1. After that, he experienced pain in his right side, and Manager Lou Boudreau made him a reliever. Trainer Jim Ewell wrapped hot water bottles around Shantz’s arm between innings to prevent it from stiffening which helped for a long time.
Before the 1957 season, Shantz was part of a 13-player trade between the Athletics and the Yankees. Yankees Manager Casey Stengel intended to use him exclusively as a relief pitcher but an injury to left-hander Whitey Ford forced him to use Bobby as a starter. While Ford was out and other Yankees pitchers struggled, Shantz, healthy for the 1st time in years, kept the Bronx Bombers in contention. He had a record of 9-1 at the All-Star break with an ERA of 2.25. He completed 7 games and earned his 3rd selection as an All-Star, though he did not pitch in the game. Bobby finished the season with a record of 11-5 and led the American League in ERA at 2.45. He had started 21 games, completed 9 and saved 5 games. He was awarded the 1st Major League Gold Glove Award given to a pitcher. Yankees pitching coach Jim Turner advised Shantz to throw the sidearm curve less often because it consumed too much energy, and to follow through more on his fastball. Most of all, Turner harped on Shantz to keep his pitches down. He also taught him to throw the sinker.
In the 1957 World Series against the Milwaukee Braves, Shantz had started the 2nd game in Yankee Stadium. He struck out the side in the 1st inning, but gave up a run in the 2nd and 3 runs in the 4th, and was the losing pitcher in the Braves’ 4-2 win. In the bottom of the 2nd inning with the score tied 1-1 and 2 men on base, Shantz drove a Lew Burdette pitch toward the left-field corner that left-fielder Wes Covington made a miraculous catch on. Covington snared the ball backhanded to end the inning and change the complexion of the game. Shantz would pitched in relief in 2 other games as the Yankees fell to the Braves in 7 games.
Shantz was considered one of the game’s finest fielding pitchers, “The kind that managers dream of and so seldom find. He goes with the Brecheens, Burdettes and Haddixes,” Broadcaster Mel Allen said of him during the 1960 World Series. He won the American League Gold Glove for a pitcher in 1958, 1959, and 1960. Traded to the National League, he won National League Gold Glove Awards in 1961, 1962, 1963, and 1964. After the award began, Shantz won it every year that he played. Only pitchers Bob Gibson, Jim Kaat, and Greg Maddux have won more.
Shantz pitched solely in relief for the Yankees in 1960, appearing in 42 games and posting 11 saves. The Yankees won the pennant and Shantz figured in one of the most dramatic World Series games played. He pitched an inning in relief against Pittsburgh in Games 2 and 4. Bob Turley had started for the Yankees in Game 7, at Forbes Field. Shantz began warming up in the 1st inning in case he’d be needed. Turley was roughed up early and the Yankees trailed 4-0, when Shantz entered to begin the 3rd inning. He held the Pirates to 1 hit for 5 innings as the Yankees took a 7-4 lead. (During the 1960 season Shantz hadn’t gone more than 4 innings in a game.) Leading off the bottom of the 8th, pinch-hitter Gino Cimoli got the 2nd hit off of Shantz, a bloop single to short right-center field. Bill Virdon followed with a sure double-play ball toward shortstop Tony Kubek. But the ball took a bad hop and struck Kubek in the Adam’s apple. Kubek went down, unable to make the play. Dick Groat drove in Cimoli with a single to left field. Jim Coates would relieved Shantz and the Pirates eventually went ahead, 9-7. The Yankees tied it in the top of the ninth but in the bottom of the inning, Bill Mazeroski hit his famous HR off of Ralph Terry to win the World Series for the Pirates. Instead of becoming a hero, Shantz had wound up responsible for 3 Pittsburgh runs. Ironically, after Stengel had lifted Shantz, Jim Coates failed to cover 1st base on a ground ball hit to the 1st baseman by Clemente. It was the type of play that Shantz routinely made, and which helped to earn him 8 Gold Gloves. Coates then gave up a 3-run HR to Hal Smith.
Still, Shantz said that while his fondest memories occurred early in his career with the Athletics, his time with the Yankees was the most satisfying because the team went to the World Series 3 of the 4 years he was there, 1957, 1958, and 1960. He did not participate in the 1958 World Series because of an injured finger.
The 1961 season found Shantz pitching for his erstwhile World Series foes. The major leagues held an expansion draft in the offseason and Shantz was left unprotected by the Yankees. He was selected by the new American League expansion Washington Senators, and 2 days later the Senators would traded him to the Pirates. Shantz began the season in the bullpen, but between May 23rd and July 22nd, he had started 6 games. In the 1st start, he was out-dueled by Lew Burdette of the Braves, 1-0. Shantz was 6-3 as the Pirates finished in 6th place.
Another expansion draft was held after the season and Shantz moved again, selected by the National League Houston Colt .45’s. On April 10, 1962, he started Houston’s 1st-ever game, defeating the Chicago Cubs with a complete game 5-hitter. After each inning, trainer Jim Ewell placed a steam-heated pad on Shantz’s pitching arm to keep it from stiffening. A week later, on April 17th, he had a no-decision against the Mets and on the 27th, he lost a 2-1 decision to the Braves in what turned out to be the last start of his MLB pitching career.
On May 7th, Shantz was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for Pitcher John Anderson and OF Carl Warwick. Reunited with his buddy Curt Simmons, Shantz pitched out of the bullpen in 28 games, with a 5-3 record, 4 saves, and a 2.18 ERA with the Cardinals. He pitched a season-high 6 innings on August 26,1962 to earn a win over Pittsburgh. In 1963, Shantz made a career-high 55 appearances with a 2.61 ERA and 11 saves. He was adept at shutting down the opposition and was brought into crucial situations at any time in a game. Left-hander Shantz and 25-year-old right-hander Ron Taylor were the mainstays of the Cardinals’ dependable bullpen. The Cardinals won 93 games yet finished 6 games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In January 1964 Bobby’s father died suddenly on a bitterly cold night. Bobby was playing in an alumni/faculty basketball game at Pottstown High School. The PA announcer had just told the crowd a car in the parking lot had its headlights on. Wilmer Shantz realized it was his car and ran out to the lot to turn off the headlights. He ran back to the gym, settled into a seat and collapsed with a fatal heart attack, in Bobby’s arms.
Taylor and Shantz were not as effective in 1964 as they had been in 1963. Taylor regained his 1963 form for a while, but Shantz, now 38 years old, did not, and starting pitchers were pressed into duty for relief chores. On June 15th, Shantz was dealt to the Cubs in the 6-player trade that netted the Cardinals speedy 25-year-old outfielder Lou Brock.
Bobby did not pitch well for the Cubs. The team fell out of contention quickly, and sold Shantz to the Phillies on August 15th. The city where he began in the MLB was gripped in pennant fever, and then disbelief as the Phillies blew a 6 1/2 game lead down the stretch and finished in a tie for 2nd place, 1 game behind the Cardinals.
Shantz’s finest performance of 1964 came on September 17th, when he defeated the Dodgers’ Don Drysdale, 4-3. He relieved Rick Wise in the 1st inning and allowed just 3 hits and 1 run in 7⅔ innings. However, by exhausting Shantz in long relief, Phillies Manager Mauch left his bullpen short-staffed and had to use a left-hander just up from AAA two days later with dire results; a game-ending steal of home plate. During the Phillies’ epic 10-game collapse, Shantz had lost to the Braves on September 26th, giving up a bases-loaded triple to Rico Carty in the 9th inning. Three days later, he made what turned out to be his final appearance in Organized Baseball, pitching two-thirds of an inning in relief against the Cardinals. Shantz was asked to return to the Phillies for 1965, but instead he retired from baseball.
His MLB odyssey ended with a career record of 119-99 and a 3.38 ERA.
After his baseball career, Bobby managed a dairy bar and restaurant in Chalfont, Pennsylvania next to the bowling alley he co-owned with his former A’s catcher, Joe Astroth. The bowling alley was sold in 1966, but Shantz worked at the restaurant until he retired in 1986. After retiring, Shantz golfed regularly at a course owned by his baseball friends Curt Simmons, and Robin Roberts. In 1994 Bobby received the 1st of a number of honors in his retirement. He became the 41st member to be inducted into the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame. His plaque hung in Veterans Stadium, Philadelphia, but is now located in the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society in Hatboro, Pennsylvania. In 2009, Shantz was invited to attend the showing of a previously unknown film of the 7th game of the 1960 World Series, but declined to attend, saying, “I’d rather face a tough hitter with the bases loaded than speak in public. It’s not my forté.”
In 2010, Bobby had received 2 additional honors. He was inducted into the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame and Pottstown High School renovated its baseball field and dedicated it in his honor: Bobby Shantz Field. A metal plaque with a photograph of Shantz can be seen by the entrance to the field.
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