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Fair or foul? On and off the field with Bud Zipfel

October 23, 2026 by retrosimba

Just as a renter seeking a good apartment wants a fair chance from a landlord, a baseball prospect looking to play regularly wants a fair chance from a manager.

Bud Zipfel was a ballplayer, then a landlord.

A left-handed power hitter who had a stint in the Cardinals’ system after two years in the American League, Zipfel’s baseball career stalled, in part, because he wasn’t in the everyday lineup.

His time as a landlord was marred by allegations of discriminatory housing practices.

Zippity-do-dah

Marion Sylvester Zipfel was from Belleville, Ill., near St. Louis. He was called Bud at home and Zip on the ballfield.

In June 1956, the Yankees signed Zipfel, 17, on the recommendation of scout Lou Maguolo. Yankees assistant general manager Bill DeWitt Sr. made four trips to the Zipfel family home to seal the deal, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.

Zipfel was an outfielder his first three seasons (1956-58) in the Yankees’ system, but his throwing arm lacked zip and he was moved to first base in 1959.

Hitting was what Zipfel did best. He produced 104 RBI in 123 games with Fargo in 1959; 28 home runs and 107 RBI with Binghamton in 1960. A pull hitter, his swing was tailored to take advantage of the short (296 feet) distance from home plate along the right field line to the outfield stands at Yankee Stadium.

“If he plays his cards right, there may be no jackpot too big for Zipfel,” John W. Fox of the Binghamton Press noted.

Some pegged Zipfel as heir apparent to Yankees first baseman Moose Skowron, but Zipfel ended up with an American League expansion team, the 1961 Washington Senators. “I’m sorry we lost him,” Yankees manager Ralph Houk told the Washington Evening Star. “… We were gambling we could sneak him through the (expansion) draft. Somebody on the Washington club had good information.”

Zinging the ball

With the Senators at 1961 spring training in Pompano Beach, Zipfel, 22, “impressed camp followers with his classic batting swing, which can be described only as gorgeous,” Morris Siegel of the Washington Daily News observed.

Among those impressed was Senators manager Mickey Vernon, a two-time American League batting champion who, like Zipfel, batted left and played first base. “I like the way he swings a bat … He has a good stroke,” Vernon told the Washington Evening Star.

Another who took interest in Zipfel at 1961 spring training was White Sox scout Bucky Harris, who had managed two World Series champions (1924 Senators and 1947 Yankees). “I like his stroke … Washington was lucky to come up with Zipfel,” Harris told the Washington Evening Star.

Though Zipfel hit .391 in spring training exhibition games, he’d never played above the Class A level during the regular season, so the Senators decided he should spend 1961 with Class AAA Houston.

While Zipfel slugged for Houston (21 homers in 378 at-bats), Senators first baseman Dale Long struggled (hitting .182 with runners in scoring position).

In late July 1961, Zipfel was called up to Washington and Mickey Vernon put the rookie in the starting lineup. Zipfel zapped his first home run, against Phil Regan in the 11th inning, halfway into the upper deck in right-center at Tiger Stadium, propelling the Senators to victory. He had two hits, two walks and three RBI in a rout of the Yankees, and two triples and four RBI at Baltimore versus the Orioles. Boxscore, Boxscore, Boxscore

Senators owner Pete Quesada, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general and former head of the Federal Aviation Administration, gushed to the Washington Evening Star in August 1961, “We paid $75,000 (in the expansion draft) for Bud Zipfel. People asked, ‘Who is Zipfel?’ I wouldn’t sell him now for $200,000.”

On their way to a last-place finish, the Senators sought any chance to create enthusiasm, but their zealousness for Zipfel was premature. He batted .200 for the 1961 Senators, with more strikeouts (49) than hits (34).

Ups and downs

After the 1961 season, Zipfel served six months with a U.S. Marines reserve unit and missed most of 1962 spring training. He was sent to the minors to get playing time, then brought back to Washington in late June 1962.

Zipfel slammed a Dean Stone pitch into the upper deck at Comiskey Park in Chicago for a home run and had a walkoff RBI-double to beat the Red Sox. Boxscore

His last big-league home run was a highlight. On Sept. 12, 1962, the Senators’ Tom Cheney, a former Cardinal, struck out 21 Orioles at Baltimore. Zipfel’s homer versus Dick Hall in the 16th inning broke a 1-1 tie and gave Cheney and the Senators the win. Cheney, who threw 228 pitches, told the Baltimore Sun, “When Zipfel homered, I was about ready for it.” Boxscore

Overall, though, Zipfel’s 1962 performance for the Senators was unexceptional. Platooning at first base and left field, he batted .239 with six homers. “If you’re playing in the little or big leagues, you are naturally going to play better when you play every day,” Zipfel told the Belleville News-Democrat.

The Senators assigned Zipfel to their fall Florida Instructional League team after the season but in the nine weeks there he showed “absolutely nothing,” coach George Case told the Washington Evening Star.

That prompted the Senators to sell Zipfel’s contract in December 1962 to the Reds, who put him in the minors.

In August 1965, the Reds shipped Zipfel, 26, to the Cardinals’ Jacksonville farm team, completing the December 1964 trade that sent Roger Craig and Charlie James from St. Louis to Cincinnati for Bob Purkey and a player to be named. The Reds first offered shortstop Francisco Obregon, but the Cardinals said no. Perhaps on the recommendation of Mickey Vernon, a Cardinals coach in 1965, Zipfel was the player St. Louis accepted.

The 1966 season was Zipfel’s last. He began the year with Arkansas, a Cardinals’ Class AA affiliate, and ended it with a Class A Phillies farm team.

Fair housing

Zipfel returned home to Belleville and operated an insurance agency and a real estate company that specialized in apartment rentals.

In 2001, Crystal Hill, 19, sought a Belleville apartment for her and a 5-month-old son. She contacted Zipfel, who told Hill he wouldn’t rent her a one-bedroom apartment because she had a child, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The federal Fair Housing Act makes it illegal to consider race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability or family status in rental sales, lending, or homeowner’s insurance decisions.

“It’s aggravating when you’re a single mom and you’re trying to get out of a certain situation, and you’re stuck, and they (landlords) don’t want to make it easier on you,” Hill told Mike Fitzgerald of the Belleville News-Democrat. “You just need to give people a chance.”

Hill sought help from the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council, a private nonprofit fair housing enforcement and education organization founded to combat illegal housing discrimination.

During a three-month investigation, the housing council’s Jamie McFarland, a fair housing specialist, sent testers posing as renters to build a discrimination case against Zipfel. According to the Post-Dispatch, Zipfel gave housing council testers posing as renters different information about the availability of apartments depending on their race and whether they had children, McFarland said.

The housing council investigation “concluded that Zipfel had discriminated against (Crystal) Hill and also had unfairly denied housing to black (testers) posing as prospective renters,” the Post-Dispatch reported. McFarland said Bud Zipfel Enterprises “offered to show apartments to white people while telling black people and single parents to look elsewhere,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

“To me, it’s clear that this is race discrimination,” McFarland told William Lamb of the Post-Dispatch. “Everyone deserves equal access to all housing.”

Zipfel and the housing council reached an out-of-court settlement. He paid $5,000 to Crystal Hill and $45,000 to the housing council, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Followup test

In 2004, two years after the settlement, the housing council sent nine testers posing as renters to Zipfel’s business, housing council executive director Will Jordan told the Belleville News-Democrat. Jordan told the newspaper that white testers were shown apartments but some black testers either were not shown an apartment or “they were shown something less than desirable.”

Housing tester R.J. Tanner reported that Zipfel said he kept the number of blacks in his apartments to about 20 percent, the Belleville newspaper reported.

In his report, Tanner said Zipfel told him “lately, since the blacks were coming up from East St. Louis like a wet sieve, problems have gotten worse.”

Zipfel told George Pawlaczyk of the Belleville newspaper, “He (Tanner) said I don’t want any bad blacks. That’s right. I don’t want bad blacks, and I don’t want bad whites … We’re careful of who we rent to _ black or white.”

In his report, Tanner concluded, “I felt that he believed he was the protector of the city … by unilaterally making these decisions.”

Posted in Games, Hitters, Prospects | 6 Comments »

Sobering choice: Cards wouldn’t give Sam McDowell a shot

October 17, 2026 by retrosimba

The Cardinals went shopping for a left-handed starting pitcher at the 1971 baseball winter meetings in Phoenix. They pursued St. Louisan Ken Holtzman, but the Cubs traded him to the Athletics for Rick Monday. They tried for Tommy John, but the White Sox sent him to the Dodgers for Dick Allen.

Next on their list was Dave Roberts of the Padres. “Roberts is a very desirable pitcher,” Cardinals general manager Bing Devine told Ed Wilks of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We thought we had made a pretty good offer for him and thought we were close to getting him (but) San Diego wanted Ted Sizemore, and, if we trade him, who plays second base?”

So, instead, San Diego dealt Roberts to the Astros for Derrel Thomas, Bill Greif and Mark Schaeffer.

Cleveland offered its top pitcher, left-hander Sam McDowell, but Devine replied with a firm no.

“Maybe I’ve never been impressed by McDowell as much as many baseball men,” Devine said to Bob Broeg of the Post-Dispatch in December 1971. “We would like to add a starting pitcher … but I couldn’t justify giving up promising young (pitchers) such as Reggie Cleveland or Jerry Reuss for McDowell.”

Though McDowell five times led the American League in striking out the most batters, Devine noted, he also five times led the AL in walking the most batters.

There was another thing: “Sam hasn’t always taken care of himself,” Devine said diplomatically to the Post-Dispatch.

In fact, McDowell was an alcoholic.

Sudden Sam

Big (6-foot-5) and athletic, McDowell was a dominating pitcher for Pittsburgh’s Central Catholic High School (also the alma mater of future NFL quarterbacks Dan Marino of the Miami Dolphins and Marc Bulger of the St. Louis Rams).

The Cleveland Indians signed him in 1960. With their Class D farm club in Lakeland (Fla.), McDowell, 17, “displayed a sizzling fastball and a curve that literally flopped off the table,” the Lakeland Ledger reported.

Cleveland officials put McDowell on a fast track. At 18, he made a huge leap from Class D to Class AAA in 1961 and finished the season in the majors, starting against the Twins. Boxscore

McDowell got nicknamed “Sudden Sam” because of how his fastball suddenly burst upon batters at the plate. The back of his 1963 Topps bubblegum card noted, “Cleveland fans can’t help but compare Sam to Bob Feller when they watch this fire-balling youngster perform.”

In the book “We Played the Game,” Cleveland pitcher Pedro Ramos said McDowell had “a blazing fastball and so much wildness that batters were scared of him. We all thought that if he learned better control he was going to be a big winner.”

Wild thing

McDowell was an exasperating talent. He could be wonderful or wretched _ sometimes in the same game. In pitching a two-hitter against the White Sox, he struck out 11; walked nine. In a win versus Washington, he whiffed 15 but gave up 11 hits and five walks. Boxscore and Boxscore

On a night when he had both overpowering stuff and command of his pitches, striking out 16 and walking none in a three-hitter against the Athletics, McDowell told the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “You have just seen the eighth wonder of the world. I mean, I made only 119 pitches and the game was over in two hours and 11 minutes. I never thought I’d see the day.” Boxscore

The lack of control he experienced on the mound extended to his lifestyle. “I was baseball’s answer to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” McDowell told The Pittsburgh Press.

Except for an occasional beer, McDowell said he didn’t drink alcohol until he got to the big leagues. He started guzzling the booze, he told The Pittsburgh Press, because, “I just wanted to be one of the boys … I wanted to be wanted.”

McDowell became addicted to alcohol. He had a penchant for barroom brawling when drunk. “I can’t tell you how many times I sat in a police department,” he told Jim O’Brien of The Pittsburgh Press.

(O’Brien and McDowell were high school classmates. In 1981, when McDowell decided to go public with the story of his alcoholism, he contacted O’Brien.)

During his time with Cleveland, McDowell had a 122-109 record and 2.99 ERA, but he and the club were ready for a divorce. General manager Gabe Paul put out the word at the 1971 baseball winter meetings that McDowell was available.

According to The Sporting News, Cleveland offered McDowell to every club and more than a dozen were interested. The Tigers offered Mickey Stanley, Dick McAuliffe and Mike Kilkenny. The Mets offered Jerry Koosman and an infielder, columnist Dick Young reported.

Giant gaffe

Since winning the National League pennant in 1962, the Giants had been on a perpetual (and usually futile) quest for a left-handed ace. They traded Felipe Alou to the Braves for Bob Hendley, Matty Alou to the Pirates for Joe Gibbon, Orlando Cepeda to the Cardinals for Ray Sadecki, reacquired Mike McCormick from the Senators, and signed 44-year-old Warren Spahn.

When Cleveland dangled Sam McDowell as trade bait, the Giants bit. They dealt Gaylord Perry and Frank Duffy for the left-hander. “They didn’t know about my drinking problem,” McDowell told The Pittsburgh Press.

On the day after the trade, “I flew to San Francisco (and) I got drunk on the plane,” McDowell said to Jim O’Brien. “I was arrested at a restaurant there that night for disorderly conduct.”

Departing spring training with the 1972 Giants, McDowell “didn’t get out of the Phoenix airport without assistance,” the San Francisco Examiner reported. “He bombed out at the bar and collapsed on the floor.”

Gaylord Perry won 24 for Cleveland in 1972 and received the American League Cy Young Award. McDowell was 10-8 (1-1 versus the Cardinals) for the 1972 Giants.

The next year, McDowell pitched mostly in relief. His last win for the Giants came against St. Louis before he was shipped to the Yankees in June 1973. Boxscore

“The Giants were in Pittsburgh (when) I was told that I had been sold to the Yankees,” McDowell recalled to The Pittsburgh Press. “I took a plane to Oakland to join the Yankees there. I got out there six hours before they did and I got blitzed out of my mind.”

Bronx bomber

Manager Ralph Houk put McDowell in a starting rotation with Mel Stottlemyre, Doc Medich, Fritz Peterson and Pat Dobson. McDowell won five of his first six decisions, then lost seven in a row as his drinking worsened.

In his book “The Bronx Zoo,” Yankees reliever Sparky Lyle said, “When Sam was with us he had a terrible drinking problem … Sam was notorious for getting in the sauce, getting real rowdy, picking a fight and getting beat up.”

McDowell said to The Pittsburgh Press, “Looking back, it’s hard to understand how the managers put up with me. I knew I went beyond the bounds of normal decency once I got into my addiction.”

McDowell told Jim O’Brien how he betrayed the trust of Ralph Houk: “I was out late one night in Minneapolis and I’d been drinking pretty good and I stepped off a curb and tore the hell out of my ankle. I told Houk I did it on an escalator in a department store. Houk asked me if that’s what really happened … I said, ‘Yeah, that’s how it happened.’ I lied straight to his face.”

In 1974, Bill Virdon managed the Yankees. McDowell told Jim O’Brien, “I came to Yankee Stadium one day stoned out of my mind. I was getting killed diving after balls in the outfield during the pregame warmup … Virdon sent the pitching coach out to get me off the field before I got killed out there.”

Virdon recalled to The Pittsburgh Press, “When Sam was with the Yankees, we sent him to psychiatrists. We had to get him out of jail a couple of times. We had to have a babysitter for him on the road.”

The Yankees released him in December 1974.

Last chance

McDowell’s hometown team, the Pirates, threw him a lifeline, inviting him to 1975 spring training. “I had dreamed of pitching for the Pirates when I was a kid,” McDowell said to The Pittsburgh Press.

He pitched well at training camp and the Pirates offered him a spot on the Opening Day roster, but general manager Joe Brown also told McDowell there would be zero tolerance of any drunkenness.

McDowell was on good behavior until June 21, a Saturday. He pitched four scoreless innings of relief that day against the Mets at Shea Stadium. “I went out that night in New York and celebrated,” McDowell recalled to Jim O’Brien. “I got back to my hotel room at 6 a.m., if that.” Boxscore

When he was called on to warm up in the bullpen at Shea Stadium that Sunday afternoon, McDowell couldn’t get a pitch near the plate. “Don Leppert, our bullpen coach, took me inside and told me to stay out of sight,” McDowell told The Pittsburgh Press.

A week later, when they returned from the road trip, the Pirates released him. At 33, McDowell’s pitching days were finished.

Biggest win

Deep in debt, McDowell took a job selling insurance in Pittsburgh to support a wife and children, but his addiction had a stranglehold on him.

He told Jim O’Brien, “I wanted to fight everybody and the only one I was beating up was me … Toward the end of my drinking days … I couldn’t go into a bar without getting my butt kicked seriously, or I’d remodel the bar … A sheriff would serve me with papers regularly. To me it was always someone else’s fault … In time I realized it was me, and that was my problem.”

After awakening from a two-day binge in April 1980, McDowell decided to quit drinking. He entered a rehabilitation program at a Pittsburgh hospital. The experience inspired him to become a counselor. McDowell earned an associate’s degree in sports counseling and addictions at the University of Pittsburgh, and the state of Pennsylvania certified him as a counselor in 1982.

McDowell was hired by big-league franchises such as the Blue Jays, Rangers and Reds to counsel their players.

 

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Trades | 11 Comments »

I shot the Sheriff: The startling saga of Marshall Bridges

October 11, 2026 by retrosimba

It was easy to see why, for some, Fort Lauderdale in February 1963 was like paradise. Sunshine and scents of citrus blossoms carried by gentle sea breezes were abundant in the Florida coastal town.

Bolstered by the hit 1960 film “Where the Boys Are,” thousands of college students frolicked in the Atlantic Ocean surf and in hangouts like the Elbo Room.

The Yankees, reigning World Series champions, were headquartered for spring training in the oceanfront Yankee Clipper Hotel. Designed to model a luxury ocean liner, the hotel featured The Wreck Bar, where patrons could sip rum runners while seated along portholes that gave enticing views of mermaid shows being performed in the swimming pool. Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford, Yogi Berra or even the Yankee Clipper himself, Joe DiMaggio, then a spring training batting instructor, might show up to see their favorite mermaids.

A significant benefit of staying at the Yankee Clipper Hotel in 1963 was that it didn’t discriminate against people because of skin color. Before 1962, the Yankees (like the Cardinals) trained in St. Petersburg, and their hotel headquarters, The Soreno, refused to admit blacks.

Fort Lauderdale, too, was resistant to ending segregation. A 1927 ordinance restricted black residents and businesses to the northwest sector of the city. Fort Lauderdale’s beaches weren’t desegregated until 1962. Segregation wasn’t fully dissolved in the town until the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 became law.

A prominent social spot for blacks in Fort Lauderdale was a two-story building patrons called “The Elks Rest,” formally known as the Pride of Fort Lauderdale Elks Lodge No. 652. (Newspapers referred to it as the Negro Elks Club.)

“Back in the day, especially during the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, anybody black and of high regard and considered ‘classy’ would most likely visit the Elks during their visit to Fort Lauderdale,” James Dallas II, son of a civic leader, recalled to Fort Lauderdale Magazine. “It was not just for these out-of-town visitors but also for everyday people looking for a cozy watering hole where they could have a few drinks and some good conversation.”

One of those finding his way there one night in February 1963 was Marshall Bridges. A left-handed pitcher, Bridges reached the majors with the 1959 Cardinals and was the top reliever for the 1962 champion Yankees.

Bridges was having a drink at the bar when he tried to strike up a conversation with a woman. She wasn’t interested, but Bridges persisted. So she reached into her purse, pulled out a gun and shot him.

Building bridges

Marshall Bridges was from Jackson, Mississippi. He quit school in ninth grade and at 14 got a job as a porter, or custodian, at the state capitol building in 1945, according to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger.

(Throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s, Bridges worked as a porter at the state capitol building during the fall and winter after baseball season. With salary and tips, he earned $50 a week, United Press International reported in 1961. “This is not a bad job as temporary jobs go,” Bridges told the wire service.)

In 1947, Jackson had a minor league team, an affiliate of the Boston Braves. Bridges, 16, became a groundskeeper’s assistant and then a clubhouse attendant. He was paid $28 a week, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

“I used to throw during my lunch hour and every other chance I got when I was the clubhouse boy and the bat boy,” Bridges recalled to reporter Neal Russo. “I used to run errands and do all kinds of things for the ballplayers. They got to like me and gave me all the bats, balls and gloves I could use _ new ones, too.”

The Jackson manager, Willis Hudlin, totaled 157 wins as a Cleveland Indians pitcher. When he noticed Bridges tossing balls, he gave the youngster advice on how to pitch. Bridges joined a local semipro team in 1948 and played on weekends. He had talent and “was one of the players developed through the Delta Baseball School,” the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.

The school was operated by Homer “Goose” Curry, manager of the Memphis Red Sox of the Negro American League. Curry brought Bridges to Memphis in 1950 to pitch and play outfield.

After the 1952 season, Bridges was part of a Negro American League all-star squad that played against a barnstorming team of major leaguers led by Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella. “As a result of his brilliant work in that series,” Bridges’ contract was purchased for $10,000 by the New York Giants, who outbid Brooklyn and Cleveland, the Memphis Commercial Appeal reported.

Baseball odyssey

At the Giants’ 1953 minor-league spring training camp, Bridges impressed more with the bat than with his pitching. Giants officials deemed him a first baseman and assigned him to the Sioux City (Iowa) Soos. “His fielding at the start of the season was, to say the least, on the crude side,” the Sioux City Journal noted.

Bridges made errors, didn’t hit enough and was back with the Negro American League Memphis club as a pitcher in June 1954. Given the chance to start regularly, he regained his form.

Bridges pitched mostly for unaffiliated teams in the minors for the next four seasons and did well as a starter, including 15-1 with Amarillo in 1955.

Developing a curve to mix with a fastball, Bridges won 16 and struck out 205 with Sacramento of the Pacific Coast League in 1958. Scout Joe Mathes recommended Bridges to the Cardinals, who purchased his contract in October 1958.

After opening the 1959 season with Rochester, Bridges, 28, got the call he’d dreamed about. The former minor-league clubhouse attendant was going to the big leagues to pitch for the Cardinals.

Badge of honor

Bridges was assigned to room on the road with first baseman George Crowe. According to John Stamm of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, when Bridges introduced himself by his first name, Marshall, Crowe immediately thought of a deputy marshal, like Wyatt Earp, from an old Western. Crowe nicknamed him “Sheriff” and soon all the Cardinals were calling Bridges that.

Cardinals manager Solly Hemus viewed Bridges as a reliever. “He fits into our pattern of need; that is, he can throw exceptionally hard in a jam,” Hemus told the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.

In his big-league debut, Bridges pitched 5.1 innings in relief of Larry Jackson and got the win against the Phillies. Boxscore

Two weeks later, Hemus gave Bridges a start versus the Reds at Cincinnati. In the first inning, Bridges clouted a two-run home run against Orlando Pena. Boxscore

(Though he never homered again in the majors and batted .119 overall, Bridges fancied himself a hitter. In 1965, after Bridges stroked a two-run triple against Dean Chance, the 1964 Cy Young Award winner, he told Steve Jacobson of Newsday, “Three greatest hitters _ Williams, Bridges, Musial.”)

In his second Cardinals start, the Sheriff prevailed in a duel with Sandy Koufax, striking out nine Dodgers and earning the win. With St. Louis, Bridges totaled three wins versus the Dodgers and Koufax was the starter in each game. Boxscore

Bridges was one of six pitchers who made their big-league debuts with the 1959 Cardinals and started games for them. The others: Gary Blaylock, Ernie Broglio, Bob Gibson, Tom Hughes and Dick Ricketts.

(In recalling the 1959 season in his book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said Solly Hemus “kept calling me Bridges, confusing me with Marshall Bridges, who was several years older than me, skinnier and pitched left-handed. But he was black. Solly got that much right.”)

Used primarily as a reliever the rest of the season, Bridges was 6-3 with a save in 27 appearances for the 1959 Cardinals, striking out 76 in 76 innings.

With the 1960 Cardinals, Bridges was 2-2 with a save and a 3.45 ERA in 20 games, but he landed in Hemus’ doghouse. “Hemus complained that Bridges’ performance was erratic,” the Globe-Democrat reported.

Bridges told Joe Trimble of the New York Daily News, “The manager (Hemus) decided I wasn’t good enough to be a starter or thought he had better men. Anyway, I was put in the bullpen. I told him I wanted to start.”

Selected off waivers by the Reds on Aug. 2, 1960, Bridges was 4-0 with two saves (including one against St. Louis) and a 1.07 ERA for Cincinnati that season.

That’s all, folks

Bridges was popular with teammates because of his infectious humor and entertaining tall tales. As catcher Elston Howard told the Jersey Journal, “He’ll try to get you to believe everything. We talk about table tennis, he says he was the national champion. Talk about fishing, you can bet he caught a 300-pounder.”

Many of his yarns were about rabbit hunting. He told Newsday he saw a rabbit run so fast that it turned blue. In the bullpen one night, Bridges said to pitcher Jim Brosnan, “One time I borrowed an old shotgun. It’s a mess. Wires held it together. So I spy a rabbit. The rabbit sees me. He stops. I shoot. Bam! The barrel goes one way. The handle goes the other way. But the rabbit drops. So I walk over, pick him up. Not a mark on him. Now believe me, that rabbit had a heart attack!”

Though Bridges’ nickname remained Sheriff, Brosnan called him Fox apparently because of Bridges’ boasts about his popularity with so-called foxy ladies. In his book “Pennant Race,” Brosnan quotes Bridges telling teammates, “So I says to this cute lil ol’ fox _ this is before I was married, you understand _ I says, ‘Honey, let’s me and you make a little happiness.’ She just smiles.”

With the 1961 Reds, Bridges entered a game against the Cardinals with Cincinnati ahead, 3-2, in the eighth. Stan Musial walked and Ray Sadecki ran for him. Daryl Spencer walked, moving Sadecki to second. Then Sadecki was picked off. Joe Cunningham lined a hanging curve to center, but Vada Pinson caught it and doubled Spencer off first to retire the side. According to Brosnan, Bridges strolled into the dugout and said, “When you’re wild, you got to use them trick plays.” Boxscore

Reds manager Fred Hutchinson wasn’t amused. He wasn’t laughing either when Bridges’ ERA ballooned to 7.84.

The Reds demoted him to Jersey City in June. After the Reds won the National League pennant, they brought Bridges back to pitch batting practice during the 1961 World Series against the Yankees.

Pride of the Yankees

Yankees scouts had seen Bridges strike out 15 for Jersey City in a game against their Richmond farm team and figured he might help them.

On Dec. 14, 1961, the Yankees traded catcher Jesse Gonder to the Reds for Bridges. It was a brilliant move. The Yankees’ closer, another former Cardinals left-hander, Luis Arroyo, developed an arm ailment in 1962 and Bridges replaced him. Bridges, 31, was 8-4 with 18 saves for the 1962 Yankees, who won the American League pennant.

Danger zone

On Feb. 13, 1963, Bridges participated in a Yankees spring training workout. That evening he went to the Elks Lodge and took a seat at the bar. Another customer, Carrie Lee Raysor, 21, arrived and sat next to Bridges.

Raysor said Bridges asked several times whether he could take her home. She said she told him no several times, United Press International reported.

According to the Fort Lauderdale News, Raysor told police Bridges “put his arm around me and pulled me over, and I didn’t like this kind of mugging.”

Bartender Cora Davis told police Bridges “was trying to kiss the woman.”

Bridges, married with three children, said to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, “I’ve been a happily married man for 11 years and I don’t have any girlfriends. I just went into this place to eat and I started talking to this woman … Suddenly, for no reason at all, she pulled a gun and shot me.”

The bullet, fired from a .25-caliber automatic revolver, entered Bridges’ left leg just below the knee and remained lodged in his calf, the New York Times reported.

Another bar patron, Erskine Hepburn, said to the Associated Press, “I heard a shot, looked around and saw Bridges fall to the floor. I helped him to my car and drove him to the hospital.”

Examination at Broward General Hospital disclosed a fractured fibula and torn muscle. The bullet burrowed deep and it was decided to leave the slug in his leg.

Raysor, a Fort Lauderdale resident, was taken to the city jail and charged with aggravated assault.

The next day, Bridges’ wife came to Fort Lauderdale. As George Vecsey of Newsday noted, “Being shot was hardly the worst part of Bridges’ experience. The lowest time of all was having to explain the incident to his wife.”

Hard times

After recuperating at home, Bridges returned to the Yankees in late March 1963. According to Newsday, when he entered the clubhouse, Mickey Mantle burst out of a side room, carrying a toy pistol. “Bang, bang, bang,” Mantle shouted. “It scared the stuffing out of me,” Bridges told George Vecsey.

Bridges pitched in 23 games for the 1963 Yankees and was 2-0 with a save. After the season he told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, “The leg bothered me up until about a month ago. That’s the one I push off the rubber with.”

Though Bridges had been reluctant to press charges against Carrie Lee Raysor, prosecutors were insistent she stand trial. After several delays, all charges against Raysor were dropped in May 1964 when Bridges didn’t appear in court to testify. An assistant county solicitor determined that without Bridges’ testimony the state couldn’t prosecute, the Fort Lauderdale News reported.

The Yankees sold Bridges’ contract to the Washington Senators and he pitched his last big-league game for them in 1965.

Life after baseball was difficult for Bridges. A business venture went bad. His wife left him. He tried carpentry, but a power saw sliced off the little, ring and middle fingers of his left hand. “Only three stumps remained on what had been his pitching hand,” Butch John reported in the Jackson newspaper.

He thought drinking could solve his problems. “I’d go get two or three fifths a day and lock myself in the house,” Bridges told the Clarion-Ledger.

Ralph Houk, Bridges’ manager with the Yankees, asked the club to invite Bridges to the annual Old-Timers’ Day at Yankee Stadium. According to the Jackson newspaper, when Dizzy Dean, the former Cardinals ace, heard about it, he contributed money for a suit of clothes for Bridges to wear at the event.

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Prospects, Trades | 8 Comments »

Small ball: Willie McCovey and a creative extra-base hit

October 5, 2026 by retrosimba

Willie McCovey was frustrated. What’s with these pitchers and managers, he wondered? Why don’t they throw him strikes? What’s with those defensive shifts?

It was early in the 1970 season. McCovey was perhaps the most feared hitter in the National League. He won the 1969 NL Most Valuable Player Award. Led the league in home runs and RBI. Now pitchers preferred to walk him instead of challenge him, and fielders filled the right side of the diamond when the Giants’ left-handed slugger came to the plate.

McCovey was pressing, swinging at slop and trying too hard to slam the ball past the gimmicky alignments. His batting mark sunk below .200. He’d had enough.

On May 3, 1970, McCovey settled into the batter’s box in the first inning at Candlestick Park and saw a phalanx of Phillies fielders bunched on the right side, like mussels clustered on a rock in San Francisco Bay.

He looked to the left and saw only an umpire.

McCovey chose to do something that was as abnormal to him as rooting for the Dodgers. He bunted _ and got a double.

Power supply

From the moment he came to the majors and got four hits, including two triples, in his debut game against future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts, McCovey’s swing sent shivers through the National League.

In 22 big-league seasons, McCovey totaled 521 home runs and 1,555 RBI. He belted 41 homers against the Cardinals, including a 1966 clout some consider to be the longest ever hit at Busch Memorial Stadium. Even at age 41, in 1979, he was a force, blasting a walkoff homer to beat St. Louis.

McCovey hit .301 (with three homers) against Steve Carlton, .290 (seven homers) versus Bob Gibson and tormented Don Drysdale (.336 with 12 homers). “He’d climb out of a hospital bed just to bat against me,” Drysdale said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Stretch, as McCovey was called, reached his peak in 1969 when he led the league in homers (45), RBI (126), on-base percentage (.453) and slugging (.656). McCovey also hit .320, scored 101 runs and struck out a mere 66 times.

That was the first of four consecutive seasons McCovey received the most intentional walks in the league. The 45 intentional passes he got in 1969 were 26 more than the runner-up, Hank Aaron, with 19.

In addition, teams tried defensive shifts in a bid to cut down his extra-base hits to the outfield and singles through the infield.

At San Francisco in June 1969, Reds manager Dave Bristol utilized a four-man outfield against McCovey. Shortstop Darrel Chaney moved to straightaway center, center fielder Pete Rose shifted to right-center and right fielder Bobby Tolan played along the line. Third baseman Tony Perez joined second baseman Tommy Helms and first baseman Lee May on the right side of the infield. Only left fielder Alex Johnson remained on the left side of the field.

(In 1954, another Reds manager, Birdie Tebbetts, also used four outfielders with Stan Musial at the plate for St. Louis.)

Double trouble

After his MVP season “most of the league’s managers rearranged their defenses for McCovey” in 1970, the San Francisco Examiner reported.

McCovey batted .192 in April 1970 but his on-base percentage for the month was .404. He had 26 walks (eight intentional) with 14 hits (eight for extra bases).

“Pitchers just refuse to give me anything much to hit,” McCovey told The Sporting News. “Then sometimes I get overanxious and swing at bad pitches.”

In the opener of a Sunday doubleheader at home on May 3, McCovey went hitless, dropping his season batting mark to .193, and then received his 1969 MVP award in an on-field ceremony between games.

The Phillies went into a shift when McCovey came to the plate in the first inning of Game 2. Willie Mays, three days away from turning 39, was the runner on first, with one out. Pitching for the Phillies was left-hander Woodie Fryman, who, shift or no shift, was tough on McCovey. (For his career, McCovey hit .190 with no homers and 14 strikeouts versus Fryman.)

Third baseman Don Money had moved to the right side of the infield. McCovey bunted a Fryman pitch down the third-base line. When the ball hit the artificial turf, which was installed at Candlestick Park that spring, it picked up speed and skimmed past the bag and down the line in left field.

Willie Mays, hurtling around the bases like a runaway trolley car, scored easily, and by the time left fielder Tony Taylor got to the ball, McCovey had a double, laughing as he cruised into second.

In 2018, recalling the play to his listeners, Giants broadcaster Jon Miller said, “To this day it was the most outstanding thing I’ve ever seen in a baseball game.”

Rattled, Woodie Fryman gave up a home run and a triple to the next two batters, Ken Henderson and Al Gallagher, and was removed from the game.

“I’m not going to do it as a regular thing,” McCovey said of his bunt to Jim McGee of the San Francisco Examiner. “If I kept bunting like that, they’d make me a leadoff man. Can you imagine me being the next Matty Alou?” Boxscore

Mac is back

Energized, McCovey returned to his MVP form. On May 10, 1970, he drove in six runs against the Mets with a two-run homer off Nolan Ryan and a grand slam, the 12th of his career, versus Tug McGraw. Boxscore

McCovey had 26 RBI in 20 games in May; 10 homers and 28 RBI in August.

In a Sept. 7 game at San Francisco, Reds manager Sparky Anderson tried a shift with six outfielders against McCovey. Shortstop Dave Concepcion and second baseman Tommy Helms were stationed in short right field. Left fielder Bernie Carbo joined Pete Rose in deep right. Tony Perez moved from third base to left field and Bobby Tolan was in center.

McCovey could have bunted for an easy hit. Instead, he clobbered a Jim Maloney pitch over the fence in right for a shift-shattering home run. As McCovey trotted around second, he waved to Perez. “I was waving for him to come in … He didn’t have any reason for being out there any more,” McCovey told the San Francisco Examiner. Boxscore

After the frustrating first month, McCovey ended up with a 1970 season that was similar to his MVP year of 1969. He had a career-high 137 walks but also produced 39 homers and 126 RBI (same as 1969). His on-base (.444) and slugging percentages (.612) were stellar, too.

“I realize I could get more hits if I’d bunt against some of those shifts,” McCovey said to The Sporting News. “You can see that a lot of them would like me to, but that’s not normally my job.”

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents | 10 Comments »

Pitching, prose, politics: The many sides to Larry Jackson

September 28, 2026 by retrosimba

As a newspaper sports columnist, Larry Jackson had an edge over contemporaries such as Red Smith, Jim Murray and Shirley Povich. He not only wrote about Jackie Robinson, he pitched against him.

Think it’s pressure to face Hank Aaron with the game on the line? Try filing a basketball story when the game ends after 11 p.m., you have a 30-mile drive in sleet or snow to the newspaper office and a 1 a.m. deadline.

Larry Jackson did both of those jobs.

After pitching in spring and summer for the Cardinals during the 1950s, Jackson went home to Boise each winter for eight years and worked as a sports reporter for the Idaho Statesman, covering games and writing columns for the daily newspaper. Part of the time he was sports editor of the evening edition.

Pitching in the big leagues and toiling as a journalist for his state’s most prominent newspaper were just part of Jackson’s eclectic career. After his baseball days, he was elected to the Idaho state legislature and served four terms.

Larry’s brother, Dennis Jackson, said to the Idaho Statesman, “We were raised by a mother who believed that you participated, not just in sports but in your state and city. There was no sitting on sidelines for Larry.”

Learning to pitch

Larry Jackson was born in Nampa, a railroad town in Idaho’s Canyon County and home to the Snake River Stampede Rodeo. He was 6 when he moved with his siblings and parents, Lawrence and Aldythe, to Boise.

As a teen, Jackson developed blood poisoning, or sepsis, after a hike and a swim. He recovered and became an athlete. In football, Jackson was starting tailback for Boise Junior College (now Boise State University). In baseball, he played shortstop in high school, then took up pitching in American Legion and semipro games.

Cardinals scout Ollie Vanek signed him for $5,500 in 1951. “It seemed like a lot of money,” Jackson told the Idaho Statesman. “I didn’t sign with the idea of being a major-league pitcher.”

At Class C Fresno in 1952, Roland LeBlanc, the team’s manager and catcher, taught Jackson to be a pitcher rather than a thrower. A quick study, Jackson won 28 for Fresno in the regular season and four more in the playoffs.

Advancing up the Cardinals’ farm system, Jackson developed a sinker, a hard slider and a reputation for completing what he started. The Sporting News described the right-hander as “a stylish workaholic.”

A danger to Dodgers

Jackson is one of a small number of Idaho natives to reach the majors. The list includes Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, father and son Vern and Vance Law, and Cardinals players Ken Dayley, Mike Garman and Joe Mather.

In Jackson’s big-league debut in April 1955, the Cardinals scored 10 runs in the first and he did the rest, pitching a four-hitter against the Cubs. Boxscore

A month later, Jackson got his first shutout against a Dodgers lineup that featured future Hall of Famers Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges and Jackie Robinson. Boxscore

As a Cardinal, Jackson was a terror versus the Dodgers and especially Duke Snider. On Aug. 4, 1958, Jackson beat the Dodgers for the eighth consecutive time. He struck out 12, including Snider four times. Boxscore

For his career, Snider batted .219 with 22 strikeouts against Jackson. Yet, on March 27, 1961, Jackson suffered a fractured jaw when Snider’s bat splintered and struck the Cardinals pitcher in the face during a spring training game.

In eight seasons with St. Louis, mostly as a starter, Jackson posted a 101-86 record with 20 saves. The Cardinals’ best player, Stan Musial, told Dan O’Neill of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “He was a very good pitcher on some mediocre teams. We weren’t very good in the ’50s but he was the ace of our staff.”

After Jackson won 18 in 1960, the Cardinals offered him and others to the Yankees for Whitey Ford, Elston Howard and Ryne Duren, but were rejected.

Sports scribe

Starting with his early teen years, Jackson worked a variety of jobs in Boise when he wasn’t playing sports. “At 14, I was a bellhop, passing out booze and hauling suitcases at the Idanha Hotel,” Jackson recalled to the Idaho Statesman. “There was an old Basque fellow who bootlegged whiskey there and had a locker downstairs. When he wasn’t around, I was to open up the locker so Air Force guys (from a nearby base) could have a bottle of liquor.”

Jackson also tried his hand at being a chimney sweep, a furnace cleaner and a highway sign painter, according to The Sporting News.

After entering pro baseball, he looked for winter work at the Idaho Statesman. “I started as a gofer in the sports department,” Jackson told the newspaper in 1982, “and worked my way into covering games and writing columns … It took me longer than the average guy to do the story and box scores.”

His coverage included the 1954-55 College of Idaho basketball team that featured the dynamic duo of Elgin Baylor and R.C. Owens. Like Jackson, Baylor and Owens went on to have successful pro sports careers _ Baylor as a power forward with the NBA Lakers and Owens as a wide receiver with the NFL 49ers.

Jackson’s sports columns in the Idaho Statesman appeared under the heading “Jackson Jottings” and covered topics as wide-ranging as bowling and fishing, but most were about baseball. A sample:

_ On Jackie Robinson: “Robinson owes no more than he has already given to baseball … As a player, Robinson was outstanding … He was a hustling, determined ballplayer … very tough with men on bases.”

(Like many Dodgers, Robinson found Jackson hard to solve. A career .311 hitter, Robinson batted .238 versus Jackson.)

_ On Del Ennis, a slugging outfielder acquired by the Cardinals from the Phillies in November 1956: “Whether his hitting … will more than make up for his limitations in the outfield is something that will have to be seen.”

(Ennis produced 24 home runs and 105 RBI for the 1957 Cardinals.)

_ On his prediction for the 1957 season: “The Cardinals are a cinch for fourth place and may do better.”

(St. Louis finished in second place at 87-67.)

With Jackson and Jim Brosnan, the 1958-59 Cardinals may have had the best pair of writers on any pitching staff. Brosnan wrote columns for the Post-Dispatch during the Cardinals’ tour of Japan, and authored two classic baseball books, “The Long Season” and “Pennant Race.”

On the move

In October 1962, the Cardinals traded Jackson, Lindy McDaniel and Jimmie Schaffer to the Cubs for George Altman, Don Cardwell and Moe Thacker. The Cardinals hoped Altman would provide steady left-handed power but he lasted one season with them. McDaniel had 13 wins and a league-leading 22 saves for the 1963 Cubs. Jackson was the league leader in wins, with 24, for the 1964 Cubs.

(The Cardinals managed to make good on the deal, flipping Cardwell with Julio Gotay to the Pirates for Dick Groat.)

In April 1966, Jackson was sent to the Phillies in the trade that brought Ferguson Jenkins to the Cubs. Though Jackson wasn’t a Hall of Famer like Jenkins would become, he wasn’t a dud. He had 15 wins and five shutouts for the 1966 Phillies. In his last season, 1968, Jackson, 37, had a 2.77 ERA in 243.2 innings pitched.

Jackson asked the Phillies to trade him to a team closer to Idaho. Instead, they exposed him to the expansion draft in October 1968. When the Expos chose him, he decided to quit playing rather than pitch for Montreal.

Though he never pitched for a pennant winner, Jackson totaled 194 big-league wins, including a 21-2 career mark against the Mets. He achieved double-digit win totals each season from 1957-68, never winning fewer than 13 a year.

Political games

Back home in Boise, after stints as a lobbyist and publicist for a building supplies manufacturer and selling insurance, Jackson ran for state office in 1971. A Republican, he served eight years in the state legislature as the representative from Idaho’s most populous county.

A former Cardinals pitching teammate, Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell, a Republican, became a U.S. congressman in North Carolina, serving three terms (1969-75). “Wilmer and I used to talk a lot when we were teammates, but never about politics,” Jackson told the Associated Press.

In 1978, Jackson sought the Republican nomination in the Idaho governor race but was opposed by an arch-conservative movement within the party.

As Idaho Statesman political editor Steve Ahrens explained to John Husar of the Chicago Tribune, “He (Jackson) is a moderate Republican and the state is in the midst of a very conservative mood. There is an initiative on the ballot that would reduce the property taxes to one percent of market value. It is the most popular initiative in Idaho history but, for a number of complicated reasons, Jackson can’t stomach it, and so he’s in trouble.”

Jackson opposed the extreme property tax reduction because it would eliminate the source of funding for many public services. “I believe that government has two responsibilities _ a good education program and delivering vital services, such as police, water, highways and public health,” Jackson told the Chicago Tribune. “After that, I become very conservative.”

Regarding his reputation as a moderate, Jackson said to the Chicago newspaper, “Being a moderate in Idaho would make me an ultra-conservative in New York.”

In a bid to appeal to far-right voters, Jackson appeared in print advertisements with a hunting rifle and the words, “Larry Jackson, ready to shoot down government spending.”

Jackson lost his bid to become the 1978 Republican nominee for governor. The party instead chose Allan Larsen, a potato farmer. In the November general election, the incumbent Democrat, John Evans, defeated Larsen with 58.7 percent of the vote.

Eight years later, in the 1986 Idaho governor race, Jackson endorsed the Democrat, Cecil Andrus, over Republican nominee David Leroy. Andrus had served as Idaho governor from 1971-77 before becoming U.S. Secretary of the Interior in the administration of President Jimmy Carter. Leroy was a former prosecutor.

Republicans criticized Jackson for his endorsement, but in the November 1986 general election Andrus defeated Leroy with 49.9 percent of the vote.

Jackson “was eager to serve his state and always did so with dignity and integrity,” Andrus said to the Idaho Statesman. “He always played it straight.”

Posted in Games, Pitchers | 17 Comments »

Ready, set, go: How Willie Mays ran rings around Cardinals

September 21, 2026 by retrosimba

Willie Mays was having an unhappy 25th birthday the afternoon of May 6, 1956, at St. Louis.

Batting cleanup for the Giants in a doubleheader against the Cardinals, Mays went hitless in the opener and stranded five base runners as St. Louis prevailed, 5-4.

Willie’s birthday blues extended into the second game. In the first inning, he retrieved Red Schoendienst’s double and unleashed a wild throw that sailed past third baseman Foster Castleman and landed in the seats on one hop. Schoendienst scooted to home plate on the error, giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.

Mays was such an exceptional ballplayer, though, that even when his hitting and fielding were askew, he could find another way to beat a team. In this instance, it was his base running that sparked the Giants to a Game 2 victory and gave Mays a birthday treat to celebrate. Mays swiped four bases in a game for the first time.

On the run

In his first three seasons with the Giants, Mays rarely attempted to steal bases, but manager Leo Durocher gave him the green light in 1955 and “I found out I could steal,” Mays told the Jersey Journal.

Mays swiped 24 bases in 28 attempts in 1955.

Durocher was Willie’s mentor and protector. When Bill Rigney took over as Giants manager in 1956, Mays had trouble adapting to the change. Rigney didn’t coddle Mays as Durocher had and tension developed between player and manager.

Mays hit .200 and made no steal attempts in the Giants’ first 13 games of 1956. A breakout came on May 4 at Milwaukee when Mays hit a home run and stole a base against Lew Burdette.

Then the Giants went to St. Louis for the Sunday twin bill on Willie’s birthday.

Coming up empty

In the opener, Mays went 0-for-5 against three Cardinals pitchers _ Harvey Haddix, Larry Jackson and Ellis Kinder.

He had hard luck against Haddix in the third. Batting with two on, two outs, Mays sent a drive to deep left. It looked to be a double or triple, but Rip Repulski made a leaping catch against the concrete wall.

Two innings later, Mays again batted with two on, but Larry Jackson got him to foul out to first baseman Wally Moon.

After Stan Musial put the Cardinals ahead, 5-4, with a home run versus Al Worthington in the eighth, Mays batted with one on in the ninth, but Ellis Kinder, the 41-year-old closer facing Mays for the first time, got him to fly out. Boxscore

Finding a weakness

Eager to atone for the error that gave St. Louis the lead in the first inning of Game 2, Mays led off the second with a single against Vinegar Bend Mizell. Back with the Cardinals after two years in the Army, Mizell was a left-hander who threw with a “slow, exaggerated delivery,” according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mays was seeing Mizell for the first time. Willie was in the Army when Mizell had his first two seasons with St. Louis (1952-53).

As Mays took his lead off first, he “did not get a good read on Mizell’s move,” according to James S. Hirsch, author of the authorized biography “Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend.”

Willie’s hesitancy cost the Giants. Daryl Spencer followed with a grounder that the Cardinals converted into a double play _ Ken Boyer to Schoendienst to Moon.

If he reached base again, and Mays had no doubt he would, he was determined to take advantage of Mizell’s slow-motion windup. As biographer Hirsch noted, “Mays studied the pitcher from the bench. Left-handers were tougher to decipher, but he thought they all had one vulnerability: their eyes signaled their intentions. He also found a tip-off in Mizell’s delivery. With a speedy runner on first base, Mizell assumed, like most pitchers, that his fastball would give his catcher a better chance on an attempted steal, but Mays saw that Mizell kicked his right leg higher on a fastball, making that the ideal pitch on which to run.”

Next time up, in the fourth, Mays walked, got a running jump and stole second. Then he swiped third. He was stranded there, but Mays now knew he could run at will on Mizell and there was little that catcher Bill Sarni could do to stop him.

In the sixth, Mays walked again, stole second and “could feel the angry, frustrated stares of both Mizell and Sarni,” biographer Hirsch noted.

Sarni, who began his pro career at 15 with Los Angeles of the Pacific Coast League in 1943, had a strong arm and took pride in his ability to thwart stolen base attempts. He nailed 48 percent (70 of 146) of those trying to steal against him during his big-league career. After Mays ran wild against the Cardinals, Sarni told the Post-Dispatch, “I guess 26,000 people (at the game) will think I can’t throw.”

Applying pressure

With St. Louis ahead, 4-3, in the ninth, Mays led off against Mizell and singled. According to Hirsch, “Mizell tried to hold him with several throws, but Mays ran on the first pitch and beat the peg _ four steals in one game. He considered stealing third, though with none out, the attempt would have carried undue risk.”

“I could have taken third base easy,” Mays said.

Instead, Mays dashed home from second with the tying run on Daryl Spencer’s double against a rattled Mizell. After Ellis Kinder relieved, Foster Castleman bunted Spencer to third and Dusty Rhodes drove him in with a single, giving the Giants a 5-4 lead.

The Cardinals put two on with one out in their half of the ninth, but Hoyt Wilhelm came in and retired Bill Virdon and Walker Cooper on pop-outs to the catcher, preserving the win. Boxscore

NL’s first 30-30 player

A month after the base stealing show by Mays in St. Louis, Bill Sarni was sent with Red Schoendienst and others to the Giants in the trade that brought Alvin Dark to the Cardinals.

(Sarni threw out 15 of the 26 runners who tried to steal against him with the 1956 Giants. Impressed, the Giants projected him as their catcher in 1957, but on the first day of spring training Sarni, 29, suffered a heart attack. He survived but never played again.)

Willie Mays went on to steal 40 bases in 50 attempts and belt 36 home runs for the 1956 Giants, becoming the first National League player with at least 30 homers and 30 steals in a season.

(The first to do it in the American League was Ken Williams, with 39 homers and 37 steals for the 1922 St. Louis Browns. No AL player achieved the feat again until Tommy Harper, 31 homers; 38 steals, with the 1970 Milwaukee Brewers.)

Mays repeated the achievement in 1957, with 35 homers and 38 steals.

(In the long and prominent history of the Cardinals, none has achieved 30 steals and 30 homers in a season.)

Mays in 1956 became the first National League player to swipe 40 bases since Kiki Cuyler totaled 43 for the 1929 Cubs.

Mays led the NL in steals for four consecutive seasons: 1956 (40), 1957 (38), 1958 (31) and 1959 (27).

He had 338 steals in his big-league career, according to retrosheet.org, and he was successful on most of his attempts. For instance, Mays had 27 steals in 31 tries in 1959 and 18 in 20 attempts in 1962. At age 40 in 1971, Mays was caught just three times in 26 attempts.

Mays swiped four bases in a game just once after his thefts at St. Louis. That came against the Reds in 1957, the year the Cardinals tried to acquire Mays with a $750,000 cash offer to the Giants. Boxscore

As for Vinegar Bend Mizell, Mays remained his menace throughout his career. Mays hit .392 (40 for 102) versus Mizell, with six doubles, five triples, five home runs and a .488 on-base percentage.

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents | 12 Comments »

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