A month into his first season as Cardinals manager, Solly Hemus behaved in a way that damaged his reputation and diminished his stature among some players.
Disgusted when the Cardinals lost 15 of their first 20 games in 1959, Hemus resorted to insults and intimidation in an effort to rattle the opposition and motivate his team.
Using racist remarks, Hemus lost respect and created resentment.
Two years later, he was fired during the 1961 season.
Managing up
Hemus, an infielder, played for the Cardinals from 1949 until he was traded to the Phillies in May 1956. Skilled at reaching base, Hemus scored 105 runs in 1952 and 110 in 1953.
After he was traded, Hemus, a prolific letter writer, wrote to Cardinals owner Gussie Busch, expressing gratitude for his playing career in St. Louis and indicating a desire to return to the organization.
Busch and Hemus continued to correspond. When the Cardinals fired Fred Hutchinson in September 1958, Hemus was Busch’s choice _ not general manager Bing Devine’s _ to become player-manager.
The 1959 Cardinals started sluggishly. After losing the first game of a doubleheader to the Pirates May 3 at Pittsburgh, the Cardinals were 5-15. The Pirates won in the 10th when a fly ball by Bill Mazeroski was misjudged by right fielder Gino Cimoli and sailed over his head for a RBI-single.
An instigator
Determined to shake the Cardinals from their slumber, Hemus put himself into the starting lineup at second base for Game 2.
In the first inning, Hemus faced Bennie Daniels, making his first start of the season for the Pirates.
A pitch from Daniels to Hemus “nicked him on the right pants leg,” according to the Pittsburgh Press.
“Hemus just stuck his leg out to be hit on purpose as usual,” Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Daniels’ pitch “wasn’t a brushback pitch, but Hemus tried to make a federal case out of it,” said Pittsburgh writer Les Biederman.
As Hemus went to first base, he “tossed a few choice phrases in Daniels’ direction,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.
In his book “The Long Season,” Cardinals reliever Jim Brosnan said, “(Hemus) yelled at Daniels, ‘You black bastard.’ ”
Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson, in his book “Stranger to the Game,” said, “I can understand that Hemus wanted to light a fire under us, but that was no excuse for calling Daniels a black bastard.”
As Daniels and Hemus exchanged words, Pirates first baseman Dick Stuart “blocked Solly’s path in case he might be thinking of pursuing Daniels,” the Post-Dispatch reported.
Players poured onto the field, but there was no fighting.
In his book, “Uppity,” Cardinals first baseman Bill White said, “After that, Daniels always called Hemus ‘Little Faubus,’ a reference to Arkansas governor Orval Faubus, who tried to block school desegregation in Little Rock in 1957.”
Tempers flare
In the third inning, Hemus blooped a run-scoring double to left against Daniels, giving the Cardinals a 2-0 lead.
When Hemus batted again in the sixth, Daniels’ first pitch “just missed” Hemus’ chin, according to the Post-Dispatch.
“I didn’t think that pitch was too close,” Daniels told the Post-Gazette. “I guess Hemus did.”
On the next delivery, Hemus moved up in the batter’s box and “threw his bat toward Daniels before the pitch reached the plate,” the Pittsburgh Press said.
“What was I supposed to do, turn the other cheek?” Hemus told the Post-Dispatch. “The bat slipped out of my hand just like the ball slipped out of Daniels’ hand.”
The bat landed several feet from Daniels. Players again rushed onto the field and scuffles ensued.
Murtaugh “got a short punch at Hemus during the fighting and drew a little blood,” according to the Pittsburgh Press.
Hemus, who told The Sporting News he “was clipped a few times,” grappled with Pirates coach Len Levy.
“I told Solly it was silly to be throwing a bat because somebody could be killed,” Levy said. “Hemus challenged me, so I had to protect myself.”
Fans booed and threw beer cans onto the field.
After order was restored, play resumed with no ejections. “They didn’t have anything to throw me out for,” Hemus said.
Daniels retired Hemus on a groundout to short. After the Cardinals completed their half of the inning, Hemus removed himself from the game.
(Because of a curfew, the game was suspended in the seventh and resumed on the Cardinals’ next trip to Pittsburgh in June. The Cardinals won, 3-1.) Boxscore
Bad example
Noting that Hemus claimed he had tried to put a spark into the Cardinals, Brosnan said, “If that truly was his intention, he did it as awkwardly as he could. All he proved to me was that little men _ or boys _ shouldn’t play with sparks, as well as with matches.”
Wrote the Post-Gazette: “Hemus’ behavior seemed something less than expected from a major league manager.”
The Pittsburgh Press concluded Hemus “went to great lengths to set what turned out to be a bad example.”
After the second game was suspended, Hemus held a closed-door meeting with his team.
During the session, Gibson said, “Hemus referred to Daniels as a nigger … It was hard to believe our manager could be so thickheaded and it was even harder to play for a guy who unapologetically regarded black players as niggers.”
In his book “The Way It Is,” Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood said Hemus told the team, “I want you to be the first to know what I said to Daniels. I called him a black son of a bitch.”
Flood said he and teammates “sat with our jaws open, eyeing each other” as Hemus spoke.
“We had been wondering how the manager really felt about us,” Flood said. “Now we knew. Black sons of bitches.”
Said Gibson: “Hemus’ treatment of black players was the result of one of the following: Either he disliked us deeply or he genuinely believed that the way to motivate us was with insults.”
White said of Hemus, “I never had a problem with him, but some of the other players, especially Curt Flood and Bob Gibson, absolutely despised him, partly because he didn’t play them as much as they would have liked but also because they thought he was a racist.”
In 1992, Gibson recalled, Hemus approached him at a Cardinals reunion and said he wasn’t a racist. Gibson reminded Hemus of the incident with Daniels. According to Gibson, Hemus defended himself as “a master motivator doing what he could to fire up the ball club.”
Said Gibson: “My response was ‘Bullshit.’ ”
In his book “October 1964,” author David Halberstam said Hemus “was saddened that years later Gibson and Flood still thought of him as a racist. He accepted the blame for what had happened. The world had been changing, but he had not, he later decided.”
Too bad Hemus couldn’t have figured it out sooner. Gibson could have won 280-300 if he hadn’t been held back.
Bob Gibson was so frustrated with Solly Hemus that he wanted to demand a trade from the Cardinals. Author David Halberstam credited Bill White with keeping Gibson from popping off to management. White counseled Gibson “not to explode, not to challenge Hemus, not to make the problem into something larger,” Halberstam wrote. White said to Gibson, “Don’t blow it now when you’re so close. Don’t burn yourself out on things you can’t change. Work on the things you can change.”
I’ve read Halberstam like five times. Not ‘Ball Four’ good, but it certainly has warning-track power. ( =
Do read ‘Fastball John’ if you get a chance. D’Acquisto actually writes about a fistfight he had with Bob Gibson in an elevator!
Thanks for the tip on “Fastball John.” I’ll check it out.
Thanks for the excellent article. In his book “The Long Season,” which is mentioned above, pitcher Jim Brosnan went into some detail about manager Solly Hemus. Brosnan apparently disliked Hemus, so was quite pleased at being traded to the Cincinnati Reds. Partly because Cincinnati was his hometown but also to get away from Solly Hemus and play for a manager he highly respected (Fred Hutchinson, referenced in the article).
It’s sort of hard to figure out Hemus. Curt Flood and Bob Gibson thought he was racist yet Jim Brosnan also didn’t think much of him and didn’t get along with him…and Brosnan (part Irish, part German) wasn’t Black. How much of his abrasive management style was racism and how much was just an overall cantankerous personality, or both? Bill White “never had a problem with him” and various fans through the years said he was courteous with them. Gibson was quoted as being “disappointed” at the death of Hemus though did not speak further.
In any event, since “Ball Four” was brought up, I recommend Jim Brosnan’s books “The Long Season”-especially to fans of Cardinals history-and the later “Pennant Race” when he was with the Reds. These books have been cited as an influence on “Ball Four.” Solly Hemus, himself something of a writer, obviously did not like “Pennant Race,” neither did Joe Garagiola, however others reviewed it positively. I often wondered in the many years following their baseball association, if Brosnan (passed on about 3 years ago) and Hemus reconciled. Perhaps not.
I had never heard of “Fastball John,” will be looking for it.
Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I appreciate the insights. I agree that Jim Brosnan’s books are terrific reads.