On a rainy St. Louis Sunday in 1961, the Cubs became convinced the Cardinals had someone inside the Busch Stadium scoreboard who was stealing the signs of catcher Sammy Taylor.
On May 7, 1961, the Cubs and Cardinals were scheduled to play a Sunday doubleheader at St. Louis. The starting pitchers in Game 1 were Don Cardwell for the Cubs and Ernie Broglio for the Cardinals. Caldwell, who brought a 3-0 season record into the game, had pitched a no-hitter against the Cardinals the year before.
Detective work
In the doubleheader opener, the Cubs scored twice in the first inning and the Cardinals got a run in the bottom half on Ken Boyer’s sacrifice fly.
In the second, the Cardinals battered Caldwell, scoring three runs on four hits. Carl Sawatski, batting eighth in the order, drove in a run with a single and Julian Javier knocked in two with a double. The damage could have been worse if the Cardinals hadn’t had a runner thrown out at the plate.
Cubs manager Harry Craft concluded batters knew what pitches were coming and suspected it was because the Cardinals were stealing the signs Taylor gave Caldwell.
Craft said he “became suspicious when Cardinals hitters in the lower end of the batting order were hitting pitches they ordinarily wouldn’t be able to handle,” The Sporting News reported.
According to Chicago reporter Jerome Holtzman, Craft and Cubs players “discovered someone from inside the Cardinals’ left-field scoreboard was signaling on every pitch.”
“It was very simple,” Craft said. “Someone just lifted what looked like a white tile into one of the scoreboard openings every time Caldwell was going to throw a curve. When he would throw a fastball, they would just leave the opening black.”
The switcheroo
Craft and Caldwell came up with a plan to cross up the Cardinals.
Craft told Taylor to give the sign for a curve, but to expect Caldwell to throw a fastball.
When Boyer came to the plate to lead off the third for the Cardinals, Taylor gave Caldwell the sign for a curve. Boyer leaned “way over the plate,” Craft told The Sporting News, in anticipation of a breaking ball.
Instead, Caldwell buzzed a fastball near Boyer’s chin and the pitch nearly hit him.
For the remainder of the game, the Sporting News reported, “there was no more signaling from the scoreboard.”
Caldwell held the Cardinals scoreless for the next three innings. The game was called after five innings because of rain and the Cardinals, on the strength of those early runs, won, 4-2. Boxscore
Cardinals nemesis
Two years earlier, in 1959, Taylor was a principal figure in another Cubs-Cardinals controversy when two balls simultaneously were put into play during a game at Wrigley Field.
Taylor, a left-handed batter, also had one of his best career hitting performances against the Cardinals.
In a three-game series at Wrigley Field, June 30-July 2, 1961, Taylor was 8-for-13 with three doubles, two home runs and four RBI. The home runs were hit against Lindy McDaniel. Boxscore
Taylor raised his season batting average from .244 to .295 during the series.
He hit .351 (13-for-37) against the Cardinals in 1961, but overall for the season his batting average was .238.
In 1962, when Taylor was with the Mets, he hit a home run in each game of a July 7 doubleheader versus the Cardinals at the Polo Grounds in New York. Taylor hit a home run off Larry Jackson in Game 1 Boxscore and another against Ray Washburn in Game 2. Boxscore
The Cubs have always been involved one way or another in sign stealing controversies. During the 1950’s, the Cubs were accused of having a light hanging from the end of the scoreboard. If a curveball was coming, it would flash. In a game they had with Braves in 1961 at Wrigley, the Cubs accused Braves pitchers Bob Buhl and Joey Jay of flashing signs from the stands in center field. Interestingly, Buhl would join the Cubs in 1963! It’s funny, with the Cubs, Don Cardwell beat the Cardinals four times. For his career though, he was 5 and 19.
Thank you. I didn’t know the history of the Cubs’ sign-stealing tricks.