RetroSimba

During his year in the Cardinals’ farm system, Jim Hicks was the best hitter in the Pacific Coast League.

Though he hit for power and average in the minors, Hicks primarily was a reserve player in brief stints in the majors with the White Sox, Cardinals and Angels. A right-handed slugger, he began the 1969 season as a backup outfielder for the Cardinals.

His best season was 1968 when he played for the Cardinals’ Tulsa farm team and earned the Most Valuable Player Award in the Pacific Coast League. Hicks led the league in hitting (.366) and helped Tulsa win the championship. In 117 games played, Hicks had 149 hits, including 32 doubles and 23 home runs, scored 100 runs and drove in 85.

Thanks, coach

According to the Chicago Tribune, Hicks grew up in a section of East Chicago, Indiana, “where you either eat or get eaten up.”

His father was a steel mill foreman, according to The Sporting News.

When he went East Chicago Roosevelt High School, “I guess you could say I was on the road to becoming a hoodlum at the time,” Hicks told The Sporting News.

Hicks excelled in baseball, basketball and football, and credited a coach, Pete Rucinski, with changing his life. “He’s the greatest man I’ve known because he took me out of the streets and made me an athlete,” Hicks said.

Rucinski told the Chicago Tribune, “Jim wasn’t a bad kid, but he was unsettled.”

In 1958, Hicks got an athletic scholarship to the University of Illinois, but during his freshman year he signed a baseball contract with the White Sox when they offered him $15,000.

Seeking a break

Hicks spent nine seasons (1959-67) in the White Sox farm system. He hit home runs with an upper-cut swing, but also struck out a lot. He got called up to the White Sox for stints as a reserve in 1964, 1965 and 1966.

Limited to 19 at-bats with the White Sox in 1965 and 26 at-bats with them in 1966, Hicks told The Sporting News, “You can’t play one day and sit out two weeks and expect to do any good. You have to play regularly.”

In 1967, when White Sox manager Eddie Stanky assigned Hicks to the minors during spring training and told him to work on becoming a first baseman, Hicks said, “I was discouraged.”

Hicks, married with children, had gotten a degree in business at the Gary branch of Indiana University, and considered quitting baseball when he failed to make the White Sox’s Opening Day roster in 1967.

After thinking it over and determining he’d give the sport another try, Hicks reported to the White Sox’s farm club at Indianapolis, became the first baseman and produced 20 doubles, 12 triples and 21 home runs.

The Cardinals took notice. In October 1967, right after the Cardinals won the World Series championship, general manager Stan Musial made a trade, swapping first baseman George Kernek for Hicks.

Hicks, 27, was ticketed to play outfield for the Cardinals’ Tulsa affiliate in 1968.

“Even though I’d been up and down with the Sox and really had not had a chance to play regularly, I didn’t look forward to joining a St. Louis farm club,” Hicks told The Sporting News.

Hicks explained the Cardinals were stocked with “good, young outfielders like Curt Flood, Lou Brock and Bob Tolan” and he didn’t see much chance of getting to play regularly if he got to St. Louis.

Happy days

At spring training in 1968, Hicks bonded with Tulsa manager Warren Spahn and quickly adapted to being part of the Cardinals’ organization. When the regular season began, he was a terror against Pacific Coast League pitching.

“This is the best thing that ever happened to me,” he told The Sporting News. “I found this is a friendly organization in which there was none of the secret cloak and dagger stuff I encountered with the White Sox. I was relaxed from the outset and had more confidence. I give Warren Spahn considerable credit. He told me to take it easy, not to press.”

Spahn said Hicks “has good power to all fields and he has poise and balance at the plate.”

The Cardinals might have called up Hicks in June 1968 when they were seeking a backup outfielder, but he instead got called to serve a two-week stint for military reserve training. With Hicks unavailable, the Cardinals made a trade with the Astros for outfielder Ron Davis.

When he returned to Tulsa, Hicks continued to compile hits, but the Cardinals, on their way to winning a second consecutive National League pennant, didn’t ask him to join them.

Short stay

After Hicks’ successful 1968 season for Tulsa, Cardinals general manager Bing Devine said he “had quite a few inquiries about Hicks” from potential trade partners, but the Cardinals opted to keep him.

Hicks “figures to get a good shot at an outfield reserve job in addition to drawing a big part of the pinch-hitting assignments” with the 1969 Cardinals, The Sporting News reported.

Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst said, “Anybody who hits .366, even in a cow pasture league, is worth giving a good look.”

The Cardinals went into the 1969 regular season with Hicks and Joe Hague as backup outfielders to Brock, Flood and Vada Pinson.

On May 6, 1969, Hicks got the start in right field against the Giants at St. Louis and was credited with two assists in one inning.

It happened in the fifth. The Giants’ Hal Lanier was on first with one out when Bobby Bonds singled to right. Hicks quickly threw to second. When Lanier overran the bag and got caught in a rundown, Bonds broke for second and was tagged out. Ron Hunt followed with a single to right and Hicks’ one-hop throw to the plate nailed Lanier for the third out. Boxscore

Two weeks later, Hicks had five hits, including a home run versus Gaylord Perry, in two games against the Giants at San Francisco. Boxscore 1 and Boxscore 2

“He swings the bat with authority,” Giants coach Wes Westrum told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He has a quick swing and he’s learned to lay off the high, inside pitch.”

Though Hicks had two triples and a home run for the 1969 Cardinals, he also had more strikeouts (14) than hits (eight) in 44 at-bats.

On May 30, 1969, the Cardinals traded Hicks to the Angels for outfielder Vic Davalillo.

Hicks had four hits, three for home runs, in 48 at-bats for the 1969 Angels. He got four more at-bats for the Angels in 1970 and spent the rest of his playing career in Hawaii and Japan.