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Spring stint with Cardinals was no bonus for Frank Leja

Posted in Hitters, Prospects on May 6, 2026| 11 Comments »

The Yankees thought Frank Leja was the next Lou Gehrig. The Cardinals later hoped he might be another Jim Gentile. Leja never claimed to be like anyone else. He just wanted a fair chance to show he could hit in the big leagues.

At 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, Leja was a first baseman and left-handed slugger who had major-league clubs clambering to sign him after he graduated from high school in 1953.

He was 17 years old _ too young to vote or to buy a beer in his home state of Massachusetts _ but ballclubs wanted to pay him a big bonus and bring him directly to the majors.

Paul Krichell, the scout who found Lou Gehrig for the Yankees, also got Leja for them. Krichell told the New York Times that Leja was the “closest thing to Lou Gehrig I ever have signed.”

Bidding war

Leja (pronounced Lee-juh) was from the Massachusetts town of Holyoke, once known as the Paper City because of its abundant mills. His ancestry was Polish.

Home was on the top floor of a two-family house. In 1946, when he was 10, Leja took an interest in playing first base because that’s where his favorite big-leaguer, Stan Musial, also of Polish heritage, had shifted to with the Cardinals.

A coach, former Boston Braves infielder Ed Moriarty, had a positive influence on Leja. As a prep senior in 1953, Leja hit .423 and led Holyoke to a state title. He also was an honor roll student and treasurer of the high school Latin Club.

In the summer after his senior year, Leja played American Legion baseball. To protect the integrity of the amateur game, big-league clubs weren’t supposed to attempt to sign American Legion players while their season was under way, but the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Braves and New York Giants couldn’t resist negotiating with a prospect as intriguing as Leja.

Ed Moriarty recommended Leja to a former Boston Braves teammate, Cleveland manager Al Lopez. When in Boston for a June 1953 series, Cleveland general manager Hank Greenberg, a former slugging first baseman, brought Leja to Fenway Park and put him in uniform for a workout. A newspaper photographer posed Leja with Lopez and first baseman Luke Easter. Lopez said Leja would be the successor to Easter, a left-handed power hitter who turned 38 that year.

American Legion officials complained to baseball commissioner Ford Frick, who fined the Braves, Giants and Indians for negotiating with Leja while his amateur league season was in progress.

In September, when American Legion play was completed, most big-league clubs joined in a hot pursuit of Leja.

He went to Chicago, where White Sox general manager Frank Lane handed him a check for $75,000, according to the Boston Globe. Leja handed it back.

The Phillies were aggressive, too. “I was willing to go up to $90,000 with him, but he turned me down,” Phillies farm director Joe Reardon told the Globe.

Cleveland officials “seemed quite certain they would get the boy,” The Sporting News reported. They met with Leja and his father in a New York hotel room to finalize a deal. “We told them what we were asking,” Leja recalled to Ted Ashby of the Globe, “and they left the room for a conference. After waiting for four hours in a room with Tris Speaker (then a Cleveland hitting instructor), we walked out.”

Leja contacted Paul Krichell and told him he would sign with the Yankees.

Yankee dandy

Krichell, 70, the Yankees’ head scout, had done a masterful job of selling Leja on the idea of wearing pinstripes.

Born in Paris, France, a son of a German cabinetmaker, Krichell grew up in the Bronx and became a catcher for the St. Louis Browns before he took up scouting for the Yankees. He signed Gehrig in 1923 and later brought Tony Lazzeri, Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford to the Yankees.

Krichell had Leja imagining what it would be like to follow in the footsteps of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. The star-struck teen told United Press, “I’ve always been a great admirer of DiMaggio. I figure if I make good on Broadway I also can get lucky and find a Marilyn Monroe.”

Headed to their fifth consecutive World Series title in 1953, the Yankees had three future Hall of Famers among the regulars (catcher Yogi Berra, shortstop Phil Rizzuto and center fielder Mickey Mantle) but not at first base, where Joe Collins played. Krichell had Leja convinced he could replace Collins before too long.

In a workout at Yankee Stadium before he signed, Leja launched pitches from Vic Raschi into the bleachers and took a liking to the short distance, a mere 296 feet, from home plate to the fence down the right field line. Manager Casey Stengel grandly gestured with his hand toward the upper reaches of Yankee Stadium and said to Leja, “Son, the stadium was built by Ruth and you’ve got what Ruth had.”

Stengel’s statement “may be malarkey, and probably is, but, brother, I melted into a little lump and told my father I wanted to sign with the Yankees,” Leja recalled to Ben Epstein of the New York Mirror.

Though the Indians, Phillies and White Sox may have given him more money, the Yankees’ glamour lured Leja. He took their offer of a $45,000 bonus paid over two years _ $22,500 per year, the New York Times reported.

Major League Baseball had a rule then that any amateur who got a signing bonus of more than $4,000 had to stay with the big-league club for two full years. Leja was the first player the Yankees gave such a bonus to under those terms.

“He’s the most experienced 17-year-old I ever saw … I like the boy,” Stengel told the Associated Press.

After Leja signed on Oct. 1, 1953, he was sent to play winter ball in San Juan on a team managed by Yankees employee Harry Craft. Leja went hitless in his first 21 at-bats, but Yankees farm director Lee MacPhail said to The Sporting News, “What we wanted was for him to get plenty of batting practice and work in the field at first base under our coaches _ and he’s had lots of that.”

Inside but out

Leja arrived at the Yankees’ spring training clubhouse in 1954 and found that teammates had hung a money bag filled with phony dollar bills inside his locker, the Boston Globe reported.

With his $22,500 bonus, plus a $6,500 salary, the 18-year-old was being paid more that year than Mickey Mantle ($21,000 salary) and many other Yankees.

“The Yankees resented this fresh, young kid getting ($45,000) in bonus money,” Stan Isaacs of Newsday wrote.

Leja told the Globe, “Here I was, a year out of high school and my locker was next to someone (Hank Bauer) I’d watched on television in the World Series only a few months ago … I was in awe of everything going on.”

The first time Leja got into a game as a Yankee was as a pinch-runner in a spring training exhibition versus the Cardinals. “I was so jittery I couldn’t spit,” he recalled to the New York Mirror.

During the 1954 season, Stengel platooned a more experienced rookie, Bill Skowron, 23, who had played college baseball at Purdue and spent three seasons in the minors, with Joe Collins, 31, at first base.

Leja rarely left the bench. His major-league debut on May 1, 1954, came in the ninth inning of a game against Cleveland. Facing a future Hall of Famer, Early Wynn, Leja popped out to second. Boxscore

The teen’s first (and only) big-league hit was a single against Athletics left-hander Al Sima on a September Sunday before 1,715 spectators at Philadelphia. Boxscore

Leja’s 1954 season stats: 12 games, five plate appearances, one hit.

“The few times I came to bat I was not afraid of any pitcher I faced,” Leja said to Louis Effrat of the New York Times. “I know I can hit.”

In winter ball after the 1954 Yankees season, Leja hit .340 for Cordoba of the Veracruz League in Mexico.

At 1955 spring training, scout Johnny Neun, a former big-league first baseman, worked with Leja on his footwork. Coach Bill Dickey, a Hall of Famer, instructed Leja on hitting, but that didn’t go well. “They had Bill Dickey work with my swing,” Leja told a Springfield (Mass.) newspaper. “When he got through with it, it never was the same again.”

Stengel expressed confidence in Leja, telling Bill Keating of the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, “I’ll play Leja, you can bet on that.”

However, Leja appeared in fewer games (seven) for the Yankees in 1955 than he did in 1954. He had a mere two plate appearances. Adding to the indignity of not playing, Leja suffered a broken nose when hit in the face by an Irv Noren liner while pitching batting practice in August. The ball struck the top of the protective screen in front of the mound and caromed toward Leja.

The Yankees won the 1955 American League pennant but the Dodgers prevailed in the World Series. Leja got a full runners-up share of $5,598.58.

Afterward, the Yankees embarked on a goodwill tour of Japan. They brought Leja along, but he felt disconnected from the team. “The loneliness was so terrible, he sometimes would sit in his room and cry,” Stan Isaacs of Newsday reported.

Cards come calling

Leja spent the next six seasons (1956-61) in the minors. In 1961, when he slammed 30 home runs, Cardinals scouts spent two months following him. On the advice of player development director Eddie Stanky, general manager Bing Devine traded outfielder Ben Mateosky for Leja in October 1961.

Leja reminded some of Jim Gentile. Like Leja, Gentile was big (6-foot-3, 210 pounds) and a first baseman with left-handed power. He spent eight years in the Dodgers’ farm system. After being dealt to the Orioles, Gentile produced 21 home runs and 98 RBI for Baltimore in 1960 and 46 homers and 141 RBI in 1961. “When you look at fellows like Jim Gentile, you wonder if lightning might not strike twice,” Bing Devine told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Cardinals had a quality first baseman, Bill White, but needed power (St. Louis and the Phillies tied for last in the National League in home runs in 1961) and hoped Leja could provide pinch-hitting punch and insurance if White got hurt.

“Just one season. That’s all I need to establish myself,” Leja told Harold Kaese of the Boston Globe. “I’m a fair fielder and I can hit left-handers. I have confidence, experience and power.”

At 1962 spring training, Leja blasted a home run against the Phillies’ Dennis Bennett and thought he hit well overall, but Cardinals manager Johnny Keane concluded Leja “would strike out too many times to be an effective pinch-hitter,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

The Cardinals chose rookie Fred Whitfield to back up Bill White and sent Leja to the Angels on March 30, 1962.

“I sure was surprised when they told me I was leaving the Cards,” Leja said to the Los Angeles Times. “Nobody gave me any inkling that the Cards didn’t want me.”

The Angels had two first basemen _ Lee Thomas, a graduate of St. Louis’ Beaumont High School, and ex-Cardinal slugger Steve Bilko _ but manager Bill Rigney gave Leja a chance. He started at first base in four games, but went hitless and committed two errors.

In May 1962, the Angels dealt Leja to the Braves, and he finished his playing career in the Milwaukee farm system.

After baseball, Leja ran a successful life insurance agency near Boston and then was self-employed in a lobster shipping business. A son, also named Frank, played baseball for Eddie Stanky’s University of South Alabama team and became a batting practice pitcher for the Red Sox when they were managed by his father’s former Yankees teammate, Ralph Houk.

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Kindred spirits: Phil Garner and Mike Matheny

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers on April 30, 2026| 14 Comments »

The first manager Mike Matheny played for in the big leagues was nicknamed Scrap Iron. Matheny impressed him by performing like a Man of a Steel.

Matheny, a catcher, reached the majors with the Brewers in 1994 and spent five seasons with them. Phil Garner was manager the entire time.

An infielder for 16 years in the majors, Garner was called Scrap Iron because of his hard-nosed style of play. As a manager, he looked for players who were scrappers, too.

On May 26, 1998, Matheny was batting when Pirates reliever Rich Loiselle lost control of a fastball. Matheny lost sight of the pitch and it struck him square on the left cheek. “It was kind of a numb feeling for a couple of seconds where I didn’t know what had happened,” Matheny recalled to Susan Shemanske of the Racine Journal Times.

Matheny didn’t stagger or fall. He stood stunned for a moment, then “opened his mouth and blood gushed out,” the Associated Press reported.

On-deck batter Jose Valentin rushed over, followed by Garner and team trainers. “He was spitting up blood like it was water,” Valentin said to the Associated Press.

Matheny walked to the dugout unassisted, spitting blood along the way, while a pinch-runner came in for him.

“I got his blood on my batting gloves,” Valentin told Arnie Stapleton of the Associated Press, “and then when I got up to the plate I looked down and saw a pool of blood. There was blood all over the plate. I was trying to kick dirt over it to get that image out of my mind.”

After being checked by medical personnel in the clubhouse and learning his jaw and teeth were intact, Matheny showered before heading to the hospital for stitches to close the wound inside his cheek. Before he left the clubhouse, Matheny stopped by Garner’s office and said, “I can play tomorrow, Skip.”

Scrap Iron smiled. “He’s a throwback,” Garner told the Associated Press. “A man’s man. I hope my daughter marries a guy like him. He’s one tough son of a gun.” Boxscore

The next night, after Matheny took batting practice, he had to get the sutures tightened. Then he tried on the catcher’s mask. It fit over his swollen face. “I might need to adjust the padding, that’s all,” he told the Associated Press.

Garner put Matheny in the lineup and he caught all 10 innings of a 3-2 Brewers victory against the Pirates. Boxscore

In explaining why he didn’t sit out, Matheny said to the Associated Press, “I’m getting paid by the Milwaukee Brewers to play baseball. If I have my health, I have a requirement to do so. I feel an obligation to go out there and play.”

That’s what Garner had come to expect from him. “Matheny is the type of player who will catch a 15-inning game one night and then the next day be back out there taking balls in the dirt before a day game,” Garner said to Dennis Semrau of The Capital Times.

Six years later, in 2004, Garner and Matheny were on opposing teams. Garner was managing the Astros, Matheny was catching for the Cardinals and their clubs were in the playoff series that would determine the National League champion.

Baseball fever

Phil Garner was from the hills of east Tennessee near Knoxville. “My grandmother dipped snuff,” he recalled to Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “That’s the way it was.”

Garner’s grandfather and father were Baptist ministers. “My grandfather was the old fire and brimstone type preacher,” Garner said in a Knoxville News-Sentinel article. “He’d stand up there and tell his congregation, ‘I want to throw all the beer in the river. I want to throw all the wine in the river … Now, let us turn to page 229 and sing together, ‘Shall We Gather at the River.’ ”

Baseball had the blessing of the Garner family and Phil developed a passion for the sport. “I dreamed about baseball when other guys my age were dreaming about the girl next door,” Garner said to Marvin West of the News-Sentinel. “I can remember winter evenings after school when I’d get out in the mud or snow and pretend I was fielding ground balls. I’d pivot and throw the ball against a wall, always trying to be quicker.”

Garner eventually got a partial baseball scholarship to the University of Tennessee, twice earned all-Southeastern Conference honors and signed with the Oakland Athletics. After making his way through the farm system, Garner was called up to the defending World Series champion A’s in September 1973.

“I remember the day I walked into the clubhouse,” he told the News-Sentinel. “Reggie Jackson said, ‘Hey, rookie, what’s happening?’ I didn’t know. Sal Bando called me ‘Shorty’ … but they never laughed at me. They knew I was trying. I learned how to win from those guys but, all along, I had their respect.”

Garner played for managers Dick Williams, Alvin Dark and Chuck Tanner in Oakland. His nickname then was Yosemite Sam because of a droopy moustache like the Looney Tunes cartoon character.

It was after his March 1977 trade to the Pirates (where he was reunited with Tanner) that Garner got nicknamed Scrap Iron. In an April 27, 1977, game at Pittsburgh, Garner singled, stole second and looked up to see the name “Scrap Iron Garner” on the Three Rivers Stadium scoreboard. “That’s the first time I ever saw it,” Garner told Russ Franke of The Pittsburgh Press. Boxscore

Pirates broadcaster Milo Hamilton picked up on the nickname and started using it to describe the ballplayer Pittsburgh sports reporter Bob Smizik called “a poor man’s Pete Rose.”

“There was a time I went after baseball with the attitude of a linebacker,” Garner said to reporter Marvin West. “… I was too eager, too aggressive. I try to play under control but with the same determination.”

Garner reached a peak in 1979 when he hit .293 with 32 doubles and eight triples. He finished the season with a 14-game hitting streak, then got a hit in every playoff and World Series game. Garner batted .417, with a home run against Tom Seaver, in the National League Championship Series versus the Reds, and .500 in the World Series the Pirates won against the Orioles. “That little man has a special place in my heart,” Chuck Tanner told the News-Sentinel.

Belief system

After finishing his playing career in 1988, Garner was a coach on the staff of Astros manager Art Howe for three years. Then Garner’s former teammate, Milwaukee general manager Sal Bando, hired him to manage the Brewers.

“He manages like he played,” Tony La Russa said to the Palm Beach Post.

In a 1993 game between Garner’s Brewers and La Russa’s A’s, reliever Dennis Eckersely was ejected for questioning pitch calls. La Russa defended his pitcher and was tossed, too. As La Russa kept arguing, Garner came out to complain about the delay. La Russa turned his anger on Garner. “He had no business there,” La Russa told the Associated Press. Both benches emptied and several brawls ensued. Garner had made his point, though. He wasn’t going to let La Russa intimidate him. Boxscore

The next year, a rookie, Mike Matheny, caught Garner’s eye. Some thought Matheny would be a backup catcher. He was good with the glove but didn’t hit well. Garner, though, saw a player with poise, intelligence, toughness. He showed Matheny how to hit through the ball instead of at it, and Matheny got better.

“One of the things I really like about him is that he’s a hard worker and he’s bright,” Garner told the Racine Journal Times. “He works on all parts of his game.”

In September 1995, Matheny said to Harry Atkins of the Associated Press, “Phil Garner had a lot of faith in me when nobody else did. He saw some things in my approach at the plate that I might not have noticed. I worked on it in winter ball. I feel myself improving. I’ve been a defensive hitter my whole life, and it showed there for a while. Now I’m more aggressive. I’m seeing the ball longer and things are starting to look better for my career.”

Pennant winners

Their career paths took Garner and Matheny in different directions. After being with the Brewers (1992-99), Garner managed the Tigers (2000-02). Matheny went to the Blue Jays in 1999 and joined the Cardinals a year later. Playing for Tony La Russa, Matheny was a Gold Glove winner on contenting teams.

In 2004, when the Astros entered the all-star break at 44-44, 10.5 games behind the division-leading Cardinals, manager Jimy Williams was fired and replaced by Garner. As the Houston Chronicle noted, Garner “changed what had become a relaxed culture under Williams. Suddenly it wasn’t cool to be cool after losses … Garner stood up to club icons.”

The Astros were 48-26 with Garner as manager, qualified for the playoffs and reached the National League finals against the Cardinals. “What he did was very impressive,” La Russa told the Chronicle. “It’s hard to do that.”

The league championship series went the full seven games, with the Cardinals prevailing. After the Red Sox swept St. Louis in the World Series, Matheny became a free agent and signed with the Giants. Yadier Molina became Cardinals catcher.

In a National League finals rematch in 2005, the Astros turned the tables, winning four of six against St. Louis. Garner became the first Astros manager to win a pennant and reach the World Series.

“I could see he was a leader that was engaged with the players and really challenged them,” club owner Drayton McLane told the Chronicle. “He was the first manager I have seen really communicate with the team.”

Seven years later, when Matheny was managing the Cardinals, he recalled to Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch a lesson learned from Garner. It happened in April 1994. Matheny was entering the dugout after catching the first inning of his first big-league start when Garner demanded to know why the catcher called a certain pitch. Caught off guard, Matheny was slow to respond. “Don’t let me ever hear you have to hesitate with that answer again,” Garner growled.

From then on, Matheny was ready to explain every pitch he called in a game. As Joe Strauss noted, “Matheny eventually established a reputation for preparation and determination as a player.”

In 2013, Matheny managed the Cardinals to a pennant. Two years later, they had a 100-win season. He’s the last Cardinals manager to achieve either feat.

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Bad business: Why Cardinals gave up on Reggie Smith

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Trades on April 17, 2026| 20 Comments »

Reggie Smith was a proud, obstinate ballplayer. Gussie Busch was a proud, obstinate team owner. The combination made for a combustible mix.

With the Cardinals in 1976, Smith opted to play without a signed contract because Busch wouldn’t agree to defer part of Smith’s salary. If Smith stayed unsigned, he could play out his option and become a free agent after the season.

Busch, an imperious meddler, would not tolerate what he perceived as defiance. “Get rid of him,” Busch barked to general manager Bing Devine, Smith told the Los Angeles Times.

On June 15, 1976, in a trade they would come to regret, the Cardinals sent Smith, their all-star switch-hitting right fielder, to the Dodgers for catcher Joe Ferguson and prospects Bob Detherage and Freddie Tisdale.

They are the egg men

Carl Reginald Smith was one of eight children raised in a family in Los Angeles County near Compton. His father had an egg delivery service and young Reggie helped him on the truck during weekends.

Smith became a high school baseball and football standout. A quarterback and defensive back, “I felt football was my best sport,” he told the Los Angeles Times.

Baseball, though, provided the best chance for him to earn money and help the family. Big-league clubs showed interest in the shortstop. In 1963, the Houston Colt .45s brought Smith to Dodger Stadium to work out before a game. “I was throwing as hard as possible on the sidelines when one throw got away from me,” Smith recalled to the Los Angeles Times. “Sandy Koufax was hitting fungoes to the outfielders and my throw missed his head by less than three inches. I still break into a cold sweat when I think about it.”

The Twins ended up being the club that signed Smith, 18, in June 1963 and assigned him to Wytheville (Va.) of the Appalachian League. The woman who ran the boarding house for blacks in the segregated town “told me to never go out alone,” Smith recalled to the Times. “I hit a white kid who called me a nigger. I yelled back to people in the stands … I’m lucky I’m not hanging from some tree.”

Smith played shortstop for Wytheville, made 41 errors in 65 games and had more strikeouts (69) than hits (65). The Twins made him available in the minor-league draft and the Red Sox took him. Four years later, Smith began the 1967 season as the Red Sox’s Opening Day second baseman and finished it as their center fielder in the World Series against the Cardinals.

Booed in Boston

Smith won a Gold Glove Award in 1968 and led the American League in doubles. He was tops in the league in total bases and extra-base hits in 1971.

He had one of the best arms in baseball, but his knees ached. The Red Sox wanted to trade Smith for pitching. They offered him to the Cubs for Ferguson Jenkins at the 1972 winter meetings, but the deal fell apart, the Boston Globe reported. Smith then was headed to the Dodgers for Bill Singer, but the Red Sox backed out at the last minute, general manager Al Campanis told the Times.

So Smith was back in Boston in 1973. He produced a .303 batting average, .398 on-base percentage and slugged at a .515 clip, but it was a miserable season for Smith. He confronted teammate Bill “Spaceman” Lee during a game in Milwaukee and called him gutless for not brushing back Brewers batters. Lee challenged him to a fight. Smith had the Spaceman seeing stars. The pitcher was knocked out cold. “He had it coming,” Smith told Frank Dolson of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

In a game at Boston, fans booed Smith when he didn’t run to first on a grounder. They booed him again when a shallow fly fell in front of him for a single. Smith mockingly doffed his cap on the way to the dugout, marched into the clubhouse, changed and went home while the game continued.

“My anger is like a balloon,” Smith told the Los Angeles Times. “Blow it up, let it go all over the place, then it lies on the floor, exhausted.”

The Red Sox put him on the trading block after the season. The Dodgers wanted him, but when the Red Sox demanded either Don Sutton or Andy Messersmith in return “that stopped that,” Al Campanis told The Sporting News.

The Cardinals won the prize, obtaining Smith and Ken Tatum for Rick Wise and Bernie Carbo on Oct. 26, 1973.

A Spike in spikes

Smith was a National League all-star in each of his first two seasons with St. Louis. He led the club in total bases in 1974, and his on-base percentage (.389) and slugging mark (.528) were tops among the regulars. Though sidelined for three weeks of the 1975 season because of back ailments, Smith was the Cardinals’ home run leader (with 19), and again produced quality on-base (.382) and slugging (.488) percentages.

Cardinals players appreciated him in those years. “He gives 100 percent all the time,” second baseman Ted Sizemore told the Los Angeles Times. “He’ll do anything to win.” In the book “The Spirit of St. Louis,” pitcher Rich Folkers said, “Reggie Smith was a good guy … When Reggie was in the lineup, he did real well.”

Bob Gibson saw Smith as a soulmate. In his book “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said, “My affinity for Reggie Smith was a natural because we were very much alike, both of us maintaining an exterior toughness that really wasn’t what we were about. Smith was a very bright, thoughtful guy who was ready to fight if somebody looked at him wrong. I called him Spike because he reminded me of those spike-collared bulldogs on Saturday morning cartoons.”

Things go wrong

On the advice of agent Tom Reich, Smith requested the Cardinals defer a portion of his 1976 salary. When Gussie Busch said no, Smith opted to play without a signed contract. That meant the Cardinals would renew his pact basically at 1975 terms, but Smith would qualify to become a free agent after the season. “We had no quarrel with the Cardinals over gross salary,” Reich told the Los Angeles Times. “The difficulty was in working out the draft of the deferred arrangement.”

At 1976 spring training, a trade proposal was discussed: Reggie Smith and Ted Sizemore to the Dodgers for shortstop Bill Russell and outfielder Willie Crawford, Al Campanis confirmed to the Times.

When the Cardinals balked at giving up Smith, the trade became a swap of Sizemore for Crawford on March 2.

The 1976 Cardinals were a bad team. Their record entering the June 15 trade deadline was 25-34. Smith, experiencing pain in his left shoulder, struggled to hit. The injury caused him to alter his batting style. He couldn’t hold his hands as high as he wanted on the bat. Smith batted .174 in April and .219 in May. The bright spot was a three-homer game against the Phillies.

With third baseman Hector Cruz and first baseman Keith Hernandez struggling early in the season, manager Red Schoendienst had Smith fill in at third and first. In his book “I’m Keith Hernandez,” Hernandez recalled, “Reggie was a premier player … but he’d spent the last month, since being moved to the infield, sulking and brooding in the clubhouse. Everywhere he went, a dark cloud followed.”

Gussie Busch was fed up. The team was a mess and he viewed Smith as a problem. Busch assumed Smith wasn’t playing hard because of the contract disagreement. He wanted him gone _ just like he had ordered the trades of others who angered him such as Steve Carlton and Jerry Reuss.

“The Cardinals thought Reggie was jaking it,” Tom Reich said to the Los Angeles Times. “There were some words between Reggie and management. Hell, Reggie was playing in a lot of pain.”

Smith told the newspaper, “The Cardinals accused me of malingering to force a trade. I can’t understand them making that kind of statement. I have too much pride to stoop to that sort of thing.”

On June 15, Bing Devine called Al Campanis and offered him Smith. Campanis knew Devine was being forced to deal and had little leverage. Now, instead of Bill Russell, the Dodgers gave up Joe Ferguson, batting .222.

The deal was completed when the Dodgers agreed to the deferred salary arrangement and Smith agreed to sign a two-year contract for 1976-77. “Smith will receive in excess of $100,000 for each season, with a large portion of it deferred,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

Rot at the top

About a month after the trade, the Dodgers came to St. Louis for three games. Smith hit a home run in each. The pitchers were John Denny (solo shot), Pete Falcone (two-run) and Bob Forsch (three-run). “The pitch I threw to Reggie just straightened out,” Forsch told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I was trying to sink it outside … The last time I saw it, it was sinking over the wall in right.” Boxscore Boxscore Boxscore

Smith batted .476 against the 1976 Cardinals. Five of his 10 hits were home runs. After the season, exploratory surgery by Dr. Frank Jobe showed Smith had been playing with a torn rotator cuff, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Smith went on to produce 41 RBI in 57 career games versus the Cardinals and had a .404 on-base percentage against them.

(Joe Ferguson batted .201 for the 1976 Cardinals and was peddled to Houston for Larry Dierker after the season.)

In a five-year stretch from 1977-81, Smith helped the Dodgers win three National League pennants and a World Series title.

Asked about the Dodgers’ success, Smith told the Post-Dispatch in 1977, “It’s something that comes down right from the top, from the man at the head of the organization to everyone on the club. It’s something every team could have if management wanted it.

“I think the Cardinals might have had it in the past, but I don’t think they have it in the organization anymore, and you have to go right to the top man for the reason it’s not there anymore. I think Mr. Busch soured on his players a few years ago in those contract disputes and it’s still having an effect. He took the hard line, and to him the answer to negotiating a contract was to trade the player if the player also took the hard line.

“As a result, it became every player for himself, and pretty soon you no longer had a team but a bunch of individuals.”

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Strikeout story: Grover Cleveland Alexander, Tony Lazzeri

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers on April 10, 2026| 12 Comments »

There are more versions of the story of Grover Cleveland Alexander striking out Tony Lazzeri than there were teams in a Branch Rickey farm system.

First, the undisputed facts:

With the Cardinals ahead, 3-2, in the seventh inning of Game 7 in the 1926 World Series, the Yankees had the bases loaded and Lazzeri at the plate. Cardinals manager Rogers Hornsby called for Alexander to relieve Jesse Haines, who had developed a blister on his pitching hand. Alexander, 39, had pitched a complete game the day before in the Cardinals’ Game 6 victory.

Lazzeri, a rookie, had 18 home runs and 114 RBI that season. Alexander struck him out. Then he shut down the Yankees in the eighth and ninth, earning a save to go with two World Series wins.

Alexander retired the side in the eighth and the first two batters in the ninth. Then Babe Ruth drew a walk, but was thrown out attempting to steal. Boxscore

In winning their first World Series championship, the Cardinals transformed from a perennial also-ran into an elite franchise in the National League.

The two people most qualified to know the full story of Alexander’s Game 7 heroics were catcher Bob O’Farrell and Alexander himself. Alexander gave his account to Francis J. Powers for the book “My Greatest Day in Baseball.” O’Farrell related his version to Lawrence Ritter in “The Glory of Their Times.”

Alexander: “There are stories that I celebrated (after Game 6) and had a hangover when Rogers Hornsby called me from the bullpen to pitch to Lazzeri.  That isn’t the truth.”

O’Farrell: “When he struck out Lazzeri, he’d been out on a drunk the night before and was feeling the effects.”

Alexander: “In the clubhouse after (Game 6), Hornsby came over to me and said, ‘Alex, if you want to celebrate tonight, I wouldn’t blame you, but go easy for I may need you tomorrow.’ I said, ‘OK, Rog’ … Hell, I wanted to win that Series and get the big end of the money as much as anyone.”

O’Farrell: “After the sixth game was over, Rogers Hornsby told Alex that if Jesse Haines got in any trouble the next day he would be the relief man. So he should take care of himself. Well, Alex didn’t really intend to take a drink that night, but some of his friends got hold of him and thought they were doing him a favor by buying him a drink. Well, you weren’t doing Alex any favor by buying him a drink because he just couldn’t stop.”

Alexander: “Early in (Game 7), Hornsby said to me, ‘Alex, go down into the bullpen and keep your eye on (Bill) Sherdel and (Herman) Bell. Keep them warmed up and if I need help I’ll depend on you to tell me which one looks best.”

O’Farrell: “In the seventh inning of the seventh game, Alex is tight asleep in the bullpen, sleeping off the night before … The Yankees get the bases loaded with two outs, and the next batter up is Lazzeri. Hornsby and I gather around Haines at the pitching mound. Jesse’s fingers are a mass of blisters from throwing so many knuckleballs, and so Hornsby decides to call in old Alex, even though we know he’d just pitched the day before and had been up most of the night.”

Alexander: “The bullpen in the Yankee Stadium is under the bleachers and when you’re down there you can’t tell what’s going on out in the field … When the bench wants to get in touch with the bullpen, there’s a telephone. It’s the only real fancy modern bullpen in baseball. Well, I was sitting around down there, not doing much throwing, when the phone rang and an excited voice said, ‘Send in Alexander.’ … I take a few hurried throws and then start for the box.”

O’Farrell: “In he comes, shuffling slowly from the bullpen to the pitching mound.”

Alexander: “When I come out from under the bleachers, I see the bases filled and Lazzeri standing at the box. Tony is up there all alone, with everyone in that Sunday crowd watching him. So I just said to myself, ‘Take your time. Lazzeri isn’t feeling any too good up there and let him stew.’ ”

O’Farrell: “Hornsby asks, ‘Can you do it?’ Alex says, ‘I can try.’ We agree that Alex should pitch Lazzeri low and away, nothing up high.”

Alexander: “I get to the box and Bob O’Farrell, our catcher, comes out to meet me. ‘Let’s start where we left off yesterday,’ Bob said. Yesterday (in Game 6) Lazzeri was up four times against me without getting anything that looked like a hit. He got one off me in the second game of the Series, but with one out of seven I wasn’t much worried about him … I said OK to O’Farrell. We’ll curve him.”

O’Farrell: “The first pitch is a perfect low curve for strike one.”

Alexander: “My first pitch was a curve and Tony missed. Holding the ball in his hand, O’Farrell came out to the box again. ‘Alex,’ he began, ‘this guy will be looking for that curve next time. We curved him all the time yesterday. Let’s give him a fast one.’ I agreed.”

O’Farrell: “The second one comes in high, and Tony smacks a vicious line drive that lands in the left field stands but just foul. Oh, it’s foul by maybe 10 feet.”

Alexander: “I poured one in, right under his chin. There was a crack and I knew the ball was hit hard … I spun around … and all the Yankees on base were on their way, but the drive had a tail-end fade and landed foul by eight to 10 feet in the left field bleachers. I said to myself, ‘No more of that for you, my lad.’ ”

O’Farrell: “So I run out to Alex. ‘I thought we were going to pitch him low and outside?’ Alex says, ‘He’ll never get another one like that.’ ”

Alexander: Bob signed for another curve and I gave him one. Lazzeri swung where that curve started but not where it finished. The ball got a hunk of the corner and then finished outside.”

O’Farrell: “A low outside curve and Tony Lazzeri struck out.”

In the bottom of the ninth, with two outs, Babe Ruth took off from first base on Alexander’s first pitch to Bob Meusel.

Alexander: “I caught the blur of Ruth starting for second as I pitched, and then came the whistle of the ball as O’Farrell rifled it to second. I wheeled around and there was one of the grandest sights of my life. Hornsby, his foot anchored on the bag and his gloved hand outstretched, was waiting for Ruth to come in.”

O’Farrell: “I wondered why Ruth tried to steal. A year or two later I went on a barnstorming trip with the Babe and I asked him. Ruth said he thought Alex had forgotten he was there. Also that the way Alex was pitching they’d never get two hits in a row off him, so he better get in position to score if they got one. Maybe that was good thinking. Maybe not. In any case, I had him out a mile at second.”

 

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A black stain of shame on a St. Louis Brown

Posted in Hitters, Pitchers on March 27, 2026| 13 Comments »

A St. Louis Browns player was part of a mob that lynched a man.

The murder of Allen Brooks occurred March 3, 1910, in Dallas. Brooks, a black man, was in court on charges he attacked a 3-year-old white girl. A mob stormed the courtroom, tied a rope around Brooks’ neck, then pulled and hurled him from a second-story window to a frenzied crowd below. Brooks’ body was dragged several blocks and hung from a telephone pole. Then the rioters marched to the county jail, looking for two black men accused of murders, and used steel rails to force their way inside, but the prisoners had been taken away by officers.

The mob included Dode Criss of the Browns. “Criss was with the crowd when it moved on to the courthouse and jail,” the St. Louis Star-Times reported. “… Dode does not say he led the mob on the jail, but says he saw what transpired and believes the black was given his just desserts.”

Spitter and hitter

Dode Criss was born in Mississippi, near Tupelo, and raised in rural Texas. His farming family settled in Ellis County, near Waxahachie, and he went to school in Rockett. According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Criss “had an ability to spit and never miss a mark. Around the grocery in the evening, Dode entertained the crowd with his capacity of saliva control, hitting rat holes, striking chalk marks and lambasting dogs in the eye. He was a faultless shot.”

Criss played ball, too. He threw right, batted left, pitched and roamed the outfield. In 1906, at 21, Criss was with a Class D minor-league club in Texas. A teammate was 18-year-old Tris Speaker, a future Baseball Hall of Famer. In his book “Baseball As I Have Known it,” Frederick G. Lieb wrote that Speaker confessed to being a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

After spending another season in the minors, Criss was brought to spring training with the Browns in 1908. The Browns thought he was a pitcher. What he did best, though, was hit. Manager Jimmy McAleer kept the rookie on the club and made him its primary pinch-hitter. Criss hit .341 overall (in 82 at-bats) for the 1908 Browns and .333 as a pinch-hitter.

“He is a player who excels all others as a hitter but is sadly deficient as a pitcher or a fielder,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch observed.

Billy Murphy of the Star-Times wrote, “He can’t run. He can’t field. He can’t think. There is nothing that he can do but hit and throw (and) his throwing isn’t even accurate … He has to make a hit to the fence to get two bases. Sometimes he has been nearly thrown out at first on hits to the outfield … Criss is valuable for just one thing. That is to hit in a pinch. Then someone has to run for him. Someone has to think for him.”

Foreshadowing the designated hitter rule that was to be adopted by the American League 65 years later, Syd Smith, a teammate of Criss with the 1908 Browns, told the Houston Chronicle, “If a 10th position were to be provided for on a ballclub, I think Dode would come into his own.”

Criss’ second season with the Browns, in 1909, resulted in a .304 batting mark as a pinch-hitter and 1-5 record as a pitcher.

Trouble brewing

In March 1910, Criss and his wife made the 30-mile trek from their home to Dallas so that Mrs. Criss could get a train to Mississippi, where she would visit relatives, he told the Star-Times. Criss had bought a railway ticket to Houston, where the Browns were training for the spring, but had it redeemed so that he could stay in Dallas until after the “fun” was over, the Star-Times reported. The “fun” was joining the mob forming for the court hearing of Allen Brooks.

Acting on a tip he received, Star-Times reporter Brice Hoskins asked Criss upon his arrival at spring training about being part of the Dallas mob responsible for Brooks’ lynching. Criss confirmed he was there.

A nationally syndicated sports feature that was published in newspapers such as the Akron Beacon Journal, Dayton Herald, Milwaukee Daily News and San Francisco Bulletin flippantly reported, “Criss … is the possessor of probably the most unique excuse of any ballplayer for reporting late for the spring workout. He was two days late in showing up at Houston this spring because he stopped in Dallas to participate in a lynching. Dode is a Texan who relishes excitement.”

Volatile mix

According to multiple published reports, Allen Brooks, 58, was arrested on Feb. 23, 1910. Brooks was employed as a laborer at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Henry J. Buvens of Dallas. Police said Brooks took the Buvens’ daughter, Mary Ethel Buvens, to a barn on the property and carried her into the loft. A black housekeeper went looking for the child and found her with Brooks in the barn. The woman took the girl and ran into the house. Police found Brooks hiding in a basement furnace room. The next day, Feb. 24, he was indicted by a Dallas grand jury and charged with criminal assault.

(While in custody, Brooks told officers he was drunk on the day he confronted the child and didn’t know what he was doing, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.)

The heinousness of the crime Brooks was accused of committing produced an outburst of rage and racism. In the predawn hours of Feb. 25, a mob of about 500 men surrounded the county jail in Dallas and demanded that Brooks be turned over to them, the Waco Times-Herald reported. The mob had a 30-foot steel rail and threatened to batter down the jail doors if Brooks didn’t appear. The county sheriff and city police chief allowed 12 mob members to search the jail and see for themselves Brooks wasn’t there. Brooks had been moved to a secret location.

The mob dispersed. Officials urged the public to trust the legal process. “There is absolutely no need for mob violence,” assistant county attorney B.M. Clark said to the Fort Worth Record-Register. “… Prompt justice will be administered.”

Order in the court

An arraignment was scheduled for March 3 in Dallas. According to police and county officials, early-morning trains into Dallas that day unloaded passengers from Ellis, Hunt and Rockwell counties. Joining men from rural sections of Dallas County, they formed the heart of the mob that went to the courthouse, the Fort Worth Record-Register reported.

The county sheriff and all his men were on duty at the courthouse along with about 15 city police officers. In all, Brooks was guarded by about 50 law enforcement personnel, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.

The arraignment was held in a second-floor courtroom. About 1,000 people crowded into the corridors and stairways of the courthouse, the Record-Register reported. At least another 1,000 more waited outside.

During the morning hearing, Brooks’ attorneys asked Judge R.B. Seay for a continuance in order to construct their case. The judge gave the defense attorneys an hour in which to prepare their motion in writing. Brooks was taken from the courtroom to a jury room to wait.

When word of this procedure filtered out to the simpletons in the hallways, the message got misinterpreted. The crowd thought a change of venue was being considered. That angered them, and a call went out to rise up.

The invaders “swept county officials and policemen aside like chaff before the wind,” the Record-Register reported. The door to the courtroom was battered down and sheriff deputies were overpowered. According to the Fort Worth newspaper, “The officers fought back desperately but refrained from using their pistols … One by one the officers dropped from sheer exhaustion.”

Mob rule

The mob forced its way into the jury room, where Brooks was guarded by two sheriff’s deputies. According to the Record-Register, as one drew a revolver, a mob leader snarled at him, “Shoot, (expletive) you, shoot; you nigger lover.”

Brooks, crouching under a table, was seized. One end of a rope was tied around the neck of the shaking man and the other end was pitched to the crowd below. As Brooks was shoved from behind, a “mighty tug was made on the rope from below,” the Record-Register reported. Brooks tumbled out of a second-story window 30 feet above the ground. As he fell headlong, Brooks spread out his arms and legs. His head struck the pavement.

“Dozens of men jumped on him and his face was kicked into a pulp and he was bruised all over,” the Globe-Democrat reported.

Men grabbed the rope and, with the rest of the mob following, dragged the body several blocks up Main Street through the business district. The number of people in the mob had swelled to between 3,000 and 5,000, according to published estimates. “From the windows in the office buildings along Main Street … faces poked out to take in the horrible sight,” the Record-Register reported.

Brooks’ body was strung up to an iron spike on a telephone pole next to an arch built to honor the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks of the United States of America, a fraternal organization focused on charity, justice and brotherly love.

“Just as the body was swinging upward, men and boys grabbed at the clothing and tore nearly every rag from his body,” the Record-Register reported. “A fight ensued for the torn bits of clothing, as they were wanted as souvenirs.” (Brooks was one of five black men lynched in Texas in 1910, according to D Magazine.)

The bloodlust of the savages wasn’t quenched by their ghastly act. The mob marched to the county jail, seeking two black men, Burrell Oates and Bubber Robinson, charged with murders. The sheriff told the mob the prisoners had been moved. Unconvinced, the mob “started in to demolish the doors and underpinnings with steel rails as battering rams,” the Globe-Democrat reported. “They then got dynamite and threatened to blow up the jail.”

Officers allowed some of the crowd to search the jail. Seeing the cells were empty, the throng dispersed.

American injustice

A Dallas County grand jury was convened to investigate the lynching. On March 20, the Star-Times reported “Secret Service agents are endeavoring to find out what Dode Criss knows of the recent lynching at Dallas.”

The investigations led nowhere. The grand jury didn’t return an indictment. No one was arrested nor charged in the lynching of Brooks.

“The grand jury admitted it was either unable to reach the facts, or that it regarded the lynching of Allen Brooks … as too trivial an occurrence to be worth its notice,” the Record-Register reported.

According to the Fort Worth newspaper, indications were “the grand jury not only never had any intention of investigating the mob, despite the orders to do so by Judge Seay, but preferred to silently endorse the outbreak.” The same grand jury returned 110 felony indictments in other cases but noted it endeavored not “to encumber the court docket with cases of a doubtful or frivolous nature.”

For the record

Dode Criss spent two more seasons (1910-11) in the majors with the Browns before returning to the minors. His departure “will not be mourned by local fans,” the Star-Times declared. “… During the time Criss was with the Browns, three different managers tried to make something out of him and all failed.”

Criss went on to play six seasons with the Houston Buffaloes. After Criss died in 1955, Clark Nealon of the Houston Post wrote that Criss “was more than just a Houston Buff all-time ballplayer. He was and forever will be in Texas League history a legend.” At team reunions, Criss “basked in admiration the likes of which generally is reserved for Ruth and Cobb,” Nealon noted.

In 2021, the Texas Historical Commission recognized the lynching of Allen Brooks with a historical marker at Main and Akard streets in Dallas, D Magazine reported. In 2023, a second state marker was installed at the southwest corner of the courthouse, near the window Brooks was thrown from.

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How baseball went to bat for the people of Finland

Posted in Games, Hitters, Pitchers on March 21, 2026| 9 Comments »

An American son of Russian immigrants, Lou Novikoff was an outfielder who thrilled baseball fans with prodigious hitting and frustrated managers with erratic baserunning and atrocious fielding. He was nicknamed the Mad Russian.

Novikoff grew up near downtown Los Angeles in an area known as Russian Town. He spoke Russian and English, learned to cook Russian specialties such as shashlik (grilled lamb) and married a daughter of Russian immigrants.

His pride in his heritage was as strong as a Siberian bear, yet Novikoff willingly joined several of baseball’s most prominent players in a fundraising effort to provide aid for the people of Finland during their war with the Soviet Union.

World in peril

After Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, igniting World War II, the Russians were concerned the Nazis would come through Finland to attack the Soviet Union. The Russians wanted the Finns to cede border territory to them for security reasons. When Finland refused, the Russians invaded with 500,000 troops in November 1939. The conflict became known as the Winter War.

The Finns fought fiercely to defend their land. More than 126,000 Soviet soldiers were killed. More than 25,000 Finns died, according to Radio Free Europe.

With food and other supplies cut off from them in the frigid Nordic winter, Finnish civilians needed help. Former U.S. President Herbert Hoover was put in charge of a Finnish Relief Fund.

Pitching in

In addition to soliciting private donations, Hoover sought to have high-profile public fundraising events. He convinced baseball officials to get involved.

Two baseball fundraising exhibition games were planned for March 1940.

The first, sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, took place March 10 at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. It matched players from the four big-league clubs training in California _ Athletics, Cubs, Pirates and White Sox _ against top players from five Pacific Coast League teams: Hollywood, Los Angeles, Portland, Sacramento (a Cardinals farm club) and Seattle.

The second game was played March 17 at Plant Field in Tampa. It matched American Leaguers against National Leaguers from the teams training in Florida. The American League clubs were the Indians, Red Sox, Senators, Tigers and Yankees. (The Browns trained in Texas). Representing the National League were the Braves, Cardinals, Dodgers, Giants, Phillies and Reds.

“In the spirit of sportsmanship and in recognition of the Finns’ heroism, both in the field of sports and in the protection of their homes, baseball … joins in helping to alleviate their sufferings and makes its contribution to a worthy cause,” The Sporting News declared.

Note: Though ice hockey may be the most popular sport in Finland, pesapallo, a Finnish version of baseball, is the country’s official national sport. Video

John Michaelson, who was born in Finland in 1893 and immigrated to Michigan as a youth, is the only native Finn to play big-league baseball. He pitched in two games for the 1921 White Sox.

Game one

Batting orders for the Finnish Relief Fund game in Los Angeles were:

Pacific Coast League: Jo-Jo White, center field, Seattle; Bill Cissell, second base, Hollywood; ex-Cardinal Rip Collins, first base, Los Angeles; Lou “The Mad Russian” Novikoff, left field, Los Angeles; Max Marshall, right field, Sacramento; Art Garibaldi, third base, Sacramento; Ed Cihocki, shortstop, Los Angeles; Cliff Dapper, catcher, Hollywood; Bill Thomas, pitcher, Portland.

Major leaguers: Augie Galan, left field, Cubs; Benny McCoy, second base, A’s; Luke Appling, shortstop, White Sox; Gabby Hartnett, catcher, Cubs; Elbie Fletcher, first base, Pirates; Eric McNair, third base, White Sox; Lloyd Waner, center field, Pirates; Paul Waner, right field, Pirates; Ted Lyons, pitcher, White Sox.

Five of the big-league starters _ Appling, Hartnett, Lyons and the Waner brothers _ would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. Three of the reserves, Billy Herman (Cubs), Al Simmons (A’s) and Arky Vaughan (Pirates), also were future Hall of Famers.

The managers were ex-Cardinal and future Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch of the Pirates and Seattle’s Jack Lelivelt. Coaches for the big-league squad were Monty Stratton and Honus Wagner.

Played on a Sunday afternoon under threatening skies, the game attracted 9,753 spectators and netted $7,204.06 for the Finnish Relief Fund, the Los Angeles Times reported. The big-leaguers won, 4-1. Frisch used a different pitcher for each of the nine innings. In addition to starter Ted Lyons, the others were Bill Lee, Claude Passeau, Julio Bonetti, Bob Klinger, George Caster, Thornton Lee, Johnny Gee and Mace Brown.

Lou Novikoff, who’d go on to hit .363 with 41 home runs for Los Angeles (a Cubs farm club) in 1940, rolled to the pitcher and fouled out to the catcher.

Game two

Two days after the game, on March 12, the Winter War ended with the signing of the Moscow Peace Treaty. The agreement became public on March 13 and was ratified on March 21. Finland lost significant territory to the Soviet Union in the deal, according to Wikipedia.

Finns still were in need of food and basic supplies, so the work of the Finnish Relief Fund continued.

On March 17, both Palm Sunday and St. Patrick’s Day, 13,320 people attended the fundraising game between the American Leaguers and National Leaguers in Tampa. It was the largest crowd to attend a baseball game in Florida, according to the Baseball Hall of Fame. “Carpenters were still nailing up new bleacher seats at game time” to accommodate the crowd, the New York Daily News reported. “United States and Finland flags fluttered from alternate poles around the park.”

Ticket sales produced $16,401.50 but additional donations brought the total raised from the game for the Finnish Relief Fund to $19,641.85, The Sporting News reported.

American League batting order: Joe Gordon, second base; Red Rolfe, third base; Charlie “King Kong” Keller, left field; Joe DiMaggio, center field; Jimmie Foxx, first base; Ted Williams, right field; Bill Dickey, catcher; Frank Crosetti, shortstop; and Red Ruffing, pitcher. Foxx and Williams were Red Sox; the rest were Yankees. All except Rolfe, Keller and Crosetti were destined for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Future Hall of Famers in reserve for the American League included Bobby Doerr (Red Sox), Bob Feller (Indians), Rick Ferrell (Senators), Hank Greenberg (Tigers).

National League batting order: Morrie Arnovich, left field, Phillies; Cookie Lavagetto, third base, Dodgers; Mel Ott, right field, Giants; Frank McCormick, first base, Reds; Harry Danning, catcher, Giants; Frank Demaree, center field, Giants; Tony Cuccinello, second base, Braves; Billy Jurges, shortstop, Giants; and Paul Derringer, pitcher, Reds. Ott was the lone future Hall of Famer among the starters.

Five Cardinals _ Mort Cooper, Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize, Terry Moore and Enos Slaughter _ were chosen for the National League roster, but Cooper (injury), Medwick (contract holdout) and Mize (illness) were unavailable. Moore and Slaughter (a future Hall of Famer) were reserves.

The game’s managers were Joe McCarthy (Yankees) and ex-Cardinal Bill McKechnie (Reds). Both would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The star-studded American League team was considered the heavy favorite, but the score was tied at 1-1 when the National Leaguers went to bat in the bottom of the ninth against Bob Feller.

Tampa native Al Lopez slashed a leadoff single to center. Attempting to sacrifice, Terry Moore bunted to the left of the plate. Described by the Boston Globe as “fast as an antelope,” Moore reached first at the same time as catcher Rollie Hemsley’s throw to Hal Trosky. Bumped by Moore, Trosky dropped the throw. Lopez hustled to third and Moore was safe at first on the error.

(A son of John and Mary Trojovsky of Norway, Iowa, Hal Trosky was no relation to Leon Trotsky, the Russian revolutionary assassinated by an agent of Joseph Stalin in Mexico City in August 1940.)

With the American League infielders playing in for a play at the plate, Pete Coscarart, a Dodgers second baseman, lashed a Feller fastball toward short. The ball skipped past Frank Crosetti for a game-winning single.

“Single, bunt, playing for one run. That’s National League baseball, a brand good enough to beat the American League,” Hy Turkin noted in the Daily News.

John Drebinger of the New York Times called the 2-1 National League triumph “an upset of major proportions in the name of charity.”

John Lardner of the Boston Globe wrote, “Fighting for the lost, but living, cause of Finland, the National League struck a blow for all downtrodden minorities.”

Dark days

Overall, the Finnish Relief Fund raised more than $2.5 million by March 1940. The American Red Cross distributed food and other basics provided from the funds.

The war with the Soviet Union led to Finland making a dark, disturbing decision.

Looking to reverse land losses from the Winter War, Finland joined Operation Barbarossa, Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Finland called itself a “co-belligerent,” rather than an ally of the Nazis, but Adolf Hitler considered Finland a partner. Finland permitted German troops to operate from its soil.

In 1944, when the Allies were turning back the Nazis, Finland changed course. It reached a peace agreement (the Moscow Armistice) with the Soviet Union. Key terms of the armistice forced the Finns to cede extensive territories to the Soviets, pay them $300 million in reparations, legalize the Communist Party, ban fascist organizations and expel German troops from Finland.

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