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How Joe DiMaggio helped Tony La Russa

Posted in Executives, Games, Hitters on February 21, 2024| 12 Comments »

In a spring training camp with Reggie Jackson, Rick Monday and Sal Bando, another hitter who caught the eye of Joe DiMaggio was Tony La Russa.

In 1968, DiMaggio was in a green and gold Oakland Athletics uniform, giving instruction to players. La Russa was trying to make the team as a reserve infielder and return to the majors for the first time in five years.

DiMaggio became one of La Russa’s biggest boosters.

Bay Area bonanza

After the 1967 season, the Athletics moved from Kansas City to Oakland. Club owner Charlie Finley approached Joe DiMaggio and offered him a front-office position with the title of executive vice president. DiMaggio accepted, signing a two-year contract.

In explaining why he took the job, DiMaggio said to the Associated Press, “Probably the biggest thing was the shift of the club to Oakland. It’s only 25 minutes from home (in San Francisco).”

During the previous six years, DiMaggio had been a visiting batting instructor at Yankees spring training in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., but when club co-owner Dan Topping asked him to take a fulltime job, “I turned him down,” DiMaggio said to The Sporting News. “I decided to join Mr. Finley and the A’s because it was home.”

Frank Lane, former general manager of the Cardinals and Kansas City Athletics, said to the San Francisco Examiner, “The smartest move Finley made when he moved to Oakland was to hire DiMaggio. That gave the club instant prestige.”

As The Sporting News noted, Finley and DiMaggio agreed to “an extremely loose arrangement as far as office responsibilities are concerned.” His duties were to include advising on personnel decisions and player transactions.

DiMaggio emphasized he wouldn’t do community relations and promotional tasks. “I’m not going around talking to groups or making appearances at banquets,” he told The Sporting News. “As I understand the job, I’ll be busy all of the time with player personnel, working on possible trades and serving as an adviser.”

At the baseball winter meetings in Mexico City in December 1967, DiMaggio “was much in evidence (as) the spokesman for the club,” The Sporting News reported. When Athletics manager Bob Kennedy asked him to be an instructor at spring training, DiMaggio said yes.

Advanced placement

On Feb. 26, 1968, when the Athletics had their first spring workout at Bradenton, Fla., DiMaggio, 53, was in uniform. According to the Bradenton Herald, he “posed obligingly for photographers, chatted freely with reporters and smilingly handed out autographs.” He also gave batting tips to a 22-year-old catcher, Dave Duncan.

United Press International columnist Milton Richman was impressed by how DiMaggio fit in. “He hangs his street clothes in the same simple wooden lockers as the players do,” Richman observed. “His locker is between those of coaches Sherm Lollar and John McNamara.”

DiMaggio became engaged in the instructor’s role. He enjoyed working with the players and connected with them.

“This kid Rick Monday is shaping up as a hell of a fine ballplayer,” DiMaggio said to Richman. “He’s only 22 and I like the way he swings the bat. He bears down all the time … This boy knows he’s good, but he’ll listen when you tell him something.

“There’s another outfielder, Reggie Jackson, I’ve been working with. He’ll take a little time to learn, but he’s going to be a good one, too.”

DiMaggio worked with Jackson on hitting, fielding and base running. “He’s such a symbol of greatness to a ballplayer, something to strive for, someone to get approval from,” Jackson said to The Sporting News. “It would be embarrassing not to hustle in front of such a man.”

After seeing DiMaggio swing the bat, Jackson told columnist Joe Falls, “He’s the Rope Man. He hangs out those frozen ropes.”

Asked about his approach to teaching, DiMaggio said to Jack Hand of the Associated Press, “There is no set way of hitting. One fellow bats one way, another has a different style. Honus Wagner, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby all had different styles, but they followed the same fundamentals. The main thing is being comfortable, holding the head rigid, taking a short stride, having the bat ready to swing.

“You can’t tell anybody how to hit. Nobody ever tried to teach me. If I tried to bat like Stan Musial, all curled up in that crouch, I’d be wound up in a knot. It’s the same way with my wide stance. A lot of fellows couldn’t do it my way. I didn’t start out that way either.

“If I see a fellow who has a decided weakness, I’ll talk to him. I wouldn’t try to change a player unless he has been around a while and had not shown any improvement.”

Strong man

Tony La Russa was 18 when he debuted in the majors with the 1963 Athletics. He spent the next four seasons in the minors. Injuries played a part in stalling his career. He dislocated his right shoulder twice, tore ligaments in his right knee, and injured his back and throwing arm.

When he got to spring training in 1968, La Russa, 23, told the Oakland Tribune, “I worked pretty hard during the winter to strengthen the spots where I had my injuries. I feel 100 percent now and I don’t feel I’m injury prone.”

Working with weights at a Tampa gym, La Russa bulked up and was bigger than his listed weight of 175 pounds. The Bradenton Herald described him as having “tremendously thick forearms and wrists, and Ted Kluszewski-sized biceps.”

“I’m staying right at 195 pounds now and never felt better,” La Russa said to reporter Vince Smith. “I figured I’d better start doing something about building myself up. If I was bigger and stronger, I wouldn’t be getting hurt all the time.”

Second base was La Russa’s best position, but the Athletics had John Donaldson and Dick Green there. Manager Bob Kennedy viewed La Russa as a backup to Sal Bando at third and possibly Bert Campaneris at shortstop, and planned to play him at those spots throughout spring training.

(“I’m the most uncomfortable at third,” La Russa said to the Oakland Tribune.)

Asked about La Russa, Kennedy said to the San Francisco Examiner, “We’re looking at the kid as a top prospect for infield utility duty … We certainly don’t want to give up on him. We feel there’s a good chance he’ll help us.”

DiMaggio took an interest in La Russa. After watching La Russa take swings in the batting cage at spring training, he offered advice. “He told me he noticed I had a little hitch in my swing and I was letting the ball get by me before I had my wrists cocked,” La Russa told the Bradenton Herald. “When he tells me something like that, naturally I’m going to listen.”

DiMaggio said to the Herald, “I think he really has a chance to make it. When you get the injuries this kid has had since he started, you never really get a chance to get going. He seems to be in real good shape out here now. He swings that bat and he swings it pretty good.”

According to the Oakland Tribune, La Russa went on to lead the Athletics in hitting (.364) in spring training games and earned a spot on the 1968 Opening Day roster as a backup infielder.

Highs and lows

Near the end of spring training, DiMaggio agreed to Kennedy’s request to be a coach all season. “He will be on the bench with me,” Kennedy said to The Sporting News. “This entails a fulltime duty with the club. I can think of no better man to teach young hitters and young outfielders than Joe DiMaggio.”

In explaining why he accepted the role, DiMaggio said to the Oakland Tribune, “These kids we have are the major reason I’ve decided to coach. They’re just great. I’ve become attached to them and the club. I think I can do a service.”

In introductions before the Athletics’ home opener on April 17, 1968, DiMaggio got the loudest ovation from the crowd of 50,164. Gov. Ronald Reagan threw the ceremonial first pitch and was booed, the Oakland Tribune reported.

In the game that followed, Dave McNally of the Orioles held the Athletics to two hits _ a Rick Monday home run and pinch-hit single by La Russa. Boxscore

Three weeks later, after just three at-bats, La Russa was placed on waivers and went unclaimed. The Athletics sent him to their Vancouver farm club and called up outfielder Joe Rudi.

DiMaggio had a successful season as a coach. As The Sporting News noted, “Being a coach in uniform this year has enabled DiMaggio to escape a desk job with vague responsibilities and ill-defined duties, and make a real contribution to the team. His mere presence has inspired the young A’s players, who hold him in high esteem but not the overwhelming awe they showed him when he first appeared in spring training.”

The 1968 Athletics finished 82-80, but Bob Kennedy was fired and replaced by Hank Bauer, who had been DiMaggio’s outfield teammate with the Yankees. DiMaggio said he didn’t want to coach again in 1969, the last year of his contract, but Bauer convinced him to change his mind.

La Russa began the 1969 season in the minors at Des Moines, hit .306 and got called up to the Athletics in June after Dick Green tore knee ligaments. La Russa got only eight at-bats with the 1969 Athletics and went hitless.

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How Jimy Williams jumped from Class A to Cardinals

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers, Prospects on February 7, 2024| 12 Comments »

An introduction to the big leagues with the 1966 Cardinals was about as challenging as it gets for Jimy Williams.

A middle infielder whose professional baseball experience consisted of one season at the Class A level of the minors, Williams got his first at-bat in the majors against none other than Sandy Koufax. His second plate appearance also came against a future Hall of Famer, Juan Marichal.

As if that wasn’t enough of a test, the rookie leaped into a frog-jumping contest involving Cardinals and Giants players.

Though his stint with the Cardinals was short, Williams went on to become a manager in the majors with the Blue Jays, Red Sox and Astros. He also managed the Cardinals’ top farm team.

Name of the game

James Francis Williams, known as Jimmy, was the son of farmers who raised cattle and garbanzo beans on 800 acres in Arroyo Grande, Calif. (Asked where Arroyo Grande is located, Williams told the Boston Globe, “It’s about three miles past ‘Resume Speed.’ “)

In high school, Williams changed the spelling of Jimmy, dropping one “m” as a prank. “I spelled it that way on a term paper or a test, and the teacher didn’t say anything about it, so I kept it,” he told the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

Williams played college baseball at Fresno State, earned a degree in agribusiness and was signed in June 1965 by Red Sox scouts Bobby Doerr and Glenn Wright. With Class A Waterloo (Iowa) that summer, Williams led the Midwest League’s shortstops in fielding percentage and hit .287.

When the Red Sox didn’t protect Williams on their winter roster, the Cardinals drafted him in November 1965 on the recommendation of scout Joe Mathes.

After Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst got his first look at Williams during 1966 spring training, he said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “I can see why Joe was so hot about the kid. He sure looks like a comer.”

According to the Post-Dispatch, Williams at shortstop displayed “agility as he moved with speed to field balls hit to either side.”

Schoendienst, whose career as a second baseman got him elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, mentored Williams on how to play that position and was pleased by the rookie’s progress in making the double play, the Post-Dispatch reported.

By being able to play both shortstop and second base, Williams enhanced his value as a utility player and earned a spot on the 1966 Cardinals’ Opening Day roster, joining Jerry Buchek, Phil Gagliano, Julian Javier and Dal Maxvill as the middle infielders.

On their way from St. Petersburg to St. Louis to begin the season, the Cardinals stopped in Kansas City to play exhibition games against the Athletics. In one, Williams entered as a replacement for Javier at second base and produced two hits and three RBI in the Cardinals’ 7-6 triumph.

Candlestick croakers

When the 1966 season opened, Williams sat for two weeks. His debut came on April 26 at Dodger Stadium when he replaced Maxvill at shortstop in the sixth inning. The first batter, Nate Oliver, hit a ground ball to Williams. The next, John Kennedy, hit a pop fly to him. Williams handled both chances flawlessly.

In the eighth, Williams got his first at-bat, facing Koufax. Asked what he was thinking as he came to the plate, Williams replied to the San Luis Obispo Tribune, “That I was going to get a hit. That’s the only reason to get into the batter’s box.”

Koufax struck him out. “I punched out two foul balls and got a hook (curveball) and it was, ‘Sit down, Jimy Williams,’ ” the rookie said to the San Luis Obispo newspaper. Boxscore

Two weeks later, at St. Louis, Williams got his second plate appearance. Facing Marichal, he grounded out, but two innings later, he singled to center versus Marichal, driving in Tim McCarver from third. Boxscore

In the time between his at-bats versus Koufax and Marichal, Williams and the Cardinals were in San Francisco for a series. A frog-jumping contest was planned at Candlestick Park before the Sunday finale. Ten players _ five Cardinals (Nelson Briles, Curt Flood, Mike Shannon, Bob Skinner and Williams) and five Giants (Bob Barton, Len Gabrielson, Bill Henry, Ron Herbel and Bob Priddy) _ were the participants. The player who coaxed his frog to make the longest jump would win $50 and the frog would be entered in the Calaveras Frog Jumping Contest made famous in the Mark Twain short story.

“I can sure use the $50 prize,” Williams told the Post-Dispatch. According to the newspaper, Williams practiced at a pond the day before the contest. (In a line Twain might have appreciated, Williams said to the Boston Globe, “If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his booty.”)

The winner, however, was Gabrielson, whose frog (named Bat Legs) jumped 11 feet, eight inches. Priddy placed second (10 feet even) and Williams was third (nine feet, one inch).

In the game that followed, Gabrielson hit a home run against Bob Gibson, and the Giants won. “What a day,” Gabrielson exclaimed to the Oakland Tribune. Boxscore

Big break

Williams, 22, rarely played for the 1966 Cardinals. He had three hits in 11 at-bats before his season was cut short by a six-month stint in the Army reserve.

The Cardinals sent Williams to the minors in 1967. He returned to them in September, played in one game and was traded after the season with Pat Corrales to the Reds for Johnny Edwards.

Williams never again played in the big leagues. He was in the farm systems of the Reds, Expos and Mets before a bum shoulder ended his career in 1971. Williams hurt the shoulder in 1969 while working an off-season job at a Ford plant in St. Louis. “An employee who was playing around threw a Styrofoam cup at me,” Williams recalled to the San Luis Obispo Tribune. “When I threw it back at him, I felt something pop in my shoulder.”

After his playing career, Williams returned to St. Louis and operated a convenience store for two years, according to the San Luis Obispo newspaper.

A former Fresno State teammate, Tom Sommers, brought Williams back into baseball. Sommers was director of minor league operations for the Angels and needed a manager in 1974 for the Class A Quad Cities team in Davenport, Iowa. He gave the job to Williams, 30. “I was the happiest man in the world when Sommers called,” Williams said to the El Paso Times.

Williams rose through the Angels’ system and managed their top farm team, the Salt Lake City Gulls, in 1976 and 1977.

“I like to get young players to do things they don’t think they can,” Williams told the Deseret News. “That way, they boost their confidence and increase their potential. Our players will have freedom on the field to expand their talents.”

Back and forth

In October 1977, Tom Sommers was fired by Angels general manager Harry Dalton. Many of Sommers’ hires, including Williams, got fired, too.

Williams landed back in the Cardinals’ organization as manager of their Class AAA Springfield (Ill.) club in 1978. He accepted the job after Florida State University baseball coach Woody Woodward turned it down, according to Larry Harnly in The Sporting News.

Springfield had players such as Terry Kennedy, Dane Iorg, Tommy Herr, Ken Oberkfell, Silvio Martinez and Aurelio Lopez. The club finished 70-66.

According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Williams and A. Ray Smith, owner of the Springfield franchise, had “a personality conflict” and Williams was looking to manage somewhere else in 1979.

Art Teece, owner of the Salt Lake City franchise, pushed for the Angels to rehire Williams, and they agreed. “Bringing Jimy back to Salt Lake was the key in my resuming a working agreement with the Angels,” Teece told The Sporting News.

Williams said to the Salt Lake Tribune, “I enjoyed being with the Cardinals. They have a good organization and good people, but I really had a nice time in Salt Lake and I’m anxious to return.”

Major moves

Salt Lake City was nice but it wasn’t the majors. When Williams was offered a chance to be third-base coach on the staff of Blue Jays manager Bobby Mattick in 1980, he took it. After Bobby Cox replaced Mattick in 1982, he retained Williams.

After leading the Blue Jays to their first division title in 1985, Cox became general manager of the Braves and Williams replaced him. “Cox did a great job with the players, but I think Jimy’s style might be a little more imaginative,” Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick told The Sporting News.

(When Gillick fired him in 1989, he told the Toronto Star that Williams was “too nice a guy and too honest.”)

In 12 seasons as a big-league manager with the Blue Jays (1986-89), Red Sox (1997-2001) and Astros (2002-04), Williams had a 909-790 record, but never had a pennant winner.

(When the Red Sox fired Williams in 2001, Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said he was “shocked,” the Post-Dispatch reported. “I think he’s a hell of a baseball man,” La Russa said. “He’s as qualified as anybody around and he got results. You kind of scratch your head.”)

As a coach with the Braves (1990-96) and Phillies (2007-08), Williams was part of five National League pennant winners and two World Series championship teams.

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Down and out: Bob Reynolds got decked by Frank Robinson

Posted in Games, Hitters, Pitchers, Trades on February 2, 2024| 17 Comments »

An incident involving a future Hall of Famer and a former Cardinals pitcher turned the relaxed atmosphere of an exhibition game between the Cleveland Indians and their top farm team into an awkward embarrassment.

On June 30, 1976, Cleveland’s player-manager, Frank Robinson, went to the mound and slugged Toledo reliever Bob Reynolds before 5,013 stunned spectators at the Mud Hens’ ballpark. (I was one of those in attendance.)

Robinson said Reynolds provoked him. Reynolds said Robinson was the instigator. Either way, the sight of a big-league manager punching one of the franchise’s players during a goodwill game made for a strange, ugly scene.

Hard stuff

A right-handed pitcher, Bob Reynolds was nicknamed Bullet as a high school player in Seattle because of the speed of his fastball. The Giants took him in the first round of the 1966 amateur draft and sent him to Twin Falls, Idaho, to pitch for the Magic Valley Cowboys of the Pioneer League. Reynolds, 19, struck out 147 batters in 86 innings.

Unprotected in the October 1968 expansion draft, Reynolds was chosen by the Expos. At spring training, he showed “a good, live fastball,” Expos catcher Ron Brand told the Montreal Star. “Reynolds makes it hop and sail.”

On March 6, 1969, in the Expos’ first exhibition game, Reynolds retired the Royals in order in the ninth, sealing a 9-8 victory. “I was tickled to death at Reynolds’ poise,” Expos manager Gene Mauch told the Star. “He knows he can throw strikes, and he protected our lead. He really blows smoke past them, doesn’t he? He’s a hard-throwing youngster.”

Preferring he get experience at the Class AAA level, the Expos sent Reynolds to Vancouver, a farm team managed by future Hall of Famer Bob Lemon.

“I was my own worst enemy,” Reynolds told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “I used to lose my head, kick dirt around the mound, throw things. Just blow up when things weren’t going right. I got to be known as a hothead. When you get a tag like that, it’s awfully hard to shake.

“In 1969 at Vancouver, I got so hot after a loss, I was ready to swing at the first person who walked in the clubhouse. Bob Lemon called me in his office, pointed to his big belly and said, ‘You want to hit something? Hit this.’ He calmed me down so much, I came out laughing at myself for my stupidity.”

The Expos called up Reynolds in September 1969. After being told he would make his big-league debut the next day in a start against the Phillies, “I took sleeping pills and everything else I could find, but nothing worked,” Reynolds recalled to the Baltimore Sun. “I was a nervous wreck the next day.”

Reynolds gave up three runs in 1.1 innings and never appeared in the regular season for the Expos again. Boxscore

Traveling man

On June 15, 1971, the Cardinals acquired Reynolds from the Expos for Mike Torrez. “We’d already lost Reynolds because his options had run out and he was frozen on Winnipeg’s roster,” Expos general manager Jim Fanning said to the Montreal Star. “A lot of clubs were interested in him and we decided to take the first good offer. Torrez became available … and we grabbed him.”

Cardinals scout Joe Monahan told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “Reynolds should be able to help us … His control has improved since the Expos sent him to Winnipeg because they made him stick to his fastball and slider, and forget about his curve.”

Reynolds made four relief appearances for the 1971 Cardinals and gave up runs in three of those games. As the Post-Dispatch noted, “Reynolds made little noise on the Cardinals scene except when he flapped his arms and gave his crow call. The bird imitation kept the bullpen crew from falling asleep.”

Two months after he joined the Cardinals, Reynolds was dealt to the Brewers. A Brewers instructor, former big-league pitcher Wes Stock, helped Reynolds with his slider. “Stock got me to come over the top with it,” Reynolds told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “I had been coming down the side a little with it and it was a flat slider.”

Reynolds was on the move again the following March when the Brewers sent him to the Orioles, who assigned him to their Rochester farm team. Working mostly in relief, he had a 1.71 ERA and struck out 107 in 95 innings. The Orioles brought him back to the majors in September 1972.

Doggone it

At spring training in 1973, Reynolds suffered a hairline fracture in his right hand and dislocated the little finger when he fell against a wall in his apartment while playing with his dog.

“I can’t blame it on the dog,” Reynolds said to the Baltimore Sun. “It was me who suggested the game in the first place.

“Reminds me of the time I was playing high school basketball and I tried to jazz it up as I went in for a layup. The ball got stuck behind my back and in trying to get straightened out I ran into a wall. Nearly knocked myself cold. Fans thought it was great. Coach didn’t like it too much.”

For the next two years (1973-74), Reynolds was the Orioles’ top right-handed reliever. He had a 1.95 ERA in 1973 and his nine saves tied left-hander Grant Jackson for the team lead. In 1974, Reynolds led the Orioles in games pitched (54) and had a 2.73 ERA.

At the urging of manager Earl Weaver, Reynolds was traded to the Tigers for pitcher Fred Holdsworth in May 1975. Three months later, the Cleveland Indians claimed Reynolds off waivers.

Missing the cut

At Indians spring training in 1976, the final spot on the pitching staff came down to a choice between Reynolds and Stan Thomas. “Bullet is faster, but his ball is straighter,” catcher Ray Fosse told the Akron Beacon Journal. “Thomas’ ball moves more and he has a greater selection of pitches.”

Frank Robinson and general manager Phil Seghi chose Thomas. “It was difficult having to make a decision like this,” Robinson said to the Akron newspaper. “Reynolds has a good attitude. He did everything we asked him to do.”

Reynolds, 29, was assigned to Toledo. Because he had no more options, he would need to remain on the Mud Hens’ roster all season.

The 1976 season was the last for Frank Robinson as a player and his second as a big-league manager. (He would finish with 586 career home runs and get elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.) The Indians, who had a streak of seven straight losing seasons, seemed to be improving under Robinson. Their record was 36-33 when they went to play the exhibition game with Toledo.

On the warpath

Among those in the Indians’ starting lineup on a rainy evening for the Toledo game were Boog Powell at first base, Duane Kuiper at second, George Hendrick in left and Rico Carty as the designated hitter. The Mud Hens had the likes of catcher Rick Cerone and first baseman Joe Lis.

Robinson began substituting in the third inning. He sent coach Rocky Colavito, 42, to replace Hendrick in left. Another coach, Jeff Torborg, got to play, too. Robinson put himself in the game as a pinch-hitter in the fifth. Reynolds, who relieved Cardell Camper (a former Cardinals prospect), was on the mound for Toledo.

Reynolds’ first pitch to Robinson went about six feet over his head. “That was no accident,” Robinson told the Associated Press. “I’ve played long enough to know. The first inning he pitched he never threw a ball above the waist and he never threw one above the waist to the batter before me.”

Robinson said to United Press International, “I feel he was trying to intimidate me and show (off) in front of his teammates.”

(“I wasn’t throwing at him,” Reynolds said to Ron Maly of the Des Moines Register. “The ball just got away from me. I was trying to throw a fastball and my spikes were cluttered with mud.”)

The at-bat continued and Robinson hit a fly ball that was caught for an out. As Robinson cut across the diamond to return to the dugout on the third base side, he said to Reynolds, “You got a lot of guts throwing at me in a game like this,” United Press International reported.

According to Robinson, Reynolds replied, “You had a lot of guts sending me down, you (obscenity).”

Robinson rushed toward Reynolds and punched him with a left-right combination. The left struck Reynolds in the teeth and jaw. The right “sent Reynolds to the ground in a sitting position,” The Cleveland Press reported.

Reynolds told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle that he blanked out “momentarily, maybe for just a second.”

Robinson was ejected and booed by the Toledo fans. Reynolds, spitting blood, insisted on staying in the game. His tongue was cut and his jaw was swollen, according to The Cleveland Press.

“The whole thing could have been avoided,” Toledo manager Joe Sparks said to the Des Moines Register. “The manager of a big-league club should go out of his way to not let something like that happen.”

Robinson told United Press International, “If the circumstances were the same, I would do it again.”

Cleveland won the exhibition game, 13-1. Right fielder Charlie Spikes, who would total three home runs for the Indians in 1976, hit three homers against Toledo. In the seventh inning, Ray Fosse also hit a home run for Cleveland but injured a knee during his trot around the bases. Pitching coach Harvey Haddix, 50, had to come in and complete circling the bases for Fosse.

Robinson went on to manage 17 seasons in the majors with the Indians, Giants, Orioles, Expos and Nationals. Reynolds never got back to the big leagues.

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Bud Harrelson was little big man versus Bob Gibson

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents on January 23, 2024| 10 Comments »

Whitey Herzog helped Bud Harrelson hit well enough to stay in the big leagues. What he likely couldn’t have imagined is that the scrawny shortstop of the Mets would become a terror at the plate against Bob Gibson.

In 16 big-league seasons, Harrelson hit .236 and had a modest on-base percentage of .327. Against Gibson, he turned into the reincarnation of Ty Cobb. Harrelson batted .333 versus the Cardinals ace and, with 20 hits and 14 walks, had a .459 on-base percentage.

If not for Herzog, a Mets coach who later became Cardinals manager, Harrelson might not have stuck around long enough to do so much damage against Gibson. “Whitey Herzog really taught me what the game is all about here,” Harrelson said to the New York Daily News.

A Gold Glove fielder, Harrelson helped the Mets win two National League pennants and a World Series title.

Making a switch

Signed by the Mets in June 1963, a day after he turned 19, Harrelson got brought up to the majors two years later. His first plate appearance for the 1965 Mets came at St. Louis when he grounded out against the Cardinals’ Ray Washburn. Boxscore

At 155 pounds, Harrelson “looked like a high school shortstop,” the New York Times noted. He fielded like a pro but didn’t hit like one. In 37 at-bats for the 1965 Mets, Harrelson hit .108. Columnist Arthur Daley described him as a “frail little guy” and “a batter of feeble skills.”

Desperate to make himself useful as a hitter, Harrelson, a natural right-hander, took some swings from the left side against a pitching machine at spring training in 1966. Mets director of player personnel Bob Scheffing (a former Cardinals catcher) and minor-league manager Solly Hemus (a former Cardinals player and manager) “noticed his smooth left-handed stroke, and suggested that he continue,” the New York Times reported.

Assigned to Class AAA Jacksonville, managed by Hemus, Harrelson made himself into a switch-hitter, but the results were not immediate. He batted .221 overall, and .210 from the left side, for Jacksonville.

Called up to the Mets in August 1966, Harrelson worked before every game with Herzog, a coach on manager Wes Westrum’s staff, to get better at hitting from both sides. Herzog urged him to “hit that ball like it’s your enemy” and “smash it,” the New York Times reported.

Harrelson told the newspaper, “That half-hour I put into the batting cage is like two hours work for me … but I know I’m knocking on the door. I know I’ve got to make it as a switch-hitter. That’s the way it is.”

Whitey ball

Herzog boosted Harrelson’s confidence and encouraged his scrappy play.

On Sept. 16, 1966, at San Francisco, the score was tied at 3-3 with two outs in the ninth when Harrelson batted from the right side against Giants left-hander Billy Hoeft. A runner, Johnny Lewis (a former Cardinal), was on second.

Harrelson drove the ball over the head of rookie left fielder Frank Johnson, who played shallow, for his second triple of the game, scoring Lewis and giving the Mets a 4-3 lead. “I get to third base, I’m dusting myself off, just happy to be there, and Whitey (Herzog, coaching at third) says, ‘So steal home,’ ” Harrelson told the New York Daily News.

While Harrelson pondered that, the Giants lifted Hoeft and replaced him with Lindy McDaniel, the former Cardinal. On McDaniel’s first pitch to Eddie Bressoud, Harrelson took a normal lead and noticed McDaniel didn’t pay much attention to him. “Herzog told me if McDaniel wasn’t looking at me and I thought I could make it, I should go ahead and try it,” Harrelson said to the San Francisco Examiner.

On McDaniel’s second pitch, Harrelson broke for home as Herzog suggested. McDaniel’s pitch was high and went past catcher Tom Haller to the backstop. Harrelson scored easily with a steal of home, extending the Mets’ lead to 5-3.

The Giants scored a run in the bottom of the ninth, but the Mets prevailed, 5-4, on Harrelson’s dash to the dish. As Newsday noted, “A skinny kid … ran right over the Giants. He just about took their pennant hopes and buried them under home plate with his flashing spikes.” Boxscore

Different strokes

Harrelson became the Mets’ starting shortstop in 1967. “He had to make himself into a ballplayer, and he did it,” Herzog recalled years later to Bernie Miklasz of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Described by Dick Young of the New York Daily News as “a hard-working slap hitter who can fly,” Harrelson took a tip from coach Yogi Berra to use different bats and different grips from each side of the plate.

“Yogi got me to start using a big bat when I hit left-handed,” Harrelson told Dave Anderson of the New York Times. “I use a 36-inch, 35-ounce bat and choke up about four or five inches from the handle. Right-handed, I’m using a light bat that (utility man) Bob Johnson gave to me. It is only 34 inches, 30 ounces. I choke up only about an inch with that one.”

Because batting right-handed was natural to him, resulting in a quicker swing, a lighter bat was sufficient, Harrelson said. From the left side, he became “a sweep contact hitter” who needed the help of a heftier bat, he told Dave Anderson.

“They use a Little League defense against me as a lefty,” Harrelson said to the New York Times. “The outfield plays shallow with the infield in.”

It was as a left-handed batter, his weak side, that Harrelson faced Bob Gibson. All that practicing and experimenting he did paid off.

Bring it on, Bob

The Cardinals won consecutive National League pennants in 1967 and 1968, and were expected to contend again in 1969, but the Mets, who never had experienced a winning season, dethroned them.

On Sept. 23, 1969, the Mets clinched at least a tie for a division title with a 3-2 win versus Gibson and the Cardinals in 11 innings. Batting left-handed, Harrelson had two hits and two walks, and drove in the winning run.

With the score tied at 2-2 in the bottom of the 11th, the Mets had runners on first and second, one out, when Harrelson lined a 1-and-2 pitch from Gibson into center for a single.

“I thought it was gong to be close at the plate,” Mets manager Gil Hodges told Newsday, but Curt Flood’s throw was up the first-base line, enabling Ron Swoboda to score from second. Boxscore

For the 1969 season, Harrelson hit .248 and had an on-base percentage of .341, but against the Cardinals he had a .317 batting mark and reached base in 45.1 percent of his plate appearances. In 17 plate appearances versus Bob Gibson in 1969, Harrelson’s on-base percentage was .625.

In his autobiography, “Stranger to the Game,” Gibson said, “Most of my energy was spent working on and worrying about the guys with the biggest sticks. Although the ping hitters may have put more nicks in me from game to game, I didn’t fear them whatsoever … If I wanted the batter to hit the ball, as I wanted singles hitters to do in most cases, I didn’t see the merit of throwing pitches that weren’t strikes.”

Two years later, on May 7, 1971, Gibson and the Cardinals had a 1-0 lead on Tom Seaver and the Mets at New York’s Shea Stadium when Harrelson led off the bottom of the seventh with a triple to the alley in right-center.

“Maybe he has only four super fastballs in him a game now,” Harrelson said to Newsday of Gibson, “but he’s a great self-analyst. He knows what he’s got and how to use it. He sets you up now instead of blowing you down.”

After Ken Boswell grounded out to first, Dave Marshall batted. “I put down two fingers for a curve and Bob saw only one,” catcher Ted Simmons told Newsday. “That fastball just sailed over my left shoulder.”

The wild pitch enabled Harrelson to scamper home with the tying run. 

“That wasn’t Ted’s fault,” Gibson said to Newsday. “I blew the sign.”

The Mets scored twice in the eighth against Gibson and won, 3-1. Boxscore

In 1973, when the Mets edged the Cardinals for the division title, Harrelson hit .258 overall and .325 against St. Louis.

For his career, Harrelson had more hits versus Steve Carlton (23) and Bob Gibson (20) than he did against any other pitchers.

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Rough stuff: Sandy Koufax versus Lou Brock

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers on January 18, 2024| 15 Comments »

Sandy Koufax played hard ball when Lou Brock opted for small ball.

In a game at Dodger Stadium, Koufax intentionally drilled Brock in the shoulder with a pitch. The Dodgers ace was miffed at Brock because in his previous at-bat he bunted for a base hit and then swiped two bases, leading to a run.

Getting plunked by a Koufax fastball was as painful as one would imagine and knocked Brock out of the Cardinals’ lineup. It also messed with his mind.

“He almost ended my career,” Brock said to the New York Daily News.

Tough to solve

Like many who faced Koufax in his prime, Brock struggled mightily against him. In 1963, Koufax fanned him seven times in 11 at-bats. The next year, when he split the season with the Cubs and Cardinals, Brock hit .143 versus Koufax.

In Brock’s autobiography, “Stealing Is My Game,” his collaborator, Franz Schulze, wrote, “No one was harder on him than the great Koufax … Sandy could turn Lou into a flopping marionette with his curve and fastball.”

Brock, who had been swinging from the heels against Koufax, decided to try a different tactic. He was determined to bunt and use his speed to reach base.

“Brock’s bunting was the only thing that threatened Koufax,” Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson said in his autobiography, “Stranger to the Game.”

Lighting a fuse

The first time Brock got to test his new approach against Koufax came on May 26, 1965. After Julian Javier led off the game and struck out, Brock stepped in and bunted a pitch toward the mound. A flustered Koufax fielded the ball with his glove and, hurrying, shoveled it wide of first baseman Wes Parker as Brock streaked across the bag with a single.

With Curt Flood at the plate, Brock took off for second and beat catcher Jeff Torborg’s throw. Flood then bounced a grounder into the hole at shortstop. Maury Wills knocked down the ball but couldn’t make a throw. Brock held second as Flood reached first with a single.

Koufax was unhappy. The Cardinals hadn’t gotten a ball out of the infield but he was in a jam. The cleanup batter, Ken Boyer, was up next. Turning up the pressure, Brock and Flood executed a double steal.

With the runners on second and third, one out, Boyer hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Brock. The next batter, Dick Groat, grounded out, ending the threat, but Brock had shown the Cardinals a way to get to Koufax.

“I got under his skin by bunting back at him … Koufax couldn’t handle the bunt,” Brock said to Dick Young of the New York Daily News.

In the book “Sixty Feet, Six Inches,” Bob Gibson said, “We were helpless against Koufax until Brock figured out that he could bunt on him. Once he was on first base, he could run on him, too, because Sandy didn’t have a pickoff move.”

Koufax decided he had to do something to dissuade Brock from trying that again.

Sending a message

After the Dodgers tied the score with a run in the second against Curt Simmons, Javier led off the Cardinals’ third and flied out. Brock then came up for the first time since his electrifying performance in the opening inning.

According to author Jane Leavy in her book, “Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy,” Koufax took aim at Brock and fired. The ball smashed hard into Brock’s shoulder blade. “So darned hard,” Torborg told Leavy, “that the ball went in and spun around in the meat for a while and then dropped.”

From his perch in the dugout, it sounded like “a thud that had a crack in it,” Cardinals outfielder Mike Shannon recalled to Leavy.

In her book, Leavy wrote, “It was the first time, the only time, Koufax threw at a batter purposefully.”

(Years later, according to Leavy, Koufax said, “I don’t regret it. I do regret that I allowed myself to get so mad.”)

Despite the hurt, Brock went to first base. Then he swiped second.

Brock struck out against Koufax in the fifth, and was replaced in left field by Carl Warwick in the bottom half of the inning.

The Cardinals won, 2-1, with Bob Uecker scoring the tie-breaking run against Koufax, but the cost was high. Brock, their catalyst, was in trouble. Boxscore

Mind over matter

X-rays taken after the game were negative, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, and Brock traveled with the team to Houston. The next day, according to the newspaper, “he could not even lift his bruised left shoulder.”

Brock wasn’t in the lineup the next five games and the Cardinals lost all five. He came back on June 1, but “he couldn’t swing or throw as of old,” The Sporting News reported.

Brock went hitless in his first 17 at-bats after returning to the lineup. Collaborator Franz Schulze noted, “He was just suddenly scared to death of all inside pitches. So he kept retreating in the batter’s box.”

Brock told the New York Daily News, “Because of fear, I was jumping away from anything inside, expecting to be hit again. I was afraid.”

The fear of failure, though, became greater than the fear of pain. Brock forced himself not to flinch when a pitch came close. “I made myself do it,” he said to Dick Young. “I even closed my eyes and stepped into a few.”

When the base hits followed, the fear dissipated.

Brock was tested on June 16 when he was struck on the batting helmet by a pitch from the Pirates’ Frank Carpin. Brock stayed in the lineup. Boxscore

Two weeks later, another Pirates left-hander, Bob Veale, hit Brock in the right forearm with a pitch. “I’ve never been hit harder,” Brock said to the Post-Dispatch. “Veale throws even harder than Sandy Koufax.” Boxscore

The following night, back in the lineup against the Mets’ Frank Lary, Brock doubled, walked, scored a run and stole a base. Boxscore

In his autobiography, Bob Gibson noted, “Much of my reputation as a badass pitcher resulted from the fact that Lou Brock was on my side. There was no other player who irritated the other team as Brock did, and consequently no other who was knocked down quite as often. When somebody on the other team threw at Brock, I considered it my duty to throw at somebody on the other team.”

Brock was hit by pitches a career-high 10 times in 1965, but he played in 155 games, totaling 182 base hits, 107 runs scored and 63 stolen bases.

By the numbers

After being hit by the Koufax pitch in May 1965, Brock never successfully bunted for a hit against him again.

For his career, Brock batted .185 versus Koufax, with more than twice as many strikeouts (28) as hits (12).

Koufax hit batters with pitches 18 times. He plunked Frank Robinson twice. In addition to Brock, the ones Koufax nailed once were Frank Thomas, Billy Williams, Dick Stuart, Bob Aspromonte, Eddie Kasko, Jim Wynn, Denis Menke, John Bateman, Tim McCarver, Bobby Del Greco, Bobby Thomson, Elio Chacon, Bob Purkey, Merritt Ranew and Eddie O’Brien.

Koufax was hit by a pitch just once. The Cubs’ Dick Ellsworth did it in the 10th inning of a game at Dodger Stadium on May 4, 1964. With a runner on first and none out, Koufax tried to bunt with two strikes but the curveball hit him on the right foot. The next batter, Maury Wills, got the game-winning hit. Brock played right field for the Cubs that night and was hitless against Koufax. Boxscore

In 19 years in the majors, Brock was plunked 49 times. Two pitchers _ Ryne Duren and Chris Short _ both nailed him twice.

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Cardinals rookie Larry Miggins had special day in Brooklyn

Posted in Broadcasters, Games, Hitters on January 3, 2024| 12 Comments »

When Larry Miggins was a student at Fordham Prep in the Bronx in the early 1940s, he told a classmate he wanted to be a big-league baseball player. The classmate, Vin Scully, told Miggins he wanted to be a big-league baseball broadcaster. The boys ruminated about the possibility of Scully broadcasting a game Miggins played in.

A decade later, in 1952, Miggins was in the big leagues as a rookie reserve left fielder for the Cardinals. Scully was in his third year as a Dodgers broadcaster.

On May 13, 1952, Miggins was in the starting lineup for a game at Brooklyn against the Dodgers. It was the first game he played at Ebbets Field. Scully was the junior member of a three-man broadcasting crew doing the game that day. Red Barber and Connie Desmond were the more experienced broadcasters.

When Miggins struck out in his first plate appearance of the game in the second inning, Scully was not on the air.

Two innings later, though, he was doing the broadcast when Miggins stepped to the plate against Preacher Roe. Scully had the call when Miggins belted a pitch into the seats in left for his first home run in the majors. Boxscore

Decades later, in recalling the moment for an audience at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Scully said, “It was probably the toughest home run call I’ve ever had because (the dream) came true,” the Ventura County Star reported. “Don’t be afraid to dream.”

Traveling man

A son of Irish immigrants, Larry Miggins was the valedictorian of the class of 1943 at Fordham Prep. He enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh, but in December 1943, when his boyhood favorites, the New York Giants, offered him a contract, he left college and signed with them.

Miggins, 18, played eight games for the Giants’ Jersey City farm club in April 1944, then joined the United States Merchant Marine. He was discharged in time to play the 1946 minor-league season and was in the lineup for Jersey City when Jackie Robinson played his first game in the Dodgers’ system for Montreal. You Tube Audio interview

A 6-foot-4 right-handed batter with power, Miggins slugged 22 home runs in the minors in 1947, but the Giants left him off their big-league winter roster. Rated by Cardinals scouts “as one of the best prospects in the minors, possessing speed and a good arm,” according to The Sporting News, Miggins was selected by St. Louis in the November 1947 draft of unprotected players.

The transaction stunned Miggins, who “always thought he was going to play with the Giants,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Three days before the Cardinals’ 1948 season opener, Miggins was placed on waivers and claimed by the Cubs. According to the Associated Press, he drove to Chicago in a 1931 jalopy, parked at Wrigley Field, and joined the Cubs on their trip to Pittsburgh, where they opened the season against the Pirates.

Miggins, who didn’t play in any of the three games at Pittsburgh, returned to Chicago with the Cubs on April 23 and was summoned to the Wrigley Field office. He was told the Cubs had placed him on waivers and he was reclaimed by the Cardinals. On his way out, the Associated Press noted, he was asked to move his crate from club owner Phil Wrigley’s private parking space.

The Cardinals assigned Miggins to their Class A farm team at Omaha and he hit 26 home runs in 97 games. “Uses his wrists well,” Omaha manager Ollie Vanek told the Omaha World-Herald. “Watches the pitches with keen discrimination and rarely offers at a bad one. He has a follow-through, and a stance. Miggins can hit that low curve, which is one of the hardest things to do in baseball.”

The Irish lad from the Bronx also had “a lilting voice and likes to entertain his teammates with songs,” The Sporting News reported.

Called up to the Cardinals in September 1948, Miggins got into one game, making his big-league debut as a pinch-hitter against the Cubs and scoring after reaching base on an error. Boxscore

Family man

Miggins spent the next three seasons (1949-51) in the minors. With Houston, he hit 21 home runs in 1949 and 27 in 1951.

“Miggins is big and strong and fast, and while his quiet manner and impeccable behavior may give some the impression that he lacks aggressiveness, he has a burning desire to play big-league baseball,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

During the winters, Miggins took college courses and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

In 1952, Eddie Stanky’s first year as manager, Miggins, 26, made the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster as a backup left fielder and pinch-hitter. He didn’t play much. The highlights were the home run in Brooklyn with Vin Scully at the microphone and a home run against a future Hall of Famer, Warren Spahn of the Braves. Boxscore

“Larry Miggins could do it,” Cardinals owner Fred Saigh said to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. “He has all the equipment. He’s a wonderful boy, one of the best in our organization, and that’s the trouble. If he could get just a little more determination, he could make it.”

Miggins hit .229 in 96 at-bats for the 1952 Cardinals. He spent the next two seasons in the minors, then left baseball when a Houston judge, Allen B. Hannay, approached him about a government job in probation and parole.

With the judge’s encouragement, Miggins earned a master’s degree in criminology from Sam Houston State and had a long career as a probation and parole officer.

Miggins and his wife, Kathleen, had 12 children, four girls and eight boys. With a touch o’ the blarney, Miggins explained to blogger Bill McCurdy, “Kathleen was hard of hearing. Every night we went to bed as I was turning out the light, I would softly whisper to Kathleen, ‘Are you ready to go to sleep or what?’ She gave me the same answer every time: ‘What?’ “

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