Johnny Lewis, a prospect considered to have more potential than Lou Brock, overcame personal tragedy, rebounded from setbacks in his playing career and became a pioneering coach for the Cardinals.
Lewis was an outfielder with a strong throwing arm, speed and a powerful hitting stroke. He got to the major leagues with the Cardinals in 1964 and was given prominent playing time in right field the first two months of the season, but by June he was back in the minor leagues.
Traded to the Mets two months after the Cardinals won the 1964 World Series title, Lewis played three more seasons in the major leagues before returning to the Cardinals and building a second career with them as an administrator, coach, manager and instructor.
Heavy heart
Lewis was born in Greenville, Ala., and moved to Pensacola, Fla., as a toddler. At 19, he entered the Cardinals’ organization in 1959.
Advancing through the St. Louis system, Lewis played his best for manager Whitey Kurowski, a former Cardinals third baseman. Lewis played for Kurowski at Winnipeg in 1960 and at Tulsa in 1961 and 1962. In 1960, Lewis hit .299 with 23 home runs and 104 RBI for Winnipeg and he followed that with a .293 batting mark, 22 home runs and 85 RBI for Tulsa in 1961.
While in the minor leagues, Lewis got married and he and his wife, Ola Mae, began raising a family. In the winters, Lewis played baseball in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.
Lewis, 22, was in Venezuela when his wife was killed in an automobile crash in the United States.
“My wife went to a church convention and on the way back the car she was in got into an accident and all five people in it were killed,” Lewis said to Milton Gross of the North American Newspaper Alliance. “I came back from Venezuela and there I was with two little babies, one wasn’t a year old, and I said to myself, ‘What do I do now?’
“I wasn’t going to quit baseball, get a job, stay home and take care of the babies, but my mother said she’d take care of them. She’s a good woman, my mother, and I got to keep remembering my babies are with somebody who loves them.”
Spring sensation
In 1964, Lewis, 24, reported to spring training with the Cardinals and competed with several other prospects, including Mike Shannon, for an outfield spot. Lewis played splendidly in the exhibition games, hitting .333, and was named the Cardinals’ top prospect in a poll of writers and broadcasters.
Stan Musial, who became a club executive after retiring as a player, called Lewis the Cardinals’ “best outfield prospect since Bill Virdon,” who won the National League Rookie of the Year Award in 1955.
The Sporting News described Lewis’ success as “the Cinderella epic of the spring.”
“I haven’t seen anybody like him in the last 10 years,” Cardinals manager Johnny Keane said.
Lewis “rates high in all five categories. He can run, throw, field, hit and also hit for power,” Keane said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
According to Keane, the five-tool players in the National League in 1964 were Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Frank Robinson, Vada Pinson and Roberto Clemente.
Learning curve
Lewis was shy and quiet and his teammates nicknamed him “Gabby” because he said so little, the Post-Dispatch reported.
Cardinals first baseman Bill White, who became Lewis’ mentor, said, “What we got to do is make Lewis think more aggressively, but it will take time. He knows nothing but Florida, where he’s lived, and Alabama, where he was born. Where could he have learned anything else?”
As the season neared, Keane decided to platoon Lewis and Carl Warwick in right field. Lewis, a left-handed batter, would play against right-handed pitchers and Warwick, who batted right-handed, would play against left-handers.
Though Lewis had the talent, some offered caution.
“Lewis has all the potential, but the boy has an inferiority complex,” Cardinals consultant Branch Rickey told The Sporting News. “I wish he’d believe in himself as much as all of us believe in him.”
Said third baseman Ken Boyer: “The kid should be a good player. I just hope they don’t expect him to break down the fences the first few years.”
Short stay
On April 15, 1964, Lewis got his first big-league hit, a RBI-single against Don Drysdale of the Dodgers. Boxscore Three days later, on April 18, Lewis slugged his first big-league home run, a solo shot against Bobby Bolin of the Giants. Boxscore
Lewis hit .207 in April and .278 in May. On June 10, he injured an ankle and had to leave the game. Three days later, on June 13, the Cardinals acquired outfielder Bob Skinner from the Pirates and sent Lewis to their Jacksonville farm team. Lewis hit .234 in 40 games for St. Louis, making 28 starts in right field.
On June 15, the Cardinals made another trade, getting outfielder Lou Brock from the Cubs.
“We hope Brock will fill the category of one of our regular outfielders until someone in the future, perhaps Johnny Lewis, comes along,” Cardinals general manager Bing Devine said to The Sporting News.
In an interview with the Post-Dispatch, Devine said, “I feel Lewis probably has more potential than Brock. He fields better and he throws better.”
Brock, however, took hold of the left field job and Shannon, recalled from the minors, became the right fielder. Meanwhile, Lewis floundered at Jacksonville until an X-ray on Aug. 6 revealed he had a hairline fracture of his ankle. Lewis “had been bothered by the ankle for some time,” The Sporting News reported.
In September, after Lewis returned to the lineup and helped Jacksonville win the International League title, he was called up to the Cardinals but didn’t get into a game. The Cardinals clinched the National League pennant on the last day of the season and won four of seven games against the Yankees in the World Series.
Meet the Mets
The Cardinals tried converting Lewis into a switch-hitter at the Florida Instructional League in October 1964, but the experiment failed. On Dec. 7, 1964, the Cardinals traded Lewis and pitcher Gordon Richardson to the Mets for pitcher Tracy Stallard and infielder Elio Chacon. Devine, fired by the Cardinals in August 1964, had joined the Mets as assistant to president George Weiss and advocated for Lewis.
“Playing with the Cardinals, it was a case of making good instantly or you were gone,” Lewis said. “I don’t blame them for that. They were pennant contenders and they couldn’t afford to wait, but for me it meant I always was more conscious of making mistakes. I couldn’t take chances. I was constantly tight.”
Lewis hit .245 with 15 home runs in 148 games for the 1965 Mets. On June 14, 1965, he broke up a no-hit bid by the Reds’ Jim Maloney with a home run in the 11th inning at Cincinnati. Boxscore
After the 1965 season, Lewis remarried. However, while his personal life improved, his playing career declined. He played parts of two more seasons with the Mets, batting .193 in 1966 and .118 in 1967, and finished with a year in the minors in 1968.
Second career
By 1970, Devine was back with the Cardinals as general manager and he gave Lewis a chance to return to St. Louis. Lewis was hired to be Cardinals assistant promotions and sales director and he spent two years (1970-71) in the role.
In 1972, Lewis became administrative coordinator of player development and scouting for the Cardinals.
After a year in that job, Lewis became the first African-American to serve on the Cardinals’ coaching staff. Lewis was the Cardinals’ first-base coach on manager Red Schoendienst’s staff for four seasons (1973-76).
For the next five years (1977-81), Lewis was a Cardinals’ minor-league manager at Calgary (1977-78), Gastonia (1979) and Johnson City (1980-81). Among the future major-leaguers managed by Lewis were pitchers Danny Cox and outfielders Curt Ford and Stan Javier.
From 1982-84, Lewis was a Cardinals’ minor-league hitting instructor.
In 1985, Lewis became the hitting coach for the Cardinals and was a special mentor to rookie speedster Vince Coleman. Lewis was the hitting coach on manager Whitey Herzog’s staff for five seasons (1985-89) and the Cardinals won two National League pennants in that time. Another Lewis pupil, Willie McGee, won the NL Most Valuable Player Award and the league batting title in 1985.
From 1990-98, Lewis was a Cardinals minor-league hitting instructor. He finished his career as the minor-league hitting coordinator for the Astros from 1999-2001.
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