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Flattened in Flatbush: Cardinals went winless in Brooklyn

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers on August 7, 2023| 11 Comments »

(Updated Jan. 9, 2025)

A couple of Hoosiers made life miserable in Brooklyn for the Cardinals.

In 1953, the Cardinals were 0-11 for the season against the Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn’s Flatbush section.

The players most responsible for the Cardinals’ troubles there were pitcher Carl Erskine of Anderson, Ind., and first baseman Gil Hodges of Princeton, Ind.

Dominant Dodgers

The 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers, subjects of the Roger Kahn book, “The Boys of Summer,” were a powerhouse, featuring a lineup with five future Hall of Famers _ Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider.

They rolled to the National League pennant with a 105-49 mark, finishing 13 games ahead of the runner-up Braves (92-62) and 22 ahead of St. Louis (83-71).

The Cardinals won seven of 11 against the 1953 Dodgers at St. Louis, but it was a much different story at Brooklyn. Not only did they lose all 11 games at Ebbets Field, they often got crushed. The Dodgers outscored them, 109 to 36, in those 11 games at Brooklyn.

The Cardinals were beaten by scores of 10-1 on June 7, 9-2 on July 16, 14-0 on July 17, 14-6 on July 18, 20-4 on Aug. 30 and 12-5 on Sept. 1.

There were two one-run games, the Dodgers winning both by scores of 5-4. The cruelest for the Cardinals was on June 6, when Hodges wiped out a 4-2 St. Louis lead with a three-run walkoff home run versus Stu Miller in the ninth. Boxscore

Home sweet home

Many players contributed to the Dodgers’ perfect home record against the Cardinals in 1953, but Erskine and Hodges did the most damage.

A right-hander who mixed an overhand curve and changeup with his fastball, Erskine, 26, was nearly unbeatable at Ebbets Field that year. He ended the regular season with a home record of 12-1, including 4-0 versus the Cardinals. All four of his home wins against St. Louis were complete games.

Erskine also won Game 3 of the 1953 World Series at Ebbets Field, setting a record by striking out 14 Yankees batters, including Mickey Mantle four times. “Erskine made the Yankees look like blind men swatting at wasps,” J. Roy Stockton reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Boxscore

(Since then, the only pitchers with more strikeouts in a World Series game are Bob Gibson, who fanned 17 Tigers in Game 1 in 1968, and Sandy Koufax, who struck out 15 Yankees in Game 1 in 1963.)

“Look, up in the sky….”

When Erskine beat the Cardinals with a five-hitter on May 6, 1953, at Brooklyn, it was his seventh consecutive win against them, dating back to September 1950. Erskine went undefeated versus the Cardinals in 1951 (4-0) and 1952 (2-0). Boxscore

The streak was snapped a week later, May 14, 1953, at St. Louis when Erskine was knocked out in the first inning without retiring a batter. “He had no control, no stuff and no outs,” Dick Young reported in the New York Daily News. “He warmed up for 15 minutes and pitched for five.” Boxscore

Back in Brooklyn, Erskine ducked into a phone booth, donned his Superman cape and beat the Cardinals for the second time in 1953, a four-hitter in a 10-1 rout on June 7. “It was the sort of affair that grew progressively more one-sided and monotonous, finally reaching the stage where many of the fans amused themselves by launching paper planes onto the field,” Dick Young reported. “Some of these came close to hitting Erskine. So did the Cardinals, but not many succeeded.” Boxscore

A month later, Erskine beat the Cardinals at Brooklyn for a third time, even though he gave up nine hits and two walks, threw a wild pitch and committed two errors. Boxscore

Erskine’s fourth home win against the 1953 Cardinals, on Aug. 30, also was his 13th consecutive win at Ebbets Field. Erskine contributed three RBI and scored a run. Boxscore

“Some pitchers were spooked by the thought of working in Ebbets Field with its cozy fences, but not Erskine,” the New York Times noted.

(In his next start, the Braves gave Erskine his lone home loss of 1953. With the score tied at 1-1 in the eighth, Eddie Mathews hit a three-run home run and Jim Pendleton had a two-run shot. Boxscore)

Erskine finished 1953 with a regular-season record of 20-6, including 6-2 versus the Cardinals.

For his career with the Dodgers, Erskine was 122-78, including 66-28 at Brooklyn. He was 23-8 against the Cardinals _ 13-2 at Ebbets Field.

(Erskine’s second win in the majors came against the Cardinals in a 1948 relief appearance. In the book “We Would Have Played For Nothing,” Erskine recalled, “I beat Howie Pollet and he waited for me after the game in the runway to congratulate me. He said, ‘I like the way you throw.’ He was a class act. I think he identified with me because he had a unique pitch _ a straight change _ and I could throw that pitch.” Boxscore)

Among the Cardinals regularly baffled by Erskine were Enos Slaughter (.162 batting average against) and Red Schoendienst (.211). The exception, naturally, was Stan Musial. He batted .336 with eight home runs versus Erskine. According to Time Magazine, Erskine said, “I’ve had pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third.”

In July 2023, Erskine, 96, recalled to Tyler Kepner of the New York Times that Musial “almost never missed a swing. He always hit the ball somewhere.”

In his book, “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial said, “Erskine had control, a remarkable changeup and a great overhand curve.”

(Erskine had an association with the Cardinals in 1971 when he joined play-by-play men Jack Buck and Jim Woods as a guest analyst on select telecasts of games on KSD-TV Channel 5 in St. Louis.)

Lots of lumber

Three pitchers _ Stu Miller (0-3), Joe Presko (0-3) and Gerry Staley (0-2) _ accounted for eight of the 11 Cardinals losses at Ebbets Field in 1953.

Dodgers hitters were led by Gil Hodges, who had eight home runs and 23 RBI against Cardinals pitching in the 11 games at Brooklyn. Hodges had 16 hits and seven walks in those games.

(In 31 at-bats at St. Louis in 1953, Hodges had no home runs, no RBI and batted .129.)

Others who hammered the 1953 Cardinals at Ebbets Field were Roy Campanella (18 hits, 18 RBI), Jackie Robinson (18 hits, 11 RBI) and Duke Snider (four home runs and 11 RBI).

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How Danny Cox versus Steve Carlton became a classic

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Prospects on August 2, 2023| 10 Comments »

Danny Cox began the 1983 baseball season in the low level of the minors and ended it as a member of the starting rotation of the reigning World Series champion Cardinals.

Matched against Steve Carlton and facing a lineup with Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Mike Schmidt, Cox pitched 10 scoreless innings versus the Phillies in his big-league debut on Aug. 6, 1983.

The stellar performance didn’t get Cox a win, though. That came a couple of weeks later when he opposed another future Hall of Fame pitcher, Nolan Ryan.

Fun in Florida

A right-hander attending Troy University, Cox, 21, was chosen by the Cardinals in the 13th round of the 1981 amateur draft, a couple of picks after the Mets took a high school outfielder, Lenny Dykstra, in the same round.

Cox pitched for a rookie team and a Class A club his first two seasons in the Cardinals’ farm system. Then in 1983, he was assigned to rookie manager Jim Riggleman’s Class A team, the St. Petersburg Cardinals. Even at that level, Cox was matched against an exceptional pitching opponent.

After losing his first two decisions in 1983, Cox, 23, started on May 12 at home against the Fort Myers Royals. Their starter, Bret Saberhagen, 19, was in his first season of professional ball. (Two years later, Saberhagen received the first of his two American League Cy Young awards with the Kansas City Royals.)

Pitching before 882 spectators at Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg, Cox threw a four-hitter in a 2-1 victory. Saberhagen went six innings and allowed both runs.

Facing a Fort Myers lineup that included future big-leaguers Mike Kingery and Bill Pecota, Cox retired the last 11 batters in a row. “He dominated,” St. Petersburg catcher Barry Sayler told the St. Petersburg Times. “He was working the inside of the plate, mixed his fastball and slider, and threw hard.”

Cox credited the advice he received from St. Petersburg teammate and closer Mark Riggins (who went on to become pitching coach of the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds). “I started off throwing my fastball inside, and then Mark Riggins told me to take a little off my slider and mess up their timing,” Cox said to the St. Petersburg Times. “I was wanting to win real bad.”

Five days later, in a rematch at Fort Myers, Cox, with relief help from Riggins, again beat Saberhagen in a 7-2 St. Petersburg triumph.

On the rise

After five starts for St. Petersburg (2-2, 2.53 ERA), Cox was promoted to Class AA Arkansas. Playing for manager Nick Leyva, Cox was 8-3 with a 2.29 ERA in 11 starts. In July, he got promoted again, to manager Jim Fregosi’s Class AAA Louisville club. Cox made two starts for Louisville and pitched well (2.45 ERA).

Then came a special audition. The St. Louis Cardinals chose him to start against the Baltimore Orioles in the Baseball Hall of Fame exhibition game at Cooperstown, N.Y., on Aug. 1.

The Orioles, on their way to an American League pennant and World Series championship in 1983, were limited to three hits and no runs in the six innings Cox worked against them. “He was very impressive,” Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Herzog wanted to see more. The Cardinals put Cox on their roster. His next start came in a big-league game against the Phillies.

Tough task

Cox’s debut assignment was daunting. The opposing starter, Steve Carlton, had dominated the Cardinals since being traded by them to the Phillies in 1972.

The matchup was intriguing for other reasons as well:

_ Chase Riddle, head coach of Troy’s baseball team when Cox pitched there, was the Cardinals scout who signed Carlton two decades earlier.

_ Like Cox, Carlton also impressed the Cardinals by pitching well in a Hall of Fame exhibition game. On July 25, 1966, Carlton, 21, was at Class AAA Tulsa when the Cardinals chose him to start against the Minnesota Twins in the Cooperstown exhibition. Carlton pitched a complete game, striking out nine, and was the winning pitcher. He never went back to the minors.

Carlton and Cox engaged in a mighty duel. The ace was in top form, pitching nine scoreless innings. The newcomer matched him, then surpassed him, pitching a scoreless 10th after Carlton was relieved by Al Holland.

Cox “didn’t look like a rookie to me,” Joe Morgan told the Associated Press. “I was really impressed by the way he located his pitches and hit the corners.”

Phillies manager Paul Owens said to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “He moved the ball around and threw strikes. That kid was excellent.”

Bruce Sutter, who hadn’t pitched in a week because of the funeral of his father, took over for Cox in the 11th and gave up a run. The 1-0 victory moved the Phillies ahead of the Pirates and into first place in the National League East.

“That was a World Series type of game,” Owens told the Inquirer. “Nobody even left the park.”

Morgan said, “These are the games that win pennants.”

Indeed, the Phillies went on to become National League champions in 1983. Boxscore

Sweet win

In his next start, Cox gave up a grand slam to ex-Cardinal Leon Durham and was beaten by the Cubs. Boxscore

His first win came in his fourth start on Aug, 21. Matched against Nolan Ryan and the Astros, Cox prevailed in a 5-2 Cardinals victory. Cox pitched 7.2 innings and allowed two runs. Ryan surrendered five runs in six innings. Cox also got his first big-league hit in that game, a single against Ryan in a two-run sixth. Boxscore

Cox made 12 starts for the 1983 Cardinals and was 3-6 with a 3.25 ERA. He pitched a total of 218 innings _ 129.1 in the minors, 83 with the Cardinals and another six in the Hall of Fame exhibition game.

Money ball

Two years later, Cox had his best year in the majors. He was 18-9 for the Cardinals during the 1985 regular season, flirted with a perfect game bid against the Reds, and won Game 3 of the National League Championship Series versus the Dodgers.

The 1985 World Series matched Cox and the Cardinals against Bret Saberhagen and the Royals. In starts against Joaquin Andujar and John Tudor, Saberhagen beat the Cardinals twice, including Game 7, and was named most valuable player of the World Series. Cox was just as good but not as fortunate. He started Games 2 and 6, allowed just two runs in 14 total innings, but didn’t get a decision in either game.

Cox helped the Cardinals win another pennant in 1987. He shut out the Giants in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. Video

In the World Series versus the Twins, Cox won Game 5, beating Bert Blyleven, but was the losing pitcher in relief of Joe Magrane in Game 7.

In six seasons with St. Louis, Cox was 56-56. As a reliever with the 1993 Blue Jays, he got to be part of a World Series championship club.

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Why Duke Carmel was a prince of a prospect for Cardinals

Posted in Hitters, Opponents, Prospects, Trades on July 21, 2023| 16 Comments »

There was a time in the late 1950s when the Cardinals thought a left-handed slugger from the streets of New York City might be the successor to Stan Musial.

Duke Carmel certainly fit the part. He was named after Duke Snider, had the mannerisms of Ted Williams and could hit with the power of Mickey Mantle.

Rangy (6-foot-3) and strong (200 muscular pounds), “Duke Carmel on a baseball field looks like the player you’d put together if somebody asked you to draw a picture of a prospect destined for major-league stardom,” The Buffalo News reported. “The throwing arm, the running speed, the hitting power, the ideal size, the versatility.”

Problem was, he also had a hitch in his swing.

From city to country

Born and raised in East Harlem (“A pretty rugged neighborhood,” he told The Sporting News. “I’ve had to fight my way through all my life.”), Leon James Carmel was nicknamed Duke for his favorite player.

“All the kids there at the time rooted for either the Yankees or Giants,” Carmel told The Sporting News. “When I took up for the Dodgers, and particularly for Duke Snider, they started calling me Duke, too, and it stuck.”

As for his given name of Leon, Carmel said, “If anyone called me that, I might not turn around. I wouldn’t know who they meant.”

A first baseman and pitcher at Benjamin Franklin High School, Carmel, 18, was signed by Cardinals scout Benny Borgmann in 1955.

His breakout season came in 1957 for the Class C farm club at Billings, Mont., 2,000 miles (and worlds apart) from East Harlem. Carmel, 20, hit .324 with 29 home runs and 121 RBI. Moved from first base to the outfield, he had 18 assists. “The best prospect I have ever managed,” Billings manager Eddie Lyons told The Sporting News.

Though Carmel tried to downplay the achievements _ “The pitchers there are mostly throwers and sooner or later they run out of gas,” he told The Sporting News _ the Cardinals were intrigued and brought him to spring training in 1958.

Carmel has “a batting form and a willowy swing that remind observers of Ted Williams,” The Sporting News reported in February 1958.

A manager in the Cardinals’ farm system, former pitcher Cot Deal, said, “Carmel reminds you of Ted Williams.”

J. Roy Stockton of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted, “Carmel seems to have most of the requisites _ sharp eyes, lithe muscles, a cocky, happy disposition, and a sparkling desire to bash a baseball to distant places.”

Blind spot

Facing better pitching at Cardinals camp than he did at Billings, Carmel struggled to hit pitches with movement, especially those that jammed him. That’s when the flaw in his swing became evident.

Cardinals hitting coach Stan Hack, who batted .301 in 16 seasons in the majors, told the Post-Dispatch, “He has a hitch. He lowers his hands, holding the bat, and when the pitch is high, he’s helpless. He can correct it if he listens, understands and keeps trying, but it takes a lot of work. You can’t correct a thing like that in an hour, or a day, or a month.”

Carmel said to The Buffalo News, “You have to stay loose and relaxed to play this game, and every time I go up to the plate determined to hit that long ball, I hitch too much. Then I get upset, and before you know it, I’m in a slump. I have to conquer myself, not the pitcher.”

Looking to find a groove, Carmel spent most of 1958 and 1959 at the Class AA and AAA levels of the minors. He played for Johnny Keane at Omaha, Cot Deal at Rochester, Harry Walker at Houston and Vern Benson at Tulsa. There were flashes of brilliance, but nothing like the kind of season he’d had at Billings.

Carmel, 22, got called up to the Cardinals in September 1959. He and teammate Tim McCarver, 17, made their big-league debuts in the same game. After striking out against Braves reliever Don McMahon, Carmel told The Sporting News, “I still haven’t seen any of the three pitches he threw by me.” Boxscore

Cardinals general manager Bing Devine said Carmel was in the club’s plans for 1960. “He’s showing signs of arriving,” Devine told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “His possibilities for the future look very good.”

Traveling man

Carmel went to spring training with the Cardinals for the third straight year in 1960, and, like the other times, didn’t make the Opening Day roster.

The Cardinals traded him each of the next three seasons and reacquired him every time. They traded him to the Dodgers in 1960, reacquired him that year, traded him back to the Dodgers in 1961 and reacquired him again. In 1962, Carmel was sent to the Indians, then the Cardinals got him back a third time. In his stints with the Dodgers and Indians, Carmel never got out of the minors.

Carmel was not on the Cardinals’ roster when he went to spring training with them in 1963. Little was expected, but he became “the pleasant surprise of the spring,” The Sporting News reported. In his first 29 at-bats in the exhibition games, Carmel made 14 hits, including two home runs, two doubles and a triple.

The performance earned him a spot as a reserve outfielder and first baseman on the 1963 Opening Day roster of Cardinals manager Johnny Keane.

In his first at-bat of the season, Carmel hit his first big-league home run, tying the score in the bottom of the ninth against Pirates closer Roy Face. Boxscore

The highlights, though, were too few. Carmel was batting .227, with more strikeouts (11) than hits (10), when the Cardinals traded him for the fourth time. He was shipped to the Mets on July 29, 1963. This time, there would be no return.

Carmel had mixed emotions about departing. “I had been with that organization for eight years and it had become like a home to me,” he said to The Sporting News. However, he told the New York Daily News, “I didn’t want to sit around there, playing maybe 60 games a year. I want to make money in this game, and if I do the job, I’ll make it here (with the Mets).”

Meet the Mets

In joining the Mets, Carmel, 26, became a teammate of his boyhood idol, Duke Snider. In his Mets debut, Carmel started at first base and Snider was the right fielder. Boxscore

A week later, Aug. 8, 1963, Carmel hit a game-winning home run against Cardinals left-hander Bobby Shantz at the Polo Grounds in New York. Shantz threw him a slow curve and Carmel propelled it “onto the overhanging scaffold which fronts the upper tier in right,” the New York Daily News reported. Boxscore

(That was the first major-league game I attended. I was 7, and to my eyes, Duke Carmel was quite a mighty player.)

Carmel hit .235 with three home runs for the 1963 Mets. After the season they acquired two outfielders who, like Carmel, batted from the left side (George Altman from the Cardinals and Larry Elliot from the Pirates). Another left-handed batter, Ed Kranepool, 19, was projected to take over at first base.

Carmel did himself no favors at spring training in 1964, hitting .217 and getting into a personality clash with manager Casey Stengel, according to the New York Daily News.

Expecting to make the 1964 Mets’ Opening Day roster, Carmel instead was sent to the Buffalo farm club. “I don’t think they have anybody on the Mets better than I am,” Carmel told The Buffalo News.

Playing for Buffalo manager Whitey Kurowski, a former Cardinals third baseman, Carmel, 27, had a big season _ 35 home runs, 99 RBI and 100 walks. In August, the Yankees tried to acquire him for the 1964 pennant stretch but the Mets wouldn’t deal, general manager Ralph Houk told United Press International.

(If the Yankees, who won the 1964 American League pennant, had gotten Carmel, he would have faced the Cardinals in the World Series.)

New York, New York

After the Cardinals won the 1964 World Series title, manager Johnny Keane left for the same job with the Yankees. Two of the coaches he hired were Vern Benson and Cot Deal. All three had managed Carmel in the Cardinals’ system. On their recommendations, the Yankees chose Carmel in the November 1964 draft of players left off big-league rosters.

Keane told Carmel he would open the 1965 season as a Yankees utility player. “He had a golden chance to have a glorious new life in his hometown, playing for the team that cashes checks every fall,” George Vecsey wrote in Newsday. “All he had to do was not get hit by the D train.”

Carmel avoided getting hit by a train, but also avoided getting any hits for the Yankees. He was 0-for-26 in spring training exhibition games and then 0-for-8 in the regular season.

Released in May 1965, Carmel returned to the minors. His last season was in 1967 with Buffalo, then a Reds farm club. Among his teammates was a 19-year-old catching prospect, Johnny Bench.

New game

In 1972, five years after Carmel’s professional baseball career ended, Joe Gergen of Newsday found him playing as a ringer for a CBS-TV softball team in New York’s Central Park.

At 230 pounds, Carmel was the team’s catcher and slugger. In the game Gergen saw, Carmel had a single, a triple and a three-run home run, “a towering fly ball which carried over the right fielder’s head.”

“Between innings,” Gergen wrote, “there was time for Duke to eat an ice cream pop, drain a bottle of soda, puff on a cigarette and sit with the kids.”

Carmel said, “I enjoy this. Here, there’s no curfew.”

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In control: How Ken Raffensberger confounded Cardinals

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers on July 6, 2023| 6 Comments »

Ken Raffensberger began his major-league career with the Cardinals, then spent a big part of it pitching against them.

A left-hander who relied on pinpoint control and an assortment of breaking pitches, Raffensberger faced the Cardinals a lot _ 79 times, including 59 starts. He lost (34 times) more than he won (23 times) versus St. Louis, but when he was good he was nearly unhittable.

In 1948, Raffensberger pitched two one-hitters against the Cardinals.

Making the rounds

A Pennsylvania Dutch boy from the town of York, home of the Peppermint Pattie, Raffensberger entered the Cardinals’ farm system in 1937. His manager at Rochester in 1938, Ray Blades, managed the Cardinals in 1939 and put Raffensberger, 21, on the Opening Day roster.

“He has exceptional wrist action,” The Sporting News noted. “He flexes the wrist with each throw and the result is speed that is a bit startling to the hitter. There is no evidence of the speed in his delivery, which makes for deception.”

The St. Louis Star-Times reported, “He delivers the ball with little or nothing on it _ so it seems _ but it gains speed, twist, curve and what have you, as it floats toward the plate.”

In his lone appearance for the 1939 Cardinals, Raffensberger pitched a scoreless inning against the Reds, then was sent back to Rochester. Boxscore

(The 1939 Cardinals were the only team Raffensberger played for in his 15 years in the majors that finished a season with a winning record. As the York Sunday News noted, “A pennant race was as foreign to Raffensberger as a French dictionary.”)

Traded to the Cubs in December 1939, Raffensberger was mentored in 1940 by their player-manager, catcher Gabby Hartnett. “He taught me the value of control,” Raffensberger told The Sporting News. “I learned almost everything I know about pitching from him.”

Raffensberger spent most of the next three seasons (1941-43) in the minors, learning how to get batters to hit into outs, before being traded to the Phillies in September 1943.

The Phillies were bad but provided Raffensberger with opportunity, if not many runs. In 1944, he had a 2.72 ERA versus the Cardinals in 53 innings pitched, but his record against them that season was 1-5. The win was a shutout Boxscore and, in one of the losses, he pitched 16 innings in a duel of endurance with Mort Cooper. Boxscore

Named to the National League all-star team for the only time in his career, Raffensberger pitched two scoreless innings and was the winning pitcher against the American League in the 1944 game. Boxscore

Despite a 3.06 ERA, Raffensberger was 13-20 for the 1944 Phillies (61-92), who finished 43.5 games behind the league champion Cardinals (105-49).

On May 18, 1947, Raffensberger pitched a 12-inning shutout against the Cardinals, but a month later, after he lost four in a row, the Phillies traded him to the Reds. Boxscore

Slow and steady

Raffensberger, 30, made two starts against the Cardinals in April 1948 and got no decision in either. Stan Musial went a combined 5-for-8 (two singles, a double, a triple and a home run) against him in those games.

Raffensberger spent most of the next month in the bullpen. He had a 4.34 ERA for the season when he got a start in the second game of a Memorial Day doubleheader against the Cardinals at Cincinnati.

United Press called him a “creaking” veteran. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch described him as a “softball-throwing” pitcher. According to The Sporting News, wise-guy teammates nicknamed him “Cannonball” because of his slow pitches.

Nothing indicated the performance he was about to give.

With two outs in the first inning, Raffensberger walked Musial and Whitey Kurowski before retiring Enos Slaughter. Then he set down the Cardinals in order in every inning from the second through the seventh with what the Post-Dispatch called “his nuthin’-at-all pitch.”

Nippy Jones, leading off the eighth, got the Cardinals’ first hit, a lined single to center, but Raffensberger retired the next three batters.

In the ninth, Musial walked with two outs, but Raffensberger got Kurowski on a grounder to shortstop, completing the one-hit shutout. He achieved it with one strikeout. Boxscore

No fluke

The next time Raffensberger faced the Cardinals, on July 4 at Cincinnati, they beat him, scoring four runs in seven innings. His ERA for the season was 4.57 when he got another start, at St. Louis, on July 11.

After the Reds scored in the first, Raffensberger retired the first 10 batters before Marty Marion singled with one out in the fourth. Don Lang drew a two-out walk in the inning but Enos Slaughter’s grounder to third ended the threat.

The Cardinals got only two more base runners (Musial walked in the seventh and Nippy Jones reached on an error in the eighth), and Raffensberger completed his second one-hitter in the Reds’ 1-0 victory. None of the Cardinals’ outs were strikeouts. Boxscore

“His slider, when acting right, breaks about six inches in toward right-handed batters, making them hit it with the handle of their bats,” Reds catcher Ray Lamanno told The Sporting News. “Left-handed batters see it suddenly break away from them. It starts spinning rapidly just as it begins to break. By that time, batters usually are off stride. Kenny threw curves to Musial in both his one-hitters, keeping the ball away from him.”

In a story headlined, “Raffensberger Zero Ball Too Fast for Cards,” Cubs general Jim Gallagher, in St. Louis to see the game, told the St. Louis Star-Times, “Gremlins carry the ball up to the plate for the last 20 feet.”

Raffensberger said to The Sporting News, “To listen to the hitters, I don’t have anything. I take a lot of kidding that I don’t have a fastball, and don’t have a curveball. All I got, I guess, is confidence in myself to get that ball over.”

For the 1948 season, Raffensberger was 11-12 with four shutouts and only 37 walks in 180.1 innings. He made nine starts against the Cardinals and was 3-3 with a 3.04 ERA. 

High praise

In 1949, Raffensberger was 18-17 for a Reds team that won just 62. He led the National League in shutouts (five). On Aug. 14, he pitched 12 innings against the Cubs and three days later he went 13 innings versus the Cardinals. Boxscore

Branch Rickey, the Cardinals’ executive who traded Raffensberger in 1939, tried multiples times to acquire him for the Dodgers in 1949, but the Reds wouldn’t deal, The Sporting News reported.

Raffensberger beat the Cardinals four times in 1951. In one of those wins, he pitched 14 innings before his catcher, Johnny Pramesa, walloped a walkoff grand slam. Boxscore

Raffensberger, 35, again led the National League in shutouts (six) in 1952, won 17 (including four versus the Cardinals) and posted a 2.81 ERA. He walked 45 in 247 innings. “I was the best control pitcher in the big leagues during my time,” he told the York Sunday News.

He pitched his last game in the majors for the Reds in June 1954, finishing with a career mark of 119-154. He achieved four one-hitters: one each versus the Cubs and Dodgers and two against the Cardinals.

Asked by The Sporting News to name the toughest batters he faced, Raffensberger chose Musial, Jackie Robinson and Carl Furillo. Musial returned the compliment. According to the Associated Press, when Musial appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” he named Raffensberger as the toughest pitcher he had faced.

In 201 at-bats against Raffensberger, Musial hit .323 with six home runs but also struck out 20 times, according to Retrosheet.org. Only Warren Spahn struck out Musial (30 times) more often than Raffensberger did.

In his autobiography, “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial said, “The toughest pitchers for me were Ken Raffensberger, Johnny Vander Meer and Curt Simmons, left-handers, and Clem Labine, a right-hander.”

Raffensberger “had nothing except slow stuff, and a forkball,” Musial said. “With changing speeds and control, he made those pitches seem so fat when they weren’t. The forkball looked as big as a grapefruit but fell off the table, low. I stubbornly tried to slug with him and didn’t have much success.”

 

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Why Homer Jones scared the daylights out of defenses

Posted in Football, Games, Opponents on July 2, 2023| 10 Comments »

(Updated Dec. 27, 2025)

When Homer Jones made a catch, he turned the football field into a dance floor, spinning and shifting with an array of flashy moves.

A receiver with the 1960s New York Giants, Jones was a master at producing long gains. He did it either one of two ways _ hauling in deep passes, or using his deft footwork to add yardage after a grab. His career average of 22.3 yards per catch is a NFL record.

The St. Louis Cardinals faced him often, and then he joined them for a brief time at the tail end of his playing career.

Music man

A high school saxophonist in Pittsburg, Texas, Jones played football his senior year because “I wanted to go to college and they didn’t give scholarships to sax players,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

At Texas Southern, Jones excelled in track as well as football. He and Bob Hayes of Florida A&M were two of the fastest sprinters in the United States. Jones and Hayes were on the men’s 400-meter relay team that beat the Russians in an international dual meet at Palo Alto, Calif., in July 1962.

A year later, at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics meet at Sioux Falls. S.D., in June 1963, Jones won the 220-yard dash, nipping Hayes at the finish line in 21 seconds.

(Later that month, Hayes won the 100-yard dash in 9.1 seconds, a world record, at the Amateur Athletic Union meet in St. Louis. Described as “the world’s fastest human,” Bullet Bob Hayes won two gold medals, in the 100 meters and as a member of the 4×100-meter relay team, at the 1964 Summer Olympics. Like Jones, Hayes became a NFL receiver, with the Dallas Cowboys.)

Jones was a flanker at Texas Southern and one of his favorite plays was a reverse. It basically called for a ball carrier to hand off to a receiver running in the reverse direction. Jones added a twist. “I reversed the reverses on my own just to see how that would work,” Jones told the Post-Dispatch. “I guess I was the first scrambling flanker in Texas.”

Drafted in 1963 by the Houston Oilers of the American Football League and the New York Giants of the National Football League, Jones opted for the Oilers, but reported to training camp with a twisted knee.

“I couldn’t do any knee bends, and you couldn’t play for the Oilers unless you did knee bends,” Jones said to the Post-Dispatch.

Released, Jones contacted the Giants, who signed him to their practice squad in July 1963. After a doctor repaired the cartilage damage in the knee, Jones and the Giants were relieved to discover he still had speed.

Freestyle football

After spending most of the 1963 and 1964 seasons on the practice squad, Jones, a raw talent, filled in for injured Giants receiver Del Shofner in 1965.

“They used to call him Homer Q, and Jones himself said the Q stood for questionable,” Milton Gross of the North American Newspaper Alliance noted.

“They can never tell what I’m going to do,” Jones said.

He inverted the pass routes designed for him and had trouble holding onto the ball. As the New York Daily News noted, “Homer has a reputation for ad-libbing pass patterns.”

Giants quarterback Earl Morrall told Milton Gross, “You look at the films and at times you’re wondering where he’s wandering to.”

“They used to laugh (head coach Allie Sherman almost cried) when Homer lined up in the wrong place, ran pass patterns in reverse, missed blocks and signals,” The New York Times reported.

Jones explained to Milton Gross, “You’ve got to confuse the defense as much as he confuses you. The one who confuses the most comes out the winner.”

Crowd pleaser

In warmup drills before the Giants played the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 17, 1965, at Yankee Stadium, Jones dropped nine passes in a row, the New York Times reported.

Show time was another matter.

In the second quarter, the Giants were on their 11-yard line when Earl Morrall called for Jones to run a fly pattern down the sideline. Morrall backpedaled and was near the goal line when he heaved the ball.

At the Eagles’ 40, Jones turned and looked up. “The sun was pretty strong,” he told the New York Daily News. “I saw a black spot in the sky and I didn’t know whether it was a bird or the ball.”

Jones reached for the object, speared it “and then completed a full pivot around defender Irv Cross, who went sprawling out of bounds,” the Daily News reported. Jones sprinted to the end zone, completing an 89-yard play for his first NFL touchdown.

According to NFL.com, Jones wanted to throw the ball to fans in the stands, but the league would fine a player $500 for doing that, so he flicked it into the ground. He is “believed to be the first player to spike a football after a touchdown,” NFL.com reported. Video and Game stats

Hard to stop

Jones averaged 23 yards per catch each year between 1966 and 1968. His 14 touchdowns (13 receiving and one rushing) in 14 games led the NFL in 1967. He made 49 catches that year, averaging 24.7 yards per reception.

In the 1967 season opener against the Cardinals at St. Louis, Jones had five catches for 175 yards and two touchdowns. On one of the scores, Jones beat cornerback Jimmy Burson, made a jumping catch of a Fran Tarkenton pass at the Cardinals’ 10 and “dragged tackler Larry Wilson the last five yards across the goal line,” the Post-Dispatch reported. Game stats

In the season finale rematch at Yankee Stadium, Jones had five catches for 125 yards and a touchdown. Here’s how the Daily News described his score: “Homer caught a turn-in pass in front of Phil Spiller on the St. Louis 45, foot-shuffled his way past a few defenders and shook off rookie Mike Barnes at the 10 to make it a 69-yard play.” Game stats

“Homer is the top offensive weapon in football today,” Tarkenton said to the Daily News in 1967. “Catching the ball is only part of his value. It’s what he does after the catch that makes him so remarkable. He’s a tough man to bring down.”

(In his autobiography, Tarkenton said, “Homer was the fastest guy I ever saw in a football suit, without question … He didn’t have much refinement as a receiver, and sometimes he missed the easy passes, but if he ever got a step on a defensive back, you couldn’t keep him in the stadium.”)

Giants radio broadcaster Marty Glickman told the Daily News, “There have been receivers who had, or have, Homer’s great speed. There have been receivers who are strong and can break tackles. But I never saw both _ the tremendous speed and the power running _ in one man until I saw Homer Jones.”

Teams regularly double-covered Jones. “We feel that any time they play me one-on-one I have a better than 75 percent chance of beating him,” Jones told Newsday. “I myself feel I have a 99 percent chance of beating him. Only a great play by him can stop me.”

In addition to speed and strength, Jones had huge hands. “He palms watermelons,” the Post-Dispatch declared.

Jones made one-handed catches before those became commonplace. He wore a size 13 glove. (A size 11 is considered XL.) According to the North American Newspaper Alliance, when shaking hands, “his fingers reach up to your forearm.”

Stepping out

In January 1970, the Giants traded Jones to the Cleveland Browns for running back Ron Johnson, defensive tackle Jim Kanicki and linebacker Wayne Meylan. Jones was nearly 29, but “there are some in the Giants family” who suspect he is two or three years older than his listed age, the Daily News reported.

The Browns acquired Jones to replace Paul Warfield, who was dealt to the Miami Dolphins, but a second-year player, Fair Hooker, outperformed Jones at training camp in 1970 and won the starting job.

Jones was used primarily as a kick returner with the 1970 Browns. He returned 29 kickoffs for 739 yards, including one for a touchdown against the New York Jets. Video

On July 13, 1971, the Browns traded Jones to the Cardinals for a draft choice. The Cardinals envisioned Jones rounding out a wide receiver corps that featured John Gilliam, Dave Williams, Fred Hyatt and rookie Mel Gray.

“When a receiver of the caliber of a Homer Jones becomes available, you just have to take a look at him,” St. Louis head coach Bob Hollway explained to the Post-Dispatch. “We felt he could add depth and experience. He’s bound to upgrade the receivers and create hard competition.”

Jones told the newspaper, “I’d say it was a happy day. I’ve always had respect for the Cardinals and I like the idea of playing for them.”

Two weeks later, though, when he was supposed to report to Cardinals training camp, Jones had a change of heart. He informed the club he was finished playing.

“When I broke into pro football, I said I would play for five years,” Jones told the Post-Dispatch. “I played for eight and I’ve thought about quitting for some time.” Video highlights

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Jack Baldschun played pivotal part in pennant chase drama

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers on June 23, 2023| 10 Comments »

Something screwy usually happened to Cardinals batters when they faced Jack Baldschun, but the one time they beat him, it opened a crack in the solid hold the Phillies had on first place in the National League.

Soon after, when the crack turned into a chasm, the Phillies fell and the Cardinals climbed past them to win the 1964 pennant.

A right-hander who relied on a screwball and thrived on a heavy workload, Baldschun was one of baseball’s best relievers in the early 1960s.

The right stuff

As a youth in his hometown of Greenville, Ohio, 40 miles northwest of Dayton, Baldschun was interested in several sports, including harness racing. “My dad owned some horses and drove them in races in Ohio, Michigan and Illinois,” Baldschun told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I traveled with him (as a stable boy) in the summer.”

Baldschun was good at playing golf and the piano, but even better at baseball. He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, for two years, then entered baseball’s minor leagues in 1956 when he was 19.

Pitching in the Reds’ system, “I only threw 80, maybe 83, mph,” Baldschun said to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I’d never get by with just a fastball.”

Baldschun experimented with a variety of other pitches but nothing clicked. Then in 1960, when he was with Class A Columbia (S.C.) of the South Atlantic League, Baldschun discovered a way to make a screwball move sharply onto the corners of the plate. “I threw it three-quarters, off the backside of my fingers,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News.

Columbia manager and former big-league pitcher Max Macon encouraged Baldschun to use the pitch in games and successfully converted him from starter to reliever. 

“I’ve got three different screwballs,” Baldschun said to the Dayton Daily News. “I can make it break straight down, down and in, and down and out.”

Macon said he recommended Baldschun “two or three times” to the Reds during the 1960 season but they weren’t interested, the Greenville Daily Advocate reported. After the season, the Reds didn’t put Baldschun on their 40-man winter roster and the Phillies picked him in the draft of unprotected players.

“He comes highly recommended,” Phillies manager Gene Mauch told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Max Macon said he’d stake his reputation that Baldschun has what it takes to help a big-league club in relief.”

Power pitcher

Making the leap from Class A to the majors, Baldschun, 25, earned a spot with the 1961 Phillies. The rookie was a bright light in a dark season. The Phillies lost 23 in a row and finished 47-107, but Baldschun (5-3) had a winning record and led National League pitchers in appearances (65, all in relief). In July, he pitched in eight consecutive games and allowed only one run in that stretch.

“He has done it by using a bewildering screwball, the confidence of a burglar, and a right arm that looks like it belongs to Popeye,” Ron Smith of the Philadelphia Inquirer concluded.

Estimating he unleashed the screwball for 85 to 90 percent of his pitches, Baldschun told the newspaper, “I believe I could throw 10 straight screwballs, tell them it’s coming and still get them out, somehow, eight of the 10 times.”

The rookie also began a workout regimen to help his right arm withstand the strain of delivering screwballs. “He performed a set of isometric exercises before each game and increased the strength of his forearm until it was as big as his bicep,” the Greenville Daily Advocate reported.

Mauch told the Dayton Daily News, “Baldschun is blessed with some kind of arm that defies all the rules. I never saw a man with a freak pitch who could work as often. That’s where his personal exercising program comes in. His entire right side is actually brutish.”

His rookie season was no fluke. The next year, Baldschun was 12-7 and led the 1962 Phillies in ERA (2.96), saves (13) and appearances (67). He followed that with an 11-7 record and 2.30 ERA in 1963, achieving team highs in saves (16) and appearances (65). On Easter Sunday, Baldschun won both games of a doubleheader against the Cardinals at St. Louis. Boxscore and Boxscore

Down and out

Tempers flared when the Phillies and Cardinals played in St. Louis on May 4, 1964. After the Phillies’ Dennis Bennett knocked down Julian Javier with a pitch, Bob Gibson retaliated when Bennett came to bat.

The next time Gibson batted, Baldschun was pitching. His first pitch made Gibson skip away from the plate. The next one plunked him in the thigh. Gibson flipped his bat toward Baldschun, who caught it with his glove hand. Gibson was ejected, but the Cardinals got revenge. On the first pitch from Baldschun after he hit Gibson, Carl Warwick slammed a two-run home run.

The Phillies, who won 10 of their first 12, remained contenders in 1964. In July, Mauch pitched Baldschun in 19 games, including five in a row.

When the Cardinals came to Philadelphia on Sept. 9, 1964, the Phillies (83-55) were in first place, six games ahead of three teams in second: Cardinals (77-61), Reds (77-61) and Giants (78-62).

Phillies ace Jim Bunning pitched six innings in the series opener against the Cardinals before being lifted for Baldschun, who was tasked with protecting a 4-3 lead. Baldschun pitched a scoreless seventh and a scoreless eighth, then drove in a run with a double (the only extra-base hit of his big-league career) versus Barney Schultz and extended the lead to 5-3.  “I felt sure we’d win after that,” Baldschun told the Philadelphia Daily News.

The Connie Mack Stadium scoreboard showed two significant results: the Giants lost to the Dodgers and the Reds lost to the Pirates. If Baldschun could secure a win over the Cardinals with a shutdown ninth, the Phillies’ lead in the standings would increase to seven games.

“If they win it, they break it open,” Cardinals third baseman Ken Boyer told the Philadelphia Daily News. “A seven-game pad would have been tough.”

In the ninth, the Cardinals scored a run, making it 5-4, and had Lou Brock on third, two outs, with Boyer at the plate. With the count 1-and-2, Boyer stroked a single to center, driving in Brock with the tying run.

Mauch stuck with Baldschun. He pitched a scoreless 10th, but in the 11th, his fifth inning of relief, the Cardinals knocked him out, and won, 10-5. Boxscore

Instead, of being seven games back, the Cardinals were five behind.

A week later, Baldschun lost back-to-back games against the Dodgers. Mauch tried others in the closer role, the Phillies lost 10 in a row, and the Cardinals clinched the pennant on the last day of the season.

Changing the script

Though Baldschun led the 1964 Phillies in saves (21) and appearances (71), Mauch proposed changes to him in 1965. “He wanted me not to throw the screwball,” Baldschun recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News. “I just hated to give up my best pitch.”

Mauch said he thought Baldschun was nibbling the corners too much with the screwball and getting behind on counts, and that the pitch would be more effective thrown with two strikes on the batter, or in special situations, instead of most of the time, the Dayton Daily News reported.

In the book “We Played the Game,” Phillies reliever Ed Roebuck said, “Baldschun was an excellent relief pitcher but he always went deep in the count, and this really upset Mauch.”

Another Phillies pitcher, Chris Short, told the Philadelphia Daily News, “I know that three-fourths of the gray hair Gene Mauch got _ and he got a lot _ came from Jack Baldschun. He had a great year for us, but he was always falling behind in the count. We used to call him ‘Three-and-Oh.’ “

Baldschun pitched in 65 games for the 1965 Phillies but shared the closer role with rookie Gary Wagner.  

On Dec. 6, 1965, Baldschun was traded to the Orioles for Jackie Brandt and Darold Knowles. Three days later,  the Orioles sent him with Milt Pappas and Dick Simpson to the Reds for Frank Robinson.

(According to The Cincinnati Post, Reds owner Bill DeWitt Sr. said the club initially wanted Pappas and Curt Blefary, but the Orioles wouldn’t part with Blefary. The trade was revived when the Orioles acquired Baldschun and offered him.)

Baldschun (1-5, 5.49 ERA) flopped with the Reds in 1966, and spent most of 1967 and 1968 in the minors. “The Reds wanted me to die in the minor leagues,” Baldschun told the Philadelphia Inquirer. “In my heart, I knew I could pitch.”

An expansion team, the Padres, picked him up in 1969. Roger Craig was their pitching coach. Though Baldschun pitched in 61 games for the 1969 Padres and had a 7-2 record, he confessed to the Philadelphia Daily News, “The screwball wasn’t breaking. It was rolling.”

Baldschun, 33, pitched his final big-league games with the Padres in 1970. The Cardinals, the first team he faced in the majors, also were the last he pitched against. Boxscore

In 49 games versus the Cardinals, Baldschun was 5-1 with three saves. Overall for his big-league career, he was 48-41 with 60 saves.

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