Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Opponents’ Category

Hit or miss: An adventurous at-bat for Randy Moffitt

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers on September 17, 2025| 9 Comments »

Sometimes in baseball a weak swing at a bad pitch can produce a good result. It happened that way for Randy Moffitt, a reliever for the Giants during the 1970s.

On July 8, 1974, at Jarry Park in Montreal, Moffitt pitched 3.1 scoreless innings against the Expos and was credited with a win.

His pitching, though, was only part of the reason the Giants prevailed. Moffitt’s bat was a factor, too. Actually, it wasn’t his bat. It belonged to teammate Bobby Bonds. Moffitt just happened to swing it. Well, actually, he didn’t swing. Moffitt simply moved the bat in the general direction of the pitch. Physics did the rest.

Here’s what happened:

With the score tied in the 10th inning, the Giants had a runner on first and none out. Moffitt was up next. Expecting the bunt sign, he reached for the heaviest bat he could find and grabbed one belonging to Bonds, the Giants’ home run leader that season.

“I could never swing that thing around deliberately,” Moffitt told the Montreal Gazette. “I had the fat bat because it was easier for me to bunt with that.”

Pitching was starter Steve Rogers, who hadn’t allowed a hit since the third inning.

The Expos, too, were expecting Moffitt to bunt. He had just two big-league hits and never had driven in a run. The corner infielders, first baseman Mike Jorgensen and third baseman Ron Hunt, moved way in, positioning themselves about 15 feet from the plate.

“Those two guys were sitting right in his lap,” Giants manager Wes Westrum told the San Francisco Examiner. “There was no way he could have sacrificed.”

Moffitt got the sign to swing away. Now he had to try to get that heavy bat around to meet the pitch.

Rogers delivered. “A fastball right down the middle,” Moffitt said to the Gazette.

No, said Rogers to the Montreal Star. “I didn’t throw him a fastball. It was a slider, high, and it was over the middle of the plate.”

A right-handed batter, Moffitt was hoping he could chop a grounder past Hunt. “I didn’t take a cut at the ball,” Moffitt told the Gazette, but somehow the bat connected solidly with the pitch.

Moffitt said to the Associated Press, “The ball hit the bat more than I hit the ball.”

It lifted into the air and carried _ way out to left-center. Playing in, left fielder Bob Bailey and center fielder Willie Davis turned and chased the ball but it landed past them and rolled toward the fence.

Mike Phillips scored from first with the go-ahead run and Moffitt hustled around the base paths. He thought he had a chance for an inside-the-park home run, but instead stopped at third with a stand-up triple because, “I decided I needed my strength for the finish,” he told the Associated Press.

Moffitt retired the Expos in the bottom half of the inning, sealing the 5-4 win. Boxscore

A sinkerball specialist, Moffitt was a better pitcher than hitter. In 12 seasons in the majors with the Giants (1972-81), Astros (1982) and Blue Jays (1983), he had 43 wins and 96 saves. Moffitt was 76 when he died on Aug. 28, 2025.

All in the family

Randy Moffitt was the younger brother of Billie Jean King, the tennis champion. Their parents, Billy and Betty Moffitt, raised Billie Jean and Randy in Long Beach, Calif. Billy was a fireman who later became a baseball scout for the Brewers.

“When Billie Jean was 10 years old, she was the star shortstop in the North Long Beach Girls’ Softball League,” Billy Moffitt said to Allen Abel of the Toronto Globe and Mail. “Her speed was her best asset. She could outrun all the other girls. She loved to play ball, but one day I told her, ‘There’s no future in this for a girl.’ I tried to get her into something that she could continue to do as she got older. I suggested swimming, but she said she didn’t like to swim. I sent her out to play golf, but she thought it was too slow. When she was 11, I gave her a racquet. She came back after the first day and said, ‘This is it. I’ll never give this up.’ ”

Randy Moffitt was five years younger than his sister. As Billy Moffitt recalled to the Globe and Mail, “He had to tag along to the tennis courts every day with his big sister. He won his share of tournaments, too, but his heart just wasn’t in it. Having to follow his sister everywhere made him sour on tennis. It wasn’t easy for him, being in the background all those years. He was always a quiet kid.”

At 14, Randy Moffitt quit playing competitive tennis. He said he turned to baseball because there weren’t enough boys his age to challenge him in tennis, according to the Globe and Mail.

Asked if he’d played tennis against his sister, Moffitt told Newsday, “When she’s serious, I couldn’t take a point off her, but she gets to laughing.”

Sink or swim

A pitcher and shortstop for Long Beach Polytechnic High School, Moffitt advanced to Long Beach State. The Giants picked him in the first round of the January 1970 amateur draft. Two years later, he was in the majors, joining a Giants bullpen with the likes of ex-Cardinal Jerry Johnson and 42-year-old Don McMahon.

Moffitt’s first save came against the Cardinals when he pitched two scoreless innings in relief of Sam McDowell. Boxscore

Moffitt led the Giants in saves in 1974 (15), 1975 (11) and 1976 (14).

In 1979, Moffitt began experiencing daily bouts with nausea. He passed blood, lost weight. “You can’t imagine how it feels to be nauseous every minute of every day,” Moffitt told the Houston Chronicle.

He eventually was diagnosed with having cryptosporidiosis, a disease caused by a parasite in the gastrointestinal tract.

It wasn’t until 1981 that doctors found a treatment to rid him of the illness. That year, during the players’ strike, the Giants released Moffitt. At 33, he was faced with having to rebuild his playing career.

The Astros signed him to a minor-league contract in 1982. Moffitt began the season at Tucson, but got brought up to the Astros in late April. He pitched in 30 games for them and posted a 3.02 ERA.

Granted free agency, Moffitt went to the Blue Jays in 1983. “He’s got a nasty sinker,” Blue Jays manager Bobby Cox told Peter Gammons of the Boston Globe. “He’s tough on right-handers. He’s unbelievably competitive.”

Moffitt had six wins and a team-leading 10 saves for the 1983 Blue Jays, but it turned out to be his last season in the majors. A free agent, Moffitt got a look from the Brewers, who agreed to send him to their Vancouver farm team. He signed in June 1984, was activated in July and released in August.

Read Full Post »

Ernie Banks swung and missed in bid for elected office

Posted in Hitters, Opponents on August 25, 2025| 9 Comments »

Whether trying to drive in a run against Bob Gibson or snare a Stan Musial line drive to stop a Cardinals rally, Ernie Banks often excelled on the baseball field. The rough-and-tumble arena of Chicago politics was quite a different matter.

In December 1962, a month before he turned 32, Banks said he would run as a Republican candidate in the election for 8th Ward alderman in Chicago. A two-time winner of the National League Most Valuable Player Award, the slugger said he planned to continue his playing career with the Cubs while serving as alderman.

Though popular in Chicago _ he was nicknamed Mr. Cub _ Banks soon learned that being liked didn’t necessarily translate into votes, even with fellow Republicans and certainly not against a Democrat-controlled organization run by machine boss Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Mean streets

Banks’ desire to run for local office may have stemmed from an incident that occurred at his Chicago home.

On July 1, 1962, a bullet was fired through a window of Banks’ house at 8159 Rhodes Avenue, the Chicago Tribune reported. Banks was on a road trip with the Cubs, but his pregnant wife, Eloyce, and 3-year-old twin sons were in the house, along with Eloyce’s aunt, Mary Jones. No one was injured.

Eloyce Banks said she heard two shots fired in a gangway and at the rear of her home about 1 a.m., shortly after she returned from attending a debutante cotillion for Jacqueline Barrow, daughter of boxer Joe Louis, at the iconic Palmer House hotel, the Associated Negro Press news service reported.

According to the Tribune, Eloyce and her aunt found the window of a breakfast nook had been pierced by a bullet. A .38 caliber slug was found on the floor.

Mrs. Banks told police six teens were gathered near the house, shouting abusive remarks, Associated Negro Press reported.

“Police said they believed the bullet fired into the Banks home was the outgrowth of general rowdiness rather than personal malice against the ballplayer or his family,” according to the Tribune.

Ernie Banks said to the newspaper, “This upsets me tremendously … There have been quite a few boys, and girls, too, hanging around the corners in our areas, making wisecracks, noise and so forth … It seems that in the summer they have parties and things, then gather on the street after the parties break up.”

Urban leader

Five months later, Banks announced his candidacy for the 8th Ward alderman seat. “There has been some trouble in our community,” Banks told the Chicago Defender. “It’s the kind that happens in any community, but I just think many people don’t pay attention to teenagers.”

Banks’ agent, Herman M. Peterson, said to the Tribune, “He wants to get into politics primarily so he can do everything in his power to help youth.”

An aide to U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, an Illinois Republican, encouraged Banks to run, the Tribune reported. Banks told the Chicago Defender, “I said all right, providing it did not interfere with my baseball. It won’t.”

(Dirksen was Senate Minority Leader at the time Banks ran. Dirksen went on to have a crucial role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, working to craft a bipartisan compromise that secured votes to overcome a Senate filibuster.)

In Chicago, an alderman is the equivalent of what might be more commonly known elsewhere as a city council member. The 8th Ward was located in Chicago’s South Side and encompassed areas such as Calumet Heights, Chatham and South Shore. Banks resided in Chatham. So, too, at the time did gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and future sports commentator Michael Wilbon.

The 8th Ward alderman seat was held by a Democrat, James Condon. He’d been a Chicago police sergeant while attending night classes at DePaul, where he earned a law degree. As assistant state’s attorney for Cook County, Condon helped establish the nation’s first narcotics court, declaring in 1951 that “dope is as plentiful for kids on the South Side as lollipops,” the Tribune reported.

Before Condon, aldermen who served the 8th Ward included:

_ William Meyering, a U.S. military officer who had his right arm amputated after he was wounded in combat at Verdun, France, during World War I. Meyering received the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry.

_ David L. Sutton, who received a blackmail note that said his 5-year-old son would be harmed unless the alderman placed $5,000 in a tomato can and left it, as instructed, in a vacant lot. Sutton gave the note to police detectives and his son was not abducted.

Rough stuff

Before announcing his candidacy, Banks didn’t seek the endorsement of the local Republican leadership. His entry into the race brought an unenthusiastic reaction from Michael J. Connelly, 8th Ward Republican committeeman, who indicated Banks’ busy baseball schedule would keep him from fulfilling an alderman’s responsibilities. Several other people were under consideration to be the endorsed Republican candidate, Connelly told the Tribune.

“Banks plans to buck the power of Michael J. Connelly … by running for alderman,” the Chicago Defender noted. “It is expected that Connelly will offer opposition to Banks’ move.”

Asked about Banks’ candidacy, Benjamin Lewis, Democratic alderman from the 24th Ward, told the Tribune, “He’s a minor leaguer as far as politics is concerned.”

(Two months later, a couple of days after he overwhelmingly was re-elected alderman of the 24th Ward, Lewis was found shot to death in his office. He was handcuffed and shot three times in the head with a .32 caliber automatic pistol. No suspect was arrested and the case remains unsolved.)

Banks did have the support of Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley and the editorial board of the Tribune.

“I talked to the boss, Mr. Wrigley, and he told me it isn’t often one would get an opportunity like the one I have been offered,” Banks said to the Chicago Defender.

In an editorial, the Tribune described Banks as “a promising candidate” and “an intelligent public-spirited citizen” whose candidacy “will be good for the development of a real two-party system in Chicago.”

“There are many like him in the new and rapidly growing Negro middle class who would like to run for office and are not yet committed to the Democratic Party,” the Tribune editorial concluded. “Many of the younger college-trained Negroes would turn to the Republican Party if they were given some encouragement and chances for advancement.”

Last hurrah

The Republican Party, however, didn’t endorse Banks as its candidate for 8th Ward alderman. Its choice was Gerald Gibbons, who worked for a printing company and had served as president of the 8th Ward Young Republicans Club.

It was reported that one reason the Republicans didn’t back Banks was because he didn’t vote in the November 1962 general election.

Banks said he would stay in the race as an independent Republican candidate.

“Politics is a strange business,” Banks said to the Tribune. “They try to strike you out before you get a turn at bat. I am in this, with or without the support of the Republican 8th Ward organization. I intend to win.”

Banks campaigned primarily on a promise to promote youth activities in the ward and fight juvenile delinquency. He was critical of incumbent James Condon’s “lack of interest” in the welfare of youths, the Tribune reported.

Condon told voters that during his four years as alderman the 8th Ward got more than $2 million in new street lighting, traffic control signals and street repairs.

On election day, Feb. 26, 1963, Condon retained his 8th Ward seat, finishing first in a field of four with 9,296 votes. The Republican-endorsed candidate, Gerald Gibbons, totaled 4,264. Banks was third with 2,028 votes and an independent with no party affiliation, Coleman Holt, got 1,335.

In recalling the election 50 years later, in 2013, Banks told Bruce Levine of ESPN.com, “Mayor Daley was running the city. Someone asked the mayor where that baseball player was going to finish in the race for the 8th Ward. He said somewhere out in left field. That is where I finished.”

A Tribune columnist noted that, though Banks lost the election, he remained the unofficial mayor of Wrigley Field.

Read Full Post »

Dizzy Dean was a Gashouse Gang slugger, too

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers on August 4, 2025| 8 Comments »

Pitching in relief just two days after making a start, Dizzy Dean got the win and a walkoff home run for the surging Cardinals.

Dean delivered four innings of hitless, scoreless relief and slugged a three-run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning, carrying the Cardinals to a 6-3 triumph over the Reds at St. Louis on Aug. 6, 1935.

The win was the Cardinals’ fifth in a row (they’d extend the streak to eight) during a torrid month when they swaggered into the thick of the National League pennant chase with Gashouse Gang bravado.

Rough and ready

The Depression Era Cardinals looked rough and played hard. In the book “Diz,” Dean biographer Robert Gregory described the Gashouse Gang during an August 1935 road trip: “With matching mud-caked shirts and socks, their pant legs stiffened by grime, they looked like sharecroppers after a day in the fields on their hands and knees.”

New York Sun columnist Frank Graham observed, “They don’t shave before a game and most of them chew tobacco. They have thick necks and knotty muscles, and they spit out of the sides of their mouths and then wipe the backs of their hands across their shirt fronts. They fight among themselves and use quaint and picturesque oaths. They are not afraid of anybody. They don’t make much money, and they work hard for it. They will risk arms, necks and legs _ their own or the other fellow’s _ to get it, but they also have a lot of fun playing baseball.”

Though the Cardinals had a good record (59-39), they were six games behind the front-running Giants (65-33) and two back of the Cubs (64-40) entering their Tuesday afternoon home match against the Reds. The game attracted 2,900 cash customers and 4,700 Knothole Gang youths admitted for free. “That’s a great big crowd for a weekday here,” the Cincinnati Enquirer noted.

With the score tied at 3-3 after six, Dean relieved, following starter Bill Walker (one inning, two runs) and Jesse Haines (five innings, one run).

Haines, 42, was hoping for his 200th career win that day, but the Cardinals failed to score after loading the bases with one out in the sixth, and Dean became the pitcher of record when he entered with the score knotted in the seventh. In his syndicated column, Dean, 25, said, “A few old-timers, what we calls veterans, is a good asset to any team. Look at Pop Haines, who is 42 and stopped the Reds dead yesterday. I hope I’m still pitching in the World Series when I am 42. That’ll give me 60,000 victories.”

Bloop and a blast

Dean, who went five innings in a start two days earlier against the Pirates, retired seven Reds in a row before issuing a walk to Jim Bottomley with one out in the ninth. Then he got Lew Riggs to ground into a double play.

After Dean retired the Reds in order in the 10th, Bill DeLancey was first up for the Cardinals in the bottom half of the inning. DeLancey’s long home run to center in the fourth had given St. Louis a 3-2 lead. This time, he lifted an ordinary fly to short right, but outfielder Ival Goodman couldn’t see the ball in the sun. Second baseman Alex Kampouris raced over to help “but the ball rolled off the ends of his fingers,” according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, and DeLancey was safe at second with a bloop double.

After Emmett Nelson, a rookie from South Dakota, gave an intentional walk to Charlie Gelbert, Leo Durocher executed a sacrifice bunt, moving the runners to second and third. Next up was Dean.

Dizzy swung at Nelson’s first pitch and socked it far up into the seats in left, giving the Cardinals a walkoff win. The Reds lost 10 of 11 games at St. Louis in 1935. “There is a hoodoo for our boys about this field,” the Enquirer noted. Boxscore

Since 1900, Dean and Ferdie Schupp are the only Cardinals pitchers to hit walkoff home runs, according to David Vincent of the Society for American Baseball Research. Schupp did it in the rarest of ways _ an inside-the-park home run _ on Aug. 28, 1919, against the Dodgers’ Leon Cadore for a 4-3 St. Louis victory. It would be Schupp’s only hit in 20 at-bats for the Cardinals that season. Boxscore

Who needs the DH?

Dean produced 21 RBI for the 1935 Cardinals. That rates as the single-season high for a Cardinals pitcher. He drove in those 21 runs on 30 hits. For the season, Dean went 30-for-128 (a .234 batting average), with two home runs and four doubles. During his Cardinals career, he had 74 RBI.

Bob Gibson produced 144 RBI as a Cardinal, including 20 in 1963. Gibson also had 19 RBI in both 1965 and 1970. Bob Forsch had 79 RBI as a Cardinal, with a season high of 12 in 1986.

The last good run producer among Cardinals pitchers was Adam Wainwright. He had 75 career RBI for St. Louis, including 18 in 2016.

The 1935 Cardinals went 22-7 in August and ended the month in first (77-46), a game ahead of the Giants (76-47). Dean was 6-1 in August.

Neither the Cardinals nor Giants, though, won the pennant. The Cubs, who went on a 21-game winning streak and were 23-3 for September, were National League champions at 100-54. The Cardinals (96-58) placed second.

Read Full Post »

Abe Woodson: An innovator in Cardinals secondary

Posted in Football, Games, Opponents, Trades on July 28, 2025| 12 Comments »

Coveted by the NFL St. Louis Cardinals for his uncanny ability to return kickoffs and punts for good gains, as well as for his skills as a cornerback covering the game’s top receivers, Abe Woodson provided a bonus.

At a time when cornerbacks gave receivers lots of room at the line of scrimmage in the hope of not getting outmaneuvered, Woodson used a different technique _ the bump-and-run.

Sixty years ago, in 1965, when he was acquired from the San Francisco 49ers for running back John David Crow, Woodson taught his teammates in the Cardinals’ secondary, most notably Pat Fischer, how to line up closer to a receiver and, after the ball was snapped, bump him, throwing off the timing of the pass route.

Before long, Woodson’s effective bump-and-run technique was utilized throughout pro football until the NFL passed a rule in 1978, restricting its use.

Streaking to success

One of the best high school athletes in Chicago, Woodson went on to the University of Illinois and excelled in track (matching a world record in the 50-yard indoor high hurdles) and football (running back, defensive back, punter).

In a game against No. 1-ranked Michigan State in 1956, Woodson gave a performance reminiscent of The Galloping Ghost, Illinois legend Red Grange. Michigan State led, 13-0, at halftime, but Woodson scored three touchdowns in the second half, lifting Illinois to a 20-13 victory.

Helped by the blocking of fullback Ray Nitschke (the future Green Bays Packers linebacker), Woodson scored on a two-yard plunge, a 70-yard run (in which he took a pitchout, reversed his field and outran the secondary) and a screen pass that went for 82 yards. On that winning score, Woodson took the screen pass near the sideline, angled across the field and hurdled over a defender at the 30 before sprinting to the end zone.

Chicago Cardinals head coach Ray Richards said to the San Francisco Examiner, Woodson “rates as one of the five best backs in the country.”

The 49ers took him in the second round of the 1957 NFL draft but Uncle Sam’s draft took priority. Drafted into the Army, Woodson was inducted in January 1957 and had to skip the football season. He was 24 when he was discharged and joined the 49ers during the season in October 1958.

Though Woodson made his mark in college as a running back, 49ers head coach Frankie Albert needed help in the secondary and put Woodson there. The rookie made a good early impression when he tackled Chicago Bears halfback Willie Galimore, nicknamed the Wisp for how he slipped through defenses like a puff of smoke, and caused him to fumble.

As Woodson put it to the San Rafael Daily Independent, “I was switched to defense accidently. I accidently looked good in my first game.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray suggested that using Woodson on defense instead of offense “was like asking Caruso if he could also tap dance,” but when Red Hickey replaced Albert as head coach in 1959, Woodson was given a starting cornerback spot. “Woodson has whistling speed and such remarkable reactions that Hickey can give him assignments which would trouble veteran defenders,” Sports Illustrated observed.

On the run

Stellar on defense, Woodson was in a special class on kickoff returns. In 1959, he stunned the crowd at the Coliseum in Los Angeles with a 105-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against the Rams. As the San Rafael Daily Independent described it: “Woodson sidestepped a couple of Rams with a perfect change of pace and then poured it on. He cut from one sideline to the other, shaking off pursuers, before drawing a direct bead on the goal line.” Video

On most kickoff returns, Woodson “starts out like a fat man dragging a sled” until he gets to the 20 and then turns on the sprinter’s speed, Jim Murray noted.

In games against the Detroit Lions in 1961, Woodson scored touchdowns on a kickoff return and a punt return. Asked to describe how it felt to return punts, Woodson told the San Rafael newspaper, “Like looking a tiger in the face.”

(In 1961, Red Hickey decided to experiment with Woodson at running back. In his first start, against the Minnesota Vikings, Woodson lost three fumbles and bobbled the ball five times. The experiment ended soon after.)

Woodson led the NFL in kickoff return average in 1962 (31.1 yards) and 1963 (32.2 yards). He averaged more than 21 yards per kickoff return each year from 1958-65. In 1963, Woodson had kickoff returns for touchdowns of 103 yards (Vikings), 99 yards (New York Giants) and 95 yards (Vikings again).

For the sheer excitement he created on the gridiron, the Modesto Bee called Woodson “the Willie Mays of football.”

During his first few years with the 49ers, Woodson worked in the off-seasons as a bank teller and then in the installment loan and credit analysis departments of Golden Gate National Bank.

In 1963, he joined the sales staff of Lucky Lager Brewing Company, California’s largest beer producer. The year before, “Lucky Lager was boycotted by Negro consumers in the southern California area because it did not have a Negro salesman,” the San Francisco Examiner reported.

Tricks of the trade

As a cornerback, Woodson “was quick and tricky,” Bears safety Roosevelt Taylor said to the San Francisco Examiner.

Woodson began using his signature trick, the bump-and-run, in 1963 against the Baltimore Colts. “We wanted to stop that Johnny Unitas to Raymond Berry surefire short pass to the sideline,” Woodson told Art Rosenbaum of the Examiner.

As Woodson explained to the San Rafael Daily Independent, “I know (Berry) can’t outrun me. So I decided to move up to him at the line of scrimmage. By staying right with him, it eliminates the double fake he uses so well. It makes him play my game. When you take away Berry’s moves, he’s just another end.”

(The receiver who gave Woodson the most problems was Max McGee of the Packers. “He has speed and he’s big,” Woodson told the Peninsula Times Tribune of Palo Alto. “He has some of the best moves in the league, and Bart Starr, the quarterback, hits him just at the right time.”)

Woodson credited 49ers defensive backs coach Jack Christiansen with giving him the idea for the bump-and-run. Christiansen, a former Lions defensive back, told the Examiner, “I borrowed it from Dick “Night Train” Lane when he played for the Chicago Cardinals in the 1950s … He used it if there was blitz coverage up front and man-to-man in the outer secondary. Then he’d line up four to five yards instead of the usual six to eight behind the line of scrimmage, pick up his man immediately, give him one shocker of a bump, and take it from there.”

American Football League defensive backs Willie Brown and Kent McCloughan of the 1960s Oakland Raiders also were considered pioneers of the bump-and-run.

“I think if you researched it deeply enough you’d find Amos Alonzo Stagg (who began coaching in the 1800s) probably picked it up from one of the math students at the University of Chicago,” Christiansen quipped to the Examiner. “There isn’t a whole lot that’s truly new in football.”

Change of scenery

Traded to the Cardinals in February 1965, Woodson, 31, was “regarded as the premier kickoff return specialist,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested. Columnist Bob Broeg noted, “Woodson still has speed and, above all, the ability to elude a tackler … He’s got better moves than a guy with itchy underwear.”

In a 1965 exhibition game versus the Colts, Woodson intercepted a Gary Cuozzo pass, scoring the Cardinals’ lone touchdown, and totaled 77 yards on three kickoff returns. However, in the exhibition finale against the Packers, he dislocated a shoulder. After sitting out the opener, Woodson returned kickoffs (averaging 24.6 yards on 27 returns) and punts, and provided backup at cornerback.

Woodson’s most significant contribution may have come on Dec. 5, 1965, when he showed Pat Fischer the bump-and-run technique against Rams receivers Jack Snow and Tommy McDonald.

“Abe came up and hit them, or held them up, as they came at him,” Fischer said to William Barry Furlong of the Washington Post. “All of a sudden, the precision that they were trained to run patterns at was lost. The receiver wasn’t concerned about getting off on the count, or where he was going to go. Now he was concerned about one thing: How am I going to get around that guy?”

Snow was limited to four catches for 38 yards; McDonald totaled two receptions for 27 yards. Game stats

Moving on

Under Charley Winner, who replaced Wally Lemm as Cardinals head coach in 1966, Woodson’s days as a kickoff and punt returner were finished. He was used exclusively at cornerback and started in 11 of the club’s 14 games.

Woodson used the bump-and-run to hold down fleet receivers such as the Dallas Cowboys’ Bob Hayes. “I don’t blame Abe Woodson for trying to stop me from going downfield,” Hayes told the Post-Dispatch. “I don’t think the Cardinals play dirty. They just play hard.”

Of Woodson’s four interceptions for the 1966 Cardinals, the most prominent secured a 6-3 victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers. With 1:20 left in the game, the Steelers drove into Cardinals territory but Woodson picked off a Ron Smith pass intended for Gary Ballman at the St. Louis 22. Game stats

Given a chance to go into executive training for a position with S&H Green Stamps, Woodson retired from football in February 1967. “He did a tremendous job for us (in 1966) and showed no sign of slowing down, either in coming up to stop runs or in covering pass receivers,” Charley Winner told the Post-Dispatch.

Woodson eventually settled into sales and management positions with an insurance company.

Read Full Post »

Hard knocks: Joe Coleman and his Cardinals connections

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers on July 21, 2025| 10 Comments »

At Tigers spring training in 1971, Joe Coleman had the look of a pitcher whose career was on the upswing. Traded by the Senators, Coleman was with a contender for the first time. At 24, the right-hander with a potent fastball and forkball seemed on the cusp of becoming an ace.

Then, a Ted Simmons line drive nearly shattered Coleman’s outlook. Simmons’ scorcher struck Coleman above the right ear, fracturing his skull.

Hardheaded, in more ways than one, Coleman insisted on pitching again as quickly as possible. He returned to the starting rotation in mid-April and won 20 games for the 1971 Tigers.

Nearly 20 years later, in 1990, Coleman and Simmons were part of the same management team. Simmons was the Cardinals’ director of player development and Coleman became the club’s pitching coach.

Part of a three-generation family of big-league pitchers, Joseph Howard Coleman had a 142-135 record in 15 seasons (1965-79) with the Senators, Tigers, Cubs, Athletics, Blue Jays, Giants and Pirates before becoming a coach for the Angels and then the Cardinals.

His father, Joseph Patrick Coleman, was 52-76 in 10 seasons (1942, 1946-51, 1953-55) with the Athletics, Orioles and Tigers.

Joseph Casey Coleman, son of Joseph Howard and grandson of Joseph Patrick, was 8-13 in four seasons (2010-12 and 2014) with the Cubs and Royals.

Teen dream

The first of the Coleman pitchers, Joseph Patrick, attended Malden (Massachusetts) Catholic High School near Boston in the late 1930s. The principal, Brother Gilbert, was a friend of Babe Ruth. During a visit to the school, Ruth took Coleman into a hallway and used an eraser as a ball to show the teen pitcher how to throw a curve, according to Russ White of the Washington Daily News.

When Coleman’s son, Joseph Howard, attended Natick (Massachusetts) High School in the early 1960s, he became a prized pitcher because of his fastball. He spent summers at the Ted Williams boys camp. “Ted taught me more about hitting than anything,” Coleman recalled to the Washington Daily News. “He always wanted to make me a switch-hitter.”

Coleman didn’t become much of a hitter, but his pitching was a different story. In three varsity high school seasons, he was 21-4 and achieved three no-hitters, according to the Boston Globe.

On the recommendation of farm director Hal Keller, the Senators chose Coleman, 18, with the third overall pick in the first round of the June 1965 amateur draft.

To convince Coleman to sign with the Senators instead of opting for college, general manager George Selkirk offered him $75,000 and promised the teen a start in a big-league game that year, the Washington Daily News reported.

Sent to a farm club in Burlington, N.C., Coleman didn’t seem ready for the minors, posting a 2-10 record, let alone the big leagues, but Selkirk delivered on his promise. Called up to the Senators in September 1965, Coleman, 18, was matched against Catfish Hunter, 19, in a start against the Athletics at Washington.

“He’s the youngest looking 18-year-old I’ve ever seen,” Senators manager Gil Hodges told the Washington Daily News. “I doubt if he even shaves yet.”

Among the fewer than 2,000 spectators at the twi-night doubleheader opener were Coleman’s parents. “His father sat in the presidential box, nonchalantly blowing cigar smoke straight up into the sky,” the Washington Daily News noted.

“Old Joe’s as nervous as the kid,” George Selkirk told the newspaper. “Those are his butterflies blowing that smoke out.”

While his father blew smoke, young Joe threw it. Three months after graduating high school, he pitched a four-hitter for a 6-1 victory in his big-league debut. Of Coleman’s 136 pitches, 100 were fastballs.

“I was shaking when I went to the mound,” Coleman told the Boston Globe. “I was still shaking nine innings later. I never did calm down.” Boxscore

The Senators gave him another start, in the last game of the season, and Coleman responded with a five-hitter in a 3-2 win against the Tigers. Boxscore

Good, bad, ugly

Sent back to the minors in 1966, Coleman didn’t impress (7-19), but the Senators wanted to take a look at him in September. Given one start, in the final game of the season, Coleman pitched a six-hitter and beat the Red Sox before a gathering of 485 at Washington. Boxscore

Not even 20, Coleman had made three big-league starts and all three were complete-game wins.

A good pitcher on bad teams, Coleman won eight for the Senators in 1967 and 12 in 1968, the year he developed a forkball to compensate for his inability to throw an effective curve. (Maybe he should have tried learning with an eraser.)

In 1969, Coleman’s former summer camp instructor, Ted Williams, was Senators manager. Coleman again had 12 wins that year, but Williams was of the opinion Coleman would win more if he threw a slider. That led to a rift during the 1970 season. “He wanted me to throw the slider and I tried like a son of a gun to do it,” Coleman told the Detroit Free Press. “I hurt my arm doing it and he thought I was faking it. I didn’t appreciate that and we had a go-round about it.”

Coleman also said to the newspaper, “He wanted me to throw slider, slider and then spot my fastball … I couldn’t pitch that way.”

Coleman’s win total for 1970 fell to eight. At one point, Williams banished him to the bullpen and fined the pitcher for chewing gum on the mound.

The Tigers, who coveted Coleman (his career record against Detroit at that point was 8-0), took advantage of the turmoil in Washington, engineering a trade lopsided in their favor. On Oct. 9, 1970, the Tigers swapped Denny McLain, Elliott Maddox, Norm McRae and Don Wert for Coleman, Ed Brinkman, Aurelio Rodriguez and Jim Hannan.

Looking back on his Senators stint, Coleman told Jim Hawkins of the Detroit Free Press that some of the players “should have been out digging ditches” instead of playing and “we just didn’t have enough professionals on that club.” As for Ted Williams, Coleman said, “I just don’t think we played together as a team as much as we should have … That was Ted’s fault more than anyone else’s.”

True grit

On March 27, 1971, in a spring training game at St. Petersburg, Fla., the Cardinals’ Ted Simmons batted in the fourth inning against Coleman and lined the ball so hard that the pitcher couldn’t get out of the way. “I never saw the ball coming,” Coleman recalled to The Sporting News.

After being struck, Coleman toppled forward and landed with a thud. “It was a sickening sound,” Tigers catcher Bill Freehan told The Sporting News.

Coleman was carried off on a stretcher and sent to a hospital. Neurosurgeons said he had a linear fracture. “Four weeks and several headaches later,” Coleman was restored to the Tigers’ active roster, Curt Sylvester of the Free Press reported.

“I still have headaches, but the doctors say I’ll probably continue to have them until the fracture is completely healed,” Coleman told the newspaper. “The doctors told me that it would be a million-to-one that I’d get hit there again.”

On May 16, 1971, Coleman started against the Senators for the first time since the trade. Taking the mound, he “blatantly mocked his former manager (Ted Williams) by chewing a wad of bubble gum,” George Solomon of the Washington Daily News reported.

Coleman pitched a complete game for the win _ never once throwing a slider _ and the .106 career hitter also contributed two hits and a walk. Boxscore

Coleman went on to pitch 286 innings for the 1971 Tigers. He pitched 16 complete games and was 20-9 (including 3-0 versus the Senators).

On March 27, 1972, exactly one year after he suffered the skull fracture, Coleman was on the mound facing Ted Simmons and the Cardinals again at St. Petersburg. He pitched seven scoreless innings, overcoming any lingering psychological hurdle from the year before.

From 1971-73 with the Tigers, Coleman posted marks of 20-9, 19-14 and 23-15. For eight straight seasons (1968-75), he pitched more than 200 innings each year.

In his lone career playoff appearance, Game 3 of the 1972 American League Championship Series versus the Athletics, Coleman pitched a shutout and struck out 14. “I don’t think I have had a better forkball than I had today,” Coleman said to the Free Press. Boxscore and Video

Taking charge

After his playing days, Coleman coached and managed in the farm systems of the Mariners (1980-81) and Angels (1982-87). When Angels bullpen coach Bob Clear had back problems in 1987, Coleman filled in for him. After Clear retired, Coleman replaced him and was Angels bullpen coach from 1988-90.

Joe Torre was an Angels broadcaster during that time and he and Coleman became pals. “We got to know each other playing golf,” Torre told Dan O’Neill of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We’d talk about last night’s game.”

Torre became Cardinals manager in August 1990. Two months later, he hired Coleman to be the St. Louis pitching coach. “I like the relationship he had with his pitchers and his day-to-day instruction,” Torre told the Post-Dispatch. “… Joe is very good with young pitchers.”

At his first Cardinals spring training in 1991, Coleman had pitchers work on ways to keep batters from getting comfortable at the plate. “I pitched aggressively and I coach aggressively,” Coleman told the Post-Dispatch. “… I feel aggressiveness is on a downward trend in pitching … When (my father) pitched, if someone hit a home run off you, the next guy up was diving … It’s become one-sided the other way … I just want these (pitchers) to feel that part of the plate is theirs.”

As columnist Bernie Miklasz noted, Coleman became “the busiest amateur psychologist in town” during the 1991 season. “He has elevated an average pitching staff, reaching their arms by getting inside their heads.”

Cardinals pitchers in 1991 gave up 648 runs, 50 fewer than the year before. The improvement continued in 1992, when the total number of runs they allowed dropped to 604. “Coleman coaxed dozens of good outings from youngsters Rheal Cormier, Donovan Osborne and Mark Clark after they were rushed into the rotation,” Jeff Gordon of the Post-Dispatch wrote in October 1992.

Ups and downs

The pitching staff in 1993, however, unraveled like an overused batting practice ball. Cardinals pitchers gave up 744 runs, 140 more than the year before. “At the start of the (1994) year, I told Coleman the pitching had to improve and that both our butts were on the line for that,” Joe Torre recalled to the Post-Dispatch.

Under pressure, Coleman took to ranting at pitchers. When that didn’t work, he gave them a three-page letter. “Some basic premises of the letter were for the pitchers to be more aggressive, as in pitching inside; to be team-oriented; and to not feel sorry for themselves,” Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch reported.

Nothing worked. Among National League teams, only the Rockies (638) gave up more runs than the Cardinals (621) in strike-shortened 1994.

In a plea for his job, Coleman wrote a letter to club president Mark Lamping: “I learned more about myself (as a coach) this year and what I’m capable of doing than I ever have. I got to the point where I tried to do some things that I can’t do. I tried to restructure people mechanically at the major-league level. You can’t do that … I was looking for a quick fix, and the quick fix wasn’t there. Unfortunately, I didn’t find that out until July. At the beginning of the year, I was coaching to keep my job.”

Under orders from Lamping, Torre fired Coleman. “I still feel Joe Coleman did a good job, but, sometimes, nobody listens to you,” Torre told the Post-Dispatch.

Coleman returned to the Angels and became a special assignment scout. When the Angels fired pitching coach Chuck Hernandez in August 1996, Coleman replaced him. He then remained on the Angels’ big-league staff as a bullpen coach from 1997 to 1999.

From 2000 to 2014, Coleman coached in the farm systems of the Rays, Tigers and Marlins. He spent 50 consecutive years (1965-2014) in pro baseball. Coleman was 78 when he died on July 9, 2025.

Read Full Post »

Going batty: How Ted Simmons home run turned into out

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents on July 2, 2025| 8 Comments »

Ted Simmons was feeling groovy during the summer of 1975. Long mane flowing, he swung free and easy from both sides of the plate, hitting for high average, driving in runs and making consistent contact.

Big-league baseball, though, wasn’t hip to the grooves Simmons made in his bats, even though the Cardinals catcher claimed the alterations were done to preserve the lumber, not enhance his hitting.

Simmons paid a price for not knowing the rules. Umpires nullified a home run he hit against the Padres, deeming he used an illegal bat.

Hot hitter

After hitting .271 over the first two months of the 1975 season, Simmons surged. He hit .370 for the month of June and did even better in July. When the Cardinals went to San Diego for a series against the Padres after the all-star break, Simmons was hitting .326 for the season, with a .400 on-base percentage and .511 slugging mark.

“Ted is just about a batting title away from being recognized as the best hitter in the league,” Cardinals pitcher John Curtis told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He has received not nearly the recognition he deserves, and maybe a batting (title) is what will take care of that.”

During the first game of a Sunday doubleheader at San Diego, when Simmons contributed three hits, a walk and a RBI in the Cardinals’ 3-1 victory, Padres manager John McNamara noticed cuts in some of the baseballs. After Simmons flied out to end the third inning, the ball was brought to the Padres’ dugout. “We could see the lined scraped marks on the ball and we knew they had to have been made by something on the bat,” McNamara later told the Associated Press. Boxscore

That year, big-league baseball introduced a rule banning alteration of the hitting surface of the bat from the tip to within 18 inches of the handle bottom, according to the Associated Press.

Because he wasn’t certain Simmons had broken the rule, McNamara opted not to do anything during Game 1 of the doubleheader. Simmons sat out Game 2.

Bad bat

The next night, July 21, Simmons was back in the lineup at the cleanup spot, and McNamara was on alert. “I told the catcher (Bob Davis) to check out Simmons’ bat when he comes to the plate and see if it’s grooved,” McNamara said to the Associated Press.

In Simmons’ first plate appearance, he drew a walk. Davis informed McNamara the bat was grooved.

When Simmons batted again, leading off the fourth, he clouted a home run to left against Brent Strom. As Simmons rounded the bases, McNamara asked plate umpire Art Williams to check the bat for grooves. Williams did, determined the bat was modified against the rules and called Simmons out as he crossed the plate, nullifying the home run.

Umpire crew chief Ed Vargo confiscated the bat. “The rules say a bat can’t be tampered with 18 inches above the handle,” Vargo said to the Associated Press. “This one has grooves cut in it. It is clearly illegal.”

Noting he made no attempt to hide the bat, Simmons told the Post-Dispatch, “I was not aware of the new rule against grooving. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have grooved the bat.”

According to the Associated Press, Simmons said he used a knife to put grooves in the bat so that it wouldn’t fray. “What I did is actually what players have been doing for the past 50 or 60 years,” he said.

Simmons explained to the Post-Dispatch, “Grooving the bat doesn’t do anything to make the ball go farther or powerize it. The idea is to keep the bats from fraying. When the bats fray, you just throw them away (because) they’re no good anymore. Grooving protects the grains that are farthest from the center from breaking because of the vibration of the contact. Grooving just saves bats.”

Regarding McNamara’s decision to challenge the use of the bat after the home run, Simmons said the Padres manager “deserves credit for doing his homework,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

A notch above

After the ruling, Simmons took heat from the San Diego spectators. As he put it to the Post-Dispatch, “Unfortunately, the fans got uptight and I had to put up with the freaking.”

Swinging a smooth stick in his next plate appearance, Simmons smacked a double, silencing the detractors. His work behind the plate was impressive, too. Making his major-league debut, Harry Rasmussen (who later changed his name to Eric) followed the guidance of his catcher and pitched a shutout for the Cardinals. Boxscore

Though he stopped grooving his bats, Simmons didn’t stop hitting. The lumber may have frayed like shredded wheat from all the hard contact he made. For the month of July, Simmons hit .417 with an on-base percentage of .500 (43 hits and 17 walks in 120 plate appearances).

He hit .313 for August and .324 for September, finishing with a season batting mark of .332. Only Bill Madlock of the Cubs had a higher batting average (.354) in the league that season.

Simmons totaled 193 hits, 100 RBI and fanned a mere 35 times in 581 at-bats. He did that while catching more games (154) than anyone else in the league.

Three weeks after the incident in San Diego, Simmons lent one of his bats to Doug Rader during a Cardinals series at Houston. The Astros third baseman used it to belt a three-run homer against Al Hrabosky, but Simmons countered with a two-run shot and the Cardinals won, 5-4. Boxscore

Asked about Rader homering with a Simmons bat, the Cardinals catcher quipped to the Post-Dispatch, “Rader has done me enough favors by mishandling some of my bouncers to his backhand.”

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »