RetroSimba

Pitching with the poise and skill of a master, the Cardinals’ Michael Wacha capped his rookie season with a nearly unhittable showing.

On Sept. 24, 2013, Wacha held the Nationals hitless until Ryan Zimmerman got a scratch single with two outs in the ninth.

The near no-hitter came in Wacha’s final appearance of the regular season and solidified a spot for him in the Cardinals’ starting rotation for the playoffs, where he gave an encore that was just as impressive.

Helping hand

In the June 2012 amateur draft, Wacha was chosen by the Cardinals in the first round with a pick given them as compensation for the Angels’ signing of free agent Albert Pujols.

A 6-foot-6 right-hander, Wacha was 9-1 with a 2.07 ERA in 16 starts for Texas A&M in 2012. After the Cardinals signed him, he pitched in 11 games in their farm system that summer.

Assigned to Class AAA Memphis in 2013, Wacha was projected to spend most of the season there, but when Cardinals starters Jaime Garcia and Jake Westbrook got injured in May, Wacha, 21, was called up.

In his debut, a start against the Royals on May 30, 2013, Wacha got a hit before he allowed one. He singled to center in his first big-league at-bat against Jeremy Guthrie in the second inning. Wacha retired the first 13 batters he faced before Lorenzo Cain doubled with one out in the fifth.

Mixing a fastball and changeup and throwing strikes, Wacha gave up two hits, no walks and left after seven innings with a 2-1 lead. The Royals rallied for three runs in the ninth against the relievers and won, 4-2. Boxscore

Two weeks later, Wacha got his first Cardinals win, beating the Mets, and then was sent back to Memphis. He returned to the Cardinals in August, pitched mostly in relief, got sent down again that month and was recalled in September.

The Cardinals, who entered September a game behind the first-place Pirates in the National League Central Division, made Wacha a starter for the stretch run.

Washington shutdown

With Wacha, 22, providing a lift, the Cardinals surged in September. They were atop the division, two games ahead with five left to play, when Wacha made his start against the Nationals on a Tuesday night at St. Louis.

The Nationals, managed by Davey Johnson, featured a lineup with Bryce Harper, Jayson Werth and Ryan Zimmerman, but all were overmatched by Wacha. He retired the first 14 batters before Adam LaRoche reached on a Matt Carpenter error. Other than that, the Nationals managed only leadoff walks from Zimmerman in the seventh and LaRoche in the eighth.

“He was amazing, keeping the ball down, mixing it with the changeup,” Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “When you throw hard with the sinker he’s got, the movement, the changeup, it was hard for them.”

With the Cardinals ahead, 2-0, Wacha retired the first two batters in the ninth. Zimmerman was up next and he hit a high bouncer toward the mound. Wacha stretched and nicked the ball with his glove. Charging in from his shortstop position, Pete Kozma scooped the ball off the turf with his bare hand.

“I thought there was a real good chance we were going to see an unbelievable finish to an unbelievable game,” Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said to the Post-Dispatch.

With no time to set, Kozma hurried his throw and first baseman Matt Adams had to come off the bag to snare it as Zimmerman streaked across with a single.

Trevor Rosenthal relieved and got the final out, sealing the win. Boxscore and Video

Wacha finished the 2013 regular season with a 4-1 record and 2.78 ERA for the Cardinals. In five September starts, he was 2-1 with a 1.72 ERA.

Right stuff

The 2013 Cardinals (97-65) had the best record in the National League and were matched in the first round of the playoffs against a team with the third-best mark, the Pirates (94-68). During the season, the Pirates won 10 of 19 versus St. Louis.

In the playoffs for the first time in 21 years, the Pirates won two of the first three in the best-of-five series. With the Cardinals needing to win Game 4 at Pittsburgh to avoid elimination, Mike Matheny chose Wacha as the starting pitcher.

Making his first playoff appearance and pitching for the first time since his near no-hitter versus the Nationals, Wacha delivered another masterpiece. He held the Pirates hitless until the eighth, when Pedro Alvarez hit a solo home run.

Wacha went 7.1 innings and departed with a 2-1 lead. Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal came through in relief, sealing the win. Boxscore

Pirates right fielder Marlon Byrd, who struck out three times against Wacha, told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “I feel like he’s the next coming of (Cardinals ace) Adam Wainwright. He knows how to pitch. He has that swagger.”

Wainwright told the Post-Dispatch, “Michael may be one of the most talented pitchers I’ve seen.”

Given new life by Wacha’s win, the Cardinals took advantage, prevailing in Game 5 and advancing to the next round against the Dodgers.

Top gun

Wacha dominated the Dodgers, winning Game 2 and the pennant-clinching Game 6. In both, he beat Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw, who received the second of his three Cy Young awards in 2013.

Asked about Wacha, Chris Carpenter, who earned a Cy Young Award with the Cardinals in 2005 and was 3-0 for them in World Series games, said to the Los Angeles Times, “His maturity level is not normal for a kid that’s his age. It’s been a lot of fun to watch him rise to the occasion. Not only rise to the occasion, but wanting to be in the situation. It’s a tough spot to be when you’re 22 years old.”

In the 2013 World Series, Wacha was opposed by the Red Sox, who had his former American Legion teammate, third baseman Will Middlebrooks. They played together on the same team coached by Wacha’s father, Tom, in Texarkana, Texas. “He really didn’t start throwing hard until his senior year in high school,” Middlebrooks recalled to the Associated Press. “He wasn’t like a dominant pitcher.”

Wacha started and won Game 2 of the World Series, but lost Game 6 when the Red Sox clinched the championship.

For the 2013 postseason, Wacha had as many wins (four) for the Cardinals as he did for them in the regular season.

Reflecting on his debut year in the majors, Wacha told the Post-Dispatch in January 2014, “The goal was just try to win a ballgame for this team. It ended up being a pretty special year.”

In seven years with the Cardinals (2013-19), Wacha had a regular-season record of 59-39. Granted free agency after the 2019 season, he signed with the Mets.

Read Full Post »

For a while, in the early part of September 1963, Cardinals pitcher Curt Simmons couldn’t do anything wrong at the ballpark.

From Sept. 1 to Sept. 13, Simmons won four starts in a row for the 1963 Cardinals and pitched three consecutive shutouts in that stretch.

His hot streak extended beyond the pitching mound. Simmons drove in runs and, in perhaps the most amazing feat of all, stole home.

Base thief

A left-hander who turned 34 in 1963, Simmons was a starter who overcame career-threatening injuries. Part of the big toe on his left foot was sliced off in a lawn motor accident in 1953 and he underwent surgery to remove bone chips in his left elbow in 1959. After the Cardinals signed him in May 1960 following his release by the Phillies, Simmons mixed more changeups and slow curves into his assortment of pitches.

Simmons was part of a 1963 Cardinals starting rotation with Bob Gibson, Ernie Broglio, Ray Sadecki and Lew Burdette.

On Sept. 1, 1963, Simmons started against the Phillies at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. In the second inning, with Tim McCarver on first and one out, Simmons hit a Chris Short pitch to the base of the scoreboard in center for a triple. McCarver scored, giving the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.

(The triple was the third and last for Simmons in 20 seasons in the majors. The others came in 1953 against Sal Maglie of the Giants and in 1955 versus Hy Cohen of the Cubs.)

With Julian Javier at the plate, the Cardinals called for a squeeze play. Overeager, Simmons broke for home too soon. Short noticed and tried to throw a pitch that Javier would be unable to bunt. In his excitement, Short threw the ball high over the outstretched mitt of catcher Bob Oldis. Simmons scooted safely to the plate and was credited with a steal of home.

Asked by the St. Louis Globe-Democrat whether he could recall his last previous swipe of home, Simmons said, “Maybe in high school. They don’t want to take too many chances with me (attempting to steal).”

(The steal of home versus the Phillies was the second and last stolen base for Simmons in the majors. The first came 10 years earlier when he swiped second base in a 1953 game against the Pirates.)

In the sixth, with Bobby Locke pitching for the Phillies, George Altman tripled and Simmons drove him in with a sacrifice fly for his second RBI of the game.

Simmons pitched a six-hitter for the win, beating the Phillies for the 12th time in 14 decisions since joining the Cardinals. Boxscore

In command

For the next two weeks, Simmons was unbeatable _ and also untouchable when it came to scoring runs against him.

On Sept. 5, he shut out the Mets and contributed a single and a walk in the 9-0 triumph. He thought he had another hit but his liner with the bases loaded was caught against the wall by right fielder Ed Kranepool. “How could they play me so deep?” Simmons said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “They had a first baseman playing right field. If they had a regular outfielder, he wouldn’t have played so deep.” Boxscore

Four days later, Simmons shut out the Cubs on a five-hitter. Cleanup batter Ron Santo, held hitless, told the Post-Dispatch, “That’s the best I’ve seen Simmons.” Boxscore

On Sept. 13, Simmons pitched his third shutout in nine days when he beat the Braves and Warren Spahn.

Hank Aaron, who sometimes was frustrated by Simmons’ soft tosses, struck out twice. So did Eddie Mathews. Simmons held Aaron, Mathews and Joe Torre hitless. “Simmons is like Spahn,” Mathews said to the Post-Dispatch. “He knows what he’s going to do on every pitch.”

Simmons’ RBI-double down the left field line drove in a run and knocked Spahn out of the game in the second inning. Boxscore

Tough foe

The win streak ended for Simmons on Sept. 17 against his season-long nemesis, the Dodgers. Trailing the first-place Dodgers by two games in the National League standings, the Cardinals sent Simmons against Sandy Koufax, but the Dodgers won, 4-0. Boxscore

When the Dodgers completed a sweep of the three-game series the next night, it virtually secured the pennant for them.

In four starts versus the 1963 Dodgers. Simmons was 0-3, even though he had a 2.00 ERA over 36 innings. He lost twice to Koufax and once to Don Drysdale. The Cardinals totaled three runs in those three defeats.

For the 1963 season, Simmons was 15-9 with a 2.48 ERA. He pitched six shutouts and totaled 232.2 innings. (Koufax had 11 shutouts in 1963 and Spahn had seven.) Simmons also fielded flawlessly, committing no errors in 35 chances.

“Curt doesn’t beat himself,” Cardinals manager Johnny Keane remarked to the Post-Dispatch. “He walks few batters, fields his position and gets a base hit now and then.”

Read Full Post »

A couple of American pitchers finishing out their military service in the Korean War became baseball pioneers of sorts in Japan.

Leo Kiely and Phil Paine were the first to play in the major leagues in the U.S. and in professional baseball in Japan.

Kiely, a left-hander with the 1951 Boston Red Sox, and Paine, a right-hander with the 1951 Boston Braves, played for teams in the Japanese Pacific League in late summer 1953.

Kiely, 23, made his Japanese debut on Aug. 8, 1953, for the Mainichi Orions, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. Paine, 23, made his Japanese debut on Aug. 23, 1953, for the Nishitetsu Lions.

Jersey guy

Born and raised in Hoboken, N.J. (site of the first organized baseball game played in June 1846 between the Knickerbocker Club and New York Nine), Leo Kiely was 5 “when he was run down by an ice truck _ run over twice, in fact, by the same truck,” the Boston Globe reported.

Both of his legs were broken, just under the knees, and he broke his pelvis, too, according to the Globe.

“That ice truck sure tried to do a job on me,” Kiely told the Boston newspaper. “I was playing in an alley when it backed over me and ran over my legs. Then the guy put on full speed ahead and ran over me again.”

As a teen, Kiely worked for $38 a week as a truck driver’s helper on a Hoboken newspaper, The Jersey Observer. Then he became a press room apprentice at the newspaper, serving the role of flyboy. (The term came about because the job required catching stacks of newspapers as they flew off the presses.) “He had dreams of becoming a printer,” the Globe reported.

Kiely also developed into a standout sandlot baseball player. In August 1947, in the championship game of the Build Better Boys Sandlot Association tournament at Jersey City, Kiely, 17, “looked like Frank Merriwell, Jack Armstrong, and the Rover Boys all rolled into one,” the Bayonne Times reported.

He pitched a four-hitter, striking out nine, and hit a home run as Hoboken ended Bayonne’s four-year hold on the league title. Red Sox scout Bill McCarren signed Kiely to a contract.

Because of his childhood accident, “one leg is still a bit shorter than the other and _ even in his baseball shoes _ he has to wear a slight lift in one shoe,” the Globe reported.

In late June 1951, during his fourth season in the minors, Kiely got called up to the Red Sox. Because he had not been to spring training with the big-league club, “most of the Red Sox had never heard of him when he was brought up,” according to the Globe.

Red Sox manager Steve O’Neill put Kiely, 21, into the starting rotation. He made his big-league debut against the Washington Senators on July 2, 1951, and got the win, pitching a complete game. Boxscore

Kiely finished the 1951 season with a 7-7 record and 3.34 ERA for the Red Sox.

Special delivery

Phil Paine, from Chepachet, Rhode Island, excelled in baseball and hockey as a youth. The Philadelphia Phillies signed him when he was 18 and he pitched two seasons in their farm system. When the Phillies exposed him to the minor-league draft, the Braves claimed him in December 1949.

At Hartford in 1951, Paine was managed by Tommy Holmes, the former Braves outfielder who twice led the National League in hits. When Braves manager Billy Southworth resigned in June 1951, Holmes replaced him.

A month later, Paine was told there was a telegram for him in the Hartford clubhouse. “I thought it was from the draft board,” Paine told The Sporting News. “I nearly fell over when I read it and found out I’d been called up to the Braves.”

Paine, 21, went 2-0 with a 3.06 ERA in 21 relief appearances for the 1951 Braves.

“This kid has got a lot of stuff,” Holmes told The Sporting News. 

Braves pitching coach Bucky Walters said to the Globe, “That boy’s got it. Phil has a perfect disposition for a pitcher, including that touch of meanness that a pitcher needs … I think he’s going to be a great pitcher.”

Soldiering on

After their rookie seasons in the big leagues, Kiely and Paine were inducted into the U.S. Army in the fall of 1951. Even with his leg condition, Kiely passed an Army physical. “The Army decided he was fit for service, although disqualified for combat,” The Sporting News reported.

Both men spent most of the Korean War stationed in Japan and pitched for military base baseball teams.

The signing of an armistice on July 27, 1953, brought an end to the Korean War. Kiely and Paine, both still in military service, then joined the Japanese teams, agreeing to play until they were discharged from the Army. Until then, no one who had played in the major leagues had played for a professional team in Japan.

The arrangement was that Kiely and Paine would pitch on their days off from military duty. Paine was paid $575 a game, The Sporting News reported.

According to baseball-reference.com, Kiely went 6-0 with a 1.80 ERA for the Mainichi Orions, and Paine was 4-3 with a 1.77 ERA for the Nishitetsu Lions.

Both men were discharged from the Army in the fall of 1953 and prepared to return to their major-league teams the following spring.

Much had changed since Kiely and Paine last pitched in the majors. The Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee and Charlie Grimm was the manager. The Red Sox had a different manager, too _ Lou Boudreau.

San Francisco detour

Kiely was 5-8 for the Red Sox in 1954 (the highlight was a shutout of the Philadelphia Athletics), then got moved to the bullpen in 1955 and was 3-3 with six saves and a 2.80 ERA. In the winter, he worked on the docks in Hoboken, according to the Globe.

After posting a 5.47 ERA for the Red Sox in 1956, Kiely was sent to the minors the following year. 

The 1957 season was San Francisco’s last as a minor-league town. Pitching for the San Francisco Seals, Kiely was 21-6 with a 2.22 ERA. Twenty of those wins came in relief.

The Red Sox brought him back in 1958 and Kiely, 28, was 5-2 with 12 saves.

He pitched two more years in the majors _ with the 1959 Red Sox and 1960 Kansas City Athletics. In his final inning, he struck out his former Red Sox teammate, Ted Williams. Boxscore

Cardinals caravan

Paine made 11 relief appearances with the 1954 Braves and 15 with the 1955 team, then spent most of 1956 and 1957 in the minors.

On April 19, 1958, the Cardinals claimed him off waivers and put him in their bullpen. Paine was 5-1 with a save in 46 appearances for the 1958 Cardinals. Combined with his 5-0 mark during his years with the Braves, he had a career record of 10-1 in the majors.

After the season, the Cardinals went on a goodwill tour of Japan and played 16 exhibition games against Japanese all-star teams. Paine was one of eight pitchers the Cardinals brought on the tour.

At Fukuoka, Japan, Paine visited Camp Drake, the military base where he had been stationed, and spoke at a luncheon held in his honor, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. He was the starter and winning pitcher for the Cardinals in the 10th game of the tour at Fukuoka, United Press International reported.

In December 1958, after the Cardinals returned home, they traded Paine and Wally Moon to the Dodgers for Gino Cimoli. The Dodgers made the deal only after the Cardinals agreed to add Paine, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Paine’s former team, the Nishitetsu Lions, offered him a contract to pitch for them in 1959, according to United Press International, but he opted to report to spring training with the Dodgers. They assigned him to the minors and he finished his playing career there.

Read Full Post »