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Spring stint with Cardinals was no bonus for Frank Leja

Posted in Hitters, Prospects on May 6, 2026| 11 Comments »

The Yankees thought Frank Leja was the next Lou Gehrig. The Cardinals later hoped he might be another Jim Gentile. Leja never claimed to be like anyone else. He just wanted a fair chance to show he could hit in the big leagues.

At 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, Leja was a first baseman and left-handed slugger who had major-league clubs clambering to sign him after he graduated from high school in 1953.

He was 17 years old _ too young to vote or to buy a beer in his home state of Massachusetts _ but ballclubs wanted to pay him a big bonus and bring him directly to the majors.

Paul Krichell, the scout who found Lou Gehrig for the Yankees, also got Leja for them. Krichell told the New York Times that Leja was the “closest thing to Lou Gehrig I ever have signed.”

Bidding war

Leja (pronounced Lee-juh) was from the Massachusetts town of Holyoke, once known as the Paper City because of its abundant mills. His ancestry was Polish.

Home was on the top floor of a two-family house. In 1946, when he was 10, Leja took an interest in playing first base because that’s where his favorite big-leaguer, Stan Musial, also of Polish heritage, had shifted to with the Cardinals.

A coach, former Boston Braves infielder Ed Moriarty, had a positive influence on Leja. As a prep senior in 1953, Leja hit .423 and led Holyoke to a state title. He also was an honor roll student and treasurer of the high school Latin Club.

In the summer after his senior year, Leja played American Legion baseball. To protect the integrity of the amateur game, big-league clubs weren’t supposed to attempt to sign American Legion players while their season was under way, but the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Braves and New York Giants couldn’t resist negotiating with a prospect as intriguing as Leja.

Ed Moriarty recommended Leja to a former Boston Braves teammate, Cleveland manager Al Lopez. When in Boston for a June 1953 series, Cleveland general manager Hank Greenberg, a former slugging first baseman, brought Leja to Fenway Park and put him in uniform for a workout. A newspaper photographer posed Leja with Lopez and first baseman Luke Easter. Lopez said Leja would be the successor to Easter, a left-handed power hitter who turned 38 that year.

American Legion officials complained to baseball commissioner Ford Frick, who fined the Braves, Giants and Indians for negotiating with Leja while his amateur league season was in progress.

In September, when American Legion play was completed, most big-league clubs joined in a hot pursuit of Leja.

He went to Chicago, where White Sox general manager Frank Lane handed him a check for $75,000, according to the Boston Globe. Leja handed it back.

The Phillies were aggressive, too. “I was willing to go up to $90,000 with him, but he turned me down,” Phillies farm director Joe Reardon told the Globe.

Cleveland officials “seemed quite certain they would get the boy,” The Sporting News reported. They met with Leja and his father in a New York hotel room to finalize a deal. “We told them what we were asking,” Leja recalled to Ted Ashby of the Globe, “and they left the room for a conference. After waiting for four hours in a room with Tris Speaker (then a Cleveland hitting instructor), we walked out.”

Leja contacted Paul Krichell and told him he would sign with the Yankees.

Yankee dandy

Krichell, 70, the Yankees’ head scout, had done a masterful job of selling Leja on the idea of wearing pinstripes.

Born in Paris, France, a son of a German cabinetmaker, Krichell grew up in the Bronx and became a catcher for the St. Louis Browns before he took up scouting for the Yankees. He signed Gehrig in 1923 and later brought Tony Lazzeri, Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford to the Yankees.

Krichell had Leja imagining what it would be like to follow in the footsteps of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio. The star-struck teen told United Press, “I’ve always been a great admirer of DiMaggio. I figure if I make good on Broadway I also can get lucky and find a Marilyn Monroe.”

Headed to their fifth consecutive World Series title in 1953, the Yankees had three future Hall of Famers among the regulars (catcher Yogi Berra, shortstop Phil Rizzuto and center fielder Mickey Mantle) but not at first base, where Joe Collins played. Krichell had Leja convinced he could replace Collins before too long.

In a workout at Yankee Stadium before he signed, Leja launched pitches from Vic Raschi into the bleachers and took a liking to the short distance, a mere 296 feet, from home plate to the fence down the right field line. Manager Casey Stengel grandly gestured with his hand toward the upper reaches of Yankee Stadium and said to Leja, “Son, the stadium was built by Ruth and you’ve got what Ruth had.”

Stengel’s statement “may be malarkey, and probably is, but, brother, I melted into a little lump and told my father I wanted to sign with the Yankees,” Leja recalled to Ben Epstein of the New York Mirror.

Though the Indians, Phillies and White Sox may have given him more money, the Yankees’ glamour lured Leja. He took their offer of a $45,000 bonus paid over two years _ $22,500 per year, the New York Times reported.

Major League Baseball had a rule then that any amateur who got a signing bonus of more than $4,000 had to stay with the big-league club for two full years. Leja was the first player the Yankees gave such a bonus to under those terms.

“He’s the most experienced 17-year-old I ever saw … I like the boy,” Stengel told the Associated Press.

After Leja signed on Oct. 1, 1953, he was sent to play winter ball in San Juan on a team managed by Yankees employee Harry Craft. Leja went hitless in his first 21 at-bats, but Yankees farm director Lee MacPhail said to The Sporting News, “What we wanted was for him to get plenty of batting practice and work in the field at first base under our coaches _ and he’s had lots of that.”

Inside but out

Leja arrived at the Yankees’ spring training clubhouse in 1954 and found that teammates had hung a money bag filled with phony dollar bills inside his locker, the Boston Globe reported.

With his $22,500 bonus, plus a $6,500 salary, the 18-year-old was being paid more that year than Mickey Mantle ($21,000 salary) and many other Yankees.

“The Yankees resented this fresh, young kid getting ($45,000) in bonus money,” Stan Isaacs of Newsday wrote.

Leja told the Globe, “Here I was, a year out of high school and my locker was next to someone (Hank Bauer) I’d watched on television in the World Series only a few months ago … I was in awe of everything going on.”

The first time Leja got into a game as a Yankee was as a pinch-runner in a spring training exhibition versus the Cardinals. “I was so jittery I couldn’t spit,” he recalled to the New York Mirror.

During the 1954 season, Stengel platooned a more experienced rookie, Bill Skowron, 23, who had played college baseball at Purdue and spent three seasons in the minors, with Joe Collins, 31, at first base.

Leja rarely left the bench. His major-league debut on May 1, 1954, came in the ninth inning of a game against Cleveland. Facing a future Hall of Famer, Early Wynn, Leja popped out to second. Boxscore

The teen’s first (and only) big-league hit was a single against Athletics left-hander Al Sima on a September Sunday before 1,715 spectators at Philadelphia. Boxscore

Leja’s 1954 season stats: 12 games, five plate appearances, one hit.

“The few times I came to bat I was not afraid of any pitcher I faced,” Leja said to Louis Effrat of the New York Times. “I know I can hit.”

In winter ball after the 1954 Yankees season, Leja hit .340 for Cordoba of the Veracruz League in Mexico.

At 1955 spring training, scout Johnny Neun, a former big-league first baseman, worked with Leja on his footwork. Coach Bill Dickey, a Hall of Famer, instructed Leja on hitting, but that didn’t go well. “They had Bill Dickey work with my swing,” Leja told a Springfield (Mass.) newspaper. “When he got through with it, it never was the same again.”

Stengel expressed confidence in Leja, telling Bill Keating of the Holyoke Transcript-Telegram, “I’ll play Leja, you can bet on that.”

However, Leja appeared in fewer games (seven) for the Yankees in 1955 than he did in 1954. He had a mere two plate appearances. Adding to the indignity of not playing, Leja suffered a broken nose when hit in the face by an Irv Noren liner while pitching batting practice in August. The ball struck the top of the protective screen in front of the mound and caromed toward Leja.

The Yankees won the 1955 American League pennant but the Dodgers prevailed in the World Series. Leja got a full runners-up share of $5,598.58.

Afterward, the Yankees embarked on a goodwill tour of Japan. They brought Leja along, but he felt disconnected from the team. “The loneliness was so terrible, he sometimes would sit in his room and cry,” Stan Isaacs of Newsday reported.

Cards come calling

Leja spent the next six seasons (1956-61) in the minors. In 1961, when he slammed 30 home runs, Cardinals scouts spent two months following him. On the advice of player development director Eddie Stanky, general manager Bing Devine traded outfielder Ben Mateosky for Leja in October 1961.

Leja reminded some of Jim Gentile. Like Leja, Gentile was big (6-foot-3, 210 pounds) and a first baseman with left-handed power. He spent eight years in the Dodgers’ farm system. After being dealt to the Orioles, Gentile produced 21 home runs and 98 RBI for Baltimore in 1960 and 46 homers and 141 RBI in 1961. “When you look at fellows like Jim Gentile, you wonder if lightning might not strike twice,” Bing Devine told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The Cardinals had a quality first baseman, Bill White, but needed power (St. Louis and the Phillies tied for last in the National League in home runs in 1961) and hoped Leja could provide pinch-hitting punch and insurance if White got hurt.

“Just one season. That’s all I need to establish myself,” Leja told Harold Kaese of the Boston Globe. “I’m a fair fielder and I can hit left-handers. I have confidence, experience and power.”

At 1962 spring training, Leja blasted a home run against the Phillies’ Dennis Bennett and thought he hit well overall, but Cardinals manager Johnny Keane concluded Leja “would strike out too many times to be an effective pinch-hitter,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

The Cardinals chose rookie Fred Whitfield to back up Bill White and sent Leja to the Angels on March 30, 1962.

“I sure was surprised when they told me I was leaving the Cards,” Leja said to the Los Angeles Times. “Nobody gave me any inkling that the Cards didn’t want me.”

The Angels had two first basemen _ Lee Thomas, a graduate of St. Louis’ Beaumont High School, and ex-Cardinal slugger Steve Bilko _ but manager Bill Rigney gave Leja a chance. He started at first base in four games, but went hitless and committed two errors.

In May 1962, the Angels dealt Leja to the Braves, and he finished his playing career in the Milwaukee farm system.

After baseball, Leja ran a successful life insurance agency near Boston and then was self-employed in a lobster shipping business. A son, also named Frank, played baseball for Eddie Stanky’s University of South Alabama team and became a batting practice pitcher for the Red Sox when they were managed by his father’s former Yankees teammate, Ralph Houk.

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Visionary: Tom Sunkel saw way to overcome handicap

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Prospects on April 24, 2026| 14 Comments »

Nothing was wrong with the left arm of Cardinals pitcher Tom Sunkel. He threw pitches with blinding speed. The problem was an eye. He was blind in the left one.

Though his vision was impaired, Sunkel spent the 1939 season with the Cardinals, and what he did showed he had plenty of heart, too. Sunkel pitched a two-hit shutout against the Giants. He won four decisions in a row as a starter. Plus, he swung a potent bat, hitting .321 for the season.

The Giants wanted him and arranged a 1941 trade. In his second game for them, Sunkel spun another two-hit shutout, against the Phillies.

Boyhood accident

Tom Sunkel grew up on a farm in Paris _ Illinois, that is _ about 20 miles northwest of Terre Haute, Ind. Incorporated in 1849, Paris, Ill., likely got its name from the word “Paris” carved into a tree in the center of the village.

When Sunkel was 4, a playmate loaded a popgun with a stick, aimed it and fired. Sunkel put up a hand for protection but the stick streaked between his fingers and pierced his left eye, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported.

A doctor saved the eye but a traumatic cataract developed, cutting Sunkel’s sight to a little better than half normal, according to the Associated Press.

Despite the restricted vision, Sunkel became a standout amateur baseball player. At 21, he was pitching for a local church team when the Cardinals signed him for their farm system in 1934.

On his path through the minors, Sunkel took a step backward in 1936 when he posted a 6-26 record for a Class B Asheville (N.C.) club managed by Billy Southworth. As other pitching prospects advanced, Sunkel stayed at Class B in 1937, with Decatur (Ill.). It turned out well for him, though. His fastball and curve stymied batters from clubs such as the Moline Plow Boys and Terre Haute Tots. Sunkel totaled 227 strikeouts in 192 innings.

No rescue for Redbirds

Cardinals general manager Branch Rickey visited Decatur in August 1937 to scout Sunkel. The Cardinals were contending with the Cubs and Giants for the National League pennant but they needed starting pitching help. Dizzy Dean hurt his toe in the All-Star Game, altered his pitching delivery and damaged his arm. His brother, Paul Dean, underwent shoulder surgery. Jesse Haines was 44 years old.

St. Louis players were hoping Rickey would acquire proven pitching for the pennant push, but instead he called up Sunkel, 25, from Decatur to fill the void.

Sunkel’s arrival “became a big joke with the other players,” Sid Keener of the St. Louis Star-Times noted. “A pitcher from Decatur was Rickey’s idea of trying to win the 1937 pennant.”

(The Cardinals finished fourth, 15 games behind the champion Giants.)

The rookie was timid _ “I sure was a busher,” he admitted to the Star-Times _ and manager Frankie Frisch used him mostly in relief. Though he didn’t allow a run in six of eight relief appearances for the 1937 Cardinals, including a seven-inning stint versus the Pirates, Sunkel didn’t show enough to stick with the club in 1938. Boxscore

“Just when I figured I had made the grade (with St. Louis), the bottom fell out of everything,” Sunkel said to the Star-Times.

Rickey arranged for Sunkel to pitch for the 1938 Atlanta Crackers, which wasn’t a Cardinals farm club, but retained an option to recall him to St. Louis at any time.

Seeing the light

Sunkel was a success on the mound for Atlanta but it was a troubling season. He had a kink in his left arm the first part of the year. After that, he had a bout of neuritis, an inflammation of the nerves. One night, he was pitching a home game when a burglar broke into his apartment, “leaving the Sunkel family practically flat broke,” the Star-Times reported.

Then the vision in his left eye got dimmer and dimmer.

The traumatic cataract from his childhood injury had worsened considerably. On Aug. 3, 1938, Sunkel told Guy Butler of the Atlanta Journal that the condition of his left eye had deteriorated so much that “I can’t see out of it, but it’s been that way for a month, getting a little worse right along.”

Team trainer Dick Niehaus, a former Cardinals left-handed pitcher, said to the Journal, “I was standing right in front of him. I asked him to close his right eye and look at me. He said he couldn’t see me at all.”

With the club’s permission, Sunkel opted to keep playing. “It’s pretty tough that Tom must pitch under this handicap,” Atlanta catcher-manager Paul Richards said to the Journal. “I don’t want you folks to expect too much of him.”

Sunkel, though, adapted. “I have to guess where the plate is when I throw,” he told the Associated Press.

The results were amazing. Sunkel achieved a 21-5 record, winning his last 13 decisions in a row. For his 20th win, he pitched a one-hitter against Memphis. (Pitcher Hugh Casey got the hit on an infield roller in the third inning.) Sunkel posted a 2.33 ERA in 243 innings and also batted .255 (with 26 hits).

In the Southern Association playoffs, Sunkel won twice, helping Atlanta take the championship. Then he shut out Texas League champion Beaumont in the Dixie Series, winning a duel with Schoolboy Rowe.

Job well done

The Cardinals exercised their option and brought Sunkel to spring training in 1939. They had him examined by eye specialists, who agreed his condition couldn’t be corrected by surgery. “Sunkel calmly accepted the verdict that he would have to battle his way upward with only half the sight of other pitchers,” the Associated Press noted.

Sunkel made the team, but Cardinals manager Ray Blades didn’t use him much in the first part of the season. Then, in July, Sunkel was given some starts. He beat the Phillies for his first big-league win, limiting them to two runs in six innings. He also produced two hits and a sacrifice bunt. Boxscore

“He has developed a new pitching and batting stance, cocking the head slightly to one side so as to take in everything with his one good eye that he would normally see with two,” Ray Gillespie wrote in the Star-Times.

Sunkel told the newspaper, “As long as I’ve got one good eye … I’ll win a lot of games for the Cardinals … I’m big and strong enough to pitch and I’m not afraid of opposing batters. So how’s a little trouble in one eye going to stop me?”

Sunkel’s next win brought him national attention. On a humid afternoon at St. Louis, he held the Giants hitless until Tom Hafey (cousin of ex-Cardinals standout Chick Hafey) singled to right with one out in the eighth. The only other Giants hit was a two-out Billy Jurges single in the ninth. Sunkel produced as many hits as he allowed (two) and also had a walk and a RBI. Boxscore

Wins against the Dodgers and Pirates followed. Boxscore and Boxscore

In 20 games, including 11 starts, for the 1939 Cardinals, Sunkel was 4-4 with a 4.22 ERA. He also totaled nine hits in 28 at-bats.

Keep on going

His was a feel-good story, but results were valued more than sentiment in baseball. Sunkel, 27, gave up nine runs in his last 10 innings with the 1939 Cardinals. They determined he needed more time in the minors.

Sunkel spent 1940 with Columbus and 1941 with Syracuse. In September 1941, the Cardinals dealt Sunkel to the Giants for Jumbo Brown (a 295-pound pitcher) and Rae Blaemire.

Two weeks later, in his second start for the Giants, Sunkel held the Phillies hitless until Johnny Rizzo cracked a single with two outs in the eighth. Sunkel finished with a two-hit shutout, striking out 12. He also had a hit and scored a run. Boxscore

Sunkel was 3-6 for the 1942 Giants. A highlight was pitching 10 innings to beat the Dodgers. Boxscore

He spent most of 1943 in the minors. Then Branch Rickey, who had left the Cardinals, acquired Sunkel for the Dodgers. He pitched his last big-league games for them in 1944.

Sunkel continued to pitch in the minors until 1948. In an American Association playoff game for St. Paul in 1946, he pitched a no-hitter at Louisville. In describing the performance, Tommy Fitzgerald of the Louisville Courier-Journal called Sunkel “the Eiffel Tower of Paris, Ill.”

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Ballhawk Clendon Thomas was handy man to have on a team

Posted in Football, Games, Opponents, Prospects on February 11, 2026| 7 Comments »

As a college football player, Clendon Thomas scored touchdowns in bunches. As a NFL player, his primary job was to prevent touchdowns.

In three varsity seasons (1955-57) with Oklahoma, Thomas scored 36 touchdowns: 34 (rushing or receiving) as a running back, one as a punt returner and the other on an interception return as a defensive back.

In 11 years with the Los Angeles Rams (1958-61) and Pittsburgh Steelers (1962-68), Thomas had stints on offense as a receiver and a kick returner, but he primarily was a cornerback and a safety. He intercepted 27 passes and recovered 10 fumbles, returning one for a touchdown.

Some of Thomas’ best NFL performances came versus the St. Louis Cardinals.

Elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 2011, Thomas was 90 when he died on Jan. 26, 2026.

Producing points

In his hometown of Oklahoma City, Thomas grew up in a neighborhood populated primarily with oil field workers.

At Southeast High School (also the alma mater of baseball players Bobby Murcer, Darrell Porter and Mickey Tettleton), Thomas played football but “we weren’t too good,” he recalled to the Los Angeles Times.

A sportswriter convinced Oklahoma’s football staff to give Thomas a conditional scholarship. Showing speed, versatility and an ability to reach the end zone, Thomas impressed head coach Bud Wilkinson. In 1955, his sophomore year, Thomas joined junior Tommy McDonald as Oklahoma’s varsity running backs. McDonald scored 15 touchdowns and Thomas totaled nine (eight rushing and one on a punt return). The twin touchdown terrors led Oklahoma to an 11-0 record. Thomas also played defensive back. Beginning with a 20-0 victory over Missouri, Oklahoma shut out four consecutive foes and became national champions.

Thomas was college football’s leading scorer in 1956 as a junior, with 18 touchdowns (13 rushing, four receiving and one on a return of an intercepted pass from Paul Hornung of Notre Dame). Thomas averaged 7.9 yards per carry and 20.1 yards per catch. “He leans forward as he drives, his long legs knifing up and down, making him a hard man to tackle,” Deane McGowen of the New York Times observed. “Despite his long stride, he has the quickness of an open-field runner and can move laterally as well.”

The combination of Thomas and McDonald (12 TDs rushing and four receiving) carried Oklahoma to another national title in an undefeated 1956 season. Wins included 45-0 against Texas, 40-0 versus Notre Dame and 67-14 over Missouri.

Bud Wilkinson “taught me to reach down and do things I didn’t know I was capable of,” Thomas told The Daily Oklahoman. “He prepared us to win.”

Though slowed by a hip pointer his senior season in 1957, Thomas totaled nine rushing touchdowns. Oklahoma finished 10-1 for the year (Notre Dame snapped the Sooners’ 47-game win streak) and 31-1 during Thomas’ three varsity seasons. Video

Billy Vessels, the 1952 Heisman Trophy winner as an Oklahoma running back, told the Tulsa World in 1999 that Thomas “is probably the most underrated player we’ve ever had (at Oklahoma). He represented everything you wanted a college football player to be.”

L.A. days

The Los Angeles Rams took Thomas in the second round of the 1958 NFL draft, but he fractured his left ankle returning a kickoff for the college all-stars in an exhibition game against the Detroit Lions and was sidelined until November of his rookie season.

During his first three years with the Rams, Thomas was tried at halfback (“I’m a gangly kind, not the type they were looking for,” he told The Pittsburgh Press), tight end, split end and cornerback. He had some success as a receiver. In 1960, he caught a touchdown pass against the Cardinals, in their first regular-season game since moving from Chicago to St. Louis, and made seven catches for 137 yards against the Green Bay Packers.

Thomas returned fulltime to defense in 1961, starting at safety for the Rams, then was traded to the Steelers for linebacker Mike Henry in September 1962.

(Henry went on to an acting career, most notably as Tarzan in three movies from 1966-68. While filming a jungle scene, he was attacked and bitten on the face by a chimpanzee. Henry also had roles in “The Green Beret,” “Rio Lobo,” “Soylent Green,” “The Longest Yard” and “Smokey and the Bandit.”)

Multi-tasking

Thomas was the Steelers’ interceptions leader in 1962 (seven) and 1963 (eight). He picked off two Charley Johnson passes in a 1963 game versus the Cardinals.

During the 1964 season, the Steelers needed receivers, so head coach Buddy Parker asked Thomas to play both offense and defense. According to Roy McHugh of The Pittsburgh Press, Thomas, who owned horses on a ranch in Oklahoma, took a “bronco buster’s attitude” to Parker’s request. In other words: Bring it on.

“When I signed my contract,” Thomas told the newspaper, “I signed to play whatever position they picked for me.”

On Nov. 8, 1964, in his first game as a Steelers receiver, Thomas had four catches for 61 yards against the Cardinals. Consistently in the clear, Thomas would have had more receptions if quarterback Bill Nelsen had been on target. Thomas “knew what he was doing all the time,” Parker told The Pittsburgh Press, “and he ran his patterns as though he had been running them all season.”

Three weeks later, in a rematch with the Cardinals, Thomas intercepted a pass and made four catches for 113 yards.

Mike Nixon became Steelers head coach in 1965 and he continued to use Thomas as a receiver. In one of his best performances that season, Thomas had seven catches for 90 yards in a November game against St. Louis.

For his NFL career, Thomas averaged 17.4 yards per catch on 60 receptions. He also ran back kickoffs, averaging 25.1 yards on 22 returns.

However, as The Pittsburgh Press noted, “The Steelers’ defense was weaker without Thomas.” Restored fulltime to defense, Thomas finished his last three seasons at safety for Pittsburgh. “I’m glad to be back on defense,” Thomas told The Press. “I think I belong there and can help the team more.”

After his playing days, Thomas founded a chemical products company that manufactured water repellents for the construction industry.

 

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Browns, Cardinals joined race to sign Jim Thorpe

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Prospects on January 19, 2026| 12 Comments »

St. Louis tried to attract the nation’s best athlete at a time when its teams, Browns and Cardinals, were the worst in major-league baseball. Jim Thorpe, however, chose to enter the majors at the top, with the 1913 New York Giants.

A two-time Olympic gold medalist in track and field as well as a football standout, Thorpe wasn’t as prominent in baseball. For six seasons in the National League with the Giants, Reds and Braves, he mostly was a spare outfielder.

The team Thorpe did best against was St. Louis. A career .252 hitter, Thorpe batted .314 overall versus the Cardinals and .339 in games played at St. Louis.

Bright Path

A citizen of the Sac and Fox Nation, James Francis Thorpe and a twin brother, Charles, were born in what is now Oklahoma. (Charles died of pneumonia as a youth.) Jim Thorpe also was known as Wa-Tho-Huck, which in the Sac and Fox language means “Bright Path,” according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

After attending schools in Oklahoma and Kansas, Thorpe enrolled at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania when he was 16 in 1903 and excelled in athletics, especially football and track, for coach Pop Warner.

Thorpe also was proficient at archery, baseball, basketball, canoeing, handball, hockey, horsemanship, lacrosse, rifle shooting, skating, squash and swimming, according to The Sporting News.

Carolina in my mind

Taking a break from Carlisle in 1909, Thorpe, 22, signed to play minor-league baseball for the Rocky Mount (N.C.) Railroaders, a Class D club in the Eastern Carolina League. He was paid $12.50 to $15 per week, plus room and board, team secretary E.G. Johnston told the Rocky Mount Telegram.

A right-hander, Thorpe pitched and played right field. Speed was his main attribute. Eyewitness accounts told of him scoring from first on a single to right and racing to the plate from second on an infield out. His statistics that season were nothing special (9-10 record, .254 batting mark), but he was the talk of the town. A local sports reporter, Sam Mallison, noted, “Few Rocky Mount citizens had ever seen one of these original Americans.”

Rocky Mount was a segregated town of about 8,000 in 1909. It had a prominent railroad yard, cotton mills and tobacco farms. At that time, “The horse and buggy still provided the principal method of transportation between points not connected by the railroad,” Sam Mallison recalled in the Rocky Mount Telegram. “There were no hard-surfaced highways and few paved streets.”

As for baseball, Thomas McMillan Sr. wrote in the Telegram, “In those days, the players dressed for the game in their rooms (and) walked to the ballpark. Many stayed at the new Cambridge Hotel, a short block north of the passenger train station. The players would be met by a crowd of little boys as they came out of the hotel. Each boy sought the privilege of carrying the shoes or glove or bat for one of the ballplayers. Carrying a glove or a pair of shoes meant free admission to the game. I was one of those little boys and big Jim Thorpe seemed to favor me as his shoes and glove caddy. I remember Jim perfectly. Black hair, black eyes, high cheekbones in a mahogany face, and a physique that gave an impression of strength rather than mere size. His movements were quick and lithe.”

Thorpe returned to Rocky Mount in 1910, but the luster was lost. According to Sam Mallison, “(Thorpe’s) custom, in the early evening, was to take a snoot full … As time went on, (drinking) took hold of Jim earlier in the day, occasionally before the noon hour, and this, plus the fact that opposing pitchers had learned he was a sucker for a curveball on the outside (corner), diminished his speed and caused his batting average to plummet … (Thorpe) had ceased to be such an enormous gate attraction, and his antics were the despair of both the field manager and the front office. He ignored the rules and was wholly unresponsive to managerial direction. In short, he became a problem child.”

That summer, Thorpe was traded to the Fayetteville (N.C.) Highlanders and finished the 1910 season with them.

Glory and scandal

Thorpe re-enrolled at Carlisle and rocketed toward his athletic peak. He gained national fame as a consensus first-team football all-America in 1911 and 1912. He rose to worldwide prominence at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, winning gold medals in the decathlon and pentathlon. Thorpe was the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States.

“To a whole generation of American sports lovers, Jim Thorpe was the greatest athlete of them all,” the New York Times declared. “No one has equaled the hold that he had on the imagination of all who saw him in action … He was a magnificent performer.”

In January 1913, after the International Olympic Committee learned of Thorpe’s minor-league ballplaying, it was determined he had competed in the 1912 Games as a professional, violating the rules of amateurism. He was stripped of his medals and his achievements were erased from the Olympic records. “The committee’s insistence that the Olympics are amateur is as fatuous as its insistence that sports should never be soiled by politics,” the New York Times opined.

(In July 2022, 69 years after Thorpe’s death, the International Olympic Committee declared him sole winner of the 1912 Olympic decathlon and pentathlon.)

Looking to extend his athletic career, Thorpe saw big-league baseball as offering the best path. (The American Professional Football Association, which became the NFL, wasn’t established until 1920).

On the money

Thorpe got offers from five big-league clubs _ Browns, Giants, Pirates, Reds and White Sox, the New York Times reported.

The Browns had more than 100 losses in three consecutive seasons (1910-12) and would finish in last place in the American League at 57-96 in 1913, but club owner Robert Hedges was serious about a pursuit of Thorpe. Hedges had scout Pop Kelchner try to woo Thorpe to St. Louis. On Kelchner’s recommendation, the Browns acquired a minor-league shortstop, Mike Balenti. He and Thorpe played together in the Carlisle football team backfield. The Browns hoped having Balenti would help them land Thorpe.

On Jan. 24, 1913, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported, “It was learned yesterday that Jim Thorpe … had promised Hedges that if he played ball in professional circles he would join the Browns.”

A week later, though, Thorpe signed with the Giants. Led by manager John McGraw, the Giants won National League pennants in 1911 and 1912. They’d go to the World Series again in 1913. Perhaps most important of all to Thorpe was the money. The Giants offered a salary of more than $5,000, the New York Times reported. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Thorpe got a $6,000 salary and a $500 signing bonus, and Carlisle coach Pop Warner got $2,500 from the Giants for steering Thorpe to them.

“There are very few $6,000 ballplayers in the game today,” St. Louis columnist Sid Keener noted. According to Keener, that select group included Ty Cobb, Ed Konetchy, Nap Lajoie, Christy Mathewson and Tris Speaker.

Though McGraw never had seen Thorpe play, he told the New York World, “A wonderful athlete like Thorpe ought to have in him the makings of a great ballplayer. He has the muscle and the brain, and it is up to me to locate the spot where he will be of most value to the team.”

Cardinals calling

After seeing Thorpe in spring training, McGraw determined the best spot for him was on the bench, or maybe the minors. Thorpe, who turned 26 that year, was plenty fast and strong, but he misjudged fly balls, didn’t slide properly and couldn’t hit the curve consistently.

In April 1913, before the regular season got under way, McGraw apparently considered placing Thorpe on waivers. If Thorpe was available, Cardinals manager Miller Huggins was determined to get him.

“Jim Thorpe … may become a Cardinal,” the Bridgeport Times of Connecticut reported. “All that is needed for (Thorpe) to join the (Cardinals) is for John McGraw to accept an offer made by Miller Huggins. It is believed that waivers have been asked on Thorpe because Huggins sent the following telegram to McGraw: Will take Thorpe off your hands. What is his salary?”

According to the New York Herald, Huggins said the Cardinals, destined to finish with the worst record in the majors (51-99) that year, would spend “the extreme limit” for Thorpe.

Huggins told Sid Keener, “I believe Thorpe can be developed into a ballplayer.  He has what I want _ speed. It may be that he will need plenty of seasoning, but I would be willing to carry him a year or so as a utility player.”

The Cardinals’ eagerness to take Thorpe apparently gave McGraw pause. He decided Thorpe would remain with the Giants. “I can make a first-class player of him,” McGraw said, according to the Montpelier (Vermont) Morning Journal.

Playing on

Thorpe stuck with the Giants in 1913 and 1914, but rarely played. He spent most of 1915 in the minors. Sent to minor-league Milwaukee in 1916, Thorpe made significant progress. He led Milwaukee in total bases (240) and hits (157).

In 1917, the Giants loaned Thorpe to the Reds. McGraw’s friend and former ace, Christy Mathewson, was the Reds’ manager. In a game against the Cardinals, Thorpe had two hits and two RBI. In another, at St. Louis, he totaled four hits, three RBI and scored twice. Boxscore and Boxscore

Thorpe’s highlight with the Reds, though, came in a game at Chicago. Fred Toney of the Reds and Hippo Vaughn of the Cubs each pitched nine hitless innings. In the 10th, Thorpe’s single versus Vaughn drove in a run and the Reds won, 1-0. Boxscore

After four months with the Reds, Thorpe was returned to the Giants. He played for them in 1918, then was traded to the Braves. Thorpe hit .327 for Boston in 1919 and .354 versus the Cardinals. It wasn’t enough to keep him in the majors, but he wasn’t through with baseball. Thorpe played three more seasons in the minors and thrived, batting .360 for Akron in 1920 and .358 for Toledo in 1921.

Meanwhile, when the American Professional Football Association began in 1920, Thorpe was welcomed in as player-coach of the Canton Bulldogs.

In 1925, Thorpe, 38, was a running back with the NFL New York Giants. He is one of two men who played for both the NFL and baseball New York Giants. The other, Steve Filipowicz, was an outfielder with the baseball Giants (1944-45) and a running back with the football Giants (1945-46).

Thorpe finally got to play for the Cardinals, too. His last NFL game was with the Chicago Cardinals in 1929.

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How Alfredo Cabrera went from Canarian to Cardinal

Posted in Games, Hitters, Prospects on January 5, 2026| 16 Comments »

The distance between the Canary Islands and St. Louis is 4,300 miles. It took Alfredo Cabrera 32 years to make the trek.

Cabrera is the only person born in the Canary Islands to play baseball in the big leagues. The shortstop was 32 when he debuted with the Cardinals in 1913.

His time in the majors, however, was as fleeting as a glimpse of a canary in the wild. Cabrera appeared in one game, played four innings and never returned.

Instead, he had a long professional playing career in Cuba and as a Hispanic minor-league baseball pioneer in the northeastern United States.

Island hopping

Formed by volcanic eruptions that created black sand beaches along crystal-clear turquoise water, the Canary Islands of Spain are within 65 miles of Africa’s northwestern coast. Wild canaries are a native species of the islands. (Cardinals, however, are not.)

Alfredo Cabrera was born in the Canary Islands on May 11, 1881. He was a descendant of Guanches, the indigenous people of the islands, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Cabrera arrived at a time when the Canary Islands transitioned from an agricultural economy (largely bananas and sugar cane) to tourism as steamships carried winter-weary visitors to the port of Las Palmas.

Though raised in the Canary Islands, Cuba became Cabrera’s home. He “most likely sailed from the Canary Islands to Cuba around 1900, as a teenager, and almost immediately established himself as a gifted baseball player,” according to Erik Malinowski of the Society for American Baseball Research.

In 1901, when Cabrera turned 20, he made his professional baseball debut in the Cuban League. He spent 18 seasons in Latin leagues, primarily with Almendares, and was player-manager for part of that time, according to Seamheads.com. Cabrera was inducted into the Cuban Baseball Hall of Fame in 1942.

Integrating the minors

Cabrera was part of a team, the Baseball Stars of Cuba, that toured the United States in 1906. Charles Humphrey, owner of the New Britain club in the Connecticut State League, was impressed by how the Cubans played. Humphrey went to Havana and recruited four Cubans _ third baseman Rafael Almeida, outfielder Armando Marsans, pitcher Luis Padron and the shortstop, Cabrera _ to play for New Britain in 1908, according to Weston Ulbrich of the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League.

Humphrey named the New Britain club the Perfectos.

Bigots objected to the newcomers joining an all-white league. Recalling those days, Dan Porter of the New York Daily Mirror wrote in 1933, “As a kid, I saw a half dozen Cuban players break into organized baseball in the old Connecticut League. I refer to players like Marsans, Almeida, Cabrera and others. I recall the storm of protest from the One Hundred Per Centers at that time but I also recall that all the Cubans conducted themselves in such a manner that they reflected nothing but credit on themselves and those who favored admitting them to baseball’s select circle.”

A right-handed batter, Cabrera was 5-foot-10 and lean, with a complexion “the hue of burnt leather,” the New Britain Herald reported. (The Post-Dispatch described his skin as being “the color of a coconut shell.”)

Of the four from Cuba to join New Britain, three eventually reached the majors. Almeida and Marsans debuted with the Reds in July 1911. Almeida played three seasons (1911-13) with Cincinnati. Marsans spent sevens seasons in the big leagues with the Reds (1911-14), Browns (1916-17) and Yankees (1917-18). He also had a stint with the St. Louis Terriers of the Federal League (1914-15).

Cabrera played five seasons (1908-12) with New Britain _ (the franchise shifted to Waterbury in June 1912) _ before getting to the majors. His path to St. Louis, however, required a detour through Indianapolis.

St. Louis shuffle

Bob Connery played for and managed Hartford of the Connecticut State League from 1908-12 and was quite familiar with the talents of Alfredo Cabrera. Connery became a Cardinals scout after the 1912 season. He was a friend of Cardinals manager Miller Huggins and both were friends of Mike Kelley, who had become manager of Indianapolis in the American Association.

On Connery’s recommendation to Kelley, Indianapolis acquired Cabrera from the Connecticut State League in January 1913. (Two years later, Connery convinced the Cardinals to sign Rogers Hornsby.)

During 1913 spring training, Cardinals shortstop Arnold Hauser injured a knee. Needing shortstop help, Huggins turned to his friend Mike Kelley. Indianapolis sent two shortstops _ Cabrera and Charley O’Leary _ to the Cardinals.

Unlike Cabrera, O’Leary, 37, had big-league experience. He was the shortstop for the Tigers in two World Series (1907 and 1908). In his last big-league game, he helped turn a triple play before being dispatched by the Tigers to Indianapolis in April 1912.

O’Leary (starter) and Cabrera (reserve) opened the 1913 season with the Cardinals. According to the Indianapolis Star, the Cardinals were impressed by “the dandy throwing arm the Cuban exhibited.”

Huggins told the Post-Dispatch, “I like that fellow’s looks and I intend to give him a thorough trial.”

However, once the season started, Huggins stuck with O’Leary at shortstop and kept Cabrera on the bench. The Cardinals began looking to trade the rookie.

“Cabrera is a shortstop of rare promise and he is the entity which may be used as a pawn to strengthen the club in other departments,” W.J. O’Connor reported in the Post-Dispatch. “Either Brooklyn or Boston could use Cabrera, and Huggins will carry Alfredo until he makes the first swing around the (league) … Huggins is so well-fortified at short, now that O’Leary has proved himself still a major-league performer, that he can readily pass up a promising youngster like Cabrera … If either (Brooklyn) or (Boston) wants Cabrera, Huggins will pass him over for a first-string pitcher or an outfielder.”

One and done

After O’Leary pulled up lame rounding first in a game at Brooklyn on May 15, 1913, the Post-Dispatch reported Cabrera would make his big-league debut the next day as the starting shortstop at Ebbets Field.

Huggins put Cabrera seventh in the batting order, between Rebel Oakes and Ivey Wingo. Pitching for the Cardinals was left-hander Slim Sallee, who would win 19 that season for a club that totaled 51.

The Brooklyn lineup included leadoff batter and center fielder Casey Stengel, and cleanup hitter and left fielder Zack Wheat, who remains the Dodgers’ career leader in total bases (4,003), hits (2,804), doubles (464) and triples (171). The Brooklyn pitcher, Cliff Curtis, never achieved a winning record in five big-league seasons and was a 24-game loser with Boston in 1910.

In the first inning, the Cardinals scored three times against Curtis and had a runner on third, two outs, when Cabrera came to the plate. He grounded out to the pitcher, ending the inning. Cabrera batted again in the third, grounded to short and was out by 20 feet at first, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.

Cabrera didn’t get a fielding chance, but Huggins apparently was miffed that the shortstop didn’t get to a grounder that went for a hit, the New York Herald reported. In the fifth, Cabrera was removed for a pinch-hitter and Lee Magee shifted from left field to shortstop. Brooklyn won, 6-5. Boxscore

The Cardinals started a utility player, Possum Whitted, at shortstop in their next game. Cabrera was sent to the Springfield (Massachusetts) Ponies of the Eastern Association. “He did not make a very satisfactory showing (with St. Louis) in the eyes of manager Huggins,” the Springfield Daily Republican noted.

International game

Cabrera spent three more seasons (1913-15) in the minors but his playing days lasted much longer in Cuba. As player-manager, he led Almendares to a Cuban League championship in 1915.

According to the Greater Hartford Twilight Baseball League, “Cabrera’s latter years were spent as groundskeeper of Havana’s El Gran Stadium.”

Today, baseball is part of the Canary Islands sports culture. Eric Gonzalez-Diaz, born in the Canary Islands town of San Juan de la Rambla, was a pitcher in the Padres farm system from 2008-10 and played for Spain in the 2013 World Baseball Classic. A Canary Islands team, the Tenerife Marlins, became 2025 Baseball European Cup champions.

 

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Cardinals nemesis Mickey Lolich got assist from ex-Redbird

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Prospects on December 29, 2025| 19 Comments »

Mickey Lolich was at a crossroads in his pitching career when a former Cardinals ace came to his rescue.

A left-hander with a stellar fastball he couldn’t control, Lolich, 21, was an unhappy prospect in the Tigers system when he was dispatched to Portland (Ore.) in 1962. The pitching coach there, Gerry Staley, 41, served a dual role as reliever.

Staley had been a big winner for the Cardinals before becoming a closer for the White Sox. Perhaps his biggest save came later with the work he did on Lolich. Staley taught him how to make a fastball sink. Lolich became a pitcher instead of a thrower, a winner instead of a loser. The sinkerball made all the difference.

Six years later, Lolich earned the 1968 World Series Most Valuable Player Award for beating the Cardinals three times, including in the decisive Game 7.

In his 2018 book “Joy in Tigertown,” Lolich suggested Staley deserved a 1968 World Series share for helping him become a success. “Meeting him was one of the great breaks of my career,” Lolich said. “Maybe the most important one.”

Wild thing

Two-year-old Mickey Lolich was pedaling a tricycle as fast as he could in his Portland (Ore.) neighborhood when he lost control and slammed into the kickstand of a parked motorcycle. The big bike crashed down on the tyke, pinning him to the ground. His left collarbone was fractured.

“Well, back in 1942, they just sort of strapped your arm across your chest and waited for it to heal,” Lolich recalled to Pat Batcheller of Detroit Public Radio (WDET, 101.9 FM) in 2018. “When they took the bindings off, I had total atrophy in my left arm. It wasn’t working at all.”

Though Mickey was right-handed, a doctor advised the Lolich family to encourage him to use his left hand and arm as much as possible to build strength. His parents “tied my right arm behind my back and made me use my left hand,” Lolich told Detroit Public Radio. “I wanted to throw those little cars and trucks, so I threw them left-handed … and that’s how I became a left-handed pitcher.”

The kid learned to throw with velocity, too. In his senior high school season, Lolich struck out 71 in 42 innings. He was 17 when the Tigers signed him in 1958 and told him to report to training camp the following spring.

Lolich’s first manager in the minors was fellow Portland native Johnny Pesky, the former Red Sox shortstop whose late throw to the plate enabled Enos Slaughter to score the winning run for the Cardinals in Game 7 of the 1946 World Series.

When Braves executive Birdie Tebbetts saw Lolich’s fastball in April 1959, he told Marvin West of the Knoxville News-Sentinel, “I’d give cold cash for this Lolich boy.”

The problem was control. In a four-hit shutout of Asheville in May 1959, Lolich walked nine but was bailed out by five double plays. A month later, in a two-hitter to beat Macon, he walked 11 and threw four wild pitches.

Lolich began each of his first three pro seasons (1959-61) with Class A Knoxville and was demoted to Class B Durham each year. In June 1961, after Lolich gave up no hits but nine walks and four runs in a five-inning start, Knoxville manager Frank Carswell told the News-Sentinel, “I’ve seen some strange games, but I can’t remember seeing one pitcher give away a decision without a hit.”

Headed home

After a strong spring training in 1962, Lolich was assigned to Class AAA Denver, but he was a bust (0-4, 16.50 ERA). In late May, the Tigers demoted him to Knoxville, but Lolich refused to return there. Instead, he went home to Portland. The Tigers suspended him.

Portland had a city league for amateur and semipro players in conjunction with the American Amateur Baseball Congress. Lolich showed up one night in the uniform of Archer Blower, a maker of industrial fans, faced 12 batters and struck out all of them, the Oregon Daily Journal reported.

Blown away by the performance, the Tigers quickly reinstated Lolich and arranged for him to pitch the rest of the summer for the Portland Beavers, the Class AAA club of the Kansas City Athletics. That’s when Gerry Staley got a look at him. In the book “Summer of ’68,” Lolich told author Tim Wendel, “He (Staley) asked if I’d give him 10 days to let him try and turn me into a pitcher. All I was then was a thrower, really. I’d stand out there and throw it as hard as I could.”

Lolich agreed to the proposal.

Starting and closing

Gerry Staley went from Brush Prairie, his rural hometown in Washington state, into pro baseball as a rawboned right-handed pitcher who “looks as if he could whip a wounded bear,” Dwight Chapin of the Vancouver Columbian noted.

When he was with a Cardinals farm club in 1947, Staley was throwing warmup tosses to infielder Julius Schoendienst, brother of St. Louis second baseman Red Schoendienst. “He noticed I had a natural sinker when I threw three-quarters overhand,” Staley recalled to United Press International. “He said my sinker did more than my fastball. So I stuck with it.”

Using the sinker seven out of every 10 pitches, Staley became a prominent starter with the Cardinals. He had five consecutive double-digit win seasons (1949-53) for St. Louis. His win totals included 19 in 1951, 17 in 1952 and 18 in 1953.

In explaining to Al Crombie of the Vancouver Columbian how he threw the sinker, Staley said, “You have to release the ball off one finger more than the other, and then I roll my wrist to get a little more of the downspin on the ball.”

Staley threw a heavy sinker. According to the Vancouver newspaper, “It breaks down at the last second, and as the surprised hitter gets his bat around on it, most of the ball isn’t there. Most of the time it dribbles off harmlessly to an infielder and is made to order for starting double plays.”

Traded to the Reds in December 1954, Staley went on to the Yankees and then the White Sox, who made him a reliever. In 1959, Staley got the save in the win that clinched for the White Sox their first American League pennant in 40 years. He appeared in 67 games that season and had eight wins, 15 saves and a 2.24 ERA. The next year also was stellar for him (13 wins, nine saves. 2.42 ERA).

Released by the Tigers in October 1961, Staley snared an offer to coach and pitch for Portland.

Soaring with a sinker

Mickey Lolich became Staley’s star pupil. As author Tim Wendel noted, “After a week or so, Lolich caught on to what Staley was trying to teach him _  how it was better to be a sinkerball pitcher, with control, than a kid trying to throw 100 mph on every pitch. The new goal was to keep the ball low, often away from the hitter, consistently hitting the outside corner.”

Staley also taught Lolich to extend his pregame warmup time. The extra pitches tired his arm a bit and gave more sink to his sinker.

The results were impressive. In 130 innings for Portland, Lolich struck out 138 and yielded 116 hits. The next year, he reached the majors with Detroit. “Gerry Staley changed my whole life,” Lolich told Tim Wendel. “It’s as simple as that.”

In the 1968 World Series, Lolich won Games 2, 5 and 7. He went the route in all three, posting a 1.67 ERA.

Lolich had double-digit wins 12 years in a row (1964-75), including 25 in 1971 and 22 in 1972. He pitched more than 300 innings in a season four consecutive times (1971-74).

In 16 seasons in the majors with the Tigers (1963-75), Mets (1976) and Padres (1978-79), Lolich earned 217 wins and had 41 shutouts. He is the Tigers’ career leader in strikeouts (2,679), starts (459) and shutouts (39).

The 1962 season with Portland was Gerry Staley’s last in professional baseball. He became superintendent of the Clark County (Washington) Parks Department. “It was time I went to work,” he told the Vancouver Columbian.

After retiring in 1982, Staley enjoyed gardening and fishing for steelhead trout. Once a week, he would take time to carefully autograph items mailed to him by baseball fans. “There are some people who won’t sign unless they get paid for it,” Staley said to the Vancouver newspaper. “What the heck. I’ve got enough to live on. It’s nice to be remembered.”

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