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Archive for the ‘Prospects’ Category

How Dick Nen made dramatic debut versus Cardinals

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Prospects on November 3, 2025| 10 Comments »

Dick Nen reached the pinnacle of his career in his first big-league game. He played in 366 more after that, but nothing topped what he did against the Cardinals in his debut.

On Sept. 18, 1963, in his second at-bat in the majors, Nen slammed a home run for the Dodgers, tying the score in the ninth inning and stunning the Cardinals. The Dodgers went on to win, completing a series sweep that put them on the verge of clinching a pennant.

Three decades later, reflecting on his storybook feat in St. Louis, Nen told the Palm Beach Post, “I should have walked away right then. That was my one day.”

Prized prospect

The California town of South Gate, seven miles south of downtown Los Angeles and dubbed the “Azalea City,” is the birthplace of Dick Nen as well as other sports figures such as NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle, Baseball Hall of Fame umpire Doug Harvey and Red Sox second baseman Doug Griffin.

After attending Los Angeles Harbor College, Nen went to Long Beach State and played baseball there. A left-handed batter, he hit with power and fielded gracefully at first base. Kenny Myers, the scout who brought Willie Davis to the Dodgers, signed Nen for them. Two weeks later, the Cubs offered $100,000 for Nen, but the Dodgers declined, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In 1961, Nen’s first pro season, with Reno, he produced 32 home runs, 144 RBI and batted .351. In a home game against Fresno, he blasted a ball out of the park and onto the roof of an indoor municipal swimming pool 100 feet beyond the outfield fence. With 177 hits and 102 walks, he had a .458 on-base percentage.

Promoted from Class C Reno to Class AAA Spokane in 1962, Nen was limited to 72 games. He joined the team after the season started because of a military commitment and then was sidelined when a thrown ball struck him below the right eye. Back with Spokane in 1963, Nen had 84 RBI and a .369 on-base percentage (167 hits and 75 walks).

Welcome aboard

On Tuesday night, Sept. 17, 1963, Spokane lost in the finale of the Pacific Coast League championship series at Oklahoma City. Nen was called up to the Dodgers after the game. On Wednesday, Sept. 18, he boarded a flight in Oklahoma City, arrived in St. Louis in the afternoon and went directly to the ballpark, where the Dodgers were to play the Cardinals that night in the finale of a three-game series. Issued uniform No. 5, Nen took batting practice, then settled in to watch the game from the dugout.

After losing the first two games and falling three behind the front-running Dodgers, the Cardinals desperately needed a win in Game 3. With Bob Gibson pitching for them, the Cardinals appeared on their way to achieving their goal, leading 5-1 through seven innings.

A pitcher, reliever Bob Miller, was due to be the first batter for the Dodgers in the eighth. Dodgers manager Walter Alston, seeking a left-handed pinch-hitter to send against Gibson, had two options: Derrell Griffith, called up from Class AA, or Nen, called up from Class AAA. Neither had been in a big-league game.

Alston chose Nen. “I was scared stiff,” Nen recalled to the Los Angeles Times. “I had no idea I’d be called upon.”

In making his big-league debut, Nen joined Truck Hannah (1918 Yankees), Johnny Reder (1932 Red Sox) and Eddie Kazak (1948 Cardinals) as players whose last names spell the same forward and backward. Since then, the list includes Toby Harrah (1969 Senators), Mark Salas (1984 Cardinals), Dave Otto (1987 Athletics), Robb Nen (1993 Rangers), Juan Salas (2006 Rays), Marino Salas (2008 Pirates), Fernando Salas (2010 Cardinals) and Glenn Otto (2021 Rangers).

Nen lined out sharply to center fielder Curt Flood, but the Dodgers went on to score three times in the inning, cutting the St. Louis lead to 5-4. Nen stayed in the game, taking over at first for Ron Fairly, who had been lifted for pinch-hitter Frank Howard during the eighth-inning rally.

In the ninth, with one out, none on, Nen batted for the second time. Right-hander Ron Taylor threw him a fastball, low and away. “I put the ball where I wanted it,” Taylor told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Nen drove it onto the pavilion roof in right-center for a home run, tying the score. “I knew I hit it good,” Nen told the Los Angeles Times, “but I had no idea it was a home run until I saw the umpire give the home run sign.”

Watching on TV in California, Nen’s father and sister whooped with joy. Nen’s mother, attending a church function, got a call from her daughter, who exclaimed, “Richard hit a home run to tie the (score).”

The game moved into extra innings and became a duel between relievers Ron Perranoski (Dodgers) and Lew Burdette (Cardinals). With two on in the 11th, Nen nearly got a game-winning single, but second baseman Julian Javier ranged far to his left, made what the Post-Dispatch described as “an improbable glove-hand stop” of the grounder, wheeled and threw out Nen at first. In the 13th, with Dodgers runners on second and third, one out, Burdette issued an intentional walk to Nen. “A pretty high compliment for a rookie in his first big-league game,” columnist Jim Murray noted.

Maury Wills followed with a grounder, sending home the runner from third with the winning run. Boxscore

On the Dodgers’ flight home, most of the talk concerned Nen’s heroics. “I never saw anybody break in more spectacularly,” pitcher Johnny Podres told the Long Beach Independent. “That was the biggest homer of the year. It gave us the shot in the arm we needed.”

The Dodgers’ plane landed at 4:08 a.m. When Nen got home, his parents greeted him with a big spaghetti breakfast, featuring their homemade sauce.

A few days later, Sept. 24, the Dodgers clinched the pennant. Then they swept the Yankees in the World Series. Nen joined the club too late to be eligible, but he pitched batting practice before Game 4 and was given a $1,000 winner’s share.

Wanted in Washington

Nen’s home run against the Cardinals turned out to be his only hit as a Dodger.

Entering 1964 spring training as a candidate to earn a spot on the Dodgers’ Opening Day roster, Nen “developed the bad habit of lowering his back shoulder when he swings,” the Associated Press reported.

He was sent back to Spokane and spent the season there. In December 1964, the Dodgers dealt Nen, Frank Howard, Ken McMullen, Pete Richert and Phil Ortega to the Senators for Claude Osteen, John Kennedy and $100,000.

The Senators were managed by ex-Dodgers first baseman Gil Hodges. At spring training in 1961, Hodges had given pointers to Nen on how to play first base.

Nen, 25, began the 1965 season in the minors, but when Senators first baseman Bob Chance failed to hit as hoped, Nen was brought up in July to replace him. Nen started 63 games at first base for the 1965 Senators and hit .317 with runners in scoring position. He slugged two homers against Catfish Hunter, a walkoff homer to beat Luis Tiant and a grand slam versus Fred Talbot. Boxscore Boxscore Boxscore Boxscore

“This boy has all the qualifications to be a dandy player,” Senators general manager George Selkirk told the Washington Daily News. “… He’s our first baseman and I don’t see anyone taking it away from him.”

The good vibes didn’t last long. Nen had a terrible spring training in 1966. When the season opened, ex-Cardinal Joe Cunningham was the Senators’ first baseman and Nen was on the bench. In June, the Senators got Ken Harrelson from the Athletics and he took over at first base. Nen batted .213.

Nen “has the idea in his head that he is going to be lousy in the spring and so naturally he is,” Senators coach Joe Pignatano told Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star-Ledger. “You can’t come in here thinking that way and expect to be anything but bad. When you do that, you concede the job. He could win it in a minute if he’d hit the way we think he can.”

Years later, Nen said to the Miami Herald, “I struggled most of my career, especially with the mental part. I always had to find ways to overcome the bad times and look forward to the good times. It seems like I went through more bad times than good. I should have done a lot better.”

In 1967, Nen was the Senators’ Opening Day first baseman, but in May they got Mike Epstein from the Orioles and he became the starter. Nen batted .218.

Seeking a pinch-hitter, the Cubs acquired Nen a week before the start of the 1968 season. On May 15, his two-run single in the ninth inning against Jack Billingham beat the Dodgers. It was Nen’s first National League hit since his 1963 home run versus the Cardinals. Boxscore

After batting .181 for the 1968 Cubs, Nen was returned to the Senators. He played his last game in the majors for them in June 1970.

All in the family

Nen’s son, Robb Nen, became a prominent big-league reliever. In 10 seasons with the Rangers (1993), Marlins (1993-97) and Giants (1998-2002), Robb had 314 saves, 45 wins and a 2.98 ERA. He pitched in two World Series (1997 Marlins and 2002 Giants) and was the National League saves leader (45) in 2001.

“Nen has the kind of arm that comes along once every 10 years,” Marlins general manager Dave Dombrowski told the Miami Herald in 1997.

Dick Nen said to the San Francisco Examiner, “We don’t know where the good arm came from. It didn’t come from me. He must have gotten it from my wife.”

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Bobby Tiefenauer made his best pitch and got hitched

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Prospects on October 10, 2025| 8 Comments »

In September 1950, Bobby Tiefenauer was young, successful and in love.

A 20-year-old reliever for a Cardinals farm club in Winston-Salem, N.C., Tiefenauer threw a knuckleball that had batters swinging at air. His manager, George Kissell, credited him with making his team the best in the league.

Tiefenauer’s No. 1 fan was his sweetheart back home in the mining district of Missouri. Rosemarie Henson agreed to marry the pitcher at home plate before a game at Winston-Salem. The wedding date was set for Sept. 5, 1950.

On the morning of the big day, the ballclub’s business manager, Bill Bergesch, accompanied the couple to the county clerk’s office to obtain a marriage license. That’s when Bergesch learned the bride was 17. “We almost missed having this wedding,” Bergesch later told the Winston-Salem Sentinel.

Because Rosemarie was younger than 18, she needed the written consent of her parents in order for a license to be issued, the county clerk said. Rosemarie’s mother, who was in town for the wedding, promptly gave her consent, but dad was back in Missouri, working in a mine, the Sentinel reported.

The clerk said if the father could send a telegram of consent by 5 p.m. that day, the wedding could be held that night as scheduled at Southside Park. Frantic calls were made to Missouri. As the clock ticked, Bergesch paced the floor. “One might have thought he was the groom,” Carlton Byrd of the Sentinel observed.

A few minutes before 5, the father’s telegram arrived and the license was issued. “It was close, but we made it,” Bergesch told the Sentinel.

The couple rushed to the ballpark for the 7:30 p.m. ceremony. A total of 3,050 spectators came out. Tiefenauer had wanted the wedding held at home plate so that all his teammates could be present, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. He also made a request to George Kissell: The groom wanted to pitch in the game that night against the Burlington (N.C.) Bees.

The bride was dressed in a satin gown. Her matron of honor was Kissell’s wife. Tiefenauer wore a suit. The Rev. Mark Q. Tuttle, a Methodist pastor, officiated. After the service, “the couple moved under an archway of bats held by members of the Winston-Salem and Burlington teams,” the Journal reported.

The game began at 8:15. In the sixth inning, Kissell honored Tiefenauer’s request, sending him in to pitch. Tiefenauer’s mind may have been on other things. He faced five batters, plunking one with a pitch, walking another and giving up three hits, before being lifted.

Though his pitching that night was a dud, Tiefenauer’s marriage was a winner. It lasted for 50 years until his death in 2000.

No quit

Tiefenauer was from Desloge, 65 miles south of St. Louis and in an area of Missouri where mining of lead and zinc had been prominent. His high school didn’t have a baseball team, so Tiefenauer played sandlot ball and softball. A prep basketball talent, he got offers to play in college, but dreamed of pro baseball.

In the summer of 1947, after graduating from high school, Tiefenauer, 17, attended a Cardinals tryout camp in St. Louis and was signed to a pro contract. The club told him to report to minor-league spring training at Albany, Ga., in 1948. When he got there, however, he failed to impress and was sent home.

While playing softball, Tiefenauer found he could make his overhand throws around the infield move like a knuckler. He tried it with a baseball, too, with encouraging results. That summer of 1948, Tiefenauer, 18, went to a Cardinals tryout camp at Fredericktown, Mo., and told scout Joe Monahan he’d developed a knuckleball pitch. Monahan liked what he saw and signed him.

The Cardinals sent the teen to a Class D farm club in Tallassee, an Alabama cotton mill town on the Tallapoosa River in the Emerald Mountains. Tiefenauer returned there for a full season in 1949 and won 17. That earned him the promotion to Winston-Salem for 1950.

Dipsy-doo

The Winston-Salem club managed by George Kissell featured pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell and second baseman Earl Weaver. Even at 19, Weaver was feuding with umpires the way he would years later as Orioles manager. In describing a Weaver plate appearance to the Winston-Salem Sentinel, Kissell said in 1950, “He really stands up there and talks to those umpires. He had a strike called on him on a bad pitch and he really squawked.”

Kissell chose Tiefenauer to be his top reliever, in part, because the knuckleballer could work multiple games in a row. It was a wise decision. Tiefenauer consistently secured wins for the team by baffling batters with the knuckler.

Fayetteville (N.C.) manager Mule Haas, the former outfielder who played in three World Series for the Philadelphia Athletics, said to the Sentinel, “I’ve seen a lot of guys who throw that dipsy-doo stuff, but this kid (Tiefenauer) has the stuff to become the best (knuckleballer) I’ve seen.”

Carolina League umpire Johnny Allen, a former big-league pitcher, told Kissell he’d never seen anyone throw a more effective knuckleball than Tiefenauer.

Kissell said to the Winston-Salem Journal, “If his first pitch is a strike, the batter had better look out, because he’s not going to see anything but those knucklers. I saw him make one pitch that dropped two feet just as it started across the plate.”

The bravest members of the Winston-Salem team were the catchers tasked with corralling Tiefenauer’s knuckleball. Bullpen catcher Preston Shepherd didn’t wear any protective face covering when he took Tiefenauer’s warmup throws because the team’s only catcher’s mask was worn by the starter.

“Preston Shepherd is now insisting we buy him a mask to wear in the bullpen,” Kissell said to the Journal. “The other night he got hit in the eye by one of Tiefenauer’s knucklers. He swears the ball hopped right over his mitt.”

Even with a mask, one of Winston-Salem’s regular catchers, Willie Osteen, told the Sentinel, “I sure hate to call for his knuckleball with runners on base. I’m afraid I can’t catch the ball.”

Winston-Salem won the league championship with a 106-47 record. Tiefenauer won 16, but Kissell said the reliever contributed to 50 of the team’s wins. “Bobby was certainly the key to the pennant,” Kissell told the Journal.

Reidsville (N.C.) manager Herb Brett said to the newspaper, “Tiefenauer is the difference between a championship team and a second-division club … A lot of those victories chalked up to other pitchers (were) saved by his relief pitching.”

More work, the better

Tiefenauer went on to have many more excellent seasons in the minors, including for 1953 Rochester (9-3, 2.31 ERA), 1958 Toronto (17-5, 1.89), 1960 Rochester (11-4, 3.14) and 1967 Portland (6-1, 1.87).

The major leagues were a different story. Tiefenauer’s record was 9-25 (including 1-4 for the Cardinals), with 23 saves. Usually, he didn’t get to pitch a lot and his control suffered.

For example, his three stints with the Cardinals:

_ 1952: Eight innings, 12 hits allowed, seven walks.

_ 1955: 32.2 innings, 31 hits, 10 walks.

_ 1961: 4.1 innings, nine hits, four walks.

“I just need a lot of work,” Tiefenauer told the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in March 1955. “When I do pitch often, I can get the knuckler over.”

Tiefenauer’s most productive time in the majors came in a stretch with the Milwaukee Braves. Brought up from the minors in mid-August, he had a 1.21 ERA in 29.2 innings for Milwaukee in 1963. Tiefenauer spent all of 1964 with the Braves, pitched 73 innings and led them in saves (13).

The next year, though, another knuckleball pitcher, rookie Phil Niekro, arrived in the Braves’ bullpen and Tiefenauer was shipped to the Yankees (whose manager, Johnny Keane, had him in the Cardinals’ system).

At the plate, Tiefenauer had trouble making solid contact regardless of what pitch was thrown. In 39 at-bats in the majors, he had one hit _ a double versus the Giants’ Jack Sanford, a 24-game winner that year. Boxscore

Overcoming adversity

Tiefenauer didn’t discourage easily. He persevered through setbacks more dire than roster demotions or transfers.

In early May 1957, Tiefenauer arranged for his wife Rosemarie and their three sons to leave their house in Desloge and join him for the summer in Toronto while he pitched for the minor-league Maple Leafs there.

A couple of weeks later, a tornado “cut a path of havoc six blocks wide” through Desloge, the Associated Press reported. The twister lifted Tiefenauer’s two-story white frame house off its foundation and moved it 200 feet into the middle of the street, the Globe-Democrat reported. One side of the house was blown out.

Tiefenauer said the tornado also took the roof off his parents’ house and his mother was knocked unconscious when struck by falling boards, the Associated Press reported. O.M. McLeod, a miner who watched the tornado hit Desloge, told the wire service it sounded like “a steam engine with burned out bearings pulling a string of freight cars.”

Two years later, Tiefenauer was at 1959 spring training with the Cleveland Indians when he injured his right arm practicing pickoff throws. He went home to Desloge and sat out the entire season.

At one point that summer, Cleveland general manager Frank Lane asked Cardinals trainer Bob Bauman to examine Tiefenauer’s arm. Bauman discovered the pitcher had circulatory trouble. “My arm started to come around after he worked on it,” Tiefenauer told The Sporting News.

Tiefenauer resumed pitching in 1960 and continued to play in the pros until 1969, the year he turned 40. After that, Tiefenauer worked for many years as a pitching coach in the Phillies’ system. He also was the bullpen coach for the 1979 Phillies on manager Danny Ozark’s staff.

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No vacancy: Why Marc Hill got turned away by Cardinals

Posted in Games, Hitters, Prospects on September 12, 2025| 7 Comments »

Marc Hill was supposed to be the catcher who moved Ted Simmons from behind the plate to first base in St. Louis.

Hill threw with the strength and quick release of Johnny Bench. He worked well with pitchers, caught pop flies and dug balls out of the dirt.

The problem was Hill didn’t hit like Simmons. He didn’t hit like Keith Hernandez either. With Hernandez emerging as the Cardinals’ first baseman, there was no place to move Simmons, a future Hall of Famer.

Blocked from getting much playing time with the Cardinals, Hill was traded to the Giants. His catching skills kept him in the majors for 14 seasons, including a stretch with the White Sox when Tony La Russa was their manager. Hill was 73 when he died on Aug. 24, 2025.

Catching on

Hill was from the Missouri town of Elsberry, located in Mississippi River bottomland, about 60 miles north of St. Louis. The area is known as a haven for duck hunters.

According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Cardinals equipment manager Butch Yatkeman, a family friend, arranged for Hill, then 16, his parents and sister to attend a game of the 1968 World Series at Busch Memorial Stadium. Yatkeman also tipped off the Cardinals to Hill’s baseball talents.

Hill’s father, Henry, a St. Louis Browns minor leaguer in 1946, encouraged his son to lift weights. Hill also got strong working in the lumber yard his father managed. He became a baseball and basketball standout for Lincoln County High School.

In 1970, the Cardinals sent scouting supervisor Fred McAlister and instructor Vern Benson to see Hill, 18, play in a tournament at Hannibal, Mo. They liked what they saw. The Cardinals chose him in the 10th round of the June 1970 amateur draft. “He has a real major-league arm and good catching ability,” Cardinals general manager Bing Devine told the St. Louis American.

At the lowest levels of the minors, though, Hill’s inability to hit became a concern. In his first two seasons, at Sarasota (Fla.) in 1970 and at Cedar Rapids (Iowa) in 1971, he had more strikeouts than hits. “Hill was almost useless as a batter,” Cardinals instructor George Kissell told the Post-Dispatch. “You could almost walk through the batter’s box and he still couldn’t hit you.”

Nicknamed Booter, as in Boot Hill, the catcher’s hopes of reaching the majors appeared on the brink of being buried. “If I could just hit, I’d have it made,” Hill told the Mexico (Mo.) Ledger.

Making the majors

A turnaround came in 1973. Hill totaled 20 doubles, 12 home runs and 57 RBI for Cardinals farm clubs. His catching dazzled. According to the Tulsa World, Arkansas manager Tom Burgess said Hill “throws better than Johnny Bench, or anybody” and predicted “Hill will move Ted Simmons to another position.”

The Cardinals, in the thick of a division title chase, called up Hill, 21, for the last two weeks of the 1973 season. For the opener of the final series of the year, manager Red Schoendienst showed supreme confidence in Hill, having him make his big-league debut as the starting catcher against the Phillies. Simmons, 24, shifted to first base, replacing injured Joe Torre.

“Before the game, I was so scared they almost had to push me out of the dugout,” Hill recalled to Milton Richman of United Press International. “Ted (Simmons) asked me if I was nervous. I said yes and he said, ‘Try not to be. We’ll help you along.’ And he certainly did.

“We had a close relationship, Ted and I. There was no bitterness between us because we played the same position. He kind of nursed me, took care of me.”

With Hill catching, Mike Thompson (four innings) and Diego Segui (five innings) combined on a two-hit shutout in a 3-0 Cardinals triumph. Boxscore

Encouraging words

Before a spring training game at St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1974, Cardinals broadcasters Jack Buck and Mike Shannon told Reds catcher Johnny Bench about Hill’s laser beam throws from the plate to second base. Then, as Hill recalled to Milton Richman, “I was sitting on the Cardinals’ bench, pretty much by myself. I saw Johnny Bench walk by and I just plain shook in my britches. ‘There’s Johnny Bench, the best catcher in baseball,’ I said to myself.”

Bench gave a hello, told Hill he’d heard good reports about him and wished him well, United Press International reported.

Though Hill was star-struck in Bench’s presence, Cardinals management had no doubt he was ready for the majors.

“I don’t know of any catcher in the big leagues who throws better than Hill does,” Red Schoendienst said to the Post-Dispatch. Cardinals director of player personnel Bob Kennedy told the Columbia (Mo.) Daily Tribune, “He’s the best defensive catcher in all of baseball.”

Nontheless, the Cardinals determined Hill, 22, would be better off playing every day in the minors rather than serving as Simmons’ backup. So Tim McCarver was kept as the reserve catcher and Hill began the 1974 season with Tulsa.

Change of plans

Playing for Tulsa manager Ken Boyer, Hill hit with power, drove in runs and excelled at catching.

“I am not being cocky when I say I know I am going to be the Cardinals’ catcher pretty soon,” Hill said to Tulsa World sports editor Bill Connors in May 1974. “Ted Simmons knows it. He has been very nice to me … He has said he … will be glad to get down to first base whenever the Cardinals think I am ready … He may hit .350 when he gets that strain (of catching) off his legs.”

The Cardinals called up Hill in July 1974. He was the starting catcher in six games but didn’t hit well. Returned to Tulsa, Hill came back to St. Louis in late August, taking the roster spot of Tim McCarver, who was shipped to the Red Sox. Hill mostly sat and watched, though, because Simmons hit .349 with 27 RBI in 27 September games. “I’m not concerned about someone taking my catching job away from me,” Simmons told the Columbia Daily Tribune.

Meanwhile, Keith Hernandez, brought from Tulsa to St. Louis with Hill, made a strong impression with his fielding at first base and with his .415 on-base percentage (10 hits, seven walks) in 41 plate appearances.

The Cardinals concluded they’d do best having Simmons and Hernandez in the lineup in 1975. Two weeks after the 1974 season ended, they traded Joe Torre to the Mets for Ray Sadecki and Tommy Moore, and Hill to the Giants for Elias Sosa and backup catcher Ken Rudolph.

In explaining why he traded Hill, Bing Devine told the Post-Dispatch, “We couldn’t afford the luxury of keeping Hill and not playing him.”

Stop and go

In six seasons (1975-80) with the Giants, Hill played for four managers (Wes Westrum, Bill Rigney, Joe Altobelli, Dave Bristol). He was the Giants’ Opening Day catcher for three consecutive years (1977-79) but also was platooned with the likes of Dave Rader, Mike Sadek and Dennis Littlejohn.

Facing the Cardinals for the first time since the trade, Hill threw out Lou Brock on three of five steal attempts in May 1975. Boxscore, Boxscore, Boxscore

(Hill also went hitless in seven at-bats during the series.)

Described by the San Francisco Chronicle as “lead-legged,” Hill seemed to be trudging perpetually uphill when on the base paths. “The harder I try to run, the slower I get,” he told the San Francisco Examiner.

It was both a shock and thrill when Hill got his only stolen base in the big leagues _ against the Cardinals on May 2, 1978, at St. Louis.

With Bob Forsch pitching, Ted Simmons catching and Hill the baserunner on first, the Giants called for a hit-and-run with Johnnie LeMaster at the plate. Hill took off with the pitch, but LeMaster didn’t connect. Hill rumbled into second with a steal. Boxscore

Two weeks later, in a ceremony between games of a Cardinals-Giants doubleheader in San Francisco, Giants owner Bob Lurie and National League stolen base king Lou Brock presented Hill with the base he stole.

Helping hand

Milt May became the Giants’ catcher in 1980 and Hill was sent to the Mariners. Granted free agency after the season, he signed with the White Sox and spent six seasons (1981-86) with them as backup to catcher Carlton Fisk. “We have the best backup catcher in the game in Marc Hill,” White Sox manager Tony La Russa said to the Chicago Tribune.

La Russa and Hill developed a mutual respect. “I’ve never met anybody as totally unselfish as Marc Hill,” La Russa told the Tribune. Hill said to the newspaper, “Tony treats me like a superstar.” In May 1986, when reports circulated that White Sox general manager Ken Harrelson might fire La Russa, Hill gave teammates T-shirts with the words: “Save the Skipper.”

Hill became a minor-league manager in the farm systems of the White Sox, Mariners and Pirates. With Jacksonville in 1994, his shortstop was 18-year-old Alex Rodriguez. Hill twice served as a big-league coach _ in 1988 for Astros manager Hal Lanier and in 1991 for Yankees manager Stump Merrill.

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Bobby Joe Conrad made an art of adapting to gridiron roles

Posted in Football, Games, Prospects on August 11, 2025| 10 Comments »

As a youth in small-town Texas, Bobby Joe Conrad would go to a vacant lot near his house and practice kicking a football. He taught himself to boot the ball high and far and straight. After a while, he was kicking footballs over the arching branches of a cluster of hackberry trees.

“I guess a lot of it came naturally,” he recalled to the Bryan-College Station Eagle.

Conrad could throw, catch and run with a football, too. There wasn’t much, actually, he couldn’t do on a football field. When Conrad got to college at Texas A&M, he was a quarterback, running back, receiver and defensive back.

Those kicking skills, though, are what first got him national attention.

Home on the range

Conrad was from the Texas town of Clifton, which was settled by Norwegian immigrants in the 1800s. Located along the Bosque River, 100 miles south of Dallas, Clifton’s population never topped 3,500. Conrad felt right at home there. “I never found any compelling reason to leave,” he told the Waco Tribune-Herald.

A standout prep quarterback, Conrad planned to attend Texas Christian but the arrival of head coach Bear Bryant at Texas A&M in 1954 changed his mind. “A&M wasn’t among my top five choices but Bear came up and sold me, not only sold me on himself but the school as well,” Conrad told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

As Conrad explained to the Waco Tribune-Herald, “The main thing I wanted was a college degree because no one in my family had one.”

Conrad found the position he liked playing best in college was receiver but Texas A&M didn’t pass much. So he mostly played cornerback and substituted at quarterback and at running back (behind John David Crow and Loyd Taylor). “I never did anything spectacular,” Conrad told the Bryan-College Station Eagle. “I just did my job wherever they wanted me to play.”

One of his best games came as a senior in 1957 when Texas A&M won at Missouri, 28-0. Conrad totaled 196 yards. He ran back the second-half kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown, rushed for 92 yards on 13 carries and caught a pass for 13 yards.

Conrad also did some kicking on extra-point attempts, sharing that duty with two teammates. It was his skill as a cornerback, though, that enticed the New York Giants to select him in the fifth round of the 1958 NFL draft.

Going pro

A fellow Texan and former cornerback, Giants defensive coordinator Tom Landry, signed Conrad. However, in May 1958, four months after they drafted him, the Giants swapped Conrad and Dick Nolan (future head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints) to the Chicago Cardinals for Lindon Crow and Pat Summerall (the future sportscaster).

Noting how being dealt to New York led to Summerall getting national broadcast opportunities, Conrad later quipped to the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, “If it weren’t for me, Pat Summerall would be a Falstaff beer salesman in St. Louis.”

Soon after the trade, Conrad earned a business degree from Texas A&M. He would put that to good use, but first he wanted to give the NFL a try.

His first test would come as a member of the college all-star team in an exhibition against the reigning NFL champion Detroit Lions at Chicago in August 1958. Though projected to be a reserve defensive back in that game, Conrad practiced placekicking while home in Clifton during the summer in order to be ready if the all-stars needed kicking help.

Getting his kicks

Being prepared paid off for Conrad. At workouts with the college all-stars in Chicago, he surprised and impressed head coach Otto Graham with his placekicking skills.

According to the Clifton Record, Graham said, “I knew nothing about his kicking except that he had done some kicking off and kicked some extra points (in college) … Conrad simply kicked better than anybody else during our workouts.”

Though the college all-stars had Lou Michaels, a lineman who had been a good placekicker for Kentucky, and Wayne Walker, an Idaho linebacker who, like Michaels, would kick successfully in the NFL, Graham chose Conrad to do the placekicking against the Lions.

“I never kicked a field goal before in my life _ high school or college,” Conrad said to the Clifton Record. “I never even tried to kick a game field goal before.”

In addition to doing kickoffs and placekicking for the all-stars, Conrad started in the defensive secondary after Jim Shofner of Texas Christian injured an ankle.

Playing before 70,000 spectators at Chicago’s Soldier Field and a national TV audience on Aug. 15, 1958, Conrad booted four field goals (19, 44, 24 and 24 yards) and three extra points in a 35-19 victory for the college all-stars.

In explaining why he’d never tried to kick a field goal in college, Conrad told the Chicago Tribune, “At Texas A&M we either scored (a touchdown) or didn’t get close enough to attempt a field goal.” Video

Eight days later, Conrad’s 30-yard field goal with four seconds left enabled the Chicago Cardinals to salvage a 31-31 tie with the Baltimore Colts in a NFL exhibition game at Austin, Texas.

Conrad followed that with 16 points _ a 17-yard touchdown catch, two field goals and four extra points _ in the Cardinals’ 27-26 exhibition game win against the Los Angeles Rams at Seattle.

Mr. Versatility

Cardinals first-year head coach Pop Ivy liked what he saw from his versatile rookie. Ivy gave Conrad three roles with the 1958 Cardinals _ placekicker, defensive back and punt returner.

In the Cardinals’ regular-season finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Conrad intercepted three Bobby Layne passes. Game stats

For the season, he totaled 51 points _ six field goals and 33 extra points.

Conrad remained the Cardinals’ placekicker in 1959, but Ivy moved him from defense to running back. In the season opener versus Washington, Conrad scored three touchdowns (35-yard run on a double reverse, 56-yard run and five-yard catch) and kicked seven extra points for a total of 25. Two of his touchdowns came in the second half when he played with a broken nose. Game stats

Conrad’s scoring total for the 1959 season was 84 points. He threw a touchdown pass (52 yards to Joe Childress against the Steelers) and returned a punt for a touchdown (69 yards versus the Giants). He also scored two touchdowns rushing and three receiving, and kicked six field goals and 30 extra points.

“You never could tell where I was going to be, or what I was going to do, throughout my football career,” he said to the Bryan-College Station Eagle.

The Cardinals relocated from Chicago to St. Louis in 1960 and Conrad no longer was the primary placekicker. Two years later, when Wally Lemm replaced Pop Ivy as head coach, Conrad became a fulltime receiver, moving to the flanker position, and he excelled in the role.

“Bobby Joe was a natural at flanker,” Cardinals quarterback Charley Johnson told the Waco Tribune-Herald. “He ran very precise patterns which made him hard to cover. He wasn’t afraid to go over the middle. Not every receiver was like that.”

Conrad had consecutive seasons of 62 catches (1962), a NFL-leading 73 (1963), 61 (1964) and 58 (1965). He caught passes in 94 straight games. Video at 3:10 mark

Conrad’s last season with the Cardinals was 1968. He ended his playing career with the 1969 Dallas Cowboys.

Back in Clifton, he raised cattle on 630 acres. Then he became a bank executive for 16 years. In 1994, Conrad was elected Bosque County judge and served eight years before retiring in 2002.

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How Cardinals came calling on Walter Alston

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers, Prospects on June 26, 2025| 10 Comments »

After he was graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Walter Alston was ready to become a high school teacher. A knock on his door altered those plans.

Ninety years ago, in June 1935, Alston grabbed an opportunity to play professional baseball, signing a minor-league contract with the Cardinals.

The offer came from Frank Rickey, a Cardinals scout and brother of the club’s general manager, Branch Rickey. The day after Miami’s commencement ceremony, Alston was at home in tiny Darrtown, Ohio, when Frank Rickey surprised him with a rap on the door.

“Want to play pro baseball?” he asked.

In the book “Walter Alston: A Year at a Time,” Alston recalled to author Jack Tobin, “What a question to ask! I’d dreamed about that since I was old enough to throw that little rubber ball against the brick smokehouse out on our first farm.”

Alston went on to spend 10 seasons in the Cardinals’ system. He didn’t make it big as a player _ just one shaky appearance in a major-league game _ but it was the Cardinals who gave him the chance to manage in the minors.

That experience helped launch him into a long and successful career with the Dodgers that led to his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hard work and patience

Alston was born on a small farm just north of Cincinnati, in Venice, Ohio. (Renamed Ross Township.) His father was a tenant farmer and stonemason. The family moved from farm to farm, wherever work was available, in southwest Ohio.

When Alston was a boy, his parents bought him a black Shetland pony. He named her Night. Alston rode the pony bareback to grade school in Ohio villages such as Camden and Morning Sun.

The family fell into debt when Alston was in seventh grade and moved to the hamlet of Darrtown. Alston’s father found work in nearby Hamilton at a Ford auto plant, producing wheels and running boards for $4 a day.

Alston developed a passion for baseball. His father taught him to throw with velocity. “Put some smoke on the ball,” he’d say. The youngster did it so well he got nicknamed “Smokey” and pitched in high school.

In May 1930, near the completion of his freshman year at Miami, Alston, 18, married his childhood sweetheart, Lela. The Great Depression had devastated the economy and Alston couldn’t afford to stay in college. He and Lela moved in with her parents in Darrtown and he took work wherever he could find it, going from farm to farm to seek pay for day labor. The county gave him a job cutting roadside weeds with a scythe. “That paid a dollar a day and I was happy to have it,” Alston told author Jack Tobin.

Two years later, in the summer of 1932, Alston still was whacking weeds when a local Methodist minister, Rev. Ralph Jones, an education advocate, urged him to return to Miami and earn a degree. According to author Si Burick in the book “Alston and the Dodgers,” Jones said to Alston, “Smokey, you’ve got a good mind. You can be somebody if you go back to college.”

Jones gave Alston $50 to use toward his tuition. Alston re-enrolled at Miami for the 1932 fall semester. “We never could have saved $50 on my dollar a day cutting weeds,” Alston told Jack Tobin. “That $50 … got me back in and paid a good part of my tuition for that year.”

Alston majored in industrial arts and physical education. He also played varsity baseball and basketball. There were no athletic scholarships and money was scarce. In between classes and athletics, Alston worked jobs on campus.

“I took a job driving a laundry truck for 35 cents an hour and I got my lunch free every day in exchange for racking up billiard balls in a pool hall,” he told journalist Ed Fitzgerald. “Summers, the college gave me a job painting dormitories.”

Alston played sandlot baseball for various town teams, too. One of those, the Hamilton Baldwins, had Alston at shortstop and Weeb Ewbank, the future football coach of the Baltimore Colts and New York Jets, in center field.

Cardinals prospect

Alston was taking an exam near the end of his senior year in 1935 when he was told someone was waiting to see him. It was Harold Cook, school superintendent in New Madison, Ohio. Cook was recruiting teachers and offered Alston a salary of $1,350 to come to New Madison. Alston accepted.

A few days later, Frank Rickey showed up at the door. (The Alstons didn’t have a home telephone then.) Rickey had seen Alston play two games _ one at shortstop and one as a pitcher _ for Miami and was impressed. When Alston mentioned he’d made a commitment to teach in New Madison, Rickey explained the minor-league season would be finished by Labor Day, enabling him to return to Ohio for the school year.

Rickey offered no signing bonus. He told Alston, 23, he’d be paid $135 a month to play in the Cardinals’ system that summer. Alston signed on the spot.

The next day, Alston’s wife drove him to Richmond, Ind., where he boarded a bus for St. Louis. Upon arrival, Alston checked into the YMCA downtown. The next morning, he went to the Cardinals’ offices to find out where he was being assigned. The Cardinals told him to come back tomorrow. This went on for a week until, finally, Branch Rickey informed Alston he would play for the Greenwood (Mississippi) Chiefs of the East Dixie League.

Cardinals scout Eddie Dyer (who, years later, became St. Louis manager) drove Alston from St. Louis to Mississippi in a roadster. Player-manager Clay Hopper put Alston at third base and he hit .326 in 82 games.

Every fall and winter for the next 14 years, Alston taught high schoolers _ six years at New Madison and eight at Lewiston, Ohio _ in order to make ends meet after spending spring and summer in the minors. He taught industrial arts, general science and biology, and coached basketball before leaving in March for spring training.

The teaching experience later helped him as a manager. “Like students, ballplayers can’t all be treated the same,” Alston told Si Burick. “Some need encouragement. Some do better if left alone. Others need to be driven. You simply have to study each individual and get him to produce the best that’s in him.”

Darrtown remained Alston’s home. Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray described it as “the place where time forgot” and “where the 11 o’clock news is the barber.” Alston built a house at the corner of Apple and Cherry streets. It was the first brick house in Darrtown. “My dad laid all the bricks and mixed the mortar,” he told Sports Illustrated.

In the backyard tool shed, Alston put his industrial arts skills to good use, making most of the furniture for his house. “His bookshelves and chests and spice racks and desks are a wonder of patient, meticulous workmanship,” Sheldon Ocker of the Akron Beacon-Journal reported.

When he wasn’t woodworking, Alston enjoyed skeet shooting, riding his two Honda motorcycles and playing billiards.

After Alston became an established big-league manager, billiards legend Willie Mosconi was a guest at Alston’s Darrtown home, where Alston had a pool table. “I ran 47 balls, which is pretty good for me,” Alston told Gordon Verrell of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “He shot, made six or seven and missed, and then I ran 10 or 12. I didn’t get another shot. He ran the next 154.”

Alston didn’t mind losing to a master such as Mosconi. Getting defeated by Cardinals pitcher Steve Carlton in 1969 was another matter. “He beat us 1-0 that night at the ballpark and, if that didn’t make me mad enough, he beat me later that night in a game of pool,” Alston told Gordon Verrell. Boxscore

Ready or not

For his second season in the Cardinals’ system in 1936, Alston was assigned to Huntington, W.Va. Player-manager Benny Borgmann taught him to play first base. The club’s shortstop was a skinny teenage rookie, Marty Marion.

For the second consecutive year, Alston hit .326. He also produced 35 home runs and 114 RBI. Scout Branch Rickey Jr., son of the Cardinals’ general manager, was impressed. On Rickey Jr.’s recommendation, Alston was called up to the Cardinals in September and instructed to join the team in Boston.

Alston packed a beat-up cardboard suitcase and took a train to New York City, where he was to make a connection to Boston. At Grand Central Station, he was gawking at the ceilings and the people when he bumped into a woman. “The suitcase hit the floor, broke open and scattered all my clothes and belongings across the floor,” he recalled to Jack Tobin. “There seemed to be hundreds and hundreds of people all racing in a different direction. I was on my hands and knees, trying to pick up my shirts and shorts … and to keep from being trampled.”

A Good Samaritan directed him to a luggage shop nearby. Alston spent most of the $20 he had on a new suitcase and boarded the train to Boston.

When he arrived at the Kenmore Hotel, the team was at the ballpark. The desk clerk told Alston he could go to the dining room and sign for anything he ordered. “One look at the menu convinced me I was in for a hard time,” Alston told Jack Tobin. “I had never heard of half the things and couldn’t pronounce most of the words … Finally I decided on some clams. I’d always heard Boston was famous for them. When they brought them out, I wasn’t sure just how you were supposed to eat them.”

During his month with the Cardinals, Alston pitched batting practice, took infield practice with other rookies and otherwise sat on the bench. A fellow Ohioan, pitcher Jesse Haines, 43, took a liking to Alston, 24, and showed him what to do and how to do it. “No matter what I asked, he knew the answer,” Alston said to Jack Tobin. “Most days he took me to and from the ballpark. He was my buddy.”

Put me in, coach

On the final day of the season, the Cardinals played at home in the rain against the Cubs. Plate umpire Ziggy Sears had a miserable time. Neither team cared for the way he called balls and strikes. Sears ejected Cardinals coach Buzzy Wares and Cubs manager Charlie Grimm for arguing with him.

As the Cardinals came off the field in the seventh, first baseman Johnny Mize made a remark while passing the umpire. Offended, Sears ejected Mize.

Because the Cardinals’ other established first baseman, Rip Collins, had been used as a pinch-hitter a couple of innings earlier, manager Frankie Frisch had to go with his only other first baseman, Alston.

When the Cubs batted against Dizzy Dean in the eighth, Alston was at first, making his big-league debut. Augie Galan led off with a single. Phil Cavarretta followed with a bunt. Third baseman Don Gutteridge fielded cleanly and made an accurate throw to Alston, but the first baseman bobbled the ball. Cavarretta reached safely on the error and Galan stopped at second.

Next up was Billy Herman. He bunted toward Alston. The rookie threw to third, but not in time to nab Galan, and the bases were loaded. All three runners eventually scored, giving the Cubs a 6-1 lead.

In the ninth, the Cardinals scored twice and had a runner on base, with two outs, when Alston batted for the first time. The pitcher was Lon Warneke, a three-time 20-game winner. Alston fouled off a pitch. He ripped another down the line in left but it, too, curved foul near the pole. Then he struck out, ending the game. Boxscore

The next day, the headline in the St. Louis Star-Times blared, “Walter Alston Makes Blunders That Eventually Beat Dizzy Dean, 6-3.”

Follow the leader

The Cardinals put Alston on their 40-man winter roster, but Johnny Mize still was on the team and the club acquired another first baseman, Dick Siebert, from the Cubs. Because of his teaching job, Alston couldn’t report to 1937 spring training until March 15. A couple of weeks later, he was back in the minors.

Alston had a few more good seasons in the Cardinals’ system, but knew he likely wouldn’t be returning to the big leagues. “I had enough power, but … I couldn’t hit the good pitching, just the mediocre pitching,” he told Sports Illustrated.

Branch Rickey asked Alston to become a player-manager in 1940 and he eagerly accepted. Alston managed Cardinals affiliates for three seasons (1940-42). Then Rickey moved to the Dodgers. Alston kept playing for Cardinals farm teams desperate to fill rosters depleted by World War II military service.

In 1944, Alston was released by the Cardinals. He returned to Darrtown, figuring to go fulltime into teaching. Then came another bang on the door. It was the son of the man who operated the Darrtown general store. The boy told Alston there was an urgent long-distance phone call for him at the store. Alston darted the two blocks, grabbed the receiver and heard the voice of Branch Rickey.

“First thing he did was give me a good going over for not having a phone and told me to get one,” Alston said to Jack Tobin. “Then he offered me the manager’s job at Trenton (N.J.) in the Interstate League.”

Alston managed for 10 seasons in the Dodgers’ system. In November 1953, he was chosen to replace Chuck Dressen as Dodgers manager. Working on one-year contracts, Alston managed the Dodgers for 23 years, leading them to seven National League pennants and four World Series titles. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.

As Jim Murray wrote, “He made his profession’s hall of fame not because he could hit or throw a curveball better than anyone else but because he excelled in the far more difficult area of human endeavor.”

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Pete Mazar: Slinging, singing southpaw in St. Louis system

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Prospects on March 31, 2025| 8 Comments »

While pitching in the Cardinals’ organization, Pete Mazar became known as much for his vocal cords as for his arm.

Dubbed the “Frank Sinatra of baseball” for his singing, Mazar, like Ol’ Blue Eyes, was from New Jersey. Sinatra’s hometown was Hoboken, site of the first organized baseball game played in 1846 between the Knickerbocker Club and New York Nine. Mazar grew up in High Bridge, a mere 50 miles from Hoboken but, otherwise, worlds apart.

An urban melting pot across the Hudson River from Manhattan, Hoboken in Sinatra’s time was known for its gritty industrial docks and was the setting for the film “On the Waterfront.” In contrast, the borough of High Bridge has a reputation as a place for parks, trails and scenic beauty. A resident, Howard Menger, wrote “The High Bridge Incident,” a book about his claim of having met space aliens in the woods near High Bridge when he was a boy. Otherworldly, indeed.

Little lefty

Pete Mazar had eight brothers (including a twin) and five sisters, according to The Sporting News. Though no more than 5-foot-9 and 150 pounds, he was a standout athlete in soccer, basketball and baseball at High Bridge High School.

After graduation in June 1940, Mazar was a machinist for the local Taylor-Wharton Iron and Steel Company, makers of railroad fittings and switches and dredging equipment. A left-handed pitcher, he played semipro baseball for the High Bridge team in the well-regarded Tri-County League.

Mazar’s success as a semipro player got him a contract in 1941 with a New York Giants farm club in Milford, Del., but he became ill, pitched briefly and got released, according to the Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call. Returning to High Bridge, Mazar went back to the iron and steel job (the company now was producing material for America’s World War II involvement) and pitched semipro baseball.

In May 1944, with the war depleting baseball team rosters, the Cardinals offered Mazar, 23, a tryout with their Allentown farm club. Allentown manager Ollie Vanek, who had a notable eye for talent (the Cardinals signed 16-year-old Stan Musial on Vanek’s recommendation), took one look at Mazar and gave him a spot on the team. Mazar rewarded him with an 11-6 record.

Promoted by the Cardinals to Columbus (Ohio) in 1945, Mazar pitched a no-hitter against manager Casey Stengel’s Kansas City Blues. Of the 27 outs Mazar recorded using a sharp-breaking curve, 20 came on grounders, the Kansas City Times reported.

American idol

Seven of Mazar’s eight seasons in the Cardinals’ system were spent either with Columbus or Houston. In 1947, he pitched for both. After going 0-4 for Columbus, he was sent to Houston and pitched better for manager Johnny Keane’s club, which was on its way to becoming Texas League champions.

On Aug. 19, 1947, an estimated 13,000 spectators packed into Houston’s Buffalo Stadium for a doubleheader on what was promoted as “appreciation night.” Looking for ways to show their appreciation to fans, club officials gave Mazar a microphone before one of the games and asked him to sing for the crowd. Mazar had “served as a vocalist in a nightclub near his home at High Bridge,” according to The Sporting News.

Crooning hit tunes, Mazar thrilled his audience and was touted as “the Sinatra of baseball,” the Associated Press reported. (Sinatra’s popular songs in 1947 included “Almost Like Being in Love,” “Autumn in New York,” and “Time After Time.”)

Word spread that the Houston club had a silky-voiced troubadour with a smooth delivery. “Now everywhere he goes to play ball, they want him to warble,” according to the Associated Press.

On Aug. 24, it was arranged for Mazar to sing a song before Houston’s game at Dallas. “The crowd of 6,000 roared its approval,” the Associated Press reported. “They called him back for another, and still another. They wanted him for a fourth except that the ballgame had to go on.”

The next night, Aug. 25, Mazar was the starting pitcher for Houston at Oklahoma City. He entertained a crowd of 4,937 with three songs, then got the win against an Oklahoma City club that featured hitters such as Ray Boone and Al Rosen.

Houston club president Allen Russell asked Mazar to spend the winter in Texas so that he could promote his singing.

Fan favorite

Back with Houston and Johnny Keane in 1948, Mazar, 27, had his best season as a pitcher. He won 12 of his first 14 decisions and finished 15-10 with a 2.53 ERA in 228 innings.

His most satisfying win came at home on July 17, 1948. When Houston fans learned Mazar and his wife were expecting their third child, they presented the couple with more than 100 gifts before that night’s game. Mazar thanked the crowd of 7,358, crooned several songs and then pitched a three-hit shutout to beat Tulsa. “I never wanted to win a game so much in my life … I didn’t want to let all of those good people down,” Mazar told The Sporting News.

Mazar’s successful 1948 season didn’t do enough to impress the Cardinals. When they didn’t put him on their 40-man winter roster, the Cubs claimed him in the November 1948 minor-league draft on the recommendation of scout Jigger Statz. Mazar reminded him of Tony Freitas, another pint-sized left-hander who pitched in the majors during the 1930s, Statz told the Los Angeles Times.

Assigned to the Cubs’ Los Angeles Angels farm team in 1949, Mazar was 2-4 for the Pacific Coast League team when he got sent back to Houston in May.

In April 1950, Mazar was struck by a line drive, breaking his left thumb. It didn’t hurt his singing, but it did his pitching. The 1951 season was Mazar’s last in the Cardinals’ system. He pitched three more years in the minors but never reached the big leagues _ either as a player or a singer.

Returning to High Bridge, Mazar and his wife operated a tavern and he also worked as a machinist for F.L. Smidth & Company, makers of equipment for mining and cement industries.

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