Emerging from the coal country of northeastern Pennsylvania, Steve Bilko was something of a mythical baseball figure, a teen slugger as strong and dense as the anthracite mined in the region.
From the moment the Cardinals signed him, in 1945, Bilko intrigued with his power. He was big _ 6-foot-1 and, as the St. Louis Star-Times noted, “230 pounds of man” _ with thick legs and trunk.
A right-handed batter, he drilled line drives that jetted over fences like lasers. According to the Star-Times, a minor-league opponent said, “Someday a pitcher is going to throw one wrong to that guy _ low and outside _ and all they’re going to find on the (mound) are a glove and a pair of shoes.”
Before he played a game for the Cardinals, Bilko was being compared with the likes of Jimmie Foxx and Johnny Mize.
Cardinals calling
When Bilko was 16 in 1945, he was known in his hometown of Nanticoke, Pa., for his athletic feats.
Cardinals pitcher Johnny Grodzicki also hailed from Nanticoke. After his debut with St. Louis in 1941, Grodzicki spent four years in the Army during World War II. He became a paratrooper and was dropped behind enemy lines into Germany in March 1945. Advancing on the town of Munster, an exploding shell sent shrapnel slicing into Grodzicki’s right hip and lower right leg, badly damaging the sciatic nerve. After surgery, he was sent home to recuperate.
Like nearly everyone from Nanticoke, Grodzicki was impressed with Bilko’s power. Grodzicki called Cardinals owner Sam Breadon and told him about the phenom, according to the Winston-Salem Sentinel. The Cardinals sent scout Benny Borgmann to take a look.
At a sandlot game in Nanticoke’s Honey Pot neighborhood (named for the large number of wild bees that once swarmed there), Borgmann, perched on a coal pile, watched Bilko blast a pitch about 400 feet, according to the Associated Press.
Borgmann arranged for Bilko to work out with the Cardinals’ affiliate in Allentown, Pa. Impressed, the Cardinals signed the 16-year-old in August 1945. Bilko made his pro debut on the final day of Allentown’s season, stroking a run-scoring single in his only plate appearance.
Creating a buzz
After a big season in 1947 for Winston-Salem (120 RBI, 109 runs scored), Bilko, a first baseman, flopped at Class AAA Rochester the next year. Given another chance with Rochester in 1949, Bilko became manager Johnny Keane’s project. At spring training, Keane “spent hours, day after day, pitching in batting practice” to him, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
In his first at-bat of the season, Bilko belted a grand slam, prompting Keane to dance a jig in the coaching box, the Rochester Democrat-Chronicle reported. With renewed confidence, Bilko walloped 34 homers, drove in 125 runs and scored 101.
According to the Post-Dispatch, Tigers scout Lena Blackburne called Bilko, 20, “a right-handed Johnny Mize.” Keane said his pupil has “more power than Jimmie Foxx.” Cardinals scout Joe Mathes told the newspaper, “He can hit a ball as far as anyone who ever played … He’ll hit them over any fence. His drive takes off like a good golfer’s tee shot.”
The Cardinals, in a pennant chase with Brooklyn, called up Bilko in late September 1949. In 22 plate appearances, he produced five hits and five walks. All signs pointed to him being the St. Louis first baseman in 1950.
Home cooking
After surgery to remove varicose veins, Bilko got married in January 1950. According to the Associated Press, “The couple ate regularly with the in-laws. Plenty of good, solid Polish food. The buttons started popping off his shirts.” Bilko told the wire service, “I didn’t want to hurt my mother-in-law’s feelings.”
A week before 1950 training camp opened, Cardinals owner Fred Saigh checked in with his prized slugger. “Bilko told me over the phone he was about six pounds overweight,” Saigh said to the Star-Times. “Well, I found out he had been estimating his weight. He never had been on a scale.”
“A walking ad for his mother-in-law’s cooking,” Bilko came to camp at 263 pounds, the Associated Press reported.
The Cardinals restricted his meals and went to work on his conditioning. “We had to get 30 pounds off him,” coach Terry Moore told the Rochester newspaper. “So we ran him ragged.”
For two weeks, Bilko wore a rubber pullover during workouts in the Florida sun. “Ounce by ounce, the fat drips off his frame,” the Associated Press reported.
Stan Musial said to the Rochester newspaper, “He’s melted off a lot of weight in a short time, and that bat feels to him as though it were made of lead.”
As Bilko recalled to the Los Angeles Mirror, “I starved 40 pounds off in six weeks and felt terrible.”
Bilko began the season with St. Louis, batted .182 with no homers in 10 games and was sent to the minors in May.
Polish power
Just as they’d done in 1950, the Cardinals put Bilko on their Opening Day rosters in 1951 and 1952, then sent him to the minors in May both years. The 1952 demotion came after he fractured an arm when he tripped going to the dugout.
A better break came in 1953. After a winter spent driving a 10-ton truck in Nanticoke, Bilko, 24, was one of three rookies who won starting jobs with the 1953 Cardinals. The trio of Bilko at first base, Ray Jablonski at third and Rip Repulski in center was dubbed the Polish Falcons.
(Cardinals left fielder Stan Musial and manager Eddie Stanky, born Edward Raymond Stankiewicz, also were of Polish descent.)
In the book “We Played the Game,” another 1953 Cardinals rookie, 18-year-old shortstop Dick Schofield, said, “You could look in some drinking spots and you’d find half the team in there. We had guys who could drink beer, like Steve Bilko, Rip Repulski and Ray Jablonski … We called Bilko ‘Humpty Bumpty.’ He was a big, strong, beer-guzzling guy who looked mean but was a very easygoing, nice man.”
Bilko was mean only to some National League pitchers. He had four games with four RBI for the 1953 Cardinals and totaled 84 RBI for the season. He also socked 21 home runs, but struck out the most (125) of any batter in the majors. In a game against the Reds, Bilko fanned five times. The next day, he bashed two doubles in one inning versus the Braves. Boxscore and Boxscore
Moving on
Rookie Tom Alston won the first base job in 1954, becoming the Cardinals’ first black player. After Bilko was sent to the Cubs at the end of April, Bob Burnes wrote in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, “Bilko was not the type of ballplayer with which the Cardinals are trying to rebuild … Stanky wants a running ballclub, a team of players quick to react to situations and take advantage of them.”
The Cubs, who had sluggers Ernie Banks, Ralph Kiner and Hank Sauer, acquired Bilko primarily as a pinch-hitter.
In the book “We Played the Game,” Cubs pitcher Johnny Klippstein said of Bilko, “I roomed with him for a while, and no matter when he would come into the room, he would be carrying a six-pack. He was a great guy. He was very serious when he was playing, but away from the park he was completely different.”
(Bilko and Rip Repulski bought a cocktail lounge on East Grand Avenue in St. Louis in November 1954.)
As it turned out, joining the Cubs was good fortune for Bilko, because it eventually landed him with their affiliate, the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League, and that’s where he became as famous as a Hollywood movie star.
La la land
In his three seasons with the Pacific Coast League Angels, Bilko was the Los Angeles version of Babe Ruth, or, at least, Tony Lazzeri. Bilko’s numbers: 37 homers, 124 RBI in 1955; 55 homers, 164 RBI in 1956; 56 homers, 140 RBI in 1957. The city of Angels was sky-high with excitement as Bilko pursued the league record of 60 homers hit by Lazzeri with the 1925 Salt Lake City Bees.
“When Bilko steps to the plate, an electric current of anticipation runs through the crowd,” Sid Ziff of the Los Angeles Mirror noted.
Angels manager Bob Scheffing told the newspaper in August 1956, “More people in L.A. today know of Bilko than Marilyn Monroe.”
Bilko became the first to belt 50 or more homers in consecutive seasons in the Pacific Coast League. “He has as much power as any of the home run hitters,” seven-time National League home run champion Ralph Kiner told the Los Angeles Mirror. “That goes for Mickey Mantle, Ted Kluszewski and Duke Snider.”
(From 1955-59, a TV comedy series, “The Phil Silvers Show,” on CBS featured Silvers as Sgt. Ernest Bilko. Silvers and Steve Bilko met and autographed baseballs for one another. A 1996 movie, “Sgt. Bilko,” starred Steve Martin as the title character.)
Impressing Ike
Bilko got back to the majors with the Reds in 1958. In June, they traded him to the Dodgers, who were playing their first season in Los Angeles after relocating from Brooklyn. The Dodgers gave up Don Newcombe for Bilko, a deal Sports Illustrated predicted “will be good for the fans although not good for the team.”
After a stint with the 1960 Tigers, Bilko was selected by the Los Angeles Angels, who joined the American League as an expansion team in 1961.
At spring training in Palm Springs, Calif., the 1961 Angels were visited by Dwight Eisenhower, who recently completed his second term as U.S. president. According to the Los Angeles Mirror, when Angels manager Bill Rigney introduced the club’s hulking first basemen, Bilko and Ted Kluszewski, Eisenhower said, “They’d make a couple of good bodyguards.”
Eisenhower also suggested to Rigney, “I’d never have them bunt.”
Eisenhower autographed a baseball glove for Bilko.
Bilko fit in well with the expansion Angels, a team with characters such as Rocky Bridges, Ryne Duren, Art Fowler and Leon Wagner.
In the book “We Played the Game,” Angels second baseman Billy Moran recalled how at spring training, “Bilko would go in the bathroom and turn on the hot water to steam up the place. Then he’d climb into the bathtub with a case of beer right beside him. He’d sweat and drink the case of beer. That was his routine for getting into shape. We’d laugh at him all the time, but he was one of my favorite people, a big, easygoing guy with no temper.”
Bilko, 32, slugged 20 home runs in a mere 294 at-bats for the 1961 Angels. He came back with them in 1962, his last season in the majors.
After his playing days, Bilko returned home to Pennsylvania and worked for Dana Classic Fragrances, makers of Chantilly perfume for women and English Leather cologne for men. (In its TV ads for the cologne, a woman purred, “All my men wear English Leather, or they wear nothing at all.”) A packaging inspector in the receiving department, Bilko was a member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union.
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