(Updated Feb. 27, 2022)
On weekdays, Ted Simmons was just another University of Michigan student. On weekends, he was a member of the National League champions.
Simmons, the switch-hitting catcher, made his major-league debut with the Cardinals in September 1968.
After an outstanding season at Class A Modesto of the California League, Simmons was promoted to the Cardinals on Sept. 6, 1968.
A year earlier, the Cardinals selected Simmons in the first round of the amateur draft. Simmons signed for $50,000, played 53 games in the low minors and enrolled at the University of Michigan as a physical education and speech major, beginning classes in the fall of 1967.
In 1968, Simmons was assigned to Modesto, whose manager was Joe Cunningham, a former Cardinals first baseman. In 136 games for Modesto, Simmons had 163 hits, including 30 doubles and 28 home runs, and batted .331 with 117 RBI.
In his Hall of Fame induction speech, Simmons said, “Joe Cunningham, my manager at the A level, was the first major-league hitter to tell me that I would become one myself. I believed him because he had been one himself.”
Simmons was named winner of both the California League’s Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year awards.
Exceeding expectations
In the book “The Ted Simmons Story,” author Jim Brosnan, the former Cardinals pitcher, wrote, “Ted had set some goals for that (1968) season … He had outlined those goals to his girlfriend, an art major.”
Simmons’ goals were to hit 20 home runs with 80 RBI and bat .300 for Modesto.
“Simmons’ girl drew up a fancy chart to remind him of what he was trying to achieve and how well he was doing game by game,” Brosnan wrote. “Simmons hung the chart on the wall of his Modesto apartment, kept it up to date each night and eventually exceeded even his best expectation.”
When Simmons was called up to St. Louis, the Cardinals announced he would be with the club only on weekends because he was attending classes at the University of Michigan during the week.
Nine days after his promotion to the big leagues, Simmons, 19, was in the Cardinals’ clubhouse, participating in a wild pennant-clinching celebration at Houston on Sunday, Sept. 15. Simmons, who still hadn’t appeared in a game, and broadcasters Harry Caray and Jack Buck were among those who had their shirts ripped open in the rowdy fun, The Sporting News reported.
“Mike Shannon was telling me how great it was going to be to have a day off in San Francisco so the team could (continue to) celebrate,” Simmons recalled to Cardinals Magazine. “I told him I wasn’t going because I had class the next day. He said, ‘You’re crazy.’ I said, ‘That may be, but that’s what I’m going to do.’ ”
Back to school
When the party ended, Simmons returned to Ann Arbor, Mich., arriving at midnight, and the Cardinals continued their road trip to San Francisco.
In a 1978 interview with Sport magazine, Simmons recalled the atmosphere on the University of Michigan campus, with calls for social change and an end to the war in Vietnam.
“My first reaction was, ‘Don’t bother me with that stuff. I just want to play ball.’ But quickly I looked around and realized what was going on,” Simmons said. “All of a sudden, a new world opened up to me. It was then that I started to develop as a human being and as someone who tried to function in this world rather than someone who just tried to hit the slider.”
Simmons told Cardinals Magazine, “Walking across campus, you would see every kind of protest there was. Civil rights were just going crazy, and you were seeing this everywhere. It forced you to open your eyes and start thinking about what’s happening around you.”
Simmons rejoined the Cardinals in time for their Saturday, Sept. 21, game at Dodger Stadium. Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst put the rookie in the lineup that day as the starting catcher, batting seventh.
In his first big-league at-bat, facing left-hander Claude Osteen, Simmons struck out in the second inning.
He singled to right in the fifth for his first hit. The Dodgers’ first baseman was Ken Boyer, the former Cardinals third baseman. Simmons told Stan McNeal of Cardinals Gameday Magazine, “When I got to first, he turned to me and asked, ‘That your first hit, rookie?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘I hope it’s the first of 2,500.’ ”
(Simmons would achieve 2,472 hits in his major-league career.)
In his final plate appearance of his debut game, Simmons walked in the eighth.
Catching Larry Jaster and Wayne Granger, Simmons had three putouts and an assist. The Dodgers, who had 11 hits and two walks in a 3-0 victory, didn’t attempt a steal. Boxscore
Simmons played in one more game for the 1968 Cardinals. In their season finale, on Sunday, Sept. 29, at St. Louis, Simmons replaced Tim McCarver in the eighth inning of a rout of the Astros. He grounded out to third in his only at-bat.
After the season, when the Cardinals players met to determine how to dispense with their bonus money for reaching the World Series, Simmons was awarded a share: $250.
Twenty-eight years later, in 1996, Simmons earned his degree from the University of Michigan. He said he wears his graduation ring to honor the achievement and to honor his late mother, Bonnie.
“I was the only one of four children to get a college education because we couldn’t afford for the others to go,” Simmons told Cardinals Gameday Magazine. “It was big for me, but bigger than life for my mom.”
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