RetroSimba

Cardinals rookie Larry Miggins had special day in Brooklyn

January 3, 2024 by retrosimba

When Larry Miggins was a student at Fordham Prep in the Bronx in the early 1940s, he told a classmate he wanted to be a big-league baseball player. The classmate, Vin Scully, told Miggins he wanted to be a big-league baseball broadcaster. The boys ruminated about the possibility of Scully broadcasting a game Miggins played in.

A decade later, in 1952, Miggins was in the big leagues as a rookie reserve left fielder for the Cardinals. Scully was in his third year as a Dodgers broadcaster.

On May 13, 1952, Miggins was in the starting lineup for a game at Brooklyn against the Dodgers. It was the first game he played at Ebbets Field. Scully was the junior member of a three-man broadcasting crew doing the game that day. Red Barber and Connie Desmond were the more experienced broadcasters.

When Miggins struck out in his first plate appearance of the game in the second inning, Scully was not on the air.

Two innings later, though, he was doing the broadcast when Miggins stepped to the plate against Preacher Roe. Scully had the call when Miggins belted a pitch into the seats in left for his first home run in the majors. Boxscore

Decades later, in recalling the moment for an audience at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, Calif., Scully said, “It was probably the toughest home run call I’ve ever had because (the dream) came true,” the Ventura County Star reported. “Don’t be afraid to dream.”

Traveling man

A son of Irish immigrants, Larry Miggins was the valedictorian of the class of 1943 at Fordham Prep. He enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh, but in December 1943, when his boyhood favorites, the New York Giants, offered him a contract, he left college and signed with them.

Miggins, 18, played eight games for the Giants’ Jersey City farm club in April 1944, then joined the United States Merchant Marine. He was discharged in time to play the 1946 minor-league season and was in the lineup for Jersey City when Jackie Robinson played his first game in the Dodgers’ system for Montreal. You Tube Audio interview

A 6-foot-4 right-handed batter with power, Miggins slugged 22 home runs in the minors in 1947, but the Giants left him off their big-league winter roster. Rated by Cardinals scouts “as one of the best prospects in the minors, possessing speed and a good arm,” according to The Sporting News, Miggins was selected by St. Louis in the November 1947 draft of unprotected players.

The transaction stunned Miggins, who “always thought he was going to play with the Giants,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Three days before the Cardinals’ 1948 season opener, Miggins was placed on waivers and claimed by the Cubs. According to the Associated Press, he drove to Chicago in a 1931 jalopy, parked at Wrigley Field, and joined the Cubs on their trip to Pittsburgh, where they opened the season against the Pirates.

Miggins, who didn’t play in any of the three games at Pittsburgh, returned to Chicago with the Cubs on April 23 and was summoned to the Wrigley Field office. He was told the Cubs had placed him on waivers and he was reclaimed by the Cardinals. On his way out, the Associated Press noted, he was asked to move his crate from club owner Phil Wrigley’s private parking space.

The Cardinals assigned Miggins to their Class A farm team at Omaha and he hit 26 home runs in 97 games. “Uses his wrists well,” Omaha manager Ollie Vanek told the Omaha World-Herald. “Watches the pitches with keen discrimination and rarely offers at a bad one. He has a follow-through, and a stance. Miggins can hit that low curve, which is one of the hardest things to do in baseball.”

The Irish lad from the Bronx also had “a lilting voice and likes to entertain his teammates with songs,” The Sporting News reported.

Called up to the Cardinals in September 1948, Miggins got into one game, making his big-league debut as a pinch-hitter against the Cubs and scoring after reaching base on an error. Boxscore

Family man

Miggins spent the next three seasons (1949-51) in the minors. With Houston, he hit 21 home runs in 1949 and 27 in 1951.

“Miggins is big and strong and fast, and while his quiet manner and impeccable behavior may give some the impression that he lacks aggressiveness, he has a burning desire to play big-league baseball,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

During the winters, Miggins took college courses and earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

In 1952, Eddie Stanky’s first year as manager, Miggins, 26, made the Cardinals’ Opening Day roster as a backup left fielder and pinch-hitter. He didn’t play much. The highlights were the home run in Brooklyn with Vin Scully at the microphone and a home run against a future Hall of Famer, Warren Spahn of the Braves. Boxscore

“Larry Miggins could do it,” Cardinals owner Fred Saigh said to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. “He has all the equipment. He’s a wonderful boy, one of the best in our organization, and that’s the trouble. If he could get just a little more determination, he could make it.”

Miggins hit .229 in 96 at-bats for the 1952 Cardinals. He spent the next two seasons in the minors, then left baseball when a Houston judge, Allen B. Hannay, approached him about a government job in probation and parole.

With the judge’s encouragement, Miggins earned a master’s degree in criminology from Sam Houston State and had a long career as a probation and parole officer.

Miggins and his wife, Kathleen, had 12 children, four girls and eight boys. With a touch o’ the blarney, Miggins explained to blogger Bill McCurdy, “Kathleen was hard of hearing. Every night we went to bed as I was turning out the light, I would softly whisper to Kathleen, ‘Are you ready to go to sleep or what?’ She gave me the same answer every time: ‘What?’ “

Posted in Broadcasters, Games, Hitters | 12 Comments »

How Jeff Torborg ended his playing days at Cardinals camp

December 30, 2023 by retrosimba

A catcher who earned the trust of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and Nolan Ryan, Jeff Torborg came to the Cardinals to work with a pitching staff led by Bob Gibson.

On Dec. 6, 1973, the Cardinals acquired Torborg from the Angels for pitcher John Andrews. With 10 years of big-league experience and a reputation as a defensive specialist who worked well with pitchers, Torborg, 32, seemed a good fit to back up Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons, 24, in 1974.

Instead, when the Cardinals decided on a different roster configuration, Torborg departed and began a second career as a coach and manager.

Giants fan

As a youth in Westfield, N.J., Torborg was a New York Giants fan. “I remember walking on the field (after attending a game) at the Polo Grounds with my dad and I couldn’t believe I was really there,” Torborg recalled to the Bridgewater (N.J.) Courier-News. “I remember seeing Monte Irvin hit one into the upper deck in the deepest part of left field, and I couldn’t imagine anybody hitting the ball that far.”

Torborg played college baseball at Rutgers and was a power-hitting catcher. After he saw Torborg hit two home runs and a triple in a game against Army, Dodgers scout and former Giants infielder Rudy Rufer said to the Courier-News, “I raced for the nearest phone, called up (general manager) Buzzie Bavasi, and told him Torborg was a prospect we couldn’t afford to miss.”

A right-handed batter, Torborg hit .537 for Rutgers in 1963 and produced 67 total bases in 67 at-bats.

The Dodgers signed him on May 23, 1963, and sent him to their Albuquerque farm club. He arranged to return home to receive his Rutgers diploma on June 5 (he earned a degree in education), got married the next day to a former Miss New Jersey, Susan Barber, and went back to Albuquerque on June 8.

(The Dodgers gave Torborg and his wife a two-week paid honeymoon in Hawaii after the season, according to the Courier-News.)

Higher education

Torborg, 22, made the Opening Day roster of the 1964 Dodgers as a backup to catcher John Roseboro. Don Drysdale dubbed the rookie “Rudy Rutgers” because he looked the part of a clean-cut collegian, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Sandy Koufax, a bachelor, had a collection of kitchen appliances he’d received for being a guest on postgame radio shows. One day, in the locker room, he handed Torborg a new electric can opener. According to author Jane Leavy in the book “A Lefty’s Legacy,” Koufax said to the newly married Torborg, “You can use this more than me.”

On days Koufax didn’t pitch, he would hit fungoes to Torborg so that the rookie could acclimate himself to pop-ups behind the plate at Dodger Stadium, Leavy noted. She also explained in her book that Koufax told Torborg to stop jumping up from his crouch after every pitch. “I like the picture of the catcher being quiet behind the plate, staying down, so everything I see is low,” Koufax said.

John Roseboro also would “offer help every chance he had,” Torborg said to the Los Angeles Times. According to The Sporting News, Torborg was grateful to Roseboro for “tutoring him on how to handle low pitches and block the plate.”

Torborg didn’t hit well in the majors but he had his moments. On July 25, 1965, he contributed a two-run single against the Cardinals’ Nelson Briles in a five-run Dodgers fifth inning. Boxscore Five days later, he sparked a Dodgers comeback at St. Louis with a home run against Curt Simmons that went deep over the hot dog stand in left. Boxscore

The highlight of Torborg’s 1965 season came on Sept. 9 at Dodger Stadium when he caught Koufax’s perfect game against the Cubs.

As Koufax crafted his masterpiece, “my heart was beating so loudly it was pounding in my ear,” Torborg said to the Los Angeles Times. Boxscore

All rise

Torborg was Roseboro’s backup for four seasons (1964-67). When Roseboro got traded to the Twins, “I felt I was No. 1,” Torborg told the Los Angeles Times. Instead, the Dodgers acquired Tom Haller from the Giants and made him the starting catcher.

“I got very frustrated,” Torborg said to the Times. “I let myself get overweight and I had back trouble.”

Torborg was the catcher when Don Drysdale beat the Giants on May 31, 1968, for his fifth consecutive shutout, and he caught Bill Singer’s no-hitter against the Phillies on July 20, 1970. Boxscore and Boxscore

Mostly, though, Torborg watched as Haller did the bulk of the Dodgers’ catching from 1968-70. Torborg served so much time on the bench he was nicknamed “The Judge,” according to The Sporting News.

Change of scenery

In March 1971, Torborg was sent to the Angels. He shared catching duties with John Stephenson and Jerry Moses in 1971 and with Art Kusnyer and Stephenson in 1972.

With Bobby Winkles as manager and John Roseboro as a coach for the Angels in 1973, Torborg, 31, finally became a No. 1 catcher.

On May 15, 1973, Torborg caught his third career no-hitter, the first of seven pitched by Nolan Ryan. “He called an outstanding game,” Ryan told The Sporting News. Boxscore

(Since then, Carlos Ruiz of the Phillies and Jason Varitek of the Red Sox each caught four no-hitters, according to MLB.com.)

With the 1973 Angels, Torborg played in a career-high 102 games, but hit .220. As he told Bob Broeg of the Post-Dispatch, “I’m a no-hit catcher in more ways than one.”

After the season, the Angels acquired catcher Ellie Rodriguez from the Brewers and projected him to be the starter in 1974.

New script

Ted Simmons caught in 152 games, totaling a franchise-record 1,352.2 innings, for the 1973 Cardinals. Hoping to give him more breaks from the grind in 1974, the Cardinals acquired Torborg.

(According to The Sporting News, Nolan Ryan “loved to pitch to” Torborg and “was upset” when he got traded.)

The Cardinals went to 1974 spring training with four catchers on the roster _ Simmons, Torborg, Larry Haney and Marc Hill. According to the 1974 Cardinals media guide, Torborg “has a good chance to be the No. 2” catcher.

Described by The Sporting News as “a proficient receiver with an excellent arm,” Torborg told the publication, “I feel I can help (the Cardinals) a lot even if I’m not playing. I can help the pitchers in the bullpen and I can talk with the pitching coach (Barney Schultz) on the bench.”

Late in spring training, the Cardinals decided that their catcher from the 1960s, Tim McCarver, 32, who was on the roster as a reserve first baseman, would suffice as the backup to Simmons. In an emergency, first baseman and former catcher Joe Torre also could fill in.

Torborg was released, Larry Haney got sent to the Athletics and Marc Hill went to the minors.

“I had a pretty good spring, but the Cardinals ran into a (roster) numbers problem and they let me go,” Torborg told The Sporting News.

Torborg went home to New Jersey. Two months later, in May 1974, the Red Sox brought him to Boston for a tryout after catcher Carlton Fisk injured a knee, but they opted to go with Tim Blackwell as the backup to Bob Montgomery.

At 32, Torborg’s playing days were finished. Among the Hall of Famers he caught were Don Sutton (51 games), Drysdale (49 games), Ryan (41 games) and Koufax (24 games).

Coach and manager

Torborg, who earned a master’s degree in athletic administration from Montclair (N.J.) State, became athletic director and head baseball coach at Wardlaw School in Edison, N.J., but left for a spot on the 1975 Cleveland Indians coaching staff of manager Frank Robinson.

In June 1977, Torborg, 35, replaced Robinson as manager. Years later, he told the Bridgewater Courier-News, “I really wasn’t prepared to manage. I was a young coach who was still very close to the players. I made a lot of mistakes.”

After he was fired in July 1979, Torborg joined the Yankees coaching staff in 1980. He was ready to become head baseball coach at Princeton in 1982 but changed his mind when Yankees owner George Steinbrenner gave him a seven-year contract to stay as a coach.

According to Newsday’s Tom Verducci, Steinbrenner offered Torborg the Yankees general manager job in 1982 but he rejected it because he wanted to remain in a role on the field. Billy Martin, one of several managers Torborg coached for with the Yankees, distrusted him. “He thought I was a pipeline upstairs (to Steinbrenner),” Torborg told Verducci.

After nine seasons (1980-88) as a Yankees coach, Torborg managed the White Sox (1989-91), Mets (1992-93), Expos (2001) and Marlins (2002-2003).

In 1992, Torborg and Mets outfielder Vince Coleman “engaged in an angry and physical confrontation on the field,” the New York Times reported. Coleman was suspended for two days without pay for shoving Torborg and swearing at him after the Mets manager tried to break up Coleman’s argument with an umpire.

According to New York Times columnist George Vecsey, “Coleman has been both a cause and a symbol of the Mets’ slide to the bottom. This is an outfielder with little baseball savvy and bad wheels and an unsavory image.”

Posted in Hitters, Opponents, Trades | 16 Comments »

Ken MacKenzie played it smart on diamond and ice

December 26, 2023 by retrosimba

During his National League pitching career, Ken MacKenzie produced one hit. It resulted in his only RBI _ a game-winning single against the Cardinals.

Doing the unexpected came naturally to MacKenzie. A hockey player from a small town on a Canadian island, he went to Yale, graduated and became a big-league pitcher.

A left-handed reliever, MacKenzie was the only pitcher on the original 1962 New York Mets to finish the season with a winning record. In an encore, he also was the only pitcher with a winning record on the 1963 Mets.

Bespectacled and unassuming, MacKenzie was called Mr. Peepers by his Mets teammates, according to Newsday’s George Vecsey.

The Cardinals acquired him for a possible pennant run. After his playing career, MacKenzie coached baseball and hockey at Yale.

Out of the wilderness

MacKenzie was from Gore Bay, a town on Manitoulin Island in Ontario, Canada, at the north end of Lake Huron. His father, John, who ran a hardware store, lost an eye serving in Europe with the Black Watch Royal Highland Regiment of Canada during World War II, according to the Hartford Courant.

Like his father, Ken MacKenzie excelled at hockey. Years later, he recalled to the Atlanta Constitution, “I never played baseball until I was 15 … I started pitching for the town team.”

MacKenzie was so inexperienced at pitching, “I didn’t even know how to wind up until I was 16,” he said to The Sporting News.

He went to Yale for an education (majoring in industrial administration) and to play hockey. After playing for Yale’s freshman hockey team, he made the varsity as a defenseman his sophomore year.

Though he hadn’t played freshman baseball, MacKenzie tried out for the varsity as a sophomore and earned a spot on the pitching staff. He became “one of the best college pitchers I’ve seen,” Hartford Courant columnist Bill Newell observed.

Relying on pinpoint control, MacKenzie was 19-6 with a 1.77 ERA in three varsity baseball seasons. He was 6-0 versus Harvard and 5-1 against Princeton.

(MacKenzie also played three varsity hockey seasons at Yale and was the team’s leading scorer as a junior.)

Beating the odds

Though he was successful in the Ivy League, conventional wisdom was MacKenzie didn’t throw hard enough to pitch in the pros. “Ken, even in his wildest dreams, never pictured himself being a major-league player,” the Hartford Courant noted.

After he graduated in 1956, MacKenzie received one baseball offer _ from the Milwaukee Braves. He signed with them in September 1956 and reported to their Class AA Atlanta Crackers farm club at spring training in 1957.

According to the Atlanta Constitution, MacKenzie “kept his bags packed” because he was uncertain he’d make the team. “Every time I heard a rumor someone was going, I figured it would be me,” he told the Atlanta newspaper.

Instead, he made the team and became a prominent starter, pitching a one-hitter against Mobile and finishing the 1957 season with a 14-6 record.

Progressing through the farm system, MacKenzie got called up to the Braves to fill a relief role in May 1960. His first decision, a loss to the Reds, came when he gave up a walkoff grand slam to Ed Bailey. Boxscore

In October 1961, the Braves sold MacKenzie’s contract to the Mets.

New York, New York

The 1962 Mets (40-120) were a bad team but had some smart pitchers. In addition to MacKenzie (Yale), the college graduates on the staff included Craig Anderson (Lehigh) and Jay Hook (Northwestern). Their manager was the Ol’ Perfessor, Casey Stengel, 72.

In recalling the 1962 Mets, MacKenzie told Dick Young of the New York Daily News, “Grounders went through all the time, and the ones they got to they didn’t pick up. All singles were doubles. I had an earned run average of 5, and maybe half of it was mine. We had to get five and six outs an innings. One day, Frenchy Daviault was pitching and it was brutal. The Old Man (Stengel) came out and said, ‘What’s the matter?’ Frenchy said, ‘What do you expect me to do?’ The Old Man said, ‘Strike somebody out. You know they can’t catch grounders.’ “

According to the New York Times, when MacKenzie came into a game one time in a crucial situation, Stengel handed him the ball and said, “Make like those guys are the Harvards.”

MacKenzie and his wife, Gretchen, a Vassar College graduate, lived in a Greenwich Village apartment during their time with the Mets. “We’d walk around and see all the art shows, drop in the coffee shops, or just watch the people,” MacKenzie told Newsday. “We liked the people down there. Everybody was open-minded. That’s the way we like to operate.”

Timely hitting

On July 28, 1962, at St. Louis, MacKenzie relieved Jay Hook in the fifth inning of a game against the Cardinals. With the Mets ahead, 8-6, in the ninth, MacKenzie, hitless as a big-leaguer, stroked a single against Don Ferrarese, scoring Joe Christopher and increasing the lead to 9-6.

(It was MacKenzie’s only hit and only RBI in 36 at-bats in the majors. MacKenzie told the Hartford Courant that Mets hitting coach Rogers Hornsby said to him, “You know, MacKenzie, you’re not a bad hitter. You put the bat on the ball.”)

The run was important because, in the bottom half of the inning, MacKenzie walked Bill White and gave up a home run to Curt Flood, pulling the Cardinals to within one at 9-8. (Flood hit .700 _ 7 for 10 _ against MacKenzie in his career.) After Willard Hunter relieved and walked Stan Musial, Craig Anderson came in and rescued the Mets, retiring the next three batters and securing the win for MacKenzie. Boxscore

MacKenzie was 5-4 with a save for the 1962 Mets, becoming the first pitcher to complete a season with a winning record for them. His ERA was 4.95. According to the Hartford Courant, when MacKenzie told Casey Stengel that at $10,000 per year he was the lowest paid member of Yale’s class of 1956, Stengel replied, “But you had the highest ERA.”

Cardinals calling

With the 1963 Mets, MacKenzie had a torrid start to the season (2-0, one save, 0.00 ERA in six appearances in April) but hit the skids hard in May. In one stretch of three games, he gave a walkoff home run to the Dodgers’ Frank Howard, a shattering home run to the Cardinals’ Bob Gibson and a game-winning home run to another Cardinal, Charlie James. (For his career, James hit .800 _ 4 for 5 _ versus MacKenzie.) Boxscore, Boxscore, Boxscore

Nonetheless, three months later, on Aug. 5, 1963, the Cardinals traded pitcher Ed Bauta to the Mets for MacKenzie. With a 3-1 record and three saves for the 1963 Mets, MacKenzie again was their only pitcher with a winning record.

(Regarding MacKenzie’s combined record of 8-5 for the 1962-63 Mets, Dick Young wrote, “If they ever decide to hand out medals, Ken MacKenzie belongs in the front line.”)

Manager Johnny Keane, whose Cardinals were five games behind the first-place Dodgers at the time of the trade, said to The Sporting News, “We got MacKenzie to help Bobby Shantz with the left-handed job in the bullpen.”

Though he told Newsday he was pleased to join a pennant contender, MacKenzie also had regrets about leaving the Mets. “I felt I was one of the originals on the club, and that meant something,” he said.

MacKenzie made eight appearances totaling nine innings for the 1963 Cardinals, who finished in second place. After the season, they traded him to the Giants for catcher Jim Coker.

Back to school

After brief stints with the 1964 Giants and 1965 Astros, MacKenzie was done as a player. In October 1965, he was named coach of the freshman baseball and hockey teams at Yale.

Three years later, in June 1968, MacKenzie became head coach of the Yale varsity baseball team, replacing Ethan Allen, who retired.

Among the players on the first varsity team MacKenzie coached were first baseman Steve Greenberg (son of Baseball Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg) and center fielder Brian Dowling (who also was the quarterback on Yale’s football team). Steve Greenberg became deputy commissioner of Major League Baseball, and the character of B.D. in the Doonesbury comic strip was based on Brian Dowling, a classmate of cartoonist Garry Trudeau.

In 1969, MacKenzie made a surprise return to the majors. Montreal Expos general manager John McHale, who had been in the Braves’ front office when MacKenzie first came to the big leagues, put MacKenzie on the Expos’ roster on Sept. 1, 1969, as a favor to add the necessary 26 days for the minimum five years needed for a pension, the Montreal Gazette reported. A grateful MacKenzie spent the month pitching batting practice and didn’t get into a game.

After that adventure, he resumed his coaching duties at Yale. MacKenzie coached varsity baseball for 10 seasons and then worked in the school’s alumni office until he retired.

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Trades | 8 Comments »

To Have or Have Not: Hugh Casey vs. Ernest Hemingway

December 20, 2023 by retrosimba

A pretty good pitcher, Hugh Casey often got cuffed by the Cardinals. Off the field, as Ernest Hemingway learned, he was no punching bag.

In the 1940s, the Cardinals (four) and Dodgers (three) won seven of the 10 National League pennants that decade. Casey was a prominent pitcher on the Dodgers championship clubs in 1941 (14 wins, seven saves) and 1947 (10 wins, 18 saves).

Against the Cardinals, though, he could look like a guy tossing batting practice. Twice, they clobbered 15 hits in a game against Casey. In one of those, he gave up five homers and 13 runs in seven innings.

Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis gave him nightmares. Casey’s ERA in 28 games there against the Cardinals was 6.03. The career batting averages of some prominent Cardinals against Casey _ Stan Musial (.529), Johnny Mize (.447), Joe Medwick (.429), Red Schoendienst (.400) _ helped get them elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Come to Papa

In 1942, for the second spring in a row, the Dodgers held their training camp in Havana, the capital of Cuba. Novelist Ernest Hemingway was a resident and got to know the ballplayers.

“He used to hang around the Dodgers in the lobby of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba,” broadcaster Red Barber wrote in a column for the New York Times.

In the book “Baseball: When the Grass Was Real,” Dodgers second baseman Billy Herman told author Donald Honig about a “night I’ll never forget” at Hemingway’s Havana house.

“Hemingway took a lot of pride in all this manly stuff, guns and boozing and fighting, things like that,” Herman said to Honig. “He was a big, brawny man, and when he’d had a few drinks, he got mean, real mean.”

Hemingway and his wife, Martha Gellhorn Hemingway (a journalist who was born and raised in St. Louis and was best known for her work as a war correspondent on the front lines), belonged to The Club de Cazadores del Cerro (Hunter Club of the Hills), a gun club that held an international trap and live pigeon shoot.

“So he invited (Dodgers players) Hugh Casey, Larry French, Augie Galan and myself out to the gun club,” Billy Herman said. “Believe me, this was no Coney Island shooting gallery. It was a real fancy place. You had a guy with a portable bar following you around. You’d get up, take your shots, and there’d be a drink ready for you. This went on from three o’clock in the afternoon until dark.”

Then Hemingway brought the players to his house.

“He took us into a huge dining room-living room combination, with all terrazzo floors, and told us to make ourselves comfortable while he went and got the drinks,” Herman said. “He came back with an enormous silver tray, with all the bottles, the mixers, the glasses, the ice _ the whole works. He set it up on this little bookstand in the middle of the floor. And we started drinking.”

Herman said Hemingway gave each of the four players an autographed copy of “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and talked with them about his experiences as a foreign correspondent.

“We had quite a bit to drink,” Herman recalled. “Then he laid out some food. After we ate, we had a few more drinks. It was getting pretty late now, and Mrs. Hemingway excused herself and went to bed. Hemingway was good and loaded by this time.”

Drunk and disorderly

Like Hemingway, Hugh Casey was a big drinker. Red Barber said, “Casey drank whiskey by the water glass _ without water.” Columnist Furman Bisher noted that Casey had cheeks “tanned by years of association with fine bourbon.”

Still telling war stories to his Dodgers guests, Hemingway “looked over at Casey, sort of sizing him up,” Herman recalled to Honig.

“You and I are about the same size,” Hemingway said to Casey. “We’d make a good match. I’ve got some boxing gloves. Let’s just spar. Fool around a little bit.”

According to Herman, Casey grinned and shrugged. Hemingway got the boxing gloves, put on a pair and gave the others to Casey.

“As Casey was pulling his gloves on, Hemingway hauled off and belted him,” Herman said. “He hit him hard. He knocked Casey into that bookstand and there goes the tray with all the booze and glasses smashing over the terrazzo floor.”

Hemingway’s wife came running into the room. According to Herman, she looked at the mess on the floor and went back to bed.

“Casey didn’t say anything about the sneak punch,” Herman said. “He got up and finished putting his gloves on. Then they started sparring. They were moving back and forth across the broken glass. Boom. Casey starts hitting him. And hitting him. Then Casey started knocking him down. Hemingway didn’t like that at all.

“Then Casey belted him across some furniture and there was another crash as Hemingway took a lamp and table down with him. The wife came running out, and Hemingway told her it was all right, that it was all in fun. She went away.”

Casey knocked down Hemingway some more. “Finally he got up this one time, made a feint with his left, and kicked Casey in the balls,” Herman said. “That’s when we figured it had gone far enough. We made them take the gloves off.”

Hemingway had his chauffeur drive the players back to their hotel.

“The next day, Hemingway’s wife brought him down to the ballpark,” Herman said. “You never saw a man so embarrassed, so ashamed. He apologized to everybody.”

(Years later, according to New York sports reporter and raconteur Tom Meany, Yankees catcher Yogi Berra was introduced to Hemingway at Toots Shor’s restaurant. After Hemingway departed, Meany asked Berra, “What did you think of him?” Berra said, “He’s quite a character. What does he do?” Meany replied, “He’s a writer.” Yogi said, “Yeah? What paper?”)

Food for thought

In July 1942, four months after the incident with Hemingway, Stan Musial smashed a pitch straight at Casey “and almost bore a hole through his ample midriff,” the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported. As Casey tried to protect himself, the ball cracked the little finger of his pitching hand and he was sidelined for three weeks. The Cardinals, eight games behind the first-place Dodgers when Casey got injured, went on to win the pennant. Boxscore

After a three-year stint in the Navy, Casey returned to the Dodgers in 1946. He opened a restaurant in Brooklyn, Hugh Casey’s Steak and Chop House, at 600 Flatbush Avenue in the shadow of Ebbets Field.

Long and narrow with soft lighting, cozy booths and a 30-foot mirrored bar at the front, the restaurant was open from noon to 4 a.m, The Sporting News reported. Casey and his wife resided in an upstairs apartment.

Casey “takes great pride in his steaks and chops, condescends to serve fish on Fridays and gets a brisk trade from the neighborhood,” The Sporting News noted. “During the baseball season, the players from the clubs visiting Ebbets Field show up in droves.”

The restaurant’s walls were covered with photos of Dodgers players, including Jackie Robinson. A photo of Casey hung over the cash register. “Right there watching the money,” he told The Sporting News.

Multiple tragedies

On May 24, 1947, a car driven by Casey struck and killed a blind man on Fifth Avenue, near Seventh Street, in Brooklyn at about 11 p.m., the New York Times reported. The victim, 62, was being led across the street by his sister after they had exited a trolley car.

No charges were brought by police after witnesses told them the accident appeared to have been unavoidable, the New York Daily News reported.

Five months later, in the 1947 World Series against the Yankees, the Dodgers won three times. Casey (two wins and a save) had a hand in all three.

He pitched his last game in the majors for the 1949 Yankees and finished with a 75-42 career mark (8-11 against the Cardinals) and 54 saves.

In December 1950, a paternity suit ruling declared Casey the father of a son born out of wedlock to a 25-year-old Brooklyn woman.

Seven months later, on July 3, 1951, Casey, 37, sat on the edge of a bed in an Atlanta hotel room, holding a shotgun to his neck, and telephoned his estranged wife, Kathleen. According to the Associated Press, Casey told her, “I can’t eat or sleep since going through all the embarrassment.”

For 15 minutes, she pleaded with him to put down the gun, the Associated Press reported. Then he killed himself with a shotgun blast while his wife listened. According to the Associated Press, the shot also was heard by Casey’s friend, Gordon McNabb, who had hurried to the hotel after getting an earlier call from Casey telling him of his suicide plan. McNabb was in the corridor outside the room when the shot was fired.

On July 2, 1961, almost 10 years to the day of Casey’s death, Ernest Hemingway, 61, used a shotgun to commit suicide.

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Lynn McGlothen was key to Cardinals deal with Red Sox

December 15, 2023 by retrosimba

When a proposed trade between the Cleveland Indians and Boston Red Sox involving Gaylord Perry hit a snag, the Cardinals swooped in and snatched the pitchers the Indians wanted.

On Dec. 7, 1973, the Cardinals acquired John Curtis, Mike Garman and Lynn McGlothen from the Red Sox for Reggie Cleveland, Diego Segui and Terry Hughes. It was the second major trade between the teams since the end of the season. Two months earlier, the Cardinals got Reggie Smith and Ken Tatum from Boston for Rick Wise and Bernie Carbo.

McGlothen was the primary reason the Cardinals made the second deal. He was thought to have the potential to be another Bob Gibson.

Louisiana lightning

At Grambling High, a public school operated by Grambling State University in Louisiana, McGlothen earned 16 varsity letters in four sports _ baseball, basketball, football and tennis. He took up tennis after trying the sport in a physical education class, according to the Des Moines Register, and became a three-time high school state singles champion.

Football, though, was the sport McGlothen liked best. Attending Grambling State games, “I grew up watching (linemen) Ernie Ladd and Buck Buchanan, wanting to play for (coach) Eddie Robinson,” he told the Register.

“I was a middle linebacker at Grambling High School, all-state (as a junior) … I thought I had a chance to play pro football,” McGlothen said to Lindsay-Schaub News Service.

He told the Register, “I didn’t have any intentions of being a (pro) baseball player.”

McGlothen was one of three top prep pitchers in north Louisiana in the late 1960s. The others: Vida Blue and J.R. Richard. McGlothen and Blue never started against one another, but McGlothen and Richard (with Lincoln High in Ruston) were opposing starters many times.

“I made it a point to save him for J.R. as much as possible,” Grambling High School baseball coach Donnell Cowan told United Press International. “Those two really had some great games during that time.”

(Richard and McGlothen were opposing starters five times in the big leagues. Richard won four of those games.)

Baseball beckons

McGlothen’s high school pitching impressed Red Sox scout Ed Scott.

(In 1951, Scott was scouting for Indianapolis of the Negro American League when he saw Hank Aaron play recreational ball in Mobile, Ala. Aaron joined the semipro team Scott managed, the Mobile Black Bears. Then on Scott’s recommendation, Indianapolis signed Aaron.)

After his high school graduation in 1968, McGlothen enrolled in summer classes at Grambling State. Soon after, based on Scott’s scouting reports, the Red Sox took McGlothen in the third round of the June 1968 draft. Unsure whether to stay in school on a football scholarship or join the Red Sox, McGlothen consulted with Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, who was both the president of Grambling State and its head baseball coach. Jones “told me I had baseball potential,” McGlothen recalled to Lindsay-Schaub News Service.

He signed with the Red Sox and was sent to a farm club in Waterloo, Iowa. It wasn’t exactly the “Field of Dreams,” but the club did have a manager whose name seemed taken from a Hollywood script _ Rac Slider.

“He set out trying to make men out of us,” McGlothen said to the Des Moines Register. “He watched me throw and said, ‘There are a lot of things wrong, but I can teach you.’ He was like an army sergeant and I was a cocky kid who had just left home. He rode me and (pitcher) Roger Moret pretty hard, and used to take the keys to our cars away from us.

“I’d just got my bonus and paid $7,000 _ which was a lot for a car then _ for a Mustang with a powerful motor. Waterloo is not a big place. Seemed like every time I’d screech the tires at an intersection, someone would call Rac and he’d take the keys for a day.”

High hopes

At Class A Winston-Salem in 1970, McGlothen was 15-7 with a 2.24 ERA. After the season, he went to the Florida Instructional League, where he impressed Red Sox outfielder Carl Yastrzemski, who was working with the prospects. “This kid can be a real good big-league pitcher,” Yastrzemski told the Boston Globe. “Right now, he’s as good, if not better, than that (rookie Bert) Blyleven of Minnesota.”

Though McGlothen, 21, hadn’t pitched at a level above Class A in the minors, Ray Fitzgerald of the Globe wrote at spring training in 1971, “Maybe Lynn McGlothen is a potential Bob Gibson … The Red Sox feel he’s something special.”

A year later, in June 1972, McGlothen was called up to the Red Sox. His first win for them was a three-hit shutout of the Twins at Boston’s Fenway Park on July 4. Boxscore

McGlothen began the 1973 season with the Red Sox, got sent to the minors in May and was discovered to have torn cartilage in his right knee. He underwent surgery and returned to action with Class AAA Pawtucket in August. In a playoff game against the Cardinals’ Tulsa team, McGlothen pitched a two-hit shutout and held Keith Hernandez hitless.

Price is right

In October 1973, the Red Sox had trade talks with the Cleveland Indians about their ace pitcher, Gaylord Perry. The Indians wanted McGlothen and John Curtis but the Red Sox said they would not include both pitchers in a deal.

According to the Boston Globe, a compromise was reached between general managers Phil Seghi of the Indians and Dick O’Connell of the Red Sox. Boston would send Curtis and pitchers Marty Pattin and Craig Skok to Cleveland for Perry, but Indians owners Nick Mileti and Ted Bonda vetoed the deal.

Those trade talks were revived at the December 1973 baseball winter meetings. The Indians and Red Sox agreed to a swap of McGlothen and three others for Perry, the Globe reported, but, again, Nick Mileti intervened, wanting Curtis included in the trade.

Frustrated, the Red Sox fielded other proposals. When the Cardinals offered Reggie Cleveland (14-10 in 1973), the Red Sox accepted.

“Quite frankly, if we couldn’t have got McGlothen, we never would have made (the trade),” Cardinals general manager Bing Devine told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “On the basis of our scouts’ reports, we said, ‘No McGlothen, no deal.’ “

Devine said to The Sporting News, “McGlothen has an outstanding curve as well as a good fastball. We’ve been interested in him for some time, but until now they wouldn’t even talk to you about him.”

According to the Alabama Journal, Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst said, “When we made the trade with Boston, they tried to throw someone else in instead of McGlothen, but if the trade was to be made he had to be in.”

McGlothen, 23, was projected to join a Cardinals rotation led by Bob Gibson, 38. Reggie Smith, who played with McGlothen in Boston, said to reporter Arnold Irish, “Lynn will remind you of Bob Gibson. He works fast and throws hard.”

Strong start

In the first half of the 1974 season, McGlothen looked every bit the part of a young ace. He won 12 of his first 15 decisions with the Cardinals. On May 7, he pitched a four-hit shutout against the Reds. In the fifth inning he faced three batters _ Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Johnny Bench _ and struck out each of them. Boxscore

“I am a fastball pitcher,” McGlothen told the Shreveport Times. “I don’t like to set hitters up. I like to set them down.”

The next month, McGlothen had a three-hit shutout versus the Padres and got three hits in a win against the Braves. Boxscore and Boxscore

“Lynn reminds me of Gibson a lot, especially the way he’s so confident of his fastball no matter what the count or the situation,” Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons told the Alabama Journal. “Like Bob, he challenges the hitter, supplements the smoke with both a big curve and slow curve, and helps himself at the plate, too.”

Named to the National League all-star team, McGlothen worked a scoreless inning against the American Leaguers and struck out Reggie Jackson. Boxscore

In his book “Reggie: A Season With a Superstar,” Jackson said, “McGlothen struck me out on three breaking balls. Breaking balls! I mean, this is the All-Star Game, man. Throw the ball and let the batter hit it. He went at it like it was the World Series. Which is why they win.”

Tragic ending

McGlothen was 16-12 with a 2.69 ERA for the 1974 Cardinals and led the club in wins and strikeouts (142). He had 15 wins in 1975 and 13 in 1976.

After the 1976 season, the Cardinals acquired a pair of potential starters, Larry Dierker and John D’Acquisto, and deemed McGlothen expendable. On Dec. 10, 1976, McGlothen was dealt to the Giants for third baseman Ken Reitz.

“I was the Cardinals’ highest-paid pitcher and I kind of figured they would trade me,” McGlothen told The Sporting News.

Over the next six years, he pitched for four clubs (Giants, Cubs, White Sox and Yankees) and finished with a career record of 86-93 (44-40 as a Cardinal). Video of McGlothen for Cubs versus Cardinals

Out of baseball, McGlothen, 34, died on Aug. 14, 1984, at Dubach, Louisiana, in a mobile home fire that also killed a woman he was visiting there, Joey Davidson of the Lincoln Parish sheriff’s office told the Shreveport Times. Davidson said the fire started about 2 a.m. in the living room of the mobile home of Gloria Reed Smith. Smith rescued her daughters, ages 13 and 7, then went back inside to help McGlothen, Davidson said.

“They were together when we found them, right at the entrance to the bedroom,” Davidson told the Shreveport Times.

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Fantastic finishes: Wes Ferrell was pitcher with best bat

December 10, 2023 by retrosimba

Red Sox pitcher Wes Ferrell won games with his bat as well as his arm. Ferrell slugged walkoff home runs in consecutive days against the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Browns.

A right-hander, Ferrell holds the record for regular-season career home runs hit by a pitcher. According to baseball-reference.com, the top six are Ferrell (38), Bob Lemon (37), Warren Spahn (35), Red Ruffing (34), Earl Wilson (33) and Don Drysdale (29). Bob Gibson (24) is the leader among Cardinals pitchers.

(Note: Through 2023, Shohei Ohtani hit 166 home runs as a designated hitter, three as a pitcher and two as a pinch-hitter. According to retrosheet.org, Babe Ruth hit 692 homers as an outfielder, 14 as a pitcher, seven as a first baseman and one as a pinch-hitter.)

In 15 seasons in the majors, Ferrell was a 20-game winner six times and posted a career mark of 193-128. He batted .280 overall and established a single-season record for pitchers with nine home runs in 1931.

His most dramatic were those consecutive game-winning shots in 1935.

Please come to Boston

Wes Ferrell was the younger brother of catcher Rick Ferrell, who debuted in the majors with the Browns and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

With the start Wes Ferrell had in the big leagues, it seemed he might be headed to Cooperstown, too. He was a 20-game winner in each of his first four full seasons (1929-32) with the Cleveland Indians. When he stumbled (11-12) in 1933, the Indians wanted to cut his salary. Ferrell wouldn’t sign, prompting a trade in May 1934 to the Red Sox, whose catcher was his brother.

Ferrell (25-12) and Lefty Grove (20-12) were Red Sox aces in 1935, but they ran into trouble with the Tigers, who were on their way to becoming World Series champions that year.

In the July 18 opener of a four-game series at Boston’s Fenway Park, Ferrell started against the Tigers’ Schoolboy Rowe and was defeated, 8-0. Boxscore

Detroit won the second game, too. Then, in Game 3 on July 20, Ferrell entered as a pinch-hitter in the seventh, stayed in to pitch and gave up the winning run, losing for the second time in three days. Boxscore

Storybook drama

For the July 21 series finale, the Red Sox started Lefty Grove, hoping to avoid a sweep. In the top of the ninth, Grove gave up three runs with two outs, enabling Detroit to turn a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 lead. As the Boston Globe noted, the Tigers “seemed to have snatched victory from Grove’s grasp.”

When the Tigers got done in the ninth, Grove “stormed into the dugout, stopping to kick the bat rack on his way,” the Globe reported. “He picked up a bat, which proved to be (player-manager) Joe Cronin’s favorite, and broke it in two on the steps. Then he kicked over the water bucket, sending several mates scurrying.”

Grove disappeared into the locker room, where he was left to stew while the Red Sox went to bat in the bottom of the ninth against Tigers starter Tommy Bridges.

The first two batters, Cronin and Billy Werber, each singled. Babe Dahlgren’s sacrifice bunt moved Cronin to third and Werber to second. Then Cronin called on Wes Ferrell to bat for Grove.

Tigers player-manager Mickey Cochrane, the catcher, went to the mound to confer with Bridges. Ferrell had three career home runs versus Bridges _ he’d end up hitting five against him _ but Cochrane decided against issuing an intentional walk with first base open and leadoff batter Oscar Melillo on deck.

“The crowd (of 24,000) gave Wes a great ovation as he strode to the plate in his cocky manner,” Gerry Moore of the Globe observed.

Ferrell launched a Bridges fastball deep to left. “There was little doubt about the ball’s destination almost from the instant it left the bat,” the Globe reported, “even though there was unfavorable wind blowing against.”

Left fielder Goose Goslin “took one look at the ball as it passed over his head and then started on the run for the clubhouse,” the Globe noted.

Ferrell’s three-run home run lifted the Red Sox to a 7-6 triumph.

“The scene the instant the ball disappeared behind the barrier will not be forgotten for some time,” the Globe reported. “Most of the spectators stood in their seats and shrieked and pounded each other. They weren’t ordinary cheers.

“Ferrell trotted around the bases with his head down until he rounded third. Then his face broke into a wide grin as coach Al Schacht started to race him home. A bunch of eager youngsters broke through the police cordon and ran along with Wes and Schacht, but they weren’t able to get close to Wes when he crossed the plate. His teammates were the kids then, pounding, hugging, mauling Wes.”

According to the Boston newspaper, when the ball left the park, the Tigers’ Mickey Cochrane “kicked his mask almost into the Red Sox dugout. Then he turned and heaved his catcher’s mitt in the other direction, almost into the Detroit dugout.”

The home run ball “was caught on the fly by a little Negro boy who was playing catch on the far side of Lansdowne Street,” the Globe reported.

Gratitude from Grove

While the Red Sox were rallying, Grove sat alone, sulking in the locker room.

In the book “Baseball: When the Grass Was Real,” Ferrell told author Donald Honig, “So we all rush into the clubhouse, laughing and hollering, the way you do after a game like that, and here’s Lefty, still thinking he’s lost his game. When he saw all the carrying on, I tell you, the smoke started coming out of his ears.”

Grove said, “I don’t see what’s so funny. A man loses a ballgame and you’re all carrying on.”

Somebody replied, “Hell, Lefty, we won it. Wes hit a home run for you.”

Ferrell told Honig: “Well, I was sitting across the clubhouse from him, pulling my uniform off, and I notice he’s staring at me, with just a trace of smile at the corners of his mouth. Just staring at me. He doesn’t say anything. I give him a big grin and pull my sweatshirt up over my head.

“Then I hear him say, ‘Hey, Wes.’ I look over and he’s rolling a bottle of wine across to me _ he’d keep a bottle of one thing or another stashed up in his locker. So here it comes, rolling and bumping along the clubhouse floor. I picked it up and thanked him and put it in my locker. At the end of the season, I brought it back to North Carolina with me and let it sit up on the mantel. It sat up there for years and years. Every time I looked at it, I thought of old Left.” Boxscore

Encore performance

When Melville E. Webb Jr. of the Boston Globe jokingly suggested to Grove that the win should be credited to Ferrell, Grove said, “You can bet your life that’s all right with me, old boy.”

The next day, July 22, 1935, Ferrell started against the Browns at Fenway Park. He and the Browns’ Dick Coffman were both sharp that Monday afternoon.

The score was tied at 1-1 and the bases were empty when Ferrell batted in the bottom of the ninth. Coffman threw a letter-high curve and Ferrell hit it over the wall in left, giving Boston a 2-1 victory.

According to the Globe, “The hit was a twin brother of the one of the day before except that the ball may have reached a higher altitude.”

Just as the Tigers’ Goose Goslin did, Browns left fielder Moose Solters “immediately began making tracks toward the dressing room” when he saw where the ball was headed, the Globe observed. “A small crowd was present _ 1,600 was the count _ but these made as much noise as 16,000, it seemed.” Boxscore

Ferrell hit .347 in 1935. His on-base percentage was .427 and he had more walks (21) than strikeouts (16).

Ferrell had one other walkoff homer in the big leagues. On Aug. 22, 1934, his second home run of the game against Les Tietje of the White Sox broke a 2-2 tie in the bottom of the 10th and gave Ferrell a 12-2 record for the season. Boxscore

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