RetroSimba

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.

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers | 8 Comments »

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.

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Trades | 8 Comments »

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

Posted in Games, Pitchers | 7 Comments »

How Pete Richert, Bing Devine bonded in Vietnam

December 5, 2023 by retrosimba

For pitcher Pete Richert, fatigues became as much a part of his wardrobe as a baseball uniform in 1968.

In April, he served with the National Guard, trying to quell riots in Washington, D.C. In the fall, he went to Vietnam, looking to boost the spirits of U.S. troops. In between, he pitched in relief for the Baltimore Orioles.

Among those who accompanied Richert to Vietnam was Cardinals general manager Bing Devine. Five years later, on Dec. 5, 1973, Devine acquired Richert for the Cardinals in a trade with the Dodgers.

A left-hander, Richert was a two-time American League all-star and pitched on Orioles teams that won three pennants and a World Series title. His stint with the Cardinals, though, didn’t go the way either he or the team had hoped it would.

Blazing heat

Richert was from Floral Park, N.Y., a village on Long Island. He went to Sewanhaka High School. (The name translates to “island of shells.”) Its alumni also include actor Telly Savalas and Heisman Trophy winner Vinny Testaverde.

In August 1957, Richert, 17, signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, the day before the club declared it was moving to Los Angeles after the season.

Richert steadily worked his way through the Dodgers’ farm system as a starting pitcher. In 1960, for the Class AA Atlanta Crackers managed by Rube Walker, Richert had 19 wins and struck out 251 batters in 225 innings. The Atlanta Journal called him “the Cracker with the golden arm” and described his best pitch as a “miracle whip fastball.”

He was 22 when he made a spectacular big-league debut with the Dodgers on April 12, 1962. Relieving Stan Williams, Richert struck out the first six batters he faced _ Vada Pinson, Frank Robinson, Gordy Coleman (who advanced to first on a passed ball by John Roseboro), Wally Post, Johnny Edwards and Tommy Harper. Boxscore

(Until then, the only pitcher to strike out six consecutive batters in his debut in the majors was the Dodgers’ Karl Spooner against the Giants in 1954. Boxscore)

“I always say a little prayer when I’m nervous and excited, and I was tonight as I started walking to the mound,” Richert told the Los Angeles Times. “My father, who always wanted me to be a baseball player, died when I was 15. When I decided to try baseball, my brother told me that when I was nervous or excited to always say a prayer and dad would help me. As soon as I threw a pitch to Pinson, the nervousness left me.”

Called upon three days later, Richert struck out five, including Joe Torre twice, in two innings against the Braves. Boxscore

Setback in St. Louis

Richert’s robust rookie season got derailed on May 12, 1962, at St. Louis. Relieving in the 11th, he allowed no runs or hits to the Cardinals in 2.2 innings. Then, as Richert pitched to Bill White with two outs in the 13th, “the ball bounced to the plate, his glove sailed 15 feet away and he grabbed his left elbow in obvious agony,” The Sporting News reported.

Taken to a hospital, it was discovered Richert had tore ligaments in the elbow. Boxscore

He came off the disabled list two months later and was sent to the Dodgers’ Omaha farm team. Worried about reinjuring his arm, Richert resisted throwing hard. According to the New York Times, Omaha manager Danny Ozark said to Richert, “Pete, you’re scared to throw the ball. If you’re going to be a pitcher, you’ve got to make up your mind. It’s the difference between spending the rest of your life in the minors or going back to the big time.”

Richert responded, got brought back to the Dodgers in August and was put into their starting rotation.

He split each of the next two seasons (1963-64) between the Dodgers and their Spokane farm team (managed by Danny Ozark).

On Sept. 16, 1963, the first-place Dodgers went to St. Louis for a three-game showdown series with the Cardinals, who were a game behind them. Dodgers manager Walt Alston opted to start three left-handers. After Johnny Podres and Sandy Koufax prevailed in the first two games, Richert started the finale. He was knocked out in the third inning but the Dodgers got brilliant relief from another left-hander, Ron Perranoski, and completed the sweep. Boxscore

Capital gains

In December 1964, the Dodgers sent Richert to the Washington Senators. The trade reunited him with his former Atlanta manager, Rube Walker, who was a coach on the staff of Senators manager Gil Hodges.

Richert led the 1965 Senators in wins (15), ERA (2.60), innings pitched (194) and strikeouts (161). He also pitched two scoreless innings for the American League in the All-Star Game, striking out Willie Mays and Willie Stargell. Boxscore

He was the Opening Day starter for Washington in 1966 when Emmett Ashford became the first black umpire in the majors. Boxscore

On April 24, 1966, Richert struck out seven consecutive Tigers batters _ Don Demeter, Ray Oyler, Orlando McFarlane, Bill Monbouquette, Dick Tracewski, Don Wert and Norm Cash. Boxscore

Named again to the all-star team, Richert pitched in the 1966 game at St. Louis and gave up the game-winning hit to former teammate Maury Wills. Boxscore

Richert led the 1966 Senators in wins (14), innings pitched (245.2) and strikeouts (195). He was the first Washington Senators pitcher to strike out 195 in a season since Walter Johnson (228) in 1916.

War zones

Sent by the Senators to the Orioles in May 1967, Richert was moved to the bullpen in 1968 and never went back to starting.

Richert was a reservist with a National Guard unit in Washington, D.C. When rioting broke out there after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, Richert left the Orioles to join his outfit. His two weeks of emergency riot-control duty “consisted of street patrol with D.C. police, guarding the Washington jail and protecting firefighters,” the Baltimore Sun reported.

“I saw some things you couldn’t believe,” Richert said to the Sun. “The city and its destruction, burning, looting, violence … Two entire streets of 15 blocks and another 22-block street were leveled … Firemen would be fighting fires and there were arsonists throwing Molotov cocktails at the fire trucks.”

After the 1968 baseball season, in a trip arranged by the United Service Organizations (USO) and the baseball commissioner’s office, Richert went to Vietnam with Bing Devine, players Ernie Banks of the Cubs, Larry Jackson of the Phillies and Ron Swoboda of the Mets, and St. Louis publicist Al Fleishman.

“We’d fly by helicopter to a firebase (artillery post), spend a couple hours chatting with the men, then take off and fly to another post nearby,” Fleishman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We hit five or six small bases a day that way for 17 days.”

In his memoirs, Devine recalled, “One time, we were in a whaleboat going up this canal … They gave me a grenade launcher” in case of an ambush.

Devine told the soldiers, “I don’t know how to shoot a gun. If I need it, we’re hopeless.”

Richert said to the Baltimore Sun, “We visited 57 hospitals and they figured the six of us came in contact with better than 10,000 troops.”

According to the Post-Dispatch, Richert and Devine bonded during the Vietnam trip and exchanged Christmas cards each year after that.

Fall classics

Richert’s first World Series appearance came in 1969. With the score tied in Game 4, the Mets had runners on first and second, none out, in the bottom of the 10th when Richert relieved Dick Hall. His first pitch to J.C. Martin was bunted along the first-base line. Richert got to it but his throw hit Martin in the wrist and the ball rolled away, enabling Rod Gaspar to score from second with the winning run. Photos showed Martin interfered by running inside the base line and should have been called out, the Baltimore Sun reported. Boxscore Video

Richert had a better experience in Game 1 of the 1970 World Series. In the bottom of the ninth, with Pete Rose on first and two outs, Richert relieved Jim Palmer, looking to protect a 4-3 lead. His first pitch jammed Bobby Tolan, who hit a soft liner to shortstop Mark Belanger for the final out. Boxscore

On the move

In December 1971, Richert was reunited with the Dodgers when they acquired him from the Orioles.

Two years later, when the Dodgers dealt for closer Mike Marshall, they deemed Richert expendable and traded him to the Cardinals for Tommie Agee.

Richert, 34, joined Al Hrabosky and Rich Folkers as left-handers in the bullpen for the 1974 Cardinals, but he lacked command of his fastball, walking 11 in 11.1 innings. The highlight was the save he earned when he retired the Pirates’ Al Oliver with the potential tying runs on base. Boxscore

Placed on waivers in June 1974, Richert was claimed by the Phillies at the urging of their manager, Danny Ozark.

In 21 appearances for the 1974 Phillies, Richert was 2-1 (the loss was to the Cardinals) with a 2.21 ERA. In September, it was discovered he had a blood clot in his left arm and needed surgery, bringing an end to his pitching days.

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Trades | 10 Comments »

Wild thing: Cardinals paved way for Johnny Klippstein

November 30, 2023 by retrosimba

Johnny Klippstein was 16 when he pitched his first season of professional baseball in the Cardinals’ system. When he got to the big leagues at 22, it was with the Cubs, not the Cardinals.

A right-hander who converted from starter to reliever, Klippstein spent 18 years in the majors and pitched in two World Series _ one for the Dodgers and the other against them.

The Cardinals tried to reacquire him, along with a rangy first baseman who would become the star of a hit television series, but it didn’t work out.

Young and restless

Born at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., Klippstein was raised in suburban Silver Spring, Md. His father, who immigrated to America from Germany as a boy in 1894, served 30 years in the U.S. Army and retired as a master sergeant, according to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

A lanky kid with a strong arm, Johnny Klippstein learned to pitch in his one season playing American Legion baseball. In the summer of 1943, when he was 15, Klippstein and his mother took a bus to visit relatives in Appleton, Wis. By coincidence, the Cardinals were holding a tryout camp there and Klippstein went.

In the book “We Played the Game,” he recalled, “I arrived with a softball glove and softball hat and looked like a dope.”

Nonetheless, he impressed the Cardinals, who told him he would hear from them the following spring after he turned 16. With many young men in military service during World War II, ballclubs were reaching into the prep ranks to fill the talent pipeline. When Klippstein completed his junior year of high school, the Cardinals signed him and he was sent to their farm club in Allentown, Pa., in June 1944.

“All the guys were between 18 and 21 and I felt they were old enough to be my father,” Klippstein said to author Danny Peary. “The first time I went to the mound, I was so scared that my knees shook.”

Playing for manager Ollie Vanek (who a few years earlier gave a tryout to an amateur left-hander named Stan Musial and recommended him to the Cardinals), Klippstein pitched in six games for Allentown before spending the rest of the summer at a farm club in Lima, Ohio.

Afterward, Klippstein went back home to attend his senior year of high school. When he graduated in June 1945, Klippstein was so eager to return for a second season in the Cardinals’ system, “I didn’t even wait for my diploma. I told them to mail it to me,” he recalled to the Philadelphia Daily News.

Johnny on the spot

Klippstein, 17, was with Winston-Salem, N.C., for most of the summer of 1945. He posted an 8-7 record and led the team in ERA (2.48) but he also threw 19 wild pitches and hit batters with pitches eight times.

“He was rated (by the Cardinals) as a real prospect from the start, but he was young, didn’t even have his full growth,” the Winston-Salem Sentinel noted. “He was temperamental. He had a lot of stuff on the ball, but he was wilder than the usual rookie.”

Klippstein spent all of 1946 in the Army, returned to baseball the next year and pitched in the minors through 1948. After four years in the Cardinals’ system, Klippstein’s progress seemed to have stalled. As the Winston-Salem Sentinel noted, “The Cardinals did not want to let him go because they knew he had the stuff. They didn’t want to send him up because he was so wild.”

In the “We Played the Game” book, Klippstein said, “I was getting discouraged because I felt I was failing … The Cardinals didn’t have me in their plans.”

In November 1948, the Dodgers selected Klippstein in the minor-league draft. Sent to their farm club at Mobile, Ala., in 1949, he won 15 and had a 2.95 ERA.

The Cardinals wanted to get Klippstein back. In October 1949, Cardinals owner Fred Saigh met with Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey in Brooklyn and talked trade. The Cardinals offered pitcher Red Munger, a 15-game winner in 1949, for outfielder Gene Hermanski, first baseman Chuck Connors and Klippstein, the Associated Press reported.

(Connors, 28, made his big-league debut with the 1949 Dodgers, hitting into a double play in his lone at-bat. He later did better as an actor, playing the lead role of Lucas McCain in the TV Western series “The Rifleman.”)

Regarding the proposed trade, Rickey told the Associated Press, “Our greatest need is one more pitcher. I am willing to trade one of my outfielders for a good front-line pitcher. There is a chance to make that deal.”

Ultimately, the Dodgers decided to fill their need from within (Carl Erskine moved into the rotation in 1950) and the trade wasn’t made.

The Dodgers projected Klippstein for a spot with their Montreal affiliate, but the pitching-poor Chicago Cubs, who gave up the most runs in the National League in 1949, claimed him in the November Rule 5 draft.

In the big leagues

At spring training in 1950, Cubs manager Frankie Frisch said Klippstein would be part of the club’s pitching staff on Opening Day. “All he needs is confidence,” Frisch told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. “He seems to have everything else.”

Klippstein had mixed results with the 1950 Cubs. He was bad as a starter (1-8, 7.99 ERA) and good as a reliever (2.98 ERA in 22 appearances) and as a hitter (.333 in 33 at-bats).

After the season, the Cubs acquired Chuck Connors from the Dodgers. He and Klippstein were teammates with the 1951 Cubs.

Klippstein did not have a winning record in any of his five seasons with the Cubs. He was sent to the Reds in October 1954 and had his most success as a starter with them.

On Sept. 11, 1955, Klippstein pitched a one-hit shutout against the Dodgers, who were on their way to becoming World Series champions that year. As Dick Young noted in the New York Daily News, “This was no humpty dumpty lineup. It had all the big sticks available.” Included were five future Hall of Famers: Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider.

The Dodgers’ hit came with one out in the ninth when Reese blooped a single to right-center. According to Dick Young, when the inning ended, Reese crossed paths with Klippstein, patted him on the rump and said, “Tough luck, John. It’s just one of those things.”

Klippstein just smiled at him. Boxscore

On the move

In 1956, his seventh year in the majors, Klippstein had his first winning season, finishing 12-11 for the Reds. On May 26, he held the Braves hitless for seven innings before manager Birdie Tebbetts lifted him for a pinch-hitter, with the Reds trailing, 1-0. (The Braves scored on a Frank Torre sacrifice fly after Klippstein loaded the bases by hitting Hank Aaron with a pitch and walking two.) Boxscore

“I don’t blame Birdie for taking me out,” Klippstein told the Chicago Tribune. “We were a run behind, had a man in scoring position, and only one more turn at bat.”

After a good spring training with the Reds in 1957, Klippstein was their Opening Day starter against the Cardinals. He got shelled, giving up five doubles (including two to Stan Musial). Boxscore

He ended the season much better than he started it. On Sept. 28, 1957, Klippstein pitched a one-hit shutout against the Braves, who were headed to a World Series title. The Braves’ hit was a Bob Hazle single with two outs in the eighth. Boxscore

Traded by the Reds to the Dodgers for Don Newcombe in June 1958, Klippstein was used mostly in relief the rest of his career.

In Game 1 of the 1959 World Series versus the White Sox, he pitched two scoreless innings for the Dodgers. Boxscore The Cleveland Indians obtained him in 1960 and he had an American League-leading 14 saves for them.

He went on to pitch for the Senators (1961), Reds (1962), Phillies (1963-64), Twins (1964-66) and Tigers (1967).

On Aug. 6, 1962, at Houston, Klippstein pitched three scoreless innings and walloped a Don McMahon slider for a home run, breaking a 0-0 tie with two outs in the 13th. Boxscore (Klippstein hit five home runs in the majors, but was hitless in 37 career at-bats against the Cardinals.)

He had a 1.93 ERA for the 1963 Phillies and was 9-3 with five saves and a 2.24 ERA for the 1965 Twins, who became American League champions. Klippstein pitched in Games 3 and 7 of the 1965 World Series against the Dodgers and didn’t allow a run. Boxscore and Boxscore and Video

For his big-league career, Klippstein was 101-118 with 65 saves.

After his playing days, he was a Cubs season ticket holder. In October 2003, Klippstein was listening at his bedside to a Cubs game (a 5-4 win over the Marlins) when he died. His son John told the Chicago Tribune, “He passed away just after the Cubs scored that fifth run” in the 11th.

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers, Prospects | 10 Comments »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »