RetroSimba

Memorial Day magic: Willie McGee ignited Cardinals

May 28, 2012 by retrosimba

On a wet Memorial Day evening in St. Louis, the Cardinals received a special performance from a player who was starting to show he, too, was special.

In his 16th game for the Cardinals since his promotion from Class AAA Louisville, rookie center fielder Willie McGee had his first four-hit game in the big leagues and sparked a 10-run fourth inning, leading St. Louis to an 11-6 victory over the Giants on May 31, 1982. Boxscore

McGee, batting sixth in the order, stroked two of his four singles in the fourth inning. The 10 runs were the most the Cardinals had scored in an inning in two years and the most in the National League at that point of the 1982 season.

The performance lifted McGee’s batting average to .378 and his on-base percentage to .410. McGee had transformed from a fill-in to a regular who would be integral to the Cardinals’ successful run to their first World Series title in 15 years.

“Willie has been very impressive,” Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said to the Associated Press after the game. “In spring training, I knew he was going to come up here and hit big-league pitching the way he has.”

Seven months earlier, Oct. 21, 1981, the Cardinals had acquired McGee from the Yankees in a trade for pitcher Bob Sykes. McGee had spent five seasons in the Yankees’ minor-league system without reaching the majors.

“After my second or third year, I started telling myself the Yankees weren’t the only team,” McGee said to the Associated Press. “I know I can hit. ”

McGee didn’t make the 1982 Cardinals’ season-opening roster. Sent to Louisville, he hit .291 in 13 games. When outfielder David Green suffered a hamstring injury May 7, the Cardinals called up McGee, who made his big-league debut three days later.

McGee, 23, started in the outfield in just one of his first nine big-league games. The Memorial Day performance helped solidify him as St. Louis’ everyday center fielder.

An all-day rain in St. Louis had left the Busch Stadium field wet. Both teams skipped fielding and batting practice. Attendance for the Memorial Day evening game was a paltry 11,313, even though the Cardinals were in first place in the National League East.

The Giants led 3-1 before the Cardinals battered them for 10 runs in the fourth. The Cardinals had 15 batters in the inning and 12 reached base on nine hits, two walks and an error against three pitchers, starter Renie Martin, Dan Schatzeder and Fred Breining.

Eight of St. Louis’ nine hits in the inning were singles (Ozzie Smith doubled). McGee and pinch-hitter Tito Landrum each singled twice in the inning. Smith, McGee and Landrum also drove in two runs apiece in the fourth.

Orlando Sanchez, a catcher who entered the game 2-for-30 for the season, singled in the first run of the fourth, knocking out Martin. Schatzeder yielded six runs and six hits.

“It’s the momentum,” said McGee. “It’s like when you play basketball. One team gets the momentum and just keeps going. I felt my adrenaline pumping.”

Herzog said McGee’s second single in the fourth inning was the key hit. Batting right-handed against the left-hander Schatzeder, McGee delivered a bases-loaded two-run single to right.

“He had two strikes and he reached out and hit a breaking ball,” Herzog said.

Said McGee: “I’m starting to relax and just let things happen.”

The win, the Cardinals’ sixth in seven games, boosted their record to 31-18, giving them a 3.5-game lead over the second-place Mets.

McGee would go on to bat .296 for the season, with 24 stolen bases and 56 RBI.

In his book “White Rat: A Life in Baseball,” Herzog said, “Willie McGee … became the biggest story in baseball that summer … Once Willie McGee hit town and the kid pitchers started coming through, I began to feel that 1982 might be the Cardinals’ year.”

Previously: Five fabulous facts about Willie McGee

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Bob Gibson, Bob Boozer: mutual champs of Omaha

May 23, 2012 by retrosimba

In the mid-1950s, two world-class athletes were produced from the same neighborhood in Omaha, Neb.

Bob Gibson, who would become the greatest pitcher in St. Louis Cardinals history, and Bob Boozer, a standout basketball forward who would become a NCAA all-American, an Olympian and a NBA champion, were friends and teammates.

Both were coached by Bob Gibson’s older brother, Josh, on a YMCA-sponsored baseball team, the Monarchs. Both were teammates on a YMCA-sponsored basketball team, the Travelers. Both were teammates for a year on the Omaha Tech High School varsity basketball team. Both became business partners as radio station owners.

“He and Bob Gibson showed people that minority players could come out of Omaha and play professional football or baseball or whatever it may be,” Gale Sayers, running back for the Chicago Bears, told the Omaha World-Herald.

Sayers and two other football standouts, Marlin Briscoe (first black quarterback in the American Football League and later a wide receiver for the undefeated 1972 Dolphins) and Heisman Trophy winner Johnny Rodgers, were raised in the same Omaha neighborhood as Gibson and Boozer, following in their paths.

“I used to sit in the stands at Burdette Field (in Omaha) and watch Gibby pitch,” Boozer said to Leo Adam Biga, who wrote a series on standout black athletes from Omaha. “As good a baseball player as he was, he was a finer basketball player. He could play. He could get up and hang.”

A positive influence on both was Josh Gibson. “He was my mentor,” Bob Gibson said in a 2009 interview with Matt Crossman of The Sporting News. “Not just mine, but he coached guys like Bob Boozer, the basketball player, and Gale Sayers. He was really influential on the kids in Omaha at the time.”

In his book, “From Ghetto to Glory,” Bob Gibson said, “At a dinner in Omaha, Bob Boozer made a speech and said he probably would not be where he is now if it had not been for Josh. Another athlete who came under Josh’s influence is Gale Sayers.”

Bob Gibson, 17 months older than Boozer, went to Creighton, played for the Harlem Globetrotters and eventually gave up basketball to pursue a Hall of Fame career with the Cardinals.

Boozer, 6 feet 8 and 215 pounds, went to Kansas State and averaged 21.9 points per game in three varsity seasons and twice was named all-American. As a junior, he led Kansas State to the NCAA Tournament Final Four.

In 1959, Gibson’s rookie season with the Cardinals, Boozer was chosen as the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA draft by the Cincinnati Royals, but Boozer declined to join the NBA that year, preferring to keep his amateur status so he could play for the United States in the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome. Boozer helped the U.S. win the gold medal, then embarked on a NBA career.

Boozer played in the NBA for 11 seasons (1960-71) and averaged 14.8 points and 8.1 rebounds per game for his career. He played for the Royals (1960-63), Knicks (1963-65), Lakers (1965-66), Bulls (1966-69), SuperSonics (1969-70) and Bucks (1970-71). With teammates Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, he helped the Bucks win the 1971 NBA championship.

That same year, Starr Broadcasting sold Nebraska radio stations KOWH and KOZN to an ownership group led by Gibson and including Boozer.

“I don’t think I understood the full meaning of the word bigotry until I tried to sell advertising time for KOWH,” Gibson said in the book “Stranger to the Game.” “Almost none of the established businesses would buy from us and they searched hard for reasons not to.”

Gibson and his partners sold the stations to RadiOmaha in 1978.

“As the principal investor in KOWH, I had been operating at a personal liability that was eventually too much to handle,” Gibson said.

Boozer worked 27 years as a community affairs executive and federal lobbyist for a communications company, Northwestern Bell-US West.

In 2005, the Omaha World-Herald ranked the top 100 Nebraska athletes of all-time. The top five, in order: Gibson, Sayers, pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, Boozer and Rodgers.

“There are other neighborhoods in America that have produced impressive lists of athletes and maybe some have been more prolific than the north side of Omaha,” Gibson said in “Stranger to the Game.” “… But I have a hard time believing that any community as small and isolated as the Logan Fontenelle housing projects can match us for quantity and quality and diversity of athletes.”

Previously: How Bill Bergesch got Bob Gibson to the Cardinals

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Mark Whiten, Josh Hamilton: Same feat, different path

May 21, 2012 by retrosimba

Linked by two of the greatest single-game hitting performances in the history of big-league baseball, Mark Whiten of the 1993 Cardinals and Josh Hamilton of the 2012 Rangers were very different ballplayers at those stages of their careers.

Whiten, Hamilton and Gil Hodges of the 1950 Dodgers are the only major leaguers to hit four home runs in a game and have at least one runner on base for each of the four, Elias Sports Bureau noted.

On May 8, 2012, at Baltimore, Hamilton went 5-for-5 with four home runs, a double and eight RBI in the Rangers’ 10-3 victory over the Orioles. Each of Hamilton’s homers was a two-run shot _ and each time shortstop Elvis Andrus was the runner on base. Boxscore

On Sept. 7, 1993, at Cincinnati, in the second game of a doubleheader, Whiten went 4-for-5 with four home runs and 12 RBI in the Cardinals’ 15-2 victory over the Reds. Whiten hit a grand slam, two three-run homers and a two-run shot. Boxscore

Whiten and Hamilton each played center field in those games. Each hit all four of his home runs left-handed. That’s where the similarities end.

Hamilton was 30 and in his sixth big-league season when he had his four-homer game. He was a four-time all-star who had played in two World Series.

Whiten was 26 and in his fourth major-league season when he had his four-homer game. He hadn’t been an all-star and hadn’t played in a World Series. He didn’t begin playing baseball seriously until his senior year in high school. Considered a raw talent, Whiten would attend the Florida Instructional League in St. Petersburg, Fla., after the 1993 season.

“The main thing Mark has to understand is to have a game plan when he goes up to bat,” Cardinals hitting coach Chris Chambliss told The Sporting News. “Sometimes you go up there and you’re not really watching what the pitcher is doing to you, or what to look for, but he may be catching on.”

Said Whiten: “The mental part of the game I’ve got to work on. The physical part is all here. I think I have the swing, but if you don’t have the mental approach to this game, you’re lost.”

Signed by Toronto after being selected in the fifth round of the 1986 draft, Whiten was traded to Cleveland in June 1991. Instructor Charlie Manuel taught him a home run swing. Cleveland dealt him to the Cardinals on March 31, 1993, for pitcher Mark Clark and prospect Juan Andujar.

Whiten had 18 homers for the 1993 Cardinals entering the Sept. 7 doubleheader at Cincinnati, but he hadn’t hit one in nearly a month and he hadn’t had any multi-homer games for St. Louis.

In the opener of the Tuesday night doubleheader against the Reds, Whiten had been part of a disheartening defeat. Though he had a walk and a RBI, Whiten was hitless in four at-bats and misplayed a ninth-inning single by Reggie Sanders into a triple that enabled the Reds to rally for a 14-13 victory. The Reds and Cardinals combined to use a major-league record 15 pitchers. Boxscore

(My wife and I attended the game. Disgusted by the Cardinals’ failure to protect a 13-9 eighth-inning lead, I decided, against my wife’s advice, to forgo any further agony and skip the second game. I still regret missing the chance to witness the only four-homer game in Cardinals history.)

Whiten’s first home run of the second game was a grand slam off Larry Luebbers in the first inning. In the fourth, Whiten popped out to third baseman Chris Sabo.

Mike Anderson, making his major-league debut, relieved Luebbers in the sixth. After the first two batters walked, Whiten connected for his second homer of the game. In the seventh, Whiten smacked another three-run homer off Anderson.

St. Louis led 13-2 in the ninth, with one out and a runner on first, when Whiten faced the original Nasty Boy, Rob Dibble. “I didn’t think about it (a fourth home run),” Whiten told the Associated Press. “Well, I thought about it when I was in the field, but not once I stepped into the box and put the bat on my shoulder.”

Dibble’s first two pitches to Whiten missed the strike zone. “I thought he was going to pitch around me,” Whiten said.

Said Dibble: “I was going to go right after him. I knew it was history.”

The next was a fastball down the middle. Whiten swung and launched a home run to center field. “I was impressed by that one,” Whiten said. “It was the best of the four, I think. It was straightaway.”

Whiten took five swings to hit his four home runs. The homers totaled 1,634 feet. Whiten tied the major-league single-game RBI mark of 12 set by Cardinals first baseman Jim Bottomley in 1924. He also tied the big-league doubleheader RBI record of 13 set by Padres first baseman Nate Colbert in 1972.

After the game, Whiten walked into the clubhouse, clutching his four home run balls in a plastic bag as his teammates held their bats aloft in a salute, the New York Times reported.

“You can’t even do what he did in batting practice,” third baseman Todd Zeile said to Sports Illustrated.

Said shortstop Ozzie Smith: “I’ve been around the game 16 years. I’ve seen some guys do some unbelievable things, but nothing like tonight.”

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Cardinals swept series in initial visit to Dodger Stadium

May 18, 2012 by retrosimba

When the Cardinals played in Dodger Stadium for the first time the weekend of May 18-20, 1962, they felt right at home. The Cardinals swept the three-game series, receiving complete-game wins from each of their starting pitchers, and Stan Musial stroked a single, surpassing Honus Wagner to become the National League all-time hits leader.

Moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles after the 1957 season, the Dodgers played four years at the Coliseum while Dodger Stadium was being built. On April 10, 1962, in the first regular-season game at Dodger Stadium, the Reds defeated the Dodgers, 6-3. Boxscore

As the Cardinals-Dodgers series opened May 18, the Dodgers were in second place, three games behind the Giants, at 23-12. The Dodgers had won four in a row and eight of their last nine. The Cardinals were in third place at 18-13 and had lost five of their last seven.

The Cardinals’ arrival brought out the entertainment crowd. While the Cardinals were warming up before the first game, comedian Milton Berle, seated near the dugout, performed card tricks for Musial, Red Schoendienst and Ernie Broglio, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The opener matched Johnny Podres against Larry Jackson. In the first inning, Ken Boyer smashed a drive that struck Podres in the left forearm. Podres threw three pitches out of the strike zone to the next batter, Gene Oliver, and walked off the field, unable to pitch. X-rays revealed a severe bruise, no fracture.

Bill White drove in three runs, Charlie James scored three runs and knocked in two, and Jackson went the distance as the Cardinals won, 8-3, before 38,951. Boxscore

“I had a pretty good curve and fastball,” Jackson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The story the next night, May 19, normally would have been the pitching of Cardinals left-hander Ray Sadecki. The Dodgers had defeated six consecutive left-handers and Sadecki was 0-3 in his career against them, but Sadecki changed the script, pitching his first complete game of the season and got the win in the Cardinals’ 8-1 triumph before 44,559. Boxscore

The headlines, however, went to Musial, the 41-year-old left fielder. His single to right field in the ninth inning off a curve from Ron Perranoski gave Musial his 3,431st hit and moved him ahead of Wagner for No. 1 on the NL career list, breaking a mark that had been held for 45 years. Dodgers first baseman Wally Moon, a former Cardinals teammate, fielded the throw from right fielder Frank Howard and handed the ball to Musial, who received a standing ovation.

“Stan hit a good curveball,” Perranoski told The Sporting News.

Said Musial: “I never worked so hard for two hits.”

(Musial had hit the record-tying single off Juan Marichal in San Francisco on May 16, ending a string of 15 hitless at-bats. He went hitless in nine more after that until he connected on the 0-and-1 pitch from Perranoski.)

“At least I got it in a beautiful new park and against the Dodgers, who have been good to me over the years,” Musial said.

Only Ty Cobb (4,191) and Tris Speaker (3,515) had more career hits than Musial at that time.

After the game, Musial and teammates Boyer and Schoendienst went to the Stadium Club at the ballpark. Musial enjoyed a steak sandwich and French fries. As Neal Russo reported in The Sporting News, few tables had a trio with more hits _ a total surpassing 7,000.

Exhausted by the strain to break the record, “I just about wilted when I got to first base with the record hit,” Musial said.

While Musial sat out the series finale on Sunday afternoon, May 20, Schoendienst, 39, started at second base for the fifth consecutive game. He was filling in for Julian Javier, who was sidelined because of a torn fingernail on his right index finger.

Curt Simmons yielded three runs, none earned, and got the complete-game win in the Cardinals’ 4-3 victory before 38,474. Boxscore

The Cardinals had swept a series in Los Angeles for the first time since the Dodgers left Brooklyn. They moved into a second-place tie with the Dodgers and got within 4.5 games of the Giants.

Previously: How Stan Musial turned in a great comeback year at 41

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers, Records | 2 Comments »

Cards rookie Enos Slaughter set torrid extra-hit pace

May 14, 2012 by retrosimba

Discovered at a tryout camp in Greensboro, N.C., at age 18 in the autumn of 1934, Enos Slaughter made a rapid rise through the Cardinals’ system. From almost the first day Slaughter arrived at the Cardinals’ major-league spring training site in Daytona Beach, Fla., in 1938, manager Frankie Frisch deemed the rookie the starting right fielder.

Confident and talented, Slaughter collected an extra-base hit in each of his first five regular-season games for the 1938 Cardinals.

Slaughter, a left-handed batter, had an extra-base hit in each of five games against the Pirates and Cubs from April 19 through April 23 in 1938. Slaughter, who would turn 22 on April 27, had three doubles, a triple and a home run in that stretch, with a batting average of .435 and a slugging percentage of .783.

In a report about Slaughter in The Sporting News in May 1938, J. Roy Stockton wrote: “The farm system and the scouts can take pride in his development and point to him as a shining example of how rapidly a young man can advance in the club’s great organization if he has the stuff.”

Slaughter, a native of Roxboro, N.C., was a standout high school player. He attended the Cardinals’ tryout camp as a second baseman. He had trouble fielding grounders consistently, but displayed a strong arm, speed and hitting ability. The Cardinals signed Slaughter and converted him into an outfielder.

In his first professional season, 1935 at Class D Martinsville (Va.), Slaughter had 25 doubles, 11 triples and 18 home runs in 109 games. He went to Class B Columbus (Ga.) in 1936. Playing for manager Eddie Dyer, Slaughter hit .325 with 31 doubles and 20 triples in 151 games.

At Class AA Columbus (Ohio) in 1937, Slaughter put together a season that earned him his chance at the major-league roster the following year. Slaughter hit .382 and compiled a .609 slugging percentage, with 245 hits, 42 doubles, 13 triples and 26 home runs in 154 games.

While at Columbus, manager Burt Shotton gave Slaughter the nickname “Country.” Wrote The Sporting News: “It appealed to the youngster who loves the cows and chickens and the earth which his family has tilled through many generations.”

At spring training in 1938, Frisch was seeking a right fielder to replace Don Padgett, who hit .314 but committed 11 errors in 1937, and join an outfield of Joe Medwick in left and Terry Moore in center. Slaughter was the immediate choice.

“Enos hits to all fields, has made a goodly share of extra-base blows and has shown as strong a punch against left-handers as against the supposedly easier right-handers,” The Sporting News reported.

In his major-league debut, in the Cardinals’ 1938 opener at home against the Pirates on April 19, Slaughter, batting third, was 3-for-5 with a double, starting his extra-base streak. Boxscore

The next day, Slaughter hit his first big-league home run, a two-run shot in the ninth inning off Jim Tobin of the Pirates. Boxscore

The 1938 Cardinals lost their first three games and appeared headed to a fourth consecutive loss when they trailed the Cubs, 5-2, heading into the ninth inning at Chicago on April 22. Slaughter rescued the Cardinals, hitting a bases-loaded triple and scoring the winning run on an error, giving St. Louis a 6-5 victory. Boxscore

Asked to explain the difference between minor-league and big-league pitching, Slaughter replied, “It’s the better control that makes the pitchers harder to hit up here.”

Slaughter finished his rookie season with a .276 batting mark, .438 slugging percentage, 20 doubles, 10 triples and eight home runs.

He played 13 years for the Cardinals in a 19-season major-league career that earned him induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985.

Previously: Hornsby, Musial, Slaughter, Brock all singled for hit No. 2,000

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Luis Arroyo was a pleasant surprise for Cardinals

May 11, 2012 by retrosimba

Luis Arroyo was the most unlikely of Cardinals pitchers to open a season with wins in each of his first six starts.

Arroyo, a rookie left-hander who barely made the 1955 Opening Day roster and nearly got knocked out in the first inning of his first start, posted a 6-0 record and 1.56 ERA through eight appearances (including two relief stints) and earned a spot on the National League all-star team.

Arroyo, a native of Puerto Rico, signed a professional contract in 1948 and joined the Cardinals’ organization in 1950. He hurt his left arm and sat out the 1952 and 1953 seasons. He re-emerged in 1954 as a prospect, posting an 8-6 record and 2.49 ERA for Class A Columbus (Ga.) and an 8-3 record and 2.35 ERA for Class AA Houston.

Arroyo, who credited Cardinals scout and retired catcher Gus Mancuso with teaching him an improved curve, pitched a no-hitter for Houston and had strikeout totals of 17 in one game and 15 in another. His combined record for Columbus and Houston in 1954 was 16-9 with a 2.42 ERA.

Invited to join the 1955 Cardinals in spring training, Arroyo pitched poorly, yielding 14 earned runs in 18 innings. However, the Cardinals, managed by Eddie Stanky, were desperate for left-handed pitching and placed Arroyo, 28, on the season-opening roster.

His big-league debut occurred on April 20, 1955, with a start against the Reds at Cincinnati. It almost ended soon after it began.

In the Reds’ half of the first, Johnny Temple led off with a single and advanced to second on a wild pitch. Wally Post walked. When Arroyo ran the count to 3-and-0 against the next batter, Gus Bell, Stanky sent coach Dixie Walker to confer with the pitcher.

Arroyo, reported The Sporting News, “came within one pitch of being yanked and sent to the minors.”

Walker told Arroyo, “You’ve been pitching scared all spring. There’s no use being nervous out there. You either do or you don’t _ that’s all there is to it. Get the ball over and get ’em out.”

Arroyo struck out Bell. On the third strike, Temple was thrown out attempting to steal third base. Ted Kluszewski grounded out to second, ending the inning.

In the third, Arroyo got another break. Temple was on second when Kluszewski singled, but Temple was thrown out trying to score.

Gaining confidence, Arroyo shut out the Reds for 7.2 innings before being relieved. He earned the win in the Cardinals’ 3-0 victory. Boxscore

Unimpressed, Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts told reporters he’d be surprised if Arroyo still was in the major leagues in July.

After two relief appearances, Arroyo returned to the rotation and won each of his next five starts. Two of those wins were against the Pirates, one came against the Phillies and two more were against the Reds.

After Arroyo beat Cincinnati for the third time, Tebbetts said, “He’s looking like one of the league’s better left-handers, who, I am sorry to say, will be around all year, at least.”

Arroyo’s six-game winning streak was snapped on June 6 at Brooklyn. Arroyo took a 4-3 lead into the bottom of the ninth, but Gil Hodges walked and Jackie Robinson followed with a home run for a 5-4 Dodgers victory. Boxscore

Arroyo accounted for eight of the Cardinals’ first 26 victories. After getting the win in the Cardinals’ 5-3 triumph over the Giants at St. Louis on June 25, Arroyo’s record was 9-2 with a 2.02 ERA.

In The Sporting News, Bob Broeg wrote of Arroyo, “He’s got a lively fastball, a pitch that moves away from right-handed hitters, causing them to pop up, and he’s got a good enough curve, change and control, too.”

Selected to the all-star team, Arroyo was the only one of seven NL pitchers not used by manager Leo Durocher in a game Stan Musial decided with a 12th-inning home run off Boston’s Frank Sullivan.

Arroyo’s second half of the 1955 season wasn’t as successful as his first half. He lost his final four decisions, and five of the last six. He finished at 11-8 with a 4.19 ERA in 35 games (24 starts). Arroyo and Harvey Haddix were Cardinals co-leaders in complete games (nine apiece) and only Haddix (12) had more wins for St. Louis.

In 1956, with Fred Hutchinson as manager, the Cardinals restructured their rotation. Arroyo was sent to Class AAA Omaha after spring training. He was 1-0 in five games for Omaha before the Cardinals traded him to the Pirates for pitcher Max Surkont.

Unable to repeat the success of his rookie season, Arroyo bounced from the Pirates to the Reds. He was in the Reds’ minor-league system when the Yankees purchased his contract in July 1960.

The move revived his career. Arroyo helped the 1960 Yankees win the American League pennant, posting a 5-1 record with seven saves and a 2.88 ERA in 29 games. A year later, Arroyo enjoyed his best big-league season. He was named AL Fireman of the Year by The Sporting News, with a 15-5 record, 29 saves and a 2.19 ERA in 65 games for the league-champion Yankees. Arroyo also was the winning pitcher in Game 3 of the 1961 World Series against the Reds.

Arroyo had one other claim to fame. According to Baseball Digest, he was the first major-league reliever to ride to the mound from the bullpen on a motorized cart. The bullpen cart was introduced at a Yankees-Red Sox game shortly before the 1961 All-Star Game at Fenway Park.

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