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Cardinals hoped for a playoff melody with Eddie Fisher

August 25, 2023 by retrosimba

Eddie Fisher made sweet music with a pitch that could dance. That’s why the Cardinals wanted his help in their bid for a division title.

On Aug. 29, 1973, the Cardinals purchased the contract of Fisher, 37, from the White Sox. The right-handed knuckleball specialist was in his 15th and final season in the majors.

On the day Fisher was acquired, the Cardinals (67-64) led a weak National League East Division. They were two games ahead of the second-place Pirates (63-64) and 6.5 in front of the last-place Mets (60-70).

With Diego Segui, Orlando Pena, Al Hrabosky and Rich Folkers, the Cardinals had a reliable bullpen but wanted the insurance of another experienced reliever for the title run. Fisher fit the bill.

Home on the range

Fisher attended grades one through 12 at Friendship School in Altus, Okla. “There were only 16 in my graduating class, nine boys and seven girls, including Betty Hudgens, whom I later married,” Fisher recalled to The Sporting News.

He excelled in baseball and basketball. His Altus American Legion baseball teammate, Lindy McDaniel, also became a big-league pitcher. As a high school senior, Fisher was a principal player in a major upset. He shut out state powerhouse Capitol Hill, ending its 66-game winning streak in 1954.

“I could throw the knuckler then, but I could win with just a fastball and curve, so I never used it in a game,” Fisher said to The Sporting News.

After graduating, Fisher got a job in Oklahoma City reading gas meters. He also pitched for the company baseball team. Its manager, Roy Deal, was the father of Cardinals pitcher Cot Deal. Roy helped Fisher get an athletic scholarship to the University of Oklahoma.

Fisher didn’t throw the knuckleball in college either. “Eddie didn’t need the knuckler to win in college ball,” head coach Jack Baer explained to The Norman Transcript, “and there are very few catchers, let alone college catchers, who can handle a knuckler.”

As a college junior, Fisher got an offer from the Kansas City Athletics but opted to return to Oklahoma for his senior year. When no offers came after Fisher completed his college career, Roy Deal contacted a minor-league team in Corpus Christi, Texas, and helped him get a roster spot there.

Tuning up

Corpus Christi, a farm club of the Giants in 1958, was managed by a former American League catcher, Ray Murray, who encouraged Fisher to add the knuckler to his assortment of pitches.

A year later, in July 1959, Fisher, 23, was called up to the Giants. For Fisher’s debut, a start against the Pirates, manager Bill Rigney used backup catcher Jim Hegan, 38, who was in his 16th season in the majors. Experienced catching the knuckler, Hegan guided the rookie through the game. Fisher pitched seven innings, limiting the Pirates to one run and three hits, and got the win. Boxscore

A popular singer at the time also was named Eddie Fisher. The singer’s marriages to actresses Debbie Reynolds (their daughter is actress Carrie Fisher), Elizabeth Taylor and Connie Stevens added to his fame. Asked about sharing a name with the crooner, baseball’s Eddie Fisher told The Norman Transcript, “I can’t sing, and what’s more, I don’t like to.”

Teammates nicknamed the pitcher Donald Duck “because of the excellent imitation he does” of the Walt Disney character, The Sporting News noted.

Higher education

After the 1961 season, Fisher was sent by the Giants to the White Sox for pitchers Billy Pierce and Don Larsen. Pierce and Larsen helped the Giants win the 1962 pennant. The White Sox helped Fisher find his niche. The turning point came during the 1964 season when his teammate, knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm, persuaded him to use the knuckler as his main pitch.

“We’d be out there together in the bullpen and we’d talk shop,” Fisher told The Sporting News. “He kept hammering away at me to throw the knuckler more. He insisted it was my out pitch and he finally convinced me.”

The bullpen combination of Wilhelm and Fisher confounded American League batters. With the 1964 White Sox, Wilhelm was 12-9 with 27 saves and a 1.99 ERA. Fisher was 6-3 with nine saves and a 3.02 ERA. In 1965, Fisher led American League pitchers in appearances (82) and was 15-7 with 24 saves and a 2.40 ERA. Wilhelm was 7-7 with 21 saves and a 1.81 ERA.

Their knucklers baffled White Sox catcher J.C. Martin as well. Martin had 24 passed balls in 1964 and 33 in 1965.

Fisher was effective against all styles of hitters. Contact hitter Bobby Richardson batted .103 in 29 at-bats against him. Slugger Jim Gentile came up empty _ hitless in 15 career at-bats. “If it’s a good knuckleball, it doesn’t just float. It moves,” Gentile told The Oklahoman. “Swing at it, it might dip, might rise.”

American League batters hit .192 versus Fisher in 1964 and .205 in 1965. 

That’s a winner

On June 13, 1966, the White Sox traded Fisher to the Orioles for second baseman Jerry Adair. Fisher joined a bullpen with Stu Miller, Moe Drabowsky and Dick Hall.

Fisher made an immediate impact, earning a save or a win in five of his first seven appearances with the Orioles. He pitched in 44 games for them and was 5-3 with 14 saves and a 2.64 ERA. The Orioles (97-63) won the pennant.

Though Fisher led the league in appearances (67 combined for the White Sox and Orioles) for the second year in a row, he didn’t pitch in the 1966 World Series versus the Dodgers. The Orioles swept, getting shutouts from Jim Palmer, Wally Bunker and Dave McNally. The only Orioles reliever to appear in that World Series was Drabowsky, who pitched 6.2 scoreless innings and struck out 11 in Game 1.

Fisher never got to play for another World Series participant. He was with the Indians in 1968 and the Angels from 1969-72 before returning to the White Sox.

Final season

At spring training in 1973, Fisher, 36, had a 1.33 ERA in 27 innings pitched in exhibition games. White Sox manager Chuck Tanner and pitching coach Johnny Sain decided to open the season with Fisher as their No. 3 starter behind another knuckleballer, Wilbur Wood, and Stan Bahnsen.

Fisher won four of his first five decisions, but the good times didn’t last. He slumped in June (10.67 ERA in five starts) and was moved back to the bullpen. In 10 relief appearances covering 35.1 innings, he had a 3.57 ERA, prompting the Cardinals to acquire him. Barney Schultz, Cardinals pitching coach in 1973, helped St. Louis win a World Series title in 1964 as a knuckleball reliever who joined the club in August.

Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst put Fisher to work, pitching him in three consecutive games. In his second appearance, on Sept. 2, 1973, Fisher got the win with a scoreless inning of relief against the Mets. The triumph gave the Cardinals (69-67) sole possession of first place in the division, a game ahead of the Pirates (66-66), and pushed the Mets (63-72) nine games below .500. Boxscore

The next day, the Cardinals played a doubleheader against the Pirates. In the opener, with the score tied at 4-4, Fisher entered in the bottom of the 13th inning. The first batter he faced, Richie Hebner, clobbered a knuckleball to deep right.

“I definitely thought it was gone,” Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons told The Pittsburgh Press. “I was ready to walk off the field.”

Instead, the ball hit the wall and caromed past right fielder Jose Cruz. Center fielder Luis Melendez didn’t back up Cruz as he should. The ball bounced along the artificial surface of the outfield as Hebner steamed around the bases.

Melendez said to The Pittsburgh Press, “I’ve got to be there (backing up the play). If I get there when I was supposed to, it only would have been a double.”

When Melendez finally got to the ball, he reached for it and didn’t come up with it. He reached a second time and again couldn’t grab it. Pirates third-base coach Bill Mazeroski told The Pittsburgh Press that he intended to hold Hebner at third, but when Melendez twice failed to retrieve the ball, “I sent him in. If he picks it up the first or second time, I don’t send him in.”

Hebner scooted to the plate with a walkoff inside-the-park home run, and Fisher was the losing pitcher. Boxscore

Two weeks later, on Sept. 17, Fisher got a win, pitching two scoreless innings and driving in a run with a single against the Expos’ Mike Marshall. Boxscore

By then, though, the Cardinals (74-76) were sliding. The Mets won seven in a row from Sept. 18 to Sept. 25 and finished as the only team in the division with a winning record (82-79).

(The 1973 Cardinals ended 81-81, sixth overall in the National League, a finish that today would have them popping champagne corks and selling postseason merchandise as lame playoff qualifiers.)

Fisher was released by the Cardinals after the season, ending his playing days. He was 2-1 with a 1.29 ERA for them. For his career in the majors, Fisher was 85-70 with 82 saves.

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Trades | 12 Comments »

G.I.s brought touch of the majors to pro ball in Japan

August 21, 2023 by retrosimba

A couple of American pitchers finishing out their military service in the Korean War became baseball pioneers of sorts in Japan.

Leo Kiely and Phil Paine were the first to play in the major leagues in the U.S. and in professional baseball in Japan.

Kiely, a left-hander with the 1951 Boston Red Sox, and Paine, a right-hander with the 1951 Boston Braves, played for teams in the Japanese Pacific League in late summer 1953.

Kiely, 23, made his Japanese debut on Aug. 8, 1953, for the Mainichi Orions, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. Paine, 23, made his Japanese debut on Aug. 23, 1953, for the Nishitetsu Lions.

Jersey guy

Born and raised in Hoboken, N.J. (site of the first organized baseball game played in June 1846 between the Knickerbocker Club and New York Nine), Leo Kiely was 5 “when he was run down by an ice truck _ run over twice, in fact, by the same truck,” the Boston Globe reported.

Both of his legs were broken, just under the knees, and he broke his pelvis, too, according to the Globe.

“That ice truck sure tried to do a job on me,” Kiely told the Boston newspaper. “I was playing in an alley when it backed over me and ran over my legs. Then the guy put on full speed ahead and ran over me again.”

As a teen, Kiely worked for $38 a week as a truck driver’s helper on a Hoboken newspaper, The Jersey Observer. Then he became a press room apprentice at the newspaper, serving the role of flyboy. (The term came about because the job required catching stacks of newspapers as they flew off the presses.) “He had dreams of becoming a printer,” the Globe reported.

Kiely also developed into a standout sandlot baseball player. In August 1947, in the championship game of the Build Better Boys Sandlot Association tournament at Jersey City, Kiely, 17, “looked like Frank Merriwell, Jack Armstrong, and the Rover Boys all rolled into one,” the Bayonne Times reported.

He pitched a four-hitter, striking out nine, and hit a home run as Hoboken ended Bayonne’s four-year hold on the league title. Red Sox scout Bill McCarren signed Kiely to a contract.

Because of his childhood accident, “one leg is still a bit shorter than the other and _ even in his baseball shoes _ he has to wear a slight lift in one shoe,” the Globe reported.

In late June 1951, during his fourth season in the minors, Kiely got called up to the Red Sox. Because he had not been to spring training with the big-league club, “most of the Red Sox had never heard of him when he was brought up,” according to the Globe.

Red Sox manager Steve O’Neill put Kiely, 21, into the starting rotation. He made his big-league debut against the Washington Senators on July 2, 1951, and got the win, pitching a complete game. Boxscore

Kiely finished the 1951 season with a 7-7 record and 3.34 ERA for the Red Sox.

Special delivery

Phil Paine, from Chepachet, Rhode Island, excelled in baseball and hockey as a youth. The Philadelphia Phillies signed him when he was 18 and he pitched two seasons in their farm system. When the Phillies exposed him to the minor-league draft, the Braves claimed him in December 1949.

At Hartford in 1951, Paine was managed by Tommy Holmes, the former Braves outfielder who twice led the National League in hits. When Braves manager Billy Southworth resigned in June 1951, Holmes replaced him.

A month later, Paine was told there was a telegram for him in the Hartford clubhouse. “I thought it was from the draft board,” Paine told The Sporting News. “I nearly fell over when I read it and found out I’d been called up to the Braves.”

Paine, 21, went 2-0 with a 3.06 ERA in 21 relief appearances for the 1951 Braves.

“This kid has got a lot of stuff,” Holmes told The Sporting News. 

Braves pitching coach Bucky Walters said to the Globe, “That boy’s got it. Phil has a perfect disposition for a pitcher, including that touch of meanness that a pitcher needs … I think he’s going to be a great pitcher.”

Soldiering on

After their rookie seasons in the big leagues, Kiely and Paine were inducted into the U.S. Army in the fall of 1951. Even with his leg condition, Kiely passed an Army physical. “The Army decided he was fit for service, although disqualified for combat,” The Sporting News reported.

Both men spent most of the Korean War stationed in Japan and pitched for military base baseball teams.

The signing of an armistice on July 27, 1953, brought an end to the Korean War. Kiely and Paine, both still in military service, then joined the Japanese teams, agreeing to play until they were discharged from the Army. Until then, no one who had played in the major leagues had played for a professional team in Japan.

The arrangement was that Kiely and Paine would pitch on their days off from military duty. Paine was paid $575 a game, The Sporting News reported.

According to baseball-reference.com, Kiely went 6-0 with a 1.80 ERA for the Mainichi Orions, and Paine was 4-3 with a 1.77 ERA for the Nishitetsu Lions.

Both men were discharged from the Army in the fall of 1953 and prepared to return to their major-league teams the following spring.

Much had changed since Kiely and Paine last pitched in the majors. The Braves moved from Boston to Milwaukee and Charlie Grimm was the manager. The Red Sox had a different manager, too _ Lou Boudreau.

San Francisco detour

Kiely was 5-8 for the Red Sox in 1954 (the highlight was a shutout of the Philadelphia Athletics), then got moved to the bullpen in 1955 and was 3-3 with six saves and a 2.80 ERA. In the winter, he worked on the docks in Hoboken, according to the Globe.

After posting a 5.47 ERA for the Red Sox in 1956, Kiely was sent to the minors the following year. 

The 1957 season was San Francisco’s last as a minor-league town. Pitching for the San Francisco Seals, Kiely was 21-6 with a 2.22 ERA. Twenty of those wins came in relief.

The Red Sox brought him back in 1958 and Kiely, 28, was 5-2 with 12 saves.

He pitched two more years in the majors _ with the 1959 Red Sox and 1960 Kansas City Athletics. In his final inning, he struck out his former Red Sox teammate, Ted Williams. Boxscore

Cardinals caravan

Paine made 11 relief appearances with the 1954 Braves and 15 with the 1955 team, then spent most of 1956 and 1957 in the minors.

On April 19, 1958, the Cardinals claimed him off waivers and put him in their bullpen. Paine was 5-1 with a save in 46 appearances for the 1958 Cardinals. Combined with his 5-0 mark during his years with the Braves, he had a career record of 10-1 in the majors.

After the season, the Cardinals went on a goodwill tour of Japan and played 16 exhibition games against Japanese all-star teams. Paine was one of eight pitchers the Cardinals brought on the tour.

At Fukuoka, Japan, Paine visited Camp Drake, the military base where he had been stationed, and spoke at a luncheon held in his honor, according to the Society for American Baseball Research. He was the starter and winning pitcher for the Cardinals in the 10th game of the tour at Fukuoka, United Press International reported.

In December 1958, after the Cardinals returned home, they traded Paine and Wally Moon to the Dodgers for Gino Cimoli. The Dodgers made the deal only after the Cardinals agreed to add Paine, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Paine’s former team, the Nishitetsu Lions, offered him a contract to pitch for them in 1959, according to United Press International, but he opted to report to spring training with the Dodgers. They assigned him to the minors and he finished his playing career there.

Posted in Games, Pitchers | 8 Comments »

A prominent home run for Willie Mays vs. Cardinals

August 16, 2023 by retrosimba

Willie Mays was the first right-handed batter to hit 400 home runs in the National League. The milestone homer came against a familiar foe, Curt Simmons of the Cardinals, and was witnessed by another 400-homer hitter, Stan Musial.

On Aug. 27, 1963, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Mays capped a two-month hot streak with his 400th career home run for the Giants.

At the time, nine others had achieved the feat: Babe Ruth (714), Jimmie Foxx (534), Ted Williams (521), Mel Ott (511), Lou Gehrig (493), Stan Musial (472), Eddie Mathews (419), Mickey Mantle (415) and Duke Snider (403).

(Musial, Mathews, Mantle and Snider still were active. Musial would finish with 475, Mathews 512, Mantle 536 and Snider 407.)

The only right-handed batter in the 400-homer group besides Mays was Foxx. (Of his 534 home runs, Foxx hit 524 as an American Leaguer and 10 as a National Leaguer.) All the others, except Mantle (a switch-hitter), batted from the left side.

Mays, 32, was considered the best bet to break the National League career home run mark of 511 held by Mel Ott.

On a roll

After leading the National League in home runs (49) and total bases (382) and powering the Giants to a pennant in 1962, Mays got baseball’s highest salary in 1963 _ $105,000.

He had a substandard start to the season, hitting .233 in April and .257 in May. At the urging of the Giants, Mays got his eyes examined “and was told they were fine,” according to his biographer James S. Hirsch.

He found a groove after the all-star break and nearly was unstoppable. Mays hit .322 in July, .387 in August and .378 in September.

From July 28 through Aug. 27, Mays hit safely in 27 of 28 games. In that stretch, he raised his 1963 season batting average from .274 to .308.

His only hitless game in that period came on Aug. 13 when Jim Maloney of the Reds shut out the Giants on a two-hitter.

(The game was noteworthy for another reason. It was the first time Mays played a position other than center field in the majors. In the eighth inning, after Norm Larker batted for shortstop Ernie Bowman, manager Al Dark put Larker at first base, moved Orlando Cepeda from first to left, Harvey Kuenn from left to right, Felipe Alou from right to center and Mays from center to shortstop. Mays had no fielding chances in his one inning at short, but he told the Associated Press, “Man, that’s too close to the plate.” Boxscore)

Numbers game

On Aug. 25, 1963, facing the Reds’ Joe Nuxhall at Candlestick Park, Mays hit his 399th home run. Later , with Joey Jay pitching, Mays drove a pitch to deep left. “If Frank Robinson hadn’t caught the ball a scant foot from the top railing, Willie would have had his 400th major-league homer,” The Sporting News reported.

The next day, Aug. 26, the Cardinals opened a series at San Francisco. Mays got two singles, but no home run, against Ernie Broglio. Curt Simmons provided another opportunity on Aug. 27.

Mays had a history of success against Simmons. In 1961, for instance, Mays had a .692 on-base percentage versus the Cardinals left-hander, reaching base nine times (six hits, two walks, one hit by pitch) in 13 plate appearances. For his career, Mays finished with a .423 on-base percentage (39 hits, 22 walks, two hit by pitches) versus Simmons.

In the Aug. 27 game, with the Giants ahead, 3-0, Mays led off the third inning and lined a 2-and-1 pitch from Simmons the opposite way to right. The ball carried over the outstretched glove of George Altman, struck a railing and went over the fence for home run No. 400.

Orlando Cepeda followed with another homer against Simmons, who then was lifted for Barney Schultz. The first batter he faced, Felipe Alou, hit the Giants’ third consecutive home run of the inning. Boxscore

“I stay in good shape and I think I can hit a lot more,” Mays said to United Press International. “I may be able to reach the 500 mark.”

Stan Musial, stationed in left field when Mays hit his 400th homer, told The Sporting News, “He has an excellent chance to beat Mel Ott’s National League mark of 511 before he decides to call it quits.”

Asked about Musial, who had declared two weeks earlier that he would retire after the 1963 season, Mays said to Si Burick of the Dayton Daily News, “Nicest man I ever knew. When I was a kid coming up, I never thought a star on another team would help you, but he talked to me a lot about hitting. He even let me use his lighter bat a couple times when I was in a slump.”

(The kindness shown by Musial was paid forward by Mays. A week after Mays’ 400th home run, Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson hit a 400-foot homer against the Pirates’ Don Schwall with a bat Mays had given him, The Sporting News reported. At 34 ounces, it was two ounces heavier than Gibson’s bat. Boxscore)

Join the club

On the same day Mays hit his 400th home run, Hank Aaron of the Braves slugged his 333rd (against Don Nottebart of the Houston Colt .45s). Three years later, on April 20, 1966, Aaron achieved home run No. 400 versus the Phillies’ Bo Belinsky.

Aaron went on to hit 755 home runs and Mays finished with 660.

In his book, “I Had a Hammer,” Aaron said, “I considered Mays a rival, certainly, but a friendly rival. At the same time, I would never accept the position as second best (to him). I’ve never seen a better all-around ballplayer than Willie Mays, but I will say this: Willie was not as good a hitter as I was. No way.”

In August 2023, 60 years after Mays became the 10th player to reach 400 career home runs, the total number of players achieving the feat had risen to 58.

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Records | 8 Comments »

Mike Ivie was poison to Cardinals pitching staffs

August 11, 2023 by retrosimba

A right-handed batter with power, Mike Ivie couldn’t cope with the expectations and pressures of professional baseball.

When he felt overwhelmed, he walked out on his team. He did that multiple times in stints with the Padres, Giants and Astros.

He kept getting chances to return because, when he was focused rather than fearful, he hammered the ball. The Cardinals encountered that side of him a lot.

A .269 hitter in 11 seasons in the majors, Ivie batted .316 against the Cardinals in his career.

Head game

A standout high school athlete in Atlanta, Ivie, 17, was taken by the Padres with the No. 1 overall pick in the 1970 amateur baseball draft. Projected to be a catcher, “He’s got better hands than Johnny Bench,” Padres scout Leon Hamilton said to the Tri-City Herald of Pasco, Washington.

Ivie told the newspaper, “I don’t anticipate any problems making the adjustment to pro ball.”

In September 1971, after his second season with a Class A farm team, Ivie, 19, got called up to the Padres. He caught 39 innings for them and hit .471.

All eyes were on Ivie when he came to spring training in 1972. The Padres expected him to compete for their starting catcher spot. Instead, Ivie unraveled. “He couldn’t throw the ball back to the pitcher in batting practice without hitting the protective screen,” the Miami Herald reported.

In his first intrasquad game, he double- and triple-pumped before returning the ball to the pitcher, Sports Illustrated reported.

Frustrated, Ivie quit, went home, and said he didn’t want to be a catcher. “I’ve developed a mental block about catching,” Ivie told The Sporting News.

He sat out all of spring training. When the 1972 season started, he reported to the Padres’ Class AA affiliate in Alexandria, Louisiana, and was put at first base. Playing for manager Duke Snider, Ivie hit .291 with 24 home runs. When the Padres offered to promote him to the majors during the season, he declined because they wanted him to be a catcher, The Sporting News reported.

Blue in Hawaii

When Ivie came to spring training in 1973, he did an about-face, telling the Padres he wanted to compete for the starting catching job. Visits to a psychiatrist during the winter helped him change his mind about catching, Ivie told The Sporting News. “The psychology sessions convinced me my problem was fear of failure in baseball,” Ivie said.

He was having a good spring until he injured both hands. Damaged blood vessels in his left hand caused Ivie to lose feeling in a finger. That put an end to the catching plans.

The Padres assigned Ivie to Class AAA Hawaii in 1973 and put him back at first base. In June, he told manager Roy Hartsfield he couldn’t cope with the travel, quit and sat out the rest of the season.

He came back in 1974 and played the season in the minors. Ivie, 22, finally stuck with the Padres in 1975, sharing first base with Willie McCovey and playing some third base, too.

Cardinals nemesis

From 1976-79, Ivie pounded Cardinals pitching.

In 29 plate appearances versus the 1976 Cardinals, Ivie had 12 hits and four walks _ a .552 on-base percentage. Two of those hits were home runs against John Curtis and Pete Falcone. (Ivie batted .450 versus Falcone for his career.)

The next year, Ivie posted a .438 on-base percentage (17 hits, four walks) in 48 plate appearances versus the Cardinals. One of those hits won a game highlighted by a record-setting Lou Brock achievement.

On Aug. 29, 1977, at San Diego, Brock’s second stolen base of the game broke Ty Cobb’s major-league career record. In the eighth, with the Cardinals ahead, 3-2, Ivie spoiled their fun, hitting a two-run home run against Al Hrabosky, and the Padres won, 4-3. Boxscore

“I fouled off the first fastball he threw me and decided right then he was probably going to challenge me all the way, so I was looking for fastballs,” Ivie told the Associated Press. “If he had thrown me a breaking pitch after that, I probably would have screwed myself to the ground swinging at it.”

As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted, “Ivie would like to make a career of hitting against the Cardinals.”

For certain, he didn’t want to make a career of playing for the Padres. He wanted to be traded, preferably to the Braves, so he could be at home in Georgia. “He has a wealth of talent,” Braves manager Bobby Cox said to The Sporting News. “I hope we can get him.”

Instead, the Padres dealt him to the Giants.

Bench strength

Filling in for Willie McCovey at first base and Terry Whitfield in left, Ivie hit .308 overall and .387 as a pinch-hitter for the 1978 Giants. He clubbed four pinch-hit homers., including the only walkoff of his big-league career, against the Cardinals.

On July 25, 1978, at San Francisco, the Cardinals led, 2-1, when Larry Herndon singled against Bob Forsch with one out in the bottom of the ninth. Ivie, batting for shortstop Roger Metzger, followed with a two-run home run to left, giving the Giants a 3-2 victory Boxscore

“When you are a little kid, you play the dream game,” Ivie said to the Sacramento Bee. “You pretend you’re in a real game and you pretend you just hit a home run. You dream of the day you can do it for real. Now that I’ve done it, now that I’m living my dream, I can’t believe this is happening to me. I just feel numb all over.”

Asked to explain his pinch-hitting success. Ivie said to the San Francisco Examiner, “It’s more of a mental thing than a physical one. I drink a lot of coffee, smoke a lot of cigarettes, try to keep my hands warm and wait for the opportunity to be called upon.”

Ivie told the Post-Dispatch he shared tips with Cardinals pinch-hitter Roger Freed. “Freed and I talk a lot about what size bats to use in certain pinch-hitting situations,” Ivie said. “I’ve been studying pinch-hitters, especially guys like (the Phillies’) Tim McCarver, who seems to get good wood on the ball every time he bats. I watch Tim like a hawk.”

Down and out

Ivie had his best season in 1979 with the Giants. Sharing first base with Willie McCovey, he had 27 home runs and 89 RBI in 402 at-bats.

On June 7, 1979, at St. Louis, the score was tied at 9-9 with two outs in the ninth when Ivie slugged a Mark Littell fastball 420 feet to center for a three-run home run. The Giants won, 12-10. Boxscore

The good times didn’t last.

In December 1979, Ivie sliced a tendon in a finger while cleaning a hunting knife and underwent surgery. He had a poor spring training and a shaky start to the 1980 season, hitting no home runs in April and batting .209 in May.

The Giants were going to trade him to the Phillies, who planned to flip him to the Astros in exchange for pitcher Joaquin Andujar, but the deal got canceled when Ivie landed on the disabled list in late May 1980. Giants general manager Spec Richardson told The Sporting News that Ivie was experiencing “mental exhaustion.” Ivie called it “depression.”

When his stint on the disabled list ended, Ivie, 27, appeared in one game, then quit. “I was right at the point of a nervous breakdown,” he told Sports Illustrated.

About a month later, in July 1980, he changed his mind and returned to the club. “The guys can handle Mike’s return, but I just don’t know if he can,” outfielder Jack Clark told The Sporting News. “I think Mike is really sick.”

Troubled times

In April 1981, the Giants dealt Ivie to the Astros. A month later, he was found weeping in the locker room. Again, he quit and sought treatment for what he called “problems of anxiety,” The Sporting News reported.

“He was afraid to fail and he was afraid to succeed,” Astros owner John McMullen told the New York Times.

In June, big-league players went on strike. When play resumed in August, Ivie was with the Astros for a road trip that began in San Francisco. After one day there, he quit again.

“It goes back to when I was a kid in the Little League and was supposed to get six hits every five times I went to bat,” Ivie told Joe Durso of the New York Times in September 1981. “It’s professional pressure, I guess. When I was a kid, I was pretty near the best. Then, after I got to the big leagues, I found that I wasn’t the best player in the world. After a couple of seasons, it started getting to me. Now I go to the doctor, the psychiatrist, three times a week.”

Released by the Astros in April 1982, Ivie was signed by the Tigers.

Asked about Ivie’s history, Tigers manager Sparky Anderson said to Ira Berkow of the New York Times, “If he says he’s scared, or fears failure, let me tell you, he’s not a special case. This is a tough business, and all of us are scared to various degrees. I’ve seen guys so scared, they’re shaking. I’ve gone to guys in pressure situations to pinch-hit, and they said they couldn’t. I’ve had guys come to me and ask me to take them out of ballgames. I’ve seen a pitcher’s hand swell up when he was told he’s going to pitch a big game the next day.”

Ivie hit .232 with 14 home runs as a designated hitter for the 1982 Tigers. He was 30 when he played his last game in the majors for Detroit in May 1983.

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents | 14 Comments »

Flattened in Flatbush: Cardinals went winless in Brooklyn

August 7, 2023 by retrosimba

(Updated Jan. 9, 2025)

A couple of Hoosiers made life miserable in Brooklyn for the Cardinals.

In 1953, the Cardinals were 0-11 for the season against the Dodgers at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn’s Flatbush section.

The players most responsible for the Cardinals’ troubles there were pitcher Carl Erskine of Anderson, Ind., and first baseman Gil Hodges of Princeton, Ind.

Dominant Dodgers

The 1953 Brooklyn Dodgers, subjects of the Roger Kahn book, “The Boys of Summer,” were a powerhouse, featuring a lineup with five future Hall of Famers _ Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Pee Wee Reese, Jackie Robinson and Duke Snider.

They rolled to the National League pennant with a 105-49 mark, finishing 13 games ahead of the runner-up Braves (92-62) and 22 ahead of St. Louis (83-71).

The Cardinals won seven of 11 against the 1953 Dodgers at St. Louis, but it was a much different story at Brooklyn. Not only did they lose all 11 games at Ebbets Field, they often got crushed. The Dodgers outscored them, 109 to 36, in those 11 games at Brooklyn.

The Cardinals were beaten by scores of 10-1 on June 7, 9-2 on July 16, 14-0 on July 17, 14-6 on July 18, 20-4 on Aug. 30 and 12-5 on Sept. 1.

There were two one-run games, the Dodgers winning both by scores of 5-4. The cruelest for the Cardinals was on June 6, when Hodges wiped out a 4-2 St. Louis lead with a three-run walkoff home run versus Stu Miller in the ninth. Boxscore

Home sweet home

Many players contributed to the Dodgers’ perfect home record against the Cardinals in 1953, but Erskine and Hodges did the most damage.

A right-hander who mixed an overhand curve and changeup with his fastball, Erskine, 26, was nearly unbeatable at Ebbets Field that year. He ended the regular season with a home record of 12-1, including 4-0 versus the Cardinals. All four of his home wins against St. Louis were complete games.

Erskine also won Game 3 of the 1953 World Series at Ebbets Field, setting a record by striking out 14 Yankees batters, including Mickey Mantle four times. “Erskine made the Yankees look like blind men swatting at wasps,” J. Roy Stockton reported in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Boxscore

(Since then, the only pitchers with more strikeouts in a World Series game are Bob Gibson, who fanned 17 Tigers in Game 1 in 1968, and Sandy Koufax, who struck out 15 Yankees in Game 1 in 1963.)

“Look, up in the sky….”

When Erskine beat the Cardinals with a five-hitter on May 6, 1953, at Brooklyn, it was his seventh consecutive win against them, dating back to September 1950. Erskine went undefeated versus the Cardinals in 1951 (4-0) and 1952 (2-0). Boxscore

The streak was snapped a week later, May 14, 1953, at St. Louis when Erskine was knocked out in the first inning without retiring a batter. “He had no control, no stuff and no outs,” Dick Young reported in the New York Daily News. “He warmed up for 15 minutes and pitched for five.” Boxscore

Back in Brooklyn, Erskine ducked into a phone booth, donned his Superman cape and beat the Cardinals for the second time in 1953, a four-hitter in a 10-1 rout on June 7. “It was the sort of affair that grew progressively more one-sided and monotonous, finally reaching the stage where many of the fans amused themselves by launching paper planes onto the field,” Dick Young reported. “Some of these came close to hitting Erskine. So did the Cardinals, but not many succeeded.” Boxscore

A month later, Erskine beat the Cardinals at Brooklyn for a third time, even though he gave up nine hits and two walks, threw a wild pitch and committed two errors. Boxscore

Erskine’s fourth home win against the 1953 Cardinals, on Aug. 30, also was his 13th consecutive win at Ebbets Field. Erskine contributed three RBI and scored a run. Boxscore

“Some pitchers were spooked by the thought of working in Ebbets Field with its cozy fences, but not Erskine,” the New York Times noted.

(In his next start, the Braves gave Erskine his lone home loss of 1953. With the score tied at 1-1 in the eighth, Eddie Mathews hit a three-run home run and Jim Pendleton had a two-run shot. Boxscore)

Erskine finished 1953 with a regular-season record of 20-6, including 6-2 versus the Cardinals.

For his career with the Dodgers, Erskine was 122-78, including 66-28 at Brooklyn. He was 23-8 against the Cardinals _ 13-2 at Ebbets Field.

(Erskine’s second win in the majors came against the Cardinals in a 1948 relief appearance. In the book “We Would Have Played For Nothing,” Erskine recalled, “I beat Howie Pollet and he waited for me after the game in the runway to congratulate me. He said, ‘I like the way you throw.’ He was a class act. I think he identified with me because he had a unique pitch _ a straight change _ and I could throw that pitch.” Boxscore)

Among the Cardinals regularly baffled by Erskine were Enos Slaughter (.162 batting average against) and Red Schoendienst (.211). The exception, naturally, was Stan Musial. He batted .336 with eight home runs versus Erskine. According to Time Magazine, Erskine said, “I’ve had pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third.”

In July 2023, Erskine, 96, recalled to Tyler Kepner of the New York Times that Musial “almost never missed a swing. He always hit the ball somewhere.”

In his book, “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial said, “Erskine had control, a remarkable changeup and a great overhand curve.”

(Erskine had an association with the Cardinals in 1971 when he joined play-by-play men Jack Buck and Jim Woods as a guest analyst on select telecasts of games on KSD-TV Channel 5 in St. Louis.)

Lots of lumber

Three pitchers _ Stu Miller (0-3), Joe Presko (0-3) and Gerry Staley (0-2) _ accounted for eight of the 11 Cardinals losses at Ebbets Field in 1953.

Dodgers hitters were led by Gil Hodges, who had eight home runs and 23 RBI against Cardinals pitching in the 11 games at Brooklyn. Hodges had 16 hits and seven walks in those games.

(In 31 at-bats at St. Louis in 1953, Hodges had no home runs, no RBI and batted .129.)

Others who hammered the 1953 Cardinals at Ebbets Field were Roy Campanella (18 hits, 18 RBI), Jackie Robinson (18 hits, 11 RBI) and Duke Snider (four home runs and 11 RBI).

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers | 11 Comments »

How Danny Cox versus Steve Carlton became a classic

August 2, 2023 by retrosimba

Danny Cox began the 1983 baseball season in the low level of the minors and ended it as a member of the starting rotation of the reigning World Series champion Cardinals.

Matched against Steve Carlton and facing a lineup with Pete Rose, Joe Morgan and Mike Schmidt, Cox pitched 10 scoreless innings versus the Phillies in his big-league debut on Aug. 6, 1983.

The stellar performance didn’t get Cox a win, though. That came a couple of weeks later when he opposed another future Hall of Fame pitcher, Nolan Ryan.

Fun in Florida

A right-hander attending Troy University, Cox, 21, was chosen by the Cardinals in the 13th round of the 1981 amateur draft, a couple of picks after the Mets took a high school outfielder, Lenny Dykstra, in the same round.

Cox pitched for a rookie team and a Class A club his first two seasons in the Cardinals’ farm system. Then in 1983, he was assigned to rookie manager Jim Riggleman’s Class A team, the St. Petersburg Cardinals. Even at that level, Cox was matched against an exceptional pitching opponent.

After losing his first two decisions in 1983, Cox, 23, started on May 12 at home against the Fort Myers Royals. Their starter, Bret Saberhagen, 19, was in his first season of professional ball. (Two years later, Saberhagen received the first of his two American League Cy Young awards with the Kansas City Royals.)

Pitching before 882 spectators at Al Lang Stadium in St. Petersburg, Cox threw a four-hitter in a 2-1 victory. Saberhagen went six innings and allowed both runs.

Facing a Fort Myers lineup that included future big-leaguers Mike Kingery and Bill Pecota, Cox retired the last 11 batters in a row. “He dominated,” St. Petersburg catcher Barry Sayler told the St. Petersburg Times. “He was working the inside of the plate, mixed his fastball and slider, and threw hard.”

Cox credited the advice he received from St. Petersburg teammate and closer Mark Riggins (who went on to become pitching coach of the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds). “I started off throwing my fastball inside, and then Mark Riggins told me to take a little off my slider and mess up their timing,” Cox said to the St. Petersburg Times. “I was wanting to win real bad.”

Five days later, in a rematch at Fort Myers, Cox, with relief help from Riggins, again beat Saberhagen in a 7-2 St. Petersburg triumph.

On the rise

After five starts for St. Petersburg (2-2, 2.53 ERA), Cox was promoted to Class AA Arkansas. Playing for manager Nick Leyva, Cox was 8-3 with a 2.29 ERA in 11 starts. In July, he got promoted again, to manager Jim Fregosi’s Class AAA Louisville club. Cox made two starts for Louisville and pitched well (2.45 ERA).

Then came a special audition. The St. Louis Cardinals chose him to start against the Baltimore Orioles in the Baseball Hall of Fame exhibition game at Cooperstown, N.Y., on Aug. 1.

The Orioles, on their way to an American League pennant and World Series championship in 1983, were limited to three hits and no runs in the six innings Cox worked against them. “He was very impressive,” Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Herzog wanted to see more. The Cardinals put Cox on their roster. His next start came in a big-league game against the Phillies.

Tough task

Cox’s debut assignment was daunting. The opposing starter, Steve Carlton, had dominated the Cardinals since being traded by them to the Phillies in 1972.

The matchup was intriguing for other reasons as well:

_ Chase Riddle, head coach of Troy’s baseball team when Cox pitched there, was the Cardinals scout who signed Carlton two decades earlier.

_ Like Cox, Carlton also impressed the Cardinals by pitching well in a Hall of Fame exhibition game. On July 25, 1966, Carlton, 21, was at Class AAA Tulsa when the Cardinals chose him to start against the Minnesota Twins in the Cooperstown exhibition. Carlton pitched a complete game, striking out nine, and was the winning pitcher. He never went back to the minors.

Carlton and Cox engaged in a mighty duel. The ace was in top form, pitching nine scoreless innings. The newcomer matched him, then surpassed him, pitching a scoreless 10th after Carlton was relieved by Al Holland.

Cox “didn’t look like a rookie to me,” Joe Morgan told the Associated Press. “I was really impressed by the way he located his pitches and hit the corners.”

Phillies manager Paul Owens said to the Philadelphia Inquirer, “He moved the ball around and threw strikes. That kid was excellent.”

Bruce Sutter, who hadn’t pitched in a week because of the funeral of his father, took over for Cox in the 11th and gave up a run. The 1-0 victory moved the Phillies ahead of the Pirates and into first place in the National League East.

“That was a World Series type of game,” Owens told the Inquirer. “Nobody even left the park.”

Morgan said, “These are the games that win pennants.”

Indeed, the Phillies went on to become National League champions in 1983. Boxscore

Sweet win

In his next start, Cox gave up a grand slam to ex-Cardinal Leon Durham and was beaten by the Cubs. Boxscore

His first win came in his fourth start on Aug, 21. Matched against Nolan Ryan and the Astros, Cox prevailed in a 5-2 Cardinals victory. Cox pitched 7.2 innings and allowed two runs. Ryan surrendered five runs in six innings. Cox also got his first big-league hit in that game, a single against Ryan in a two-run sixth. Boxscore

Cox made 12 starts for the 1983 Cardinals and was 3-6 with a 3.25 ERA. He pitched a total of 218 innings _ 129.1 in the minors, 83 with the Cardinals and another six in the Hall of Fame exhibition game.

Money ball

Two years later, Cox had his best year in the majors. He was 18-9 for the Cardinals during the 1985 regular season, flirted with a perfect game bid against the Reds, and won Game 3 of the National League Championship Series versus the Dodgers.

The 1985 World Series matched Cox and the Cardinals against Bret Saberhagen and the Royals. In starts against Joaquin Andujar and John Tudor, Saberhagen beat the Cardinals twice, including Game 7, and was named most valuable player of the World Series. Cox was just as good but not as fortunate. He started Games 2 and 6, allowed just two runs in 14 total innings, but didn’t get a decision in either game.

Cox helped the Cardinals win another pennant in 1987. He shut out the Giants in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series. Video

In the World Series versus the Twins, Cox won Game 5, beating Bert Blyleven, but was the losing pitcher in relief of Joe Magrane in Game 7.

In six seasons with St. Louis, Cox was 56-56. As a reliever with the 1993 Blue Jays, he got to be part of a World Series championship club.

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

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