RetroSimba

Why St. Louis Browns said no to Babe Ruth

July 28, 2023 by retrosimba

The Sultan of Swat struck out in his bid to become St. Louis Browns manager.

After finishing last in the eight-team American League in 1937, the Browns were looking for a manager and Babe Ruth wanted the job.

Considering that the Browns drew a total home attendance of 123,121 in 1937, Ruth’s willingness to manage the team in 1938 seemed a special opportunity to infuse interest in the moribund franchise, but his overture was rejected.

Manager material?

Approaching his final years as a player, baseball’s home run king wanted to manage in the majors. Ruth and Yankees manager Joe McCarthy, who took over the club in 1931, didn’t get along. Ruth began campaigning for the job, but Yankees general manager Ed Barrow was happy with McCarthy and uninterested in Ruth as a field leader.

In his book, “Babe: The Legend Comes to Life,” author Robert Creamer noted, “Ruth’s obtuseness about the Yankees managing job was almost pitiful. It was obvious Barrow was convinced he was incapable of managing.”

Other clubs thought differently. Opportunities developed for Ruth to manage the Red Sox, Tigers and Athletics, but plans went haywire.

In the summer of 1932, when the Red Sox were on their way to a 43-111 record (and Ruth, with 41 home runs, was powering the Yankees to a pennant), they talked to him about becoming player-manager, but “Babe did not want to leave” New York, Creamer reported. “The Red Sox post came up again in 1933 when Tom Yawkey bought the club. Yawkey wanted to hire Ruth but was persuaded not to by general manager Eddie Collins.”

After the 1933 season, according to Creamer, “the Tigers definitely wanted him. Tigers attendance had been declining and club owner Frank Navin felt Ruth as player-manager would help the gate and possibly help the team.”

The Yankees agreed to a deal. They “were looking for a way to dump Ruth gracefully and this seemed an ideal situation,” Creamer reported.

Navin asked Ruth to come to Detroit to work out the details, but when Ruth left instead for a planned trip to Hawaii, Navin became annoyed and changed his mind. He acquired Mickey Cochrane from the Athletics to be player-manager. (Cochrane led the Tigers to the 1934 pennant and a World Series berth against the Cardinals.)

The Yankees offered to make Ruth manager of their Newark farm club, but he told them he didn’t want to go to the minor leagues, Creamer reported.

Ruth, 39, stayed with the Yankees in 1934, hit 22 home runs and lobbied to become their manager, but club owner Jacob Ruppert reaffirmed his commitment to Joe McCarthy. An angry Ruth told Joe Williams of Scripps-Howard’s New York World-Telegram, “I’m through with the Yankees. I won’t play with them again unless I can manage. They’re sticking with McCarthy, and that lets me out.”

Amid the hullabaloo his comments caused in Gotham, Ruth said sayonara and left with an all-star team for a goodwill tour of Japan. Connie Mack, who owned and managed the Athletics, was leader of the tour, but Ruth was given the chance to manage the all-star team.

According to Creamer, Mack, nearing 72, was considering stepping down as Athletics manager “and liked the idea” of Ruth replacing him. “Ruth’s presence would help the sagging gate, and Connie had always got along well with Babe,” Creamer noted.

Mack used the Japan tour as a test to see how Ruth would do as manager, but Babe got a failing grade, in part, because he feuded with teammate Lou Gehrig, creating divisions among the all-star group.

Promises, promises

In February 1935, soon after Ruth turned 40, the Yankees released him so that he could accept an offer from the Braves to become team vice president, assistant manager and player. Ruth accepted the proposal because he was convinced Braves owner Emil Fuchs intended to make him the manager in 1936, replacing Bill McKechnie.

Early in the 1935 season, though, Ruth became disenchanted. As Creamer noted, “His duties as vice-president seemed confined to attending store openings and other such affairs to get the publicity Fuchs said the club needed. As assistant manager, all he did was tell McKechnie when he was able to play. He soon found out Fuchs had no intention of forcing McKechnie out to make way for Babe.”

On June 2, 1935, Ruth quit the Braves. “I’d still like to manage,” he told columnist Grantland Rice, “but there’s nothing in sight.”

Support for Babe

Two years later, though no offers had come to him, Ruth still was determined to manage in the majors. The Browns looked to be a possibility.

In July 1937, Browns manager Rogers Hornsby was fired and replaced by another former Cardinals player, Jim Bottomley, who had no managing experience. Former Cardinals manager Gabby Street was hired to be a coach on Bottomley’s staff and provide him with on-the-job training.

The Browns, 25-52 with Hornsby, were 21-56 with Bottomley and finished 46-108, 56 games behind the champion Yankees. “We had two managers in 1937, and we thought we made the right guess each time, yet we finished in last place,” Browns general manager Bill DeWitt Sr. told the St. Louis Star-Times.

According to Sid Keener of the Star-Times, DeWitt and Browns owner Donald Barnes “have been advised by stockholders and friends to make a big play for important publicity by hiring none other than George Herman Ruth, The Babe himself” to be the next manager.

“Ruth would have a powerful magnet at the box office _ at the start, anyway,” Keener advised. “The Babe, back in a major-league uniform as manager of the Browns, would go over in a big way for publicity.”

Advocating for the hiring of Ruth, John Wray of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch wrote, “Some club might do worse than give The Bambino a workout. It could not go broke with a one-year experiment. The Bambino’s name might have some pulling power at the gate _ for a while.”

Wray’s Post-Dispatch colleague, L.C. Davis, suggested that choosing Ruth to manage “would make the turnstiles play a merry tune.”

Babe makes his pitch

In an interview with author William B. Mead for the 1978 book, “Even the Browns,” DeWitt (father of 2023 Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr.) recalled, “Babe Ruth called me up. Out of the blue. I didn’t know him. Never met him. He said, ‘Hey, kid, this is Babe Ruth. I know you haven’t got a good ballclub, but I’d like to be your manager. I can’t get a job managing anyplace else, so I’d like to be the manager of the Browns.’

“I said, ‘Now, let me think about it. We’ve just about made up our minds on a guy. Let me talk to some people.’ I took his phone number.”

The guy Barnes and DeWitt wanted for the job was Gabby Street, not Ruth.

Regarding Ruth, DeWitt told Mead, “He would be a great attraction for a year, but we’d probably have to pay him a pretty good salary, and at the end of the year his attractiveness is gone. We had a lousy ballclub, and you know he’s not going to be a good manager, and we were going to try to develop some young players. So we decided not to do it.”

Barnes told the Star-Times, “We did not consider Ruth for a moment. Ruth is a great name in baseball _ or, was a great name _ but, after all, the public will only pay to see a winning ballclub.”

In comments to the Post-Dispatch, Barnes said, “We never had an idea of seeking Ruth as manager at any time. He is not the type we believe would make a successful leader.”

Sid Keener concluded in the Star-Times, “Ruth’s salary demand is considered the major stumbling block in his behalf. George Herman, no doubt, would request a contract calling for a salary in the neighborhood of $30,000.”

According to the Post-Dispatch, Joe McCarthy of the Yankees and Bill Terry of the Giants were the highest-paid managers. Each made $35,000.

Oscar Melillo, a former Browns second baseman who would become a coach for them in 1938, wanted Ruth to be their manager and told the New York Daily News, “Whatever the Browns paid Ruth would be back in the till the first time they played the Yankees in New York.”

Ruth said to the New York Journal-American, “The way I look at it, it must be because those owners want to keep the small-salaried guys in there as long as the public will stand for it.”

Street signed a one-year contract with the Browns for between $7,500 and $10,000, the Star-Times reported. The 1938 Browns were 53-90 when Street was replaced by Melillo with 10 games left in the season.

Missing out

In June 1938, the Dodgers hired Ruth, 43, to be a coach on the staff of manager Burleigh Grimes. It was a publicity stunt, but Ruth hoped it might put him in position to take over for Grimes. Instead, Leo Durocher replaced Grimes after the season and Ruth was out of a job. The chance to manage never came.

“I think I’d make a good manager,” Ruth told Jimmy Powers of the New York Daily News. “I’ve followed the game closely. I know men, I know batters, and I know pitchers.”

In his biography of Ruth, Robert Creamer wrote, “Could he have managed? Of course. Ruth had certain obvious qualities. He was baseball smart, he was sure of himself, he was held in awe by his fellow players and he was undeniably good copy. He may not have been a success _ most managers are not _ but he should have been given the chance.”

Posted in Executives, Managers | 9 Comments »

Why Duke Carmel was a prince of a prospect for Cardinals

July 21, 2023 by retrosimba

There was a time in the late 1950s when the Cardinals thought a left-handed slugger from the streets of New York City might be the successor to Stan Musial.

Duke Carmel certainly fit the part. He was named after Duke Snider, had the mannerisms of Ted Williams and could hit with the power of Mickey Mantle.

Rangy (6-foot-3) and strong (200 muscular pounds), “Duke Carmel on a baseball field looks like the player you’d put together if somebody asked you to draw a picture of a prospect destined for major-league stardom,” The Buffalo News reported. “The throwing arm, the running speed, the hitting power, the ideal size, the versatility.”

Problem was, he also had a hitch in his swing.

From city to country

Born and raised in East Harlem (“A pretty rugged neighborhood,” he told The Sporting News. “I’ve had to fight my way through all my life.”), Leon James Carmel was nicknamed Duke for his favorite player.

“All the kids there at the time rooted for either the Yankees or Giants,” Carmel told The Sporting News. “When I took up for the Dodgers, and particularly for Duke Snider, they started calling me Duke, too, and it stuck.”

As for his given name of Leon, Carmel said, “If anyone called me that, I might not turn around. I wouldn’t know who they meant.”

A first baseman and pitcher at Benjamin Franklin High School, Carmel, 18, was signed by Cardinals scout Benny Borgmann in 1955.

His breakout season came in 1957 for the Class C farm club at Billings, Mont., 2,000 miles (and worlds apart) from East Harlem. Carmel, 20, hit .324 with 29 home runs and 121 RBI. Moved from first base to the outfield, he had 18 assists. “The best prospect I have ever managed,” Billings manager Eddie Lyons told The Sporting News.

Though Carmel tried to downplay the achievements _ “The pitchers there are mostly throwers and sooner or later they run out of gas,” he told The Sporting News _ the Cardinals were intrigued and brought him to spring training in 1958.

Carmel has “a batting form and a willowy swing that remind observers of Ted Williams,” The Sporting News reported in February 1958.

A manager in the Cardinals’ farm system, former pitcher Cot Deal, said, “Carmel reminds you of Ted Williams.”

J. Roy Stockton of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted, “Carmel seems to have most of the requisites _ sharp eyes, lithe muscles, a cocky, happy disposition, and a sparkling desire to bash a baseball to distant places.”

Blind spot

Facing better pitching at Cardinals camp than he did at Billings, Carmel struggled to hit pitches with movement, especially those that jammed him. That’s when the flaw in his swing became evident.

Cardinals hitting coach Stan Hack, who batted .301 in 16 seasons in the majors, told the Post-Dispatch, “He has a hitch. He lowers his hands, holding the bat, and when the pitch is high, he’s helpless. He can correct it if he listens, understands and keeps trying, but it takes a lot of work. You can’t correct a thing like that in an hour, or a day, or a month.”

Carmel said to The Buffalo News, “You have to stay loose and relaxed to play this game, and every time I go up to the plate determined to hit that long ball, I hitch too much. Then I get upset, and before you know it, I’m in a slump. I have to conquer myself, not the pitcher.”

Looking to find a groove, Carmel spent most of 1958 and 1959 at the Class AA and AAA levels of the minors. He played for Johnny Keane at Omaha, Cot Deal at Rochester, Harry Walker at Houston and Vern Benson at Tulsa. There were flashes of brilliance, but nothing like the kind of season he’d had at Billings.

Carmel, 22, got called up to the Cardinals in September 1959. He and teammate Tim McCarver, 17, made their big-league debuts in the same game. After striking out against Braves reliever Don McMahon, Carmel told The Sporting News, “I still haven’t seen any of the three pitches he threw by me.” Boxscore

Cardinals general manager Bing Devine said Carmel was in the club’s plans for 1960. “He’s showing signs of arriving,” Devine told the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. “His possibilities for the future look very good.”

Traveling man

Carmel went to spring training with the Cardinals for the third straight year in 1960, and, like the other times, didn’t make the Opening Day roster.

The Cardinals traded him each of the next three seasons and reacquired him every time. They traded him to the Dodgers in 1960, reacquired him that year, traded him back to the Dodgers in 1961 and reacquired him again. In 1962, Carmel was sent to the Indians, then the Cardinals got him back a third time. In his stints with the Dodgers and Indians, Carmel never got out of the minors.

Carmel was not on the Cardinals’ roster when he went to spring training with them in 1963. Little was expected, but he became “the pleasant surprise of the spring,” The Sporting News reported. In his first 29 at-bats in the exhibition games, Carmel made 14 hits, including two home runs, two doubles and a triple.

The performance earned him a spot as a reserve outfielder and first baseman on the 1963 Opening Day roster of Cardinals manager Johnny Keane.

In his first at-bat of the season, Carmel hit his first big-league home run, tying the score in the bottom of the ninth against Pirates closer Roy Face. Boxscore

The highlights, though, were too few. Carmel was batting .227, with more strikeouts (11) than hits (10), when the Cardinals traded him for the fourth time. He was shipped to the Mets on July 29, 1963. This time, there would be no return.

Carmel had mixed emotions about departing. “I had been with that organization for eight years and it had become like a home to me,” he said to The Sporting News. However, he told the New York Daily News, “I didn’t want to sit around there, playing maybe 60 games a year. I want to make money in this game, and if I do the job, I’ll make it here (with the Mets).”

Meet the Mets

In joining the Mets, Carmel, 26, became a teammate of his boyhood idol, Duke Snider. In his Mets debut, Carmel started at first base and Snider was the right fielder. Boxscore

A week later, Aug. 8, 1963, Carmel hit a game-winning home run against Cardinals left-hander Bobby Shantz at the Polo Grounds in New York. Shantz threw him a slow curve and Carmel propelled it “onto the overhanging scaffold which fronts the upper tier in right,” the New York Daily News reported. Boxscore

(That was the first major-league game I attended. I was 7, and to my eyes, Duke Carmel was quite a mighty player.)

Carmel hit .235 with three home runs for the 1963 Mets. After the season they acquired two outfielders who, like Carmel, batted from the left side (George Altman from the Cardinals and Larry Elliot from the Pirates). Another left-handed batter, Ed Kranepool, 19, was projected to take over at first base.

Carmel did himself no favors at spring training in 1964, hitting .217 and getting into a personality clash with manager Casey Stengel, according to the New York Daily News.

Expecting to make the 1964 Mets’ Opening Day roster, Carmel instead was sent to the Buffalo farm club. “I don’t think they have anybody on the Mets better than I am,” Carmel told The Buffalo News.

Playing for Buffalo manager Whitey Kurowski, a former Cardinals third baseman, Carmel, 27, had a big season _ 35 home runs, 99 RBI and 100 walks. In August, the Yankees tried to acquire him for the 1964 pennant stretch but the Mets wouldn’t deal, general manager Ralph Houk told United Press International.

(If the Yankees, who won the 1964 American League pennant, had gotten Carmel, he would have faced the Cardinals in the World Series.)

New York, New York

After the Cardinals won the 1964 World Series title, manager Johnny Keane left for the same job with the Yankees. Two of the coaches he hired were Vern Benson and Cot Deal. All three had managed Carmel in the Cardinals’ system. On their recommendations, the Yankees chose Carmel in the November 1964 draft of players left off big-league rosters.

Keane told Carmel he would open the 1965 season as a Yankees utility player. “He had a golden chance to have a glorious new life in his hometown, playing for the team that cashes checks every fall,” George Vecsey wrote in Newsday. “All he had to do was not get hit by the D train.”

Carmel avoided getting hit by a train, but also avoided getting any hits for the Yankees. He was 0-for-26 in spring training exhibition games and then 0-for-8 in the regular season.

Released in May 1965, Carmel returned to the minors. His last season was in 1967 with Buffalo, then a Reds farm club. Among his teammates was a 19-year-old catching prospect, Johnny Bench.

New game

In 1972, five years after Carmel’s professional baseball career ended, Joe Gergen of Newsday found him playing as a ringer for a CBS-TV softball team in New York’s Central Park.

At 230 pounds, Carmel was the team’s catcher and slugger. In the game Gergen saw, Carmel had a single, a triple and a three-run home run, “a towering fly ball which carried over the right fielder’s head.”

“Between innings,” Gergen wrote, “there was time for Duke to eat an ice cream pop, drain a bottle of soda, puff on a cigarette and sit with the kids.”

Carmel said, “I enjoy this. Here, there’s no curfew.”

Posted in Hitters, Opponents, Prospects, Trades | 16 Comments »

Don Durham had a hit-or-miss stint with Cardinals

July 16, 2023 by retrosimba

On a team with little pop, pitcher Don Durham qualified as somewhat of a slugger for the Cardinals.

A rookie right-hander with St. Louis in 1972, Durham had as many home runs (two) as wins (two). He batted .500 (seven hits in 14 at-bats) and had a slugging percentage of .929.

Durham was part of a Cardinals pitching trio, along with Bob Gibson and Rick Wise, that provided as much power as some of the infielders and outfielders.

Gibson (five), Durham (two) and Wise (one) combined for eight home runs on a club that ranked last in the 12-team National League in home runs (70) in 1972.

Catcher Ted Simmons (16) and third baseman Joe Torre (11) were the lone 1972 Cardinals to reach double digits in home runs. They and outfielder Bernie Carbo (seven) were the only Cardinals with more home runs than Gibson that year.

Even Durham, with his two in 14 at-bats, had as many home runs as second baseman Ted Sizemore (two in 439 at-bats) and center fielder Jose Cruz (two in 332 at-bats), and more than shortstop Dal Maxvill (one in 276 at-bats) and third baseman Ken Reitz (none in 78 at-bats).

Promising prospect

Though born in Kentucky, Durham was a resident of the Ohio village of Arlington Heights near Cincinnati between the ages of 6 and 9, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer. He played Little League baseball there and faithfully followed the 1950s Reds, The Sporting News reported,

At Western Kentucky University, Durham was a first baseman and pitcher. Though slender at 6 feet and less than 170 pounds, he threw hard and hit for power.

In a 1969 doubleheader versus Austin Peay, Durham started and won the first game, then belted a grand slam to help Western Kentucky complete the sweep, according to The Park City Daily News of Bowling Green, Ky. A year later, he struck out 14 in pitching a no-hitter against Bellarmine. Durham led the team in hitting (.418) his final season, according to The Sporting News.

On the recommendation of scout Mo Mozzali (who signed Ted Simmons three years earlier), the Cardinals chose Durham in the seventh round of the 1970 draft. After a strong season with Class A Modesto in 1971 (13-7, 2.80 ERA, 202 strikeouts in 177 innings, plus a .240 batting average), the Cardinals decided Durham should bypass Class AA and move to Class AAA Tulsa in 1972.

On June 3, 1972, Durham pitched a shutout and hit a home run against Indianapolis. The two-run homer came after Durham fouled off two pitches trying to bunt and then was told by manager Jack Krol to swing away. “I’ve always been proud of my hitting,” Durham said to the Tulsa World.

Four days later, with Tulsa ahead, 1-0, in the last of the ninth inning at Evansville, Durham needed one out to complete a no-hitter, but Bob Coluccio grounded a single to left. Exasperated, Durham flung his glove into the air. After a brief discussion with Krol on the mound, Durham faced Darrell Porter, who the night before lined a two-out, two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth to lift Evansville to a 4-2 victory.

On Durham’s first pitch to him, Porter lofted a high fly that carried over the fence, barely beyond the reach of right fielder Bob Wissler, for a game-winning home run. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t think I hit the ball that good,” Porter said to Tom Tuley of The Evansville Press. “I thought it was going to be caught.”

Sitting alone on the dugout steps after going from possible no-hitter to losing pitcher in two pitches, Durham told Tuley, “I’m still in shock.”

Fitting in

A week later, Durham, 23, was called up to the Cardinals and put into the starting rotation, even though he had pitched only a partial season at a level higher than Class A.

He made his big-league debut against his boyhood favorite, the Reds, at St. Louis on July 16, 1972. The first batter he faced, Pete Rose, grounded out. The next, Joe Morgan, flied out. In the second inning, Durham struck out the side. One of the victims was Tony Perez.

Durham went seven innings, allowed three runs, got little support and was the losing pitcher in a 4-1 Reds triumph. Bobby Tolan hit a solo home run _ the only homer Durham would allow in 47.2 innings for the 1972 Cardinals.

“The kid had good stuff,” Cardinals manager Red Schoendienst said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He’s going to be a good pitcher. He had a good fastball and his control was good. We just didn’t get a break for him.”

Reds manager Sparky Anderson told the Dayton Daily News, “The kid had a good fastball and he kept it around the plate real well.”

According to the Post-Dispatch, Cardinals catcher Ted Simmons nicknamed Durham “The Rattlesnake” because of the way he uncoiled as he delivered a pitch. Boxscore

Tough going

On Aug. 4, 1972, when the Phillies faced the Cardinals, the starting pitchers had a combined season record of 0-11. Ken Reynolds was 0-8 and Durham was 0-3.

In the second inning, using a Bob Gibson bat, Durham got his first big-league hit, a three-run home run on a fastball down the chute from Reynolds. Then he retired the Phillies in order in the second through fifth innings and contributed two more hits, both singles. “If ever a pitcher seemed destined for victory, Durham was the guy,” the Post-Dispatch noted.

It wasn’t to be, though. The Phillies scored six runs in the eighth and won, 8-3. “Sitting forlornly in the clubhouse,” Durham was “so despondent he could hardly bring himself to talk,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

He described himself to the newspaper as “a choke artist.” Boxscore

Giant killer

After losing a fifth consecutive decision, Durham finally got his first big-league win on Aug. 18, 1972, against the Giants at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.

In addition to limiting the Giants to a run in 6.1 innings before being relieved by Diego Segui, Durham scored the Cardinals’ first two runs. Using a Ted Simmons bat, he singled and scored in the third and walloped a hanging slider from Jim Willoughby for a solo home run in the fifth.

After the game, Durham went around the clubhouse, getting autographs on a baseball from all of his teammates, the Post-Dispatch reported.

“My confidence has been restored,” Durham told the Post-Dispatch. Boxscore

Durham got one more win and again it came against the Giants. Facing a lineup with the likes of Bobby Bonds, Willie McCovey and Dave Kingman, Durham pitched a three-hitter. He also stroked two singles _ one against Juan Marichal and the other versus Sam McDowell.

“After the first inning, I zeroed in nicely on the outside zone and took the power away from their big hitters,” Durham told the San Francisco Examiner. Boxscore

End game

Durham pitched in 10 games, making eight starts, for the 1972 Cardinals and was 2-7 with a 4.34 ERA.

At some point, he experienced elbow problems and was sent back to Tulsa for the 1973 season.

On July 16, 1973, the Cardinals traded Durham to the Texas Rangers, who were managed by Whitey Herzog. The American League had the designated hitter rule, so Durham didn’t get a chance to bat. When he pitched, he wasn’t effective.

After posting a record of 0-4 with a 7.59 ERA for the 1973 Rangers, Durham, 24, was finished in the big leagues.

Posted in Games, Hitters, Pitchers | 13 Comments »

For better or worse, Johnny Stuart finished what he started

July 11, 2023 by retrosimba

Johnny Stuart was a rattled rookie when he made his first start in the majors for the Cardinals and failed to get an out. A year later, on the day he made his second start in the big leagues, he also made his third, and the results were much better.

On July 10, 1923, Stuart started both games of a doubleheader for the Cardinals against the Braves and earned complete-game wins in both.

The iron man feat was a highlight of his four seasons in the majors with the Cardinals, but it wasn’t his only impressive sports accomplishment.

Razzle dazzle

Stuart played baseball and football at Ohio State University. He was a halfback, punt returner and punter for the football team.

In those days, players were taught to just fall on a punted ball that hit the ground rather than risk a fumble. Fleet and sure-handed, Stuart had other ideas. According to a syndicated column in The Cincinnati Post, “He handles a football that is rolling along the ground just as if it was a grounder in baseball. Stuart has thrown tradition to the wind in handling such punts. He races in on them on the bound and is on the way toward the opposition goal at full speed.”

His daring approach sparked Ohio State to victory against Michigan in 1921.

Scoreless in the second quarter, Michigan punted from deep in its territory. It was a lousy kick and the ball wobbled to the Michigan 34-yard line.

“With the agility of a cat, Stuart pounced on the pigskin,” the Detroit Free Press reported. “With the narrow margin of three yards, Stuart managed to twist through many aspiring Michigan tacklers.”

According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Stuart “swept past the entire astonished and dumbfounded Michigan team” and crossed the goal line for a touchdown.

Stuart’s punting was as important as his touchdown because he kept Michigan’s offense from getting good field position. “Time and again Stuart kicked the ball 50 and 60 yards,” the Free Press reported. “His punts were all well-placed and Michigan men found them difficult to gather in.”

Ohio State won, 14-0, putting “Johnny Stuart’s name on the lips of every Ohio State rooter,” the Plain Dealer noted.

The big show

Football was fun but baseball offered Stuart his best chance at a professional career. A right-hander, he excelled as a college pitcher and the Cardinals were impressed. They signed him in July 1922 and brought him directly to the majors.

When he left his home in Huntington, W. Va., and joined the Cardinals in New York, Stuart “was not even city broke,” let alone ready to face batters in the big leagues, the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun reported.

On July 27, 1922, one day after Stuart joined the team, manager Branch Rickey gave him the start against the reigning World Series champion Giants at the Polo Grounds. The Cardinals (57-38), who trailed the first-place Giants (56-34) by 1.5 games, were in the middle of a stretch of eight games in seven days and Rickey hoped Stuart could give the rotation a lift.

The task, though, was daunting. The Giants, managed by the irascible John McGraw, had a lineup that featured three future Hall of Famers (Dave Bancroft, Frankie Frisch and High Pockets Kelly) and an outfielder, Casey Stengel, who was batting .387 for the season.

Cardinals batters did their best to help the rookie, scoring four in the top of the first against two-time 20-game winner Jesse Barnes, but when it came Stuart’s turn to take the mound the 4-0 lead was no comfort to him.

“Stuart became all fussed before he got started,” the New York Daily News noted.

According to the St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Stuart, 21, was “unnerved by the taunts hurled at him from the Giants’ bench and from the spectators.”

He walked the first batter (Bancroft), then committed a balk, hit the second batter (Johnny Rawlings) with a pitch, and threw a couple of balls out of the strike zone to the third batter (Frisch) before being removed by Rickey.

Two of the runners Stuart put on eventually scored. The Giants won, 12-7. Boxscore

“Several baseball critics over the country are poking fun at manager Branch Rickey in starting Johnny Stuart against the Giants when first place was at stake,” the Springfield (Ohio) News-Sun reported.

The day after his inauspicious big-league debut, Stuart pitched two innings of relief against the Giants and allowed a two-run single to Frisch. Boxscore

Mercifully, the Cardinals shipped him to a farm club, the Syracuse Stars, managed by Shag Shaughnessy, a former baseball and football standout at Notre Dame.

Start me up

Eager to see how Stuart developed after his stint at Syracuse, Rickey included him on a team of prospects he took on a barnstorming tour after the 1922 season. Stuart impressed, pitching a no-hitter against a team of locals in De Soto, Mo., the St. Louis Star-Times reported.

After a good spring training, Stuart earned a spot on the Cardinals’ 1923 Opening Day roster as a reliever. Throughout the season, he “carried with him a tennis ball, which he gripped and squeezed continually to improve the strength of his pitching hand,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Stuart also became a protege of Fred Toney, 34, a two-time 20-game winner who was with the 1923 Cardinals for his 12th and final season in the majors. Toney taught Stuart to throw a fadeaway ball and how to pitch to a batter’s weakness. “He and Toney were constantly talking baseball,” the Post-Dispatch noted.

Stuart made 17 appearances, all in relief, for the 1923 Cardinals before Rickey chose him to start the opener of a July 10 doubleheader against the Braves at Boston. It was Stuart’s first start for the Cardinals since his rough debut versus the Giants a year earlier.

The result this time was much different. Stuart pitched a three-hitter and the Cardinals cruised to an 11-1 victory. Stuart finished strong, getting 12 consecutive outs after Stuffy McInnis led off the sixth with a single. Boxscore

Stuart then asked Rickey to start him in the second game. “There is a dearth of pitchers on the Cardinals club right now,” the Globe-Democrat reported, so Rickey accepted Stuart’s offer.

Stuart retired the first four batters of Game 2 before Tony Boeckel bunted for a single. He held the Braves to a run through seven innings, then gave up two in the eighth, but completed the game, a 6-3 Cardinals triumph.

“It was not until the very end of his second game that he showed the least signs of wear and tear,” the Boston Globe reported.

One of the keys for Stuart was that he induced the Braves to hit into outs. He didn’t strike out a batter in his 18 innings. Boxscore

On Sept. 3, 1923, Stuart pitched a five-hit shutout in the Cardinals’ 1-0 triumph against the Cubs at Chicago. In the fourth inning, two outs came on his pickoffs of runners at first base. Boxscore

Stuart, 22, finished the 1923 season with a 9-5 record. He was 7-2 as a starter.

“His fastball is sweet and he has developed a slow fadeaway which bothers the best hitters in the league,” the Star-Times reported.

Fade away

Stuart was the Cardinals’ 1924 Opening Day starter against the Cubs, but got the flu in late May and didn’t make a start in June. He recovered, pitched a four-hitter against the Pirates on July 1 but finished the season 9-11 with a 4.75 ERA.

Returned to the bullpen in 1925, Stuart struggled. On May 21, he gave up 10 runs against the Braves. A month later, he was shelled for 16 runs versus the Pirates.

Rogers Hornsby replaced Branch Rickey as manager and when the Cardinals, assured of a fourth-place finish, went to Chicago for the final series of the season, he gave Stuart a start against the Cubs. Matched against Grover Cleveland Alexander, Stuart responded with a four-hitter in a 4-3 Cardinals triumph. Boxscore

It turned out to be Stuart’s final big-league game. He was 24 years old. His overall Cardinals record: 20-18, including 5-0 against the Cubs.

In 1927, Stuart was hired to be a college head coach of the baseball and basketball teams at Marshall in the town he resided, Huntington, W. Va. He later became manager of a minor-league team in Huntington and operated a baseball school there.

Posted in Football, Games, Pitchers | 4 Comments »

In control: How Ken Raffensberger confounded Cardinals

July 6, 2023 by retrosimba

Ken Raffensberger began his major-league career with the Cardinals, then spent a big part of it pitching against them.

A left-hander who relied on pinpoint control and an assortment of breaking pitches, Raffensberger faced the Cardinals a lot _ 79 times, including 59 starts. He lost (34 times) more than he won (23 times) versus St. Louis, but when he was good he was nearly unhittable.

In 1948, Raffensberger pitched two one-hitters against the Cardinals.

Making the rounds

A Pennsylvania Dutch boy from the town of York, home of the Peppermint Pattie, Raffensberger entered the Cardinals’ farm system in 1937. His manager at Rochester in 1938, Ray Blades, managed the Cardinals in 1939 and put Raffensberger, 21, on the Opening Day roster.

“He has exceptional wrist action,” The Sporting News noted. “He flexes the wrist with each throw and the result is speed that is a bit startling to the hitter. There is no evidence of the speed in his delivery, which makes for deception.”

The St. Louis Star-Times reported, “He delivers the ball with little or nothing on it _ so it seems _ but it gains speed, twist, curve and what have you, as it floats toward the plate.”

In his lone appearance for the 1939 Cardinals, Raffensberger pitched a scoreless inning against the Reds, then was sent back to Rochester. Boxscore

(The 1939 Cardinals were the only team Raffensberger played for in his 15 years in the majors that finished a season with a winning record. As the York Sunday News noted, “A pennant race was as foreign to Raffensberger as a French dictionary.”)

Traded to the Cubs in December 1939, Raffensberger was mentored in 1940 by their player-manager, catcher Gabby Hartnett. “He taught me the value of control,” Raffensberger told The Sporting News. “I learned almost everything I know about pitching from him.”

Raffensberger spent most of the next three seasons (1941-43) in the minors, learning how to get batters to hit into outs, before being traded to the Phillies in September 1943.

The Phillies were bad but provided Raffensberger with opportunity, if not many runs. In 1944, he had a 2.72 ERA versus the Cardinals in 53 innings pitched, but his record against them that season was 1-5. The win was a shutout Boxscore and, in one of the losses, he pitched 16 innings in a duel of endurance with Mort Cooper. Boxscore

Named to the National League all-star team for the only time in his career, Raffensberger pitched two scoreless innings and was the winning pitcher against the American League in the 1944 game. Boxscore

Despite a 3.06 ERA, Raffensberger was 13-20 for the 1944 Phillies (61-92), who finished 43.5 games behind the league champion Cardinals (105-49).

On May 18, 1947, Raffensberger pitched a 12-inning shutout against the Cardinals, but a month later, after he lost four in a row, the Phillies traded him to the Reds. Boxscore

Slow and steady

Raffensberger, 30, made two starts against the Cardinals in April 1948 and got no decision in either. Stan Musial went a combined 5-for-8 (two singles, a double, a triple and a home run) against him in those games.

Raffensberger spent most of the next month in the bullpen. He had a 4.34 ERA for the season when he got a start in the second game of a Memorial Day doubleheader against the Cardinals at Cincinnati.

United Press called him a “creaking” veteran. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch described him as a “softball-throwing” pitcher. According to The Sporting News, wise-guy teammates nicknamed him “Cannonball” because of his slow pitches.

Nothing indicated the performance he was about to give.

With two outs in the first inning, Raffensberger walked Musial and Whitey Kurowski before retiring Enos Slaughter. Then he set down the Cardinals in order in every inning from the second through the seventh with what the Post-Dispatch called “his nuthin’-at-all pitch.”

Nippy Jones, leading off the eighth, got the Cardinals’ first hit, a lined single to center, but Raffensberger retired the next three batters.

In the ninth, Musial walked with two outs, but Raffensberger got Kurowski on a grounder to shortstop, completing the one-hit shutout. He achieved it with one strikeout. Boxscore

No fluke

The next time Raffensberger faced the Cardinals, on July 4 at Cincinnati, they beat him, scoring four runs in seven innings. His ERA for the season was 4.57 when he got another start, at St. Louis, on July 11.

After the Reds scored in the first, Raffensberger retired the first 10 batters before Marty Marion singled with one out in the fourth. Don Lang drew a two-out walk in the inning but Enos Slaughter’s grounder to third ended the threat.

The Cardinals got only two more base runners (Musial walked in the seventh and Nippy Jones reached on an error in the eighth), and Raffensberger completed his second one-hitter in the Reds’ 1-0 victory. None of the Cardinals’ outs were strikeouts. Boxscore

“His slider, when acting right, breaks about six inches in toward right-handed batters, making them hit it with the handle of their bats,” Reds catcher Ray Lamanno told The Sporting News. “Left-handed batters see it suddenly break away from them. It starts spinning rapidly just as it begins to break. By that time, batters usually are off stride. Kenny threw curves to Musial in both his one-hitters, keeping the ball away from him.”

In a story headlined, “Raffensberger Zero Ball Too Fast for Cards,” Cubs general Jim Gallagher, in St. Louis to see the game, told the St. Louis Star-Times, “Gremlins carry the ball up to the plate for the last 20 feet.”

Raffensberger said to The Sporting News, “To listen to the hitters, I don’t have anything. I take a lot of kidding that I don’t have a fastball, and don’t have a curveball. All I got, I guess, is confidence in myself to get that ball over.”

For the 1948 season, Raffensberger was 11-12 with four shutouts and only 37 walks in 180.1 innings. He made nine starts against the Cardinals and was 3-3 with a 3.04 ERA.

High praise

In 1949, Raffensberger was 18-17 for a Reds team that won just 62. He led the National League in shutouts (five). On Aug. 14, he pitched 12 innings against the Cubs and three days later he went 13 innings versus the Cardinals. Boxscore

Branch Rickey, the Cardinals’ executive who traded Raffensberger in 1939, tried multiples times to acquire him for the Dodgers in 1949, but the Reds wouldn’t deal, The Sporting News reported.

Raffensberger beat the Cardinals four times in 1951. In one of those wins, he pitched 14 innings before his catcher, Johnny Pramesa, walloped a walkoff grand slam. Boxscore

Raffensberger, 35, again led the National League in shutouts (six) in 1952, won 17 (including four versus the Cardinals) and posted a 2.81 ERA. He walked 45 in 247 innings. “I was the best control pitcher in the big leagues during my time,” he told the York Sunday News.

He pitched his last game in the majors for the Reds in June 1954, finishing with a career mark of 119-154. He achieved four one-hitters: one each versus the Cubs and Dodgers and two against the Cardinals.

Asked by The Sporting News to name the toughest batters he faced, Raffensberger chose Musial, Jackie Robinson and Carl Furillo. Musial returned the compliment. According to the Associated Press, when Musial appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” he named Raffensberger as the toughest pitcher he had faced.

In 201 at-bats against Raffensberger, Musial hit .323 with six home runs but also struck out 20 times, according to Retrosheet.org. Only Warren Spahn struck out Musial (30 times) more often than Raffensberger did.

In his autobiography, “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial said, “The toughest pitchers for me were Ken Raffensberger, Johnny Vander Meer and Curt Simmons, left-handers, and Clem Labine, a right-hander.”

Raffensberger “had nothing except slow stuff, and a forkball,” Musial said. “With changing speeds and control, he made those pitches seem so fat when they weren’t. The forkball looked as big as a grapefruit but fell off the table, low. I stubbornly tried to slug with him and didn’t have much success.”

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers | 6 Comments »

Why Homer Jones scared the daylights out of defenses

July 2, 2023 by retrosimba

(Updated Dec. 27, 2025)

When Homer Jones made a catch, he turned the football field into a dance floor, spinning and shifting with an array of flashy moves.

A receiver with the 1960s New York Giants, Jones was a master at producing long gains. He did it either one of two ways _ hauling in deep passes, or using his deft footwork to add yardage after a grab. His career average of 22.3 yards per catch is a NFL record.

The St. Louis Cardinals faced him often, and then he joined them for a brief time at the tail end of his playing career.

Music man

A high school saxophonist in Pittsburg, Texas, Jones played football his senior year because “I wanted to go to college and they didn’t give scholarships to sax players,” he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

At Texas Southern, Jones excelled in track as well as football. He and Bob Hayes of Florida A&M were two of the fastest sprinters in the United States. Jones and Hayes were on the men’s 400-meter relay team that beat the Russians in an international dual meet at Palo Alto, Calif., in July 1962.

A year later, at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics meet at Sioux Falls. S.D., in June 1963, Jones won the 220-yard dash, nipping Hayes at the finish line in 21 seconds.

(Later that month, Hayes won the 100-yard dash in 9.1 seconds, a world record, at the Amateur Athletic Union meet in St. Louis. Described as “the world’s fastest human,” Bullet Bob Hayes won two gold medals, in the 100 meters and as a member of the 4×100-meter relay team, at the 1964 Summer Olympics. Like Jones, Hayes became a NFL receiver, with the Dallas Cowboys.)

Jones was a flanker at Texas Southern and one of his favorite plays was a reverse. It basically called for a ball carrier to hand off to a receiver running in the reverse direction. Jones added a twist. “I reversed the reverses on my own just to see how that would work,” Jones told the Post-Dispatch. “I guess I was the first scrambling flanker in Texas.”

Drafted in 1963 by the Houston Oilers of the American Football League and the New York Giants of the National Football League, Jones opted for the Oilers, but reported to training camp with a twisted knee.

“I couldn’t do any knee bends, and you couldn’t play for the Oilers unless you did knee bends,” Jones said to the Post-Dispatch.

Released, Jones contacted the Giants, who signed him to their practice squad in July 1963. After a doctor repaired the cartilage damage in the knee, Jones and the Giants were relieved to discover he still had speed.

Freestyle football

After spending most of the 1963 and 1964 seasons on the practice squad, Jones, a raw talent, filled in for injured Giants receiver Del Shofner in 1965.

“They used to call him Homer Q, and Jones himself said the Q stood for questionable,” Milton Gross of the North American Newspaper Alliance noted.

“They can never tell what I’m going to do,” Jones said.

He inverted the pass routes designed for him and had trouble holding onto the ball. As the New York Daily News noted, “Homer has a reputation for ad-libbing pass patterns.”

Giants quarterback Earl Morrall told Milton Gross, “You look at the films and at times you’re wondering where he’s wandering to.”

“They used to laugh (head coach Allie Sherman almost cried) when Homer lined up in the wrong place, ran pass patterns in reverse, missed blocks and signals,” The New York Times reported.

Jones explained to Milton Gross, “You’ve got to confuse the defense as much as he confuses you. The one who confuses the most comes out the winner.”

Crowd pleaser

In warmup drills before the Giants played the Philadelphia Eagles on Oct. 17, 1965, at Yankee Stadium, Jones dropped nine passes in a row, the New York Times reported.

Show time was another matter.

In the second quarter, the Giants were on their 11-yard line when Earl Morrall called for Jones to run a fly pattern down the sideline. Morrall backpedaled and was near the goal line when he heaved the ball.

At the Eagles’ 40, Jones turned and looked up. “The sun was pretty strong,” he told the New York Daily News. “I saw a black spot in the sky and I didn’t know whether it was a bird or the ball.”

Jones reached for the object, speared it “and then completed a full pivot around defender Irv Cross, who went sprawling out of bounds,” the Daily News reported. Jones sprinted to the end zone, completing an 89-yard play for his first NFL touchdown.

According to NFL.com, Jones wanted to throw the ball to fans in the stands, but the league would fine a player $500 for doing that, so he flicked it into the ground. He is “believed to be the first player to spike a football after a touchdown,” NFL.com reported. Video and Game stats

Hard to stop

Jones averaged 23 yards per catch each year between 1966 and 1968. His 14 touchdowns (13 receiving and one rushing) in 14 games led the NFL in 1967. He made 49 catches that year, averaging 24.7 yards per reception.

In the 1967 season opener against the Cardinals at St. Louis, Jones had five catches for 175 yards and two touchdowns. On one of the scores, Jones beat cornerback Jimmy Burson, made a jumping catch of a Fran Tarkenton pass at the Cardinals’ 10 and “dragged tackler Larry Wilson the last five yards across the goal line,” the Post-Dispatch reported. Game stats

In the season finale rematch at Yankee Stadium, Jones had five catches for 125 yards and a touchdown. Here’s how the Daily News described his score: “Homer caught a turn-in pass in front of Phil Spiller on the St. Louis 45, foot-shuffled his way past a few defenders and shook off rookie Mike Barnes at the 10 to make it a 69-yard play.” Game stats

“Homer is the top offensive weapon in football today,” Tarkenton said to the Daily News in 1967. “Catching the ball is only part of his value. It’s what he does after the catch that makes him so remarkable. He’s a tough man to bring down.”

(In his autobiography, Tarkenton said, “Homer was the fastest guy I ever saw in a football suit, without question … He didn’t have much refinement as a receiver, and sometimes he missed the easy passes, but if he ever got a step on a defensive back, you couldn’t keep him in the stadium.”)

Giants radio broadcaster Marty Glickman told the Daily News, “There have been receivers who had, or have, Homer’s great speed. There have been receivers who are strong and can break tackles. But I never saw both _ the tremendous speed and the power running _ in one man until I saw Homer Jones.”

Teams regularly double-covered Jones. “We feel that any time they play me one-on-one I have a better than 75 percent chance of beating him,” Jones told Newsday. “I myself feel I have a 99 percent chance of beating him. Only a great play by him can stop me.”

In addition to speed and strength, Jones had huge hands. “He palms watermelons,” the Post-Dispatch declared.

Jones made one-handed catches before those became commonplace. He wore a size 13 glove. (A size 11 is considered XL.) According to the North American Newspaper Alliance, when shaking hands, “his fingers reach up to your forearm.”

Stepping out

In January 1970, the Giants traded Jones to the Cleveland Browns for running back Ron Johnson, defensive tackle Jim Kanicki and linebacker Wayne Meylan. Jones was nearly 29, but “there are some in the Giants family” who suspect he is two or three years older than his listed age, the Daily News reported.

The Browns acquired Jones to replace Paul Warfield, who was dealt to the Miami Dolphins, but a second-year player, Fair Hooker, outperformed Jones at training camp in 1970 and won the starting job.

Jones was used primarily as a kick returner with the 1970 Browns. He returned 29 kickoffs for 739 yards, including one for a touchdown against the New York Jets. Video

On July 13, 1971, the Browns traded Jones to the Cardinals for a draft choice. The Cardinals envisioned Jones rounding out a wide receiver corps that featured John Gilliam, Dave Williams, Fred Hyatt and rookie Mel Gray.

“When a receiver of the caliber of a Homer Jones becomes available, you just have to take a look at him,” St. Louis head coach Bob Hollway explained to the Post-Dispatch. “We felt he could add depth and experience. He’s bound to upgrade the receivers and create hard competition.”

Jones told the newspaper, “I’d say it was a happy day. I’ve always had respect for the Cardinals and I like the idea of playing for them.”

Two weeks later, though, when he was supposed to report to Cardinals training camp, Jones had a change of heart. He informed the club he was finished playing.

“When I broke into pro football, I said I would play for five years,” Jones told the Post-Dispatch. “I played for eight and I’ve thought about quitting for some time.” Video highlights

Posted in Football, Games, Opponents | 10 Comments »

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