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In St. Louis, President Taft declared, ‘Let’s play two’

October 22, 2025 by retrosimba

President William Howard Taft was a large man with a big appetite for food and baseball. During a visit to St. Louis, he was treated to generous portions of both.

On May 4, 1910, Taft attended two big-league games that afternoon, watching an inning of a National League matchup, Reds versus Cardinals, at Robison Field before going to Sportsman’s Park to see some American League action between Cleveland and the Browns.

A month earlier, at Washington, D.C., Taft became the first U.S. president to attend an Opening Day baseball game. He threw the ceremonial first pitch to Walter Johnson, who then crafted a one-hit shutout for the Senators in their victory against the Athletics. Boxscore

Described by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch as a “jovial baseball fan,” Taft attended 14 big-league games during his term (1909-13) as president, according to the book “Baseball: The Presidents’ Game.”

Athlete and student

Born and raised in the Mount Auburn neighborhood of Cincinnati, Taft “loved baseball and was a good second baseman and a power hitter” as a youth, according to Peri E. Arnold, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Notre Dame.

At Yale University, Taft was intramural heavyweight wrestling champion as a freshman, according to the National Constitution Center. (In 1997, he was inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in Stillwater, Okla.)

However, on the advice of his father, Taft gave up sports to focus on his studies. He graduated second in his class at Yale. Taft went to law school at the University of Cincinnati, became an attorney and then a judge in Ohio.

Encouraged by his wife Nellie to get into national politics, Taft accepted an offer from President William McKinley in 1900 to lead a commission to oversee the Philippine Islands.

As Peri E. Arnold noted, “Out of the victory in the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Islands had become a U.S. protectorate. McKinley wanted Taft to set up a civilian government. This entailed drafting and implementing laws, a constitution, an administration and a civil service bureaucracy.”

Taft improved the economy of the Philippine Islands, built roads and schools, and gave the Filipino people participation in government, according to the White House Historical Association.

In February 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed Taft to the cabinet as secretary of war. “Taft became Roosevelt’s chief agent, confidant and troubleshooter in foreign affairs,” according to Peri E. Arnold. “He supervised the construction of the Panama Canal, made several voyages around the world for the president … and functioned as the provisional governor of Cuba.”

Taft served as secretary of war for four years before he accepted the Republican presidential nomination in June 1908. He won the election, defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan, and was inaugurated in March 1909.

Motor man

President Taft’s main purpose for visiting St. Louis on May 4, 1910, was to address the Farmers Convention. His agenda for that Wednesday also included a businessmen’s luncheon, a dinner banquet with transportation leaders and the two baseball games.

The plan was to drive Taft from point to point during his stay. Taft was an automobile enthusiast. According to William Bushong of the White House Historical Association, “Taft believed in the future of the automobile and … was never happier than in the back seat of his touring car speeding through the countryside with the wind in his hair. Not required to observe speed limits or stop signs when driving the president, chauffeur George H. Robinson would blow the horn in advance of an intersection and fly through it.”

In 1910, most people didn’t have automobiles _ the number of cars in the U.S. then totaled 500,000 for a population of 92.2 million _ and driving laws still were being worked out.

For Taft’s drives through St. Louis, it was arranged for the fire department chief and four firemen with a chemical tank and hose to trail the president “on every foot of his journey,” the Post-Dispatch reported. “The police have agreed to waive the speed limit for one day and everywhere the president goes he will burn up the ozone at a terrific rate … There will be only one restriction on the president while here, and that is he must obey that part of the new traffic ordinance which directs automobiles to keep on the right side of the street at all times.”

Food for thought

Taft’s train from Cincinnati, where he attended the opening of the May Music Festival, arrived in St. Louis’ Union Station at 8:30 a.m. At least 1,000 uniformed St. Louis police officers, 75 plainclothes detectives and the entire 93-man mounted police force were called to duty, joining a Secret Service escort in providing protection for the president, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.

From the train station, Taft was whisked to breakfast at the St. Louis Club on Lindell Boulevard. Taft weighed more than 300 pounds and he arrived in St. Louis hungry. For breakfast, he consumed two slices of corn bread, a portion of fish, two eggs on toast, three lamb chops, an olive, a radish, two pieces of celery and three cups of coffee, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Fortified, Taft was driven to the St. Louis Coliseum at Washington and Jefferson avenues for his 11 a.m. speech at the Farmers Convention. The Coliseum was a state-of-the-art entertainment and convention venue. Italian tenor Enrico Caruso performed there in April 1910 with the Metropolitan Opera Company.

After delivering his speech before a gathering of 8,000, Taft was driven to the Southern Hotel for a noon luncheon with the Business Men’s League. The menu featured soft shell crab, milk-fed chicken breast and strawberry melba.

Taft enjoyed a bowl of soup before the crab course was presented. He “took one bite of the crab and then put it aside,” the Post-Dispatch reported. “He refused to even look at the crab and for several minutes showed no interest in the meal. He glanced at a cucumber sandwich and bestowed an equal favor on some asparagus. The president’s eyes brightened considerably when he was brought a breast of milk-fed chicken. Seizing his knife and fork, he proceeded to show what a hungry man can do to a well-cooked chicken. Taft had his chicken finished before the others near him had fairly begun on theirs.”

Big fan 

The end of lunch signaled it was time for baseball. In his remarks to the luncheon crowd, Taft said, “I attend baseball games for two reasons: First, I enjoy the game, and, second, I want to encourage it.”

On his way to Robison Field for the 3:30 game between the Reds and Cardinals, Taft stopped at the YWCA headquarters at Seventh and Olive streets and pledged support for the organization’s $400,000 building fund campaign.

At the ballpark, Taft took his place in a special box seat section built for him next to the Cardinals’ bench, the Globe-Democrat reported. He received a rousing reception from most of the 4,500 spectators, according to the newspaper.

It was pre-arranged that Taft would leave the game at 4 p.m.

After the Reds went down in order against hard-throwing Bob Harmon, the Cardinals teed off on a former teammate, Fred Beebe. Miller Huggins, whom the Cardinals acquired for Beebe, led off with a walk. Sending 10 batters to the plate, the Cardinals used four singles, three walks and some shoddy fielding by the Reds to score five runs in the first.

Then it was time for Taft to depart. He didn’t miss any suspense. The Cardinals scored seven runs in the third and cruised to a 12-3 triumph. Boxscore

The Browns led, 1-0, when Taft entered Sportsman’s Park in the third inning while Terry Turner was at bat for Cleveland. The game was halted and the players lined up to greet Taft as he walked past. Ten box seat sections were reserved for Taft and his entourage. Taft was provided a special chair, with ample width, on which to sit, the Globe-Democrat reported.

Most of the 4,200 spectators gave Taft an ovation before he settled in to watch the game. The Browns’ pitcher was Joe Lake, a Brooklyn native and former dockworker. Cy Young, 37, pitched for Cleveland.

The score still was 1-0 when Taft prepared to leave after the top of the fifth. As the president was exiting, Browns pitcher Rube Waddell, the eccentric former Athletics ace described by the Society for American Baseball Research as having “the intellectual and emotional maturity of a child,” ran to Taft and offered his hand. “Taft shook it heartily,” the Globe-Democrat reported.

Taft was in his suite at the Hotel Jefferson by 5 p.m. Meanwhile, the Browns kept playing. With the score tied, 3-3, the game was halted after 14 innings because of darkness. Boxscore

At a banquet in the hotel that night, Taft feasted on lake trout, filet mignon and frozen pudding before addressing members of the Traffic Club, mostly railroad executives and representatives of other transportation industries.

When he finished, printed copies of songs were placed at every plate and guests were encouraged to sing along as the orchestra played popular tunes. “The president sang with especial gusto when ‘Has Anybody Seen Kelly?,’ ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame,’ ‘I’ve Got Rings On My Fingers, Bells On My Toes,’ and ‘Sun Bonnet Sue’” were rendered, the Globe-Democrat reported.

Then Taft was driven to Union Station, where he boarded his private railroad car attached to a Baltimore & Ohio train. When the train departed for Washington, D.C., at 1:45 a.m., Taft was sound asleep.

Posted in Executives, Games | 11 Comments »

Extra-special: Jim Bottomley was extra-base hit specialist

October 17, 2025 by retrosimba

Though it is a franchise that has benefitted from hitters the likes of Stan Musial, Rogers Hornsby, Albert Pujols, Lou Brock and Enos Slaughter, the Cardinals have had only one player achieve 20 doubles, 20 triples and 20 home runs in a season: Jim Bottomley.

A left-handed batter whose stroke regularly produced highly elevated line drives, Bottomley totaled 42 doubles, 20 triples and 31 home runs in 1928, the year he earned the National League Most Valuable Player Award and helped the Cardinals win their second pennant.

Bottomley is one of seven players in the 20-20-20 club. The others are Frank Schulte (1911 Cubs), Jeff Heath (1941 Indians), Willie Mays (1957 Giants), George Brett (1979 Royals), Curtis Granderson (2007 Tigers) and Jimmy Rollins (2007 Phillies). Schulte, Mays, Granderson and Rollins also had 20 stolen bases in the seasons in which they produced 20 doubles, 20 triples and 20 home runs.

Finding his footing

In 1916, when Bottomley was 16, he quit high school in Nokomis (Ill.) and worked as a truck driver, grocery clerk, railroad clerk and blacksmith’s apprentice while also playing semipro baseball, according to the Associated Press. His father and brother were coal miners. The brother was killed in a mine accident.

“I know how hard that kind of work was on my father and how much my mother worried about it,” Bottomley later told The Sporting News. “When I went into baseball, it was a choice of making good at that or returning to the mines. It hardly was any choice at all.”

A policeman saw Bottomley hit two home runs and three triples in a local game and told Cardinals manager Branch Rickey he should give Bottomley a look. In the meantime, Bottomley wrote to Rickey and asked for a tryout. Cardinals scout Charley Barrett was sent to watch Bottomley play and was impressed.

In early fall of 1919, Bottomley, 19, was summoned to St. Louis so that Rickey could see him perform. Rickey sought prospects for the farm system he was starting to build.

Bottomley’s introduction to the big city was expensive. Unsure how to get to Robison Field, he hailed a taxi when he arrived at the bus station. The driver charged him more than $4 to go to the ballpark, according to the Brooklyn Eagle.

When Bottomley reported to the field, Rickey hardly could believe what he saw. The first baseman wore shoes half a dozen sizes too large for him. The shoes curled up at the toes and had spikes nailed to the front. The Brooklyn Eagle described them as Charlie Chaplin clown shoes. Bottomley tripped over the bag, falling on his face and then on his back.

“I told Charley Barrett this fellow could never do it because his feet were too big,” Rickey recalled to the Brooklyn newspaper, “but Barrett declared his feet were all right. It was that pair of shoes.”

In the book “The Spirit of St. Louis,” Rickey said, “Bottomley, properly shod, had the grace and reflexes of a great performer.”

The Cardinals signed Bottomley for $150 a month and arranged for him to report to the minors in 1920.

Man of the people

Bottomley gave the Cardinals a big return on their modest investment. Called up to the majors in August 1922, he became their first baseman. He hit .371 in 1923 and the next year drove in 12 runs in a game against the Dodgers. Boxscore

Using a choked grip on a heavy bat, Bottomley drove in more than 110 runs six seasons in a row (1924-29), and hit better than .300 in nine of his 11 years with the Cardinals. (In the other two years, he hit .299 and .296.)

When he was Cardinals manager, Rogers Hornsby told United Press, “I’d rather see Jim Bottomley at the plate when a run is badly needed than any other player I could name.”

Bottomley “was the best clutch hitter I ever saw,” Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch said to the New York Times.

Nicknamed Sunny Jim _ “He has a disposition that refuses to see the gray outside of the clouds of life,” Harold Burr of the Brooklyn Eagle noted _ Bottomley was a fan favorite, especially with the Knothole Gang kids and the Ladies Day crowds.

“Cap perched jauntily over his left eye, the smiling Bottomley walked with a slow swagger that was as much a trademark as his heavy hitting,” Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted.

Bottomley was a bachelor during his playing days with the Cardinals. (In 1933, he married Betty Brawner, who operated a beauty salon in the Missouri Theater building in St. Louis.) Cardinals bachelors stayed at a hotel in the West End of St. Louis during Bottomley’s time. According to The Sporting News, “There every night you could see Jim and his cohorts seated in chairs out in front of the hotel, holding court with the fans.”

Gold standard

Of Bottomley’s 187 hits in 1928, roughly half (93) were for extra bases. His 362 total bases led the league.

Dodgers pitcher Rube Ehrhardt told the Brooklyn Eagle, “Bottomley is a great slugger … He pulls a ball to right field by a combination of strength, wrist snap and perfect timing.”

By June 1928, Bottomley had his 20th double of the season, and his 20th homer came the next month. All he needed were 20 triples to become baseball’s second 20-20-20 player. Entering September with 14 triples, Bottomley made his run for the mark.

He hit a triple at Cincinnati on Sept. 2, then got triples in three consecutive home games _ Sept. 9 versus the Pirates and Sept. 10-11 against the Reds. His 19th triple came Sept. 22 at the Polo Grounds versus the Giants.

On Sept. 29 at Boston, the Cardinals went into the next-to-last game of the season with a 94-58 record, two games ahead of the Giants (92-60). A win would clinch the pennant.

Leading off the game for the Cardinals, Taylor Douthit hit a slow roller to second. Braves player-manager Rogers Hornsby tried to scoop it, but the ball trickled between his legs and into right field for a two-base error. After a Frankie Frisch single scored Douthit, Bottomley drove a pitch from ex-Cardinals teammate Art Delaney into right-center. Eddie Brown, the center fielder, reached for it, but the ball caromed off his glove and hit the bleacher wall. Frisch scored and Bottomley streaked into third with his 20th triple. Chick Hafey followed with a sacrifice fly, scoring Bottomley, and the Cardinals went on to a 3-1 pennant-clinching win. Boxscore

For the season, Bottomley hit .325, scored 123 runs and drove in 136. He had a .402 on-base mark and a .628 slugging percentage. Bottomley batted .359 with runners in scoring position.

“Bottomley is the Lou Gehrig type _ a hustler, carefree, great in the pinches,” Yankees pitcher Waite Hoyt told North American Newspaper Alliance.

(Bottomley clouted a home run versus Hoyt in Game 1 of the 1928 World Series at Yankee Stadium. He also was credited with a triple in Game 3 at St. Louis when Yankees center fielder Cedric Durst took several steps toward the ball, then futilely tried to turn back as it sailed over his head. Boxscore)

For being named National League MVP by the Baseball Writers Association of America, league president John Heydler awarded Bottomley $1,000 in gold.

The league and the Cardinals arranged for the prize to be given before a game against the Phillies at St. Louis on June 8, 1929. Because of Bottomley’s popularity with youngsters, Cardinals owner Sam Breadon invited girls and boys of school age to attend the Saturday afternoon game for free.

A total of 12,806 youths _ 9,643 boys and 3,163 girls _ attended. “They packed the upper and lower decks of the left wing of the grandstand and overflowed into the bleachers and pavilion,” the Post-Dispatch reported. Paid attendance was 7,000, putting the total number of spectators at 19,806.

Before the game, Bottomley tossed many baseballs to youngsters in the stands. Then, in a ceremony at home plate, Heydler gave Bottomley $1,000 worth of $5 gold coins in a canvas sack.

During the game, “all available paper was made into schoolroom airplanes and sailed out into the field” by the urchins, the Post-Dispatch noted. Bottomley produced two hits, including a triple, and the Cardinals beat Phillies starter Phil Collins like a drum, winning, 7-2. Boxscore

Posted in Games, Hitters, Records | 14 Comments »

Bobby Tiefenauer made his best pitch and got hitched

October 10, 2025 by retrosimba

In September 1950, Bobby Tiefenauer was young, successful and in love.

A 20-year-old reliever for a Cardinals farm club in Winston-Salem, N.C., Tiefenauer threw a knuckleball that had batters swinging at air. His manager, George Kissell, credited him with making his team the best in the league.

Tiefenauer’s No. 1 fan was his sweetheart back home in the mining district of Missouri. Rosemarie Henson agreed to marry the pitcher at home plate before a game at Winston-Salem. The wedding date was set for Sept. 5, 1950.

On the morning of the big day, the ballclub’s business manager, Bill Bergesch, accompanied the couple to the county clerk’s office to obtain a marriage license. That’s when Bergesch learned the bride was 17. “We almost missed having this wedding,” Bergesch later told the Winston-Salem Sentinel.

Because Rosemarie was younger than 18, she needed the written consent of her parents in order for a license to be issued, the county clerk said. Rosemarie’s mother, who was in town for the wedding, promptly gave her consent, but dad was back in Missouri, working in a mine, the Sentinel reported.

The clerk said if the father could send a telegram of consent by 5 p.m. that day, the wedding could be held that night as scheduled at Southside Park. Frantic calls were made to Missouri. As the clock ticked, Bergesch paced the floor. “One might have thought he was the groom,” Carlton Byrd of the Sentinel observed.

A few minutes before 5, the father’s telegram arrived and the license was issued. “It was close, but we made it,” Bergesch told the Sentinel.

The couple rushed to the ballpark for the 7:30 p.m. ceremony. A total of 3,050 spectators came out. Tiefenauer had wanted the wedding held at home plate so that all his teammates could be present, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. He also made a request to George Kissell: The groom wanted to pitch in the game that night against the Burlington (N.C.) Bees.

The bride was dressed in a satin gown. Her matron of honor was Kissell’s wife. Tiefenauer wore a suit. The Rev. Mark Q. Tuttle, a Methodist pastor, officiated. After the service, “the couple moved under an archway of bats held by members of the Winston-Salem and Burlington teams,” the Journal reported.

The game began at 8:15. In the sixth inning, Kissell honored Tiefenauer’s request, sending him in to pitch. Tiefenauer’s mind may have been on other things. He faced five batters, plunking one with a pitch, walking another and giving up three hits, before being lifted.

Though his pitching that night was a dud, Tiefenauer’s marriage was a winner. It lasted for 50 years until his death in 2000.

No quit

Tiefenauer was from Desloge, 65 miles south of St. Louis and in an area of Missouri where mining of lead and zinc had been prominent. His high school didn’t have a baseball team, so Tiefenauer played sandlot ball and softball. A prep basketball talent, he got offers to play in college, but dreamed of pro baseball.

In the summer of 1947, after graduating from high school, Tiefenauer, 17, attended a Cardinals tryout camp in St. Louis and was signed to a pro contract. The club told him to report to minor-league spring training at Albany, Ga., in 1948. When he got there, however, he failed to impress and was sent home.

While playing softball, Tiefenauer found he could make his overhand throws around the infield move like a knuckler. He tried it with a baseball, too, with encouraging results. That summer of 1948, Tiefenauer, 18, went to a Cardinals tryout camp at Fredericktown, Mo., and told scout Joe Monahan he’d developed a knuckleball pitch. Monahan liked what he saw and signed him.

The Cardinals sent the teen to a Class D farm club in Tallassee, an Alabama cotton mill town on the Tallapoosa River in the Emerald Mountains. Tiefenauer returned there for a full season in 1949 and won 17. That earned him the promotion to Winston-Salem for 1950.

Dipsy-doo

The Winston-Salem club managed by George Kissell featured pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell and second baseman Earl Weaver. Even at 19, Weaver was feuding with umpires the way he would years later as Orioles manager. In describing a Weaver plate appearance to the Winston-Salem Sentinel, Kissell said in 1950, “He really stands up there and talks to those umpires. He had a strike called on him on a bad pitch and he really squawked.”

Kissell chose Tiefenauer to be his top reliever, in part, because the knuckleballer could work multiple games in a row. It was a wise decision. Tiefenauer consistently secured wins for the team by baffling batters with the knuckler.

Fayetteville (N.C.) manager Mule Haas, the former outfielder who played in three World Series for the Philadelphia Athletics, said to the Sentinel, “I’ve seen a lot of guys who throw that dipsy-doo stuff, but this kid (Tiefenauer) has the stuff to become the best (knuckleballer) I’ve seen.”

Carolina League umpire Johnny Allen, a former big-league pitcher, told Kissell he’d never seen anyone throw a more effective knuckleball than Tiefenauer.

Kissell said to the Winston-Salem Journal, “If his first pitch is a strike, the batter had better look out, because he’s not going to see anything but those knucklers. I saw him make one pitch that dropped two feet just as it started across the plate.”

The bravest members of the Winston-Salem team were the catchers tasked with corralling Tiefenauer’s knuckleball. Bullpen catcher Preston Shepherd didn’t wear any protective face covering when he took Tiefenauer’s warmup throws because the team’s only catcher’s mask was worn by the starter.

“Preston Shepherd is now insisting we buy him a mask to wear in the bullpen,” Kissell said to the Journal. “The other night he got hit in the eye by one of Tiefenauer’s knucklers. He swears the ball hopped right over his mitt.”

Even with a mask, one of Winston-Salem’s regular catchers, Willie Osteen, told the Sentinel, “I sure hate to call for his knuckleball with runners on base. I’m afraid I can’t catch the ball.”

Winston-Salem won the league championship with a 106-47 record. Tiefenauer won 16, but Kissell said the reliever contributed to 50 of the team’s wins. “Bobby was certainly the key to the pennant,” Kissell told the Journal.

Reidsville (N.C.) manager Herb Brett said to the newspaper, “Tiefenauer is the difference between a championship team and a second-division club … A lot of those victories chalked up to other pitchers (were) saved by his relief pitching.”

More work, the better

Tiefenauer went on to have many more excellent seasons in the minors, including for 1953 Rochester (9-3, 2.31 ERA), 1958 Toronto (17-5, 1.89), 1960 Rochester (11-4, 3.14) and 1967 Portland (6-1, 1.87).

The major leagues were a different story. Tiefenauer’s record was 9-25 (including 1-4 for the Cardinals), with 23 saves. Usually, he didn’t get to pitch a lot and his control suffered.

For example, his three stints with the Cardinals:

_ 1952: Eight innings, 12 hits allowed, seven walks.

_ 1955: 32.2 innings, 31 hits, 10 walks.

_ 1961: 4.1 innings, nine hits, four walks.

“I just need a lot of work,” Tiefenauer told the St. Louis Globe-Democrat in March 1955. “When I do pitch often, I can get the knuckler over.”

Tiefenauer’s most productive time in the majors came in a stretch with the Milwaukee Braves. Brought up from the minors in mid-August, he had a 1.21 ERA in 29.2 innings for Milwaukee in 1963. Tiefenauer spent all of 1964 with the Braves, pitched 73 innings and led them in saves (13).

The next year, though, another knuckleball pitcher, rookie Phil Niekro, arrived in the Braves’ bullpen and Tiefenauer was shipped to the Yankees (whose manager, Johnny Keane, had him in the Cardinals’ system).

At the plate, Tiefenauer had trouble making solid contact regardless of what pitch was thrown. In 39 at-bats in the majors, he had one hit _ a double versus the Giants’ Jack Sanford, a 24-game winner that year. Boxscore

Overcoming adversity

Tiefenauer didn’t discourage easily. He persevered through setbacks more dire than roster demotions or transfers.

In early May 1957, Tiefenauer arranged for his wife Rosemarie and their three sons to leave their house in Desloge and join him for the summer in Toronto while he pitched for the minor-league Maple Leafs there.

A couple of weeks later, a tornado “cut a path of havoc six blocks wide” through Desloge, the Associated Press reported. The twister lifted Tiefenauer’s two-story white frame house off its foundation and moved it 200 feet into the middle of the street, the Globe-Democrat reported. One side of the house was blown out.

Tiefenauer said the tornado also took the roof off his parents’ house and his mother was knocked unconscious when struck by falling boards, the Associated Press reported. O.M. McLeod, a miner who watched the tornado hit Desloge, told the wire service it sounded like “a steam engine with burned out bearings pulling a string of freight cars.”

Two years later, Tiefenauer was at 1959 spring training with the Cleveland Indians when he injured his right arm practicing pickoff throws. He went home to Desloge and sat out the entire season.

At one point that summer, Cleveland general manager Frank Lane asked Cardinals trainer Bob Bauman to examine Tiefenauer’s arm. Bauman discovered the pitcher had circulatory trouble. “My arm started to come around after he worked on it,” Tiefenauer told The Sporting News.

Tiefenauer resumed pitching in 1960 and continued to play in the pros until 1969, the year he turned 40. After that, Tiefenauer worked for many years as a pitching coach in the Phillies’ system. He also was the bullpen coach for the 1979 Phillies on manager Danny Ozark’s staff.

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Prospects | 8 Comments »

Tick-tock: How Bama Rowell made time stand still

October 6, 2025 by retrosimba

Nearly 40 years before the 1984 movie “The Natural” transformed fictional baseball character Roy Hobbs into a pop culture icon, Bama Rowell of the Boston Braves did what Hollywood screenwriters only could imagine.

On May 30, 1946, in the second game of an afternoon doubleheader against the Dodgers, Rowell launched a towering drive to right. The ball struck the Bulova clock high atop the scoreboard at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, shattering the dial’s neon tubing and showering right fielder Dixie Walker with falling glass. As the New York Times put it, “The clock spattered minutes all over the place.”

In the film version of “The Natural,” Roy Hobbs, portrayed by actor Robert Redford, clouted a ball into the outfield lights, sending an explosion of sparks into the night. Hobbs’ walkoff home run clinched the pennant for the fictitious New York Knights. Movie clip

(In Bernard Malamud’s superior 1952 novel “The Natural,” Hobbs strikes out.)

Bama Rowell’s clock-shattering shot was a ground-rule double, not a home run, and it came in the second inning for a team on its way to a fourth-place finish in an eight-team league.

Good hit, no field

Carvel William Rowell was from Citronelle, Alabama. Once the territory of the Chickasaw tribe, the town was named for the citronella grass prevalent in the area. Citronella oil is a popular insect repellent.

A high school and semipro pitcher, Rowell also was a prep football, basketball and track standout. He accepted a football scholarship to Louisiana State University, but before he had a chance to play for the varsity, he signed a pro baseball contract, according to the Mobile (Ala.) Register.

Because he could hit, Rowell was converted into a second baseman in the minors, but fielding was a struggle. Playing in the Dodgers’ system in 1938, he made 64 errors _ 12 in 17 games with Winston-Salem and 52 in 114 games with Dayton.

After the season, baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis declared Rowell a free agent on a technicality. (His transfer from Winston-Salem to Dayton hadn’t been filed properly.)

Despite his fielding woes, the Boston Braves were impressed by the .310 batting mark, 30 doubles and 23 stolen bases Rowell produced for Dayton. Jocko Munch, a Braves representative, handed him a wad of 20 $50 bills. Rowell pocketed the $1,000 and signed with Boston.

Sent to minor-league Hartford in 1939, Rowell became an outfielder. He still couldn’t cope with balls that bounced his way. In desperation, he tried dropping to a knee. “You’re using the wrong knee,” outfielder Johnny Cooney told him. According to the Boston Globe, Rowell replied, “I knowed something was wrong.”

His Hartford teammates hung the Bama nickname on him. “They used to kid me about being from Alabama and the name happened to stick,” Rowell told the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Casey takes a chance

Called up to Boston in September 1939, Rowell made 14 outfield starts. Early in the 1940 season, Boston manager Casey Stengel moved Sibby Sisti from second to third and put Rowell at second base.

(In a serendipitous twist, Sisti went on to have a role as the Pittsburgh manager in the film, “The Natural.”)

Stengel was well aware of Rowell’s shortcomings as a fielder (“The ball runs up his arm and you expect it to jump in a pocket like a little white rat,” Stengel told Harold Kaese of the Globe), but the manager took a liking to the rookie.

“The kid’s got a natural double play arm,” Stengel said to the Dayton Journal Herald. “He can whip that ball right across his chin while pivoting … He’s fast and he hustles … I’d like to see him make it. He’s a good kid.”

Rowell committed 30 errors during the 1940 season, but hit .305. In a June game against the Cardinals, he had three hits and three errors. In another game versus St. Louis in September, he drove in six runs. Boxscore and Boxscore

“He’s one of the best hitters in the National League,” Cardinals pitcher Lon Warneke told the Globe in August 1940. “He hasn’t got the power some other hitters have, but there isn’t anybody in our league that’s any tougher to get out.”

Rowell followed up with 60 RBI for Boston in 1941 (the team leader had 68) but made 40 errors at second base.

On Dec. 4, 1941, three days before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Rowell was inducted into the U.S. Army. He served in artillery duty during World War II and missed four baseball seasons before he was discharged from the military in October 1945.

Stop a clock

When Rowell returned to the Braves at 1946 spring training, Casey Stengel was gone and Billy Southworth was the manager. Southworth joined Boston after leading the Cardinals to three consecutive National League pennants and two World Series titles.

Southworth shifted Rowell, 30, from second base to the outfield. A left-handed batter, Rowell played primarily against right-handed pitchers. Southworth tried him in the fourth, second and fifth spots in the batting order. Then, for the May 30 doubleheader at Brooklyn, Rowell was put in the leadoff position.

In the opener, Rowell went hitless against Kirby Higbe. Boxscore

A rookie, Hank Behrman, started Game 2 for Brooklyn. Rowell led off by grounding out. In the second, with the score tied at 2-2, Boston had runners on first and third, one out, when Rowell came to the plate again.

Ebbets Field was packed with 35,484 spectators, the Dodgers’ largest home crowd of 1946. (Years later, the New York Times, noting Bernard Malamud was a Brooklynite “who haunted Ebbets Field as a youth,” pondered whether he was at the game and whether his experiences there reflected any scenes he wrote in “The Natural.”)

Behrman gave Rowell a pitch to his liking and he lofted it toward the scoreboard. It was common for batters to smack balls off the scoreboard in the Ebbets Field bandbox, but none had soared into the Bulova clock since it was installed atop the scoreboard in 1941.

Rowell’s drive smacked into the clock at 4:25 p.m. Because the scoreboard was in play, Rowell’s blast was a ground-rule double. It drove in the go-ahead run and knocked Behrman from the game.

“The clock continued to run for an hour, but stopped when the hand reached the spot that Bama’s ball had hit,” The Sporting News reported.

Bulova had promised a watch to any batter who hit the clock. Forty-one years later, in 1987, while doing research for a magazine article about home runs, sports reporter Bert Sugar read about Rowell’s smash off the Ebbets Field clock. When he tracked down Rowell, 71, in Citronelle, Alabama, the ex-ballplayer told him, “I never did get no watch.”

Sugar contacted Bulova officials and told them about the oversight. After persistent pestering from Sugar, a Bulova representative presented Rowell a watch in a ceremony in Rowell’s hometown on July 28, 1987. Boxscore

Clock runs out

A back ailment hampered Rowell in 1946. “It got so bad at one time that he couldn’t bend over to pick up a groundball,” the Globe reported.

The next year, platooning again in the outfield, he made 12 errors in left. At spring training in 1948, Rowell went to the Dodgers in the trade that brought Eddie Stanky to Boston. Stanky helped the Braves become National League champions in 1948. Rowell spent a few days with the Dodgers, who decided to send him to minor-league Montreal. When Rowell objected to the demotion, the Dodgers moved him to the Phillies.

The 1948 season was Rowell’s last in the majors. During his time in the National League, he hit .381 against Carl Hubbell, clouted home runs versus Johnny Vander Meer and Lon Warneke, smacked five hits in a game against the Phillies and three doubles in a game versus the Cubs, but, for pure drama, nothing topped his clock-smashing shot in Brooklyn.

Posted in Games, Hitters | 7 Comments »

How baseball played a part in the life of Robert Redford

September 30, 2025 by retrosimba

In Bernard Malamud’s novel, “The Natural,” the central character, Roy Hobbs, wears baseball uniform No. 45. In the movie version, though, his number is 9.

The decision to switch from No. 45 to No. 9 was made by Robert Redford, the actor who portrayed Hobbs in the 1984 film. Redford did it to honor his favorite ballplayer, Ted Williams, who wore No. 9 for the Red Sox.

“When I was growing up, the only real hero I ever had was Ted Williams,” Redford told Esquire magazine in 1988.

An actor, director and producer, as well as an ardent environmentalist, Redford had leading roles in several quality movies, including “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), “The Candidate” (1972), “The Sting” (1973), “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) and “All the President’s Men” (1976). He won an Academy Award for best director in the first feature film he directed, “Ordinary People” (1980). Redford was 89 when he died on Sept. 16, 2025.

Books, art and baseball

Redford’s father, Charles, and mother, Martha, were married three months after he was born in Santa Monica, Calif. His father was a milkman and the family resided in an ethnically diverse neighborhood. “We weren’t impoverished, but we were on the lower end of things,” Redford recalled to Esquire in 2017.

As a youth, “Redford spent hours in the children’s section at the local library where he became fascinated with books on Greek and Roman mythology,” according to CNN.

(In explaining his vision for “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” the 2000 sports fantasy movie he directed, Redford told the Los Angeles Times, “The library is where I got this mythology.”)

Redford’s other boyhood interests included drawing (“In class, under the table, I would draw because I was bored,” he told Esquire) and baseball.

“I loved Ted Williams,” Redford told the Denver Post in 1986. “What I loved most was that he was good and had that arrogance because he knew he was good.”

Redford played youth baseball _ “I wanted to be a professional ballplayer,” he said to the Boston Globe in 2016 _ and, like Ted Williams, he batted left-handed.

Until he was 14, Redford spent summers in Austin, Texas, where his maternal grandfather had a place on a lake, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Meanwhile, Redford’s father, seeking a better income, became an accountant and moved the family to suburban Van Nuys in California’s San Fernando Valley. Redford found Van Nuys to be conformist and dull.

“When we moved to the Valley, I felt like I was being tossed into quicksand,” Redford recalled to the Los Angeles Times in 1997. “There was no culture. It was very oppressive. I would have preferred the Hispanic neighborhood I grew up in.”

(Redford told Joanne Stang of the New York Times in 1966, “I really loved Los Angeles when I was growing up _ the tar streets and all the space _ but, each time I’ve come back, there have been a few more developments and a few more supermarket complexes … Finally there was no resemblance to what I knew as a kid, so I don’t feel any connection to it now, and that’s sad.”)

At Van Nuys High School, Redford was a classmate of Don Drysdale, the future Hall of Fame pitcher. Van Nuys won San Fernando Valley League championships in each of Drysdale’s three varsity seasons. Later, when Redford became famous, some published reports incorrectly suggested he and Drysdale had been baseball teammates. Jim Heffer, a pitcher on those Van Nuys title teams, said Redford never played for the Van Nuys varsity. “I never once saw Redford so much as with a glove in his hand,” Heffer told the Los Angeles Times in 1993.

Young and restless

Another myth involving Redford and baseball relates to his days as a student at the University of Colorado. Contrary to many published reports, Redford didn’t go there on a baseball scholarship. “We have no evidence to suggest that he received a baseball scholarship or ever played on the baseball team here,” University of Colorado athletic department spokesman Steve Hurlbert told Mitchell Byars of Axios Boulder in September 2025.

In 1966, Redford said to the New York Times, “I really went to Colorado to ski and be in the mountains, which I love. I told everybody at home I intended to be a lawyer to get them off my neck. I took a liberal arts course, then just art, and my grades fell apart.”

Redford spent most of his college days (and nights) partying. “I wasn’t ready to be a student,” he told the Associated Press in 1987. “(Colorado) was definitely known as a party school. The temptations were great.”

In 1955, late in his freshman year, Redford’s mother died of a blood disorder associated with the birth of twin girls, who lived only a short while. According to the New York Times, “her death left him angry and disillusioned.”

“I felt betrayed by God,” Redford recalled to biographer Michael Feeney Callan.

In 2017, Redford told Michael Hainey of Esquire, “My mom felt I could do anything. She was the only one who told me that, the one who really did believe that I was going to do things. She encouraged me to constantly be opened up. I took it all for granted as a teenager. When she died … the regret that I had was that I couldn’t thank her.”

Redford quit college during his sophomore year in 1956. (Twenty-one years later, at a University of Colorado commencement, Redford was given an honorary degree, citing his establishment of a nonprofit educational enterprise, the Sundance Institute in Provo Canyon, Utah, devoted to the arts. His father, Charles, attended the ceremony. According to Scripps Howard News Service, Redford held the degree over his head, “smiling broadly, with both fists clenched in triumph,” and said it was “certainly every bit as important as the Oscar.”)

After dropping out of college, Redford worked in a California oil refinery until he earned enough money to head to Europe, where he hoped to become a painter.

“I was in Cannes and I was hitchhiking and I couldn’t afford a room,” Redford recalled to Esquire. “I was sleeping underneath a pier, in a sleeping bag, and in the daytime I’d walk the streets. I met this older woman. She must have been 20 years older than me. She ran a little shop. We became friends and then we got extremely close. So I lived there for a while.”

In Paris, according to the New York Times, Redford sold sidewalk sketches for pocket money. In Florence, he made $200 from a show of canvases and used the cash to make his way to New York. Redford briefly attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, intending to be a set designer. A friend recommended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts as a place to learn about the theater. Redford went there and took up acting.

Parts in television and on Broadway led to Redford being cast in film. A breakthrough was co-starring with Jane Fonda in “Barefoot in the Park” (1967). Redford’s good looks helped get him roles. According to the Los Angeles Times, though, he turned down the lead in 1967’s “The Graduate” because “nobody will believe I am a 21-year-old college student who never got laid.”

Hollywood treatment

Redford was 47 when filming for “The Natural” took place in 1983. War Memorial Stadium in Buffalo was the site of many of the film’s baseball scenes.

Gene Kirby, a baseball consultant for the movie, recalled to the New York Times, “Getting ready for a scene to be shot in the rain, Redford came onto the field, escorted by an assistant holding a large umbrella over his head. I was standing alongside the camera at second base. As he approached me, he looked over and said, ‘I’ll bet Ted Williams never came onto the ballfield this way.’ ”

Former Cardinals minor-leaguer Tony Ferrara, batting practice pitcher for the Mets and Yankees, had a bit part in the film. “I did all the pitching to Robert Redford, who was a good hitter,” Ferrara told Dave Anderson of the New York Times. “His idol was Ted Williams and he stood up there like Ted Williams, with the bat straight up. I knew where and how he liked the ball … He hit a few out on me.”

Redford had hoped Williams would join him on the set.

“When I was making ‘The Natural,’ I tried to get hold of him,” Redford said to Mike Barnicle of Esquire in 1988. “I wanted to make that movie with him. I wanted to make it in Fenway Park and wear Williams’ No. 9. I wanted to shoot the last scene there … the home run … the lights exploding … me wearing No. 9. God, I would have gotten out of the business after that. That would’ve been a career for me.”

Redford told the Boston Globe that when he invited Williams to watch the filming, Williams, in turn, invited him to go fly-fishing, but Redford said he “never had the pleasure” of following up on the offer. Redford and Williams never met.

(Describing himself as a lifelong Red Sox fan, Redford told the Globe in 2016, “I had the joy of my life a few years ago when I sat behind the catcher at Fenway and they beat the Yankees.”)

Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel, “The Natural,” was inspired by a 1949 incident involving Phillies first baseman Eddie Waitkus, who was shot in the chest by a deranged admirer, 19-year-old Ruth Steinhagen, in a Chicago hotel room. New York Times reviewer Harry Sylvester hailed Malamud’s work as “a brilliant and unusual book.”

Unlike the novel, the 1984 movie, “The Natural,” was Hollywood hokum. As the Times noted, the movie had “a happy, even exalted, ending for its baseball hero instead of the author’s profoundly pessimistic and sardonic conclusion.”

Times movie critic Vincent Canby wrote that the filmmakers “transform something dark and open-ended … into something eccentricly sentimental.” Movie clip

American audiences, naturally, lapped up the sappiness. “The Natural” grossed $48 million in the United States and the film became part of baseball lore. Several props from the movie, including the complete Roy Hobbs uniform and his bats, “Wonder Boy” and “Savoy Special,” were donated to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Posted in Hitters | 16 Comments »

American idol: George Sisler versus Walter Johnson

September 26, 2025 by retrosimba

When Walter Johnson emerged from the California oil fields to become the fireballing ace of the American League with the Washington Senators, he caught the attention of an Akron, Ohio, high schooler, George Sisler.

In the book “My Greatest Day in Baseball,” Sisler recalled to Lyall Smith, “Walter still is my idea of the real baseball player. He was graceful. He had rhythm and when he heaved that ball in to the plate, he threw with his whole body so easy-like that you’d think the ball was flowing off his arm and hand … I was so crazy about the man that I’d read every line and keep every picture of him I could get my hands on.”

Though first base became his featured position, Sisler took up pitching in high school, and at the University of Michigan, because of his admiration for Johnson.

In June 1915, after graduating from Michigan with a degree in mechanical engineering, Sisler signed with the St. Louis Browns, who were managed by his former Michigan baseball coach, Branch Rickey.

On his way to developing into one of the most prolific hitters in baseball, Sisler also pitched for the Browns in 1915 and again in 1916. Matched against his favorite player, Sisler outperformed Johnson _ twice.

Good investment

After Sisler’s sophomore season at Michigan, Rickey left to join the Browns. Batting and throwing left-handed, Sisler continued to excel as a first baseman, outfielder and pitcher as a junior and senior. In “My Greatest Day in Baseball,” Sisler recalled, “All this time I was up at school, I still had my sights set on Walter Johnson … I felt as though I had adopted him … He was really getting the headlines in those days and I was keeping all of them in my scrapbook.”

In Sisler’s final game for Michigan, on June 23, 1915, against Penn, he had three hits and five stolen bases, including a steal of home. With his collegiate career complete, Rickey gave Sisler $10,000 and brought him from campus to the Browns. “In getting Sisler, I staked a lot,” Rickey told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I plunged for the first time in my life and I believe I made no mistake.”

Rickey planned to play Sisler at first base, all three outfield positions and as a pitcher. As the Associated Press noted, Sisler “combined incredible speed (on the field) with remarkable coordination, a great arm and unusual intelligence.”

“My, but he was fast,” Rickey told the wire service, referring to Sisler’s agility. “He was lightning fast and graceful, effortless. His reflexes were unbelievable. His movements were so fast you simply couldn’t keep up with what he was doing. You knew what happened only when you saw the ball streak through the air.”

On June 28, 1915, at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Sisler, 22, made his big-league debut. He pinch-hit in the sixth and singled, then stayed in the game and pitched three scoreless innings against the White Sox. Boxscore

“Next day, I was warming up when Rickey came over to me,” Sisler recalled to the Associated Press. “He was carrying a first baseman’s glove.”

“Here,” Rickey said to Sisler, “put this on and get over there to first base.”

Batting in the No. 3 spot, Sisler got a hit, scored a run and fielded flawlessly, making 12 putouts at first. Boxscore

“Rickey would pitch me one day, stick me in the outfield the next and then put me over on first the next three or four,” Sisler said to the Associated Press.

The rookie went on to make 33 starts at first, 26 starts in the outfield and pitched in 15 games, including eight as a starter. His pitching record was 4-4 with a 2.83 ERA and he hit .285, including .341 with runners in scoring position.

Sisler won his first start as a pitcher, a complete game against Cleveland, even though he walked nine, allowed seven hits and plunked a batter. (Cleveland stranded 14 runners.) At Fenway Park in Boston, he got a hit against Babe Ruth and had two RBI and two stolen bases in the game. Boxscore and Boxscore

The season highlight, though, was his duel with Walter Johnson.

Hero worship

On Aug. 28, 1915, after the Browns beat the Senators, 2-1, in 12 innings at St. Louis, Rickey told Sisler he’d be the starting pitcher against Walter Johnson the next day, Sunday, at Sportsman’s Park.

In “My Greatest Day in Baseball,” Sisler said, “I went back to my hotel that night but I couldn’t eat. I was really nervous. I went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. At 4 a.m. I was tossing and rolling around and finally got up and just sat there, waiting for daylight and the big game.”

Johnson entered the contest with a 20-12 record and 1.73 ERA. Sisler was 3-3 with a 2.40 ERA and a batting mark of .301.

“It was one of those typical August days in St. Louis,” Sisler recalled to Lyall Smith, “and when game time finally rolled around it was so hot that the sweat ran down your face even when you were standing in the shadow of the stands.

“All the time I was warming up I’d steal a look over at Johnson in the Washington bullpen. When he’d stretch way out and throw a fastball, I’d try to do the same. Even when I went to the dugout just before the game started, I was still watching him as he signed autographs and laughed with the photographers and writers.”

On the mound, Sisler managed to stay calm, even when the Senators scored a run in the first. Johnson gave up two tallies in the second and then both pitchers got into good grooves.

The first time Johnson batted against Sisler he blooped a single to right. In the fifth, Johnson plunked Sisler with a pitch. Three innings later, Sisler blooped a single against his idol.

In the seventh, Chick Gandil “bounced a single off Sisler’s shins,” according to the Post-Dispatch. “The ball went from the bat to the pitcher’s shin bone on a line. When the contact of ball and bone was heard, the fans gasped. They thought Sisler surely had a broken leg. Sisler didn’t even investigate. He just kept on pitching and retired the next three men in order.”

Tricks of the trade

With the Browns clinging to the 2-1 lead, the key play came in the eighth. Leading off for the Senators, Ray Morgan reached first on an error but injured a leg on his way to the bag. Horace Milan, making his big-league debut, ran for Morgan. Danny Moeller bunted and first baseman Ivon Howard fielded the ball, then flipped it to second baseman Del Pratt, covering first, for the out. Milan moved to second.

With the sleight of hand of a magician, Pratt pretended to throw the ball to Sisler, but instead tucked it under his right arm and returned to his second base position. Milan didn’t notice that Pratt still had the ball. Neither did Senators manager Clark Griffith, who was coaching at first.

When Eddie Foster stepped to the plate, Griffith called out to Milan to take a longer lead off second, so he’d be better able to score on a hit. When Milan drifted far off the bag, keeping his eye on Sisler, Pratt dashed over and tagged out the startled rookie. A big Senators threat was thwarted by the hidden ball trick.

More drama followed in the ninth. With Howie Shanks on first and one out, Walter Johnson batted against Sisler. The Senators put on a hit-and-run play. As Shanks broke from first, Johnson scorched a liner but it rocketed directly to shortstop Doc Lavan, who snared the ball, then threw to first, catching Shanks well off the bag and completing the double play.

In a showdown with his idol, Sisler won. Boxscore

As Sisler left the field, he looked toward the Senators dugout, hoping to make eye contact with Johnson, but he’d already headed to the locker room. Recalling the moment in “My Greatest Day in Baseball,” Sisler said, “I don’t know what I expected to do if I had seen him. For a minute I thought maybe I’d go over and shake his hand and tell him that I was sorry I beat him, but I guess that was just the silly idea of a young kid who had just come face to face with his idol.”

Encore, encore!

The next year, Fielder Jones, who replaced Branch Rickey as Browns manager, used Sisler mostly at first base but he did make three pitching starts, including a rematch with Walter Johnson.

On Sunday, Sept. 17, 1916, at St. Louis, Sisler tossed his lone big-league shutout, beating Johnson and the Senators, 1-0. Sisler escaped several jams and benefited from some fielding gems.

In the first inning, the Senators got two singles, but one runner was out trying to stretch the hit into a double and the other was caught trying to steal second. In the third, the Senators loaded the bases with none out but couldn’t score.

The Browns got their run in the fifth when catcher Grover Hartley’s first hit in two weeks produced a RBI.

The play of the game occurred in the eighth. Ray Morgan led off for the Senators and belted a drive toward the flag pole in the deepest part of the Sportsman’s Park outfield. It had the look of a triple, maybe even an inside-the-park home run, but the Browns’ Cuban center fielder, Armando Marsans, gave chase.

“Going at full speed, with his back toward the diamond, Marsans made a leaping stab with his bare hand, just as the ball was sailing over his shoulder,” the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.

The Washington Post proclaimed it as “one of the most wonderful feats ever seen in any ballyard.”

The Senators applied more pressure in the ninth, putting two on with one out, but Browns shortstop Doc Lavan, described by the Post-Dispatch as “the gamest little gazelle in the game,” made two nifty fielding plays, ranging far to his left to turn potential infield hits into outs and preserving the win for Sisler. Boxscore

According to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in explaining how his pitching helped his hitting, Sisler said, “I used to stand on the mound, study the batter and wonder how I could fool him. Now when I am at the plate, I can more easily place myself in the pitcher’s position and figure what is passing through his mind.”

Hit man

Years later, Bob Broeg of the Post-Dispatch wrote, “Sisler drew more satisfaction from the two games he pitched (versus Johnson) than from all his batting, baserunning and fielding achievements.”

That’s no small statement because Sisler achieved several stellar feats, including:

_ Twice hitting better than .400 in a season _ .407 in 1920 and .420 in 1922.

_ Wielding a 42-ounce bat, Sisler totaled 257 hits in 1920. Only Ichiro Suzuki (262 in 2004) produced more.

_ Batting .340 for his career and totaling 2,812 hits. Sisler likely would have achieved 3,000 if he didn’t sit out the 1923 season because of a sinus infection that caused double vision.

_ Batting .337, with 60 hits, against Walter Johnson.

_ Four times leading the American League in stolen bases.

Ty Cobb called Sisler “the nearest thing to a perfect ballplayer,” according to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Sisler pitched in 24 games in the majors and was 5-6 with a 2.35 ERA. Cobb went 0-for-6 against him. In 111 innings, Sisler never allowed a home run.

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents, Pitchers | 19 Comments »

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