RetroSimba

Ernie Banks swung and missed in bid for elected office

August 25, 2025 by retrosimba

Whether trying to drive in a run against Bob Gibson or snare a Stan Musial line drive to stop a Cardinals rally, Ernie Banks often excelled on the baseball field. The rough-and-tumble arena of Chicago politics was quite a different matter.

In December 1962, a month before he turned 32, Banks said he would run as a Republican candidate in the election for 8th Ward alderman in Chicago. A two-time winner of the National League Most Valuable Player Award, the slugger said he planned to continue his playing career with the Cubs while serving as alderman.

Though popular in Chicago _ he was nicknamed Mr. Cub _ Banks soon learned that being liked didn’t necessarily translate into votes, even with fellow Republicans and certainly not against a Democrat-controlled organization run by machine boss Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Mean streets

Banks’ desire to run for local office may have stemmed from an incident that occurred at his Chicago home.

On July 1, 1962, a bullet was fired through a window of Banks’ house at 8159 Rhodes Avenue, the Chicago Tribune reported. Banks was on a road trip with the Cubs, but his pregnant wife, Eloyce, and 3-year-old twin sons were in the house, along with Eloyce’s aunt, Mary Jones. No one was injured.

Eloyce Banks said she heard two shots fired in a gangway and at the rear of her home about 1 a.m., shortly after she returned from attending a debutante cotillion for Jacqueline Barrow, daughter of boxer Joe Louis, at the iconic Palmer House hotel, the Associated Negro Press news service reported.

According to the Tribune, Eloyce and her aunt found the window of a breakfast nook had been pierced by a bullet. A .38 caliber slug was found on the floor.

Mrs. Banks told police six teens were gathered near the house, shouting abusive remarks, Associated Negro Press reported.

“Police said they believed the bullet fired into the Banks home was the outgrowth of general rowdiness rather than personal malice against the ballplayer or his family,” according to the Tribune.

Ernie Banks said to the newspaper, “This upsets me tremendously … There have been quite a few boys, and girls, too, hanging around the corners in our areas, making wisecracks, noise and so forth … It seems that in the summer they have parties and things, then gather on the street after the parties break up.”

Urban leader

Five months later, Banks announced his candidacy for the 8th Ward alderman seat. “There has been some trouble in our community,” Banks told the Chicago Defender. “It’s the kind that happens in any community, but I just think many people don’t pay attention to teenagers.”

Banks’ agent, Herman M. Peterson, said to the Tribune, “He wants to get into politics primarily so he can do everything in his power to help youth.”

An aide to U.S. Senator Everett Dirksen, an Illinois Republican, encouraged Banks to run, the Tribune reported. Banks told the Chicago Defender, “I said all right, providing it did not interfere with my baseball. It won’t.”

(Dirksen was Senate Minority Leader at the time Banks ran. Dirksen went on to have a crucial role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, working to craft a bipartisan compromise that secured votes to overcome a Senate filibuster.)

In Chicago, an alderman is the equivalent of what might be more commonly known elsewhere as a city council member. The 8th Ward was located in Chicago’s South Side and encompassed areas such as Calumet Heights, Chatham and South Shore. Banks resided in Chatham. So, too, at the time did gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and future sports commentator Michael Wilbon.

The 8th Ward alderman seat was held by a Democrat, James Condon. He’d been a Chicago police sergeant while attending night classes at DePaul, where he earned a law degree. As assistant state’s attorney for Cook County, Condon helped establish the nation’s first narcotics court, declaring in 1951 that “dope is as plentiful for kids on the South Side as lollipops,” the Tribune reported.

Before Condon, aldermen who served the 8th Ward included:

_ William Meyering, a U.S. military officer who had his right arm amputated after he was wounded in combat at Verdun, France, during World War I. Meyering received the Distinguished Service Cross for gallantry.

_ David L. Sutton, who received a blackmail note that said his 5-year-old son would be harmed unless the alderman placed $5,000 in a tomato can and left it, as instructed, in a vacant lot. Sutton gave the note to police detectives and his son was not abducted.

Rough stuff

Before announcing his candidacy, Banks didn’t seek the endorsement of the local Republican leadership. His entry into the race brought an unenthusiastic reaction from Michael J. Connelly, 8th Ward Republican committeeman, who indicated Banks’ busy baseball schedule would keep him from fulfilling an alderman’s responsibilities. Several other people were under consideration to be the endorsed Republican candidate, Connelly told the Tribune.

“Banks plans to buck the power of Michael J. Connelly … by running for alderman,” the Chicago Defender noted. “It is expected that Connelly will offer opposition to Banks’ move.”

Asked about Banks’ candidacy, Benjamin Lewis, Democratic alderman from the 24th Ward, told the Tribune, “He’s a minor leaguer as far as politics is concerned.”

(Two months later, a couple of days after he overwhelmingly was re-elected alderman of the 24th Ward, Lewis was found shot to death in his office. He was handcuffed and shot three times in the head with a .32 caliber automatic pistol. No suspect was arrested and the case remains unsolved.)

Banks did have the support of Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley and the editorial board of the Tribune.

“I talked to the boss, Mr. Wrigley, and he told me it isn’t often one would get an opportunity like the one I have been offered,” Banks said to the Chicago Defender.

In an editorial, the Tribune described Banks as “a promising candidate” and “an intelligent public-spirited citizen” whose candidacy “will be good for the development of a real two-party system in Chicago.”

“There are many like him in the new and rapidly growing Negro middle class who would like to run for office and are not yet committed to the Democratic Party,” the Tribune editorial concluded. “Many of the younger college-trained Negroes would turn to the Republican Party if they were given some encouragement and chances for advancement.”

Last hurrah

The Republican Party, however, didn’t endorse Banks as its candidate for 8th Ward alderman. Its choice was Gerald Gibbons, who worked for a printing company and had served as president of the 8th Ward Young Republicans Club.

It was reported that one reason the Republicans didn’t back Banks was because he didn’t vote in the November 1962 general election.

Banks said he would stay in the race as an independent Republican candidate.

“Politics is a strange business,” Banks said to the Tribune. “They try to strike you out before you get a turn at bat. I am in this, with or without the support of the Republican 8th Ward organization. I intend to win.”

Banks campaigned primarily on a promise to promote youth activities in the ward and fight juvenile delinquency. He was critical of incumbent James Condon’s “lack of interest” in the welfare of youths, the Tribune reported.

Condon told voters that during his four years as alderman the 8th Ward got more than $2 million in new street lighting, traffic control signals and street repairs.

On election day, Feb. 26, 1963, Condon retained his 8th Ward seat, finishing first in a field of four with 9,296 votes. The Republican-endorsed candidate, Gerald Gibbons, totaled 4,264. Banks was third with 2,028 votes and an independent with no party affiliation, Coleman Holt, got 1,335.

In recalling the election 50 years later, in 2013, Banks told Bruce Levine of ESPN.com, “Mayor Daley was running the city. Someone asked the mayor where that baseball player was going to finish in the race for the 8th Ward. He said somewhere out in left field. That is where I finished.”

A Tribune columnist noted that, though Banks lost the election, he remained the unofficial mayor of Wrigley Field.

Posted in Hitters, Opponents | 9 Comments »

John McGraw and his peculiar season with St. Louis

August 18, 2025 by retrosimba

Technically, John McGraw turned down an offer to manage the Cardinals. Actually, though, he was their de facto manager for part of a season.

The question of whether McGraw was or wasn’t the Cardinals’ manager made headlines in August 1900. After manager Patsy Tebeau resigned, Cardinals president Frank Robison said publicly that McGraw, the Cardinals’ captain and third baseman, agreed to be player-manager. McGraw said Robison was mistaken.

A peculiar compromise was reached: A member of the Cardinals’ business staff, Louis Heilbroner, who had no baseball experience, became manager and sat on the bench in that role during games. McGraw made out the lineups, decided which pitchers to use and ran the team on the field.

“It appears McGraw is manager with a scapegoat in the person of Mr. Heilbroner … in case he fails to make the team win,” the St. Louis Republic declared.

Two months later, after the Cardinals went 23-25 in the 48 games managed by the Heilbroner/McGraw tandem, McGraw departed St. Louis for Baltimore. He eventually went on to become manager of the New York Giants, attaining three World Series titles and 10 National League pennants.

McGraw totaled 2,763 wins, though none were credited to him for his role with the Cardinals. Only Connie Mack (3,731) and Tony La Russa (2,902) achieved more wins as managers.

Good times, bad times

Born and raised in Truxton, N.Y., a village 65 miles west of Cooperstown, McGraw was 12 when his mother and four of his siblings died in a diphtheria epidemic. He moved in with a neighbor to escape a father who beat him.

Advancing from local sandlot baseball to the professional ranks, McGraw was 18 when he reached the majors with the 1891 Baltimore Orioles. He began as a utility player before developing into “a brilliant third baseman … who brought a keen, incisive mind to the national game, a fighter of the old school whose aggressiveness inspired his teammates,” according to the New York Times.

Nicknamed Little Napoleon by the press and Mugsy by his foes, McGraw, 26, became player-manager of the 1899 Orioles. In August, his wife, Mary, 22, died of acute appendicitis. After the season, the Orioles, a National League franchise, disbanded, and McGraw went to play for the Cardinals when the club agreed to waive from his contract the reserve clause which bound a player to a team.

Joining a club that featured three future Hall of Fame players _ left fielder Jesse Burkett, shortstop Bobby Wallace and pitcher Cy Young _ McGraw played third base and ignited the offense. His .505 on-base percentage was tops in the league. He totaled 115 hits, 85 walks and was plunked by pitches 23 times. McGraw struck out a mere nine times in 447 plate appearances.

Yet, the 1900 Cardinals were underachievers, losing 15 of 20 games in June. As the St. Louis Republic noted, “Baseball players are nervous, sensitive mortals … Despite all the hot air about … every man … pulling hard to win … it is a cinch that one-third of the team has no use or love for the other two-thirds.”

Big change is coming

The Cardinals staggered into August with a 34-42 record. Manager Patsy Tebeau had seen enough.

Born in north St. Louis near 22nd and Branch streets, Oliver Wendell Tebeau learned baseball on the Happy Hollow diamond beneath Goose Hill and became a member of the Shamrock Club team, earning the Irish nickname Patsy despite a French-Canadian surname. He went on to be a standout first baseman in the majors and managed the Cleveland club before going back to St. Louis.

Tebeau submitted his resignation to Cardinals president Frank Robison in early August 1900. Robison asked Tebeau to reconsider and to at least finish the season as manager, but Tebeau was obdurate. He and Robison agreed to stay mum about the decision until a replacement could be found.

Robison offered the job to McGraw.

On Aug. 19, 1900, the Reds won at St. Louis, 8-5, dropping the Cardinals’ record to 42-50. Afterward, Robison met in his office with seven St. Louis newspaper reporters and told them Tebeau had resigned and McGraw had accepted an offer to replace him. “Mr. McGraw will manage the club in Mr. Tebeau’s place,” Robison said. “He will have full charge of the team on the field.”

Robison also told the reporters that his secretary, Louis Heilbroner, would be business manager, acting as Robison’s representative on road trips.

That night, a St. Louis Republic reporter tracked down McGraw at the Southern Hotel, where he stayed. “I have accepted the management of the St. Louis club,” McGraw told the newsman.

Not so fast

The morning newspapers on Aug. 20 reported McGraw was manager of the Cardinals, but McGraw told the afternoon St. Louis Post-Dispatch a different story. He claimed he rejected Robison’s offer. “I would not be doing myself justice to accept the management of the team at the present time,” McGraw said to the Post-Dispatch. “I would be held responsible for any shortcomings that the team might show, and I do not care to accept this responsibility.”

As the St. Louis Republic saw it, “McGraw is evidently a bit leery of … trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s (ear), of converting a losing team into a winning one. Though the team is strong enough to win, it is badly disorganized and full of cliques. McGraw is not sure of his ground. He doubts the fidelity of his men.”

To appease McGraw, Frank Robison and his brother, club treasurer Stanley Robison, named Louis Heilbroner as manager but all agreed McGraw would run the team on the field.

“Mr. McGraw has complete charge of the team,” Heilbroner told the St. Louis Republic. “He can … change any player, bench any player, do as he pleases with the men on the field. At least that is my understanding.”

Stanley Robison said to the Post-Dispatch, “McGraw … will have entire charge of the players when on the field. He will place the pitchers and his orders will govern their conduct during the game. Louis Heilbroner … will occupy the manager’s seat on the bench but he will not in any way interfere with McGraw’s orders.”

Most comfortable dressed in a buttoned shirt with collar and cuffs, Heilbroner was 4-foot-9, barely weighed more than 100 pounds and had a “thin, piping voice,” according to the Post-Dispatch. Many of the players he was tasked with managing had reputations for being roughnecks.

Labeling Heilbroner, 39, as “simply a straw man,” the Republic added, “Everyone knows that Mr. Heilbroner makes not even the ordinary fan’s pretensions to knowing baseball. He is a capital business man, a first-class fellow, but he does not know baseball.”

Home alone

That afternoon, Aug. 20, “not more than 800 enthusiasts” showed up at League Park to see the visiting Reds play the Cardinals, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported. According to the Republic, “not enough persons were in the stands to start a game of pinochle.”

Not even McGraw was a spectator. He stayed in the clubhouse, claiming he was “under the weather,” the Globe-Democrat reported, and leaving poor Heilbroner to fend for himself in his debut as manager.

Heilbroner did a sensible thing: He gave the ball to Cy Young. Unfortunately, Young’s pitching didn’t earn any awards that day. He gave up 11 runs and was heckled from the stands before Heilbroner lifted him after six innings.

Young “dressed hurriedly and sought to even up matters in some way,” the Republic reported. “He hied himself to the grandstand and picked out a spectator who had called him a rank quitter … (Young’s) wife was seated beside the individual who roasted him while he was on the rubber. The spectator took Cy’s scolding and slunk away without making a reply.”

The Reds won, 15-7, but as the Post-Dispatch noted, “Mr. Heilbroner is not losing any sleep over the situation. He sat on the players’ bench and seemed to enjoy the game. He does not pretend to know anything about baseball from a playing standpoint (and) virtually admits that he is a figurehead.”

McGraw sat alongside Heilbroner on the bench the next day, Aug. 21, and the Cardinals beat the Reds, 9-8.

One and done

McGraw was one of two future Hall of Fame managers playing for the 1900 Cardinals. The other was his friend, catcher Wilbert Robinson, but Heilbroner remained Cardinals manager until season’s end. The Cardinals finished at 65-75 _ 42-50 with Tebeau and 23-25 with Heilbroner.

(According to John Wray of the Post-Dispatch, Heilbroner wasn’t a pushover during his stint as skipper. After Heilbroner rejected a request from pitcher Jack Powell for a pay advance, “Powell started to stuff Louie into the safe but changed his mind when the little man confronted him with such a barrage of language and threats that Big Jack fell back.”)

Because the Cardinals had waived the reserve clauses in the contracts of McGraw and Wilbert Robinson as incentive to come to St. Louis, both men became free agents after the 1900 season. McGraw returned to Baltimore, becoming part owner and player-manager of the new Orioles franchise in the American League. Robinson went with him.

In July 1902, McGraw jumped from the Orioles to the Giants and had his greatest successes, building a reputation as “the molder of championship clubs, a stickler for discipline and a martinet who saw that his orders were rigidly enforced both on and off the field,” the New York Times noted.

Patsy Tebeau never returned to baseball after leaving the Cardinals. He ran a popular saloon on North Sixth Street in St. Louis, but became despondent after his health deteriorated and his wife left him. He committed suicide at 53.

Outfielder Patsy Donovan replaced Louis Heilbroner as Cardinals manager for the 1901 season.

Heilbroner went on to scout for the Cardinals and St. Louis Browns before operating a respected baseball statistical service. He published the annual Baseball Blue Book of statistics and records. “His statistics did as much to build up the game as any one factor,” the Globe-Democrat reported.

Posted in Executives, Games, Managers | 7 Comments »

Bobby Joe Conrad made an art of adapting to gridiron roles

August 11, 2025 by retrosimba

As a youth in small-town Texas, Bobby Joe Conrad would go to a vacant lot near his house and practice kicking a football. He taught himself to boot the ball high and far and straight. After a while, he was kicking footballs over the arching branches of a cluster of hackberry trees.

“I guess a lot of it came naturally,” he recalled to the Bryan-College Station Eagle.

Conrad could throw, catch and run with a football, too. There wasn’t much, actually, he couldn’t do on a football field. When Conrad got to college at Texas A&M, he was a quarterback, running back, receiver and defensive back.

Those kicking skills, though, are what first got him national attention.

Home on the range

Conrad was from the Texas town of Clifton, which was settled by Norwegian immigrants in the 1800s. Located along the Bosque River, 100 miles south of Dallas, Clifton’s population never topped 3,500. Conrad felt right at home there. “I never found any compelling reason to leave,” he told the Waco Tribune-Herald.

A standout prep quarterback, Conrad planned to attend Texas Christian but the arrival of head coach Bear Bryant at Texas A&M in 1954 changed his mind. “A&M wasn’t among my top five choices but Bear came up and sold me, not only sold me on himself but the school as well,” Conrad told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

As Conrad explained to the Waco Tribune-Herald, “The main thing I wanted was a college degree because no one in my family had one.”

Conrad found the position he liked playing best in college was receiver but Texas A&M didn’t pass much. So he mostly played cornerback and substituted at quarterback and at running back (behind John David Crow and Loyd Taylor). “I never did anything spectacular,” Conrad told the Bryan-College Station Eagle. “I just did my job wherever they wanted me to play.”

One of his best games came as a senior in 1957 when Texas A&M won at Missouri, 28-0. Conrad totaled 196 yards. He ran back the second-half kickoff 91 yards for a touchdown, rushed for 92 yards on 13 carries and caught a pass for 13 yards.

Conrad also did some kicking on extra-point attempts, sharing that duty with two teammates. It was his skill as a cornerback, though, that enticed the New York Giants to select him in the fifth round of the 1958 NFL draft.

Going pro

A fellow Texan and former cornerback, Giants defensive coordinator Tom Landry, signed Conrad. However, in May 1958, four months after they drafted him, the Giants swapped Conrad and Dick Nolan (future head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and New Orleans Saints) to the Chicago Cardinals for Lindon Crow and Pat Summerall (the future sportscaster).

Noting how being dealt to New York led to Summerall getting national broadcast opportunities, Conrad later quipped to the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, “If it weren’t for me, Pat Summerall would be a Falstaff beer salesman in St. Louis.”

Soon after the trade, Conrad earned a business degree from Texas A&M. He would put that to good use, but first he wanted to give the NFL a try.

His first test would come as a member of the college all-star team in an exhibition against the reigning NFL champion Detroit Lions at Chicago in August 1958. Though projected to be a reserve defensive back in that game, Conrad practiced placekicking while home in Clifton during the summer in order to be ready if the all-stars needed kicking help.

Getting his kicks

Being prepared paid off for Conrad. At workouts with the college all-stars in Chicago, he surprised and impressed head coach Otto Graham with his placekicking skills.

According to the Clifton Record, Graham said, “I knew nothing about his kicking except that he had done some kicking off and kicked some extra points (in college) … Conrad simply kicked better than anybody else during our workouts.”

Though the college all-stars had Lou Michaels, a lineman who had been a good placekicker for Kentucky, and Wayne Walker, an Idaho linebacker who, like Michaels, would kick successfully in the NFL, Graham chose Conrad to do the placekicking against the Lions.

“I never kicked a field goal before in my life _ high school or college,” Conrad said to the Clifton Record. “I never even tried to kick a game field goal before.”

In addition to doing kickoffs and placekicking for the all-stars, Conrad started in the defensive secondary after Jim Shofner of Texas Christian injured an ankle.

Playing before 70,000 spectators at Chicago’s Soldier Field and a national TV audience on Aug. 15, 1958, Conrad booted four field goals (19, 44, 24 and 24 yards) and three extra points in a 35-19 victory for the college all-stars.

In explaining why he’d never tried to kick a field goal in college, Conrad told the Chicago Tribune, “At Texas A&M we either scored (a touchdown) or didn’t get close enough to attempt a field goal.” Video

Eight days later, Conrad’s 30-yard field goal with four seconds left enabled the Chicago Cardinals to salvage a 31-31 tie with the Baltimore Colts in a NFL exhibition game at Austin, Texas.

Conrad followed that with 16 points _ a 17-yard touchdown catch, two field goals and four extra points _ in the Cardinals’ 27-26 exhibition game win against the Los Angeles Rams at Seattle.

Mr. Versatility

Cardinals first-year head coach Pop Ivy liked what he saw from his versatile rookie. Ivy gave Conrad three roles with the 1958 Cardinals _ placekicker, defensive back and punt returner.

In the Cardinals’ regular-season finale against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Conrad intercepted three Bobby Layne passes. Game stats

For the season, he totaled 51 points _ six field goals and 33 extra points.

Conrad remained the Cardinals’ placekicker in 1959, but Ivy moved him from defense to running back. In the season opener versus Washington, Conrad scored three touchdowns (35-yard run on a double reverse, 56-yard run and five-yard catch) and kicked seven extra points for a total of 25. Two of his touchdowns came in the second half when he played with a broken nose. Game stats

Conrad’s scoring total for the 1959 season was 84 points. He threw a touchdown pass (52 yards to Joe Childress against the Steelers) and returned a punt for a touchdown (69 yards versus the Giants). He also scored two touchdowns rushing and three receiving, and kicked six field goals and 30 extra points.

“You never could tell where I was going to be, or what I was going to do, throughout my football career,” he said to the Bryan-College Station Eagle.

The Cardinals relocated from Chicago to St. Louis in 1960 and Conrad no longer was the primary placekicker. Two years later, when Wally Lemm replaced Pop Ivy as head coach, Conrad became a fulltime receiver, moving to the flanker position, and he excelled in the role.

“Bobby Joe was a natural at flanker,” Cardinals quarterback Charley Johnson told the Waco Tribune-Herald. “He ran very precise patterns which made him hard to cover. He wasn’t afraid to go over the middle. Not every receiver was like that.”

Conrad had consecutive seasons of 62 catches (1962), a NFL-leading 73 (1963), 61 (1964) and 58 (1965). He caught passes in 94 straight games. Video at 3:10 mark

Conrad’s last season with the Cardinals was 1968. He ended his playing career with the 1969 Dallas Cowboys.

Back in Clifton, he raised cattle on 630 acres. Then he became a bank executive for 16 years. In 1994, Conrad was elected Bosque County judge and served eight years before retiring in 2002.

Posted in Football, Games, Prospects | 10 Comments »

Dizzy Dean was a Gashouse Gang slugger, too

August 4, 2025 by retrosimba

Pitching in relief just two days after making a start, Dizzy Dean got the win and a walkoff home run for the surging Cardinals.

Dean delivered four innings of hitless, scoreless relief and slugged a three-run homer in the bottom of the 10th inning, carrying the Cardinals to a 6-3 triumph over the Reds at St. Louis on Aug. 6, 1935.

The win was the Cardinals’ fifth in a row (they’d extend the streak to eight) during a torrid month when they swaggered into the thick of the National League pennant chase with Gashouse Gang bravado.

Rough and ready

The Depression Era Cardinals looked rough and played hard. In the book “Diz,” Dean biographer Robert Gregory described the Gashouse Gang during an August 1935 road trip: “With matching mud-caked shirts and socks, their pant legs stiffened by grime, they looked like sharecroppers after a day in the fields on their hands and knees.”

New York Sun columnist Frank Graham observed, “They don’t shave before a game and most of them chew tobacco. They have thick necks and knotty muscles, and they spit out of the sides of their mouths and then wipe the backs of their hands across their shirt fronts. They fight among themselves and use quaint and picturesque oaths. They are not afraid of anybody. They don’t make much money, and they work hard for it. They will risk arms, necks and legs _ their own or the other fellow’s _ to get it, but they also have a lot of fun playing baseball.”

Though the Cardinals had a good record (59-39), they were six games behind the front-running Giants (65-33) and two back of the Cubs (64-40) entering their Tuesday afternoon home match against the Reds. The game attracted 2,900 cash customers and 4,700 Knothole Gang youths admitted for free. “That’s a great big crowd for a weekday here,” the Cincinnati Enquirer noted.

With the score tied at 3-3 after six, Dean relieved, following starter Bill Walker (one inning, two runs) and Jesse Haines (five innings, one run).

Haines, 42, was hoping for his 200th career win that day, but the Cardinals failed to score after loading the bases with one out in the sixth, and Dean became the pitcher of record when he entered with the score knotted in the seventh. In his syndicated column, Dean, 25, said, “A few old-timers, what we calls veterans, is a good asset to any team. Look at Pop Haines, who is 42 and stopped the Reds dead yesterday. I hope I’m still pitching in the World Series when I am 42. That’ll give me 60,000 victories.”

Bloop and a blast

Dean, who went five innings in a start two days earlier against the Pirates, retired seven Reds in a row before issuing a walk to Jim Bottomley with one out in the ninth. Then he got Lew Riggs to ground into a double play.

After Dean retired the Reds in order in the 10th, Bill DeLancey was first up for the Cardinals in the bottom half of the inning. DeLancey’s long home run to center in the fourth had given St. Louis a 3-2 lead. This time, he lifted an ordinary fly to short right, but outfielder Ival Goodman couldn’t see the ball in the sun. Second baseman Alex Kampouris raced over to help “but the ball rolled off the ends of his fingers,” according to the Cincinnati Enquirer, and DeLancey was safe at second with a bloop double.

After Emmett Nelson, a rookie from South Dakota, gave an intentional walk to Charlie Gelbert, Leo Durocher executed a sacrifice bunt, moving the runners to second and third. Next up was Dean.

Dizzy swung at Nelson’s first pitch and socked it far up into the seats in left, giving the Cardinals a walkoff win. The Reds lost 10 of 11 games at St. Louis in 1935. “There is a hoodoo for our boys about this field,” the Enquirer noted. Boxscore

Since 1900, Dean and Ferdie Schupp are the only Cardinals pitchers to hit walkoff home runs, according to David Vincent of the Society for American Baseball Research. Schupp did it in the rarest of ways _ an inside-the-park home run _ on Aug. 28, 1919, against the Dodgers’ Leon Cadore for a 4-3 St. Louis victory. It would be Schupp’s only hit in 20 at-bats for the Cardinals that season. Boxscore

Who needs the DH?

Dean produced 21 RBI for the 1935 Cardinals. That rates as the single-season high for a Cardinals pitcher. He drove in those 21 runs on 30 hits. For the season, Dean went 30-for-128 (a .234 batting average), with two home runs and four doubles. During his Cardinals career, he had 74 RBI.

Bob Gibson produced 144 RBI as a Cardinal, including 20 in 1963. Gibson also had 19 RBI in both 1965 and 1970. Bob Forsch had 79 RBI as a Cardinal, with a season high of 12 in 1986.

The last good run producer among Cardinals pitchers was Adam Wainwright. He had 75 career RBI for St. Louis, including 18 in 2016.

The 1935 Cardinals went 22-7 in August and ended the month in first (77-46), a game ahead of the Giants (76-47). Dean was 6-1 in August.

Neither the Cardinals nor Giants, though, won the pennant. The Cubs, who went on a 21-game winning streak and were 23-3 for September, were National League champions at 100-54. The Cardinals (96-58) placed second.

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

Abe Woodson: An innovator in Cardinals secondary

July 28, 2025 by retrosimba

Coveted by the NFL St. Louis Cardinals for his uncanny ability to return kickoffs and punts for good gains, as well as for his skills as a cornerback covering the game’s top receivers, Abe Woodson provided a bonus.

At a time when cornerbacks gave receivers lots of room at the line of scrimmage in the hope of not getting outmaneuvered, Woodson used a different technique _ the bump-and-run.

Sixty years ago, in 1965, when he was acquired from the San Francisco 49ers for running back John David Crow, Woodson taught his teammates in the Cardinals’ secondary, most notably Pat Fischer, how to line up closer to a receiver and, after the ball was snapped, bump him, throwing off the timing of the pass route.

Before long, Woodson’s effective bump-and-run technique was utilized throughout pro football until the NFL passed a rule in 1978, restricting its use.

Streaking to success

One of the best high school athletes in Chicago, Woodson went on to the University of Illinois and excelled in track (matching a world record in the 50-yard indoor high hurdles) and football (running back, defensive back, punter).

In a game against No. 1-ranked Michigan State in 1956, Woodson gave a performance reminiscent of The Galloping Ghost, Illinois legend Red Grange. Michigan State led, 13-0, at halftime, but Woodson scored three touchdowns in the second half, lifting Illinois to a 20-13 victory.

Helped by the blocking of fullback Ray Nitschke (the future Green Bays Packers linebacker), Woodson scored on a two-yard plunge, a 70-yard run (in which he took a pitchout, reversed his field and outran the secondary) and a screen pass that went for 82 yards. On that winning score, Woodson took the screen pass near the sideline, angled across the field and hurdled over a defender at the 30 before sprinting to the end zone.

Chicago Cardinals head coach Ray Richards said to the San Francisco Examiner, Woodson “rates as one of the five best backs in the country.”

The 49ers took him in the second round of the 1957 NFL draft but Uncle Sam’s draft took priority. Drafted into the Army, Woodson was inducted in January 1957 and had to skip the football season. He was 24 when he was discharged and joined the 49ers during the season in October 1958.

Though Woodson made his mark in college as a running back, 49ers head coach Frankie Albert needed help in the secondary and put Woodson there. The rookie made a good early impression when he tackled Chicago Bears halfback Willie Galimore, nicknamed the Wisp for how he slipped through defenses like a puff of smoke, and caused him to fumble.

As Woodson put it to the San Rafael Daily Independent, “I was switched to defense accidently. I accidently looked good in my first game.”

Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray suggested that using Woodson on defense instead of offense “was like asking Caruso if he could also tap dance,” but when Red Hickey replaced Albert as head coach in 1959, Woodson was given a starting cornerback spot. “Woodson has whistling speed and such remarkable reactions that Hickey can give him assignments which would trouble veteran defenders,” Sports Illustrated observed.

On the run

Stellar on defense, Woodson was in a special class on kickoff returns. In 1959, he stunned the crowd at the Coliseum in Los Angeles with a 105-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against the Rams. As the San Rafael Daily Independent described it: “Woodson sidestepped a couple of Rams with a perfect change of pace and then poured it on. He cut from one sideline to the other, shaking off pursuers, before drawing a direct bead on the goal line.” Video

On most kickoff returns, Woodson “starts out like a fat man dragging a sled” until he gets to the 20 and then turns on the sprinter’s speed, Jim Murray noted.

In games against the Detroit Lions in 1961, Woodson scored touchdowns on a kickoff return and a punt return. Asked to describe how it felt to return punts, Woodson told the San Rafael newspaper, “Like looking a tiger in the face.”

(In 1961, Red Hickey decided to experiment with Woodson at running back. In his first start, against the Minnesota Vikings, Woodson lost three fumbles and bobbled the ball five times. The experiment ended soon after.)

Woodson led the NFL in kickoff return average in 1962 (31.1 yards) and 1963 (32.2 yards). He averaged more than 21 yards per kickoff return each year from 1958-65. In 1963, Woodson had kickoff returns for touchdowns of 103 yards (Vikings), 99 yards (New York Giants) and 95 yards (Vikings again).

For the sheer excitement he created on the gridiron, the Modesto Bee called Woodson “the Willie Mays of football.”

During his first few years with the 49ers, Woodson worked in the off-seasons as a bank teller and then in the installment loan and credit analysis departments of Golden Gate National Bank.

In 1963, he joined the sales staff of Lucky Lager Brewing Company, California’s largest beer producer. The year before, “Lucky Lager was boycotted by Negro consumers in the southern California area because it did not have a Negro salesman,” the San Francisco Examiner reported.

Tricks of the trade

As a cornerback, Woodson “was quick and tricky,” Bears safety Roosevelt Taylor said to the San Francisco Examiner.

Woodson began using his signature trick, the bump-and-run, in 1963 against the Baltimore Colts. “We wanted to stop that Johnny Unitas to Raymond Berry surefire short pass to the sideline,” Woodson told Art Rosenbaum of the Examiner.

As Woodson explained to the San Rafael Daily Independent, “I know (Berry) can’t outrun me. So I decided to move up to him at the line of scrimmage. By staying right with him, it eliminates the double fake he uses so well. It makes him play my game. When you take away Berry’s moves, he’s just another end.”

(The receiver who gave Woodson the most problems was Max McGee of the Packers. “He has speed and he’s big,” Woodson told the Peninsula Times Tribune of Palo Alto. “He has some of the best moves in the league, and Bart Starr, the quarterback, hits him just at the right time.”)

Woodson credited 49ers defensive backs coach Jack Christiansen with giving him the idea for the bump-and-run. Christiansen, a former Lions defensive back, told the Examiner, “I borrowed it from Dick “Night Train” Lane when he played for the Chicago Cardinals in the 1950s … He used it if there was blitz coverage up front and man-to-man in the outer secondary. Then he’d line up four to five yards instead of the usual six to eight behind the line of scrimmage, pick up his man immediately, give him one shocker of a bump, and take it from there.”

American Football League defensive backs Willie Brown and Kent McCloughan of the 1960s Oakland Raiders also were considered pioneers of the bump-and-run.

“I think if you researched it deeply enough you’d find Amos Alonzo Stagg (who began coaching in the 1800s) probably picked it up from one of the math students at the University of Chicago,” Christiansen quipped to the Examiner. “There isn’t a whole lot that’s truly new in football.”

Change of scenery

Traded to the Cardinals in February 1965, Woodson, 31, was “regarded as the premier kickoff return specialist,” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested. Columnist Bob Broeg noted, “Woodson still has speed and, above all, the ability to elude a tackler … He’s got better moves than a guy with itchy underwear.”

In a 1965 exhibition game versus the Colts, Woodson intercepted a Gary Cuozzo pass, scoring the Cardinals’ lone touchdown, and totaled 77 yards on three kickoff returns. However, in the exhibition finale against the Packers, he dislocated a shoulder. After sitting out the opener, Woodson returned kickoffs (averaging 24.6 yards on 27 returns) and punts, and provided backup at cornerback.

Woodson’s most significant contribution may have come on Dec. 5, 1965, when he showed Pat Fischer the bump-and-run technique against Rams receivers Jack Snow and Tommy McDonald.

“Abe came up and hit them, or held them up, as they came at him,” Fischer said to William Barry Furlong of the Washington Post. “All of a sudden, the precision that they were trained to run patterns at was lost. The receiver wasn’t concerned about getting off on the count, or where he was going to go. Now he was concerned about one thing: How am I going to get around that guy?”

Snow was limited to four catches for 38 yards; McDonald totaled two receptions for 27 yards. Game stats

Moving on

Under Charley Winner, who replaced Wally Lemm as Cardinals head coach in 1966, Woodson’s days as a kickoff and punt returner were finished. He was used exclusively at cornerback and started in 11 of the club’s 14 games.

Woodson used the bump-and-run to hold down fleet receivers such as the Dallas Cowboys’ Bob Hayes. “I don’t blame Abe Woodson for trying to stop me from going downfield,” Hayes told the Post-Dispatch. “I don’t think the Cardinals play dirty. They just play hard.”

Of Woodson’s four interceptions for the 1966 Cardinals, the most prominent secured a 6-3 victory against the Pittsburgh Steelers. With 1:20 left in the game, the Steelers drove into Cardinals territory but Woodson picked off a Ron Smith pass intended for Gary Ballman at the St. Louis 22. Game stats

Given a chance to go into executive training for a position with S&H Green Stamps, Woodson retired from football in February 1967. “He did a tremendous job for us (in 1966) and showed no sign of slowing down, either in coming up to stop runs or in covering pass receivers,” Charley Winner told the Post-Dispatch.

Woodson eventually settled into sales and management positions with an insurance company.

Posted in Football, Games, Opponents, Trades | 12 Comments »

Hard knocks: Joe Coleman and his Cardinals connections

July 21, 2025 by retrosimba

At Tigers spring training in 1971, Joe Coleman had the look of a pitcher whose career was on the upswing. Traded by the Senators, Coleman was with a contender for the first time. At 24, the right-hander with a potent fastball and forkball seemed on the cusp of becoming an ace.

Then, a Ted Simmons line drive nearly shattered Coleman’s outlook. Simmons’ scorcher struck Coleman above the right ear, fracturing his skull.

Hardheaded, in more ways than one, Coleman insisted on pitching again as quickly as possible. He returned to the starting rotation in mid-April and won 20 games for the 1971 Tigers.

Nearly 20 years later, in 1990, Coleman and Simmons were part of the same management team. Simmons was the Cardinals’ director of player development and Coleman became the club’s pitching coach.

Part of a three-generation family of big-league pitchers, Joseph Howard Coleman had a 142-135 record in 15 seasons (1965-79) with the Senators, Tigers, Cubs, Athletics, Blue Jays, Giants and Pirates before becoming a coach for the Angels and then the Cardinals.

His father, Joseph Patrick Coleman, was 52-76 in 10 seasons (1942, 1946-51, 1953-55) with the Athletics, Orioles and Tigers.

Joseph Casey Coleman, son of Joseph Howard and grandson of Joseph Patrick, was 8-13 in four seasons (2010-12 and 2014) with the Cubs and Royals.

Teen dream

The first of the Coleman pitchers, Joseph Patrick, attended Malden (Massachusetts) Catholic High School near Boston in the late 1930s. The principal, Brother Gilbert, was a friend of Babe Ruth. During a visit to the school, Ruth took Coleman into a hallway and used an eraser as a ball to show the teen pitcher how to throw a curve, according to Russ White of the Washington Daily News.

When Coleman’s son, Joseph Howard, attended Natick (Massachusetts) High School in the early 1960s, he became a prized pitcher because of his fastball. He spent summers at the Ted Williams boys camp. “Ted taught me more about hitting than anything,” Coleman recalled to the Washington Daily News. “He always wanted to make me a switch-hitter.”

Coleman didn’t become much of a hitter, but his pitching was a different story. In three varsity high school seasons, he was 21-4 and achieved three no-hitters, according to the Boston Globe.

On the recommendation of farm director Hal Keller, the Senators chose Coleman, 18, with the third overall pick in the first round of the June 1965 amateur draft.

To convince Coleman to sign with the Senators instead of opting for college, general manager George Selkirk offered him $75,000 and promised the teen a start in a big-league game that year, the Washington Daily News reported.

Sent to a farm club in Burlington, N.C., Coleman didn’t seem ready for the minors, posting a 2-10 record, let alone the big leagues, but Selkirk delivered on his promise. Called up to the Senators in September 1965, Coleman, 18, was matched against Catfish Hunter, 19, in a start against the Athletics at Washington.

“He’s the youngest looking 18-year-old I’ve ever seen,” Senators manager Gil Hodges told the Washington Daily News. “I doubt if he even shaves yet.”

Among the fewer than 2,000 spectators at the twi-night doubleheader opener were Coleman’s parents. “His father sat in the presidential box, nonchalantly blowing cigar smoke straight up into the sky,” the Washington Daily News noted.

“Old Joe’s as nervous as the kid,” George Selkirk told the newspaper. “Those are his butterflies blowing that smoke out.”

While his father blew smoke, young Joe threw it. Three months after graduating high school, he pitched a four-hitter for a 6-1 victory in his big-league debut. Of Coleman’s 136 pitches, 100 were fastballs.

“I was shaking when I went to the mound,” Coleman told the Boston Globe. “I was still shaking nine innings later. I never did calm down.” Boxscore

The Senators gave him another start, in the last game of the season, and Coleman responded with a five-hitter in a 3-2 win against the Tigers. Boxscore

Good, bad, ugly

Sent back to the minors in 1966, Coleman didn’t impress (7-19), but the Senators wanted to take a look at him in September. Given one start, in the final game of the season, Coleman pitched a six-hitter and beat the Red Sox before a gathering of 485 at Washington. Boxscore

Not even 20, Coleman had made three big-league starts and all three were complete-game wins.

A good pitcher on bad teams, Coleman won eight for the Senators in 1967 and 12 in 1968, the year he developed a forkball to compensate for his inability to throw an effective curve. (Maybe he should have tried learning with an eraser.)

In 1969, Coleman’s former summer camp instructor, Ted Williams, was Senators manager. Coleman again had 12 wins that year, but Williams was of the opinion Coleman would win more if he threw a slider. That led to a rift during the 1970 season. “He wanted me to throw the slider and I tried like a son of a gun to do it,” Coleman told the Detroit Free Press. “I hurt my arm doing it and he thought I was faking it. I didn’t appreciate that and we had a go-round about it.”

Coleman also said to the newspaper, “He wanted me to throw slider, slider and then spot my fastball … I couldn’t pitch that way.”

Coleman’s win total for 1970 fell to eight. At one point, Williams banished him to the bullpen and fined the pitcher for chewing gum on the mound.

The Tigers, who coveted Coleman (his career record against Detroit at that point was 8-0), took advantage of the turmoil in Washington, engineering a trade lopsided in their favor. On Oct. 9, 1970, the Tigers swapped Denny McLain, Elliott Maddox, Norm McRae and Don Wert for Coleman, Ed Brinkman, Aurelio Rodriguez and Jim Hannan.

Looking back on his Senators stint, Coleman told Jim Hawkins of the Detroit Free Press that some of the players “should have been out digging ditches” instead of playing and “we just didn’t have enough professionals on that club.” As for Ted Williams, Coleman said, “I just don’t think we played together as a team as much as we should have … That was Ted’s fault more than anyone else’s.”

True grit

On March 27, 1971, in a spring training game at St. Petersburg, Fla., the Cardinals’ Ted Simmons batted in the fourth inning against Coleman and lined the ball so hard that the pitcher couldn’t get out of the way. “I never saw the ball coming,” Coleman recalled to The Sporting News.

After being struck, Coleman toppled forward and landed with a thud. “It was a sickening sound,” Tigers catcher Bill Freehan told The Sporting News.

Coleman was carried off on a stretcher and sent to a hospital. Neurosurgeons said he had a linear fracture. “Four weeks and several headaches later,” Coleman was restored to the Tigers’ active roster, Curt Sylvester of the Free Press reported.

“I still have headaches, but the doctors say I’ll probably continue to have them until the fracture is completely healed,” Coleman told the newspaper. “The doctors told me that it would be a million-to-one that I’d get hit there again.”

On May 16, 1971, Coleman started against the Senators for the first time since the trade. Taking the mound, he “blatantly mocked his former manager (Ted Williams) by chewing a wad of bubble gum,” George Solomon of the Washington Daily News reported.

Coleman pitched a complete game for the win _ never once throwing a slider _ and the .106 career hitter also contributed two hits and a walk. Boxscore

Coleman went on to pitch 286 innings for the 1971 Tigers. He pitched 16 complete games and was 20-9 (including 3-0 versus the Senators).

On March 27, 1972, exactly one year after he suffered the skull fracture, Coleman was on the mound facing Ted Simmons and the Cardinals again at St. Petersburg. He pitched seven scoreless innings, overcoming any lingering psychological hurdle from the year before.

From 1971-73 with the Tigers, Coleman posted marks of 20-9, 19-14 and 23-15. For eight straight seasons (1968-75), he pitched more than 200 innings each year.

In his lone career playoff appearance, Game 3 of the 1972 American League Championship Series versus the Athletics, Coleman pitched a shutout and struck out 14. “I don’t think I have had a better forkball than I had today,” Coleman said to the Free Press. Boxscore and Video

Taking charge

After his playing days, Coleman coached and managed in the farm systems of the Mariners (1980-81) and Angels (1982-87). When Angels bullpen coach Bob Clear had back problems in 1987, Coleman filled in for him. After Clear retired, Coleman replaced him and was Angels bullpen coach from 1988-90.

Joe Torre was an Angels broadcaster during that time and he and Coleman became pals. “We got to know each other playing golf,” Torre told Dan O’Neill of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We’d talk about last night’s game.”

Torre became Cardinals manager in August 1990. Two months later, he hired Coleman to be the St. Louis pitching coach. “I like the relationship he had with his pitchers and his day-to-day instruction,” Torre told the Post-Dispatch. “… Joe is very good with young pitchers.”

At his first Cardinals spring training in 1991, Coleman had pitchers work on ways to keep batters from getting comfortable at the plate. “I pitched aggressively and I coach aggressively,” Coleman told the Post-Dispatch. “… I feel aggressiveness is on a downward trend in pitching … When (my father) pitched, if someone hit a home run off you, the next guy up was diving … It’s become one-sided the other way … I just want these (pitchers) to feel that part of the plate is theirs.”

As columnist Bernie Miklasz noted, Coleman became “the busiest amateur psychologist in town” during the 1991 season. “He has elevated an average pitching staff, reaching their arms by getting inside their heads.”

Cardinals pitchers in 1991 gave up 648 runs, 50 fewer than the year before. The improvement continued in 1992, when the total number of runs they allowed dropped to 604. “Coleman coaxed dozens of good outings from youngsters Rheal Cormier, Donovan Osborne and Mark Clark after they were rushed into the rotation,” Jeff Gordon of the Post-Dispatch wrote in October 1992.

Ups and downs

The pitching staff in 1993, however, unraveled like an overused batting practice ball. Cardinals pitchers gave up 744 runs, 140 more than the year before. “At the start of the (1994) year, I told Coleman the pitching had to improve and that both our butts were on the line for that,” Joe Torre recalled to the Post-Dispatch.

Under pressure, Coleman took to ranting at pitchers. When that didn’t work, he gave them a three-page letter. “Some basic premises of the letter were for the pitchers to be more aggressive, as in pitching inside; to be team-oriented; and to not feel sorry for themselves,” Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch reported.

Nothing worked. Among National League teams, only the Rockies (638) gave up more runs than the Cardinals (621) in strike-shortened 1994.

In a plea for his job, Coleman wrote a letter to club president Mark Lamping: “I learned more about myself (as a coach) this year and what I’m capable of doing than I ever have. I got to the point where I tried to do some things that I can’t do. I tried to restructure people mechanically at the major-league level. You can’t do that … I was looking for a quick fix, and the quick fix wasn’t there. Unfortunately, I didn’t find that out until July. At the beginning of the year, I was coaching to keep my job.”

Under orders from Lamping, Torre fired Coleman. “I still feel Joe Coleman did a good job, but, sometimes, nobody listens to you,” Torre told the Post-Dispatch.

Coleman returned to the Angels and became a special assignment scout. When the Angels fired pitching coach Chuck Hernandez in August 1996, Coleman replaced him. He then remained on the Angels’ big-league staff as a bullpen coach from 1997 to 1999.

From 2000 to 2014, Coleman coached in the farm systems of the Rays, Tigers and Marlins. He spent 50 consecutive years (1965-2014) in pro baseball. Coleman was 78 when he died on July 9, 2025.

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers | 10 Comments »

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