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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 »

How Bill Triplett breathed life into Cardinals’ ground game

July 16, 2025 by retrosimba

On an evening in March 1964, St. Louis Cardinals running back Bill Triplett was having dinner at home when he felt a dull ache in his chest. “My wife said I probably ate too fast,” Triplett recalled to Newsday.

When the chest pain returned at dinner the next night, Triplett and his wife grew more concerned. At a visit to a doctor the following day, X-rays showed a dark spot on his right lung, Newspaper Enterprise Association reported.

“I was thinking cancer,” Triplett, 23, confided to Newsday.

Instead, the diagnosis was tubercle bacillus, a bacterium that causes tuberculosis. As Triplett said to Newsday, “When … they told me I had tuberculosis, I was shocked, yet I was relieved (it wasn’t cancer).”

After sitting out the 1964 NFL season, Triplett returned to the lineup and was the leading rusher for the 1965 Cardinals.

Making the grade

Growing up in Girard, Ohio, near Youngstown, Bill Triplett had 11 siblings _ nine sisters and two brothers, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. An older brother, Mel, was a fullback for eight NFL seasons with the New York Giants (1955-60) and Minnesota Vikings (1961-62). Giants receiver Kyle Rote told Newsday that Mel “is the best blocking fullback in the league. There’s no fullback who protects the passer better.”

Bill Triplett also was a football talent, but schoolwork was a struggle. “When I was a sophomore in high school, I was looking forward to one thing _ getting out,” he recalled to the Post-Dispatch.

Triplett’s attitude changed when pole vaulter Bob Richards, a two-time Olympic gold medal winner, gave a talk at the school. “Listening to him, it dawned on me that the only way I’d play pro football would be to study and make the grade in college,” Triplett said to the Post-Dispatch. “It didn’t come easy, studying. I’d been timid and shy. If I did know an answer, which wasn’t too often, the teacher had to drag it out of me. So I started taking speech courses.”

In 1958, Triplett accepted a football scholarship offer from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and majored in industrial technology. Fast and strong, Triplett developed into a top college running back for head coach John Pont. As a senior in 1961, Triplett rushed for 1,418 yards and became the first Miami player selected to the East-West Shrine game.

“My parents trained each of us that being a person of color, in order to stand out or to get ahead, you had to be twice as good as the next person, and that’s always been embedded in the back of my mind,” Triplett told the Warren (Ohio) Tribune Chronicle.

Do the right thing

The Giants drafted Triplett in the sixth round but he didn’t make it to training camp with them. Seeking a veteran quarterback to back up Y.A. Tittle, the Giants traded Triplett to the Cardinals for Ralph Guglielmi in May 1962.

After Triplett clocked the team’s second-fastest time in the 50-yard dash at training camp (only receiver Sonny Randle was faster), Cardinals head coach Wally Lemm tested him at multiple positions (running back, flanker, defensive back). Triplett also returned kickoffs.

When the Cardinals arrived in Jacksonville, Fla., for an exhibition game against the Green Bay Packers in August 1962, St. Louis’ black players were told they’d be staying at “a motel on the other side of the tracks” instead of at the team hotel, Triplett recalled to the Warren Tribune Chronicle.

Though the hotel wouldn’t permit blacks to stay as guests, the black Cardinals were informed by the club that they were expected to attend team meetings at the hotel. “I refused,” Triplett told the Tribune Chronicle. “By my refusing, two of my teammates did the same.”

According to the Warren newspaper, in a meeting with Cardinals co-owner Charles Bidwill, Triplett told him, “You speak of family. What parent would take some of their children and disband them to an unknown facility and tell them to just find their way? I said, ‘Not with me, sir.’ ”

In the game against the Packers, Triplett ran back kickoffs for 55 and 30 yards. The next week, in an exhibition against the Vikings in Minnesota, he returned a kickoff 91 yards for a score.

Versatile skills

The 1962 Cardinals determined they were OK at running back with John David Crow and Prentice Gautt but needed help in the defensive backfield, so Triplett spent his rookie season as a strong safety (six starts) alongside free safety Larry Wilson and returned kickoffs (averaging 25.3 yards on 24 returns).

Triplett got a chance to return to his preferred position, running back, when Gautt (kidney) was injured in the 1963 season opener against the Dallas Cowboys. Triplett rushed for 82 yards on 12 carries and made two catches for 51 yards. Game stats

With Gautt sidelined for the season, Triplett stepped in and performed well. He rushed for 85 yards and a touchdown against the Giants and rushed for 102 yards versus the Cleveland Browns. Game stats and Game stats

Triplett’s 1963 totals:

_ Rushing, 652 yards, five touchdowns. He averaged 4.9 yards per carry. Only Cleveland’s Jim Brown (6.4) and Green Bay’s Tom Moore (5.0) did better.

_ Receiving, 31 catches, three touchdowns.

_ Kickoff returns, 16.4-yard average on 14 returns.

Triplett figured prominently in the Cardinals’ plans for 1964 _ until it was discovered he had tuberculosis.

On the mend

Admitted to a hospital, Triplett was given strong antibiotics. His weight dropped from 210 pounds to 175, but the drugs “helped limit his hospital confinement to 18 days,” Bob Broeg of the Post-Dispatch noted.

That was followed by six months of rest at home, according to Newsday. He spent part of that time studying game films of other running backs. “I’ve learned a lot,” Triplett told the Post-Dispatch. “I’ve seen on power sweeps how the best ball carriers use their blockers to the best advantage, staying behind them until just the right instant … I’ve studied the better pass receivers among the running backs. I had a tendency to fight the ball rather than relax in catching it.”

Given medical clearance to play in 1965, Triplett looked strong, beating out Prentice Gautt for the starting halfback spot. However, his rustiness showed in the first half of the regular season. In the Cardinals’ first six games, Triplett rushed for more than 33 yards just once, gaining 93 on 22 carries versus the Cowboys.

“Coming back after sitting out a year was like learning how to run again,” Triplett said to the Associated Press. “I was just gauging myself. I was overanxious, not waiting for the holes to open, and running into blockers.”

Heading into Game 7 against the Giants, head coach Wally Lemm opted to start Gautt instead of Triplett. The plan disintegrated, however, when Gautt broke an arm on the opening kickoff. Triplett came in and gave a career-best performance, rushing for 176 yards on 23 carries and scoring a touchdown. Game stats

“I can still run as fast as ever,” Triplett explained to the Associated Press. “Maybe knowing I wouldn’t start relaxed me and I didn’t have time to get too anxious, but I don’t want to go through that (a benching) again.”

Triplett led the 1965 Cardinals in rushing yards (617) and rushing touchdowns (six). He also made 26 catches, including one for a touchdown.

New boss

Charley Winner replaced Wally Lemm as Cardinals head coach in 1966 and chose rookie Johnny Roland to be the starting halfback. Triplett was relegated to special teams. “There was nothing wrong with me,” Triplett told Newsday. “I was strong physically. I had my speed … but John played too good to be taken out.”

While Roland rushed for 695 yards and five touchdowns, Triplett landed in Charley Winner’s doghouse. Triplett told Newspaper Enterprise Association it was a “personality conflict” with Winner, who determined Triplett lacked drive.

“I’m not one of those fellows who shows a lot of emotion,” Triplett told columnist Murray Olderman. “I can’t be rah-rah. I build a fire within myself, and when it’s ready to come out, I’m ready to play. That’s the way I am.”

In March 1967, Triplett was traded to the Giants for linebacker Jerry Hillebrand. “We didn’t like to give up Triplett,” Charley Winner told the Post-Dispatch. “We think he still has lots of potential.”

In his first regular-season game with the Giants, Triplett rushed for two touchdowns against the Cardinals. It was the only time in his 10 NFL seasons that Triplett carried for two touchdowns in a game. Game stats and Video

Those also were the only touchdowns Triplett scored for the Giants. After one season, they dealt him and linebacker Bill Swain to the Detroit Lions for safety Bruce Maher.

Triplett spent five seasons (1968-72) with Detroit, playing mostly on special teams the last three years.

Posted in Football, Games | 15 Comments »

How Bill Howerton lassoed a role with Cardinals

July 9, 2025 by retrosimba

While learning to be a California cowboy, 11-year-old Bill Howerton vaulted from a horse, landed awkwardly and injured an ankle. His left leg was never the same.

Howerton walked with a limp, earning the nickname Hopalong, but eventually developed into a baseball talent, reaching the big leagues with the Cardinals.

A left-handed batter with power, Howerton got the most starts in center field for the 1950 Cardinals, joining an outfield of future Hall of Famers Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter.

Home on the range

Howerton was born and raised in California’s Santa Barbara County. Though often listed as being from the town of Lompoc, Howerton was born in unincorporated Las Cruces, “a spot in the road that has subsequently disappeared” to make way for highway construction, according to the Lompoc Record.

A son of a ranch foreman, Howerton was riding herd in the saddle when he leaped off his horse to close a corral gate, injuring his left ankle. A bacterial or fungal infection set in and doctors informed the youth he had osteomyelitis, an inflammation of bone or bone marrow, The Pittsburgh Press reported.

Howerton underwent four operations. Doctors drilled into the ankle bone to scrape the marrow, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Howerton spent nine weeks in a hospital and used a wheelchair and crutches for two years, the Pittsburgh and St. Louis newspapers reported.

After he recovered, Howerton attended Santa Ynez Valley High School in Solvang, Calif. He played baseball and showed skill as a pitcher. At 16, his parents separated and Howerton helped his mother operate a gas station, according to the Post-Dispatch. He also worked in a brick factory as a press operator, maintaining the machinery that shapes and molds raw materials into bricks.

Baseball became Howerton’s passion. He joined a semipro team, the Lompoc Merchants, played shortstop and earned a partial scholarship to Saint Mary’s College of California. In 1941, he hit .600 and didn’t make an error for the college team, according to the Santa Barbara News-Press.

Accepting an offer from Red Sox scout Earl Sheely, Howerton was assigned to a farm club in Scranton, Pa.

Baseball and romance

In 1943, his first season at Scranton, Howerton was moved from infield to outfield because the stiffness in his ankle prevented him from shifting quickly enough to field grounders to his left, International News Service reported.

After a home game that year, Howerton, 21, was having a late-night snack at Tony Harding’s Diner on Lackawanna Avenue in downtown Scranton. The place was known for baking its hamburger buns extra large to accommodate the fat burgers. Murals on the wall behind the counter depicted classic Lackawanna Railroad passenger trains. According to the Scrantonian Tribune, night owls at the diner often “stayed for breakfast while waiting for the morning paper with the baseball scores and racing results.”

It was there that Howerton met Betty McConnell. They married that year, forming a lifelong bond.

His commitment to the Red Sox wasn’t nearly as strong. After three seasons in their farm system, Howerton quit because of poor pay, saying he earned more operating a bulldozer for his father-in-law’s construction business in Scranton, the Post-Dispatch reported.

When the Cardinals’ Columbus (Ohio) farm team offered him a pay hike to resume his baseball career, a trade with the Red Sox was arranged and Howerton, 24, became a member of the St. Louis system in July 1946.

Columbus manager Hal Anderson “went to work on Howerton’s batting,” Russ Needham of the Columbus Dispatch reported. “The way he held his bat gave (Howerton) a loop in his swing. He could hit the tar out of a low pitch or one (that was) belt-high, but the pitchers were giving him few of those. Instead they’d pitch him around the shoulders, which forced him to loop with the bat to get his swing level as he met the ball.”

After eliminating the loop and learning to lay off high pitches, Howerton put up big numbers for Columbus _ .299 batting average, 25 home runs, 114 RBI in 1948; .329 batting mark, 21 homers, 111 RBI in 1949. He also developed a reputation as a steady outfielder.

The 1949 Cardinals, battling the Dodgers for first place, figured Howerton could help in the pennant stretch. He was called up to the majors in September.

Howerton contributed to a key win against the Dodgers in the first game of a doubleheader on Sept. 21, 1949, at St. Louis. Scoreless in the bottom of the ninth, the Cardinals had runners on first and second, none out, when Howerton turned a bunt into a single, loading the bases. Joe Garagiola followed with a hit, giving the Cardinals a 1-0 win. Boxscore

Though the Dodgers won the second game, the split kept the Cardinals in first place, 1.5 games ahead of Brooklyn, with eight to play. In the end, the Dodgers played better, winning the pennant with a 97-57 record and finishing a game ahead of the Cardinals (96-58).

Opportunity knocks

Howerton, 28, began the 1950 season primarily as a Cardinals pinch-hitter. On May 1 at St. Louis, the Dodgers led, 2-1, when the Cardinals put runners on first and second, two outs, in the bottom of the ninth. Catcher Del Rice was due up, but manager Eddie Dyer wanted a left-handed batter to face knuckleball specialist Willie Ramsdell.

“Can you hit a knuckleball, kid?” Dyer asked Howerton.

Howerton replied, “I can hit anything.”

Dyer liked that answer. Though he had other left-handed batters available, such as Joe Garagiola, Solly Hemus and Harry Walker, Dyer sent Howerton to the plate. He drilled a single to right, scoring Enos Slaughter from second with the tying run and moving Red Schoendienst to third. Ramsdell uncorked a wild pitch to the next batter, enabling Schoendienst to scamper home with the winning run. Boxscore

Howerton’s timely hitting convinced Dyer to start him against right-handers. Though Howerton made starts at all three outfield positions, he primarily platooned with Chuck Diering in center.

“Even now, with his left ankle stiff and the left leg thinner in circumference than the right, Howerton runs with a hopalong limp,” Bob Broeg reported in The Sporting News. “Still, he’s among the faster Cardinals and, next to Musial, has the best long ball power among the Redbirds.”

Howerton hit .281 for the 1950 Cardinals, with 59 RBI in 313 at-bats. He totaled 20 doubles, eight triples and 10 home runs.

Keep on truckin’

Marty Marion replaced Eddie Dyer as Cardinals manager and figured Howerton for a bench role in 1951. On June 15, Pirates general manager Branch Rickey sent Wally Westlake and Cliff Chambers to the Cardinals for Howerton, Joe Garagiola, Howie Pollet, Ted Wilks and Dick Cole.

Howerton got to play center in a Pirates outfield with Ralph Kiner and Gus Bell. “Howerton is a complete outfielder,” Pirates manager Billy Meyer told The Pittsburgh Press. “He’s a corking hitter, a fine outfielder and owns an arm that commands respect.”

The next year, though, the Pirates wanted to make room in the outfield for a hometown prospect, 19-year-old Bobby Del Greco. Howerton was odd man out.

In May 1952, he was acquired by the Giants, who were seeking outfield depth after Willie Mays entered military service. “I’m glad to have him,” Giants manager Leo Durocher told the New York Daily News. “He does everything well and I know he can handle center field. He can run and throw and he’ll hit pretty good, too.”

About a month later, though, Howerton was back in the minors for good.

He had one more big season (32 home runs, 106 RBI for Oakland of the Pacific Coast League in 1953) before going into the trucking business.

Posted in Games, Hitters | 7 Comments »

Going batty: How Ted Simmons home run turned into out

July 2, 2025 by retrosimba

Ted Simmons was feeling groovy during the summer of 1975. Long mane flowing, he swung free and easy from both sides of the plate, hitting for high average, driving in runs and making consistent contact.

Big-league baseball, though, wasn’t hip to the grooves Simmons made in his bats, even though the Cardinals catcher claimed the alterations were done to preserve the lumber, not enhance his hitting.

Simmons paid a price for not knowing the rules. Umpires nullified a home run he hit against the Padres, deeming he used an illegal bat.

Hot hitter

After hitting .271 over the first two months of the 1975 season, Simmons surged. He hit .370 for the month of June and did even better in July. When the Cardinals went to San Diego for a series against the Padres after the all-star break, Simmons was hitting .326 for the season, with a .400 on-base percentage and .511 slugging mark.

“Ted is just about a batting title away from being recognized as the best hitter in the league,” Cardinals pitcher John Curtis told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He has received not nearly the recognition he deserves, and maybe a batting (title) is what will take care of that.”

During the first game of a Sunday doubleheader at San Diego, when Simmons contributed three hits, a walk and a RBI in the Cardinals’ 3-1 victory, Padres manager John McNamara noticed cuts in some of the baseballs. After Simmons flied out to end the third inning, the ball was brought to the Padres’ dugout. “We could see the lined scraped marks on the ball and we knew they had to have been made by something on the bat,” McNamara later told the Associated Press. Boxscore

That year, big-league baseball introduced a rule banning alteration of the hitting surface of the bat from the tip to within 18 inches of the handle bottom, according to the Associated Press.

Because he wasn’t certain Simmons had broken the rule, McNamara opted not to do anything during Game 1 of the doubleheader. Simmons sat out Game 2.

Bad bat

The next night, July 21, Simmons was back in the lineup at the cleanup spot, and McNamara was on alert. “I told the catcher (Bob Davis) to check out Simmons’ bat when he comes to the plate and see if it’s grooved,” McNamara said to the Associated Press.

In Simmons’ first plate appearance, he drew a walk. Davis informed McNamara the bat was grooved.

When Simmons batted again, leading off the fourth, he clouted a home run to left against Brent Strom. As Simmons rounded the bases, McNamara asked plate umpire Art Williams to check the bat for grooves. Williams did, determined the bat was modified against the rules and called Simmons out as he crossed the plate, nullifying the home run.

Umpire crew chief Ed Vargo confiscated the bat. “The rules say a bat can’t be tampered with 18 inches above the handle,” Vargo said to the Associated Press. “This one has grooves cut in it. It is clearly illegal.”

Noting he made no attempt to hide the bat, Simmons told the Post-Dispatch, “I was not aware of the new rule against grooving. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have grooved the bat.”

According to the Associated Press, Simmons said he used a knife to put grooves in the bat so that it wouldn’t fray. “What I did is actually what players have been doing for the past 50 or 60 years,” he said.

Simmons explained to the Post-Dispatch, “Grooving the bat doesn’t do anything to make the ball go farther or powerize it. The idea is to keep the bats from fraying. When the bats fray, you just throw them away (because) they’re no good anymore. Grooving protects the grains that are farthest from the center from breaking because of the vibration of the contact. Grooving just saves bats.”

Regarding McNamara’s decision to challenge the use of the bat after the home run, Simmons said the Padres manager “deserves credit for doing his homework,” the Post-Dispatch reported.

A notch above

After the ruling, Simmons took heat from the San Diego spectators. As he put it to the Post-Dispatch, “Unfortunately, the fans got uptight and I had to put up with the freaking.”

Swinging a smooth stick in his next plate appearance, Simmons smacked a double, silencing the detractors. His work behind the plate was impressive, too. Making his major-league debut, Harry Rasmussen (who later changed his name to Eric) followed the guidance of his catcher and pitched a shutout for the Cardinals. Boxscore

Though he stopped grooving his bats, Simmons didn’t stop hitting. The lumber may have frayed like shredded wheat from all the hard contact he made. For the month of July, Simmons hit .417 with an on-base percentage of .500 (43 hits and 17 walks in 120 plate appearances).

He hit .313 for August and .324 for September, finishing with a season batting mark of .332. Only Bill Madlock of the Cubs had a higher batting average (.354) in the league that season.

Simmons totaled 193 hits, 100 RBI and fanned a mere 35 times in 581 at-bats. He did that while catching more games (154) than anyone else in the league.

Three weeks after the incident in San Diego, Simmons lent one of his bats to Doug Rader during a Cardinals series at Houston. The Astros third baseman used it to belt a three-run homer against Al Hrabosky, but Simmons countered with a two-run shot and the Cardinals won, 5-4. Boxscore

Asked about Rader homering with a Simmons bat, the Cardinals catcher quipped to the Post-Dispatch, “Rader has done me enough favors by mishandling some of my bouncers to his backhand.”

Posted in Games, Hitters, Opponents | 8 Comments »

How Cardinals came calling on Walter Alston

June 26, 2025 by retrosimba

After he was graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Walter Alston was ready to become a high school teacher. A knock on his door altered those plans.

Ninety years ago, in June 1935, Alston grabbed an opportunity to play professional baseball, signing a minor-league contract with the Cardinals.

The offer came from Frank Rickey, a Cardinals scout and brother of the club’s general manager, Branch Rickey. The day after Miami’s commencement ceremony, Alston was at home in tiny Darrtown, Ohio, when Frank Rickey surprised him with a rap on the door.

“Want to play pro baseball?” he asked.

In the book “Walter Alston: A Year at a Time,” Alston recalled to author Jack Tobin, “What a question to ask! I’d dreamed about that since I was old enough to throw that little rubber ball against the brick smokehouse out on our first farm.”

Alston went on to spend 10 seasons in the Cardinals’ system. He didn’t make it big as a player _ just one shaky appearance in a major-league game _ but it was the Cardinals who gave him the chance to manage in the minors.

That experience helped launch him into a long and successful career with the Dodgers that led to his election to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Hard work and patience

Alston was born on a small farm just north of Cincinnati, in Venice, Ohio. (Renamed Ross Township.) His father was a tenant farmer and stonemason. The family moved from farm to farm, wherever work was available, in southwest Ohio.

When Alston was a boy, his parents bought him a black Shetland pony. He named her Night. Alston rode the pony bareback to grade school in Ohio villages such as Camden and Morning Sun.

The family fell into debt when Alston was in seventh grade and moved to the hamlet of Darrtown. Alston’s father found work in nearby Hamilton at a Ford auto plant, producing wheels and running boards for $4 a day.

Alston developed a passion for baseball. His father taught him to throw with velocity. “Put some smoke on the ball,” he’d say. The youngster did it so well he got nicknamed “Smokey” and pitched in high school.

In May 1930, near the completion of his freshman year at Miami, Alston, 18, married his childhood sweetheart, Lela. The Great Depression had devastated the economy and Alston couldn’t afford to stay in college. He and Lela moved in with her parents in Darrtown and he took work wherever he could find it, going from farm to farm to seek pay for day labor. The county gave him a job cutting roadside weeds with a scythe. “That paid a dollar a day and I was happy to have it,” Alston told author Jack Tobin.

Two years later, in the summer of 1932, Alston still was whacking weeds when a local Methodist minister, Rev. Ralph Jones, an education advocate, urged him to return to Miami and earn a degree. According to author Si Burick in the book “Alston and the Dodgers,” Jones said to Alston, “Smokey, you’ve got a good mind. You can be somebody if you go back to college.”

Jones gave Alston $50 to use toward his tuition. Alston re-enrolled at Miami for the 1932 fall semester. “We never could have saved $50 on my dollar a day cutting weeds,” Alston told Jack Tobin. “That $50 … got me back in and paid a good part of my tuition for that year.”

Alston majored in industrial arts and physical education. He also played varsity baseball and basketball. There were no athletic scholarships and money was scarce. In between classes and athletics, Alston worked jobs on campus.

“I took a job driving a laundry truck for 35 cents an hour and I got my lunch free every day in exchange for racking up billiard balls in a pool hall,” he told journalist Ed Fitzgerald. “Summers, the college gave me a job painting dormitories.”

Alston played sandlot baseball for various town teams, too. One of those, the Hamilton Baldwins, had Alston at shortstop and Weeb Ewbank, the future football coach of the Baltimore Colts and New York Jets, in center field.

Cardinals prospect

Alston was taking an exam near the end of his senior year in 1935 when he was told someone was waiting to see him. It was Harold Cook, school superintendent in New Madison, Ohio. Cook was recruiting teachers and offered Alston a salary of $1,350 to come to New Madison. Alston accepted.

A few days later, Frank Rickey showed up at the door. (The Alstons didn’t have a home telephone then.) Rickey had seen Alston play two games _ one at shortstop and one as a pitcher _ for Miami and was impressed. When Alston mentioned he’d made a commitment to teach in New Madison, Rickey explained the minor-league season would be finished by Labor Day, enabling him to return to Ohio for the school year.

Rickey offered no signing bonus. He told Alston, 23, he’d be paid $135 a month to play in the Cardinals’ system that summer. Alston signed on the spot.

The next day, Alston’s wife drove him to Richmond, Ind., where he boarded a bus for St. Louis. Upon arrival, Alston checked into the YMCA downtown. The next morning, he went to the Cardinals’ offices to find out where he was being assigned. The Cardinals told him to come back tomorrow. This went on for a week until, finally, Branch Rickey informed Alston he would play for the Greenwood (Mississippi) Chiefs of the East Dixie League.

Cardinals scout Eddie Dyer (who, years later, became St. Louis manager) drove Alston from St. Louis to Mississippi in a roadster. Player-manager Clay Hopper put Alston at third base and he hit .326 in 82 games.

Every fall and winter for the next 14 years, Alston taught high schoolers _ six years at New Madison and eight at Lewiston, Ohio _ in order to make ends meet after spending spring and summer in the minors. He taught industrial arts, general science and biology, and coached basketball before leaving in March for spring training.

The teaching experience later helped him as a manager. “Like students, ballplayers can’t all be treated the same,” Alston told Si Burick. “Some need encouragement. Some do better if left alone. Others need to be driven. You simply have to study each individual and get him to produce the best that’s in him.”

Darrtown remained Alston’s home. Los Angeles Times columnist Jim Murray described it as “the place where time forgot” and “where the 11 o’clock news is the barber.” Alston built a house at the corner of Apple and Cherry streets. It was the first brick house in Darrtown. “My dad laid all the bricks and mixed the mortar,” he told Sports Illustrated.

In the backyard tool shed, Alston put his industrial arts skills to good use, making most of the furniture for his house. “His bookshelves and chests and spice racks and desks are a wonder of patient, meticulous workmanship,” Sheldon Ocker of the Akron Beacon-Journal reported.

When he wasn’t woodworking, Alston enjoyed skeet shooting, riding his two Honda motorcycles and playing billiards.

After Alston became an established big-league manager, billiards legend Willie Mosconi was a guest at Alston’s Darrtown home, where Alston had a pool table. “I ran 47 balls, which is pretty good for me,” Alston told Gordon Verrell of the Long Beach Press-Telegram. “He shot, made six or seven and missed, and then I ran 10 or 12. I didn’t get another shot. He ran the next 154.”

Alston didn’t mind losing to a master such as Mosconi. Getting defeated by Cardinals pitcher Steve Carlton in 1969 was another matter. “He beat us 1-0 that night at the ballpark and, if that didn’t make me mad enough, he beat me later that night in a game of pool,” Alston told Gordon Verrell. Boxscore

Ready or not

For his second season in the Cardinals’ system in 1936, Alston was assigned to Huntington, W.Va. Player-manager Benny Borgmann taught him to play first base. The club’s shortstop was a skinny teenage rookie, Marty Marion.

For the second consecutive year, Alston hit .326. He also produced 35 home runs and 114 RBI. Scout Branch Rickey Jr., son of the Cardinals’ general manager, was impressed. On Rickey Jr.’s recommendation, Alston was called up to the Cardinals in September and instructed to join the team in Boston.

Alston packed a beat-up cardboard suitcase and took a train to New York City, where he was to make a connection to Boston. At Grand Central Station, he was gawking at the ceilings and the people when he bumped into a woman. “The suitcase hit the floor, broke open and scattered all my clothes and belongings across the floor,” he recalled to Jack Tobin. “There seemed to be hundreds and hundreds of people all racing in a different direction. I was on my hands and knees, trying to pick up my shirts and shorts … and to keep from being trampled.”

A Good Samaritan directed him to a luggage shop nearby. Alston spent most of the $20 he had on a new suitcase and boarded the train to Boston.

When he arrived at the Kenmore Hotel, the team was at the ballpark. The desk clerk told Alston he could go to the dining room and sign for anything he ordered. “One look at the menu convinced me I was in for a hard time,” Alston told Jack Tobin. “I had never heard of half the things and couldn’t pronounce most of the words … Finally I decided on some clams. I’d always heard Boston was famous for them. When they brought them out, I wasn’t sure just how you were supposed to eat them.”

During his month with the Cardinals, Alston pitched batting practice, took infield practice with other rookies and otherwise sat on the bench. A fellow Ohioan, pitcher Jesse Haines, 43, took a liking to Alston, 24, and showed him what to do and how to do it. “No matter what I asked, he knew the answer,” Alston said to Jack Tobin. “Most days he took me to and from the ballpark. He was my buddy.”

Put me in, coach

On the final day of the season, the Cardinals played at home in the rain against the Cubs. Plate umpire Ziggy Sears had a miserable time. Neither team cared for the way he called balls and strikes. Sears ejected Cardinals coach Buzzy Wares and Cubs manager Charlie Grimm for arguing with him.

As the Cardinals came off the field in the seventh, first baseman Johnny Mize made a remark while passing the umpire. Offended, Sears ejected Mize.

Because the Cardinals’ other established first baseman, Rip Collins, had been used as a pinch-hitter a couple of innings earlier, manager Frankie Frisch had to go with his only other first baseman, Alston.

When the Cubs batted against Dizzy Dean in the eighth, Alston was at first, making his big-league debut. Augie Galan led off with a single. Phil Cavarretta followed with a bunt. Third baseman Don Gutteridge fielded cleanly and made an accurate throw to Alston, but the first baseman bobbled the ball. Cavarretta reached safely on the error and Galan stopped at second.

Next up was Billy Herman. He bunted toward Alston. The rookie threw to third, but not in time to nab Galan, and the bases were loaded. All three runners eventually scored, giving the Cubs a 6-1 lead.

In the ninth, the Cardinals scored twice and had a runner on base, with two outs, when Alston batted for the first time. The pitcher was Lon Warneke, a three-time 20-game winner. Alston fouled off a pitch. He ripped another down the line in left but it, too, curved foul near the pole. Then he struck out, ending the game. Boxscore

The next day, the headline in the St. Louis Star-Times blared, “Walter Alston Makes Blunders That Eventually Beat Dizzy Dean, 6-3.”

Follow the leader

The Cardinals put Alston on their 40-man winter roster, but Johnny Mize still was on the team and the club acquired another first baseman, Dick Siebert, from the Cubs. Because of his teaching job, Alston couldn’t report to 1937 spring training until March 15. A couple of weeks later, he was back in the minors.

Alston had a few more good seasons in the Cardinals’ system, but knew he likely wouldn’t be returning to the big leagues. “I had enough power, but … I couldn’t hit the good pitching, just the mediocre pitching,” he told Sports Illustrated.

Branch Rickey asked Alston to become a player-manager in 1940 and he eagerly accepted. Alston managed Cardinals affiliates for three seasons (1940-42). Then Rickey moved to the Dodgers. Alston kept playing for Cardinals farm teams desperate to fill rosters depleted by World War II military service.

In 1944, Alston was released by the Cardinals. He returned to Darrtown, figuring to go fulltime into teaching. Then came another bang on the door. It was the son of the man who operated the Darrtown general store. The boy told Alston there was an urgent long-distance phone call for him at the store. Alston darted the two blocks, grabbed the receiver and heard the voice of Branch Rickey.

“First thing he did was give me a good going over for not having a phone and told me to get one,” Alston said to Jack Tobin. “Then he offered me the manager’s job at Trenton (N.J.) in the Interstate League.”

Alston managed for 10 seasons in the Dodgers’ system. In November 1953, he was chosen to replace Chuck Dressen as Dodgers manager. Working on one-year contracts, Alston managed the Dodgers for 23 years, leading them to seven National League pennants and four World Series titles. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983.

As Jim Murray wrote, “He made his profession’s hall of fame not because he could hit or throw a curveball better than anyone else but because he excelled in the far more difficult area of human endeavor.”

Posted in Games, Hitters, Managers, Prospects | 10 Comments »

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