RetroSimba

The night Bob Gibson pitched 14 innings for a win

August 10, 2020 by retrosimba

(Updated Nov. 24, 2024)

In the longest outing of his Cardinals career, Bob Gibson set a record that illustrated his consistency, dominance and endurance.

On Aug. 12, 1970, Gibson pitched 14 innings for a complete-game win in the Cardinals’ 5-4 victory over the Padres in St. Louis.

In the second inning, Gibson got his 200th strikeout of the season when he fanned Nate Colbert. Gibson, 34, became the first pitcher to strike out 200 batters in a season eight times.

Gibson’s 14-inning stint versus the Padres surpassed a pair of 13-inning complete games he pitched against the Giants on July 7, 1965, Boxscore and on July 25, 1969. Boxscore

Wobbly warm-up

Before his Wednesday night start against the last-place Padres, Gibson didn’t throw well in the bullpen. “I wouldn’t have given two cents that he’d go nine innings,” manager Red Schoendienst told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Though he lacked command of his pitches, Gibson retired the first nine batters in a row, including four on strikeouts. “I was lucky in the early innings that they were swinging,” Gibson told the Associated Press. “A lot of the strikeout total has to do with the ballclub you’re facing.”

The Padres scored a run in the fourth and three in the sixth. Colbert, a St. Louis native, put the Padres ahead, 4-3, in the sixth with a two-run home run that landed 10 rows up in the seats in left. “I was hitting the corners, but I hung some pitches, too,” Gibson told the Post-Dispatch.

The Cardinals tied the score at 4-4 in the eighth on Dick Allen’s home run versus starter Danny Coombs.

Carrying on

Gibson held the Padres scoreless over the last eight innings.

He worked out of a jam in the 11th. After the Padres loaded the bases with one out, Gibson’s former teammate, Ed Spiezio, batted. With the count 3-and-2, Gibson got Spiezio to ground into a double play. “Gibson didn’t have his real good stuff, but you could see him reach back for something extra in that spot,” Padres manager Preston Gomez said to the Post-Dispatch.

In the 13th, Gibson struck out the side. After pitching the 14th, Gibson was ready to come out if the Cardinals didn’t score in the bottom half of the inning, he told the Post-Dispatch.

Ron Willis, a former Cardinal, was the Padres’ pitcher in the 14th. Dal Maxvill, who batted .201 for the season, led off the inning with his fourth consecutive hit, a single. Gibson, who hit .303 in 1970, was allowed to bat. He bunted and reached safely on a fielder’s choice, with Maxvill advancing to second. Lou Brock’s sacrifice bunt moved the runners to second and third, and Leron Lee got an intentional walk, loading the bases.

The next batter, Carl Taylor, worked a walk, scoring Maxvill from third with the decisive run and giving Gibson his hard-earned win. Boxscore

Wins matter most

Gibson gave up 13 hits and struck out 13.

Asked about becoming the first to achieve eight 200-strikeout seasons, Gibson told the Post-Dispatch, “I’m pleased to have the record. It shows I was a consistent pitcher over the years. Winning games is the big thing, though.”

Gibson threw 178 pitches in the marathon against the Padres, but said, “I don’t care about the number of pitches. You can throw 90 pitches and lose.”

(In a 2018 interview with Stan McNeal of Cardinals Yearbook, Gibson said, “I never came out of a game because of pitch count … I went out there to win a ballgame and complete a ballgame. The idea of getting through the fifth inning with a lead was very important. It doesn’t seem to be anymore. A manager will take you out if he sees you’re in trouble in the third inning and have a three-run lead. I’d have a heart attack if they’d tried that with me.”)

The win gave Gibson a 16-5 record for the season. He went on to finish at 23-7 with 274 strikeouts, earning his second National League Cy Young Award. The 23 wins and 274 strikeouts were his single-season career highs.

Gibson had a ninth season of 200 strikeouts when he fanned 208 batters in 1972. His 3,117 career strikeouts, as well as his 251 career wins, are most by a Cardinals pitcher.

Posted in Games, Pitchers, Records | 4 Comments »

Cardinals inspired winning efforts by Bob Sebra

August 7, 2020 by retrosimba

The Cardinals were the opponent when Bob Sebra saved his spot in the Expos’ rotation, and again when he fulfilled a boyhood dream with the Phillies. Near the end of his career, Sebra pitched in the Cardinals’ system.

A right-hander, Sebra pitched in the majors with the Rangers (1985), Expos (1986-87), Phillies (1988-89), Reds (1989) and Brewers (1990).

Sebra, who had a career record of 15-29 in the majors, was 3-2 against the Cardinals. He had more wins versus the Cardinals than he did against any other foe.

In 1993, hoping for a chance to get back to the majors, Sebra signed with the Cardinals and spent the season as a starter for their Class AAA Louisville team.

Going the distance

As a youth in southern New Jersey, Sebra was a Phillies fan, attended their games at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia and hoped to pitch for them. He played collegiate baseball for the University of Nebraska, but it was the Rangers, not the Phillies, who selected him in the fifth round of the 1983 amateur draft.

Sebra made his big-league debut with the Rangers on June 26, 1985, in a start against the Mariners. After the season, he was traded to the Expos for slugger Pete Incaviglia.

On Aug. 12, 1986, Sebra pitched his first complete game in the majors in the Expos’ 10-3 victory over the Cardinals at Montreal. Sebra also produced two hits and a walk. His first major-league hit, a single versus John Tudor, sparked a seven-run inning. Boxscore

In control

In 1987, Sebra was an Expos starter, but he lost eight of his first 11 decisions, including four in a row, and was in danger of being dropped from the rotation.

On June 26, 1987, two years to the day after he made his debut in the majors, Sebra started against the Cardinals at Montreal, looking to show the Expos they should stick with him. Sebra was matched against Cardinals rookie Joe Magrane, who won his first five decisions and was undefeated in the big leagues.

Locating his breaking pitches, Sebra held the Cardinals to six hits, walked none and struck out 10 in nine innings, earning the win in a 5-1 Expos victory. Boxscore

When Sebra throws breaking balls for strikes “it makes his fastball so much more effective,” Expos pitching coach Larry Bearnarth told the Montreal Gazette.

After Terry Pendleton singled with two outs in the fourth, Sebra retired the next 13 batters in a row. Cardinals cleanup hitter Jack Clark struck out three times and grounded into a game-ending double play.

“He was kind of like a right-handed Fernando Valenzuela,” Clark said to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “He had everything.”

Said Cardinals manager Whitey Herzog: “I don’t think anybody would have beaten that guy tonight. He had control.”

Sebra also had a single in the fifth, igniting a three-run inning.

The Cardinals went on to win the 1987 National League pennant. Sebra finished the season with a 6-15 record.

Rooting interest

In 1988, the Expos demoted Sebra to the minors. Pitching on a staff with prospect Randy Johnson, Sebra was 12-6 with a 2.94 ERA for Class AAA Indianapolis.

On Sept. 1, 1988, the Expos traded Sebra to the Phillies. Two weeks later, Sebra got his first win for the team he followed as a youth, beating the Cardinals at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. It was Sebra’s first win in the majors since July 12, 1987, with the Expos, and ended a streak of eight consecutive losses for him in the big leagues. Boxscore

Sebra allowed five walks and four hits, but just two runs, in five innings against the Cardinals. “It was ugly,” he told the Philadelphia Daily News.

Said Lee Elia, manager of the last-place Phillies: “Getting this win was probably more important for him than it was for us. It gives him a sense of accomplishment.”

Down on the farm

Four years later, while in the minor leagues in 1992, Sebra had surgery on his right elbow. The Cardinals signed him to a minor-league contract in January 1993 and assigned him to Louisville.

Sebra was a consistent starter for Louisville, even though he felt persistent pain in his right arm. In the clubhouse, Louisville Courier-Journal columnist Pat Forde observed Sebra had 14 stainless steel acupuncture needles embedded in his right arm in an effort to relieve the pain.

“I had a friend in Omaha who studied acupuncture in China,” Sebra explained. “He said to do it for 10 days and see what happens. It’s feeling real good.”

Sebra, 31, led the Louisville staff in starts (26) and innings pitched (145) and tied with Tom Urbani for the team lead in wins (nine), but he didn’t get back to the majors.

Posted in Games, Opponents, Pitchers | 2 Comments »

Tim McCarver and his close call with Big Savage Mountain

August 4, 2020 by retrosimba

A helicopter ride late on a winter night gave Cardinals catcher Tim McCarver a closer look at a mountain than he would have cared to experience.

The helicopter carrying McCarver in January 1968 veered in time to avoid a collision with Big Savage Mountain, about 20 miles west of Cumberland, Maryland, near the Pennsylvania border.

Four years earlier, the mountain was the site of a deadly crash involving a massive military aircraft carrying two nuclear bombs.

Air disaster

On Jan. 13, 1964, a U.S. Strategic Air Command B-52 left an Air Force base in Massachusetts and headed to its home station near Albany, Ga. The eight-engine plane had a five-person crew and carried two 24-megaton nuclear bombs.

At about 2 a.m., the B-52 flew into a snowstorm near Big Savage Mountain and experienced severe turbulence. The violent shaking caused the plane’s vertical stabilizer to break off and the aircraft became uncontrollable. The pilot, Major Thomas McCormick, ordered the crew to bail out into the blizzard.

The B-52, the biggest plane in the Strategic Air Command, crashed near the base of Big Savage Mountain on its western slope.

The two nuclear bombs onboard were unarmed, meaning safety mechanisms prevented the weapons from exploding. An unarmed nuclear bomb is designed not to explode until a crew member activates it, an Air Force spokesman told the Associated Press. The bombs were found intact in the wreckage, the Cumberland Evening Times reported.

Two of the crewmen survived. Three didn’t. Snow drifts were waist high, the Associated Press reported, and the temperature was at or below zero.

Major McCormick parachuted safely to the ground. “It was real rugged where I came down and the snow was several feet deep,” he told the Cumberland News.

After daybreak, Major McCormick trekked several miles, found his way to a farmhouse near Grantsville, Maryland, and called authorities to report the crash.

Rescuers found the co-pilot, Captain Parker Peeden, who survived by using his parachute to provide a shelter, the Cumberland Evening Times reported.

Two other crewmen, Major Robert Payne, the navigator, and Sergeant Melvin Wooten, the tail gunner, parachuted to the ground but died of exposure. Major Robert Townley, the radar bombardier, didn’t eject and was killed in the crash.

Catcher in the wry

Four years later, Tim McCarver was in Cumberland, Maryland, to speak at its Dapper Dan Club dinner. The Dapper Dan Club, founded and operated by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports editor Al Abrams, raised funds for charities in Pittsburgh and other towns. Proceeds from the Cumberland dinner benefited the Allegany County League for Crippled Children.

McCarver was a prize catch for the dinner at St. Mary’s Church hall on Sunday night, Jan. 21, 1968. Glib and personable, he was the catcher for the Cardinals, who three months earlier had won the World Series championship. His appearance helped draw a sellout crowd of 700 to the Dapper Dan banquet.

After McCarver agreed to be the guest speaker, he learned he needed to be in St. Louis by noon on Monday Jan. 22, the day after the dinner, for Army reserve duty. Abrams arranged for a private helicopter to take McCarver from Cumberland to Pittsburgh immediately after the banquet to catch a flight to St. Louis.

Tight schedule

Others on the dais included Orioles pitcher Pete Richert, retired big-league players Dick Groat and Jerry Lynch, University of Maryland head football coach Bob Ward and West Virginia University head football coach Jim Carlen. Pirates broadcaster Bob Prince was toastmaster.

The dinner started at 6 p.m. and McCarver was a hit with the audience. In his remarks, McCarver made special mention of Groat, the shortstop who was his Cardinals teammate from 1963-65. “Dick taught me how to conduct myself both on and off the field,” McCarver said. “I learned a lot of baseball from him.”

When the dinner ended at 9:40 p.m., McCarver, Abrams and Prince left immediately for the helicopter ride to Pittsburgh.

“That wasn’t soon enough,” the Cumberland Evening Times reported. “The weather won the race.”

Sharp turn

The helicopter had been airborne for about five minutes when “a huge mountain, completely shrouded by dark clouds, loomed ahead,” Abrams reported in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Big Savage Mountain, 2,986 feet at its peak, barely was visible in the icy fog.

Listening to a warning from air traffic control crackle into his earphones, pilot Dick Jarrard “suddenly made a 180-degree turn” and headed back to the Cumberland airport, Abrams reported.

“Don’t worry, men” Jarrard told his passengers. “I received orders to turn back. It’s too soupy here. That big, black blotch you saw ahead of us was Big Savage Mountain. I didn’t want to put a dent in it.”

Jarrard later told them, “The weather ahead was socking in fast.”

Abrams recalled, “By the time the helicopter touched the cold, cold ground, Tim McCarver’s face had turned ashen white.”

According to Abrams, McCarver said to no one in particular, “Let me out of here. You guys can ride this thing, not me.”

Four days earlier, McCarver and his wife Ann had become parents for the second time when Ann gave birth to a girl, Kelly.

A private plane was chartered to take McCarver from Cumberland to Washington, D.C., where he got a flight to St. Louis in time to report for military reserve duty the next day.

Abrams, Prince and the pilot stayed overnight in Cumberland and flew in the helicopter to Pittsburgh the next morning.

Years later, recalling the helicopter adventure, McCarver told Abrams, “I’ll never forget that ride.”

Posted in Hitters | 4 Comments »

Twins were slowest to stop segregation of players in spring

August 1, 2020 by retrosimba

It took until 1964 for all the teams in the major leagues to have integrated housing for their players at spring training.

On March 4, 1964, the Minnesota Twins became the last club in the big leagues to end segregation of blacks and whites in spring training residences. The move came 99 years after the end of the Civil War and four months before enactment of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Twins owner Calvin Griffith acted after civil rights groups planned to picket the regular-season home opener in protest of the segregated housing.

Racism and inequality

In Orlando, where the Twins trained, their white players, manager, coaching staff and front-office personnel stayed at the Cherry Plaza Hotel on Lake Eola in downtown Orlando.

Because the Cherry Plaza discriminated against blacks, the Twins’ black players stayed at the Hotel Sadler. Located on West Church Street, it was described by the Orlando Sentinel as “the first hotel for blacks in central Florida.”

Most major-league teams training in Florida were slow to end segregated housing. In St. Petersburg, where the Cardinals trained, their black players stayed at a boarding house, and their white players stayed in a waterfront hotel. In 1961, activist Dr. Ralph Wimbish and Cardinals first baseman Bill White led the effort to get Cardinals owner Gussie Busch to end the segregated housing. Unable to find a suitable integrated hotel, the Cardinals leased a St. Petersburg motel and had the entire team and their families stay there.

Three years later, under duress, Calvin Griffith and the Twins did it differently.

High-rise hotel

In 1950, the Eola Plaza apartments opened in Orlando. The nine-story building was one of the tallest in the region, and nearly every room offered a view.

Businessman William Cherry bought the building in the mid-1950s and converted it into a hotel, the Cherry Plaza. It featured a nightclub, the Bamboo Room, and banquet facility, the Egyptian Room.

Calvin Griffith considered the Cherry Plaza to be the best hotel in Orlando. The Twins arranged to make it their spring training headquarters, even though the Cherry Plaza wouldn’t allow blacks to stay there.

Bellman to boss

In 1963, Henry Sadler, who had been a bellman at the San Juan Hotel in downtown Orlando, opened the Hotel Sadler, a two-story turquoise and white structure. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Sadler built the hotel with financial help from Calvin Griffith.

The Hotel Sadler became a mecca for black baseball players and entertainers such as Ray Charles and James Brown, Sadler’s daughter, Paula, told the newspaper.

“I have as good a room at the Sadler as I have anywhere in the American League,” Twins catcher Earl Battey told The Sporting News.

Speaking out

Earl Battey liked the Hotel Sadler, but he and his black teammates objected to being segregated. “Our position was that equal but separate accommodations was still discrimination,” Battey told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

Another black Twins player, outfielder Lenny Green, said to The Sporting News, “We wanted to be treated like any other player.”

Minnesota Gov. Karl Rolvaag appointed a three-member review board to investigate charges of discrimination against black Twins players at spring training, The Sporting News reported. Rolvaag appointed the panel after Minnesota’s State Commission Against Discrimination ordered a public hearing.

Minnesota attorney general Walter Mondale, the future vice president of the United States, spoke out against the Twins’ segregated conditions.

Minneapolis mayor Arthur Naftalin was informed the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and the Congress of Racial Equality planned to picket the Twins’ regular-season home opener unless integrated housing was provided to the team. Naftalin called Griffith and urged him to “lay down the law” to Cherry Plaza Hotel management and insist they admit blacks, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.

Quality inns

On Feb. 10, 1964, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin. The proposal needed approval of the U.S. Senate before President Lyndon Johnson could enact it.

Griffith said he tried to convince Cherry Plaza Hotel manager Frank Flynn to accept blacks, but Flynn refused. Griffith said he and traveling secretary Howard Fox looked into other Orlando lodgings, and all except the Cherry Plaza and the Robert Meyer Motor Inn, which opened on Lake Eola in 1963, were objectionable. Like the Cherry Plaza, the Robert Meyer Motor Inn wasn’t integrated.

“There are two first-class hotels in Orlando and neither will accept Negroes,” Griffith told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “That’s all there is to it. Sure, there are places integrated in Orlando, but they’re nothing we would stop at. We’re not going to go to a third- or fourth-rate hotel just to accommodate the civil rights people. If we’re going to integrate, let’s go first class.”

Orlando mayor Robert Carr said it was “ridiculous” to claim good integrated accommodations were unavailable in the city.

With Griffith unwilling to take the team out of the Cherry Plaza Hotel, civil rights groups went ahead with plans for demonstrations to show “our displeasure with the team’s management for not making a strong effort to change the discrimination policy,” said Minneapolis NAACP president Curtis Chivers.

“The Negro members of the team aren’t in a position to do too much and it’s the responsibility of civil rights groups to act in their behalf,” Chivers said.

Making the move

Howard Fox indicated the threat of pickets provided the impetus for Twins management to find integrated housing, The Sporting News reported.

Twins players, coaches and manager Sam Mele were moved to the Downtowner Motor Inn, a chain motel in downtown Orlando. The motel had been integrated since it opened 15 months earlier.

Unmarried players and married players whose wives were not at spring training were moved to the Downtowner. Married players with wives present were allowed to make their own arrangements. Griffith and others in the Twins front office remained in the Cherry Plaza Hotel, The Sporting News reported.

A total of 27 members of the Twins’ team, including a half-dozen blacks, moved to the integrated motel, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported.

“We had to give up a little in the quality of accommodations,” Griffith told the Minneapolis newspaper. “As a matter of fact, neither the white nor the Negro players will have quite such commodious quarters as when they were separated, but we have accomplished the primary purpose of bringing our players together without discrimination.”

It’s a small world after all

On June 19, 1964, the U.S. Senate passed the Civil Rights Act. It was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964.

Three months later, on Oct. 25, 1964, President Johnson visited Orlando and stayed at the Cherry Plaza Hotel, which integrated after passage of the Civil Rights Act.

At spring training in 1965, all of the Twins were housed at the Cherry Plaza Hotel. The Twins went on to win the 1965 American League pennant.

On Nov. 15, 1965, a month after the Dodgers beat the Twins in Game 7 of the World Series, Walt Disney held a news conference in the Egyptian Room of the Cherry Plaza Hotel and announced plans for the creation of Disney World.

Posted in Executives | 6 Comments »

John Mozeliak: 2020 Cardinals season creates weird stress

July 29, 2020 by retrosimba

In a conference call with bloggers, Cardinals president of baseball operations John Mozeliak said the 2020 major-league baseball season has been about adjusting, adapting and learning every day because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking from Target Field in Minneapolis before the Cardinals played the Twins on July 29, 2020, Mozeliak met for 45 minutes with about a dozen bloggers via Zoom video conferencing to update them on “these unprecedented times” in baseball.

Mozeliak usually meets yearly with bloggers in St. Louis. Because of the pandemic, he opted to continue the tradition using technology. It was a classy, much appreciated effort by Mozeliak, who answered every question asked of him.

Mozeliak described himself as a person who usually isn’t anxious, but he said playing a baseball season during a pandemic has created “a weird stress” for him.

Regarding the Cardinals’ first road trip in 2020, Mozeliak said it has been both “very normal and very odd.”

Trying to find balance with those conflicting feelings “is the art of all this,” he said.

While emphasizing he wasn’t complaining and was grateful baseball was being played, Mozeliak admitted, “Doing this is far different than normal.”

Usually, Mozeliak said, his biggest stresses during a baseball season are winning and losing games. In the 2020 season, he said, the main stress is “just getting through the day.”

Like a batter facing curveball after curveball, Mozeliak said playing baseball games while trying to protect the health of everyone involved with the team has been “extremely demanding to keep it together.”

Mozeliak said the coronavirus infecting multiple members of the Marlins team was a wakeup call to all big-league players “to understand the severity of how fast this can spread.”

Regarding cardboard cutouts of fans in the stands, automatically putting a runner on second base in extra innings and other oddities, Mozeliak said the 2020 baseball season “is a unique opportunity to do weird stuff. This is a year to be as open-minded as possible.”

In answering questions from bloggers, Mozeliak addressed several topics, including:

_ Whether the Cardinals’ complex in Jupiter, Fla., was open and whether he was concerned about sharing the facility with the co-tenants, the Marlins: Only one player and two staff members are in Jupiter, so he isn’t overly concerned.

_ Whether he would be in favor of expanding the active roster to 30 players for every big-league team: Yes.

_ Whether the Cardinals would conduct a Florida Instructional League camp in the fall: I don’t know.

_ On the status of the Cardinals’ Dominican Republic academy: The only players there are from Venezuela because those players cannot get back into Venezuela.

_ On the status of scouting by the Cardinals: At the big-league level, all scouting is being done by video. All other scouting is via day trips within a scout’s area.

_ On whether the Cardinals will use cardboard cutouts of spectators in the seats at big-league games: “I think we’ll see those on the next homestand.”

_ On Cardinals such as Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright quickly adapting to using masks: “Having veterans on the team who follow the rules is a huge help” in influencing teammates.

_ On the Cardinals’ organization supporting the Black Lives Matter movement: “My email in-box was not very nice. Kind of crazy, really. Shows you where our country is and how polarizing it has become. I’m not naive. I wasn’t that surprised.”

_ On whether spectators will be allowed to attend Cardinals games in 2020: “Having fans in the stadium is going to be a challenge, but I’m not ruling it out yet.”

Posted in Executives | 2 Comments »

Creative Cardinal Charlie James designed electronic ump

July 29, 2020 by retrosimba

As a baseball innovator, Cardinals outfielder Charlie James was about 60 years ahead of his time.

In 1961, while pursuing a degree in electrical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis during the Cardinals’ off-season, James devised an electronic system for calling balls and strikes.

James presented his plan for an electronic umpire in a 21-page special projects paper he submitted as part of his studies.

Though James said he was certain his plan was doable and would be accurate, Major League Baseball hardly was ready for such an innovation in the 1960s.

More than half a century later, a modernized version of the system James envisioned was on the verge of being accepted.

Major League Baseball began experimenting with a computerized strike zone in 2019 in the Atlantic League, an independent minor league, ESPN.com reported. Plate umpires wore earpieces connected to a phone that relayed ball-and-strike calls from a camera system. It also was used in the 2019 Arizona Fall League.

After more testing, it was expected a computerized strike zone eventually would be implemented in major-league games.

Multiple talents

A St. Louis native, James was a football and baseball standout at Webster Groves High School. The University of Missouri recruited him to play both sports and he enrolled as an electrical engineering major.

As a sophomore, his first varsity season at Missouri, James was a halfback in football and an outfielder in baseball. He led the 1956 football team, coached by Don Faurot, in receptions (30) and receiving yards (362), and also rushed for 283 yards on 62 carries. In baseball, he batted better than .300 and drew the attention of big-league scouts.

In a practice session before his junior football season, James suffered a leg injury and spent a week in a hospital. Though he recovered in time to play for the 1957 team, coached by Frank Broyles, James was limited. He led the 1957 team in receptions (12) and receiving yards (132), and rushed for 58 yards on 18 carries, but the preseason injury was a wake-up call.

Concerned he could suffer more football injuries, James decided to pursue the money being offered in baseball. Besides, if he stayed at Missouri, he’d be playing for his third head football coach in three years. Broyles had departed for Arkansas and Dan Devine was hired to replace him.

On Jan. 6, 1958, James, 20, signed with the Cardinals, accepting a $15,000 bonus, and gave up his last two seasons of college baseball as well as a final season of football.

“I’m glad I played football because it helps toughen you, mentally even more than physically, for disappointments and setbacks,” James told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I owe a lot to it and to Missouri.”

Advanced technology

The Cardinals assigned James to their farm system in 1958. Determined to earn a college degree, James enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis and planned to attend classes in the fall and winter.

In August 1960, James made his major-league debut with the Cardinals. He was back at school after the season and zeroed in on completing work for his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

Before reporting to Cardinals spring training in 1961, James finished his paper in which he outlined how an automated baseball strike zone would work.

“It’s based on electric circuits and I can assure you it’s trigonometrically possible,” James told the New York Times.

James said his idea was based on “placing three lines flush on the ground between home plate and the pitcher’s mound.”

He drew for New York Times columnist Arthur Daley three parallel lines with circles at either end. “They radiate upward and a mathematical formula can predict anything that moves in a parabolic path,” James explained.

James told the Post-Dispatch the three detectors in the ground registered “both the horizontal and the vertical path of the ball.”

He said a metering device would adjust the strike zone for the height of each batter.

Human element

James’ plan existed only on paper, the Post-Dispatch noted, but “is proved by calculus and theorems to be a practical device, scientifically.”

The electronic umpire had “an infallible eye, but, alas, no heart,” the Post-Dispatch concluded.

James said his device wasn’t intended to replace umpires. He envisioned a plate umpire would remain crouched behind the catcher and would be needed for “calling plays at the plate, determining foul balls, determining check swings and keeping order.”

The goal, James said, is not to eliminate the plate umpire “but rather to improve on his judgment in calling pitches.”

The New York Times concluded, “It can’t automate umpires out of existence, but it will be accurate.”

Others had tried automated strike zones, James told the Post-Dispatch, but had failed.

“An Ohio outfit manufactured a robot that was placed behind the pitcher and didn’t have the good sense to get out of the way on a hit back to the mound,” James said.

At Dodgers training camp in 1950, General Electric introduced an electric eye, “but it sat right on top of the plate and a batter could trigger it, making a ball out of a strike with a wide swing of his bat,” James said.

Career growth

James was a reserve outfielder for the Cardinals from 1961-63, though he played a lot in 1962 after Minnie Minoso was injured. James hit a grand slam versus Sandy Koufax in 1962.

After he earned his bachelor’s degree, James pursued a master’s in electrical engineering at Washington University. While working on the master’s, which he obtained, James also was an instructor in electrical engineering at the school in the baseball off-seasons.

“Being an instructor forces you to keep up with things,” James said. “I handle four lab sections, with 15 to 20 students in each section. It takes a lot of preparation for each session, and so does the grading. It becomes a 40-hour week, easily.”

After Stan Musial retired, the Cardinals chose James to replace him. James was the Opening Day left fielder for the 1964 Cardinals, but hit .238 in April and .254 in May. In June, the Cardinals acquired Lou Brock from the Cubs and he took over in left for James.

James remained as a backup outfielder for the 1964 Cardinals, who became World Series champions. Afterward, James was traded to the Reds. In April 1966, James, 28, quit baseball because he said he needed to secure his family’s financial future. He became a successful business executive and eventually president of Central Electric, a Missouri company that manufactured electrical power equipment for industries.

Posted in Hitters | 6 Comments »

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