http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2013 2013-06-19T08:32:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-amos-otis/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-amos-otis/#When:06:13:15 Amos Otis’ 1973 Topps card. Perhaps it is the way the photograph gives off a strange mix of light and darkness, with Otis’ face and parts of his body draped in shadow, juxtaposed against the fans in the immediate background.

Or maybe it’s the angle of the photograph, which gives us the false impression that Otis and the unidentified catcher for the Brewers are occupying the same space near home plate. How could Otis swing the bat without the catcher interfering with him? Of course, this is really an optical illusion, as the photograph fails to give us the proper sense of space and three-dimensionality.

Before we could arrive at this 1973 card, which shows the young outfielder playing for the Kansas City Royals, Otis first endured a strange journey. Did you know that Otis was drafted by the Red Sox in the fifth round of the 1965 draft? I didn’t. I would have sworn that he was originally drafted by the Mets. Furthermore, I had no idea that he was drafted as a shortstop.

After being drafted out of Mobile, Alabama, that June, Otis was assigned to a team in Harlan, Kentucky, in the longstanding Appalachian League. The 18-year-old third baseman tore up the rookie league, hitting .329 and slugging .520 in 67 games. His performance looks even better considering the racist treatment he received. A news reporter in Harlan approached Otis one day and asked him, “How does it feel to be a light-skinned Negro?“ The question did not please Otis. And then one day a man called Otis at his apartment, greeting him with racially charged language and telling him to leave town immediately, or face dangerous consequences.

Otis told his manager that he wanted out and made his way for the bus station. But his manager, Rac Slider, talked him out of his plan and convinced him to remain in Harlan. The next summer, Otis earned a promotion to the NY-Penn League. He played for the Oneonta Red Sox, putting him within 22 miles of Cooperstown. Otis didn’t tear up the NY-Penn League like he did the Appalachian, but he did hit a respectable .270 in a tough pitcher’s park and made the league’s All-Star team.

The Red Sox liked Otis, but they failed to protect him in the 1966 minor league draft. The Mets gladly snapped him up and jumped him all the way up to the Triple-A International League in 1967, where they began to try him at other positions, like the outfield and third base. Assigned to Jacksonville, Otis struggled against the advanced level of competition, as he put up an OPS of only .679. The Mets decided to give him a cup of coffee in New York that September, but he was clearly overmatched.

As it turned out, all Otis needed was some experience. Given a second go-round in the International League in 1968, he batted .286, hit 15 home runs and slugged .450. Mets farm director Whitey Herzog termed Otis the Mets’ No. 1 prospect. He was so highly regarded that the Mets turned down a trade that would have sent him to the Cardinals for All-Star infielder Joe Torre.

Given his stature within the organization, it was not a surprise that the Mets included him on their Opening Day roster in 1969. But they did not play him regularly, instead using him in a sporadic utility role. Switching him between left field, third base, and center field, the Mets watched him flail away at National League pitching.

Otis was not ready. So when the Mets acquired Donn Clendenon in a June trade, they made room on the roster by demoting Otis to Triple-A. Otis tore up the International League while playing for Tidewater, the Mets’ new Triple-A affiliate. When Tidewater’s season ended in early September, the Mets brought him back to New York for the stretch run. Otis played virtually no role in the Mets winning the National League East, and was ineligible for the postseason, but he did receive a small share of World Series money while earning the right to say that he was part of the 1969 world champions. All in all, not bad for a rookie who was still trying to find his way in the major leagues.

The Mets faced a dilemma with Otis. They needed a third baseman, but Otis did not play the position with much skill or grace. He looked timid on hard-hit ground balls. He did not like the position, never feeling comfortable with the challenges presented by the hot corner. His athletic talents, particularly his speed, were far better suited for center field, where the Mets already had the dynamic Tommie Agee. The Mets also had little need for a left fielder, since Cleon Jones was more than capable. So what to do?

Rather than continue the charade of trying to make Otis a third baseman, the Mets felt they needed to trade for an established player at the position. And they decided to use Otis, whom some in the organization considered “lackadaisical,” as the bait. So they packaged Otis with hard-throwing right-hander Bob Johnson, sending them to the Royals for veteran Joe Foy, the onetime contributor to the Red Sox’ Impossible Dream of 1967.

Foy had played well for the expansion Royals in 1969, but he had problems with drugs and alcohol and would prove to be a terrible fit for big city New York. Foy would be out of baseball within two years. In the meantime, the Royals had a huge need for a center fielder, where they had been forced to play Bob Oliver out of position. Oliver was a good player and a legitimate power hitter, but he resembled a center fielder the way that I resemble a nuclear physicist.

In swinging the trade for Otis, Royals general manager Cedric Tallis made perhaps his best acquisition, as he set the stage for the outstanding Royals teams of the 1970s.

Otis fit neatly as a center fielder at Municipal Stadium, which featured an expansive outfield. Otis started in center field on Opening Day and never relinquished the job. He hit .284, drew more walks than he struck out, hit 11 home runs, stole 33 bases, and roamed center field with smoothness and ease. He also led the league with 36 doubles and qualified for the American League All-Star team. At 23 years of age, Otis had found a home—and the Royals had found a building block for future success.

In his second season with the Royals, Otis stepped up his game further. Lifting his average to .301, he also upped his power output (with 15 home runs). He became a terror on the bases, stealing five bases in a game on September 7. Using his patented walking lead, which allowed him a fast break against opposing pitchers, he finished with a league-leading 52 steals for the season. With his defensive reputation also firmly implanted, he took home his first Gold Glove and even placed eighth in the MVP race. Not surprisingly, Otis became a fan favorite in Kansas City, where fans appreciated his All-Star talent on an expansion team bereft of many other quality players.

If there was one roadblock in 1971, it was an occurrence of back trouble. Just before the All-Star Game, he tried to check his swing, hurting his back in the process. The bad back would bother him from time to time, accounting for a downturn in his offensive production in 1972.

To make matters worse, Otis also ran afoul of his manager in 1972. At one point, Bob Lemon benched Otis for “not hustling.” Otis tried to defend himself by pointing to his style of play, which was so smooth and graceful that it created the impression that he lacking in effort.

Otis then bounced back with his best season to date in 1973. Even as the team moved into cavernous Royals Stadium, Otis showed a newfound level of power, as he clubbed 26 home runs and slugged .484. He also batted an even .300 while drawing 63 walks against only 47 strikeouts. Otis’ game lagged in only one area; he stole 13 bases in 22 attempts, but the Royals had little reason to find fault with an otherwise terrific all-around season.

Otis’ breakout campaign coincided with the Royals’ improvement team. A slightly sub-.500 team in 1972, they won 88 games in 1973 and established themselves as a contender, finishing only six games behind the world champion Oakland A’s.

Over the next two seasons, Otis’ performance dipped, as he hit only 21 home runs during that span. Injuries bothered him in particular in 1975, when he appeared in only 132 games and batted .247, a low-water mark for his years in Kansas City.

As his performance lagged, Otis began to draw criticism for the way that he played the game. Stylish in the outfield and on the bases, Otis appeared to play the game too casually for some sportswriters. Some critics called him lackadaisical, echoing the sentiments he had heard with the Mets. Others harped on his insistence on making catches with one hand, as opposed to the traditional two-handed approach. And when Otis refused to talk to the press, which he did from time to time, the critics used it as ammunition against him.

The criticism didn’t seem to faze Otis, particularly in 1976. He posted a major comeback that summer, just in time to help the Royals reach the postseason for the first time in the franchise’s brief history. Playing almost every day, he hit 18 home runs and led the league with 40 doubles, taking full advantage of the large outfield gaps and the lightning-fast artificial turf at Royals Stadium. Royals fans appreciated his play, as they often serenaded him with chants of “A.O.” the nickname that consisted of his initials.

But the 1976 season came with a cruel twist. A late-season injury limited him to one game in the Championship Series against the Yankees. Otis had to watch from the sidelines as the Royals lost an excruciating series on Chris Chambliss’ dramatic ninth inning home run in Game Five.

Fully healthy in 1977, Otis hit 17 home runs and drew a career-high 77 walks to help the Royals repeat as American League West champions. This time Otis stayed healthy for the playoffs, but he hit only .125 as the Royals failed to hold a ninth inning lead in Game Five and again lost to the Yankees.

Even though Otis was now 31 and theoretically past his prime, he put together his finest season in 1978. Reaching career highs in RBIs (with 96) and OPS (a lusty .905), all done while stealing 32 bases, Otis carried the Royals with his combination of power, speed, and defense. Placing fourth in the league MVP race, Otis led Kansas City to its third consecutive Western Division title.

Otis carried his regular season success into the Championship Series against the Yankees. He batted .429 and stole four bases, but even those numbers couldn’t prevent another shortfall in the postseason; the Royals again lost to the Yankees, this time in four games.

Having reached his peak, Otis put up another good season in 1979, but that season also brought him into conflict with manager Whitey Herzog, who began to sit him more frequently against tough right-handed pitchers. Shortly after the Royals fired Herzog at season’s end, Otis made some stunning comments to Kansas City writer Sid Bordman, corresponding for The Sporting News. “I think he was trying to ruin my career,” Otis said of his former manager. “Eventually, he was going to try to get me traded.”

Otis’ remarks might not have been fair, but the Royals did respond to their new manager, Jim Frey, as they reached the World Series for the first time. Otis played at his peak against the National League Phillies. Showing few nerves on the Series stage, he pounded out 11 hits, including three home runs, in the Royals’ six-game loss to the Phillies. If the Royals had won, Otis’ .478 batting average likely would have made him the Series MVP.

In 1981, injuries started to limit Otis’ playing time, as he appeared in only 99 games that summer. He also started the season in left field, the result of the Royals’ decision to move the fleet Willie Wilson into center.

After injuries limited him to 125 games in 1982, Otis’ game fell apart in 1983. Limited to just 98 games, his power output dropped off badly (with only four home runs). A .669 OPS signaled that his time as a regular had come to an end.

Becoming a free agent at season’s end, Otis signed with the Pirates, marking his return to the National League after a 15-year absence. The Bucs (and Otis) hoped a change of scenery would help, but he ran into an outfield wall and spent two months on the disabled list. When he did play, he batted an embarrasing.165 in 40 games and drew his release in early August. At the age of 37, Otis had hit the end of the line.

With 17 seasons completed, Otis left the game with five All-Star Game nods, three Gold Gloves, and four postseason appearances.

After his retirement, Otis briefly worked for the Padres as a roving minor league instructor and even played in the ill-fated Senior Baseball League, but he has remained outside of the game for most of the last 30 years. He has also remained something of an enigmatic figure. Back in the 1990s, I interviewed Bob Page, who used to anchor the Sports Desk for the MSG Network, at the time the flagship station for the Yankees. During the course of our talk, I asked Page about players he had found difficult in covering. He proceeded to tell me a story of how he once approached Otis at the ballpark and asked him for an interview. Otis refused, unless Page would pay him. Emphasizing that Otis was not kidding and was dead serious in making the request, Page told me that it was the only time in his career that an athlete had asked him to be paid for an interview.

This view of Otis stands in contrast to the player who has, since his retirement, been the subject of a fair share of retrospective features, where he has clearly been interviewed by the writer in question. In those cases, Otis comes across as pleasant and thoughtful.

Even 40 years later, there is still something a little surreal about the mysterious Amos Otis.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-06-14T06:13:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cooperstown-confidential-horace-stonehams-real-legacy/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cooperstown-confidential-horace-stonehams-real-legacy/#When:07:05:15
For a fan of baseball and its history, the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture is a dream. For three days, academic presenters from around the country delve into the game, its historical associations, and the ways that it connects with our culture. When the symposium starts, you might think you know everything you need to know about Our Great Game. By the end, you realize that it’s time to get back to work because you really don’t know as much as you think.

This year marked the 25th annual Symposium, which was highlighted by Frank Deford’s entertaining keynote speech on Wednesday, May 29. Deford discussed his interest in the classic baseball poem, “Casey at the Bat,” which celebrates its 125th anniversary in 2013. Deford explained how he adapted the poem to a longer story that he once wrote for Sports Illustrated and how he still holds out hope that Casey can be adapted into a Broadway musical. Despite losing track of his notes at one point, Deford once again showed himself to be a masterful and captivating storyteller, which is no surprise given his contributions to NPR Radio over the past 30 years.

With Deford’s keynote delivered successfully in the Grandstand Theater, attention turned to the numerous presentations that took place over the next two and a half days. Of all the talks that I watched, one stood out as the most insightful. Presented by Robert Garratt, a professor at the University of Puget Sound, it focused on the legacy of New York and San Francisco Giants owner Horace Stoneham.

As Garratt points out, history has not treated Stoneham in a particularly kind way. Part of that legacy comes from his decision to move the Giants to San Francisco after the 1957 season. Second, he has continually been overshadowed by Walter O’Malley, his rival owner with the Brooklyn Dodgers who was also vilified for simultaneously moving his team to the West Coast. But the Dodgers of O’Malley were regarded as an elite franchise, while the Giants were considered second-class citizens of the New York metropolitan era. The Giants had an aging ballpark in the Polo Grounds and declining revenues, with Stoneham deemed incapable of turning the franchise’s fortunes, even in San Francisco.

Third, Stoneham is often remembered as a drunk, a raging alcoholic who stumbled and bumbled his way through years of team ownership. He expected his managers to serve as his bar room partners, so that he would not have to spend all of his nights drinking alone.

These images represent an unfair caricature; there is much more to Stoneham than excessive drinking and running second fiddle to O’Malley. Stoneham has a far more substantial legacy.

Stoneham was a shy and lonely figure, in contrast to O’Malley, but it was Stoneham who actually lived in New York City and dared to socialize with the city’s sportswriters. A lifelong fan of the Giants, Stoneham developed a strong loyalty to his players, not a bad quality for an owner to have. And of the two owners, Stoneham was far more justified in moving his team than O’Malley was; with a shrinking fan base, attendance at the Polo Grounds had fallen off more substantially than Brooklyn’s fan support at Ebbets Field.

It is true that Stoneham was beaten to the punch by the Dodgers, specifically Branch Rickey, in recruiting and signing the first African American major leaguer of the 20th century. But once Rickey broke the seal with Jackie Robinson, Stoneham smartly followed suit. Serving as his own general manager, he signed Monte Irvin from the Newark Eagles; many talent evaluators rated Irvin as a better pure player than Robinson. Stoneham also reeled in Hank Thompson, a troubled but talented third baseman/outfielder who had been let go by the St. Louis Browns.

Stoneham then signed Willie Mays, a five-tool standout from the Birmingham Black Barons, allowing the Giants to make a bit of their own civil rights history. With Irvin, Mays and Thompson manning the outfield, the Giants of Stoneham could boast of starting the first all-black outfield in big league history.

As Garratt emphasized during his talk, Stoneham did not restrict his efforts at integration to African-American players. Realizing that black Americans were just part of the equation, Stoneham understood the importance of signing dark-skinned Latinos, who comprised the so-called “second” color line. Like African Americans, they had been affected by the pre-Robinson ban against black players.

To assist his effort, Stoneham made a shrewd business arrangement with Alex Pompez, the owner of the New York Cubans, a franchise in the Negro Leagues. As part of the deal, Stoneham allowed Pompez’ Cubans to rent the Polo Grounds at a reduced rate. In exchange, Pompez provided a funnel of Latino and black talent to the Giants. For example, Pompez sold three of his players (Ray Dandridge, Ray Noble, and Dave Barnhill) to the Giants in 1949.

Even after the Cubans folded in 1950, Stoneham hired Pompez to work for him fulltime as a scout. Pompez advised Stoneham on those players who were major league caliber, and those whom he should avoid. In 1953, Stoneham added Ruben Gomez, an effective if temperamental right-handed pitcher from Puerto Rico. Noble didn’t do much for the Giants, and Barnhill and Dandridge never actually played in the major leagues, but Gomez emerged as a major contributor to the Giants’ 1954 world championship, winning 17 games while posting a 2.88 ERA.

Stoneham wisely decided to hire several bilingual scouts, who could converse better on recruiting trips to Latin America and could communicate first-hand with Latino players themselves. As much as any team, the Giants showed legitimate interest in Latin American talent, spearheaded by Pompez and Stoneham. In 1958 alone, the Giants brought Orlando Cepeda and Felipe Alou to the major leagues. By the early 1960s, the Giants had added talents like Juan Marichal and the two remaining Alou brothers, Matty and Jesus.

The 1962 season represented the Giants at their integrated best. In winning the pennant, the Giants staved off tough competition from the Dodgers and Reds before coming within a whisker of beating the Yankees in the World Series. The starting lineup featured Cepeda at first base, Jose Pagan (signed out of Puerto Rico) at shortstop, Mays in center, and Felipe Alou in right field. An impressive crew of part-time players included Willie McCovey (an African American signed by Pompez), Matty Alou and Manny Mota (signed out of the Dominican).

And then there was the pitching staff, headlined by Marichal. In total, the National League champion Giants had no fewer than eight minority ballplayers.

By now the Giants had become as integrated as any National League team, including progressive clubs like the Dodgers, Pirates and Cardinals. In 1963, the Giants added three more black outfielders in Jesus Alou, Jose Cardenal (signed out of Cuba) and Jim Ray Hart. And soon to come was another wave of African American and Latino talent, led by Bobby Bonds, Tito Fuentes and George Foster.

Unfortunately, Stoneham faced obstacles within his own organization. In 1961, he had hired Alvin Dark as his manager. Though Dark was intelligent and driven, he also had little idea of how to handle an integrated clubhouse that featured a key contingent of Latino stars.

The situation came to a head in 1964. Dark noticed that the Latino players liked to speak Spanish among themselves. Not understanding what they were saying and not trusting them (perhaps he thought they were plotting against him), Dark made the foolish decision to ban speaking Spanish in the clubhouse. This edict rightly infuriated players like Cepeda, who considered it bigotry.

According to Garratt, Willie Mays correctly sensed that Dark had completely lost the Latino ballplayers. Mays decided to approach Stoneham about the problem. Stoneham chose not to do anything drastic in midseason, but at the end of the 1964 season, he fired Dark and replaced him with the more fair-minded Herman Franks.

Stoneham wasn’t done in his efforts to integrate the Giants. Though African-American and Latino players represented the two largest minority groups, Stoneham decided to dip into another pool of talent. He made an arrangement with a team in the Japanese Leagues, signing three Asian players for his minor league system. One of the three was a left-handed pitcher named Masanori Murakami, who eventually became the first Japanese player in the major leagues. Working out of the Giants’ bullpen, Murakami pitched effectively for two seasons before Stoneham’s arrangement with Japan collapsed, resulting in Murakami’s return to the Far East.

Now none of this meant to say that Stoneham was a great owner, someone worthy of the Hall of Fame. The man had his flaws. In addition to the concerns about drinking, he could have handled the move to San Francisco more smoothly and he could have done a better job holding onto the Giants’ black and Latino talent. The Giants traded off many of their best Latino and black players during the 1960s, including Cepeda (to the Cardinals), Cardenal (Angels), Pagan (Pirates), Matty Alou (Pirates), and Felipe Alou (Braves), usually receiving only pennies on the dollar. If not for those regrettable decisions, the Giants might have become world champions in the 1960s or early 1970s, and might have emerged as the game’s first heavily integrated championship team.

But Stoneham was not a buffoon. His teams pushed forward the integration movement, while winning a World Series and two National League pennants during the 1950s and 60s. Ahead of his time, he pioneered the movement toward Asian players. Horace Stoneham was far more than Walter O’Malley’s sickly little stepbrother.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-06-07T07:05:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-joe-pepitone/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-joe-pepitone/#When:06:16:15 Joe Pepitone as a member of the Cubs, but it is his 1973 Topps card by which I most remember him. His early 1970s look is best exemplified on this Topps card. Take a look at those overgrown sideburns and those thick, bushy eyebrows, which haven’t seen a trim in years. Also take note of Pepitone’s wig, which he has tucked under his small-fitting Cubs cap. Perhaps unknowingly, Pepitone has given this lucky Topps photographer a glimpse into the ghastly extremes of baseball fashion in the early 70s.

If we look closer, there is also evidence of some five o’clock shadow on Pepitone’s face. That only seems appropriate for a player who liked to spend the night at bars and night clubs and then forgot to shave the next day.

By the time that Topps issued this card, Pepitone’s final one as a major leaguer, he had become one of the most colorful characters in the history of two longtime franchises: the Cubs and the Yankees. That was no small achievement, given the prior presence of offbeat Cubbies like Hall of Famer Dizzy Dean, the flighty Babe Herman, and prankster extraordinaire Moe Drabowsky, and eccentric Yankees like Frank “Ping” Bodie (who once took on the challenge of an ostrich in a spaghetti-eating contest), the wild and wacky Lefty Gomez, and “The Ole Perfessor” himself, Casey Stengel.

A native of Brooklyn, Pepitone signed with the Yankees in 1958. The Yankees took a chance in offering a contract to Pepitone, who had a checkered past. While in high school, he had become involved in a schoolyard fight, which resulted in him being shot in the stomach. He recovered from the gunshot wound, but privately, some members of the Yankee brass wondered about Pepi’s mental makeup.

Pepitone made his big league debut four years later at the age of 21. He joined a Yankee team that was as conservative as any franchise, from its prim and proper front office to its businesslike group of veteran players. Pepitone’s flashiness stood in stark contrast to the Yankee way of doing things. When he reported to spring training, he arrived in a brand new Ford Thunderbird. He proceeded to brag about another of his recent purchases (a new motorboat), all while wearing a new sharkskin suit. More than a few eyes rolled as Pepitone strolled through the spring training clubhouse for the first time.

Making the Opening Day roster and flashing some power, Pepitone hit seven home runs in 138 at-bats, but he struggled to hit with any kind of consistency. He exacerbated the situation by failing to hustle at times; when his effort lagged, several veteran Yankees warned him “not to mess with their money,” a reference to their share of World Series winnings. The Yankees made the postseason almost every season; they had come to count on their World Series shares to augment their relatively meager regular season salaries.

On the surface, Pepitone might have seemed like a natural running mate for established Yankees like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, who certainly enjoyed life in the fast line. But Pepitone was too brash in his style. He did not know how to separate his off-the-field antics from his clubhouse demeanor. In perhaps his greatest black mark, he occasionally chose not to show up at the ballpark, leading to speculation that he was being pursued by bookies for unpaid gambling debts.

Whether it was prancing around the clubhouse, mugging for the cameras, or making a scene at a nightclub, Pepitone provided a sideshow for teammates and the always-investigating New York media.

On the field, Pepitone played significantly better in his second season. Receiving an everyday role after the Yankees cleared out first base by trading Moose Skowron, Pepi hit 27 home runs, fielded phenomenally at his position, and made the American League All-Star team. Pepitone impressed observers with his beautiful swing, which was quick and compact and seemingly so well made for the short porch at Yankee Stadium.

Yet, there was a down side. An extremely aggressive hitter, he showed almost no plate discipline, drawing a scant 27 walks. He also struggled in his 16 appearances in the outfield, as the Yankees experimented with him in both right field and center field.

By winning the American League pennant, the Yankees gave Pepi his first taste of World Series play. He entered the spotlight in Game Four, but for the wrong reasons. Playing at first base, he lost Clete Boyer’s throw against a backdrop of white shirts in the crowd. The error eventually led to a run, and a critical Yankee loss.

Pepitone put up another good regular season in 1964, at least on the surface. He hit 28 home runs and drove in 100 runs, making good in two of the three Triple Crown categories. He also appeared in his second straight World Series; this time he emerged as a hero, courtesy of a grand slam in Game Six.

But Pepi continued to flail at pitches outside of the streak zone, as evidenced by a .281 on-base percentage in regular season play. He somehow collected only 12 doubles, an unfathomable total for a power hitter, which helped to explain his paltry slugging percentage of .418.

In 1965, Pepitone qualified for his third consecutive All-Star team and won his first Gold Glove at first base, while showing major improvement in his ability to draw walks. He nearly doubled his walk totals, from 24 to 43. That was encouraging, but his power simultaneously fell off, with his slugging percentage dipping below .400. He hit only 18 home runs, an unacceptable total for a free-swinging slugger.

Facing a crossroads season in 1966, Pepitone succeeded in reestablishing his power at the plate. He clubbed 31 home runs, a career high, and slugged .463 to lift his OPS into the high .700s. Earning his second Gold Glove, he also received some bottom-of-the-ballot support in the MVP race.

The Yankees had reason to believe that Pepitone had come of age. He was 26, perhaps on the verge of becoming the next great left-handed slugger in Yankee history. The Yankees also switched him to center field, so that they could move an aging Mickey Mantle to first base.

That was the plan, but it did not develop the way the Yankees had wanted. Pepitone made his share of mistakes in center field, where he was clearly not comfortable. He hit feebly against left-handed pitching, with an OPS of .548 in over 200 plate appearances against southpaws. His home run total fell to 13, his walks remained stagnant, and his mental lapses became more infuriating.

Over his next two seasons, Pepitone bounced back slightly, but it became obvious that he would never become a true star. Although a gifted first baseman, he was miscast in center field, where the Yankees had once hoped he could succeed Mantle. Pepitone simply did not hit well enough to hit cleanup and carry a team; at best, he figured to be a sixth or seventh-place hitter, at least on a good team. The Yankees of the late 1960s were not that team. At the end of the 1969 season, the Yankees shopped Pepitone heavily.

During his eight seasons in pinstripes, Pepitone piled up a few positive achievements. He won three Gold Gloves, made three All-Star teams, and put up some good power numbers—five times exceeding 25 long balls in a season—but he never batted better than .271 in New York, rarely drew walks, and committed too many mental errors on the bases. By the end of the decade, his inability to fulfill his potential had become an unfortunate symbol of a Yankee franchise that had lost its focus, no longer a champion and now reduced to also-ran status in the American League.

As a Yankee, Pepitone became memorable, but more for off-the-field reasons than anything he did at first base or at the plate. Becoming a big city celebrity, he once sang on the Merv Griffin Show. He also became a pioneer of sorts, as trivial as it might sound, when he brought a blow dryer into a major league clubhouse. No player had ever done that before, in New York or elsewhere. One day Mantle decided to have some fun with that blow dryer by filling it with talcum powder, much to the chagrin of a whitened Pepitone.

Pepi’s trendsetting blow dryer struck some as ironic, given that he consistently wore hairpieces over his scalp, which was suffering from premature baldness. In fact, Pepitone used two pieces; he sported a larger wig for social settings and a smaller one, which he referred to as his “gamer,” that fit snugly under his cap and helmet at the ballpark. For what it’s worth, both pieces looked frightening. In the latter stages of his career, Pepitone supplemented the wigs with those thickets of sideburns that are so apparent on his Topps card. In contrast to the wigs, the sideburns were homegrown. Yet, they were no less monstrous.

According to former teammate Jim Bouton, the author of Ball Four, Pepitone took special pride in maintaining his hair, or at least what remained of it. Pepitone always traveled with a large bag that contained a variety of hair products, everything from hair conditioner to the latest treatments in male pattern baldness.

In December of 1969, Pepitone took his sideburns and his hairpieces out of town. The Yankees sent him to the south and to the west, airmailing him to the Astros in a trade for Curt Blefary, the versatile catcher/first baseman/outfielder. The trade landed Pepitone in Space City, which was somewhat appropriate.

The image of Pepitone wearing a 10-gallon hat over one of his wigs might have been intriguing, but Texas did not seem like a fit for a northeastern native like Pepitone. He lasted 75 games in Houston, and did hit 14 home runs in half a season, but he was not happy. The Astros tired of his act quickly; on July 29, Houston sent him to the Cubs, settling for only cash in return. Despite his power and relative youth, Pepitone’s stock had fallen that far.

It was during his days in Chicago that one of the most amusing episodes of his career took place. Pepitone slid into second place, and then, when he realized that the ball had been overthrown, he stood up and raced into third, when he again slid into the base. As he lifted himself up from the ground, he realized that something was missing. Both his cap and his toupee had fallen off. Pepi looked toward second base, where he noticed that the toupee was sitting on top of the base.

On a more serious note, Pepitone’s arrival in Chicago put him in a tenuous situation. In acquiring Pepitone, the Cubs dared to place Pepitone under the watchful eye of an old school manager in Leo Durocher. “Leo the Lip” was a no-nonsense type who had been managing since the late 1930s. He had little tolerance for modern free spirits like Pepitone who enjoyed the nightlife more than the actual games themselves.

It remains a mystery why the Cubs thought that a pairing of Pepitone and Durocher could work. (Pepitone also faced the difficult task of trying to replace Ernie Banks at first base.) The dynamic between player and manager created a succession of controversies. At a stormy team meeting that also featured blow-ups by Ron Santo and Milt Pappas, Pepitone accused Durocher of overreacting to players’ on-field mistakes by criticizing them in the dugout, in full view of other players. And then, during spring training, Pepitone infuriated conservative Cubs management by choosing to live with an 18-year-old girl. While that might have been tenable in 2013, it was considered anathema in 1970s baseball. General manager John Holland told Durocher to intervene, placing the manager in the middle of an unwanted predicament.

Miraculously, Pepitone outlasted Durocher in Chicago, thanks in part to his solid production as a part-time player in 1970 and ‘71, when he put up OPS figures in the .800 range. But by the spring of 1973, or a season after Durocher’s firing, Pepi had worn out his extended welcome. On May 19, the Cubs traded him to the Braves for a young Andre Thornton.

Pepitone lasted exactly one month in Atlanta. Though he banged out four hits in 11 at-bats as Atlanta’s first baseman, the Braves quickly realized that Pepi was not right for them either. After only three games wearing the blue and the white of the Braves, the team gave him his release.

The move would end Pepi’s days in the majors, even though he was still only 32 and still had that sweet, left-handed swing. So Pepitone took his act to the Japanese Leagues, where he cashed a far bigger paycheck—paying him $140,000—than he could have possibly earned in the majors.

The money was terrific, but the Japanese culture figured to kill Pepitone. He was simply not the kind of personality who could assimilate into the Far East culture. Predictably, he made no effort to conform to the expectations of ballplayers in Japan, where players were expected to wear their hair short and practice for hours on end. He wore his hair (or shall we say his toupees) at shoulder length, just as he had done with the Astros, Cubs, and Braves. He complained about the long three-hour practices that Japanese managers and coaches demanded of their players. After games, he spent much of his free time at local discos, where he danced and drank the night away instead of beginning his mental preparation for the next game on the schedule.

Off the field, Pepitone moaned about the high prices of clothing and food in Japan. That only solidified his place as a pariah in Japanese culture.

So how long did Pepitone last in Japan? Fourteen games to be exact. He hit .167 for the Yakult Atoms and jumped the team. The Atoms made little effort to find him.

Although his Japanese tenure lasted just a handful of games, Pepitone did not fail to leave a lasting impression in the Far East. In an era long before cell phones, he left behind an astronomical phone bill, which he never paid. (Presumably the Japanese authorities are still on the lookout.) He also became responsible for creating a new slang word in in Japanese—a “pepitone.” Translated roughly into English, the word means “goof-off.”

After his ill-fated tenure in Japan, Pepitone left baseball for nearly a decade. In 1982, the Yankees brought him back to the fold by hiring him as their hitting coach; he lasted less than a full season, replaced late in the summer by Lou Piniella. Three years later, he ran into major trouble with the law when he was found to be in possession of nine ounces of cocaine, resulting in two misdemeanor drug charges and a short stay in prison. He encountered more trouble in the 1990s, charged with misdemeanor assault in one case and driving while intoxicated in another.

If there’s good news to come out of story, it’s this. Pepitone appears to be free and clear of drugs and alcohol now, and has managed to stay out of the police blotter for the last 18 years. Unfortunately, Pepi was also one of the many residents of the Northeast who were affected by Hurricane Sandy last fall. He lost his house, and is staying with a friend for the time being.

Even though he has not played a game in 40 years, Pepitone’s legacy in American culture remains significant. After all, how many major league players have been photographed nude by Playgirl? Furthermore, he was referenced no fewer than three times during the dominant run of Seinfeld in the 1990s. Who can forget Kramer’s vivid tale of his adventures at Yankee fantasy camp, when he threw a fastball at Pepitone’s head for standing too close to the plate, triggering an all-out brawl that involved Mickey Mantle? In another episode, while taking some lucky folks on a tour of New York City, Kramer credited Pepitone with designing New York’s Central Park.

So all these years later, Pepitone is not forgotten. If you saw him play, or if you have heard him interviewed, you will always retain a mental image of him. It’s safe to say that he remains an American original.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-05-31T06:16:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-mike-andrews/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-mike-andrews/#When:06:25:15 Bob Oliver of the Royals, who appears to have made contact with Mike Andrews just as he is readying a relay throw to first base.

Will Andrews have enough time to make a strong throw to first, or will the impact of the 215-pound Oliver on Andrews’ knees upend the veteran middle infielder, forcing him to hold the ball while falling into a heap at second base? Those are some of the questions that come to mind while examining this photograph from a 1972 game in Kansas City.

As it turns out, this was the last card that Topps issued for Mike Andrews; he would never again play in the major leagues after the 1973 season. No one could have known at the time of this card’s release that Andrews would become embroiled in one of the most infamous World Series controversies of all time, an incident that would make an owner and his players mortal enemies. More on that nasty episode a little later in our program.

Andrews’ life in professional baseball began in 1961, when the Red Sox signed him as a free agent shortstop. The following summer, he reported to the town of Olean, the location one of the teams in the NY-Penn League, where he put up surprising power numbers. With 12 home runs and a .461 slugging percentage, Andrews established himself as a shortstop with a potent bat.

Earning a promotion to full-season Single-A ball in 1963, Andrews struggled so much at Winston-Salem that the Red Sox demoted him to Waterloo in midseason. Still, the Red Sox pushed him up to Double-A Reading in 1964. Andrews compiled an impressive .392 on-base percentage, though his power production fell off considerably. The Red Sox felt that he showed enough to earn a promotion to Triple-A Toronto.

Andrews hit poorly in his first go-round at Triple-A, but he bounced back in his second season at Toronto. The parent Red Sox decided to move Andrews to second base, a position to which he adjusted smoothly. With 14 home runs and 89 walks, he proved himself worthy of a spot on the Red Sox’ Opening Day roster in 1967.

The Sox opened the new season with Reggie Smith at second base, and Andrews in the role of a utility infielder. But Boston soon realized that Smith couldn’t play second base every day, so they moved him to center field, while clearing a spot on the middle infield for Andrews. The 23-year-old rookie emerged as a subtle contributor to Boston’s 1967 “Impossible Dream.” Though he hit only eight home runs and slugged .354, he drew 62 walks, reached base 34 per cent of the time, and showed himself to be a skilled bunter, with a league-leading 18 sacrifice hits. Andrews teamed with shortstop Rico Petrocelli to form one of the game’s most reliable double play combinations.

Somewhat strangely, Andrews did not start the first four games of the World Series against the Cardinals, instead giving way to veteran Jerry Adair. This repeated a lineup pattern that manager Dick Williams had used late in the regular season. Andrews finally received a start in Game Five. Perhaps Williams should have played Andrews sooner. Playing in the Series as a rookie, Andrews showed little fear of the game’s largest stage. He batted .308, collecting four hits in 13 at-bats, and laid down two more sacrifice bunts. In the field, he handled all of his chances at second base flawlessly.

Building on his successful rookie season, Andrews improved his game in 1968. He became more proficient at turning the double play, which had been the most difficult part of his transition to second base. While his power output remained the same, he showed more patience at the plate and improved his OPS by 24 points, a significant improvement in the Year of the Pitcher. While the Red Sox slumped, costing Dick Williams his job in midseason, Andrews still managed to draw some consideration for American League MVP.

Andrews drew praise from his teammates, both for his play on the field and his attitude in the clubhouse. “Mike is the key to the success of this team,” Sox outfielder Ken Harrelson told Boston beat writer Larry Claflin. “He’s our leader and I don’t care how young he is. He’s the most underrated player in the American League.”

In 1969, Andrews became a bit less underrated as the power finally arrived in his game.
Filling a role as the Sox’ leadoff man, Andrews hit 15 home runs for the season, drew close to a .400 slugging percentage, and lifted his OPS to .844. He also made his first All-Star Game while again picking up some consideration for league MVP.

But there was a downside. Unfortunately, Andrews was hit with a pitch thrown by Minnesota’s Dave Boswell on May 30. Andrews suffered a badly injured right hand, which forced him to miss nearly 40 days of action. Without Andrews in the lineup, the Red Sox struggled so badly that they fell out of the pennant race.

Andrews bounced back with a solid season in 1970, while appearing in a career-high 151 games. He matched his career high with 81 walks and achieved a personal best with 17 home runs. Given his play over the last three seasons, Andrews had established himself as one of the American League’s best all-round second basemen.

At the age of 26, Andrews should have been looking ahead toward a long tenure of prime seasons in Boston. The Red Sox had another plan in mind. One day after general manager Dick O’Connell claimed that Andrews was untouchable, the GM reversed course. Looking to reconfigure their infield, including a shift of Rico Petrocelli to third base, O’Connell traded Andrews and minor league infielder Luis Alvarado to the White Sox for veteran shortstop Luis Aparicio. The Red Sox planned to replace Andrews with a young Doug Griffin.

It was a strange trade, given that Aparicio was already 37. Loving his life in Boston, Andrews was crushed, as were many Red Sox fans. In contrast, the White Sox were thrilled with the deal. They watched Andrews hit for power and average, while compiling an OPS of .840. But he was also limited to 109 games because of a variety of injuries. His season came to an abrupt end on September 1, when he collided with Minnesota’s Harmon Killebrew and badly fractured his left wrist.

Andrews was never the same after the collision. Though he loved playing for Chuck Tanner in Chicago, he hit only .220 in 1972. He also led American League second basemen in errors. Then came 1973, the most tumultuous season of Andrews’ career. It was a year that would start with a significant chapter in the game’s labor/management history. While most fans have heard of the efforts of Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith, who would play the 1975 season under unsigned contracts in order gain free agency, not as many are aware of the role that Andrews played.

According to research done by writers Maxwell Kates and Stew Thornley, Andrews and three other White Sox veterans took a stand that spring. The four players refused to sign new contracts, instead reporting to training camp under automatically renewed contracts. In addition to Andrews, third baseman Ed Spiezio, onetime bonus baby Rick Reichardt, and veteran right-hander Stan Bahnsen also refused to sign their contracts.

Bahnsen eventually signed his new contract, but the other three refused, instead deciding to play under the renewed contracts with the idea that they would become free agents after the season. Unfortunately, the strategy did not proceed smoothly for the trio of Sox. The threesome soon became “free,” but not in the way that they would have liked. Andrews slumped as the White Sox’ first DH and then became upset when GM Stu Holcomb criticized him in the press, motivating Andrews to ask for his release.

Holcomb, a soccer executive who knew little about baseball, also released both Reichardt and Spiezio, making some skeptics wonder whether they were being punished for refusing to sign their contracts. If the Players’ Association had been as strong in 1973 as it is today, the White Sox’ front office might have faced a grievance. Such was not the case in 1973, in the days before arbitration, free agency, and McNally and Messersmith.

The release ended Spiezio’s career; he would fail to land another major league job. The other two players fared only slightly better. Reichardt signed on with the Royals, but didn’t capture the fancy of manager Jack McKeon, who released him in 1974.

As for Andrews, he managed to find work with a top-tier team, signing a mid-season contract with the A’s, the game’s defending World Champions.

The A’s soon discovered that their new infield acquisition was potentially damaged goods. A solid defensive player in past years, he could not even make a routine throw from his position at second base. Andrews claimed that his arm was fine. After watching him make two bad throws, Dick Williams (by now the manager of the A’s) announced that he would not use Andrews in the field anymore. Williams decided to restrict his new acquisition to pinch-hitting appearances and occasional use as a DH.

The A’s returned to the World Series in the fall of 1973, but Andrews’ participation in the Fall Classic would result only in bitter memories. A tight Game Two between the A’s and Mets remained deadlocked until the top of the 12th, when the Mets came to bat at the Oakland Coliseum. With runners on first and third, an aging Willie Mays bounced a two-out, run-scoring single over Rollie Fingers’ outstretched arms.

When Cleon Jones lined a single to load the bases, Williams replaced Fingers with lefty Paul Lindblad, who faced the slugging John Milner. Milner bounded a routine grounder to second base, where Andrews was deemed healthy enough to field his position. Andrews had pinch-hit for Ted Kubiak in the eighth inning.

Milner’s ground ball had all the earmarks of the inning’s final out. Yet, an uncertain Andrews stabbed clumsily at the ball, allowing it to dribble through his legs. Two runs scored, with Milner and Jones taking second and third, respectively. The A’s now trailed by three runs. Jerry Grote then grounded a ball to the right side of the second base bag. Although a more difficult play than the ball hit by Milner, the grounder remained eminently playable. Andrews handled this bouncer without difficulty, but then threw wide of first baseman Gene Tenace, pulling him off the bag. Andrews’ second error enabled Jones to score the Mets’ fourth run of the inning.

After the disastrous top half of the 12th, Oakland captain Sal Bando noticed A’s owner Charlie Finley placing a call from the owner’s box, located near the A’s’ dugout. On the other end of the line, Oakland’s team physician listened patiently to his angry employer. The impetus for Finley’s call to the doctor would soon overtake the World Series.

Ever the classy veteran, Andrews accepted blame for the loss. “I have no excuses,” Andrews told Leonard Koppett in describing the first play. “I put my glove down for the ball and thought I had it.”

After the game, a reporter asked Dick Williams if the absence of young second baseman Manny Trillo, who had been ruled ineligible for the Series, had cost his team. Williams refused to use the omission of Trillo from the World Series roster as an excuse. “Let’s face it,” Williams bluntly told the New York Times, “when you get down to the 25th man, you’re in trouble.” Andrews was about to find himself in the middle of unwanted trouble.

Moments after the disheartening defeat, Andrews received instructions to report to the team’s orthopedist, Dr. Harry Walker, who promptly examined Andrews’ right shoulder. Andrews then met with Williams and Charlie Finley in a private office. In a sermon that lasted approximately 40 minutes, Finley tried to persuade Andrews to sign a statement, dated October 14, 1973, which made the following claim:

Mike Andrews is unable to play his position because of a bicep groove tencosynotitis of the right shoulder. It is my opinion that he is disabled for the rest of the year.

Dr. Walker had signed his name to the statement. Under the words, “I agree to the above,” Mike Andrews finally agreed to place his signature.

Finley contended that Andrews’ shoulder injury, supposedly sustained prior to the Series, made him unavailable to play during the balance of the World Series. Finley now hoped to make the case to reinstate Trillo to Oakland’s postseason roster. In order to fulfill his wish of adding Trillo, Finley had attempted to break the rules of eligibility, force his team physician into lying about a player’s health, and publicly embarrass a respected veteran.

“The game was over and we sat for a long period of time in the bus waiting to go to the airport,” said Sal Bando, recalling the scene at the Oakland Coliseum. The A’s reacted with disbelief when they realized that Andrews had not boarded the flight. Oakland players had become accustomed to Finley’s bizarre habits: his rampant pettiness and his interference with coaches and managers. Yet, none of those annoying habits had prepared the players for the sinister act that he had committed in essentially firing Andrews. Oakland players simmered on the flight to New York.

On the off day scheduled after Game Two, a furious band of A’s reported to Shea Stadium for a workout. “I suggested at the workout that we wear Mike Andrews’ number on our shirts,” Bando revealed. In response to the captain’s words, several players taped makeshift patches featuring Andrews’ No. 17 on their uniform sleeves.

A report by United Press International clearly painted Finley as the villain, at least according to the testimony of Andrews himself. Andrews told UPI that Finley had threatened to “destroy me in baseball” if he did not sign the statement that declared him injured and unfit to play. Andrews said he did not want to sign the agreement, but did so out of fear that Finley might follow up on his verbal threats.

In Game Four of the Series, a 6-1 blowout for the Mets, Dick Williams sent a not-so-subtle message to Finley that the owner no longer had the final word on Andrews. In the eighth inning, Williams inserted Andrews as a pinch-hitter. As Andrews strode toward home plate, the crowd of 54,817 fans at Shea Stadium treated him as one of their own, bathing him with prolonged applause. Andrews then topped an easy grounder to third baseman Wayne Garrett. As Andrews jogged toward the Oakland dugout, the Mets’ fans once again rose in support of the embattled infielder.

Andrews expressed appreciation for the gesture from the New York fans, not always known for their sympathetic ways. “The ovation gave me chills, it surprised me,” an appreciative Andrews told the New York Daily News. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a standing ovation in my life. To me that meant everything.” In the meantime, Finley remained motionless in his owner’s box. As Andrews ran back to the dugout, an uncomfortable Finley offered some polite applause and awkwardly waved an A’s banner.

The Andrews incident would have a huge impact on the A’s. For Dick Williams, it was the last straw. He secretly told his players that he would resign at the end of the World Series, a promise that he fulfilled. After the season, Finley placed Andrews on waivers, the first step in giving him his release. Finley refused to let Andrews’ exit go at that; he insulted Andrews by quoting baseball’s waiver rules in an interview with The Sporting News. “Any team that wants him can have him for $1.”

Not wanting to give Finley the last word, Andrews announced the filing of a $2.5 million lawsuit against the owner for publicly humiliating him during the World Series. Andrews and Finley ended up settling the suit for an unspecified amount of money.

That winter, Andrews insisted that his arm and shoulder felt fine. A Boston doctor confirmed the condition of the shoulder, saying that he found nothing wrong with the arm. Andrews did admit, however, that he had developed a mental block that affected his throws to first base. It was a problem that had first occurred with the White Sox in 1971 In reaction to the difficulty, he believed he could play a capable first base while still hitting major league pitching. Andrews contacted 22 of the 24 major league teams, but none of the clubs offered him as much as a tryout.

In the aftermath of his release, and Finley’s embarrassing $1 crack, Andrews received an invitation to appear on the Dick Cavett Show, but no interest from any of the ballclubs.

The major league career of the former Red Sox and White Sox second baseman had come to an end—at the age of 30. After sitting out the 1974 season completely, Andrews would play one season in the Japanese Leagues before opting to leave. He did not enjoy the Japanese approach to baseball, which included three-hour practices prior to each game.

Many men might have allowed the embarrassment of the Finley episodes to carry over to their post-baseball days. Andrews is not one of those men. Intelligent and driven, Andrews became an insurance agent specializing in estate planning and also founded two baseball camps, including one he operated with former Red Sox teammate Gerry Moses. He then turned to his true calling, leaving the insurance business to become the assistant director of The Jimmy Fund in Boston.

As the official charity of the Red Sox, The Jimmy Fund provides money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Andrews first learned about the fund as a player, when he met with a 12-year-old boy at Fenway Park and talked with him for half an hour. Little did Andrews know that the boy was dying from cancer.

When Andrews took over as the charity’s chairman in 1984, The Jimmy Fund was raising less than $1 million annually. Now that annual total is over $50 million. As the fund’s chief spokesman, Andrews deserves his share of credit for the fund’s explosion over the last 30 years.

Andrews has done a lot since he last played baseball. He didn’t permit that Bob Oliver takeout slide to derail him, just like he didn’t allow the bitter pettiness of a difficult owner to ruin his life. Mike Andrews has recovered just fine.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-05-17T06:25:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cooperstown-confidential-what-really-happened-with-fritz-ostermueller-and-j/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cooperstown-confidential-what-really-happened-with-fritz-ostermueller-and-j/#When:06:28:15 42 is a wonderful movie, beautifully filmed and superbly acted. It is a film that does a skilled job in telling the story of Jackie Robinson’s entrance into the major leagues and the season-long struggles that he faced as the game’s greatest racial pioneer. It is a film that may earn Harrison Ford an Academy Award nomination for his performance as Branch Rickey.

But there is an ongoing controversy with this film, and it involves the characterization of former Pirates pitcher Fritz Ostermueller. The veteran moundsman is seen intentionally throwing a pitch at Robinson’s head, hitting him with that pitch, and then attempting to insult him with a dismissive and racially tinged remark.

The portrayal has drawn the wrath of Ostermueller’s daughter, who contends that her father was not a racist, but a kind and open-hearted man. “I’d just like people to know that the man that they portrayed was not Fritz Ostermueller, was not my dad,” said his daughter, Sherrill Ostermueller Duesterhaus. “It was Hollywood taking maybe a little piece of history and rewriting it their way.”

“I can understand Hollywood making a good story,” said Sherrill, “but not at an expense of someone else and someone else’s memory and legacy.” Sherrill may not be the most objective source on the subject, but it’s also safe to say that she knew her father better than most people did.

Ostermueller is no longer around to defend himself. Diagnosed with cancer in 1956, he died one year later, at the age of 50. He has been gone for nearly 60 years. So we are left to rely on the testimony of others, a group that includes his surviving family members.

Who was the real Fritz Ostermueller? That is a question that historians like myself are trying to contend with as the film continues to enjoy a successful run in theaters nationwide.

There are at least two clear mistakes in the film’s characterization of Ostermueller. 42 shows him to be a right-handed pitcher; baseball fans who recall the 1930s and 40s will surely remember him to be a left-handed pitcher, and a good one at that. He won 114 games over a decade and a half, finishing in the top 10 in league ERA three times.

Far more importantly, the film shows the Ostermueller/Robinson incident to involve a beanball that nails Robinson in the head. The incident refers to a game between the Dodgers and Pirates at Forbes Field on May 17, 1947. In the top of the first inning, Ostermueller hit Robinson with a pitch, marking the fourth time that Jackie had been hit overall that season. But in actuality, when Ostermueller hit Robinson with a pitch that day, it was in the left arm, and nowhere near his head.

My first reaction to hearing of such inaccuracies was this: if the filmmakers couldn’t correctly identify Ostermueller as a left-handed pitcher, and couldn’t accurately portray Robinson being hit in the arm instead of the head, then what else did they get wrong in portraying Ostermueller? Why should we believe anything that 42 says, or even hints at, about the career of Fritz Ostermueller?

First off, let’s provide a biographical summary of Ostermueller. Born in Quincy, Illinois, he was raised on a dairy farm. After some experience playing in a church league and then for his college team, he signed with Quincy’s minor league club and began working his way up the professional ladder within the Cardinals’ organization. A stint at Rochester showcased him as a star; he led the International League in ERA and drew interest from several major league teams.

With their expansive minor league system and a strong major league rotation, the Cardinals had no room for Ostermueller. The Red Sox purchased the talented left-hander and assigned him to work with Hall of Fame southpaw Herb Pennock, who helped him refine his control. As a rookie in 1934, Ostermueller pitched very well, finishing in the top 10 in ERA among American League hurlers.

Ostermueller’s performance began to dip in his second season. As the decade continued, his ERAs rose into the high 4.00s, even though he reached double figures in wins in 1938 and ‘39. His performance seems to have been affected by arm problems that he first encountered in 1937, resulting in eventual surgery.

The Red Sox ran out of patience with Ostey in 1939. After the season, they sold him and veteran right-hander Denny Galehouse to the St. Louis Browns. The war years brought Ostermueller a considerable level of tumult. He struggled so much that the Browns sent him back to the minors. After he returned, he was hit in the elbow by a batted ball and had to undergo another surgery. As a result of the injury, he came up with a distinctive delivery, which mimicked the motion of a rocking chair and caught the attention of fans and writers.

In 1943, Ostey volunteered to enter the military as part of the World War II effort, but an examination showed him to have arthritis, resulting in his rejection for military service. The Army later reclassified him, allowing him to serve briefly in 1945.

In July of 1943, the Browns traded Ostey to the Brooklyn Dodgers for Bobo Newsome. He seemed to find a home with the Dodgers, where he pitched well in relief for the balance of 1943 and the first half of 1944.

Despite his solid pitching, the Dodgers cut him loose in midseason and tried to send him to the minor leagues, a move that Ostey protested. Dodgers GM Branch Rickey didn’t like Ostermueller, whom he referred to as “not my kind of a pitcher.” Part of the dislike stemmed from the feeling that his veteran left-hander drank too much. As sportswriter Tim Cohane once wrote: “[Ostermueller] has been known occasionally in the past to quaff a species of liquid refreshment more stimulating than beef tea.” Rickey took note of the habit, and Ostey never forgave Rickey for the slight.

Initially signing with the Reds, Ostermueller then signed with Pittsburgh and emerged as an effective pitcher for the Pirates over the next three and a half seasons. It was with Pittsburgh that Osty coined the famous saying that was originally credited to his Hall of Fame teammate, Ralph Kiner: “Home run hitters drive Cadillacs; single hitters drive Fords.”

Though Ostermueller was now in his late thirties, he put up two of his best seasons in 1945 and ‘46, winning a combined 25 games. (I guess it was quite appropriate that Ostermueller was nicknamed “Old Folks.”) The consummate crafty left-hander, he relied on control and deception. In some ways, Osty enjoyed the last laugh on Rickey.

Ostermueller remained an effective pitcher in 1947, Robinson’s rookie season. But his career took a downturn in 1948, forcing him into retirement.

As a pitcher, Ostermueller had an uneven but respectable 15-year career. He showed resiliency in coming back from multiple surgeries, and overcoming multiple rejections from various teams.

Now for the more pertinent issue. In trying to come up with answers about Ostermueller’s character, I began my search by examining his file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library. It is a decent-sized file, with about 40 or so newspaper clippings. Unfortunately, most of the clips are pre-1947, so they give us no indication as to his feelings regarding race relations. Of the few articles that are dated from 1947, there is no discussion of the game in which he hit Robinson with a pitch; there is not even a passing mention of the now-famous incident.

In looking at the articles post-1947, there are just a few mentions of Ostermueller’s pitching career, along with two different obituaries. Once again, the articles offer no discussion of the Robinson incident, and no examination of his racial attitudes. In a column written by Pittsburgh writer Al Abrams, Ostermueller is described as “a particular favorite” of the writer. There is certainly no indication that he was any kind of a racist or a hater.

So based on his clippings file, Ostermueller looks good. But the absence of any written allegations of racism does not necessarily make him innocent of the charges posed in 42. After all, the issue of race was not always discussed in the mainstream press, even in 1947 when Robinson was making history.

Having exhausted Ostermueller’s clippings file, I next made my move toward the Internet, trying to read as many biographical articles as possible. One of the best sources comes from SABR’s Biographical Project, which features an extensive bio written by John F. Green. There is not a single mention of Jackie Robinson, or even the words “race” or “racism” in this lengthy article, which is perhaps the most extensive biographical effort made of Ostey’s career. Similarly, I found no evidence of race being brought up in other Internet articles that predated the ongoing issue surrounding 42.

That leaves us with one other avenue, and that is perhaps the most useful source in a story of this kind. Are there any surviving teammates of Ostermueller who might give us some insight into his character? This is where the helping hand of a Pittsburgh writer named Bob Hurte, who is a friend of mine, comes into play. A historian and budding author, Hurte has communicated in recent years with one of Ostermueller’s teammates, a man who seemed to have first-hand knowledge of Ostey’s feelings. At the time of Hurte’s conversation with him, this player preferred to remain anonymous; he did not want to publicly impugn his late teammate or his family, nor did he want to become embroiled in a public controversy. But this player told Hurte that Ostermueller did portray bigoted sentiments during his time with the Pirates. The unnamed teammate said that Ostermueller once referred to Robinson by saying, “I’m going to hit that black bastard.” Based on that remark, the teammate believed that Ostermueller threw at Robinson intentionally, and for reasons having to do with race.

It is the player’s prerogative to remain anonymous. And it is certainly ethical for Hurte to respect the player’s right to privacy. At the same time, Hurte believed (and still believes) that the teammate is a credible source, one without an axe to grind. He believed the teammate when he described Ostermueller in such a way. And I happen to think that Hurte is being perfectly forthright and sincere here, to the point that I am willing to use Hurte as a secondary source.

Now for some readers, that might not be good enough. And I understand that. But given the passage of time, and the lack of eyewitnesses surviving from the 1940s, it is the best we have to go on in trying to reconstruct events from nearly 70 years ago.

So what conclusions can we draw from this experience? First off, 42 erred badly in its characterization of Ostermueller, particularly in showing him to have hit head Robinson in the head, when he did not. That’s an important detail to miss, and one that exaggerates the severity of the incident.

Second, Ostermueller does not seem to be completely innocent. Based on the recollections of a teammate, Ostermueller had racist feelings, and allowed those feelings to manifest themselves in the form of a hateful incident. That doesn’t necessarily make Ostermueller any different from many players of that era, but it is an incident that is definitely part of the Robinson story.

Both the filmmakers and Ostermueller appear to have made mistakes. Let’s hope the final record reflects those shortcomings.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-05-10T06:28:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-jose-cardenal/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-jose-cardenal/#When:06:49:15
Let’s speculate as that might have been said between the Topps cameraman and Cubs outfielder Jose Cardenal during a road game in 1972, when this photograph was likely snapped. “Bunt the ball, Jose,” the cameraman might have shouted in encouragement to Cardenal as he sought the proper pose for his 1973 baseball card. That might have been an odd instruction to utter to someone like Rico Carty, Jim Ray Hart, or Bobby Bonds. Those guys were noted for their slugging ability and were rarely called upon to lay down a sacrifice bunt.

In contrast, Cardenal was a skilled bunter who could handle the bat with dexterity. He could do just about everything at the plate, from lashing line drives into the gaps to hitting an occasional home run at County Stadium or Wrigley Field or Busch Stadium.

At the start of his career, Cardenal did everything well on the playing field. Signed by the Giants as an amateur free agent out of Cuba in 1960 (he was one of the last players to leave Cuba before Fidel Castro tightened restrictions), he put huge numbers at Double-A El Paso in 1963. He hit 36 home runs, stole 35 bases, and slugged an otherworldly .617, to lift his OPS to 1.011. He seemed so promising as a minor leaguer that it’s somewhat startling he ended up settling for a vagabond career that saw him make stops in St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Kansas City.

Simply put, Cardenal was a coveted prospect with five-tool talents. Some scouts, including a few in the Giants’ organization, loved Cardenal’s combination of speed, arm strength, and power. Unfortunately, the Giants of that era also had a bevy of good young outfielders. Some, like Bonds and Hart, worked their way through the system and became stars in San Francisco. Many others, like Cardenal and Leon Wagner and Matty Alou, fell though the cracks and had to find their way in other organizations.

The Giants compounded the situation by doing a poor job of evaluating their outfield prospects. In particular, they didn’t handle their Latino players particularly well at the time. It’s quite possible that the Giants regarded Cardenal as a “hothead;” that was a common stereotype of Latino ballplayers in the 1960s and 70s.

There was at least one incident in which Cardenal showed his temper. According to a story told by fellow author Dan Epstein, Cardenal took the issue of retaliation very seriously. While playing for the Giants’ affiliate at El Paso in the early 1960s, Cardenal found himself being thrown at repeatedly by rival pitchers. He believed that the frequent knockdowns and beanball attempts were motivated largely by the dark color of his skin and his Cuban heritage.

One pitcher, in particular, threw at Cardenal with annoying regularity. So Cardenal decided that the next time he faced the pitcher, he would come to the plate prepared, by carrying a switchblade in his sock. When the pitcher promptly hit him with a pitch, Cardenal bent down, picked out the switchblade, and began chasing the guilty moundsman. As soon as the pitcher saw the blade, he turned around and headed straight for center field. With Cardenal in hot pursuit, the pitcher ran all the way to the center field warning track and hurdled himself over the outfield wall!

While it’s impossible to prove whether incidents like this may have soured the Giants on Cardenal, it’s probably impossible to know whether his temper was the tipping point in the Giants’ decision to trade him. Whatever the Giants’ reasoning, they ended up making a deal in November of 1964. They sent Cardenal out of the league but kept him in the state by trading him to the California Angels for a fringe back-up catcher named Jack Hiatt. It was a puzzling trade at the time; it’s downright confounding in retrospect.

The trade to the American League not only gave Cardenal a chance to play more regularly, but it also gave him the opportunity to play head-to-head against his cousin, Kansas City A’s shortstop Bert Campaneris. In a rather remarkable coincidence, Cardenal became the first batter to step in against his cousin when Campy moved to the mound as part of Charlie Finley’s nine-positions-in-a-day stunt in 1965.

Showing promise in his first two seasons with the Angels, including a 16-home run season in 1966, Cardenal then flopped in his third year, prompting a trade to the Indians for infielder/outfielder Chuck Hinton. Cardenal played two seasons by the lake but couldn’t lift his OPS out of the .600 range. Disappointed in his output, the Indians traded him back to the National League, sending him to St. Louis for veteran star Vada Pinson.

The Cardinals, playing half of their games on the expansive artificial turf of Busch Stadium, seemed like an ideal fit for a fast flychaser like Cardenal. (He also became “Cardenal the Cardinal,” creating all sorts of marketing possibilities.) With Cardenal in center and Lou Brock in left field, the Cardinals featured speed galore in the outfield. Cardenal put up a .775 OPS in 1970, but the marriage between Cardenal and the Cardinals didn’t last. After a season and a half, the Redbirds dealt Cardenal to Milwaukee as part of a five-player deal that brought back young middle infielder Ted Kubiak.

Cardenal played dismally during a half season with the Brewers. It would not be until his next stop that Cardenal would find some long-term stability. After the 1971 season, the Cubs packaged right-hander Jim Colborn with two lesser players and sent them to the Brewers for Cardenal. Grouping him with Billy Williams (left field) and Rick Monday (center field), the Cubs formulated one of their best outfields in years, consisting of a Hall of Famer in Williams and two players with the speed to cover center field in Cardenal and Monday. Cardenal would remain a fixture in front of the Wrigley Field ivy for six seasons. On a more cultural level, he would also develop his trademark king-sized Afro during his halcyon days in Chicago.

In each of his first four seasons with the Cubs, Cardenal put up an OPS of over .800, including two seasons in which he received small consideration for league MVP. In 1973, he led the Cubs in batting average and emerged as the team’s player of the year. Two years later, he batted a career-high .317 and also drew a personal best of 77 walks. An underrated player, Cardenal became one of the National League’s better corner outfielders.

Then came Cardenal’s decline phase. With the Cubs realizing that the 33-year-old Cardenal could no longer play every day, they traded him to the Phillies after the 1977 season. He struggled as a bench player with Philly, found himself traded to the Mets in the middle of a doubleheader, and endured two more half-seasons of utility play with the lowly Mets before enjoying a last hurrah with the 1980 Royals. Signed off the waiver wire in late August, Cardenal batted .340 in 53 at-bats and then delivered a pinch-hit in the ninth inning of Game Six of the World Series. Even though his hit against Tug McGraw ultimately didn’t matter in a Royals loss, it did allow Cardenal to leave his major league career on a high note.

So why did Cardenal, a solid ballplayer who hit for a decent average, ran the bases aggressively and smartly, and played all three outfield positions to a capable level, find himself suiting up in nine different uniforms over a journeyman 18-year career? Two factors may have been at work. First, Cardenal didn’t hit with the kind of power that he had flashed as a prospect in the Giants’ system. Satisfied with spraying the ball from alley to alley, he never hit more than 17 home runs in a single season.

Second, Cardenal may have aggravated some of his teams with his behavior, which was either quaint or bizarre, depending on your perspective. Some of his managers considered him moody, though that could have resulted from racial and ethnic misunderstanding. A free spirit with an odd sense of logic, Cardenal did frustrate his managers and front office bosses with his quirks and habits. Some of those habits damaged his reputation, while others were flat-out harmless, but all of them made Cardenal one of the great characters of 1960s and 70s baseball.

Let’s consider a few of the eccentricities that made Cardenal one of the game’s memorable figures:

*Playing in the 1960s, Cardenal preferred his uniform pants remarkably tight in an era when most players opted to wear their flannel uniforms loose and baggy. According to the late Seattle Pilots right-hander Fred Talbot, who was quoted in Ball Four, Cardenal once sat out three straight games in winter league play for an odd reason: he could not find pants that were tight enough around his legs. And yes, in case you’re wondering, that does sound like something straight out of a Seinfeld episode.

*Tight pants were just one of Cardenal’s habits. He became legendary for concocting strange excuses for an inability to play. In addition to his preference for skin-tight pants, there were bizarre eye injuries and nighttime distractions created by thoughtless crickets. In 1972, Cardenal claimed that he couldn’t see properly. The reason? He had woken up with his eyelid and his eyelashes stuck to his eyeball. “I woke up and my eye was swollen shut,” Cardenal explained to a reporter. “My eyelashes were stuck together. I couldn’t see, so I couldn’t play.”

On another occasion, Cardenal told Cubs manager Jim Marshall that he couldn’t play in a 1972 spring training game because some particularly loud crickets had kept him up the entire night. Marshall didn’t believe him, but gave the veteran outfielder the day off. When it came to odd excuses not to play, Cardenal was the Chris Brown of the 1970s.

*Unlike many Latino players of his era, Cardenal spoke English well enough to give him a comfort level with reporters. Sometimes, his ability to handle interviews translated into too much irreverence for some people’s liking. When teammate Rick Monday rescued an American flag from two migrant workers in a celebrated 1976 game, drawing praise from most corners of the game, Cardenal became one of the few players to react with a level of derision. He sarcastically wondered whether Monday would be regarded as much of an American patriot as President Lincoln or George Washington.

*Cardenal became well known for sporting one of the game’s largest Afros. In fact, other than the celebrated Oscar Gamble, no one had an Afro the height or girth of Cardenal’s. As a result, Cardenal required caps and helmets that were appreciably larger than his head size—somewhere in the Bruce Bochy/Hideki Matsui range.

*According to his Philadelphia teammate, Pete Rose, Cardenal corked bats blatantly during his days with the Phillies. Rose says he could plainly hear the “sounds of the drill” in the Phillies’ clubhouse, as Cardenal plied his woodwork to a variety of bats. Rose claimed that he used one of Cardenal’s corked bats in batting practice, but never in an actual game.


In spite of his reputation for offbeat behavior that defied logic, Cardenal remained in the game as a coach. He went on to enjoy a long career, winning respect for his knowledge of baserunning and outfield play. After a stint coaching with the Reds, Cardenal joined Joe Torre’s staff with the Yankees. Employed as the team’s first base and outfield coach, he more than earned his salary by providing some sage guidance during the 1996 World Series. With the Yankees holding onto a 1-0 lead in the ninth inning of Game Five, the Atlanta Braves threatened to tie the score—and possibly win the game. As Chipper Jones led off third base and Ryan Klesko took his lead at first base, Luis Polonia stepped into the batter’s box against Yankee closer John Wetteland. Moments before the at-bat, Cardenal noticed that Paul O’Neill was out of position in right field. From his position in the Yankee dugout, Cardenal waved frantically at O’Neill, motioning him to move several steps toward right-center field.

Surely enough, Polonia swatted a Wetteland delivery toward the right-field alley, high and far, but short of home run distance. Racing toward the wall, O’Neill finally caught up with the drive, barely snaring it in the webbing of his glove.

If Cardenal had not moved O’Neill several feet toward the gap, Polonia’s drive would have eluded him. At the very least, Jones would have scored, tying the game. Although it’s not a certainty, Klesko very possibly would have scored from first, giving the Braves a dramatic come-from-back victory. Who knows what the rest of the Series might have held in store for the Yankees, who ended up completing a dramatic comeback in six games.

Although he was a widely respected member of Torre’s staff, he eventually ran into a contract dispute with the Yankees. Cardenal left New York, becoming a coach with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays before rejoining the staff of the Reds. From there, he hooked on with the Nationals as a senior advisor to the general manager, a position that he held until 2009, when the Nats decided to cut him loose.

Cardenal is out of baseball now, a sad development for a man who has been so intertwined with the game as a prospect, journeyman player, colorful character, seasoned coach, and front office advisor. I’d like to think that a faithful baseball lifer like Cardenal would always have a job in the game until he had decided that enough was enough, but I guess that’s just not realistic within the corporate structure of baseball.

Even at the age of 69, I’d wager that Jose Cardenal could still get himself down in a crouch, square his body toward the pitcher, and give us a good bunt, just like he once did for the Topps cameraman.


Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-05-03T06:49:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cooperstown-confidential-the-wild-life-of-george-brunet/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/cooperstown-confidential-the-wild-life-of-george-brunet/#When:06:32:15
One of those journeymen who has intrigued me is George Brunet. I first became aware of him in Jim Bouton’s Ball Four. I then heard about his exploits, at an advanced age well into his 50s, in the Mexican League. After that, I noticed that old friend “Repoz” (also known as Darren Viola) had posted a baseball card of Brunet over at Baseball Think Factory.

And then a few years back, I read Steve Treder’s entertaining article at The Hardball Times, where he constructed an imaginary conversation between himself and Brunet’s left arm. For me, that was the tipping point. I decided at that time that I needed to write about Brunet. It took me a few years to advance from that point to the actual process of writing about Brunet. Well, after months and months (and now years) of unceasing procrastination, that time has arrived.

Brunet’s professional career dates all the way back to 1953, when Tigers scout and onetime Brooklyn Dodger pitcher Schoolboy Rowe signed the left-hander to his first contract. After debuting with Shelby of the Tar Heel League, the Tigers assigned Brunet to Seminole, a team in something called the Sooner State League, where he hurled poorly for parts of two seasons. Most exasperating was his inability to throw strikes. Under most normal circumstances, struggles in the Sooner State League could signal the end of a pitching career and give a young man every hint that it was time to pursue another line of work.

Not so for Brunet. He wasn’t close to being finished. The Kansas City Athletics, a weak major league team but a major league team nonetheless, took him off the Tigers’ hands after he was essentially given his release. Brunet spent the 1955 season in the Athletics’ minor league system, before convincing the Kansas City brass that he was worthy of a major league look-see in 1956.

It’s rather remarkable that a young pitcher deemed unworthy of Class-D ball could make the jump all the way to the majors within two seasons, but somehow Brunet turned the trick. He helped his cause in 1956 by pitching a no-hitter for Crowley in the old Evangeline League. He struck out 16 batters that day, as he hurled the first no-hitter in the league’s history.

Promoting him in mid-season, the Athletics gave him a very tough assignment in only his second major league appearance. Manager Lou Boudreau summoned Brunet from the bullpen to face Ted Williams, who was only the game’s best hitter at the time (and perhaps of all time). Throwing a good curve ball, Brunet induced a weak groundout from the great Williams.

That was the high point of Brunet’s debut season. He struggled for most of the balance of the summer, causing the Athletics to question their decision to promote him. After his unimpressive trial in Kansas City in ‘56, Brunet spent most of the 1957 season pitching for Little Rock of the Southern Association. First, the good news. He struck out 235 batters to lead the league in K’s and won a respectable 14 games. Now the not-so-good. Over a stretch of 52 and a third innings, or the equivalent of nearly six complete games, Little Rock failed to score a single run in support of Brunet. The left-hander actually lost eight straight games over that span, which must represent some sort of unofficial record for offensive futility behind one pitcher. Thanks in large part to those eight straight defeats, Brunet totaled 15 losses for the summer. The Summer of George it was not.

Although he pitched briefly for the Athletics in 1957, he would spend all of 1958 and most of 1959 toiling in the minor leagues. (The 1958 season marked the only time he hurt his arm, as he developed a blood clot, which sidelined him for two weeks.) On the rare occasions that the Athletics auditioned Brunet in their bullpen, he struggled. After making Kansas City’s Opening Day roster in 1960, his misfortunes continued through his first three appearances. On May 11, the Athletics gave up on Brunet, trading him to the Milwaukee Braves for an unusually named right-hander, Bob Giggie.

The Braves tried Brunet as both a starter and reliever, but he continued to flail, putting up an ERA of 5.07 in 17 appearances. When those struggled persisted in 1961, the Braves sent him back to the minor leagues before finally dispatching him for good in 1962. The Braves dealt him to the Houston Colt .45s for Ben Johnson (not the actor, but a burly minor league right-hander).

As an expansion team, the Colt .45s seemed like a good landing place for a 27-year-old left-hander trying to find himself. The Colts needed all sorts of players, and certainly needed pitchers. Brunet made 11 starts and six relief appearances for Houston, putting up a 4.50 ERA. As in the past, there were too many walks, too many hits, and not enough strikeouts for Brunet to gain traction on a major league mound.

Three problems in particular marred the early frustration of Brunet’s career. Though he had a live arm and a repertoire of four pitches, he was often overweight and out of shape. He also had a furious temper, which boiled over when he pitched badly or his fielders flopped behind him. And then there were his considerable off-the-field journeys, which often found him in bars and unknown hotel rooms.

Practically from the start of his minor league career in 1952, Brunet became known as a “Dalton Boy.” This was a player who, once the game ended, headed for the nearest watering hole to begin his latest round of heavy drinking. Like other Dalton Boys on his teams, Brunet enjoyed the night life, partying until the wee hours and breaking more than his share of team curfews.

One of Brunet’s most famous episodes occurred during spring training in 1959. After a hard night of drinking with his teammates in West Palm Beach, Brunet somehow placed himself in front of the team hotel, directing traffic in the middle of the night. One of the cars that he stopped contained A’s manager Harry Craft and general manager Parke Carroll. They were not amused by the traffic stop. Shortly thereafter, the A’s sent Brunet out to Triple-A.

While the Mickey Mantles of the world somehow prospered, such a lifestyle seemed to affect Brunet’s performance. After a dreadful start to the 1963 season, the Colt .45s saw enough of their wild left-hander. This time they sent him packing in a straight cash transaction, selling him to the Orioles. Given their success in developing young pitching during the early 1960s, the Orioles seemed like as good a destination as any. The O’s didn’t need starters, so they used Brunet exclusively as a reliever. Unfortunately, the “Oriole Way” devised by the brilliant Paul Richards had no impact on Brunet, who was ineffective in 19 appearances, pushing his ERA to 5.40.

The Orioles sent Brunet back to Triple-A to start the 1964 season. Then came the break that would change the course of his career. On August 18, the Orioles sold Brunet to the Los Angeles Angels, another recent expansion team in desperate need of pitching.

In the ultimate irony, Brunet took the roster spot of Bo Belinsky, the colorful left-hander who was known for a hard-living, off-the-field style that actually exceeded that of Brunet. Some skeptics wondered if living and playing in Los Angeles and near the Hollywood scene would provide the right recipe for Brunet. As an unnamed member of the Angels’ organization proclaimed when he heard that Brunet was joining the team: “Hide the bottle!”

Good fit or not, Brunet joined an Angels club that featured several players known for their willingness to visit bars (including Jim Fregosi) and a cadre of colorful characters (principally Jim Piersall and Dean Chance). Later on, the Angels would add Jay Johnstone to the fray. For Brunet, it was the perfect opportunity to resurrect the days of the Dalton Boys.

Giving him a late-season look in their rotation, the Angels watched Brunet pitch the best ball of his peripatetic major league career. He put up a 3.61 ERA, struck out 36 batters in 42 innings, and generally kept the Angels in each game. His numbers might not have looked outstanding, but they represented major improvement over anything that the Athletics, Braves, Colt .45s, or Orioles had ever seen.

After the ‘64 campaign, the man known as “Lefty” dealt with one of the criticisms that had dogged him throughout his career. He made a strong effort to lose weight and improve his diet. “I did 100 or more sit-ups everyday,” said Brunet, according to a press release issued by the Angels’ organization. “I never ate after six o’clock, and if I did get hungry, I ate non-fattening foods like fruit.”

The regime worked wonders. Brunet lost 35 pounds, which was just the amount of weight that the Angels hoped he would lose. Looking little like his former self, Brunet put up a career-best ERA of 2.56 in 1965, while splitting time between the bullpen and the rotation. He also improved his curve, which complimented his plus fastball. At the age of 30, the late-blooming Brunet had arrived.

Brunet also credited his manager, veteran Angels skipper Bill Rigney, with helping him execute the turnaround. “Bill has given me the opportunity to pitch regularly up here, something I’ve never had before in the major leagues,” Brunet told the Angels in the interview. “The pressure is off me. I know that my job doesn’t depend on one game.”

The 1965 season marked the start of a successful four and a half year stretch in Southern California. The Angels made Brunet a fulltime starter in 1966. He emerged as a tireless workhorse, compiling 212, 250 and 245 innings over the next three years. His ERAs of 3.31, 3.31, and 2.86 were certainly helped by the pitching-friendly conditions of the time, but they also represented good work by the maturing left-hander.

Unfortunately, Brunet was also hounded by bad luck. The Angels simply did not score runs for him, a development that was exacerbated by the presence of so many weak hitters in the lineup, from catcher Buck Rodgers to second baseman Bobby Knoop to rhyming third baseman Paul Schaal. In 1967, the luckless Brunet lost 19 games, the most of any American League pitcher. He nearly matched that total with 17 defeats in 1968, again pacing the league in the unwanted category.

Brunet continued to live life hard and fast away from the ballpark, but by 1967, he had tired of his reputation. “The stories are always the same,” Brunet told sportswriter Ross Newhan. “It was always, ‘Here comes George, hide the bottle.’ That’s all they wrote and talked about. It was either that or my weight.”

He also felt that writers and players tended to exaggerate his exploits after games. “Even last year, even in LA and Anaheim, there were columns [written] which embarrassed my wife and myself. I’m really a little disgusted with that whole bit.” Brunet tried to curb his behavior, and also controlled his temper during those stretches when the Angels failed to score runs in support of him.

Brunet had undergone a remarkable turnaround, but by 1969 he started to frustrate the Angels. He showed up to spring training badly overweight, and with little inclination to drop the excess poundage. General manager Dick Walsh ripped into the hefty left-hander. That summer, his level of pitching fell off, which further infuriated Walsh.

On July 31, the Angels decided to make room for some youth on their roster by selling the portly Brunet to the expansion Seattle Pilots. While the Pilots were headed to the oblivion of a last-place finish in their first and only season, and Brunet would pitch poorly for Seattle, the opportunity to pitch for the Pilots would bring him some newfound notoriety. He would become a featured player in Jim Bouton’s diary of the 1969 season. Ball Four would give Brunet some nationwide fame for the first time in his journeyman career.

Shortly after he joining the Pilots, Bouton noticed that Brunet had a strange habit, at least strange for the time. He did not wear underwear, which made Bouton curious enough to ask him about the habit in Ball Four:

'No, I never wear undershorts,’ Brunet said. ‘Hell, the only time you need them is if you get into a car wreck. Besides, this way I don’t have to worry about losing them.’ Brunet’s explanation about foregoing underwear made some sense, at least in a Cosmo Kramer kind of way.

Brunet’s lack of underwear made an impression on the Pilots, but his pitching did not. As the Pilots moved to Milwaukee, they left Brunet behind; they traded him to the Washington Senators for right-hander Dave “The Brain” Baldwin.

Desperate for starting pitching, Ted Williams and the Senators gave Brunet 20 starts. He pitched creditably enough to build up some trade value; on August 31, the Pirates sent young right-hander Denny Riddleberger to Washington in a one-for-one deal. Used as a situational left-hander out of Danny Murtaugh’s bullpen, Brunet pitched beautifully, striking out 17 batters in 16 innings.

Headed to the 1970 National League Championship Series, the Pirates would have loved to add Brunet to their postseason roster. But the rules of the day prevented that. Since Brunet had officially joined the Bucs after the August 31st deadline, he was deemed ineligible for the playoffs.

It was a particularly cruel fate for Brunet, who had never appeared in the postseason during his long career. He very likely would have had that chance for the Pirates in 1971, a year in which Pittsburgh won it all, but Bucs GM Joe Brown included him in the trade that sent Matty Alou to the Cardinals for Vic Davalillo and Nelson Briles. Instead of basking in postseason glory, Brunet made seven appearances for the also-ran Cardinals, who gave up on him quickly and released him on May 10.

At the age of 36, the heavy and well-traveled Brunet appeared to hit the end of the line, summarized by 15 years and nine different big league clubs. No other major league teams showed interest in his services. That didn’t matter to Brunet. He signed a minor league contract with the Padres, accepting a pleasant minor league assignment to Hawaii. It was a reunion of sorts for Brunet, who had pitched for Hawaii in 1962. With his bulging beer belly, Brunet looked like a softball pitcher, giving him a distinctive look on the mound of the minor league Islanders. He pitched creditably over the next season and a half, winning 14 games in 1972.

Brunet enjoyed the climate and cuisine of Honolulu, but the Padres lost interest in the aging pitcher and released him. So he packed his bags and headed to the mainland, signing with Eugene, Oregon, for the 1973 season. After a five-game audition, the parent Phillies sent him packing, ending his association with Organized Ball.

Brunet was now 38, but he had no plans after baseball. He wanted to keep pitching. A friend of his, former major league shortstop Chico Carrasquel, convinced him to give it a whirl in the Mexican League. At the time, the league served as a bastion for over-the-hill major leaguers who still felt they had something to offer.

It was typical for aging players to spend a season or two in Mexico before calling it quits for good. Brunet did not look at the situation with such a perspective. Determined to keep pitching long-term, he became a standout starter in the Mexican League, pitching from 1973 to 1976. In 1977, he briefly became the manager of Poza Rica before deciding that he needed a return to the mound. Later that summer, he hurled a no-hitter, doing so at the age of 42. As Brunet told The Sporting News, “I’m too young to be a manager. It’s never too late when you know how to pitch.”

As each Mexican League season came, Brunet kept appearing. He also pitched winter ball in Mexico each year, which put his innings total at roughly 400 per year. He kept pitching and kept setting records. In 1980, he threw a three-hitter for Veracruz and was then treated to a surprise birthday party after the game. Tears in his eyes, he said in Spanish to his teammates and manager Willie Davis, “No one has ever done that for me.”

The following year, Brunet’s health took a bad turn as he suffered a heart attack. But he made a remarkably quick recovery and continued his career soon after.

Though he became an unofficial baseball ambassador to Mexico, he also claimed that police or citizens pulled a gun on him at least a half-dozen times. Nicknamed “El Viejo” (The Old Man), he would not retire until 1989; unbelievably, he appeared in the majors or minor leagues every year for 37 years. Along the way, he pitched for over 30 different teams.

In Mexico League play alone, he posted 55 shutouts, setting a league record. He won 132 games in Mexico, to the tune of a 2.66 ERA. Those numbers would earn him eventual election to the Mexican League Hall of Fame.

Not only did Brunet prosper in Mexico, but he loved the culture and the geography. When he-finally stopped pitching, at the age of 54, he decided to maintain his home in Mexico. After his retirement, he spent his time teaching Mexican youngsters how to play the game in a variety of clinics, camps, and leagues.

That is what he continued to do in his hometown of Poza Rica until an October day in 1991, when he suffered his second heart attack. This one was more serious than the first one that he had endured 10 years earlier. This time there would be no recovery. Shortly after the heart attack, Brunet died. He was 56 years old.

Perhaps Brunet’s heart gave out after too many years of partying, drinking, and overeating. Or perhaps his life just wasn’t the same once he had to give up his first and foremost love: pitching.

While his heart wore out, his arm never did. Amazingly, he pitched an estimated 6,000 innings between his work in the majors and the minor leagues. A remarkable man, George Brunet could throw all day, throw all night, and then he could throw some more.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-04-26T06:32:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-brooks-robinson/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-brooks-robinson/#When:06:48:15 Brooks Robinson during his long career, this is the only one that shows him taking a defensive position in an actual game. Oh, his 1976 card shows him holding a glove and a ball, but it is clearly a posed sideline shot, and not one taken from game action. All of his other cards are posed shots, many of them showing him holding a bat, while only a couple show him at the plate in a game.

But the 1973 Topps card is the best, since it shows him, ever alert in the field, about to take his defensive stance. He is perched on his toes, his arms at the ready. He is preparing to do what no one could do any better—and that is to play the position as if it had been tailored to suit his athletic skills.

Brooks Robinson has become synonymous for elite fielding at third base. Yet, it almost didn’t happen. When the Orioles signed him in the mid-1950s, he was playing second base in a church league. Paul Richards, the Orioles’ general manager, received conflicting reports on Robinson’s talents. “I do recall sending a couple of scouts to watch him in high school,” Richards told the Baltimore Sun. “One of them said he couldn’t run, throw, or hit, and couldn’t play. The other scout said he could play. We took a chance on the scout who said Robinson could play—fortunately.”

Robinson’s lack of foot speed remained a concern, but Richards felt that his slowness afoot did not detract from his other abilities. Baltimore’s original intention was to play him at second base, but the Orioles quickly realized the error of such a plan. They moved him from the keystone, where he lacked the requisite range, and made him a third baseman, where his quickness and arm strength seemed like a better fit.

At the end of his first minor league season at Class-B York, the Orioles promoted Robinson to Baltimore, but he was clearly not ready. He earned two more cups of coffee in 1956 and ‘57, but he struggled each time.

In 1958, the Orioles ignored his major league foibles and made him their starting third baseman. They hoped he would be a fulltime replacement for George Kell, the future Hall of Famer who had retired in 1957. Given a grand opportunity, Brooks hit only .238 and showed almost no power, hitting a mere three home runs. Though he was only 21 years old, Robinson had already reached the first crossroads of his career.

The Orioles assigned Robinson to Triple-A Vancouver in 1959; he proceeded to tear up the Pacific Coast League, hitting .331 in 42 games. His performance in Canada earned him a mid-season promotion to Baltimore. Playing most of the time at third base, Robinson hit a respectable .288, but without power or patience.

A breakthrough finally occurred in 1960. Starting the season at third base, Robinson proceeded to hit .294 with 14 home runs, improving his OPS to .769. More impressively, he played like an acrobat at third base, fielding everything within range. For his efforts, he won the Gold Glove, earned selection to the All-Star team, and placed an impressive third in the American League MVP race. At the age of 23, after so many fits and starts, Brooks Calbert Robinson, Jr. had arrived.

He also happened to be the All-American boy, a hard-working player who was polite to reporters, friendly with his teammates, and considerate to his fans. Those searching for character flaws with Mr. Robinson were sure to be disappointed.

Although Robinson played all 163 games for the Orioles in 1961 and continued to field his position like no third baseman in franchise history, his power dipped considerably. He hit only seven home runs, making him an offensive liability. But the sudden absence of power didn’t prevent him from making the All-Star team or gaining some consideration for league MVP.

Again playing in all of the Orioles’ games, Robinson put together his best season to date in 1962. He reached career highs with 28 home runs and a .486 slugging percentage, and also won his third consecutive Gold Glove. After a downturn in 1963, Robinson pushed his offensive talents to the optimum level in 1964. He batted .317, hit 28 home runs, and drove in 128, leading the American League in the latter category. Robinson raised his power hitting to the same level as his defense, which had already achieved elite status. Impressed with his all-around game, the writers voted him the league’s MVP.

Robinson was now a full-fledged star. Although he would never again match the offensive highs of 1964, he remained an effective offensive player throughout the rest of the decade. He was rarely the best hitter on the Orioles, but he qualified as an offensive helper, a man who could hit 20-plus home runs, draw the occasional walk, and consistently put the ball in play.

By the middle of the 1960s, Robinson was also cutting a distinctive pose on the field. Early in his career, he suffered a beaning when he failed to pick up the flight of an errant fastball on its way to the plate. Robinson felt that the bill of his helmet blocked his vision of the ball. So he made an unusual change to his equipment. He took his helmet and cut off the outer edge of the bill. The adjustment not only cleared up his line of vision, but it also left him with a distinctive and unusual short-billed helmet, which became the trademark of every one of his subsequent at-bats.

In 1966, Robinson received national attention when he was named to the All-Star team, collected three hits in the Midsummer Classic, and earned the game’s MVP Award. Even more significantly, he hit well during the regular season, reaching the 100-RBI plateau for the second time in his career. His performance coincided with the arrival of another Robinson, a certain outfielder named Frank. Rejected by the Reds for being “an old 30,” Frank Robinson batted third for the O’s, giving Brooks additional RBI opportunities.

After taking the American League pennant by a tidy margin of nine games, the 1966 Orioles faced the Dodgers in the World Series. Spearheaded by a middle of the order that featured the two Robinsons and the lefty-swinging Boog Powell, the O’s swept the Dodgers. Brooks didn’t hit for much of an average during the Series, but did hit a home run against Don Drysdale in Game One, helping the O’s to a 5-2 victory. His presence at third base also discouraged the Dodgers from employing their bunting game throughout the Series. The Orioles captured the first world championship for the franchise since making the move from St. Louis in 1954.

Now that Robinson had appeared on the national stage, both in the All-Star Game and the World Series, his reputation for defensive prowess had grown. Some observers dared to compare him to an all-time fielding great like Pie Traynor. On the surface, Robinson provided a deceptive look. He didn’t look particularly athletic and his arm lacked the sheer strength of other third basemen. Yet, no one in either league had the lightning-quick first step on ground balls, the shortstop-type range, and the pillow soft hands of Brooksie.

“His ability is to move five feet, one way or another, faster than anybody,” observed Boog Powell, who witnessed much of Robinson’s mastery from the other side of the infield, in an interview with Jimmy Cannon. “He doesn’t anticipate. He plays the ball. The ball is hit, he reacts.” Robby played the position so efficiently and so brilliantly that he earned the nickname, “The Human Vacuum Cleaner.”

If ever a nickname made perfect sense, it was this one. Robinson gobbled up ground balls as if his hands were suction cups. Robinson believed in keeping his glove low to the ground, theorizing that it was easier to bring his glove up than to put it down again. He played the position like no one before or since, with the possible exception of Clete Boyer or Graig Nettles. Or to be more modern, Adrian Beltre or Scott Rolen. The debate can certainly rage on this one, but until further notice, I’ll stick with Robinson.

Robinson continued to corner the market on gold gloves, winning the award in 1967, ‘68, and ‘69. His fielding helped the Orioles advance to the World Series in 1969, before being done in by the upstart and pitching-rich New York Mets. Robinson was as confounded as the rest of the Orioles’ batters; he managed only one hit in 19 at-bats against Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and company.

Robinson would more than redeem himself in the 1970 World Series. After dominating the American League East, the Orioles steamrolled the Twins in three straight Championship Series games. That set the stage for a World Series matchup between the Orioles and Sparky Anderson’s Reds. With a stack of right-handed pull hitters that included first baseman Lee May, third baseman Tony Perez, and catcher Johnny Bench, the Reds figured to test the left side of the Orioles’ infield.

As expected, the Reds put the challenge to the Baltimore third baseman, but he turned the World Series into the Brooks Robinson Flying Circus. In Game One, Robby made a backhanded snatch of Lee May’s hard-hit grounder. With his body falling into foul territory, he spun himself completely around and threw to Powell at first to complete the play.

In Game Three, after Pete Rose and Bobby Tolan started the game with back-to-back hits, Perez hit a high-hopper that appeared destined to bounce over Robinson’s head and make it to left field. Robinson leapt, grabbed the ball at the peak of his jump, and stepped on third base to start a 5-3 double play. The next inning, Robinson charged a slow roller off the bat of Tommy Helms and then made an off-balance throw to first base. And then in the sixth, Bench rifled a drive down the line, only to watch Robinson make a diving catch. When Robinson came to bat in the bottom of the sixth, the fans at Memorial Stadium rewarded him with a standing ovation.

By now Sparky Anderson had seen plenty of Robinson. “I’m beginning to see Brooks in my sleep,” Anderson told reporters while dining on a pre-game snack. “If I dropped this paper plate, he’d pick it up on one hop and throw me out at first.” Anderson’s frustration was shared by Rose, the Reds’ right fielder, who groaned to Time Magazine, “That guy can field a ball with a pair of pliers.”

Robinson’s fielding alone would have made him the Series’ key contributor, but he added to his ample accomplishments by swinging the bat ferociously. For the Series, he batted .429, hit a pair of home runs, and set a record for most total bases with 17 (in only five games). The writers made Robinson the logical choice to win the Series MVP. The Hall of Fame asked for Robinson’s glove, which he gladly donated to the Cooperstown museum.

As Robinson put on his one-man fielding extravaganza, the opposition Reds began calling him “Hoover,” a reference to the leading vacuum cleaner manufacturer of the early 1970s. It was a natural way to shorten his usual nickname of The Human Vacuum Cleaner. Perhaps if Robinson played in today’s game, he would be referred to as “Dyson” or “The Shark.”

At the age of 33, Robinson had become a household name. He had one big season left in him, which he turned in the following summer. He hit 20 home runs in 1971, reached base 34 per cent of the time, and executed another Gold Glove performance, winning his 12th consecutive award for fielding excellence.

Robinson’s final premium season coincided with the end of the Baltimore dynasty, which was derailed in a disappointing seven-game World Series loss to the Pirates. Robinson remained the Orioles’ starting third baseman for another four years, but he never again reached double figures in home runs. His range in the field also declined, though he continued to win the Gold Glove Award on an annual basis, finishing his career with 16 fielding trophies.

After hitting only .201 in his final season as a regular, Robinson might have been tempted to call it a career. Unfortunately, he had severe financial problems that motivated him to keep playing. Nearly bankrupt because of the failings of his sporting goods business, Robinson had to dip into most of his life savings to pay off his debts. He needed the salary of a major league player. No longer able to hit and now overweight, he endured two miserable seasons in 1976 and 1977 as a role player and backup, and as a tutor to his third base replacement, a young and underrated Doug DeCinces.

By the time the 40-year-old Robinson retired in August of 1977, he had put in 23 seasons, all in a Baltimore uniform. That tied him with fellow Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski for the most seasons played with one major league team.

Six years after his retirement, Robinson entered the Hall of Fame. An extremely popular player with fans, he drew thousands to Cooperstown, with many making the trek up the coast from Baltimore. It was through his election to the Hall of Fame that I eventually became fortunate enough to meet Robinson.

When people learn of my connection to Cooperstown and the Hall of Fame, they often ask me, “Who is the nicest guy among the Hall of Famers?” That question has become easy to answer. Though there are many agreeable sorts among the Hall of Famers, from the late Harmon Killebrew and Robin Roberts to the still-living Don Sutton and Billy Williams, none is any nicer than Brooks Robinson.

Whether it is merely saying hi as he enters the front door of the Hall of Fame, or conducting a full-length interview in the Grandstand Theater, Robinson always makes me feel as if he knows me well, as if I were one of his lifelong friends. I’m not alone in that sentiment. Just about anyone who comes in contact with Robinson during Hall of Fame Weekend will share similar thoughts.

That is why I have become especially concerned to hear about Robinson’s healthy problems in recent years. He has successfully waged a battle with prostate cancer, survived a nasty fall, and fought off an infection that required a hospital stay. It’s safe to say that he has had a rough time of late, though he has proven to be remarkably resilient.

Robinson is now 75. I hope we have him for another 20 years. He is still active as the president of the MLB Alumni Association. More importantly, he has become an American treasure, not only as the standard bearer for third base play, but as the standard bearer for how a Hall of Famer should conduct himself. We need to keep Brooks Robinson around for as long as possible.



Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-04-19T06:48:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/talking-ball-with-matt-silverman-about-swingin-73/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/talking-ball-with-matt-silverman-about-swingin-73/#When:06:26:15

Markusen: Matt, what made you want to do a retrospective on the 1973 season?

Silverman: As a kid who was playing Army and trying to find a channel not talking about Watergate in 1973, I sort of missed some of the more exciting aspects of that year. When I discovered baseball a couple of years later, and fell hard for the Mets, 1973 became the season just beyond my reach that I wished I had known better. To be honest, I think that kind of pushed me toward this idea. I was always interested in that year and must have watched the 1973 World Series highlight film during 100 rain delays as a kid on Channel 9 [in New York]. The first time I watched that film, I didn’t know which team won and was captivated--and ultimately upset. I came to enjoy that World Series not just from the New York perspective, but I was also fascinated by the A’s dynasty that was so good yet disappeared so suddenly.


Markusen: You’re best known for your writing about the Mets? How did you feel about branching out and discussing other teams like the Yankees and the A’s?

Silverman: It felt rather natural. I have worked on books and sites about other teams. In formulating the idea for this book, it quickly became apparent to me that it should be about more than just the Mets. The A’s naturally would be a featured part of this story, and when I started to think about what would go into the book, the Yankees kept coming up: the first DH, [George] Steinbrenner buying the team, the wife swap, the last year of the original Yankee Stadium, the end of the “Horace Clarke Era,” Steinbrenner trying to hire the A's manager, etc...


Markusen: What was more difficult to write, the baseball segments or those that covered American culture?

Silverman: The cultural segments were the hardest and also the most fun. It is probably only 10 percent of the book, but I thought it important to try to place the reader in the time. When you say “40 years ago,” some people roll their eyes, but I felt that if I could show what was going on at the time it would lead people further into the story and also allow them to understand the era a little better. The year is remembered for Watergate and the oil embargo, but there were TV shows, films, and “albums” indicative of the time. There were other memorable moments—sports moments not on the baseball diamond: the Dolphins completed their undefeated season in January of ‘73, the Knicks won their second title in four years, Secretariat was the first horse to win the Triple Crown in 25 years (and did so in stunning fashion), Jack Nicklaus broke the Bobby Jones mark for most majors won. And perhaps the most memorable sporting event of the year was an exhibition: the “Battle of the Sexes” tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs at the Houston Astrodome.


Markusen: You and I were classmates in 1973, second grade at Iona Grammar School. It was a long time ago, but do you remember us and other kids talking baseball that spring?

Silverman: I remember a lot of stuff from then, but baseball not so much. Filling in those holes was my favorite part about the book. The cultural references, especially TV, I remember pretty well. I recall watching The Brady Bunch with Joe Namath throwing the ball in the Astroturf backyard, but I recall nothing from the Super Bowl that clinched the Dolphins’ undefeated season. Getting my hands on a few games—commercials and all—from the World Series was wonderful. Even though I intimately knew what happened, a few times I got caught up in the game as it was happening and thought the Mets were going to win a game that I very well knew they had lost.


Markusen: The 1973 season is synonymous with the birth of the DH. When the AL adopted the rule, what was your view at the time? Has your opinion of the DH changed since then?

Silverman: I remember a kid at [summer] camp explaining the DH to me for the first time. I nodded my head like I knew what he was talking about, but I had no idea. I watched a few Yankees games—I really liked their announcing team with Frank Messer and Bill White—and I kind of figured out what the DH was about. I appreciated the designated hitter as something they did in the American League. It’s like eating anchovies: I can understand why some people like them, but I don't.


Markusen: Every book has a protagonist, a hero. From your perspective, who were the primary heroes of 1973?

Silverman: Tug McGraw definitely fits that category, as does Tom Seaver, as well as Jon Matlack, and the whole Mets pitching staff, really. Though Rusty Staub and Cleon Jones got hot in September to carry the offense, Wayne Garrett had the best stretch of his career; [he was] the same guy the team had traded Amos Otis and Nolan Ryan to try to replace. (In the “what if” department, the Mets might have had their own string of world championships if they had kept Otis and Ryan.)

Reggie Jackson was the MVP of the league and the World Series, but Bert Campaneris was in the middle of everything that happened for the A’s that fall. And they would not have won without Ken Holtzman, winner of Games 1 and 7, and Catfish Hunter, who started Oakland’s other two wins. And with the turmoil going on in the A’s clubhouse, with Charlie Finley trying to get rid of Mike Andrews during the World Series, the steadying influence of Joe Rudi and captain Sal Bando can’t be discounted. A’s reliever Rollie Fingers was superb, and lefty Darold Knowles became the only pitcher to ever appear in all seven games of a Series.

Obviously with all of these good guys—plus each franchise had a bad guy (Finley, Steinbrenner, M. Donald Grant)—it made for an intriguing tale. Manager Ralph Houk, who had been a Yankee since the 1940s, endured so much that year and was truly crushed, not just by the interfering owner but by the collapse of the team and the “Yankee way.” All he knew was being pushed aside for the new guard (and new stadium). Houk was one of the stronger characters—and was legitimately a hero during World War II.


Markusen: One of the more interesting parts of the book involved your discussion of Tug McGraw and his coining of “Ya Gotta Believe.” Do you believe he was mocking M. Donald Grant, or he was legitimately trying to inspire a listless team?

Silverman: Unfortunately, Tug died 10 years ago, and that would have been my first question. He does answer it in two different books he wrote 20 years apart, saying that he was not mocking Grant, but ya gotta believe his teammates still think that’s bull. I always thought it said so much about the Mets’ chairman of the board, the same guy who would force out Tom Seaver in 1977, that the greatest saying in franchise history by the most ebullient player in franchise history required an apology the day it was coined.

When Tug had a bad year and shoulder problems in 1974, he was unceremoniously traded. Grant did not forget.

Markusen: I tend to like the more obscure players, the ones who are not stars or headliners. Here are three players from the 1973 Yankees, Mets and A’s who intrigue me: Jim Ray Hart, George Theodore, and Gene Tenace. Your thoughts on those players?

Silverman: Jim Ray Hart actually got most of the starts at DH for the Yankees, even though he hit only .254 while Ron Blomberg batted .329 and was more productive. The Yankees got Hart from the Giants that spring and obviously Ralph Houk liked him; Houk’s replacement, Bill Virdon, did not. Hart was released after 10 games in 1974 and never played in the majors again.

Gene Tenace was the hero of the 1972 World Series as a catcher, became a first baseman in 1973, and very quietly tied Babe Ruth’s 1926 record for most walks in a World Series (11). Somehow he didn’t score a single run against the Mets, but he extended innings and had the hit that tied Game Two in the ninth, which invariably resulted in Mike Andrews making those two errors and leading to his brief banishment by Finley. Tenace’s versatility enabled the A’s to start him at catcher and get their DH, Deron Johnson, into the starting lineup in Game Seven at first base.

George Theodore was one of those players that fans love. He looked like he stepped out of the stands. He wore glasses, had curly hair, and was somewhat gawky--earning the name “Stork.” The best part of his story was that when he got a chance to play due to injuries to other Mets, he started hitting, and became a folk hero. He was never the same player after a gruesome collision, but he went on with his life in Utah and has been working as a counselor in the Salt Lake school system for generations. He was wonderful to talk to. And who could forget his 1974 baseball card that said on the back, “George likes marshmallow milkshakes.” Who doesn't?


Markusen: Of all the players you interviewed for the book, who offered the most insight?

Silverman: Mets lefty Jon Matlack not only had the clearest memory for detail, he is a longtime pitching coach and observer who paid attention to other things going on around him—he remembered Willie Mays's farewell, talked about charting Tom Seaver’s brilliant but losing effort in Game One of the 1973 NLCS, and spoke about getting hit in the head with a line drive and the decisions of his manager Yogi Berra. Yogi defended his Game Six pitching choice. Ed Kranepool was also very forthcoming with his opinions, many of which differed from those of his teammates. Rusty Staub told me [about] the feeling in the dugout, as did Wayne Garrett and Bud Harrelson. Joe Rudi was very forthcoming.

Duke Sims told me what really happened with Bert Campaneris in the 1972 playoffs. Ron Blomberg explained what it was like growing up Jewish in the South in the 1960s. But Buzz Capra was probably the funniest and, like George Theodore, is thankful about what the game gave him, rather than harping on injuries that took it away.


Markusen: What did Sims tell you?

Silverman: Since Sims hit the last home run at old Yankee Stadium. I tracked down a number for him. I left messages three to four times, and like a lot of the ballplayers, I thought he’d just blow it off. So I was surprised when in the final weeks of the project, he called on his way home to Vegas. He gave me a great story about how they chose who would catch the final game at old Yankee Stadium and how he missed Houk's resignation because he was in such a hurry to leave. Then we got to talking about the 1972 ALCS. On page seven, he confirmed what I’d always suspected: “We wanted Bert to know that we respected his legs.”

Throwing the bat was an accident, or at least the heat of the moment, but what led to it was premeditated.


Markusen: Was there anyone that you really wanted to interview that you simply could not corral?

Silverman: Well, it goes without saying I missed those who died in recent years, including Dick Williams and Tug McGraw, who left behind detailed accounts of the their careers [in authored books]. And I wonder if I might have gotten hung up on had I pried too deeply with Charlie Finley and M. Donald Grant, who are also gone. I got in touch with the representative for Tom Seaver and Reggie Jackson, but I could not get them to weigh in—though I subsequently learned Seaver was suffering from a severe case of Lyme disease last year that temporarily robbed him of his vivid memory. I understand that he is much better now.

Markusen: Now that Swingin’ 73 is drawing good press, what is next for you on the project list?

Silverman: It was tough getting this book done on time and I really pushed myself to make it as everything I wanted it to be, so I have yet to jump into another project. I have an idea about writing something more recent—like the 1980s. To me, and maybe to you, Bruce, that seems like yesterday. So does our playing together on the second grade playground at Iona.


Swingin’ 73: Baseball’s Wildest Season is available from The Lyons Press. To purchase a copy, visit http://www.lyonspress.com.



Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Bruce Markusen 2013-04-12T06:26:15+00:00 http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-tommie-agee/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/card-corner-1973-topps-tommie-agee/#When:06:31:15 Tommie Agee’s 1973 Topps card.

When this photo was taken during the 1972 season, Agee was still playing for the New York Mets. He’s the one on the far left. The other players pursuing the pop fly are the right fielder, Rusty Staub, and the retreating second baseman, Ken Boswell. None of these players played with the Astros in 1972, but when the Mets traded Agree after the 1972 season, Topps had to spring into action. With no photos showing Agree wearing the red and white colors of Houston, Topps decided to airbrush this action shot, which meant including the other players in the process.

While Agee is the focus of the card, it’s interesting to note that Staub did not belong to the Astros in 1972 or ‘73, but he did play for the franchise from 1963 to 1968. Similarly, Boswell did not play for Houston in 1972 or ‘73, but he would eventually become a member of the Astros, in 1975. So perhaps we should call this card “The ghosts of Astros past, present and future.”

There is one other oddity about this card. It is the only card in the 1973 set that shows Staub. He did not have a regular issue card with Topps that year, or in 1972 for that matter. The reason? At the time, Topps negotiated contracts individually with each of the players projected to be part of its new set. Staub chose not to sign a contract with the card company for two full years. He would not reappear on a regular issue Topps card until the 1974 season.

Staub and Boswell give us plenty of side material to work with, but Agee is the player I find the most intriguing. We tend to remember Agee for his days with the Mets, but he began his career in the Indians’ organization. Signing with the Tribe as an amateur free agent in 1961 and receiving a tidy bonus of $60,000, he made his major league debut the following season. Called up in September at the age of 20, he accrued 14 at bats, hitting .214.

The late season recall marked the start of four consecutive cups of coffee for Agee. From 1963 to 1965, he made brief appearances, playing in no more than 13 games and hitting no better than .167. That last cup of coffee actually took place with another organization; after the 1964 season, the Indians traded Agee and Tommy John to the White Sox as part of a complicated three-team deal that also involved the Kansas City Athletics and returned Rocky Colavito to Cleveland.

It would not take long for the Indians to regret the trade. After a 1965 campaign that was delayed by a broken hand and then split between Chicago and Triple-A, the White Sox made him one of their starting outfielders in 1966. The Sox thought so much of Agee that they put him in center field, moving the already defensively excellent Ken Berry to left. Though Agee was built like a fireplug at five feet, 11 inches and 195 pounds, he covered the outfield from gap to gap.

Now more mature at 23, Agee took full advantage of his new opportunity. On Opening Day, Agee clubbed a memorable home run against tough right-hander Dean Chance. For the season, he hit 23 home runs and stole 44 bases, thereby becoming the first player in White Sox history to reach 20 homers and 20 steals in the same season. He also played such splendid defense in center field that he took home Gold Glove honors. He also won the Rookie of the Year, beating out a class of first-year players that included Dave Johnson and the “Boomer,” George Scott. The award voting proved to be no contest, as Agee swept all 16 first-place votes. He also received strong support in the American League MVP race, placing eighth in the annual sweepstakes.

If there was a flaw to Agee’s game, it was his ability to make contact. He struck out 127 times, becoming especially vulnerable to right-handed pitchers with good breaking balls.

Pitchers took advantage of the holes in Agee’s swing in his second full season. Despite coming to bat nearly 100 fewer times, he piled up 129 strikeouts in 1966. His batting average fell from his rookie high of .273 to .234. He reached base only 30 per cent of the time while compiling a meager slugging percentage of .371. Even in a pitcher’s era, those marks were clearly unacceptable for a power-hitting outfielder.

Agee’s appearance in the All-Star Game was just about the only bright spot in a season that epitomized the sophomore jinx. He hit very poorly after the All-Star break, with just four home runs after the Midsummer Classic. The White Sox were so disappointed in Agee’s performance that they decided to cut bait with their slick-fielding center fielder; after the 1966 season, the Sox sent Agee and spare infielder Al Weis to the Mets for a four-player package headlined by two-time batting champion Tommy Davis and veteran pitcher Fat Jack Fisher.

Yet, it was a trade that almost didn’t happen. It’s not particularly well known, but the White Sox nearly dealt Agee somewhere else, in a trade that would have pre-empted the Mets’ acquisition of the young, athletic outfielder. At one point, Agee was supposed to have been sent to the Red Sox in a blockbuster deal—a one-for-one swap involving Hall of Fame outfielder Carl Yastrzemski. The White Sox and Red Sox came close to completing the headline-making trade, but Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey balked at the last minute, unwilling to give up Yaz, one of his favorite players. Yawkey’s veto prevented the Red Sox from making what would have been one of the worst trades in their franchise’s history.

The trade to the Mets set up a reunion for Agee, who was now teammates with Cleon Jones. The two had grown up as close friends in Mobile, Alabama; in fact, they were born only five days apart. The reunion with Jones would represent just about the lone positive development of Agee’s first season in New York. In the Mets’ very first spring training game, Agee was hit in the head with an errant Bob Gibson fastball, never a fun proposition. The beanball affected him all summer long.

Though installed as the Mets’ starting center fielder, Agee hit miserably. He endured a 0-for-34 slump in April, matching the 1962 futility record set by Don Zimmer and putting himself in a cavernous early season hole. He would hit only five home runs in nearly 400 plate appearances. He walked only 15 times while striking out 103 times, a ghastly ratio for an everyday outfielder who was expected to help offensively. With an on-base percentage of only .255, Agee put up an OPS of .562. It was the Year of the Pitcher, but clearly not the year of Agee.

To their everlasting credit, the Mets did not give up on Agee. Gil Hodges kept Agee as his starting center fielder and leadoff man. The manager’s confidence paid off. In early April, Agee became the first and only player to hit a home run into Shea Stadium’s upper deck, as he victimized Montreal’s Larry Jaster with a mammoth 480-foot home run. (The Mets later marked the appropriate spot at Shea Stadium by putting Agee’s No. 20 on the railing where the home run landed.) It was one of the 26 home runs he hit that season. He also roamed center field at Shea Stadium with speed and precision, providing the Mets with a lynchpin to both their offense and their defense. Clearly, he was their best all-around position player.

Agee’s performance took a further step up during the World Series. With the Series tied at a game apiece, the Mets and Orioles prepared for a critical Game Three. In the fourth inning, with runners at first and second, Baltimore’s Elrod Hendricks laced a ball deep toward left-center field. Shading Hendricks toward right field, Agee ran an estimated 40 yards, made a backhanded stab of the ball, and snared it in the edge of the webbing of his glove. Catching the ball near the 396-foot sign in left-center field, Agee saved two runs from scoring.

Agee wasn’t done. In the top of the seventh, the Orioles loaded the bases with two outs, bringing Paul Blair to the plate. Blair slashed a line drive toward right-center field, the ball seemingly ticketed for a two-base hit. Agee tracked the ball with a full-out sprint before diving headlong. As he belly flopped onto the edge of the outfield grass, Agee grabbed the ball before it landed on the warning track. This time he saved three runs from being scored, which would have brought the Orioles within a run and put the tying run in scoring position.

After the game, Agee assessed the two miraculous catches. “The first one was harder,” Agee told Lowell Reidenbaugh of The Sporting News. “Because I had to reach across my body and catch it backhanded. I thought I had the second one all the way, but the wind caught it and it dipped suddenly, so I had to dive for it.” For his part, Gil Hodges thought the second catch was the more difficult of the two, going so far as to call it the greatest play he had ever seen in the World Series.

At the plate, Agee did additional damage. Leading off the bottom of the first, he had blasted a bomb of a home run to center field, victimizing one of the game’s toughest right-handers, Jim Palmer. Spearheaded by Agee’s all-around performance, which Sports Illustrated called the greatest single effort by a center fielder in World Series history, the Mets took Game Three on their way to a five-game Series win over the favored O’s.

In 1970, Agee proved that his world championship efforts were no fluke. In fact, he hit even better, compiling a career best .286 average and an OPS of .812. His season included a 26-game hitting streak and a game in which he hit for the cycle. He also stole 31 bases, giving Hodges’ Mets a much needed dose of speed. And he won his second Gold Glove Award.

At 28 years old, Agee appeared to be in his prime. Then came an injury-plagued 1971 season. Limited to 113 games, largely because of an injured knee, he still hit .285 and stole 28 bases, but his power numbers fell off badly. The following summer, Agee’s overall game tailed off badly. Affected by an injured muscle in his rib cage, he hit .227 and saw his slugging percentage fall below .400. Even his defensive play suffered.

Agee’s contributions to the world championship in 1969 and his popularity with New York fans could not make him a Met for life. After that disappointing ‘72 season, the Mets shopped the injury-prone Agee. There were also rumors, unsubstantiated but still existent, that the Mets felt Agee and Cleon Jones spent too much time together, to the point that they had created a clique within the Mets’ clubhouse.

Whatever the exact reason, general manager Bob Scheffing proposed a blockbuster seven-player deal that would have sent Agee, pitchers Gary Gentry and Danny Frisella, and another player to the Cubs for outfielder Rick Monday, veteran right-hander Bill Hands, and a third player. Scheffing was ready to make the trade, but Cubs manager Whitey Lockman reportedly called the deal off at the last minute.

Scheffing instead made a trade with Houston, sending Agee to the Astros for outfielder Rich Chiles and tall pitching prospect Buddy Harris. Although the Mets might have been justified in trading a declining Agee, it remains baffling that they received so little in return for the talented center fielder.

While the Mets claimed that they considered Chiles a legitimate candidate for their vacant center field position, the words of an unnamed Astros official provided less optimism. “He might help as a pinch-hitter,” the Houston official told The Sporting News, “but don’t expect him to play every day.”

Chiles did little for the Mets, but Agee also struggled in Houston, where he found the Astrodome an even more difficult hitting environment than Shea Stadium. He also had to adjust to playing in left field, since the Astros already had the supremely talented Cesar Cedeno in center. Over the first half of the season, Agee showed some power, but all other aspects of his game fell off. On August 18, the Astros gave up on Agee, sending him to the Cardinals for the meager return of utility infielder Dave Campbell.

Agee did little for the Cards over the final six weeks of the season. He hit only three home runs, batted .177, and found himself on the bench. At the winter meetings, the Cardinals dealt him to the Dodgers for veteran reliever Pete Richert.

Although Topps printed a 1974 traded card that showed Agee wearing Dodger Blue, he failed to make his way to Los Angeles for Opening Day. On March 26, in the midst of spring training, the Dodgers released Agee. Even though he was only 31, no one put in a claim. He was forced to retire, at an age when many players still found themselves near their peak.

Agee chose to leave the game completely, but he remained popular with Mets fans who recalled the era of the late 1960s and early 70s. He kept in touch with his fans by making regular charitable appearances and conducting numerous baseball clinics for children. He also made a memorable appearance as himself on an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond.

Yet, there was more than baseball to Agee’s life. A smart businessman, he opened up a bar near Shea Stadium and became a successful insurance executive in his post-playing days. Unfortunately, he also struggled with his weight and developed a heart condition.

On January 22, 2001, Mets fans had to endure one of the saddest days in the history of the Mets. They learned that Agee had suffered a massive heart attack while leaving his New York City office. Shortly thereafter, he died at Bellevue Hospital. It was the same cause of death that had taken his manager, Gil Hodges, who had passed away during the spring of 1972. Agee was only 58, which made the news all the more unbearable to Mets fans.

Although Agee played only a handful of his 12 seasons with the Mets and didn’t start or finish his career with the franchise, he had become a lasting symbol of the team’s unexpected success in 1969. Other quality center fielders have followed him in Mets pinstripes, including Lee Mazzilli, Mookie Wilson, and Lenny Dykstra. All became popular with New York fans, but none more so than their first standout in center, Tommie Agee.

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