Stan Baumgartner

In baseball history, few major leaguers have turned to sports writing as a full-time profession after their playing days. Sam Crane and Tim Murnane were nineteenth-century players who then wrote for, respectively, the Boston Globe and the New York Evening Journal. Charley Walters twirled in a half-dozen games for the 1969 Twins before becoming a fixture at the St. Paul Pioneer Press.1 But of the thousands who played in the Original 16 Teams Era (1901-1960), only one made the transition to the press box.2

Stanwood Fulton Baumgartner was born on December 14, 1894, in Houston, Texas.3 His father, Joseph, was of Louisiana stock; his mother, Jennie, came from Illinois, and Stan was their only child. Joseph sold woodenware for a living, and soon moved his young family to Chicago.

The youngster developed his pitching arm on a newspaper route, preferring to airmail papers to apartment balconies rather than trudge up flights of stairs.4 At Wendell Phillips High School, Stan starred as his team’s pitching ace. After graduating, he stayed on the South Side, enrolling at the University of Chicago. In 1912 Baumgartner pitched for the freshman nine in the spring, then joined Amos Alonzo Stagg’s elite football squad in the fall. In 1913 the “sensational southpaw” led Chicago to the ‘Big Nine’ baseball title, then was a “permanent fixture at right end” as the Maroons finished the football campaign undefeated.5

Scouts, including the Phillies’ “Cap” Neal, took notice of the 6-foot, 185 pound left-hander.6 In June 1914, Baumgartner signed with Philadelphia. “Rest assured we have him where he cannot be Federalized,” stated Phillies player-manager Red Dooin, reflecting the established major leagues’ desire to starve the upstart Federal League of promising recruits.7

On June 26, in Brooklyn, the newcomer debuted, facing three batters in relief. Eight appearances later, on September 10, he earned his first starting assignment, taking a loss against the Braves. Baumgartner finished the 1914 season with a 2-2 record (with an ERA of 3.28), over 15 games and 60 1/3 innings. Philadelphia drifted to sixth place, posting a 74-80 record. That fall, Baumgartner returned to the University of Chicago, where he was elected president of the senior class, to finish his studies.

Baumgartner planned to join the Phillies in June after graduation, but could not resist the allure of baseball, and reported to spring training in March. Pat Moran replaced Dooin as the Phillies’ manager that offseason. Philadelphia’s new leader relentlessly drilled his players on fundamentals, instituted an elaborate system of signs, and tutored pitchers at great length on situational decision-making.8 Baumgartner greatly admired Moran, later calling him “the smartest manager I ever played for—or observed in action.”9 The Phillies, rejuvenated by the change in culture and several key offseason deals, captured their first pennant with a 90-62 finish.

Moran leaned heavily on his front-line starters.10 Baumgartner was a project. He possessed an “underhand crossfire delivery,” whose fastballs swept in on right-handed batters as if coming from first base.11 Moran and catcher Bill Killefer worked with the youngster to develop a well-disguised curve ball.12 Game action remained limited. In his sophomore season, Baumgartner posted a 0-2 record (with an ERA of 2.42) over 16 games and 48 1/3 innings. Remarkably, but reflecting Moran’s cautious use of a secondary pitcher, Philadelphia lost each of the games Baumgartner appeared in.13 The Red Sox defeated the Phillies in the World Series that October. Baumgartner was eligible, but saw no action.

Baseball peace, and a larger talent pool, came that offseason. After spring training, the team optioned Baumgartner to Providence. He went 15-12 with the second-place Grays in 1916, before being recalled by the Phillies to pitch four innings in the season finale. By early 1917, it was increasingly apparent that Baumgartner “has not developed as rapidly as Moran had anticipated.”14

In September 1915, Baumgartner married Bernice Blackham, a Philadelphia native. Semipro baseball afforded him the opportunity to remain within the area, and earn at least as much as pitching in the minors. Whatever the motivation, in early 1917, with another season of minor-league service beckoning, Baumgartner signed with the Chester team of the prosperous Delaware County (PA) League. In 1918 Baumgartner pitched in the Bethlehem Steel League. The next year he divided time between two strong industrial teams: the Paterson (NJ) Silk Sox and the Parkesburg (PA) Iron Company’s squad. In 1920 Baumgartner returned to the Bethlehem Steel League.

By 1921, possibly as the best semipro opportunities were waning, Baumgartner sought reinstatement from Commissioner Landis so that he might rejoin the Phillies. On May 9, it was granted.15 The next afternoon, he started against the Cubs, taking the loss after being knocked out of the box in the fourth inning. For another eight weeks Baumgartner and the Phillies struggled together. Manager “Wild Bill” Donovan was fired in late July. His successor, Kaiser Wilhelm, promptly sent Baumgartner down to Kansas City. With the Phillies in 1921, Baumgartner compiled a 3-6 record (with an ERA of 7.02), over 22 games and 66 2/3 innings.

Baumgartner again made the Phillies’ staff out of spring training in 1922. He lasted through May. His Philadelphia record was 1-1 (with an ERA of 6.52) over only six games and 9 2/3 innings. This time, he was sent down to Toronto.

It was a traumatic comeback. The Phillies posted a 51-103 record in 1921, and a 57-96 mark in 1922. What action Baumgartner saw came mostly out of the bullpen. In Philadelphia, this meant the sparse territory between Baker Bowl’s third-base stands and its foul line.16 Malevolent Phillies fans chose Baumgartner as a target. “They used to start hollering at me as soon as I reached for a warm-up ball,” he recalled.17 “Though a big, husky chap he is of a sensitive turn,” a scribe wrote, “and the hooting did him an inestimable amount of harm.”18 In March 1923, Baumgartner was dealt to New Haven. “It probably marks his end as a major leaguer,” an observer noted, “even on paper.”19

Baumgartner was reunited with Donovan, who managed the New Haven squad. The former Detroit ace worked with his charge, ironing out mechanics in his delivery, and restoring his confidence.20 Baumgartner responded with a 21-10 campaign. That offseason he pitched his services to Connie Mack. The Athletics’ leader agreed to give Baumgartner another chance.21

Mack brought Baumgartner along slowly, and the newcomer pitched well in a handful of relief appearances. On May 30, 1924, the last-place Athletics visited New York for a doubleheader against the first-place Yankees. In the second game, Baumgartner relieved Eddie Rommel after six innings, with the Athletics trailing 4-1. Philadelphia rallied, and Baumgartner took a 5-4 lead into the bottom of the ninth. After retiring the first two batters, he yielded a single, a walk, then hit a batter to load the bases, bringing Babe Ruth to the plate. With 50,000 fans looking on, Baumgartner fanned him with three straight curve balls. “The memory of that one strikeout,” he stated years later, “overshadows all the heartaches, lean years, razzing by fans.”22

After this career moment, Baumgartner joined the starting rotation, and produced a career year. In 1924 he compiled a 13-6 record (with an ERA of 2.88, fourth-best in the AL), appearing in 36 games, and 181 innings. Thanks considerably to his contributions, the Athletics rebounded in the season’s second half to finish in fifth place with a 71-81 mark.

The Athletics were on the ascent, but as they returned to winning ways, Baumgartner’s professional pitching career faded. Philadelphia led the 1925 pennant race until a late-summer collapse, landing in second place with an 88-64 record. Baumgartner finished with a 6-3 mark (with an ERA of 3.57) over 37 games and 113 1/3 innings. But his best pitching occurred when the Mackmen played out the string.

Baumgartner started the third game of the 1926 season, but did not survive the third inning. He pitched unevenly over the next six weeks, and was released to Portland. Baumgartner pitched well for the Beavers. But in early 1927 he retired, turning instead to sports writing as a full-time career.

Since the early 1920s, Baumgartner had worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer during the offseason. Initially, it was the police beat, filing anonymous stories, and being paid per piece. In 1924, Gordon Mackay, the paper’s sports editor, recruited Baumgartner to join the sports desk. “He has made good on sheer merit,” the Inquirer’s James Isaminger reported later that year, “He is assigned to all branches of sport, and knows how to handle copy.”23

It was, Baumgartner recalled years later, “a $40-a-week job,” leading him across the gridirons, hardwood floors, squared circles, clay courts, green links, and frozen rinks of the Delaware Valley.24 During the Great Depression, he picked up additional income by refereeing wrestling matches. Baumgartner also frequently pitched for the famed semipro Brooklyn Bushwicks in these years, and faced Negro League stars such as Josh Gibson, Judy Johnson, and Satchel Paige.25

In the Inquirer baseball hierarchy, Isaminger was the senior writer and Baumgartner the junior scribe. In the Philadelphia baseball hierarchy, the Athletics trumped the Phillies, especially as Mack’s second dynasty took three successive pennants beginning in 1929. Isaminger covered the Athletics. Baumgartner emerged as the paper’s Phillies beat writer, a role he held throughout the 1930s.

Over the decade, the Phillies amassed a meager .381 winning percentage, and regularly finished at the bottom of the attendance standings. Until the middle of the 1938 campaign, when they became tenants of the Athletics’ Shibe Park, the team played at the dilapidated Baker Bowl. Allen Lewis, who followed Baumgartner in covering the Phillies for the Inquirer, recalled the conditions for the sportswriters: “The press box was actually part of the upper deck behind home plate. There was chicken wire on both sides.” Once, Chicago scribe Warren Brown whiled away the time by rolling a heavy pipe down the steps of the press section. Club president Gerald Nugent scampered upstairs to scold: “You fellows must remember that we have patrons and you’re annoying them. Patrons who paid to get in.” “What a story!” Brown exclaimed, “The Phillies have paying patrons!”26

Baumgartner’s early game coverage was sometimes labored, with muddled analogies and disjointed sentences. Yet, mostly when the sad-sack Phillies won, his touch could be light and effective. The first two paragraphs on the June 16, 1930, affair between the Pirates and Phillies:

It was just one of the usual midsummer nightmares at the Phillies’ ball park yesterday. For two hours and twenty-seven minutes twenty-five ball players banged and booted the ball all over the lot, committed mental blunders that would have shamed morons and otherwise entertained and bored some 3000 spectators.

The Phillies won of course, 18-14. It is getting to be a pleasing habit these days, and Chuck Klein maintained his sensational hitting streak of twenty-five consecutive games by spanking out a double to left field on his first trip to the rubber.27

As a former player, Baumgartner’s background made for greater insight, while the associated status undoubtedly provided a certain degree of access. He inherently respected those who played the game: “I don’t believe in pointing out the mistakes of players. I’d rather just say what happened and let the reader draw his own conclusion.”28 Baumgartner did not grandstand in print; his ‘editorial we’ was the voice of an inquisitive fan.

The Inquirer suffered from uninspired leadership in this era and, in the Philadelphia morning newspaper competition, trailed the Record in readership. Sweeping change, and a competitive drive for local supremacy, came in 1936 when Moses Annenberg purchased the newspaper. A year later, the new publisher recruited Perry Lewis from the sports desk to launch broadsides against the Athletics and the Phillies, both languishing in last place. Baumgartner steered clear of the controversy. The Inquirer soon overtook the Record in the circulation battle. The Athletics and Phillies remained hapless.29

In September 1940, Isaminger suffered a debilitating stroke and retired. For the next six years, mostly due to wartime constraints on travel, Baumgartner shared beat writing duties with Art Morrow, without either exclusively covering the Athletics or Phillies. In 1941 publisher J. G. Taylor Spink tapped Baumgartner to take over Isaminger’s weekly column on Philadelphia baseball in The Sporting News.

Robert Carpenter Sr. purchased the Phillies in 1943, and placed his son Robert Jr. in the presidency. Young Bob hired Herb Pennock as the general manager, and investments poured into the farm system. Fiery Ben Chapman was elevated to manage the team. In 1946 the Phillies finished in fifth place, their best showing in fourteen seasons. Attendance exploded three-fold. At the Inquirer, Walter Annenberg had succeeded his father as publisher. Baumgartner was presented with the option of taking over the primary coverage for either Philadelphia ball club. He chose the Phillies.30

By this point, Baumgartner was a family man. In 1938 he divorced Bernice, and soon thereafter married Rita Wasekanes. His second marriage produced three daughters: Brenda, Bonnie, and Judi. Phillies spring training became a Florida family vacation. The girls—and Rita’s kid brother Bill—often accompanied their father to the Shibe Park press box. A sense of kinship bonded the Philadelphia sports writing community as well. At one spring training, the Bulletin’s Frank Yeutter badly broke an ankle. Baumgartner and Lanse McCurley of the Daily News anonymously authored his stories as he recovered.31

In addition to his Inquirer writing, Baumgartner’s The Sporting News role expanded to the point where he sometimes contributed four pieces a week. In 1948 he directed his own televised newsreels from spring training.32 In 1953, with Frederick Lieb, he co-authored The Philadelphia Phillies, an entry in G. P. Putnam’s respected series of team histories. His fellow sportswriters appointed him to the BBWAA’s Board of Directors in 1949. A year later, with Happy Chandler’s tenure as baseball’s commissioner in peril, the Boston Globe’s Roger Birtwell proposed Baumgartner as a dark horse candidate “eminently fitted for the job.”33

The Sporting News was the setting for Baumgartner’s best work. In August 1945, he invited Chapman, on a Phillies off day, to take in a Yankees-Athletics match from the “six-story high” Shibe Park press box. Strategic points, large and small, flowed from the resulting story.34 In May 1947, Baumgartner interviewed Mel Ott and Schoolboy Rowe. The matter at hand: a recent controversy where the Giants skipper accused the cagey Phillies veteran of wetting a ball. A rollicking debate on wrong-doing followed, before ending with a wink. “’There is only way to stop it,’ said one Phil pitcher. ‘Make the spitball legal again.’ ‘Oh, that’s a dirty habit,’ said Rowe.”35

A June 1947 piece on the Phillies’ masterly bench jockeying did not delve into the treatment afforded Jackie Robinson as he broke the color barrier. Baumgartner nonetheless conveyed the nature of the psychological warfare the Philadelphians turned upon their foes.36 In September 1949, he interviewed the Brooklyn second baseman on base stealing. Baumgartner began on an intimate note. “Jackie Robinson reached down, picked up the stool, put it down in front of us and said, with a welcoming smile, ‘Have a seat.’” Background of Robinson’s recent electric play in Philadelphia, and a preview of the questions playing through Baumgartner’s mind, followed. Then, as “Robinson sat waiting patiently for us to begin,” the interview launched:

He grinned good-naturedly when we asked him if he had any ambition to equal the stolen base record of 96 in one season made by Cobb. He also smiled when we mentioned Jim Sheckard, who had pilfered 67 sacks when a member of the Dodgers in 1903, and Max Carey of the Pirates, who led the National League for ten years in stolen bases.

“I’m too old for that,” he said, and he patted his legs significantly. “There are only so many stolen bases in a man’s legs, just like so many pitches in an arm. Maybe if I had started,” and he let his voice fade off.

Maybe if he had been able to start four years earlier, he might have threatened records—but not now.37

Throughout the late 1940s, Baumgartner traced the development of a promising Phillies core: Granny Hamner, Andy Seminick, Del Ennis, Richie Ashburn, Willie Jones, Robin Roberts, and Curt Simmons. In July 1948, with the team failing to progress, Carpenter dismissed Chapman and promoted Eddie Sawyer from the farm system to take his place. The new manager, portrayed by Baumgartner as being equal parts calm and demanding, proved an ideal choice. In 1949 the youthful Phillies surfaced into the first division, with an 81-73 finish.

In 1950 the team finally rewarded their fans, including Baumgartner, who took to wearing a Phillies cap in the press box. The Whiz Kids built a commanding 7 1/2 game lead by mid-September, before frittering almost all of it away. In Brooklyn on October 1, Dick Sisler clinched the pennant with a tenth-inning three-run homer. Baumgartner conveyed the moment in the next day’s Inquirer:

Then Sisler strode to the plate. On four previous trips, Dick had fanned and pulled three straight singles through the infield to right. Newcombe got ahead of him this time with two consecutive strikes, then threw a ball outside. Sisler fouled the next toss back into the stands and the count was still 1-2.

On the next pitch, the southpaw-swinging Sisler swung with all he had. It was an outside fast ball, Dick’s favorite pitch. He didn’t pull the ball, he sliced it, and the pellet sailed toward left field. Cal Abrams circled toward the wall, going back as far as he could, and watched the ball fall into the stands some 350 feet from the plate.38

The Phillies hit only .203 in the World Series, and were swept by the Yankees. While sympathetic to Sawyer’s assessment that the Whiz Kids were in a batting slump, Baumgartner duly reported that Yankees pitchers had strategically fed the free-swinging Phillies a steady diet of rising fast balls.39 Still, optimism prevailed. With the exception of Simmons (military duty), the young squad remained intact. Six months later, Baumgartner predicted the Phillies would win the 1951 pennant by eight games.40

But the Philadelphia offense continued to sputter, no left-hander matched Simmons, and the team fell to a 73-81 mark in 1951. Baumgartner took considerable ribbing from his professional peers. The Phillies continued to drift early in the 1952 campaign, and Carpenter replaced Sawyer with Steve O’Neill. The team closed strong, and finished 9 1/2 games behind Brooklyn, in fourth place. But in 1953, the team could not build on such gains, and tied for third, 22 games behind the Dodgers.

Midway through the 1953 season, in an interview with Carpenter and O’Neill, the general manager greeted Baumgartner’s natural optimism with “a foreboding silence” before the skipper bluntly assessed the team’s shortcomings.41 But trades, front office moves, and another managerial change did not prevent the Phillies from sliding under .500 in 1954. That October, illustrating one element of the team’s failure to compete, Baumgartner reported that “the Phillies have made their first definite and determined steps to include top Negro players in their organization.”42

In December 1954, Baumgartner checked into the hospital, suffering from colitis, which proved to be colorectal cancer. A difficult surgery followed. Through much of the 1955 season he carried on, the journey to the press box increasingly arduous.43 On October 4, 1955, at Yankee Stadium, as the World Series concluded, press box loudspeakers informed his colleagues that he had passed away. Stan Baumgartner was survived by his father, wife Rita, and daughters Brenda, Bonnie, and Judi. He rests in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania’s Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

Sources

The author is grateful to Brenda Baumgartner Kingham (Stan’s eldest daughter) and Tom Wasekanes (Stan’s nephew), for generously sharing their knowledge of Baumgartner’s life.

In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed Baumgartner’s file from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the following sites:

ancestry.com

chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/newspapers/

fultonhistory.com/fulton.html

genealogybank.com

newspapers.com

Notes