The Ghost of 1959

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these — it might have been.”

 

The memorable and haunting lines of John Greenleaf Whittier express regret as well as any ever written, and they could have been written for Cleveland baseball over the last thirty years. The demise in the fortunes of the Indians seems centered on the era in the late 1950s, and included their last brush with history in 1959. So much of what has happened began, either in factor in our imagination, in that season in which the Tribe made a gallant but failed run at the American League flag. The bare facts of the pennant chase dramatic and exciting though they were, tell only a partial tale of the broken dream, and what almost was the death of the franchise.

A seesaw battle most of the season, the 1959 pennant race is generally remembered as a battle of the hitting power of Cleveland against the pitching and defense of the White Sox, skippered by former Cleveland manager Al Lopez. Although in the basic sense this was true, the issue was actually more complicated. Chicago’s hitting was better than it looked on paper because of the run-scarce spaces of Comiskey Park. Cleveland’s much denigrated pitching featured two outstanding performers in Cal McLish and rookie Jim Perry, and Gary Bell and Mudcat Grant were inconsistent but had as many good moments as bad.

Unremembered is the fact that Cleveland’s defense was the league’s best through the first two months of the season, with brilliant work by magic-gloved Vic Power at first, veteran Billy Martin at second, and the outfield of Minnie Minoso, Jim Piersall and Rocky Colavito. Woodie Held, a converted outfielder, began the year at third, was switched to fill a desperately needed shortstop hole and did not make his first error at either position until June 7. Added to timely hitting, the club jumped out to a 9-1 start for second-year manager Joe Gordon. But for all their remembered power, through early June the Indians had only outscored the rival Sox 209 to 206, It was not until an early-season acquisition, one John Patsy (Tito) Francona, got into the lineup that the Indians’ attack truly went on the warpath.

Ostensibly picked up as lefthanded bench strength, Francona took a few tips on his swing from Gordon and, for two-thirds of one blindingly brilliant season, found out what it must be like to tie Stan Musial. In his first doubleheader start, he slammed six hits in eight at bats. He kept it up, finishing with a .363 average, .419 on-base percentage and a .566 slugging average. His first homer was a bottom-of-the-ninth shot against the Yankees and typified the dramatics that surrounded most of the twenty round trippers he hit, in only 399 at bats.

After the hot start, the Tribe quickly settled into a slot usually a game to a game and a half back of the Pale Hose, who were playing the most consistent baseball in the league. However, a surprising Baltimore team, led by aging Gene Woodling and Bob Nieman, and the slugging of Gus Triandos, made things interesting through early June. The pitching-rich Orioles even tied for first for a couple of days before succumbing to injuries and a lack of depth. Even the brilliance of Hoyt Wilhelm couldn’t prevent their slide.

Wilhelm is a very sore point in Cleveland’s history and may well be the key in the club’s inability to nail down the pennant in `59. His departure from the wigwam late in 1958 is a quintessential example of the poor moves that cost the team its future. The great knuckleballer had been acquired by the Indians prior to the`58 season for needed bullpen strength in a straight cash deal. He was doing his job, although only 2-7 in the won-lost column, he had a fine 2.49 ERA, with excellent hit-inning and strikeout-walk ratios. In one of his few starts, he lost a complete game, 1-0. Any good baseball man could see he was pitching well. Nevertheless, on August 23, he was sold to the Orioles for $75,000. The reason? In a game against Kansas City on August 27, one of his hard-to-handle knucklers escaped catcher Russ Nixon, allowing a winning unearned run to score. In a fit of rage, the Cleveland general manager stormed into the team clubhouse and, during a general tirade, said that that type of loss would not happen again. The following day, Wilhelm was gone.

The engineer of this wondrous move was Frank Lane. It has become axiomatic in Cleveland baseball lore to say that Lane’s hyper mania for roster moves sold the club’s future down the drain. It is not an overstatement. In a twenty-month span between 1957 and 1959, Lane made an astonishing 55 transactions involving more than eighty players — nearly three deals per month! One Cleveland veteran remarked on his way to another team, “When you play for Lane, you keep your bags packed.”

Most of the trades were shockingly detrimental to the club’s future. Within weeks of his arrival in Baltimore, Wilhelm pitched a no-hitter against the world champion Yankees, and followed in 1959 by leading the majors in ERA at 2.19 en route to a 15-11 record with a losing team. The acquisition of Martin to fill the gap at second base came at the expense of lefty Don Mossi, who promptly became the best southpaw starter in the league over the next three seasons, except for Whitey Ford. And let’s be honest, it’s not as though no one knew Mossi could pitch. With Herb Score injured and the team short of pitching — lefthanded pitching in particular — this was not a wise move.

But the most incredible of all Lane’s deals is long forgotten, primarily because it involved no big names. Trading 30-year-old veteran backup catcher Hal Naraagon, a lefty hitter, to the Washington Senators, he threw in the club’s lone southpaw relief pitcher, Hal Woodeshick, who had posted a respectable rookie year in `58, 6-6, 3.64. In return, the Frantic one received the services of a 35-year, righthanded hitting reserve catcher, Ed Fitzgerald. With a team nearly bereft of lefty hitting and pitching, the two bench men were not unimportant. Woodeshick later became a fine reliever; Naragon hit .302 two years after Fitzgerald’s last game in the bigs. After catching 46 games for the Tribe, Fitz broke a finger and never played again. Incredible.

The 1959 White Sox were not a great ream. MVP Nellie Fox had a typical season, not his best, and the club was probably better a couple of times in the previous six years. Teamed with super glove Luis Aparicio, the Sox had the best middle infield in the league. Cy Young Award winner Early Wynn (22-10, 3.17) Bob Shaw (18-6, 2.69) and catcher Sherm Lollar (22 HRs) all had great years. But the Pale Hose also had gaping holes at first base and right field, and a journeyman at third base. Al Smith in left was a good player having one of his poorest seasons. Landis in center was a great defensive performer, but no more so than Piersall.

For all the Sox’ strengths, Cleveland usually had a strength to match — except one. Ironically, the forgotten ingredient of the White Sox success that year was a forerunner of baseball to come. Turk Lawn and Gerry Staley formed the best bullpen in the majors that year, choking off rally after rally, insuring win after win. Cleveland had nothing remotely like them.

On June 10, the Indians found themselves in third place, 1-1/2 games behind Chicago and surprising Baltimore. In Baltimore, the Tribe faced rookie Jerry Walker, having a fine season. After walking in the first inning, Rocky Colavito drilled a line-drive homer off Walker in the third. Arnie Portocarrero faced Rocky in his third time at bat, and a slider went 410 feet to left. Against Portocarrero again, Colavito drove a low sinking fastball 430 feet to left-center. In the ninth inning, after acknowledging polite applause from the 16,000 Orioles throng, Rocky sent an Ernie Johnson fastball to the same general area as his third homer, and into the history books. The final score was 11-8, Colavito totaling seven runs. But Baltimore was still a half game upon the Indians. The following day, a long Colavito double in the eighth inning scored Held from first to break a 1-1 tie, and only the Sox remained in the way.

With Francona delivering clutch hits in demonic fashion through June, July and August, the Tribe stayed close to the increasingly dominant Chicago pitching. In late August, the Tribe had a crucial two game set with the resurgent Yankees. The Bronx bombers had dug a hole early that they could not extricate themselves from, having fallen into last place at the end of May. But now they were hot, and the White Sox were due in for a four game series after the Yanks. Colavito beat Whitey Ford with a pair of homers in the first game, and crashed a bottom-of-the-ninth job the next night off stopper Ryne Duren with the score tied, and the stage was set for the showdown with the Sox. It was to be Cleveland’s Waterloo.

The White Sox annihilated the Tribe in the four games, outscoring them 24 to 20, and dropping Cleveland 5-1/2 games back. Surprisingly, they stayed even with the Sox through September, but even wasn’t good enough. They finished five back.

Was there a pennant to be had in Cleveland in 1959? Almost beyond doubt. Had Lane held onto any one of the pitchers he squandered away — Wilhelm, Mossi, Bud Daley, Wynn himself — the outcome would likely have been different. In the months that followed the season, Lane continued the carnage. He yielded the team’s top starter, McLish, to Cincinnati for Johnny Temple, who was on the downslide. Oh yes. He threw in our second baseman, Martin, and promising young slugger Gordy Coleman — a lefty, of course. There was the infamous Cash for Demeter deal, and the emotional shocker, Colavito for Kuenn. In justifying his ludicrous deal, lane referred to The Rock as an “incomplete player” — a label that was somehow supposed to make us not notice that Kuenn had no power, a poor arm, and a reputation for not taking care of himself. We noticed. The grandstanding, ego-strutting Lane was suckered badly by Detroit — twice.

We may not know exactly why the malaise that has followed the Tribe for three decades seems to cling like an iron glove, but it is clear where it began.