Cleveland Classic: Kralick Versus Bell

When veteran Plain Dealer baseball writer Russ Schneider made up his team of the worst guys he had to deal with in his twenty years with the Indians, he picked Kralick as the left-handed pitcher. (For those who are wondering, Wayne Garland was the righty.)

Meanwhile, the newspaper files revealed little.

His no-hitter in 1962 was 1-0 over the Kansas City A’s. He had a perfect game for 8 1/3 innings before he walked George Alusik. If you don’t remember good old George Alusik, don’t feel bad; I didn’t either. When I looked him up, I discovered he was an outfielder who played 298 games between 1958 and 1964, and there wasn’t much worth remembering.

Kralick lacks an overpowering fastball, wrote United Press International of his no-hitter. “But Sunday he threw mostly fastballs because he had trouble controlling his curve. Bob Allison, Bernie Allen, and Rich Rollins turned in fine defensive plays in support of Kralick.”

The only interesting story about his three years with the Indians was on August 25, 1965. “Scarcely 24 hours after being knocked out by a single punch thrown by his roommate, Gary Bell, Jack Kralick had 10 counted over him, again, this time at Chavez Ravine,” wrote Jim Schlemmer of the Akron Beacon Journal in a game story of the Tribe’s 8-2 loss to the Angels.

On Sunday the Indians played in Washington. Kralick and Bell went to dinner together and then returned to their room. Bell had pitched four scoreless innings and picked up the win. In their room “there were angry words, and both of us swung,” Bell told reporters. Kralick missed. Bell punched Kralick in the mouth, and Kralick lost a tooth and had facial cuts that needed nine stitches to repair. Bell had cuts on his right hand and knuckles. Originally, the Indians said that Kralick was simply suffering from “a dental discomfort.” Well, that was part of the truth, but it didn’t fool reporters, especially when they got a look at Bell’s hand.

“Both battlers were unable or unwilling to recall what the argument was about, but both said they would continue to room together on the road,” reported the Beacon Journal. “Manager Birdie Tebbetts said, ‘These are the dog days in late August, and fights are inevitable. My rule is that it’s okay for players to fight so long as it doesn’t interfere with their play.”‘

Well, at least Birdie Tebbetts made that very clear.

Later there was an unconfirmed report that Bell and Kralick were debating about what to watch on TV when the punches were thrown, but who knows? Or who even cares twenty-nine years later? But somehow I believe it, especially after my experience with ballplayers later in my life.

When I was a kid, I was once in the same car as Gary Bell. My brother worked for the recreation department in the Cleveland suburb of Parma. He drove Bell to speak at a baseball clinic, and I got to sit in the backseat. All I recall is that Bell wasn’t in the car more than five minutes when he was hanging his head out the window like a basset hound that wanted wind on his nose. Then I discovered that the reason for his preoccupation with the window was that he was chewing tobacco but making sure he spit the juice outside. How appetizing to a nine-year-old baseball fan. Bell also was known as “Ding Dong”—ah, those clever ballplayers and their nicknames.

I asked Ding Dong one question: “Who is the toughest hitter you ever faced?”

“Young fella,” he said, “the one with the bat.”

Then he spat out the window.

I can look back now and see that even at the age of nine I was preparing for my life’s work as a sportswriter by asking dumb questions. And today Bell is a sporting goods salesman in his hometown of San Antonio.

The final news story on Kralick was from April 11, 1971. The Beacon Journal had a “Whatever Happened To?” column, and the subject was my favorite player.

The headline was: FINDS BASEBALL EASY TO FORGET, EX-INDIAN HASN’T SEEN GAME SINCE RELEASE.

Kralick was living in Watertown, South Dakota, working for a school supply concern. He said that the night he was traded, the auto accident cracked a rib, “but the worst outcome of the accident was that I suffered from double vision. The Mets put me on the temporary inactive list, and I was to report to the team as soon as my problems cleared up. But the double vision continued through the [1967] season.”

His vision eventually cleared, but Kralick simply quit.

“I haven’t missed baseball at all,” he said. “I’ve found other things to do, such as hunting and fishing.”

Wherever he is, Kralick probably knows that baseball doesn’t miss him, but he should know that he is responsible for making one kid into a Cleveland Indians fan. So thanks, Jack—I guess. 

 

Author’s note

This article is excerpted from Tile Curse of Rocky Colavito (softcover $14.95/304 pages), 2007 by Terry Pluto. Reprinted with permission of Gray & Company, Publishers. The book is available online from Amazon.com.