With that swing of the bat, along with the 714 that preceded it, Hank Aaron not only passed Babe Ruth as major-league baseball’s home run leader. He also made a giant leap in the integration of the game and the nation. Aaron, an African American, had broken a record set by the immortal Ruth, and not just any record, but the all-time major-league home run record, and in doing so moved the game and the nation forward on the journey started by Jackie Robinson in 1947. By 1974 Aaron’s baseball career was within three years of sunset, but the road he’d traveled to arrive at that spring evening in Atlanta had hardened and tempered him, perhaps irrevocably, in ways that only suffering can produce. Aaron finally shrugged off the twin burdens of expectation and fear that evening, and few have ever stood taller.

Henry Louis Aaron was born February 5, 1934, in Mobile Alabama, to Herbert and Estella (Pritchett) Aaron.1 Among Henry’s seven siblings was a brother, Tommie, who later played in parts of seven different seasons in the major leagues. For whatever such records are worth, the brothers still hold the record for most career home runs by a pair of siblings, 768, with the elder Henry contributing 755 to Tommie’s 13. They were also the first siblings to appear in a League Championship Series as teammates.

Henry was born in a poorer neighborhood of Mobile called “Down the Bay,” but he spent most of his formative years in the nearby district of Toulminville. Aaron’s father worked at a local shipyard performing manual labor.2 The Aaron family lived on the edge of poverty, in part due to the general economic conditions of the Great Depression, so every member of the family worked to contribute. Young Henry picked potatoes and tended the Aaron garden, and also worked for an ice-delivery truck, among other odd jobs, and while his parents could not afford proper baseball equipment for recreation, Aaron still practiced in endless sandlot games by hitting bottle caps with ordinary broom handles and sticks.3

One of the consequences of this self-coaching was that he developed a cross-handed batting style, a habit he kept until his early days as a professional. In fact, it was not until he was in spring training with the then-Jacksonville Braves that coach Ben Geraghty convinced him to switch hands in his grip. “He came in and was unorthodox as a hitter; he hit cross-handed,” minor league teammate Johnny Goryl said during a 2011 interview. “He went to Jacksonville to play for a Ben Geraghty who got him to hit more conventionally without the cross-handed grip. That’s when his power started surfacing, and the rest was all history.”4 But in high school, Aaron was a gifted athlete and starred in both football and baseball at Central High School for two years. On the diamond he played shortstop, third base, and some outfield on a team that won the Mobile Negro High School Championship during his freshman and sophomore years.  

In 1949, the 15-year-old, 140-pound Aaron – inspired by the exploits of Jackie Robinson, whom he’d seen on several exhibition passes through Alabama –tried out with the Brooklyn Dodgers but did not earn a contract offer, likely due to his unorthodox batting grip. Now a high school junior, he transferred to the private Josephine Allen Institute for his final two years of education. The Allen Institute had been founded by Clarence and Josephine Allen in 1895. The Allens were unusually accomplished, educated, and wealthy for Black Americans in that time and place, and their school provided critical education for many children who would have otherwise been denied due to race.

Aaron had been playing for the semipro Pritchett Athletics since age 14, and during those games, and in some of his softball contests, he drew the attention of scout Ed Scott, who convinced Henry and his mother that it would be a good move to sign with the Mobile Black Bears, a semipro team, for $3 a game.5 Estella granted her son permission to play, but only on the condition that he did not travel, thus limiting him to local games.  

On November 20, 1951, despite his mother’s concerns about his not continuing on to college, Henry signed for $200 a month with the Negro American League champion Indianapolis Clowns. Scout Bunny Downs had discovered Aaron playing with the Black Bears during an earlier exhibition, and Aaron flourished with Indianapolis, helping guide the team to the 1952 Negro League World Series crown. In 26 games, he posted a .366 batting average, hit five home runs, and stole nine bases. The series, and the season, allowed Aaron to showcase his range of skills not just for regional scouts, but for several major-league organizations as well.

Following the championship, two telegrams reached Henry – one with an offer from the New York Giants, and a second with an offer from the Boston Braves. Aaron chose the latter, evidently because of a $50-a-month difference in salary, and Boston immediately purchased his contract from Indianapolis.6 On June 14, 1952, Aaron signed with Braves scout Dewey Griggs, and reported to the Class-C Eau Claire (Wisconsin) Bears. Despite playing in only 87 games, Aaron batted .336 with 9 homers, 19 doubles, and 61 RBIs, earned a spot on the league’s All-Star squad, and was selected as the Northern League’s Rookie of the Year. As impressive as his on-field performance was, though, it may have even been exceeded by his calm mien both on and off the diamond. The teenager’s demeanor seemed impenetrable to the occasional bigots in the stands, and the clear absence of racial incidents that season proved his maturity in a way that could not be measured by simple interviews. Aaron not only showed the Braves that he was a wonderful prospect on the field, but also that he could handle the inevitable racism with detachment.

The next season found him and Black teammates Horace Garner and Felix Mantilla on the Jacksonville Braves (South Atlantic League). Given Mantilla’s superior ability at shortstop, Aaron moved to second base for the season.7 Along with two other players from the Savannah (Georgia) Indians, Fleming “Buddy” Reedy and Elbert Willis “Al” Isreal, the quintet broke the color line in the South Atlantic or Sally League (or SAL), playing in the heart of old Dixie without the top-cover of a sympathetic national press.8 Aaron, playing second base, almost single-handedly forced the Jacksonville fans to accept him, regardless of race, by leading the entire league with a batting average of .362, and also being the top producer with 115 runs, 208 hits, 36 doubles, 338 total bases, and 135 runs batted in (RBI) title. To cap the first integrated season in SAL history, Aaron led Jacksonville to the title and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player.9 Because many parts of the South were still governed by Jim Crow laws, circumstances that forced the Black players to live in separate accommodations and dining on the road, one pundit wrote, “Henry Aaron led the league in everything except hotel accommodations.”10

That year Henry also met a young woman named Barbara Lucas.11 On a lark, she had decided to attend a Jacksonville game one night early in the season, and watched Aaron single, double, and homer. On October 6, 1953, Aaron, not yet 20, and Lucas were married and within a year welcomed their first child, a daughter they named Gaile.

Aaron spent part of the offseason playing winter ball in Puerto Rico, learning to play the outfield and working with coach Mickey Owen on his batting stance, refining his new swing after switching his grip months earlier. On March 11, 1954, in spring training, Henry was penciled into the Braves’ starting lineup as leadoff hitter and right fielder. He homered and singled. Two days later, on March 13, Milwaukee’s left fielder Bobby Thomson severely fractured his right ankle sliding into second base. In the ensuing lineup shuffle, Aaron took his spot as a regular outfielder. The young slugger made the most of his chance.12

The Braves purchased Aaron’s minor-league contract just as spring training ended. On Tuesday afternoon, April 13, 1954, Aaron made his major-league debut in the season opener at Cincinnati, playing left field and batting fifth. Two days later, on April 15, he doubled in the first inning off Cardinals pitcher Vic Raschi for his first major-league hit, and a week later in St. Louis, on April 23, he victimized Raschi again, this time for his first home run. Aaron fractured his left ankle sliding into third base on September 5, ending his season with what would be the only significant injury of his career. Still, in his first 122 big-league games, he batted .280, homered 13 times, and finished fourth in the voting for Rookie of the Year. In 1955 Aaron was moved to right field, and there his league-leading 37 doubles, .314 batting average, and .540 slugging percentage helped him earn the first of 21 consecutive All-Star team slots en route to finishing ninth in NL MVP balloting.

During the early days of his career, Milwaukee’s public relations director Don Davidson began referring to Aaron as “Hank,” not “Henry” as he was known by those close to him, to make the quiet player appear a bit more accessible.

In 1956 Aaron hit .328 to win the first of his two NL batting titles, led the league in doubles (34) and hits (200), and was named The Sporting News NL Player of the Year. He would lead the league four times in doubles and twice in hits. It proved to be mere foreshadowing for the following year.

Aaron’s 1957 baseball season began under less-than-ideal circumstances when he missed his train in Mobile and reported one day late to spring training in Bradenton, Florida. Because he had signed a new contract during the offseason, one that raised his salary to $22,500 for the coming campaign, Aaron’s conspicuous tardiness drew the attention of national papers like The Sporting News, as well as the Milwaukee press. The other potential omen came with the distribution of his Topps baseball card. It was printed as a photographic reverse, with Hank appearing to bat left-handed. On closer inspection, his uniform number “44” is reversed, and clearly underscores the mistake, but the Topps corporate leadership chose not to correct the error and reprint the card.

Regardless of what the baseball card showed, Aaron was not affected on the field. Over that March in Florida he batted .390 with 11 home runs, despite missing seven games due to a sprained ankle. Manager Fred Haney, in the March 27 edition of The Sporting News, was quoted: “He [Aaron] hasn’t reached his potential yet. I expect him to do better this year. That’s how we’ve got to improve to win the flag.” Aaron tinkered with his approach in the batter’s box, switching from a 36-ounce bat to a 34-ounce model, and he opened the 1957 season by batting safely, and scoring, in the Braves’ first seven games.

The public praise rolled in during those early weeks. On April 24 Sporting News writer Dick Young noted that Dodgers coach Billy Herman “rates Hank Aaron over Willie Mays as a hitter – and over everyone in the N. L. for my money.”13 The following week, in the same magazine, Bob Wolf wrote: “Whether or not he wins the triple crown, or even two-thirds of it, Aaron certainly must be considered the favorite in the batting derby … and while Aaron isn’t high on his chances of leading the league in homers or runs batted in, he agrees that he should repeat as batting king.”14 After 25 games,  Aaron was hitting at a .369 clip and had committed no errors in the field.

Stan Musial, however, was not as impressed as the reporters who followed the team. In a June 26 Sporting News article by Cleon Walfoort, Musial left no room for doubt, stating, “[Aaron] thinks there’s nothing he can’t hit. He’ll have to learn there are some pitches no hitter can afford to go for. He still has something to learn about the strike zone.” His reference to Aaron as an “arrogant hitter” drew a response, cited in the same article, from Pittsburgh manager Bobby Bragan. “Sure, Aaron’s a bad-ball hitter and he always will be, but it would be a bad mistake to try to change him.”15

Given the late arrival to spring training, Musial’s comments, and a general undertone in the wider reporting on Aaron and what was occasionally dismissed as a lack of effort, Haney again came to his slugger’s defense. “That loping gait of Hank Aaron’s is deceptive. You’d almost get the impression he wasn’t hustling at times, but he’d be about the last player you could accuse that of. He just runs as fast as he has to, and you’ll notice he always seems to get to a fly ball or a base in time when there’s any chance of making it.”16

Normally such an offensive outburst would result in a nearly automatic selection to the NL All-Star team, but according to a retrospective article from ESPN, a huge glut of votes from Cincinnati elected Reds to eight National League starting positions. “The lineup was so stacked, in fact, that Commissioner Ford Frick felt he had to intervene, so he replaced outfielders Gus Bell and Wally Post with two guys named Willie Mays and Hank Aaron.”17

The All-Star Game was little more than a brief respite in Aaron’s terrific season. On July 5 he surpassed his 1956 season home run total when he hit number 27 off the Cubs’ Don Elston, which, by mid-month, prompted The Sporting News’ Bob Wolf to begin touting the hitter’s chances for the Triple Crown. Despite his preseason protestation that he did not see himself as a power hitter, after 77 games he was on pace to tie Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record, and on August 15 he smacked career homer number 100. One week later he drove in his 100th run of the season. All the numbers, though, paled in comparison to a single swing of the bat the following month.

On September 23, in the bottom of the 11th inning facing St Louis, Aaron stroked a breaking ball over the fence at County Stadium. The two-run shot was the only homer that Cardinals pitcher Billy Muffett surrendered all year, but the walk-off win clinched the NL pennant for the Braves. Aaron was carried off the field that night by his jubilant teammates, and he always remembered that hit, that game, and that night as one of the greatest moments of his career.

In a February 26, 2012, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel retrospective, baseball commissioner Bud Selig was quoted: “Henry Aaron in ’57 was, well, he was a player for the ages. I have never seen a hitter like him. Forget our relationship. I’m telling you in the ’50s, when you watched Hank Aaron, you knew you were watching something really special.”18 That year, Aaron led the NL with 44 home runs, 132 runs batted in, 369 total bases, and 118 runs scored, but failed to meet his batting goal of .350. Instead, he finished a “mere” fourth in the league race with a .322 average. It was enough to earn him the only Most Valuable Player trophy of his career.

He followed that with 11 hits, including three homers, in 28 at-bats in the World Series. His .393 average certainly contributed to the Braves’ world championship, and was a fitting conclusion to a remarkable season. Both the man and his team walked off the field after the final out that October as, unquestionably, the best in baseball.

The year 1957 was also special for the Aarons for other reasons. In March, Barbara had delivered their first son, Hank Jr., and in December twins Lary and Gary arrived. Tragically, Gary died in the hospital, but the family carried on. It would grow once more, in 1962, with the birth of youngest daughter Dorinda.

In 1958, due in large part to Aaron’s 30 home runs, the Braves returned to the World Series, but lost to the Yankees in seven games. Although Henry Aaron only finished third in MVP voting for the year, he did win his first Gold Glove award. The following year the rising star appeared on the television show Home Run Derby, and won six consecutive matches – along with $13, 000 – before falling to the Phillies’ Wally Post. Afterward, Aaron noted that he changed his swing to help him hit more home runs because “ … they never had a show called ‘Singles Derby.’”19

His 1959 season was, arguably, the best of Aaron’s extraordinary career. Not only did he lead both major leagues in hits (223), batting average (.355), slugging (.636), and total bases (400), he committed only five errors all season while winning his second of three Gold Glove awards. The fielding mark is even more impressive in that, although he played 144 games as right fielder, he also played 13 in center and even five full games in the infield, at third base.  

Aaron hit his 200th career home run on July 3, 1960, off Cardinals pitcher Ron Kline, and on June 8, 1961, he joined Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, and Frank Thomas as the first quartet to hit successive homers in a single game, a 10-8 loss to the Cincinnati Reds. In 1963 he led the NL in home runs and RBIs, and also became the third-ever member of the 30/30 club, stealing 31 bases and socking 44 homers. That year Aaron barely missed winning the Triple Crown, losing the batting title to Tommy Davis by a scant .007 points, finishing in a tie with Dick Groat for fourth place in the major leagues with a .319 batting average.

He continued to excel throughout the decade. In the mid 1960s, though, the Braves uprooted the team and moved to Atlanta, as far south as any team in the major-league game. From a 2014 interview by Aaron, published in the Atlanta Business Chronicle, he “was not upset that his team would be moving to the segregated South. Aaron, who had grown up in Mobile, Alabama, played for the Jacksonville Braves and had traveled throughout the South when he was in the minor leagues. “It was something I had to get used to … I’m going to be playing baseball.

Coming up through the minor league system, I had always been affiliated with the Braves,” Aaron said. Because he cared about playing baseball, it didn’t matter if he was in Milwaukee or Atlanta. “I don’t have to be associated with anybody but the baseball players.”20

In 1966, the first season for the Braves in Georgia, Aaron hit his 400th career home run off Bo Belinsky in Philadelphia, and crested the 500-plateau two years later, in 1968 against Mike McCormick and the San Francisco Giants. He moved into third place on the all-time career home run list on July 30, 1969, when he passed Mickey Mantle with number 537. Despite his personal successes, and another third-place finish in the MVP race, the Braves were swept in three games by the improbable New York Mets in the new League Championship series. In the inaugural NLCS, Aaron batted .357 with three home runs.

The 1960s marked the peak of Aaron’s career. From 1960 to 1971, he averaged 152 games per season. In an “average” season, Aaron batted .308, scored 107 runs, amassed 331 total bases, hit 38 homers, and drove in 112 runs. This was all the more remarkable in that the time frame is widely remembered as the “decade of the pitcher,” yet Aaron gave no quarter when batting against some of the best in the game. Don Drysdale was his most frequent career home run victim, yielding 17, but the slugger also punished luminaries like Sandy Koufax and Juan Marichal, along with a wide array of less-gifted hurlers.   

His gift in the batter’s box flowed through his hands and wrists. In the 1990 book Men at Work:  The Craft of Baseball, author George Will summarized Hank’s approach: “Henry Aaron once said, ‘I never worried about the fastball. They couldn’t throw it past me. None of them.’ That was true, but that was Aaron, he of the phenomenally quick wrists and whippy, thin-handled bat.”21 Despite standing six feet tall, Aaron weighed a mere 180 pounds, almost scrawny in comparison to later sluggers, but his unique physical talent allowed him to wait on the pitcher for a split second longer than most other hitters, to seemingly pluck the ball from the catcher’s glove with his bat, and made him one of the most feared sluggers in the league.  

With his 3000th career hit, a single against the Cincinnati Reds on May 17, 1970, Henry Aaron became the first player ever to reach the dual milestones of 3,000 hits and 500 home runs. That year, with his 38 homers, he established a new NL record for most seasons by a player with 30 or more home runs. The following year, on April 28, Aaron hit homer number 600 off future Hall of Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry, joining Ruth and Mays in a most exclusive power-hitting fraternity. With his career-high 47 home runs that year he also set a new league record for most seasons with 40 or more homers with seven, and set an unofficial mark for “close-but-no-cigar” when he finished third in MVP balloting for a sixth time.

On the personal front, things between Henry and Barbara came to a head. The couple had been having marital difficulties since 1966, and had drifted apart. In February 1971, they formalized the separation with a legal divorce. Two years later, in 1973, Aaron married Billye Williams, a former Atlanta television journalist, in Jamaica.

Despite major-league baseball’s first labor-related work stoppage in 1972, Aaron passed Mays on the all-time home run list when he hammered number 661 off Reds pitcher Don Gullett on August 6. The impact of the strike wouldn’t really show until the following season. The two weeks that were lost to pension benefit negotiations represented eight lost opportunities for Aaron to continue his chase of Ruth’s career home run record, and by the end of 1973, with the national media working itself into a lather over Aaron’s pursuit of the iconic total, he ended the season with 713, one shy of tying the Bambino.

The stresses on the player, the team, opposing pitchers, and the sport that were spawned – or perhaps revealed – by Aaron’s 1973 season have been chronicled in a variety of sources. He retained an essential quiet dignity with the media and never allowed the moment to cause him to break in public, although a lesser man certainly might have cracked. Aaron received, literally, thousands of letters every week, and the torment prolonged over the winter of 1973 due to the strike in 1972. In 1973, however, the nation was a scant decade past the passage of the contentious Civil Rights Act, and less than a generation since Rosa Parks had refused to move to the back of her bus, so overt bigotry was not nearly as foreign as it might be now. Some of the letters that Aaron opened, however, are almost unbelievable for any era.

Some of the notable ones from the collection at the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown (spelling is verbatim):

“Hi, Hank,

I sees you hit 711 homers. When I goes to sleep every night I pray as follows:

1 – That you’se stop hitting these cheap homers

2 – That the pitchers stop lobbing in the ball for you to hit.

3 – That youse have a good accident when youse hit 713 and never been able to play another game.

4 – That youse get good and sick.

5 – That Babe Ruth is the best homer hitter & 714 is always the record.

6 – That youse get mugged by one of our brothers of the Black Panther Party.”

Another one, from mid-1973, read:

“Dear Hank Aaron,

Why are they making such a big fuss about your hitting 701 home runs.? sic

Please remember, you have been at bat over 2700 more times than Babe Ruth. If Babe Ruth was at bat 2700 more times he would have hit 814 home runs.

So, Hank what are you bragging about. Lets have the truth. You mentioned if you were white they would give you more credit. That’s ignorance. Stupid.

Hank, there are three things you can’t give a Nigger. A black eye, a puffed lip or a job.

The Cubs stink, the Cubs stink, Hinky Dinky, Stinky Parlevous. The Cubs are through, the Cubs are through, Hinky Pinky Parlevous.”

These are just a tiny sample of the venom and rage directed at Aaron throughout the later stages of his quest. In a third letter, a self-described “50 year old White Woman from Massachusetts” wrote, “To Hank Aaron: A Rotten Nigger … .you must have made every intelligent white man hate you and your opinions even more … ”.22 Describing those letters as mere irrational raving is reasonable nearly 40 years after the chase, but at the time, with a Black player pursuing the record of a White one, the threats seemed very real.

On the positive side, once the nation became aware of the bigotry, public support for Aaron poured in. But Aaron, perhaps channeling his inner Jackie Robinson, took the field without apparent regard for the attention surrounding his play. Atlanta opened the 1974 season in Cincinnati, and although the Braves management wanted Hank Aaron to break Ruth’s record in Atlanta, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn decreed that Aaron had to play at least two of the thee-game road series.

Aaron sat on his 713 total for one at-bat, hitting number 714 on April 4 off Cincinnati’s Jack Billingham. On April 8, in front of 53,775 fans in Atlanta, Aaron finally broke the record with a fourth-inning shot off the Dodgers’ Al Downing. Dodgers radio announcer Vin Scully captured the moment: “What a marvelous moment for baseball; what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia; what a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron. … And for the first time in a long time, that poker face in Aaron shows the tremendous strain and relief of what it must have been like to live with for the past several months.”23 

The euphoria lasted all season, until October 2, when Aaron hammered his 733rd, and final, homer in Atlanta for the Braves. One month later, on November 2, Atlanta traded the all-time home run king to the Milwaukee Brewers for minor-league pitcher Roger Alexander and outfielder Dave May. “When Bud Selig called me,” [Aaron, talking about the trade] said to the New York Times. “I was too sleepy to get all the details … All I know is that I’m happy to be going back home. This is the first time I’ve ever been traded. If I was being traded to a city like Chicago or Philadelphia, I’d frown on it. But I’m going back to Milwaukee … I’m going back home.”24

Hank Aaron became a “designated hitter.” The next season, on May 1, 1975, Aaron became the all-time RBI leader, and on July 20, 1976, he hit the 755th home run of his career in Milwaukee’s County Stadium. He appeared in his final major-league game on October 3, calling it a career after 3,298 games.

In that career, Aaron scored 2,174 runs, and is the all-time leader in RBIs (2,297), total bases (6,856), and extra-base hits (1,477). The total bases figure is ‘just another stat’ at first blush, but Aaron’s lead over Albert Pujols, #2 on the list, is 645, or almost 10%. It is one of Aaron’s most remarkable displays of dominance across all eras. His 12,364 at-bats remain the second highest total ever, and he is on many of Major League Baseball’s “top ten” lists, including doubles, plate appearances, and hits (3,771). Even more remarkable is that he remains on these lists more than 35 years since he last took the field. In his otherwise hilarious and irreverent book Catcher in the Wry, former Aaron teammate and longtime Brewers’ broadcaster Bob Uecker is quite serious when he observes that, “[Aaron] was the most underrated player of my time, and his.”  This period included tremendous players like Willie Mays, Frank Robinson, and Roberto Clemente, yet Aaron did more for less recognition than anyone else. Uecker continued, “I asked him once if he felt slighted. He said, ‘What difference does it make?’”25

After retiring, Aaron returned to Atlanta as vice president of player development for the Braves, and on August 1, 1982, was formally inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame, although an inexplicable 2.2 percent of the ballots did not contain his name. He also worked for a time for Turner Broadcasting, and opened Hank Aaron BMW in Atlanta. His auto empire eventually grew to multiple dealerships in Georgia, although he sold all but one in 2007, and he expanded his business venture to include a number of smaller restaurants as well. The 755 Restaurant Corporation grew to 18 fast-food venues in the Southeast, including several Church’s Fried Chicken outlets.

It was not a simple, happy ending. In 1984, brother Tommie passed away due to leukemia. Older brother Hank later said in an interview: “I was sitting in my office one day in 1982,” Aaron wrote later wrote, “when my brother Tommie walked in and told me that he had some kind of blood disorder … the whole time, Tommie never demonstrated any pain until the very last night before he passed … It was the hardest night of my life.”26

In 1990 he wrote his autobiography, I Had a Hammer, and in April 1997 the Mobile Bay Bears (Southern League) christened “Hank Aaron Stadium” in Mobile. In 1999 Major League Baseball created the Hank Aaron Award to be awarded to the best offensive performers in each league each season, and in 2000 Aaron was named to MLB’s All-Century Team. In 2001, he was awarded the Presidential Citizen’s Medal by President Bill Clinton, and in 2002 was given the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.

That slew of awards underscores Aaron’s fame and his relevance not only to baseball’s past, but also to America’s history. He was a Black man who successfully challenged the record of a White player whose legacy borders on mythical, and he did so with a poise so unshakable that it remains a study in professionalism. Naturally taciturn in public, he was only rarely able to convey his inner feelings with words, but he reserved one of his finest moments for the end of another controversy-laden home run chase, by Barry Bonds in 2007. When Bonds finally hit his 756th homer, Aaron’s face appeared on the JumboTron scoreboard in San Francisco, and he relayed a message to his replacement:

“I would like to offer my congratulations to Barry Bonds on becoming baseball’s career home run leader. It is a great accomplishment which required skill, longevity, and determination. Throughout the past century, the home run has held a special place in baseball and I have been privileged to hold this record for 33 of those years. I move over now and offer my best wishes to Barry and his family on this historical achievement. My hope today, as it was on that April evening in 1974, is that the achievement of this record will inspire others to chase their own dreams.”

Henry Aaron passed away in his sleep on January 22, 2021, just two weeks shy of his 87th birthday.27 He is buried at South View Cemetery in Atlanta.28

Dignity. Pride. Courage. Those are words often reserved for describing heroes. They also describe Henry Aaron.

Photo credits

National Baseball Hall of Fame Library, Trading Card Database, Atlanta Braves.

Notes

1 “Henry Aaron,” Alabama, U.S., Surname Files Expanded, 1702-1981; Alabama Department of Archives and History, online: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61266/images/41904_539897-00023?pId=61280

2 Bill James, “Henry Aaron,” The Baseball Book: 1990 (New York: Villard, 1990), 161.

3 Hank Aaron and Lonnie Wheeler, I Had A Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (New York, Harper Perennial, 1991), 14.

4 Nick Diunte, “Hank Aaron’s Lone Season in Puerto Rico Forever Altered His Path to the Hall of Fame,” Forbes.com, January 22, 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickdiunte/2021/01/22/hank-aarons-lone-season-in-puerto-rico-forever-altered-his-path-to-the-hall-of-fame/

5 Aaron and Wheeler, 32.

6 Aaron and Wheeler, 53.

7 James, 161.

8 Isreal’s last name is often spelled “Israel” – like the nation, but Baseball-Reference.com uses “Isreal”. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=isreal001elb. Of note, however, is that his father Frank’s World War II draft card spells the name (and in the signature), “Israel”.

9 “Henry Aaron, Negro Athlete, Is Voted Sally’s Most Valuable,” Panama City News Herald, August 19, 1953: 5.

10 Larry Schwartz, “Hank Aaron: Hammerin’ Back at Racism,” ESPN.com, accessed September 20, 2024, http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00006764.html

11 Howard Bryant. The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron (New York: Random House, 2010), 56.

12 Bryant, 69.

13 Dick Young, “Clubhouse Confidential,” The Sporting News, April 24, 1957: 17.

14 Dick Young, “Aaron Whipping Up Plate Breeze Aided By Lighter Bludgeon,” The Sporting News, May 1, 1957: 11.

15 Cleon Walfoort. “Aaron Turns Bad Pitches Into Base-hits,” The Sporting News, June 26, 1957: 7.

16 Walfoort, 7.

17 Steve Wulf, “The stuff of legends: In 1957, Cincinnati fans stacked the All-Star team too,” ESPN.com, June 29, 2015, https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/13168334/1957-cincinnati-fans-stacked-all-star-team-too 

18 Gary D’Amato, “Seasons of Greatness: No. 2 Hank Aaron 1957,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, February 26, 2012, http://m.jsonline.com/more/sports/brewers/140517023.htm

19 “Images from Hank Aaron’s chase for the career home run record,” ESPN.com, January 22, 2021, https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/30759553/images-hank-aaron-chase-career-home-run-record

20 Maria Saporta, “Hank Aaron reflects on past 50 years in Atlanta; Braves move to Cobb,” Atlanta Business Chronicle, October 24, 2014, https://saportareport.com/hank-aaron-reflects-on-past-50-years-in-atlanta-braves-move-to-cobb/sections/abcarticles/maria_saporta/

21 George Will, Men At Work: The Craft of Baseball (New York: MacMillan, 1990), 206.

22 Archives, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York (visited: 2011).

23 Jon Paul Hoornstra, “Relive Hank Aaron’s 715th Homer Through Vin Scully’s Historic Call,” Newsweek.com, accessed September 20, 2024, https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/other/relive-hank-aaron-s-715th-homer-through-vin-scully-s-historic-call/ar-BB1lioQU 

24 Alex Coffey, “The Braves Trade Hank Aaron to the Brewers,” BaseballHall.org, accessed September 20, 2024, https://baseballhall.org/discover-more/stories/inside-pitch/the-braves-trade-henry-aaron

25 Bob Uecker and Mickey Herskowitz, Catcher in the Wry (New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 1982), 167-168.

26 Aaron and Wheeler. I Had a Hammer; 434.

27 Richard Goldstein, “Hank Aaron, Home Run King Who Defied Racism, Dies at 86,” New York Times, January 22, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/22/sports/baseball/hank-aaron-dead.html

28 https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/221485980/hank-aaron

Joseph Wilbur Adcock was born on October 30, 1927, in Coushatta, Louisiana, located about 45 miles south of Shreveport on the east bank of the Red River. His father was Ray Adcock, a businessman, farmer, and longtime sheriff of Red River County; his mother, Helen (Lyles) Adcock, was a teacher. Joe and his younger sister, Mary Ann, grew up on the family farm, where they were expected to help out with the chores by the time they were 7 years old.

Joe was always big for his age and gradually drifted toward basketball; baseball, on the other hand, seemed as uncommon as heavy snow in Northwestern Louisiana. “There was no town team, no school team, not even a diamond,” said Adcock years later as a big leaguer. “The closest I came was a bit of one old cat as a kid with perhaps five kids playing at a time. I’d hit a rock with a stick out by the roadside down home and I’d knocked corncobs up on the barn roof with a broomstick. But as far as playing baseball, that was just something I heard my dad talk about.”1

Adcock was a standout basketball player at Coushatta High, leading the school to the state Class B finals as a senior in 1944. Basketball coach Jesse Fatheree at Louisiana State University offered the 6-foot-4, 210-pound Adcock and two of his teammates scholarships to play on the hardwood for the Tigers. Like many colleges (and professional baseball) teams at the time, rosters were depleted because of World War II. Baseball coach A.L. “Red” Swanson took over the team when Fatheree was drafted into the service. “One time in the spring of my freshman year, I was watching the varsity baseball team practice,” Adcock recalled of his introduction to baseball.2 In desperate need of players, Swanson invited Adcock try out for the team. Adcock stumbled learning to throw and catch fly balls, but proved to be a good hitter with an eagle eye. “I was all hit and no field,” he recalled. “I’d never worn spikes. I’d never had a uniform. I never played a game with nine men on a side.”3 Adcock’s first love remained basketball; he led the Southeastern Conference in scoring (18.6 points per game) in the 1945-1946 season and had offers to play professionally.4 On the diamond he established his reputation as a right-handed slugger and capable first baseman. Adcock attracted scouts during his junior year when he helped lead the Tigers to the Southeastern Conference championship. Cincinnati Reds scout Paul Florence signed him to a contract in 1947.

Adcock began his professional baseball career as a 19-year-old in Columbia, South Carolina, playing for the Reds’ affiliate in the Class A South Atlantic (Sally) League. The second youngest player on the team, Adcock batted .264 with a .414 slugging percentage and earned an invitation to the Reds’ spring training in 1948. Among the first cut from camp, Adcock returned to Columbia, where he improved his average to .279 (though his slugging dropped about 30 points), and was named to the Sally League’s midsummer all-star team. He also suffered a knee injury, the first of many injuries that plagued him throughout his career.

After another look-see at Reds spring training in 1950, Adcock was assigned to the Tulsa Oilers in the Double-A Texas League. Still a raw fielder, Adcock worked closely with manager Al Vincent to develop his technique. “He changed my whole style,” said Adcock of Vincent. “I started from scratch with him and he taught me everything.”5 Playing with a knee brace, Adcock emerged as one of most promising young sluggers in the league, belting 41 doubles and 19 home runs to go along with a sturdy .298 average for the league champions.

Adcock secured a Reds roster spot in 1950 but encountered a serious problem. An emerging star, big Ted Kluszewski, seemed to be the club’s first sacker of the future, leaving Adcock without a natural position. Adcock’s three seasons with the Reds were subsequently filled with frustration, missed opportunities, and injuries.

Adcock’s impressive debut as a 22-year-old first baseman against the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 23 (2-for-4 with a double) was followed by an embarrassing outing early in the game the next evening. “I’m sitting on the bench … before the game,” he recalled, “and [manager] Luke Sewell throws me a glove and says, ‘You’re playing left field.’ It was the first time in my life that I ever had a fielder’s glove. The first groundball hit to me should have been held to a single, but I had to chase it all the way to the wall.”6 Struggling at the plate through June in limited duty, Adcock showed that he could hit big-league pitching in a six-game stretch (10-for-24) in early July, then replaced the weak-hitting Peanuts Lowrey in left field after the All-Star Game. From July 5 through the end of the season Adcock hit a team-high .315 (102-for-324) and earned a berth on The Sporting News Rookie All-Star team.

Firmly ensconced as the Reds’ left fielder in his sophomore season, “Billy Joe” (a nickname he earned from Dodgers announcer Vin Scully) gradually replaced Kluszewski as the cleanup hitter. Batting a respectable .281 and slugging a team-best .489 during the first seven weeks of the 1951 season, Adcock injured his right knee and ankle while sliding into second base against the Boston Braves on June 3, foreshadowing a much more serious incident six years later. After missing more than three weeks of action, Adcock slumped in his return (he batted just .212 after the injury) and fielded tentatively.

By his third season, Adcock was vocal in his opposition to playing left field because of his home park’s distinctive embankment, which bothered his knees. “Every player who came into Crosley Field,” said the New York Giants Bobby Thomson, “paid attention to … the unique outfield terrace that ran in front of the left and center field walls.”7 Increasingly moody, Adcock got off to a hot start (batting .333 and slugging .667) when he aggravated his knee injury on May 22 in Brooklyn, missing three weeks. Hobbled in his return, his average steadily declined to .278 by season’s end with little power. He clashed with Rogers Hornsby (the club’s third manager during the season), who desired a more athletic and speedy left fielder.8 Adcock wanted to play first base, but with just 31 home runs in his first three seasons, he failed to show the consistent power to dislodge Kluszewski, a consistent .300 hitter who had hit 54 home runs during the same period. On February 16 Adcock was traded to the Braves, at the time officially located in Boston, in a complicated four-team, five-player plus cash deal.

Adcock arrived at an exciting yet unsure time in Braves history. After months of speculation, team owner Lou Perini announced on March 13 the club’s move to Milwaukee, bringing baseball to the upper Midwest. “[Adcock] gives us a balanced team,” said general manager John Quinn, noting that the Louisiana slugger and another offseason acquisition – outfielder Andy Pafko – would take pressure off left-handed slugger Eddie Mathews.9

Adcock’s aggressive style of play appealed to manager Charlie Grimm. “Adcock is my kind of player – a holler guy,” said Jolly Cholly.10Adcock’s first home run for the Braves was a prodigious 475-foot blast against the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds on April 29.11 He launched a pitch from Jim Hearn that landed ten rows up on the left side of the center-field bleachers; he was the first player to do so since the ballpark was renovated in 1923. Another titanic shot, against the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 18, rocketed almost as far, clearing the 457-foot sign in cavernous Forbes Field just to the left of straightaway center. Just as important as Adcock’s 18 home runs and 80 runs batted in for the season were his durability (he played in all of the team’s 157 games) and his fielding. “He has a good pair of hands and shifts well,” said Grimm, a former first baseman with the Cubs.12 The surprising Milwaukee Braves finished in second place and led the National League in attendance.

A classic pull hitter, Adcock crowded the plate with a locked-in stance and took a big step into the ball, which left him vulnerable to getting hit with inside pitches. Sportswriter Red Smith wrote, “National League strategy insists that he can’t pull the ball if it’s close to his wrists,”13 but Adcock continued to make headlines with his slugging in 1954. The power-hitting Braves challenged the supremacy of the Brooklyn Dodgers and their ensuing rivalry throughout the decade proved to be one of baseball’s fiercest. On July 31 Adcock became just the eighth big leaguer to belt four home runs in one game when he victimized four Dodgers pitchers at Ebbets Field. “I hit a fastball for the first homer, a slider for the second, a curve for the third, and a fastball for the fourth,” he told The Sporting News.14 He also hit a double to set a then major-league record for 18 total bases in one game.

In the following game Brooklyn reliever Clem Labine beaned Adcock on the left side of the head. The “distinct thud” heard throughout Ebbets Field came from Adcock’s’ batting helmet, still a relative novelty at the time, but which sportswriters quickly noted may have saved his life.15 “When they throw at me high and tight,” said Adcock, “I can duck, but when they throw behind your head, they mean business.”16 The Braves’ next series in Brooklyn proved to be even more dangerous for Adcock. On September 10 the big right-hander walloped his ninth home run of the season in Ebbets Field to set a new record for visiting players. In the first inning of the next game, Don Newcombe plunked the slugger, breaking his right thumb and ending his season during the Braves’ stretch drive. Adcock finished with 23 home runs, 87 RBIs, and a career-best .308 batting average.

In 1955 Adcock’s season came to a premature end for the second consecutive year. On the anniversary of his four-home-run game against the Dodgers, Adcock’s right hand (near his wrist) was broken by an inside pitch from the Giants’ Jim Hearn. “That’s how I earn my living. Hitting, I mean,” Adcock told sportswriter Red Smith. “You’ve got to make up your mind – do you run away from pitches or stay in there and hit? There are a dozen different stances but I’ve got to use the one that’s natural for me and stay in there.”17

Given 3-1 odds against winning the World Series in 1956, the Braves got off to a slow start, leading to Grimm’s replacement by Fred Haney after 46 games. In his first game as manager, Haney scrapped Grimm’s plan of platooning the slumping Adcock at first base with Frank Torre. Adcock responded by belting two home runs in the first game of a doubleheader on June 17 in Brooklyn. His second blast, one of his record 13 against the Dodgers and the game-winner in the ninth inning off Ed Roebuck, was the first ball ever to soar over the 365-foot mark in left-center field, clear a height of 83 feet, and land on the double-deck roof of Ebbets Field before rolling off into a parking lot on Montgomery Street.

A notoriously streaky hitter, Adcock assaulted pitchers for an NL-record 15 home runs and 36 runs batted in during the month of July which included “one of baseball’s wildest scenes” in memory.18 Adcock, increasingly angered by what he perceived as “head-hunting,” charged the mound on July 17 at County Stadium after New York Giants pitcher Ruben Gomez hit him on the wrist. In the ensuing melee, Gomez threw another ball at Adcock, striking him in the leg. Adcock then chased Gomez into the Giants’ dugout, where by some accounts Gomez found an ice pick but was wrestled to the ground by teammates before he could return to confront Adcock. Two days later Adcock took revenge by clouting two home runs, including one of his ten career grand slams, and driving in a career-high eight runs in a 13-3 Braves victory. The Braves seemed to be headed for their first pennant in Milwaukee, but struggled down the stretch (14-13 in September) and lost the pennant on the final weekend of the season. Adcock enjoyed arguably his best season, ranking second in the NL in home runs (38), RBIs (103), and slugging percentage (.597).

The Braves rewarded Adcock’s success with a rare two-year contract worth a reported $25,000 annually.19 But the big slugger was injury-plagued during the ensuing three years and ultimately forced into an unwanted and frustrating platoon role with Frank Torre. The initial injury occurred 33 games into the 1957 season when Adcock (batting .306 and slugging .562) tore ligaments in his right knee against the Chicago Cubs on May 26. He returned to the starting lineup on June 5 and played through the pain but was platooned thereafter. Adcock’s season came crashing down in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies on June 23 when he fractured his right fibula and tore ligaments in his right ankle sliding into second base in an awkward manner trying to protect his already-injured knee.20 Adcock returned to the Braves roster in September, but was noticeably hampered in the field as the Braves cruised to their first pennant in Milwaukee.

In the World Series against the New York Yankees, Fred Haney followed script by platooning Adcock against left-handers and Torre against right-handers with the exception of Game Three. Adcock started Games One, Two, Three, and Five, but was replaced in the late innings in each game by Torre. Just 3-for-15 in the series, Adcock did line an opposite-field single to right off Whitey Ford to drive in Eddie Mathews in the sixth inning for the only run in the Braves’ 1-0 victory in Game Five. Adcock was forced into the uncomfortable role of fan in the final two exciting games as the Braves captured their first and only championship in Milwaukee.

Adcock was confident that the Braves would capture another pennant in 1958. “We could run away with this thing like the Dodgers did in 1955,” he told Lou Chapman of the Milwaukee Sentinel. “There isn’t a ballclub that can touch us outside of Los Angeles.”21 In Haney’s platoon system, Adcock played first base primarily against left-handers and started just 71 times; however, when left fielder Wes Covington went down with an injury in June, the big Louisianan took over his spot. “That’s a lot of pasture out there,” said Adcock in his folksy Southern accent. “You could run several head of cattle out there in all that territory. But we’re hurting and I’m going to try to do my best. Let’s face it, though, I’m not happy about it.”22 Seeing his first action in the outfield since 1952, Adcock started 24 times despite a painful right knee, which had not fully recovered from the injury the previous year and required surgery following the season. “I couldn’t swing a bat right [in 1958],” said Adcock. “Whenever I put pressure on my back leg, out would go the knee. I didn’t play a game when my leg didn’t lock up on me six to eight times.”23 A team-first player, Adcock complained neither about his role on the team nor his pain. In just 320 at-bats, he belted 19 home runs and slugged .506 to help the Braves secure their second consecutive pennant.

In a rematch of the previous World Series, the Braves and Yankees squared off again in 1958. Adcock started Games One, Four, and Six against Whitey Ford, while Torre started the other contests. In Game One Adcock went 2-for-5 and scored the winning run on Bill Bruton’s single in the bottom of the tenth inning to give the Braves an exciting 4-3 victory. With a three-games-to-one lead, the Braves were on the verge of another championship, but lost three consecutive games during which they struck out 25 times and scored just five runs. In the Series, Adcock went 4-for-13 with no runs batted in; Torre had three hits in 17 at-bats with one RBI.

“I don’t like playing one day and sitting on the bench the next,” said Adcock during a 1959 spring training marred by a holdout and trade rumors. “I can’t do either myself or the team justice.”24 Adcock’s relationship with Haney became increasingly acrimonious. He once again split his time at first base and left field. In one of baseball’s most memorable games, Harvey Haddix of the Pittsburgh Pirates had a perfect game through 12 innings at County Stadium on May 26. In the 13th inning, with Felix Mantilla on second base courtesy of an error and Hank Aaron on first via an intentional walk, Adcock uncorked the first Milwaukee hit of the game, a towering home run to right-center field. Mantilla scored the winning run; however, in the ensuing melee, Aaron scampered to the dugout after rounding second base while Adcock circled the bases. Adcock was later ruled out for passing Aaron and his home run was scored a double. Three days later Adcock supplied another walk-off game-winner under bizarre circumstances when, as Gene Conley of the Philadelphia Phillies attempted to walk him intentionally, he “reached out over the plate a plucked a dribbler” to drive in Aaron on a fielder’s choice.25 Enjoying his best health in three years, Adcock put together a career-best 20-game hitting streak en route to 25 home runs while playing in just 115 games. In the team’s two straight losses in a best-of-three playoff against the Los Angeles Dodgers to determine the pennant winner, Adcock’s big bat was silent with no hits and two strikeouts in four at-bats.

Adcock returned to first base in 1960 under new manager Chuck Dressen, and never played in the outfield again in his career. On April 14 he blasted a titanic shot off Curt Simmons that soared over the 390-foot mark in right-center field in Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia, becoming the first right-hander (and just the third player) to clear the 64-foot-high scoreboard. Asked about his estimated 500-foot home run, Adcock responded, “I hit one off Seth Morehead [on September 3, 1958] that went over the roof in left center. That’s even higher than the scoreboard and just as far.”26 “Billy Joe” never lacked confidence. For the first and only time in his career, Adcock was named to the All-Star team; he started both games of the midsummer classic and rapped three hits in five at-bats. (From 1959 to 1962 two All-Star Games were played each season.) Consistent all season, Adcock led the team with a .298 batting average accompanied by 25 round-trippers while the Braves finished in second place for the fourth time in eight seasons.

Adcock was an accomplished and underrated first baseman whose long arms helped him dig out errant throws. He led first basemen in fielding percentage four times, including three consecutive seasons (1960-1962), and retired with the third-highest fielding percentage (.994) at first base in major-league history.

The Braves were in transition in 1961, though it might not have been apparent at the time. The oldest team in the National League, they got off to poor start, sported a losing record at the All-Star break for the first time since their move to Milwaukee, and needed a surge in August to finish in fourth place at 83-71. More disconcerting to owner Lou Perini was the rapidly declining attendance, which reached its nadir the following two seasons at just over 9,400 per game after leading the NL in attendance for six consecutive seasons (1953-1958). Like his team, Adcock struggled, too, before his bat awoke in the second half of the season (21-for-62, .330) to finish with a team-high 35 home runs and career-best 108 RBIs. On June 8 against the Cincinnati Reds, Mathews, Aaron, Adcock, and Frank Thomas belted a record four consecutive home runs in the eighth inning (since accomplished twice in the American League). Aaron (34), Mathews (32), and Adcock became the first Braves trio to each blast 30 home runs in the same season.

At the age of 34, Adcock showed signs of slowing down in 1962. His precarious right knee limited him to just 112 starts at first base, and he completed just 45 of them. He had difficulty running, but still possessed his awe-inspiring power. On July 21 in Philadelphia, he smashed two home runs, the second of which, reported the Milwaukee Journal, soared “over the roof atop the double-decked stands in left center” at Connie Mack Stadium.27 With rumors of his impending trade widely circulating by season’s end, Adcock concluded his final season in Milwaukee with 29 home runs and slugged over .500 for the seventh consecutive season. In their nine years together, Adcock (221), Aaron (298), and Mathews (327) belted 846 home runs, just nine fewer than the Dodgers trio of Duke Snider, Gil Hodges, and Roy Campanella had in ten years.

The offseason signaled an end of an era for Adcock and the Braves in Milwaukee. Owner Lou Perini finalized his sale of the club to the Chicago-based LaSalle Corporation on November 16. Less than two weeks later Adcock was sent to the Cleveland Indians as part of a multi-player trade. “This is just the start [of trading]” said new Braves manager Bobby Bragan, who had succeeded Birdie Tebbetts.28 Adcock was not surprised by the trade and departed with a lasting shot to the Braves management. “The front office took things for granted too much with guys who won the pennant. They figured they’d keep going. Maybe they sat too long, but then they moved too fast, panicky.”29

No longer an everyday player, Adcock spent one injury-plagued season with Cleveland platooning at first base with Fred Whitfield. “[Adcock] never once quit on me in Milwaukee,” said Tebbetts, now managing Cleveland. “I admire Adcock because he’s one of the few players I have ever seen who never has taken a short step … I have never seen him dog it even once.”30

In a trade widely criticized by sportswriters and fans, the Los Angeles Angels completed a trade of popular outfielder Leon Wagner for Adcock and pitcher Barry Latman on December 6, 1963. Reunited with Haney, then GM of the Angels, Adcock played his final three seasons in Southern California. Still a valuable home-run threat, he platooned at first base and pinch-hit. The Sporting News wrote that Adcock retained his boyhood enthusiasm for the game, ran out every grounder despite his aching knees, and was an unselfish player who tutored young hitters.31 On August 27 he reached a milestone when he launched a pitch from Diego Segui of the Kansas City Athletics for a home run at Municipal Stadium, becoming at the time just the 23rd major leaguer to belt 300 home runs. Playing home games in cavernous Chavez Ravine (Dodger Stadium), Adcock led the Angels in round-trippers in 1964 with 21 in just 366 at-bats. He concluded his playing career in 1966, the Angels’ inaugural season in the more batter-friendly Anaheim Stadium. He paced the team with 18 four-baggers (in just 231 at-bats) and launched two of longest home runs in his career. On July 4 he blasted a pitch from Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers into the upper deck just under the left-field roof at Tiger Stadium; and on September 2 he walloped a pitch from Washington Senators reliever Bob Humphreys off a light tower in deep left field at Anaheim Stadium.

Adcock retired as a player after the 1966 season to become manager of the Indians. “The boys can expect me to be strict and I’ll stress fundamentals,” he said. “I think there are a lot of mental errors made that shouldn’t be.”32 He lasted only one season (an eighth-place finish), and was replaced by Alvin Dark. Adcock piloted the Triple-A Seattle Angels in the Pacific Coast League in 1968 before walking away from the game he loved. In his 17-year big-league career, Billy Joe hit 336 home runs, knocked in 1,122 runs, and batted .277.

Adcock retired to his hometown of Coushatta, where he had purchased Red River Farms as a player and spent most of his offseasons. He bred thoroughbred racing horses and was involved in farming. Adcock lived with his wife, the former Joan James, whom he met after his hand and wrist injury in 1955 when she worked as a nurse for the Braves team physician, Dr. Bruce Bower. They married in November 1956 and raised four children.33 Adcock gradually drifted away from baseball, though he periodically appeared at events commemorating the Milwaukee Braves. In 1975 he was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

Suffering from the effects of Alzheimer’s disease, Joe Adcock died on May 3, 1999, in Coushatta. He was 71 years old. He was buried in Holly Springs Cemetery in Marin, Louisiana.

This biography is included in the book “Thar’s Joy in Braveland! The 1957 Milwaukee Braves” (SABR, 2014), edited by Gregory H. Wolf. To download the free e-book or purchase the paperback edition, click here.

Sources

Newspapers

Milwaukee Journal

Milwaukee Sentinel

The Sporting News

Websites

Ancestry.com

BaseballLibrary.com

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

SABR.org.

T

Tommie Lee Agee was born August 9, 1942, at Magnolia, Alabama to Carrie and Joseph Agee. He had 10 siblings, nine of them girls. A year after Tommie’s birth, the Agees moved to Mobile, Alabama. His father worked for the Aluminum Company of America and Agee grew up in a low-income area that had segregated schools and parks. Being on the Gulf of Mexico, Mobile’s climate lent itself to year-round outdoor sporting activities. The locality also had a rich lode for baseball talent, Hank Aaron and Willie McCovey hail from the area as did legendary Satchel Paige and Agee’s Mets teammate Amos Otis. But it was another future teammate in New York that Agee would form a bond with in Mobile.

In junior high, Agee met another youngster, Cleon Jones, who became an immediate school yard teammate and close friend. They were born just five days apart (Cleon was older). Although Carrie Agee wanted her son to become a minister, early on Tommie demonstrated gifted athletic abilities and a desire that placed him on course for a sports career.

Though not yet five years old when Jackie Robinson brought an end to the infamous gentlemen’s agreement and opened up major league rosters to men of color, Agee still recalled the excitement it generated. “They had one television set in our part of town and everybody gathered around it one day when Jackie Robinson was playing a game. ..I knew then that I could be a ballplayer.”1

Agee attended the local high school, Mobile County Training School. Started in 1880, the facility was the oldest training school in Alabama and for many years was comprised of grades seven through 12. It was reorganized to a middle school in 1970. Agee was a four-sport star at Mobile County, playing football, basketball, and baseball as well as running track. During summer break the teenager played sandlot baseball. In fact, he once shagged flies for another Mobile resident, future Hall of Famer Billy Williams.

“There were quite a few playing fields around,” said Agee’s high school coach, Curtis J. Horton. “The boys had areas in which they could develop.. ..Fields didn’t have to be perfect and smooth. Baseball was played in just about every neighborhood, on every block. If the kids didn’t have regulation bats and balls, they played stickball with rubber balls and broomsticks.”2

On the high school diamond, Tommie batted .390 and also pitched. The team recorded only one loss. Unfortunately, Alabama did not have a state baseball championship while Agee was at Mobile County Training School.

On the gridiron, Agee was an end and his friend Cleon Jones, a halfback. MCTS football had a stellar record—only one loss during Tommie’s three years with the squad. He would remember fondly, “We had a play that we called number forty-eight, and it was a halfback option play. The quarterback would hand off to Cleon and he had an option of running or passing to me. During the 1960 season, we made five touchdowns on that play alone.”3

Agee went on to Grambling State University on a baseball scholarship, a school better known for other sports: NBA star Willis Reed and NFL cornerback Willie Brown, both of whom eventually reached the Hall of Fame in their sports as professionals, attended Grambling the same time as Agee. Dr. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones who coached the Louisiana school’s baseball team remembered Tommie’s first game. “We worked on cutting down his swing. You know how it is, all these boys think about is home runs… .Well, the first time up, he hits a home run over the left-field fence. The next time he hits one over the center-field fence. The third time he hits one over the right-field fence. Then he hits so far into center that he gets an inside-the-park home run.”4

Early scouting reports claimed he “lacked coordination” as well as poor fundamentals. In fact, Coach Jones initially placed him at first base. The coach moved him to the middle infield and even had him pitch before finally slotting Agee as an outfielder. Hitting was not an obstacle. During his single season at Grambling, Agee batted .533, then the highest average in the Southwestern Athletic Conference’s history.

After that colossal college season seemingly every pro birddog scout flocked to Agee’s home in Mobile. Similarly impressed was his pal Cleon Jones, who took to respectfully referring to Agee as “Number One.”5

Agee inked a contract with the Cleveland Indians with a $65,000 bonus in 1961. He spent parts of two season in Iowa, first at Class-D Dubuque, where he hit .261 with 15 home runs in 64 games, and then at Class-B Burlington, batting .258 with 25 steals in 500 at-bats. He moved up to Class-AAA Jacksonville for two games before being called up to Cleveland. His major league debut occurred in road grays, September 14, 1962 before 25,372 at Metropolitan Stadium. In the top of the ninth, the 5-foot-11, 195-pound Agee flew out against Minnesota southpaw Dick Stigman in an 11-1 Minnesota rout. Agee batted .214 during that initial cup of coffee in 1962. He bounced back and forth from the farm to the parent club through the 1964 season. His cumulative batting average for Cleveland was just .170 with one home run in 53 at-bats.

On January 20, 1965, the 23-year-old Agee was involved in a three-team swap. Pitcher Tommy John, catcher John Romano, and Agee were sent to the Chicago White Sox; the Kansas City Athletics sent Rocky Colavito to Cleveland; Chicago sent Jim Landis and Mike Hershberger to Kansas City; and Chicago sent Cam Carreon to Cleveland. At a later date Chicago sent Fred Talbot to Kansas City. The White Sox wound up the winners in the complicated transaction, though Agee did not pay immediate dividends.

Agee spent almost all of 1965 at Class-AAA Indianapolis, batting .226 with 15 steals. He hit even worse in brief duty with the Pale Hose, batting a paltry .158. Agee finally got his chance in 1966.

Agee was tabbed as Chicago’s starting center fielder on Opening Day and launched a two-run home run in the seventh inning to tie the game. The White Sox went on to win in 14 innings and Agee, who began the season in the seventh spot in the order, quickly moved up in the lineup—first to leadoff, then moving to the two-hole, before settling into the third spot in the order. He wound up the season batting cleanup.

Agee batted .273 with 22 home runs, 88 RBIs, and scored 98 runs while playing in 160 games. After attempting just one steal in his past trials in the majors, Agee stole 44 bases for the White Sox (he was caught 18 times). He was named the American League Rookie of the Year and finished eighth in the MVP voting to Triple Crown winner Frank Robinson in Baltimore. Agee earned a Gold Glove and was named to the All-Star team.

Agee was an All-Star again in 1967, but he suffered through a sophomore jinx in the latter stages of the season. He managed through the first half with a split of .247/.317/.401—not bad numbers for that pitching-dominated era on a team where no regular wound up hitting higher than .250—but Agee slumped to .218/.282/.329 in the second half. And while he thrived against lefties, batting .306 and putting together an .844 OPS, he made management wonder if he might be a platoon player by hitting just .199 against righties, though he hit 10 of his 14 home runs against them. His slumping was certainly noticeable as the Chisox battled until the final week for the pennant with Boston, Detroit, and Minnesota; the club with scarlet socks nabbed the AL flag on the final day.

Also noticing the outfielder was opposing manager Gil Hodges of the Washington Senators. When the New York Mets traded for Hodges after the season, one of the new manager’s first requests was to try to pry Agee from the White Sox. On December 15, 1967, the Mets acquired Agee along with infielder Al Weis. The Mets gave up their best hitter, Tommy Davis, and Jack Fisher, the only Met besides rookie Tom Seaver to make more than 30 starts in 1967. (The Mets also sent Billy Wynne and Buddy Booker to the White Sox in the deal.)

Hodges penciled in Agee as his center fielder, a position where many had tried and failed for the sad-sack Mets to that point. Longtime Mets beat reporter Maury Allen wrote, “Hodges had always liked Agee as a ballplayer and thought sure that he could be the kind of exciting leader the Mets needed on the field.”6 The deal also reunited Agee with long-time friend and Mets left fielder Cleon Jones.

The ’68 Grapefruit League opener was a bleak foreshadowing for Agee’s first year as a Met. He was beaned by St. Louis Cardinals ace Bob Gibson on the first pitch of spring training and wound up hospitalized. Agee began the regular season batting third with a 5-for-16 start, good for a .313 average and five runs scored. In the fifth game, however, he endured an 0-for-10 nightmare in a 24-inning loss at the Astrodome, embarking on a 0-for-34 slump that tied Don Zimmer’s club record set in 1962. After going hitless for two weeks and seeing his average drop to .102, he finally grounded a single off Philadelphia’s Larry Jackson. He did not have his first home run or RBI until May 10. Agee ended the year with a .217 batting average and a mere five home runs and 17 RBIs in 391 at-bats. He walked just 15 times—his lowest total over a full season—while fanning 100 times for the third straight year.

Oddsmakers and baseball pundits tagged the 1969 Mets as a 100-1 longshot to win the Fall Classic. Why? Since their inception the hapless club never finished higher than ninth place. The smart money knew only a miracle could turn them around and that wasn’t going to happen. Or was it?

Agee, fittingly, was the first Mets batter of 1969. Primed for redemption and rewarding his manager’s faith by installing him in the leadoff spot, he knocked in New York’s first runs of the season with a three-run double in the second inning on Opening Day. Two days later, on April 10, the 26-year-old launched two home runs. His first of the day was a legendary homer in the second inning that landed in Shea’s left-field upper deck.

“That one today would have gone over the third fence and hit the bus in the parking lot if it hadn’t hit the seats,” marveled Ron Swoboda.7

After that blast plus another off Expos left-hander Larry Jaster, Agee said the chance Hodges gave him to go deep meant as much to him as the jaw-dropping distance. “Not many managers,” he said, “would have had enough faith to go with me after the year I had [in 1968].”8

Agee was the first—and last—to ever land a ball in the ratified air of fair territory in left or right field at Shea Stadium. The approximate spot was later memorialized by painting a large circle where he hit his home run with his name, number, and date. Years later, it was estimated at 480 feet.

But long balls were a generally rare event with the Mets. A pitching-first club without a lot of hitting, the 1969 Mets won by scoring just enough runs to win. They went a remarkable 41-23 in one-run games in 1969, often relying on their “lunch pail” everyday center fielder to inspire teammates. “I think it was just a matter of [Agee’s] getting adjusted, knowing the pitchers better and regaining his confidence,” Hodges said. “Tommie can make a ballclub go with running and power.”9

Agee led the 1969 Mets in games (149), at-bats (565), runs (97), and, surprisingly for a leadoff man, he led the club in both home runs (26) and RBIs (76). Though he had a superb season with his glove in center field, Cincinnati Reds right fielder Pete Rose wound up claiming a Gold Glove along with automatics Roberto Clemente and Curt Flood. Rose finished fourth in the MVP voting to Willie McCovey; Agee was sixth.

Agee’s offense garnered plenty of notice. Allen, who covered the club for the New York Post that summer, referred to 1969 as “the Mets Age of Agee,”10 bumping the Age of Aquarius from Broadway’s production of Hair to second billing.

Indeed, the Cubs must have been perusing the Big Apple tabloids. The first pitch of the September 8 showdown by Cub Bill Hands knocked down Agee. To veteran observers, it had all the earmarks of a “stick it in his ear” order from Cub skipper Leo Durocher.11 After that game, which New York won with Agee sliding past catcher Randy Hundley in a memorably close call, the outfielder commented, “I don’t mind being knocked down. If you’re hitting they’re going to knock you down. The only thing I don’t like is if we don’t retaliate.” Jerry Koosman took care of that end and the Mets—with a visit from a black cat—took care of the Cubs the next night and took over first place the night after that.

The Mets mowed down the opposition, finishing with a 100-62 record. The Amazin’s topped the second place Cubs by eight games and captured the first National League East title in history. The inaugural Championship Series saw New York square off against the West’s Atlanta Braves. Agee, who played every day despite Hodges’s multiple platoon system, batted leadoff in all three games. After becoming the first Mets to ever appear in a postseason game and going hitless in the series opening win, Agee homered in each of the next two games and knocked in four for a .357 average as the Mets swept.

Agee was the first Met to step to the plate in a World Series game and—as he’d done in the NLCS opener—he grounded out. Orioles outfielder Don Buford—a former teammate of Agee’s in Chicago—belted a leadoff home run against Tom Seaver as Baltimore took the first game, 4-1. The Mets held on for a 2-1 win the next day to even the Series.

Agee took over Game Three and the Mets shifted into another gear. Sports Illustrated labeled Agee’s October 14 performance, “The most spectacular World Series game that any center fielder has ever enjoyed.”12 Agee led off the first World Series game played at Shea with a home run against Orioles ace and future Cooperstown entrant Jim Palmer. Agee had been 0 for 8 in the two games in Maryland.

New York was up 3-0 in the fourth inning, but the Orioles threatened with runners on first and third and two outs. Baltimore catcher Elrod Hendricks hit a Gary Gentry pitch to left-center. It looked like a double or even a triple for the Baltimore backstop. As Agee sprinted toward left field, Cleon Jones knew his old friend would make the play. “Lots of room, lots of room!” Jones shouted, to make sure Agee knew the fence wouldn’t get in his way.13 Agee reached out and grabbed the ball backhanded as he came to a halt before slamming into the 396-foot sign—with plenty of white showing as the ball lodged in the glove’s stretched webbing.

Baltimore loaded the bases in the seventh with two outs. Orioles center fielder Paul Blair represented the tying run as Nolan Ryan came in to replace Gentry. Blair slammed a drive to deep right-center field as Agee again sped in pursuit. At the warning track he dove for the ball as if he were an Olympic swimmer. The ball landed in his glove as he sprawled prone to the ground. Agee later said the catch off Blair, as difficult as it looked, was easier than the one he made off Hendricks because the Blair catch was “on my glove side.”14

The 56,335 at Shea gave him a standing ovation when he led off in the bottom of the frame. Agee also received what may have been the ultimate compliment from the wags in the press box who winkingly told one another between catches, “Let’s see him do it again.”15 Little did they know they would.

Agee’s catches, especially his robbery of Blair, were immediately considered within the regal realm of other key Series plays: great grabs like Al Gionfriddo off Joe DiMaggio (1947), Willie Mays off Vic Wertz (1954), or Sandy Amoros off Yogi Berra (1955). After the contest, Agee was particularly satisfied that his all-around performance would make headlines back home in Mobile. “Oh, people hear about us,” he said. “They get clippings from out of town.”16

Agee’s leadoff homer accounted for one run and the catches saved at least five runs in the 5-0 win that put the Mets ahead of the overwhelming favorite Orioles in the World Series. Agee had just two more hits in the Series and finished with a .167 average in the five-game victory, but he was still as much a hero as anyone on a team suddenly overflowing with supermen.

Following the World Series, Agee along with a few other Mets appeared in a Las Vegas revue, singing “The Impossible Dream” among other standards. Back in Mobile, Agee and Jones were honored with a parade. Though Agee would later admit disappointment that as a pair of African-American big-leaguers he and Jones weren’t previously the object of much official municipal affection in their Deep South hometown, on the day of the celebration, he happily told the estimated crowd of more than 5,000, “There’s no place like home.”17

The Sporting News named Agee NL Comeback Player of the Year. He continued to be the club’s leadoff hitter and starting center fielder for three more seasons. He won his overdue second Gold Glove in 1970 and surpassed his ’69 season in several categories. He batted a career-high .286 and had his lone career 30-double season. That year also saw him set team records with 636 at-bats, (broken by Felix Millan in 1973 with 638), 31 stolen bases (topped by Lenny Randle in 1977 with 33), 107 runs (surpassed by one by Darryl Strawberry in 1987), and 298 total bases (erased by Strawberry in ’87 with 310). Agee had both a 20-game and a 19-game hitting streak in ’70 while his 24 home runs made him the first Met in history to twice lead the club in that category or reach 20 homers in more than one year.

The 1971 and 1972 seasons saw Agee hampered by knee problems. Before the 1972 season, Hodges died suddenly, and Yogi Berra was named manager. More change was in store on May 11 when the Mets acquired the greatest center fielder to ever come from Alabama: Willie Mays. Agee still got the majority of starts in center field over the 41-year-old Mays, but he no longer played every day as he had under Hodges. His average stood at .281 the day Mays had his first at-bat as a Met and Agee finished the year at just .227, his lowest average since his first year at Shea.

On November 27, 1972, the Mets dealt Agee to the Houston Astros for outfielder Rich Chiles and right-hander Buddy Harris. Agee appeared in 83 games for Houston and batted .235 with eight home runs. The Astros sent him to the St. Louis Cardinals on August 18, 1973, receiving outfielder Dave Campbell and cash. His last game was September 30, 1973 at Busch Stadium, where he pinch-hit for pitcher Diego Segui in the fifth inning against the Philadelphia Phillies. Agee grounded out to short.

Agee had planned to continue playing and the Los Angeles Dodgers fully expected him to as well. On December 5, 1973, the Cards traded him to Los Angeles for Pete Richert, but the Dodgers released Agee near the end of spring training on March 26, 1974. Agee ended his career, at age 31, with a .255 batting average with 130 home runs, 433 RBIs, and 167 stolen bases. He finished one hit shy of 1,000 for his career.

In retirement, Agee was very active in youth programs in the New York area. He owned a bar near Shea Stadium called The Outfielder’s Lounge. He later went into the business sector and was affiliated with Stewart Title Insurance Company. On January 22, 2001, upon leaving a midtown Manhattan office building, Agee was stricken with a fatal heart attack. He was 58 years old. Agee was survived by his wife Maxine and daughter Janelle.

Mets team chairman Nelson Doubleday called Agee “one of the all-time great Mets.” On Opening Day 2001 the Mets wore a patch honoring Agee and Brian Cole, a prospect killed in an auto accident shortly before the opener. Agee was inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame in 2002, the last Met so honored at Shea Stadium. Members of his family were invited to take part in the final day at Shea in 2008.

After Agee’s death, Cleon Jones still marveled at how his old friend made playing center field at Shea Stadium look easy, despite its poor visibility and swirling winds. “I hated it; every guy before me hated it,” recalled Jones, who was the club’s center fielder the two years prior to Agee’s arrival in New York. “But Tommie never complained. I watched Willie Mays, Curt Flood, Vada Pinson—a lot of guys came into this Shea Stadium outfield. Nobody played it better than Tommie Agee.”18

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Mets fan Greg Prince, who researched and provided all the endnotes for this biography.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted 108mag.typepad.com, Baseball Digest, guardonline.com, salisburypost.com, the 2008 Mets Media Guide, and two articles in particular.

Rubin, Adam, “Shea Stadium’s Been Raining Long Balls for Years,” http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2008/09/06/2008-09-06_sh…

Spector, Jesse, “Tommie Agee’s Upper-Decker Remains Singular Shea Swat” http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/mets/2008/09/20/2008-09-20_tommie_agees_upperdecker_remains_singula.html#ixzzOEZQaM9Hs&A

NOTES

1. A.S. “Doc” Young, The Mets From Mobile: Cleon Jones and Tommie Agee (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1970), 24.

2. Young, 20.

3. Young, 22.

4. Young, 26.

5. George Vecsey, Joy in Mudville: Being a Complete Account of the Unparalleled History of the New York Mets from Their Most Perturbed Beginnings to Their Amazing Rise to Glory and Renown (New York: The McCall Publishing Company, 1970), 161.

6. Maury Allen, The Incredible Mets (New York: Paperback Library, 1969), 83-84.

7. Larry Fox, “Agee Reborn,” New York Daily News, April 11, 1968.

8. Fox, “Agee Reborn.”

9. Young, 60-61.

10. Allen, 125.

11. Vecsey, 209.

12. William Leggett, “Never Pumpkins Again,” Sports Illustrated, October 27, 1969.

13. Wayne Coffey, They Said It Couldn’t Be Done: The ’69 Mets, New York City, and the Most Astounding Season in Baseball History (New York: Crown Archetype), 183.

14. Young, 107.

15. Phil Pepe, “Agee Whiz! Mets Go 1 Up in Series,” New York Daily News, October 15, 1969.

16. Vecsey, 240.

17. Young, 134.

18. Bryan Hoch, “Agee Earns Rightful Sport in Mets Hall,” The Wave (Rockaway, New York), August 17, 2002.

And, he wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. “To play on a team that wins the World Series is the biggest thrill you could have in baseball,” said Alley, who was a member of the 1971 Pirates team that won a world title. “I don’t think anything could compare to it. Somebody can hit 50 home runs in a year — which is something I didn’t do or even came close to. I don’t know what that feels like. But, I can’t imagine it being better than winning everything.”

Leonard Eugene Alley was born in Richmond, Virginia, on July 10, 1940, to Claude and Helen Alley. The senior Alley died in a car accident when Gene was an infant, leaving their mother to raise four children. Fortunately, his father’s railroad pension allowed Helen to carry on without having to work outside the home.

In addition to baseball, Alley was a fine basketball player in high school, and spent most of his leisure hours fishing. In a mid-career interview, he recalled that he hardly ever played baseball after the school year ended. “In the summertime, fishing is what I liked to do. I hardly ever played baseball–one or two games with the American Legion team, maybe. I guess I was just a Southern boy in the summertime.”

The major league scouts mainly thought he was too small. He was offered a contract by the Phillies after he graduated from high school in 1958, but he took his time thinking about it and they withdrew the offer. He was offered a partial scholarship to play basketball at the University of Richmond, but he could not come up with the rest of the money. So he went to work for his uncle’s foundry, making aluminum molds, and then took a job making storm windows and doors.

The following winter, Alley finally signed a baseball contract, with Pittsburgh Pirate scout Russell Rouse, and he spent his entire professional career in the Pittsburgh system. He spent that first season with Dubuque (Iowa) in the Class D Midwest League, where he hit a solid .287 with 15 homers, 24 doubles, 67 RBI, and 98 runs scored in 120 games. By the end of the season, Alley could no longer throw without pain, and he had to be moved to the outfield. He would not return to shortstop for three years.

In 1960, Alley played most of the year at Grand Forks (North Dakota) in the Class C Northern League, as a third baseman, and hit .280 with 14 homers, 24 doubles, 78 RBI, and 83 runs scored in 115 games. He also played six games for Burlington (Iowa) in the Three-I League (hitting .083) and four games for Columbus (Ohio) in the International League (where he hit .357.) After the season he was named the Most Valuable Player in the Northern League. He also earned his nickname, “Alley Oop”, which stuck with him through his major league years.

In 1961, the Pirates moved him to second base, and he performed for Asheville (North Carolina) in the Class A South Atlantic League — hitting .263 with 14 homers, 61 RBI, 23 doubles, and 86 runs scored in 135 games. In 1962, Alley split time between Columbus and Asheville, hitting a combined .262 with 12 homers. The following year he played mainly at Triple-A Columbus, finally back at his shortstop position, his arm fully capable again of the long throw. He hit .244 with 19 homers and 61 RBI for Columbus in 146 games and earned a September call-up to the Pirates.

He started his first game, September 4, in Milwaukee against the Braves. He was 0-2 with a sacrifice bunt, but there was no shame in that. Brave pitcher Warren Spahn four-hit the Pirates. He got his first hit on the 13th off Bob Bolin of the Giants, and finished at .216 in 17 games. In 1964, Alley made the team as a utility infielder, played in 81 games, and hit .211, spelling shortstop Dick Schofield regularly. On May 3 he hit his first career home run off the Cardinals’ Ernie Broglio.

In March 1965, Bill Mazeroski broke his foot, and Alley replaced him for the first 40 games of the season. Upon Mazeroski’s return, manager Harry Walker moved Alley to shortstop and benched Schofield. Alley finally hit his stride at the plate against major league pitching, hitting .252 with five homers, 47 RBI, 47 runs scored, and 21 doubles in 153 games. He also had a .968 fielding percentage at the two positions.

In the majors, the 5-foot-10, 165-pound Alley wasn’t expected to produce big offensive numbers. That burden fell on sluggers like Stargell and Clemente. His strength and value to the team was offered by his mitt. Still, Alley found a way to be productive at the plate with the help of manager Harry Walker, who managed the Pirates from 1965 to ’67.

“I wasn’t the greatest hitter,” Alley admitted. “When Harry Walker took over the Pirates, he worked with me a lot on trying to hit the ball to right field and waiting on the pitch. We worked on the hit-and-run and he liked to get the runners over a lot. So, I did bunt a lot and sacrificed.”

Walker himself, in a 1967 Sport magazine article, praised Alley: “Alley’s got good baseball instincts. He’s got a good head. He backs up plays well, he goes to his spots well. He does everything well — he’s complete. He was the best hit-and-run man on the club, a good bunter, one of the better base runners.”

In 1966, Alley had perhaps his best season in all respects. He hit a career-high .299 with seven home runs, 43 RBI, 88 runs scored, and 173 hits in 147 games. His career-high 28 doubles tied him with Ken Boyer of the New York Mets and Rusty Staub of the Houston Astros for the eighth-highest total in the National League that year. His on-base percentage was .334.

Alley also had 10 triples for the Pirates. Only Tim McCarver (13) and Lou Brock (12) of the Cardinals and Clemente (11) had more. Alley’s 20 sacrifice hits were second only to Houston’s Sonny Jackson, who had 27. Along with Hall of Fame second baseman Mazeroski, the two helped the Pirates turn a National League record 215 double plays. The key to the combination, according to Harry Walker, their manager, was that Alley charged the ball and fielded most everything near the grass.

“I knew after playing with (Mazeroski) for a while and watching other second baseman around the league that he was the best in making the double play,” said Alley, who himself had a then-club record 128 double plays in ’66. “He was great and he could turn the double play better than anyone I ever saw. He had very quick hands and very seldom did you see him miss the ball. He gave you good throws on the double play.

“After playing with him for a while you knew his habits and what he was going to do. He was going to be in a certain place when the ball was hit. If you caught the ball and came up throwing, you knew he was going to be where he needed to be. You just tried to give him a good throw and that was it — he was going to turn it. You left the rest to him.”

On occasion Mazeroski would field a ball up the middle and flip it to Alley even when there was no one on base. With Maz heading away from first base, he knew Alley had the better throw. “They can make double plays with nobody on!” said Jose Pagan, their impressed teammate.

Alley had a .979 fielding percentage at shortstop in 1966. He recorded 235 putouts and 472 assists while committing just 15 errors. For his outstanding efforts in the field, Alley was awarded the first of his two Gold Glove awards. He finished 11th in voting for the MVP award — thanks in large part to his fielding. He was named the shortstop on the NL post-season All-Star team by The Sporting News in both 1966 and 1967.

In 1967, Alley earned his first selection to the All-Star game, and hit .287 with six homers, 55 RBI, 25 doubles, 59 runs scored, and 158 hits in 152 games. His on-base percentage was a career-high .337. He also earned his second straight Gold Glove with a .967 fielding percentage. Alley had 257 putouts, 500 assists, 26 errors, and 105 double plays.

“It was pretty exciting,” Alley said of making the All-Star team. “I had been in the league just a few years. You play with the best players in your league against the best players in the American League. It’s a pretty good feeling to be in that group. I don’t know how to describe it except that it’s pretty awesome.

“It’s humbling, too, because when you’re young, you might be playing against guys you watched on TV or read about as you were coming up. Sometimes you might get the feeling ‘Am I good enough to be playing with these guys?’ Yeah, it’s kind of humbling in that sense.”

Alley started at shortstop for the National League in 1967 and hit eighth in the lineup. He went hitless in five trips to the plate, striking out three times. The NL beat the AL 2-1 when Tony Perez of the Cincinnati Reds hit a home run off Jim “Catfish” Hunter of the Athletics in the 15th inning to win the game 2-1 in Anaheim, California.

Alley played with a sore right arm in that game – an injury that would bother him the rest of his career. He first felt the pain before a game at Cincinnati while warming up in the outfield.

“It happened a few days before the All-Star Game,” Alley said. “I had a sore arm when I played in the All-Star Game. One day in Cincinnati in 1967, I was shagging balls during batting practice in the outfield. I caught one and threw it in and felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. I got another one and threw it and it was the same thing. The pain just wouldn’t go away. It stayed like that for a while.”

Alley thinks the cumulative effect of thousands of throws and tosses — both in practice and during games — over the course of his career finally took their toll. “Sometimes you can throw off-balance and hurt yourself,” Alley said. “I just used to throw a lot — period. I took a lot of groundballs before games and worked hard that way. I would make a lot of throws before the game even started. I just made too many throws, I guess. It was just wear and tear.”

Alley kept playing, though. In 1968, he was named to his second All-Star squad and hit .245 in 133 games. He also had a .974 fielding percentage. In 1969, he hit .246 with eight homers in 82 games. He spent 29 days on the disabled list. Despite limited playing time that year, Alley continued to shine with his glove as his fielding percentage was .977. He also had a 21-game hitting streak.

His streak began on Aug. 13 at San Francisco, when he went 2-for-5 with a home run off the Giants’ Mike McCormick during a 10-5 win. Two days later, Alley went 3-for-3 with a couple of homers against the Reds in Cincinnati in a 5-1 victory. The streak continued until Sept. 9 when he went hitless in four at-bats against Montreal’s Steve Renko. Alley hit .366 during the streak (30-for-82) with eight homers, 21 RBI, and 15 runs scored. When his streak began, he was hitting .218. By the time his skein had ended, Alley had raised his average 48 points to .266.

In 1970, Alley had the distinction of hitting an inside-the-park grand slam home run against the Montreal Expos. He did it on September 2 at Jarry Park in Montreal during the sixth inning of a 10-7 loss. With the bases loaded and one out against pitcher Carl Morton, Alley sent a line drive toward center fielder Boots Day.

“I do remember the inside-the-park home run,” Alley said, “but I didn’t remember it being a grand slam. I remember how it happened. I hit a line drive to the center fielder. He came in and tried to make a shoestring catch and missed it. I guess you don’t see too many inside-the-park grand slam home runs these days. It’s funny the things you remember and don’t remember.”

In 1970, Alley helped the Pirates win the National League East with a .244 average in 121 games while posting a .975 fielding percentage at shortstop. In 1971, Alley hit .227 during the Bucs’ world championship season.

Alley and Pittsburgh went 97-65 during the regular season in 1971, winning the National League’s East Division by seven games over the St. Louis Cardinals. An 11-game winning streak in July spurred the Bucs to the division crown and they dispatched the San Francisco Giants in the NL Championship Series in four games.

“Baseball is a team sport and meant to be played like a team,” Alley said. “You give yourself up for the sake of the team — sacrificing men around, moving the runners up so that you can score runs to win games. It’s not always based on how many home runs you hit or how much you hit for average. It’s did you hit the guy from second to third so the next guy can drive him in with a fly ball and win a game?”

The Pirates were managed by Danny Murtaugh, who also skippered the Bucs when they beat the heavily-favored New York Yankees in the 1960 World Series thanks to Bill Mazeroski’s famous walk-off homer. Murtaugh had four separate tours of duty as the Pittsburgh manager, winning 1,115 games and losing 950 for a .540 winning percentage over 15 seasons.

“I liked playing for him because he let you play,” Alley said of Murtaugh. “He would put the lineup out and just let you play. He told us ‘You guys are in the major leagues. You should know how to play the game by now. I’m just going to put your name on the lineup card and go play. If I see that you don’t know how to play the game, I’ll make changes.’ He was pretty low-key.

“He was tough, too. Don’t get me wrong. He could be as tough as anyone. But, he expected you to know how to play the game. He just let you play. He was a good manager.”

Pittsburgh beat the Baltimore Orioles in the 1971 World Series in a thrilling seven-game tilt. “It’s the greatest feeling in the world to come in off the field knowing that for one year,” Alley said, “you were champions of the world. It’s the greatest feeling you can have in baseball.”

Roberto Clemente (who finished fourth in 1971 in the NL batting race at .341) was the Series’ MVP by hitting .414 (12-for-29) with two pivotal homers and outstanding defense in right field. Clemente used the 1971 World Series as his stage to show the baseball world what he could do. His Pirate teammates, though, already knew what he was capable of.

“He was kind of hard to get to know, or so we thought,” Alley said. “We thought he wanted to be by himself. The more we played together, we found out he just wanted to be like one of the guys. He wanted to be treated like everyone else. He was by far the best player on our team. There wasn’t anybody close to having the abilities that he had. That’s not knocking anyone on our team, either. He was one of the top players in all of baseball.”

“He could do everything. I saw him make plays that still make me wonder ‘How did he do that?’ He had a great arm. He could run. He could hit and hit with power. Some people used to knock him because he didn’t hit a whole lot of home runs. But, he was a line drive hitter and hit most of his balls to right and center field.

“He was strong and could hit the ball as far as anyone. He just didn’t hit a lot of home runs. He played in some pretty big ballparks in Forbes Field and Three Rivers Stadium. He didn’t get to play in Wrigley Field or Fenway Park all the time.”

With a world championship to his credit, Alley completed his solid baseball resume. But, even before earning that championship ring, Alley had already earned respect for being one of the game’s best-fielding shortstops.

In 1972, the Pirates won their third consecutive division title as Alley hit .248 in 119 games. In 1973, Alley hit just .203 in 76 games during his final big league campaign. For his 11-year career, Alley hit .254 with 55 homers, 342 RBI, 442 runs scored, 140 doubles, and 44 triples in 1,195 games. Alley (who also played second and third) had 999 lifetime hits. His fielding percentage was a fine .970 at shortstop.

“Before the injury, I had a good arm,” Alley said. “I wasn’t real fast but I think I was quick, which is probably the most important thing to playing the infield — the first couple of steps. Knowing the hitters and learning the hitters and their speed is important. Knowing our pitchers and where they were going to pitch to hitters and how they were going to do it was important, too. That way, I could play the hitters accordingly.”

Baseball is as much a mental game as it is a physical one. That fact was not lost at all on Alley, who as of 2006 was living in Glen Allen, Virginia. “The mental part is important for any good infielder,” Alley said. “If somebody just has the natural ability — able to run well and having a good arm — but doesn’t know how to play the hitters or take the time to know where they hit the ball and certain pitches, it’s more difficult. You have to know what to do with a certain count and with runners on base. It makes you a whole lot better when you know those things.”

When Alley was playing, he found work in the off-season with a company that produced printing plates for industrial packaging for items such as wrappers, containers, boxes, toys, and in-store cardboard displays. He eventually became a sales representative for the company before retiring four years ago.

Now, he spends his time either playing golf or hanging out with his buddies – particularly old teammates like the 1971 Pirates. On June 2, 2006, several members of that team gathered for a reunion and were introduced to the crowd at PNC Park as part of the team’s 35th anniversary weekend. Sixteen players and coaches from that ’71 team were introduced.

“Those guys are still great,” Alley said. “It brought back a lot of good memories.”

And, for those who remember Alley’s great glove, the feeling was mutual.

Sources

Roy McHugh. “Things Happening Quickly for Alley.” Sport. March, 1967.

Palmer and Gillette. The 2005 ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia. New York: Sterling Publishing Co., 2005.

Pietrusza, Silverman, and Gershman. Baseball, The Biographical Encyclopedia. Toronto: Sport Media Publishing, 2003.

Roth. Who’s Who In Baseball 1967. New York: Who’s Who In Baseball Magazine Company, Inc., 1967.

www.thebaseballcube.com

www.baseballlibrary.com

www.pittsburghpirates.com

www.baseball-reference.com

www.baseball-almanac.com

Gene Alley telephone interview on June 5, 2006.

William Robert Allison was born on July 11, 1934, in Raytown, Missouri, located about 10 miles southeast of Kansas City. His parents, Robert “Lou” and Frances (Witte) Allison, were hard-working, industrious people who provided Bob and his two younger siblings, Jim and Frances (known as Frankie), a solid, middle-class life. Bob got his first lesson in baseball from his father, a construction worker and former semipro catcher. He began playing organized baseball by the time he was 11 years old and attending Chapel Elementary School. He was a big, rugged, and agile youth, and his favorite sport was football. At Raytown High School he was a standout in multiple sports, starring at quarterback and fullback on the gridiron, playing in the front court in basketball, and running track. He was “something of a legend around Raytown,” read one report.2 Although his school did not have a baseball team, Bob played in the highly competitive Ban Johnson League in the Kansas City metro area.

After graduating from high school in 1952, Allison enrolled on a football scholarship at the University of Kansas, about 50 miles from home in Lawrence. He was a fullback on the Jayhawks football team in 1952 and 1953, and played baseball in 1954 for legendary coach, Floyd Temple, in his first of 28 years guiding Kansas. At 6-feet-3 and weighing 200 pounds, the right-handed Allison might have had the prototypical build for a professional fullback, but he garnered more attention as a hard-hitting, rough-and-tumble infielder-outfielder for Milgram in the Ban Johnson League in the summers of 1952-1954. “At 18, he could out throw most big leaguers I saw,” said one of his former coaches.3 Scouts from the New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, Milwaukee Braves, New York Giants, Cleveland Indians, and Washington Senators were on his trail in Kansas City and Lawrence. “Tom Greenwade, who discovered Mickey Mantle, came to the university to see me,” said Allison. “He gave me all the sweet talk about the Yankees, and I must admit that I was surprised. [Senators scout] Ray Baker had told me that it was easier to make it in the Washington organization than with some of the richer clubs.”4 The decision to pursue a career in baseball became more immediate when Allison lost his athletic eligibility for the fall of 1954 due to poor grades. According to the Associated Press, the Senators signed Allison on Baker’s recommendation on January 24, 1955.5

With a bonus of $4,000 in hand, the 20-year-old Allison reported to the Class B Hagerstown (Maryland) Packets of the Piedmont League in 1955. He batted .256, but showed little power, slugging just .332. The Senators invited him to spring training in 1956 for a look-see. Although Washington sportswriter Shirley Povich praised him for his “big swing and determination,”6 Allison was over his head and was subsequently assigned to the Charlotte (North Carolina) Hornets in the Class A South Atlantic League, where his average dipped to .233.

In Charlotte Allison roomed with 20-year-old Harmon Killebrew, in his first year in the minors. Killebrew had signed with the Senators two years earlier for a reported $30,000 bonus; because of the bonus rule in effect at the time, he was required to spend his first two (agonizing) seasons on the big-league squad. The two prospects became lifelong friends and accompanied each other on their arduous journey to the big leagues. The following season, with the Double-A Chattanooga Lookouts, Killebrew developed into a slugging sensation, belting 29 home runs to lead the Southern Association, while Allison batted just .246 and hit only two home runs, though his 11 triples tied for the league lead. Despite his weak hitting, Allison had established a reputation as good center fielder with excellent range and a rifle arm.

Back with Chattanooga in 1958 after another trial with Washington in spring training, Allison blossomed, batting .307 and slugging .446, and earned a call-up to the Senators when the rosters expanded in September. On September 16 he made his major-league debut, playing center field and batting leadoff, and going 1-for-4 in a loss to the Cleveland Indians. Allison appeared overmatched at the plate (7-for-35), but according to The Sporting News “can handle centerfield.”7 Allison honed his skills in the Cuban Winter League, leading Almendares to the league championship and earning a berth on the all-star team while experiencing a front-row view of the Cuban Revolution.8

Allison’s rookie season with the Senators in 1959 defied all expectations. His size, speed, strength, and athleticism inspired awe. Team trainer George “Doc” Lentz, who had worked for the Senators for 31 years and also for the Washington Redskins, called the now 220-pound, muscular Allison “the strongest man I ever handled.”9 Club owner Calvin Griffith praised him as having “the best arm that has come to our outfield since Jackie Jensen.”10 Said coach Ellis Clary, “I know he’ll scare the daylights out of the opposition. Man, when he runs down the line from home plate I can hear the ground shake.”11 But despite this praise, many felt that Allison would not even make the team because of his poor hitting. Boston sportswriter Hy Hurwitz wrote that Allison “should be shipped out” during camp while Senators beat reporter Bob Addie noted that “none of the scribes covering the team in training camp thought much of Allison.”12 Shirley Povich cautioned, “[Allison’s] not a power hitter.”13 His manager, Cookie Lavagetto, was even more direct in his evaluation, “He was the worst you ever saw at the plate. He chopped at the ball like he had an axe in his hand.”14

Dubbed the “hardest worker in camp,” Allison recognized that his future in the big leagues rested on improved hitting.15 Roy Sievers, renowned for his graceful swing, proved to be most influential on the youngster. “He had me move closer to the plate so I could reach the pitches,” said Allison. “He also taught me not to lunge.”16 A classic line-drive hitter, Allison’s new approach helped him temper the tendency to pull the ball. He impressed Lavagetto with his work ethic, “He’s a curious kid. If he makes a mistake, he’ll talk about it. Bob studies pitchers,” said his skipper.17

Allison made an immediate impression on fans with his energetic style of play. He opened the 1959 season with a nine-game hitting streak, including his first home run. He began in right field, moved to left, and then took over center field in the 12th game of the season, making Albie Pearson, the 1958 Rookie of the Year, expendable. (He was traded on May 26.)

With only 28 home runs in four years in the minors, no one expected Allison to develop into a home-run threat. But he surprised everyone. On June 5 Allison collected a career-best five hits (in five at-bats) and walloped two home runs for the first of 16 times in his career, yet the Senators lost to the Detroit Tigers, 7-6. By the end of July, Allison had clouted 27 round-trippers, and was named to the AL All-Star team for the second of two games scheduled that season, although did not play. “He can run, he can throw, he swings a good bat,” wrote Bob Addie.18 Allison intimidated baserunners with his accurate arm, but also tested Lavagetto’s patience for occasionally showboating and overthrowing the cutoff man to show off his arm strength, thereby permitting runners to advance.

Despite slumping the final two months of the season, Allison finished with 30 home runs and batted .261; he also knocked in 85 runs despite hitting in the two-hole for just over half of his at-bats. More than a slugger, he led the AL in triples (9) and finished fifth in stolen bases (13). He topped off the season by winning the Rookie of the Year award. The Senators were accustomed to losing, and finished in last place in 1959, but they treated their fans to a home-run barrage. En route to a new team-record 163 home runs, Allison, Killebrew (42), and Jim Lemon (33) became just the seventh trio of teammates to blast 30 round-trippers in one season, and the first in the AL since the 1941 New York Yankees with Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Keller, and Tommy Henrich.

After another offseason playing winter ball in Cuba, Allison reported to spring training in 1960 with high expectations. Calvin Griffith, the perpetually cash-strapped owner of the club, pronounced him an untouchable and rebuffed offers to sell the young star. Moved to right field, Allison got off to a torrid start. In his first seven games he collected 17 hits in 30 at-bats and drove in 12 runs. He caught President Dwight Eisenhower’s pitch on what turned out to be the last home opener for the Senators in Washington. Batting primarily in the third spot, usually in front of Lemon, Allison hit .328, scored 35 runs and knocked in 33 through the first 50 games, and seemed destined for stardom. But just as the Senators were putting together a winning record for three consecutive months (June, July, and August) for the first time since 1952 to begin September with a winning record, Allison commenced a prolonged sophomore slump, batting just .205 in his last 95 games. More disconcerting to the Senators was Allison’s loss of power –  just 15 home runs for the season. One of those, however, was a dramatic two-run walk-off blast in the 10th inning to defeat the New York Yankees on July 5. While the Senators floundered in September to finish in fifth place, Griffith became willing to listen to trade offers for Allison.

It was not a surprise when the Senators moved to Minnesota in the offseason. Griffith, the adopted son of former owner Clark Griffith, had begun exploring relocation options soon after taking control of the team in 1955. Since breaking the one-million mark in 1946, the club had struggled mightily at the gate, finishing last in attendance every year since 1955. Griffith, whose primary source of income was the baseball club, also complained that the location of Griffith Stadium, in the historically black neighborhood of Shaw, kept fans from the games. In the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, he hoped to reap the same kinds of financial rewards that the Boston Braves, Brooklyn Dodgers, and New York Giants did after relocating in the 1950s.

Ignoring trade rumors, Allison got off to another hot start in 1961 as the Minnesota Twins played their first six games on the road. In their season opener, he walloped the first home run in Twins history,  a deep line-drive blast to left field off Whitey Ford in the club’s convincing 6-0 victory over the New York Yankees. Three games later, he blasted two round-trippers and drove in a career-high seven runs in a Twins’ victory over the Baltimore Orioles. Two more games of two home runs followed in mid-May at Metropolitan Stadium, located in Bloomington, about 11 miles due south of downtown Minneapolis. Though the Twins finished in seventh place (70-90) in the year the AL expanded to 10 teams, the club finished third in attendance, proving that major-league baseball could succeed in the Upper Midwest where cool, indeed cold, temperatures in April, May, and September were the norm. Allison placed seventh in home runs (29) and RBIs (105) while drawing a career-high 103 free passes (fifth best in the AL).

Allison was an immediate favorite in Minnesota. As the first player to establish year-round, permanent residence in Minnesota, he helped Minnesotans forge a strong bond with their recently relocated team. He, his wife (his high-school sweetheart, Betty Shearer, whom he had married in 1956), and their three children, Mark, Kirk, and Kyle, were fixtures at the ballpark and in the community. Allison had matinee-idol good looks – tall, dark, and handsome with brownish black hair and hazel-green eyes – and played with an ethos that endeared him to fans and the media. He had all sorts of nicknames, from Paul Bunyan and Mr. America to Muscles, all which played on his Herculean physique. “He plays hard and he plays every second of every game,” commented The Sporting News.19 Called a “throw back to the old times,” Allison was “Old School” when it meant playing an all-out style like the 1920s or 1930s.20  He crashed into outfield fences going after balls and made daring, diving catches. Though not conventionally fast like Mickey Mantle or a great basestealer like Luis Aparicio, Allison was an excellent and fearless baserunner. His specialty was breaking up double plays, barreling over shortstops, many of whom he outweighed by 50 to 60 pounds.

In 1962 the Twins were the youngest team in the AL and had assembled a nucleus of players who helped transform the club to a pennant winner in 1965, and laid the foundations for the team’s success throughout the decade. Killebrew (age 26) and Allison (27) in the outfield, Zoilo Versalles (22) at shortstop, Rich Rollins (24) at third base, and catcher Earl Battey (27) were All-Star selections in the 1960s. The Twins farm system produced other future All-Stars who joined them: outfielders Jimmie Hall in 1963 and Tony Oliva in 1964, and second baseman Rod Carew in 1967.

Allison was hampered by several early-season injuries in 1962, including a pulled rib muscle and spiked fingers, and experienced a drop in his power numbers through early June. Nonetheless, the Twins briefly took over the top spot in the AL that month. “I’ve never seen the kind of spirit we’ve got on the club,” said Allison.21 Manager Sam Mele, who had replaced Cookie Lavagetto during the previous season, relied on the long ball; all eight position players swatted at least 11 home runs as the club set a new team record with 185. Allison regained his power in June and put together one of the most productive stretches in his career, hitting 27 round-trippers and knocking in 86 runs in 108 games from June 9 through the end of the season. On July 18 Allison and Killebrew became the first set of teammates in big-league history to wallop grand slams in the same inning when they accomplished the feat in the first frame of a 14-3 laugher against the Cleveland Indians at the Met. Minnesota finished with 91 victories, five behind the New York Yankees. In an era when high batting averages and low strikeout totals were the signs of good hitters, Allison – who struck out a lot and seldom hit for a high average – did not receive as much credit for his production as he probably should have. He finished third in runs (102) and seventh in RBIs (102), joining Norm Siebern of the Kansas City Athletics as the only AL players in triple digits in both departments; he also finished eighth in home runs (29) and fifth in slugging (.511).

Sluggers Killebrew and Allison were affectionately known as “Mr. Upstairs and Mr. Downstairs.” Whereas the “Killer” clouted legendary arcing homers, Allison ripped bullets that cleared the fences. The ever modest Allison claimed, “I’ve never been much of a long-ball hitter,” and added, “I swing down at the ball and I’m more of a line-drive hitter.”22

Using a wider batting stance and a heavier bat, Allison enjoyed arguably his best season in 1963 in an offensively depressed era. He was named Player of the Month by Fleer in April (five home runs and 18 RBIs in 19 games) while his teammates struggled and the club dropped into last place. “Allison is only doing what comes naturally when he plays Paul Bunyan so it is no surprise that he’s trying singlehandedly to carry the Twins,” wrote UPI after the slugger connected for three home runs for the first and only time in his career, against the Indians on May 17.23 On the strength of his league-leading 21 home runs, Allison was named a backup on the AL All-Star squad. (He struck out against Houston’s Hal Woodeshick in his only at-bat.) Despite being briefly sidelined in August when a pitch from Dean Chance of the Los Angeles Angels broke a bone in his right hand, Allison finished third in the AL in home runs (a career-best 35), fourth in RBIs (91), third in walks (90), and second in slugging (.533). He paced the circuit with 99 runs scored, marking the first time that the AL leader failed to reach 100 in a full season since Elmer Flick in 1906. The Twins proved to be a streaky team, winning 91 games, but finishing in a distant third place, 13 games behind the Yankees. They also established a new team record with 225 home runs – 113 of them from Allison, Killebrew (45), and Hall (33).

Twins beat reporter Arno Goethel once referred to Allison as the “unknown outfielder.”24 Soft-spoken off the field, yet articulate, Allison shunned the spotlight, played in the shadows of Killebrew and Oliva, and was rarely mentioned in discussions about the best outfielders in the early to mid-1960s. He played any position the team asked, moving from center field to right field, to first base in 1964, and then to left field in 1965 to accommodate younger players or improve the team. “I don’t care where I play,” he told sportswriter Dick Gordon. “I don’t think moving around affects my play and I like being able to play more than one position.”25 On the field Allison exhibited a completely different persona. Managers and teammates acknowledged him as the vocal team leader. Minneapolis sports reporter Max Nichols praised his “take charge instincts” and noted that he’s the “holler guy” on a team filled with “silent types.”26

The Twins fell to sixth place in 1964 with a 79-83 record despite a league-leading 221 home runs. Four of those home runs came consecutively against the Kansas City A’s when Oliva, Allison, Hall, and Killebrew connected in the 11th inning of a 7-3 victory. Allison was a jack-of-all-trades, starting 90 games at first base and 45 in the outfield (at all three positions). He was a starter in his third and final All-Star appearance (he went 0-for-3 with a walk). Allison’s season ended about a week early when he was hit by a pitch from Lew Krausse of the Kansas City A’s and broke a knuckle. With 32 home runs, 86 RBIs, and a career-best .287 average, Allison set career-best marks in slugging (.553) and on-base percentage (.404).

The 1965 Twins were an unusually deep team, with seven legitimate All-Star position players, and two more on the pitching staff. Three new coaches, Johnny Sain, Jim Lemon, and Billy Martin, helped forge them into a mentally tough and fundamentally sound team. In first place for the overwhelming majority of the season, the Twins overcame injuries to key players to pull away from the pack in August and September and cruise to their first pennant, seven games ahead of the Chicago White Sox, with a record of 102-60.

Allison started out the 1965 season in left field, his third different position in as many years. He put up typical numbers (.267, 12 HRs, 34 RBIs) until he was hit on the right wrist by a pitch from Boston’s Jerry Stephenson on July 6. Diagnosed with a fractured wrist, Allison missed 10 days. He struggled after his return (batting just .199, though he hit 11 homers and knocked in 44 runs in 68 games) and was often platooned with Sandy Valdespino, a speedy, left-handed-hitting rookie. About four weeks after Allison’s injury, Killebrew suffered what appeared to be a season-ending elbow injury in a collision at first base with Baltimore’s Russ Snyder on August 2.

The Twins’ pennant was a testimony to the team’s depth and team-oriented attitude. “We find a different way to win every day,” said Allison. “This team is a bunch of fighters.”27 With Allison bothered by a sore wrist and Killebrew out seven weeks, the Twins relied on a collective effort. “No player on this club has dominated the clutch hitting role,” wrote Max Nichols.28 Don Mincher belted 22 home runs and replaced Killebrew at first base, Oliva batted .321 to capture his second successive batting crown, and Versalles led the league in runs scored (126) and extra-base hits (76) and won the AL MVP award.

The Twins lost the 1965 World Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, whose other-worldly ace, Sandy Koufax, hurled shutouts in Game Five and Game Seven (on two days’ rest), but Allison’s remarkable catch in Game Two has endured as one of the most memorable in Series history. In the fifth inning of a scoreless game, with a man on first and no one out, Allison made a diving backhanded grab of Jim Lefebvre’s sinking line drive to left field. He caught the ball with his glove just off the ground in fair territory and skidded on the soggy field across the foul line. “It was the greatest catch I’ve ever seen,” said Killebrew.29 The Twins went on to win the game, 5-1, to take a two-games-to-none lead in the Series. Like his teammates, Allison struggled against Dodgers pitching. In five games (he did not start Games One or Four against Don Drysdale), Allison went 2-for-16. One of those hits was a two-run homer in Game Six off Claude Osteen. The last of his nine strikeouts accounted for the final out in Game Seven.

In 1966, Allison, now 31 years old, lost his position in left field to Valdespino and saw only limited action in an injury-plagued season. On July 23 he suffered his fourth hand/wrist injury in as many years when a pitch from Boston’s Jim Lonborg fractured his left wrist. “You can’t blame the pitchers for pitching me tight,” said a philosophical Allison. “That’s part of the game.”30

In light of a miserable campaign (8 homers and 19 RBIs) Allison endured an offseason filled with trade rumors, but the Twins had no viable options in left field. Two of his supposed replacements, Valdespino and Andy Kosco, had failed to lived up to their hype. Allison reclaimed his position as the everyday left fielder, though he was often replaced for defensive purposes late in games. With the Twins floundering in sixth place (25-25), Cal Ermer replaced Mele as skipper and ignited the team. They won 24 of their next 36 games, culminating in a doubleheader sweep of the California Angels on July 16 to pull to within a half-game of first place. In that twin bill, Allison went 3-for-5 with two home runs (one as a pinch-hitter) with five RBIs and three runs scored. Throughout August and September, Minnesota battled Boston, Chicago, and Detroit in one of the most exciting pennant races in league history. In first place entering the final weekend of the season and with just 1½ games separating four teams, the Twins were swept by Boston in a two-game series to finish in second place. Allison finished with a .258/24/75 line.

Collectively, the Twins struggled in 1968, the “Year of the Pitcher,” and fell to seventh place, their worst finish since their inaugural season in Minnesota. The players failed to respond to skipper Cal Ermer, whose authority players openly challenged, leading to some high-profile confrontations, such as one with Carew. Owner Calvin Griffith conceded that Ermer had lost control of the club. Allison, who had hurt his right knee the previous season, needed regular cortisone shots to play in the field. In his last season as an everyday starter, Allison was still an offensive threat, clouting 22 home runs (tied for eighth in the AL) and slugging .456 (sixth).

Although he was reduced to a role player in 1969, Allison looked forward to playing for Billy Martin, whose aggressive, daring style he appreciated. Martin considered Allison excellent coaching material (Allison turned down Martin’s offer to join his staff in Detroit in 1971).  In his autobiography (with Peter Golenbock), Number 1, Martin called Allison “my leader behind the leader on the bench.”31

En route to the AL West crown in the first year of realignment, Allison was involved in an ugly scene with Martin and pitcher Dave Boswell in August. At a local watering hole in Detroit, the Lindell Athletic Club, Boswell began arguing with pitching coach Art Fowler. Allison intervened as peacemaker and took Boswell outside to cool off. Boswell took out his frustration on Allison, knocking him out (with a sucker punch, according to some reports), whereupon Martin rushed outside. In the now infamous fight, Martin beat up his pitcher, who was subsequently hospitalized.32

Allison was placed on waivers during spring training in 1970, but there were no claims on the 35-year-old with creaky knees. Relegated to an occasional start and pinch-hitting duties, Allison saw sporadic action for manager Bill Rigney, who had replaced Martin and led the Twins to their second consecutive AL West crown. For the second year in a row, the club lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the ALCS and Allison went hitless in a combined 10 at-bats, both series sweeps. At the conclusion of the season, he announced his retirement. In his 13 years with the Senators-Twins, Allison hit 256 home runs, knocked in 756 runs, and batted .255.

On September 9, 1971, the Twins celebrated B.A.T. Day (Bob Allison Tribute Day), marking the first time a professional athlete had ever been feted with his own day in Minneapolis-St. Paul. The broad-shouldered, down-to-earth Allison was wildly popular as much for what he did off the field as for his accomplishments on the diamond. “[Allison] has been unmatched in the team’s history as a tireless good-will ambassador in Twinsland,” wrote Arno Goethel.33 Long associated with the Easter Seals, Allison worked tirelessly on behalf of sick children, visiting hospitals and raising money.

Allison was well positioned for his post-baseball career. Since his early days in Minnesota, he had worked in the offseason for Coca-Cola, and began working for the company full-time in 1971, moving into sales. His association with the soft-drink company gave rise to one of his funniest monikers, “Bubble-Up.” Allison maintained close ties to the Twins and former teammates, and participated in reunions and special events with the club. In 1989 he retired with his wife to a resort community north of Fountain Hills, in the desert of Arizona. An avid outdoorsman, Allison anticipated playing golf, hunting, hiking, and traveling.

Not long after retiring from Coca-Cola, Allison was tragically diagnosed with ataxia, a rare, incurable disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and gradually impairs coordination. As the disease progressed and his health began to fail, Allison and his family established the Bob Allison Ataxia Research Center at the University of Minnesota.

Bob Allison died at the age of 60 on April 9, 1995, from the effects of ataxia. He was buried in Rio Verde Memorial Gardens, in Rio Verde, Arizona. Said close friend Jim Kaat, “This guy had the ideal body. Very durable. He was a hard-nosed player, and played every day. He was always so fit. Everyone marveled at his condition.”34 “When I think of Bob Allison,” remarked former Twins owner Calvin Griffith upon learning of Allison’s death, “I think of brute strength.”35 

Sources                                                                                                                                 

Bob Allison player file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York.

Ancestry.com

BaseballLibrary.com

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.com

SABR.org

The Sporting News

Notes

1 Leonard Shechter, “A Hitter Has to Have a Killing Desire,” in Sport, September 1964, quoted from Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Abstract (New York: Free Press, 2001), 825.

2 The Sporting News, September 23, 1959, 3.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Associated Press, “A Boy Here to the Senators,” Kansas City Times, January 25, 1955, 16.

6 The Sporting News, March 14, 1956, 4.

7 The Sporting News, October 8, 1958, 26.

8 The Sporting News, January 28, 1959, 8.

9 The Sporting News, September 23, 1959, 3.

10 The Sporting News, April 1, 1959, 18.

11 The Sporting News, November 25, 1959, 3.

12 The Sporting News, February 3, 1960, 6; The Sporting News, September 23, 1959, 3.

13 The Sporting News, April 1, 1959, 18.

14 Whitney Shoemaker (Associated Press), “Bob Allison Crowds Ted’s Frosh Record,” Gastonia (North Carolina) Gazette, August 5, 1959, 24.

15 The Sporting News, April 8, 1959, 32.

16 The Sporting News, November 25, 1959, 3.

17 The Sporting News, September 23, 1959, 3.

18 Ibid.

19 The Sporting News, June 29, 1960, 21.

20 Ibid.

21 The Sporting News, June 16, 1962, 16.

22 The Sporting News, August 29, 1964, 3.

23 United Press International, “Bob Allison’s Three Homers Spark Twins,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 18, 1963, 6.

24 The Sporting News, January 22, 1965, 8.

25 The Sporting News, January 16, 1965, 20.

26 The Sporting News, July 11, 1964, 11.

27 The Sporting News, August 21, 1965, 13.

28 Ibid.

29 The Sporting News, October 23, 1965, 6.

30 The Sporting News, January 21, 1967, 25.

31 Billy Martin with Peter Golenbock, Number 1. Billy Martin (New York: Dell, 1981), quoted in Bill James, 826.

32 Myron Cope, “A Little Love, A Few Lunches, Make a Team,” Life, September 19, 1969, 79-82.

33 Arno Goethel, “The Citizen Who Never Whiffs,” St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press, August 2, 1970.

34 Bob Cohn, “Rare Illness dims life for ex-Twins slugger,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix), October 27, 1991. articles.chicagotribune.com/1991-10-27/sports/9104070130_1_earl-battey-mudcat-grant-watches.

35  Phil Pepe, “Star-Crossed Twin,” New York Daily News, October, 14, 1990, C46.

Upon arriving in the United States in the spring of 1956, without knowing a single person, ignorant of the native language, customs, and food, and unaware of racism, Felipe Alou was armed with nothing but his mind, courage, determination and talent. No Dominican had ever played in the major leagues, and there were as yet only a handful of dark-skinned Latinos playing in the US. Over the course of the next five decades, Alou would become and remain one of the most respected figures in baseball, an All-Star player, a team leader, and a successful manager. While he was admired throughout baseball, among his fellow Dominicans, who would soon be plentiful, he was a revered hero.

“Felipe was really the first,” remembered Manny Mota, “the guy who cleared the way. He was an inspiration to everybody [in the Dominican Republic]. He was a good example.”1 Juan Marichal, like Mota a fellow Dominican, agreed. “Everybody respects Felipe Alou,” he recalled. “He was the leader of most of the Latin players.”2 Willie Mays, a teammate of all of these players, remembered, “It was like a family when they came over.”3 These men helped define the baseball of their time, and Alou was both a leader and a friend to many of them.

Felipe Rojas Alou was born on May 12, 1935 in Bajos de Haina, San Cristóbal, on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic, a few miles from Santo Domingo. (His nickname at home is El Panqué [Sweet Bread] de Haina.) The first child born to José Rojas and Virginia Alou, he was followed by María, Mateo, Jesús, Juan and Virginia. José also had two children with a previous wife who had died young. Though José was dark-skinned and Virginia (descending from Spaniards) was white, Felipe did not give this much thought—race was not a big issue in his country.

José Rojas was a carpenter and blacksmith who built their small four-room house, and many of the other houses in the vicinity. The Rojas family had very little money, as they were often at the mercy of their neighbors’ ability to pay their bills. World War II brought further hardship, causing José to turn to fishing to feed his family. Although they did not always have food, their well-built home afforded them shelter that not everyone in their neighborhood had.4 Felipe swam in the nearby ocean, and was an avid fisherman—a hobby he kept up the rest of his life.

In keeping with the Latin custom, this man is known in full as Felipe Rojas Alou, with each parent contributing half of the double surname. The paternal half is normally used in everyday life, and in the Dominican people know Felipe, Mateo, and Jesús as the Rojas brothers. During Felipe’s time in the American minor leagues he began to be called (incorrectly) Felipe Alou, rhyming (again incorrectly) with “lew” rather than “low.” However, he did not feel empowered enough to correct the error. Two of his brothers, Mateo and Jesús, followed him to American baseball and also, because of the error with Felipe, assumed the surname Alou during their Stateside careers. Similarly, three of Felipe’s sons played professionally, one becoming a star, and all of them used the name Alou even though it was not a part of their name at all (it being their grandmother’s maiden name, not their mother’s). For convenience, this biography will refer to the subject by the name most readers are familiar with: Felipe Alou.

Alou spent six years in local schools and went to high school in Santo Domingo, a 12-mile trip he often made on foot. He also worked on his uncle’s farm and helped his father with his carpentry business. An excellent student, he became a member of the Dominican national track team, running sprints and throwing the discus and javelin. As a senior in high school, he participated in the 1954 Central-American Games in Mexico City. Though track kept him from playing high school baseball, he did play and star for local amateur teams.5

In 1954 Alou entered the University of Santo Domingo in its pre-med program, part of his parents’ dream that he become a doctor. Alou batted cleanup for the team that won the 1955 collegiate championship. He returned to Mexico City for the Pan-American Games, intending to run sprints and throw the javelin, but at the last minute was removed from the track team and placed on the baseball team. He got four hits in the final game against the United States as the Dominican Republic won the gold medal.6

After the tournament Alou received many offers from the major leagues, which at first he had no intention of taking. His resolution lasted until his father and uncle both lost their jobs. As it happened, his university coach, Horacio Martínez, doubled as a bird dog scout for the New York Giants. “Rabbit” Martínez had played shortstop for Alex Pómpez, owner of the New York Cubans, and later a Giants scout. Alou signed in November 1955 for $200, which paid off his parents’ grocery bill. More importantly, he had a job. Despite his parents’ mixed feelings, “we needed somebody to start contributing some earnings to the house.”7

Alou began his professional career in Lake Charles, Louisiana, helping to integrate the Evangeline League. Soon after he arrived, the league voted to expel Lake Charles and Lafayette (the two clubs that had black players).8

Instead, the blacks were shifted to other teams in other leagues; Alou, having just arrived in the United States, rode a bus to Cocoa, Florida to play in the Florida State League. Desperately homesick, and stung by racism for the first time in his life, he pulled it together enough to hit a league-leading .380 with 21 home runs. On September 23, far away in New York, Ozzie Virgil made his debut with the Giants, becoming the first Dominican native to play in the major leagues. (Because Virgil had gone to high school in New York city, his path to the majors was different than Alou’s.)

Alou began 1957 at Triple-A Minneapolis, but his .211 average in 24 games led to a demotion to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he recovered with a .306 average and 12 home runs. It could have been better—Alou was hitting over .380 in mid-season before injuring his right leg on a slide into home plate; he hobbled the rest of the year. Nonetheless, his season earned him an invitation to major league camp in 1958 and a raise to $750 a month. Alou spent very little of it—he kept enough to live on and sent the rest home to his family. During the offseason, the New York Giants moved to San Francisco, and their top minor-league affiliate was now in Phoenix, where Alou was ultimately assigned. Batting leadoff for the first time, he hit .319 with 13 home runs in just 55 games before the Giants brought him to the big leagues.

On June 8 Alou became the second Dominican major leaguer, playing right field and leading off at San Francisco’s Seals Stadium. He singled and doubled off Cincinnati’s Brooks Lawrence in his first two at-bats, and, three days later, got his first home run off Pittsburgh’s Vernon Law. After a hot start that kept him over .300 for a month, he cooled down in July and finished at .253 with 4 home runs in 182 at-bats.

In his first few years Alou could never quite establish himself as a regular player, hampered mostly by the competition on his own team. Beginning in about 1958, a large wave of young players, mostly African-Americans and Latinos, arrived with the Giants. In just this single season, the Giants debuted Alou, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Kirkland, and Leon Wagner. Bill White had a fine rookie year in 1956, went into the Army, came back in late 1958 and had no place to play. Felipe Alou competed with all these guys, along with several others on their way; Willie McCovey and José Pagán joined the club in 1959.

Most of these players were outfielders and first basemen. Alou had the advantage of being athletic enough to play center field, but with the peerless Willie Mays on hand, that skill did not help Alou get on the field. He played as a fourth outfielder in 1959, but with McCovey hitting .372 with 29 home runs for Phoenix in late July, the Giants wanted to bring McCovey up and send Alou back down. With just a year’s seniority under his belt, the 24-year-old told the Giants he would not go back to the minors. His wife was going through a difficult pregnancy, and Alou did not believe the move to Phoenix and the return to San Francisco in September would help. Instead, he told Giants manager Bill Rigney that they would go home. The Alous checked out of their apartment and booked flights to Santo Domingo. The Giants backed down, and instead made room for McCovey by making Hank Sauer a coach.9

Still, the addition of McCovey meant that either he or Orlando Cepeda had to play the outfield, and, with Willie Mays out there already, that left just one spot for Alou and several other qualified players to fight for. Over the 1959 and 1960 seasons combined, Alou hit .269 with 18 home runs in 569 at bats. In 1961, under new manager Al Dark, Alou played most of the time, got 447 at-bats, and responded with 18 home runs and a .289 average.

While Alou’s star was rising in his profession, something else became even more central to his life. “The day I joined the Giants in San Francisco was one of the most important days of my life,” recalled Alou. “That was the day my new teammate Al Worthington introduced me to Jesús Christ.” Alou had often read the Bible in the minor leagues because he had a Spanish-language version and it became his only reading material. But because of Worthington, and later Lindy McDaniel (“who baptized me into the new faith”), Alou became one of the more devout Christians in baseball. His devotion caused some discomfort within his own family, but they remained very close.10

Felipe’s brother Mateo, generally called Matty in the States, signed with the Giants before the 1957 season and began to work his way up through the minors. He debuted in late 1960, and reached the majors full time in 1961, hitting .310 in 200 at-bats. Although his presence was great for Felipe personally, Matty also was another outfielder—by September, Dark was platooning the two Alous in right field. Meanwhile, 19-year-old brother Jesús, yet another outfielder, was hitting .336 for a Giants affiliate in the Northwest League.

Felipe finally broke through as a full-time player in 1962, winning the right field job outright and keeping it all season. In 605 at-bats, Alou hit .316 with 25 home runs. He was selected to the NL All-Star team in July, coming in for Roberto Clemente and hitting a sacrifice fly in his only plate appearance. More importantly, the Giants won the NL pennant, overcoming a four-game deficit with seven games to go to tie the Dodgers, then winning a three-game pennant playoff. In the playoff series, Alou was 4-for-12 with two doubles.

The 1962 World Series was a classic seven-game affair pitting the Giants and the New York Yankees. Alou played every inning in right field, and managed 7 hits in 29 at-bats. But he has never forgotten his last chance, in the ninth inning of the final game, with the Giants trailing 1-0. Matty led off with a bunt single, and Felipe tried to sacrifice him to second base. “I was asked to bunt, and I bunted poorly and the ball went foul. Then, with the infield charging for the bunt, I swung at a bad pitch and fouled it off for strike two. Then I struck out.”

“That was the lowest point of my career. This is something I am going to die with because I failed in that situation.”11 Alou was not often asked to bunt, but he did not blame Dark. He believed, then and later, that he should have been practicing bunting in case he was asked. Years later, as a manager, he obsessed over his clubs being capable of bunting. After another out, Willie Mays doubled Matty to third, but they were both stranded when McCovey lined out to second base, ending the game and Series.

The Giants fell back to third place in 1963, though Alou had another fine season—20 home runs and a .281 batting average. The highlight of the year came in September when his brother Jesús was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma to join Felipe and Matty. Late in the game on September 15, Jesús and Matty replaced Mays and McCovey, creating an all-Alou outfield. The brothers repeated this two more times that month, and appeared in the box score together a few other times. This feat has never been repeated in the regular season, and Felipe has a theory as to why. “Because people don’t want to have children,” he reasoned. The odds of three boys, all ballplayers, all on the same team, are quite remote.12

Meanwhile, in 1963 Alou found himself embroiled in some politics with the baseball establishment. Throughout his professional career, Felipe returned home every October and played baseball in the Dominican Winter League. On his way up to the majors, he won back-to-back batting titles in 1958-59 and 1959-60. A growing list of fellow major leaguers joined Alou, including his brothers, Manny Mota, Juan Marichal, and more. The Alous and Marichal usually played for Leones del Escogido in Santo Domingo, which won five of six championships beginning with the 1955-56 season. In 1956, Escogido club president Paco Martínez Alba — brother-in-law of Rafael Trujillo, the long-time Dominican strongman — formed a working agreement with the Giants.

Trujillo was assassinated in 1961, leaving the country in the hands of the military. The Winter League season was shortened in 1961-62, and cancelled outright in 1962-63. The Dominican government arranged a series of games with a touring team of Cuban players who were living in the US (exiled from their own country, and their own winter league). Among those who participated were Felipe Alou and Juan Marichal. Baseball commissioner Ford Frick, deeming these games “unauthorized,” fined the players $250 each.

Many of the Dominican players were upset, but it was Alou who went public. In the spring of 1963, Alou suggested that Latin players have a representative in the commissioner’s office, someone who understood Latin culture and politics, and could explain their unique set of problems. “They do not understand,” Alou said, “that these are our people and we owe it to them to play for them.”13 In December 1965, Commissioner William Eckert hired Bobby Maduro to fill exactly this position.

Alou expanded on his people’s grievances in a courageous first-person account in Sport (as told to Arnold Hano) that fall. “When the military junta ‘asked’ you to do something, you did it. If I had not played, I would have been called a Communist.” Most Latin players came from very impoverished circumstances, and earning the extra money in the off-season (there were no other jobs available) helped feed huge extended families. In the US, the players were often isolated from their teammates by language, and often criticized or even disciplined for speaking Spanish amongst themselves. Alou was very complimentary of the United States, calling it a “wonderful country,” but left no doubt where his heart lay. “I am a Dominican. It is my country. And I love it.”14 Alou pulled no punches, criticizing Frick and also Alvin Dark, his own manager. In the words of writer Rob Ruck, “Nobody had ever spoken so eloquently or forcefully about Latin ballplayers, much less prescribed how baseball could and should address their unique concerns.”15

In early December, not long after the article in Sport appeared, the Giants traded Alou to the Milwaukee Braves as part of a seven-player trade. Whether the deal was related to Alou’s outspokenness is unclear, but his Latino teammates, including Cepeda, Marichal, and Pagán, were devastated. “I think that was one of the biggest mistakes the Giants ever made,” said Marichal decades later.16 The Giants did have a surplus of outfielders, and needed the pitching they acquired. Jesús Alou, who many thought would surpass both his brothers, was anointed as the new Giants right fielder.

Alou spent the next six years with the Braves. Before reporting in 1964 he had injured his knee playing in the Dominican Winter League. He played through it, knowing that the Braves needed him to play center field, but he got off to a slow start hitting and fielding. In June manager Bobby Bragan (faced with an outfield surplus with the sudden emergence of Rico Carty, a rookie Dominican) asked Alou to play first base, and a few games later he tore cartilage in his knee reaching for a ground ball. He missed a month of action, and hit just .253 with nine home runs on the season. In 1965 he recovered nicely, alternating between first base and the outfield, hitting .297 with 23 home runs.

In 1966 the Braves moved to Atlanta, and Alou responded to the hot climate with his best season. Again playing first base and all three outfield positions, Alou hit .327 with 31 home runs, leading the NL with 218 hits, 122 runs scored, and 355 total bases. He lost out on the league batting title to his brother Matty (.342), who had been traded to Pittsburgh and was capitalizing on his first chance at regular playing time. Felipe returned to the All-Star Game, though he did not see any action.

The Atlanta writers named Alou the team MVP, and some of his teammates were in awe. “I’ve never seen anyone stand out head and shoulders the way Felipe did,” said catcher Joe Torre. “I’ve never seen anyone hit so consistently well all season long,” added Henry Aaron. Alou parried such talk: “If a team isn’t going right, what can one man do to help? I think this stuff about leading a team, I wonder if that is really possible.” But it was not just his ballplaying. Gene Oliver, a white teammate who lost his first base job to Alou, said, “He is the kind of man you hope your kid will grow up to be.”17

Alou struggled in 1967, suffering from bone chips in his elbow and falling to .274 with just 15 home runs. He recovered to hit .317 in 1968 (a year that saw league averages plummet to .243), playing in the All-Star game again. His batting average was third highest in the league, and he tied Pete Rose for the lead with 210 hits. After three years of moving around the diamond, Alou played 156 times in center field under new manager Lum Harris.

Alou got off to a great start in 1969, hitting well over .300 through May. On June 2 he broke a finger and missed two weeks after he was hit by a pitch thrown by the Cardinals’ Chuck Taylor. During his absence the Braves acquired Tony González from San Diego, and when Alou returned the two platooned in center field. During the Braves’ successful drive for the division title, and the subsequent playoff loss to the Mets, Alou got little playing time. For the season he hit just .282 with five home runs. With an outfield surplus, Atlanta dealt the 34-year-old to Oakland for pitcher Jim Nash over the winter.

No longer a star player, in 1970 Alou was the elder statesman on a young A’s team filled with up and coming stars. He hit .271 in 154 games. Just a few days into the 1971 season, Oakland dealt Alou to the Yankees for two young pitchers, making room for Joe Rudi in left field. Alou played most of the next three years in New York, hitting .289, .278 and finally .236, moving between the outfield and first base all three seasons. He played 19 games for Montreal in September 1973, and got three at bats for Milwaukee the next April before drawing his final release. Felipe was sad, saying he would “have to get used to the life of a man who can’t play baseball.”18

Alou joined the Montreal Expos organization as an instructor in 1976, but suffered the tragedy of his life in 1976 when his oldest boy, Felipe Jr., an aspiring ballplayer, jumped into a shallow pool and drowned. Alou was so broken up he did not work at all that season, and could not talk about the tragedy for many years. He rejoined the Expos the next year, and spent the next seventeen years as a minor league manager (with a few stints as a major league coach). In the minors, he piloted West Palm Beach, Memphis, Denver, Wichita, and Indianapolis, earning a reputation as a serious and respected teacher of young players. He apparently was offered the job in 1985 to manage the San Francisco Giants but turned it down out of loyalty to the Expos.

In the winter months, Felipe transitioned from player to manager of his longtime team, the Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Republic. Alou managed the club to four league championships (1980-81, 1981-82; 1989-90, 1991-92). Previously, he had also won two Venezuelan titles as skipper of the Caracas Leones (1977-78, 1979-80). In the mid-1980s, he managed Caguas in the Puerto Rican Winter League as well.

The genuinely devoted Alou, who did not drink or smoke or socialize much, has been married four times and has fathered eleven children. As a young man he married María Beltré, from his hometown, and the couple had four children: Felipe Jr., María, José and Moisés. He and Beverley Martin, from Atlanta, had three girls: Christia, Cheri, and Jennifer. His third wife was Elsa Brens, from the Dominican, and the couple had Felipe José and Luis Emilio. In 1985, he married Lucie Gagnon, a French-Canadian, and had two more children, Valerie and Felipe Jr.

“People ask how a man who likes to be home with his family gets married four times,” Alou said in 1995. “All the evils that go on in life, the evils of the life of a traveling ballplayer, I wasn’t immune to that. But I loved all my wives and children. … I’ve been a lucky man. I had two children in my 50’s, and God gave us other Felipes.”19 Among his children, José and Felipe José became minor league players, and Moisés made it to the Majors.

In 1986 Alou returned to manage at Single-A West Palm Beach, and remained there for six years, an eternity for a minor-league manager. In 1992 he returned to the major leagues as the bench coach for manager Tom Runnells. After a sluggish start (17-20), general manager Dan Duquette fired Runnells and hired Alou to finish the season. The young team responded with a 70-55 record to finish a strong second to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 57-year-old Alou’s job was secure. “The biggest mistake I’ve made in my career,” said Duquette, “was not recognizing his ability then to be a terrific major league manager. He’s one of the best in the game.”20 He was the first of his countrymen to manage a big-league team.

Alou took over a Montreal club filled with young talent, including Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields and Wil Cordero. One of the team’s best relief pitchers was Mel Rojas, who was Felipe’s nephew (the son of his half-brother). The team’s left fielder was 25-year-old Moisés Alou, Felipe’s son. Moisés had not grown up with Felipe (his parents had divorced when Moisés was two), but they talked frequently and saw each other occasionally over the winter months. “I was the happiest kid in the world,” Moisés recalled. “He was the most famous player, maybe the most famous person, on the island, and he was my father.“21 Alou was a good young player who developed rapidly under his father’s tutelage, turning into a six-time All-Star and one of the better hitters in the National League.

The Expos finished 94-68 in 1993, just three games behind the first-place Phillies. Over the off-season, Duquette traded second baseman DeShields to Los Angeles for 21-year-old pitcher Pedro Martínez, a Dominican who joined Ken Hill and Jeff Fassero to give Alou one of the league’s best starting staffs. The fortified club soared to the best record in baseball in 1994, a great team that could hit, field, run and pitch. Unfortunately for Alou and his team, the season was ended in early August by a player’s strike, and the club was not able to continue its quest for a championship. The club’s 74-40 pace, if maintained over the full schedule, would have yielded 105 wins, the most since the 1986 Mets. Alou was named the National League Manager of the Year.

Compounding the tragedy, the team’s ownership was not willing to spend the necessary money to keep the team intact. Before the 1995 season got underway, the Expos had lost Walker, Grissom, Hill, and John Wetteland. Alou’s club fell all the way to last place in 1995, before clawing their way back to 88 wins and second place in 1996. But soon Cordero and Fassero departed, followed by Moisés Alou and Pedro Martínez. As the club continued to develop good players (Vladimir Guerrero, Rondell White, Orlando Cabrera, and Javier Vázquez arrived in the late 1990s), the club’s five straight fourth-place finishes did not harm Alou’s reputation as a manager. It was understood that Alou was doing a fine job with his youngsters, but that the team was not willing to keep them once they attained the seniority that allowed them to earn big money. After another mediocre start in 2001 (21-32), Alou finally was released as manager after nine years.

He spent 2002 as the bench coach for the Tigers (working under Luis Pujols, who had been Alou’s bench coach in Montreal). After the 2002 season Alou returned to San Francisco to manage the Giants. Under Dusty Baker, the club had reached the World Series in 2002, but after the season Baker left the club in a contract dispute, joining the Chicago Cubs. The 67-year-old Alou took over.

The Giants’ team and personality was dominated by the late-career Barry Bonds, who had set the single-season home run record in 2001 and whose days were now filled with home runs, bases on balls and (ever increasingly) steroid allegations. Alou’s first club won 100 games, an improvement on the World Series team that had won 95 and the NL wild card. Unfortunately, the 2003 club was upset in playoffs by the young Florida Marlins. Bonds missed 30 games but managed to hit .341 with 45 home runs and 148 walks. The next season Bonds walked a record 232 times and won the batting title, but the club fell to 91 wins, and then to 75 wins in 2005 with Bonds hurt. Moisés Alou rejoined his father in 2005, and had two pretty good seasons with the Giants. After the 2006 season, the 71-year-old Felipe Alou was released from his job as manager.

Alou remained a beloved figure in San Francisco, and was offered a job as a special assistant to general manager Brian Sabean. “I am truly overjoyed to have Felipe remain with the Giants organization,” said Sabean. “As he was during his four years as our manager, Felipe will continue to be a huge asset to the ballclub going forward.”22 Alou has worked as a major-league scout, and minor-league instructor, helping Sabean on player evaluation. In 2010 Alou received his first championship ring after the Giants defeated the Rangers in the World Series.

In 2012 he was beginning his sixth season in this position, 57 years after signing his first contract with the Giants. He had begun his career as a stranger in a strange land, but had become one of baseball’s most respected men. A three-time All-Star turned into an award-winning manager, who helped many of the game’s greatest stars as they began their careers. But he remains most famous as the eldest in one of baseball’s greatest families, the brother and father to fellow All-Stars. Very few men have left a greater mark on baseball than Felipe Rojas Alou.

Last revised: May 1, 2012

Sources

Thanks to Rory Costello for his help, especially for his straightening out my understanding of Felipe Rojas Alou’s name.

Notes

1 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs,” Sports Illustrated, June 19, 1985.

2 Rob Ruck, Raceball—How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 164.

3 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 154.

4 Felipe Alou with Herm Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1967), 1-13.

5 Alou and Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball, 14-17.

6 Alou and Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball, 18-21.

7 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants: The Giants of ’58 (Sports Publishing, Inc., 2001), 68.

8 The Sporting News, May 16, 1956, 37.

9 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 68.

10 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 66.

11 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 69.

12 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 70.

13 Bob Stevens, “Felipe Suggests Latins Have Rep in Frick’s Office,” The Sporting News, March 16, 1963: 11.

14 Felipe Alou with Arnold Hano, “Latin-American Ballplayers Need a Bill of Rights,” Sport, November 1963: 21.

15 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 164.

16 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 164.

17 John Devaney, “Felipe Alou: The Gentle Howitzer,” Sport, June 1967, 63.

18 Lou Chapman, “Brewers Salute Tom Murphy as Bullpen Savior,” The Sporting News, May 18, 1974, 9.

19 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

20 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

21 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

22 Associated Press, “Alou returns to Giants as special assistant,” ESPN.com, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=2721755, accessed February 27, 2012.

 Most famous today for being the second of three baseball-playing brothers, Mateo Alou was part of the first wave of Dominicans who helped change the very culture of American baseball in the 1960s. After years of sporadic playing time, often competing with his brothers, he finally left them and became a batting champion, and one of baseball’s unique and interesting stars.

Mateo Rojas Alou was born on December 22, 1938, in Bajos de Haina, San Cristóbal, not far from Santo Domingo on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic. His father, José Rojas, was a carpenter and blacksmith who built the family home and many of the others in the neighborhood. Rojas fathered two children with his first wife, who died young, then six more with Virginia Alou. Mateo was her second of four boys. Virginia was white, though Mateo and his siblings did not think of themselves as belonging to any race — they were Dominicans. They were also poor, as José’s income was dependent on the local economy and the ability of his customers to pay him. The Rojas family had a house, but they did not always have food.

The subject is known in his home country as Mateo Rojas Alou, informally Mateo Rojas, and he and his brothers are known as the Rojas brothers. Early in Felipe’s minor-league days he began to be called Felipe Alou (also mispronounced “Al-oo” instead of “Al-oh”), and the mistake was never corrected. The brothers Felipe, Mateo and Jesús are therefore all known in the US as Alou, and Mateo was often Anglicized to Matty in the States. For this article, the subject will be referred to as Mateo or Matty Alou.

Mateo later said that his father played baseball as a boy until he saw a friend die after being struck by a ball, though Felipe did not remember this. “I can say for sure my father never threw a ball to me,” Felipe recalled.1 The boys spent hours in the nearby ocean fishing for grouper or snapper, helping out their father in his shop, or playing ball in their yard. Their ball was often a coconut husk or half a rubber ball, their bat a tree limb, and their gloves made from strips of canvas. Unlike Felipe, who planned to be a doctor and spent a year in college, Mateo left school after eighth grade and hoped to become a sailor. In the meantime he caddied at the Santo Domingo Golf Club and played more baseball.

In 1956 the 17-year-old Mateo Alou played for Aviación Militar, the Dominican Air Force team, sponsored by General Ramfis Trujillo, the son of the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. Alou’s teammates included future major-league teammates Juan Marichal and Manny Mota. Although they were all members of the Air Force, they were mainly ballplayers recruited because the younger Trujillo wanted to field the best baseball team in the Caribbean. “We were soldiers,” laughed Mota. “The only thing, we have no guns.” It was still serious business — when the team lost a double-header in Manzanillo, the General launched an investigation, and accused the players of drinking (a charge Marichal denies). The entire team was put in jail for five days.2

In late 1955 Felipe had signed a baseball contract with Horacio Martínez, a former Negro Leaguer who worked as a bird dog for the New York Giants scout Alejandro Pómpez. With the considerable help of Pómpez and Martínez, the Giants got a jump on the rest of baseball in the Caribbean, especially the fertile Dominican Republic, inking Marichal, Mota, and eventually all three Alou brothers. Mateo signed in the winter of 1956-57, at the age of 18.

Unlikely many blacks and Latinos of the era, Mateo Alou spent the bulk of his minor league days outside of the deep South. But even in Michigan City, Indiana, where he began his career in 1957, he and Manny Mota were turned away from a restaurant because of their skin color. During spring training in Florida one year, Mota and Alou were placed in a police lineup because a white woman said a black ballplayer had molested her.3 The Dominicans had not encountered much racism in their own country, but in the US they had to do so while also not understanding the language. “The ballplayers always treat us good,” Alou recalled. “The only trouble we had was in the streets, the restaurants, the hotels, all those things. We used to cry but we didn’t fight.”4

Alou hit just .247 for Michigan City in full-time play in 1957. He then played winter ball at home in the Dominican League for the first time. Promoted to St. Cloud of the Northern League in 1958, he recovered to hit .321 for the first-place club and made the postseason All-Star team as an outfielder. For 1959 he reached Single-A Springfield, Massachusetts, playing with several future major leaguers, including Mota, Marichal, and Tom Haller. Springfield won the Eastern League championship, with Alou contributing a .288 average and 11 home runs to the cause.

Unlike older brother Felipe, who grew to a chiseled 6-feet and 200 pounds, or his younger brother Jesús, who was even taller, Mateo was later listed officially at 5-9 and 160 pounds as a major leaguer (though he was likely shorter and lighter, especially in the minors).5 Unlike his brothers, he was left-handed, and got a lot of bunt singles and infield hits. “Nobody taught me how to play ball, nobody taught me how to hit,” Alou recalled. “But I practiced, I had good reflexes, was quick moving. Good eyes. And it came naturally.”6

Alou spent the 1960 season with the Tacoma Giants of the Pacific Coast League. This was another good club filled with future major-league players, and Alou hit .306 with 14 home runs as the center fielder. In September he earned a callup to San Francisco, and appeared in four games at the end of the year. In his first big league at-bat, he singled off the Dodgers’ Larry Sherry.

Alou’s rise to stardom was slow and sometimes frustrating, and he believed he was not given the opportunities he deserved. In truth, he faced some pretty stiff competition, including Willie Mays in center field (Alou’s best position) and his brother Felipe in right field. In 1961 Alou made the club and played parts of 81 games in the outfield or as a pinch-hitter, batting .310 with six home runs in 200 at-bats. He was just 23 years old and behind a few other players on his team, but after the season farm director Carl Hubbell suggested he would not trade Matty Alou for the Dodgers stars Willie Davis and Tommy Davis.7

The next season he played the same role, batting .292 in 195 at-bats, and had a big part in the National League pennant chase. In the last seven games of the regular season, he played six complete games, and hit 14-for-27 (.510). In the decisive game of the three-game playoff series with the Dodgers, with the Giants trailing 4-2 in the ninth inning, Alou led off with a pinch-hit single that launched the game-winning rally. He played in six of the seven World Series games, getting four hits in 12 at-bats. In the ninth inning of the final game, with the Giants down 1-0 to the Yankees, Alou led off with a pinch-hit bunt single, advanced to third base on Willie Mays’ two-out double, but was stranded there when Willie McCovey lined out. There was talk over that winter that third-base coach Whitey Lockman should not have held Alou at third on Mays’ hit, but most observers, including Alou himself, felt that he would have been out easily at home plate.

Alou’s transition to the big leagues was aided immeasurably by the presence of so many other Latino players on the Giants. Besides his brother Felipe, his teammates included Dominicans Marichal and Mota and Puerto Ricans José Pagán and Orlando Cepeda, all of whom were very close. When he first arrived in San Francisco Mateo and Marichal lived in the home of an older woman named Blanche Johnson, who taught them to speak English, and cooked both American and Dominican food for them.8

On October 24, 1962, Mateo married María Teresa Vásquez in the Dominican Republic. During the 1963 season he, Felipe, Marichal, and their three wives lived together in a house in San Francisco. “We got along very, very well together,” recalled Marichal. “Felipe is the godfather of my oldest daughter, Rosie, and I am the godfather of a daughter of his. And Mateo is the godfather of my second girl, Elsie, while I’m the godfather of his daughter [Teresa]. That is a serious obligation for a Dominican, to be a godfather.”9 The couples spent a lot of time together away from the park. Mateo, the former caddy, taught the others to play golf, while the wives helped each other make their way in a strange country. After the season, they all returned to their homeland for the winter baseball season.

In spring training of 1963, working hard in hopes of earning more playing time, Alou badly hurt his knee running to first base during an exhibition game in El Paso, Texas. He played through it, but struggled all summer long. Felipe, who often acted as the reserved Mateo’s spokesman with club management, urged the Giants to send his brother to a doctor. Instead, in early August, they sent him to Tacoma. He returned in September, but it was a lost year: 11 hits in 76 at-bats for a .145 batting average. The only good memory from the season came in September, when younger brother Jesús joined the Giants and helped form an all-Alou outfield late in the game on September 15. The three played in a same game a few other times, but their time as teammates was brief — after the season, Felipe was dealt to the Milwaukee Braves.

Heading into the 1964 season, Mateo had been passed by Jesús on the Giants depth chart. With Willie Mays and Willie McCovey in the outfield, and the veteran Harvey Kuenn still productive, Mateo returned to his fifth-outfielder/pinch-hitter role. Hitting just .219 on June 2, Alou was struck on the wrist by a pitch from Pittsburgh’s Bob Veale, breaking a bone, and spent five weeks home in the Dominican Republic. He hit better upon his return (.282), so well that he was used fairly regularly in September. He managed to get into 110 games, including 49 starts, and hit .264. For a man who had very little power and drew few walks, the batting average was too low for an outfielder even in the 1960s.

Even so, based on his strong second half, in 1965 new manager Herman Franks gave Alou a lot of playing time — but he did not hit. “’65 was my worst year in baseball,” recalled Alou, “because they gave me a chance and I didn’t do anything.” He hit just .231 in 324 at-bats. His most memorable game that season came on August 26 at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field when he pitched the final two innings of an 8-0 loss. He allowed no runs and struck out three, including Willie Stargell twice. “I just threw him slow curve, slow curve,” Alou said. “And I know I would get him out again if I faced him.”10

Despite his star turn on the mound, it came as no surprise when the Giants traded Alou to the Pirates on December 1, 1965. In later years the Giants were criticized for their handling of Alou, although they gave him 1,131 plate appearances and he had not contributed much since 1962. Alou welcomed the deal, later saying, “My brother didn’t tell me anything about Willie Mays. I just signed because I liked to play the game.”11

Pittsburgh manager Harry Walker had coveted Alou, and had big plans for him. Walker spent many years as a hitting instructor in the game, usually trying to get everyone to choke up, and hit the ball down and to the opposite field, as Walker himself had done as a player. This approach backfired with many people, but Alou was his best and most famous success story. “The Hat” worked tirelessly with Alou, getting him to stop trying to pull the ball and instead hit nearly everything up the middle or to left field. To force this, he gave Alou a much bigger bat — 38 ounces — and asked him to stroke down on the ball and use his speed. As a pull hitter, Alou had held the bat low and swung with an uppercut. Walker had him hold the bat high and straight up, forcing him to swing downward on the ball. Walker set up a platoon in centerfield with Alou and old friend Manny Mota, giving the left-handed Alou most of the at-bats, and hit Alou in the leadoff position whenever he played.

Alou took to the new batting style extremely well. Bunting and slapping singles, Alou put up a league-leading .342 batting average, more than 100 points higher than his effort in 1965. Since Mota was also hitting very well, finishing at .332, the platoon in center field remained — Alou started 121 games, just twice against a left-handed starter, but managed 535 at-bats. Finishing second was Atlanta’s Felipe Alou at .327. Mateo still did not walk much or hit for power, but at a time when the league’s on-base percentage was .313, Alou’s .373 mark was eighth highest in the league, and tops among players who primarily hit leadoff for their teams.

Alou’s sudden fame raised a lot of questions about what had changed for him. He credited Walker’s tutelage, escaping San Francisco’s challenging Candlestick Park, and platooning with Mota, which allowed him plenty of rest. Late in the season, when it appeared that one of the Alous might win the batting title, Felipe allowed that he was rooting for his brother. “It would be a wonderful thing for Matty to win it,” said Felipe. “Wonderful for the Alous, and wonderful for baseball in the Dominican Republic. We always sort of took care of Matty because he was so small. Now look at him leading all of us in hitting!”12

Alou’s next two years were nearly carbon copies of 1966. He continued to platoon with Mota, his roommate and best friend, and both men continued to hit. In 1967 Alou hit .338 (third in the league) in 550 at bats, starting just four times against left-handers, while Mota hit .321, also backing up the other outfield positions. (Walker could not easily play both of them — his left fielder was Willie Stargell, and his right fielder was Roberto Clemente.) The acquisition of Maury Wills moved Alou out of the leadoff spot in the order, and by 1968 he was often hitting third or fourth. In 1968 Alou hit .332, just three points behind Pete Rose for the batting title, in 598 at-bats. He also played in his first All-Star Game, legging out an infield single off Sam McDowell in his only at-bat.

After the 1968 season the Pirates lost Mota to the Montreal Expos in the expansion draft. Although Alou had faced lefties a bit more in 1968, the next year he became a full-time player for the first time in his career. Playing 162 games, he led the league in at-bats, hits (231), singles (183), and doubles (41), while hitting .331 at the top of the order. He played the entire All-Star Game in center field, garnering two hits and a walk in five appearances in the NL’s 9-3 win. The 30-year-old Alou, after hitting .330 or higher for four straight seasons, had become a full-fledged star and one of the more interesting players in the game. He was a leadoff hitter who did not walk much — just 42 times in 1969 — yet he was valuable because he was able to maintain his high batting average. His 698 at-bats set a new major-league record, since broken.

Although he faced occasional criticism for his defense, especially for being shy about crashing into fences, Alou had a strong and accurate throwing arm and often was among the league leaders in outfield assists, finishing first with 15 in 1970. “I play deep because this is a big park and the ball carries deep. I’m not fence shy. They said that in San Francisco. You know, sometimes everybody want you to be Willie Mays. Sometimes they say, ‘Why aren’t you like Willie Mays?’ Well, there is only one Willie Mays.”13

In 1970 Alou slipped to .297, but still finished with 201 hits, fifth best in the league. The Pirates had been a good team for a few years but finally broke through and won the Eastern Division, and Alou finished 3-for-12 in the three-game loss to the Reds. During the offseason the Pirates, wanting to make room in center field for youngster Al Oliver, sent him to the Cardinals in a four-player deal. Thus, Alou missed out on the Pirates championship season of 1971. “I think of myself mostly as a Pirate,” Mateo said years later. “Because they gave me confidence. They treat me good, and I had the best years of my life there.”14

Alou spent most of the next two seasons for the Cardinals and played well. He hit .315 in 1971, with 192 hits, playing center field for half the season and (after the recall of rookie José Cruz) mostly first base in the second half. In 1972 he switched between first base and right field and hit .314. In late August he was traded to the Oakland A’s, a young team on the verge of winning their first of three straight championships. He played nearly every day the rest of the season in right field, hitting .281. He played well in the ALCS (.381 with four doubles), but slumped in the World Series (just 1-for-24). Still, after just missing in 1962 Alou finally tasted the champagne of a World Series victory.

Not long after the Series, Alou was traded again, this time to the New York Yankees, reuniting with his brother Felipe. He hit well in New York, .296 in 123 games as the regular right fielder, but when the team fell out of contention they sold him back to the Cardinals, who were in contention for a division title, on September 6. (On the very same day, the club sold Felipe to the Montreal Expos.) Mateo was not thrilled with the trade, delayed reporting for a few days, and was used solely as a pinch-hitter in the waning weeks of the pennant race. After the season the Cardinals sold him to the San Diego Padres, but after hitting just .188 in 81 at-bats he drew his release in July 1974, ending his major-league career. He ended with a .307 career average over 14 seasons, with three All-Star appearances and two trips to the World Series.

The 35-year-old Alou next took his career to Japan, spending the rest of the 1974 season and two more with the Taiheiyo Club Lions in the Nippon Pro League. He hit .312 in his first half-season, then .282 and .261 his next two years. He finished with a .283 lifetime average in Japan. “I didn’t like playing there really,” Alou recalled. “I played there because I had to. I had three kids to support. It was too hard there. Too much practice, too much traveling, had to travel almost every day.”15

Alou returned home. A star for 15 seasons with Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Winter League, his .327 career average is second only to Manny Mota’s .333 in league history. He won batting titles in 1966-67 (.363) and 1968-69 (.390). He later coached and managed in the league for many years. While the Alou brothers gained fame for manning the same outfield for the Giants for a parts of a few games in 1963, this was not such a big deal to the Rojas brothers — in the Winter League, for many seasons they formed the Escogido outfield, and still dominate the all-time leader boards for the club. For the 1961-62 and 1962-63 winters, when political unrest shut down the Dominican league, Mateo played winter ball in Venezuela.

Although Alou spent most of his post-playing years in his homeland, he worked for several major league organizations over the years. He scouted for the Tigers for a while in the late 1980s. He also spent many years as the Dominican scouting supervisor for the San Francisco Giants. He coached a single season (1994) for a club in the Dominican Summer League (a circuit affiliated with the US minor leagues). In 2007 he was honored at San Francisco’s AT&T Park, celebrating his induction to the Hispanic Heritage Baseball Museum Hall of Fame. Brother Felipe, then manager of the Giants, had been inducted in 2003.

Mateo remained a private person who was not often in the news in the States. His 1962 marriage to Teresa lasted the rest of his life. They raised three children — Mateo Jr., Matías, and Teresa — primarily in their homeland. Mateo died at age 72 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic on November 3, 2011, after suffering a stroke. He had stopped working for the Giants a few years earlier for health reasons. He was survived by his wife of 49 years, his three children, four grandchildren, three brothers and two sisters.

An earlier version of this article appeared in “Mustaches and Mayhem: Charlie O’s Three Time Champions: The Oakland Athletics: 1972-74″ (SABR, 2015), edited by Chip Greene. 

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rory Costello for his assistance.

Notes

1 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs,” Sports Illustrated, June 19, 1985.

2 Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1998), 70-71.

3 Rob Ruck, Raceball — How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 153-4.

4 Mike Mandel, SF Giants. An Oral History (Santa Cruz: self-published, 1979), 123

5 Charles Einstein, “Alou Alou,” Sport, September 1962: 25.

6 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 123.

7 The Sporting News, May 2, 1962.

8 Juan Marichal with Charles Einstein, A Pitcher’s Story (New York: Doubleday, 1967), 100-101.

9 Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball, 78.

10 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 124.

11 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 123.

12 The Sporting News, September 24, 1966.

13 Lou Prato, “Matty Alou: ‘Wait, Wait, Wait,’ Sport, October 1968: 38.

14 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 124.

15 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 125.

As the title of his 2013 autobiography showed, George Altman’s baseball journey took him from the Negro Leagues (1955) to the majors (1959-67) and beyond (Japan, 1968-75). The slugging 6-foot-4 outfielder, who also played first base from time to time, hit 101 home runs in the majors. He was a National League All-Star in 1961 and 1962, but a string of nagging injuries prevented him from achieving stardom in the U.S. over a longer period. However, he went on to hit 205 homers in Japanese ball, in a career that ended when he was 42 years old.

George Lee Altman was born on March 20, 1933, in Goldsboro, North Carolina. This small city lies in the east-central part of the Tar Heel State, southeast of the Raleigh-Durham metro area. During Altman’s youth, the local economy relied most heavily on farming – especially of tobacco – though there was some manufacturing in the area. All of the schools were segregated and the town was divided.1

Altman’s father, Willie, was a tenant farmer and later an auto mechanic. His mother, Clara (née Langston), was a homemaker. George was their only child. His mother died when he was four years old – he never really knew her – and so the boy went to live with his father’s sister for about a year. Willie then remarried, and George moved back in with his father and stepmother.2

Altman’s father did not care about sports at all. George, however, “lived and breathed sports as a little boy – he cried when he was told to stay home from a game because of bad weather.”3 He later speculated that his interest in athletics arose from being an only child; since he had no help when he got into fights with other boys, his way to get back at them came through games.4

Altman ran well, and he had a jesting theory about how he developed his fast feet: from competing in youth recreational programs in Goldsboro, in a rival team’s gym. “After the game, you had to move on home. They [other players] get very territorial after a while. And that’s how I think I got my speed.”5

Altman attended Dillard High School in Goldsboro, starting in 1947. He played four years of baseball there, as well as basketball and football. He then attended Tennessee A&I State University, a historically black institution in Nashville that was renamed Tennessee State University in 1968. Altman had worked as a laborer during his teens and didn’t like it. He called the benefits of a college education “immeasurable.”6

Tennessee A&I did not have a baseball team in either Altman’s freshman or sophomore year; it started when he was a junior. The college was actually interested in Altman for basketball, in which his height was an asset. He played under the pioneering coach John McLendon, who later became the first African-American head coach in any professional sport.7 Altman described McLendon as a demanding technician who kept his players in top physical condition with constant running and drilled them in the finer points of the game.8

Altman jammed a knee while playing basketball, however, and it affected his jumping a bit. After four years of college hoops, the wear on his knees increased his doubts about whether he had a professional future on the hardwood. In addition, even then he wasn’t big enough to be a forward in the NBA – he would have had to become a guard. He was not drafted.9

Therefore, Altman thought about coaching. After getting his degree in physical education, he received an offer to become the basketball coach at Lemoyne College in Memphis. Although he was only 22, he was confident that he could do it.10

However, the business manager of athletics at Tennessee A&I, J.C. Kincaide, was a booking agent in his territory for the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. He tipped them off to Altman, who worked out with the team when it visited Indianapolis.11 The Monarchs’ interest led Altman to change his career plans; he joined the team in 1955.

The Monarchs were managed by the universally beloved baseball legend Buck O’Neil. “I had been an outfielder all of the way,” Altman said, “but Buck taught me how to play first base and I played first base for the Monarchs that summer. He taught me all of the moves around the bag when receiving the throws from the infielders.”12

Altman played in Kansas City just three months, though, before signing with the Chicago Cubs. Nonetheless, he enjoyed the experience greatly. Reminiscing in 2016, he said, “What I liked about the Negro Leagues was all the history. I heard about all these guys, and I just liked how colorful it was when they played. They had colorful nicknames – Double Duty Radcliffe, Smokey Joe Williams, Boojum Wilson.”13

Signing with the Cubs “was all because of Buck O’Neil. The Cubs signed me, Lou Johnson, and J.C. Hartman all together on Buck’s say-so. All three of us signed as amateur free agents before the end of 1955 and the Cubs paid Kansas City something like $11,000.”14

During Altman’s first season in the minors, 1956, he played for the Burlington (Iowa) Bees in the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League (Class B). He hit .263 with 16 homers and 67 RBIs in 121 games. The young black man suffered some racial epithets from opponents, and he wasn’t especially comfortable with his Southern white teammates, even though they did not insult him.15

After the season ended, Altman received a draft notice from the U.S. Army. “I pretty much went straight from Burlington into the Army and was sent to Fort Carson, Colorado,” he recalled.16 While he was in the service, Altman continued to play baseball (as well as basketball). “The Army experience was huge,” he said, “because of the way I played with other guys who I knew were ahead of me in the minors, or in the majors. We played against some major league players in the All-Army Championships tournament.”17

Fort Carson won the All-Army title. In the final game against Fort Dix, Altman had a key hit in the 5-1 victory: a two-run inside-the-park homer. Another member of the Mountaineers was Willie Kirkland, who played in the majors from 1958 through 1966 and in Japan from 1968 through 1973.18

When Altman returned to the minors in 1958, he was promoted to Class A. With Pueblo (Colorado) of the Western League, he posted a strong batting line of .325-14-78 in 89 games. As evidence of his speed, he also hit 11 triples. That September, The Sporting News mentioned that Cubs farm director Charlie Grimm was “quite high on the husky outfielder.”19

Soon thereafter, Altman went to Panama to play winter ball. He was a member of the Marlboro Smokers. Statistics from very near the end of the season show that in 139 at-bats, he hit .288 with seven homers (just one behind the league leaders) and 22 RBIs.20 Watching him there, on the recommendation of Pueblo manager Ray Mueller, was the Cubs’ head scout, Ray Hayworth. Hayworth reported to the front office that Altman was ready for the majors – defensively at least.21

Altman vaulted directly to the majors in 1959, thanks to his “exceptionally impressive” performance in spring training – though it was mainly his batting that opened eyes. It was thought that he would need at least one year in Triple-A, but instead the Cubs traded Chuck Tanner and made room for their prospect.22 When it became official that Altman had won a roster spot, Cubs vice-president John Holland said, “The thing that I like about him is that he very seldom swings at bad pitches. We think he is going to make it.”23

Altman’s teammate, the great Ernie Banks, seconded the opinion that the rookie had excellent knowledge of the strike zone. Two more of the greatest hitters in baseball history also observed Altman firsthand that spring. Rogers Hornsby, then a coach with the Cubs, said that Altman couldn’t miss. Ty Cobb said, “George isn’t a sucker for any kind of pitch.”24

Altman also got married for the first time in March 1959, to Raquel DeCastro. The wedding took place in Pueblo, where they had met. George and Rachel (as she was more commonly known) were married for 13 years and had two children: Laura and George Jr.25 Rachel was a fair-skinned Hispanic woman who looked Caucasian, and as Altman observed, “We heard about that a lot in the United States.”26

As Chicago’s primary starting center fielder in 1959, Altman hit .245-12-47 in 135 games. He was benched for a time in midseason, but his hitting picked up sharply after he returned to the lineup in mid-August. Of his 12 homers that season, seven came after August 13, including four in three days from September 21-23. Most notable was a game-ending blow at Wrigley Field on September 22, a two-out, two-run shot off Sam Jones that damaged the San Francisco Giants’ pennant hopes. His fielding was also well regarded.

Altman also handled the demanding mental aspects of life in the majors well. Manager Bob Scheffing said, “He not only is eager to learn, but has the intelligence to absorb instruction.”27 Altman got a lot of help in adjusting from his roommate on the road, Cuban second baseman Tony Taylor.28

Scheffing wanted Altman to go to winter ball again, with an express desire that it be in the best competition possible – “a league with good pitching, a lot of breaking stuff, like screwballs, sliders and curves.”29 At the time, the top winter league was Cuba’s. Altman joined the Cienfuegos Elefantes. He played first base, since the team already had a fine regular center fielder in Tony González. Though Altman hit just .251 in 219 at-bats, he belted 14 homers, which led the club and was just one behind Pancho Herrera for the league lead.30

Cienfuegos won the Cuban pennant that season and thus went on to the Caribbean Series, which pitted the champions of the region’s winter leagues against each other in a round-robin tournament. Cuba won all six of its games. Jorge Figueredo later wrote, “The greatest team ever in Cuban baseball? Maybe it was this Cienfuegos edition of 1959-60.”31

During that Caribbean Series, Altman went 7-for-16 (.438), tied with Panama’s Eddie Napoleon, but neither man had enough at-bats to qualify for the tournament’s best average, so that honor went to Tommy Davis (9-for-22, .409).32 That was the last time the Caribbean Series would be held, however, until it was revived in 1970.

Altman also enjoyed life in Cuba; he had always been interested in languages and picked up some Spanish. There was a downside to that winter season, though, that became visible over time. He noted, “My injury problems started with a sprained ankle in Cuba. It also became a knee problem. I think I started having knee pain because I was favoring my leg because of the sprained ankle.” He reinjured the ankle during the Caribbean Series.33

Also, while the 1959-60 Cuban season was in progress, Chicago obtained veteran center fielder Richie Ashburn in a trade with the Philadelphia Phillies. As a result, with the Cubs in 1960, Altman rotated among the three outfield spots and first base. He started no more than 25 games at any position. He hit .266-13-51 in 119 games. Various ailments hampered him throughout that year – he had come home from Cuba with mononucleosis, which took him a long time to get over, and a kidney infection. Making matters worse, he injured his ankle a third time.34

However, the best two seasons of Altman’s big-league career then followed. He became the Cubs’ regular right fielder in 1961 and hit .303-27-96, with a league-leading 12 triples. He had a noteworthy moment in the first of 1961’s two All-Star games. At Candlestick Park in San Francisco, pinch-hitting for Mike McCormick to lead off the eighth inning, he homered off Mike Fornieles of the Red Sox. Having known Fornieles from Cuba, he looked for a curveball, and got all of it on the first pitch.35 It gave the NL a 3-1 lead, and the run proved valuable because the AL tied it in the ninth. The senior circuit won in 10 innings, 5-4. Altman called it one of his two greatest days in the majors. 36

The other of his greatest days came less than a month later. On August 4 at the Los Angeles Coliseum, Altman hit two home runs off Sandy Koufax. Only two other players went deep off the great lefty twice in one game, and they were both righty batters: Ernie Banks (June 9, 1963) and Felipe Alou (July 9, 1966).

The early 1960s were a dismal period for the Cubs. The symbol of the times was the odd experiment that owner Philip Wrigley launched in 1961: the system of rotating managers called “The College of Coaches.” Altman said, “The whole College of Coaches thing was just peculiar. You didn’t know what a manager might do on a given day, what he would say.”37

Altman repeated as an All-Star in 1962 (.318-22-74), even though he suffered a sprained wrist in June that hampered his power production.38 Again the Cubs finished deep in the second division. A bright spot that year, however, was the addition of Buck O’Neil to the coaching staff (though O’Neil was denied his rightful opportunity to be one of the rotating skippers). “He was inspirational to us, just by his presence,” Altman said. “He was also a cheerleader in a fun kind of way.”39

Despite Altman’s strong performance, shortly after the season ended, Chicago traded him, along with pitcher Don Cardwell and catcher Moe Thacker, to the St. Louis Cardinals. In return the Cubs got pitchers Larry Jackson and Lindy McDaniel, plus catcher Jimmie Schaffer. The Cardinals had been interested in Altman for more than a year, and the 310-foot fence in right field in old Busch Stadium was an attractive target for the lefty power hitter.40 Publicly, at the time, Altman put a positive face on the deal – but he later wrote, “To say that I was shocked would definitely be an understatement.”41

Altman’s one season in St. Louis was disappointing: .274-9-47 in 135 games. Injuries remained a factor, but he also admitted that he had been pressing too much to take advantage of the short porch. “Hitting the ball there seemed easy and I tried to pull entirely too much. It fouled me up.” He also cited platooning. “When I’m going right,” he noted, “it doesn’t matter whether I’m batting against lefthanded or righthanded pitching.”42 Yet another ingredient was impaired vision. He tried playing with glasses, but they were uncomfortable and got steamed up in the muggy summer air of St. Louis.43

Altman was traded again in November 1963, going to the New York Mets along with pitcher Bill Wakefield for Roger Craig. He noted with regret that St. Louis, which finished second in the NL in 1963, went on to become World Series champions the next year.44 Except for 1967, when he played just a fraction of the year in the majors, the ’63 Cardinals were his only big-league team that finished above .500.

Again, Altman spent just one season with his new team while playing hurt. As the primary starting left fielder for the cellar-dwelling Mets, his homer and RBI totals were identical to 1963’s (9 and 47), but his batting average tailed off to just .230. Altman summed it up frankly: “The year with the Mets was probably the least amount of fun I had in baseball, considering the difficulties with my wife, me not hitting and the team losing . . . the injuries always frustrated me.”45

For the third time in three years, Altman was traded. He went back to Chicago in January 1965, in an even-up swap for another outfielder, Billy Cowan. Cowan, then aged 26, had been voted the minor league player of the year in 1963. The Mets envisioned him as their regular center fielder. Meanwhile, press reports suggested that Altman had been obtained as first base insurance for Ernie Banks.46

The return to the Cubs did not revive Altman’s career. He started well in 1965 but got hurt yet again. “I had so many injuries over those few years, most of them to my legs and groin muscles,” Altman recalled. “One sportswriter said that my team was Blue Cross.” This time, he suffered a severe groin tear while running to first after trying to bunt his way on.47 Overall in 1965 and 1966, his batting numbers were uninspiring: a total of 9 homers and 40 RBIs in 178 games, with an average of .228.

Altman also believed that Leo Durocher, who became Chicago’s manager in 1966, “soured on me a little because of my wife . . . in those days you weren’t supposed to have mixed marriages. It may or may not have been true, but that was my perception.”48

The last 15 games that Altman played in the majors came in 1967. He spent most of the season with Tacoma in the Pacific Coast League. Yet even though he was aged 34, he was far from finished. In fact, he embarked on a very fruitful new phase of his career.

In Tacoma, Altman had become acquainted with Tsuneo “Cappy” Harada, a Japanese-American who was then the general manager of the Cubs’ farm team in the California League. Harada, who was well-connected in Japanese baseball, asked Altman if he wanted to play there.49 Altman agreed. His hope (as it had been when he accepted the demotion to Tacoma) was to stay healthy, play well, and get noticed. He thought he would be back in the majors after a year or so.50

When Altman arrived in Japan, he realized something that struck many gaijin (foreign) players. “They do things over there that are a loooooot different, and one thing was the spring training. I call it kamikaze training.”51 He was referring to how long and grueling the practice sessions were. However, the type of training he had done for John McLendon helped him.52

Altman spent his first season in Japan with the Tokyo Orions. The franchise changed its name to the Lotte Orions in 1969 after being sold to the Korean company Lotte. During seven seasons with the Orions, Altman hit 193 home runs and drove in 609 in 821 games. He hit below .300 only in 1969. His strong batting came despite what he viewed as another glaring disparity: “Americans had a different strike zone than Japanese players. Balls and strikes could be anywhere.”53

Nonetheless, Altman succeeded where many gaijin failed. He worked hard and made an effort to learn the Japanese language and customs. He noted, “You had to have a certain temperament and the ability to roll with things even if they seemed outrageous.”54

In 1974, Altman was hitting better than he ever had in Japan – .351, with 21 homers and 67 RBIs in just 85 games. However, that August, about three-quarters of the way through the season, he was diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent chemotherapy.55 The treatment was successful, but Lotte’s manager, former star pitcher Masaichi Kaneda, and Altman had a strained relationship. According to Altman, “Kaneda wanted to sign another American and have me around as coach . . . just as an insurance policy. . .He wanted to cut my salary to the bone.” For all intents and purposes, Altman was a free agent, but the bad press that Kaneda fomented scared many teams away. Finally, the Hanshin Tigers gave Altman a chance.56

In his final season, 1975, Altman hit .274-12-57 in 114 games. He started strongly but then slumped. “I think my body was weaker than I thought,” he later admitted. “I was feeling the lingering effects of the chemotherapy.” He also noted that Hanshin’s ballpark was bigger and the prevailing winds blew in from right field, which was hard on him as a dead-pull lefty hitter.57

Altman had previously said that he would continue to play until he had a subpar season. He decided to retire from baseball, and returned to Chicago, where he spent 13 years as a commodities trader, buying a seat on the Chicago Board of Trade. He said, “Wherever I played, one thing on my side was my competitive nature,” and the same held true in his new line of work. He also brought that spirit to his new sports, racquetball and later horseshoes.58

Altman got married for the second time in 1976 to Etta Allison, a piano teacher.59 He continued to trade commodities out of his home; in addition, he ran a prepaid legal services business. He also volunteered with the Boys Foundation and mentored youth within the community. He stated an intense interest in keeping kids off drugs and alcohol and out of trouble.60

Around 2002, Altman and Etta moved to O’Fallon, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. In his eighties, Altman remained in good health and his memory was excellent. He was invited in 2016 to open SABR’s 19th annual Jerry Malloy Negro Leagues Conference and regaled the audience with many anecdotes.

With regard to the presence of African-Americans in baseball today, Altman said, “You just have to work hard, study and concentrate, and just be there when your chance comes along. The young black American player just isn’t pursuing baseball like they did in the past. But baseball offers so many opportunities, so I would think that black players would look at baseball more.”61

Looking back on his long and successful life, George Altman reflected, “I feel I could have been a star in the major leagues, but things worked out pretty well in another way. I did okay. I have a lot of good baseball memories. I met a lot of good people.”62

Postscript

George Altman died peacefully in his sleep at home on November 24, 2025. He was 92. His death came eight days after the loss of his wife, Etta.

Last revised: December 1, 2025

Sources

The backbone of this biography is George Altman’s full-length autobiography, co-authored with Lew Freedman, George Altman: My Baseball Journey from the Negro Leagues to the Majors and Beyond, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2013. Grateful acknowledgment to Mr. Altman for additional input (telephone interview, January 24, 2017).

Special thanks also to Laura Altman Jones for the introduction to her father and to Gina Rodgers-Sealy for the introduction to Laura. Gina’s father, André Rodgers, and George Altman were close friends while they were teammates on the Cubs. Their daughters have remained good friends since childhood.

Internet resources

Negro League Baseball eMuseum (http://coe.k-state.edu/annex/nlbemuseum/history/players/altman.html)

comc.com (online baseball card database)

Notes

At the end of spring training in 1963, Tribe manager Birdie Tebbetts picked the youngster Alvis to be the starter and Held was moved to second base. In the first game of the season at Minnesota, Alvis hit a solo home run in the fourth inning off of Twins starter Camilo Pascual. In the seventh inning, he doubled to left field and scored on a homer by Held. Unfortunately, Alvis also committed two errors, though neither affected the scoring, and the Indians opened the season with a 5-4 win. “I’m not a power hitter,” said Alvis, “but I am going to hit a few out. I didn’t think the ball would carry that far. I thought it was a good line drive that would hit the fence. When I learned it went over I tingled all over. This was a great way to start.”1

Tebbetts predicted that each position player on the Indians would slug at least 20 homers and 20 more off the bench for at least 180 home runs as a team.2 But the Indians fell a bit short of that mark with 169, and only Alvis and Fred Whitfield would top 20 homers for Cleveland. At times, Alvis was thrust into the cleanup spot in the lineup and it was a heavy burden to place on a rookie of a team that did not score many runs (635) and hit only .239. However, Alvis was one of the few bright spots for the Tribe.

Roy Maxwell Alvis was born on February 2, 1938 in Jasper, Texas, located about 130 miles northeast of Houston. He was one of four children born to Leroy and Ola Mae Alvis. Leroy worked as a court reporter for the First District Court in Jasper. “My dad chewed tobacco right in the courtroom,” recalled Max. “He would look up from his shorthand and let ‘er go. He’d come home at night and put his lawn chair in the backyard and read the paper and chew.”3

By Alvis’ own admission, he claims to have been an “okay athlete” at Jasper High School. He played some semipro baseball at Spring Hill, Louisiana, drawing some interest from major league scouts. But Alvis was not interested; instead he enrolled at the University of Texas. He was a dual-sport star at Texas. His sophomore year, he was the starting halfback and linebacker on the football team that was coached by the legendary coach Darrell Royal. Although Alvis did not carry the football much, he was more noted for his blocking and tackling ability. On the baseball diamond, Alvis manned the hot corner and led the Southwest Conference in hitting with a .403 average. Perhaps Alvis was ready to join the big leagues now. “There is a distinct possibility of him signing with someone,” said Royal, “and if he does, it will hurt us badly.”4

Royal’s fears, and those of Texas baseball coach Bibb Falk, that Alvis would leave Texas to pursue a professional baseball career were realized in the summer of 1958. Cleveland scout Bobby Goff signed Alvis to a contract with Class A Reading of the Eastern League. The contract also included a $40,000 bonus, which was to be paid out over a period of five years. “I think he’s got all the tools to make a big league ball player,” said Goff. 5

Alvis was to report to the Indians’ minor league camp in Daytona, Florida, the following spring. But first, he exchanged ‘I do’s’ with his high school sweetheart, the former Frances Mae Eddy on August 23, 1958. They had two sons, Max, Jr. and David.

Instead of Class A Reading, it was Class D Selma of the Alabama-Florida League where Alvis got his start in professional baseball. Although he was a skilled batsman, it was Alvis’ defense that was sorely lacking. “I always kidded Max about playing in Selma in 1959,” said Indians teammate Larry Brown. “We were the left side of the infield. I played short, he was at third and we combined for 87 errors that year, yet we made the Alabama-Florida League All-Star teams. I made 43 errors, Max had 44. At third, Max had a real gun. He’d fire that ball across the infield and scatter the people sitting in the stands behind first base. But you could tell Max was going to be a good player.”6 Alvis was succinct in his fielding mishaps in the minor leagues: “The do-or-die plays didn’t bother me too much” said Alvis, “but routine grounders gave me trouble.”7

Brown was right about Alvis being a good player. Although Alvis’ defense and throwing did not improve when he played for Class AAA Salt Lake (1961-‘62) of the Pacific Coast League, his hitting could not be overlooked. In 1962, Alvis led the team with 25 homers and 35 doubles and was second with 91 RBI and a .319 batting average. He earned a call-up to Cleveland, making his debut on September 11, 1962, starting at third base in Cleveland and playing the full game during a 3-0 win against the Washington Senators

One of the bright spots in 1963 for Alvis came on July 20, at Yankee Stadium. Alvis smacked his twelfth homer run, a solo shot off the left field foul pole, in the fourth inning off of Whitey Ford. The run put Cleveland in front by a 1-0 score. It was short-lived, as Joe Pepitone and Harry Bright each hit two-run homers to help give New York a 5-1 advantage. Ford, meanwhile, retired 15 straight Indians batters. With one out in the ninth inning, Ford had his sights on his eighth complete game, butut a walk to Willie Tasby and a single by Willie Kirkland brought Alvis to the plate. Alvis drove a ball 420 feet to left center that banged off the scoreboard, good for a triple and two RBI. Ford was removed from the game and replaced with Hal Reniff. Fred Whitfield hit a bloop single to center field to score Alvis and bring the Tribe to within one run, 5-4. Johnny Romano then singled to center field, but Reniff snuffed out any further opportunity for Cleveland, as he induced Al Luplow into a 1-6-3 double play.

For Alvis, it was a bittersweet day at the ballpark. Any day when a player could get a home run and a triple off of a pitcher the caliber of Ford would be gratifying, but the down side for Alvis was that he was not able to share the news with his father, who had passed away three years earlier. “I’ll never forget it,” said Alvis, “because my dad was a great Yankee fan and I wished that day he’d been alive to see what I did.”8

Alvis finished the 1963 season with a team-high 22 home runs, 32 doubles and 67 RBI. He also hit .274 and led A.L. third baseman in putouts (170), a category in which Alvis would also lead the league in three of the following four seasons. Alvis was selected as the 1963 Indians “Man of the Year” by the Cleveland chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America.

The next season, the Indians had completed a series in Minneapolis on June 25, and boarded a plane to fly to Boston. Alvis had a great game in the finale, going 2-for-3 with three runs, two RBI, a homer and a walk. But as the plane neared Boston, Alvis began to get a headache. “The headache kept getting worse and worse,” said Alvis. “It was really throbbing-a sharp pain in the back of my head.”9 He eventually called Cleveland trainer Wally Bock. Bock at first suspected, polio, and then maybe meningitis. Bock phoned Dr. Thomas Tierney, the Red Sox physician. Bock rushed Alvis to the hospital where he was diagnosed with spinal meningitis. “The doctor kept assuring me that they’d gotten to the meningitis in time and that I’d had a good reaction to the medicine,” said Alvis. “But still, you wonder what’s going to happen. Are they telling you the truth? Will you be paralyzed? Can you lead a normal life? I wondered if I’d ever see my wife and kids again, or pick up a baseball.”10

As it turned out, Alvis made a remarkable recovery and rejoined the Indians in early August, just six weeks after being hospitalized. But Alvis was clearly not the same player after the illness. “Max used to be strongest player on the team,” said teammate Vern Fuller. “Later, his skin color was different, more pale. He lost some of his muscle tone. He got tired much faster. He should have sat out the rest of the season.”11

Alvis enjoyed a strong first half of the 1965 season. He was hitting .276 with 15 home runs and 43 RBI at the break. Alvis was selected as a reserve for the American League in the All-Star Game, playing the last two innings after replacing Brooks Robinson

One of those 15 round-trippers brought home a victory for the Tribe. Tebbetts, who was one of the great characters in major league history, was in the middle of a hullabaloo in Minneapolis on June 9, 1965. Twins left-hander Jim Kaat was pitching into the ninth inning, with the Twins nursing a 1-0 lead. Kaat whiffed Chuck Hinton to begin the frame, and had a 2-1 count on Rocky Colavito. Tebbetts called time out and approached home plate umpire Bill Haller with a protest. Kaat’s sweatshirt, which he wore under his uniform, was illegal, Tebbetts contended, because it had a small hole in the left sleeve. Not one of the Cleveland batters registered a complaint during the game, but Haller upheld Tebbett’s’ argument, and Kaat retreated to the Minnesota dugout to have his sweatshirt sleeves trimmed above the hole. “I called Tebbetts a lot of names when he was standing at home plate,” said Twins skipper Sam Mele. “He probably is the only manager who would do something like that—wait nine innings to call it.”12 Play resumed with Kaat walking Colavito. Al Luplow ran for Colavito, but as it turned out, that maneuver proved unnecessary. Alvis homered on a 1-1 count to give the Tribe the 2-1 lead and ultimately, the win. “Alvis would have hit that pitch if I had been wearing ten sweatshirts,” said Kaat. “I wanted to throw a sinking fastball down low, make him hit into a double play. But I got the ball too high. It went right down Broadway.”13

For the next three seasons, Alvis was the Indians’ starting third baseman. He had a strong year in 1967, smacking 21 home runs and a driving in a career-high 70 runs. That year, Alvis led third basemen in the league in games played that season with 161 and in putouts (169). He was selected again as a reserve for the A.L. squad in the All Star Game, making it into the game as a pinch hitter in the 10th inning. On July 29, the Indians traded Colavito to the White Sox. Duke Sims said: “Max Alvis probably will win the most popular Indian contest by default with Rocky gone.”14 Alvis was again voted the Indians “Man of the Year” by the Cleveland writers.

The Indians finished in third place in the A.L. in 1968. They were led by a terrific pitching triumvirate of Luis Tiant, Sam McDowell and Sonny Siebert. Tiant won 21 games and led the league with a sparkling ERA of 1.60. McDowell led the league with 283 strikeouts and posted an ERA of 1.81.

All signs pointed to a successful year for the Tribe in 1969, as they even traded for Ken Harrelson to add punch to their offense. But Tiant led the league in losses with 20, and McDowell was the only Cleveland starter who posted a winning record. For Alvis, he was injured in a ballgame on May 24 against Seattle. He stumbled as he crossed first base in the ninth inning. It was believed to be a strain to his right knee. He was hitting .277 at the time, but sat out for a week. Alvis returned and continued to play until July 10, when his average plummeted to .225. It was decided that he would need surgery, and he was shut down for the rest of the season. Cleveland finished in last place in the newly formed A.L. East Division, 18 games behind the fifth place team and with the worst record in the American League.

Cleveland acquired Graig Nettles from Minnesota in the off season, who was part of a six-player deal with Tiant being the key player going to the Twins. Nettles, a left-handed batter, was twenty-five years old and a star in the making. It became apparent in spring training that he would be the new third baseman. With three days to go before the start of the 1970 season, Cleveland shipped Alvis to Milwaukee with outfielder Russ Snyder. In return, Milwaukee sent outfielder Roy Foster and infielder Frank Coggins and cash to the Indians.

Milwaukee used car magnate Bud Selig had purchased the Seattle Pilots and moved them to his hometown of Milwaukee. The Brewers, playing in their first season in 1970, even retained the same uniforms as the Pilots. Alvis started 24 games, mostly serving as a backup to Tommy Harper at third base. Alvis retired from baseball at the conclusion of the 1970 season. Max Alvis’ lifetime batting average during his nine-year career was .247. He totaled 111 home runs and 373 RBIs.

Alvis reflected on his illness, which derailed his career. “At the time I wasn’t concerned about the possibility of any after effects,” said Alvis. “I thought I was over and done with it. But in retrospect, I soon realized I didn’t have the same strength, the same stamina and the endurance I’d had before I got sick. I remember that I was constantly changing bats, thinking maybe I should go to one that was lighter, but it didn’t help.

“Before I got sick I worked hard and I wasn’t intimidated by anything. But when I came back I don’t really think I had the brute strength that I’d had, and I couldn’t regain it. (Meningitis) did something to my system. I never had any other effects that I know of, but I wasn’t as strong as I’d been before.”15

After his playing days, Alvis worked at the First National Bank of Jasper. He started as a loan officer, than worked his way up to vice president, and finally president. He was still a fan favorite at Indians fantasy camps and memorabilia shows. His son David was in the Indians minor league chain in the early 1980’s.

“Max was the kind of young player who, if you just put him out there and left him alone for ten years, the position would be his,” said McDowell. “He was the best-conditioned, most disciplined athlete on our team. If he was supposed to run fifty laps, Max would do sixty. He almost never drank, which made him the exception back then. He was probably the most decent person I met in baseball. It’s just a shame he got sick.”16

No doubt that many Tribe fans share the same sentiment as “Sudden Sam.”

Last revised: August 18, 2015

Notes

As chairman of the Jimmy Fund of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, located less than a mile down Brookline Avenue from Boston’s Fenway Park, Andrews spent 30 years before his 2009 retirement helping to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for research and treatment into childhood and adult cancers. Rather than spin tales of his athletic feats during his many public appearances, he spoke of the dedicated scientists, caregivers, and patients engaged in the cancer fight at Dana-Farber — “true heroes” whom he first encountered as a rookie.

Andrews was the perfect man for the job. The Jimmy Fund has long been a favorite charity of the Red Sox, and Mike was accustomed to quietly turning in clutch performances that helped others shine. All Red Sox fans worth their weight in Big Yaz Bread know who led the club in hitting down the stretch of the 1967 American League race, but it’s a forgotten footnote that rookie Andrews was second to Carl Yastrzemski among regulars with a .342 batting average during that pressure-packed September.

“Just today, I had an electrician at my winter house in Florida, and when he found out who I was, he named the entire starting lineup from ’67,” Andrews recalled in 2006.. “That happens all the time. It was just a magical team; 2004 was great, but I’m not sure everybody will remember all the individuals the same way because players move around so much now. Plus, the Red Sox are always contending, whereas the team had been bad for years before we came along — and the excitement kept building each month. That season brought baseball back in New England.”

Andrews was in the region so long with the Red Sox and the Jimmy Fund that many likely assume he is a New England native himself, but he’s in fact a Southern California boy. Born on July 9, 1943, in Los Angeles, he grew up in nearby Torrance rooting for the Pacific Coast League’s Los Angeles Angels and Hollywood Stars.

Andrews got his early big-league fix from television’s Game of the Week, and after the Dodgers fled Brooklyn for the West Coast during his teenage years, he followed the exploits of their pitching aces Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. His athletic genes came from his father, Lloyd, who played football and basketball at the University of Montana and owned Callahan’s Bar in nearby Hermosa Beach. Mike starred in football, baseball, and basketball at South Torrance High.

The 6-foot-3, 195-pounder initialy chose the gridiron — accepting a full scholarship to UCLA that required his attending one year of junior college to complete the necessary foreign-language requirement. Andrews earned JC All-American honors as a split end at El Camino College, but then came a life-altering decision for the 18-year-old.

The Pirates and Red Sox had scouted him, and he wanted to marry his high-school sweetheart, Marilyn Flynn, and start a family. Several more years of college football without a paycheck seemed like forever, and Boston scout Joe Stephenson was offering him a cash bonus of $12,000 plus $4,000 more if he made the big-league roster. Andrews took it in December 1961, got engaged early the next spring, and shortly thereafter reported to Boston’s Class A club in Olean, New York. (Stephenson’s son, Jerry, would later be one of Mike’s teammates on the Red Sox.)

Up the ladder

Like many young prospects, Andrews’ first taste of professional baseball was humbling. All around him on the ’62 Olean squad were other former high-school hotshots, and as he later recalled for the Boston Globe: “I didn’t think much of my chances. So all I could do was give it everything I had.” Perhaps this self-deprecating attitude took the pressure off at the plate, as Andrews hit .299 with 12 home runs and 89 runs scored in 114 games as the club’s starting shortstop.

Moved up the chain to Winston-Salem for 1963, he hit just .255 there, but .323 after a midseason switch to Single-A Waterloo. He cut his error total at shortstop by (more than 50 percent, and the Red Sox boosted him again the next year, to Double-A Reading. There he batted .295, raised his fielding percentage again, and in 1965 — while still just 21 years old — earned an invitation to Red Sox spring training in Scottsdale, Arizona, from new manager Billy Herman.

Farmed out for the regular season to Triple-A Toronto, the top of Boston’s minor-league ladder, Andrews had a disappointing year (.246, 4 homers) toiling for a fiery young manager named Dick Williams. It was Williams who played a part in Andrews’ winter-league switch to second base (Rico Petrocelli already held the starting shortstop slot in Boston), and Mike excelled when he returned to Toronto for a second season in 1966. He played solid defense at his new position, boosted both his batting average (to .267) and home-run output considerably (to 14), and led the International League in runs scored with 97.

The performance earned Andrews a September call-up to the ninth-place Red Sox, where he started five games in the waning days of the season. He batted seventh in his first major-league contest, against his hometown Angels at Fenway Park on September 18, and went 0-for-4 with a run scored. His next action came a week later at New York, and on September 24 he notched his first big-league hit, a single off Fritz Peterson at Yankee Stadium in a 1-0 Sox loss.

“Mickey Mantle was one of my idols,” Andrews recalled of the event. “When he said, ‘Nice job, Mike,’ that was terrific.” Overall Andrews was 3-for-18 in the trial, with his other two safeties coming in the season finale at Chicago.

After Herman was fired and Williams named Red Sox manager for 1967, the new skipper announced before spring training that the starting second base job was “Andrews’ to lose.” Mike had hurt his lower back lifting weights in the offseason, however, and the lingering injury affected his defensive range in exhibition play. The tough-talking Williams was not sympathetic.

“We can’t wait any longer,” the manager stated flatly after two Andrews errors on March 26. “He has a bad back and he can’t bend. If he can’t bend, he can’t play.” Even though Mike had notched a five-hit game and was batting close to .400 in the exhibition season, Williams announced that day that he was moving fellow Southern Californian rookie Reggie Smith from outfield to second base and putting Andrews on the bench.

This was still the arrangement when the regular season started two weeks later, but it didn’t last much longer. Smith had his own defensive troubles at second, while the center field platoon of José Tartabull and George Thomas that replaced him was batting less than .200. On April 19, with Andrews’ back improving, Williams reinstated Smith in center and Mike at second. With very few exceptions, Mike Andrews would be the Red Sox’ starting second baseman for the next four years.

Key contributor

Once he got his chance, Andrews made the most of it. He hit .321 during the rest of April, and settled in with Petrocelli to provide strong middle-infield defense for the surprising Red Sox. On April 25 he hit his first major-league home run, a three-run shot off the Senators’ Pete Richert in a 9-3 Boston victory at DC Stadium. Later in the same contest, he had his first big-league stolen base and scored on a Carl Yastrzemski double.

A solid May (.281, including a 17-for-37 stretch) followed for Mike and featured the team’s first trip to his home state for a series with the Angels. A contingent of 90 family members and friends made the 45-minute drive to Anaheim on two buses originating from his dad’s bar, and Andrews received rousing applause from the sign-waving group even when he drew a walk in one of the games — thus earning him several weeks of ribbing from his teammates. A home run followed the next day, however, and Mike went on to enjoy several more clutch performances in front of his biggest fans over the years (including another homer at Anaheim later in the season). Briefly in May, the rookie was among the American League’s top ten in hitting.

Andrews’ batting average dropped off as the season wore on, but even while hitting below .240 each month from June through August, he was consistently in the thick of things as the Red Sox and their fans enjoyed Boston’s first true pennant race in more than a decade.

Most often used as a leadoff man in front of players like Tony Conigliaro, Yastrzemksi, and George Scott, he also hit quite often in the second, seventh, and eighth slots.

July offered a prime example of Mike’s value; he batted just .236 but scored 18 runs in as many games to help the team to a 15-3 stretch. He was a key man in a ten-game winning streak July 14-23 that many signaled as the turning point of the season, with two hits (including a three-run homer) in a 6-4 win at Baltimore July 19 and three more safeties (with another homer) in a 4-0 shutout at Cleveland on July 22 that drew Boston to within a half-game of the first-place Chicago White Sox. Happy with Andrews’ contributions, owner Tom Yawkey quietly gave him a midseason salary boost from $11,000 to $15,000.

Making Andrews’ performance all the more impressive were two factors — he was a 24-year-old rookie playing 3,000 miles from home, and (unbeknownst to all but his teammate and close friend Russ Gibson), he was the subject of a death threat late in the season. A Chicago fan who had apparently wagered a bundle on the White Sox winning the pennant sent Andrews and fellow AL second basemen Rod Carew and Dick McAuliffe (all from contending teams) menacing letters threatening their lives.

“Dick Williams called me into his office,” Andrews recalled, “and (general manager) Dick O’Connell and an FBI guy were in there. The FBI guy says, ‘We don’t think it’s a valid threat, but there have been one or two correspondences, so we want to watch it closely.’ I believed that there probably wasn’t anything to worry about, so I didn’t even tell my wife right away. But I remember looking around the stands at Fenway when I first ran on the field for the next game.”

By August, with a four-team scramble under way for the AL lead, every game was a huge one — and Andrews continued to deliver. August 1 through 3 he went a combined 7-for-12 with two homers, five RBIs and five runs scored in three games (the Red Sox won two), and, all told, had eight multihit games during the month. This was just a warm-up for September, when he hit .342 (25-for-73) and along with Yastrzemski and Dalton Jones kept the team in the hunt while others slumped. Mike was actually well over .400 for the month until an 0-for-9 skein, and after this manager Williams — who liked to go with the “hot hand” whenever possible — sat him in favor of veteran Jerry Adair for several games down the stretch.

Then, with the Sox needing to sweep Minnesota in two games on the season’s final weekend for a chance at the pennant, Andrews came through again. On Saturday he was 2-for-3 in the leadoff slot with a key infield single ahead of Yaz’s game-breaking three-run homer, and after starting on the bench in Sunday’s finale, he played a significant defensive role subbing for Adair, who had suffered a spike wound to his leg while turning an eighth-inning double play. Two straight Minnesota hits immediately brought the tying run to the plate in a 5-2 game, and Bob Allison hit a hard liner off Jim Lonborg into the left-field corner for what looked like a double and two RBIs. The shot did score one run, but it also became the inning’s third out when Yastrzemksi threw a bullet to Andrews just in time for a sweeping tag on the sliding Allison.

Now down 5-3, the Twins got the leadoff man on in the ninth, but Andrews turned a clutch “tag ’em out, throw ’em out” double play on a Rod Carew grounder to set the stage for Petrocelli’s catch of Rich Rollins’ popup and the bedlam that followed. Andrews and Scott were the first to reach pitching hero Lonborg, and managed to hoist him to their shoulders for a few moments before thousands of charging fans turned the team’s celebration into the city’s.

Andrews finished the regular season with a .263 average, 8 homers, and 40 RBIs in 142 games after his late start. He led the league with 18 sacrifice hits, and was runner-up to Rookie of the Year Carew among second basemen in voting by major-league players, managers, and coaches for the Topps All-Star Rookie Team. As the Red Sox readied for the World Series, the Boston Record American featured a huge front-page photo of Marilyn Andrews and the couple’s 2-year-old son, Michael, in the window of their Peabody home, waving a “GOOD LUCK RED SOX” banner.

It’s unclear if Dick Williams saw the newspaper and photo, but he again benched Andrews in favor of Adair during the first four games against the St. Louis Cardinals. Adair went 2-for-16, however, and after two pinch-hitting appearances (and one hit) Andrews was back in the starting lineup for Game 5 — where he remained the rest of the Series. He wound up batting .308, but the Red Sox and a weary Lonborg lost to Cardinals ace Bob Gibson in the seventh game. “The script was there, but it just wasn’t meant to be,” Andrews said of the setback. “It was like, ‘You guys have had your fun, now welcome back to the world. Here’s reality.’”

Shining on field and off

Reality hit hard in 1968, as the team fell to a distant fourth place and the offensive output for many Boston hitters dropped off markedly. Andrews was an exception. In the Year of the Pitcher, during which Yastrzemski was the only everyday AL player to hit .300 for the season, Andrews battled for the league batting lead until Labor Day before finishing at .271 (12th in the circuit) with 7 homers and 45 RBIs. He topped his rookie totals with 22 doubles and 145 hits, and his tiny dip from 79 runs scored to 77 was much more a factor of Tony Conigliaro’s yearlong absence due to his horrific ’67 beaning and George Scott’s anemic .171 average than a sophomore slump. After a few crucial errors early in the season, Andrews was steady on defense, and he was developing into a team leader. Boston sportswriters named him the club’s “Unsung Hero” for the season.

None of this was lost on Red Sox coach Bobby Doerr, then the top second baseman in the team’s history, who told New York Times columnist Arthur Daley of Andrews: “This kid will be around for a long while. What I like best about him is that he’s a natural athlete who won’t fall apart when he has a bad day. He has the ideal throwing arm for a second baseman, whipping it across his body. He’s capable of .285 with 20 homers once he gets settled.” Daley was similarly impressed, writing, “The Bostonians have been searching for a second baseman of Doerr’s superlative skills ever since Bobby retired in 1951. It could be that Mike will become that long-sought successor.”

Off the field Andrews was shining as well. During his rookie year, he had become aware of the Jimmy Fund’s status as the team’s official charity — its billboard in right field was the only one allowed at Fenway Park by owner Tom Yawkey for years — and along with his teammates voted a full 1967 World Series share to the charity. Like other players, he also periodically met with young cancer patients brought to Fenway by Jimmy Fund executive director Bill Koster. One day such a visit gave him a reality check of a different kind.

“I was busy warming up, but I spent a few minutes with the kid, who was a Little League star looking forward to playing the next year after his treatment was done,” recalled Andrews. “I wished him luck. Bill came up to me afterward and said, ‘Thanks, Mike. That meant a lot. There isn’t much we can do for that boy. We’re sending him home.’ That made me realize that an 0-for-4 day at the plate really doesn’t mean too much in the scheme of things.”

Andrews became a Jimmy Fund regular and in 1968 was named Man of the Year by the BoSox Club (the team’s official fan club) for “contributions to the success of the Red Sox and for cooperation in community endeavors.” He didn’t know it at the time, but the seeds of his future career had been planted.

Mike made Doerr and Daley look prophetic in ’69. Now batting second in Boston’s lineup more often than leadoff, he firmly established himself as one of the most productive second basemen in the majors when healthy. He had a .293 average (tenth in the league), 15 homers, and 59 RBIs despite missing nearly 40 games in midseason after being hit in the hand by Minnesota pitcher Dave Boswell and suffering a blood clot that required extensive treatment. When a bad back kept Baltimore’s Davey Johnson from going to the All-Star Game, Mike took his place and backed up starting second baseman Rod Carew. (Andrews played the last four innings for the American League and grounded out off Jerry Koosman in his only plate appearance.) The Red Sox were again unable to recapture the magic of two years earlier, and with a third-place finish assured, Dick Williams was fired in the waning days of the season.

A change of Sox

The young lineup that was expected to lead the Red Sox to several pennants was still quite potent — Boston’s 203 home runs in 1970 led all big-league clubs — but without the pitching to compete with the Baltimore Orioles, it was not enough. Back atop the batting order exclusively, Andrews reached new offensive heights himself that summer. He had 28 doubles, 17 homers, and 65 RBIs, and led off four games with homers — giving him eight leadoff clouts in his career. He topped AL second basemen with 19 errors, but even if management had big changes in store after a second straight third-place finish, Mike’s spot with the club seemed safe.

On December 1, 1970, however, one day after Dick O’Connell was quoted as saying “Andrews is not available for trade,” Mike and backup shortstop Luis Alvarado were sent to the woeful Chicago White Sox for Luis Aparicio, a future Hall of Famer. Aparicio would be slated to play short alongside newly acquired second baseman Doug Griffin in Boston, with Petrocelli moving to third. “The way I understood it, O’Connell was looking either for a shortstop or a third baseman,” said Andrews. “If they got a third baseman, they’d leave Rico at short and me at second. But Aparicio became available, so they went that route.”

He would later joke in his self-deprecating style that “at least I was traded for a Hall of Famer, even if he was 55 at the time” (Aparicio was actually 36), but the move “crushed” Mike — who had a wife and three young children happily settled in the suburb of Peabody. The majority of fans interviewed were also upset, both because of Andrews’ reputation as a heady, tough athlete and Aparicio’s age.

Like Fred Lynn and Mo Vaughn in later years, Mike was a popular ballplayer whose career and luck never seemed the same after he left the Red Sox. He made headlines in Chicago by holding out during his first spring training, but won Comiskey Park fans over with his grittiness. He homered in his first series back at Fenway Park as a visiting player, but suffered from arm, shoulder, back, and wrist injuries at various points during 1971.

When Andrews inexplicably developed problems with his throws to first base as well, he tried playing through the struggles; after that didn’t work, he moved to first himself. “I never figured out what caused it,” Andrews said. “It was identical to what Chuck Knoblauch and Steve Sax later went through, and I just couldn’t work my way out of it.” Despite these travails, Mike’s hitting was better than ever during a late August spree in which he tallied four homers in a seven-game stretch. But then on September 1 he fractured his left wrist in a collision at first with Harmon Killebrew, the fifth time that year he had been knocked from a game by injury. Out for the season, Andrews finished with a .282 average, 12 homers and 47 RBIs in 109 games to help the team improve from 56-106 to 79-83.

Things looked promising for Andrews and the White Sox the following spring training. Manager Chuck Tanner gave him back his second-base job when the club picked up slugging first baseman Dick Allen, and Andrews said he felt better than ever after dropping some weight and giving his body time to heal. The White Sox shot out to a fantastic start and suddenly found themselves fighting with the Oakland A’s for the AL West crown. It was a baseball revival on Chicago’s South Side much like that experienced at Fenway Park five years before, with Comiskey Park attendance reaching its highest levels in 20 years amid the excitement of Allen’s MVP season and a 24-win performance from knuckleballer Wilbur Wood.

Andrews could not match his team’s resurgence. He batted just .200 in April, and after rebounding in May (.291), never hit higher than .245 in any other month. He was part of some big moments, most including Allen, but his final average of .220 (with 7 homers and 50 RBIs) was the worst of his career. In the field he was vastly improved, but still led AL second basemen in errors for the third straight year. Of some consolation was that the White Sox wound up with a fine 87-67 record, just 5½ games behind World Series champion Oakland.

Oakland odyssey

Still just 29 years old going into the 1973 season, Andrews looked for a bounce-back year at a position new both to him and to baseball: designated hitter. The first DH in White Sox history, he seemed to thrive in the role with a .417 start (15-for-36) through 10 games. A dreadful slump followed, however, and by July 4, Mike’s average had fallen below .200.

On top of this, Andrews was engaged in a heated dispute with general manager Stu Holcomb. The GM had wanted to cut his $60,000 salary a full 20 percent before the season, and Mike was still playing without a contract when on July 10 he asked to be released. Holcomb complied, and later that same month he himself resigned amid controversy over this and other player squabbles.

Here Dick Williams — by then manager of the A’s — resurfaced in Andrews’ life. Williams had reportedly attempted to trade for his former rookie standout upon first taking the Oakland job back in 1970. Now, with his defending champs trying for another pennant, he picked Mike up as a free agent on July 31. Andrews hit just .190 in 18 games, but the A’s won the West and Williams saw fit to leave the veteran on his club’s playoff roster.

Mike was hitless in two official pinch-hit appearances against Baltimore in the AL Championship Series (although he did lay down a sacrifice bunt in a third time up), and then was given the same task in the eighth inning of Game Two of the World Series against the New York Mets at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum on October 14. Grounding out for Ted Kubiak, he stayed in the game at second base. Then the nuttiness began.

The score was 6-6 in the top of the 12th when the Mets scored four runs, due largely to two straight errors by Andrews — the first on a bad-hop grounder by John Milner, the second (one batter later) on a low throw that appeared to cause first baseman Gene Tenace to pull his foot off the bag. Replays indicated the umpire missed the second call, and Dick Williams thought Tenace deserved an error, but the damage was done. A rally in the bottom of the inning fell short, and New York won, 10-7.

Even before the game was over, meddling A’s owner Charlie Finley was on the phone with the team physician, Dr. Harry Walker, and behind closed doors in the locker room after the contest Andrews received an impromptu medical exam from Walker. Mike was then asked to sign a document stating that he had a “chronic” shoulder injury and was going on the disabled list. Feeling pressured, he signed it.

Andrews flew home to Boston as Finley schemed to add rookie Manny Trillo to the roster, but teammates who had seen Finley meeting with Mike rightfully suspected something was up. The story made national headlines, and prompted A’s players to affix Andrews’ No. 17 to their uniforms with athletic tape as a sign of solidarity. Within a few days Andrews said in a press conference that he had been forced into signing the document.

“Finley told me, ‘If you want to help this team, the best thing you can do is step aside and let us put Manny [Trillo] in there,’” Andrews recalled. “He kept beating me down, and finally I just signed it.” Commissioner Bowie Kuhn ordered that Andrews be reinstated for Game Four, and he earned a standing ovation at Shea Stadium when he came up as a pinchhitter in the eighth. After grounding out to third, he received another one.

Now pitching for Jimmy

That would be Andrews’ last at-bat in the major leagues. He didn’t expect the A’s to keep him after the ’73 season, and once Dick Williams quit after Oakland’s World Series victory, Mike’s fate was likely sealed. Released on October 26, he failed to catch on with another club. He spent that year working around his Peabody home and then took a big-money offer to play in Japan during 1975 with the Kintetsu Buffaloes. “I was one of two gaijin [non-Japanese] players on the team, along with our top slugger, Clarence Jones. Even though we were both starters and playing well, they cut us before the playoffs with no explanation.”

At this point, Andrews quit pro ball for good. Still popular in New England, he took a position as an agent with the Mass Mutual Insurance Company and followed the big-league exploits of his brother Rob, a second baseman with the Astros and Giants from 1975 to 1979. Then he received a surprising phone call from Ken Coleman, the Red Sox broadcaster who also was executive director of the Jimmy Fund.

“Mike had always been helpful to the Jimmy Fund during his days with the Red Sox, and he was the type of intelligent and personable individual whom I thought could be a great asset as we attempted to grow our fundraising program,” Coleman recalled shortly before his death in 2003. “We needed more people, and he was at the top of my list.”

Signing on as Coleman’s part-time assistant director in 1979, Andrews needed just a few months to realize “this is what I wanted to do” and gave up insurance altogether. He succeeded Coleman as the charity’s director in 1984.

For the next 25 years, Mike was often seen at Fenway Park for Jimmy Fund events and check presentations. He participated in both the Ted Williams memorial in 2002 (which benefited Dana-Farber) and the World Series ring ceremony on Opening Day of 2005, and delighted in showing off his own 2004 championship ring to young Jimmy Fund Clinic patients. The 18-hour WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Radio-Telethon became an annual staple of New England’s summer fundraising calendar, and in his last year as chairman, the 2009 event raised more than $3.3 million. His popularity as the public face of the charity led to Boston Sports Review magazine naming Andrews one of the city’s most powerful sports figures.

Mike and Marilyn sold their Peabody home late in his Dana-Farber tenure, but they stayed in the Boston area. His boyish good looks and California smile remained intact, with only a full head of white hair hinting that this grandfather many times over couldn’t be just a decade or so removed from the majors. When Andrews started talking about the rapidly improving survival rates for various children’s and adult’s cancers, he seemed younger still.

“When Mike Andrews hung up his baseball cleats, he took his talent and competitive spirit and applied it to beating a foe much more formidable than any Fenway Park will ever see,” said Larry Lucchino, Boston Red Sox president/CEO and a two-time cancer survivor, upon Andrews’ retirement. “Through his tenacity and vision over the last 30 years, he has had a gigantic impact on the lives of countless adults, children and families who have been treated for cancer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.”

More than 40 years after his rookie exploits, Mike Andrews was still helping make Impossible Dreams come true.

Last revised: July 1, 2015

An updated version of this article appeared in “Mustaches and Mayhem: Charlie O’s Three Time Champions: The Oakland Athletics: 1972-74″ (SABR, 2015), edited by Chip Greene. It originally appeared in “The 1967 Impossible Dream Red Sox: Pandemonium on the Field” (Rounder Books, 2007), edited by Bill Nowlin and Dan Desrochers.

Sources

Mike Andrews quotes from author interviews of March 2006 and earlier, unless otherwise noted.

Ken Coleman quotes from author interview, 2003.

Coleman, Ken, and Dan Valenti, The Impossible Dream Remembered (Brattleboro, Vermont: Stephen Greene Press, 1987).

Boston Globe and Boston Herald, 1966-1973.

Chicago Tribune, 1971-1973.

Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, and Associated Press articles, 1966-73.

Wisnia, Saul, “The Impossible Dream Team,” Red Sox Magazine, 1992.

Wisnia, Saul, Andrews profile, Red Sox Magazine, 2004.

Interview with Andrews on Red Sox Nation website (redsoxnation. net), 2005.

Interview with Andrews on White Sox fan website (whitesoxinteractive. com), 2002.

Larry Lucchino quote from Jimmy Fund press release by author, 2009 (jimmyfund.org/abo/press/pressreleases/2009/former-red-soxplayer- mike-andrews-to-retire-as-jimmy-fund-chairman.html).