Don Richard “Richie” Ashburn, a Hall of Fame outfielder, who made the most putouts of any outfielder in major-league baseball during the 1950s, started out as a catcher, which should not be surprising because throughout his long career in baseball, Richie Ashburn had always been his own man. His independent quality even emerged during his acceptance speech in Cooperstown. After waiting 28 years for induction, he expressed his opinion about the long wait: “They didn’t exactly carry me in here in a sedan chair with blazing and blaring trumpets.”1

Because of such candor and homespun humor, Ashburn became an iconic figure in fan-gritty Philadelphia during his careers with the Philadelphia Phillies — as a speedy center fielder for 12 years, and as a broadcaster for 34 years. He starred in center field and as a leadoff hitter for 12 seasons, including the pennant-winning Whiz Kids of 1950. Ashburn won two batting titles and earned four All-Star selections. After retiring from the field, he thrilled and amused not only Phillies fans but all baseball fans with his colorful, witty commentary of action on and off the field from 1963 until his sudden death shortly after he broadcast a Phillies-Mets game September 9, 1997.

A son of the Plains, Ashburn came into this world on March 19, 1927, in Tilden, Nebraska, as one of a pair of identical twins, Don and Donna, to his parents Neil and Genevieve “Tootie” Ashburn. Nicknames were common in the Ashburn household: Everyone called the male twin by his middle name, Richie, to further distinguish him from his sister; and Genevieve was called Tootie because of her tiny size at birth.2

Ashburn’s father, Neil, was a blacksmith and monument maker who played semipro baseball on the weekends. His brother Bob said he made more money playing baseball than at his trade. On some occasions the money was just enough to keep his family in food. Neil Ashburn had a very close relationship with his athletically-inclined son — he encouraged Richie in his boyhood activities and steered the boy throughout his developmental years.3

Ashburn tried to play all the sports — except football; his father ruled that out because of the threat of injury, but baseball and basketball were his favorites. He began playing baseball in 1935 as an 8-year-old in the Tilden Midget Baseball League under the tutelage of Hursel O’Banion. He played catcher because his father thought it would be the quickest way to get him to the major leagues, and he batted left-handed because his father said his speed would give him a better jump to first base from the port side.

The term “speed” would always be associated with Ashburn. His high-school basketball teammate Jim Kelly said that Ashburn could dribble down the court faster than the other players could run down it. In his 1948 major-league rookie year, one sportswriter said of the 21-year-old, “He’s no .300 hitter, he hits .100 and runs .200.”4 And even after his playing days ended, Ashburn challenged a young Dick Allen in a foot race and beat him.5

He played baseball and basketball for Tilden High School but the baseball season was short and his coach, Harold Mertz, suggested to Neil Ashburn that his boy needed more playing time. Neil agreed.

Ashburn graduated to American Legion baseball with the Neligh Junior Legion team and continued as a catcher. He was derided at first for his small stature, but he soon drew the admiration of his teammates with his speed and his concentration at the plate. He also played the outfield and it was during this time that Richie’s speed helped him in another way. His coach, Harold Cole, recognized that Ashburn lacked a strong throwing arm. He trained him to compensate for this deficiency by charging balls hit to him and throwing on the run. Ashburn later used this technique in the major leagues.6

It is difficult to imagine the Hall of Fame outfielder continuing on in baseball as a catcher because of his burning speed but, being a good son, Ashburn followed his father’s wish — despite advice to the contrary. As the state of Nebraska’s representative on the West team of Esquire Magazine’s American Legion Junior Baseball East/West All-Star game in 1944 at the Polo Grounds, Ashburn’s quality of play and his size caused Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack to advise him to play another position.7

At his Legion games, baseball scouts quickly recognized Ashburn’s talent and began following him. In fact, he signed three contracts to play professional baseball. He signed first with the Cleveland Indians in 1943 at the age of 16, again in 1944 with the Chicago Cubs to play for their Nashville farm team, and in 1945 with the Phillies. Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw M. Landis voided the Cleveland contract because the rules then prohibited the signing of boys still in high school. He also nullified the Cubs contract because of an illegal clause that would have paid Ashburn if the Nashville franchise was sold while he was playing there. The two nullifications soured Ashburn’s opinion on the integrity of major-league baseball.8

The elder Ashburn shared Richie’s doubts and supported his son’s decision to go to college in 1944 even though 13 of the 16 major-league clubs had showed interest in his son. After one semester at Norfolk Junior College, the Phillies convinced the family that their intentions were honest, and Neil approved Richie’s signing with them. Delighted by this change of mind, Phillies scout Ed Krajnick said, “Something tells me this is about the most important deal I ever made.”9

Ashburn reported to the Utica Blue Sox of the Class A Eastern League in 1945 and it was there that his speed finally changed everyone’s mind about his future position in baseball. He utterly astounded them on one occasion when he beat the batter to first base and took the throw for a putout. His manager, future Whiz Kids pilot Eddie Sawyer, forthwith converted the speedster to a center fielder. According to teammate Putsy Caballero, Richie’s father initially disliked Sawyer’s decision and objected to the new direction. But Neil eventually agreed that Sawyer’s decision appeared right for his fleet-footed son. During his time in Utica the players started calling Ashburn Whitey because of his light blond hair. The new moniker stayed with him for the rest of his life.

Early in the season, Ashburn was drafted by the US Army. Fortunately for Ashburn, the allowed him to finish the season, in which the Blue Sox won the Eastern League pennant while Ashburn led the team in batting with a .312 average. The Blue Sox held a Richie Ashburn Day in August and fans passed the hat and collected $357 for him, an amount he likened then to a million dollars.10

The Army sent Ashburn to Alaska, about which he later quipped: “Sending a ballplayer to Alaska was like sending a dog sledder to the Sahara Desert.”11 He spent a year there and missed the 1946 season.

Ashburn returned to the Blue Sox in 1947, and his team again won the Eastern League championship. Ashburn set a league record for the most hits in a season with 191 in only 137 games. After this successful season he went back to school for a second semester at Norfolk Junior College, where he met his future wife, Herberta “Herbie” Cox.12

Ashburn made the 1948 Phillies team as a 21-year-old rookie and opened the season as the starting left fielder. He replaced veteran Harry “The Hat” Walker, the reigning NL batting champion, as the team’s leadoff hitter. He started the first 12 games in left field before replacing Walker as the regular center fielder.

Ashburn engineered an unusual living arrangement in the Philadelphia suburb of Bala Cynwyd — a home rental with fellow rookies Robin Roberts, Jack Mayo, Curt Simmons, and Charlie Bicknell, a move that saved everyone money, especially when Ashburn’s parents moved in in midseason. On the ballfield, he electrified the crowds at Shibe Park with his hitting, speed, and outfield play.

At the conclusion of a doubleheader with the Cubs in Chicago on June 5, Ashburn sported a .380 batting average and had a 23-game hitting streak. A local sportswriter said, “Richie Ashburn is the hottest thing to hit this town since the great Chicago blaze.”13

Ashburn was the only rookie chosen to the National League All-Star team. In the game held in Sportsman’s Park, St. Louis, won by the American League, 5-2, he hit two singles, garnered the only stolen base in the game, scored one of the NL runs and was named by sportswriters as the outstanding player on the losing side. It was there that Ted Williams bestowed Ashburn with another nickname, “Putt-Putt,” because, as Ashburn explained later, “I ran as if I had an outboard motor in the seat of my pants.”14

Ashburn’s season ended abruptly in August when he broke his finger. He started a total of 101 games in center field and 13 games in left field and finished the season with a .333 batting average. At season’s end The Sporting News named him its Rookie of the Year. In the selection process for Major League Baseball’s Rookie of the Year, he finished third behind Al Dark and Gene Bearden.

Whitey experienced a sophomore slump in 1949, finishing with a .284 average, although he continued to exhibit stellar fielding play, setting a major-league record for outfielders with 514 putouts. Some writers said his sensational catch of a Ralph Kiner liner on September 14 was the greatest catch they’d ever seen at Forbes Field.15

The next season Ashburn returned to the Phillies a married man. He was in top form as the youthful Phillies, known as the Whiz Kids, captured the NL pennant. Richie made a “veteran” adjustment borrowing one of teammate Del Ennis’s heavier bats to fool opposing teams that used a “creeping shift” to thwart the speedster’s infield hits. It worked. He started off at .370, weathered a slump in June, and finished at .303 while leading the National League in triples with 14.

Ashburn’s biggest contribution to the NL champs was a fielding play in the final game of the season, October 1 against the Brooklyn Dodgers in Ebbets Field. The play itself wasn’t extraordinary but its timing was. The Whiz Kids had squandered a six-game lead in first place and faced a tie with the Dodgers if they lost the game. With no outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and the score tied, 1-1, the Dodgers had men on first and second. Duke Snider hit a liner into center field and if the runner on second, Cal Abrams, could score, the Dodgers would force a one-game playoff for the pennant. Ashburn charged the ball, scooped it up, and uncorked a perfect running throw right into catcher Stan Lopata’s mitt in plenty of time to tag Abrams at the plate.

The Phillies won the pennant in the tenth inning when Dick Sisler hit a momentous three-run homer and Robin Roberts retired the Dodgers. Ashburn’s play is considered one of the most significant defensive plays in Phillies history.

Ashburn again led the NL in putouts with 405. He did not perform well in the World Series against the New York Yankees as the Phillies were swept in four games, though the games were close, with three being decided by a single run. He batted only .176 in the Series, 3-for-17, and his disappointment could be summed up with a comment he made as he turned down refreshment after the final game, “I couldn’t swallow a cornflake.”16

The Phillies would not appear in the Series again for many more years as they slid down in the NL standings during the 1950s, but Ashburn’s career did not suffer. He had great years from 1951 through 1954, averaging .318 while leading the NL twice in hits and being named an All-Star in 1951 and 1953. In 1954 he had a career-best 125 walks to lead the league in that category and in on-base percentage with .441.

In 1955 Ashburn received a new $30,000 contract. But before the season began he landed on the disabled list following a collision with Del Ennis that ruined his 731-consecutive-game streak. He recovered relatively quickly — starting in the third game of the season before missing nine games. He pinch-hit in the 13th game, and then resumed playing and went on to have a memorable season — with one exception. For the first time in seven seasons, he failed to lead the league in putouts — but he still posted an outstanding .983 fielding average. His batting excelled — by June he led the NL and had a 17-game hitting streak. He sported a .341 average in July, but incredibly, was not chosen for the NL All-Star team. He shrugged off that slight and finished the season with a .338 average and the NL batting title — his first.

The next three seasons the Phillies continued their slide, never leaving the second division. Ashburn’s play was steady though not stellar with .303 and .297 finishes in 1956 and 1957. The Phillies held a Richie Ashburn Day on August 14, 1956.

In 1958 Ashburn broke out and won his second batting title with a .350 average, edging his center-field rival of the San Francisco Giants, Willie Mays, on the last day of the season with a 3-for-4 effort. He led the league in hits, triples, walks, and on-base percentage. Teammate Robin Roberts remembered that Richie’s first hit that day came on a ball that bounced 50 feet in the air after hitting home plate. Roberts said Ashburn chortled loudly as he safely crossed first base. Richie had told Roberts before the game that for Mays to win the title he needed to get three hits while Whitey went hitless. The chortle erupted because that odd hit practically gave Whitey the title.17

Ashburn’s other accomplishments that year included an unusual double play when he backed up second base on an infield rundown. On June 12 he ran down a Los Angeles Dodgers runner, John Roseboro, who was caught off second base, unaware that Whitey had crept up behind him from center field, for an unusual shortstop-catcher-third base-center fielder double play. And at the end of the season he led the league in putouts, tying Max Carey for the most seasons leading the NL in that statistic. It was only the second time in his career up to that point that he did not finish with double-digit assist totals. Additionally, he served as Nebraska chairman of the American Cancer Society during the offseason.

Ashburn’s 1959 season was largely forgettable. All of his offensive stats fell: hits by 65, walks by 18, stolen bases by 21, and batting average by 84 points. Defensively, it was the same: putouts declined by 136, errors rose to 11, and outfield assists dropped to 4, while his fielding percentage fell 13 points. He suffered through the worst performance of his career.

Richie’s tenure with the Phillies ended when the team traded him to the Chicago Cubs in December 1959. In retrospect, it was a terrible trade for the team as Ashburn rebounded to have three good seasons — two with the Cubs and one with the Mets, although his speed had slowed and his outfield putouts declined all three years. The players the Phillies obtained for Ashburn performed horribly, contributing to their further decline. The Phillies finished last; the third of four straight bottom-of-the-heap finishes from 1958 through 1961. Ashburn’s replacement in center field hit just .237.

Ashburn’s time with the Cubs coincided with their “College of Coaches” experiment — a system of rotating a different coach to manage the Cubs each day, which didn’t work. Some of the coaches were rotated to the minors and back again. A visiting Philly sportswriter asked Ashburn how he was doing: “Not so good,” quipped Richie, “the guy who likes me is in Des Moines.”18

Ashburn’s last season spent as a player spawned a second career in baseball. After playing fairly well on one of the most unforgettable and bumbling teams in baseball history, the 1962 New York Mets (40-120), he sent back his contract offer unsigned — not to get more money, but with the thought that he didn’t want to go through another season like the one he had had with the lowly NL expansion team. His Mets tenure was a horrible season of improbable losses, unbelievable errors, and inept baseball manifested by the quintessential story Yo la tengo.

The story revolved around the antics of the Spanish-speaking shortstop for the Mets, Elio Chacon, and his penchant for frequent near-collisions with outfielders. This was especially true with Ashburn on short fly balls to center field. Ashburn realized that Chacon did not understand the English warning: “I have it,” so he went to a bilingual Mets player and was told that Chacon would understand the warning in Spanish, yo la tengo; that it meant the fly ball was the center fielder’s to catch. Soon enough a short fly ball was hit and a back-pedaling Chacon veered off, following Ashburn’s admonition in Spanish. What was unexpected was that onrushing, English-only left-fielder Frank Thomas completely flattened Ashburn. After pulling his center fielder from the ground, Thomas asked him “What’s a Yellow Tango?”19

Selected as a National League All-Star, he became the Mets’ Most Valuable Player with a batting average of .306. The award merited him the gift of a boat, of which he later said: “…to be voted the MVP on the worst team in the history of baseball is a dubious honor for sure. I was awarded a 24-foot boat equipped with a galley and sleeping facilities for six. After the season had ended, I docked the boat in Ocean City, New Jersey, and it sank.”20

Ashburn also dubbed the much-maligned first baseman for the Mets with his famous moniker, “Marvelous Marv” Throneberry.

He accepted a broadcasting job in 1963 with the Phillies to provide “color” to the regular broadcaster. When asked if he had been making more with the Mets, Ashburn said, “Much more.” And a query as to why he would quit such a good-paying job in a sport he loved and accept a much lower salary elicited a simple, “Well…” 21

Ashburn was not the only candidate for the broadcasting booth. The Phillies first offered it to Robin Roberts, who declined — he played baseball for four more seasons — but who suggested Ashburn to Les Qually, the Phillies official in charge of broadcasting. “The rest is history,” said Roberts.22

It turned out Ashburn had the gift of providing commentary during a broadcast and he parlayed this gift into a career that spanned 35 seasons. His career as a color man enabled his voice and his personality to touch more Phillies fans in the Delaware Valley than all of his on-field heroics at the Shibe Park/Connie Mack Stadium venue. Folks all over the area listened as he spoke with an infectious zest, corny humor, admirable candor, unflinching disbelief, and an understated outrageousness that endeared him to millions. He spoke his mind and fans loved it along with his wit and humor delivered in his trademark deadpan style. Soon, his aphorisms percolated throughout the Delaware Valley: “This fella on first looks runnerish,” “It’s a leadpipe cinch that they’ll bunt here,” and “Hard to believe, Harry,” among others.

Other, nonverbal, sounds tickled listeners’ ears as well. People recognized Ashburn lighting his pipe when they would hear a match being scratched while on the air. Or they heard him puff his pipe as he piped in with another comment on something odd or good or bad during a game.

Ashburn first teamed with Bill Campbell and By Saam but his true broadcast partner became Harry Kalas when Kalas joined the Phils on-air team in 1971. Kalas gave him another nickname that gave tribute to Ashburn’s unique status with Phillies fans, “His Whiteness.”

The team of Kalas and Ashburn clicked. They complemented each other so well that author Curt Smith said of their rapport and teamwork, “Where chemistry really works … at any time in any franchise was, of course, Harry Kalas and Whitey Ashburn.”23 The pair worked together for 27 seasons and their partnership became noted for Kalas’s smooth delivery of game action and Ashburn’s quips, insights, and critiques.

Besides his broadcasting, Ashburn wrote a regular column for the Philadelphia Bulletin and later for the Philadelphia Daily News. His columns were noted for his candor as well as his insights into sports and baseball.

Ashburn was so well liked that in one of his columns he noted that Cal Abrams — whom he had thrown out at home plate during the 1950 pennant-clincher — paid Richie a compliment: Abrams, wrote Richie, thanked him for throwing him out because that play bestowed more recognition upon Abrams than his short baseball career did. He also noted that Abrams saved all of his baseball cards — including Ashburn’s 1948 rookie card — and, in selling them, was making more money than he did as a player.24

Ashburn stayed married to his wife, Herberta Cox “Herbie” Ashburn, until the day he died. And he stayed true to his roots, returning to his Tilden home every offseason until 1964, when they moved to Gladwyne, a Philadelphia suburb. With Herbie he had six children; he missed every one of their births because all of them were born when he would be with the Phillies. “I was a miserable 0-for-6,” he would quip.25 But he made sure to make it up with them during the offseason and his children referred to him as a good dad.

However, although Whitey’s love for Herbie remained strong, their marriage was not. In 1977, after 28 years of living together, the two separated but did not divorce. The Ashburns lived apart for the rest of their lives but by dint of their unique natures they kept their children together and Whitey remained their father forever.

The Ashburns experienced tragedy when their daughter Jan died in an automobile crash in 1987. It is always a crushing blow when a parent has to bury a child and this loss hurts most. Richie’s grief remained with him and a year later, during a Phillies tribute to Ashburn at the Vet, he thanked the fans for the “thousands of cards and letters” that shared his family’s grief. His column allowed him to make that grief public with Jan’s eulogy in the Philadelphia Daily News of April 28, 1987.

Ashburn’s personality was often described as honest and open. It seemed to allow him to hang out with kings and janitors and everyone in between because he treated everyone the same way. It seems he had the moxie to present himself naturally to anyone, and folks accepted it– and forgave him for it. Stories abound about Richie and this unique quality.

He could be ribald, too. Once, after a lengthy discourse during a game by broadcaster Tim McCarver on the qualities of Mount St. Helen’s volcanic ash, Ashburn opined that “If you’ve seen one piece of ash, you’ve seen them all.”26 On another occasion he admitted that he slept with his bats when he was going good. “In fact, I’ve been in bed with a lot of old bats in my day,” he said.27 And he could be disarmingly charming, often referring to anyone within listening distance as the youngest of men. Once he took leave from some to go into the broadcasting booth, “Well, boys, I can’t be sitting around talking to fans.”28

Richie Ashburn’s induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown took some time. In his 15 years of eligibility his vote count did not engender continuation after 1982 and his status was relegated to the Veterans Committee. His candidacy stalled and then ended with the passing of the “60 percent rule” in 1991 that stated eligibility by the Veterans Committee for players whose careers began after 1946 was limited to those who garnered 60 percent of the ballot in previous elections.

Ashburn’s run up to his Hall of Fame induction included two fans who recognized his numbers and took up his banner: SABR member Steve Krevisky and superfan Jim Donahue. Krevisky would appear at every New England SABR gathering and expound on Ashburn’s qualities, especially educating attendees on his defensive statistics but also pointing out that Richie had the most hits of any major leaguer during the 1950s. Donahue organized his campaign around overturning the 60 percent rule, one time forwarding 55,000 postcards to the Hall of Fame. Both men’s efforts paid off and the rule was overturned in 1993. In the spring of 1995 the Veterans Committee voted Whitey into the Hall. The first person Ashburn called was his 91-year-old mother, Tootie, who wept.

The largest crowd in the history of the induction ceremony, more than 15,000 fans, showed up that summer to celebrate not only Ashburn’s induction but that of the greatest third baseman of all time, the Phillies’ Mike Schmidt. Several times during his acceptance speech, Whitey was overcome as he looked out onto a “sea of red clad” Phillies fans.29

It is generally considered that Ashburn’s defensive skills got him in. Although he finished with a .308 average which ranks 120th in major-league history, he hit only 29 home runs, and 82 percent of his hits were singles. However, he led the majors in putouts in nine of the ten years from 1949 through 1958. And he is the only outfielder in major-league history to record four seasons of 500-plus putouts. Despite his “weak” arm, he led NL outfielders in assists three times. Another factor was his durability. He possesses the seventh longest consecutive-game streak in National League history and missed only 20 games from 1948 through 1960.

And his fielding prowess was not limited to the can-of-corn variety. Some of Ashburn’s catches remain as the best in baseball. In addition to the aforementioned Kiner catch, Ashburn’s sensational outfield play at Forbes Field on June 20, 1951, led one famous fan in attendance to wonder. Hall of Famer George Sisler commented, “I’ve been around major-league baseball for 35 years. I’ve seen every great center fielder since [Tris] Speaker. I thought I had seen every sort of impossible catch. But that’s the greatest piece of center fielding I ever saw anywhere by any fielder. I still don’t believe it.”30

Richie’s competitive nature also kept his Hall of Fame candidacy alive. He especially would voice his own self-promotion, since he often mentioned it on air and during off-mike events. And he didn’t hesitate to use his especial candor. “You know, you can also get into the Hall of Fame as a writer or a broadcaster,” Ashburn once said. “I could be the first person in history to miss it in all three categories.”31

Ashburn sometimes kept to himself and he did so on a late summer evening in 1997 after calling a game in New York, telling friend and fellow broadcaster Kalas that he didn’t need any company. Later that night he reached out to a Phillies official, complaining that he didn’t feel well. At 5:30 A.M. on September 9, 1997, Ashburn was found dead in his hotel room.

The city of Philadelphia, Phillies fans, and team officials as well as other major-league teams and their cities descended into collective grief as news of Ashburn’s death percolated across telephone, teletype, audio, and video machines. His wake at Fairmount Park’s Memorial Hall drew thousands and his memorial service generated poignant remembrances as his family and myriad friends in the game sought solace through words, hugs, and tears.

Some years later, his son, Richard, spoke for thousands of us when he said of his father, “To this day some one will tell me a story about him every day. He just blew people away. And he didn’t even know he was doing it.”32

The Phillies have honored the memory of Whitey Ashburn in Citizens Bank Park, their much-admired ballyard off Broad Street in South Philadelphia. There is a long, concession-filled broad walk behind center field dubbed Ashburn Alley where an exciting statue of the former Whiz Kid is prominent. And the TV/radio booth has been named the Richie “Whitey” Ashburn Broadcast Booth. The Phillies also retired his playing number, 1, in 1979, the second number given that honor, and his plaque is featured on the Phillies’ Wall of Fame in Ashburn Alley.

This biography is included in the book “The Year of the Blue Snow: The 1964 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2013), edited by Mel Marmer and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted:

http://articles.mcall.com/1995-07-28/sports/3052376_1_richie-ashburn-elmer-flick-consummate-leadoff-man

baseball-reference.com.

http://www.ultimatemets.com/profile.php?PlayerCode=0012&tabno=7

http://www.centerfieldmaz.com/2011/03/original-1962-mets-center-fielder-hall.html

Notes

1 Dan Stephenson, Richie Ashburn, A Baseball Life. DVD. Written and produced by Dan Stephenson, Narrated by Harry Kalas (New York: Arts Alliance America LLC, 2008).

2 Stephenson.

3 Stephenson.

4 Joe Archibald, Richie Ashburn (New York: Julian Messner, Inc., 1960), 47.

5 Stephenson.

6 Archibald, 25.

7 Archibald, 32.

8 Archibald, 29, 30.

9 Archibald, 33, 34.

10 Archibald, 38, 39.

11 Bill Conlin, “Missing Whitey 10-Fold,” Philly.com, September 7, 2007. http://articles.philly.com/2007-09-07/sports/24995587_1_radio-hall-tv.

12 Archibald, 42.

13 Archibald, 46.

14 Archibald, 49.

15 Archibald, 64-65.

16 Archibald, 87.

17 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers, III. My Life in Baseball (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2003), 161.

18 Roberts, 252.

19 http://phillysportshistory.com/2011/05/21/richie-ashburn-is-the-inspiration-for-the-band-name-yo-la-tengo/.

20 http://www.centerfieldmaz.com/2011/03/original-1962-mets-center-fielder-hall.htm”

21 Jimmy Breslin, Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game (New York: Viking Press, 1963), 85.

22 Roberts, 252.

23 Stephenson.

24 Philadelphia Daily News, December 9, 1986.

25 Fran Zimniuch. Richie Ashburn Remembered (Chicago: Sports Publishing LLC, 2005), 83.

26 Zimniuch, 57.

27 Zimniuch, 53.

28 Zimniuch, 61.

29 Stephenson.

30 Frank Yeutter, “They Call Him Mister Putt-Putt,” Baseball Digest, October 1951.

31 Don Bostrom, “Richie Ashburn From Cornfield to Cooperstown,” The Morning Call (Allentown, Pennsylvania), July 28, 1995.

32 Zimniuch, 99.

Baseball writers were intrigued by the unlikely story of a slightly built walk-on working his way up to play for the New York Yankees. As a result, Bernard Oliver Bengough was referred to as “the Peter Pan of baseball” during the early years of his professional career.1

The youngest child of James Bengough (1862-1930), a factory foreman, and Margaret Bengough (1863-1945), a homemaker, Benny was born on July 27, 1898, in Niagara Falls, New York; his parents originally resided in Canada and were of English and Irish heritage. Their oldest son, Walter, was born in 1890, while daughter Margaret followed in 1894.

As a teenager, Benny would travel from Niagara Falls to Buffalo and watch the great Hank Gowdy catch for the Bisons. “My eyes were always glued on Hank, and I’d dream of the day when I’d be there myself,” he recalled.2 He later attended Niagara University as a divinity student. Ten of his classmates at the Catholic college eventually went on to the priesthood.

Benny earned an impressive reputation playing for local semipro teams and Niagara University. In 1917 he showed up unannounced at the Bisons’ camp with his catching gear and was offered $5 a day to warm up pitchers and occasionally fill in on the field. His mother thought her son’s talent was grossly underutilized and minced no words in expressing that opinion to the Bisons’ manager, Patsy Donovan. She personally called the skipper to berate him for not playing her son and giving him more of a chance. Taken aback by the conversation, and somewhat at a loss for words, Donovan agreed to play Benny the next day. Finally presented with an opportunity to be in the lineup, Benny quickly demonstrated his fine defensive skills and accurate throwing arm.

Bengough, a right-handed batter, played in 65 games for the Bisons in 1918; then his .276 batting average in 103 games in 1919 attracted the attention of New York Yankees scout Paul Krichell. After being sidelined with an injury during the 1920 season, Bengough became the Bisons’ regular receiver in 1921, hitting .275. The Yankees had a working agreement with the Bisons and purchased his contract in 1922 for four players and $10,000.

Standing only 5-feet-7 and weighing a mere 145 pounds when he joined the Yankees in 1923, Bengough closely resembled a batboy rather than a major-league prospect; his playing weight would eventually hover around 170 pounds. He quickly demonstrated an accurate throwing arm and error-free glove work behind the plate. Early in spring training, Bengough’s aggressive leadership in taking charge and directing veteran pitchers impressed manager Miller Huggins as well as sportswriters. “Benny Bengough … proceeded to run the entire team in his first attempt to handle the Yankee pitchers in a game at New Orleans. In consequence, Ben has caught Huggins’ eye and will hang on with the Yanks this season.”3 Bengough comfortably settled in as the third-string catcher behind Wally Schang and Fred Hofmann. The 1923 Yankees won the American League pennant and then their first World Series, over the New York Giants. Bengough did not play in the Series.

The club fell to second place in 1924 and finished a disastrous seventh in 1925. Huggins decided rebuilding was in order and started housecleaning on a wholesale level. He believed that age, injuries, and possibly diminished eyesight had caught up with 36-year-old catcher Wally Schang. On the same day (June 2) that Lou Gehrig famously replaced Wally Pipp at first base, Benny Bengough took over as the Yankees’ starting catcher. He posted a respectable .258 batting average in 95 games; Schang finished the season serving as the backup, and was traded to the St. Louis Browns in the offseason.

As newcomers to the Yankees, Bengough and young Lou Gehrig were assigned to room together. The two ex-college men immediately hit it off and forged a strong, lasting friendship. Bengough also became a favorite of Babe Ruth. They started a pregame ritual of warming up together, a habit Ruth felt brought good luck. It was from this daily ritual that Bengough’s nickname was derived.

Ruth was notoriously bad at remembering names. In most cases he simply referred to males as Kid and females as Sister. In seeking out Benny for their pregame warmup, Ruth couldn’t come up with the name of his little buddy. The closest he could come to Benny was remembering Barney Google, a popular comic-strip character at the time. Ruth proceeded to start barking for “Googles.” Teammates roared, and knew what was up; from that day on, Benny was christened with the monikers of Barney or Googles.4 Ruth and Bengough remained close friends as teammates and beer-drinking partners. Benny was part of Babe’s inner circle of friends, accompanying the Bambino on offseason barnstorming tours and hunting trips.

Bengough claimed to have the most mispronounced last name in all of baseball history. “Almost everybody called me ‘Bengow,’ ” he said. Yankees owner Jacob Ruppert “called me ‘Benkopf.’ But the way my name was really pronounced was ‘Bengoff.’ “5

The rebuilt 1926 Yankees included talented rookies Tony Lazzeri and Mark Koenig. The team supplemented its receiving corps by purchasing Pat Collins from the Browns, to back up Bengough. The future looked bright during the spring of 1926, when Benny was glowingly labeled “the best fielding catcher in the American League.”6 In actuality, Bengough was affected by a sore throwing arm that soon limited his playing time and provided Collins with an opportunity to see most of the action.

The arm didn’t improve and Bengough decided to seek the services of John “Bonesetter” Reese, a trainer in Youngstown, Ohio, with no medical credentials but who was renowned for his ability to work players through “atrophied soup-bones” or bad-arm situations. While the Yankees were in Cleveland, Bengough asked roommate Lou Gehrig to accompany him on a trip to see Reese. Gehrig agreed to go along and handle the driving. The roommates rose at 5 A.M. and drove from Cleveland to Youngstown for Benny’s scheduled treatment, leaving enough time to arrive back in Cleveland for the game. Unfortunately the treatment was ineffective and Bengough’s arm woes persisted.7

Back in New York, Bengough heard of an alternative treatment promoted as a miracle cure and consisting of a mysterious concoction applied to the affected area. He described the visit as follows: “I laughed when I stepped into the office. He had a big bucket of smelly stuff on the table and a paintbrush in his hands. He told me to strip. ‘This is going to burn a little, but don’t let that alarm you.’ Well this fellow took a brush and painted me from the waist up. He was right about the stuff burning. But, strangely it helped. For two or three days, I could throw all over the park. Then it passed and that flame died out. The only way I could keep catching regularly would have been to have the guy with a paintbrush work on me between innings. There is nothing so dead as a dead arm.”8

Collins handled the bulk of the catching and overuse began taking its toll on Pat, who also developed arm trouble. Bengough’s somewhat improved right wing suffered a much more serious setback on September 18, 1926, when he was struck by a pitch from Cleveland right-hander George Uhle. Uhle had a trick pitch seldom seen in the 1920s but common today: the slider. The unorthodox offering resulted in a league-leading 13 hit batsmen in 1926. Bengough was struck on his throwing arm and described the incident to author Lawrence Ritter as follows: “I put my arm up to protect myself. (The baseball) hit my arm and poked the bone right through and hit my forehead.”9 Bengough, who was hitting a promising .381 in 36 games when he was struck, would never again be the same ballplayer.

The Yankees quickly acquired veteran Hank Severeid from the waiver list to share the catching duties with a still not 100 percent Pat Collins. The club sputtered toward the end of the season, but held on to win the pennant, then lost the World Series to the St. Louis Cardinals. After the season a desperate Huggins sought to fortify his catching staff and acquired dependable receiver John Grabowski in a trade with the White Sox.

Going into the 1927 season, even though the Yankees were defending American League champs, most scribes seriously doubted that the club had enough depth to repeat. Although the team would be led by six future Hall of Famers (Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, Combs, Hoyt, and Pennock), the Yankees weren’t considered shoo-in favorites. Early predictions had Philadelphia, Washington, and Cleveland vying for the flag. As Fred Glueckstein reported in The ’27 Yankees: “In a preseason poll of 42 baseball experts, only nine picked the Yankees to repeat as American League Champions.”10

An important success factor was brought to light by author Harvey Frommer in his book Five O’Clock Lightning: “Some claimed one of the few weaknesses of the Yankees was the team’s lack of depth. A chess master, Huggins always found depth. With Bengough, who would’ve been the main catcher if he hadn’t been hindered by a sore arm, Huggins early on decided that he would have to catch Pat Collins one day and Grabowski the next, rotating them as much as possible throughout the season. Neither ever worked two days in a row except for illness or injury.”11 Bengough started 25 games behind the plate and batted .247. The three catchers combined to hit a respectable .271, with 7 home runs and 71 runs batted in.

The 1927 Yankees won on Opening Day and never looked back, holding first place all season and finishing with a 110-44 record (.714), 19 games ahead of the second-place Philadelphia Athletics. The powerhouse of a ballclub swept the Pittsburgh Pirates in the World Series. Using the same formula that proved successful during the season, Huggins opened the World Series with Collins, used Grabowski in the second game, switched to Bengough in the third, then had Collins catch the fourth and final game. Bengough was 0-for-4 at the plate, but drew an eighth-inning base on balls in Game Two and scored, his run the final one in the team’s 6-1 win.

Pitching was a key element of the 1927 Yankees, and an integral part of the success was a warmup procedure developed by Bengough and utilized by both Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock. Benny described the system as follows: “There are five targets on a catcher. His right shoulder, his left shoulder, the right knee, the left knee, and right down the middle. … Pitchers warming up would throw ten pitches at each target. They were thinking of the spot they were pitching to all the time.”12

The 1928 Yankees fielded a lineup closely resembling the 1927 team. This time Huggins used all three of his three catchers a similar amount; Grabowski saw most of the playing time behind the plate (75 games), followed by Collins (70) and Bengough (58). For the rest of his career, Bengough’s chronically sore throwing arm would essentially render it useless until hot weather set in. The Yankees again captured the American League flag and swept the St. Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Bengough caught all four games and set the tone in the opener by making a marvelous catch of a foul pop hit by Taylor Douthit in the third inning. The foul was headed toward the Cardinals dugout. As was the custom, the players’ bats were lined up in a row just outside the dugout. Bengough stepped between the bats just before making the catch. Several Cardinals reached out to protect him from falling into the dugout.13 He was 3-for-17 at the plate with both a run scored and an RBI in Game Two.

Despite winning on the field, nothing could prevent Bengough from encountering a different kind of loss: Apparently his hair was falling out. Almost overnight he started to notice clumps of brown hair appearing on his pillow. He said he awoke one morning to discover he was completely bald. A man with a long gray beard was hawking a slimy green cure for baldness in the hotel lobby. Bengough purchased a couple of bottles and even thought the stuff might be working. “Every time I use it, I get a headache. I think that means the hair is trying to break through,” he said.14

Possessing an innate comic sense, Bengough decided to play up the hair loss and simultaneously entertain fans. As recounted in his obituary, when a foul pop was playable, “off would fly his mask and cap, revealing his prematurely bald pate. After completing the play, Bengough would toss his head a couple of times like a man trying to shake the hair out of his eyes. It was always good for a laugh and a cheer and fit right into his philosophy of the game. ‘Ballplayers are entertainers,’ he said. ‘The main idea is to entertain the fans with a good ball game. But all games can’t be good. So when games are dull, you should offer them something else to keep them interested.’” 15

By 1929 Bengough was permanently relegated to the backup role as Bill Dickey assumed the starting catcher position. Bengough was released after the 1930 season and was acquired by the Milwaukee Brewers of the American Association. In mid-July of 1931 the St. Louis Browns purchased his contract after young starter Rick Ferrell broke his arm.

Possessing an extensive knowledge of hitters, Bengough utilized the art of distraction to rattle untested rookies, by woefully telling them how they were in a genuinely tough spot. Veteran hitters would hear chatter about farms, cars, or families. Bengough became a family man himself on October 28, 1932, when he married Hazel Nolan of St. Louis. The couple had two sons, James and John.

Bengough’s major-league career covered parts of 10 seasons. He finished up in 1932 with a career batting average of .255. He managed Yankee farm teams in the lower minors from 1933 through 1937, before stints as a major-league coach, starting in 1938. Big-league stops included the Browns, the Boston Braves, and the Washington Senators. (When Bengough left the Washington coaching staff in 1943 to work at a war plant in Indiana, George Uhle, the pitcher who broke his wrist 17 years earlier, replaced him.)

Bengough and former teammates from the 1927 Yankees sadly returned to Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1939, to honor old pal Lou Gehrig. It was the heart-wrenching day when the beloved “iron man” of baseball made his stirring “Luckiest Man” speech. A teary-eyed Bengough can be seen lined up with teammates in newsreel footage and photos of the event.

After World War II Bengough resumed his coaching career, joining the Philadelphia Phillies staff in 1946. He expressed his attitude toward coaching this way: “A coach must know all things without consciously thinking about them. They must hop into his mind like two-and-two-is-four. A successful coach knows as much or more about the men in his league than the managers.” Bengough, The Sporting News said, “was a positive influence on the coaching lines, helping the Phillies win a game … because he knew there was a soggy spot in left – halfway between third base and the outfield – that slowed up a groundball.”16

Reminiscing about his old pal Babe Ruth after the Babe died in August 1948, Bengough said, “The big guy had a heart of gold. When the Yanks played at the Polo Grounds, they used to give a pair of shoes to everyone who hit a homer. Well, we’d take the shoes and deliver them to orphanages. I also recall many visits we made together to hospitals to see crippled and ailing kids. We would get to a town and pretty soon the phone would ring in my room and the Babe would say, ‘Let’s go Barney, I have a call or two to make,’ so off we’d go with an autographed ball, a glove, a bat or some gift for a hospitalized kid.”17

Bengough was instrumental in helping Phillies general manager (and former teammate) Herb Pennock build the 1950 pennant-winning club. He used his experience and coaching skills to help guide young pitchers like Robin Roberts. He remained on the Phillies’ coaching lines until 1958, then joined the front-office staff as a popular after-dinner speaker. Of his success on the banquet circuit, Benny remarked, “Mainly, it’s lies. I tell them all kinds of lies about baseball, not lies about factual things, but about make-believe situations.”18

Bengough particularly enjoyed traveling to the hinterlands of Pennsylvania on behalf of the Phillies, so he could partake of Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, which no doubt added to his girth; his weight had ballooned to over 200 pounds. Later Bengough hosted a Phillies postgame television show. His signature sign-off was: “And as I always say, to be a big leaguer, think big league.”

As a member of the Phillies public-relations staff, Bengough addressed a B’nai B’rith chapter in suburban Philadelphia on Sunday morning, December 22, 1968. After the presentation, he walked across the street and attended Mass at Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church. After Mass, Benny collapsed on the church steps and died of a heart attack. He was 70 years old.

This biography appears in “The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant: The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2018), edited by C. Paul Rogers III and Bill Nowlin.

Notes

After hitting .314 to help the Charleston Senators win the Middle Atlantic League title in 1942, Johnny Blatnik was invited to spring training by the Cleveland Indians the next year. But Uncle Sam had different ideas, instructing the 21-year-old to head to basic training with the United States Army. Blatnik, who grew up in the tiny village of Bridgeport, Ohio, was sent to Fort Hayes in Columbus, Ohio, and he spent the next three years not in Cleveland blue but in Army green.

John Louis Blatnik was born on March 10, 1921, to Slovenian immigrants in a small community known then as Goosetown, a close-knit neighborhood just outside of Bridgeport, Ohio. (Bridgeport is just across the Ohio River from Wheeling, West Virginia.) His father, Frank, a coal miner, was a stern man who practiced both atheism and socialism. But his mother, Rose, saw to it that everyone in her family was baptized and practiced their faith. Johnny shared a room with his brothers, Frank Jr. and Al. Their small house was heated by a single coal stove, which also served as the family cooking stove. Fresh water had to be hauled in from the outside, which also was where the family bathroom was located.

Blatnik excelled on his teams at Bridgeport High School, the same school that later produced Phil and Joe Niekro, basketball star John Havlicek, football star Bill Jobko, and Olympic wrestling champion Bobby Douglas. Blatnik was a standout on the Bulldogs’ basketball team, and he led the team to the state tournament. During his high-school years he met Gladys Weilba, a blonde girl who became the love of his life for the next 60-plus years.

During his high-school summers, Blatnik starred for the Bridgeport National Bank junior baseball team. His talent caught the eye of Cleveland Indians scouts, who brought him to work out under the eyes of the front-office staff when the Indians were home. After he graduated from high school in 1939, Blatnik signed an Indians contract. He was sent to Greensburg of the Class D Pennsylvania State Association, where he played first base and batted .302 in 36 games.

He went a little farther from home for the 1940 season, playing third base for the Fargo-Moorhead Twins in the Class D Northern League. It was in the cold plains that Blatnik became a hot commodity, hitting .289 with 10 homers and 67 RBIs, earning recognition as the league’s top third baseman, and getting a promotion to Charleston, West Virginia, in the Class C Middle Atlantic League. His numbers dwindled a bit in 1941, to .247-4-38. He was converted to the outfield because, as he joked, the managers grew weary of seeing him field everything with his chest. The move from the hot corner to greener pastures in 1942 proved beneficial as Blatnik rebounded to hit .314. But as he was on the verge of establishing himself as a part of the Indians’ future, America was on the verge of entering World War II.

Blatnik received his induction notice in September 1942, and after basic training at Fort Hayes Army Air Base, he joined a military baseball team while others in his company were en route to the South Pacific. Though statistics were not officially kept, Blatnik recalled hitting .406 for this team. Pressures from military leaders resulted in a transfer to Warner Robins Army Air Base in Georgia, where he was part of a motorcycle company assigned to guard troops and equipment as they left town. “They gave me a gun, a badge, and a nightstick,” Blatnik said. “I never used the gun, but you wouldn’t like how I used that nightstick. We had to set up our camp in the middle of a swamp, nothing but snakes and stuff. You would come in, and there would be a big snake lying right in the middle of your bed.”1

In between guarding troops and killing snakes, Blatnik found time to star on the unit’s baseball club. He said he hit .356. He was transferred to Maxwell Field in Miami, Florida, then to flight officers school in Amarillo, Texas, and finally to Furman University to learn to fly. He also found time to play baseball, basketball, and football. Despite his lack of gridiron experience – his family never let him go out for high-school football – he played well enough to be offered eight college scholarships.

During a furlough in 1944, Blatnik returned home to marry Gladys. The two exchanged vows on November 11, 1944. “We got married on Armistice Day,” he laughed. “We started our own war.”2 The couple remained together for the next 60 years, raising two children. Their son, Jay, went on to become a chiropractor in the Columbus, Ohio, area, while daughter Johnette taught special education in the St. Clairsville, Ohio, school district for years.

Before being discharged from military service in 1945, Blatnik got his first taste of big-league pitching. He faced Indians ace Bob Feller, who was playing for a Navy team. “He struck me out, and I never even saw one,” Blatnik remembered.3

Despite missing three of what could have been prime years, Blatnik never wondered what might have been. He said others gave up far more than just baseball in service to their country. “A lot of guys left their families, and their babies were born while they were overseas,” Gladys said. “They never complained, not one person did. You respected being a citizen of this country.”4

With the war over and thousands of ballplayers returning home, Blatnik had to re-establish himself in the minor leagues. The Indians assigned him in 1946 to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the Class B Interstate League. The now 25-year-old improved considerably from where he had left off four years earlier, earning all-star recognition while leading the league with 189 hits and finishing among the leaders with a .336 batting average, 19 homers, and 108 runs batted in. The Senators finished second in the regular season and defeated both Allentown and Wilmington four games to one to win the postseason title. Despite the banner season, Blatnik was left unprotected by Cleveland during the winter.

Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman liked what he had seen in Blatnik and coaxed the Phillies into taking a chance on the outfielder. Blatnik joined the Wilkes-Barre Barons in the Class A Eastern League for 1947, and he helped lead the Barons into the postseason playoffs against Utica, hitting .334 with 10 home runs and 91 RBIs. He battled all summer for the batting crown with Joe Tipton and Richie Ashburn, both of Utica. Tipton, a catcher, hit .375 to win the title, Ashburn finishing second, and Blatnik third. Utica also defeated Wilkes-Barre in the opening round of the playoffs before going on to win the Eastern League championship.

Blatnik finally made the big leagues in 1948, joining the Phillies as a reserve outfielder. Future Hall of Famer Ashburn patrolled center field, flanked by Del Ennis in right and Harry “The Hat” Walker in left. Blatnik soon took over in left after Walker came down with the flu early in the season. The 27-year-old rookie seized the opportunity and took the starting job. Blatnik stroked his major-league first hit off Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Rex Barney. He went 6-for-9 in a May 9 doubleheader in Cincinnati and followed that up with a 4-for-4 performance on May 12 in Pittsburgh in front of several Ohio Valley well-wishers to see his early-season batting average soar to .444 and to the top of the National League. Blatnik credited his hitting success to a spring-training talk he had with Ted Williams after an exhibition game. Williams corrected a flaw in Blatnik’s stance, and the pupil followed the teacher’s advice.

The Phillies struggled out of the gate that season, ultimately finishing sixth, 25½ games behind the pennant-winning Boston Braves. Blatnik also slumped toward the end of the season after suffering sunstroke one afternoon at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. He still finished with a respectable .260 batting average with six homers and 45 RBIs. His 27 doubles ranked ninth in the National League, while his eight triples were eighth. Somewhere along the way, he picked up the nickname “Chief,” though Blatnik said he never knew why.

In 1949 Blatnik was relegated to the bench behind Bill “Swish” Nicholson, a veteran slugger who had joined the Phillies after 10 seasons with the Chicago Cubs. After limited action, Blatnik was sent to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League, where he batted .294 with 15 homers and 80 runs batted in to warrant a late promotion back to Philadelphia. Overall, Blatnik hit just 1-for-8 in six games with the Phillies, but did appear on his first (and only) baseball card that year with the Bowman company. Unfortunately, his name was incorrectly spelled “B-L-A-T-N-I-C-K” on the card front.

Blatnik saw few opportunities in the Phillies’ magical Whiz Kids year of 1950. Appearing in only four games in the first month of the season, he was hitting .250 on April 27 when he was dealt to the St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher Ken Johnson. After hitting just .150 in seven games with St. Louis, on May 14 Blatnik played in his final big-league game before being sent to Houston of the Texas League. There, he turned in a .252 batting average with 9 home runs and 42 RBIs.

Blatnik spent the next six seasons in the International League for various teams. In 1951, with Rochester, he put up solid numbers (.271-11-60) to help the Red Wings make the postseason playoffs, where they fell to Syracuse. Blatnik split the 1952 season between Rochester and Syracuse, combining to hit .274-17-66. To add injury to the insult of being traded, his former team swept Syracuse in four games in the opening round of the playoffs.

Syracuse struggled in 1953, dropping all the way to seventh place (and 38½ games back) in the eight-team circuit. Blatnik turned in a solid .266-18-76 season. Syracuse rose to fourth place in 1954, helped by Blatnik’s. 247 batting average, 14 homers, and 71 RBIs. The season ended on a sweet note as the Chiefs took the postseason title, beating Toronto and Montreal four games to three in the playoffs. Blatnik saw his opportunities dwindle during the next two seasons, hitting .308-4-14 in 37 games in 1955 with Syracuse and .306-0-2 in 22 games with Buffalo.

Though he retired from professional baseball after the 1956 season at the age of 35, Blatnik was not through with the game. He and his family settled into a home in the small community of Lansing, Ohio, not far from Bridgeport, and he took a job as the deputy director of workers compensation for the state of Ohio. He began officiating high-school, college and semipro football, high-school basketball, and high-school and college baseball. He remembered shutting up an irate fan complaining about his calling of balls and strikes one hot afternoon by telling the fan that if he could still see, he would still be playing pro ball.

Blatnik and John Laslo, the mayor of neighboring Martins Ferry, Ohio, joined together to start Colt and PONY League baseball in the Ohio Valley. Blatnik served as director of several tournaments up and down the East Coast during his tenure, never taking a dime in expense money, preferring instead that it be spent on the kids. During this same time, his brother Al became somewhat of a coaching legend at Bridgeport High School and later across the Ohio River at West Liberty (West Virginia) State College. Johnny’s nephew and Al’s son, Floyd Shuler, became an all-West Virginia Conference shortstop at West Liberty. Shuler later went on to become one of the top collegiate basketball referees on the East Coast.

The Blatniks eventually settled into a laid-back life along their rural road, watching the occasional ballgame, going fishing or taking in a minor-league hockey game in Wheeling. That all changed on November 22, 1997. Gladys wondered why her husband had not come down to watch his beloved Ohio State Buckeyes in their annual football battle with archrival Michigan. She went up to the bedroom to check and discovered that he had suffered a stroke. While hospitalized and trying to battle back to health, he was plagued by pneumonia, a blood clot, and a bad reaction to antibiotics. Still, nine months later, he showed up sure as clockwork for the annual Holloway, Ohio, Old Timers baseball festival, where he threw out the ceremonial first pitch.

Ohio Baseball Hall of Fame founder Tom Eakin was on hand for the festivities that Labor Day weekend in 1998. Eakin took the microphone and informed the small audience in the old railroad town that Blatnik had been selected as the Man of the Year for the organization. The Ohio Baseball Hall of Fame brought out its best in December at a dinner in St. Clairsville. Blatnik was honored along with the family of John Wesley “Pebbly Jack” Glasscock, a 19th-century star shortstop from Wheeling who was being inducted into the Ohio Hall. “He’s done so much for baseball as a player and as a person outside of the game,” Eakin said of Blatnik. “You always need friends to help out and promote the game. He was always there to help the game.”5

Later in December, the Belmont County Commission voted 2-1 to rename the road on which Johnny and Gladys had resided for decades as Johnny Blatnik Road. Commissioner Mike Bianconi was the lone vote against the move on the county commission, and controversy soon followed. Bruce Seabright, II, who also lived on the Blaine-Chermont Road, questioned the commissioners’ handling of the procedure and also expressed concern for emergency responders who for years had traveled the road under its original name. Blatnik’s daughter, Johnette Pollock, called for the nearly two-year debate to stop during a heated commission meeting in St. Clairsville on July 19, 2000, saying, “We did not ask for the road to be changed. We don’t want residents to have to change their mailing addresses, and we are surely not against the safety factor.”6 In June Seabright had sent a letter to the commissioners that stated that Blatnik was “at best, only a mediocre Major Leaguer.”7 In attendance at the July meeting was state Representative Charles Wilson, himself a Bridgeport native who had grown up listening to his father pass along stories of Blatnik’s athletic accomplishments.

“In my eyes, he was always a hero, someone who should be looked up to,” Wilson told the crowd jammed into the commission chambers. “When I heard the commissioners were having this meeting today, I knew whatever I had to do in Columbus was not as important as being here today.”8 When the commissioners voted to keep the name as Blaine-Chermont Road and instead erect a sign under the one put up by the Ohio Department of Transportation in honor of Blatnik, a chorus of cheers bounced off the walls, the likes of which Blatnik had not heard in a half-century.

Blatnik suffered another series of strokes, and his health continued to decline in the coming months. He died on January 21, 2004, at his home along the road that bears his name. He was 82 years old. He was buried in Holly Memorial Gardens in Pleasant Grove, Ohio.

This biography appears in “The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant: The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2018), edited by C. Paul Rogers III and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

Johnson, Lloyd, and Miles Wolff, The Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, 2nd edition (Durham, North Carolina: BaseballAmerica).

The Baseball Encyclopedia, 9th edition.

Bedway, Nick, untitled column, Wheeling News-Register, September 6, 1998.

Huff, Doug, untitled sports column, The Intelligencer, Wheeling, West Virginia, January 24, 2004.

Wickline, John, “Ohio Baseball Hall of Famer Blatnik Recovering From Stroke,” Wheeling News-Register, September 8, 1998.

_____, “Blatnik Selected as Man of the Year,” Wheeling News-Register, November 29, 1998.

_____, “Blatnik to be Honored With Sign, Not Road,” The Intelligencer, Wheeling, West Virgnia, July 20, 2000.

_____, “Bridgeport High Honoring John Blatnik During Alumni Weekend,” The Intelligencer, Wheeling, WestVirgnia, June 28, 2001.

_____, “Baseball Player Turns Veteran,” Wheeling News-Register, September 9, 2001.

Obituary, The Intelligencer, Wheeling, West Virginia, January 22, 2004.

Several conversations between the author and Johnny and Gladys Blatnik between 1998 and 2004.

Blatnik, Al, eulogy delivered at the funeral, January 24, 2004.

minorleaguebaseball.com.

retrosheet.org.

Notes

James Henry Bloodworth was born on July 26, 1917, in Tallahassee, Florida, but spent his life 80 miles southwest in the coastal city of Apalachicola. The third of four children (and the second son), he was descended from a long line of Bloodworths dating to the seventeenth century in one of America’s earliest settlements — the extinct locality of Nansemond, now a part of Suffolk County, Virginia. On his mother’s side Jimmy was the great-grandson of Italian immigrants who had arrived in the late nineteenth century. This rich heritage was accompanied by a strong “athletic gene” that extended to Jimmy, his brothers, sons, and nephew — the latter, Ronald Bloodworth, joined Jimmy among baseball’s professional ranks in the 1950s. Interest in Jimmy’s older brother Benjamin (known as “Francis”) initiated Bloodworth’s entry into Organized Baseball.

In 1934 a Washington Senators scout — believed to be former lefty hurler Joe Engel – spied Francis among the town teams in Florida’s panhandle and extended a contract. The father of one with another on the way, Francis felt the offer was insufficient to sustain his growing family and declined, but pointed the scout to his younger brother. “Francis was a better player than me and everyone in Apalachicola knew that,” Jimmy quipped years later. “And he was lucky. He got to stay home and play baseball but I had to go all the way to Washington, D.C., to find someone to let me play.”2 In 1935, shortly before his graduation from Chapman High School, Jimmy signed with the Senators. He traveled the short distance to Panama City, Florida, to pursue his dreams.

The Panama City Pilots represented the lowest level (Class D) of Organized Baseball. At 17, Bloodworth was one of the youngest players in the Georgia-Florida League as he manned the outfield for 55 games. He was the Pilots’ only nonpitcher to advance to the major leagues, but more immediately, his .305 pace in 200 at-bats prompted a late-season promotion to Class-A Chattanooga, where went 3-for-11 with a home run. 

Bloodworth’s continued progress over the next two years eventually earned a call to the majors. On September 14, 1937, he played his first big-league game, in Washington’s Griffith Stadium against the Detroit Tigers. He went hitless in his first two games, then connected for a single against the St. Louis Browns on September 18. After “showing signs of getting over stage-fright,”3 Bloodworth produced at a .294 pace with eight RBIs in his next 34 at-bats and positioned himself for a berth on the 1938 Senators team. Bloodworth’s competition would have been steep. The incumbent second baseman, Buddy Myer, was concluding his second All Star campaign. But Bloodworth did not get the opportunity to compete for any position at all due to the high-level machinations of the Washington franchise.

The owner of the Senators, Clark Griffith, owned the minor-league affiliate Chattanooga Lookouts as well. In 1937 he had appointed his 25-year-old nephew, Calvin Griffith, as manager of the moribund club. As losses mounted and attendance waned, Clark Griffith sought to rid himself of the Tennessee-based franchise. A buyer was found within the organization itself — farm director Joe Engel — but the sale was conditioned on a commitment extracted by Engel to let him select a number of players from within the franchise to improve Chattanooga’s on-field product. In November the Senators “carried out their part of the bargain”4 by assigning six players to the Lookouts. One was a player with whom Engel had a close familiarity: Jimmy Bloodworth.

Besides the Lookouts, the Florida native spent a small portion of the 1938 season with the Class-B Charlotte Hornets. The organization’s apparent goal was to convert Bloodworth into more of a power hitter. He posted a combined .410 slugging percentage after three years in organized ball but exploded for a .723 mark in 37 games for the Hornets. As Bloodworth captured sufficient playing time throughout the remainder of his career, the lessons learned in Charlotte invariably placed him among the leaders in home runs for his teams.

In 1939 two developments ensured Bloodworth’s re-emergence on the major-league scene. Since their 1933 American League championship, the Senators had collapsed to the second division in four of five seasons. The 22-year-old fit in nicely with the vigorous youth movement that ensued. Meanwhile Buddy Myer, the 35-year-old second-base incumbent, was suffering from a recurrence of a stomach ailment that plagued him three years earlier and regularly forced him to the bench. Bloodworth was recalled from the Eastern League to fill the void.

Bloodworth actually broke camp in Florida with the Senators in the spring of 1939 but saw only one April at-bat before his reassignment. A .360 batting average in 35 games with the Springfield (Massachusetts) Nationals convinced management it should take a second look at the right-handed hitter. On June 7 Bloodworth began rotating with Myer at second base and his glove work drew rave reviews from columnist Denman Thompson in The Sporting News: “[A]field he has been making daily plays which people have been watching, but still won’t believe. … He is a cracker double-play man.”5 Bloodworth relegated Myer to a pinch-hitting role after setting a .429 pace over 13 games beginning July 30, followed by a 14-game hitting streak starting August 25. He hovered around .300 in August and concluded the campaign with a .289-4-40 line in 318 at-bats. The second-base job would be his to lose.

But lose it Bloodworth nearly did as he suffered through a difficult 1940 spring camp. Though he had plenty of company struggling in Florida, he drew considerable criticism from the same writers who had fawned over him the year before. The 1940 Senators suffered a 90-loss season — the most since 1911 — and although Bloodworth placed among the team leaders in homers (11) and RBIs (70), he was constantly cited for a low batting average (.245; league average: .271). Pitchers had discovered his weakness on breaking pitches. “I don’t know what to think of Bloodworth,” Clark Griffith said. “He’s got plenty of power and he’s hit a lot of home runs, but he still goes for that outside curve ball and isn’t consistent. He isn’t fast in the field and doesn’t cover too much ground, but where is there a fellow with better hands than Bloodworth?”6

Bloodworth’s 1941 line of .245-7-66 for the sixth-place Senators mirrored his preceding campaign. Offseason speculation arose that he would be moved to third base in 1942 to make room for another budding second-base prospect. The shift never took place. In a four-player swap on December 12, 1941, the Tigers acquired Bloodworth to replace retiring second baseman Gehringer. Bloodworth was not Detroit’s first choice — the Tigers had approached Boston about future Hall of Famer Bobby Doerr – but they were ecstatic over their second choice and his “hustling spirit.”7 In 1942 Bloodworth again placed among the team leaders in many offensive categories, including his major-league single-season high 13 homers. After a slow start in 1943, Bloodworth surged to a .293 average in 75 at-bats beginning May 9 that seemingly signaled more. But injuries limited him to 25 June at-bats and he finished the campaign with a .241-6-52 line. Thirty-one months would pass before he saw his next major-league pitch.

The 26-year-old Bloodworth was inducted into the US Army on November 4, 1943, and assigned to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, throughout the remainder of World War II, where his skills as a marksman qualified him as an instructor. He played shortstop for the base team and drew national attention after striking a home run against the St. Louis Cardinals in an August 1944 exhibition. Bloodworth received his honorable discharge in the spring of 1946 and, with the season under way, reported to Detroit’s Briggs Stadium for a week of workouts before his mid-May reunion with the Tigers. Once activated, he was relegated to two pinch-hit appearances through the remainder of the month. 

When Bloodworth entered the Army, the Tigers secured veteran infielder Eddie Mayo to fill the void. Mayo’s presence promptly thrust Detroit into pennant contention, earning him consideration for the American League Most Valuable Player in 1944 and 1945. Mayo was putting together another fine season when injury sidelined him on June 3, 1946.

Bloodworth stepped in immediately. Beginning on June 8, he set a .329 pace through the remainder of the month that helped keep the Tigers in contention, making him a “warmly welcomed”8addition. But injury found Bloodworth as well. On July 28 he suffered a cracked elbow from a pitched ball that limited him to 17 August at-bats. For the season he hit .245 in 249 at-bats. Though Bloodworth finished strong, the Tigers announced in November that Mayo would retain his starting role in 1947 upon his healthy return. In December Bloodworth was sold to the Pittsburgh Pirates for $10,000.9

The 1946 Pirates initiated a vast overhaul of their roster after a 91-loss season. Two offseason acquisitions, Eddie Basinski and player-manager Billy Herman, represented Bloodworth’s immediate competition for the second-base position. Through the first 13 games of the 1947 campaign, Jimmy had two plate appearances. But the Pirates were not through with their overhaul. On May 3 they traded outfielder Al Gionfriddo to the Brooklyn Dodgers for five players and were forced to make roster moves. The Pirates initially optioned Roy Jarvis and Gene Mauch but both were claimed on waivers. They turned to Bloodworth, who cleared waivers and was assigned to the Triple-A Indianapolis Indians. Bloodworth balked at the demotion but Herman promised him a quick return. 

Herman proved true to his promise. In 1947 the platoon of Herman and Basinski combined for a .202-4-23 line. The team turned to Bloodworth for improvement. Inserted into the starting lineup on July 4, Bloodworth collected 6 hits in 16 at-bats — including his first National League homer — as he raised his batting average over .300. Eleven days later he exploded for a .469 clip (15-for-32) in eight games. In an August surge Bloodworth hit safely in 18 of 21 games including a 10-game hitting streak. On August 21 he hit an eighth-inning single that ruined a no-hit bid by New York Giants righty Clint Hartung. This surge was countered by a dreadful September (.175) as Bloodworth finished the year with a .250-7-48 line.

But the Pirates were still not through overhauling the roster. Near the end of another campaign of more than 90 losses, Herman was fired before the last game of the 1947 season. Bloodworth soon followed when he was included in a three-player swap with the Dodgers. In 1948, with little chance of unseating Brooklyn’s second baseman, reigning Rookie of the Year Jackie Robinson, Bloodworth was assigned to the Triple-A Montreal Royals. 

The Royals 1948 roster, with future Hall of Famer Duke Snider and right-handed pitcher Don Newcombe, was the envy of many major-league teams (Chuck Connors, later famous on TV as the star of The Rifleman series, was Bloodworth’s roommate). The team raced to the International League crown and prevailed in the Junior World Series against the St. Paul Saints in part due their second baseman, Jimmy Bloodworth. Overlooking the fine campaign posted by Jackie Robinson in 1946, Bloodworth was “rated by at least one veteran Montreal scribe as the best second sacker the Royals have had in at least 20 years.”10 He tied a team record with three consecutive homers in a game and his .294-24-99 line earned an All Star selection, and later MVP honors,11 by the International League Baseball Writers’ Association. When reports emerged that Clay Hopper, Montreal’s manager, hoped to move to the majors, Bloodworth declared his desire to take the managerial reins for the 1949 Royals. He received a boost from Paul Richards, manager of the Buffalo Bisons, who opined, “Bloodworth means as much to Montreal as Burgess Whitehead did in Jersey City’s pennant drive last year. Both are real leaders on the field.”12

But Bloodworth’s managerial pursuits would be delayed. His sterling campaign, combined with his overriding desire to return to the majors, attracted many scouts. Before the 1948 Junior World Series got under way the Cincinnati Reds acquired Bloodworth for a player to be named later and a “fat bundle of cash.”13 Like many teams Bloodworth was connected with, the Reds were engaged in a youth movement and Bloodworth — whose graying hair caused him to appear older than his 31 years — became the “old man” on the 1949 squad. His veteran presence (he played every infield position save shortstop) helped stabilize the youthful corps as they suffered through a 92-loss campaign. In 134 games he batted a solid .261 with 9 home runs. In 484 plate appearances, he struck out only 36 times.

In the spring of 1950 Bloodworth prevailed in the four-player competition for the Reds’ second-base position. But after just four games, Reds management reversed course and inserted Bobby Adams into the role. Bloodworth did not play another game for Cincinnati. On May 10 Cincinnati acquired infielder Connie Ryan from the Boston Braves and sold Bloodworth to Philadelphia. Though Bloodworth got little playing time with the Phillies (only 96 at-bats because the regular infielders missed just 15 games combined), he drove in the winning run twice: an eighth-inning pinch-hit three-run double on June 30 against the Dodgers and a ninth-inning sacrifice fly RBI on August 30 against the St. Louis Cardinals

The 1950 National League pennant came down to the last day, when Dick Sisler’s homer against the Dodgers in the 10th inning sent the Phillies to the World Series against the New York Yankees. Bloodworth’s Series experience proved to be of the dubious sort.

On October 6 Philadelphia entered Game Three down two games to none and trying desperately to crawl back into the Series. They led 2-1 in the eighth, but shortstop Granny Hamner and Bloodworth “played soccer with a couple of grounders” in the eighth and ninth.14 An error by Hamner allowed the tying run to score in the eighth. Bloodworth entered the game in the bottom of the ninth as a defensive replacement at second base. Russ Meyer got two outs, then the Yankees got two straight infield hits on balls hit to Bloodworth.

Though he wasn’t charged with an error, the game summary describes a momentary bobble by Bloodworth that allowed the first hit (the official scorer felt the batter would still have beaten out the play). A clean play by Bloodworth might have accounted for the third out and allowed the Phillies a possible extra-inning comeback. Instead, the Yankees’ Jerry Coleman struck a walk-off single and the Phillies went down to defeat. The Yankees completed the Series sweep the following day.

The Phillies found consolation in the thought that with their young talent, the team would witness a rapid return to postseason play. This was not to be. In 1951 Philadelphia plummeted to a second-division finish, for a host of reasons. One was the second base situation; seven players manned the position during the season but collectively accounted for a meager .213-10-61 line. Bloodworth saw little of this time (even less — six games — at first base) as he got just 42 at-bats. As the season ground to its final weeks Bloodworth requested and was granted his release. 

Bloodworth enjoyed life and made friends easily. Two famous friends had a major influence on the direction his career took next. That offseason, Bloodworth’s former teammate in Detroit and Pittsburgh, Hank Greenberg, was Cleveland’s general manager. He invited Bloodworth to join the Indians coaching staff. Greenberg knew of Bloodworth’s on-field teaching skills, decribed this way by Bloodworth’s 1948 teammate Bobby Morgan: “Jimmy taught me more about fielding my position and about the double play than anyone I ever knew.”15 But Bloodworth declined Greenberg’s offer. He still retained notions of returning to the majors as either a player or manager. This latter course was encouraged by another friend, Branch Rickey, and Bloodworth was willing to pursue becoming a manager by working his way up through the minors. He accepted Greenberg’s next offer, to be the player-manager of Cleveland’s Cedar Rapids farm club in the Class-B Three-I League. When the 1952 season began, Bloodworth surprised few when he began inserting himself on the mound for the Indians.

Bloodworth had previously sought to recast himself as a pitcher in 1947 during his brief stay in Indianapolis. Billy Sullivan, the team’s catcher, claimed Bloodworth possessed the best knuckleball he’d seen. But his request to pitch fell on deaf ears with a promise to re-evaluate the decision in 1948. The project was shelved when Bloodworth was recalled by Pittsburgh. Sullivan’s assessment proved accurate five years later when manager Bloodworth, in control of his own destiny, obtained a measure of success from the mound. Shifted to the Spartanburg (South Carolina) Peaches in 1953 after the Iowa affiliate switched allegiance to the Chicago Cubs, Bloodworth placed among his team leaders in ERA for two consecutive seasons while posting some remarkable performances. On June 21, 1953, he struck out 10 Rock Hill Chiefs in a relief outing to secure a 9-8 win. Returning two weeks later to frustrate the same Chiefs, he set them down in order in the ninth after hitting a pinch-hit homer to put his team in the lead. Bloodworth played every position save catcher while at various times placing among the Tri-State League leaders in hitting. Bloodworth’s piloting success earned managerial honors in the league’s 1953 North-South All Star game amidst his rumored advancement to Class A in Reading, Pennsylvania. His tutelage in the Cleveland organization helped the careers of Rocky Colavito, Gordy Coleman, and Bud Daley.

The Peaches stumbled to a 66-72 record in 1954 and suffered further indignity in a series of events in which Bloodworth played a bit part. On August 1 the Spartanburg team owners announced their withdrawal from the Tri-State League after a game in Knoxville, Tennessee, in which Aldo Salvent, a dark-skinned Cuban, played third base for the Smokies. Peaches president R.E. Littlejohn canceled the remaining three games of the series and ordered Bloodworth and the team to return to Spartanburg. Littlejohn had promised the City Parks Board he “would not allow his team to play a Negro.”16 The league directors calmed Littlejohn by arranging Salvent’s transfer to another league. It is unclear whether this incident played a part, but four months later Bloodworth resigned from the Peaches. He accepted a job with his old employer, the Washington Senators, to manage the team he played for in 1938, the Charlotte Hornets (since elevated to Class A).

Bloodworth had even less success in the South Atlantic League as the team struggled through a miserable 54-86 season. In late July losses mounted at such a rate that the Hornets general manager publicly reprimanded the players while declaring his full support for his beleaguered skipper. The support mattered little when Bloodworth was ousted before the start of the 1955 season. As a result, after 19 years, Bloodworth’s career in Organized Baseball was at an end.

In Montreal during Bloodworth’s 1948 MVP campaign, the strong family man pined for home as his wife was delivering the second of their three sons. Bloodworth had married the former Maurice Norred in Apalachicola, Florida, on February 14, 1941. She was a fellow Chapman High alum five years his junior; he’d begun dating the valedictorian in her senior year. All of “five-foot tall with a big personality,” she maintained such a hawkish control of their personal finances that “she could squeeze the head off a nickel.” The marriage lasted 58 years until she died of cancer in 1999.

During his playing career Bloodworth returned to Apalachicola every offseason and found employment at a paper mill in nearby Port St. Joe. After an unsuccessful mid-1950s run for Franklin County sheriff, the accomplished carpenter rose to shop foreman at the mill. He built a house in Apalachicola that, during a 1963 Whiz Kids reunion, he dubbed “the home Sisler built”17 (a reference to his $4,200 World Series share made possible by Sisler’s 1950 pennant-clinching homer). His spare time was spent hunting and fishing with his sons, who themselves went on to success on the collegiate baseball diamonds and football fields. When he hauled in a catch with homemade fishing nets, or game from his frequent hunting expeditions, that fish or game frequently made it to the dinner tables of neighbors.

Earlier Bloodworth had inspired a song made popular in one of the many Bob Hope-Bing Crosby “Road to” movies. Crosby was part-owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1946 when he casually inquired of Bloodworth’s hometown. The famous singer was taken by the response of “Apalachicola, F-L-A.” A song by that name, sung by Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, became a part of “Road to Rio.”

Jimmy Bloodworth was also known for his wry humor. In 1950 he had an opportunity to poke fun at the salaries of some of baseball’s highest-paid players in a moment captured by The Sporting News:

“[Players] joke about the big dough of the big-shot stars. At least Jimmy Bloodworth of the Reds reacted with a sense of humor when he noted [Joe] DiMaggio and [Stan] Musialplaying gin rummy the other day at St. Pete. As Bloodworth walked away from their card game, a baseball writer asked him, ‘How much are those two playing for?’ Said Bloodworth, ‘Those two are probably playing for Cadillacs.’”18

This same humor did not depart in his later years when his health began to fail: “I could never fall victim to Gehrig’s disease. He was a much better player.” 

In 1975 the 58-year-old suffered a heart attack. Nearly 30 years later, the last three of which found him bound to a wheelchair, Bloodworth succumbed to heart disease on August 17, 2002. He was survived by three sons and three of four grandchildren. He was buried in the Magnolia Cemetery in Apalachicola.

Bloodworth’s major-league career concluded after 1,002 games with a lifetime .248 average. His 11-year endeavor was interrupted by war and when he returned, his position was occupied. Shortly thereafter, he was saddled with the label of utility-player. War has interrupted or terminated many a career, so Jimmy Bloodworth does not stand alone. But one is left to speculate how his career might have turned out had the 25-year-old been able to develop uninterrupted at the major-league level.

This biography appears in “The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant: The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2018), edited by C. Paul Rogers III and Bill Nowlin.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Darryl, Leon, Richard, and Ronald Bloodworth for the recollections of their father/uncle. Collectively they are the sources for all unattributed quotes. The Bloodworths were interviewed at different days from September 19 through September 23, 2014. 

Sources

Baseball-reference.com

ancestry.com

sabr.org/bioproj/person/ce6e3ebb

apalachicolarealtyinc.com/bing_crosby.aspx

Notes

1 “Bloodworth Wins TV Set as MVP in City Series,” The Sporting News, July 5, 1950, 10.

2 Interview with Leon Bloodworth, September 2014.

3 “Youthful Senators Pile Up Heavy Vote,” The Sporting News, September 23, 1937, 2.

4 “Walter Millies Named Chattanooga Manager,” The Sporting News, November 11, 1937, 5.

5 “Nats ‘$100 Infield’ Looks Like Million,” The Sporting News, August 17, 1939, 5.

6 “Nats’ Chief ‘Poofs’ Poffenberger Deal,” The Sporting News, September 26, 1940, 14.

7 “Baker Long On Hill, Longs For Hitting,” The Sporting News, July 9, 1942, 2.

8 “Redhot Reserves Help to Keep Tigers in Stride,” The Sporting News, June 26, 1946, 13.

9 A second source cites $7,500.

10 “International League: Montreal,” The Sporting News, June 30, 1948, 26.

11 Bloodworth was the first Montreal player to secure International League MVP honors since its inception in 1932.

12 “International League: Twin Wins Helping Royals Pull Away,” The Sporting News, July 14, 1948, 21.

13 “McCahan in Dodger Bid,” The Sporting News, March 29, 1950, 18.

14 “Clubhouse Confidential,” The Sporting News, July 30, 1958, 16.

15 “Morgan Nails Down Dodger Loose Spot at 3rd,” The Sporting News, April 5, 1950, 9.

16 “Peaches Rejoin Tri-State After Smokies Ship Negro,” The Sporting News, August 11, 1954, 37.

17 “Sisler’s Flag Homer Built Bloodworth’s Florida Home,” The Sporting News, June 22, 1963, 13.

18 “’Cadillacs’ at Stake When Stan and Jolter Tangle at Gin Rummy,” The Sporting News, April 12, 1950, 6.

From Babe Ruth in 1920, through Reggie Jackson in 1977, and down to Alex Rodriguez in 2004, when the New York Yankees announce a player transaction it usually involves a big-name player coming to New York, with large amounts of money going elsewhere. But it was quite the reverse on July 27, 1945, when the Yanks sold Hank Borowy, their best pitcher, to the Chicago Cubs for a sum that turned out to be $97,500. True, Borowy does not rank in the Yankee pantheon with Ruth, Jackson, and Rodriguez, but at the time of the sale he was their best pitcher, and by World War II standards, he was a big star.

Any of the seven other American League clubs could have had Hank for the $7,500 waiver price, but all chose not to claim him. Perhaps they thought the Yankees were not really serious about parting with their ace and would have withdrawn his name had another team claimed him. Nevertheless, Borowy’s sale to the National League-leading Cubs outraged many club owners, particularly Washington’s Clark Griffith, who said of the Yankees: “It’s just one of those things they put over on you.”1 The Yanks “have been asking waivers on everybody on their ball club trying to get somebody out of the league,”2 said Griffith, whose Senators were in the thick of the pennant race, trailing the league-leading Detroit Tigers by three games.

“I’m going to fight for a return to the old waiver rule which said in effect that you may put a player up for waiver once, but if you put him up a second time he has to go.” Griffith called the 27-year-old Borowy “a real attraction, a great pitcher, and one of the best ball players in the league.”3

American League president Will Harridge ruled that the deal was in order, while Yankee president and co-owner Larry MacPhail dismissed Griffith’s comments saying, “Mr. Griffith’s squawk is nothing more or less than an alibi. As a matter of fact, Mr. Griffith wouldn’t have given up $100,000 for Borowy with the Queen Mary thrown in.”4

Henry Ludwig Borowy was born on May 12, 1916, in Bloomfield, New Jersey, a town situated across the Hudson River, 11 miles west of New York City. Alexander Borowy arrived in America from his native Ostrow, Poland, in 1907; he worked for decades as a hatter. His wife Alberta was also a Polish immigrant. Hendrick, or Henry, was the middle child in a family of four boys and one girl. Weighing a mere 135 pounds, the scrawny youngster was the star pitcher at Bloomfield High. As a senior in 1935, he established a state record by fanning 27 batters in an extra-inning game while leading his school to the Greater Newark Tournament championship. He was named to the all-New Jersey scholastic team, a team that included two other future big leaguers, George Case and Monte Irvin.

As a reward for being voted the town’s most valuable schoolboy player, Hank was able to spend a portion of the summer traveling with the Newark Bears, the Yankees’ International League farm team, led by their former manager and onetime pitching star, Bob Shawkey. The Yanks could have signed Borowy that summer for as little as $5,000, but Shawkey was unimpressed with him and the club never made the offer.

Hank spent the following year at Montclair Academy, while also pitching for the Verona team in New Jersey’s Essex County League, before enrolling at Fordham University. There, under the Rams’ longtime coach, Jack Coffey, he became one of the nation’s outstanding collegiate pitchers. In his three years at Fordham, Borowy compiled an astonishing 23-1 record, including a no-hitter against Rutgers. The one loss was to Villanova, a game he pitched despite having played nine innings in the outfield the day before. Following his sophomore year, the Chicago Cubs offered Borowy $7,500 to sign with them, but he refused the offer, hoping to get an even bigger signing bonus later.

During his college years, Borowy did not limit his mound efforts to Fordham alone. In the summers he pitched surreptitiously under the name Gene Brown for the Brooklyn Bushwicks, one of the nation’s strongest semipro teams. The Bushwicks played on Sundays and holidays and in those years just before World War II often had more people at their games than the also-ran Dodgers.

After he graduated in 1939 with a degree in business administration, the Yankees came calling. By now, Borowy had grown to six feet and 175 pounds and was much sought after by several big-league clubs, including the Dodgers, Red Sox, Giants, Cubs, Athletics, and Senators. But Borowy, a bright young man with a good sense of both business and history, had his heart set on the Yankees. Although aware that he could probably get to the big leagues faster by signing with another club, Borowy had grown up idolizing the Yanks and they were his first choice. Of greater significance in his decision was the presumption that playing for them would bring him more World Series checks than playing anywhere else.

Yet even though the Yankees were aware of his preference for them, he was still able to negotiate an $8,500 signing bonus for himself. Famed Yankees scout Paul Krichell signed Borowy in the Fordham gymnasium. Hank had rejected Krichell’s first contract offer, which had him going to their Class-A Binghamton team in the Eastern League, insisting that he was good enough to pitch for the International League team at Newark. The Bears were a Class-AA club, the highest designation at that time, and was New York’s top farm club.

Krichell and Borowy had agreed to an $8,000 price, but, so the story goes, before Borowy could sign, Krichell’s pen ran out of ink. While he went to borrow another one, Borowy raised the price $500. Krichell had learned what general manager Ed Barrow would soon discover — that Borowy was not only a fierce competitor on the mound, but also when it came to negotiating money matters. Often described as cold and unemotional with a burning desire to get to the top, Borowy acknowledged that he planned to make as much money out of baseball as he possibly could. The Yanks agreed to send him to Newark that summer, which was close to his home in Bloomfield – so close, in fact, Bloomfield had once been a part of the city of Newark.

In those years, the Bears were so strong that many in baseball considered them a better team than some major-league clubs. There were also those who felt that the International League was too high a level of competition for Borowy, or any collegian, at which to begin his professional career. Hank quickly proved the doubters wrong. Making his professional debut on June 11, 1939, he allowed Toronto only four hits although he was beaten, 2-0. Pitching in only the second half of the season, he won nine games and lost seven.

In 1940, his first full season, he had a 12-10 record, and on October 27 of that year married Katherine Connolly, his high school sweetheart. (The couple would have three children.) Borowy was the best pitcher in camp at spring training in 1941. He allowed only one run in 17 innings and seemed a sure bet to make the Yankees’ staff. But when the club left St. Petersburg to barnstorm their way north, Borowy lost his touch, and manager Joe McCarthy sent him back to Newark.

Borowy had a first-rate year for the Bears, going 17-10 with a 2.91 earned run average, but his teammate Johnny Lindell did even better. Lindell, The Sporting News‘ Minor League Player of the Year, went 23-4 with a 2.05 ERA as the Bears, under manager Johnny Neun, won the International League pennant and the Little World Series for the second consecutive season.

The Yankees expected Lindell to be the only rookie pitcher to make the team in 1942, so they again signed Borowy to a Newark contract. However, he was once more so impressive during training camp that McCarthy decided to bring him to New York. His major-league debut, on April 18, was spectacular: five hitless relief innings in a loss to the Red Sox. Five days later, against the A’s, he made his first big-league start in a game the Yankees won, though he was not involved in the decision. Borowy got his first major-league win on May 5, with 7 1/3 innings of relief work against Chicago, during which he allowed only one hit and fanned seven. On May 28, he earned his first win as a starter while also earning a spot in the Yankees’ regular rotation.

In all, the 26-year-old Borowy had a marvelous rookie season. He won 10 of his first 11 decisions on his way to a 15-4 won-lost record, which gave him the league’s second highest winning percentage (.789). His 2.52 earned run average was the league’s fifth best, and only teammate Ernie Bonham, with six, had more shutouts than Borowy’s four. On September 2, in the second game of a doubleheader against the St. Louis Browns, he came within a questionable scorer’s call of pitching a no-hitter. The play occurred in the first inning when Yankees second baseman Joe Gordon mishandled a ball hit by Harlond Clift. Most in the crowd took for granted that any ball the acrobatic Gordon could get his hands on he should have and so assumed it was an error. The Browns did not get any more hits that afternoon, and because the Yankee Stadium scoreboard in those days did not post hits and errors, the fans believed they were witnessing a no-hitter. They had already run out on the field to congratulate Borowy when the scoreboard posted the totals showing St. Louis with one hit. Borowy also thought he had a no-hitter, and was very disappointed to find out after the game that the scorer had awarded Clift a hit on that first-inning play.

America had been an active participant in World War II since December 1941; still, not many players were in the military as yet, so the 1942 season was quite different from the three wartime seasons that would follow. Led by Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Keller, Bill Dickey, and Joe Gordon, the Yanks ran away with the pennant, finishing nine games ahead of Boston. Facing a young St. Louis Cardinals team, one that had staged a dramatic comeback to win the National League pennant, the New Yorkers were heavy favorites to win another World Series. But after losing the opener to Red Ruffing, the upstart Cardinals swept the next four to give the Yankees their first World Series loss since the Cards had upset the Ruth-Gehrig powerhouse of 1926. Borowy started the fourth game and was driven out during St. Louis’s six-run fourth inning. New York eventually lost the game, 9-6, but because they had rallied to tie the score after Borowy left, the loss went to his replacement, Atley Donald.

Borowy, who always worked out in the offseason to keep himself in condition, spent the winter of 1942-43 working in a New Jersey defense plant as a supervisor, a job that had him walking three to four miles a day. He won 14 and lost nine in 1943, finishing in the top 10 in the American League in shutouts, strikeouts, and games started. New York romped to another pennant, and this time beat the Cardinals in the World Series, avenging their defeat of the year before. Borowy won Game Three, 6-2, as the Yanks rallied from a 2-1 deficit to score five runs in the eighth inning, three on a bases-loaded triple by Billy Johnson. The crowd of 69,990 at Yankee Stadium set a World Series attendance record, breaking the mark set in Game Four the year before, a game also started by Borowy. After allowing the two runs in the fourth inning, Borowy held the Cards to just one hit over the next four. Relief specialist Johnny Murphy pitched the ninth. Hank was pleased that he had avenged his loss to the Cardinals in 1942. “It sure feels good after last year,” he said. “A little revenge.”5 Making it even sweeter for him was the presence at the Stadium of his brother Bill, on leave from the Navy.

Two months after the Series, in December 1943, Borowy joined a group of major leaguers led by Frankie Frisch and including Stan Musial, Dixie Walker, and Danny Litwhiler on a two-month USO tour that entertained servicemen in Alaska and the Aleutians. Borowy won praise for his work in washing dishes, making beds and preparing breakfast for the troops. But more than anything, the homesick men wanted to hear about baseball and the World Series. Borowy obliged, telling the men that despite his win against the Cards in the Series, he just did not have the stuff he had during the season.

Worthwhile as it was, the trip took its toll. While in the Aleutians, he lost his footing during a windstorm and fell on some rocks, injuring his knee. Overall, the tour was physically debilitating, and Borowy reported to spring training weighing 160 pounds, 15 pounds below his normal playing weight. Nevertheless, he was the Yanks’ best pitcher during the spring, and McCarthy chose him to pitch the season opener against the Red Sox at Fenway Park. He responded with a five-hit 3-0 shutout, but the manager was not there to see it. For the first time in his 14 seasons as Yankees manager, McCarthy was not with the club on Opening Day. Coach Art Fletcher managed the team in the opener, and for the season’s first two weeks while McCarthy, suffering with respiratory and gall bladder problems, was recuperating at his home in Buffalo.

After having lost to the Browns on August 10, Borowy had won his final seven decisions of the 1943 season and then followed his triumph in the 1944 opener with three more victories. His 11-game winning streak (plus one in the World Series, which had extended over two seasons, finally came to an end on May 16 in a 10-4 thumping by the White Sox.

McCarthy chose Borowy as the American League’s starting pitcher in that year’s All-Star Game in Pittsburgh. Hank held the National Leaguers scoreless in his three innings, but the Nationals pounded his replacements: Boston’s Tex Hughson and Detroit’s Hal Newhouser, for seven runs and a 7-1 victory. Borowy’s second-inning infield single off Cincinnati’s Bucky Walters drove in Cleveland’s Ken Keltner with the American League’s only run.

The Yankees stayed in the 1944 race all season before fading at the end and finishing third, six games behind St. Louis, who won their first and only American League pennant. Borowy lost his last three decisions, but in those three games the Yanks scored a total of two runs for him. In his final start of the season, he pitched a two-hitter against the Browns but lost 1-0 to Nelson Potter.

His record had been 11-4 at the All-Star break, but he’d slumped in the second half and finished with a 17-12 mark. Yet Borowy was clearly the Yankees’ best pitcher. He led the club in wins (17), winning percentage (.586), games (35), games started (30), complete games (19), innings pitched (252 2/3), strikeouts (107), shutouts (3) and earned run average (2.64). He was nevertheless dissatisfied with his season, believing that he should have won 25 games rather than just 17.

Hank blamed part of the discrepancy in wins on his trip to the Aleutians, which he felt took a lot out of him. The pale, slender, frail-looking Borowy also had to constantly battle other physical problems. He had contracted allergies while touring in Oklahoma in the spring of 1941, and the allergies would strike him every May and June after that. And though he took pills to keep it under control, he felt the allergy attacks weakened him. He was also subject to recurring blisters on his fingers, which plagued him every summer, especially early in his career. Nevertheless, in three full seasons since reaching the majors in 1942, he had won 46 games with only 25 losses.

At spring training in Atlantic City in 1945, Borowy worked on a new pitch, a knuckleball, but eventually abandoned it. He got off to another terrific beginning in ’45, winning his first five starts, all complete games, but could only split his next ten decisions. One of the wins came on (June 10, when he defeated Dave Ferriss of Boston 3-2 after the rookie Ferriss had won his first eight decisions.)

Due to wartime restrictions on travel, the major leagues canceled the All-Star Game for 1945. Even so, the Associated Press had conducted a poll of managers to see who would have made the team had the game been played, and Borowy was one of the pitchers chosen for the American League squad. So although he was currently nursing a sore arm (an injury that MacPhail used as part of his rationalization in asking for waivers), Borowy was an All-Star with a solid 10-5 record, factors that made his sale to the Cubs the baseball bombshell of 1945. Columnists and reporters would spend weeks, months – and in some cases, years – trying to make sense of the deal.

MacPhail had a simple explanation. He had been in the park on June 15 when Borowy had yielded the longest home run of the season at Yankee Stadium to Detroit pitcher Zeb Eaton. It was the fourth of five consecutive starts that Borowy had failed to complete. The possessor of an even more mercurial personality than present-day Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, MacPhail supposedly decided right then that Borowy was finished as a Yankee.

The owner claimed that an analysis of Borowy’s record indicated that he lacked the stamina to be a winner in the second half of a season. “I got rid of Borowy, with McCarthy’s approval, because I did not like his record with the New York club,” explained MacPhail. “This year he pitched four complete games for us after April, none after June 24. Last season he won only five and lost eight after July 15. In short, he has not been, for the Yankees, a pitcher who could be relied on when pitching class was needed most.”6

MacPhail went out of his way to emphasize that he had discussed the deal with McCarthy (who was again recuperating in Buffalo after having collapsed), and that McCarthy had given his approval. He said that both he and McCarthy felt that with the return of prewar ace Red Ruffing from military service, Yankees pitching was sufficiently strong, but that other parts of the club needed strengthening. “This deal can be regarded as the first step in a general plan worked out by Joe McCarthy and myself to improve the Yankees,” MacPhail said, while suggesting that the Cubs would be sending several players to New York.

But in spite of MacPhail’s claim that McCarthy was in favor of the deal, it now seems apparent it was the loss of Borowy that directly led to the end of McCarthy’s 15-season tenure as Yankees manager. According to Glenn Stout in Yankees Century, “The manager couldn’t take it. … Throwing away a potential pennant and selling the staff ace in the midst of the race was something he couldn’t understand … McCarthy turned inward. Baseball was everything to him. Even in 1945 wins and losses mattered. His drinking problem grew worse.”7 McCarthy soon left the club for three weeks, and eventually offered to resign. MacPhail held him to his contract for 1946, but that May, he finally accepted McCarthy’s resignation.

After the season, MacPhail reiterated his reasons for making the deal. “Borowy had his chance with us and he failed,” he said. Borowy, on the other hand, had reacted with mixed emotions when his sale to the Cubs was announced. “I hate to leave the Yankees and the American League where I have spent my major league career,” he said, “but that’s baseball. Of course, in a sense it may be a break for me. I’m going to a club that is leading the pennant fight and I may get into a World Series. I’ll give them my best as I have given it to the Yankees. I hope I can.”8

Making the move even more palatable for Borowy was MacPhail’s telling him that the way he was pitching, his $19,000 salary would probably have been reduced to $10,000 in 1946. “Go and beat the Cincinnati Reds a half dozen times and you’ll get another $6,000, making it $25,000 next year.”9 (The Cubs won a record 21 of 22 from Cincinnati, but could beat the Cardinals, their closest competitors, only six times.)

The Cubs did win the National League pennant, with the acquisition of Borowy no doubt being the major factor. The speculation was that in return one of the Cubs’ legitimate stars, like Andy Pafko, Phil Cavarretta, or Bill Nicholson, would be going to the Yankees after the season. But Chicago would send no players to New York in exchange for Borowy, and all the Yanks would ever get from the deal was money, reportedly about $100,000.

MacPhail’s bluster about Borowy’s shortcomings aside, many observers continued to believe that money was the motivating factor behind the deal. In one scenario he was accused of selling Borowy because he was setting up a new club at Yankee Stadium and needed the $100,000. That may well be; there was not much in the way of chicanery of which MacPhail was not capable. However, many years later, another very plausible explanation surfaced for the Yankees’ seemingly inexplicable sale of Borowy to the Cubs. It was, the theory went, MacPhail’s repayment to Chicago general manager Jim Gallagher. Four years earlier, Gallagher had sold him future Hall-of-Fame second-baseman Billy Herman, a deal which helped the Dodgers, then run by MacPhail, to win the 1941 National League pennant, their first in 21 years.

Borowy, who had a 2-B draft classification, had spent the winter of 1944-45 working at the Eastern Tool and Manufacturing Company in Bloomfield. The 2-B was reserved for essential workers in war industries, but when Borowy made news by being sold to the Cubs, his local draft board decided to take another look at his status. After their review, they reclassified him as 2-A: “contributing to the war effort, but not actually on the assembly line.”

In late July, the war was very near its end, and the 29-year-old Borowy, married with one child at the time, was never called. He made his Cubs debut on the 29th, with a 3-2 win over the Reds before a packed house at Wrigley Field. From that point on, to the end of the season, he was Chicago’s best pitcher. His 11-2 record, combined with his 10-5 Yankees mark, gave him a full-season won-lost record of 21-7. Winning 20 games fulfilled a lifetime ambition of Hank’s, while also making him the first pitcher to achieve a 20-win season while pitching in both leagues since Joe McGinnity did it in 1902 with the Orioles and the Giants. Several other pitchers have since accomplished this feat, but only Borowy and Bartolo Colon, pitching for Cleveland and Montreal in 2002, have reached the 20-win plateau by winning at least 10 games in each league. Borowy also led the National League with a 2.13 earned run average, giving him an excellent overall 1945 ERA of 2.65 for 254 2/3 innings pitched.

Win number 11 as a Cub was the pennant-clincher at Pittsburgh, and as if to refute MacPhail’s claim that he could no longer throw complete games, he completed his first nine starts as a Cub and 11 of the 14 he made for them. He won the only three games the Cubs won from the runner-up Cardinals played after he joined them (out of 12 played), twice defeating St. Louis in extra innings. Despite playing less than a half-season with Chicago, the Sporting News chose him as the National League’s outstanding pitcher for 1945, as well as the pitcher on their Major League All-Star team, while the baseball writers placed him sixth in the voting for the league’s Most Valuable Player Award.

The winner of that award was Cubs first baseman Phil Cavarretta, who attributed much of the team’s success to their purchase of Borowy. Cavarretta was the National League batting champion, and while the team had some other legitimate big-league stars, including Stan Hack at third and Pafko and Nicholson in the outfield, Cavarretta believed Borowy was the key to Chicago’s season: “He won 11 games for us. Three of those were wins over the Cardinals who we battled for the pennant. If we had not gotten Borowy from the Yankees, which I credit to Charlie Grimm, who was our manager for the second time, we could not have won it.”10

Chicago’s opponent in the World Series was the Detroit Tigers, who had edged Washington to win the American League pennant. Detroit opened with Hal Newhouser, on his way to his second consecutive Most Valuable Player Award. Borowy, having been the Cubs’ best pitcher down the stretch, and having beaten the Tigers 11 times in 14 decisions as a Yankee, was the logical choice for the Cubs. The first three games would be in Detroit, whereupon the teams would move to Chicago for as many games as was necessary.

Game One was all Chicago, as they blasted Newhouser for seven runs in 2 2/3 innings on the way to a 9-0 victory. Borowy allowed just six hits in pitching the shutout, though he did walk five batters. The win, coupled with his victory over the Cardinals in 1943, made Borowy only the second pitcher (Jack Coombs was the first) to win a World Series game in each league.

Detroit won two of the next three to tie the Series, setting up a rematch between Borowy and Newhouser for the crucial fifth game. After five innings the score was 1-1, but the Tigers reached Hank for four straight hits to start the fifth, leading to his departure and an eventual 8-4 Detroit victory. Faced with elimination, the Cubs rallied to win Game Six, 8-7, scoring the winner in the bottom of the 12th inning. Borowy picked up the win with four outstanding innings of relief.

Following a day off, both managers came back with their aces for the seventh and deciding game. Tigers manager Steve O’Neill‘s choice of Newhouser was the obvious one, but Grimm raised some eyebrows by coming back with Borowy. Like Newhouser, Borowy had started Game Five, but unlike the Tigers’ ace, he had pitched four innings in relief in Game Six. Many baseball people felt Borowy was too frail for such a heavy-duty effort, and they proved to be correct. Borowy had nothing in Game Seven. Skeeter Webb, Eddie Mayo, and Doc Cramer, the first three Detroit batters, all singled, and with slugger Hank Greenberg coming up, Grimm replaced Borowy with Paul Derringer. The Tigers eventually scored five runs in that first inning in winning the game, 9-3, and the Series.

Newhouser’s 22 strikeouts in his three starts set a new World Series record. With the loss, Borowy now also holds the distinction of being the last Cubs pitcher to lose a World Series game. He also joined three other pitchers, all American Leaguers, who were involved in four decisions in a single World Series: Bill Dinneen Boston, 1903; Joe Wood, Boston, 1912; and Red Faber, Chicago, 1917. Borowy, the first National Leaguer to accomplish the feat, was 2-2, while the others all had three wins and a loss. For his heroic efforts down the stretch and his two World Series wins, the Cubs voted him a full Series share ($3,930.21).

By the next season, with all the stars having returned from the military, the Cubs reverted to a so-so team, finishing third, but well behind St. Louis and Brooklyn. Borowy also became a so-so pitcher, winning 12 and losing 10, with an unimpressive 3.76 earned run average. Perhaps his most memorable win was his first, a 13-1 triumph over the Phillies on May 5. A lifetime .173 hitter, Borowy batted in four runs in this game, all the result of two seventh-inning doubles.

Going into the 1947 season, manager Grimm still considered Borowy his ace and chose him as his opening-day pitcher against Pittsburgh. In his only other opening-day assignment, as a Yankee in 1944, Borowy had shut out the Red Sox. He pitched just as well this day, but lost to Rip Sewell, 1-0, on a run driven in by Greenberg, making his National League debut. Overall, though, his numbers got worse in 1947, an 8-12 mark and a 4.38 ERA, as Grimm started using him more in relief than as a starter.

He was just 5-10 in 1948, but on August 31 pitched the best game of his career. In the first game of a doubleheader against the league-leading Dodgers, he beat them 3-0 while facing the minimum 27 batters. Only Gene Hermanski, with a second-inning single, reached base for Brooklyn, and he was thrown out stealing. The win evened his record at 5-5, but he dropped his final five decisions to finish with the 5-10 mark.

On December 14, the Cubs traded Borowy and first baseman Eddie Waitkus to the Phillies for pitchers Dutch Leonard and Walter “Monk” Dubiel. The 1949 season proved to be a nice comeback year for Borowy. Used strictly as a starter by Phillies manager Eddie Sawyer, he won 12 and lost 12. And while his former team, the Cubs, slipped into the National League cellar, the Phillies finished third with their first winning season in 17 years. But at age 34, Borowy did not fit into Philadelphia’s plans for 1950, so on June 12, after having used him just three times in relief, Sawyer sold him to Pittsburgh for the $10,000 waiver price.

Borowy was 1-3 for the atrocious 1950 Pirates when they sold him on August 3 to Detroit. “We paid considerably more than $10,000 for Borowy,” said Tigers general manager Billy Evans, “but we figured it was a pretty good gamble. He still has a lot of good pitching left, and we figure he can help us a lot.”11

However, Evans was wrong. Borowy split a pair of decisions the rest of the season and then split four more with a 6.95 ERA in 1951. Oddly, both wins came on consecutive days against Boston, on August 4 and 5. He made his last big-league appearance on September 14, pitching an inning of relief at Yankee Stadium, scene of his early glory. In November, Detroit released him, ending his ten-year big-league career. Coincidentally, the release came on the same day the Tigers released Charlie Keller, his former Yankees teammate. Borowy had been an outstanding 67-32 (.677) after his first four seasons, but went only 41-50 over the next six years to finish with a 108-82 record (.568).

Buffalo of the International League signed him for the 1952 season. He won his first three starts for the Bisons but then got shelled regularly, before finishing the season at 10-12. It was his final season as a player, though one in which he did get to do a stint as manager. He filled the role for several games in May when regular manager Jack Tighe was stricken with appendicitis.

Five years later Borowy did get back in uniform for a while and even briefly considered attempting a comeback. In September 1957 the Yanks were short of batting practice pitchers and manager Casey Stengel asked the club to hire a new one. They hired the 41-year-old Borowy. When asked if he was about to make a comeback in 1958, he did not dismiss the idea. “I sure would like to be an active pitcher again,” Borowy said. “Who knows? I’ll see how I react and maybe I will be a candidate next spring.”12 He wasn’t, but he did stay close to the Yankees, though, appearing regularly at their old-timer games.

After leaving baseball, Borowy owned a very successful real estate and insurance business in his hometown of Bloomfield for 30 years, before retiring to Point Pleasant, New Jersey, a resort town on the Atlantic Ocean. He was living in Brick Township, New Jersey when he died at age 88 on August 23, 2004. Borowy, who was buried in Bloomfield, was predeceased by his wife Katherine and survived by his son and two daughters. In 1970, Hank Borowy was one of the first four men inducted into Fordham University’s Athletic Hall of Fame.

Sources

Spatz, Lyle, New York Yankee Openers (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Inc.), 1997.

Spatz, Lyle, Yankees Coming, Yankees Going (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Inc.), 2000.

Hank Borowy Files at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

Notes

1 New York Times, July 28, 1945: 14.

2 New York Times, July 28, 1945: 14.

3 New York Times, July 28, 1945: 14.

4 Hartford Courant, July 28, 1945: C1.

5 Joe King, New York World-Telegram, October 8, 1943.

6 New York Herald Tribune, September 13, 1945.

7 Glenn Stout, Yankee Century as quoted in the New York Sun, August 26, 2004.

8 New York Times, July 28, 1945: 14.

9 New York Times, October 4, 1945: 14.

10 Jim Sargent, “Remembering Yesterday’s Heros,”

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/hero/hero2002b.shtml. Jim Sargent interview with Phil Cavarretta on June 1, 1995.

11 Los Angeles Times, August 4, 1950: C1.

12 The Sporting News, September 18, 1957: 5.

But the onset of multiple sclerosis sapped strength from the most vital part of a pitcher’s body — his legs. Brittin felt the effects in the late 1940s and, by 1954, though still undiagnosed; he found it hard to even get the ball within 10 feet of home plate, ending his professional baseball career.1

Despite the disease’s debilitating effects, Brittin managed to rise to the highest level of baseball — the major leagues. Though he played in only six games over two seasons for the Phillies, the fact that he made it at all was a testament to his ability and will.

John Albert Brittin was born on March 4, 1924, in Athens, Illinois, the sixth of 11 children born to John Harrison and Mae (Smock) Brittin. John H. Brittin was a farmer. After Jack’s birth, the family moved twice before settling in Morrisonville, Illinois, when Jack was a sophomore in high school.2 

Brittin was a two-sport star athlete playing basketball and baseball at Morrisonville High School. But it was in baseball that he really shined. In his three years at Morrisonville, his pitching record was 50-8, including four no-hitters.3 He was also chosen to an amateur all-star team organized by Jack Rossiter, who had not yet opened his famous baseball school in Florida.4

The red-headed Brittin, who stood 5-feet-11 and weighed 175 pounds, threw mostly fastballs but also had a very good curve. Occasionally, he’d lob up a knuckleball as well.5

After Brittin graduated from Morrisonville in 1942, he moved on to pitch for Coach Wally Roettger, the former major leaguer, at the University of Illinois. Brittin, who went by “Johnny” in college, was Roettger’s number-two pitcher as a freshman behind ace Andy Phillip.6 Phillip, a member of Illinois’ famed “Whiz Kids” basketball team, went on to have an 11-season career in the NBA as well as play minor league baseball. Brittin helped the 1943 Illini to an 8-6 record and a third-place finish in the Big Ten Conference. After the season, he played in the Springfield Municipal League for the Rossiter’s Boosters and made the all-star team along with future Phillies teammate Robin Roberts.7

With World War II raging, Brittin enlisted in Navy V-12 officer candidate training school at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, on July 1, 1943.8 While there, Brittin pitched and played second base for the V-12 unit.9 He remained stationed at DePauw through 1944 but in 1945 he was shipped out to Ie Shima Airfield, an island off Okinawa.10 There he participated in the invasion of Okinawa as an ensign aboard a Landing Ship, Tank (LST).11

After the war Brittin was discharged from the Navy on July 18, 1946. By the fall he was back at the University of Illinois, participating in baseball practice. The following spring he was on the mound for the Illini pitching for a powerhouse team. Roettger had collected a formidable group of players. Brittin wasn’t even the team’s ace pitcher — that designation belonged to future major leaguer Marv Rotblatt.12 Other teammates included future National Basketball Association player-coach Phillip; future National Football League player Julie Rykovich; and future minor leaguers Bob Wakefield, brother of Detroit Tiger Dick Wakefield, and Lee Eilbracht.13

Illinois went 22-6 with a 9-3 record in the Big Nine, capturing the league championship. Brittin recorded a 7-2 mark including a two-hitter victory over the University of Michigan. He also pitched a no-hitter in an exhibition game after the regular season ended over an African-American club, the Cincinnati Crescents.

By virtue of its Big Nine championship, Illinois was invited to be one of eight teams to play in the first College World Series. In its first game against New York University, Roettger selected Rotblatt as his starter in the single-elimination tournament. Rotblatt pitched well but the game was rained out after five innings and replayed the next day. Instead of sending Rotblatt out again, Roettger gave the ball to Brittin. Brittin was outdueled, 2-1, by NYU pitcher Roy Teasley, who pitched a three-hitter despite having pitched the night before.

Less than a week after the loss, Brittin was on the mound for the Davenport Cubs of the Class-B Three-I (Illinois-Indiana-Iowa) League. The Chicago Cubs signed both Brittin and teammate Lee Eilbracht after the College World Series game and assigned them to Davenport. Brittin had one more season of eligibility left but decided to make the jump to Organized Baseball.

However, Brittin’s stint with Davenport was short. The Cubs gave up on him after little more than a month. Philadelphia Phillies scout Eddie Krajnik acted quickly, signing Brittin to a contract and sending him to Davenport league rival Terre Haute, where he finished out the season.14 Between the two teams, Brittin had a 4-5 record with a 6.83 ERA. In the offseason, he was an assistant basketball coach for University High School in Normal, Illinois.

Years later, Brittin blamed an injury for his up-and-down season.  “I had a bad arm in ’47,” he said. “After I got out of the Navy I tried to pitch too soon and pulled a shoulder tendon.”15

For 1948, the Phillies sent Brittin back to Terre Haute. He was used in relief to begin the season but transitioned to a starter as the season progressed. By season’s end, Brittin compiled a record of 6-7 with an ERA of 3.62. Ironically, on August 6, Brittin found himself on the wrong end of a no-hitter thrown by former Illini teammate Marv Rotblatt. After the season ended, Brittin headed back to college and graduated from Illinois.

Pitching for the Class-B Wilmington Blue Rocks of the Interstate League in 1949, Brittin had a breakout season. He ran out to an 8-0 record before finally losing a game on June 21. By season’s end, he was 21-7 with a 2.92 ERA and was named to the league’s all-star team by a poll of league managers. But most importantly, the Interstate Sportswriters’ & Broadcasters’ Association named him the league’s most valuable player.16

“Everybody agrees he is the smartest pitcher in our league,” said Wilmington manager Jack Sanford. “He doesn’t overpower the hitters — he beats them with a fine curveball that he controls marvelously.”17

The Phillies promoted Brittin to Toronto of the Triple-A International League for 1950. It was during the season with the Maple Leafs that Brittin really was hindered by numbness in his legs, probably the first signs of the onset of multiple sclerosis. He missed two months of the season but eventually returned to Toronto and pitched well.18

The Phillies, meanwhile, were in the midst of a pennant race when they lost the services of three pitchers, Curt Simmons, Bubba Church, and Bob Miller. On September 12 Philadelphia called up Brittin along with Paul Stuffel and Jocko Thompson.19

Three days later, in the second game of a doubleheader, Brittin made his major-league debut when he relieved his old Springfield, Illinois, all-star teammate, Robin Roberts, in the eighth inning against the Cincinnati Reds. He pitched a perfect inning, striking out one, before giving way to Jim Konstanty in the ninth. The Phils eventually won the game in 19 innings, 8-7.

Brittin made two more relief appearances before the end of the season. With both Miller and Church back with the Phils, he wasn’t carried on Philadelphia’s World Series roster. Despite that, he was given a partial share of $300 of the World Series earnings after the Phillies were swept by the New York Yankees.20

In spring training in 1951, the Phillies needed a pitcher to replace Curt Simmons, who was spending the entire season in the military. Philadelphia was hoping that Brittin would be the pitcher to step up in Simmons’ place.21 Despite what at the time was diagnosed as shin splints, Brittin pitched well in spring training and solidified his place on the team when he and Bob Miller combined to shut out the Boston Braves on four hits on March 30.22

But instead of going north as a starting pitcher, Brittin was used by the Phillies as a reliever. He made it into three games, the last on May 13. On May 16 the Phillies needed to cut two players to get down to the 25-man limit. With manager Eddie Sawyer barely using Brittin, he was an easy cut to make.  The Phils sent Brittin to Baltimore of the International League.

Brittin pitched poorly for the Orioles, experiencing soreness in his legs.23 On July 21, his record was 3-7. But as the season wore on, he pitched better. On August 6 he pitched a one-hitter against Ottawa. He finished the season with a 7-10 mark and an ERA of 4.44. On the strength of his August outings, Brittin was invited back to Phillies spring training for 1952.

In the offseason, Brittin continued working with high-school athletes, this time at Williamsville (Illinois) High School.

But leg soreness continued to hamper Brittin. In a spring training game against the Washington Senators, he was forced to retire from the game in the first inning because of his legs. The Philadelphia Inquirer remarked that Brittin had been handicapped in camp with his leg soreness.24

On April 11 the Phils sent Brittin to Baltimore on option. He pitched one game for the Orioles and was shelled, giving up six runs in two innings. On April 12 Baltimore sold Brittin for $5,000 to Atlanta of the Double-A Southern Association.

Atlanta didn’t use Brittin as a starter until mid-June. But once he was back starting, Brittin responded with his best season since 1949, going 14-6 with a 3.60 ERA and earning a spot on the Southern Association all-star team.25

In November he traveled to Venezuela to play in the Venezuelan Winter League. Playing for the team “Venezuela,” Brittin had a good season, going 8-5 in 18 games.

While he was in Venezuela, Atlanta traded Brittin to the Milwaukee Braves for first baseman Harold Pfeiffer.26 The Braves in turn sent Brittin to Toledo of the Triple-A American Association for spring training. In May 1953, Toledo sold Brittin back to Atlanta.

Brittin didn’t have as good a season with the Crackers. He posted a 5-8 mark with 7.09 ERA.

In 1954 he reported to Jacksonville, Florida, for Atlanta’s spring training but was dealt to Miami Beach of the Class-B Florida International League in April. After pitching seven games with the Flamingos, he was picked up by Macon of the Class-A South Atlantic League. In mid-June Macon released Brittin after five appearances. It was the end of his Organized Baseball career.

Brittin continued pitching though, hooking up with the semipro Huron (South Dakota) Elks of the Basin League. He played through the 1956 season, when he was finally diagnosed with MS.27 He retired completely from baseball after the season.

After leaving baseball, Brittin took a job teaching physical education at Butler Elementary School in Springfield, Illinois, but was forced to resign in 1958 because of his deteriorating health. In 1962 he was able to return to work with the Office of Public Instruction of the Illinois State Board of Education. He later worked for the Teachers’ Retirement System and the State Board of Education in special education until retiring in1989.

Meanwhile, in 1963, Brittin married Wilma Oschwald, a former classmate from Morrisonville with whom he reconnected after a gap of 23 years.28 In the 1990s, Brittin was inducted into the Springfield Sports Hall of Fame.

On January 5, 1994, Brittin died of a heart attack brought on by his MS at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Illinois. He was 69 years old and was survived by his wife, Wilma. He was buried in Brittin Cemetery in Cantrall, Illinois.

This biography appears in “The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant: The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2018), edited by C. Paul Rogers III and Bill Nowlin.

Notes

1 Undated article in Jack Brittin’s Hall of Fame file.

2 Illinois State Journal (Springfield), August 19, 1939.

3 Wisconsin State Journal (Madison), March 28, 1951.

4 The Sporting News, December 31, 1952.

5 Trenton (New Jersey) Times-Advertiser, March 18, 1951.

6 Illinois State Journal, April 20, 1943.

7 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers III, The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 203.

8 Daily Illini, July 9, 1943.

9 Daily Illini, July 28, 1943.

10 Illinois State Journal, October 4, 1945.

11 Illinois State Journal-Register, September 4, 1949.

12 Benton Harbor (Michigan) News-Palladium, April 25, 1947.

13 Illinois State Journal-Register, June 28, 1947.

14 The Sporting News, April 2, 1952.

15 Trenton Times-Advertiser, March 18, 1951.

16 Elbert Chance, The Blue Rocks — Past and Present: Wilmington’s Baseball Team 1940-1999 (Wilmington, Delaware: Cedar Tree Books, 2000), 231-32.

17 Illinois State Journal-Register, September 4, 1949.

18 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers III, 294.

19 Baton Rouge Morning Advocate, September 13, 1950.

20 Sacramento Bee, October 13, 1950.

21 Wisconsin State Journal, March 28, 1951.

22 Philadelphia Inquirer, March 3, 1951; Dallas Morning News, March 7, 1951.

23 The Sporting News, March 26, 1952.

24 Philadelphia Inquirer, April 13, 1952.

25 The Sporting News, January 21, 1953.

26 The Sporting News, December 10, 1952.

27 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers III, 294.

28 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers III, 350.

Ralph Joseph Caballero was born on November 5, 1927, in New Orleans, the son of Robert Caballero, a druggist, and Thelma Perrier, the daughter of a blacksmith, who died when she was young. Ralph was the fourth of five sons, one of whom died in infancy. As a boy Ralph made deliveries for his father for a quarter. The “Putsy” moniker was given to Caballero at a young age. He once told an interviewer: “Everybody down here in N’Awlins has a nickname. My brother Monroe is ‘Money.’ My brother Raymond is ‘Rainbow.’ There’s no special reason for any of those nicknames. There’s none for mine, either. People just always called me Putsy.”1

By the time he reached Jesuit High School, Ralph excelled at both basketball and baseball. He achieved all-state honors as a guard in basketball in his senior year. In baseball, Putsy was named to the all-American Legion team in his junior and senior years, and was awarded all-prep-school honors in his senior year when he led the circuit with a .448 batting average. When he graduated at 16 years old in 1944, he was offered a dual basketball/baseball scholarship to Louisiana State University.

But Ralph was not completely sold on college. That August he attended a 10-day trial with the Cubs in Nashville. Other major- and minor-league teams were also in pursuit. His high-school baseball coach scouted for the New York Giants, whose manager, Mel Ott, was also a Louisiana native. They tried to get him to sign with New York.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the Carpenter family had taken over the chronically underfunded and underperforming National League Phillies, and were beginning to spend money to start turning things around by signing young players and developing a farm system.2 Former umpire Ted McGrew scouted the New Orleans area for the Phillies, and recommended that they sign Caballero. The Phillies offered Ralph a contract with an $8,000 bonus — significantly more than the $2,500 or so being offered to other local players. Privately, Ott advised Caballero to take the higher offer; publicly, Ott complained about the size of the bonuses being given out by millionaires like the Carpenters and Yawkeys. Ralph’s father also advised that he sign, telling him “Putsy, if you go to college, it will take you years to save $8,000. So go ahead and sign, and you can go back to college in the offseason.”3 Putsy decided to accept the Phillies’ offer. His father drove him to Philadelphia and co-signed the contract because Ralph was a minor.

The 5-foot-9, 158-pound Caballero was added to the major-league roster right away and saw action in several games at the end of the 1944 season.4 In his debut, on September 14, he came in as a pinch-hitter and was retired by the Giants’ Bill Voiselle, then remained in the game to play third base. At 16 years, 10 months, and 9 days, Caballero became the youngest player ever to play third base, and the youngest position player to appear in the post-World War I era. “I remember ‘Fat Freddie’ Fitzsimmons, our manager, said ‘Son, go in there and play like we know you can,’” Ralph later recalled.5 In three other games that year, he got one start at third and two pinch-running appearances, but didn’t reach base in any of his three plate appearances. That offseason, he returned to New Orleans and started taking classes at Loyola University.

The next spring, the Phillies trained in Wilmington, Delaware, along with their minor leaguers. World War II had taken its toll on all of baseball, with numerous players lost to the military or vital industries.6 However, the Phillies were hit harder than most. As a result, that 1945 camp was largely made up of youngsters and players too old for military service, like 37-year-old future Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx (who himself had made the majors as a teenager) and 39-year-old catcher Gus Mancuso. When competition began for roster spots, Caballero had one advantage over his peers: At 17, he was too young to be drafted. He made the major-league club to start the season, but saw limited action in the first month of play, mainly as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement at third. By May, he was sent to the Phillies’ minor-league club at Utica, New York.

Although Putsy was the youngest player at Utica, he was not the only teenager. Pitcher Bob Chakales, also 17, was a few months older. Future Phillies teammates Granny Hamner (who had signed at the same time as Caballero) and Richie Ashburn were both 18. Nine other players were between 20 and 23. They and their teammates were playing under Eddie Sawyer, who had come over the year before from the Yankees organization. With experience as a teacher, Sawyer was a good fit for the young club. Collectively, they got a taste of professional success, winning the Eastern League pennant in 1945. It didn’t hurt that the Class-A affiliate was the highest in the Phillies’ system. “We should have been playing at Triple-A ball, but Utica was the top Phillies’ farm club, so we all played in the Eastern League and really dominated,” Caballero recounted.7 For his first full professional season, Caballero batted .279 in 130 games, and had the unusual line of no home runs and 75 runs batted in. In the field, he showed that he needed improvement, making 38 errors, all at third base.

In 1946 training camps were swelled with players returning from the service or home-front war work. The military draft was still in effect, however, and as an 18-year-old, Caballero was eligible for selection. The local draft board told Caballero’s father that if he went to spring training, he’d be at risk of being selected. The Phillies agreed to let him voluntarily retire and remain at Loyola and protect himself from the draft.8 When classes finished in May, Caballero was reinstated and was sent to Terre Haute in the B-level Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League, where he hit .283 in 76 games and had two homers. The following season he was back at Utica, where the team again won a pennant. Putsy made the league’s all-star team at second base, leading the league in fielding at that position and hitting .287. He drove in 60 runs, again without hitting a home run.

On the cusp of the 1948 season. Caballero was out of options. The Phillies decided to bring him north with the team, where he was joined by fellow rookies Hamner and Ashburn. As they had at Utica, Ashburn and Caballero roomed together in Philadelphia. The group spent much of their off-time together, and would frequent an Italian restaurant run by Sam Framo near Shibe Park. Putsy later recounted to the Philadelphia Daily News’s Paul Hagen: “I’d take [Richie] Ashburn in, [Granny] Hamner, Schoolboy Rowe. As soon as we walk in, he’d say, ‘Paisan! Paisan!’ Everybody said, ‘Man, this fella thinks you’re Italian.’ He wouldn’t let us pay for nothing. I didn’t tell him that I was French, Irish, and Spanish. That was comical. People said I should tell him. I said, ‘No, he won’t let us pay for nothing as long as he thinks I’m Italian.’.”9

His nickname also caused some confusion. Initially, the Phillies broadcasters shortened it to “Putz.” “I didn’t think anything of it ’til one day they came up to me with a stack of letters they received,” Caballero later related. “Turns out ‘Putz’ means a whole different thing in Yiddish. It meant something they shouldn’t have been saying on the air. Some listeners were offended, so they stopped calling me Putz right quick after that.10

Caballero began 1948 with a mix of pinch-hitting appearances and a few starts at second base. That changed in early May when Bert Haas, the starting third baseman, was hit by a batted ball in pregame warmups. Haas suffered a concussion and skull fracture that landed him in the hospital and kept him out of the lineup for a month. Caballero took most of the starts at third until Haas returned. Phillies skipper Ben Chapman then split playing time at third between the duo. When Chapman was fired and Eddie Sawyer took over as manager in July, Chapman gave most of the playing time to Caballero. Although he hit only .245 in 113 games and 351 at-bats with no home runs for the season, he showed outstanding defense and The Sporting News named him the top rookie third baseman.

Even though 1948 turned out to be Caballero’s only season as a major-league regular, he got to experience several events that even many longtime major leaguers never see firsthand. On July 23, he was playing third in a game at Cincinnati behind starter Robin Roberts. In the fourth inning, Roberts had walked Ted Kluszewski and allowed a single to Danny Litwhiler. The next batter, Virgil Stallcup, hit a sharp grounder to Caballero, who started an around-the-horn triple play. Then, on August 18, Caballero was playing against hard-throwing Dodger Rex Barney. When the Phillies came to bat in the fifth, Barney had yet to allow a hit. After Eddie Miller led off the inning with an infield groundout, Caballero looped a hit to center just out of the reach of Duke Snider. Barney then held the Phillies hitless the rest of the way, completing the one-hitter.

The 1949 season started for Caballero much like the previous one. He had made the Phillies as a reserve, appearing mostly as a pinch-hitter or pinch-runner until he got a series of starts in June when Eddie Miller missed a short stint due to injury. By mid-July Caballero was hitting .279, but Sawyer had begun questioning his conditioning. Later that month, the Phillies shipped Caballero off to their new Triple-A affiliate in Toronto in exchange for another second baseman, Mike Goliat, who had driven in 49 runs in half a season. Caballero took the demotion hard and vowed to prove to Sawyer and the Phillies that they had made a mistake, getting back into peak playing shape and hitting .318 over his half-year at Triple A. The next spring Caballero was not initially invited to the major-league training camp. However, when Buddy Blattner, who had taken Caballero’s spot as infield reserve, retired, Sawyer called for Caballero. Still, the Phillies skipper was not ready to hand him a job. Caballero turned him around after hitting .379 in the Grapefruit League, and the Phillies opted to release Miller and go north with Goliat and Caballero as their second basemen.

Caballero’s timing was fortuitous, as the 1950 Phillies jelled into a pennant winner. Although he got only occasional starts in the infield, he appeared more regularly as a pinch-hitter or pinch-runner, often taking over the basepaths for the less-than-swift players including Andy Seminick and Dick Sisler. The pennant-winning game against Brooklyn (which Caballero later recalled as his most memorable) was typical. After Seminick singled in the ninth inning of a tied game, Caballero pinch-ran for him. Caballero had attempted only one stolen base all year, but with the league championship on the line, he tried to steal second, only to be cut down by Roy Campanella. The Phillies won the game, and the pennant, the next inning on Dick Sisler’s dramatic three-run homer. In the World Series against the Yankees, Caballero came in twice as a pinch-runner. His only plate appearance was in Game Four, when he came in as a pinch-hitter and was struck out by Whitey Ford. The following winter, Caballero wrote to President Truman requesting that Ford be drafted into the military.

Caballero returned to the Phillies in 1951, beginning the year mainly as a pinch-runner and defensive replacement. It wasn’t until June 4, after getting into 16 games, that Putsy got his first plate appearance. He was able to pick up more at bats and some starts at second as the season went on, but his hitting never came around and he finished the year hitting .186. Caballero did, however, collect his only major-league home run that year — a solo shot against the Giants’ George Spencer on August 11. His final year in the majors, 1952, started similarly, with his first plate appearance coming on June 14, but his playing time continued to decrease.

Putsy played at Triple A for the next three seasons — in Baltimore in 1953 and Syracuse in 1954 and ’55. At Baltimore, he found a late-season power surge, with five home runs, including a grand slam, just one short of the number he had collected in all of his previous minor- and major-league games. He also went 2-for-4 with three RBIs in an exhibition against his old Phillies teammates. Caballero’s 1954 season was cut short due to a knee injury, but the team asked him to stay on anyway to mentor some younger players. He finished the 1955 season, but his production had dropped off.

In 1956 the Phillies had again changed Triple-A teams, this time to Miami, where Caballero was scheduled to play. In 1948 Caballero had married his childhood sweetheart, Clare Levy, and by 1956 three of their seven children had arrived. Several major-league teams expressed interest, but the Phillies would not release his contract. “[I]n those days, the team owned you. You couldn’t play out your option or contract,” Caballero said.11 Even though he was still only 27, he decided to call it a career. Although he did some scouting for the Phillies for a few years, he was ready for a new vocation.

During his playing days, Caballero had held a variety of offseason jobs including basketball official, construction worker at an aluminum plant, and department-store clerk. When it came time for full-time work, he joined the extermination business run by his father-in-law. His co-workers included former major leaguer Mel Parnell and musicians Al Hirt and Pete Fountain, who got their starts in clubs run by the Levy family. Caballero later struck out on his own as an exterminator, where he worked until his retirement in 1997.

Early in his playing career, Caballero had begun participating in charity baseball games and baseball clinics for children in southern Louisiana. He continued after his playing days ended, eventually transitioning to more of an administrative role.

Caballero also returned to Philadelphia occasionally for reunions and events commemorating the 1950 team, including the presentation of league champion rings in 1975. There he caught up with his former roommate Richie Ashburn, who had become a beloved broadcaster for the Phillies. Ashburn regularly told his listeners and readers of his newspaper column anecdotes about Caballero, recounting his exploits to those too young to have seen him play.12 In one of his columns, Ashburn wrote about Ralph’s role in the team’s regular card games, which took place during the long train trips to Western cities: “[Putsy] was the most successful gambler on the team. He claimed he made more money playing cards than baseball. Watching him play both, I believed him.”13

During his playing days, Caballero had collected a treasure trove of memorabilia, including a full uniform, an autographed photo of all of the Whiz Kids, and signed items from famous players including Joe DiMaggio, Eddie Mathews, and Pete Rose. Almost all of it was lost in 2005 when Hurricane Katrina left his home with water up to the roof line for several days. “All the baseball stuff [was lost],” Caballero said. “I had a ball from Babe Ruth in 1948, signed when he came to the clubhouse in spring training. He signed a baseball for me. That was the year that he died. I had it in a glass case, but the cover come off of it and everything else.”14 Only the uniform was salvageable, along with some photos that were with his children at the time of the storm.

Putsy Caballero received two New Orleans-area honors: first, as a 1994 inductee into the All State Sugar Bowl Greater New Orleans Hall of Fame and then as a 2009 inductee into the New Orleans Professional Hall of Fame. He rebuilt his damaged home and remained in the area until his death on December 8, 2016.15

This biography appears in “The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant: The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2018), edited by C. Paul Rogers III and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

Beyond those sources cited in the notes, information for this biography was derived from Caballero’s file at the National Baseball Hall of Fame Giamatti Library, and articles from various issues of the Baltimore Sun, New Orleans Times-Picayune, New York Times, Philadelphia Daily News, Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Sporting News

Notes

1 Robert Gordon, Then Bowa Said to Schmidt … The Greatest Phillies Stories Ever Told, (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2013), 12-13.

2 David M. Jordan, Occasional Glory: The History of the Philadelphia Phillies, (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co., 2005), 93.

3 Marty Mulé, “New Orleans’ Ralph ‘Putsy’ Caballero’s 70th anniversary of a major league milestone arrives,” The Advocate, September 19, 2014.

4 When he reached the majors, Caballero was listed as 5-feet-11 and 175 pounds.

5 Rich Marazzi, “Caballero: A Major-leaguer at Sweet 16,” Sports Collectors’ Digest, June 11, 1999, 60.

6 For further information on professional baseball during the World War II era, see David Finoli, For the Good of the Country: World War II Baseball in the Major and Minor Leagues (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Co.). A discussion of the Phillies during this time can be found in Seamus Kearney’s article in Marc Z. Aaron and Bill Nowlin, eds., Who’s on First: Replacement Players in World War II (Phoenix: Society for American Baseball Research, 2015).

7 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers, The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 125.

8 Marazzi.

9 Paul Hagen, “Putsy Caballero: He’s 82, gardens, hits the casinos,” Philadelphia Daily News, March 25, 2010.

10 Gordon, 14.

11 Mulé.

12 Caballero named one of his sons after Ashburn.

13 Richie Ashburn, “The Way We Were,” Philadelphia Daily News, September 27, 1990.

14 Hagen.

15 “Ralph ‘Putsy’ Caballero Obituary,” The New Orleans Advocate, reprinted by Legacy.com (http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/theneworleansadvocate/obituary.aspx?n=ralph-putsy-caballero&pid=183073430&fhid=5630), retrieved December 17, 2016.

Candini was born Mario Gustino Candini on August 3, 1917, in Manteca, California, 75 miles east of San Francisco. His parents, Caesar and Lucy Candini, were Italian immigrants who arrived in the United States at the turn of the 20th century and settled in Athol, a bustling industrial center and rail hub in north-central Massachusetts. They eventually migrated to the Central Valley in Northern California, where they both found jobs as canners in the burgeoning agriculture business of the area. Mario was the seventh of eight children. Given the heightened ethnic tension spawned by World War I and the desire to assimilate more quickly into American society, Mario became Milo. However, his Southern European heritage always stayed with him. Throughout his baseball career, sportswriters often referred to him an “Italian” or the “Italian boy,” or joked about his surname, comparing Candini to Houdini.2 Candini the “mound magician” was a common moniker.3 In addition to his Italian background, sportswriters often made reference to Candini’s good looks. “[He] looks like a Latin movie star,” reported the Associated Press.4 He was an even 6-feet tall and weighed about 185 pounds, with chiseled facial features, black hair, and dark eyes which gave rise to portrayals that he was a ladies’ man.

Candini was an exceptional athlete at Manteca High School, where he lettered in baseball, basketball, football, and track all four years. He was named the medium school state athlete of the year in 1934 and 1935, and baseball player of the year in 1935 and 1936 while leading the Buffaloes to consecutive West Side league titles.5 In his senior year, the hard-throwing prep phenom tossed a no-hitter, and once struck out 45 batters over two games.6 Candini played American Legion ball in the summer and in the competitive fall semipro leagues in the greater Oakland area, located about 50 miles away. His mound exploits caught the attention of a number of teams in the Pacific Coast League, as well as scout Joe Devine, who scoured the region for the Yankees and had signed another son of Italian immigrants, Joe DiMaggio, a year earlier. Upon graduating from high school in 1936, Candini signed with Devine and the Yankees.

In 1937 Candini began his professional baseball career with the El Paso Texans in the newly re-established, four-team Class-D Arizona-Texas League. Candini led the league with 21 wins against only 7 losses and finished second in innings (251) for the regular-season champions. He struck out 165 (second to teammate Floyd Bevens’ 179), but also walked a league-high 141, contributing to his high ERA (4.23). In a remarkable complete game against the Albuquerque Cardinals, Candini surrendered 10 hits and walked 17 batters, but won the game, 14-13.7 Baseball was not the teenager’s only concern. He had married his high-school sweetheart, Bernice, the previous year. Their second child, Jarrett, was born during the regular season, joining daughter Chareen.

Candini spent his offseason working in oil fields and playing semipro baseball in the arid climate of West Texas, before returning to Northern California to participate in the Yankees rookie camp at Roosevelt Field in Modesto. New York’s farm system trailed only the St Louis Cardinals’ in its breadth. With 12 affiliates in 1938 and 16 in 1939, the Yankees’ “chain gang” was flush with hurlers, well in excess of 100 each year. Candini spent those two seasons in Class B, posting sturdy yet unspectacular records of 12-13 (3.49 ERA in 173 innings) with the Norfolk (Virginia) Tars of the Piedmont League and 13-8 (4.17 ERA in 205 innings) for the Wenatchee (Washington) Chiefs of the Western International League.

The Yankees promoted Candini to the Oakland Oaks of the PCL, a step below the big leagues, in 1940. After walking 33 batters in 42⅔ innings, he was reassigned to Wenatchee, where despite arm pain he won 13 games for the league’s worst team which finished 30 games below .500. The Kansas City Star reported that Candini had pitched with a chronically sore arm since the “punishment he received” with El Paso in 1937.8

Little was expected of Candini when he reported to spring training with the Kansas City Blues of the American Association in 1941. Pain-free for the first time in four years, Candini impressed skipper Billy Meyer with a productive camp, including limiting the Washington Senators to just one hit over five innings in an exhibition game. The Yankees rebuffed Senators owner Clark Griffith’s overtures to buy the 23-year-old hurler, now described as a serious big-league prospect.9 Praised for his “deceptive delivery” and heater, Candini was an effective swingman for the Blues, starting 15 of 35 games and etching out a team-best 3.26 ERA in 141 innings. Two exceptional outings in exhibition games against big-league clubs during the season guaranteed his promotion to the Yankees. In August he tossed a two-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds and subsequently held the Bronx Bombers to just one hit in six innings on August 26. The New York Sunraved that Candini was “plenty fast” but cautioned that he “needs a better curve” to succeed in the majors.10 The Yankees added him to their 40-man roster in September.11

At his first big-league spring training with the reigning World Series champion Yankees, in 1942, Candini battled prospects Johnny Lindell, Hank Borowy, Mel Queen, Al Gettel, and Rugger Ardizoia for the two open spots on the staff vacated by relievers Steve Peek and Charley Stanceu, who were in the military. Plagued by control problems, Candini was optioned to the Newark Bears of the International League. His arm pain soon resurfaced, rendering him ineffective for most of the season. With a 4-7 record and a team-high 5.21 ERA in 95 innings, his days in the Yankees’ system were numbered.

Long coveted by Washington, Candini was a throw-in when the Senators sent swingman Bill Zuber to the Yankees for infielder Jerry Priddy on January 29, 1943. When Candini arrived at spring training, conducted nine miles northeast of Washington in College Park, Maryland, due to wartime travel restrictions, team trainer Mike Martin was charged with getting his arm back in shape. Coincidentally, the pitcher had injured his arm the previous season in an exhibition game against Washington.12 Candini, lacking a fastball and reluctant to throw a curve, was castigated as a “dismal flop,” but still landed a spot on the staff, the league’s worst in 1942 with a 4.58 ERA.13

Relegated to the far end of the bullpen, Candini made his major-league debut on May 1, setting down the only two batters he faced in a loss to the Yankees. He picked up victories in his next two relief appearances and earned his first start on June 2. Playing under the lights at Griffith Stadium, Candini tossed an eight-hit complete game to defeat the Cleveland Indians, 13-1. He also went 2-for-5 at the plate, scored a run, and knocked in one. With the country at war, Candini became an early-season feel-good story and emerged as the hottest pitcher in baseball. In a stretch of three starts in June, he shut out the Boston Red Sox on three hits at Fenway Park, hurled a career-best 11-inning complete game to defeat the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park, and then capped it off by slugging his first and only major-league home run and blanking New York, 6-0, at Yankee Stadium.

One of the surprise teams of baseball, the Senators improved by a major-league-best 22 games to finish in second place, 84-69, their best record since their last pennant in 1933. They were led by a strong pitching staff, including 23-year-old Early Wynn (18-12) and knuckleballer Dutch Leonard. After Candini’s exceptional start (7-0 and 0.94 ERA in his first 76⅓ innings), he cooled off, but still finished tied for second on the staff with 11 victories. His 2.49 ERA in 166 innings trailed only knuckleballer Mickey Haefner’s 2.29, and was good for sixth in the league. The Sporting News named Candini, Charley Wensloff of the Yankees, and the Philadelphia Phillies’ Al Gerheauser to the All-Rookie team. Candini took advantage of his new-found notoriety to participate in a barnstorming tour organized by Charles DeWitt of the St. Louis Browns in October.

For seemingly the first time since Walter Johnson’s retirement in 1927, the Senators didn’t need pitching as the 1944 season commenced. A quartet of hurlers (Haefner, Leonard, Wynn, and 40-year-old Johnny Niggeling) each logged at least 200 innings, and pushed Candini to the bullpen. After seeing mainly mop-up duty through mid-June, Candini made six consecutive effective starts, tossing four complete-game victories (including his final two of five career shutouts), yielding just 14 runs in 50⅓ innings (2.49 ERA). But that stretch proved to be his final effective stint as a starter in the big leagues. He was knocked out in the second inning in his next two starts and lost his place in the rotation. Given a spot start on August 6 against Boston, Candini broke his finger in a bunt attempt when he was struck in the hand by a pitch from Pinky Woods.14 Ineffective in his return six weeks later, Candini concluded the season with a 6-7 record and 4.11 ERA in 103 innings. He also helped himself at the plate, batting .313 (10-for-32); for his career he hit a respectable .243 (35-for-144).

Candini’s baseball career was interrupted when he was inducted into the Army in March 1945. He was stationed at Camp Beale in Northern California, and pitched for the base team. Subsequently deployed to the Pacific Theater and stationed in Japan and Korea, Candini pitched for the 24th Corps baseball team in tournaments in Japan and the Philippines. After his discharge in early August 1946, he made an exciting return to the Senators by tossing four scoreless innings of relief to earn the victory in an extra-inning game against the Browns on August 25, in his first big-league game in almost two years.

Candini appeared almost exclusively in mop-up situations for the seventh-place Senators in 1947 and 1948, logging about 90 innings each season and posting an ERA north of 5.00. His highlight during those years may have come on a day that he did not pitch. On August 10, 1947, he and five other players were presented with World War II victory medals by Rear Admiral John E. Wood and Brigadier General Wayne C. Zimmer between games of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Athletics.15

Candini had a special assignment for Washington’s season opener on April 19, 1949. He served as President Harry Truman’s escort (or “body guard” as the media exaggerated at the time);16however, it is unclear how well the right-hander could protect the nation’s first fan since he was for some reason wearing a left-handed first baseman’s glove. Suffering from a wrenched knee and a pulled back muscle, Candini drew his release from the Senators in May, and was sold outright to the Oakland Oaks. Unexpectedly, the 31-year-old revived his career playing in the temperate climate, tying for the team lead with 15 victories in the 187-game season. After the season, Candini joined the San Francisco Seals for their barnstorming tour of Japan.

On November 17, 1949, the Philadelphia Phillies selected Candini in the Rule 5 draft. His selection and acquisition price of $10,000 helped fuel the discussion about the future of the PCL as a minor league and its possible elevation to a third major league. A controversy of sorts began when Bob Carpenter, the team’s owner and an heir to the DuPont fortune, commented crassly, “In these days of high finance, high taxes, and high prices, we are lucky to draw a breath for $10,000. At least [Candini] has a pair of spiked shoes and a toe plate. I’d be willing to pay $25,000 for a good windup.”17 Oaks majority owner Brick Laws was livid with Major League Baseball and the draft (they also lost Billy Martin and Jackie Jensen to the majors after the 1949 season). “If the Phils are a major-league outfit, why is it necessary for them to draft a player from our roster?” he asked.18 Three years later, in 1952, the PCL was given an “open” classification, thereby limiting the right of major-league teams to draft its players.

The Phillies had high expectations when Candini reported to spring training in Clearwater, in 1950. The previous season they had posting a winning record for just the second time since 1917, and were led by a strong young pitching staff. Skipper Eddie Sawyer counted on six hurlers as primary starters and occasional relievers (Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons, Russ Meyer, Bob Miller, and Bubba Church, all 26 years old or younger, and veteran Ken Heintzelman). Jim Konstanty, a 33-year-old reliever in just his second full season in the big leagues, emerged as the talk of baseball, pitching in a then-record 74 games, and winning the MVP award. “Milo had been a very good pitcher and he could still pitch,” said Sawyer. “It was really my fault the way the year developed and with Konstanty, there just weren’t that many spots I could use him.”19 

Candini, in his accustomed role as a mop-up artist, hurled in just 18 games (16 of which were losses by the Phillies), and posted a respectable 2.70 ERA in 30 innings. He and his roommate, second baseman Jimmy Bloodworth, were primarily spectators as the Whiz Kids captured Philadelphia’s first pennant since 1915. Candini did not see action in Philadelphia’s four-game sweep at the hands of the New York Yankees in the World Series.

Candini’s only win of the 1950 season (he had no losses) came on July 26 against the Chicago Cubs in relief of Russ Meyer, who had been tossed after protesting a balk call in the fifth inning while trailing 4-0. The Phillies then scored six runs in the bottom of the sixth to make Candini, who pitched 1⅔ scoreless innings, the winning pitcher.20

The Phillies eventually won the pennant on the final day of the season in a dramatic 10-inning victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers. After the season, when Candini was trying to negotiate a raise, he referenced his one win and told Phillies owner Bob Carpenter, “We couldn’t have won the pennant without me.”21

Candini’s big-league career came to a close in 1951 after he logged just 30 mostly ineffective innings (6.00 ERA) with the Phillies. In parts of eight seasons, the right-hander appeared in 174 games, posted a 3.92 ERA in 537⅔ innings, and won 26 games while losing 21. In the offseason he was sold to the PCL’s Los Angeles Angels, an affiliate of the Chicago Cubs. 

Candini’s elbow pain, often described as bone chips, resurfaced in spring training with the Angels. Counted on as a starter for the Angels, Candini was sold during at the end of camp to Oakland, his third stint with the club. Limited by arm pain, he transformed himself into one of the PCL’s best and most effective relievers over the next six years. He set a league record by pitching in 69 games for the Oaks in 1952 (he also etched out a robust 2.57 ERA in 133 innings). Traded to the Sacramento Solons the following season, Candini emerged as a fan favorite, once named the most popular player on the team.22 In his 20th and final season in Organized Baseball, the 39-year-old pitched in 57 games, logged 100 innings and posted a 1.98 ERA. Despite that success, Candini decided to retire. In 12 seasons in the minors, he appeared in 495 games, won 124 and lost 90 with a 3.80 ERA in 1,626⅔ innings.

Candini settled down with his second wife, Viola, in the San Joaquin Central Valley. He worked for Contadina Foods, and later operated Milo’s Liquors in Manteca from 1962 to 1979 before retiring. He played in local softball leagues well into his early 50s and according to the local paper, the Manteca Bulletin, was an ardent supporter of baseball in the town.23 Manteca’s sandlots, Big League Dreams, are located on Milo Candini Drive.

Candini died from prostate cancer at the age of 80 on March 17, 1998. He was buried in Park View Cemetery in Manteca. In 1994 he was inducted into the Manteca Hall of Fame, and in 2012 into the Sac-Joaquin (Sacramento-San Joaquin) Section High School Sports Hall of Fame.24

This biography appears in “The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant: The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2018), edited by C. Paul Rogers III and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the notes, the author also consulted the following:

The Sporting News

Ancestry.com

BaseballLibrary.com

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.com

SABR.org

Notes

1 The quotation comes from Lee Dunbar, “Candini Makes Pitching History,” Oakland (California) Times, July 1, 1943, 21.

2 El Paso (Texas) Herald-Tribune, April 9, 1937, 17.

3 Harry Grayson, NEA, “Washington Makes A Great Deal For Zuber; Jerry Priddy All Over The Senator Infield; Magician Milo Candini Dealing Like A Shark,” Mount Carmel (Pennsylvania) Item, June 26, 1943, 6.

4 AP, “Senior Loop Nine Beats Americans,” Post Register (Idaho Falls, Idaho), October 6, 1944, 10.

5 Sacramento Bee, June 8, 2012.

6 Omer V. Crane, “Modesto and Manteca Will Compete For Title Today,” Modesto Bee, May 8, 1936, 24.

7 AP, “3000 Albuquerque Fans See Milo Walk 17, Texans Win,” El Paso Herald-Post, July 17, 1937, 9.

8 “Milo Candini Is Another of Meyer’s Big Pitching Hopes,” Kansas City Star, April 16, 1941, 14.

9 Ibid.

10 “Kansas City Hurler Turns Back Yanks With Only One Run,” New York Sun, August 27, 1941, 30.

11 The Sporting News, September 18, 1941, 8.

12 The Sporting News, March 25, 1943, 3.

13 The Spotting News, April 15, 1943, 76.

14 AP, “Candini Injured,” Lincoln (Nebraska) Evening Journal, August 7, 1944, 8.

15 The Sporting News, August 20, 1947, 19.

16 Harmon W. Nichols, UP, “Nation’s No. 1 Baseball Fan Boos Umpire, Protector Says,” Bakersfield Californian, April 20, 1949, 25.

17 The Sporting News, December 7, 1949, 12.

18 Dennis Snelling, The Greatest Minor League: A History of the Pacific Coast League, 1903-1957 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2011), 234.

19 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers III, The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 238.

20 Edward Burns, “Frisch Rakes Cubs; Lose in 6-Walk Inning,” Chicago Tribune, July 22, 1950, B1.

21 Roberts and Rogers, 237.

22 The Sporting News, September 25, 1957, 40.

23 Dennis Wyatt, Milo Candini: A baseball player for all time,” Manteca Bulletin, October 9, 2011, mantecabulletin.com/archives/28182/.

24 Jonamar Jacinto, “SJS Selects MHS grads for Hall of Fame,” Manteca Bulletin, June 9, 2012, mantecabulletin.com/archives/44993/.

To say that Carpenter was born into privilege would be a gross understatement. His mother, the former Margaretta L. du Pont, was an heir to the fortune of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, the Wilmington chemical firm better known as Du Pont. His father, who joined the company and married Margaretta in 1906, was a senior executive and member of the board of directors of the company by the time little Robert came along in 1915.

Montchanin, the community where Carpenter was born, was named for one of his Du Pont ancestors. He grew up there with his sisters, Irene and Louisa, and his younger brother, William. As the oldest son of an heir to the Du Pont fortune, from a very young age Carpenter was referred to as “the Scion of the du Pont Family.” He had an active youth, learning to ride horses and hunt, and also to play baseball and football. He developed into a good athlete in his teens and played on the football team as an end (players played both offense and defense then) at Duke University, where he developed a reputation as a tough blocker. “I was a damn good end,” he recalled in later years. “I could smash like hell.”1

Despite his “scion” status, Carpenter was also very much “a regular guy,” according to his college friends and teammates. Wayne Ambler, a baseball player at Duke who later played for the Philadelphia Athletics, recalled that he knew Carpenter for two years before he found out that his friend was an heir to a large fortune. “I never knew him as Bob Carpenter, the du Pont heir,” Ambler said. “I knew him as Bob Carpenter, the football player. He was easy to talk to, just a regular guy.”2

On June 16, 1938, Carpenter married Mary Kaye Phelps in Wilmington. The couple would have three children: Robert III (known as Ruly), Mary, and Keith.

In 1940 Carpenter and his father partnered with Connie Mack in the ownership of the newly organized Wilmington Blue Rocks, a team in the Class B Inter-State League that Mack used as a farm club for his Philadelphia Athletics. The relationship led to the Carpenter family’s purchase of the Phillies soon thereafter.

By 1943, Philadelphia’s senior circuit entry, the Phillies, were a competitive, financial, and public relations mess. The National League had purchased the team from debt-ridden owner Gerald Nugent and sold it to New York businessman William Cox, who promptly got caught betting on the Phillies and was banned from the game. This created an ownership limbo for the team; it desperately needed a white knight, a wealthy owner who could not only save the team but turn it around.

That man turned out to be Robert Carpenter, Sr., who bought the team for $400,000 on the strength of a strong recommendation from Connie Mack, who told Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis that the Carpenter family would stabilize the franchise. The elder Carpenter immediately handed over the reins to Robert Jr., just 28 years old, making him the youngest owner in baseball. The Blue Rocks conveniently became a Phillies farm team for the 1944 season.

Carpenter was in the Army at the time, so he hired Herb Pennock, the Boston Red Sox farm director and a former pitcher for the New York Yankees and other teams, to run the club as general manager. Pennock had been a favorite player and boyhood idol of Carpenter’s. He also conferred frequently, albeit informally, with Mack on player and business issues.

While Carpenter served in the Army, the team finished last for two straight years. But under Pennock and Carpenter, the franchise invested heavily in its farm system, signing top recruits like speedy leadoff hitter Richie Ashburn, slugger Del Ennis, and pitchers Robin Roberts and Curt Simmons. Carpenter hired marketing consultants to investigate ways to increase ticket sales, and installed a modern accounting system to keep track of the organization’s substantial money flow. All of these moves paid off quickly for the Phillies.

Carpenter was discharged from the Army as a staff sergeant in 1946 and took over as president of the Phillies. He assumed the general manager’s duties two years later, in 1948, after Pennock died.

By 1949, key youngsters Ashburn, Ennis, Simmons, and Roberts had all successfully broken into the big leagues, and for the first time in many years, the Phillies had a contending team. They finished in third place that year, their best season since 1917. For his efforts and innovations, Carpenter was named Major League Baseball’s Executive of the Year by The Sporting News.

The next year Carpenter’s vision for the team came to fruition. Nicknamed the Whiz Kids, the 1950 Phillies were the youngest team in baseball, with an average age of 26. But they had the talent and the fortitude of a veteran squad. They won 91 games and beat out the Brooklyn Dodgers by two games to win the National League pennant, their first since Carpenter was born in 1915. They blew a lead in the pennant race but won the flag on last day of the season to avoid a tie and a playoff game, on a dramatic tenth-inning home run by outfielder Dick Sisler. (Sisler, in a twist of fate, was the interim manager of the Cincinnati Reds team that dealt crucial blows to the Phillies’ pennant run in September 1964.)

The Whiz Kids were swept by the Yankees in the 1950 World Series. They acquitted themselves admirably though, losing by scores of, 1-0, 2-1 (ten innings), 3-2, and 5-2. The Phillies were without the services of Curt Simmons, their second-best pitcher, who was in the Army after his National Guard unit was called up for Korean War service. Despite Simmons’s absence the Phillies played the Yankees fairly even. The team brightened the spirits of Philadelphia. It was thought that the Phillies had a good young nucleus and would remain competitive for years.

The success and likeability of the players helped the Phillies win the affection of the city at the expense of Mack’s Athletics. The 1950 team drew four times as many fans as the Athletics.

In essence, Carpenter’s ownership was part of the death knell of the Athletics in Philadelphia

After the A’s moved to Kansas City before the 1955 season, Carpenter reluctantly purchased Connie Mack Stadium (it had been Shibe Park until 1953, and the Phillies also played there) for $1,657,000. The ballpark was not an asset that Carpenter particularly wanted, saying at the time, “We need a ballpark as much as we need a hole in the head.”3 But the Phillies did need a home park and for lack of suitable alternatives, the 42-year-old ballpark had to do.

Despite the promise shown by the Whiz Kids in 1950, that nucleus never reached the heights that many expected. The team’s best finish between 1950 and 1964 was an 83-win, third-place finish in 1953. After that, the squad fell further each year, culminating in four consecutive last-place finishes (1958 through 1961). Perhaps Carpenter had “fallen in love” with his team and become too close to his players. In any case, he relieved himself of the general manager’s duties in 1959 when he hired John Quinn away from the successful Milwaukee Braves franchise.

By 1964 the Phillies were back on top – for most of the season. Led by Rookie of the Year slugger Dick Allen and superstar pitcher Jim Bunning, the Phillies were 6½ games ahead in the National League with only 12 games to play. However, they suffered a stunning collapse, dropping ten straight games and ultimately losing the pennant to the St. Louis Cardinals.

By the mid-1960s, both Connie Mack Stadium and the neighborhood surrounding it had fallen into disrepair. The 50-year-old structure was a shell of its former grand self. The Phillies needed a new ballpark, and Carpenter sold Connie Mack Stadium in 1967 for $600,000 to Philadelphia Eagles owner Jerry Wolman, absorbing a loss of more than one million dollars if one figured in all of the refurbishing Carpenter had done.

The Phillies went on the hunt for a new ballpark. After much strife, dispute, and government obstruction and incompetence, the city, the Carpenters, and the financiers chose South Philadelphia as a site. There, in 1971, the Phillies began play in a brand-new multisport facility known as Veterans Stadium and popularly called “The Vet.” They shared the stadium with the football Eagles, and were across the street from the Spectrum, home of the city’s NBA and NHL franchises. The Vet was demolished in March 2004 after Citizens Bank Park was built.

During his long tenure as owner, Carpenter was well liked by his players, managers, and coaches. “He was the best owner I ever played for,” said outfielder Del Ennis. “Everybody thought the world of him. He was just like a father.”4 “He was a tender-hearted guy,” said Eddie Sawyer, manager of the Whiz Kids. “When he fired me in 1952, I think it was tougher on him than it was on me.”5

But Carpenter was no softie when it came to issues like free agency, unions, and sports agents. He was from the old school, viewed playing professional baseball as a privilege, and thought players were already well compensated for that privilege. He became particularly upset with Curt Flood, who famously refused to report to the Phillies after he had been traded from the St. Louis Cardinals. Flood didn’t want to go to Philadelphia, a city he felt was racist and perhaps dangerous to his well-being. But his argument was much larger and more far-reaching than that. Flood argued that the reserve clause, which allowed teams to control players for their entire careers – or trade them to a new team without their consent – was an affront to human dignity, and he likened it to slavery.

“Human dignity, my foot,” the usually mild-mannered Carpenter once raged in an interview. “Who gets more recognition, who gets more prestige, than the professional athlete?”

He was equally unhappy with players’ unions.”I don’t think the union was necessary,” Carpenter once said. “I don’t believe the union belongs in sports.” On agents, he said, “Look, if a player comes in to me and we sit and talk, and he’s had a good year, he’s going to get whatever he wants from me. But if he comes in with a sharp-shooting lawyer, I’m going to dig up every negative thing I can about that player.”6

Perhaps Carpenter’s greatest failure was his reluctance to sign black players. The Phillies were the last team to integrate in the National League when they debuted a rookie named John Kennedy in 1957 – a full decade after Jackie Robinson broke the color line. It wasn’t until the Phillies signed left fielder Wes Covington in 1961 that they had a starting player who was black. People can draw their own conclusions whether the Phillies’ decision not to sign black players of consequence until years after most of the other teams in the league had black stars hurt the franchise.

In 1972, a year after the Phillies moved from Connie Mack Stadium to Veterans Stadium, Carpenter relinquished control of the team to his son Ruly, then 32. Ruly recalled, “He came to me at the end of the 1972 season and said, ‘That’s it, you’re running things. Once he got out, he never interfered, he never second-guessed. Of course, he was consulted on major decisions, like [the December 5, 1978] signing Pete Rose as a free agent.”7

Carpenter had no regrets about leaving baseball, Ruly said. “It probably was better for him that he got out when he did,” he said. “So much had changed – the advent of free agency, multiyear contracts and hassles with the players associations – I don’t think he would have been very happy with any of it. I also don’t think he would have been happy with some of the new owners.”8

After he relinquished the club to his son, Carpenter was known to stop by Veterans Stadium now and then and pore over minor-league farm reports. He also continued his earlier involvement as a booster of the University of Delaware’s athletic program. “He was a very unpretentious man,” his son said. “I think he would like to be remembered for his total contributions to athletics.”9

Perhaps it was ironic, but after Carpenter retired, the Phillies finally established the consistency and excellence that he had sought for so long. The team won three straight National League East division titles, 1976-1978, and won the franchise’s first World Series championship in 1980. “[My father was] tickled to death,” Ruly said. “But the Whiz Kids were his biggest thrill.”10

In 1981, a year after the Phillies won the World Series, the Carpenters sold the team to a group headed by Phillies vice president Bill Giles for about $30 million.

Although he wanted the team (and thus himself) to earn money, Carpenter also believed that because of his inherited wealth, he had a civic obligation to provide a good team for the city. He was heavily involved in charitable causes his entire life, and he was a founding member of the Delaware Association for Retarded Children (DARC), later called the Delaware Foundation Reaching Children with intellectual disabilities. Carpenter was also heavily involved with Delaware sports at the high-school and college levels. In 1953 he instituted the annual Delaware High School Blue-Gold All-Star Football Game. Beginning in 1956, the game became a fundraiser for DARC. The game is played in June at the University of Delaware’s Delaware Stadium.

Carpenter died from lung cancer on July 8, 1990, at the age of 74. He was buried at Montchanin, New Castle County, Delaware.

This biography is included in the book “The Year of the Blue Snow: The 1964 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2013), edited by Mel Marmer and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Sources

Books

Bruce Kulick, To Everything a Season, (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1996).

Norman L. Macht, Connie Mack and the Early Years of Baseball, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007).

Rich Westcott, Philadelphia’s Old Ballparks (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996).

Newspapers

Brian Smith, “Athletics Days in Philadelphia Worth Remembering,” Reading (Pennsylvania) Eagle, June 26, 2011.

“Robert Carpenter Jr., Former Phillies Owner, Du Pont Heir, Dies at 74.” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 11, 1990.

“Robert Carpenter, Jr., Ex-Phillies Owner, 74,” New York Times, July 11, 1990 (obituary).

Websites

Genealogy.com

Baseball-Reference.com

Baseball-Almanac.com

Geni.com.

Notes

It’s a shame that Bubba Church is mostly remembered for getting drilled below his left eye by a Ted Kluszewski line drive, because, as a 25-year-old rookie, Church was a key member of the 1950 Whiz Kids pitching staff. In fact, it is unlikely that the Phillies would have won the pennant without him. Although he didn’t record his first win until June 3 and wasn’t inserted into the starting rotation until July 18, after the Phillies had lost five in a row, he won eight of his first 10 decisions and played a large role in the team’s achieving a 7½-game lead in early September.

Kluszewski effectively ended his season on September 15 and the Phillies, with a depleted pitching staff, barely managed to limp to the pennant. If the Whiz Kids’ pitching had been at full strength at the end of the season with Church, Curt Simmons (lost to active military duty), and a healthy Bob Miller, the World Series against the Yankees might well have been a different story.

Emory Nicholas Church was born to Hilda and John Emory Church on September 12, 1924, in Birmingham, Alabama, where he lived almost his entire life. His older brother, Frank, had trouble saying “brother” while they were growing up. “Bubba” was as close as he could come, and the nickname stuck.1 His father had the talent to play professional baseball but with a family to support, he went into the fish business in Birmingham until the Depression hit. Church’s father died in 1934 when Bubba was 9 years old, leaving a wife and three children. By the time he was 10, Bubba was helping out the family by selling popsicles from an icebox strapped to his shoulders at the local farmers market from 4 to 7 A.M. When he was 11, he pitched the first game his YMCA team played, winning 11-2 and hitting a home run to boot. Thereafter Bubba played almost every position except pitcher into his high-school days, so good was his hitting.2

Bubba attended West End High School in Birmingham but dropped out in 1943 when he was 17, lied about his age, and enlisted in the US Army. He was sent to Camp Sutton in South Carolina, then to California for six days before shipping out to India, where he served in the Burma Road sector for 27 months.3 While there he was able to play some baseball in what the GIs called “the Tea Patch League,” playing on diamonds hacked out of the jungle. Church managed a team and pitched because he was the only man in his outfit who could throw a curveball. He even pitched a no-hitter.4

After Church was discharged he returned to Birmingham and finished high school, where he again played high-school baseball. In the summer he joined the semipro Stockholm Pipe Company and another team, and brought in a total of $105 a week playing the outfield and pitching. Church soon had offers to play professional baseball from the Tigers, Cardinals, White Sox, and Pirates, with the Tigers offering a $3,500 bonus.5 He also received a baseball scholarship offer from Mississippi State University.

Church’s manager with the Stockholm Pipe team was Charley Chappell, an old schoolmate of Ben Chapman, a veteran major leaguer then the manager of the Phillies. Chappell advised Church to not sign a professional baseball contract until he talked to Chapman after Ben returned to Birmingham at the end of the major-league season. So Church accepted the scholarship to Mississippi State and enrolled for the fall term. At the end of the semester he visited Chapman at his bowling alley in Birmingham. Chapman asked Church how long he thought it would take him to get to the big leagues and Church told him three years. Church was 22 and realized that he would be 26 by the time he got out of college, so he agreed to sign with the Phillies and head to spring training in Clearwater, Florida, in 1947.6 But before Church signed, Chapman told him to say he was 21, since 22 was a bit old to just begin a professional career. Church later said that he and his wife, Peggy, had two children before she found out how old he really was.7

Church was in the Phillies’ big-league camp for a time and started an exhibition game against the New York Yankees in Clearwater. Babe Ruth had played with Ben Chapman when Chapman was with the Yankees and attended the game dressed in a camel-hair coat. Before the game Chapman introduced the Babe to Church as that day’s starting pitcher and the Babe wished him good luck.8

The Phillies were undecided whether Church should pitch or play the outfield. Chapman thought that with his hitting prowess he should play every day, while Phillies general manager Herb Pennock was impressed with Bubba’s curveball and wanted him to pitch. They compromised by sending Church to Salina, Kansas, in the Class-C Western Association to do both.

During the first half of the season with Salina, Church played the outfield for three games and pitched the fourth, although he was told not to try to steal a base. Midway through the year he was 9-6 as a pitcher and hitting about .320 when the Phillies decided that he should concentrate on pitching.9 He went 12-3 the rest of the year to finish 21-9 with a 2.93 earned-run average in 249 innings for the pennant-winning Blue Jays. He struck out 219 batters and walked only 79. At the plate, he finished with a .280 batting average in 78 games and 275 at-bats.

Church’s performance in Salina earned him a promotion for 1948 all the way to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the Triple-A International League. He struggled, however, to a 5-9 record and a 5.52 ERA under Eddie Sawyer, his future Whiz Kids manager.. He attended Louisiana State University for the second offseason and was so discouraged that he even contemplated quitting baseball.10 Church ultimately decided to come back, determined to improve. And with the help of veteran catcher Hal Wagner and manager Del Bissonette, he did bounce back with Toronto in 1949, compiling a 15-8 record and a 2.35 earned-run average, the lowest in the International League. In 211 innings he gave up only 152 hits with 15 complete games and three shutouts.

While attending LSU after the 1949 season Church met a cute coed named Peggy Anne Maddox from Huntington, Tennessee, whose background was in dance. They soon married and would have three children, Cynthia, born in 1950, Lisa born in 1951, and Johnny, born in 1955.

With his big year in 1949, Church had his sights set on making the Phillies in 1950. He recalled that Toronto would often change trains in Philadelphia on its way to play the Baltimore Orioles, then still in the International League. The players could see Shibe Park, the Phillies’ home ballpark, from the train and when time permitted some of his teammates would head over there to look around. Church, however, vowed that he wouldn’t go to Shibe Park until he was on the big-league roster.11

Church didn’t have long to wait. He was invited to the big-league camp in 1950 and impressed with his curveball in Florida. He pitched the final three innings of the Phillies’ last exhibition game in Clearwater before the team broke camp. He struck out Ted Williams for the last out of the game and watched Williams hurl his bat about 50 feet in the air in frustration.12 The Phillies’ first stop on their way north to open the season was Church’s hometown. Eddie Sawyer picked him to start against the Birmingham Barons of the Southern Association and Bubba solidified his position on the Opening Day roster by pitching the first complete game of the spring, a 10-4 victory.13

Once the season began, however, the 24-year-old Church sat in the bullpen for two weeks without being called into a game. He fussed and fumed, but coach Cy Perkins told him to be patient, that he would get his opportunity.14 Finally, on April 30, the 12th game of the season, manager Sawyer summoned Church to relieve in the sixth inning of the first game of a doubleheader, with the Phillies down 2-0 to the Boston Braves at home. He induced the first batter, Pete Reiser, to hit a comebacker and set the side down in order. Church pitched three scoreless innings, striking out three and allowing only a single to Earl Torgeson in a game the Phillies eventually lost 4-1.  

Two days later Church pitched an inning and a third of scoreless ball in a loss to the Cubs, prompting Sawyer to give him his first start, in Cincinnati on May 7 in the second game of a doubleheader. The Phillies jumped out to a 4-0 lead after two innings but Church couldn’t hold the lead, leaving the game in the bottom of the sixth with the scored tied, 4-4. The Phillies went on to win 6-4, fueled by an eighth-inning home run by Del Ennis and a ninth-inning double by Granny Hamner.

After two more scoreless relief appearances, Church got a second start, this time against the Pittsburgh Pirates in Philadelphia on May 24. He again pitched well and allowed only two hits in the first six innings. The game was scoreless heading into the seventh inning, when Church allowed a three-run home run by Wally Westlake. The Phillies, however, got Church off the hook with a six-run eighth, led by a three-run homer by Dick Sisler, and prevailed 6-3.

After another relief appearance, Church started again 10 days later against the Cubs in Wrigley Field and earned his first major-league win, 6-2. He allowed 10 hits in 6⅔ innings before Sawyer brought in Jim Konstanty to secure the win.

Although Church sported a 2.93 earned-run average, it was back to the bullpen for the next six weeks, and he continued to sparkle, allowing only three runs in eight appearances spanning 15 innings.

In mid-July the Phillies went into a skid, losing five games in a row and six out of seven. The fifth straight of those losses was to the Cubs, 5-2, on July 18 in the first game of a doubleheader. In the second game Sawyer shook up the lineup and gave Church his first start since early June. Bubba was up to the task and pitched a complete-game 8-3 victory, allowing only five hits. The Phillies gave him an early cushion, scoring five runs in the first two innings to chase Cubs starter Bob Rush. Church even contributed at the plate, going 2-for-4.

Church later related that sometime before the All-Star break Sawyer had called him over to his seat on the train and told him to quit worrying, that he would get his shot. Sawyer said, “If we didn’t think you could help this ballclub, you wouldn’t be here.”15

After making the most of his chance in Chicago by breaking the team’s losing streak, Church found himself in the regular rotation. On July 21 he won his next start, 4-1 against the Pirates in Pittsburgh in another complete-game outing to run his record to 3-0. Then he topped that performance on July 25 against the Cubs in the first game of a doubleheader in Philadelphia with his first major-league shutout, a 7-0 win in which he scattered three hits, did not walk a batter, and lowered his earned run average to 2.11.

Robin Roberts won the second game of the doubleheader in a tense, taut affair that wasn’t decided until the Phillies Richie Ashburn singled to drive in Putsy Caballero in the bottom of the ninth with the only run of the game. Afterward, Church told Roberts how he didn’t think it was fair that he pitched a three-hit shutout only to have Roberts outdo him with a 1-0 win in the nightcap.16

In his next start, against the Pirates in Shibe Park, Church finally suffered his first loss, by a 7-4 score, before rebounding with another three-hit shutout against the Cincinnati Reds to win 2-0 and bring his record to 5-1. Church drove in the first run of the game with a line single in the fourth. He continued to pitch superbly, losing his next start against St. Louis despite giving up only two unearned runs in seven innings, before winning three in a row, all complete games, to run his record to 8-2. By this time, he was being touted as a serious Rookie of the Year candidate, even with his late start.17

Church had played a large role in the Phillies’ torrid August and when he defeated the Braves 7-3 in Boston on September 1 for his eighth victory, he helped stretch the Phillies’ lead to seven games over the Dodgers and 9½ over the Braves. It was, however, his last win of the year.

Church lost his next two starts, to the Dodgers and Braves, although he pitched well in both. Then, on September 15 in the top of the third with two outs, Church was struck by Ted Kluszewski’s line drive. It happened on a first-pitch fastball over the plate to the left-handed-swinging Kluszewski. Church later remembered that he saw the ball off the bat, got his glove up, and thought he was going to catch it. But he thought the ball must have sailed because the next thing he knew the ball hit him. He watched the ball travel out to right field while he spun completely around, ending up on his knees.

As he cupped his hands to his face, he remembered hearing a story about a fan being struck by a foul ball in Birmingham whose eye supposedly just fell into his hands. Church momentarily thought that was what had happened to him, but soon realized he was just bleeding from a large cut under his eye.18    

Teammate Jimmy Bloodworth and trainer Frank Wiechec carried Church off the field and into the clubhouse fireman-style. Church kept asking Bloodworth if they got Kluszewski out and Bloodworth told him, “Sure we did, Bub, sure we did.”

Church replied, “You’re lying to me, Bloodworth. I know we didn’t.”19  

Church also remembered teammate Blix Donnelly coming in to the clubhouse and telling him, “We know you’re all right, it hit you in the head. If it had hit you in the foot it would really have hurt you.”20

The Phillies took Church to the hospital and it turned out he was not seriously injured, although his cut did require attention and then plastic surgery. His first visitor was teammate Bill Nicholson, who had been hospitalized with diabetes and was listening to the game on the radio.

Church was in the hospital for eight days,21 and one day after his release he was back on the mound, on September 24 against the Dodgers in Shibe Park. The Dodgers nicked Church for two runs in the first four innings before the roof fell in in the fifth. The Dodgers scored six runs in that frame and went on to win 11-0 on a two-hit shutout by Erv Palica.

With the Phillies in a tailspin and desperate for starting pitching, Sawyer again trotted Church out, on two days’ rest, against the Giants in the Polo Grounds in the second game of a doubleheader. After retiring the first two batters, Church gave up two singles and a walk. Bobby Thomson then smashed a drive to deep left-center field and circled the bases without a play at the plate for an inside-the-park grand slam. After surrendering a double to Alvin Dark, Church was through for the day and, as it turned out, for the year. He finished his rookie campaign with an 8-6 record and an impressive 2.73 earned-run average. He allowed only 113 hits in 142 innings and completed eight of his 18 starts.

Although Church lobbied to pitch in the World Series, Sawyer didn’t use him as the Yankees swept in four close games, three of which were decided by one run.

Heading into the 1951 season, there was concern whether Church would be able to bounce back from his scary injury. He struggled early in the year and after six starts sported a 2-3 record and a 4.99 ERA. On May 25, Church started against the Giants and struck out Willie Mays looking in Mays’ major-league debut.22 He went on to retire Mays three more times in a game the Giants eventually won 8-5, thanks to a shaky Phillies bullpen.

After his slow start, Church won 10 of 12 decisions to push his record to 12-5 and lower his earned-run average to 3.15 as he established himself as the number-two starter on the team, behind only Robin Roberts. Included in that run were four shutouts. Along the way, he had a streak of 28⅓ scoreless innings.23

On July 8 Church hit the first of three career home runs, launching a two-run upper-deck shot in Shibe Park against Preacher Roe of the Dodgers. For the season he hit .256 with, in addition to his homer, three doubles and seven runs batted in.

On August 5 Church threw a one-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates, allowing only a solo home run to Ralph Kiner on the way to a 5-1 victory for his 13th win against only six losses. Dick Sisler leaped at the left-field wall for Kiner’s blast, but it landed just out of his reach.24

Church started the last game of the season, against Brooklyn in a meaningless game for the Phillies but with the pennant on the line for the Dodgers, who were in a dead heat with the Giants. The Phillies jumped out to a 6-1 lead after three innings, sparked in part by Church’s two-run single in the third, but Bubba could not hold the lead and was taken out in the fifth with the Phillies still ahead 6-5. The game eventually went 14 innings before Jackie Robinson’s home run won it for the Dodgers and sent them into the famous playoff series against the Giants.

Church finished the season 15-11 and pitched 247 innings, behind only Roberts’ 21 wins and 315 innings, as the Phillies slipped to a disappointing fifth place, eight games under .500. In the best season of his career, Church started 33 games, completed 15 and threw four shutouts.

The Phillies had high hopes to rebound in 1952 from their forgettable ’51 season with the return of Curt Simmons from the military. Church, however, hurt his arm in spring training on a chilly day, and was largely ineffective the rest of the spring. He also managed to get crossways with manager Sawyer, who didn’t pitch him until the 11th game of the season, against the Cubs in Wrigley Field.25 He couldn’t get out of the third inning, however, in an eventual 9-8 Phillies’ loss.

Church didn’t pitch again until May 17, allowing two runs in three innings in a relief appearance against the Reds. Then on May 23 the Phillies, who were in fifth place and appeared headed for another disappointing season, pulled the plug and traded Church to the Reds for pitcher Kent Peterson and outfielder Johnny Wyrostek.

Upon joining Cincinnati, Church was put into the starting rotation, but was then relegated to the bullpen with an unsightly 10.91 earned-run average after failing to get out of the first inning in a June 7 start against the Dodgers in Cincinnati. After five relief appearances, he got a start against the Boston Braves on June 19, which ended in a no-decision. Thereafter, Church was in the starting rotation, with rather indifferent success for the sixth-place Reds. Highlights were a four-hit, 4-1 win against the Pirates on July 3 and a six-hit 4-0 shutout versus the Braves in Boston on August 3. On September 12, Church’s 28th birthday, he smacked a home run in the top of the third inning off the Giants’ Al Corwin in a game he eventually lost, 4-2. For the season he recorded five wins against nine losses with a 4.55 earned-run average in 158⅓ innings.

Church didn’t feel particularly comfortable with his new team, because he was for the first time in his baseball career subject to second-guessing. Once when he came back to the dugout after giving up a home run on a curveball, Reds manager Luke Sewell asked him why he’d thrown the batter that pitch. “Because I wanted him to hit a home run,” replied the exasperated Church.26

After the 1952 season, Church pitched for Magallanes in the Venezuelan Winter League, where he worked on a slider to add to his fastball and curve. He pitched very successfully, and some observers thought he was back to his 1950 and 1951 form.27

Church was back with the Reds in 1953 with high hopes, but was bothered in the spring by a sore shoulder and was again inconsistent, pitching out of the bullpen but also getting some starts. By June 9 he was 3-3 with a 5.98 earned-run average when the Reds shipped him to the Chicago Cubs in exchange for right-handed pitcher Bob Kelley and rookie left-hander Fred Baczewski. Church later related that he was relieved to get away from Reds manager Rogers Hornsby, who had replaced Sewell in the middle of the ’52 season. Hornsby, who made little secret of his disdain for pitchers, didn’t even come to the mound when changing pitchers. Instead, he just waived in the relief pitcher from the dugout.28

Church, still plagued by inconsistency, was in and out of the Cubs’ starting rotation for the rest of the ’53 season, finishing with a 7-8 record and 5.29 ERA in 148 innings. His top performance was a complete-game 10-inning 3-2 win over the Dodgers on June 21 in which he gave up only one earned run and struck out eight.

Church made the Cubs out of spring training in 1954 and began the year with a strong complete-game 9-2 victory over the Reds on April 25. However, he failed to make it to the second inning in his next two starts and was relegated to the bullpen, where he also struggled. On May 24 the Cubs gave up on Church and sold him outright to the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League.

Church continued with inconsistent performances for the Angels, at times pitching spectacularly and other times poorly. He reached the pinnacle on August 3, pitching a no-hitter against the Portland Beavers. He fanned six and walked three in the gem, facing only the minimum 27 batters thanks to three double plays behind him. For the year he compiled 11 wins against 9 losses with a 3.89 earned-run average in 134⅓ innings, which included 10 complete games and three shutouts. He also showed that he could still swing the bat, hitting .239 with 11 hits in 46 at-bats.

His performance with the Angels earned Church a 1955 spring-training invitation with the Cubs and he started the season with Chicago. However, after two relief appearances in which he pitched 3⅓ innings and gave up two earned runs, the Cubs returned him to the Angels of the PCL. In what would be his last major-league appearance, he relieved in the ninth inning on May 1 at Connie Mack Stadium against his old team the Phillies and earned a save in an 8-7 Cubs victory. He faced two batters, retiring former Whiz Kids teammate Willie Jones on a popout to first and striking out pinch-hitter Marv Blaylock to end the game. Although he was just 30 years old, his chronic sore arm effectively ended his big-league career.

Church spent the balance of the 1955 season with the Angels and pitched well if not inconsistently, with 11 wins and 7 losses and a 3.66 earned-run average in 34 appearances. In 14 starts he threw five complete games and two shutouts for Los Angeles, which finished in a tie for third place in the PCL. At bat he hit .204 with a home run and five runs batted in and was occasionally used as a pinch-hitter by manager Bob Scheffing.

After the season Church decided to hang up his spikes and return home to Alabama, even though he was just 31 years old. Church tried entering the real-estate business, settling in Montgomery, Alabama, but struggled to adjust to life without baseball. During the winter after the 1956 season, he called Phillies owner Bob Carpenter and asked for a job back in baseball. Carpenter obliged and signed Church to pitch for the Miami Marlins, the team’s affiliate in the International League, where one of his teammates was the 50-year-old Satchel Paige.29 Church proved serviceable, winning five and losing six with a 3.69 earned-run average as a spot starter. He showed that he was still adept at the plate, batting .250 in 36 at-bats.

After the 1957 season Church returned to the Venezuelan Winter League, where he had pitched successfully five years previously. He pitched well and on January 20, 1958, set a Venezuelan league record by recording 16 strikeouts.30

In 1958 Church was named pitching coach for the Marlins, although he remained on the active roster, appearing in three games. Havana was in the International League that season and on one trip Church was allegedly involved in “a sombrero incident” in which he along with pitchers Mickey McDermott, Windy McCall, and Dallas Green showed up at the Havana airport wearing sombreros after a night on the town.31

Church later remembered his time in Miami fondly. He and Peggy had a dog named Tiger who liked to go to the ballpark and sit in the bullpen. But the dog howled and howled whenever the National Anthem was played. So when it was time for the anthem, ballpark regulars would remark that it was time for Bubba’s dog to howl.32          

Church retired from baseball for good after the ’58 season and moved back to Birmingham. After another try in the real-estate business, he became successful running a linen supply business for doctors’ offices and clinics.

Over the years, Church had become good friends with legendary Alabama football coach Bear Bryant. In the fall of 1961 Alabama had an unhappy freshman quarterback named Joe Namath, who was contemplating packing up, heading home to Pennsylvania, and signing a pro baseball contract with the Chicago Cubs or one of the other organizations that had scouted him in high school. Coach Bryant asked Church to talk to his discontented player and he did, telling Namath about how his sore arm caused him to go 13-20 in his last four big-league seasons and ended his career prematurely. The message was that Namath would be better off staying in college and getting an education to fall back on.

Church then reportedly pulled some money out of his wallet and told Namath to use it to fly home to think about whether it would be better for him to be there or back at Alabama. Namath did decide to return to school, and of course the rest is history.33

Bubba’s son Johnny was an all-state shortstop and quarterback in high school and was on the recruiting lists of Alabama and other SEC schools. In the spring of 1972, his junior year, Johnny led his high-school team to the Class-4A Alabama state baseball championship. That June, however, unthinkable tragedy struck. Johnny was riding in the backseat of a car that was hit by a train, killing him and two classmates riding in the car.34

After Church retired from the linen supply business, he played golf, appeared at Whiz Kids reunions and kept in touch with old Phillies teammates like Andy Seminick, Robin Roberts, and Putsy Caballero. He was elected into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2001, just months before he died on September 17 of that year, just five days past his 77th birthday. His wife, Peggy, had died in 1995.

This biography appears in “The Whiz Kids Take the Pennant: The 1950 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2018), edited by C. Paul Rogers III and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the notes, the author also consulted:

Beverage, Richard E. The Angels — Los Angeles in the Pacific Coast League (Placentia, California: Deacon Press, 1981).

Cook, William A. Big Klu — The Baseball Life of Ted Kluszewski (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012).

Fehler, Gene. Tales From Baseball’s Golden Age (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing Inc., 2000).

Lavin, Thomas. “Bubba Church: A Forgotten Member of the Whiz Kids,” Baseball Digest, October 1989.

Robin Roberts with C. Paul Rogers III, My Life in Baseball (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2003) republished as Throwing Hard Easy, Reflections on a Life in Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014).

The author would like to thank Bubba Church’s daughter Cindy Marino, and his grandson Preston Neel for their help with the family history used for this biography.

Notes

1 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers III, The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 209; Harry Paxton, The Whiz Kids — The Story of the Fightin’ Phillies (New York: David McKay Co., Inc., 1950), 106; J.G. Taylor Spink, “ ‘I Can Pitch in This League,’ Said Church,” The Sporting News, August 23, 1950: 8. Brother Frank went on to star in track at LSU, specializing in the sprinting events. John Webster, “Bubba Church, Who Foiled Sophomore Jinx, Vows Hard Work and No Injury Means Finest Year,” unidentified clipping dated March 6, 1952, from Church’s file at the National Baseball Library.

2“Bubba Church: After Popsicles Pitching Was Easy,” Baseball Life Stories 1952: 19.

3 Spink, 8.

4 Popsicles, 93.

5 Spink, 8.

6 Roberts and Rogers, 209-210; Spink, 8; Cynthia J. Wilber, For the Love of the Game (New York: William & Morrow, Co., 1992), 311-12; Rich Marazzi, “Bubba Church Was a Vital Part of a Phillies Club That Made History,” Sports Collectors Digest, January 2, 1998: 90.

7 Roberts and Rogers, 210; Marazzi, 90.

8 Wilbur, 312.

9 Roberts and Rogers, 210.

10 Popsicles, 93.

11 Roberts and Rogers, 210-11.

12 Wilbur, 312-13.

13 Roberts and Rogers, 209.

14 Skip Clayton, “Bubba Church — Who Can Forget His 1950 Season?” Phillies Report (undated copy on file with author), 10.

15 Roberts and Rogers, 234.

16 Roberts and Rogers, 237.

17 “Bubba Church Touted for NL Rookie of the Year,” unidentified article dated August 28, 1950, from Church’s file at the National Baseball Library.

18 Even 40-plus years later, Phillies manager Eddie Sawyer and teammates Del Ennis and Andy Seminick still thought that Church’s eye was hanging down out of his eye socket. In fact, the nasty cut was right under his eye and Church was bleeding profusely from his nose and the cut, but his eye remained intact. Roberts and Rogers, 290-91.

19 Roberts and Rogers, 291.

20 Roberts and Rogers, 291.

21 Marazzi, 91.

22 Mays then grounded out to third and flied out to right in this next two at-bats, both against Church, who left after seven innings with the game tied, 5-5. The Giants went on to win, 8-5as Mays went 0-5 for the day.

23 Clayton, 10.

24 Gene Fehler, When Baseball Was Still King — Major League Players Remember the 1950s (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012), 113.

25 Stan Baumgartner, “Church, 15-Game Winner, Hasn’t Pitched for ’52 Phils,” Philadelphia Inquirer, April 22, 1952, from Church’s file at the National Baseball Library; Clayton, 10.

26 Bubba Church interview, July 22, 1993, on file with author.

27 https://newspapers.com/newspage/40697208/.

28 Bubba Church interview, July 22, 1993, on file with author.

29 Sam Zygner, The Forgotten Marlins — A Tribute to the 1956-1968 Original Miami Marlins (Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2013), 81; Wilber, 315.

30 https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2206&dat=19580120&id=4rwyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=JewFAAAAIBAJ&pg=2429,2014518&hl=en

31 Zygner, 150-51.

32 Wilber, 315.

33 Mark Kriegel, Namath — A Biography (New York: Penguin Group, 2004), 78-79.

34 The other two boys killed were Tim Mote, a starting linebacker on the football team, and John Ogletree, the senior class president. Johnny Church’s high school (now called Hoover High although it was known as Berry High School when Johnny attended) has for the last 45 plus years annually awarded the Johnny Church Memorial MVP Award to the top player on the baseball team. http://hooverhighathletics.com/2016/02/15/words-of-wood-johnny-church/.