Aristotle George (Harry) Agganis was born on April 20, 1929, in Lynn to George Agganis and the former Georgia Papalimberis. The couple met in Lynn after each had emigrated from Greece, and married in October 1906. Aristotle (Harry was a derivation of his family nickname, Ari)1 was the last of their seven children. The family lived on Waterhill Street in West Lynn, in a largely Greek neighborhood. Harry spoke mainly Greek at home, and attended a Greek Orthodox Church.2

Harry quickly became renowned as a great athlete in his neighborhood and city. Having already earned the nickname the Golden Greek, Agganis was a three-sport star at Lynn Classical High School, about 10 miles north of Boston. As a teenager, he played baseball at Lynn’s venerable Fraser Field and in 1946 he traveled to Chicago for the Esquire All-American Boy game at Wrigley Field. By then, the Red Sox had established a Class B New England League farm team in Lynn. Dick O’Connell, who eventually became general manager of the Red Sox, served as Lynn’s business manager. O’Connell had been able to watch Agganis closely, and reportedly persuaded the Red Sox to hire Harry’s high-school football and baseball coach, Bill Joyce, as president of the Lynn Red Sox. Harry worked out with the team on occasion, in addition to working odd jobs for the club.3

In 1947, Harry hit .352 to lead Lynn Classical to the Massachusetts state baseball championship.4 He was named the state’s player of the year, and was chosen to play in the Hearst All-Star game at the Polo Grounds in New York. After graduating from high school, Agganis spent the summer of 1948 playing for the Augusta Millionaires in Maine, where he starred with future Red Sox teammate Ted Lepcio.5

As good as he was on the high-school diamond and basketball court (where he was a star ball-handling center), Agganis earned even more fame on the gridiron, attracting crowds of more than 20,000 to Lynn’s Manning Bowl.6 As a left-handed quarterback, defensive back, kicker, and punter, he led his team to a 21-1-1 record over two seasons. Following an undefeated junior year in 1946, he and his teammates traveled to Miami, Florida, where they defeated Granby High of Norfolk, Virginia (whose roster included future Red Sox pitcher Chuck Stobbs), in the Orange Bowl on Christmas Day to win the mythical national high-school football championship.7 “That young man could step into any college backfield right now,” raved Tennessee football coach General Bob Neyland.8 Agganis and his teammates declined an invitation to a similar game following his senior year when they were told they could not bring their two African-American players.9 Over his three-year high-school football career, the All-American Agganis completed 65 percent of his passes (326 for 502) for 4,149 yards and 48 touchdowns. He also rushed for 24 more touchdowns, kicked 39 extra points, and averaged more than 40 yards per punt.10

Agganis received scholarship offers from no fewer than 75 colleges, including such programs of national renown as Notre Dame and the University of Tennessee. Fighting Irish head coach Frank Leahy had dubbed Harry “the finest prospect I’ve ever seen.” 11 Agganis, whose father, George, had died in 1946, surprised many football observers when he decided to attend Boston University to remain close to his widowed mother.

Red Sox fans did not have to travel far to catch Agganis in action on the gridiron, as the BU Terriers played their home games at Fenway Park. As he had in high school, Harry wore jersey No. 33 to honor his hero, standout Washington Redskins quarterback Sammy Baugh. Playing for the freshman squad, Agganis was 29-for-52 for 492 passing yards and five touchdowns in four games. He averaged 4.7 yards per carry rushing and scored four touchdowns on the ground.12

As a sophomore in 1949, Agganis set a school record with 15 touchdown passes while completing 55 of 108 tosses for 762 yards. He also rushed for 5.4 yards per carry, scored two touchdowns on the ground13, intercepted 15 passes on defense14, and led the nation in punting with a 46.5 yard average.15 Harry was named a second-team All-American, finishing behind future NFL and AFL star quarterback Babe Parilli of the University of Kentucky.16

Agganis’s college career was next interrupted by the Korean War. He had enlisted in the United States Marines’ 2nd Infantry Organized Reserve Battalion while in high school, and was called to active duty in the spring of 1950. Though he never went overseas, Harry served a 15-month hitch at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, where he played for the football and baseball teams. In the summer of 1950, Agganis hit .362 to lead his team to a 72-17 record against clubs stocked with former major-league pitchers.17 His squad reached the National Baseball Congress tournament in Wichita, Kansas, and Harry was named Most Valuable Player.18

Agganis later requested a dependency discharge to help support his mother, and returned to school in September 1951.19 He arrived home just two days before the Terriers’ football opener at William & Mary and got in an hour of practice before throwing a pair of touchdown passes.20 As a junior that fall, Harry threw for 14 touchdowns and a school record 1,402 yards, completing 104 of 185 passes, and earned the Bulger Lowe Award as the best collegiate football player in New England.21 In the spring of 1952, Agganis hit .322 for the Terriers in his return to the baseball diamond.22 Twice appearing on the cover of the prestigious Sport magazine, in the spring of 1952, Agganis was selected with the 12th overall pick in the first round of the National Football League draft by Paul Brown, coach of the Cleveland Browns, who wanted Agganis to succeed legendary quarterback Otto Graham.23 Instead, Agganis chose to return to Boston University for his senior season.

Nowhere was Agganis’s fame greater than in his hometown of Lynn. When members of Lynn’s Greek community held a benefit dinner in Harry’s honor, he refused to keep any of the money raised. Instead, he sent it to the small village in Greece near Sparta, from which his parents had emigrated, to purchase sports equipment for its children. No one who knew Harry Agganis was surprised.24

The football team struggled in 1952. Attracted by the promise of large gate receipts from the huge crowds flocking to watch Agganis, larger schools with far more powerful teams pined for slots on the Terriers’ schedule. Many of Harry’s teammates were still fulfilling their military commitments as the Korean War dragged on, leaving BU with a largely inexperienced and undersized lineup. For the most part, Harry was up to the challenge and was able to keep his team competitive against larger and faster opponents. On October 10, the University of Miami came to Fenway Park as a three-touchdown favorite, but Agganis intercepted two passes, made 14 tackles and punted for 58, 65, and 67 yards. His final kick resulted in a safety for the decisive points in a 9-7 upset win.25

Three weeks later, on November 1, a crowd of 32,568 fans packed Fenway to watch the Terriers take on the University of Maryland, which had entered the season as the second-ranked team in the nation.26 The game was broadcast nationally by Vin Scully, who called the action from Fenway’s rooftop in his first-ever assignment with the CBS Radio Network.27 Maryland had played BU in 1949, and the Terriers had given the Terps more than they could handle before losing a 14-13 squeaker. In the rematch, according to contemporary accounts, the Terrapins focused on beating BU’s overmatched offensive line and getting physical with Agganis. Several gang tackles by Maryland defenders bruised his ribs so badly that he had to be helped off the field in a 34-7 loss. Though X-rays were negative, Harry continued to have difficulty breathing and missed the next two games.28

Despite the missed time, Agganis completed 67 of 125 tosses for 766 yards and five touchdowns in seven games that year. He finished his Terriers football career with 15 school records. Although most have been surpassed by athletes who played four years, Harry set his marks in just three varsity seasons — racking up 2,930 passing yards, and 34 touchdowns while completing 226 of 418 passes, or 54 percent. 29 His records extended to defense and special teams, as he amassed 27 career interceptions and a 39.5-yard punting average.30

After his final football game, on November 28, 1952, Harry signed with the hometown Red Sox for $50,000 — far less than the reported $100,000 bonus offered by the Cleveland Browns. A report quoted Agganis:

“I’ve been torn between baseball and football for a long time, but have finally made up my mind to concentrate on baseball. I’ve already proved myself in football. I don’t know if I can make it in baseball, but I have the confidence that I can. I expect to be farmed out to a minor league club for a year, regardless of how I do in the South [spring training]. I’ve always wanted to be a baseball player, but I never wanted to say it until my football days were over.”31

If Agganis’s decision seemed rushed, there was a good reason: His signing came one week before the major leagues’ “Bonus Baby” rule went into effect, which required any players signed with a bonus larger than $4,000 to remain with the major-league club for two full seasons. Because he beat the deadline, Harry was able to get a higher bonus and still benefit from some minor-league seasoning.

The Red Sox granted Agganis special permission to play one final college game — the all-star Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, in January 1953. Harry played all but one minute of the game and earned Most Valuable Player honors, throwing two touchdowns, rushing for another, and hauling in a pair of interceptions as the North beat the South, 28-13.32 After that game, football legend Red Grange proclaimed Agganis the best player he had seen all year.33

In 1953 Agganis, a left-handed-hitting and throwing first baseman, went to Sarasota to train with the Red Sox, but was soon optioned to Louisville. He had a fine year in the American Association, with 23 home runs and 108 RBIs, finishing second (to Don Zimmer of St. Paul) in the voting for league Rookie of the Year award. In 1954 he came to camp to battle Dick Gernert for the first-base job.34 Conventional wisdom held that this would be a tall task for a left-handed hitter at Fenway due to the 380-foot distance from home plate to the right-field bullpen fence. Gernert, a righty who evoked images of Jimmie Foxx, had clubbed 21 homers in 1953. Yet as spring training wore on, Roger Birtwell of the Boston Globe reported35 that Agganis seemed to be winning the battle:

“Judging from the form the two players have shown in Spring training, however, it would not be surprising if Agganis eventually eases Gernert out of the picture. For Agganis, a promotion seems richly deserved. He has outhit Gernert down here by a hundred points. Agganis has consistently outplayed Gernert in the field.”

Meanwhile, Paul Brown was still trying to recruit Agganis for his Cleveland Browns. Billy Consolo, who roomed with Harry that spring, recalled Brown phoning every day in an attempt to persuade him to give up baseball, but without success.

Agganis would indeed open 1954 in the starting lineup, making his presence felt immediately. Wearing jersey number 6, he made his big-league debut against the Philadelphia Athletics on April 13, 1954, pinch-hitting in the eighth inning. On April 15 at Fenway Park, Agganis started at first base and went 2-for-3, crushing a deep drive to right field off Washington’s Bob Porterfield for an RBI triple. 36 Observers noted that he would have had an inside-the-park home run if not for having the sloth-like George Kell on base ahead of him.37 Three days later, in the nightcap of an April 18 doubleheader, Harry hit his first major-league home run, a three-run shot, at Fenway off the A’s Arnie Portocarrero to carry the Red Sox to a 4-3 win. A day after that, Agganis singled for the lone hit off Yankees pitcher Jim McDonald in the second game of the Patriots Day twin bill at Fenway Park.38

“I hope he can make the grade,” said Red Sox general manager Joe Cronin. “He’s colorful. He’s a good competitor. And being a local boy, he can be a great drawing card.” This was no trivial matter — the Red Sox’ attendance had peaked in 1949 at nearly 1.6 million, but 1954 would mark their fifth consecutive decline, down to 930,000. The club organized a campaign to “Fill Fenway” for the home opener, getting support from the mayor’s office, but drew only 17,000 fans. Agganis had seen bigger crowds in high school and college than he saw in the major leagues.

Other highlights of his first season with the Sox included a four-RBI game with a homer and a double against the A’s on May 31, and a grand slam at Yankee Stadium on August 15.39 His best day was on June 6: He homered to help the Red Sox beat the Tigers 7-4, and then headed to Boston University for commencement exercises, where he was awarded his bachelor’s degree in education.40 Gernert, originally slated to platoon at first with Agganis, contracted hepatitis shortly after the season began and played just 14 games. Agganis hit .251 with 11 homers (including seven at Fenway), 54 runs, and 57 RBIs, in 132 games.41

After the 1954 season, Mike Higgins, Harry’s manager at Louisville, replaced Lou Boudreau at the Red Sox helm. The biggest position battle the next spring involved Agganis, who was now challenged at first base by rookie Norm Zauchin. A big right-handed hitter, Zauchin had fared well for Higgins in Louisville in 1954, while Agganis had slumped in the second half of his rookie campaign. Zauchin outhit Agganis in spring training and earned the position to start the season. After Zauchin went hitless in the season’s first three games, Agganis started the next three. By May 4, Zauchin was hitting .189 and Agganis got the job. With Ted Williams temporarily “retired” (he returned in May after a divorce settlement), Agganis began hitting in Ted’s customary third slot in the batting order. Over the next month, Agganis hiked his batting average above .300. On May 15, in a home doubleheader against the Detroit Tigers, Agganis went 5-for-10 with two doubles and a triple, boosting his average to .307, tenth in the league.42 For the many local observers accustomed to Agganis’s extraordinary athletic achievements, he was on his expected path to greatness.

After the twin bill, the Red Sox were in fifth place, 7½ games out of first with a record of 14-18. Players were looking forward to their offday, but Agganis arrived at Fenway seeking trainer Jack Fadden. Harry was experiencing heavy coughing spells and severe pain in his right side. After Fadden detected a fever, Agganis was admitted to Sancta Maria Hospital in nearby Cambridge. The team physician, Dr. Timothy Lamphier, diagnosed pneumonia in the right lung, and Harry remained hospitalized for 10 days.43

Agganis rejoined the team on May 27 for a series with the Washington Senators, but did not play. He appeared weak and pale, his cough persisted, and he was perspiring heavily. Harry sat that day as Zauchin notched three home runs and 10 RBIs in a 16-0 rout, apparently reclaiming the starting job at first. Agganis finally got a start five games later in Chicago. The next day, June 2, against Virgil Trucks and the White Sox, Harry again made the start at first. With Williams back in the lineup, Agganis batted fourth behind his star teammate. Harry went 2-for-4, including a shot to the gap for a double. It appeared to be deep enough for a triple, but after reaching second base Agganis stopped and sat down atop the base, exhausted. Later, with two on and two out and the Sox behind 4-2, Harry hit a short fly to right fielder Jim Rivera, who made a circus catch, then doubled off Williams as first base to end the inning.44 It proved to be the final plate appearance of Harry Agganis’s life. He had hit .313 for his season with 10 doubles, a triple, and no home runs.

The team boarded a train to Kansas City that evening while Harry’s cough persisted. After trainer Fadden examined him the next morning, Agganis was put on a plane back to Boston, where Joe Cronin picked him up and drove him back to Sancta Maria Hospital. A trio of new physicians diagnosed Harry with pneumonia in his left lung and phlebitis in his right leg. Agganis told the doctors that he had noticed a lump on his calf in April, which turned out to be a swollen venal wall. The medical staff kept his leg wrapped in ice to fend off blood clotting, and Harry remained weakened by his coughing spells. The doctors then announced that Agganis would be sidelined for two months, with Dr. Eugene O’Neill stating:

“Harry was a lot sicker than he realized when he entered the hospital. His case is a very complicated and serious one. If his condition warrants, he could be idle all season.”45

Harry’s condition did not improve, and the team placed him on the voluntary retired list on June 16.46 On June 25, after a visit from Ted Williams (who brought him a Davy Crockett magazine), Harry’s brother discovered him coughing up blood. On the morning of Monday, June 27, the physicians had him sit upright in a chair for the first time. As the doctors and nurses lifted Agganis from his bed, he clutched his chest and complained of pain. A blood clot had broken free from the vein in his calf and reached his lung, causing a pulmonary embolism. Twenty minutes later, the great Harry Agganis, idol of a region, was dead at the age of 26.47

He was survived by his mother, four brothers and two sisters.48 Before he died, Agganis allegedly whispered to a nurse, “Take care of my mother … be sure she is alright.”49

News of Agganis’s death cast a pall over Boston and Lynn and the surrounding region, and people who lived through the period can still tell you where they were when they first heard the news. “Everyone connected with the Red Sox is grieved and shocked,” a stunned Cronin said. “Harry was a great athlete, a grand boy, and a credit to sports.”50 Manager Mike Higgins was equally stunned: “He had it made. We thought he’d be our first baseman for ten years to come.”51

Harry’s Red Sox teammates, who had just finished a successful 11-3 homestand, were in Pittsburgh for an exhibition game when they got the word from traveling secretary Tom Dowd. The Red Sox played the game, losing 8-2, and then traveled by train to Washington for a series with the Senators.52 Seemingly inspired, they swept a doubleheader on the 28th, 4-0 and 8-2, and won again the next day, 7-5.53

His body lay in a bier at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Lynn for a day and a half. More than 10,000 mourners filed past the coffin at his wake the evening of June 29.54 Harry was dressed in his favorite blue suit, a wreath of apple blossoms atop his head, and a gold wedding band placed around his left ring finger in accordance with Greek custom, symbolic of his eternal marriage to God.55 Hundreds of uniformed Little Leaguers stood outside the church, where the wake was held to accommodate the throng.56

The funeral was held the next day at 2 P.M. The Red Sox sent pitcher Frank Sullivan to represent the players, since the team was scheduled to play the final game of the Senators series in Washington that same afternoon, with a portion of gate receipts to benefit the American Red Cross. Cronin had hoped the entire team would be able to attend Harry’s service, but he was unable to persuade Senators owner Calvin Griffith to cancel or postpone the game. Because of the charitable connection, Cronin relented, though he was able to get the start time moved back an hour, to 3 P.M.57

Turnout for the Thursday game in Washington was sparse, and some accounts claimed that actual attendance was far less than the official figure of 8,563.58 A pair of Greek Orthodox priests conducted a service at home plate before the game, as the teams and umpires stood along the baselines at Griffith Stadium with heads bowed. A Marine color guard dipped the American flag in a traditional show of respect for the deceased serviceman.59

Sammy White delivered a stirring eulogy of his teammate and friend:

“The task that confronts me today is indeed a most difficult one, difficult because it is quite impossible to find the right words to completely express the deep sorrow we all feel for the loss of our teammate. How to tell his mother, his sisters and his brothers just how deep is our sympathy for them presents another difficulty. To tell all you people what Harry Agganis meant to me and his teammates really has me groping for appropriate words. Harry was not only a talented athlete with the strength of a Hercules, the competitive spirit and courage of a lion, and the possessor of an almost ferocious desire to win — he was a leader and, at the same time, a follower of all that was good.”60

Red Sox radio announcer Curt Gowdy then took the microphone to address those in attendance and said, with a shaky voice, “His athletic feats were golden and shining, and so was Harry personally.” Gowdy teared up again during the radio broadcast of the game. Ted Williams, the only player who had been allowed to visit Harry in the hospital,61 was unable to contain his emotions and wept on the field.62 The Red Sox wore black armbands for the next 30 days.63

Meanwhile in Lynn, 1,000 people packed into the church while thousands more filled an adjacent hall or stood outside in stifling summer heat. Many cried as they listened to the services on loudspeakers and transistor radios — first in Greek, then in English. Frank Sullivan later said it was one of the saddest things he had ever seen. Joining him from the Red Sox organization were Higgins, Cronin, O’Connell, scout Neil Mahoney, secretary Mary Trank, and several others from the front office. Sox owner Tom Yawkey was so uncomfortable with funerals that he remained at his plantation in South Carolina. He later made a $25,000 contribution to the Agganis Foundation.64

Twenty thousand people lined the one-mile funeral route from the church to Harry’s hillside grave in Pine Grove Cemetery, overlooking the Manning Bowl, where many of his sports heroics had played out. Nine vehicles carried the hundreds of floral arrangements sent by teammates, classmates, and opponents past and present, friends, family, fellow soldiers, and total strangers. 65

Questions persist about how such a strong, vibrant athlete could die surrounded by numerous doctors and nurses. The tiny Cambridge hospital where Harry was being treated and died was the Red Sox’ team hospital, and was thought by many to have lacked the staff or technology of Boston’s large and famous hospitals such as Massachusetts General. Many people, including Red Sox assistant GM Dick O’Connell, believed Harry’s illness stemmed from the injuries he received in the 1949 football game with Maryland. “I always felt the beating he took that day contributed to his death. I’m no doctor but I suspect blood clots sometimes don’t show up for a while,” said O’Connell later.66

Harry’s friend Dick Lynch long claimed that Dr. Lamphier had proposed surgery to strip the blood veins in his legs to mitigate any clot hazards, but that the procedure would have limited his agility, a prospect Harry flatly refused to consider, according to Lynch.67 Jack Kelley, another classmate of Harry’s, backed up these assertions: “I heard they told him they wanted to tie off some leg veins because clots were a possibility. But they told him he’d have no speed after that so he wanted to see if he could get better without that treatment. He thought he was getting better and would take his chances.”68

That scenario certainly adds to the mystery surrounding the removal of Dr. Lamphier from Harry’s case. Having seen the swelling in Harry’s calf, he allegedly tried to warn the team of the dangers a blood clot might pose but was met with ignorance and ultimately replaced as Harry’s attending physician. While one might see plausibility in that claim, Lamphier’s personal and professional credibility took a hit when he later moved to Florida and lost his medical license following the deaths of several patients.69

According to some Agganis researchers, including a present-day spokesman for the family, prior to his death Harry had already decided to return to football. If true, he would have played quarterback that fall for the Baltimore Colts, who had acquired his rights from the Browns.70

Harry Agganis’s legend remains strong and visible in the Boston area. His football number 33 was retired at both Lynn Classical and Boston University soon after he graduated from each school. In 1953, Harry was inducted into the new Boston University Hall of Fame.71 He declined gifts of a car and $4,000 from his classmates and instead asked that the cash equivalent be put toward establishing a Boston University scholarship for Greek-American students with financial need.72 In May 1955, Cleo Sophios of Medford High School was the first recipient. Agganis was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1974.73

In 1995, Gaffney Street in Boston was renamed Harry Agganis Way in his honor.74 It is located near Nickerson Field, which sits atop the former site of Braves Field, and was home to the Boston University football team. (The university has since dropped football.) In 2004, Agganis Arena, a 7,200-seat sports and entertainment facility, was dedicated in Harry’s honor on the Boston University campus.75 The arena is home to the Terriers’ ice hockey and basketball teams. A life-size bronze statue of Agganis, sculpted by artist Armand LaMontagne and depicting Harry about to throw a football, stands outside the arena’s main entrance.76 A wooden statue by LaMontagne, depicting Agganis in a pose similar to his work in bronze, can be seen at the New England Sports Museum at Boston’s T.D. Bank Garden.77

The Agganis Foundation was established in 1956 by the Boston Red Sox, the (Lynn) Daily Item newspaper and Harold O. Zimman, who was a mentor of Harry. Elmo Benedetto, the athletic director for the Lynn public schools, also joined the board of directors. It was a continuation of the scholarship foundation Harry himself started just prior to his death. From its inception through 2007, the Agganis Foundation has awarded $1,187,525 in scholarships to 780 student-athletes from throughout Eastern Massachusetts. Each year, 15 new four-year, $4,000 scholarships are presented. Through the additional generosity of the Yawkey Foundation, there are four scholarships earmarked to students in Boston schools each year. The foundation also sponsors the Agganis All-Star Classics, a series of high-school all-star games. The football classic, first organized by Benedetto, has been played annually since 1956 with the exception of 1960-64, and the 50th Anniversary Classic was to be played in the summer of 2010. Other Classics have since been added for baseball (1995), men’s and women’s soccer (1996), softball (1997), and men’s and women’s basketball (2005).78

Agganis’s legend goes far beyond his feats on the playing fields. He was revered as a person at every stage of his life. In high school he not only dominated athletically, he also starred in school plays, performing with his girlfriend Jean Allaire, who went on to play Miss Jean in Romper Room, a local children’s television show. “The thing about Harry,” recalled Dick Lynch, a friend and teammate in both high school and college, “was that he was such a classy guy. He handled everything about his fame so beautifully. He was an idol — the Greek god image was an understatement — but he never let any of it go to his head.” Mary Trank, who worked in the Red Sox offices at the time, was one of the awestruck: “When he walked into a room it was like an aura,” she said.79

“Almost everybody on the North Shore knew him all right,” wrote Jeremiah Murphy in the Boston Globe. “I’ll tell you right off: I never heard anybody put the knock on Harry Agganis. There was no question about that. Harry was as charismatic off the field as he was when he was throwing beautiful 60-yard touchdown passes in Manning Bowl. You couldn’t take your eyes off him if he walked into a room. It was a real privilege to have seen him play and to have been in his presence.”80 George Smyrnios, who played against Agganis at Peabody High felt privileged for the chance: “We became immortalized with him. He was a champion above champions, a super player. He was the best of the best and an unbeatable player and an unbeatable person.”81 Bob Whalen, another college teammate, said, “He had that unique knack of making you feel you were the most important person in the world to him. He’d walk into a room and the room would just light up.”82

Decades later, there were still people in the Boston area who would talk about the time they saw, or met, Harry Agganis, how much he meant to them, how much his loss was still felt. What he would have accomplished in his baseball career is not known. Nonetheless, in his 26 years he managed to affect the lives of tens of thousands, who will never forget him.

Sources

Much of this biography was reworked from Mark Brown’s story on Agganis found at the Sons of Sam Horn wiki page. (http://sonsofsamhorn.net/wiki/index.php/Harry_Agganis).

Notes

Beginning at the age of 2, young Frank played catch with his dad in the alley behind their home, throwing on an incline to his dad. The elder Frank insisted his son “throw the ball,” not just spot it into his glove. If he made a wild throw, his dad made him chase the ball down the incline.

Frank played a lot of baseball with other boys from his neighborhood. “We had a bunch of guys that liked to play ball. That’s all we ever did.”2 His first taste of organized baseball came as a member of the Non-Pareils of the St. Louis Khoury League. Frank’s Khoury League coach, Stan Weir, identified his pitching ability and carefully tutored his mechanics. By the time he entered high school, Frank had mastered most of the basics.3

A “big guy” as a freshman, Baumann stood 5-foot-11 and weighed 200 pounds. “When they came to watch me, they’d ask, ‘Who’s that man warming up over there?’”4 He did not pitch often when he started at Central High School, but continued to pitch in Khoury League games. One Sunday, he struck out 17 batters. Vernon Bradburn, Frank’s high-school coach, who also taught world history, read about that game in the newspapers. He confronted his young player when he came to class. “Nice game,” he said. “Seventeen strikeouts in a seven-inning ballgame? Are you kidding?”

Shuffling and stuttering, Frank searched for a reply. “No, well, I just tried to get a little pitching in.” The coach was not pleased. “Turn your uniform in,” he said. Baumann was kicked off the team his freshman year for violating his coach’s policy against playing for another team while on the varsity.5

Frank made the team the next season, 1950, the first year of the Missouri state high school tournament. Coach Bradburn, whom Frank considered one of his greatest mentors, warned him: “Don’t you go playing with anybody else.”6 Before long, Frank set himself apart as “one of country’s outstanding high-school pitchers and a bright big league prospect.”7

Central, labeled a Cinderella team, swept the tournament behind Frank’s pitching in both 1950 and 1951. The next year, Frank picked up the first five tournament wins, and another pitcher won the sixth. Then, in his last high school game, Frank pitched a no-hitter, completing a three-year sweep of the state tournament. He also played outfield and batted .372 in his senior tournament.

These times provided his fondest baseball memories. Later, reporters asked him about his excitement at getting a victory in his first big-league appearance. He replied, “I once pitched a no-hit, no-run game for my high school team in St. Louis. That won the Missouri state championship for us, and it’s the biggest thrill I’ve ever had in baseball.”8 Representatives from reportedly every major-league team watched that championship game. Actual negotiating started as soon as school ended, on Friday, June 13.

The Baumann family and their advisers met with Red Sox representatives Denny Galehouse and Glenn Wright, and received a bid in the $50,000 range. Several other teams made offers, ranging as high as $95,000.9 Cardinals owner Fred Saigh reluctantly considered $70,000. “This is entirely new to me; we’ve never talked in such figures before.”10 St. Louis Browns owner Bill Veeck ate cookies and drank coffee in the Baumann kitchen. “I intended to sign Baumann and pitch him the next day so I could get about half of my money back before the check bounced,” Veeck joked.11

Frank remembered the day the Yankees offered him a workout: “It was a rainy day, and I was supposed to throw batting practice. Bill Dickey put his arm around me and said, ‘Let’s go down to the bullpen. I want to see what you got, kid.’ I threw about 10 or 15 minutes. Walking back [Dickey] put his arm around me and said, ‘Kid, I would love to catch you in a ballgame.’ And I replied, ‘I would love to pitch to you, babe.’”12

Getting a little anxious the following Thursday, Frank told his dad, “C’mon, let’s get some contracts signed. I want to play ball and we’ve wasted almost a week already.”13 The Red Sox had a day game that day, ending their series in St. Louis. Manager Lou Boudreau wanted to start Baumann in the game. But Frank’s advisers wanted to finish negotiating with other clubs.14

The advisers consulted Frank and his dad, taking into consideration not only the money, but also Frank’s interest in the teams. “Dad told me that happiness was more important than a little more money.” About 8 p.m. on June 19, he signed with the Red Sox for a total of $86,000. Relieved that the deal was done, Frank said, “Now let’s go out and get me some hamburgers – three of them. I’m hungry.”15

Baumann’s bonus, the highest price ever paid for the signature of a free agent at that time, came amortized over five years, in an attempt to maximize tax benefits. At Frank’s request, portions went to Frank’s dad in the first two years. The total was guaranteed, regardless of military service, injury, or death. The signing also marked the first time that outside parties assisted a player and his family with bonus negotiations.16 Frank truly appreciated his parents’ support. “There were times when my folks sacrificed so I could keep on playing baseball. I’ll never forget that, and I promised them the first money I made from baseball would go toward getting them a new house. And I did it.”17

Immediately after signing, Frank reported to the Louisville Colonels, Boston’s Triple-A affiliate. Louisville needed pitchers. The Korean War was on and military service had depleted every team’s roster. He threw an impressive seven innings of shutout baseball in his first start, on June 22, just three days after signing his contract. Reports identified him as a “bonus lefty” and “gold-plated rookie.”18 The “bonus” label followed him throughout his career.

Baumann made a very quick transition from high school to the minor leagues. “Here I was an 18- 19-year-old boy, out of high school, coming down with these men that were 23, 24, 25 years of age. But I enjoyed it, because I was a big guy myself.”19 He finished his first season with a 4-6 record, and then began to shine in 1953. Through mid-July, he led his league in both winning percentage and ERA. He contributed with his bat as well, hitting .353, and was selected an All-Star.

In early May that year, Louisville manager Pinky Higgins received Baumann’s draft notice, ordering him to report June 1. The cagey manager withheld the letter a couple of days, allowing Frank to continue to compete.20 Eventually, Baumann took his Army exam in late July and reported to Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, in October, 1953.

Baumann shined in the military leagues. In early 1954, he pitched two no-hitters, missing a perfect seven-inning game by a hit batsman and an error, striking out 17. While on leave in August, he pitched for the Red Sox in an exhibition at Fenway Park. He finished the season with an earned-run average of 0.51, and 147 strikeouts in 70 innings.

In 1955, Frank reported soreness in his left arm, though not a result of anything related to baseball. At Fort Lewis, outside Tacoma, Washington, a former paratrooper became his unit’s sergeant. “Every other exercise he had was push-ups. I built up my muscles too much. When I went to throw I went into a spasm, and nobody could pick this up.”21 This nagging condition plagued him the rest of his career.

After his discharge, Frank went to Louisville for about three weeks. The Red Sox called him up in July. Boston manager Higgins needed help in the pennant race and wanted to supervise Baumann’s training.22 Not even three weeks out of the Army, Baumann helped the Bosox sweep a doubleheader from the Tigers in his major-league debut on July 31, 1955. He got the win, pitching a strong 5⅔ innings in relief.

Frank got his first big-league start on August 11 in Yankee Stadium, but was knocked out in the second inning. Afterward he complained of tightness in his arm while he was warming up. Higgins dismissed the incident as simply a part of “late spring training.”23 The arm trouble persisted, and Frank returned home for some rest, cutting his season short. During the offseason, Frank worked on both his conditioning and his weight. When he left the Army, he weighed 236. By rookie camp the next February, he had trimmed 40 pounds.24

Despite his efforts, Baumann continued to experience arm problems in 1956. He missed part of a road trip, and then was optioned to Albany. Early in July, he picked up his family and headed home again to nurse his sore arm. The ailment threatened to end his career. Medical advisers told him to retire for the year and rest.25 In late September, Baumann pitched batting practice for the Cardinals, where he received assistance from trainer Bob Baumann (no relation).26 Frank said, “I threw normally and without pain. I’m not worried about it anymore.”27

Nonetheless, in spring training of 1957, Boston sent Baumann to Deland, Florida, to train with the Oklahoma City ballclub. He saw a doctor, who found something on the x-ray. Frank returned for a cortisone shot. “One week later, I was throwing. I called that doctor back and thanked him like crazy because he saved my career. I thought I was done.”28

That June Baumann pitched no-hit ball for Oklahoma City for 9⅔ innings, winning in 11 innings, allowing only one hit. He later experienced more arm trouble, and again returned home. Frank tossed a rubber ball underhand to his wife in his backyard, and one day everything miraculously seemed right.29 He won 10 games in the Texas League before rejoining Boston late in the season.

Baumann beat the Yankees in the final game of the 1957 season, and Higgins was impressed. “It’s the first time that Baumann looked something like the kid we first had in Louisville back in 1953. We can sure use him on the Red Sox. We didn’t have a single dependable left-handed pitcher all season.”30 Even general manager Joe Cronin gave Baumann a plug. “It looks as if Baumann has found himself. Everyone is looking for a pitcher to beat the Yankees, and Frank has now won several games from them.”31

Filled with confidence and high hopes, Frank spent this offseason building large industrial boilers in St. Louis. Though he worked hard through cold weather, he thought he would strengthen his bid for a turnaround with strenuous manual labor.32

Early in the 1958 season, Baumann pitched a complete 12-inning win against the Indians and Hoyt Wilhelm. It was Wilhelm’s first start, after 363 relief appearances, and it was Frank’s first major-league complete game. But despite the good start, 1958 became another disappointing season, and Baumann finished with Memphis. To date, Frank had won only seven games in major-league ball, and no more than two in any of his four seasons.

Disappointed with his showing so far, Baumann turned some heads with two victories early in 1959, equaling his highest season total. On May 10, he pitched a complete-game win over Hal “Skinny” Brown and the Orioles, using his bat as well. In the seventh inning, with the score tied 1-1, Brown loaded the bases to get to the bottom of the Boston lineup. Baumann was heading to the plate when “Ted Williams grabbed me by the seat of my pants and pulled me back. He said, ‘Move up in the front of the batting box. But don’t let [catcher] Gus Triandos catch you doing it, because they’ll throw you a fastball.’

“So I kept messing up the ground as I go. I go a little closer, a little closer. I finally got up to the front of the box. He threw a knuckleball, and I hit a line drive with the bases loaded. The center fielder came in, but the ball was hit so hard it skipped over his head. I hit a triple and scored them all. I saluted Ted and said, ‘God, thank you, Ted!’ And he smiled from ear to ear.”33

Baumann completed the 1959 season, his first full season with Boston, with mediocre totals. In just 95⅔ innings, he hardly overwhelmed hitters, averaging just one strikeout every two innings and five walks per nine innings. His six wins brought his total to 13 in five seasons. Showing little sign of a breakthrough, he found himself on the trading block.

Always pursuing a pennant, Boston owner Tom Yawkey tossed a lot of money into the “bonus pot,” leading the major leagues in spending in the early 1950s. Sportswriter Hy Hurwitz suggested that the investment, “to be blunt, has been a large failure to date.”34 The long line of disappointments included, in addition to Baumann, catchers Jerry Zimmerman, Haywood Sullivan, and Jim Pagliaroni, infielders Billy Consolo and Ted Lepcio, and outfielders Marty Keough and Gene Stephens.

On November 3, the Chicago White Sox announced that they had traded for Baumann, in exchange for Ron Jackson, another bonus baby. Jackson had an unsatisfying spring, and appeared in only 10 more regular-season games. Hurwitz termed the trade “one of the sourest deals in Boston history,” as well as a major reason Boston ousted both general manager Bucky Harris and manager Billy Jurges early the next season.35 Veteran writer Joe Cashman added, “the White Sox even got the better hitter in the deal.”36

Frank harbored no bitterness and moved on with a positive mind. “I guess you can’t really blame them for giving up on me, but I wasn’t about to give up on myself.37

Veeck, now owner of the White Sox, rejoiced, “I’ve got you at last.”38 Baumann now teamed with pitching coach Ray Berres, who had helped Bob Shaw improve after a disappointing 1958.39 “The best coaching I got was from Ray Berres, a very dear friend of mine,” Baumann said. “When I got to spring training, he saw what I was doing wrong.”40

Frank came out strong in 1960, with several outstanding relief appearances followed by back-to-back shutouts in June. He continued moving between starting and relieving, and by midseason, Frank had bettered his victory total from the year before and led the league with an ERA of 2.06.

“I learned more with Chicago in four days than I did during my five years in Boston,” said Baumann.41 “I was dipping my shoulder, and I was throwing across my body.”42

Frank finished his remarkable 1960 season with a 2.67 ERA, the best in the majors. He claimed 13 wins and three saves. “I set a goal of 15 wins for myself, and maybe they’ll let me figure I hit it with the saves.”43 The 13 victories matched his total in all his years with Boston. Baumann proved he could successfully pitch out of tough situations, getting a total of 33 double plays behind him, five in one game.

Clearly disappointed at not repeating as AL champs in 1960, Veeck said, “I was positive we’d win it easily, and we blew it. One major factor, he said, was not being able to use Baumann more as a starter, because they had such erratic bullpen help.44

In the opening game of the 1961 season, Frank posted a win in relief, with three shutout innings. Lopez used Baumann because he did not want to lose the opening game, especially with President Kennedy in the house. “Baumann simply is too good a pitcher to be confined to just 100 or 150 innings a year,’ Lopez said. “This season I will use him in relief only in case of great emergency, where I feel that only a left-hander can do the job.”45

The success of the previous season did not follow Baumann very far in 1961. He mixed roles again between starting and relieving in almost exactly the same proportions as before, but with very different results. By midseason, Baumann’s ERA had ballooned over 6.00, the worst on the staff. Lopez was disappointed, saying, “His work this year is absolutely unbelievable. He’s dropping his shoulder and is coming close to side-arm, and his sinking fastball isn’t sinking.”

Baumann ended the year with a monstrous 5.61 ERA. Just one season after leading the majors in ERA, he tied for the most earned runs allowed in the league. He also allowed twice as many home runs (22) and benefited from far fewer double plays (18).

Yet the season had high points. While the country focused on the home run race between Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, Baumann also found himself in the four-bagger record book. On July 13 at Comiskey Park, Frank and his catcher, Sherm Lollar, hit back-to-back home runs, just the third time in American League history that batterymates went deep back-to-back.46 Baumann hit his only other big-league home run 16 days earlier that year, on June 27.

Then on July 25, Baumann entered the history of the Mantle-Maris race, allowing them back-to-back swats in Yankee Stadium. “One hit the foul pole of the right-field line [296 feet in 1961], and one hit the foul pole of the left-field line [301 feet in 1961]. In any other ballpark they’d been caught or foul balls.” Baumann remembered.47 These were the only home runs Baumann allowed the famous pair in 1961.

The 1962 season brought a lighter workload for the 28-year-old southpaw, and some better results as he added a curveball. “The hitters know I have a few more pitches, so they can’t lay back for the fastball any more,” he said.48 He finished with 10 starts and 30 relief appearances for a 3.38 ERA in 119⅔ innings. He won seven, lost six, and accrued four saves.

In 1963, his sore arm sidelined him again for most of July and August. He worked now mostly as a left-handed relief specialist. His only start of the season, his last as a major leaguer, came in September. He pitched only 50⅓ innings but kept his ERA low at 3.04.

The next season signaled the beginning of the end. By late August 1964, Baumann had an ERA double that of most of the Chisox pitchers. Each of the others was under 3.50, but Frank had a 6.14 ERA. He ended the season with only 32 innings, all in relief, pitching more than two innings in a game only three times. Though only 31 years old, Frank had pitched fewer than 83 innings over the last two years.

Baumann made history again in a seemingly insignificant trade in December 1964, when he was sent to the Chicago Cubs for veteran catcher Jimmy Schaffer; according to the December 2 Chicago Tribune, it was “believed to be the first Chicago crosstown deal in history.” Jerome Holtzman, writing in December 12 Sporting News, agreed it was the first player-for-player trade between the two ballclubs.

The new season was a short one for Baumann. By mid-May he had only four appearances and a 7.36 ERA. On May 22, Frank found himself back in the minors, playing for Salt Lake City, where he pitched just 11 games. His professional career had come to an end.

Like most ballplayers, Frank had nicknames. During his bonus baby days, Red Sox owner Yawkey called him Beau, which fit the proper way to say his name: BOE-mun.49 Later with the White Sox, his teammates referred to him as Bouncy Ball because of his large head. The coaches developed hand signs for different bullpen pitchers to begin to warm up. For Frank, they pretended to dribble a basketball.50

Frank loved to bowl in the offseasons, sometimes with professional bowlers Don Carter and Dick Weber. He entered the Major League Baseball Bowling Championship in 1964, in Tampa, along with ballplayers Jim Bunning, Curt Simmons, Roy Sievers, Jim Gentile, Harmon Killebrew, and Bobby Wine. Many have debated the correlation between pitching and bowling skills, but the issue hardly applies to Baumann. He pitched and batted as a southpaw, but he did most other activities, including bowling, with his right hand.51

After he left the majors, Frank stayed around baseball in St. Louis. He loved throwing batting practice to the Cardinals, which he did for several years, until coach George Kissell pulled him aside.

“Frank, I have to let you go,” said Kissell.

“Why? I haven’t done anything wrong, have I?” asked a surprised Baumann.

“No, no! Those guys don’t want to hit off you. You throw too good!” said the coach, laughing.52

Going all the way back to his playing days in high school, Frank’s coaches never used pitch counts. He remembered several times that he pitched on consecutive days. His advice for pitchers: “Balance and mechanics are very important. A lot of kids hurt their arm now because they come through real fast, and put that leg out stiff. That only lets their arms throw. They’re not using their upper body to throw the ball at all. That’s why they’re hurting their arms.”53

Baumann held several different jobs after professional baseball. He spent more than 15 years with Paramount Liquor and another 15 years with Crown Linen. He also worked for a sporting goods company in the St Louis area and for a discount grocer in Belleville, Illinois.

Frank married Carol Rakers of St. Louis in 1954 and started his family that included four sons (Scott, Ricky, Frankie, and Ted), 10 grandchildren, and, in November 2007, a great-grandson.

He said he still got baseball cards in the mail and enjoyed signing them and sending them back. “I enjoyed baseball very, very much. If I had it all to do over again, I’d be happy to do it. The only thing I regret is that I never got to pitch in the big leagues with the stuff I signed with because I hurt my arm in the Army.”54

Frank Baumann died on December 13, 2020 at Missouri Baptist Medical Center in St. Louis and is interred at the Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. 

Last revised: January 11, 2021

Notes

Milt Bolling’s long baseball career started the way most do, by playing catch with his dad. Milt’s father, M.J. “Foots” Bolling, was a very good amateur player who worked in the insurance business by day, but at night and on weekends managed several semipro baseball teams in the area. Both Milt’s father and his uncle Jack worked for the Bolling Insurance Agency in the late 1930s. Uncle John Edward “Jack” Bolling played first base for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1939 and for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1944. Milt never saw his uncle Jack play in the majors, but was able to see him when he was in the Southern Association with the Atlanta Crackers, the New Orleans Pelicans, and the Mobile Bears. In an interview for this profile, Milt said he owes his love and knowledge of the game to his father: “He was the one who instilled so much baseball knowledge to Frank and myself. Dad loved baseball and he was always there for us.” Milt and Frank’s mother was Fannie Taylor Bolling who died in 2008, at the age of 100.

In the 1930s and ’40s, when Milt was growing up, there were no organized youth leagues in the area, but he and Frank (who played 12 seasons with the Tigers and Braves), played pickup games in Crawford Park. Before television and air-conditioning, many boys played even in the very hot and humid summer days of coastal Alabama. The games would go on all day, sometimes ended only by nightfall.

The first organized baseball team that Milt played on was in the spring of 1945 at McGill Institute, an all-boys parochial high school in Mobile run by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. He made the varsity team as a freshman, playing right field and shortstop. A new coach came in for his sophomore year. Wanting to deny the bunt to the opposition, he moved Milt and his strong arm to third base.

Milt was better known around town for his basketball talents, with his team winning the 1948 city high school championship. Milt stood 6-foot-1 and is listed with a baseball playing weight of 177. Milt was also the sports editor of his high-school newspaper, the McGillian. He had an opportunity to interview major-league second baseman Eddie Stanky. Both Stanky and Milt were later inducted into the city’s Sports Hall of Fame, and their daughters were teammates on the local high-school volleyball dynasty, the McGill-Toolen “Dirty Dozen.”

Mobile had a strong American Legion baseball program and Milt appreciated the help of coach Stan Galle (who had played third base for the 1942 Washington Senators): “I was always indebted to Stan for playing me at shortstop. … He schooled me well in the fundamentals of the position.” At 15 and 16, Milt played with several semipro teams in the Mobile area, teams with rosters full of men who had played professionally. He credited the high caliber of competition with giving him the experience he needed to play in the major leagues himself, although in truth, he said, he never really envisioned himself doing so.

Milt’s team in his senior year in high school was rife with talent. From that roster, nine players signed pro baseball contracts. Milt and Frank made it to the majors, two made it to Triple-A, one to Double-A, and the other four played in the lower minor leagues.

After graduating from high school in 1948 at the age of 17, Bolling was recruited by George Digby, a legendary Red Sox scout and one of the few non-uniformed people inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame. Milt was reluctant to sign, as he had been offered scholarships by a number of colleges. His mother wanted him to go to college and his father hoped for a pro baseball contract for his son. Milt was recruited to play both college baseball and basketball. “I was a good student, and I had a number of colleges interested in me,” he said. Strangely enough, his first scholarship offer was in a sport he had never played, track. The track coach at the University of Alabama saw him play in the state high-school basketball tourney and offered him a scholarship. Yale University also offered Milt a scholarship, an academic scholarship, with the expectation that he would play both baseball and basketball.

“I was better known around the area for my basketball,” Bolling said. “Basketball being more of a team sport was easier for me because your teammates could make you or break you. With baseball, no one could help you hit or field. It’s all up to you. Baseball is a more difficult sport to excel in, especially if you are playing a skilled position like shortstop.” After much soul-searching, dogged persistence by Digby, and a nice offer (by the standards of the day), Bolling signed with the Red Sox in 1948. But, he said, “I promised my mom that I would go to college in the off-season. And I did.”

He was placed with the Class B Roanoke Red Sox in the Piedmont League for the 1948 season. “It was a big adjustment,” he admitted. “I was the youngest player in the league, and when the Red Sox sent me back to Roanoke for the following season I was still the youngest player.” Bolling played two years with Roanoke, making the All-Star team in the second year. He was advanced in 1950 to Single-A Scranton of the Eastern League, playing under Jack “Slug” Burns. He liked Burns: “All the managers and coaches changed my batting style every year. The only one that let me hit like I felt comfortable hitting was Jack Burns in 1950, and I had my best year ever in batting average.” He hit .288 for Scranton.

Bolling treaded water with Scranton in 1951, but was advanced to Double-A Birmingham in 1952 (he had also played 10 games there in 1950.) In Birmingham, the task of playing shortstop almost paled in comparison to the difficulty of trying to keep fellow player Jim Piersall on the rails. Piersall was an excellent right fielder out of Connecticut who had been demoted from Boston not because of his playing, but because of a series of inappropriate on-field incidents. The Red Sox needed to find some way to curb Piersall’s behavior and they chose Bolling to be his roommate. Because both players were Catholic, the front office believed that might help. Eventually Piersall suffered a nervous breakdown and the Red Sox sent him to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. “When he returned to Boston in 1953, the Red Sox asked me to room with him to provide a steadying influence,” Bolling said. “I roomed with him for four seasons. It was the toughest thing I ever did in my life. I don’t think I succeeded, but I did appreciate the confidence that Red Sox executives showed in me.”

Never a standout hitter, Bolling averaged just .236 in his minor-league seasons, but the Red Sox were in need of a good fielding shortstop and, based on his stellar play in Birmingham, he had become a solid prospect. While at Birmingham in 1952, Bolling married Joanne Chastain, his high-school sweetheart, on May 5. In September he was called up to the Red Sox. Boston wasted no time letting him see action; he played in the first major-league game he saw, on September 10, against the Detroit Tigers at Briggs Stadium, as a late-innings replacement for Johnny Lipon at shortstop. “I remember having a difficult time finding my hat and glove,” he remembered. Bolling walked his first time up against southpaw Bill Wight, and then singled in his first official at-bat in the ninth. The next day was his first major-league start, and Virgil Trucks was pitching for the Tigers. “He was also from Alabama, and he threw hard,” Bolling said. He singled in his first at-bat and later walked, finishing 1-for-3. 

Bolling said he appreciated the interest and guidance shown him by his manager, Lou Boudreau, who “taught me many things about shortstop that had never occurred to me.” He said he also appreciated the help he got from coaches George Susce (“one of the hardest working baseball coaches ever”) and Bill McKechnie (“the best ever to read pitchers. He could call about every pitch, and would relay what was coming with a word sound.”) McKechnie, a pennant-winning major-league manager, was very much like Milt – religious, grounded, and not prone to salty language.

The right-handed hitting Bolling batted .222 in 11 late-season games, with one home run and three RBIs in 36 at-bats. In Sarasota, Florida, during spring training in 1953, Mike Higgins, his former minor-league manager, said, “The Red Sox won’t need another shortstop for 10 years.” Milt earned the starting shortstop job for the season opener.

On May 19 against the St. Louis Browns, Bolling’s hit an eighth-inning single off the legendary Satchel Paige, a fellow Mobilian, to drive home the winning run in a 4-3 victory. In the field he was also excelling. Manager Lou Boudreau told sportswriters, “Bolling’s shortstopping has been exceptional. His range is better than some of the veterans in the league and he has caught on quickly as a double-play maker.” He did well at the plate, too. Bolling hit a career-high .263 in his rookie year, with an on-base percentage of .318 and a slugging percentage of .353.

In late July, in a game against the Chicago White Sox, Bolling suffered an injury that affected his throwing motion. “I was on first base and a ground ball was hit to the left side of the infield. When I started my slide into second, [White Sox second baseman] Nellie Fox told me to stand up there was no play. When I tried to hold up, my spikes got caught and I catapulted right over the bag.” He was told that he had torn the ligaments in his ankle. The doctor bandaged it and put the shortstop on crutches, rather than a cast.

He was playing pretty well at the time of the injury, with some writers seeing him as a contender for Rookie of the Year. There was pressure to return Milt to the lineup and after three weeks he was back playing. “I probably returned to the lineup too soon,” he recalled. “When I came back, I couldn’t put any weight on my left foot, and my throws lost their carry and started to sink.” The changed throwing motion he employed to compensate for the injury seemed to develop into an unwelcome habit. Unfortunately, he had 23 errors in 109 games, placing him last in fielding percentage (.956) among regular American League shortstops, with one of the lower range factors.

Boston believed in his potential, however, and Bolling returned as the starting shortstop in 1954; he readily admitted to struggling defensively because of his throwing problem. Still, he was able to start a rare shortstop-to-second-to-first-to-home triple play in a game against the Baltimore Orioles on June 23. Even with the injury, Milt played in 113 games in 1954 and though his batting average fell to .249, he hit more doubles (20) than the year before, and his on-base percentage (.337) and slugging percentage (.368) both rose, as did his runs batted in and home run totals. His fielding percentage dropped to .946, again lowest among the AL regulars. His RF/G, however, was the best in the league – he was getting to everything but struggling with his throwing.

In 1955, Mike Higgins became the Red Sox manager and told Bolling he would be his shortstop; but Milt dislocated his elbow in a collision at second base in spring training and played in just six games that season. Bolling played in 45 games in 1956 and batted .212. In April 1957, he was traded to the Washington Senators with pitcher Russ Kemmerer and outfielder Faye Throneberry for pitchers Bob Chakales and Dean Stone. He appeared in 91 games with Washington and batted .227 with 277 at-bats); he played more games at second than at shortstop, and proved more successful in the field at the second-base position.

In February 1958, Bolling was traded to the Cleveland Indians, but before the season began, the Indians traded him to the Detroit Tigers. He played in only 24 games for the Tigers, but enjoyed being reunited with his brother Frank, the Tigers’ second baseman. For a time they were the team’s keystone combination, one of only four such brother groups in major-league baseball. (The others were Cal and Billy Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles, Garvin and Granny Hamner of the 1945 Philadelphia Phillies, and twins Eddie and Johnny O’Brien with the Pittsburgh Pirates of the mid-’50s.)

While Milt and Frank played together with the Tigers, in other years they played against each other. One night in Washington when the Tigers were in town, Milt tagged Frank out on an attempted steal at second base, and got his glove hand spiked in the process. After the game, Frank noticed a bandage on Milt’s left hand and asked him what had happened; completely unaware that he’d dealt the blow.

Whenever Milt played against the New York Yankees and stepped up to the plate, catcher Yogi Berra would always ask, in his disarming fashion, “Are you the low-ball-hitting Bolling or the high-ball hitter?” Of course, Yogi knew, but tried to rattle Milt and break his concentration as he did with all batters. Milt did like the low pitch and says he had more trouble with the high and hard ones. As a hitter, he said, “I probably would have been better off in the National League, which tended to have a lower strike zone at the time.”

The 1958 season was Bolling’s last as an active player. It is difficult to know how his career would have gone without the unfortunate string of injuries; but at the age of 27, he decided it was time to retire as a player. Over his career in the majors, he logged 400 games and batted .241 with 19 home runs and 94 RBIs.

His playing career may have been over, but his life in baseball was nowhere close to ending. Bolling went back to Mobile, where at first he worked for a shipping firm. In January 1961, however, the Red Sox persuaded him to return to Boston. “Originally I was more involved in the business side of the operation,” he said, “But I pestered Neil Mahoney, who was head of the farm system and scouting, until he let me help check on some of the high-school and college players in New England. I helped with the signing of Tony Conigliaro, including negotiations with Tony’s dad, Sal.”

Bolling had a good relationship with Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey, who would seek out Milt to join him in games of pepper. Milt would toss batting practice with Yawkey using some lively balls so he could hit a few off the Green Monster. He was also frequent company in the sky box watching and discussing the games with Yawkey.

In January 1965 Bolling became a scout for the Red Sox covering the Southeast. He moved back to Mobile, in large part because his father had become ill with emphysema. He also supervised Latin American scouting and did national cross-checking on players the Red Sox considered high draft possibilities. He played a major part in bringing players like Tony and Billy Conigliaro, George Scott, Butch Hobson, Dave Stapleton, and others into the Boston fold.

Milt’s scouting network leveraged his relationship with former teammates like Boo Ferriss. Ferriss recalled, “When I was [coaching] at Delta State, I could always count on Milt to recommend outstanding high school and junior college players.” Boo goes on, “I never questioned his judgment, and I have always appreciated his great recruiting help.” Boo in turn would keep an eye out for major league prospects for Milt.

Eddie Kasko, who became the Red Sox director of scouting in 1978, said Bolling made his job a great deal easier. “The thing I appreciated most about Milt was that he was self-directed,” Kasko said. “I never had to have his prospects cross-checked, and he never gave me a ‘maybe.’ He waited until he was sure and then he gave you a firm answer. I learned an awful lot about scouting from Milt.” Always a mentor, in 1965 Bolling reprised his days as sports editor of his high-school paper by penning a baseball book for youngsters titled Isometrics for Little Leaguers. The book presented 28 exercises designed to strengthen young ballplayers’ muscles and hand/eye coordination. After 43 years with Boston as a player, executive assistant, and scout Milt retired from the Red Sox organization in 1995.

The Bollings’ oldest daughter, Angie Bolling, is an actress and model who has appeared in the movies and made several TV commercials. The family’s baseball connection extends beyond father, uncle, and brother to Milt’s sister, Carolyn, who is married to Bill Earnhart, a scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Bolling is a member of the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame, the Spring Hill College Hall of Fame, and McGill-Toolen High School Hall of Fame. Hank Aaron Stadium, home of the Mobile BayBears minor- league team and Arizona Diamondbacks affiliate is found at the intersection of Satchel Paige Avenue and Bolling Brothers Boulevard.

“I was fortunate enough to play at the major league level in such a great organization,” he said. “I had come up through the Red Sox organization, and I knew many of my teammates. I liked them and I felt the feeling was mutual.”

Bolling told Herb Crehan of Red Sox Magazine, “It was a most enjoyable experience to be a part of, in my estimation, the best organization in Major League Baseball. And Red Sox fans are the best fans in baseball.” Milt’s teammates, coaches, fellow players, scouts, executives, and fans probably feel the same way about him.

Bolling died at age 82 on January 19, 2013 in Mobile, Alabama.

Sources

Henry Aaron with Lonnie Wheeler, I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1991).

Bill Ballew, “Milt Bolling’s Long Career Comes to a Close,” Diehard, January 1995.

Cary Bolling, video interviews with Milt Bolling, Frank Bolling, Bill Menton, Donnie Wagner, et. al., Mobile, AL, March 7, 8, 9, and 11, 2005.

Frank Bolling, interview with author, April, 2010.

Milt Bolling, interviews with author, April 19, 2005; August 27 and 30, 2006; April 7 and 8 2009; May 11, 19, and 24, 2009; July 8, 2009.

Herb Crehan, “Adopted Sons of New England’s Team: Milt Bolling,” Red Sox Magazine, 2009, 3rd edition.

Herb Crehan, interviews with Milt Bolling, April 19 and 24, 2009.

Joe Cuhaj, and Tamra Carraway-Hinckle, Baseball in Mobile (Arcadia, 2003).

Boo Ferriss, interview, May 5, 2010.

Rich Goldman, video interview with Milt Bolling, Nome, AK, 1984.

Bill Nowlin, “Bill ‘Doc’ Prothro,” The Baseball Biography Project, SABR.

Bill Plott, “Where Are They Now: Milt Bolling,” Birmingham News, July 3, 1995.

Ed Rumill, “Milt Bolling’s Rookie Development Popular with Others on Red Sox,” Christian Science Monitor, May 20, 1953.

Ed Rumill, “Sophomore Milt Bolling on Sox Comeback Trail.” Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 1954.

Ed Rumill, “Bolling Shows Courage in Comeback at Fenway.” Christian Science Monitor, August 21, 1956.

Ed Rumill, “Milt Bolling Returns to Fenway Park as New Second Baseman of Senators.” Christian Science Monitor, August 10, 1957.

Ed Rumill, “‘Teacher’ Sain’s Secret? Dearborn Meeting Milt Bolling.” Christian Science Monitor, July 2, 1965.

Arthur Sampson, Boston Herald, May 20, 1953.

Glenn Stout and Richard Johnson, The Dodgers: 120 Years of Dodgers Baseball (New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin, 2004).

Frank Sullivan, interview, May 18, 2009.

Joseph Warner, “The Bolling Brothers Remember,” Mobile Sports Examiner, September 17, 2009.

Joseph Warner, “The Bolling Sisters-in-Law,” Mobile Sports Examiner, October 17, 2009.

Brewer grew up in Cheraw and went to elementary and high schools there. He played in the major leagues for eight seasons (1954-61), all with the Boston Red Sox, and compiled a record of 91-82. Tom was 6 feet 1 inch tall and normally played between 175 and 180 pounds. He batted and threw right-handed. At various times he was labeled as hard throwing, with a good change-up and a “terrific curve ball.”2 Hall of Famer Lou Boudreau, Brewer’s first major-league manager, was quoted about how Brewer could be “another Bob Lemon” not only due to being a good pitcher but because “Tom can hit, field his position well, and run.”3 Brewer’s best year was 1956, when he was selected as an All-Star, finished with a career-best record of 19-9, and received votes for the Most Valuable Player award.

Brewer’s family has Carolina roots going back several generations. His father, Thomas Austin Brewer Sr., was born in South Carolina and worked for the post office until he retired. The elder Brewer met and married Pauline McGee Parker, who was born in North Carolina and was a librarian. Together Tom Sr. and Pauline raised three children: Madeleine, Carol, and Thomas Jr., the youngest. As a child, Tom recalled, his father emphasized baseball and played catch with him. His father told Tom he would continue playing catch until Tom Jr. could throw harder than his dad could. “That didn’t last too long,” Tom said with a chuckle as he recalled the conversation later.4

Brewer played high-school baseball beginning as a seventh-grader and ended up playing six years on the Cheraw High School team. He played third base except for some games in his senior year when he pitched. In addition to being a good hitter, with a strong arm, speed was one of his assets, Brewer said. He also played on the high school football and basketball teams. Recognized as the “first professional athlete of merit from Cheraw,” Brewer had his number 13 retired by the school in November 2006.5

During the summer, he played American Legion and “sand hill” ball (a league for high-school-age boys made up of teams from the Carolinas). His last couple of years in high school he joined the Beaunit Mills team in Rockingham, North Carolina, part of the Mill League, an adult league that represented mills in the region. In 1950, after graduating from high school, he played in a summer league, called the Palmetto League, which scheduled games every day. Brewer played with some good players in that league, among them Harry Byrd, 1952 American League Rookie of the Year.

Baseball scouts, including Mace Brown of the Boston Red Sox, took an interest in Brewer while he was in high school. According to Brewer, Brown sent a “bird dog” to Cheraw’s championship game, played in Latta, South Carolina, during his last year in high school—not to watch Brewer but to scout another player on the team. Brown’s bird dog returned with the advice that Brewer be given a workout. After the ensuing workout, Brown wanted to sign Brewer to a contract but Brewer said he wanted to go to college first. It was Brown who suggested that he attend to North Carolina’s Elon College (now Elon University),6 Brown knew the baseball coach. After a workout, the coach decided he wanted Brewer and Tom accepted a scholarship offer.

Brewer attended Elon beginning in the fall 1950 and played varsity ball during the 1951 season.

While at Elon, he was converted to a pitcher; a move urged by Mace Brown, and continued to play the infield. Elon’s 1951 team won the North State Conference and Tom was selected to the all-conference team.7 The previous January, however, he had received a draft notice from the U.S. Army. Brewer contacted Brown and told him he would like to play a year of minor-league baseball before joining the service. To have something to look forward to after the service, Brewer wanted the minor-league contract. He said later, “I probably could have gotten out of going into the service but didn’t think it was the right thing to do.” In April 1951, with his father as a co-signer, Brewer signed with Brown and the Red Sox for a $6,000 bonus,8 Part of which Brewer used to buy a new car, a 1951 Ford.

After signing, Brewer went on to play that 1951 season with the High Point-Thomasville Hi-Toms in the North Carolina State League (Class D). Tom credited two people for helping him in his first year of professional ball, Mace Brown and Cliff Bolton. Bolton, a former major-league catcher, served as Brewer’s catcher for most of his Hi-Toms games.9 Tom remembered, “He taught me a lot about pitching, when to do what, and what not to do. They wouldn’t let me shake him off; I had to throw what he called. I think that helped me a lot.” He went 19-3 and led the league with a 2.55 earned-run average. The High Point-Thomasville team did exceptionally well, finishing in first place by 18 games with a 90-36 record.10 Brewer not only did well on the mound but contributed at bat with a .304 batting average. The team also won the two playoff series and eight of the nine games played. Despite Brewer’s winning four of the playoff games, what he remembered for an interviewer was walking in the winning run in a 10th-inning loss.

On December 3, 1951, Brewer was drafted into the Army and served until December 1953. Other than basic training in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, he spent his service time at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. He played ball there and was named to the All-Army team in 1952.11 Over the two years he finished with a record of 35-7.12 One of his games was a five-inning no-hit, no-run game during the National Baseball Congress tournament in 1953. Most of the service teams were loaded with players of some professional experience, and his Camp Atterbury teammates included Frank Lary, the future major-league pitching star.

One would expect that the two-year absence would have been damaging to Brewer’s major-league prospects. When asked about it, Tom replied, “I don’t regret going into the Army and I feel like it might have helped me in the long run. Still, at the same time, when I was pitching in Boston I pitched my turn and in relief, too, as well as pitch in the rotation. That takes a toll on your arm and back then they didn’t know anything about rotator cuffs and stuff like that.” Brewer attributed his early major-league success to his minor-league time with High Point-Thomasville, and said that while in the service, he just continued to practice what he learned from that 1951 season.

During his hitch in the Army Brewer decided to get married. He had known Barbara Kay Wilkins (born in August 1934) for years; they had grown up together in Cheraw. Their fathers both worked for the post office. Tom and Barbara were married on May 31, 1952.13 She joined Tom at Camp Atterbury for the remainder of his tour of duty.

The Brewers had three children. Thomas III, their oldest child, was born in Camp Atterbury in 1953 and in 2008 worked as a machinist in Cheraw. A second child, Karen, was born in Bennettsville, South Carolina, in 1955, and in 2008 lived in Durham, North Carolina, where she was a case worker for the federal prison system. Their youngest child was David, born in 1961 in Cheraw, and worked as a tool and die maker. The Brewers have three grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.

Brewer attended an early February 1954 special Red Sox school for pitchers. In spring training, he did well and at one point pitched 28 scoreless innings. Red Sox manager Lou Boudreau was impressed especially with Brewer’s change-up, which he declared “almost as good as Ellis Kinder’s.”14 In its March 31, 1954, issue, The Sporting News devoted a lengthy article to the rookie pitcher with a headline characterizing Brewer as the “Best-Looking Bosox Rookie.”15 Writer Bob Holbrook said, “What has amazed the older players mostly is the excellent change-up Brewer has demonstrated. This, plus a good curve and a blazing fast ball, make him one of the brightest prospects of the spring.” Another article in the same issue of The Sporting News featured commentary from Boudreau saying Brewer was “the outstanding rookie in camp.”16

Brewer’s first major-league game was a start against the Philadelphia A’s in Boston’s Fenway Park on April 18.. He lasted 3⅓ innings, allowing seven hits and four runs (three earned) and received the first loss of his big-league career. Despite this start, Boudreau called Brewer and another rookie, Truman Clevenger, “the best young pitchers I’ve seen in the big leagues. I know this is going to sound like quite a statement, but in my book, Brewer and Clevenger are better prospects as pitchers than Bob Lemon was when he first started pitching for Cleveland.”17

In his second start Brewer lost a 1-0 heartbreaker to the Chicago White Sox; he had a no-hitter until there was one out in the seventh inning. He finally picked up his first win on May 17, against the Detroit Tigers, going seven innings and giving up three runs on eight hits. On June 7 Brewer picked up win number two and fanned 11 batters, a record at the time for Red Sox pitchers, even though it took him 12 innings to do it.

In midseason, though beset with a losing record, Red Sox general manager Joe Cronin was impressed with the club’s rookie performers, saying, “When you come up with a [Frank] Sullivan and a Brewer in one year, you’ve got something other teams want.”18 Brewer finished his initial year with a record of 10-9, an earned run average of 4.65, 23 starts, and seven complete games. It was good enough to receive the club’s rookie of the year award.19

Brewer’s 1955 season got off to a slow start; he did not get his first win of the season until May 27, his ninth start. In June, however, he won four games and Cheraw was showing its pride. “Austin (Tom) Brewer, one of Cheraw’s nicest and most well liked young men, who is Boston’s ace right hander,” the Cheraw Chronicle wrote, referring to Brewer by his middle name. The paper noted that the team started hitting and Brewer “started winning and the more he won the closer Boston got to the top.” The Chronicle became a little giddy, suggesting a “World Series Special” train for Cheraw fans to attend the Series in Boston “to see their boy pitch.” 20

The World Series was not to be for the fourth-place Red Sox, but Tom ended the season with a record of 11-10 and an earned run average of 4.20, modest improvements over his rookie year performance.

In contrast to his slow start in 1955, Brewer had a record of 11-3 by the All-Star break in 1956. He was beginning to gather national attention, too, with a full-page article about him in the June 20 issue of The Sporting News.21 The writer made a big deal of a flaw in Tom’s delivery that was reportedly discovered in spring training by manager Pinky Higgins. Higgins had pitching coach Dave “Boo” Ferriss work with Brewer with the result being a slower delivery. Brewer acknowledged, “I guess I used to hurry too much. …Now I’ve got better rhythm and my control has been good.”22 Looking back in 2008, Brewer confirmed that Ferriss was helpful, and “he and I talked about pitching a lot of times and we worked on things together.”

The outstanding first half earned Brewer selection to the All-Star held in Washington’s Griffith Stadium. Brewer was one of 10 All-Stars featured on the Sports Illustrated cover of July 9, 1956. Future Hall of Famers Whitey Ford and Early Wynn were on the American League staff and Sports Illustrated gave the AL the edge due to its “depth and skill,” noting further that “Brewer has more stuff on his pitches than most batters think pitchers should have.”23 Tom pitched the sixth and seventh innings and allowed three runs, one coming on a home run by Stan Musial. The American League lost, 7-3; Brewer did not figure in the decision. However, in later years when he was asked about the game, he recalled a ball Ted Kluszewski hit off him that hit the right-field fence for a double. Brewer said it might have been the hardest ball ever hit off him: “If he would have gotten it up in the air there’s no telling where the ball might have landed!”

Brewer ended the 1956 season with his best year in the majors, going 19-9 with a 3.50 earned run average while allowing opposing hitters only a .220 average.24 He had four shutouts, 15 complete games, and nine games in which he held the other team to four hits or fewer. He also had a good year at the plate, hitting.298.

Arm troubles late in the season kept Brewer from being a 20-game winner. He remembered that over his last six appearances of the season, his right elbow would swell up. Then, he would follow up with cortisone injections the day after, which would allow him to start again in four or five days. At 19 wins, he was slated to pitch the last game of the season, in Yankee Stadium, but the team told him that as far as they were concerned he was a 20-game pitcher and they didn’t want him to hurt himself permanently. It was a wise move. During the offseason Brewer worked on rehab of his elbow and, along with rest, the pain and swelling were cured and Tom said he never had any more trouble with his elbow.

Brewer was the unanimous choice of the Boston sportswriters as the team’s most valuable pitcher.25 Brewer had a good start in 1957 and was being boosted for an All-Star bid again.26 After a win on May 22 against the Cleveland Indians in Fenway Park, he was 6-2 in his first eight starts of the season, with a 2.18 earned-run average and two shutouts, one a two-hitter against the Senators on May 12. He cooled down after that and was not selected for the All-Star team. However, Brewer finished the season with a positive record of 16-13, including 15 complete games for a Red Sox team that finished third with an 82-72 record.

Sports Illustrated’s Baseball Issue for the 1958 season predicted good things for the Red Sox pitching, calling Frank Sullivan and Tom Brewer the “bedrock for a good staff.”27 But a case of the mumps before spring training and a broken finger on his pitching hand before one spring game seemed to have lingering effects on Brewer and he had a 3-6 record by the All-Star break. He finally got going and beginning with a complete game three-hitter against the Senators in Fenway Park on August 6, he went 6-0 over the course of seven starts. He finished with a 12-12 record and the 1958 team again ended in third place, with a record of 79-75.

Brewer got off to a slow start again in 1959. He came down with the flu in April that caused him to miss a workout. The team’s trainer, Jack Fadden, was quoted as saying that “the day Brewer missed working out is the only day in six seasons that Tommy didn’t have a workout during the regular season. He’s had pulled tendons in his legs and been down with colds, but he’s always worked out. He’s a real pro.”28 In early June, Brewer suffered a hairline fracture on his pitching hand when the Baltimore Orioles’ Gus Triandos hit a ball back at him. It was the second time during the 1959 season that Brewer had been hit on his pitching hand by hard-hit balls. The injury was so severe that he was unable to grip a bat and reportedly swung with one hand during one game, even getting a single.29

Brewer was characterized as the team’s “hard-luck champ” as the 1959 season wore on.30 On August 23, he lost a 1-0 game when Tito Francona of the Cleveland Indians hit a game-ending home run in the ninth inning for the game’s only run. That loss was Brewer’s ninth, six of which were by one run. For the season he was 10-12 with a 3.76 ERA.

The 1960 season proved to be Tom’s last full season. He was coming off a subpar record on a fifth-place team. Sports Illustrated had this to say in its 1960 Baseball Issue:

“The Red Sox have a pitching staff which is deep in mediocrity. There was a time when it looked as though Tom Brewer and Frank Sullivan, two strong-armed right-handers, would be as good as any pair of pitchers in the league. But in recent years they have won less and lost more until last year they both sank below .500 for the first time. Still, they are the best the team has.”31

But, as it turned out, he and Sullivan were not good enough. Brewer posted a 10-15 record with a 4.82 ERA, his worst in his major league career, while Sullivan was a dismal 6-16. The team finished in 7th place with a record of 65-89.

During the 1961 season, Brewer was placed on the disabled list for the first time in his major-league career. On May 15 he started against the Cleveland Indians and lasted one pitch. Brewer had been nursing a sore shoulder since spring training and felt a sharp twinge on the pitch and that was it for the day.32 The Red Sox team doctor prescribed a week’s rest and Brewer did not pitch again until May 31 against the Yankees at Fenway Park. He got out of a first-inning jam with only one run scored and two runners left on base, but gave up quick hits to the first two batters in the second inning and he was pulled. Five days later, Brewer tried again and started against the Kansas City A’s. He lasted four innings, was wild again, walking five batters, and allowed three hits and three runs, two of which were earned. He went on the disabled list on June 7 with a pulled tendon in his right shoulder. 33 In late June, Brewer felt he could come back and help the club with 10 or 11 victories over the last part of the season. He told The Sporting News, “I feel like I’m cheating the club right now … but I believe I can help them the last part of the season.”34 The article added, “Tom is doing a lot of swimming, playing golf and taking other forms of exercise as prescribed by team doctors in an effort to cure his ailing wing.”

Brewer’s optimism was not enough to cure his physical problems and he got into only two more games that season, both in September. He appeared in his last major-league game on September 27, 1961, when he started in Fenway Park and threw three innings, holding the White Sox to no runs on one hit. He finished with a 3-2 record, having pitched in only 10 games and 42 innings, but with a respectable earned run average of 3.43.

Being on the disabled list and taking nearly three months to rest his arm had not helped Brewer. After that game, he said, he admitted to himself, “That’s it. … I can’t do it anymore.” He was 30 years old. The Red Sox released him after the season but invited him to their 1962 spring training camp as a non-roster player. Tom went to spring training to see if he could pitch and said, “I tried everything I know … and Gene Mauch, who was managing Philadelphia at the time, he called me and asked to sign with them and I told him that I didn’t think (the arm) was going to be coming back, and I didn’t think I was going to be able to pitch and I was being honest with him. I told him, ‘If I thought I could I would tell you right quick. … And I feel it would be best if I don’t try to fool you about how it is.’”

Red Sox beat writer Hy Hurwitz wrote in the October 25, 1961 issue of The Sporting News that the Red Sox were committed to a youth movement and that Brewer was among the veterans released. He mentioned the arm trouble Tom developed in the spring, observing that had been the biggest winner on the staff over the past eight seasons but that the extended time on the disabled list did not help restore his arm strength. Hurwitz added, that Brewer “was fortunate to be working for the Tom Yawkey organization. … He was kept on the roster long enough to make him an eight-year veteran and enable him to make a deal for himself.”35

Brewer went 91-82 over the course of eight major-league seasons, all with the Red Sox. He maintained a decent career batting average for a pitcher, .207. Tom felt he was always a good hitter, and as he switched from an everyday player in high school and college to a full-time pitcher in the professional leagues, he continued to work on hitting on his own. His ability as a hitter, he said, had been learned from other players over the course of his career.

Brewer also had speed and was often called upon to pinch-run. A chart published in The Sporting News in 1956 listed his speed to first base at 3.8 seconds — not far from the best: Mickey Mantle’s 3.3 seconds (from the left side).36 Over the course of his eight seasons with Boston, Brewer averaged 10 games a season in which he pinch-ran.37

Brewer gave credit to a Cheraw friend, Eddie Adeimy, who taught him how to throw a curveball, for being the person most responsible for his conversion to pitching. “That was one of the reasons I started pitching because I had a pretty good curveball back then and I had a pretty good fastball, and all I had to learn was being able to change speeds, and I did that while I was in the service.” His old mentor Mace Brown also contributed his advice—he had watched Brewer play in high school and told him to stick to pitching.38

He played with some interesting teammates in the 1950s. He said Ted Williams, Jackie Jensen, Billy Goodman, and George Kell all were friends and he enjoyed playing with them. He remembered Jimmy Piersall, too, and that “you could always count on Piersall — if he didn’t have his name in the newspapers for two or three days then he would do something to get his name in the paper the next day.” Tom said he kept in contact with his former roommate Willard Nixon for a long time until Nixon died, and said he periodically talked with Frank Sullivan. Another teammate, Wilbur Wood, credited Brewer with giving him good advice when Wood signed his first professional contract, in 1960. Brewer, he said, “explained the ins and outs of signing a baseball contract and told me what a great organization the Red Sox were. … I suppose he was something like an agent to me, but it was all free advice.”39

Further, Brewer said, “I never had a bit of trouble with the writers in Boston. … If you stayed out of trouble you didn’t have any trouble with them. … .They wrote what they saw. … On the road they would be sitting in the lobby when you came in and if you came in at one in the morning or something like that then they were going to report it.”

Brewer had hopes of staying in baseball after his pitching career ended but received no serious offers. In 1962 one team called him about managing one of their minor-league teams for $5,000 that summer but that was not enough for him to take up the offer.

During one offseason Tom worked as a temporary mailman and was assigned a 9.5-mile route. He thought the route would serve as a good morning workout, but it ended up becoming a slow daylong walk as people along his route would recognize him and want to talk baseball and get autographs.40 Most of Brewer’s post-baseball career was spent as a probation officer for the South Carolina Probation Office, from which he retired after 25 years. Barbara Brewer worked for J.P. Stevens and then for Stanley Tools, from which she retired.

After leaving the Probation Office, Brewer decided to use some of his free time to help out his alma mater, Cheraw High School. Starting in the early 1990s, he worked with young pitchers as pitching coach for the Cheraw High Braves. As of 2008 they had captured several state championships, including the 1999 Class AA State Baseball Championship.41

As one of South Carolina’s best professional athletes Brewer has been recognized at the state and local levels. In 1985 he was inducted in the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame. On the local levelBrewer’s baseball exploits have been recognized in Cheraw, the community where he was born and raised and lived his entire life. Cheraw High School, where he played and coached, retired his uniform number in 2006. Then, in March 2009, more honors came to Brewer when the Cheraw High School baseball field was named in his honor. In Boston Red Sox script and colors the scoreboard reads “Tom Brewer Field.” At the same event Brewer was further honored by the Cheraw Rotary Club which established a scholarship in his name that will be given to a Cheraw High baseball player each year.

This special day was a significant highlight for Brewer and his family. Ironically and sadly, just four days later he had to face the unexpected passing of his wife of 56 years, Barbara. Fortunately, she was able to be at his side at the field naming event and share the happy day with Tom.

A few years later, on January 5, 2011, Tom married Norma Lowrimore in Cheraw.

On February 15, 2018, Tom Brewer passed away in Cheraw where he had lived all of his 86 years. He was buried in the Chatham Hill Memorial Gardens Cemetery in Cheraw.42 His obituary noted his service to the First Presbyterian Church where he served as a deacon, usher, and Sunday morning coffee maker.43

Upon Tom’s passing former Cheraw resident and member of the College Football Hall of Fame, Fisher DeBerry, had this to say about Tom: “Austin’s impressed me the most not by how fast he could throw a ball but how he cared about people and their lives as evidenced by the tremendous difference he made in so many lives as their Probation Officer and the time he gave to the high school baseball team as well as aspiring young baseball players in nearby communities.”44

As a tribute to Brewer on the day he was honored in March 2009 a special song was sung at the ceremony. It is titled “The Ballad of Tom Brewer” written and composed by Cheraw resident Mike Melton.45

Batter steps up to the plate
Digs in, to stand his ground
But you can see the fear in his eyes
As he looks back at the mound
He knows if he just stands there
Then mister there’s no doubt
It’s fast ball, fast ball, curve ball
Brewers gonna strike him out!
He spent nine years with the Red Sox
Shutting batters down
The who’s, who of baseball
No ordinary clowns
Mantle, Mays, Musial
Hall of Fame clout
He treated them all the same
One, two, three, you’re out!
He’s a Carolina boy
Full of southern charm
He’s got thunder in his veins
Lightning in his arm
They loved him up in Boston
But memories tend to fade
They called him a Red Sox
We call him a Brave!!!!

Notes

Some of the criticism was pretty harsh. Brendan C. Boyd and Fred Harris wrote in The Great American Baseball Card Flipping, Trading, and Bubble Gum Book, “If there was a way to make the worst out of a situation, Don Buddin could be counted on to find it.” A half-century later, he retains this image of bumbling mediocrity. In context, it appears to be a somewhat unfair one.

Donald Thomas Buddin was born on May 5, 1934, in Turbeville, South Carolina, to Carlisle Buddin and Carrie (Willis) Buddin. His playing weight was 178 pounds and he stood 5-feet-11. A right-handed batter and fielder, he grew up in a family of seven with a father who sold insurance for Liberty Life and a mother who was a homemaker. He was the second-born in the family; his older brother was a very good ballplayer, but he didn’t have quite the desire or ability to make it professionally. Don did, with the full “100 percent” support of his parents; his father, Carl, had played some semipro ball. “My father went to The Citadel,” Don said. “He was a pretty good pitcher.”

Don played high-school ball for Olanta High School, from which he graduated in 1952. Olanta was a small community of some 400 people. Author Peter Golenbock described the young Buddin as “perhaps the most highly rated prospect the Red Sox signed in the early 1950s.” Sometimes a dozen or more scouts came to watch him play high-school ball. He played “infield, shortstop, and pitched. I signed as soon as I finished high school.” We can’t know today whether Buddin was as highly rated internally as some others such as Billy Consolo, but he was certainly a prized prospect.

Scout Mace Brown of the Red Sox had been following Buddin’s career, and had seen him play several times in the previous year. The day after he graduated, each scout was granted 15 minutes to meet with Don and his father. They met in the parlor of the town’s undertaker, which offered the only spot in town that was air-conditioned. Brown and the Red Sox offered a reported $50,000 bonus, quite large at the time. The money was good, and several clubs bid the same amount, but the Buddins thought Boston might be a good fit for two other reasons: one, Fenway’s left-field Wall (he thought it offered a good target for a right-handed hitter); and, two, the Buddins thought the Red Sox might be most likely to have an opening at shortstop after Don’s minor-league seasoning.

Buddin, 18, signed on with the Red Sox. He came up to Boston for a couple of weeks and worked out with the team. Eventually the Red Sox assigned him to Roanoke in the Piedmont League to get some playing time under manager Owen Scheetz. He got into 69 games that summer and collected an even 250 at-bats, hitting .252 with 20 doubles and three homers. The next year, after working out at the Red Sox minor-league camp in Deland, Florida, he played for Greensboro and manager Eddie Popowski in the Carolina League. For Greensboro, Don improved dramatically, batting an even .300 in 543 at-bats and leading the league both in total bases (289) and RBIs (123). He showed power, with 25 home runs, and hit 37 doubles and 7 triples. After this fine first full season of professional ball, he was promoted from Class B Greensboro to Triple-A for 1954, and earned praise from the Boston Globe’s Roger Birtwell, who wrote in February 1954 that Buddin “could become one of the top ballplayers of his time.”

In his first year with the Louisville Colonels in the American Association, Buddin struggled a bit more against better pitching (at one point he had only one hit in nearly 50 at-bats), but he played 148 games as the starting shortstop for manager Pinky Higgins and hit a decent .246 with 11 homers and 62 RBIs. Don was a favorite of Higgins, who in late 1954 told Sox owner Tom Yawkey, “You’re going to like that little Buddin. He’s a peppery kid who is a battler down to the last pitch.”

Married by the age of 20, Don and his wife lost a premature baby in June 1954. That tragedy and the pressure of his suddenly bright reputation may have caused him to get off to a slow start. Higgins noted that two-thirds of his errors came in the first part of the year. “But he never quit and he really came back fast at the finish.” 1 Higgins was later criticized for sticking with Buddin too long as Boston’s shortstop. The Colonels won both the American Association playoffs and the Junior World Series in 1954. Don played winter ball for the Venezuela Patriots and had an excellent season.

He again played for Louisville in 1955. Higgins went to manage in Boston and Red Marion, Marty’s brother, skippered the Louisville club. There was a stretch early in the season when Buddin endured a horrendous 2-for-56 slump, but he poured it on and boosted his average all the way up to .292, with 18 homers and 82 runs driven in. In a sign of things to come, his 48 errors led the American Association.

Buddin went to spring training with the Red Sox in 1956, and on the trip north the team stopped in Charlotte to play an exhibition game. While there, Higgins announced that Buddin would be the Red Sox’ Opening Day shortstop. He had made the big leagues. “I was very happy,” he recalled more than 50 years later.

To make room for Buddin, Higgins moved incumbent Billy Klaus to third base. In his first game, Don slapped hits on the first two pitches he saw. “He played like he’d been up here in the big leagues all his life,” enthused Higgins after the game. By the end of the first week, though, he was 2-for-17. A three-hit game against Don Larsen and the Yankees on April 27 broke the slump.

Higgins favored Buddin, whom he’d known in Louisville, and stuck by him throughout his time with the Red Sox. In Don’s first full year, he hit .239 – not unusual as an average for shortstops of the era, though with less power than one would have liked: 5 homers and 24 doubles in 377 at-bats. He did not field particularly well, but he improved as the season progressed — he made 18 errors in his first 40 games but only 11 more the rest of the year. Bobby Doerr, the Red Sox’ stellar second baseman and later a coach and hitting instructor, had commented on Buddin in the middle of his rookie season: “He looked good. He grinds in there at the plate. He seems to have good speed and his arm is good. All he needs is a little more experience. Let’s hope nothing ruins his confidence. Confidence is half the battle in the major leagues.” 2 Some observers had already gotten on Buddin for his error-prone play. Correspondent Bob Holbrook reported that in one game he’d been “booed so vociferously that he had tears in his eyes when he walked to the plate at Fenway Park.” Buddin responded with a three-run home run. 3 Higgins warned the doubters, “He’s going to be a fine ballplayer. Don’t quit on that kid.” Higgins did bench him late in the season, and Buddin’s season was shortened further when he fractured his hand on a slide on September 5.

After the season, assistant general manager Bucky Harris praised Buddin to Boston Globe writer Hy Hurwitz: “He knew the strike zone better than any young ballplayer I ever saw. He’s a better defensive shortstop than Harvey Kuenn. He’s got terrific possibilities.”

But the United States Army soon called and Buddin spent the entire 1957 season stationed at Fort Jackson in South Carolina and Fort McPherson in Georgia. He played a lot of baseball in the Army, traveling to play teams on other bases and keeping in shape. There had been some uncertainty whether he’d be able to join the club before June or July 1958, but Corporal Buddin was mustered out just in time to get to part of spring training in 1958.

Billy Klaus had returned to shortstop in 1957; when Buddin returned, Klaus was relegated to backup duty. Billy Goodman had been Buddin’s double-play partner playing second base in 1956; for the next three years it would be Pete Runnels, whom the Red Sox had acquired from the Senators. Goodman had won the batting crown in 1950; Runnels had two batting titles in his future. Buddin was diplomatic about their work around the second-base bag, but lit up when he went on to describe 1961 partner Chuck Schilling: “Goodman was a good hitter. So was Pete Runnels, a great hitter. They weren’t the greatest [defensively], but you know, they did a good job. Chuck was great! Great fielder, great double-play man.”

Buddin, as mentioned, led the league in shortstop errors in both 1958 and 1959. That dubious honor was partly a reflection of the number of innings he played, but he did commit 31 errors (fielding percentage of .958) in ’58 and 35 errors in 1959 (.949). After two errors led to seven unearned runs in the July 13, 1958, game against Cleveland, the “Fenway Park wolves” got on him so badly that Higgins had almost no choice but to bench him. “He needs a rest,” Higgins said. “The fans have been riding him hard. It’s begun to affect Don’s play. On the road, where he doesn’t have to listen to the raspberries, he is a capable performer. He hasn’t been able to settle down in Boston.”

Buddin’s too-frequent errors gave birth to the reputation that besmirched him. Hy Hurwitz wrote, “No player of the Tom Yawkey era has undergone the blistering vocal barrage from the fans as severely as Buddin has since he first broke in with the club.” It is worth noting, though, that in both 1958 and 1959, he led the league in double plays — this again perhaps reflects how frequently he played.

Writing in The Red Sox Fan Handbook, Leigh Grossman expanded on Buddin’s overall contribution, terming the Boston shortstop a “victim of his times”: Buddin “was a solid offensive and defensive shortstop in an era when the most important measures of quality were batting average, runs batted in, and errors made — and when his strengths as a player were invisible. Buddin hit for a decent average, but walked a lot (more than he struck out over his career, which is very rare), giving him a strong on-base percentage for a shortstop at a time when most middle infielders were light-hitting defensive specialists. He made a lot of errors, but he also had excellent range, making plays that other shortstops wouldn’t.”

Buddin was distinctly better than average among shortstops offensively. Coming back after his time in the Army, he got off to a terrific start and in 1958, he led all American League shortstops in OPS (on-base average plus slugging), and in 1959 he was second only to Woodie Held. Typically batting eighth in the lineup, he hit 12 and 10 homers respectively and he drew 82 and 92 walks in the two seasons. Kansas City’s Joe DeMaestri had the best fielding percentage in 1958 (.980), and Luis Aparicio and Chico Carrasquel did in 1959 (both had .970), but their batting averages were .219, .257, and .223. Buddin hit 10 homers, while DeMaestri and Aparicio hit but six, and Carrasquel just four. DeMaestri’s OPS in 1958 was .537. Aparicio’s in 1959 was .648 and Carrasquel’s was .587. Buddin’s OPS figures for 1958 and ’59 were .717 and .723. Evaluated overall, he was in the middle of the pack among AL shortstops and probably better than average.

These were disappointing years for the Red Sox, though; they never finished closer than 13 games out of first place and, after 1958, they didn’t have a winning season again until 1967. It is clear that Buddin unfairly bore the brunt of a little frustration. But despite a few brief benchings, he held onto his position.

Buddin’s most dramatic offensive contribution came in a Saturday afternoon game at Fenway Park on July 11, 1959. The Red Sox and the Yankees were tied 4-4 when Buddin came up with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the 10th. He was 0-for-5 on the day to that point, with two strikeouts and three balls that he failed to get out of the infield. Bob Turley was pitching for New York. Manager Billy Jurges stuck with Buddin, who admitted he was hoping for a sacrifice fly. No one expected the walk-off grand slam that won the game for Boston, 8-4. The slam was one of two in his career; the other came when he was playing with Houston in 1962.

One thing that helped Buddin was a belief in himself. A February 1960 article in The Sporting News was headlined “Shrinking Violet? Buddin Says He’s Equal of Aparicio.” Bucky Harris, now the Red Sox GM, said, “I’ve always admired Buddin’s confidence. He has never lost faith in himself, although he has had a hard time in Boston.” Harris reminded the interviewer that it took Joe Cronin himself a while to establish himself. But the 1960 season proved to be just another year of treading water, and Don missed 17 games after his skull was fractured by a Jim Bunning pitch on August 30.

In 1961, Buddin faced a challenge from both Pumpsie Green and Carl Yastrzemski for a berth at shortstop – Yaz had originally been signed by Boston as a shortstop, but was soon definitively placed in left field. Don pulled a leg muscle in spring training and it hampered him badly, he said. “I had a terrible spring. I just couldn’t run. It killed my spring.” Frank Malzone, who’d played next to Buddin for several years, acknowledged that Don had suffered slings and arrows in Boston right from his bad start in 1956. “The fans got on him and they’ve kept on his back. If the fans just forget about Buddin, they’ll find that Don is a capable ballplayer.” 4 Don knew that 1961 was probably his last chance to prove himself and he really wanted to stick with the Red Sox. Coming down with a virus in spring training, Buddin lost the Opening Day start to Green. When Green had an appendectomy in mid-May, Buddin took over again. Chuck Schilling later credited Buddin with really helping him with positioning against opposing batters during his 1961 rookie year. Buddin raised his average to a career-high .263 and he cut his errors dramatically, down to 23, though that was in part because Green played in some 57 games at short. The Red Sox weren’t really satisfied with either and when they saw an opportunity after the season to go for a perceived upgrade, they swapped Don to the Houston Colt .45s for Eddie Bressoud. Because Bressoud was Houston’s first pick in the expansion draft, they must have thought pretty highly of Buddin to give up their first pick.

Dan Daniel quoted an unnamed Boston writer who told him, “Mike Higgins would not have dared to open the 1962 season with Buddin still on the club. The fans hooted Don all last summer.” 5

Had it bothered him to be criticized in Boston as he had been? Did it get under his skin? “No. I gave it 100 percent.” The Red Sox would not have kept him on for so many years if he was considered on balance a liability. As a fellow South Carolinian, had he ever had the occasion to visit Tom Yawkey’s estate on the coast? “Once. It was beautiful. I’d like to have lived there!”

The Colt 45s were a brand-new expansion team. In the winter, Buddin traveled with the club as it made a goodwill tour of 20 towns in Texas, Louisiana, and northern Mexico to drum up support for the team. “It makes a big difference to play in a town where you know you’re wanted,” he told writer Mickey Herskowitz. 6 When it came time to play, he suffered another pulled muscle in spring training (“I pulled a muscle in both leagues,” he later said) and again it held him back. Not only that, Houston had him play in nine games at third base (“That was very odd. But I did the best I could”). The best he could wasn’t really good enough; he was hitting a miserable .163 after 80 at-bats, and on July 20, he was waived to the Detroit Tigers. As backup to shortstop Chico Fernandez, he got 83 at-bats with the Tigers but only a .229 average. After the 1962 season, the Tigers assigned Don to their Syracuse club, and then offered him for sale at the minor-league convention. Finding no takers, they released him. Don was offered a minor-league contract by the Yankees and played for their Richmond farm club in 1963, batting .243 in 440 at-bats, with 17 homers, while playing third base, second base, and shortstop. In 1964, he went through a bewildering succession of ballclubs all in the one year. He began the year with Columbus, Georgia, a Yankees affiliate in the Southern League, but was released before the season started. He then played for Rochester (affiliated with the Orioles), Indianapolis (White Sox), Denver (Milwaukee Braves), and Toronto (Senators and Tigers). Throughout, his batting averages were still in the .240s, but now with few extra-base hits and only a total of 218 at-bats. He started 1965 with Atlanta (of the American Association) but was released in April and wound up with the Knoxville Smokies, a Cincinnati affiliate. He played a full season of 130 games, with a .242 average but was not re-signed. The Macon Peaches made a pitch, but he decided it was time to look for other work and announced his retirement.

Don was then living in Lake City, South Carolina, and went to work for his father selling life insurance for Liberty Life. After doing that for seven years, he took on a position combining public relations and writing for his hometown newspaper, the Lake City News.

Don and his wife, Barbara, had two daughters and one son. Their oldest daughter teaches high school in Charleston, South Carolina. The other is a physical therapist in Columbia. His son played baseball at the University of South Carolina, and his father described him as “a pretty good baseball player, but not good enough to play pro. He played all three sports. He’s a teacher and a coach. He’s doing that now.”

After the newspaper work, Buddin spent seven years as a salesman for Kayot Pontoons, a boat company based in Mankato, Minnesota. Then he opened what he called “an alcohol liquor store” in Greenville, just as Joe Jackson had years earlier. He owned Don’s Party Shop – one in Lake City and the other in Fountain Inn — though a partner ran the enterprise before Don sold his share. After a heart attack and a stroke, Don lived in a nursing home in Greenville. Fortunately, it was one that he described as “real nice. It’s expensive as all hell, but they treat you good here.” Barbara passed away around 2004.

He remembers playing with an array of great ballplayers. And he had quite a number of roommates as well: Billy Consolo, Gene Stephens, Ike Delock, and Mary Keough. It’s not surprising to hear any ballplayer from this era chime in, as Don did, with the evaluation that “Ted Williams was the greatest hitter that I ever saw.” He added, “Jackie Jensen was a great player, all the way around. He was a great ballplayer. I played with some pretty great players — Malzone, Piersall, Sammy White. Frank Sullivan, a pretty good pitcher.” The final year of Don’s stay in Boston was Carl Yastrzemski’s first. He wasn’t as impressed that year: “Carl improved from when he first came up. You could see the potential there.” But it was Ted Williams who impressed the most, even as a fielder: “He got to the ball. He could come up with it. I never saw him screw up.” As a hitter, though, he had no equal. “He was great. He could tell you what was coming. He was a mind reader, I think. Maybe that was my problem. I didn’t have psychic powers.”

He still heard from the Red Sox through their active alumni outreach effort, and from several of his old teammates. He remained loyal to the team that first signed him: “I still pull for the Red Sox. I’ll pull against the Yankees forever!”

Don Buddin died in Greenville on June 30, 2011 after a long illness. He was preceded in death by brothers Willis and David, and survived by sisters Linda and Delores, and his two daughters Susan and Cindy, and one son, Michael.

Sources

Don Buddin, telephone interview, March 19, 2007. All quotations from Don Buddin are from this interview unless otherwise noted.

Notes

Casale’s life centered on the New York City region since his birth in Brooklyn on September 27, 1933. He spent his youth in Brooklyn, moved to Staten Island after being married, and then in his later years, lived in New Jersey. His parents, Gennaro and Maria Casale were born in Italy just outside of Naples, and immigrated to the United States. The family lived and owned a grocery store in Brooklyn. Young Gennaro was only about seven when his father passed away, at age 49, and his mother died eight years later. He was the youngest of six children. One of his brothers, Dominick, died as a young man the result of a tragic accident in the family butcher shop, and a sister died around the time Casale was born. Casale’s remaining brother, Lou, and his two sisters, Ann and Mary, managed the family after their mother’s death.1

Casale attended P.S. 77 elementary school and then Manual Training High School where he was graduated in 1951. He played basketball and baseball as a sophomore but was unable to play in his junior and senior years due to a strike in the public school system. Through a job with a candy factory he was able to play for the company’s semipro team in an industrial league. He also played ball through his church with a local CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) team, St. Francis Xavier, which won the 1950 CYO championship in Brooklyn.2

He was watched by numerous scouts and worked out with several teams before he was signed.3 Casale was a devoted Dodgers fan and he was thrilled when he was asked to throw some batting practice at Ebbets Field. The first batter he faced was future Hall of Famer Roy Campanella. The first pitch he threw was quite a bit inside, and it flattened Campanella. That was the end of his batting practice workout.4

Not long after graduation from high school in October 1951, Casale was signed by Red Sox scout Bots Nekola.5 Casale stood 6’1½” and weighed 200 pounds. He was labeled as “hard throwing,” “brawny, tough-talking,” and a “big fellow.”6

Casale began his professional career in 1952 for San Jose (California League, Class C); he went 14-13 with 211 strikeouts in 209 innings. His club made it to the playoffs but lost to Fresno, four games to two. He had control problems, and recalls one game early that season when he walked about 12 batters and struck out an equal number or more, and threw 200 pitches.7

In 1953 he moved up in the organization and played for three teams: Albany (New York) in the Class A Eastern League, Greensboro (North Carolina) in the Class B Carolina League, and Roanoke (Virginia) in the Class B Piedmont League. His overall record for those teams was 8-8 with a 5.50 ERA. Casale went back to Albany again in 1954 and had a good enough year to make the Eastern League all-star team. He was 14-8 on a team that finished in third place but went on the win the playoffs. He had an outstanding series, winning three games while losing none. He was the winning pitcher, in relief, in the clincher, and at the plate that game Casale had a double, a triple and three RBIs. Over that winter he played ball with Navojoa of Mexico’s Pacific Coast League.

He spent the 1955 season with Louisville (Kentucky) of the triple A American Association where he won 17 games against 11 losses, was the league’s strikeout leader with 186, and finished second with 2.96 ERA. Louisville finished in third place and made the playoffs but lost in six games to Omaha in the opening series. Again, Casale sparkled, winning the only two games he started, going the distance in each. During the offseason, he played winter ball in Puerto Rico.

In1956 spring training 1956, he was upbeat about his chances to make the Red Sox pitching staff given the past two years he had in the minors, and especially the 17 games he won at AAA. He felt he achieved what he had hoped for back in 1952: to be a good control pitcher.

Near the end of a solid spring training Casale was told that manager Mike Higgins wanted to see him. He excitedly went to see his manager expecting some good news. Instead, Higgins said they thought he needed more experience.8

An article in The Sporting News noted “…he was disappointed that he hadn’t been retained longer. This big fellow from Brooklyn throws bullets and the only thing he needs is a little more polish on his curve ball, experts say.”9 Casale harbored resentment toward manager Pinky Higgins and Red Sox GM Joe Cronin for restricting his progress to the major leagues.

An upset Casale decided he would go home and join the Army. On his way out of the clubhouse meeting with Higgins he met Cronin in the parking lot. Casale was angry and apparently Cronin was giving no ground. Cronin said even though he was being sent to the San Francisco Seals in the Pacific Coast League, they would be giving him big-league money. Then Cronin mentioned there was a large Italian community in San Francisco and he would be a good fit there.10, 11

The Red Sox had purchased the San Francisco territory for the 1956 season with the apparent intention of reserving the area for American League expansion. According to Dobbins12 there were public boasts the 1956 team would be “second to none.” However, confirming Casale’s conversation with Cronin there were a number of Italian ball players on the team as well. In addition to Casale, there were Ken Aspromonte, Bob DiPietro, Larry DiPippo, Frank Malzone, and Sal Taormina.

Now Casale felt he understood: the primary reason for his return to the minors was likely not due to his inexperience but, rather, a combination of having an Italian name and the ball club’s desire to generate attendance. In retrospect, perhaps this move was to the benefit of the Red Sox organization but being sent to San Francisco was more than a disappointment to Casale. The longer term upshot was that he missed out on a major league pension by 40-50 days. This resulted in Casale being left with Social Security as his only retirement income.

To Cronin’s credit, the Red Sox attempted to load the San Francisco club with top-notch talent for that 1956 season. Aspromonte, Casale, and Malzone were future major leaguers as were teammates Albie Pearson, Tommy Umphlett, Haywood Sullivan, and Marty Keough.13 Eddie Joost started the season as manager and was fired in midseason when Joe Gordon was brought on, and Casale ranked both as favorites and he noted both made you want to win.14

The Seals did not match their expectations and finished in sixth-place with a 77-88 record. Accounting for nearly 25% of the team’s wins, Casale was outstanding and went 19-11 with 16 complete games and an ERA of 4.10. He was also credited with hitting the longest home run at Seals Stadium, reputedly 551 feet. It went over the center-field scoreboard.15 As things turned out, Casale was a big star that year in San Francisco and, looking back, he said he “…loved it there.”16 Ironically, given the bout that spring with Cronin, the GM had written a letter to the draft board in 1956 requesting a temporary deferment for Casale.

He was recalled to Boston on September 1, 1956 but did not get into any major league games. He had finished three consecutive outstanding minor-league seasons running up an overall record of 55-30, a .647 record, including playoff games. For those three years his ERA was 3.44 and he had a ratio of 0.73 strikeouts per inning.

In December 1956 the draft board eventually caught up with Casale and he was inducted into the U. S. Army. He served with the 3rd Armored Division for nearly two years during 1957-58 mostly in Europe where he was able to play with the Army baseball team (in Denmark, Germany, and Holland).17 He felt his two years in the Army hurt his career. First, the caliber of teams he played against was more equivalent to high school and second, he came down with bursitis in his shoulder. The pain affected his ability to throw the fast ball and took away his curve ball, too.18

His first major-league game took place soon after his discharge from the Army on September 14, 1958. He had not picked up a baseball for a month or two but was promptly thrown into action…in both games of a double header against Detroit. Casale remembered he felt so strange because of the inactivity. But there he was, finally in the major leagues, and he recalled what a big thrill it was to look down at his uniform as he put it on for the first time. Best of all, he was pleasantly surprised he did as well as he did, holding the Tigers to no runs over three innings in those two games—striking out Harvey Kuenn twice, once in each game!19 He did not pitch again that season.

Following his nearly two-year layoff Casale decided to work himself back into shape by playing winter ball with Maracaibo in Venezuela. The experience paid off and at last Casale made the Red Sox out of spring training in 1959. For the season he went 13-8 with nine complete games and three shutouts. He was selected the Red Sox’ rookie of the year.

What a first start he had in the major leagues! In addition to a complete-game, 7-3 win, he hit a home run—450 feet according to The Sporting News20—off Washington’s Russ Kemmerer on April 15. In a 2004 interview Casale, looking at a mural of Fenway Park, proudly pointed toward the flagpole in left-center field where the ball left the park.21 He said it might have been the happiest day of his playing career, winning the game, hitting the home run, and striking out Roy Sievers of the Senators three times.22

He was off to a good start and it continued as Casale recorded three-hit shutouts on June 20 and July 27. The Sporting News was following his progress. On July 1, it featured Casale’s photograph and the caption “Jerry Does Job.” The ensuing article had the headline “Casale’s 5 Wins in a Row Chase Hub’s Hill Blues, Rookie Becomes Bosox’ Top Flinger.”23 The Red Sox had a six-game losing streak in late July but Jerry’s shutout on July 27 put a stop to that. Again he was the feature of an article in The Sporting News with his photo bearing the caption “Slump Stopper.” In the article it was noted “Rookie righthander Jerry Casale stopped the setback string from equaling the longest of the year—seven in a row. He pitched the finest game of his career in Cleveland on July 27, blanking the Indians on three singles.”24

He hit two more memorable home runs during the season. On July 22 Casale hit one in Chicago’s Comiskey Park off future Hall of Famer Early Wynn. On September 7, 1959 Jerry became part of baseball history when he, Don Buddin, and Pumpsie Green hit back-to-back-to-back home runs as the Red Sox beat the Yankees in Fenway Park with Casale picking up the 12-4 win. This homer was hit off Bob Turley and, while it was important in the win, it became even more “historic” for Casale in later years.

Playing alongside Ted Williams was a thrill for Casale. For the two years he played with the Red Sox his locker was next to Williams’. He said, “…Williams was a good guy. No b.s. with him, everything was black-white. What a hitter! The tougher the pitcher, the more he liked to face him…except for knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm.”25

Casale married a Brooklyn girl, Margaret (“Marge”) Mary Selleck, on November 1, 1959.26 He met her on a blind date and they dated more than three years. He and Marge have three children–Margaret (“DeeDee”), Patricia (“Pattie”), and James (“Jimmy”)–and five grandchildren.

In 1960, Casale suffered through a miserable year, finishing 2-9. He got off to a good start, winning on April 20 against the Yankees and Bob Turley in a complete game five-hitter. Six days later he won his second game, at that point half of all Red Sox victories. He remembered a tough 2-1 loss against the Baltimore Orioles on May 15 as a turning point. Steve Barber pitched a three-hitter, with Casale getting one of the hits. In looking back Casale said that his arm started “hurting like hell” but he “didn’t want to be taken out…I went to the bullpen when I should have gone to see a doctor.”27 During a six-game stretch in June and July Casale made six starts pitching in only 12 innings and allowing 25 runs. He ended the season in a relief role.

Unfortunately, his fortunes over the next two seasons did not improve. Casale was selected in the expansion draft by the Los Angeles Angels in December 1960. “At first we felt like all a bunch of rejects—which we were! We had some good players on the team but generally all were fringe major league players.”28

He is in the record book as the “first Angels losing pitcher” in a 3-0 loss to Boston in Fenway Park on April 15. He struck out eight in five 2/3 innings but had the misfortune to face rookie Carl Yastrzemski who tripled in one run and hit a sacrifice fly for another run and scored the third…these were Yaz’s first two major-league RBIs of an eventual 1,844.

Casale also hit the first home run by an Angels pitcher. It was on May 9, off Boston’s Ike Delock. He went 2-for-2 with a double to his credit, too, accounting for two Angels runs, and departed after five innings with a 5-4 lead. The Red Sox eventually tied it and while the Angels won it in the bottom of the ninth, Casale did not figure in the decision. Yastrzemski continued to make an impression on Casale hitting his first career home run in the fifth inning. After seven starts and 13 games for the Angels, Casale was traded to the Detroit Tigers on June 7. He left the Angels with a 1-5 record and an ERA of 6.54. but a batting average of .462. In a 2005 interview29 he said Los Angeles Wrigley Field, where the Angels played that first season, was a “bandbox” and a “terrible place to pitch.”

In July 1961 Casale was sold outright to Denver (American Association, Class AAA), where he posted a 4-1 record in the regular season then went 0-1 in the playoffs. He pitched well enough to win both games he started, but he was 0-1 and Denver lost Game Seven, a 1-0 five-hitter. He struck out eight and went 2-for-2 at the plate. He also had a home run in the series.

He came back in 1962 with the Tigers and pitched in 18 games, all but one in relief. But his arm still bothered him and he pitched in his last major-league game on July 22 against the Athletics. The Tigers assigned him to Denver once again. His record for that last, partial season in the majors was 1-2, with an ERA of 4.66. For Denver he started eight games, going the route twice, and finished with a mark of 4-2.

Casale’s last season of pro ball was in 1963 when his contract was assigned to Syracuse in December 1962 and then to Buffalo (International League, Class AAA) in April 1963, before being released in June. He finished this last season with Buffalo going 1-1 in 18 games, all but one was in relief.

His professional career ended nearly 12 years after his original signing in October 1951. He finished his career with an overall pitching record of 103-80, 17-24 in the majors and 86-56 in the minors. Two years in the Army, a sore arm, and fate that resulted in his one season in San Francisco caused Casale to miss out on a major league pension by 30 days. He said that the highest salary he made was $12,500.30

After his baseball career ended Casale went into the family’s butcher business with brother Lou. After 16 years, in 1977, he bought Pino’s, an “old-fashioned”31 Italian restaurant in Manhattan’s east side on 34th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues. Among baseball players and fans it was a well-known restaurant and was reputed to be a sanctuary for Red Sox fans and team personnel in town for a Boston-Yankees series.32 Pino’s was walking distance from New York’s Grand Hyatt where the Red Sox team would stay. Red Sox broadcaster Joe Castiglione has said that Pino’s was one of his favorites when in New York.33

Owning a restaurant was a natural fit for Casale who professed to enjoy meeting people and telling stories, and that’s what he did at Pino’s. He admitted the thing he missed most about baseball were the people in the baseball environment and running the restaurant, meeting people, filled this void.34

Casale displayed his allegiance to baseball, and his role playing it, by having a 20-foot-wide mural of Fenway Park painted on one of the restaurant’s walls, capturing the moment on September 7, 1959 when he connected for a home run against Bob Turley and the Yankees. The scene showed #19 Casale at bat and the scoreboard showing a 4-1 Red Sox lead just as he connected with the pitch for his home run. For those who wanted more information he also had a tape recording of the memorable moment. Ironically, his brother Lou was taping the game. “Lou, he don’t even know how to turn on the radio,” he was quoted telling a reporter in 2002, “but he got this right…(the) first pitch got by me before I realized what the catcher was doing, asking me, ‘How’s the family, Jerry? How’s the kids?’” The next pitch from Turley was the one Casale hit over the Green Monster that is recorded on the mural and on the tape. When he touched home plate he told Yogi Berra, the Yankees catcher who was chirping during his at-bat, “I’m not even married, Yogi.”35

Regarding Casale’s memorable home run, he was quoted as saying, “I’ve hit that home run 45,000 times by now.”36 “Turley keeps throwin’ it, and I keep whackin’ it.”37

Casale’s former Red Sox teammate, Ted Williams, enjoyed eating at Pino’s when he was in New York City. In David Halberstam’s book, The Teammates, a story was told of Williams detouring Dom DiMaggio and a few friends from a party at the fashionable “21” Club to Pino’s and that “he damn well was going to go there and eat at his old teammate’s place.”38 Halberstam noted that Pino’s was not in the Zagat restaurant survey but went on to say, if it were it would be described as follows: “This old-fashioned and unhip Italian restaurant, more Southern than Northern, has a warm and comfortable ambiance, and has the flavor of a ‘50s hangout. It serves hearty portions of traditional favorites and is popular with neighborhood regulars and sports stars, both present and past. Anti-smoking fanatics should stay away. The warm and outgoing owner once pitched for the Red Sox, and the walls are covered with mementoes of that time.”39

Following the tragedy of September 11, 2001, business at Pino’s declined and Casale and his wife, Marge, finally decided to close the restaurant in December 2003 after 27 years. When looking back, he admitted that he loved the restaurant business as much as playing baseball, and was proud to have been Pino’s chief cook for 10 of those years putting “his heart and soul into it.”40

By 2010 retired and living in New Jersey, Casale bragged about his children and grandchildren. Their oldest daughter, Patty, was an interior designer. Daughter number two, DeeDee, worked for a law firm. The Casales’ youngest child, son Jimmy, lived in Torrance, California, where he worked for Fox Television as a graphics artist.

There were baseball stories, too. Jimmy recalled being lucky enough to meet Ted Williams and his son John-Henry on several occasions in his family’s restaurant. “It was thrilling to say the least. Here was a baseball God sitting across from me…he and my Dad talking about the old days, John and myself not saying a word just listening. It was a surreal moment in my life. I’ll never forget it.”41

In 2007, at the age of 74, Casale had a stroke. As a result, he spent some time in the hospital and later in rehab. He felt it affected his speech. Perhaps it did a little, but to talk to him in his later years one would hardly notice any defect. More importantly. the stroke did not dampen his interest in telling stories, even ones where he could laugh at himself. He always loved to meet and greet people, he loved baseball, and he loved life.

On February 9, 2019, Jerry Casale died at the age of 85 in Paramus, New Jersey. After that stroke in 2007 he faced numerous ailments that included a broken hip, heart surgery, and prostate cancer.42 His wife Marge had passed away three years earlier, in March 2016. Casale left three children and five grandchildren. He was put to rest in Moravian Cemetery, Staten Island, New York.43 .

Notes

42 Jimmy Casale, email, February 10, 2019.

At the age of 12 Consolo donned his first uniform, with the Douglas Post American Legion. Scouts characterized him as that little scampering runt, playing with boys four and five years older and holding his own quite handily. At 13, Consolo began playing semipro baseball in the California winter league, and crossed paths with future big leaguers Johnny Lindell, Paul Pettit, and Erv Palica. There was plenty of playing time during the long Southern California season. As a proficient cleanup hitter on the Dorsey High School team that won 42 consecutive games and the city championship, Billy advanced to the Crenshaw Legion Post 715 team that won the Junior American Legion National Championship at Detroit’s Briggs Stadium in 1951.

The scouts who paid attention to Consolo’s progress considered him a prize for any team that won the race to sign him. He was called the best prospect Los Angeles had to offer, and everyone waited for him to finish high school in January 1953. Teams courted him in many ways. On a visit to Cleveland with his father in the summer of 1952, the Indians invited Consolo to work out with the team. The club’s director of scouting, Laddy Placek, called him the greatest prospect he’d ever seen, and General Manager Hank Greenberg told Billy, “Don’t do anything until you hear from me.” Greenberg was later blamed for hesitating and losing out on a player who might have solved the Indians’ infield problems.

The Brooklyn Dodgers, a team that signed many of Consolo‘s Legion teammates, also courted him, but Billy ultimately favored the Boston Red Sox. Joe Gordon, representing the Detroit Tigers, was willing to go as high as $100,000, the Consolo family reported, and handling all the offers quickly became unmanageable. The team representatives waving money were all given two hours to promote their offers.

“Boy, I never want to go through that again,” Consolo said. “You really got worries when you’re signing away your future like that. Fellows kept calling me up beforehand and wanting to act as my agent. They didn’t care about me. All they talked about was the money I could get. I decided on the Red Sox because their offer was good and I like the people. They came right out and named a figure and some of these other clubs you couldn’t pin down.”

Ted McGrew, a scout for the Boston Red Sox, arrived with an offer of $60,000 – some reports say $65,000 – in hand for a bonus contract, and Consolo signed on February 2, 1953, the day he graduated from Dorsey High. The Red Sox hoped they had found a second baseman to make plays that hadn’t been seen since the days of Bobby Doerr.

Five players from the Crenshaw Legion team moved on to major-league baseball including Paul Schulte, a right-handed pitcher in the Red Sox farm system, and his sandlot pal, Sparky Anderson, to the Dodgers’ system. Consolo soon followed. He had never experienced the game as a bench warmer, but he would soon. (Amateurs getting bonuses of more than $4,000 were required to stay on major-league rosters for two years.)

The exact terms of the contract were not made public, but it was generally thought Billy got about $15,000 immediately and would receive the balance of $45,000 in three annual installments. The first thing he did was put the bulk of the money in bonds and buy a pair of $25 featherweight baseball shoes that ended up not breaking in as he had expected. He gave the shoes away, bought a new pair, and continued using an old glove he’d had for five years. Lou Boudreau, Boston’s manager, talked him into trying a lighter 33-ounce bat. All this, he hoped, would prepare him for his first experience, just a few weeks from high-school graduation, for life in the big leagues.

Before Consolo made his first major-league hit, a front-office executive for one of the losing teams in the bidding frenzy commented to a sportswriter, “He is a sweet ballplayer. We knew he was a great prospect, too, but with the new bonus rule we wondered how smart it would be to bid big money for him and then stick him on the bench for two years. Now he comes in to pinch-run and maybe he pulls a rock like he did against the Yankees and he goes back to the bench and broods about it for a week, instead of playing and forgetting it. Pretty soon you may have a guy who is so used to sitting on the bench he never makes it as a regular. It’s happened before in this league.”

Boudreau admitted the bench was not the best place for Billy. “Consolo should be out playing every day,” he said. “No sense kidding about it. Billy would be much better off with two years in the minors. He’d come back as a great player. He’s going to be one just the same, but his development may be slower. He certainly has improved a lot from the day he first showed up for spring training in Sarasota.”

Consolo also knew that the minor-league experience would have been to his advantage. “I know it, but I couldn’t afford to pass up the bonus,” he said. “I’ve never sat on the bench in Legion ball or in high school. But I haven’t been wasting my time. I’ve learned a lot by watching.”

Once spring training was finished, Consolo experienced only fleeting moments of an occasional private lesson from the coaches and a few of the regular players. He was stymied by the major-league curveballs that jumped around unlike anything he had experienced back on the Los Angeles playgrounds. Since he was a Red Sox bench warmer he was restricted to a half-hour of batting practice before games, and he rarely got more than his quota of six cuts. He’d ask one of the catchers for a few fastballs and a pitcher for breaking balls in order to become more familiar with big-league curves. When a pitching prospect came by for a tryout, Billy volunteered to stand in at bat.

One day, while the Red Sox were in Washington for a series against the Senators, a cluster of reporters asked Senators manager Bucky Harris — who knew the Boston scene well — for his take on the Boston players.

“Oh, they have got some pretty good boys,” Harris said. “Two or three of them have got a chance to become good ballplayers. But to me they’ve only got one potential star, and he’s not playing.”

The reporters thought he was referring to Jim Piersall, Tom Umphlett, Milt Bolling, or Dick Gernert, but they were surprised at his explanation. “Oh, I guess they are all right, but the kid who takes my eye isn’t playing. It’s that Consolo kid. I can’t explain it, but I spend all my time watching him when the Red Sox are here.”

“Have you ever seen him really play in a game?” asked the reporter.

“No, I haven’t,” said Bucky, “but I’m looking forward to it.”

The next day, May 30, in the first game of a doubleheader, Consolo got into the game — it was his first major-league start — and rewarded Harris for his patience. He came to bat in the fifth inning and smashed a drive against Griffith Stadium’s distant wall in left center, a hit that traveled more than 400 feet and put the Sox ahead 2-1 in a game they won 4-3. The hit impressed Harris no end.

“Even though I wasn’t playing much, when I walked out on the field at age 18 or 19, I said, ‘Here I am playing second base for the Red Sox. I’m one of the best 16 second basemen in baseball.’ I kept that attitude, even though down deep I probably knew I couldn’t do it. But that’s what I felt when I walked out on the field,” Billy said.

During his first year with the Red Sox, Consolo appeared in 47 games and was at bat 65 times, mostly as a pinch-hitter or a fill-in for an injured or ailing everyday player. He made his debut in the second game of an April 20 doubleheader against Washington in Fenway Park, pinch-running for Mickey McDermott in the Red Sox’ seven-run seventh. He grounded out in his first at-bat in the same inning, replaced George Kell at third, and recorded his first major-league assist and error. That he didn’t get into the lineup every day confounded him, despite his understanding about his bonus-baby status. It was several weeks into the season before he gave up the daily habit of checking the starting lineup that Boudreau posted on the clubhouse bulletin board. He waited for his name to appear, and when it did not, he would walk away, shaking his head in astonishment.

The Red Sox finished 1953 in fourth place, an improvement over the sixth-place team of 1952. Ted Williams was back from flying a fighter in Korea and reported for spring training in Sarasota, Florida, in March 1954, and 15 minutes into the first day fell and broke his left collarbone. The team roster needed immediate shuffling while Ted recuperated. The first exhibition game, against the Philadelphia Phillies, found Consolo on second base, where he put on a sensational performance with five assists, four putouts, and two base hits, and earned a bold headline in the Boston Herald: “Consolo Standout As Sox Win, 2-1.”

Lou Boudreau gave Billy a heap of credit for his performance, saying, “He sure handled himself nicely going right or left and belted that ball in the eighth.”

George Kell was impressed, too: “He can run, hit, and field. What more do you need, except probably a little experience?”

Bill Cunningham of the Boston Herald took a special interest in the young players. He frequently stopped by the room shared by Harry Agganis and Consolo in Sarasota and found it had become a gathering place for the younger players. He often found them stretched out on their beds with three or four others occupying the chairs, sitting on suitcases or on the floor. They talked of nothing but baseball, sometimes engaging in arguments over the rule book or trying to call up a newspaperman like Cunningham to settle how to rule a play if there were such dilemmas as “two outs, three men on base, the count three-two on the batter.” He commended them for their devotion to the game and for not spending nights out “studying the nocturnal scenery on Longboat Key, a very pretty diversion, incidentally.”

Reporters who were keeping tabs on the progress of the team encouraged speculation that Consolo would find himself in the starting lineup on Opening Day. If and when Consolo did go to second base for anything like an extended assignment, they wrote, he might stay there as long as Bobby Doerr did, or longer. Even Boudreau, they offered, said Consolo looked about ready. Bill Cunningham offered a warning to second baseman Billy Goodman about the hazard of a star-quality rookie breathing down his neck. The Yankees had Wally Pipp, a stalwart first baseman, conscientious and hard-working. One day he had a headache and chose to sit out a game, and a rookie subbed for him. That rookie was Lou Gehrig. Billy Goodman beware, they warned.

But the Boston front office did not heed their suggestions. The team stayed with its fixtures at second, third, and shortstop, gave first base to Agganis, and Consolo went back to the bench for the second year of his confinement.

Red Sox announcer Curt Gowdy promoted a campaign, “Fill Fenway Park on Opening Day,” but with the absence of Ted Williams in the lineup, the debut of Agganis — nicknamed the Golden Greek and the new hope for 1954 — had to suffice. Billy Goodman would have started at second on Opening Day, but manager Boudreau used a mix of Goodman, Hoot Evers, Charlie Maxwell, and Karl Olson to fill in for Williams. Even so, Consolo started only four games when Goodman was in left during Williams’s injury. Consolo’s sporadic appearances defined his 1954 season. An occasional sensational performance caught the attention of the fans and the reporters, but bench-warming continued to be his primary occupation.

With Consolo’s two-year forced conscription on the Red Sox’ big-league roster over, did the Boston brain trust send him to the minors for playing time, seasoning, experience? Nope. Instead, for year after year, Billy continued to languish on the Red Sox bench.

• 1955: Age 20. The Red Sox, relieved of the bonus-rule restriction, sent Consolo to Oakland, where he played in 159 games, almost all at second base, and batted .276. In Boston, he played in eight games — only four at second — with 18 at-bats. Billy Goodman played 143 games at second, Eddie Joost 19, and Owen Friend and Grady Hatton one each.
• 1956: Age 21. Goodman again ruled the roost, getting 95 starts at the keystone sack. Ted Lepcio vaulted above Consolo on the depth chart, with 52 starts. Even September acquisition Gene Mauch got six starts in his one month with the Red Sox. Billy got all of two starts at second and played 58? innings total there over 25 games.
• 1957: Age 22. Despite Goodman’s having been exiled to pinch-hit duty, Consolo became the fourth-stringer at second. Lepcio took a plurality (61) of starts at second base. Gene Mauch had 56, and Ken Aspromonte started 23 games to Consolo’s 14. However, Billy saw more action at shortstop (42 games, 38 starts, 350? innings total) than at second, and even put in a couple of games at third base.
• 1958: Age 23. Consolo was the third option at second, having gotten more playing time than Aspromonte at least, but well behind new second sacker Pete Runnels and the demoted Lepcio. He was also the third choice at shortstop behind new would-be infield sensation Don Buddin and Billy Klaus. Consolo was the second-stringer at third base, but he got in just one inning of work behind 1958 iron man Frank Malzone. Consolo hit a dreadful .125 in 72 at-bats.
• 1959: Age 24. Consolo was not only out of the picture at third base — Malzone played every inning of the season — but also, surprisingly, at second base. Runnels, Pumpsie Green, Herb Plews, and Lepcio saw action there, as did in-season acquisition Bobby Avila. Consolo started a pair of games at shortstop and was confined to pinch-hitting or pinch-running duty otherwise. Soon, he would be out of the picture altogether for Boston.

On June 10, 1959, in the last game Consolo played in a Red Sox uniform, he committed an error that led to an unearned run that put the game out of reach for Boston despite a furious comeback which left the Red Sox one run short in a 10-9 loss to the Detroit Tigers. On June 11, four days before the trading deadline, the Red Sox made a two-for-two swap, sending right-handed pitcher Murray Wall and Consolo to the Washington Senators for infielder Herb Plews and pitcher Dick Hyde.

Immediately there was trouble with the trade when Hyde revealed that he had a sore arm and would be unlikely to pitch for some time. Hyde and Wall were “reverse traded” while Consolo stayed with the Senators and Plews with the Red Sox. Consolo finally received his chance to spend less time on a bench and more time out on the field, appearing in 79 games, nearly all at shortstop, In 1959 Consolo had 216 at-bats, his most since 1954 (the last season he played under Lou Boudreau), when he had 242. He finished the season in Washington with a .213 average.

Cookie Lavagetto, Washington’s manager for 1960, anticipated a dilemma at second base in 1960 and found no easy solution. Although he had converted Consolo to shortstop, he had shortstop Zoilo Versalles, whom he had given a late-season tryout at short in 1959, looking ready to take on the position full time. He was willing to give Billy the first crack at second, saying, “Consolo at second could step up our double-play production. He has more range than any of the other candidates, and when he teams up with Versalles, it could be a pleasure to watch.”

But as it turned out, Versalles appeared in just 15 regular-season games, from September 13 to October 2, at shortstop, while Consolo appeared there in 100 games as well as a handful at second and third. Although his fielding was commendable, his bat still betrayed him. His average was a dismal .207. He was released at the end of the season.

Despite his release, the Minnesota Twins, newly relocated from Washington, signed Consolo in 1961 to a look-see deal. He made the team out of spring training, but appeared in just 11 games with only five at-bats, appearing in his last game on May 28, at second base. Jose Valdivielso, another former Senator, despite an equally anemic batting average of .195, edged Consolo out as Lavagetto’s utility infielder. On June 1, in order to improve their pinch-hitting strength — pinch-hitters had gone 9-for-61, a .147 average — the Twins traded Consolo to the Milwaukee Braves for infielder Billy Martin, and the Braves immediately sent Consolo to Milwaukee’s Triple-A team, the Vancouver Mounties.

Consolo gave serious thought to retiring from baseball when he was traded to the Braves, but by mid-July he was adjusting to the minor-league environment and started hitting doubles and triples again, scoring 63 runs and tallying 40 RBIs with a .283 average in 99 games, showing some of the stuff that had once attracted the attention of scouts and managers. To retain him on their roster, the Braves brought Consolo up just before the October 17 deadline. Although he never played a major-league game for the Braves, he was kept as future trade material.

During the Rule 5 major-league draft in November 1961, the Phillies picked Consolo. Still branded in the press as the Red Sox bonus player, Consolo was expected to handle second or third base capably.

Consolo’s career in a Phillies uniform was brief, as he appeared in just 13 games in 1962, only once in the field, and on May 8 he was sold to his hometown Los Angeles Angels. General Manager Fred Haney picked up Consolo as insurance for the infield because Billy Moran had been sidelined in September 1961 with a back injury. Although Moran was holding his own so far, Haney didn’t want to be caught without a utility player if Moran’s back gave out again.

Soon enough it was apparent that Moran’s back was going to hold up just fine, as he appeared in 160 games for the Angels. Consolo got into 28 games as a backup infielder, pinch-hitter and pinch-runner. On June 26 the Angels put him on waivers and the Kansas City Athletics picked him up. Consolo appeared at shortstop with the Athletics that day. He replaced Dick Howser, who was sidelined for seven weeks after he fractured his left hand putting a tag on Luis Aparicio against the White Sox two days before.

Kansas City afforded Consolo more playing time than he’d seen in years. He appeared in 54 games — 48 at shortstop, with 42 of those starts — and got 154 at-bats. His average of .240 was his best in five years. None of that mattered. Kansas City tried to send him to the minors, thinking he had only four years of major-league experience and that he was much older than his reported 28 years. Billy requested his unconditional release, pointing out that he met the requirement of eight years of major-league experience, and that meant the trip to the minors was without his consent. He got his release on November 2, and in 1963 he was signed by the Cleveland Indians and offered a trial at their spring-training camp and a minor-league contract with the Jacksonville Suns of the International League. When it came to returning him to Jacksonville, Consolo gave serious consideration to leaving baseball. Billy informed Indians personnel director Hoot Evers, an old teammate from Boston, “I’m going back home to Los Angeles to think it over.” Evers said he would have been surprised if Billy returned.

With his decision made, Billy retired from baseball, having appeared in 603 big-league games over 10 years for six teams, with 1,178 at-bats, 260 hits, 158 runs, and a lifetime average of .221. He turned to his offseason career as a barber, an occupation he inherited from his father, and ran a 12-chair shop at the Los Angeles Statler Hilton Hotel, little realizing at the time that the job would prepare him for his next career in baseball. The haircut may have cost a buck or two, but the baseball talk came at no extra charge. His boyhood friend Sparky Anderson, not having made it as far as a player as Billy had, was making a name for himself as a major-league manager in Cincinnati, having guided the Reds to World Series wins in 1975 and 1976. During the 1979 season, he became the manager of the Detroit Tigers and asked Consolo if he’d be interested in returning to baseball.

“There was no decision to make. It was like being rejuvenated. Sparky asked me how long I needed to make a decision and I told him about three seconds.”

Sparky vowed to go all the way to the World Series, but the 1979 Detroit team he inherited required more work than he anticipated. While some of the coaches carried out Anderson’s directives and assisted with the player pushing, Billy Consolo’s job was twofold. He was known for his ability to lighten up the mood of the clubhouse, his way of taking pressure off with his humor and supply of tall tales. Any player who thought the worst had happened to him could count on Billy to come up with something even worse. He could talk about anything: the price of haircuts, what they used to talk about at King Arthur’s Round Table, or the height of the fence in center field at Fenway Park. “Billy was a beautiful storyteller,” wrote Dan Ewald, a former sportswriter and Tigers executive. “He could spin a story you might think was 100 percent true. It might have been. Sometimes, when he would tell one of them again, you’d get a new piece. That made it worth listening to the old stories.”

Consolo’s second role required him to provide a sane environment for his lifelong friend. Sparky Anderson’s volatile moods were a hazard to his players as well as his own well-being. Billy served Sparky well on his staff, and was always close at hand to keep him grounded. When Sparky, mentally and physically exhausted from the relentless grind of managing a club that tried its best but came up short in 1989, was sent home to California to recuperate, Billy Consolo, his friend since they dominated the sandlots of Los Angeles and who lived with him during the season, accompanied Sparky on the way home. Billy stayed with Sparky until 1992. Ten years (two of them consisting of fewer than a dozen games) playing major-league baseball, and 14 years on the coaching staff, left Billy Consolo with no regrets about his baseball career. He died on March 27, 2008.

Looking back on his best of times, he once said: “I never felt like anybody the Red Sox ever brought up was better than I was. But when they played every day, you could tell that somebody saw something in them. Baseball players, when you know they can play, you see it early. Not that you’re going to quit or anything like that, but they have something. I think any baseball player, when he gets beat out of a position or a job, it’s nothing against the guy. They just see something better in the other guy. They are there for a reason.”

Sources

Publications

Anderson, Sparky, with Dan Ewald. Bless You Boys. Diary of the Detroit Tigers’ 1984 Season. Chicago: Contemporary Books. 1984.

Anderson, Sparky, with Dan Ewald. Sparky! New York: Prentice Hall. 1990.

Light, Jonathan Fraser. The Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball, Second Edition. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. 2005.

Kelley, Brent. Baseball’s Bonus Babies. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. 2006.

Snyder, John. Red Sox Journal. Cincinnati: Emmis Books. 2006.

Articles

Ballew, Bill. “Tigers’ Coach Billy Consolo Back With Sparky Again.” Sports Collectors Digest, June 2, 1995. 160-162.

Birtwell, Roger. “Rookie’s Father Says Other Clubs Wanted to ‘Fiddle Around’ Too Much.” Boston Globe, April 30, 1953. 21.

Boudreau, Lou, “Managing a Young Team.” Atlantic Monthly, August 1953. Boston. 76-79.

Carmichael, John P. “Veeck Had Scheme to Sign Consolo.” Boston Globe, March 16, 1954. 6.

“Consolo To Be Inducted Into National Guard.” Cumberland (Md.) Evening Times, July 25, 1957. 31.

Costello, Ed. “Consolo Standout As Sox Win, 2-1.” Boston Herald, March 9, 1954. 11-12.

Cunningham, Bill. “Consolo, Agganis Real Competitors.” Boston Herald, March 10, 1954. 29.

Cunningham, Bill. “Boudreau Rates Sox Dark Horse.” Boston Herald, March 14, 1955, 9.

Dyer, Braven. “Slick DP Combo Throws Lifeline to Angel Hurlers.” The Sporting News, May 23, 1962. 32.

“Goodman In LF As Bosox Make Infield Shift.” Troy (N.Y.) Record, April 29, 1954. 34.

Hirshberg, Al. “Bosox Lidlifter Lineup About Set as Drilling Starts.” The Sporting News, February 25, 1953.14.

Hurwitz, Hy.“Red Sox’ Latest Bonus Baby Wishes He Could Be Shipped to Minors.” The Sporting News, March 11, 1953. 11.

Hurwitz, Hy. “Yawkey High on Consolo as Kid Prospect.” The Sporting News, May 20, 1953. 4.

Hurwitz, Hy. “Red Hot Job Battles Seen at Four Spots in Camp of Red Sox.” The Sporting News, February 26, 1958. 19.

Hurwitz, Hy. “Red Sox Land Hyde in 4-Man Deal With Nats.” The Sporting News, June 17, 1959. 18.

Hurwitz, Hy. “Consolo Reached Red Sox in One Hop.” The Sporting News, July 15, 1953. 4.

Hurwitz, Hy. “Some Bosox Bonus Talent in Final Test.” The Sporting News, November 26, 1958. 30.

Kahan, Oscar. “Total of 35 Choices biggest Grab-Bag Haul in 47 Years.” The Sporting News, December 6, 1961. 9.

King, Joe. “Amalfitano Rated Prize Bonus Boy.” Boston Globe, February 26, 1954. 21.

King, Joe. “Few Prize Pay-Offs In Bonus Plunges. Five Standouts, Many Flops in Five Years.” The Sporting News, November 20, 1957. 1-2.

Lebovitz, Hal. “Consolo May Call It Quits After Failing With Indians.” The Sporting News, April 6, 1963.

Lewis, Allen. “Phils See Roy as Big Hypo to Flimsy Attack.” The Sporting News, December 6, 1961, 30.

Lewis, Allen. “Mauch Paints Phils’ Future in Rosy Color.” The Sporting News, February 7, 1962. 24.

Lewis, Allen. “Carey’s Loss Sparks Talk of Phil Swap.” The Sporting News, March 7, 1962. 21.

Lowe, John. “Westlake Resident Remembered as ‘Beautiful Storyteller.’” Detroit Free Press, April 3, 2008.

“Major Flashes.” The Sporting News, March 25, 1959. 26.

Mehl, Ernest. “Howser Injury Deals Kaycee Rugged Blow.” The Sporting News, July 7, 1962. 42.

Montville, Leigh, “Not So Easy Riding on the Red Sox Bus.” Boston Globe, March 25, 1981. 1.

Newcombe, Jack. “$60,000 Bench Warmer.” Sport Magazine, September, 1953. 22-59.

Povich, Shirley. “Nats Hoping Killebrew Shadow Will Spur Yost.” The Sporting News, January 8, 1958. 4.

Povich, Shirley. “Consolo Top Banana Among Bunch of Six on Nat Keystone List.” The Sporting News, February 24, 1960. 16.

Sampson, Arthur. “Only White, Kell, Goodman Set – Boudreau.” Boston Herald, January 27, 1953, 17.

Sampson, Arthur. “Consolo Has Right Attitude to Become a Star.” Boston Sunday Herald, March 7, 1954. 44.

Sampson, Arthur. “Sox Situation Not Hopeless — Yawkey.” Boston Herald, June 2, 1959. 25.

Siegel. Arthur. “Ex-Sox Bonus Player Consolo Quits Baseball.” Boston Globe, March 27, 1963. 49.

Other

Nowlin, Bill. “Consolo on Runnels and Williams, and More.” Interview. February 2000.

Joseph Edward Cronin was born in San Francisco on October 12, 1906, six months after the great earthquake and fire that devastated his home city. His father, Jeremiah, born in Ireland in 1871, had immigrated to San Francisco in either 1886 or 1887 in search of an easier life, but had found mostly hard work in the years since. His wife, Mary Carolin, was a native of the city, and the couple had two other boys—Raymond (b. December 1894) and James (b. July 1896). Jeremiah had a team of horses, which came in handy when it came to rebuilding the city. The family lost its home in the fire and was living with Jeremiah’s sister when Joe was born. In early 1907 they moved into a new house in the Excelsior District in the southern part of the city.2

The Cronins were Irish Catholics, and preached the virtues of family, hard work, and church. Joe’s brothers being much older, he was blessed with a lot of time to play sports, which neither of his brothers had done. San Francisco had a well-established system of playgrounds, with directors responsible for organizing teams in different sports, and playing games against other playgrounds. The Excelsior Playground, as luck would have it, was one block from the Cronin house.

Joe, a strong youth who grew to nearly 6 feet tall as a teenager, played soccer, ran track, and won the boys’ city tennis championship in 1920. But baseball was his first love, as it was for most athletes in the city. Though there were no major-league teams west of St. Louis, the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League became like the major leagues for the local fans. In addition, many San Franciscans had played for the Seals and then made good in the majors, including George Kelly, Harry Heilmann, and Ping Bodie, one of Joe’s early heroes.

In 1922 Joe teamed up with Wally Berger to help win the city baseball championship at Mission High. The following summer the school burned down, and while it was being rebuilt, Joe transferred to Sacred Heart, a Catholic school a few miles north of his home. Joe starred in several sports at his new school, and his baseball team won the citywide prep school title in 1924, his senior year. By this time, Joe was also playing shortstop with summer clubs and for a semipro team in the city of Napa, north of San Francisco.

Although Cronin had long dreamed of playing for the Seals, he passed up an offer to join the San Francisco club by taking a higher offer from scout Joe Devine of the Pittsburgh Pirates in late 1924. In the spring, Joe trained with the Pirates in Paso Robles, California, but soon joined the Johnstown club of the Middle Atlantic League, hitting .313 with just three home runs but 11 triples and 18 doubles in 99 games. At the end of the season, Joe and his friend and roommate Eddie Montague joined the Pirates, working out with major leaguers and sitting on the bench while Pittsburgh beat Washington in the 1925 World Series.

The Pirates were a strong club, especially at the positions Joe would most likely play. Shortstop Glenn Wright and third baseman Pie Traynor were among the best at their positions in the game, and the 19-year-old Cronin had very little hope of playing much in 1926. He traveled with the team early in the season, pinch-running four times and scoring two runs, before being assigned to New Haven in the Eastern League. This club was operated by George Weiss, near the start of a long career in the game that would eventually land him in the Hall of Fame. By midsummer, Cronin was hitting .320 and earned another recall to the Pirates. In the latter stages of the season Joe played 38 games, mostly at second base, a position he had never played. He hit .265 for manager Bill McKechnie, a promising start for the youngster.

After the season McKechnie was fired, and the new manager, Donie Bush, moved George Grantham from first to second base, blocking Cronin’s best path. Joe stuck with the 1927 club the entire season, but played just 12 games, hitting 5-for-22 (.227). The Pirates won the NL pennant again, but Joe had a miserable time and hoped to play in the minors rather than sit on the bench again. After spending spring training of 1928 with the team, he was sold by the Pirates to Kansas City (American Association) in early April. He was back in the minor leagues.

With Kansas City, Joe played mostly third base and struggled to regain his batting stroke after a year of playing so infrequently. In July he was hitting just .245 and feared he might be sent to a lower classification club. Instead, Joe’s ship suddenly came in. Joe Engel, a scout for the Washington Senators, was making a scouting trip in the Midwest when he discovered that Cronin, whom he remembered from the Pirates, was available. The Senators, it turned out, needed an infielder, and Engel made the purchase.

Joe reported to Washington in mid-July. When Engel brought him to meet Clark Griffith, the Senators’ owner, they first had to meet Mildred Robertson, Griffith’s niece and secretary. In fact, Engel had sent a telegram to Mildred before his arrival, warning her that he had signed her future husband.3 As it turned out, Joe and Mildred soon began a long courtship before being married after the 1934 season.

The Senators needed a shortstop, oddly, because of an arm injury suffered by left fielder Goose Goslin which kept him from throwing the ball more than a few feet. The club needed Goslin’s great bat so the shortstop, Bobby Reeves, had to run out to left field to retrieve his relay throws. Though hitting well over .300 in June, Reeves began to lose weight rapidly in the summer heat, and the team at least needed a capable reserve. Cronin began as Reeves’ backup, but eventually manager Bucky Harris began playing the newcomer most of the time. Cronin hit just .242 in 63 games but played an excellent shortstop and became a favorite of his manager.

After the season Harris was fired and replaced by Walter Johnson. Johnson was a longtime Senators hero, but was not familiar with Cronin at all and said only that he would keep an open mind. The next spring Johnson moved Ossie Bluege from third base to shortstop and installed Jackie Hayes at third, but an early-season injury to Bluege gave Cronin an opening, and his strong play forced the recovered Bluege back to third base. In 145 games, including 143 at shortstop, Joe hit a solid .282 with eight home runs and 29 doubles. His 62 errors, due mainly to overaggressive throwing, did not cause alarm. Turning 22 that fall, Cronin was one of the brightest young players in the game.

In 1930 Cronin took his game up another notch, becoming the best shortstop and one of the best players in baseball. Joe hit .346 for the season, with 203 hits and 126 runs batted in. In fact, the baseball writers voted Joe the league’s MVP, ahead of Al Simmons and Lou Gehrig. It was not until 1931 that the writers’ award became the “official” MVP award, but Cronin was recognized in the press as the recipient in 1930. The Sporting News also gave Cronin its Player of the Year award. The Senators’ 94 wins were eight shy of the great Philadelphia Athletics’ 102-52 record.

Other than baseball, the principal excitement in Joe’s life was his relationship with Mildred Robertson. Per Joe Engel’s prophesy, Joe and Mildred had taken to each other right away, but it was anything but a whirlwind romance. Joe began by dropping in to the office more often than he needed to, but their courtship became more traditional in the spring of 1930 during spring training. As her uncle’s secretary, Mildred accompanied the team to their spring camp in Biloxi, Mississippi, every year. By the time the Senators returned from spring training to Washington in 1930, Joe and Mildred were dating twice a week when the team was home. Joe was adamant that the relationship remain a secret lest people write that Joe was trying to get in good with the boss.

On the field, Joe maintained his new plateau of excellence. In 1931 he hit .306 with 12 home runs and 126 runs batted in, as his club won 92 games, again well back of the Athletics. The next year he overcame a chipped bone in his thumb, suffered when he was struck by a pitch in June, to hit .318 with 116 runs batted in and a league-leading 18 triples. His club won 93 games, its third straight 90-win season and the third best record in team history. Nonetheless, after the season, Clark Griffith fired Walter Johnson, the team’s greatest hero. Griffith surprised everyone by selecting Cronin, just turning 26, to replace him. Not only did Cronin have to gain the respect of the veterans, he still had to worry about hitting and playing shortstop. Of course, there was the extra financial reward.

Cronin silenced all of the doubters in 1933 by continuing his fine play on the field (.309 with 118 runs batted in and a league-leading 45 doubles), while simultaneously managing his team to a pennant in his first season, still the youngest manager in World Series history. The Senators finished 99-53, and held off the Babe Ruth– and Lou Gehrig-led Yankees by seven games. In the World Series, they ran up against the New York Giants and their great pitcher Carl Hubbell, and fell in five games.

The next season, 1934, was a difficult one for Cronin and the Senators. The club dropped all the way to seventh place, at 66-86, and Joe took several weeks to get on track. At the end of May his average had dropped to .215, before he finally began to hit. He got his average up to .284 with 101 runs batted in, but as the team’s manager he was more distressed by the showing of his club. On September 3 he collided with Red Sox pitcher Wes Ferrell on an infield single and broke his left forearm, finishing his season. Cronin spent a week away from the bench, but returned on the 10th. A few days later, at the urging of Clark Griffith, Joe and Mildred pushed up their planned wedding to September 27 with a few days left in the season. After the ceremony, Joe and Mildred boarded a cruise ship for a honeymoon trip through the Panama Canal to Joe’s hometown of San Francisco.

When the Cronins landed in California, Joe had an urgent message to call Griffith. The news was a shock. Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey had offered $250,000 plus Lyn Lary for Cronin, and had agreed to sign Joe to a five-year contract as player-manager at $30,000 per year. It only needed Cronin’s OK. Joe realized what this would mean for Griffith, and also for himself and his new wife. He told Griffith to take the deal.

Two hundred fifty thousand dollars? In 1934, during the height of the Great Depression, this was an unfathomable sum. Cronin was the Alex Rodriguez of his time — his purchase price and contract became part of his identity. Stories about Cronin long after he had retired mentioned his 1934 purchase price.

When Cronin joined the Red Sox, dubbed the “Gold Sox” or the “Millionaires” by the nation’s press corps, the club was expected to win. When they did not win, the fans and press around the country typically blamed the high-priced help, including Cronin. Even worse, many of the veteran players Yawkey had acquired — ornery men like Wes Ferrell, Lefty Grove, and Bill Werber — did not like or respect their manager. This should not have been a big surprise; Grove did not like Connie Mack telling him what to do, and he certainly was not prepared to listen to the rich kid shortstop. The team was filled with temperamental head cases, and Cronin was younger than most of them.

On April 26, 1935, just a week into Cronin’s first season in Boston, the Senators beat Grove, 10-5, thanks to five Boston errors, three by Cronin, which led to eight unearned runs. Grove did not hide his irritation at each bobbled ball, or his anger when Cronin removed him in the seventh. When Cronin came to bat the next inning the Fenway Park crowd showered him with boos, causing Mildred to leave the park in tears. Cronin tripled, which provided a temporary respite.

It was not always this bad, but it was often bad enough. In July 1936, Ferrell called Cronin to the mound and told him he would not throw another pitch until the pitcher warming up in the bullpen sat down. A month later he stormed off the mound and back to his hotel room after a Cronin error. When informed by a reporter of his $1,000 fine, he shot back, “Is that so? Well, that isn’t the end of this. I’m going to punch Cronin in the jaw as soon as I see him.”4 A month later, Werber cursed at Cronin during a game and was ordered off the field. Cronin was not yet 30 years old when all this was going on.

Yawkey and general manager Eddie Collins were no help. Lefty Grove hunted and drank with the owner, who looked the other way when his star pitcher openly blasted Cronin in the press. Ferrell apparently never paid his fine for storming off the mound. The Red Sox continued to acquire controversial veterans, players who had had trouble with managers over their careers, and invariably they caused trouble with Cronin. When Collins finally succeeded in dealing Ferrell (along with his brother Rick, who caused no trouble) in 1937, the club acquired Bobo Newsom and Ben Chapman, two of the bigger managerial challenges in the game.

After a fine year at bat in 1935 (.295 with 95 runs batted in), Joe suffered through a frustrating season in 1936. The acquisition of Jimmie Foxx and others from the Athletics made the Red Sox a supposed pennant contender, but Joe’s injury-plagued season (a broken thumb limiting him to 81 games and a .281 average) helped the Red Sox finish a disappointing sixth. At this point many observers thought Joe, overweight, struggling in the field, and injured, might be through at just 30 years old.

Instead, Joe rebounded to hit .307 with 18 home runs and 110 RBIs in 1937, then .325 with 94 RBI and a league-leading 51 doubles in 1938. In the latter year, the Red Sox finished in second place with 88 wins, their most as a team in 20 years. On May 30 in Yankee Stadium, Joe got in a famous fight with Jake Powell on the field that carried over into the clubhouse runway after they had both been ejected. The runway was behind the Yankee dugout, and Joe had to hold off most of the Yankee team.

In 1938 Yawkey purchased the Louisville minor league club, perhaps partly in order to secure the rights to their young shortstop, Pee Wee Reese. After watching him play in a couple of exhibition matches against the Red Sox the next spring, Cronin was apparently not impressed and in July, coincidently or not, the Red Sox sold Reese to the Dodgers. Cronin was still a good player, and would be a better player than Reese for a few more years, but this transaction, in which his potential replacement was dealt, haunted Cronin in ensuing years.

Cronin started seven All-Star games, including the first three, and would have started a few more had the game existed earlier in his career. In the famous 1934 game, when Carl Hubbell struck out five Immortals in succession, Cronin was the fifth victim–after Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, and Al Simmons. Less remembered today is that Cronin managed the AL team, and that the AL won the game.

The Red Sox won 89 games in 1939, and Joe had another fine year — .308 and 107 runs batted in. Joe’s biggest problem in these years was the Yankees, who were one of history’s greatest teams. It was not any great shame to finish second to the Yankees in this era, and the Red Sox did so four times in five seasons beginning in 1938. Joe hit .285 with a career-high 24 home runs in 1940, then .311 with 95 runs batted in 1941.

After his All-Star season in 1941, he quietly stepped aside for rookie Johnny Pesky in 1942. Even with Pesky in the Navy for three years beginning in 1943, Cronin was mainly a utility infielder and pinch-hitter (setting a league record with five pinch home runs in 1943) during the war years. In April 1945 he broke his leg in a game against the Yankees, missed the rest of the reason, and hobbled away from his playing career.

In the heavily Irish culture of 1930s Boston, the Irish and personable Cronin remained personally popular with the fans and press. Even otherwise critical stories invariably mentioned what a swell guy he was. By the 1940s, Cronin was no longer the young upstart manager but was a veteran on a team that was developing young talent. The new generation, men like Ted Williams and Bobby Doerr, admired and respected Cronin.5

With his stars back and Cronin a full-time manager for the first time in 1946, the Red Sox cruised to the pennant but lost a seven-game World Series to the Cardinals. With most of the star players save Williams having off-years or hurting in 1947, the club fell back to third place. At the end of the season, Cronin took off his uniform for good, replacing the ill Eddie Collins as the club’s general manager.

In Cronin’s first act in his new role, he hired Joe McCarthy as his new manager. He followed that up with two big trades with the Browns that netted the club Vern Stephens, Ellis Kinder, and Jack Kramer, at the cost of a few players and $375,000 . These deals catapulted the team back into contention again, but they lost two heartbreaking pennant races in 1948 and 1949.

During Cronin’s 11-year tenure running the franchise (as general manager, president, and eventually treasurer), the team evolved from a contender to a middle-of-the-road club. The biggest problem, though by no means the only one, was the club’s failure to field any black players. The Red Sox famously had first crack at Jackie Robinson in 1945, and at Willie Mays in 1949. By 1958, Cronin’s last season as general manager, more than 100 blacks (either African-Americans or dark-skinned Latins) had played in the majors, 11 of whom went on to the Hall of Fame. None of the 100 played for the Red Sox.

Joe and Mildred had four children—Thomas Griffith (named after Yawkey and Clark Griffith, born 1938), Michael (1941), Maureen (1944), and Kevin (1950). They bought a house in Newton, just outside the city of Boston, in 1939 and settled there. In 1946, they bought a second house in Osterville, on Cape Cod, where the family spent most summers once the children got out of school. When Joe was no longer managing, he would work in the team offices during the week and spend most weekends on the Cape with his family.

During his years as GM, he had to deal with occasional controversies with Ted Williams, the mental breakdown of outfielder Jimmy Piersall, and the shocking death of young first base star Harry Agganis. He also had to deal with rumors that the Red Sox were going to move to San Francisco, or that he wanted to take over an expansion team in his native city. Joe would protest these rumors, saying that Boston, not San Francisco, was his home, the only home his children had ever known.

Meanwhile, Cronin’s power within baseball continued to grow. While running the Red Sox, he also served on the major-league rules committee, pension committee, and realignment committee, and represented Yawkey at all the league meetings. When AL President Will Harridge was first rumored to be stepping down in October 1956, Cronin was thought to be the obvious successor. When Harridge finally quit two years later, Cronin was quickly hired to succeed him.

In deference to Cronin, the league office was moved from Chicago to Boston. Cronin scouted the new offices himself, settling on a location in Copley Square. His principal role was to preside over league meetings, building consensus to solve the problems of the moment. The leagues had much more power than they do today—leagues had their own umpires, could expand or move teams without consulting the other league, could have their own rules, their own schedules. During his 15 years running the American League, Cronin oversaw the league’s expansion from eight to 12 teams, and orchestrated the relocation of four teams.

In 1966, while league president, Cronin hired Emmett Ashford, the first black major-league umpire, nearly seven years before the National League integrated. In a later interview with Larry Gerlach, Ashford praised Cronin for having the guts to hire him: “Jackie Robinson had his Branch Rickey; I had my Joe Cronin.”6

Cronin was twice a leading candidate for the commissioner’s job: in 1965, when Ford Frick resigned, and again when William Eckert was forced out in 1968. Cronin ran the American League until 1973, the year the league introduced the designated hitter rule, a rule he did not like but which he helped write. Commissioner Bowie Kuhn wanted to move the two league offices to New York, where the commissioner’s offices were. Cronin did not want to move, and he chose to retire instead. At the end of his final season, he was given the ceremonial title of American League chairman.

Joe spent a life in the game, and he was renowned for his good works outside the game. He set up the Red Sox’ initial connection with the Jimmy Fund, which became the team’s signature charity after its original sponsor, the Boston Braves, left town, and worked with the fund for many years. He received dozens of honors for his work outside the game.

Joe Cronin entered the Hall of Fame in 1956, with his longtime friend and rival Hank Greenberg—they were rivals as players, and at the time of induction they were rival general managers. The Red Sox retired his number 4 on May 29, 1984; on the same rainy evening they retired Ted Williams’ number 9—the first two numbers the Red Sox officially put out of service. Joe was dying of cancer, and the ceremony was pushed ahead to ensure that he could attend. He made it to that park that night, but was only able to wave to the crowd from a suite high above the field.

Williams was there, and praised his former manager and longtime friend. After waving to Joe, he told the crowd how important Cronin was to him. “Joe Cronin was a great player, a great manager, a wonderful father. No one respects you more than I do, Joe. I love you. In my book, you are a great man.”7

After a long battle with cancer, Joe passed away on September 7, 1984, leaving his beloved Mildred and their four children. He may be the least known of the honorees on Fenway Park’s right field façade, but no man had a greater impact on Red Sox history than Joseph Edward Cronin.

Notes

Twice in his Red Sox career, Daley had four-hit games; by coincidence, both were on the same date. He went 4-for-5 on June 14, 1956, at Fenway Park when Boston edged Cleveland, 10-9; three of his hits came off the offerings of future Hall of Fame hurler Bob Lemon. Exactly three years later, on June 14, 1959 he was a perfect 4-for-4 off Johnny Kucks and Tom Gorman in a 6-1 win over Kansas City. Ironically, in Pete’s other five years in the major leagues, his name never appeared in another June 14 box score.

The elder of two sons of Peter H. and Hannabelle Morrison Daley, Peter Harvey Daley was born on January 14, 1930, in Grass Valley, California, one of the boom towns of the California Gold Rush. Pete’s grandfathers were from Cornwall, England (on his father’s side), and Nova Scotia (on his mother’s side). Both wound up as miners in the Grass Valley area. They mined for gold underground, extracting it from quartz, Pete said. Pete’s father worked in the mines, too, as gold continued to be pumped out of Grass Valley until World War II.  Today the Empire Mine State Historic Park in Grass Valley is a designated historical landmark.

Daley played all sports in high school. “I always liked playing baseball and basketball,” he said¹. He was attracted to the catching position early, and played on American Legion and sandlot teams in addition to the Grass Valley High School nine. He was signed to a contract by Red Sox scout Charlie Wallgren in June 1948, and began his professional career that summer with the San Jose Red Sox in the Class C California League, where he batted .225 (36-for-160) in 47 games. He hit two home runs and had 16 RBIs for the seventh-place club.

He was invited to spring training by the Red Sox in 1949, and said he was “scared to death,” adding, “Especially where I came from out of Grass Valley. I graduated from a high school class of about 105. I couldn’t name you three clubs in the big leagues in those days.” He was sent to Roanoke of the Class B Piedmont League, and responded by hitting .295 in 121 games. He put up power numbers, too, with 26 doubles, 5 triples, and 17 home runs. The extra-base knocks, the 129 hits and the 437 at-bats turned out to be the high marks in Pete’s 13 years as a professional. His play at Roanoke was rewarded with selection to the circuit’s All-Star team.

Pete started the 1950 campaign with Scranton in the Class A Eastern League, and in midseason was moved up to Louisville, the top rung in Boston’s farm system, when regular catcher Bob Scherbarth was sidelined with an ankle injury. Concurrently, veteran catcher Buddy Rosar of the parent Red Sox was dispatched to the American Association club to assume a dual role as Daley’s tutor and emergency backup. The youngster performed well, batting .263 in 62 games, with four home runs and 31 RBIs, topping his 35-game totals at Scranton (.243, 2, 22). It appeared the 20-year-old was on the fast track to Fenway Park.

Uncle Sam intervened, however; Daley was drafted and spent 1951 and 1952 in the Army. He took basic training at Camp Roberts, California, and from there was sent to Japan to finish his tour of duty. After his discharge in 1953, he married Evelyn Fesmire of Grass Valley. Scout Charlie Wallgren served as Pete’s best man, and the marriage produced another generation of Daleys, two boys and two girls.

Resuming his baseball career at Louisville in 1953, Daley played in 84 games and batted .256. Piloted by Mike Higgins, who later managed the Red Sox, the Colonels finished in third place. Daley remained with Louisville in 1954, a most rewarding season. The club ended the campaign in second place, then knocked off pennant-winning Indianapolis in the league playoffs, and in the Little World Series defeated Syracuse of the International League. For the season, Pete batted .275 in 115 games, with nine home runs and 62 RBIs, and was named to the American Association All-Star team.

In 1955 Daley went to spring training with the Red Sox, had a good camp, and made the Opening Day roster. (Mike Higgins had also been promoted to the Red Sox.) Pete made his major-league debut on May 3 in the ninth inning of the season’s 20th game; he struck out as a pinch-hitter in a 4-2 loss to the Tigers. Three weeks later, he cracked the starting lineup in the second game of a doubleheader in Baltimore. The Red Sox won, 5-2, behind right-hander Ike Delock’s five-hitter, and Daley recorded his first big-league hit, a second-inning single off the Orioles’ Don Johnson. He was 1-for-4 in the game.

But backing up the durable Sammy White, Pete started behind the plate in just 10 games, seven of which were the back half of doubleheaders. In his rookie season, Daley batted .220 (11-for-50) with two doubles, a triple, and five RBIs. The club won 84 games, lost 70, and finished fourth, 12 games behind the first place Yankees in Higgins’ first season as manager.

Daley caught in 57 games in 1956. White played in 114 games, batted .245, hit five home runs, and knocked in 44 runs, while Daley turned in what would be his most productive year with Boston: .267, 5 homers, and 29 RBIs. The club duplicated its record of the previous campaign: 84-70 and fourth place. The first of Daley’s 18 major-league home runs (11 with the Red Sox) came on April 21 at Yankee Stadium. He replaced White defensively in the seventh inning, and came to bat in the eighth with Boston trailing 9-8. His two-run shot off Jim Konstanty put the Red Sox ahead, but New York rallied for five runs in the bottom of the inning to seal its 14-10 victory.

A series of multihit games highlighted Daley’s 1956 season. On May 20 in a 12-5 win over the White Sox at Comiskey Park, he batted in five runs with a grand slam and a double. The five RBIs were his career best, and the grand slam was the only one he hit in the big leagues. It came off a pitch delivered by Dick Donovan, who five years later teamed with Pete as the Opening Day battery for the expansion Washington Senators.

On June 12, in a 9-7 home win over Cleveland, he was 3-for-3, with two singles, a home run, a walk, and two RBIs. The four-bagger was surrendered by Early Wynn. Two days later, Daley had the first of two career four-hit games as Boston bested the Indians in a 10-9 slugfest. On July 27, Comiskey Park was the scene of another three-hit performance as Pete batted in two runs in a 4-3 Red Sox squeaker over the White Sox. The following day, he had three safeties in a 13-1 rout of Chicago. At Briggs Stadium on August 2, one of his two hits was a homer off Jim Bunning as Boston triumphed, 18-3.

Yankee left hander Whitey Ford beat the Red Sox, 5-3, on September 5 at Fenway Park, but Daley touched him for a home run, triple, and single. In the season finale on September 30 in New York, Daley ended on a high note with a 3-for-4 day in a 7-4 victory over the Yankees. Three of the five homers he hit in 1956 came off future Hall of Famers: Ford, Wynn, and Bunning.

The 1957 race saw the Red Sox move up to third place (82-72), as the Yankees captured the flag for the third straight season. The Boston backstops slumped badly at the plate. White batted .215, and Daley wasn’t much better; in 78 games he hit .225. Each had three home runs, and Sammy led Pete in RBIs, 31 to 25.

The first week of September was the high mark in Daley’s 1957 season. On September 4 at Yankee Stadium in an 11-inning game interrupted for 61 minutes by a rainstorm, Pete was inserted as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning against Whitey Ford. He singled in two runs for a 5-3 Red Sox lead, but New York responded with a pair of runs to tie the score in the bottom of the inning. Then, in the 11th, Daley’s two-run homer off Tommy Byrne provided a 7-5 victory. Two days later in Boston, his walk-off double plated the winning tally in a 4-3 win over Baltimore. The next day, the Orioles’ Connie Johnson took a 2-0 lead into the seventh inning, when Daley homered with a man on to knot the score, and five batters later Frank Malzone hit a bases-loaded single for two more runs. Boston held on for another 4-3 triumph.

Daley’s strong finish coupled with White’s subpar season indicated increased playing time for the backup in 1958, but it didn’t happen. Pete started the first four games of the year, but had only one single in his first eight at-bats. White took over as the starter in the fifth game and remained there until May 1, when the Red Sox traded rookie infielder Ken Aspromonte to Washington for Washington catcher Lou Berberet. The left-handed-hitting Berberet had averaged .261 in successive seasons with the Senators, and was expected to add some punch to the Boston lineup. His acquisition relegated Daley to third-string status, and either White or Berberet started every game until late August.

Pete’s only game action came in late-inning situations as a defensive replacement or as a pinch-hitter. On August 24, though, he started the first game of a doubleheader at Fenway Park and had a big day with three hits, three runs scored, and three RBIs in a 14-3 pummeling of the Kansas City Athletics. Frank Sullivan was the complete-game victor on the hill, and five days later, Pete caught the big right-hander in a 5-2 win over the Orioles. Daley’s offensive explosion included a triple, a home run, and four RBIs. In a 7-2 loss to Baltimore the following day, he stroked three hits off Milt Pappas. In a 4-1 loss in a game he started on September 18 in Kansas City, his homer was the lone Red Sox run off A’s hurler Bud Daley (no relation).

The Red Sox finished the 1958 season in third place for the second straight year with a 79-75 won-lost mark, 13 games behind New York. The club’s catchers posted mixed results: The veteran White batted .259 in 102 games, Berberet .210 in 57 games, and Daley .321 (18-for-56) in just 27 games, with two homers and eight RBIs. In December, Berberet was traded to Detroit for pitcher Herb Moford.

In 1959 Boston had a miserable season, finishing out of the first division for the first time in seven years. With the team mired in the cellar on July 2 with a 31-42 won-lost record, manager Higgins was fired. Former major-league infielder and coach Billy Jurges took over as pilot on July 4 and the Red Sox climbed from the basement to finish in fifth place by winning 44 of its final 80 games. White played in 119 games and batted .284, his final season in a Boston uniform. Daley was used in 65 games and slipped to .225, with a lone homer and 11 RBIs. Again his playing time came in spurts. On May 15, White injured his back on the basepaths, and his backup started the next 13 games. The club won six and dropped seven, and Daley batted .235 (12-for-51) during that stretch. He had three hits in an 8-3 loss to Washington on May 24, and two days later in New York he batted in four runs with two hits and a sacrifice fly in a 12-2 Red Sox drubbing of the Yankees.

Daley was busy in June: from the 4th until the 28th he started 17 of 24 games and hit .228 (13-for-57). His only home run of the season came on June 13 in a 6-1 victory over Kansas City. The Red Sox won the next day by the same score and Daley was 4-for-4 — a double and three singles — for the second time in his big-league career. Then, after Jurges succeeded Higgins as manager, Pete started only four games, the last one on July 28. He played as a late-inning replacement in just 11 games in the season’s final two months, and had just one hit in 10 at-bats. On December 3, he was traded to the Kansas City Athletics for pitcher Tom Sturdivant.

With the A’s in 1960, Daley recorded major-league highs for a single season in five categories: 228 at-bats, 60 hits, 89 total bases, 41 strikeouts, and 5 pinch hits (in 14 at-bats). Kansas City won only 58 games and finished in the cellar. Skipper Bob Elliott’s roster was dotted with familiar names, several playing out the string as major leaguers and others on their way to future notoriety with other clubs as players and managers.

Pete had some noteworthy days with the A’s, beginning with a doubleheader loss to Cleveland on May 1. He was used as a pinch-hitter in both games, and doubled each time for his first hits of the season. In his first start, on May 10, he caught Dick Hall’s 10-0 whitewashing of Baltimore. On June 15, batting for former Red Sox teammate Leo Kiely with the Athletics down 7-4 in the 12th inning, he hit a two-run pinch homer in the bottom of the inning off the Yankees’ Ryne Duren. (The a game was called off in the 13th with the score tied because of rain.) When Baltimore beat Kansas City, 9-3, on July 19, Pete’s three-run homer off Chuck Estrada prevented a shutout. He belted another three-run shot off ex-batterymate Ike Delock on August 1 when the A’s outlasted the Red Sox, 10-8, in 10 innings.

On August 7 it was a “Daley Double” for the Athletics. Left-hander Bud Daley threw a complete-game 13-3 win over the Yankees in the second game of a doubleheader; Pete Daley contributed a pair of hits and an RBI. Two days later, the veteran backstop had two more hits in Don Larsen’s only victory of the season, an 8-3 decision over Washington. Pete hit home runs in consecutive games on September 25 and 26; a two-run round-tripper off Frank Lary gave the A’s a short-lived lead over Detroit, and the next day he hit a solo shot off Carl Mathias as Bud Daley beat Cleveland, 6-1. In the season finale, on October 2, the A’s beat the Tigers, 2-1. Daley batted in both runs with a single and a double; it was his final game with Kansas City. On December 14, the new Washington Senators claimed Pete in the American League expansion draft.

Opening Day on April 10, 1961, was huge in Washington. The American League expanded to 10 teams and played a 162-game schedule that season, and the brand-new Senators hosted the Chicago White Sox. Pete Daley was in the Senators’ starting lineup and President John F. Kennedy tossed out the ceremonial first pitch before a sold-out crowd of 27,550 (26,725 paid). Chicago edged Washington, 4-3, in a loosely-played game tainted by four Senators errors.

As was to be expected, the new club’s inaugural season was a tough one; under rookie manager Mickey Vernon, the Senators won 61 games, lost 100, and tied Kansas City for ninth place. Composed of aging veterans and untested rookies, the Senators struggled all season. After beginning the season as the starting receiver, Daley saw his playing time reduced by the emergence of Gene Green, who played in 110 games (79 as catcher), batted .280, hit 18 homers, and drove in 62 runs.

On May 13, Pete caught Tom Sturdivant’s one-hit, 4-0 gem against the Red Sox and laced a pair of hits. The following day, Washington swept a doubleheader from Boston, 3-0 and 4-1. Daley caught both games, and in the ninth inning of the nightcap he tripled and scored the winning run on a bases-loaded walk. A pair of one-run wins over the Yankees followed and the resulting five-game winning streak was the high point of the 1961 season for Washington.

Losing skeins were the norm, however. The Senators suffered through a pair of 10-game streaks, and at another juncture lost 14 straight. One wild game demonstrated the club’s plight: On June 18 at Fenway Park, Daley homered in the sixth inning to put the Senators up, 7-3. Washington took a 12-5 lead into the ninth, but Boston rallied for eight runs in the bottom half for a 13-12 win. All the Red Sox’ scoring came with two men out.

Daley made his final start of the year on September 29 in left-hander Pete Burnside’s 2-0, two-hit win over Kansas City. On October 1 Daley made his last appearance in a major-league game, catching the last inning of a 3-2 loss to the A’s. Daley’s numbers for the 1961 season resulted in a .192 batting average (39-for-203) in 72 games, with 2 home runs and 17 RBIs.

Washington shook up its roster of receivers after the 1961 season. Green was traded to Cleveland in October, and in December the Senators acquired catcher Bob Schmidt in a trade with the Cincinnati Reds. In spring training in 1962, Schmidt was designated as the starter, with left-hand-hitting Ken Retzer ticketed for the No. 2 position. Daley became expendable, and on April 2 he was optioned to Toronto, a Triple-A club in the International League. Five days later, he was sold outright to the Maple Leafs and, after he played in six games, Toronto sent him to Raleigh, North Carolina, the Senators’ affiliate in the Class B Carolina League, where he batted .268 (51-for-190) in 67 games, with 7 home runs and 29 RBIs. On October 18, 1962, Pete Daley’s baseball career came to its end when he was released by Washington.

In seven big-league seasons Daley played in 391 games, batted .239, hit 18 homers and batted in 120 runs. One can only speculate what effect the two years of military service in the early 1950s had on his baseball career.

After baseball Pete took over management of a 60-lane bowling alley and pro shop in the Boston area, and remained in that position for three years. In 1965 the Daley family moved to California and located in the Los Angeles area, where Pete became a salesman of health and beauty aids, calling on major retail chains in Southern California. His wife, Evelyn, died in 1976 after undergoing kidney surgery. On May 20, 1979, Pete married the former Carol J. Wheelwright; the couple moved to a comfortable community northwest of Los Angeles.

There is still some “Red Sox Nation” in Pete Daley; his automobile is embellished with a most thoughtful gift from his daughter: the personalized California license plate reads: “X RED SOX.”

Sources

Thanks to Alan Pierce and Edith Pierce.

Notes

Ike Delock was born on November 11, 1929, in Highland Park, the son of Croatian immigrants Martin (née Delac) and Amanda (Vukelic) Delock. Highland Park and adjoining Hamtramck are completely surrounded by Detroit. In 1929, Highland Park had a population of about 50,000, and was heavily dependent on the Ford Motor Company for employment. (Over the years, the decline of the auto industry and white flight have reduced the city’s population to under 15,000.) Ike’s father worked for Ford and his mother was a homemaker. An older brother, Joe, pitched in the Red Sox and Chicago White Sox farm systems from 1948 to 1951.

During his youth, Ike was a star athlete who graduated from Highland Park High School, playing baseball (third base), basketball (guard), and football (fullback). He also played in the Detroit Baseball Federation. While serving with the Marines from 1946 to 1948, he played with his camp teams at Great Lakes and Camp Lejeune at which time he began to learn how to pitch, mainly because there were no other pitchers on his team. His pitching prowess was established early on with the camp team, as he struck out 21 batters in his first start. Upon his departure from the service, Delock drew the attention of Red Sox scout Maurice DeLoof, who had come to the Delock household to sign Ike’s brother, Joe. Ike, who had been scouted by the New York Yankees, was asked by DeLoof how much the Yankees were offering him to sign. Ike told him, DeLoof offered more and both Ike and Joe signed with the Red Sox, without the scout having ever seen Ike on a baseball diamond.

Delock was assigned to the Auburn (New York) Cayugas of the Border League (Class C), where he compiled a 5-5 record on a last-place team in 1948. From there, Delock continued his baseball education and moved in 1949 to the Oneonta (New York) Red Sox of the Canadian-American League (Class C), managed by future Red Sox coach Eddie Popowski; in 1950 to the Roanoke (Virginia) Red Sox of the Piedmont League (Class B), managed by Red Marion, brother of Marty Marion, the St. Louis Cardinals’ former star shortstop; and in 1951 to the Scranton (Pennsylvania) Red Sox of the Eastern League (Class A). 1 Delock won 12 games in 1949 and 15 games in 1950, but it was at Scranton that he began to show great promise as a potential major-league pitcher, winning 20 games and losing 4, with an excellent 1.92 earned-run average, netting him a promotion first to the Birmingham (Alabama) Barons of the Double-A Southern Association at the tail end of 1951.

Projected as both a starting and relief pitcher, Delock broke spring training with the Red Sox in 1952 and appeared in his first major-league game on April 17; he came on in relief in the third game of the season with the Red Sox holding a 9-2 lead over the Washington Senators and pitched the bottom of the ninth, allowing a couple of hits but no runs.

Delock picked up his first win on the 24th, as the Red Sox beat the Yankees in an 11-inning game at Fenway Park. Ike worked the final inning and again gave up a pair of hits but escaped unscathed, striking out Mickey Mantle with the bases loaded and two outs. The Red Sox won in the bottom of the inning on a two-out, bases-loaded walk. After five days of rain delays, Delock won his second game the next time the Red Sox played. He pitched the final 2⅓ innings against his home-town Detroit Tigers, allowing no hits, and was the pitcher of record when Ted Williams hit a game-winning homer in his final at-bat before being recalled for Korean War duty with the Marines.

Delock lost games in relief on May 4 and May 13. His first start, on June 10, resulted in a loss, when he was driven out early by the St. Louis Browns in Boston, but the second time he was given a starting assignment, nine days later, he shut out the Browns in St. Louis with a 2-0 five-hitter. It was the first of his six career shutouts.

Delock stayed with the team until August 7; after the first game of that day’s doubleheader, he was optioned to Triple-A Louisville to make room for Ellis Kinder, who was returning from back problems. Delock’s demotion was brief—he won his only two appearances, both starts. Ike returned in time to start the August 22 game against the White Sox. He gave up only five hits in eight innings, but three of the hits went for extra bases, including two triples by Nellie Fox and a double by Chico Carrasquel. Boston lost, 4-1.

In 39 games during the 1952 season, Delock worked mostly out of the bullpen. He started seven games and had five saves in 95 innings of work. By season’s end, he had a record of 4-9 with a 4.26 ERA. The team ERA was 3.80 and only Mel Parnell (12-12) and Mickey McDermott (10-9) won 10 or more games.

The following spring, Delock was sent back to Louisville to start the season, where he finished 3-6 but with a 2.96 ERA in 12 games and 85 innings. He was recalled to Boston in July, appearing in 23 games. He had a 3-1 record, in 48⅔ innings with an ERA of 4.44.

Entering spring training of 1954, Delock’s career was at a crossroads. Always a control pitcher, and having abundant confidence in his abilities, he knew nonetheless that he was in competition for a spot on the Red Sox roster; and this caused him to focus more on what it took to become a major-league pitcher. Taking the advice of Red Sox coach Del Baker, Delock changed his stride, which helped improve his control. 2 Despite his efforts, Delock was sent to Louisville, where he spent the entire 1954 season; this was his last minor-league season as he posted a 17-10 record, entirely as a starter, with a 3.29 ERA. He convinced the Red Sox brass that he had the right stuff to pitch in Boston.

Although Delock had arrived at Louisville discouraged, he showed an improved curveball and developed a slider, helped by teammate Bill “Lefty” Kennedy. 3 Louisville skipper Mike “Pinky” Higgins convinced Delock that he had everything to gain by having a great season, since the Red Sox were out of options on him and he would have to be with the major-league club the next year or somewhere else. 4 Using this as motivation, Delock not only had an effective season on the mound, but was a leader on a Colonels club that won the American Association championship and the Junior World Series over the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League. A highlight of the league playoffs was a 2-0, five-hit, 11-inning masterpiece victory hurled by Delock against Indianapolis’s Herb Score, who only allowed one hit in 10 innings. The championships also earned Higgins the manager’s job at Boston, and hastened Delock’s rise to the big club.

In 1955, despite being idled by a sore shoulder for nearly a month, Delock split time as a starter and reliever for the Red Sox, winning nine games and losing seven, with a 3.76 ERA. His fine season helped keep the Red Sox in the pennant race into August. Entering the 1956 season, Delock was pegged as a starting pitcher, but before long, after being approached by Higgins, showed his prowess as a reliever and he posted a record of 11-2 in that role, leading the league in relief victories. Many of his appearances were in long relief, allowing him to throw harder, rather than pacing himself when he was a starter. 5 Delock’s efforts earned him the Unsung Hero award presented by the Boston Baseball Writers after the 1956 season, and the Red Sox rewarded him with a contract which Delock described as “the best contract I’ve ever had.”

Back as a reliever in 1957, Delock seemingly made peace with his assignment to the bullpen. When asked about starting versus relieving, he offered the following:

“Well, as you know, all pitchers prefer to start, instead of working out of the bullpen. You have to figure there’s more money in starting. But after my talk with Mike (Higgins), I felt better about it. He assured me that if I did the job, I’d be paid. … There was a time when only the second stringers relieved. But no more. In fact, it’s getting to a point where the number one relief man is the most important member of your pitching staff.” 6

After a 9-8 record, mostly in relief, in 1957, Delock was returned to the starting rotation in June 1958, because previous starters for the Bosox were either hurt or ineffective. After beginning the year 4-0 as a reliever, Delock won his first six starts. In fact, including three straight victories in relief at the tail end of 1957, Delock ran off 13 consecutive wins before being defeated by the White Sox on July 26, 1958.7 Despite dropping five consecutive decisions from late August into September, he still pitched well enough to win 14 games in all, which earned him the Pitcher of the Year award given by the Boston Baseball Writers.

With the successes of the three previous seasons bolstering his confidence, Delock, now 28 years old, seemed poised to benefit from his pitching experiences, both as a starter and from the bullpen, with a big season. While speaking of Delock’s growth as a pitcher, Senators pitching coach Walter Beck observed:

“This pressure (of being a relief pitcher) strengthens a young pitcher, particularly under here (pointing to his chest). It builds up his confidence, hardens his spirit and determination. You can’t be successful in relief jams without getting better all over, without growing up in the trade.” 8

In 1959 Delock came to spring training determined to add another pitch to his repertoire – a changeup slider. 9But when he struggled as a starter in the first half of the season, as a result of elbow and shoulder injuries, he was moved back to the bullpen. He relished the change, as he went 5-0 over seven relief appearances through the middle of August. Always a poor hitter, with a lifetime .086 batting average, he hit his first and only home run in a game against the Tigers on June 10. When asked in a 2008 interview about his hitting, Delock said that, as a pitcher, he was often asked to advance a runner, either by a bunt or hitting the ball to the right side of the infield, thus lowering his average; despite this, he felt that he was a more than adequate hitter.

An injury to Delock’s elbow, which had surfaced during the 1959 season, continued into 1960 and he was sent to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for an examination, which showed muscular soreness. The diagnosis was that rest and time were the best remedies. Despite the late start to his season, in June, Delock managed to start 23 games, completing two of them, for a 9-10 record. Perhaps a measure of his frustration about his arm came on June 28 when, in a game in which he was knocked out after an inning and a third, he made obscene gestures in full view of the fans at the game. His actions merited a three-game suspension meted out by American League president Joe Cronin. Another interesting incident involving Delock occurred when Kansas City outfielder Whitey Herzog accused him of throwing spitballs; the allegation was never substantiated.

In 1961, Delock reported to spring training determined to improve on his 1960 season, but in 28 starts, his record was 6-9 with a 4.90 ERA, with only three complete games. The highlight of his season came on May 29 with a 2-1, five-hit decision over the Yankees, in which he outdueled Whitey Ford. After being appointed the player representative for the Red Sox in the offseason, Delock started the 1962 season slowly, with five consecutive no-decisions, until he put together three straight wins, two of them complete games.

However, on July 2, in a game against Minnesota, Delock tore ligaments in his right knee on a play while backing up home plate, causing him to spend 30 days on the disabled list. Upon his return, he beat the Orioles, 3-0, but then endured a string of four consecutive losses.

The combination of age (he was 33), injury, and ineffectiveness finally took its toll on Delock’s career in 1963, as he was released by the Red Sox on June 9, after not seeing eye-to-eye with manager Johnny Pesky. Delock was reportedly “shocked” and “stunned” by the team’s action. The Orioles then signed him, but released him on July 19, after 7 games (1-3, 5.04).

Asked in 2008 about memorable teammates from his days with the Red Sox, Delock quickly named Billy Consolo, Jerry Casale, Billy Goodman, Jackie Jensen, and Pete Runnels; his locker when he first came to the Red Sox was next to that of the great Ted Williams. Regarding his thoughts on pitching, he was adamant about pitchers today having too many pitches that they felt they needed to master. Delock said pitchers should try to master two pitches, and throw them from three different angles; his best two pitches were his fastball and his slider.

For his career in major-league baseball, Delock ended up with an 84-75 won-lost record and a 4.03 ERA in 329 games, of which he started 147. In 1,238 total innings, he struck out 672 batters while walking 530 and giving up 1,236 hits. Considering that the Red Sox frequently were below .500 and never were closer than 12 games behind the AL leaders at season’s end for his tenure in Boston, Delock’s career statistics, although not Hall of Fame worthy, were impressive enough to land him in the top 25 of all-time Red Sox pitchers in wins (23rd), games pitched (8th), saves (19th), innings pitched (24th) and strikeouts (23rd).

After retiring from baseball, Delock lent his name and expertise to the National Sports Camp in Windham, Connecticut (along with Virgil Trucks), and also worked as a sales representative for Northwest Airlines. After retiring, he moved to Naples, Florida, with his wife. Glenna. There are three children, a daughter, Leslie, and two sons, Robert and Larry. On February 28, 2022, Delock passed away in in Raleigh, NC at the age of 92.

Last revised: March 9, 2022 (zp)

Sources

Ike Delock, telephone interview, July 2008.

Notes