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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hi, Hank,

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

1 – That you’se stop hitting these cheap homers

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

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

4 – That youse get good and sick.

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

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

Another one, from mid-1973, read:

“Dear Hank Aaron,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo credits

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

5 Aaron and Wheeler, 32.

6 Aaron and Wheeler, 53.

7 James, 161.

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

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

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

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

12 Bryant, 69.

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

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

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

16 Walfoort, 7.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sources

Newspapers

Milwaukee Journal

Milwaukee Sentinel

The Sporting News

Websites

Ancestry.com

BaseballLibrary.com

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

SABR.org.

In addition to his speed, Bruton’s development as a player benefited directly from the professional baseball help and advice he received from his father-in-law, Hall of Famer William Julius “Judy” Johnson. Johnson spent 18 years in the Negro Leagues playing third base primarily with the Hilldale Club of Philadelphia and the Pittsburgh Crawfords.[2]

Quiet, thoughtful, and articulate, Bruton also played an important role in sustaining baseball’s initial racial integration progress. Anchored by his religious beliefs, he understood that by becoming a successful professional baseball player he could serve as an important role model for youth as well as grow the popularity of professional baseball. Teammate Hank Aaron once characterized Bruton as “like a father to everyone. (He) really saw what needed to be done. … Just keep playing baseball and the system would change.”[3]

Bruton played for 12 years (1953-1964) in the major leagues for the Milwaukee Braves (eight seasons) and the Detroit Tigers (four seasons). With the Braves he played on two National League champions and in one World Series. After baseball, he went on to a successful 23-year career as an executive with the Chrysler Corporation.

Born on November 9, 1925, in Panola, Alabama, William Haron Bruton grew up in a world of segregated baseball. As a youngster, he had access only to neighborhood sandlot baseball; his schools had no teams. However, he did have the opportunity to watch Birmingham Black Barons games, at which he saw many early black baseball stars including Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson.[4]

After high school Bruton went into the Army and spent six months in the Far East. Upon his return, he went to live with relatives in Wilmington, Delaware. There, he began playing softball on several community teams. He played catcher and batted from both sides of the plate. He found that when he batted right-handed he tended to hit pop flies. When he batted left-handed, he hit more line drives, so he chose to become a strictly left-handed hitter. He also caught the eye of the young daughter of Judy Johnson. With her encouragement, the elder Johnson went to watch Bruton play, and was impressed.

Bruton became equally taken with Johnson. Judy knew many former Negro Leaguers and they would congregate around his kitchen table and tell baseball stories for hours. Bruton took it all in. He loved talking baseball with Judy.

With Johnson’s help, Bruton got a tryout with the Philadelphia Stars, a Negro Leagues team. The Stars released Bruton at the end of spring training, and he began playing semipro baseball and barnstorming.

In 1950 Johnson again talked up Bruton to his friend Bill Yancey, who had played with Johnson in the Negro Leagues. Yancey in turn recommended Bruton to Boston Braves scout Jack Ogden. The Braves invited Bruton to their minor-league spring-training camp. He impressed the Braves enough to be offered a professional contract, and signed immediately.[5]

Bruton was 23 years old when he signed his contract. The veteran Yancey knew his age, but fearing that he might be viewed as too old by the Braves, reported it as 21. According to Yancey, the Braves later changed Bruton’s reported age to 19. His true age was not publicly disclosed until the day he retired from baseball.[6]

In 1950 the Boston Braves sent Bruton to Eau Claire in the Class C Northern League. Utilizing his tremendous speed, Bruton led the league in stolen bases (66), scored 126 runs, and hit .288. He was chosen the league’s Rookie of the Year. In 1951 Boston moved Bruton up to Denver in the Western League (Class B). This time he hit .303, scored 104 runs, and led the league with 27 triples. His performance caught the eye of Braves general manager John Quinn. On a Western trip, Quinn saw Bruton play and pronounced that he would someday be Boston’s center fielder.[7]

How quickly should Bruton, a player with obvious talent and enormous potential, move up toward the major leagues?  Many in the Braves organization felt he could neither hit in the high minors nor use his speed effectively in the field. He remained vulnerable to pitcher pickoff moves and did not know how to effectively bunt.[8]

However, Charlie Grimm, manager of the Braves’ Triple-A team, the Milwaukee Brewers, saw a potential big leaguer. At the beginning of 1952, the Boston organization decided to let Bruton try to jump from Class B to Triple-A in one season. It would be a make-or-break situation for him.[9]

During 1952 spring training in Florida, The Sporting News reported an incident that showed the continued importance Bruton attached to his religion. Bruton and his teammates ate dinner together at their boarding house. Bruton requested that they say grace before each meal. Thereafter, pre-meal grace became an everyday practice.[10]

Grimm let Bruton start the season as the center fielder and leadoff hitter. Bruton quickly found that what he had done in Class B would not work in Triple-A. By midseason, it looked as if Grimm had made a big mistake. Nevertheless, Grimm continued to play Billy.

Bruton later acknowledged that Grimm’s patience was critical to his development. “I doubt if I’d even stayed up in Triple-A ball last year if someone besides Charlie was managing Milwaukee (Brewers). I was no help at all to the club. I didn’t hit at all, the first two and a half to three months. But Charlie kept me in the lineup. He stuck with me.”[11]

On May 31 the Braves fired manager Tommy Holmes and hired Grimm. He quickly made several roster moves, including optioning outfielder Jim “Buster” Clarkson to the Brewers. Bruton became friends with Clarkson, a veteran Braves minor-league player who had also played in the Negro Leagues. A college graduate in physical education, Clarkson began schooling Bruton on how to improve his game.

Bruton quickly turned his disastrous season around. He ended up playing in all 154 games and hit .325 for the season. His 211 hits led the American Association. In the last six weeks of the season, he stole 20 bases.

Bruton gave all the credit to Clarkson. “All I know about baseball, I owe to Bus Clarkson,” he said. “He taught me a lot.”  After the season, Clarkson invited Bruton to play winter ball for a team he managed in the Puerto Rico League. Again, Clarkson provided Bruton with more baseball insight. This time they focused on his bunting.[12]

Based on his minor-league experience with Bruton and Billy’s good spring training in 1953, Grimm made him the Milwaukee Braves’ leadoff hitter and center fielder. The Braves, who had moved to Milwaukee in the offseason, started the 1953 season with one game in Cincinnati, played in front of an overflow crowd of 30,103. Bruton’s major-league debut was described as “sensational.”  Three times he reached into the overflow crowd and caught certain extra-base hits. The Braves won, 2-0. Leading off, Bruton went 2-for-4 with a single and a double. He stole a base. After the game, winning Braves pitcher Max Surkont raved about Bruton, claiming he had been the primary difference between victory and defeat.[13]

The Braves’ next game, in Milwaukee against the Cardinals, marked the return of major-league baseball to Milwaukee after 51 years, and Bruton again provided key plays to help the Braves win. When the Cardinals threatened in the eighth inning, Bruton made a great catch of a Stan Musial blast for the third out. After the Cardinals tied the game in the ninth inning, Bruton hit a walk-off home run. He went 3-for-5. His home run was his only one in 1953.)[14]

Bruton continued to play a great center field. On May 16 the Chicago Cubs’ Hank Sauer, batting with a runner on second base, hit a short pop fly to center field. Bruton raced in and caught the ball at his shoe tops, then flipped it to second base to easily double up the runner. The sensational play prompted comparisons to the fielding of Tris Speaker, who also played a shallow center field.[15]

Described his fielding philosophy, Bruton said he played a shallow center field but had “no problems” going back to catch long flies. If somebody “hit a line drive to the center-field fence, he deserved a base hit,” Bruton said. If it wasn’t a line drive, “I knew I was going to catch it.”[16]

In 1953 Bruton played in 151 games and batted leadoff in all but three. He finished with a .250 batting average and stole a league-leading 26 bases. He had 14 triples. From center field he started five double plays, by catching the ball and picking off an advancing runner before he got back to his base. After the season the Milwaukee Chapter of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America named Bruton the Braves top rookie of 1953. Bruton was also chosen the year’s outstanding athlete from Delaware.[17]

In early 1954 Bruton suffered a string of minor injuries during spring training and in the first week of the season. A foot injury, an ankle injury, a pulled groin muscle, and a virus infection all happened between March 7 and April 18.[18] Still, Bruton starred in the Milwaukee home opener against the St. Louis Cardinals, scoring the winning run from first base on a single and an error. He continued displaying his spectacular, crowd-pleasing speed. In Pittsburgh Hank Aaron hit a fly to deep center field and Bruton scored from second base standing up. During the season, he had a 17-game hitting streak and a 26-game on-base streak.[19] He raised his batting average from .250 to .284. Bruton’s 34 stolen bases led the National League, but he was caught stealing a league-leading 13 times.

In his first two seasons, Bruton’s contribution to the potent Milwaukee offense was clear. The Braves stole 100 bases in 1953 and 1954. Bruton stole 60 of them, and in 1954 set a major-league record by getting 64.8 percent of his team’s stolen bases.[20]

During the offseason, Miller Brewing Company hired Bruton to make speaking appearances. During a trip to Wausau, Wisconsin, Bruton roomed with Bob Allen, the Braves’ media-relations director. At bedtime Billy began praying. When Allen asked him why, Bruton told him that as a kid he dreamed of playing in the major leagues but “knew” it could never happen. Now he was paid to play with Hank Aaron and Warren Spahn. So he thanked God every day for watching over him and his family.[21]

Bruton began 1955 focused on lowering his strikeouts and increasing his walks. He had fanned 178 times and walked 84 times in 1953 and 1954. Bruton slightly widened his batting stance and crouched at the plate to get a better view of the pitch and create a smaller strike zone.[22] He still struck out 72 times and got only 43 walks that season.

The Braves started their 1955 season at home against the Cincinnati Reds. With the game tied at 2-2, Bruton singled and scored the winning run on a triple by Hank Aaron. It was the third year in a row that he had scored the winning run in the Braves’ home opener.[23] For the season he hit .275, led the league with 636 at-bats and scored 106 runs. He recorded personal bests in home runs (9), doubles (30), and RBIs (47). Bruton continued to try to use his speed to disrupt opposing teams, leading the National League for the third consecutive year with 25 stolen bases. He set a Braves record by hitting into only two double plays during the season.

Bruton started the 1956 season slowly. The Braves dropped him to seventh in the batting order, and he hit .459 in his first 11 games of the season.[24]

On June 16 manager Charlie Grimm resigned and was replaced by Coach Fred Haney. The change directly affected Bruton. As a player Haney was also a good base stealer. However, he strongly believed things had changed from when he played. With bigger rosters and more power hitters, he believed, base stealing should be more selective.[25] He decreed that no player could try to steal without his approval. Bruton had only eight stolen bases for the season. Meanwhile Haney highly valued the sacrifice bunt, and Bruton ended with a career-high 18 sacrifices. He finished the season with a .272 batting average for the season. His 15 triples led the NL. On September 23 he hit the first grand slam of his career. On July 11, 1957, Bruton, going for a Texas leaguer in left-center field, collided with Braves shortstop Felix Mantilla and tore a ligament in his right knee.[26] Bruton knew knee surgery would put him out for the year. Many thought he would never play again. He elected to wait and see if rest and other treatment would help.[27] Upset about his future, the intensely religious Bruton began serving as a radio disc jockey for a Sunday-morning hour program of religious music.[28] The Braves won the pennant. As they played the first game of the World Series against the New York Yankees, Dr. Don H. O’Donoghue was operating on Bruton’s knee in Oklahoma City. After the surgery, O’Donoghue predicted that Bruton would be ready for 1958 spring training. Billy was ecstatic.[29] In late January O’Donoghue and the Braves’ team doctor agreed that Bruton’s knee was healing as expected and he was cleared to report to spring training.[30] But Bruton didn’t get into a game until May 25 in Milwaukee. As he approached the plate for the first time, he received a thunderous ovation from the 40,963 in attendance, and then hit the first pitch into right field for a single. Bruton later made a circus catch in center field.[31] For the season he played in 100 games and hit.280.

The Braves again won the pennant, giving Bruton the opportunity to play in his first World Series. In the first game, in Milwaukee, he hit a two-out single in the tenth inning to drive in the winning run against the Yankees. In Game Two Bruton hit a home run to lead off the game in another Braves victory. The Braves lost the Series in seven games, but Bruton hit .412. He later characterized playing in the 1958 World Series as the biggest thrill of his career.[32]

In 1959 Bruton appeared in 133 games primarily as the leadoff hitter (83 games) and hit a career-high .289. On August 2 he became the fourth major leaguer to hit two bases-loaded triples in a game. His hits came against Cardinals left-handers Vinegar Bend Mizell and Dean Stone.[33]  Tied during the regular season, the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Braves had a best-of-three playoff for the pennant. The Dodgers swept, and limited Bruton to one hit in ten at-bats.

In November the Braves fired Haney and hired Chuck Dressen as the manager for 1960. The 34-year-old Bruton remained the leadoff man and center fielder, and had one of his best seasons. He hit .280 and led the National League in runs scored (112) and triples (13). He hit a career high 12 home run, had a 27-game on-base streak and a 15-game hitting streak.

Despite Bruton’s 1960 heroics, the Braves dealt him to the Detroit Tigers in a five-player trade. Bruton had spent eight years in Milwaukee and batted.276. For three consecutive seasons (1953-1955), he led the NL in stolen bases. He led the league in triples twice.

Bruton played four years with Detroit before retiring, as a regular the first three years and as a reserve in his final year. He hit .257 in 1961 with a career-high 17 home runs. In 1962 he hit .278 with 16 home runs and a career-high 74 RBIs. He also hit his second grand slam. He posted a .256 average in 1962 and finished with a .277 mark in 1964. In 12 years as a major leaguer Bruton finished with a .273 batting average.

Bruton’s retirement came about after the Chrysler Corporation offered him a job paying $15,000 a year. Although he was making $28,000 as a player, Bruton knew he was close to the end of his playing career. He announced his retirement on September 27 before the final home game of the season. In making the move, he said his priority was his wife and four children. “A chance like this doesn’t come too often,” he said.[34] In his final game in Detroit, before a small crowd, Bruton blasted a home run into the upper deck in right field at Tiger Stadium. Later Bruton’s wife confessed, “That had me scared. … I was afraid that Billy might change his mind.”[35]

On November 21, at a reception in his honor, Chrysler formally announced his hiring for the automaker’s merchandising staff. Tigers vice president Rick Ferrell said, “Bruton is the best player I’ve ever seen retire. Usually, you have to cut the uniform off a guy to make him quit. Billy can still run and throw and hit the ball.”[36]

Bruton spent the next 23 years as an executive with Chrysler, working primarily in the company’s Detroit headquarters. He worked in sales, customer service, promotion, and financing. He later owned a Chrysler dealership. He finished his career as a special assistant to Chrysler president Lee Iacocca. He retired in 1988.

In 1989 Billy returned to Delaware with his wife to live in his father-in-law Judy Johnson’s old residence in Marshalltown. He continued his work with several churches and charitable organizations, particularly the Big Brothers-Big Sisters of Delaware.

With a history of heart problems, Bruton died of an apparent heart attack on December 5, 1995, while driving near his home. He was 70 years old. The State Police said they found him slumped over the wheel of his car, which had hit a pole. He was buried with an American flag draped over his coffin as an acknowledgement of his military service.[37]  

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

Notes  

[1] Bill James, The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (New York: The Free Press, 2001), 768.

[2] Tom Tomashek, “Bruton Lauded as quiet force,” The News Journal, Wilmington,  Delaware, December 9,1998, A16; Jeff Williams, “Judy Johnson home named historic site,” The News Journal, November 5,1995.

[3] Paula Parrish, “Ballplayer Bill Bruton Dead at 69,” The News Journal, Wilmington,  Delaware, December 6, 1995, A-4  

[4] Rich Westcott, Splendor on the Diamond (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000), 257.

[5] Sam Levy, “Bruton’s a Big Man in Milwaukee,” Baseball Digest, July 1953, 60

[6] Watson Spoelstra, “Luncheon Gives Bruton a Fast Sendoff on Career at Chrysler,” The Sporting News, November 21,1964, 9

[7] HOF Bill Bruton Player Clippings File as of September 14, 2012, unidentified author, “Bruton’s Triples in ’51 Sold Quinn,” The Sporting News, December 30,1953, 3.

[8] Sam Levy, “Bruton Helps to Banish Cholly’s Outfield Worries on the Braves,” The Sporting News, April 15, 1953, 17 

[9] Roger Birtwell, “Braves Bill Bruton for Picket Post,” The Sporting News, December 24, 1952 

[10] Oscar Ruhl, “Ruhl Book,” The Sporting News, April  2, 1952, 14.

[11] Sam Levy, “Bruton’s Big Man in Milwaukee, Baseball Digest, July 1953, 13, 14.

[12] Ibid, 59

[13] Ibid, 60

[14] Sam Levy, “Milwaukeeans Lift Merry Mugs to Braves,” The Sporting News, April 22, 1953, 13.

[15] Ed Prell, “Milwaukee Backing Its Battling Braves in Big League Style,” The Sporting News, May 20, 1953, 6.

[16] Norman Macht, “Billy Bruton Recalls How the Game Was Played in the 1950s,” Baseball Digest, August 1990, 44-48.

[17] “Milwaukee Writers Name Mathews Braves’ Top Star,” The Sporting News, December  9, 1953, 24.

[18] “Injury List Already Higher Than in Entire ’53 Season,” The Sporting News, February  28, 1954, 15.

[19] “Bruton Still a Card Jinx”, The Sporting News, April 28, 1954, 21, Red Thisted, “Banjo Cholly Can’t Keep His Hurlers and Hitters in Harmony,” The Sporting News, June  30,1954, 9 Baseball-Reference.com: Bill Bruton 1954 Gamelogs, Longest Hitting Streak, Longest On Base Streak; Bill Bruton Statistics and History, 1954

[20] “Bruton, Champ Base Thief, Bags His First Steal of Year,” The Sporting News, May  11, 1955, 19. 

[21] Tom Tomashek, “Bruton lauded as quiet force,” The News Journal, Wilmington  Delaware, December 9,1998, A16 

[22] “Bruton Credits Speedy Start to Wider Stance and Crouch,” The Sporting News, May  4, 1955.

[23] “Bruton ‘Mr. Win’ of Braves,” The Sporting News, April 20, 1955, 24.

[24] “Bruton Likes Seventh Spot; Hits .459 in First 11 Games,” The Sporting News, May 16, 1956, 10.

[25] Bob Wolf, “Base Stealing a ‘Lost Art,’ Moans Ex-Speedster Haney,” The Sporting News, March 28,       1956, 23.

[26] Bob Wolf, “Braves Beaming Despite Rash of Aches’ n’ Breaks,” The Sporting News, July 31, 1957, 11. \

[27] Bob Wolf, “Bruton’s Return to Duty Ties Up Hazel Tepee Tale,” The Sporting News, June  4, 1958, 9.

[28] “Tuning In,” The Sporting News, August 21, 1957, 30.

[29] Curt Mosher, “Bruton Undergoes Surgery on Knee, Expected to Be Ready Next Spring,” The Sporting   News, October 23, 1957, 14.

[30] “Bruton to Report on Time: Knee Healing Satisfactorily,” The Sporting News, January  29, 1958, 13.

[31] Bob Wolf, “Bruton’s Return to Duty Ties Up Hazle Tepee Tale,” The Sporting News, June  4, 1958,9  

[32] Westcott, Splendor on the Diamond, 262.

[33] “Bruton 4th Major Leaguer to Rap 2 Three-Run Triples,” The Sporting News, August  12, 1959, 23.

[34] Watson Spoelstra, “Bruton Waves Bye: Bengals Eye Farms For Flyhawk Talent,” The Sporting News, October 10, 1964.

[35] Watson Spoelstra, “Luncheon Gives Bruton a Fast Sendoff on Career at Chrysler,” The Sporting News, November 21, 1964, 9. 

[36] Ibid 

[37] Ibid

The only child of Raymond and Irene Buhl, Robert Ray Buhl was born on August 12, 1928, in the east-central Michigan city of Saginaw. Raised in a hard-working family of modest means during the Depression and war years, Bob was an athletic youngster and started playing sandlot baseball in junior high school. A three-sport star (baseball, basketball, and football) at Saginaw High School, he pitched, but doubted that a scout ever attended any of his games. “My father died when I was a senior in high school,” Buhl said of an event that had far-reaching consequences for his baseball career. “I had to get a job from 2:30 to 10:00 each day. I had to drop part of my schoolwork and go back the following semester [in the fall of 1946].”[2] In the summer of 1946 he participated in a Chicago White Sox tryout camp in Saginaw and pitched just one inning. Impressed, the team decided to sign him, but according to major-league rules at the time, they had to wait until he graduated from high school. After completing his classes in the fall, Buhl excitedly signed a minor-league contract with the White Sox in early 1947.

Assigned to the Madisonville (Kentucky) Miners in the Class D Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee (Kitty) League for the 1947 season, the 18-year-old Buhl set the league on fire, finishing second in wins (19) and earned-run average (3.00), while tossing 216 innings in 40 games. “I was cocky,” said Buhl, who walked 126 batters. “I wasn’t being groomed for the majors.”[3] Despite the paltry $100-a-month salary, Buhl was happy to play baseball; however, at the end of the season, he became upset and insulted when the White Sox offered him a contract paying $200 a month and a promotion to Class C. Having learned about players being declared free agents because they signed contracts while still in high school, he wrote Commissioner Happy Chandler and requested him to investigate, noting that he did not officially graduate until June 1947, well after he signed a contract with Chicago. Chandler declared Buhl a free agent, which permitted Buhl to sign with any team other than the White Sox.

Scouts from 14 teams (all but the Dodgers and White Sox) flocked to Saginaw to try to sign the hard-throwing right-hander. With scout Earle Halstead, Buhl signed an $800-a-month Triple-A contract with the Milwaukee Brewers, a Boston Braves Triple-A affiliate, and received a new car as a bonus. He was assigned to the independent Saginaw Bears in the inaugural season of the Class A Central League. At first he was excited about pitching in his hometown, but later said, “Pitching in my hometown turned about to be a big mistake on my part. Fans expected too much.”[4] Struggling most of the season (an 11-12 record was accompanied by a 5.22 ERA and 145 bases on balls), Buhl said years later, “I used to strike out as many as I walked. I just threw fastballs and tried to throw a curve.”[5] He was assigned to the Hartford Chiefs in the Class A Eastern League in 1949, and his approach to baseball began to change: “Hartford was like a baseball school and I started to learn about fundamentals.”[6]

After an 8-8 season in Hartford, Buhl went to spring training with the Brewers in Austin, Texas, in 1950 and made the team. “When the season started,” he recalled, “I wasn’t used. I got disgusted and told the manager, Bob Coleman, to send me someplace where I’d pitch.”[7] He was sent conditionally to the Dallas Eagles, an unaffiliated team in the Double-A Texas League managed by former Chicago Cubs skipper Charlie Grimm. Though just 8-14 for the season and discouraged that he was no longer officially with the Braves, Buhl was relieved when they purchased his contract after of the season.

Buhl’s professional baseball career was interrupted for two years while he served as an Army paratrooper stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, in 1951 and 1952. While in the service he married Joyce Miles of Saginaw in October 1951. To keep in shape, he pitched for his base team and for local semipro teams under the alias “Lieutenant Brown” and claimed that he earned more money playing weekend baseball than he did in the Army.

Highly touted by manager Grimm, who took over the helm of the Boston Braves in mid-1952, Buhl arrived at the Braves’ spring training in 1953 fully expecting to make the team. “The guy had everything but control,” said Grimm. “He throws as hard as any pitcher I ever saw.”[8] Landing a spot on the team, which announced its relocation to Milwaukee in March, Buhl followed an inauspicious major-league debut on April 17 (a loss to Cincinnati in 2? innings of relief) with a two-hitter against the New York Giants in his next appearance. But he also exhibited the wildness that marked most of his career with the Braves by walking six and hitting a batter.

Appearing in 30 games, Buhl was much more effective in his 18 starts than he was as a reliever (a 2.78 ERA as a starter, 3.98 out of the bullpen). In addition to three shutouts, including a two-hitter against the Pirates, Buhl hurled a career-best 14-inning victory over the Cubs on August 22, winning 2-1 and facing 53 batters. As the Braves’ 92-62 record and second-place finish did, the 24-year-old rookie surprised fans and sportswriters with an unexpected 13-8 and the third best ERA in the National League, 2.97.

Along with future Braves teammates Hank Aaron, Felix Mantilla, and Ray Crone, Buhl played winter baseball in Puerto Rico after the season and won 12 games while helping lead Caguas to the league title. He was described as a “cinch” to earn a spot as a starter in 1954, but struggled all season, losing his first seven decisions and his spot in the rotation.[9] “Sometimes I was so tired,” Buhl said, “that I didn’t feel like going to the park. My fastball didn’t move.”[10]

Following his 2-7 record and 4.00 ERA in 1954, Buhl’s future as a major-league starter was in question when he began the 1955 season by losing three of his first four decisions and being taken out of the rotation in May. Given another start against Brooklyn on June 2, Buhl took the loss, but his nine strikeouts and five-hit, three-run ball over seven innings were good enough to earn him the right for another crack in the rotation. Buhl responded by pitching four complete-game victories in five outings. After two losses (one as a reliever) in early July, he reeled off eight wins in his next nine decisions, including a five-hit victory over the Phillies in which he struck out a career-high 12 batters on July 14. His 13-11 finish with an ERA of 3.21, third best in the NL, were a welcome relief to the Braves. 

Buhl established his reputation as an intimidating, hard-nosed, no-nonsense pitcher who was not afraid to pitch inside or knock down opponents who crowded the plate. With his bushy black eyebrows and crewcut, he stared down batters, daring them to get a hit. With his control problems, batters were wary of him. “I had a herky-jerky motion,” said Buhl, who liked to work quickly on the mound. “I was a short-armed pitcher and instead of moving way back and way forward, I’d let loose tighter to my body.”[11] Always blessed with a strong fastball, which The Sporting News called the best on the Braves, Buhl attributed his success to pitching coach Bucky Walters, who helped him develop a slider.[12] “It looked like a fastball,” Buhl said, “but would break real quick down and away from a right-handed hitter.”[13]

After two second-place and one third-place finish in their first three years in Milwaukee, 1956 foreshadowed the future for the Braves as they almost won the pennant and the Big Three of Spahn, Burdette, and Buhl began their five-year run as one of the best starting trios in the majors, if not the best. The Braves’ 5½-game league lead on July 26 was fueled by the pitching of Buhl, who had beaten the Brooklyn Dodgers in five consecutive starts and earned the moniker Dodger Killer. “I showed them I was the boss,” he said of his contests with the Dodgers. “They knew I’d brush them back. I’d pitch Hodges wide and throw him a lot of curves. I’d throw Campanella nothing but inside fastballs. I’d pitch Duke Snider high and tight.”[14]

After his sixth straight victory over the Dodgers on July 30, to raise his record to 14-4, Buhl was the hottest pitcher in the league. In his next start, on August 4 he broke the tip of the index finger on his pitching hand when the Pirates’ Lee Walls smashed a line drive back to the mound. Buhl pitched through the pain and beat the Dodgers again on August 26 in the midst of a stretch of three straight complete games, giving the Braves a three-game lead over Brooklyn.

Like the Braves, Buhl had his worst month in September, going just 2-3 and with a 6.39 ERA. The Braves were worn down, especially the Big Three, who pitched 15 of the team’s last 17 games and all of the last ten. Despite their swoon, the team entered the final series of the season with a shot at the pennant, but lost two of three to St. Louis while the Dodgers swept Pittsburgh. Buhl finished with a career-high 18 wins and8 losses and a 3.32 ERA.

“We were better than the Dodgers in 1956,” Buhl said, “but we didn’t win the pennant.”[15] That changed in 1957, when the Braves won their only championship in Milwaukee. When Buhl defeated the Dodgers for a team-leading 14th win on August 4, the Braves were a game behind the Cardinals in a three-team pennant race. The Braves caught fire, going 34-17 the rest of the season, and ran away with the pennant. Leading the National League with 16 wins on August 14, Buhl was sidelined with shoulder problems and missed three weeks. Returning in September, he had his best season in the majors with 18 wins, led the league in winning percentage (.720), ranked fourth in ERA (2.74) and completed a career-high 14 of 31 starts.

With star players Aaron, Mathews, and Spahn having exceptional years, the Braves were also resilient and overcame center fielder Bill Bruton’s season-ending knee injury in June and the broken leg that limited slugging first baseman Joe Adock’s to 65 games. Manager Fred Haney relied on his pitching, especially his starters, and was known for juggling the rotation to secure the best matchup for his team. The staff posted a 3.47 ERA, second only to the Dodgers, tossed a league-high 60 complete games, and the Big Three won 56 games.

Competitive with one another on and off the field during their nine years together (1953-1961), Spahn, Burdette, and Buhl were close teammates, enjoyed a few beers together, and played practical jokes on each other and teammates, but were also consummate professionals. “We’d talk about hitters,” Buhl recalled. “Once you’ve seen the hitter, you have a pretty good idea how to get them out.”[16]

Behind clutch hitting and pitching, the underdog Braves beat the New York Yankees in seven games in the 1957 World Series. With the Series tied, Buhl started Game Three, but was rattled after surrendering a home run to Tony Kubek, the second batter of the game, and didn’t make it through the first inning, giving up three runs (two earned), and was the losing pitcher.

With a chance to win the deciding game, Buhl started Game Six in New York but was plagued by wildness, walking four, throwing a wild pitch, and giving up a two-run homer to Yogi Berra before being lifted in the third inning to set the stage for a climactic Game Seven. Spahn was due to start but got sick, and manager Haney elected to start Burdette on two days’ rest. Buhl and Burdette were roomies for the Series. The night before the game, Buhl said, “We didn’t talk about the upcoming game. We just watched television and had room service. Lou could make coffee nervous. … Lou was invincible. That’s why we won the World Series.”[17] (Burdette shut out the Yankees, 5-0.)

Buhl began the 1958 season by winning four of his first five starts prompting new pitching coach Whit Wyatt, to comment, “I never noticed how well [Buhl] spotted his pitches. He hits the outside corner like he owns it.”[18] However, Buhl’s shoulder had been bothering him since the previous year and the pain began to worsen. “It wasn’t fun throwing the ball,” he said. “I couldn’t even lift my arm to put on a jacket.”[19] On May 13, after several poor outings, manager Haney shut him down and he was sent to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for treatment, but to no avail. By sheer luck, his neighbor, a dentist, suggested that he stop by his office and discovered serious nerve problems in two teeth and removed them. “Two weeks later,” Buhl said, “I was pitching with no pain. I was very fortunate. A dentist saved my career.”[20]

Tensions arose when Buhl insisted he was ready to resume pitching in mid-August, but Haney refused to clear a roster spot, citing the excellent pitching from the Braves’ “Kiddie Korps” of Joey Jay, Juan Pizzaro, and Carl Willey. Added to the roster on September 1, Buhl pitched a complete-game victory over the Cubs and revealed a new delivery to Del Rice, who served as his personal catcher in the mid- to late 1950s. “He throws more overhanded now,” Rice said. “His curve is a lot sharper. His delivery is smoother, too.”[21] The new delivery put less strain on Buhl’s arm and shoulder und undoubtedly helped prolong his career.

Despite Buhl’s promising return from arm miseries, he struggled in September and lost his spot in the rotation during the Braves’ dominant drive to their second consecutive pennant in 1958, prompting Dick Young in The Sporting News to suggest that Buhl would be traded in the offseason.[22] When 32-year-old Bob Rush (winner of 10 games in 1958) started Game Three of the World Series against the Yankees with the Braves up two games to none, Buhl was livid. Spahn pitched his second straight complete game to win Game Four, putting the Braves in command, three games to one, but Haney’s decision to pitch Burdette and Spahn on short rest in the final three games backfired. The Braves lost all three and the World Series. Reports of an acrimonious relationship between Haney and Buhl immediately surfaced, and rumors of Buhl’s imminent trade persisted throughout the offseason.

The Braves were favored to win their third consecutive pennant when they opened spring training in 1959. Arriving in camp pain-free, Buhl announced that he had worked on his delivery in the offseason, saying, “I used to be straight up and deliver the ball with a snap. Now I bend over more and get my body as well as my arm into the pitch. It gives me more on my breaking stuff.”[23] However, when he failed to make it out of the second inning of his first start of the new campaign, he found himself the “forgotten man” in the Braves’ bullpen and was dogged by trade rumors.[24]

Given a start on May 11, his first in more than three weeks, Buhl responded by pitching seven innings of five-hit ball to beat the Cubs, and won his way back into the rotation. With the Braves tied with the Dodgers entering the last day of the season, Buhl pitched seven innings of one-run ball to beat the Phillies in one of the most important games of his career. “Other than my first win in the majors,” said Buhl, whose victory set up a best-of-three playoff with their archnemesis Dodgers, in their second year in Los Angeles, “that was the most exciting moment of my career.”[25]

The Braves lost the playoff series with two straight defeats. The 1959 season proved to be the last year that the Milwaukee Braves competed for the pennant and concluded a four-year run during which they lost two pennants in the last series of the year and won two in convincing fashion. “We figured we’d come back and win [in 1959],” said Buhl years later. “But we didn’t. That was a disappointing defeat, but we should have won the pennant prior to a playoff because we had a better team.” With 21 wins apiece for Spahn and Burdette and 15 for Buhl, the Big Three won 57 games in ’59. The 30-year-old Buhl led the team with a 2.86 ERA (fourth in the league) and led the NL with four shutouts while completing 12 of his 25 starts.

Feisty on and off the field, Buhl and Eddie Mathews, his roommate for almost a decade, enjoyed imbibing with Spahn and Burdette (who were also roommates). “We didn’t make a big deal of going out and drinking so much that we wouldn’t know what was going on,” Buhl recollected. He and Mathews didn’t take kindly to hecklers and loudmouths in local taverns either. “Eddie was a tough guy,” he said, and the two got into some confrontations. “We weren’t looking for trouble and fought only if someone harassed us,” Buhl said.[26]

A subtle shift for the Braves in 1960 became more pronounced in subsequent years. Average attendance dropped to less than 20,000 per game for the first time and never reached that height again. Replacing Haney as manager, Charlie Dressen led the aging Braves, with the oldest team and pitching staff in the National League, to another (and last) second-place finish in 1960; but the team never mounted a serious challenge to the Pirates for the pennant. Earning his only All-Star berth (he went 1? innings and gave up a two-run home run to Al Kaline in the eighth inning of the first of two All-Star games in 1960) and finishing with a 16-9 record and a career-high 238? innings pitched, Buhl concluded the season with exactly 100 major-league wins.

In 1961 the Braves struggled to stay above .500 for the first 100 games, but were just 6½ games out of first place at the end of August. Birdie Tebbetts replaced Dressen as manager for the last 25 games and vowed to make wholesale changes. He buried the inconsistent and slumping Buhl (9-10 with an ERA over 4.00 at the time) deep in the bullpen, where he saw action in only three games the rest of the season.

Insulted by Tebbetts’s treatment and perceived lack of respect and by general manager John McHale’s proposed pay cut, Buhl knew his days in Milwaukee were numbered. Actively shopped in the offseason, he surprisingly began the 1962 season on the Braves roster. Starting the third game of the season and seeing action for the last time as a Brave, Buhl was pummeled for five runs in two innings during a loss to the Giants. Two weeks later, on April 30, he was traded unceremoniously to the Cubs for 24-year-old pitcher Jack Curtis.

“I had stopped having fun,” Buhl said of his last few months with Milwaukee. “Birdie told me I’d be a spot starter and would work in the bullpen. I didn’t want that.”[27] In Chicago Buhl was reunited with Charlie Grimm, vice president of the club. “[Buhl] has a pitching style suited to Wrigley Field.” Grimm said. “Bob is a low-ball pitcher who makes you hit it in the dirt.”[28]

Buhl arrived on a youthful Cubs team coming off a 90-loss season in 1961 and in the middle of a bizarre two-year experiment with a revolving set of head coaches instead of a manager. In 1962 the Cubs lost 103 games, their worst season ever (and still the worst as of the 2012 season). “Everyone was unhappy,” Buhl said about the losing and the coaching carousel, “but no one complained.” In his Cubs debut on May 2 he pitched two-hit ball over six innings to beat the Dodgers 3-1. At 33 Buhl was the oldest starter on the staff by seven years and noted, “There wasn’t nearly as much drinking on this club as there had been in Milwaukee.” The staff ace, Buhl finished with a team-high 12 wins (and 13 losses) in 212 innings.

Never known for his hitting, attested by his .089 career batting average in 857 at-bats (without a home run), Buhl set a record for batting futility in 1962 when he went 0-for-70 during the season as part of a hard-to-fathom 0-for-87 streak over the course of three seasons. “When I was going through my hitless streak,” he said, “I didn’t feel any pressure. Everybody knew I couldn’t hit. The infielder was backing up, caught his spikes and fell down and the ball fell. They called time to give me the damn ball. I was embarrassed.”[29] Throughout his career Buhl tried everything to improve his hitting, from taking extra batting practice to attempting to bat left-handed. “I don’t remember any big hits,” he said. “The ones I had were accidental.”[30]

From 1963 through 1965 Buhl was a steady pitcher for the Cubs winning 11, 15, and 13 games, but he was no longer the ace of the team with the emergence Dick Ellsworth and the acquisition of workhorse Larry Jackson from the Cardinals after the 1962 season. With a career-high 4.39 ERA and averaging just six innings per start in 1965, the 36-year-old was showing signs of age. Clashing with manager Lou Klein that season, Buhl started just twice after August 27 and was knocked out early in each game.

One week into the 1966 season, Buhl was sent along with his road roommate Larry Jackson to the Philadelphia Phillies in exchange for pitcher Fergie Jenkins, utilityman John Herrnstein, and center fielder Adolfo Phillips. He was reunited with former Braves general manager John Quinn, who had guided the Phillies to four consecutive winning seasons for the first time since 1898-1901. Used as a spot starter and reliever behind Jim Bunning, Chris Short, and Jackson, Buhl lost four of his first five decisions before beating the Braves, then in their first season in Atlanta, on June 13. An aged Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron were the only players still on the team from its glory days in the 1950s.

Coming off a 6-8 season in 1966, the 38-year-old Buhl appeared in three games before being released on May 16, 1967, as Philadelphia trimmed its roster to the 25-man limit. With no clubs showing interest in acquiring him, he retired with a 166-132 record and a 3.55 ERA in 2,587 innings. He won 46 games in the minor leagues. He saved his best for the Dodgers (30 wins with a 3.00 ERA) and was especially tough on Roy Campanella (.156 batting average in 64 at-bats, Willie Davis (.162 in 74 AB), and Duke Snider (.238 in 130 AB).

Settling in the northern Michigan community of Mio with his wife, Joyce, and their four children after his playing days, Buhl was involved in youth baseball and also coached the baseball team at Hillman High School in the 1970s. Throughout his retirement he participated in Milwaukee Braves reunions and special events, including the emotional closing of Milwaukee’s County Stadium on September 28, 2000. Suffering from emphysema, Buhl died on February 16, 2001, in Titusville, Florida, to which he had retired, and his body was cremated. Two days later his longtime roommate Eddie Mathews passed away.

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

Sources

Newspapers

Chicago Tribune

Milwaukee Journal

Milwaukee Sentinel

The Sporting News

Websites

Ancestry.com

BaseballLibrary.com

Baseball-Reference.com

Retrosheet.org

SABR.org.

Notes

[1] Danny Peary, ed. We Played the Game. (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal, 1994), 214.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Peary, 48-49.

[4] The Sporting News, April 11, 1956, 5.

[5] Peary, 112.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] The Sporting News, April 11, 1956, 5.

[9] The Sporting News, March 10, 1954, 8.

[10] The Sporting News, April 11, 1956, 5.

[11] Peary, 214.

[12] The Sporting News, March 6, 1957, 2.

[13] Ibid.

[14] New York Times, February 22, 2001, 23.

[15] Peary, 353.

[16] Peary, 354.

[17] Peary 383.

[18] The Sporting News, May 7, 1958, 21.

[19] Peary, 385.

[20] Ibid.

[21] The Sporting News, September 10, 1958, 20.

[22] The Sporting News, October 1, 1958, 12.

[23] The Sporting News, March 18, 1959, 17.

[24] The Sporting News, May 27, 1959, 13.

[25] Peary, 423.

[26] Peary, 461.

[27] The Sporting News, May 9, 1962, 16.

[28] The Sporting News, May 9, 1962, 23.

[29] Peary, 568-69.

[30] Gene Fraley, “Buhl Meets Rose Going the Other Way,” Chicago Tribune, July 30, 1978, 131.

Typically in collaboration with Spahn, Burdette was a notorious prankster who did everything from slipping snakes into umpires’ pockets to intentionally posing as a lefty for his 1959 Topps baseball card. On the mound his nervous mannerisms such as fixing his jersey and hat, wiping his forehead, touching his lips, and talking to himself could, in the words of one of his managers, Fred Haney, “make coffee nervous.”1 Burdette’s behavior undoubtedly helped to distract batters, but it also led to frequent accusations that he threw a spitball. While the pitcher, supported by his teammates and umpires, always denied that he threw the spitter, he saw the benefit of cultivating the reputation that he did, as he famously stated, “My best pitch is one I do not throw.” He relied on a sinking fastball, slider, and changeup to reach the 200-win mark on the way to helping to lead his team to two World Series appearances. Above all, though, Burdette is best remembered for turning in one of the most dominant performances in postseason history when his three complete-game victories over the New York Yankees helped lead the Milwaukee Braves to the 1957 World Series title.

Selva Lewis Burdette, Jr. was born on November 22, 1926, in Nitro, West Virginia, to Agnes Burnett and Selva Lewis Burdette, Sr., a plant foreman at an American Viscose Rayon plant in Nitro. Generally known by his middle name, throughout his life he spelled it “Lou.” While he played a lot of sandlot baseball as a child, his first athletic success came with the Nitro High School football team, because the school didn’t have a baseball team. He failed to make the local American Legion team, but after graduating from high school in 1944 he used his father’s connections to get a job at the Viscose plant (his sister and younger brother also worked there) as a message boy on the condition that he pitch for the company’s baseball team. At 17 years old, playing in the Industrial League of the Viscose Athletic Association, Burdette went 12-2 against teams from companies including DuPont, Monsanto, and Carbide.

Burdette’s fledgling baseball career was put on hold when he entered the Air Corps Reserve in April 1945. Because the ranks were full, he was never given the opportunity to fly and instead was placed with a welding outfit. Released from active duty after six months, he enrolled at the University of Richmond and joined the baseball team. Burdette quickly drew the attention of scouts from a number of major-league teams, including one from the Boston Braves who told him, “I don’t like the way you pitch. You may as well forget about baseball.”2 Signed by the Yankees in 1947 for $200 a month, Burdette was assigned to Norfolk, Virginia, in the Class B Piedmont League to begin his professional career.

Burdette pitched in only six games in Norfolk, then was sent to Amsterdam, New York, of the Class C Canadian-American League. In 150 innings he showed a great deal of promise, posting nine wins against ten losses and a stellar 2.82 earned-run average. He continued to improve the following season with Quincy, Illinois, in the Class B Three-I League, finishing the season at 16-11, with an ERA of 2.02 and a league-record 187 strikeouts. He moved up the organizational ladder once again, spending 1948 and 1949 with the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate in Kansas City, where he roomed with Whitey Ford. Facing tougher competition, for the first time, Burdette struggled, and was relegated to the bullpen.

During his time in the Yankees system, Burdette occasionally worked with roving pitching coach Burleigh Grimes. Though known as one of the great spitball pitchers, Grimes refused to teach Burdette how to throw the spitter out of a concern that if caught Burdette would be banned from professional baseball. However, Grimes suggested that because of his behavior on the mound and the movement on his breaking pitches, particularly his sinking slider, Burdette could use the spitball as a psychological weapon, so that even though he didn’t throw it, batters would convince themselves that he was and come to the plate looking for it.

While with Kansas City, Lew married his fiancée, Mary Ann Shelton. They had met in a bowling alley in Charleston, West Virginia, in October 1948, and decided to get engaged as Lew was leaving for spring training the following March. Upon hearing that the wedding was scheduled for the fall of 1949, the Kansas City front office, wanted to stage the wedding at home plate. Mary nixed the idea and the couple married quietly in Charleston in June 1949. Their first son, Lewis Kent, was born in July 1951.

Despite his pitching struggles in Triple-A, Burdette was called up to the Yankees when the rosters expanded in September 1950. He made his major-league debut for the defending World Series champions on September 26 against the Washington Senators, getting Gil Coan to ground out to end the fifth inning. The next spring he was invited to spring training, then was optioned to San Francisco in the Pacific Coast League. Playing for manager Lefty O’Doul, Burdette started 26 games and did his best to show that he belonged back in the majors, striking out 118 while walking 78 in 210 innings. And although his record stood at 14-12, half of the losses were by one run. Then, on August 29, 1951, Burdette’s career radically changed when he was traded to the Boston Braves as a throw-in when the Yankees sent $50,000 for pitcher Johnny Sain to help them with their push for the postseason.

Burdette spent the final month of the season with the Braves, making three short relief appearances. In 1952 he worked mostly out of the bullpen and demonstrated that he could ably shoulder a heavy workload, leading the team with 45 appearances, foreshadowing the durability that highlighted his career. (During his career Burdette was consistently among the league leaders in innings pitched, games started, and complete games.)

Before the 1953 season, frustrated by his team’s second-tier status in Boston, owner Lou Perini moved the club to Milwaukee. The Braves were immediately embraced by the fans as the players were showered with everything from cars to free dry cleaning. While the Braves had drawn only 281,278 fans in their final year in Boston, they surpassed the mark after only 13 home games in Milwaukee. That first year, they set a National League attendance record, as 1,826,397 saw the Braves play at the new County Stadium.

The Braves’ popularity coincided with their emergence as one of the dominant teams in the National League. Adding Hank Aaron and a number of other key players to the roster, the Braves became perennial pennant contenders, finishing no lower than third in the standings from 1953 to 1960. Beginning the 1953 season in the bullpen, Burdette moved into the starting rotation when Johnny Antonelli and Vern Bickford were injured. Despite making only 13 starts, Burdette finished the season with six complete games, a record of 15-5 and a 3.24 ERA; he was clearly ready to move into the team’s rotation as soon as a spot opened up.

The Brooklyn Dodgers became the Braves’ biggest rivals during this period, finishing one spot ahead of the Braves in the final standings in each of the Braves’ first four years in Milwaukee in races that often went down to the final week. Twice Burdette found himself at the center of run-ins with one of the Dodgers’ African-American stars, and was accused of being racially prejudiced – charges that he and his teammates vehemently denied. In August 1953, the Dodgers’ Roy Campanella charged Burdette on the mound with his bat in hand after he struck out and the two men exchanged angry words. Both benches emptied, but no punches were thrown and play quickly resumed. After the game Jackie Robinson told the press that Campanella only charged the mound after Burdette had addressed him with a racial slur. A similar incident occurred three years later when during pregame warm-ups Jackie Robinson threw a baseball at Burdette’s head (he missed) in response to being called a “watermelon.” Burdette emphatically denied that his comment was racially motivated, claiming that he was joking about Robinson’s “spare tire, not his race.” The two spoke after the game, and Robinson was placated by Burdette’s apology and explanation, and put the matter behind him.

Based on Burdette’s stellar 1953 season as both a starter and reliever, expectations were high for Burdette and the team coming into 1954. Burdette moved into the starting rotation when Antonelli and Bickford were traded. Throughout the season the Braves were plagued by injuries to position players and inconsistent pitching – at the All-Star break, the Braves’ trio of Spahn, Burdette, and Bob Buhl were a combined 15-26 and the Braves sat 15 games out of first place. Burdette had a strong second half, however, going 8-5 to end with a 15-14 record, with an impressive 2.76 ERA, second best in the National League. Despite Burdette’s performance, the Braves were never able to seriously contend for the pennant. In 1955 Burdette finished with a 13-8 record and a 4.03 ERA. But once again, the team was never in contention as the Dodgers simply ran away from the rest of the National League en route to their first World Series title.

During his time in the minor leagues and his first few years in the majors, Burdette returned to Nitro each offseason. Lew and Mary’s second child, Madge Rhea, was born on Christmas Day, 1954. Her birth was particularly newsworthy because Lew helped deliver the baby in a police ambulance on the way to the hospital. Then the growing Burdette family began to split their time between Milwaukee and Sarasota, Florida, where Lew spent his offseasons as a vice president in a local real-estate firm. The couple’s third child, Mary Lou, was born only days before Burdette’s masterful performance in the 1957 World Series. A third daughter, Elaina, was born in May 1960.

As his career was taking off, accusations that Burdette threw a spitball became increasingly common from opposing managers and players. Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts (who became Burdette’s manager on the Braves in 1961 and 1962) and National League President Warren Giles even went as far as separately commissioning motion pictures of Burdette pitching – though the films never showed that he was using the illegal pitch. Braves manager Fred Haney countered that his pitcher was not doing anything wrong, saying, “He’s just a fidgety guy on the mound.” Every time the charges arose, Burdette, along with his teammates and even the umpires, would deny them and emphasize the psychological advantage his nervous actions on the mound provided.

Burdette started on Opening Day in 1956 and cruised to a 6-0 win over the Chicago Cubs, allowing only five hits and one walk. The Braves battled Brooklyn and Cincinnati for the pennant until the final game of the season. With the Braves one game behind the Dodgers on the last day, Haney started Burdette against the St. Louis Cardinals needing a win plus a Pittsburgh win over Brooklyn to take the pennant. While Burdette led his team to a 4-2 victory, the Dodgers also won, and the Braves finished one game back. Although the season ended disappointingly, it was another successful season for Burdette. He led the league in ERA at 2.70 (Spahn finished second at 2.78) and in shutouts with six. His 19 wins, against 10 losses, were the fourth highest in the league, and he received a handful of votes for the Most Valuable Player award.

Expectations were extremely high for the Braves going into the 1957 season. Burdette performed to his now-usual standards, and was named to his first All-Star team. The Braves finally won the pennant, in large part by relying on their top three starters; Spahn, Burdette, and Buhl combined to finish with a record of 56-27. Burdette was 17-9 with a 3.72 ERA.

Spahn lost the World Series opener at Yankee Stadium to Whitey Ford, then Burdette pitched a complete game to defeat Bobby Shantz, 4-2. Taking the mound four days later with the Series knotted at two games apiece, Burdette shut out the powerful Yankees to lead the Braves to a 1-0 victory over his former Kansas City roommate Whitey Ford. When the Yankees won Game Six, it was assumed that Spahn would take the hill for the Braves in the finale. However, with Spahn unable to recover from a bout of Asian flu, Burdette, with only two days of rest, started against Don Larsen. Burdette pitched another complete-game shutout, holding the Yankees to seven hits and allowing only one walk, as the Braves won, 5-0. Posting an ERA of 0.67, Burdette matched the greatest World Series pitching performances by the being the first pitcher since Stan Coveleski in 1920 with three complete-game victories, and the first since Christy Mathewson in 1905 to have two shutouts. As the World Series MVP, Burdette was showered with awards and honors. He gave talks on the lecture circuit, made numerous appearances on television (including “The Steve Allen Show” and Camel cigarette ads), and even cut a novelty record, “Three Strikes and You’re Out.”

Burdette turned in another great season in 1958 as the Braves repeated as National League champions. At 20-10 he reached the 20-win mark for the first time, and tied with Spahn for the best winning percentage in the National League. His batting even improved significantly, as he finished the season with a .242 batting average and 15 runs batted in. On July 10 against the Los Angeles Dodgers at their temporary home in Memorial Coliseum, Burdette smashed two home runs, one a grand slam off Johnny Podres. This was the second time in two seasons that Burdette had hit two home runs in a game – he had done so against Joe Nuxhall in Cincinnati on August 13, 1957.

Facing the Yankees once again in the World Series, after a Spahn victory in the opener, Burdette cruised to a 13-5 victory in Game Two in which he hit a three-run home run in the first inning. But although Milwaukee jumped to a 3-1 Series lead, Burdette lost Games Five and Seven, giving up a combined 10 earned runs and allowing the Yankees to battle back and win the title.

Vying for their third consecutive pennant in 1959, the Braves relied heavily on their core veterans. Eddie Mathews and Hank Aaron responded with stellar offensive seasons and were among four Braves, along with Burdette and Del Crandall, to finish in the top 12 of the MVP voting that season. Although Burdette had a career-high 21 wins, tying him with Spahn for the league lead, and appeared in both 1959 All-Star Games, he lost 15 games and the heavy workload took its toll as he gave up career highs in home runs (38) and hits allowed (312) – both the highest in the league.

Burdette was a central player in one of the most memorable games in history when he took the mound against Harvey Haddix and the Pirates on May 26, 1959, in Milwaukee. Haddix pitched 12 perfect innings, retiring 36 Braves in order, only to lose in the 13th inning when Joe Adcock drove in Felix Mantilla (who had reached on an error). While not as perfect as Haddix had been, Burdette turned in an excellent performance, giving up 12 hits and no runs. After the game a sympathetic Burdette phoned Haddix to tell him, “You deserved to win, but I scattered all my hits, and you bunched your one.” Not sharing Burdette’s sense of humor (or at least his timing), the taciturn Haddix hung up on him.

Tied with the Dodgers at the end of the season, the Braves and Dodgers had a best-of-three playoff for the pennant. Down one game after Carl Willey lost the playoff opener, Burdette took a 5-2 lead into the bottom of the ninth inning of Game Two and seemed well on his way to tying the series. However, after giving up three straight singles to Wally Moon, Duke Snider, and Gil Hodges with no outs, Burdette was pulled and could only watch helplessly as the Dodgers drove in all three to send the game to extra innings. In the 12th inning, facing reliever Bob Rush, the Dodgers’ Carl Furillo drove in Gil Hodges to end the Braves’ season.

After four seasons in which Milwaukee either reached the World Series or came up just short, it was becoming increasingly evident that the Braves dynasty was coming to an end, in large part due to the advancing age of many key players. Burdette performed as consistently as ever, though, going 19-13 with a 3.36 ERA in 275? innings. On August 18, 1960 facing Philadelphia and former teammate Gene Conley, he pitched a no-hitter, defeating the Phillies, 1-0. Allowing no walks, Burdette faced the minimum 27 batters. The only thing that kept him from a perfect game was hitting the Phillies’ Tony Gonzalez with a pitch in the fifth inning. Gonzalez was subsequently erased by a double play.

After dropping to fourth place in 1961 (Burdette was 18-11), the Braves made a concerted effort to bring in younger players in 1962. Birdie Tebbetts, Burdette’s former nemesis from Cincinnati, replaced Chuck Dressen as manager late in the 1961 season. Inconsistent all season long in 1962, Burdette was one of the victims of the youth movement, and started only 19 games, about half his usual number. Then his 13 years with the Braves came ended on June 15, 1963, when he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for minor-league pitcher Bob Sadowski and utilityman Gene Oliver.

Although Burdette preferred to start, the Cardinals traded for him because they thought he could be used as both a starter and reliever. His first game with the Cardinals, a complete-game victory over the New York Mets on June 18, seemed to suggest a return to form as a front-line starter. Burdette faced his former roommate Spahn when he faced off against the Braves on July 25. Once again going the distance, Burdette won, 3-1. But he struggled most of the season, posted only a 3-8 mark with the Cardinals, and against his wishes, was increasingly relegated to long relief appearances.

Despite again being on a contending team, Burdette was unhappy with his role on the Cardinals and pushed for a trade. He was traded early the next season to the Cubs for pitcher Glen Hobbie, missing out on the Cardinals’ 1964 World Series title. Reunited with Bob Buhl, Burdette was again given the chance to start. His struggles continued though and he finished the 1964 season with a 10-9 record and an ERA near 5.00. On May 30, 1965, Burdette was sold to the Phillies. Two starts he made in September represented his continuing struggles and inability to pitch for extended stretches. Against Cincinnati on September 5, he gave up six earned runs in 1? innings, and in his next start, the Braves scored five earned runs off him in two innings.

Released by the Phillies at the end of the season, Burdette spent his final two seasons in the majors with the California Angels. Adding a knuckleball, Burdette had an excellent season in 1966 when he made 54 appearances out of the bullpen as a key middle reliever. He won his 200th game on July 22 when he entered a game against the Yankees with the score tied 4-4 and the the Angels scored two runs to win, 6-4. But the resurgence was short-lived and Burdette pitched in only 19 games in 1967. His final major-league pitching appearance came on July 16, when he threw a scoreless eighth inning in a loss to the Minnesota Twins. In August the Angels sent him to their Pacific Coast League affiliate in Seattle, his first trip to the minors since 1951. Burdette appeared in 13 games in Seattle before being recalled in September; however, now 40 years old and recognizing that he was not going to be used in any significant capacity, he retired.

After retiring, Burdette took a job scouting pitchers for the Central Scouting System. In 1969 and 1970 he split time between coaching pitchers in the Gulf Coast League and his hometown of Sarasota, where he tried his hand at various businesses, including a gas station and a night club. In 1972 he became the Atlanta Braves pitching coach, and was reunited with longtime teammate Eddie Mathews when Mathews was named manager halfway through the season. Burdette was excited about rejoining the Braves’ organization, saying, “They’ve always been my club. Everything good happened when I was with the Braves. They’ve been my life.”3 But he left the Braves after the 1973 season, and worked in public relations for a Milwaukee brewery and then in cable television in Florida for 20 years until he retired.

Embracing his connections to the Braves, Burdette was a regular at old-timers games and baseball functions over the years. He appeared on the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the first time in 1973, the year that Spahn was elected. Burdette received votes in each of the 15 years he was eligible, peaking in 1984 at 24.1 percent. In 1998 he was inducted to the Florida Sports Hall of Fame and in 2001 was elected to the Braves Hall of Fame.

Burdette died on February 6, 2007, in Winter Garden, Florida, after battling lung cancer. One of the most fitting tributes came from a longtime teammate, shortstop Johnny Logan, who summed up Burdette’s career and personality by remarking, “I don’t know if he threw a spitter or not. His ball would really sink. He was a hell of a battler. Whatever Spahnie did, Lew wanted to do better. They had that competition between them. Lew was a big star but he always gave Spahnie the credit.”4

This biography is included in the book “Drama and Pride in the Gateway City: The 1964 St. Louis Cardinals” (University of Nebraska Press, 2013), edited by John Harry Stahl and Bill Nowlin. It is also included in “Thar’s Joy in Braveland! The 1957 Milwaukee Braves” (SABR, 2014), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.

Sources

Allen, Phil. “Biggest Froggy, Biggest Pond: The Lew Burdette Story.” Baseball Digest, December 1957: 29-33

Buege, Bob. The Milwaukee Braves: A Baseball Eulogy. Milwaukee: Douglas American Sports Publications, 1988.

Chen, Albert. “The Greatest Game Ever Pitched.” Sports Illustrated, June 1, 2009: 63-67.

Driver, David. “The Pride of Nitro: Baseball Star Lew Burdette.” Goldenseal, Fall 1998: 56-62.

Mumau, Thad. An Indian Summer: The 1957 Milwaukee Braves, Champions of Baseball. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2007.

Schoor, Gene. Lew Burdette of the Braves. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1960.

Sutter, L.M. Ball, Bat, and Bitumen: A History of Coalfield Baseball in the Appalachian South. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009.

Vincent, Fay. We Would Have Played for Nothing: Baseball Stars of the 1950s and 1960s Talk About the Game They Loved. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.

www.baseball-reference.com

Lew Burdette Clipping File at National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

Notes

“What for?” came the obvious question.[1]

The answer changed Chapman’s life. He was asked to catch a plane for Florida to begin a new beat. The announcement had been made just hours earlier – the National League owners had approved Lou Perini’s request to transfer his baseball team, the Boston Braves, to Milwaukee. Chapman would write feature stories and personality sketches of the ballplayers. It was a dream come true.

Nearing age 40, Chapman had been watching the years slip past while he took bowling scores over the phone and tried to manufacture excitement by writing about the least talented team in the National Basketball Association. Catch a flight? Lou would have walked to Florida. Within a day he was sending back a torrent of information from Bradenton about Milwaukee’s – about his – new team. For the next 13 years, he never stopped.

Louis Chapman (no middle name) was born in Milwaukee on June 19, 1913. His parents, Dora and Harry Chapman, were Russian Jews who emigrated in 1907 or 1908 from the area around Kiev, now the capital of Ukraine. Harry worked for his father’s ice business. In the winter Harry and his brother would drive a truck to Pewaukee Lake, 20 miles west of Milwaukee, cut big chunks of ice out of the lake, and drive them back. They would store the ice and then peddle it during the warm months.

Lou’s only sibling was a younger brother named Benward Chapman, who for 35 years was a prominent physician in Milwaukee. Among his better-known patients were the Beatles, Don and Phil Everly, and the perennial host of the Miss America pageant, Bert Parks.

Lou attended Milwaukee’s West Division High School. After graduating he enrolled in the Marquette School of Journalism, earning his degree in 1937.In 1940 Lou met the love of his life, Harriet Grafman, the daughter of Polish immigrants who ran a small grocery store on Milwaukee’s north side. “Her eyes were just beautiful,” Lou told a reporter. “They were what attracted me to her first.”2 Inspired by her lovely brown eyes, Lou wrote her a poem. She in turn recited poetry to him. They soon began dating in earnest, and the following year they were married.

Harriet was a cultured woman of the arts. During her high-school years she studied piano at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. She was an accomplished painter and sculptor. She once helped her son Richard build a model of the Arc de Triomphe out of toothpicks for his school project.3 

She wrote articles for the Milwaukee newspapers. While Lou attended Marquette, Harriet studied at Milwaukee State Teachers’ College, graduating in 1934. She became a kindergarten teacher in the public schools and taught until 1965, not including the war years. During World War II she worked in Washington, D.C., in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), which evolved into the CIA.

Besides her involvement with the fine arts, Harriet also had a baseball connection. Portions of a home movie she made of her husband and his friend Henry Aaron were incorporated into a documentary film, Hank Aaron: Chasing the Dream. The movie follows Aaron’s pursuit of Babe Ruth’s career home-run record. It was nominated for an Academy Award in 1996, losing out to a feature about Anne Frank.

Harriet had another connection to “show biz.” She and Lou had two sons. Stuart Chapman was a magazine publisher and writer who started a medical publishing firm in New York. His brother, Richard, worked as a screenwriter for both television and Hollywood films. He was the executive producer of the 1980s TV series Simon and Simon. He wrote the screenplay for the film My Fellow Americans, which starred Jack Lemmon and James Garner. As of 2013 Richard was a senior lecturer in screenwriting at Washington University in St. Louis.

In 1942 Lou received his draft notice. He was initially assigned for basic training at Jefferson Barracks, just south of St. Louis. He was later stationed at Scott Air Force Base, in Illinois. He edited the base newspaper and trained as a radio operator. When World War II ended, Chapman was honorably discharged, having received the rank of sergeant.

Returning to Milwaukee, Chapman worked briefly for the Milwaukee Journal and then joined the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1948. He labored in obscurity until the Braves arrived, and then suddenly he was a celebrity – well, a minor celebrity. So pervasive was Braves Mania that the team held a series of instructional clinics for women, the theory being that baseball was too sophisticated for their pretty little minds to grasp. Lou was a panelist at each clinic for two seasons.

At the second of the tutorials, on August 11, 1953, an overflow crowd of a thousand women asked questions of a truly impressive panel. Braves players included Eddie Mathews, Warren Spahn, and Joe Adcock. Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter of the St. Louis Cardinals were in town and agreed to sit in. LoRene Spahn, wife of the Braves’ star left-hander, served as the panel’s token distaff member. Announcer Earl Gillespie and journalists Red Thisted and Chapman rounded out the group.

The ladies had been encouraged to dress in their Sunday finery – hats and all – because the event was being filmed for showing on the NBC Gillette Cavalcade of Sports. The women’s baseball inquiries ran the gamut from lame to sensible. “Why aren’t women allowed to play in Organized Baseball?” one asked. “Why four balls for a walk and only three strikes for a strikeout?” queried another. The most memorable exchange of the QA was handled by Chapman. “What does ‘good in the clutch’ mean?” was the question.

Without missing a beat, Lou replied, “You must understand first of all that the expression has nothing to do with any activity in the parlor.”4 That was about as bold as television would allow in 1953.

On a rainy Monday evening, May 25, 1953, during a twi-night doubleheader, Chapman was in his customary spot in the press box at County Stadium, witnessing a historic pitching performance. In the nightcap, portly right-hander Max Surkont struck out eight consecutive Cincinnati Reds, the first pitcher to accomplish that feat since 1884. The drama of the moment was heightened by the fact that a 33-minute rain delay separated the seventh and eighth whiffs. After the game, Lou eagerly ran to the clubhouse and interviewed Surkont, who told him straight out that the last strikeout pitch had been a perfect spitball. This win lifted Surkont to 6-0, the first and only time during a nine-year major-league career that he would begin so well.

Chapman revealed to his colleague Red Thisted what Surkont had told him about the spitter. A veteran (and competing) sportswriter overheard the conversation and warned Chapman not to use the information. “It’ll damage his career,” he cautioned. Chapman was new to covering baseball, and now he faced an ethical dilemma. He pondered it, but not for long. He had a deadline. In the end, he did not use the juicy information. It gnawed at him, though. It was the last time, he said later, that he ever sat on a story.5 As far as Surkont’s baseball career went from that time, he was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in December 1953 and pitched for the last time in the major leagues in May 1957.

Generally speaking, Chapman would do nearly anything to get a story. While some writers covered the games from the press box, Lou was a fixture in the locker room or wherever the ballplayers hung out. There was a story, perhaps apocryphal, that he once hid inside a locker during spring training trying to overhear which players would be cut from the roster. Some of the players jokingly referred to Lou as Scoop or Gumby, short for gumshoe, a term for detective. As Lou’s son Stuart put it, “My father was the quintessential newspaperman. He relentlessly pursued stories.”6

Chapman was also fearless. While covering the American League Brewers during the 1970s, he once wrote a story critical of the Kansas City Royals’ All-Star third baseman, George Brett. Shortly afterward he encountered Brett in a hotel lobby in Kansas City. As Lou’s son Richard described it, “George was waiting for him. He started screaming at my dad, ‘I’m going to pinch your (expletive) head off.’”

Lou, who needed thick soles to stand 5½ feet tall, stood his ground. “Go ahead,” he yelled back. “I’ll show you the biggest lawsuit in Royals history.”7

Unlike Brett, many of the ballplayers liked Chapman and admired his honesty. On January 25, 1955, Lou wrote in a story that Jackie Robinson criticized Eddie Mathews for being thin-skinned and unable to deal with bench jockeys. “I like to needle him,” Robinson said in the article. “He gets hot under the collar. … Eddie will have to learn how to take it.”8 The remarks stirred some controversy. Soon after that Lou received a letter from Robinson. The note presented Jackie’s side of the story but also said he understood why Chapman had written it the way he did. Richard Chapman explained that “Jackie just wanted to make sure their friendship was not at all affected. It was a very complimentary letter that Jackie wrote.”9

Lou was not stingy with his opinions, though. In 1961 he and Sentinel colleague Red Thisted co-authored a three-part series of articles headlined “What’s Wrong with the Braves?” The trilogy earned a $500 “Grand Annual” sports writing award as the outstanding sports entry from Hearst newspapers across the country.

And just what was wrong with the Braves? The answer was multilayered: indifferent front office, deadwood on the bench, weak bullpen. Bottom line, though, the finger pointed at manager Charlie Dressen. He had allowed team morale to sink to an all-time low. He was “a petty tyrant, cast in the mold of Captain Queeg of ‘Caine Mutiny’ ill-fame.” He handled the club “as if they belonged in a horse-and-buggy, tough-principled John McGraw era.”10 Chapman and Thisted attributed those opinions to the ballplayers, but they did not use quotes. What’s more, the style was pure Chapman. He was dead-on in his thinking, and fans – and ownership – knew it.

Dressen read the articles and got into a shouting match with Chapman in the County Stadium hospitality room, calling him a variety of names, of which “snake” was the mildest.11

Lou retaliated in print. For what he claimed was the only time in his career, he let personal enmity color his reporting. He knew Dressen had never attended high school. In a story about Alvin Dark, Lou wrote, “Alvin Dark is a rarity among managers. He has a college degree. Some managers have never gone past the eighth grade.”12 Dressen responded by keeping the reporters out of the clubhouse for 20 minutes after each game. The Braves fired Dressen on September 2, 1961.

Dressen’s 20-minute lockout rule, obviously directed at Chapman, was nothing by comparison. Four years later the Braves’ front office banned Lou from the locker room altogether. This was during the lame-duck season of 1965. Lou admitted that “I tried to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the carpetbaggers.”13 To do this, every time an opposing player or official came to Milwaukee, Lou would write a story quoting that person being critical of the Braves owners.

On Saturday, June 19, he quoted St. Louis Cardinals reliever Hal Woodeshick as saying, “I feel sorry for the Milwaukee fans, but that’s life – everyone’s after that almighty dollar.” Woodeshick said the Braves would win the pennant if they were playing in Atlanta.14

Apparently that was the last straw for the Braves’ front office. As Lou wrote, “On Father’s Day the Braves disowned me.”15 Assistant general manager Jim Fanning announced, “As of now, the Braves clubhouse is off limits to Lou Chapman.”16 Chapman received the news in a phone call from Bob Wolf of the Milwaukee Journal. At the stadium Chapman was physically barred by an attendant, who told him to see Fanning.

“You have had a disquieting effect,” Fanning told Lou, “on the players in the clubhouse, the employees in the ticket office, and throughout the stadium. Our people here tingle whenever you come around them.”17 Fanning admitted that none of Lou’s articles had been distorted or false. He also told Chapman that he could interview any of the players he wanted to but only in Fanning’s executive office, not the clubhouse. Lou named three players plus manager Bobby Bragan. One by one they traipsed into the office to speak with the reporter.

The Milwaukee chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America immediately filed a letter of protest with the league office and with Commissioner Ford Frick. The indefinite ban was rescinded and ended after one day.

Lou prided himself on being a wordsmith and a voracious reader. He especially admired legendary sportswriter Walter “Red” Smith. Lou’s son Richard told of the time after an All-Star Game when his father carried Smith’s typewriter across the field for him because Smith was quite elderly. Lou always felt privileged to have done that.18

The Braves came and went, but Lou Chapman stayed on the Sentinel staff until 1979. He was given a rebirth when the Brewers took over County Stadium in 1970. Nine years later it was time to go.

Lou spent his retirement years in Venice, Florida. He died there on April 30, 2004. His body was returned to Wisconsin for burial in Spring Hill Cemetery, where his grave overlooks Milwaukee’s ballpark.

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

Sources

Chapman, Lou, “Baseball Was My Beat,” (three parts), Milwaukee Sentinel, November 17, 21, 23, 1979.

Thisted, Red, and Lou Chapman, “What’s Wrong with the Braves?” (three parts), Milwaukee Sentinel, June 16-18, 1961.

“Chapman, Thisted Win ‘Grand’ Prize,” Milwaukee Sentinel, October 13, 1961.

“Harriett G. Chapman,” Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle, June 29, 2001.

Milwaukee Journal.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Milwaukee Sentinel.

Retrosheet.org.

Chapman, Richard, telephone interview, November 26, 2012.

Notes

[1] “Sentinel’s Lou Chapman Gives Braves the Color,” Milwaukee Sentinel, April 11, 1955.

[2] Amy Boerema, “Chapman Filled Home with the Arts,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 14, 1996.  

[3] Ibid.  

[4] Red Thisted, “Clinic for Women Fans Put on TV,” The Sporting News, August 19, 1953.  

[5] Lou Chapman, “Grimm Resigned To Soften His Firing,” Milwaukee Sentinel, November 17, 1979.  

[6] Richard Chapman, telephone interview, November 26, 2012.  

[7] Tom Haudricourt, “Sentinel Writer Gave Fans Inside Scoop on Baseball,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 3, 2004; Richard Chapman interview.  

[8] Lou Chapman, “Robinson Flashes Brand New Personality, but Story’s Same,” Milwaukee Sentinel, January 25, 1955. 

[9] Richard Chapman interview. 

[10] Red Thisted and Lou Chapman, “Dressen, Players Clash Behind Scenes,” Milwaukee Sentinel, June 16, 1961.  

[11] Lou Chapman, “Braves Had Problems Adjusting to Dressen,” Milwaukee Sentinel, November 23, 1979  

[12] Ibid.  

[13] Lou Chapman, “It Was Sportswriter vs. Braves in Battle Over Move,” Milwaukee Sentinel, November 21, 1979.  

[14] “Braves Close Clubhouse to Sentinel Writer,” Milwaukee Journal, June 20, 1965.  

[15] Lou Chapman, “Our Lou Gets ‘Red Carpet’ Deal as Braves Lift Ban,” Milwaukee Sentinel, June 21, 1965.  

[16] “Braves Close Clubhouse,” Milwaukee Journal.  

[17] Lou Chapman, “Our Lou Gets ‘Red Carpet’ Deal.”  

[18] Richard Chapman interview.

Richard Roy Cole was born on May 6, 1926, in Long Beach, California, the first of two sons born to Almer and Gertrude (Jones) Cole. His parents were transplants to the Los Angeles area; his father’s family migrated from Nebraska and his mother’s family from Illinois. They met in California and married in 1924. In the busy and rapidly expanding port city, Almer worked as a salesman and deliveryman for a bread company; Gertrude was a secretary for a fruit-juice company. An athletic youngster, Cole was fixture on the sandlots of Long Beach. In June 1943 he graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, where he was a standout shortstop, equally adroit with the glove and bat. That August, at only 17, Cole was signed to his first professional contract, by St. Louis Cardinals scout Bob Hughes.[1] On August 25, 1943, he began his professional career playing third base for the Sacramento Solons, the Cardinals’ minor-league affiliate in the Pacific Coast League. In his first professional game, according to the account in The Sporting News, “Cole singled and scored a run as the Solons bowed to the Padres, 7-4. In the field, he muffed one of three chances, and started a twin-killing.”[2] Cole recalled in an interview with the author the frustrating beginning to his professional career, “Our record was 1-14. Nippy Jones (later a major-league first baseman) was on that team, too. He was only 18. I had to hitchhike home from Sacramento, because as a Double-A player, I was broke.”[3]

During the offseason, Cole, along with eight other Solon players, was reassigned to the Columbus Redbirds of the Double-A American Association, another Cardinals farm team. Early in the 1944 season he was demoted to the Allentown Cardinals of the Class B Interstate League. At Allentown he batted .281 in 97 games. Like many other ballplayers of that era, Cole found his career interrupted by World War II. In June 1944 he passed an Army physical,[4] and in August he was inducted. (Just before his last game the fans at an Allentown game took up a collection and gave him $138.80.[5]) In 1945, after completing basic training, Cole was sent to Camp Roberts in Southern California, where he played several games alongside future Hall of Famer Bobby Doerr.

Cole was discharged in 1946, and on June 17, 1946 he rejoined Columbus. Shaking off the rust from two years of military duty, he hit .241 in 37 games with the Red Birds. He began the 1947 season with the Omaha Cardinals of the Class A Western League. Blocked from playing by a logjam in the middle infield, Cole was shipped to the Fresno Cardinals of the Class C California League. There he batted a career-high .386 and led the league in batting.

Considered tall for a middle infielder, the 6-foot-2, 175-pound Cole went to spring training with the Cardinals several times but spent five years shuttling between Columbus, Omaha, and the Rochester Red Wings of the International League. Though he never came close to matching his unexpected hitting success with Fresno (his batting average fluctuated between .236 and .297 between 1948 and 1952), Cole was thought of as a “wizard with the glove.”[6] In 1951 he went north with the Cardinals, and made his major-league debut on April 27 when he was inserted as a pinch-runner in the fifth inning, then replaced Marty Marion at shortstop. In the eighth he got his first at-bat, walking and later scoring on Stan Musial’s fly ball. He played in 15 games, ten of them as a starter at second base, and batter.194 (7-for-36). On June 15 he was sent to the Pittsburgh Pirates as part of a seven-player trade. (One of the Cardinals traded along with him was Joe Garagiola.) The Pirates optioned Cole to Indianapolis in the American Association, where he batted .297 in 57 games, playing only shortstop. He was recalled by the Pirates in August and started 31 games at second base and eight at shortstop over the last seven weeks of the season, batting .236.

Sent to the Hollywood Stars in 1952, Cole played in 178 games and batted .286 as the Stars won the PCL pennant. With Hollywood Cole encountered manager Fred Haney, who would have a major impact on his playing career. The next season he made the Pirates’ roster, and spent the next four years with the club. Cole was a versatile and solid defender, starting at every infield position during his tenure with the Pirates. Primarily a spot starter and defensive replacement, he was a steady but unspectacular infielder for the hapless Pirates, with a .253 batting average.

Cole’s finest season as a major leaguer was in 1954. Appearing in 138 games, he had starts at second base, shortstop and third base and batted .270 with 22 doubles, five triples, and one home run. Though fleet of foot, he grounded into 20 double plays, the second-highest total in the National League. Cole’s home run, his second and last in the majors, came off the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Carl Erskine.

In 1955 Cole lost playing time to Dick Groat who returned to the shortstop position after a stint in the military and to 21-year-old, hard-hitting Gene Freese at third base. Then, in early April 1957, Cole was traded to the Milwaukee Braves even up for utilityman Jim Pendleton, and went from the basement to the penthouse as the Braves won the National League pennant and the World Series over the New York Yankees.

The story of Cole’s trade to the Braves shows how closely his fate was tied to manager Fred Haney. In 1952 when Cole was promoted from Hollywood to the Pirates, Haney, his manager with the Stars, also moved up to Pittsburgh, as the manager. By 1957 Haney was managing the Braves, and helped engineer the trade for Cole. Haney had taken a liking to Cole at Hollywood. More than 60 years after their first encounter, Cole was unable to explain why. Perhaps it was his maturity (he was 26 in 1952) or his versatility, he surmised. “I was Fred Haney’s little ‘Bobo,’ ” he told sportswriter Jack Heyde. “I guess Fred liked the fact that I worked hard and was a student of the game. Of course, it didn’t hurt that I could play all of the infield positions pretty well.”[7]

At the end of May Cole was optioned to Triple-A Wichita, then was recalled on June 23. After playing in eight games, primarily as a defensive replacement, he was sent back to Wichita in late July when the Braves called up Bob Hazle. Hazle went on to bat .403 for the Braves in their pennant drive. Cole remained with Wichita, batting .331 in 52 games as Wichita won the American Association pennant. When the Braves expanded their roster in September, they called up infielder Harry Hanebrink and pitchers Phil Paine and Carl Willey, but Cole never made it back to the big leagues.

In 1958 the 32-year-old Cole hoped for another chance to reach the majors and signed with the unaffiliated Sacramento Solons of the Pacific Coast League. His major-league experience and versatility made him a valuable asset, and he hit .280 for the year. The following year, Cole was reunited with his former Cardinals manager, Marty Marion, who was president of the Houston Buffs of the Texas League. Marion had signed Cole along with several other former big leaguers, eyeing a spot for the Buffs in the planned Continental League. Backed by New York attorney William Shea, the league was conceived as a third major league; Shea’s motive was to get another team in New York to replace the departed Dodgers and Giants. Marion and his former big leaguers hoped that this was their opportunity to get back to the majors. After Major League Baseball subsequently announced expansion in 1961 for the American League and 1962 for the National League (including the New York Mets), the Continental League lost its support and folded before it could get started.

After the season in Houston, Cole retired with his wife, Katherine, and their four children, and transitioned into coaching. In 1961 he became part of what some baseball observers consider one of the greatest oddities in major-league managerial history; the Chicago Cubs’ “College of Coaches,” instituted by Cubs owner Philip K. Wrigley. Cole was one of 11 coaches listed on the roster of the 1961 Cubs. However, he was not one of the principal coach-managers. Along with his rotation as field coach for the big-league club, Cole spent time managing two Cubs farm teams, Wenatchee of the Class B Northwest League and St. Cloud of the Class C Northern League. He was instrumental in the careers of two future stars. “I was sent to work with (future Hall of Famer) Lou Brock on his bunting, and I was the one who moved Kenny Hubbs from shortstop to second base,” Cole said. The next year with the Cubs Hubbs was the National League Rookie of the Year.” Cole was one of a four-manager rotation along with Rube Walker, Bobby Adams, and Vedie Himsl. He was the only one of the four not to serve a rotation as manager of the Cubs. His stint with the Cubs lasted just one year,[8] and the College of Coaches concept was abandoned after the 1962 season.

In 1962 Cole took the reins of the Auburn Mets of the Class D New York-Pennsylvania League. Still only 36, with a lot of baseball left in him, Cole was one of four designated player-managers in the league that year.[9] However, he had no appearances as a player. That season Cole enjoyed his greatest success as a manager with the New York Mets affiliate. After a third-place finish (62-57) in the regular season, Cole led the team to the league championship and was named Manager of the Year. The following season the league was elevated to Class A status; the club finished in first place, posting a 76-54 record, but lost in the first round of the playoffs. By the late 1960s Cole was back in the Pirates organization; he managed in the Rookie League with the Gulf Coast Pirates in 1970 and tutored Dave Parker in his first year of professional baseball.[10]

Cole began his scouting career in with the Pirates. In 1971 he was named scouting supervisor and held that role for the next three seasons. In 1974, after escalating player salaries placed significant financial burdens on major-league organizations, baseball’s Central Scouting Bureau, now called the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau, was founded.[11] Seventeen participating clubs, including the Pirates, contributed some of their best scouts to the combine. Cole was one of the initial 56 scouts who formed the bureau, earning the Scout of the Month designation in December 1976.[12]

As of 2013 he resided in Costa Mesa, California, with his second wife, Ada, and continued to work in various scouting capacities with the San Francisco Giants. As of 2013, Dick Cole had spent all but 17 of his 87 years as a part of professional baseball. In 2008 he was honored by his hometown with induction into the Long Beach Baseball Hall of Fame. He is a member of his high-school athletic hall of fame. In a phone interview with one of the authors, he said, “I dreamed of being a major-league ballplayer, and everything I wanted came true for me.” Recalling highlights from his career, Cole said: “Henry Aaron said I was the worst batting practice pitcher he ever faced.”

Who wouldn’t love to make that claim?  

Last revised: July 1, 2013

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

Sources

Telephone interview with Dick Cole conducted by Doug Engelman on February 11, 2013.

Ancestry.com  

BaseballAlmanac.com  

Baseball-Reference.com  

Retrosheet.com      

Notes  

[1] The Sporting News, September 2, 1943, 23.  

[2] The Sporting News, August 26, 1943.  

[3] Telephone interview with Dick Cole on February 11, 2013. All quotations from Cole are from this interview unless otherwise noted.  

[4] The Sporting News, June 29, 1944, 24.  

[5] The Sporting News, August 10, 1944, 22.  

[6] The Sporting News, March 21, 1951, 19.  

[7] Jack Heyde, Pop Flies and Line Drives; Visits With Players from Baseball’s “Golden Era” (Victoria, British Columbia: Trafford Publishing, 2004), 75.  

[8] The Sporting News, November 17, 1962, 16.  

[9] The Sporting News, April 4, 1962, 31.  

[10] The Sporting News, August 22, 1970, 44.  

[11] The Sporting News, October 12, 1974, 18.  

[12] The Sporting News, December 4, 1976, 17.

More than 10,000 people turned out for an open house at the ballpark on March 15, three days before the Braves’ move to Milwaukee was approved by the National League owners.   

Another large crowd turned out on April 6 and braved sleet and cold just to watch an exhibition game against the Boston Red Sox which lasted two innings. When County Stadium opened for the first Milwaukee Braves regular-season game on Tuesday afternoon, April 14, fans lined up hours before the gates opened in order to be among the first to get inside.    

Fans that Opening Day started tailgating, a tradition that continues in Milwaukee, while bands played and dignitaries flocked to the new ballpark. A crowd of 34,357 packed the stadium and thousands more listened on radios outside and in homes and pubs around the town. Fans cheered wildly for every hit, every strike, and everything else. It was all new and exciting.    

The game lived up to the excitement the day promised, with center fielder Billy Bruton winning the 3-2 contest on a disputed tenth-inning home run that bounced off the glove of a leaping Enos Slaughter, the Cardinals’ right fielder.     

It had been a long journey to that opener. County officials and others had talked about building a “major league” ballpark in Milwaukee since the 19-teens. Several locations were bandied about over the years, according to Milwaukee County records. Local politicians had differing opinions about where best to situate the stadium. Transportation, parking, and the demolition of existing buildings all factored in, delaying the project by decades.    

Officials originally planned to build the stadium for the Milwaukee Brewers of the Triple-A American Association, an affiliate of the Boston Braves. In September 1948, they finally focused on Story Quarry, an abandoned landfill on the west side of the city.    

Construction began in October 1950. Officials had to scramble to get materials, in part due to the demands of the Korean War. They were able to convince federal officials that construction had begun before the war rationing was imposed and were thus able to get the necessary steel. Between the material shortage and a required land swap with the adjacent Soldiers Home, the creation of Milwaukee’s new ballpark literally required an act of Congress.    

The ballpark, whose cost was initially put at $5 million, was the first in the country to be paid for by public funds. The funds came from a combination of city and County of Milwaukee bonds. As for the site, the US Congress in 1949 approved the leasing of 22 acres of federally-owned land for $1 a year and the county bought another 98 acres. A federal agency, the National Production Authority, also had to approve the construction after it had banned any new recreational facilities because of the need for steel and other materials for the Korean War. The stadium project was approved because groundbreaking had taken place a week before the ban was put into effect.    

Osborn Engineering was the architect. Hunzinger Construction was the general contractor on the project. The stadium was built primarily for baseball, but was intended to be multipurpose, like Exhibition Stadium in Toronto and Municipal Stadium in Cleveland. (In 1988 home-game scenes for the movie Major League, which dealt with the Cleveland Indians, were shot at County Stadium during the summer of 1988, in part because it resembled Municipal Stadium, which was undergoing work at the time.)      

The new stadium featured a double-decked grandstand and mezzanine that ran from first base to third base. The lower grandstand extended down the right-field line and to the foul pole. Temporary bleachers occupied the space down the left-field line, as well as several bleacher sections in the outfield. Over the years, a picnic area in left field became a popular feature of the ballpark. So did a grove of fir and spruce trees planted in March 1954, which acquired the name Perini’s Woods. Throughout its history, County Stadium was expanded piecemeal, and eventually reached a capacity of 55,000-plus.    

It was considered state-of-the-art in its early days and helped to lure the Braves from Boston. The franchise shift also paved the way for other teams, notably the Dodgers and Giants, to join the westward migration.     

County Stadium was ready to go by spring 1953, but the Brewers, the Braves’ top minor-league team, never played there. Instead, the Boston Braves owners, who had struggled for years at the gate as the second team to the Red Sox, applied for permission to move to Milwaukee.    

Lou Perini, principal owner of the Braves, had blocked the St. Louis Browns from moving to Milwaukee earlier. Perini was able to persuade the National League owners to allow his club to move, only three weeks before the season was to start.

With Charlie Grimm, who had piloted the Brewers, as the Braves manager, the club immediately became competitive. Eddie Mathews, Johnny Logan, and others who had come through Milwaukee as minor leaguers, became fan favorites. The 1953 Braves finished 92-62, good for second place, in their first season and set a National League attendance record of 1,826,397.    

The Braves continued to contend in their early years in Milwaukee; in fact, they never had a losing season in their 13 years there. Their fewest wins up to the 1957 championship season was 85 in 1955. They finished no worse than third place from 1953 through 1960.    

In 1956 the Braves finished only one game behind the Brooklyn Dodgers. They seemed poised to make the move to the top after that season. Fred Haney, a contrast in managing style to the affable Grimm, took over as the skipper in mid-June of 1956 and meant business from the beginning.

The Braves made the move to first in 1957 when they won 95 games. One of the biggest moments in County Stadium history came on September 23, 1957. Henry Aaron, who was the Most Valuable Player that season, homered in the 11th inning off the St. Louis Cardinals’ Billy Muffett to give the Braves a 4-2 victory that clinched the pennant. Aaron has often said that that blast against St. Louis was the biggest of his career, even surpassing the homer in Atlanta that broke Babe Ruth’s record of 714.

County Stadium was decked out in red, white, and blue for the World Series. One member of the Yankees – reported to be manager Casey Stengel – referred to Milwaukee as “bush,” and the fans took that up as their rallying cry, with signs “Bushville Wins” once the Braves won.

The Braves clinched the World Series in New York in Game Seven behind Lew Burdette’s third win of the Series. Game Five goes down as one of the great games in the stadium’s history. Each team had won two games. Burdette, who had beaten the Yankees 4-2 in Game Two, was opposed by Whitey Ford, who had defeated the Braves 3-1 in Game One. In the sixth inning of a scoreless battle, the Braves broke through with a run. With two out and nobody on base, Mathews bounced a chopper toward second baseman Jerry Coleman. Hustling down the line, Mathews narrowly beat the throw to first. Aaron blooped a single to right-center, sending Mathews to third base. Then Joe Adcock smacked a line-drive single to right that scored Mathews. The single tally was all Burdette needed. He shut out the Yankees, 1-0, on seven hits.

From 1954 through 1957 the Braves drew more than two million fans each season. On June 12, 1954, journeyman Braves pitcher Jim Wilson fired the first major-league no-hitter in Milwaukee, against the Philadelphia Phillies. The cover of the inaugural issue of Sports Illustrated, on August 16, 1954, displayed a photo of Eddie Mathews batting in County Stadium. On July 12, 1955, the stadium hosted its first All-Star Game. More than 45,000 fans saw the National League roar back from a 5-0 deficit to win 6-5 in 12 innings. Attendance peaked at 2,215,404 in 1957 but slipped to 1,971,101 in 1958. In 1959, the year the Braves lost the pennant to the Los Angeles Dodgers in two games during a best-of-three playoff, attendance dropped to 1,749,112.

The subsequent years still had winning seasons and historic events, including two no-hitters by Spahn and one by Burdette, Pittsburgh’s Harvey Haddix hurling 12 perfect innings in 1959 only to lose to the Braves in the 13th, San Francisco’s Willie Mays hitting four home runs in a game in 1961 and many other thrills. But the magical team that won the championship gradually broke up. The Miracle in Milwaukee had run its course.

From 1960 through 1965, their last season in Milwaukee, the Braves never won fewer than 83 games. Even so, attendance continued to decline, dipping under a million for the first time in 1962. Rumors of the club moving already were circulating.

The 1964 season was marred by rumors about the Braves’ status in Milwaukee, and outright feuding began between the ballclub and members of the community. County Board Chairman Eugene Grobschmidt intimated that he thought the Braves weren’t making an all-out effort on the field. “I don’t think the players or somebody isn’t doing something right here,” Grobschmidt said with more passion than grammar.[1]

Manager Bobby Bragan, who never caught on with the Milwaukee fans, snapped back at Grobschmidt. Club president John McHale said, “Grobschmidt had better have proof … or be prepared to retract the statement.” McHale said the team would even consider a lawsuit.[2]

Congressman Henry Reuss, who represented a Milwaukee district, talked about trying to keep the club in Milwaukee through an antitrust suit against Major League Baseball. Milwaukee County officials indicated a willingness to force the team to stay through the end of 1965 through legal maneuvering.

The final parting of the Braves from Milwaukee was a bitter one. Both sides took legal action and hurled verbal hardballs. Warren Spahn, who was sold to the Mets in November 1964, and Oshkosh native Billy Hoeft, who was released in the spring of 1965, both said the Braves had tried not to win in 1964.[3]

“We should have won the pennant,” Hoeft said. “But they didn’t want to win.”[4] Bragan, a Southerner who supposedly wanted the team below the Mason-Dixon Line, was looked at as the guy who did management’s dirty work on the field.

Because of a judge’s ruling regarding the County Stadium lease, the Braves had to play the 1965 season in Milwaukee. By July 28 of that season, however, corporation papers were filed for the Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, and the search for a new team was on. That served as an admission that the Braves were gone. From 1966 through 1969 Milwaukee was a city in search of a ballclub to call its own.

Perhaps the saddest day in County Stadium’s history came when the Braves played their last game there, on September 22, 1965. Mathews recalled his last at-bat. A crowd of 12,577 gave him a standing ovation, and Mathews admitted his eyes teared up. “The fans gave me about a two-minute standing ovation,” he recalled. “I was overwhelmed. I tried to bat, but I had to step out of the batter’s box three or four times.”[5]

Some legal action still took place after the season. Judge Elmer Roller ruled in the spring of 1966 that the Braves and the National League had violated Wisconsin’s antitrust laws and must either give Milwaukee a new franchise or return to play in County Stadium. To that verdict, Braves executive William Bartholomay said, “There is as much chance of the Braves playing in Milwaukee this summer as there is the New York Yankees.”[6] The Wisconsin Supreme Court overruled Roller.

County Stadium was without baseball. Officials tried to keep some revenue coming in with religious revivals, tractor pulls, wrestling matches, concerts, and other events. The Green Bay Packers, who had played some of their games in the stadium since 1953, continued to play there. But without baseball, the ballpark seemed like a home without a family.

Allan “Bud” Selig, who owned a car-leasing business in Milwaukee, organized a group to get baseball back to Milwaukee and the stadium. They almost bought the Chicago White Sox, who played 20 games at the stadium in 1968 and 1969. But that deal fell through. Selig’s group eventually bought the bankrupt Seattle Pilots of the American League, in a move that had almost eerie similarities to the Braves move in 1953, coming only weeks before the opening of the 1970 season.

Milwaukee fans were excited to have baseball back in town, but they warmed up to the Brewers more slowly than they did the Braves; home attendance did not top one million until 1973. The Brewers also struggled on the field in the early years, and even the acquisition of Henry Aaron before the 1975 season didn’t move the Brewers out of last place. Aaron hit the final home run (No. 755) of his 23-year career on July 20, 1976, at County Stadium.

The Brewers finally built a winning team from the 1978 through the 1982 seasons with Harry Dalton as general manager. In 1982, the World Series returned to County Stadium, and the franchise drew over two million in home attendance in 1983.The Brewers continued in the stadium for almost two more decades, but by the early 1990s it was clear that the ballpark had become outdated. Selig started talking about the need for a new stadium to keep baseball viable in Milwaukee.

After a contentious political debate about financing, Miller Park was eventually approved. For a couple of seasons, fans could watch the modern facility being built beyond the center-field wall of County Stadium.

The old ballpark had to work overtime after a construction accident killed three workers and delayed the opening of Miller Park for a year. Eventually County Stadium was closed, with its last game on September 28, 2000. Some of the greats who had played there came back for an emotional ceremony to say goodbye to what announcer Bob Uecker called an “old friend.” Uecker read a short goodbye for the old park as the lights were turned off, standard by standard. He closed with “So long, old friend, and goodnight everybody.”[7]

County Stadium’s demolition was completed on February 21, 2001. However, the infield portion of the field was transformed into a youth playing field under the name of Helfaer Park.

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

Sources

Buege, Bob, Milwaukee Braves: A Baseball Eulogy (Milwaukee: Douglas American Sports Publications, 1988).

Gershman, Michael, Diamonds: The Evolution of the Ballpark (New York: Mariner Books, 1995).

Hoffmann, Gregg, Down in the Valley: The History of Milwaukee County Stadium (Holt, Michigan: Partners Publishers Group, 2000).

Lowry, Philip J., Green Cathedrals: Ultimate Celebration of All 273 Major League and Negro League Ballparks (New York: Walker and Company, 2006).

Milwaukee Journal (various issues ranging from 1948 until 2001).

Milwaukee Sentinel (various issues ranging from 1948 to 2001).

Milwaukee County Historical Association documents (1948-53 and 1964-66).

Povletich, William, Milwaukee Braves: Heroes and Heartbreak (Madison, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2009).

Wisconsin State Historical Society documents (1948-53).

Interviews (done from 1994 to 1999 for Down in the Valley) with baseball commissioner and former Brewers owner Bud Selig, former Milwaukee Mayor Frank Zeidler, former Braves players Eddie Mathews, Henry Aaron, Warren Spahn, Bob Uecker, and Johnny Logan, former Brewers players Robin Yount, and Jim Gantner, and others.

Notes

[1] Lou Chapman, “Braves ‘Call Off’ Suit,” Milwaukee Sentinel, July 10, 1964, II, 4.  

[2] Ibid.  

[3] Milton Gross, “Spahn Wonders What Mets Paid,” Milwaukee Journal, November 24, 1964, II, 10.  

[4] Bob Wolf, “’Bragan Tried to Lose’ – Hoeft,” Milwaukee Journal, April 1, 1965, II, 17.  

[5] Eddie Mathews and Bob Buege, Eddie Mathews and the National Pastime (Milwaukee: Douglas American Sports Publications, 1988, 253).  

[6] Raymond E. McBride, “Braves Say They Won’t Return Despite Judge Roller’s Decision,” Milwaukee Journal, April 14, 1966, 1.  

[7] Crocker Stephenson, “So Long, Old Friend, Crowd Says to Ballpark,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, September 29, 2000, 7A.

As a young player, Covington was thought to be in Aaron’s class. His skill and potential were so boundless that Aaron, in reference to the Eau Claire team, wrote in his autobiography, “At that point, if people had known that one of our players would someday be the all-time major league home run leader, everybody would have assumed that Covington would be the guy.”1 It was not to be. Covington’s injuries and outspokenness combined to keep his potential from ever being fully unlocked. The Phillies Encyclopedia put Covington’s career succinctly, stating, “Wes Covington lasted 11 years in the major leagues because of a bat that made a lot of noise and in spite of a mouth that did likewise…. (He) specialized in long home runs and long interviews that tended to get people around him a bit testy.”2

John Wesley Covington was born on March 27, 1932, in Laurinburg, North Carolina, a town 100 miles southeast of Charlotte, near the South Carolina border. He grew up in Laurinburg and was a standout athlete in three sports during his high-school days. Baseball was not one of them, however, as the 6-foot-1, 205-pound Covington excelled in football, basketball, and track. After beginning at Laurinburg High, Covington transferred to Hillside High School in Durham, 100 miles away, primarily because of its athletics program. On the gridiron for Hillside, Wes starred as a running back in the same backfield as future Los Angeles Rams back Tom Wilson, and also excelled as the team’s kicker.3 He was named to the all-state team twice as a fullback, and was clocked at 9.9 seconds in the 100 meters.4 A “B” student, Covington had offers to play college football at North Carolina State, UCLA, and several small colleges.5

In the spring of 1950 Covington gained his first baseball experience on local semipro teams. In 1951, with the North Carolina team in need of an outfielder for the annual North Carolina-South Carolina High School Baseball All-Star Game, Covington was asked to play in the game despite the fact that he had never played high-school baseball. Starting in left field for the North Carolina squad, Covington impressed Boston Braves scout Dewey Griggs enough to be offered a contract. After some convincing, he decided to forgo any possible football future and give professional baseball a try. “You know how it is,” he recalled a few years later. “I needed a few dollars, they had a few dollars. Good deal. Besides, my wife, then my sweetheart, asked me to play baseball instead.”6

The Braves sent Covington to Eau Claire in 1952 for his first taste of professional baseball. There he hit .330 with 24 home runs, including four grand slams. Covington spent the season rooming with Aaron and catcher Julie Bowers at the local YMCA. The trio of young blacks were refused rooms at a hotel in Aberdeen, South Dakota; and a promotion at an Eau Claire restaurant offering a free steak to any member of the local nine who hit a home run was abruptly canceled when it was learned that Eau Claire’s three biggest home run hitters – Aaron, Covington, and Bowers, were black.7

During the season Covington was hit in the head by a pitch and spent two weeks in Eau Claire’s Luther Hospital. He recounted his experience in Hank Aaron’s I Had A Hammer:

“I was the first black person who ever went into the hospital there. I felt like a sideshow freak. They assigned different nurses to me every day so they could all get the experience of being in my presence. Actually, I was treated very nicely. The nurses would open my mail and water the flowers for me. All but this one. One nurse, a lady who must’ve been sixty or seventy years old, had the job of putting water in my pitcher every day. This pitcher was on a tray by the door, and I’d look up and see this arm coming around the door and picking up the pitcher. Then the arm would come around and put the pitcher back. I never saw anything more than the arm. Then one day I was out of bed when she came, and I looked at her. She just froze. I said something, and she just stared at me. She poured the water very nervously, then left. I asked somebody about it later, and they said she had never seen a black person before and didn’t know what to expect. Well, one day I was close enough to the door and handed her the pitcher. Then she started to acknowledge me, like bowing her head real fast. Finally, she said something. After that we had a conversation, and by the time I left the hospital, she was sitting at the side of the bed talking to me like an old friend.”8

In 1953 Covington played in 42 games for Evansville of the Class B Three-I League before being drafted into the Army. He played for the teams at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Fort Lee, Virginia, in 1954. With his service commitment completed, Covington was assigned to Jacksonville in the Class A South Atlantic League in 1955. (Hank Aaron had done the same thing in 1953.) Some hailed Covington as “the next Hank Aaron,” but he professed to take this hype in stride. “You can’t afford to take press clippings seriously,” he said. “You have to make the club on the field, not in the newspapers, and you have to do it on your own. I’m not going to try to be another Aaron or another anybody else.”9

Playing in the Puerto Rican Winter League between the 1955 and 1956 seasons, Covington hit .319 with 12 home runs, led the league in RBIs, and tied Vic Power of the Kansas City Athletics for the lead in hits. Then it was up to the major leagues. Covington made his debut in the Milwaukee Braves’ second game of 1956. Pinch-hitting in a tie game against the Chicago Cubs, he singled home Bill Bruton with what proved to be the winning run for the Braves. The next day in St. Louis, Covington was again summoned to pinch-hit. With the Braves trailing by a run and Bruton on second, he homered to put the Braves ahead. After only two games in the major leagues, Covington had twice come up with big hits to help his team win. For the season he hit .283 with two home runs and 16 RBIs. He also began to draw notice for wasting time at the plate, and for his unorthodox batting stance. Regarding his behavior at the plate, Baseball Digest opined, “In the time it takes for Covington’s ritual of hand dusting, cap adjusting, spike cleaning and deep scowling, the Senate could hold a dozen filibusters.”10 A couple of months later, the magazine described his batting stance as “leaning backward as if in a monsoon, the bat held out straight like a housewife waiting with a mop for hubby to stick his head in the door at 4 a.m.”11

The next two seasons were banner years for Covington and the Braves. Given a chance to win the everyday left-field job in 1957, he faltered in spring training and found himself back in the minors at Triple-A Wichita when the job was given to veteran Bobby Thomson in May. Covington complained loudly that he got the runaround from the organization when he tried to found out why he was not sticking with the big club. Then in June, when the Braves sought to acquire Red Schoendienst from the San Francisco Giants to play second base, general manager John Quinn almost had to send Covington to the Giants to complete the deal. But Quinn gave up Thomson instead, and with no other options in the organization, the Braves were forced to play Covington every day.

Covington responded by hitting .287 with 21 home runs in 90 games after his return from exile. The Braves went 60-30 in the 90 games on the way to their first pennant since 1948. In the World Series, which the Braves won in seven games over the Yankees, Covington played every inning. He hit only .208 with one RBI, but made two crucial defensive plays though he was not normally known as a stellar fielder (he had more errors than assists during his career and once said; “They don’t pay outfielders for what they do with the glove.”)12

In the second inning of Game Two, with Lew Burdette pitching for the Braves and two men on base, Yankees pitcher Bobby Shantz hit a liner down the left-field line that appeared to be an extra-base hit. But Covington chased the ball down, making a backhand catch on the dead run and saved two runs.13 He added a go-ahead RBI in the fourth inning as the Braves won the game, 4-2. Covington’s catch made him so popular in town that he had to temporarily move out of his house because the phone was ringing off the hook. “I couldn’t get any sleep at home,” Covington said. “The phone kept ringing. Why, I bet I’ve got a hundred telegrams so far.”14

Covington again rescued Burdette from trouble in Game Five when he leaped above the wall in left to steal a home run from Gil McDougald. The Braves won the game, 1-0, and eventually won the Series in seven games.15

Covington faced his first major battle with injury in 1958. Playing in a spring training game in Texas, he suffered a knee injury while sliding and was sidelined until May 2. He appeared in only 90 games during the season, but was productive when he did play, hitting .330 with 24 home runs and 74 RBIs as the Braves won the pennant again. Wes started all seven games of the World Series though this time they lost to the Yankees in seven games.

In 1957 and 1958 Covington finish third on the Braves in home runs and RBIs behind Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews but he played barely more than half the number of games the two future Hall of Famers played in. In fact, in those two seasons Covington hit a home run every 13.8 at-bats, while Aaron, who won the NL home run crown in 1957, hit one out every 16.4 at-bats.16

For Covington, those two seasons were the high-water mark of his major-league career, which had eight more years to go. In 1957 and 1958 he hit more than one-third of his 128 career home runs. In 1959, though he had the most at-bats he of his career, his production declined sharply; his batting average dropped to .279 and his home run total fell to seven, from 24 in 1958. His season ended on August 20 when he tore an ankle ligament. Though manager Charlie Dressen consider him “the key to the Braves pennant hopes,”17 1960 was even worse; Covington reported to spring training “grossly out of shape”18 and still hobbled by the ankle injury. He didn’t start a game until May 4, and was benched as an everyday player in July. He struggled his way through a .249 season.

Covington’s career continued to slide. He held out before the 1961 season, and some sportswriters questioned whether he had stopped applying himself and was now more interested in tending to the cocktail bar and the rooming houses he had purchased.19 During his holdout, Covington threatened not to sign “unless certain things were written into (his) contract.” Braves general manager John McHale sneered, “.200 hitters don’t give ultimatums.”20 Clearly having overestimated his value, Covington ended his holdout on March 8. He started only five games during the first month of the season. The final confirmation of his over-inflating of his value came when he was sold to the Chicago White Sox for the $20,000 waiver price on May 10. Then, after four home runs and 15 RBIs in 22 games for the White Sox, Covington was moved again, this time to the Kansas City Athletics as part of a seven-player deal. Barely three weeks after that, Covington was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies for outfielder Bobby Del Greco, his final stop for the ’61 season and his fourth team in less than ten weeks. The Phillies had been the last team in the National League to integrate (employing its first black player, John Kennedy, only as recently as 1957), and Covington was the first African-American to realize a significant role with the team.21

Covington found a more permanent home in Philadelphia, and ended up playing more games for them than for any other team. Still, his career with the Phillies was just as volatile as his time with the Braves. He often found himself at odds with manager Gene Mauch. The main source of discord seemed to be Covington’s unhappiness with Mauch’s platoon system, in which the left-handed hitting Covington rarely played against left-handed pitching. The statistics, however, bear out Mauch’s position; Covington hit only .205 against left-handed pitchers from 1962 through 1965. Also, his defense had been made even more suspect by the injuries to his legs, and he was routinely removed in late innings for defensive purposes.

Despite his limitations, Covington was a productive player during his 4½ with the Phillies. He appeared in more than 100 games each of his four full years with the team, the only time during his career when he was healthy enough to do so. His average season was .281 with 14 home runs and 53 RBIs, and in 1963 he hit .303 with 17 home runs and 64 RBIs. Being used in a platoon also gave Covington numerous opportunities to pinch-hit, and he excelled in the role, notching 33 pinch hits as a Phillie. But the defining moment of Covington’s stay in Philadelphia was the collapse of 1964.

For the first 5½ months of the 1964 season, everything went the Phillies’ way. Sitting atop the National League standings by 6½ games with only 12 left to play, they seemed like a lock to reach their first World Series since 1950. When World Series tickets went on sale, many of the players, with the team in Houston, went shopping with their anticipated bonus money. Covington bought a rifle and brandished it in the clubhouse, saying “This is for the sportswriters.”22 However, as all baseball historians and Philadelphians know, that bonus money never came, as the Phillies went on a ten-game losing streak that turned their huge pennant lead into a second-place tie.

After the stunning end to the 1964 season, Covington spent the offseason pointing the finger for the collapse in every direction except his own, and then showed up for 1965 spring training 15 days late.23 The Philadelphia Daily News wrote, “(Covington) kept hollering and kept popping up. … Nobody wants to listen to a mean, tough grumbler when that grumbler is hitting .220. The Phillies lost the pennant, and Covington went around town all winter telling people whose fault it was, and never even mentioned Wes Covington’s name.”24 (Covington was being platooned during the disastrous ten-game losing streak and had hit .150 with no home runs, RBIs, or runs scored.)

Covington lasted one more contentious season with the Phillies. At the end of the 1965 season he asked to be released. In early January 1966 he was traded to the Chicago Cubs for Doug Clemens, and Cubs manager Leo Durocher announced his intention to play Covington every day, even against left-handed pitching.25 Despite Durocher’s pronouncements, Covington’s Cubs career lasted only nine games before he was released in early May. Shown interest from contenders in both leagues, he signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, thinking this was his best chance to win. Covington was largely used as a pinch-hitter for the Dodgers, and finally proved to be the veteran leader who was sorely missed during his time in Philadelphia. He was such a vocal supporter from the dugout that at one point Dodgers manager Walter Alston had to explain to an umpire that Covington was only trying to provide his teammates a “loud lift.” But his support wasn’t just intangible, as he reached base 10 times in 14 plate appearances during one stretch late in the season.26 The Dodgers won the pennant but were swept by the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. Covington made one appearance, striking out as a pinch hitter in Game One. It was his last appearance in the major leagues.

The man who once had said his hobbies were “hitting homers and making money” had handled his money well as a player, and had numerous business operations outside of baseball as he transitioned into post-baseball life. He owned a barbecue restaurant in Philadelphia, held real estate in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Florida, and had a business, Diamond Janitorial Services, that grew into one of Philadelphia’s largest janitorial service companies.27 However, at some point in the late 1970s, tax issues had forced Covington and his wife to Canada.28 They settled in Edmonton, Alberta, where he operated a sporting-goods store and then spent nearly 20 years working in advertising for the Edmonton Sun.29 Covington also became involved with the Triple-A Edmonton Trappers. In 2003 he returned to Milwaukee for the first time in 40 years at the invitation of the Braves Historical Society, and in 2007 he was one of 14 members of the 1957 champs to gather in Milwaukee to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Braves’ world championship.30 Covington died of cancer on July 4, 2011, in Edmonton.

This biography is included in the book “The Year of the Blue Snow: The 1964 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2013), edited by Mel Marmer and Bill Nowlin. It is also included in “Thar’s Joy in Braveland! The 1957 Milwaukee Braves” (SABR, 2014), edited by Gregory H. Wolf.

Sources

Aaron, Hank, with Wheeler, Lonnie. I Had a Hammer: The Hank Aaron Story (New York: HarperCollins, 1991)

Buege, Bob. Milwaukee Braves: A Baseball Eulogy (Milwaukee: Douglas American Sports Publications, 1988)

Caruso, Gary. The Braves Encyclopedia (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995)

Kashatus, William. September Swoon (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Stat University Press, 2005)

Moffi, Larry, and Kronstadt, Jonathan. Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers, 1947-1959. (Lincoln: Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 2006)

Poling, Jerry. A Summer Up North (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2002)

Povletich, William. Milwaukee Braves: Heroes and Heartbreak (Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2009)

Westcott, Rich, and Bilovsky, Frank. The Phillies Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2003)

The author also consulted Wes Covington’s player file from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, Baseball-Reference.com, and various issues of Baseball Digest, the Milwaukee Journal, the Philadelphia Daily News, Sport, Sports Illustrated, and The Sporting News.

Special thanks to my wife, Carrie, a librarian, for tracking down a seemingly endless list of obscure books I requested as I attempted to learn about Wes Covington’s life and career.

Notes