Eugene Walker Baker was born in Davenport, Iowa, on June 15, 1925, the eldest son of Mildred and Eugene O. Baker. He spent his childhood in the Quad Cities area, in Davenport and across the Mississippi River in Moline, Illinois, where his father at one time labored in the iron works.

Gene attended Davenport High School, where he starred in track and basketball. As there happened to be no blacks on the high-school baseball team, Gene played sandlot ball. Davenport was a perennial powerhouse in Iowa high-school basketball, which was the most popular sport in the state. Baker was a star on the basketball court. In 1943 the 17-year-old, 6-foot, 142-pound guard was named to the All-State first team by the Iowa Daily Press Association, with the following accolades: “Most improved player on this year’s Davenport cage team. Clean type of player, fouling infrequently. So alert that he caused opposing guards to foul. Best passer in the Mississippi Valley loop. Will be 18 in June and it looks like the army after that.”

After the state tournament, in which for the second consecutive year Davenport made the final four, a Waterloo coach wrote in the Waterloo Sunday Courier: “In Gene Baker, Davenport’s dusky guard, the river city boys had one of the outstanding individuals in the tournament. He was easily the best passer in the meet and his rebounding and scoring set him out as one of the better basketball players seen in this meet recently.”

As it turned out, Baker went not into the Army, but the Navy, where he played both baseball and basketball, first for the Ottumwa Naval Air Station and then for the Seahawks of the Iowa Pre-Flight School in Iowa City. In newspaper accounts of the games, Baker’s race was frequently mentioned, in keeping with the journalistic practices of the era. The Waterloo paper wrote: “Baker, the shortstop, is one of the greatest and most versatile Negro athletes developed in Iowa. Speedy, a good base runner, he also hits the agate hard.” An Associated Press report on the Seahawks basketball team referred to “Gene Baker, brilliant Davenport Negro.”

His service obligations fulfilled, Baker returned to Davenport, where he played semipro baseball. His exploits on the diamond caught the attention of the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. By this time Baker had grown one inch in height and added 28 pounds to his still slender frame. He was the Monarchs’ regular shortstop in 1948 and 1949. Early in the 1949 season the Davenport Democrat and Leader wrote: “Among the [Kansas City] stars is Gene Baker, Davenport high school graduate who sparkled as a rookie shortstop last season. In his second year Baker is set to make his bid for notice from the major league scouts. He was told last year that he would get attention after one year’s service in the Negro American League, and there are those who classed him as the second Jackie Robinson.” That may sound like hyperbole from his hometown newspaper, but the scouts were indeed paying attention.

After the season Gene returned to Davenport and played recreation-league basketball, but the spring of 1950 found him in Organized Baseball in the Chicago Cubs organization. After a few games with the Springfield Cubs in the International League, he was acquired by the Des Moines Bruins of the Western League, as the team’s first black player. At the end of June he moved up to the Los Angeles Angels of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. California newspapers reported that the 25-year-old shortstop was regarded as one of the most promising players in the Cubs’ farm system. Bobby Bragan, manager of the Angels’ chief rivals, the Hollywood Stars, said Baker was “as good a shortstop as I’ve ever seen – and that includes Pee Wee Reese.”

Baker lived up to his promise. On September 1, 1953, the Cubs purchased his contract from the Angels. It was reported that Baker was the first Negro player to ever appear on the Cubs’ official roster. A week later the Cubs purchased Ernie Banks from the Kansas City Monarchs. Both shortstops reported in Chicago on September 14; Banks became the regular shortstop, and suddenly Baker was a second baseman. He made his major-league debut on September 20, striking out as a pinch-hitter in the eighth inning of a Cubs 11-8 loss in St. Louis.

Although Baker had been hailed as the best shortstop in the Pacific Coast League, he was shunted over to second base because it was believed that as he was older and more experienced than Banks, he might be better able to adjust to a new position. Baker proceeded to give his young teammate tips on playing the shortstop position. “He certainly helped me when I came to this club,” Banks told an interviewer with United Press International. “He showed me how to study the batters and how to swing (my position) when the infield shifted. He worked with me on coming across the bag for the double play and showed how to make a short toss for it.”

Baker hit .275 in 135 games during his rookie season. Both he and Banks made The Sporting News all-rookie team. Soon newspapers ceased mentioning Baber’s race whenever his name appeared in print. Gene’s best season came in 1955, when he hit .268, led the league with 18 sacrifices, and was named to the National League All-Star team. He pinch-hit for Don Newcombe in the seventh inning and flied out. Baker was a good but sometimes erratic defensive second baseman. Three times he led NL keystone sackers in errors. In 1955 he led his cohorts in putouts, assists, errors, and total chances. On May 27 of that year his 11 putouts tied the National League record for putouts in one game by a second baseman.

On May 1, 1957, Baker was traded along with first baseman Dee Fondy to Pittsburgh for infielder Dale Long and infielder-outfielder Lee Walls. There was no way he could match the play of future Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski at second base, so Baker played mainly third base for the Pirates. On July 13, 1958, the third sacker fell on his left knee while charging a ground ball and ruptured a ligament that attaches the kneecap to the leg. Baker later said, “We were playing at St. Louis and Curt Flood hit a swinging bunt. I came in fast and must have slipped. Then there was a crack that sounded like a 30-30 rifle.” The infielder was carried off the field. The knee required surgery, and Baker was out of action for the remainder of the season. He spent rest of the year back in Davenport on crutches.

The Pirates hoped to have Baker back in 1959, but when spring came he was unable to play. Pittsburgh placed him on the 30-day disabled list in April. In May they restored him to the active list and immediately placed him on waivers for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release. But they did not cast Baker aside. They signed him as an instructional assistant for their minor-league clubs. Baker worked predominantly with minor-league players, but also helped with the analysis of minor-league clubs and scouting programs. Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh said that Baker “knows more about baseball than fellows twice his age. He’s one of the smartest I’ve ever met.” During the offseason Baker returned to Davenport, spent time with his wife and two children, sold insurance, played an occasional round of golf, and rooted for his favorite basketball team.

In January 1960 Baker began a series of exercises and tests on his injured left knee at Southern Illinois University’s Physical Education Research Laboratory in Carbondale. Impressed by the work at Carbondale, the Pirates’ general manager, Joe L. Brown, hired kinesiologists from the lab to work with Baker and to develop a training program aimed at preventing injuries to other players. “We’ve had encouraging reports on Baker,” Brown told the Associated Press in February. “We hope he can make a comeback. He’s a fine utility infielder. If he can play for us he’ll be a plus factor. But it is still too early to tell whether Gene can play. Regardless, he will remain in the Pirates organization. He’s got loads of talent in the field of scouting and instruction.” Throughout his ordeal the Pirates were compassionate, generous, and supportive of Baker—qualities not always evident in major-league clubs.

During 1960 spring training Baker went with the club to Fort Myers, Florida, as a nonroster invitee. By late March he was playing well. He was the talk of the training camp and earned a big-league contract. Manager Danny Murtaugh said he expected Baker to be the club’s number one utility infielder during the season. As it turned out there was not much need for Baker’s services and he became almost a forgotten man during the Pirates’ drive to the 1960 pennant. Second baseman Mazeroski and third baseman Don Hoak each played more than 150 games. When Dick Groat was injured, Dick Schofield capably handled the shortstop position. Rocky Nelson filled in for Dick Stuart at first base. Baker played only one game at second and seven games at third base. Otherwise, he was used mainly as a pinch-hitter and occasionally as a pinch-runner. All told, he appeared in 33 games during the season. In the World Series Baker did not play in the field, but he came up three times as a pinch-hitter and failed to make a hit.

During spring training in 1961 the club decided to keep Baker as a utility infielder and send Dick Gray to the minors. In response to a complaint that the Pirates should have kept the younger man rather than the 36-year-old Baker, general manager Brown said, “I don’t care if Gene Baker is 136 years old. We are making our plans entirely on a one-year basis.” Although Gray had looked good in spring training, Brown said, the club could not base all of its opinions on a short trial. A sportswriter accused Brown of favoritism and wrote that it proved that spring training was a waste of time and money. Actually neither Gray nor Baker played very well in 1961 or thereafter. Gray was the regular third baseman for Columbus in 1961 and accepted a utility role in 1962 before retiring from Organized Baseball without ever making it back to the majors. Baker sat on the Pirates’ bench almost all spring, getting into three games at third base and occasionally pinch-hitting. He played his last major-league game on June 10, 1961. On June 20 he was released as a player to make room for outfielder Walt Moryn, purchased from the St. Louis Cardinals.

The Pirates kept their promise that there would always be room in the organization for Baker. On the same day he was released, he was named player-manager of the Batavia Pirates of the Class D New York-Pennsylvania League. He took over a club that was floundering and led it to a third-place finish. He was the first black manager in Organized Baseball in the United States. (One source stated that Nate Moreland had managed Calexico in the Arizona-Mexico League a few years earlier, but this has not been confirmed.) Baker found Class D pitching to his liking, hitting .387 in 55 games, by far the highest average in his career. Ebony magazine, in an article about Baker’s experience in Batavia, wrote, “Since occupying his new post, Baker has learned that having to be a coach, ball player, bookkeeper, field manager, and big brother to 18 men is not a bed of roses.”

In 1962 Baker was promoted to the Columbus Jets of the Triple-A International League as a player-coach, and became the first black coach in Organized Baseball. The promotion put him once again in competition with Dick Gray for playing time at third base. Neither won the position, which was taken by Bob Bailey, the Pirates’ $175,000 bonus baby. Baker found Triple-A pitching difficult to hit and wound up with a woeful .115 batting average in 22 games.

In 1963 Baker was again back in the big leagues as a coach for Pittsburgh — the second African-American to coach in the majors behind Buck O’Neil. Sportswriter Red Smith wrote that “Baker snores like a locomotive coming over Crazy Woman Ridge.” Baker was assigned Roberto Clemente as his roommate, much to the outfielder’s chagrin. “With this coach I could not sleep at all. I keep asking them to let me sleep alone, but they say no, can’t do it. All I could do is warm up and play, warm up and play, always sleepy, no pep. One game in Milwaukee they brushed me back at the plate. To brush back a player … you can wake him up. They brushed me back and I felt good, loose. I hit .320 for the year. And now I sleep alone.”

In a game at Los Angeles on September 21, 1963, Baker made baseball history. A rhubarb ensued when a Pirates batter was retired on a close play. Pittsburgh manager Danny Murtaugh and coach Frank Oceak were ejected by an umpire after their long and loud protests of the call. Baker assumed command and became the first African-American to manage in the major leagues. Of course, he acted only briefly as manager, so his accomplishment is not listed in most record books.

Another managerial stint soon came his way when he was appointed manager of the Aguilas Cibaenas club, which represented Santiago in the Dominican Republic Winter League. Several Pirates and Columbus Jets players were on the Santiago team. Meanwhile, back in Pittsburgh, Murtaugh decided to reduce his coaching staff from six to four. Baker was dropped as a coach, and it was announced that he would manage Batavia again in 1964. After one more season in upstate New York, he became a scout for the Pirates and stayed in that role for many years. For 23 years he was the Pirates’ chief scout in the Midwest.

In 1974 Baker gave a long interview to Loren Tate of the Mount Vernon (Illinois) Register-News. “Arms and legs … that’s what I’m looking for,” the scout said. “I see as many as six teams in a day when I’m in an area where night ball is played. I watch perhaps 75 percent high schools and 25 percent colleges. Sure, I see a lot of guys who can never make it, but you have to see them all to find the great one. Guys in my business don’t worry about positions. We can’t look down the road and visualize what the big club will need three years from now. … .For the most part I’m just looking for the best players, regardless of position.” Watching a game between the University of Illinois and the University of Minnesota, Baker analyzed for the scribe the strengths and weaknesses of various players he was scouting.

Throughout his life Baker maintained his home in Davenport. His son, also named Gene, was an outstanding sprinter for Davenport Central High School from 1964 through 1966, He was one of the state’s top performers in the 100-yard dash, the quarter-mile, and the 220-yard dash. He anchored the school’s 440- and 880-yard relay teams, which were among the best in the nation. Not confining his achievements to one sport, he made the all-state football fourth team as a running back.

Eugene Walter Baker died of a heart attack on December 1, 1999, at the age of 74. He had been hospitalized at Genesis East Medical Center in Davenport for three days. He was survived by his mother, Mildred, and his wife, Janice, both of Davenport, his son, a daughter, a stepdaughter, and 12 grandchildren. He was buried in the Rock Island National Cemetery, just across the Mississippi River from his beloved hometown.

Sources

The Baseball Encyclopedia, Ninth edition. New York: Macmillan, 1993.

Clark, Dick, and Larry Lester. The Negro Leagues Book. Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 1994.

New York Times

Palmer, Pete, and Gary Gillette. The Baseball Encyclopedia. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2004.

Spatz, Lyle (editor). The SABR Baseball List & Record Book. New York: Scribner, 2007.

www.baseball-reference.com

www.newspaperarchive.com

Richard Anthony (“Dick”) Barone was born on October 13, 1932, in San Jose, California. He was the youngest of six children of Gus and Anna Barone, who operated a small grocery, Sunnyside Market. 1 Barone’s parents were born in Italy and immigrated to the United States in 1901.2 Barone’s father died at 45 when Dick Barone was 8 years old; his mother lived to the age of 94.

As a boy, Barone was obsessed with baseball: “One of my brothers pitched and was catcher and first baseman for a semipro team [that the family market sponsored] and I was the batboy and mascot,” he said. “That was where I got my love for the game. Because of the weather, we could pretty much play it year round. And we did. If there was no one around to play with, I would spend hours throwing a tennis ball against the gutter and working on my fielding.”

Barone said that when he was 12 he wanted so much to play on a recreational league team that when he couldn’t find one he organized one himself, and was its manager and starting pitcher. “I talked to a gym teacher at the middle school about how to register a team with the league,” he said. “Then when we started the season, I made up the lineups. I would hit infield to the team and then go and warm up so I could pitch the game.”

At San Jose High School, Barone played both basketball and baseball, and was an all-star in both sports.3 In 1950, when he was a senior, Barone had tryouts with the Chicago White Sox and the Pacific Coast League’s San Francisco Seals. According to Barone, Vince DiMaggio, the manager of the class D Far West League Pittsburg (California) Diamonds, offered him a contract to play the summer after he finished high school but, partly because the pay was so low ($300 a month), he turned it down for an opportunity to attend college. “That idea didn’t last long and I decided I would rather play baseball,” he said.

The next year, he had another tryout, with the Pittsburgh Pirates:

“I used to spend a lot of time playing ball at [San Jose’s] Backesto Park and I often saw [Pirates scout] Bob Fontaine there,” Barone said. “I knew he was a scout and I asked him about trying out for the team. The Korean Conflict was going on and he said that because of that a lot of teams would be folding. I told him that I understood that but I still wanted a tryout because I’d always wanted to play professional ball. He arranged for me to go to Anaheim for a tryout and the Pirates signed me to a contract for their [Class C Pioneer League] Great Falls [Montana] team.”

While the team didn’t give him a bonus to sign his contract, his manager at Great Falls, Buck Elliott, did give him a new pair of baseball spikes because, Barone said, “he thought the ones I had were too big.”

Going into his first professional season, 1951, Barone was projected to compete with teammate Don Swanson for the starting third-base job.4 His manager, Buck Elliott told a sportswriter that Barone “is a power at the plate, has a strong throwing arm and is a better than average runner.”5

Barone won the job and, despite his relatively small stature (5-feet-9, 165pounds), proved his manager correct in at least part of his assessment almost from the start: in his second professional trip to the plate, he hit a grand slam in the third inning of what turned out to be a “lopsided 14-2 victory.”6

Barone was the starting third baseman until the last few games of the season when, because of his strong arm and good range, Elliott moved him to shortstop.7 He ended the season hitting .255 with six home runs. At least one sportswriter picked him for the second team on his post-season Pioneer League All-Star team, behind the Pocatello Cardinals’ Nick Ananias who hit .318 with 18 HR.8 In retrospect, Jamie Selko in Minor League All-star Teams, 1922-1962 suggests that Barone should have been on the first team since Selko noted that Ananias played fewer than half of his games at third base, and said that Richard Barone was the best full-time third baseman in the league.9

In 1952, Barone played the full season at shortstop at Billings, Montana, also in the Pioneer League, where one of his teammates was future major-league star Dick Stuart, who led the PL in home runs that year with 31. After the season, Barone was drafted into the Army, where he spent 18 months.10 He completed his basic training at Fort Ord in California then went to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama, where he was in the military police, before ending up in special services, playing baseball for an Army team that traveled the US playing for the troops.

After Barone was discharged, the Pirates sent him to Williamsport in the Class A Eastern League for 1955, where he played shortstop alongside future Hall of Fame second baseman Bill Mazeroski and hit .264 with 9 HRs. The next year, the Pirates promoted him to New Orleans of the Double A Southern Association. Coming into the season, Barone was tagged as “a flashy 23-year-old shortstop” who had “all of the equipment of star baseball material.”11 An opposing manager from the previous year, Reading’s Jo-Jo White, rated him “the best [major-league] prospect [in the league].”12 White added, “He’s a fine fielder, good base runner, fair hitter, and probably will be playing for Pittsburgh during the coming season.”13

Barone hit .270 at New Orleans and earned a spot on the major-league roster to take spring training with the Pirates the next season. In February, Pirates manager Bobby Bragan told reporters that Barone was “ticketed for reserve duty.”14

As it turned out, after spring training the Pirates sent Barone to Columbus of the International League, where he had an injury-plagued season in 1957, breaking bones in his foot and hand. He got into only 95 games and batted .182.15 Even so, the Pirates added him to the major-league roster in September of that year, with yet another spring training invitation for 1958.16

Barone was with Salt Lake City of the Pacific Coast League for both 1958 and 1959, where his hitting was weak but fans appreciated his defensive work. Wrote Salt Lake Tribune sports editor John Mooney, “[One] of the great defensive shortstops in baseball is performing right out there in the person of little Dick Barone. Eddie Leishman [a former PCL shortstop who went on to become a minor league and then major league executive] is amazed every time Barone goes in the hole and throws out a speeding runner.. . .he says, ‘It’s worth the price of admission to see that guy field.’ “17

Barone’s play there earned him yet another shot at making the major-league roster in 1960. Reporting on the Pirates once again acquiring his contract, Mooney took another opportunity to praise Barone, saying, “Bee fans will miss little Dick Barone, the hard-throwing shortstop. . .but they will be glad to see Dick get a chance at the majors, especially after working so hard to succeed in the minors. There are those, among them Glen (Buckshot) Wright [a major-league infielder for 11 seasons], who have contended that Barone was a major-league fielder all the time. His only drawback was a light batting average. . .”18

Echoing the writer, Barone’s manager at Salt Lake City, Larry Shepard, said, “Dick Barone. . .rates with me as the best defensive shortstop out of the major leagues. . .[He will] be a fine prospect for the majors. Good hands, great arm and speed—he’s got them all.”19

In spring training that season, Barone ended up being the last player cut. “It was between me and Gene Baker for a utility infield spot and they decided to go with him because he had more experience already,” Barone said. At that point, Baker had six seasons in the major leagues, including several years as a starter and one season (1955) as an All-Star second baseman with the Chicago Cubs.

The team’s decision did not sit well with at least one fan, who wrote a letter to The Sporting News, expressing his dissent: “I was disappointed to learn the Pirates sent Dick Barone back to the minors. I protested when Frank Howard was named the top minor league over Barone last year. . .I look for Barone to be recalled soon.”20

Although he ended up at Columbus in the International League for the season, the Pirates gave Barone a major-league contract, and his $7,200 salary for the year was the highest he ever had in baseball. Despite that, by his own assessment, he “didn’t do well there at all,” He ended the season hitting .204, the worst average of his career except for the season when he broke two bones. He did, however, win a spot on the midseason All-Star team.21

It was ironic, then, that at the end of what turned out to be the worst full season of his professional career, Barone finally got the call to the Pirates that September. The team intended it to be a “paper” move, but when Dick Groat broke his wrist and the team found itself down an infielder as it closed in on its first National League pennant since 1927, Barone finally had his ticket to the major leagues. To activate him, the Pirates needed special permission from the baseball commissioner’s office since his International League season was not yet over.22

Barone got into his first major-league game on September 22 as a pinch-runner for Mickey Vernon with two on, one out in the bottom of the ninth of a 2-2 game against the Chicago Cubs at Pittsburgh’s Forbes Field. “A little earlier,” Barone said, “[Pirates Manager Danny] Murtaugh had told me to go down in the runway [beside the dugout] and warm up since I might pinch run. When I took the base, I was just thinking about breaking up a double play.” He ended up stranded on first.

The team clinched the pennant three days later. Without having had a single major-league plate appearance, Barone found himself in the middle of a celebration. “I remember being in the clubhouse in Milwaukee where, even though we lost the game, everyone was drenching everyone else with champagne,” he said. “As I remember, we got back into Pittsburgh at 2 a.m. and fans were lined up all the way from the airport to downtown.” A New York Times article about the parade from the airport estimated that 125,000 Pittsburgh natives turned up for “a torchlight parade” to cheer the Pirates players passing by in convertibles; the newspaper said it was the largest crowd in the city since the late President Franklin Roosevelt had visited in 1932.23

On the day after the celebration, Barone was in the starting lineup for a game against the Cincinnati Reds, playing shortstop and batting eighth. He wound up going hitless in five at-bats, striking out in his first at bat, against Bob Purkey. His second time up, he hit a fly ball to left that he was certain was going to fall in for his first hit. “I remember, because this was Forbes Field, I came out of the [batter’s] box thinking I would go for three but [Frank Robinson] tracked it down.”

Barone batted three more times, grounding out each time, but playing flawlessly in the field, handling five chances. He got into one more game, as a late-inning substitution at shortstop; he went 0-for-1 and made an error on a groundball.

That was the end of Barone’s brief major-league career. He was not a member of the postseason roster, but the players voted him a small World Series share that he recalls was “a few hundred dollars.” The day Bill Mazeroski’s walk-off home run won the Series was Barone’s 28th birthday. Shortly afterward the team sent him back to Salt Lake City.24

Barone played two more years in Triple-A. The Pirates traded him to the White Sox organization and he played shortstop for San Diego in 1961. Then he was traded to the Los Angeles Angels organization and played short for their Hawaii team in 1962. In his last game in Organized Ball (in Salt Lake City where he’d been such a fan favorite) Barone went 3-for-4 and drove in three runs.25

When the Angels didn’t call him up at the end of the season, Baron decided it was time to leave the game. “That [1962 season] was the last hurrah,” he said. “I’d played [10 seasons] and I was just tired of the travel. I decided it was time to move on.”

His decision was partly influenced by the fact that he had a family by then. He had married Ruth Talty in 1956 and had two sons at that point. For the first five years after baseball, he drove a milk truck for the Berkeley Farms dairy and then after that became a route salesman for a company called Langendorf Bakery in San Jose, for which he worked for 24 years until he retired at the age of 59. The Barones moved to Hollister, California, south of San Jose, in 1997, where the family began a business, selling Christmas trees and firewood.

Barone’s first wife, with whom he had two sons and two daughters, died in the early 1970s and he married Victoria Kangalos in 1976; she had two daughters. As of 2011, he had nine grandchildren and three great grandchildren. His grandson Daniel Barone spent six years in the minor leagues (2004-9), primarily with the Florida Marlins organization, and appeared in 16 games as a pitcher for Florida in 2007, six as a starter. As of 2011, he was planning to undergo Tommy John surgery and attempt a comeback.26

Last revised: September 3, 2014

This biography is included in the book “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Notes

It was the opening game of the fall classic between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Behind the pitching of Sandy Koufax, the Dodgers had take a 3-2 lead into the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium. At the end of the eighth, a note on the scoreboard said that Koufax had tied the record for the most strikeouts in a World Series game. The first two outs in the ninth were routine putouts. With only one more chance for Koufax to break the record, Bright strode to the plate to pinch-hit for pitcher Steve Hamilton. He ran the count to 2 balls and 2 strikes before swinging and missing. Koufax had his record 15th strikeout, the crowd erupted, the Dodgers won the game, and Harry Bright became a footnote in the record books. “It’s a hell of a thing,” Bright said. “I wait 17 years to get into a World Series. Then when I finally get up there, and 69,000 people are yelling—yelling for me to strike out.”1

Harry James Bright was born on September 22, 1929, in Kansas City, Missouri, the third of five children of Frank William Bright, a chauffeur, and Maude Lois (Hayward) Bright. At a very early age the youngster earned a reputation for hs baseball prowess on the playgrounds of Kansas City. When he was 16 years old, he was signed as a catching prospect by Yankees scout Bill Essick. The teenager threw and batted right-handed, stood 6 feet tall and weighed 175 pounds. (Later his frame filled out to a sturdy 190 pounds.) The minor leagues were just resuming play after a great scaled-back operation during World War II. Frank Lane, director of the Yankees farm system, said the young catcher had a good arm and was a hitter. He assigned him to the Twin Falls (Idaho) Cowboys of the Class C Pioneer League. One spring day the umpires were late for arriving for a twin bill, so the 16-year-old rookie umpired behind the plate in the opener of the doubleheader. Bright did not hit well in Idaho and was demoted to Fond du Lac in the Class D Wisconsin State League, the first of many moves he was to make during his career. In a 12-year stretch from 1046 through 1957 he played for 14 different minor league clubs.

As a Yankees farmhand Bright never lived up to his promise. By 1950 he was the property of the Chicago Cubs and was assigned to the Clovis Pioneers of the Class C West Texas-New Mexico League. In the rarified air of that semi-arid area, Harry hit his stride, leading the leasue with a sensational .413 batting average. He hit 19 home runs in 95 games and compiled a .704 slugging percentage. Two years later he was playing manager for the Janesville Cubs in the Class D Wisconsin State League. At 22 he was the youngest manager in Organized Baseball that season and the youngest ever in the Wisconsin State League. He was no longer strictly a catcher. For Janesville, he managed, caught, played third base and the outfield—and drove the team bus. Such was life in the lower minors. He led the Cubs in hitting with a .325 average and led the league with a club-record 101 runs batted in.

In 1953 Bright was acquired by the Chicago White Sox and assigned to their Memphis affiliate in the Double-A Southern Association, where he had a solid season, playing second base and hitting .295. By this time he had played every position except pitcher. In December the Detroity Tigers secured him in the Rule 5 draft for $7,500. During spring training in 1954, he played well and was given an excellent chance to win the second-base position. However, he lost out to Frank Bolling and it was back to the minors—Little Rock, Buffalo, and Sacramento. Bright had four good years with the Solons, earning him another shot at the majors. In July 1958 the Pittsburgh Pirates purchased his contract. After 12 years in the minors, Bright finally made his major-league debut at the age of 28 on July 25, 1958, coming in as a late-inning defensive replacement for third baseman Frank Thomas. For the remainder of 1958 and all of 1959, Bright was mainly a benchwarmer for the Pirates, pinch-hitting and getting into an occasion game at second base, third base, or the outfield. In the pennant-winning season of 1960, he played no games in the field, and pinch-hit only four times, getting no hits in the entire season. Not surprisingly, he was left off the World Series roster.

In December 1960 Bright was traded with pitcher Bennie Daniels and first baseman R.C. Stevens to the Washington Senators for pitcher Bobby Shantz. Playing mostly third base in 1961 and first base in 1962, Bright had his two best major league years with the Senators. In 192 he appeared in 113 games, batted .273, and hit 17 homers. After the season he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds for first baseman Rogelio Alvarez. After playing only one game for the Reds, he was purchased by the New York Yankees. For the Yanks he got into 60 games as first baseman, third baseman, outfielder, or pinch hitter. In his 17th season in professional ball he finally got in a World Series, famously striking out against Sandy Koufax in his first time at bat and repeating the act against Johnny Podres the next day in his only other World Series appearance.

In 1964 Bright played in only four games for the Yankees, spending most of the season with their Triple-A farm club in Richmond, Virginia. He was released in September before getting a chance at World Series redemption. The Chicago Cubs signed him as a free agent the following spring and he played his last major league game on June 30, 1965, before being sent to Salt Lake City in the Pacific Coast League. In 1966 the Cubs moved their PCL franchise to Tacoma, where Bright played in 83 games. After not breaking into the major leagues until he was 28 years old, Bright had spent all or part of the next eight years in the majors.

In 1967 the Cubs named Bright manager of their farm club in Quincy of the Class A Midwest League—15 years after he had first held the managerial reins in Janesville. During the next nine years, Bright managed seven clubs in six leagues. It seems he was on the move almost every year—San Antonio, Elmira, Coos Bay, Burlington, Binghamton, Sacramento, and Tucson between 1968 and 1976.

When he managed the Sacramento Solons the club was an affiliate of the Milwaukee Brewers. After the 1975 season the Brewers dropped their agreement with the Solons in order to associate themselves with the new PCL club in Spokane. Bright indicated to the United Press International that he would like to quit the Brewers organization to stay in Sacramento. El Paso Herald-Post, August 22, 1975.) However, the Texas Rangers, who took over the Solons, did not offer Bright a contract. In December he accepted a position as manager of the Tucson Toros, an affiliate of the Oakland Athletics. The Toros did not play up to the expectations that were held for them, and Bright was fired on July 30, 1976.

“I am now a scout and instructor,” Bright told sportswriter Steve Weston. “I am to do advance scouting for the big club and instruct in the spring.”2 However, the A’s, under owner Charlie Finley, were an organization in disarray in 1976, and Bright was not with them long. On December 7 United Press International reported that the Montreal Expos had hired him as a scout. Bright remained with the Expos organization the rest of his baseball career. In 1985 he had a final managerial fling with the Durham Bulls of the Carolina League, an affiliate of the Atlanta Braves.

Greg Van Dusen, who was public relations director and a radio announcer for Sacramento when Bright managed the Solons in 1975, said of Bright: “He was a colorful Runyonesque character. He had a passion for the game and for life.”3 As a manager Bright became known for his dislike of umpires. Once during a minor-league game he dropped his trousers and climbed a backstop to show his displeasure with a call. He carried his antipathy toward umpires into retirement. “I remember we were at an old-timers game and Harry saw former umpire Emmett Ashford across the lobby of the Sacramento Inn,” Van Dusen said. “The next thing you knew they were bumping midsections, and within 30 seconds they’re literally rolling around on the floor. People were laughing, but they weren’t kidding. They had to be separated.4

For many years Bright made his home in Sacramento with his wife, Agnes, and his daughter, Linda.. (He had established his residence in Sacramento, and maintained a home there even when managing in other cities.) He died of an apparent stroke in California’s capital city on March 13, 2000, at the age of 70. He was survived by Agnes, his wife of 50 years; a stepson, Larry Weaver, of Wellington, Kansas; and two grandchildren, Michael and Heather Tibke of Sacramento. Daughter Linda had died in 1996. There were no funeral services for Harry Bright.

This biography is included in the book “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Last revised: May 17, 2022 (zp)

Sources

Time Magazine

www.ancestry.com

www.baseball-reference.com.

www.newspaperarchive.com

Notes

For two decades beginning in 1955, Brown was the general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was an astute baseball man with a sharp eye for talent and he transformed the Bucs from perennial cellar-dwellers to world champions in 1960, with a second title following in 1971; additionally, he helped lay the foundation for a third championship in 1979. As Pittsburgh Tribune-Review writer Bob Cohn observed on Brown’s passing, “His father was a famous entertainer, and he succeeded a baseball legend (Branch Rickey). But Joe L. Brown ended up making his own name, putting his stamp on three Pittsburgh Pirates world championship teams during a span of 20 years.”

Joe Leroy Brown was born on September 1, 1918, in New York City. His parents were the aforementioned Joe E. Brown and the former Kathryn Frances McGraw, and he had three siblings: Don, an older brother, and Kathryn Frances and Mary Elizabeth, two adopted sisters. At Joe L.’s birth, his father was performing in vaudeville. Joe E. spent the 1920s headlining on Broadway before moving himself and his family to Hollywood and the movies at decade’s end. But in baseball circles, Joe E. primarily was recognized for his athleticism and love of the sport. In his youth, he played semipro ball — in 1911, at age 19, he even was offered a Boston Red Sox contract– and his fame allowed him to befriend big league luminaries, work out with major-league teams, and organize Hollywood studio ball clubs. Three of his Warner Bros. features — Fireman, Save My Child (1932), Elmer the Great (1933), and Alibi Ike (1935) — were baseball-oriented, and he was responsible for getting his baseball buddies roles in movies. Between 1932 and 1935, he was part-owner of the American Association Kansas City Blues, and he delighted in his ever-expanding baseball memorabilia collection.

It was in this baseball-rich atmosphere that Joe L. came of age. Given his father’s contacts, the youngster was privy to the company of baseball’s top brass. And so, in 1935, at age 16, he met the man who significantly impacted his career: Branch Rickey. The two became pals, with the legendary Mahatma serving as his mentor. The youngster also befriended ballplayers and their families, and Honus Wagner invited him to work out at the Pittsburgh Pirates training camp. Joe L.’s first priority was a career as a big-league ballplayer. But unfortunately, while trying to impress Wagner with a strong throw from the infield, he broke all the bones in his right elbow– thus ending his dream of a pro playing career. Still, according to his father, the boy’s love of the sport “developed into something near an obsession. No one ever had to ask him what he wanted to be when he grew up. It was pretty obvious that he wanted to make baseball a career.”

The younger Brown graduated from Beverly Hills High School in 1935 and enrolled at UCLA, where he played varsity football. He entered pro baseball four years later, when he became assistant business manager of the Lubbock Hubbers of the Class D West Texas-New Mexico League. Then he was named president of the Waterloo, Iowa club in the Class B Three I League. Meanwhile, the “Milestones” section in the October 7, 1940 issue of Time announced the marriage of “pretty, blonde Virginia Lee Newport, 19, of Beverly Hills, Calif.; and Joe Leroy Brown, 21, handsome son of gulf-mouthed cineclown Joe E. Brown.” The Browns eventually had two children: a daughter, Cynthia, and a son, Don.

Just over a year later, at the advent of World War II, Brown enlisted in the United States Army Air Force; he entered as a private and was mustered out a captain. After the war, he continued his baseball education working in the front offices of the Pacific Coast League Hollywood Stars and the Cleveland Indians’ Zanesville, Ohio, farm team. His Hollywood connection allowed him to secure a gig spinning publicity for The Babe Ruth Story (1948), the notoriously awful biopic.

Brown first worked in the Pittsburgh organization in 1950, when he became business manager of the Waco Pirates in the Class B Big State League, and he eventually became president of the New Orleans Pelicans in the Class AA Southern Association. He made it to the big club’s front office in 1955 and, at season’s end, signed a one-year contract as the Bucs’ general manager. The date was November 1; he replaced 73-year-old Rickey, who became the team’s board chairman.

At the time, the Bucs were a strictly second-division ball club. During the previous six seasons, they were entrenched in last place with won-lost marks of 57-96 (in 1950); 42-112 (1952); 50-104 (1953); 53-101 (1954); and 60-94 (1955). In 1951, their 64-90 mark was good for seventh place, two games ahead of the Chicago Cubs. (It was for good reason that, in On the Waterfront, the 1954 Best Picture Academy Award winner, a dockworker quips that his beat-up windbreaker is “more full of holes than the Pittsburgh infield.”) Team president John Galbreath announced that Brown “will have complete charge of the club” and, upon being hired, he pledged to get the Bucs “back in the race and into the World Series.” Brown added, “The job, of course, is a great challenge to me, but I think it is a challenge that can be met.” At 37, he was one of the youngest big league general managers.

Brown’s first priority was to hire a skipper to replace Fred Haney, who had been let go after the team’s eighth-place finish. His choice was Bobby Bragan, who led the team to an equally dismal seventh place mark in 1956; however, their 66-88 record was an improvement over their finish during recent campaigns. On November 21, Brown’s rehiring for the 1957 campaign was announced. At the time, Galbreath prophetically noted, “I hope Joe will be associated with the Pirates for many years to come.”

Midway through the following season, with the Bucs again mired in seventh place with a 36-67 record, Brown replaced Bragan with 39-year-old Danny Murtaugh, an ex-big league infielder and current Pirates third-base coach who also had managed the New Orleans Pelicans when Brown was affiliated with that team. Brown initially offered the post to Clyde Sukeforth, another Bucs coach, but was turned down. Murtaugh, meanwhile, was hired on an interim basis. The general manager told the press that Bragan had been replaced “for the good of the team, now, and in the future.”

The 1957 campaign was beyond salvaging, with the Pirates ending up in seventh place at 62-92. But Brown was pleased with Murtaugh’s managerial instincts. He rehired the skipper for 1958 and the team broke through into the first division with an 84-70 record, good enough for second place behind the 92-62 Milwaukee Braves — and a Sporting News Major League Executive of the Year prize for Brown. After backsliding to 78-76 and fourth place in 1959, the Bucs were the 1960 NL pennant winners with a 95-59 record, finishing seven games ahead of the Braves. Their seven-game triumph over the favored New York Yankees — the team’s first world championship since 1925 — was as much a victory for Brown as for Murtaugh, World Series hero Bill Mazeroski, or any other Pirate. (Murtaugh was Brown’s favored skipper. On several occasions, he temporarily left his post because of a heart ailment, but still managed the Bucs from 1957-64 and in 1967, 1970-71, and 1973-76; when not helming the team, Murtaugh toiled for Brown as an advisor-troubleshooter-super scout. In 1974, sportswriter Red Smith even quipped that Brown “suffers from the curious delusion that nobody except Danny Murtaugh can manage a team…”)

Upon Brown’s arrival in Pittsburgh, some of the pieces that shaped the 1960 champs already were in place. Pitchers Vern Law, Bob Friend, and Elroy Face joined the club in 1950, 1951, and 1953. Shortstop Dick Groat had been with the team since 1952. Outfielder Bob Skinner arrived in 1954. Second sacker Bill Mazeroski, who signed with the Pirates in 1954, debuted in 1956. Most notably, on November 22, 1954, Rickey drafted a 20-year-old flychaser named Roberto Clemente from the Brooklyn Dodgers. But Brown worked out the trades that brought the team outfielder Bill Virdon (acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals on May 17, 1956); infielder Dick Schofield (St. Louis, June 15, 1958); third-baseman Don Hoak, catcher Smokey Burgess, and pitcher Harvey Haddix (Cincinnati Reds, January 31, 1959); catcher Hal Smith (Kansas City Athletics, December 9, 1959); outfielder Gino Cimoli and pitcher Tom Cheney (St. Louis, December 21, 1959); and pitcher Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell (St. Louis, May 27, 1960).

Meanwhile, first basemen Dick Stuart, signed by the Bucs in 1951, joined the team in 1958. Fellow first sacker Rocky Nelson, an up-and-down big leaguer since 1949, was a December 1, 1958 Rule 5 draftee from the International League Toronto Maple Leafs. Brown was chided by his colleagues for his decision to draft the veteran. San Francisco Giants general manager Chub Feeney joked that Brown surely meant to draft Ricky Nelson, of Ozzie and Harriet fame. But Rocky Nelson was a valuable addition to the Bucs, hitting .300 in 200 at-bats for the 1960 club.

Not all of Brown’s deals were steals. In order to obtain Mizell, along with utility infielder-outfielder Dick Gray, he gave up a pitcher to be named later and his AAA Columbus second baseman: Julian Javier, aptly described by the general manager as “one of the most brilliant prospects in the minor leagues.” Javier later starred with the Cards. But Brown was more concerned with the present, with 1960. “I’m shooting everything for this year,” he told the press.

In mid-September, as the Pirates inched toward the NL pennant, New York Times columnist John Drebinger wryly observed, “When Brown was tapped by Galbreath to direct the Bucs, most folks outside of baseball knew him chiefly as the son of the comedian, Joe E. Brown. Since Bing Crosby, the crooner, already was a stockholder, it was generally thought young Joe was added to produce more laughs.” But then he admitted that Brown was a hardworking baseball professional, adding, “Before every game you could see him sitting behind the batting cage watching every pitch and swing.” Later on, right after the World Series clincher, Brown was interviewed in the Pirates’ jubilant clubhouse by broadcaster Bob Prince. “I think (the series) was just sheer guts against power,” he declared, “and the guts came through.”

During the rest of the decade, the Pirates fielded teams that finished as high as third place (in 1965, 1966 and, in the NL East, in 1969). One of his more controversial moves came in November, 1962, when he traded Dick Groat, the 1960 NL batting champion and Most Valuable Player as well as a Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania native, to St. Louis. Groat, destined to be the Cards’ starting shortstop on its 1964 World Series winner, was crushed– and remained angry at Brown for decades. (Actually, in December 1959, Brown considered trading Groat to the Kansas City Athletics for Roger Maris: a deal that would have drastically altered baseball history. “As soon as Danny [Murtaugh] and I closed the door [of their Miami Beach, Florida, hotel room],” the general manager admitted the following November, “we looked at each other and frowned– right away we knew we didn’t like it.” And so the trade was nixed.)

Under Brown, the Bucs’ fortunes improved during the 1970s. They consistently remained in the thick of pennant races and were first-place finishers in the NL East in 1970-72, 1974-75, and 1979; they came in second place in 1976-78; and their worst campaign was a third-place finish in 1973. Most significantly, they were world champs again in 1971. Clemente and Mazeroski remained from the 1960 team; key additions made by Brown included Dave Cash, Al Oliver, Manny Sanguillen, Richie Hebner, Bob Robertson, Steve Blass, Nelson Briles, Dock Ellis, Dave Giusti, Bruce Kison, and, most prominently, Willie Stargell.

The Pirates’ core players mostly were products of its farm system; Brown, like Rickey, believed that major league success was a direct result of employing a top-flight scouting staff and solid player-development program. Those in the know fully credited him for his team’s accomplishments. Prior to the 1971 World Series, in which the Bucs beat the Baltimore Orioles in seven games, New York Times columnist Leonard Koppett described Brown as “extremely self-effacing (and) low-key” in a profession that otherwise “attracts and rewards flamboyance.” Koppett added that Brown was a model of “the ‘new-wave’ career executives that flourished in baseball only after World War II.” He observed, “Among baseball people, the Pirate organization is considered among the best for producing outstanding young players year after year,” and he concluded, “The Pittsburgh Pirates are the creation of Joe L. Brown …”

Brown, to his credit, had a progressive view regarding minorities in baseball. He acknowledged that the Caribbean and Latin America were fertile sources of talent, and occasionally accompanied scout Howie Haak on his south-of-the-border excursions. In a September 1, 1971 game against the Philadelphia Phillies, his Pirates made history by fielding the first all-black starting nine. Brown downplayed the milestone by declaring, “Danny Murtaugh put out the best nine players.” A decade earlier, in 1961, Brown hired 36-year-old African-American infielder Gene Baker, whom he has just unconditionally released, to manage the team’s Class D Batavia, New York ball club. To Brown, this was no important thing. “(Baker) was most valuable to the Pirates organization in the past as a player, instructor and scout,” he remarked. “He is a fine gentleman with outstanding baseball knowledge and experience. We’re confident he’ll do a fine job in the managerial field.” Baker later was a player-coach on the Pirates’ AAA Columbus Jets farm club and in 1963 followed Buck O’Neil as the second African-American to coach at the major league level.

Brown also was a beloved figure among his employees. When Kay Butler, a longtime Forbes Field hotdog vendor, died in 1979, he came to the funeral home to offer his condolences. By then, Brown had been retired from the Pirates for three years; he left the team after the 1976 season and was replaced by Harding Peterson, whom he had hired to operate the Bucs’ farm system in 1967. But it was under Brown’s stewardship that several key contributors to the 1979 championship came to Pittsburgh. Stargell and Sanguillen remained from 1971; others included Dave Parker (who arrived in 1973), Jim Rooker (1973), Kent Tekulve (1974), Bill Robinson (1975), Omar Moreno (1975), and John Candelaria (1975).

Brown settled in Newport Beach, California, but maintained his Pittsburgh ties by scouting for the ball club. He remained a valued member of baseball’s inner circle. For example, in 1978, he helped devise a plan to realign the two major leagues by dividing each into three divisions. For years, he was an influential member of the Baseball Hall of Fame Veterans Committee. But his days in the Pirates front office had not ended. In May 1985, the team was mired in a headline-making drug scandal. Its on-field play was uninspired, attendance was declining, and the Galbreath family was rumored to be shopping the franchise. Old reliable Brown was called in to add some past-season glitter by becoming the team’s acting general manager. He finished out the season, was replaced by Syd Thrift, and returned to California.

A wheelchair-bound Brown made his final public appearance on June 19, 2010 at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park, during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Pirates’ 1960 championship. At the time, the Bucs — who had compiled losing records for the past 17 seasons — were more like the team he inherited in 1955. But it was a day for celebration, with Brown earning a standing ovation from the crowd. “We beat a pretty good Yankee team with (Mickey) Mantle, (Roger) Maris, (Whitey) Ford, (Yogi) Berra (in 1960),” he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “The Pirates had not won in so long that nobody remembered what it was like. Pittsburgh is a football town. But we showed it was also a baseball town.”

On this occasion, Brown was sought out by Dick Groat, who still resented being traded almost a half-century earlier. “We buried the hatchet,” Groat reported. “We had a great conversation at the reunion. I said to myself, ‘He’s 91, and I’m 79. No use carrying this grudge till one of us dies’.”

Brown indeed did pass away less than two months later, on August 15, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was suffering from an unnamed illness and recently had moved to an assisted living facility in Albuquerque near the home of daughter Cynthia. Information regarding Brown’s funeral and burial were kept private by his family.

Upon his death, Bucs players added “JLB” patches to their uniform sleeves. Brown, in addition, was tributed in the Pittsburgh media. In his Post-Gazette blog, Bob Smizek dubbed him “one of the most important sports figures in Pittsburgh history.” Steve Blass, the ex-Pirates hurler and current broadcaster, told the paper, “Yes, he built championship teams and made superb trades, but he also built a pipeline to supply that team. People don’t understand how good that farm system was.” Blass labeled Brown “the consummate GM” and added, “He was a baseball father to me…. He is living proof that not every champion wears a uniform.”

Bob Friend, a starter on the 1960 world champs, noted, “He was one of the best baseball men of his time. Joe Brown was a winner…. His mind was so sharp when he was back with us in June. I think the ovation he received from the fans was tremendous. I think he was overwhelmed by it.” Bill Virdon, another 1960 Bucs veteran, added that Brown was “sharp as a tack. He really knew his business. One of the best in the business. No doubt.”

This biography is included in the book “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Acknowledgements

For information regarding the passing of Joe L. Brown, I would like to acknowledge the following: Clifton Parker, Bill Lee, Rod Nelson, Fred Worth, and especially Tim Wiles of the National Baseball Hall of Fame & Museum.

Sources

Books

Joe E. Brown, as told to Ralph Hancock. Laughter Is a Wonderful Thing. (New York: A.S. Barnes, 1956).

Rob Edelman. Great Baseball Films. (New York: Citadel Press, 1994).

John Thorn and Pete Palmer, Michael Gershman, David Pietrusza, editors, Total Baseball, Fifth Edition. (New York: Viking, 1997).

Newspapers/Magazines

Rob Biertempfel and Cohn, Bob. “Clement’s season could be done after oblique injury.” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 4, 2010

Bob Cohn. “Joe L. Brown, who built Pirates championship teams, dead at 91.” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, August 17, 2010.

Arthur Daley. “Sports of The Times: The Mahatma Bows Out.” New York Times, October 26, 1955.

John Drebinger. “Sports of The Times: A Strange Conglomeration.” New York Times, September 15, 1960.

Joseph Durso. “3-Division Proposal for Major Leagues Facing Obstacles.” New York Times, December 8, 1978.

Robert Dvorchak. “Joe L. Brown, architect of champion Pirates teams, dies.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 16, 2010.

——. “Obituary: Joe L. Brown/Pirates GM in team’s glory days, Sept. 1, 1918-Aug. 15, 2010.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 17, 2010.

——. “Pirates ‘60 Series champs celebrate again; Clemente’s widow,

Mazeroski greeted warmly by capacity crowd.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 20, 2010

Rob Edelman. “Joe E. Brown: A Clown Prince of Baseball.” The National Pastime, Number 27, 2007.

Richard Goldstein. “Joe L. Brown, Built Pirates’ Championship Teams, Dies at 91.” New York Times, August 18, 2010.

Leonard Koppett. “Sports of The Times: The Master Builders.” New York Times, October 9, 1971.

William Nack. “Bring Back The Bucks,” Sports Illustrated, October 23, 2000.

Red Smith. “A Man’s Got a Right to Lose.” New York Times, September 25, 1974.

Bob Smizik. “Blog Roll: Pittsburgh won’t let go of 1960 Pirates.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 18, 2010.

“Baker, Negro Infielder, To Manage in Minors.” New York Times, June 20, 1961.

“BHHS Hall of Fame Member, Pirates General manager Joe L. Brown Dies at 91.” Beverly Hills Weekly, September 2-8, 2010.

“Bragan Reported Out.” New York Times, August 3, 1957.

“Bucs Drop Bragan; Murtaugh Is Pilot.” New York Times, August 4, 1957.

“Career in Minors Spans 25 Years.” New York Times, October 14, 1967.

“Milestones.” Time, October 7, 1940.

“Murtaugh to Remain Pirate Pilot in ’71.” New York Times, November 13, 1970.

“New Orleans Pilot Quits.” New York Times, September 15, 1954.

“Pirates, A’s Planned ‘Most Valuable’ Trade.” New York Times, November 18, 1960.

“Pirates Get Mizell.” New York Times, May 28, 1960.

“Pirates of old: What a time it was under Joe L. Brown.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 19, 2010.

“Pirates Rehire Brown.” New York Times, November 21, 1956.

“Sports People: Straight Talk.” New York Times, May 26, 1985.

Smoky Burgess did not possess the physique of a Greek god, nor even that of the average major leaguer. Standing in at a pudgy 5’8”, Burgess was saddled with such unflattering descriptions as “a walking laundry bag”2 and “barely fit enough to play for the Moose Lodge softball team.”3 Physical conditioning aside, nobody debates that Smoky Burgess could hit at any time, against any pitcher, in any situation.

Forrest Harrill Burgess was born on February 6, 1927 in Caroleen, North Carolina, a town in Rutherford County in the western portion of the state. Burgess was born to Lloyd Luther Burgess and Ocie Lewis Burgess. His father spent his professional life as a weaver in the textile industry, but was also a standout semipro baseball player. Varying sources offer varying explanations as to the origin of the name “Smoky”, with credit being given to the Smoky Mountains in the area of Burgess’ birth, a nickname his father had, his lack of speed on the basepaths, and the fact that he did not smoke tobacco. Whatever its source, the name stuck and he was “Smoky” to everyone except his wife Margaret, who always called him Forrest.

Burgess grew up as a fan of the Yankees and especially their catcher Bill Dickey, primarily because Smoky was able to get their games on the radio in North Carolina. He attended Tri High School in Caroleen where he played the infield and led off. His high-school coach Forrest Hunt, who had caught in the minor leagues for the Yankees, gave him a piece of advice that influenced his approach to the game for the rest of his career: You’ll never be a hitter unless you swing the bat.4 In addition to playing for the high-school team, Smoky played for the Shelby and Forest Hills American Legion teams from 1942-44. Smoky signed with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1943 but was determined to be too young by Commissioner Landis, and the deal was voided.5 A year later he accepted a contract offer from the Chicago Cubs, but Smoky later claimed that this was in large part because the Cubs were interested in signing his brother Grady.6

Signing bonus in hand, Burgess purchased a new Mercury to ride around Forest City. He stopped in Roses Dime Store and asked a few of the female employees if they’d like to go for a ride. The girls were told to get back to work by their supervisor, Margaret Head, who Smoky then approached about joining him for a ride in the car. He found out where Margaret lived and waited for her at her house after church the following Sunday. Margaret went for a ride with Smoky – for five hours – and the two were married a year and a half later.7

Burgess made his professional baseball debut with a .325 batting average for the Lockport (NY) Cubs of the Pony League as a 17-year-old in 1944. In 1945 he played in only 12 games for the Portsmouth Cubs of the Piedmont League before he joined the war effort and enlisted in the Army at Fort Bragg at the end of May. He missed the rest of the 1945 season and all but the last game in 1946 while he was away in the service. It was also in the service that two happenings took place that shaped the rest of his baseball career. The first was a single event in 1946. As a jeep driver in Germany the vehicle Burgess was driving ran off the road and rolled over three times, smashing his right, throwing, shoulder in the process. When he returned to the minors his arm was still so damaged that he could barely throw a ball back to the pitcher and he was moved from behind home plate to the outfield. Even after the arm healed enough for him to return to catching, Burgess routinely ranked among the league leaders in stolen bases allowed. The other issue for Smoky from the Army was that he entered as a lean young man and was not nearly as lean when he left. He was given an assignment as a mail clerk, which he described by saying, “I ate too much and didn’t get much exercise. I’d just hand the boys out their mail.”8

When he returned to the minor leagues fulltime, Burgess proceeded to win back-to-back batting titles, capturing the Tri-State League crown with a .387 mark for Fayetteville in 1947 and the Southern Association title with a .386 mark for Nashville in 1948. Smoky made his major-league debut for the Cubs on Opening Day in 1949, pinch hitting and making the final out against Rip Sewell in the North Siders’ 1-0 loss to the Pirates. Smoky hit a ball hard to right field, one he thought would leave the yard and tie the game, but the wind at Wrigley knocked the ball down and Dixie Walker made the catch to end the game. Burgess appeared in 46 games for the Cubs in ‘49, compiling only 60 plate appearances in very limited duty.

He returned to the minors for the entire 1950 season before coming to the majors for good in 1951. He hit .251 in 94 games for the Cubs, and after the season was traded to the Reds in a four-player deal. Two months later, before ever suiting up for Cincinnati, Burgess was traded again, this time to the Philadelphia Phillies in a seven-player swap.

To this point Burgess’ career was fairly nondescript, but one man who was happy to see Burgess join the Phils was star pitcher Robin Roberts, who sent Smoky a telegram upon the completion of the trade expressing his pleasure that he would not have to face Burgess any more.9

Burgess played three-plus seasons in Philadelphia, and during this time developed into an excellent major-league player. He hit .316 in 327 games for the Phillies and was named an All-Star in 1954 and 1955. He posted a .368 batting average in ‘54, which would have won the batting title but he did not have enough at-bats to qualify. Smoky led Phillies regulars in hitting all three full seasons he spent with the club, and the team declared him the “unofficial batting champion for 1954.”10

Any player that hits .368 over the course of a major-league season is obviously a good hitter. Smoky’s approach, dating all the way back to high school, was to go up to the plate and be aggressive. He was not particularly concerned with finding a good pitch to hit, explaining, “Any ball I can get a good part of the bat on is a good pitch to hit. Ninety percent of the hitters will get as many hits on balls as they do on strikes.”11 To Burgess, hitting was a simple, straightforward process: the pitcher threw the ball and Smoky tried to hit it. Tom Acker, a 1950s pitcher, said of Smoky, “He doesn’t care what you throw up there, just so there’s a pitch on the way. I threw to him—too high to be a strike—and he hit it out.” The great George Sisler, at the time Burgess’ hitting coach, said of Smoky, “I’ll admit he isn’t very careful. He has an amazing facility for placing the bat on the ball.”12

Smoky was known primarily as a hitter during his playing career, but his abilities behind the dish were a bit suspect. Total Baseball rates his defensive contribution to his teams as -96 fielding runs, and he routinely ranked among the league leaders in passed balls, stolen bases allowed, and errors by a catcher. Despite the numbers, Burgess was a decent fielder, but he was slow with a subpar arm after his accident in the service. Perhaps the most accurate assessment of Burgess’ defense came from Smoky himself when he opined, “I’m no Roy Campanella… But I’ll tell you one thing. I’m not as bad a catcher as most people think.”13 Whether it helped his defense or not, Burgess was also renowned in the game as a world-class heckler, with Phillies centerfielder Richie Ashburn a favorite target.

Smoky’s personality seemed befitting of a pudgy catcher. He was a simple man of simple tastes, who ran a service station back home in North Carolina in the offseason. He neither smoked nor drank and was a devout Baptist who regularly attended services, at one point inspiring his teammates to make up alternate lyrics to the song “Get Me to the Church On Time” encouraging Smoky to make sure he was OUT of church in time to help his club that day.14 His easygoing nature allowed him to slough off barbs from teammates, saying, “If they get on me, that means they’re leaving somebody else alone.”15

Seven games into the 1955 season Burgess was traded back to the Reds with two others for Andy Seminick and two other players. Seminick had originally gone to the Reds in the trade that sent Burgess to the Phillies in the first place. He spent the rest of ‘55 and all of the next three seasons in Cincinnati, hitting .290 in 395 games for the Redlegs, as they were known for a time in that era because of concerns about the connotation of “Reds” in the era of McCarthyism. He generally split catching duties with Ed Bailey, a better defender than Smoky who didn’t hit as well. While with Cincinnati, Burgess had a couple of memorable moments. In July of ‘55 against the Pirates, Smoky had the game of his life, going 4-for-6 with three home runs and nine RBIs in the Redlegs’ 16-5 win. He was behind the plate against the Braves on May 26, 1956 when three Reds pitchers combined to hold the Braves hitless for 9 ? innings before the Braves won the game in the 11th inning. Burgess’ last big moment with the Redlegs came on the next-to-last day of the 1956 season. Visiting the Cubs, Cincinnati was one home run shy of the new single-season major-league record for home runs by one team. Sent up to pinch hit in the eighth inning, Smoky was told by manager Birdie Tebbetts, “Home run or nothing.”16 Burgess dutifully complied, hitting Sam Jones’ first pitch out to tie the record.

In January of 1959, Burgess was traded again, this time to the Pirates as part of a seven-player swap. The three pieces that went to Pittsburgh – Burgess, along with Don Hoak and Harvey Haddix – were all key players in the Pirates bringing home the World Series title in the epic seven-game series against the Yankees in 1960. While the deal worked out well for the Pirates as a whole, it also rejuvenated Burgess, who added to his already-stellar set of professional accomplishments. He hit .296 in almost six full seasons for the Buccos, making the All-Star team four times. He twice hit over .300, posting a mark of .328 in 1962. Giving credence to his defense, he also posted the top fielding percentage among NL catchers in both 1960 and ‘61, joining the fielding percentage title he won in 1953 with the Phillies.

Three years to the day after he caught three Cincinnati pitchers that held the Braves without a hit for more than nine innings in a game his team lost, Smoky took the field behind the dish in support of Harvey Haddix. Haddix had a game for the ages, retiring 36 Braves in a row in 12 perfect innings before an error allowed the first runner to reach base. Milwaukee won the game later in the 13th inning.

The 1960 World Series between the Pirates and Yankees is of course remembered for Bill Mazeroski’s series winning home run in the bottom of the ninth of Game Seven. The Series was Smoky’s only playoff appearance, and he performed admirably, hitting .333 (6-18) with a double and two runs scored in five games. Interestingly, the Pirates were 4-1 in games Smoky played in the Series, and in the two games that he did not play the Pirates lost, 10-0 and 12-0. Years afterward on the speaking circuit, Burgess liked to say that his single to lead off the seventh inning of Game Seven, not Mazeroski’s home run, was the most important hit of the Series. Why? To hear Smoky tell it, “I got a hit off of Bobby Shantz. It was the tying run so (manager Danny) Murtaugh put (Joe) Christopher in to run for me… Hal Smith, who replaced me, hit the home run to tie it (in the eighth)… Now which base hit was the most important in the 1960 World Series? Maz’s? No, Maz wouldn’t have gotten up if Hal Smith hadn’t hit the three-run homer that tied it up. But how did Smith get into the game? If I hadn’t gotten the base hit off of Shantz and been a slow runner, I’d a still been catching, so which hit was the most important?”17 Smoky’s recollection was a little off, as Smith’s home run actually put the Pirates up 9-7, but the spirit of the story he told remains.

Smoky remained a regular with the Pirates until 1964 when he appeared in the field in only 44 games before the White Sox selected him off waivers in September. He spent the next three full seasons with the Pale Hose, but only appeared in the field in seven games. Instead, Smoky embraced his role as a part-time player by becoming the game’s premier pinch hitter. His 20 hits in the pinch in 1966 tied the league record set by Ed Coleman in 1936.

Taking to his full-time role in the pinch, Burgess attributed his success to hard work studying pitchers, especially how pitchers worked hitters similar to himself, as well as his aggressive mindset in the batter’s box.18 In contrast to more modern pinch hitters who hit endless balls in a cage or do hours of cardio, Smoky described his pre-at-bat routine by saying, “I didn’t do anything.”19

His role as the pinch ace for the White Sox so clearly defined, he often stayed out in the bullpen to catch pitchers until the seventh or eighth inning, knowing he would never be used earlier. As his career wound down, Smoky’s concerns away from the baseball field included his own health (he had issues with ulcers throughout his career), his family’s health (his wife had major back issues and his teenage daughter was diabetic), his outside business interests (he owned a Dodge dealership back home in North Carolina), and education (he completed coursework in Business Administration from the International Correspondence School). Outside interests aside, Burgess hit .286 and .313 in his first two full seasons with the White Sox, before slipping badly to a .133 average in 1967. He decided to hang it up after the ‘67 campaign, by now 40 years old and a grandfather. He knew it was time to move on because he pulled a muscle in his side in May and it took him all season to recover.20

Had Smoky come along only a few years later, his career likely would have been extended even further because of the advent of the designated hitter. As it is, when he retired he was the all-time major-league leader in pinch hits with 145, but has since been passed by Manny Mota in 1979, and now sits fourth behind Mota, Lenny Harris, and Mark Sweeney. He passed the former mark of 113 formerly held by Red Lucas, who had played with four teams in the 1920’s and ‘30’s. Smoky was a threat not just to get a hit in the pinch, but to knock the ball out of the park. His 16 pinch-hit home runs were good for second place on the all-time list (behind Jerry Lynch’s 18) at the time he retired, and as of 2011 he’s tied for fifth place with Gates Brown and Willie McCovey, behind Lynch, John Vander Wal, Cliff Johnson, and all-time leader Matt Stairs.

Upon leaving the playing field, Burgess ran a car dealership back home in North Carolina before joining the Atlanta Braves organization. He worked in various capacities for the Braves, serving as a scout, hitting instructor, and minor-league coach for more than a decade and helping players such as Bruce Benedict, Rafael Ramirez, and Dale Murphy reach the big leagues. He was inducted into numerous Halls of Fame, including Halls for North Carolina Sports, North Carolina American Legion Baseball, and the Cincinnati Reds. He trimmed down and participated in Old Timer’s games, saying of a ball he hit against Ryne Duren in an Old Timer’s game “I had to wait until I was retired to hit the hardest ball of my life.”21 He returned home to Forest City, keeping his uniform from the 1960 World Series, a bronzed catcher’s mitt, and the bat he used to set the pinch-hits record as his most cherished relics from a very good big-league career. He returned to Pittsburgh in 1990 for the 30-year reunion of the World Series championship team, but passed away not long after, on September 15, 1991 back home at Rutherford Hospital, before being laid to rest at Sunset Memorial Park in Spindale, NC. He was survived by his wife, Margaret, son Larry, three brothers, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Reflecting on his career some 20 years after it ended, Smoky recalled, “Everything went well, I have no regrets. I don’t know a thing I would have changed. If I hadn’t played baseball, I would have probably had to work in the cotton mills. That’s real hard work. I’m certainly glad I had baseball.”22

This biography is included in the book “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Last revised: December 26, 2022 (zp)

Acknowledgements

Thanks to David Vincent for his assistance with pinch-hit home run data.

Sources
Other than the sources cited in the notes, the author also consulted Ancestry.com, Baseball Digest, Baseball-Reference.com, and The Sporting News.

Notes

William Edwin Burwell was born on March 27, 1895, in the small town of Jarbalo, about 40 miles northwest of Kansas City in Leavenworth County, Kansas. His father, Joseph, originally from Virginia, and his mother, Ella, from Ohio, met in Kansas, married in 1885, and had three children, Frank, Ruth, and Bill, the youngest.4 His family moved to Stranger township, also in Leavenworth County, and farmed wheat and grain. At the age of 17 in 1912, Burwell matriculated at the Kansas State Agriculture College (later known as Kansas State University), where he was introduced to baseball and began to play sandlot and weekend ball. He quit college and in 1915 joined the Elgin (Illinois) Watch Makers in the inaugural season of the Class D Bi-State League. He pitched in 16 games until the league folded in early July, after which he returned to Kansas and played semipro baseball. The following spring he traveled to Topeka, about 40 miles from his hometown, and tried out for and made the Topeka Savages of the Class A Western League; and for the remainder of his life, save for his service during World War I, he was involved in baseball.

While with the Joplin Miners in 1919 (a 12-12 record in 224 innings pitched), Burwell drew the attention of the St. Louis Browns, whose scout Pat Monahan secured his purchase from the Miners and then signed him to a major-league contract for the 1920 season.5 After an impressive spring training at the Browns’ site in Taylor, Alabama, Burwell made the team as a relief pitcher. At 5-feet-11 and 175 pounds, Burwell was not an overpowering pitcher, but he had an excellent sinker and a deceptive curveball.6 His pitching motion distinguished him from other pitchers of the era; he had a side-arm to submarine delivery that was sometimes compared to that of Carl Mays.7 In his major-league debut, on May 1, he pitched a scoreless ninth inning at home against the Chicago White Sox and pitched primarily in relief all season, finishing 18 of the 33 games he pitched. In relief of 20-game winner Urban Shocker on May 12, Burwell pitched five scoreless innings for his first career win. He finished the season leading the league in relief appearances, with a 6-4 record and a respectable 3.65 ERA in 113 innings for the fourth-place Browns.

In 1921 Burwell continued his role as a relief pitcher and led the American League with 21 games finished. However, his pitches lacked the speed and movement to make him an effective major-league pitcher. He finished with a 2-4 record and his ERA ballooned to 5.12 in 84 innings. His career highlight may have been his first and only complete-game victory, on July 2, 1921, against the White Sox in one of the five games he started in his tenure with the Browns.8 At the conclusion of the 1921 season, the Browns traded Burwell to the Columbus (Ohio) Senators of the American Association for pitcher Dave Danforth.9 His move to the American Association, originally founded in 1902 as an independent league with teams located in the Midwest, proved to be a fortuitous one.

Over the course of the next ten years (1922-1931), Burwell established his reputation as “one of the greatest pitchers the American Association has seen,”10 won 170 games, regularly ranked among the league‘s top ten in wins, innings pitched, and ERA, and in 1945 was named by sportswriters to the all-time American Association All-Star team.11 After one season with Columbus, he was acquired by Indianapolis in 1923 in a trade for pitcher Harry Weaver and infielder Douglas Baird,12 and Burwell responded with an 18-21 record in a league-leading and career-high 342 innings pitched for the seventh-place Indians. The following season, Indianapolis hired as manager former Detroit Tigers shortstop Donie Bush, who had managed the Washington Senators the season before. Bush and Burwell‘s career paths stayed connected for the next two decades while Bush played a major role in Burwell‘s development as a pitcher and also influenced his decision to enter coaching.

While Bush led the Indians to three consecutive second-place finishes from 1924 through 1926, rumors swirled annually about which major-league team would sign Burwell, who won 17, a league-leading 24, and 21 games respectively while pitching in the Indians‘ West Washington Street Park, considered the largest in the American Association. Despite his nicknames, Bad Bill or Wild Bill, Burwell was neither bad nor wild. He issued few walks and was considered one of the best-fielding pitchers in the league.13 In the summer of 1925 the New York Giants pursued Burwell, but manager John McGraw ultimately purchased the contract of Burwell‘s younger teammate, Freddie Fitzsimmons, who finished with 217 wins in a 19-year major-league career.14 At the conclusion of the 1925 season, the Cincinnati Reds and manager Jack Hendricks, who had piloted the Columbus Senators and Burwell in 1923, attempted to purchase his contract from Indianapolis, but when the asking price soared over $30,000, negotiations ended.15 Praising his pitching but also casting doubt on Burwell‘s future as a major leaguer, manager Bush, Burwell‘s staunchest supporter, commented, “Burwell is smart, has courage, and mixes them up. His fastball may not be good enough for the majors, but he‘s been a big winner in the American Association.”16 Finally, in 1928, Burwell made it back to the majors, albeit for a brief time, when the Pittsburgh Pirates, managed since 1927 by none other than Donie Bush, traded pitcher Erv Brame and outfielder Adam Comorosky to Indianapolis for Burwell. With his unorthodox delivery and mangled pitching hand, Burwell was often suspected of throwing a spitter, officially banned in the major leagues since 1920. Burwell lasted just one month and four appearances for the Pirates and was returned to Indianapolis for Erv Brame in early July. At 33, Burwell‘s chance had passed. He finished his major-league career with a 9-8 record in 70 games and a 4.37 ERA in 218? innings pitched.

Burwell returned to Indianapolis and helped lead the Indians to their first division title and to their first Junior World Series championship since 1917 by beating the Rochester Red Wings of the International League five games to one. Burwell pitched a complete-game victory in the series-clinching game, giving up 10 hits; he also scored a run in the 4-3 victory.17 Noted for his durability and health, Burwell remained a regular starter for the Indians through the 1931 season, when he won 17 games and was named to the league All-Star team. After compiling 2,700 innings pitched in the previous ten years in the American Association and at the age of 37, Burwell began to slow down, though he still pitched more than 100 innings per year for the Indians over the next three seasons. With his wealth of knowledge and experience, Burwell served as a mentor and unofficial pitching coach for the young pitchers on the Indians’ staff. “Bill Burwell . . . gave me many pointers. I‘ll never forget how he worked with me. My personal opinion is that Burwell is one of the smartest pitchers in the game,” said former teammate Oral Hildebrand coming off his All-Star season with the Cleveland Indians in 1933.18

Burwell‘s managerial career began in 1934 when he took the reins as player-manager of Indianapolis’s newly formed farm club, the Fort Wayne Chiefs of the Class B Central League.19 The financial situation of many teams in the lower minor leagues during the height of the Depression was unstable, sometimes leading to sudden and drastic movement for players and coaches. When the Central League folded after just one month, Burwell returned to the parent club as a pitcher and won eight games. In 1935 he was released from his contract to pitch and manage the independent Terre Haute Tots in the Class B Three-I League. He led the team to a 57-61 record and tutored the 20-year-old whiz Dizzy Trout, but the team was not fielded for the following season. Burwell joined his old friend Donie Bush in 1936 and served as his pitching coach for the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association, who had just begun their affiliation with the Boston Red Sox. The following season, 1937, must have tested Burwell‘s commitment to managing and baseball. He signed a contract to become the manager of another new team, the St. Joseph (Missouri) Saints of the Class A Western League, but the team folded before the start of the season.20 Burwell then took over the Rock Island (Illinois) Islanders of the same league, and then they disbanded in midseason; at that point he returned to Minneapolis to serve as Bush‘s pitching coach again. At 42, Burwell also pitched, primarily in relief, and won four games.

Burwell led the Class D Crookston Pirates, an affiliate of the Minneapolis Millers, to the Northern League finals in 1938, and, at the age of 43, had a 1-3 pitching record. That was his last year pitching in Organized Baseball; he finished with a 239-206 minor-league record and 3,873 innings pitched in 601 games. In 1939 he reunited yet again with Donie Bush, who had been named manager of the Louisville Colonels, the Boston Red Sox’ new affiliate in the American Association. And when Bush was forced to relinquish his position because of illness in May, Burwell was named manager,21 guided the Colonels to the league championship, and then to the Junior World Series title when they defeated the Rochester Red Wings of the International League, four games to three. Burwell‘s reputation soared and he entertained coaching offers from major-league teams.22 Even though Bush maintained that he would resume his managerial duties in 1940, Burwell decided to remain with the Colonels and signed a contract paying him $6,000 per year which made him one of the highest paid coaches in Organized Baseball.23 Ultimately Bush stepped down and Burwell managed the Colonels for four more seasons, leading them to the Junior World Series again in 1940 and to the American Association finals in 1941.

Burwell was a patient manager who had the ability to coax maximum effort from his players. Big Jim Weaver, a former major-league pitcher who toiled for the Colonels as a 36-year old on what most thought was just an average Colonels team in 1940, remarked of Burwell, “He‘s not just the best manger, he‘s a Houdini without mirrors.”24 Players respected him for his honest approach and his fatherly concern for their welfare as players. “He‘d talk about personal habits, our drinking, and things like that,” said Johnny Pesky, who played for the Colonels and was the American Association MVP in 1941. “He told players they were only hurting themselves by not staying in their best physical shape.”25 Burwell was a quiet and selfless manager who genuinely wanted his players to succeed and gave them credit when they did. “Any success I‘ve had the players gave to me,” he said after the Colonels’ surprising 1940 season.”26

Burwell got his first taste of coaching in the big leagues when the Red Sox named him third-base coach in 1944, replacing Tom Daly. The Red Sox brass recognized Burwell‘s effect on player development, especially pitchers. “Burwell is a wonder at developing youngsters,” said Herb Pennock, the former Yankees great who was the director of the Red Sox farm system at the time.27 There was some speculation that if manager Joe Cronin, who at 38 was still draft-eligible for World War II, was drafted, then Burwell might succeed him.28 Cronin was not drafted and Burwell resigned at the end of the season, ending his working relationship with the Red Sox.

Donie Bush and Indianapolis banker Frank McKinney had purchased the Indianapolis Indians before the 1945 season. Bush invited his longtime pitcher, coach, and confidante to skipper the team. Burwell accepted and responded by leading them to consecutive second-place finishes in 1945 and 1946. This led to speculation that he‘d be offered the job of managing the Pittsburgh Pirates under their new ownership group led by Frank McKinney.29 However, Billy Herman, the former All-Star second baseman and Burwell‘s good friend, was offered the job and he invited Burwell to join his staff, which he did for the 1947 season.30

From 1947 until he officially retired in 1962, Burwell served in the Pirates organization as major-league coach, minor-league manager, roving pitching instructor, and even for one game as their manager. When Herman resigned as manager before the last game of the 1947 season, Burwell was named interim manager, and won his one and only game, 7-0, over the Cincinnati Reds. Rumors swirled that Burwell would be named the new manager in the offseason;31 however, the Pirates chose well-respected Billy Meyer, who had coached in the New York Yankees farm system since 1932, and Burwell was retained as a coach for the 1948 season. He was reassigned at the end of the season when ownership made wholesale changes to the entire Pirates system, including reducing the number of farm reams from 19 to 13.32 He was named manager of the Davenport (Iowa) Pirates in the Class B Three-I League, where he developed two 19-year-old future All-Star pitchers, Vern Law and Bob Purkey. Law said Burwell “taught me how to utilize my legs and my body more so than my arm. He helped me hold runners on by developing a quick throw to first.”33 After beginning 1950 as a roving instructor, Burwell replaced Hugh Luby in midseason as manager of the New Orleans Pelicans in the Double-A Southern Association, where he continued tutoring Law and Purkey as well as future Pirates All-Star outfielder Frank Thomas.

Upon being named general manager of the Pirates after the 1950 campaign, Branch Rickey turned his attention to the Bucs’ minor-league system and stressed player development. He promoted Burwell to “player overseer” of the entire farm system, which allowed Burwell to work with all of the Pirates minor-league teams and to scout the nation for talent.34 With his reputation as a master teacher, Burwell participated in Pirates rookie camps, including the first fall rookie camp in major-league history, in 1951, as well as spring training.35 At the age of 60 in 1955, Burwell was named manager of the Lincoln Chiefs in the Class A Western League, the last time he piloted a team. When Rickey resigned after the 1955 season, Burwell resumed his role as player overseer, scout, and managerial consultant under new general manager Joe L. Brown.

Burwell rejoined the parent club to start the 1958 season when Danny Murtaugh, in his first full season as manager of the Pirates, assembled his new coaching staff and named Burwell pitching coach, a position he held until his retirement in 1962. During Burwell‘s tenure with the Pirates, the pitching staff coalesced and served as one of the Pirates’ strengths. In his first year as pitching coach, the Pirates enjoyed their best season since 1944 and Burwell‘s effect on the pitching staff deserved credit. Vern Law won 14, his career high to that point, and credited Burwell for his success via a change in pitching mechanics. Bob Friend won a career-high 22 games, which led the National League. Ronnie Kline responded with 13 wins, and the team ranked second in the National League in ERA at 3.56. “Bill picks out mistakes in a hurry, but he doesn‘t make a fuss about them – out loud,” said Murtaugh. “One of his real assets is his patience with young pitchers. He doesn‘t try to make any radical change in their style . . . but you‘ll note that a kid breaking in who doesn‘t have a change-up starts working on one.”36

In 1960 Burwell experienced the pinnacle of team success when the Pirates won the World Series. Despite giving up 55 runs to the Yankees in seven games, the pitching staff had pitched solidly all year. “Bill has done a tremendous job with the pitching staff, especially with the youngster boys,” wrote Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports editor Al Abrams.37 Law won the Cy Young Award, Friend won 18 games, and the staff finished third in the league in ERA, only .09 of a run behind the league-leading Los Angeles Dodgers. Burwell‘s importance to the team couldn’t be reduced to just his role as a pitching coach. Throughout his career as a manager and coach, batters as well as pitchers praised him for instilling confidence in their game. Roberto Clemente singled out Burwell and hitting instructor George Sisler as the reason for his success in 1960 and especially in 1961, when he won his first National League batting title, “They helped me all season by giving me encouragement. They kept telling me I could hit for high average.”38

At the age of 67, the quiet, studious, and mild-mannered Burwell retired after the 1962 season during which the Pirates staff had led the National League in ERA. He settled with his wife, Virginia, with whom he had no children, in the Daytona, Florida, area where they had lived in the offseason for three decades. One year after Virginia died in 1964, Burwell married Kappy Dudley, the widow of former Louisville Colonels president and general manager Bruce Dudley, with whom Burwell had stayed in touch since the early 1940s.

During his official retirement from baseball, Burwell continued to work closely with the Pirates staff and their pitching prospects in the minor leagues and also served as a scout. His passion for pitching never waned after retirement. He helped develop Bob Veale into an All-Star and spent the early part of the 1967, 1968, and 1969 seasons with the Gastonia Pirates of the Class A Western Carolinas League, where he assisted manager Don Leppert and then Frank Oceak with pitcher development.39

Not just a baseball player, manager, and coach, Burwell was a Renaissance man. He had an excellent tenor voice, enjoyed singing, and composed his own music. On June 11, 1973, Bill Burwell died of a heart attack at the age of 78. He was buried next to Virginia at the Daytona Memorial Park in Daytona Beach, Florida.

This biography is included in the book “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Sources

Statistics are from Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

David Cicotello and Angelo J. Louisa, eds., Forbes Field. Essays and Memories of the Pirates Historic Ballpark, 1909-1971 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2007).

Rick Cushing. 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates Day by Day: A Special Season, An Extraordinary World Series. (Pittsburgh: Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc., 2010).

David Finoli and Bill Ranier, eds., The Pittsburgh Pirates Encyclopedia (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, 2003).

Dick Groat. The World Champion Pittsburgh Pirates. (New York: Coward-McCann, 1961).

David Maraniss. Clemente: The Pride and Passion of Baseball’s Last Hero. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).

Richard Peterson, ed., The Pirates Reader (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003).

Jim Reisler. The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs. Yankees October 13, 1960. (Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2007).

Notes

Tom Cheney was a proud and humble man, a true Southern gentleman, stubborn, strong-willed, a man’s man who loved outdoor life, farming, hunting, and fishing. A country boy to the core, he was far more comfortable in the confines of a duck blind than under the lights of a big city. His teammates good-naturedly called him Skins or Skinhead because of his premature baldness, but family and friends back home knew him by his full first name, Thomas.

The Pittsburgh Pirates obtained Cheney, a minor-league pitcher at the time, from the St. Louis Cardinals on December 21, 1959, along with outfielder Gino Cimoli, in exchange for pitcher Ronnie Kline. After his recall from Columbus in midseason 1960, the Georgia native compiled a 2-2 record in 11 games, starting eight of them, and earned a spot on the World Series roster. Tom pitched three games in relief in the fall classic, posting a 4.50 ERA in four innings while striking out six.

Cheney’s stay in Pittsburgh was brief. After just one game with the Pirates in 1961, he was demoted to the minors and later traded to the Washington Senators. The hard-throwing right-hander blossomed into one of the American League’s most effective starters in 1962 and 1963, albeit amid the obscurity of pitching for a last-place club.

On September 12, 1962, Cheney stunned the baseball world and established a major-league single-game strikeout record, fanning 21 Baltimore Orioles in a 16-inning complete game in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. “For that one night,” Senators broadcaster Dan Daniels proclaimed years later, “he was as fine a pitcher as I ever have seen.”²

Cheney opened the 1963 season as the hottest pitcher in baseball. But just as he appeared to be on the verge of stardom and big paychecks, the 28-year-old was dealt a devastating blow. In the sixth inning of a game against the Orioles in July, he threw a pitch that tore up his elbow. He labored through just 63 more major-league innings before calling it quits in 1966. This cruel and sudden twist of fate ended a promising career, and the forgotten record-holder returned to Georgia to a life outside of baseball until his death in 2001.

Thomas Edgar Cheney, III was born on October 14, 1934, near Morgan, Georgia, about 200 miles south of Atlanta. Parents Ed (Thomas Edgar Cheney II) and Perk (maiden name Ollie Geneva Perkins) had inherited a parcel of the vast acreage owned by the first Thomas Edgar Cheney. Their peanut and dairy farm was one of the more prosperous in Calhoun County. Mr. Ed and Miss Perk appreciated the finer things in life, and exuded sophistication uncommon to the area. According to Cheney’s close friend Ted Jones, the well-furnished family home featured stained hardwood floors and Persian rugs, an unusual elegance. Mr. Ed drove a sharp automobile, and Miss Perk outfitted Thomas in the most beautiful store-bought shirts, not the plain-sewn homemade clothing worn by most farm kids.³ Nonetheless, Thomas and his younger brother, Charles, experienced the rigors of farm life growing up. “I remember my Daddy telling me that he would have to get up early in the morning and light the fires and get things going before his parents got up,” recalled Terri Cook, Cheney’s elder daughter.⁴

Thomas pitched and played shortstop in American Legion and high-school baseball. After graduation, he enrolled in nearby Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College, a two-year institution at that time, with the idea of becoming a veterinarian. He helped lead the Stallions to the state junior-college championship in 1952.⁵ Only 18 years old, he stood 5-feet-11 but weighed a scrawny 150 pounds. Still, he was impressive enough to interest major-league scouts. The mound prospect traveled to Atlanta to audition with the Boston Braves before accepting a $1,500 bonus from scout Mercer Harris to join the St. Louis Cardinals’ Class D affiliate in Albany, Georgia, close to home.⁶

Moving up to Class C Fresno in 1954, the 19-year-old won 12 games and struck out 207 California League batters in 203 innings. He also met Jackie Bennett, a 16-year-old beautician school student, at a burger drive-in. That summer, a romance flourished, and Jackie was heartbroken when Tom went home to Georgia at the end of the season. Immediately after her 18th birthday on May 29, 1955, the lovestruck young lady drove by herself from California to the Cheney farm near Morgan. Tom was pitching for nearby Class A Columbus at the time. On June 9 the young couple exchanged vows in the family living room.⁷

Cheney matriculated steadily through the abundant St. Louis farm system. The newlywed had a good season at Columbus in 1955, and excelled at Triple-A Omaha in 1956 and 1957, where he was among league leaders in ERA and voted to the American Association All-Star team both years. His stellar performance earned him an invitation to the Cardinals spring-training camp in 1957, and St. Louis skipper Fred Hutchinson named him to the club’s Opening Day roster.⁸ Cheney hurled four shutout innings in his big-league debut, but wildness overcame him in subsequent games. After walking 15 batters in just nine innings, the rookie was optioned back to Omaha.

“At the time, I could throw hard but my control was off and on, like it would be my entire career,” Cheney told author Danny Peary.⁹ He threw mostly fastballs, but also had a good curve, and learned how to throw a knuckleball from Cardinals teammate and future Hall of Fame pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm. Later, Cheney added a slider and screwball to his pitching repertoire. “I’ll throw a screwball to left-handed hitters, but it’s more of a change than a real scroojie,” he said.¹⁰ One pitch he tried to learn in Pittsburgh but could not master was Elroy Face’s forkball.

Cheney would have returned to the Cardinals as a September call-up, but was drafted into military service. He reported to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, on September 10, 1957, for basic training. From there, Cheney was assigned to Fort McPherson, Georgia, and helped lead the base team to its fourth straight 3rd Army championship in 1958.¹¹ On April 27, 1959, Jackie gave birth to the couple’s first child, daughter Terri Lynn. A month and a half later, the new father was mustered out of the Army. He rejoined the Cardinals on June 16, but struggled to regain his control. In 11²/₃ innings he surrendered 17 hits and 11 bases on balls, and was demoted back to Omaha.

The Cardinals sent Cheney to Havana, Cuba, to play winter ball. “My wife and 8-month-old daughter came with me,” he recalled. “We got $350 a month in expenses to go along with my $1,500-a-month salary. It was a life of luxury. We had a nice home, with a maid from the Virgin Islands, and had access to the yacht club and country club. We played just four games a week.”¹² It was in Cuba that the young hurler learned he had been traded to the Pirates along with Gino Cimoli for Ronnie Kline.

Pittsburgh faithful scratched their heads, wondering why general manager Joe L. Brown would swap Kline, a durable starter, for Cimoli, a fourth outfielder they seemingly didn’t need, and Cheney, a raw and wild hurler totally unimpressive in two abbreviated stints with the Cardinals. As spring training of 1960 unfolded, sportswriter Arthur Daley of the New York Times concluded that Bing Devine had shrewdly pilfered the clueless Brown and pulled off an epic heist, proclaiming that “this trade may be the biggest steal since the Brinks robbery.”¹³ Brown countered at a press luncheon at Forbes Field that “the Pirates can win the pennant – if they want to” and that “Cheney may surprise.”¹⁴ As it turned out, both Cimoli and Cheney contributed to Pittsburgh’s pennant-winning season while Kline was a major disappointment in St. Louis.

Cheney began 1960 in Triple-A Columbus, Ohio. After two months, his record stood at just 4-8, but he had regained his control and was leading the International League in strikeouts.¹⁵ The Pirates recalled him on June 28. The balding right-hander notched his first major-league win on July 6 at Cincinati, and his first big-league shutout on July 17, a four-hitter against the Reds at Forbes Field. Cheney stayed with the Pirates the remainder of the season, appearing in 11 games as a spot starter and reliever. He finished with a 2-2 record and 3.98 earned-run average in 52 innings pitched. In the 1960 World Series Cheney saw action in the three blowout victories by the Yankees. In four innings of work he struck out six batters, including Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle. But he also surrendered the triple to Bobby Richardson that broke open Game Six for the Bronx Bombers.

“When I got to Pittsburgh, I discovered I wasn’t just on a great team but got to play with a great bunch of guys,” Cheney reminisced. “It wasn’t cliquish at all. … Any 5 to 10 of us would go out together after games. Stars and non-stars, it didn’t matter. I was in only 11 games, 8 as a starter. Yet this team was so tight that I was voted a full World Series share. They accepted me.”¹⁶

Although the 1960 season ended on a promising note for Cheney, 1961 proved to be excruciating painful. He made the Pirates’ 28-man Opening Day roster but pitched poorly in his first relief appearance, in Los Angeles on April 16. Failing to record an out, he surrendered five runs on four walks, an error, and a home run by light-hitting catcher Norm Sherry. With the May 10 deadline looming to reduce the major-league roster to 25 players, Tom received a shocking phone call from home – father Ed Cheney had died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 52.

Tom flew home to Morgan to help his widowed mother and brother, and then called general manager Joe Brown. “It was approaching the cutdown date for rosters, and I knew it was between me and pitcher George Witt to go,” he recalled. According to Cheney, Brown gave his word that he would be retained. Upon his return to Pittsburgh, however, Brown informed him that he was being sent down to Columbus. “I cursed him terribly, calling him everything a man can be called. I could have handled the truth, but don’t lie to me. That was the worst thing that ever happened to me in baseball,” Cheney fumed. “I never forgave Brown. I told him that ‘the best thing you can do for me is to get me out of this whole organization, because I’ll never play for you again.’”¹⁷

“He was very tender and loving,” Terri noted, illuminating her father’s code of ethics, “but he was also a very firm man. He was the kind of man that you don’t need anything in writing, you just do what you say you’re going to do. That’s pretty much how life was down in South Georgia anyway – you’re honorable; you do what you’re supposed to do.”

Brown granted Cheney his wish on June 29, 1961, swapping him to the expansion Washington Senators for veteran pitcher Tom Sturdivant. The trade reunited Cheney with former Pirates coach Mickey Vernon, now the Senators manager. But misfortune continued to dog the right-hander. A ribcage injury sidelined him for six weeks. Overall in 1961, he walked 30 batters in 29 2/3 innings and surrendered nine home runs, including number 54 to Roger Maris, who broke Babe Ruth’s single-season home-run record that year.

Coming into spring training with the Senators in 1962, Cheney’s career major-league pitching log was ugly. Of 20 starts, he had failed to pitch past the fourth inning in 14, and he averaged nearly eight walks per nine innings. But manager Vernon had faith that Cheney would come around, and he did. He began the 1962 season in the bullpen, but joined the Nats’ starting rotation in mid-May. By the end of the year Cheney had pitched 173¹/₃ innings, hurled three shutouts, and posted an ERA of 3.17, seventh best in the American League. His control improved and he struck out 147. He was second in the American League in strikeouts per nine innings, and held right-handed batters to a measly .188 batting average.

On September 12, 1962, Cheney hurled a 16-inning complete-game 2-1 victory in which he struck out 21 batters, more than any other major-league pitcher before or since. As a reward for his record-breaking performance, Senators president Pete Quesada gave Cheney a $1,000 bonus. “They had cut my salary a thousand dollars after the 1961 season,” Cheney reasoned, “so I didn’t consider it a bonus but just getting back what they owed me.”¹⁸

Cheney began the 1963 season on fire. Armed with a nasty repertoire of pitches – a crackling fastball, tumbling curve, slider, screwball, and knuckler – and aided by a rule change that expanded the strike zone, Cheney posted four straight complete-game victories and surrendered only one earned run for a 0.25 ERA.¹⁹ By the All-Star break, he sported an 8-9 record with four shutouts, a 2.88 ERA, and an excellent WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) of just 1.04 for a woeful Senators team that was 30-56 and last in the league in batting, pitching, and fielding. “Cheney acquired the last thing he needed to be a sensational pitcher – control,” observed rival manager Bill Rigney of the Los Angeles Angels.²⁰

Cheney also seemed to have conquered another nemesis – extreme nervousness. “It was a tough life being a ballplayer,” confided the moundsman years later. “You were always under pressure even if you weren’t in a pennant race. You never forgot that if you didn’t do the job, there was someone in the minors who was waiting for you to fail or be injured.”²¹ Reserve infielder Dick Schofield was a good friend of Cheney’s dating back to their days in the Cardinals farm system. “Skinhead had a great arm and threw a great curve,” Schofield recalled, “but when he came to Pittsburgh he was still trying to stick in the majors. He was always nervous. He’d light one cigarette right after another.”²² Senators coach Rollie Hemsley felt Cheney was mishandled in 1962. “They should have helped Cheney to forget that he is a nervous pitcher, instead of reminding him of it.”²³ Good friend Ted Jones speculated that Tom’s rural upbringing contributed to his anxiety. “I think he felt pressure coming from where we all came from and the backgrounds that we had. Thomas was not a big-crowd guy. He was kind of shy. I think that he felt the pressure of the crowd and the fans and the big league players.”

Cheney appeared to be ascending to the pitching elite in 1963 when, working on yet another shutout on July 11, he suddenly felt something snap in his elbow. “I threw a pitch and it felt like someone had a knife and ripped me down the forearm,” he recalled.²⁴ Cheney pitched just five more games that year, totaling nine innings. In his final start of the season, on August 26, he faced just five batters before his sore elbow forced him out of the game.²⁵ The diagnosis was an elbow strain, further defined as epicondylitis, or “tennis elbow” in layman’s terms. The only prescription was rest and physical therapy.

The following spring, given a clean bill of health by the Senators’ club physician, Dr. George Resta, Cheney opened the 1964 season in the Nats’ starting rotation. Gil Hodges had replaced Vernon as manager the previous midseason, and Cheney didn’t get along with his new boss. “I wasn’t his favorite person and he wasn’t mine,” the right-hander conceded.²⁶ Winless in four starts, Cheney was demoted to the bullpen. “I kept trying to pitch but couldn’t take the pain for more than four or five innings. By that time my elbow would start swelling. I could have gone up to three innings without much trouble, but Hodges said that he wanted me to start.”²⁷ Cheney pitched in short relief for nearly a month, but was called upon by Hodges on June 9 to start the second game of a doubleheader against the Kansas City Athletics. The tough hurler battled through pain to earn a 5-1 complete-game win. “He kept me out there much too long,” Cheney said decades later. “I stayed out there throwing until tears were coming out of my eyes. Afterward I was sitting in front of my locker. Hodges walked by and said, ‘Thataway to go.’ I said, ‘Yeah, you son of a bitch, that was the last game I’ll ever pitch.’ ”²⁸ The victory was the 19th and last of Cheney’s abbreviated career. He made one more mound appearance, five days later, and then was sent to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. The injured pitcher was ordered to take nine months to a year off to give his torn elbow muscles time to heal. Cheney missed all of the 1965 season and attempted a comeback in 1966, but after three games was demoted to the minors and ended his career ingloriously in Double-A York of the Eastern League. At about the same time, on July 20, 1966, Cheney’s life took on added responsibility; Jackie gave birth to their second daughter, Lacie Ann.

“It was hard to accept,” the mothballed pitcher, just 31 years old at the time, said years later. “I had an exceptionally good start in 1963. It’s hard to go out and redo your life. It’s hard to leave something you really love. There was a big cut in salary for one thing.”²⁹ The premature end to his baseball career proved to be exceedingly difficult for Cheney. “What you have to understand is that his life was taken away from him,” daughter Terri reasoned. Her father returned to Morgan to help out on the family farm, but succumbed to the demons of alcohol abuse. To protect their daughters, Jackie filed for divorce in 1969. She remarried in 1971. Tom also remarried, and divorced, twice during the ensuing two decades.

In 1987, at Terri’s wedding, Tom and Jackie reconnected, and two years later, the first Mrs. Cheney also became the fourth. “When they got married a second time, there was such peace between the two of them,” said Terri of her parents. “She always told me, from the very first time she met him, her stomach would just flutter and that she still felt that way every time she looked at him, even when they were divorced.”

A heavy smoker nearly his whole life, Tom eventually suffered from emphysema. He finally quit smoking, as did Jackie. Over the years, Tom and his brother Charles bought a fertilizer plant, and then got into the propane-gas business. When he sold his share of the company, Tom stayed on as one of their delivery-truck drivers. He finally retired when he couldn’t fill out the paperwork anymore. It was the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease, which had also afflicted his mother, Miss Perk. The disease finally took the life of Thomas Edgar Cheney, III on November 1, 2001. Ten weeks later, Jackie Cheney died from melanoma cancer.

On the surface, Tom Cheney’s career pitching line is mediocre at best. His 19-29 won-loss record is unimpressive. Yet of his 19 wins, eight were shutouts. When Cheney was on his game and healthy, he was dominant. Such was the case on the evening of September 12, 1962, when the determined young right-hander struck out 21 batters in a single major-league game.

Only 4,098 fans showed up at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore that Wednesday night to witness the game between two second-division ballclubs. The 27-year-old Cheney felt good warming up, and was staked to a 1-0 lead early. He recorded his first strikeout in the second inning, and struck out the side in the third and fifth. The Orioles finally broke through, however, to tie the score in the seventh. After nine innings, Cheney had recorded 13 strikeouts, but the futile Senators had managed only four hits and the game stood even at 1-1. Cheney continued to carry the team on his back. After 11 innings he had chalked up 17 strikeouts but the game remained tied.

By the 12th inning, manager Vernon wanted to take Tom out, but he insisted on staying in. “I said I wanted to win or lose it,” Cheney recalled. “He never mentioned my coming out again.”³⁰ It was not the first time the determined right-hander had gone deep into extra innings. In an American Association playoff game in 1959, for example, he pitched into the 12th inning against Minneapolis before losing 3-2.³¹

With one out in the bottom of the 14th, Cheney chalked up victim number 18, and over the Memorial Stadium public-address system it was announced that he had tied the modern major-league record, held by Sandy Koufax, Warren Spahn, Bob Feller, and Jack Coombs. “I was surprised. I thought it was more like 13 or 14,” Cheney said after the game.³² Distracted, he threw two pitches high to the next batter, pitching adversary and former outfielder Dick Hall, then regained his composure to fan Hall for his 19th strikeout and a new modern record.

Cheney racked up his 20th strikeout in the 15th inning, breaking the all-time record set by Charlie Sweeney and Hugh Daily in 1884, when rules were much different. But it was getting late. Baltimore’s curfew law prohibited any inning from starting after midnight.³³ It became apparent that the 16th inning would be the contest’s last – win, lose or tie. Fortunately for the Senators, first baseman Bud Zipfel hit what would become the last home run of his short major-league career. Cheney took the mound in the bottom of the 16th inning with a one-run lead and yielded a one-out single. Incredibly, it was the first Oriole hit Cheney had allowed since the eighth inning! He retired Jackie Brandt on a fly to center, and then faced the dangerous Dick Williams, a .419 pinch-hitter that season. With the game on the line and 11:59 p.m. on the clock, Cheney caught the future Hall of Fame manager looking for his 21st strikeout and a hard-earned 2-1 victory.

Cheney threw 228 pitches that night, fueled by adrenaline and chain-smoking between innings. “That game he must have gone through three packs of cigarettes,” recalled teammate Chuck Hinton.³⁴ “I sat down in the locker room afterward,” Cheney reflected, “and in 15 minutes I was exhausted. The tension had worn off. I didn’t realize I was that tired.”³⁵ Teammate Don Lock remembered the drive back to Washington after the game, when Cheney began suffering muscle cramps. “Legs, stomach, back, and arms,” recalled Lock. “In all honesty, he should have been on a sugar IV drip.”³⁶

Batterymate Ken Retzer described what it was like catching Cheney that game. “That curveball of his looked like it was falling off the table. Tom was getting a lot of the hitters out with screwballs, too, and he came in with his knuckler now and then and was getting it over.” Baltimore hitters were duly impressed. “He had great stuff,” vouched Russ Snyder, a three-time strikeout victim. “I never saw a better curveball.”³⁷ “He showed me the greatest stuff I’ve seen from any pitcher,” said future Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson.³⁸ Jackie Brandt felt that Cheney was more formidable than Sandy Koufax, whom he had faced in the left-hander’s 18-strikeout game in 1959: “Koufax wasn’t that sharp. I don’t think Sandy would have struck out 21 in 18 innings. Cheney’s curveball was falling out of the sky.”³⁹

The record-setting masterpiece thrown by Cheney on September 12, 1962, is impressive, but rarely mentioned. The shy, reclusive record-holder returned to Baltimore at the Orioles’ invitation in 1992 to mark the game’s 30th anniversary, and attended only a few autograph sessions over the years.⁴⁰ His last public appearance was at a Washington Senators reunion on February 26, 2000. By that time, Alzheimer’s was beginning to take its toll.

Throughout the years, Tom Cheney was always humble about his strikeout record, never one to indulge in self-promotion. He always felt that he was merely doing his job. The fact that it took 16 innings for Cheney to set the record has worked against him, invalidating the achievement in many of baseball’s record books.

“Well, I’m very proud of him,” exuded Cheney’s daughter Terri. “It’s a record that hasn’t been broken. Other people can say anything they want, but nobody has broken it yet. When I think back on him, I think about his determination. And, yeah, he had some issues and stumbles along the way. But the man he was and the determination he had – to do something like that – I’m very proud of it, proud of him. In my eyes, he’s just a great man.”

This biography is included in the book “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Sources

Interviews with Terri Cook, November 6, 2011, and Ted Jones, January 14, 2012. The author is deeply grateful for their time and recollections.

Baseball Digest, May 1974 and April 1986

Google archives

Peary, Danny, We Played the Game (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2002).

New York Times

Washington Post

The Sporting News, 1956-1966.

www.baseball-reference.com

www.retrosheet.org

Notes

1. Danny Peary, We Played the Game (New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2002), 556.

2. Carl Lundquist, “Dapper Dan Labels White Seat Symbol of New Traditions,” The Sporting News, August 27, 1966, 16

3. Interview with lifelong friend Ted Jones, January 14, 2012. All subsequent quotes from Mr. Jones are taken from this interview.

4. Interview with daughter Terri Lynn Cheney Cook, November 6, 2011. All subsequent quotes from Ms. Cook are taken from this interview.

5. Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College website (www.abac.edu). In 2008 Cheney was named to the college’s Athletics Hall of Fame inaugural class.

6. Peary, 181.

7. Bill Turque, “Q: Which Washington Senators pitcher set the all-time record for strikeouts in a single game?”, Washington Post Magazine, June 22, 2008, 19.

8. Bob Broeg, “Kid Cheney Climbs in Card Hill Ratings as Mizell Tumbles,” The Sporting News, April 17, 1957, 23.

9. Peary, 356.

10. Bob Addie, “Ex-Bucs Cheney, Leppert Fill Bill in Capital,” The Sporting News, April 27, 1963, 9.

11. “Cheney, Owens – Stars in Army Title Tourneys,” The Sporting News, September 24, 1958, 45.

12. Peary, 429.

13. Arthur Daley, “An Unexpected Gift,” New York Times, March 25, 1960, 32.

14. Les Biederman, “Pirates Can Win by Showing They Want To – Brown,” The Sporting News, January 20, 1960, 9.

15. The Sporting News, July 6, 1960, 37.

16. Peary, 473. It is noted that this contradicts the November 2, 1960, edition of The Sporting News, in which it was reported that Cheney had been voted a half-share.

17. Peary, 509.

18. Robert C. Gallagher, “Tom Cheney: He Fanned 21 Batters in a Single Game!”, Baseball Digest, April 1986, 91.

19. Had it not been for an unearned run surrendered in the second game, Cheney would have thrown 32¹/₃ scoreless innings to start the 1963 season, an American League record. The major-league record as of 2012 was 39, set by Brad Ziegler for the 2008 Oakland A’s.

20. Shirley Povich, “Nat Fans Flip Over Cheney, Ace Chucker,” The Sporting News, May 4, 1963, 20.

21. Peary, 577.

22. Peary, 471.

23. Shirley Povich, “Hemsley Tosses Barb at Nats for Mound Strategy,” The Sporting News, December 1, 1962, 25.

24. Peary, 582.

25. Adding insult to injury, daughter Terri was struck by a foul ball in the stands and required first aid. The Sporting News, September 7, 1963, 16.

26. Peary, 582.

27. Peary, 583.

28. Peary, 614.

29. Gallagher, 93. Cheney’s highest salary in baseball was approximately $15,000.

30. Peary, 555.

31. The Sporting News, September 23, 1959, 44.

32. Emil Rothe, “When Tom Cheney Fanned 21 Batters,” Baseball Digest, May 1974, 77.

33. Turque, 28.

34. Gallagher, 92.

35. Ibid.

36. Turque, 28.

37. Bob Addie, “Cheney Spins Whiff Magic With Crackling Curve Ball,” The Sporting News, September 22, 1962, 25.

38. Shirley Povich, “Nats May Offer King Slab Stars for Big Socker, The Sporting News, September 29, 1962, 7.

39. Bob Addie, “Tom Cheney’s Curve Was ‘Falling Off a Table,’ ” Washington Post, September 14, 1963, D7.

40. An impostor would occasionally show up at autograph events and claim to be Cheney. The family learned of this shortly before Cheney’s death, but chose not to pursue criminal charges.

In 1959, Christopher became the first man actually born in the Virgin Islands to reach the top level since Negro Leaguer Alphonso Gerard. One must, however, be aware that Valmy Thomas, also from St. Croix, made his big-league debut in 1957. Thomas was born on Puerto Rican soil, but only because his mother sought a better hospital — newborn Valmy was immediately brought home. 

US fans mainly remember Christopher today as one of the original Amazin’ Mets, but the outfielder, whose pictures most often show him grinning calmly, started his big-league career as a backup for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Fleet afoot, “Hurryin’ Joe” (as announcer Bob Prince dubbed him) was often used as a pinch-runner. In the 1960 World Series, he appeared in three games and scored twice. In addition to his small role with the 1960 world champs, Christopher won several more titles in his second home, Puerto Rico, plus two more as a playoff reinforcement in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

* * *

Joseph O’Neal Christopher was born in Frederiksted, St. Croix, on December 13, 1935. His father, Patrick Christopher, was an overseer on a mango and cane plantation in Estate Oxford, part of the “rainforest” section in the northwest corner of St. Croix. His mother, Sarah Richards Christopher, had five other children. There were two brothers, Patrick and Alfred, and two sisters, Elizabeth and Agnes. (Another brother, Augustus, died in infancy.) Joe was the baby of the family, born to Sarah in her 40s.

Baseball was once the most popular sport in the Virgin Islands. Four other major leaguers of the 1960s and ’70s also grew up around Frederiksted, which had a population of 2,000 when Christopher was young. Pitcher Julio Navarro, who was born on the nearby Puerto Rican island of Vieques but moved to St. Croix at the age of seven, was about a couple of years older than Joe. Elmo Plaskett, who used to wake Joe up to play sandlot ball when both were young boys, was born in 1938. Horace Clarke and José Morales came along in 1940 and 1944, respectively.

Christopher played high-school ball at St. Patrick’s, a parochial school in Frederiksted. An Irish Catholic priest named Mullin was a driving force behind the program. Joe also became the shortstop for a local team called the Annaly Athletics. This club was sponsored by Frits Lawaetz, a member of one of the old Danish families on St. Croix, which along with St. Thomas and St. John was owned by Denmark until 1917.

Historically, the Catholic Church planted strong roots in the islands under the Danes. In fact, Joe said that his middle name came from a nun called Mother Ermin. “When I was born, she asked to hold me, and she told my mother that I looked like her brother — except I was black! So I got her family name, O’Neal.” He also joked that another priest, Father Caskey, “always told me to tell the truth. And that’s gotten me in more trouble during my life than anything else!”

On Sunday mornings the young ballplayers of Frederiksted would go out and do their own groundskeeping, using a handmade roller that weighed at least 200 pounds. They played in the afternoons after resting from their labor and sat around talking baseball past midnight.

At the age of 18 in 1954, Joe was at the crux of Virgin Islands baseball history. A man from St. Thomas named Fernando Corneiro made a connection with the National Baseball Congress (NBC) tournament in Wichita, Kansas. Christopher recalled Corneiro as “one of the most influential men in the islands. He had the ability to get things done, to put things together. If he had never accomplished what he set out to do, I would not be heard of today.”

The Christiansted Commandos, with Joe at shortstop, journeyed 3,129 miles to Wichita. The squad also featured Joe’s brother Alfred at catcher, Julio Navarro, and 16-year-old Elmo Plaskett. The Commandos lost two games after getting a bye, but Joe Christopher caught the eye of Pirates superscout Howie Haak. After he signed Joe, the Virgin Islands became part of Haak’s itinerary. He later signed Plaskett and Al McBean for the Bucs.

As Christopher remembered, though, it wasn’t that easy for Haak. “He was offering $150 a month plus a $200 bonus, and I told him I could work in the post office for $600 a month.” But Joe did join the Pirates, where he encountered general manager Branch Rickey, “an old man in a Panama hat giving lectures. Everybody was falling asleep — except Joe Christopher.” According to Joe, Branch took a liking to the neophyte and passed on thoughts about scouting systems and the process that led to the signing of Jackie Robinson.

In the winter of 1954-55, Joe gained his first pro experience, in the Puerto Rican Winter League. As it did for many of his fellow Virgin Islanders, this league proved to be an invaluable apprenticeship. Christopher’s first manager in the US, Jerry Gardner, switched him to the outfield in 1955. With the Mexico City Tigers (a.k.a. the Blues) in 1957, he led that Double-A league in stolen bases, swiping 24 in just 64 games. Joe earned promotion to Triple-A in 1958. He batted .327 with 8 homers, 58 RBIs, and 16 steals for the Salt Lake City Bees. In addition, he led the Puerto Rican Winter League in steals for the first time during the winter of 1958-59, while hitting .318. The Sporting News described him as “a flashing Pepper Martin type who steals bases head first and will take an extra sack at the drop of an enemy outfielder’s eyelash.”1

Christopher was ready for the majors. He was a backup outfielder with the Pirates from 1959 through 1961. He was first called up when Roberto Clemente was injured, making his debut in nothing less than Harvey Haddix’s masterpiece of 12 perfect innings at Milwaukee’s County Stadium on May 26, 1959. Joe Adcock’s game-ending hit in the 13th inning went over the wall in right-center. “Christopher, who was playing right field at the time, remembered talk that the taller Clemente would have been able to reach Adcock’s shot. He dismissed this, saying, ‘It was high over the fence. I don’t think even [Clemente] could have gotten that ball.’”2

However, Joe appeared in just five games before getting hurt himself. Charging in from the terrace at old Crosley Field in Cincinnati, he turned a somersault as he picked off Wally Post’s sinking liner. He was sure he had broken the thumb on his glove hand – and when trainer Doc Jorgensen and manager Danny Murtaugh ran out to tend to their player in pain, they found to their annoyance that Doc’s medical bag was filled with ham and cheese sandwiches! The prankster was Pirates coach Jimmy Dykes, still into mischief at age 62.3

After later injuring his ankle as he hit first base, Christopher returned to Columbus. Manager Cal Ermer greeted him, “Joe, I hate to see you . . . but I’m glad to see you!” That is, Ermer wished that Christopher could have stayed with the big club, but even so, he was happy to use him on his squad.

Christopher, like fellow Virgin Islanders McBean, Plaskett, and Clarke, met his wife while playing in Puerto Rico. He and Ana Solares were married on December 20, 1959. He then returned to the team with which he would earn his World Series title.

With the 1960 champs, Joe was a role player (61 plate appearances, .232 in 50 games). He came north with the Pirates in April but was barely used over the first several weeks of the season. He was sent down to Salt Lake City to see regular action, but the Pirates recalled him in early June, and he stayed on their roster the rest of the year. On August 7 Joe hit his first big-league homer, a three-run smash off San Francisco’s Billy O’Dell at Forbes Field.

During the World Series, he pinch-hit or pinch-ran in three games, scoring two runs. Joe decided not to wear his championship ring. This was a show of solidarity with Clemente, his road roommate and friend from Puerto Rico. Roberto was upset with his embarrassingly low eighth-place finish in the MVP voting that year.4

Joe pointed to the goodness of the late Hall of Famer, especially where sick and underprivileged children were concerned. In a characteristic comment, he said, “I really enjoyed the man and appreciated what he had to deal with. Because deep in his heart he was a very, very sensitive, very caring individual. He was always wanting to give other people respect. Clemente, to me, was one of the nicest people I ever met.”5

Joe also recalled how he, Roberto, Román Mejías, and Gene Baker — two other Pirates of African descent – hung together during spring training in the segregated Florida of those days. The men endured having to wait on the bus as sandwiches were brought out to them, since they could not join their teammates inside restaurants. They roomed in a private home in Fort Myers, Florida, home of the Bucs’ camp. Christopher said that as they watched old movies on TV, Clemente formed the idea of what he would eventually do for the youth of Puerto Rico from the Spencer Tracy film Boys Town.

Joe L. Brown, who succeeded Branch Rickey as the Pirates’ general manager in 1955, recalled that Christopher “could run like the dickens, was a good outfielder, and a decent hitter.” But the Pirates did not regard him as a regular, giving him just 186 at-bats in 76 games in 1961. So Joe got his chance to start in the majors with Casey Stengel’s comical crew. He was the Mets’ fifth pick in the expansion draft, costing them $75,000.

Still, it took two more seasons before Christopher emerged as a regular. In 1962 he spent April and most of May at Triple-A Syracuse. The prevalent memory of Joe that year is the oft-told “Yo La Tengo” story: The bilingual Caribbean taught center fielder Richie Ashburn how to say “I got it” in Spanish for the benefit of shortstop Elio Chacón – but Richie was then flattened by left fielder Frank Thomas.

Joe started 69 times in 119 games, playing behind Thomas, Ashburn, and Jim Hickman. He was part of a championship team with the Mayagüez Indios in 1962-63, and won the third of his four stolen-base titles in the Puerto Rican Winter League. But again in 1963, he did not make the Mets out of spring training. He played most of the season at Triple-A Buffalo, and once he was recalled in July, he put up quiet numbers.

But in 1964, Christopher enjoyed easily his finest season as a major-leaguer – still the best by any batter from the Virgin Islands – hitting .300 with 16 homers and 76 RBIs. He had a career-best day on August 19, with two triples, a double, and a homer in an 8-6 win over the Pirates. The credit went to a little 50-cent pamphlet by Hall of Famer Paul Waner. “I saw the ad for the book in The Sporting News and sent away for it. . . . Waner once talked to me in ’61 and helped me a lot.”6

Christopher did not sustain his hitting form in ’65. An injured finger set him back in spring training, and the organization was high on rookie Ron Swoboda. Joe was traded to Boston for Eddie Bressoud after that season, and he played briefly in ’66 for the Red Sox, going 1-for-13 in 12 games. He was dealt with pitcher Earl Wilson to Detroit, but his big-league career had come to an end – he never played for the Tigers. His final totals in the majors were 29 homers, 173 RBIs, and a .260 average in 638 games across eight seasons. He stole 29 bases and was caught stealing 19 times. Right field was his main position; he appeared 278 times there and 154 times in left. His 52 games in center field may have been what colored Christopher’s reputation as an unsteady fielder.

In 1966 he played for the Syracuse Chiefs, Detroit’s affiliate. Joe’s marriage to Ana ended in divorce that year, not long after he was sold by Syracuse to the Richmond Braves (for whom it does not appear he played). Their three daughters continued to live in Puerto Rico. Christopher stayed active in the minors through 1968. He returned to the Pirates organization the next year, but after playing briefly with Columbus, he joined the Tulsa Oilers, a Cardinals farm club. St. Louis wanted to send him down to Double-A after the 1967 season, so Christopher asked for his release. Then at the urging of a friend, AP writer Joe Reichler, he wrote to all the major-league clubs, hoping to benefit from forthcoming expansion. Paul “The Pope” Owens of the Phillies extended an offer, albeit also at Double-A Reading.

Joe also continued to play in Puerto Rico through the 1968-69 season. He held out in the 1964-65 season and also sat out 1966-67, but was part of two more champion teams in 1967-68 and 1968-69. Christopher finished his Puerto Rican Winter League career with 37 home runs, 240 RBIs, a .264 average, and 125 stolen bases in 13 seasons. But he still wasn’t quite through as a player. In the spring of 1972, at the age of 36, he made a ten-game comeback in Mexico.

After leaving the field, Joe continued to live in New York for some years. Among other things, he worked for an ad agency named Promotions Colorful, holding a vice presidency. In the early ’90s, he was married once again. Joe and Karen Matthews Christopher had a daughter named Kameahle. As of 2011, they lived in the Baltimore area.

A big part of Joe always wanted to be a coach. He used to hold forth like a martial arts sensei, talking about hitting to anyone who will listen. He discussed hitting with the innermost elite – Ted Williams, Rogers Hornsby (a ’62 Mets coach), and George Sisler (a special instructor with the Pirates – who first met Joe while serving as US high commissioner at the NBC tournament in 1954).

Yet his consuming passion became art, particularly drawing, in a pre-Columbian style, from which he gained patience and concentration. An individual thinker, he enjoyed debate, and his mental and verbal agility made conversation a test. He developed a broad store of sometimes baffling esoteric knowledge, ranging from Egyptology to numerology. Joe became a great believer in the significance of birthdates, but his insight into human nature prevents you from dismissing it as bunk. In his mid-60s, he said he could still run the 60-yard dash nearly as fast as ever, and who knows, maybe that was because of his focus on the links between body, mind, and spirit. Said Joe in 1999:

“The whole process of nature, it’s there, but the Western world don’t want to give heed to anything. You’re talking about greed. You talk about the Tao, they spell it today D-O-W.”

Postscript

Joe Christoper died at his home in Maryland, where he had been receiving hospice care, on October 3, 2023. He was 87. In an e-mail to the SABR BioProject on October 4, Lynn Tobia – Joe’s nurse for the final five-plus years of his life – honored his memory as follows:

“I can say with all honesty that Mr. Joe was one of the kindest, most pleasant men that I have ever met. Up until his last, he never complained about anything. As he lay in his hospice bed, you didn’t know if he was in pain or not, because he always had a smile on his face, and always stuck out his hand offering a warm handshake to welcome you. He will truly be missed.”

This biography originally appeared on the website “Baseball in the Virgin Islands,” from which it was adapted. It is also included in the book “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Most recent updates: October 4 and 5, 2023.

Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment to Joe Christopher for additional personal memories over the years (most recently by telephone on July 3 and October 19, 2007).

Sources

The National Baseball Congress of America, 1955 Official Baseball Annual

Private database of José A. Crescioni, the late SABR member who compiled statistics for the Puerto Rican Winter League.

Professional Baseball Players Database V6.0

Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano

www.baseball-reference.com

www.retrosheet.org

www.ultimatemets.com

Notes

That was Gino Cimoli’s comment after Game Seven of the 1960 World Series, won in dramatic fashion by the Pittsburgh Pirates when Bill Mazeroski’s home run fell over the ivy in left field, as outfielder Yogi Berra of the New York Yankees could only watch.

Cimoli came to the Pirates in a trade before the 1960 season and, although not a star, played an important role as the team marched to its first pennant since 1927 and its first world championship since 1925.

Gino Anichletto Cimoli was born on December 18, 1929, and grew up in the predominantly Italian-American North Beach section of San Francisco. When he was young, the middle name was changed to Nicholas. He was an only child, and he was the center of his parents’ lives. Gino’s father, Abramo, was a night supervisor for Pacific Gas & Electric and his mother, Stella, worked for the Chase & Sanborn coffee company. Abramo did a bit of everything. He was also a shrimp and crab fisherman and had a sideline making wine. Young Gino would sometimes show up at school with purple feet.1

Gino graduated from Galileo High School in January 1948. Known primarily for his basketball and track exploits in high school, he did not play baseball for his school until his senior year. His baseball success was astounding. In his one year of high-school ball he hit .607. After that he appeared in the Hearst Sandlot Classic at New York’s Polo Grounds on August 13, 1947, and played left field for the US All-Stars alongside future major leaguers like Moose Skowron (right field) and Dick Groat (second base). The US team defeated the New York team, 13-2. Cimoli went 1-for-2, stealing a base and scoring a run. On the basketball court, he was named the most valuable player in the California North-South game on February 3, 1948, when he led the North team to a 60-44 victory, scoring 15 points. He was offered a basketball scholarship by the University of San Francisco but passed it up, figuring he was too small at 6-feet-1 to make a career out of basketball. Meanwhile, in the summers of 1947 and 1948, he played baseball for the Portola Merchants team in San Francisco.

Late in 1948 scouts Joe Devine of the Yankees and Howie Haak of the Brooklyn Dodgers sought to sign Cimoli. Devine was speaking with Cimoli’s mother, and Haak worked on his father. As Haak recounted it, he spent the better part of four days drinking Ancient Age bourbon with Abramo from 8:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Abramo would then work the late shift for PG&E, until midnight. Usually after he got home there were scouts waiting. Finally Haak went into the Cimoli house at 3:00 A.M. and asked Abramo, “Who wears the pants in this family?” In short order, Abramo woke up Stella and Gino, and Cimoli signed with the Dodgers for $15,000.2

Cimoli headed for Nashua in the Class B New England League with his new bride, Irene Zinn, who was expecting their first child. The league started the 1948 season with eight clubs. Nashua was in first place in July when the league was forced to condense to four clubs. On July 3 Cimoli was hitting .370 with six triples. With the league in financial trouble, Dodgers boss Branch Rickey began to reassign his top prospects. Cimoli was sent to Triple-A Montreal. In his sixth game with the Royals, he crashed into a wall, injured his knee, and saw limited action, mostly as a pinch-hitter, in the team’s remaining games, batting .231 in 15 games. The Dodgers exposed him in the annual major-league draft but there were no takers. In 1950, playing in 85 games for Montreal, Cimoli hit .275. He spent most of 1951 with the Dodgers’ Double-A affiliate in Fort Worth, where he hit .262 and tied for the league lead in triples with 12. (A speedster, Cimoli hit more triples than home runs in both the majors and the minors.) On May 10, 1951, he threw out two baserunners in one inning.

Cimoli began the 1952 season with Montreal, but after playing in six games he was sent to the St. Paul Saints, the Dodgers’ other Triple-A team, for whom he hit .319 in 142 games. He was invited to spring training with the big-league club in 1953, but was not deemed ready, and it was back to St. Paul, where his average fell to .262. He began the 1954 season back with St. Paul, then was sent to Montreal in May. Manager Max Macon let the frustrated Cimoli pitch in two games. In the first he pitched three perfect innings, but in his second appearance on the hill, he faced five batters, walking the first three, hitting the fourth, and giving up a triple to the fifth. That put an end to his pitching career. Meanwhile his hitting came around and he hit for a .306 average.

After a good spring in 1955, Gino once again found himself in Montreal, as the Dodgers decided on Sandy Amoros as their left fielder. (Duke Snider and Carl Furillo were locked into center and right.) By that time, Cimoli had gotten the unenviable tag of Lackadaisical Latin.3

En route to Montreal from San Francisco, Cimoli’s wife and two daughters were in a bad automobile accident in Rawlins, Wyoming, when their car collided with a bus. Gino left Montreal on May 12 to join his family. When Cimoli was able to rejoin the Royals, he came back a changed man. He returned to the lineup on May 20, and delivered a home run and a double in a 6-2 win over Toronto.4 Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi was full of praise, saying of Cimoli, “He’s really hustling, and he can just about cover the whole outfield by himself.” 5 Cimoli hit .306 for Montreal in 1955, and hopes were high for 1956. But once again he was fighting for a roster position and playing time with Amoros, who had made a game-saving catch to help secure the Dodgers’ World Series win in 1955, and Cimoli could no longer be optioned out by the Dodgers. After a good spring, he finally made it to the Dodgers along with 19-year-old pitcher Don Drysdale.

Cimoli’s season was disappointing. He got into only 73 games, often as a defensive replacement. He had just 36 at-bats, getting four hits and a walk. His major-league debut came in the team’s second game, a 5-4 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on April 19. The game was played in Jersey City, and Gino entered the game with one out in the tenth inning as a defensive replacement for Junior Gilliam in left field. He got his first hit on April 23 in a 6-1 win over the Phillies in Philadelphia. He had gone in as a defensive replacement for leftfielder Gilliam. In the ninth inning Cimoli singled off the Phillies’ Duane Pillette, driving in Carl Furillo. In May Cimoli played some in right field when Carl Furillo was benched. He had his first extra-base hit, a double, off Warren Hacker in a win over the Cubs on May 8. Once Furillo returned to the lineup, Cimoli was used most often as a defensive replacement. His last hit of the year came on July 4.

In the World Series, against the Yankees, Cimoli had one appearance, going into Game Two as a defensive replacement in the Dodgers’ 13-8 victory. He never got to bat.

After the season Cimoli went on the Dodgers’ tour of Japan. He had not played much in 1956, and his play on the basepaths and in the field had been erratic. Manager Walter Alston felt it might be the time to give him the chance to play regularly. In one game, he scored from second base on a sacrifice fly. That evening, catcher Roy Campanella took Cimoli aside for a chat and told him he had all the tools, but that his attitude had to change. His words, “Stop popping off, stay out of trouble, and play,” were taken to heart by Cimoli, and when spring training came in 1957, Cimoli was ready to turn his career around.6 Indeed, Jackie Robinson said of Cimoli, “Gino (in 1956) seemed more interested in bridge than in baseball. Last year, Gino seemed to be the last man out on the ballfield. This year he’s the first.” 7 And sure enough, 1957 was a breakout year. Walter Alston found a place in the outfield for Cimoli. Sandy Amoros started less than 60 games in leftfield, and Junior Gilliam became the everyday second baseman, opening up leftfield for Cimoli. If he wasn’t stationed in Leftfield, he would spell Duke Snider in Center or Carl Furillo in right. He hit his first major-league home run on Opening Day, April 16, in Philadelphia, victimizing future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts with a game-winning blast in the 12th inning as the Dodgers won 7-6. It was his third hit in six at-bats.

Cimoli’s second home run, this time in the 14th inning against the Milwaukee Braves on May 6, gave Sandy Koufax, who was pitching in relief, his first victory of the season. It was Cimoli’s best game in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform. He had five hits and scored three of the five Dodger runs. In the bottom of the 12th he helped prolong the game after the Braves had taken a 4-3 lead in the top of the inning. In the Dodger half of the inning, with two outs, Cimoli doubled and scored on a bad hop base hit by Furillo.

Cimoli’s average was.314 after the July 4 doubleheader, and he was named to the National League All-Star team by manager Alston. He pinch-hit in the eighth inning and struck out against Billy Pierce.

The Dodgers began the second half of the season in fifth place. On July 12 they moved into fourth place in the closely-bunched standings. Cimoli drove in two runs with a triple as the Dodgers defeated Cincinnati, 3-1. On the 20th he drove in two runs with a double as the Dodgers defeated Chicago, 7-5. By the end of July, the Dodgers were in third place, with four games separating the top five clubs. Cimoli’s average had dipped below .300, but he was still making his presence felt. But in August the Braves created some distance between themselves and the rest of the pack. By mid-September, the Dodgers had been effectively eliminated.

When it came down to the last home game, on September 24, the Dodgers planned to move to Los Angeles, and all that was left were the memories. That night, as if it mattered, the Dodgers beat the Pirates, 2-0. Only 6,702 fans were in attendance. Cimoli scored the final Ebbets Field run after reaching on an infield hit. Cimoli finished tied for third in the league with seven game-winning hits. He had 10 home runs, 57 RBIs, and a career-best .293 batting average.

In 1958, their first season in Los Angeles, the Dodgers played in the Los Angeles Coliseum. The Coliseum was essentially a football stadium and as they set it up for baseball, the left-field fence was only 250 feet from home plate. With their right-handed lineup, the Dodgers figured to do well. After breaking camp in Vero Beach, Florida, the Dodgers headed west. They played an exhibition against the Cubs in Mesa, Arizona, on April 11. In the first inning, Cimoli slid into third base just ahead of the throw from the right fielder. A photographer had taken a picture and asked the third-base coach, Charlie Dressen, the name of the player. Dressen said “Cimoli.” The signal for the squeeze play was for the coach to shout out the player’s name. Once again, the photographer asked Dressen the name of the player, and this time Dressen yelled, even more loudly, “Cimoli.” On the next pitch, with Gil Hodges at the plate, Gino charged for home and was, of course, tagged out. Oops! 8

On April 15 the Dodgers opened their season against the Giants in San Francisco before 23,448 fans (including a large contingent from North Beach rooting for Gino, the hometown kid). Manager Alston inserted Cimoli into the leadoff spot. When he stepped up to the plate in the first inning against Ruben Gomez, he became the first batter for the Dodgers in California. In that first plate appearance, he fouled off the first pitch and eventually struck out. In his last at-bat, he singled, but the Giants won the game, 8-0.

In the second game of the series Cimoli was beaned by Giants pitcher Paul Giel. The scene was so horrifying that Gino’s father rushed onto the field, and helped carry his son to the clubhouse.9 But Cimoli was determined not to miss any action and he connected for his first West Coast home run in the third game. But the Dodgers, beset by age and injuries, skidded to a seventh-place finish. Cimoli’s season was disappointing. Due in part to injury and in part to differences with Alston, he had only played in 109 of his team’s 154 games and batted .246. After the season he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for outfielder Wally Moon and pitcher Phil Paine. Manager Solly Hemus put Cimoli in center field, and he did not disappoint. He exploded out of the gate and in early May was batting.349 with a team-leading 12 doubles, as well as three home runs and 15 RBIs for the last-place Cardinals. He was fined $100 for his role in a brawl on June 7 that was touched off when he charged the mound after a brushback pitch from the Phillies’ Don Cardwell. Through June 21 Cimoli was hitting .322 and had a league-leading 28 doubles. A doubleheader sweep on June 28 moved the Cardinals to within four games of .500. In the second game of the twin bill he drove in five runs with two triples and a double. On July 24 he was leading the league with 35 two-baggers. But he faded and finished the season with a .279 batting average with 40 doubles, fourth in the league, and a career-high 72 RBIs

At the end of the season Cimoli was traded to Pittsburgh with pitcher Tom Cheney for Pitcher Ronnie Kline. The Pirates had rarely been in contention over the prior three decades, reaching an all-time low in 1952 (42 victories, 112 defeats). But they had built themselves a solid core, and manager Danny Murtaugh was confident that his team would improve on the prior year’s fourth-place finish. He had quality pitching in Vernon Law, Bob Friend, and Harvey Haddix. His infield was solid with Dick Stuart, Bill Mazeroski, Dick Groat, and Don Hoak.

Outfielders Bob Skinner, Bill Virdon, and Roberto Clemente were back, but the Pirates had no serious power threat in spacious Forbes Field. The acquisition of Cimoli did not address that shortcoming. During the offseason, Kansas City had offered Roger Maris to the Bucs, but Murtaugh was reluctant to give Groat in return.10

Cimoli showed enough in spring training that Manager Danny Murtaugh chose to platoon Cimoli and Bill Virdon in center field. Cimoli was the Opening Day center fielder against the Braves in Milwaukee against the great southpaw Warren Spahn. Two days later, in the Bucs’ home opener, he went 1-for-4 with a key double that drove in two runs in a six-run fifth inning as the Pirates cruised to a 13-0 win. The team got off to a fast start and won 13 of its first 18 games. The team had a blend of veteran clutch performers, including Cimoli, and a bench that included Rocky Nelson, Hal Smith, Dick Schofield, and Bob Oldis, enough for them to make a serious run at the pennant. Players like Cimoli and Oldis kept the team loose with their undying sense of humor and flare for pranks.11

On May 30 Cimoli singled, doubled, and tripled in a win over the Braves to bring the team’s record to 26-14, good enough for a half-game lead over the Giants. On June 15 the Bucs pushed the lead to three games, defeating the Giants 14-6. Cimoli had two hits, including a double, and scored three runs in the win. After defeating Cincinnati on July 7, the Bucs had a four game winning streak and led the league by 5½ games. Cimoli’s batting average was at .303. They went into the All-Star break with 49 victories. After the All-Star Game, Cimoli saw less playing time. He was slumping at the plate, and Bill Virdon caught fire. He played in right field for six games in early August after Roberto Clemente hurt himself making a spectacular catch on a ball hit by Willie Mays on the 5th. On the 6th Cimoli broke out of a 6-for-40 slump, getting three hits, including a single that ignited a three-run tenth-inning rally as the Bucs won, 8-7. The next day, after a doubleheader sweep of the Giants, the Pirates’ lead was 5½ games. In the sweep, Cimoli tripled in each game.

On a mid-August plane trip to Cincinnati, Cimoli threw a pillow and soon the entire team was involved. Then things calmed down and the card games and storytelling began. The team had won 14 of 18 and led the league by 7½ games. On September 25 the Pirates lost at Milwaukee. Cimoli looked at the somber scene in the clubhouse and said, “Somebody dead?” He knew quite well that the Pittsburgh had clinched the pennant. St. Louis had been eliminated, losing to Chicago. So Cimoli, having been on a pennant winner in 1956 with the Dodgers, was quick to begin the celebration. He created one of the more memorable images when he took the hat of Pittsburgh Press sportswriter Les Biederman, doused it with champagne and wore the hat, inside out, for the bulk of the celebration, even wearing it in the shower. 12

Playing in 101 games (307 at-bats), Cimoli finished the season with a .267 batting average, but had no home runs and drove in only 28 runs.

In the World Series, Cimoli was slated to play left field against the Yankees’ left-handers, with Bob Skinner to face the righties. Virdon would have center field to himself. Cimoli got more playing time than expected after Skinner jammed his thumb sliding in Game One, which the Pirates won, 6-4. In Game Two, with the Pirates trailing 3-0, Cimoli led off the fourth inning with a single and scored on a double by Hoak. But the Yankees won easily, 16-3. Game Three was another Yankees romp, this time 10-0.

The Pirates evened the Series with a 3-2 victory in Game Four. Cimoli went 1-for-4. He singled in the fifth and advanced to second, then scored on a double by Law, tying the game at 1-1. The Pirates took the Series lead in Game Five, beating the Yankees 5-2. Cimoli went hitless but scored a second-inning run after reaching on a force play. Game Six was another blowout for the Yankees, 12-0 behind Whitey Ford. After the game, Dick Groat, noting the three lopsided Yankees wins, said, “The Yankees win them big, but we bounced back after those two earlier losses. We’ll bounce back again tomorrow.”13

Cimoli did not start Game Seven. Skinner’s thumb was better and he got the start in left field at Forbes Field against Yankees right-hander Bob Turley. The Pirates jumped to a four-run lead by the end of the second inning, and the Yanks brought in Bobby Shantz to pitch in the third inning. Shantz pitched five brilliant innings, holding the Bucs scoreless, and the Yankees built a 7-4 lead going into the bottom of the eighth. Leading off, Cimoli pinch-hit for pitcher Elroy Face and singled to right. Bill Virdon hit a hard double-play grounder to the Yankees’ shortstop, Tony Kubek. But the ball took a bad bounce and struck Kubek in the throat. Both runners were safe. The Pirates went on to score five runs. Cimoli scored on a single by Groat. 14 Clemente singled in a run, then catcher Hal Smith hit a three-run homer, giving Pittsburgh a 9-7 lead going into the ninth inning. In the elation that followed Smith’s home run, Abramo Cimoli threw his coat, hat and glasses into the air. All were retrieved. 15

The Yankees came back with two runs in the top of the ninth inning, and the Pirates came to bat in the bottom of the inning with the score tied. Cimoli, who was no longer in the game, had gone to the clubhouse. When the Yankees tied the game, he was so angry that he picked up the television in the clubhouse and threw it against the wall.16 His anger was an afterthought when Mazeroski led off the bottom of the ninth and smashed a pitch from Ralph Terry over the left-field wall to give the Pirates the world championship.

Cimoli wasn’t with the Pirates much longer. In early May 1961 he injured his rib cage when he was hit by a batted ball during pregame warmups, and missed a few games. At the June 15 trading deadline, he was dealt to Milwaukee for shortstop Johnny Logan. The Bucs saw the versatile Logan as a backup for Groat and Hoak on the left side of the infield. They had, in Joe Christopher a twenty-five year old player (Cimoli was 31 at the time) who had distinguished himself during his apprenticeship at Salt Lake City and Columbus, batting .317 with 283 hits in 893 at bats. With Milwaukee, Cimoli contributed one of his team’s five home runs in an 8-6 defeat of the Giants on June 22, and followed that up with three hits in a 13-4 trouncing of the Cubs two days later. Cimoli stayed hot with another two hits as the Braves beat the Cards, 9-6, on June 26. But Cimoli was not able to keep up the momentum. His average had dropped from .296 at the time of the trade to .246 on July 8, and the Braves called up Mack Jones. Gino’s playing time dropped sharply, but he had one special game. On August 11 the Braves’ Warren Spahn won his 300th game, and Cimoli’s his third home run of the season, in the eighth inning, was the deciding blow in the 2-1 victory. With one out in the ninth inning he made a diving catch of a drive hit by the Cubs’ Jerry Kindall.

For all his heroics, Cimoli batted only .197 with three home runs and 10 RBIs for the Braves, and it was not surprising that he was put into the pool of players eligible to be selected by the expansion Mets and Colts. He was not taken, and the Braves sent him to Vancouver of the Pacific Coast League. But then in the postseason draft, Cimoli was selected by the Kansas City Athletics, and experienced a revival. On Opening Day, his three-run homer keyed a 4-2 win over the Twins. In a doubleheader sweep against Chicago on April 22, Cimoli had his best day ever, driving in 10 runs with a double, a triple, and two home runs. On April 27 he had five hits as the A’s beat the Baltimore Orioles, 14-5. Two doubles and a triple led the Athletics over the Tigers on May 2. As May came to a close, Cimoli was fourth in the league in RBIs, with 31, more than he had hit in either of the previous two seasons.

As the season wore on, the A’s fell back and assumed their customary place in the second division (ninth place in the ten-team league). But Cimoli’s numbers for the year were his best since 1959. As the A’s everyday right fielder, he had career highs in games played and at-bats, and finished with a .275 batting average. His career-best 15 triples were good enough to lead the league. His 10 home runs matched his 1957 output with Brooklyn and his 71 RBIs were one shy of his career best.

In 1963 the A’s once again got off to a good start, but after reality set in they finished in eighth place. It was another good season for Cimoli. He hit .263 and was fourth in the league with 11 triples. Cimoli had two of his most productive seasons playing for Kansas City in 1962 and 1963. His 26 triples over the two seasons topped all other major leaguers. But 1964 started out poorly. The A’s were going for youth and Tommie Reynolds took over as the everyday right fielder. Appearing in only his fourth game of the season on May 2, Cimoli injured a tendon running to first base. He was released on May 29. At 34, Cimoli was nearing the end of his major-league career. He signed on with Baltimore, but batted only .138, playing in parts of 38 games with eight hits in 58 at-bats. In late July the Orioles assigned Cimoli to their Rochester Triple-A farm club. He played well for Rochester, hitting .315 in 45 games with four homers and 23 RBIs. In 1965, after being released by the Orioles, he signed with the California Angels but played in only four games, going hitless in five at-bats. He was released on May 9 and finished up with Spokane in the Pacific Coast League, where the manager was his old Dodger teammate Duke Snider. He got into 33 games but was hitting just .235 when Spokane released him on June 25.

Cimoli batted .265 in the major leagues with 44 home runs. Few contemporaries, however, could match his achievements in the realm of the three-base hit. He had 48 triples in the majors and, including his minor league numbers, he had 98 triples as a professional.

Toward the end of his career as a player, Cimoli worked part-time for UPS. After his playing days, he worked full-time, delivering to his native North Beach section of San Francisco. In 1989 he retired and was honored for completing his years with the company without an accident. He was known as the “Iron Man” of UPS.

On occasion Cimoli was reunited with old teammates. The Pirates reassembled the 1960 team on July 6, 1985, and the Giants re-enacted the 1958 opening pitch at the beginning of their 40th season in San Francisco on April 1, 1997. On April 15, 2008, he threw out the ceremonial first pitch commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first West Coast game.

On October 17, 1989, Cimoli and a friend, Ed Silva, went for coffee after Gino completed his shift at UPS. Then the rumbling began, as San Francisco experienced one of its more turbulent earthquakes. Cimoli and Silva ran out into the street and the UPS truck became an ambulance. They checked houses along the street. In one house Cimoli rescued a woman who had been trapped on the third floor. He helped out other victims as well, traveling throughout the Marina area.17

Cimoli served a term as president of the San Francisco Italian Athletic Club (2001-2002), and in his later years could always be found there at the card table. With his trademark unlit cigar dangling from his mouth, he was always outspoken and friendly with everyone. He often emceed at the annual fund-raiser for the Friends of Marino Pieretti Charitable Organization.

Cimoli died on February 12, 2011, at the age of 81. Two weeks later Duke Snider died. Even on heaven’s baseball team, it would seem, Gino Cimoli would be struggling for playing time, or going in as a late-inning replacement. This may have prompted him to say, “Play me or trade me” one last time.

This biography is included in the book “Sweet ’60: The 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates” (SABR, 2013), edited by Clifton Blue Parker and Bill Nowlin. For more information or to purchase the book in e-book or paperback form, click here.

Last revised: March 10, 2021 (ghw)

Sources

Books

Lawrence Baldassaro. Beyond DiMaggio: Italian-Americans in Baseball. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2011).

Buzzie Bavasi. Off the Record. (Chicago, Contemporary Books, 1987).

Jim Brosnan. The Long Season. (New York: Harper 1960).

Rick Cushing. 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates: Day by Day, A Special Season, An Extraordinary World Series. (Pittsburgh: Dorrance Publishing Company, 2010).

Steve Daly, Dem Little Bums: The Nashua Dodgers. (Concord, New Hampshire: Plaidswede Publishing Co., 2003).

Brian M. Endsley. Bums No More The 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2009).

Carl Erskine. Tales from the Dodger Dugout. (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, Inc., 2000).

Carl Erskine. Tales from the Dugout: Extra Innings. (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, Inc., 2004).

Lew Freedman. Hard-Luck Harvey Haddix and the Greatest Game Ever Lost. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2009).

Andrew Goldblatt. The Giants and the Dodgers: Four Cities, Two Teams, One Rivalry. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2003).

Roger Kahn. The Era: 1947-1957: When the Yankees, the Giants, and the Dodgers Ruled the World (New York, Ticknor and Fields, 1993).

Kevin Kerrane. Dollar Sign on the Muscle: The World of Baseball Scouting. (New York:Beaufort Books, 1984).

Neil Lanctot. Campy, The Two Lives of Roy Campanella. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2011).

David Maraniss. Clemente, The Passion and Grace of Baseball’s Last Hero. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006).

Rudy Marzano. The Last Years of the Brooklyn Dodgers: A History: 1950-1957. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2008).

Bob Morales. Farewell to the Last Golden Era: The Yankees, the Pirates, and the 1960 Baseball Season. (Jefferson, North Carolijna: McFarland and Company, 2011).

Robert E. Murphy. After Many a Summer: The Passing of the Giants and Dodger and a Golden Age in New York Baseball. (New York: Union Square Press, 2009).

John R. Nordell. Brooklyn Dodgers: The Last Great Pennant Drive, 1957. (Eynon, Pennsylvania: Tribute Books, 2007).

Jim Reisler. The Best Game Ever: Pirates vs. Yankees, October 13, 1960. (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2007).

Michael Shapiro. Bottom of the Ninth: Branch Rickey, Casey Stengel, and the Daring Scheme to Save Baseball From Itself. (New York: Holt, 2009).

Duke Snider. The Duke of Flatbush. (New York: Zebra Books, Kensington Publishing Company, 1988).

Newspapers and magazines

Bob Broeg, St. Louis Post Dispatch, March 30, 1959.

Otto Bruno. Blog under name of The Old Ball Game, on July 21, 2010.

Barbara Cloud. “They’re Pennant Fever Veterans – Irene Cimoli Used to Jitters.” Pittsburgh Press, August 16, 1960.

Arthur Daley. Sports of the Times, “Campy was Right.” New York Times, September 1, 1957.

John Drebinger. “Dodgers’ Travels Prove Rewarding.” New York Times, June 11, 1957.

Tom Fitzgerald. “Gino Cimoli Can Still Deliver the Goods.” San Francisco Chronicle, May 7, 1990.

Michael Gaven. “Brooklyn’s Best Left Fielder since Medwick.” Baseball Digest, September 1957.

Sandy Grady. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, June 8, 1959.

John Jeansome. “Black and White and Dodger Blue.” Newsday, May 5, 2000. Story about Nashua Dodgers, 1946-1949.

Walter Judge. “L.A. Centerfield job for Cimoli.” San Francisco Examiner, February 10, 1958.

Leonard Koppett. “Pasta e Fagioli and Baseball.” New York Times, April 12, 1976.

Jack McDonald. “Both Barrels.” San Francisco Call Bulletin, January 7, 1958.

Neal Russo. “Cimoli first tried baseball to avoid gym workouts.” St. Louis Post Dispatch, April 28, 1959.

Bob Stevens. “Cimoli Blessed That He’s a Cardinal.” San Francisco Chronicle, December 27, 1958.

David Tobener. Blog under name of GoldenGateGiants, February 15, 2011.

Interviews

Bob Tobener

Lorraine Vigli

Joe Christopher

Websites

www.Baseball-Almanac.com

www.baseball-reference.com

www.baseball-fever.com

www.baseballlibrary.com

www.retrosheet.org

Notes

Jackie Robinson‘s breaking of the color barrier opened the way not just for African Americans in organized baseball but to many others whose skin color had excluded them. By the 1960s Clemente had emerged as one of the best of the players from Latin America.

Clemente came from Puerto Rico, which had established its own baseball history extending back to the late 1800s, at about the same time that the island became a possession of the United States.1 Puerto Rico shares its love of baseball with many of the countries in and along the Caribbean Sea. Professional leagues formed and thrived in the winter in these areas, including Venezuela, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic.

Puerto Rico has produced many great players, such as Pedro “Perucho” Cepeda — because he was black, Perucho never got to play in the major leagues in the United States. His son Orlando did and eventually made the Hall of Fame.

The greatest Puerto Rican player, however, was Roberto Clemente.

Roberto Clemente Walker was born on August 18, 1934, to Melchor Clemente and Luisa Walker de Clemente in Carolina, which is slightly east of the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan. Roberto was the youngest of Luisa’s seven children (three of whom were from a previous marriage).2

Melchor was a foreman overseeing sugar-cane cutters. He also used his truck to help a construction company deliver sand and gravel to building sites. Luisa was a laundress and worked in different jobs to assist the workers at the sugar-cane plantation. Roberto contributed to the family income by helping his dad load shovels into the construction trucks. He also earned money by doing various jobs for neighbors, such as carrying milk to the country store. Roberto used his money to buy a bike and to purchase rubber balls. He liked to squeeze the balls to strengthen his hands.3 Many people commented on the size of young man’s hands. He had strong hands, and it was clear at an early age that he had athletic ability.

Roberto had not just ability but a deep love of sports, especially baseball. He attended games in the winter and watched the star players from the United States mainland. One of his favorites was Monte Irvin. Irvin played for the Newark Eagles in the Negro National League in the summer and for the San Juan Senadores of the Puerto Rican League in the winter. Irvin remembers kids hanging around the stadium. “We’d give them our bags so they could take them in and get in for free,” he said. Irvin didn’t know Clemente was among the kids until Clemente told him years later, when both were in the major leagues. Clemente also told Irvin that he was impressed with his throwing arm. “I had the best arm in Puerto Rico,” said Irvin. “He loved to see me throw. He found that he would practice and learn how to throw like I did.”4 Roberto began playing baseball himself. He wrote in his journal, “I loved the game so much that even though our playing field was muddy and we had many trees on it, I used to play many hours every day. The fences were about 150 feet away from home plate, and I used to hit many homers. One day I hit ten home runs in a game we started about 11 a.m. and finished about 6:30 p.m.”5

When he was 14 years old Roberto joined a softball team organized by Roberto Marín, who became very influential in Clemente’s life. Marín noticed Roberto’s strong throwing arm and began using him at shortstop. He eventually moved him to the outfield. Regardless of the position he played, Roberto was sensational. “His name became known for his long hits to right field, and for his sensational catches,” said Marín. “Everyone had their eyes on him.”6

Roberto also participated in the high jump and javelin throw at Vizcarrondo High School in Carolina.7 It was thought that he might even be good enough to represent Puerto Rico in the Olympics. Throwing the javelin strengthened his arm and helped him in other ways, according to one of his biographers, Bruce Markusen: “The footwork, release, and general dynamics employed in throwing the javelin coincided with the skills needed to throw a baseball properly. The more that Clemente threw the javelin, the better and stronger his throwing from the outfield became.”8

Roberto said that throwing the javelin in high school was only part of the reason he developed a strong arm. “My mother has the same kind of an arm, even today at 74,” in said in a 1964 interview. “She could throw a ball from second base to home plate with something on it. I got my arm from my mother.”9

Although he had great all-around athletic ability, Roberto decided to focus on baseball, even though it meant forgoing any dreams of participating in the Olympics. He began playing for a strong amateur team, the Juncos Mules.

In 1952, Clemente took part in a tryout camp in Puerto Rico that was attended by scout Al Campanis of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Clemente impressed Campanis with his different skills, including his speed. The Dodgers did not sign Clemente then, but Campanis kept him in mind.

Also in 1952, Clemente caught the eye of Pedrín Zorrilla, who owned the Santurce Cangrejeros, or Crabbers, of the Puerto Rican League. The Juncos team was to play the Manatí Athenians in Manatí, where Zorrilla had a house on the beach. Roberto Marín advised Zorrilla to go to the game. Afterward, Zorrilla offered Clemente a contract to play with the Cangrejeros.

Clemente was barely 18 years old when he joined the Cangrejeros. As a young and developing player, he was brought along slowly by the team’s manager, Buzz Clarkson. Clarkson had had an outstanding career in the Negro Leagues in the United States and played many winters in Puerto Rico. Like many great black players, Clarkson’s best years were behind him by the time he got his chance to play in the majors in 1952 at the age of 37. Two other such players were Willard “Ese Hombre” Brown and Bob Thurman, who were top hitters in the Negro Leagues. Both were outfielders (with Thurman also doing some pitching) on the Santurce team that Clemente joined in the winter of 1952-53.

“Clemente looked up to Bob Thurman,” wrote Thomas Van Hyning. “Clemente pinch-hit for Thurman in a key situation and doubled off Caguas’s Roberto Vargas to win the game, earning congratulations from Thurman.”10 Despite the big hit, Clemente did not play much his first winter in the Puerto Rican League.

He began playing more in 1953-54 and even played in the league’s All-Star Game. (The star of the All-Star Game was Henry Aaron of the Caguas Criollos, who had four hits, including two home runs, and drove in five runs.) By midseason, Clemente’s name was appearing along with Aaron’s in the list of the Puerto Rican league leaders in batting average. Clemente finished the season with a .288 batting average, sixth best in the league.

The Brooklyn Dodgers had remembered Clemente from the tryout he had had in front of Al Campanis in 1952.11 Buzzie Bavasi, the Dodgers’ vice president, said that during the 1953-54 season a scout in Puerto Rico told him the Dodgers could sign Clemente.12 Other major-league teams had noticed Clemente, too. One was the New York Giants, the Dodgers’ great rivals. Brooklyn outbid the Giants and Clemente agreed to sign. The Milwaukee Braves also made an offer, one that was reportedly much more than the Dodgers’, but Clemente stuck with his decision.13 He knew that New York City had a large Puerto Rican population and looked forward to playing there.

On February 19, 1954, Clemente signed a contract with the Dodgers, who had to make a decision on what to do with him. The Dodgers had signed him for a reported salary of $5,000 as well as a bonus of $10,000.14 Rules of the time required a team signing a player for a bonus and salary of more than $4,000 to keep him on the major league roster for two years or risk losing him in the offseason draft.15 Many bonus players of this period were kept at the major-league level, pining on the bench for two years rather than developing in the minors. The Dodgers chose to have Clemente spend the 1954 season with the Montreal Royals in the International League, even though it meant they might lose him at the end of the season.

Buzzie Bavasi had the power to determine Clemente’s fate. In 1955, Bavasi told Pittsburgh writer Les Biederman that the Dodgers’ only purpose in signing Clemente was to keep him away from the Giants, even though they knew they would eventually lose him to another team.16 Some writers said an informal quota system was in effect in the early years following the breaking of baseball’s color barrier, but this is not supported by the facts.17 In his biography of Clemente, Kal Wagenheim wrote that the Dodgers would never start all five of their black players in the same game. The box scores prove that is false. (There are other reasons to question the existence of a quota, although it is beyond the realm of this article to fully explore the issue.)18

In a 2005 e-mail message to the author, Bavasi wrote that while there was no quota system, race was the factor in the club’s decision to have Clemente play in Montreal: “The concern had nothing to do with quotas, but the thought was too many minorities might be a problem with the white players. Not so, I said. Winning was the important thing. I agree with the [Dodgers’] board that we should get a player’s opinion and I would be guided by the player’s opinion. The board called in Jackie Robinson. Hell, now I felt great. Jackie was told the problem and after thinking about it awhile, he asked me who would be sent out if Clemente took one of the spots. I said George Shuba. Jackie agreed that Shuba would be the one to go. Then he said Shuba was not among the best players on the club, but he was the most popular. With that he shocked me by saying, and I quote: ‘If I were the GM, I would not bring Clemente to the club and send Shuba or any other white player down. If I did this, I would be setting our program back five years.’”19

So Clemente went to Montreal to play for manager Max Macon. Most accounts say the Dodgers were trying to “hide” Clemente in Montreal by playing him rarely, hoping that other teams wouldn’t notice him and wouldn’t draft him at the end of the season.

Several biographers, among them Phil Musick, Kal Wagenheim, and Bruce Markusen, provide examples to back up the contention that Clemente was hidden. However, a game-by-game check of Montreal’s 1954 season indicates that many of the examples are incorrect.20

Wagenheim and Markusen go so far as to claim that Clemente did not play in the Royals’ final 25 games of the season, another claim that is not correct. In fact, by the final part of the season, Clemente was playing regularly against left-handed starting pitchers.21

Montreal manager Max Macon, until his death in 1989, denied that he was under any orders to restrict Clemente’s playing time. “The only orders I had were to win and draw big crowds,” Macon said.22

It is true that Clemente, after an initial period when he was being platooned over the first 13 games of the season, played little over the first three months of the season. This was hardly unusual for a 19-year-old in his first season of organized baseball.

Also, for much of the year, the Royals had a full crop of reliable outfielders in Dick Whitman, Gino Cimoli, and Jack Cassini. In addition, the Dodgers sent Sandy Amoros down to Montreal early in the season, and Amoros hit well enough for the Royals that he was recalled by Brooklyn in July. The crowded outfield situation didn’t leave a lot of playing time for a newcomer like Clemente. He was often used as a late-inning defensive replacement for Cassini.

When he did play, he struggled. In early July his batting average was barely over .200. Part of that may be attributed to his infrequent playing time; it’s hard for a batter to get in a groove and hit well when he doesn’t play regularly. On the other hand, it’s hard for a player to get regular playing time if he’s not hitting well.

Macon said he didn’t use Clemente much because he “swung wildly,” especially at pitches that were outside of the strike zone: “If you had been in Montreal that year, you wouldn’t have believed how ridiculous some pitchers made him look.”23 Clemente got more chances against left-handed pitchers. Macon was known for platooning, and Clemente often split time in the lineup with Whitman, a left-handed hitter.

Through June and July Clemente often went long stretches without seeing any action. Then, on July 25, he entered the first game of a doubleheader against the Havana Sugar Kings in the ninth inning. The game was tied and went into extra innings. With one out in the last of the 10th, Clemente hit a home run to win it for the Royals.

Macon rewarded him by starting him in the second game of the doubleheader, Clemente’s first start in nearly three weeks. For the rest of the season Clemente started every game in which the opposition started a left-handed pitcher. He had a few more highlights during this time. Near the end of July, he came to bat in the top of the ninth inning of a scoreless game in Toronto. Clemente doubled and went on to score to put Montreal ahead. The Royals won the game, 2-0.

The next time the Royals were in Toronto, three weeks later, Clemente helped them win in a different way. Montreal had an 8-7 lead over the Maple Leafs in the bottom of the ninth. Toronto had a chance to tie the score, but Clemente threw out a runner at home plate to end the game.

Late in August he had two triples and a single at Richmond, although the Royals still lost the game. A week later he hit a home run to win the game for Montreal and give the Royals a sweep of a doubleheader against Syracuse.

Teammate Jack Cassini said, “You knew he was going to play in the big leagues. He had a great arm and he could run.”24 When Clemente began playing regularly against left-handers, the Royals rose in the standings and finished in second place. Clemente batted .257 in 87 games in his only season in the minors.

By the end of the 1954 season, it had become clear to Bavasi and the rest of the Brooklyn organization that other teams were interested in Clemente. However, Bavasi said he still wasn’t ready to give up. The Pirates, by having the worst record in the majors in 1954, had the first pick in the November draft. If Bavasi could get the Pirates to draft a different player off the Montreal roster, Clemente would remain with the Dodgers organization. Each minor-league team could lose only one player.

Bavasi said he went to Branch Rickey, who had run the Dodgers before going to Pittsburgh. After Bavasi declined Rickey’s offer to join him in Pittsburgh, Bavasi said, Rickey told him that, “Should I need help at anytime, all I had to do was pick up the phone.” Bavasi said he used this offer to get Rickey to agree draft a different player, pitcher John Rutherford, off the Royals’ roster. However, Bavasi was dismayed to learn two days later that the deal was off and that the Pirates were going to draft Clemente. “It seemed that [Dodgers owner] Walter O’Malley and Mr. Rickey got in another argument and it seems Walter called Mr. Rickey every name in the book,” explained Bavasi. “Thus, we lost Roberto.”25

When he was drafted by Pittsburgh, Clemente was in Puerto Rico playing for the Santurce Cangrejeros and on his way to his best-ever winter season. He again played with Bob Thurman, but the Santurce outfield had a new addition in 1954-55. It was Willie Mays, who had just led the New York Giants to the World Series championship and was named the National League’s Most Valuable Player. An outfield of Clemente, Mays, and Thurman ranks as one of the best ever in the Puerto Rican League. By mid-season Santurce manager Herman Franks was calling Clemente “the best player in the league, except for Willie Mays.”26

Clemente and Mays had been providing some real highlights. In late November, the Cangrejeros were behind by a run going into the ninth inning of a game against Caguas-Guyama. Clemente led off the ninth with a single, and Mays then hit a two-run homer to give Santurce a 7-6 win. Not long after that, the pair starred in another 7-6 win. Mays hit two home runs and Clemente one home run in an 11-inning win over Mayaguez.

Both players homered in the league’s All-Star Game on December 12, leading their North team to a 7-5 win. By this time, Mays, Clemente, and Thurman were the top three players in the league in batting average, and Santurce moved into first place.27

While things were going well on the baseball diamond, there were other problems for Clemente. On New Year’s Eve of 1954, one of his brothers, Luis, died of a brain tumor. Shortly before that, Clemente had been in a car accident that damaged some of his spinal discs. The back injury hampered him for the rest of his baseball career.28

Back on the field, Santurce finished first in the Puerto Rican League. The top three teams advanced to the playoffs, so the Cangrejeros had to win another series to capture the league title. They did that, defeating Caguas-Guayama four games to one. Clemente had four hits, including two doubles, and drove in four runs in the first game of the series, which Santurce won. Caguas-Guayama won the next game, but the Cangrejeros then won three in a row to finish the series. As champions of the Puerto Rican League, they advanced to the Caribbean Series.

The Caribbean Series was played in Caracas, Venezuela, in February of 1955. In addition to Santurce, teams from Cuba, Panama, and Venezuela participated. It was a double round-robin tournament. The team with the best record at the end would be the champion.

The Cangrejeros won their first two games and then faced Magallanes of Venezuela. The game went into extra innings. Clemente singled to open the last of the 11th inning, and Mays followed with a home run to win the game, 4-2.

One more win would clinch at least a tie for the title for Santurce. The Cangrejeros’ fourth game was a rematch against Almendares of Cuba, a team they had defeated in their first game. Almendares opened up a 5-0 lead, but Santurce battled back to win. Clemente drove in two runs to help in the comeback.

Santurce played Carta Vieja of Panama with a chance for the championship. Clemente had a triple as the Cangrejeros scored three times in the top of the first. In the third, Clemente had another triple as Santurce scored four runs to take a 7-0 lead. Santurce won the game, 11-3, to wrap up the championship.

It was the second Caribbean Series title for Santurce in three years. Clemente had been a part of the team that had won the championship in 1953, but he did not play in the series. This time he was a key member of the team that won. Santurce shortstop Don Zimmer, who was voted the Most Valuable Player of the Caribbean Series, said, “It might have been the best winter club ever assembled.”29

Soon afterward, Clemente was in training camp with the Pittsburgh Pirates, hoping to earn a spot in the major leagues. The Pirates had been keeping an eye on Clemente over the winter. Rickey said, “He can run, throw, and hit. He needs much polishing, though, because he is a rough diamond.”30

The Pirates were loaded with outfielders when they began spring training in Florida in March of 1955. Clemente would have plenty of competition for a spot on the team. After the first week of training camp, Clemente earned some good words from Pirates manager Fred Haney. “The boy has the tools, there’s no doubt about that. And he takes to instruction readily. Certainly, I have been pleased with what I have seen,” Haney said. “He has some faults, which were expected, but let’s wait and see.”31

Clemente’s chances were helped when Frank Thomas, the Pirates’ best outfielder, held out for more money and missed the first part of spring training. Thomas then got sick and missed more time. Clemente took advantage of this opportunity and made the team.32

Clemente’s original number with the Pirates was 13, but early in the season he switched to 21, a number that became strongly associated with him. It is reported that Clemente chose the number because his full name, Roberto Clemente Walker, has 21 letters.33

Clemente didn’t play in the first three regular season games. However, he was in the starting lineup, playing right field, for the first game of a doubleheader on Sunday, April 17, 1955, against the Brooklyn Dodgers at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Clemente came to the plate with two out in the bottom of the first inning for his first at-bat in the major leagues. He hit a ground ball toward the shortstop, Pee Wee Reese. Reese got his glove on the grounder, but he couldn’t field it cleanly. Clemente had his first hit. He followed that by scoring his first run to give Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead. However, Brooklyn came back to win the game.

Clemente started the second game of the doubleheader, this time in center field and batting leadoff. He had a double, but the Pirates were unable to score and trailed the Dodgers, 3-0, going into the last of the eighth. Clemente got another hit, a single, as part of a two-run rally that closed the gap, but the Pirates still lost.

In Pittsburgh’s next game, in New York against the Giants, Clemente hit an inside-the-park homer, but the Pirates lost again. At this point, their won-lost record was 0-6. Pittsburgh lost two more games before winning its first of the season. The Pirates went on to finish in last place in the National League for the fourth year in a row. However, Branch Rickey insisted that young players such as Clemente would help turn the team around.

Early in the 1955 season, the new players were leading the Pirates’ offense. Clemente was leading the team in batting average over the first three weeks. On the base paths he was even more exciting. “When he starts moving around the bases he draws the ‘Ohs’ and ‘Ahs’ of the folks in the ball park,” wrote Jack Hernon in The Sporting News.

Hernon added, “The fleet Puerto Rican was a stickout in the field.”34 Forbes Field, the home of the Pirates, was a classic ball park that had opened in 1909. The outfield fence was a brick wall. It was only 300 feet from home plate to the wall down the right-field line. But the wall jutted out and changed directions. Clemente learned the angles and how to play balls that caromed off the fence. He could corral long hits quickly and, with his great arm, opposing baserunners were careful on trying to take an extra base.

Less than a third of the way through the season, Clemente already had 10 assists, and he also made some outstanding catches. “The Pittsburgh fans have fallen in love with his spectacular fielding and his deadly right arm,” wrote Les Biederman, a reporter who covered the Pirates.35

Clemente’s rambunctious style in the field could be costly, though. In May, he made a nice catch in St. Louis, but he hurt his finger and ran into the wall. The injury caused him to miss a few games.

Clemente’s hitting slumped as the season went along, in part because he still had trouble laying off pitches that were out of the strike zone. However, he became known as a good “bad-ball hitter,” able to make good contact on bad pitches. Jack Cassini, who had played in the minors with Clemente the year before, said, “He could hit. He didn’t need a strike. The best way to pitch him was right down the middle of the plate.”36

Clemente played 124 games for the Pirates in 1955 and had a batting average of .255. He walked only 18 times. Drawing bases on balls would never become a strong point for him. While it wasn’t a sensational rookie season, Clemente had earned a spot in the Pirates’ outfield. More than that, his exciting style of play made the fans look forward to seeing more of him.

Clemente returned to Puerto Rico in the fall of 1955. It had been reported that he might not play winter ball in his homeland and instead would begin college and study engineering.37 However, Clemente ended up back on the diamond, playing another season for Santurce.

Back on the mainland in 1956, Clemente had a new boss in Pittsburgh. Bobby Bragan had taken over as manager from Fred Haney. Bragan appeared to be well-liked by the players, although he quickly demonstrated his strictness. In the second game of the season, Clemente missed a signal for a bunt and Bragan fined him.38 He also fined another player, Dale Long. Biographer Kal Wagenheim wrote, “This harsh action worked like a shot of adrenalin. The club was soon fighting for first place in the league. Dale Long hit eight home runs in as many games. Clemente moved his batting average up to .348, fourth best in the league.”39

The Pirates were in first place in mid-June, but an eight-game losing streak dropped them to fifth and ended their pennant hopes. Even so, they avoided last place for the first time since 1951 and they were showcasing one of the major league’s most exciting players. In the outfield, Clemente had 17 assists, a sign of his strong throwing arm. At the plate, his .311 batting average was third-best in the National League. Two of his biggest hits were game-winning home runs. On Saturday, July 21, the Pirates trailed the Reds, 3-1, in the top of the ninth but had two runners on base as Clemente came to the plate. The Cincinnati pitcher was Brooks Lawrence, who had already won 13 games that season and hadn’t yet lost. Clemente changed that, hitting a three-run homer, to give the Pirates a 4-3 win and spoil Lawrence’s perfect record.

The following Wednesday, the Pirates were at home, playing the Chicago Cubs. Chicago led, 8-5, but Pittsburgh loaded the bases with no out. With Clemente due up, the Cubs brought in a new pitcher, Jim Brosnan. On Brosnan’s first pitch, Clemente hit a long drive to left-center field. Hank Foiles, Bill Virdon, and Dick Cole raced around the bases toward home plate with the runs that would tie the game. Clemente also tore around the diamond. Manager Bobby Bragan was coaching at third base and held up his arms, giving Clemente the signal to stop at third. With no one out and good hitters coming up, Bragan figured they’d still get Clemente home with the winning run and didn’t want to take the chance on him being thrown out at the plate. However, Clemente ignored his manager, kept running, and was safe at home. The inside-the-park grand-slam home run won the game for the Pirates.40

Bragan, who had fined Clemente earlier in the season for missing a sign, wasn’t happy about Clemente deliberately disobeying this one. However, he decided not to fine him.41

Clemente’s hits were the usual way for him to reach base because he rarely walked. He drew only 13 bases on balls in 1956, and at one point went 51 games without walking.42 Branch Rickey wasn’t concerned: “His value is in not taking bases on balls because he can hit the bad pitches. If I tried to teach him to wait for a good pitch, I’d simply make a bad hitter out of him. The cure would be worse than the disease. He’ll cure his own ailments simply by experience.”43

At the end of the season, Clemente headed home to play another season for Santurce in the Puerto Rican League. However, a couple of significant events took place between Christmas and New Year’s Day. First, Santurce owner Pedrín Zorrilla sold the team. A few days later, the new owner of the Cangrejeros sold several players, including Clemente, to Caguas-Rio Piedras. The trade was extremely unpopular and even caused the Santurce manager, Monchile Concepcion, to resign.44

Clemente was leading the league in batting average and had gotten at least one hit in 18 consecutive games when he was traded. He continued his hitting streak, which reached 23 to set a new Puerto Rican League record. His streak was snapped when he was held hitless in a game by Luis “Tite” Arroyo, a longtime friend and teammate on the Pirates who was pitching for the San Juan Senadores in the winter.45 Clemente finished with a batting average of .396.

His batting eye was certainly sharp, but Clemente’s back was continuing to bother him, and he reported a day late to spring training in 1957 as a result. Bobby Bragan made light of the backache because Clemente had always played well even when he had some aches and pains. “The case history of Clemente is the worse he feels, the better he plays,” reported The Sporting News, which quoted Bragan as saying, “I’d rather have a Clemente with some ailment than a Clemente who says he feels great with no aches or pains.”46

Clemente’s ability to play through pain and perform well may have contributed to charges that he wasn’t really hurt. However, this time the back problems forced him to miss the first two games of the season. In all, Clemente played in only 111 games for Pittsburgh in 1957 and his batting average dropped to .253. The back problems lingered into the winter, and Clemente didn’t play in the Puerto Rican League until mid-January of 1958.

The Pirates had finished tied for last in 1957, but they made a big jump in 1958 under manager Danny Murtaugh. Clemente, who was feeling better physically, helped them get off to a good start in their opening game. He had three hits, one of which tied the game in the eighth inning against Milwaukee. The Pirates eventually won in 14 innings.

Clemente continued to hit well. He had three hits again in a 4-3 win in Cincinnati on April 25. One was a double in the sixth inning when the Pirates were trailing, 1-0. Clemente eventually scored to tie the game. The next inning he broke the tie with a three-run homer.

Another game-winning home run came in Milwaukee on August 4. Clemente broke a 3-3 tie with two out in the top of the ninth with a home run off fellow Puerto Rican Juan Pizarro, who had also been a winter teammate.

A little over a month later, Clemente had an even more spectacular game, although he didn’t hit any homers. He had three triples, tying a National League record, in a 4-1 win over Cincinnati on September 8.

Clemente batted .289 in 1958. From right field, he continued to terrorize opposing baserunners, finishing with 22 assists. Fans loved it when a ball was hit his way with runners on base, rising in anticipation of seeing him uncork a strong throw.

Led by Clemente, the Pirates climbed from last place all the way to second, eight games behind the Milwaukee Braves.

Clemente didn’t play winter baseball in Puerto Rico in 1958-59. He wore a different uniform, for the United States Marine Reserves. He fulfilled a six-month military commitment at Parris Island, South Carolina, and Camp LeJeune, North Carolina. The rigorous training program helped Clemente physically. He added strength by gaining ten pounds and said his back troubles had disappeared. Clemente served as an infantryman in the Reserves until September 1964.47

When he reported to the Pirates in the spring of 1959, he complained of a sore right elbow. In May he made it worse when he hit the ground hard while making a diving catch. A few nights later, he had to be taken out of a game because he couldn’t throw overhanded. He missed more than a month and continued to feel pain after he returned to the lineup.48

Clemente played in only 105 games and batted .296 as Pittsburgh dropped to fourth place. But he and the Pirates were primed for better things in 1960.

For the first time in several winters, Clemente played a full season in the Puerto Rican League in 1959-60. He was on a new team, having been traded to the San Juan Senadores, and he had a batting average of .330. Clemente and the Pirates hoped that he was ready for a big season back in Pittsburgh.

Another encouraging sign was that he was free of injuries. Feeling good and tuned up from his winter play, Clemente got off to a great start in 1960. In the Pirates’ second game, at home against the Reds, he went three-for-three and drove in five runs as Pittsburgh won, 13-0. By the end of April, Clemente was batting .386. In 14 games, he had scored 12 runs, driven in 14, and hit three home runs. But he was just warming up. In Cincinnati, he had a home run and four RBIs on the first day of May. The 13-2 win was Pittsburgh’s ninth straight and the team was in first place.

The Pirates cooled off a bit, but Clemente stayed hot. In May, he had 25 RBIs in 27 games, raising his season total to 39. He helped Pittsburgh regain the top spot in the National League standings and was named the league’s Player of the Month by The Sporting News.

The Pirates battled for first with the San Francisco Giants and then the Milwaukee Braves. On the first Friday night in August, the Pirates were locked in a scoreless battle with the Giants at Forbes Field. Vinegar Bend Mizell was pitching for Pittsburgh and getting great help from his outfielders. Bill Virdon made a couple of good catches. Then Willie Mays led off the seventh inning for San Francisco with a long drive to right. Clemente chased the fly, reached out, and caught it, robbing Mays of an extra-base hit as he crashed into the outfield wall. He hurt his knee and also ended up with a gash in the chin that needed five stitches.49

Clemente stayed in the game the rest of the inning, but he was replaced by Gino Cimoli to start the eighth. Pittsburgh eventually won, 1-0, starting a four-game sweep of the Giants. Clemente missed the rest of the series as well as another three games.

He was out for a week. The day after he returned, he had a big game against the St. Louis Cardinals. St. Louis had beaten the Pirates the previous two nights and the Cardinals were in second place, only three games behind Pittsburgh. The Cardinals took the lead with a run in the top of the first inning. In the last of the first, Pittsburgh tied the game when Clemente singled home Dick Groat.

With the score still tied, Groat opened the third inning with a double, and Clemente followed with a homer. Clemente had another run-scoring single in the fourth as Pittsburgh won the game, 4-1. Clemente batted in all four of his team’s runs.

The Pirates swept a doubleheader from the Cardinals the next day to open up a six-game lead. No one came close to them the rest of the way. Except for one day, the Pirates had been in first place since May 29.

Clemente finished the 1960 season with a .314 batting average and hit 16 home runs, more than doubling his previous high. He also made the National League All-Star team for the first time.

Pittsburgh’s first pennant since 1927 put them in the World Series against the New York Yankees. Despite being outscored 46-17, the Pirates split the first six games to force a decisive seventh game.

New York came back from a 4-0 deficit to carry a 7-4 lead into the last of the eighth. The Pirates rallied, helped by a bad hop that turned a probable double-play grounder into a base hit. One run was in and Pittsburgh had runners at second and third with two out when Clemente came to bat against the Yankees’ Jim Coates. Clemente swung and topped the ball toward first base. Coates couldn’t get to it, and it was left to Moose Skowron to field it. Skowron had no chance of beating Clemente to the base, and Coates’s pursuit of the ball left the bag uncovered. Clemente zipped safely across the base, his helmet flying off, while the two Yankees watched helplessly.

Clemente’s hit drove in another run and the Pirates took a 9-7 lead when Hal Smith followed with a three-run homer. New York came back in the top of the ninth to tie the game, setting the stage for one of the most dramatic moments in Pittsburgh sports history–a Series-winning home run by Bill Mazeroski leading off the last of the ninth.

Clemente had had a hit in each of the seven games in helping the Pirates win the World Series.

Returning to his homeland following the 1960 season, Clemente skipped the first part of the Puerto Rican League season, but then joined the San Juan Senadores in the second half. Even after he became a star in the major leagues, Clemente continued playing winter ball well past the time that he needed to keep his batting eye sharp. He felt an obligation to the people of his homeland, who otherwise would not have a chance to see him play. Clemente is perhaps the most inspirational figure the island has ever known, and he took that responsibility seriously.

He frequently stood up for himself and his fellow Latin players, speaking out against injustices he saw. He approached this in the same manner in which he played–with a passion, sometimes an anger, which drove him on and off the field.

Much of his anger was justified. Although the game became more open to Latins after the breaking of the color barrier, certain attitudes and prejudices toward these players remained. Latin players were often accused of being lazy or faking an injury if they missed a game because they were hurt or ill. Clemente knew first-hand the feeling of being called a hypochondriac. He suffered through many ailments in his career and he burned when his manager or reporters didn’t believe him when he said he was hurt.

One of Clemente’s biographers, Kal Wagenheim, wrote, “The legend of his hypochondria became part of baseball’s folklore. He claimed so many ills–and performed so well despite them–that his plaints evoked skepticism or laughter.” Wagenheim also noted that Clemente had problems in the 1960s with Pirates manager Danny Murtaugh, who “reportedly accused him of feigning an injury and fined him for not playing.”50

Beyond the injuries and claims of hypochondria, Clemente maintained that Latin players often did not receive the recognition they deserved. Once again, Clemente was an example of this. After helping the Pirates win the National League pennant, and then the World Series championship, Clemente finished eighth in the voting for the league’s Most Valuable Player. Clemente thought he should have gotten more votes and finished higher in the balloting.

Each slight, whether at him or a fellow Latin, he took personally. He spoke out often, although some of the claims he made about being mistreated weren’t always entirely correct.

Phil Musick, a reporter who covered the Pittsburgh Pirates during the final years of Clemente’s career, said, “He was anything but perfect. He was vain, occasionally arrogant, often intolerant, unforgiving, and there were moments when I thought for sure he’d cornered the market on self-pity. Mostly, he acted as if the world had just declared all-out war on Roberto Clemente, when in fact it lavished him with an affection few men ever know.”

However, Musick added, “I know that through all of his battles . . . there was about him an undeniable charisma. Perhaps that was his true essence–he won so much of your attention and affection that you demanded of him what no man can give, perfection.”51

Clemente did eventually receive the respect he sought. Toward the end of his career, fans and reporters recognized his greatness on the field. More than that, they knew of his caring nature for all people.

Clemente said he rarely set goals, but that he did once: “After I failed to win the Most Valuable Player Award in 1960, I made up my mind I’d win the batting title in 1961 for the first time.”52

Clemente did exactly that, leading the National League with a .351 batting average. He hit 23 home runs, scored 100 runs and drove in 89. He led National League outfielders with 27 assists and won a Gold Glove for his fielding excellence for the first time. Clemente would win a Gold Glove every year for the rest of his career.

In Puerto Rico, Clemente played winter ball less often. He skipped the 1962-63 season altogether. It was the first time he hadn’t played in the Puerto Rican League other than the time he was in the Marine Reserves in 1958-59.

However, Clemente was back for a full season with San Juan in 1963-64. The Senadores finished third during the regular season but won the league playoffs and represented Puerto Rico in the International Series, which was played in Managua, Nicaragua. Author Thomas Van Hyning reports, “Clemente was a fan favorite and made a lot of fans in Nicaragua.”53 Clemente developed a fondness for the country and its people and would return again.

The race for the Puerto Rican batting title involved two National League stars—Clemente and Orlando Cepeda–and a young player on the verge of stardom in the American League, Tony Oliva. Back on the mainland in 1964, Oliva and Clemente led their respective leagues in batting average. Oliva, who credited his winter-league experience with helping his development as a hitter, had a .323 average in his first full season in the majors.54 Clemente’s .339 average was good for his second National League batting title.

The winter of 1964-65 was an eventful one for Clemente. He married Vera Cristina Zabala. He also began managing. In December of 1964, Clemente took over as manager of the San Juan Senadores. He still played, although less often. In his first game as manager, Clemente had two doubles off Dennis McLain of Mayaguez. “He drove in two runs with his second double and raced home on a wild throw, but twisted his left ankle slightly and left the game,” reported Miguel J. Frau in The Sporting News.55

Clemente later suffered a more serious injury. He was mowing the lawn at his home when a rock flew out of the mower and hit him in the thigh. He missed some games as a player, but when the league’s All-Star Game was played, Clemente felt obligated to make an appearance. He pinch-hit and singled, but he aggravated the injury. “I felt my thigh ligament pop and something like water draining inside my leg,” he said. Clemente had partially severed a ligament in his thigh, and he had to have surgery.56

The injury, combined with a fever, left Clemente weak, and he got off to a slow start in 1965 with the Pirates. Under new manager Harry Walker, the team also began poorly, losing 24 of their first 33 games. A 12-game winning streak followed, lifting Pittsburgh in the standings. Clemente got hot over this stretch, hitting .458 during the winning streak. The Pirates never overcame their slow start and finished third. Clemente led the league in batting average for the second year in a row and the third time in his career.

No one knew, though, that he was on the verge of his best season ever.

In addition to his other skills, Clemente was increasing his walk total in the mid-1960s. Early in the 1966 season, the Pirates were in Chicago, trailing the Cubs by a run. Clemente came to bat with two out and no one on base in the ninth inning. Cubs reliever Ted Abernathy got two strikes on Clemente. The Pirates were on the verge of losing, but Clemente remained patient. Abernathy’s next three pitches were outside the strike zone, and Clemente laid off them. The count was full. Clemente stayed alive by fouling off the next eight pitches. Finally, Abernathy missed again and Clemente was on base with a walk. Willie Stargell followed with a double and Clemente came home with the tying run. Pittsburgh won the game in extra innings.

The win kept the Pirates in first place. They stayed in the pennant race all season, battling the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers. At the end of August the Pirates and Giants were tied for first. On September 2, Clemente hit a three-run homer off Chicago’s Ferguson Jenkins that helped Pittsburgh beat the Cubs and take over sole possession of first place. It was the 2,000th hit of his career and his 23rd homer of the year, equaling his previous career high. In addition, it gave him 101 runs batted in, the first time he had ever reached 100 RBIs in a season.

He ended the season with career-highs in home runs (29) and RBIs (119). The Pirates finished third behind the Dodgers and Giants, but Clemente edged out Los Angeles’ Sandy Koufax for the Most Valuable Player award.

Clemente had another outstanding season in 1967. He led the league with a .357 batting average for his third batting title in four years and his fourth overall. In addition to 209 hits, Clemente walked or was hit by a pitch more than 40 times, and he reached base at least 40 percent of the time for the first time in his career.

After having taken the previous winter off, Clemente played occasionally in the Puerto Rican League in 1967-68 and had a batting average of .382. Back on the mainland, things did not go well for him in 1968. The Pirates’ opener was delayed two days because of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Clemente homered in the first game, but his batting average fell to .222 at the end of May. He said he was having trouble swinging the bat because he had injured his right shoulder in a fall at his home in Puerto Rico in February of 1968. He added that he might retire from baseball if the shoulder didn’t get better.57

He improved over the last part of the season and finished with a .291 batting average, his lowest since 1958. Clemente didn’t play winter ball and rested his body. He felt good when spring training began in 1969, but then he hurt his left shoulder as he tried to make a diving catch and went back to Puerto Rico for treatment. Clemente returned in time for the start of the regular season, but for the second year in a row he got off to a slow start. In the latter half of May, after going hitless in the first game of a series in San Diego, his batting average had fallen to .225.

Clemente claimed something else happened–a strange and scary incident. He did not tell the story in public until a year later, but Clemente said he was kidnapped while in San Diego. According to Clemente, he was walking back to the hotel where the Pirates were staying after going out to eat. He said four men forced him into a car at gunpoint. They took him to an isolated area and took his wallet and his All-Star Game ring. “This is where I figure they are going to shoot me and throw me in the woods,” he told Pittsburgh writer Bill Christine more than a year after the incident. “They already had the pistol inside my mouth.” Two of the men spoke Spanish, and Clemente talked to one of them in Spanish. After that, the men returned Clemente’s money and ring and brought him back to his hotel. They even gave Clemente back the bag of chicken he had purchased at the restaurant. He said he did not report the incident to the police.58

Despite the harrowing event, Clemente finished the series in San Diego by getting three hits against the Padres and raised his batting average above .300 by mid-June. For a while it looked like he might lead the league again. He didn’t, but Clemente still finished the season with a batting average of .345. The Pirates didn’t do as well, finishing third in the new East Division of the National League.

After a slow start in 1970, the Pirates caught fire as they moved from Forbes Field, where they had played since 1909, to Three Rivers Stadium. Pittsburgh and New York fought for first place through July, with Chicago staying close. The Pirates were hanging in without Clemente. He was hit in the wrist with a pitch on July 25 and, except for one pinch-running appearance, was out of the lineup for more than a week. He returned on August 8 and had a double and a home run against the Mets.

Later in August, Clemente had five hits in each of two straight games. The first one came on a Saturday in Los Angeles. Clemente already had four hits as he came to the plate in the top of the 16th inning. He singled, stole second, and later came scored the go-ahead run as the Pirates beat the Dodgers, 2-1. The next day, the Pirates won again, 11-0. Clemente had five of Pittsburgh’s 23 hits in the game.

He had raised his average to .363, tops in the National League. However, he played little in September because of a bad back and did not win the batting title. The Pirates still won the National League East Division and advanced to the playoffs. Scoring only three runs in three games, however, they were swept by the Cincinnati Reds.

That winter, Clemente played for the last time in the Puerto Rican League. Although he played in only three games during the regular season, he appeared in one of the playoff series. In addition, he managed the San Juan Senadores in 1970-71. The Senadores’ opening game that season was against Santurce, which was managed by Frank Robinson. Both Robinson and Clemente had been mentioned as possibilities to be the first black manager in the major leagues.

After he got off to a slow start with the Pirates in 1971, he said, “My biggest mistake was managing in Puerto Rico this past winter. I had more responsibilities and did not get my rest. The long bus trips out of town, I have to make them because I am the manager. They take something out of me.”59

Willie Stargell took the lead with Pittsburgh in 1971. He set a major league record by hitting 11 home runs in April and continued his great hitting throughout the year. Stargell finished with 48 home runs and 125 runs batted in.

Although Stargell had emerged as the team’s star player, the team leader was still Clemente. He was receiving the recognition he had sought, and he was also showing he could continue playing with the same flair and hustle, even as he approached his 37th birthday. Clemente got off to a bad start, but he got hot in May and went on to finish the season with a .341 batting average. He was still outstanding in the field. In mid-June, Clemente preserved a shutout for Steve Blass, and a victory for the Pirates, on back-to-back plays. Pittsburgh held a 1-0 lead over Houston in the last of the eighth inning. The Astros had a runner on first with one out when Cesar Cedeno hit a soft liner to right field. Clemente hustled in and made a sliding catch of the ball before it could hit the turf. Bob Watson then hit a much harder drive toward the corner in right. Clemente raced toward the ball and made a twisting leap, grabbing the ball and robbing Watson of a two-run homer. Clemente crashed into the wall, bruising his ankle and elbow and cutting his knee. Astros manager Harry Walker, who had managed Clemente in Pittsburgh, said it was the greatest catch he ever made. Because of Clemente’s catch, the Pirates maintained their lead and then padded it with two more runs in the ninth. Blass finished with a 3-0 win but said, “That shutout belongs to Clemente.”60

The win gave the Pirates a 3 ½ game lead over the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals. Pittsburgh increased its lead to 9 ½ games at the All-Star break in July. The Pirates had several players in the All-Star game, including two starters–Willie Stargell in left field and Dock Ellis, who pitched. Clemente entered the game as a replacement for Willie Mays in the fourth inning. Later in the game, he hit his first home run in an All-Star Game.

Pittsburgh went on to win the East Division and beat San Francisco in the league playoffs to make it back to the World Series, against the Baltimore Orioles. Clemente turned the event into a showcase for his greatness.

Baltimore took the first two games before the series shifted to Pittsburgh. Clemente drove in the first run of the third game with a fielder’s choice. The Pirates added another run, but Baltimore came back on a home run by Frank Robinson to cut the lead to 2-1. Clemente led off the last of the seventh by grounding back to Mike Cuellar, who had briefly pitched for Clemente’s San Juan team in the Puerto Rican League the previous winter.61 However, Clemente hustled down to first so hard that Cuellar hurried his throw and threw wildly. Clemente reached base on the error and, after Stargell walked, Bob Robertson hit a three-run homer. Pittsburgh won, 5-1.

The next game was the first night game in the history of the World Series. The Orioles got off to an early lead with three runs in the top of the first. Pittsburgh came back with two in the bottom of the inning, and the Pirates rallied again in the third. With one out, Richie Hebner singled. Clemente then hit a long drive to right. It cleared the fence and looked like a home run to put the Pirates ahead. However, the ball was ruled foul after the umpires had a long discussion. The ball was foul, and Clemente had to resume his at-bat. He couldn’t come up with another long ball, but his single sent Hebner to second. One out later Al Oliver singled, scoring Hebner to tie the game. The score stayed at 3-3 until the Pirates pushed another run across in the seventh inning. Pittsburgh won the game, 4-3, and tied the World Series, 2-2.

The Pirates won again the next day as Nelson Briles held the Orioles to two hits. Clemente had a run-scoring single in the fifth inning to cap Pittsburgh’s scoring as the Pirates won, 5-0.

The Series shifted back to Baltimore, but Pittsburgh had the lead. Just as he had done in the 1960 World Series, Clemente had at least one hit in each of the games. In the sixth game, with two out in the top of the first, he tripled off the fence in left-center field. However, Willie Stargell struck out, and Clemente was stranded at third.

By the time Clemente came up again in the third inning, the Pirates had a 1-0 lead. Clemente made the score 2-0 by hitting a home run to right field. The Orioles came back and tied the game in the seventh. In the last of the 10th inning, Brooks Robinson hit a sacrifice fly that scored Frank Robinson, giving Baltimore the win and extending the series to a seventh game.

Cuellar and Pittsburgh’s Steve Blass were the starters in Game Seven, and both were sharp. Cuellar retired the first 11 Pittsburgh batters before Clemente came up with two out in the fourth. Cuellar threw him a high curve ball, and Clemente drove it over the left-center field fence. Clemente’s second home run of the series gave Pittsburgh a 1-0 lead.

The Pirates got another run in the eighth inning, which they needed. In the bottom of the eighth, Baltimore got the first two runners on base. Blass was able to work out of the jam with only one run scoring, leaving Pittsburgh in the lead. Blass retired the Orioles in order in the last of the ninth. Clemente’s homer had given the Pirates a lead they never gave up. Pittsburgh won the game, 2-1, and the Pirates were again champions of the world.

The Pirates had a number of pitchers who stood out, but when the voting was complete for the outstanding player of the World Series, the award went to Clemente. He had 12 hits, including two home runs, for a .414 batting average in the seven games.

There was no doubting his greatness nor his influence on the champion Pirates. Clemente had played in the All-Star Game, the World Series, had won the Most Valuable Player award, and had led the National League in batting average four times. He still had another milestone in his sights. “I would like to get 3,000 hits,” he said in 1971.62

The Pirates had a rough start in 1972. They climbed in the standings and by the last half of June had taken over first place for good. Clemente was also doing well even though he had an intestinal virus that caused him to miss a few games. By the end of June, his batting average was .315, and he was making good progress toward the mark of 3,000 hits. On July 9, he got his 78th hit of the season, leaving him only 40 short. However, the virus returned, and Clemente left the Pirates to go back to Pittsburgh for treatment. He was out of the lineup for two weeks, then came back and got a big hit in a Pirates win on July 23.

Clemente missed another four weeks with strained tendons in both heels. Over a 40-game span between July 9 and August 22, he started only one game. Fortunately, the Pirates were still playing well and opened up a big lead in the National League East Division, but the illness and injuries had slowed Clemente in his drive toward 3,000 hits.

At the end of August he had 30 hits to go. He hit well in September and was within striking distance by the final week of the season. On Thursday night, September 28, he got his 2,999th hit off Steve Carlton of the Phillies. Because the game was in Philadelphia, he was taken out so he could get his 3,000th hit before the home fans.

Even this event would not happen without a bit of controversy as the Pirates opened a series against the New York Mets in Pittsburgh. Facing Tom Seaver in the first inning, Clemente hit a chopper up the middle. Second baseman Ken Boswell bobbled the ball, and Clemente reached first. Official scorer Luke Quay ruled the play an error. Seaver allowed only two hits, neither to Clemente, in winning his 20th game of the season. After the game, Clemente complained about the scoring decision and later made accusations that official scorers through the years had deprived him of two batting titles. Part of the outburst was a result of Clemente thinking (erroneously) that the scorer in the game was Charley Feeney, a local sportswriter who Clemente thought had deprived him of hits on borderline calls in the past.63

The next afternoon Clemente struck out in the first inning. The game was scoreless when he came up again, leading off the fourth. He hit a long fly toward left-center field. The ball hit the fence on one bounce, and Clemente cruised into second with a double, the 3,000th hit of his career. The Pittsburgh fans stood and applauded Clemente, who raised his cap to show his appreciation. That hit started a three-run rally, and the Pirates won the game, 5-0. Bill Mazeroski pinch hit for Clemente in the fifth inning.

Clemente played in only one of Pittsburgh’s final three games as he rested for the playoffs. The Pirates played Cincinnati and looked like they were on their way back to the World Series. Pittsburgh carried a 3-2 lead into the last of the ninth inning of the decisive fifth game. However, Johnny Bench tied the game with a home run, and the Reds scored the winning run on a wild pitch.

As usual, Clemente went back to Puerto Rico. Although he didn’t play baseball, he managed a Puerto Rican team that went to the Amateur Baseball World Series in Nicaragua. The Puerto Rican team finished third in the tournament.64

Clemente was back home a few weeks later when the city of Managua was racked by a massive earthquake on December 23. He had gotten to know people during his visits to Nicaragua. He was concerned about the people there and wanted to help.

Clemente got busy organizing a committee to raise money and get other items, such as medicine and food, that could be sent to Nicaragua. Through Christmas, he worked on the relief efforts. He finally decided he would go on one of the cargo planes that were flying the supplies to the stricken area.

A little after 9 p.m. on New Year’s Eve, as others in Puerto Rico were celebrating, the plane took off. Besides Clemente, four other people were on board. Almost immediately, the plane had problems, and the pilot tried to return to the San Juan airport. Before the plane could make it back, however, it crashed into the Atlantic Ocean about a mile from the coast.

The fate of the people on board was not immediately known. But it soon became clear. The five men on the plane, including Roberto Clemente, were dead.65

People, not just baseball fans, mourned the loss of Clemente, who left behind his wife, Vera, and three sons, Roberto, Jr., Luis Roberto, and Roberto Enrique.

Normally, a player cannot be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame until at least five years after he stopped playing. Because of the circumstances, an exception was made for Clemente. A special election was held, and he received enough votes to be elected. In the summer of 1973, Clemente became the first player from Latin America to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

There were other honors. An award, established in 1971 to honor a player for his accomplishments on and off the field, was renamed the Roberto Clemente Award.

Clemente had dreamed of establishing a Sports City for young people in Puerto Rico. He had a vision for a place where young people could come and play as well as read and learn other skills they would need in life. Vera Clemente continued her husband’s work, aided by son Luis, and while the project remains uncompleted, the Foundation that was established works to support clinics, sports activities, and similar efforts.

Although he is gone, all sorts of reminders of Clemente still exist. More than anything, Roberto Clemente left behind memories of how he played the game on the field and how he lived his life off it.

Sources

Retrosheet (http://retrosheet.org) provided game-by-game details of Clemente’s performance. The information used was obtained free of charge from and is copyrighted by Retrosheet.

Notes

1 Peter C. Bjarkman, Baseball with a Latin Beat: A History of the Latin American Game (Jefferson: North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1994), 262.

2 Kal Wagenheim, Clemente! (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973), 15.

3 Bruce Markusen, Roberto Clemente: The Great One (Champaign, Illinois: Sports Publishing, Inc., 1998), 4.

4 Telephone interview with Monte Irvin, June 30, 2005.

5 “Roberto Hit Ten HRs in ‘Day-Long’ Slugfest,” The Sporting News, July 6, 1960: 6.

6 Wagenheim, 24.

7 “Starred in Javelin, Jumps Before Turning to Diamond,” The Sporting News, July 6, 1960: 6.

8 Markusen, 8.

9 Les Biederman, “Pride Pushes Clemente: ‘I Can Hit With Best’,” The Sporting News, March 28, 1964: 11.

10 Thomas E. Van Hyning, The Santurce Crabbers: Sixty Seasons of Puerto Rican Winter League Baseball (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1999), 39.

11 Frank Graham, Jr., “Spanish-Speaking Al Campanis Lures Latin Talent for Dodgers,” The Sporting News, January 12, 1955: 21.

12 E-mail correspondence with Buzzie Bavasi, June 3, 2005.

13 Santiago Llorens, The Sporting News, January 20, 1954: 23.

14 The Sporting News, March 3, 1954: 26.

15 The bonus rule in effect at that time is chronicled in Brent Kelley, Baseball’s Biggest Blunder: The Bonus Rule of 1953-1957 (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1997).

16 Les Biederman, “Dodgers Signed Clemente Just to Balk Giants,” The Sporting News, May 25, 1955: 11.

17 Wagenheim, 35; Markusen, 33-34.

18 The claim that the Dodgers would not start five blacks in the same game was made by Wagenheim on page 35 of Clemente! Box scores of Brooklyn Dodgers games in 1954 from The Sporting News indicate four instances in which Jim Gilliam, Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, Sandy Amoros, and Roy Campanella were all in the starting lineup: July 17, August 24, September 6 (second game), and September 15.

19 E-mail correspondence with Buzzie Bavasi, June 3, 2005.

20 Phil Musick, Who Was Roberto? A Biography of Roberto Clemente (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1974). See also Wagenheim and Markusen.

21 The game-by-game analysis of the 1954 season was done through box scores of Montreal Royals games, published in The Sporting News in 1954, and cross-checked by SABR member Neil Raymond from box scores in Montreal newspapers.

22 Musick, 89.

23 Musick, 89.

24 Telephone interview with Jack Cassini, June 20, 2005.

25 E-mail correspondence with Buzzie Bavasi, June 3, 2005.

26 “Jack Hernon, “Backward Buccos Refuse to Go Overboard on Rookie,” The Sporting News, January 12, 1955: 18.

27 Pito Alvarez de la Vega. “Mays, Gomez & Co. on Top in Puerto Rico: Santurce Takes Over Lead from Caguas; Willie Ups Swatting Average to .423,” The Sporting News, December 22, 1954: 24.

28 Wagenheim, 43.

29 Interview with Don Zimmer, July 2, 2005.

30 Jack Hernon, “Clemente a Gem – in Need of Polish,” The Sporting News, February 9, 1955: 4.

31 Jack Hernon, “Haney’s Sizeup on Bob Clemente ‘Much to Learn’,” The Sporting News, March 16, 1955: 30.

32 http://www.bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=1187&pid=14117 Frank Thomas biography by Bob Hurte; Jack Hernon. “Holdouts Thomas and Law Absent as Bucs Start Drills” The Sporting News, March 9, 1955: 33.

33 The Sporting News, March 16, 1955: 27; “Uniform Numbers Range from 1 to 81,” The Sporting News, April 13, 1955, 28; Thomas E. Van Hyning. Puerto Rico’s Winter League: A History of Major League Baseball’s Launching Pad (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1995), 53.

34 Jack Hernon, “Haney’s Young Bucs Shaking off Buck Fever,” The Sporting News, May 11, 1955: 11.

35 Les Biederman, “Clemente, Early Buc Ace, Says He’s Better in Summer,” The Sporting News, June 29, 1955, 26.

36 Telephone interview with Jack Cassini, June 20, 2005.

37 Les Biederman, “Clemente, Early Buc Ace, Says He’s Better in Summer.”

38 “Bragan Cracks Down Early, Fines Clemente, Long $25,” The Sporting News, April 25, 1956: 21; Les Biederman, “Bear-Down Bragan Means Business, Buc Fans Learn,” The Sporting News, May 2, 1956: 7.

39 Wagenheim, 67.

40 Irving Vaughan, “7-Run Cub 8th Isn’t Enough! Pirates Win, 9 to 8, on Clemente Homer,” Chicago Tribune, Thursday, July 26, 1956: 6, 1.

41 “Clemente Ignored Stop Sign on ‘Slam,’ But Escaped Fine,” The Sporting News, August 8, 1956: 18.

42 Les Biederman, “Clemente in 50 Games Without Walk,” The Sporting News, August 8, 1956: 18.

43 Oscar Ruhl. “Rickey Rates Clemente as Top Draft Dandy,” The Sporting News, March 20, 1957: 15.

44 Pito Alvarez de la Vega, “New Owner Peddles Trio of Santurce’s Stars to Flag Rival,” The Sporting News, January 9, 1957: 21.

45 Pito Alvarez de la Vega, “Bilko Released in Economy Move; Clemente Sets 23-Game Hit Mark,” The Sporting News, January 16, 1957: 21.

46 “Clemente, Best When Ailing, Reports Late With Backache,” The Sporting News, March 13, 1957: 10.

47 “Clemente to Start Six-Month Marine Corps Hitch, Oct. 4,” The Sporting News, September 24, 1958: 7; “Buc Flyhawk Now Marine Rookie,” The Sporting News, November 19, 1958: 13; The Sporting News, January 21, 1959: 9.

48 “Clemente Put on Disabled List and Baker Released by Bucs,” The Sporting News, June 3, 1959: 13.

49 Bob Stevens, “Little Things Add Up to Big Plunge for Snoozing Giants,” The Sporting News, August 17, 1960: 13, 18.

50 Wagenheim, 106.

51 Musick, 14-15.

52 Les Biederman, “Clemente–The Player Who Can Do It All,” The Sporting News, April 20, 1968: 11.

53 Thomas E. Van Hyning. Puerto Rico’s Winter League: A History of Major League Baseball’s Launching Pad, 66.

54 Interview with Tony Oliva, June 5, 2005.

55 Miguel J. Frau, “Puerto Rico: Senators Dip As Clemente Grabs Reins,” The Sporting News, January 9, 1965: 27.

56 “Clemente May Have Trouble As Result of Thigh Injury,” The Sporting News, February 13, 1965: 25.

57 Les Biederman, “Shoulder Sore; Clemente Says He May Retire,” The Sporting News, August 24, 1968: 18.

58 “Clemente Reveals Close Call With Kidnapers,” The Sporting News, August 22, 1970: 24.

59 “Clemente Laments Managing,” The Sporting News, May 15, 1971: 14.

60 Charley Feeney, “Greatest Catch? This One by Roberto Will Do,” The Sporting News, July 3, 1971: 7.

61 Phil Jackman, “Orioles Shrug Off Cuellar’s Winter-Ball Woes,” The Sporting News, December 26, 1970: 37.

62 Charley Feeney, “Clemente Sets 3,000 Hits As Wish on 37th Birthday,” The Sporting News, August 28, 1971: 9.

63 Charley Feeney, “Roberto Collects 3000th Hit, Dedicates It to Pirate Fans,” The Sporting News, October 14, 1972: 15.

64 “Veteran Cuban Team Captures Amateur Title; U. S. Runner-Up,” The Sporting News, December 30, 1972: 46.

65 “Baseball Mourns Loss of Buc Star Clemente,” The Sporting News, January 13, 1973: 42.