For Glenn Abbott, his days in the major leagues were filled with stories and memories and good feelings.

In an interview, the former American League pitcher conjured up a past filled with recollections of warm summer days in big-league cities around the country. And although he played his last major-league game in August 1984 — when the Detroit Tigers cut him after a terrible stretch after the All-Star break — he continued to make his presence felt by coaching up-and-coming young pitching arms.

Abbott’s tale is an interesting one: a leap from being a member of the World Series-winning Oakland A’s of the 1970s to the expansion Seattle Mariners to the impressive Tigers teams of 1983 and ’84.

William Glenn Abbott was born on February 16, 1951, in Little Rock, Arkansas. “When I was a kid, everybody played baseball,” he told an interviewer in 2008. “I always loved it. When I was 14 or 15, we’d ride bicycles over to the baseball fields and would play a little workup or something and then help prepare the field. It’s just what kids did then.

“The Cardinals were big in Little Rock. I can remember when Dick Allen came to Little Rock; he was the first black to play there. I remember Ferguson Jenkins and guys like that who played there. … I’ve always loved it and played the game. This is not a job to me. I really enjoy what I do. It’s my 39th season, and I love it. I like working with the young kids.”1

In his early days with the sport, Abbott played the infield and caught as well as pitched.

That changed when he entered high school. “I realized that I had the chance to go on beyond high-school ball,” he said. “I realized that I had some ability and didn’t want to take a chance of breaking a finger or something like that.”

Abbott played baseball and basketball in high school and had planned to continue with both sports in college. But he was drafted out of high school in the eighth round by the Oakland A’s in June 1969, and signed immediately. He was 18 years old. For a couple of years during the offseason, he attended State College of Arkansas, now called the University of Central Arkansas. He made the big leagues when he was 22.

Starting in the Rookie-classification Northwest League, Abbott quickly worked his way through minor-league ball and made his debut with Oakland on July 29, 1973, when he started against the Texas Rangers. He was taken out in the fourth inning with Oakland leading 4-2, and Texas runners on second and third. (The A’s eventually won, 7-4.)

Though Abbott’s major-league pitching record was just 62-83, with a 4.39 earned-run average, he had his moments. September 28, 1975, the last game of the season, was a good example. Abbott was the second of four pitchers who combined to throw a no-hitter against the California Angels. Abbott pitched one inning and retired the side in order.

Abbott said the A’s were preparing for the playoff series against the Boston Red Sox, and the manager, Alvin Dark, already had decided that Vida Blue would start but pitch no more than five innings. Abbott was slated to pitch the sixth, Paul Lindblad would throw the seventh inning, and Rollie Fingers would wrap things up in the eighth and ninth, regardless of the score.

“When I went out to take the mound in the sixth inning, the home crowd was booing — people were booing,” Abbott said. “But they weren’t booing me. They were booing because Vida Blue came out of the game and he was pitching a no-hitter. I said to myself, ‘Lord, please don’t let me give up a hit.’” And he didn’t.

Abbott pitched for Oakland for four seasons and compiled a 13-16 record with a 4.08 ERA.

His years with the A’s brought a lot of smiles. “I was on a team where you hear all the stuff about how wild they were, with all the fights and stuff. But the players were all-for-one when they were at the ballpark and on the field. They expected to win. In my first year we won the league championship.” Oakland went on to win the World Series as well.

His next stop in an 11-year major-league career was with the Seattle Mariners, when he became the 24th pick in the 1976 expansion draft.

Abbott viewed the change from winning a title in Oakland to moving to an expansion team in Seattle as a positive experience as well.

“I went from a team that expected to win to a team that didn’t have a lot of confidence,” he said. “They thought they could win but weren’t sure. It was a big adjustment. In expansion, you always have a bunch of Triple-A players who never had a chance to play in the majors. It’s a big step to make. If you can play Double-A ball, you can pretty much play Triple-A ball. But they don’t understand the jump to the majors. It’s like daylight and dark. A lot of guys can’t comprehend that.” 

Abbott’s promise was realized in the 1977 campaign, the first of the Mariners’ existence. He compiled a 12-13 record with a 4.45 ERA, fanning 100 batters. He was the longest-serving of the original Mariners players — his last game for Seattle was on August 21, 1983. His record with the Mariners was 44-62 with an ERA that ranged from 3.94 to 5.27.

Abbott missed the 1982 season because of floating bone chips in his elbow. His arm problems were compounded by a serious bout of viral meningitis. He lost 30 pounds, as well as some vision and hearing, and still had repercussions from the illness into June 1983. He was finally able to pitch again in midsummer of 1983.

Abbott was purchased by the Tigers on August 23, 1983, for $100,000, and stayed with Detroit for parts of two seasons.

“Detroit is a good baseball town, and I wanted an opportunity to go to a winning ballclub,” he said during an interview at PGE Park in Portland, Oregon, his baseball home in 2008, where he was the pitching coach for the Portland Beavers, the San Diego Padres’ Triple-A affiliate. “You really appreciate a chance like that. It’s huge to get that opportunity.” 

He was released by the Detroit organization on August 14, 1984, during the height of the championship run to the World Series. Abbott immediately started a coaching career that topped his pitching career for longevity.

Standing 6-feet-6, Abbott had a playing weight of around 200 pounds, and added a few pounds after his coaching career started. To an interviewer, his native Arkansas showed up in his easy drawl: the word “four” became a two-syllable word when it left Abbott’s mouth. 

In talking about the differences between the two leagues, Abbott made a definitive observation about his playing days: “National League umps were far more consistent back then,” he said, though he wouldn’t comment on the current umpiring situation in the major leagues. 

“I wish I could have played in the National League as a pitcher,” he said. “I like the game a lot better. There’s more things going on, more decisions to be made, pitcher having to hit, et cetera. It’s also a better league to pitch in. The designated hitter means that teams like Boston and New York have no weaknesses in the lineup.”

The right-hander’s feelings about his time with the Tigers? “I knew I had a chance to go to a contending ballclub, and you don’t realize how important that is until later. I was very fortunate,” he said. 

He made his Tigers debut on August 27, 1983, pitching seven innings against Toronto and leaving with the scored tied 2-2. His best game for the Tigers that season was a 5-0 shutout of the Cleveland Indians on September 14. His mark with the Tigers in ’83 was 2-1 with a 1.93 ERA in seven starts

“The Tigers made a run in ’83 and came up a game or two short [actually six games behind Baltimore]. I pitched well for them then, with Sparky [Anderson, the manager,] and Roger Craig as the pitching coach. And in ’84, that team started 35-5 and set a record. We set the [American League] record in Anaheim for the most consecutive games won on the road and got a standing ovation. 

“But I was in the bullpen and wasn’t getting a chance to pitch much because the starters were so good. It made it really difficult; it’s difficult to perform at a high level if you don’t get the chance to play. But Jack Morris and Dan Petry and those guys were just dealing.”

Abbott took the second loss of the ’84 season when the Tigers were 16-1 but recalled few details of the 19-inning game in his interview, despite the fact that he committed two errors that contributed to the loss. 

“Two errors? That’s bad. Maybe that’s why I can’t remember,” he said.

During Detroit’s wire-to-wire American League East championship run in 1984, Abbott pitched in 13 games, eight of them starts, with a 3-4 record and a 5.93 ERA before he was cut. His best game that season was a complete-game victory over the Chicago White Sox on July 16, in which he gave up only four hits and one walk.

Abbott had fond recollections of his teammates from that charmed 1984 season, even though it was a truncated one for him.

Of Sparky Anderson, he said: “He didn’t talk to you much. He would say hi, but that’s the way managers were then. I had no problems with Sparky at all. He was a pretty positive guy. He had some good players on the team. It was amazing; those guys came to play. They never even complained about playing charity games against Cincinnati on an offday.”

Roger Craig, the Tigers’ pitching coach during Abbott’s tenure in Detroit, “was one of the most positive people I’ve ever been around. He was always telling you how good you were. You have to be positive with the guys, and Roger was always that way.”

Abbott said Jack Morris, the Tigers’ acknowledged ace throughout the 1980s, “had tremendous confidence. He was probably the best pitcher of that decade — or one of the best, I’ll say that. He was just getting better and better at the time. Jack was a winning-type pitcher. He threw a no-hitter in April in one of the first televised games [of the season] in Chicago. I remember a fan was yelling after every inning, ‘Hey Morris, you got a no-hitter going’ — trying to get him off stride. And about the eighth inning, Jack said back to him, ‘Damn right. Stay right there ’cause you’re gonna see one.’ He was a quality pitcher.”

Dan Petry, considered the number-two man in Detroit’s rotation for most of the 1980s, “didn’t say a lot,” Abbott said, “but he was very consistent. You knew what you were going to get every time you went out there.”

Abbott also had good words for two relievers who not only saved his bacon on more than one occasion in 1984, but that of other Tigers hurlers during the championship season. Guillermo Hernandez, the 1984 AL Cy Young Award winner and Most Valuable Player, “couldn’t do anything wrong,” he recalled. Aurelio “Señor Smoke” Lopez, who notched a 10-1 record and 14 saves in the midst of Hernandez’s spectacular season, “also was very consistent,” Abbott said.

Alan Trammell, Detroit’s shortstop and the World Series MVP in 1984, “was just as solid as they come. He was a ballplayer. He could handle the bat so well. He was underrated at that time. Howard Johnson was coming along at that time, too, playing third base. They were all very professional, and they expected to win. There was a lot of confidence — a good atmosphere to be in.

“Darrell Evans did a good job. It was the end of his career, but he was very consistent and made a tremendous impact on the club. Whitaker and Trammell and Lance Parrish and Kirk Gibson and Dave Rozema — it makes a difference when your players come up together. You’ve got to have talent, but you need chemistry, too, and it all fell together with the Tigers.”

Abbott said he got a ring and a share of the World Series money that year, even though he left the team in August.

“It might have been a three-quarter share; I can’t remember. It just makes you feel good that your teammates appreciate you,” he said.

His time in the majors flew by, but the memories lingered. 

“I had never seen a no-hitter in professional games, and in the first three years I was in the league, I saw one every year, including being involved in the one against the Angels when I was with Oakland. (It was actually four.) The Angels at that time were a bad ballclub, but Vida Blue was on that day. It was just five innings, but he walked through them. 

“I had a chance to play with guys like Catfish Hunter. They made a big impression on me. They were very professional about the way they approached the game.”

One of his greatest thrills was pitching in Yankee Stadium for the first time. “It was really an experience to go see those monuments for the first time. If you love baseball, that is really something. That’s why I hate to see Yankee Stadium moving. It’s one thing that bothers me. There’s so much history. If you think of the people who played there, Yankee Stadium is like hallowed ground. You hate to see that happen, but I understand it when teams have to go to larger parks.

“The dugouts in Tiger Stadium were so small that everybody couldn’t sit down when you came off the field. It was like a bunker in the bullpen.” 

As for Detroit’s fans: “The Tigers have great fans. Everywhere you go you’d hear people talking about the Tigers. Every night they had big crowds. It was really a unique experience. It was really a cool deal there. I really enjoyed that — very much.”

Abbott began a career as a pitching coach with the Little Falls Mets in 1985, the year after the Tigers cut him loose. He spent five years with the Mets’ organization before joining the Athletics. He logged 13 years at various levels with the A’s. Then Abbott was a pitching coach for five years in the San Diego Padres system, and spent four seasons in the Texas Rangers organization. In 2011 he returned to the Mets’ organization, as the pitching coach for the Savannah Sand Gnats of the South Atlantic League. In 2012 he joined the Binghamton Mets of the Double-A Eastern League. As of 2014 he was still with Binghamton.

Abbott was married in 1973. He and his wife, Patti, lived in Arkansas in the offseason, and wherever he was working during the season. The eldest of their three children, Todd, pitched in the Oakland minor-league system from 1995 through 1998 and became a high-school teacher and baseball coach in Bentonville, Arkansas. Their second son, Jeff, also became a teacher, in Bolivar, Missouri. There is also a daughter, Amy.

Sources

The author relied on baseball-reference.com for the statistical data presented in this article.

Notes

1 Clifford Corn interview with Glenn Abbott on April 21, 2008. Unless otherwise indicated, all quotations from Glenn Abbott come from this interview.

A notable Adair who lived with the Cherokee tribe in the eighteenth century was an Irish trader, James Adair. He wrote a lengthy book about his belief that the unique, dignified Cherokees were one of the biblical lost tribes of Judah. In 1838, a majority of the Cherokees under the terms of an onerous treaty with the United States government were forcibly removed on the Trail of Tears to Indian Territory. Thousands of Cherokees died along the way. In 1907, Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were combined to form the state of Oklahoma.

Bordering on the state of Arkansas in the flint hills of northeastern Oklahoma, Adair County is named for one of Jerry Adair’s Cherokee family members of the Civil War era, Judge William Penn Adair. Jerry’s grandfather George Starr Adair was enrolled in a tribal census as a 28-year-old member of the Cherokee Nation in 1900 in what became Adair County, Oklahoma. His son, Kinnie Adair, spoke Cherokee when he visited with friends and relatives from Adair County. Today, heavy concentrations of the inhabitants of the county are descendants of the original Cherokee settlers.

Jerry Adair’s life was described by the Tulsa World‘s sports editor Bill Connors as “an experience of two lifetimes.” Connors’ obituary after Jerry’s death in 1987 surmised, “The first half was exaltation. The second half was tragedy.” Connors described Jerry as “the best athlete to come out of the Tulsa area in his lifetime.” He would not have stretched the truth if he had stated that no athlete from Oklahoma had a more storied pre-professional career than Adair, not even Mickey Mantle, who was 5 years older than Adair. Mantle had close relatives who were Cherokee; his grandmother was born in Indian Territory, but he was not a mixed-blood American Indian.

Jerry’s father played sandlot baseball on his employer’s teams in the Sand Springs area. Like Mantle’s father, Kinnie Adair always had time after work to play ball with his son. A tool grinder by trade, Kinnie also coached Jerry’s Little League teams. Jerry told Ray Fitzgerald, a Boston Globe sports columnist, about his Little League days when he “did a lot of pitching. Anybody who could throw a curveball was a pitcher, and I was a pretty good one.”

Kinnie Adair died in 1986, one year and three days before Jerry’s death. He had remarried after Jerry’s mother died in 1952 and had a son, Dennis, who died in 2005. Jerry’s only sister, Joyce, who was born in Adair County, still lives in Sand Springs.

Jerry’s high school coach, Cecil Hankins, was a legendary football and basketball player at Oklahoma A&M College, now Oklahoma State University (OSU), in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Hankins regarded Jerry as the greatest all-around athlete he ever coached. Jerry earned nine letters at Sand Springs High School, three each in football, basketball, and baseball. During his high school years, he earned the nickname “Iceman” because of his coolness. He is particularly remembered for his coolness during the football game against Ponca City during his senior year. Ponca City grabbed a 20-0 lead in the first quarter. Playing quarterback, Jerry scored just before halftime and kicked the extra point to cut the deficit to 20-7. In the third quarter, Jerry engineered a scoring drive and kicked another extra point for a 20-14 score. Late in the fourth quarter, Jerry scored a touchdown and kicked the extra point to win the game 21-20 for Sand Springs. Bill Connors once wrote, “Adair demonstrated All-American possibilities as a high school quarterback at Sand Springs.”

After football season in the fall of 1954, Daily Oklahoman sports writer Ray Soldan telephoned coach Hankins to tell him that he had selected Jerry for the all-state football team. For many years Soldan made Oklahoma’s all-state team selections. Only seniors were eligible and a player could be selected for only one sport. Coach Hankins spoke with Jerry, who said he did not want to make all-state in football; he wanted to make it in basketball. Soldan said he would give no assurance that Jerry would be selected for basketball, but Jerry said he would take the chance. Another player was named to replace Jerry on the all-state football team. After basketball season, Jerry was selected on the all-state basketball team. Playing in the state all-star game in the summer of 1955, Jerry was selected as the most outstanding player in the game.

Jerry also played Ban Johnson League baseball during the summer of 1955. He was scouted by Toby Greene, the longtime head baseball coach at OSU. Jerry’s team was leading 1-0 in the bottom of the ninth inning, but the opponent had loaded the bases with no outs. Greene watched as the manager motioned for Jerry to pitch. Jerry nodded and walked to the mound from his third base position with a big cud of tobacco in his mouth. He threw two balls to the catcher and announced he was ready. Greene thought this was the cockiest player he had ever seen. Jerry struck out the three batters he faced. Greene later declared to Coach Hankins, “I’ll take him–he can play anywhere.” Jerry Adair was one of Coach Greene’s seven All-Americans at OSU.

Jerry entered OSU in the fall of 1955 on an athletic scholarship to play basketball and baseball. Freshmen were not then eligible for varsity competition and played only limited schedules in all sports. Jerry’s first varsity competition was during the 1956-1957 basketball season under Hall of Fame coach Henry Iba, the Iron Duke. A rare sophomore starter at OSU, the 6-foot, 175-pound Adair was the team’s playmaking guard and second leading scorer on the nation’s top defensive team. During his junior year, he was again the team’s second leading scorer. Bill Connors once wrote, “Long time Iba watchers say Adair was one of the few players who was not yelled at by Iba. ‘There was no need to yell at Jerry,’ Iba said at the time. ‘He does everything right.'”

To this day, what is referred to as “The Game” at Gallagher Hall (now Gallagher-Iba Arena and Eddie Sutton Court) at OSU is the February 21, 1957, rematch between OSU and the Kansas Jayhawks, led by their phenomenal sophomore center Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain. Earlier in the season, Iba’s team was said to have played one of their best games of the season when they held the Jayhawks to a ten point winning margin on their home court at Lawrence, Kansas.

Chamberlain did not disappoint the fans as he scored an arena record of 32 points. But OSU came from far behind to win the game, 56-54. The high OSU scorer with 18 points was forward Eddie Sutton, who would return to his alma mater as head coach in 1990. Although he scored only six points, Jerry Adair, according to Bill Connors, “played brilliantly on the floor.” Jerry had no fouls and one field goal, and was four-for-four from the free-throw line.

The highlight game of Jerry’s junior year and his last basketball season at OSU was a 61-57 verdict over the Cincinnati Bearcats. Their future Hall of Fame player, Oscar Robertson, scored 29 points. Jerry was OSU’s second leading scorer, and made two free throws and a field goal down the stretch to preserve the victory. The 1957-1958 OSU team finished 21-8 and won two games in post-season NCAA play. They were eliminated by Kansas State in the western regional finals, one game from the final four.

Baseball was a much lower profile sport than basketball at OSU in the 1950s as well as today. OSU won the NCAA basketball championships in 1945 and 1946. Henry Iba had been the OSU basketball and baseball coach from 1934 to 1941. When he was also the athletic director in 1942, he passed the baseball coaching reins to Toby Greene, who was Jerry Adair’s head baseball coach during the 1957 and 1958 seasons.

The 1957 OSU baseball season was essentially “called on account of rain.” Nine games were canceled because of rain or unplayable fields. The year’s record for OSU was 12 won and three lost. When three consecutive days of rain prevented the Missouri Valley conference championship series from being played, Bradley University was given the NCAA tournament bid because of its better conference record.

Regarded as a “converted basketballer,” sophomore Jerry Adair was the starting shortstop on the experienced 1957 OSU baseball team. Two of his senior teammates signed professional contracts at season’s end. Center fielder Mel Wright, who was the other starting basketball guard with Adair during the 1956-1957 season, signed with the Kansas City Athletics. He had four undistinguished seasons in the minor leagues. Pitcher Merlin Nippert signed with the Boston Red Sox, with whom he had a cup of coffee in 1962 before finishing his career in the Pacific Coast League.

Competing in the Big Eight conference in 1958 for the first time, OSU was rained out of its last two games of the year with champion Missouri, which thus backed into the NCAA tournament bid. OSU’s record for the year was 17 won, six lost. Junior shortstop Jerry Adair was the team’s leading hitter with a .438 batting average. He was the first player from OSU named to the All-Big Eight team. He was also named to the All-American second team by the American Baseball Coaches Association. One of three excellent OSU pitchers was future Chicago White Sox ace Joel Horlen, who would lead the Adair-less 1959 team to OSU’s first and only NCAA baseball championship.

On August 24, 1957, Jerry married his high school sweetheart, Kay Morris. They had met in an English class at Sand Springs High School. While he was playing semipro baseball during the summer of 1958 for Williston, North Dakota, in the Western Canada Baseball League (WCBL), Kay gave birth in Tulsa to Kathy, their first of four children.

Adair won the batting title with a .409 average, with the runner-up trailing at .371. He tied for the lead in home runs and finished close behind the RBI leader. Jerry was the league’s top fielding shortstop. He was the starting pitcher in three games and was credited with the victory in each. He batted .444 in 14 playoff games and led his team to the league title on August 30, 1958.

After being signed by Baltimore Orioles scout Eddie Robinson for a reported $40,000, Jerry made his major league debut defensively at shortstop for the O’s on September 2, 1958, in a 4-3 loss to the Senators in Washington. Playing right field for the Orioles that day was former Yankee Gene Woodling whose steadying influence and advice helped Jerry adjust to major league baseball. At third base for the Orioles was future major league manager Dick Williams who would be Jerry’s future ticket to participate in three World Series.

The news that Adair had signed a professional baseball contract came as a complete surprise to OSU’s athletic director and basketball coach, Henry Iba. He had understood that Jerry would return to OSU for conferences with him before making a definite commitment to a major league club. Iba had once counseled OSU’s baseball and football star, Allie Reynolds, to take a baseball contract offered by the Cleveland Indians instead of one offered by the New York Giants in Allie’s then favorite sport, football. As to Adair, Iba was quoted in the Tulsa World as saying “He has an excellent chance in baseball, I believe, for he is a fine baseball player and a boy with a great competitive spirit.” With his playmaking guard not in the lineup for the 1958-1959 season, Iba was to suffer through just his second losing basketball season (11 won, 14 lost) since his arrival at OSU in 1934.

The Red Sox had offered Jerry a larger signing bonus than Baltimore, but he figured he would move up the ladder quicker with the Orioles.

After playing in only 11 games with the Orioles in 1958, with just 19 at-bats, Jerry was shipped in the spring of 1959 to the Amarillo Gold Sox, the Orioles’ farm team in the Double-A Texas League. His Amarillo manager, George Staller, was quoted in the Tulsa World as saying that Jerry was a surefire major leaguer but that he needed a season of Triple-A experience. At the beginning of the season in Amarillo, Jerry batted around .275 and failed to cover much ground. Suddenly he caught fire, both at bat and in the field. Staller credited Adair with being instrumental in Amarillo’s surge from 17 games below .500 to four over that mark. Recalled Adair in a Tulsa World article, “My fielding improved when my hitting got better and I learned to play the batters. That’s the big difference. When you’re hitting everything seems to go well. Knowing the hitters is the key. That’s why I didn’t do so well with Baltimore.”

In 146 games, mostly at shortstop, for Amarillo in 1959, Jerry batted .309. Called up at season’s end by Baltimore, he batted .314 in 12 games, playing second base or shortstop, mostly as the starter. After playing in an instructional league in the fall of 1959, he batted .266 in 1960 playing for the Miami Marlins of the Triple-A International League. He was named the league’s all-star shortstop.   He played three games at second base for the Orioles at the very end of the year.

Jerry had an excellent 1961 spring training with the Orioles to make the club, but by Opening Day was still unable to dislodge veterans Ron Hansen at shortstop or Marv Breeding at second base. But as the season progressed, he replaced Breeding as the regular second baseman and substituted occasionally for Hansen at shortstop. Batting .264 for the season, he outhit both Hansen and Breeding and played 107 games at second base, 27 games at shortstop, and two at third base. Jerry hit nine home runs and drove in 37 runs. During the seasons 1961-1965, Adair was recognized as one of the premier fielding infielders in the American League. He batted .258 during these five seasons, substantially above the league average for middle infielders. However, he was overshadowed by the Orioles’ spectacular third baseman and future Hall of Famer, Brooks Robinson.

Adair is particularly remembered for setting a major league record for second basemen. In 89 games from July 22, 1964, to May 6, 1965, he handled 458 chances without an error. In 1964 and 1965, he led all American League second basemen in fielding percentage. He shares an American League record with Bobby Grich and Roberto Alomar for the fewest errors in a season by a second baseman (five in 1964). For his career he had a better fielding percentage (.985) than three Hall of Fame second basemen of his era: Nellie Fox, Joe Morgan and Bill Mazeroski.

Although Jerry was known primarily for his glove, he told the Boston Globe‘s Ray Fitzgerald in August of 1967 that his biggest moment in the major leagues came in late August 1962 in a five-game Orioles-Yankees series. Jerry recalled that the Orioles won all five games and that he had 13 hits in the series. His best day came in a twi-night doubleheader that opened the series when he was 3-for-4 in the first game and 5-for-6 (with a double and a triple) in the second game.

When Orioles manager Hank Bauer gave the second base job to rookie Dave Johnson, Jerry demanded a trade — more than once — and was finally dealt to the White Sox for Eddie Fisher on June 13, 1966. The trade cost him the opportunity to be a member of the Orioles when they defeated the Dodgers in the 1966 World Series and also cost him about $12,000 World Series money.

After hitting .243 for the White Sox in 1966, he shared second base with Wayne Causey early in the 1967 season. After having missed out on a pennant in 1966, things balanced out when on June 2, 1967, the White Sox traded him to the Red Sox. Dick Williams was glad to get him; the two had been teammates for several years in Baltimore and author Bill Reynolds said that Williams viewed him as “the ultimate professional.” Adair’s toughness appealed to Williams. Reynolds recounted a 1964 doubleheader when Jerry was hit in the mouth by a throw in the first game, received 11 stitches, then played in the second game. He described Adair as having “a face right out of the Grapes of Wrath.” Jerry was hitting only .204 with the White Sox when the trade was executed, but would hit .291 in 89 games while playing three infield positions for the Red Sox. The Red Sox were 22-21 before he joined them but were 70-49 afterward.

Adair filled in for the injured Rico Petrocelli at short off-and-on for a month, playing errorless defense. Adair played pivotal roles on offense in several games, too, but his biggest single day was likely the Sunday doubleheader at Fenway Park on August 20. Jerry was 3-for-3 in the first game, a 12-2 rout of the Angels. In the second game, California got off to an 8-0 lead after just 3½ innings. The Sox crept back, and Adair’s single in the bottom of the sixth tied the game, 8-8. In the bottom of the eighth, his leadoff home run gave the Red Sox the lead and the 9-8 win. As Herb Crehan wrote in Lightning in a Bottle, “Role players like Adair seldom get their moment in the sun. But in the summer of ’67 every Red Sox fan thought of Jerry as a hero.”

In the final game of the season, Adair was 2-for-4 at the plate. He singled and scored the tying run in the bottom of the sixth, but his big play of the day came in the top of the eighth as Jim Lonborg was working with a 5-2 lead. Pinch hitter Rich Reese singled to lead off the inning, but César Tovar grounded to second. Adair charged in on the ball, sweeping it up with his glove, tagging the oncoming Reese, and firing accurately to George Scott at first, though spiked so severely he had to leave the game and have several stitches. Red Sox broadcaster Ken Coleman called Jerry Adair “Mr. Clutch” and wrote that if there had been a “Tenth Player Award” in 1967, he would have deserved it.

After the wild clubhouse celebration when the Red Sox clinched the American League pennant on the last day of the season, Jerry telephoned his sister to say that manager Dick Williams had just kissed him and other Red Sox players. In the World Series that was won by the pitching heroics of Bob Gibson for the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games, Adair appeared in five games, starting the first four (all against righthanders), but had only two hits in 16 at-bats. He did have Boston’s only stolen base of the series and had one RBI. Williams started Mike Andrews in Game Five against lefty Steve Carlton, then stuck with Andrews in Games Six and Seven.

Neil Singelais, a sports writer with the Boston Globe later quoted 1967 Red Sox catcher Russ Gibson as saying, “No one could pivot as well as Jerry on a double play ball. He could play anywhere and he was a tough guy to get out.” Jim Lonborg, the 1967 pitching ace of the Red Sox staff, added that the trade that brought Adair to Boston “was like adding a gem to a beautiful necklace. He did such a magnificent job for us. He was a quiet guy around the clubhouse. He was so invaluable, older and more experienced.”

In 1968, Jerry had a poor year at the plate for the Red Sox, batting only .216 in 74 games while filling a journeyman’s role and playing four infield positions. In the 1968-1969 off-season, he was selected by the Kansas City Royals in the American League expansion draft. He was the regular second baseman for the Royals in 1969 and batted .250 for the season. On April 8, in the first game the Royals ever played, Adair hit second and knocked in their first-ever run: Lou Piniella led off with a double, and Jerry singled him home.

In 1970, the Royals awarded the second base position to Luis Alcaraz, and Adair played sparingly. In May, the Royals abruptly released Adair as he was boarding an airplane. He had spent most of the spring with his daughter, Tammy, who died of cancer shortly after his release. Jerry resented the Royals not taking his family problems into consideration at the time of the release. Later that season, Adair played near his hometown with the Tulsa Oilers of the Triple-A American Association, the top Cardinals farm club.

In 1971, Adair joined the Hankyu Braves in Japan and batted .300 for the season. The Braves won the pennant in the Pacific League, but were defeated by the perennial champion Yomiuri Giants of the Central League in the Japan Series. In 1972 and 1973, Jerry earned World Series rings as a coach under his friend, manager Dick Williams of the Oakland Athletics. Williams quit as manager of the A’s after the 1973 World Series. Jerry earned another World Series ring in 1974 as a coach for manager Alvin Dark of the A’s, who won their third straight World Series. In 1975 and 1976, Jerry was a coach for manager Dick Williams of the California Angels. The major league coaching doors were closed to Jerry after the Angels fired Williams during the 1976 season.

Jerry’s wife, Kay, died of cancer in June 1981. Personal and financial problems forced Jerry, always an introvert, into a shell. A cancerous mole was removed from his arm in 1986. Prior to gall bladder surgery, it was discovered that the cancer had spread to his liver. As the former OSU basketball players were making plans to have a Saturday night banquet in Stillwater, Oklahoma, honoring Henry Iba, Jerry was out of the hospital and optimistic for a new treatment for his disease. Friday night he was readmitted to the hospital. At the very hour of the event that Iba called the happiest of his life, Adair’s condition worsened. He died Sunday morning, May 31, 1987. Jerry was survived by his sister, Joyce; his half-brother, Dennis; and three children, Kathy, Judy, and Michael. Graveside funeral services were held at Woodlawn Cemetery in Sand Springs.

Sand Springs friend Ron Dobbs helped perpetuate Jerry’s memory by displaying Jerry’s sports memorabilia at his pizza restaurant in Sand Springs. Many of the items were still on display years after Dobbs owned the restaurant. Jerry’s fierce competitive nature was evident early on, according to Dobbs. Like the Dodgers’ Pee Wee Reese, Jerry was regarded by his friends as a world class marbles shooter in grade school. He was said to have more marbles at his house than any other kid in Lake Station. Dobbs and one of Jerry’s former Sand Springs teammates, Oklahoma State Representative David Riggs, helped get the Sand Springs Little League complex named in his honor. In 1992, Jerry was inducted into the Sand Springs Sandite Hall of Fame. In 2001, he was inducted into the OSU Baseball Hall of Fame.

Author’s Note

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

Sources

I interviewed Jerry Adair’s only surviving sibling, Joyce Bachus, and a close friend, Ron Dobbs, both of Sand Springs, Oklahoma. They also reviewed and provided helpful comments as to my draft of this article. Like Jerry, I have a Cherokee heritage and was a student at OSU when Jerry was making his records in basketball and baseball.

In addition, I made use of the following sources:

Bischoff, John Paul. Mr. Iba: Basketball’s Aggie Iron Duke. Oklahoma Heritage Association, 1980.

Burke, Bob; Kenny A. Franks, and Royse Parr. Glory Days of Summer: The History of Baseball in Oklahoma. Oklahoma Heritage Association, 1999.

Coleman, Ken and Dan Valenti. The Impossible Dream Remembered. Stephen Greene Press, 1987.

Crehan, Herb with James W. Ryan. Lightning in a Bottle. Branden Publishing, 1992.

Echohawk, Rodney. “Jerry Adair, Sandite Athlete Without Equal,” Sand Springs Leader, May 31, 2001.

Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. Doubleday, 1988.

Hankins, Cecil. “Adair” in Sand Springs, Oklahoma: A Community History. Sand Springs, Oklahoma Museum, 1994.

King, Richard. “Jerry Adair” by Royse Parr in Native Americans in Sports, Sharpe Reference, 2004.

Parr, Royse. Allie Reynolds: Super Chief. Oklahoma Heritage Association, 2001.

Reynolds, Bill. Lost Summer. Time Warner, 1992.

Woodward, Grace Steele. The Cherokees. University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.

Prepared by the Commission and the Commissioners of the Five Civilized Tribes. The Final Rolls of Citizen and Freedman of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory, 1907.

1957 Redskin and 1958 Redskin, yearbooks of Oklahoma A&M College.

Press book, Oklahoma State 1999 Cowboy Baseball.

Numerous articles and game reports from the sports section of the Tulsa World on microfilm at the Tulsa City-County Library, particularly writings by its sportswriters Bill Connors and John Cronley, 1956-1987.

Boston Globe, August 7, 1967, with articles about Kay Adair by Laura Holbrow and about Jerry Adair by Ray Fitzgerald.

Internet sources last viewed for Jerry Adair information in January 2006 included www.findagrave.com, www.baseballlibrary.com, www.thebaseballpage.com, www.thedeadballera.com, and www.attheplate.com/wcbl. 

He enjoyed a 15-year career in the major leagues and today is well into his sixth decade working in baseball, but Jesús Alou is destined to be remembered as the third brother in an extraordinary baseball family. He might have accomplished less as a player than his two All-Star siblings, but those comparisons are unfair. Jesús had a fine career in his own right as part of the first great wave of Dominican players that came to the major leagues in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Jesús Alou was the 13th Dominican in the majors, though just third in his own family.

José Rojas and Virginia Alou raised six children (Felipe, María, Mateo, Jesús, Juan and Virginia) in their small home in Bajos de Haina, San Cristóbal, near Santo Domingo on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic. Rojas, a carpenter and blacksmith who built their home and others in the neighborhood, also fathered two children with a previous wife who had passed away. Though José was black and Virginia white, this was not unusual in the Dominican and the children knew little racism in their homeland—they were Dominicans. The family was poor, like most people they knew. “We all helped [our father] in the shop,” recalled Jesús, “but no money was coming in because everyone was poor around there. I was happy, though, just thinking about where my next meal might come from.”1

Jesús María Rojas Alou was born on March 24, 1942. In keeping with the Latino custom, each parent contributed half of his double surname, but he is known in everyday life as Jesús Rojas in his homeland. While Felipe was playing in the US minor leagues, a team official mistakenly began identifying him as Felipe Alou, and he did not feel empowered to correct the error. When Mateo and Jesús followed him to the States, they used the Alou surname in order to associate with Felipe.

If this were not enough, many American writers and broadcasters were uncomfortable with his first name (properly pronounced “hay-SOOS”). Although there have been more than a dozen players named Jesús in the major leagues, Jesús Alou was the first, and is still the most prominent. Before his first season with the Giants, a San Francisco writer asked local religious leaders about the situation, and they all agreed that he needed a nickname, that reading “Jesus Saves Giants” in the morning paper would not do. The paper asked readers to write in with their suggestions, which many did.2 His Latino teammates often called him Chuchito, but the writers often called him Jay. “What,” the subject asked in 1965, “is wrong with my real name, Jesús? It is a common name in Latin America like Joe or Tom or Frank in the United States. My parents named me Jesús and I am proud of my name.”3 Thankfully, by the end of his career, everyone, even the writers, called him Jesús.

When Jesús was born, Felipe was nearly seven years old, while Mateo (later known mainly as “Matty” in the U.S.) was three. Unlike his older brothers, Jesús came to baseball slowly and somewhat reluctantly. “I wouldn’t even go and watch Felipe and Mateo play on the lots around our home,” he recalled. “I went fishing.”4 When he did play, the brothers used bats that they made on their father’s lathe.5 In fact, it was mainly his brothers’ success that led Frank (Chick) Genovese, who managed the other Rojas brothers on Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Winter League, to pressure Jesús to give baseball a try. Genovese’s cause was joined by Horacio Martínez, a former Negro Leaguer who worked as a bird dog for New York Giants scout Alejandro Pómpez and helped run the Escogido team. In late 1958 the 16-year-old Jesús signed to be the team’s batting practice pitcher.

At about the same time, Genovese signed Jesús for the San Francisco Giants organization, as he had done a few years earlier with Felipe and Mateo. The man who would now be known as Jesús Alou had very little organized baseball experience and the Giants’ optimism was largely based on the talents of Felipe, who had made the major leagues, and Mateo, who had hit .321 for St. Cloud the previous year. Jesús was assigned to Hastings, Nebraska, which had a team in the short-season Nebraska State League. Alou pitched just two games, allowing 11 runs in five innings, though he did manage to finish 2-for-3 as a batter. “I don’t win. I don’t lose,” Alou recalled of his summer in Nebraska. “I don’t do much of anything except brood.”6

The next winter Alou hurt his arm throwing batting practice for Escogido, and thought his reluctant baseball experiment might have ended before he turned 18. He reported to the minor league camp for the Giants in 1960, and was assigned to Artesia (New Mexico), a Class-D affiliate. Manager George Genovese, the brother of Chick, wanted Alou to give up pitching and play the outfield, like his brothers. Again Alou balked, suggesting instead that he just go home. He finally agreed, and played the entire year in center field. His hitting was great (.352 with 11 home runs and 33 doubles), though his outfield play was a bit raw due to his sore arm. “It was a tougher year on Gil Garrido, our shortstop, than it was for me,” Alou remembered. “My arm was so bad that every time a ball was hit out to me Garrido had to race almost to my side to take the cutoff throw.”7

Tough year or not, Garrido, a future major leaguer from Panama, hit .362 to win the batting title, while Alou led the league with 188 hits. Both were named to the league’s postseason All-Star team. After the Artesia season was over, the 18-year-old Alou played a few games with Eugene (Oregon) of the Northwest League, where he hit .350 in 20 at-bats.

Alou’s remaining years in the minor leagues were equally successful. Spending the 1961 season back in Eugene, he hit .336, led the league in hits, and was named a postseason All-Star. The next year in El Paso (Texas League), the 20-year-old Alou hit .346. Finally reaching the top rung of the ladder (Triple-A Tacoma) in 1963, Alou hit .324 with 210 hits (a total that broke Matty’s former Tacoma all-time record). He was an All-Star at every level, and had done everything he could to earn a spot with the Giants. On September 10, 1963, he finally made it, pinch-hitting against the New York Mets, grounding out against Carlton Willey to lead off the eighth. Willey then retired Mateo and Felipe for a 1-2-3 inning. The three brothers also played the outfield together briefly five days later. During his call-up, Jesús hit .250 in 24 at-bats.

As his major-league career was starting, many people believed that he would surpass both his brothers as a player. Among the believers were his brothers. “Jesús represents our family now,” said Felipe. “He has the right approach to baseball. Matty and I are, how you say it? We’re satisfied. We’re in the majors doing the best we can. But Jesús, he is a restless man. If he can’t be supreme, he doesn’t want to be at all. He has to be the greatest.”8 As evidence, people could point to his performance with Escogido, where the three brothers had formed the outfield over several winters. As early as 1961, Alejandro Pómpez had said, “Jesús Alou hits the curve ball twice as good as most kids who have been around much longer. The day will come when he’ll outshine both Felipe and Matty.”9

Jesús had already outgrown both of his brothers, reaching 6’2” and 190 pounds by the time of his debut. George Genovese, who had managed Jesús a few times in the minors, was optimistic. “He has live hands and a fast bat and he attacks the ball with great aggressiveness,” he said. “When he puts on another 15 pounds, he will have more power than Felipe.”10 Added manager Al Dark, “We think young Alou is one of the finest players our farm system has developed in recent years.”11

Thoughts of an all-Alou outfield in San Francisco were unrealistic, however. The team already had star performers in center field (Willie Mays), left field (Willie McCovey), and first base (Orlando Cepeda). Felipe Alou had established himself as a good player in right field, while Matty Alou was behind Harvey Kuenn among the extra outfielders. After the season, the Giants partly dealt with the logjam by trading Felipe to the Braves. They announced that Jesús, and not Matty, would get first crack at the right-field job.

The biggest flaw in Jesús’s game, then and later, was his inability to take a walk. Even in the 1960s this was remarked upon, though more as a curiosity than a flaw. In 1963 baseball increased the dimension of the strike zone from the bottom of the knee to the top of the shoulders, which did not affect Jesús at all. As a Tacoma writer remarked, “Jesús has a personal strike zone which far exceeds anything considered by rulesmakers.”12 Teammate Juan Marichal remembered, “One time. . . a pitch [came in] about level with Jesus’s head. Jesus swung at it and hit a home run to right field. He was that type of hitter.”13 But the Giants were ready to live with his approach. “He swings at quite a few bad balls,” admitted farm director Carl Hubbell, “but I call him one of those ‘they shall not pass’ hitters. If he can reach a ball, he’ll swing.”14

Alou played fairly regularly in 1964, hitting .274 but with little power (three home runs) or plate discipline (13 walks). On July 10 he enjoyed the game of his career, when he went 6-for-6 with a home run in a Giant victory in Chicago’s Wrigley Field. His season ended abruptly on September 4 when he was spiked at second base by New York’s Ron Hunt, resulting in 91 stitches in his foot, ankle, and calf. He came back the next year to play 143 games, batting .298 with nine home runs. At a time when the league hit just .249, his average was impressive, but his 13 walks gave him only a .317 on-base percentage, just over the league average. With Alou’s skill set, he was going to have to hit .320 to be a star, and most observers believed that he would. He turned just 23 in 1965.

Alou reported in 1966 determined to improve his batting eye. “I know pitchers are getting me to swing at bad pitches,” he admitted. “I try to cut it down this year. Sometimes maybe I forget, but I am going to cut it way down, I think.”15 Instead, he took a step back, and when he was hitting just .232 with two walks in nearly full-time play on June 13, he was optioned to Phoenix for two weeks, ostensibly because of a sore arm. He hit better upon his return, and got his average up to .259. It was a big year for the other Alou brothers: Matty, traded to the Pirates the previous winter, hit .342 to capture the league batting title; and Felipe, playing for the Braves, finished second at .327 while also clubbing 31 home runs. The talk of Jesús being the best of the Alou brothers had quieted down.

After the 1966 season, Jesús allowed that he wanted to be traded, reasoning that his brothers had found success after leaving San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, whose cold winds created difficulties for both hitters and outfielders. During the winter meetings, the Giants reportedly talked to other clubs about Alou, but held on to him.

In 1967 Alou played more or less full-time, and returned to his 1965 levels of hitting: .292 in 510 at bats, though again with little power (five home runs) and few walks (14). Oddly, the Giants used Alou as their primary leadoff hitter. As manager Herman Franks explained, Alou’s swinging and missing at so many bad pitches made him a bad hit-and-run guy, so he didn’t like him up with men on base. “So,” said Franks, “the leadoff position is where he can do the least harm and definitely the most good.”16 Alou hit .308 as the leadoff batter, and hit .337 when leading off innings.

The 26-year-old Alou played left and right fields for the Giants in 1968, starting 97 games and playing parts of 23 others. He regressed a bit from his 1967 comeback, hitting just .263 with no home runs and nine walks in 436 plate appearances. This turned out to be his final go-round with the Giants, as on October 15 Alou was selected by the Montreal Expos in an expansion draft to stock the two new National League teams.

Montreal reportedly turned down several trade offers for Alou, including one from the Astros for Mike Cuellar. After several weeks of speculation, on January 22 the Expos dealt Alou and Donn Clendenon to the Astros for outfielder Rusty Staub. Six weeks later Clendenon announced that he would retire rather than report to Houston, nullifying the trade for a few weeks. Eventually the Expos substituted two pitchers and some money to get the deal done. Houston manager Harry Walker coveted Alou, as he wanted more speed in the outfield. Walker had long fancied himself a hitting guru, and his biggest success story had been Matty Alou, who became a consistent .330 hitter after joining up with Walker in Pittsburgh in 1966.

Jesús Alou began the 1969 season as the Astros’ right fielder and leadoff hitter, and stroked three hits in his first game. He then went into a long slump that lasted most of the year, though his season was partly saved by a .328 final month. On June 10, while playing left field, Alou was involved in a brutal collision with shortstop Héctor Torres. His teammate’s forehead hit Alou’s face and caused him to swallow his tongue. Pirates trainer Tony Bartirome may have saved the unconscious Alou’s life when he pried open his mouth, inserted a rubber tube and breathed into it, which opened his air passage enough so that Alou could resume breathing. Alou and Torres were each carried off the field and rushed to the hospital—both players suffered concussions while Alou fractured his jaw. He missed six weeks of action. For the season, he hit just .248.

Alou was not a regular to start the 1970 season, but his consistent hitting eventually got him an everyday role. He ended up hitting .306 in 115 games, with a career-high 21 walks. “To me, hitting .300 is not all that big an issue,” he said late in the year. “What is important for me as the leadoff hitter is to get on base. I think I’ve been good, actually, ever since I came out of the hospital last year.”17 Once again he excelled as a leadoff hitter—he hit .392 leading off games, and hit .328 when leading off an inning. In 1971, he started even hotter, hitting over .350 into June, before slowly dropping off. A bad September left him at .279 for the season.

Through it all, baseball people liked having Jesús Alou around. Jim Bouton, an Astros teammate in 1969 and 1970, described him in his second book, I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally. “We called him J. or Jesus, never hay-soos. . . J. is one of the most delicate, sensitive, nicest men I have ever met. He’d walk a mile out of his way to drop a coin in some beggar’s cup.” Bouton then went on to describe how Alou’s sensitivity made him a comic foil for practical joker Doug Rader’s most disgusting antics.

“Alou is popular with his teammates because of his inherent good nature and philosophical way of looking at things,” said another writer in 1971. “And Alou is interesting to watch during a game.” He drew much comment throughout his career for all his mannerisms in the batter’s box—he held the bat vertical directly behind his right ear, then repeatedly rotated his neck. “People write letters asking why I jerk my neck,” Alou said. “I can’t answer except to say it’s not a back problem. It’s just a mental problem.”18 Early in his career Dodger pitcher Don Drysdale thought Alou might be trying to steal the catcher’s signs, and subsequently knocked Alou down with a pitch.19 Yet the habit remained.

Alou also had a very self-deprecating sense of humor. Late in his career he failed to reach a fly ball in the outfield, and observed, “Ten years ago, I would have overrun it.”20 When reminiscing about his years in the game, he would often recall moments when he forgot how many outs there were or the time he overran a base.21 Despite his relatively modest accomplishments, he stayed in the game a long time because his managers and teammates liked him so much. He was quiet and dignified, and often could be seen reading a Bible at his locker.

As Jimmy Wynn recounted in his autobiography, though, Harry Walker’s inveterate tinkering with hitters and their approach at the plate managed to infuriate even “The J. Alou” — as Jesús jocularly referred to himself. “The Hat” went so far as to break Alou’s bat in order to make sure that his player used a Harry Walker model. Another clubhouse incident a few days later finally set Alou off, and Wynn later wrote, “We are laughing in shock over the discovery that he is capable of anger at this level.”22

With the emergence of Bob Watson and Cesar Cedeño, and the presence of Wynn, Alou no longer had a regular job after the 1971 season. He hit .312 in 1972 as a reserve outfielder and pinch-hitter, but just .236 in the same role the following season. On July 31, 1973, his contract was sold to the Oakland Athletics.

The A’s had won the World Series in 1972 and would repeat the next two seasons. Alou played 20 games over the last two months of the 1973 season, mainly in left field, and hit .306. When regular center fielder Bill North sprained his ankle that September, it opened the door for Jesús to play in the postseason. He hit 2-for-6 in the ALCS, but just 3-for-19 in the World Series. The next year he stayed with the A’s the entire year and got 232 plate appearances, mainly as a designated hitter, hitting .262. He hit just twice in the postseason, including a pinch single in the first game of the ALCS. Matty Alou had helped win a World Series for the A’s in 1972, and now Jesús had won back-to-back with the same club.

The next spring Alou was released. “Maybe I’m overrating myself,” he said. “I think this team needs a guy who does the type of job I can do.”23 He was soon picked up by the New York Mets. “I was offered more money to play with my brother, Matty, in Japan,” Alou said, “but I prefer to play in the United States.” Alou served as a reserve outfielder and pinch-hitter, hitting .265 in 108 plate appearances.

In March 1976 he was released again, and this time he headed back to the Dominican, where he remained for two years. Besides playing winter ball in his homeland, he and a friend tried to start a business. “We were going to start a watch-assembly plant in the Dominican Republic,” he recalled. “We would buy the parts in other countries and assemble the watches there. But the government down there didn’t like the idea.”24 After two years away, Alou returned to the major leagues with the Astros in 1978, and hit .324 in a reserve role. When he returned the next year, the 37-year-old took on the added role of batting coach. He hit .256 this time around in just 43 at bats, though his relatively high walk total (6) gave him a respectable .349 on base percentage.

After the 1979 season Alou drew his release, and his major-league career was over. He finished with a respectable .280 batting average, but his walk rate of just 3 per 100 plate appearances was the lowest in the 20th century for someone who played 1,000 games. He played parts of 15 seasons in the majors, and won two World Series. In the Dominican, he starred for many years for Escogido with his two brothers. He was Rookie of the Year in 1960-61. His lifetime stats at home were .302 with 20 homers and 339 RBIs in 20 seasons (12 for Escogido and 8 for archrival Licey). He played in five Caribbean Series (1973, 1974, 1977, 1978, and 1980), hitting .351 with two homers and 13 RBIs. One of his highlights in a Dominican uniform came during the 1973 edition in Caracas, Venezuela, when he was 12 for 24 (.500) as Licey won the tournament.25

Jesús Alou married Angela Hanley in the late 1960s, and the couple raised five children—Angela, Jesús Jr., María de Jesús, Claudia, and Jeimy—in the Dominican Republic. After his playing career ended, Alou moved back home and remained there, still fishing and swimming in the nearby waters in the summer. He lived not far from where he grew up, and not far from the homes of his brothers and sisters. “I guess we look much richer to the people here than we really are,” he once observed.

Although he did some managing in the Dominican winter league, Alou turned to scouting when his pitching coach with Escogido, Bob Gebhard, became an executive with the Montreal Expos. Jesús said, “I imagine he saw me working with kids. Even when I was a player, I liked to work with kids.” In typical form, he added, “I have very high blood pressure. I don’t think I can stand managing.”26

He continued to work for American baseball, moving from the Expos to the Marlins. In 2002, he became the Dominican scouting director for the Boston Red Sox. He also served as director of the team’s Dominican Summer League operations, much the same role as he had held with the Marlins’ Dominican academy.

Jesús came back to San Francisco in 2003 for Opening Day, joined by his two brothers, one of whom (Felipe) was now managing the Giants. They had all accomplished so much in the game, forty years after playing in the same outfield. “I have never dreamed anything in baseball,” Jesús said. “Everything has been a surprise. Every day is a new surprise. Felipe being manager in San Francisco makes me proud. It’s another surprise.”27

Dominicans have come to play a huge role in American baseball, following in the giant footsteps of Felipe, Mateo, and Jesús Alou. Late in his career, Jesús was asked to compare the skills of the three Alous. “Felipe is a very tough guy in baseball,” he said, “tougher than all of us. Matty was smaller and had to take more advantage of his ability, the guy who does more thinking. Me, I wasn’t as tough as Felipe or as thinking as Matty. One thing we had in common: we didn’t like to strike out too much, maybe because we used to play with rubber balls in our backyard. As long as a guy didn’t strike out, he could keep batting, and we all liked to bat.”28 The brothers played over 5,000 major-league games between them.

Jesus died on March 10, 2023 in his beloved Santo Domingo. He spent 60 years in the game as a player, and was still working for the Red Sox at the time of his passing. He was a vital part of a great baseball family, and his legacy will live on.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rory Costello for his editing and for adding a few additional stories to the article. Thanks also to Gabriel Schechter, Rod Nelson, and Matías Alou.

Notes

1 Joseph Durso, “We Band of Brothers,” The New York Times, August 14, 1975.

2 Prescott Sullivan, “Wanted—Name for New Right Fielder!” San Francisco Examiner, March 6, 1964.

3 Bob Stevens, “Jesús Alou Could Be the Best in Family,” The Sporting News, July 3, 1965, 7.

4 Bob Stevens, “The Little Alou,” Sport, September 1965, 81.

5 Jack McDonald, “No. 3 Alou May Gain No. 1 Spot,” The Sporting News, April 6, 1963, 10.

6 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 81.

7 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 81.

8 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 80.

9 Jack McDonald, “Giants Phenoms Train in Lap of Luxury,” The Sporting News, April 12, 1961, 9.

10 McDonald, “No. 3 Alou May Gain No. 1 Spot,” 10.

11 Jack McDonald, “Giants,” The Sporting News, February 22, 1964, 24.

12 Ed Honeywell, “Jesús Alou Gives Up Passes to Hit Away,” The Sporting News, August 10, 1963, 33.

13 Juan Marichal with Lew Freedman, Juan Marichal: My Journey from the Dominican Republic to Cooperstown, Minneapolis, Minnesota: MVP Books, 2011, 114. Marichal’s memory was fuzzy about the details. He recalled it as being in San Francisco against Jim Bunning of the Phillies, but SABR’s Home Run Log shows no such record.

14 Jack McDonald, “Giants Paint Pennant Picture With Jesús Alou and Jim Ray Hart.” The Sporting News, January 4, 1964, 10.

15 Jack McDonald, “Those Bad Pitches Look Too Juicy for Jesús Alou to Resist,” The Sporting News, April 2, 1966, 17.

16 Bob Stevens, “Alou a Goliath in Giant Leadoff Spot,” The Sporting News, July 1, 1967, 16T.

17 John Wilson, “Jay Alou Giving Brothers Lesson in Swatting Art,” The Sporting News, August 29, 1970, 17.

18 John Wilson, “A Sizzling Bat Pushes Alou Into Astros’ Lineup,” The Sporting News, June 26, 1971 24.

19 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 80.

20 Gordon Verrell, “Dodgers Tap Rookie Wall to Add Bullpen Depth,” The Sporting News, January 10, 1976, 28.

21 Mike Mandel, SF Giants. An Oral History (Santa Cruz: self-published, 1979), 149.

22 Jimmy Wynn and Bill McCurdy, Toy Cannon: The Autobiography of Baseball’s Jimmy Wynn, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., 2010, 121-122.

23 Ron Bergman, “Happy Charlie Does Jig Over Hippity-Hoppy,” The Sporting News, April 19. 1975, 5.

24 Harry Shattuck, “Bat Artist Alou Doubles as Astro bat tutor,” The Sporting News, March 17, 1979, 51.

25 Gustavo Rodríguzez, “Jesús Alou: Ganó la triple corona en SC en 1973,” Hoy (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, January 26, 2012.

26 Gordon Edes, “Alou Acts as Scout, Dreams as a Player,” South Florida Sun-Sentinel, February 8, 1994.

27 Associated Press, “Alou reunion takes place in San Francisco,” Albany Times-Union, April 8, 2003.

28 Joseph Durso, “We Band of Brothers,” The New York Times, August 14, 1975.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rory Costello for his assistance.

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

6 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 123.

7 The Sporting News, May 2, 1962.

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

9 Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball, 78.

10 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 124.

11 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 123.

12 The Sporting News, September 24, 1966.

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

14 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 124.

15 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 125.

Alyea’s great-grandfather, the first Garrabrant Ryerson Alyea, was a co-founder of the Hillside Cemetery Association in adjacent Union Township (now Lyndhurst) in 1883, and he also served as Rutherford’s postmaster. This Alyea was married to Martha Brinkerhoff, a member of another Dutch family long established in northern New Jersey. Brant himself was the son of Garrabrant III (1918-92), who drove the Inter-City Lines bus from Paterson to New York that ran through Rutherford,1 and the former Janet Olcott (1924-90), a legal secretary.2 Garrabrant III and Janet had four other children.

Early in his life, Brant was known as Ry, from his middle name, to distinguish him from his father and grandfather, who variously went by Gary and Brant. By the time he reached college, he was known as Brant, but articles chronicling his athletic career in the local newspapers continued to show him as Ry through his high-school career.

Already tall at the age of 12, Alyea took the field as a first baseman for the Rutherford National all-star team in the 1953 Little League tournament, batting fourth. The team opened play against a neighboring league, Lyndhurst East. That contest, begun on Monday, July 27, turned into a marathon that was played over two days. Alyea’s first hit tied the game, 2-2, in the third inning, and the contest stayed deadlocked well past its scheduled six-inning length. The umpires stopped play for darkness after 10 innings and brought both teams back the next evening to complete the game. Finally, catcher Eugene Cole homered over the center-field wall in the top of the 17th to give Alyea’s team a 3-2 victory. The writer for the South Bergen News, Rutherford’s weekly paper, credited Alyea, who finished 2-for-7, with “several circus-day scoop-ups at first.”3 Alyea’s counterpart in the cleanup slot, Lyndhurst center fielder Tom Longo, went 4-for-7. He went on to play three seasons as an NFL defensive back for the New York Giants and St. Louis Cardinals.

Alyea lettered in three sports at Rutherford High School, playing quarterback for the Bulldogs and starring in basketball and baseball. He accepted a scholarship to Hofstra College in Hempstead, New York, a seemingly perfect fit as the small Long Island institution was established on a campus bequeathed by a Dutch lumber magnate, William Hofstra, in the 1930s, and their athletic teams were known as the Flying Dutchmen. More significantly, Hofstra would give Alyea the opportunity to play basketball as well as baseball. The basketball team was then coached by another Dutchman originally from New Jersey, Butch van Breda Kolff. Alyea and the Dutchmen enjoyed significant basketball success in the NCAA College Division. In the 1959-60 season, they finished 23-1, losing only to Wagner College of Staten Island by two points in January, but that loss cost them the conference title and they were not selected for postseason play.4 The next year, Alyea led the Dutchmen in scoring and rebounding, and Hofstra was selected for the small-college tournament, in which the team was eliminated by Albright College.5

In baseball, Alyea’s play, especially his power, attracted the attention of scouts. He had the opportunity to sign after he hit 13 home runs in 30 games for a team that won its conference championship, but he stayed at Hofstra for another season to play basketball. He eventually signed with the Cincinnati Reds in the spring of 1962. By then Alyea had grown to his full height of 6-feet-5. The Reds assigned him to Geneva (New York) of the Class-D New York-Penn League, and he clubbed 32 home runs while hitting .319 in 105 games. Those healthy numbers made Alyea a prime target in the Rule 5 draft, which at that time covered all first-year players who had not been placed on the 40-man roster, and Alyea was snatched up by the Washington Senators.

Over the next two seasons, Alyea moved up the ladder, playing for the Peninsula Pilots of the Carolina League and then the York White Roses of the Eastern League. In those two seasons he hit just 29 home runs, but his right-handed power again manifested itself when he got to Triple-A. He hit 27 homers while batting .269 as an outfielder and first baseman for the Hawaii Islanders in 1965. That performance earned Alyea a call-up to Washington at season’s end, and his major-league “debut” came on September 11 against the California Angels at D.C. Stadium, when he was announced as a pinch-hitter for pitcher Mike McCormick in the sixth inning with two on and two out. But when the Angels brought in Bob Lee to replace George Brunet, Senators manager Gil Hodges countered by sending up Jim King to hit for Alyea. King hit a three-run homer to give Washington a 4-3 lead, but the Angels rallied to win 6-5.

Alyea’s first trip to a major-league batter’s box came the next day. The Senators came into the day 18 games under .500, and only 840 fans showed up for the Sunday afternoon game on a day that saw the nation’s capital receive nearly two-thirds of an inch of rain. With runners on first and second, one out and the Senators leading 3-0 in the sixth inning, Hodges again turned to Alyea, this time to pinch-hit for lefty-hitting second baseman Don Blasingame. Alyea crushed left-handed pitcher Rudy May’s first pitch over the left-field wall, doubling the Senators’ lead.

In the waning days of the 1965 season, Alyea played in six more games, pinch-hitting in four and starting at first base in two others. He managed just two more hits in 12 at-bats, both coming in one game; one was a three-run homer against John O’Donoghue of the Kansas City A’s on September 28.

After the season Alyea played in winter leagues in Nicaragua and Venezuela. This became a staple of his life both before and after he became a major-league regular.

Alyea returned to Honolulu for 1966, but he batted just .218 although he did hit 21 home runs. That performance saw him demoted to York for 1967, and he spent two-thirds of the season there and the remainder on loan to the Montgomery Rebels of the Southern League, then a Tigers farm club. For the entire year at Double-A, he batted .229 with 14 homers, although he drew 54 walks and cut his strikeouts from 164 in 1965 to 110. That was enough to persuade the Senators to move Alyea back up to Triple A for 1968, and at Buffalo he hit .253 with 31 homers, earning a call-up on July 26. For the rest of that season, he batted .267 and hit six home runs for the Senators, earning 33 outfield starts.

Ted Williams took over as Senators manager for 1969, and Alyea had a productive season, playing a career-high 104 games, mainly as a corner outfielder although he did appear a few times at first base. The next spring the Senators dealt him to Minnesota in return for pitchers Joe Grzenda and Charlie Walters. With the Twins in 1970, Alyea made an immediate impact with his bat, as he smacked two home runs and drove in seven runs in an Opening Day 12-0 Twins victory over the White Sox at Chicago.6 That April he was also involved in a very unusual play, described by Don Mankowski of SABR in 2000:

“Earl Wilson, who pitched for the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers between 1959 and 1970, was an excellent hitter as pitchers go. He hit 35 home runs in an 11-year career. And, once, he almost homered while striking out. After a fashion.

“Wilson’s Tigers trailed the Twins 2-1 in the seventh inning of an April 25, 1970, game at Bloomington, Minnesota. Batting against Jim Kaat, Wilson swung and missed a third strike, and it looked as if the inning were over.

“But not so fast! Kaat’s catcher Paul Ratliff didn’t hold on to the ball and umpire John Rice refused to call Wilson out. Ratliff rolled the ball back toward the mound and made himself scarce. Noting that the entire Minnesota team had left the field, Wilson took off around the bases.

“Two Twins [is that redundant?] had the semblance of mind to hurry back on the field as Wilson tore around third. Brant Alyea grabbed the ball and threw to Leo Cárdenas, covering at home plate. Wilson was caught between third and home, and retired by Cárdenas’s return throw to Alyea. Wilson, who was throwing a three-hitter, pulled a hamstring muscle on the play and had to leave the game.

“The Tigers managed to tie the game at 3-3 in the top of the ninth, but afterward Harmon Killebrew singled home Tony Oliva to win the game.

“Because Alyea just happened to be the left fielder and Cardenas the shortstop, the play on Wilson had to be scored K767, that is, Strikeout: putout left fielder to shortstop to left fielder. Ratliff got an error in there, so maybe that’s not quite correct.”7

Alyea delivered career highs in the three Triple Crown categories, batting .291 with 16 homers and 61 RBIs in 94 games. He was on the Twins’ postseason roster in 1970, appearing in all three games of their American League Championship Series loss to the eventual World Series champion Baltimore Orioles. Starting twice in left field, he went hitless in seven at-bats, although he scored a run in Game One.

That winter Alyea returned to Venezuela and set a record there by clubbing 15 home runs in a 55-game season. But back home in 1971, Alyea’s production dropped significantly. The Twins dropped him from their 40-man roster at season’s end, after Alyea hit just .177 with two home runs in 79 games.

The Oakland Athletics claimed Alyea in that winter’s Rule 5 draft, and in the spring of 1972 he played in 10 games for the A’s, going 3-for-13, before being shipped to the St. Louis Cardinals in a trade for infielder Marty Martínez on May 18. With the Cards he played in 13 games, batting .158 (3-for-19). He also played in 11 games for the Triple-A Iowa Oaks, batting .410 in Triple-A. The A’s brought him back on July 23, and he went 3-for-18 the rest of the season with one home run. But his season ended prematurely; in a game at Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium, he hit a ball into the gap off Jim Palmer and Alyea pulled a muscle in his groin while rounding first on what turned out to be a double. Although he played in four more games, that injury effectively finished Alyea for the year, as the A’s signed Matty Alou for the stretch run that led to the first of their three straight World Series titles.

Alyea attempted to rehabilitate his injury without surgery. He was sent to the Texas Rangers in November to complete a trade for pitcher Paul Lindblad, but his nagging injury left him unable to make the team. He finished his professional career with 48 games for the Pawtucket Red Sox in 1973, playing the newly created position of designated hitter. He underwent surgery a few years later, and contemplated a return to the game in 1977 at the age of 36, but never made it to Florida to try out.

Like most players of his era who did not earn a full pension for playing 10 seasons, Alyea had to find regular work after his playing days. By 1986 he was a pit boss at an Atlantic City casino. That spring, he learned that a son he had fathered at the end of the 1966-67 winter season in Nicaragua was a prospect who had been discovered by the Toronto Blue Jays. That led to a reconnection with the young man, Brant Jose Alyea, whom he had not seen since the Central American nation was plunged into unrest in the 1970s.8 The younger Alyea spent six seasons in pro ball, briefly reaching Triple-A with the Texas Rangers and hitting .281 with 49 home runs, including 25 with Gastonia of the South Atlantic League in 1988.

After his time with the casino, which lasted just over a decade, Alyea hooked on with an automobile dealership near Philadelphia for another decade or so. He lived in the Philadelphia suburbs until his death at home on February 4, 2024.9

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

Notes

1 The Record (Hackensack, New Jersey), October 10, 1992: A-10.

2 The Record, March 6, 1990: A-9.

3 South Bergen News (Rutherford, New Jersey), July 30, 1953: 17.

4 George Vecsey, “A Shot That Sank a Season,” New York Times, March 1, 2012: B18.

5 Hofstra University men’s basketball media guide 2004-05, 122, 132,

6 Dave Wright, 162-0: Imagine a Twins Perfect Season: The Greatest Wins! (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2010).

7 Don Mankowski, “Odd Strikeout,” post to SABR-L mailing list, May 10, 2000.

8 Peter Gammons, “A New Land, an Old Bond,” Sports Illustrated, June 30, 1986, 66.

9 “Garrabrant Ryerson Alyea, IV”. Burns Funeral Homes, Philadelphia, Pa. Online obituary accessed March 19, 2024.

Dwain Cleaven Anderson was born in Oakland, California, on November 23, 1947.  His mother, Louise (Jackson) Anderson, and father, Cleaven Anderson, an Army veteran of World War II, raised their two children, Dwain and Gwendolyn, in nearby El Cerrito.2  Dwain played shortstop for the El Cerrito High School Gauchos, a traditional baseball power in the Bay Area that has produced six major-league ballplayers, including former Boston Red Sox infielder Pumpsie Green and former St Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs pitcher Ernie Broglio.  In 1965 the Kansas City Athletics signed the 17-year-old Anderson and assigned him to the Burlington (Iowa) Bees of the Class A Midwest League.  In 1966 and 1967, Anderson bounced around the Athletics’ Class A affiliates, spending most of 1966 with the Lewiston (Idaho) Broncs of the Northwest League and most of 1967 with the Peninsula Grays (Hampton, Virginia) of the Carolina League.  Anderson missed the last week of the 1966 season after injuring his hand trying to field a groundball bare-handed during pregame warm-ups.  He required four stitches for a cut he suffered between his thumb and forefinger.  Anderson’s absence from the already-depleted Lewiston lineup left the team with only eight position players for the final seven games of the season.3 

In 1968 Anderson, then 20, spent all season as the shortstop for the Grays, batting .254 in 122 games.  The Athletics organization, now in Oakland, promoted him to Double-A Birmingham (Southern League) for 1969. Despite missing two months with a broken foot, Anderson excelled in the field and put up solid numbers at the plate. In 87 games, he put together a .269 batting average with 6 home runs and 38 RBIs.  Several times during the season, The Sporting News made note of Anderson’s defensive work at shortstop and the fine double-play combination he made with second baseman Rusty Adkins.4 

Anderson was invited to the A’s 1970 spring training in Yuma, Arizona, where he impressed with his hitting.  He nearly earned a spot on the Opening Day roster as a utility infielder, but uncharacteristically erratic defensive performances, particularly at second base, cost him a spot on the big-league club.  Growing up in El Cerrito, Anderson had always played shortstop.  He continued to play primarily shortstop in the early years of his minor-league career, but as Anderson ascended the A’s ladder, the organization tried to convert him into a utility infielder capable of playing second, third, and shortstop.  With the Triple-A Iowa Oaks (Des Moines) in 1970, he “moped around a bit,” according to The Sporting News, but turned in a fine performance for the season, hitting .252 and displaying unprecedented power with 15 home runs and 69 RBIs.5 

Entering the spring of 1971, the Athletics considered Anderson one of the top prospects in their farm system.6  New manager Dick Williams put Anderson in a competition for the second-base position with veteran infielder Dick Green.  Anderson lost out on the competition and was sent back to Des Moines.7   He had an unspectacular year but received a September call-up to the AL West-leading Athletics.  He made his major-league debut on September 3, 1971, in the second game of a doubleheader against the Minnesota Twins at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, Minnesota.  Anderson, who batted leadoff and played his traditional shortstop position, went 2-for-5 with two singles, a run scored, and two strikeouts in a 2-1 Twins victory.8  Over the course of September, Anderson appeared in 16 games, playing primarily shortstop, but also appearing as a second baseman, third baseman, and pinch-hitter.  He hit .270 with 3 RBIs in 37 at-bats.  The A’s left Anderson off the playoff roster in the American League Championship Series, in which they were swept by the eventual world champion Baltimore Orioles. 

Anderson began 1972 back in Triple-A Iowa, but was recalled by Oakland in early May to replace the injured Dick Green.9  After playing in just three games for the Athletics, he was traded to the St Louis Cardinals on May 15 for left-handed relief pitcher Don Shaw.  Anderson’s brief presence on the world champion A’s 1972 roster earned him a $100 share of the winners’ portion from the World Series.10  The willingness of the Cardinals to surrender Shaw, a 27-year-old who had gone 7-2 with a 2.65 ERA the previous season, for Anderson indicates the latter’s perceived high value at the time of the trade.11  During the 1972 season, Anderson lived up to the Cardinals’ confidence in his abilities, hitting .267 in 57 games while platooning at shortstop with the aging Dal Maxvill and occasionally filling in for Joe Torre at third base.  On September 13 Anderson was hit by a pitch during batting practice in Montreal and suffered a hairline fracture in his left arm, bringing an end to his  season.12  Anderson was a bright spot on a disappointing 75-81 Red Schoendienst-managed Cardinals team, earning a spot on the 1972 Topps All-Rookie Team.13    

In Anderson, the Cardinals believed they had found their replacement for the veteran Maxvill.  The organization assigned their legendary former shortstop Marty Marion to teach Anderson the nuances of the position, but Anderson’s arm injury limited the amount of fieldwork they did together.14  Anderson’s inability to stay healthy and his poor defensive play during spring training in 1973 relegated him to a backup utility-infield position behind shortstop Mike Tyson. He played infrequently during the first two months of the 1973 season, filling in occasionally at shortstop, but more often pinch-hitting or -running.  In May 1973 the Cardinals experimented with him briefly in center field.15

On June 7, 1973, the Cardinals traded Anderson to the San Diego Padres for veteran infielder Dave Campbell.  Padres manager Don Zimmer said, “He has a few tools. … I know he can run and he has some sock with the bat.”16  Anderson was the Padres’ starting shortstop for most of June, filling in for the injured Derrel Thomas, before being relegated to backup status for the remainder of the season.  He batted a mere .121 for the Padres and did not register an extra-base hit in 123 plate appearances.  After the season the last-place Padres traded Anderson to the last-place Cleveland Indians for middle infielder Lou Camilli, who had already played in what proved to be the last of his 107 major-league games. 

Anderson started the 1974 season in Triple-A with the Indians’ Oklahoma City 89ers farm team. He played in 18 games for the 89ers before being called up to Cleveland in May.  Anderson played in two games for the Ken Aspromonte-managed Indians. On May 17 he ran for catcher Dave Duncan in a 4-3 loss to the Detroit Tigers, and on May 28 he replaced Jack Brohamer at second base in an 8-0 road victory over the Texas Rangers. He went 1-for-3 in what proved to be his final major-league appearance, singling off Jim Shellenback. Three weeks later the Indians traded Anderson to the New York Mets for shortstop Brian Ostrosser.  It was Anderson’s fourth trade in little more than two years.  The Mets assigned Anderson to Triple-A Tidewater, where he spent the remainder of the season. After the season Anderson left Organized Baseball.  In 1978 he married Seneca Joshua of Los Angeles.  The couple settled down in the Bay Area along with rest of the Anderson family.  As of late 2013, Anderson resided in suburban Contra Costa County, east of Oakland.

Sources

New York Times

The Sporting News

Washington Post

Baseball-Reference.com

Baseball-Almanac.com

El Cerrito High School Athletics: elcerritogauchos.net/athletics

Notes

1 “Fisk, Matlack Lead All-Rookie Team,” New York Times, November 27, 1972, 49; “Fisk Leads in Voting for Yearling All Stars,” The Sporting News, December 2, 1972, 40.

2 Thanks to Bill Mortell for his help finding Dwain Anderson’s family through his research on ancestry.com and genealogybank.com.

3 “Broncs’ Ranks Dwindle,” The Sporting News, September 17, 1966, 43.

4 “A’s Shortstop Injured,” The Sporting News, June 27, 1969, 53; “Change for Edmonson,” The Sporting News, May 10, 1969, 41; “Rain Affecting Gate,” The Sporting News, May 31, 1969, 41.

5 “Anderson to Get Another Chance,” The Sporting News, November 21, 1970, 48; “Some Rookies Take Jobs from Veterans,” Washington Post, March 29, 1970, C2

6Ron Bergman, “A’s Anderson Eager for Keystone Fit,” The Sporting News, January 16, 1971, 54.

7 Ron Bergman, “Ailing Odom A’s Big Question Mark,” The Sporting News, February 27, 1971, 18; Ron Bergman, “Happy Reggie Is Making Enemy Pitchers Moan,” The Sporting News, April 3, 1971, 31.

8 “Green’s Glove One of A’s Shattering Weapons,” The Sporting News, September 25, 1971, 5.

9 “Athletics’ Green Out,” Washington Post, May 6, 1972, D5.

10 “Rich Gravy for A’s and Reds in Record Series Pot,” The Sporting News, November 25, 1972, 45.

11 Neal Russo, “Dealer Devine Shakes Up Plummeting Redbirds,” The Sporting News, June 3, 1972, 15.

12 “Redbird Chirps,” The Sporting News, October 7, 1972, 14.

13 “Fisk, Matlack Lead All-Rookie Team,” New York Times; “Fisk Leads in Voting for Yearling All Stars,” The Sporting News, December 2, 1972, 40.

14 “Cards Flash Full Speed Ahead with ‘SS’ Busse,” The Sporting News, December 30, 1972, 36.

15 Neal Russo, “Defense Strikes Blue Note in Redbirds’ Spring Sonata,” The Sporting News, April 21, 1973, 10.

16 “Padres, Cardinals Swap Infielders,” Washington Post, June 8, 1973, D1.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up the ladder

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Key contributor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shining on field and off

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

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

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

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

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

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

A change of Sox

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oakland odyssey

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now pitching for Jimmy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Last revised: July 1, 2015

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

Sources

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

Ken Coleman quotes from author interview, 2003.

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

Boston Globe and Boston Herald, 1966-1973.

Chicago Tribune, 1971-1973.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Salvatore Leonard Bando was born on February 13, 1944, in Cleveland. His parents were both athletic; Ben Bando, a self-employed carpenter, was an accomplished infielder in slow- and fast-pitch softball leagues. Mother Angela Bando, a homemaker and admitted tomboy, played softball and basketball. Sal and his younger siblings, Victoria and future big-league catcher Chris, grew up in middle-class Warrensville Heights, located about 16 miles southeast of Cleveland. Sal was an athletic youngster whose parents encouraged him to pursue his passions. “As soon as Sal was old enough to throw a ball,” said father Ben. “He’d say, ‘C’mon, dad, let’s play catch.’ I didn’t teach him. I just played with him and let him do what came naturally.”1 Sal was a star athlete at Warrensville Heights High School, where he was an All-City quarterback with aspirations of playing in the Big Ten Conference; he also played shortstop in baseball and forward in basketball, and ran track. During the summer Sal played baseball in the Connie Mack League, where he came under the tutelage of Rick Leskovec, a math instructor at Arizona State University and coach of the Go team. Lescovec moved Bando to third base and later recommended him to ASU head baseball coach Bobby Winkles who offered Bando a scholarship upon graduation in 1962.

Bando’s two-year baseball career at Arizona State signaled even greater things to come. As a sophomore in 1964 the strong-armed third baseman batted .347 and led the Sun Devils to the Western Athletic Conference Championship and the institution’s first berth in the College World Series. In 1965 the right-hander hit at a .317 clip, was named all-conference, and helped lead a talent-heavy team (nine players were drafted by the big leagues) to the WAC title and College World Series Championship. He batted .480 (12-for-25) with nine runs batted in the CWS and was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. (Bando was inducted into the College Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013.) The Kansas City Athletics drafted Bando in the sixth round in the inaugural major-league draft. He was signed by Athletics scout Henry Peters and received a reported $35,000 bonus.2

Bando progressed quickly through the Athletics farm system. In 1965 he was assigned to the Burlington (Iowa) Bees in the Class A Midwest League. In a half-season with the team, he was named to the league’s all-star team and batted .262. Bando was a nonroster invitee at the A’s spring training in 1966, but was among those cut early, and assigned to Mobile of the Double-A Southern League. The A’s praised Bando for his “truly spectacular arm” at third base, but were also concerned about his hitting.3 A spray hitter in college with little power, Bando improved his average to .277 at Mobile and showed some pop in his bat with 12 home runs. With the A’s en route to their 14th consecutive losing season, Bando was a September call-up, and went 0-for-3 against Jim Lonborg in a 7-0 loss to the Boston Red Sox in his major-league debut on September 3 at Kansas City’s Municipal Stadium. As a pinch-hitter, Bando collected his first hit (a single) off Clyde Wright of the California Angels on September 7. It was clear that Bando was the club’s third baseman of the future; the question was when the future began.

After another abbreviated spring training, Bando was assigned to the Vancouver Mounties of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. On May 10 the A’s traded third baseman Ed Charles (who had occupied the hot corner since 1962), paving the way for Bando. Sal impressed with his defense, but struggled at the plate, hitting only .143 (9-for-63) in four weeks, and was sent back to Vancouver to iron out his hitting woes. “That was the first blow I’d ever had in baseball,” recalled Bando. “I was hurt that they thought I couldn’t play in the majors.”4 A’s manager Al Dark had instructed Bando to crouch in his batting stance, but Mounties manager Mickey Vernon suggested that the 24-year-old take a more natural approach and stand straighter to help extend his arms and open up his swing.5 Responding to Vernon’s mentorship, Bando batted. 291 and showed a discerning eye at the plate (.392 on-base percentage). He was named to the PCL All-Star second team and voted best defensive third baseman in a poll of league managers. Bando earned another September call-up and batted a more respectable. 239 (16-for-67), and finished with a .192 average and only five extra-base hits (no home runs) in 130 at-bats for both his stints in the majors. In preparation of a full season at third base, Bando was sent to Arecibo in the Puerto Rican winter league, where he was among the league’s hottest hitters, batting well over .300.

The A’s 13-year experiment in Kansas City came to a conclusion with the club’s move to Oakland in 1968. Excitement was palpable during spring training when “slugging sensation” Bando surprisingly walloped ten home runs.6 “Tabbed for greatness” (in the words of The Sporting News), Bando launched his first big-league home run in the second game of the season (a two-run shot off Phil Ortega in a 9-6 win over the Washington Senators), but didn’t hit another one until the 30th game. In the “Year of the Pitcher,” when AL batters hit a composite .230, Bando finished the season with a solid .251 batting average and nine home runs, and was second on the team with 67 runs batted in. More importantly, the A’s notched their first winning season since 1952.

Bando’s first full season revealed his durability (he played in 162 games) and aggressive, hard-nosed defensive play, which invited comparisons to the best third-sacker in the game. “He’s got his body moving forward,” said Bando of the difference between him and the Baltimore Orioles’ Brooks Robinson. “He keeps his hands up. I keep mine down. My glove’s webbing is touching the ground because I can bring my hands up [easier] instead of down.”7 Often described as stocky, the 6-foot-tall, 200-pound Bando may not have appeared as lithe and graceful as Robinson, and did not cover as much ground, but he made up for it with his quick release and hard throw to second and first base; and the ball typically had a low trajectory. “Bando has such a strong arm,” raved A’s beat reporter Ron Bergman writing for The Sporting News, “that he can run down the ball after taking it in the chest and get the runner out.”8 Although he never won a Gold Glove, Bando annually ranked in the top five in putouts, assists, and double plays.

Bando took full advantage of Major League Baseball’s decision to lower the pitching mound to ten inches in 1969 in an effort to stimulate offense by belting five home runs and driving in 17 runs in 19 games in April, including his career day at the plate (3-for-4 with two home runs, seven knocked in). Bando credited Joe DiMaggio (an A’s executive vice president and occasional bench coach in 1968 and 1969) for his improvement. Bando had a wide stance with his right foot placed at the back of the batter’s box; the Yankee Clipper suggested that he close his stance and keep his head down to generate more power.9 The results were immediate: by the All-Star break Bando had 18 home runs and 64 RBIs.

In what was described as the “biggest upset of the American League players’ voting,” Bando’s peers chose him over Robinson to start the Midsummer Classic in Washington.10 In the AL’s 9-3 loss, Bando smacked a single off Bob Gibson for his only hit in three at-bats. Bando slumped after the All-Star Game, but enjoyed the most productive month in his career in September (9 HRs and 29 RBIs in 30 games) to set career highs in home runs (31), runs batted in (113), hits (171), and runs (106). He also played in every inning of every game.

Pressure and increasingly high expectations came with the A’s new-found success. Manager Hank Bauer named Bando team captain in May 1969 to help the young team forge an identity, and he held the title throughout his tenure with the A’s. “[Bando] has capabilities of being a leader out there on the field,” said Bauer. “He deserves the job on the basis of baseball instinct and knowledge.”11 Just 25 years old, Bando got along with his teammates well, had earned their respect for his hustle and willingness to play through injuries, and put winning above personal statistics and fame, but was not a rah-rah type. “I was a leader by example not by talking,” said Bando later in his career. “You don’t tell a (Reggie) Jackson, a (Jim) Hunter, or a (Joe) Rudi what to do. You lead by example, by giving 100 percent, by giving a continuous effort. A successful individual is one who is dedicated, on and off the field.”12

With their fourth different Opening Day manager in four years, the A’s began the 1970 season edgy after Bando’s harsh contract negotiations with owner Charlie Finley and Reggie Jackson’s holdout. The poor start under John McNamara made clubhouse tensions even worse. Bando was the team’s hottest hitter through the All-Star break, almost replicating his numbers from the previous year (17 HRs and 56 RBIs), but the team languished in third place, 9½ games behind the Minnesota Twins. For the first time since 1957 fans voted for the position players at the All-Star Game. Bando was neither selected nor named by the coaching staff as a substitute. His “lack of recognition,” suggested The Sporting News, was a product of playing in Oakland and not in a traditional bastion of baseball.13 Despite Bando’s horrendous second half (just three home runs and 19 runs batted in 75 games), the A’s finished in second place.

The A’s had played sloppy, uninspired ball under McNamara; consequently, it was no surprise that he was replaced at the end of the season. The choice of his successor raised eyebrows and hopes: Dick Williams, who had transformed the hapless Boston Red Sox into the AL pennant winners in 1967. “We need a guy to kick us in the rear every now and then,” said Bando. “[Mac] said he just wasn’t the type to jump all over guys and we liked that. We knew if we made a mistake, it wouldn’t be too bad. But we didn’t learn from our mistakes; we didn’t take them seriously. I think that hurt us as the season wore on.”14 Williams arrived with a reputation as a tough-as-nails disciplinarian; players hoped he would stand up to Finley and his constant meddling.

In 1971 the A’s captured their first of five consecutive AL West crowns behind a nucleus of players who came up through the team’s farm system: Bando, Bert Campaneris, Joe Rudi, and Jackson, and pitchers Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, and Rollie Fingers. Avoiding the Jekyll-and-Hyde act of the previous year, Bando had a consistent if not spectacular year, clouting 24 home runs and leading the team with 94 runs batted in. He finished second in MVP voting, behind teammate Blue. In their first postseason series since the franchise’s World Series loss in 1931 when they were still located in Philadelphia, the A’s lost three consecutive games to the Orioles in the ALCS. Bando was one of Oakland’s lone highlights, going 4-for-11 with a home run off Jim Palmer in Game Three, and scored three of the club’s seven runs.

Dick Williams and Bando developed a mutual trust and respect during the manager’s tumultuous three-year tenure (1971-1973) with the team. Bando often claimed that the A’s could win without the star players (Jackson, Hunter, and Blue), but not without Williams, who struck a visceral chord with the players. His intensity for winning, fundamentally sound baseball, and a team-first attitude matched Bando’s. In his autobiography, No More Mr. Nice Guy, Williams wrote, “[Bando was] the only player I ever socialized with. I’d invite him to my hotel suite after games or during an offday, and we’d just talk baseball. The rest of the team saw this and figured I must be all right.”15

Player salaries and pensions dominated offseason discussion and led to the first major-league-wide players strike in baseball history in 1972, the cancellation of 86 games, and a 13-day delay for Opening Day. While the A’s got off to a torrid start, Bando unexpectedly struggled offensively for most of the season, reaching bottom over a 25-game stretch in late August through mid-September when he hit just .141 (11-for-78); however, Williams considered Bando’s value to the team more than just with the bat and refused to bench him. “We can’t afford not to play Sal,” said Williams, whose team was in a fierce division race with the upstart Chicago White Sox in September.16 Bando finished with 15 home runs and led the team with 77 runs batted in, but his batting average dipped to .236.

The A’s defeated the Detroit Tigers in five games in the ALCS to set the stage for a World Series of polar opposites, dubbed the “Hairs vs. the Squares.” The outsized personalities of the “Swinging A’s” shunned baseball tradition by proudly sporting mustaches and beards (“We got a $300 bonus for growing a mustache,” said Bando)17 and faced the more traditional, clean-shaven, staid, and favorite Cincinnati Reds. The A’s overcame the absence of Jackson (who injured his hamstring in the ALCS) with the slugging of Gene Tenace (four HRs) and pitching brilliance. Bando (7-for-26 in the series) knocked in only one run, but it gave the A’s their third and final run in their 3-1 Game Seven victory.

Bando was an outspoken critic of Finley’s constant meddling in players’ matters and lives, the lack of a television contract to broadcast A’s games in the Bay area, and general fan apathy. “In another town, someplace back East, we might be heroes,” said Bando in May 1973. “Here we’re not even something special.”18 The A’s ranked eighth and 11th (among 12 AL teams) in attendance in 1973 and 1974 despite the championships while the Coliseum was derided as the “mausoleum” for its mortuary-like atmosphere. “The Oakland Coliseum is the worst park in baseball,” Bando said. “The weather is terrible, there’s too much room beyond the foul lines, the ball doesn’t travel well, the players lack good parking facilities, and the security for our families and ourselves is poor.”19

The A’s encountered a difficult adversary in the Kansas City Royals en route to their third consecutive AL West crown in 1973. They fell into second early in August, but the team’s sluggers and three 20-game winners (Ken Holtzman, Hunter, and Blue) proved too much for the inexperienced Royals. Bando was at his best during the last month of the season, batting .390 (39-for-100), scoring 26 times, and driving in 29 runs in 29 games. For the third of four times in his career, Bando led the league in games played (162), and also belted 29 home runs, knocked in 98 runs, and batted .287 to finish fourth in MVP voting. Bando socked two home runs and drove in three in Game Two of the ALCS against the Baltimore Orioles, but was otherwise quiet with the bat (3-for-18) in Oakland’s five-game victory.

The A’s exciting, yet emotionally draining World Series triumph over the New York Mets in seven games was overshadowed by Finley’s stifling control culminating with his attempt to have second baseman Mike Andrews declared medically unfit to play after he committed two costly errors in Oakland’s loss in Game Two, at home. Even before that incident Dick Williams informed the team of his plan to resign at the end of the season. Upon the team’s arrival in Game Three at Shea Stadium, Bando led an open revolt against Finley by suggesting that the team wear black armbands in Andrews’ honor. As the brouhaha escalated, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn intervened and denied Finley’s request to replace Andrews with Manny Trillo. “It’s been a long season,” said a depressed and mentally exhausted Bando after the A’s lost two of three in New York. “Guys are looking forward for it to end.”20 The A’s rode on the back of regular season and Series MVP Reggie Jackson to win Games Six and Seven and capture the title.

Bando’s offseason was marred by rumors of his impending trade and a bitter salary dispute ultimately settled by an arbitrator. “As the success of the team developed,” Bando said years later, “[Finley] became more difficult to deal with. He became an adversary of the players.”21 Reports that Bando would succeed Williams as manager incensed Finley, who named former A’s skipper Al Dark to pilot the team. Bando (and many teammates) were displeased with the choice, especially in light of Williams’s success and support of the players. Dark was seen as a company man, much like McNamara. Bando’s displeasure with Dark came to a head on June 19 when he said. “Dark couldn’t manage a flipping meat market” with his skipper standing behind him.22 They ultimately reconciled their relationship, and Bando accepted and respected Dark’s new-found sedate approach.23

While internal struggles threatened to consume the team, the A’s cruised to yet another AL West crown. “On a team in which trouble bubbles like a live volcano” wrote A’s beat writer Ron Bergman, “Bando, more than anyone else, keeps teammates relaxed and thinking about baseball.”24 Bando led the team with 103 runs batted in and belted 22 home runs. He was named to the All-Star Game for the third consecutive year, but did not play due to a foot injury. The star of the ALCS against the Orioles, Bando hit a home run off Jim Palmer in Game Three that accounted for the only run in a 1-0 victory; and he scored both of Oakland’s two runs in the deciding Game Four victory. The A’s defeated the prohibitive favorite Los Angeles Dodgers in five games in the World Series, but Bando’s bat was silent (1-for-16) though he scored a team-high three runs and drove in two. Bando was one of 13 A’s players who participated on all three championship teams.25

Bando’s relationship with Finley hit its nadir in the offseason when he filed for arbitration seeking a salary increase to $125,000. “[Bando is] a popoff and one of the worst fielding third baseman in baseball,” said Finley, taking his fight with Bando public.”26 After winning the arbitration hearing, Finley triumphantly announced, “There are too many players in baseball who want unjustified, astronomical salaries. It is my obligation to … stop these shenanigans.”27 Dark guided the A’s to their fifth consecutive AL crown, but Bando struggled all season at the plate. Batting just .198 with a month left on the season, Bando hit .354 in his final 29 games with 29 runs batted in to salvage his year. The A’s dynasty ended at the hands of the Boston Red Sox, who swept them in the best-of-five ALCS.

In his final season in Oakland, Bando was one of seven players (the others were Blue, Rudi, Don Baylor, Campanaris, Tenace, and Fingers) who refused to sign a contract in order to be declared free agents at the end of the season. Finley summarily cut their salary by the maximum 20 percent allowed, and declared his willingness to sell any of his unsigned players for one million dollars.28 Tempers came to a boil after Bowie Kuhn voided Finley’s sale of Rudi and Fingers to Boston and Blue to the Yankees at the June 15 trading deadline. Finley subsequently filed a lawsuit against Kuhn and refused to permit new skipper Chuck Tanner to play the three. “We went about ten days in June without them,” said Bando. “Finally I had to tell [Finley] that we were striking if he didn’t start using them. Marvin Miller (then executive director of the Players Association) called me and said, ‘Don’t walk out.’ But still we voted to walk out just before a game against Minnesota [on June 27] and were ready to forfeit it.”29 Sensing the gravity of the players’ threat, Finley acquiesced. Bando rebounded in 1976 to belt a team-high 27 home runs (second most in the AL) and knocked in 84 runs, but the A’s finished in second place.

Bando’s “value to the team transcends what he does on the field,” wrote Ron Bergman of the Oakland Tribune.30 In an offensively depressed era, Bando was extremely durable, averaging 156 games played, 23 home runs, and 90 runs batted in for the A’s from 1969 through 1976. Though he batted just .257, his on-base percentage (a statistic not as valued at the time) was .366. Advanced sabermetric statistical analysis may help shed light on just how valuable Bando was. In a five-year period (1969-1973), Bando’s WAR (33.6) was the highest in all of baseball, besting Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Reggie Jackson, and Pete Rose.31

Bando was granted free agency at the end of the 1976 season and signed a five-year contract worth a reported $1.5 million with the Milwaukee Brewers. Team president Bud Selig saw Bando as a veteran leader who could serve as a mentor to the young players and in the words of Milwaukee Sentinel writer Lou Chapman end the “loser image” of the team.32 After a sixth-place finish in Bando’s first season, the Brewers slugged their way to 93 wins in 1978 for the first of a franchise-record six consecutive winning seasons.

Bando contributed with 17 home runs and about 80 runs batted in each of his first two seasons while playing in excess of 150 games each year. After playing in 130 games and hitting just nine home runs in 1979, Bando was named player-coach for his last two seasons (1980 and 1981) while still occasionally playing third base and serving as designated hitter, but batted just .197 and .200 respectively. Bando enjoyed a last hurrah of sorts when the Brewers faced the New York Yankees in the 1981 League Division Series following the strike-shortened season. Starting at third base in all five games, Bando went 5-for-17 with three doubles in the team’s first-ever postseason appearance. He declined an invitation to return to the team in 1982 and concluded his 16-year big-league career with 242 home runs, 1,039 RBIs, and a .254 batting average in 2,019 games. In 44 postseason games he hit .245 (39-for-159) with five round-trippers and 13 runs batted in.

Bando was well-prepared to transition to life after his playing days were over. A constant source of support and grounding was his wife, the former Sandy Fortunato, a New Jersey resident he met while playing in the Puerto Rican winter league, and married in 1969. They had three sons, Sal Jr., Sonny, and Stefano. During his playing days, Sal had invested shrewdly, lived within his means, and regularly had offseason jobs, most notably as a sports radio host and in banking. In retirement he founded a successful investment company with former Milwaukee Bucks player Jon McGlocklin.

Financially secure, Bando served as special assistant to Brewers GM Harry Dalton from 1982 to 1991. It was a part-time position that allowed Bando to maintain his close ties to baseball and remain living in the Milwaukee area, where he had established firm roots. His primary responsibilities were to serve as a liaison between players and management, periodically visit minor-league affiliates, and offer insights about players and teams.

Bando was named the Brewers GM in October 1991 and served in that position until August 1999. During his eight years as GM, the team had only one winning season (1992). Operating in the smallest market in baseball, Bando and the Brewers struggled to field competitive teams as salaries skyrocketed throughout the decade, especially before Major League Baseball instituted revenue sharing in 1996 to stimulate competiveness. In a public-relations nightmare evoking memories of Charley Finley, Bando allowed fan favorite Paul Molitor to depart via free agency after the 1992 season. Robin Yount retired the following season leaving a void in team leadership. Dale Hoffmann of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote, “When mediocrity becomes not so much a goal, as a dream, it takes more than a stern lecture from a new voice to correct the problem.”33 Bando was replaced by Dean Taylor, but the Brewers waited eight more years before their next winning season, in 2007.

As of 2013 Bando lived with his wife in the Milwaukee and Phoenix areas. He was the CEO of Middletown Doll Company, which had a host of investment businesses associated with it. Though he no longer had formal ties to any professional baseball team, the 69-year old Bando remained close to the game as a fan.

Bando died on January 20, 2023 at his home in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, after a battle with cancer. He was 78 years old. 

Sources

Newspapers

Chicago Tribune

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Milwaukee Journal

Milwaukee Sentinel

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

New York Times

Oakland Tribune

The Sporting News

Radio Interviews

With John Lund and Greg Papa on July 15, 2013, for 95.7 FM (San Francisco): media.957thegame.com/a/78170288/sal-bando-looks-back-on-his-time-with-the-a-s-in-the-70s.htm

With Jimmy Scott for Jimmy Scott’s High and Tight: http://www.jimmyscottshighandtight.com/node/118

With Thetford and Ashby for 104.3 FM (Lubbock, Texas): doublet1043.com/content/thetfordashby/story/Sportstalk-Interview-Sal-Bando/KGBGqfQsP0C_Vf3DwcI5Qg.cspx

Other

Sal Bando player file, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, New York

Notes

1 Hal Lebovitz, “Hal asks: What’s behind a big leaguer?,” The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), April 4, 1982, [no page]. Player’s Hall of Fame file.

2 Ed Leavitt, “The Year of the Mule,” Oakland Tribune, August 30, 1971, 58.

3 The Sporting News, September 24, 1966, 16.

4 The Sporting News, March 30, 1968, 6.

5 Ibid.

6 The Sporting News, April 13, 1968, 44.

7 The Sporting News, July 27, 1968, 5

8 The Sporting News, July 27, 1968, 5.

9 The Sporting News, June 14, 1969, 4.

10 Ron Bergman, “Stars Will Gaze at Reggie, Sal,” Oakland Tribune, July 10, 1969, 37.

11 “Capt. Bando Takes Duty in Stride,” Oakland Tribune, June 1, 1969, 3C.

12 “Bando. Looking Forward to ‘78 Season Following Hectic First Year With Club,” Brewers Scorebook, 1978, 11.

13 The Sporting News, July 11, 1970, 19.

14 The Sporting News, December 12, 1970, 56.

15 Dick Williams, No More Mr. Nice Guy quoted from Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (New York: Free Press, 2001), 548.

16 The Sporting News, September 23, 1972, 7.

17 The Sporting News, February 24, 1973, 41.

18 The Sporting News, May 26, 1973, 20.

19 Ibid.

20 Ron Bergman, “Depressed A’s Face Met ‘Believers,’,” Oakland Tribune, October 10, 1973, 13E.

21 Interview with Jimmy Scott for Jimmy Scott’s High and Tight. jimmyscottshighandtight.com/node/118.

22 Ron Bergman, “Sal Says Dick Can’t Manage,” Oakland Tribune, June 20, 1974, E37.

23 Dark was a hot-headed manager with the A’s in the late 1960s; however, when he returned to the club in 1974 his personality had changed radically. A self-described born-again Christian, Dark was no longer the screaming, tantrum-throwing firebrand. He openly talked about Christianity. Bando credited Dark with leading him to his religious awakening (Sal Bando, “The Big Slump,” Guideposts, July 1980).

24 The Sporting News, May 18, 1974, 23.

25 The 13 players who were on all three World Series teams are Sal Bando, Vida Blue, Bert Campaneris, Rollie Fingers, Dick Green, Ken Holtzman, Catfish Hunter, Reggie Jackson, Darold Knowles, Angel Mangual, Blue Moon Odom, Joe Rudi, and Gene Tenace; Knowles did not pitch in the 1972 or 1974 World Series, and Jackson did not play in the 1972 World Series.

26 “Bando is Worst Fielding 3rd Baseman in Baseball,” (Associated Press) Sarasota Herald-Times, February 17, 1975, 2-C.

27 “Charley’s Happy to Beat the Band-o,” (Associated Press), Binghamton (New York) Press, February 20, 1975, 9-B.

28 The Sporting News, July 3, 1976, 8.

29 Sid Bordman, “Sal Bando says A’s glory days should have been even better,” Kansas City Star [no date]. Player’s Hall of fame file.

30 The Sporting News, September 14, 1974, 21.

31 Wins Above Replacement, an advanced sabermetric statistic, presents, in the form of a single number, the number of wins the player added to the team above what a replacement player (e.g., Triple-A player) would add.

32 The Sporting News, March 5, 1977, 20.

33 Dale Hofmann, “Hold the door open for Bando,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, August 12, 1999 [no page]. Player’s Hall of Fame file.

Curtis Le Roy Blefary is best remembered for winning the American League Rookie of the Year award in 1965. He had three productive seasons for the Orioles before his intertwined personal demons, alcohol and anger, overcame his terrific natural ability. Blefary was a key contributor to the Orioles’ pennant in 1966. The left-handed hitter was an outfielder during his three solid seasons, then subsequently became a regular catcher and first baseman.

Blefary was born in Brooklyn, New York, on July 5, 1943, and grew up in Mahwah, New Jersey. His father, an AT&T employee, named him after Curt Davis, a pitcher who won 158 major-league games and was pitching for the Brooklyn Dodgers when Blefary was born.

The Bergen Record honored the Mahwah High School ballplayer as a member of its “Best of the Century” team. Blefary was a third baseman until his senior year, when he was converted to catcher. He was also an all-state halfback on the football team. After high school he starred for the Wagner College Seahawks football team in the fall of 1961.

The New York Yankees signed Blefary to a contract in 1962. (The free-agent draft didn’t begin until 1965.) Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia says that Blefary received a $40,000 bonus,1 but Blefary’s high-school classmate Richard E. Robbins said it was $18,000. “His dad let him buy a car for a few thousand and made him invest the rest in AT&T stock,” Robbins said, adding, “Apparently he sold the stock somewhere along the way. If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have had any money worries later in life.” In addition to the bonus, the Yankees agreed to pay Blefary’s tuition and expenses at Wagner during the offseasons.

The Yankees sent Blefary to Greensboro (Carolina League) in 1962 and tried him as an outfielder. He hit two home runs in his first full game. His first-year performance (.240 batting average, 13 home runs, 39 RBIs, and 8 eight stolen bases in 66 games) did not earn him a promotion for the 1963 season. His attitude might have concerned the Yankees more than his batting average. He scared everyone by throwing bats and helmets. Joe DiMaggio was bemused by Blefary’s intensity in spring training, but expressed confidence in his future.

At Greensboro in 1963 Blefary hit 25 home runs, but was sold to the Baltimore Orioles early in the season on first-year waivers in a transaction that was never adequately explained by the Yankees. The Yankees acquired veteran utilityman Harry Bright from the Reds on April 21. Blefary had been protected on the 40-man roster, but had stitches in his leg at the time Bright was purchased. Blefary was relegated to pinch-hitting duty while his leg healed. Various accounts of why the Yankees risked losing Blefary have been reported. In one version, Yankees general manager Ralph Houk said Blefary was “expendable,”2 an explanation that strains credulity given the Yankees’ investment in Blefary. No documentation suggests that the Yankees attributed Blefary’s behavioral problems to anything but immaturity, so his behavior wasn’t a factor. Another reported theory is that the Yankees made a technical mistake and were surprised when the Orioles claimed Blefary. Sport offered a plausible but convoluted explanation, writing that New York’s front office, in an effort to exaggerate the severity of Blefary’s injury, told him to sit in the stands while he was on waivers. Blefary defied orders to keep quiet and told a Baltimore scout that he was fine.3 Regardless, the promising slugger was crushed by the deal; he claimed he had turned down more money from other teams because he wanted to play for the Yankees.4

Baltimore initially kept Blefary at Greensboro, where he hit .289 and slugged 25 home runs with 67 RBIs in 88 games. In 40 games with Elmira in the Eastern League he hit .247. Blefary also played first base and had his first professional experience as a catcher. The Elmira trainer nicknamed him “Cadillac Curt” because of his grandstanding home-run trots. Blefary basked in success and fired equipment at the dugout wall when unsuccessful.

Baltimore sent Blefary to the Florida Instructional League in the fall of 1963. Orioles scout Dee Phillips counseled him to control his temper if he wanted to reach the majors. Blefary thought he was ready to jump to the majors in 1964, but the Orioles sent him to Triple-A Rochester. “Nothing depresses me; I will be back,” he asserted. Playing first, second, and third base as well as the outfield for Rochester, Blefary batted .287 with 31 homers and led the International League with 102 walks. In January 1964 Curt married his high-school sweetheart, Eileen Fitzgerald.5  

In spite of complaining to the media that manager Hank Bauer didn’t play him enough in spring training, the 6-foot-2, 195-pound Blefary made the 1965 Orioles. He explained, “Sometimes my mouth would get into gear before my brain was engaged. I did not get to the big leagues being shy. I got the attitude from my father. He said, ‘Do not even try to make it, son, unless you really believe you are the best. Otherwise you are going to be heartbroken.’”  

In each year of his career, Blefary had a chip on his shoulder about something. His issue as a rookie was platooning. Casey Stengel had platooned Bauer, and the Orioles manager was a believer in the merits of the system. Powell and Norm Siebern split first base equally. Blefary and Boog Powell split left field; Blefary and Sam Bowens split right field. Powell had an offyear, and Blefary led the Orioles with 22 home runs and 88 walks. He finished third in the league in on-base percentage (.381) and ninth in slugging percentage (.470). Setting a trend, he batted .367 with six home runs against the Yankees. Bauer loved Blefary’s hustle and competitiveness. He earned the Rookie of the Year award.

Blefary wanted to control his temper and improve his statistical performance in 1966. “The so-called sophomore jinx is just a lot of horseradish,” he swore. “It’s all mental. I don’t expect to have any jinx.” With the addition of Frank Robinson, the promising Orioles ran away with the American League pennant. Blefary did avoid the jinx and compiled on-base and slugging percentages that were within a few points of his rookie marks and again ranked in the top 10 in the league. In his only World Series, a sweep of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Blefary went 1-for-13 with a pair of walks.

Blefary hit five more home runs against the Yankees in 1966. He told Sports Illustrated, “Those seats in right field [at Yankee Stadium] … were made for me.”6 Eventually he earned a level of respect unwarranted by his performance against other teams: New York pitchers walked him a total of seven times in consecutive games.

Articles about Blefary continued to document his temper tantrums on and off the field. Oddly, he seemed to be a compliant source for those stories. His unusual eating habits were also fodder for celebrity-hungry journalists. He loved the celebrity lifestyle and enjoyed the nightclubs. The unique young man had the capacity to drink at night and get up and have clam chowder and hamburgers for breakfast. At the same time, his cocker spaniel, Long Ball, would be treated to scrambled eggs and Coke.

Blefary was an inexperienced and graceless outfielder when he reached the major leagues. Teammate Frank Robinson nicknamed him Clank, after the sound of the ball rebounding from his glove. When the team bus passed a pile of scrap iron, Robinson told Blefary, “Go get yourself another glove.” Although the legend was exaggerated, his range was poor for someone with average speed. His error totals were always close to the league average. He had a strong but not necessarily accurate throwing arm.

While Blefary was a better outfielder than Boog Powell, Baltimore entered 1967 with three left-handed sluggers, none of whom could help the team in the outfield. Mike Epstein, The Sporting News 1966 Minor League Player of the Year, was a poor defensive first baseman. The Orioles sent him to the Florida Instructional League to learn left field. The experiment continued in spring training, but Blefary still got his at-bats. Hank Bauer tried him as a catcher after Powell accidentally stepped on backup catcher Charlie Lau’s toe. Blefary also experimented with switch-hitting. He had been a switch-hitter in high school. He asserted that he had more power right-handed. Presumably Bauer wasn’t impressed.

Trade rumors, especially in The Sporting News, were rampant. Years later, Jim Palmer said the Cubs were willing to trade Billy Williams for Blefary and Epstein. Palmer claimed that owner Jerry Hoffberger told general manager Harry Dalton, “You can make that trade, but you’d better be right.”7 He would have been: Williams outlasted both much younger players and had the seasons that created the mold to cast his Hall of Fame bust in 1970 and 1972. The Sporting News also claimed that Dalton turned down offers from the White Sox for Bruce Howard or Joel Horlen for Blefary.

Blefary’s batting average declined to .242 in 1967, but he played a little more and drove in a career-high 81 runs. He ranked in the top 10 in the AL in home runs (22) and RBIs. The Orioles skidded to sixth place with a losing record, primarily due to key injuries to the pitching staff.   

Spring training in 1968 was eventful for Blefary again. In mid-March, Bauer suddenly moved him to catcher. Andy Etchebarren had thrown out 29 percent of would-be stealers in 1967, which was 12 percent below the league average. Bauer said the move was no more than an experiment. The fact that Etchebarren batted right-handed must have entered into his thinking. Blefary noted, “I came to the Yankees as a catcher, but when they sent me to Greensboro the catcher there was off on a hitting tear. So they used me as a first baseman. The next spring I was spiked at home plate and I couldn’t squat. So back I went to first again.”

The experiment was successful enough to entice Bauer to use Blefary as a catcher, outfielder, and first baseman in much the same way the Yankees used their catchers in the late 1950s and early ’60s. He caught in 40 games; one of them was a no-hitter pitched by Tom Phoebus against Boston on April 27. Blefary’s batting average plunged to .200 (actually .199556) in “The Year of the Pitcher.” He said his hitting suffered from playing too many positions. His batting average had declined in each season, but so had the league’s. Blefary still exceeded the league average on-base percentage in 1968 (.301 to .297). However, in the previous three seasons he had exceeded the league average on-base and slugging percentages by huge margins.

Earl Weaver, who had managed Blefary in the minors, took over the Orioles during the 1968 season. The team, which had won just 76 games while finishing a disappointing sixth in 1967, rebounded to win 91 games.

When Weaver told the media that Blefary would have to compete for an outfield job in 1969, that triggered a tirade and a trade. The O’s made a deal with Houston that was subsequently regarded as an extremely unbalanced trade. Blefary and minor leaguer John Mason went to the Astros for pitcher Mike Cuellar, prospect Enzo Hernandez, and minor leaguer Elijah Johnson. The trade helped the Orioles become as good as any team ever in 1969. Cuellar was the co-winner of the Cy Young Award (with Denny McLain of the Tigers) and averaged 21 wins per season from 1969 to 1974.

After the trade, The Sporting News reported that Blefary said, “Weaver and I don’t see eye-to-eye, period. He was a decent guy in the minors, but now he’s speaking out of turn. He’s a coach half a year and then he becomes a manager and crucifies me.” He added, “So I had a bad year. … I had three good ones before this.”8

Blefary became the Astros’ first baseman. Pitching kept the team in the National League West race, but eventually Houston dropped to .500 and finished fifth. Although Blefary had hit in the .170s against left-handers in 1967 and 1968, manager Harry Walker played him almost regularly. He hit only .195 against left-handers, but had a decent .253/12/67 season. Remarkably, he didn’t hit a home run until the Astros’ 44th game. He had career highs of 26 doubles, 7 triples, and 8 stolen bases; and slugged .393. His 77 walks ranked 10th in the NL and contributed to a .347 on-base percentage. He exceeded the league’s batting, slugging, and on-base averages, but not by significant margins for a poor-fielding first baseman. However, considering his ballpark, Blefary’s numbers were respectable and represented a comeback.

Regardless, Curt was unhappy in Houston. Fortunately for him, the Yankees also had a problematic, controversial player in Joe Pepitone, whom they accused of loving off-the-field excesses more than baseball. Both teams wanted to trade their misfits and loved the potential of the other team’s player: An even swap was consummated on December 4, 1969, exactly a year after the Astros acquired Blefary.

After the trade, Houston Chronicle sportswriter John Wilson blasted Blefary in The Sporting News: “Blefary has failed to see eye-to-eye with his last two managers, Harry Walker at Houston and Earl Weaver at Baltimore. He showed a lack of restraint in expressing displeasure with the way he was being handled and asked to be traded from both teams.”9 Walker responded that Blefary hurt himself by blaming his troubles on others. “He ought to grow up and take a good look at himself,” Walker asserted. Walker claimed he taught Blefary bat control and discipline with high pitches. His philosophy was right for the Astrodome, and Blefary hit to all fields as instructed, but he longed to hit long balls. Trading for a slugger and turning him into a line-drive hitter is somewhat analogous to trading for a player and converting him to a different position: For the strategy to fully succeed, the player has to have right attitude about it. Blefary had a gung-ho attitude and aggressive style of play that any manager could love, but his pride and short temper were unmanageable in his era.

Blefary wore number 13 in Houston. The choice was iconoclastic and controversial in that era. However, his willingness to room with Don Wilson was far more daring. The duo were probably baseball’s second pair of interracial roommates. The 1960s were the most volatile period for race relations in American history. Legislation mandated integration, but members of various races were slow to accept each other as peers. In that era, white people who openly embraced members of other races were often victims of covert and overt discrimination, especially in the south. You could argue that Blefary played the most significant role in integrating the game of any white player in baseball history, but the case is hard to make simply because his role has been so minimally documented. 

Blefary felt the trade to New York was the best thing that had happened in his career in a long time. “It was like an early Christmas present,” he said. The Yankee Yearbook quoted him as saying, “I know it sounds corny, but I always wanted to play for New York. It’s my home and wearing the pinstripes and standing in the same batter’s box where Babe Ruth stood do something to me.” On Opening Day, he enthused, “This is a lifelong dream come true at last. I’m finally playing at Yankee Stadium as a Yankee.”

The Yankees knew they were getting a Yankee-killer who had hit very well in their ballpark. In four years with Baltimore, Blefary hit .299 with a dozen homers against New York. Only half of the homers came in the Bronx, but he hit .324 there. The 1970 Yankees had a deep pitching staff and an exciting nucleus of young talent led by Roy White, Bobby Murcer, and Rookie of the Year Thurman Munson. Veterans Blefary and Danny Cater were expected to solve weaknesses.

Under different circumstances, Yankee Stadium might have been a panacea for Blefary. Ralph Houk’s laissez-faire management style gave Curt the same type of release that a student of a repressive teacher might experience with a substitute. He abandoned tying to hit singles and doubles in favor of trying to hit every pitch he swung at out of the park. As a result, he failed to do either. Hickoksports.com quoted Blefary as once saying, “Home runs are the root of all evil. You hit a couple and every time up, you’re looking to hit the ball out. Next thing you know, you’re in a slump.”10 As in 1969, Blefary went an amazingly long stretch before hitting his first home run of the season. He hit it on June 2 against the Kansas City Royals off former Orioles teammate Moe Drabowsky. Afterward, Blefary praised Ralph Houk: “He really has been great all through my long slump. He just kept telling me to hang in there and it would come.” But he finished the season at .212 with 9 home runs and 37 RBIs, and lost playing time in right field to Ron Woods, Jim Lyttle, and others. and finished 9-37-.212 (and 43 walks) in 269 at-bats. The Yankees won 93 games, but didn’t challenge the Orioles. The Yankees needed a slugger in right field. Former number-one draft choice Ron Blomberg appeared to be a solution for New York. Blefary was 7-for-36, primarily as a pinch-hitter, when the Yankees traded him to the Oakland Athletics for left-hander Rob Gardner May 26. Oakland used him as a pinch-hitter and utilityman. He caught in 14 games (his first experience in that role since 1968), and played second base, third base, and the outfield. Overall, Blefary hit a familiar .212 in just 137 at-bats.

With tough Dick Williams as his manager, Blefary understood that he was in no position to complain. As spring training began in 1972, he told The Sporting News, “I’ve got three things to do this spring. I’m going to get in shape, take my swings, and keep my mouth shut.”11 Instead, as spring training ended, he reprised his “play-me-or-trade-me” refrain. He had 5 hits in 11 at-bats when the A’s honored his request on May 17. They shipped Blefary, left-hander Mike Kilkenny, and a player to be named later (minor leaguer Greg Schubert) to San Diego for right fielder Downtown Ollie Brown. Brown, then 28, was off to a horrendous start for the Padres; both teams may have perceived that they were trading problems, and salaries may have been a factor.

Blefary, with his fifth team in five years, was reduced to being a journeyman utilityman. He filled the same role for struggling San Diego as he had for pennant-winning Oakland. He hit .196 in 102 at-bats and was released by the Padres in December. A month later, he was signed by the Atlanta Braves, but  was released by the Braves during spring training of 1973. Just 29 years old, Blefary could not get a job with another team. In 1986 he told John Eisenberg of the Baltimore Sun, “Evidently, I did something to somebody during my career, because there is no way a 29-year-old left-handed-hitting catcher cannot hook up with someone, not even in Japan. No one has ever told me what it was. For me to be through then was ridiculous. I had 10 years left. I have never known what happened. There are several things I can touch on: I was very outspoken; I let my mouth get me into trouble even though I knew I was right. There might be times when you have been partying too much and someone sees you and puts a label on you. It could have been different things. No one will tell me.”12

Blefary hit .237 with 112 home runs and 382 RBIs in 974 games in his eight-year career. He was devastated by the abrupt loss of his baseball career. His personal life suffered a similar downward spiral. His marriage ended in divorce. He wore blue collars, white collars, a sheriff’s uniform, and a bartender’s apron, but couldn’t find satisfying work. For years, he and baseball avoided each other. Blefary later sought baseball jobs, but never got one. He returned to New Jersey and tried several occupations. He sold cars and insurance. He served customers in bars and fast-food restaurants. He took a temporary agency job at $4.25 per hour. He drove a truck. Eventually, he and his second wife, Lana, settled in the Virgin Islands and Florida. He owned a nightclub, Curt’s Coo Coo Lounge in Dania, Florida.

By the mid-1980s, Blefary found solace in old-timer’s games and autograph events. He loved getting together with other former ballplayers. He served as a volunteer coach for the Northeast High School team in Fort Lauderdale, the longtime spring training home of the Yankees. He wrote an instructional booklet, Curt Blefary’s “Way to Play,” which he hoped to have published, but self-published instead. Even as his health failed in his later years, he hoped to secure a professional coaching job. Lana Blefary said, “He was a lifelong student of the game.” Curt reveled in his past glory. He cherished his World Series ring. Lana reflected, “He gloated about it for the rest of his life. He loved Baltimore, and he loved his fans.”

Blefary experienced a variety of health and financial problems. He had hip replacement surgery in late 1994 or early 1995. The surgeon performed the work pro bono.

In February 1995 Jennifer Frey of the New York Times conducted a revealing interview with the former player. For the first time, Blefary publicly documented his drinking problem. He admitted that his reputation as a drinker and carouser kept him out of the game. “In the big leagues, I was out of control,” he confessed.13

Blefary explained, ‘‘I was a drinker for 33 years. I started when I was 18. By Triple-A, I was drinking hard liquor.” Blefary believed that his drinking was encouraged by society, and perhaps his peers as well. “I had a problem,” he said, “but nobody ever had the guts to tell me.” With financial help from the Baseball Assistance Team, he completed Sam McDowell’s alcohol rehabilitation program in 1994. He had regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for 11 years, but that didn’t work.

In the Times article, Blefary offered prophetic warnings to Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, who were both dealing with substance-abuse problems and trying to resurrect their careers. ‘‘It seems like everybody is telling them that it’s going to be all right, and they believe it,’’ Blefary said. ‘‘Well, it ain’t going to be all right, not if they’re still in denial. I’ve been there. I know.”14 Like Blefary, the former Mets stars let their addictions destroy their careers, even though they played in a more enlightened era.

In the last years of his life, Blefary suffered from chronic pancreatitis. The disease and the problems it caused eventually took his life. According to the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse, a service of the National Institutes of Health, “Chronic pancreatitis occurs when digestive enzymes attack and destroy the pancreas and nearby tissues, causing scarring and pain. The usual cause of chronic pancreatitis is many years of alcohol abuse, but the chronic form may also be triggered by only one acute attack, especially if the pancreatic ducts are damaged. … Damage from alcohol abuse may not appear for many years, and then a person may have a sudden attack of pancreatitis. In up to 70 percent of adult patients, chronic pancreatitis appears to be caused by alcoholism. This form is more common in men than in women and often develops between the ages of 30 and 40.”

Curt Blefary died on January 28, 2001, at his home in Pompano Beach, Florida. “It’s good that his suffering is over now,“ the AP obituary quoted Lana Blefary as saying. He was survived by his wife, two daughters, a son, three grandchildren, and two sisters.

At one time, Blefary expressed a desire to be buried in Baltimore’s Memorial Stadium. However, Curt outlived the demolition of most of the ballpark. With help, Lana was able to honor his last wish to scatter his ashes in Memorial Stadium. The ceremony was held on May 24, 2001. The Babe Ruth Museum supplied the home plate used in the last game at the defunct stadium and located it in the precise spot where it had been used. Curt told Eisenberg in 1986, “I am a damn ballplayer, and I will go to my grave that way.”15 He did.

Sources (excluding most sources cited in text above)

Angell, Roger, The Summer Game (New York: Viking Penguin, 1972).

Bouton, Jim, Ball Four, (New York: World Publishing, 1970).

Honig, Donald, American League Rookies of the Year (New York: Bantam, 1989).

Brown, Doug, “The Man With the Cadillac Trot,” Sport, June 1966, 42-43.

Barker, Barbara, “Comeback Year,” Bergen Record (Hackensack, New Jersey), February 12, 1995.

Brown, Doug, “Blefary Has Curt Reply: ‘I’m No Peck’s Bad Boy,’” The Sporting News, December 21, 1968, 34.

Martindale, David, Biography, October 1998, 24-25.

Drebinger, John, “DiMaggio Has Wonderful Time Teaching at N.Y. Rookie Camp,” New York Times, March 22, 1963.

Eisenberg, John, “Building a Life After Baseball,” Baltimore Sun, September 1986.

Frey, Jennifer, “I’ve Walked in Their Shoes,” New York Times, February 26, 1995.

Goldstein, Richard, “Curt Blefary, 57, Outfielder and A.L. Rookie of the Year,” New York Times, January 30, 2001.

Ogle, Jim, “Trade Winds Puff Out Yank Muscle,” The Sporting News, December 20, 1969, 31.

Schneider, Russell, “Indians Stalk New Prey — Phil Slugger Richie Allen,” The Sporting News, October 26, 1968, 25.

Schneider, Russell, “Tribe’s Bid For Sock Runs Into Roadblock,” The Sporting News, December 21, 1968, 28-29.

Wiebusch, John, “Angels Talk Deals, Seek Curt Blefary,” The Sporting News, December 7, 1968, 36

Wiebusch, John, “Angels Whiff On Allen Deal, Try Callison,” The Sporting News, December 21, 1968, 45.

Wilson, John, “Astros Proud of Off-Season Overhaul Job,” The Sporting News, December 21, 1968, 35.

Wilson, John, “Clank, Cuckoo; By Either Name Blefary Can Hit,” The Sporting News, January 4, 1969, 44.

Wilson, John, “Hat’s Figures Offset Blefary’s Blast,” The Sporting News, April 4, 1970, 8.

Wilson, John, “Trades Add New Zing to Astro Attack,” The Sporting News, February 15, 1969, 39.

Associated Press, November 22, 1965, January 29, 2001.

Bergen Record, various issues.

“Blefary Dies,” USA Today Baseball Weekly, January 31, 2001, 14.

New York Times, March 21, 1968.

Sports Illustrated, July, 11, 1966, June 13, 1968.

“The Year of the Rookie,” Time, June 4, 1965, 68.

Time, July 22, 1966.

astrosdaily.com

baseball-almanac.com

baseballguru.com

BaseballLibrary.com

Baseball-Reference.com

Biography.com

hickoksports.com

Historicbaseball.com

Retrosheet.org

Brief conversations with Curt Blefary, 1968-1971

Newspaper and magazine clippings with no source documentation.

Notes

1 The same figure was stated as fact by Doug Brown in the June 1966 issue of Sport and by Richard Goldstein in the January 30, 2001, New York Times.

2 New York Times, January 30, 2001.

3 Doug Brown, “The Man With the Cadillac Trot,” Sport, June, 1966, 42-43.

4 He once said, “Because I was born in Brooklyn, I always rooted for the Dodgers, but the team I wanted to play for was always the Yankees.” New York Times, January 30, 2001.

5 The Sporting News, May 8, 1965.

6 Sports Illustrated, July, 11, 1966.

7 The Sporting News, February 2, 1998.

8 The Sporting News, December 12, 1968.

9 The Sporting News, December 20, 1969.

10 Hickoksports.com (Website no longer functioning).

11 The Sporting News, April 7, 1972.

12 Baltimore Sun, September 1986, date unknown.

13 New York Times, February 26, 1995.

14 New York Times, January 30, 2001.

15 Baltimore Sun, September 1986, date unknown.

Vida Rochelle Blue, Jr. was born on July 28, 1949, in Mansfield, Louisiana, a small town in the northern part of the state. He was the eldest of six children born to Vida Blue Sr. and Sallie Blue. His father was a laborer, and Blue remembered having everything he needed, although not everything that he wanted, as he grew up.1 He recalled Mansfield as a town that was still segregated, with a white high school and a black high school, DeSoto High, which Blue attended. As a youngster Blue played baseball and football with his peers. He was a good athlete, and could throw a baseball very hard when he was still quite young.

When he entered high school, the school did not have a baseball team. However, the principal recognized Blue’s talent and formed a school baseball team around him.2 Blue’s pitching prowess got the attention of scouts, including Kansas City A’s scout Ray Swallow. Despite Blue’s wildness – he once pitched a no-hitter and struck out 21 in a seven-inning game, but lost the game due to ten walks – his skill was evident. Blue was equally renowned as a high-school football player, starring as a quarterback. He was recruited by major colleges, including Notre Dame, Purdue, and Houston. Houston was recruiting Blue to play quarterback at a time when there were no African-Americans playing quarterback for major colleges. But Blue’s father died during his senior year in high school, and he decided that he needed to support his family. Baseball would provide that support sooner than football might. He was selected by the Kansas City Athletics in the second round of the 1967 draft and was offered a two-year contract a $12,500 per year. Although he later said he had a stronger desire to play football than baseball, Blue signed with the A’s.

Blue’s professional baseball career began in the Arizona winter instructional league in 1967. He pitched in nine games, striking out 26 batters while walking 22 in 34 innings. At age 18, he reported to spring training with the A’s for the 1968 season, then was assigned to the Burlington Bees of the Class A Midwest League. Blue started the season opener against the Quad City Angels and struck out 17 while giving up only three hits in eight innings. On June 19, in the first game of a doubleheader, Blue pitched a no-hitter in the seven-inning game. Throughout the season, Blue developed his curveball to go along with his dominant fastball, and improved his control. He finished with a record of 8-11 in 24 games, pitching 152 innings and striking out 231 while walking 80.3

For the 1969 season, Blue was assigned to Double-A Birmingham. He pitched in 15 Southern League games, going 10-3, with 112 strikeouts and 52 walks in 104 innings. Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley was anxious to bring Blue up to the majors, seeing him as his next pitching star. Blue was called up in July, and made his major-league debut on July 20, starting against the California Angels. He lost the game, pitching into the sixth inning and giving up home runs to Aurelio Rodríguez and Jim Spencer. He started three more games, including a win on July 29 over the New York Yankees, before being sent to the bullpen for the rest of the season. In his first major-league season, he finished with a record of 1-1, pitched 42 innings, struck out 24 while walking 18, and finished with an earned-run average of 6.64. Joe DiMaggio, then a coach with the A’s, said of Blue, “It was a shame to bring up a kid like that when he hasn’t pitched two pro years. He throws as hard as anybody, but he hasn’t learned to pitch yet.”4

Blue was sent to the Triple-A Iowa Oaks (American Association) to start the 1970 season. There he crossed paths with fellow pitcher Juan Pizarro. Blue learned a great deal from the veteran Pizarro, and later said that “[Pizarro] helped me more than any single person in my career.”5 With Pizarro’s help, Blue made adjustments in his delivery that helped him to achieve greatness. He was rested for a few weeks in the middle of the season because of an injury, but came back to finish the season. In 17 games, Blue put together a record of 12-3 while striking out 165 in 133 innings.

He was called up to the A’s in September, and started the first game of a Labor Day doubleheader against the White Sox in Chicago’s Comiskey Park. Although he helped himself by hitting a three-run home run, he was knocked out of the game after giving up four runs in less than five innings. However, in his next outing he pitched a complete-game one-hitter against the Kansas City Royals, giving up a single to Pat Kelly with two outs in the eighth inning. After a lackluster start against the Milwaukee Brewers, Blue faced the division-leading Minnesota Twins on September 21. He was matched against Jim Perry, who would win 23 games and the Cy Young Award that season. Blue was the star that night, however, throwing a no-hitter and walking only one batter. Finley telephoned the locker room after the game to congratulate his new star pitcher and tell him he would receive a $2,000 bonus for the performance. Blue made two more starts that season and finished the season as one of the young star pitchers in baseball. Along with Catfish Hunter, Blue Moon Odom, and Rollie Fingers, the A’s pitching staff was one of the primary reasons the A’s would have high expectations for the next few seasons.

Although Blue made a spectacular splash in 1970, his 1971 season ranked among the great pitching seasons of all time. The A’s made the franchise’s first postseason appearance since 1931. It may have been their best season of the 1970s despite the fact that they won the World Series in the following three seasons, 1972-1974.

Blue pitched the 1971 season opener for the A’s in Washington against the Senators, and took the loss, pitching only into the second inning. He then won ten straight games, including nine complete games, and over the course of the season received the attention of the nation. He appeared on the cover of Sports Illustrated and Time. As a hard-throwing left-hander, the press compared Blue favorably to Sandy Koufax. However, this comparison was clearly difficult for Blue as Koufax was one of the greatest pitchers ever, and his prowess was nearly impossible to match. Veteran player Tommy Davis was one of Blue’s best friends and a roommate that season. Davis helped him to navigate through the heavy load of press requests, as well other demands for his time. Anything Blue did drew the attention of the press. For example, it became known that he carried two dimes in his pocket when he pitched. Although it was likely a charm Blue used in his pursuit of winning 20 games, he would not verify that to the press, which drew even more attention.

Blue’s start on July 9 against the California Angels was perhaps his best performance of the season. Although he did not get a decision in the game (he was going for his 18th win), he went 11 innings, gave up seven hits, no walks, and no runs while striking out 17 batters. The A’s eventually won the game 1-0 in 20 innings. In his next appearance, Blue started the All-Star Game for the American League. Although he gave up home runs to Henry Aaron and Johnny Bench, he was the winning pitcher, the youngest in All-Star Game history. Blue’s performance declined slightly in the second half of the season. He won his 20th game on August 7, and won his next two starts, raising the question of whether he could win 30 games for the season. But after number 22, he won only two and lost four of his last nine starts of the season. Surely he tired as the season wore on. The previous season, between the minors and majors, Blue pitched only 171 innings. In 1971, he pitched 312 innings. He finished the season with a record of 24-8 and a league-leading ERA of 1.82, and allowed the fewest runners per inning in the American League.

In the American League Championship Series, Blue faced off against the defending champion Baltimore Orioles and pitcher Dave McNally in Game One in Baltimore. The Orioles matched the A’s in wins, with 101, and the opening game would be a test of Blue. He had a 3-0 lead going into the bottom of the fourth inning, but gave up a run in that inning, and four more in the eighth to lose the game. The A’s were swept in three games, bringing an anticlimactic close to Blue’s magical season.

Despite his dominant regular-season performance, Blue had competition for the American League Cy Young Award. Detroit’s Mickey Lolich had surpassed Blue in wins with 25 to Blue’s 24, and in strikeouts, 308 to 301 (although Lolich pitched a staggering 376 innings). However, Blue edged out Lolich to win the Cy Young Award. Blue actually had an easier time winning the American League Most Valuable Player Award, finishing well ahead of teammate Sal Bando in the voting.

In 1971 Blue became involved in his first controversy with owner Charlie Finley. Finley offered Blue $2,000 to change his middle name legally to “True.” The always creative Finley saw the nickname as another way to market his pitching superstar. Blue declined the offer. He liked his name, thought it unique as it was, and had no desire to change it. Finley however would not let the idea rest. When Blue pitched, his name appeared on the scoreboard as “True Blue.” Finley instructed the A’s radio and television announcers to refer to Blue by the nickname. Blue asked them to stop, and also asked the team’s public-relations people not to refer to him as True Blue in press releases or to use the name on the scoreboard. This situation began the friction between Blue and Finley that blew up after the end of the season.

After his spectacular 1971 season, Blue demanded a pay raise. In 1971 he had made $14,750 in salary and $6,365.58 as his share of the postseason money, and also got a Cadillac as a bonus from Finley. Finley offered a raise, but not nearly what Blue wanted. Bob Gerst, an attorney representing Blue, presented an opening offer to Finley of $115,000. Later he told Finley that Blue would accept $85,000, which was a little less than the average salary paid to the top ten highest paid pitchers in baseball. Finley said he would pay Blue no more than $50,000.

Finley held firm, making the negotiations public and declaring that Blue would not be seeking so much if he had not hired a lawyer to represent him. Both sides made their case to the press and the public, and the acrimonious situation became referred to as “The Holdout.” The situation also served to elevate scrutiny of the reserve clause, which was under new attack by the players. Marvin Miller, director of the Players Association, was critical of Finley and the reserve system.

The holdout extended into spring training. On March 16 Blue and Gerst held a televised press conference to announce that Blue was withdrawing from baseball to take a position with the Dura Steel Products Company. While Blue actually did work for the company for a time, this was obviously an effort to combat Finley as it was clearly Blue’s desire to play baseball.

When the season started, Blue was placed on the restricted list, meaning he could not play for the first 30 days of the season. The major-league season was delayed ten days by a players strike in spring training, and opened on April 15 without Vida Blue. In late April Commissioner Bowie Kuhn organized a meeting between Finley, Blue, and Gerst. They reached an agreement on a $63,000 deal. However, Finley and Blue couldn’t agree on the wording of the announcement of the agreement. Finley did not want to appear as conceding anything, and insisted that he was paying Blue $50,000, an additional $5,000 signing bonus, plus $8,000 for Blue’s college fund. Blue wanted the deal to state what it was: payment of $63,000. Finally, on May 2, Blue signed for the package.6

Although Blue had missed only 18 playing days, he had not been conditioning and practicing as he would have during spring training and was not ready to pitch. He did not make his first appearance, which was only one inning long, until May 24. The 1972 season was tough for Blue. Although he did post a relatively good ERA of 2.80 and allowed only 165 baserunners in 151 innings, he finished with a disappointing record of 6-10.

His team, of course, won the American League West and faced the Detroit Tigers in the League Championship Series. Blue pitched exclusively out of the bullpen, pitching middle relief in Games One, Three, and Four. In each appearance, the games were in the balance, and Blue acquitted himself well. In the fifth and decisive game, Blue relieved Blue Moon Odom in the sixth inning of a 2-1 game, and pitched the final four innings for the save.

In the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds, Blue pitched in relief in Game One, picking up the save, as well as in Games Three and Four. With the A’s leading three games to two, he started Game Six. He was not as sharp as a starter as he had been in relief, and allowed three runs, including a Johnny Bench home run, in 5⅔ innings, and took the loss. The A’s won Game Seven, 3-2.

In 1973 Blue returned to form as an All-Star-caliber pitcher. He went 20-9, with an ERA of 3.28. While he was not the power pitcher that he was in 1971, striking out 158 in 263⅔ innings, he was described by many as a smarter pitcher. A Sports Illustrated article quoted teammate Sal Bando as saying, “In the first part of 1971 Vida was overpowering everybody, now he is overmatching them.”7 The article described Blue’s pitching style: “He jogs out to his position and works with quick efficiency, throwing his left-handed darts out of a fluid, high-kicking motion.” Blue’s pitching repertoire included his highly regarded fastball as well as a good curveball and changeup.

For the first four months of the 1973 season, Blue pitched well, but was often inconsistent. He hit his stride in August, winning six straight starts, including four complete games. He put together another streak of five consecutive wins in September, helping to lead the A’s to a division win over the Kansas City Royals. In the American League Championship Series, Blue started Game One against the Baltimore Orioles’ ace, Jim Palmer. Blue did not make it out of the first inning, giving up three hits and two walks before being relieved by Horacio Piña. Baltimore got four runs in the inning, and won, 6-0.

Blue again faced Palmer in Game Four and pitched much better. Through six innings he shut out the Orioles, giving up only two hits as the A’s held a 4-0 lead. However, after getting one out in the seventh, Blue gave up a walk to Earl Williams, a single to Don Baylor, an RBI single to Brooks Robinson, and a three-run home run to Andy Etchebarren, tying the game, 4-4. He was relieved by Rollie Fingers, who went on to lose the game, 5-4.

In the World Series against the New York Mets, Blue’s postseason troubles continued. He started Games Two and Five, both against Jerry Koosman. In Game Two, a high-scoring affair, Blue gave up solo home runs to Cleon Jones and Wayne Garrett. He was relieved in the sixth inning after allowing two baserunners who would later score. The Mets went on to win the game 10-7 in 12 innings. In Game Five, Blue gave up two runs in 5⅔ innings and lost to Koosman who, with reliever Tug McGraw, shut out the A’s, 2-0. The A’s won the Series, softening the effects of Blue’s lackluster pitching.

In 1974, although his won-lost record was not as impressive as in 1973, Blue pitched equally well. He finished with a record of 17-15 and an ERA of 3.25. He was durable, making 40 starts, and struck out 174 batters in 282⅓ innings. The A’s faced off again against the Orioles in the AL Championship Series. With the series tied one game apiece, Blue started Game Three, matched up again against Jim Palmer. Unlike 1973, Blue pitched brilliantly. He pitched two-hit, no-walk shutout, striking out seven in the 1-0 win. In the World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Blue started Games Two and Five, matched up against Don Sutton in both games. In Game Two he was bested by the Dodgers, giving up a run in the second and a two-run homer to Joe Ferguson in the sixth, taking the 3-2 loss. In Game Five Blue pitched five shutout innings before giving up two tying runs in the sixth. After allowing a walk in the seventh, Blue was relieved by Blue Moon Odom, who went on to win the game for the A’s.

The 1975 season was Vida Blue’s best since his masterful 1971 season. He started the All-Star Game and finished the season with a record of 22-11 and an ERA of 3.01. With the departure of Catfish Hunter to the Yankees, Blue and Ken Holtzman starred on the A’s pitching staff and helped to lead the A’s to their best record since 1971. Among his pitching highlights that season, Blue was the starter and one of four A’s pitchers to pitch a combined no-hitter against the California Angels on September 28, in the last game of the season. However, after three straight World Series championships, the A’s were swept in the AL Championship Series by the Boston Red Sox. Blue started Game Two against Reggie Cleveland. He gave up a two-run home run in the fourth inning to Carl Yastrzemski and two more hits before being relieved. Although he had ten more seasons in the major leagues, this was Blue’s last postseason appearance. Over his career, his postseason numbers were unexceptional, with a record of 1-5 and an ERA of 4.31 in 17 appearances.

The 1976 season was another controversial year in Blue’s career, although the controversy was not of his doing. Starting with the departure of Catfish Hunter to the Yankees before the 1975 season and the trade of Reggie Jackson and Ken Holtzman to the Orioles before the 1976 season, the dynastic A’s were being dismantled. Through mid-June, the A’s were in fifth place in the West Division, 11 games behind the Royals. Blue had a record of 6-6 in 15 starts, with an ERA of 3.09. Then, just a few hours before the June 15 trade deadline, Charlie Finley announced that he was selling Blue to the New York Yankees for $1.5 million, and Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox for $2 million. However, the transactions were held up by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Kuhn and Finley had battled over a number of issues over the years, but this event brought their rancorous relationship to a breaking point. In retrospect, the attempted sale of these players was yet another step in the process of transitioning from the rule of the reserve system and moving toward free agency for players. It foreshadowed transactions in the years to come. Kuhn justified his concern with the transactions, stating: “The issue is whether the assignment of the contracts is appropriate or not under the circumstances. That’s the issue I have to wrestle with. I have to consider these transactions in the best interest of baseball.”8

On the 18th Kuhn announced that the sale of the three players would not be in the best interests of baseball, and disallowed them. Blue thus remained with the A’s. However, with all of the legal threats made by Finley after Kuhn’s ruling, Blue did not pitch again until July 2. Both he and the A’s improved over the remainder of the season. Blue finished 1976 with a record of 18-13 and an ERA of 2.35, and the A’s finished in second place, 2½ games behind the Royals.

In 1977 the team was truly dismantled, not by Finley’s actions, but by his inaction in signing his players who were now eligible for free agency. Joe Rudi, Rollie Fingers, and Sal Bando, who had all been with the team throughout the championship years, left the A’s via free agency. However, Blue had signed a three-year contract before the “trade” to the Yankees, and was ineligible for free agency. The 1977 season was a forgettable one for Blue. He led the league in losses with a record of 14-19, and had an ERA of 3.83. The A’s finished last in the American League West, behind even the expansion Seattle Mariners.

During 1978 spring training, Blue was traded to the San Francisco Giants, giving him a new opportunity. For Blue the A’s got seven players and $300,000. The new environment with the Giants and distance from Charlie Finley helped to restore his career as he became the ace of the Giants’ pitching staff. The Giants were a solid squad, and were in first place as late as August 15 before fading and finishing in third for the 1978 season. Blue started the All-Star Game for the National League, making him the first pitcher to start the game for both leagues. He had a very good year overall, going 18-10 with a 2.79 ERA. He finished third in the balloting for the NL Cy Young Award and was named The Sporting News National League Pitcher of the Year. Although he was only 28 years old and his career would extend on for several years, 1978 was Blue’s last great year. In 1979 he and the Giants saw a significant decline. Blue finished the season with a record of 14-14 and an ERA of 5.01 while the Giants finished 19½ games under .500 and in fourth place. In 1980 Blue rebounded a bit, with a record of 14-10 and an ERA of 2.97. In the strike-shortened 1981 season, he went 8-6 with a 2.45 ERA. It was the first full season in Blue’s career in which he did not win 14 or more games. He did pitch and get the win in the All-Star Game, becoming the only pitcher to win the game for each league.

On March 30, 1982, at the end of spring training, Blue was traded with another player to the Kansas City Royals for four players. He pitched pretty well for the Royals, with a record of 13-12 an ERA of 3.78, and led the pitching staff in strikeouts. He did fade at the end of the season. After throwing a one-hitter against the Mariners on September 13, Blue started four more games, losing his last three decisions while his ERA grew from 3.36 to 3.78. In 1983 Blue struggled mightily. After seven starts and a record of 0-3 he was relegated to the bullpen. He stayed in the pen and made spot starts, but did not pitch well in either role. With a record of 0-5 and an ERA of 6.01, he was released by the Royals on August 5.

At the time, Blue’s problems on the field paled in comparison with his problems off the field. Blue and Royals teammates Willie Wilson, Jerry Martin, and Willie Mays Aikens were implicated in buying cocaine. Blue pleaded guilty to cocaine possession and served 81 days in prison. On December 15, 1983, he was suspended for a year by Commissioner Kuhn. He was out for the 1984 season, then after being reinstated he signed with the Giants in the spring of 1985. Considering that he had missed a full season, Blue pitched respectably as both a starter and reliever, going 8-8 with a 4.47 ERA in 1985. In 1986, he returned to the Giants, pitching exclusively as a starter, and went 10-10 with an ERA of 3.27. Blue was a free agent after the season and signed with the A’s for 1987, but abruptly retired during spring training. It was rumored that he had tested positive for drugs and retired rather than face another possible drug suspension. In announcing his retirement, Blue suggested that he still struggled with drug addiction, stating, “I reached the point where I had to choose between baseball and life.”9 In an autobiography published in 2011, he indicated that he had struggled with substance abuse for much of his career: “Along with all the glory that I’d achieved, there was a growing darkness reaching for me. And the light began to dim as early as 1972.”10 It makes one wonder what his career might have been but for his struggle with drugs.

In 1992 Blue became eligible for election to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He received a modicum of support in the four years he was considered, with his highest vote total, 8.7 percent, occurring in 1993. He was automatically removed from the ballot in 1995 because of his low vote totals. Some have wondered why Blue did not receive more serious consideration for the Hall of Fame, considering that his career numbers are quite similar to those of his former teammate, Hall of Famer Catfish Hunter. Perhaps the negative impressions created by his drug problems led to his lack of consideration. Regardless of his worthiness for the Hall of Fame, Vida Blue was one of the top pitchers of his time. In his 2001 Historical Baseball Abstract, Bill James ranked Blue as the 86th best pitcher in the history of baseball. Blue finished his career with 209 wins and 161 losses, 2,175 strikeouts, three 20-win seasons, a Cy Young Award, and a Most Valuable Player Award in his 17-year major-league career.

After retirement Blue retained a close association with baseball. He played in the Senior Professional Baseball Association in 1989 and 1990. He became active in philanthropic work, and spoke to a number of audiences about his struggle with substance addiction. Most recently, Blue served as a television analyst for the San Francisco Giants.

Postscript

Vida Blue died at the age of 73 on May 6, 2023. The cause was complications stemming from cancer, according to a statement released by the Oakland Athletics.

Sources

Blue, Vida, as told to Marty Friedman, Vida Blue: A Life (Nashville, Indiana: Unlimited Publishing LLC, 2011).

Clark, Tom, Champagne and Baloney: The Rise and Fall of Finley’s A’s (New York: Harper and Row, 1976).

Clark, Tom, Baseball: The Figures (Berkeley, California: Serendipity Books, 1976).

Clark, Tom, Blue (Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1974).

Clark, Tom, Fan Poems (Plainfield, Vermont: North Atlantic Books, 1976).

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

James, Bill, and Rob Neyer, The Neyer/James Guide To Pitchers (New York: Fireside, 2004).

Kuhn, Bowie, Hardball: The Education of a Baseball Commissioner (New York: Times Books, 1987).

Libby, Bill, and Vida Blue. Vida: His Own Story (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972).

Markusen, Bruce, A Baseball Dynasty: Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s (Haworth, New Jersey: St. Johann Press, 2002).

Neyer, Rob, and Eddie Epstein, Baseball Dynasties (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2000).

baseball-reference.com

Notes

1. Bill Libby and Vida Blue, Vida: His Own Story, 16.
2. Libby, 20.
3. Libby, 43-45.
4. Libby, 49.
5. Libby, 51.
6. Libby, 231-248.
7. Ron Fimrite, “Vida’s Down With the Growing-Up Blues,” Sports Illustrated. September 10, 1973.
8. Ron Fimrite, “Bowie Stops Charlie’s Checks,” Sports Illustrated, June 28, 1976.
9. Ron Fimrite, “Oakland A’s Pitcher Vida Blue,” Sports Illustrated, May 19, 1997.
10. Vida Blue, as told to Marty Friedman, Vida Blue: A Life, 55.