Gerald Lee Augustine was born to Donald and Elerene Augustine on July 24, 1952, at old St. Mary’s hospital in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  The family lived in nearby Kewaunee. He was part of a big family, with brothers and sisters Dale, David, Susan, Joe, Mark, and Randy, as well as half-brothers Donald and Orville, the latter two half-brothers were instrumental in Jerry becoming a left-hander. Donald, who was right-handed, and Orville, who was left-handed, debated on how Jerry should throw. Orville settled the debate by giving Jerry a left-hander’s glove.

At Kewaunee High School Gerald starred in baseball, football, and basketball. His high-school classmates included Jack Novak, who played in the NFL, and Dale Koehler, who played basketball at the University of Wisconsin.

Augustine played baseball at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. While in La Crosse he and his high-school sweetheart, Nancy Flaherty, were married and had their first child, Tammy. They later added Todd, Ted, Matthew, and Melanie to their family.

Augustine helped the UWL Eagles win back-to-back conference championships in 1972 and 1973. He was selected to the All-Wisconsin State University Conference first team. As a starter, he posted 14 wins with 186 strikeouts. Many years later he looked back fondly on his college days: “As you go through life, you go through different areas. When I look back at La Crosse, I was given the opportunity to not only grow as a baseball player, but to grow as a person and get my education. La Crosse is very special to me because of that.”1 Augustine also praised his baseball coach, saying, “Bill Terry was the right coach for me. It was Bill’s way of handling people that really made me grow up as a person. I don’t think I would be able to go on and play and achieve the things the way I did without that. He helped me become a better baseball player and a better person.”2 Augustine graduated with a degree in physical education and health, and later he taught during the offseason.

Augustine was drafted by the Brewers in the 15th round of the June 1974 free-agent draft and was signed for what he described as “a small bonus” by Brewers scout Emil Belich, who also signed Paul Molitor and Jim Gantner.3

The Brewers sent Augustine to Danville (Illinois) of the Class A Midwest League, where he started 12 games, completed 6, and posted a 7-4 record with a 2.56 ERA. Danville, was the winner of the second half of the league’s split season, then won the league championship in the playoffs. During the playoffs Augustine pitched a two-hitter against Quad Cities, striking out 14 in the 1-0 win. He had a no-hitter going until the eighth inning.

Augustine reported to the Brewers’ 1975 spring-training camp at Sun City, Arizona, on March 3 and in the first hour of the camp he injured his knee so severely during pitcher’s fielding practice covering first base that he needed surgery. He was out of action until June 28, when he joined the Sacramento Solons, the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate in the Pacific Coast League. After pitching in short stints, Augustine moved into the starting rotation in July.4 

The Solons played their games at Hughes Stadium, a football field located on the campus of Sacramento City College. The park favored hitters, with a left-field dimension of 251 feet, with a screen erected. In 15 games (11 starts) Augustine posted a 4-3 record with a 4.78 ERA and three complete games. When the major-league roster limits were raised to 40 on September 1, Augustine joined the Brewers and made his major-league debut on September 9 against Baltimore, coming into the game in the eighth inning with two out in relief of Larry Anderson. The first batter he faced, Mark Belanger, doubled. Ken Singleton singled to center field, driving in Belanger. Augustine ended the inning on a fly out by Paul Blair.

After a three-inning, no-hit performance against the New York Yankees the next day, Augustine got his first start on September 16, against the Yankees at County Stadium. He wasn’t informed that he would be the starter until the morning of the game when the Brewers were boarding a bus at Boston’s Logan Airport for the flight to Milwaukee. “Ken McBride (the Brewers pitching coach) told me about it,” Augustine said after the game. “I got nervous, of course, but I was determined to do well.”5 Augustine picked up his first major-league victory, 5-2, going 8⅓ innings and giving up two runs on nine hits. Brewers catcher Darrell Porter was impressed with Augustine’s performance, saying, “He’s aggressive and he is a competitor.”6 Augustine, obviously, was very happy, “It’s everybody’s dream come true.”7

Because of the short notice, none of Augustine’s family could attend the game, including his wife and their three-year-old daughter, Tammy, who had a cold. Augustine wasn’t upset, explaining, “My wife and I have a thing going. It’s a superstition. Every time she watched me pitch for the first time I didn’t do well. This was my first start in the majors, so it was best she didn’t watch me, but there’ll be other times.”8

Augustine pitched his first complete game on September 27 against the Tigers, a seven-hit, 5-2 victory. Brewers manager Del Crandall was impressed, commenting, “He’s got to figure in this club’s plans. He’s had very little experience, but he takes it to ’em. He’s not a nibbler. His ball is very alive, he works hard and he has good aptitude. Kenny McBride has worked with him on his curveball, and it has really come along.”9 Reflecting on his one month with the Brewers, Augustine said, “It’s been really exciting. I really enjoyed it. Something super.”10

During the offseason Augustine pitched winter ball in the Dominican Republic.

Augustine began the 1976 season in the bullpen. He didn’t make his first start until June 10. After five straight losses he was 2-7 on July 16. But between July 20 and September 3 he went 6-2 with a 2.18 ERA.

On July 24, Augustine’s 24th birthday, he pitched his first major-league shutout, a four-hit, eight-strikeout, 5-0 win over the Orioles.

In his next starting assignment, against the Tigers on July 28 at County Stadium, Augustine lost a heartbreaker. His 21-scoreless-innings streak ended when Pedro Garcia hit a sacrifice fly scoring Alex Johnson in the top of ninth, giving the Tigers a 1-0 win. After the game, manager Alex Grammas said of Augustine, “I think he’s reached the point where he’s much more relaxed. Just from looking at him before the game tonight, I got the feeling that he had arrived. I think he knows what he has to do, and he pitched one hell of a game tonight. Damn, he pitched a good game.”11

Augustine got revenge against Detroit at Tiger Stadium on September 3 with a complete-game, five-hit, 11-2 win over Mark Fidrych.

Augustine ended the season with a 9-12 record with a 3.30 earned-run average, his major-league best. He was named to the Topps American League Rookie All-Star Team, took second to Mark Fidrych as The Sporting News Rookie Pitcher of the Year in the American League, and was voted the Brewers’ Rookie of the Year by the Wisconsin Baseball Writers’ Association. After the season he signed a two-year contract, worked in the Brewers ticket office, and took a real-estate course.

In 1977 Augustine started 33 games and led the 68-94 Brewers in victories with 12, defeats (18), and complete games (10), and pitched a career-high 209 innings, second best on the team to Jim Slaton. He pitched seven complete games in May, his best month, compiling a 4-3 record with a 3.10 ERA. Two of the three losses in May were tough ones. On May 11, Augustine lost a 4-3 five-hitter against Cleveland with three of the runs unearned, and on May 24, he lost at Baltimore, 2-1, a game in which he pitched another five-hitter. After Mike Hegan was released, Augustine was elected the Brewers’ player representative and assumed his duties after the All-Star Game.

Augustine set a personal high in 1978 with 13 wins. He lost 12 games, ranked third on the team with 188⅓ innings pitched, and had nine complete games. His finest stretch as a starter was in June when he allowed three runs in 32⅓ innings in victories over the Blue Jays, Mariners, Indians, and Yankees. His 4-1/2.48 ERA earned him the Brewer Pitcher of the Month Award for June.

On August 28 Augustine pitched a two-hit, 10-1 victory over the Tigers. He also pitched two three-hitters and two five-hitters during the season. He was 3-1 against the World Series champion Yankees.

A game against the Blue Jays on September 7 was his final start of the 1978 season. He was sent to the bullpen and rookie Mark Bomback, a call-up from Spokane, took his spot in the starting rotation. Brewers manager George Bamberger said the switch to the bullpen was not a demotion. “From here on in, the bullpen will play an important part for us,” Bamberger said. “Augie gives us two left-handers (along with Bob McClure) in the bullpen.”12 In his last four relief appearances, he didn’t allow a run in 4⅓ innings. Bamberger was pleased with Augustine’s performance out of the bullpen as a short man, saying after the season, “I liked the way he handled himself. He took charge. Maybe that’s the right situation for him next season.”13

In 1979 Augustine pitched out of the bullpen except for two starts. He appeared in 43 games and posted a 9-6 record with a 3.47 ERA, with five saves. (He was 1-1 in his starts.) He had a 5-1 record at County Stadium. In his longest relief appearance, on September 25, he worked eight innings in a 7-6 win over the Mariners. Between May 9 and July 23, during a span of 20 appearances, he didn’t allow a home run. He finished the season on a high note, posting a 5-1 record, with a 0.92 ERA from August 15 to September 25. He was named the Brewers’ Rolaids Relief Pitcher of the Year.

In midseason Augustine spoke about his new role: “I kind of miss being a starter and yet, I’ve been having just as much fun out of the bullpen. I’m able to pitch in more games. That’s what I really enjoy about the bullpen. The toughest thing when you’re in the bullpen is that you have to be mentally ready every day.”14

Augustine pitched in 39 games for the Brewers in 1980, posting a 4-3 record with two saves and a 4.52 ERA. His only start came on May 9, when he lost to the Orioles, 5-2.

Augustine was excused the last two weeks of the season to go to the Arizona Instructional League and work on his delivery with George Bamberger. Bamberger had resigned as the Brewers manager on September 7, 1980, and was hired as a special consultant to Harry Dalton, who sent him to Arizona.  The Brewers wanted to see if it would be helpful if Augustine shortened his stride and kept his body back. Of this experience, Augustine said, “I think it had a positive influence on me. When you change your delivery almost completely the way I did, it’s quite a change.”15

In the strike-shortened 1981 season, Augustine appeared in 27 games, posting a 2-2 record in 61⅓ innings with two saves. He started two games, one on April 30 when he substituted for Pete Vuckovich, who was out with tightness in his right shoulder, and defeated the Angels, 12-1. Augustine pitched seven innings, allowing just two hits. In his other start, on May 25, Augustine went just two innings and lost to the Tigers, 12-3. August was an especially good month. He had eight appearances, earning a win and a save.

In 1982 Augustine pitched in 20 games and had a 1-3 record. June was a good month as he went 1-0 with a 1.08 ERA. On June 20, he pitched 4⅓ scoreless innings against Detroit, allowing only one hit and getting the victory in relief of Jim Slaton. He threw his first complete game in four years on July 19, against the Twins, allowing two earned runs in a 6-4 loss. After the Brewers acquired Don Sutton from the Astros on August 30 in a trade to help them make the playoffs, Augustine was designated assignment.

It was difficult not being on the roster for the 1982 postseason. Twenty-five years later, Augustine said, “I was replaced on the roster by Don Sutton, not a bad guy to be replaced with.”16 Still, it was a difficult adjustment for Augustine. “At the time I didn’t handle it very well. I really struggled with it. It was a real tough time for me personally. I had some good, long talks with Jamie (Easterly).Teddy Simmons took me aside and had a really good perspective. He said, ‘You know, Augie, if you weren’t here, we would not be here.’ You learn from those things and put it in perspective. It did take 25 guys, and with us, probably 30 guys.”17

Even though not on the roster, Augustine was given permission to suit up and sit next to manager Harvey Kuenn in the dugout. He loved the experience. “I really learned a lot about baseball because I sat there next to Harvey,” he said in 2007. “I listened to everything they did. Harvey would turn to me every now and then and say, ‘Augie, what do you think here?’ He made you feel like you were part of it, no matter what was going on.”18

Even before the 1983 regular season began, the Brewers had issues with their starting pitching. An arthogram of Pete Vuckovich taken in March revealed a tear in his rotator cuff sending him to the disabled list. After Dwight Bernard was released, Augustine was expected to fill the gap as the Brewers’ fifth starter. The Brewers started the season with three complete games by Sutton, Mike Caldwell, and Augustine. Augustine pitched 8⅓ innings of scoreless ball against the Angels until Bobby Grich hit a three-run homer as the Brewers won 5-3. It was the first time the Brewers had three complete games in a row since August 1980, and the first time they had ever opened the season with three complete games.

In his next start, against the Blue Jays on April 14, Augustine had to leave the game when he strained knee ligaments fielding a bunt by Willie Upshaw. He was out for two weeks, and in his next start against the White Sox, on April 27, Carlton Fisk hit a line drive off Augustine’s forearm. The injury was so severe that Augustine went on the disabled list until May 20. Augustine joked about the incident: “I always said that the Lord would tell me when it’s time to retire. This time he told me to become a better defensive pitcher.”19

Pitching coach Pat Dobson commented on the injury: “He can’t catch a break. He gets over one injury and he gets another. He was really starting to get his feet on the ground. He pitched well both times out. Now he’ll have to wait and start all over again. That’s tough.”20 Augustine started seven games and then went to the bullpen for the remainder of the season.

Augustine pitched in four games for the Brewers in 1984, the last one on April 11, working 3⅔ innings against the Angels, allowing no earned runs. When the Brewers took Rick Waits off the disabled list, Augustine was designated for assignment. He was sent to Vancouver (Pacific Coast League). On June 6 versus Salt Lake City, he allowed one hit in 7⅓ innings. He posted a 3-8 record with a 4.55 ERA. At the end of the season he declared himself a free agent but was not picked up by any team.

In 1985 Augustine pitched for the Rochester Red Wings, the Orioles’ Triple-A team, and had a 0.92 ERA through early June. He pitched 17⅓ innings before allowing an earned run. He picked up his fifth victory of the season on August 6, throwing 3⅓ scoreless innings in relief against Columbus. He posted a 6-3 record and had six saves and a 3.96 ERA.

After appearing in five games for Rochester and 34 for Columbus posting a 3-6 record, with six saves and a 4.14 ERA, Augustine retired from baseball in 1986. It was obviously a tough decision. Augustine commented in 2007, “I don’t know if I’d say it was hard going back to the minors. I was actually throwing the ball better at the end than I did with Milwaukee. I was throwing harder, I had a better breaking ball, and I adopted a changeup that I could throw for strikes. If I had gone back the next year, I think I could have made it back. But we had twins and I made a family decision. I just missed my family too much. I had five kids, and it was time to spend time with them.”21

After deciding against a teaching career, in November 1986 Augustine opened an insurance agency in West Allis, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee, which as of 2019 was still in business. He implemented lessons learned from playing professional baseball: “When managers come to the mound to talk to a pitcher, every eye in the stadium is on that conversation. Your words need to be direct and to the point. The same is true when I talk to clients. I learned to be direct and always be honest. It helped me learn as a player, and it has helped me succeed in business.” Did it help that he was a former major leaguer? “Name recognition was important when I started, and it remains important today. If people do not recall my name from my days with the Brewers, they’ll be reminded the moment they walk through the door.”22

In 1995 Augustine was named the baseball coach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In 12 seasons the team posted a 347-297-1 record and made three NCAA tournaments. In the 1999 tournament, UWM defeated top-ranked Rice.

The University of Wisconsin-La Crosse inducted Augustine into its Wall of Fame in 1984, and the Milwaukee Brewers put him on their Wall of Honor in 2014.

In 2009 he began working as a Brewers’ Live Color Analyst for Fox Sports Wisconsin for the pre- and postgame shows and filled in as a radio broadcaster in 2014.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author had a personal conversation with Jerry Augustine, and accessed Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com, Paper of Record, the 2018 Milwaukee Brewers Media Guide, and SABR.org.

Notes

1 Alex Vandenhouten, “Former Brewer Jerry Augustine: La Crosse Is a Baseball Town,” La Crosse Tribune, March 2, 2017.

2 Jeff Brown, “La Crosse Instrumental in Jerry Augustine’s Formative Years — On and Off the Field,” La Crosse Tribune, March 1, 2017.

3 Lou Chapman, “Brewers Happy Over List to Portside,” The Sporting News, September 18, 1976: 15.

4 Lou Chapman, “Yankees Tee Off on New Brewers,” Milwaukee Sentinel, September 11, 1975: 2, 1.

5 Lou Chapman, “Brewers Find Rookie Hero,” Milwaukee Sentinel, September 17, 1975: 2, 1.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Ibid.

9 Mike Gonring, “A Promotional Dream — State Pitcher Wins,” Milwaukee Journal, September 28, 19752, 1.

10 Ibid.

11 Mike Gonring, “Even a 1-0 Defeat Fails to Ruffle New Augustine,” Milwaukee Journal, July 29, 1976: 2, 12.

12 “Augustine Is Back in Bullpen,” Milwaukee Sentinel, September 9, 1978: 2, 6.

13 Mike Gonring, “Can Augustine Cure Brewer Bullpen Woe?” The Sporting News, November 4, 1978: 47.

14 Mike Gonring, “Ex-Starter Augustine Brewers’ New Stopper,” The Sporting News, June 30, 1979: 18.

15 Tom Flaherty, “Augustine Has a Super Tutor,” The Sporting News, November 15, 1980: 50.

16 Tom Haudricourt, “Where Have You Gone, ’82 Brewers?” KCI Sports, 2007: 9.

17 Haudricourt: 80.

18 Ibid.

19 Peter Gammons, “A.L. Beat,” The Sporting News, May 23, 1983: 25.

20 Tom Flaherty, “Hard Luck Hounds Hurler Augustine,” The Sporting News, May 16, 1983: 24.

21 Haudricourt.

22 Dan Aznoff, “Ex-Players Turn Discipline Into Pay Dirt with 2nd Careers,” Property Casualty 360, July 30, 2003

Four years later, Bass made the All-Star team and was a key member of the 1986 NL West champion Houston Astros, hitting .311, his finest season, with 20 homers and 79 RBIs in 157 games. He made the final out in the 16th inning of Game Six of the 1986 NL playoffs, striking out against Jesse Orosco. The game sent the New York Mets to the World Series.

Bass played 14 years in the majors, 10 of them in two stints with the Astros. He played in 1,571 major-league games, winding up with a .270 lifetime batting average, 611 runs batted in, and 118 home runs.

Kevin Charles Bass was born on May 12, 1959, in Redwood City, California and raised in Menlo Park, on San Francisco Bay. Nine-year-old Kevin was a shortstop on a Menlo Park Little League team coached by his father; his older sister kept score.1 Chris Haft, a high-school teammate, remembered that Kevin spoke about his determination to be a major-league baseball player as early as his freshman year.2

The Bass family had roots in baseball and sports. Kevin’s brother, Richard, was a minor-league outfielder in 1976 and 1977, and his cousin is NFL Hall of Fame receiver James Lofton. His uncle Stan “Lefty” Johnson received the first baseball scholarship offered to an African-American at the University of San Francisco; he went on to play briefly for the 1960 Chicago White Sox and the 1961 Kansas City Athletics and played 10 years in Triple A for four major-league teams before ending his career in Japan with the Taiyo Whales. After retiring in 1970 he became a West Coast scout for the Boston Red Sox.3

In Menlo Park High School Bass was an all-league player in football and baseball, and also played basketball. His hopes of playing college football waned when baseball scouts began coming to see him play. They had reason to make the trip: At the end of the 1977 season, Bass was named a first-team All-American high-school player by the High School Division of the American College of Baseball Coaches.

The Brewers selected the high-school senior in the second round of the June 1977 free-agent draft. (They used their first-round pick to select Paul Molitor.) “He’s got a good arm, good speed, and he has an excellent instinct about going after the ball,” said Brewers scout Roland LeBlanc of the 18-year-old switch-hitting outfielder.4

After signing with the Brewers, Bass was sent to Newark (New York) of the New York-Penn League In his first 44 at-bats he hit .182. By the time he accumulated 96 at-bats his average had improved to .313.

The next season Bass was invited to major-league spring training. He later said that Cecil Cooper became a mentor to him, watching him take batting practice and offering batting tips. 5 He saw his own assets as his speed, power, and his strong arm — in addition to being a switch-hitter. After his retirement he said his faults were technical weaknesses as a left-handed hitter and a base stealer.

The 6-foot Bass, listed at 183 pounds, started as the leadoff man for Burlington of the Class A Midwest League in 1978, and after showing power he was moved to the middle of the lineup. He was named to the league all-star team, both at midseason and at yearend, after batting.265 average with 18 home runs, 69 RBIs, and 36 steals.

In 1979 Bass was promoted to Holyoke of the Double-A Eastern League and started slowly, the surged in June. “The difference is confidence,” he said. “When I get down on myself, I can’t do the job. When I’m loose and relaxed, I’m okay.”6 In 1980 he returned to Holyoke and in June, the month of his 21st birthday, he hit safely in 25 of 27 games.

Holyoke won the Eastern League title and Bass was again an all-star. He and his manager, Lee Sigman, were rewarded by promotions to Triple-A Vancouver (Pacific Coast League), where in 1981 he batted .257 in 97 games.

Bass was named in 1982 spring training as one of four rookies (along with Bob Skube, Thad Bosley, and Marshall Edwards) considered for the starting role in right field, which eventually went to Charlie Moore. He made the Opening Day roster but was sent back to Vancouver in May after going hitless in his first nine major-league at-bats. (He started only one game.) In Vancouver he hit .315 with 17 home runs, 65 RBIs, and 23 stolen bases in 102 games.

Bass was traded by the Brewers with Frank DiPino and Mike Madden to the Houston Astros on September 3, 1982, to complete a trade for pitcher Don Sutton.  Bass went 0-for-8 with the Astros in September after being added to the roster along with second baseman Bill Doran. He got his first major-league hit on September 8 — an RBI single against Atlee Hammaker of the San Francisco Giants, and said, “I’ve had trouble seeing the ball. I don’t think the pitchers I’ll face are that much better than the ones I’ve seen in Triple A, I mean consistently. I just have to get used to playing inside (the Astrodome) I guess, even in center field.”7 In July 1983 Bass married Elaine Bell on the campus of Mills College in Oakland, California. On the field that year, he was a part-time player, appearing in only 88 games with 195 at-bats. Bass played in the winter leagues that winter and throughout the early years of his major-league career. His friend Gary Haft asked him that year why he just did not relax in the offseason. Bass’s reply was, “Have you ever tried to hit off Lavelle?” referring the San Francisco relief pitcher Gary Lavelle.8  Bass began the 1984 season on the disabled list with a severely pulled right thigh muscle and then came off the bench, starting only 64 games in the outfield. He was splitting time with Terry Puhl and Tim Tolman in right field and Jerry Mumphrey in center. He was a reliable pinch-hitter, getting 13 hits in 44 attempts, and put together a 12-game hitting streak from September 14 to September 25 as he got a chance to play in the outfield every day.   The Astros moved the Astrodome’s outfield fence in before the 1985 season, Bass’s first as a starting outfielder. He batted .269 with 16 homers, 68 RBIs, and 19 stolen bases in 539 at-bats. As he did for most of his career, he hit for a higher average from the right side (.311) than the left (.241), but his power numbers were more equally distributed.   In 1986 the Astros came together as a contender under the fiery first-year manager Hal Lanier with young talent and strong pitching led by Mike Scott, Bob Knepper, and Nolan Ryan. They also added Billy Hatcher and Tony Walker, eliminating their need to use Bass in center field. Lanier saw Bass’s speed as an asset and installed him as the starter in right.  During that year Bass’s trademark consistency was highlighted by long hitting streaks including one of 20 games, and his selection to the 1986 National League All-Star team. He joked, however, that his nickname the team had become “Rodney” (for comedian Rodney Dangerfield) as he was still largely an unknown and not yet an established star. The lack of respect was so pervasive that writer Bill Conlin, in a preview of the All-Star Game, confused him with Randy Bass, a former major leaguer who won the Triple Crown in Japan.9 The 1986 season was Bass’s best. He batted .311 with a career-high 20 home runs and finished seventh in the voting for the NL Most Valuable Player Award. But he would be remembered most for his game-ending strikeout in the deciding game of the NCLS against the New York Mets. “My adrenaline was so high for the whole series, most of it was like a blur, except for that last at-bat,” he said in a 2002 interview.10 In 1987 Bass batted .284 and had 31 doubles, 19 home runs, 85 RBIs, and 21 stolen bases. During a 10-1 Astros win over the Cubs on September 2, he became the first National League player to homer from both sides of the plate twice in one season. Chili Davis of the San Francisco Giants accomplished the feat 13 days later, on September 15.  In 1988 Bass’s average dropped to .255, but he had 72 RBIs and 31 steals. On July 23 he flied out to left field against Steve Bedrosian of the Philadelphia Phillies in the eighth inning after fouling off 15 pitches, which stood for many years as the record for foul pitches in a single at-bat.  

In 1989 Bass batted .300 in 87 games for the Astros, but missed nearly half the season with a broken right shinbone after fouling a pitch from Bill Landrum of the Pittsburgh Pirates on May 27. He played for four weeks before an x-ray revealed that a stress fracture had developed. He returned to the lineup on August 11.

After the season Bass was a free agent and he signed a three-year contract with the San Francisco Giants. He received a $500,000 signing bonus and the first no-trade clause general manager Al Rosen had ever included in a player contract. The deal was worth $5.25 million and made Bass the highest-paid player on the Giants.

Bass had been involved in Astros trade rumors over several years — he had once been all but traded to the New York Yankees for Dave Winfield before Winfield refused to go to Houston. And he was perplexed by moves the Astros had made under general manager Dick Wagner, including firing manager Lanier after the 1988 season and their recent decision to let Nolan Ryan sign with the Texas Rangers as a free agent. “It was tough leaving Houston,” he said in 1990 spring training. “I had been there for so long, and they treated me pretty good. But the offer came up and it was a chance to come back home.”11

The Astros had refused to include a no-trade clause in their offer to Bass. “That ended up being the key factor,” he said in a conference call for Bay Area media from his home in Sugar Land, Texas. “I think the Astros were pretty serious about signing me, but the Giants were more serious.”12

Rosen knew Bass’s talent well. He was with the Astros in 1982, and responsible for prying him away from the Brewers.

Bass had been batting fifth with Houston and admitted he might have been trying to do too much to lead the Astros’ offense. With the Giants he was slated to bat second between Brett Butler and Will Clark.

He was especially excited about returning to the Bay area. His wife had grown up in Palo Alto, and both their parents still lived there. Bass said his agent had also received calls from Montreal, Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee — along with a call from Japan. They were also attempting to gain interest from the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers.

But an injury to his left knee on May 27, 1990, limited Bass’s impact with the Giants. Although he was able to return after surgery that September, he later admitted that it took almost three years for his injury to heal. Dogged by the creaky knee and unable to provide the solid defense and consistency he had become known for, he hit .252 and .233 in his first two seasons with San Francisco. “I didn’t realize how important (speed) was to me,” he said at spring training in March 1992. “Man, if you can’t run you can’t hit. If you can’t run you can’t play defense.”13

The Giants traded Bass to the New York Mets near the end of the 1992 season and after the season, a free agent, again, he re-signed with the Astros. He said later that it took until the 1993 season until his knee to fully heal, and by that time he had lost any legitimate chance to remain a starting outfielder in Houston.

The players strike in 1994 very much hurt Bass’s career. On July 31, 1994 the Astros obtained veteran outfielder Milt Thompson from the Phillies with the idea of platooning him with Bass, who was struggling with right-handed pitching. On August 12 the season ended with the players strike, and didn’t resume until April 1995.

During the strike-bound offseason Bass was again a free agent, and he signed with the Orioles. Baltimore released him after a season in which he hit .244 with five home runs. He spent 1996 at home in Sugar Land. He later said he was “just being a dad to my kids and husband to my wife.”14 He became a 5-handicap golfer with a powerful drive. As his own father had done, he coached the little league team for his two older sons. Just before he decided to attempt a comeback with the Angels, he had been offered a job hosting a radio talk show. The general manager agreed to hold the job open for six weeks.

Before the 1997 season Bass signed a minor-league contract with the Anaheim Angels. He had been offered a job hosting a radio talk show, and the station manager agreed to hold the job open for six weeks. Bass arrived at spring training two months short of his 38th birthday but taut and slim and hoping to make a comeback. In the Angels camp he remembered that the years with the Giants had been hard and were a turning point in the way he looked at his career. “The funny thing is that it doesn’t matter how much money you have. My wife and I, we’re financially stable. We can do whatever we want, and go wherever we want. But you realize that is not really the answer. Your financial needs are met, but you need something to care about, to care about and that you can get some fulfillment out of.”15

Bass was unable to return to the major leagues. Hampered by an Achilles’ tendon injury, he announced his retirement on May 20, 1997, after playing in four games with the Angels’ Triple-A team at Vancouver.

Bass and his wife, Elaine, have four children. In 2007 two of his sons were selected in the major-league draft. Garrett was selected by the Washington Nationals in the 42nd round from Jacksonville State University and played four minor league seasons, including the 2010 season an independent league playing for his father’s former manager Hal Lanier. Justin, a 21st-round pick by the  Angels, played for seven seasons after high school, and also ended his career in independent ball.

Bass and his wife founded a real-estate investment business in Texas in 1993, and he continued to attend events on behalf of the Astros, as well as taking part in old-timers’ games, fantasy baseball camps and other events.

“It’s a fraternity,” Bass said. “It’s a time in the players’ lives that basically is probably the best time of our lives. Ten, fifteen years, however long you played, you just meet some of the best guys ever. It’s always great to be able to come back, just get together and just reminisce, talk about the good old days and watch these [current Astros] out there do the stuff that we used to be able to do.”16

Last revised: October 29, 2023 (zp)

Sources

The addition to the works cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball Reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and The Sporting News, as well as the following:

Stone, Larry. “Baseball Goes Shopping,” Santa Rosa (California) Press Democrat, December 6, 1987: 37.

Krell, David. “Hal Lanier,” SABR BioProject, sabr.org/bioproj/person/2bd24617.

Briley, Ron. “The Greatest Game Ever Played? October 15. 1986,” SABR: The National Pastime, 2014. sabr.org/research/greatest-game-ever-played-october-15-1986.

Costello, Rory. “October 15, 1986: Mets Win NLCS Thriller in 16 Innings,” SABR Games Project, sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-15-1986-mets-win-thriller-16-innings.

Notes

1 Buster Olney, “Getting Started; Remembering Roots, New O’s Look Back Fondly,” Baltimore Sun, May 1, 1995: 31, 41.

2 Chris Haft, “Motivation Stands Out Most When Recalling a Major Leaguer,” Twin Falls (Idaho) Times-News, June 26, 1984: 17.

3 Stanley Johnson Obituary, Duggan’s Serra Mortuary, Daly City, California, April 2012. duggans-serra.com/obituary/Stanley-Lucius-Johnson/Daly-City-CA/1062910.

4 Associated Press, “Molitor May Succeed Yount,” Chippewa Falls (Wisconsin) Herald Telegram, June 8, 1977: 12.

5 “Kevin Bass Career File,” Baltimore Sun, May 19,1995 p 173

6 “Eastern League,” The Sporting News, June 23, 1979: 44.

7 Terrence Moore, “Blown Out Giants Try to Regroup,” San Francisco Examiner, September 9, 1982: 63-66.

8 Steve Sneddon, “Everything Right for Bass This Spring,” Reno Gazette-Journal, March 17, 1992: 25.

9 “Voice of the Fan/Conlin Confused,” The Sporting News, August 11, 1986: 6.

10 Ray Kerby, An Interview with Kevin Bass, January 14, 2002, AstrosDaily.com. astrosdaily.com/players/interviews/Bass_Kevin.html.

11 Richard Obert, “To Improve Cast, Giants Catch Bass, Throw Him in Right,” Arizona Republic (Phoenix), April 8, 1990: 49.

12 Larry Stone, “Giants Hook Bass,” Santa Rosa (California) Press Democrat, November 17, 1989: 37.

13 Sneddon.

14 Gwen Knapp, “Bass Among Old Vets Trying to Come Back.” Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City), March 9, 1997: 253.

15 Ibid.

16 Alyson Footer, “Astros Host Ex-players for Legends Weekend, MLB.com, August 11, 2018. mlb.com/astros/news/astros-host-annual-legends-weekend/c-289917276.

Dwight Vern Bernard (accent on the last syllable) was born on May 31, 1952, in Mount Vernon, Illinois, to Murrel and LaVerne (Adams) Bernard. He was the second oldest of eight siblings: four boys and four girls.1 Mount Vernon is the seat of Jefferson County in the southern part of the state with a population of about 15,000. Dwight grew up on the family farm near the small village of Belle Rive (rhymes with “five”), about 10 miles southeast.

Murrel Bernard opened a grain elevator on the farm in 1959 and established a business, M. Bernard & Sons Grain Co. He hauled grain until he was 92 and was driving a combine the evening before he suffered a stroke at the age of 94.2 He died in October 2017. The farm and the grain business remained in the family.

“We have about 400 acres, mostly soybeans and sometimes corn,” Bernard said in 2018.3 “Three of us brothers work at the grain elevator, the other two are there year round. Whenever I get done with baseball I’m heading back that way also. My brothers and I will keep it going as long as health and everything works out good. We all live just right around there close. Mom and dad’s house is not an eighth of a mile away from mine.” Bernard’s mother was still living on the farm when this was written in July 2018.

“We enjoyed baseball,” Bernard said. “Dad would take us over to St. Louis (about 90 miles northwest) and we’d watch the Cardinals. Back in the fourth grade, I believe it was, I had a teacher that had us write down what we wanted to be, and I had professional baseball player on the top of the list, I don’t know why. Mom’s still got that paper, too. I don’t even remember doing that.”

Bernard played church league basketball and summer Khoury League baseball for high-school boys, but he didn’t play at Mount Vernon Township High School until his senior year, when he played basketball and baseball. “I had to work on the farm and really didn’t have transportation,” he said by way of explanation. When he finally did put on a high-school baseball uniform, it didn’t take long for him to make an impression. In his first start on the mound, he pitched a no-hitter, striking out the first six batters he faced and a total of 15 in the seven-inning game.4 Yet that would be his only win as a high-school pitcher. He played center field when he didn’t pitch.

Playing professional baseball would seem to have been the furthest thing from Bernard’s mind when he graduated from high school in 1970. That fall he enrolled at Free Will Baptist Bible College in Nashville, where his older brother, Gil, was already a student.5 Free Will had only about 300 students and did not offer intercollegiate athletics, although there was an active sports program organized by the campus fraternities. “They had basketball, baseball, and football,” Bernard said. “I just enjoyed playing them all; being competitive was probably the biggest thing.”

Bernard left Free Will after his first semester when he was declared ineligible to play. “I flunked a two-hour course, and somebody else at another fraternity who was pretty good flunked a three-hour course, and it was decided that I couldn’t play sports and he could,” is how Bernard remembered it. Upset about what seemed an injustice, Bernard transferred to another small (but slightly larger) Baptist school in Nashville, one that did have an intercollegiate baseball team.

That school is now known as Belmont University. It has grown in recent years to have about 8,000 students. Its teams compete in the NCAA Division I Ohio Valley Conference; the men’s basketball team has played in the NCAA tournament, and a number of its baseball players have gone on to the pro ranks in recent years. But when Bernard arrived on campus in January 1971, the school was known as Belmont College. It had about 1,000 students and its teams belonged to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), playing other small Tennessee schools in the Volunteer State Athletic Conference.

Bernard walked on to the baseball team at Belmont. “Their coach didn’t know me at all,” he said. He made the team as a freshman and pitched four seasons at Belmont while majoring in physical education.6

“My freshman and sophomore years, I didn’t know where the ball was going,” Bernard said in 1974. “All I did was throw hard because that’s all I knew how to do. Coach Dave Whitten did so much for me. He taught me techniques, taught me not to roll my head from side to side in my delivery. He made me concentrate on pitching to a spot, made me concentrate on what I was doing. I realized control was the key to success I might have as a pitcher.”7

As a junior in 1973 he was the team’s most valuable pitcher and made the Nashville all-city team, posting a 2.17 ERA in 68 innings, including seven shutout innings against Belmont’s much bigger crosstown rival, Vanderbilt.8 His performance that season gave him hopes of possibly playing professionally.

Bernard married a fellow Belmont College student, Barbara Lankford, on August 25, 1973. They were still married as this was written in 2018 and had three children, son Jason (born in 1974) and daughters Jamie (1978) and Kelley (1982). Jason played baseball at Belmont, as did Dwight’s younger brother Tom. Dwight’s older brother, Gil (who finished his college education at Belmont), never played high-school or college baseball, but he was a very successful high-school baseball coach and administrator, and he was inducted into the Illinois High School Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2007.

As a senior in 1974, Bernard drew attention from pro scouts around the country. He went 8-0 with a 1.39 ERA and struck out 97 batters in 84⅓ innings to earn NAIA All-District 24 first-team honors. He struck out 16 in his final college appearance, against Millikin, and his 234 career strikeouts were a school record at the time (and as of 2018 ranked fourth in school history).9

In June 1974 Bernard became the first Belmont player ever drafted, when the New York Mets made him their second-round selection, the 41st player chosen overall. (Jerry Bell, who was drafted by the Seattle Pilots in January 1969 and pitched for the Brewers from 1971 to 1974, pitched for Belmont in 1966 and ’67 before transferring to Rhodes College, where he finished his collegiate career. As of 2018, Bernard and Bell were the only major leaguers who played at Belmont. Prior to Bell, two other Belmont alumni had played in the minors, but neither was drafted.)

Mets scout Paul Tretiak signed Bernard the day after the draft (for a bonus of “a little over $20,000,” Bernard said at the time).10 Bernard was assigned to Victoria (Texas) in the Double-A Texas League, and his pro career began with a bang. In his second start he pitched a five-hit shutout.11 A three-hit shutout followed two weeks later,12 and in August he went 12 innings to get a 2-1 win.13 Bernard finished his half-season at Victoria with a 7-4 record and a 3.06 ERA in 14 starts, then earned a 4-1 victory in the second game of the playoffs as Victoria won the league championship.14

Bernard was invited to major-league spring training in 1975, to throw batting practice, and was promoted to Triple-A Tidewater. He got off to a great start: through June 11 he had a record of 6-3 (the Tides were shut out in two of his losses) with an ERA of 2.05.15 But he struggled at times after that, and his final season record was 9-9 with a 3.29 ERA in 126 innings, with more walks than strikeouts. For the second straight year he was on a championship team, as the Tides had the International League’s best regular-season record and then won the league playoffs, although Bernard missed the playoffs with tendinitis in his pitching shoulder.

“Toward the end of 1975, probably the last month and a half, I had a little soreness that couldn’t let go,” he recalled in 2018. “Of course you never tell anybody. I had heard horror stories from some of the older guys, so I wasn’t sayin’ nothin’. I was just hoping that I could get through it.”

At the time he blamed his injuries on bad coaching. “I got fouled up because some people in the Mets organization tried to change my pitching style,” he said as he prepared to head to spring training in 1976.16 He elaborated in 2018: “With Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman and those guys there [with the Mets], they wanted to try to mold guys a little bit after them.”

Back at Tidewater in 1976, Bernard lost his first seven decisions17 and had a 1-9 record with a 6.40 ERA when he asked to be sent down to Jackson (Mississippi) in the Texas League. “They wanted to make me a reliever at Tidewater and I didn’t want that,” he said. “I asked to go to Jackson because I wanted to be a starter. I felt I started coming around once I got to Jackson.”18 It went a little bit better for him at Jackson, as he went 2-5 with a 4.17 ERA in nine starts.

After going to spring training with the Mets in 1977, Bernard was sent back to Tidewater and had another undistinguished season as a starter, finishing with a 9-13 record and a 4.32 ERA. He started only four more games in pro ball after that, as the Mets made the decision in the spring of 1978 to move him to the bullpen.

“At first I wasn’t very happy, because I’d seen some of the relief pitchers sat for two or three weeks sometimes and didn’t pitch,” Bernard remembered. “I had a very good spring as a starter and right at the very end they decided to make that move. I wasn’t very happy, I stayed home for a day or two before I decided to try it and see.”

“I had a very good spring as a starter and right at the very end they decided to make that move,” Bernard remembered. “I wasn’t very happy, because I’d seen some of the relief pitchers sat for two or three weeks sometimes and didn’t pitch. I stayed home for a day or two before I decided to try it and see.”

Bernard thrived in the bullpen at Tidewater, going 5-3 with two saves and a 1.64 ERA, before making his major-league debut with the Mets on June 29. He spent the rest of the season in the Mets’ bullpen, posting a record of 1-4 with a 4.31 ERA.

He went north with the Mets in 1979 and didn’t allow an earned run in 14 of his first 17 appearances, but he was hit hard enough in the other three games that he had a 4.50 ERA when he was sent back to Tidewater in late May. “I thought I was better than at least four guys they kept,” he said. “I was surprised when I was sent down — and so were the other guys on the team.”19

Again Bernard pitched well in the International League, this time as the Tides’ closer, with a 1.95 ERA and 13 saves in two months before he was recalled by the Mets on July 27.20 Bernard said general manager Joe McDonald, manager Joe Torre, and pitching coach Rube Walker made promises when he was recalled that weren’t kept.

“They called me into the office for a meeting,” Bernard said. “They said I had proved myself at Tidewater, that no one else was doing the job and that the bullpen was mine. But it never happened. I never got a chance to save a game.”21

He was sent back to Tidewater a few weeks later before returning to New York after the International League season. His final Tidewater numbers were great — 16 saves and a 1.77 ERA (he was second in the league in saves despite spending less than half the season there) — but with the Mets he was 0-3 with a 4.70 ERA.

After the season the Mets moved on, trading Bernard to the Milwaukee Brewers for Mark Bomback, who had just earned Minor League Player of the Year honors from The Sporting News by going 22-7 with Vancouver in the Pacific Coast League. “When you get traded, you gotta feel like somebody wants you,” Bernard said. “I thought that would be a pretty good opportunity.”

But 1980 was basically a lost season for Bernard; he pitched just 33 innings between Triple-A Vancouver and Double-A Holyoke (Massachusetts), with an ERA above 7.00 at both stops. Surgery on the thumb of his pitching hand caused him to miss a chunk of the season. “They said it was some sort of a tumor, on the right-hand side of my thumb beside my thumbnail, it was a big knot,” he remembered. “My control had come around pretty good, and then it left me because I couldn’t grip the baseball the way I needed to. They took it out and everything was good after that.”

Going into 1981, Bernard’s career was on the line. “When I went to spring training, I knew if I didn’t do well, I’d be sent home,” he said. “I was realistic about it.”22 But Brewers manager Buck Rodgers liked what he saw in the spring enough to send Bernard to Vancouver, where he saved 11 games with a 3.35 ERA and had the best strikeout rate of his pro career (7.4 per nine innings). That earned him a return to the major leagues when the rosters expanded in September, and he had a 3.60 ERA in six outings for the Brewers.

That was the year of the players strike, and a playoff was held in each major-league division pitting the team with the best record before the strike against the team with the best record after play resumed. The Brewers went 31-22 after the strike for the best record in the American League East and advanced to the playoff against the Yankees, who had the division’s best pre-strike record. When Reggie Cleveland developed tendinitis, the Brewers chose Bernard to take Cleveland’s place in the bullpen for the postseason.

Bernard got into two games against the Yankees, both games that the Brewers lost (they lost the best-of-five series in five games), and retired all seven batters he faced. “It looks like we might have found a pitcher,” general manager Harry Dalton said.23

Bernard spent all of 1982 with the Brewers, the only year of his career he spent entirely in the major leagues. His 47 pitching appearances were second-most on the team, behind Hall of Famer Rollie Fingers, and his six saves were tied with Jim Slaton for second on the team behind Fingers. He finished the year with a 3-1 record and a 3.76 ERA, helping the Brewers win the AL East and advance to the World Series.

Asked in 2018 about his memories of the championship season, Bernard said, “Probably the number-one thing was I got my first major-league save against Minnesota [on May 2]. And I struck out Gary Gaetti from Centralia, Illinois [about 40 miles from Bernard’s home in Belle Rive], three times, that was a pretty good feeling.” (Gaetti was 0-for-4 against Bernard that year, with a walk and a sacrifice bunt.)

The Brewers’ bullpen was thrown into chaos when Fingers tore a muscle in his right (pitching) forearm on September 2, an injury that caused him to miss the entire 1983 season.24 From that point on, Bernard and rookie Pete Ladd each had two saves in the regular season, Slaton one and Moose Haas (who had been used mostly as a starter) one. But when the postseason came around, Bernard was all but forgotten by Harvey Kuenn, who had replaced Rodgers as manager in June.

Ladd got two saves and Slaton one in the American League Championship Series against the Angels. Bernard made just one appearance, entering Game One with Milwaukee trailing by five runs and pitching a perfect inning. In the World Series the Brewers’ two saves were by Bob McClure, who made only eight of his 34 regular-season appearances in relief and did not save a game. McClure pitched in relief five times in the seven-game series and was the losing pitcher twice. Haas, Mike Caldwell, and Doc Medich, who were all primarily starters during the regular season, also were used in relief in the World Series, against St. Louis.

“When you start bringing starters in out of the bullpen, guys who are out of their realm, they didn’t have the proper time to warm up, they didn’t go through their normal routines … it’s a lot different,” Bernard said. “It was the bullpen that got us there, and then all of a sudden it changes, and that was an aggravating thing. But I was a team guy and I just wanted to win, and if those guys could do it, then that was fine. I felt like there were a couple of times in there where I had been used in those situations, and it didn’t happen.”

Bernard took the mound once in the World Series, entering Game Six with the Brewers trailing 13-0, and pitched a scoreless inning. In his four career postseason appearances he retired 13 of the 14 batters he faced, the other one reaching on an error.

Little did Bernard know that his World Series appearance would be his last in the major leagues. After a rough spring training in 1983, when he had a 10.13 ERA in five appearances, Bernard was released.25 A month later he signed a minor-league contract with the Astros26 and spent two seasons with their Triple-A Tucson team before pitching for the Orioles’ Double-A team at Charlotte in 1985.

Bernard pitched well at Charlotte, but when the season ended without his getting a chance to return to the majors, he decided to end his playing career. “I was still throwing the ball pretty good, that’s for sure,” he remembered, “but I was 33 years old and everybody kind of went with youth in the minor-league free-agent deal. It really gave you no choice but to figure out something else to do.”

What that “something else” turned out to be stemmed from his experience after he had surgery in 1980 and was rehabbing at Double-A Holyoke. “They didn’t have a pitching coach,” Bernard said. “Well, I was down in the bullpen working with those kids. Me being a guy who had some major-league experience, they were all younger guys, why wouldn’t they listen? And they did, they listened. It was fun, and we ended up winning the Eastern League championship.”

That made an impression on team owner Tom Kayser, who in 1986 was the Pittsburgh Pirates’ assistant minor-league director. Kayser gave Bernard a job as pitching coach of the Pirates’ Class-A affiliate in Macon (Georgia) that year, and as of 2018 Bernard has been a pitching coach ever since. He coached at the minor-league level in all those years except for one he spent in the Alaska summer league.

Asked what he liked about coaching, Bernard said, “Working with the kids and watching them improve and be successful, that’s the biggest thing. Even the guys who didn’t make it to the big leagues, those are the guys you’re going to help the most, trying to make their careers last as long as you can and making them better ballplayers as organizational-type guys. It’s fun, I have a lot of good memories from young men that I hear from here and there.”

Sources

Newspaper articles were accessed via newspapers.com and newspaperarchive.com. Thanks to Bill Francis of the National Baseball Hall of Fame Library for sharing Bernard’s player file there, and thanks to April Szarek of the C.E. Brehm Memorial Library in Mount Vernon, Illinois, for sharing pages from the 1970 Mount Vernon Township High School yearbook.

Notes

1 Murrel Bernard’s obituary with names of all the family members is online at obituaries.commercial-news.com/obituary/murrel-bernard-1923-2017-995741311.

2 Ibid.

3 Telephone interview with Dwight Bernard, February 16, 2018. Unless otherwise attributed, all quotes from Dwight in this article are from this interview.

4 “Bernard No-Hits Tamaroa,” Mt. Vernon (Illinois) Register-News, May 1, 1970: 9. The Register-News is available on newspapers.com, and a search finds only three games in which Bernard pitched. In what appears to be his only other start he pitched a two-hitter and lost, with both the runs he allowed unearned. In a July 1974 interview, Bernard said he pitched four times in high school. Cecil Parker, “Bernard Hopes Wild Days Gone Forever,” Victoria (Texas) Advocate, July 13, 1974: 1B. But a 1978 story said Bernard pitched only three games in high school with a 1-2 record. Alan Freedman, “Mt. Vernon’s Bernard (P)itching to Stay in Majors,” Southern Illinoisan (Carbondale, Illinois), September 19, 1978: 13.

5 The campus moved 30 miles northeast to Gallatin, Tennessee, in 2008, and the school’s name was changed to Welch College in 2012.

6 Team media guides from his playing days (Mets 1979, Brewers 1982, Brewers 1983) show Bernard as having a B.S. in physical education from Belmont, but a check with school officials in July 1978 through studentclearinghouse.org showed Bernard did not earn a degree.

7 Bob Forbes, “Dwight Bernard Enjoying Success With Texas Club,” Mt. Vernon Register-News, July 19, 1974: 1-B.

8 Jeff Hanna, “Rebels Clip Vandy 1-0,” Tennessean (Nashville), April 25, 1973: 25. The game was scheduled for seven innings as part of a doubleheader; Bernard was replaced after seven innings because of a foot injury, with the game tied 0-0. Belmont scored in the bottom of the eighth to win the game.

9 Bernard’s 1974 ERA was a school season record at the time and ranks fourth in school history as of 2018. His strikeout total that year was also a school season record at the time and ranked fifth in school history as of 2018. His career ERA at Belmont of 2.18 was tied for second in school history as of 2018.

10 David Climer, “Belmont Grad Still Learning,” Tennessean, August 9, 1974: 54.

11 “Bernard Hurls Shutout,” The Sporting News, July 13, 1974: 36.

12 The Sporting News, July 27, 1974: 57.

13 “Iron-Man Bernard Wins, 2-1,” Mt. Vernon Register-News, August 19, 1974: 1-B.

14 Dwight Rowin, “Victoria Tops El Paso in Texas Series,” The Sporting News, September 21, 1974: 38.

15 Bob Forbes, “Fine Year for Bernard,” Mt. Vernon Register-News, June 13, 1975: 1-B; “International league Batting and Pitching Records,” The Sporting News, July 5, 1975: 34.

16 Bob Forbes, “In Sports It’s Wise Not to Assume,” Mt. Vernon Register-News, March 5, 1976: 1-B.

17 Bob Forbes, “Sideline Watching,” Mt. Vernon Register-News, July 1, 1976: 1-B.

18 Bob Forbes, “Bernard to South America,” Mt. Vernon Register-News, November 16, 1976: 1-B.

19 Mike Chamness, “Mt. Vernon’s Bernard Glad to Leave ‘Big Apple.’” Southern Illinoisan, October 31, 1979: 15.

20 “Mets Recall Mt. Vernon’s Bernard,” Southern Illinoisan, July 29, 1979: 14.

21 Chamness, “Mt. Vernon’s Bernard Glad to Leave ‘Big Apple.’”

22 Tom Flaherty, “Brewers’ Bernard Makes a Big Leap,” The Sporting News, November 7, 1981: 26.

23 Ibid.

24 Dale Voiss, “Rollie Fingers,” Society for American Baseball Research BioProject, sabr.org/bioproj/person/4e17d265.

25 Mike Estel, “Bernard Cut by Milwaukee,” Southern Illinoisan, March 29, 1983: 13.

26 “Bernard Joins Astros System,” Southern Illinoisan, May 18, 1983: 12.

Mark Steven Brouhard was born on May 22, 1956, in Burbank, California. Despite his father’s wishes that he take up hunting or fishing, Brouhard’s mother persuaded him to play baseball. “She liked the sport and she urged me to play in a park league,” he recalled in a 1979 interview with The Sporting News.1 “She always wanted me out of the house. I guess I caused too much trouble. She encouraged me to play sandlot ball. I liked hunting and fishing, but I liked baseball better.”

He remained in the Burbank area for much of his pre-professional life, ultimately attending El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California, where he garnered all-conference honors after batting .395 for the season. He played at Los Angeles Pierce College in 1974 and 1975, batting over .300 both seasons as a catcher, and was named to the all-conference team. (Fellow major leaguers Greg Garrett, Rick Auerbach, and Doug DeCinces also played for Pierce, a junior college.)

After two years at Pierce, Brouhard entered the January 1976 amateur draft. (At this draft session, teams would select from junior-college players and those whose eligibility had expired.) The California Angels selected Brouhard with their fourth-round pick.

Brouhard felt he was overlooked as a draft prospect. “I wasn’t drafted very high and I wasn’t even signed as a draftee,” he told The Sporting News in 1979. “I thought about giving up baseball.”2 This was before Angels scout Joe Carpenter took him to a team workout camp. “I went there every single Sunday for about five or six months,” Broussard said. “I guess I improved and I was signed.”3

Although Brouhard was primarily a catcher during his prep days, the Angels seemed intent on using him as an outfielder, and he primarily acted as a designated hitter in his first pro season (44 of 69 games). Commenting on his defense, Brouhard was relatively bearish. “There’s no doubt about it. My batting is better than my fielding. Even though I was signed as a catcher, I’ve never played a game as a catcher. I don’t think they’re too high on my arm,” he said in 1979.4

Assigned to the Idaho Fall Angels of the rookie-level Pioneer League, Broussard batted .314 in 291 plate appearances with 7 home runs and 57 RBIs. (His BA was only third-best on the team but sixth in the league.)

Brouhard’s next stop was in the Arizona Instructional League. This isn’t the same as today’s Arizona Fall League, where the most prestigious prospects gather to tout their talents before major-league scouts. Brouhard earned league all-star honors.5

Brouhard’s next assignment was a full-season league. In 1977 he spent the entire year with the Salinas Angels in the Class-A California League. In 136 games (which would prove to be the highest number of games he’d ever play in a single season), he batted .278 with 16 homers. Since the 21-year-old Brouhard was younger than the average player at the level, the Angels had him repeat the level the following year.

Before heading back to Salinas, however, Brouhard took another tour of the Arizona Instructional League. This proved to be a good move, as he finished with an unofficial .400 batting average and another all-star selection.6

In his second year in the California League, Brouhard improved markedly. His batting average jumped up 32 points to .310, and his OPS skyrocketed nearly 100 points. A home run he hit in the Salinas ballpark in June was touted as having traveled an improbable 600 feet, and spurred this item in The Sporting News:

Managers Stan Wasiak of Lodi (California) and Chuck Cottier of Salinas were in agreement on one thing June 26: the homer hit by the Angels’ Mark Brouhard was the longest either of the veteran pilots had ever seen. The ball was estimated to have traveled 600 feet in the air. It cleared the left field fence, the stadium parking lot and a row of houses beyond, landing in the parking lot of a market.7

The team later measured the drive at 533 feet. Real or not, and other long home runs Broussard hit during the season earned the nickname “Mad Bomber.”8

After this strong showing, Brouhard was moved up to the Double-A El Paso Diablos of the Texas League for 1979, and posted an MVP and all-star season. Brouhard batted a league-leading .350 with 28 home runs, 107 RBIs, and 97 runs scored en route to winning the league’s first Triple Crown since 1927 … it seemed. But a recheck of the statistics showed that Jim Tracy of Midland had accumulated enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title, outhitting Brouhard by five points.9

That wasn’t enough to earn him a spot on the Angels’ roster just yet, and Brouhard was eligible to be taken in the Rule 5 draft at the 1979 Winter Meetings in Toronto. He was plucked from the Angels organization by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Many people were surprised, as the Brewers already had their fair share of right-handed power bats in the lineup. But Brewers general manager Harry Dalton thought Brouhard’s bat was simply too good to pass up. “We didn’t think he would still be available,” Dalton said. “His bat was just too attractive not to take a chance.”10

Brewers farm director Ray Poitevint was also high on Brouhard. “We tried to make a trade for him [in 1979] on the minor-league level,” Poitevint said. “He’s a hitting fool.”11 But the outlook for Brouhard wasn’t as good as it might have been had he remained with California. If the Brewers wanted to keep him in the organization, they would have to keep him on the major-league roster for all of the 1980 season. Otherwise, they’d have to offer him back to the Angels for half his draft price of $25,000. This was a daunting task considering that the Brewers already had outfielders Gorman Thomas, Sixto Lezcano, Ben Oglivie, and Larry Hisle. The expectation was that Brouhard would likely only contribute as a pinch-hitter with an occasional start in the outfield or as the designated hitter.12

This expectation did indeed become reality. Brouhard played in only 45 games (13 starts in the field) for Milwaukee in 1980. He batted .232 with 5 home runs. This was the first time Brouhard was ever relegated to the bench full-time in his playing career. “I’ve never sat in my life, not even in Little League,” he said. “It’s been a little bit of an adjustment for me. … Sometimes it gets depressing, sitting a lot. At least I’m here, and that’s been my goal. Basically, I think I prefer being here instead of in Triple A, but sometimes I wish I could play more.”13

The Brewers felt the same way at the time. “Naturally, the ideal situation would be to put him where he can play every day,” commented Buck Rodgers, the Brewers’ acting manager while George Bamberger was sidelined after heart bypass surgery. “In absence of that, he’s getting a lot of work.” The work Rodgers was discussing included not only fielding drills and batting practice, but also workouts at first base to increase his versatility off the bench.14

Broussard did manage to make some impact during his first major-league season. He collected his first major-league hit after replacing an ejected Sixto Lezcano against the Twins on May 24, then followed that up with a diving catch in right field. He hit his first big-league homer the next day.

With full control of Brouhard heading into the 1981 season, the Brewers were finally able to send him to the minors for more seasoning. He started the season with the Vancouver Canadians of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League. He got into only 16 games with Vancouver before an injury to Paul Molitor led to his being summoned back to Milwaukee. He had 199 plate appearances with the Brewers and batted .274.

Manager Buck Rodgers praised Broussard’s defense. “Everything he does isn’t pretty out there,” Rodgers said. “Everything he gets to, he catches. He’s not a bad outfielder, in fact, he’s better than average. He just doesn’t always look good doing it.”15

Brouhard wasn’t able to stick with the Brewers for their 1981 playoff run. Shortly before the American League Division Series against the Yankees, he pulled a calf muscle and was unable to play in the series, in which the Yankees ousted the Brewers from the postseason.

Heading into the 1982 campaign, the Brewers thought of getting Brouhard more playing time by moving Molitor to third base. This would create a chain reaction in the lineup that would move Gorman Thomas back into center field and open up right field for Brouhard. “I would like that,” Brouhard said. “But they haven’t committed themselves in any way. I think I have to go to spring training and do the job and try to earn the position. I don’t think anything is guaranteed in this game, especially for me.”16

Most expected Brouhard to win the job out of the gate, and he did just that. Brouhard showed up to spring training “about 20 pounds lighter than [1981], worked hard and had a good spring.”17 He started in right field on Opening Day. Things changed quickly, however, as he wound up ceding much of his playing time to Charlie Moore, who got off to a torrid start to begin the season. Although Brouhard did his job, the man affectionately known by Brewers fans as “Big Bro” was forced to wait on the bench even more.18

Even though it was simply a “hot bat” that had Moore playing over Brouhard in right field, it seemed as if Brouhard was largely passed over for the remainder of the season. The Californian wound up playing in just 40 games for Milwaukee, batting a modest .269 with 4 home runs and 10 RBIs. He was demoted to Triple-A Vancouver for a bit, producing a .282 batting average in 17 contests for the Canadians. Brouhard was included on the big-league playoff roster, although he played in only one game. What a single game it was, though.

Brouhard started Game Four of the American League Championship Series against the Angels, the team that drafted him. This was because of a rib injury suffered by Ben Oglivie. It was said that Brouhard didn’t even learn about the start from coach Sal Bando until a half-hour before the game. “I went over and looked at the lineup card and there I was,” Brouhard commented.19 Although the circumstances of his start were less than ideal, the result was well needed. The team was down two games to one in the series, and Brouhard provided the spark needed to create a Game Five.

Brouhard opened the scoring with an RBI single. The Brewers cruised to a 7-0 lead behind a stellar outing from Moose Haas, but the Angels crept back and made things interesting thanks to a grand slam by Don Baylor. Brouhard slammed the door shut after that, though, bashing a two-run homer to bring Milwaukee a 9-5 victory. He closed the day at 3-for-4 with a double, a home run, three RBIs, and four runs scored (the latter tying a playoff record).

This performance wasn’t enough to land Brouhard any more playing time, though. He sat on the bench for the remainder of the playoffs and watched as the Brewers lost the World Series to the Cardinals. “That’s just the way things worked out,” Brouhard said in 1991. “I had my ups and downs during my career, but I have no regrets. It was a great experience.”20

Brouhard was never able to live up to the potential the Brewers thought he had. He split time between the big leagues and Triple-A Vancouver over the following three seasons, hitting just .257 with 14 homers for Milwaukee in that span. He also lost the speed component of his game, as he went 0-for-7 on stolen-base attempts during that timeframe.

After those three disappointing seasons, Brouhard took his talents to Japan. He agreed to play for the Yakult Swallows in 1986 and stayed there into the next season, 140 games altogether with 23 home runs and 69 RBIs. His most interesting memory from Japan came during a rain delay in which he donned the mascot’s head, pretended to hit home runs and slid across the rain-soaked tarp to the fans’ great amusement.21

Brouhard briefly returned Stateside for an attempted comeback with the Angels organization, but opted to retire after the 1987 season in order to spend more time with his family. He bounced around from job to job before founding a painting business with a neighbor.22 In 2016 he was inducted into the Texas League Hall of Fame.23

Brouhard was one of the biggest “what if’s?” in Brewers history. Despite much potential given his success in the minor-leagues, he never got a full chance to prove his worth in the big leagues. Could he have made a big enough difference in that 1982 World Series to push Milwaukee over the hump? It’s something we can never know.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com (baseball-reference.com/players/b/brouhma01.shtml) and Baseball-Almanac.com,

Notes

1 Jim Thomas, “Brouhard Mother’s Gift to Angels,” The Sporting News, September 1, 1979: 62.

2 Ibid.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.

5 Ed Prell,  “Leonard Unanimous Pick on Cactus Loop All-Stars,” The Sporting News, December 4, 1976: 71.

6 Ed Prell, “Three Cub Pitchers All-Stars,” The Sporting News, November 19, 1977: 63.

7 The Sporting News, July 22, 1978: 48.

8 The Sporting News, August 12, 1978: 42.

9 Kim Brazell,“Triple Crown Vanishes,” The Sporting News, September 29, 1979: 40.

10 Tom Flaherty, “Brewers Surprised, Elated to Get Brouhard’s Big Bat,” The Sporting News, December 22, 1979: 53.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Tom Flaherty, “Brewers Like Brouhard’s Future,” The Sporting News, May 24, 1980: 5.

14 Ibid.

15 Tom Flaherty, “Brouhard Fills Brewer Bill,” The Sporting News, June 20, 1981: 33.

16 Tom Flaherty, “Brewers’ Brouhard May Win Steady Job,” The Sporting News, January 30, 1982: 59.

17 Tom Flaherty, “A Mighty Long Wait for Mark Brouhard,” The Sporting News, May 17, 1982: 27.

18 “A Mighty Long Wait for Mark Brouhard,” 33.

19 “Braves 2 Down, Brewers Even Up,” Daytona Beach (Florida) News-Journal, October 9, 1982: 1C.

20 John Ortega, “Career Remembered for a Game Effort: Hero in Game 4 of ’82 American League Playoffs Against Angels Adjusting to Life After Baseball,” Los Angeles Times, August 17, 1991.

21 Wayne Graczyk, “Keys to Success as a Foreign Ballplayer in Japan,” Japan Times, November 21, 2015.

22 “Braves 2 Down, Brewers Even Up.”

23 “Contingent of RockHounds Executives Elected to TL Hall of Fame,” Midland (Texas) Reporter-Telegram, June 1, 2016.

Ralph Michael Caldwell was born on January 22, 1949, in Tarboro, North Carolina, to Ralph Franklin and Annie Bruce (Holland) Caldwell. He attended Tarboro High School, then enrolled at North Carolina State University in 1968.

At NC State, Caldwell was expected to be one of the Wolfpack’s top pitchers as a freshman thanks to “good control” and “a sneaky fastball,” according to the team’s preseason outlook booklet.3 The left-hander’s talent was certainly evident at Tarboro High, where he threw three straight shutouts and two consecutive no-hitters.4 Wolfpack head coach Sam Esposito had tempered optimism regarding Caldwell’s standing, saying, “Our young boys like [fellow freshman Joe] Frye and Caldwell have talent, but we just don’t know how they’ll react in tight situations.”5

Not only did Caldwell manage to meet those high expectations, but he was a major cog in one of NC State’s best seasons ever. The southpaw led the Atlantic Coast Conference with nine complete games, and tied for the conference lead among freshmen with eight victories in 1968. The Wolfpack won the ACC championship with a 25-9 record and made it to the College World Series, where they finished in third place.

Although the team’s performance never got back to that exemplary level, Caldwell continued to dominate collegiate hitters. He led the ACC in complete games the next two seasons, led the league in shutouts during his junior and senior years and finished his collegiate career with a 32-10 record and a 2.30 ERA. As of 2019 he remained the ACC’s career complete-game (32) and shutout (10) leader. He earned first-team All-ACC honors in 1970 and 1971, and won the ACC Player of the Year award in 1971.6 He graduated from the university in four years with a degree in sociology.7

Coming out of college, Caldwell wasn’t a major draft prospect. He wound up falling all the way to the 12th round, where the San Diego Padres selected him with the 273rd overall pick. Caldwell seemed to be disappointed by being selected this low in the draft. In response to the perceived slight, he began hunting for other work and lined up a position with a phone company in Tarboro.8 But the Padres increased their signing bonus offer and signed him. In hindsight, the lefty fared much better than the Padres’ top draft pick, right-handed pitcher Jay Franklin, who appeared in just three major-league games.

Caldwell began his professional career in the lower levels of the minors and immediately proved his worth. With the short-season Tri-City Padres, he overwhelmed the young hitters, striking out 19 batters and allowing just two runs in 11 innings of work. He was promoted to Class-A Lodi, where he continued his strong showing with a 3.66 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 32 innings.

The Padres, in the midst of what would become a 100-loss season, decided to energize the fan base by calling up three young prospects for the final month of the season: 1971 first-round pick Jay Franklin, 1970 first-round pick Mike Ivie, and Caldwell.9 While Franklin and Ivie were more highly regarded because of their more prominent draft position and their relative youth (both were teenagers, forming the youngest battery in the majors that season10), Caldwell held his own in his first taste of the majors, pitching a scoreless inning in relief on September 4, 1971. Afterward manager Preston Gomez said, “Caldwell showed me a great sinker and kept the ball down.”11 Scouting director Bob Fontaine said, “We’re very encouraged the way Franklin, Ivie, and Caldwell broke in. This certainly bodes well for the future of the Padres.”12 Caldwell pitched five more times that September, keeping the opposition scoreless in each instance.

Mr. Warmth’s stock kept rising, with many in the organization beginning to take notice. Pitching coach Johnny Podres likened Caldwell to his former teammate Ron Perranoski, who pieced together several good seasons as a starter and a reliever for the Dodgers and the Twins. Podres said, “Mike has Perranoski’s poise and the same kind of equipment — a great sinker, a sharp curve and control. And he throws harder than Ron did in his prime.”13 Caldwell paired this newfound high standing in the organization with a strong spring performance in 1972, and earned a major-league roster spot. He split time between the rotation and the bullpen, producing a 7-11 record and a 4.01 ERA in 163⅔ innings. The 5.6 strikeouts per nine innings he posted were a far cry from Tri-City and Lodi, but the figure wound up being the best mark of his career in the majors.

After proving to be a versatile and durable pitching option for San Diego in 1972, Caldwell was expected to be a major cog in the Padres’ pitching plans in 1973, whether as a starter or as a reliever.14 In some respects, he did take a step forward. In 13 starts and 42 relief appearances, Caldwell improved his ERA to 3.74 and earned 10 saves. But he had just a 5-14 won-lost record and walked batters at a higher rate than the season prior.

After the season Caldwell’s tenure with the Padres came to an abrupt end. The Padres jumped at a chance to acquire Willie McCovey from the Giants, sending Caldwell to San Francisco in exchange for the slugging first baseman and outfielder Bernie Williams.15 Gaining a power bat was a positive for the Padres, but they still seemed sad to part with Caldwell. General manager Peter Bavasi said, “We hated to lose Mike.”16 But Bavasi said the team had a pair of young pitchers who could fill the void, right-handers Dave Freisleben and Mike Johnston.17

San Francisco’s fans weren’t thrilled about losing McCovey, but the decision-makers seemed excited about their return. Manager Charlie Fox said, “Caldwell pitched very effectively against us. He’s a left-hander who can throw strikes. He can be either a starter or a reliever, long or short. From all our reports, he has great promise.”18

With a new team came a new role: Caldwell was expected to start the season as a member of the starting rotation. Fox put it firmly: “Caldwell is a sound big-league pitcher, definitely a starter.”19 He said Caldwell would be the number-four starter behind Ron Bryant, Tom Bradley, and John D’Acquisto.20 Caldwell responded well, posting a 14-5 record and a 2.95 ERA for the season. However, things deteriorated quickly. Caldwell had to have surgery after the  season to remove bone spurs from his elbow, and as a result he wasn’t the same pitcher the next two seasons.21 He produced 7-13 and 1-7 records with ERAs of 4.79 and 4.86 in 1975 and 1976 and was transitioned into more of a bullpen role for the Giants.

The Giants opted to deal Caldwell. Soon after the 1976 season they swung a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals, sending Caldwell, D’Acquisto, and catcher Dave Rader to St. Louis for outfielder Willie Crawford, left-handed pitcher John Curtis and utilityman Vic Harris.22 Whether Caldwell was included for on-field or off-field reasons, he was certainly happy to be out of the Giants’ clubhouse. For one thing, he didn’t think he was used enough in San Francisco.23 And there were some internal issues Caldwell was fine leaving in the past: “I didn’t get along with a couple of the coaches, and they took it personally,” he said. …” I’m glad to get away from Candlestick. Not because of the ballpark. I’m just glad to get away from a bad situation.”24

One of the staff members in San Francisco was pitching coach Buck Rodgers, who later became the manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. Rodgers wasn’t specifically named by Caldwell as one of the coaches who drew his ire, though there’s a good chance he was, based on later events in Milwaukee.

For the time being, though, Caldwell had to carve out a role in St. Louis. The Cardinals planned to use him in middle relief, but then dealt him again at the tail end of spring training. This time, Caldwell went to Cincinnati in exchange for Pat Darcy. Caldwell was used sparingly with the Reds, appearing in just 14 games and logging a 4.01 ERA in the first 2½ months of the season. Despite what seemed to be a downturn in his career, the southpaw caught a break that resurrected his career.

On June 15, 1977, the Reds traded Caldwell to the Brewers for minor leaguers Rick O’Keeffe and Garry Pyka.25 The initial reaction in Milwaukee wasn’t favorable. Milwaukee Journal columnist Bob Wolf called Caldwell a “longshot” to produce anything for Milwaukee.26 “Caldwell hasn’t done a thing since his one big year, 1974,” Wolf wrote, even calling him “an anonymous member” of the Reds’ bullpen.27

Wolf also noted that the price the Brewers paid to get Caldwell seemed a bit steep. Pyka had shown little promise in the minors, but O’Keeffe was considered the team’s top pitching prospect. Wolf questioned why a club in need of pitching help would trade away one of its brightest youngsters in exchange for a seemingly broken-down hurler. Manager Alex Grammas went as far as to say “[O’Keeffe]’s a cinch major-leaguer of the future.”28 But few could argue that Caldwell’s presence would at least add some depth to a bullpen in need of just that. Caldwell wound up splitting time between the bullpen and the starting rotation, notching a 5-8 record with a 4.58 ERA in his first half-season with Milwaukee.

In 1978 Caldwell was thrust into the starting rotation because of injuries to two starters: an elbow injury to Bill Travers at the end of 1977, the other an elbow injury to Moose Haas in April. Caldwell produced the best season of his career: a 22-9 record, a 2.36 ERA, and a league-leading 23 complete games en route to a second-place finish in Cy Young Award voting, while also earning American League Comeback Player of the Year honors by a wide margin over Ferguson Jenkins.29

Caldwell attributed part of this massive upswing to his naysayers: “Lots of people had given up on me. Maybe the people who gave up on me were responsible in an indirect way for my coming back. I knew I could pitch, and I hope those who gave up on me will say now, ‘Well, he had the guts to battle back and win.’”30

Others thought something else was the reason for this unexpected bounceback. Many American League hitters believed his sinker had evolved into more of a “spitter.”31 In his book Nine Innings, Daniel Okrent suggested that manager George Bamberger even helped Caldwell perfect the pitch.32 The New York Yankees were the main accuser of the left-hander, and for good reason: Caldwell shut them out three times and concluded the season with a 0.64 ERA in five starts against them. Yankees owner George Steinbrenner vowed to place cameras all over Yankee Stadium during the 1979 season in an attempt to catch Caldwell in the act. However, the Brewers fought back. Brewers owner Bud Selig recalled, “I told George we had filed a spitter complaint on his Ron Guidry.”33

Caldwell’s strong 1978 campaign effectively assured him a spot in the Brewers’ rotation for 1979. Things started out well, as Mr. Warmth shut down the Yankees once again on Opening Day in a 5-1 victory. However, he got off to what some considered to be a slow start: a 6-5 record with a 3.18 ERA by the beginning of July. This was nowhere near as good as his breakout 1978 campaign, but it was still a solid line. It was also close to the same line he held around that time the year before, so few in the Brewers front office were worried about Caldwell. But he was unable to fully recapture the magic that won him the Comeback Player of the Year Award, and he finished the year with a 3.29 ERA in 30 starts, though he went 16-6.

The 1980 season also started poorly for Caldwell. Before he even took the mound at spring training, the southpaw injured his ankle on a shopping trip in Milwaukee and ended up in a walking cast for a couple of months. Caldwell explained, “I had just bought some T-shirts to take to some kids in North Carolina. I was carrying a box, and I hit some concrete that was uneven and turned my ankle.”34 He called the issue a minor one despite the need for the cast. “I usually start working out in December, so I didn’t miss anything. … By spring training, I should be the same as always.”35

Perhaps he was fine in terms of health, but in terms of performance, things continued to trend downward. Caldwell was 13-11, but his ERA rose to 4.03, the first time it had exceeded 4.00 since his brutal 1977 campaign. His 11 complete games were his fewest since that same year. The 1981 season wasn’t much better, either, as he wound up winning just 11 games (9 losses) and throwing a mere three complete games to go with his 3.93 ERA. The frustration also seemed to be getting to him: He went as far as to flip a table at a reporter after the reporter had written something he didn’t like.36 He struggled in his two appearances during the Brewers’ American League Division Series matchup with the Yankees. After dominating the team during his best years, Caldwell gave up four runs and two home runs in 8⅓ innings. It appeared that Caldwell’s best years were behind him.

The Brewers were nearly persuaded to deal the left-hander before the 1982 season. They reportedly talked with Philadelphia that offseason, with the Phillies offering Ryne Sandberg, Jon Reelhorn, and Don McCormack in exchange for Caldwell.37 Despite his recent struggles, the Brewers were content with keeping Caldwell and declined the trade. Having Sandberg, a future Hall of Famer, on the roster could have altered the history of the franchise, but keeping Caldwell around wound up working in the Brewers’ favor in the short term.

The Brewers started off the 1982 campaign slowly, ending May with a 22-24 record. Caldwell was struggling, holding a 5.04 ERA into mid-June, after a stretch in which he allowed 38 runs in 42⅔ innings. Something had to be done. General manager Harry Dalton fired manager Buck Rodgers in an effort to improve the clubhouse dynamic. This development was music to Caldwell’s ears. As Daniel Okrent wrote in Nine Innings, “Caldwell had hated Bob Rodgers and Bob Rodgers had hated him, and there was no one else on the team as happy to see Rodgers gone.”38 Caldwell even lashed out on a team flight during the rough month of May, exclaiming, “I hope we lose 10 in a row and get his [butt] fired.”39 The feeling between the player and manager appeared to be mutual: Rodgers reportedly considered Caldwell a “cancer,” and even speculated that Caldwell “tried to stab [him] in the back” during his tenure as manager.40 Still, Rodgers was out and Harvey Kuenn was in as the skipper, marking the start of a summer filled with Brewers wins.

Caldwell nearly wasn’t a part of the team for the entire season. According to Vic Feuerherd, then of the Milwaukee Journal, the Brewers were considering a trade that would have sent him to the Texas Rangers for Doc Medich.41 In the end, the Brewers did not pull the trigger. Caldwell did his best to help the team’s cause down the stretch, finishing the regular season with a 3.91 ERA in 258 innings, his highest workload since his outstanding 1978 campaign.

At the onset of the postseason, Caldwell appeared to still be on his way out the door. In his lone start in the American League Championship Series against the California Angels, he lasted just three innings, allowing six runs (five earned) on seven hits and a walk. However, the Brewers won the series and trusted Mr. Warmth enough to let him take the hill for Game One of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Caldwell rewarded their confidence in him with a shutout, allowing just three hits and a walk. He got the ball again for Game Five and managed to scrape out a victory despite allowing 14 hits in 8⅓ innings. His luck ran out by the end of the Series as he was called upon to get the final out of the eighth inning in Game Seven and wound up giving up two run-scoring hits as the Cardinals took the Series.

Caldwell was dismayed by the end result, but was grateful to even be put in the position to win. He said, “I think more than anything else in the world, I wanted to win it for Harvey Kuenn. Even above getting a ring, getting the money, getting all that stuff in the winter, I wanted to win it for Harvey. Just below that, for Bud Selig and Harry Dalton and the Brewers organization. It’s the finest organization I’ve ever played for and I don’t think I’ll ever get a chance to play for a better one.”42

Caldwell’s strong performance in the World Series didn’t carry over to the next couple of seasons. The 1983 season started off well enough: He was one of three Brewers pitchers to open the season with complete games. However, he soon fell off and concluded the season with a 12-11 record and a 4.53 ERA, his worst ERA since his time in the National League. He got off to a hot start in 1984, but an ankle injury sidelined him for a bit in May. This problem seemingly hampered him the rest of the year, leading to a demotion to the bullpen, a 6-13 record and a 4.64 ERA in 126 innings pitched.

Adding to the list of issues was an ongoing drug probe by the commissioner’s office that accused Caldwell and fellow Brewer Paul Molitor of using cocaine. The two-year investigation concluded with no action being taken against the pair.43

Between the decline in performance and the off-field allegations, it seemed that Caldwell’s time in Milwaukee was coming to an end. The Brewers made that notion a reality before the 1985 season, waiving the nearly 36-year-old hurler in order to make room on the roster for Rollie Fingers, who returned to the team on a two-year pact.44 Caldwell remained optimistic despite being cut, stating, “I’m glad they did it now instead of two, three weeks into spring training. This way, I’ll have a chance to catch on with someone.”45 That chance didn’t come, though, effectively ending Caldwell’s big-league playing career.

Although he left the game with little more than a murmur, Caldwell was heralded for his bountiful pitching career. He was inducted into the North Carolina State University Hall of Fame in 2013 on the basis of his collegiate and professional accomplishments.46 In 2014 the Brewers inducted him into the Wall of Honor, which honors “Brewers players, coaches and executives (for their) service to the organization and/or career accomplishments.”47 While it’s not the Walk of Fame, which is more akin to other teams’ Hall of Fame, it’s still a prestigious honor.

Caldwell finished his career with a 3.81 ERA and a 137-130 record in 475 appearances (307 of which were starts). While his hot demeanor sometimes spoke louder than his performance, there’s no denying that Mr. Warmth has a prominent place in Brewer lore for nearly helping to deliver a World Series title to Milwaukee.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also relied upon Baseball-Reference.com.

Notes

1 Phil Collier, “Padres Lift Eyes to Caldwell for Pitching Help,” The Sporting News, March 3, 1973: 22.

2 Vic Feuerherd, “Trade Winds Start to Blow/Fiery Starter Mike Caldwell Was One Brewer on the Trading Block in the Summer of 1982.” Madison.com, August 12, 2007.

3 “1968 Wolfpack Baseball,” North Carolina State Library, accessed April 29, 2019.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 Mike Caldwell NC State Athletic Hall of Fame bio, accessed April 1, 2019. gopack.com/hof.aspx?hof=12.

7 Daniel Okrent, Nine Innings (New York: Book Sales, 1985), 111-112.

8 Phil Collier, “Meteoric Rise by Padres’ Caldwell,” The Sporting News, April 1, 1972: 36.

9 Paul Cour, “Padres’ Farms Produce Trio of Future Phenoms,” The Sporting News, September 25, 1971: 29.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Phil Collier, “Meteoric Rise by Padres’ Caldwell.”

14 Phil Collier, “Padres Lift Eyes to Caldwell for Pitching Help.”

15 Phil Collier, “Padres Unzip Their Wallet, Pocket Big Mac and Matty,” The Sporting News, November 10, 1973: 26.

16 Ibid.

17 Ibid.

18 Pat Frizzell, “McCovey Trade Irks Giants’ Fans,” The Sporting News, November 10, 1973: 38.

19 Pat Frizzell, “Only Giants’ Hill in Air as Fox Selects a Lineup,” The Sporting News, March 9, 1974: 39.

20 Ibid.

21 Neal Russo, “Cards Swing 3-for-3 Deal — And They’re Not Through,” The Sporting News, November 6, 1976: 21.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 Ibid.

25 “Brewers Get Lefty from Reds,” Milwaukee Journal, June 16, 1977: 21.

26 Bob Wolf, “Brewers Still Lack Pitching,” Milwaukee Journal, June 16, 1977: 21.

27 Ibid.

28 Ibid.

29 Mike Gonring, “Caldwell Battles Back to Gain A.L. Honors,” The Sporting News, November 25, 1978: 39.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Okrent, 111-112.

33 “Caldwell Under Scrutiny,” The Sporting News, April 28, 1979: 36.

34 Tom Flaherty, “Injury Fails to Shake Caldwell,” The Sporting News, December 15, 1979: 54.

35 Ibid.

36 Feuerherd.

37 Hal Bodley, “Phils Disgusted; Deals Collapse,” The Sporting News, January 2, 1982: 38.

38 Okrent.

39 Feuerherd.

40 Tom Flaherty, “Fired Rogers ‘Saw It Coming,’” The Sporting News, June 14, 1982: 25.

41 Feuerherd.

42 Tom Flaherty, “A Dream Ends for Caldwell,” The Sporting News, November 1, 1982: 29.

43 Stan Isle, “No Action in Brewers’ Drug Probe,” The Sporting News, November 19, 1984: 57.

44 Tom Flaherty, “Fingers Is Sticking With Brewers,” The Sporting News, January 21, 1985: 38.

45 Ibid.

46 Mike Caldwell NC State Athletic Hall of Fame bio, accessed April 1, 2019. gopack.com/hof.aspx?hof=12.

47 “Wall of Honor,” Brewers.com, accessed April 15, 2019. mlb.com/brewers/ballpark/attractions/wall-of-honor.

Cecil Cooper was born on December 20, 1949, in Brenham, Texas, a city of 13,000 located 70 miles northwest of Houston. Raised in nearby Independence, Cooper was the youngest of 13 children – seven boys and six girls. Cooper’s mother, Ocie, died when he was just 10. His ball-playing father, Roy, worked with a nearby Department of Public Works. A left-hander who grew to 6-feet-2, Cecil was taught baseball by his brothers John, Sylvester, and Jessie. John and Sylvester later played with the barnstorming Indianapolis Clowns.2 John was a pitcher while Sylvester was a catcher who, according to Cecil, once caught Satchel Paige. According to the 1980 Sports Illustrated story, Cecil’s father, Roy, also played in the Negro Leagues.

Cooper followed his brothers, playing ball for three years at the all-black Pickard High School, and transferring his senior year to the integrated Brenham High School. At Pickard High, he won two state championships under coach Henry Rogers. Intending to go to college after his graduation, Cecil was spotted by Boston Red Sox scout Dave Philley and was drafted by Boston in the sixth round of the 1968 amateur draft. He opted to take courses at Blinn Junior College and Prairie View A&M during the offseason. St. Louis took Cooper in the Rule 5 draft in November 1970, but returned Cooper to the Red Sox on April 5, 1971. He spent five seasons in the minor leagues (in Jamestown, Greenville, Danville, Winston-Salem, Louisville, and Pawtucket), hitting a combined .327 with 45 home runs and 298 RBIs.

Called up from Double-A Pawtucket after batting .343, Cooper made his major-league debut with the Red Sox on September 8, 1971, pinch-hitting for Roger Moret and grounding to second against Yankees pitcher Jack Aker. He got his first hit three days later, a pinch single off the Tigers’ Joe Coleman. He hit .310 in 42 at-bats that month.

It was thought that Cooper had a shot at the starting job in 1972, but just before the start of the season, the Red Sox acquired Danny Cater from the Yankees and sent Cooper to Triple-A Louisville. Another fine campaign in the minors produced a .315 average, thanks to a league-leading 162 hits, Cooper returned to Boston in September, but got just 17 at-bats during the tight pennant race that saw the Red Sox fall a half-game short.

Despite Cater’s shortcomings, Cooper again failed to stick with the Red Sox in 1973, as the team elected to move Carl Yastrzemski back to first base. Cecil was sent to Pawtucket, now the Triple-A affiliate, where he hit .293 with 15 home runs. This time he was recalled before the rosters expanded, first playing on August 24 and playing nearly full-time the rest of the season. In 30 games and 101 at-bats, Cooper hit .238 with his first three major-league home runs. His first round-tripper was struck on September 7 at Fenway Park off the Tigers’ Bob Miller.

In 1974 Cooper was the team’s Opening Day first baseman, hitting third in the lineup. New manager Darrell Johnson used a lot of lineups, trying to divide playing time at first base, left field, and designated hitter among Cooper, Yastrzemski, Cater, Tommy Harper, and Bernie Carbo. Cooper ended up playing 74 games at first and 41 more as the designated hitter, getting most of the starts when facing right-handed pitchers. He hit .275 in 414 at-bats.

Cooper did not have a good defensive reputation early in his career, which is why he spent a lot of time as a designated hitter. For 1975, the Red Sox had two rookie outfielders (Jim Rice and Fred Lynn), plus the comebacking Tony Conigliaro, who initially won the DH job. Cooper would have to beat out a lot of people in order to get a chance to play. At the end of May, he was the odd man out, getting just six hits in 24 at-bats. He persevered, and by late June he was platooning against right-handed pitchers. He ended up hitting .311 with 14 home runs in 305 at-bats.

One of the team’s hottest hitters in August and September, Cecil had a scary moment on September 7. In the second game of a doubleheader against the Milwaukee Brewers, he was hit in the face by future teammate Bill Travers. Cooper was carried off on a stretcher and was bleeding from his nose and mouth. The incident hampered his performance the rest of the season. With Jim Rice’s wrist injury requiring Carl Yastrzemski to play left field, Cooper had first base to himself for most of the postseason. He was 4-for-10 in the ALCS against Oakland but just 1-for-19 in the World Series against Cincinnati.

Playing in 123 games in 1976 while again splitting time between first base and designated hitter, Cooper hit .282 with 15 homers and 78 RBIs. After the season manager Don Zimmer told Cooper that he would become Boston’s regular first baseman. This was not to be the case, as on December 6, 1976, Cooper was traded to the Milwaukee Brewers for two former Red Sox, first baseman George Scott and outfielder Bernie Carbo.

The trade was not particularly popular in either Boston or Milwaukee. Brewers owner Bud Selig was told by other AL East clubs that if you “keep making trades like that you will be in last place forever.”3 In 1976 the Brewers finished last in the American League East with a record of 66-95. The extremely popular Scott had first played in a Red Sox uniform from 1966 to 1971 and had posted several good seasons for the Brewers. But neither Scott nor Carbo ever again had the kind of success they had achieved in earlier seasons. And Cecil Cooper would become a legend in Milwaukee.

Cooper was a clutch contact hitter who could hit for both average and power. He kept putting up such solidly consistent numbers year after year that it was easy to overlook his achievements. In his first year in Milwaukee, he hit .300; in his second year he hit .312; and in 1979 Cooper hit .308. He had a league-leading 44 doubles in 1979. Former Milwaukee player-coach Sal Bando once said of him, “Cecil Cooper can beat you with a home run or a flare to left or a bunt. And he can field his position. You have guys who can hit home runs and guys who can hit singles. But not many can do both. Cecil can.”4

Playing for a small-market team in the Midwest allowed Cooper to thrive, and in 1980 he did just that. He hit better than .300 in every month of the season finishing with a.352 average, 25 home runs, 219 hits, and an American League-leading 122 RBIs. His season was largely overlooked because Kansas Royals third baseman George Brett flirted with a .400 batting average, settling for .390. The unassuming Cooper said, “With Brett hitting close to .400 all year, I didn’t expect to get much publicity, and I didn’t have any trouble living with that.”5

Cooper was part of a record game in 1980. On April 12, in an 18-1 Brewers rout of the Red Sox, he and infielder/DH Don Money connected for two grand slams in the same inning. It was only the fourth time the feat had been accomplished in the major leagues. (There have been two since, most recently in 1999, when Fernando Tatis of the St. Cardinals hit two grand slams in one inning.) In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the Brewers franchise was moving up in the standings, finishing with 93 wins in 1978 and 95 wins in 1979. In 1981, in a strike-shortened split season, the New York Yankees won the first half in the AL East while the Brewers finished first in the second half. This set the stage for a best-of-five divisional playoff between the two clubs, which the Yankees won in five games. Cooper hit .320 with 12 home runs in the abbreviated campaign.

In 1982 first baseman Cooper was at the heart of the one of the era’s great lineups, batting third behind Paul Molitor and Robin Yount, and in front of Ted Simmons, Gorman Thomas, and Charlie Moore. Cooper hit .313 with 32 home runs and 121 runs batted in. On October 3, 1982, in a game deciding the American League East championship, the Brewers defeated the Baltimore Orioles 10-2, closing out the season with a mark of 95-67. They eliminated the California Angels in five games in the American League Championship Series, becoming the first team to come back from a two-games-to-none deficit and win a best-of-five postseason series. In the decisive Game Five, Jim Gantner and Charlie Moore scored on Cooper’s seventh-inning bases-loaded single. In a gesture reminiscent of former teammate Carlton Fisk, who waved his arms to keep the ball fair in Game Six of the ’75 Series, Cooper motioned for the ball to get down. “I remember thinking, ‘Get down ball, get down.’ The crowd was so loud I couldn’t really hear myself saying anything, but I just wanted to keep waving so that ball would fall in there.”6 Overall he hit just 3-for-20 in the League Championship Series.

The 1982 World Series was called the Suds Series because it pitted the two of America’s largest beer-brewing cities against each other. The National League champion St. Louis Cardinals featured first baseman Keith Hernandez and future Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith. Cooper homered in a losing effort in Game Three, and his 8-for-28 record was not enough, as his team lost in seven games.

Cooper’s teammate Robin Yount won the American League MVP award, and just as in 1980 when he lost to George Brett, Cooper finished fifth in the voting. Yount hit .331 with 29 home runs and 114 RBIs. “Maybe I’m the Lou Gehrig of my time … always in the shadows of someone else,” Cooper said. “He’s a pretty good role model, though.”7

While in Milwaukee, Cooper wrote a column for the Brewers’ magazine, What’s Brewing? He wrote about everything from his baseball experiences to how youngsters could get autographs from their favorite players. In 1983 Cooper won baseball’s coveted Roberto Clemente Award for his community service. Cooper worked with Athletes for Youth, a Milwaukee inner-city program, teaching children about baseball, and was honorary chairman of both the Kidney Foundation of Wisconsin and the 1982 Food for Families Project. Bud Selig said of Cooper, “I think Cecil does a lot more than any of us know. Cecil is shy. What he does, he prefers to do in anonymity.”8

Cooper played for the Brewers until 1987, and as he passed through the mid-30s his batting average and power numbers fell off, although he did make the AL All-Star squads in 1983 and 1985. Named as a reserve for both games, he did make appearances as a pinch-hitter in both Midsummer Classics. He retired from major-league baseball in 1987 but did play a month in the Senior Professional Baseball Association in 1989. Appearing in 16 games with the Winter Haven Super Sox, Cooper hit .407 with three home runs and 15 RBIs. During this time he also served as a player agent for CSMG International.

In 1996 he became farm director for the Brewers. In 2002 Cooper returned to the dugout as the Brewers bench coach. In 2005 and 2004 Cooper managed the Brewers’ Triple-A affiliate Indianapolis Indians. In 2005, he took advantage of an opportunity to return to his native Texas and served as the bench coach for Houston Astros manager Phil Garner.

On August 27, 2007, Cooper was named interim manager after Garner was fired, becoming the team’s first African-American skipper. On September 28 the interim tag was removed and Cooper was signed to a two-year contract as the Astros’ manager. In 2008 the Astros (86-75) finished in third place in the National League Central Division.

On September 21, 2009, though they had picked up Cooper’s option for 2010, the Astros fired him with 13 games left in the season and the club at 70-79. Fairly or unfairly, he was dismissed from a team had a high payroll and aging stars who weren’t performing to expectations. Overall, Cooper’s record as a manager was 171-170.

Through 2014, Cooper held the Brewers’ season record for hits (219 in 1980) and singles (157, also 1980), and was second in RBIs (126 in 1983). He was ranked fourth in Brewers career batting average (.302), third in hits (1,815) and doubles (345), and fourth in at-bats (6019) and games played (1490). He was second in RBIs with 994. His single-season average of .352 in 1980 was the team’s second best, just behind Paul Molitor’s .353 in 1987.

In his hometown of Brenham, a field was dedicated in Cooper’s honor and his number was retired at Brenham High School. In 2002 he was inducted into the Walk of Fame at the Brewers’ Miller Park. That same year he was inducted into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame.

In 2014 Cooper was among 58 former Brewers who were inducted into the Wall of Honor outside Miller Park.

As of 2014 Cooper lived in Katy, Texas with his wife, Octavia. There are three daughters: Kelly (born in 1978), Brittany (1987), and Tori (1993).

A version of this biography appeared in “’75: The Red Sox Team That Saved Baseball” (Rounder Books, 2005; SABR, 2015), edited by Bill Nowlin and Cecilia Tan.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tom Skibosh, Jim Long, Howard Bryant, Cecil Cooper (June 2005), and the late Merle Harmon for their contributions.

Sources

Chass, Murray, “What Cecil Cooper Can Do,” New York Times, June 27, 1982.

Cotton, Anthony, “No Condolences, please,” Sports Illustrated, September 22, 1980. Although there is no record by SABR’s Negro Leagues Committee, this SI issue and Cooper himself in a June 2005 interview said that his brothers played for the Indianapolis Clowns.

Elderkin, Phil, “Brewer Who Chased Brett: Milwaukee’s Cecil Cooper Hits Anything,” Christian Science Monitor, October 7, 1980.

Fimrite, Ron, “I’m the Lou Gehrig of My Time,” Sports Illustrated, September 19, 1983.

Flaherty, Tom, “Cooper Earns Clemente Prize,” The Sporting News, February 28. 1983.

Gammons, Peter, “Cooper groggy, but in one piece,” Boston Globe, September 8, 1975.

Guiliotti, Joe, “Cecil Cooper: He Would Rather be No. 1!” Baseball Digest, June 1981.

Hoffmann, Gregg, Down in the Valley: The History of Milwaukee County Stadium (Milwaukee: The Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, 2000).

Leerhsen, Charles, “Harvey’s Wallbangers,” Newsweek, August 2, 1982.

astros.com

baseballlibrary.com

baseball-reference.com

milwaukeebrewers.com

Notes

After leaving the military he had a brief stint as a sportswriter in Springfield. After the 1953 season, the St. Louis Browns franchise relocated to Baltimore. Coincidentally, Harry’s parents had moved there earlier, and in early 1954, while in Baltimore to visit his parents, Dalton phoned the Orioles and asked for an interview and was hired by scouting director Jim McLaughlin as a gofer in the Orioles organization. The job paid so little that Dalton had to drive a taxicab at night just to make ends meet.

McLaughlin was so impressed with the young man’s intelligence and work ethic that he moved him over to the baseball operations side to become his assistant. During his stint as farm assistant, Dalton was put in charge of the Birds’ minor-league spring camp in Thomasville, Georgia.

Just prior to the two major-league All-Star Games in 1960, he married Pat Booker on July 9, 1960. The couple had originally met on a blind date. They had three daughters – Kimberly (1962), Cynthia (1965), and Debbie (1967.)

Before the 1961 season, McLaughlin left the Orioles after a dispute with manager Paul Richards over the signing of pitcher Dave McNally. Ironically, Richards left the Orioles late in the 1961 season to accept the general managership of the expansion Houston Colt .45s.

General manager Lee MacPhail replaced McLaughlin with the 32-year-old Dalton, who assumed his new position on February 1, 1961. Dalton, having spent seven years under McLaughlin, had developed a reputation as a man with good baseball sense and a wonderful memory for names and maintained the work ethic which had first secured him the job. The Orioles farm system had been magnificently successful under McLaughlin so Dalton decided in the early days to maintain the status quo. Dalton later credited McLaughlin with training him well. That training led to a smooth transition from assistant to farm director.

Among the things Dalton did in his first year on the job was to name Cal Ripken, Sr., a 25-year-old catcher in the Orioles farm system, as player-manager of the Class D farm club at Leesburg, Florida. Ripken would manage the major-league team a quarter of a century later.

Dalton was very proud of his scouts and gave them a lot of credit for the success of the team’s minor-league system. In the minor-league draft of December 1962 the Orioles lost an astounding 18 players to other organizations. While disappointed in losing so many players, Dalton also noted that the losses were a credit to the scouts who had signed so many talented players. Dalton gave his scouts a lot of leeway in negotiating with potential signees. He asked only that they call him in the cases where a particular signee might require a large bonus.

During his nearly five years in the position of farm director, the Orioles produced such talent as Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Boog Powell, and Dave Johnson.

In the autumn of 1965, new Commissioner of Major League Baseball Spike Eckert brought Oriole president and general manager Lee MacPhail aboard to assist him in baseball matters. MacPhail’s departure led to a reorganization of the Orioles’ front office. Chairman of the Board Jerry Hoffberger assumed MacPhail’s former role as team president with Frank Cashen assuming the executive vice presidency. Cashen was put in charge of improving the club’s public image and increasing ticket sales. While Dalton would be reporting to Cashen, Cashen was given no power in player moves. This power was vested entirely in the 37-year-old Dalton.

Dalton was named to replace MacPhail in his role as director of player personnel. At the time of his appointment, MacPhail had been working on a trade with the Reds to bring outfielder Frank Robinson into the fold. Dalton’s first move was to try and get an additional player out of the Reds.

In what is still considered one of the most lopsided trades in baseball history, Dalton obtained the future Hall of Famer for pitchers Milt Pappas and Jack Baldschun and minor-league outfielder Dick Simpson. The trade was finalized on Dalton’s third day in his new job. Robinson had recently reached his 30th birthday and the Reds were concerned that he was about to enter the downside of his career. As it turned out, nothing could have been further from the truth. All Robinson did in his first year in Baltimore was to win the American League Triple Crown and the league’s MVP award.

Dalton immediately divided the team’s minor-league operation into two separate arms. Lou Gorman was put in charge of player development while Walter Shannon was put in charge of scouting. Shannon had spent 27 years as a scout with the Cardinals during which he was involved in the signings of players such as Bob Gibson and Tim McCarver. Gorman was a minor-league general manager before Dalton hired him.

In 1966, Dalton’s first year at the helm, the Orioles, managed by Hank Bauer, won the American League pennant with a 97-63 record, finishing nine games ahead of the second-place Twins. As they were coming down the stretch, Dalton tried to make a trade for additional pitching but found the price was too high. Teams wanted some Triple A talent and Dalton was unwilling to mortgage the team’s future. It was the first pennant the team had won in their 13 seasons in Baltimore. The Orioles were led by the bat of Robinson, who won the league’s MVP award, and second-year pitcher Jim Palmer who led the team with 15 wins.

During their pennant-winning season, Dalton proposed cutting the major-league schedule from 162 games to 144. He cited three reasons for the proposal. One: fans feel the season is too long; two, players get tired and their performances suffer as a result; three: a shorter season would lengthen the career of most players. Dalton’s plan called for the season to begin in late April and run until mid-September. This, other league executives noted, would not help ease the problem of fatigue as the schedule would require the same number of trips. The proposal was not accepted, and the schedule remained at 162 games.

In 1967 the Orioles fell from the top of the league standings to sixth. This was due in part to a sore shoulder suffered by Jim Palmer that limited him to nine starts and a 3-1 record. The Orioles quickly proved the 1967 season was an anomaly by rising to a second-place finish in 1968.

After Bauer got the team off to a 43-37 record at the All-Star break in 1968, he was fired by Dalton. The firing took place less than two years after Bauer led the team to their first World Series title. He was replaced by Earl Weaver who had been a longtime manager in the Orioles chain. Weaver took the team to a second-place finish in the league.

In his first three full seasons at the helm, 1969-71, Weaver led the team not only to the AL East title but to the World Series as well. This was a great credit to Dalton who as farm director and director of player personnel had led the Orioles in their development of such players as Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, and Boog Powell. In those three seasons, the Orioles won one World Series (in 1970) and lost two. The World Series title led to Dalton being named Major League Executive of the Year for 1970.

In late October 1971, Dalton accepted an offer from Angels owner Gene Autry to leave Baltimore and become executive vice-president and general manager in Anaheim. The five-year deal, at a reported $60,000 per year, included stock options. Oriole President Jerry Hoffberger originally charged Autry with tampering for stealing Dalton away from Baltimore but later stated that he only asked Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to prevent teams from talking directly with personnel from another organization in the future.

One of Dalton’s first moves as Angels general manager was to swap longtime Angels shortstop Jim Fregosi to the Mets for four players, one of whom was future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan. The trade, which took place three months after Dalton assumed his new position, reaffirmed his reputation as a shrewd trader and a keen judge of talent.

Despite the emergence of Ryan as one of the American League’s best starting pitchers, Dalton was unable to duplicate the success he had had in Baltimore. In six seasons at the helm of the Angels he failed to produce a winning season and was never able to rise above fourth place in the AL West. At the end of the six years, Autry decided to replace Dalton with former Padres President Buzzie Bavasi. Autry announced that Dalton would remain with the Angels and left in charge of player trades and free agent negotiations while Bavasi would oversee baseball operations.

On November 21, 1977, Milwaukee Brewers president Bud Selig fired both GM Jim Baumer and field manager Alex Grammas. After receiving Autry’s permission to talk with Dalton, Selig hired Harry as his GM.

Dalton took over a Brewers team that had finished sixth in 1977 and had never had a winning season in the franchise’s nine-year history. But all was not bad. Four days before hiring Dalton, Selig had managed to lure defending AL RBI leader Larry Hisle from the Twins by signing him as a free agent.

Selig granted Dalton full power in all player moves. Coming to Milwaukee along with Dalton were Walter Shannon, Walter Youse, and Roy Poitevint. This group became known as Dalton’s Gang as they loyally followed him from Baltimore to the Angels and then to the Brewers.

With just weeks to go before the start of his first spring training in Milwaukee, Dalton named George Bamberger as his manager. Bamberger had been the pitching coach in Baltimore when Dalton was there and continued in that role until Dalton lured him away. Milwaukee was pitching-poor and Dalton valued Bamberger’s work in Baltimore.

It turned out to be a good move; the 1978 Brewers turned in the first winning season in franchise history going 93-69, good for third place in the AL East. They were spurred on by the emergence of Rookie of the Year candidate Paul Molitor and pitcher Mike Caldwell who won 22 games in ’78. Molitor finished second to Lou Whitaker in ROY voting.

The Brewers continued to win going into the early 1980s. In 1979 they won a franchise-record 95 games finishing second in the AL East – behind the Orioles. After posting a third-straight winning season in 1980 the Brewers made the first postseason appearance in franchise history in 1981. In that strike-ravaged season, the Brewers won the second-half title in the AL Eastern Division but lost the playoff to first-half champion New York Yankees. The Brewers were led by Cy Young Award-winning reliever Rollie Fingers, who also won the League’s MVP that year.

The Brewers entered the 1982 season with high hopes of winning a division title. The team got off to a slow start and manager Buck Rodgers found himself fired after a 23-24 start; he was replaced by hitting coach Harvey Kuenn, who took over the reins and led the team to their first-ever World Series appearance. They took it to the seventh game before losing to the Cardinals. Dalton’s accomplishment was recognized with his second Major League Executive of The Year honor.

Dalton was never able to return his team to that level of success, and team owner Bud Selig was forced to release him following the 1991 season. Selig replaced Dalton with assistant GM Sal Bando. Bando was hired in the hopes that his business acumen would help the financially-strapped franchise rebound. Dalton remained as a consultant in the team’s front office through the 1994 season at which time he retired.

Dalton’s contributions to the franchise were recognized when he was inducted into the Brewers Walk of Fame outside Miller Park in July of 2003. Dalton retired to Scottsdale, Arizona, and died there of complications from Lewy body disease, misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease, on October 23, 2005. Dalton was 77 years old.

Sources

Telephone interview with Pat Dalton, May 23, 2012.

Daniel Okrent, Nine Innings (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1989)

The Sporting News, January 25, 1961.

The Sporting News, June 12, 1961.

The Sporting News, November 1, 1961.

The Sporting News, December 6, 1965.

The Sporting News, December 18, 1965.

The Sporting News, January 29, 1966.

The Sporting News, August 13, 1966.

The Sporting News, September 17, 1966.

The Sporting News, November 5, 1977.

The Sporting News, November 12, 1977.

The Sporting News, December 3, 1977.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Dalton

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BAL/1968-schedule-scores.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BAL/

http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ryanno01.shtml

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/MIL/

In 1960, Pat made his professional debut with the Durham Bulls, at that time a Class A Detroit affiliate. He compiled a 7–9 record, striking out 137 batters in 157 innings, but he also walked 98. The following year was split between Knoxville and Durham. His 4–10 record was reflected by his elevated WHIP (walks plus hits per innings pitched) of 2.01 over 119 innings. In 1962, Pat pitched for Montgomery, going 8–7. He significantly lowered his WHIP to 1.39 and struck out better than a batter per inning. He finished the year with Duluth-Superior in the Northern League, appearing in four games and being treated rather roughly by opposing teams.

The 1963 season found Pat still toiling in the lower minors, starting with Jamestown in the New York-Penn League and finishing in Knoxville of the Double A South Atlantic League. He showed some promise by year’s end, winning five and losing one at Knoxville with an impressive 1.33 ERA. Dobson began 1964 in Knoxville, reclassified a Double A club, and in midseason was promoted to the Tigers’ Triple A farm team in Syracuse. He struggled a bit with the top minor league talent and was demoted to Double A Montgomery in 1965. There he appeared in only 17 games, going 4–1. He finished the year back in Syracuse, pitching four times in relief. Pat spent the winter playing ball in Puerto Rico. He said later that his success there was instrumental in rebuilding his confidence.

Dobson was at a crossroads in 1966. He didn’t believe he was getting a real chance in the Detroit organization. He found himself on loan to Cleveland’s Portland team in the Triple A Pacific Coast League. Dobson started slowly, not getting into the starting rotation until the third week of the season. Despite missing a week to bursitis, he ended up becoming one of the top pitchers in the league. Pat finished with a record of 12–9 and an 3.45 ERA. His manager, John Lipon, remarked, “Pat’s got a good fast ball and slider, and at times a good curve. In fact, when he gets his big curve working effectively, he reminds me of Tommy Bridges.” Pat played winter ball that year in the Dominican League and was one of the most impressive American pitchers, jumping out to a 3–0 record.

Dobson started 1967 with the Triple A Toledo Mud Hens, by then the Tigers’ top farm team. After an impressive 4–1 start, he was called up to the parent club. He made his major league debut May 31, 1967, against Cleveland. He came into the game in the sixth inning with a runner on second and promptly surrendered a run-scoring single. He settled down and got the next two batters. In the seventh inning he surrendered a two-run home run to Leon Wagner. In his inning and two-thirds, Pat gave up two runs on four hits, but did not walk a batter and recorded three strikeouts. He was in the major leagues to stay.

Dobson appeared in 28 games in his rookie season. Initially, he was used only in Detroit blowout losses. But on August 2 Pat came in and pitched three strong innings against the Orioles to preserve a 1–0 lead. Manager Mayo Smith showed great confidence in the rookie by leaving Dobson in to start the ninth inning. But disaster struck when Pat walked Frank Robinson and then gave up a game-ending home run to Brooks Robinson. Still, his strong showing earned him his only start of the 1967 season on August 6 in the nightcap of a doubleheader against Cleveland. He surrendered four runs in the first inning, three of them coming on a Duke Sims homer. He left for a pinch-hitter in the top of the third, trailing 4–0. Dobson ended up with the loss as the Tigers fell 6–3. Then, from August 16 through September 15, Pat strung together eight appearances with 18.1 innings of shutout relief. Mayo Smith called him “the most improved pitcher on the staff.” Dobson earned his first major league victory September 9 against the Chicago White Sox when the Tigers overcame a 3–0 deficit by scoring seven runs in the ninth inning. His scoreless string ended abruptly September 17 against Washington as he surrendered a three-run home run to the Senators’ Hank Allen that turned a close game into a rout. Smith didn’t use Dobson again until the final game of the season when he faced two California Angels, walking the first and giving up a sacrifice before being pulled in favor of Mickey Lolich in a Detroit defeat. The Tigers saw the 1967 pennant go to the Boston Red Sox.

Pat spent the winter playing ball in Puerto Rico. He impressed a lot of baseball men when he rewrote the record books December 10, 1967, by striking out 21 batters, eclipsing Juan Pizzaro’s old league mark of 19.

Dobson entered 1968 full of confidence. He developed a strong working relationship with pitching coach Johnny Sain. Pat said Sain told him that he gripped the ball too tight and was teaching him to relax. As Dobson explained, “This gives my pitches better movement, better everything.” Sain also taught him a different grip for his slider; it became his best pitch. Dobson commented, “I can throw it anytime I want to for a strike. I used to have a slider that was flat. It broke away from a right-handed hitter. The one Sain gave me is better because it dips.”

Dobson worked a couple of innings in relief of Earl Wilson during the April 10 opening day loss to Boston. He contributed two scoreless innings in each of two Tigers come-from-behind victories in April. He then had a bad outing against the Yankees, allowing three batters to reach base without recording an out; he also threw two wild pitches. But the Tigers once again rallied for the victory. Pat got little work from manager Smith the first two months. He appeared in only 10 games, working 12 innings. On June 1, he was called upon to relieve Les Cain, who had been knocked around by the Yankees for four runs in the first inning. Pat shut the Yankees down for 5.2 innings, and the Tigers came back to win the game.

Following an injury to Earl Wilson, Dobson and John Hiller undertook several starts in his place. Pat hurled a complete-game shutout at Boston June 4. Coach Wally Moses called it the Tigers’ most important victory of the season. A week later he earned a victory against the Minnesota Twins, allowing just one run in 7.2 innings, while striking out 10 batters. He had a string of 25 scoreless innings snapped by a Tony Oliva home run. Three days later he pitched five scoreless innings in relief as the Tigers went on to beat the White Sox in 14 innings. Pat saved the second game of a doubleheader against Chicago June 16. Over the next eight days he racked up two more saves. On June 21, Dobson came on to start the tenth inning and shut the Indians down through the twelfth. When the Tigers took the lead in the top of the thirteenth, Pat was in line for another victory. But he surrendered a single to Duke Sims and a home run to Tony Horton. Pat bounced back to save three more games before the All-Star break. In a string of 13 games won by the Tigers, Dobson won one and saved five.

Dobson’s contributions weren’t limited to the ball field. He had a flair for having fun with his teammates. He coined nicknames for many of them, including “Pizza” for Tom Matchick in honor of his red hair. He also hung the name “Ratso” on his roommate John Hiller, naming him after the Dustin Hoffman character in the movie Midnight Cowboy. He said, “When I fool around in the bullpen, I do it for a purpose. I stay relaxed and so do the guys around me.” Pat was known simply as “Dobber,” a nickname he carried the rest of his life. Bill Freehan emphasized Pat’s competitiveness. “He goes after the hitters now and really challenges them. The pressure is on them, not him.”

The Tigers appeared sluggish after the All-Star break. They dropped five out of eight games heading into a big four-game series with the Baltimore Orioles. In the first game, the Tigers trailed 4–2 in the ninth inning as Dobson came in to retire the side. When Matchick hit a dramatic two-run homer with two out and a 3–2 count on him, Dobson ended up with his third win of the season. Two days later Mayo needed a starter for the second game of a doubleheader against the O’s. Dobson only lasted 2.1 innings, giving up two runs on four hits and a walk to suffer his second loss of the season. He started once again in Washington on August 1 and was handed another defeat as he gave up a grand slam to light-hitting Ron Hansen. Pat got five more starts in August, losing two and getting no decisions in the other three games. He pitched well in the games he lost, falling 5–3 and 1–0. Twice the bullpen cost him victories. Eventually, however, Joe Sparma was returned to the starting rotation, and Pat was sent back to the bullpen.

Dobson started September off with a bang, winning back-to-back games against the Oakland A’s in relief, then saving the third game of the series. He was given another starting assignment against the Twins. Dobson pitched brilliantly except for two pitches to rookie Graig Nettles that were lined into the seats. The second one proved to be the winner in a 2–1 loss for the Tigers. Pat appeared in only four of the last 19 games, for a total of six innings. He got a save and took two losses in those four games. His final numbers for the pennant-winning Detroit Tigers were 5–8, a 2.66 ERA, and seven saves. He pitched in 125 innings and had an impressive WHIP of 1.10. He led the staff with 47 appearances.

Dobson appeared in the three games the Tigers lost in the 1968 World Series. He mopped up for Denny McLain in Game 1, allowing a home run to Lou Brock. In the third game, he came on for an injured Earl Wilson with the Tigers up 2–1 and two runners on. He got Orlando Cepeda out, but gave up a three-run home run to Tim McCarver as the Cardinals went on to win the game 7–3. His final appearance was in Game 4, in which he shut down the Cards for two innings on one hit.

In 1969 Pat appeared in 49 games, winning five games, losing ten, and saving nine. As in 1968, he worked as both a starter and reliever. He had one complete-game victory on July 1 against the Red Sox. He appeared in his last game as a Tiger on September 16, pitching two scoreless innings against the Yankees. His season ended prematurely when Wayne Redmond jumped on the little toe of his left foot after being startled by a mouse in the dugout.

Dobson once again went to Puerto Rico for winter ball. While down there he railed against Detroit management for firing pitching coach Johnny Sain and not making any moves during the season. He criticized the Tigers’ aging infield and declared that General Manager Jim Campbell had “no guts to make the trades we need to make.” On December 4, 1969, Campbell promptly made a trade, sending Pat Dobson and Dave Campbell to the San Diego Padres for Joe Niekro.

Despite going from a perennial contender to a second-year expansion team, Dobson was excited to finally get a chance to be a full-time starter. He beat the Atlanta Braves 8–3 on opening day in San Diego. He struck out six batters, including Hank Aaron. For the season, Dobson compiled a 14–15 record for the worst team in the National League. He was a workhorse for the Padres, starting 34 games and even picking up a save in six relief appearances. Despite pitching on a bad knee all year, Pat was not about to give up his spot in the rotation now that he was a starting pitcher. “I waited three years to become a regular starter. They can have the bullpen” Dobson said. He said being in the rotation allowed him to work on his control. “It was excellent discipline. And I learned that control pitchers get the corners from the umpires,” he said. Dobson established single season records for wins and strikeouts for the young franchise.

Dobson’s stay in San Diego was limited to one season. On December 1, 1970, he was traded to the Orioles along with Tom Dukes for Tom Phoebus, Al Severinsen, Fred Beene, and Enzo Hernandez. Earl Weaver, the Orioles manager, was elated. He had been a fan of Dobson “ever since the night I saw him strike out 21 guys in a game in Puerto Rico.” His first start of the season was against his old team, the Tigers. He gave up three runs in the first inning, then shut Detroit out for the next seven. He was pulled for a pinch-hitter, and the Tigers went on to win in extra innings. Pat won his next start against the Yankees, only allowing one run in the complete-game victory. But he won one of his next nine starts. Before his June 17 start, his record stood at 3–4 with an ERA of 3.70. Starting with a victory over the Yankees that day, Pat would win 12 starts in a row. Eleven of the twelve victories were complete games. Then, starting with a loss to the Yankees, Pat slumped, winning only two of nine starts. He finished strong, however, winning his last three starts to reach the coveted twenty-win level. Dobson and teammates Mike Cuellar, Dave McNally, and Jim Palmer all won 20 or more games, and the 1971 Orioles were only the second team in major league history to boast four twenty-game winners.

Baltimore swept the Oakland A’s in the American League playoffs, and went into the 1971 World Series as the favorite over the Pittsburgh Pirates. Pat at first was the odd man out as Weaver decided to go with a three-man rotation for the postseason. Pat did not appear in the AL Championship Series but finally got a chance to start Game 4 of the World Series. The O’s staked him to a 3–0 lead in the first, but Pittsburgh came back with two runs in the bottom of the inning. They tied it up in the third, and Pat was pulled in the sixth inning with the score 3–3. The Pirates went on to win, 4–3. Pat made another Series appearance in Game 6, coming on to start the 10th inning. He retired the first batter, but then gave up a single to Dave Cash, who stole second on a strike-three pitch to Richie Hebner. Dobson intentionally walked Roberto Clemente and then was replaced by lefty Dave McNally to face the left-handed batting Willie Stargell. McNally ended up with the win when the Orioles scored in the bottom of the tenth. In Game 7, Dobson came on to start the ninth inning with the Orioles down 2–1. He retired the first two batters, striking out Clemente. But he gave up back-to-back singles, and McNally was once again summoned to face Stargell, whom he retired for the final out. The Orioles went down meekly in the ninth, and the Pirates were world champions.

After the Series, the Orioles and Dobson were scheduled for an exhibition tour of Japan. On November 2, 1971, in Toyama, Japan, Pat hurled a no-hit, no-run game against the Tokyo Yomiuri Giants, winning 2–0.

The Oriole dynasty slipped in 1972, finishing five games behind the Tigers. Dobson’s record fell to 16–18 despite his posting a lower ERA and WHIP than he had in his 20-win season. He made the All-Star team, although he did not appear in the game. Pat stirred up a little controversy in Detroit when he suggested that Billy Martin was misusing Tom Timmerman, saying he made a better relief pitcher than a starter. When Baltimore came into Detroit for a four-game set, they were trailing the Tigers by two games. Dobson was scheduled to pitch the opener for the O’s. Martin suggested Dobson would tremble and flee under the Tiger Stadium long ball hex. Instead, Pat threw a complete-game four-hitter, winning 3–2.

Dobson loved it in Baltimore and was shocked when the Orioles traded him to Atlanta on November 30, 1972. Along with Dobson, Atlanta got Davey Johnson, Roric Harrison, and Johnny Oates while sending Earl Williams and Taylor Duncan to Baltimore. Dobson’s debut for Atlanta was inauspicious as he was bombed by the Astros 10–3. He beat San Diego in his next start, then went 1–6 in his next nine starts. After beating the Cubs to raise his record to 3–7, he was traded to the Yankees on June 7, 1973. He had hated it in Atlanta. He complained, “I went from the best defensive team to the worst. I throw ground balls. I need defense. Their whole game is tailored to offense—the park, the wind, and the grass.” He was happy to be in New York and compiled a 9–8 record for the Yankees. He enjoyed playing for Ralph Houk, and the Yankees were in contention up until late August.

Dobson was a little concerned when manager Ralph Houk was replaced by Bill Virdon. He felt Houk had been forced out by management. Pat won his first game in 1974, but lost eight of his next ten decisions. At that point, he started butting heads with Virdon over the pitching rotation. Virdon was experimenting with a five-man rotation, while Dobson insisted he needed to work every fourth day. The manager relented and went back to the four-man rotation. Dobson suddenly got hot and went on a 16–7 run the rest of the way. The Yankees were in first place on September 23, but wound up two games behind Baltimore as the Orioles won their last eight games while New York was winning five and losing three. Pat ended up 19–15 with a 3.07 ERA.

The Yankees believed that 1975 would be the year they returned to their former glory. Dobson started slowly, but he won six games in a row to raise his record to 8–5. He complained to the press after being pulled with two out in the seventh inning in a game against the Twins. At the time the Yankees were trailing 1–0, and there were two outs. Sparky Lyle came in and gave up a two-run single to Lyman Bostock. Virdon held a clubhouse meeting the next day and said, “One guy is causing dissension on the club.” When the manager reinstituted the five-man rotation, Dobson went into a tailspin, winning only three more games all year. Virdon was fired in August and replaced by Billy Martin. But Martin and Dobson didn’t get along well, either. Pat said Billy “had a habit of second-guessing what you threw, too.”

In November, Dobson found himself traded once more, this to Cleveland in exchange for Oscar Gamble. Dobson’s outspokenness didn’t always sit well with management. But he said, “I have never regretted one word I’ve said. ’Course, there have been repercussions, but if you’re right you have to take the consequences.”

His manager with the Indians was Frank Robinson, his old Orioles teammate. Dobson respected Robinson, calling him the finest player he’d ever teamed with. Pat was considered the “elder statesman” of a young Indians staff that also included a rookie named Dennis Eckersley. Dobson had a fine season with the Indians, posting a 16–12 record with a 3.48 ERA. Cleveland finished above .500 for the first time since 1968. But in 1977, his record plummeted to 3–12, and his ERA soared to 6.14. He didn’t get his first victory until June, after losing his first five decisions. His last victory came early in July against the Kansas City Royals. Shortly after that he lost his spot in the rotation and was relegated to the bullpen. What would be his final major league appearance came on September 19, 1977—fittingly, at Tiger Stadium. Dobson came on in relief in the seventh inning, getting the final two outs. He gave up a leadoff single in the eighth and was pulled from the game. The runner eventually scored, and Pat ended up taking the loss. He was released by the Indians on April 14, 1978, without making an appearance that year.

Pat Dobson won 122 games while losing 129 in the major leagues and saved an additional 19 games. His ERA for his career was a solid 3.54, and his WHIP was 1.28. In 17 seasons of professional ball, he played for 15 different teams.

Dobson developed a second career as a pitching coach. He summed up the logic behind the move: “Who knows more about pitching than me? Just take a look at the crap I’m getting away with out there [on the mound]. I rest my case.” He was working for Triple A Nashville in 1982 when he was summoned to the parent club, the Milwaukee Brewers. Their pitching coach, Cal McLish, had become ill, and Pat was asked to fill in. This was the year of Harvey’s Wallbangers, and the Brewers advanced to the World Series, losing to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. Pat’s son Chris fondly remembers the days in Milwaukee. His dad would work his charts, chug coffee, chain smoke his menthol cigarettes, and complete the crossword puzzle in the New York Times. “I never saw a crossword puzzle my father couldn’t finish,” Chris said. After the Brewers fell to last place in 1984, Dobson and all the coaches were let go. He returned to coaching in the minor leagues before returning to the majors with San Diego from 1988 to 1990.

Dobson managed of the Fort Myers Sun Sox in the Senior League in 1989 and 1990. The Senior League was a new winter ball league set in Florida for players 35 and older. There were eight teams in two divisions. Pat’s team finished second and was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The league folded halfway through its second season.

In 1991, Dobson became the Royals’ pitching coach. He was considered a key man on the team, trying to restore the confidence of reliever Mark Davis. He had handled the star pitcher before at San Diego. Another project was Mark Gubicza, coming back from shoulder surgery. Pat was considered as a possible replacement for manager John Wathan, who was fired in May 1991. The job went instead to Hal McRae. Dobson’s relationship with the new manager was rocky, and Pat resigned on September 9 when he could not get assurance that he would be asked to return the next year. Later that year, Pat attended the final-day ceremonies at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore and reunited with his fellow 20-game winners, Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, and Mike Cuellar.

Dobson joined the Colorado Rockies expansion team as an advance scout in December 1992, serving in that capacity until 1995. He left the Rockies to take the Baltimore pitching coach job in 1996, working with his close friend, manager Davey Johnson.

Despite the Orioles finishing a close second to the New York Yankees, Dobson was fired at the end of 1996 by owner Peter Angelos. Pat and the Orioles’ young ace, Mike Mussina, did not see eye to eye and after a shouting match at the mound during a crucial September game, the writing was on the wall. Over the objections of General Manager Pat Gillick and manager Johnson, Ray Miller was hired as the new pitching coach.

Dobson next took a position as an advance scout with the San Francisco Giants in 1997, eventually becoming a special assistant to General Manager Brian Sabean. He was one of Sabean’s top talent evaluators and scouted many of the players the Giants acquired, particularly pitchers. In 1998, Dobson was elected to the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame. His induction notice credited him with enlivening every clubhouse he entered. One writer even suggested that Pat may have been the funniest man who ever wore a baseball uniform.

Dobson played a key role in persuading Bruce Bochy to take the manager’s position with the Giants in 2006, even jetting to San Francisco with Bochy when he went for an interview. Shortly afterward, Pat began to feel ill. After two weeks, he went to a hospital for tests and was diagnosed with leukemia. One night after checking in to the hospital, Pat Dobson died on November, 22, 2006, in San Diego. He was survived by his wife Kathe, and six children, Pat III, Nancy, Stacy, Chris, Shannon, and Stephanie.

Sources

Baggerly, Andrew. “Dobson played role in Bochy’s decision.” Oakland Tribune, December 6, 2006. Accessed at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20061206?pnum=2&opg=n16893475

Cour, Paul. “Bulldog Dobson—Padre Workhouse and Battler.” The Sporting News, September 19, 1970, p. 20.

Flaherty, Tom. “McLish Loses Out In Coaching Change.” The Sporting News, November 29, 1982, p. 60.

Frau, Miguel. “Dobson Eclipses Pizarro’s Strikeout Record, Fans 21.” The Sporting News, December 23, 1967, p. 47.

Hatter, Lou. “Dobson Turns Detroit Into Bengal Snakepit.” The Sporting News, July 22, 1972, p. 9.

Jackman, Phil. “Pat Dobson Acquired to Fill No. 4 Spot on Oriole Staff.” The Sporting News, December 19,1970, p. 38.

Jackman, Phil. “O’s Thank Their Lucky Stars for New Ace Dobson.” The Sporting News, August 14, 1971, p. 10.

Jackman, Phil. “O’s Boast Four 20-Win Aces, Equal Feat of ’20 Chisox Stars.” The Sporting News, October 9, 1971, p. 11.

Kaegel, Dick. “Kansas City Royals.” The Sporting News, September 23, 1991, p. 26.

Kubatko, Roch. “O’s ‘gamer’ won 20 in ’71.” Baltimore Sun, November 24, 2006, p. D11.

McKean, Dale. “‘All I Needed Was a Chance’—Beaver Ace Dobson Proving It.” The Sporting News, July29, 1966, p. 38.

Nightengale, Bob. “Orioles Functioning Like a Dysfunctional Family.” The Sporting News, October 28, 1996, p. 15.

Nightengale, Dave. “1991:Hello to Odd Ball.” The Sporting News, April 1, 1991, p. S12.

Pepe, Phil. “Sleight of Hand Provides Dobson Toehold on Wins.” The Sporting News, September 14, 1974, p. 29.

Powers, Roger. “Sports of All Sorts.” Grit, (Williamsport, Pa.), November 14, 1971, p. 43.

Reidenbaugh, Lowell. “Cardinals Flash Muscle, Speed in a 7–3 Triumph.” The Sporting News, October 19, 1968, p. 9.

Spoelstra, Watson. “Winter Loop Whiff Feats Mark Dobson as ’58 Bengalani to Watch.” The Sporting News, January 6, 1968, p. 50.

Spoelstra, Watson. “Unheralded Dobson and Hiller Win Tiger Headlines.” The Sporting News, June 29, 1968, p. 11.

Spoelstra, Watson. “Tiger Jokester Dobson Wipes Grin Off Batters’ Faces.” The Sporting News, June 21, 1969, p. 12.

Spoelstra, Watson. “Kilkenny Is Tough Pitcher In a Paradise for Swingers.” The Sporting News, October 11,1969, p. 17.

Sudyk, Bob. “The Travels and Travails of Pat Dobson.” Baseball Digest, Vol. 36, No.1 1977, pp. 74–78.

Vicioso, Fernando. “Dobson Helps Tigers Bare Sharp Teeth.” The Sporting News, November 26, 1966, p. 43.

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Note

This article originally appeared in the book Sock It To ‘Em Tigers–The Incredible Story of the 1968 Detroit Tigers, published by Maple Street Press in 2008.

Photo Credit

The Topps Company

Edwards was born on August 27, 1952, in Fort Lewis, Washington. He had two brothers who also played in the major leagues. His twin brother, Michael, played second base for the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Oakland A’s, and a younger brother, Dave, was an outfielder for the San Diego Padres and the Minnesota Twins.

The family moved to Los Angeles, and Edwards graduated from Jefferson High School in 1970. Besides playing baseball in high school, he ran track. He played American Legion baseball, and his Joe DiMaggio sandlot team won a national title in 1971.

After high school, Edwards attended Los Angeles Community College and then UCLA, graduating in 1974. In his senior year Edwards stole 19 bases for the Bruins, tying the school record. (It had since been broken.)

Marshall hoped he’d be selected in the amateur draft. Both of his brothers had been drafted. Mike was selected four times, and Dave, once. But Marshall was not drafted. Reflecting on that later in his career, he said, “It hurt inside, but it just gave me more motivation. Not being drafted made me work harder. When I finally got into pro ball, with all the good coaching, I was able to develop as a player.”1

Edwards was signed as a free agent by the Baltimore Orioles on June 24, 1974, by scout Ray Poitevint. In 74 games with the Ogden Spikers of the Rookie-level Pioneer League, he batted.291 and stole 33 bases.

Edwards spent the next two seasons with the Miami Orioles of the Class A Florida State League. He had decent seasons there, batting .279 with 38 stolen bases in 1975 and .296 with a league-leading 57 steals in 1976.

He began the 1977 season with Miami, where after 94 games he was batting a league-leading .334 with 31 stolen bases. He was promoted to Charlotte of the Double-A Southern League, where he struggled in the higher competition, batting .171 in 36 games with eight steals.

During the winter league meetings on December 6, 1977, the Brewers selected Edwards in the Rule 5 draft from Baltimore.

The Brewers assigned Edwards to the Holyoke (Massachusetts) Millers of the Double-A Eastern League for 1978. He got off to a hot start and had a 14-game hitting streak, during which he batted .346. He tied for the league lead with 11 triples and batted .285 with 31 stolen bases.

Edwards was involved in a controversial play on August 8 against the Jersey City A’s. With Jersey City pitcher Rick Lysander tossing a no-hitter, Edwards bunted down the third-base line and reached base when LeRoy Robbins’s low throw pulled to first baseman Kelvin Moore off the base. The official scorer ruled the play a hit, not an error. It was the only hit of the game off Lysander. ???? Citation?

The Brewers assigned Edwards to Vancouver of the Triple-A Pacific Coast League for 1979. In 111 games he batted .273 and led the team with 19 stolen bases. With his two brothers already in the majors, Edwards thought he had a decent shot to make the big leagues. His belief was, “If the heart’s there, the body has to follow.”2

In 1980 Edwards batted .291 for Vancouver, led the PCL league with 17 triples, stole 68 bases. After he stole his 50th base on July 25, Vancouver manager Bob Didier said. “His best assets are his legs. For Marshall to get to the big leagues, he has to steal bases. He’s been a big plus for us with his running and it’s amazing the runs he has driven in. If he stole 70 bases and had 70 RBIs, it would be a big feather in his cap.”3

The Brewers invited Edwards to major-league spring training in 1981.He played well, and with the Brewers needing speed and defense, he made the Opening Day roster. Brewers manager Buck Rodgers was happy to have Edwards on the team. “Marshall gives us speed as well as defensive ability in the outfield,” the manager said. “One thing we won’t have to do much is pinch-hit. That’s why pinch-running is as important as pinch-hitting to us. His biggest asset is his speed. Plus, he can play all three outfield positions.”4

Edwards was elated to make it to the big leagues, calling it “a dream come true.” He added, “From Little League through college, to when you go into the minor leagues, you want to be a major-league player. This is the highest any player can go. So now it’s time to show what you can do. However the Brewers decide to use me, I have to keep myself ready. So I try to do a lot of little extra things off the field to keep ready. Doing extra exercises and doing a little more thinking to keep myself mentally sharp.”5

Edwards made his major-league debut on April 11, 1981. In the top of the ninth inning, with the Brewers leading the Indians 5-3, Edwards ran for Gorman Thomas, who had walked. In the bottom of the inning he replaced Thomas in right field. On April 22, he got his first major-league hit, a ninth-inning pinch-hit single off Toronto pitcher Jerry Garvin.

Outfielder Paul Molitor suffered an ankle injury on May 3 and needed surgery, so Edwards continued as an outfield backup. On June 12 the players struck and the season didn’t resume until August 9. By that time Molitor was activated and Edwards was sent back to Vancouver. He was called back up on September 1 and made the playoff roster against the Yankees, replacing Mark Brouhard, who had a pulled calf muscle. He ran for Charlie Moore in Game Three and stayed in the game and struck out against Rudy May. He ran for Roy Howell in the eighth inning in Game Five.

After posting a .485 batting average in 1982 spring training, Edwards thought he was a lock to make the major-league roster. When manager Buck Rodgers told Edwards he was starting the  season in Vancouver, it was difficult to accept. Edwards recalled, “It was a jolt. I tried to accept it. I think that was the turning point of my career. I knew I had to forget it and play as hard as I could. Feeling down like I did, and being able to go out and play, by the grace of God, I did it.”6

After Larry Hisle was placed on the 15-day disabled list on May 7 with a tear in his right rotator cuff, Edwards, who was hitting .380 at Vancouver, was called up. He hit his first major-league home run on May 12, in the fifth inning off Royals pitcher Dennis Leonard. In early June Edwards was briefly hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer.

After leaving the hospital, Edwards platooned with Charlie Moore in right field and saw playing time. His speed and baserunning were assets for the Brewers, and he was confident he would improve his hitting. “I believe I can be a good hitter if I work at it, hitting to the opposite field,” Edwards told a reporter. “The guys have helped me a lot. Cecil Cooper, Ben Oglivie, and Roy Howell have helped me a lot. Ed Romero, Don Money, and Ted Simmons. These are the guys I go to if I need help.”7

In 178 at-bats for the Brewers in 1982, Edwards posted a .247 batting average and stole 10 bases. The Brewers won the AL East with a 95-67 record and faced the California Angels for the American League pennant. Edwards ran for Don Money in the seventh inning of Game Three, scoring on Paul Molitor’s home run, and it seemed like déjà vu when he ran for Money in the eighth inning of Game Four, this time scoring on a home run by Mark Brouhard. There were bigger things ahead in the fifth and deciding game, played at Milwaukee County Stadium on Sunday, October 10, 1982.

In the top of the seventh inning, with the Brewers leading 4-3, Edwards replaced Gorman Thomas in center field for defensive purposes. With one out in the eighth inning, Don Baylor hit a ball to deep center field. It looked as though the game would be tied, but Edwards had other thoughts.

“I knew Don Baylor,” he said years later. “I was playing a little deeper than normal. He was trying to make his name, too, trying to produce in that situation. When the ball came off the bat, I knew he had hit it well. It was like everything was in slow motion, like you always hear in moments like that. I said, ‘This is a nice dream.’ I saw it in the last five feet. There it was. I saw it plain as day. I remember losing my balance after the catch and going down. I tossed the ball to Benjie (Oglivie) and he threw it back in. That was my moment.”8 It is also an indelible moment for Brewers fans everywhere as the catch helped make a Brewers World Series appearance a reality.

The Brewers lost the Series to the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games. Edwards’ only appearance in the Series was in the eighth inning of Game Six, when he ran for Gorman Thomas.

There would be no trip to Vancouver in 1983 as Edwards spent the entire season with the Brewers. He batted .297 in 74 at-bats and stole five bases.

After the season Edwards was removed from the Brewers’ major-league roster, but he was invited to their 1984 spring training camp. He was the final cut and was sent to Vancouver. In a book published in 2019 Edwards reflected about that moment and his last season playing in the minor leagues:

“I was kind of shocked when they sent me down. They said my time was up. They decided to go another way. I had a split contract (meaning lower pay for the minors), so they sent me down. After that, all of the air went out of me. That whole year, I was looking at the transition in my life. I figured my major-league time was up. I decided to retire. Cincinnati wanted me and so did a couple of teams in Japan, but I decided that was enough. I was grateful for what God gave me. I had 10 years in professional baseball.”9

Edwards returned home to Southern California and worked in home construction and real estate. His wife, Alice, was from Anniston, Alabama; she and Edwards pulled up stakes and he relocated his business ventures there.

As of 2019 Edwards was a minister at the World Changes International Church in College Park, Georgia, near Atlanta. He and his wife have three children: a daughter Adrienne, who is a math teacher, and sons Casey and Justin, who, as of 2019, attended Jacksonville State University in Jacksonville, Alabama. 

Last revised: October 19, 2021 (zp)

Sources

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

Notes

1 Tom Flaherty, “‘Too Small’ Edwards Battles Odds, Wins Brewer Job,” The Sporting News, May 2, 1981: 21.

2 “Brother Act,” The Sporting News, June 16, 1979: 43.

3 “Base Bandit,” The Sporting News, August 23, 1980: 38.

4 Flaherty, “‘Too Small Edwards.”

5 Ibid.

6 Flaherty, “Edwards’ Success Keyed to Patience,” The Sporting News, August 30, 1982: 26.

7 Ibid.

8 Tom Haudricourt, Where Have You Gone ’82 Brewers? (Stevens Point, Wisconsin, KCI Sports, 2019) 100.

9 Ibid.