Dale’s father, Don Alexander, raised corn and tobacco, and was a catcher with the local Greeneville team, “an old bare-handed catcher in the Appalachian League,” according to his namesake grandson. His son Dale was big enough to earn the nickname Moose and stood 6 feet 3, with a playing weight of 215 pounds. The right-handed hitter was born and died in Greeneville. Dale never used tobacco in any form, and his sons stopped planting tobacco years ago.

Alexander stayed in school and graduated from Milligan College, a Christian college in East Tennessee, where he starred in football and basketball as well as baseball. He also played baseball for Tusculum College, in Greeneville, and was inducted into the Tusculum Hall of Fame in 1984. It was at Tusculum that his grandson Steve Jr. starred at baseball, earning MVP status in 1990 and 1991. Steve joined his grandfather in the Tusculum Hall of Fame in 2001.

Dale Alexander was spotted and signed by Frank Moffett and Billy Doyle of the Detroit Tigers organization. His first season in pro ball was 1924, with Greeneville in the Class D Appalachian League. He played first base, as he did throughout his career with the exception of a bit of outfield work with Newark in 1934. Dale hit .332 with Greeneville in 389 at-bats over 114 games. The Charlotte team paid $500 to buy his contract, and in 1925 and 1926, he played in the South Atlantic League and maintained a similar average each year (.331 and .323) while showing additional power — 20 home runs and a league-leading 44 doubles in 1925, driving in 120 and 96 runs respectively. After the season, Charlotte sold his contract to Toronto for $5,000.

Alexander played in 1927 and 1928 with Toronto in the International League, batting .338 the first year and driving in 97 runs. Opposing manager George Stallings dubbed him “The Ox.” His second year with Toronto, 1928, was a tremendous season, as Alexander won the Triple Crown, leading the league with a .380 average, 31 home runs, and 144 RBIs. His 236 hits, 400 total bases, and 49 doubles were all league-leading categories as well. He’d earned a promotion to major-league baseball and prepared to play for the Tigers beginning in 1929.

There were caveats even before Alexander arrived in the majors. A late 1928 article in the Atlanta Constitution compared him in stature to Babe Ruth and found him reminiscent of Sam Crawford but noted that some in the International League said that “his slowness in the field and on the bases may ruin his chances. On the other hand, they aver that he can hit a ball almost as hard as Babe Ruth.” [Atlanta Constitution, December 1, 1928] Detroit paid a lot for him; the deal with Toronto for Alexander and right-handed pitcher Johnny Prudhomme cost the Tigers a reported $100,000.

Dale was a durable star for Detroit. In his first two seasons, 1929 and 1930, he played in every game for the Tigers, and he played exceptionally well. His .343 average ranked him ninth in 1929; his 137 RBIs placed him third in the league and set a rookie record at the time. (The current record was set in 1939 by Ted Williams, with 145 RBIs.) Alexander was fifth in home runs with 25. He had 363 total bases, second in the American League. His 215 base hits led the league; he was the first rookie in the league to amass more than 200 since Joe Jackson in 1911. Had there been a Rookie of the Year award in 1929, Moose would have been a prime candidate. Baseball Digest in November 1975 named Alexander as the all-time rookie at the first-base position.

His sophomore season was solid, too. He figured a bit less across the board (.326, 135 RBIs, 20 HRs) but it’s hard to quibble with production like that. In his third year, 1931, Alexander seemed to lose his home run stroke, hitting just three, but he doubled 47 times, compared with 33 the year before, and maintained his average (.325) over 517 at-bats. He drove in a lot fewer runs — but 87 RBIs is still more than respectable.

It was a good year for doubles, 1931. Earl Webb of the Red Sox set the all-time record, one that still stands, rapping out 67 two-baggers — 20 more than Alexander, the runner-up. Webb batted .333, hit 14 homers, and drove in 103 runs. Though Webb was batting only .281 for the Red Sox as of June 12, 1932, the Tigers saw Alexander having an even rougher year: Moose had played in only 23 games, hadn’t had an extra-base hit, and was hitting just .250, with but four RBIs. The Tigers had a new, excellent-fielding first baseman in Harry Davis. It looked as though Alexander might have come to the end of the road; the Tigers even put him on waivers. The Red Sox had tried several first basemen (Bill Sweeney, Johnny Watwood, Johnny Reder, and Al Van Camp), but were satisfied with none of them. Van Camp was hitting in the .230s before the trade. The Sox were looking to make a change and dealt Earl Webb to the Tigers in a midseason deal for both Dale Alexander and outfielder Roy Johnson.

It was a great trade for the Red Sox. Alexander caught fire and won the American League batting title, while Johnson, who’d been batting .251 for the Tigers, hit .298 for Boston — and then posted averages of .313, .320, and .315 the next three years. Webb petered out quickly. Though he hit .285 in 1932, with 28 doubles, he was so disappointing for Detroit in 1933 that he got only 11 at-bats before being sent to the White Sox. It was Webb’s last year in major league ball.

Alexander’s first game in a Red Sox uniform came on June 15, 1932. He was 2-for-3 and drove in a run. On June 19, he had a 6-for-8 day in a doubleheader. By July 4, he was leading the team with a .367 average. Though he was a right-handed hitter, most of his hits were to the opposite field. “Ah’m a right-field hittuh, you know,” he told the New York Times. He hit the ball hard, too. None other than Babe Ruth declared, “He sure bruises the ball.” He maintained his average, hitting .356 at the end of July.

One notable date was August 6 in Cleveland. Alexander’s fourth-inning “treacherous hopper” bounced over second baseman Bill Cissell — and proved to be the one hit off the Indians’ Wes Ferrell in the game. On the 17th, he had a 3-for-3 day and walked his other time up. Two singles and a home run gave him four RBIs in a 7-3 win over St. Louis. Eight days later, he went 3-for-4 and scored two runs. Alexander was batting .373 by Labor Day. His fielding drew positive comment as well. An exclusive in the September 11 Los Angeles Times, headed “Dale Alexander on Bat Spree,” informed readers that “Stranger than this remarkable hitting is his first-base play, which surpasses even that of Harry Davis, the man who succeeded him, and who is recognized as one of the best in his line.” September 21 was a 4-for-8 doubleheader, and on the 24th, he went 3-for-3, getting half the hits of the day off New York’s Charley Devens. In the last game of the season, he had a 2-for-4 day.

When the final and official figures were released, Alexander finished at .367 and won the batting title by three points over Philadelphia’s Jimmie Foxx — though one would have preferred Foxx’s 58 homers to Alexander’s eight, or his 169 RBIs to Alexander’s 60. Had Foxx hit for a slightly better average, he would have won the Triple Crown. (He did so the very next year.) Alexander’s totals were lower in large part because he didn’t play as much. He batted 392 times to Foxx’s 585. Under current rules, Alexander would not qualify for the batting title. Ted Williams had 386 at-bats in 1954, and walked a league-leading 136 times. Despite hitting .345, Williams lost the batting title to Bobby Avila, who hit .341, because he had fewer than 400 at-bats, the rule at the time. That rule has since been adjusted to count plate appearances rather than at-bats, so as not to penalize selective hitters who worked walks to get on base. In 1932 the requirement was to play in 100 games. Alexander easily exceeded that standard, appearing in 124 games.

There’s no way to compute Alexander’s range as a fielder; one assumes it wasn’t great. He did rank second in fielding average among American League first basemen. Ivan Weiss of the Seattle Times once called Alexander “a pure hitter, a DH before his time.” Shirley Povich wrote in 1941, “Alexander never could play first base acceptably, but they couldn’t bench his bat.”

What was Alexander’s secret at the plate? “Ah don’t look foh anything except a good ball. If it looks good, Ah swing at it” [New York Times]. He had excellent vision, and a good eye for baseball. Someone around Greeneville asked him if he had any trouble with the spitter. He replied, “No, I would just hit it on the dry side.”

Winning the batting crown paid off. His 1932 salary was $10,500. For 1933, he got a $500 raise, to an even $11,000. It also earned him a full column by John Kieran in the New York Times, and a new sobriquet: “The Nimrod of the Nollichucky.” The reference was to a river near Greeneville and Alexander’s love of hunting.

In earlier days, baseball bats were heavier, thicker around the handle, and sturdier. Players rarely broke a bat. Was it perhaps an omen that just before the 1933 season began, Alexander broke his bat? Melville Webb mentioned it in the April 8, 1933 Boston Globe: “Dale Alexander is bemoaning the loss of his great war club — the one with which he hammered his way to the top of the big league hitters last season. The bat was broken at the handle. Alex will have the bat painted and will hang it over his clubhouse locker.”

The broken bat was not the only reason he tailed off in 1933 and wound up with the only sub-.300 season of his career. Suffering a serious injury on Memorial Day, by season’s end he had accumulated just 313 at-bats with a .281 average. He had five home runs and 40 RBIs. Sliding into home plate on Memorial Day, Alexander hurt his leg sliding into home plate. Red Sox trainer Doc Woods used a new deep-heat method to try to reduce pain, decrease inflammation, and thereby speed healing: diathermy. Unfortunately, Woods left the machine on too long (apparently leaving the treatment room and not returning for quite some time) and burned Alexander’s leg. “They’d just barbecued his leg,” said son Steve. Don Alexander reported, “It really sort of atrophied. It really was smaller than the other. Just like it was a burn. Scarring tissue. It was discolored.” He was so badly burned that there was worry he might lose the leg. Fortunately, amputation was never necessary.

Dale never blamed anyone for it, never complained about bad treatment, and certainly never sicced lawyers on the Red Sox. Perhaps in part that reflected a more stoic background, perhaps his Christianity — he was an elder in the Shiloh Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Don said, “He played the game hard, and then when it was over, he came home. He never felt like anybody mistreated him in baseball.”

Another notable player — another hot hitter — suffered a problem due to diathermy treatment. In spring training of his 1936 rookie season, Joe DiMaggio’s foot was badly burned in a diathermy machine. Within a couple of weeks, the foot healed and the Yankee Clipper went on to put together a pretty good career for himself.

The effects of Alexander’s injury weren’t recognized at first. Shirley Povich of the Washington Post reported him as out of the lineup “as a result of a batting slump.” Clearly, he was having an off-year.

After 1933 Alexander never returned to major-league ball, but he played five full seasons of high-level minor-league ball and played it very successfully. First, he was involved in a series of transactions that made him seem like a hot potato being passed on. In December 1933, the Sox sent Alexander and three other players to AA Kansas City, with which they had a new working agreement. A February news release said the Sox released him to Jersey City for a couple of players. The Jersey City franchise was transferred to Syracuse, and then sold to the Newark Bears. For Newark, in 1934, he hit .336, for 264 total bases, and drove in 123 runs. He played in the American Association for Kansas City in 1935 and 1936, hitting .358 and .315, with 95 and 100 RBIs. On June 14, 1935, Moose hit four consecutive home runs — then hit into a double play his fifth time up. Knocked unconscious by a beanball in August, he was hospitalized for four days and missed several games after that, but still put up some good totals. In 1937, he returned to Tennessee with Nashville, batted .319 and drove in 109 runs. He led the league in doubles, with 42. In 1938, he played for Chattanooga — also in the Southern Association — and hit .309, driving in 85 runs. When traded to Dallas, he refused to report and temporarily retired from the game.

Beginning with the 1939 season, Alexander moved into managing as a player-manager his first four years, appearing in 98 games the first year for Sanford in the Florida State League. He hit .345 in 374 at-bats, and drove in 80 runs. In 1940, Alexander managed Thomasville, leading the Georgia-Florida League with a .388 average and with 14 homers. He drove in 96 runs. Another year, another team, another league: 1941 saw him managing Selma in the Southeastern League. He played much more sparingly, just 64 at-bats, but batted .438. In 1942, Alexander returned home, playing and managing for Greeneville once more. He didn’t play much, though, with just 19 at-bats in 19 games. His average fell to .158, and the time had apparently come to pack it in as a player. A baseball field in Greeneville is named after Dale Alexander.

During World War II, most minor leagues suspended operations and Alexander returned to working his farm. He continued to manage after the war until early 1948, when he resigned as manager of the Knoxville Smokies to take a position as a scout for the New York Giants. He is credited with signing Ernie Bowman, Jim Constable, Gail Harris, and Joe Shipley, and with being the first to spot Willie McCovey.

Alexander combined scouting with an occasional slot as manager — for instance, his late June appointment to skipper the Jacksonville Tars. In November 1962, Alexander took a job scouting for the Milwaukee Braves.

In terms of recognition, Dale Alexander remained a forgotten bat king. The Red Sox could hardly have been a lower-profile team, perennial tail-enders for a decade. He never received a plaque or trophy of any kind. “Not a thing,” said son Don, but that was OK with Dale. “He was a private person. He never bragged about anything. You could have ridden from here to California with my dad and never know he’d played baseball.” Don said that half of what he learned about his dad came from scouts or other folks who filled him in.

Steve Alexander agreed. “I remember people talking when he was scouting in some of these coal mining towns, saying, ‘Well, Dale, you sure must have been proud. …'” Dale’s reply? “‘No, what I did was no more than the lady winning first prize for cornbread at the county fair.’ To him, he just did his job.” Steve said his father “never had a Christmas card, nor was he ever invited to any Red Sox functions as a former batting champion.”

Both of Alexander’s sons played baseball. Don spent a year in industrial ball with the Monsanto Chemical Company team before he became a minister. Steve pitched and played semipro ball, and coached baseball for years at Tusculum College. Even into the 21st century, he remained active in senior baseball; his team won the Senior World Series in 2002.

During the 1970s, Don Alexander said, his father scouted for both the Braves and, to some extent, for the Red Sox, passing tips to scout George Digby. Digby was the only person on the Sox that Dale had contact with. He never held any grudges, however, and followed the fortunes of the Red Sox, rooting for them in the 1975 World Series.

In 1970 Dale Alexander was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He battled it for nine years before his death on March 2, 1979.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited within the text, I interviewed sons Rev. Don Alexander on October 12, 2003, and Steve Alexander on October 22, 2003.

Hugh “Red” Alexander was a promising 20-year-old, having just hit 57 home runs with a high batting average in two minor-league seasons, and tasting his first cup of coffee in the big leagues. He managed one single in 11 at-bats during his late-season callup and was looking forward to a long career as a player. Then he lost his hand in an offseason accident at the family farm, and his career as a player was ended. He overcame the injury, became a scout, and went on to a long and successful career in baseball, scouting players in eight different decades and signing more players who made the major leagues than any other scout.1

Hugh Alexander was born on July 10, 1917, near Lead Mine, a small unincorporated community in south central Missouri.2 He was the second of three sons (Henry and Claude) his father, Harry, and mother, Mae, were raising while trying to scratch out a living farming the unproductive ground.

When Hugh was 5, the farming family was lured by the siren call of the Oklahoma oil boom. They moved to the oil fields near Cromwell, Oklahoma, where Harry became a roughneck working for the oil companies in the area while Mae did laundry for the oil workers, took care of her boys, and had another baby (daughter Edith).

Growing up in the oil fields was a very difficult life. The family made do with a very basic level of shelter, living in field tents the first couple of years in Oklahoma, and moving around as Harry worked in different oil fields. Harry was a hard worker, smart and ambitious, and he was promoted to a field supervisor in the late 1920s. The main change for the family was that they were able to move to a wood-frame house. But they still lived in the oil fields, which were their kids’ playground. The boys played ball in their spare time using wells as bases and sliding on the polluted ground, ruined from exposure to spilled oil. But Harry and Mae expected them to work. That was the guiding principle of the family. As soon as they were old enough, they were given chores to instill that work ethic.

Alexander went to a one-room schoolhouse in Cromwell for his elementary school education. Most oil-field kids attended school only through the eighth grade because at that point they were able to get a paying job and start contributing to the family finances. Hugh was athletic from a young age and Harry encouraged him to be tough. He taught him boxing and began matching Hugh against older athletes to make a few dollars when carnivals came to town. Hugh also played against older children in baseball and football and caught the eyes of the Seminole high school coaches.

With his parents’ and the coaches’ encouragement, Alexander attended Seminole High School. It took longer than 30 minutes to get to and from Seminole, if a ride was available. Typically his father would drop him off in the morning and he would hitch a ride home in the afternoon. The trip took too much time, leaving no free time for sports participation. So Harry negotiated a deal with the local fire chief. Hugh would live at the Seminole firehouse during the week, cleaning and doing odd jobs to pay for his keep. He also got a job cleaning the local movie theater for $1 a day. This left Hugh time to for sports but also meant he had very little supervision. He learned to hustle at the local pool hall and play a mean game of poker. Around this same time, Harry was promoted to a job where he was in charge of negotiating mineral rights from local farmers. Hugh picked up deal-making tips from his father that he had no idea he would need in the future.

Alexander was an amazing all-around athlete. He played football, baseball, and basketball, and ran track. By his junior year, he was elected the captain of all four teams. He had great speed, running the 100-yard dash in under 10 seconds. By comparison, Jesse Owens’ world record was 9.6 seconds. As a tailback on the football team, he led Seminole to an unofficial Oklahoma high-school championship. In one game he ran for 505 yards and six touchdowns, averaging 25 yards per carry. He also played semipro baseball (under an assumed name) in Oklahoma City during the summers to make a few bucks.3 He was a broad-shouldered, cocky, and aggressive young man with an extremely high opinion of himself.

During those semipro games, Alexander was first noticed by baseball scouts, including Cy Slapnicka, a legendary baseball lifer working as a scout for the Cleveland Indians. Slapnicka had recently signed Bob Feller and was beating the bushes looking for more talent for the Indians. Alexander had been approached by Hank Iba, famed basketball and baseball coach at Oklahoma State, who offered him a chance to play baseball and run track for the university. Iba noted that Alexander potentially could represent the United States in the 1936 Olympics in track. But Alexander wanted money, not an education, and there was no money in track and field. Slapnicka offered him $250 to sign with the Indians but he cagily asked for more. Slapnicka then promised him a $1,000 bonus when he made the major leagues. That was a given, the arrogant Alexander figured, so he signed the deal. Slapnicka noted that the broad-shouldered youth had all the tools except for a weak throwing arm. But four tools out of five could mean a baseball star.

The Indians assigned the 6-foot, 190-pound 18-year-old to the Fargo-Moorhead Twins of the Class-D Northern League. Homesickness didn’t impact Alexander’s play. The long bus rides and bad hotels must have seemed luxurious compared to his situation growing up. As the youngest player on the roster, he played in all 122 games in 1936 and led the team with 28 home runs, a .348 batting average, and 101 RBIs. Alexander was named by the league’s writers and managers as the center fielder on the all-star team, while finishing fourth in the circuit in home runs and batting average.4 The Twins ended up fifth in the eight-team league, missing the playoffs. At the end of the season Cy Slapnicka showed up in Fargo and paid Alexander $600, “to tide you over this winter because you are some kind of ball player.”5

The Indians obviously liked what they saw in the young man. Alexander was promoted to the Springfield (Ohio) team in the Class-C Middle Atlantic League. Nine of his teammates were destined to appear in the major leagues, including Phil Masi and Chuck Workman. He started the season hot, batting .438 through the first two weeks, but was struck down by a respiratory infection that caused him to miss a few games.6 There were no lasting negative effects, because for the season he displayed excellent power, with 29 home runs in 305 at-bats, 88 RBIs, 22 stolen bases, and a .344 batting average. One season highlight was a 13th-inning walk-off grand slam against Dayton on June 15.7 The aggressive young man had a bad moment too. On July 1 his temper got the better of him. He vehemently argued a called third strike, earning a suspension, a $5 fine from the umpire, and a $25 fine from his manager.8

The Cleveland Indians wanted to see their hot prospect for an extended period so on August 12 they put Alexander on the major-league roster. On August 15 he debuted in right field in the second game of a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox at home. On his second at-bat, he hit a Texas Leaguer to center field, stole second, and took third on a long fly ball. He was thrown out at home on a groundball to complete the eventful trip around the bases. He committed an error allowing a runner to take an extra base which did not contribute to any White Sox runs.9 Alexander made his second and last big-league start five days later against the White Sox in Chicago, going 0-for-4 and striking out twice. His remaining big-league appearances consisted of three unsuccessful pinch-hit opportunities, one time pinch-running, one defensive substitution, and a month and a half of watching from the bench. Eleven at-bats, one bloop single, five strikeouts, and one steal summed up his cup of coffee. He also recorded two putouts in right field against the solitary error. Clearly he needed more seasoning but there was no reason to think the young man wouldn’t continue to improve.

Alexander went home in the offseason and went back to work. On December 5, 1937, he was working on a water pump on the family farm. The pump was difficult to start, but he had handled it before. This time he got the pump started but his shirt sleeve got tangled in the gears. He tried to rip the sleeve off but it was a double-stitched work shirt and he couldn’t pull the sleeve loose. His left hand was pulled into the gears and mangled. Mother Mae was nearby and heard his cries for help. She helped free him and drove him to the hospital in Seminole but they could do nothing to save the hand. The doctor at the hospital completed the amputation.10

Alexander was undeniably a top-notch prospect. Si Burick, a Dayton Daily News scribe, summed it up when he reported on Hugh’s accident. “The most colorful ball player and probably the most promising in the Mid-Atlantic League last summer was Springfield’s Hugh Alexander. A white-haired Adonis, whom the fans called ‘Cotton’ and his fellow players knew as ‘Red,’ Alexander laughed and fought his way through the league. Fans everywhere booed him but loved him for his colorful antics. Like a wrestler, he used to make wry faces and shake his fists at his tormentors, then burst into laughter in the privacy of the dugout. He was Alexander the Great.”11

Harry and Mae had simple advice for their son. The accident has happened and thinking about it doesn’t do any good. They would not allow him to do nothing, lounge around, drink beer, and sponge off the family. Very shortly after he got home, he took a job pouring drinks at a saloon in Seminole.

Cy Slapnicka and the Indians had not forgot about their player. Slapnicka must have seen some characteristics he liked in Alexander. Or at the least, the Indians felt they owed him a chance at a job after the accident. Slapnicka called just before Christmas and told him, “Hughie, you’re about to become a baseball scout, and if you agree the $1,000 bonus is yours.”12 Alexander didn’t know anything about scouting but thought that sounded better than a life serving beer in a saloon.

The Cleveland Indians trained in New Orleans in 1938. Alexander met Slapnicka there and started his training. The 20-year-old was about to become the youngest scout in baseball history. Slapnicka asked him to grade players they saw during spring training and they compared notes. Hugh’s experience seeing some of the best players in baseball while riding the Indians bench helped give him a frame of reference for the skill level required in a major-league player. Slapnicka gave him hints on what to look for, like a pitcher’s mechanics and a fielder’s first step when the ball is hit. He especially focused on pitching because he admittedly knew nothing about the pitcher’s craft. Also, Slapnicka told him to find out as much as possible about the player’s character. The scout needed to project a youngster from what he is today to what he could be. And somehow, they needed to figure out if the player had the character, work ethic, etc. to turn into that future big leaguer. Slapnicka also insisted that Alexander develop a strong network of contacts to be used to find prospects.

At the end of spring training, Alexander went on the road. His territory was expansive: Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and the upper Plains states. He really had no idea how to find and sign players. He met other scouts on the road, but in the times before the amateur draft, scouts kept their information very close. One of his guiding principles was that if he wasn’t sure about a player, he would walk away. He didn’t want to waste the owner’s money on a nonprospect. Because his territory was so large, he felt he needed a plan to direct his scouting. He wrote several commandments that he would follow:

• I shall make plans. Be bold, be daring. After all, a young scout lacks only the experience of making bad decisions.
• I shall travel the dirt roads, gravel roads, and blacktops to see new players.
• I shall not whine. It is a time waster and won’t win me any friends or sign me any new players.
• I shall be lucky once in a while, but most of my successes will be plain old hard work, making personal contacts.
• I shall have a pair of well-trained eyes to spot the true mechanics of the game.
• I shall know the difference in a player who thinks “I shoulda made that last play” and “I woulda not gotten that last play.”13

No matter how many games Alexander could get to, he found that scouts had a lot of time on their hands. The older men who traveled in the same territory were a hard-living lot and he spent plenty of time with them but he didn’t let it distract him from his duties. He kept a diary of his travels and the players he saw and sent in reports to Slapnicka. He would not permit anyone to call him handicapped. How could someone drive thousands of miles and live independently with a handicap? In fact, in order to make some extra cash, he would frequently bet someone he could tie his shoes faster than they could. Once the unsuspecting mark saw he had one hand, the bet was on. Hugh claimed he never lost this bet.

After Alexander’s first year on the road (with Slapnicka checking in on him occasionally), he had signed exactly zero players. It was a year of training and developing sources of information. He attended games throughout Texas and Oklahoma, the National semipro tournament in Wichita, the American Legion All-Star tournament in St. Joseph, Missouri, college games, and high-school games. He did take enough time off from traveling to marry Thelma Jewell McBride of Seminole on June 12, 1938. Slapnicka was pleased with Alexander’s progress and asked him to continue scouting.

In March 1939, Oklahoma A&M’s Hank Iba called Alexander with a hot tip. There was a young Indian-American on campus who was a hot prospect recruited by football scouts. Baseball scouts hadn’t heard of him because he had only started pitching his senior season. What Alexander saw was a hard-throwing big man who wasn’t afraid to pitch inside. He sent his scouting report on Allie Reynolds to Slapnicka, who told him to keep watching. After Reynolds threw a no-hitter, Hugh called Slapnicka and told him he had a fastball nearly as fast as Feller’s and that they needed $1,000 to sign him. Cy didn’t want to spend that much money but Hugh followed his first commandment. Taking a tip from how his father did business with poor landowners when negotiating mineral rights, Alexander borrowed $1,000 from the bank and brought the cash over to Reynolds’s home. Allie had a wife and young baby in the humble dwelling and as soon as he saw the cash fanned out on the kitchen table, he immediately signed the deal. Reynolds was Alexander’s first signing and it turned out to be a great one.14

Alexander’s years scouting with the Indians were fruitful but he learned by hard experience. In that time, players were not allowed to sign a contract until their class graduated from high school. Many rural youngsters either had no birth certificate or had quit school after eighth grade, so it could be difficult to know if a scout was complying with the rule. Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis summoned Alexander to his office early in his scouting career over a possible breach of this rule. Neither he nor the Indians were penalized but Landis left him with a stern warning that he would run Hugh out of baseball if he was caught cheating.

In 1941 Alexander’s mentor Cy Slapnicka was fired from the Indians but this didn’t affect Alexander’s position with the Indians. By then, he had already scouted and signed Dale Mitchell, Pat Seerey, and others and he was being recognized among some baseball men as a person with an eye for talent. In midsummer of 1941, he met Branch Rickey at a game in Pueblo, Colorado. Rickey, then the general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, had heard of him and they talked for a time. Rickey gave him some advice about searching for talent and Alexander noted it.

During the war years, scouting was very difficult. Gas rationing meant that getting to games was difficult; also, many players were serving in the armed forces. Alexander scouted some military bases, only able to sign players when they were discharged. He also helped a colonel at a base, feeding him names of good ballplayers in the military. The officer arranged to have the best transferred to his base so he could dominate the military tournaments.

Hugh and Thelma had a daughter in 1942 but all the time on the road makes for a difficult relationship. By 1952 he was divorced. He was scouting a huge territory and some of his players (Dale Mitchell and Gene Bearden) helped the Indians win the World Series in 1948, but he didn’t get everyone right. He scouted Mickey Mantle and wrote in his book “No prospect” after watching him strike out 14 times over a week. He also noted Mantle for a return visit but the Yankees beat him to it.15

In 1952 Paul Richards, manager of the White Sox, and Frank Lane, general manager, impressed by Alexander’s reputation, recruited him to scout for them. Alexander never discussed his reasons for leaving the Indians, so it would only be speculation. But he had known Richards from scouting and was impressed with his baseball smarts. Alexander’s territory didn’t change but his focus did. Richards wanted speed, defense, and (like everyone) good pitching. However, with Trader Frank Lane in house, most of the organization focus was on trading for players, not in scouting new talent.

Alexander started using his contacts to find a new job. Fresco Thompson, the director of the Dodgers farm system, knew Alexander from scouting meetings in the early 1950s. With a couple of quick conversations, he found himself as a field scout for the Brooklyn Dodgers starting in the 1956 season. Again, he had the same territory as before, roads and towns he was very familiar with.

The minor leagues were undergoing a major contraction at this time. When Alexander started with the Dodgers, they had 14 farm teams. They were on the verge of moving to Los Angeles (which they would do in 1958). By 1961 the Dodgers farm system was depleted because of trades of prospects. Farm director Buzzie Bavasi wanted to restock the system. He held a meeting with his scouts, laid out a goal of signing 100 players, and provided the financial resources to do so. This was an unprecedented number of players but Bavasi told the scouts that if they had any issues negotiating with players, they should call either Alexander or Bert Wells for help because they were the two best scouts the Dodgers had. Also, by 1962 the Dodgers were down to 10 farm teams but with expansion there were more major-league teams looking for talent. It would be a challenging time for Alexander.

Two of Alexander’s early signings with the Dodgers were Carl Warwick and Frank Howard. With Warwick, he followed one of his precepts for signing a player: Meet with the parents, especially the mother, and recruit them. He always felt the mother typically made the final decision. During a meeting with Warwick’s parents, he offered a $20,000 bonus, an additional $5,000 a year for three years, plus $5,000 if he made the majors. At the moment of the offer, his parents fell in love with Alexander!16 Howard had already decided he wanted to play for the Dodgers, and had received higher offers from other organizations. His unusual request was for a $108,000 bonus, the $8,000 for his parents to make a down payment on a house. The organization was happy to comply.

When the Dodgers initially scouted Don Sutton, scout Leon Hamilton (and to be fair, pretty much all the other scouts) call him a nonprospect. However, after Alexander got a look at him, he believed he could be a major-league pitcher and wanted to offer a deal. But the organization had already turned him down, and didn’t want to reverse course. This irritated Alexander and he jumped up the chain of command. In due course, Hamilton was ordered to sign the paperwork committing Sutton to the Dodgers, giving the proper appearance to the deal. Sutton’s father wouldn’t let Hamilton back in the house because of the earlier disrespect, so the Dodgers had to send another scout in to get Sutton’s signature.

In 1965, the major leagues instituted the amateur draft system. This changed the scouting game tremendously. No longer would scouts be involved with signing players. No more secret scouting reports or keeping your information close to the vest. Alexander was disappointed in the changes but as a baseball lifer, he changed with the times.

In 1972 Alexander’s friend Paul Owens, soon to be general manager of the Philadelphia Phillies, offered him a new challenge. He would be a special-assignment scout and would have much more input in the effort to try to build a winning team from the rubble of the current organization. His salary was $15,000, which made him the highest paid scout in baseball.17 He helped improve Philadelphia’s focus on building from within, noting that the Dodgers reserved $1 million for signing bonuses while the Phillies spent $400,000.

Owens soon hired Dallas Green to run the farm system and the trio became the architects of the Phillies’ winning teams. Alexander would go scout any situation the team needed him in and would provide his take on potential trades and the draft. The first big deal he had a hand in was to push the Phillies to trade for Steve Carlton. Now known as Uncle Hughie throughout baseball for his knowledge and years in the game, he learned from his extensive network of Carlton’s salary disagreement with the Cardinals and how the team was willing to move him. So the Phillies were able to take advantage. Other key trade acquisitions in the next few years included Garry Maddox, Bake McBride, and Tug McGraw. Key drafts included Lonnie Smith, Alan Bannister, and Dick Ruthven. Alexander’s influence was suggested by Bill Conlin in a Philadelphia Daily News article: “When Hughie Alexander talks in a mellow baritone that suggests sour mash bourbon and unfiltered cigarettes, you can hear a pin drop in the Phillies’ boardroom.”18

Alexander also paid close attention to the rules. At this time, there were two major league drafts, held in January and in June. Marty Bystrom, a pitcher for Miami-Dade Community College, was skipped over in the June, 1976 draft. There was a little-known clause in the draft rules which said a player who wasn’t drafted was a free agent until two weeks before the next draft. Hugh jumped on this, signing him for $50,000 in December, thereby not risking losing him to another team in January. Baseball executives were so upset by the move that the rule was changed for the following year.19

No great situation lasts forever. In 1981 Dallas Green became general manager of the Chicago Cubs. In 1982 the Phillies traded for Joe Morgan and Tony Perez. That helped them in 1983, but the trades of prospects for major leaguers took its toll. One particularly damaging trade was sending Ryne Sandberg to the Cubs as an extra player to acquire Ivan de Jesus. Maybe karma for the Carlton steal was in play. The aging Phillies sank back to a second-division team.

Sometime in the late 1970s or early ’80s, Alexander married a woman named Lois and lived in Palm Harbor, Florida. He much preferred the climate there to Oklahoma’s. With the Phillies, he spent at least 200 days a year away from home, which continued to contribute to his fluid home life. A Jayson Stark article implied that Lois was his sixth wife, but this researcher couldn’t find any marriage records to confirm any marriages other than to his first wife.20

Dallas Green encouraged Alexander to join him in Chicago in 1987. This would be Alexander’s final employer. Green left soon after but Jim Frey took over and of course Uncle Hughie knew him and was comfortable with the situation. In 1989 the team celebrated his 50th year in scouting. His time with Chicago was filled with any special assignment the team would send him on, along with trying to share his wisdom with other people in the organization. In 1998 he finally retired, but continued to occasionally scout spring-training games for the organization. In 2000, he scouted one last game during spring training. This completed his career, scouting in eight different decades.

Over the years, Alexander signed 63 players who eventually made the major leagues.21 In 1984 he founded the Scout of the Year program to honor baseball scouts. In 1996 he finally agreed to receive the award. There is no way to count the number of games he watched or players he scouted. In 1994 he moved to a 16-acre horse ranch near Brooksville, Florida. He bought the property because Lois always liked it when they drove by, but she died before they could move in. In 1999, suffering from lung cancer, he moved to Spring Hill, Florida, then relocated to Oklahoma City after spring training in 2000 to be near his sister, Edith. The lifelong smoker died of lung cancer on November 25, 2000. His remains were cremated and interred in Maple Grove Cemetery in Seminole, Oklahoma.22

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author accessed Baseball-Reference.com, Ancestry.com, and Newspapers.com.

Notes

1 Dan Austin, Baseball’s Last Great Scout (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 3.

2 Austin, 6.

3 Austin, 15.

4 “The Northern League,” The Sporting News, September 10, 1936: 6.

5 Austin, 20.

6 “The Mid-Atlantic League,” The Sporting News, May 20, 1937: 6.

7 “The Mid-Atlantic League,” The Sporting News, June 24, 1937: 10.

8 “The Mid-Atlantic League,” The Sporting News, July 8, 1937: 8.

9 “White Sox Win Double Header from Indians,” Chicago Tribune, August 16, 1937: 23.

10 There are various versions of the accident. What type of pump Alexander was working on, who was with him, and how he gots to the hospital vary. This story is from Dan Austin’s book and seems to be the most likely.

11 Si Burick, “Si-Ings,” Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, December 7, 1937: 23.

12 Austin, 23.

13 Austin, 33.

14 Austin, 38.

15 Austin, 64.

16 Austin, 84.

17 Austin, 117.

18 Bill Conlin, “Uncle Hughie,” Philadelphia Daily News, November 15, 1983: 84.

19 Austin, 137.

20 Jayson Stark, “He Is the Phillies Unknown Soldier,” Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15, 1983: 1D.

21 Austin, 163.

22 Greg Auman, “Baseball Scout in Eight Decades Dies,” Tampa Bay Times, November 29, 2000: 89.

As a player, Amaro was known more for fielding than hitting. In 940 big-league games, he batted .234 with a slugging percentage of just .292, including eight home runs. Four of those homers came during the 1964 season, in which he also won a Gold Glove for his play at shortstop – even though he was sharing the position in Philadelphia with Bobby Wine.

Rubén Amaro Mora was one of the rare big-leaguers whose parents both played pro baseball – in fact, that distinction may be unique. Santos Amaro (1908-2001) played 14 winter seasons in Cuba from 1936-37 to 1949-50.1 He was in Mexico during the summers from the late 1920s through 1955.2 He was also a manager in both his native land and his adopted home and eventually became a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame in each nation.3 Santos Amaro was known as El Canguro – “The Kangaroo” – for his size and leaping ability. In Mexico, Rubén Amaro was sometimes called “Cangurito.” He too became a member of the Mexican Baseball Hall of Fame in 1986. Rubén and Santos became the first father-son duo to be so honored.

Santos had come to Mexico with a traveling Cuban ballclub as early as 1928. In 1929, he met a young woman named Josefina Mora (1910-2007), a member of the Vera Cruz Women’s Professional Baseball Club.4 They got married and had two sons. Mario was born in 1931 in Cuba. Rubén was born in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico on January 6, 1936.5

Santos Amaro was of Portuguese and Moorish descent – the resemblance between him and Rubén was marked. Though his facial features did not fit the “African” stereotype, his coffee-colored skin meant that Santos encountered racism while playing with a barnstorming team in the United States in 1932. By one account, he did not wish to return.6 “But in 1935, he went on an eighty-game, fourteen-state tour of the United States with. . .La Junta de Nuevo Laredo.”7 Santos was not allowed to play much while in Texas. The prejudice he faced in the U.S. apparently killed his desire to play in the Negro Leagues. Yet Afro-Cubans faced bias even at home – Mexico was a more welcoming environment. Several black Cuban players married Mexican women; one was Pedro Orta, whose son Jorge became a major-leaguer from 1972 to 1987.8

As Rubén told author Stuart Gustafson many years later, his parents were a study in contrasts. Santos was tall (1.92 meters, or roughly 6-feet-3½). Josefina was petite (5’1”) and fair (her grandparents on both sides were Spanish). Rubén and Mario wound up in between at 5-feet-10½. “Doña Pepa” was the one with whom the boys practiced their baseball skills, because Santos stressed education above all.9

The Amaro family traveled between Mexico and Cuba until settling permanently in Mexico in 1951. Rubén’s godfather was another great Cuban player, Hall of Famer Martín Dihigo. El Inmortal was a teammate of Santos Amaro’s in Mexico (and a fellow member of the Masons). While the boys were in Havana, their baseball playmates included two future big-league pitchers: the Pascual brothers, Carlos and Camilo. Mario Amaro was also a skillful player but focused instead on medicine. He remained in Cuba for some time after 1951 to continue his schooling.

Rubén – whose favorite player growing up was Roberto Ávila, the Mexican star of the Cleveland Indians – became a star for Mexico in national and international amateur competition. He took part in the Amateur World Series in Caracas, Venezuela in 1953. In March 1954, he helped his homeland win a silver medal at the Central American and Caribbean Games in Mexico City.10

Before the 1954 season, the St. Louis Cardinals signed Amaro as an amateur free agent. The scout was Tufie Hashem, who in 1949 had become general manager of the minor-league club in Mexicali, Baja California. “In 1954, when the Cardinals’ organization extended a working agreement to Mexicali, Hashem came up with his first find, Ruben Amaro.”11 Amaro also noted the involvement of Mexicali’s player-manager, Art Lilly.

“The Cardinals signed me not for my glove,” said Amaro, “but for my bat. I was about the same size as Bobby Ávila, and we both had pretty good power. I was originally an outfielder. I did not start playing shortstop until 1953, after our regular shortstop for the Mexican team broke his leg.”

Amaro began his pro career with Mexicali, which was then in the Arizona-Texas League (Class C). He played in only 93 games, though – “the manager for Bisbee took me out with a rolling slide and broke my fibula.” That summer, Amaro also got a brief taste of action with Veracruz in the Mexican League – where his father was player-manager. Rubén went 2 for 5 in four games but never returned to that league in future.12

Amaro rejoined Mexicali for the 1955 season, and his first cousin Mario Amaro Romay was one of his teammates. Rubén hit 18 homers – he never even approached double digits in any other season – while batting .309. His 1959 Topps baseball card observed, “In the first couple of years in pro ball, he had the tendency to overrun grounders due to his eagerness.” Over time, though, Amaro became known for his smooth, gliding movement in the field.

Amaro played winter ball in Mexico off and on during his career. After his first pro summer, he joined Hermosillo in La Liga de la Costa del Pacífico, but was traded to Mazatlán – “Hermosillo had too many shortstops,” he said. He returned to Mazatlán for three more seasons but rejected offers to play for the Veracruz Sharks in the 1958-59 season.13 Higher education was the reason: he studied business and accounting at La Academía Comercial Veracruz for three years.14 “The director of the school was a very strict and wonderful woman named Juanita Folgueras,” Amaro recalled. “The school is also known by her name. It was a four-year school, but I did not finish. I promised my father that I would, and I still may!”

Amaro spent the summers of 1956 and 1957 with Houston (Double A). Over half a century later, he recalled that he was ready to quit because of the racial and ethnic taunts of some Texas League fans – “the vituperation,” in his own words. Jim Crow laws were also humiliating (in fact, Shreveport didn’t even let black players take the field in 1957, under a Louisiana state law then in effect that banned interracial sports). But he stuck with it after Santos Amaro calmly reminded his son that he had originally let him leave school on the condition that he do whatever it took to reach the majors.15

For better and for worse, two former big-leaguers had a major impact on Amaro’s development in 1956. The first was Billy Jurges, who was a special infield instructor at the Cardinals’ advance camp that February.16 “He told me two things that stayed with me forever,” Amaro recalled. “One was that in the first three days of camp, I had to know all my pitchers by first and last names.” The bigger picture was to know the hurlers’ tendencies and be positioned accordingly. Gene Mauch, who later managed Amaro with the Phillies, viewed Rubén as one of the best shortstops he ever saw in this regard. “The other was that I had to know I was going to get the batter out at first.” In other words, he had to catalogue all the batters and how well they ran too.

During that advance camp, The Sporting News said of Amaro, “[He] has shown exceptional fielding skill at shortstop. He glides around the infield with speed and deftness. If he can hit he’ll be on some major league club before long.”17 That’s where the other influence came to bear – Houston manager Harry Walker. Throughout his long career as a skipper, “Harry the Hat” was known for his inveterate remolding of batters’ swings in his own spray-hitting style. It helped some players, but Amaro was not one of them. “Those two years in Houston changed me as a player,” he said. “I became a tremendous shortstop, but after working with Harry, I couldn’t hit a ball 250 feet.”

Still, Rubén moved up to Triple-A Rochester in 1958. Although he was hitting just .200 in the first few months of the season, the big club called him up to St. Louis in late June. “Eddie Kasko was not only down below .200 at bat but had slipped in the field.”18 Amaro became just the 12th player born in Mexico to reach the majors.

When the rookie set foot on the field at Busch Stadium for the first time on June 28, it became extra special – thanks to his teammate, the great Stan Musial. As author Milton Jamail wrote in 2001, “Ask Rubén Amaro Sr. for the highlight of his long career and he does not hesitate a second.”19 He had been issued uniform pants that were two sizes too big, and Musial asked the clubhouse man to find a proper pair. As George Vecsey added in his 2011 biography of Musial, “Stan the Man” also graciously made the rookie feel at home with memories of playing against Santos Amaro while barnstorming in Cuba years before.20

Over the rest of the ’58 season, Amaro appeared in 40 games for the Cardinals, hitting .224 in 76 at-bats. That December, St. Louis traded him to Philadelphia for Chuck Essegian. “We had just finished our tour of Japan,” said Amaro. “I think they traded me as soon as I got off the plane.” Roy Hamey, general manager of the Phillies, wanted to light a fire under his shortstop, Chico Fernández.21 Amaro spent the entire 1959 season at Triple-A Buffalo; meanwhile the Phillies used Joe Koppe ahead of Fernández at short.

In June 1960, however, Koppe got hurt and Philadelphia couldn’t swing a trade for another shortstop. So they called up Amaro and made him the regular.22 Upon joining the Phillies, Rubén became just the third native of Mexico to play for the club.23 He formed a double-play combo with Tony Taylor, the Cuban second baseman obtained in trade that May. Soon thereafter, Philadelphia beat writer Allen Lewis wrote in The Sporting News, “The addition of shortstop Ruben Amaro tightened the infield considerably. The Mexican was drawing raves from the Connie Mack Stadium fans for the finest shortstop play they had seen by a Phillies player in many years.”24

Amaro remained the primary shortstop for the Phillies in 1961, setting a big-league career high in games played (135). It was also his most productive season in terms of offense, featuring his best on-base percentage (.351) and OPS (.700). That April, Gene Mauch said, “There’s no shortstop in the league playing better ball defensively than Amaro. Ernie Banks might have better hands, but he isn’t a better shortstop.”25

On December 9, 1961, Amaro married Judith Herman. They had met at the gourmet cheese shop that Judy’s mother ran in Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market.26 In 2008, Judy also said, “My sister Marlene taught English to Pancho Herrera and Tony Taylor. Ruben would drive them to our house for the lessons.”27

Rubén and Judy had two sons, both of whom became baseball players. David was drafted in the 24th round by the Chicago Cubs in 1984. He played that summer in short-season Class A ball and eight games in the Mexican League in 1985. David’s sons Robert and Andrew were both drafted by the Phillies out of high school but chose college instead; Andrew played Class A ball for the Phillies in 2015.28 Rubén Jr. played in the major leagues from 1991 through 1998 and then moved into the front office of the Phillies. He became the club’s general manager in 2008 and remained in that position through September 2015. In an unusual move, he then joined the coaching staff of the Boston Red Sox.

In January 1962, the Associated Press wrote, “Amaro, a brilliant fielder, is the keystone of the Phillies infield.” Gene Mauch said, “Amaro must have been the most improved player in the majors last year. He moved in a couple of steps at short and became a star. He also became a tough hitter.”29

That May, Amaro (who had previously been in the Mexican Army) was recalled to service in the U.S. Army. The Phillies called up Bobby Wine, who had played four games for them in 1960, and made him the interim starter. Wine continued to play a lot after Amaro returned in late July. He performed well enough for the Phillies to consider trading Amaro during the offseason.30 Instead, Mauch juggled them for three years more.

Amaro returned to winter ball in Mexico for the 1962-63 season. He started with Jalapa of the Veracruz League, which was managed by his father. He also got his first taste of managing. “There was an all-star game between the young players and the veterans, and I got to lead the young guys.” But when the governor of Veracruz state withdrew financial support for the Jalapa franchise, it folded, and the league’s other three teams followed suit.31 Amaro thereupon joined the Yaquis of Ciudad Obregón in La Liga Invernal de Sonora.

Back with the Phillies in 1963, Amaro got off to a cold start with the bat, and his fielding was still not quite up to his brilliant standard of 1961. Therefore, Mauch gave Wine another shot.32 Wine hit well for a few weeks, and though he tailed off severely at the plate after that, he continued to get more shortstop duty than Amaro overall. During the four seasons that Wine and Amaro were teammates, from 1962 through 1965, they split the shortstop duties as follows:

Rubén Amaro and Bobby Wine: Selected Averages, 1962-65

Source: Baseball-Reference.com

It was an interesting pattern – not a true platoon in that both men were righthanded batters who didn’t contribute much with the stick. Both were excellent defenders who positioned themselves well, though Wine was known more for his stronger arm and Amaro for his greater range and quick release. Both also filled in at third base; Amaro also played a significant amount at first base, including seven starts during the 1964 season.

Going into spring training in 1964, Mauch called Wine the first-stringer and Amaro the backup.33 The following month, though, he was more ambivalent. He said, “They can both play in the field and, although they are different types, they are both among the best there is with the glove. We can’t lose anything there whichever one is the regular.” The skipper thought, however, that Wine had more upside with the bat.34

As it developed, Wine played 52% of the innings at short, Amaro 42%, and the scraps went to Cookie Rojas. In 1989, as part of his retrospective series on the ’64 Phillies, Stan Hochman of the Philadelphia Daily News offered a witty view of how the shortstop tandem was used that year. “When it was over, manager Gene Mauch had wrung eight homers and 68 RBI out of his shortstop(s), shuffling Amaro and Wine in and out of the lineup based on biorhythms only he detected, based on the opposing pitcher, the day of the week, the phases of the moon.”35

There was more to it than hunches, though. In late May, Mauch cited the need to give both Wine and Tony Taylor some rest. He said, “There’s more mental pressure on the second baseman and shortstop than on any other regular except the catcher. Taylor and Wine have played almost every inning since spring training.” Allen Lewis added, “Ruben Amaro, who can play any infield position expertly, has done everything Mauch asked of him and done it well.”36

Wine started 70 of the first 97 games at short, but then fell below the Mendoza Line, and Mauch turned more to Amaro as the summer wore on. Late in the season, Lewis wrote that Amaro was back in his top form of 1961 in the field and was hitting respectably too. Rubén himself credited being in a good rhythm with regular play. Oddly enough, he said that a spring wrist injury helped his swing.37

Amaro also made a unique contribution to how the history of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies was recorded with the series of letters he wrote to his father and mother at their home in Veracruz. Those letters possessed a special spirit, but are lost to history because Doña Pepa threw them out while cleaning house in 1971. Amaro ordered $1,800 worth of World Series tickets for his family before the Phillies collapsed down the stretch. He never did get to a World Series as a player, though he was present as first-base coach when the Phillies finally triumphed in 1980. “We won and it was fabulous, extraordinary – but nothing ever is going to make up for our loss in 1964.” He drew a parallel with another team he served as coach, the 1984 Chicago Cubs, who won the first two games of the NL Championship Series that year but couldn’t close it out. “We had a banner year, but it was devastating at the end when we lost three games to San Diego and couldn’t go to the Series.” The good Catholic summed it up this way: “When the saints turn their back, there is simply no way you are going to win.”

After the sad ending to the season, Amaro received some consolation in the form of the National League Gold Glove award for shortstops. In those days, the players cast the ballots, and out of 251 total, Amaro got 59, edging Leo Cárdenas of Cincinnati, teammate Wine (the 1963 winner), and veteran Roy McMillan of the New York Mets. The Sporting News said, “The award was long overdue for Amaro.”38

There was renewed talk after the ’64 season that the Phillies might look to deal either Wine or Amaro to another team.39 That did not come to pass for another year, though. On November 29, 1965, Philadelphia traded Amaro to the New York Yankees for utility infielder Phil Linz. The Yankees thought Linz would not develop into a regular shortstop; the Phillies viewed him as a bench reinforcement who might become something more. Yankees manager Ralph Houk said, “We know Amaro isn’t much of a bet to win the batting title, but we know he is truly a first-class infielder.”40

“I did not play much winter ball after getting married,” Amaro said. “I worked for ADD Air Freight International and later for Freihofer’s bakery.” But because Amaro had not played much for Philadelphia in 1965, he wanted to return to Ciudad Obregón. Economics prevented it, however; “Mexican rules dictate[d] that a major league player must be paid at the same rate as in the United States. ‘My team couldn’t possibly pay me by league rules,’ Amaro explained. ‘The team’s entire budget for the season was 72,000 pesos, or approximately $6,000.’”41

Amaro was the main candidate to step into the shoes of a Yankee hero, Tony Kubek, who had retired in January 1966. Although he became the first Mexican to play in the majors for the Yankees, he got into just 14 games with New York that year. He injured his knee in the fifth game of the season, colliding with left fielder Tom Tresh on a blooper off the bat of Brooks Robinson. He underwent surgery and did not return until September. The Bronx Bombers finished in last place in the American League that year, one of the worst seasons in the proud franchise’s history.

Bobby Murcer (originally a shortstop for the Yankees) went into the Army for a two-year hitch in 1967. Amaro returned to play 130 games, overcoming the long layoff and some lingering mental concerns to earn some consideration as Comeback Player of the Year.42 Houk gave him a career high 470 plate appearances. In 1968, however, New York moved Tom Tresh to shortstop and Amaro became a seldom-used reserve. He came to the plate just 50 times in 47 games, getting just five hits.

Perhaps the most interesting news concerning him that year came off the field. The 1968 Summer Olympics were held in Mexico City, and Amaro took a principled stand, supporting a potential boycott of the Games if South Africa (then under apartheid) were allowed to participate. He came under fire in his homeland’s press but did not change his position.43 The International Olympic Committee eventually decided to continue its ban of South Africa, and the boycotts did not take place.

In November 1968, the California Angels purchased Amaro’s contract from the Yankees for $25,000. They wanted a capable veteran backup for Jim Fregosi, who had tired after the All-Star break.44 That winter, in need of action, Amaro got back to Ciudad Obregón.

During the 1969 season, Jim Bouton (a teammate with the Yankees from 1966-68) praised Amaro as he wrote his baseball diary, Ball Four. “He’s the kind of guy, well, there’s a dignity to him and everyone likes and respects him.” Again, however, Rubén’s playing time was scanty – just 36 plate appearances in 41 games. Yet he helped the ballclub in other ways – notably as mentor to a countryman, young Aurelio Rodríguez. In fact, Amaro and Rodríguez’s father had been on the same Mexican amateur team in 1953.45

A few weeks after the 1969 season ended, the Angels released Amaro. They offered him a job managing in their minor-league system, but he still wanted to be on the field. Thus he played winter ball again, this time with the Culiacán Tomateros.46 The following spring, he signed with the San Diego Padres. “If I made good, I wanted $25,000, but they didn’t agree. So I called Gene Mauch,” who was then managing the Montreal Expos. “Gene said if I made his team, I would earn whatever I made with the Angels.”

Amaro was an insurance policy at shortstop; the incumbent – none other than Bobby Wine – had an elbow problem that concerned the Expos.47 “He also had a neck problem,” Amaro added. Rubén wasn’t able to stick, though. “That winter, I fell on my shoulder in a rundown with Aurelio Rodríguez. I got to spring training and I couldn’t throw. The minute I left camp, I was okay.”

There was no job opening as a player-coach for the Expos at Triple-A.48 An opportunity arose in his homeland, but things turned out differently. “I had a two-year contract to manage the Mexico City Reds,” Amaro recalled. “I had a brand-new Ford station wagon, and it had temporary tags. I didn’t want to get to the border with those, so I went to Harrisburg to get plates. I started driving down and a highway patrolman stopped me. I wondered what I had done, and he told me that I had an urgent call from Mr. Paul Owens.” The Phillies’ farm director wanted Amaro to return to the organization. “So I drove to Eugene, Oregon instead of my country.”

Amaro played in 106 games in 1970 for Philadelphia’s top farm club. That July, he became a player-coach.49 He spent one last winter as a player in Mexico, again with Culiacán. During his final summer as a pro, 1971, he got into 17 games for Eugene and 11 with the Double-A affiliate, the Reading Phillies.

In 1970, Gene Mauch had called Amaro an excellent managing prospect, saying, “He’s got it up here” while tapping his forehead.50 “The owner in Eugene wanted me to be manager,” Amaro said. “They had guys like Greg Luzinski [1971] and Mike Schmidt [1972]. I might have become a major-league manager. But it was too early for me,” he added, referring to his ethnicity.

Rubén became a full-time manager for the first time in the winter of 1971-72 with Culiacán. He was celebrating the team’s victory in the first half of the season at the ranch of owner Juan Manuel Ley when he mounted a horse and the animal threw Amaro over its head.51 “I shattered and dislocated my ankle, and that was the end of my playing career.”

Since then, Amaro compiled the following résumé:

“When I first worked for the Phillies in 1972,” Amaro recalled, “there were only four people in the [farm director’s] office: Paul Owens, Dallas Green, I, and Bill Gargano, plus a couple of secretaries.” Amaro took great pride in having contributed to the renewed success of the franchise. In his view, the very high percentage of players who went to winter ball together was a major factor, helping with fundamentals and team cohesion.

“I never wanted to leave the Phillies – never,” Amaro continued. “The times I left, they were the biggest boo-boos of my life. Not so much the first time, though, because I joined Dallas Green with the Cubs and he built something, which I don’t think he gets enough credit for.”

Amaro never did get a chance to manage in the majors, although he was mentioned as a candidate to succeed Green with the Phillies after the 1981 season. He also got an interview with Philadelphia as late as 2000, following the firing of Terry Francona. “I was not only Latin, but my family was also a bit dark,” Amaro said in 2011. “My time came too early.”52 He also hoped to become assistant to his son when Rubén Jr. became GM, but internal politics prevented that – the Phillies instituted a rule against family connections.

Amaro and his first wife, Judy, got divorced in the 1980s. Rubén had a daughter named Alayna from a relationship with Mary Beth Allio. In 1988, he got married again, to Lilia Machado, a member of the family that owns Águilas del Zulia, Amaro’s Venezuelan club. Their two sons, Luis Alfredo and Rubén Andrés, also became ballplayers. Luis played short-season Class A ball for the Phillies in 2011.

After a battle with cancer, Rubén Amaro Mora died in Miami on March 31, 2017. His passing came just nine days after the death of his longtime colleague Dallas Green. When the news of Amaro’s death broke, there was a remarkable outpouring of affection for the man, emphasizing his personal warmth and grace. It echoed an observation from six years before about his standing in the game. During spring training 2011, Amaro visited the camp of the New York Mets, representing the Baseball Assistance Team (he had been a director for several years). Sportswriter Marty Noble observed, “Wherever he was, lines formed. Scouts, writers, club officials actually queued up to say hello and show reverence, appreciation and respect for the soft-spoken 75-year-old. He never was a star. . . But he is one of the game’s great gentlemen.”53

This biography is an expanded version of the one included in the book “The Year of the Blue Snow: The 1964 Philadelphia Phillies” (SABR, 2013), edited by Mel Marmer and Bill Nowlin. It includes some of the material from two sidebar articles, “What to Do with Two Gold Glove Shortstops?” and “The Amaro Chronicles”.

Sources

Grateful acknowledgment to Rubén Amaro Sr. for his memories. All Amaro quotes are from telephone interviews on October 18 and November 20, 2012, unless otherwise indicated. Thanks also to Steve Grande, Media Relations, Houston Astros, and to Dick Schofield Sr. for confirming information about the Cardinals’ advance camps.

Fellow researchers

Continued thanks to Alfonso Araujo in Mexico for various details of Rubén Amaro’s career in winter ball.

Books

Pedro Treto Cisneros, editor, Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano, Mexico City: Revistas Deportivas, S.A. de C.V.: 11th edition, 2011.

The Sporting News Baseball Register, 1965 edition.

Internet resources

www.baseball-reference.com

www.retrosheet.org

www.checkoutmycards.com

Manuel de Jesús Sortillón Valenzuela, online history of La Liga de la Costa del Pacífico, www.historiadehermosillo.com/BASEBALL/Menuff.htm

Notes

Luis Eduardo Aponte was born on June 14, 1953 in El Tiagre, Venezuela. Information on Aponte’s parents, his siblings, and his early years has not yet surfaced. Signed as a free agent out of high school by Boston on January 12, 1973, Aponte failed to progress beyond A ball in four seasons. As a 20-year-old, he pitched for Winter Haven in 1973, then returned to Winter Haven three years later — seemingly the definition of a non-prospect. In between, he pitched for Elmira in the New York-Penn League and Winston-Salem in the Carolina League.

Likely frustrated by his failure to advance in the Sox system, Aponte “quit the Red Sox in 1977 to return to his native Venezuela.”1 He had pitched in his homeland’s winter league starting in 1973-74 for Cardenales de Lara and would hurl for that club for 17 seasons. After two years away from U.S. baseball, Aponte in 1979 pitched for Maracaibo of the Inter-American League, a new AAA outfit with teams in the Dominican Republic, Panama, Puerto Rico, the United States, and Venezuela.2 He gave up a lot of hits (70 in 44 innings) while posting a 3-5 record with a 5.32 ERA in 11 games. Nonetheless, Aponte found himself in the American League the following season.

The Chicago Cubs invited him to spring training in 1980 but did not provide a visa. “Aponte, wanting another crack at the big leagues, got in touch with scout Willie Paffen [who had originally signed the pitcher], and two days later he was back with the Red Sox.”3 He made the most of his second chance, going 9-1 with four saves in 29 games for AA Bristol (Connecticut) in 1980. He “was welcomed with open arms by pitching-short Pawtucket in late June … after the PawSox lost pitchers Win Remmerswaal and John Tudor to the majors.”4

Aponte continued to pitch well in Pawtucket, going 6-2 with nine saves in 31 games, a welcome reversal from earlier minor-league years when he earned the nickname Sunoco “because every time he entered games he threw gas on the fire.”5 Boston called him up on September 2, and he debuted with the Sox on September 4 in Seattle. Pitching the ninth with Boston down by three, Aponte retired Marc Hill and Julio Cruz on groundouts before yielding a single, steal, and walk before retiring Bruce Bochte on a fly ball to center field to complete a scoreless frame in a game the Mariners won, 7-4.

Aponte spent most of 1981 in Pawtucket, going 7-5 with a 1.94 ERA in 51 games, before Boston recalled him on September 1. As a result, he appeared in one of the most famous professional games in history, the 33-inning affair against Rochester that took place over the course of two days in April, beginning on April 18 at 6:00 PM and suspended at 4:09 AM the following morning after 32 innings, finally finished in June.

According to a reminiscence that appeared in the New York Times on the 25th anniversary of the conclusion of the marathon, “The game was amazing to a lot of people, including [Xiomara,] the wife of Luis Aponte [who pitched four scoreless innings in relief for Pawtucket, from the seventh to the tenth.] She had locked the door of their home when he returned at 5 in the morning. ‘She didn’t believe his excuse,’ [Pawtucket teammate Marty] Barrett said.”6 Xiomara and Luis had two sons together, Luixi (born in 1974) and Luis Nardo (1977).7

In a remarkable turn of events, Aponte also pitched four scoreless innings in a multiday game after his Red Sox recall when Seattle outlasted Boston, 8-7. Aponte entered the game at the beginning of the 13th inning and pitched through the 16th, yielding four hits and striking out four. The teams were deadlocked after 19 innings on September 3 before bumping up against curfew. The umpires suspended the game, which the Mariners managed to win in the 20th inning the next day. “It felt just the same to me,” said Aponte. “It was a close ball game with some good pitching. But to tell you the truth, the game at Pawtucket might have been a little tougher.”8 Julio Valdez and Rich Gedman also appeared in each of the two long encounters.

In limited duty in 1981, Aponte picked up his first major league win and save. In the offseason, Manager Ralph Houk prognosticated, “If we lose [Bill] Campbell, we have Luis Aponte for short work in the bullpen.”9 With a “herky-jerky” motion,10 Aponte had an “unorthodox delivery [that] can fool a hitter.”11 He also threw a wide variety of pitches. Longtime Sox beat writer Peter Gammons called Aponte the “Bruce Sutter of Venezuela … with a sinker, forkball, spitter, kitchen sink. [He] was the best Boston reliever the last three weeks [of 1981]. Will knock anyone down. ‘He’ll be one of the biggest surprises in the league,’ said … Houk, who loves him.”12

Aponte had his best season in the majors in 1982, going 2-2 with a 3.18 ERA and three saves over 40 appearances. He had by far the longest outing of his career against Seattle that season. With Boston already trailing, 4-0, in the top of the third, Aponte came on with two on and none out. He got out of the jam and ended up throwing seven innings of shutout ball, during which he gave up only two hits and one walk while striking out four. The Sox lost, 4-3.

Boston rewarded Aponte with a $75,000 contract for 1983,13 but he proved less effective with a 5-4 record, three saves, and a 3.63 ERA in 34 games. After the season, he reportedly had to skip winter ball because of an elbow injury.14 Nevertheless, he managed to appear in seven games, a far lighter workload than he usually assumed in Venezuela. He never pitched for Boston again, going to Cleveland in a trade for two righty pitchers, Paul Perry and Michael Poindexter, who never reached the majors. For some reason, the deal took more than two weeks to consummate, according to the Red Sox brass.15

Aponte got off to an excellent start with the Tribe and showed unusual effectiveness against lefty hitters. “I had trouble with lefthanders before because I could not always control my forkball,” he said. “Now I have learned to throw it where I want.”16 As June ended, Aponte had a 3.40 ERA with one win over 22 games. In the first six days of July, however, he yielded runs in three straight games, and his ERA soared to 4.11. Needing a roster spot for Joe Carter, Cleveland understandably sent Aponte to the Maine Guides of the International League. Rather than accepting the demotion, Aponte denounced his skipper. “I don’t like going to the minors,” he said, “but the worst thing that ever happened to me was playing for Pat Corrales. I hope I never have to play for him again.”17

Aponte got his wish but also never pitched in the majors again. After his sojourn in Maine, where he went 1-1 with two saves and an ERA of 3.07 in 10 games, Aponte took the winter of 1984-85 off, the first Venezuelan season he had skipped since turning pro. He then spent the next two summers in the Mexican League. In 1985, he pitched for the Mexico City Reds, going 1-1 with a 2.77 ERA in 11 relief outings. In 1986, he hurled in five games out of the bullpen for Córdoba, again posting a 1-1 record, but with a 3.68 ERA.

That was Aponte’s final season in summer ball, but hardly the end of a long career that saw him pitch for Lara in two separate stints for a combined 17 winter-league seasons. His first 11 campaigns with Lara had featured one in 1980-81, when he went 3-1 with 12 saves and a 1.20 ERA. During six more winters in Lara, he had another three seasons with sub-2.00 ERAs, notably 1985-86, when he did not allow an earned run over 38.1 innings during which he had a 4-1 record with eight saves. His stellar performance won him Comeback Player of the Year honors.18 Seemingly done in Venezuela after the 1990-91 winter, Aponte returned in 1996-97 at the age of 43. With Caribes de Anzoátegui, he pitched in nine games with a 1-1 record and 3.75 ERA in 12 innings. Over 18 seasons in Venezuelan ball, Aponte pitched in 373 games, all except 14 in relief. He went 54-39 with a sharp 2.98 ERA and 73 saves,19 pitched in the playoffs in 11 seasons and won a championship in his last season with Lara in 1990-91.

Cleveland had fired Corrales in 1987, and by 1988 Aponte had begun scouting for the Tribe in Venezuela.20 He tipped Cleveland to a fellow Venezuelan, “a shortstop with a titanium plate and six screws in his right elbow. Aponte said the shortstop was trying to make it as a pitcher after missing the 2002 season because of his elbow operation.”21 That shortstop, Rafael Betancourt, pitched in 371 games for Cleveland from 2003-09.

With Venezuela in economic, political, and social turmoil, Aponte ended up fleeing his home country to teach baseball in Chile “because of insecurity … of not knowing what I would eat the next day and because of the insecurity of not knowing if I would not go out from my house and would return.”22

Few tended to notice middle relievers in the 1980s, and Luis Aponte attracted little attention during his American League career. Sabermetric data unavailable in Aponte’s day spotlight his below-the-radar effectiveness. In WAR, Aponte ranked ninth for Boston in 1981 (Dennis Eckersley ranked 12th), 10th in 1982 (Carl Yastrzemski ranked 11th), and 10th in 1983 (Jerry Remy ranked 12th). Anyone can cherry-pick seasons where an obscure player outperformed a more notable one, but Aponte stacked up even more impressively against the all-time universe of Red Sox relief pitchers. Of all the Boston relievers who threw 150 innings or more, Aponte, after his last game for the Sox, had an ERA+ bettered by only Tom Burgmeier and Dick Radatz, outperforming far more famous hurlers like Mace Brown, Ellis Kinder, and Sparky Lyle.23

Although he toiled in obscurity as a big-leaguer, Luis Aponte had a strong run in Boston before a brief one in Cleveland. In his homeland, he earned the highest honors a player could hope to attain when the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame inducted him in 2010 as part of a six-member class that also included Andres Galarraga.

Last revised: March 10, 2021

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Rory Costello and Norman Macht and fact-checked by Kevin Larkin.

Sources

In addition to the sources shown in the Notes, the author used Baseball-Reference.com and:

www.pelotabinaria.com.ve (Venezuelan winter ball)

La Enciclopedia del Béisbol Mexicano (2011 edition)

Barry, Dan. Bottom of the 33rd: Hope, Redemption, and Baseball’s Longest Game, (New York, HarperCollins, 2011).

Notes

1 Bill James, The Baseball Book 1991 (New York: Villard Books, 1991), 345.

2 Stan Isle, “Three-Division Report Tops Meeting Agenda,” The Sporting News, December 9, 1978: 29.

3 Joe Giuliotti, “Fenway Denizens Cheer 2nd Looie,” The Sporting News, May 30, 1983: 24.

4 “International League,” The Sporting News, July 26, 1980: 39.

5 Peter Gammons, “Flight From Philly A Tonic for Lerch?” The Sporting News, March 21, 1981: 40.

6 Ira Berkow, “33 Innings, 882 Pitches and One Crazy Game,” The New York Times, June 24, 2006. She may not have believed his excuse because Aponte had an imaginative sense of humor. According to longtime Boston announcer Joe Castiglione, “Ken Coleman and Ned Martin took [Aponte] out to a fancy dinner in New York. And [Aponte] said, ‘I want to reciprocate’ or words to that effect…. They treated Aponte to this great dinner in New York, and Luis said, ‘I own a restaurant and I’d like you to be my guests … the next time you’re in Venezuela.’ They didn’t take him up on the offer.” Joe Castiglione, WEEI Red Sox radio broadcast, August 31, 2020.

7 Stan Isle, “Caught on the Fly,” The Sporting News, March 20, 1982: 45.

8 Larry Whiteside, “Curfew wins as Red Sox, Mariners tied up after 19,” The Boston Globe, September 4, 1981.

9 Joe Giuliotti, “Experienced Houk Anxious for ’82,” The Sporting News, November 28, 1981: 57.

10 Joe Giuliotti, “All Aponte Does Is Get People Out,” The Sporting News, April 17, 1982: 20.

11 Joe Giuliotti, “Eckersley Is Key To Bosox’ Chances,” The Sporting News, April 10, 1982: 40.

12 Peter Gammons, “Nelson, Beard, Schmidt Head Class of ’82,” The Sporting News, January 30, 1982: 58. In Venezuela, Aponte “developed a great forkball.” John Cronin, “Interesting Inter-American League Items,” SABR Baseball Research Journal, Spring 2011: 93.

13 Joe Giuliotti, “Fenway Wall Good Target for Armas,” The Sporting News, March 21, 1983: 37.

14 Joe Giuliotti, “Stanley Has a Tough Act to Follow,” The Sporting News, January 2, 1984: 36.

15 Joe Giuliotti, “Rice Anticipating Another Big Year,” The Sporting News, April 9, 1984: 15.

16 Sheldon Ocker, “Indians’ Bullpen Is a Surprise,” The Sporting News, May 14, 1984: 25.

17 Sheldon Ocker, “Starting Pitching Is Coming Around,” The Sporting News, August 6, 1984: 15.

18 See https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Venezuelan_League#MVP (accessed December 14, 2020).

19 See www.pelotabinaria.com.ve/beisbol/mostrar.php?ID=aponlui001 (accessed December 14, 2020).

20 “Indians,” The Sporting News, February 27, 1989: 32.

21 Paul Hoynes, “Cleveland Indians Sign Betancourt to two-year deal,” posted January 23, 2008 and updated March 28, 2019 (accessed www.cleveland.com/sports/2008/01/cleveland_indians_sign_relieve.html, October 27, 2020).

22 Mariana Moreno, “Luis Aponte Teaches Baseball in Chile to Feel Closer to Venezuela,” El Nacional, March 22, 2019. Aponte said he would go back to Venezuela if conditions improved there: “I would return to my country to rebuild what they have destroyed, which is a lot.”

23 Alex Speier, “A long and difficult road led Junichi Tazawa to the right place,” The Boston Globe, April 24, 2015. ERA+ compares ERA to league average adjusted for ballpark effects.

Three seasons and one legal name change later, he resurfaced as Pete Appleton, notching a career-best 14 wins for the 1936 Washington Senators. For the next nine years, with time out for World War II naval service, Appleton remained in uniform, hurling his final major-league game as a 41-year-old in September 1945. The remainder of his life was likewise devoted to the game, first as a player-manager in various minor leagues and thereafter as a fulltime scout for the Senators and Minnesota Twins. By the time of his death in early 1974, Pete Appleton had spent 47 years associated with professional baseball.

A life in baseball was far from foreordained for Peter William Jablonowski when he was born in Terryville, Connecticut on May 20, 1904. It certainly was not the ambition harbored for the oldest of their four boys by Pete’s parents, Alex Jablonowski, a lock maker of Polish descent born in Pennsylvania, and wife, Mary.1 With the musical talents of her eldest child evident from an early age, Mary Jablonowski, in particular, envisioned her son forging a career in the arts as a concert pianist, perhaps becoming another Paderewski (rather than another Coveleski).2 But Pete’s athletic abilities could not be denied. At Terryville High School, he excelled in basketball and was a premier track and field man, setting a state record for the shot put.3

But it was on the baseball diamond where Pete really shined. A converted shortstop, Jablonowski pitched high school no-hitters against Woodbury and Litchfield, striking out 24 batters in the game against Woodbury.4 He also attracted attention pitching in the Waterbury City Amateur League. Although a professional career beckoned, furthering Pete’s education was the priority of his parents. Accordingly, he matriculated to the University of Michigan as a music studies major, his enrollment arranged by Terryville High School Principal Harry Fisher, who just happened to be the older brother of Wolverines baseball coach Ray Fisher, formerly a standout major-league pitcher.5 At Michigan, Pete Jablonowski performed capably in both the classroom and on the field. An excellent student, Pete was a member of the Polonia Literary Society at the university, as well as a sought-after pianist and fledgling band leader. On the diamond, he alternated between the mound and third base, where he formed part of the tongue-twisting around-the-horn combo of Jablonowski to Puckelwartz to Oosterban.6 By his senior year, Pete was the pitching ace of the Wolverines’ 1926 Western Conference (Big Ten) championship team. At campaign’s end, he then commenced his professional baseball career, signing with the Waterbury Brasscos of the Class A Eastern League.7

Joining the club in June, Jablonowski posted unspectacular numbers (7-6, with a 4.30 ERA in 23 games) for the lackluster seventh-place Brasscos. But his maiden pro season was highlighted by a 3-0 no-hitter against Bridgeport on August 17, and a last-day 15 strikeout relief appearance versus New Haven. This latter performance was witnessed first-hand by Cincinnati Reds manager Jack Hendricks, and resulted in Jablonowski being drafted by the Reds in the offseason. Optioned to Eastern League Hartford the following spring, Pete was a creditable 9-8 with a 2.99 ERA in 226 innings for the sixth-place Senators, earning himself a late-season promotion to the big club. On September 14, 1927, Jablonowski made his major-league debut, relieving starter Jakie May in what appeared to be a lost cause against the Phillies. A ninth-inning rally, begun with an RBI single by the good-hitting Jablonowski and completed by a bases-loaded triple by Rube Bressler, made Pete the winning pitcher. After several more relief appearances, he got his first start against Brooklyn, but was himself the victim of a ninth-inning rally that cost him a 5-3 defeat. On October 2, Pete bounced back, outdueling Pittsburgh’s Lee Meadows with a four-hit 1-0 complete game victory. In six games for the 1927 Reds, Jablonowski finished at 2-1 over 29 2/3 innings, but had recorded only three strikeouts (compared to 17 walks), an early indication that his stuff was something less than overpowering when pitted against major-league opposition.

Pete made the Reds roster the following spring but did not stay with the club the entire season, being optioned at mid-year to the Columbus Senators of the American Association. Before he went down, Jablonowski experienced the great thrill of his early baseball career. Taking over for a battered Jakie May in the first inning of a June contest, Pete thereafter outdueled Dazzy Vance for a 5-3 win in 11 innings. Recalled from Columbus in August, he ultimately saw action in 31 contests for the 1928 Reds, going 3-4 with a 4.68 ERA, mostly in relief. The following season, Jablonowski was once again assigned to Columbus, where he posted a solid 18-12 mark in 246 innings pitched. As the Senators’ campaign drew to a close, Cincinnati again recalled Pete, but Commissioner Landis, disturbed by the coziness of the Cincinnati-Columbus arrangement, would not allow it. He voided the transfer and declared the now 24-year-old hurler eligible for the upcoming draft. With that, Columbus promptly sold Jablonowski to the Cleveland Indians for $20,000.8

While waiting for his American League career to commence, Pete took post-graduate courses at the Michigan Conservatory of Music and sought engagements as a pianist and band leader. Back on the field, he spent the next two seasons entirely with Cleveland, going 8-7 (1930) and 4-4 (1931), again mostly in relief outings but with an occasional start. As in the NL, American League hitters did not find Jablonowski’s stuff overpowering, and he walked more batters (82) than he fanned (70). He began the 1932 season with several dismal relief appearances for the Indians, and was then traded to the Red Sox for 18-game loser Jack Russell. Pete’s downward slide continued in Boston. After going 0-3 in 11 games, he was sent to the Sox’ International League farm team in Newark. There, Pete suddenly regained his form, posting a sterling 11-1 record in 12 starts for the pennant-bound Bears. But in the minor-league Little World Series against the American Association champion Minneapolis Millers, he dropped his only decision, a route-going 3-2 loss in 10 innings.

That winter, the upturn in Pete Jablonowski’s fortunes extended from the diamond into his personal life. At a Manhattan hotel dinner dance, the handsome ballplayer-pianist met Aldona Leszczynski, an attractive female attorney from Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and courtship promptly ensued. On November 9, 1933, the two were wed at St. Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church in the bride’s hometown, the place where the newlyweds would reside throughout their 40-year marriage. Pete’s marital status was not the only thing that changed that year. Assisted through the legal process by Aldona, Pete officially changed his surname from Jablonowski to Appleton, the Polish word jablon being the equivalent of apple in English.9

Back on the baseball front, Pete was now the property of the New York Yankees, being among the assets acquired when the Newark franchise was purchased from Boston. He got little chance with New York, his tenure as a Yankee confined to a two-inning relief stint in a lone 1933 contest.10 He spent most of the season with Newark, going 13-7 for the Bears. Thereafter, Pete was sold to Baltimore of the International League which subsequently optioned him to the rival Rochester Red Wings.

After he had posted a combined 11-13 record for the 1934 campaign, Baltimore reclaimed Pete Appleton and then sold him to another International League competitor, the Montreal Royals. There, the rejuvenation of his pitching career would begin. Going 23-9 with a fine 3.17 ERA for the pennant-bound Royals, Pete Appleton was the IL’s leading winner and generally acclaimed the circuit’s best pitcher. That winter, appreciative Montreal owner-manager Frank Shaughnessy cleared the way for Pete to get another major-league shot, selling his rights to the Washington Senators for $7,500.

The 5’11” and 183 lb. veteran was now almost 32 years old. As described by Washington Post sports columnist (and soon-to-become ardent Pete Appleton booster) Shirley Povich, Appleton was a deliberate worker who did not throw hard, delivering his assortment of pitches via an over-the-top motion.11 But while his stuff was still adjudged no more than adequate by major-league standards, Washington brass hoped that Pete, if used judiciously, would prove a useful addition to a Senators pitching corps in serious decline from the pennant-winning performance of three seasons earlier. Alternating between the rotation and the bullpen, Appleton vindicated his acquisition, going 14-9, with 12 complete games and a creditable 3.53 ERA for the 1936 season, one that saw the Senators (82-71) post a 15-win improvement over the previous campaign. Unhappily for the DC faithful, neither the Senators nor Appleton would continue the good work, with the 1937 season seeing both the club (73-80) and the pitcher (8-15) headed in the wrong direction. The following two years, Appleton worked primarily in relief, turning in sub-par (7-9 and 5-10) logs for second division Washington teams.

In December 1939, Appleton was a throw-in in the trade that sent hard-hitting Taft Wright to the Chicago White Sox in exchange for outfielder Gee Walker. Appleton was used sparingly by Chicago, going 4-0 with a high 5.62 ERA in 25 relief appearances in 1940. He near reversed that win-loss mark the following season, posting a 0-3 record, with a 5.27 ERA in 13 games. Pete remained on the Sox roster for the 1942 campaign, but was released in early July after pitching less than five meaningless innings. Shortly thereafter, he signed with the St. Louis Browns, going 1-1 with a 2.96 ERA in 14 relief appearances.

Although the 38-year old pitcher was well beyond exposure to the military draft, Pete Appleton then enlisted in the United States Navy, accepting an officer’s commission in November 1942. Like many big leaguers, his military service in World War II consisted mainly of playing baseball on States-side armed forces teams, first with the Navy Pre-Flight nine at Chapel Hill, North Carolina (where Pete also entertained staff and cadets with his musical talents), and thereafter at Naval Air Station Quonset Point in Rhode Island.

On July 3, 1945, Lieutenant JG Peter W. Appleton, now age 41, was honorably discharged from duty. Still reserved to St. Louis, Pete thereupon reported to the Browns. After being hit hard in two relief outings, Appleton was released. Determined to continue his playing career, Appleton then signed with Washington, where one final major-league thrill awaited. On September 8, 1945, he took the mound at Griffith Stadium before President Harry S. Truman, cabinet officials, and more than 20,000 fans and threw a five-hit complete game at the Browns, winning 4-1.12

The spring of 1946 saw Appleton in camp with the Senators, but he drew his unconditional release just before the club headed north. Press friend Shirley Povich informed readers that Appleton was “undecided about his future. He doesn’t want to pitch in the minors and is toying with the idea of jumping to the Mexican League, teaching school, or organizing a band.”13

While making up his mind, Pete returned to his home in Perth Amboy, where, among other things, he could reflect upon a respectable, if unspectacular, major league career. In 14 seasons, he had gone 57-66,14 with a 4.30 ERA in 1,141 innings pitched, striking out 420 batters while walking 486. He had also helped his teams with the bat, hitting .233 in 374 lifetime at-bats.

In time, Pete returned to school, obtaining the credentials needed for a New Jersey teaching certificate from Rutgers University. He also took classes at New Jersey Law School.15 Try as he might, Pete Appleton could not shake baseball from his system. In 1946, he hooked on with the Buffalo Bisons, the Detroit affiliate in the International League, posting a 9-5 record that season, followed by a 7-7 log for the Bisons in 1948. He returned to Buffalo in 1949, but after a single appearance, dropped down to the Sherman-Dennison Twins of the Class B Big State League, going 12-4 in 17 starts. The following year, Pete began his minor-league managing career, taking the helm at Sherman-Dennison in midseason and bringing the Twins (70-78) home in fifth place, all the while continuing to take his turn on the mound. Appleton’s combined 9-10 record for 1949 includes a 1-0 mark in six games for the Dallas Eagles of the Class AA Texas League, as well.

In 1950, Appleton became a full-time manager, guiding the Augusta Tigers of the Class A Sally League to a 66-87 (seventh place) finish. But he proved unable to resist the temptation to insert himself into the action, going 2-2 with a 2.25 ERA in 13 relief appearances for his club. Pete Appleton made his final pitching appearances at age 47, appearing in ten games without a decision for the pennant-winning (85-40) Erie Sailors of the Class C Middle Atlantic League, while being named co-manager of the league all-star team.

In 1952, Pete found himself as non-playing manager for the Roanoke Rapid Jays of the lowly Class D Coastal Plain League. The following season, the Appleton-guided Charlotte Hornets captured the post-season championship of the Class B Tri-State League. The 1954 season saw the Charlotte club and manager Appleton promoted to the Sally League, but with the team languishing at 27-45, Pete was replaced as Hornets manager by Ellis Clary, thus bringing the first phase of his managerial career to a close.

Once again back in Perth Amboy, Pete accepted a baseball scouting position, scouring the East Coast in search of prospects for his old club, the Washington Senators. He also made use of his teaching license, substitute teaching during the offseason. In addition, Pete was a loyal member of the Perth Amboy Elks, actively involved in the affairs of St. Stephen’s parish, and a reliable attendee at NY/NJ Hot Stove gatherings. Perhaps more important, his presence at home lent support to wife Aldona, a rising star on the local political scene and headed for appointment to the bench, becoming in 1958 only the second female state court judge in New Jersey history. All this activity, however, did not ease Pete Appleton’s itch to get back into uniform. And on June 21, 1964, 60-year-old Appleton replaced Jack McKeon (a neighbor from next-door South Amboy, NJ, and decades later, the manager of the 2003 World Champion Florida Marlins) as skipper of the last-place Atlanta Crackers of the International League. At season’s end, Pete surrendered the Atlanta reins, but the following season he was back in harness, albeit only briefly, serving a one-week tour of duty as interim manager of the Wisconsin Rapid Twins of the Class A Midwest League. Appleton’s final managerial stint occurred in 1970 when he returned to Charlotte, replacing Harry Warner at the Hornets helm late in the season.

Between managing assignments, Appleton had remained a scout for the Senators, and thereafter, the Minnesota Twins. In spring 1973, he was placed in charge of the Twins’ minor-league camp in Melbourne, Florida. But soon thereafter, Pete’s health began to deteriorate. Diagnosed with cancer, he was later admitted to St Francis Hospital in Trenton, where he died on January 18, 1974 at age 69. Following a Funeral Mass at St. Stephen’s Church, Pete Appleton was interred at St. Gertrude’s Cemetery in Colonia, New Jersey. Without children, he was survived by wife Aldona, and brothers Joseph, John, and Alex Jablonowski, Jr. Unlike the situation of many who entered the game almost a century ago, baseball was not the only means toward upward mobility available to Peter William Jablonowski/Appleton. Handsome, intelligent, well-educated, and musically talented, he had various career options at his disposal. A life as a journeyman pitcher, minor league manager, and baseball scout was entirely a matter of choice for Pete Appleton. And the game was surely made better because of the path chosen by this honorable and dedicated professional.

Notes

Floyd Wilton Baker was born to Charles and Ida Belle (Ramey) Baker, both Virginians themselves, on October 10, 1916, in Luray, Virginia. He had an older brother, Ray. At the time of the 1920 census, Charles was a farm laborer and the family lived in Piedmont, Virginia. By 1940 Charles and Ida Baker were living in the private home of one Fanny Dyche, where Ida worked as a housekeeper. Charles was employed as a house painter. By then, Floyd was already playing pro ball.

Both Baker boys had starred in baseball at Luray High School. In the last game of the 1935 baseball season for Luray High, Floyd’s bases-loaded triple won the game against Shenandoah, 5-2. Floyd was invited to a tryout in front of Clark Griffith of the Washington Senators in June 1934. Ray came along. Floyd was already thinking of a career in baseball at the time; Ray had not yet decided.1 Ray’s play on the football field won him a scholarship to Shenandoah Valley Academy.

Floyd played five years of semipro ball in all. During the summers from 1935 through 1937, he played in the Valley League for Harrisonburg and was twice invited to work out with the St .Louis Browns in 1937 when the Browns visited Washington during the course of the season.

In the spring of 1938, he was invited to try out in San Antonio with the Browns affiliate there, and was signed by Pat Monahan and Charles DeWitt.2 He was assigned to the Mayfield Clothiers, of Mayfield, Kentucky, and had a very good first season in the Class-D Kitty (Kentucky-Tennessee-Illinois) League. Baker played in 125 games at shortstop and hit for a .346 batting average. (Augie Bergamo’s .355 for Hopkinsville led the league.) In his seven years of minor-league ball, he hit 12 homers. Two of them were in this first season.

He was advanced to the Class-C Middle Atlantic League for 1939 and played for the Youngstown (Ohio) Browns in both 1939 and 1940. In his first game of the year, he took part in a triple play. He struggled a bit at the plate the first year (.266 in 103 games), but came on stronger in 1940 (.303 in 124 games). In the latter year, his 15 sacrifices tied for the league lead.

On March 31, 1941 he married Anne M. Schoessel. Baker’s 1941 season was with the Springfield (Illinois) Browns in the Class-B Three-I League. He matched his games total from the year before (124 games) and hit a team-best .317. Leading off for Springfield, he hit the second pitch he saw on Opening Day over the right-field wall. It was the first of eight homers he hit for Springfield in 1941, two-thirds of his career total. He led his position in Three-I League fielding statistics, and was named shortstop of the league’s All-Star team3.

He played in exactly 100 games in the Texas League for Class-A1 San Antonio in 1942, improving his batting average to .326 but without any home runs. He would have played more, but had been suspended on May 20 for nearly two months “because of a dispute over interpretation of his contract.”4 Only Dick Wakefield of Beaumont ranked above him in the league’s batting averages. In October 1942, the St. Louis Browns formally purchased his contract.

Baker was a holdout, however, only signing at the late date of March 29, 1943. He began the season with St. Louis, and made his major-league debut as a pinch-hitter on May 4 at Sportsman’s Park against the visiting Detroit Tigers. He struck out. When next asked to pinch-hit eight days later, he doubled against the Boston Red Sox. His first RBI came in the second game of the May 16 doubleheader against the New York Yankees, and it was a big one: it won the game. The score was tied, 3-3, with one out in the bottom of the 10th. There were runners on first and second and Browns manager Luke Sewell asked Baker to hit for second baseman Don Gutteridge. Baker singled to center, driving in the winning run. A couple of weeks later, on May 31, his errant throw allowed the Red Sox to score the winning run in that day’s second game, also in the 10th inning, in Boston. It was his second error of the game, the only two errors he made in 51 chances on the season.

He appeared in 22 games, half of them pinch-hitting, 10 at shortstop (sometimes just in later innings), and once at third base. Calling on him to pinch-hit was rarely productive, however, with the May 16 base hit the last one he achieved in 1943. Once the Browns’ regular shortstop, Vern Stephens, recovered from an injury, there had been little for Baker to do. With an average of .174, and four RBIs total, he was optioned to the Toledo Mud Hens. He played in 37 games, hitting .255 for Toledo. He might have played more, and hit for a higher average, but for having “spent more than a month at his home pouting because he wanted to stay with the Browns, despite Vern Stephens.”5

Baker had been able to play ball throughout the war years because of a 4F deferment due to a stomach ailment.6

Baker was with St. Louis for the full season in 1944, again as a reserve infielder. It was a good year to be with the Browns; they won the American League pennant. Baker himself played no big role in the Browns finishing first; he drove in only five runs all year long. He appeared in 44 games, with 97 at-bats, and hit for a .175 average. He did get the opportunity to play in the World Series, against the other team in St. Louis, the Cardinals. Both teams shared Sportsman’s Park during the regular season, and thus all of the six World Series games were played there,.

With the Series even at two wins apiece, Baker pinch-hit in Game Five in the bottom of the seventh. The Cardinals held a slim 1-0 lead and there was a baserunner on first with one out. Baker faced pitcher Mort Cooper and struck out.

Arthur Daley of the New York Times may have hurt Baker’s feelings. He wrote, “Not since Chicago’s hitless wonders of 1906 had a .235 batsman as their heaviest slugger has there appeared in a world series a pinch-hitter with the average Floyd Baker carted to the plate today. Either Luke Sewell is running out of emergency batsmen or he’s running out of hunches…The young man fanned in right smart fashion.”7

The Cardinals won the game, 2-0, and held a three-games-to-two lead in the Series.

In Game Six, the Cardinals scored three times in the bottom of the fourth to take a 3-1 lead. The same score stood in the top of the seventh. With one out and relief pitcher Ted Wilks on the mound, Browns manager Sewell again asked Baker to pinch-hit. Again Baker struck out. The Cardinals won the game and the Series.

On December 30, 1944, the Chicago White Sox purchased Baker’s contract from the Browns for an unannounced sum. He was with the White Sox for just shy of seven years, almost the whole time on the major-league team.

The 1945 White Sox finished sixth under Jimmy Dykes. Baker appeared in more than half the games and hit for a .250 average, not far below the team’s .262 mark. He played mostly at third base. He only drove in 19 but at least a couple of times won games, once with a squeeze bunt and once in the top of the 14th inning against the Athletics on September 5.

In 1946, however, he only played in nine games. He opened the season with the big-league team, playing in two mid-April games. On April 27 he was optioned to the Milwaukee Brewers. He played the full season there, in Triple-A ball, getting into 120 games and batting .287. It wasn’t his size that earned him the nickname “The Mouse” in Milwaukee; it was “because he seldom is heard.”8 Brought back up to Chicago in mid-September, he played in seven more games. He drive in three runs, and finished at .250. Baker never returned to play in the minors; the rest of his career was in the big leagues.

Third base was his station in 1947; in 101 of his 105 games, he played the hot corner. He had his best season at the plate to date, batting .264 and driving in 22 runs – but getting on base at a .375 pace and scoring 61 runs. He got credit for becoming a “base hit thief” and “a mighty nifty defensive item” at third base.9 He had a .980 fielding percentage.

In 1948 his batting average dropped to .215. That was an anomaly, though, since he bounced back to .260 in 125 games in 1949, with a career-high 40 RBIs. Two of those runs came on May 4 at Comiskey Park when he hit his one and only major-league home run, a two-run homer off Washington’s Sid Hudson in the bottom of the fourth. At the time, his homer gave the White Sox a 7-0 lead, but they lost the game in the end, 8-7. His home run was hit over a “trick wire fence around the Comiskey Park outfield.”10 The fences had been brought in 20 feet, reducing the distance for home runs from 352 feet to 332 feet.11 The fence “suddenly vanished in the early hours of May 5.”12 In other words, the day after Baker hit his home run –and two Senators homered in the top of the ninth to give the visitors a win.

There are only nine players in big-league history who had more at-bats than Baker’s 2,280, but only hit one home run.13

Before spring training began in 1950, the Chicago Tribune’s Irving Vaughan wrote that Baker as a third baseman “ can accomplish things most guardians of that position wouldn’t attempt.”14 Then he went on to challenge the perception that Baker was subpar on offense. Without using the words “on-base percentage,” one element of his argument pointed to Baker’s ability to draw walks, despite a mediocre batting average that would indicate the pitchers weren’t likely to pitch around him. Indeed, he ranked third on the club in on-base percentage.

Beginning in 1950, Baker reverted to a utility infielder role. White Sox manager Red Corriden praised his defense as the best infielder in the American League. Acknowledging that he lacked in terms of “color,” Corriden said, “There is absolutely no play that Baker can’t make at third base. He has made some which I would have sworn were impossible.”15

Though in the utility role, he nonetheless appeared in 83 games, with the lion’s share of the games at third base. He also had a lot of pinch-hitting work, especially through July, and this year it paid off. He finished the season with a career-best .317 average and was on base 41.7% of the time. More or less the same pattern prevailed in 1951, though his pinch-hitting was more spread out throughout the season and his average fell back to .263.

On October 24, 1951, Baker was traded to the Washington Senators, with some cash, for young Cuban shortstop Willy Miranda, another “glove man” but a younger one.

With Washington, Baker played similarly in 1952. He hit .262 and drove in 33 runs (second best in his career), in 79 games. He’d started off the season nicely, driving in two runs – including the game-winner in the bottom of the 11th – to beat the Boston Red Sox in his first game, the second of the year for the Senators. He beat the BoSox again on July 5, with a bases-loaded double in the bottom of the seventh.

Baker’s 1953 season got off to a frustrating start. He was used eight times as a pinch-hitter, and every time he made an out. A ninth out came when he entered a game late, and grounded out to end the eighth inning. Perhaps the Red Sox remembered how Baker had beaten them a couple of times in 1952; they purchased his contract from the Senators on May 12. By season’s end, after 81 games for the Red Sox, he’d proved he was about as consistent a hitter as there was – he’d hit .263 in 1951, .262 in 1952, and .263 in 1953. There had been one unusual game, on June 17, when manager Lou Boudreau decided to put Baker in the cleanup spot, surprising everyone, as he decided to have Dick Gernert bat third. Baker drove in three runs in a 17-1 Red Sox win over Detroit. Gernert hit two homers and drove in four. Then, on August 4, as fans were clamoring for Ted Williams to bat for the first time since he’d returned from the Korean War, Boudreau sent up Baker to pinch-hit with the bases loaded in a 2-2 game in the bottom of the eighth. Baker doubled, clearing the bases.

Baker was used almost exclusively in pinch-hitting (14 times) or pinch-running (3) roles in 21 games for the 1954 Red Sox. And with a .200 average, he wasn’t impressing at the bat. He had three RBIs, two of them in a 20-10 shellacking of the Athletics. He only scored one time. He really was just an extra guy on a team that already had Billy Consolo, Billy Goodman, George Kell, and a couple of others as reserve infielders. The Phillies developed a need, though, and when Baker was placed on waivers, they claimed him on July 16. He played in 23 games for the Phillies before the end of the season, batting .227 while neither scoring nor driving in a run.

He returned with the Phillies again in 1955, under new manager Mayo Smith, but not for long. He pinch-hit four times in April, each time unsuccessfully. On May 4 he played third base against the visiting Cincinnati Reds and grounded out, flew out, grounded out, and struck out. He was 0-for-8 on the season and had to look back to the previous year for his final base hit in the big leagues. On May 9 he was unconditionally released.

In February 1957, the Washington Senators signed him as a scout, and he worked with them from 1957 through 1960. He worked for the Minnesota Twins as a scout in 1961, but when coach Clyde McCullough was stricken with ulcers and had to be hospitalized at the very beginning of April, Baker was named third-base coach for the Twins, a position he held for four seasons, until he was let go from that post in mid-October 1964.

He had done some scouting for the Twins even while coaching, for instance signing Garry Roggenburk in 1962. After being relieved of his coaching duties, Baker returned to scouting for the Twins for another 30 years, 1965-1994.

His signing credits as a scout include:

• 1959: Lamar “Jake” Jacobs
• 1960: Rich Rollins
• 1961: Bernie Allen
• 1961: Joe Nossek
• 1962: Garry Roggenburk
• 1970: Bob Gorinski
• 1982: Allan Anderson16

Baker retired from the Twins in 1995.

Baker was active in his community, with the Boardman United Methodist Church, the Baseball Oldtimers Association, the Curbstone Coaches, and the YMCA for more than 50 years.17 In 1977 he was named to the Curbstone Coaches Hall of Fame, a local group in Youngstown, founded in 1958, which holds luncheons almost every Monday to discuss matters relating to athletics.18

Floyd Baker died at his home in Youngstown, Ohio, on November 16, 2004. He was survived by his son, Robert F. Baker, M.D., and his daughter, Linda Beany, as well as numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Sources

In addition to the sources noted in this biography, the author also accessed Baker’s player file and player questionnaire from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, the Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball, Retrosheet.org, Baseball-Reference.com, Rod Nelson of SABR’s Scouts Committee, and the SABR Minor Leagues Database, accessed online at Baseball-Reference.com.

Notes

After serving Williams from 1897 to 1921, Barrett spent the remainder of his life with Columbia. The Big Apple’s sportswriters took to this genial, colorful, entertaining character. Upon Barrett’s death, Irving Marsh of the New York Herald-Tribune paid an especially vivid tribute. Marsh called Doc “one of the last of a fast-vanishing breed of men who inhabited college athletics in the early part of the [20th] century. They were, in addition to being trainers and conditioners, morale men, men the athletes loved to have around because, as Barrett expressed it, they were ribbers as well as rubbers.”[2]

Charles Edward Barrett was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, child of Michael and Ann. He played football and other sports as a lad.[3] In 1894, still a teenager, he embarked on his life’s work. At first he devoted his efforts mainly to bicycle racers, although he also worked with football and basketball teams. In 1897 he drew broader attention as the Worcester High School crew, which he had trained and conditioned, won the national intermediate eight-oar championship in Philadelphia.[4]

Shortly thereafter, Barrett went to Williams. There is strong reason to believe that he connected with major-league baseball through Hall of Fame pitcher Jack Chesbro. Chesbro was a native of North Adams, Massachusetts, just east of Williamstown in the far northwestern corner of the state. In January 1905 Sporting Life observed, “Chesbro takes excellent care of himself up in the winter in North Adams. He is a stickler for exercise.”[5] Not only was Barrett right next door, he too had a connection to North Adams. In fact, in 1927, Columbia’s alumni newsletter wrote that he was from there.

Sometime in the first decade of the 20th century, Barrett began scouting for the Highlanders, for whom Jack Chesbro pitched from 1903 through 1909. In August 1907 Sporting Life reported that he had signed Brown University’s ace pitcher, Raymond Tift, for New York. Tift appeared in four games in the majors over the following month. (Doc Barrett is not to be confused with Charles Francis Barrett, who began his career as one of the game’s most outstanding scouts a couple of years or so later.[6])

Another Williams player, catcher Clyde Waters, signed with the Highlanders in July 1907.[7] Although Waters never made it to the majors, he played in the minor leagues through 1914. That spring, according to Barrett, Connie Mack, owner-manager of the Philadelphia Athletics, was interested in a pitcher named Joseph Ford, the ace of the Ephs staff.[8] Mack came from East Brookfield, Massachusetts, just a few miles west of Worcester. He liked college players and might have crossed paths with Barrett years before. Three Mackmen later coached baseball at Williams while Barrett was there: pitcher Andy Coakley (1911-13), catcher Ira Thomas (hired August 1916, resigned February 1921), and pitcher Jack Coombs (succeeded Thomas, went to Princeton in September 1924).

Williams re-engaged Barrett for another five-year term in 1908. His reputation had already spread through New England; the Meriden (Connecticut) Daily Journal wrote, “His success has been marked in many athletic contests when the condition of the Williams teams have [sic] carried them to victory.[9] In March 1905 the Boston Globe wrote, “The Williams College basket-ball team has just closed a remarkably successful season and now claims the national intercollegiate championship” with a record of 20-2.[10] The 1906-07 edition of Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide carried a photo of Barrett and the Eph cagers.

Before long, sports fans in other regions would come to know Barrett’s name even more widely. In the summer of 1910, with the permission of the Williams Athletic Council, Highlanders owner Frank Farrell hired Barrett to work with his team. Both the Atlanta Constitution and the Pittsburgh Press carried a story describing Barrett as “one of the most expert students of muscular anatomy in the country. . . . The players and Mr. Farrell have become so impressed with the methods of Mr. Barrett that he will be kept with the team during the entire time of his vacation from his duties at Williams College. Mr. Barrett works on the same principles as the famous ‘Bonesetter’ Reese, of Youngstown, O.”[11] Reese, who was born in Wales in 1855, had learned the trade of “bonesetting” in his homeland. Welshmen used this term for treatment of muscle and tendon strains, not actually setting broken bones. Reese’s practice – and Barrett’s – resembled osteopathy.[12]

Almost straight away, Sporting Life began to carry items about how Doc had cured broken fingers, charley horses, and sore arms. In 1913 Frank Farrell said that Barrett was “in a class by himself.” Highlanders manager Frank Chance added, “Barrett has more practical knowledge of how to cure sprained ankles and wrenched arms than anybody.”[13] (The skipper, who suffered from lumbago, also benefited from special massage treatment.[14]) In addition, Barrett also oversaw nutrition, directing food shipments to the team’s spring training site in Bermuda. “Pastry, ices, and similar dishes shall be tabooed.”[15]

Indeed, that year the team wanted to have Barrett all to itself; Sporting Life reported in January that he would resign his place at Williams. An account several weeks later in the Boston Evening Transcript suggests that this was not the case, though. Doc received a silver cigarette case, inscribed, “Presented to ‘Doc’ Barrett by the students of Williams College in appreciation of his continued services and fidelity to Williams, which has helped so many teams to success.”[16]

In early 1915 Frank Farrell and his co-owner, Big Bill Devery, sold the Yankees to Jacob Ruppert and Tillinghast L’Hommedieu Huston. The Colonels brought in their own people, and that extended to Barrett’s level. In February 1915 the Yankees appointed a new trainer, Jimmy Duggan. Barrett returned to Williams, but after leaving the Yankees he did some work for the New York Giants. He had wanted to sign another Williams star, outfielder Cyprian “Cy” Toolan of North Adams, in the spring of 1914. Giants manager John McGraw remained interested the following year; he “believed he could develop [Toolan] into a valuable man for the Giants.” In July 1915, though, Toolan chose to enter business instead of taking McGraw’s trial offer.[17]

During World War I Barrett joined the US Army Air Service, taking care of flyers. He earned the rank of lieutenant. This position came about thanks to the prominent football authority Walter Camp, who helped bring a large group of noted trainers to Rockwell Field in California.[18] Doc was also trainer of the Army and Navy Aviators Baseball Club.[19] One of the friends he made there was a young flyboy named Jimmy Doolittle, who became a famous general in World War II.[20]

Other colleges wanted to lure Barrett away, but as of August 1920 he was still with Williams. The New York Times noted that he was scouting for the Philadelphia A’s in California that summer.[21] Less than a year later, though, the word came that Doc was leaving for Columbia. That November the Williams students burned him in effigy.[22]

Easily the most famous student-athlete Barrett worked on at Columbia was Lou Gehrig, who played football as well as baseball during his time there (1921-23). The Lions’ baseball coach then, and for many years to come, was Andy Coakley. Coakley, a former pitcher at Holy Cross in Worcester, had left Williams for Columbia in 1914. One wonders just what happened behind the scenes with this old boys’ network.

In addition, Barrett’s name as a comic grew. In 1927 the Columbia alumni newsletter described him and an old buddy from North Adams, one Shotsy Shanahan, as “a weekly two-man vaudeville act.” In 1943 Arthur Daley of the New York Times wrote, “For forty-six years Doc Barrett has been holding athletes together with a combination of adhesive tape and jocular remarks. He hands out both liberally, the Barrett flippancies predominating. Doc is a wag of the first water.”[23]

Irving Marsh wrote that Barrett was a fully built man with face to match, who (as he aged) had a shock of startling white hair. “He was a character out of Charles Dickens or H.G. Wells, depending on how you looked at it. The tales he told – and they weren’t all about himself either – had even his fellow trainers, and they are and were raconteurs all, open-mouthed. It was said often that he looked like the late W.C. Fields, and he reveled in that description, although when it was first applied he didn’t think it so funny.”[24]

Marsh also observed Barrett’s old-school professional methods. “Doc hated such newfangled inventions as whirlpool baths, ultraviolet machines, etc. – he’d grow violent even when they were mentioned as possible methods of relieving injuries. And he’d also grow violent about rubdowns. . . . ‘Where do you think you are, Mac – in Hollywood?’ But he did have great faith in a liniment of his own concoction, ingredients known only to him, which he shipped everywhere. He was especially proud of this snake oil and had no hesitation in telling anyone who’d listen – and you had to listen – of the vast number of great athletes he’d saved for action by application of his wonder oil.”[25]

Charles “Doc” Barrett died at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital on July 5, 1954, after a long illness. His widow, Renna Barrett, and their daughter, Ruth, survived him. Along with his applied knowledge and humor, there was another key to his enduring success in athletics: Despite his faith in his own methods, he was open-minded when it suited him. In 1925, at roughly the halfway mark in his career, Barrett told Popular Science magazine, “I’ve been at this for a whale of a long time and I don’t ever think I knew it all. I’m always watching the other fellow, ready to steal his stuff if he’s got anything better than I have.”

Thanks to Pete McHugh, assistant director of sports information/media relations, Columbia University.

Doc Barrett on What Makes a Great Athlete

More quotes from “What Sport Can You Excel In?”

By Peter Vischer, Popular Science, December 1925

“My boy, athletic champions have to be bred. They’re like horses. You can’t take any boy in the world and make a real champion out of him. He has to get something from his father and he has to get something from his mother. I know, because I’ve trained lots of boys and seen them grow up and go away and I’ve seen their sons come back to me.”

“But he must have more. He must have something here – (Barrett tapped his forehead) – “and he must have something here” – (he tapped his heart). “And neither of them can be a chestnut.”

“I am convinced that after 30 years’ study of athletes, that athletics is 95 percent mechanical. Your great baseball star, your football back who has been burning up the opposition, your hunky crew man, your slippery basketball forward, your tennis champion, your golf shark—it’s the same with all of them. They have to keep at it until their work is 95 percent mechanical.”

May 30, 2011

Photo Credits

Columbia Sports archives

Spalding’s Official Basket Ball Guide, 1906-07

Sources

www.la84foundation.org (Sporting Life online)

Notes

Charles Francis Barrett was born on June 14, 1871, son of John Barrett, an immigrant from Canada, and Mary (Dolan) Barrett. It was a large family, with at least nine children, according to the 1880 census. According to The Sporting News, John served as a member of the St. Louis Fire Department. With so many mouths to feed, Charley left Jefferson school at the age of 14 to work for the St. Louis Messenger Service. A year later he was promoted to the job of clerk. He later worked for the Mound City Livery Company as a telephone operator and director of the company’s nighttime messenger service. The nighttime job allowed Charley to play baseball during the day. As a member of the Emerald Cadets, a Catholic organization, Barrett organized a baseball team.

Barrett began playing semiprofessional ball in his native St. Louis for the Fairs ballclub and then played for the George Diel club until he was signed to a professional contract by Lou Whistler for his Chattanooga club in 1901. In 1902 Barrett played for Sedalia of the Missouri Valley League and Colorado Springs in the Western League. Longtime baseball man Joseph J. Quinn had seen Barrett play on the sandlots of St. Louis. He recommended him to millionaire gold-mine owner Thomas Burns, who was starting a club in Colorado Springs.

In 1903 Barrett played with Dallas and Fort Worth of the Texas League. In 1904 he moved on to Houston of the South Texas League. In 1905 he played for Beaumont/Brenham, San Antonio, and Galveston of the South Texas League. An outfielder, Barrett could run but not hit, compiling a lifetime batting average under .200.

After his minor-league career Barrett returned to St. Louis to work in a sporting-goods store. For a time he managed a team in the local semipro Trolley League. He also informally scouted, recommending St. Louis-area players to minor-league clubs. His official scouting career began in 1909 when he attempted to persuade St. Louis Browns president Bob Hedges to open a ticket office in the sporting-goods store. Hedges knew Barrett’s name from his minor-league playing days as someone who had recommended players and offered him a job as a scout with the Browns. Barrett accepted, beginning his long ivory-hunting career that would last until his death in 1939. Barrett also managed the Houston club in the Texas League for part of the 1909 season.

Barrett stayed with the Browns through 1916, developing a close relationship with Browns front-office magnate Branch Rickey. Offered more money, Barrett worked as a scout for the Detroit Tigers in the 1917 season. In 1918 he returned to St. Louis to again work for Rickey, who had moved over to the Cardinals. Considered by some to be Rickey’s right arm, he helped the executive develop the famous Cardinals farm system.

Barrett referred to it as chain-store baseball. The idea was to have a large number of farm clubs allied with the Cardinals, playing at different levels so prospects could work their way through the system, theoretically gaining experience and improving until they were ready to be major leaguers. The excess players could then be traded or sold to other organizations. Rickey often referred to it as gaining quality from quantity.

It is interesting how little changes in baseball over time. Teams today have different philosophies in player development. Some move players slowly through their system, wanting them to have success at a level before promoting them. Others will move top prospects through the system faster, wanting to “challenge” them. In 1935 Barrett was quoted as saying the Cardinals wanted more D and C level teams (in a system topped by A and AA). He said they liked to send players as low as they could, so that they could be big frogs in little puddles.

Barrett frequently led or helped with Cardinal tryout camps, a favored way for the Cardinals to scout talent. In his career it was estimated he traveled over 500,000 miles, by car, bus, train, airplane, and even a tractor. At one point in his career Barrett ordered a special license plate for his Lincoln Zephyr car, bearing the words “Cardinals scout” with the Redbird logo upon it. He said he wanted people to know who he was so they might tip him off to local prospects.

Charley often went to great lengths to sign a player, even signing three players out of Cuba. The Sporting News told the story of Barrett traveling down a muddy road on his way to scout a player. His car got stuck but he was able to reach a phone to call the father of the prospect, who promptly sent a man with a tractor to pick Barrett up and bring him to the tryout spot. The player wasn’t signed.ii

Charley related another unusual signing story, that of pitcher Tim McCabe. Barrett stopped off at Farmington, Missouri, to visit the local county fair. He paid his 50 cents to get in to the fair and soon discovered a ballgame was one of the attractions. Ever the sharp-eyed scout, Barrett wandered over to watch the game, paying 25 cents for a seat in the grandstand. He quickly spotted McCabe’s work on the mound, signing him immediately after the conclusion of the contest.iii

Even the great ones sometimes get it wrong. A story was told on Barrett that he was scouting at the University of Oklahoma and spotted Colonel Buster Mills. He didn’t have a roster so he asked a player who the good outfielder was. The player replied Wahl. Barrett sent a contract back to Oklahoma and Wahl duly signed. A Cleveland scout then came in and signed Mills and Barrett later made a minor-league deal to get Mills into the Cardinals system. The story may be apocryphal but Mills did have a teammate at Oklahoma in 1930 named Tifford Wahl.

Scouting right up to the end, Barrett died on July 4, 1939, at his home on Wabada Avenue in St. Louis. The Cardinals team physician, Dr. Robert Hyland, signed the death certificate. He was survived by three sisters and a brother. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis. He never married, The Sporting News saying “For even a woman of the Mrs. Roosevelt type hardly could keep up with him.”

Barrett’s 66 signings include: Mack Allison, Bill Beckman, Les Bell, Ray Blades, Jim Bottomley, Bunny Brief, Bud Byerly, Ray Cunningham, Jumbo Elliot, Homer Ezzell, Rick Ferrell, Max Flack, Art Fletcher, Rube Foster, Jesse Fowler, Ival Goodman, Bert Griffith, Charlie Grimm, Don Gutteridge, Chick Hafey, Andy High, Charlie High, Hugh High, Walter Holke, Al Hollingsworth, Joe Jenkins, Syl Johnson, Johnny Keane, Bob Keely, Billy Kelly, Bill Killefer, Bob Klinger, Grover Lowdermilk, Pepper Martin, Tim McCabe, Heinie Meine, Walt Meinert, Benny Meyer, Bing Miller, Heinie Mueller, Buddy Napier, Earl Naylor, Mickey O’Neil, Fritz Ostermueller, Bill Pertica, Rube Peters, Cotton Pippen, Hub Pruett, George Puccinelli, Art Reinhart, Pete Reiser, Flint Rhem, Muddy Ruel, William Rumler, Lou Scoffic, Hank Severeid, Ray Starr, Allyn Stout, Homer Summa, Jeff Tesreau, Frank Truesdale, Elam Vangilder, Gus Williams, Jim Winford, Ab Wright, and Johnny Wyrostek.

Sources

Missouri death certificate

Baseball-reference.com

The Sporting News: various issues

Newspapers including the Anaconda (Montana) Standard

www.ancestry.com including censuses of 1880, 1910, and 1930

SABR Scouts committee databases

Notes

Born on May 20, 1914, Alfred Stanley Benjamin was the oldest of the five children (three girls, two boys) of Grace (Hunt) and Alfred Benjamin of Framingham, in central Massachusetts. Their father had been an athlete at Framingham High School and worked as a carpenter both in the building trades and factories. Stan emulated his father and became a three-sport star athlete at Framingham High and then in college at Western Maryland College (now known as McDaniel College) in Westminster, Maryland. He learned his baseball on the sandlots and in high school. In the summer when he was old enough he played American Legion baseball. After Legion ball he played semipro in the summers.

Benjamin had a penchant for playing with championship teams. His 1934 Western Maryland football squad was 8-0-1 and featured the highest scorer in the nation, quarterback and kicker Bill Shepherd. The team was invited to play in the first-ever Orange Bowl, but turned down the offer. In Benjamin’s 12 seasons of professional baseball, he was on three championship teams while six others lost in the playoffs.

The Western Maryland University Green Terrors were scored upon in only one game in 1934. Their lone tie was a 0-0 affair with Villanova. They claimed shutout victories over Boston College and Bucknell. Benjamin played left end on offense and defensive end. He was known for his hard-hitting talents on defense and sure hands on offense. In 1935 and 1936 the team posted records of 6-5 and 7-3-1. In 1935 Benjamin was on the receiving end of a 63-yard touchdown pass against Georgetown and won the game ball for his play in the 12-6 win over Boston College. In both 1935 and 1936 the Baltimore Sun named him to the All-Maryland Collegiate team.

In baseball, Benjamin played mainly shortstop on a team that scheduled only a few games and then suffered more than its share of rainouts. All told, he played fewer than 30 games in college. He played basketball and was the leading scorer as a forward and center in the 1936-37 season, but he turned in his uniform in February when he signed his first baseball contract.

Benjamin signed with the Baltimore Orioles of the International League and went to spring training with them in Winter Garden, Florida, in March1937. On April 19, he was farmed out to the Thomasville (Georgia) Orioles of the Class D Georgia-Florida League. Playing mostly third base in 1937, he helped the Orioles to a first-place finish with a .310 batting average. Cordele had finished only a half-game behind and beat the Orioles in the playoffs.

Benjamin returned to Thomasville in 1938 and played third early in the season before shifting to center field. He suffered a concussion while tracking down a long drive and missed playing time, but still led the team with a .343 batting average. The Orioles won the first round of the playoffs over Tallahassee thanks to Benjamin’s inside-the-park homer in the final game. They lost to first-place Albany in the finals.

Benjamin’s contract was assigned to the Chattanooga Lookouts in the Class A Southern Association for the 1939 season. Bill Nicholson led the league in homers and the team with a .334 average. Benjamin was not far behind at .323. He led the league with 43 stolen bases in 55 attempts. His basestealing prowess led to a race with Johnny Rucker of Atlanta. Rucker won easily in the 100-yard dash. Proving that basestealing requires more than speed, Rucker was successful stealing only 19 of 32 times.3The Lookouts took first place with 85 wins, but were eliminated in the first round by Atlanta. In April, the Phillies had purchased the rights to Benjamin and infielder Charles Letchas for $10,000 apiece with the stipulation that they would report after the Southern Association season.

Benjamin made his major-league debut on September 16, 1939, against the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field. He played left field and batted third against veteran Bill Lee. He reached on a single in the third, but did not score in the 8-2 loss. The Phillies gave Benjamin 11 more starts and tested his versatility with appearances at all three outfield spots and four starts at third base. He batted just .140, but performed well enough the next spring to go north with the team in April. He had very little chance (nine at-bats and only two appearances in the outfield) to distinguish himself before being cut when rosters were reduced in mid-May. He was sent to Baltimore.

The 1940 Orioles had a powerful lineup. Bill Nagel smashed a league-leading 37 homers, Red Howell added 29 and Nick Etten 25. Their power inspired Benjamin, who banged out 11 homers to go with 16 doubles and 7 triples and a .304 average. He might have posted even more impressive stats, but he collided with Eddie Collins Jr. and missed three weeks with a bad shoulder. The Orioles finished fourth, but beat Rochester in the first round of playoffs before succumbing to the Newark Bears in the finals.

Benjamin went to spring training with Philadelphia in 1941 and quickly won the right-field job from incumbent Johnny Rizzo. He was forced to miss the first Western swing of the season when he and Rizzo came down with strep throat. Benjamin struggled at the plate and did not get his average to stay over .200 until June 21. Finally, in September, he climbed over the .230 mark. By that time, he was suffering from the effects of a hernia that would require surgery after the season. He closed out the campaign batting .235 in 129 games.

Hans Lobert took over as the Phillies’ manager for 1942 and had visions of a speedy team running wild on the basepaths. Benjamin had 17 steals in 1941 and fit Lobert’s model perfectly. He won the center-field position in spring training but sprained his ankle at the close of camp and did not start until the third game of the year. A seven-game hitting streak set his average at .323, but it was all downhill from there. He did not even attempt a stolen base until May 5 (game 21) and had only six attempts the whole season. Bernjamin lost favor with Lobert and was fined for a series of mistakes including throws to the wrong base and missing signs. He lost his center-field spot and found himself in a utility role between first base and right field.

As the 1942 season became more and more dismal for Benjamin, there was one day where he shone. The Phillies and Pirates participated in an Army-Navy Relief Fund event at Forbes Field in July. More than 30,000 fans turned out to see the players engage in various contests and races. Benjamin’s speed was put on display in the 100-yard dash when he beat Ernie Koy, Danny Murtaugh, and others. His time was 10.2 in spikes and full uniform. He also put on a bunt-for-hit exhibition.

With World War II looming over the game and undoubtedly looking to save some money, the Phillies announced that they would cut back their roster to 21 players. The suggestion was that rosters in 1943 might be restricted and they were preparing for the future. Benjamin was sold to Louisville as part of the reduction. It was noted by a scribe that “he can do everything but hit.”4 In 78 games for the 1942 Phillies he batted .224. He played 38 games at third base with the Colonels and hit .303 with three home runs.

Benjamin had been leading a secretive life while in the majors. He had fallen in love with Barbara Hall, a student at the Framingham Teachers College. The college prohibited married students. Hall’s graduation was set for 1942. The couple were secretly wed at her home on January 1, 1941. They kept the marriage a secret until after her graduation.5

The 1943 Colonels reported to spring training on April 2 in Louisville. Benjamin and most of his teammates were classified 3-A as married men with families. Benjamin’s draft status would later be switched to 4-F because of the hernia surgery. Early in camp it was decided to put him back in the outfield. He opened the season patrolling center field and batting third in the lineup. The Colonels struggled and finished under .500. Benjamin batted a lowly .237 and became a utility player seeing action at third and first in addition to the outfield.

Manager Tommy Thomas of the Baltimore Orioles purchased Benjamin from the Colonels. He wanted the veteran to play the outfield in 1944 and serve as team captain. Thomas and Benjamin had no idea what challenge awaited them. The Orioles ballpark burned to the ground on the morning of July 4. The team was forced to move into the football stadium. (The larger stadium did allow them to admit over 52,000 fans to a Little World Series game in October.)

The 1944 Orioles were a scoring juggernaut. Second baseman Blas Monaco set a league record with 167 walks and scored 135 runs. League MVP Howie Moss led in homers and RBIs. Benjamin played spectacular defense, hit 12 homers, stole 20 bases, and batted .301. Yet the team finished the campaign in a virtual tie with Newark for first place.

In the playoffs, Baltimore struggled to get past Buffalo 4 games to 3, and then went seven with Newark in the finals. Benjamin always played well against the Bears. Earlier in his career he had a 5-for-5 day with five RBIs against them.6 In the league finals he smashed a grand slam to win Game Four and then went 3-for-4 in Game Seven with a triple and home run. Baltimore closed out the season winning the Little World Series over Louisville 4 games to 2. Benjamin batted .231 in the series and picked up nearly $1,000 in bonus money thanks to the large attendance. The Cleveland Indians had a working agreement with Baltimore and purchased Monaco and Benjamin for $10,000 apiece for the 1945 season.

Benjamin had taken coaching jobs in the offseason since 1942. In the winter of 1944-45 he took on the job of basketball coach at the high school in Greenfield, Massachusetts. The team had a 25-game losing streak before he took over. It won seven of its first 12 games to make fans forget the past. He also had a teaching assignment. Successful as both coach and teacher, he became a full-time junior-high physical-education teacher in Greenfield while coaching baseball and football. He went on to a 29-year career at the school. His family grew during that time as he and Barbara welcomed daughters Nancy, Janice, and Joan.

The Cleveland Indians were forced to wait for Benjamin, who could not leave the classroom. He finally joined the team on May 30 in Boston. He saw his first action on June 6 against the Detroit Tigers. Later that month he was stricken with a serious case of chest congestion that forced him into the Cleveland Clinic. He saw no action in July and only pinch-hitting duty in August. In September, he got three starts. Benjamin ended the season playing in 14 games. He returned to Greenfield intent upon a teaching career. The football team, with Benjamin as line coach, won the Western Massachusetts Championship that fall.

When the school year ended in 1946, Benjamin was offered the player-manager job with Nazareth, Pennsylvania, of the Class D North Atlantic League. The Cement Dusters finished in second place and Benjamin batted .312. He also was forced to use himself as a pitcher in 13 games totaling 48 innings. His 6.94 ERA and 12.8 hits per nine innings were by far the worst on the team. In 1947, Benjamin opened the season with Toledo, but after five games he was released. San Antonio of the Texas League signed him, but released him in late June. He joined the Houston Buffaloes soon after and stayed with them during their run to the Texas League pennant. Houston met Mobile of the Southern Association in the Dixie Series and claimed that title too, in six games. Benjamin closed out his professional career as player-manager for Fresno in the Class C California League. The team finished in first place, but lost in the first round of playoffs.

During the school years Benjamin was assistant football coach, basketball coach, and, starting in 1949, baseball coach. He led Greenfield to the league championship in ’49. That summer he managed the Brattleboro Maples in the Northern League, a circuit comprising college talent and semipros. Used to a higher level of officiating, Benjamin was ejected three times by early August. The league commissioner fined him $50 for his actions. Benjamin may have had some reasonable complaints. Two umpires were transferred out of the league after they ruled that an opponent hit a home run even though Benjamin’s outfielder had the ball in his glove.7

That fall Benjamin was the line coach for the Greenfield football team and head coach of a semipro squad, the Lions. The Lions went undefeated. Benjamin resigned as basketball coach and became a respected basketball official. He took over as Greenfield’s head football coach in 1958. He quit coaching in 1964 but continued teaching until 1975.

Benjamin had been a part-time scout, or bird-dog, during his coaching days. He would recommend players, but was not on anyone’s payroll as a scout. That all changed when he joined the Houston Astros organization in 1965. He remained with the Astros as their New England scout and spring-training assistant until 2002, when he retired at age 88.

Benjamin’s greatest contribution to the Astros came in 1990 when they and the Red Sox were trying to work out a trade involving pitcher Larry Andersen going to Boston to bolster their bullpen for the pennant race.8 The Astros were offered Jeff Bagwell but were hesitant because he had not shown much power at Double A. Benjamin allayed their fears by claiming, “Babe Ruth couldn’t hit home runs in that ballpark.”9 Bagwell went on to a Hall of Fame career with Houston.

Benjamin was inducted into the McDaniel College Hall of Fame in 1983. He also is a member of the Massachusetts Baseball Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and received a special award from the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation.10 Barbara died in 1995. Stan died on December 24, 2009, after suffering a massive heart attack while spending the Christmas holidays on Cape Cod with his daughter Janice. He and Barbara are buried in the Green River Cemetery in Greenfield.

Acknowledgments

This biography was reviewed by Len Levin and fact-checked by Alan Cohen.

Notes

In rural counties from the Ohio Valley to the Great Lakes basin, super-scout Gene Bennett became the face of the Cincinnati Reds organization during more than a half-century of evaluating talent for the franchise.  The team changed ownership seven times since he began scouting in 1958. Thus far 11 different general managers have deemed Gene Bennett’s services indispensable to Reds operations.

He didn’t keep count, but between 1958 and 1988 Gene Bennett signed at least 100 players to professional contracts.  For that job performance, Bennett has been awarded with nearly every major award a scout can win. Even so, Bennett’s activities during the rest of the year may well leave an even more lasting legacy.  In the course of decades of volunteer activities to improve the educational and recreational opportunities for the youth of his hometown, Gene Bennett became an integral part of the renaissance of amateur baseball in the Tri-state region. 

Gene Bennett was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, and resided for all of his life in Wheelersburg, a smaller city in the same county.  He played two sports in high school and fell in love with an underclassman. Gene graduated from Wheelersburg High School in 1946 and married two years later.  He and Loretta Maxine Bennett have two children and five grandchildren.  Bennett played amateur baseball in local night and Saturday leagues until a Reds scout signed him to a professional contract in 1952.  After five years of minor-league baseball, Bennett retired as a player and became a part-time scout.  In 1991, the Reds officially promoted him to their front office.  Bennett is currently the Senior Special Assistant to the General Manager.

Very little of Gene Bennett’s life happened by accident. His forceful ebullient personality is at the core of the story of how this self-proclaimed country boy flourished in the hyper-competitive world of professional baseball for a half century. Such longevity required both extraordinary talent and an extraordinary love of the game.

A SPORTS-MAD COUNTY AND A HOLE IN THE STADIUM FENCE

The Ohio River winds through the Appalachian Mountains to form the western border of West Virginia, the southern border of Ohio and the northern border of Kentucky.  Ohio’s Scioto County is situated a few miles downstream from where the cities of Ashland (KY) and Huntington (WV) are separated only by the state line and the college sports loyalties of their inhabitants.  By the standards of Scioto County, both are big cities.  The population of the county peaked in the early 1940’s at 86,565 and was smaller in the year 2000 than it was in the 1950s. Portsmouth is the county seat. Wheelersburg is the only other true city. 

Farmland is the principal scenery and the principal traffic hazards are slow-moving trucks carrying the output of strip mines. The surrounding counties of Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia are very similar. Anyone who talks with Gene Bennett for more than a few minutes quickly realizes that although his current job takes him out of the country, it will never take the country out of Gene.

Scioto County was deeply enmeshed in the history of American professional sports long before Gene Bennett signed with the Reds.  Jim Thorpe played semipro football for the Portsmouth Steel-Shoes. The NFL’s Detroit Lions began as the Portsmouth Spartans.  Branch Rickey lived in Portsmouth during the offseason, and local resident Al Bridwell, the man at bat when Fred Merkle made his infamous base-running error, was another figure of note.   The wild finish of the 1908 pennant race was still being rehashed over hot stoves while Bennett was growing up. 

Residents of the Tri-state region have always celebrated this sports heritage. Today there are gigantic murals on the Portsmouth floodwall depicting the exploits of professional and amateur athletes from the area.  Through the joint efforts of local unions and businesses, Branch Rickey Park has been restored.  The same ball field on which Walt Alston managed and Whitey Kurowski played now hosts the Gene Bennett Classic, involving top amateur baseball teams from across the nation.  The populace and leadership alike plan to establish Portsmouth, Ohio as a Mecca for professional baseball scouts by making the invitational tournament one of their annual rites of summer.  

Rickey placed one of the Cardinals’ farm teams in Portsmouth in 1938 and ten-year-old Gene Bennett was part of a group who watched games through a gap in the fence. Not content with this distant view of the game, he wriggled through the opening to get into the stands for free. The Portsmouth Redbirds spent only three seasons in town, but “Gene Bennett went out to the ballpark and he never came back.”

Bennett didn’t play any organized form of baseball until age 14.  There was no Little League in his youth; kids played baseball whenever enough of them came together in the same place. His high school team was small, and the uncertain weather of the region allowed no more than 12 games between the end of the basketball season and the close of the school year. Bennett mostly played outfield, but also pitched and played some second base.

Although high school baseball opportunities were limited, amateur adult play was abundant in the area as Bennett grew up.  Every coalfield had a team, and you didn’t have to work there to compete.  In fact, expenses to the game were paid in the more competitive leagues, such as the one in Huntington where Bennett was playing when discovered by Reds scout Buzz Boyle.  

After graduating in 1946, Bennett took a job at a grocery store. He was planning on getting married, but had to wait for two years until his intended graduated from high school.  A knack for gauging a prospect’s commitment level to baseball and to the scouts’ franchise is an essential element in scouting; selecting Loretta Maxine proved to be Bennett’s most critical application of this ability. Without such a loyally supportive wife, his scout’s wandering would not have been possible.  Health permitting, they will celebrate a 65^th wedding anniversary in 2013.

Biographies circulated to reporters and similar interested parties by the Reds have indicated Bennett’s year of birth should be either 1930 or 1931.  Gene was actually born July 29, 1928. In the six years between high school and the minor leagues, he completed three years of courses at Southeastern Business College, suffered a serious shoulder separation playing amateur baseball, experienced a close encounter with the Draft Board, recovered from the injury, and became a father. It was at age 24, rather than age 21, that Gene Bennett began his professional baseball career. 

BALLPLAYER AND SCOUT

The Reds signed Bennett as an outfielder.  His first manager was Johnny Vander Meer of double no-hit fame.  The 38-year-old Vander Meer had been given his release by the Cleveland Indians two years before, after being hammered for six runs in his only major-league game of 1951.  Vander Meer advocated leaving as little as possible to chance: “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”   

Injuries hampered Gene Bennett’s development into a major-league level talent. By 1957, “My shoulder got to where I couldn’t throw much.  That was a big time problem back then because the things you had to do then — you really had to run and you really had to throw. It’s not like it is now. When you couldn’t throw, the chance of you going on to excel was pretty tough.”   

An injured 27-year-old might have opted to see if next season might be better. At his actual age of 29, Bennett could tell that he was no closer to reaching the big leagues as a player than he had been when he graduated from high school.  Playing while hurt wasn’t much fun and so he informed the Reds management that the 1957 season would be his last.

The Reds offered Bennett a chance to manage at the Class D level. They added that if he would rather be a scout then a position was available.  Rather than accept right away, Bennett told them he would think about their offers.  He was the father of two, but wanted to stay in the game. Being a manager was full-time, which meant it paid better and more regularly. Being a scout would be a part-time job, which would synchronize better with offseason jobs and business ventures.

Branch Rickey was already famous as an innovative and highly-successful baseball executive before he and Jackie Robinson integrated Major League Baseball.  Like Bennett, Rickey’s offseason home was in Scioto County.  Being an avid reader when it came to Branch Rickey and baseball, Bennett was quite aware of Rickey’s expertise in financial matters.  The two men had met before. As general manager of the Pirates at the time, Rickey knew that Bennett had been playing for the Reds organization.   One afternoon, when the two men happened to shop in the same place, Bennett opted to make his own luck by striking up a conversation with the great man. 

“Branch Rickey was a very important man, not the sort you could just call up on the phone and ask for advice,” Bennett explained. “But there he was on the street. He already knew who I was, so I went over to talk to him.”  After some general baseball talk, Bennett brought up his situation. “I told him what the deal was, that I wasn’t going to play anymore and the Reds told me they’d like me to be manager of a Class D league or even possibly be a scout.  I asked him, ‘If you was in my shoes, which one would you do?’”

The wording of Rickey’s answer changes from telling to retelling, but the gist remains the same.  Rickey pointed out that Bennett’s employment as a scout would be dependent on his own actions. If Gene worked hard and made good decisions he could keep the scout’s job for a long time.  As a manager, Bennett could work just as hard, make all the right decisions, and still be quickly fired if his team lacked talent. His choice now clear, Gene Bennett called the Reds and accepted a part-time position as a scout. According to Bennett, the Reds had told him they only had six or seven other scouts at that time.   “I immediately set out to create a network of ‘bird dogs;’ eventually I had one in every tree.”  

Bennett could not be everywhere in his territory at once, so he needed to have a pair of eyes wherever a talented amateur player might play.  A bird-dog is a contact who reports that a young player with possible major-league potential is playing in a local game.  In this, Bennett was emulating the scouting technique by which Connie Mack discovered so many major-league stars. 

The technique itself is no secret, but personality is the key to making it work. One needs to be the sort of person who routinely does small and large favors for others so that the recipients welcome the chance to return those favors in the form of tips and scouting reports.  These contacts can easily switch allegiance, or reserve their best tips for a higher bidder. As happened for Mack, Bennett’s 40 bird-dogs remained loyal for decades.  Several became full-fledged scouts for the Reds.  Some, such as Leroy Jackson in Louisville, still work for him today. They are listed on the Reds ledgers as “commission scouts”.

Rickey had cited the desirability of holding tryout camps and the necessity of watching a prospect more than once, and Bennett was a true Rickey disciple in these matters. He also worked in techniques common to present day recruiting in college football and basketball.  In amateur scouting, Job A is locating prospects.  Job B is making a determination of which ones could help the franchise. Job C is getting their signature on a professional contract.  Bennett used the tryout camps to address all three. 

Bennett never wanted the kids to have to drive more than 75 miles to get to the tryout.  Nor did he hold them in a big city unless it was competing with someone else’s tryout camp that same weekend.  Attendance was normally 150 to 200 players, so Bennett brought a five-man evaluation team: himself, Steve Kring to hit fungos, two men to handle the pitchers, and always the local bird-dog, who had handled publicity and issued personal invitations.

“I watched each and every one of the kids….., stood beside them only four feet away, I wanted to see how they gripped the ball, how they positioned their glove and feet.  …..I talked with each of them, encouraged them to call me Gene…. I didn’t want it to be some stranger in their living room when I arrived with a contract.”

Bennett made a point of talking to their parents as well.  When he saw a promising high school sophomore he would write a letter inviting the boy to another tryout session the following year.  Just as he sold insurance, mobile homes, and other products in the offseason, Bennett was selling the Cincinnati Reds organization. Bennett was and still is a top-notch salesman.

To succeed in his job as scout, Bennett had to acquire the skills of a high-school guidance counselor. He was encountering young men with enough physical tools to succeed, yet lacking the mindset to deal with the minor league apprentice they faced before reaching the major leagues.   In professional sports besides baseball, a rookie normally has to undergo a rigorous tryout camp, where the issue to be resolved is mainly whether he is sufficiently mentally and physically skilled to beat out his competition for the limited roster spots.  After that, however, he is just as much a part of the team as if he were a college recruit arriving on campus.   He may have to watch from the sidelines, but he wears the team uniform and counts himself as one of the team.  A baseball player, on the other hand, normally requires a minor-league apprenticeship of at least two full years. 

Instead of the physically grueling tryout week, the prospect faces a mental ordeal that lasts years. There are long bus rides to places like Danville, Virginia. He experiences cheap hotels, small crowds, dilapidated stadiums, low pay, and little or no publicity.  That requires either a very different mind-set, or the kind of character that cheerfully looks past obstacles to the long-term goal.  Bennett got to know the recruits personally. That gave him a realistic chance to determine which were up to the apprenticeship and which would give up before reaching their full potential as ballplayers. 

“I wanted to only sign kids who were really enthusiastic, who really wanted to play for the Cincinnati Reds someday.” If they were thinking about college instead, then Bennett would back off.  He had Barry Larkin all but signed, but Larkin’s family wanted him to go to college.  Bennett promised that his Michigan scout would keep watching Larkin’s development as a player. In 1985, the Reds made Larkin a first-round amateur free agent draft choice.

Bennett made a point of being scrupulously honest in his dealing with prospects and their families.  Verbal frankness may have cost him a few signings in his early days, but it established his credibility and made him welcome in living rooms throughout the territory even before the first Bennett-groomed prospect reached the majors. Once local hero Don Gullett went from high school to the majors with just one year in the minor leagues. Bennett had rival scouts boxed out.  The Reds were the team for which parents in the rural counties of Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana were rooting. And for the young ballplayers, Bennett represented the gateway to the Promised Land, a roster spot on the Big Red Machine.

Very much in the Branch Rickey tradition, Bennett put great importance on the ability to run and throw: “If I was looking at a position player, I looked [for] a player that could really run. I looked for a guy that had an outstanding arm, and then I test his eyes to see if he could see. If you sign players like that, if they ever hit, you don’t have a baseball player, you got a star.  If he don’t hit, you got an outstanding utility player.” 

When asked about hitting, Bennett responded that the two things he looked for were a quick bat and good vision of the ball. “If it was possible to teach hitting, I would have simply come to Louisville and pick out 10 good athletes and we’d make major league players out of them in a year. Unfortunately, that won’t work…You just never know who will hit and who won’t… But I do know that without a quick bat it’s mighty hard to be a good [major league] hitter.”

When scouting pitchers he looked for guys who can throw hard, and throw strikes.  “If you’ve got competent pitching instructors, they can teach that guy a changeup or a curve, or something like that. But when you get a guy that can throw that ball up to 95 miles an hour, he don’t have to have much other stuff.”

Even though it was the hope of signing a future Hall of Famer that motivated Bennett, he became noteworthy for the volume of players he brought to the Reds.  This volume itself had value to the major-league team.  A franchise like Cincinnati cannot afford to stock itself entirely with stars, and excess quantity can be traded to acquire quality. In 1976 General Manager Bob Howsam held a meeting with the scouts and informed them that Reds policy for dealing with free-agency losses would be to sign and develop talent faster than it departed.

Bennett had been given the green light. He was already looking over as many as 5,000 prospects each year. Now he could sign five, six, even 10 prospects per year if he spotted that much talent.  According to Bennett, six was the most he ever signed, and in his first nine years of scouting, he signed no future major leaguers.  Be that as it may, starting in 1967 Bennett went on a two-decade-long hot streak that got him promoted to the full-time position of regional scouting director in 1975. In commenting upon Bennett’s scouting productivity the local paper admitted “Gene Bennett hasn’t signed every [Reds] player in the past six decades, it only seems that way.” 

On Bennett’s recommendation, the Reds drafted Dave Tomlin of Maysville with their 29^th-round draft pick in 1967. The left-handed pitcher spent parts of the 1972 and 1973 seasons as a reliever for the Reds before being included in the Clay Kirby/Bobby Tolan trade with the Padres in November 1973.  While Tomlin was undergoing his minor-league apprenticeship, Bennett cornered the market on a left-handed pitcher who would have immediate major-league impact. 

“Don Gullett, had he not had that shoulder problem, he would probably have gone down as one of the greatest pitchers in American baseball. I’ve signed good pitchers, but I never saw a high school kid in my life that even came close to this guy. I hear people today say ‘This guy’s better than Gullett,’ but Gullett’s changeup is better than anyone’s fastball.”

Within a year and a half of his signing, the teenage Gullett was pitching in the 1970 World Series.  The following year he went 16-6 as a starting pitcher with a 2.65 ERA.  Gullett became the number one starter of the World Champion “Big Red Machine” by age 24. His .686 winning percentage through age 28 ranks ninth-best all-time through 2010 for pitchers with 100 or more decisions.  Surrounding Gullett on that lists are super-luminaries Juan Marichal, Roger Clemens, Mike Mussina, John Clarkson, Kid Nichols, and Jim Palmer.  Unfortunately, injuries curtailed Gullett’s availability after 1974 and ended his career altogether in 1978.  

In 1975, Bennett was promoted to regional scouting director and his area of responsibility was expanded to include Indiana, Michigan, and Ontario, Canada. Bennett went right to work training his scouting force and setting yet more bird-dogs in place.  Bennett was now being paid enough to work full-time as a scout and the results won him a dozen Topps Scout of the Month awards and Topps Scout of the Year for 1988.  

Bennett and the scouts he supervised brought in both role players like Skeeter Barnes and Eddie Milner, and all-stars like Jeff Russell, Chris Sabo, Paul O’Neill and Barry Larkin.  Like Tomlin and Charlie Leibrandt, these players went on to lengthy major-league careers.  Had Bennett not been overruled by other members of the Reds’ front office, this list would also include Leon Durham, John Smoltz, and Derek Jeter.   

The Jeter case remains a sore spot in Bennett’s usually sunny disposition. “I had a deal worked out with him already,” Bennett said. “A cross checker came in and looked him and saw him play and said ‘He’s all right but he ain’t no first round pick.’ [Cross-checkers] are the smart guys that would come in and see a guy pitch two innings and bat twice, and they was the judge and the jury.” 

It was only during the 1992 amateur draft that Bennett learned that the Reds would not use their first pick (#5 overall) on Derek Jeter.  “They said, ‘The Cincinnati Reds take Chad Mottola,’ and I said, [sarcastically], ‘Yeah, the Cincinnati Reds just took Babe Ruth, too.’ Then real quick I heard them say, ‘New York Yankees take Derek Jeter,’ and I said ‘Holy cow!’”

Cross-checkers likewise nixed Durham and Smoltz.  Durham wore glasses; and there was a considerable prejudice against such players. Bennett’s view was that since the glasses gave Durham unusually acute vision at the plate, they were an asset rather than a liability. The St. Louis Cardinals agreed. They made Durham a first-round pick, and then used him to acquire future Hall of Famer Bruce Sutter.  “Smoltz was short-arming the ball”, a trait that Bennett realized was easily corrected.  The Tigers signed Smoltz in September 1985, corrected his motion, and by mid-1987 were able to trade him straight up for veteran Doyle Alexander. Smoltz went on to win 213 major-league games and saved another 154. 

While Bennett was building his resume as a remarkable amateur scout, during the offseason he was building a reputation as a better than average basketball referee.  He started with high school games, and then officiated for the NCAA from 1970-1991. As Bennett pointed out when asked about job conflicts, even a regional scouting director has nothing to do during the offseason. His work officiating high school games earned him a place in the Ohio High School Athletic Association Hall of Fame in 1993.

ICON IN THE FRONT OFFICE

Starting in the mid-1980s, the Reds began having problems keeping the advance pro scout position filled into their satisfaction. Bennett was the man they called upon in the interim.  After 1988 he went into the field primarily as a cross-checker.  In late 1992, Bennett was named Special Assistant to General Manager Jim Bowden.  He was 64; his boss was 31.

Bennett recently described his duties as special assistant.  “I haven’t scouted a Class A game since 1991…These days I mostly scout major-league games, but basically I do whatever I am told, including sweep the floor.  I don’t put much stock in titles.”  Bennett’s new position had two basic duties; watch as many major-league games as possible and be prepared to give his advice concerning any player at the professional level.  Such activities are widely referred to as “advance scouting”, but when Gene Bennett uses the term “scouting” he means taking in amateur games or holding tryouts.

Bennett’s time as field scout was over, but the players he signed continued playing in the major leagues and as they prospered so did Bennett’s reputation.  Gene had worked with and trained many other scouts and when their success brought them press attention, Bennett’s name sometimes came up during interviews. Matt Arnold is now Director of Professional Scouting for Tampa Bay. The Blue Jays rely heavily on the judgment of Don Welke. Former Reds scouts Alex Cosmidis (Cubs) and Gary Hughes (White Sox) were East Coast and West Coast Scouts of the Year in 2009.

The basic cause of these changes of allegiance was economic. With its world championship in 1990, Reds management had proved it could rebuild the team to a championship level in the face of losses to free agency. Other teams coveted that ability and made offers to Reds personnel. When these offers were not matched by the Reds front office the scouting force began to shrink by attrition.  In his acceptance speech for Midwest Scout of the Year in 2009, Bennett offered special praise to the ones who stayed with the Reds:  Fred Hays (Michigan), Leroy Jackson (Louisville), Harry Steinriede (Cincinnati), and Steve Kring (now responsible for Georgia and South Carolina.)

Bennett emphatically denies the story that circulated about owner Marge Schott’s contempt for scouting.  In Bennett’s version, a reporter overheard a humorous rejection of a raise for a particular scout.  It is worth noting that his denial did not say that any scout received a raise in compensation. 

Bennett’s involvement in his home community was a natural outgrowth of his children attending the same high school that he and his wife had attended. He was president of the athletic booster club for 17 years. During that time he lobbied local leaders to rebuild the high school football stadium. Partly as a result of these ultimately successful efforts, when Wheelersburg High School created its Athletic Hall of Fame in 2001, Gene Bennett was the first man honored.

Scioto County does have Little League teams today. They play on a six-field complex in a public park with Gene Bennett’s name on it. Shawnee State University in Portsmouth has a scholarship fund which enables local children to attend the local college the way Bennett attended Southeast Business College.   That, too, bears his name. 

Branch Rickey Field had fallen into considerable disrepair when area activists began discussion of an amateur invitational baseball tournament.  Local governments were in no position to pay for any renovation but persuading local unions and business to donate time and material solved the problem. Bennett was one of those doing the persuading.  In June 2010 the first Annual Gene Bennett Classic took place with teams coming from as far away as Texas.  It is Bennett’s desire that as many local people as possible see firsthand what really good baseball is like.

Bennett was Topps Scout of the Year again in 1995, despite his reassignment to advance scout duties.  The same is true of his 1994 selection as Scout of the Year by the Mid-Atlantic Baseball Scouts Association.  In 1996 this same organization named Bennett to their Hall of Fame.

Bennett’s influence extended beyond recommending baseball players. Veteran umpire Charlie Reliford credits Bennett for his hiring by the National League. “Gene would always tell my boss, ‘You better buy his option before the American League gets him.’” Reliford was hired in 1991 and has thus far called two World Series, three League Championship Series, four Division Series, and two All-Star Games.

Bennett was part of the search committee the Reds set up to find a new general manager.  The committee chose special advisor Jim Beattie in February of 2006, but Bennett and west coast scouting supervisor Larry Barton, Jr. convinced owner Bob Castellini to hire former Minnesota assistant GM Wayne Krivsky.  This time Bennett’s recommendation did not work out as he expected. And yet 17 months later, when the front office ended its game of musical chairs, the winners were Gene Bennett and his friend and protégé Walt Jocketty.

Krivsky made numerous changes in management as well as on the roster.  Even though he has cited her among his reasons for accepting the position, Krivsky told scouting coordinator Wilma Mann that her services as “mother superior” to the field scouts were no longer desired.  Barton quit a few months after that, citing fundamental differences over trades and roster composition as well as Krivsky’s unwillingness to take advice.   Director of player development Johnny Almaraz resigned a few days later, also citing a reduced role in team decision making. The Reds front office was making more headlines for its turmoil than its trades.

Two years into Krivsky’s three-year contract, Walt Jocketty became special advisor to the president.  Jocketty had trained with Bennett as a scout and rose to become general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals. When the team got off to a 9-12 start in 2008, owner Bob Castellini dismissed Krivsky and installed Jocketty in his place.  Shortly afterwards, Jocketty named Bennett as Senior Special Assistant to the General Manager.  Gene said, “Not bad for a country boy.”

A PLACE IN COOPERSTOWN?

The role of scouts was relatively obscure to the average fan of the 1970s, yet they play an undeniably vital role in professional baseball.  As Tommy Lasorda noted in 2010 at the Spirit of the Game fund-raiser, “Without scouts there would be no players.” Yet the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum was doing little or nothing to recognize their contributions.

The Scout of the Year Foundation was formed in 1984 with the expressed goal of changing this.  Its long-term goal was the admission of scouts as full members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Its intermediate objectives were to promote excellence and professionalism within the profession and to raise public awareness of baseball scouting to the extent that a permanent exhibit at Cooperstown would be created similar to what sportswriters enjoy.

With the assistance of such sponsors as Topps, the Baseball Blue Book, and Louisville Slugger, the Scout of the Year Foundation holds an annual awards dinner during the major-league winter meetings.  Each year three scouts are honored: one from the West, one from the Midwest, and one from the East.  In addition to attracting press attention, the awards created a permanent record of whom the scouting community regarded as the best of the best.  Bennett was the Midwest honoree for 2009.

Major League Baseball eventually reacted to the rising public awareness of scouting. The Commissioner’s office began to publicly support the fundraising of the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation.  Founded in 2003, in response to the acute financial distress of many former scouts, the Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation makes grants to scouts and their families. The bulk of scouts are paid very modest salaries, making continuation of health insurance benefits a pressing concern.  Older scouts were especially vulnerable to budgetary cutbacks instituted after the publication of the book entitled Moneyball.  Bennett actively supports the work of this Calabasas-based foundation and made a point of mentioning its work during his phone interviews with the author.

Fundraising for this foundation includes proceeds from memorabilia donated and then auctioned at an annual gala now titled “The Spirit of the Game”. The highlights of this Hollywood-style celebration of baseball include the presentation of the foundation’s lifetime achievement awards. On January 2009, Gene Bennett was the first presented with the Legends in Scouting Award.  

The award and its subsequent publicity came as no surprise to the people of the Tri-state region. For them Gene Bennett was already one of their living legends. They had a mural to prove it. 

Postscript

Gene Bennett died at the age of 89 on August 16, 2017, in Portsmouth, Ohio.

An earlier version of this biography appeared in “Can He Play? A Look at Baseball Scouts and Their Profession” (SABR, 2011), edited by Bill Nowlin and Jim Sandoval.

Sources

Interviews with Gene Bennett on August 2 and August 11, 2010. All quotations from Bennett are from these interviews unless otherwise attributed.

“Murals to Honor Gene Bennett” by Jim Walker. IrontonTribune.com. Originally published and posted January 7, 2010;

 “Red letter career” staff , Ironton Tribune July 14, 2006.  

Ibidem Scioto County Department of Health confirmed the date Bennett provided. 

This raises the question of how the US Army got his birthdate wrong. Bennett suggested that, as he was never actually sworn in, the author’s web search found records that pertain to a different Gene Bennett from Wheelersburg, Ohio.

Acceptance Speech for 2009 Midwest Scout of the Year, by Gene Bennett, December 10, 2009. Video Is attached to “Bennett Honored as Top Midwest Scout: Earns award during 58th year with organization.” Reds.com.

“Bennett Talks about Career” by Ryan Scott Ottney, Portsmouth Daily Times, E-edition.August 18, 2010.

“Sign ‘em up Gene” by Jim Walker. Ironton Tribune, January 27, 2009

“Bennett to receive MLB Scout of the Year award” by Wayne Allen. Posted to Communitycommon.com, December 6, 2009. CommunityCommon.com  is a weekly newsletter dedicated to events in the tri-state counties. The Topps awards are cited in multiple places including Walker, op cit, and by GM Walt Jocketty when introducing Bennett in “Acceptance speech.” 

“Jeter a Red? It could have been” by Tim Sullivan, Cincinnati Enquirer.  Enquirer.com on October 15, 1999.

“Around the Bases: Episode 28 Special Assistant to the GM Gene Bennett” on Shorebirds .com, home of Delmarva Shorebirds.  Bennett is interviewed in the announcers’ booth during a minor-league game.  Shorebirds.com.

“Umpire Ready for Trip Home” by Mark Maynard, Ashland Kentucky Independent.

“Departing Reds staffer takes shots at Krivsky” Dayton Daily News, December 5, 2006  by Hal McCoy, and “Reds Farm Director resigns” by Staff. Baseball America, December 14, 2006.

“Professional Baseball Scouts Dinner 2010 video clip” quote by Tom Lasorda,  Official site for Professional Baseball Scouts Foundation.