Roberto’s father, Sandy Alomar, spent 15 years as a major-league infielder, and Roberto and his brother, also Sandy, spent most summers in major-league locker rooms. It was during these times that the brothers learned the intricacies of the game from the best players in the world – Nolan Ryan taught 4-year-old Roberto how to pitch while Ryan was a teammate of Sandy, Sr.’s on the Angels.1 Perhaps just as important, they also learned how to handle themselves like major-league ballplayers. The offseason brought with it the Puerto Rican Winter League (in which his father and three of his uncles all starred) and the annual Caribbean World Series.2 Roberto frequently made the trek to games with his father, sometimes completing his homework in the dugout.3

Roberto Alomar was born on February 5, 1968, in Ponce, on Puerto Rico’s south coast, to Santos (Sandy) and Maria (Velasquez) Alomar. He had an older brother, Santos Jr. (Sandy), and a sister, Sandia. They grew up in Salinas, 20 miles from Ponce. Roberto’s baseball ability and instincts were evident even as a boy. When he was 6 a scout reportedly saw him playing pepper and inquired of his father (presumably tongue in cheek) if he could sign him.4 By the age of 7, Roberto was selected as an all-star for the Salinas little league, but was declared ineligible when it was discovered that he was too young to play in the league.5 The time for Roberto to sign his first professional contract came soon enough. When he was 16 he signed with Caguas in the Puerto Rican Winter League, where he was managed by Felipe Alou.6 Alou later said that Roberto “was the best I had ever seen. He was a natural and definitely had the instincts that you just don’t teach.”7

On February 16, 1985, shortly after he turned 17, Roberto signed with the San Diego Padres – the same club for which his father was a coach and with which Sandy Jr. had signed two years earlier. While other teams (most notably Toronto) had expressed interest in the middle infielder and made higher offers than the approximately $50,000 Roberto received, Sandy Sr. had given his word to family friend and Padres scout Luis Rosa that Roberto would sign with the Padres.8

Unlike many newly signed minor leaguers, Roberto did not have to adjust to living on his own for the first time. He was assigned to the same team, Class-A Charleston in the South Atlantic League, for which his father was a coach and to which Sandy Jr. was also assigned. His mother also made the trip and the family lived together and provided a stable foundation as Roberto’s professional career began to flourish.9 Roberto hit .293 and stole 36 bases for Charleston, and his manager Jim Skaalen recalled that “He was tearing up the league against older college players.”10

Skaalen moved up along with Roberto the next season to Reno in the Class-A California League.11 His brother and father, however, did not. Sandy Jr. was ticketed for Double-A Wichita (Texas League) and Sandy Sr. was promoted to coach with the Padres. Roberto later recounted the challenges of his time in Reno: “In the minor leagues everything is different. I was making $700 a month. I had to pay for rent, utilities, food, clubhouse dues. All I had in the house I rented was a mattress on the floor, not even a table. I had no car and had to walk everywhere.”12

Skaalen, though, saw him maturing on and off the field: “He seemed more relaxed away from his dad and brother. He got stronger and seemed to be enjoying every day. He was far ahead of the rest of the talent at that level, and I began to see the good, solid major-league player he was going to become.”13 Whatever the challenges off the field, Alomar’s play certainly did not suffer. He led the league after 90 games with a .346 average and 123 hits, earning him a promotion to Double-A Wichita (and a reunion with Sandy Jr.).14 Sharing a one-bedroom apartment with his brother, Roberto continued his torrid pace and finished the season hitting .319 with 12 home runs and 43 stolen bases.15

Roberto’s minor-league success provided real hope going into the spring of 1988 that he could break camp with the Padres. His performance did nothing to dampen that enthusiasm, as he hit .360 and put together a 10-game hitting streak.16 Padres manager Larry Bowa noted that “this kid is a finished product. All he has to do is go out there and play. He has all the tools; just turn him loose.”17 The Padres, though, had been burned each of the prior two seasons when they tried to promote second basemen (Bip Roberts and Joey Cora) from Double A to the big leagues, and Bowa was directed to give Roberto the bad news that his season would begin at Triple-A Las Vegas, not San Diego.18 The 20-year-old Roberto took the news hard, tearfully retreating to the training room, where he was consoled by his father along with several teammates.

For his part, Bowa had no explanation for the sentence he was ordered to deliver: “I told him he did everything I asked,” said Bowa. “I just told him to keep his head up, that it’s a long season. The chances of Robbie coming to the big leagues in 1988 are pretty good.”19 They were pretty good indeed, as Roberto made quick work of the Pacific Coast League and was leading the league with 14 runs batted in when he was called up to San Diego 2½ weeks into the season.20

On April 22, 1988, Roberto stepped into the batter’s box as a major leaguer for the first time. On the mound was none other than Nolan Ryan – the same Nolan Ryan who had helped teach him to pitch as a toddler. Unfazed, he beat out an infield single in his first major league at-bat.21 Roberto finished the season with 145 hits, a .266 batting average, and 24 stolen bases, finishing fifth in the National League Rookie of the Year voting. He was even stronger the next season, his first full year in the big leagues, batting .295 with 42 stolen bases in 158 games.

Continuing his ascent onto the national radar, Roberto was selected for his first All-Star Game in 1990. What made the honor even more special was that Sandy Jr. (who had been traded to Cleveland), was also selected. The two became the first pair of brothers to be selected for an All-Star Game since Jim and Gaylord Perry in 1970.22 Sandy Sr. reflected on the accomplishments of his two sons: “People have to realize I’m very proud of my kids for the way they act as persons. And they have talent and know how to display that talent.”23

While it appeared that Roberto had established himself as a core piece of the Padres’ future, the Padres had other ideas. After the 1990 season the Padres and Blue Jays struck a blockbuster deal that sent Alomar and outfielder Joe Carter to Toronto in exchange for Fred McGriff and Gold Glove shortstop Tony Fernandez.24 Along with Alomar and Carter, Blue Jays general manager Pat Gillick had also added center fielder Devon White days earlier as Toronto worked to position itself in the competitive American League East.25 Padres’ general manager Joe McIlvaine said, “We just felt it was something we wanted to give a shot to. It was kind of a gutsy trade on both ends.”26 Roberto was shocked: “I didn’t expect it; I didn’t understand it,” he later recalled.27

Surprised or not, Roberto joined a collection of talented players in Toronto and paid immediate dividends north of the border, putting together an early six-game hitting streak as the Blue Jays streaked to the top of the American League East.28 In May, however, Roberto once again ran into the task of facing Nolan Ryan – now pitching for the Texas Rangers. With two outs in the top of the ninth, the 44-year-old Ryan was one out away from his seventh no-hitter when Roberto strode to the plate. As the Fort Worth Star Telegram put it 25 years later, “[T]he kid he’d once coached stood between Ryan and history.”29 Ryan had the last laugh; he struck out Alomar on a 2-and-2 fastball to end the game.30

Later in the season, Roberto was once again elected to the All-Star Game, this time as an American League teammate of Sandy Jr. The long ovation he received from the Toronto crowd served as confirmation of how the city had taken to him: “When I was introduced they gave me such a long, loud ovation, I never expected it,” Roberto said.31

As the season wore on, Alomar kept hitting and the Blue Jays kept winning, clinching the American League East. In his first postseason, Alomar’s.474 batting average could not keep Toronto from being eliminated in five games by the Minnesota Twins. Alomar won his first Gold Glove, and it was clear that the Blue Jays were set to contend in the years to come. The offseason brought with it new riches as well: a three-year, $14 million contract that was the highest at the time on three fronts – for a second baseman, for a player 24 or younger, and for a player with four years or less in the major leagues.32 The average annual value of $4,666,667 made Alomar the ninth-highest paid player in the game.33

Bolstered by the acquisition of Dave Winfield in the offseason and David Cone in August, the Blue Jays again clinched the American League East in 1992. At midseason Alomar returned to San Diego for the first time since being traded and participated in the All-Star Game – once again with Sandy Jr. as a teammate.34

Alomar was named the most valuable player in the ALCS, with the most memorable moment being his game-tying two run home run off A’s closer Dennis Eckersley in the ninth inning of Game Four. He relished the opportunity to be part of the first Blue Jays team to reach the World Series: “I wasn’t here when they didn’t win in the past. … I just want to be here in the present when we win the big one, so we won’t have to hear anymore about the past.35 Alomar continued his clutch hitting and superb defense in the World Series, and helped the Blue Jays defeat Atlanta for their first championship. Alomar’s contributions led Dave Winfield to comment that “You’re one of the best players I’ve ever seen.”36 Manager Cito Gaston agreed: “I could talk about Robbie for an hour,” he said.37

After a slow start in 1993, the Blue Jays took off yet again and Alomar had career highs in numerous categories, including 55 stolen bases and 17 home runs. In the ALCS against the Chicago White Sox, he stole four bases as the Blue Jays won, four games to two. In the World Series, against the Philadelphia Phillies, Alomar hit .480 and drove in six runs as the Blue Jays, on Joe Carter’s game-winning home run in Game Six, won the World Series for the second year in a row.38

With two World Series titles in his back pocket, it was hard to imagine things ever going wrong for Alomar in Toronto. But go wrong they did. After a strike-shortened 1994 season, the Blue Jays began to take a step back in 1995 and look toward the future. This included trading veteran David Cone in July – a move that Alomar protested by sitting out the next game.39 Alomar was also removed from a game in early July when a fan, Tricia Miller, walked into the Skydome hotel where he lived and told employees that she planned to kill him.40 Alomar said, “I wasn’t shaken by it. I never knew that person. I never really knew what was happening. Cito told me in the dugout. They took me out of the game, but they had caught her by then, so I don’t know why.”41

By the end of the season, with rumors swirling about his future, Alomar was unhappy with what he felt was unfair treatment by the Toronto front office and local media:

“I never said that I want to be traded. … They made it sound like I said, ‘Trade me now, I want out of here.’ And the fans believed what they read in the papers. When I stood out on the field in Toronto and heard them booing me, I knew they didn’t understand or know what the truth was. I hadn’t said anything like what the writers wrote. But I could do nothing about it, and I learned how the media is.”42

With no offer from the Blue Jays, Alomar was ready to hit free agency: “If [the Blue Jays] had offered me something before the All-Star break, then maybe I would’ve thought about it and gone for it. Now you’re in the last week of the season. … Now maybe it’s time for me to try the market.”43

At 27 years old and already a six-time All-Star, Alomar inked a three-year, $18 million contract with the Baltimore Orioles in December 1995.44 He was thrilled to team up with fellow All-Star Cal Ripken Jr.: “I never expected to play alongside one of the legends of baseball. … It’s going to be like a dream come true for me.”45

Alomar carried his winter-ball success (he led the league in hitting) over to Baltimore, going on a tear to begin the season, hitting .410 in the beginning part of June.46 Former teammate Tony Gwynn heaped praise on the player Alomar had become, saying, “He has the ability to hit a home run, or work the count and hit a double down the opposite line and do whatever he wants to do. He’s probably the best all-around player in the game.”47 Alomar went on to make his seventh consecutive All-Star Game, collect his sixth consecutive Gold Glove and set numerous career highs as the Orioles clinched the American League wild-card playoff spot.48

Perhaps the most memorable moment of the season, however, occurred during a late-September game in Toronto. After being called out on strikes in the top of the first, Alomar argued with home-plate umpire John Hirschbeck on his way back to the dugout. When Hirschbeck threw him out of the game, Alomar returned to the field. During the course of the argument, Alomar took offense to being called a derogatory name, and spit in Hirschbeck’s face.49

Alomar apologized and donated $50,000 toward research into Lou Gehrig’s disease, which Hirschbeck’s son had.50 This did nothing to prevent his being relentlessly booed for the remainder of the season and the playoffs, or from receiving a five-game suspension to be served at the start of the 1997 season.51

Alomar delivered a game-tying two-out single in the deciding Game Four of the Division Series against Cleveland, and then hit the game-winning home run in the 12th inning.52 Brother and Indians catcher Sandy Alomar Jr. said, “He’s my brother and with all the things that happened with this incident, I felt kind of sorry for him.”53 Roberto was ready to turn the page on the incident: “I’ve been going through a tough time. … Human beings make mistakes. I apologized to the umpire, his family, and all of baseball. It’s time to move on.”54 The Orioles did move on to the ALCS, but were eliminated in five games by the New York Yankees on their way to the World Series title.

The fact that Alomar was even allowed to play in the playoffs did not sit well with many, including major-league umpires. When it was announced that his suspension would be delayed until the next season, the umpires voted to not work the playoffs unless the suspension was changed to apply to the first round.55 The boycott was abandoned, however, when an agreement was worked out in a Philadelphia federal court.56

After he served his five-game suspension to start the 1997 season, Alomar helped the Orioles to 98 wins and the American League East crown. He also took the first step toward putting the spitting incident behind him, publicly shaking hands with Hirschbeck near first base in April before the first Orioles game Hirschbeck called since the incident.57 Several nagging injuries pestered Alomar throughout the season, including a nagging groin injury in late July that made him miss close to a month of playing time. Alomar said the injury “made me grow up. I now knew what it was like to be hurt and what you had to do to come back.”58 After defeating the Mariners in the Division Series, the Orioles came up short of the World Series yet again, this time losing to Sandy and the Cleveland Indians in six games.

The Orioles were nowhere near contention in 1998. The season was not without its highlights though, as Roberto collected three hits (one of them a home run) and the All-Star Game MVP award in Denver, making the Alomar brothers back-to-back winners of the award since Sandy had won the year before. As his three-year contract with the Orioles came to a close, Roberto once again found himself on the free-agent market.

It did not take long for Roberto to find a new home. He signed a four-year contract with the Indians, reuniting with Sandy.59 “It means a lot to be beside my brother, not only to me but to my family,” Roberto said.60 Indians general manager John Hart stated the obvious: “We are elated to have the Alomar brothers in the Indians family.”61 In addition to Sandy, the move to Cleveland also allowed Roberto to team with shortstop Omar Vizquel, who along with Roberto had also won six Gold Gloves. “It would be worth the price of a ticket just to watch Omar and Robbie turn a double play,” said Hart.62

Free from the injuries that plagued him in 1998, Alomar made an immediate impact on the Indians. “Robbie is one of the few players in the game that can make everybody around him better,” Indians manager Mike Hargrove said.63 The Indians had compiled an enviable offense that exploded out of the gates, and Alomar ended the year with what proved to be a career high 24 home runs. He finished third in the MVP voting (the highest he would ever finish). His hot hitting continued in the playoffs; he went 5-for-8 while the Indians surged to a 2-0 series lead over the Red Sox in the ALDS.64 The Tribe would not win again, however, and fell in five games.65

Although things did not turn out as hoped in October, a late-season meeting helped Alomar to finally turn the page on the spitting incident, which had continued to follow him through the jeers of fans around the country. On September 5, during a rain delay at Camden Yards, John Hirschbeck and family came knocking on the visitor’s clubhouse door, asking for Roberto. Hirschbeck’s 13-year-old son was a fan, and wanted to meet Roberto. The moment together allowed both families to heal. “I don’t see why he should be booed,” Hirschbeck said afterward. “If he and I can forgive and forget, why not everyone else?”66

The next two seasons also ended in disappointment for the Indians. In 2000 they missed the playoffs altogether despite winning 90 games. They charged back to the playoffs in 2001, but fell in five games in the ALDS to the Seattle Mariners. Alomar won Gold Gloves and was an All-Star in both seasons, and stole a combined 69 bases. He still looked to be in his prime with one year left on his contract. But another change of scenery was in store.

On December 11, 2001, the Indians traded Alomar, pitcher Mike Bacsik, and first baseman Danny Peoples to the New York Mets in exchange for outfielders Matt Lawton and Alex Escobar, relief pitcher Jerrod Riggan, and two players to be named later.67 While the move was designed to clear payroll and acquire younger talent, Indians general manager Mark Shapiro knew that the deal would not sit well with all fans. “I think I’ll need a flak jacket when I get off the plane [from the winter meetings], probably,” he said.68 Alomar said he was “kind of disappointed … I was real happy in Cleveland and thought I did a great job.”69 Mets General Manager Steve Phillips was elated: “We sit up in that room and all we do is dream all day about different scenarios,” he said, adding that “I have to admit that I thought this was a long shot.”70

But what had seemed like a dream scenario for Phillips at the Winter Meetings would soon turn into a nightmare. The Mets came nowhere near meeting expectations, finishing in last place in the National League East, 26½ games out of first place. Alomar also began to show the first sign of decline, hitting .266 and snapping his 12-year streak of appearances in the All-Star Game. The 2003 season began much the same way, with Alomar hitting.262 on July 1 when the Mets shipped him to the White Sox for three prospects.71

All told, Alomar played only 222 games for the Mets, and for his part understood that he did not perform at the high level that the Mets, and he himself, had expected. “Sometimes, you put too much pressure on yourself in New York, and maybe I did that,” he said.72 Along with providing a change of scenery, joining the White Sox allowed him to reunite again with Sandy.73 But Roberto hit only .253 down the stretch and the White Sox finished in second place in the American League Central, missing the playoffs.

A free agent once again, Alomar signed a one-year deal in the offseason with the Arizona Diamondbacks in the hopes of rejuvenating his career. “If I can get in good shape, I think I can play the way I used to play,” he said.74 Despite missing 56 games with a broken right hand suffered when he was hit by a pitch in late April, he did indeed experience a resurgence of sorts in his limited time on the field with Arizona, carrying a .309 batting average into early August.75 With the Diamondbacks hopelessly out of contention, Alomar was once again an attractive commodity for teams looking to add a veteran presence for the stretch run. So it was that the White Sox acquired him for the second consecutive season. Alomar struggled mightily in sporadic action, though, batting only .180 in 65 plate appearances as the White Sox once again missed the playoffs.

After multiple seasons of declining performance, Alomar made one last run at extending his career, this time with Tampa Bay, signing a one-year, $600,000 contract in January.76 When he committed multiple errors in one inning of a spring training game, however, he decided it was time to walk away. “I played a lot of games and I said I would never embarrass myself on the field,” he said, adding, “I had a long career, but I can’t play at the level I want to play, so it’s time to retire. I just can’t go anymore. My back, legs and eyes aren’t the same.”77 Alomar concluded his 17-year career with a .300 batting average, 2,724 hits, 210 home runs, and 474 stolen bases to go along with 12 All-Star Game selections and 10 Gold Glove awards.

There was no question that Cooperstown would be the final stop of Alomar’s career. With some Hall voters still holding the Hirschbeck incident against him, though, he came up eight votes short of admission in his first year of eligibility, in 2010. “I feel disappointed, but next year hopefully I make it in,” he said, adding that “at least I was close.”78 Some sportswriters were not as gracious in their assessment of the snub. The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rogers wrote, “If anybody didn’t vote for Robbie because of the spitting incident, then shame on them.”79

Whatever the concerns some Hall voters had in Alomar’s first year of eligibility, resistance to his election was all but nonexistent the next year. He was named on 90 percent of the ballots, far over the 75 percent needed for induction into the Hall of Fame.80 Even Alomar was surprised by the drastic increase in support from the previous year. “I didn’t expect to get that many votes,” he said.81

Alomar, who went into the Hall wearing a Blue Jays cap, opened his induction speech in Spanish and spoke fondly of his father’s and brother’s impact on his life and career.82 Sandy Jr. recounted the brothers’ year-long wager as teammates/roommates for Class-A Charleston: “We said whoever had the best game, would get the bed. I slept on the couch the whole year.”83 He added, “We didn’t win a championship together but we won this together. And this is a big one. In my heart, you are a Hall of Famer.”84

Statistics aside, it is the way Alomar’s former teammates describe him that truly tells the story of the player that he was. Toronto teammate Pat Hentgen, asked how he described Alomar to present-day players, said, “I tell them Robbie was a career .300 hitter, a clutch hitter, a guy who could hit for power, a great baserunner and basestealer … and (pause) his best asset of all was his glove.”85 The Orioles’ B.J. Surhoff perhaps best summed up Alomar’s baseball career: “Robbie could beat you with the bunt, with the extra base, with the homer. He could beat you with a stolen base. He could beat you by going from first to third, a baserunning move. He could beat you by making plays in the field. Robbie’s a baseball player. And a damn good one at that.”86

Alomar continued to be involved in baseball after his retirement. In January of 2016, he and his wife, Kim, launched Foundation 12, a Canadian charitable organization serving youth baseball players, though the organization does not appear to be currently active as of 2022. In 2021, Alomar was placed on the ineligible list by Major League Baseball following an investigation into a 2014 sexual assault allegation.87 Alomar stated that he was “disappointed, surprised, and upset” with the decision, and that he would “continue to spend my time helping kids pursue their baseball dreams.”88

Last revised: March 9, 2022

Notes

1 “25 Years Later, Nolan Ryan Remembers His Seventh No-Hitter,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram, April 30, 2016, star-telegram.com/sports/mlb/texas-rangers/article74925477.html.

2 Norman L. Macht, Roberto Alomar (Childs, Maryland: Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc., 1999), 9-11.

3 Macht, 3.

4 Macht, 10.

5 “Like Father Like Son?: Padres Think Roberto Alomar Is a Bit More Than a Chip Off the Old Block,” Los Angeles Times, April 22, 1988, articles.latimes.com/1988-04-22/sports/sp-2096_1_roberto-alomar.

6 Macht, 15.

7 Macht, 15.

8 Macht, 16.

9 Macht, 16.

10 Macht, 17.

11 Macht, 18.

12 Macht, 18.

13 Macht, 19.

14 Macht, 19

15 Macht, 21.

16 “Padre Notebook: Few Except Feeney Appear Satisfied as Roberto Alomar Is Sent Down,” Los Angeles Times, March 26, 1988, articles.latimes.com/1988-03-26/sports/sp-354_1_roberto-alomar.

17 Macht, 23.

18 “Padre Notebook.”

19 “Padre Notebook.”

20 “Like Father Like Son?”

21 Macht, 25-26.

22 “Alomars an All-Star Family: Padres: Roberto Alomar, Along With Teammate Tony Gywnn, Is Named an NL Reserve. Brother Sandy Had Already Been Selected as The Starting AL Catcher for Tuesday’s Game,” Los Angeles Times, July 6, 1990, articles.latimes.com/1990-07-06/sports/sp-113_1_sandy-alomar-jr.

23 “Alomars an All-Star Family.”

24 “Blue Jays Land Carter, Alomar From Padres San Diego Gets Fernandez and McGriff in Deal,” Baltimore Sun, December 5, 1990, articles.baltimoresun.com/1990-12-06/sports/1990340005_1_blue-jays-fred-mcgriff-tony-fernandez.

25 “Blue Jays Land Carter, Alomar From Padres San Diego Gets Fernandez and McGriff in Deal.”

26 “Blue Jays Land Carter, Alomar From Padres San Diego Gets Fernandez and McGriff in Deal.”

27 Macht, 31.

28 “Padres Winning December Deal Looks Like Tie With Blue Jays in April,” Baltimore Sun, April 21, 1991, articles.baltimoresun.com/1991-04-21/sports/1991111135_1_blue-jays-roberto-alomar-deal.

29 “25 Years Later.”

30 “25 Years Later.”

31 Macht, 33.

32 “Cadaret and 8 Others Settle Contract,” New York Times, February 8, 1992, nytimes.com/1992/02/08/sports/baseball-cadaret-and-8-others-settle-contracts.html.

33 “Cadaret and 8 Others Settle Contract,”

34 Macht, 35.

35 “Blue Jays Eck Out a 7-6 Victory in 11: AL Game 4: Alomar’s Two-Run Homer Off Eckersley Ties It in Ninth as A’s Blow 6-1 Lead,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1992, articles.latimes.com/1992-10-12/sports/sp-138_1_blue-jays.

36 Macht, 37.

37 “Alomar’s MVP Play Points to New Star,” Baltimore Sun, October 15, 1992, articles.baltimoresun.com/1992-10-15/sports/1992289072_1_alomar-blue-jays-toronto.

38 Macht, 42.

39 Macht, 43-44.

40 “Orioles’ Multitalented Alomar Is Second to None,” Washington Post, March 31, 1996, washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1996/03/31/orioles-multitalented-alomar-is-second-to-none/b8cd697d-9630-464e-bcd9-84d6ba8db8cf/?utm_term=.9d34bd1c1107.

41 “Orioles’ Multitalented Alomar Is Second to None.”

42 Macht, 44.

43 “Jays’ Alomar in No Rush to Decide ’96 Destination He, Molitor Express Interest in Joining Ripken,” Baltimore Sun, September 27, 1995, articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-09-27/sports/1995270116_1_alomar-blue-jays-second-baseman.

44 “O’s Wave Money Wand Building Winner: Signing Six-Time All-Star Roberto Alomar Adds Exclamation Mark to New General Manager’s Swift Revamping of Orioles,” Baltimore Sun, December 22, 1995, articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-12-22/news/1995356066_1_gillick-orioles-roberto-alomar. New manager Davey Johnson was informed of the signing in the dentist’s chair when he answered a call from General Manager Pat Gillick who said, “Well, you’ve got yourself an All-Star second baseman.” Johnson claimed to not feel any pain for the remainder of the day. “Alomar finds O’s 2nd to none Six-time All-Star signs, three-year, $18 million deal,” Baltimore Sun, December 22, 1995, articles.baltimoresun.com/1995-12-22/sports/1995356093_1_roberto-alomar-cone-orioles.

45 Macht, 47.

46 Macht, 46, 51-52.

47 “Alomar Hitting His Prime at Plate,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 1996, articles.latimes.com/1996-05-28/sports/sp-9201_1_alomar-hitting.

48 Macht, 51-52.

49 Macht, 52-53.

50 Macht, 54.

51 Macht, 54.

52 “Alomar Shows Some Spit and Polish,” Los Angeles Times, October 6, 1996, articles.latimes.com/1996-10-06/sports/sp-51279_1_sandy-alomar.

53 “Alomar Shows Some Spit and Polish.”

54 “Alomar Shows Some Spit and Polish.”

55 “Umpires Vote to Boycott Over Alomar,” New York Times, October 1, 1996, nytimes.com/1996/10/01/sports/umpires-vote-to-boycott-over-alomar.html.

56 “Umpires Abandon Boycott,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1996, articles.latimes.com/1996-10-02/sports/sp-49681_1_umpires-working-game.

57 Macht, 57.

58 Macht, 59.

59 Macht, 62.

60 “Cleveland Lures Roberto Alomar,” CBS News, November 23, 1998, cbsnews.com/news/cleveland-lures-roberto-alomar/.

61 “Cleveland Lures Roberto Alomar.”

62 “Cleveland Lures Roberto Alomar.”

63 “Alomar: Villain Turned Hero in Cleveland,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 1999, articles.latimes.com/1999/jun/27/sports/sp-50609.

64 “Baines Goes Deep as Indians Move One Game From Sweep,” Baltimore Sun, October 8, 1999, articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-10-08/sports/9910080129_1_roberto-alomar-baines-cleveland.

65 “Red Sox Ace Out Indians,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1999, articles.latimes.com/1999/oct/12/sports/sp-22770/2.

66 “Score One for Friendship,” Baltimore Sun, October 27, 1999, articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-10-27/news/9910270108_1_roberto-alomar-john-hirschbeck-holy-water/3.

67 “Indians Trade Alomar to Mets,” Southeast Missourian (Cape Girardeau, Missouri), December 12, 2001, semissourian.com/story/54375.html.

68 “Indians Trade Alomar to Mets,” CBC Sports, December 11, 2001, cbc.ca/sports/baseball/indians-trade-alomar-to-mets-1.257404.

69 “Indians Trade Alomar to Mets,” CBC Sports.

70 “Indians trade Alomar to Mets,” Southeast Missourian, December 12, 2001, www.semissourian.com/story/54375.html.

71 “Mets Trade Roberto Alomar to White Sox,” New York Times, July 1, 2003, nytimes.com/2003/07/01/sports/baseball/mets-trade-roberto-alomar-to-white-sox.html.

72 “Mets Trade Roberto Alomar to White Sox.”

73 Sandy Alomar signed with Chicago prior to the 2003 season.

74 “Alomar Jr. Joins Diamondbacks, CBC Sports, January 7, 2004, cbc.ca/sports/baseball/alomar-jr-joins-diamondbacks-1.516620.

75 “Diamondbacks Trade Alomar to White Sox,” Orlando Sentinel, August 6, 2004, articles.orlandosentinel.com/2004-08-06/sports/0408060185_1_dominican-republic-clemens-white-sox.

76 “Notebook: Roberto Alomar: “It’s Time to Retire,” Seattle Times, March 20, 2005, seattletimes.com/sports/notebook-roberto-alomar-its-time-to-retire/.

77 “Notebook: Roberto Alomar: “It’s Time to Retire.”

78 “Hall Passes: Alomar 8 Short,” Baltimore Sun, January 7, 2010, articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-01-07/sports/1001060140_1_hall-s-veterans-committee-john-hirschbeck-roberto-alomar.

79 “Hall Passes: Alomar 8 Short.”

80 “Alomar, Blyleven Elected to Hall of Fame,” Baltimore Sun, January 5, 2011, articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-01-05/sports/bs-sp-hallofame-01-20110105_1_sandy-alomar-sr-pitcher-bert-blyleven-induction.

81 “Alomar, Blyleven Elected to Hall of Fame.”

82 “Alomar, Blyleven and Gillick Enter Baseball Hall of Fame,” USA Today, July 24, 2011, usatoday30.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/hallfame/2011-07-24-hall-of-fame-alomar-blyleven_n.htm.

83 “Alomar, Blyleven and Gillick Enter Baseball Hall of Fame.”

84 “Alomar, Blyleven and Gillick Enter Baseball Hall of Fame.”

85 “Robbie Was Best of the Best,” Toronto Sun, July 16, 2011, torontosun.com/2011/07/16/robbie-was-best-of-the-best.

86 “Alomar Falls Just Short in First Bid for Hall of Fame,” Baltimore Sun, January 7, 2010, articles.baltimoresun.com/2010-01-07/sports/bal-sp.alomar07jan07_1_roberto-alomar-greatest-second-basemen-ballot/2.

87 Keegan Matheson, “MLB Puts Roberto Alomar on Ineligible List,” MLB.com, April 30, 2021. https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-puts-roberto-alomar-on-ineligible-list

88 “MLB puts Roberto Alomar on Ineligible List.”

One of the reasons for the Tribe’s success was the unlikely power coming from the bat of Sandy Alomar Jr. The veteran backstop started the season in fine fashion, as he slugged a home run in five consecutive games from April 4-8. His 11 home runs at the break matched his season total of the season before and were just three short of his career-high 14 homers in 1994. “I’m in a zone,” said Alomar. “Everything looks like a beach ball.”1

But it was more than the long ball that Alomar was contributing to the team’s fortunes. He owned the second-longest hitting streak in franchise history, 30 games (from May 25 through July 6). The streak, in which Alomar batted .429, was second only to Nap Lajoie’s 31-game streak in 1906. “It’s been a remarkable run for him,” said the Twins’ Paul Molitor. “To be able to have the mind-set to call a game (as catcher) and still be able to do that. …”2  

For the All-Stars on July 8, pitching was the name of the game. The teams battled to a 1-1 tie through the top of the seventh inning. Each team scored its tally on a home run. Edgar Martinez, who was the first designated hitter elected to the All-Star Game, socked a 2-and-2 offering from Greg Maddux into the left-field plaza in the bottom of the second frame. In the top of the seventh, Braves catcher Javy Lopez led off with a solo shot off the Royals’ Jose Rosado.

Jim Thome led off the bottom of the seventh inning by grounding out. Bernie Williams walked and with two outs took second base on a wild pitch by the Giants’ Shawn Estes. Alomar, who had replaced Ivan Rodriguez in the bottom of the sixth inning, stepped to the plate. “When Sandy went to the plate, Paul O’Neill turned to me and said, ‘If all things were fair, Sandy would hit a homer and win the ballgame,’” said Indians manager Mike Hargrove, one of manager Joe Torre’s coaches for the game.3 Sandy sent a 2-and-2 pitch from Estes on a line into the left-field bleachers. “I felt like I was flying,” said Alomar. “I’ve never run the bases so fast on a home run.”4

The 3-1 AL advantage stood up, as the junior circuit snapped a three-game losing streak. The NL was held to three hits. Alomar became the first Indian to homer in the All-Star Game since Rocky Colavito in 1959. Alomar was voted the game’s MVP, the first Indian to be so honored and the first player ever to win the award in his home ballpark. “This is a dream I don’t want to wake up from,” said Alomar. “You probably only get one chance to play an All-Star Game in your home stadium.”5

“It was another of those storybook things,” said Torre. “I had one last fall [the 1996 World Series], and now this. I was happy for Sandy to win it in his own park.”6 

Santos (Velazquez) Alomar was born on June 18, 1966, in Salinas, Puerto Rico. He was the middle child (older sister Sandia, younger brother Roberto) born to Santos and Maria Alomar. Sandy Sr. suited up for six different teams over a 15-year career in the major leagues. He had a career batting average of .245. He was mainly a second baseman, although he also saw time at shortstop. After his playing days, Alomar coached 15 years on the big-league level. In addition to his time in the major leagues, Sandy Sr. also managed the Puerto Rican National Team.

The elder Alomar did not push his sons into baseball. “The only influence is from them seeing me play,” he said.7 The life of a ballplayer means a lot of travel and time away from the family. Sandy Sr. credited his wife, Maria, with raising their three children, saying, “She deserves more credit than me. I was a ballplayer and couldn’t be around that much. She stayed home and raised those kids. That’s why they’re the kind of people they are.”8

Roberto Alomar took to baseball right away. He had the natural ability to play the game and at age 7 he made Sandy’s little league team for 9-to-12-year-olds. But for Sandy, he had other interests to keep him busy. “Sandy left the game at age 12 and got into dirt-bike riding and karate,” said his father. “He was doing dangerous things, more or less. He said the only way he could find excitement in baseball was to become a catcher.”9

Young Sandy took to catching and was signed as an amateur free agent on October 21, 1983, by the San Diego Padres. After graduating from Luis Munoz Rivera High School in Salinas, Alomar began his journey to the major leagues. It was a long climb indeed. At first, the going was rough for the young catcher, who hit a combined .221 through his first three years in the minor leagues. But like most talented players, Alomar put in the work and by 1987 he blossomed into a coveted prospect in the Padres chain. It became a family affair of sorts, as Roberto joined his older brother on multiple minor-league squads. Sandy Sr. joined San Diego manager Steve Boros’ coaching staff in 1986.

In 1988 Alomar was named co-Minor League Player of the Year by The Sporting News (with Gary Sheffield of Denver). Alomar, who was the catcher for the Las Vegas Stars of the Pacific Coast League, batted .297 and had career highs in home runs (16) and RBIs (71). “I didn’t expect to hit like that,” said Alomar. “As the season started, I struggled a little bit, but then I started swinging harder and pulling the ball more and hitting more home runs.”10

It was reported that 22 of the other 25 major-league clubs were interested in acquiring Alomar. The Padres already had their catcher of the future in Benito Santiago. The time looked right to possibly trade their star prospect and get plenty in return. While Santiago was the National League Rookie of the Year in 1987, Roberto was promoted to the Padres in 1988 and became their starting second baseman. Sandy was frustrated, feeling there was nothing more he could do on the minor-league level. Rumors persisted that he would be traded, or that Santiago might be moved. One rumor had Alomar headed to Atlanta for All-Star Dale Murphy. “Every organization in the league would love to have a Sandy Alomar,” said Atlanta general manager Bobby Cox.11

But no deal was ever made and Alomar returned to Las Vegas in 1989. He started the season poorly, batting .242 up to June 5, and then he became a man possessed, batting .351 the rest of the way. For the season, Alomar batted .306, with 13 home runs and 101 RBIs. He showed value behind the plate as well, fielding his position at a .984 clip, and throwing out 34 percent of would-be basestealers (25 of 74). He was once again honored by The Sporting News and Baseball America as the Minor League Player of the Year. “It means a lot to me,” said Alomar of the award. “The way I felt, I was so frustrated. I figured there was no way I’d win it again.”12

When the Cleveland Indians front office offered slugging outfielder Joe Carter a multiyear deal at the end of the 1989 season, Carter said, “No thanks.” He could be a free agent at the end of the 1990 season, and was looking forward to leaving Cleveland, and getting a fresh start – not to mention snagging a boatload of cash. Alomar, who was getting frustrated with his situation in San Diego, was just hoping for a chance to play in the big leagues. After all, he had accomplished all he could in the minors, and it really did not matter to him whose uniform he was wearing. On December 6, 1989, at the annual winter meetings, Cleveland GM Hank Peters and San Diego GM Jack McKeon hammered out a deal that sent Carter to the Padres and Alomar, infielder Carlos Baerga, and outfielder Chris James to Cleveland.

Alomar was penciled in as the starting catcher as soon as the ink was dry on the trade. He did not disappoint. Cleveland manager John McNamara praised his young backstop in all facets of his game. “To me, he’s very, very impressive at blocking balls,” said McNamara. “He does it even when there’s no need, when nobody is on base. Sandy’s been taught well. He’s absorbed the teaching, put it to good use.

“Sandy is hitting for a better average than I expected at this stage of his career. He’s adjusted very well to major-league pitching. I never had any doubt about his catching, but you just never know about his hitting.”13              

McNamara was not the only person to notice the outstanding play of his prized rookie. All of baseball took notice when Alomar was voted the starting catcher for the American League in the All-Star Game. He was the first rookie catcher ever to start in an All-Star Game. The game would be extra-special, as Roberto, then with San Diego, was also named an All-Star and Sandy Sr. would also join his sons as a coach for the NL at Wrigley Field for the midsummer classic.    

Sandy’s season was capped off with his being the unanimous choice for the AL Rookie of the Year. “This award means more to me than the All-Star Game,” said Alomar. “You have a lot of chances to be in the All-Star Game, but you’ve only got one chance to win this award. I was supposed to be Rookie of the Year, and that made it tough. I was traded for Joe Carter, and that made it tough. But the manager and the rest of the guys on the team really helped me.”14 Alomar was the fourth Indian to win the award. He was also awarded a Gold Glove for excellence in fielding his position. He was the first Indian to be so recognized since Rick Manning in 1976.

Alomar was instantly a fan favorite among Indians fans. However, the injuries began to pile up beginning in 1991, his second season. Though Alomar was selected to start the All-Star Game in both 1991 and 1992, he was dealing with myriad setbacks that included back surgery, injuries to his right rotator cuff, his right hip flexor, his right knee (two, caused by sliding), and the webbing between the fingers on his right hand (also twice). The 132 games Alomar played in his rookie year were the most of his career.

The Indians moved across downtown to their new ballpark, Jacobs Field, for the 1994 season. Alomar, despite missing time on the disabled list with the torn webbing on his right hand, was putting together a wonderful season, batting .288 with 14 home runs and 43 RBIs, when the players’ strike on August 11 led to the remainder of the season being canceled.

Perhaps because Alomar suffered so many injuries, Cleveland signed Tony Peña before the 1994 season. For the next three seasons, the veteran provided solid leadership and was a reliable substitute for Alomar. It was a great free-agent signing for the Indians, as Alomar was recuperating from knee surgery and did not return to the active roster until June 29, 1995. Still, he batted .300 in 54 starts at catcher that season. The Indians, who sported one of the most potent lineups in baseball, moved Alomar to the bottom of their lineup.  “I think Sandy can still hit 10 to 15 homers this year,” said manager Mike Hargrove. “He has that kind of power. The thing that is really impressive is the way he’s accepted hitting ninth. The number 9 hitter is usually the weakest hitter in the lineup, but that’s not the case with this team.”15

The Indians returned to the postseason for the first time in 41 years, winning their division by 30 games. They marched through the American League playoffs before losing to Atlanta in the World Series.

The Indians won the AL Central from 1995 to 1999. In 1997 they advanced to the World Series again, only to lose to Florida in seven games. Alomar’s power surge in 1997 continued in the postseason, as he hit two home runs in the ALDS, one in the ALCS, and two in the World Series.

In 1999 Alomar was reunited with brother Roberto, who signed a free-agent contract with Cleveland. Together with Omar Vizquel, they formed one of the better middle-infield defenses in the big leagues. But Sandy missed most of the season after surgery on his left knee (he started 35 games), and in 2000 he split time with Einar Diaz at catcher. That season he batted .289 and drove in 42 runs.

But the end of an era was near as Alomar and the Indians were unable to negotiate a contract after the 2000 season. Alomar, ever the classy player, took the “life goes on” route and signed with the Chicago White Sox. He split time with Mark Johnson at catcher.

But the White Sox were just as interested in Alomar’s ability to teach their young receivers and work with their green pitching staff. He was traded to Colorado in 2002, but returned to the South Side for the 2003 and 2004 seasons. “I got kind of teary-eyed when he got traded,” said pitcher Mark Buerhle. “I’m still learning (from him). I’m out there thinking, ‘I’m going to throw this pitch,’ and he puts something else down. I’m not going to shake him off because he’s been around the league a long time.”16 

The White Sox made it clear that they wanted Alomar to work with Miguel Olivo, a catching prospect for whom the front office had high hopes. In 2003 Sandy was reunited again with Roberto, who by this time in his career was serving as a utility player for Chicago.

Alomar spent the remaining years as a backup catcher with Texas (2005), the Los Angeles Dodgers and the White Sox (2006), and the New York Mets (2007). He retired with a .273 batting average in a 20-year career. He hit 112 home runs and 249 doubles, and drove in 588 runs. He threw out just over 30 percent of baserunners, and fielded at a .991 clip at catcher for his career.

Alomar stayed with the Mets as a catching instructor in 2008 and 2009. Manny Acta was hired to replace Eric Wedge as Cleveland’s manager in 2010. Acta offered Alomar a job as his first-base coach. “I jumped at it,” said Alomar. “For me, it was coming home. No place in baseball means as much to me as Cleveland.”17

Acta was fired near the end of the 2012 season. Alomar was named interim manager, and looked to be the favorite until Terry Francona’s name was thrown into the mix of candidates. “I knew they’d hire him if he wanted the job,” said Alomar. “I don’t blame them. I understand. He’s won two World Series. He’s a heck of a guy.”18   

As of 2025, Alomar is still Cleveland’s first-base coach. Francona, who played for the Indians in 1988, was a teammate of Alomar’s in winter ball with Ponce in the Puerto Rico League. When the Indians acquired Alomar in 1989, Francona gushed at the young man’s ability. “He’s the best catcher I’ve ever played with,” said Francona. “He’s better than Gary Carter when Carter was good. Sandy might not drive in 100 runs like Carter did in his prime, but overall he’s a better ballplayer. He’s the best defensive catcher I’ve ever seen. His arm is almost incredible.”19  

When Francona insisted that Sandy Alomar be a part of his staff, he knew exactly what he was getting. Even way back when.     

Last revised: June 1, 2018

This biography appeared in “Puerto Rico and Baseball: 60 Biographies” (SABR, 2017), edited by Bill Nowlin and Edwin Fernández. It also appeared in “1995 Cleveland Indians: The Sleeping Giant Awakes” (SABR, 2019), edited by Joseph Wancho.

Photo credit

National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Notes                                        

1 Bill Livingston, “Sweet Sandy! AL Triumphs on Alomar Blast,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 9, 1997: 1A. 

2 Mel Antonen, “Sandy Alomar’s Streak Hits 30,” USA Today, July 7, 1997: 1C.

3 Paul Hoynes, “Sandy Steals the Show; Alomar’s Home Run Lifts AL,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 9, 1997: 1D.

4 Ibid.

5 Ibid.

6 “Sweet Sandy.”

7 Chuck Johnson, “Alomar Sons Deepen Roots in Baseball,” USA Today, July 13, 1990: 2C.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 “Big League Awards in the Minors,” The Sporting News, December 5, 1988: 46.

11 Barry Bloom, “Alomar Hopes That His ‘First’ Won’t Last,” The Sporting News, December 4, 1989: 52.

12  Ibid.

13 Sheldon Ocker, “Alomar More Than Lives Up to Hype,” The Sporting News, July 2, 1990: 12. 

14 Paul Hoynes, “It’s Unanimous! Indians Catcher Alomar Is Rookie of the Year,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 8, 1990: 1F.

15 Paul Hoynes, “Deep Thunder Alomar Homers Twice at Bottom of Order,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, July 21, 1995: 1D.

16 Nancy Armour (Associated Press), “Sandy Ready to Teach,” Elyria (Ohio) Chronicle-Telegram, March 3, 2003: C4.

17 Terry Pluto, “Playing, Coaching for Tribe ‘Paradise,’ Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 3, 2013: C3.

18 Ibid.

19 “Alomar Draws Praise From Former Mate,” The Sporting News, March 19, 1990: 30. 

Upon arriving in the United States in the spring of 1956, without knowing a single person, ignorant of the native language, customs, and food, and unaware of racism, Felipe Alou was armed with nothing but his mind, courage, determination and talent. No Dominican had ever played in the major leagues, and there were as yet only a handful of dark-skinned Latinos playing in the US. Over the course of the next five decades, Alou would become and remain one of the most respected figures in baseball, an All-Star player, a team leader, and a successful manager. While he was admired throughout baseball, among his fellow Dominicans, who would soon be plentiful, he was a revered hero.

“Felipe was really the first,” remembered Manny Mota, “the guy who cleared the way. He was an inspiration to everybody [in the Dominican Republic]. He was a good example.”1 Juan Marichal, like Mota a fellow Dominican, agreed. “Everybody respects Felipe Alou,” he recalled. “He was the leader of most of the Latin players.”2 Willie Mays, a teammate of all of these players, remembered, “It was like a family when they came over.”3 These men helped define the baseball of their time, and Alou was both a leader and a friend to many of them.

Felipe Rojas Alou was born on May 12, 1935 in Bajos de Haina, San Cristóbal, on the southern coast of the Dominican Republic, a few miles from Santo Domingo. (His nickname at home is El Panqué [Sweet Bread] de Haina.) The first child born to José Rojas and Virginia Alou, he was followed by María, Mateo, Jesús, Juan and Virginia. José also had two children with a previous wife who had died young. Though José was dark-skinned and Virginia (descending from Spaniards) was white, Felipe did not give this much thought—race was not a big issue in his country.

José Rojas was a carpenter and blacksmith who built their small four-room house, and many of the other houses in the vicinity. The Rojas family had very little money, as they were often at the mercy of their neighbors’ ability to pay their bills. World War II brought further hardship, causing José to turn to fishing to feed his family. Although they did not always have food, their well-built home afforded them shelter that not everyone in their neighborhood had.4 Felipe swam in the nearby ocean, and was an avid fisherman—a hobby he kept up the rest of his life.

In keeping with the Latin custom, this man is known in full as Felipe Rojas Alou, with each parent contributing half of the double surname. The paternal half is normally used in everyday life, and in the Dominican people know Felipe, Mateo, and Jesús as the Rojas brothers. During Felipe’s time in the American minor leagues he began to be called (incorrectly) Felipe Alou, rhyming (again incorrectly) with “lew” rather than “low.” However, he did not feel empowered enough to correct the error. Two of his brothers, Mateo and Jesús, followed him to American baseball and also, because of the error with Felipe, assumed the surname Alou during their Stateside careers. Similarly, three of Felipe’s sons played professionally, one becoming a star, and all of them used the name Alou even though it was not a part of their name at all (it being their grandmother’s maiden name, not their mother’s). For convenience, this biography will refer to the subject by the name most readers are familiar with: Felipe Alou.

Alou spent six years in local schools and went to high school in Santo Domingo, a 12-mile trip he often made on foot. He also worked on his uncle’s farm and helped his father with his carpentry business. An excellent student, he became a member of the Dominican national track team, running sprints and throwing the discus and javelin. As a senior in high school, he participated in the 1954 Central-American Games in Mexico City. Though track kept him from playing high school baseball, he did play and star for local amateur teams.5

In 1954 Alou entered the University of Santo Domingo in its pre-med program, part of his parents’ dream that he become a doctor. Alou batted cleanup for the team that won the 1955 collegiate championship. He returned to Mexico City for the Pan-American Games, intending to run sprints and throw the javelin, but at the last minute was removed from the track team and placed on the baseball team. He got four hits in the final game against the United States as the Dominican Republic won the gold medal.6

After the tournament Alou received many offers from the major leagues, which at first he had no intention of taking. His resolution lasted until his father and uncle both lost their jobs. As it happened, his university coach, Horacio Martínez, doubled as a bird dog scout for the New York Giants. “Rabbit” Martínez had played shortstop for Alex Pómpez, owner of the New York Cubans, and later a Giants scout. Alou signed in November 1955 for $200, which paid off his parents’ grocery bill. More importantly, he had a job. Despite his parents’ mixed feelings, “we needed somebody to start contributing some earnings to the house.”7

Alou began his professional career in Lake Charles, Louisiana, helping to integrate the Evangeline League. Soon after he arrived, the league voted to expel Lake Charles and Lafayette (the two clubs that had black players).8

Instead, the blacks were shifted to other teams in other leagues; Alou, having just arrived in the United States, rode a bus to Cocoa, Florida to play in the Florida State League. Desperately homesick, and stung by racism for the first time in his life, he pulled it together enough to hit a league-leading .380 with 21 home runs. On September 23, far away in New York, Ozzie Virgil made his debut with the Giants, becoming the first Dominican native to play in the major leagues. (Because Virgil had gone to high school in New York city, his path to the majors was different than Alou’s.)

Alou began 1957 at Triple-A Minneapolis, but his .211 average in 24 games led to a demotion to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he recovered with a .306 average and 12 home runs. It could have been better—Alou was hitting over .380 in mid-season before injuring his right leg on a slide into home plate; he hobbled the rest of the year. Nonetheless, his season earned him an invitation to major league camp in 1958 and a raise to $750 a month. Alou spent very little of it—he kept enough to live on and sent the rest home to his family. During the offseason, the New York Giants moved to San Francisco, and their top minor-league affiliate was now in Phoenix, where Alou was ultimately assigned. Batting leadoff for the first time, he hit .319 with 13 home runs in just 55 games before the Giants brought him to the big leagues.

On June 8 Alou became the second Dominican major leaguer, playing right field and leading off at San Francisco’s Seals Stadium. He singled and doubled off Cincinnati’s Brooks Lawrence in his first two at-bats, and, three days later, got his first home run off Pittsburgh’s Vernon Law. After a hot start that kept him over .300 for a month, he cooled down in July and finished at .253 with 4 home runs in 182 at-bats.

In his first few years Alou could never quite establish himself as a regular player, hampered mostly by the competition on his own team. Beginning in about 1958, a large wave of young players, mostly African-Americans and Latinos, arrived with the Giants. In just this single season, the Giants debuted Alou, Orlando Cepeda, Willie Kirkland, and Leon Wagner. Bill White had a fine rookie year in 1956, went into the Army, came back in late 1958 and had no place to play. Felipe Alou competed with all these guys, along with several others on their way; Willie McCovey and José Pagán joined the club in 1959.

Most of these players were outfielders and first basemen. Alou had the advantage of being athletic enough to play center field, but with the peerless Willie Mays on hand, that skill did not help Alou get on the field. He played as a fourth outfielder in 1959, but with McCovey hitting .372 with 29 home runs for Phoenix in late July, the Giants wanted to bring McCovey up and send Alou back down. With just a year’s seniority under his belt, the 24-year-old told the Giants he would not go back to the minors. His wife was going through a difficult pregnancy, and Alou did not believe the move to Phoenix and the return to San Francisco in September would help. Instead, he told Giants manager Bill Rigney that they would go home. The Alous checked out of their apartment and booked flights to Santo Domingo. The Giants backed down, and instead made room for McCovey by making Hank Sauer a coach.9

Still, the addition of McCovey meant that either he or Orlando Cepeda had to play the outfield, and, with Willie Mays out there already, that left just one spot for Alou and several other qualified players to fight for. Over the 1959 and 1960 seasons combined, Alou hit .269 with 18 home runs in 569 at bats. In 1961, under new manager Al Dark, Alou played most of the time, got 447 at-bats, and responded with 18 home runs and a .289 average.

While Alou’s star was rising in his profession, something else became even more central to his life. “The day I joined the Giants in San Francisco was one of the most important days of my life,” recalled Alou. “That was the day my new teammate Al Worthington introduced me to Jesús Christ.” Alou had often read the Bible in the minor leagues because he had a Spanish-language version and it became his only reading material. But because of Worthington, and later Lindy McDaniel (“who baptized me into the new faith”), Alou became one of the more devout Christians in baseball. His devotion caused some discomfort within his own family, but they remained very close.10

Felipe’s brother Mateo, generally called Matty in the States, signed with the Giants before the 1957 season and began to work his way up through the minors. He debuted in late 1960, and reached the majors full time in 1961, hitting .310 in 200 at-bats. Although his presence was great for Felipe personally, Matty also was another outfielder—by September, Dark was platooning the two Alous in right field. Meanwhile, 19-year-old brother Jesús, yet another outfielder, was hitting .336 for a Giants affiliate in the Northwest League.

Felipe finally broke through as a full-time player in 1962, winning the right field job outright and keeping it all season. In 605 at-bats, Alou hit .316 with 25 home runs. He was selected to the NL All-Star team in July, coming in for Roberto Clemente and hitting a sacrifice fly in his only plate appearance. More importantly, the Giants won the NL pennant, overcoming a four-game deficit with seven games to go to tie the Dodgers, then winning a three-game pennant playoff. In the playoff series, Alou was 4-for-12 with two doubles.

The 1962 World Series was a classic seven-game affair pitting the Giants and the New York Yankees. Alou played every inning in right field, and managed 7 hits in 29 at-bats. But he has never forgotten his last chance, in the ninth inning of the final game, with the Giants trailing 1-0. Matty led off with a bunt single, and Felipe tried to sacrifice him to second base. “I was asked to bunt, and I bunted poorly and the ball went foul. Then, with the infield charging for the bunt, I swung at a bad pitch and fouled it off for strike two. Then I struck out.”

“That was the lowest point of my career. This is something I am going to die with because I failed in that situation.”11 Alou was not often asked to bunt, but he did not blame Dark. He believed, then and later, that he should have been practicing bunting in case he was asked. Years later, as a manager, he obsessed over his clubs being capable of bunting. After another out, Willie Mays doubled Matty to third, but they were both stranded when McCovey lined out to second base, ending the game and Series.

The Giants fell back to third place in 1963, though Alou had another fine season—20 home runs and a .281 batting average. The highlight of the year came in September when his brother Jesús was recalled from Triple-A Tacoma to join Felipe and Matty. Late in the game on September 15, Jesús and Matty replaced Mays and McCovey, creating an all-Alou outfield. The brothers repeated this two more times that month, and appeared in the box score together a few other times. This feat has never been repeated in the regular season, and Felipe has a theory as to why. “Because people don’t want to have children,” he reasoned. The odds of three boys, all ballplayers, all on the same team, are quite remote.12

Meanwhile, in 1963 Alou found himself embroiled in some politics with the baseball establishment. Throughout his professional career, Felipe returned home every October and played baseball in the Dominican Winter League. On his way up to the majors, he won back-to-back batting titles in 1958-59 and 1959-60. A growing list of fellow major leaguers joined Alou, including his brothers, Manny Mota, Juan Marichal, and more. The Alous and Marichal usually played for Leones del Escogido in Santo Domingo, which won five of six championships beginning with the 1955-56 season. In 1956, Escogido club president Paco Martínez Alba — brother-in-law of Rafael Trujillo, the long-time Dominican strongman — formed a working agreement with the Giants.

Trujillo was assassinated in 1961, leaving the country in the hands of the military. The Winter League season was shortened in 1961-62, and cancelled outright in 1962-63. The Dominican government arranged a series of games with a touring team of Cuban players who were living in the US (exiled from their own country, and their own winter league). Among those who participated were Felipe Alou and Juan Marichal. Baseball commissioner Ford Frick, deeming these games “unauthorized,” fined the players $250 each.

Many of the Dominican players were upset, but it was Alou who went public. In the spring of 1963, Alou suggested that Latin players have a representative in the commissioner’s office, someone who understood Latin culture and politics, and could explain their unique set of problems. “They do not understand,” Alou said, “that these are our people and we owe it to them to play for them.”13 In December 1965, Commissioner William Eckert hired Bobby Maduro to fill exactly this position.

Alou expanded on his people’s grievances in a courageous first-person account in Sport (as told to Arnold Hano) that fall. “When the military junta ‘asked’ you to do something, you did it. If I had not played, I would have been called a Communist.” Most Latin players came from very impoverished circumstances, and earning the extra money in the off-season (there were no other jobs available) helped feed huge extended families. In the US, the players were often isolated from their teammates by language, and often criticized or even disciplined for speaking Spanish amongst themselves. Alou was very complimentary of the United States, calling it a “wonderful country,” but left no doubt where his heart lay. “I am a Dominican. It is my country. And I love it.”14 Alou pulled no punches, criticizing Frick and also Alvin Dark, his own manager. In the words of writer Rob Ruck, “Nobody had ever spoken so eloquently or forcefully about Latin ballplayers, much less prescribed how baseball could and should address their unique concerns.”15

In early December, not long after the article in Sport appeared, the Giants traded Alou to the Milwaukee Braves as part of a seven-player trade. Whether the deal was related to Alou’s outspokenness is unclear, but his Latino teammates, including Cepeda, Marichal, and Pagán, were devastated. “I think that was one of the biggest mistakes the Giants ever made,” said Marichal decades later.16 The Giants did have a surplus of outfielders, and needed the pitching they acquired. Jesús Alou, who many thought would surpass both his brothers, was anointed as the new Giants right fielder.

Alou spent the next six years with the Braves. Before reporting in 1964 he had injured his knee playing in the Dominican Winter League. He played through it, knowing that the Braves needed him to play center field, but he got off to a slow start hitting and fielding. In June manager Bobby Bragan (faced with an outfield surplus with the sudden emergence of Rico Carty, a rookie Dominican) asked Alou to play first base, and a few games later he tore cartilage in his knee reaching for a ground ball. He missed a month of action, and hit just .253 with nine home runs on the season. In 1965 he recovered nicely, alternating between first base and the outfield, hitting .297 with 23 home runs.

In 1966 the Braves moved to Atlanta, and Alou responded to the hot climate with his best season. Again playing first base and all three outfield positions, Alou hit .327 with 31 home runs, leading the NL with 218 hits, 122 runs scored, and 355 total bases. He lost out on the league batting title to his brother Matty (.342), who had been traded to Pittsburgh and was capitalizing on his first chance at regular playing time. Felipe returned to the All-Star Game, though he did not see any action.

The Atlanta writers named Alou the team MVP, and some of his teammates were in awe. “I’ve never seen anyone stand out head and shoulders the way Felipe did,” said catcher Joe Torre. “I’ve never seen anyone hit so consistently well all season long,” added Henry Aaron. Alou parried such talk: “If a team isn’t going right, what can one man do to help? I think this stuff about leading a team, I wonder if that is really possible.” But it was not just his ballplaying. Gene Oliver, a white teammate who lost his first base job to Alou, said, “He is the kind of man you hope your kid will grow up to be.”17

Alou struggled in 1967, suffering from bone chips in his elbow and falling to .274 with just 15 home runs. He recovered to hit .317 in 1968 (a year that saw league averages plummet to .243), playing in the All-Star game again. His batting average was third highest in the league, and he tied Pete Rose for the lead with 210 hits. After three years of moving around the diamond, Alou played 156 times in center field under new manager Lum Harris.

Alou got off to a great start in 1969, hitting well over .300 through May. On June 2 he broke a finger and missed two weeks after he was hit by a pitch thrown by the Cardinals’ Chuck Taylor. During his absence the Braves acquired Tony González from San Diego, and when Alou returned the two platooned in center field. During the Braves’ successful drive for the division title, and the subsequent playoff loss to the Mets, Alou got little playing time. For the season he hit just .282 with five home runs. With an outfield surplus, Atlanta dealt the 34-year-old to Oakland for pitcher Jim Nash over the winter.

No longer a star player, in 1970 Alou was the elder statesman on a young A’s team filled with up and coming stars. He hit .271 in 154 games. Just a few days into the 1971 season, Oakland dealt Alou to the Yankees for two young pitchers, making room for Joe Rudi in left field. Alou played most of the next three years in New York, hitting .289, .278 and finally .236, moving between the outfield and first base all three seasons. He played 19 games for Montreal in September 1973, and got three at bats for Milwaukee the next April before drawing his final release. Felipe was sad, saying he would “have to get used to the life of a man who can’t play baseball.”18

Alou joined the Montreal Expos organization as an instructor in 1976, but suffered the tragedy of his life in 1976 when his oldest boy, Felipe Jr., an aspiring ballplayer, jumped into a shallow pool and drowned. Alou was so broken up he did not work at all that season, and could not talk about the tragedy for many years. He rejoined the Expos the next year, and spent the next seventeen years as a minor league manager (with a few stints as a major league coach). In the minors, he piloted West Palm Beach, Memphis, Denver, Wichita, and Indianapolis, earning a reputation as a serious and respected teacher of young players. He apparently was offered the job in 1985 to manage the San Francisco Giants but turned it down out of loyalty to the Expos.

In the winter months, Felipe transitioned from player to manager of his longtime team, the Leones del Escogido in the Dominican Republic. Alou managed the club to four league championships (1980-81, 1981-82; 1989-90, 1991-92). Previously, he had also won two Venezuelan titles as skipper of the Caracas Leones (1977-78, 1979-80). In the mid-1980s, he managed Caguas in the Puerto Rican Winter League as well.

The genuinely devoted Alou, who did not drink or smoke or socialize much, has been married four times and has fathered eleven children. As a young man he married María Beltré, from his hometown, and the couple had four children: Felipe Jr., María, José and Moisés. He and Beverley Martin, from Atlanta, had three girls: Christia, Cheri, and Jennifer. His third wife was Elsa Brens, from the Dominican, and the couple had Felipe José and Luis Emilio. In 1985, he married Lucie Gagnon, a French-Canadian, and had two more children, Valerie and Felipe Jr.

“People ask how a man who likes to be home with his family gets married four times,” Alou said in 1995. “All the evils that go on in life, the evils of the life of a traveling ballplayer, I wasn’t immune to that. But I loved all my wives and children. … I’ve been a lucky man. I had two children in my 50’s, and God gave us other Felipes.”19 Among his children, José and Felipe José became minor league players, and Moisés made it to the Majors.

In 1986 Alou returned to manage at Single-A West Palm Beach, and remained there for six years, an eternity for a minor-league manager. In 1992 he returned to the major leagues as the bench coach for manager Tom Runnells. After a sluggish start (17-20), general manager Dan Duquette fired Runnells and hired Alou to finish the season. The young team responded with a 70-55 record to finish a strong second to the Pittsburgh Pirates. The 57-year-old Alou’s job was secure. “The biggest mistake I’ve made in my career,” said Duquette, “was not recognizing his ability then to be a terrific major league manager. He’s one of the best in the game.”20 He was the first of his countrymen to manage a big-league team.

Alou took over a Montreal club filled with young talent, including Larry Walker, Marquis Grissom, Delino DeShields and Wil Cordero. One of the team’s best relief pitchers was Mel Rojas, who was Felipe’s nephew (the son of his half-brother). The team’s left fielder was 25-year-old Moisés Alou, Felipe’s son. Moisés had not grown up with Felipe (his parents had divorced when Moisés was two), but they talked frequently and saw each other occasionally over the winter months. “I was the happiest kid in the world,” Moisés recalled. “He was the most famous player, maybe the most famous person, on the island, and he was my father.“21 Alou was a good young player who developed rapidly under his father’s tutelage, turning into a six-time All-Star and one of the better hitters in the National League.

The Expos finished 94-68 in 1993, just three games behind the first-place Phillies. Over the off-season, Duquette traded second baseman DeShields to Los Angeles for 21-year-old pitcher Pedro Martínez, a Dominican who joined Ken Hill and Jeff Fassero to give Alou one of the league’s best starting staffs. The fortified club soared to the best record in baseball in 1994, a great team that could hit, field, run and pitch. Unfortunately for Alou and his team, the season was ended in early August by a player’s strike, and the club was not able to continue its quest for a championship. The club’s 74-40 pace, if maintained over the full schedule, would have yielded 105 wins, the most since the 1986 Mets. Alou was named the National League Manager of the Year.

Compounding the tragedy, the team’s ownership was not willing to spend the necessary money to keep the team intact. Before the 1995 season got underway, the Expos had lost Walker, Grissom, Hill, and John Wetteland. Alou’s club fell all the way to last place in 1995, before clawing their way back to 88 wins and second place in 1996. But soon Cordero and Fassero departed, followed by Moisés Alou and Pedro Martínez. As the club continued to develop good players (Vladimir Guerrero, Rondell White, Orlando Cabrera, and Javier Vázquez arrived in the late 1990s), the club’s five straight fourth-place finishes did not harm Alou’s reputation as a manager. It was understood that Alou was doing a fine job with his youngsters, but that the team was not willing to keep them once they attained the seniority that allowed them to earn big money. After another mediocre start in 2001 (21-32), Alou finally was released as manager after nine years.

He spent 2002 as the bench coach for the Tigers (working under Luis Pujols, who had been Alou’s bench coach in Montreal). After the 2002 season Alou returned to San Francisco to manage the Giants. Under Dusty Baker, the club had reached the World Series in 2002, but after the season Baker left the club in a contract dispute, joining the Chicago Cubs. The 67-year-old Alou took over.

The Giants’ team and personality was dominated by the late-career Barry Bonds, who had set the single-season home run record in 2001 and whose days were now filled with home runs, bases on balls and (ever increasingly) steroid allegations. Alou’s first club won 100 games, an improvement on the World Series team that had won 95 and the NL wild card. Unfortunately, the 2003 club was upset in playoffs by the young Florida Marlins. Bonds missed 30 games but managed to hit .341 with 45 home runs and 148 walks. The next season Bonds walked a record 232 times and won the batting title, but the club fell to 91 wins, and then to 75 wins in 2005 with Bonds hurt. Moisés Alou rejoined his father in 2005, and had two pretty good seasons with the Giants. After the 2006 season, the 71-year-old Felipe Alou was released from his job as manager.

Alou remained a beloved figure in San Francisco, and was offered a job as a special assistant to general manager Brian Sabean. “I am truly overjoyed to have Felipe remain with the Giants organization,” said Sabean. “As he was during his four years as our manager, Felipe will continue to be a huge asset to the ballclub going forward.”22 Alou has worked as a major-league scout, and minor-league instructor, helping Sabean on player evaluation. In 2010 Alou received his first championship ring after the Giants defeated the Rangers in the World Series.

In 2012 he was beginning his sixth season in this position, 57 years after signing his first contract with the Giants. He had begun his career as a stranger in a strange land, but had become one of baseball’s most respected men. A three-time All-Star turned into an award-winning manager, who helped many of the game’s greatest stars as they began their careers. But he remains most famous as the eldest in one of baseball’s greatest families, the brother and father to fellow All-Stars. Very few men have left a greater mark on baseball than Felipe Rojas Alou.

Last revised: May 1, 2012

Sources

Thanks to Rory Costello for his help, especially for his straightening out my understanding of Felipe Rojas Alou’s name.

Notes

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

2 Rob Ruck, Raceball—How the Major Leagues Colonized the Black and Latin Game (Boston: Beacon Press, 2011), 164.

3 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 154.

4 Felipe Alou with Herm Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1967), 1-13.

5 Alou and Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball, 14-17.

6 Alou and Weiskopf, My Life and Baseball, 18-21.

7 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants: The Giants of ’58 (Sports Publishing, Inc., 2001), 68.

8 The Sporting News, May 16, 1956, 37.

9 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 68.

10 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 66.

11 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 69.

12 Steve Bitker, The Original San Francisco Giants, 70.

13 Bob Stevens, “Felipe Suggests Latins Have Rep in Frick’s Office,” The Sporting News, March 16, 1963: 11.

14 Felipe Alou with Arnold Hano, “Latin-American Ballplayers Need a Bill of Rights,” Sport, November 1963: 21.

15 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 164.

16 Rob Ruck, Raceball, 164.

17 John Devaney, “Felipe Alou: The Gentle Howitzer,” Sport, June 1967, 63.

18 Lou Chapman, “Brewers Salute Tom Murphy as Bullpen Savior,” The Sporting News, May 18, 1974, 9.

19 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

20 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

21 Michael Farber, “Diamond Heirs.”

22 Associated Press, “Alou returns to Giants as special assistant,” ESPN.com, http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=2721755, accessed February 27, 2012.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Acknowledgments

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

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

6 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 81.

7 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 81.

8 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 80.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

19 Stevens, “The Little Alou,” 80.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rory Costello for his assistance.

Notes

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

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

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

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

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

6 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 123.

7 The Sporting News, May 2, 1962.

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

9 Rob Ruck, The Tropic of Baseball, 78.

10 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 124.

11 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 123.

12 The Sporting News, September 24, 1966.

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

14 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 124.

15 Mike Mandel, SF Giants, 125.

Tony Armas was born on July 2, 1953, in Puerto Piritu, Anzoátegui state, a town in eastern Venezuela, 235 kilometers (about 150 miles) from Caracas. His father, Jose Rafael Armas, was an electrician, while his mother, Julieta Machado de Armas, was engaged in household chores, taking care at home Antonio and his 12 brothers.

“My parents were able to keep me on track,” Armas said. “We were a very poor family, and lived on what was achieved. My dad was a farmer too.”

In a place having beautiful beaches, the Armas family also had land that they worked. “We used to plant all kinds of beans, all kinds of fruits. We were poor and planted all kinds of fruit for the sustenance of the house,” Armas said. “As the oldest I was the one who was in charge of that, to load sacks of corn, pumpkin, watermelon, everything that was harvested. I think my strength came from there.”

There was no Little League or the Criollitos of Venezuela in those days, no organized movements that help children and young people today to start polishing their skills. Armas began to imitate his idols playing baseball in the street with older people in his neighborhood.

“There were no baseball schools, no little– league baseball. You become a baseball player through hard work,” he said. “I played caimaneras (baseball in the street) with adults, as everyone did in those days. I played since I was a boy, since I was in school. It is not like today, when children are born with a uniform. Right now they have coaches, all benefits that a little boy may have from birth until (he) reaches his youth. At that time, no, at that time you had to make yourself as a player.”

At 17, Tony played for the first time on a team in an organized league, Deportivo Pachaquito, and began to develop his skills on defense. 

“I ended up not playing the tournament,” he recalled. “I started the championship, but didn’t finish it, because there was a National Youth Championship, to be played in Cumaná city and as I was 17, I was called from the Double A to the youth team to go play.”

Armas had an outstanding performance, starring as his team won the Anzoátegui state title.  He was called to the national team to play for the World Youth Championship in Maracaibo. That was where he caught the attention of the former major leaguer Pompeyo “Yo– Yo” Davalillo, a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Davalillo, brother of the former All– Star Vic Davalillo, played in the majors in 1953 with the Washington Senators, but a broken leg shortened his career and he devoted his life to trying to recruit players from Venezuela to play in the United States.

“Pompeyo Davalillo had checked me in both the national junior and youth world championships. I also went to a worldwide Double– A championship, in Cartagena, Colombia. I didn’t have much chance to play, because I was very young and we had players who were better prepared than me at that time. I did not play, but I had a pretty good time. I kept playing and in 1971 Pompeyo Davalillo arrived at my house, talked to me, said he thought I could make it to the majors, that I could go far in baseball. He spoke with my parents and that’s how I started my career.”

On January 18, 1971, Armas signed as a free agent with the Pittsburgh Pirates for $5,000. At the same time he signed for 30,000 bolivars to play Venezuelan winter ball with the Caracas Lions, a club that had previously featured two of his idols, Vic Davalillo and Cesar Tovar. Tovar played in the majors from 1965 to 1976 with the Twins, A’s, Rangers, Phillies, and Yankees, with a lifetime average of .278; Davalillo batted .279 between 1963 and 1980 with the Indians, Angels, Cardinals, Pirates, Dodgers, and Athletics.

“I was a fan of Caracas and my favorite players were Cesar Tovar and Vic Davalillo. I also admired Joe Ferguson, a power hitter who came as a foreign player.” Ferguson, who played 14 seasons in the majors with Dodgers, Cardinals, Astros, and Angels, played with the Lions in Armas’s rookie year in Venezuela and batted .294 with 15 homers and 51 RBIs, an inspiration for the young prospect.

“I think they signed me because I was a good outfielder. I was not a good hitter,” he said. “You learn to hit with constant work.”

Pittsburgh assigned Armas to play with Monroe and with Bradenton in 1971, dividing his time between rookie ball and Class A, where he combined for a .230 batting average; it was clear he had to work harder to improve his offense.

“I was a good outfielder and I realized I had to work twice (as hard as) the Americans to keep my job. That’s the way it was at that time, not like now, when someone comes to the majors with a lot of money and have to call you up. Plus there are more teams now. That is the reality of my career.”

In 1972 Armas batted .266 with 9 homers and 51 RBIs in Class– A Gastonia, and in 1973 he got the opportunity to play at Double A in an unusual way, after being a batboy for almost two weeks.

“Not that I was happy with what they were doing, but actually they had a lot of players in spring training. There were about 80 players in camp and on the field there were nine. I had no chance to play,” he said. “The manager of Class A needed a batboy and from among those 80 players they called my name. So I spent a week doing that. It bothered me a little bit, because I didn’t go up there to collect bats. I went to earn a spot. There was a Mexican named Mario Mendoza who helped me a lot; what I did was thanks to him, because I told him I wanted to go home, I was not up there to collect bats. He told me to stay calm, that I was being observed to see what kind of character I had, whether I was spoiled. I followed his advice and stayed. The next week was all the same. We arrived on Monday and started the game the same, ‘Armas, you’re the batboy.’ It turns out that on Wednesday, in a game between Double A and Triple A, the Double– A center fielder got injured. The manager shouted that they needed an outfielder and then he said, ‘Armas, get in there.’  I went in, and I stayed.”

His bat began to speak for him with Sherbrooke in the Double– A Eastern League; he hit .301 with 11 homers and 45 RBIs in 84 games, despite suffering a broken arm that had him away from action several days.

The young prospect continued his rise in the organization and, after another season in Double A in 1974, he was promoted to the Charleston (West Virginia) Charlies (Triple A) in 1975. With Charleston again the next season he showed some power, hitting 21 homers, and earned a call– up to the Pirates. Armas debuted on September 6, 1976, against the Philadelphia Phillies at Three Rivers Stadium. He replaced Richie Zisk in left field in the ninth inning. He played in four games during his call– up. On October 3, in the last game of the season (the second game of a doubleheader), Armas got his first start, in the lineup as the center fielder and batting sixth. He got his first major– league hit off Pete Falcone of the St. Louis Cardinals, a single to center field to lead off the bottom of the fifth.

Falcone was locked in a pitching duel with Jerry Reuss, and the game went into the bottom of the ninth scoreless. Armas came up with a runner on second base and two outs in the bottom of the ninth and singled to right field to give the Pirates a 1– 0 walk– off victory to end the season.

Still, Armas faced trying to break in to an outfield populated by Al Oliver, Omar Moreno, and Dave Parker.

“I had no chance to play, because the Pirates had many good players,” he said. “At the time I was in that organization was (Roberto) Clemente, Al Oliver, Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Richie Zisk, and I had no opportunity to climb. In 1977 (I was out of options), so they had to keep me on the roster or trade me. At the last minute, they traded me to the A’s. It was there that I got the chance to show my full potential.”

Armas was sent to Oakland on March 15, 1977, along with pitchers Dave Giusti, Doc Medich, Doug Bair, and Rick Langford, and outfielder Mitchell Page, for pitcher Chris Batton and infielders Tommy Helms and Phil Garner.

Oakland, a rebuilding team, relied on the talents of Armas, who hit 13 homers and drove in 53 runs in 118 games. The next two seasons, he played in only 171 games because of injuries.

“In Oakland I obviously had to work hard, because no Latin at that time had a safety spot in the big leagues,” he said. “Thanks to Oakland I received the opportunity to play every day and I was able to prove myself.”

In 1980 Armas was healthy and able to deploy his strength to become one of the most feared sluggers in the American League. That year he hit 35 homers and drove in 109 runs, with a respectable .279 average.

The following year, in a strike– shortened season, Armas tied three other players for the American League lead in home runs with 22. (The others were Dwight Evans, Eddie Murray, and Bobby Grich. Armas drove in 76 runs, took part in his first All– Star Game, and finished fourth in the voting for the MVP award. He was chosen by The Sporting News as the Player of the Year.

Thanks to Armas and Rickey Henderson, the Athletics advanced to the playoffs and swept the Kansas City Royals in the Division Series. Armas was 6– for– 11 with two doubles and three RBIs. His bat cooled off in the ALCS against the New York Yankees (2– for– 12 with five strikeouts); Oakland was eliminated in three games.

Armas’s power caught the attention of the Boston Red Sox. He hit 28 homers for the A’s in 1982 and set an AL record for the most putouts in a game by a right fielder (11, on June 12 against the Toronto Blue Jays). After the season the Red Sox acquired Armas and catcher Jeff Newman in exchange for third baseman Carney Lansford, outfielder Garry Hancock, and Jerry King.

“They wanted a player who would protect Jim Rice and they made the deal,” said Armas, who was surprised by his departure from Oakland. For Boston, Armas played center field, although he wasn’t a particularly fast fielder, but with Rice and Dwight Evans he helped form one of the most powerful outfields in Red Sox history. 

“It was a good team,” Armas said. He hit a career– high 36 homers, with 107 RBIs, topping 100 for the second time in his career, finishing with 107. Rice led the club with 39 homers and 126 RBIs, but Evans fell short with 22 homers and 58 RBIs, playing only 126 games in the final season of future Hall of Famer Carl Yastrzemski.

“It was a real experience to play with a superstar like Carl Yastrzemski was,” Armas said. “I met Ted Williams in spring training, and it was a great experience to meet those two legends.”

Despite his power, Armas heard some boos from Red Sox fans because of his anemic .218 average and 131 strikeouts in 145 games. “At that time, Latinos and black people were not beloved in Boston. I came to Boston and they started to boo me. I spoke with my lawyer and told him to get them to trade me. I didn’t want to play in Boston anymore. There was a pressure in playing for that team. They talked with me and said, ‘Hey, you came over here to help Jim Rice and Dwight Evans.’ ‘Yes, but I can’t, this way. It is very difficult to play like this.’ At that time it was different from the way it would be now – if I had been signed to a $120 million contract, I wouldn’t have cared if they shouted at me and booed me. But at that time you had to earn your place and play hard.” 

A year later the Venezuelan, led by his power, changed those boos into ovations. Injury– free, Armas played 157 of the team’s 162 games and home runs steadily found their way into the stands. He finished as the American League leader in both home runs and RBIs (43 and 123). He dominated the circuit with 77 extra– base hits and 339 total bases.

“You never have those goals. Your goal is having a good year, but I never thought I would be the home– run king or the RBI champion when there were many superstars in the majors – Reggie Jackson, Jim Rice, Dave Kingman, Lance Parrish, Dwight Evans, many good players. That I could compete with these superstars made me proud, and that year, thank God, I was able to play an almost full season.”

Armas’s remarkable season earned him his second All– Star Game and his only Silver Slugger Award, and he placed seventh in the MVP voting. 

Injuries cropped up again in 1985 and Armas was limited to 103 games; his production declined sharply to 23 homers and 64 RBIs.

In 1986 Armas got into 121 games as the Red Sox advanced to their first World Series since 1975. And if the defeat in 1975 was painful, after the famous Carlton Fisk homer in Game Six forced a deciding seventh game, the loss to the New York Mets was even worse.

“These were frustrating days for me,” admitted Armas, who was the greatest home– run hitter in the American League from 1980 through 1985, with 187 round– trippers, but he hit only 11 in 1986. “In the ALCS I hurt and I couldn’t play anymore, because my right ankle was swollen.”

If Armas’s home runs had seemed to become a constant in Boston, so had injuries. During his career he spent 12 stints on the disabled list, but no injury was as painful as the one in the fifth game of the ALCS against the California Angels at Anaheim Stadium.

In the second inning, Armas chased down a long fly ball hit by Doug DeCinces. “Many of my leg injuries were from running, but the one in the ankle was because I was hooked in the center– field fence,” he recalled. “Now they are cushioned but back then, the walls were all concrete.” Dave Henderson took over for Armas for the rest of the playoffs. Henderson had an immediate impact.

“I tried to play, but I couldn’t anymore,” Armas said. “And that’s when Dave Henderson replaced me and he did a good job.” Henderson’s ninth– inning homer in Game Five against Anaheim spared the Red Sox a loss, and he drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly in the 11th.  Though Armas’s ankle improved, Henderson made the most of his opportunity; Armas was sentenced to the bench.

In the World Series, Armas was limited to one pinch– hitting appearance in Game Seven, after 15 days without playing.

“The ankle still bothered me, but I could pinch– hit. I could not run at 100 percent,” he recalled. “It was difficult, but I had a strong desire to appear in the World Series. Even if it was just an at– bat, it doesn’t matter, and I appeared in the World Series, which is what anyone wants.”

Armas pinch– hit for pitcher Bruce Hurst in the seventh inning with the game tied 3– 3. The Venezuelan struck out swinging in what it was his last at– bat in a Red Sox uniform. 

About Game Six, he was philosophical. “What happened is what happens so often in baseball. We were winning an easy game. At the end we felt champions but Bill Buckner‘s error left us without the victory. Then we lost the World Series,” said Armas. “We lost by an error that cost us the Series. These are things that happen in baseball.”

“The pitching also faltered. Roger Clemens couldn’t do the job, Dennis Boyd couldn’t do the job, many players didn’t do the job,” he said. “For me it was frustrating because I was playing every day, but then I couldn’t help the team in the World Series because of an injured ankle. That’s not easy for any baseball player.”

After the season Armas became a free agent and, a likely victim of collusion, signed with the Angels but not until July 1, 1987. “The team owners got together and agreed to not sign free agents that year and I was one of those affected,” he recalled. “I had offers from Mexico, but spent all that time practicing in Caracas with Pompeyo Davalillo, who was working with the Angels at the time. That’s where I signed.”

After so much downtime, Armas was sent to Triple A for the first time in more than a decade. He played in 29 games for Edmonton before returning to the majors for the last month and a half of the season. He batted.198 in 28 games.

Armas’s days as a regular came to an end in California, where he was used primarily against left– handed pitchers by manager Cookie Rojas, with whom he had a difficult relationship in 1988. “I started to play against left– handed pitchers and that was hard,” he said. “There was a time when I began to play every day and in a week I hit like five homers – but that’s when I had the mishap with Cookie Rojas.”

“One day we went to Oakland to play and Chili Davis, who was the regular, did not want to play; people were booing him, because he’d played the year before with San Francisco. Oakland was going to start Dave Stewart and they said I was not going to play because I was playing against lefties only. Then I got a chance to start playing against some righties, and I hit two home runs in that game (August 14). Rojas didn’t put me to play anymore and there came all the controversy with the journalists, saying that if I was hitting well, why I did not play. He said it was because he was the manager, and I told them to talk to the manager, that if they did not play me, it was a matter of him.”

From July 28 to August 14, Armas hit.440 with 4 homers and 12 RBIs over a 16– game stretch, including 11 starts, so some sportswriters suggested more playing time for the Venezuelan, even against righties.

“There was this controversy with journalists and Cookie Rojas blamed me because I spoke with the press. Once a newspaper did an article and it was sent to him in Boston and I was called to his office and he asked me why I had told the newspapers that I wasn’t playing. ‘Look, Cookie, I haven’t talked to the press in a long time. They just are realizing what you’re doing to me.’ ‘So you want to play?’ And I got to play against Roger Clemens in Boston. I said, ‘Cookie, if you think you’re going to intimidate me because it is Roger Clemens, you’re wrong. If he was going to give me four strikeouts, I’ll get four strikeouts. If I’m going to hit him, I’ll hit him.’”

And Armas homered against Clemens (two days earlier he had hit one off Bruce Hurst), and then he hit another the next day, on his return to California, against the Yankees. It was Armas’s most explosive month of the year and his last major production in the majors:.386 with 8 homers and 19 RBIs in 24 games in August. Nevertheless, his differences with Rojas continued.

“It came out another article in California, after he took me out in a game for a pinch– hitter, even when I had a hit and a home run. I showered and went to the hotel. I did not talk to any journalist. When we got to California he called me to his office, and we hadn’t an argument, because I’m not used to that, but he said why I had talked again to the press. ‘No, no. I have not spoken to the press.’ But they were already realizing who he was.”

The relationship ended on September 24, when Rojas was fired as the manager of the Angels. Armas returned to the Angels the following year, his last in the major leagues.

“My third year in California was in the same role, as a pinch– hitter and playing against lefties, and because my knee was bothering me and I couldn’t take it anymore, I retired. I could have played for three more years, but unfortunately the knees did not allow it.”

Armas remained active in the Venezuelan Winter League, where he was already a legend for his power. He was the first Venezuelan to lead the majors in homers and RBIs, but his 251 career home runs led all Venezuelans. He was also the home– run king in Venezuelan winter ball, after hitting his 97th home run in the last at– bat of his career in the 1991– 1992 season. (His mark was surpassed by Robert Perez in 2008.)

Armas played a few more seasons in Venezuela, but the knee hampered him badly and he’d have to take off a week now and again. “I thought it was better to retire than continue to suffer, but I thank God for giving me the opportunity to get where I got. Thanks to baseball I am who I am.”

The home run was always Armas’s calling card; it also happened to be his farewell letter. He was an investor in the Caribes de Oriente club and he was able to fulfill another dream there, playing with his brothers Marcos and Julio, all three taking up positions as outfielders. 

“That was a great thing,” Armas said. “It’s never been written in any book. I was with the right team on the right day.”

Both brothers followed in the footsteps of his older brother, but only Marcos managed to make the majors, with the Athletics for a brief period in 1993.

Tony and his wife, Luisa de Armas, had six children. The third was their son Tony Armas Jr., who played 10 major– league seasons with the Expos, Nationals, Pirates, and Mets, between 1999 and 2008. 

“I have much to thank my dad for. Since my childhood he always took me to the stadiums. When you are a child you are like a sponge, absorbing all the information and always trying to imitate someone,” said Armas Jr. “When I decided to play baseball, he said to me, ‘I was a hitter, but if you don’t want to be a hitter, don’t do it.’ He told me, ‘Son, do what you want to do. I support you.’ That was important. My parents, at that time, supported me the most.”

After he stopped playing, Armas remained active in baseball, mainly in winter ball, as coach of the Caracas Lions. Tony Armas Jr. also played with the Lions. “That was special,” said Armas Jr. “It was one of the most special times. I grew up in the Caracas stadium of Caracas, because he always took me there when he played. He felt the same way.”

In 1998 Armas was inducted into the Caribbean Baseball Hall of Fame, thanks to his all– time home– run leadership in the Caribbean Series, with 11. In 2005 he was inducted into the Venezuelan Baseball Hall of Fame and in 2013 into the Latino Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2009 Armas was the hitting coach for the Venezuelan team in the World Baseball Classic, working next to Andres Galarraga, who eclipsed all his home– run records in the majors. (In 1996 Galarraga hit 47 homers and drove in 150 runs with the Colorado Rockies to set the single– season marks for a Venezuelan.)

“Tony was a role model for all the boys that had power,” Galarraga said. “I was fortunate to sign with the Lions and privileged to play with him in Venezuela. He taught me many things, gave me some batting tips and that kind of thing.”

“I always knew that many good players would follow, because in Venezuela we had many academies and we had many players out there,” said Armas. “After Galarraga came Bob Abreu, who was a complete player, Magglio Ordonez, and now Miguel Cabrera, who is even more complete. There is always someone who opens the doors.”

And Armas, 62 in 2015, continued to share his knowledge with the younger generation in Venezuela, as a coach of Leones del Caracas (the Caracas Lions) in winter ball. “He loves to teach, because baseball is his life,” said Armas Jr. That’s never going to change with him. He ends a winter season and during the break goes directly to become a manager in the Bolivarian League with Deportivo Anzoátegui. He is always working with the boys and never stops. He’s always traveling; he is never in one place. That is what he likes to do.”

“Baseball has given me a lot. Now I’m giving to baseball, trying to help young people,” said Armas, who still lives in his native Puerto Píritu. “I am very proud of my career, proud of baseball, and proud of what I do right now, because in my time there were no hitting coaches and I’m proud to work with so many young boys to help them become better players.”

Sources

Author interviews with Tony Armas on November 12, 2014, and August 5, 2015. All quotations attributed to Armas come from these interviews.

Author interview with Andrés Galarraga on July 30, 2015. All quotations attributed to Galarraga come from this interview.

Author interview with Tony Armas Jr. on July 28, 2015. All quotations attributed to Armas Jr. come from this interview.

articles.latimes.com/1987– 08– 19/sports/sp– 773_1_tony– armas

articles.latimes.com/1988– 08– 25/sports/sp– 1345_1_tony– armas

articles.latimes.com/1988– 09– 01/sports/sp– 4439_1_home– run

articles.latimes.com/1988– 09– 24/sports/sp– 2381_1_interim– manager

el– nacional.com/deportes/lvbp/Antonio– Armas– puesto– acepte– recogebates_0_289171243.html

vidaydeportes.com/entrevista– exclusiva– antonio– armas

Cárdenas, Augusto. “El jonronero de Venezuela,” Diario Panorama, December 18, 2005.

Cárdenas Lares, Carlos Daniel. Venezolanos en las Grandes Ligas (Fundación Cárdenas Lares, 1994).

Bob Aspromonte had the longer playing career, but Ken supplemented his playing career with three years as manager of the Cleveland Indians, from 1972 through 1974.

The two faced each other only a few times, in 1962 and 1963. Bob spent his time exclusively in the National League, while Ken was an American Leaguer except for the second half of 1962 and the 1963 season, when he was with the Braves and Cubs respectively.

The first time they faced each other in a game was on August 2, 1962. The two teams had played the day before. Bob had played, but Ken had not. On the 2nd, they both played — and Bob won the game for the Colt .45s. He singled in the first inning, driving in two runs. Houston won the game, 3-0. Ken was 0-for-3. They were both in the same game again on August 10 (Ken was 0-for-2 and Bob was 2-for-5) and August 12, when Bob went 3-for-4 with an RBI, while Ken pinch-hit and was 0-for-1.

In 1963, after Ken had been traded to the Cubs, the two teams played each other 18 times, each team winning nine games. As for the brothers, they played each other on May 24 (Ken was 0-for-1 while pinch-hitting and Bob was 3-for-6 with an RBI.) On June 11, Bob rubbed things in a lot more; Ken walked as a pinch-hitter but Bob was 2-for-4 and won the game with a grand slam in the bottom of the 10th. Cubs manager Bob Kennedy never put Ken up against his brother again. After June 21, he never used him again. That was his last game in the majors.

In all, then, Ken had gone 0-for-7 with a walk in face-to-face games while Bob was 11-for-23 with nine runs batted in.

There was also a third brother who was briefly in baseball, the oldest of the three — Charles, who played in 1950 only, an outfielder for the Class-B Sunbury A’s (Interstate League) and the Class-B Kingston Colonials (Colonial League). He hit for a combined .230 batting average.

The elder sibling, Ken, was born in Brooklyn on September 22, 1931. He attended P.S. 248 in Brooklyn and then Lafayette High, with one year at St. John’s University. His parents were Laura and Angelo Aspromonte. Angelo (or Charles) worked as a bricklayer for 50 years, and had himself played sandlot baseball.1

“I grew up in Brooklyn,” he wrote over a bylined article in 1959. “I wanted to be a baseball player, but I didn’t want to be a Dodger. The other kids all wanted to be Dodgers. Not me. I wanted to be a Yankee. That meant life wasn’t dull for me. The other kids jockeying me all the time. These used to be some wonderful arguments at home. My father was a Dodger fan. An elder brother was a Dodger fan and signed with them. My father would explode, ‘Why can’t you be a sensible kid? Why do you hate the Dodgers? Why must you like the Yankees? The next thing, maybe, you’ll be rooting for the Giants, too?’ I’d grin and say, ‘Pop, the Dodgers don’t have Joe DiMaggio, He’s my boy.’”2 Ken added that one day while watching the Red Sox play the Yankees, he became entranced with Boston’s Bobby Doerr, in particular his drive and the impossible plays he made. “From that time I was a Doerr fan and imitator. I switched to second base and made him my model. He is still my idol. I hope I can come just close to being the guy he is on and off the field.”3

Ken was signed by the Boston Red Sox in 1950 by scout Frank “Bots” Nekola and Farm Director Johnny Murphy. He got in a lot of play that first season, first for the Oneonta Red Sox in the Class-C Canadian-American League (in 18 games, he hit .213) and then in Class D, where he played in 110 games for the Kinston (North Carolina) Eagles in the Coastal Plain League. He hit .295 and was named shortstop on the league all-star team.

He played for three teams in 1951 — Kinston, then another Class-C team for most of the year (the California League’s San Jose Red Sox), where he hit .299 in 93 games, and for Class-A Scranton (.216 in 31 games).

It was another three-team season in 1952, beginning in Triple A with Louisville, but again seeming to need more time to advance to a higher level. (He hit .241 in 12 games.) Then it was to the Roanoke Ro-Sox in Class B, where he hit .383 in 16 games. He settled in between with the Birmingham Barons (Southern Association, in Double-A ball), playing in 53 games and batting .247.

In 1953, Aspromonte spent the full season with the Louisville Colonels in the Triple-A American Association, hitting .243 in 96 games. At the end of the season, he was added to Boston’s roster. But Uncle Sam had other plans for him and he served in the US Army (Signal Corps) from December 1953 to October 1955.

Ken joined the Red Sox in Sarasota for early spring training in 1956, and was placed on the roster of their San Francisco Seals affiliate. Red Sox manager Mike Higgins was said to regard him as “the most versatile of his rookies, a second Billy Goodman.”4 Aspromonte was placed with the Seals and had a good year in the high-caliber Pacific Coast League. In 141 games, he hit .281 with three home runs, mostly playing second base but getting in several games at shortstop. In July, the Brooklyn Dodgers signed Ken’s younger brother Bob to a nonbonus major-league contract.

Ken had earned praise from former Red Sox second baseman Bobby Doerr, but his season was cut short by an emergency appendectomy at St. Luke’s in San Francisco on August 29. He was cheered in late September by an invitation to Sarasota for spring training 1957. Veteran pitcher Larry Jansen had seen him play and said, “Aspromonte was a pepper-pot with the San Francisco club all year. He deserves a chance to play in the big leagues — off his hustle alone.”5

Aspromonte got in some extra work by playing winter ball for Mayaguez in Puerto Rico. In February, he married Shirley Lorraine Ennis of Seattle.

In December Higgins had said shortstop was the team’s weak spot and he said the position was up for grabs between Billy Consolo, Ted Lepcio, and Aspromonte. Don Buddin was in the Army. Higgins was high on Aspromonte

As it worked out, Billy Klaus won the job by mid-March, and on April 2 Aspromonte was optioned back to the Seals.

He had his best year yet in 1957, playing under manager Joe Gordon, and was batting .334 with 73 RBIs when he was called up to the Red Sox after Ted Lepcio’s wrist was broken during the August 29 game in Detroit. The Boston Globe told fans that he “is a slick fielding second baseman who looms as next year’s regular at the position.”6

The Seals won the Coast League pennant, Aspromonte’s average won the Coast League batting crown, and he was named the league’s all-star second baseman.

His first appearance in the major leagues was at Fenway Park as a defensive replacement at second base in the ninth inning of the second game of the September 2 doubleheader against the Washington Senators. He fielded the last play of the game, securing an 8-7 Red Sox win.

Aspromonte’s first big-league base hit came on September 4 at Yankee Stadium. Given his first start, he grounded out his first time, hit a sacrifice fly and earned his first RBI, and collected three singles in the game, won 7-5 by the Red Sox in 11 innings. George Kell was impressed by the poise Aspromonte had shown during three games against the Orioles. “Aspromonte seems to have all the essential baseball instincts,” he said. “He always seems to be with the play, in the right place at the right time. That’s very important. He moves around gracefully and quickly. He runs bases, too. But he needs to stop pushing at bat and start pumping.”7 Jimmy Piersall added that Aspromonte was “the best second base prospect we’ve had since Bobby Doerr.”8

Aspromonte appeared in 24 games for the Red Sox, hitting a very respectable .269 while drawing 17 walks for a .396 on-base percentage. That winter he played in Venezuela for the Licoreros de Pampero.

But Don Buddin was back and the Red Sox acquired Pete Runnels in late January. Aspromonte battled hard in spring training, and Higgins decided to ride a hunch, naming him Red Sox starting second baseman for Opening Day. But in his first 18 plate appearances, all Aspromonte mustered was one single. After five games, the Red Sox losing four of them, Higgins benched him in favor of Billy Consolo. He had one more at-bat for the Red Sox, a pinch-hit single in the top of the bottom of the ninth in a 2-0 loss to the Washington Senators on April 25. A few days later, after more than a month of rumors, Aspromonte was a Senator, traded to Washington on May 1 for left-handed-hitting catcher Lou Berberet. The Red Sox were ready to go with Runnels (who hit over .300 the next five years and won two batting titles).

Aspromonte played in 92 games for the 1958 Senators, batting .225 with 27 RBIs. And then he played winter ball again, returning to Puerto Rico.

Reno Bertoia played 71 games at second base for the 1959 Senators; Aspromonte played in 52, and a couple of other players worked there, too — Johnny Schaive and Herb Plews. Manager Cookie Lavagetto seemingly never settled on any one player. The Senators finished in last place again. Aspromonte wasn’t happy about his playing time and wanted to be traded.9 Throughout his career, he was considered to be someone with a short fuse. In September 1960, Hal Lebovitz wrote, “His greatest enemy is his own temper. When he makes a mistake at bat or in the field, he fights himself.”10

Nonetheless, after the season, Aspromonte moved to Washington. And in late January he traveled to Europe with several others to give some baseball clinics under the sponsorship of the US Air Force.11

He pinch-hit three times for the Senators in April 1960, each time making an out. Billy Gardner had established himself at second base, so on May 15 the Senators made a move and traded Aspromonte straight up to the Cleveland Indians for outfielder Pete Whisenant.

He got his opportunity to play, and he excelled. He collected hits in six of his first seven games, and manager Joe Gordon was pleased. “I’ve liked him since I had him at San Francisco in 1957. I’ve always felt that if given a chance, he could play in the big leagues. Washington wasn’t playing him, so I went out and got him.12

Aspromonte played in almost all the remaining games — 117 of them — and batted for a .290 average, practically the best of his career, as well as setting career marks in both home runs (10) and runs batted in (48). He scored 65 runs, likewise a career high. He credited Gordon for having faith in him and giving him confidence.13

When the American League expanded by adding two new franchises for 1961, the Los Angeles Angels and a new Washington Senators (the team that had been the Senators in 1960 relocated to Minneapolis for 1961), the two new franchises were each able to select 28 players from the eight AL teams, at a price of $75,000 per player. Aspromonte was not among the players the Indians protected. On December 14 he was selected by the new Washington club as the 26th overall selection in the expansion draft, and was then traded on the same day to the Angels for Coot Veal.

He’d been miffed at being placed on the “rinky-dink list” — in other words, the list of those not protected — given that he had outhit every second baseman in the league both in average and home runs, but suggested that perhaps he’d done too well and thus shown up Cleveland’s GM Frank Lane because Lane had traded for Johnny Temple (from the Cincinnati Reds) and Aspromonte had beaten him out for the second-base slot. “I told my wife I’d end upon that list, and I did.”14

Aspromonte had to fight for what he achieved and he didn’t apologize for it. “Don’t ask me to smile when I play ball,” he said around this time with what one writer termed a growl. “When I’m on the ballfield I have no time for friends. This is a dog-eat-dog business.”15 The writer said he had a reputation of something as a hothead who “always took his baseball seriously — too seriously, many thought.”

This was something Aspromonte realized, later in life. “I grew up in Brookyn — Bensonhurst, New York — not Westchester County, in a neighborhood of tough kids where you had to fight your way through everything if you wanted to get to the top. Most of my friends were fighters, and I was one of them. But eventually I found out you don’t fight in professional sports. All you can do is try the best you can with whatever God-given ability you have and hope it’s good enough.” He added, “If there was any time in my life I needed someone to talk to, it was then, when I was in the big leagues. But in those days they didn’t have guys like that, guys who could sit down with you and talk to you and help you. They just threw you out there, and if you produced, fine. And if you didn’t produce, there were plenty of other players out there waiting for their chance. …

“Once I got to the major leagues I started fighting myself, primarily because I was never satisfied. I always wanted to be better. … I was one of those guys who could not shake off a bad situation. I analyzed myself to death, wondering what the hell I did that was wrong. Why I didn’t stick with any one organization. … Unfortunately, I didn’t realize until it was too late that it was my temper, my disposition that kept me from being the player I should have been. It’s something I’ve always regretted.”16

Aspromonte definitely got a chance to play for the Angels. And in mid- to late April, he said he was happy with his situation.17 He played in almost every one of their games, but wasn’t producing. After the first day of July, he’d been in 66 games but was batting only .223 with 14 RBIs. He was placed on waivers and selected back by the Cleveland Indians, for $20,000.

He played about the same for the Indians as he had for the Angels, batting .229 in 22 games, with five RBIs.

Building on the idea of the baseball clinics he’d taken part in for the Air Force, Aspromonte set up his own company named Major League Baseball Clinic for Boys. His board had more than a dozen major leaguers on it.18 Bob Turley, Gus Triandos, and Bob Nieman were the key others involved.19 The first clinic in the D.C. area drew 1,800 kids.

Aspromonte was only 30 years old but did not get off to a good start in 1962. The Indians played him in 20 games, with only 34 plate appearances, by the end of June. He was batting .143 with just one RBI. On July 1 his contract was purchased by the Milwaukee Braves. He had a much better second half, batting .291, albeit in only 34 games.

On October 16 the Braves assigned Aspromonte’s contract to Louisville. And on December 2, they traded him to the Chicago Cubs for Jim McKnight. The Cubs wanted him for bench strength.

Aspromonte’s last year in the majors was 1963, a year that also saw him return to the minor leagues. He was with the Cubs through the game of June 21, though after the first 10 games of the season he’d almost only been used as a pinch-hitter. He was batting .147, with four RBIs. On June 24, he was optioned to the Triple-A Salt Lake City Bees. He played in 64 games there, batting .236.

Aspromonte trained with the Cubs in 1964, but on March 30, he was placed on waivers for the purpose of giving him his unconditional release. Unclaimed, he was released on April 3.

On April 23, Aspromonte found a new home, signing with the Central League’s Chunichi Dragons of Nagoya, Japan. He had a good year, batting .282 in 101 games, and — at least as importantly — very much enjoyed the experience. He later told Russ Schneider of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, “When the game gets into your blood as it got into mine, you do everything possible to keep on playing.”20

After the season, Bud Collins of the Boston Globe caught up with Aspromonte and was told: “The only person higher than me in this country is the emperor. That’s the way it is here, being a major league ball player. You’re right below the emperor as far as the people are concerned. Most of them can’t name the top people in the government, but they know all the ballplayers, and they really idolize us. I never saw anything like this in the States.”21 He also took in the 1964 Olympics at Tokyo. The only bad feature, he said, was that his wife, Lorri, was lonely.22

Aspromonte was invited back for a second season, and was asked to do some scouting of other American players. Paul Foytack was one he brought to the Dragons for the 1965 season.23 Aspromonte hit .256 in 78 games.

In 1966 he played a third year in Japan, for the Taiyo Whales, and hit an Opening Day home run. He played in 116 games and hit for a .276 average, finishing his professional playing career on a high note. Getting a little older, he wasn’t able to play at the level he wanted to, so he retired from playing and took some time off. “I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was getting offers to come back in baseball, but I didn’t think I wanted to do that.”24 He did a bit of broadcast work in Washington, but then got a call from Cleveland Indians farm director Hank Peters asking if he would take care of a need they had. On June 1, 1968, he signed to manage Sarasota, the Indians’ rookie league club in Florida. “It was a great experience for me. Just terrific.”

In 1969 Aspromonte was hired to manage the Class-A Reno Silver Sox in the California League, an Indians affiliate. They won 72 and lost 68, and Aspromonte got a promotion to Triple A, managing the Wichita Aeros of the American Association. He outlined the sort of work that a low-level minor-league manager needed to do — serve as trainer, traveling secretary, personal adviser, policeman — everything short of driving the bus — and then to write reports for the higher-ups, too. But he realized it was an apprenticeship. His goal was to become a major-league manager.25

They had two seasons of sub-.500 ball, but any manager is limited by the players he is provided. The Indians believed he had done a good job and in November 1971 he was named manager of the big-league club for 1972. He was taking over a team that had finished in last place in the AL East in 1971, with 102 losses, tied with the 1914 team for the most losses in franchise history.

One of the first moves the Indians made was a winter meetings deal to trade Sam McDowell to the San Francisco Giants for Gaylord Perry and infielder Frank Duffy. McDowell had been disaffected and even left the team for a week during the 1971 season. GM Gabe Paul said, “Duffy was the key man in the deal.”26

The Indians won 12 more games in 1972 than in 1971 and edged up to fifth place. Duffy didn’t help much with offense. Graig Nettles drove in 70 runs, leading the team in RBIs. They did need more offense. But Gaylord Perry had a terrific year, winning 24 games to lead the league (tied with Wilbur Wood), with a 1.92 ERA. There were charges all year that Perry was throwing a spitball, but the charges weren’t anything new, and no umpire ever found evidence.27 Perry was happy enough that people suspected something; he figured it gave him a psychological edge.

Immediately after the season was over, Aspromonte was signed again to manage in 1973. Right after Christmas, Gabe Paul went off to scout players in Puerto Rico and Aspromonte did the same in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico.

In 1973 the Indians regressed as far as wins and losses, dropping 91 games and returning to the cellar. Perry was 19-19, his ERA up to 3.38. Duffy did better. Leading the team in RBIs, with 73, was left fielder Charlie Spikes. Nonetheless, Aspromonte was rehired, even earlier this time, in mid-September.

A new rule was put into effect before the 1974 season, allowing an umpire to use his judgment to charge a pitcher with throwing a spitter even if he couldn’t find any evidence. The first player charged was Gaylord Perry.28 It didn’t seem to negatively affect him; he won 21 games and he recorded a 2.51 ERA. The Indians improved by six games in the loss column, and they finished in fourth place. It was the highest they’d been since 1968. As late as July1, they’d been only 2½ games out of first. Aspromonte still received some boos from the stands, prompting his father, Angelo, to ask during a visit in August, “Everywhere, people tell me my kid is doing a good job, But here in Cleveland, everybody boos him the minute he pokes his head out of the dugout. Why do the people here do that?”29

It was hardly “everybody” that booed Aspromonte, of course. And he had earned the praise of fellow managers around the league — Dick Williams of the Angels said he “deserves to be rehired,” and that doing so in August might give the Indians players a positive boost. Chuck Tanner of the White Sox said, “You don’t turn things around this fast normally, but the Indians have. … They’ve had one of the greatest turnarounds in baseball history.”30 The one voice that remained conspicuously silent was that of GM Phil Seghi.

Just before the end of the season, it was announced that Aspromonte’s contract would not be renewed. For some reason, Seghi went a little further and said that Aspromonte would not be with the organization in any capacity. There was speculation that the Indians were going to hire Frank Robinson as the first black manager in the majors.31

Robinson was indeed hired. After his first year on the job, Robinson wrote a 1976 book with Dave Anderson of the New York Times. In the book, Frank: The First Year, Robinson said, “Shortly after I joined the Cleveland Indians for the last three weeks of the 1974 season, I realized this was a ball club in trouble. The dugout was virtually segregated. On one side was the manager, Ken Aspromonte, with almost all the white players. On the other side was Larry Doby, a black coach, with all the black players. I sat here and there, mostly in the middle. Any ball club that’s split along racial lines like that had to be in trouble.”32 The Plain Dealer article on the book noted that Aspromonte had privately claimed that Doby had undermined him, and that Robinson pretty much agreed. That’s why he chose not to retain Doby on the coaching staff. “I didn’t keep Larry Doby because he had shown me he wasn’t loyal to the manager. Doby was hoping to be the first black manager himself. But splitting the team racially wasn’t the way to do it.”33

Aspromonte said, “I tried my best,” and added that he could walk out “with my head up high.”34 Later, he was less diplomatic, saying that he had been left with a sour taste, noting that attendance had nearly doubled (from 615,107 in 1973 to 1,114,262 in 1974) and that Seghi had awarded himself a two-year contract.35

In January 1975 Aspromonte was hired as an official host at Caesars Palace hotel and casino in Las Vegas. He was “delighted by the thoughtfulness of 15 of his former players who stopped in Las Vegas to say hello when they were on their way to the Indians’ [spring-training] camp in Tucson.”36 Originally, in effect, a greeter, he said a couple of months after hiring that he was still a manager, “in the management process,” as he put it.37 He worked looking after VIP guests. His pay remained the same, with better fringe benefits, he said, and he acknowledged that being fired so suddenly, with there being no sense of loyalty, left him with the aforementioned sour taste.38  

In November 1975, Bob and Ken Aspromonte were selected from among 950 applicants for the Coors Beer distributorship in Houston. Ken’s plans were to remain with his position in Las Vegas, while Bob was going to actively run the distributorship.39

He hadn’t given up on baseball, however, and was reported to have applied for open managerial slots in Milwaukee and Minnesota, and to become GM of the Houston Astros.40

In January 1976, Ken left his position with Caesars Palace and managed the Coors distributorship with brother Bob. In the early 2000s, Bob and Ken sold the majority of their interest in Aspromonte Coors Distributing, and Coors and Miller merged into Faust Distributing Company. “We had the distributorship for 27 years, Bobby and I. We sold it. I’m semiretired now, watching over my investments. I’m a pilot. I fly my own plane. I play golf once or twice a week. I work out, and take care of my health. That’s about it.”41

Asked where he flies, Ken said, “I fly over Louisiana, New Mexico, North Texas. I flew to Seattle. Sometimes we take care of those people who can’t get to a medical center, and we fly them back and forth. I fly a Cirrus. My plane is now about 10 years old. I bought it new in 2007. It’s a plane with a parachute. They’ve already saved over 100 people who lost control of their plane. You pull this lever above your head and a rocket goes off and this parachute goes off. The whole plane comes down and it’s like you fell from maybe eight or nine feet.”42

“Bobby’s got a little more of a problem. He’s got diabetes. It’s demanding.” The two brothers remain in very close touch. “He’s right here. I talk to him every day. We see each other every day.” Ken had no children but he and his wife, Shirley, have been married 60 years as of February 2017.

Like many former ballplayers, Aspromonte’s kept busy by people sending him baseball cards to autograph. He follows baseball, of course, but other than a few people like Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy, he no longer knows that many people in the game, once Tommy Lasorda left, and Tony La Russa. He did enjoy coming back to Boston in 2012 when the Red Sox celebrated the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park and brought back over 100 former players for ceremonies. He remembered when he first was brought up to Boston, he was placed next to Ted Williams. The Red Sox slugger had three adjacent lockers, one for his civilian clothes, one for his bats, and his uniforms. “And I had three nails next to him. Nails! Johnny Orlando, the clubhouse guy was pretty tough to me. ‘You haven’t made it yet, kid.’ That was tough. But I enjoyed it.”43

Last revised: June 27, 2018

Acknowledgments

This bio was fact-checked by Carl Riechers and edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author also accessed Aspromonte’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, Joe Wancho, and the SABR Minor Leagues Database, accessed online at Baseball-Reference.com.

Notes

1 Phil Pepe, “Baseball Always a Family Affair for Aspromontes,” New York Daily News, May 27, 1972: 23C. Pepe called the elder Aspromonte “Charles.” Russell Schneider in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (1974) called him Angelo.

2 Ken Aspromonte, “Key to a Career,” Boston Traveler, March 27, 1958: 35.

3 Ibid.

4 Joe Cashman, Red Sox Kids Host to Cardinals,” Boston Record, February 18, 1956: 25.

5 Clif Keane, “Ex-Brave Thiel, Aspromonte Join Hose in Spring,” Boston Globe, September 28, 1956: 26.

6 “Sox Home for Twin Bill,” Boston Globe, September 2, 1957: 61.

7 Ed Rumill, “Baltimore Veteran Likes Sox Rookie,” Christian Science Monitor, September 9, 1957: 11.

8 Mike Gillooly, “Fans Predict Vernon Will Wind Up Yankee,” Boston American, January 30, 1958: 33.

9 Bob Addie, “Bob Addie’s Column,” Washington Post, September 27, 1959: C2.

10 Hal Lebovitz, “Hats Off … Ken Aspromonte,” The Sporting News, September 7, 1960: 23.

11 “3 Nats Play in Germany,” Washington Post, January 22, 1960: D1.

12 Ed Rumill, “Ken Aspromonte Key Utility Player in Flag Drive of Cleveland Club,” Christian Science Monitor, June 8, 1960: 16.

13 See, for instance, Milton Richman (United Press International), “Ken Aspromonte Is Surprise of American League Season,” Atlanta Daily World, July 29, 1960: 6.

14 Dave Brady, “Aspromonte Demands 100% Raise of Angels,” Washington Post, January 25, 1961: 22.

15 Norman Miller, “Aspromonte Likes Role of an Angel,” Jersey Journal (Jersey City), April 20, 1961: 14.

16 Russell Schneider, Whatever Happened to Super Joe? Catching Up With 45 Good Old Guys from the Bad Old Days of the Cleveland Indians (Cleveland: Gray & Company, Publishers, 2006), 71-72.

17 UPI, “ ‘Angel’ Aspromonte Happier With New Outlook on Game,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 1961: C4.

18 Details of how the clinic planned to operate may be found at Bob Addie, “Bob Addie’s Column,” Washington Post, January 12, 1962: A23.

19 See also Dave Brady, “Baseball Needs More Youngsters and Aspromonte Is After Them,” Washington Post, January 21, 1962: C3.

20 Russell Schneider, “Manager’s Job a Back Breaker,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 29, 1969: 31.

21 Bud Collins, “Aspromonte Up With Hirohito,” Boston Globe, October 28, 1964: 21.

22 Bob Addie, “A Special Youngster,” Washington Post, December 20, 1964: C2.

23 UPI, “Paul Foytack in Japan for Comeback Try,” Chicago Tribune, March 7, 1965: B2.

24 Ken Aspromonte, author interview, April 20, 2017.

25 Russell Schneider.

26 “Tribe Trades McDowell for Giants’ Perry,” Washington Post, November 30, 1971: D1.

27 Ed Rumill, “For Perry, a Rumored Dab’ll Do It: ‘Let Them Holler,’” Christian Science Monitor, May 31, 1972: 12.

28 UPI, “New Spitball Rule Invoked vs. Perry,” Boston Globe, April 7, 1974: 64.

29 Russell Schneider, “The Boos … They Tear Up Aspro’s Mom, Dad,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, August 20, 1974: D1.

30 Russell Schneider, “Seghi Silent in Shower of Bouquets for Aspro,” The Sporting News, August 31, 1974: 19. Schneider, incidentally, was at one point “roughed up” by an Indians coach, “and it took place in the manager’s office with Ken Aspromonte present.” Chuck Heaton, Cleveland Plain Dealer, January 26, 1979: 50.

31 Associated Press, “Indians Fire Aspromonte,” Atlanta Constitution, September 28, 1974: 2C.

32 Dan Coughlin, “Player Conflicts Spice Robbie’s Diary,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 29, 1976: 29.

33 Ibid.

34 Gerald Eskenazi, “Aspromonte: ‘I Tried My Best,’” New York Times, October 10, 1974: 62.

35 Regis McAuley, “Fuse Finally Burns,” Cleveland Press, undated May 1975 clipping in Aspromonte’s Hall of Fame player file.

36 Jerome Holtzman, “ ‘Tardy’ Padres Saved $30,000,” The Sporting News, April 5, 1975: 54.

37 Byron Rosen, “Aspromonte Is Still a ‘Manager,’” Washington Post, March 13, 1975: E3.

38 Associated Press, “Aspromonte Sour After Losing Cleveland Job,” Los Angeles Times, May 6, 1975: OC-B8.

39 “Aspro Scores From New Base,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 12, 1975: 4A.

40 Russell Schneider, “More Trades Ahead,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, November 23, 1975: 50.

41 Ken Aspromonte, author interview, April 20, 2017.

42 For an explanation of how Cirrus’s parachute system works, see youtube.com/user/CirrusAircraft, and to see a video showing one deploy, see https://youtube.com/watch?v=az12JHwm7no.

43 Ken Aspromonte, author interview, April 20, 2017.

Nine professional baseball aspirants staked their claim to be consistent starters for the Colt .45s. Of these nine, only Al Spangler and Bob Aspromonte carried over to the 1963 Opening Day lineup card. And only Aspromonte carried over to the 1964 Opening Day lineup card. Aspromonte’s name appeared in every Opening Day starting lineup for Houston through 1968, the year he was traded to the Atlanta Braves. Aspromonte, fondly nicknamed “Aspro” in Houston, never started on Opening Day during his two seasons in Atlanta. After his trade to the New York Mets in 1971, Mets manager Gil Hodges penciled in Aspromonte as his Opening Day third baseman. Aspro batted .296 in eight Opening Day starts, going 8-for-27 with six runs and four RBIs.

Along with the distinction as the only original Colt .45 to appear in Houston’s first seven Opening Day lineups, Aspromonte achieved a number of franchise firsts. He was the first expansion-draft selection to take the field for the team. He was their first batter, hitting leadoff in the first inning on Opening Day. Aspromonte connected for the first hit, singling to left field on the first pitch from Cubs starter Don Cardwell. Moments later, Aspromonte scored the first run when Al Spangler tripled down the right-field line. He drew the first base on balls and subsequently scored the second run; while he was on base, Roman Mejias hit the first home run. Aspro stole the first base, taking second base in the eighth inning ahead of Mejias’ second home run of the day. He was the first player to reach base four times in a game, going 3-for-4 with a walk. On April 24, 1965, Aspromonte became the first Houston player to homer in the newly opened Astrodome against Vern Law as part of a 5-0 Astros victory over Pittsburgh.

Apart from these significant firsts, Bob Aspromonte also has two historic “lasts.” In addition to being the final original Colt .45 to start on Opening Day for Houston in 1968, he was the last active player in baseball (he retired in 1971) to wear the uniform of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He had one at-bat for Brooklyn in September of 1956 as an 18-year-old fresh out of Lafayette High School.

Robert Thomas Aspromonte was born on June 19, 1938, to Angelo and Laura Aspromonte. He was the youngest of their three sons, all of whom played professional baseball. The Aspromonte boys were raised in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, an area that was noted for its large constituency of Italian and Jewish residents. Aspromonte felt fortunate to be raised in a family and neighborhood where he was surrounded by athletic activities. Most of the Aspromonte household were fans of the Dodgers. Young Bob became the outlier when he developed a fondness for the New York Yankees, to the consternation of the rest of his clan.

As a child and teenager, Aspromonte participated in the Brooklyn Grasshopper, Little League, Kiwanis, Shore Parkway, and Coney Island baseball leagues, helping several of his teams to win titles. He was an all-star in the Coney Island and Kiwanis Leagues and won a Kiwanis Most Valuable Player Award. He captained his high-school baseball team during his senior year. In addition to baseball, Aspro played basketball at Lafayette. He came off the bench on his high-school varsity team, most of whose players were Jewish. Pertinent to that topic, Aspromonte noted that Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax was two years ahead of him at Lafayette, and won notoriety not in baseball but basketball. He said that Koufax, who pitched very little in high school, was the team’s first baseman.

Aspro’s brother Ken, older by seven years, played for six teams in a seven-year major-league career, followed by three seasons in Japan and another three managing the Cleveland Indians. Their father, Angelo, was a respected infielder in Brooklyn sandlot baseball in his youth. He augmented his youngest son’s interest in baseball by taking him to an Interstate League game in 1950. Bob was 12 at the time. Their main objective was to see a talented 19-year-old outfielder play for Trenton. The prospect would hit .353 in 306 at-bats. His name was Willie Mays, and the following year, he was called up to the New York Giants.1

Aspromonte’s fond memory of this experience with his father was complemented by the influence of his brother Charles. Eleven years his senior, Charles mentored Bob’s early development. After playing baseball in Bensonhurst, Charles played at New York University on his way to the Kingston Colonials and Sunbury A’s, Class-B affiliates in the Philadelphia Athletics farm system. Charles played with and tutored young Bob, even acting as his guide and agent to steer him professionally. Since Bob was only 17 when he tried out with the Dodgers, Charles had to act as his legal guardian through the signing process. This was not just because Angelo was busy supporting his family — he worked for 50 years as a brick mason — but because Charles, from his years in college and professional baseball, had acquired the know-how and confidence to guide his younger brother. As Aspro remembered, Angelo’s support for his sons’ athletic pursuits was a given: “I work. I want you guys to play baseball, because you have the talent.”2

After graduating from high school, Aspromonte was invited to try out with five different teams, including the St. Louis Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers. As an early admirer of Marty Marion, Aspromonte was tempted to sign with the Cardinals. Ultimately, however, he was influenced to sign with the Dodgers due to their strong local connection. It helped that his friend Michael A. Napoli Jr. also played in the Brooklyn system. Brooklyn scouts Al Campanis and Steve Lembo recommended Aspromonte to general manager Buzzie Bavasi, who invited him to his office to discuss terms. Aspro’s first contract with the Dodgers was for $7,000 for two years.3 Here is how Campanis assessed Aspromonte in his scouting report:

“What first attracted my attention was his batting form. He does things naturally up there. He’s smart and always seems to know what he’s doing. He’s got an old head on a pair of young shoulders. And he not only can hit the long ball occasionally, but he seldom strikes out — usually gets a piece of the ball … that’s an important asset.”4

Initially, Aspromonte aspired to attend Long Island University to obtain a bachelor’s degree in physical education. However, the urge to turn professional led him to the Dodgers, who signed him on July 20, 1956.5 The Dodgers sent Aspromonte to Macon in the Class-A Sally League. After playing 13 games, he was recalled to Brooklyn in September. His big-league debut took place on September 19. As part of a 17-2 rout of the Cardinals, Walter Alston sent Aspro to pinch-hit for Sandy Amoros in the eighth inning. He laced a couple of line drives foul off pitcher Don Liddle before swinging for a third strike.

Although Aspromonte played only the one game for Brooklyn, he was invited to accompany the Dodgers on a goodwill trip to Japan after the World Series. Aspromonte spoke fondly of his memories of Japan.

Aspromonte was in awe of the famed Dodgers surrounding him. He remembered that Jackie Robinson was one of the first to take an interest in him. Robinson noticed that Aspromonte played infield with a large outfielder’s glove. With unmistakable reverence, Aspromonte recalled that Robinson gave him one of his own smaller gloves and invited Aspro to work out with him. Sandy Koufax had preceded Aspromonte to the Dodgers by one year, and the Dodgers put the two Lafayette alumni together as roommates that September.

Military service remained compulsory for young American males in 1957. However, it marked the first year of a new program that allowed recruits to join the Army for six months before participating in the Reserve for the next seven years. Walter O’Malley’s son Peter was one year older than Aspromonte. As Aspromonte remembered, he “really took care of me.”6 The elder O’Malley arranged for Peter and Aspro to enter the freshly launched Army Reserves program together.

Upon his discharge from the Army, Aspromonte was returned to Macon, where he hit .311 in 48 plate appearances. From there he was sent to Class-D Thomasville of the Georgia-Florida League. Aspro hit .263 in 228 plate appearances with a .344 on-base percentage, including five doubles, three triples, and his first professional home run. Impressively, he struck out only 14 times, demonstrating an early flair to make contact. In 1958, the Dodgers’ first year in Los Angeles, they assigned Aspromonte to Class-A Des Moines of the Western League. Playing alongside Ron Fairly, he hit .263 in 531 plate appearances with only 48 strikeouts.

 In 1959 the Dodgers promoted Aspromonte to their Triple-A International League affiliate in Montreal, where he was reunited with former Brooklyn teammate Sandy Amoros. As the Royals’ starting shortstop, he hit .259 in 451 plate appearances. Also on that Montreal team was a 31-year-old pitcher named Tom Lasorda, who went 12-8 with a 3.83 ERA.

After batting .412 with the Dodgers in spring training, Aspromonte finally made the Dodgers’ Opening Day roster in 1960. With Maury Wills at shortstop, Jim Gilliam at second base, and Charlie Neal and Daryl Spencer as fellow utility players, Aspro’s playing time was limited to 21 games. Aspromonte demonstrated a flash of his potential at Los Angeles Coliseum on May 5. He went 4-for-5, including his first big-league home run. In the bottom of the 10th, Aspromonte hit a bases-loaded, two-out, two-strike single to drive home Wally Moon with the winning run.

Then Aspromonte went 5-for-37, prompting the Dodgers to option him to Triple-A St. Paul, where he could see more playing time. There he blossomed. He hit .329 with a .390 on-base percentage and 27 extra-base hits in 411 plate appearances, striking out only 38 times. After Aspromonte hit .330 in the Venezuelan Occidental League, missing the batting title on the season’s last day, the Dodgers kept him in Los Angeles for the entire 1961 season. Still, he took the field for only 15 games and only five as a starter. He was not getting the playing time he needed in order to develop.

Then the National League expanded to include new teams in New York and Houston. On October 10, Houston general manager Paul Richards won the coin flip to determine who would pick first in the expansion draft. Aspro was selected as the third overall pick.7 Though initially disappointed not to have been chosen by New York, as it would have brought him home, he soon warmed to the idea of playing in Houston.

In his first season in Houston as the Colt .45s’ third baseman, he played in 149 games in 1962, including 142 at third base. His slash line was .266/.332 with 18 doubles, 4 triples, and 11 homers. Although they trailed the pennant-winning San Francisco Giants by 36½ games, these numbers do not tell the whole story of “the little expansion team that could.”

The Giants’ record at Candlestick Park was 61-21, and the Colt .45s were the only team to win a season series there in 1962 with a record of 5-4. Only a pair of solo home runs by Willie Mays and Ed Bailey in the season finale gave the Giants a 2-1 victory and prevented the Los Angeles Dodgers from advancing straight to a World Series vs. the Yankees. Aspromonte went 2-for-4 in a losing effort for Dick Farrell. Despite a 64-96 eighth-place finish, Houston’s expansion team was in position to affect the outcome of the pennant race on the last day of the season.

While finishing 1963 with a record of, 66-96, the season proved to be more difficult for both the Colt .45s and Bob Aspromonte. He played in only 136 games, with a .214/.276 slash line. Star reliever Jim Umbricht was diagnosed with cancer and began treatments at Houston’s M.D. Anderson Hospital; he died on April 8, 1964.8 Despite these lows, the season had its highlights for Aspromonte. On May 12, the Colt .45s behind Don Nottebart trailed the Cubs 1-0 entering the bottom of the ninth inning. With two outs, 19-year-old rookie Rusty Staub tripled to drive home Johnny Temple and send the game into extra innings. Meanwhile, Umbricht, pitching while fighting cancer, preserved the tie with two scoreless innings. Then in the bottom of the 10th, Aspromonte hit a walk-off homer off Bob Buhl.

Also in 1963, an unusual and extraordinary human-interest story involving Aspromonte and a 9-year-old boy named Billy Bradley reached its zenith. The story actually began on April 30, 1962. While drinking water at a fountain in El Dorado, Arkansas, Billy was struck by lightning. Although he survived, the bolt robbed him of his vision. Billy’s family took him to Houston for ophthalmology treatments with Dr. Louis Girard. While undergoing a series of surgeries to restore his eyesight, Billy listened to the Colt .45s on the radio. He soon adopted Bob Aspromonte as his favorite player.

Eventually the Colt .45s were notified of Billy’s request for Aspromonte to visit him at Houston’s Methodist Hospital. Accompanied by teammate Joe Amalfitano, Aspro visited Billy on May 7, 1962, bringing a glove, a ball, a transistor radio, and Colt .45s pajamas as gifts. Before the players left, Billy asked Aspromonte to hit a home run that night against the Dodgers. Aspro countered that while he was not a home-run hitter, he would try to honor the boy’s request.9

Houston built a 5-0 lead by the second inning, only to trail the Dodgers 6-5 in the seventh. With two runners on base in the bottom half of the inning, Aspromonte came to bat. He was 2-for-3 to that point with two singles. On a 3-and-1 pitch from lefty Pete Richert, Aspromonte lined a three-run homer to provide the margin of victory in Houston’s 9-6 win. At the same time, he consummated the improbable scenario of delivering on an offer to hit a home run for a child.

The Bradley family returned to Houston in 1963 for additional eye treatments. Aspromonte took them to lunch on June 11, and again Billy asked Aspromonte to hit a home run for him. Battling chronic back pain, Aspromonte was struggling through perhaps his worst season in uniform. Although batting a feeble .198, he nevertheless told Billy that he would try to deliver another home run for him against the Cubs.10

The Cubs and the Colt .45s went into extra innings deadlocked at 2-2. Pitcher Hal Woodeshick led off the 10th inning with a single against Lindy McDaniel and was lifted for pinch-runner Bob Lillis. Ernie Fazio bunted and a throwing error by Ernie Banks advanced the runners to scoring position. Brock Davis was walked to load the bases for the struggling Aspromonte. One-for-four on the night with a single, Aspro faced his final chance to deliver on Billy’s request. Accordingly, he hit a 2-and-2 pitch on the screws, delivering a walk-off grand slam to left field. A humbled Aspromonte averred that he could not have done this on his own, that he had help coming from somewhere.11

On July 26 Billy Bradley was in Houston again to see Dr. Girard. Once again he met with Aspromonte and once again he requested a home run. Aspro was homerless since the grand slam, and his hitting had deteriorated even further to .176 over his last 20 games. This time Aspro told Billy he was pushing his luck and suggested instead that Billy settle for a couple of base hits.

By this time Billy’s eyesight had been partially restored and he was able to watch the game at Colt Stadium. Tracy Stallard of the Mets had loaded the bases with Al Spangler, Rusty Staub, and Jimmy Wynn when Aspromonte came to bat in the bottom of the first. Astonishing even himself, Aspro once again hit a grand slam.12

Houston broadcaster Gene Elston was aware of the human-interest story involving Billy Bradley and referred to it on the air. The game was interrupted to retrieve the ball and Aspromonte and Bradley hugged. A New York sportswriter asked Aspromonte, “Are you doing it for the boy, or is the boy doing it for you?” Aspro replied, “It’s almost spooky, isn’t it? But if Bill will stick around, I’ll be tempted to buy him a season ticket. It’s a great thrill to see how happy it makes the boy.”13

After the 1963 season, Aspromonte undertook a series of eight rigorous daily 90-minute isometric exercises in his Brooklyn home to strengthen the “worn out” lumbar disc in his lower back. At times the pain was severe enough to prevent him from bending down. After the offseason of rest and exercises, the acute pain from which he suffered in 1963 had largely been eliminated.14

Indeed, Aspromonte recovered to have one of his best seasons in 1964. His slash line over 608 plate appearances in 157 games was .280/.329/.392. He set career highs with 69 RBIs and 12 home runs, including two more grand slams. He led the Colt .45s with a .280 batting average, and he had a .973 fielding percentage, still (as of 2018) a record for Houston third basemen, and a National League record at that time.15 In 1964 the Colt .45s duplicated their 1963 record of 66-96 and their ninth-place finish, but the resurgent Bob Aspromonte with a 66-point gain in batting average trailed only the 70-point gain by teammate Bob Lillis as the National League’s most improved hitters.16

The Houston Chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America voted Aspromonte as the team’s Most Valuable Player for 1964. Although both the Reds and Dodgers sought him in a trade, Vivian Smith, wife of co-owner Bob Smith, put the kibosh on any trade talk for Aspromonte.17

In 1965, the club abandoned Colt Stadium, moving into a space-age sports facility. Officially known as the Harris County Domed Stadium, the venue quickly became known as the Astrodome as the team was rechristened the Astros. Lum Harris was now the manager and by season’s end, Bob Smith would sell his share of the club to Roy Hofheinz.

On April 9, 1965, a crowd of 47,879 watched Mickey Mantle hit the first home run in the inaugural exhibition game in the Astrodome as the American League champion New York Yankees suffered a 2-1, 12-inning exhibition loss to the nascent Astros. Three days later, the Astros hosted the Philadelphia Phillies in the first official game at the Dome. Aspromonte caught the ceremonial first pitch from astronaut Alan Shepard.18 Aspro managed one infield single in four at-bats in a 2-0 loss to Philadelphia. After an eight-day road trip that ended with a win, the Astros set a team record by embarking on a 10-game winning streak including nine at home. Aspromonte expressed great satisfaction from contributing 11 game-winning hits to the Astros cause in 1965.19

After winning 12 of their first 18, the Astros soon plummeted to familiar territory, ninth place, with a record of 65-97. Though Aspromonte’s slash line was a respectable .263/.310 in 152 games, he managed only five home runs and 52 RBIs in the pitcher-friendly confines of “the Eighth Wonder of the World.” Early in the year, he received an encouraging letter from Billy Bradley. Following his surgeries, Billy’s eyesight recovered. With the help of corrective lenses, Billy resumed playing baseball. The letter contained a newspaper article with a note that read, “This one’s for you, Bob. I didn’t hit you a home run, but I pitched you a no-hitter.”20

Roy Hofheinz fired both manager Lum Harris and general manager Paul Richards after the 1965 season. Under new manager Grady Hatton, the Astros improved to eighth place in 1966, with a record of 72-90. Aspromonte’s solid fielding continued, with a National League-leading .962 for third basemen. His batting tapered to .252/.297 with 52 RBIs and 8 home runs, but he added two more grand slams to his final career total of six, a Houston record that stood until July 25, 2011, when Carlos Lee hit his seventh grand slam in an Astros uniform.21

In 1967 Aspromonte enjoyed his finest year in a Houston uniform. He set career highs with 24 doubles and a .294/.354/.401 slash line in 137 games. Along with 6 home runs and 58 RBIs, he matched his 1963 high of five triples. The Astros announced that H.B. “Spec” Richardson was the new general manager on July 27 in midst of a ninth-place, 69-93 campaign.

Aspro’s playing time began to diminish in 1968 as young third baseman Doug Rader was being groomed for the position. Even so, Aspromonte participated in yet another historic event on April 15, 1968. Astros ace Don Wilson and Tom Seaver of the Mets locked horns in a tremendous duel that contributed to a record that has lasted half a century. Seaver was pitching a two-hit shutout when he was pulled from the game after 10 innings. Wilson, meanwhile, pitched a shutout of his own through nine. Then the bullpens took over, holding the stalemate for what amounted to almost another two full games. When the Astros came to bat in the bottom of the 24th inning, the score was still deadlocked at 0-0. Norm Miller singled off pitcher Les Rohr, Jim Wynn was walked intentionally, Rusty Staub grounded out, and John Bateman was intentionally walked, when Aspromonte came to the plate.

Aspro was 0-for-8 with one walk. Still adept at making contact, he laced a grounder to short that Al Weis failed to handle cleanly, allowing Miller to score the winning run. Bob Aspromonte had a walk-off E-6, and the Astros defeated the Mets 1-0 in what remains as of 2018 the longest reciprocal shutout by two major-league teams.22

By 1968, America had entered one of the most turbulent periods in its history. Civil unrest began to offset the promise of Camelot and the Great Society. On June 6, only two months after Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot and killed in Los Angeles.

President Lyndon B. Johnson declared June 9, the day after Kennedy’s funeral, as a national day of mourning. Baseball Commissioner William Eckert ordered that no games on June 8 should start until after the burial, and that while games would continue on June 9, Eckert proclaimed that any player could “pay respects” if desired by sitting out to observe the day of mourning.23

Despite the option given the players by the commissioner, players who opted out were threatened with consequences. The Astros were scheduled to host the Pirates as Aspromonte, Staub, player representative Dave Giusti, and Pittsburgh’s Maury Wills all opted not to play. Giusti noted that the entire team voted to abstain, but rescinded amid a threat of “very definite economic pressures” from GM Richardson.24 A question of team retaliation for Aspro’s stance on the Robert Kennedy matter arose. His playing time continued to decrease, and with it came a decline in production. His 1968 slash line fell to .225/.285/.284.

Perhaps hard feelings lingered over these June events. Giusti was traded to St. Louis. Staub was soon traded to Montreal. By 1968, Bob Aspromonte was the only remaining member of the original 1962 Colt .45s still with the franchise. One of the team’s most popular players in its short history, Aspro was their second drafted player, their first-ever batter and position player, and the last player from the team’s first Opening Day lineup. On December 4 that player was gone, traded to the Atlanta Braves for Marty Martinez.

With Paul Richards as the Braves’ general manager and Lum Harris their manager, Aspromonte was not the first Houston alumnus to find his way to Atlanta. He was reunited with former teammates Sonny Jackson, Ken Johnson, and Claude Raymond in the Braves’ fourth season in Georgia. The 1969 season also marked the first in the divisional era. Both the American and National Leagues had realigned to each form two divisions, East and West, of six teams apiece. Atlanta and Houston found themselves in the National League West.

Since Clete Boyer was the Braves’ regular third baseman, Bob Aspromonte became a part-time player, filling in in left field, third base, second base, and shortstop. His slash line was .253/.304/.348 in 215 plate appearances with 3 home runs and 24 RBIs. Every National League West team except San Diego factored into the pennant race and as late as September 10, Aspro’s former team was two games out of first with a record of 75-65. But the Astros declined after that to finish at exactly .500, while Aspro’s new team won the first-ever National League West Division title with a record of 93-69.

The 1969 National League Championship Series marked Aspromonte’s first and only postseason experience. The Braves’ opponents were the unlikely New York Mets. Having lost at least 89 games and finished no higher than ninth place in their first seven seasons, little was expected from the Mets in 1969. As late as May 27, the Mets won-lost record stood at 18-23. However, they soon caught fire and by August, they passed the Chicago Cubs to finish at 100-62.

Aspromonte’s postseason experience was limited to three pinch-hit appearances and no action in the field. In Game One, in Atlanta, he grounded out for Phil Niekro in the eighth inning as Tom Seaver picked up a 9-5 decision. Aspro was again sent in as a pinch-hitter in Game Two, in Atlanta. Batting for Cecil Upshaw, he popped up in the eighth inning. With Ron Taylor taking the 11-6 victory, the Braves faced elimination as the series headed to New York. Aspromonte once again pinch-hit for Upshaw, this time facing Nolan Ryan to lead off the ninth inning. The young flamethrower retired Aspro on a pop fly. Two outs later, the Mets had swept the Braves and went on to face the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series.

In 62 games as a reserve player in 1970, most of Aspromonte’s time in the field was spent at third base, with a few games at shortstop, left field, and first base. In 142 plate appearances, his slash line was .213/.282/.236 with no home runs and 7 RBIs. Atlanta fell to a 76-86 record and a fifth-place finish in the National League West.

Aspro had maintained a friendly connection with Gil Hodges during the decade since they were teammates with the Dodgers. After Joe Foy‘s disappointing campaign in 1970, the Mets were in the market to upgrade at third base. Hodges turned toward his former teammate, and Aspromonte was happy to play for his old friend and mentor. Having left Foy unprotected, the Mets lost him to the Washington Senators in the Rule 5 Draft. Meanwhile, the Mets traded pitcher Ron Herbel to Atlanta for Aspromonte. Aspro had worn number 14 for his entire career to honor Hodges, and this became the basis of some good-humored teasing when Aspromonte told Hodges he wanted to wear the number for the Mets. Hodges was not surrendering 14, and he assigned Aspro number 2.25

Aspromonte was given a renewed opportunity as a starter in 1971 as Hodges penciled him into the Opening Day lineup at third base, his eighth and final Opening Day start. After a slow beginning, Aspro peaked on May 18 with a 3-for-4 outing against former Atlanta teammate Mike McQueen that included two solo home runs, bringing his batting average to .283. He was still hitting a respectable .270 in June when a calf muscle injury interrupted his momentum. Aspro was limited to 38 games in the second half of the season and was unable to sustain his prior level of performance.

On September 25, Aspromonte pinch-hit for left fielder Dave Marshall in the bottom of the 15th inning to score Tim Foli from second base with the game-winning run. The walk-off proved to be Aspro’s final hit, in his next to last major-league game. His last appearance took place on September 28 when he started at third base. Hitless in three official at-bats, Aspro drove in his final run when Cleon Jones scored on his sacrifice fly in a 5-2 loss to the Cardinals and Steve Carlton. Aspromonte’s 1971 slash line was .225/.285/.301 in 104 games, with 5 home runs and 33 RBIs.

The Mets finished a disappointing 1971 season with a record of 83-79, tied for third place with the Cubs. Needing to upgrade at third base again for 1972, the Mets traded Nolan Ryan to the California Angels for Jim Fregosi, releasing Aspromonte. Sparky Anderson still thought Aspro could play and invited him to spring training with the Reds in 1972. Although Aspromonte was featured on a 1972 Topps card with Cincinnati, he failed to make the team and hung up his spikes.26 

Aspro’s final career slash line was .252/.308/.336. He finished with 1,103 hits and 60 home runs. The disciplined hitter’s strikeout totals in his eight seasons as a regular ranged from 44 to 63, topping 60 only once. By contrast, 20 major-league players had 60 or more strikeouts in the first two months of the 2018 season.

After retiring as a player, Aspro decided to make Houston his year-round home, ultimately persuading both of his brothers to join him. They formed a partnership to obtain a Coors distributorship in 1975, which they named Aspromonte-Coors Distributing Company.27

Bob Aspromonte managed the distributorship, which by 1981 was valued in the range of eight figures. He implemented several innovative business strategies that improved both company profitability and personnel loyalty and morale. He ran Aspromonte-Coors until 2000, when he sold his majority interest. Aspromonte remained active in the Houston community, lending his name to the YMCA, the Lions Eye Bank Foundation, and Houston Eye Associates.

There is an epilogue to the Bill Bradley story. In 2003 Aspromonte was blinded in one eye after a car battery exploded in his face. When Bradley, now 51, learned of the injury, he contacted Aspro to offer support. The same ophthalmologist who restored Bradley’s sight, Dr. Louis Girard, operated on Aspromonte and eventually helped him to overcome substantial damage to his eye.28

Aspromonte remained a revered figure throughout the Houston community. He said he was particularly proud of receiving the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, a humanitarian award honoring American diversity and fostering tolerance, respect, and understanding among religious and ethnic groups.29

In 2005 Aspro was inducted into the Texas Baseball Hall of Fame. In 2011, Bob and Ken were both elected to the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago. For the silver anniversary of the franchise in 2012, the Astros created a Walk of Fame outside Minute Maid Park. Their first honoree was Bob Aspromonte: “Aspro the Astro.” And on April 10, 2012, the 50th anniversary of the franchise’s first game, Aspromonte threw out the ceremonial first pitch. Away from the game, he retained a powerful reverence for the bond of family, which includes his brothers along with three generations of nieces and nephews.30

“In all my years in baseball,” remarked fellow Houston baseball legend Larry Dierker, “I have never known a player with more class than Bob Aspromonte.”31

Last revised: December 1, 2018

This biography appeared in “Time for Expansion Baseball” (SABR, 2018), edited by Maxwell Kates and Bill Nowlin.

Sources

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

Thanks for assistance to Bob Aspromonte, Mark Kanter, Maxwell Kates, and Liubov Wernick. 

Notes

1 Author interview with Bob Aspromonte, February 24, 2018. Unless otherwise indicated, all direct quotations or unattributed memories come from this interview.

2  Interview with Bob Aspromonte, February 24, 2018.

3  Joe Reichler and Budd Theobald, “Bob Aspromonte” in Here Come the Colts (New York: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1962), 10.

4 Ibid. Cockroach, “From Brooklyn to the Bayou City: Bob Aspromonte” on Astros County: Your Neighborhood Astros Blog and Grill, January 27, 2017, astroscounty.com; accessed June 3, 2018.

5 Cockroach.

6 Interview with Bob Aspromonte, February 24, 2018.

7 Robert Reed, A Six-Gun Salute: An Illustrated History of the Houston Colt .45s, 1962-1964 (Houston: Lone Star Books, 1999), 59.

8 Bill Brown and Mike Acosta, Deep in the Heart: Blazing a Trail from Expansion to World Series (Houston: Bright Sky Press, 2013), 29.

9 Brown, 31.

10 Ibid.

11 Reed, 124.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid.

14 Mickey Herskowitz, “Aspromonte Leaves Drydock — Worn-Out Back Disc Repaired,” The Sporting News, February 1, 1964: 23.

15 Cockroach.

16 Chuck Pickard, “Colts’ Lillis Boosted Bat Mark 70 Points — Majors’ Best Gain,” The Sporting News, November 7, 1964: 25.

17 Clark Nealon, “Houston Picks MVP — Aspro the Astro,” The Sporting News, January 23, 1965: 7.

18  Cockroach.

19 Interview with Bob Aspromonte, February 24, 2018.

20 Reed, 124.

21 Brown, 30.

22  Norm Miller, To All My Friends … from Norm Who? (Houston: Double Play Productions, 2009), i.

23 Cockroach.

24 Associated Press, “Houston’s Staub, Aspro Don’t Play,” Dallas Morning News, June 10, 1968: 2. 

25  “National League Rosters, Uniform Numbers, ” The Sporting News, April 17, 1971: 38.

26  1972 Topps #659, Brooklyn: Topps Chewing Gum Inc., 1972.

27 Rich Marazzi and Len Fiorito, “Bob Aspromonte” in Aaron to Zuverink, (New York: Avon Books, 1984), 16.

28 Brown, 31.

29 neco.org/medal-of-honor.

30 Interview with Bob Aspromonte, February 24, 2018.

31 Mickey Herskowitz, “Players Don’t Come Classier Than Aspromonte,” Houston Chronicle, February 14, 2001. 

Samuel Howard Bankhead was most likely born on September 18, 1910, in Sulligent, Alabama.4 His father, Garnett Bankhead Sr., labored in the coal mines and played first base in the Cotton Belt League, while his mother, Arie Armstrong, gave birth to five boys and two girls. Sam worked alongside his father loading coal until baseball led him to a better life.

All four of Bankhead’s younger brothers played in the Negro Leagues. Fred was a slick-fielding second baseman from 1936 to 1948, making an All-Star appearance in 1942. Garnett played for three seasons from 1947 to 1949, including a short stint on the 1948 champion Homestead Grays with his brother Sam as manager. Joe had the shortest career, taking the mound a few times with the 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, and Dan became the first Black pitcher in major-league history when he took the mound on August 26, 1947. for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dan also hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat, but his success was short-lived; he was out of the majors by 1951.

Sam Bankhead punched his ticket out of the coal mines and into his Negro League career in 1929 with the Birmingham Black Barons, but he did not get much playing time as an 18-year-old rookie. From 1930 to 1932 he bounced around with Birmingham and the Louisville Black Caps until he finally found a home and a starting position with the Nashville Elite Giants.

In 1933 Negro League baseball introduced its inaugural East-West All-Star Game, which has been called “the pinnacle of any Negro League season,” and described as “an All-Star game and a World Series all wrapped in one spectacle.”5 The annual games were so popular and star-studded that many observers, including Negro League historian Larry Lester, have credited them with helping to integrate Organized Baseball. Bankhead, as he often did in high-pressure situations, shined in these contests. A nine-time all-star at five different positions, Sam had 12 hits in 31 at-bats with 7 runs, 4 RBIs, and 2 stolen bases. He is also credited with scoring the first run in an East-West All-Star Game. Coincidentally, the National and American Leagues also debuted the major-league All-Star Game in 1933, but by the early 1940s it was often being outdrawn by its Negro League counterpart.6

After a solid season in 1934, his last with the Nashville Elite Giants, Bankhead moved on to one of the greatest teams in Negro League history, the Pittsburgh Crawfords. The 1935 Crawfords squad included future Hall of Famers Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Judy Johnson, and Cool Papa Bell. Mark Koenig, shortstop for the 1927 New York Yankees, compared the ’35 Crawfords favorably to his legendary World Series-winning team.7 Bankhead made a seamless transition into this team of superstars, hitting .298 and playing a starring role as one of the Raindrop Rangers, a trio of speedy outfielders with Sam playing alongside Bell and Jimmie Crutchfield. Fanciful legend had it that the three players were so fast that they could keep a field dry by catching the raindrops before they hit the ground.8 The Crawfords capped off their magical season with a hard-fought seven-game victory over the New York Cubans in the Negro League World Series. Bankhead had a solid Series with seven hits, including a clutch single, stolen base, and run scored that gave Pittsburgh the lead in the seventh inning of the seventh game.9

The Crawfords began a steady decline in 1936. Bankhead had an off-year, hitting just .204. Though the Crawfords still ended up winning the Negro National League championship, no agreement could be reached with the Negro American League to play a World Series that year. After the season Gus Greenlee, owner of the Crawfords and creator of the East-West All-Star Game, was forced to cut payroll and players due to his involvement in racketeering. The Crawfords hung on through the 1938 season, but they were a mere shell of the team that dominated Negro League baseball from 1932 to 1936.

In 1937 Greenlee’s misfortunes turned into a boon for Crawfords players Bankhead, Bell, Gibson, and Satchel Paige, as they were all recruited to play in the Dominican Republic for dictator Rafael Trujillo’s Dragones team. Trujillo, a corrupt and violent leader, paid exorbitant salaries to these players in order to field a winning team to gain favor in the coming election. His two political opponents also fielded highly competitive teams made up largely of players raided from Negro League squads. The pressure on the Trujillo players was such that they felt that winning the championship was a life-or-death endeavor. The team would often be locked up at night to ensure that they would be in tip-top shape for the next day’s game.10

Bankhead posted a .309 batting average with 21 hits in 68 at-bats, but it was Gibson’s .453 average and Paige’s 8-2 record that led the Dragones to the championship game against San Pedro de Macoris. In that game Bankhead had the most dramatic at-bat of his career. The Dragones were trailing 5-4 in the seventh inning against Negro League All-Star pitcher Chet Brewer when Bankhead strode to the plate with Bell on first base. Bell recalled:

“Brewer knew Bankhead was a great clutch hitter and tried to be careful with him. Too careful. The count went to three and one. Brewer came in with some smoke, but he got it high. I thought Bankhead would drive the pitch, but he had a big cut and fouled it back. Then he connected on the three-two pitch. He was a line-drive hitter, and this one went way over the left field fence. We were pretty happy.”11

Paige retired the final six batters, five on strikeouts, to ensure the victory. “I guess we helped Trujillo stay in office,” claimed Bell,12 but the players could not get out of the Dominican Republic fast enough.

Bankhead, like many other Negro League players, treated baseball like a year-round job, and the winter of 1937 found him playing for the Santa Clara Leopards in Cuba. This turned out to be one of his finest seasons as he led the league in several categories, including a .366 batting average, 89 hits, 5 triples, and 47 runs scored.13 The Leopards finished with a 44-18 record and stood in first place in the final league standings.14

The year 1937 proved to be a busy one for Bankhead as he also married Helen M. Hall on February 25. The two had a daughter, Brenda, in 1939, and a son, Anthony, in 1941. Anthony was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1970 and died at the age of 29. Brenda’s fate is unknown, and Helen died on October 10, 1985 in Pittsburgh.

Bankhead was known as Hall of Famer Josh Gibson’s best friend and confidant.15 Josh Gibson Jr. had this to say about their friendship: “I know that as far back as I can remember, Sammy was a constant. I don’t think they were inseparable, ’cause my father didn’t get that close to nobody. But they clicked out of mutual respect.”16 Unfortunately the two were also known for their legendary drinking prowess. Stories of drinking contests that lasted long into the night, drinking on buses, between doubleheaders, and sometimes even during games, can be found in every Gibson biography and article where Bankhead is mentioned. In 1947 Bankhead was managing in Caracas, Venezuela, when he received a telegram announcing Gibson’s death. All-Star catcher, Bill “Ready” Cash was there and had this to say: “Bankhead went out that night, got drunk, came in and tore up everything in his room. They had to send him home.”17

Bankhead mended fences with Gus Greenlee in time to join the Pittsburgh Crawfords for the 1938 season. Greenlee had been upset that many of his star players had been lured to the Dominican Republic and had chosen money over loyalty. The Crawfords lacked star power that year as Gibson headed to the Homestead Grays while Bell and Paige played in the Mexican League. The Crawfords finished in fourth place with a 24-16 league record that placed them 4½ games behind Gibson’s first-place Grays.

The year 1939 marked the end of the great Pittsburgh Crawfords franchise, as Greenlee Field was demolished and replaced with housing projects.18 Bankhead started the season with the relocated but short-lived Toledo Crawfords; however, he quickly jumped to the Homestead Grays to play second base with his old friend Josh Gibson. Bankhead hit a solid .292, as the Grays won the Negro National League pennant, but lost the Negro League World Series to future Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella and his Baltimore Elite Giants. Bankhead went 7-for-23 in the series for a .304 batting average.

Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the integration of Black players into Organized Baseball was a hot topic for both Black and White sportswriters. Bankhead’s name often came up in such discussions. In 1936 William G. Nunn, city editor for the Pittsburgh Courier, wrote, “We don’t believe the majors can produce three outfielders with the all-around ability of ‘Cool Papa,’ Bill Wright or Bankhead.”19 Two years later White sportswriter Jimmy Powers of the New York Daily News wrote about seven Negro League players who would guarantee the New York Giants a pennant and included Bankhead as his starting center fielder.20 Even White superstar players like Honus Wagner, Dizzy Dean, and Paul Waner went to bat for integration, but their cries fell on the deaf ears of antiquated thinkers like Washington Senators owner Calvin Griffith, Philadelphia Athletics owner Connie Mack, and Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis.21 Sadly, the window of time closed on Negro baseball legends like Gibson, (Buck) Leonard, Bell, Bankhead, and many others.

In the decade preceding Jackie Robinson’s arrival in the major leagues, more than 100 players from the Negro Leagues played in Mexico.22 Mexican business mogul and multimillionaire Jorge Pasquel was a big reason why. Pasquel, a strong and fearless leader,23 wanted to turn the Mexican League into baseball’s third major league. He lured dozens of Black players south of the border by offering them salaries that were two to four times greater than what they were making in the States.

In 1940 Bankhead signed with the Monterrey Carta Blanco, playing shortstop and leading the league in stolen bases with 32. He had 122 hits in 384 at-bats for a .315 average, but his team finished the year nine games behind Pasquel’s championship club, the Vera Cruz Azules.24 The Azules fielded one of the most impressive lineups in baseball history with Bell, Gibson, Ray Dandridge, Leon Day, Martin Dihigo, and Willie Wells, each of whom eventually received enshrinement in Cooperstown.

Bankhead signed with Monterrey again in 1941, which turned out to be career year for him as he tore up the league with 142 hits in 405 at-bats for a stellar .351 average. He hit 8 home runs, scored 74 times, stole 19 bases, and drove home 85 runs.25 In spite of Bankhead’s batting prowess, the Monterrey team finished in last place with a 43-59 record, 24 games behind the repeating champion Azules.26

At the conclusion of the 1941 Mexican League season, All-Star catcher Quincy Trouppe formed a barnstorming team that played throughout the United States. The team was called the Mexican League All Stars and included the familiar names of Bell, Dandridge, Wells, Gibson, and Bankhead. The team won all 10 of its games before disbanding for lack of financial support.27 The well-traveled Bankhead then finished off the year by playing for the Ponce Leones in Puerto Rico.

Bankhead returned to the Negro Leagues with the Homestead Grays in 1942. Garnett Blair, pitcher for the Grays, said:

“Sam Bankhead to me was an outstanding player. He played shortstop and he would go behind third to get it and throw you out waist high across the diamond. He could not only play short, he could play second, third, he could play outfield, he could pitch, and he could catch. He was all around, so anytime I was pitching I said if that ball goes to Sam Bankhead, fine. There’s nothing wrong with that, let it go there because if he got his glove on it, he was going to throw you out.”28

Bankhead batted .283 while playing shortstop for the first-place Grays. On July 21, 1942, the Mansfield (Ohio) News Journal credited the Grays with a 79-4 record that included exhibition games.29 The team reached the Negro League World Series but was quickly dismantled by Paige and the Kansas City Monarchs in five games.30

All the stars aligned for the Homestead Grays and Sam Bankhead in 1943, as the Grays finished the year with a 44-15 league record. Bankhead was second in the batting title race with an otherworldly .483 average.31 The Grays won a hard-fought eight-game Negro League World Series against the Birmingham Black Barons.32 With the Grays trailing 4-2 and two outs in the eighth inning, Bankhead delivered a clutch single to drive in what turned out to be the Series-winning runs.33

In what must have seemed like a foregone conclusion to the rest of the league, the Homestead Grays easily finished in first place in 1944 and 1945. Bankhead hit .345 in 1944 but slumped to .262 in 1945. The 1944 team once again met the Black Barons in the World Series and easily dispatched them in five games this time. Bankhead went 7-for-18 (.388) in the Series. The 1945 Series was a different story for the Grays as they were swept by future major leaguer Sam Jethroe and the Cleveland Buckeyes. In keeping with his subpar 1945 season, Bankhead had an uncharacteristically bad Series: 1-for-16 (.063).

The 1946 and 1947 seasons were both disappointments for the proud Homestead Grays. The 1946 team fell to third place with a losing record of 27-28, with Bankhead hitting .265. The 1947 squad finished in second place with a more respectable 38-27 record but Bankhead’s average dipped to an anemic .246. A Grays team composed of aging veterans, Jackie Robinson’s integration of major-league baseball, and the tragic death of Josh Gibson on January 20, 1947, seemed to spell the beginning of the end for the Homestead Grays.

The 1948 season turned out to be a last hurrah for both the Homestead Grays and the NNL. The press was paying far less attention to the Negro Leagues by this point, but it is known that the Grays defeated the Baltimore Elite Giants in the NNL playoffs and met the Birmingham Black Barons in the Negro League World Series for the third time in six years. The Black Barons had knocked off a strong Kansas City Monarchs team in the NAL playoffs and featured a 17-year-old legend in the making, Willie Mays.

Bankhead helped lead the Grays to a five-game championship victory. After the series ended, the NNL disbanded, which meant that the 1948 Negro League World Series had been the last of its kind.

The Homestead Grays still fielded teams for the 1949 and 1950 seasons, with Bankhead staying on as player-manager. By all accounts these teams were highly competitive, with newspapers reporting records of 97-15 and 64-8 for the 1949 and 1950 seasons respectively.34 In 11 box scores found from the 1950 season, an aging Bankhead banged out 18 hits in 45 at-bats.35 The decline of the Negro Leagues continued apace, however, and the Grays folded after the 1950 season.

After Josh Gibson’s death in 1947, Sam became a surrogate father for 16-year-old Josh Gibson Jr., who played second base and third base for Bankhead’s 1949 and 1950 Grays teams; however, Josh Jr. could not escape his father’s enormous shadow. In 1951 Sam took Josh Jr. with him north of the border to play in the Class-C Canadian Provincial League for the Pittsburgh Pirates-affiliated Farnham Pirates. Canada was where Bankhead attained one of baseball’s most underappreciated milestones by becoming the first black manager for a mostly White professional baseball team. Josh Jr. did not fare as well: While playing for Farnham, he broke his ankle sliding into second base, effectively ending his baseball career.

After spending the 1951 season in Canada, Sam and Josh Jr. returned home to the Hill District in Pittsburgh and took jobs working side by side for the Pittsburgh Sanitation Department. Josh Jr. had this to say about their experience together: “I worked with him. I listened to him still, like playin’ baseball. He was one of the smartest guys ’cause he read all the time.”36

Bankhead’s post-baseball life has led to speculation, most notably by Negro League historian John Holway,37 that the character Troy Maxson, from August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Fences was based on Sam. Like Bankhead, Maxson was a bitter ex-Negro League star who worked on a garbage truck in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. Bankhead was bitter that he never got the chance to play in baseball’s major leagues,38 and he refused to go to baseball games in his later years, even missing the chance to see his younger brother, Dan, pitch for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In a 1971 interview, Bankhead had this to say about major-league baseball: “After I quit, I never went to see a game again. I am not jealous, but I cannot be a fan.”39 Sam preferred to stay close to home, playing cards with his buddies, endlessly talking about the old days, and – most of all – drinking. Bankhead’s brother Fred died in 1972, and his youngest brother, Dan, died in 1976, events that made Sam lean on the bottle even more heavily than before. While the exact circumstances of Sam Bankhead’s death are not known, it is known that he was shot in the head and killed on the night of July 24, 1976.40 Whether he was shot by a friend after an argument in a downtown hotel, or shot in self-defense by a co-worker at the William Penn Hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, one thing is certain: Negro League legend Sam Bankhead’s life came to an unceremonious end at the age of 65.

In 2005 the Washington Post honored Negro League legend Ted “Double Duty” Radcliffe upon the occasion of his 102nd birthday and asked him, “What player do you think of when you think of the Negro Leagues?” Radcliffe responded, “Bankhead. He was a great player.”41 Indeed, Bankhead had been picked as the first-team utility player as early as 1952 in a Pittsburgh Courier poll that named the all-time Negro League All-Stars.42 He was universally respected as a player and manager and continually rose to the occasion when playing with and against the greatest players in Negro League history.

Bankhead would have made a tremendous major-leaguer. By all accounts he was an exceptional fielder, a speed demon on the basepaths, and a skilled batsman, as his lifetime .289 batting average attests.43 If nonleague statistics are included, then his average shoots up to well above .300. Bankhead is also credited with a .301 average against White major leaguers in barnstorming games.44

As of 2025, there have been 351 people elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame. Negro Leaguers have been grossly underrepresented, with only 44 players or executives honored with plaques thus far. When examining the scope of his entire career, it is not hard to envision a place for Sam Bankhead in the hallowed halls of Cooperstown.

Sources

All statistics, unless otherwise noted, are from:

Holway, John B. The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers, 2001).

Notes

1 John B. Holway, Black Giants (Springfield, Virginia: Lord Fairfax Press, 2010), 92.

2 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

3 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

4 Conflicting sources have Bankhead being born on September 18, 1905, in Empire, Alabama, but the 1910 birthdate shows up on both the US Social Security Death Index and on his gravestone in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania.

5 Larry Lester, Black Baseball’s National Showcase (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001), 1.

6 Lester, 1.

7 Jim Bankes, The Pittsburgh Crawfords (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2001), 148.

8 Lester, 88.

9 John B. Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History (Fern Park, Florida: Hastings House Publishers, 2001), 321.

10 John B. Holway, Josh and Satch: The Life and Times of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige (New York: Meckler Publishing, 1991), 90.

11 Bankes, 110.

12 Bankes, 110.

13 Dr. Layton Revel and Luis Munoz, Forgotten Heroes: Samuel “Sam” Bankhead (Carrollton, Texas: Center for Negro League Research, 2011), 23.

14 Revel and Munoz, 23.

15 Brad Snyder, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2003), 171, 274.

16 Mark Ribowsky, The Power and the Darkness: The Life of Josh Gibson in the Shadows of the Game (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 164.

17 Brent Kelley, Voices From the Negro Leagues: Conversations With 52 Baseball Standouts (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 1998), 145.

18 Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues, 356.

19 Lester, 89.

20 Lester, 109-110.

21 Holway, Josh and Satch, 151-155.

22 John Virtue, South of the Color Barrier (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2008), 11.

23 Virtue, 12.

24 Virtue, 85.

25 Revel and Munoz, 11.

26 Revel and Munoz, 11.

27 Revel and Munoz, 12.

28 Larry Lester and Sammy J. Miller, Black Baseball in Pittsburgh (Charleston, South Carolina: Arcadia Publishing, 2001), 75.

29 Revel and Munoz, 12.

30 Holway, The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues, 398-399.

31 Tetelo Vargas of the New York Cubans hit .484.

32 Game Two ended in a tie.

33 Holway, Josh and Satch, 171.

34 Revel and Munoz,19.

35 Revel and Munoz,19.

36 Brent Kelley, The Negro Leagues Revisited: Conversations With 66 More Baseball Heroes (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2000), 258.

37 Holway, Black Giants, 92.

38 August Wilson, Fences (New York: Plume, 1986).

39 Holway, Black Giants, 97.

40 Holway, Black Giants, 97.

41 “Ex-Washington Player Goes Back a Few Years,” Washington Post, April 12, 2005. washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/2005/04/12/ex-washington-player-goes-back-a-few-years/4a2faf00-9223-4718-b46c-e1b8e0213a6b/?utm_term=.66be349249e0. Accessed December 31, 2016.

42 James A. Riley, The Biographical Encyclopedia of the Negro Baseball Leagues (New York: Carroll & Graff Publishers, Inc., 1994), 52.

43 Holway, Black Giants, 99.

44 Holway, Black Giants, 101.

In 1919, he led the National League in wins, and was the winning pitcher in the fastest nine-inning game ever played in the major leagues. In 1921, he was acclaimed as a World Series hero. In 1922, he pitched a no-hitter. In 1924, he logged 267 2/3 innings without throwing a wild pitch or hitting a batter, still a National League record. Along the way, he played checkers with Mathewson, struck out Ruth, and dueled with Alexander.

Straddling the Deadball and Liveball eras, Barnes plied his trade on behalf of the Boston Braves (twice), New York Giants, and Brooklyn Robins, and compiled a major league record of 152-150 with an ERA of 3.22. Although he pitched fewer than half of his games for the mighty Giants, most of the sweet spots in Barnes’ career were clustered in New York. His record with the Giants was 82-43, which at .656 still ranks fourth in winning percentage among all Giants franchise pitchers with 100 or more decisions.1 The glory days were in New York, but even in Boston, where the Braves performed dismally during much of his tenure, Barnes left an imprint which has endured—his ERA of 3.07 with the Braves is still seventh best among modern era Braves franchise pitchers who worked 1,000 or more innings.2

At 6’0” and 170 pounds, Barnes was lean, lanky, and fit. According to Ernie Quigley, long-time National League umpire and fellow Kansan, Barnes pitched “like pitchers are supposed to pitch,”3 and had mastered what Quigley considered to be the three pitching essentials: fastball, curve, and control. Barnes regarded himself primarily as a fastball pitcher—“I could pitch fast balls all day”4—but the other pitches in his arsenal, the curve and the changeup, were featured in some of his most celebrated performances. His pitching arm would later develop something of a mind of its own, but during his prime, control was a Barnes hallmark. 

The Road to the Majors

The start of Barnes’ story is a humble one, but even at the beginning, he was part of an adventure. Jesse Laurence Barnes5 was born on August 26, 1892, in Oklahoma Territory, the setting for a short-lived dream that failed to pan out for his parents, Luther and Sade (née Sarah Eva Bailey). Nearly a year earlier, the couple, still in their twenties, had left their home in northeast Kansas with their young son Guy and migrated to Oklahoma, drawn by the lure of free land which opened up in the Land Run of September 22, 1891. In competition with 20,000 others, Luther and Sade Barnes successfully laid claim to one of the 6,100 homesteads available for settlement, a 160-acre parcel located in what is now Cimarron Township, Lincoln County, Oklahoma.

Although his birthplace typically is given as Guthrie, or sometimes Perkins, it was on his family’s rural homestead that Jess Barnes drew his first breath. On the night Jess was born, Luther had committed to play fiddle at a dance held in a nearby country school. Since the school was visible from the Barnes homestead, Sade and Luther agreed on a lamp-in-the-window signal in the event Sade went into labor. Luther paid a youngster a nickel to be his lookout, and when the boy spotted the light, the music and dancing quickly came to an end. Luther rushed home to perform midwife duties at Jess’ birth, aided only by a medical reference book.

Homesteading was arduous under the best of circumstances, but in attempting it at the time they did, Luther and Sade steered into a heavy economic headwind spawned by the Depression of 1893. Sade, in particular, was known to have been unhappy in Oklahoma. In the fall of 1893, two years after arriving and a year after Jess’ birth, the couple disposed of their Sooner land and returned to northeast Kansas, where they had roots and family, and where community life was more established. They settled near Ontario, a small town on the Jackson/Nemaha County line and now long gone, in the same general vicinity where they had farmed during their first years of marriage.

For a while, Luther again tilled the land in Nemaha County, but he gradually moved towards other means of supporting the growing Barnes family. He became a vegetable gardener who marketed his produce locally, and rounded out his work life by hiring out as a house plasterer, farm laborer, handyman, railroad laborer, and at one point, as a government contractor to dig water wells on the nearby Potawatomi reservation.

By early 1902, the Barnes family had moved from the country into the nearby farm community of Circleville, a Jackson County town of 225 that bustled in a small-town way, thanks in large part to the rail lines that connected it to agricultural markets and larger urban centers. By 1908, the family composition was complete. Luther and Sade produced 10 children, three of whom died young. An unnamed child died in infancy, daughter Agnes died at the age of one in 1888, and son Guy, aged eight, died suddenly in 1897. Of the surviving children, Jess was the oldest, followed by Gladys (b 1895), Virgil (b 1897), Juanita (b 1899), Hattie May (b 1901), Charles (b 1905), and Clark (b 1908). Jess—whose childhood nickname was “Spot” because his face was blanketed with freckles—was nine when the family moved to Circleville. His education had started in the country schools close to Ontario and Bancroft, and continued in Circleville, where he remained on the pupil rolls until 1913. No records have been found to indicate that he graduated from high school, however.

With nine family members supported by a laborer’s wage, the Barneses’ lifestyle was no doubt austere, but the family embraced the cultural enrichments that were available to it. Luther was self-educated and political, an ardent Populist who greatly admired William Jennings Bryan. Sade was an amateur artist who had an appreciation of the classics; the poet Virgil may have been an inspiration in the naming of the couple’s second eldest son. Both parents were musical—Luther, as noted earlier, played the violin and Sade, the piano—and music was a popular form of family entertainment. Jess followed the musical lead of his parents and is known to have played at least the banjo and saxophone. He had a fine singing voice and, as an adult, joined with the other three brothers in singing barbershop harmony.  

For the four Barnes sons, however, the defining feature of childhood was Luther’s love of sports, especially baseball. Luther had been an amateur pitcher in his own day, and he carefully created an “atmosphere of baseball” in rearing his boys.6 He instructed them in the basics of the game and introduced them to a training regimen when he added to their daily chores the task of pitching a baseball into a peach basket nailed to a shed. He also made sure that they had a place to hone their skills. The seven McKinley Avenue lots purchased by the family on the edge of town faced open country to the north and provided ample room not only for Luther’s gardening operation, but baseball practice as well.

Jess’ youth was filled with school, the raucous rhythms of a large family, baseball drills and games, and the laid-back freedoms found in small town life. He helped with the vegetable garden and, at the age of seventeen, reported “gardener” as his first occupation. As he advanced through his teenage years, however, the baseball lessons learned at the hands of the father took him further and further away from the gardening and practice lots on McKinley Avenue.     

The first reports of Jess Barnes’ entry into the world of amateur ball occurred in the summer of 1909, when one news item in the Jackson County World placed him on the Circleville town team, and another placed him, at least for a short series, on a team in the neighboring community of Corning. Circleville did well that year—at the end of July their record was 21-7—but Barnes’ contributions to the team’s success are not known since the news accounts did not include lineups, line scores, or box scores. In the items found, he was mentioned by name in the account of only one Circleville game, a wild, extra-inning affair played against Goff as part of the Fourth of July festivities in Wetmore, Kansas. Playing before a crowd of 600 for a $50 winner-take-all purse, Circleville won the game, 5-4, in the eleventh inning. The Wetmore paper reported that Circleville had sent about 200 citizens in support of its team, which, if true, would have been pretty much the whole town.  

The following year, Barnes competed in the only season of the Eastern Kansas League, which was designated as a Class D league, the lowest level in Organized Baseball at the time. The league was comprised of teams from six northeast Kansas towns. Barnes was “the kid” who played first base for the Holton team, where he did well enough to foster speculation about his prospects for advancing to the next level. When the Holton team folded in early August 1910 and its franchise was transferred to Blue Rapids, Barnes did not move with the team but instead signed a contract to play first base with the league’s Seneca team at a salary of $80 a month. Seneca was his first recorded contract with an officially sanctioned team in Organized Baseball.

In the 1911 season Barnes played for a town team in Nebraska. During this time, he also toured with a semipro team that barnstormed in Kansas and Nebraska. Somewhere in Nebraska, he crossed paths with catcher George Shestak, whose recommendation and contacts led Barnes to a tryout with the Keokuk Indians of the Class D Central Association. First base was his regular position, but Keokuk needed a pitcher, not a first baseman. Barnes decided to take a chance on his arm, a “pretty fair whip,” and presented himself to Keokuk as a “first class twirler.” 7 The pitching tryout went well enough to secure a contract for 1912, thereby setting his career on a fortuitous new course. During the 1912 season he compiled an 11-14 record for the Indians, a team that finished 49-76, a distant 29 games behind the league leader.

Although the Keokuk team fared poorly, Barnes’ performance there led to a promotion. In October 1912, Barnes was drafted by the Davenport Blue Sox of the Class B Three-I League, where he signed on to pitch in the 1913 season at a salary of $120/month. Davenport proved to be crucial in Barnes’ development as a pitcher, and he would later recall his time in the community with great fondness. The coaching and support he received in Davenport soon produced results. His record in 1913 was 20-10, and his winning percentage of .667 ranked sixth among the league’s pitchers.8 By the spring of 1914, some observers considered him the most promising pitcher in the Three-I League, and he earned his first shot at a major league job.

In May 1914, the Chicago Cubs purchased Barnes’ contract, subject to satisfactory completion of a 30-day trial. The tryout did not go well, and manager Hank O’Day sent him back to Davenport at the end of the trial period. Several years later, Barnes expressed his view that he had not been given a fair chance by the Cubs—he saw no action in a game situation, warming the bench instead, and was mainly asked to work batting practice when nobody much was looking.9 Different news articles offered different thoughts about the reason for his release: his arm went dead at a critical juncture; Davenport’s asking price was too high; he did not have enough physical heft to withstand the rigors of major league play; he just failed to impress. Whatever the reason, Barnes returned to Davenport, where he helped the Blue Sox win the franchise’s first league championship title in 1914 and where, in 1915, he became the league’s dominant pitcher. His midseason record of 18-6,10 with an ERA of 1.38,11 propelled him again to the big leagues, this time for good.

The Show in Boston

The call to the major leagues came from the Boston Braves on July 25, 1915, when the team paid Davenport $2,500 for Barnes’ contract. Barnes had been scouted by Mike Kahoe, who recommended him to Jim Gaffney, Braves owner, shortly after Kahoe himself had been hired by the club. Barnes debuted for the Braves on July 30, 1915, in Cincinnati, where he went two innings in relief but was not a factor in the team’s loss to the Reds. His first start, first win, and first complete game all occurred in Brooklyn on September 8, when he “burned the ball down the trail” and allowed the Robins but five hits and one run.

Barnes’ break-in with the Braves during the final two months of the 1915 season was auspicious—his record after 45 1/3 innings at the major league level was 3-0 with an ERA of 1.39. Yet, for all the promise in the beginning and despite the pitcher-friendly dimensions of Braves Field, Barnes’ 19-36 record over the next two seasons with the Braves was disappointing.

A shoulder injury early in the 1916 season precluded any carryover momentum from 1915. Although allusions to arm problems would surface occasionally throughout Barnes’ career, the period May-June 1916 is the only clear-cut instance found where an injury sidelined him for any significant period. He was placed on the inactive list for part of this time, and lengthy intervals were recorded between game appearances. He managed only one win during the first two months of the 1916 season.

A bigger problem, though, was the fact that the Braves had shed the “miracle” mantle of 1914, when the team had mounted a wonderfully improbable last-to-first pennant drive that culminated in a World Series sweep over Philadelphia. The Braves maintained respectability in both 1915 and 1916, but slipped markedly in 1917, when the team ended its season in sixth place, 25½ games behind the league-leading Giants.

Of Barnes’ 51 starts for the team in 1916-17, the Braves offense delivered only 2.96 runs per game in support, compared to the league average of 3.49, and the team lost 21 times while scoring two or fewer runs. In six of Barnes’ starts in 1917, his team was shut out altogether. His Boston teammates may not have given him the offensive support he would have liked, but they did give him an unusual nickname—Doorknob—because at 6 1/8, his hat size was the smallest in the major leagues. Variants of the moniker later evolved into “Nubby” and “Big Knub.”

Unquestionably, Barnes was the Braves’ workhorse on the mound in 1917. His team highs for the season included: 50 game appearances; 33 starts (including 27 complete games); 17 relief appearances (tied with Pat Ragan); 295 innings worked; and 21 losses. His loss total was the highest among National League pitchers, an unwanted distinction he shared with Eppa Rixey of Philadelphia. Carrying the heaviest load for a losing team did have an upside for Barnes, though, because he could showcase his talent on a regular basis, and by mid-1917, he was starting to get notice as a hard-luck pitcher with a great fastball and a future.

Despite the general implosion of his team and the grind of heading to the mound every three or four days for nearly five months, Barnes finished the final weeks of the 1917 season with authority, winning five of his last eight starts. On October 2, in his final game of the season, he entered the record book for a rather incidental feat when, in the third inning of a game with Brooklyn, he was walked twice by Jeff Pfeffer, and thus became the only pitcher ever to draw two walks from the opposing pitcher in the same inning.12

On two occasions in September 1917, Barnes in effect auditioned for the most powerful manager in baseball, John McGraw. On September 4, in New York, Barnes led the Braves to a 3-1 victory over the Giants. He “pitched some great ball in the pinches” and twice retired the Giants after they had loaded the bases. Ten days later in Boston, the Braves suffered a 5-0 loss to the Giants, but all five runs were made in a scoring flurry following a fielding error on a play that should been an inning-ending out—thus marring an otherwise solid pitching performance.

A Giant Upgrade, A Season Interrupted

Whether in the fall of 1917 or earlier, Barnes had caught McGraw’s attention. The biggest break of Barnes’ career occurred on January 8, 1918, when he became a member of the New York Giants. Barnes arrived in New York via a three-team trade involving the Giants, Braves and Cubs. Charley “Buck” Herzog, Giant second baseman and team captain, was traded to Boston in a straight-up exchange for Barnes and “Laughing” Larry Doyle, a second baseman and former Giant, who had been traded from the Cubs to the Braves solely to round out the deal. Herzog and McGraw had been at serious odds since Herzog refused to accompany the team on its final western road trip of the 1917 season. Herzog wanted to leave New York, and McGraw was willing to accommodate—but not without receiving fair value in return. Barnes was squarely in McGraw’s sights as he entered trade negotiations with Boston.

What had seemed a done deal in January began to unravel in March. Herzog failed to report to the Braves, holding out for a higher salary and a signing bonus.  Former Harvard football coach Percy Haughton, now president of the Boston team, gave ground on a bonus but considered the balance of Herzog’s demands to be unreasonable and he stood ready to cancel the deal. The outcome remained in suspense until April, almost literally to the last hour, when Herzog finally signed his contract with the Braves.

Another uncertainty loomed even larger for Barnes in the early months of 1918. When the Giants traveled north to begin the season, the country had been at war with Germany for a year. Major league teams had already lost 62 roster players to military service, and more were bound to follow through enlistment and the draft—the only questions being how many more, who, when and for how long. Barnes had registered for the draft in May 1917, and was awaiting his fate at the hands of the Jackson County, Kansas draft board. His younger brother Virgil (whose nickname was “Zeke”), soon to be on the Giants’ horizon himself, had enlisted months earlier and was on his way to France.

Anxiety about the future may have stalked in the background during his New York debut on April 17, 1918, but it hardly mattered to the outcome. Barnes and his teammates required only 75 minutes to dispose of the Robins in a seven-hit, 2-0 shutout. In the process, he gave New Yorkers a taste of his characteristic “cool under fire,” a steely nerve that was noticed early and valued highly by his new manager. Barnes thrived with his new team, winning six of the nine starts he made during the first several weeks of the 1918 season, and recording but a single loss. He had an ERA of 1.81, and took full advantage of the solid defense and run support delivered by his teammates. Then the hammer fell in the form of a notice to report for military duty, and his season was finished.

Jess Barnes was inducted into the U.S. Army on May 29, 1918, in Holton, Kansas. He was assigned to Camp Funston, a temporary training cantonment adjacent to Fort Riley, Kansas—only about 55 miles from Circleville. For the next eight months, his home would be the Camp Funston/Fort Riley complex and his mission, to learn the trench warfare techniques needed for deployment to France. Barnes initially was assigned to the 164th Depot Brigade and later was transferred to Company C in the 20th Infantry, doing well enough to be promoted to corporal during his tour of duty.

Jess was never far from a baseball, though, even in the Army. The camp sponsored a baseball team which practiced daily after the military training drills were done. The team represented Camp Funston in contests with other camps and military units, and traveled as far as Kansas City, St. Louis, and Little Rock to play. Barnes was one of the team’s pitchers, as reported in Trench and Camp, the Camp Funston newspaper, but there is some indication that he may have been experiencing a “sore arm” in mid-summer 1918. Only one account of a game appearance was found, that being against a Kansas City team on September 1, 1918, a game which Camp Funston won handily by a score of 4-0.

Barnes did not see action abroad but in mid-September 1918, war of a different kind visited Camp Funston, disrupting life there as it did throughout much of the world. The influenza pandemic struck nearly a quarter of the personnel at Fort Riley/Camp Funston, hospitalizing over 15,000 before dissipating in early November. It is not known whether Barnes took ill, but a Circleville news item in late October 1918 indicated that “most” of the town’s men at Camp Funston had been hospitalized with influenza. The end of the epidemic at Funston, or at least the worst of it, roughly coincided in time with the signing of the Armistice, which in turn cleared the way for resumption of Barnes’ career. He was discharged from the Army on February 6, 1919, in plenty of time for spring training.

A Career Year and Consecutive 20-Win Seasons

Upon joining his teammates in Gainesville, Florida, Barnes began prepping for the 1919 season under the guidance of the new Giants pitching coach and a fellow checker player, Christy Mathewson. Some of the most dramatic single moments in Barnes’ career would come later, but 1919 would be his high-water mark in terms of sustained performance over the course of a full season. In the abbreviated 140-game major league schedule played in that first postwar year, Barnes crafted a 25-9 record, leading all National League pitchers in wins. For most of the season, he found himself on a roll—not only did he compile an enviable pitching record, including an ERA of 2.40 and four shutouts, he notched a career-best .267 batting average in 120 plate appearances.

With the Giants locked in an early race for the league lead, Barnes managed to squeeze in an important personal milestone in the summer of 1919. After pitching a complete-game win over the Cubs during the Giants’ first western trip of the season, Barnes left the team and boarded a train for Kansas. Late the next afternoon, June 17, 1919, in a small ceremony at a Presbyterian parsonage in Topeka, he married Rebecca Margaret Shafer, his hometown sweetheart and former classmate from Circleville. Immediately after the ceremony, the newlyweds left for St. Louis, where he rejoined the team in time for his next scheduled start, a 4-2 victory over the Cardinals.

Throughout June and July, the Giants and the Reds engaged in a gripping race for the National League lead. The Giants started to blink in early August, but a huge six-game showdown with the Reds loomed at the Polo Grounds in mid-month. Cincinnati swept the first of three doubleheaders, and the Giants swept the second. In the final and deciding set, Barnes was the starting Giant pitcher in the first game, which proved to be a “nerve-tingling demonstration of two fighting teams.”13

The game turned on a fielding error followed by one bad pitch in the fourth inning. The inning would have been over, save for an error committed by Giant shortstop Art Fletcher while attempting to tag a runner in a base-stealing play at second. After giving an intentional pass to bring Reds pitcher Hod Eller to the plate, Barnes dished up a treat that Eller sent out of the park, driving in three runs. The Giants went on to lose in a heartbreaker, 4-3. The loss broke up a win streak for Barnes, who had led his team to 10 consecutive wins in his 10 previous starts.14

A piece of Barnes lore survives from this game. Despite the fact that Eller was known for trick pitches, notably the shine ball, the Reds repeatedly asked the home plate umpire to examine the ball that Barnes was using. When the request came to scrutinize Barnes’ glove as well, he flung the glove at the batter in a fit of indignation. The glove ended up near the foul line, where it lay in silent protest as Barnes finished the game barehanded.      

New York not only lost both halves of the final doubleheader with the Reds, falling 6½ games behind, the team also lost its main chance for regaining momentum. The Giants barely broke .500 the rest of the way, while the Reds never looked back.

Pennant hopes had evaporated, but Barnes still had a stake in the final weeks of the 1919 season as he vied for the league pitching title. Wins in September were the hardest of the year to come by for Barnes, and for a while it was an open question whether he would reach the 25-win benchmark. Two of Barnes’ September contests had significance beyond his own quest, however, and for very different reasons.    

On September 10, 1919, Barnes entered a game in Chicago in relief of Fred Toney, who retired with a 3-1 lead after working two innings. Barnes completed the game, which the Giants won, 7-2. From news accounts at the time, it seemed a routine enough game, but a year later Toney testified to the Cook County Grand Jury investigating the Black Sox scandal that the game had been anything but that. As he later revealed publicly, Toney claimed that he had removed himself because he had been approached between innings by Heinie Zimmerman, the Giants’ third baseman, with a $200 offer to throw the game. Toney reported the incident to McGraw that evening, and the next day McGraw suspended Zimmerman for the rest of the season, without pay, ostensibly for missing curfew and repeated violation of team rules. When the real reason for the suspension became public, Zimmerman maintained his innocence, but he did not play in the major leagues again.

Later that month, on September 28, Barnes achieved his goal of 25 wins in a record-setting 6-1 contest between the Giants and the Phillies at the Polo Grounds. In that game, his last start of the season, Barnes became the winning pitcher of the fastest nine-inning game ever played in the major leagues, a game clocked at an astonishing 51 minutes.15 Plenty of action spiced the contest—18 hits (including a double by Barnes), 7 runs, 3 walks and an error—but it was action executed with unusual dispatch, even considering the shorter game times typical of the era. Accounts vary as to when the players shifted to a hustle gear—one suggests the sixth inning and another, the ninth—but there was no lapse in serious effort, except perhaps with the final at-bat, when Phillies shortstop Dave Bancroft made but a feeble attempt to put the ball in play. Barnes delivered only 64 pitches in the game, which the New York American reported at the time to be a major league record for the fewest pitches in a nine-inning game.

The last week of September 1919 was important to Barnes for another, more personal reason. His brother Zeke made his first appearance as a New York Giant, pitching two innings in relief in a road game against the Braves. Zeke had pitched for Sioux City since returning from Army service in France and had been given a tryout with the Giants, probably on Jess’ recommendation. Zeke was not yet ready for prime time—his first two major league innings were rocky, as he yielded six hits and four runs—but McGraw saw his potential, and later that fall the Giants purchased his contract from Sioux Falls for $3,000. Zeke played in the minor leagues for another two years, but his affiliation with the Giants was set, thus creating a “Barnes brothers” story line that would develop along its own track over the next several years.   

Except for the pennant disappointment, 1919 had been a very good year for Barnes: the National League pitching title, the twenty-five wins, the fastest game, his marriage to Rebecca, and his brother’s new connection to the Giants. In the fall of 1919, however, clouds rolled in from an unexpected direction.

Jess Barnes and Giant center fielder Benny Kauff were good friends. Kauff was probably the flashiest member of the team, known for his flamboyance, his temperamental but fun-loving ways, and his finely-tailored wardrobe. Like Barnes, Kauff had wed in 1919, but sometime before their respective marriages the two had shared an apartment in New York. They socialized; their wives became friends. When Kauff decided to pursue a business venture, he asked Barnes to join him as a partner. Barnes agreed, but probably soon regretted it.

On September 4, 1919, Kauff and Barnes opened a tire store at 185 Columbus Avenue in New York City. The idea had first been pitched to Kauff by his chauffeur, Frank Hone, as a way of making extra money during the offseason. Hone was a baseball crank who relished his ties with Kauff; he often presented himself at Kauff’s brother, step-brother or half-brother, but Kauff denied any familial relationship. Since Kauff and Barnes would be away from New York much of the time, they agreed, at Kauff’s suggestion, that Hone would manage the store. Two other employees—James Shields and James “Buddy” Whalen—both salesmen, filled out the staff.

Their business plan mapped a short, straight road to disaster. During the early weeks of the store’s operation, Barnes and Kauff were absent for long stretches, first on road trips with the team and then on personal trips. While Kauff and Barnes were gone, the store’s inventory began to go missing. Sometime in November, they discovered that Hone had stolen up to a third of the store’s tires and was nowhere to be found. When they calculated the damage, the partners estimated that they had been hit with $4,000-$5,000 in losses from the stolen tires and other business expenses. Financial pressures ratcheted up quickly as the tire companies grew increasingly insistent in their demands for payment on the tires they had supplied the store. The Giants came partially to the rescue by giving the two players a loan, of an unknown amount, to help them work their way out of trouble. But trouble was not finished with them yet.

In mid-October, Barnes had bought a Cadillac, the first car he ever purchased, from Jimmy Shields, one of the salesmen at the store. Two months later, strapped for cash, Barnes sold the car to a dealer named William Reddington, using Kauff as his agent. Shortly thereafter, it was discovered that the Cadillac had been stolen, putting Barnes in the position of having to reimburse Reddington $1,100. Worse, both of the store’s salesmen—who had managed to sell all of seven tires between them—turned out to be car thieves. Not surprisingly, the store closed its doors for good in early January 1920.

After Shields and Whalen were arrested in February 1920, they helped police clear twelve car theft cases, and they alleged that Benny Kauff had participated directly in the theft and sale of one of the vehicles. Though he steadfastly proclaimed his innocence, saying that he had been duped and victimized by Shields and Whalen, Kauff was arrested, indicted, and placed under a legal shadow that would linger for more than a year, and ultimately prove a fatal blow to his career.

Offseason woes had set a new tone that continued into the 1920 season. The Giants broke slowly from the gate, with a 3-9 record, and languished near the bottom of the league standings into early July. The bats were cold and the pitching shaky—including Barnes, whose start on the season was 7-11.

The Polo Grounds harbored a raft of unsettling developments during the first half of 1920. Hal Chase and Heinie Zimmerman, the team’s infield anchors in 1919, were both gone in 1920 because of alleged game-fixing activities (although the reason for their absence would not become public until that fall). Frankie Frisch, the promising new infielder who had taken Zimmerman’s spot at third base, had an emergency appendectomy in April and was lost to the team until mid-June. Christy Mathewson, the beloved Giant legend and team coach, was in ill health and had to leave the team in early July, thus marking the start of his long battle with tuberculosis, thought to have been caused when he was gassed accidentally during a training exercise in World War I. Shufflin’ Phil Douglas, chronically high maintenance because of his alcohol binges, was suspended briefly in midseason for his “failure to keep in playing condition.” Benny Kauff, distracted by his legal problems, was having a sub par season, especially in the field, which finally prompted McGraw to send him to Toronto in early July so he could “pull himself together.”

Finally, the team began to stir and started a sustained run in July that placed them in the thick of the pennant race with the Brooklyn Robins and the Cincinnati Reds by late August. Barnes’ return to form was one of several welcome factors in the team’s turnaround. His season pivoted on July 9, 1920, when he faced off in Chicago against Grover Alexander in a classic duel. The game went thirteen innings, with neither pitcher allowing more than two hits in a frame. Both pitchers went the distance. In the bottom of the thirteenth, with two outs, Barnes finally gave up a single that scored the winning run for the Cubs. Although he lost the game, 3-2, it was a superb performance and signaled that he once again was in command of his pitching arm. From that point on, Barnes’ record was 13-4, allowing him to finish the year with a record of 20-15—his second and last 20-win season.

The Giants’ advance took them to one game off the league lead, but their momentum fell short of being enough. Despite having three pitchers with 20 or more wins—Art Nehf, Fred Toney, and Barnes—the team finished in second place, seven games behind the Robins, their interborough rival.  

During the postseason, Barnes joined a squad of players led by McGraw to compete in Cuba’s “American season,” which in 1920 featured a month-long series of games beginning in mid-October between two Cuban teams, the Almendares Blues and the Habana Reds, and the American team composed primarily of Giants players. For the Americans—whose team was supplemented in late October by its headliner, Babe Ruth—the trip was an opportunity to boost their earnings for the year, to engage against high-caliber competition, and not so incidentally, to relax in a resort setting without the strictures of Prohibition.

One source gives Barnes a 1-2 record in Cuba with one tie,16 although another reports that he was winless.17 All accounts agree that he experienced a tough 1-0 loss to the Habana Reds when, though hurling a one-hit game, he loaded the bases with a walk, then forced in the winning run with another. An arm strain suffered in one of the early games apparently kept him out of action during the latter part of the series.

Signs of Wear But A Hero in October

By 1921 Barnes was beginning to be viewed as something of an “in-and-outer” and a “fading veteran.” Measured by number of starts and innings pitched, Barnes would still be one of the top three Giant pitchers in 1921, but he would no longer lead the rotation or receive the first or second nod to start in crucial games. When all was right with his arm, Barnes could be dominant and impressively so, but consistency had started to elude him. For the first time, his ERA would top the 3.00 mark in 1921. As Cullen Cain of the Philadelphia Public Ledger would later observe: “He has an uncertain arm. It goes bad on him and is coy.…and hard to please.” 18 Barnes himself, much later in life, told an interviewer that he had experienced arm trouble in 1921.19 There was evidence of struggle—he started the season with a 4-5 record—but this was an era when pitchers were expected to pitch through their problems, and Barnes had no extended absences during the season.

McGraw could be hard on his pitchers. Southpaw Art Nehf, a teammate of Barnes, observed that McGraw viewed pitchers as “cogs in a machine” and was not averse to “burn[ing] up a pitcher in two or three years” if the good of the team required it.20 In one interview, Jess stated that, “Speed pitching is natural pitching….It is the curves that get your arm.”21 The extent to which the curves got to Barnes’ arm is not known, but the mound mileage was beginning to add up. Entering 1921, he had pitched an average of 294 innings during each of his first two full seasons with the Giants, and his cumulative major league total now surpassed 1,100 innings. The manager had a strong affinity for the curveball and molded his pitching corps accordingly, expecting them to throw an “uncommon number of curves.” Jess Barnes, his brother Zeke, and Nehf all viewed heavy reliance on the curve as punishing to the arm.

There were off-the-field distractions during this time as well. The Kauff auto theft case finally went to trial in May 1921. For its day, it was star-studded. The witness list included not only Kauff and Barnes, but John McGraw, George Burns (Giant outfielder), John Tener (former National League president and former governor of Pennsylvania), Frank Graham and Samuel Crane, both New York sports journalists. The attorneys in the case were also on their way to prominence. Emil Fuchs, Kauff’s attorney, would later own the Boston Braves. Ferdinand Pecora, the assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case, would later receive prestigious appointments as the lead congressional investigator into the causes of the stock market crash of October 1929, as an initial member of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and as a judge in the New York state judicial system.

Barnes appeared as a defense witness on May 12, the fourth day of the trial, and was questioned extensively about his relationship with Kauff, their business partnership, the operation of the tire store, and his own actions relating to the purchase of two vehicles subsequently found to be stolen. There was plenty of heat in the witness box that morning, but McGraw saw no need to scratch him from his scheduled 3:30 start that afternoon in a game against the Cardinals. If Barnes was rattled by his encounter with the justice system, it was not evident early. His control waned, but not until the fifth inning, when he was relieved; the Giants prevailed nonetheless. The next day, Kauff was acquitted by a jury that required less than an hour to render its verdict, but the two friends would never again compete as teammates. Commissioner Landis, who had earlier suspended Kauff from play pending resolution of the court case, refused to reinstate him.

Hints emerged from the trial that Barnes may not have recovered financially from the tire store fiasco. In his testimony he stated that he and Kauff still owed the Giants for the loan they received when the tire store failed. Another worrisome development arose in early May. For the first time as a Giant, Barnes saw his name mentioned in a possible trade, as speculation paired him with infielder Goldie Rapp in a proposed transaction with the Reds for Heinie Groh. The trade did not materialize—although the Giants would later acquire Groh—but the mere mention of it suggested that Barnes’ standing with the team was not as secure as it had once been.    

The distractions were not all unhappy ones, however. Worries about the trial, finances, or the possibility of being traded were more than offset by the eager anticipation of a new family member. Gloria Jean, Jess and Rebecca’s only child, was born in New York on July 4, 1921, just in time for an exciting pennant drive, a marvelous postseason, and the brightest, kindest spotlight of Barnes’ career. 

Over a five-day period in October 1921, at the best possible time, Barnes would find his finest form and display it on a national stage not once, but twice, in exceptional outings against the New York Yankees. The buildup to Barnes’ dramatic postseason started in August. Although the Giants kept themselves within striking distance throughout the summer, the Pittsburgh Pirates held the league lead for most of the season’s first four months, seemingly in command and set to go the distance. In mid-August the Giants made a move, but in the wrong direction, slipping to 7½ games behind the Pirates. This was the Giant vantage point on the eve of a five-game showdown series with the Pirates—not a preferred spot, but still a perfect setup for making a statement. In the space of four days, the Giants swept the Pirates, knocked them on their heels, and reduced Pittsburgh’s lead to 2½ games. Some two weeks later, on September 11, the Giants took an undisputed lead they would not relinquish.      

As in 1920, Barnes’ performance was much improved in the second half of the 1921 season, with a July-September record of 11-4. McGraw did not use him in the Pittsburgh series, but he won four of his final six starts, including two that contributed to the team’s 10-game win streak in mid-September. With the help of the Pirates, who capitulated twice in a doubleheader with the Cardinals, the Giants clinched the pennant on September 29—an off-day for them after having capped a 23-7 run.

The 1921 championship would be decided in one city, in one stadium. New York had its first dream series, the Giants and the Yankees, set to unfold in a best-of-nine format at the Polo Grounds, traditional home of the Giants and leased home of the Yankees. Not only would the World Series settle the year’s major league title, it was an opening volley in the battle for New York baseball supremacy, pitting the established order ruled by John McGraw against the new, upstart challengers led by the sport’s first megastar, Babe Ruth.  

The Series opened badly for the Giants; their bats were silent in the first two games, and the team was shut out twice by a score of 3-0. Barnes dipped his toe in the water in Game One, when he pitched an uneventful inning in relief of Phil Douglas, yielding two hits but no runs. He was not a factor in the decision.

Game Three, played on October 7, was pivotal for the Giants but initially looked to be cut from the same cloth as the first two games. Right-hander Fred Toney, who had won 18 games in 1921, lost all control in the top of the third, failing to retire any of the five batters he faced. His last pitch of the day came with the bases loaded and yielded a two-RBI single by Babe Ruth. When McGraw sent Barnes in to relieve Toney, the Yankees led 3-0 with no outs. On the first play following Barnes’ entry into the game, Giant catcher Frank Snyder threw out Babe Ruth on an attempted steal of second base, significant because Ruth aggravated an elbow injury he had suffered in Game Two. The cut on the injured elbow became infected, and would later cause Ruth to miss the last three games (except for one at-bat as a pinch hitter) of the Series.

One of the runners Barnes inherited scored on a ground ball, but he escaped the third inning otherwise unscathed. He finished the game with seven strikeouts, one of whom was Ruth, allowing only four scattered hits and one earned run. Barnes, who was a left-handed batter, also ignited the first of two Giant scoring sprees. His leadoff single in the bottom of the third positioned him to score the first Giant run of the game and the Series; by the end of the inning, the score was tied. The Giants had an eight-run breakthrough inning in the seventh, and went on to win Game Three by a comfortable 13-5 margin.

The teams split the next two games, so the Series stood 3-2 in favor of the Yankees going into Game Six, played on October 11. Once again Toney got the start, but this time he did not survive even the first inning. The score was 3-0, advantage Yankees, when Barnes took the mound with two outs in the bottom of the first. The Giants quickly countered with three runs in the second. Barnes wobbled when he resumed work in the Yankee half of the frame, giving up a two-run home run to Chick Fewster, Babe Ruth’s replacement. From that point on, Barnes’ pitching baffled and confounded the Yankee offense.

Barnes reeled off 10 strikeouts in Game Six, setting a Series record for a relief pitcher which held until 1966, when it was broken by Moe Drabowsky.22 Barnes completed a “cycle of strikeouts” by fanning every Yankee player in the lineup (and second baseman Aaron Ward twice). Seven of the 10 victims accepted their fate with a called third strike. Although interspersed with walks, seven consecutive Yankee outs were recorded via the strikeout, including the entire side in the bottom of the fourth.  

His world-class performance was not wasted. The Giants gained the lead when they mounted a four-run rally—including a hit and a run scored by Barnes—in the top of the fourth inning, and they eventually won the game, 8-5. At the end of Game Six, the Series was tied three-all. For Barnes, the Series was over, but he had helped to turn the tide. The Giants prevailed in Games Seven and Eight, capturing the championship by a margin of five games to three.

In the 16 1/3 World Series innings that he worked in 1921, Barnes faced 63 batters, struck out 18, walked 6, allowed 10 hits, and had an ERA of 1.65. He also went 4-for-9 at the plate, for an average of .444, and scored three runs. His was not the only impressive pitching performance in the Series—Yankee Waite Hoyt pitched 27 innings with an ERA of 0.00—but Barnes was a difference-maker. Twice he entered the fray in a time of peril, then steered his team away from the cliff’s edge by holding a potent offense at bay. Barnes, the fastball pitcher, brought the Yankees to heel largely with his curveball. In an article proclaiming Barnes as “The Hero of the 1921 World’s Series,” Baseball Magazine described his curves as having “a break as sharp as a razor…with wonderful control,” and estimated that up to 90 percent of the pitches he threw were curves. Johnny Evers, the former Cub second baseman and manager, said in a post-Series interview that Barnes had “curve[d] the Yankees to death,” and pointed to Barnes’ performance as a “vivid example of … curve-ball pitching at its best.”23 The Yankee batters found themselves “swinging shamefully at balls which they could not reach.”24

It was a time to savor, but the Series and the last few weeks of the pennant race had been pressure-packed and stressful. When it was over, Barnes was ready for the tonic of the countryside and eager for the pleasures of a favored pastime, hunting. Returning to Kansas as a celebrity, Barnes gave credit to his father, who had traveled to New York to see his son pitch, and plainly stated his immediate plans, “I need a dog and gun, a river bank with trees, sunshine in the country and a few squirrels, chickens and rabbits.”25

A Holdout, A No-Hitter, and A Series Stalemate

If 1921 ended on a sweet high note, its resonance dissipated early in 1922. On February 20 the Giants management confirmed that both Barnes and Phil Douglas—the pitchers who had accounted for four of the team’s five World Series wins in 1921—were being placed on the auction block, open to acquisition by whichever club offered the best deal. The team was not forthcoming about the details, but there was ample room for speculation about the reasons prompting the action. Douglas was well-known to be a handful; his alcoholism required that he be monitored almost constantly. Barnes was viewed as being past his prime. Probably more significant was the fact both players were contract holdouts who were trying to leverage their World Series achievements into higher salaries. It is possible that the Giants’ attempt to market Barnes and Douglas was not really that at all, but a pressure tactic meant to bring them into line in the renewal of their contracts. Although the Giants initially claimed to have received offers for both players, no bona fide bid was found to have been reported in the media. One National League manager, Irving Wilhelm of the Phillies, flatly stated that the Giants were just peddling “propaganda,” that his team could use Barnes and/or Douglas, but “there’s no way of prying them loose.”26 An additional clue might have been given in early January, when a Washington Post article reported that National League “magnates” had tacitly agreed not to deal with players who held out for large salary increases.

For two weeks the status of Barnes and Douglas remained uncertain. Despite the limbo he found himself in, Barnes reported for spring training in San Antonio. During an interview en route,27 he implied that, in his mind, there was a connection between the Giants’ action and the fact that he had not yet signed his contract. He also indicated that his differences with the team “were not serious,” would be resolved fairly easily, and had not warranted placing him on the market. Eventually, both he and Douglas came to terms with the team and signed contracts to play again with the Giants in the 1922 season. In Barnes’ case, the standoff, if it could be called that, appeared to have paid off. The dollar amounts are not known, but The Sporting News reported that Barnes beamed upon exiting his final contract session with McGraw, and exclaimed happy disbelief that McGraw had given him so much.

The spring of 1922 brought another important development for Barnes. Brother Zeke had trained with the Giants each spring since 1920, and had been called up to the major league team following completion of the Milwaukee Brewers’ season in September 1921. This time, Zeke would stay with the Giants when the team broke camp to begin the 1922 campaign. Luther Barnes, former amateur pitcher who had taught his boys every baseball thing he knew, had two sons on the roster of the New York Giants, the best team in the land.

Jess Barnes’ season stats in 1922 continued to trend downward; he would end the year 13-8, with 212 2/3 innings pitched and an ERA of 3.51. However, he still had a date or two with the extraordinary moment. One of these occurred on May 7, 1922, when he pitched his finest major league game, a 6-0 no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies, before a spellbound crowd of 32,000 at the Polo Grounds. Barnes chased perfection into the fifth inning, but then walked Cy Williams, the Phillies’ center fielder. Because Williams was later eliminated in a double play, Barnes faced only the minimum number of 27 batters in the game. Unlike his World Series gems, on this day he relied mainly on his fastball, which he threw with “faultless control.” Only three of his pitches were hit to the outfield.

The game had some edgy moments, though. The closest call came in the sixth inning, when Phillies catcher Butch Henline hit a slow-moving ground ball to Dave Bancroft, the Giants’ shortstop. Bancroft’s throw to first on the play beat the runner, but only “by an eyelash.” The crucial ruling at first was made by umpire Hank O’Day, the former Cubs manager who had shut the major league door on Barnes during his 1914 tryout with Chicago. Also in the sixth inning, Barnes lost his composure, not while pitching but during his turn at bat. Phillies relief pitcher George Smith had thrown several brushback pitches since entering the game, provoking protest from Giants players. Barnes must have been the target of one of these pitches—after grounding out, he argued with Smith and started after him, only to be restrained by the home plate umpire and Cozy Dolan, a Giant coach. In the seventh inning, a Philadelphia coach asked to see the ball Barnes was using. After inspecting it, he reportedly pointed out several marks or cuts to the home plate umpire, who threw the ball out and replaced it. Down to the final outs, Art Fletcher, Phillies manager and former Giant, tried to put his team back into the game in the top of the ninth by using three of his best hitters from the bench. The maneuver failed. In turn, his pinch hitters flied out to center, grounded out to second, and grounded out to short.  

The Giants were on their way to winning another pennant in 1922, but the strength of the pitching staff was a concern for McGraw. In an effort to upgrade his pitching corps for the stretch drive, McGraw made a trade with the Boston Braves in late July, acquiring right-hander Hugh McQuillan for Larry Benton, Fred Toney, Harry Houlihan, and $100,000 in cash. McQuillan and Barnes soon became friends and running buddies. Away from the intense, competitive atmosphere of the ballpark, Barnes had a reserved, soft-spoken, and good-natured demeanor. But, he also had a rowdy side that was drawn to after-hours action—an interest shared by McQuillan. Characterized by one writer as “a couple of partying pitchers,”28 McGraw dubbed the pair Gallagher and Shean after a vaudeville duo that became popular with the Ziegfeld Follies in the summer of 1922. Although no stranger to night life himself, McGraw would sometimes mock and deride them as they hurried from the clubhouse, eager to start on the evening’s pursuit of a good time.

Jess and Zeke Barnes both had multi-year affiliations with the Giants, but 1922 was the only year when they both were on the team’s roster for the entire season. The brothers appeared in the same game on nine occasions during 1922, with Jess being the starter in six of the games. Of the nine joint appearances, four resulted in no decision for either brother, four resulted in a loss for Jess, and one resulted in a win for Jess and, in retrospect, a save for Zeke. The most interesting of their joint outings occurred on September 24, when both brothers appeared in relief of Rosy Ryan in a game against the Cardinals. Each brother delivered a home run pitch to Rogers Hornsby—his 41st and 42nd of the season—making Hornsby the first batter to homer off two brothers in the same game.29 Much later in life, Jess Barnes made it clear that he viewed Hornsby as something of a nemesis, calling him “the greatest hitter of them all.” 30

In the early fall of 1922, although it was not publicly revealed until December, Barnes’ name entered into the mix in a possible Giants-Reds deal. The Reds had asked waivers on pitcher Dolf Luque in September, just months before he began his best season: in 1923, he would lead the league with 27 wins. Garry Herrmann, president of the Reds, also wrote to McGraw around this time, inviting him to make an offer for Luque. McGraw was not interested in acquiring Luque at the waiver price, but he offered Barnes instead. McGraw received no direct response, but in December Herrmann told the Cincinnati newspapers that he had refused the Barnes-for-Luque trade proposal, implying (wrongly, in McGraw’s view) that the Giants had first broached the subject of acquiring Luque. 

The 1922 postseason was a reprise of 1921 in that the Giants, who clinched the pennant on September 25, would once again face the Yankees at the Polo Grounds, this time in a best-of-seven format. Although the Giants had a league-leading team ERA of 3.45, the consensus view going into the World Series was that Giants pitching was a worry, especially considering the importance of pitching strength in a short series. The team had lost one of its starters to scandal in August, when it was learned that Phil Douglas had written to Leslie Mann, an outfielder for the contending Cardinals, with an offer to desert the Giants in exchange for compensation. At the time he was expelled from the team, Douglas had an 11-4 record and an ERA of 2.63. There were question marks of one sort or another surrounding most of the remaining Giant pitchers. One New York Times article later stated that when the Giant hurlers took to the mound, most of them were thought to bring little more than a “glove and a prayer.” The three best—Art Nehf, Rosy Ryan, and Barnes—had season wins of 19, 17, and 13, respectively. In contrast, the top three of the Yankee rotation—Joe Bush, Bob Shawkey, and Waite Hoyt—had 26, 20, and 19 wins. On the eve of the Series, the question was whether the Giants’ high-octane offense, with its team batting average of .305, and its infield with three future Hall of Famers (George Kelly, Frank Frisch and Dave Bancroft), would be sufficient to compensate for the shortcomings of its rotation.

Compared to 1921, Barnes in 1922 had two fewer wins, his ERA had climbed from 3.10 to 3.51, and the finish to his season was not as strong. He had been relegated to the bullpen in October 1921, yet a year later McGraw handed him the ball to start Game Two. His starting assignment was a reflection of the general state of affairs in the Giant rotation, but it probably also had something to do with the class he had demonstrated the year before. He had gained the reputation of being “one of the best ‘money players’ in the game,”31 able to elevate his level of play when the stakes required it.

Game Two was played on October 5, a sun-filled day more summer than fall and perfect for baseball. Dressed in road gray, Barnes took the hill in the bottom of the first inning and embarked on a “splendid battle” with Bob Shawkey that would lead to one of the strangest finishes in World Series history. Barnes entered the game under circumstances much different from those he had encountered in the 1921 Series. This time, the Giants had a one-game advantage, having won behind Rosy Ryan the day before, and his teammates had handed him a three-run lead—instead of a three-run deficit—before he even touched the ball. Three runs were all that he would get, though, and the Yankees chipped away. An unearned Yankee run scored in the first. Aaron Ward, the weak-hitting second baseman, homered in the fourth with two outs. Babe Ruth scored in the eighth.

McGraw orchestrated the pitch selection, and Barnes executed the manager’s strategy beautifully. Because the Yankees were known for their fastball hitting, the idea was to strictly ration their pitch of choice, even though Barnes, when he used it, threw his fastball that day like “a man snapping a whip.” As in 1921, McGraw’s strategy in Game Two emphasized use of the curve, but he also directed Barnes to introduce an effective new weapon—the “slow ball,” probably referring to what is now known as the palmball. In describing Barnes’ slow ball, a writer for the New York Times reported that the pitch “floated up in a lazy droop” and moved so slowly that “the seams stood out before the eye.”

One of the prime recipients of the slow ball/curveball treatment in Game Two was Babe Ruth; Barnes did not offer Ruth a single heater in five at-bats. He fed Ruth so many slow balls that the crowd, unaccustomed to the pitch, twice jeered Barnes because they mistakenly believed that he was avoiding a head-on confrontation with Ruth. The crowd may have grown impatient at times, but seasoned eyes were more appreciative. Barnes’ masterful delivery—the wafting slow balls, the curves that “flecked the plate like a lash,” the fastballs that sometimes bordered on unhittable—was described in one article as “a delectable treat in pitching.” Even McGraw was generous in his praise: “Jess Barnes was working wonderfully. He had a greater variety of curves and slow balls than I had knowledge of. He’s a top notch pitcher. He’s got the fighting spirit in him, too.”32

The Giants were clinging to a thin one-run lead in the eighth inning when Ruth stepped down the timing of his swing and, in his only hit off Barnes, doubled a slow one off the end of his bat to left field. He advanced to third on a long fly to center, then scored when left fielder Bob Meusel doubled. Ruth’s run knotted the game forever at 3-3.

They played through 10 innings. As the Yankees trotted out to take the field for the top of the eleventh, George Hildebrand, the chief umpire, caught the entire stadium off guard with the stunning announcement that the game was being called because of darkness. As the news registered, thousands in the stands roared their disapproval since it was 4:40 p.m., with an estimated 30-45 minutes of daylight remaining. Hundreds converged around Commissioner Landis as he left the stadium, venting their anger at the game’s abrupt, inconclusive end.

Hildebrand and one of the other senior umpires, Bill Klem, had started discussing visibility conditions as early as the eighth inning. By the ninth, they agreed that the game should be called after the tenth if the score remained tied. A haze had settled in that sometimes camouflaged the ball, both at the plate and in the field, prompting complaints from several Yankee players. The pace of the game had been slow, and the officials were concerned that playing conditions would deteriorate unacceptably if another inning were attempted.  

So, for the third and last time, a World Series game ended in a tie.33 Neither the commissioner nor the clubs had a part in the decision to suspend the game, but they were left with a huge public relations problem. Fans were disgruntled about having been cheated out of a chance for a proper finish, and some suspected that, in extending the Series, Organized Baseball had seized an opportunity to pry more money from their collective pocket. In an attempt to defuse the issue, Commissioner Landis, after meeting with the owners of the two teams, released a statement later that evening saying that the entire proceeds from the game, about $120,000, would be donated to New York charities.

The action may have mollified the public, but it stoked player discontent that had already been building on other fronts. Efforts had been underway since the spring of 1922 to organize a players union, and the decision to donate Game Two receipts gave at least a temporary boost to the cause. Hastily convened “fraternity sessions” among Series players were held to discuss the matter, and there was some talk of staging a walkout before Game Three. Although the players decided not to mount a public protest, the matter represented one more point of contention between baseball’s management and labor.

Another Series intrigue played out beyond public view, one in which Barnes is known to have played a role. Giants bench jockeys, including Barnes, had taunted Ruth aggressively through the first three games, riding him, as Ruth said, “with spurs.”34 Ruth thought some of the epithets being used went beyond the bounds of good sportsmanship, so he and Bob Meusel went to the Giants clubhouse after Game Three, looking to have a conversation with Johnny Rawlings, the utility infielder Ruth thought to be the worst offender. Before the pair could find Rawlings, they were greeted by other Giants players who gave them a testy welcome. Barnes gravitated to the middle of the action and challenged Ruth, telling Ruth he had a “hell of a nerve” coming over to bring Rawlings to account, considering some of the things Ruth had called Barnes when he pitched the previous day. Ruth denied calling Barnes any names, which Barnes angrily retorted was a lie. As their tempers flared, the two shed their coats and were preparing to square off when cooler heads intervened. Accounts vary as to who de-escalated the situation—McGraw, other players, Hugh Jennings—but shortly thereafter, the Yankees were asked to leave, which they did to the sound of Giants laughter.

For all the tension, the controversy surrounding Game Two, and the early worry about pitching, the Giants won the 1922 World Series in four straight decisions (excluding the tie). Rosy Ryan, Jack Scott, Hugh McQuillan, and Art Nehf each earned a win. The Giants’ team ERA for the five games was 1.76; the Yankees had hit a paltry .203 against them. In his 10 innings, Barnes matched the team standard with a 1.80 ERA, allowing eight hits, two earned runs, and one home run.

The Series over, Barnes returned to Kansas with plans to spend the fall hunting with Zeke. However, competing at the highest level of his sport had not dulled Barnes’ appetite for the smaller-scale rivalries found in town team ball. On October 29, he was the starting pitcher for Holton in a game against Valley Falls, played on neutral ground in Topeka. He pitched nine innings before being relieved by Zeke in the tenth. In a bit of déjà vu, the 2-2 game went 11 innings before being called because of darkness.  

Barnes had an abbreviated offseason. In early February 1923 he, along with Giants rookie Clint Blume, went to Ithaca, New York, to work out with and provide instruction to the pitchers on Cornell University’s baseball squad. The pair spent two weeks coaching a dozen student-athletes, an assignment that also gave them a head start in their own conditioning for the spring.

The imminent arrival of spring training portended the possibility a contentious go-round between players and management over contracts and salaries. During the offseason, activity surrounding the new National Baseball Players’ Association had picked up. By December, it was estimated that 132 National League and 93 American League players had joined, representing almost one-third of the players on major league rosters. By mid-February, a players strike seemed at least possible.

It was reported by the New York Times that “practically every member” of the Giants had joined the organization, with Dave Bancroft, team captain, being among the most active. McGraw generally viewed the union’s members as ingrates and was angered by the fact that the organization had been embraced by so many of his own team’s members, who were among the highest paid in baseball. The Giants clearly viewed the players’ attempt to organize as a development in need of quashing. One of the team’s most visible actions in response was to ban from spring training camp any player who had not yet signed his contract.

The Giants’ pitchers and catchers were the first to face a confrontation since they had an early reporting date of February 22 at Marlin, Texas, for advance workouts before the start of the full camp on March 1 in San Antonio. As of February 19, only one frontline pitcher, Hugh McQuillan, had signed. Holdouts at that point included six members of the pitching staff (Jess and Zeke Barnes, Art Nehf, Jack Scott, Bill Ryan, and Jack Bentley, an offseason acquisition); and four position players (Frank Snyder and Earl Smith, catchers; Dave Bancroft, shortstop; and, Johnny Rawlings, infielder.)

For several days, Barnes played out the limited amount of slack he had to work with. He had missed his originally scheduled departure of February 19 from New York because of his holdout status. On the next day, he wired the team to advise them that he planned to report as instructed—which team officials took to mean that he had signed and sent in his contract. Upon arrival in Marlin, when it became clear that he still had not signed, Hugh Jennings issued an ultimatum on behalf of the team: either sign the contract or be cut from the team roster. When Barnes countered that he had never received notification of the team’s ban on unsigned players (although he acknowledged that Zeke had received a telegram to that effect), Jennings presented the issue to Charles Stoneham, president of the Giants, for guidance. The reply came quickly. The ban was to be strictly applied, and Barnes was no exception. Left with little option, Barnes signed the contract and began workouts with his batterymates. One by one, the Giants players fell into line, and the team prepared to defend its championship title.  

“Down the River”

The Giants’ prospects looked good at the beginning of the 1923 season.  The team had exceptional assets in the prowess of its infield and the firepower of its offense. The principal concern continued to be the pitching staff, despite its impressive performance in the 1922 World Series. Barnes’ role on the team was no longer a central consideration—his career was regarded as “nearing the end”—and, as it transpired, he had but 36 innings left in a Giants uniform.

On May 18, 1923, right-hander Jack Scott fractured a small bone in his pitching hand when he was struck by a batted ball during pregame warm-ups. He was expected to be sidelined for up to six weeks, a blow to the Giants since he was a key figure in the starting rotation, having already won five games. At the time of the injury, the team topped the league standings with a 3½ game lead over the Cardinals.

To keep the Giants in the thick of the pennant chase, McGraw took action to address the void left by Scott’s absence. The deal he struck—a straight-up exchange of Barnes and catcher Earl “Oil” Smith for Boston Braves pitcher John “Mule” Watson and catcher Hank Gowdy—was announced on June 7. McGraw, in informing Barnes and Smith of the trade, reportedly told them, “You’re going down the river—you’re headed for Boston.”35 On the day of the trade, Barnes made his last appearance for New York; he picked up a loss in two innings of relief against the Cubs in Chicago. When the Giants left the Windy City, Barnes and Smith stayed behind to suit up for their second consecutive series against the Cubs, this time donning less prestigious colors.

Being traded probably was not a total surprise to Barnes—the injury to Scott may have done little more than influence the timing and the particulars. Still, moving from the league-leading, reigning champion to a near tailender, 16 games removed from first, must have required some getting used to. Swagger rights were gone, as were the Giant standards for player amenities.

The trade became something of a precipitating factor in a legal petition filed in the fall of 1923 by a group of Boston citizens who requested an investigation of the Red Sox and Braves ownership and their respective relationships with the Yankees and Giants. The investigation did not materialize, but the petition gave brief voice to long-held suspicions that there were “irregularities” in the relationships between the two pairs of teams, given the many trades over the years that on balance favored the New York clubs.

Whether the Barnes-for-Watson swap gave the Giants an advantage is, in retrospect, debatable. During the balance of the 1923 season, Barnes had more wins than Watson (10 vs. 8), and he had a better ERA (2.76 vs. 3.41). True, he had significantly more losses (14 vs. 5), but he played for a team that finished 41½ games behind the Giants. Watson started Game One of the World Series for the Giants, but he pitched only two innings and allowed three earned runs. Although younger than Barnes, Watson lasted only one more year in the major leagues, going 7-4 for the Giants in 1924.

Barnes would spend two and a half seasons in Boston during his second run with the Braves; in 100 appearances he had 83 starts, 50 complete games, and 36 wins. Deep in the twilight of his major league career, he nonetheless compiled a creditable record in 1924. Just as he had in 1917, Barnes became the workhorse for the Braves in 1924. He had an ERA of 3.23 and led the team in wins (15), complete games (21), shutouts (4), and innings pitched (267 2/3).  Most notably, he completed the 1924 season without a wild pitch or a hit batsman, and still holds the National League record for the most innings worked by a pitcher to have accomplished that feat.36

For the second time in his career, Barnes also led the team and the league in losses, with 20. The 1924 Braves finished last in the league with 100 defeats, largely because of the team’s anemic offense. At .256, the team batting average was 44 points lower than the league-leading Giants and 19 points below the Phillies, the club with the second-worst batting average. In 11 of Barnes’ 20 losses in 1924, the team was either shut out or scored only one run.

Barnes’ work in 1924 wasn’t completely obscured by his team’s claim on the cellar. Burt Whitman, sportswriter for the Boston Herald and The Sporting News, regarded the veteran as still being “one of the very best pitchers in either league.” Whitman and others reported that Barnes retained the respect of National League managers, some of whom ranked him high among the league’s pitchers “when smartness and stuff both are taken into consideration.”

Less welcome media attention came during a road stop in Cincinnati midway through the 1924 season, when news of Barnes’ off-the-field activities spilled onto the sports page. Rain had forced cancellation of the Braves-Reds game scheduled for July 14, so some of the Braves players decided, Prohibition notwithstanding, to turn the unexpected downtime into a party marathon that extended well beyond midnight. Hours into the revelry, the fun deteriorated into something else, triggering angry outbursts that led to a “free-for-all” involving five or six Braves players. The Cincinnati Enquirer reported the principal antagonists to be Barnes and catcher Mickey O’Neil, both of whom brought visible signs of injury with them to the ballpark for the next day’s game. O’Neil sported a black eye and damage to his chin and jaw. Barnes suffered from a sprained or dislocated thumb and was unable to make his scheduled start.            

The 1924 season also marked the beginning of the Barnes vs. Barnes matchups when, on May 2 in Boston, both Jess and Zeke entered the same game in relief. They were not the first brothers to appear in the same major league game, but when they were each handed the ball on June 26, 1924, in New York City, the Barnes brothers became the first pair to oppose each other as starters.37 Jess took the loss in the Braves’ 8-1 defeat by the Giants, but Zeke did not figure in the decision. Altogether, the brothers would share opposite-team box score billing 10 times in their major league careers, including five instances when they both started for their respective teams. Of the 10 joint appearances, Jess won five and lost three, while Zeke won three and lost four. Zeke pitched for the Giants in all 10 contests. Jess appeared six times for the Braves, and four times for the Robins.

In addition to their same-game appearances, the brothers brandished both their family and team colors by winning their respective halves of a doubleheader in Boston on September 1, 1924. In the first game, Jess went the distance on the mound, hit safely in two of his four at-bats, and drove in three runs for the Braves, who prevailed by a score of 5-4 in 11 innings. Zeke had an easier time in his complete-game outing for the Giants, who took the second game by a score of 10-2. He also had a good day at the plate, going 2-for-4 and scoring two runs.

Not a great deal is known about the relationship between the two brothers, but they seem to have been close. They spent time together in Kansas during the offseason, occasionally playing town team ball or even basketball. Both were avid outdoor sportsmen, and they especially loved to hunt. Evidence of their marksmanship comes through in a family story about a recreational outing to an arcade, probably in the New York area, that included a stop at the arcade’s shooting gallery. Jess and Zeke wore out their welcome by cleaning out the gallery’s prizes, and were barred from ever returning.

Jess had helped open major league doors for Zeke, but there also must have been some good-natured rivalry once they found themselves on opposing teams. If Zeke’s comments to Jess following a win in 1925 are any indication, there were mild taunts when one or the other prevailed in a head-on contest: “I thought you were going to show me how to pitch…when you’re not busy come around and I’ll show you how to twist them…” 38 

Boston retained Jess through the 1925 season, when his record dipped to 11-16 with an ERA of 4.53. In October of that year the Braves announced that he had been traded to Brooklyn, along with outfielder Gus Felix and catcher Mickey O’Neil of the Cincinnati scrum. In return, the Braves acquired catcher Zach Taylor, infielder Jimmy Johnston, and outfielder Eddie Brown.

As Barnes moved through his 1926 and 1927 seasons with the Robins, it became evident that the major league ride was nearly over. In 1926, his total innings fell to 158 while his ERA soared to 5.24; during his four-month season in 1927, he pitched only 78 2/3 innings, had a 5.72 ERA, and won but two games. Although his arm had been the intermittent question mark during his career, an interview-based article late in Barnes’ life suggests that ailing knee joints were a factor in the gradual breakdown of his pitching mechanics.39

A Step Down, Then Out

Just two days before his thirty-fifth birthday, on August 24, 1927, Brooklyn gave Barnes his unconditional release. Even though he had cast a faint shadow near the end of his career, there was some show of support in the media at the time of his departure. One writer, Eddie Murphy, felt that Barnes’ performance had suffered because he had been underused, that he was a pitcher who needed steady work to be at his best. Thomas Rice, sportswriter for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and columnist for The Sporting News, wrote that it was a “pity” that no major league club claimed Barnes through the waiver process.

His knees and/or arm may no longer have passed major league muster, but they were still good enough to earn him a paycheck, and this time, Barnes arranged for his own transition to a new clubhouse—after having requested and received permission from Brooklyn manager Robinson to explore opportunities with other teams. At the same time his release from the Robins was announced, it was reported that he had signed with the Toledo Mud Hens, the American Association team managed by his former teammate Casey Stengel.

When Barnes joined the 1927 Mud Hens, the team was on its way to securing the American Association title for the first time in franchise history, and the race was a nailbiter. At the start of action on the final day of the season, three teams remained in contention—Toledo, Milwaukee, and Kansas City. Toledo emerged victorious by sweeping a doubleheader with Indianapolis, which placed the Mud Hens two games ahead of both Milwaukee and Kansas City in the final standings. The championship entitled the Mud Hens to represent the league in the “Junior (or Little) World Series,” the annual duel between the titleholders of the American Association and the International League.

During his short tenure as a Mud Hen in 1927, Barnes compiled a 3-2 record in seven games, with an ERA of 3.19.40 Stengel tapped Barnes as his starter in the opening game of the Junior World Series against the Buffalo Bisons, the standard bearer for the International League, a game which Barnes won, 5-2, while allowing only five scattered hits. Barnes also led the Mud Hens to a 3-2 victory in the Game Five of the series. In both games, his batterymate was Mickey O’Neil, whose jaw had done injury to Barnes’ thumb in Cincinnati, and whose career had followed along the same path as Barnes’, from Boston to Brooklyn to Toledo. Barnes’ two victories in the series helped the Mud Hens claim the series crown by a margin of five games to one.

Barnes played one more year with Toledo, and then was sold to the Buffalo Bisons of the International League, where he competed for a full season in 1929 before being given his unconditional release in May 1930. It was in Buffalo, on May 8, 1929, that Jess and Zeke made their last joint appearance in a game between teams sanctioned by Organized Baseball. Zeke, who was wrapping up his career as well, started the game for the Baltimore Orioles; Jess entered the game as a reliever. In going the distance, Zeke allowed six hits and earned the win, 6-1.

His professional baseball days now finished, Barnes settled in northeast Kansas, which had remained his offseason base for most of the preceding 15 years. Jess, Rebecca, and Gloria took up full-time residence in Holton, a community of 2,700 where, in 1923, they had purchased a home. Luther and Sade still lived in Circleville, about seven miles northwest of Holton, and Barnes’ siblings still lived in nearby communities.

In particular, the four brothers were now all nearby. Zeke had been released by the Class AA Baltimore Orioles, his final professional stop, in June 1929 and had returned to Holton to live. Charles and Clark were both in Horton, a railroad town of 4,000 located about 17 miles northeast of Holton, where they were employed at the Rock Island shops. The two younger brothers had received tryouts at the major league level (Charles with the Giants and the Braves; Clark, with the Giants and the Robins), but did not break through. Charles had played with the Rock Island semipro team in Horton, and also had contracted briefly with a minor league team in 1925. Clark had two minor league contracts recorded in 1929, one in Topeka and the other in Norfolk, Nebraska.

Baseball ran forever deep in Barnes family blood, so in the late summer and early fall of 1930, the brothers organized several exhibition games featuring the Barnes Brothers All Stars, a team which they based in Horton. Charles was the manager and played shortstop in these games, while pitching duties were split among Zeke, Jess, and Clark. Team line-ups also placed Jess at third base, and Zeke and Clark in the outfield; other local talent filled out the roster, including several team members who had played with Charles on the Rock Island semipro team. The games were a commercial enterprise, with the price of admission being fifty cents for men and twenty-five cents for women and children. In the news account of one of the games, it was reported that the crowd “almost filled the grandstand” in Horton. Calamity brought the venture to a sudden halt on October 12, when Clark and another outfielder collided violently while attempting to field a fly ball in the fifth inning of a game against the Killion All Stars. Clark got the worst of it, suffering two major fractures in his leg. One last game was scheduled that fall, this time a benefit for Clark to help defray hospital and other costs related to his recovery.

Jess’ activities gravitated increasingly toward the Horton community. By the spring of 1931, he had opened a pool hall in Horton, which he named the Barnes Recreation Parlor; in midsummer of 1931, the Barnes family moved to Horton. He also became active in baseball programs organized by the local post of the American Legion. That summer, the Recreation Parlor sponsored one of the six teams participating in the post’s junior baseball league, open to boys in the 12-16 age group. Barnes also was named manager of the men’s team fielded by the post. Both Charles and Jess played with the Legion team, with Jess handling the action at first base.

The Barnes Recreation Parlor did not sponsor a team in 1932, but in the spring Barnes was named manager of the Legion’s junior league baseball program. Although he had plans for innovation—he wanted to introduce a system for recording player statistics to monitor each boy’s performance throughout the season—it is not clear whether he was able to follow through fully with the Legion responsibilities. Starting in early May, semipro commitments took him away from Horton for considerable chunks of time throughout the summer.

In the spring of 1932, Jess and Zeke both affiliated with a Topeka-based semipro team, the Topeka Jayhawks. Jess was the regular first baseman, while Zeke was on the pitching staff. The team was managed by Elwood “Speed” Martin, a former big league pitcher who had spent most of his six-year career with the Cubs. Although not on the roster at the beginning of the season, the team later added another headliner in left fielder John Levi, an Arapaho who had earned All-American honors as a fullback with Haskell Institute in 1923, and who had walked away from a potential career with the New York Yankees in 1925 while having a successful season with one of the Yankee farm clubs.

The Jayhawks’ season started well enough, but began to sour in midsummer. The team generated considerable ill will in Junction City, Kansas, when it failed to honor a commitment to play the local semipro team in a heavily promoted contest scheduled as part of the community’s Fourth of July festivities. A tournament in Amarillo had lured the Jayhawks to Texas, where the team’s goal was to win prize money to stake a run at competing in the prestigious Denver Post Tournament. When the Jayhawks failed to finish in the money in Texas, insufficient funds forced the team to cut its trip short and withdraw its entry in the Denver tournament.

Upon returning from the Jayhawks’ futile road trip, Barnes found himself being courted by a number of teams trying to bolster their rosters for the upcoming Kansas State Baseball Tournament in Wichita. In a move that would hold long-term implications for him, Barnes opted to sign with the Skelly Oilers of El Dorado, Kansas. He had considered offers from 14 of the tournament’s 40 entrants, but the decision to go with the Oilers was influenced by the fact that pitcher John Mildexter, fellow Horton resident and former professional player, had also signed with the team.

Skelly played five games in the Wichita tournament, with Barnes at first base. He did not take the mound in any of the games but was a force at the plate, garnering eight hits. Tourney hopes were dashed when the Oilers were handed their second, and eliminating, loss in their fifth contest of the tournament, falling in the tenth inning to an Emporia team that ultimately advanced to the championship game. If the Oilers found any consolation in Wichita, it was in the fact that the team had bested a bitter rival from a neighboring community, the Oil Hill Empires, in the first round.

Barnes played out the rest of the season with the Oilers, usually at first base, but occasionally on the mound, at second base, or even in the outfield. Two exhibition contests highlighted the balance of the Oilers’ year, including a matchup that Barnes helped arrange with the traveling Cuban Stars and a 6-0 losing bout with the talented Kansas City Monarchs.

With the close of the 1932 Oilers season, Barnes, at the age of forty, had reached the end of his playing days in any kind of paid capacity. He had done well enough in his career that, in ordinary times, the transition from baseball likely would not have presented great financial challenges, but his final minor league contract ended only months after the stock market crash in October 1929, and the weight of the Great Depression fell heavily on him, as it did the entire country. In 1925 and 1926, Barnes had invested in three agricultural properties in Jackson County. Over a seven-month period in 1933 and early 1934, he and Rebecca lost all three to foreclosure, with each 80-acre parcel being sold at sheriff’s auction on the steps of the Jackson County Courthouse.

In late 1934 or 1935, Barnes left Kansas for several years. He first moved the family to Ekalaka, Montana, where he ran a pool hall, then relocated again in 1938 when he accepted a position as manager of a Weiser, Idaho, team that competed in the independent Idaho-Oregon League. Three years after the move to Idaho, Barnes was ready to return to Kansas, and in April 1941, he hired on as the manager of the Skelly Oilers, the semipro team in El Dorado that he had played for briefly during 1932. He held the manager’s job in 1941 and again in 1942, although the latter season was cut short because of low attendance following the U.S. entry into World War II.

A few months after his return to the state, Barnes was recognized by the Kansas baseball community for his accomplishments on the diamond. In an “Old Timers’ Night” presentation ceremony before the evening’s feature game in the Kansas State Semi-Pro Baseball Tournament, Barnes was inducted into the Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame on July 18, 1941.

In May 1942—the twentieth anniversary of his no-hitter against the Phillies—Barnes set out on a completely new career when he joined the El Dorado Police Department as a police officer. He advanced to the rank of captain during his 13-year tenure, and retired in 1955 after suffering the first of several heart attacks. Altogether, Rebecca and he spent 17 years in El Dorado, during which time he established himself as a respected member of the community. He was “highly regarded,” had a “reputation for diligence and integrity,” and was a “pleasant and agreeable companion” who was counted by many in the community as a friend.41

The home tie to El Dorado was ruptured suddenly and disastrously on June 10, 1958, when a horrific tornado struck the southwest part of the city, destroying 200 houses, including the Barnes home. Only days before, Barnes had been released from the hospital after having received treatment for a heart attack. More bad news came several weeks later when Zeke, who had lived in nearby Wichita for a number of years, suffered a heart attack on July 24 and succumbed to it hours later. Zeke died only a short time after the four Barnes brothers had gathered at his Wichita home for what turned out to be a final reunion. Given the spate of recent sorrows and with their home now gone, Jess and Rebecca decided to relocate again, this time to Midway City, California, a destination determined in part by proximity to relatives.

Slowed in his later years by heart disease and an arthritic hip, the end for Barnes came on September 9, 1961, in the Guadalupe County Hospital in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. He had been stricken in a motel room by a final heart attack, this one massive enough to claim his life. Rebecca, his daughter Gloria, and Gloria’s husband had all accompanied Barnes on his last western road trip, making the long journey home after visiting family members in Kansas. He was interred at Westminster Memorial Park, Westminster, California on September 14, 1961.

In two of the concluding markers of Jess Barnes’ life, there is ironic poignancy in what was left unsaid. The headstone on his grave is that of a veteran, and reveals only that he was a corporal in the Army during World War I; his death certificate simply records “police officer” as his usual occupation. Neither offers a hint of the exceptional nature of his life.

From boyhood to middle age, Barnes had dwelt in the “atmosphere of baseball” and had, in the headiest moments, touched heights beyond imagining at the time his father Luther first immersed him in it. Inning after countless inning, season after season, in venues large and small, in the midst of whatever else was happening, the game was the constant. Baseball was there at every turn: as he came of age, as he struggled for and eventually achieved success, as he trained for war, as he married and became a father, as he braced against the grim days of the Great Depression. When the time came to finally let go of it, to settle into a regular job with regular hours, to become an established and longstanding member of a community, Barnes transformed into an “average guy,” living an average life, while holding claim to an anything-but-average past. The cachet of his past, with its unsung feats from a legendary time, speaks to this day, beckoning still to be remembered and celebrated.

Jesse Barnes was selected for induction into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame in 2009.

Sources 

A reference copy of this article containing more extensive citation and annotation information is on file at the library of the Kansas State Historical Society in Topeka, Kansas.

Special thanks are owed to Diana Kauffman, Vernon Barnes, Jan Achelpohl, Melany Barnes, Gary Barnes, Ila Rose Askren, Steve Achelpohl, and Ruth Barnes Bemiller for the information they generously supplied about the history of the Barnes family.

Unless otherwise noted, Major League Baseball is the source of major league pitching and hitting statistics for individuals and teams. (See “Internet” section below for web site addresses.) Baseball-reference.com was used for team ERAs. Retrosheet.org was used for information about schedules, individual games, transactions, and team standings within the respective seasons. Baseballlibrary.com also was consulted for information related to team standings.

Other sources used for individual games include published game accounts and/or box scores, particularly those appearing in the New York Times and The Sporting News. Information from Retrosheet.org, The Sporting News, and the New York Times was used to compile a database of Barnes’ pitching appearances by date, type of appearance (start/relief), opposing team, and outcome. The database was used to track his intra-season performances and intervals between game appearances.

Books

Alexander, Charles. John McGraw. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995 (originally published in 1988).

Browning, Reed. Baseball’s Greatest Season, 1924. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.

Burk, Robert F. Much More Than a Game: Players, Owners, and American Baseball since 1921. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

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

Cottrell, Robert C. Blackball, the Black Sox, and the Babe: Baseball’s Crucial 1920 Season. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2002.

Creamer, Robert W. Babe: The Legend Comes to Life. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1974.

———. Stengel: His Life and Times. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.

Dittmar, Joseph J. Baseball Records Registry: The Best and Worst Single-Day Performances and the Stories Behind Them. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1997.

Durso, Joseph. The Days of Mr. McGraw. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1969.

Echevarria, Roberto Gonzalez. The Pride of Havana: A History of Cuban Baseball. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Figueredo, Jorge S. Cuban Baseball: A Statistical History, 1878-1961, Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2003.

Finch, Robert L., L.H. Addington, Ben M. Morgan, ed. The Story of Minor League Baseball: 1901-1952. Columbus, OH: The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues, 1953.

Foster, John, ed. Spalding’s Official Base Ball Guide. New York: American Sports Publishing Company, 1913, 1915, 1930.

Fuchs, Robert S. and Wayne Soini. Judge Fuchs and the Boston Braves, 1923-1935. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 1998.

Gietschier, Steve, compiler, ed. The Complete Baseball Record and Fact Book: 2006 Edition. St. Louis: Sporting News Books, 2006.

Graham, Frank. McGraw of the Giants: An Informal Biography. New York: Van Rees Press, 1944.

———. New York Giants: An Informal History of a Great Baseball Club. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002 (originally published in 1952).

Hirshberg, Albert. The Braves, the Pick and the Shovel. Boston: Waverly House, 1948.

Holway, John B. The Complete Book of Baseball’s Negro Leagues: The Other Half of Baseball History. Fern Park, FL: Hastings House Publishers, 2001.

Hynd, Noel. The Giants of the Polo Grounds. New York: Doubleday, 1988.

James, Bill. The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract: The Classic – Completely Revised. New York: Free Press, 2001.

James, Bill and Rob Neyer. The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers: An Historical Compendium of Pitching, Pitchers, and Pitches. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2004.

Johnson, Lloyd and Miles Wolff, ed. Encyclopedia of Minor League Baseball: The Official Record of Minor League Baseball –Third Edition. Durham, NC: Baseball America, Inc., 2007.

Kaese, Harold. The Boston Braves: 1871-1953. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2004.

Kohout, Martin. Hal Chase: The Defiant Life and Turbulent Times of Baseball’s Biggest Crook. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 2001.

McGraw, John. My Thirty Years in Baseball. New York: Arno Press, 1974 (originally published in 1923).

McKale, William and William D. Young. Fort Riley: Citadel of the Frontier West. Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 2000.

Montville, Leigh. The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth. New York: Doubleday, 2006.

Oxendine, Joseph B. American Indian Sports Heritage. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995.

Pietrusza, David. Judge & Jury: The Life and Times of Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis. South Bend, IN: Diamond Communications, Inc., 1998.

Porter, David L., ed. Biographical Dictionary of American Sports: Baseball, Revised and Expanded Edition, A-F. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.

Reichler, Joseph L. The Great All-Time Baseball Record Book: A Unique Sourcebook of Facts, Feats and Figures. New York: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1981.

Ruth, Babe (as told to Bob Considine). The Babe Ruth Story. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co, Inc., 1948.

Sanford, Jay. The Denver Post Tournament: A Chronicle of America’s First Integrated Professional Baseball Event. Cleveland: Society for American Baseball Research, 2003.

Schlossberg, Dan. Baseball Gold: Mining Nuggets from Our National Pastime. Chicago: Triumph Books, 2007.

Schott, Tom, and Nick Peters. The Giants Encyclopedia—Second Edition. Champaign, IL: Sports Publishing, 2003.

Spatz, Lyle, ed. The SABR Baseball List & Record Book: Baseball’s Most Fascinating Records and Unusual Statistics. New York: Scribner, 2007.

Zminda, Don. From Abba Dabba to Zorro: The World of Baseball Nicknames. Morton Grove, IL: STATS Publishing, 1999.

Articles

“The All American Baseball Club of 1920.” Baseball Magazine, December 1919. (As cited by Robert C. Cottrell in Blackball, the Black Sox, and the Babe: Baseball’s Crucial 1920 Season, McFarland & Co., Inc., 2002.)

Allen, Lee. “Barnes Brothers Squared Off Ten Times in Major Careers.” The Sporting News, July 27, 1967.

Applebee, Charles A., Jr. “Jess Barnes Points to Days in Davenport as Happiest of His Career.” Davenport Democrat and Leader, October 23, 1925, 29-30.

“At Opening 1953 World Series El Dorado’s Chief of Police Recalls Career with Giants.” Butler Free Lance (El Dorado, KS), October 1, 1953.

“The Best Infield I Ever Saw” (based on an interview with John Evers). Baseball Magazine, July 1922.

Bigham, Joe. “Casey was Funny but Smart, Too.” Clipping from Salem (OR) Capital Journal, July 2, 1959.

———. “Record Book Can ‘Goof.’” Clipping from Salem (OR) Capital Journal, 1959.

“The Big League Barnes Boys.” The Literary Digest, June 27, 1925. (Based on an article by Cullen Cain that appeared in The Country Gentlemen. Also see “Scribbled by ScribeS,” The Sporting News, April 27, 1922.)

Conlon, Charles M. “Big Leaguers Whose Sensational Work Has Featured the Season Up to Date.” Baseball Magazine, October 1919.

Engelhard, Charles. “What Really Makes a Pitched Ball Curve.” Baseball Magazine, March 1926.

Fair, Don. “Sportsfair.” Clipping from the Salem (OR) Capital Journal, no date.

Goldstein, Richard. “Moe Drabowsky, Pitcher and Accomplished Prankster, Dies at 70.” New York Times, June 13, 2006.

Graham, Frank. “Graham’s Corner: About Jess Barnes.” Clipping from Hall of Fame Player File, September 1961.

———. “Setting the Pace.” Clipping from Hall of Fame Player File, 1939.

“Jess Barnes New Giants’ Iron Man.” ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Hartford Courant, April 7, 1918.

“Jess Barnes’ Ten Straight Victories (table).” Baseball Magazine, October 1919.

Jones, David. “Benny Kauff.” Baseball Biography Project, Society for American Baseball Research. http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=986&pid=7293.

Koford, J.C. “Baseball’s Greatest Pitching Staff.” Baseball Magazine, July 1924.

———. “Control Among Pitchers.” Baseball Magazine, February 1923.

———. “The Hero of the 1921 World’s Series.” Baseball Magazine, December 1921.

Lewis, Allen. “This Was the Fastest Major League Game Ever.” Baseball Digest, August 1978.

Lieb, Frederick G. “When Brothers Win Fame on the Baseball Diamond.” Baseball Magazine, February 1923.

Lucero, John. “Ruth ‘No Trouble’ for Jesse Barnes.” Clipping (probably from the Orange County Register, January 1961).

“One of the Four Brothers” (based on an interview with Virgil Barnes). Baseball Magazine, September 1926.

Rainey, Chris. “Mike Kahoe.” Baseball Biography Project, Society for American Baseball Research. http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=1089&pid=7242

Rice, Grantland. “Kansas Cyclone Hits and Scatters Yanks.” ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Hartford Courant, October 12, 1921.

Runyon, Damon. “Barnes Has Yanks Pop-Eyed as He Whiffs Ten Batters.” Bridgeport Telegram, October 12, 1921.

Ruth, Babe. “Ruth Says Giants are Like Pawns for Manager.” Syracuse Herald, October 17, 1921.

Sanborn, I.E. “Depriving Pitcher of Glove Might Abolish Freak Shoots,” ProQuest Historical Newspapers, Chicago Tribune, October 22, 1919.

Snider, Dick. “Capitalizing on Sports.” Topeka Daily Capital, August 1, 1958.

Ward, John J. “A Unique Pitching Family: How the Four Barnes Brothers, Led by Jesse and Virgil, Aspire To Be Major League Pitchers.” Baseball Magazine, September 1924.

“World’s Series and My Friend McGraw” (based on an interview with Art Nehf). Baseball Magazine, November 1926.

Newspapers (*indicates a major source)

The Bee (Danville, VA): 1922-23, 1925, 1927.

Boston Daily Globe: 1917-18.

Bridgeport (CT) Telegram: 1918, 1921-23, 1927.

Brown County World (Hiawatha, KS): 1910.

Cincinnati Enquirer: 1924.

Daily Northwestern (Oshkosh, WI): 1914.

Daily Review (Decatur, IL): 1912, 1915.

Denver Post: 1932.

El Dorado (KS) Times*: 1932, 1941-42, 1958, 1961.

Evening State Journal and Lincoln (NE) Daily News: 1918.

Holton (KS) Recorder (includes section on Circleville news)*: 1910-35 (various years).

Holton (KS) Signal: 1910.

Horton (KS) Headlight-Commercial*: 1930-32.

Jackson County World (Circleville, KS)*: 1900-09.

Junction City (KS) Union: 1932.

Lima (OH) Daily News: 1915, 1918-19, 1922.

Marshall County News (Marysville, KS): 1910, 1931.

McLouth (KS) Times: 1909.

New York Times*: 1915-27.

Seneca (KS) Courier-Democrat: 1910.

Soldier (KS) Clipper: 1909.

The Sporting News*: 1915-30, 1961.

Syracuse (NY) Herald: 1918, 1921.

Topeka Daily Capital: 1910, 1919, 1921-22, 1924, 1932, 1958.

Topeka State Journal: 1919, 1921.

Trench and Camp (Camp Funston, KS): 1918.

Washington Post: 1914, 1918-27.

Weiser (ID) Signal: 1941.

Wetmore (KS) Spectator: 1909.

Wichita Beacon: 1932.

Wichita Eagle: 1932, 1941.

Zanesville (OH) Signal: 1924.

Internet

American Association Almanac—The Toledo Mud Hens.

http://www.americanassociationalmanac.com/toledo.php

Baseball Almanac.

http://www.baseball-almanac.com/

Baseball Library.

http://www.baseballlibrary.com/

Find a Grave—Jesse Barnes.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7713120

Kansas Baseball Hall of Fame—Inductees Bios.

http://www.wichitahof.com/Baseball_Inductees_Bios.htm

Major League Baseball—Braves History.

http://pressbox.mlb.com/pressbox/downloads/y2007/atl/history.pdf

Major League Baseball—Giants History.

       http://pressbox.mlb.com/pressbox/downloads/y2006/sfg/history.pdf

Major League Baseball—Historical Player Stats.

       http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/historical/player_stats.jsp

Major League Baseball—Historical Team Stats.

       http://mlb.mlb.com/stats/historical/team_stats.jsp?c_id=mlb

Office of Medical History, Office of the Surgeon General, U.S. Army. “Excerpts on the Influenza and Pneumonia Pandemic of 1918 from War Department Annual Report to the Secretary of War, Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1919, Report of the Surgeon General,” and “Chapter II: Inflammatory Diseases of the Respiratory Tract,” Vol. IX, Communicable Diseases, The Medical Department of the United States Army in the World War, both at http://history.amedd.army.mil/default_index2.html.

RetroSheet, Inc.

http://www.retrosheet.org/

Rootsweb.com. “Historical Background of Lincoln County, Oklahoma,” by Don E. Sporleder.

       http://www.rootsweb.com/~oklincol/history.html

Sports Reference, Inc.

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

Toledo’s Attic—Toledo’s Finest Hour.

http://www.toledosattic.org/details_item.asp?key=586&did=120

Government Records

Beard, Frank S., Official Stenographer, Court of General Sessions of the Peace, City and County of New York. Transcript of Stenographer’s Minutes: The People against Benjamin Kauff. New York, 1921. On file in the archives of the Lloyd Sealy Library, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY.

Certificate of Death—Jesse L. Barnes. State of New Mexico, 1961.

District No. 2 N & J, Wetmore Township, Nemaha and Jackson Counties. “Report of Classification, Standing, Advancement and Attendance of School,” for the term ending June 3, 1898.

District No. 2, Reilly Township, Nemaha County. “Report of Classification, Standing, Advancement and Attendance of School,” for the term ending April 27, 1900.

“Enlistment Record – Jessie [sic] L. Barnes.” On file in the Kansas Adjutant General archives, Kansas State Historical Society.

“Honorable Discharge from the United States Army – Jessie [sic] L. Barnes.” On file in the Kansas Adjutant General archives, Kansas State Historical Society.

Jackson County (KS) Superintendent of Public Instruction. Scholastic Census Records for District 16, 1911-1913. On file with the Kansas State Historical Society.

Kansas State Census, 1905.

Land transaction records on file with the Jackson County Register of Deeds, Holton, Kansas.

Land transaction records on file with the Lincoln County Clerk, Chandler, Oklahoma.

Oklahoma Historical Society. Oklahoma Land Tract Book entries.

Ontario No. 2 J & N District. “Teachers’ Report to Superintendent,” for the term ending May 1, 1899.

United States Bureau of the Census. United States Census: 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930.

World War I Draft Registration Card – Jess L. Barnes, 1917.

Interviews, Family Recollections, Genealogical Materials

Achelpohl, Jan (grandniece of Jess Barnes). Telephone interviews, April 2007.

Achelpohl, Steve (grandnephew of Jess Barnes). E-mail communication and telephone interview, Spring 2007.

Askren, Ilah Rose (grandniece of Luther Barnes). Interview, June 2007.

Barnes, Gary (nephew of Jess Barnes). Written communication, April 2007; e-mail communications, various dates.

Barnes, Melany (grandniece of Jess Barnes). Interview and e-mail communications, various dates, 2007.

Barnes, Vernon (grandnephew of Luther Barnes). “Descendants of Luther C. Barnes,” and other genealogical materials. E-mail communications, various dates, 2007.

Kauffman, Diana (niece of Jess Barnes). E-mail communications, April 2007 and subsequent dates.

Merli, Bette R. (grandniece of Sade Barnes). Collection of genealogical materials and clippings compiled circa 1985; on file with the Jackson County (KS) Historical Society.

Other

Player file—Jesse L. Barnes. National Baseball Hall of Fame, Giamatti Research Center.

Contract Cards: Jesse L. Barnes; Virgil J. Barnes; Charles Barnes; and, Clark Barnes. National Baseball Hall of Fame, Giamatti Research Center.