July 3, 1956: ‘Best batting-practice pitcher’ Johnny O’Brien saves Bucs

“Desperate times call for desperate measures.” The quote, attributed to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, also describes the circumstances behind the lone pitching win of Johnny O’Brien’s career in an afternoon game on July 3, 1956.

Johnny and his identical twin brother, Eddie, were signed off the Seattle University campus by Pittsburgh to bonus contracts in 1953. Rules of the day required that any player receiving a bonus of $4,000 or more – so-called “bonus babies” – had to be retained on the major-league roster for at least two years.1 The O’Briens were infielders, and Johnny was the Pirates’ starting second baseman until hitting woes relegated him to the bench.

Two months into the 1956 season, new manager Bobby Bragan had the perennial last-place Pittsburgh Pirates atop the National League with a 30-20 won-lost record.2 Then the bottom dropped out. The Pirates lost 13 of 15 games to fall below .500 and into the second division.3 In a futile attempt to stop the slide, Bragan overworked his bullpen, especially emerging ace reliever Roy Face.

The situation became so dire that Bragan brought a shocked O’Brien in to pitch the ninth inning in a lopsided loss to the Cincinnati Redlegs on June 27. “I went down to the bullpen to warm up, figuring I was going to play second base,” O’Brien recalled. He occasionally threw batting practice but had not pitched in a game since his sophomore year in college. It was extremely rare at that time to have a position player enter the game as a pitcher, and the umpires huddled in conference to make sure the move was legal.4

The first batter O’Brien faced in his mound debut was Frank Robinson. Using a fastball and knuckler, he struck out the future Hall of Famer on four pitches.5 After hitting Ed Bailey in the foot, he retired Rocky Bridges on a groundout and fanned Roy McMillan to end the inning.

The Pittsburgh mound corps was still taxed on July 3 when the Philadelphia Phillies opened a three-game series at Forbes Field. The aging Whiz Kids were in last place and had lost six games in a row to the Bucs. Bullpen catcher Sam Narron told O’Brien, “You’re in the bullpen today.” “You’re kiddin’,” Johnny replied.6

Before the scheduled game could begin, the teams had to complete the second game of a doubleheader suspended on May 13. Play had been stopped with two outs in the top of the eighth and Philadelphia leading 6-2. To save bullpen arms, both managers used starters who would have had days off. Bragan selected 1954 bonus baby Laurin Pepper; Phillies manager Mayo Smith countered with staff ace Robin Roberts. Pepper gave up a run in the ninth, Roberts dispatched the Pirates easily, and Philadelphia had the first win of the season against its cross-state rivals.

Bragan called upon Vern Law to start the scheduled game. Early on, it looked as though the Phillies would make it two wins in a row. In the top of the second, Del Ennis led off with a double. Singles by Willie Jones and Granny Hamner and a double by Ted Kazanski plated three runs. The Phillies put runners in scoring position in each of the middle innings, but came up empty. Nellie King relieved Law in the top of the sixth. It was the lanky side-armer’s first appearance since June 24 because of a sore back and shoulder.7 King retired the side but because of the injury could not pitch more than the one inning.

The Phillies enjoyed a 3-0 lead going into the bottom of the sixth behind Curt Simmons. The veteran left-hander had shut down the heart of the Pirates’ batting order. Twice he struck out the dangerous Dale Long, who had set a record earlier in the season by homering in eight straight games.8 Finally, the Pirates got on the scoreboard. Lee Walls and Frank Thomas doubled back-to-back for the first run. Hamner’s throwing error on a grounder by Roberto Clemente let in another, and Dick Groat’s bloop single plated Clemente to knot the score, 3-3.

Bragan brought in 19-year-old Red Swanson to pitch the top of the seventh. The 1955 bonus baby entered with a 9.58 ERA in eight games. Kazanski led off with a tapper to first and stepped on Swanson’s right foot as he covered the bag for the out.9 Simmons and Richie Ashburn singled to put runners at the corners. Marv Blaylock hit a sacrifice fly to score Simmons and give the Phillies a 4-3 lead. After Stan Lopata walked, Bragan replaced Swanson with Pepper, who had pitched earlier in the suspended game. He also called Narron to begin warming up O’Brien. “I guess I wasn’t kiddin’, bud,” Narron told the infielder. “Warm up.”10

Pepper walked Ennis and Elmer Valo to force in the Phillies’ fifth run. After Pepper missed the strike zone with his first two pitches to Willie Jones, Bragan summoned O’Brien to the mound. “I needed a strike thrower,” the skipper asserted after the game. “Johnny is the best batting-practice pitcher I have, and after the good work he did against Cincinnati last week, I didn’t worry about using the little fellow.”11 It was a unique trifecta for Bragan: three bonus babies pitching in succession in the same inning.

Philadelphia threatened to break the game open. O’Brien entered with two outs, the bases loaded, and a 2-and-0 count on Jones. His first pitch was ball three. The right-hander came back with two strikes and got Jones to fly out to deep center to end the threat. “All I did,” Johnny confessed after the game, “was throw the ball down the middle and pray he didn’t hit it out of the park.”12

O’Brien led off the bottom of the seventh and flied out to right. Left-handed batter Bill Virdon followed with a home run to cut the Phillies’ lead to 5-4. It was Virdon’s third hit of the game and his second home run since coming to Pittsburgh via a trade earlier in the season. Simmons retired the next two batters on fly balls to end the inning.

“There’s nothing fancy about my pitching,” O’Brien admitted. “Today I just mixed fast balls and a dinky curve to get them out.”13 He retired Hamner, Kazanski, and Frank Baumholtz, pinch-hitting for Simmons, in order in the top of the eighth. Hard-throwing Jack Meyer, the Phillies’ top reliever, retired the Pirates one-two-three in the bottom of the inning. O’Brien returned to the mound in the top of the ninth. After inducing Ashburn to ground out, O’Brien walked Blaylock, but struck out Lopata and retired Ennis to end the inning.

Groat led off the bottom of the ninth with a double, his third hit of the game. Pinch-runner Eddie O’Brien, Johnny’s twin, ran for Groat but was tagged out at third base on a bunt by Jack Shepard. After Hank Foiles was sent in to run for Shepard, Bragan called on Bob Skinner to bat for Johnny O’Brien. The left-handed swinger had only one hit, a single, in his last 14 pinch-hit at-bats, and had been fined $25 by Bragan three days earlier for lackadaisical effort.14

Skinner worked the count to two balls and a strike, then launched a fastball off the right-field balcony girder. It was the first walk-off home run of Skinner’s career. The loss infuriated Phillies pitcher Meyer, who stormed into the dugout, “tore apart a connection on the water fountain and threw a few bats around.”15 It was the Mad Monk’s third loss of the season to the Bucs. Skinner’s blast gave the Pirates a 6-5 victory and Johnny O’Brien the win. His pitching line after two games: no hits or runs in 3⅓ innings pitched, a walk, a hit batter, and three strikeouts.

The infielder’s mound triumph merited headlines and write-ups in newspaper sports sections around the country. Many featured a photo of O’Brien, Bragan, Virdon, and Skinner admiring a toe plate on Johnny’s shoe. “Yes, sir,” Bragan beamed. “I’m going to order a toe plate [to be] put on Johnny’s spikes and use him as a starter in spots.”16

Bragan’s proposed use of O’Brien as a starter never materialized. The right-hander pitched in six more games in 1956 and a total of 25 games in his career. His only start came on September 2, 1957, after Bragan had been fired and replaced by Danny Murtaugh. He never won another game, lost three, and posted an ERA of 5.61 in 61 innings pitched. O’Brien played a few more years as a utility infielder and retired with a .250 batting average.

But on July 3, 1956, “the best batting-practice pitcher” was the toast of the baseball world because of his clutch performance.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information, including the box score and play-by-play.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PIT/PIT195607030.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1956/B07030PIT1956.htm

Notes

1 The O’Briens were only the fifth set of twins to reach the major leagues, and the second to play for the same team in the same game. The Shannon twins, Red and Joe, appeared together in one game for the Boston Braves in 1915.

2 There was a suspended game on May 13 that was not completed and official until July 3.

3 There was a suspended game on July 1 that was not completed and official until August 10.

4 “Hats Off …!”, The Sporting News, July 11, 1956: 25.

5 Scott Hanson, “Storytelling with Johnny: It Doesn’t Get Much Better,” Seattle Times, February 13, 2018: C2.

6 Myron Cope, “Johnny Just Hurls Down the Middle and Prays Batter Won’t Lose Ball,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 4, 1956: 41.

7 Bob Lebo, “Strictly Sports,” Lebanon (Pennsylvania) Daily News, July 4, 1956: 6.

8 Long’s record was subsequently tied by Don Mattingly in 1987 and Ken Griffey Jr. in 1993.

9 Art Morrow, “2-Run Homer in Ninth Defeats Phils, 6-5, After 7-2 Victory,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 4, 1956: 25.

10 Cope.

11 “Toe Plate Ordered for Johnny O, Pirate Pitching ‘Find,’” Seattle Times, July 4, 1956: 30.

12 “Hats Off …!”

13 “Toe Plate Ordered for Johnny O, Pirate Pitching ‘Find.’”

14 Les Biederman, “Bragan Fines Skinner $25; Failed to Slide Into Second,” The Sporting News, July 11, 1956: 13.

15 Cope.

16 “Toe Plate Ordered for Johnny O, Pirate Pitching ‘Find.’”