May 17, 1963: Rutgers beats Lafayette to conclude Jeff Torborg’s All-American season

In the 1960s, the home for the Rutgers University baseball team was University Heights Field on the Busch Campus, just across the Raritan River from the main campus in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Memory serves to recall the expansiveness of the field often whipped by strong winds. Imagine looking down the left-field line and spotting the 429-foot marker.1 Fly-ball outs were anything but routine. For example, a ball seemingly headed to the center fielder for a routine catch might be caught just behind second base.

The simplicity of design surrounding the baseball diamond featured benches for each team and bleacher seating for the fans. A pair of dugouts would have to wait for the 1964 season and a gift from the Class of 1939.2 A low wooden platform behind the wire-meshed backstop elevated a set of tables and chairs, one set of which served as the broadcast “booth” for WRSU, the AM carrier-current campus radio station.

Strong winds could impact the outcome of any game, but the WRSU broadcast team was ready. A woolen sock placed over the microphone was bound to muffle the noise heard by radio listeners under those weather conditions.

It was the middle of May 1963. Attention was beginning to focus on final exams, graduation in the first week of June, and the looming summer exodus, but the buzz around campus was about baseball and one particular catcher, All-American Jeff Torborg, and his record-setting season. Rutgers was in the final week of its short six-week baseball season with two home games against its Middle Three foes, Lehigh University and Lafayette College.3

A bevy of major-league scouts, including the New York Mets’ Gil Hodges, were on hand to watch Lehigh beat Rutgers, 9-7.4 It was later reported that 15 teams were in the bidding for the Rutgers catcher.5 (Baseball’s amateur draft was not instituted until 1965.) With his every move being watched, Torborg didn’t disappoint on both sides of the ball. In addition to two home runs and a walk, he stole a base and picked a runner off third to end Lehigh’s first-inning rally.

What did Hodges think? After all, he started his baseball career as a catcher. Hodges had nothing but praise for Torborg and told Rutgers Targum reporter Ed Doherty, “He handles himself well … throws well … and runs well. There’s not much he doesn’t do well.”6 Of course, Hodges was his usual gracious self. During the game, he was interviewed on the air by the WRSU broadcasters.

Two days later, the scouts and Hodges returned to watch Rutgers finish the season against Lafayette in front of one of the largest crowds in recent years, an estimated 1,500, according to the Daily Home News of New Brunswick, New Jersey.7 Hodges was accompanied by Mets scout Pete Gebrian, but the Los Angeles Dodgers had a party of three, including vice president Fresco Thompson.

Rutgers struck early against Lafayette lefty Ed Hughes and so did the in-blowing wind. With one out in the first inning, Bob Clawson beat out an infield grounder. Torborg followed with a drive to deep left-center. Left fielder Dan Kristoff seemed perfectly positioned for the catch 410 feet away, but the wind had other ideas. Kristoff dropped the ball for a two-base error, scoring Clawson. When Don Peterson lined a triple down the right-field line to drive in Torborg, Rutgers had a two-run lead.8

Scarlet pitcher Travis Hutchinson (2-1) lost to Lafayette, 7-2, the previous week, but managed to keep the Leopards in check this time over the first three innings, striking out six of the first seven batters he faced. Wildness struck in the fourth. Ed Morgan’s infield hit and two walks loaded the bases with two outs. Big trouble was avoided when shortstop John Meyer raced into short left center to catch Hughes’ looper for the third out.

Rutgers added two runs in the fourth on only one hit. Rocco Pennella walked, advanced to second on a sacrifice by Frank Kuch, and scored on John Meyer’s single to center. An error and two more sacrifices, one by Hutchinson and the other by center fielder Billy Eaton, scored Meyer for a 4-0 Rutgers lead.

Lafayette finally scored its lone run in the fifth. Joe Gillings singled with two outs, took second when Eaton overran the ball in center, and scored on Morgan’s single.

Hutchinson was tiring. Through five innings, he had walked five and thrown a wild pitch. Leopards first baseman John Solewski opened the sixth with a single. Rutgers coach Matt Bolger needed to see only one more pitch, a ball, before replacing Hutchinson on the mound with Gene Frey. It was the right move. Frey allowed only two hits over the remaining four innings, retiring the last nine batters he faced, to preserve Hutchinson’s third victory of the season.9 The win improved Rutgers’ season-ending record to 11-6. The Lafayette record dropped to 9-11-1, a disappointing season for a school that had played in the College World Series three times since 1953.10  

As for Torborg, he finished the season batting .537 (36-for-67), including 15 extra-base hits (6 home runs) and 21 runs batted in. His steal of second in the Lafayette game gave him 6 stolen bases for the season, second highest on the team. Collegiate Baseball, the magazine compiling unofficial statistics for the 1963 season, declared Torborg the winner of college baseball’s batting title.11 The American Baseball Coaches Association named Torborg a first-team All-American.12

Of course, it was still pure speculation as to how much Torborg would receive to sign a major-league contract. The Daily Home News suggested “somewhere in the vicinity of $50,000,”13 but could go higher if there were many bidders. The answer came shortly. Less than one week after the Lafayette game, Torborg signed a $100,000 contract to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers.14 Years later, Torborg revealed that he had narrowed his choice to the Dodgers and Kansas City Athletics and decided to take less money to sign with the Dodgers because of his great respect for and admiration of the O’Malley family.15

Torborg batted .214 during his 10-season major-league playing career (1964-1973), seven years with the Dodgers and three with the California Angels. As backup catcher to John Roseboro, Torborg did not play in either the Dodgers’ 1965 World Series triumph over the Minnesota Twins or the Baltimore Orioles sweep of the Dodgers in the 1966 World Series. His most significant accomplishments were achieved behind the plate. For the Dodgers, he caught Sandy Koufax’s perfect game and Bill Singer’s no-hitter.16 As an Angel, Torborg caught the first of Nolan Ryan’s seven no-hitters.17

Torborg’s playing career tells only part of the story of his 43-season association with major-league baseball. Through 2006, Torborg was a coach, a manager, and a broadcaster. Torborg’s managerial career (634 wins, 718 losses) spanned 1977-2003 and included leading the Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, New York Mets, Montreal Expos, and Florida Marlins. In 1990 as the manager of the White Sox, he won The Sporting News’ Manager of the Year Award.

As of 2023, 60 years after Torborg’s record-setting senior season at Rutgers, his name still appears atop the school’s single-season marks for batting average (.537) and slugging percentage (1.032). For his three-year career, he owns the fifth best batting average (.390) and the second best slugging percentage (.684). Torborg was inducted into the Rutgers Athletics Hall of Fame in 1994.

Author’s note

The author had the pleasure of broadcasting the play-by-play of Jeff Torborg’s last game in a Rutgers uniform. His colleagues at WRSU had the honor of interviewing Gil Hodges for 10 minutes during the game against Lehigh. “It’s nice to know,” one of the broadcasters said later, “that Gil really is the nice guy everyone says he is.”18  

There was another measure of the man. After getting Hodges’ autograph, a quartet of local Little Leaguers spent time chatting with him. When the ice cream vendor dropped by, Hodges treated them all to ice cream. One 12-year-old said, “Gee, no wonder the Mets are so popular. Mr. Hodges is one of the nicest men I have ever met.”19

You might say the 39-year-old Hodges was between jobs when he spent two days scouting Torborg. He was on the disabled list with aching knees after last playing on May 5. Less than a week after his visits to Piscataway, Hodges was traded to the Washington Senators for Jim Piersall in order to become the Senators’ new manager.20 It happened on the very same day that Jeff Torborg signed with the Dodgers.

Acknowledgments

This essay was fact-checked by Jim Sweetman and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Sources

The author accessed the following college baseball references: Rutgers Baseball Media Guide (scarletknights.com/documents/2023/3/13/23_MEDIA_GUIDE.pdf); Baseball-Reference (baseball-reference.com/bullpen/College_baseball); NCAA Division I Baseball Records, fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/baseball_RB/2010/D1.pdf); NCAA Men’s College World Series record book (ncaa.org/Docs/stats/baseball_cws_RB/2022/1-CWSGeneral.pdf). The author also consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org for pertinent information.

The digitized Rutgers University Libraries’ collection of the Rutgers Targum (collections.libraries.rutgers.edu/targum) was used for insights on the 1963 baseball season. The photo of Jeff Torborg rounding the bases after hitting a home run is featured with the consent of the Rutgers University Office of Athletic Communications.

Notes

1 Daily Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey), May 16, 1963: 36. Note: Rutgers debuted its new home, Bainton Field, in 2007 with seating for 1,500 and more normal dimensions – LF, 330 feet; LC, 385; CF, 402; RC, 370; RF, 320.

2 Larry Benjamin, “Bolger Looks to Pitching Squad to Compensate for Lost Power,” Rutgers Targum, March 13, 1964: 4.

3 “Colleges Organize Middle Three Group,” Baltimore Sun, May 13, 1929: 12. The Middle Three Conference was a three-school athletic scheduling alliance from 1929 through 1969. Lehigh won the 1963 baseball series among the rivals.

4 “Torborg Belts Two Homers but Rutgers Nine Bows,” Daily Home News, May 16, 1963: 36.

5 Hugh Delano, “Dodgers Outbid 14 Teams, Land Rutgers Rapper,” The Sporting News, June 8, 1963: 33.

6 Ed Doherty, “Hodges Praises Torborg,” Rutgers Targum, May 16, 1963: 4.

7 “Rutgers Defeats Lafayette, 4-1,” Daily Home News, May 18, 1963: 4. The scheduled season-ending game at the University of Delaware on May 18, 1963, was rained out.

8 “Rutgers Defeats Lafayette, 4-1.”

9 “Rutgers Defeats Lafayette, 4-1.” As of 2023, 60 years after that season, Gene Frey’s name still appears on the individual pitching records list for Rutgers baseball. His single-season ERA (1.44) in 1965 is good for sixth best and his career ERA (2.10) for 1963-1965 puts him in fourth place.

10 Lafayette won three of five games in the 1953 College World Series in Omaha and finished in third-place. The Leopards also appeared in the 1954 and 1958 CWS but were winless in both series. Lafayette later played in the 1965 CWS, but lost two games without a win. As for Rutgers, its 1950 appearance in Omaha remains its only College World Series experience though the 2023 college baseball season (Steven C. Weiner, “June 15, 1950: Rutgers’ late rally defeats defending champion Texas in College World Series opener,” SABR Baseball Games Project).

11 Abe Chanin, “Dodger Bonus Catcher Tops College Ranks in Batting,” The Sporting News, June 26, 1963: 31. NCAA Division I baseball records (fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/baseball_RB/2010/D1.pdf) currently recognize a minimum 75 at-bats for season batting average. Nonetheless, only 15 players under that criteria have ever hit over .500 and only two have ever exceeded Torborg’s .537 average. The current record holder is the University of New Mexico’s Keith Hagman, who hit .551 in 1980, 125-for-227.

12 Founded in 1945, the coaches’ association was initially known as the Association of American College Baseball Coaches (AACBC). The ABCA All-American selections can be found at abca.org/ABCA/Awards/All-Americans/ABCA_Rawlings_All-Americans_Index.aspx. Torborg followed other Rutgers All-Americans as first-team selections: Harding Peterson (1950), Ray Van Cleef (1951), James Monahan (1952).

13 “Rutgers Defeats Lafayette, 4-1,” Daily Home News, May 18, 1963: 4.

14 “Torborg, Rutgers Star, Signs With Dodgers for $100,000,” Daily Home News, May 23, 1963: 23.

15 Richard L. Shook, “Jeff Torborg Remembers Pre-Draft Days,” UPI.com, June 3, 1990, upi.com/Archives/1990/06/03/Scouting-Todays-Baseball-Column-Jeff-Torborg-remembers-pre-draft-days/6325644385600/.

16 Mike Huber, “September 9, 1965: ‘A million butterflies’ and one perfect game for Sandy Koufax,” SABR Baseball Games Project. Singer no-hit the Philadelphia Phillies, 5-0, on July 20, 1970, at Dodger Stadium.

17 Gregory H. Wolf, “May 15, 1973: ‘Just a matter of time’: Nolan Ryan’s first no-hitter),” SABR Baseball Games Project.

18 Pete O’Rourke, “Out on the Limb: Hodges Makes Big Hit with Youngsters,” Sunday Home News, May 19, 1963: 25.

19 O’Rourke.

20 Leonard Koppett, “Mets Get Piersall of Senators as Part of Hodges Deal,” New York Times, May 24, 1963: 21.