Sal Maglie: A Study in Frustration

St Louis on the evening of July 19, 1950. The New York Giants came to town to challenge the winging Cardinals, engaged in a taut four-team race with Philadelphia, Brooklyn, and Boston. A mere one and one-half games separated the contenders. Unlike their hosts, the visiting Giants harbored no pennant aspirations. Having just lost 12 of 14 games they were anchored solidly in fifth place with a record of 36-46.

Having nothing to lose, Giant manager Leo Durocher nominated a much-traveled, little-used thirty-three-year-old pitcher named Salvatore Anthony Maglie to start the game. A veteran of little more than a year’s major league experience, Maglie’s journeyman minor league record boded nothing in the way of hope for an end to New York’s tailspin. After compiling a 3-15 record through his first three professional seasons-with the Class AAA Buffalo Bisons in 1938-40-he had asked for and received a demotion to the Class D Pony League. Sidelined during the war years, he was 5-4 with the Giants in 1945, then jumped to the outlaw Mexican League. Officially ostracized for that action, he gained reinstatement prior to 1950 and rejoined New York. In his only start prior to July 19, he was knocked out by the lowly Reds.

Yet on that summer evening in St. Louis Maglie, working out of innumerable jams, defeated the Cards 4-3 in 11 innings. It was more than a singular high in an up-and-down career; seen in retrospect, it was the occasion which ushered in a new era for New York. Spurred by Maglie’s performance, the team won 17 of its next 18 games and 50 of the final 72, coming up only five beats short of the pennant.

Today the career of Sal “The Barber” Maglie remains an enigmatic one in baseball history. It was Maglie who anchored the famous 1951 pennant drive, when the Giants, 13.5 games out of first place in mid-August, won 37 of their final 44 to overtake Boston. It was Maglie who became the symbol—either hero or villain depending on allegiances—of the always heated Giant-Dodger rivalry. There was his mastery against Brooklyn, evidenced by a 23-11 lifetime record. There were the brushback wars with Carl Furillo, who retaliated with his bat, and Jackie Robinson, who retaliated with daring baserunning. (During a game played April 30, 1951, Robinson became so exasperated with one of Maglie’s “duster” pitches that he pushed a bunt down the first base line and, as Maglie approached the ball, met him with a vicious cross-body block for which the Dodger had been famous as an All-American halfback at UCLA. Maglie, who was sent sprawling across the infield, resumed his position on the mound and beat the Dodgers.)

Made more mature by his tribulations, Maglie starred on the mound during the 1950-51-52 and ’54 seasons, and only an injury slowed him in 1953. Then, as abruptly as he had arrived, Maglie was discarded. He became a Dodger himself by way of Cleveland and, at age 39, demonstrated how foolish the Giants were to let him go, becoming the second oldest pitcher to that time to throw a no-hitter (only Cy Young was older) while leading Brooklyn to its last pennant in 1956. He won the first game of the World Series that year, beating Whitey Ford, and pitched a superb five-hitter in the fifth game several days later. Almost nobody recalls the latter effort because his opponent that October 8 afternoon was named Don Larsen.

Two seasons later, at the age of forty-one, Sal Maglie closed out his twenty-one-year career with his fifteenth club, the St. Louis Cardinals. It had been a career alternating between the self-fulfillment and frustration typified in his two starts of the 1956 World Series.

*****

The beginning was unequivocal—simply frustrating. In 1938 Maglie joined the Buffalo Bisons. By mid-1940, with a season’s mark of 0-7 and an ERA of 7.17, Maglie requested demotion to Jamestown of the Class D Pony League, where he finished out the year. Because of the long periods between starts in Buffalo, Maglie was not effective for more than three or four innings. “And as I lost the opportunity to pitch, my confidence went,” he said recently from his home near Niagara Falls, N.Y. At Jamestown Sal pitched better, and in 1941 the Giants, who had purchased his contract, sent him to Elmira, where he had plenty of mound opportunities and compiled a record of 20-15. At the end of the following season, which was spent at Jersey City, Maglie experienced the first of several career interruptions. With the advent of World War II, when his local draft board informed him that his deferment due to a sinus condition would be lifted· if he continued to play baseball, he took an exempt position in a defense plant.

After a two-year absence from the game, Maglie rejoined Jersey City in 1945 and, near the end of the season, was called up to the Giants, who gave him ten starts. Sal was effective, hurling three complete game shutouts. This performance impressed the Giants enough that they offered him a $6,000 contract to pitch for the team the next season.

Nineteen forty-six was a pivotal year in baseball. With the return of servicemen to the big leagues, rosters were in a state of flux. The Giants, led by Mel Ott, were desperately trying to refurbish a pitching staff laced with nonentities. Coming off his brief but impressive 1945 showing, Maglie expected to be given an excellent chance to prove his worth.

He wasn’t. In exhibition games, Maglie made only one appearance—against the Braves—giving up one run and striking out seven in five innings. “I never told this to anybody before,” Sal said, ”but since this was the first year after the war, manager Mel Ott set up a pitching rotation for batting practice for the purpose of getting a look at all the new pitchers, who were many. It was so bad that Ott would not even let me join the batting practice rotation.”

Something else was happening in the major league training camps that spring. The Mexican League, led by Jorge Pasquel, who reportedly had amassed a fortune of some 60 million dollars, launched its raids aimed at upgrading the caliber of Mexican ball. Pasquel visited many players during spring training in 1946, including Stan Musial, to whom he offered a contract four to five times the Man’s $13,500 salary with the Cardinals. A similar offer was said to have been made to the Yankees’ Phil Rizzuto.

Pasquel was aware of Maglie, having seen him pitch the previous winter in Cuba, where Sal had led the Cienfuegos team to a championship over its arch-rival, Almendares. At the time, Pasquel had offered Maglie a contract, which he refused. When he renewed the offer at New York’s spring training camp in Miami, Maglie hesitated. Wanting badly to pitch, he wondered how he should respond.

What helped Maglie decide to play in the Mexican League was a stern rebuke from Ott after several Giants, who had also been approached by Pasquel, gathered for a meeting in Maglie’s hotel room. “I wasn’t even there,” said Sal. Nonetheless Ott, who learned of the meeting and of long-distance phone calls to Mexico, accused him of leading the exodus of Giant players. Maglie figured he would not be pitching too often for the Giants and left camp.

With Puebla in the Mexican League, Maglie became a 20-game winner in 1946 and ’47. He also perfected his famed curve after discovering how enormously the break was affected by atmospheric conditions. In the dry air at 7,000 feet the curve simply hung. In the moist sea-level air, it always broke sharply. Forced to experiment and adjust to those differing conditions, Maglie learned to throw two types of curves: the sharp one, which broke down more than out, and the sweeping curve, which broke out more than it did down. For better control, he shortened his delivery so that he could throw the curve by gripping it with just the thumb and forefinger, which made the pitch more difficult to hit.

Despite his success, by 1948 Maglie found himself with no place to pitch. Pasquel, citing losses of over $350,000, withdrew from the league, leaving Maglie and seventeen other defectors without jobs. “It seemed there was always somebody or something refusing to let me pitch,” he said recently.

The league’s new president, Dr. Eduardo Pittman, and major league baseball commissioner Happy Chandler negotiated a nonraiding pact by which each major league promised not to seek the other’s players. But this did not result in Maglie’s return to the major leagues, for in 1946 the baseball owners-fearful that the lure of the Mexican League would have the same effect on player salaries as the Federal League had in 1914—had prodded Chandler into decreeing the suspension for five years of players under contract who had jumped to Mexico. Even following execution of the agreement with Pittman’, Chandler refused to rescind the ban.

So in the spring of 1948, Maglie and other former Mexican League players formed an all-star team headed by Cardinal pitcher Max Lanier. The team won 81 straight exhibitions, but could not continue playing after various forces in major league baseball instituted boycotts against it. The all-stars were denied access to parks controlled by Organized Baseball, and any player participating against the all-stars faced expulsion.

Unable to ply his trade, Maglie opened a service station in Niagara Falls in the fall of 1948. The next year,joined by several of the blacklisted players, he pitched for Drummondville in the outlaw Canadian Provincial League” where, according to official records, he was 15-6 during the regular season and 3-0 in the playoffs. (Maglie insists that he won 17 or 18 games during the regular season.)

On August 28, 1949, on the eve of the Provincial League playoffs, Maglie received a telephone call from a New York Giants club official, Charles “Chub” Feeney (the current National League president), advising him that Chandler had extended an amnesty offer to all previously blacklisted players, and that Maglie was eligible for immediate reinstatement. “I had absolutely no inkiing of my reinstatement until Feeney telephoned,” Maglie recalled.

Sal did not join the Giants until 1950, choosing instead to remain with Drummondville until the end of the season. Contrary to published reports, Maglie did not receive any bonus—rumored by some as high as $15,000—for remaining in Canada after his reinstatement. “That kind of money simply didn’t exist. We were lucky to be paid $250 per game,” he said.

The reinstatement of Maglie and the other players must be credited largely to Danny Gardella, who also had left the Giants to play in Mexico in 1946. Unlike Maglie, Gardella had not signed for the 1946 season and thus was not a contract jumper; he joined the Mexican League after surmising that the Giants would not offer him a contract for 1946. After one year in Mexico, Gardella sought reinstatement to the majors, but Chandler said no, reminding him that the reserve clause in his 1945 contract with the Giants forbade him from playing with any other team in 1946-even if he had not been signed by any team.

When Gardella could not persuade Chandler to change his mind, he commenced a legal challenge to the reserve clause. By early 1949, a federal appeals court had decreed that Gardella was entitled to atrial on whether the reserve clause was valid.

The ruling resulted immediately in other players filing suits and requesting preliminary injunctions that would allow them to play during the 1949 season. A federal district judge denied that relief, holding that once the players had left the teams voluntarily, the courts should not order the teams to take them back. (Maglie himself did not initiate any litigation: “Since I left the Giants voluntarily while under contract to them, I would not have taken the team to court. . . it was just something that I would not or could not do.”)

Chandler, despite the district judge’s ruling, was alarmed that Gardella might ultimately prevail and decided to settle the case as expeditiously as possible. As a first step, he issued the amnesty decree.

*****

From that evening in St. Louis in 1950 and through the final half of that season, Maglie was 13-1, including 11 straight wins and 5 shutouts. Four whitewashes were consecutive, equaling a National League record then held by the great Grover Cleveland Alexander. The fourth, a masterful 2-0 four-hitter against Preacher Roe and the Dodgers, came five days after Maglie had shut out the first-place Phils in Philadelphia.

Through the sixth inning of a game on September 14, against Cincinnati in the Polo Grounds, Maglie had extended his scoreless innings streak to 45, leaving him just four batters short of Carl Hubbell’s record. In the seventh, Gus Bell, backing away from a curve down at the ankles, hit a 257-foot home run down the right-field line. Sal had no regrets. “The pitch was out of the strike zone and right where I wanted it,” he said.

From July 1950 to May 1952 Maglie won 45 and lost 7, posting a 12-1 record against the Dodgers-whom he shut out five times. He was arguably the best pitcher in baseball over that period. His repertoire consisted of a fastball which broke down and in all right-hand hitters, and his famous curve. Maglie’s most important assets, however, were his thorough knowledge of the hitters and his sharp control, essential for a pitcher who could not overpower a hitter. “Always protect the plate,” he said, “or else the hitters will take it away from you.” This was the cornerstone of his “Barber” image. His success depended on keeping right-hand hitters off balance, backing them away from the plate with inside pitches, mostly fastballs, in order to set up the curve. “Above all,” he warned, “never throw a strike unless you must.” The hitters who gave Maglie the most trouble, therefore, were those who insisted on strikes, like Pee Wee Reese and Richie Ashburn, whom Maglie described as “especially murder to pitch to with men on base.”

During one stretch from September 15,1951 to May 26, 1952, Maglie started and won 12 consecutive games, 11 of them complete, giving up just 18 runs. With what appeared to be relative ease he shut out Brooklyn three straight times, prompting the bewildered Dodgers to accuse him of throwing a spitter. “That’s when I knew I had a psychological edge, when they started believing I was loading up the ball,” he said. He never denied the accusation. “Why say anything?” he asked.

*****

The evening of July 16, 1952, marked another frustrating turning point in Maglie’s career. A few days earlier, while warming up for a start in Cincinnati, he had noticed a twitch in his back. It eased and he continued to pitch. Through four innings of the game on July 16, the Giants led the Cardinals 1-0. Maglie, at bat in the fifth, was struck by a pitch and removed from the game, having aggravated the back pains.

He was placed in traction for several days and did not start for almost a month. Then, facing the Dodgers, he pitched six scoreless innings for the victory. Those who saw him knew that, barely able to bend over to pick up ground balls, he was pitching purely on courage. Time and again Brooklyn batters forced him to field bunts, but Maglie survived. Two weeks later he defeated Brooklyn again, 4-3, in a come-from-behind complete game victory sparked by a three-run home run by Davey Williams. During Maglie’s absence, the Giants had sunk to 8 games out of the lead; with The Barber’s second victory following his return, they were within 3.5 games. Despite lingering pains from the injury, he won seven of his final ten decisions.

The next season was disastrous. Sidelined with continuing back problems for most of the second half of the year, he watched New York close with 44 losses in its final 64 games to finish in the second division, 35 games out. The one bright spot for him came in early summer when he pitched six consecutive complete games, winning five and losing a 1-0 decision. He allowed only 7 earned runs in 54 innings.

Realizing that because of his bad back and advancing age Maglie could no longer be counted upon as the team’s stopper, the Giants made a serious but unsuccessful bid over the winter to obtain Warren Spahn. Instead, New York traded outfielder Bobby Thomson for two young southpaw pitchers, Johnny Antonelli and Don Liddle. Those acquisitions, plus the return of Willie Mays from the Army, led the experts to predict that New York might finish in the first division in 1954. They did better; they became world champions. Antonelli went 21-7 to lead the staff. But it was Maglie’s early season performance that prevented the Dodgers from taking a commanding lead and turning the race into a runaway as had happened in 1953.

An observant chiropractor gave Maglie and the Giants an important lift between seasons. The chiropractor discovered that Maglie’s back troubles stemmed from his right leg being three-quarters of an inch shorter than the left. A lift was prescribed for the inside of his right shoe. Once the season began, Maglie won four of the team’s first nine games and five of his first six decisions. In typical fashion, his first two victories were against Brooklyn. There was no doubt his comeback was for real when, on April 30, pitching at Wrigley Field, Maglie defeated the Cubs 4-2 in 14 innings. He held Chicago scoreless during the final 10 innings and won on a home run by Mays.

Afterward, Giants’ catcher Wes Westrum marveled at Maglie’s feat. “Sal was missing with his curve ball in the early innings, and I told him he would have to rely more on his fastball,” Westrum related. “That’s all there was, and in most cases that can mean disaster to a pitcher because the hitter can wait for the fastball. But Maglie had such extraordinary control with the fastball that he was able to go through that long, tough game without letting them see enough of the ball for a good clout when they needed it.”

The 14-inning victory was an inspiration to the Giants, who shortly thereafter swept four straight against the Braves in Milwaukee, then proceeded to win 34 of 40 games and emerge 7 games ahead by early July. Then the team sagged badly in August, and saw its lead dwindle to but a half-game after three straight losses to the Dodgers. On August 27 Maglie, facing the Braves before 47,000 in Milwaukee in what was perhaps the pivotal game of the year, won3-1 on a five-hitter, ending the team’s slide. The season came to a climax on September 19 when Sal defeated the Dodgers on another five-hitter to clinch the pennant.

It has never been understood why, on July 31, 1955, the Giants waived Maglie to the Cleveland Indians. Some said he was no longer worth the close to $38,000 salary he was receiving. Yet salary clearly was not the issue. While Maglie had been ineffective in the month before the trade—he had not won a game since the previous June 22-that was attributable to his not being given enough rest between starts during the inordinately hot summer. Still, Maglie had compiled a 9-5 record when the trade was announced.

An incident occurring in a game between the Giants and Cardinals at the Polo Grounds on June 12 might explain why the Giants soured on Maglie. With NewV ork leading 5-3 and two out in the eighth inning, Maglie was pitching to Solly Hemus, who stroked a low line drive down the first base line that appeared headed for a double. Maglie started for the area behind third base to backup a possible overthrow to second base from right field. The batted ball, however, never reached the outfield; it hit the first base umpire and rebounded into the hands of first baseman Whitey Lockman, who was too far from the base to make an unassisted play and could not throw to Maglie, stationed behind third. Instead of being out of the inning, Maglie had to pitch to Stan Musial,who homered to tie the score. St. Louis won, 6-5, in extra innings.

After the game, Durocher told the press that the Giants lost because “Maglie was too lazy to cover first base” on the ball hit by Hemus. The feeling has persisted that Durocher’s attack accounted for the Maglie trade; the Giants’ front office would never comment on the deal.

Maglie, of course, expressed no displeasure at being sent to Cleveland, at the time a contender for the American League pennant. And when the Indians sent him back to the National League to Brooklyn on May 15,1956, he was overjoyed. It was difficult, especially for Giant fans, to get used to The Barber in a Dodger uniform, but Brooklyn fans quickly adjusted.

In 1955 the Dodgers had all but clinched the flag by the Fourth of July. In 1956, however, the aging “Hays of Summer” were in a tough race with the Reds and Braves. By the end of July, Brooklyn was in third place, trailing Milwaukee by 8 games. As the Dodgers were about to be written off, Maglie, Don Newcombe (a 27-game winner that year), and Carl Erskine each won two successive starts to move the team within 2 games of the lead. In August and September, Maglie posted a 10-1 mark, making him 13-5 since joining Brooklyn. He highlighted that with a no-hitter against Philadelphia September 25.

His most important win down the stretch,however, came two weeks earlier against the Braves, whom he defeated 4-2 to give the Dodgers a share of the lead for the first time since April 28. The losing pitcher was Bob Buhl, who had defeated Brooklyn eight times previously in 1956.

Maglie’s strong finish made his opening game victory over Whitey Ford and the Yankees in the World Series almost anticlimactic. It was also anticlimactic when Sal became the twelfth major league player to wear the uniforms of the three New York teams after the Yankees acquired him from Brooklyn on September 2, 1957-one day too late for Maglie to be eligible for another World Series. Yet again, forces.beyond his control conspired to deny him the opportunity to pitch.