The Andy Seminick Fan Club

By 1950, Andy Seminick, at the ripe old age of 29 sometimes known as “Grandpa Whiz,” had the longest tenure of any of the 1950 Phillies.  He first joined the club in 1943 when he was just 22, but had his struggles early on, both at the plate and in the field. No great surprise, he was not exactly the darling of Philadelphia fans, who could be notoriously hard on their own players. But he was the favorite of three Philadelphia schoolgirls, sisters Anne and Betty Zeiser and their childhood friend Kitty Kelly, who admired his grit and determination. In 1947 Anne Zeiser wrote a catchy poem about Seminick to win a “favorite Phillies” contest. The prize was a pass to Phillies home games in 1948 and a chance to meet Andy, who was still hearing a lot of boos from the stands. The girls thought the boos most unjust and approached Phillies PR man, Babe Alexander, about starting an Andy Seminick fan club to help bring Seminick into good graces with the fans. Alexander was all for the idea but the girls knew they needed Seminick’s permission as well.

Seminick was hesitant to endorse the idea, but the girls persisted and coaxed a reluctant okay from him. The girls began publishing newsletters and before long the Andy Seminick “21” Fan Club was the largest and most active of the clubs fans started for different members of the Whiz Kids. The club even held “days” for Seminick on July 14, 1949, and July 30, 1950, bestowing upon him gifts donated by local merchants. Perhaps coincidentally, Seminick’s play began to improve offensively and defensively about the time the fan club got off the ground. He slugged 24 home runs and drove in 68 runs in both 1949 and 1950. In 1950 he batted .288, 45 points above his lifetime .243 batting average, and made the National League All-Star team for the only time in his career.

Seminick was known as a tough, hard-nosed competitor who was a block of granite protecting home plate. He was very quiet, but teammates called him “the mad Russian” because he just wouldn’t take much guff from the opposition. As a result, he managed to get into more than his share of scrapes. On August 12, 1950, Seminick precipitated a huge brawl with the New York Giants when he took out half of the Giants’ infield on hard slides in retaliation for beanballs and other Giants antics. When Giants second baseman Bill Rigney tried to jump on top of Seminick at second, after Andy had already taken out third baseman Hank Thompson on an earlier trip around the bases, Andy began pummeling him, sending Rigney bouncing up in the air and causing both benches to empty. It took 10 minutes and the help of the police to restore order and clear the field. That evening, a somewhat battered Seminick kept a promise and, with his wife, Gussie, and young son, Andy Jr., attended the Zeisers’ baby sister’s birthday party. He was the hit of the party, entertaining the kids by showing them cartoons.    

In turn the Zeisers often babysat Andy’s son, and even kept Andy’s wife company when the team was on road trips. In addition to producing a newsletter and giving Seminick “days” at the ballpark, the fan club sent CARE packages overseas and delivered books and magazines to local hospitals. The club sent gifts whenever one of the Phillies had a child born, and handed out cigars, adorned by a special congratulatory wrapper, when the team won the 1950 pennant. The Zeisers also helped fans organize fan clubs for other Whiz Kids including Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons, Bubba Church, and Mike Goliat. 

The fan club stayed active even after Seminick was traded to the Reds in 1952, and was rejuvenated when he rejoined the Phillies in 1955. After he retired as an active player, Seminick managed for many years in the Phillies’ minor-league system and spent time as a coach for the big-league club. All the while, the Zeiser sisters and another friend, Josy Davy, kept the fan club alive. 

In 1997, after publication of Robin Roberts’s memoir of the Whiz Kids, The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant, which highlighted the Zeiser sisters and the Seminick fan club, the sisters became minor celebrities as fans asked them to autograph their books during their annual spring-training pilgrimage to Clearwater, Florida. USA Today Baseball Weekly even ran a feature on them, highlighting what many believe to be the longest-running fan club in sports history.1

In all, the Zeisers attended Phillies spring training in Clearwater for over 45 years. Since Seminick served as a minor-league catching instructor for the Phillies into his 80s before his death in 2004, they held annual unofficial spring reunions of the fan club well into the 21st century.

PAUL ROGERS is co-author of several baseball books including The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant (Temple University Press, 1996) with boyhood hero Robin Roberts, and Lucky Me: My 65 Years in Baseball (SMU Press 2011) with Eddie Robinson. Paul is president of the Ernie Banks – Bobby Bragan DFW Chapter of SABR and a frequent contributor to the SABR BioProject, but his real job is as a law professor at Southern Methodist University, where he served as dean of the law school for nine years. He has also served as SMU’s faculty athletic representative for 30 years.

 

Notes

1 USA Today Baseball Weekly, March 12-18, 1997: 21.