On Saturday morning, May 1, 1920, Joe Oeschger looked up from the newspaper and laughed. “The weather forecast says fair today,” the 6’1”, 195-pound Boston Braves pitcher said to his roommate, outfielder Les Mann. They both glanced out the window. It was raining steadily, a cold, gray, wet, and windy morning, not unusual for the first day of May in Boston.1

They went down to the dining room of the Brunswick Hotel, where they shared a room when the team was home, ordered breakfast, and divided the newspaper. Oeschger read the Globe’s account of the Friday game. Braves pitcher Hugh McQuillan had shut out the Brooklyn Dodgers, 3-1. The game had taken just over an hour and a half. “Who’s pitching for the Dodgers today, if we play?” Mann asked.

“It looks like Leon Cadore. Golly,” Oeschger said, “I’d like to get even with him.” Ten days earlier the two had hooked up in an 11- inning duel, Cadore winning it, 1-0. There was no mention of the Boston starting pitcher.

Manager George Stallings liked to wait until just before game time to name his starter.

Oeschger checked the standings. Brooklyn, managed by Wilbert Robinson, was 8-4, in second place. They were fast, had some good hitters led by Zack Wheat, and a top-flight pitching staff. They had won the pennant in 1916 and some experts predicted they would give the favored Giants a run for it in 1920.

The Braves were 4-5. They had gotten great pitching so far, were strong defensively, but weak at the plate. Nobody was hitting over .250. Since their miracle finish and upset sweep of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1914, they had slid into the second division. “Looks like a day off,” Mann said. “What do you want to do?”

“Guess we’ll go to a show.”

They finished a leisurely breakfast at noon and went out on the porch. The rain had stopped. The cold wind had not. Stallings had a rule: All players had to report to the clubhouse even if it was pouring. So Oeschger and Mann went up to their room for sweaters, then walked up Commonwealth Avenue to Braves Field. Oeschger watched the trainer, Jimmy Neery, put a clean bandage on shortstop Rabbit Maranville’s left hand. Maranville had continued to play with a bruised, lacerated hand. He’d had a few shots of whiskey already; it was never too early in the day for the Rabbit to down a few. Then Oeschger had a rubdown.

At 2:30 there was a brief, heavy shower. Then the clouds scudded quickly out to sea. About 3,500 hardy fans had huddled in pockets scattered about the 38,000-seat stands. Just 15 minutes before the 3:00 game time, they decided to play the game. It was just one Saturday afternoon, early-season game, but it would put two sub-.500 pitchers into the record books forever.

George Stallings was very superstitious and given to playing hunches. Bats had to be placed in exact order and kept that way, especially during a rally The drinking cup had to hang just so on the water cooler. Before the game, a Brooklyn player casually walked past the Braves dugout and scattered some peanuts. A few damp pigeons swooped down.

“Get those birds out of here,” Stallings roared. He hated pigeons, and the other teams knew it. He wore out his bench-warmers’ arms throwing pebbles to chase the birds. On the road—there was no Sunday baseball in Boston—he usually pitched Oeschger, a regular churchgoer, on Sundays.

A southern gentleman who had gone to Johns Hopkins intending to be a doctor, he usually wore street clothes in the dugout. Stallings held a meeting to go over the opponents lineup before every game. Today he gave the ball to Joe Oeschger to pitch.

In the visitors clubhouse Wilbert Robinson was entertaining the writers with stories of the good old Baltimore Orioles days. The popular, easygoing Uncle Robbie wasn’t much for pregame meetings.

Both Joe Oeschger and Leon Cadore had been their teams’ most effective hurlers in the early going. Oeschger, a power pitcher, had given up two earned runs in 35 innings. Cadore, a curveball artist, had pitched 35 scoreless innings against the Yankees coming north from spring training. He had shut out Boston in that 11-inning game on April 20, but had lost his last start against the Giants.

The umpires were William McCormick, a second-year man, behind the plate, and Robert F. Hart, a rookie, on the bases. The temperature was 49 when Oeschger threw the first pitch.

They ran off four fast, scoreless innings. In the top of the fifth, Oeschger dug a hole for himself. He walked catcher Ernie Krueger. Cadore then hit a sharp bounder to the mound, a perfect double- play ball. In his rush to get two, Oeschger juggled the ball and had to settle for the out at first. With a two-strike count, Ivy Olson hit a broken-bat blooper over Maranville’s head that scored Krueger.

When the inning ended, Oeschger stalked off the mound muttering to himself for his clumsiness. As if to make up for his misplay, he led off the bottom of the fifth with a long double, but was left stranded at second.

Outfielder Wally Cruise, first up in the bottom of the sixth, lined a triple off the scoreboard in left. Walt Holke then blooped a Texas Leaguer back of shortstop. Zack Wheat raced in and speared it off his shoe tops just beyond the infield dirt. Cruise, thinking it might drop in, was halfway to home plate. The third baseman had gone out after the ball, so there was nobody on third to take a throw from Wheat, and Cruise made it back safely. Tony Boeckel followed with a single to center, scoring Cruise with the tying run.

Maranville laced a double to right center. Wally Hood chased it down and threw home as Boeckel rounded third. Cadore cut off the throw and relayed it to the plate in time to nip Boeckel. The Brooklyn catcher, Krueger, was spiked on the play. Rowdy Elhott replaced him.

Joe Oeschger went out for the seventh inning even more angry with himself. But for his poor fielding in the fifth, he would have a 1-0 lead now, and the way he was going he was confident that would have been enough. He bore down and retired the side on three pitches.

Cadore had been hit hard, but was saved by several fielding gems. In the eighth, Mann led off with a single. Cruise sacrificed him to second. Holke lined one back through the box; instinctively down and threw him out. Twice more he stopped line drives that would have scored a run. Wheat and Nets were pulling off impossible catches.

The Braves, too, were on their toes. Catcher Mickey O’Neil picked off two runners at first base. Boston looked like they would win it in the ninth. Maranville led off with a base hit to left. Lloyd Christenbury pinch-hit for O’Neil and bunted down the first base line. Cadore fielded it, but the throw hit the runner in the back as he stepped on first. Oeschger sacrificed them to second and third. Ray Powell walked. With the bases full and one out, the Brooklyn infield played in. Charlie Pick hit a sharp hopper toward right. Second baseman Ivy Olson stabbed it, swiped at Powell coming down from first, and threw to first for the double play Powell had gone out of the baseline to avoid the tag and was called out.

So they went to the 10th, the 11th, the 12th, the 13th, the 14th. Three up, three down for the Dodgers, little more for the Braves. Hank Gowdy, one of the heroes of the 1914 world champions, replaced O’Neil behind the plate in the 15th. He had trouble holding on to Oeschger’s pitches, boxing the ball, dropping it more often than catching it. Gowdy went to the mound. “What the hell are you throwing?” he asked.

“Just a fastball.”

“God almighty, it’s breaking one way one time and somewhere else the next time.”

“Well,” Oeschger replied, “I don’t know which way it’s going to move, either.”

It began to drizzle in the 11th. Wind blew in from center field. It was getting colder. Necks, backs, and arms were chilled by the cold and dampness. Muscles tightened. Between innings, players on both benches put on heavy sweaters.

The Braves threatened in the 15th. Cruise walked. Holke hit a little dribbler toward third. Johnston’s throw to second was too late. Two on, nobody out. Boeckel put down a bunt, but the ball stopped dead on the soggy third base line. Elliott picked it up and forced Cruise at third. Maranville hit a comebacker to Cadore, and Holke was forced at third. Gowdy flied out.

Oeschger led off the 16th determined to win his own game. He hit a shot that looked like it might clear the left-field scoreboard. Wheat, using the fence for a springboard, leaped up and caught it. Oeschger kicked at the dirt near second base as he headed back to die dugout.

As they took the field for the 17th, Rabbit Maranville, never silent at shortstop, chirped, “Just one more inning, Joe. We’ll get a run for you. Hold on.”

Oeschger was beginning to tire. Still, he thought, if Stallings asks if I want to come out, my answer will be an emphatic no. Stallings never asked. “Hold them one more inning, Joe,” was all he said. “We’ll get them.”

The Dodgers came close to winning it in the 17th. Zack Wheat opened with a single to right. Hood sacrifced him to second. First baseman Ed Konetchy grounded sharply to Maranville, who couldn’t handle it. Base hit. First and third, one out. Chuck Ward bounced one to Maranville, who threw to third hoping to catch Wheat off the base. But Zack was wary and scrambled back ahead of me throw. Bases loaded, one out.

Rowdy Elliott was up. The catcher hit back to the mound. This time Oeschger fielded it cleanly and threw home to force Wheat. Gowdy’s throw to first was over Elliott’s head and to the right of the base. Hoike dove to his left and knocked the ball down as Elliott crossed the bag. Konetchy rounded third and bolted for home. The left-handed first baseman Hoike threw home while going down to the ground. The throw was on the first base side of the plate. Gowdy reached out and caught it and lunged through the air across home plate, the ball in his bare hand, into the spikes of Konetchy sliding in. Koney bumped the ball with his shin, but Gowdy held on and the threat was over. It was the last one for the Robins.

Ordinarily fans like to see plenty of hitting and scoring. This day they were getting more than their money’s worth of pitching and fielding thrills. Despite the damp chill, nobody left the park. After the 18th inning they cheered each pitcher as he left the mound or came up to bat.

In the Brooklyn dugout, veteran pitcher Rube Marquard, who had pitched plenty of long games himself, said to Cadore’s roommate, utility infielder Ray Schmandt, “I hope Leon won’t be affected by this strain. I hate to see him stay in this long.”

“Caddy is pure grit,” Schmandt said. “He’ll win out.”

Uncle Robbie didn’t have the heart to take him out. And Cadore wouldn’t have come out if he had been asked. Cadore had been hit hard and often, and had at least one runner on base in each of the first nine innings. But now he was aided by the enclosing twilight and the soiled, discolored ball that remained in play.

Oeschger had allowed nine hits, all singles. He was tired, but he had been more fatigued in some nine-inning games when he had to pitch out of a lot of pinches. This was an easy outing. He seemed to grow stronger as the game went on. He figured he had the advantage in the deepening dusk and did not want the game to be called. He was a fastball pitcher, Cadore a curver. The hitters would have more trouble seeing his stuff. He saved his strength by bearing down only when he had to, which wasn’t often. The Dodgers went out in order more often than not. After the 17th Oeschger pitched a nine-inning no-hitter, giving up a walk in the 22nd.

Neither pitcher was looking for strikeouts, which take a lot of pitches. And their control was good. Oeschger wound up walking three, striking out four. Cadore walked five, struck out eight. They wasted little time or motion, routinely taking only three or four warm-up pitches at the start of an inning. Every inning might be the last, would probably be the last, they thought.

The feeling grew on both benches that it would be a shame for either pitcher to lose such a game. Even the home plate umpire, McCormick, later admitted that after the 22nd inning he hoped the game would end in a tie.

The fielders never flagged. Holke took away extra base hits by snaring foul-line-hugging smashes in the 21st and 24th.

At the start of the 26th, somebody in the Braves dugout wondered how long Oeschger could pitch. “He could pitch 126 innings without running any risk,” said Dick Rudolph, the pitching hero of the 1914 sweep of the A’s. “He’s in great shape.”

In the last of the 26th, with two men out, Holke beat out a bunt but Boeckel flied out. It was 6:50 by the clock atop the scoreboard as the Dodgers came off the field. Umpire McCormick took off his mask, stepped in front of home plate and looked up at the sky. It still looked light enough to play, but for how long7 Another whole inning?

Cadore watched the umpire out of the corner of his eye as he walked toward the dugout. Ivy Olson ran toward the umpire, one finger high in the air. “One more. One more.” His shrill voice carried all the way to the press box above the grandstand. Olson wanted to be able to say he had played the equivalent of three nine-inning games in one afternoon.

Both pitchers were willing and able to go one more inning. But McCormick said no. The game was over. The fans booed. The other players had had enough. Zack Wheat said, “I carried up enough lumber to the plate to build a house today.” Charlie Pick’s batting average had suffered the most; he went 0 for 11.

The darkness descended quickly at that point. Up in the press box there were no electric lights. The writers knew they were in for hours of work. In addition to the Boston writers, only Eddie Murphy of the New York Sun and Tommy Rice of the Brooklyn Eagle covered the game. As the innings had rolled by and other New York newspapers heard about it, the two writers were deluged with requests for special reports and stories. Somebody went out and bought a couple dozen candles. The official scorer, the writers, and the Western Union telegraphers worked into the night by candlelight. James C. O’Leary typed out his lead for the Boston Globe:

It was one of the greatest games ever played, but 0n account of the threatening weather only about 4,000 turned out. They stayed til the end. And saw the most wonderful pitching stunt ever performed, and some classy playing and thrilling situations. It was a battle of giants until both were exhausted practically, but neither gave a sign of letting up. There was glory enough for both and it would have been a pity for either one to have been declared the loser.

Cadore had pitched to 95 batters, an average of fewer than four an inning. Oeschger faced 90. Cadore had 13 assists, a one-game record for a pitcher. Oeschger had 11. Oeschger had set a record for consecutive scoreless innings in one game: 21. Cadore had 20.

Boston first baseman Walter Holke had 32 putouts and one assist. Only three Dodgers had reached third: Krueger, who scored, and Wheat and Konetchy, who were erased in the double play in the 17th.

They didn’t count pitches in those days. Cadore later estimated that he had thrown close to 300. Oeschger guessed about 250. Game time was 3 hours and 50 minutes.

That evening Joe Oeschger and Les Mann went to a restaurant they frequented. Nothing posh, just a neighborhood place with good food. It was later than usual for them, and the staff had heard about the game. The waitresses brought out a special cake they had made for the occasion. The Robins had to hurry back to Brooklyn for a Sunday game against the Phillies. They were due back in Boston to play on Monday. Cadore stayed in the hotel with Ray Schmandt, Sherry Smith, and Rube Marquard.

On Sunday morning both pitchers received a telegram from National League president John A. Heydler. He congratulated them and said he was particularly gratified because the pitching was done under the new rules: This was the first year the spitball, emery ball, shine ball, and other trick pitches were banned.

The Sunday Boston papers filled their front pages with big headlines, photos, and box scores of the game. It was the talk of the city, and the baseball world.

It has been written that, when the Dodgers returned on Monday, Cadore was still in bed, since Saturday night. But in fact he had kept pretty much to his hotel until Sunday afternoon, when he and his teammates went downtown to dinner, then to a picture show.

“I was a bit tired,” Cadore later admitted in a classic understatement, “and naturally my arm stiffened. I couldn’t raise it to comb my hair for three days. After seven days of rest I was back taking my regular turn. I never had a sore arm before or after the game. I suppose the nervous energy of trying to win had given me the strength and kept me going.”

When Oeschger awoke Sunday morning, he was lame all over. His arm ached no more than his other limbs. His leg and back muscles had worked as hard as the arm ligaments. There was a little more soreness than usual around his elbow. Oeschger stayed in the Brunswick Hotel all day. He knew the cold, damp winds would do more injury to his body than twice the innings he had worked Saturday.

There was much speculation at the time as to what effect the long game would have on the two pitchers. Rube Marquard said, “I’ve been lucky. I’ve been in a lot of overtime games without being much affected. But the physical and mental makeup of pitchers is not all the same. I pitched a 21-inning game against Babe Adams in 1914 . . . . It didn’t bother me. Three days later I shut out the Reds. But Adams was out of the big leagues the next year. He went to the American Association where he got his arm back, then came back with the Pirates and pitched until he was 43.

“It would be good judgment,” concluded Marquard, “to have both men sit on the bench for at least 10 days. They should work out a bit but not get into a game before then.” Cadore felt he never had the same stuff again. He finished that year with a 15-14 record, then won 13, 8, and 4. At 33, he was finished.

It has also been written that Oeschger, too, was never the same. But the immediate aftermath doesn’t support that. “The 20-inning game with Brooklyn last year may have hurt my arm,” he said the next day, “because I was not in the best of condition. I had passed the winter in the east and had not been able to enjoy hunting and fishing and working on my dad’s ranch in California. … But I’m in good condition this spring and do not expect any ill effects from yesterday’s game.”

Oeschger won 15 games that year, and had his best season in 1921, winning 20 and losing 14 with a second-division team. He pitched 299 innings each year. He fell off to 6-21 and 5-15 the next two years, was traded to the Giants, then the Phillies, and ended his career with a 1-2 record in—of all places—Brooklyn.

Both pitchers were remembered for that one afternoon’s work for the rest of their lives. Ironically, but for his own fielding error, Joe Oeschger would have gone home happy with a nine-inning 1-0 win and never been heard of again when his playing days were over. But for the next 66 years he continued to receive requests for autographs and interviews from all over the world. He had a box score of the game printed and signed them and mailed them out.

Cadore experienced his fame in unusual ways. “I’m in a San Francisco bar one day in 1931,” he recalled, “and the guy next to me is chewing the fat with his pal about extra inning ball games.

” ‘Yeah,’ says the guy. ‘Once a bum in Brooklyn pitched 26 innings. Cuddle or Coodoo or something like that.’

” ‘You’re nuts, ‘ says his pal. ‘Nobody could pitch that long.’

“I nudged the guy sitting next to me. ‘You mean Cadore?’ I said.

” ‘Yeah, that was the bum. Cadore.’

“I took out my lifetime pass and let him look at it. ‘I’m Cadore. I pitched that game.’ He almost toppled off his stool.”

When Cadore was in the hospital in 1958, the doctor told him they couldn’t locate a vein. “A man your age,” the doctor said, “should have a vein sticking right out, especially in that right arm that pitched those 26 innings.” “Doc,” said Cadore, grinning, “I pitched that game with my head.”2

Notes

1. All quotations and references to Oeschger’s actions and thoughts are from interviews by the author with Oeschger at his home in California in the early 1980s. Other details are from contemporary Boston newspapers.

2. Newspaper accounts at the time of Cadore’ s death, March 16, 1958.

The AL’s Longest Games

There must be something in the air or the beans or the brown bread in Boston: In addition to the 26-inning NL game of May I, 1920—major league baseball’s longest—the first two record-length games in American League history that were completed in one afternoon also took place in Boston. As was true of the 26-inning job, every starting pitcher in those games went the route. And both games involved the Philadelphia Athletics.

On the afternoon of July 4, 1905, Rube Waddell started against Cy Young. At 38, Young had already won over 400 games. Boston touched up Waddell for two quick runs in tl1e first. The A’s tied it in the sixth when Bris Lord singled and Harry Davis hit one of his league-leading eight home runs. At the end of nine it was still 2-2.

When fatigue set in, it was tl1e Boston infield, not Young, who succumbed. Danny Murphy led off for the A’s in the top of the 20th and hit a grounder to Jimmy Collins at third. Collins booted it. Young, who had not walked a batter, then threw his most erratic pitch of the day, a one-strike fastball that hit Jack Knight on the hand. Monte Cross ran for him. First and second, no outs. Ossee Schreckengost popped a bunt toward second.

Second baseman Hobe Ferris hesitated, uncertain whether to stay on the bag and let Cy Young take it or go after it. When Young made no move for it, Ferris made a belated attempt. It fell at his feet. Bases loaded.

Rube Waddell hit a grounder. The throw went to third, forcing Cross, as Murphy scored. Danny Hoffman then singled in the second run. The A’s won, 4-2. Game time: 3:31.

A’s catcher Ossee Schreckengost caught all 29 innings that day, still a major league record. Three days later both pitchers were in the box again in Philadelphia. Cy Young pitched for another six years, Rube Waddell another five.

*****

Of the three record games played in Boston, the 24-inning battle on Saturday, September 1, 1906, was by far the most exciting. Although no baserunners crossed home plate from the seventh to the 24th, there were 31 hits—including two doubles and six triples hit into the overflow crowd of 18,000, eight walks, a hit batter, and seven stolen bases. Both pitchers spent the day working out of jams. Spectacular fielding plays helped to stave off defeat for both teams.

Twenty-four-year-old righthander Joe Harris started for Boston against Jack Coombs, a June graduate of Colby College. The A’s took a 1-0 lead in the third. With one out, Coombs hit a swinging bunt down the third-base line. Harris fell trying to pick it up. Coombs stole second, went to third on an infield out, and scored on a single by Topsy Hartsel.

Boston tied it in the sixth. Fred Parent tripled into the crowd and scored on Chick Stahl’s single.

From then on the tension built and broke with the regularity of ocean waves breaking on a beach. Every inning seemed to bring one or both teams to the brink of defeat. It was getting dark as Harris began the top of the 24th by striking out Coombs. Hartsel singled and stole second. Lord struck out for the second out. Schreckengost singled over second and Hartsel scored. Joe Harris suddenly ran out of steam. Seybold and Murphy tripled into the outfield crowd for two more runs.

Coombs had no trouble retiring the weary Pilgrims in their last at-bats. Altogether he struck out 18; Harris fanned 14 and walked two. Time of game: 4:47.

In 1910 and 1911 Jack Coombs won 59 games and pitched almost 700 innings. Illness, not arm injury, ultimately curtailed his career.

Joe Harris couldn’t win before that game and couldn’t win after it. He was 2-21 for the year and 0-7 in 1907.

— Norman Macht

Like the sea captains of an earlier era, Roland Hemond is a native New Englander who has sailed far and wide and worked in many ports along the way. A kid with a fervor for baseball, he started at the bottom sweeping out Hartford’s Bulkeley Stadium, home of the Hartford Chiefs, only to rise through the ranks and become general manager of two major league teams—the White Sox and the Orioles. He’s been an executive for seven teams and three times was named Major League Executive of the Year—by The Sporting News in 1972 with the White Sox and in 1989 with Baltimore and by United Press International in 1983 for his work with the White Sox.

Through the years, Hemond groomed such executives as Dave Dombrowski, Walt Jocketty, Dan Evans, and Doug Melvin. He helped create the Arizona Fall League and played a significant role in Team USA’s preparation for the Pan American Games and the 2000 Olympics.

In 2001, Hemond was recognized by the Society for American Baseball Research for his contributions to scouting, as SABR instituted the annual Roland Hemond Award. Hemond himself was its first recipient.

In December 2001, he was crowned “King of Baseball” by Minor League Baseball at its 2001 annual winter meetings banquet. Each year the minor leagues salute a baseball veteran for his years of service. Baseball America gave him its Distinguished Service Award as well, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary The award recognized 12 people who had 20 or more years of service in the game and Roland was one of the 12, including Cal Ripken Jr.

In January 2002, Hemond received the Boston Baseball Writers Association’s most prestigious award, the Judge Emil E. Fuchs Award for “long and meritorious contributions to baseball.”

Hemond still manifests his passion for the game. While working with the White Sox as a special adviser to GM Ken Williams, he is able to devote time and energy to providing care for baseball people in need, to honoring others who have served, and to promoting baseball to young people. He’s also active, inspiring baseball research through SABR as an active member of Team SABR.

Roland Hemond was born in 1929 in Central Falls, Rhode Island, a textile mill community next to Pawtucket. It was a French-Canadian community and Roland did not speak English until he was about six years old. His father, Ernest, who worked as a bread delivery man, was born and raised in Rhode Island; his mother, Antoinette, a seamstress, moved to the area from a suburb of Montreal when she was about 18. One time at a baseball convention, Hemond announced a trade in French, just for the fun of it.

A neighborhood teenager, Leo Laboissiere, befriended and invited Roland to his first Fenway Park game. When Laboissiere had to cancel at the last minute, the 10-year-old Roland made his way to Fenway and back—before admitting to his parents that his escort had been unable to accompany him.

I conducted three interviews with Roland Hemond, two by telephone and one in person, all in late 2001. Hemond then read the transcriptions to ensure accuracy. This is an abridged version of the full oral history. The complete version is contained on the SABR 32 convention CD.

“I first fell in love with baseball about 1938. I was going on eight years old at the time and just fell in love with the Red Sox. I started playing on the corner playgrounds. Jimmie Foxx was my first hero; he had that MVP year in ‘38. When I went to my first game at Fenway and I saw that green grass, I was hooked. Then Ted Williams came on and Bobby Doerr. I was just a diehard Red Sox fan like so many other New Englanders.

I was a Braves fan also, but not as fanatical. I spent a lot of time at Pawtucket, at McCoy Stadium. I was there when it opened in 1942. Bump Hadley pitched that day. He was out of the major leagues by then, and he was the starting pitcher for, I think it was the Lynn team [of the New England League] pitching against Pawtucket. The Pawtucket Slaters. It was a semi-pro team at that time. Later on [after World War II] they went into the Class B New England League.

“I got up to Fenway about two or three times a year. I used to get there before the gates opened, because I was always hoping that Ted would be taking some extra hitting. My mother let me play hooky twice. Once, to see Bob Feller pitch. I think that was 1940 or ’41. I said to my mother, ‘Mom, this is one of the great pitchers of all time.’ And she said, ‘Well, I guess it’s OK.’ I think he won 2-1.

“And the 1946 World Series also. I saw the fourth game. St. Louis won, 12-3. I sat in the center-field bleachers. I was there at like six o’clock in the morning. I went with some friends and sat in that little triangle in the center-field bleachers.”

Hemond, who once played against future Red Sox GM Lou Gorman in a Rhode Island state baseball championship game, joined the Coast Guard in 1947 and advanced to storekeeper first class, in charge of the pay records. He was stationed at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, but still made his way to watch the Red Sox.

“I used to get to Yankee Stadium every chance I had when the Red Sox were in town, but they didn’t have much luck in those games.

“I was there on that 1949 Fourth of July game. The Red Sox had the bases loaded and Al Zarilla was at the plate. During that inning, the rally looked like it was coming on, but it got real dark and the winds were real weird. It started raining and the umpires finally stopped play with Zarilla at bat. There was a long rain delay. It looked like there was no chance to resume. There were a lot of people upended in their boats on Long Island Sound; there were a lot of drownings that day It was an unpredictable quick electric storm. When the game resumed, it was real dark. They turned the lights on, but Zarilla hit a line drive over the head of Jerry Coleman at second, and Cliff Mapes came and fielded it.

“I was out by the left-field foul pole and I saw the umpire call the runner out at the plate. Berra got it on one hop and no tag. I said, ‘He didn’t tag him! He didn’t tag him!’ And I said, ‘Oh, gosh. That’s Pesky!’ Pesky was out at the plate. Kiki Cuyler was the third base coach and I guess Pesky had started one step toward the plate and Cuyler told him to tag up because the ball went over Coleman’s glove—except that Johnny had no chance then. He was definitely out on the force play.

“Then Doerr hit a fly ball down the right-field line, curving inside that pole, that low fence in those days. Mapes leaned in and caught the ball. He would have had a grand slam. The Red Sox lost the second game also. Casey Stengel said, ‘Well, that takes care of the Red Sox.’ It put them about 122 games behind. It’s the first time I sort of gave up on my old Red Sox.

“I was there that last weekend in ’49, too, when they lost the last two games of the season. The Red Sox came all the way back—to come so close—and lost on the Saturday when Johnny Lindell hit a home run off Joe Dobson in the tenth inning. As history records, the Yankees won the next game, too—and the 1949 pennant.”

How did Hemond move from being a fan to working in baseball? How did he get his start? It was actually a deliberate decision on his part. He wanted to work in baseball and so took a leave during spring training to visit a cousin, a pitcher in the Pirates system. Through a series of circumstances, he met Branch Rickey, who introduced him to Charlie Blossfield, GM of the Hartford (Connecticut) Boston Braves farm club. He landed a job working with Hartford for $28.00 a week. These were modest beginnings, starting at the ground floor, but Hemond today stresses the importance of getting to know baseball at all levels.

“I used to unlock the ballpark in the morning and help Harvey Stone, the trainer, to sweep out the park. Clean it up and get the concession stands ready. Sell tickets in the afternoon and do some p.a. announcing sometimes. Then I would check in the ticket takers and the concessions people at the end of the night, and then lock up the park at 11, 11:30 at night. That still happens with young people in the minor leagues. You wear all sorts of hats, but you’re getting your start. At the end of the season, Charlie said he couldn’t afford me but he wanted me back the next year. About two weeks after I got home in Rhode Island, before I was going to leave for that course at Florida Southern, he called me and he said there’s an opening in the Braves farm system office and, he said, I’ve recommended you. I had learned to type in the Coast Guard, so I went up to Boston and John Mullen, the farm director, was going to need some help in the office so he said he’d give me a two-week tryout, and here I am today. That’s how it all evolved. Being lucky to be at the right places at the right time.

“When I first started, I was like an intern. $35 a week. I got a raise. I got to the big leagues and I got a $7 a week raise.”

Hemond was working for the Boston Braves, in Boston. Life took another turn, though, as life sometimes does—not only for the Braves with their departure for Milwaukee but for Hemond personally as well. Within 18 months of when he joined the Braves, Hemond had moved to Milwaukee with the club. In 1958, he married Morgo Quinn, “the boss’s daughter”—though John Quinn resigned only six weeks or so afterward.

“I was eight full years in Milwaukee. That was a great experience. I officially became assistant to John Mullen—instead of being an apprentice or an intern—when he became official farm director in ‘53. I became the assistant to him for the remaining years in Milwaukee.

“Then I went to the Angels as farm and scouting director, when they became an expansion club. I reported to them January 3, 1961.

“We have five children. Susan did a lot of associate director’s TV work with the San Diego Padres and ESPN and the West Coast teams, and Anaheim, etc. Bob is now part owner of the Sacramento franchise in the Pacific Coast League. Jay has done some work in baseball. He worked in the farm office of the Florida Marlins for a couple of years, and this past year managed a team in Winchester, Tennessee, in the All American Association.

“He worked for the Frederick Keys in the Carolina League for a while. Our daughter Tere and our youngest son, Ryan, not yet. He’s 27. They all gravitate to the game, though, and have a great love for it.

“[In California] I was farm director and scouting director Fred Haney, who had been the manager of the Braves in the ’50s, was the general manager, and he hired me. I was there for 10 years with them and then became general manager of the White Sox on September 14, 1970. The whole ’60s with the Angels, and then from the last two weeks of the 1970 season through 1985, I was general manager of the White Sox. We [the White Sox] were never endowed with much money to work with. The White Sox team that I joined, that year they were 56 and 106. Chuck Tanner was our manager and we had worked together with the Angels, and we’d been in the Braves organization together. We worked extremely well together. At the first winter meetings in December of 1970, we moved 16 players in the first 18 hours of the convention. Coming and going. We improved by 23 games the first year. Then that next winter, we acquired Dick Allen and Stan Bahnsen in a couple of big deals and we made a heck of a run at it in ’72. We weren’t eliminated until the last week. Then we were under financial problems so it was hard to do much other than try to survive the next three years. Oakland, they were great. In ‘73, it looked like we were ready to make a good shot at it and we opened the season about six games in front. At the last part of May, Ken Henderson, whom we had acquired that winter to play center field, tore up his knee badly at a play at the plate. Then Dick Allen also suffered an injury. Mike Epstein ran over him and broke the tibia bone. That robbed us of an opportunity. I think we would have had a shot at it that year.

“Then ’74 and ’75 the rumors were heavy that the club might move or be sold, so we couldn’t make very many moves. Then Bill Veeck came, and in ’77 we gave it a real good run again. We came back after a dismal ’76 season and made a good run that year against Kansas City. [Working with Veeck] was a tremendous experience that I greatly treasure and will forever relish. It was a fantastic experience to be with him. In all facets of life. Baseball as well. He was just an incredible man. He used to say, ‘Don’t bother preparing a budget, Roland. We don’t have any money. We’ll think of something.’ We had a lot of fun and competed as best we could.

“So we traded young players like Bucky Dent, Rich Gossage and Terry Forster to get Richie Zisk and Oscar Gamble. Signed Eric Soderholm as a free agent, and he was the Comeback Player of the Year. Zisk hit 30 home runs and Gamble hit 31. Soderholm hit 25. That was quite a fun year. It was hard for Bill, again, to compete on a financial basis, but I would never trade those five years for anything. Then Jerry Reinsdorf and Eddie Einhorn bought the club and we made some moves, signing Carlton Fisk as a free agent, and acquired Greg Luzinski. The club got better and better and we won the division by 20 games in ’83. We lost a tough postseason series against Baltimore.

“Then I went to the commissioner’s office for a year and a half, in about May of ’86. Peter Ueberroth [the commissioner] asked Jerry Reinsdorf—I’d been retained by the White Sox in a capacity as a special assistant. Peter asked permission, if they could have me in the front office, the commissioner’s office, because of my experience with ball clubs. I was there for a year and a half until the opportunity came to be general manager of the Baltimore Orioles. Edward Bennett Williams, the owner of the Orioles, I was interviewed by him and club president Larry Lucchino. He was impressed that I had been at Bulkeley Stadium in Hartford also, because as a young boy he had sold hot dogs and beer at Bulkeley Stadium. He was from Hartford. He said the hot dogs were cold and the beer was warm.

“Then I spent eight years with the Orioles, and then five years with the Diamondbacks and now back with the White Sox. I don’t regret it [not being with the Diamondbacks as they won the 2001 World Series]. I’m happy for them. I thoroughly enjoyed their accomplishment, and you know that during the period of time you were there you made some contributions that led to their success. I was thrilled to be asked by the White Sox to come back. I thoroughly enjoyed this year with the White Sox. I thought the club performed very well under a lot of adversity and kept battling.”

When Hemond first joined the Diamondbacks, it was just as they were forming up. Hemond came in at the ground level, one of their first hires. “As soon as Jerry Colangelo found my not being retained by the Orioles, then he contacted me and I joined the Diamondbacks and we all worked for the preparation for a couple of years for the expansion draft and then the next three years with them.

“We won 100 games our second year. I think people have a tendency to forget about that. They think about this year [2001], but we went to the postseason with 100 victories our second season. Played the Mets in the playoffs.

“Richard Dozier, the president of the club, and Joe Garagiola Jr. as general manager were already hired. I became executive vice president of baseball operations. Basically, the same type job that I now have with the White Sox. Jerry Colangelo hired me.

“He talked to Joe about it, and since it was a new position for Joe—first-time general manager— [it must have struck them as good] to have someone like me to help him. I was one of the originals, and then Buck Showalter was hired after me.

“There was no farm system, and I was in that position also when I joined the California Angels way back, which was the Los Angeles Angels, when I was named farm and scouting director. The Angels had already made the expansion selections in early December and I joined them January 3, but I started a farm system and scouting department right from scratch. When I first joined them, we put together one Class A ball club in Statesville, North Carolina, to get started and we got a limited working agreement in Triple A with Dallas/Fort Worth. That was the beginning. That gave us a place to send some of the players that we had selected. Then we needed sort of a rookie type club to get started.

“Then with the Diamondbacks, we didn’t play for two years in the major leagues, so when we started, we started a rookie club in Arizona and South Bend in a Class A league. We got an affiliation with South Bend and started a new club in the Arizona Rookie League. We had to hire minor league managers and coaches, instructors and scouts and all that stuff. And players. It’s exciting. It’s a great process to be involved in.”

After 15 years with the White Sox, Hemond had joined the Office of the Commissioner in May of 1986. “Dr. Bobby Brown was the president of the American League. One of his duties was the grassroots baseball. Summer leagues, and the various programs. Babe Ruth program. American Legion. I helped him and I traveled around. Cape Cod League. The Northeastern League they had in New York State at that time. A new league in Ohio. The Great Lakes League. The Jayhawk League. I’d come back with reports on each of the franchises and what I thought could be improved and what we should do.

“Al Campanis unfortunately made his remarks, it turns out he was actually of great service to the game. . . It was in April 1987 when Al Campanis appeared on the TV show Nightline and made disparaging remarks regarding the capabilities of minorities—we all felt for Al . . . This was unfortunate. Al had helped and had given support to minorities throughout his baseball career. He had played shortstop in Montreal alongside Robinson, his teammate with the Montreal Royals when Jackie went from the Negro Leagues to the Brooklyn Dodgers farm system. “He could be classified as a hero now. It really sparked efforts to institute a program to help minorities to gain baseball employment other than within the playing ranks. Commissioner Ueberroth had spoken at length, and emphatically, that baseball should hire more minorities in various non-playing positions I think in the past many of the minorities didn’t even let you know they’d be interested, because they figured they didn’t have a chance. Those were the facts of life. They hadn’t seen any action. Peter then hired Clifford Alexander and Grant Hill’s mother, Janet Hill.

“They had an agency in Washington, D.C., where they were helping minorities get placed in the corporate world. He also hired Harry Edwards, the sociology professor at the University of California in Berkeley and former Olympic track star. Then he had me meet with them, and we prepared questionnaires to send out to as many people as we could find out where they might be located, so they could indicate what they might like to do if they had an opportunity to get back into the game.

“Alexander and Hill concentrated mainly on front office positions and minor league jobs. Edwards was more for coaches and managers’ jobs. I was sort of the coordinator working with them.

“The commissioner also sent me to Australia. He assigned me to Japan with the Major League All-Star team to represent the commissioner’s office. People should spend some time in the commissioner’s office. There’s a tendency to say, “Well, what do they do up there?” Well, they do a lot of things. That’s why there’s more marketing now. There’s more TV. They work on a lot of programs to help our game. You have greater respect when you’re not working just with your own ball club. It helped me to broaden my scope of imagination. Not too long after, I got the job with Baltimore.

“Hank Peters preceded me in Baltimore. He had a fine career there, but they’d had a couple of bad years just before I arrived. They’d had a bad year in ’87 and then when I joined them in November [as vice president and general manager], it wasn’t a good club. We lost the first 21 games in 1988. I used to tell myself, ‘Well, I didn’t create it. I inherited it.’ That’s why you get those jobs. Then the next year, we improved by 32 1/2 games. And our payroll was only $8.5 million, the whole payroll. Williams had been the owner for some time. He had the ’83 club. He bought the Orioles about 1978, ’79, I think. In ’83 I was with the White Sox and they beat us in the playoffs. Then they kind of slipped from then on and started going the other way When I came in, the manager was Cal Ripken Sr. We made a change early in the ’88 season, after six games. Frank Robinson, we made him the manager, and we lost our next 15.

“We made some trades that summer. Mike Boddicker to the Red Sox for Curt Schilling and Brady Anderson. Traded Fred Lynn in late August for Chris Hoiles. We traded Eddie Murray that winter, after the season, at the winter meetings to the Dodgers for Juan Bell, Brian Holton, and the pitcher Ken Howell. We traded him immediately to Philadelphia for Phil Bradley. The next year we really improved by an enormous number of games. It was one of the biggest comebacks of all time.“

It was in fact a 32 1/2-game turnaround—from last place and 34 1/2 games out in 1988 to finishing just two games behind the Blue Jays in 1989. Hemond was named Executive of the Year again by The Sporting News. Two years later he was awarded the Distinguished Service Award from Baseball America.

“It was quite gratifying to me to receive the Distinguished Service Award. Cal Ripken was one of the recipients. John Schuerholz, on behalf of the Atlanta Braves, for the consistency in their organization over the last ten years. Paul Snyder, I was very, very happy to see him get recognition as their director of scouting. They say the scouts are the unsung heroes. I’ve heard that since I broke in, in the early ’50s, and I have recognized that they’re the unsung heroes, so I always say, ‘Well, let’s sing their praises.’ I want to see them get recognition that they so justly deserve. They never get any headlines. They never get any recognition. A lot of people take the bows, but without their good scouting staff and good scouts and their recommendations and their signings, you’re not successful. Many of us are working toward scouts getting better recognition in the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

“I see there are still quite a few general managers from New England. Tal Smith was from Massachusetts. Harry Dalton was Lou Gorman, from Rhode Island. Dave Littlefield is from Massachusetts, now with Pittsburgh. Jim Beattie is from New Hampshire. Dan Duquette and J.P. Ricciardi are from Massachusetts. I think it’s because of the rich baseball tradition here in New England. People are so much into it, maybe more so than in some other parts of the country where baseball is relatively new. The American League office used to be here in Boston. Before Cronin, Will Harridge was in Chicago. Cronin put it in New England.”

While many believe that the darkest day in Boston sports history was the day Babe Ruth was sold to the Yankees, January 19, 1900, may well qualify as its most tragic. It was in the early hours of that Friday morning in the town of North Brookfield, Massachusetts, that Marty Bergen, star catcher for Boston’s National League team, killed his wife and two children with an ax, then sliced his own throat with a razor. Though the 28-year-old North Brookfield native was thought for some time to have been experiencing severe mental problems, few believed he was capable of such a horrific act.

The brutally grim discovery was made that morning by Bergen’s father, Michael, who had stopped by the farmhouse two miles outside of town to do a few chores. As he entered the kitchen he witnessed the startling sight of Bergen in a pool of blood with his throat cut and a razor resting on a table nearby. His six-year-old daughter Florence lay beside him with severe damage to her skull inflicted by the blunt end of an ax. In the next room, Bergen’s wife, Harriet, was found lying in bed next to their three-year-old son Joseph, both with traumatic head wounds. A bloody long-handled ax was leaning in a doorway a few feet away.

The tragic news spread quickly through the small central Massachusetts town not far from Worcester. The newspapers would write, “It was the deed of a maniac executed in the most brutal manner.” It was also said of Bergen that he was a clean- living, deeply religious, and devoted family man, and “when in his right mind, a better fellow never lived.”1

The landscape of sports in 1900 was such that the Boston Beaneaters, later known as the Braves, were the only professional sports team in the city. The Red Sox franchise was still over a year away from its inaugural season, and the National League team had the area’s baseball fans all to itself. Bergen had debuted with Boston in 1896 and had been an integral part of the National League championship teams of ‘97 and ‘98. Many regarded him as one of the finest catchers in the league at that time—a very competent batsman with a deadly accurate throwing arm.

Bergen had earned a reputation early in his career for his erratic behavior and extreme eccentricities. Displaying what was likely severe paranoia, he was described by acquaintances as constantly giving the impression that someone was out to do him an injustice.2 This trait seemed to become even more pronounced as his playing career went on.

In the spring of 1899 while Bergen was on a road trip in Washington, one of his young sons passed away, and that tragedy pushed him closer to the brink of insanity. Many of his teammates, concerned about his mental state, were said to fear him, avoiding him whenever possible. It had become fairly common for Bergen to abandon the team without notice for days at a time. Manager Frank Selee, who led Boston to five NL pennants in the 1890s, could no longer tolerate his actions and seriously considered trading him to Cincinnati. Contacted at his Melrose, Massachusetts, home shortly after the gruesome crime, Selee observed, “His mental derangement, although noticeable from the time he became a member of the club, seemed to grow worse the past season.”

In the wake of the heinous incident, it was told that Bergen had consulted physicians and clergymen alike in an effort to seek relief from the mania and delusions that were gripping him. Reverend Humphrey Wren of St. Joseph’s Church reported that Bergen had been in to discuss his troubles six weeks prior and had appeared comforted by the priest’s kind words. His physician, Dr. Louis Dionne, characterized him as having “been a maniac for years” and said that “his disease had finally overcome him.”3

With the advent of modern psychiatry decades away, there was no effective method to deal with a condition that has become relatively easy to treat a century later. Hall of Fame outfielder Hugh Duffy, captain of the Boston team, echoed the sentiments of many upon learning of the tragedy. While acknowledging Bergen’s excellence as a ballplayer, he added, “I have realized for a long while that Bergen has not been right. His personality has been an enigma to me ever since he joined the team, and knowing his melancholy moods and understanding so thoroughly how false were his ideas that the boys were all against him, a more serious outbreak was not altogether unexpected by me.”

Only one teammate, star outfielder and future Hall of Famer Billy Hamilton, attended the funeral service. Also in attendance was East Brookfield native Connie Mack, who would begin his legendary 50-year reign as manager of the Philadelphia Athletics the following year.

The memory of the murder/suicide has now long faded into obscurity to the baseball public with the passage of a century. Yet it is hard not to speculate on the utterly intense media coverage such an incident would create if the equivalent were to occur today. An All-Star caliber athlete in the prime of his life and career, playing for one of the most successful pro sports franchises in the country, murdering his family in a psychopathic rage. The sad occurrence would likely spawn a movie and a book and be the topic of discussion on numerous television and radio talk shows.

Notes

1 Boston Globe, January 20, 1900.

2 Worcester Evening Gazette.

3 Boston Globe, January 20, 1900.

Had he not pitched for the Boston Braves, Warren Spahn might have won 400 games. For one thing, he had the bad fortune to play for Casey Stengel, in Spahn’s words, “before and after he was a genius.” Stengel won 10 pennants in 12 years as manager of the Yankees from 1949 through 1960 but managed Spahn earlier, with the Boston Braves and, later, with the New York Mets.

He was managing the Braves when Spahn made his major league bow on April 19, 1942, but took an instant dislike to the kid left hander. In fact, Stengel made the worst prediction of his managerial career when he said Spahn had no future in the majors.

After the lefty refused an order to deck Dodger shortstop Pee Wee Reese, the manager sent him to Hartford, then in the Eastern League. Spahn returned in time to pick up his first complete game in the majors but didn’t get a decision.

Leading the Giants, 5-2, in the seventh inning of the September 26 game at Braves Field, Spahn could smell victory. But the smell turned sour when youngsters who had been admitted to the park in exchange for ten pounds of scrap metal (vital to the war effort) stormed the field. Umpire Ziggy Sears forfeited the game to the New York Giants, but all player records counted—with the exception of winning and losing pitcher.

The ’42 Braves went 59-89, finishing a distant seventh in an eight-team league, and certainly could have used Spahn’s services. Things were so bad for the ball club that the Boston Record actually praised the motorist who flattened Stengel, fracturing his leg and idling him for the start of the ’43 season. He was gone after that campaign, while Spahn’s baseball career was placed on hold by the war.

Though the pitcher later became the only major leaguer to receive a World War II battlefield commission, the bars on his collar also extended his stay halfway into the 1946 season. By the time he posted the first of his 363 victories, a record for a left hander, Warren Spahn was 25 years old. Time wasn’t on his side, but tenacity was a factor in his future.

With Spahn on the staff, the Braves finished fourth in 1946, third a year later, and first in 1948, the first time the Boston Braves reached the World Series since 1914.

Then came the fall: fourth in ’49, ’50, and ’51 and seventh in an eight-team league in 1952, the team’s last year in Boston before escaping the shadow of the Red Sox by fleeing to Milwaukee. In fact, the Boston Braves finished over .500 only once (83-71 in 1950) after losing the 1948 World Series to the Cleveland Indians.

All those losing seasons weren’t Warren Spahn’s fault but didn’t help his record either. He lost a career-worst 19 games in 1952 (despite a 2.98 ERA) and dropped 17, the second-worst total of his 21-year career, during a 21-win season in 1950. Since Spahn finished his career 37 victories shy of the 400 plateau, it’s easy to see where a better ball club, a better relationship with his manager, and an earlier military discharge might have fattened his win total.

Had Stengel kept him in 1942, for example, the lefty might have won 12-15 games. Pitching for Hartford instead, the Buffalo native had a record of 17-13 accompanied by a microscopic 1.96 ERA. It was the second year in a row Spahn’s ERA in the minors had been below 2.00.

The winner of a Bronze Star and Purple Heart, Spahn fought in the Battle of the Bulge and helped the Allies take the bridge at Remagen. He later spent time in Germany with the occupying forces. But his commission caused a delay in his return.

Spahn could have doubled his eight wins of 1946 had the army sent him home sooner; it was July before he won the first of his 363 victories.

The lefty’s win total was also shortchanged in 1952, when Boston’s offense was offensive to the team’s pitchers. He finished with only 14 victories, hardly a Spahn-like total for a full season.

Though he had four of his thirteen 20-win seasons in Boston and twice led the league in victories (1949 and 1950), the southpaw suffered when his team sputtered. Pitching for those bad ball clubs between 1949 and 1952 cost him dearly in the win column. In fact, it seems safe to say Spahn could have topped his career peak of 23 wins, achieved for the Milwaukee Braves in both 1953 and 1963, with decent help from his hitters. In fact, he probably would have won 25 or more in any of the four years 1949-52, when he led the National League in strikeouts.

This is not to say Spahn was a bad pitcher in Boston. Au contraire, monsieur. He led the NL in starts, complete games, innings pitched, wins, and shutouts twice each and ERA once, in addition to the four strikeout crowns. He also established Boston Braves club records with 122 wins, four 20-win seasons, and 1,000 strikeouts.

Though ’48 was his worst overall season until his skills left him in 1964, the high-kicking lefty won the mid-September game that put the Braves into first place for good. Pitching the distance, Spahn beat the Dodgers, 2-1, in 14 innings (later in his career, he pitched complete games that lasted 15 and 16 innings).

Spahn topped 300 innings pitched in 1949, one of two years in his career that he endured such a workload, and had a pair of high-strikeout games for the sad-sack 1952 team that drew only 281,278 fans. He whiffed 13 men in a nine-inning game and 18 in a 15-inning game, both Boston Braves club records. (Spahn later fanned a career-best 15 in a nine-inning game for the Milwaukee Braves while pitching one of his two no-hitters.)

Boston batters were baffled by the Cubs in the 15-inning game on June 15, but Spahn was not. His home run, one of the 35 he hit to set an NL record for pitchers, was the only run in a 2-1 loss.

Spahn’s frustration in 1952 was assuaged a bit with the arrival that season of a rookie slugger named Eddie Mathews. The only man to play for the Braves in three different cities, Mathews would eventually join Spahn in the Baseball Hall of Fame. But not for what he did in Boston. The pitcher was clearly the best player on the last edition of the Boston Braves. He meant so much to the franchise, in fact, that management offered him a contract that would have paid him 10 cents a head, based on the team’s home attendance, Spahn declined, failing to realize the gold mine the team would strike when it suddenly shifted from Boston to Milwaukee during 1953 spring training.

The move to Wisconsin helped the great left hander win a World Championship, a goal that eluded him in Boston. The Braves won only one flag, in 1948, during Spahn’s tenure but failed to defeat the Cleveland Indians, who won in six games. But Spahn picked up a win with 53 innings of one-hit relief in Game Five.

That was the year of “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain,” though the Boston pitching rotation was deeper than the puddles suggested by the rhyme.

Johnny Sain led the league with 24 wins, but Spahn was merely mortal, managing only 15 wins and a fat 3.71 ERA one year after leading the Senior Circuit in that department. “Spahn & Sain & pray for rain” had a nice ring to it, but Bill Voiselle (13) and Vern Bickford (11) filled out a respectable rotation for manager Billy Southworth.

Sain called him “one of the smartest men ever to play the game,” while Whitlow Wyatt seconded the motion by saying, “Every pitch he throws has an idea behind it.”

In his early days, Spahn relied on a fastball, curveball, and good control but later added a slider and screwball to his repertoire. He blamed himself for helping Willie Mays maintain his berth in the major leagues.

In 1951, Spahn yielded the first of Mays’s 660 home runs. “For the first 55 feet, it was a great pitch,” he said later. As an afterthought, the pitcher conceded, “If only I had gotten him out, we might have gotten rid of Willie forever.” Mays had been 0-for-24 before connecting against Spahn in the Polo Grounds.

Spahn, a high school first baseman who switched to pitching only when he couldn’t budge an incumbent, could always counteract an enemy home run by hitting one himself. His desire to help himself may have stemmed from Opening Day 1942, when Spahn saw teammate Jim Tobin connect twice.

By the time Spahn was finished, he would not only rank fourth on the career home list for pitchers but have the exact same number of hits (363) and victories (363). He once hit .300 and won 20 games in the same season, a rare feat.

Without Casey Stengel’s faux pas, the nation’s military needs, and the sudden slide of the Boston Braves from champions to vagabonds, Warren Spahn would have achieved something even more rare: membership in the 400-win club. Only Cy Young and Walter Johnson belong.

“People say that my absence from the major leagues may have cost me a chance to win 400 games,” he once said. “But I really don’t know about that. I matured a lot in three years and think I was better equipped to handle major-league hitters at 25 than I was at 22. And I pitched till I was 44. Maybe I wouldn’t have been able to do that otherwise.”

Notes

1. Total Braves (New York: Penguin), 76.