This story tells the tragic tale of Michael “Doc” Powers, a catcher who played primarily for the Philadelphia Athletics and whose baseball career was cut short by his untimely death. Misconceptions about what caused his demise abound, but can be laid to rest by this article. Ultimately, “Doc Powers Day” was organized by the American League and hosted by the A’s to raise funds for his widow and children, an extraordinary effort for its time.

A Real Doctor

Michael Riley Powers was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts on September 22, 1870.1 Unlike the majority of baseball players called “Doc,” he earned the nickname legitimately. After graduating from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, and the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, Powers completed his medical studies at Louisville Medical College while playing for the Louisville Colonels. After arriving in Philadelphia, he passed the State Board examination for doctors in Pennsylvania. Powers practiced medicine each offseason at an established medical practice in Jeffersonville—a community located northwest of Philadelphia—where he lived with his wife, Florence, and three children.2 Using his medical skills, Powers often treated teammates for minor injuries, also gaining the nickname “Red Cross Mike.”3

Baseball Career

Powers played college baseball at Holy Cross and Notre Dame.4 He made his major league debut on June 12, 1898, with the Louisville Colonels of the National League.5 Powers was used sparingly by the Colonels, appearing in just 34 and 49 games, respectively, 1898–99. He was sold to the Washington Senators on September 16, 1899, and played in 14 games for the Senators at the tail end of the season.

In March 1900 the NL jettisoned what it judged to be weaker franchises: Louisville, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Washington.6 Like many other players, Powers found himself without a job and migrated to the newly-named American League of Professional Baseball Clubs—formerly known as the Western League— which was categorized as a minor league circuit at that time.7 He became the Indianapolis Hoosiers’ full-time catcher, appearing in 110 games for a team that finished in third place.

During the 1900–01 offseason, American League president Ban Johnson sought equal standing with the NL. Achieving this end meant changing the geographic configuration of the league, again dropping less robust franchises and establishing new ones in the east. AL teams in Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland were kept, while Indianapolis, Kansas City, Buffalo, and Minneapolis were replaced by clubs in Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington—cities with populations large enough and locations favorable enough to enable the AL to compete head-to-head with the NL.8

“Doc” Powers became a player without a team for a second time. Connie Mack was selected to manage the AL’s Philadelphia club, which chose the nickname Athletics because of its long and honored place in the city’s baseball history.9 Mack scrambled to put together a roster in time for the 1901 season, and he signed several players who were still under league control even though their clubs had been eliminated. Powers then stayed on the A’s roster—with one brief interlude—for the rest of his professional baseball career.10

Powers was a light hitter at the plate and ponderous on the bases, but he had a cannon for an arm and possessed considerable prowess in handling pitchers. David Jordan writes in his history of the Philadelphia Athletics that Powers was “a man who could keep his pitchers’ heads in the game.”11 Sportswriter George Graham, who covered baseball in Philadelphia when Powers played, wrote:

Powers was always a far better catcher than he was credited with being. He wasn’t much of a hitter—one of the poorest in the league, in fact—and he was painfully slow on the bases, but behind the bat he was alert-minded, he handled the mitt well and had a great arm.12

In 539 games over nine years with the A’s, Powers notched a modest .213 batting average with only three home runs. But Powers brought two assets integral to success as a catcher—a canny baseball mind and savvy baseball instincts. George M. Young, a Philadelphia sportswriter who reported on Powers during his time with the Athletics, observed:

A brainy catcher is the guiding genius of a team… It is usually the catcher who gives the delivery signals to the pitcher and also tips off the pitcher when to throw to bases. Also, it is he who places the men in the field to play for a particular batsman…Such a man was the late “Doc” Powers.13

Powers also served another key role as personal catcher to Eddie Plank—one of the greatest left-handed pitchers in baseball history. Mack recognized that when a catcher and pitcher develop a rapport, to maximize the effectiveness and comfort level of the pitcher they should be kept together. He used this formula with the brilliant yet madcap Rube Waddell. Ossee Schrecongost served as Waddell’s personal catcher—and roommate—for six years. Like Waddell, Schrecongost was an oddball with great fondness for alcohol.14

Powers caught 205 of Plank’s 282 starts, 1901–09.15 Plank presented challenges for any catcher, and the ability to handle him was a primary reason Powers remained with the team despite his anemic hitting.16 Sportswriter Stephen O. Gauley described the difficulties with Plank:

Perhaps Connie Mack and the rest of the Athletic rooters figured Powers’s greatest value to the team was in the fact that he was the only catcher who could successfully hold Eddie Plank’s puzzling delivery…“Doc” handled everything Plank could use without any apparent extra effort or trouble. Plank is not the easiest pitcher in the business to handle, as many a catcher who has tried it will testify, but Powers apparently reveled in Plank’s stubborn delivery. Crossfire “Doc” seemed to fairly eat up, and no matter how hard or low did some of Plank’s shoots go, Powers invariably mitted them, which other catchers would have let slip away to the grandstand.17

Connie Mack gave Powers the singular honor of catching the first game in club history on April 26, 1901, at the Athletics’ Columbia Park.18 Although the A’s came out on the short end of a 5–1 score against Washington, the team was off and running.19

Powers was the team’s primary catcher in 1901, then took a back seat to Schrecongost from 1902 through 1908. Schrecongost was a fine defensive catcher, with a lot more pop in his bat.20

The only brief interruption of this arrangement came during the 1905 season, when injuries left the New York Highlanders (also known as Yankees) needing a catcher on a temporary basis. Mack “loaned” Powers to the Highlanders for a short period of time. Although unheard of today, this practice was not uncommon during the early twentieth century, and no other clubs objected to this courtesy being extended. Powers joined New York on July 13, 1905. Remarkably, the Highlanders won 11 in a row with Powers on the roster and then a 12th after he returned to Philadelphia on August 7, 1905.21

Joy Tempered by Disquiet

After playing at Columbia Park for eight years, the Athletics moved to a new ballpark at the start of the 1909 season. Shibe Park became the club’s home for the rest of its stay in Philadelphia. The inaugural home opener occurred on Monday, April 12, 1909, with Plank pitching and Powers catching. The splendidly successful affair saw the A’s win over the Boston Red Sox, 8–1, before a sellout crowd in a ballpark that was the crown jewel of the league.22

The festive mood was diminished slightly by concern over the health of “Doc” Powers who had become ill during the game.23 One newspaper account reported:

The only thing that occurred to cast a shadow over the joy of the fans was the seizure of “Doc” Powers with acute gastritis in the seventh inning. The redoubtable catcher, however, refused to abandon his post behind the plate and though suffering intense agony, pluckily stuck to it until the end of the game. On the verge of collapse, he was taken to Northwest General Hospital where last night it was stated by the physicians attending him that he would probably be able to don a uniform again in a few days.24

Stories filed by reporters immediately after the ballgame were upbeat, with all estimating that Powers would be gone only a short time.25 Later that night, however, his condition worsened, and doctors judged it necessary to operate.26 The operation started at 1:00 am on Tuesday, April 13, and doctors discovered that Powers was suffering from intussusception.27

Intussusception, which happens rarely in adults, is a disorder in which part of the intestine slides telescopically into an adjacent part of the intestine, often preventing food or fluid from passing through and cutting off the blood supply to the blocked section.28 The lack of blood causes the tissue of the intestinal wall to die, which can result in perforation of the intestine and infection of the abdominal cavity—a life-threatening condition that requires immediate medical attention.29

The Death of “Doc” Powers

Surgeons found that the intussusception had caused more than a foot of intestine to become gangrenous, which they removed. Afterwards, “[Powers] was reported to be in a serious condition with even chances of recovery.”30 He rallied after the operation, which created optimism for several days that he would recover. A Sporting Life columnist observed, “The desperate operation at first bid fair to be successful.”31

The hope was short-lived. After a week, the abdominal pain and symptoms of obstruction recurred. A second, more intrusive operation was performed on April 20: Another blockage had formed and the gangrene had spread. Doctors cut out the blockage and infected area and created an artificial anus in the abdominal wall. For a brief period, Powers was able to eat food and showed other signs of recovery.32

But on the morning of Sunday, April 25, his condition again deteriorated. A third operation revealed he was experiencing acute dilatation of the heart.33 The prognosis was grim.34 Powers was given blood transfusions and oxygen, but doctors judged he was near death and wouldn’t live another day.35 Father Kinslow of Philadelphia’s St. Elizabeth’s Church was called to Northwest General Hospital on the morning of April 25 to administer the last sacrament. A newspaper reported, “At any minute [Powers] may be called upon to obey the mandate of the Inexorable Umpire, but He will find the noble athlete ready for the command.”36

Powers gamely held on throughout April 25, lapsing in and out of consciousness. At 9:14 on the morning of April 26, “Doc” Powers passed away. According to one newspaper account, Powers, who with his medical training knew of his impending doom, cried out just before dying, “I’ve got no pulse…no pulse!”37

What Killed “Doc” Powers?

Confusion existed at the time about what caused the death of Powers. Some of it was based on the initial misdiagnosis of his condition as acute gastritis and the forecast of a full recovery. The Philadelphia Inquirer acknowledged the “many conflicting reports” and to set the record straight, printed an explanation by one of the surgeons who assisted in the operations.38 The account is reproduced here in its entirety because it provides information important in refuting misconceptions that exist to this day about what killed the Athletics’ redoubtable catcher.

At the conclusion of the ball game on Monday, April 12, Powers was found to be suffering from interssusseption [sic]39 of the bowel, which can probably be better described in homely language as like the tuck put in a man’s shirt sleeve to shorten it when it is too long.

Interssusseption is a condition found most frequently in children and in individuals who have more or less gaseous intestinal distension, and can occur while peacefully lying in bed as readily as while strenuously exercising. The mortality is usually very high; it being regarded as a generally fatal condition.

The need for an operation on Powers was manifested by the fact that he had a mass in the right lower portion of his abdomen, giving excruciating pain, and the opening made into the abdomen over the site of the mass revealed the fact that the lower end of the small intestine had slipped into the colcum [sic] or upper end of the large intestine, rendering about fifteen inches of intestine devoid of blood supply by pressure, and consequent gangrene of this portion of the intestine.

Efforts to reduce this interssusseption or, in plainer language, to restore the intestine to its normal condition, were unavailing, and the fifteen inches of intestine involved were cut out and the ends of the severed intestine were united, with the result that the obstruction was removed and the patient’s symptoms for a week were such as to lead all to believe in his ultimate recovery. At this time, however, symptoms of obstruction recurred and it was found necessary to perform a second operation. An artificial anus was then established in the abdominal walls at the seat of the original operation, when the obstruction completely disappeared and the patient improved and partook of nourishment satisfactorily until Sunday morning, the 25th instant, when suddenly he developed acute dilatation of the heart with collapse. During the day a considerable quantity of liquid was introduced into his circulation directly through openings in his veins; oxygen was administered continuously, but under neither did he respond and death resulted at 9:14 am Monday.40

Intussusception—the disorder and medical complication arising from it—caused “Doc” Powers to die.41

Misconceptions about Powers’s Death

Despite credible, definitive explanations for cause of death—offered at the time of his death by attending physicians and separately by Northwest General Hospital—multiple misconceptions persist about what killed Powers.42 The two most prominent claims both stem from the day of April 12: either an injury suffered during the game or a sandwich—or sandwiches—Powers ate before or during the game.

The “sandwich” theory originates in newspaper articles written after the game but before surgery had revealed the true nature and extent of the malady. One article, for example, offered this account:

Powers ate a few sandwiches before the game, and these, with the undue excitement the “Doctor” labored under during the game, brought on the attack which did more to knock him out than any of the foul tips shot off the Bostons’ bats.43

The author of this piece did not cite a source for the “sandwiches” assertion.44 Another version of this claim read, “was said then to have been caused by a sandwich he ate while the game was in progress.”45 Still another contended the sandwich had “failed to digest properly.”46

Despite being fundamentally wrong, the sandwich theory probably formed in the fertile minds of reporters, conjuring a causative link between eating a sandwich and his subsequent ailment. Food poisoning is not mentioned explicitly by reporters, but the presumption may have seemed reasonable on a prima facie basis to the writers. Specifically:

• Powers ate a sandwich—perhaps several sandwiches—either before or during the game.47
• Some sources identify it as a cheese sandwich. It could have contained pathogens such as salmonella or listeria that cause food poisoning.48
• Foodborne illness—generically referred to as food poisoning—was one of the most common gastrointestinal ailments in America in 1909, as it remains to this day.
• The symptoms Powers experienced—abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting—are commonly associated with food poisoning, and in some cases can be severe enough to require hospitalization.
• Physicians attending to Powers in the hospital at first assessed his illness as acute gastritis, which is often attributable to food poisoning.49

The press corps reported the least disconcerting, physician-endorsed interpretation of evidence on hand: Powers had eaten bad food, experienced acute gastritis, and was taken to the hospital to treat the problem. They were wrong, but reporters could not have been expected to imagine that Powers was fatally ill with a rare disorder none of them likely had ever heard of.

The “sandwich” theory lacks empirical corroboration from primary sources, was not cited in physicians’ statements on etiology, and was quickly discounted once the true nature of the ailment became known. Yet the theory has persisted so long as to now enjoy a veneer of legitimacy, despite the surgeons announcing the very next day that Powers was suffering from intussusception, not acute gastritis.

The second hypothesis—the “injury” theory—comes in two variations: Either he injured himself when he dove for a foul ball or he crashed into a wall while chasing a foul ball.50

The origin of these explanations is difficult to pinpoint. Philadelphia-area newspapers did not include in their reporting on the April 12 game any on-field injury for Powers. Even if he had crashed into a wall or made an arduous dive for a foul ball, neither act was so extraordinary as to warrant mention in game coverage. Despite this, the idea that Powers “was perhaps the first major league baseball death traceable directly to an on-field injury” appears on numerous websites.51 They mistakenly assume that the need for three intestinal surgeries was caused by on-field injuries and then post-surgery infections (i.e., peritonitis) ultimately led to his death.52

Yet none of the medical reports issued on his condition—either before or after the first operation— identifies internal injuries. No such injury is cited in statements by the hospital or attending physicians as a causative factor. As in the case of the “sandwich” theory, the spurious basis for this explanation gives pause to wonder how it has remained even superficially legitimatized.

The “sandwich” and “on-field injury” explanations lack empirical merit and should be dismissed as baseless. Their falsity is made clear when they are evaluated within the context of what is known medically about the cause and course of intussusception, and official, documented statements made by doctors and the hospital on the illness and death of Michael Powers.

What is critical in understanding how Powers died is that the symptoms of intussusception probably appeared intermittently with varying intensity for several weeks or months before April 12.53,54 The physical examination and surgery make that indisputably clear. The mass doctors detected in the lower right portion of his abdomen was palpable, and its size enabled them to locate quickly the source of the excruciating pain he was experiencing.55 When they did operate, surgeons discovered that Powers had 15 inches of gangrenous intestine.56 That the gangrene had spread to that great an extent further demonstrates that intussusception had been present and progressed over a period of time. The mass and gangrene did not just form and expand on April 12.

Even if Powers ate a spoiled sandwich or injured himself going after a foul ball on Opening Day, neither act caused intussusception to occur, nor did either affect the disorder’s current state, rapidity of development, or onset of severe symptoms.57 As the attending physician’s statement affirms, agonizing pain associated with intussusception can begin “while peacefully lying in bed as readily as while strenuously exercising.”58 The food Powers ate and the physical activities in which he engaged on April 12 were irrelevant to the ailment’s advanced state and the deadly menace it posed.

The intussusception from which Powers was suffering was a severe, preexisting, and undetected disorder. The fact that pain associated with his disorder became intolerable on April 12 was a coincidence, and its timing was not dependent on what happened to Powers that day. The claim—or even suggestion—that Powers was the first major leaguer to die from an on-field injury is erroneous, not supported by the facts.

The Great Unsolved Mystery

There is one mystery associated with “Doc” Powers that will never be solved. No record exists that Powers alerted anyone about abdominal pain or any other discomfort prior to April 12. Medical knowledge of the disorder’s development leaves little doubt that he must have encountered some symptoms well before Opening Day.59 With his training and experience as a physician, it is highly improbable that Powers would not have noticed a “mass” had begun forming in his abdomen. Doctors noted it readily, which prompted them to operate at site.60

Given the great likelihood that Powers would have experienced pain and noted the mass, why did he not consult a physician when remedial action could have been taken? That Powers, himself a medical man, did not act sooner to preserve his own life is a great tragedy.61 Perhaps, like many people, he hoped the problem would go away on its own.62 Whatever signs Powers received that something was wrong, he chose to ignore them until it was too late to treat the ailment successfully.63

Grief and a Funeral

The death of “Doc” Powers was a great blow to the Philadelphia Athletics, major league baseball, and the City of Philadelphia. A distraught Connie Mack was quoted as saying:

Powers was the most popular man of the Athletics, and his loss is felt keenly by his teammates individually and collectively. To me his death comes as a great personal shock. He was the only player left of the team which opened the first American League championship season at Columbia Park, and there existed between us a bond of friendship that makes the separation doubly hard to bear.64

Flags at Shibe Park and down Lehigh Avenue at the Phillies’ National League Park were immediately lowered to half-mast. The Athletics announced that team players would wear knots of black ribbon on their jerseys for 30 days, and that the flags at Shibe Park would stay at half-staff for the same period.65

The Athletics’ Board of Directors met on April 27 and adopted a resolution that read in part:

That in the passing away of Mr. Powers this club has lost a valued companion, counselor and friend. His public career was a worthy exemplar of whatsoever is most praiseworthy in the national game which his efforts adorned and dignified. He was manly, loyal, discreet, courteous and capable. He inspired confidence on the playing field, warm friendships among his associates and profound affection in his own cherished home circle.66

Messages poured into the Athletics’ offices from other major league baseball clubs expressing grief, offering condolences to his family, and asking that floral arrangements be purchased on their behalf for the funeral. Every AL club—and Philadelphia and Brooklyn of the NL—sent a wreath.67

The body was moved from Northwest General Hospital to the home of close friend George E. Flood so that family, friends, and fans could pay their respects.68 Newspapers reported that Flood’s parlor, where the body lay in repose, was filled with flowers. One particularly striking, albeit macabre, arrangement was provided by the Sporting Writers’ Association of Philadelphia. According to one eyewitness, “It was a diamond of carnations laid out on a field of green ferns. Directly across the diamond were immense letters in white roses spelling ‘OUT.’”69

The funeral took place at St. Elizabeth’s Roman Catholic Church on April 29.70 The Athletics’ game scheduled that day against Washington was postponed so players from both clubs and team officials could attend the service.71 In addition, players from the Phillies and visiting Dodgers also were in attendance. The church was packed to capacity, and according to newspaper accounts, seven thousand people overflowed onto surrounding streets because they were unable to gain admittance.72

The celebrant of mass was Reverend Francis L. Carr of St. Patrick’s Church in Norristown, Pennsylvania, who was a personal friend of Powers. Carr told the congregation:

Dr. Powers lived and died a good man, and my prayers and those of every priest in this diocese, I am sure, are that Our Lord and Our Savior, Jesus Christ come to the aid of the wife and helpless children. Eternal rest to his soul.73

The pall bearers were Jack Coombs, Harry Davis, Danny Murphy, Simon Nicholls, Eddie Plank, and Ira Thomas. Powers was laid to rest at the New Cathedral Cemetery.74 The body remained there for only a month. It was moved and reinterred at the St. Louis Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky.75

Philadelphia’s Evening Times newspaper started a subscription movement to obtain $1,000 in sums not to exceed $25 from any single donor in memory of Powers. The money was to be used to endow a bed at Northwest General Hospital for use by any professional ballplayer who was injured during a game or whose illness was directly attributable to playing in games during the regular season. The needed sum was soon raised.76

“Doc” Powers Day

Major league baseball players did not have pensions when Powers died.77 Although he was a physician, playing baseball had interfered with his ability to develop a thriving practice.78 Aware of this, Connie Mack approached AL president Ban Johnson about sponsoring a benefit at Shibe Park to financially aid the Powers family, including establishing an education fund for his three children.79 Johnson agreed, and June 30, 1910, was selected for the event because the four “eastern” AL teams—Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and New York—were off that day and could participate in the benefit game.80

To encourage attendance at what was officially called “‘Doc’ Powers Day,” the Athletics mailed thousands of postcards advertising the event.81 Tickets could be purchased at Shibe Park, Gimbels department store, and Spalding’s sporting goods store. The admission prices were a dollar for a reserved seat in the pavilion, 50 cents unreserved, and 25 cents for a bleacher seat.82

Two primary activities were scheduled: a series of baseball skills competitions and an exhibition game. The competitions were as follows:

• Running – Going to first base on a bunt; circling the bases; 100-yard dash for players weighing under 200 pounds; 100-yard dash for players weighing over 200 pounds (called the “heavyweight” class), four-man relay base running (i.e., one player running from home to first; the second player from first to second; the third player from second to third, the fourth player from third to home), each relay team representing an individual AL club.
• Throwing – For accuracy, distance, and novelty.
• Batting – Fungo hitting.83

The first and second place finishers in each of the above events, except relay base running, received a silver trophy cup. The four men comprising the winning team in relay base running would each be presented a cup.84 The trophies were provided by the Athletics.85

The winner in going to first base on a bunt in the shortest time was Harry Lord of Boston.86 He did so in 3¹⁄5 seconds. Five players—Eddie Collins, Frank Baker and Morrie Rath of Philadelphia, Tris Speaker of Boston, and Hal Chase of New York—tied for second place, covering the distance in 3²⁄5 seconds. A drawing was held to determine who would win the second place cup, and Chase’s name was chosen.

First place in circling the bases most quickly was captured by Collins, who accomplished the feat in 14¹⁄5 seconds. There again was a tie for second place, with Jimmy Austin of New York and Tris Speaker traveling the distance in 14³⁄5 seconds. After a toss of a coin, Austin was awarded the trophy cup.

Austin also won a first-place trophy, winning the 100-yard dash for players weighing below 200 pounds. He crossed the finish line in 10³⁄5 seconds, with Harry Hooper of Boston capturing second place.

For the “heavyweight” class, Jake Stahl of Boston took home the top prize, completing the 100-yard dash in 10⁴⁄5 seconds.87 Hippo Vaughn of New York came in second.

In the relay base running competition, Philadelphia and Boston tied at 14³⁄5 seconds. The race was run a second time, and both teams matched again at 14²⁄5 seconds. A coin toss was used to identify the winner, and the hometown crew took home the trophy cups.

In the throwing for distance contest, Hooper was the class of the field. His ball went 356 feet, four inches. Runner-up Speaker could only manage 345 feet, seven and a half inches.

In throwing for accuracy, the day belonged to Pat Donohue of Philadelphia. Germany Schaefer of Washington came in second.

The novelty throw was an evidently tough competition. Contestants were required to squat in the catcher’s position behind home plate and throw a ball over second base beneath a bar six feet high located at the pitcher’s mound. Only Austin was able to accomplish the feat, winning another first-place trophy.

Finally, Jimmy Dygert of Philadelphia captured first place in the fungo hitting competition, with second place belonging to Tom Hughes of New York.

The exhibition game between the Athletics and the “All-American” team composed of players from the other AL clubs was played with less than serious intent. Called a “horse play game” by one reporter, both teams made sweeping changes in their lineups each inning. The crowd enjoyed the spectacle, nevertheless, with one account noting that “the ragged playing of the league stars was greeted with delight.”88 Limited to six innings, the Athletics prevailed in the game, 5–3.89

The day’s festivities went beyond baseball. Clowns made appearances on the field at Shibe Park and performed a series of humorous skits as part of the entertainment. Schaefer and Boston’s batboy contributed to the fun by doing a pantomime act that satirized the antics of a big league pitcher-catcher battery.90

In addition, there was music courtesy of the Phillies. Club president Horace Fogel arranged to have the Banda Bianca Orchestra under the baton of Sig. Alfredo Tomassino play a number of selections including the overture from Light Cavalry and the sextet from Lucia. Also performed was The Phillies, a march written by Tomassino and dedicated to Fogel.91

The Sporting Writers’ Association of Philadelphia supplied the judges for the skills contests, and supported the fundraising campaign by having a special program printed for “Doc” Powers Day and selling it for ten cents apiece. All of the proceeds from the sale went to the Powers family.92 To encourage attendees to buy the program, each copy was numbered, and Florence Powers, who attended the event along with her children, chose two of the numbers in a drawing. One winner received a free pass to attend Athletics home games for the remainder of the season, while the other received a similar pass to attend the rest of the Phillies’ home games in 1910.93

“Doc” Powers Day was called “a grand success” in newspaper accounts. More than 12,000 people paid admission, including Connie Mack, to help swell the fund benefiting the Powers family. Approximately $8,000 was raised.94 Florence took the opportunity “to thank my friends and the followers of the Athletic team for their kindness on this day. I shall never forget it.”95

Athletics players appreciated manager Mack’s labors, compassion, and generosity in assisting their fallen teammate’s family. Before the exhibition game was played, they presented Mack with a large bouquet of flowers at home plate. Eddie Plank made the presentation.96

The staging of “Doc” Powers Day was a shining moment. No obligation existed in professional baseball to assist a family financially after a player’s death, but extraordinary steps were taken by many caring people—Mack, Johnson, players, sportswriters and the public—to do just that. France C. Richter, writing in Sporting Life, captured the importance of the occasion when he praised the day as “successful financially and artistically beyond any similar function in the history of base ball—and thus goes to Philadelphia’s credit another unexcelled achievement in base ball.”97

Hall of Fame second baseman Johnny Evers, left, and manager George Stallings helped lead the 1914 Boston Braves to their first World Series championship. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

This year marks a century since the historic run of the 1914 Boston “Miracle” Braves. They were dead last in the National League on July 4, 15 games behind John McGraw’s pace-setting New York Giants, who seemed well on their way to a fourth straight pennant. They famously overtook the Giants in early September, ultimately claiming the National League pennant by a margin of 10 1/2 games. They capped the year with a World Series sweep of Connie Mack’s imposing Philadelphia Athletics—the very same A’s who had won four pennants in five years and three of the four previous Fall Classics.

This team of destiny was managed by George Stallings who, like Mr. Mack, gave directions from the dugout dressed in civilian business attire. Stallings reportedly said, “Give me a ball club of only mediocre ability, and if I can get the players in the right frame of mind, they’ll beat the World Champions.”1 Historical retrospection has attributed the Braves’ 1914 “miracle” to more than just team motivation, however. The accepted wisdom is that Stallings had an epiphany about platooning and that his use of platoons to wring the maximum production from his roster was, in the words of Bill James, nothing short of “revolutionary.”2

Until now, however, we did not have the means to prove that platooning made the difference. Thanks to the painstaking work of researchers for Retrosheet, comprehensive data on starting line-ups are now available for 1914 and reproduced at Baseball-Reference.com. For the first time it is possible to dissect with precision Stallings’s master manipulation of his outfielders. Stallings employed a three-position rotation to cover weaknesses and keyed the surge to overtake McGraw’s Giants.

PLATOONING TO MASK WEAKNESSES

When Stallings assumed command in 1913, the once-dominant (in the 1890s) National League franchise in Boston had not lost fewer than 90 games since 1903, when they lost 80 in a 140-game schedule. Recasting the roster and proving a tough taskmaster, Stallings immediately turned the team around, guiding the Braves into fifth place with a 69–82 record. However, even though a writer for Baseball Magazine, the preeminent publication on the sport at the time, claimed the Braves had a sufficiently “formidable ball club” to finish second or third in 1914, nobody expected them to beat the Giants.3 Pitching was a particular strength, headlined by right-handers Dick Rudolph and Bill James, who won 26 games apiece, and Lefty Tyler, who had 16 wins. Rudolph went 20–2 and James 19–1 after July 4, while Tyler was 10–5.

Boston’s only position players of note were second baseman Johnny Evers and shortstop Rabbit Maranville, whose excellence on the field of play earned them first and second in the Chalmers Award (most valuable player) voting in 1914. Both players are in the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown but neither is widely considered to have been one of the all-time greats at his position. Maranville, in his second year as the Braves’ shortstop, was young, energetic, and feisty, while Evers was a 13-year veteran acquired from the Cubs for being sage, savvy, and ultra-competitive. It was his arrival that spurred some writers to preseason optimism about the Braves. With Maranville and Evers anchoring the middle, Stallings’s infield was set for the season. Butch Schmidt, in his first full major league season, started all but 11 games at first base. Third base was covered by Charlie Deal until the arrival of Red Smith, acquired from Brooklyn in a midseason trade because he was a much better hitter than Deal. Hank Gowdy caught 115 games, second in the league only to the Giants’ Chief Meyers.

Stallings’s outfield, however, was a mess. Previewing the season for Baseball Magazine, writer Fred Lieb projected that fourth place was the best that could be expected of the Braves because “you can’t do much with an outfield composed of Connolly, Mann and Griffith.”4 Joe Connolly, Les Mann, and Tommy Griffith had been rookies in 1913. Connolly played in 126 games, Mann in 120, and Griffith in only 37, having not joined the big club until August. The left-handed-hitting Connolly showed the most promise in the batter’s box that season. He tied for the team lead in home runs with five, led the Braves in RBIs with 57, and his .281 batting average was the highest among Stallings’s regulars.

With limited major-league experience among those three, and poor talent to be found among their peers, Stallings rotated the seven to eight outfielders he had on his roster at any one time through the three positions. Stallings used a total of eleven different players in the outfield that year. Stallings began the season with three left-handed and three right-handed outfielders, one of whom—Oscar Dugey—could also substitute at any infield position. He ended the season with four left-handed and four right-handed outfielders, two of whom—Dugey and Possum Whitted— could also play in the infield. (See Table 1.)

Table 1
(click image to enlarge)

Connolly continued to be the only truly productive outfielder, at least as measured by wins above replacement (WAR) at Baseball-Reference.com with 3.8. Though he appeared in only 121 games in 1914, he led the team in home runs with nine and had the highest on-base and slugging percentages on the Braves. His 65 RBIs were third on the team to Maranville and Schmidt, but the shortstop, playing in all but two of Boston’s games, had nearly 200 more plate appearances and the first baseman, playing in 147 games, had 145 more plate appearances to knock in six more runs than Connolly. Smith was the only batter in the lineup to hit for an average higher than Connolly’s .306, but Smith had nearly 200 fewer at bats with the Braves. Even though Connolly played in only 121 games, and almost never against left-handed pitching, he was still the team’s best and most dangerous hitter, according to the offense component of WAR.5

The ten other players used in the outfield by Stallings in 1914 had a collective player value 0.2 wins less than a replacement-level player; only left-handed Les Mann (1.5 WAR) and left-handed Larry Gilbert (0.6 WAR) and the right-handed Whitted (whose 0.9 WAR with Boston—he began the year in St. Louis—included 26 games in the infield) had even marginal value for a major league player by the WAR metric. Stallings’s brilliance was to have the insight to play them all in a way to give his team comparative batter-pitcher advantages from game-to-game, and even take account of pitching changes within games.

Right-handed hitting utilityman Possum Whitted was acquired by Braves in June 1914. On the strength of 11 extra-base hits, a .293 batting average and 26 RBI in September and October, Whitted ended the season as a daily regular in George Stallings’s lineup. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

The Braves played 158 games on their way to a 94–59 record, including five that were tied when called because of darkness or weather. Platooning at all three outfield positions, Stallings’s starting lineups had at least two of his three outfielders batting from the opposite side of the starting pitcher’s throwing arm in all but 11 of the Braves’ games, and 44 times during the season—28 percent of their total games—all three starting outfielders had the platoon advantage against the opposing pitcher. Les Mann started 111 games in the outfield, the most of any Braves outfielder, 94 of them in center, followed by Connolly with 105 starts, all but two in left field. Larry Gilbert was third with 56 outfield starts, 48 in right field. All three played for Boston the entire season.

The turning point for the Braves that made their 1914 miracle possible was June 28, with the team mired in last place and the season already a major disappointment based on preseason expectations. June 28 was an off-day because Boston city ordinances prohibited playing baseball on Sundays, but they apparently did not prohibit baseball transactions. On that day the Braves traded right-hander Hub Perdue, who had tied Lefty Tyler’s 16 wins for most on the team in 1913 but was struggling badly this season, to the St. Louis Cardinals for outfielder Ted Cather and utility player Possum Whitted, both right-handed batters. Five days later, the Braves traded with the Phillies for the left-handed batting Josh Devore, who had once been a regular for John McGraw in the Giants’ outfield. And on August 23, the Braves acquired another left-handed batting outfielder, Herbie Moran, in a cash transaction with the Cincinnati Reds. Boston was a half-game out of first place on the day they acquired Moran.

Although none of the four was better than a marginal big league player that year according to WAR, each of those transactions proved instrumental in shoring up the Braves’ outfield. Cather and Whitted essentially replaced right-handed outfielders Jim Murray and Wilson Collins in Stallings’s outfield rotation. Murray was picked up from the minor leagues about a week into the season and moved into the right-handed half of the right field platoon, starting 21 games against southpaws and five against right-handers. Murray had had a long, distinguished career in the minors, but this was only his third time in the big leagues, having also played briefly for the 1902 Cubs and the 1911 Browns. He was no more successful this time, hitting only .232 in 39 games for the 1914 Braves and a mere .184 in his starts against southpaws, where his platoon advantage proved to be anything but.

Collins, whose only prior big league experience was 16 games with the Braves the previous year in which he got only three at bats, started 10 games against southpaws in 1914, also mostly in right field, without making much of an impact. Once Stallings had Cather and Whitted in hand, Murray and Collins were expendable. Neither played in another major league game after July 10. Used by his manager almost exclusively against lefties, Cather hit .297 in 50 games for the Braves, making 34 starts.

Whitted started 37 games in the outfield and another 20 in the infield (mostly second base), batting .261. On the strength of 11 extra-base hits, a .293 batting average and 26 RBIs in September and October, Whitted ended the season as a daily regular in Stallings’s lineup, playing most often in center field, starting in the team’s final 34 games—21 against right-handed starting pitchers—batting mostly clean-up against lefties and righties alike.

The acquisitions of Devore and Moran were just as consequential. Tommy Griffith had started the season as the left-handed bat in Stallings’s right field platoon, but after 16 games in which he hit an abysmal .104, Griffith was sold to Indianapolis in mid-May. This left Stallings with Connolly and Gilbert as his only two left-handed hitting outfielders for nearly seven weeks until he picked up Devore on July 3. Playing both center and right fields, Devore started 31 games for the Braves in the summer and fall of 1914, almost exclusively against right-handed starting pitchers, although his batting average of .227 was not much to brag about. Since right-handed pitchers in baseball outnumbered southpaws by nearly three-to-one, trading for Devore gave Stallings more flexibility to both platoon his starting lineup and make in-game substitutions. It surely did not hurt, therefore, to add Moran as a fourth left-handed outfielder as the Braves began their stretch run. Moran was a constant in Stallings’s lineup from then till the end of the season, starting in 40 of the Braves’ remaining 49 games; lefties took the mound against the Braves in all nine of the games he did not start.

MIXING ‘EM UP

Stallings was superb in how and when he rotated his outfielders into the lineup and into the games they did not start. Of the players that he platooned in 1914, only the right-handed Mann and Whitted started a significant number of games against pitchers throwing from the same side they hit. Although each started more games against righties, Stallings’s inclination to platoon both players was spot on. Mann hit .247 for the season, but only .193 in 76 games against righties, while in the 51 games he started against lefties he hit .308. Including 31 at bats for the Cardinals before being traded, Whitted batted .215 against righties in 1914 compared to .286 against lefties, against whom he hit both his home runs.6

Unlike with Mann and Whitted, Stallings rarely saw fit to start one of his left-handed outfielders when a southpaw started against Boston. It was conventional wisdom even a century ago, as it is today, that left-handed batters have more difficulty hitting southpaws than right-handed batters do against northsiders.7 In the first half of the season, when neither Murray nor Collins was making much of a contribution, Stallings started Larry Gilbert in 15 games against lefties. After Whitted and Cather joined the club, Stallings rarely started a left-hander in his outfield when a southpaw took the mound until he did so with Moran in seven games in the September-October stretch. Gilbert, with a .268 average on the season, batted .309 in games started by lefties, including four he did not start. Moran batted .293 in games started by right-handed opponents, but only managed .161 versus lefties.

Stallings’s unwillingness to use the left-handed Joe Connolly against lefties, meanwhile, mystified at least one baseball writer at the time because Connolly was the Braves’ most dangerous and potent hitter, certainly against right-handers.8 While that writer made sure to say the left-handed Connolly “never had any trouble in hitting the southpaws in the minors,” Stallings begged to differ. Connolly started only three games against lefties, but Stallings inserted him into 16 games after the opponent’s left-handed starter had been replaced by a right-hander reliever, usually as a pinch hitter who then stayed in the game to play left field. In three of those games, he was later removed when another southpaw came in to pitch. Connolly batted .304 coming off the bench when a right-hander came into the game; his average in the games he started against right-handers was .312, and all nine of his team-leading home runs were against righties. It is also worth noting that Stallings removed Connolly from 16 games, most often due to the insertion of a left-handed reliever.

Connolly’s entire major-league career was as a platoon player for Stallings, who never gave him the opportunity to play regularly against southpaws. From 1914 until he left baseball in 1916, Connolly started in 207 games for Boston, but only five when a left-hander took the mound. Appearing in a total of 42 games started by a lefty those three years, Connolly hit only .258 in 62 at bats, compared to a robust (for the era) .296 with nine home runs against righties. Lefty-righty splits are not available for Connolly’s rookie season of 1913, but the fact he appeared in only 126 games and that otherwise it was almost all right-handed batters who played in left field suggests Stallings decided in his very first year as Braves manager that Connolly (however successful he may have been hitting southpaws in the minor leagues) was so fundamentally flawed a hitter against left-handers that he was unlikely to improve.

Besides platooning his outfielders in the starting lineup from the very first day of the season, Stallings also often replaced his outfielders during the game depending on circumstances, particularly when the opposing team brought in a reliever who threw from the opposite side of the day’s starting pitcher. In all, Stallings made in-game outfield substitutions 87 times during the regular season. Many of these substitutions occurred as soon as a pitching change was made, with the replacement player taking his position in the field rather than waiting to pinch hit for the starting outfielder when his turn came to bat against the new pitcher. The Braves faced a left-handed reliever in 23 of the 102 games started against them by a right-hander, and a right-handed pitcher came in to relieve in 24 of the 56 games started by a lefty. Not including pinch hitters for the pitcher who did not stay in the game in a double switch, Stallings substituted for a position player at least once in 84 of the Braves’ 158 games—58 times in games started by a right-hander against them, and 26 times in games started by a lefty. However, not all of Stallings’s in-game position player substitutions were necessarily to counter a pitching change.

Left-handed hitter Joe Connolly, seen at left with Hall of Fame shortstop Rabbit Maranville, was the only truly productive outfielder for the 1914 Boston Braves. He led the team in home runs and had the team’s highest on-base and slugging percentages. (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

THE BRAVES’ COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

By platooning his outfield, Stallings was able to maximize the offensive possibilities of his starting lineup regardless of whether the opposing starting pitcher was righty or lefty. This was particularly important because the 1914 Boston Braves had the third-lowest offensive WAR (16.1) as a team in the National League; the five teams with more potent offensives averaged 20.5 offensive wins above replacement. What made his outfield platoon rotation so effective, however, was quite likely Stallings’s ability to take advantage of the fact that two of his infield regulars—first baseman Butch Schmidt and second baseman Johnny Evers—were both left-handed batters. No other National League team had more than one infield regular who batted from the left side.9 This meant that Stallings usually had four or five left-handed bats in his lineup against right-handed starting pitchers. Most other managers, with only one left-handed batting infielder at most, and generally wedded to the same starting outfielders game in and game out, could count on no more than three left-handed batters against right-handed starting pitchers. When 71 percent of National League games were started by right-handers, Stallings’s outfield platoon plus Schmidt and Evers batting from the left side gave Boston an advantage of no small import.

It is therefore not surprising that with Evers and Schmidt in the lineup every day that they were healthy and Connolly the Braves’ most dangerous hitter, Boston faced as many left-handed starters—56—as any other National League team.10 In 80 of the 102 games where the Braves faced a right-handed starting pitcher, Stallings had at least four left-handed batters in his lineup, and in 14 of those games Stallings started five left-handed position players: three outfielders, Evers, and Schmidt.

In eight other games against right-handed starters, all three outfielders in Stallings’s starting lineup batted from the left side, but either Schmidt or Evers was sidelined because of an injury or being rested. In four straight games at the end of August and four straight games at the beginning of September, opposing right-handed starting pitchers were faced with a batting order whose first five hitters were all left-handed: Moran leading off, Evers, Connolly, Gilbert batting clean-up, and Schmidt. By the same token, in 39 of the 56 games the Braves faced southpaw starters, Stallings overloaded his line-up with at least six right-handed batters—usually with three right-handed outfielders—leaving daily regulars Evers and Schmidt as the only lefties in the batting order.

Stallings’s outfield mixing and matching gave the Braves a platoon advantage in his batting order of at least four of eight position players in 86 percent of their games, and a platoon advantage of at least five in 44 percent of their games. The only National League team to exceed the Braves in proportion of games in which the opposing starting pitcher had to face at least four batters with a platoon advantage was the St. Louis Cardinals, who benefited from having two regulars who were switch hitters (second baseman Miller Huggins and outfielder Lee Magee), their everyday right fielder (Owen Wilson) being a left-handed hitter, and player-manager Huggins using a lefty-righty platoon at one outfield position most of the entire season.

While every team was able to bat at least four right-handers in every game they faced a southpaw starting pitcher, it was rare for teams other than Boston and St. Louis to start four left-handers in a game against right-handed pitchers. Consequently, no other team came close to the Cardinals and Braves in having a platoon advantage of four batters or more in the overwhelming majority of their games. (See Table 2.)

Table 2
(click image to enlarge)

As Table 2 also shows, the payoff for the Boston Braves was that their 31 victories in games started against them by lefties was the best in the league, and even more significantly, in games started against them by right-handers, the Braves’ 63–35 record was by far the best winning average (.643) of any National League team.11 Those won-lost records take into account all pinch hitting and position player substitutions Stallings made when a relief pitcher of either handedness was brought into the game against his team. Only the American League champion Philadelphia Athletics had a better record against right-handed starters. Why? Because Connie Mack had the advantage of five left-handed batters among his core regulars—infielders Eddie Collins and Home Run Baker, outfielders Amos Strunk and Eddie Murphy, and switch-hitting catcher Wally Schang—none of whom he made part of any platoon when writing out his starting lineups.

In the crucible of a World Series against the heavily favored Philadelphia Athletics powerhouse, Stallings stayed with what worked during the season. Connolly and Moran, both left-handed, started only three games in the Braves’ World Series sweep. As he had in all but three games all season, Stallings benched Connolly in Game Two when southpaw Eddie Plank took the mound for Philadelphia, starting the right-handed Ted Cather in left field instead. Stallings also benched Moran in that game in favor of the right-handed hitting Les Mann in right field. And in the fourth and final game of the Series, Connolly was pinch hit for, and then replaced in left field, by Mann as soon as Athletics’ right-handed starter Bob Shawkey was relieved by lefty Herb Pennock in the sixth inning. With the Braves in front when it came Moran’s turn to bat for the first time against Pennock, Stallings elected to keep him in the game.12 Whitted, who had started every game since September 8, played every inning of all four games in center field, never mind that the Athletics started three righties.

REVOLUTION, EVOLUTION, OR EVOLUTIONARY REVOLUTION?

George Stallings’s undeniable genius in using his outfielders in a platoon system to surprisingly win it all in 1914 is generally considered a revolutionary advance in managerial strategy.13 Although the term itself did not come into vogue until much later, “platooning” upended the prevailing wisdom that, barring injuries or poor performance, seven of the eight position players in the starting lineup should be the same from day-to-day (the understandable exception being inevitably banged-up catchers) and, for that matter, mostly play every inning of every game.14

The bench players rounding out big league rosters were there more for emergencies to substitute for an injured regular, to give a regular an occasional day of rest, or to take over if the incumbent at a position was ineffective. Teams that were generally favored by the baseball gods with good health and few injuries could rely on no more than ten or eleven position players who would receive nearly all of the playing time—four regular infielders, three regular outfielders, typically two catchers, and one or two versatile bench players to fill in wherever necessary.

To the extent teams had platooned at all before Stallings’s Braves, it was almost exclusively at catcher, because of the wear and tear inherent in playing their position in an era before catchers’ armor offered much in the way of protection. Virtually all teams until late in the first decade of the century used at least two catchers interchangeably, although both were usually right-handed batters. In 1903 and 1904, the Giants’ left-handed batting Jack Warner and right-handed batting Frank Bowerman gave John McGraw the luxury of a true lefty-righty platoon behind the plate.

Because of the compelling narrative of the Miracle Braves, 1914 historically is considered the baseline year for platooning. But had the Braves not made their miracle run, or perhaps even fallen just short, would Stallings’s platoon stratagem have even been noticed? This seems a fair question because, while starting lineup data are not yet available before 1914, Retrosheet data on position games played suggest George Stallings also platooned at all three outfield positions the previous year, his first as Braves manager. Connolly played 124 games in left field in 1913, with right-handed batters accounting for all but four of the other 49 position games played in left.

Coincidentally, left-handed pitchers started 40 games against the Braves that year, according to Retrosheet, ten more than the total number of games Connolly did not play—some or all of which could have been after a right-hander was brought in to replace the left-handed starting pitcher. Mann played 103 games for Stallings in center, but the left-handed batting Guy Zinn played 34 games at the position in the 45 games left on Boston’s schedule after his contract was bought from Double-A Rochester in mid-August. The 11 games he did not play corresponds almost exactly to the 12 when opposing teams started a southpaw against the Braves.15 And after veteran lefty John Titus broke his leg in July, Stallings appears to have platooned the left-handed Tommy Griffith with the right-handed veteran Bris Lord in right field, each playing 35 games at that position.

Notwithstanding that Stallings’s outfield rotation to gain a competitive platoon advantage against opposing pitchers was a key element underwriting the 1914 Braves’ unexpected championship, there was surprisingly little if any commentary at the time about his insightful strategy. None of the articles in Baseball Magazine in 1913 (if Stallings did indeed platoon that year, as seems likely), 1914, or 1915 mentioned it. The magazine’s feature on the World Series praised Stallings for winning it all with “a club of green players and discards from other clubs” and “with one of the strangest assortments of misfit players we ever saw gathered together under one banner,” and observed that Stallings had “performed the impossible” with a team that “had no license” to win either the pennant or the World Series, but did not say how exactly he did it.16

The closest any article came was the one on Joe Connolly, which after noting that Stallings did not pencil him into the lineup in games started by left-handers despite his supposedly having hit southpaws well in his minor league days, said: “We will, however, not attempt to criticize the methods of Stallings, as his record speaks for itself.”17 Stallings, in an extensive interview for that publication recounting his team’s tribulations and ultimate triumphs in 1914, said nothing about platooning or how he used his outfielders. The closest he came to that point was to give what has become the now-standard trope about it being a team effort: “Ours is no one-man team.”18

So was Stallings’s failure to mention his strategy on platooning an effort to keep a baseball secret to himself? That hardly seems likely, since any professional manager would surely notice, and indeed by the end of the decade, platooning was widely practiced. Or was it perhaps that Stallings wanted to avoid calling attention to the fact that his outfielders, collectively and individually (with the possible exception of Connolly) were not very good? After all, even in the deadball era, outfielders were expected to be major contributors to their teams’ offense, and no matter Stallings’s success in masking his outfield deficiencies through the art of platooning, the preference would always be for outfielders who could hit well enough to be in the starting lineup on a daily basis regardless of the pitcher.

In this regard, it should be noted that, despite knocking off the two best teams in baseball—the Giants and Athletics—Stallings did not stand pat with his team that offseason. Instead, he moved to bolster the Braves’ outfield offense by trading for Philadelphia Phillies slugger Sherry Magee, giving up Whitted, Dugey, and lots of cash in the exchange. An 11-year veteran, the 30-year old Magee had led the National League in hits, doubles, and RBIs in 1914 while crashing 15 home runs—the third most in baseball—and batting .314.

Although he hit only two home runs on the season on account of the Braves’ home field being far more expansive that the Phillies’ Baker Bowl, Magee did in fact provide a stable, daily, potent presence in the Braves outfield in 1915, playing in all but one game.19 With a 4.8 WAR, Magee turned out to be the best position player on the 1915 Braves. Stallings continued to platoon at two outfield positions, with Connolly the left-handed fixture in his left field rotation and Moran the same in his right.

Or perhaps Stallings did not talk about his philosophy on platooning in his remarks to Baseball Magazine because it seemed to him so intuitively obvious that he didn’t think it needed mentioning. While he deserves credit for undeniable genius in using his outfielders in a platoon system, rotating two players at the same position was not so much unheard of before this time as not practiced. Managers and players had long had an inherent understanding that a batter hitting from the opposite side of what hand the pitcher throws has a better visual and reaction-time advantage, and left-handed batters (same as today) seemed to have a particularly difficult time against southpaw pitchers.

An argument can be made, therefore, that platooning two players (or sometimes more, as Stallings did in 1914) at the same position to take advantage of a right-handed/left-handed split became institutionalized by the collective wisdom of managers observing and learning from each other, and becoming more strategic in their thinking. If so, the foundation for Stallings’s strategic innovation of platooning in his starting lineup was his appreciation of the value of position player substitutions that managers had been increasingly making to gain a batter-pitcher advantage at critical junctures during games.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, managers rarely replaced anyone in the starting lineup during a game. Even pinch hitting was rare because pitchers for the most part finished what they started and typically would remain in the game in the late innings of close ball games even if they were losing. By the end of the first decade, however, managers had begun to use their bench more strategically during games. Giants manager John McGraw led this innovation, being much more inclined to pinch hit and/or pinch run at a key moment of the game, which often required a defensive replacement.20

By 1910 McGraw was making more than 100 in-game position player substitutions during the season, more than double the league average, which had been steadily increasing not only because of McGraw, but other teams following suit. In his first year managing Boston in 1913, Stallings replaced a position player in the field 116 times, 57 in the outfield, eclipsing McGraw’s 113 substitutions that year.21 Given that he made an average of only 51 in-game substitutions when he managed the New York Highlanders in 1909 and 1910, which was right at the league average, Stallings’s adoption of the strategy was almost certainly to compensate for an offensively weak team. The 1913 Braves had the second-lowest team offensive WAR in the National League.

Once he became manager in Boston, Stallings took the tactical advantages of position player substitutions to their logical conclusion. If replacing a position player at a critical moment during the game was a savvy managerial move to gain a platoon advantage against the opposing pitcher (whether the starter or a reliever), then it made sense to seek such an advantage at a position of weakness—which, for Stallings, was his entire outfield—from the beginning of the game by choosing his starter based on the throwing arm of the starting pitcher.

Without specifically mentioning platooning, Stallings is said to have replied when asked about his approach to managing, “Play the percentages,” which is of course what platooning is intended to do.22 Because managers were already “playing the percentages” to give their team the best possible comparative batter-pitcher advantages at key moments within games, the strategy of platooning can be seen on its merits alone as arguably less revolutionary than evolutionary. Indeed, Stallings appears not to have been alone among managers in adopting platooning as a strategy as early as 1914 (if not earlier). The Cardinals were able to achieve a platoon advantage of at least four players in the starting lineup in over 90 percent of their games because, in addition to two switch-hitters and a left-handed right fielder, player-manager Miller Huggins had an outfield platoon that included the left-handed Walton Cruise paired with the right-handed Ted Cather (until he was traded to the Braves) and then Joe Riggert.

And then there was John McGraw. Even though Stallings’s epiphany about platooning in the starting line-up almost certainly occurred to McGraw, he does not appear to have done so (except at catcher) until 1914—the year Stallings had such success with the strategy, and quite likely a year after Stallings first used the strategy—when he paired off rookie left-handed hitting outfielder Dave Robertson with the right-handed veterans Fred Snodgrass and Red Murray. After being called up by McGraw in late May, Robertson started 68 games for the Giants in right or left field—not a single one against southpaws. McGraw, however, still seemed to prefer a set lineup and typically always had players for all eight non-pitching positions he judged good enough to deserve taking the field every game. Robertson was a regular each of the next two seasons, but was reduced to a platoon role again in September 1917—this time with former US Olympian Jim Thorpe—when he had difficulty hitting left-handers.23 It was not until the 1920s that McGraw became baseball’s leading practitioner of platooning in his starting lineup.

That more teams would pick up on the advantages of platooning was likely inevitable, an evolutionary outgrowth, especially for managers who like Stallings did not have eight position players they felt comfortable starting every day, but had the Braves not won it all in 1914, the concept would probably have remained relatively obscure until some team did win using a platoon system. What was revolutionary was how quickly other teams adopted the strategy after 1914. The Braves’ success in coming from far behind to win the pennant and then take out the powerful Athletics ratified platooning as a road to victory. And thus did George Stallings become the historical midwife of the strategy.

CATCHING FIRE

While Stallings’ outfield platoon in 1914 was really making a virtue out of a necessity, other managers took notice of its advantages. By the 1920s, platooning was widespread in major league baseball, and most teams had a tandem lefty-righty couple playing at least one position. Using designated players interchangeably allowed managers to take advantage of their comparative strengths and, perhaps more importantly, to mitigate their weaknesses (such as an inability to hit lefties or to play every day of the long hot summer).

It should be noted, however, that the overwhelming majority of lefty-righty position platoons were in the outfield. With the exception of first base, platooning in the infield was relatively uncommon—and very rare in the middle infield positions—both because most infielders in that era were right-handed batters, and because managers desired daily stability at such premium defensive skill positions.

Platooning was an obvious strategy for mediocre or bad teams to try to compensate for the weaknesses of individual players. While it was not intuitively obvious that managers of very good teams would find much merit in platooning, even if they nonetheless sought platoon advantages in the course of a game, managers with much stronger cohorts of players than Stallings had with the Braves were quick to see the value of platooning at a position of relative weakness in their lineup—and every team had at least one. Starting with Stallings’s 1914 Braves, every World Series until 1926 featured at least one team that used at least one position player platoon during the regular season. They included all four of McGraw’s pennant-winning teams from 1921 to 1924.

Unlike Stallings, who had more of an inchoate mix-and-match philosophy for platooning in his outfield, most managers who platooned relied on a designated tandem pair who split the position between them. This seems an important point: as with a set lineup, most managers who platooned required a semblance of stability in which they relied on certain pairs of players at selected positions and players understood their roles in the scheme. Of course, players’ understanding their role is not the same as agreeing with such a division of their playing time. As Bill James has suggested, the fact that good players understandably resented the implication they lacked the ability to be everyday players helped to doom the widespread use of position platoons as a line-up strategy by the end of the 1920s.24 The same downward trend was also true for in-game position player substitutions. It would not be until after the Second World War that position player game substitutions and platooning would make a comeback. The perpetrator: one Mr. Casey Stengel.

• Appendix: To see the full information and methodology regarding starting line-up platoons, see the Appendix online by clicking here.
• Related link: This article was selected as a finalist for the 2015 SABR Analytics Conference Research Awards.
• Read more: Read the follow-up article “The Stallings Platoon: The 1913 Prequel” in the Fall 2016 Baseball Research Journal.

BRYAN SODERHOLM-DIFATTE lives and works near Washington, DC, and is devoted to the study of baseball history. He is a regular contributor to SABR’s journals and publications and has presented at several SABR national conferences. He is also writer of the blog Baseball Historical Insight.

Notes

Elmer Dean, center, the older brother of St. Louis Cardinals stars Dizzy and Paul Dean shows his new House of David teammates how he grips a curveball on May 5, 1935. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

The brothers Jay Hanna (“Dizzy,” also known as Jerome Herman) Dean and Paul Dee (“Daffy”) Dean are remembered as perhaps the greatest brother pitching duo ever. Combining to win 49 games for the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals, they won all four Cardinals’ wins in the seven-game World Series. Well, meet their older brother Elmer Monroe Dean, “Elmer the Great,” “long recognized as the ace goober salesman of the Texas League” and “almost as celebrated in his line as his younger brothers are as pitchers.”1

Born in 1909 to sharecroppers Albert and Alma Dean in rural Arkansas, Elmer spent most of his childhood picking cotton and playing baseball with his younger brothers.2 Both parents had athletic backgrounds. “Ab” played third base on a semipro nine, and Alma batted lead-off for her softball team. The family worked as share-croppers and moved often, following the crops. In all they had five children, but the first two died early. Jay and Paul followed Elmer, in 1910 and 1912, respectively.

Alma died of a severe case of tuberculosis in 1917, leaving Ab and the boys to work the fields together. Dizzy later remembered, “I never knew anyone who had it as tough as my father did.”3 They stayed in shacks and lived off the land, eating “plain grub,” as Ab called it—”sowbelly and cornmeal when there was a little money; sweet potatoes and peanuts when there wasn’t.”4

The boys played ball, usually barefoot, wherever they could find an open spot, with a potato sack for home plate, a rock wound with string for a ball, and whatever kind of stick they could find for a bat. Elmer usually caught his brothers’ pitches, or shagged flies in the outfield. Sometimes they played pick-up games for money, with the stakes reaching 50 cents or a dollar, equivalent to a day’s wages.5 Elsie Brennen Wachtel, who grew up on a farm neighboring the farm where the Deans worked, remembers Dizzy had a rhyme for the boys: “Poodle, Jay, and Paul—and that’s all.”6

Sometime in 1927 Elmer got separated from the rest of the family. They had traveled to Texas to visit Dizzy, who had just enlisted in the Army with a falsified birth certificate. Elmer’s vehicle moved on, while Pa and Paul found themselves stuck waiting for a long freight train. They drove around for a while, but found no sign of Elmer. Pa had no way to contact him, with no settled residence or telephone. Mentally challenged from birth, Elmer had never learned to read or write. But Pa did not seem very worried and never notified the police. “He’ll turn up someday,” he said confidently.7

About four years later, Elmer, now working on a farm in Arkansas, noticed a newspaper picture of Dizzy pitching for Houston in the Dixie Series of 1931. “That’s my brother!” shouted Elmer. Others in the drugstore with Elmer read him the story, and the druggist sent a letter to Dizzy, who by then was barnstorming through small towns in Missouri and Arkansas with brother Paul. Paul and Dizzy went to reclaim their older brother. “We liked to never get Elmer to go,” remembered Paul. They packed him in their car with his possessions stuffed in a pasteboard suitcase. Paul drove, and Dizzy sat with Elmer in the back. “Diz just took that suitcase and throwed it out the back of the car,” continued Paul.

“‘Hellfire, Jay, them was my clothes. Them was all the clothes I got,’” responded Elmer. Dizzy promptly stopped in town and outfitted Elmer with a new wardrobe.8

Albert had moved to the Houston area, with Dizzy playing for the Buffaloes in 1931, as Paul moved from Springfield, through Houston, and eventually to Columbus that year. Elmer had played some in the Ozark League, and now saw his chance to join the Buffaloes himself.

Houston team president Fred Ankenman had high hopes of finding a third Dean brother, who might keep up the Dean tradition. Elmer signed on in 1933, at least for a tryout, as a six-foot, 185-pound outfielder who batted left-handed and threw right-handed. In anticipation, Ankenman commented, “if you thought Dizzy was dizzy, and if you can imagine his brother Paul was strange, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”9

Elmer’s semipro experience in Arkansas was described as “extremely semi.” He did not impress the Houston brass. He appeared “far from a gazelle on his feet and not too handy at catching and throwing,” and they rated his batting as not “up to the standard required of outfielders.” Manager Casey Selph worked long and hard to make Elmer a pitcher.10 Though Elmer remained unimpressive, with the Dean name “such a good drawing card he probably will be retained until the squad is cut to 16.”11

Though he called himself “a right smart country ball player,” Elmer did not seem to fit anywhere.12 The team did not issue him a uniform and left him behind when they traveled to Galveston for their opening series. Because he “promised to furnish so much entertainment for the fans,” Ankenman offered him a job as bat boy. Elmer protested, and threatened to quit.13

“Batboy!” exclaimed Elmer. “Me, who taught my kid brother Dizzy how to pitch.”14

Still hoping to keep a Dean in Houston, Ankenman then offered Elmer a job selling concessions. “This new field is wide open for a man with Elmer’s singularity of aim and capacity of voice.”15 Elmer found early success, then his sales started to drop. Ankenman watched him one day and discovered that after removing the caps, Elmer would wipe the soda bottles with the same towel he used to wipe sweat from his face. The boss quickly shifted Elmer to selling peanuts and he soon became a star attraction at Buff Stadium.16

Elmer quickly gained recognition with his familiar cry, “Get your goobers here, and I’ll tell you how I taught Dizzy Dean to pitch. He’s my brother.”17

After his first season, Elmer had earned the recognition as “probably the baseball fans’ most popular peanut dispenser here [Houston] during the diamond campaign.”18

One of Elmer’s biggest thrills on the field came that fall. Dizzy came to Houston to pitch a benefit barnstorming game, and Elmer hit a triple off his kid brother. “It was the only real wallop off Dizzy, whose team won, 9 to 1.”19 When not shouting at the crowds about his goobers, Elmer liked to roam the tall buildings of the city, “indulging his hobby of riding in elevators.”20 He also supported himself running errands and working in a tire shop, down the street from the bare apartment where he lived with his father.21

The next season, 1934, Paul joined Dizzy with the big league Cardinals. Dizzy lobbied St. Louis general manager Branch Rickey to find Elmer a job, too. Rickey had recently hired his brother as a scout, and Dizzy hoped for a clerical job in the front office for Elmer. The eldest Dean brother stepped off the bus from Houston in St. Louis only to find that his great reputation with the Buffs had earned him a position hawking peanuts in the St. Louis stands. St Louis headlines read, “Cards Buy a Third Dean Pitcher—And it’s a Nutty Idea,” and, “The Dean Brothers—Two Nuts and One Goober.”22

A Dean family meeting, reportedly led by Pat Dean (Dizzy’s wife), determined that “Elmer, hawking peanuts in the grandstand, would put Dizzy and Paul in an undignified light.”23 Saying he did not much care for St. Louis, Elmer soon returned to Houston “much to the delight of peanut-conscious and pop-minded fans at Buffalo Stadium,” without selling one goober in St. Louis.24

Houston fans welcomed Elmer back. News accounts reported “his stentorian cry of ‘ice cold soda water— who wants one?’ has won him the rating of a championship contender in his chosen line.” He wore a hat band clearly labeled “Elmer Dean.”25 According to Roy Forrest of the Miami News, “Nobody could duplicate Elmer’s lusty bellow—‘Buy a goober!’—which sold thousands of pounds of peanuts.”26

Early in the summer of 1934, Dizzy and Paul staged a short strike, seeking an increase in pay. Elmer seemed to take this lead from his brothers, as he went on strike soon after he returned to Houston. “I want more money or I’ll let your goobers go stale,” he told Walter Benson, director of concessions at the Houston park.27 He missed only one day of work, then returned to the grandstands.

Cardinals star Dizzy Dean helped his older brother Elmer get a job as a peanut vendor with the Houston Buffaloes. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

One day in 1934, Casey Stengel, manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers at the time, asked Dizzy if he had any more brothers. Diz replied, “We got another brother named Elmer, and Casey, you ought to grab him. He’s down at Houston, burnin’ up the league.” Stengel actually pursued the tip, until he learned that Elmer was pitching peanuts for the Texas League club.28

When the Cardinals played the Detroit Tigers in the 1934 World Series, Pa Dean traveled to St. Louis for games three, four, and five. Elmer stayed home at Dizzy’s request, and since the Dean family could not afford a radio of their own, he listened to the games at a nearby gas station.29

In 1935, Elmer left his peanut pitching to join promoter Ray Doan and his traveling bearded team, the House of David, as a pitcher. Pa Dean came along also to do promotional work and serve as team secretary. Elmer played a bigger role in Doan’s promotional schemes than he ever did as a pitcher. He took a lot of ridicule, as well. He usually batted leadoff, and pitched the first inning, then would slip down to one end of the bench and huddle in a corner the rest of the game. House of David players regarded him more as a team mascot than as a player. People mocked his name “Elmer” and nicknamed him “Dippy.” He had left the realm of “Elmer the Great.”30

Elmer returned to Houston to start the 1936 season, hoping again for a diamond tryout. Sure that someday he would play in the major leagues, he said he would not go to the Cardinals. “It wouldn’t be fair to the other teams to let all of the Dean brothers pitch for one club.”31 When Ankenman did not leave him a uniform that fit him, he worked out in his street clothes. He explained that if he did not make the team roster, he planned to hold out, following the lead of his younger brothers in St. Louis, for more money for selling soda and peanuts.32 “I could show ole Diz and Paul something about baseball, if you’d give me a chance.” Dizzy and Paul came to terms with the Cardinals, and Elmer returned to his “ace peanut vending.”33

Early in the 1936 season, Elmer expanded his territory north, as he caught on with the Fort Worth Cats, also in the Texas League. He peddled his wares in the “Panther City” whenever the Buffs were on the road, and return to Houston for their home games. The move proved convenient for the Dean family as Pa Dean had moved to Garland, Texas, outside of Dallas, to help work his son Paul’s farm. Even in Fort Worth Elmer’s “persistent selling talk and his shouts and laughter never fail to attract the attention of the customers.”34

Also early in 1936, the House of David dropped Elmer, reportedly because he could not grow an adequate beard.35 Then before the end of the season, Elmer saw his peanut sales come to an end, as the Houston stadium gave him his “unconditional release.”36 Elmer retreated to Paul’s farm and joined his dad farming, still attempting to play some semipro baseball as a pitcher for Dallas-area teams.37

Elmer spent the next twenty years sharing chores on the farm with his dad. Within six months of his father’s death earlier that year, Elmer died September 24, 1956, following a long illness, leaving his brothers Jay (“Dizzy”) and Paul as his only survivors.

The eldest Dean brother, sometimes known as Goober or Poodle or Elmer the Great, made a distinctive impact in baseball, even if not as a player on the field. “The best doggone goober salesman that ever hit Buffalo Stadium” lived his motto as an outfielder: “Be thar when the ball gets thar.”38, 39

PAUL GEISLER JR. grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and has been a Lutheran pastor for over 35 years. He lives in Lake Jackson, Texas, with his wife Susan and their three children: Sarah, Brydon, and Johanna. He loves anything baseball—playing, watching, coaching, researching, and writing.

• Related link: Learn more about Dizzy and Daffy Dean in SABR’s free e-book on the 1934 St. Louis Cardinals

Notes

South Shields is a coastal town in Northern England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne, downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne. The town boasts an economy built around shipbuilding and coal mining, and produced the director Ridley Scott and actor/comedian Eric Idle. The main sports are rugby and soccer.1 So it may seem strange that a story about the birth of baseball should start there, but it was also in South Shields, in 1888, that Robert Henderson was born. Henderson emigrated to the United States and joined the staff of the New York Public Library in 1911.2 His fascination with the history of games and sport led him to publish Ball, Bat and Bishop in 1947, a book that would help unravel the myth of Abner Doubleday’s 1839 invention of the game in Cooperstown, New York, and open the door to the notion that a myriad of other players, including Alexander Joy Cartwright, developed it instead.3

While researching an article about the relationship between baseball and the US Congress that was published in the National Archives magazine (Prologue), I came across several references to a commendation by the 83rd Congress on June 3, 1953, officially recognizing Henderson for proving Cartwright as the inventor of baseball. In my position as an archivist in the Center for Legislative Archives, a unit of the National Archives and Records Administration, I had never previously come across such a reference and decided it was worth some more scrutiny. Specifically, Cartwright’s Wikipedia page states: “Cartwright was officially declared the inventor of the modern game of baseball by the 83rd United States Congress on June 3, 1953.”4 And his New World Encyclopedia entry states: “Alexander Cartwright II (April 17, 1820–July 12, 1892) was officially credited by the United States Congress on June 3, 1953, with inventing the modern game of baseball…..In 1947 Robert W. Henderson documented Cartwright’s contributions to baseball in his book Bat, Ball, and Bishop, which the US Congress cited in recognizing Cartwright as the inventor of the modern game.”5 Other sites, as well as several printed publications, repeat the same information, citing a variety of sources, from the Wikipedia page to an article in the June 4, 1953, New York Times (more on that below). However, there is no mention in the records of Congress to suggest that any official credit was given to Cartwright or Henderson, in 1953 or during any other Congress.

The bulk of the records pertaining to both baseball and Congress in the National Archives relate to the multiple challenges made to Major League Baseball’s antitrust status, first conferred upon baseball in a Supreme Court ruling in 1922. Every subsequent challenge to that decision has been settled out of court or resulted in the Supreme Court upholding the original ruling, leaving it to Congress to redefine that status. Charged with such a responsibility, the House and the Senate have held multiple hearings since the 1940s to debate the matter, but have done little but issue reports that either support the antitrust status or compel the Court to overturn its ruling. There were four days of hearings in May of 1953, before the Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee, but no mention of Cartwright or Henderson was made. Few other references to baseball, on either the House or Senate floor, during 81st and 83rd Congresses were made, one being a Joint Resolution designating June 26 as National Baseball Day (a sentiment raised again on the Senate floor by Bill Bradley in 1996—though the ’96 resolution does mention Cartwright). Harold and Dorothy Seymour, in their seminal work Baseball: The Early Years, published in 1960, mention the report issued by the Cellar committee in 1952 that states baseball as “a game of American origin,” with no reference to Cartwright or Henderson.6

However, there is no mention in the Congressional Record, House Journal, or Senate Journal recorded on June 3, 1953, of Alexander Cartwright or Robert Henderson. In addition, the US Serial Set contains no reports or publications from the 83rd Congress (or any other congress, for that matter) singling out Henderson’s work or ratifying Cartwright’s position as THE creator of baseball. The 1954 Official Baseball Guide, published by The Sporting News, makes no reference either in its 1953 year in review. In addition, there is nothing in the June 3 or 10, 1953, editions of The Sporting News, nor is there any mention in the June 3 or 4, 1953, editions of the Washington Post or the New York Times. As mentioned above, there is an article in the June 4 Times of that year about Robert Henderson, though not about any kind of Congressional recognition.7 The June 4 article is about Henderson’s retirement from the New York Public Library, effective June 3, 1953, mentioning his efforts to debunk the myth that Abner Doubleday “invented” the game of baseball but leaving out any mention of Alexander Cartwright.

Despite numerous apparent references, there is no mention in the records of Congress to suggest that any official credit was given to Alexander Cartwright or Robert Henderson, in 1953 or during any other Congress.

In fact, Harold Peterson, who wrote the first real Cartwright biography, argued in a 1973 letter to the Times that Henderson, while establishing sufficient evidence against the Doubleday myth, “never investigated Cartwright.”8 Henderson had written about Cartwright, but only as an integral part of a complex development of the game, and never focused on his role beyond that.

The final nail in the coffin may be the concurrent resolutions, recorded in the Congressional Record of July 1957, and recommend by both House and Senate that the Baseball Hall of Fame be recognized “since Abner Doubleday conceived” of the game in Cooperstown in 1839. So, by 1960, the United States Congress was still approving of the Doubleday myth at the same time that Seymour, then the premier baseball historian, was publishing only the Celler committee’s approval of that myth and nothing else.

If Congress never credited Henderson’s “discovery,” or cited Cartwright as the inventor of the game, then where did such a rumor start? So far there has been no conclusive evidence found of the rumor’s origin, but it is possible that a combination of factors led it to make its way into popular understanding of Cartwright and, in turn, to an Internet “fact” that grew legs of its own. The earliest mention found so far is in The Baseball Chronology, published in 1991.9 Such a resource would no doubt have proven useful in compiling data for sites such as Wikipedia and other fact-based sites, but it is not certain whether the proliferation of this rumor originated with that publication.

Wolfgang Saxon’s 1985 obituary of Robert Henderson details his service to the New York Public Library and as librarian of the Racquet and Tennis club on Park Avenue, his contributions to baseball scholarship, and even his work with the Library Journal. Yet no mention is made of Cartwright or Congress. However, Saxon does cite another type of recognition, writing that “it was not until 1951 that the Official Encyclopedia of Baseball capitulated and embraced Mr. Henderson’s views.”10 Though the book in question—Hy Turkin and S.C. Thompson’s Official Encyclopedia of Baseball—was the first publication of a real baseball stats book, the notion of Henderson’s work as being recognized by an “official” entity could have contributed to the construction of the rumor. Could it be that the confluence in one author’s head of Saxon’s reference to the 1951 encyclopedia, the June 4 article on Henderson’s retirement the day before, and the Celler committee’s report led to the creation of this myth?

Though the only Congressional attention to professional baseball during the spring and summer of 1953 focused upon the business of Major and Minor leagues as well as the Congressional baseball game, it wouldn’t be out of the question for Congress to have recognized Robert Henderson at the end of a long and successful career. Such recognition was commonplace on the floors of the House of Representatives and the Senate—however, no evidence exists of any recognition of Henderson, Cartwright, or the origins of baseball.

ADAM BERENBAK is an archivist in the National Archives Center for Legislative Archives. He earned a master of library science degree with a focus in archives from North Carolina Central University and was a 2008 Frank and Peggy Steele Intern at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum’s A. Bartlett Giamatti Research Center in Cooperstown, New York. He has previously published “Congressional Play-by-Play on Baseball” in “Prologue” (Summer 2011 edition), and has worked in both academic and public library special collections.

Notes

1. Ridley Scott, last accessed December 31, 2013, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/forum/1234177.stm. Eric Idle, last accessed December 31, 2013, www.imdb.com/name/nm0001385.

2. Wolfgang Saxon, “Robert W. Henderson Dies; Librarian and Sports Expert,” The New York Times, August 20, 1985.

3. Robert Henderson, Ball, Bat and Bishop: The Origin of Ball Games; with an introduction by Will Irwin (New York: Rockport Press, 1947).

4. Alexander Cartwright, last accessed December 31, 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cartwright.

5. Alexander Cartwright, last accessed December 31, 2013, www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Alexander_Cartwright.

6. Harold Seymour, Baseball (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960).

7. “Retiring Librarian’s Own Books ‘Struck Out’ a Baseball Legend,” The New York Times, June 4, 1953.

8. Harold Peterson, “The Man Who Invented Baseball (Letter to the Editor),” The New York Times, September 16, 1973.

9. James Charlton, ed. The Baseball Chronology: The Complete History of the Most Important Events in the Game of Baseball (New York:Macmillan; Toronto:Collier Macmillan Canada; New York:Maxwell Macmillan International, c1991).

10. Wolfgang Saxon, “Robert W. Henderson Dies; Librarian and Sports Expert,” The New York Times, August 20, 1985.

What’s My Line? was a popular primetime game show which ran on CBS-TV from 1950 through 1967, with a daytime syndicated version lasting from 1968 to 1975. Its format was simple and clever: a quartet of panelists questioned individuals to determine their often unusual or unlikely occupations, which ranged from the offbeat (safety pin maker, skunk breeder, mattress tester, flea powder seller, toupee manufacturer, zipper factory inspector) to the gender-bending (female doctor, plumber, private detective, truck driver, butcher, barber, bartender, architect, cab driver, real estate agent, horse trainer, wrestler). Each program also featured the appearance of at least one mystery guest, a celebrity whose face and voice were known to the masses, and who was quizzed by the blindfold-wearing panelists. These luminaries usually were screen, stage, or television personalities who often comically disguised their voices while responding to the panel.

Occasionally, the mystery guests were baseball figures, primarily players but also managers or executives of renown. Unfamiliar or unheralded baseball-connected individuals also appeared sporadically. (Since the show primarily was produced in New York, a majority of the guests were affiliated with the New York nines.) These days, hearing and seeing sluggers and hurlers from stars to scrubs as well as non-playing baseball personnel is commonplace; they are familiar to fans because they frequently are interviewed in a range of venues. Such was not the case in the 1950s, when television was in its infancy, and so it is fascinating to observe the What’s My Line? baseball guests out of uniform, garbed in suits and ties, and casually comporting themselves.

During its CBS run, the show was hosted by John Daly, a noted journalist and broadcast personality. While he is best-remembered as the What’s My Line? master of ceremonies, Daly earned notoriety as the first national radio correspondent to report on the December 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the April 12, 1945, passing of President Franklin Roosevelt. A range of famous faces sat on the show’s panel; however, the “regulars” were a high-profile journalist and syndicated columnist who specialized in show-biz gossip but also was a chronicler of organized crime and politics (Dorothy Kilgallen), a humorist and lecturer who co-founded the Random House publishing company (Bennett Cerf), and a stage and occasional film actress and New York radio personality (Arlene Francis). As befitting the formality of the era, the panelists most often were stylishly garbed in evening wear. Daly usually referred to them by their surnames, particularly when passing the interrogating from one panelist to the next. Ever-so-appropriately, he asked the female contestants if they should be addressed as “Miss” or “Mrs.”

But the celebrity guest appearances were the What’s My Line? highlight—and the initial one was neither screen legend Gloria Swanson nor comic actor Phil Silvers, not burlesque star-striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee nor clarinetist-bandleader Benny Goodman, all of whom were on the show during its first year. It was, instead, a New York ballplayer. Years before he became an aging self-caricature on New York Yankees broadcasts whose “holy cannoli” banter has been deftly parodied by Billy Crystal, Phil Rizzuto was quiet and serious-minded in his various What’s My Line? appearances. Rizzuto’s initial gig was on the debut episode, which aired on February 2, 1950. (Dizzy Dean and Jackie Robinson followed The Scooter as 1950 mystery guests.)

Rizzuto also appeared in that capacity almost exactly two decades later, on February 5, 1970, when the Bronx Bombers were indeed bombing in the American League. They finished the previous season in fifth place in the six-team American League East with an 80–81 record; meanwhile, the crosstown New York Mets were the World Series champs.1 Panelist Soupy Sales asked Rizzuto, “What kind of team the Yankees gonna have this coming year, Phil?” His response reflected a time in New York baseball when the Mets were superstars and the Yankees were also-rans: “Well, it’s gonna be a lot better, Soupy. Actually, the Mets have given everybody a lot of hope. You don’t think of the Yankees as a second-division team, but we are right now. And we figure if the Mets can have the ‘impossible dream,’ maybe the Yankees might be able to.”

On October 7, 1956, a month-and-a-half after being unceremoniously released by the Yankees and a year before the Brooklyn Dodgers abandoned the Borough of Churches for Los Angeles, Rizzuto was a guest panelist. The mystery guest was Sal Maglie, who was identified as “Pitcher–Brooklyn Dodgers.” Irony was the hallmark of the back-and-forth between the blindfolded Scooter and Sal the Barber:

Rizzuto: “Do you deal in services?”

Maglie: “I sure do.”

Rizzuto: “Is it the type of service that I could enjoy?”

Maglie: “Probably. Yes. I’d say yes.” (Laughter was heard from the audience.)

Rizzuto: “Do you work for a profit-making organization?”

Maglie: “I think so. Sometimes.” (More laughter was heard.)

After it was established that the mystery guest was a sportsman, the ever-astute Arlene Francis echoed the sentiment of many when she asked, “If Mr. Rizzuto were playing with the Yankees, where he belongs, would he be nervous about you?” Maglie responded, “I don’t think so.”

Francis: “You know what I meant by that. I meant, are you on the opposing team?”

Maglie: “I’d say yes.”

Francis: “Are you a member of the inevitable Dodgers?”

Maglie: “Uh huh.”

Francis: “Are you known to pitch a few now and again?”

Maglie: “Once in a while.”

Francis: “I think probably we all know together who this is. This is Sal Maglie.”

Yankee-Dodger dynamics 1950s-style were frequently on display on What’s My Line? The September 28, 1952, mystery guest was manager Chuck Dressen, whose Dodgers were about to face the Bronx Bombers in the World Series. As Dressen’s identity emerged during the questioning, the Bums’ determination to best the Yanks was emphasized. Just before identifying Dressen, Arlene Francis asked him, “Did you write an article in the [New York] Post that said [the Dodgers] weren’t going to blow it this time?”

But the New York Giants were not completely overlooked. On July 11, 1954, during the heart of the baseball season, the mystery guest was Willie Mays. After a round of spirited questioning, an animated Arlene Francis declared, “Well, sir, I think I’ve got you. Did you hit your 31st home run today? Did you play center field? Are you Say Hey Willie Mays?” (This particular contest was a near-record-breaker. Earlier that day, the Giants split a doubleheader with the Pittsburgh Pirates, winning 13–7 in the opener and falling 5–1 in the nightcap. Louis Effrat, covering the games in The New York Times, reported: “Home runs, for and against, told the story of the opener. The nine circuit wallops were one less than the National League record for two clubs in a game. The six by the Giants, including Mays’ thirty-first, were two short of the mark for one club in a game.”2) Bennett Cerf then asked Mays if he would utter what then had become his nickname. (“I’d like to hear just how he says it. Do one for us, will you Willie?”) Mays declined, and explained that “it’s just a phrase that I use [sic] when I first came up” in order to greet those whose names he had not yet memorized. It also was noted that Mays momentarily would be heading for Cleveland to play in the All-Star Game.

Fourteen years later, on August 20, 1968, Mays reappeared on the show. He was greeted with loud cheers and whistles and, after being identified, insisted that he was “in show business. What do we think baseball is? Baseball is show biz.” Host Wally Bruner (who had replaced John Daly) asked if Willie could break Babe Ruth’s career home run record. “The Babe is 714, but I don’t think I can reach it,” Mays responded. He noted that he was at “569 or 570” and added, “If I can reach 600, I’d be very happy about it. The way the pitchers are coming along nowadays… I’m not getting any younger. They’re getting younger. I don’t think I can reach 714.” As he was asked if anyone else might, Hank Aaron’s name was dropped. “I don’t think so…,” Mays prognosticated. “If he can reach 600, or a little above 600…” Mays of course totaled 660 homers in his career but he underestimated Hammerin’ Hank, who of course bested the Babe with 755 dingers.

On September 6, 1953, Roy Campanella was the mystery guest. After he was identified by panelist Steve Allen, John Daly observed, “This is a great day in Roy’s life… Roy hit his 38th home run today, which beat Gabby Hartnett’s 19—what, 1930 Cubs record…” (Daly was only partially correct. The Dodgers beat the Giants, 6–3, and Louis Effrat, writing in The New York Times, reported that Campy’s dinger “set one major-league record and tied another for catchers. Gabby Hartnett of the 1930 Chicago Cubs held the previous homer mark with thirty-seven. [His] two runs batted in tied Campanella with Bill Dickey of the Yankees, who established the record of 133 RBIs for a season in 1937.”3)

On another occasion, eleven baseballers comprised the “mystery guest.” (When two or more such guests were present, their number was not identified—and it was up to the panel to determine this.) The date was June 24, 1956, and they all played for the Cincinnati Reds, who had battled the Dodgers that day in a doubleheader. Ted Kluszewski was the spokesman, and was seated next to John Daly. Standing behind them were Johnny Temple, Wally Post, Gus Bell, Frank Robinson, Ed Bailey, Ray Jablonski, Smoky Burgess, Roy McMillan, Johnny Klippstein, and Joe Nuxhall. These Reds mirrored the demographics of big-league baseball mid-1950s-style as there were ten Caucasians, one African-American, and no Latinos. After Arlene Francis identified the guests, it was noted that the Reds bested the Bums in both games by 10–6 and 2–1 scores. Bennett Cerf added that Ed Bailey had smashed three home runs in the first game. (Bailey was not the lone hero of the day. Kluszewski and Robinson also homered. Nuxhall started and completed the second game and John Drebinger reported in The New York Times: “Until yesterday not a left-hander had pitched and won a complete game against the Dodgers since Sept. 16, 1954, when this same Nuxhall achieved the feat.” Klippstein was not as fortunate. He started the first game but only lasted into the fourth inning, when he was replaced by ex-Dodger Joe Black.4)

One of the more intriguing baseball personalities to appear on What’s My Line? was Bonnie Baker, a guest on August 17, 1952. Baker’s “line” was “Professional Baseball Player,” and she was identified as the second sacker on the Kalamazoo Lassies of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. Given the conventions of the era, once it was determined that Baker was a “performer” who wore unusual clothing that did not cover her entire body, the supposition was that her artistry was of the striptease variety. Sex roles and assumptions certainly came into play when, after explaining her affiliation, John Daly noted, “For heaven’s sake, I must get more interest in baseball” while Dorothy Kilgallen pronounced, “I certainly think Mrs. Baker is an argument for allowing women to play in the big leagues.”

Occasionally, a non-athlete, manager, or executive made it into the What’s My Line? box score. One such non-mystery guest was Mrs. Beulah Gellert, who appeared on the July 29, 1962, broadcast. Gellert’s “line” was: “Makes Baseball Bats”; she was identified as the owner of the Adirondack Bat Company. Another was Harry B. Latina, who on the April 16, 1961, installment was identified as a “[Designer of] Baseball Gloves.” It was explained that for four decades Latina had worked for the Rawlings Sporting Goods Company and had created gloves for Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle, among others. In a Smithsonianmag.com profile of Rawlings glove designer Bob Clevenhagen, Jim Morrison reported, “He is only the third glove designer in the history of the company, following the father-son team of Harry Latina, who worked from 1922 to 1961, and Rollie Latina, who retired in 1983.”5 Given Latina’s profession, some panelist questions provoked audience amusement. After it was determined that Latina’s “line” involved something that was put on, Bennett Cerf asked him, “Is this something that might be worn in the bedroom?” Dorothy Kilgallen’s follow-up: “I hate to dismiss Mr. Cerf’s romantic notions, but would it be worn in the kitchen?”

On September 25, 1960, Joane Westermark, another non-celebrity guest, was identified as “Usher at Baseball Park (S.F. Giants).” Chuck Connors was a guest panelists and, after it was determined that Westermark resided in the City by the Bay, the ballplayer-turned-television star quipped, “San Francisco… the only thing I can remember recently that happened in San Francisco [is that] the Giants died. And I don’t blame the Giants. I blame the weather.” The Giants played their first game in the infamously windswept Candlestick Park on April 12, and Connors’s remark reflected the ball yard’s already controversial weather conditions and the fact that, during the just-concluded season, the Giants were a fifth-place ball club.6

A little over a year earlier, on September 13, 1959, Branch Rickey was the mystery guest. The recent departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants for western environs had generated interest in the formation of a third major baseball league. At the time, Rickey was at its forefront, and he was introduced as “President of New Continental Baseball League.” At one point, Bennett Cerf asked him, “Mr. Rickey, how ’bout that third league?” Rickey’s response was: “Inevitable as tomorrow morning.” But of course, with the advent of major league expansion, the Continental League ceased to exist.

The October 23, 1960, What’s My Line? mystery guest was Ralph Houk, the newly-hired New York Yankees skipper who had replaced the venerable Casey Stengel. Bennett Cerf asked him, “Mr. Houk, where do you think Casey’s gonna end up?” Houk responded, “Well, I know one thing. He’s gonna have a lot of money wherever he ends up.” Ten days earlier, Stengel’s Yankees had lost the seventh game of the World Series to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Five days later, and five days before Houk’s What’s My Line? appearance, Stengel had been unceremoniously dumped by the Yankees. Houk likely was referring to the news that Stengel, then the highest-paid big league skipper, supposedly had been given a profit-sharing disbursement of $160,000 by his former employer.7

But who could have prognosticated that the seventy-something Stengel was not through as a major league manager? On April 15, 1962, the ever-charming Ole Perfessor was a What’s My Line? guest. He then was the first-ever skipper of the expansion New York Mets. Two days earlier, on April 13, the Mets had made their debut at the Polo Grounds, losing to the Pittsburgh Pirates by a 4–3 score.8

A prime example of how memories play tricks may be found on the November 20, 1969, What’s My Line? broadcast. The mystery guest was “Baseball’s Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson,” and panelist Soupy Sales told him, “One of the big thrills of my life… was in 1944. And I was in the navy, and I went to the Coliseum on Saturday afternoon, and UCLA in their backfield at the time had Jackie Robinson, Bob Waterfield, and Kenny Washington. You played USC that day, and you whipped ’em good.” This of course was misinformation, which Robinson quickly corrected. “I’m a little older than that,” he explained. “I played with Kenny Washington in 1939.”

The primary purpose of What’s My Line? was of course entertainment of the lighthearted variety, and accidental humor was one of the show’s hallmarks. When Ted Williams appeared as a mystery guest, on May 23, 1954, Dorothy Kilgallen asked him, “Would you describe yourself as a performer?” Williams answered in the affirmative. Kilgallen’s retort—“You have a very nice voice. Do you sing?”—resulted in audience laughter and a resounding “No!” from Teddy Ballgame. Then on October 7, 1962, the mystery guest signed in as “Mister X.” He was Russ Hodges, and his “line” was “Baseball Announcer (Currently Announcing World Series).” This was a time in which space exploration was much in the news and, regarding his profession, Arlene Francis innocently asked, “Does [your work] have anything to do with something that goes on in outer space?” Hodges answered in the negative, and elicited a hearty guffaw. Later on, John Daly placed Hodges’s presence into the context of the time when he observed, “…Russ was good enough to note that he had not been seen much on camera for six or seven years. [But] as you all know, Russ IS the Giants.” Ever the proud New Yorker, Daly was not referring to the San Francisco variety.

On September 5, 1954, the mystery guest was a two-headed monster: Sal Maglie, who then was pitching in the Polo Grounds; and Duke Snider, who was patrolling center field at Ebbets Field. When Bennett Cerf asked, “You’re either a Giant or a Dodger, is that correct?,” it was Snider who answered, “Yep.” But when he asked, “Are you a teammate of Willie Mays?,” Snider answered “Nope.” Minutes later, when Dorothy Kilgallen asked, “Are you a Dodger?,” it was Maglie who answered “Nope.” Finally, Arlene Francis figured out that the “guest” was in fact one Dodger and one Giant.

Snider returned as a mystery guest on January 12, 1958. Only here, the Bums no longer were in Brooklyn and the former Duke of Flatbush was identified as “Center Fielder: Los Angeles Dodgers.” After he was identified, John Daly observed, “Well, Duke… [the famed celebrity restaurateur] Toots [Shor] talks with great melancholy about our Brooklyn Dodgers moving to Los Angeles…” One of the panelists was actress Laraine Day; from 1947 to 1960, Day was wed to Leo Durocher, ex-skipper of the Dodgers as well as the New York Giants. Was Day reflecting her husband’s preferences (as well as her own) when she interrupted Daly and emphatically observed, “Toots is a Giants fan!” Daly chimed in, “He also likes the Dodgers, though, but after the Giants.” “WAY after,” Day added. “A Giant fan couldn’t possibly like the Dodgers.”

Several years earlier, on May 31, 1953, Day also was on the panel. Durocher was the mystery guest and, given the circumstance, her questions were unintentionally funny. Day of course was blindfolded, Durocher’s voice was disguised, and her first question to him was: “Are you a man?” After it was determined that Durocher was baseball-connected and affiliated with the National League, Day asked: “Should I know you? To speak to, I mean. If I met you on the street, would I speak to you? That would mean you weren’t working for Brooklyn.” John Daly piped in, “Yes, you would know our guest… I’m quite sure, Miss Day.” But it was Steve Allen who, soon after, correctly guessed the identity of Leo the Lip.

On January 13, 1957, Robin Roberts appeared—but as a regular contestant rather than mystery guest. This was because his “line” was not “Star Pitcher, Philadelphia Phillies” but “President of Frozen Shrimp Company.” John Daly played along by asking Roberts where he was from. Roberts responded, “Well, I’m from Philadelphia most of the time,” and Daly quipped, “…that’s funny. That’s a strange coincidence…” Could there be two Robin Robertses in the City of Brotherly Love? But Bennett Cerf, the first questioner, recognized him immediately and asked, “Aren’t you the star pitcher of the Philadelphia Phillies?” Over a half-century later, Roberts recalled, “I was on television once, on What’s My Line? The panel had to try and guess my off-season job, which was with the Neptunalia Seafood Company. I was president of Gold King and we sold frozen shrimp. No one could figure out what I did, but they sure came close.”9

Irony also was the order of the day when Joe DiMaggio was the mystery guest. The date was September 18, 1955. His appearance was greeted with unusually loud cheers, which reflected his mass popularity, and Arlene Francis observed, “Nobody’s ever had a hand like that but Eisenhower and Monroe.” Francis of course was referring to Dwight Eisenhower and Marilyn Monroe. The Yankee Clipper had been wed to Monroe, but not for long: they married in January, 1954, and Monroe filed for divorce nine months later. The Brooklyn Dodgers clinched the NL pennant ten days before the broadcast. Game One of the World Series was set for September 28. At the start of this particular show, Dorothy Kilgallen introduced a fellow panelist by quipping, “On my left, the surprise pinch-hitter for the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series, Mr. Fred Allen.” It was a fitting reference. Allen, a popular radio personality, was one of the most celebrated humorists of the 1930s–50s and was famed for his long-running faux “feud” with Jack Benny, his good friend and fellow comedian. Allen scholar Alan Havig noted that his “scripts were especially sensitive to goings-on in his own town, New York City. More than on any other network radio program, the metropolis of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, Coney Island, immigrant neighborhoods, the subway, and the Brooklyn Dodgers played a continuing role on Allen’s shows.”10 Allen was a What’s My Line? regular from 1954 until his death in March 1956.

The March 25, 1956, mystery guest was Ford Frick, whose “line” was “Commissioner of Baseball.” Before his profession was determined, Bennett Cerf asked Frick, “Do you do any singing of any kind?” and Dorothy Kilgallen wondered, “Have you and I ever danced together?” After he was identified, John Daly observed, “…you occasionally hear nowadays… that baseball is losing its popularity. Do you think there’s anything to that?” The essence of Frick’s response easily might have been spouted by Bud Selig in 2014. “Well, I’ve heard baseball is dying,” Frick declared. “I don’t know what constitutes death, but I would say it’s a lively corpse. Attendance in baseball today is 50 per cent higher than it was before the war. There are twice as many colleges playing, twice as many high schools. There are more youngsters playing baseball than ever before in history. No, I think we’re going to survive.”

Seeing Frick, DiMaggio and the other baseball luminaries on the What’s My Line? episodes over a half-century after their broadcasts is at once attention-grabbing and illuminating. For one thing, their interactions with the panelists are reflections of the attitudes of the moment, the spirit of the era. For another, their presences are visual records of a place and time in baseball history.

ROB EDELMAN teaches film history courses at the University at Albany. He is the author of “Great Baseball Films” and “Baseball on the Web,” and is co-author (with his wife, Audrey Kupferberg) of “Meet the Mertzes,” a double biography of I Love Lucy’s Vivian Vance and fabled baseball fan William Frawley, and “Matthau: A Life.” He is a film commentator on WAMC (Northeast) Public Radio and a contributing editor of Leonard Maltin’s “Movie Guide.” He is a frequent contributor to “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game” and has written for “Baseball and American Culture: Across the Diamond”; “Total Baseball”; “Baseball in the Classroom”; “Memories and Dreams”; and “NINE: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture.” His essay on early baseball films appears on the DVD “Reel Baseball: Baseball Films from the Silent Era, 1899–1926,” and he is an interviewee on the director’s cut DVD of “The Natural.”

Sources

Internet Movie Database: http://www.imdb.com.

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com.

Baseball is great theatre. Indeed, baseball stories have been fodder for Hollywood since the era of silent films, both dramatic and comedic. But baseball biographies in movies and TV-movies often sacrifice facts to move the story forward at a watchable pace, increase drama, or provide comic relief. For a sport whose patrons guard its history like sentinels protecting a prince, baseball suffers an invasion against the minutiae that make it a glorious game grounded in lore, legend, and literature.

The movie 42 brought us the story of Jackie Robinson’s debut in the major leagues, complete with the recreations of much-told stories in Robinson lore: the boycott initiated by southern-bred players on the Brooklyn Dodgers, Branch Rickey’s “turn the other cheek” meeting with Robinson, and the vicious bench jockeying by Philadelphia Phillies manager Ben Chapman. When compared to historical accounts, 42 portrays these scenes with accuracy. For example, after a Phillies-Dodgers game, Chapman explains that his racially charged verbal abuse of Robinson is nothing new by comparing it to other instances that, in his paradigm, are part of the game. The Chapman scene parallels the description in Wait Till Next Year by Carl Rowan and Jackie Robinson: “You fellows want Robinson to become a real big leaguer, I suppose. Well, so do we, and we’re treating him just the same as we do any other player on a rival club. When we’re playing exhibitions with the Yanks, Di Maggio is always ‘The Wop,’ and when we meet the Cards, Whitey Kurowsky (sic) is ‘The Polack.’ The phils [sic] ball club rides the devil out of every team it meets. That’s our style of baseball. We hand it out and we expect to take it too.”1

The climactic scene in 42 deviates from history, using dramatic license to amplify the story’s tension. In the movie’s climactic scene, Robinson faces Pittsburgh’s Fritz Ostermueller in a game that could clinch the National League pennant for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Although Robinson did hit a game-winning home run off Ostermueller on September 17, it was not the clinching game; the win merely reduced the Dodgers’ magic number to two.2

Early in the film, Ostermueller beans Robinson, another exaggeration: Ostermueller hit Robinson with a pitch at a Pirates home game on May 17, 1947, but the ball struck Robinson’s arm, not head.3 (However, Robinson may have prevented a beaning by throwing up his arm.)

Ostermueller is a setup-payoff device in 42, setting up a scene where the hero is defeated, so that a payoff occurs later in the story when he overcomes the opponent. The payoff is Robinson hitting a home run off Ostermuller. Here, the scene not only deviates from history, but from Robinson’s business-as-usual approach to baseball, by depicting Robinson standing in the batter’s box after the climactic home run. This deviation from baseball’s unwritten rules of conduct rankled Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe, who wrote, “But nowhere in my extensive readings covering six decades of sports fandom do I recall hearing about him clinching the 1947 pennant for the Dodgers with a home run in Pittsburgh. I must have skipped those pages, because that’s what Mr. Helgeland has him doing…. And get this: He has Jackie watching the home run from the batter’s box. In 1947? Unimaginable.”4

In addition, for baseball purists, Ostermueller was left-handed while 42 shows him as right-handed.

Jackie Robinson also features in Soul of the Game, a 1996 HBO television movie focusing on Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Jackie Robinson as baseball stands on the verge of integration. In this recreation, the first meeting between Rickey and Robinson at the headquarters of the Brooklyn Dodgers includes a short, portly fellow named Pete, depicted as a Dodgers scout familiar with Robinson’s playing ability but who doesn’t know Robinson personally. Rickey introduces Pete to Robinson, who knows the scout only as a white man in the stands at Negro League games with a stopwatch in his hands.

In the real version of events, Rickey dispatched scouts Tom Greenwade and Clyde Sukeforth to scout Robinson at different times. Both were tall, lanky men, and Sukeforth introduced Robinson to Rickey at the meeting. Sukeforth met Robinson in Chicago, persuaded him to travel to Brooklyn, and recalled the events at a meeting with Rickey in 1950. “You said ‘In Chicago next Friday night, Kansas City Monarchs play in Comiskey Park. I want you to see that game and especially do I want you to see a shortstop named Robinson. I would like for you to see Robinson before the game. There is some doubt as to whether he has a really good arm. I would like for you to speak to Robinson before the game and ask him if he will throw the ball overhand from the hole, his right, in the practice.’

“You told me you had good reports on the fellow. You said you understood he was quite a ball player and if I liked him and if his schedule would permit. You told me that you wanted him to get away from his team and see you without anybody knowing anything about it. There was to be great secrecy, in that I was to avoid any publicity if possible, but if asked was to give my own name.”5

Another HBO production, the TV movie *61 showcases the 1961 chase of Babe Ruth’s home run record by Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, including the impact of the chase on Mantle and Maris, the Yankees, and the press. Some events, though, are tightened to move the story. For example, Bob Cerv appears as a Yankee from the beginning of the story, when he was actually peripatetic: on the Kansas City Athletics and the New York Yankees for the 1960 season, drafted by the Los Angeles Angels in the 1961 expansion draft, then returned to the Yankees in a May 1961 trade.

The story culminates with Maris hitting his 61st home run off Tracy Stallard of the Boston Red Sox while Cerv and Mantle, both injured, watch on television from a hospital room. Though they both suffered injuries that sidelined them during Maris’s historic moment—Cerv had knee surgery and Mantle had an abscessed hip—they did not watch the game together. In a 2001 Hartford Courant article, Cerv said this of the film: “You believed that? I knew Mick was there, but we had private rooms. They had to be a little artistic. They had to make a story. But I’d say 70 percent of the stuff really happened.”6

Babe Ruth’s legend suffered a couple of changes to his biography in The Babe Ruth Story starring William Bendix. Wayne Stewart, a Ruth biographer, writes in Babe Ruth, “For instance, it shows Ruth receiving a $5,000 fine and suspension for missing a game because he took a child’s injured dog to a hospital for an operation—this is sheer fiction. The film even portrayed the home run Ruth dedicated for Johnny Sylvester in 1926 as the ‘Called Shot’ of 1932. In the maudlin death scene, Ruth is operated on by the same surgeon who saved the life of the dog years earlier, and, Ruth, who had a notoriously poor memory, recalls the doctor’s face from almost sixteen years before. The film also inaccurately shows Ruth retiring on the spot just moments after hitting his final three home runs in Pittsburgh, the last of which is actually shown landing in the stands at Yankee Stadium.”7

Major League sacrifices verisimilitude in its portrayal of a fictional Cleveland Indians team winning the American League East pennant in a one-game showdown against the New York Yankees. Using a classic storyline of misfits banding together to defeat a common foe, Major League is entertaining, funny, and uplifting with the championship decided in true Hollywood fashion in the bottom of the ninth inning. There’s one problem. The scenes depicting Indians home games, including the one-game playoff, take place at Milwaukee’s County Stadium. Sharp-eyed Major League fans will note the logo for Milwaukee television station WTMJ on the scoreboard. There is, however, an overhead shot of a standing room only crowd at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium to give the audience a dramatic jolt.8 In Major League II, Baltimore’s Oriole Park at Camden Yards substitutes for Municipal Stadium.9

On July 4, 1939, the New York Yankees held Lou Gehrig Day to honor the “Iron Horse” after he was sidelined by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, the disease that would kill him two years later. Gary Cooper re-creates Gehrig’s speech in The Pride of the Yankees with some refinements here and there. The Cooper version begins, “I have been walking onto ballfields for 16 years, and I’ve never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans. I have had the great honor to have played with these great veteran ballplayers on my left—Murderers Row, our championship team of 1927. I have had the further honor living and playing with these men on my right—the Bronx Bombers, the Yankees of today.”10

Gehrig never mentioned the phrases “Bronx Bombers” or “Murderers Row” in his speech. Further, the Cooper version takes liberties by excluding two men who were mentioned by Gehrig: Jacob Ruppert, the Yankees owner who had died six months earlier, and Ed Barrow, “the builder of baseball’s greatest empire,” according to Gehrig.11

One of the best-known lines in film history is Cooper’s last line of the speech, “Today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the Earth.” The line is lifted verbatim from Gehrig’s speech, where it’s the second sentence. Later in the speech, Gehrig says, “Sure I’m lucky” before mentioning Ruppert, Barrow, and Yankees managers Huggins and McCarthy. Then, he repeats the phrase as he thanks the New York Giants for their gifts and his family for their support.12

Based on the eponymous book by Eliot Asinof, the film Eight Men Out shows the events, controversy, and consequences of the 1919 Chicago White Sox allegedly throwing the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds for financial gain. Though acquitted of “conspiracy to defraud the public” in court, eight players suffered a lifetime ban from major league baseball—Eddie Cicotte, Oscar “Happy” Felsch, Arnold “Chick” Gandil, “Shoeless” Joe Jackson, Fred McMullin, Charles “Swede” Risberg, George “Buck” Weaver, Claude “Lefty” Williams were banned by dint of the omnipotence of the new baseball commissioner, Kenesaw Mountain Landis: “Regardless of the verdict of juries, no player who throws a ballgame, no player that undertakes or promises to throw a ballgame, no player that sits in conference with a bunch of crooked players and gamblers where the ways and means of throwing a game are discussed and does not promptly tell his club about it, will ever play professional baseball.”13

“Shoeless” Joe Jackson hit .375 in the 1919 World Series and .356 in his career. After the “Black Sox” scandal, Jackson played on semi-pro teams. At the end of Eight Men Out, some fans debate whether Jackson is one of the players on the field. Wearing a Hoboken jersey, Jackson runs around the field like a gazelle in a game against Hackensack. Playing the outfield, he snares a ball destined for extra bases, then hits a stand-up triple in his next at-bat.14

Hoboken and Hackensack did not have semi-pro baseball teams.

In For Love of the Game, Kevin Costner plays Billy Chapel, a forty-ish pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. On the cusp of pitching a perfect game against the New York Yankees, Chapel reviews his life with his girlfriend, Jane, as she prepares to leap across the pond known as the Atlantic Ocean for a job in London. The day after the game, Billy goes to the airport so he can catch a flight to London only to find that Jane delayed her trip because the perfect game consumed her attention.15

In this fictional Tigerverse, the audience quickly learns Billy Chapel’s former pitching prowess; a newspaper headline praises his dominance in Game 1 of the 1984 World Series, though Jack Morris was the real hero of Game 1. Also, to the lament of Tigers fans, no Tigers pitcher has ever pitched a perfect game. (Armando Galarraga came close in 2010, but umpire Jim Joyce ruled that Indians batter Jason Donald beat out a ground ball for an infield hit.)

Bernie Mac stars as Stan Ross in Mr. 3000, the title stemming from Ross ending his career after his 3000th hit so he can use the “Mr. 3000” moniker as a marketing device. Playing for the Milwaukee Brewers, Ross is a fan favorite. His former teammates, however, view him as selfish because he retired during the middle of a playoff race. When the Brewers retire Ross’s number, former teammates Robin Yount and Paul Molitor opt to not attend the ceremony.

The Baseball Hall of Fame realizes that statisticians double counted three hits, thereby leaving Ross with 2997 hits. So, to maintain his marketing power as “Mr. 3000,” Ross returns to the Brewers. After getting two hits, Ross has a chance to achieve the gloried 3000 number for a “second time,” but lays down a sacrifice bunt so the Brewers can get a victory.

IMDB.com points out some continuity flaws, including Ross stating that he played a game against the Houston Astros. During the time referenced, interleague play did not exist during the regular season. There is no evidence to suggest that Ross meant to qualify the game as occurring during spring training. Also, when Ross achieved what was thought to be his 3000th hit, he did it in 1995 at Miller Park. He might have used a time machine because Miller Park opened in 2001.

Though filmmakers take creative license to tighten a storyline, dramatize a moment, or enhance a character, their films are no less appealing for baseball fans. Whether it’s Billy Chapel pitching a perfect game, Gary Cooper embodying the spirit of Lou Gehrig, or Brad Pitt showing Billy Beane defying baseball’s entrenched modus operandi, baseball films show all sides of a sport that has moments of drama and comedy, pathos and joy, and milestones and surprises.

On the morning of May 11, 1953, the fair citizens of Waco, Texas woke up to a muggy day. Many prepared themselves for the beginning of the work week by downing their daily cup of coffee and reading the latest edition of the Waco Tribune–Herald. Sprawled across the front page were reports of intense tornadoes in Minnesota, and the possibility of strong winds and rain in their own area. Native American Indian legends, attributed to the local Huaco tribe, prophesied that the bend in the Brazos River where Waco resided would never be touched by a twister, and so few, if any, Wacoans showed concern about such calamities.1

Near the center of town stood Katy Park, home of the Waco Pirates, a Class-B affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates. General manager and team skipper Buster Chatham and business manager Jack Berger Jr. arrived at their offices on Eighth Street and Webster to prepare for that night’s Big State League game against the Greenville Majors. Directly opposite the ballpark’s front entrance rested a diesel locomotive that had long been a source of irritation to Chatham due to its proximity.2

As the day wore on, and the skies grew increasingly foreboding, thoughts of canceling the game grew in the minds of the Pirates brain trust. At 4:10pm, southwest of Waco near the town of Lorena, an unexpected and terrible F-5 tornado, approximately one-third of a mile wide, touched down and began to cut a north-northeast path. By 4:25 the skies above Waco were so dark residents reported it was like night. Baseball-sized hail and steady rains began to pelt the downtown area. By 4:37 the funnel cloud was on course for the center of town, wreaking havoc as it passed through the business district, toppling buildings and tossing vehicles around like Tonka toys.

Inside Katy Park, Chatham and Berger realized the gravity of their situation and ran for their lives, taking cover under the very same train that had been a thorn in the side of Chatham. The locomotive would ultimately shield them both from the devilish whirlwind. Their beloved ballpark would not share the same fate.

In the wake of the terrible devastation, 114 were dead, 597 injured, and the monetary damages topped $41 million. Many of the survivors were buried under collapsed structures and waited up to 14 hours to be rescued. It was the deadliest twister in Texas since 1900 and one of the worst in US history. Among the casualties was Katy Park. All that remained of the almost 50-year-old ball yard was twisted metal and the splintered wood from the grandstands. Chatham, having played for a couple of bad Boston Braves squads in 1930 and 1931, was no stranger to adversity.3 But for all intents and purposes professional baseball in Waco was finished for the 1953 season.4,5

Reconstruction and Rebirth

Though the leveled downtown area resembled a war zone, Waco began the reconstruction process almost immediately. Although homeless, team owner A.H. Kirksey, who purchased the Katy Park in 1944 from O.B. Perot, announced he would build a new concrete and steel grandstand in anticipation of the Pirates returning for the 1954 season.6,7 In the meantime the Pirates would play out the rest of the 1953 schedule in Longview, Texas.8 On June 20, following a conversation with Pittsburgh Pirates general manager Branch Rickey, Waco team president Jack Kultgen announced that the parent club would sign a three-year agreement to maintain their lease with Waco. On August 5 the deal was consummated when a three-year lease was signed guaranteeing the Pirates would return to the new Katy Park following its construction.9 For a city suffering such trauma, the news gave Wacoans something to cheer about.

As the 1954 season dawned, Chatham focused his attentions on running the club as a full-time general manager. One of the first orders of business was addressed when 31-year old Jack Paepke took over the reins as manager.10 Paepke broke into organized baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1941 at Class-C Santa Barbara of the California League and thereafter quickly rose up the ladder, reaching as high as Double-A Montreal (1946), and Triple-A St. Paul (1947–48) and Hollywood (1949–51). Paepke’s managerial career got off to a rousing start in 1953 with the Brunswick Pirates of the Class-D Georgia-Florida League, where he served as player-manager; as he would in Waco. He had led Brunswick to a second place finish and then won the league playoffs.11 The Pirates officials were confident he would work the same magic in Waco.

On Sunday, April 4, the Waco Pirates christened the new Katy Park with a preseason win over their sister affiliate, the New Orleans Pelicans, 14–3.12 An enthusiastic crowd of 1,200 surveyed their new digs and were rewarded with a taste of things to come. Fans were greeted with several new amenities in their updated ballpark including an attractive front brick and concrete façade, new ramps separating the box seats from the grandstand seats, stainless steel and glassed-in concession stand countertops, sparkling new metal seats, and the league’s best lighting system.13 Stars of the evening for the hometown club were catcher Bill Phillips, who slammed a home run and drove in three runs, and third baseman George Matile who went 2-for-5, plating a couple runs.14

There was good reason for optimism. The displaced Pirates finished 1953 with a respectable 77–68 record, in fourth place—quite an improvement from the 1952 team that went down as the worst in BSL history. Under manager Ted Gullic they had tallied a 29–118 record, 56 games out of first place.15 According to the Associated Press, “Waco, a farm club of Pittsburgh and in the best position to meet the youth challenge, is generally being favored to win the pennant this campaign.”16 Indeed, the roster featured new faces, including a bevy of young pitchers who would make significant marks that season. Tops among the group out of camp were right-hander Myron “Dick” Hoffman (15–11, 2.64) at Hutchinson of the Western Association (C), left-hander Don Kildoo (9–5, 2.25) at Brunswick (D), lefty Roger Sawyer (22–5, 1.99) at Hutchinson, and right-sider Ron Sheetz (12–5, 3.89) at Bristol in the Appalachian League (D).17

Besides catcher Paepke, two Cuban-born position players drew praise from local scribes: outfielder Ramon Mejias (117 G, 8 HR, 42 SB, .325), who would later play in the major leagues as Roman Mejias, and slick-fielding shortstop Roberto Sanchez (104 G, 4 HR, .235), both coming from Batavia of the Pennsylvania-Ontario-New York League (D).18

Mejias in particular intrigued the parent Pirates. Born in Central Manuelita on August 9, 1930, he progressed to his third year of high school before going to work at his father’s side at 15 years old. Full of natural ability, he excelled in the Pedro Betancourt Amateur Baseball League in Cuba, and was later signed by Hall of Famer George Sisler who was scouting talent in the area. Mejias showed the propensity for hitting for average and power, had good speed on the basepaths, and played his outfield position ably, all tools which would serve him well on his climb to the big leagues.19

Both Mejias and Sanchez would have a significant impact on the team’s success, but Mejias’s accomplishment would be far-reaching. He would achieve a feat that few would ever approach and his deed would ultimately go down as one of the greatest in the annals of minor league baseball history.

A Magical Season and the Streak

Since its inception in 1947 the Big State League had gained the reputation as a hitters’ league. High batting averages and homer totals were not uncommon. Frank Saucier of the Wichita Falls Spudders led the league in 1949 with a .446 average and Buck Frierson slugged 58 taters for the 1947 Sherman-Denison Twins. The league was also famous for ex-major leaguers hanging on, many as player-managers. The 1954 season was no exception with the likes of 49-year old Earl Caldwell, Lon Goldstein (36), Sam Harshaney (44) George Hausmann (38), Al LaMacchia (32), and Fred Martin (39).20

On April 13 the Pirates opened their Big State League slate against the Corpus Christi Clippers at Schepps Palm Field in front of 3,567 enthusiastic paying customers.21 The park was known for its rock-hard playing surface. The irregularly landscaped infield made every ground ball an adventure for the infielders and it lived up to its reputation. Many of the new faces on the Pirates received a baptism by fire, committing a total of seven errors, led by first baseman Sam Cooper who booted a couple during the 12–10 loss.22

On April 16, the Pirates returned to the new Katy Park and an estimated crowd of 2,500 rabid fans greeted them with ample cheers. It had been almost a year since the team had been forced to relocate to Longview and the locals were happy to have their home team back. The affable Jack Falls hit the first home run in the rebuilt park and led the Waco attack, driving in four runs. Ramon Salgado—in his second season with the club—and newcomer Ron Sheetz combined for the 7–0 shutout victory over the Harlingen Capitols.23

The “Baby Bucs” started the season slowly, and after experiencing two rainouts in Corpus Christi, dropped four of their next seven games, including two losses against the Temple Eagles, a team who would finish the season with the BSL’s worst record. The poor early season play dropped the Pirates to 3–5 and into seventh place. Paepke regularly tinkered with his lineups and juggled the batting order, trying to find the right combination. He also incorporated a rotating system of four outfielders—Falls, Mejias, Oscar Rodriguez, and Raymundo Zonta—looking for whoever carried the most productive stick.

From April 24 through 28 the Pirates ran off their first five-game win streak of the season including back-to-back shutouts against the Tyler Tigers. Roger Sawyer earned his second win of the year with a 4–0 victory. Ron Sheetz followed by coasting in a 10–0 blanking, aided by a Falls five-RBI explosion.

The Pirates began picking up steam in May and kept pace with Tyler, closing within percentage points of first place. Although the offense took a blow when Paepke broke his thumb in a May 6, 7–1 win against Bryan, Oscar Rodriguez moved from the outfield to take his place until a suitable replacement arrived.24 Matile recalled, “He broke it from a foul ball off the bat. It came back and hit the top of his finger and I was playing third base and I went down to see what was going on. And that thumb bone was sticking out the thumb. He really broke it bad. And some guy was hollering, ‘Pull on it.’… Jack was, ‘No you’ll pull it off.’”25

Several moves trimmed the Pirates roster down to 18 men, revamped the pitching staff, and bolstered an already strong club. Three pitchers were optioned early in May: Tom Smith to Hutchinson (C), Peter Furibondo and Art Burkle to Billings (C).26,27 In addition, pitchers Jess Leach and Robert Swanson were reassigned on May 17, the former to St. Jean of the Provincial League and the latter to Hutchinson (C). In their stead Waco received Pete Nicolis from New Orleans (AA), Fred Waters (a late arrival due to nursing a sore arm), and Al Grunwald from Toronto (AAA) of the International League.28 The Pirates also reacquired Bill Phillips from New Orleans to handle catching duties and fill the void left by Paepke. Grunwald, a first baseman by trade, was the most interesting case. The parent Pirates had sent him to the lower minors to begin his conversion into a pitcher.29 Paepke would continue to utilize Grunwald’s potent bat between assignments on the mound.

Paepke also began to cement his batting order. After hitting eighth, “pepper pot” shortstop Sanchez was moved into the leadoff spot, where he would remain through the end of the season, and Mejias shook off his early season doldrums and was placed in the middle of the order. Both moves proved fortuitous and were a major factor in fueling the team’s future success.

On June 5, behind Don Kildoo’s five-hit shutout, the Pirates (33–18) upended Bryan, 3–0, and took first place to stay. It was Kildoo’s fourth blanking of the season; the defense turned four double plays.30 Although Mejias went 0-for-4 he was about to embark on a historic journey.

The Streak

On June 6, a sparse crowd of 603 gathered at the Galveston ballpark to watch what seemed like another nondescript contest. One would be hard-pressed to find anyone who remembers attending the game. Mejias’s record-setting trek began innocently, with a single and triple during the 10–9 slugfest win. Mejias was not the evening’s star. Instead it was his two teammates, Falls and Grunwald, who were the hitting heroes with three base knocks apiece.31

But Mejias built his streak. From June 6 through 26 he went on a tear, batting at a .488 (39-for-80) clip. Mejias missed one game on June 23 after spending the morning in the dentist’s chair.32 The Pirates won 16 of the 21 games, improving their record to 49–23, three games ahead of Tyler. Interestingly, Mejias had a few close calls, gathering single base hits in 8 of the 20 contests.

In the June 27 edition of the Waco Tribune–Herald, sportswriter Dave Campbell took notice of the streak and Mejias’s effect on the “Baby Bucs” fortunes. In his column, On Second Thought, he noted, “Three weeks ago long-striding Ramon Mejias was hitting a spasmodic .237 and the Waco Pirates were struggling to stay out of fourth place in the Big State League. Today Mejias is hitting an explosive .331 and the Pirates are leading the pack with room to spare.” He added, “Rarely in Waco Pirates history has a player improved so much in so short a time.”33

The Pirates made a few moves to solidify their batting order around Mejias. Regular first baseman Sam Cooper was released in mid-June (only to be later signed by Austin.)34 Jim Monahan, who had been with Waco in 1952 (.320, 13 HR), joined the club from New Orleans (AA), and Paepke returned to action on June 19, spelling a weary Bill Phillips.35,36

Mejias began to receive national attention for his consecutive game hitting streak in July. The Sporting News first noted the streak at the 37-game mark in their July 21 issue. After missing a July 13 match against Bryan due to a viral infection, Mejias returned the next night and legged out two infield hits to help Waco get past the Indians, 8–3.37

With Mejias’s torrid batting and the league’s best pitching, Waco was nearly unbeatable in July, going 27–5. On July 31, Waco fell to Austin, 9–4, but Mejias laced a single and a double, extending his hitting streak to 54 games. Mejias, who was smiling and amicable but spoke almost no English, was asked about the streak. Through an interpreter, his teammate Oscar Rodriguez, Mejias said, “No, I’m not too nervous. Every game is just another game. I’d like to hit every time I go up. But I can’t do that. I’m trying to hit in every game the rest of the season.” Although the language barrier was sometimes an obstacle to Mejias, sportswriter Dave Campbell believed the lack of communication served as a shield to divert pressure. As Mejias approached Joe Wilhoit’s record of 69 straight games with Wichita of the Western Association (A) in 1919, and Joe DiMaggio’s runner-up mark of 61 with the San Francisco Seals (AA) of the Pacific Coast League in 1933, he appeared to be handling all the attention well. By the conclusion of the month, the Pirates (79-29) had pulled 12½ games ahead of their closest challenger, Tyler (67–42).38,39

August 1 found the Pirates in the second game of a three-game set with Austin. Facing off against left-hander Roger May, Mejias wasted no time and extended his hitting streak to 55 games, picking up a single and double during the Pirates 6–5 victory.40 Closing in on DiMaggio for second on the all-time minor league hit streak list, Mejias was increasingly feeling the pressure. The press reported he was then one game short of tying DiMaggio’s major league record of 56 games.

Fans expressed concern the streak could be halted if Mejias were walked in each at-bat in a game, or connected on a sacrifice fly. J.G. Taylor Spink, dean of The Sporting News, did little to ease their trepidations by stating, “Appearance in a game, and not official times at bat, is the deciding factor.”41 However, soon these concerns would matter little.

Robert McNeal, the next day’s starter, was a solidly-built left-hander who had struggled all season. He did not appear to be a difficult obstacle. McNeal would finish the season 5–8 with a 4.06 ERA, but on August 3 he was up to the task.

It was the final game of a three-game set with the Pioneers in Disch Field. The 883 in attendance eagerly anticipated each at bat when Mejias approached the plate. In the second inning Mejias flied out. He came to bat again in the third and hit into a force play. In the fifth frame Mejias hit a sharp grounder to third baseman Hardie Nettles which was handled cleanly and the throw just nipped Mejias at first base. Mejias got his fourth opportunity in the eighth inning, facing new pitcher Richard Roberson, but for the second time on the evening Mejias hit into a force play. There was a slim chance to bat again going into the ninth inning with the Pirates leading, 4–2. If his teammates were able to string something together, Mejias would be the seventh batter up. With two runners on and two outs, Falls stepped to the plate in hopes of continuing the inning. Mejias crouched nervously in the on-deck circle, but luck wasn’t on his side this time. Falls grounded into a force play at second base. Austin failed to score in the bottom of the ninth inning and the streak was over at 55.42

A consecutive streak of any sort involves a great deal of ability and a measure of luck. Invariably, bad pitchers have good stuff some nights and stop the best batsmen, while the most skilled hitters make good contact yet make an out. Nevertheless, it takes mental toughness and skill to accomplish what Mejias achieved and his statistics were impressive. During his amazing skein, Mejias (96-for-229) batted .419, with 19 doubles, 5 triples, and 7 home runs, while driving in 67 runs and scoring 56 times. Of the 55 games he took part in, Mejias only once had four hits. (In nine games he had three hits, while 20 times he notched two, and 25 times only one.) Waco won 45 of the 55 games in which he appeared, including win streaks of 8, 12, and 13. Some credit goes to his position batting fourth behind Falls, who served as protection in the batting order due to his fecundity with the bat. During the aforementioned streak, Falls—who appeared in 46 games—batted .380 (71-for-187) and slugged 6 homers while driving in 42 runs.43

Finishing the Season Strong

The Pirates kept up their torrid pace as they approached August. The success of the club had obviously drawn the attention of Pirates general manager Branch Rickey, who visited Waco and orchestrated two moves. On July 27, 19-year old lefty Roger Sawyer (14–6, 3.03) was optioned to Class-A Williamsport of the Eastern League. On the same day, Al Grunwald’s experiment to convert him to a full-time pitcher took a twist when he was re-assigned to Class-C Billings of the Pioneer League. The loss of the two hurlers not only thinned the starting rotation, but the loss of Grunwald (4–1, 4.03, and 61 games, .292, 12 HR, 44 RBIs) left a void at first base. The Pirates were assigned left-hander Larry Lasalle from Burlington-Graham of the Carolina League (B).44 Rickey was not done wheeling and dealing.

On August 3, the day after Mejias’s batting streak was halted, the Pirates offense exploded for their highest run total of the year, crushing the hapless Temple Eagles, 25–7. Mejias came back with a vengeance, tallying four hits in seven at-bats and driving in three runs. Jim Monahan led the visiting Pirates with 4 RBIs, while Hoffman hardly broke a sweat in the complete game win.

Despite a thin roster, the Pirates kept winning. Paepke continued to be creative, using himself as an occasional pitcher. Matile was moved to first base. Falls was used a few times as a backstop and utility man Ronnie Boone saw his playing time increase, filling a hole wherever needed.

A great example of the attitude of the Pirates was the August 8 matchup that pitted Waco against Tyler in Katy Park. The “Baby Bucs” had fallen behind 12–7. Going into the bottom of the ninth inning at 10:30pm, the evening’s crowd—including a disgusted Paepke who retired to the showers—began to file out of the ballpark. The situation was so bleak that infielder Matile had been called on to perform mop-up duties. However, the Pirates rallied and with two outs, 35-year-old minor league veteran Joe Phipps found himself on the mound trying to do his best Houdini act and escape from a jam. With Rex Babcock in scoring position and Sanchez leading off first, Phipps hung his first pitch to Jack Falls. Falls, who at this point of the season led the league with a .364 average, launched the horsehide over the left field wall, giving Waco the 13–12 win. The remaining faithful in the stands went berserk.45

George Matile vividly remembers that game to this day and shared his account of that evening:

Well, I hate to tell you this, but there was one game (pause). I used to throw batting practice a lot and we were playing, I think it was Tyler, Texas. And we went into the ninth inning, and we scored about seven runs and we were behind twelve to six. [scored six runs in the 9th inning after falling behind 12 to 7].

Well, Jack got so disgusted with us, he left. He went into the dugout and then took a shower. He said, “Matile.” He said, “You go out and pitch the last inning.” So I went out and threw the inning and got three outs. We came back and scored seven runs [six runs] and beat them. I’ve got a one and oh record in organized baseball (laughing heartily). And that’s the only game I ever pitched—that one time.”46

On August 14, the Pirates filled their need at first base with a Waco native who had just been released by the Army, T.R. “Tex” Taylor. Taylor was called on short notice and made the long drive from his home to Galveston to start at first base that night. Taylor’s return was fortuitous as he was known as a slick fielding first baseman and a decent hitter. In 1952, “Tex” had hit .303 in the Class-C Provincial League with St. John’s, Quebec, and made the loop’s all-star squad.47 Taylor said, “I got home from the service and the phone was ringing. ‘You gotta be in Galveston tonight. We don’t have a first baseman.’ That was about 250 miles.”48

The Pirates did receive one last blow to their pitching staff when Fred Waters (12–4, 3.18) had to leave the club for more scholarly pursuits.49 Tex Taylor remembers Waters leaving the team after his last start, a 9–2 win over Galveston that upped Waco’s record to 92–37. “He left us because he had to teach school in Kansas City.”50

Waco reached the 100-win mark on August 29. A sparse crowd of 600 witnessed Monahan drive in the winning run in a come-from-behind win at Katy Park, edging Harlingen 9–8 in 11 innings.51 The next evening, Waco again eked out a one-run victory, 7–6. They tied the BSL record for wins in a season, matching the 1947 Texarkana Bears’ mark. Fittingly, Sanchez, as he had done so frequently all year, scored the winning run on a Mejias base hit. Paepke, getting used to his new role, earned the win in relief of Sheetz.52

By season’s end Waco had amassed 105 wins and 42 losses. The closest competitor, Tyler (92–55), finished a distant 13 games behind. Although the Pirates did not lead the league in runs scored (939), they were a close second to Corpus Christi (998). Jack Falls (.349, 22, 113), Roman Mejias (.354, 15, 141, 23 SB), Jack Paepke (.314, 8, 48), and Roberto Sanchez (.301, 16, 130 runs, 26 SB) were the pacesetters in a balanced attack.

Pitching and fielding are the trademarks of many great teams and the “Baby Bucs” were no exception. Ron Sheetz (219 IP, 19–7, 2.67) led the team in wins, followed by Don Kildoo (183 IP, 15–4, 3.39), Dick Hoffman (212 IP, 15–7, 3.42), Roger Sawyer (181 IP, 14–6, 3.03) and Fred Waters (116 IP, 12–4, 3.18). The staff was so deep that the loss of Sawyer, Waters, and Salgado (87 IP, 7–4, 2.48) did not slow the club’s momentum.

The pitching staff was aided by the best fielding in the league. The defense was solid up the middle, with Rex Babcock at second base and Roberto Sanchez at shortstop anchoring the infield. The Pirates led the league in fielding average (.968) and committed only 184 errors, while turning the second most double plays in the BSL (175).53

Tex Taylor assessed his teammates when he stated, “The only thing that I can tell you is, when we ran onto the field we expected to win. That was a lot of it, you know. We expected to win.” He added, “We knew we was going to win. We just didn’t know how. If the other team got ten runs, we got eleven. If they got one run, we got two. It was that kind of year for us. We had better pitching than the rest of the league did. If you check out those stats on our pitchers you will see all of them had winning records.”54

The Playoffs

The Pirates opened the playoffs against a familiar enemy, the Austin Pioneers. Austin, like Waco, was a charter member of the BSL. They had finished the regular season with a 79–67 mark and were piloted by 38–year-old player-manager George Hausmann. The former New York Giants infielder showed he still had some “gas left in the tank” after batting .263, in 77 games.55

The best-of-seven series opened in Katy Park. The Pirates got off to a good start, taking the first game. Sheetz aided his own cause in the September 8 contest by driving in a pair of runs and receiving assistance from Falls and Mejias, who each hit home runs in the 6–4 win.

The next evening, Don Kildoo held the Pioneers to five hits and earned the complete game victory, 5–2. Austin, the lowest scoring team during the regular season, continued to struggle at the plate.

Austin surprised the Pirates by winning the next two games, but Waco closed out the series, winning game five in Austin, 11–8, then finishing off the Pioneers back at Katy Field, 10–2, pounding four Austin hurlers for 17 base hits. Meanwhile, Corpus Christi, who finished the regular season in third place, easily dispatched Tyler in five games to advance to the championship.56

The Big State League championship kicked off in Waco on September 15. Corpus Christi (87–60) featured the most potent offense in the league, led by left fielder Dean Stafford, purchased from Galveston on June 30,57 and shortstop John “Jack” Wilkinson acquired from Temple in April.58 Stafford, who garnered the BSL’s Triple Crown, collected 212 hits as the league’s leading hitter with a .362 average, 38 homers and 171 RBIs. Wilkinson was the team’s table-setter having scored 151 runs during the regular season.59 The Clippers would soon prove up to the task, testing the league-leading Pirates pitching staff.

The Clippers came out of the gate fast, grabbing the first game from Waco, 6–2. Three Corpus Christi pitchers combined to hold the Pirates to five hits, while Stafford alone collected three singles and a triple. Thirty-six-year-old Elwood Moore—7–2 during the season—was the winning pitcher. Dick Hoffman took the loss.

Game two featured Sheetz taking on 23-game winner Jim Vitter. The Pirates touched Vitter early, tallying three runs in the second frame on doubles by Paepke and Babcock, a single by Matile, and an error. Rodriguez hit a solo home run in the third inning to extend the lead and Sheetz did the rest of work, limiting the Clippers to eight hits, one run. The Pirates had evened the series with the 4–1 win.

After a well-deserved day off for both clubs, the series transitioned to Schepps Palm Field in Corpus Christi for the next three games. Game three started out with an explosion as the Pirates scored seven runs in the top of the first inning. The Clippers clawed their way back, scoring four in the third frame and three more in the seventh, but fell short as Kildoo and Sheetz combined to stop them, 8–7.

Game four found the Clippers whipping the Pirates, 16–6. Stafford crushed two homers and drove in seven runs, putting a shock into the Waco pitchers.60 The Clippers then followed up the next night with another beating, topping Waco 10–1. Elwood Moore—the “Pirate killer”—won for the second time in the series—his ninth straight winning decision dating back to the regular season. All of a sudden the Pirates looked in dire straits. They were in need of otherworldly intervention and it was about to come in a rather unexpected form.61

So far during the playoffs the Pirates’ pitching bore little resemblance to the group that had dominated the BSL all season. But this team seemed to find ways to win in creative ways. In game six the pitching staff was bone-tired, but the overworked Pirates did have one secret weapon: Paepke. The players pleaded for Paepke to take the mound for the game, and although he initially resisted their pleas, he eventually agreed. “Tex” Taylor remembers the events coming up to the do-or-die contest.

Well, the sixth game was the standout game…We didn’t have any pitchers. The other guys on the staff didn’t do much, you know. They couldn’t trust them for a big ballgame. But we talked Jack into pitching…He said, “they’ll crucify me if I lose.” I said, “Jack we’re not going to lose if you pitch.” They all talked to him and he was tired. He’d been catching and driving 305 miles back at night, then the next morning. He had to pitch that night. And he did pitch and he stuck it up their butt.”62

Armed with his dazzling forkball, Paepke had the Clippers waving ineffectually at his offerings. He shut down Corpus Christi to even the series at three apiece. The only base knock was a pinch-hit single by Kermit “Luke” Luckenbach. The big blow of the evening came from the smallest guy on the field when Roberto Sanchez clubbed a grand slam in the eighth inning. The final score showed Waco 8, Visitors 0. The stage was set for a dramatic game seven.

In front of the largest crowd of the season—3,316—Don Kildoo got the call to face the Clippers’ big right-hander, Bill Tosheff. Both clubs traded zeroes until the fourth when Babcock and Taylor hit back-to-back doubles, putting the Pirates up, 1–0. Corpus Christi tied the game in the top of the eighth on a solo home run by Stafford. The Pirates answered in the bottom of the same inning when, with Boone and Falls on the bags, Paepke doubled, plating both. The Pirates had prevailed, 3–1. The 19-year-old Kildoo was masterful and pitched like a veteran, scattering three hits, walking four, striking out nine. The jubilant “Baby Bucs” rushed the field and the celebration was on. The Waco Pirates had completed a magic season and were the 1954 Big State League Champions.63,64

Conclusion

In 2001, as part of minor league baseball’s one hundredth anniversary celebration, Bill Weiss and Marshall Wright researched the 100 greatest minor league teams of all time. Such legendary teams as the 1934 Los Angeles Angels, 1921 Baltimore Orioles, and 1937 Newark Bears topped the list. Coming in at No. 25 were Paepke’s Waco Pirates.65

Paepke’s leadership and adeptness at utilizing his players were part of the team’s success. “He was a good leader,” said “Tex” Taylor. “We were just a bunch of young kids and this was an old man’s league, and a hitters league. Some of them were salty, but he [Paepke] turned them around right fast. He just about bit your head off, but he was a great guy Paepke was.”66 George Matile also remembers that his skipper had the adeptness to relate to his players, “Yeah, Jack was a good guy. Jack Paepke was a good person and he was fun to play with. He would joke with you, and tell you a lot of things, and help you out.”67

The Waco club was also a close-knit group. Although they were the youngest team in the league, averaging 23 years of age, they played cohesively. “But it was just a great bunch of guys. You never heard a cross word from any of them you know…Normally on a ball club there is a lot of squawking you know, but that year they didn’t have it. They were a great bunch of guys and there will never be a team like that again,” remembered Taylor.

There was probably not a player on the Pirates who better typified Taylor’s description of his teammates than Jack Falls. Always sporting a smile, and friendly with his teammates, he led the club by example both on and off the field. Danny Foyet played with Falls in Gastonia, South Carolina in 1960.68 He described his teammate and coach: “He was like a big brother to us. He would do anything to help.” Foyet remembered that when his spikes wore out early in the season, and he didn’t have money to buy a new pair, Falls not only gave Foyet a pair of his own spikes but also his personal glove.69 Although he did not receive the national attention that his teammate Mejias did, Falls’s 1954 season ranks up there with his counterpart.

Propelled by the success of his consecutive game hitting streak, Ramon Mejias (soon to be Roman) made the jump to the big leagues the next season in 1955. Mejias was even named the Pittsburgh Pirates opening day starting right fielder in front of Roberto Clemente, although he would not hold his starting position long.70 Always well-liked by his teammates, Mejias went on to a nine-year major league career, including stops with Houston and Boston. His best season came in 1962 with the Colt .45s for whom he played in 146 games, hit .286, stroked 24 home runs, and drove in 76 runs.

Mejias was one of a trio of players from the “Baby Bucs” who made the climb to the majors. Both Al Grunwald and Freddie Waters also made the leap. The Grunwald experiment worked: he made it to the big leagues as a pitcher in 1955 although his stay was brief. Grunwald appeared in three games for Pittsburgh, hurling 7²⁄3 innings with a 4.70 ERA. Grunwald returned to the minors, but came back in 1959 with the Kansas City Athletics for six more games. Fred Waters appeared in two games in 1955 and returned in 1956 to the Bucs, appearing in 23 games with an impressive 2.82 ERA.

Jack Falls, despite his extraordinary season, did not see his major league dream come to fruition. Falls had a brief look at Class-AA New Orleans in 1956 before being assigned to Class-A Lincoln, where he hit .262 in 131 games. He played through various towns in the minor leagues, including a stop in his hometown Gastonia in 1959 and 1960. He finally hung up his spikes in 1961.71

Sixty years have passed since the glorious season championship of 1954. The Pirates played out their agreement with Waco through 1956. It would prove to be the last year that the city of Waco would host professional baseball. In 1957 the Big State League died a victim of declining interest in minor league baseball. However, the feats of the 1954 Waco Pirates have not diminished. To this day locals recall that magical season and the Mejias batting streak. Paepke said it best when he wrote, “It was a great year with a bunch of young players. We all wanted to win, so we did…I was really proud of all my players.”72

*Final Standings from Baseball-Reference.com.

Opening Day, April 13, 1954, should have been one of the best days of Wally Moon’s life. Instead, it was turning out to be one of his worst.1 The heavy-browed, lean-jawed, 24-year-old rookie from Bay, Arkansas, was the starting center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. But as he came to bat for the first time in the big leagues, Moon was greeted by a harsh chorus of boos from the hometown fans and chants of “We want Eno! We want Eno!” from “seemingly every corner of the park.”2 Moon had to fill the shoes of longtime Cardinals great Enos Slaughter, who had been traded to the Yankees two days before the start of the season. The trade shocked the city, and disgruntled fans let the Cardinals management and the newcomer know they weren’t too happy. As a young boy growing up in Arkansas, Moon had rooted for the Cardinals and signed with the team in 1950 because of his admiration of Slaughter. Now, he was replacing his favorite player. “I guess there would have been catcalls at anybody who was to take the place of an old favorite like Enos,” Moon said.3

Moon wasn’t even on the roster when the Cardinals started spring training.4 The trade put “team manager Eddie Stanky, who had advocated the trade,” on the spot, but the spotlight glared with even harsher intensity on Moon.5 “All of a sudden they told me that I was going to be on the St. Louis Cardinals roster and I’m going to open in center field Tuesday,” Moon recalled. “This was on a Sunday. I’m shocked, but I’m excited.”6 Moon was given a cool reception the next day during the team parade through downtown St. Louis. All along the parade route, fans carried signs expressing their disapproval of the trade and shouted at the rookie. Riding in an open convertible, Moon couldn’t help but hear the calls directed his way. “Everyone along that parade route was yelling ‘We want Slaughter! We want Slaughter,’” Moon recalled. “There was a huge picture on the front page of the newspapers with Slaughter weeping in a towel. He had been there seventeen years and was an icon and a great player. I loved him as a young man listening to him on the radio. So to replace a legend like that, there was a lot of controversy, a lot of upset people. So I made that parade route through downtown and was not well received.”7

Moon, however, showed the fans that he belonged in the lineup. The rookie outfielder stepped into Slaughter’s shoes, smashing a home run in his first at bat as a major leaguer. After outfielder Rip Repulski flied out to first for the first out of the inning, Moon connected on a 2–0 pitch from the Chicago Cubs’ Paul Minner. The ball went over the roof of the right-field pavilion in Sportsman’s Park, onto Grand Avenue. Only one other Cardinal had debuted with a home run, left-handed hitter Eddie Morgan, who hit one off Lon Warneke of the Cubs in the 1936 home opener. By the time Moon got to second base, the boos had changed to roars of applause. “It was a huge, magnificent home run for me,” Moon wrote in his 2011 autobiography, Moon Shots. “And it took a lot of pressure off.”8 Moon became a hitting sensation from that point on and helped take away some of the sting of losing Slaughter. Moon batted .304 on the season (12th best in the league), banged out 193 hits, clubbed 12 home runs, scored 106 runs (sixth best in the league), led the Cardinals with 18 stolen bases, and was named NL Rookie of the Year. Slaughter, by contrast, started in only 22 games in the outfield and batted only .248 in a limited role for the New York Yankees. He missed over a month of the season after crashing into the outfield wall at Yankee Stadium, fracturing his wrist in three places and was traded the next season to the Kansas City Athletics. (The “Old War Horse” then rebounded to hit .322 for Kansas City and was reacquired by the Yankees for the waiver price on August 25, 1956. Although he was used sparingly over the next four seasons, Slaughter would go on to help the Yankees to win three straight pennants and two World Series between 1956 and 1958.)

Wally Moon almost didn’t get his chance. By the time he arrived in the major leagues in 1954, Moon had already earned both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Texas A&M. After four years in the minors and with a newborn child at home, Moon had determined that if he did not make the Cardinals roster in 1954, he would give up baseball and go back to teaching. He had thrived in 1953 under manager Harry Walker with the Cardinals’ Triple-A team in Rochester. Walker was a former National League batting champion whose ten-year career in the majors was spent mostly in the Cardinals outfield, alongside Slaughter and Stan Musial. Walker was being groomed as a big league manager. Moon matured offensively as a Red Wing, batting .307 with 12 home runs and 61 runs batted in. “The baseball gods were smiling on me when they brought Harry Walker into my life,” Moon recalled.9

Impressed by his performance at Rochester, the Cardinals suggested he continue to hone his skills in winter ball. Excited about the possibility, Moon, with his wife and infant son in tow, headed to Maracaibo where he was assigned to Pastora de Occidente in the Venezuela League. The team went on to win the Venezuela League championship and would represent the country in the Caribbean World Series in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The Venezuela club wired the Cardinals to ask if Moon could remain and got permission for him to stay with the team for the World Series. Moon was scheduled to report to the Cardinals minor league camp in DeLand and because of the tournament would be late reporting to spring camp. When the Caribbean World Series was over, Moon wired the Cardinals for instructions. General Manager Dick Meyer gave Moon the option of reporting to either the club’s minor league base in DeLand or St. Petersburg, where the big league club was working out, whichever worked out best for him.10 Moon talked it over with his wife and reached a critical decision. “Just two months in Rochester and the winter in Venezuela made me realize that I was no longer willing to keep dragging my wife and child with me in pursuit of my baseball dream,” Moon wrote in his autobiography. “I believed I had the talent and I wanted the big club to take a look at me and make a decision. I needed an answer one way or the other.”11 Moon took Dick Meyer at his word and decided to head to the Cardinals’ big league camp in St. Petersburg.

The Cardinals held spring training in two stages in those days. They had an early camp about 20 miles from Daytona Beach at DeLand, Florida, for rookies and players they wanted to look at. Then, after two weeks, the team moved to St. Petersburg to start regular spring training. Because of the Caribbean World Series, Moon recalled that “there were only a few days left in the rookie camp and I knew that manager Eddie Stanky already had left camp and wouldn’t even see me.”12 After checking his wife in at the Cardinals headquarters at the Bainbridge Hotel in St. Pete, Moon walked the half dozen blocks to Al Lang Field where the team worked out and introduced himself to the manager. Stanky was angry. “You were supposed to report to Daytona,” Stanky said. “You weren’t supposed to report here.” Moon explained the choice he had been given and told Stanky, “Yeah, but you’re here. They’ve seen me play. They know what I can do. I want you to see me.” Stanky growled a bit, but liked his spirit and told Moon that he could hang around and work out with the Cardinals until they straightened the situation out.13

It was a daring move for the young rookie. “I showed up in St. Petersburg and said to the Cardinals, ‘You promised me a shot. I want to find out if I can play in the big leagues. And I’m not going to sign a minor league contract and go back to Triple-A baseball,” Moon recalled in a 2011 radio interview.14 Stanky asked if Moon had his equipment and said Moon might as well work out since he was there. Two left-handed pitchers, Al Brazle and Royce Lint, were throwing batting practice that day. Moon filled the park with line drives. “I found my groove quickly and I sent frozen ropes to right, center, and left fields,” Moon recalled.15 Stanky called Moon out of the outfield early during that first morning’s workout and sent him to get outfitted with a spring uniform with the number 20. “He made an impression on all concerned,” Stanky said.16

Moon’s timing was perfect; the team was looking to unload its aging star in Slaughter.17 The Cardinals had finished in a tie for third place in 1953—22 games behind the Dodgers—and new club president “Gussie” Busch wanted to build a winner. Anheuser-Busch had bought the team from Fred Saigh, who had become an embarrassment to baseball after he had run afoul of the Internal Revenue Service during the 1952 season. Saigh was hit with a fine and given a fifteen-month jail sentence.18 Busch set out on a long-range program of building the team from the ground up. “The Cardinals are trying to build a young ball club,” Busch said.19 Stanky knew the Cardinals had to be reshaped and that Slaughter had to be replaced if the team was going to be competitive. But until his replacement was found, the club had hoped he had one more good season left in him.20

Slaughter had no idea his days with the Cardinals were about to end. On December 28, Busch signed a contract with Slaughter for the 1954 season. “After the signing he said to me, ‘You’re a credit to the game, and you’ll always be with me,’” Slaughter wrote in his autobiography.21 But going into spring training, Slaughter was about to turn thirty-eight and the “old man” talk was already starting. He had been synonymous with the Cardinals for sixteen years in a career marked by brilliant fielding, clutch hitting, and a reputation for hustle. Slaughter, whose lifetime batting average with St. Louis was .305, was the last member of the colorful Gas House Gang. He had played against the Yankees in the 1942 World Series and also in 1946 when he hit .320 in the seven games against the Red Sox and scored that Series’ most storied run. He had played well in 1953, appearing in 143 games and hitting .291 while driving in 89 runs. Slaughter was excited about the Cardinals’ chances against the Dodgers. Busch had not only bought and renovated Sportsman’s Park, but spent more than $300,000 in money and traded players for three minor leaguers.22 And during spring training, the club gave $75,000 and two minor leaguers to the Yankees for 35-year-old powerhouse right-handed pitcher Vic Raschi. Slaughter saw the trade for Raschi as a big plus, “But I wasn’t aware that the other shoe was about to drop.”23

Slaughter faced competition in the outfield that year in spring training from Joe Frazier, a journeyman who had played in nine games with Cleveland in 1947 and had hit .332 at Oklahoma City, and from Moon, who had hit .307 at Rochester. Slaughter was conscious of the situation, but everyone expected that he would play his usual 140 or 150 games. “Even though both of these outfield prospects displayed potential for power, I wasn’t bothered by the situation,” Slaughter wrote.24 He stopped at Moon’s locker one day and told the young rookie, “Don’t worry. You’re not going to get my job.”25

Meanwhile, Moon drove himself hard. “I gambled on everything,” Moon told Sports Illustrated in 1957. “If I hit a single, I’d go for two. If I had two, I’d go for three. I tried to catch everything I had the slightest chance for in the outfield. I ran every place. Boy, was I tired that spring. I’d get home after practice and I’d fall asleep on the couch. Bettye would wake me up for supper and we’d eat, and I’d fall asleep again. That’s the way it went all spring.”26 Moon went all 45 days of spring training without a contract of any kind. The Cardinals wouldn’t give him a major league contract, and he wouldn’t sign a Triple-A contract. Fortunately, he was in great shape from having played winter ball and was playing well. “I know I was making an impression on Eddie Stanky and his staff,” Moon reflected.27 Stanky said little to Moon, but continued to insert him into the lineup on a regular basis.

Moon took it as a good sign when he earned a spot on the travel squad which was heading to Los Angeles for a weekend series against the Chicago Cubs. “I viewed my presence as a sign the team was beginning to like what it was seeing from me,” Moon wrote.28 As it turned out, Stanky had seen enough. “We’ve got at least an outside chance to win the pennant,” Stanky told reporters. “So if I think Moon can help us more than another outfielder, he’ll stick as one of our 25 players. In other words, I’m not going to worry about whether he’d be better off playing regularly in the minors than infrequently with us. If he can help, he’ll stay.”29 When the team broke camp for its trek north to St. Louis, Moon was invited along for the ride, although the final regular season roster had not yet been determined. A few more cuts would have to be made. Moon still did not know whether he was destined to become a St. Louis Cardinal. Moon approached Dick Meyer about a contract but was told, “We’re not ready to make a commitment yet.” Asked what he should do with his wife and child, Meyer replied, “If I were you, I’d send them home to her mother.”30

The Cardinals played a series of exhibition games with the Chicago White Sox as both teams traveled north. Stanky mostly kept Moon on the bench, using him as a pinch runner or as a late-inning defensive substitute for Slaughter. Moon didn’t know it at the time, but as it turned out, the club was “parading Slaughter on an abbreviated farewell tour during the team’s excursion in cities and towns in Cardinal country.”31 In St. Louis for the team’s weekend pre-season series with the Browns, Slaughter doubled off Bob Turley for the game-winner. It turned out to be his last hit as a Cardinal. Slaughter was not in the line-up for the Sunday game. In the eighth inning, with the Cardinals down 8–1, Stanky informed Slaughter that general manager Dick Meyer wanted to see him. As he changed into street clothes, Slaughter had no idea it would be his last time in a Cardinals uniform. He strolled up to Meyer’s office “completely unprepared for the news I was about to receive.”32

Meyer gave it to him straight. “Eno, all good things must come to an end,” Meyer said. “We’ve traded you to the New York Yankees.”33 Slaughter was shocked. He had always thought he would retire in a Cardinals uniform. Tears gushed from his eyes “like water from a broken pipe.”34

“It cut my heart out,” Slaughter recalled. “I cried like a baby. I couldn’t help it. I’d been a Cardinal since 1935, and I don’t think anybody who’s ever worn a Cardinal uniform was ever more loyal to it than I was, or put out as hard as I did, or gave as much.”35

Slaughter joined Meyer and Stanky for a press conference where Meyer announced that Slaughter had been traded for outfielder Bill Virdon, pitcher Mel Wright, and Emil Tellinger. The Old Warhorse was seated with his hands on his knees, nervously unfolding his handkerchief. “This is the biggest shock of my life,” Slaughter sobbed. “To think that I spent nearly all of my life with this organization and then they trade me after I’ve given them everything I got. I didn’t think it would ever happen to me. I’m not through. And I’ll say this—I’ll be around when a lot of the guys they got now will be gone. But you can tell ’em in New York that I’ll give ’em 100 percent just as I did in the Cardinal organization.”36 Many baseball writers speculated that the Slaughter trade was part of the February 23 deal in which the Yankees had sold Vic Raschi to St. Louis for $75,000, but Meyer and Stanky denied it. Meyer said the Yankees expressed an interest in Slaughter around the time of the Raschi deal but were told he was unavailable until they saw how he would perform in spring training. The deal developed quickly, he said, after the Cardinals left Memphis on their homeward-bound barnstorming trip.

Stanky said the trade had been made to make room for Moon in the outfield. The 24-year-old Moon had been impressive in spring training and Stanky felt he was ready for major league ball. He also did not believe the 38-year-old Slaughter could adapt to a reserve role. “A player like Slaughter just can’t stand sitting on a bench,” Stanky told the press.37 Stanky also pointed out that the club had other rookie outfielders like Joe Frazier and Tom Burgess and “if I had Enos sitting around I know I wouldn’t use them.”38 Meyer and Busch admitted the trade was a gamble, but said they felt it was a sound organizational move because of the opportunity to give the younger Moon a chance to play. “We realize this is a difficult thing from a public relation viewpoint,” Meyer said. “But we’ve got a continuing obligation to have a top contender. We can’t buy a pennant. We have to build a cycle to develop stars. We don’t think we’ve imperiled our chances. But we realize we are taking a risk.” Busch, in a prepared statement, added, “The Cardinals are building a young ball club. We are looking for an organization that will give us strong teams and pennant winners for years to come and we must look to the future. We have several very promising young outfielders with the Cardinals and in our system. They are knocking on the door of the Cardinals right now and we have to make a place for them.”39

Stanky predicted that if Moon lived up to his potential, he would soon make the fans forget about Slaughter. “Moon has some flaws like the rest of us,” Stanky said. “But he is the best prospect I’ve seen here in three years outside of [Rip] Repulski. If he hits or makes the great plays, he’ll have his own following too.”40

Meanwhile news of the trade had not yet filtered down to the players. Moon had taken his time leaving the field after the final exhibition game, fearing it might be his last time wearing a baseball uniform. As he sat in the clubhouse at Sportsman’s Park, he slowly undressed and clung tightly to his No. 20 Cardinals jersey before finally tossing it in a pile of soiled uniforms. He had come so close. He had played hard in spring training and played well, but none of the signs looked good. He had received less and less playing time as the season opener drew close. “With the regular season opener just two days away, all I’d gotten from team management regarding my future with the club was a half-hearted ‘we’ll see,’” Moon recalled.41

Then one of the locker room attendants came up to him and told him, “Stanky wants to see you.” A few teammates looked at him as he got up to walk to the manager’s office. He felt like “a dead man walking to his baseball doom.”42 Moon was sure the manager was going to tell him that he didn’t make the team. Moon and his wife had already discussed the options if the Cardinals chose to send him back to the minor leagues. He had a wife and a young son to support which was difficult on a minor league salary of only $300 a month. But with a college diploma and a master’s degree, they were prepared to return to Arkansas where he could teach and coach. “Bettye was in full agreement,” Moon recalled. “If I didn’t make the Cardinals opening day roster I’d give up the dream and devote myself full time to a career in education.”43 Fearing the worst, Moon closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and walked into Stanky’s office.

“Well,” Stanky said. “You’ve made the team.” “Thanks Eddie,” Moon replied. “I won’t let you down.”44 Stanky had one more bit of news. Not only had he made the team, the club had traded Enos Slaughter and he would be taking his place in right field. “That’s it,” Stanky said. “Congratulations.” Walking back to the locker room Moon was congratulated by several of his teammates. But there was a somber silence that hung in the atmosphere as the club digested the news that Slaughter had been traded.

One veteran quipped, “It looks like the manager is giving up the stars and reaching for the moon.”45 Stan Musial saw Slaughter in the parking lot and the two men looked at each other and cried. “We had spent a lot of years together in the heart of the Cardinals lineup and it was really sad for both of us to know that our one-two punch had been broken up,” Slaughter recalled.46

Cardinals fans were used to management trading away good players. General Managers Dick Meyer, Frank “Trader” Lane, and Bing Devine were forever trying to pull off the one deal they thought would make a difference. But as Cardinal historian Bob Rains wrote, “Unfortunately, at least until the end of the decade, almost every deal the Cardinals had attempted turned out to be a mistake.”47 In 1951, the Cardinals traded Joe Garagiola, Howie Pollet, and Ted Wilks and two other players to Pittsburgh for Wally Westlake and Cliff Chambers. The trade backfired as Garagiola had several good seasons for the Pirates, while neither Westlake nor Chambers turned out to be effective for the Cardinals.48 But the trade that produced the biggest fan reaction was Slaughter’s. Furious callers flooded the Cardinals’ switchboard, many threatening to cancel their season tickets. Some cried as much as Slaughter. Busch had to take the phone off the hook at his Grant’s Farm estate.49

Stanky also had to endure the barbs. “I’ve been a so-and-so before and I guess I am a bigger so-and-so now,” Stanky said. “But I can take it.”50 Fan reaction was overwhelmingly negative. “I’m surprised and I definitely think it will hurt the Cardinals,” said a bartender. “I think it is a very good move for the Yankees.” A salesman said the club was “crazy.” One taxi driver called the Cardinals “stupid” and another said “that’s a dirty deal.” The second cab driver went further: “Since they got rid of Slaughter they just might as well get rid of Stan Musial and the rest of the good hitters and give up baseball.” One of the briefest comments came from a cashier who said, “It’s lousy.”51 Bob Burnes, a columnist for the Globe-Democrat, wrote that while the Cardinals could find reasons to justify the trade, none of them would satisfy the fans. “Enos Slaughter was more than a ballplayer, as any Cardinals fan could tell you,” Burnes wrote. “He was an institution—not only among the fans, but among the players as well. Enos was the ballplayer’s ballplayer—he played the game the way it should be played.”52

The day after the trade, Moon made his first official appearance as a Cardinal, in the aforementioned parade, during which the fans expressed their displeasure.53 “As the motorcade revved to a start, it was now official before God and thousands of Cardinals fans. I was the player designated to fill the spiked shoes of the legendary Enos Slaughter,” Moon recalled.54

During the Cardinals’ final pre-season workout Moon seemed “nervous, even a bit embarrassed as he vigorously chewed gum during an interview at the batting cage.55 Moon told reporters that although he’d had offers from sixteen major league clubs—several for the $6,000 that would have made him a Bonus Baby—he chose to sign with the Cardinals “because they were my favorite team and Slaughter my favorite player. I admired the way he hustled and how hard he played.” When asked about the mental pressure of replacing a popular player like Slaughter, Moon replied: “It’s an honor to replace a player like Slaughter. Yes, I was surprised—surprised that he was traded and surprised I got the chance—but I’m happy. No, I don’t think I’ll be nervous in the game.”56

It wasn’t until Monday, the day before Opening Day that Moon was called into the front office. “I guess you better sign a contract,” he was told. “I guess so,” Moon agreed. “I would have signed anything after all those weeks.”57 Things weren’t any better the next day for Moon as the Cardinals opened the season against the Chicago Cubs. With a crowd of 17,027 on hand, it was the first afternoon opening game at home for the Cardinals since 1950. Prior to the game as he took batting practice or warmed up on the field, Moon could hear the hecklers in the stands. “For many in attendance that day I was already the team villain, and I hadn’t said or done a thing.”58 Moon was scheduled to hit second in the lineup that day. Minner was a 6-foot-5 lefty. As Moon knelt in the on-deck circle he felt like the most despised player in baseball. But, he said over and over to himself, “‘You can’t let this bother you. This is what you’ve been waiting for. This is the one chance you have been asking for.’ I pep-talked myself.”59

As soon as Moon stepped into the batter’s box, chants of “We want Eno! We want Eno!” echoed throughout the ballpark. Minner’s first pitch, a curveball, missed the outside of the plate for ball one. His second pitch, an off-speed pitch, came in for ball two. “Take the bat off your shoulder,” Moon heard someone shout.60 With a 2–0 count, Moon expected the fastball and he sent it over the roof of the right field pavilion to give the Cardinals a 1–0 lead. The chorus of boos quickly turned into cheers. “It’s still my biggest thrill in baseball,” Moon recalled. “All I remember about the homer is coming back to the bench after I hit it and seeing Gussie Busch in his box near the dugout, jumping up and down.”61 The game was also notable because it marked the debut of twenty-three year-old first baseman Tom Alston, who was the Cardinals’ first black player.62 The Cubs got 16 hits however, and won the game 13–4. It was the Cardinals’ worst home opener in years. But as Moon recalled, it wasn’t a complete loss for him because, when he didn’t wilt under the pressure, “from that afternoon forward St. Louis fans held me in much higher esteem.”63

As previously mentioned, Moon became only the second Cardinal to hit a home run on his first major league trip to the plate. Eddie Morgan accomplished the feat on April 14, 1936, in the season opener against the Cubs at Sportsman’s Park in St. Louis.64

Moon continued to hit the ball well the rest of the season and did his best to make St. Louis fans forget Enos Slaughter. On April 23, Moon collected five hits in a 7–5 loss in 11 innings at home to the Milwaukee Braves, in a game that saw Hank Aaron hit his first major league home run. Moon had another five-hit performance against Pittsburgh on May 12. On May 25, Moon stole four bases against the Cubs, coming within one of what was then believed in the press to be the National League record of five. (The actual NL record was seven, albeit with a different definition of stolen base. Under the definition in effect in 1954, the record was actually four.) By midseason Moon’s batting average was hovering around .325 and sportswriters were already talking about him as a sure candidate for Rookie of the Year.

Musial was impressed: “I’ve never seen a rookie who is less concerned when he has two strikes on him. He always knows he had a third coming.”65 Stanky added that “he controls the strike zone better than any first year player I’ve ever seen. He’s as familiar with that strike zone as he is with the palm of his hand.”66 Moon hit well over .300 most of his rookie season and was in the thick of the race for the NL batting championship, but fell into a slump during the final two months of the season that dropped his average some 35 points. He hit only .239 in August and .227 for the month of September. “One reason is that I wasn’t beating out those infield hits,” Moon said. “I had played in winter ball and I was tiring badly at the end of the season.”67 Moon still finished with a .304 average and ended the year the same way he started it—with a home run. In the 11th inning of a game in Milwaukee, Moon belted a pitch from Ernie Johnson 400 feet into the center-field bullpen for a two-run home run, handing the Cardinals a 2–0 win over the Braves.

Despite topping the league in just about every offensive category, the Cardinals finished 72–82, sixth in the league. But as Time pointed out in its August 23, 1954, edition, the good news for the Cardinals was that Wally Moon had made the grade. “He is filling in so well for Slaughter that the fans have almost forgiven the Cardinal management for selling Old Enos to the Yankees. Unless he suddenly picks up the habit of catching fly balls on his head, Wallace Wade Moon is a sure bet to be selected National League Rookie of the Year.”68 Moon got 17 of 24 votes from a committee of sportswriters, beating out future Hall of Famers Ernie Banks and Hank Aaron for Rookie of the Year honors in the National League. The writers noted that Moon did a “whale of a job all year,” collecting 193 hits, scoring 106 runs, and batting a respectable .304. “The lean, serious-minded outfielder with a masters degree from Texas A&M proved a triple threat man with the Cardinals. Besides his outstanding hitting and fielding, he also proved adept on the bases, stealing 18 sacks.”69 For Moon, it was a dream come true. “All of my life I knew I would make it someday,” Moon said. “I had faith in myself. But I never would have foreseen it happening the way it did.”70

Moon followed his sensational rookie year with four more productive seasons for the Cardinals, batting .295 with 19 home runs and 76 RBIs in 1955, .298 with 16 home runs and 68 RBIs in 1956, and .295 with 24 home runs and 73 RBIs in 1957, but slumped in 1958, playing in only 108 games and batting only .238 with 7 home runs and 38 RBIs—all career lows. He had injured his left elbow in May when he leaped for a fly ball off the bat of San Francisco’s Orlando Cepeda and collided with the unpadded concrete wall in left-center field, and then with teammate Joe Cunningham, who fell on top of him.

After his disappointing 1958, the Cardinals traded Moon, along with pitcher Phil Paine, to the Dodgers for outfielder Gino Cimoli. The right-handed hitting Cimoli wasn’t much better that year. Cimoli’s batting average had dropped from .293 in 1957 to .246 in 109 games and he was in and out of the lineup all year long. Moon was upset and bitter about the news. Not only did he hear about the trade first from the Dodgers, but his pride was hurt when he found out it wasn’t a straight-up trade. “The trade rocked me to the core,” Moon wrote in his autobiography. “My employer, my favorite team since childhood, had given up on me for someone I considered a lesser talent.”71

“The Dodgers made a helluva deal,” Moon told Dodgers GM Buzzie Bavasi. “A lot better one than the Cardinals made.”72 The Cardinals, however, felt they were getting a defensive upgrade from Moon and that Cimoli’s “ability to hit to right center will be useful at Busch Stadium.”73 Cards manager Solly Hemus told reporters that while Cimoli probably wasn’t the .293 hitter of 1957, he was better than the .246 batter of 1958.74 Cimoli was “an excellent outfielder with an outstanding throwing arm.” Sportswriter Bob Broeg wrote that “we wish Wally well, but a reporter who travels with the Redbirds these last several seasons would not be hypocritical if he didn’t acknowledge disappointment in the athlete from Texas.”75 Broeg continued, “Even though he fell off to .238 last season, Moon is basically a good hitter, a man of power at the plate when he connects, but he disappointed consistently afield, both fly chasing and throwing. He seemed so satisfied with his inadequacies that his lean and hungry look appears merely an unfortunate illusion.” Dodgers Vice-President Fresco Thompson saw it differently, commenting, “Moon’s got 80 percent ability and gives you 100 percent. Cimoli’s got 90 percent ability and gives 75. In the end, we’re ahead with Moon.”76

Thompson was right: Moon would turn out to be a great pickup by the Dodgers. He rebounded to hit .302 with 19 home runs and became a fan favorite by hitting “Moon shots” over the Coliseum’s left field screen. He was a critical part of the Dodgers’ 1959 World Series championship team. He was initially concerned about playing in the Dodgers’ temporary home—the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum where the right field foul pole was 440 feet away and where fly balls went to die. He had little success there in 1958, going 2-for-22. But thanks to advice from former teammate Stan Musial, Moon learned how hit the ball the opposite way over the 42-foot-high left field fence, which was only 251 feet away. “He set me down and told me I could use that screen to my advantage,” Moon recalled. “I was just going to have to put more emphasis on hitting to left. I knew pitchers in the Coliseum threw inside to left-handed hitters hoping to get them to hit to right or center where they couldn’t get the ball out very often. What I did was get my hands inside of the ball, leading the bat through and extending it for power. I tried to hit the bottom half of the ball to produce high fly balls.”77

Of the 19 home runs Moon hit that year, 14 were at the Coliseum and nine of them were over the screen. At one point, Moon hit safely in 17 straight games and showed some of the old spark and daring on the basepaths, stealing 15 bases. “He is just the type of player we thought we were getting,” Bavasi said.78 Moon was named to play in both All-Star Games and finished fourth in the National League’s Most Valuable Player balloting. The Los Angeles writers voted Moon the Most Valuable Player of the 1959 World Champion Dodgers, and he finished second in the Associated Press Comeback Player of the Year to Philadelphia’s Gene Conley. Moon was also the choice of United Press International for the No. 1 Comeback Player of the Year in the National League. “Certainly in a year in which so many Dodgers stood out at various stages of the campaign, Moon must be singled out,” Bavasi said. “No player was more consistent throughout the campaign and no one man was more a team player than Wally.”79

Although he would go on to be a part of three World Series winning teams, Moon always considered that first storybook home run to be the greatest thrill of his baseball career. Speaking to the Craighead County Historical Society in 2012, Moon reflected, “Everyone from Northeast Arkansas dreamed of playing for the Cardinals. And there I was in the lineup and hitting a home run. It is hard to beat anything like that.”80

Seldom are the occasions when a team emerges as back-to-back champions in the National League. Rarer still when that team’s manager could call upon a well-heeled mound corps that includes three future Hall of Famers.

These were the well-earned privileges of Walter Alston as his Los Angeles Dodgers entered as 8–5 favorites against the Baltimore Orioles in the 1966 World Series. Yet despite these advantages, the events of October 2, 1966, would cause Alston to enter Game One without the immediate services of reigning Cy Young Award winner Sandy Koufax. Did this setback affect the outcome of the Series? If the lefty described by Jackie Robinson as “the greatest pitcher in the history of baseball”1 had started the first match, would it have magically transformed a Dodgers team that set numerous records for offensive futility?

Though Koufax’s presence in Game One may have altered the eventual outcome—ensuring a second start that, at a minimum, might have avoided a four game sweep—the purpose herein is not to dwell on the counterfactual Dodgers championship. The narrative instead seeks to chronicle the waning days of the 1966 season that eventually tied Alston’s hands, including the event-filled season-ending doubleheader in Phila-delphia three days before the start of the World Series. Connie Mack Stadium’s twin-bill witnessed three Hall of Fame pitchers in starting roles, a fourth hurler becoming the Phillies’ first 20-game winner in more than a decade, and a peculiar ongoing dominance over one of the future Hall inductees. The nail-biting finish was the pinnacle of the long-fought three-team National League pennant race.

“It doesn’t look as though anyone wants to win it.” 2

The frustration was expressed by Alston as his team was concluding August with a pedestrian 15 wins in 30 contests. He found solace in the knowledge that his closest competitors—the San Francisco Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates—were struggling similarly across the 162-game campaign. Solidly built around speed, fielding, and superb pitching, the Dodgers limped into September with righty stalwart Don Drysdale sporting a record of 9–15. Seeking to describe his struggles, Drysdale alluded to his prominent role in a popular television ad when stating, “The way I’ve been pitching I couldn’t get a commercial stitching baseballs. Maybe I could work up a show on how to unstitch them. I’ve had a few unstitched on me this season.”3 For his part, general manager Buzzie Bavasi cited an out-of-condition Drysdale for these struggles. He bitterly recalled the much-chronicled Koufax-Drysdale pre-season holdout, and rumors emerged that Bavasi was dangling the righty on the trade block.4,5

But the team’s malaise could hardly be laid solely on the doorstep of one hurler. Despite a slow start to the season, Drysdale had strung together 17 consecutive outings with a 3.25 ERA (league average: 3.61). In that stretch of 17 starts, which ended on August 31, he garnered a scant five wins. The world champions were often plagued by an anemic offense. Among the bottom-feeders in runs scored 1964–66, they would become the first pennant winner from either league to be shut out 17 times (a dubious feat matched only by the 2005 Houston Astros). As the Dodgers entered September trailing the pace-setting duo of the Pirates and Giants by three games, the ongoing struggles hardly appeared conducive to a repeat championship. A September surge from outfielders Lou Johnson (.308) and Ron Fairly (.397)—neither of whom threatened memories of Murderers Row—helped propel the Dodgers toward a Series berth. But they were assisted mightily by the struggles of their closest competitors.

“If you blow the pennant, [it] will be a collector’s item.” 6

A quotation delivered in late-August by a New York sportswriter to Pittsburgh manager Harry Walker, the “it” was a picture of Pirate players adorned in oddball hats sporting the relaxed atmosphere of a team seemingly destined for postseason play. The Pirates had recently (August 26) rewarded their sophomore skipper with a new one-year contract. At approximately the same time the team’s traveling secretary was busy booking hotel reservations in Baltimore in anticipation of a Fall Classic against the Orioles, while former manager Danny Murtaugh began scouting the Birds. A team makeup nearly the complete opposite of the defending champions, the Pirates vaulted into contention primarily from offensive heft. Aamong the league leaders in runs scored, they managed this feat with a major-league leading .279 average. Having seized a stake in first place through 40 percent of the season, the Pirates never built more than a two-game lead over their fiercest competitor, the Giants. But their sizzling start would yield to a 32–30 finish that doomed their pennant pursuits.

The team’s shortcomings were plentiful. Though they showed themselves quite capable of beating up on less-talented clubs, possessing a .722 winning average over the second-division trio of the Houston Astros, Chicago Cubs, and New York Mets, they fared less well (53–55) against the rest of the league. This trend was mirrored by slugger Willie Stargell who feasted on the bottom-dwelling trio (.392, 20 homers) but struggled against the Dodgers and Giants (.259, two homers). As second half losses mounted, the manner in which defeat presented itself became ever more striking. For example, on August 17 lefty ace Bob Veale (who yielded 18 homers in 1966, 13 more than the preceding year) was staked to a 7–1 lead over New York when he surrendered the Mets’ first franchise pinch grand slam,7 a blow that contributed to an eventual 8–7 Pirate loss. The next day third baseman Jose Pagan committed four errors—three in one inning—that only added to the enduring losses. Rotation members Veale, Woodie Fryman, and Steve Blass combined for a 14–18 record after July 9, prompting the team to pursue a desperate search for additional hurlers—inquiring of the California Angels and Washington Senators for veterans Jack Sanford and Mike McCormick, respectively.8,9 The offense was crippled when a knee injury limited Stargell to two plate appearances in the final six games. Further insult was inflicted when Phillies ace Jim Bunning earned his first relief win in nine years in a victory over the Pirates on September 26.

The death knell arrived October 1 when the Pirates were swept by the Giants in a doubleheader at home, putting the final touch on the second-half collapse. Unknown is whether the picture of the players sporting oddball hats was preserved.

In his previous World Series appearances, Sandy Koufax held a 0.88 ERA and a 4–2 record. But going into the 1966 Series, in order to get two starts, he would have had to make two consecutive starts on two days’ rest.

UNEARNED RUNS ALLOWED: 95

Though no quotation exists to encapsulate the Giants’ ill-fated campaign, the above number says it all. Only the Astros exceeded the error total of the Giants’ porous defense, which haunted the team by season’s end. Seemingly poised to overcome this deficit with the combined best features of the Dodgers (two superb front line pitchers) and Pirates (ferocious hitting) the Giants were considered preseason favorites with an All-Star cast of future Hall of Famers Juan Marichal, Gaylord Perry, Willie Mays, and Willie McCovey. But the team’s glove play had a direct impact on at least 10 of the team’s 68 losses, some of which were excruciating. For example, an opportunity to place distance between themselves and Los Angeles went awry as far back as May 17 when a throwing error in the 13th inning led to a Dodgers victory, whereas three errors on June 10 resulted in three unearned runs that provided an additional margin for a Koufax win. Lacking the killer instincts of the Pirates, the Giants did not fare nearly as well against the Mets and Cubs. Nursing an early 2–1 lead over New York on July 21, a fourth-inning error resulted in a rare five-run Mets explosion and an eventual 14–3 loss. On September 9, after an extended road trip in which they lost a stake in first place, the Giants had an opportunity to make up ground with a home series against the Cubs. Ten errors—including five in the series opener—contributed to three straight losses against the last-place team and pushed the Giants further south in the standings (third place). If the Giants had prevailed in any one of these lead-gloved affairs, the World Series might have seen a different National League contender, as a win would have put them only a half-game out of first place.

In the end, pitching also proved a liability despite two 20-game winners, the first such franchise occurrence since the New York Giants in 1951. They made an attempt to bolster the rotation by acquiring former 20-game winner Ray Sadecki from the St. Louis Cardinals nine days after the lefty hurler handcuffed the Giants on April 29 with a five-hit, complete game victory. The acquisition came at a dear cost—Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda—while Sadecki would garner a mere three wins in 26 appearances for the Giants. The mound problems were further compounded when Perry, 1966’s first 20-game winner in the majors, collapsed to 1–6 in his final ten starts, mirroring the team’s 6–11 crash that began August 24. The Giants were forced to scramble with a six-game winning streak at season’s end just to make things cozy. Having disposed of the Pirates in Forbes Field on October 2—a dramatic extra-inning affair worthy of its own chronicle, the winning run coming on a pinch-hit homer by McCovey—the Giants waited in the Pittsburgh airport for a hopeful doubleheader sweep of the Dodgers in Connie Mack Stadium. If the Phillies held up their end of the bargain, the Giants would be forced to play a make-up game washed out August 10 in Cincinnati. A postponed win—not a sure bet after Reds manager Dave Bristol chose to hold back two-time 20-game winner Jim Maloney for just such an event—would result in the second Giants-Dodgers playoff pairing in four years. That series had evolved from a late-season collapse of the 1962 Dodgers. In 1966, after a lethargic August, there were no signs of a similar fall from the boys in blue.

A Weather-Induced Doubleheader

DAVID E. SKELTON developed a passion for baseball early-on when the lights from Philadelphia’s Connie Mack Stadium shone through his bedroom window. Long removed from Philly, he now resides with his family in central Texas but remains passionate about the sport that evokes many of his earliest childhood memories. Employed for over 30 years in the oil & gas industry, he became a SABR member in early 2012 after a chance — and most fortunate — holiday encounter with a Rogers Hornsby Chapter member.

Drag can be measured in a wind tunnel with a stationary ball, and the Magnus force can be calculated based on assumptions regarding rotation speed, but both of these kinds of studies have to rely on educated guesses because baseballs are not smooth and may rotate differently depending on the batter and the type of pitch being hit. Because the density of air decreases with increased altitude, there is less drag on an object in flight at high altitudes. This effect will increase the distance traveled by a batted ball at high altitude, as long as other atmospheric effects—wind, humidity, and temperature—are also constant.

In practice, wind has the largest effect of the three.6 Robert Adair estimates that a 10 mile per hour following wind can add 30 feet to the flight of a baseball, whereas the decreased air density between sea level and Denver alone adds only 20 feet.7 If all other factors are constant, humidity in the air is expected to increase the distance of a batted ball since water vapor is less dense than air, but balls stored in humid or cold conditions don’t travel as far because their coefficient of restitution has been compromised.8, 9 In practice, there is no simple way to characterize by simulations and calculations the competing effects of the atmosphere at different altitudes with different weather patterns and seasonal changes. In this study I use data from minor league baseball games to determine the relationship between home runs and stadium altitude.

Statistical data collected from Short Season A and Rookie League A stadiums provide a better means to determine the relationship between home runs and altitude, if one exists, than from major league stadiums for three important reasons: elevation range, roster turnover, and stadium dimensions.

1. Elevation range. There is only one Major League Baseball stadium whose elevation is appreciably higher than sea level: Coors Field in Denver. There are zero MLB stadiums between 2000 and 5000 feet above sea level (see Figure 1). On the other hand, there are eleven Short Season A stadiums in this elevation range, and five that are higher than 4000 feet.

(Click image to enlarge.)

2. Roster turnover. Even if data are collected over many seasons, offensive output on a major league team is often skewed by a small number of prolific hitters. Likewise, home-run totals can be depressed by a strong core of ground-ball pitchers who may be on the roster for years, making it difficult to separate stadium effects from the effects of a few players with great ability. Even if only players from the visiting teams are considered when compiling statistics on home run production at Coors Field, it is still difficult to assess whether this correction is working since Coors Field is the only high-elevation stadium in the majors.

Short Season and Rookie League teams have an almost entirely different roster each season. When several seasons are analyzed, the effects of a particularly strong batter or pitcher do not influence the results significantly. Furthermore, exceptionally talented players do not spend very much time at the Short Season/Rookie level in professional baseball, so what effects their presence might have are mitigated.

3. Stadium dimensions. The stadiums in this study have reasonably uniform outfield dimensions. (No Green Monster! No Tal’s Hill in center field!) Notable exceptions are Calfee Park in Pulaski, Virginia, whose right field corner is only 301 feet from home plate but has a 19-foot wall, and Scotiabank Field at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia, whose center field is only 385 feet from home plate but has a 20-foot wall. The following are average outfield dimensions for stadiums in this study: left field is 331 ± 11 ft, center field is 401 ± 9 ft, and right field is 328 ± 13 ft from home plate (See Table 1 for exact dimensions). One caveat is that all of them are open air stadiums which does mean that humidity, wind, and temperature can vary; these effects were not accounted for in this study but have been measured in the lab and calculated based on reasonable estimated values.10, 11

Table 1:  Location, Elevation, and Dimensions of Minor League Stadiums

METHOD

Number of home runs hit and runs scored were compiled for 26 Short Season A and Rookie League teams in the Pioneer, Northwest, and Appalachian Leagues 2008–12. The only exception is for Casper, Wyoming, in which data were compiled from 2007 through 2011 because that franchise moved to Grand Junction, Colorado, after the 2011 season. Using data from 2007 for Casper ensured that five seasons’ worth of data were recorded at each location. These represent 4802 total box scores. Number of hits, walks, and errors were compiled for one season’s worth of data at each of the same stadiums (938 total box scores). See Figure 2 for a map of the locations of stadiums in this study.

(Click image to enlarge.)

The 26 stadiums in this study range in elevation from 13 feet above sea level (Vancouver, British Columbia) to 5,150 feet above sea level (Casper, Wyoming). Data from at least 150 normalized games per stadium were collected (minimum was 155.5 games at Princeton, West Virginia and maximum was 196.11 at Ogden, Utah). I normalize the values of home runs, runs scored, home run fraction, hits, walks, and errors to “per game” which means 18 half-innings in which each team has nine chances to bat. This normalization thus correctly weights extra-innings games in which teams had more plate appearances, and also takes into account the fact that games postponed due to weather in all three of these leagues are most often made up with a double header in which each game only lasts 7 innings; therefore, teams have fewer chances to hit in these games. It further corrects for teams who play well at home and often only have eight chances to bat in a home game.

In the Pioneer League and Northwest League each stadium hosts about 35 actual games per regular season; the Appalachian League has a slightly shorter season: each stadium hosts about 33 regular season games. I also include playoff games in this analysis which accounts for most of the variation in number of box scores analyzed among teams in the same league. Each league’s season begins in late June and ends in early September. One minor drawback to using data from these leagues is that because they do not experience the dramatic differences in temperature and humidity experienced at MLB stadiums from early April through the end of September, we’re unable to corroborate predictions relating to those extremes with the empirical dataset from this set of stadiums.

All metrics reported in this study are with respect to the stadium where the games were played, not with respect to any one team. For example, the statistic “mean home runs per game” refers to the average number of home runs hit at that stadium by both teams combined in a normalized game consisting of 18 half-innings. Home run fraction is the number of runs scored via a home run as a fraction of the total runs scored in a normalized game. The value of the home run fraction ranges between zero (no home runs in the game) and one (every run scored via a home run).

Table 2: Stadium Data, 2008–12

Includes city, elevation (feet above sea level) number of box scores analyzed, equivalent number of normalized games, average home runs, runs scored, and home run fraction from 2008–12. Elevation is reported based on United States Geological Survey quadrangle topographical maps at each stadium’s location. Home runs, runs scored and “home run fraction” (number of runs scored via a home run as a fraction of the total runs scored in a game) are reported as mean number per normalized game in which a normalized game is 18 half-innings played by both teams combined. Maximum and minimum values of games, home runs, runs, and home run fraction are bolded.

RESULTS

The most striking result of this study is that home runs hit per game is an even stronger function of stadium elevation than calculations based on reasonable estimates predict. A least-squares best fit to the home run data has a slope of 1.20 x 10–4 home runs/feet above sea level which translates to an extra 0.6 home runs per game at 5000 feet above sea level (Figure 3). For a season in which a stadium hosts 35 games, fans will see an extra 21 home runs per season at the very highest altitude. Robert Adair makes an educated guess with reasonable assumptions about average air density and temperature and concludes that an average player’s probability of hitting a 400-foot home run is increased by about 3.5% for every 550 feet of altitude.12 We should therefore expect about 35% more home runs at 5500 feet than at sea level assuming a linear relationship between 400-foot flies and home runs in this educated guess. The average number of home runs per game at sea level in this study is 1.10, so Adair’s calculations predict 1.49 home runs per game at 5500 feet. In fact, an extrapolation of the best fit line relating home runs to elevation using these data says that at 5500 feet we will see 1.76 home runs per game. That’s an increase of 65%, nearly double Adair’s prediction. Pre-humidor Coors Field saw an average of 3.20 home runs per game as opposed to 1.93 home runs per game by Rockies batters at other stadiums, which is an increase of 66%, just about the same as this dataset, and so we may consider Adair’s prediction of 35% to be a lower bound.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Runs scored per game also correlates strongly with elevation (see Figure 3). The runs data have appreciable scatter, but a least-squares best fit to the runs per game data has a slope of 5.61 x 10–4 runs per game per foot above sea level which translates into an extra 2.8 runs per game at 5000 feet (see Figure 3). Over the course of a season this is an extra 98 runs, quite a significant number. In fact, even though there are more home runs hit at high altitudes than calculations predict, the increase in runs scored is even more dramatic. The excess of runs scored cannot be accounted for entirely by home runs because the home run fraction does not vary with altitude (see Figure 4). The average home run fraction is 0.21 so of the extra 98 runs scored per season at 5000 feet, only 20.6 of them can be explained by extra home runs. How do we account for the other 77.4 runs? Answering this question is the topic under discussion for the rest of this paper.

(Click image to enlarge.)

Clearly, the strong relationship between runs scored and elevation means that on-base percentage is increased at high altitudes. Batters have to reach base to eventually score a run, so it makes sense to examine all the ways a hitter can reach base safely and determine which of these correlate with altitude. Home runs we have already analyzed—and in any case, home runs are a special category of hits. In general, to reach base a batter must do one of the following: hit safely, walk, reach on an error, get hit by a pitch, reach base on a fielder’s choice, be awarded first base on catcher’s interference  or a dropped third strike. In practice, these last two are rare enough that there were no instances of either of them happening in the five years of data collected (4802 total box scores). Furthermore, the sample size of hit-by-pitches was too small to allow for meaningful analysis. Therefore, I limit this discussion to hits, walks, and errors.

I collected one year of these data (2012 for all stadiums except 2011 for Casper, Wyoming) for each stadium. Results are given in Table 3 and plotted in Figure 5.

Table 3: Stadium Data, 2012

City, elevation (feet above sea level) number of box scores analyzed, equivalent number of normalized games, mean number of hits, walks, and errors per normalized game in the 2012 season. Elevation is reported based on United States Geological Survey quadrangle topographical maps at each stadium’s location. Hits, walks and errors are reported as mean number per normalized game at that stadium in which a normalized game is 18 half-innings played by both teams combined. Maximum and minimum values of hits, walks, and errors are bolded.

The slope of the least squares best fit line to hits per normalized game as a function of elevation (filled circles in Figure 5) is 8.09 x 10–4 hits/foot. At 5000 feet that translates to an average of four more hits per game than at sea level. For a single season in which a stadium hosts 35 home games, fans will see 140 additional hits per season at 5000 feet compared to what they would see at sea level. The slope of the best fit of walks per game as a function of elevation is 4.14 x 10–5 walks/foot which translates to 0.2 extra walks per game at 5000 feet and therefore 7.2 extra walks per season. The best fit line relating errors per game to elevation has a slope of 1.68 x 10–4 errors/foot, so at 5000 feet that is 0.8 extra errors per game and 28 extra errors per season.

(Click image to enlarge.)

DISCUSSION

Results are unequivocal. There are more home runs hit at high altitude than low altitude, and nearly double the calculated prediction. However, Adair’s prediction of 35% more home runs at 5500 feet is most likely a lower bound. Note that when home runs and runs scored are plotted on the same axes, it is quite obvious that runs scored is of far more practical significance in terms of the correlation with altitude. The excess number of runs scored that cannot be accounted for entirely by home runs is startlingly large (Figure 3).

Number of hits strongly correlates with elevation, and so does number of errors. On the other hand, number of walks varies very little. So we know there are more runs scored at high altitudes, but the more interesting question to explore is this: Why are there more runs scored at higher elevation that are not entirely due to home runs being hit more often there? There are a number of reasonable possibilities, none of which are mutually exclusive, many of which can be tested with regard to this empirical dataset. These possibilities fall under four main categories: pitching, hitting, fielding, and psychology.

1. Pitching. Numerical models predict that a 10 percent drop in air density decreases the break of a curveball by as much as nine percent.13 Curveballs that don’t curve and breaking balls that don’t break fool fewer hitters, leading to more hits. This scenario leads to higher on-base percentage without needing home runs to do it, which is what we require to be consistent with our dataset. This dataset further indicates that walks do not contribute to the higher on base percentage at high altitudes (Figure 5). This observation is also not inconsistent with computer models that show little if any horizontal change in the trajectory of pitched balls, but significant changes in vertical location.14 A pitcher who is most likely to miss his spot by leaving a pitch in the strike zone (missing high) when he intended not to throw a strike would throw more hittable pitches without increasing the number of walks, consistent with these data.

A pitcher who consistently misses the strike zone in the horizontal dimension has his own mechanics or psychology to blame rather than the altitude of the stadium. What I mean by this is that pitchers who put a left-to-right or right-to-left curve on the ball should not be affected by the altitude of the stadium. If they are, it is probably due to psychology (see point 4 below). Pitchers who rely on a pitch that breaks out of the strike zone will have the most trouble because their pitches may tend to come in high and hittable.

2. Hitting. A batted ball hit at high altitude travels farther and gets to the fielders more quickly.15 Computer simulations have shown that the increase in distance traveled as a function of altitude is greater for line drives than for home run balls, the majority of which are fly balls (Bahill, et. al. studied home runs in specific). We presume this is because the trajectory of a line drive maximizes the reduction in drag that comes from reduced air density while minimizing the reduction in the Magnus coefficient that decreases lift.16 On the other hand, more recent work involving statistical analysis of batted balls during actual major league baseball games using the TrackMan doppler system shows that line drives are affected less than fly balls at high temperatures, which can be taken as a proxy for high altitude since the effect on projectile motion of a baseball is the same for increased temperatures and increased elevation.17

My study cannot speak to the conflict between these two previous studies as I can only state that more hits are recorded at high altitude stadiums, not whether those were bloops, short flies, or line drives. In whatever way it happens, an increase in non-home run hits that is more dramatic than the increase in home runs is perfectly consistent with this dataset. If fielders play back expecting batted balls to sail, then more bloops can drop in front of them for hits, consistent with this dataset and consistent with Alan Nathan’s analysis using the TrackMan system. A line drive to an out-of-position player who can’t get to the ball fast enough is consistent with this dataset and consistent with Bahill et al.’s simulations. Further analysis of batted balls during games at the ball parks in this study may be warranted to determine which of these two scenarios is more common.

An educated guess also is that high altitudes have more detrimental effects on aerobic activities (running) than anaerobic activities (swinging a bat), further compounding the likelihood of an average batter collecting more hits at high elevation because the fielders can’t get to the ball fast enough.

3. Fielding. Thrown balls are more likely to sail at higher elevation, increasing the number of errors. If a player is slightly out of position or loses track of a fly ball, he will have less time to correct his mistake because the ball will arrive more quickly at high elevation. If a player doesn’t get to a ball at all, that will probably be scored a hit (see point 2 above) but if he just barely gets there and the ball glances off his glove, that will most likely be an error, even though the real culprit is the enhanced flight of the ball at altitude. Both sailing throws and missed catches will lead to more men on base due to errors, again consistent with this dataset.

4. Psychology. The possibilities examined so far, namely pitching, hitting, and fielding, are mutually consistent and probably all contribute to the enhanced on-base percentage observed at high altitude stadiums. In addition, I believe there is a fourth important factor, and that is the psychology of the baseball players. Confirmation bias—the practice of unconsciously collecting a mental dataset that is consistent with pre-conceived notion about a topic—is a well-known human tendency and has been studied in fields as diverse as science and intelligence analysis.18 In practice, it means that people have a tendency to remember observations that agree with what they already think is true and ignore all data to the contrary.

Confirmation bias can manifest itself in a variety of ways in a baseball game, especially for inexperienced players who populate the Short Season A rosters. Outfielders “know” that there will be more home runs at high elevation so they play back farther, which allows hitters to dump singles in front of them all game long. Pitchers “know” their curveball doesn’t work well at altitude so they pitch tentatively or leave balls over the middle of the plate that they intended to break out of the strike zone resulting in more hits (but not necessarily more walks). Batters “know” they will hit better at high altitude and arrive at the plate full of confidence, resulting in better batting performance. All of these scenarios are likely, and they can’t be easily separated from the physics of the flight of a batted ball with the dataset at hand, but confirmation bias can help to explain why offensive statistics are even more enhanced than calculations predict they should be.

It would be an interesting follow-up to take an overhead photo of each field in this study at the end of the season to see whether there is a significant difference in the distance between the outfield fence and the bare spots where the outfielders prefer to play that correlates to the elevation of the stadium. Another psychological point that is impossible to disentangle from the effects of stadium elevation is player fatigue. High altitude is fatiguing by itself, and the stadiums at the highest elevations are also the farthest away from each other (see Figure 1). Players in the Pioneer League spend long bus rides between series to get from one town to another, and this probably has an effect on performance. A useful follow-up study might try to isolate this effect by examining the differences in game statistics between the first game of a home stand and later games. If the “travel fatigue effect” is significant, than we might expect the first game of a home stand to involve the biggest enhancement to on-base percentage.

One might also expect that a league in which some teams are at sea level and some are at very high elevation might provide clues about psychology because players would have to recalibrate often during a season as they travel back and forth between low and high elevations. The California League (high A) is a good candidate for a follow up study in this regard because there are some low and high stadiums. The Pacific Coast League (AAA) has the biggest vertical relief with some stadiums at sea level and the Albuquerque Isotopes playing at about 5300 feet, but collecting data from any league higher than class A ball will taint the analysis with roster effects that are probably too important to ignore.

CONCLUSIONS

Knowing which factors are most likely to contribute to high offensive output would help scouts, coaches and managers select and mentor the players who are going to play in stadiums located at high elevations. In this study it is evident that all the factors contributing to on-base percentage are enhanced as a function of stadium altitude, with the exception of walks.

Is it important to limit the offense at high altitude stadiums? An argument may be made that the psyches of young pitchers could be affected adversely by playing in conditions that lead to so much offense. An equally strong counter-argument could be made that the caliber of fielding might be improved if players are forced into situations where they need to track the trajectory of a ball in flight and get to it faster. This can be negated if they have to compensate by using throwing mechanics that are different at different stadiums.

Crucially, this dataset shows that merely moving the outfield walls back will not decrease offense: most of the excess runs scored come from additional base hits and fielding errors as opposed to home runs. All those in attendance on June 18, 2012, in Idaho Falls, Idaho who watched the hometown Chukars defeat the Orem Owlz 16–14 can attest to this. Of the 30 runs scored in the game, only two can be attributed to home runs—both solo shots. However, that game featured 29 hits, nine errors, and 14 walks between the two teams. This example is on the high end of offensive output at high elevations in this dataset, but is by no means an outlier.

Keeping the walls in the same place but building them higher is an option that can limit home runs and might keep the outfielders from having to play so far back that base hits drop safely in front of them throughout the game. Fielders will be forced to pick up the additional skill of fielding off a high outfield wall that collects all the extra line drive hits. However, at present not a single team in this data set is affiliated with the Red Sox, who arguably have the strongest need to develop this skill, given the particulars of Fenway Park. Storing the balls in a humidor as has been done at Coors Field since 2002 has likely limited the number of home runs there.19, 20 Building higher outfield walls might be a more cost-effective solution at minor league ballparks, if a solution is deemed necessary.

ELIZA RICHARDSON is a seismologist by training and an associate professor at Penn State University. She grew up in Blacksburg, Virginia, and some of her earliest memories are listening to the Cardinals on KMOX with her dad, who is a lifelong Cardinals fan. When not throwing batting practice to their five children or discussing baseball stats, Eliza and her husband are avid homebrewers.

Acknowledgements

I thank George Skornickel and the rest of the SABR Forbes Field chapter for encouraging feedback and speculations regarding this research. Thanks also to the past and present members of the PSU Rock Mechanics lab for the discussions and the beer.

Notes

1 Robert K. Adair, The Physics of Baseball (New York: HarperCollins, 2002).

2 Cliff Frohlich, “Aerodynamic drag crisis and its possible effect on the flight of baseballs,” American Journal of Physics, 52 (1984): 325–34.

3 A. Terry Bahill, David G. Baldwin, and John S. Ramberg, “Effects of Altitude and Atmospheric Conditions on the Flight of a Baseball,” International Journal of Sports Science and Engineering, 3 (2009): 109–28.

4 David T. Kagan and D. Atkinson, “The coefficient of restitution of baseballs as a function of relative humidity,” Physics Teacher, 42 (2004): 330–3.

5 Alan M. Nathan, J. Hopkins, L. Chong and H. Kaczmarski, “The effect of spin on the flight of a baseball,” SABR 36 convention, Seattle, June 2006.

6 Frederick Chambers, Brian Page and Clyde Zaidins, “Atmosphere, weather, and baseball: how much farther do baseballs really fly at Denver’s Coors Field?” The Professional Geographer, 55 (2003): 491–508.

7 Adair, 19.

8 Adair, 21.

9 Edmund R. Meyer and John L. Bohn, “Influence of a humidor on the aerodynamics of baseballs,” American Journal of Physics, 76 (2008): 1015–21.

10 Kagan and Atkinson.

11 Adair, 20–22.

12 Adair, 27.

13 Bahill et al.

14 Bahill et al.

15 Adair, 21.

16 Bahill et al.

17 Alan M. Nathan, “What New Technologies Are Teaching Us About the Game of Baseball,” http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/TrackingTechnologiesBaseball.pdf, (2012).

18 Richards J. Heuer, Psychology of Intelligence Analysis, (Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D.C., 1999).

19 Meyer and Bohn.

20 Alan M. Nathan, Lloyd V. Smith, Warren L. Faber and Daniel A. Russell, “Corked Bats, Juiced Balls, and Humidors: The Physics of Cheating in Baseball,” American Journal of Physics, 79 (2011): 575–80.