It was the only the second pennant in Phillies history and the first in 35 years. The Phillies’ run to the flag was marked by clutch hitting and pitching in close games; in fact, they won 29 of 45 one-run games during the regular season. Along the way, the young team captured the attention of not only of victory-starved Philadelphia but indeed of the entire nation, including 10-year-old Bobby Knight growing up in Ohio. Some 60 years later Coach Knight could still name the Whiz Kids’ starting lineup.1 

Between the two pennants, the Phillies were mostly dreadful, finishing in the first division only once between 1917 and 1949. They finished dead last 16 times between 1919 and 1945, including five straight years from 1938 to 1942, once finishing 28½ games out of seventh place. The club was plagued by so-called “five and dime” owners who had little financial resources and ran the club on a shoestring. It was common practice for the team to sell star players, such as Grover Cleveland Alexander and later Lefty O’Doul, Chuck Klein, Dolph Camilli, and Kirby Higbe for cash to keep the franchise afloat. Hugh Mulcahy, a fine pitcher who was the first major leaguer drafted in anticipation of World War II, lost so many games that he earned the nickname in the press of “Losing Pitcher” because his name appeared as the losing pitcher in the box score so often. 

Until 1938 the club played in an awful bandbox called the Baker Bowl, which sported a right-field wall only 280 feet from home plate, 35 feet high and made of tin. One pitcher, Walter Beck, earned the nickname “Boom Boom” from pitching in the Baker Bowl: one boom when the ball hit the bat, the other when it hit the tin wall. For much of the 1930s a large billboard adorned the tin wall advertising Lifebuoy Soap. The sign proudly proclaimed that “The Phillies Use Lifebuoy,” underneath which a disgruntled fan scrawled one night, “And They Still Stink.” 

In 1943 the National League was forced to take over the franchise from owner Gerald Nugent, who could no longer pay his bills. The league sold the team to 33-year-old William Cox, a New York lumber executive. He didn’t last long, kicked out of the game in November by Commissioner Kenesaw Landis for betting on the Phillies. Apparently he bet only on the team to win, but that lapse in betting judgment did not save him.2 Robert R.M. Carpenter Sr. was next up, purchasing the team for his son, Robert R.M. Carpenter Jr., to run.  Young Bob was only 28 years old, but had played football at Duke for Wallace Wade and loved sports. 

The sale of the team to the Carpenters was the turning point. The elder Carpenter was married to a DuPont and so finally the club had an owner with financial resources. They embarked upon a five-year plan to rebuild the team from the ground up and first named Herb Pennock, who had won 241 games in a Hall of Fame pitching career, as general manager. In fact, Pennock was the first real general manager in Phillies history. The club then went about signing the best young talent coming out of high school and college. They outbid 15 other teams to sign Curt Simmons to a record $65,000 bonus, even going so far as to send the major-league team to Simmons’ hometown of Egypt, Pennsylvania, to play an exhibition game in which Simmons pitched for the town team against the Phillies.3

The Carpenters also paid sizable bonuses to Robin Roberts out of Michigan State, as well as Richie Ashburn, Del Ennis, Stan Lopata, Putsy Caballero, Granny Hamner, Willie Jones, Bubba Church, and Bob Miller, all of whom were future Whiz Kids. On the field, the Phillies gradually improved as more and more of the talented youngsters were called up to the big-league club. In midseason 1948 Bob Carpenter fired the acerbic Ben Chapman as manager and replaced him with Eddie Sawyer, a career minor leaguer who had never played or managed in the major leagues. Sawyer had managed several future Whiz Kids in Utica, New York, and proved to be the perfect choice to lead the young team. He believed in keeping the game simple by just letting talented players play to get the most out of their abilities.

Success was not immediate but was not far off. The team floundered the last half of 1948 and finished sixth, 22 games under .500, as Sawyer replaced veterans with the youngsters. Pennock had unfortunately died suddenly in January 1948 but the younger Carpenter felt ready to take over the baseball operations and added some valuable players in trades, including Dick Sisler from the Cardinals, and Eddie Waitkus, Russ Meyer, and Bill Nicholson from the Cubs. Sawyer also brought up the veteran Jim Konstanty, whom he had managed in Toronto, to shore up the bullpen. 

In 1949 the team was much improved, and on June 2 tied a major-league record by slugging five home runs in one inning, two by veteran catcher Andy Seminick, against the Cincinnati Reds in Shibe Park.4 The team managed to weather the near-fatal shooting of first baseman Eddie Waitkus by a deranged female admirer later that month. After an August slump, the team won 27 of its final 43 games to finish in third place with an 81-73 record. After the final game of the season Sawyer gathered his team in the clubhouse and told them, “Come back next year ready to win the pennant.”

The Phillies were able to do just that in 1950, if just barely in a pennant race that went down to the final day of the season. The club played only .500 ball in April but then got rolling behind a young starting rotation consisting of Simmons, who after two inconsistent years hit his stride, Roberts, who also had a breakout season, and two rookies, Bob Miller and Bubba Church. Waitkus had returned at first base from his life-threatening gunshot wound while “Grandpa Whiz,” 29-year-old veteran catcher Seminick, was having a career year at bat while masterfully handling the young pitching staff. The 33-year-old Konstanty, buoyed by his private undertaker pitching coach, was so dominant out of the bullpen that he would win the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award. 

The Whiz Kids took over first place for good in early July. They had a five-game lead by August 12 and, fueled by a memorable brawl against the New York Giants when Seminick took out most of the Giants infield, won 14 out of 18. By the middle of September the Phillies had stretched their lead to 7½ games, even with the loss of Simmons to active duty. But injuries to Miller and Church, who was felled by a line drive to the face off the bat of Ted Kluszewski, the hospitalization of veteran pinch-hitter Nicholson because of diabetes and a team hitting slump reduced their lead to a single game over the powerful Brooklyn Dodgers heading into the final game of the season against those Dodgers in Ebbets Field. The Whiz Kids had lost five in a row and eight of 10 heading into that last game. If they lost, it meant a three-game playoff against Brooklyn, which did not bode well for the pitching-thin Phillies.

But they did not lose, winning a thrilling 10-inning game behind workhorse Roberts, who was starting for the third time in five days. They did, however, come about as close to losing as a team can. In the bottom of the ninth in a tie game, the Dodgers had runners on first and second with no outs when Duke Snider laced a line drive hit to center field. Richie Ashburn, who supposedly had a weak throwing arm, scooped the ball on one hop and threw out Cal Abrams, the potential winning run, at the plate by 15 feet.

The Dodgers now had runners on second and third with only one out, but, after intentionally walking Jackie Robinson to load the bases, Roberts bore down and retired Carl Furillo on a foul popup to Waitkus for the second out. Gil Hodges was next and he lifted a fly ball to right field. It looked like a can of corn to the fans, but Del Ennis lost the ball in the late-afternoon sun as the ball descended. It hit Ennis in the chest and fortuitously dropped into his glove for the third out, allowing the Phillies to escape the inning. After the game, Ennis had stitch marks from the ball on his chest.

In the top of the 10th inning, the Phillies managed to get runners on first and second with one out to bring Dick Sisler to the plate against Dodgers ace Don Newcombe. On a one-ball, two-strike pitch, Sisler hit the most dramatic home run in Phillies history with an opposite-field line drive into the left-field stands to give the Whiz Kids a 5-2 lead. Roberts retired the Dodgers in order in the bottom of the inning, giving the Phillies the pennant and bringing a huge sigh of relief from all of Philadelphia.

The World Series against the New York Yankees was a little anticlimactic, at least from the Phillies’ perspective, and without Curt Simmons they went down to defeat in four games, the first three of which were tense, tight one-run pitching duels. While the Whiz Kids were disappointed about the Series, they thought they would have other chances to be World Series champions. It was not to be, however. Players like Konstanty, Seminick, and Sisler were unable to repeat their career years and Simmons was still on active duty in 1951 as the team slipped to fifth place. The Phillies’ refusal to integrate further hampered their ability to compete for future pennants.5 The 1950 team remains the last all-white team to win the National League pennant, a record that is in no jeopardy of being broken. 

This book tells the story of those Whiz Kids, a team with one of the most memorable nicknames in baseball history.6 It contains biographies of every player who appeared in a game plus game stories of important games, and many other features about this unique team. In addition to a Foreword by Whiz Kid Curt Simmons, it even contains a “View From the Other Side” by Yankees third baseman and former American League President Dr. Bobby Brown.  It is the product of the dedicated, uncompensated work of 36 members of the Society for American Baseball Research, all of whom share a love of baseball and its rich history. Even for the most knowledgeable baseball fan, what follows is a treasure trove of fascinating anecdotes and facts about a bygone era of baseball when the uniforms were flannel, the players still left their gloves on the field between innings, and the games were played in two hours. 

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

• Read more: Click here to download the free e-book edition or save 50% off the purchase of the paperback from the SABR Digital Library.
• Player bios: Find 1950 Phillies biographies at the SABR BioProject.
• Game recaps: Find memorable 1950 Phillies game stories at the SABR Games Project.

Notes

1 Many serious baseball fans from that era get stumped on Mike Goliat, the Whiz Kids second baseman, when trying to recall the Phillies starting lineup, since Goliat played only that one full year in the big leagues.

2 The 1943 Phillies finished in seventh place with a 64-90 record, 41 games out of first place. 

3 Simmons almost defeated the Phillies but the game ended in a 4-4 tie after two town outfielders collided chasing a fly ball, allowing the Phillies to tie the score. The game was then called because of darkness. C. Paul Rogers III, “The Day the Phillies Went to Egypt,” Baseball Research Journal, Fall, 2010: 9-12.

4 C. Paul Rogers III, “The Day the Phillies Came of Age,” National Pastime, (1999): 31-33.

5 The Phillies did not sign their first black player until 1956. In the late 1940s, the Phillies reportedly refused to give Roy Campanella, who was from Philadelphia, even a chance to tryout. He went on to a Hall of Fame career with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

6 Most would agree that the Whiz Kids sobriquet rivals other team nicknames such as the Gas House Gang, the Bronx Bombers, the Miracle Braves, and the Big Red Machine as among most memorable in baseball history.  

In fact, the Whiz Kids, as we came to be known, had a lot of battlers. We played hard and had guys come through in the clutch all year long. I don’t know how many one-run games we won that year, but I can tell you that it was a bunch. It seemed like almost every game went down to the wire, and we won more than our fair share. Del Ennis had a monster year and led the league in RBIs, and guys like Hamner, Jones, Dick Sisler, and Mike Goliat had career years. Andy Seminick at catcher also had a career year hitting and was an immovable object behind the plate. Robin broke through with his first 20-win season and rookie pitchers like Bubba Church and Bob Miller came out of nowhere and were terrific until they got hurt.

Then there was Jim Konstanty, whom we called Yimca because he looked and acted like a YMCA instructor. Jim probably had one of the best years any relief pitcher has ever had. He won 16 games, all in relief, and set the record for most appearances by a pitcher with 70 on the way to the National League MVP award. Of course, the fact that Konstanty won that many games in relief also illustrates that we won a lot of games late with clutch hitting. We had guys battling and coming through in the clutch all year long.

I also finally got straightened out and won 17 games before I had to leave for the service, so I certainly played a significant role in our success. As I mentioned, I’d really struggled before that ’50 season after signing for a big bonus in 1947. Because of the bonus rule, I’d been with the team in ’48 and ’49 but couldn’t really get squared away. I had some success and could really throw hard, but I wasn’t consistent. I had a real herky-jerky motion and I’d stride toward first base and throw across my body instead of opening up like a pitcher is supposed to. George Earnshaw was a roving pitching coach for the Phillies and he was always harping about the position of my legs, trying to get me to square up. I tried all that stuff, but I’d end up not being able to throw the ball because I’d be thinking about my legs.

I wanted to be a winner, so I was willing to try whatever the teams suggested. They were my coaches and I’m 18 or 19 years old and didn’t realize that I was that herky-jerky. I thought I was fairly smooth. There was no video camera in those days to show me otherwise.

Finally in spring training in 1950, Eddie Sawyer, the manager, and Cy Perkins, one of the coaches, told me to just do what came naturally and to throw like I had in high school in Egypt, Pennsylvania. Ken Silvestri was our bullpen catcher and he was also great at boosting my confidence.

At the end of spring training we barnstormed our way north from Florida for a couple of weeks, playing against Double-A and Triple-A teams, and I pitched well. I was getting the ball over and nailing down these high minor leaguers. So that gave me some confidence to start the season and finally, after two years in the big leagues, I just went out and pitched well and won a bunch of games.

We were in contention all year and finally took over first place for good in late July. Eddie Sawyer had a lot to do with our success that year. He was the professor, very even-keeled, not too high or too low. We had very few meetings and Eddie didn’t talk to us much. He certainly wasn’t a holler guy. Under Sawyer we just played pretty much straight baseball. We didn’t hit and run or steal much or have trick plays. In fact, our signs were so simple that I’m sure the other teams had them. We relied on our pitching, and focused on catching the ball and scoring a couple of runs.

Of course, I missed the late season excitement because my National Guard unit had been called to active duty because of the outbreak of the Korean Conflict. The previous year Bob Carpenter had asked Charlie Bicknell, another bonus baby pitcher, and me to join the National Guard in Philadelphia. He was trying to protect his investment in us so that we could avoid the draft, and the way he asked, we really had no choice. So I was a weekend warrior in the National Guard in Philadelphia, meaning I had to spend one weekend a month with the Guard and then serve two weeks active duty during the summer.

On August 1 I got word that my unit would be activated in about 30 days and would be sent to Camp Atterbury in Indiana for basic training. Frank Powell was our traveling secretary and he kept telling me not to worry, that I’m not going, that the club was going to get an extension for me so that I could finish the season. Of course, I didn’t want to go, I wanted to stay with the team. Then on September 10, while I’m getting on the train to go to Camp Atterbury, Frank tells me, “Don’t worry. We’re going to get you back.” But they didn’t get me back, so I missed it.

Charlie Bicknell, who by then had been traded to the Braves organization, was activated too and when we go to Camp Atterbury, we tried to keep in some kind of shape by throwing to each other. But mostly we had to try to get the camp into shape, since it hadn’t been used for a while.

I was following the Phillies in the paper and on the radio as much as I could during that stretch drive. When it looked like we might blow the pennant, all my new camp buddies wearing the same uniform were on me pretty good, giving me the ole raspberry.

Of course, I was still at Camp Atterbury during that last weekend against the Dodgers in Ebbets Field and the last game that went 10 innings. I couldn’t stand to listen to the game on the radio, so I was out playing touch football all afternoon. Finally, a guy hollers out, “Hey, Sisler hit a home run! The Phillies won!” What a relief it was to hear that. That evening my teammates had a big party at the Warwick Hotel when they got back to Philly and they called me at the base, so I got to talk to Robbie, Willie Jones, and a bunch of the guys.

A few days before the World Series the Army told me that they’d give me a 10-day unpaid leave to go to the World Series. Of course I took the leave, but by that time the Phillies had set up their Series roster and I think Eddie Sawyer was reluctant to put me on it because I really hadn’t pitched for about three weeks.

I remember that when I got off the Army transport plane in Jersey City, I was half asleep but someone from the Philadelphia Daily News met me and offered me $500 for a daily ghostwritten column on the Series under my name. Then later I did some on-the-air commercials for Gillette Safety Razors during the Series. I was scared to death, but it got me some more extra cash. The team had voted me a full World Series share, so I told everyone I was making more than they were by not playing.

I pitched batting practice before the Series games but wasn’t allowed to sit in the dugout during the games, so I’d put on my military uniform and watch the games from the press box. During batting practice the guys were moaning because I was breaking their bats. I didn’t think I was throwing too hard but I guess it was more than they were used to, at least in batting practice. Some of them said I pitched them into a slump, since we didn’t hit much in the Series. But I think Raschi, Reynolds, Lopat, and Ford had more to do with our not hitting than I did.

It was tough missing the Series, especially since the Phillies didn’t make it back for 30 years. We lost the first three games to the Yankees by one run in low-scoring games and had the tying run at the plate in the ninth inning of the fourth game, but couldn’t get over the hump. I’d like to think that I might have made a difference if I’d been able to pitch, but that’s ancient history now. As it was, it took me another 14 years to finally pitch in a World Series. I finally made it with the Cardinals in 1964 when I was 35 years old. I won 18 games that year and started two games against the Yankees in a Series the Cards won in seven games. Of course, that was the year of the Phillies’ famous collapse which allowed the Cardinals to sneak in at the wire.

But back to 1950, it was a special year and I’m proud to be remembered as a Whiz Kid. It was a little bittersweet for me personally, because of my military service at the end of the season. I turned 21 that year, so I didn’t fully comprehend everything and probably didn’t fully appreciate our success then. But the ’50 Whiz Kids were a special group of guys who battled all year and came together to win a pennant. Looking back, I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.

My thought was to work intensively with Robin about his memories of that epic season, but also to interview as many of the living Whiz Kids as possible.  Robin liked that idea a lot since to him that team represented an ultimate team accomplishment and he didn’t want the book to be just about himself.  In addition, he was curious about how his teammates viewed that 1950 season with 40-some years of hindsight.  One thing Robin and I quickly learned along those lines was how people involved in the same event can perceive it very differently.  Not only do their memories differ of, for example, key games, but also do their perceptions of those games.

I set about interviewing as many Whiz Kids in person as I could over the next three or so years and ended up with some very memorable experiences.  I was determined to conduct the interviews in person when possible, both because I thought face-to-face would produce much better results and because I really wanted to meet these guys.   I started by flying up to meet Robin in the Philadelphia airport and driving with him to Valley Forge to visit with the then 87-year-old manager of the Whiz Kids, Eddie Sawyer.  Eddie was known for his photographic memory, and pretty much all I did was listen as the two of them, who obviously had great affection for each other, reminisced while my tape recorder ran.  I really didn’t know what I was doing, but had a wonderful afternoon soaking it all in. 

Robin was to throw out the first pitch that evening in Wilmington, Delaware, which was resurrecting professional baseball for the first time in about 40 years.  Since Robin had starred with Wilmington in 1948 just prior to being called up to the Phillies, he was a natural to help inaugurate the new era of Blue Rocks baseball.  But Eddie and he talked so long that he lost track of the time (I was clueless as to when we needed to leave) and suddenly realized that we needed to leave post haste to get to Wilmington in time for the game.  The problem was that it was pouring down rain and we got lost trying to get off Valley Forge Mountain.  It’s quite a hike from Valley Forge to Wilmington and we simply weren’t going to make it by the time we finally got off that mountain.  The only thing that saved Robin was that it was raining in Wilmington as well and the game was postponed until the next afternoon.

The logistics of arranging in person-interviews can be a challenge, but it is a rewarding experience when the schedule goes as planned and you have some good interviews.  On a memorable day that went like clockwork I was able to interview three former players in three different locations all around the Philadelphia metropolitan area.  I was staying in midtown Manhattan attending a conference, which got me to the east coast.  I played hooky from my meetings one day as planned, rented a car in midtown, rose at 5 A.M, drove to the Limekiln Golf Club in Ambler, Pennsylvania to interview Curt Simmons at 8 A.M. (Simmons and Roberts were co-owners of the course).  After interviewing Curt with lawnmowers in the background, I met Del Ennis at 11 at his house in Huntington Valley, also north of Philadelphia.

My next stop was midafternoon at Veterans Stadium in south Philly where I’d arranged to talk to Maje McDonnell, who still worked for the Phillies in community relations.  After a wonderful interview with Maje, I headed back to New York, arriving back in midtown late evening.  It was an exhilarating, almost surreal day, and as I look back, I’m amazed that I, a Dallasite from far away Texas, managed it all without the aid of a GPS, cellphone, or even email.

I very much wanted to interview Dick Sisler, who had hit the most dramatic home run in Phillies’ history, a 10th-inning clout on the last day of the season against the Dodgers in Brooklyn to win the pennant.  He lived in Nashville, but I learned from his wife Dot that he was in a nursing home, suffering from dementia.  But she thought that he had enough long-term memory to be of help, so I arranged to drive over from Dallas in the summer of 1993.

It was a very sad experience.  Dick’s room in the nursing home was stark, with a bed, a chest of drawers, and a couple of chairs.  There were a couple of family photos on the walls and the dresser, but no hint of his baseball career.  Dick was 73 years old and looked like he could still play.  He was relatively trim, erect, and still stood about 6’2” tall.  He was one of the few men in the facility and, from his robust physical appearance, looked like he was in the wrong place.  I had prepared thoroughly for the interview and with some prodding Dick was able to recall some events from his playing career, such as when he played winter ball in Cuba and became known as the Babe Ruth of Cuba because of several tape-measure homers he hit down there.  He also hadn’t forgotten his momentous home run to win the 1950 pennant. 

But as anyone who has dealt with dementia knows, Dick’s memory was selective.  He did not seem to have much recollection, for example, of his Hall of Fame father, George Sisler.

I later had a similar experience with Bill Nicholson, who had been one of the veterans on the team in 1950 at 34 and was also one of most admired.  Bill had written me that he just didn’t have any memory of his baseball career and that he was sorry but he didn’t think he could help me.  I was later able to meet him briefly when I flew back to a card show in suburban Philadelphia where several Whiz Kids, including Nicholson, were to sign autographs.  Nicholson, who was the top slugger in the National League during the war years, was called “Swish” because of the noise his hard swing made when he failed to connect.  At the show, Bill knew his nickname, but only because it had been drilled into him recently.  When Richie Ashburn arrived at the show, he knelt down and told Bill who he was and that they’d been teammates on the Phillies.  Bill pretended to know Richie, but couldn’t engage in much conversation, and after a few minutes Ashburn got up with tears in his eyes.

On the same trip that I met with Dick Sisler, I next drove down to Birmingham to interview Bubba Church, a rookie pitcher in 1950 who had won several crucial games for the club before being felled by a line drive off the bat of Ted Kluszewski during the stretch run.  The visit was one of the highlights of my time with the Whiz Kids.  Bubba, who exuded genuine Southern charm, and his wife Peggy couldn’t have been more accommodating or helpful.  While I interviewed Bubba, Peggy chatted with my 15-year old-daughter Jillian, who had been visiting a friend in Tennessee and was now with me.  The Whiz Kids were so important to Bubba that he choked up more than once recalling that time in his life.

Bubba had arranged for me to interview Ben Chapman, who had managed the Phillies into 1948 when the Whiz Kids were starting to arrive in the big leagues, but unfortunately Chapman had passed away about 10 days before my visit.  He had also arranged an interview with Harry “the Hat” Walker, who lived in Leeds, a Birmingham suburb.  Walker had won the 1947 batting title as a Phillie and had a great perspective on the organization during that time.  It was a long hike to Leeds from the Churches and so they led us there in their car.  Then, while I interviewed Walker (or rather listened to him since he talked non-stop for about an hour) and got to hold his famous two-toned bat from the 1946 World Series, the Churches took Jillian off to a late lunch. 

They returned Jillian to me and decided that I needed to get something to eat, so insisted on leading us to a restaurant on our way out of town and sat and watched me eat.  Bubba and Peggy became fast friends and when he was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2001, I was there along with his Whiz Kids teammates Robin Roberts and Andy Seminick. 

Perhaps my most memorable experience involved an interview no-show. Pretty early in this process, a Philadelphia entrepreneur put together a huge memorabilia and autograph show in the Philadelphia Convention Center featuring the Whiz Kids and the Phillies 1980 World Championship team.  It was an opportunity too great to miss, so I flew up with the goal of interviewing as many Whiz Kids as I could.  I particularly wanted to interview Granny Hamner, the Whiz Kids shortstop, who hadn’t responded to me. 

On Saturday night during the show, the promoter hosted a reception and dinner for the ballplayers, and Robin made sure I was included.  Bubba introduced me to Hamner at the reception and told him what I was doing and that he really should agree to talk to me.  Granny agreed to let me interview him and told me to come to his hotel the next morning around 10:00.     

The next morning I interviewed Putsy Caballero at 9 A.M. and then headed over to Granny’s hotel in a cab.  The promoter had obtained comp rooms for the players at hotels all around Philadelphia’s Center City, and Granny’s hotel was on the other side of downtown.  I got there a couple of minutes after 10 and immediately called Hamner’s room.  No answer.  He’d said to look in the coffee shop if he wasn’t in his room, but he wasn’t there either.  I continued to call his room and check the coffee shop for about 30 minutes or so.  Robin had told me that Granny wasn’t exactly known for his reliability, so I wasn’t entirely surprised, although was I of course disappointed.

By some small miracle, I remembered Granny’s room number, so I finally decided to go knock on his door.  When I did, I could hear either the radio or TV on at low volume inside the room, but there was still no answer.  Of course, that doesn’t mean someone is in the room, only that someone has been there.  Granny was supposed to sign autographs at one that afternoon, so I went over to the show, hoping that perhaps I could sit with him and ask him a few questions while he signed.  There was a fairly long line of people waiting to get his autograph at the appointed time, but he didn’t show up. 

Robin thought that Granny had probably gone off on a bender and would surface in a couple of days.  I flew home to Dallas that evening having met Granny (and taken his picture with some of his teammates) but without an interview.  I was in my office the next day, Monday, when Robin called about 8:30.  He said, “I found out why Granny didn’t show up for the interview with you yesterday.  They found him dead in his hotel room.”

Apparently, shortly after I knocked on his door, housekeeping tried to get in the room and couldn’t and called hotel security.  They found him not breathing in the chair in his room, apparently waiting for me. 

To add to this sad story, I distinctly remember Granny telling Robin, Bubba, and Putsy the night before that he’d just had a checkup and that his doctor had told him he was as healthy as a horse, but that he really should stop smoking.        

Most of the former players that I interviewed were very nostalgic about their baseball careers and were happy to reminisce.  But for some, it seemed to evoke difficult memories.  For example, my attempts to interview Mike Goliat, the second baseman of the Whiz Kids, proved unavailing. Although Goliat was a key contributor to the team, 1950 proved to be his only full season in the major leagues, making him the answer to an oft-asked trivia question, “Who was the second baseman for the Whiz Kids?”   Goliat reported to spring training in 1951 overweight and out-of-shape, was shortly sold to the St. Louis Browns, and after a handful of games  there was back in the minor leagues, never to return to the Show.  When I called to arrange a meeting, I could never get past his wife Eleanor and pretty soon it became evident that Mike just didn’t want to talk to me. 

Another example was Ken Johnson, a left-handed pitcher, who as a spot starter had won four games against a single loss for the Whiz Kids, including a couple of complete-game shutouts.  But Johnson’s career had also been a disappointment, mostly due to a lack of control.  Ken lived in Wichita, Kansas and had a very successful post-baseball career as an insurance executive.  I was anxious to interview him because he seemed almost reclusive about his baseball career, even though he’d been a real contributor in 1950.  He wasn’t in touch with any of his teammates and was the only Whiz Kid who hadn’t attended the team’s 25-year reunion in Philadelphia in 1975. 

Ken and his wife couldn’t have been nicer when I traveled to Wichita, taking me to dinner at the Wichita Country Club, where Ken seemed to know everyone and was clearly a pillar of the community.  But interviewing him about his baseball career proved painful to him, because he thought he had squandered his talent.  He viewed it as the most unsuccessful period of his life and best forgotten.  I tried to convince him otherwise, but don’t think I was particularly successful.

I had a somewhat similar experience when I reached Paul Stuffel by phone.  Stuffel had been a late season call-up as a 23-year-old rookie pitcher and appeared in three games with a 1.80 earned run average.  But, also because of wildness, he had a very abbreviated major-league career.  When I told him about the Whiz Kids project, he said, “Boy, you’re scrapping the bottom of the barrel talking to me.”

Even more poignant was my telephone conversation with Charlie Bicknell, whom the Phillies had signed for a sizeable bonus right of high school.  Because of the bonus baby rule then in effect, the Phillies were forced to keep Bicknell on the major-league roster for two years, which in his case were the 1948 and 1949 seasons.  He’d pitched in only a handful of games those two years, mostly in mop-up duty, before being sold to the Boston Braves during spring training in 1950.  Charlie told me how in 1948 when the team arrived in Philadelphia after spring training, everyone had two home and two road uniforms hung in their lockers.  Bicknell, however, only had one of each. 

Charlie told me, “I never said anything or told anybody, but that hurt.  If you ever notice the 1948 team photo, you’ll see that I’m not in that picture.  I’m not in it because I didn’t want to be.  I told the team I had somebody sick back home on picture day.”         

On the other hand, some bit players, such as utility infielder Putsy Caballero and Maje McDonnell, batting practice pitcher and unofficial coach, had much better experiences and viewed their Whiz Kid experience as the best of their lives, except for marriage and children.  McDonnell told me that he knelt in the tunnel after the Phillies won the pennant in Ebbets Field and thanked God for the greatest moment in his life. 

I also learned that one could undercover wonderful pearls by interviewing those who were close to the team.  I interviewed by phone two sisters, Anne and Betty Zeiser, who were fervent, rabid Phillies fans and had formed the Andy Seminick Fan Club in admiration of the Phillies catcher.  They had traveled to Brooklyn for the season’s final two games and, when the Dodgers won the first, Anne was caught on camera hitting a priest in the box seats in front of her over the head with a scorecard because he had rooted for the Dodgers.  Anne was convinced that the priest had prayed the Dodgers into the win. 

That night, before the final game of the season, the sisters went into a little church around the corner from their hotel to pray for a Phillies victory.  There they saw infielder Putsy Caballero on his knees, praying and crying like a baby.

I was also able to interview Andy Skinner, the private pitching coach of ace reliever Jim Konstanty.  Andy was an undertaker from Konstanty’s hometown in upstate New York who had no real baseball background.  Skinner was a good bowler, however, and applied the techniques he used to spin a bowling ball to Konstanty’s slider and palm ball.  Whenever Konstanty began to struggle, he’d call Skinner, who would drive to meet the team wherever it was playing.  It must have worked; Konstanty won 16 games for the Whiz Kids in relief and was named National League Most Valuable Player.

Skinner related one occasion in which he’d driven a hearse to New York to meet Konstanty (and pick up a body) and had given a ride back to the team hotel from the Polo Grounds to Konstanty and several teammates, who’d had sit in back where the caskets ride.  They caused quite a stir when the hearse pulled up to the hotel and three strapping ballplayers got out of the back.

When Jim Konstanty died too soon at age 59 in 1976, Andy Skinner was the undertaker.

In a couple of cases, the widows of former Whiz Kids proved very helpful.  Mary Anne Hollmig, the beautiful widow of Stan Hollmig, visited with me by phone and sent me some great material on Stan.  Through Wilma Brittin, I learned the remarkable story of her husband Jack, who, as a late season call-up, had pitched in three games for the Whiz Kids.  Brittin had been a top prospect, but his career was derailed by puzzling but chronic arm and leg problems until he was eventually diagnosed as suffering from multiple sclerosis.  He spent much of his life in a wheelchair, although he was able to have a successful career as a state education administrator in his native Illinois.  Jack became reacquainted with former high school classmate Wilma after a gap of 23 years and they soon married and lived happily together for over 30 years, until Jack’s death in 1994.           

The different personalities of  old ballplayers are often striking to oral historians.  I mentioned how Harry Walker talked non-stop and that I, as interviewer, could scarcely get a word in edgewise.  In contrast, Del Ennis was a man of few words.  He was the leading practical joker on the team, so I was surprised at how quiet he was.  When I arrived at the appointed time at Del’s suburban Philadelphia home, he greeted me curtly at the door and bade me come in.  Del ushered me down to his basement, which his second wife Liz had converted into a virtual shrine to his playing career, including his locker from old Connie Mack Stadium (In contrast, Dick Whitman’s Arizona home contained little or no hint he’d been a major-league ballplayer).  Usually an interviewer can get into a flow of conversation with his subject, but it was tough with Del, because he answered my questions very succinctly and almost abruptly.

He was a kind man with a sparkle in his eyes, but he just wasn’t prone to much conversation.  But I still managed to get some great material from him.  For example, I asked him about the Gil Hodges’ fly ball he’d caught in the bottom of the ninth in the last game of the season with two outs and runners on second and third to send the game into extra innings.  Contemporary accounts had described the ball as a routine fly to fairly deep right field. 

“Easy fly ball all right.” Del said, “I lost the ball in the sun; the line drive hit me right in the chest and dropped right in my glove. I knew it was coming right at me so I just stood there and it hit me right in the chest.  After the game, I had the seams of the ball in my chest.”

If Del had not caught that ball, the winning run would have scored, forcing a best-of-three playoff for the pennant.

Whew!

In addition to experiencing dramatically different personalities, an oral historian also quickly learns that some ballplayers have much better memories than others.  For example, I was lucky because Robin Roberts, my primary subject for the Whiz Kids project, had an incredible memory for detail, enhanced by the fact that although he pitched for 18 years in the big leagues, he viewed the 1950 season as the highlight of his career.  In contrast, for Curt Simmons, a 17-game-winner that year before his National Guard unit was called to active duty in August, the season was something of a blur.  During our interview Curt would frequently tell me, ask Robin about that, he remembers everything. 

Of course oral historians quickly learn that memories are inherently inaccurate and that events need to be verified.  I’ve learned that the hard way more than once.  For example, I talked to several Phillies about the infamous 1949 shooting of first-baseman Eddie Waitkus in a Chicago hotel room by a deranged female fan.  I got some great recollections from Russ Meyer, who had been to dinner with Waitkus that evening.  Waitkus was critically wounded but survived four operations to return to the Phillies as the regular first baseman in 1950.  Russ told me that Waitkus ended up marrying his nurse and I printed it in the book.  Wrong.  Waitkus married a young woman he met on the beach during his rehab in Clearwater the following winter.

Without a doubt, however, one of the best interviews I conducted was with Russ Meyer, a/k/a as the Mad Monk during his playing days because of his volatile temper while on the mound.  The stories about Meyer’s temper were legion and so I arranged to meet him at his home in Olgesby, Illinois, about 90 minutes outside of Chicago (By the way, Meyer was the only one who asked to be paid for his interview, although he quickly backed off when I told him I was financing these trips out of my own pocket. “Ah, come on up,” he said. )

Russ’s wife left to go shopping shortly after I arrived, leaving us to ourselves.  I had been a little curious about what Meyer’s attire would be, since he’d been known as a real clothes horse during his playing days.  Sure enough, although Meyer’s house was modest, at 72 he was resplendently casual in a grey v-neck sweater and bright plaid wool slacks. 

At first, Meyer was a little wary, but he soon became comfortable with me and got into the swing of the interview.  He had tremendous recall and could remember verbatim arguments he’d had with umpires, sprinkled with what I’m sure were the original f-bombs and other colorful language.  I was there over three hours and emerged with wonderful material, as Russ was extremely candid and admitted doing any number of things that he regretted.  So colorful was the language that when working on the book at home l had to make sure that none of my young daughters were around when I played his tapes. 

Meyer had a number of run-ins with Jackie Robinson, who could get under Russ’s skin with his antics on the base paths.  He even admitted calling Robinson the n-word.  “Bad judgment on my part but I said it and I’m not going to deny it.”   Meyer told me that when he was traded to the Dodgers before the 1953 season, he was initially very excited because the Dodgers were winning pennants and he’d likely be cashing World Series checks.   Then he remembered with trepidation that he was going to have to walk into the Dodgers’ clubhouse and face Robinson.

Meyer then related that when he did walk into that clubhouse in Vero Beach at the start of spring training, the first person he saw was Jackie Robinson.  “Oh, no,” he thought. Robinson saw Meyer, got up from his locker and walked over to Russ, put out his hand and said, “Monk, we’ve been fighting one another.  Now let’s fight ‘em together.” 

That’s striking gold for an oral historian.  That type of interpersonal information is just not available without going to the sources.  By the way, Meyer told me that he became fast friends with Robinson. 

Two other wonderful Robinson stories that I unearthed came from Robin Roberts.  It is well known that the Phillies were particularly hard on Jackie when he integrated the majors in 1947, fueled by racial invective from manager Ben Chapman and coach Dusty Cooke, both southerners.  That Phillie team was mostly a veteran team, but the rough treatment of Robinson continued even into 1948 when the club began calling up some of the younger players who would form the nucleus of the 1950 pennant winners.  Roberts and Curt Simmons both recalled an incident in Ebbets Field shortly after Robin was called up and shortly before Ben Chapman was fired as manager. 

Robinson had helped the Dodgers sweep a doubleheader with seven hits and a couple of stolen bases.  Afterwards, Chapman waited for Robinson under the stands where the runways from both dugouts met for a common tunnel to the dressing rooms.  Roberts and Simmons were behind Chapman and when Jackie walked by, they heard Chapman say to him, “Robinson, you’re one helluva ballplayer, but you’re still a [n-word].”  Roberts thought that if Robinson lit into Chapman, it would be a whale of a fight, since both were big strapping men, but Robinson, turning the other cheek, just looked at Chapman, and kept on walking.

A little over two years later on the last day of the season, October 1, 1950, the Phillies defeated the Dodgers in 10 innings for the pennant in a game the Dodgers seemingly had won in the bottom of the ninth inning.  According to Roberts and others, in spite of that bitter loss and notwithstanding the way the Phillies had treated him when he broke into the league, Robinson visited the Phillies clubhouse after the game and went player to player to congratulate them on winning the pennant.

Thus, I learned more about Jackie Robinson’s character than I could have imagined simply by interviewing his rivals. 

One person who was a must to interview was Richie Ashburn, the Phillies star center fielder who had thrown out the Dodgers’ Cal Abrams at the plate in the bottom of the ninth inning of that decisive game in 1950.  The Dodgers had Abrams on second and Pee Wee Reese at first with no outs and Duke Snider at the plate.  Ashburn was thought to have a weak arm and over the years the Dodgers and others had indicated that Ashburn was playing more shallow than usual in case Snider bunted or the Phillies tried to pick Abrams off second.  Richie labeled both theories as “preposterous” because the Phillies didn’t even have a pick-off play at second and even in the unlikely event that Snider bunted the play would be at third or first, not second.  He told me he did come in a couple of steps because the winning run was on second and simply raced in, caught Snider’s line drive on one hop and fired to the plate, just as he’d done in practice thousands of times before. 

Abrams was out by a good 15 feet and the play cost Dodgers third-base coach Milt Stock his job, since he’d sent Abrams with no one out.  Stock subsequently resurfaced as the third-base coach for the Cardinals and Ashburn recalled that he’d then thrown out three Cardinals at home in one game.  Richie was known for his dry wit, and told me, “I guess he never thought I could throw.”

Ashburn of course was the beloved broadcaster of the Phillies games for 35 years after his retirement as a player.  I’d driven down to Houston to interview him in his hotel room in the Galleria during one of the Phillies trips there to play the Astros.  Near the end of the interview but with the tape still rolling, I asked Richie off-handedly how long he thought he’d continue to broadcast.  He thoughtfully responded that the travel was very wearing, but that he thought he would really miss the games.  He said he wasn’t sure how long he’d keep doing the games, but said, “I’ll tell you one thing, I don’t want to end up like Don Drysdale.”

Hall of Fame pitcher Drysdale was a Dodgers broadcaster who had died just two years earlier, alone in a hotel room in Montreal, Canada, while there to broadcast a Dodgers-Expos series.  

Unfortunately, in September 1997, about two years after my interview with him and shortly after he’d finally been inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, Whitey did meet the same fate, dying in a New York hotel room after broadcasting a Mets-Phillies game. 

In reliving the glory of 1950 with the Whiz Kids themselves, I was able to experience their full range of emotions, and I became sort of an unofficial Whiz Kid myself since they all knew what I was up to.  I developed friendships not only with my boyhood hero Roberts, but also with others such as Bubba Church, Andy Seminick, Curt Simmons, Richie Ashburn, Eddie Sawyer, and Putsy Caballero.   

The culmination of these interviews was a book titled The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant which Robin Roberts and I co-authored and which was published by the Temple University Press in late 1996.  We wrote the book as seen through Robin’s eyes, but sprinkled it liberally with quotes from all the ballplayers and others whom I interviewed.  So, for example, we had the recollections of all the participants of the key plays of the pennant-clinching game in Ebbets Field: Ashburn on his throw in the ninth to save the game, Stan Lopata who caught the throw and tagged out Cal Abrams, Robin who pitched the entire game, Dick Sisler who hit the legendary 10th-inning home run, and Del Ennis who caught the last out in the ninth in spite of losing the ball in the sun.

As a thank you I sent all the Phillies I’d interviewed a wonderful color lithograph of the Whiz Kids that a Philadelphia based sports artist named Stan Kotzen had produced, along with a copy of the book.  I sent one of each to Mike Goliat, who’d effectively resisted my efforts to interview him, as well.  Unexpectedly in return I received a note of thanks from Mike, a vintage baseball that he signed, and another piece of memorabilia autographed by several of his Whiz Kids teammates.  Thereafter I received a Christmas card from the Goliats for as long as they were alive.    

Unhappily time is of the essence when obtaining oral histories from old ballplayers.  I conducted my interviews of the Whiz Kids about 20 years ago, or about 45 years after their pennant-winning season.  Even then several members of the team had passed away including first baseman Eddie Waitkus; third baseman Willie “Puddinhead” Jones; pitchers Jim Konstanty (the National League MVP), Jocko Thompson (one of the most decorated paratroopers of World War II), Blix Donnelly, Jack Brittin; reserve catcher Ken Silvestri; and reserve outfielder Stan Hollmig.  Now, however, only three survive, Curt Simmons, Putsy Caballero, and Bob Miller.

In retrospect, I’m just so glad that I did what I did when I did it.  It took real time and money to fly around the country to talk to old ballplayers over about a three year period, but the memories I uncovered and the benefits that I received were, as the popular ad says, priceless.  

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

Skinner grew up in the small town of Worcester, New York, diagonally across the street from the house that Mary Burlingame, Jim Konstanty’s wife, grew up in. The two men became friendly during the Konstantys’ visits there in the offseason and Skinner would sometimes ride with Konstanty to places like Utica to watch Jim play semipro basketball.1 Skinner had a very analytical mind and had taken up bowling a few years before with some friends when a new alley opened in town. He sent away for instruction books on bowling and after studying them went from the worst bowler among his friends to the best bowler.2

Konstanty had struggled in 1946, briefly with the Boston Braves, and then, after being sold to Toronto, with the Maple Leafs, where he went 4-9. Konstanty was uncertain about his baseball future and during their trips to basketball games that winter he and Skinner began to talk about pitching. Skinner was a good listener and wondered aloud whether what he had learned about putting spin on a bowling ball could be put to use with a baseball. Shortly thereafter, Konstanty began throwing to Skinner as Andy studied his grip and the spin on the ball. Skinner likened wind resistance to the friction on a bowling alley and applied the same spin principles that had improved his bowling. Over time he was able to alter Konstanty’s grip and improve the spin on his palmball, which Konstanty used as a changeup, and his slider; and the pitches became much more effective.3

Konstanty improved to 13 wins the following year with Toronto and continued to work with Skinner in the offseason on his palmball and slider. When he hit a pitching slump during the season, he called Skinner to Toronto to tell him what he was doing wrong. Once, the Maple Leafs even put Skinner in uniform.4

Konstanty was called back to the big leagues in late 1948 and had a strong season with the improving Phillies in 1949, winning 9 against 5 losses with a 3.25 earned-run average in 53 relief appearances. Before that season Skinner erected a television antenna on a high hill near Oneonta, New York, near Worcester, which enabled him to get the Phillies games on foggy nights. He could also receive the Giants and Dodgers games and when he noticed something in Konstanty’s delivery he would simply call him and explain what he saw.5

In 1950, Konstanty experienced a slump after the All-Star break and struck out only two batters in 15 innings in nine appearances between July 8 and July 26.6 He called Skinner, who arrived in Philadelphia the next day, went to the ballpark, took off his jacket, and began to watch Konstanty throw in the bullpen.7 He soon noticed that Konstanty had changed the release point on his slider, which meant that it didn’t have much bite on it. All of a sudden, Konstanty again became almost unhittable.8

Konstanty was always quick to give credit to Skinner, saying, “Andy Skinner is not just a good story. He is my bread and butter.”9 On another occasion after the 1950 season, Konstanty said, “The big difference between my pitching for Toronto in 1946 and my pitching today is Andy Skinner.”10

It is not much of a stretch to say that without Andy Skinner, an undertaker who initially didn’t know a slider from a fastball, Jim Konstanty would not have become the dominant relief pitcher that he did in 1950. And without Konstanty’s 16 wins and 152 innings in 74 relief appearances there would have been no pennant for the Whiz Kids that year. Thus, it really is true that Andy Skinner, an unpaid, unofficial sometime pitching coach who had never played baseball, was a key to the Phillies’ pennant run.11

Notes

1 Later they, with others, also went on moose hunting trips to northern Ontario. Letter from Mary Konstanty to author, dated August 25, 1995, on file with author. 

2 Ed Pollock, “Undertaker Gives Him New Life,” Baseball Digest, November 1950: 16.

3 Andy Duncan, “Jim Konstanty – The All-Time Fireman,” Sport, May 1951: 19, 93; Stan Baumgartner and Harry T. Paxton, “He Pitched the Phillies to the Pennant,” Saturday Evening Post, January 13, 1951: 99.

4 Robin Roberts and C. Paul Rogers III, The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 143-44.

5 Baumgartner and Paxton: 99.

6 Pollock: 16.

7 Andy Seminick later recalled catching Konstanty on the sidelines with Andy Skinner watching. After a pitch, Konstanty would ask, “How was that one, Andy?” Seminick would answer him but then realize that Konstanty was talking to Skinner, not him. Roberts and Rogers, 145. 

8 Roberts and Rogers, 144; Pollock, 16; Frank Yeutter, Jim Konstanty (New York: A.S. Barnes & Company, 1951), 52-54. On another occasion Skinner attended a game in the Polo Grounds where the Phillies were playing the New York Giants. He had driven a hearse into the city because he had to pick up a body later. He offered Konstanty a ride back to the hotel after the game and Robin Roberts, Curt Simmons, and Russ Meyer came along as well. Since there wasn’t room in front, the three of them had to ride in the back where the caskets are. They caused quite a scene when the hearse pulled up in front of the Commodore Hotel and three large and very alive men piled out of the back. Roberts and Rogers, 144-45.

9 Jim Konstanty notes in 1950, written for Frank Yeutter biography of Jim Konstanty, on file with author. 

10 Duncan: 93.

11 Phillies manager Eddie Sawyer invited Skinner to spring training in 1951 and gave him a uniform. Roberts and Rogers, 145. Konstanty continued to call on Skinner when he slumped early in the 1951 season. Barney Nagler, “Pop’s In There Pitching,” Redbook, August 1951: 28, 83.   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Notes

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

Thanks to the bonuses that Phillies’ owner Bob Carpenter doled out, the Phillies youth movement was in full swing by early 1948.  Mrs. Ashburn was known as a terrific cook and soon the Ashburns had three “bonus baby” boarders on hand in addition to their 21-year-old son.  They were Robin Roberts, also 21, and Curt Simmons and Charlie Bicknell, who were both 19-year-old teenagers.  The young ballplayers generally hung around the house together, playing pool or cards or just relaxing and talking baseball.  They often rode to the ballpark together.  If the Phillies had a night game, Mrs. Ashburn served them a hearty pregame meal about 4 PM.  In fact, Robin Roberts recalled sometimes feeling sluggish in pregame workouts since the food was so good and he had eaten so much. 

For the 1949 season the Ashburns rented a house in Bryn Mawr on the Main Line from some schoolteachers who were away for the summer.  Rookie outfielder Jack Mayo joined the four returning borders and, when Mayo broke his ankle late in the year and went home to Youngstown, Ohio, to recuperate, Mike Goliat, who was called up from the minors, took his spot in the rooming house. 

The players didn’t venture out much except to an occasional afternoon movie, and were content to just play baseball and not worry about their lack of a night life.  The entire rooming house was very low key except during the first year when a local newspaper ran a feature on the boarding house and included the street address.  Afterwards, the doorbell rang frequently, forcing Mr. and Mrs. Ashburn to frequently run interference for their lodgers. 

According to one story, the players consumed 10 to 12 quarts of milk a day but were such lightweight drinkers that it took them all season to get through a half a case of beer. 

Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts each married the winter after the ’49 season and the others were not far behind to the altar, and so, like all good things, Mrs. Ashburn’s rooming house was no more.  But for the summers of 1948 and 1949, it provided an idyllic residence for a number of Whiz Kids in training for their break-through 1950 season.

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

Sources

Paxton, Harry T., “That House Where the Ballplayers Live,” Saturday Evening Post, September 10, 1949.

Roberts, Robin with C. Paul Rogers III, “Fifty Years with Whitey,” Elysian Fields Quarterly, Vol. 16, no. 2 (1999).

Roberts, Robin, and C. Paul Rogers III, The Whiz Kids and the 1950 Pennant (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996).

My parents had come in for the big event and drove me to the McAlister Auditorium on the Tulane campus for the ceremony. I put on my graduation gown at the auditorium and vividly remember receiving my diploma and saying to myself, “I did it, I did it, I did it!” I had done something that had never been done before – not in baseball or medical history. To this day, graduating from medical school while playing major-league baseball is my greatest nonfamilial thrill.

After the ceremony, my parents drove me straight to the airport so I could fly back and rejoin the Yankees. I got back to New York without having had any sleep, but fortunately I didn’t have to play in a game until the next day. 

We were in a tight pennant race for the second year in a row in 1950, this time with the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians. In fact, we didn’t take over first place for good until September 16 when rookie Whitey Ford pitched a terrific game to defeat the Tigers and Dizzy Trout in Detroit.  We didn’t manage to clinch the pennant until the final day of the season. As a result, we were unable to think much about our eventual National League opponent until the season was over.

The Yankees were a veteran team and most of us had played in previous World Series. That experience is invaluable because a player has to know how to handle the press, manage ticket requests, evaluate the opponent, and get ready to play without being overwhelmed by the pressure.   

But we felt pretty confident going into the 1950 World Series against the upstart Philadelphia Phillies. We weren’t overconfident because any time you are in a World Series you are playing against a good team. But with the Yankees we always felt like we could beat the other team, whether it was in the World Series or regular season. We weren’t being disrespectful, but we always felt we could beat anybody in the Series. Plus, we did pretty much always win, so that instills confidence.

We played under pressure during the entire season, facing the opposing teams’ best starting and relief pitchers day after day. We simply didn’t “tighten up” in pressure games. We were a terrific fundamental team with players who were great pressure fielders, hitters, and pitchers. And, as I mentioned, we had a lot of experience playing in the World Series. 

We always thought that one advantage we had over a National League team was Yankee Stadium. A National League club seeing the Stadium for the first time was bound to be a little intimidated by its size and the large crowds plus all the ceremonial trappings and history of the place. It had to be something of an adjustment to come into the Stadium to play a World Series. 

We knew that the Phillies had a real ace in Robin Roberts and that Jim Konstanty had been virtually unhittable in relief. But it was a terrific break for us that Curt Simmons was unable to pitch in the Series for them because his National Guard unit had been activated. He had as good stuff as anyone in baseball and having to face him two or three times in a Series would have been a real challenge. 

Of course, our starting pitching was outstanding with Vic Raschi (21-8), Allie Reynolds (16-12), and Eddie Lopat (18-8) as our top three starters. Then we had the added bonus of rookie Whitey Ford as our fourth starter. Whitey had been called up from the Kansas City Blues on July 1 and had just gotten better as the season wore on. He finished the year 9-1 with an earned-run average well under three. Having Whitey meant that we had four superb starters and would be even tougher to beat.

The Phillies of course didn’t have Simmons and had some injuries to two of their other starters, so in a surprise move their manager, Eddie Sawyer started Jim Konstanty in the Opening Game, which was played in Philadelphia. Konstanty was excellent, throwing strikes, changing speeds and keeping us off balance. But I led off the top of the fourth and hit a shot down the left-field line for a double. I advanced to third on a long fly ball to center by Hank Bauer and then scored on a fly ball to left by Jerry Coleman. It was the only run of the game as Raschi threw a two-hit shutout at the Phillies.

Game Two was a nailbiter as well. Allie Reynolds and Robin Roberts were both terrific. We were tied 1-1 when I led off the top of the sixth and hit a line drive to left-center off Roberts. I regret to this day that I didn’t try for second base. I knew it would be a close play at second but I probably could have made it. I decided since I wasn’t quite sure, I better stay at first because with no outs we had a better chance to score the run. But to this day I regret not going to second base.

In any event, I was stranded at first base as Roberts got two popups and a strikeout and the game remained tied 1-1 going into extra innings. Joe DiMaggio had popped up to the infield four straight times against Roberts but led off the 10th inning with a home run to left field. The Phillies got a runner as far as second base in the bottom of the inning but Allie Reynolds bore down to retire the side and we were up two games to zero.

We moved to Yankee Stadium for the third game. I didn’t start because the Phillies threw Ken Heintzelman, a lefty, at us and Casey Stengel generally played Billy Johnson at third against lefties. Heintzelman pitched a great game and the Phillies led 2-1 heading into the bottom of the eighth. But Ken ran out of gas and with two outs, walked the bases full. Sawyer brought in Konstanty in relief and Casey sent me up to pinch-hit for Hank Bauer. I hit a groundball, on the first pitch I think, toward the hole to the right of Granny Hamner at shortstop. It caught him between hops and was not an easy play because he was moving to his right. DiMaggio was running from first and was a tremendous baserunner. Because the bases were loaded, Eddie Waitkus wasn’t holding him on at first so DiMaggio had a big lead and got a terrific jump.  Hamner bobbled the ball, retrieved it quickly, and threw to second for the force out, but DiMaggio just beat the throw. That allowed Coleman to score the tying run. Since there were two outs, it was a pivotal play in the game.   

The Phillies had a chance to go ahead in the top of the ninth but first baseman Joe Collins threw Hamner out at the plate trying to score on a groundball. Then in the bottom half Russ Meyer retired the first two batters before we got three singles in a row to win the game 3-2. Jerry Coleman, my old running buddy from San Francisco, drove in the winning run with the third of those hits. He would be voted MVP of the Series.

We had our sensational rookie Whitey Ford, who was only 21, to try to close out the Series. We scored two runs in the first inning and then Yogi Berra opened the sixth with a home run to put us ahead 3-0. With Konstanty pitching in relief, I hit a triple to right-center field later in the inning to drive in DiMaggio and extend our lead to 4-0. I then scored on Bauer’s line drive to make it 5-0. 

The Phillies rallied for two runs in the ninth when Gene Woodling lost Andy Seminick’s fly ball in the sun. The ball hit Woodling in the chest and dropped to the ground, allowing two unearned runs to score. Left field was a tough sun field at the Stadium, especially later in the afternoon.  I’ll never forget Stengel on the top step of the dugout after the play yelling at Woodling for losing the ball in the sun. Mike Goliat then singled to bring the tying run to the plate, but Allie Reynolds came in to get the last out on a three-pitch strikeout and secure the win and the Series.

Max Lapham, MD, the dean of the Tulane Medical School, was very special to me because he had agreed to allow me to continue my studies and still play for the Yankees. I had invited him to come to a World Series game in 1949 when we played the Brooklyn Dodgers. He said he would like to come but he was just too busy during the middle of the term with meetings and the like. He said he would come the next year. So I invited him again for the 1950 Series, and when he hesitated, I said, “You know, there is no guarantee that we’ll be in the Series every year and I’m not going to play forever.” So he said he would come to the Sunday game, which was Game Four, after I told him that since we had won three straight it might be the last game. 

I arranged for Dean Lapham to sit in the stands with my parents and brother. I told my father to bring the dean down to the Yankees clubhouse if we won. By the time they arrived after the game, the players were in all stages of dress and undress, the champagne had been squirted and consumed, and the cameras and newsreels were going full blast as the players were being interviewed.1 Dean Lapham was bug-eyed taking all of this in. I saw Yogi Berra across the room in front of his locker, dressed only in his baseball underwear, and took the dean over to introduce him. Yogi said, “You really the dean of the Tulane Medical School?”

Dean Lapham said, “Yes, I’m really the dean of the Tulane Medical School.”

Yogi said as he looked at me, “Well, I’ll tell you one thing. You’ve got some shitty school if this dope can pass.”

Both Yogi and the dean laughed, but I didn’t think it was that funny.

Although we swept the Series, the first three games went down to the wire and even the fourth game had some anxious moments. In the end our starting pitching was the difference; we had four really well-pitched games. After the Series, I headed straight to San Francisco to begin my internship at the Southern Pacific Railroad Hospital there.

When I think back on that Series, I still regret not going to second base after my base hit in the second game. I think about that at least four times a week. At least four times a week I think about not going to second base. I thought about it too much at the time and hesitated, but I should have gone all out. I guess that is why I was a cardiologist and not a surgeon. 

DR. BOBBY BROWN played on four World Series championship teams with the Yankees: 1947, 1949, 1950, and 1951. He batted .439 in those four Series with 18 hits, including five doubles and three triples, in 41 at-bats. It remains the highest World Series batting average in history for those with 20 or more at-bats. He was in the Doctors’ Draft in the Korean War and missed the 1952 and 1953 seasons while serving in Korea and Japan. He returned to the Yankees in 1954, but retired from baseball on July 1, 1954, at the age of 29 to begin his residency in cardiology on the Stanford Service at the County Hospital of San Francisco. He became a cardiologist, practicing medicine in Fort Worth for 25 years, and then served a decade as President of the American League.

Notes

1 By the way, we didn’t celebrate the way they do today.  Stengel always told us to get off the field immediately after we won to not show up the other team.  We headed directly to the clubhouse and did our celebrating there.

In late 1946 my father, my pregnant mother, and I lived in Chicago with my grandparents. World War II over and business picking up, my father decided to request – actually, I was told later, it was more a demand – a transfer to his insurance company’s new plum branch office in Dallas. A few days later he was told he would be transferred … to Pittsburgh, effective January 2, 1947. Not the message he hoped to receive. There, after six months, he had a new job with a company in Philadelphia.

Upon our arrival at our new home, I promptly got the measles and was quarantined. Nothing for a 6-year-old to do but read and listen to the radio. While turning dials I was entranced by the background crowd noise of a baseball broadcast and soon heard the voice of the play-by-play announcer Byrum Saam. I was hooked. Quarantine over, I quickly made friends in the neighborhood and began pestering my dad for a baseball glove.

For the next three years I listened to Saam broadcasting the Phillies and Athletics home games. At that time in ’47, Philadelphia was still an A’s town and the meme was “one more pennant for Mr. Mack.” They came close in 1948, remaining in the race until September.

At the same time the Carpenter family was putting lots of money into the Phillies franchise and manager Ben Chapman was receiving praise for putting a hard-nosed team on the field. It was something Phillies fans hadn’t seen very often over the decades. Though I enjoyed the A’s games, for some reason I was more attracted to the Phillies. My dad eventually fulfilled my wish for a baseball glove when he gave me a new first baseman’s mitt with an Eddie Waitkus signature. In 1949 the Phillies acquired Waitkus in a trade with the Cubs, making it official. I was a Phillies fan.

In 1948 I went to my first game. My grandfather visited us from Chicago and took me to a night game at Shibe Park. August 18, 1948. By now Chapman had been fired and replaced by Eddie Sawyer. The Phils sent a talented right-handed bonus baby named Robin Roberts against the hated Brooklyn Dodgers. Of course I did not realize then that I was witnessing a future Hall of Famer who would become my greatest sports hero.

As many have related, the emerald green field reflecting off the lights is something no baseball fan ever forgets. Roberts gave up an unearned run in the first when he made a wild pickoff throw to second base that allowed the runner to advance to third, from where he scored on a Roberts wild pitch. I wasn’t too concerned, lots of game left. Yeah, right. The Phillies got only one hit and were handcuffed by Rex Barney, the Dodgers pitcher, for a tough 1-0 loss. I got an introduction to the Philly boo birds in the bottom of the ninth when Barney closed out the game by striking out the side. After the final strikeout the boos were thunderous. Welcome to Philly fandom, young fella. To make it worse, my grandfather teased me about our inept offense on the drive home. But the beauty of youth is reflected by optimism. I quickly bounced back.

By the end of 1949, Philadelphia was on the verge of becoming a Phillies town. Though Mack’s A’s finished 81-73, it was good only for fifth place, while the Phils’ blend of youth and veterans was paying off with a third-place finish. We youngsters were fascinated with them. Comparing the A’s and Phillies at that time reminds me of the mid-’50s when rock and roll supplanted pop music. The Mack Men seemed like the aging old guard being upstaged by the youngsters.

An interesting side note occurred during the 1949-50 offseason. It was announced that for the first time radio would broadcast both teams home and away. The big question was which team By Saam would broadcast for? Saam was a fixture, very popular and there was a lot of speculation. When Saam was assigned to the A’s, I remember many people saying that the Phillies would never be able to find someone as good. But soon the Phillies announced the hiring of a 38-year-old broadcaster named Gene Kelly. As I recall, the first time we heard him was at the end of spring training when the two teams played a three-game exhibition City Series at Shibe Park. I remember that By Saam introduced Kelly and Gene responded by thanking Saam for all his help in getting acclimated to Philadelphia. It was gracious and well done by both men. Both had terrific radio voices. Though the advertising people carried a lot of weight, that era was thankfully free from announcers who felt the need to hype every play beyond its significance.

In any event, the transition was seamless and by the middle of May, Kelly was the “Voice of the Phillies” and By Saam was left to broadcast the hapless A’s.

Television was in its infancy and few had a set. Perhaps one family or two per block, though this was changing rapidly as prices came down. The Phillies televised a few games, a half-dozen or so. I saw my first TV game in September, the day-night doubleheader when Don Newcombe started both games. The televised game featured Curt Simmons in his next to last start before leaving for active duty with his National Guard unit. Simmons simply overpowered the Dodgers for 8⅓ innings before being relieved by Jim Konstanty with a 2-0 lead. This night, however, Konstanty didn’t have it and the Dodgers scored three runs to win the game and sweep the doubleheader. I took this hard. It was the first time I second-guessed Sawyer, which was pretty dumb considering how well Konstanty had pitched all season. But I hated to see Simmons lose a beautifully pitched game. A bad sign even though, with the Phillies still in first place, the pennant race looked very good.

The two dailies, the Inquirer and Evening Bulletin, were our must-reads. The beat writers were guys like Ray Kelly (no relation to Gene), Frank Yeutter, Stan Baumgartner, and Allen Lewis. They were all veterans except Lewis, who was early in a long career. Baumgartner had been a pitcher for the A’s in the 1920s and wasn’t shy about reminding people. I remember a few parents remarking that some of the players didn’t trust him. There later was a rumor that Baumgartner withheld his MVP vote in 1952 when Roberts won 28 games because he didn’t think it should go to a pitcher.

Nevertheless, we always turned to the sports pages first thing every day. As the 1950 season wore on, the excitement became palpable. It’s genuinely difficult to convey the effect the Whiz Kids had on the city at a time when major-league baseball had no competition as America’s National Pastime. Old and young alike, including some who had never before known a baseball from a grapefruit, were riveted to each broadcast. Phillies caps, jackets, anything with a “Fightin’ Phils” insignia sold out. When we played pickup games we argued over which player we would be. Many wanted to be Puddinhead. The nicknames were magical, Whitey, Granny, Ding Dong Del, Robby. They became like family. Of course we were Philadelphia fans, so on the rare occasion there was a screw-up, Ashburn could quickly become “Assburn” and Granny would become “Grandma.” But these were mere childish disappointments and mistakes were soon forgiven.

I had been pestering my parents for a paper route and when they finally gave in I began delivering the Evening Bulletin in May of 1950.

Bad timing.

It required me to work my route each afternoon at the time of the Phillies’ day broadcasts.  It was before transistor radios and I came to hate having to leave in the middle of a game to do the route. I put my 10-year-old mind to work and, realizing that most on the route were listening to the game, I would personally go to the door and hand them the paper and get the game update. After a couple of weeks, as the summer heat came, those without air-conditioning (most) would have their windows open and when they saw me coming would turn up the broadcast and often come to the door to update me. I didn’t even have to get off my bike.

We were all in this together.

At school we sang the theme song, “Fight, fight, fightin’ Phils” until our teachers begged us to stop. School-bus drivers kept us in line by encouraging Phillies chants; there was not a waking hour that didn’t at some point revolve around the Phillies. The dinner table was a nightly ritual: discuss the afternoon game or predict that evening’s game. If there was an off-day, we discussed the league schedule. I cannot remember any discussion of the A’s. It was as if they didn’t exist.

Although much has been written about the final two weeks of the season, suffice it to say that for us youngsters it was an agonizing lesson in a class named Hopes and Fears 101. It was difficult to realize our heroes were human. They were making bad plays, leaving runners on base, and just when the most optimistic of us was ready to concede, Ashburn, Roberts, and Sisler came to our rescue.

I of course was disappointed with the World Series against the Yankees, but like most of Philadelphia, expected we would be back again. Though it never happened, the Whiz Kids have remained in my heart for better or worse. They were, after all, proof that magic was real, dreams could come true, the good guys could win, even if only once.