The Roy Hughes Story Bag

This article was published in the SABR Baseball Research Journal, Vol. 20, in 1991.

Long-time SABR member Roy Hughes was recovering from a stroke when he granted this interview in a retirement home in Dayton. A long-time SABR member, Roy regularly attended na­tional and regional meetings, livening them with tales from his storybag. Then, in October 1989, “bang, the brakes go on and the lights go out,” as he describes his stroke. He couldn’t move his right arm for a year. Although still unsteady, when SABR’s Bill Hugo and Bob Littlejohn visited him last January, Roy had progressed from the bed to a wheelchair, a walker, and finally to a cane. In March 1991 he traveled to Barbados to visit his son, the U.S. am­bassador there. He hopes to be able to attend the 1992 national convention in St. Louis. Now eighty years old, Hughes maintains, “You can’t feel sorry for yourself, you just have to keep fighting.”

Johnny Allen was a roommate of mine in Cleve­land in 1937. Johnny was a nice—well, a pretty good roommate—but he had an awful temper. He wanted to fight everyone, almost down to his mother.

He won fifteen in a row. He had won his fifteenth game on a Thursday in the White Sox park. One of the White Sox players hit a line drive hack through the box at him, but he knocked it down with his pitching hand, and it caused his thumb to swell a little bit.

Then we moved on to Detroit, and we were going to play the last series of the season. He was going to pitch Sunday, and that was advertised in the Detroit Free Press. “Johnny Allen of the Cleveland In­dians is going to pitch today.”

That Saturday night he wanted me to go out with him. Of course I said, “No, I’m gonna refuse, Johnny. You almost got me killed a couple times this year. I’m going to go home in good shape, so you go out by yourself.” He did. He went out with the owner of the Mohawk Distillery.

So I’m sleeping sound as a lark in bed, and somewhere around two o’clock something hit me in the middle of my back. I was sleep­ing on my stomach, and he dropped this object, which happened to be a whole case of whiskey, right on my back. I flew out of that bed and threw the whiskey out and started to reprimand him. I looked at him, and I said, “Bang your thumb against the wall, get it good and swollen so you can’t pitch tomorrow! You’re a disgrace!”

Well, he grabbed my talcum powder can, and I grabbed his, and we started throwing talcum powder. The next thing you know, he stood my bed against the wall, and I turned around and stood his bed up against the wall. Finally we quit arguing. He didn’t pay any attention to me, so we laid on the mattress on the floor, and there’s where we slept that night, on the mattress on the floor.

Johnny went out the next day, and he pitched a two-hit game, and I think we got one hit. Sammy Hale booted the ball at third base, and that permitted the winning run to score, the only run of the ballgame. One-to-nothing, he got beat. He pitched a very com­mendable game. But if you’d seen him the night before, he looked like anything else but a pitcher.

One time Ed McCauley of the Cleveland Press wrote an article and kind of picked Johnny Allen apart. Johnny didn’t like it, and he expressed himself to McCauley in the Brunswick Hotel, and we had to almost pull Johnny Allen off of him. Johnny Allen used to throw dose to Gerry “Gee” Walker, the outfielder over at Detroit. Walker didn’t like it, And he let Allen know about it. One day we went into the clubhouse, and they had an iron rail in front of the clubhouse. Walker was sitting up there, waiting for Allen to come in. He told Allen, “Heh, the next time you knock me down, you’re gonna see me out after you with a ball bat.” He and Allen had hot words that day.

Allen’s remarks to close down their conversation: “I don’t throw at hitters like you. You’re my ‘out’ man anyway.” Most everybody was.

But Johnny Allen had nothing in his mind but winning baseball games.

He had slits cut in his pitching sleeve, and the umpire [Bill McGowan] said, “Take it off, that’s a distraction to the hitter.” He refused. The umpire said, “You take if off, or we’re gonna throw this ballgame to the Red Sox.” So Allen finally, through severe persua­sion, took the shirt off and put on another one and pitched the ballgame, and we wound up and won it. That shirt was exhibited in the old Higbee Building [a department store] in Cleveland, right in their front window, for all the fans that wanted to see Allen’s right sleeve. Just the sweat shirt. It drew a lot of attention.

*****

I started out with Zanesville, Ohio, in 1933. Some of the aspiring young ballplayers, they’d come in and put their bags down and see so many boys that wanted to play baseball, they’d take their bags and go right straight out the door.

In 1934 Cleveland sent the whole group to New Orleans in the Southern Association. We won the Southern Association championship and we had to play the Texas League champion, Galveston, and Wally Moses for the Dixie Series. Well, we defeated them.

When I went up to Cleveland in 1935, Walter Johnson was the manager. Oh, Walter was a great fellow. He was all baseball. Any time you got in just a general conversation with him, it would revert to baseball. And he had a great arm. As old as he was, his legs weren’t holding up too good. But the arm was sure.

I can remember we were in spring training down in New Orleans, and we had a catcher with us, Charlie “Greek” George. He was a college boy, and he used to ride Johnson, tell him, “I could wear you out hitting you with a tie pin.” Walter got tired of the Greek need­ling him. This particular day, Walter said—I heard this myself—”Greek, get your bat and get up there.”

Walter threw five or six warm-up pitches on the sidelines, then he went out to the mound. Walter threw exactly thirteen pitches, and the Greek hasn’t fouled one yet, because the Greek had a blind spot right above his letters. Swing and a miss, swing and a miss. Knocked the air out of the ballpark.

Johnson would take his time with you and give you all the time in the world to improve yourself on the ballfield. Walter did not approve of any drinking. Of course, I didn’t drink but maybe a glass of beer, something like that. We did not have a drinking man on the ballclub; Johnson was strict with that. He said “No drinking,” and that’s what he meant. Walter Johnson wouldn’t have put up with Johnny Allen. His pet phrase, when he wanted to reprimand you, was “My good gosh almighty!” That meant you were cussed out!

SAMMY HALE USES HIS HEAD

We pulled off a funny triple play with the Indians. I even remem­ber the date: September 7, 1935, in the Boston Red Sox park. Bright sun, a brilliant day. Mel Harder pitched and got in trouble in the bottom of the ninth. Cleveland was ahead 5-2, and the Red Sox loaded the bases. They had Mel Almada on first base, Bill Werber was the second-base runner, and Dusty Cooke was the third-base runner. Joe Cronin, the manager, was the hitter.

Steve O’Neill, the manager, came out and said, “Mel, you’ve pitched a wonderful game up to now, and I think you need help.” So he brought in Oral Hildebrand, a righthand pitcher. I saw the curveball sign go down by Frankie Pytlak, the catcher, and I said, “Oh, boy, I hope to God he makes him hit it into center field,” be­cause left field, as you know, was 315 feet away.

Cronin hit a vicious line drive. Sammy Hale, the third baseman, went to leap to catch the ball, and it hit him right on the forehead. The ball ricocheted over behind shortstop, and Knickerbocker caught the ball in flight. That’s one out. He threw it to me at sec­ond base, and I stepped on second base for out two and relayed the ball to Hal Trosky at first base, and the ballgame was over, just real quick. The fans in the stands wondered why we didn’t play more. The ballgame ended so abruptly, they just sat back aghast.

MY ROOMMATE, BOBBY FELLER

Bob Feller and I were roommates, when Bob came up in 1936. The first game he ever pitched in professional baseball, actually an exhibition game, in old League Park in Cleveland, he pitched against the St. Louis Cardinals.

When he warmed up on the sideline, he was supposed to have a little sore arm. With a sore arm he was throwing balls right by Billy Sullivan, a professional catcher—and his daddy was a great catcher with the White Sox. His reaction was, “Boy, we got a prize here. This guy has a million-dollar arm,” which he did have.

Steve O’Neill wanted to get a little bit of the action too, being the manager, and he decided he was going to catch Feller that day. Steve O’Neill tried to catch him—I said “tried.” He made a gallant attempt, because Feller threw some balls, not only by the hitter, but he threw them by Steve even. Of course, Steve was finished as a catcher then, you know.

There was no speed gun back in those days, but Bob, in my esti­mation, would be rated today with a speed gun as at least one of the fastest pitchers in baseball history. He and Walter Johnson.

If I recall correctly, Bob struck out eight of the Cardinals that day. The only hit they got off him was by Enos Slaughter, a line drive over my head at second base and into right-center field.

Bobby used to wear one of those old-fashioned night shirts and sit for hours practicing signing baseballs.

Bob, as everyone knows, was real wild. One time I was trying to read, and Bob came in after the game with a batting practice ball. He put the pillows up on the bed in the room and got across the room, and he’d throw at those pillows to gain control. That’s one thing I always respected about Feller. He worked on any flaw or deficiency he may have had.

One year Feller won a pitching contest down at Municipal Sta­dium against Mel Harder, Lefty Gomez, and some other pitchers. They set up a square at home plate, and you had to throw a ball through that. Daggone if he didn’t pop three of them through there, and walked off with top honors.

I hit against Feller after I went to the St. Louis Browns. You have to hit against Feller, don’t hit him. The ball looked like an aspirin. Regardless of how good a contact hitter you were, it was swing and miss.

When Bob tied a record of seventeen strikeouts against the old Athletics, Pinky Higgins was the seventeenth man. Bob left him standing at the post, because he broke off a nasty 3-2 curveball.

The media just didn’t leave Feller alone. They’d get up on top of the partitions between the walls in the clubhouse, they’d get up and shoot down on him, take pictures. Billy Sullivan had a stand-up camera, and he set it in the dugout. Feller hardly made a move unless Sullivan snapped a camera taking his picture. I’ve seen sev­eral of the pictures Sullivan took. They were very realistic of Bob, movement and all. They were just wonderful.

Any time the newspapers came out advertising that “next day Bob Feller’s going to pitch,” the turnstiles really clicked. The fans showed up at the park in abundance. He sent the fans home real happy.

*****

In [February] 1938 I went to the Browns. I was notified on the telephone: “You [and Ed Cole and Billy Sullivan] are traded over to the St, Louis Browns for Rollie Hemsley.” Well, when they tell you gotta go, you gotta go.

We trained down in San Antonio, Texas. Gabby Street was our manager, and he had his own set of rules like most managers do. Whatever you’re doing, pepper game or this or that in spring train­ing, Gabby would blow a whistle, and that meant you ran the ballpark, right up against the fence, all the way around. He worked us so hard that Fred Hoffman, our third-base coach who had shin splints—he even ran.

In the evening, when we’d be uptown in San Antonio, one of the traffic cops—they didn’t have lights like they have now—why, he’d blow his whistle to direct traffic, and when he’d blow the whistle, we’d take off on a run. Bobo Newsom got a big kick out of it.

There was a little bit of favoritism over there too. If the manager liked you, you were his boy and in the lineup. If not, why, you sat on the bench. Gabby and I didn’t get along too well. I just got bench time instead of playing time. Don Heffner was playing second base.

Street sent me up to hit one day in Washington—we were be­hind three runs. The pitch that was ball four was almost a wild pitch. Rick Ferrell, the catcher, had to backhand it to stop it from being a wild pitch. The next three men went out. When I came off the base paths, Gabby said, “Son, I wanted you to hit.”

I said, “Hit? Hit what?

He says, “The 3-2 pitch, you weren’t ready.”

I said, “Why Rick Ferrell was just barely lucky enough to stop the ball, and you expect me to hit that ball?” I grabbed my glove off the hook and told him, “Give me my ticket, and I’ll go back to St. Louis right now.” I told him not to play me anymore.

After that I didn’t even take my bat out for hitting practice. A se­ries or two later he sent me up to pinch-hit for Don Heffner. Slick Coffman was pitching. Ethan Allen, our left fielder, said, “Here, Hughey, you can use my bat.” I hit one in the stands and circled the bases. Ethan Allen said, “Hughey, you’re my home run hitter.”

I said, “Thank you. You’ve got a home run bat.” I picked my glove up and went to the clubhouse.

After St. Louis I went to the New York Yankees. They sent me across the river to Newark, and I played like Roy Hughes could, because I was getting an opportunity to play.

In 1940 I was with Montreal. Creepie Crespi, who later played with the Cardinals, was with Rochester, and we collided at second base. His knee hit my shoulder and out popped the clavicle joint. The Montreal club sent me to Baltimore, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and they bound me up and tried to put the clavicle joint back in shape. A bone specialist in Montreal told the ballclub, “He’s fin­ished. I don’t think he’ll play again.”

ROY FIGHTS TO SAVE HIS CAREER

I didn’t give up at all. After Johns Hopkins released me, Doc Hill in Cincinnati took care of me, and I followed his instructions, do­ing swimming and calisthenics, and the arm came back pretty good. I worked out that winter at the Fenwick Club down in Cincinnati. I realized that I was coming back; I was able to play. By spring train­ing I proved to be just as good as new.

Spring training came and Montreal sent me a contract that I thought they had to be ashamed of. I called them up, and they ex­plained that I had a physical problem.

I said, “Well, how about me paying my own way to spring training?”

They said, “That’s okay.” And I went to spring training at Mobile, Alabama. I was in the opening lineup in 1941 after the bone special­ist in Montreal said I was finished.

Five years later I was in the World Series with the Chicago Cubs.

*****

At the beginning of one ballgame we had two fellows, Wes Flowers, a lefthanded pitcher, and Van Lingle Mungo, a righthand pitcher, and they were on the bench and loaded with beer up to here. I was the captain of the ballclub, and I saw that they were in no condition and urged them to go on down to the bullpen and get out of sight. I didn’t want Sukey to see ’em in their condition, because they were lit up like Christmas trees.

As I went through hitting practice, I looked down to the bullpen, and both of them were missing. So I went in and observed the club­house, and there they were in there. Now Sukeforth would see them. I thought all hell would break loose. But Sukey never said a word.

And he never said a word after the game, after we won. After the game, Sukeforth and I went out to a restaurant, and Clyde Sukeforth never made mention of anything at all. I’m sitting there, anxiously waiting, and I had answers for him, but I didn’t need ’em.

But the next night he called a clubhouse meeting. Sukey had a “chicken neck” on him. When he walked, his head would bob up and down—I called it a “chicken walk.” He was walking around this table, and he said, “Well, we’re gonna have a game tonight.” Then he said, “Now, I gotta make up a lineup card tonight, and I need nine men—nine “men,” my butt. I need nine sober volunteers.”

Yeah, Clyde Sukeforth was quite a fellow.

HUGHES JOINS THE CUBS

I was traded in 1942 to the Chicago Cubs, and they sent a group of us out to Los Angeles, loaded up the Los Angeles ballteam. Al Todd was one of the catchers, Eddie Waitkus was first base, I played second, Eddie Mayo at third, Andy Pafko in the outfield, Kenny Raffensberger was one of the pitchers. We could take care of—and did take care of—the parent club out there in spring training. We beat them seven consecutive ballgames. The newspapers got to wondering if Chicago got the right team in Chicago.

After two good years with Los Angeles, one newspaper wanted to know why the Chicago Cubs had Roy Hughes in Los Angeles? So in 1944 I went to the parent club. Jimmy Wilson was the man­ager, and I think the record shows thirteen consecutive losses at the beginning of the season. It’s a good thing the spring weather was bad and they canceled some games, or we probably would have lost more.

After that spell, they brought in Charlie Cirimm and dismissed Jimmy Wilson. Grimm came to me and asked me, “How do you feel?”

I said, “Well, I’d like to have a couple more days if it’s all right.” I looked at the lineup card, and here I was playing third base.

That day, Saturday, we played the old Boston Braves, and that park was filled. Clyde Kluttz was catching for the Braves, a swell guy—jovial, friendly. Kluttz said, “Roy, what in the world is wrong with your ballclub? You got this guy, Phil Cavaretta, Bill Nicholson, Lenny Merullo, Claude Passeau, Andy Pafko, Dominic Dallessandro. They’re all good. What’s wrong with your ballclub?”

I said, “Gee, I don’t know. But one of these days all hell’s gonna break loose.”

That very day it happened. I think it was close to fifteen runs we scored against them. The next day, Sunday, the park was packed­ with a ballclub that lost thirteen games in a row. They probably had to turn them away, because I couldn’t see a vacant seat in the ball­park. We won Sunday, and we just took off from there.

I started playing third base and was doing a very commendable job. They could hardly hit the ball by me, and I was hitting like a demon. I think I wound up hitting .287. And we started winning. Grimm and I got along real good. You probably have heard that managers don’t play an important part in a ballclub, because it’s the tools you’ve got to work with. Well, you might believe that, but I don’t. Charlie Grimm was one fine guy who would keep you in the ballgame. I don’t remember Charlie Grimm ever chewing a guy out on the ball field for making a boo-boo. You liked to be in the clubhouse and on the ball field. We had a real nice association with each other, really lovely. Everything jelled just nice. Old Jolly Cholly, as they called him—and that’s what he was, too—just kept you loosey goosey all the time.

Coming from fifth place in 1943, we finished fourth in ’44, and we had a great year in attendance too. We ended the season in Bos­ton. Grimm said to me on the el before we went to Boston, “Roy, go up in the office and get your contract signed and get what you want.” I thanked him, and he thanked me for having a great year for him.

HANK BOROWY HELPS WIN A PENNANT

Next year, 1945, we kept practically the same ballclub, and we acquired Hank Borowy, a righthanded pitcher with the Yankees. Hank Borowy rewarded the Cubs greatly. [Arriving in midseason, Borowy had been 10-5 with the Yankees; he was 11-2 with the Cubs.] He had a heart as strong as any heart in any man. I loved that boy. Hank pitched his heart out during the last two or three weeks of the season. We couldn’t score too many runs for him all during the month of September. He pitched in ballgames 2-1, 1-0, 3-2, real close games. One game during the late weeks of September, he beat the St. Louis Cardinals, which were right behind us one or two games, an eleven-inning game in St. Louis in that nice, hot heat over there. And daggone if we didn’t turn around and win the pen­nant.

I can remember one game over in Pittsburgh. I’m up there with our winning run, Stanley Hack, on first base, and I get the bunt sign. I tried to bunt—I’ve always been a good bunter. Tommy Holmes, at one SABR meeting, acknowledged that I was just about as good a bunter as anyone. Well, don’t you know, I fouled off the first two pitches trying to bunt, and I was mad! I looked down at third base, and there was old Charlie out there (clap, clap) “Come on, Roy, come on! You can do it, you can do it,” cheering me on. It relaxed me somewhat, and the next pitch Fritz Ostermueller threw up there was a curveball, and they were think­ing I pulled that ball to the shortstop or third base and they’d get a double play and get out of the inning.

Instead of that, I dumped it over second base into right-center field, and Hack went from first to third. Then Cavaretta came up and drove the winning run in, and that clinched the pennant for us. That was the day before the season ended, in Pittsburgh.

The celebration took place at the Forbes Hotel that night, a little champagne. We were permitted to make two phone calls. Just two. And I think that was our World Series contribution, because l don’t have a ring or anything like that to say that I was a member of the Chicago Cubs in 1945. I think it would have been nice of Mr. Wrigley, the owner, to give us something.

The World Series against Detroit was tied three games to three. Hank Borowy and I stayed at the Seneca Hotel in downtown Chi­cago, and he drove to the ballpark with me. While we were driving on Lakeshore Drive, I asked Hank, “How do you feel?” He said he felt a little tired.

When I watched him warm up in the bullpen, he didn’t have as much pop and zip on the ball as he usually did. During his hard struggle all through the month of September, it’s natural to take some of your strength away from you. As history tells us, he didn’t last too long in the ballgame. Detroit busted our butts. They called Hal Newhouser—Prince Hal—to the mound. We were sure sorry that they did, because he beat us by the score of 9-3.

I went to Philadelphia in 1946 and got hurt, and they gave me my release. I went home to Cincinnati, staying with my brother. I’d run and stay in shape.

CASEY STENGEL MAKES A PHONE CALL

In 1947 the phone rang one day. It was Casey Stengel. Casey said he’d like for me to come out to Oakland, he had a job for me. I said, “Fine, I’ll catch the next plane available.” That started a successful season too.

One day a few of us went to the race track on our day off. Casey had good connections with the trainers, but we were told, “If you see Casey out here, don’t follow Casey to the window”—Casey would take you to the $2 window—”follow his wife.” His wife would wind up with the winning ticket. So if you could see what she bought and you bought the same thing, you’d be pretty successful.

Casey was a major stockholder of the Pasadena Bank. He trusted his bank so well that when he died they found $15,000 under his mattress.

We had a good ballclub. We had Vince DiMaggio in center field. Gene Bearden was one of the pitchers; he pitched the victorious game against the Red Sox in the playoff in 1948.

And Oakland got in the playoffs in ’47.

ANOTHER FLAG IN COLUMBUS

In ’49 Casey went to the Yankees, and I went to Minneapolis as playing captain of the ballclub. In 1949 we had two black players on our ballclub. One was a righthand pitcher, Dave Barnhill, and the other was a great player who’s in the Hall of Fame now, third baseman Ray Dandridge. Ray had a pair of hands on him—you couldn’t hit a ball by him. They call Brooks Robinson the carpet sweeper. That’s the way Ray Dandridge was. And he could stroke that ball when he batted too.

He and I were in Philadelphia when I was over there to attend SABR meetings. I attended the meetings up until two years ago. I think the last meeting I attended was at Toledo.

Nineteen-fifty I was with Columbus. We beat Indianapolis and Al Lopez in the playoff and beat Baltimore in the Little World Series in six games.

HUGHES GOES HOLLYWOOD

When I was in California, we were in a couple films: Play Ball, America, and The Monty Stratton Story.

Monty Stratton was a White Sox pitcher, and he was in a hunt­ing accident and severed his leg. They made him an artificial leg, and he thought he could pitch in the major leagues with that arti­ficial leg, but he couldn’t field his position like a two-legged guy. Jimmy Stewart played Monty Stratton. Boy, oh boy, he certainly is one great guy. We would sit and talk with both Jimmy Stewart and June Allyson.

Part of that picture was shot in the Hollywood ballpark, and an­other part over in Wrigley Field in Los Angeles. Sam Wood was director of that picture, and I can remember that Stewart was up to the bat. He hit the ball, and right before he got to first base, about fifteen or twenty feet, he falls down like a belly slide. Ami Sam Wood was scratching his head; there was no hair up here. I laughed, and then I looked up at Sam and said, “Why, hell, he just started his slide too soon.”

“That’s it, that’s it!” Well, they put that dialogue in there, and by using that dialogue, it got me twenty-five dollars.