Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy are together on the wall in Cooperstown that honors all recipients of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasting greatness. Between Murphy and Nelson is Bob Wolff, who was considered for the inaugural Mets booth. (Courtesy of MetSilverman.com)

The New York Mets were born in sin, cleansed by pain, and saved in 1969. Sin: the National Leagues 1957 adieu to New York City. Pain: Marvelous Marv, Roger Craig, and Casey Stengel’s other expansion ‘62ers. Salvation, coming half-a-century ago: In the year men first walked on the moon, the Amazins’ walked on air—miracle and metaphysical, climbing a stairway to baseball heaven.

“The Mets may last a thousand years, as Churchill would say,” Lindsey Nelson, their grand radio/television stylist, conjured. “’They may win a dozen championships. But they can only do it the first time once, and the first time was incomparable.”1

The 1969 Mets—Caseys Metsies—took a fractured time and briefly made it whole: then and now, crying gotcha to the soul. Let us retrieve perhaps The Greatest Baseball Story Ever Told, and their three broadcast amigos who superbly told it.

“That was a delirious once-in-lifetime year,” Nelson said of 1969, “just as 1957 was its sad opposite”2—also the Mets’ genesis. The back page of the August 20 New York Daily News screamed: “It’s Official: Giants Go To Frisco in ’58: Historic PG ] Polo Grounds] is Doomed.”3 On October 8, the area’s other NL team, the Dodgers of Brooklyn since 1890, confirmed the other elephant in the room— their exit for Los Angeles also of 1958.4 For New York, Moving Day had truly come.

Having baseball do unto him, New York Mayor Robert Wagner forged a five-man citizens committee led by lawyer William A. Shea to do unto others—as Wagner vowed, “to corral a National League team.”5 Ill-wind: The Reds, Pirates, and Phillies scorned relocationin the Apple.6 Whirlwind: In 1959, the threat of a proposed third eight-club major league—the Continental League—made the National League reconsider expansion to 10 teams: ergo, the 1962 New York Metropolitans and Houston Colt .45s.7

The Mets club began with castoff Yankees management: George Weiss, as General Manager, and Stengel, unretiring, to manage. Their park, 55,300-seat $24.5 million Shea Stadium in Queens, scheduled to open in 1963, was delayed a year by two cold winters and more than 17 different labor strikes.8 In the interim, Job One became the 1961 expansion draft, age trumping beauty. “Weiss picked old Dodgers and Giants,” mused Nelson. “Craig, Gil Hodges, Charlie Neal.” They excelled on paper, “but paper doesn’t play.”9 Unsolved: Who would air them on radio/TV? For a time, it depended on whom you read.

That October, several reports suggested that long-time Dodgers Voice and native New Yorker Vin Scully would trade coasts next season, returning east to air the expansion Mets.10 In fact, Weiss phoned another New Yorker, the Minnesota Twins’ Bob Wolff, who missed the area. The New York Daily News pealed: “Wolff Coming.”11 Problem: no station/sponsor. Time passed. “Weiss couldn’t make a commitment,” said Bob, “so I reupped with the Twins,”12 ultimately becoming the 1962-64 Voice of NBC’s Major League Baseball.

Instead, Weiss signed as the Mets’ first and— to some—forever Voice, a Tennessean who as an 8-year-old heard famed broadcaster Graham McNamee call a fight so near the ring that he could “reach out and touch the canvas.” To the boy, the box speaker—an Airphone—“looked like a question mark.”13 The answer formed at the University of Tennessee, Nelson football spotting on WSM Radio. After 1941 graduation, he taught English, joined the Army, and became a World War II Army publicist. In 1945, U.S. and Soviet troops drank captured German champagne at the Elbe River, a photo showing Lindsey with Russian officers. He prized its signature: “To Lindsey Nelson, a very busy man the day this picture was taken. Dwight Eisenhower.”14

At war’s end, Nelson, 26, back in Tennessee, became a reporter. Bored, he returned to the wireless, airing Liberty Broadcasting System re-created baseball. In 1952, NBC TV hired him, tapping him for a potpourri of gigs including college football and basketball and Major League Baseball as Wolff’s predecessor.15 How could he trade that for The Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York, Inc? Easily, as it occurred. Lindsey thought daily baseball broadcasting’s king of the hill, though NBC’s 1957-61 twice-weekly series had been blacked out in big-league cities like New York. “Many people, not knowing, said, ‘Why are they hiring this football guy?”’ Nelson laughed. “If this were Broadway,” he mused, “the tryout had run five years.”16

For seven straight (1946-52) years, Ralph Kiner led the NL in homers, saying, as he repeated for a writer, “Home run hitters drive Cadillacs. Singles hitters drive Fords.”17 At four, Kiner’s father died. Soon mom and son left New Mexico for California, where a neighbor and semipro baseball manager “let me tag along and shag.”18 Ralph’s last Pirates team in 1952 was 42-112. That fall he asked for a raise after hitting 37 homers. General Manager Branch Rickey’s reply was memorable, if impolite: “Son, we can finish last without you.”19 Kiner retired with 369: only Babe Ruth had more per at-bat. How to top the topper? It took till 1969, but Ralph found a way.

Nelson gave the nascent Metropolitans a household name. Hired in late 1961, Kiner lent an ex-jock’s cachet. Weiss felt the last member of their broadcast booth should leaven them: “be a steady professional,”20 said Bob Murphy, who got the Mets’ job shortly in early 1962. Born in Oklahoma, Bob made the Marines, returned to study petroleum engineering and do radio at the University of Tulsa, and major in the Puritan work ethic. “He had a weak voice and raw techniques,” then-college radio director Ben Henneke told The Tulsa World, but was determined to reach the major leagues. “He needed a lot of help.”21

In college, Murphy called basketball and minor-league baseball—also the University of Oklahoma football dynasty of Bud Wilkinson that went unbeaten in 47 straight games. There Bob met another Okie, Curt Gowdy, who in 1951 became Voice of the Red Sox. In 1954, Gowdy invited Bob to become the No. 2 radio/TV man at Fenway Park. “Curt was a marvelous teacher,” Murphy said. “He said, ‘Let’s announce like we’re friends, just talking to each other.’ Plus, I had a Southwestern twang. With his support, I did a lot to clean up, practicing word for word.” Ultimately, “people peg[ged] me as having come from somewhere in the Midwest.”22

In 1960, Murphy joined the Orioles. Next year Jack Fisher faced Roger Maris in the at-bat that ironically brought him to New York. “It’s number 60!” Bob bayed on WBAL Baltimore on September 26, 1961. “He’s tied the Babe!”23 in Maris’s single-season pursuit of Ruth’s home run record. Next month the Orioles’ dumped sponsor Theo. Hamm Brewery. Conceding to being “lost in the shuffle,”24 Murphy sent the Maris tape to Weiss. Listening, George found his man. Nelson saying, “Bob had a distinctive voice that filled the air.”25 Soon all three amigos found the Amazins’ to be distinctive in the extreme. In March 1962, they convened at St. Petersburg, Florida, for an inaugural spring training. “The ’62 Mets played for fun,” Lindsey conspired with memory. “They weren’t capable of playing for anything else.”26

From the start the Ol’ Perfessor composed the Mets melody, Stengelese his baton. “We got to work on the little finesses,” Stengel said. “Runners at first and second, and the first baseman holding a runner, breaking in and back to take a pickoff throw.”27 Losing the exhibition opener, 17-1, Casey saw the light, not liking what he saw. “The little finesses aren’t gonna’ be our problem.”28 Yarns stitched what were. “Only attitude made it tolerable,” Lindsey mused. “Love at first laugh.”29 The first regular-season set was truly Metsian, Roger Craig’s first-inning balk helping score a St. Louis run. The Cardinals romped, 11-4, on April 11 at Busch Stadium. Casey’s invite on first greeting the press in Florida wafted through the air: “Come see my amazin’ Mets,” he said, “some of which has never played semi-pro before.”30

The home opener was Friday, April 13, in their temporary den, the Polo Grounds. Hobie Landrith caught, Stengel’s first expansion pick, the 01’ Perfessor explaining sagely, “You have to start with a catcher, or you’ll have a lot of passed balls.”31 The puzzle was whether New York would pass. Instead, the rookies drew 922,530—“amazing,” Nelson gaped, “given our [40-120] atrocity’32 The “New Breed” scribbled on bed sheets. Placards waved at the roving camera eye. Early on, a chant arose from the jammed and rowdy stands—’’Let’s go Mets!”—even as the club lost 9 straight, then 17 in a row, then 16 out of 1733 and as Casey said, “The Mets have shown me more ways to lose than I ever knew existed.”34 It applied even when their two-headed progenitor returned home.

On Wednesday, May 30, the Dodgers packed the Polo Grounds (55,704). That weekend, crashing their old park, the Giants drew 43,742 and 41,001. Stengel said to Nelson, “‘We are frauds for this attendance. But if we can make losing popular,’ I’m for it.’ Casey never asked how the Mets lost 120. He asked how they won 40.”35 Craig was 10-24. Al Jackson finished 8-20. The Perfessor allegedly told a barber, ““Don’t cut my throat. I may want to do that later.”36 On June 17, an umpire called Marvelous Marv— Marvin Eugene—Throneberry (MET) out for missing first base on a triple.

About to argue, Stengel was told by the umpire, “I hate to tell you this, Casey, but he missed second base, too.”

The skipper was unbowed. “Well, I know he touched third base,” said Stengel, “because he’s standing on it.”37 The year ended with Joe Pignatano hitting into a triple play in his final major league at-bat. Hitting .306, Richie Ashburn was voted team Most Valuable Player. He took the prize, a boat, out on the Delaware River, where it sunk.

Wisely, the Mets’ three Voices tried when possible to divert attention from anything germane to score. WOR Channel 9’s post-game Kiner’s Korner was a black and white period piece: interviews with stars, wrote the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick, “more times than not … a Mets opponent, given that the Mets, more times than not, had lost.” It built “a cult-like following,” forged by Ralph’s “effortless capacity to just get through it, then get the heck out. It was an absolute howl.”38 To Kiner, it doubtless felt like 1952 again: The Mets could have finished last without him. Murphy, in particular, worried about competing with the world champion Yankees—and about briefly unlearning some of Gowdy’s Red Sox tutelage. “Lindsey didn’t like my conversational style. He was a straight-ahead announcer, eyes on baseball.”39

One day Nelson eyed a men’s clothing store on Broadway. “Show me jackets that you can’t sell,”40 he told the owner, buying seven “gaudy, awful” coats. Next month a cabbie said, “You’re the guy who wears all those wild jackets!” Lindsey told a friend, “See, he doesn’t know my name, but he knows what I do. Against the Yankees, it pays to advertise.”41 His radio/TV mates often scavenged on the road, Murphy saying, “If we saw a wild enough jacket, we’d tell hm.”42 Once oldest daughter Nancy bought a jacket in Ireland. Both were stopped at customs. The inspector, a Mets fan, joked, “Nobody would wear a jacket like this.” Nancy beamed: “My daddy will.”43 In time, he owned 175.

By 1963, “Mets radio/TV ratings topped the Yanks,’” akin, said Murphy, to “a mule lapping Man O’ War.”44 The Polo Grounds closed. The Mets’ new abode, Shea Stadium, named for Bill, was christened April 16, 1964, with Dodgers Holy Water from Brooklyn’s Gowanus Canal and Giants Holy Water at the Harlem River at the point it passed the Polo Grounds45—the first new baseball park to open in New York since 1923’s Yankee Stadium. Seats formed a four-tiered circle from one foul line to another. The circular shape included two rotating stands each of 5,000 seats. Atop motor-operated sections moving on underground railroad tracks, they converted Shea between baseball and football.46 Upper decks rose almost vertically, many far from the field. Few complained, glad to have baseball back.

Some games never seemed to end. On May 31, 1964, in 23 innings, the Mets lost the second set of a doubleheader to the Giants at Shea, 8-6.47 “Pitch to [Orlando] Cepeda. “Runners go,” said Lindsey in the 14th inning. “And it’s lined to [Roy] McMillan. And a double play! And maybe a triple play! A triple play!”48 The 7-hour, 23-minute game remained the majors’ longest until 1984.49 Incrementally, Nelson later mused, “the Mets’ hapless has-beens became hopeless maybes,” occupying the 1962-65 cellar of the Eastern Division of the National League, then vacating for a year. Basement-bound again in 1967, escaping again in 1968, would they bounce up or down as their first decade ended? Each year the broadcast trio aired 162 radio and between 130 and 1937 TV games—the nonpareil constant. Said Mushnick: “Already, the thought of anyone else calling them ever seemed insane.”50

In 1975, Kiner entered the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum as a player. Nelson and Murphy made its broadcast wing in 1988 and 1994, respectively. (Ralph should, too) The early Mets had trouble turning two. “Here we are, three for three,” Bob laughed.51 Looking back, their impact peaked in a year the Republic seemed undone. By 1969, the less United than Divided States blared hawk vs. dove, hard hat vs. hippie, and Silent Majority vs. hip, camp and pop art intelligentsia. Viet Nam was a horror house. Said H. Rap Brown: “Violence is as American as cherry pie.”52 By contrast, the Miracle Mets rivaled Father Christmas. “Who can explain it? Who can tell you why?”53 the Broadway musical South Pacific had first asked in 1949. Casey told us: “The team has come along slow but fast.”54

On April 8, the Metropolitans’ road began roughly under second-year manager Gil Hodges, the beloved former Dodger-turned-should-be Hall of Famer: first-year and -game Expos, 11-10. At Wrigley Field, Willie Smith pinch-homered a first-day 7-6 home victory. For most of the year Chicago held first place in the NL’s Eastern Division like a lead Porsche racing at Lemans. Tommie Agee became first to reach Shea’s upper deck. The Mets forged an 11-game winning streak vs. the Padres, Giants, and Dodgers as May morphed into June. Donn Clendenon arrived from Montreal. On July 9, Tom Seaver retired the first 25 Wrigleys. Then: “Here’s the pitch on the way” Murphy said. “Line drive hit hard into left -center field! A clean base hit for Jimmy Qualls. And the roar goes up from the big [Shea record 58,083] crowd! A roar of disappointment.”55 Seaver recouped, winning, 4-0. Qualls didn’t, retiring after one more hit.

Yin: Next week banjo hitter Al Weis zinged the Cubs. “Swung on, a high drive well hit toward left field!” said Bob. “A three-run [5-4] homer!”56 Next day Brother Al hit his second homer of the year. The Mets won again. Yang: The Mets fell to third, 10 games behind, in August. Chicago’s Billy Williams’ 895th straight game set a league record. Baseball’s best infield—Ernie Banks (106 RBI), Ron Santo (123), Glenn Beckert (.291), and Don Kessinger (.273)—made the All-Star Game in its entirety. Santo began clicking heels upon each victory. Towel-waving reliever and ex-Met Dick Selma conducted Wrigley’s Bleacher Bums. Rarely had their Friendly Confines seemed giddier.

At this point, ’sixty-nine was not a stand-alone term, like Waterloo or later Watergate. “Pennant race?” Nelson laughed. “We were given up for dead!”57 The Metsies first swept a three-game series at San Diego, completed a 6-4 road trip, and faintly sensed the fairy dust that lay ahead. At Candlestick Park, Willie McCovey slashed an August 30 one-out apparent game-ending hit. “The throw coming in by Rod Gaspar!” said Murphy. “And he is out at the plate!”58 Wrongly thinking it the final out, Mets catcher Jerry Grote rolled the ball to the mound, where Clendenon nabbed it, threw to third, and got McCovey! Extra innings: Amazins’, 3-2. Planets realigned. Good grief, Charlie Brown: The Mets only trailed by four.

On September 8, Chicago invaded Shea two and a 2 ½ games ahead. Like Canute, hoping to reverse the tide, Bill Hands almost beaned Agee in the opener. “[The next pitch] is hit to deep left-center field!” said Kiner. “Going, going, it’s gone!”59 Agee later doubled, scoring the decisive run. A day later, appearing out of nowhere, a black cat hissed at the Cubs skipper. The crowd sang, “Good night, Leo [Durocher],” Seaver romping, 7-1. Ken Boswell’s overtime next-night hit edged Montreal, 3-2. “So, for the first time,” Ralph said, “the Mets have gone into first place! The New York Mets, seven years and four months, for the first time in their history, have gone into first place in the National League race!”60 The crowd heaved, “We’re Number One!” The moon was in its seventh house.

The Mets swept a 1-0 twin-bill at Forbes Field, starting pitchers Jerry Koosman and Don Cardwell batting in each run. The Cardinals’ Steve Carlton K’d a record 19 men – and lost, 4-3. On September 23, the magic number fell to one: “Line drive, hit sharply into left-center field for a base hit!” said Murphy. “Ron Swoboda gets the green light from Eddie Yost …and he’ll score!”61 Mets win, 3-2, in 11. Next day the East River flowed upstream. “Ground ball hit to shortstop!” Bob sang in the one-out ninth. “[Bud] Harrelson to Weis! There’s one! First base!” Double play! The Mets win! [6-0] It’s all over! Oh, the roar going up from this crowd! Oh, the scene on the field! Fans are pouring out on the field!”62

That off-season WOR produced a documentary To The Mets With Love—and The New York Times’s George Vecsey wrote a book, Joy In Mudville, “about how he saw more honest and enthusiastic joy in the crowd that [division-clinching] night and on that program than he ever saw on television,”63 mused Nelson. A reporter asked Hodges, “Tell us what this proves.” The Flatbush institution and imminent-miracle-worker sat back, spread his hands, and laughed, “Can’t be done.”64 The last laugh lay ahead, “people thinking they had no chance to move ahead,”65said Kiner. Having drawn an Apple NL regular-season record 2,175,373—Seaver’s 25-7, Koosman’s 17-9, Cleon Jones’s .340 average, and Agee’s 26 homers keyed—the 100-to-lers met the Braves in the first best-of-five League Championship Series: new gateway to the Classic. Atlanta appeared ready to have them for lunch—except that the Amazins’ seemingly added almost overnight to their own diet an unforeseen kind of strength.

“There’s a swing and drive into center field!” Nelson chimed of Jones in the opener. “It will score [Wayne] Garrett, I believe!”: 5-all. Next: “A [Ed Kranepool] swing and a ground ball topped to first. Taken by Cepeda. Play at the plate, and he’s safe!”66 Mets win, 9-5, in a rare display of power. Next day they staged an even greater power play, 11-6, then repaired to Shea, Atlanta leading the third game, 4-3. “A high drive deep to right!” Murphy gaped. “A [two-run Garrett] homer!”67 Who were these guys with the bulging biceps, ranking a mere regular-season eighth in homers and ninth in runs among NL teams? The ninth began, 7-4. “So, the Mets are one out away from their impossible dream. And the batter coming up is Tony Gonzalez,” said Kiner. “The pitch, a curve, chopped out to third. Garrett has the ball! The throw to first! And the Mets are the National League champions! A wild, wild scramble as the Mets celebrating their National League championship!”68

Growing up in Queens, future Voice Radio/TV Gary Cohen left Section 48, Row 9, “in left field, five rows from the top,” to maneuver toward Shea’s field. “Had to get my little piece of turf.”69 Heaven rarely looked so green. Looking on, less wowed, was American League champion Baltimore. “We are here,” Brooks Robinson said, “to prove there is no Santa Claus.” Don Buford dinged Seaver’s first-game second pitch. Orioles pitcher Mike Cuellar did the rest: 4-1. Next day Koosman, pitching, and Weis, driving in the decisive run, countered, 2-1. In the Birds’ ninth, Hodges devised what is possibly the majors’ first four-man outfield—here, vs. Frank Robinson.70 Elves awoke. Pre-1981’s World Series forbade even local radio, Kiner, the O’s Bill O’Donnell, and NBC’s Jim Simpson doing network wireless. Simpson aired Game Three thievery, the Classic moving to New York: “Hit high and deep to center field! Agee, who was pulled around to right, goes over with his speed … He’s got it!”71 In the sixth, O’Donnell conveyed his: “Fly ball to right-center field! Deep in right center! [Art] Shamsky with Agee! Agee dives – and he makes the catch!”72 Mets led, 5-0. The North Pole chilled, dimming Brooksie’s hope.

In Game Four, Seaver led, 1-0: one out, ninth inning, the Orioles’ tying run on third. Brooks Robinson’s line out scored it, Swoboda’s diving, sprawling catch keeping Baltimore from scoring more. In the 10th, J.C. Martin bunted “down the first-base line,” said O’Donnell, with no out and two Mets on. “[Pitcher Pete] Richert fields, throws, and it hits the runner!” on the wrist, bouncing wildly. “Here’s the runner coming on from third base! Gaspar! And the Mets win the ballgame by a score of 2 to 1!”73 Today the play would be endlessly replayed, the game endlessly delayed, the telecast needlessly bleached of color. Then, the Orioles protested Martin’s circuitous path to first, Nelson and Gowdy gaping at Mets wonderwork on NBC TV. (Before 1976, each local-team Voice also aired half of each home network telecast.) Plate umpire Shag Crawford cried humbug. Santa readied for Christmas Eve.

Game Five, sixth inning, O’s up, 3-0, 57,397 at Shea and a Nation antic, manic, and about to bust loose. Jones claims to be hit by a pitch. Eyeing shoe polish. Hodges retrieves the ball, at which point umpire Lou DiMuro explores it, whereupon Cleon takes first. “Fly ball deep left field!” O’Donnell followed. “To the warning track! It is in and up for a home run by Donn Clendenon!”74 Weis had not gone yard in five years at Shea. Dave McNally threw him seventh-inning heat. Then: “A fly ball out into deep left-center field! Buford going back! … It is over the fence for a home run!” Swoboda batted in a one-out, one-on, and three-all eighth. “A fly ball, deep left field, headed for the fence, and it’s on the warning track, picked up by Buford!”75 O’Donnell said. “On comes Jones to the plate! He throws it late”—4-3. A double O’s error doubled their deficit—and doubled down their fate.

At the eighth inning’s end, Nelson left the NBC-TV booth. “By pre-arrangement,” he said, “I headed for the elevator to get to the clubhouse for the victory celebration. That’s when it hit me—the whole enormity of the thing.”76 The Chinese discovered the 365 ½ day solar year in 2300 B.C. The Mets discovered Canaan on October 16, 1969. At 3:16 P.M., Dave Johnson swung at Koosman’s 2-1 pitch. “There’s a fly ball out to left!” said NBC TV’s Gowdy. “Waiting is Jones! The Mets are the world champions! Jerry Koosman is being mobbed! Look at this scene!”77 We still are, reliving Nelson’s “incomparable” year. Go ahead. Pinch yourself. We still do not believe it.

Nelson aired the post-game bash, then crossed the East River to Manhattan. “‘If we don’t go into town, we’ll have missed the celebration,’ I told my wife and kids. So we did and it was marvelous. Dancing in the streets, throwing confetti. Once in a while a cop would recognize me and go wild.”78 Santa cleared the chimney. A ticker-tape parade snaked through Manhattan. Said Mets chairman of the board M. Donald Grant, memorably and timelessly: “Our team finally caught up with our fans.”79

In 1843, Karl Marx wrote that “religion is the opium of the people.”80 In a real sense, the Mets have remained New York’s. The 1970 Amazins’ drew 2,697,479, more than they had, or would till 1985. The ‘73ers waved another flag, Nelson again telecasting the Series. Having swung from tenth to first, the Mets swung back. Lindsey resigned in January 1979, outlasting the Polo Grounds, seven Mets managers, and 238 assorted players from A (Ashburn) to Z (Don Zimmer).81 He moved west to be near daughter Nancy, a graduate student at University of Southern California (Nelson’s wife had died)82, aired the baseball Giants through 1981, then taught broadcasting at his alma mater and did a 26th Cotton Bowl for CBS. Inducted at Cooperstown in 1988, Nelson removed his coat and gave it to the Hall. A visitor can still see its 12 colors randomly jiggered into squares.

On June 10, 1995, Lindsey died, at 76, of Parkinson’s Disease and pneumonia. Only illness prevented him from being hailed by the Smithsonian Institution at a 1993 series in Washington, D.C. Sans senior partner, Murphy increasingly seemed “the voice of all things Mets,”83 wrote Marty Noble—at the beach, aboard the Staten Island ferry, home rabbit ears ferrying WOR Channel 9. The “Happy Recap” became a life, not game. “I remember thinking it was corny, dropping it, then mail on its behalf.” It wasn’t always easy to be happy on the Mets’ behalf. A laggard set of 1990 teams tested even the old-school Bob’s strict rule against obscenity.

Once New York led, 10-3, at Philadelphia, before the Phillies started scoring a slew of ninth-inning runs sans benefit of a real base hit. Finally and ironically, a Philly batter then hit the inning’s only smash: “Line drive—caught!” Bob bayed. “The game’s over! The Mets win it! A line drive to Mario Diaz! They win the damned thing!”84 Colleagues almost doubled over in hysterics. Likely many listeners did, too, knowing his personality like a family member’s. The ex-Marine had a baritone that rose an octave, home phone number whose last four digits read 6-3-8-7 (Mets),85 and team radio booth named after him. (It remains so at Citi Field, replacing Shea in 2008.) Retiring, Murphy died August 3, 2004, of lung cancer, having outlasted any Mets player, manager, or owner and always “trying to bring friendliness to the game.”

Only Kiner endured from 1969, its glow perceptible, inexhaustible. CBS broadcaster Peter King grew up on Long Island with Ralph’s gentling of the language. “Today is father’s day,” he recalls Kiner saying. “So to all of you fathers in the audience, happy birthday.” American Cyanamid Co. became a TV sponsor. “We’ll be right back,” Ralph said, “after this word from American Cyanide.” Some lines were planned. “Statistic are like bikinis. They show a lot but not everything.” Some weren’t. “The Mets got their leadoff batter on only once this inning.”86 In 1995, WOR canceled Kiner’s Korner. He left the air, battled Bell’s Palsy, then rejoined the Mets before WOR yielded to WPIX—for some, a culture shock, the station imbedded in their DNA—and cable’s SNY. Aptly, the new TV booth is named after Ralph at Citi Field.

In 2013, the last of the three amigos retired, for the last time having cried of a homer, “It is gone— goodbye!” Kiner’s 52 years made him the third-longest-speaking active Voice with a team, behind the Dodgers’ Vin Scully and Jaimie Jarrin. At 90, he was also the game’s oldest mikeman. On February 6, 2014, Ralph died at 91 of natural causes at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, Noble writing: “Baseball has had few in its family who were so widely revered, respected, and enjoyed.”87 His, Murphy’s, and Lindsey’s dowry remains their successors in the booth.

The inexhaustible Howie Rose did TV in 1996-2003, then moved to radio: an encyclopedia of the club’s light and dark sides. On TV, Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, and Keith Hernandez sashay brilliantly on, Cohen acting as traffic cop: opinion and inside baseball, with almost a telepathic grasp of what a viewer wants and needs to hear. Born in Queens, each day, sitting there, Cohen recalled learning to see with his ears. “Lindsey and company, with those great word-pictures. [Today] I’ll be listening to someone on radio and scream when I can’t see what’s happening.”

Starting on Mets wireless in 1989, Gary moved in 2006 to TV. “The one thing I knew I wanted in radio was not to have preconceived phrases.”88 Perhaps only God could conceive the Amazins’, their plot so otherworldly it must have hatched on another planet.

In 1988, working alongside Murphy, Cohen had almost frozen airing a test game. Reaching over, Bob patted Gary’s hand. “He started talking, reassured me. It was my greatest memory.”89 Our greatest memory may be a year. In Casablanca, Bogart tells Bergman, “We’ll always have Paris.”90 We’ll always have ’69.

CURT SMITH, dubbed “the voice of authority on baseball broadcasting” by Gannett News Service, is the author of 12 books. A review he prizes was Lindsey Nelson’s of the classic Voices of The Game: “Absolutely marvelous.” Smith wrote more speeches than anyone for former President George H.W. Bush. He is a Gatehouse Media columnist, XM Satellite, and NPR Radio affiliate host, and senior lecturer of English at the University of Rochester.

SOURCES

I want to thank Lindsey, Ralph, and Bob for taking time to speak so generously over the years—and for the thousands of hours of radio/TV joy they gave to so many in the Mets’ trek from Death Valley to Mt. Sinai. Perhaps there has not been a pilgrimage like it—nor, some say, such Voices to call it. Let me also thank longtime friend and colleague Ken Samelson for his help help. Grateful appreciation is made to reprint all play-by-play and color radio text courtesy of John Miley’s The Miley Collection. In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, most especially in The Society for American Baseball Research, the author also consulted: Baseball- Reference.com and Retrosheet.org websites box scores, player, season, and team pages, batting and pitching logs, and other material relevant to this history. Fan Fraphics.com provided statistical information. In addition to the sources cited in the Notes the author also consulted:

BOOKS

Allen, Maury. After the Miracle: The 1969 Mets Twenty Years Later. (New York: Franklin Watts, 1989).

Breslin, Jimmy. Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? (New York, Viking, 1963),

Cohen, Stanley. A Magic Summer: The 1969 Mets (New York: Harcourt, Brace Jonanovich, 1988).

Durso, Joseph. Amazing: The Miracle of the Mets. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1970).

Fox, Larry. Last to First—The Story of the Mets. (New York: Harper & Row, 1970).

Golenbock, Peter. Amazin’: The Miraculous History of New York’s Most Beloved Baseball Team. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002).

Kiner, Ralph and Dany Peary. Baseball Forever. (Chicago: Triumph Books, 2004). ang, Jack, and Peter Simon. The New York Mets: Twenty-Five Years of Baseball Magic (New York: Henry Holt, 1986).

Ryczek, William. The Amazing’ Mets 1962-69 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008).

Vecsey, Peter. Joy In Mudville: Being a Complete Account of the Unparalleled History of the New York Mets from Their Most Perturbed Beginnings to Their Amazing Rise to Glory and Renown (New York: McCall, 1970).

Zimmerman, Paul D, and Dick Schaap. The Year the Mets Lost Last Place (New York: World Publishing, 1969).

NEWSPAPERS

The New York Daily News, New York Post, and The New York Times have been a primary source about the 1969 New York Mets. Other key sources include: the Los Angeles Times, New York World-Telegram, The New Yorker, The Sporting News, The Wall Street Journal.

INTERVIEWS

Gary Cohen, with author, September 2008.

Ralph Kiner, with author, July 1986 and August 1988.

Peter King, with author, April 2006 and August 2011

Bob Murphy, with author, May 1984 and July 1998.

Phil Mushnick, with author, May 2004.

Lindsey Nelson, with author, April 1984, August 1985, February 1986, July 1990.

Nancy Nelson, with author, June 1993.

Bob Wolff, with author, February 2012.

Notes

1 Lindsey Nelson interview, with author, April 1984.

2 Nelson interview, with author, August 1985.

3 https://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/giants-announce-move-san-francisco-1957-article-1.2324632 Republished in 2015.

4 Frank Finch, The Los Angeles Dodgers: The First Twenty Years (Virginia Beach, Virginia: Joran & Co., 1977), 14.

5 https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/William_Shea.

6 Ibid.

7 Geoffrey C. Ward, Baseball: An Illustrated History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994), 369, 371, 373.

8 http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ballpark/history.jsp. See “History of Shea Stadium.”

9 Nelson, August 1985 interview.

10 Bob Wolff interview, with author, February 2012.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid.

13 Nelson, August 1985 interview.

14 Ibid., April 1984 interview.

15 https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/12/obituaries/lindsey-nelson-76-broadcaster-for-mets-for-17-years-is-deadLhtml.

16 Nelson, April 1984 interview.

17 Ralph Kiner interview, with author, July 1986.

18 Ibid.

19 Bill James, The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract (New York: Free Press, 2001), 663.

20 Bob Murphy interview, with author, May 1984.

21 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/sports/bob-murphy-79-an-original-voice-of-the-mets.html.

22 Ibid.

23 Play-by-play courtesy of The Miley Collection

24 Murphy May 1984 interview.

25 Nelson, August 1985 interview

26 Ibid.

27 Nelson, April 1984 interview.

28 Ibid.

29 Nelson, February 1986 interview

30 https://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/biography/item/10976-remembering-the-amazin-mets-of-1962. Jack Kenny, New American, “Remembering the “Amazin’ Mets” of 1962,” April 11, 2012.

31 Ward, Baseball: An Illustrated History, 374.

32 Nelson, February 1986 interview.

33 https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYM/1962-schedule-scores.shtml

34 https://www.brainyquote.com./authors/casey_stengel.

35 Nelson, February 1986 interview.

36 https://quotlr.com/author.casey-stengel.

37 Ward, Baseball: An Illustrated History, 374.

38 https://nypost.com/2014/02/06/unique-calls-were-ralph-kiners-korner-stone.

39 Murphy, May 1984 interview.

40 Nelson, February 1986 interview.

41 Ibid.

42 Murphy, May 1984 interview.

43 Nancy Nelson interview, with author, June 1993.

44 Murphy, May 1984 interview.

45 https://ballparks.com/baseball/national/sheast.htm. “Shea Stadium”

46 http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ballpark/history.jsp. “History of Shea Stadium”

47 http://www.ultimatemedia.com/metannual.php?ThisYear=1964&tabno=4

48 Play-by-play courtesy of The Miley Collection.

49 https://www.forbes.com/sites/maury-brown/2015/04/14/the-10-longest-games-in-major-Ieague-baseball-history/#66a59bee235f.

50 Phil Mushnick interview, with author, May 2004

51 Murphy May 1984 interview.

52 https://blackthen.com/h-rap-brown-violence-is-as-american-as-cherry-pie. “H. Rap Brown: Violence Is As American As Cherry Pie.”

53 http://lyrics.wikia,com/wiki/Rogers_And-Hammerstein:Some__Enchanted_Evening. “Rogers and Hammerstein: Some Enchanted Evening”

54 http://www.searchquotes.com/quotation/The_team_has_come_along_slow_but_fast./208512/

55 Play-by-play courtesy of The Miley Collection.

56 Ibid.

57 Lindsey Nelson interview, with author, July 1990.

58 Play-by-play courtesy of The Miley Collection.

59 Ibid.

60 Ibid.

61 Ibid

62 Ibid

63 Nelson April 1984 interview.

64 Ibid.

65 Kiner 7/86 interview.

66 Play-by-play courtesy of The Miley Collection.

67 Ibid.

68 Play-by-play courtesy of The Miley Collection

69 Gary Cohen interview with author, September 2008.

70 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/27/sports/baseball-mets-1969-world-series.html.

71 Play-by-play courtesy of NBC Radio

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid.

76 Nelson April 1984 interview.

77 Play-by-play courtesy of NBC Television.

78 Nelson February 1986 interview.

79 https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/407866738. Rob Edelman, “M. Donald Grant,” Society for American Baseball Research.

80 https://www.l843magazine.com/intelligence/the_big_question/what_is_the_opium_of_the_jpeople_. Rosie Blau, “What Is the Opium Of The People?” The Economist.

81 https://baseball.org/discover-more/awards/frick/lindsey-nelson.

82 Nelson April 1984 interview.

83 https://www.newsday.com/sports/murph-the-happy-recap-after-42-seasons-behind-mike-voice-of-mr-met-will-be-missed-1.395737. Marty Noble, “Murph: The Happy Recap/After 42 Seasons behind mike, voice of ‘Mr. Met’ will be missed,” Newsday, September 24, 2003..

84 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/04/sports/bob-murphy-79-an-original-voice-of-the-mets.html.

85 Nelson February 1986 interview.

86 Peter King interview, with author, August 2011,

87 https://primesportsnet.com/remembering-ralph-kiner/. MartyNoble, MLB.com.

88 Cohen 9/08 interview.

89 Ibid.

90 https://movies.mxdwn.com/feature/well-always-have-paris-a-look-back-at-casablanca-on-its-75th-anniversary/ Rick Rice, “We’ll Always Have Paris,” November 22, 2017.

In major league history, 121 pinch slams have been hit, 70 in the National League and 51 in the American. No one connected in the 19th century, when pinch hitting was at a minimum. Ironically, the first pinch clam was hit by a pitcher for the Cardinals, Mike O’Neill, in a game against the Braves on June 3, 1902. Mike, born in Ireland, was one of the four O’Neill brothers, the best known of whom was Steve. Another brother, John, caught that June 3 game for the Cards. The first AL pinch slam did not originate until September 24, 1916, when Marty Kavanagh, a utility infielder for Cleveland, hit a hard liner off Hubert “Dutch” Leonard of the Red Sox. The ball rolled through a hole in the fence and every one scored.

Who hits pinch homers with the bases loaded? Not necessarily the great sluggers. Of the top dozen career home run hitters, only Jimmie Foxx and Harmon Killebrew have connected as emergency batters with the bags full. Double-X did it twice, once in each league. Roy Sievers also blasted one in each league. Other two-timers were Vic Wertz, Bill Skowron, and Rich Reese in the AL, and Ed Bailey and Willie McCovey in the Senior Circuit. But the King of Swingers was “Round” Ron Northey, who went “Bingo” on three occasions while with the Cards and Cubs.

It is also noted that no less than five pitchers have come through with pinch, slams. In addition to O’Neill, there was Schoolboy Rowe, Early Wynn, Zeb Eaton, and Tommy Byrne. If pitchers can hit pinch slams, what kind of hurlers can serve them up? Looking over the list, it appears that relief hurlers are the chief victims. This seems only logical, considering that most substitute batters appear late in the game. Only five pitchers were burned twice: Don Mossi, Steve Ridzik, Dave Koslo, Satchel Paige, and Hank Borowy, who was bombed once in each league. Early Wynn was the only player to serve one up (to Bob Cerv in 1961), and to hit one himself (off Jack Gorsica in 1946).

Pinch homers with the bases loaded have been hit in each inning from the 2nd to the 12th. Twenty-eight were hit in the 9th, and 26 in the 7th. Even team managers got into the act. At least two of them looked over their bench and decided that they could do better themselves. Rogers Hornsby connected for his Cubs in 1931, and Phil Cavarretta also hit one for the Cubs shortly after he took over the helm in 1951. Cavvy belted it off Robin Roberts when the latter was at the height of his career. On May 26, 1929, Pat Crawford of the Giants and Lester Bell of the Braves both connected in the same game, the only time that has been accomplished.

The full list of players who have hit pinch hone runs with the bases filled is carried below. (* indicates 2nd game)

National League pinch-grand slams, through 1971

American League pinch-grand slams, through 1971

Assisted by Raymond Gonzalez and Leonard Gettelson.

The USL elected Witman president-treasurer, Pittsburgher Marshall Henderson secretary, and adopted an 38-player roster limit, the lively Goldsmith baseball, and OB’s playing and administrative rules, except as they concerned territorial rights.  The League called itself an “independent”, not an “outlaw” because it pledged itself to respect existing OB player contracts and sign free agents only.  Nevertheless the OB establishment never failed to refer to the USL as an “outlaw”.

Most USL clubs signed their players during April.  Their rosters included mainly out-of-work minor leaguers, local semipros, amateurs, and some “has-been” major leaguers, both of the “cup of coffee” short stay variety and of the ex-regulars like George Brown(OF 1901-12), Jack Cronin (P 1895-l904), Hemus McFarland (OF 1896-1903), Frank Owen (P 1901-09), Big Jeff Pfeffer (P 1905-11), Deacon Phillippe (P 1899-1922), Bugs Raymond (P 1904-11), Claude Ritchey (2B 1897-1909), and Socks Seybold (OF 1899-1908).  A few little-known youngsters would make the majors later, like Ernie Johnson (SS 1912-25) and Frank Bruggy (C 1921-25).  Altogether about thirty-five of the 206 USL active players reached the bigs before or afterwards.  Browne and Phillippe were playing managers for Washington and Pittsburgh, USL.  (Cleveland’s players will be identified further below.)

The season began May 1 with high hopes, good crowds, and apparently sound and efficient administration, yet three weeks later, with Western clubs about to make their first Eastern swing, the USL started to flounder.  During May extremely inclement weather wiped out many games and made enduring others miserable business.  Lost revenues hurt both the majors and the minors and some smaller leagues failed.  The weather problem, combined with growing public indifference to Class B grade ball in big league cities sunk the USL.  Expenses could not be met by 50 cent admissions from 300 to 400 attendees and capital reserves quickly disappeared.  On May 21 Washington gave up when unpaid players quit.  Within two weeks New York, Richmond, and Cincinnati followed suit.  After the last regularly scheduled games were conducted on June 1, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Reading, and reformed Richmond and Cincinnati teams played intermittently until June23 when Pittsburgh and Chicago concluded a three-game series at Chicago.  All attempts to revive individual clubs and the league failed.

Preseason prospects for the Cleveland club, the Forest Citys (sometimes the Forest Cities), seemed promising.  Franchise president W.L. Murphy secured as manager Rowdy Jack O’Connor, 21-year major leaguer and a most popular Cleveland NL player from 1892 through 1898, available because he had been dismissed as St. Louis AL. manager after the 1910 incident intended to give Nap Lajoie the batting title over Ty Cobb.  O’Connor arrived at Cleveland on April 10 and setup headquarters at the Gillsy Hotel, preparatory to signing players and initiating practices.  Murphy contracted for home games to be played on the grounds of Luna Park, a well known amusement resort since 1906, located at Woodland Avenue and Woodhill Road, about four miles east of Public Square.  Hurriedly during the last two weeks of April, a grandstand, a pavilion, and bleachers were erected to seat 4,600 spectators at a cost of $15,000.  Murphy announced that ticket prices, ranging from 25 cents to 50 cents would also entitle holders to enter the Park’s amusement area free; and that Mondays and Thursdays would be Ladies’ Days.

The team O’Connor assembled in April included former big leaguers: Joe Delahanty (1907-09), OF; Jerry Freeman (1908-09) 1B; Howard Wakefleld (1905-07),C-OF; Doc Moyer (l910), P;and others: George Ort (Pacific Coast veteran), RF; Roy Kirby (Youngstown 1911), SS; Green (Fort Worth 1911), C; Bill Britten. 3B, M. Hobart, 2B, and C. Hobart, P (Cleveland semipros); Selig, 2B and Stringer, LF (probably semipros); Clay Blanke (Duluth 1911), P; Rube Walters (Canton, OH), P; and Bill Rafferty (Western Reserve University), P.  Later acquisitions included Harry Kirsch (AL 1910), P; Sandy Murray (Wheeling 1911), 2B; Orendorff, (who may have been Jesse Orndorff NL 1907); and “Schack” (Erie 1912), P.

The Forest Citys lost their opener at Luna Park to the Pittsburgh Filipinos (so called for Phillippe), 7-11, before 3,697 people, then dropped the balance of the series, 5-6 and 4-l2, with attendance falling to 562 and 423.  The record evened at 3-3 when Cleveland swept a series with the Chicago Green Sox.  From then on the Forest Cities lost more than they won and reached totals of eight wins, thirteen losses, through June 1 when the league’s tottering status terminated Cleveland’s play.  Attempts were made to transfer the club to St. Louis to be backed by Otto Stiefel, a brewing executive there.  O’Connor kept the team together until it became obvious the transfer possibility was dead.  Playing only against the other Western clubs, the Forest Citys were 1-8 versus Pittsburgh, easily the USL’s strongest team, but 4-3 and 3-2 against Chicago and Cincinnati.  Like all franchises except Pittsburgh, Cleveland lost money despite a few crowds exceeding 1 000.  During the first three weeks of the season the team played ten homes dates, including two doubleheaders, and four away dates, but lost six others to the weather, including three Sundays, two being at home.

The usual Cleveland batting order went Britten, Freeman, Ort, Delahanty, Selig or later Murray, Stringer, Kirby, Green, pitcher.  Delahanty was the offensive star, hitting .414 and tallying three of the club’s seven homers.  Occasionally the newspapers praised Kirby’s fielding and Ort’s catches.  When O’Connor missed a couple games attending his mother’s funeral in St. Louis, Freeman became acting manager.

The Forest Citys’ high point had to be the May 8 game at Chicago.  Cleveland trailed 8-3 with bases full of Green Sox and none out in the bottom of the sixth when O’Connor yanked ineffective Doc Moyer (and released him shortly afterwards) and sent in a recruit just arrived from Erie called “Shack” by the newspapers.  The 19-year old right hander immediately struck out the side and the next five hitters in the seventh and eighth.  In his four innings, he gave no runs, no hits, two walks and struck out eleven.  Cleveland scored ten times in the eighth and won, 15-8, with “Shack” scoring twice and even stealing a base.  This remarkable young man was Al Schacht (AL 1919-21), the future famous comedian-coach.  Dubbed “Wonder Boy” by the press, he subsequently pitched twice more, winning and losing complete games for a 2-1 record, not 5-0 as he said in his autobiography, “My Own Particular Screwball” (1955).  Al furnished a reasonably accurate version of his brilliant relief appearance, however, and remembered with warmth the friendly encouragement he received from Howard Wakefield when the lonely newcomer first joined the club.  The final standings shown below includes all games between USL teams up through June 23 and consequently differs from the standing which appeared in the Reach Official American League Base Ball Guide for 1913:

CLEVELAND USL 1912 BATTING AND PITCHING

The statistics below are compiled from newspaper accounts and box scores.  For a few games ABs and BBs have been estimated because papers omitted ABs or box scores failed to prove.

(Click image to enlarge)

The top major league winning streaks by pitchers for one season are the National League streaks of 19 games by Marquard in 1912 and by Tim Keefe of an earlier New York NL Championship team in 1888.  Hoss Radbourn won 18 consecutive games (all complete games in consecutive starts) for Providence NL in 1884. The top streak in the majors since 1920 is the l7-game streak put together by Elroy Face, a fork-balling reliever for the 1959 Pittsburgh Pirates, who finished 4th in the National League. Face won his first 17 decisions that year, finishing with an 18-1 record. He had won his last 5 decisions of 1958 for a 2-year streak of 22 relief wins. Face was helped by several late-inning or extra-inning Pirate rallies which helped him avert defeats.

The American League record winning streak is 16 consecutive games, shared by 4 different pitchers. They are Smokey Joe Wood (34-5) of Boston AL and Walter Johnson (32-12) of Washington AL, both in the Marquard year of 1912, Lefty Grove (31-4) of Philadelphia AL in 1931, and Schoolboy Rowe’s 16-game winning streak in 1934 for the pennant-winning Tigers when he was 24-8. Besides the 19-game streak by Marquard, 3 National League pitchers have notched 16-game streaks since 1900. Carl Hubbell (26-6) of New York did it in 1936, Ewell Blackwell (22-8) turned the trick for a 5th place Cincinnati outfit in 1947, and Jack Sanford (24-7) reached the sweet-16 plateau for the 1962 San Francisco Giants. Hubbell, in fact, reeled off an amazing 2- year string of 24 consecutive victories (two more than Face later compiled) in National League competition, winning his last 16 in 1936 and his first 8 in 1937. He was 26-6 in 1936 and 22-8 in 1937. Hubbell won 21 of his 24 games in starting roles while leading the New York Giants to consecutive pennants.

Several items are worthy of note in the accompanying tables. The year 1977 was only the second year since 1900 which failed to produce at least one streak in either league of 9 consecutive games. A total of four NL pitchers (Christenson and Lonborg of the Phils, John of the Dodgers, and Seaver of the Reds) and two AL hurlers (Guidry of the Yankees and Pattin of the Royals) put together 8-game streaks. The only previous year without a streak of at least 9 games was 1933, when Fred Frankhouse (16-15) of the Boston Braves and Earl Whitehill (22-8) of the Washington Senators paced their respective loops with streaks of only 8 wins.

Three leaders’ streaks represented all of their decisions in undefeated seasons. They are Joe Pate of the A’s (9-0 in 1926), Tom Zachary of the Yankees (12-0 in 1929), and co-leader Ken Holtzman, Chicago Cubs (9-0 in 1967). Pate, a rookie, won all 9 of his decisions in relief after becoming one of the greatest pitchers in Texas League history. He never won another major league game as he was let go by Philadelphia Manager Connie Mack after an 0-3 record in 1927. Zachary (who won 9 of his 12 decisions as a starter) was a journeyman who pitched for several teams in both leagues and is best-remembered for yielding Babe Ruth’s 60th home run in 1927. Holtzman spent much of that 1967 season in military service after the first month, occasionally pitching after that on weekend passes. Even that way he pitched more frequently than he did for the Yankees when he was fully available in 1977. Besides Pate, Zachary, and Holtzrnan, only one other major league pitcher had an undefeated season with 9 or more wins. He was Howie Krist, 10-0 in his first full major league season in 1941 for the St. Louis Cardi nals (6 of 10 wins in relief 0. Elmer Riddle of Cincinnati, also in his first full major league year, topped Krist to become the leader that year with a season-opening streak of 11 wins en route to a 17-4 record that year.

Burt Hooton of the 1975 L.A. Dodgers, a former Chicago Cub,  came out of nowhere to win his last 12 decisions-ironically becoming  the first NL pitcher to win an even dozen in a row since Dick Rudolph of the “Miracle” Boston Braves in 1914, a team which went from last  place on July 19th to a decisive pennant victory and an upset World Series win over Connie Mack’s Athletics in 4 straight games. Steve Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies won 15 in a row in 1972 and was 27-10 for a team which had a won-lost mark of 59-97 – the worst record in the National League! Nothing gives a manager greater satisfaction than to send out a pitcher who he knows he can count on for a victory, even under adverse circumstances. Canton’s performance that year was among the all-time best.

Most of the streak leaders are pitchers whose names are easily recognizable as being standout hurlers, but there are many exceptions.  Ike Delock of the Boston Red Sox won his first 10 decisions in 1958 on his way to a 14-8 season, with his winning streak topping the efforts of such fine pitchers as Whitey Ford, Bob Turley, Billy Pierce, Jim Bunning, and Early Wynn. The same year in the NL, an even more obscure hurler named George Witt was 9-2 and he led the league with a 7-game winning streak in a lean streak year, during a season when Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, and Bob Friend were 20-game winners. Aside from 1958, Witt won only 2 other games in his major league career.  Yankee rookie Spec Shea led the American League with a mere 7-game streak in 1947.

Several relief pitchers were leaders or co-leaders in their leagues in various seasons. In the season when Face won 17 in a row in relief for Pittsburgh, another famous relief pitcher Hoyt Wilhelm led the American League with 9 consecutive wins. Wilhelm, however, was used primarily as a starting pitcher that year for Baltimore. Relief pitcher Luis Arroyo of the 1961 New York Yankees had a 12-game winning streak which is a one-season record for an AL relief pitcher. However, it does not appear in the accompanying tables since Whitey Ford, his teammate, won 14 consecutive games that season – several of them saved by Arroyo’s stellar relief work. Arroyo’s streak likely was overlooked that year because of the attention given Whitey Ford’s efforts to record 30 pitching wins or at least to exceed Lefty Gomez’ record of 26 for a Yankee lefty (Ford finished with 25 wins).

Besides the relief streaks of Face, Pate, and Arroyo, three other relief streaks seem worthy of mention. John (Eddie) Yuhas, a rookie relief pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals won his last 10 decisions in a 12-2 season in 1952 to set the rookie record, but was released after going 0-0 in 2 games in 1953-never to appear in the majors again. Clarence (Butch) Metzger tied the record by winning his first 10 decisions in an 11-4 season for San Diego NL in 1976. Besides Face, Pate, and Metzger, the only reliever whose streak led both leagues was Phil Regan, the “grease-ball” specialist, who won his last 13 decisions in a 14-1 season in 1966 to play a vital role in leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to the National League pennant. Speaking of the Dodgers, the top streaks by Sandy Koufax were his 11-game streaks in 1964 and 1965.

Preacher Roe of the 1951 Brooklyn Dodgers had two 10-game streaks in his 22-3 season, the first one starting the season. The only other pitchers with two streaks of 10 or more games in the same season were Walter Johnson of the 1913 Washington Senators (10 and 14) and Dave (Boo) Ferriss of the 1946 Boston Red Sox (10 and 12). Johnson and Ferriss both started the season with their first streaks. Johnson was 36-7 in 1913 and Ferriss was 25-6 in a pennant-winning year where Boston won 41 of its first 50 games. Johnson was the leader or co-leader in top annual winning streaks a record total of five times, while Christy Mathewson, Whitey Ford, and Dave McNally led four times each.

Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals had the longest World Series winning streak, with 7 consecutive wins (all complete games) between 1964 and 1968. New York Yankee pitching greats Red Ruffing (1937-1942) and Lefty Gomez (1932-1 938) each had 6-game streaks. Gomez had a 6-0 won-lost record lifetime in the World Series; Ruffing and Gibson were each 7-2. Even though many volumes have been written about Babe Ruth, it has escaped prior notice that Ruth won his last 9 decisions as a pitcher – spread out over 15 years! The Babe won his last 4 decisions while finishing with a 9-5 record for the 1919 Boston Red Sox as a combination pitcher-outfielder. Ruth won all 5 games he pitched for the Yankees (1 in 1920, 2 in 1921, 1 in 1930, and 1 in 1933).

In the following tables, I have attempted to list the top winning streaks by pitchers in both leagues for each season since 1900. It must be noted that this was not always easy to do because of gaps in available data, and conflicting or unclear scoring rules prior to 1920. For example, the American League did not list pitchers’ wins and losses in its official day-to-day averages for 1913 to 1919 because League President Ban Johnson had felt that the won-lost stats were misleading.

Christy Mathewson of the New York Giants won 11 consecutive games in 1905, but the streak would be 16 games under present scoring rules. Mathewson was deprived of one victory when he relieved the Giant starter Luke Taylor after 3 innings and protected a 4-3 Giant lead vs. Chicago for the remainder of the game. In his previous start, he was charged with a defeat when a New York-Pittsburgh game was forfeited to Pittsburgh in the 9th inning with the score tied 5-5 when the Giants left the field and refused to return soon enough after protesting an umpire’s decision. Under today’s scoring rules, a starter must pitch at least 5 innings for a win (which Taylor did not do), and no defeats are charged in forfeits to pitchers unless the team which is the victim is trailing in the game. Thus Mathewson, who was 31-9 in 1905, would be 32-8 under today’s rules, besides having a 16-game streak instead of 11 games.

Also, Rube Marquard’s 19-game streak in 1912 would be 20 under today’s rules. Marquard relieved in the top of the 9th inning vs. the Brooklyn Dodgers in a game where the Giants led 2-1. Two baserunners who were previously on base scored on a Giant fielding error, and they trailed 3-2. Though the Giants rallied to win 4-3 in the bottom of the 9th, the win went to Giant starter Jeff Tesreau (who pitched 8 innings plus part of the 9th) under the scoring practices of the day. Also, Tim Keefe in his 19-game streak of 1888, started and hurled only 2 innings in one of his victories.

Here is the annual list of pitchers’ winning streak leaders in each major league since 1900 based on the best information available:

LONGEST WINNING STREAKS BY PITCHERS, EACH SEASON (1900-1977)

Note: (S) denotes that the streak started the season.

(F) denotes that the streak ended the season.

(R) denotes that the entire streak was in relief.

We’ve all seen them. Game-ending or “walk-off” home runs are shown on SportsCenter almost every night and many fans consider them to be among the most exciting plays in baseball. Of course, there are other ways to “walk off” the field. Some readers may recall Pirate pitcher Bob Moose’s walk-off wild pitch that scored George Foster to give the Reds the 1972 National League pennant, the walk-off walk by Andruw Jones off the Mets’ Kenny Rogers that won the deciding game of the 1999 NLCS for the Braves, and the unforgettable walk-off error by the Red Sox’s Bill Buckner in game six of the 1986 World Series.

Of all the ways a game-ending run may score, perhaps the most unexpected is by the steal of home. An adventuresome base runner using the element of surprise can win a game in a sudden and dramatic fashion. Chances are that you have not witnessed a major league walk-off steal. There have been only three in the past 31 seasons.

This author was fortunate enough to be in the stands at Royals Stadium (as it was then known) in Kansas City on August 17, 1976, as Hall of Famer George Brett broke from third as Indians reliever Dave LaRoche wound up in the 10th inning of a 3-3 game. Brett was two-thirds of the way to the plate before LaRoche noticed him and easily slid in under the pitch to score the winning run.1

Since 1901, there have been 35 game-ending steals of home in the major leagues, but only eight in the post-1960 expansion era. The busiest decade was the 1930s with seven. There was just a single gameending steal in the 1980s, one more in the 1990s and none so far in the 21st century.

A few of the game-winning steals were executed by established base stealers. Rod Carew, Marquis Grissom, and Willie Davis all turned the trick, although Ty Cobb, the all-time leader in steals of home with 54, Rickey Henderson, the all-time stolen base leader (1,406 total steals but just four steals of home) and Jackie Robinson (19 steals of home), never accomplished the feat.

Three years removed from the 1969 season in which he stole home seven times (though none were game winners), Carew surprised the Indians with a 10th inning game-winning steal against reliever Ed Farmer on September 1, 1972.2 Carew finished his Hall of Fame career with 17 steals of home, the most for any player with a walk-off steal.

Grissom, then with the Indians, was on third with one out in the 12th inning of a 1-1 game in game three of the 1997 ALCS against the Orioles. With Omar Vizquel at the plate, the Indians attempted to squeeze home the winning run. Randy Myers’ pitch was in the dirt and scooted past catcher Lenny Webster as Grissom scored.3 The play was originally scored as a passed ball, and fans left Jacobs Field not knowing that they had witnessed something much more historic. The following day, citing rule 10.08(a), the official scorer changed the play and credited Grissom with a game-ending steal.4

Of the 35 walk-off steals of home, 22 have occurred in extra innings. This may suggest that once a game goes into extra frames, it would be more likely that an intrepid base runner would attempt to win the game, but considering that walk-off steals can only happen in the ninth or later innings, the fact that 37% of them have occurred in the ninth inning suggests that the inning in which a courageous runner takes matters into his own hands is really not a factor.

Former Dodger Willie Davis holds the record for the latest game-winning steal of home, having used his legs to end a 16-inning game against the Phillies on September 19, 1964. In the 14th inning, Phillies outfielder Johnny Callison was caught stealing home when shortstop Bobby Wine failed to get the ball down on an attempted squeeze play, setting the stage for Davis to win the game two innings later. Davis reached on a two-out single, stole second, and advanced to third on a wild pitch, then raced home with the winner.5

That a player like Carew, with a history of stealing bases and stealing home, would pull off a game-winning steal is not terribly surprising, but there have been a few game-enders that were surprising even to the players that completed them. Six players that won a game by stealing home finished that season with fewer than five stolen bases. Two players that accomplished the feat finished their careers with fewer than five stolen bases.

Huck Geary played in just 55 major league games for the Pirates in 1942 and 1943, finishing with a career average of .160 and three stolen bases. In the 14th inning of a game against the Boston Braves on June 1, 1943, Geary was on third with the bases loaded and one out when he raced for the plate and scored under the tag of catcher Hugh Poland, giving Pittsburgh a 5-4 decision.

Glenn Brummer played for the Cardinals and Rangers in 1981-85, never appearing in more than 49 games in any season. Brummer, never mistaken for some of the speedsters on the St. Louis clubs of that era, stole just two bases during the 1982 season, finishing his career with four. Brummer entered the August 22, 1982, game against the Giants as a pinch-runner in the eighth inning and remained in the game to catch. After striking out in the 10th, Brummer singled to left in the 12th for his first hit since July 16. He advanced to second on a single and to third on an infield hit.

With two out and a 1-2 count on David Green, Brummer, noticing that Giants lefty pitcher Gary Lavelle was not paying attention to him, broke for the plate and slid under the tag of catcher Milt May, giving the Cardinals a 5-4 victory. The Giants argued that home plate umpire Dave Pallone had not called the pitch. Had it been a strike, the inning would have been over and the run would not have counted. Pallone indicated that he had, in fact, called the pitch a ball and thus the game was over. Brummer, apparently as surprised as anyone, remarked, “No one would have ever thought I would steal home in the major leagues, including me, especially to win a ball game.”6

Seven Hall of Famers have pulled off game-ending steals. In addition to the aforementioned Brett and Carew, Frank Chance of the Cubs, Tony Lazzeri of the Yankees, Al Lopez, of the Dodgers and Eddie Murray of the Orioles all took matters into their own hands to bring a game to conclusion. The seventh Hall of Famer isn’t enshrined in Cooperstown with the others. Instead, Jim Thorpe’s plaque is mounted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

Thorpe played parts of six  seasons  with  the New York Giants, Boston Braves, and Cincinnati Reds between 1913-19, appearing in just 289 games with a lifetime batting average of .252. Thorpe stole only 29 bases in his career, but the one on June 5, 1918, was the most memorable. With runners on first and third and two out, teammate Jose Rodriguez broke for second as Thorpe delayed a break for home. As Joe Wilhoit swung at and missed Pirate pitcher Wilbur Cooper’s first offering, Thorpe made his move. Catcher Walter Schmidt, bluffing a throw to second, fired the ball to Cooper, who inexplicably threw behind Thorpe to third baseman Bill McKechnie. McKechnie’s hurried throw home was in the dirt as Thorpe scored the game winner.7

With over 169,000 regular and post-season games played since 1901 and only 35 game-ending steals, it would seem unlikely that any player or pitcher would be involved in more than one. Wally Moses played 17 seasons for the Athletics, White Sox, and Red Sox, stealing a total of 174 bases, although he only stole six in 1940. On August 20 of that year, Moses beat the White Sox when he took advantage of a slow windup by Sox pitcher Thornton “Lefty” Lee to slide in with the winner in the 10th inning.8

Demonstrating that practice makes perfect, Moses became the only player in major league history to execute a second game-ending steal of home when he won a 14-inning game for the White Sox against Boston on July 7, 1943. Moses’s steal was so unexpected that Irving Vaughan’s game account in the Chicago Tribune stated that Moses was nearly in his slide before Red Sox pitcher Mace Brown had released the pitch.9

While Moses “perfected” the art of the walk-off steal, a pitcher whose career is most remembered for giving up a World Series home run is the only hurler to be on the mound for not one but two game-ending steals of home. Charlie Root spent 16 of his 17 major league seasons pitching for the Chicago Cubs and is most noted for giving up Babe Ruth’s legendary “called shot” in the 1932 World Series. Root entered the July 2, 1933, game against the Dodgers in the ninth inning in relief of starter Lon Warneke, attempting to preserve a 3-2 lead. After Brooklyn tied the game on a single by Ralph Boyle, Al Lopez clinched a doubleheader sweep for the Dodgers with a two-out theft under the tag of Cub catcher Gabby Hartnett.10

Root faced a similar situation six seasons later. On June 1, 1939, again against Brooklyn at Ebbets Field, Root entered the game in the eighth and held the Dodgers hitless until Gene Moore tripled with one out in the 14th inning. After two intentional walks, Root faced shortstop Leo Durocher. With the squeeze on, Durocher failed to make contact with Root’s offering but catcher Bob Garbark couldn’t hold the ball and by the time he recovered, Moore had scored the winning run.11 That game also featured a triple play, executed by the Dodgers in the 12th inning. Remarkably this was not the only game that featured both a walk-off steal and a triple play.

Pat McNulty, who spent five seasons with the Indians, had a game to remember on June 11, 1924. With McNulty on second and Charlie Jamieson on first in the fourth inning, Tris Speaker lined to Red Sox first baseman Howie Shanks, who stepped on the bag to double Jamieson, then threw to shortstop Dud Lee, doubling McNulty and completing the triple play. McNulty’s fortunes took a turn for the better when he tallied the winning run with a two-out steal of home in the 11th giving the Indians a 3-2 victory.12

Perhaps the most startling game-ending steal of home was by the Cleveland Indians’ Vic Power on August 14, 1958. Power played 12 seasons for four clubs and in 1958 split time between the Indians and Kansas City Athletics. Power was not a serious threat on the base paths, stealing just 45 bases while being caught 35 times during his career. He stole just two bases for the Indians in 1958. What made Power’s feat so remarkable was that those two stolen bases both occurred in the same game, and they were both steals of home! Power stole home in the eighth inning to give the Indians a 9-7 lead over the Tigers, and after Detroit tied the game in the ninth, Power won the game for the Tribe with a two-out steal in the 10th off Frank Lary. Power remains the only player since 1927 to steal home twice in the same game.13

No one can deny that the game has changed in recent decades. Unlike the years prior to the 1980s, starting pitchers now rarely pitch into the ninth inning (or later) when fatigue may result in a loss of concentration on base runners. Starters often do not pitch from the windup with runners on third, as in years past, and most relievers regularly pitch from the stretch position regardless of runners on base. Coupled with players making multimillion-dollar salaries unwilling to risk a three-way collision with ball and bat at home plate and so many managers managing “by the book,” the chances of the average fan seeing any straight steals of home, never mind a game ender, simply aren’t as great as in years past. Considering that the last game-ending straight steal of home occurred 25 years ago, it is possible that arguably the most exciting play in baseball history may have gone the way of the dinosaur.

(Click image to enlarge)

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the following SABR members who provided consultation and/or research assistance to the game-ending steals of home project: Lyle Spatz, Chuck Rosciam, Tom Ruane, Bill Deane, Jim Smith, Bill Gilbert, Monte Cely, Norman Macht, Gilbert Martinez, Patrick Gallagher, John Delahanty, Rod Nelson, Frank Vaccaro, and Jim Sweetman. Special thanks to Dave Smith. Without Retrosheet, this research would have been virtually impossible.

Notes

1. “Brett Steals One for the Royals, 4-3,” Los Angeles Times, August 18, 1976.
2. “Twins Edge Tribe,” Washington Post, September 2, 1972.
3. Jack Curry, “Indians Defeat the Orioles in a Wild One on a Disputed Passed Ball in the 12th,” New York Times, October 12, 1997.
4. “Game 3 Scorer Makes Change,” New York Times, October 13, 1997.
5. “W. Davis Steals Home in 16th to Beat Phils,” Chicago Tribune, September 20, 1964.
6. Washington Post, August 23, 1982.
7. “Giants Crash Their Way to Victory Over Pirates by a Ninth-Inning Rally,” New York Times, June 6, 1918.
8. Irving Vaughan, “White Sox beat A’s in 9th, 6-1; Lose in 10th, 4-3,” Chicago Daily Tribune, August 21, 1940.
9. Irving Vaughan, “Moses Steals Home in 14th; Sox Defeat Boston, 3-2,” Chicago Daily Tribune, July 8, 1943.
10. Roscoe “Dodgers Take Two from Cubs, 7-3, 4-3,” New York Times, July 3, 1933.
11. Edward Burns, “Dodgers Beat Cubs in 14th, 3-2; Make Triple ” Chicago Daily Tribune, June 2, 1939.
12. “Steal by M’Nulty Wins for Indians,” New York Times, June 15, 1924.
13. “Stealing Home Base Records,” Baseball Almanac, https://baseballalmanac.com/recbooks/rb_stbah.shtml.

Whitey Kurowski, Marty Marion, Stan Musial, and Ray Sanders get together during the 1944 World Series against the St. Louis Browns. (SABR-Rucker Archive)

Stan Musial was involved in 13 World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals as a player, member of the front office, and later as the team’s senior ambassador – Mr. Cardinal. The 13 World Series, of which the Cardinals won eight, were spread out over eight different decades, making his affiliation with the Cardinals one of the longest with a single team in baseball history.

Musial played in four World Series before the age of 26. Given that he had already won two National League batting titles and cemented his position as one of the National League’s best players, it seemed certain that he and the Cardinals would continue to make frequent appearances in the World Series. Testament to how difficult it is to win a pennant and how nothing should be taken for granted, the 1946 fall classic was Musial’s last as a player in his 22-year Hall of Fame career in which he batted .331, hit 475 home runs, and drove in 1,951 runs.

In his first full season, 1942, Musial hit .315 with 32 doubles, 10 triples, 10 home runs, and 72 RBIs to help the Cardinals capture their first National League pennant and advance to the World Series for the first time since the Gas House Gang defeated the Detroit Tigers in the 1934 World Series.

1942 WORLD SERIES

The World Series was a matchup between two teams that won more than 100 games. The Cardinals, who trailed the National League-leading Brooklyn Dodgers by 10 games on August 5, rallied down the stretch – winning 43 of their last 51 games – to finish with a record of 106-48 (with two ties), two games ahead of the Dodgers.1 The Cardinals’ 106 victories remain the franchise record.

In Game One at Sportsman’s Park III, the Yankees’ Red Ruffing, threw 7 2/3 innings of no-hit ball before giving up a single to center fielder Terry Moore. Entering the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees led 7-0. Musial fouled out to lead off the bottom of the ninth before the Cardinals mounted an improbable comeback that fell just short. They scored four runs and had the bases loaded when he came to bat once more, representing the winning run. He hit a grounder to first baseman Buddy Hassett, who tossed the ball to reliever Spud Chandler for the game’s final out. Despite being angered at his own performance, going 0-for-4 and making two outs in the bottom of the ninth, “Musial took heart at the late-inning rally, believing more than ever that the Yankees were beatable.”2 In fact, the Cardinals’ ninth-inning near comeback “showed the Yankees that they were indeed, a worthy contender.”3

In Game Two, the Cardinals led 3-0 into the eighth inning only to see it evaporate on a run-scoring single by Joe DiMaggio and a two-run homer to deep right field by Charlie Keller.

In the bottom of the eighth, Enos Slaughter hit a two-out double and Musial followed with an RBI single to center. Musial’s first hit of the Series gave the Cardinals a 4-3 lead, which held up and evened the Series at a game each. Musial finished the day 1-for-4.

October 2 was a travel day for the two teams as the Series shifted to Yankee Stadium. The next day, a World Series-record crowd of 69,123 filled the ballpark for the pivotal Game Three.

According to Musial biographer James Giglio, Musial admitted to feeling numb on the occasion of his first visit to Yankee Stadium, “not only because he was a twenty-one-year-old only one season removed from Class C ball. The three-tiered stadium created an enormous obstacle for left fielders because of the haze of cigarette smoke and the shadows created by the October sun, which blanketed left field, making it difficult to see batted balls.”4

Game Three was a matchup between injury-plagued left-hander Ernie White, who was 7-5 with a 2.52 ERA in 1942 following a 17-win season in 1941. The Yankees countered with the right-handed Chandler, who went 16-5 with a 2.38 ERA during the regular season, and earned the save in Game One.

Ernie White scattered six hits and struck out six, tossing a shutout to outduel Chandler, who gave up only three hits and one run over eight innings. The Cardinals manufactured a run in the third on a walk, a bunt single, a sacrifice, and a groundout, and added an unearned run in the ninth to win 2-0. Musial finished the day 1-for-3, with a fourth-inning single to center. He was also intentionally walked in the top of the ninth with runners on second and third with nobody out.

Another World Series attendance record was established when 69,902 fans packed Yankee Stadium for Game Four, a matchup between Mort Cooper, who was making his second start of the Series, and right-handed rookie Hank Borowy, who was 15-4 with a 2.52 ERA during the regular season for the Yankees.

The Yankees took a first-inning lead and held it until the fourth inning when the Cardinals exploded for six runs.

Musial led off with a bunt single to the left side of the infield. A single and a walk followed, with Whitey Kurowski singling to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead. Marty Marion walked to reload the bases before Mort Cooper hit a two-run bloop single to right field that ended the day for starter Borowy. Atley Donald came on in relief.

In the sixth, the Yankees scored five runs and tied it, 6-6,.the big blow Keller’s three-run homer.

The Cardinals scored two runs in the top of the seventh to regain the lead. Musial, who drew a walk, scored the second run of the inning on a fly out to center by Marion. The Cardinals added an insurance run in the ninth and won 9-6, taking a three-games-to-one lead. Musial finished the day 2-for-3 with one RBI and two walks, including an intentional pass in the top of the eighth.

Game Five was a low-scoring back-and-forth affair that stood 2-2 until the top of the ninth, when Whitey Kurowski hit a two-run homer to put the Cardinals ahead 4-2, and ultimately secured the World Series title. Musial was 0-for-4 in the series-clinching game.

As a batter, Musial didn’t have a great Series. He was 4-for-18 (.222), with a double, a Series-leading four walks that gave him an OPS of .364, and two runs batted in. The Cardinals players’ share for winning the World Series was $6,192.50, which easily surpassed the $4,250 salary Musial received during his rookie year.6

Musial ranked the Cardinals’ victory among his greatest sports moments. In an interview later in life he pointed to the five-game triumph as one of his biggest thrills. “Well, I guess winning the World Series as a rookie (1942). Beating the Yankees.”7 He also included his induction into the Hall of Fame and the first time he put on a Cardinals uniform.

After the Series, Musial, accompanied by his parents, returned to his home in Donora, Pennsylvania, where he worked part-time as a clerk in his father-in-law’s grocery store.8 Giglio recounted Musial’s farewell to his teammates at New York’s Pennsylvania Station: “Musial said his final good-byes to teammates who were heading back to St. Louis. (Marty) Marion remembered him ‘crying like a baby, shaking hands with everyone.’”9 This may have been in part due to the escalation of World War II and the uncertainty surrounding which players would be in the armed forces or would return to the Cardinals for the 1943 season.

1943 WORLD SERIES

In 1943, with many stars off serving in World War II, “Musial established himself as the premier player in the National League if not the whole game.”10 He led the league in games played (157), plate appearances (701), batting (.357), slugging (.562), on-base percentage (.425), on-base plus slugging percentage, or OPS (.988), hits (220), doubles (48), triples (20), total bases (347), and WAR (9.5).11 Not surprisingly, Musial won the first of his three Most Valuable Player awards and a second consecutive trip to the fall classic.

The Series was a rematch between the Cardinals and Yankees. The Cardinals were runaway winners in the National League, finishing with a record of 105-49, 18 games ahead of the second-place Cincinnati Reds. The Yankees won the pennant with a record of 98-56 and finished 13½ games ahead of the Washington Senators. Both teams were missing key players in their lineups who were away on military service. Given the results of the 1942 Series and the fact that the Cardinals had the finest pitching in the National League – Howie Pollet, Max Lanier, and Mort Cooper ranked one-two-three in the league in ERA at 1.75, 1.90 and 2.30 respectively12 –the Cardinals were favored to repeat as World Series champions.

The Yankees took Game One, 4-2, behind the pitching of 1943 American League MVP Spud Chandler (20-4, 1.64 ERA, 20 complete games). Joe Gordon homered for the Yankees, who scored the winning run on a wild pitch in the bottom of the sixth. Musial went 1-for-4, hitting a single to right in the eighth inning.

The next day the Cardinals evened the Series with a 4-3 victory. Mort Cooper pitched a complete game, backed by Marion’s third-inning solo home run and a two-run homer by Sanders. Musial was again 1-for-4; he led off the fourth with a single to center and scored on Kurowski’s single to center.

Because of wartime travel restrictions, Game Three was also played in New York. The Cardinals took a 2-0 lead in the top of the fourth. Musial led off with a single to left and went to third on a one-out double by Kurowski. After an intentional walk to Sanders, Danny Litwhiler singled to left, scoring Musial and Kurowski.

The Cardinals managed only one hit the rest of the way and made four errors as the Yankees scored three unearned runs. Musial finished 1-for-3 with a walk.

After a two-day break the Series resumed on October 10 at Sportsman’s Park. The Yankees took a commanding three-games-to-one lead with a 2-1 victory. Musial collected two hits without hitting the ball out of the infield. He lined out to second in the first inning, had a one-out bunt single in the fourth inning, grounded out to second in the sixth inning, and had a one-out infield single to third in the eighth.

The Series ended the next day when Chandler pitched his second complete game in a week, a 2-0 shutout. Dickey was the hitting hero with a sixth-inning two-run homer. Musial went 0-for-3 with a walk.

Musial finished the Series with a .278 batting average (5-for-18). He had no extra-base hits or RBIs and drew two walks. His performance was not what Cardinal fans had come to expect during the 1943 season. After the Series Musial often said that the Yankees “deserved to win” because they “played better ball” and “had the better pitching.”13 The reality that every game was close and could have gone either way was testament to Musial’s graciousness.

1944 WORLD SERIES

Musial helped the Cardinals win a third consecutive pennant with a season that was very similar to his MVP year of 1943. He hit .347 and led the National League in hits (197), doubles (51), on-base percentage (.440), slugging percentage (.549), OPS (.990), and WAR (8.9).14

The Series was an all-St. Louis affair as the city’s second-class citizens, the Browns, won their first and only American League pennant.15

Both teams played at Sportsman’s Park. The Browns owned the ballpark until they moved to Baltimore in 1953; the Cardinals were a tenant. In the opener, on Wednesday, October 4, a crowd of 33,242 watched right-handed “Sunday pitcher” Denny Galehouse, who was just 9-10 with a 3.12 ERA during the regular season, outduel Mort Cooper.16

Galehouse scattered seven hits on his way to a 2-1 complete-game victory. He lost his bid for a shutout in the ninth inning when the Cardinals scored their only run on a fly ball by Ken O’Dea, pinch-hitting for relief pitcher Blix Donnelly. The difference in the game was a fourth-inning, two-run homer by first baseman George McQuinn. Musial went 1-for-3. He singled to center in the first inning and laid down a sacrifice bunt in the third that advanced baserunners to second and third, only to be stranded.

The Cardinals evened the series with a 3-2, 11-inning Game Two victory that saw one of the greatest defensive plays in World Series history.17

Sanders led off the bottom of the 11th with a with a single to center and was sacrificed to second by Kurowski. O’Dea, pinch-hitting for the second consecutive game, singled to center to drive in the winning run. Musial was 1-for-5. His only hit was an eighth-inning leadoff single to center.

The two teams switched dugouts for Game Three, with the Browns assuming the role of the home team. The game was a matchup between a pair of 17-game winners. The Browns chased rookie Ted Wilks when they scored four in the fourth and added two insurance runs in the seventh to beat the Cardinals 6-2. Musial was held to one hit, a single to right field in the top of the third, in four trips to the plate. The Browns’ Jack Kramer threw a complete game, scattering seven hits and striking out 10.

The Cardinals tied the Series again with a 5-1 Game Four victory. Musial was their hitting star, going 3-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBIs on his only World Series home run, to right field in the first inning off Sig Jakucki.

The pivotal fifth game was a rematch between Game One starters Mort Cooper and Galehouse. Both starters went the distance, with Cooper tossing a 2-0 shutout to give the Cardinals a three-games-to-two lead, on solo home runs by Sanders and Danny Litwhiler. Although he didn’t factor into the scoring, Musial was 1-for-3 with a first-inning walk and a two-out double in the third.

The Series ended on October 9 when Max Lanier limited the Browns to one run in 5 1/3 innings and Wilks atoned for his Game Three struggles with 3 2/3 no-hit innings. Musial went 0-for-4 in the Cardinals’ 3-1 victory.

While still below the performance Cardinal fans had come to expect from him, the 1944 World Series was Musial’s best from a statistical perspective. He hit .304 (7-for-23) with two doubles, a home run, two RBIs, and a .552 slugging percentage.

The Cardinals’ and Musial’s run of three consecutive trips to the World Series came to an end in 1945. Probably not coincidentally, Musial was inducted into the Navy in January of that year.18

With Musial out of the lineup, the Cardinals fell to second place in the National League. The team still finished with an admirable record of 95-59, three games behind the pennant-winning Chicago Cubs. Given Musial’s combined WAR of 44.1 in five full seasons between 1943 and 1948 (an average WAR of 8.8) his presence might have pushed the Cardinals to a fourth consecutive pennant in 1945.

1946 WORLD SERIES

Musial was discharged from the Navy in March 1946 and immediately rejoined the Cardinals. Enjoying one of the best years of his career, he led the National League in games played (156), plate appearances (702), at-bats (624), runs scored (124), hits (228), doubles (50), triples (20), batting average (.365), slugging percentage (.587), OPS (1.021), total bases (366), WAR (9.3), and oWAR (9.6).19 He drove in 103 runs in the first of 10 seasons in which he had 100 or more RBIs. For his efforts he earned his second NL MVP award.

With Musial and many of his Cardinals teammates back in the lineup, the Cardinals returned to the top of the National League standings with a record of 98-58, narrowly edging the Brooklyn Dodgers by two games and earning their fourth trip to the World Series in five years.20

In the American League, the Boston Red Sox finally got over the hump and won the pennant going away, 104-50, 12 games ahead of the Detroit Tigers.

The much-anticipated Series offered a matchup between two of the game’s biggest stars at the prime of their careers. Ted Williams, the Red Sox left fielder, who had missed the 1943, ’44, and ’45 seasons while serving in the US Navy and Marine Corps, made a triumphant return with an MVP season of his own.21

Before the Series there was a great deal of discussion as to who was the better hitter. Dodgers manager Leo Durocher said, “Musial is two to one a better hitter. You can pitch to Williams, crowd him and keep the ball on the handle. Williams can hit to only one field. Musial can hit to all fields and you can’t fool him. Williams has only one advantage. He has more power and power worries you. You are afraid to make one mistake. But I’ll take Musial any day – and what is more, I’m not comparing dispositions.”22

Game One featured a pair of 20-game winners as starting pitchers, Howie Pollet (21-10, 2.10 ERA) against Boston’s Tex Hughson (20-11 2.75).

The Red Sox held a 1-0 lead until the bottom of the sixth, when Red Schoendienst, Musial’s roommate, reached on a one-out weak roller to shortstop. He advanced to second when Moore grounded out to second. Musial tied the game with a double to right.

Tied 2-2 after nine innings, the game was decided in the 10th when Rudy York hit a two-out home run to left. 3-2, Red Sox. Musial came to the plate with a man on second and one out in the bottom of the inning and grounded out, finishing the game 1-for-5.

Game Two saw Harry Brecheen outpitch Mickey Harris, with a four-hit shutout. He helped his own cause at the plate. After Del Rice led off the bottom of the third with a double to left field, Brecheen singled to right to give the Cardinals a 1-0 lead. In the bottom of the fifth, with Rice again on base, Brecheen bunted and reached second on a bad throw on a force play. Moore’s single brought Rice home with the game’s second run, and Musial’s force-play grounder scored Brecheen, making it 3-0, the game’s final score. Musial finished 0-for-4 with an RBI.

At Fenway Park, Dave Ferriss (25-6, 3.25 ERA) tossed a 4-0 shutout, beating Murry Dickson. York, the hitting hero in Game One, hit a three-run home run to left field in the bottom of the first to give the Red Sox all the runs they needed.

Musial was 1-for-3 with a first-inning walk. He then stole second before being picked off by Ferriss as he tried to steal third.23 Musial’s hit was a two-out triple in the ninth. Slaughter struck out to end the game, stranding Musial at third.

The Cardinals scored 12 runs on a World Series record-tying 20 hits in Game Four. The final score was 12-3. Cardinals right-hander Red Munger surrendered nine hits but yielded only one earned run. Musial was 1-for-5 with a walk, one run scored, and a two-run third-inning double that scored Schoendienst and Moore.

Pollet failed to get out of the first inning in Game Five. Down 1-0 and with just one out and two runners on base, Al Brazle came on in relief. Joe Dobson started for Boston. The Cardinals tied the score in the second when Harry Walker doubled to left field, driving in Joe Garagiola. In the bottom of the second, the Red Sox’ Don Gutteridge drove in Roy Partee to give the Red Sox a 2-1 lead. Boston added one more run in the sixth and three in the seventh.

Down 6-1, the Cardinals made one last effort to get back into the game in the ninth. Musial led off with a walk and later scored on Walker’s two-run single, but the scoring ended. 6-3 victors, the Red Sox led three games to two.

Musial was 1-for-3 with a walk. His lone hit was a two-out double to center in the sixth inning.

The series resumed in St. Louis with a Game Six rematch of Game Two starters Harris and Brecheen. The Cardinals scored three runs in the bottom of the third inning. After they scored their first run, Musial kept the inning going with an infield single that moved Schoendienst to third. RBI singles by Kurowski and Slaughter followed. The Cardinals held a 3-0 lead. The game ended with a 4-1 Cardinals victory. Musial was 1-for-4 with one run scored.

One thing about Game Seven of the World Series is that it is often close. Of the 40 winner-take-all World Series contests, 15 have been decided by a single run.24 Game Seven of the 1946 World Series was one of those 15 instances.

The Red Sox scored once in the top of the first, and the Cardinals tied the score in the second. They took a 3-1 lead in the bottom of the fifth when pitcher Dickson hit an RBI double and Schoendienst followed with an RBI single.

In the Red Sox eighth, Dom DiMaggio hit a two-run double to right to tie the game at 3-3. In the process of legging out the double. DiMaggio pulled a hamstring. With Williams due to hit, the Red Sox’ Leon Culberson ran for DiMaggio – a move that would play a huge role in what transpired in the bottom of the inning. Williams, who was playing hurt, ended the inning with a pop fly to second base.25

The events in the bottom of the eighth included one of the most analyzed plays in baseball history – the “mad dash” by Enos Slaughter, who singled and then scored the go-ahead run from first base on a two-out base hit to center by Harry Walker. Did Johnny Pesky “hold the ball” and fail to throw home in time to get Slaughter? Should Walker’s hit have been scored a double (as it was) or a single? The indisputable fact was that the Cardinals took a 4-3 lead and, though Boston batters led off the ninth with back-to-back singles, they could not get the tying run home.26

Musial finished the Series 6-for-27 with four walks, and four RBIs. His MVP counterpart, Williams, finished 5-for-25 with five walks and one RBI.

The 1946 World Series turned out to Musial’s last appearance in the postseason as a player. Who would have thought that possible at the time, considering that the 26-year-old had already played in four World Series?

Reflecting back on the 1946 season and World Series, Musial considered it one of “the best years of our lives.”27 Shortly after the Series, Musial decided to move to St. Louis from his hometown of Donora. He said, “I think it’s wise for a baseball player to make his home where he’s made his reputation. I always worried about my baseball career, about getting hurt, and I wanted a business to fall back on.”

Summary of Musial’s World Series Playing Career

Despite winning three of the four World Series he appeared in, Musial’s Series statistics were far off his career performance. In his 23 World Series games, he hit just .256 (22-for-86) with 7 doubles, a triple, one home run, and 8 RBIs. His .742 OPS in 99 plate appearances was more than 200 points lower than his career OPS of .976.

Joseph Stanton, a Musial biographer, addressed the discrepancy between Musial’s regular-season statistics and his World Series performances. “He always found it difficult to hit in championship games when white-shirted spectators crowed into the center field seats. … Musial’s knack for seeing and interpreting the emergence of the ball out of the pitcher’s hand was one of the keys to his greatness as a hitter. With that edge compromised he tended to underperform in World Series contests.”28 This, coupled with the fact that he was facing superior pitchers, may explain the difference.

Musial’s home and away splits in World Series competition support Stanton’s claim. In 14 World Series games at Sportsman’s Park, Musial hit .241 (13-for-54) with 4 doubles, 1 home run, 5 RBIs, 5 bases on balls, and 4 strikeouts. In nine World Series games contested on the road, Musial hit .281 (9-for-32) with 3 doubles, 1 triple, 7 bases on balls, and no strikeouts.

Defensively, Musial was a solid World Series performer. In 96 total chances at three different positions (left field, right field, and first base) he made only one error, a miscue in right field in Game Five of the 1944 World Series that did not factor into the scoring. He finished his World Series career with a .990 fielding percentage.

For the remainder of Musial’s career, the Cardinals finished no higher than second place (five times) in the National League.

When he announced his retirement in August of 1963, Musial declared that he would “like to go out on a winner,” noting, “Our 1942 club was farther behind and won. … I’ve dreamed for a long time of playing in one more World Series. I think we still have a chance to do it.”29 Despite winning 19 of 20 from August 30 to September 15 to pull within one game of the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Cardinals were 2-8 over their final 10 games and finished six games behind, ending Musial’s hope of returning to the fall classic.

The final Cardinals game of the season, which took place in St. Louis, was a grand farewell party for Musial. The pregame festivities included numerous speakers, including Commissioner Ford Frick, who bestowed tributes on Musial. Teammate Ken Boyer presented Musial with a ring from the players with the number 6, Musial’s jersey number, set in diamonds, “a gift Stan especially appreciated because his World Series rings from the 1940s had been stolen from his home several years before.”30

1964 WORLD SERIES

After retiring, Musial moved into the Cardinals front office as a team vice president, but primarily in a public-relations role. The Cardinals won the pennant in 1964 with a record of 93-69, one game ahead of the Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies.

The Cardinals faced a familiar World Series foe, the Yankees, pennant winners by one game over the Chicago White Sox. Led by Boyer, the Cardinals defeated the Yankees in seven games to capture their first World Series title in 18 years.

After the Cardinals’ victory, Musial was often asked if he regretted retiring after the 1963 season. With typical modesty, he noted that had he not retired, the Cardinals would not have acquired Lou Brock, and claimed that a 1964 Cardinals team with a Musial instead of a Brock would not have won the World Series.31 While the answer was effective at fending off the frequently asked question, “there must have been some moments in which he thought about how satisfying it would have been to have been on the field for one more championship season.”32

On January 23, 1967, Musial was named the Cardinals’ general manager. Once he remarked, “I have a darn good job, but please don’t ask me what I do.”33 This gave some the impression that he may not have been comfortable in his new role.

The Cardinals won the 1967 pennant with a 101-60 record, an 18½-game improvement over 1966, and advanced to World Series against the Boston Red Sox – a rematch of the 1946 Series, Musial’s last as a player.

1967 WORLD SERIES

Just as in 1946, the Cardinals defeated the Red Sox four games to three, the Cardinals’ fifth World Series title during Musial’s tenure with the team. Despite the team’s success, Musial resigned as general manager on December 5, less than a year after accepting the job. He remains the only general manager of a team that won the World Series in his only year on the job.

When asked what the difference in the Series was after the Cardinals’ Game Seven victory, Musial praised the manager, his former teammate and longtime roommate Red Schoendienst. “If there was a turning point in the Series,” Musial said, “it was in Red pitching Gibson on Sunday so he would be ready if there was a seventh game.”34 Right-hander Bob Gibson won three games to capture his second World Series MVP Award.

Musial’s departure from the general manager position came as a surprise to fans and the press. He later provided plausible reasons for his “retirement,” including the sudden death of his business partner Biggie Garagnani, which Stan said required him to devote more of hist time to their restaurant.35

The media did not completely buy Musial’s explanation and there were rumors of a rift in the front office. The Sporting News reported that “emerging differences came to a head involving Musial over the distribution of World Series tickets.” Those close to Musial seemed to agree that the supposed conflict over the releasing of too many World Series tickets was not the actual reason for his departure. More likely, Augie Busch, the team owner, probably told Musial, who enjoyed the public-relations part of the job, that he needed to master the paperwork, baseball law, and other intricacies of the position.36 No longer the team’s general manager, Musial remained Mr. Cardinal, the team’s senior ambassador for the remainder of his life.

MR. CARDINAL AND THE WORLD SERIES

The Cardinals played in seven more World Series during the remainder of Musial’s lifelong tenure as Mr. Cardinal, winning three and losing four.

On August 4, 1968, a statue of Musial was erected outside Busch Memorial Stadium. That year the Cardinals repeated as pennant winners, their first repeat since they won three in a row in 1942-1944. Many out-of-towners attending the World Series against the Detroit Tigers got their first look at the statue of Musial with its inscription, “Here stands baseball’s perfect warrior; here stands baseball’s perfect knight.”37 The Tigers rallied from a three-games-to-one deficit to win the Series in seven games, denying the Cardinals back-to-back World Series titles.

The Cardinals appeared in three World Series in the 1980s. The first was in 1982, when Musial was approaching his 62nd birthday. The Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers in seven games. The team gave Musial a World Series ring.

The Cardinals won pennants in 1985, 1987, and 2004, but lost all three World Series. They extracted some level of revenge for 1968 by defeating the Tigers in five games in 2006. As the Cardinals’ senior ambassador, Musial earned a seventh World Series ring.

On January 15, 2011, already suffering from Alzheimer’s, Musial was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the country, by President Barack Obama.38 That season the Cardinals made their final appearance in the World Series during Musial’s lifetime. The Cardinals beat the Texas Rangers in seven games, capturing the franchise’s 11th title – the eighth during Musial’s affiliation with the team. As in 1982 and 2006, the Cardinals awarded Musial a World Series ring.

Musial died on January 13, 2013, from complications associated with his battle with Alzheimer’s. He was 92 years old.

PAUL HOFMANN has been a SABR member since 2002. He has contributed to more than 25 SABR publications and co-edited The 1883 Philadelphia Athletics: American Association Champions. Paul is currently the assistant vice provost for international affairs at the University of Louisville and teaches in the College of Management at National Changhua University of Education in Taiwan. A native of Detroit, Paul is an avid baseball card collector and lifelong Detroit Tigers fan. He currently resides in Lakeville, Minnesota.

SOURCES

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author relied on Baseball-reference.com, Retrosheet.org, and Baseball-Almanac.com.

NOTES

1 1942 World Series. Retrieved on September 11, 2023, from www.baseball-almanac.com/ws/yr1942ws.shtml.

2 James N. Giglio, Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man (Columbia; University of Missouri Press, 2001), 78.

3 1942 World Series.

4 Giglio, 78-79.

5 Giglio, 79. Multiple players have had two hits in one inning in a World Series game. Babe Ruth was the first to achieve this feat, in Game Four of the 1926 World Series between the Yankees and Cardinals. As of 2025, J.D. Martinez of the Boston Red Sox was the last player to have two hits in one inning during a World Series game. He did it in Game Four of the 2018 World Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

6 Giglio, 80.

7 Mark Malinowski, “Biofile Stan Musial Interview.” Retrieved on December 3, 2024, from https://mrbiofile.com/2024/01/04/biofile-stan-musial-interview.

8 Malinowski.

9 “The Kids,” Time, October 12, 1942: 77-79, as cited by Giglio. 77-79.

10 Jan Finkel, “Stan Musial,” SABR BioProject. https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/stan-musial/

11 OPS and WAR did not exist at the time and are retrospectively calculated.

12 Howie Pollet missed the 1943 World Series after leaving the team in August to serve in the military, and did not qualify for the ERA title.

13 Joseph Stanton, Stan Musial: A Biography (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2007), 38.

14 Surprisingly, Musial finished fourth in the MVP voting. The award went to teammate Marty Marion, whose play at shortstop was instrumental in the Cardinals winning the pennant going away. The Cardinals finished with a record of 105-49, 14½ games ahead of the second-place Pittsburgh Pirates.

15 “The undisputed underdog, the Brownies barely managed to win the league championship on the last day of the season. The Browns captured the pennant by wining only 89 games for a winning percentage of .578, the lowest for an American League champion to that point.” Giglio, 92. One year later the Detroit Tigers won the 1945 American League pennant with a winning percentage of .575.

16 Galehouse, who had earned a deferment for military service was working six days a week at the Goodyear Aircraft plant in Akron, Ohio. From mid-May until the end of the season, Galehouse would leave Akron after his Saturday shift, travel all night by train to wherever the Browns were playing, pitch the first game of the Sunday doubleheader, then immediately returned to Akron and put in another six-day week at the factory before repeating the process the following weekend. Glenn Stout, “Denny Galehouse,” SABR BioProject, retrieved on September 14, 2024, from https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/denny-galehouse/.

17 “In the 11th inning, with George McQuinn on second, [Mark] Christman laid a bunt down the third-base line that [reliever] Donnelly fielded with his bare hand and tossed to third to get the runner. The play was heralded as the defensive play of the World Series and one of the better defensive plays in World Series history.” Greg Omoth, “Blix Donnelly,” SABR BioProject, retrieved on July 13, 2024, from https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/blix-donnelly/.

18 For a good summary of Musial’s 1945 season in military service, see “Stan Musial,” Gary Bedingfield’s Baseball in Wartime, retrieved on May 15, 2024 from https://www.baseballinwartime.com/player_biographies/musial_stan.htm.

19 oWAR measures a player’s offensive achievements.

20 In 1946 the Cardinals and the Brooklyn Dodgers finished the regular season tied for first place. The winner was decided by a best-of-three playoff. The Cardinals won, two games to none, and advanced to the World Series. All statistics were included in the regular season.

21 The 27-year-old two-time batting champion (1941 and 1942), hit .346 with 38 home runs and 123 RBIs while leading the American League in runs scored (142), bases on balls (156), on-base percentage (.497), slugging average (.667), OPS (1.164), and total bases (343). There have been few World Series that rivaled the star power of the 1946 fall classic.

22 Stan Baumgartner, “Stan Musial a Better Hitter Than Williams – Durocher,” The Sporting News, October 9, 1946: 25.

23 Musial had 7 stolen bases and 9 caught-stealing during the 1946 season.

24 “A Brief History: Here’s Every World Series Game 7,” retrieved on August 17, 2024, from https://www.mlb.com/news/history-of-world-series-game-7-c39984458?msockid=014d8d273707667a354299cb36ff6727.

25 Williams played the Series with a severely bruised elbow, sustained when he was hit by a pitch during an exhibition game staged to keep Red Sox players in shape as they awaited the resolution of Cardinals-Dodgers playoff.

26 For a summary of the game, see Gregory H. Wolf’s article for SABR’s Games Project at https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/october-15-1946-countrys-mad-dash-enos-slaughter-scores-winning-run-for-cardinals-in-game-7/.

27 Giglio, 143.

28 Stanton, 39-40.

29 Stanton, 103.

30 Stanton, 105.

31 Stanton, 111.

32 Stan Musial as told to Bob Broeg, The Man’s Own Story (New York: Doubleday, 1964), 229-230.

33 Jan Finkel.

34 Lowell Reidenbaugh, “Gibson, Cards – Second to None,” The Sporting News. October 14, 1967: 5.

35 Stanton, 119.

36 Giglio, 287.

37 Bob Addie, “Addie’s Atoms,” The Sporting News, October 19, 1968: 14.

38 Basketball legend Bill Russell also received a Medal of Freedom that day.

A National League players’ strike, instigated by some of the St. Louis Cardinals, against the presence in the league of Jackie Robinson, Negro first baseman, has been averted temporarily and perhaps permanently quashed.

WARREN CORBETT is the author of “The Wizard of Waxahachie: Paul Richards and the End of Baseball as We Knew It,” and a contributor to SABR’s BioProject. He became a baseball fan when he saw Jackie Robinson dancing off base on a snowy black-and-white TV set. This article was selected as a winner of the 2018 McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award.

Yom Kippur in the Hebrew Year 5780 (sundown Tuesday, October 8, 2019, through sundown Wednesday, October 9, 2019) offered a unique exhibit in that debate. Three Major League Division Series games began within that 24-hour period. One team in each game featured a Jewish player as star or significant contributor. Each Jewish player appeared in the game. Each team lost.

On Tuesday evening (during Kol Nidre, the beginning of the holy day), the Houston Astros lost Game Four of their best-of-five American League Division Series to the Tampa Bay Rays. Alex Bregman, the Astros star third baseman, played and went 1-for-4. But the Astros allowed three first-inning runs and never were in the game. The loss forced a deciding fifth game, played two days later following an off-day on Yom Kippur.

At 5:02 pm EDT Wednesday (around the start of Neilah, the service that closes the holy day), the Atlanta Braves began a deciding Game Five of their NLDS, surrendering a postseason record 10 first-inning runs in a 13-1 loss. Braves left-hander Max Fried did not start but was pressed into first-inning relief; he surrendered four earned runs in less than two innings of work.

At 5:38 pm PDT Wednesday, before the holy day ended with the blowing of the shofar and breaking of fasts with bagels and kugel, the Los Angeles Dodgers began Game Five of their NLDS against eventual World Series champion Washington Nationals. Dodgers outfielder Joc Pederson started and hit what appeared to be a first-inning homer, although video review showed the ball traveled through a hole in — rather than over — the fence for a ground-rule double. Pederson scored on a subsequent first-inning homer, so no harm/no foul, except for his statistics. The Dodgers surrendered a two-run lead in the eighth inning and allowed four in the 10th to lose the game and the series.

Journalist Armin Rosen labeled this the “Koufax Curse.”3 It is the curse of the Jewish player who plays on Yom Kippur, rather than following in the footsteps of Dodgers Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax, who did not pitch Game One of the 1965 World Series on Yom Kippur 5726.4 Koufax is not alone in his actions (or inactions) among Jewish players. Hank Greenberg skipped a Yom Kippur game during a pennant race in September 1934.5 Shawn Green and Kevin Youkilis earned praise for skipping multiple Yom Kippur games during their careers. But the practice, and thus the curse, remain wedded to Koufax — whether because of his special greatness, that he missed a World Series game, or recency bias.6

Rosen acknowledges that “it’s a theological stretch to claim that there’s some kind of Koufax curse at work whereby Hashem punishes teams whose star Jewish players don’t sit out on Yom Kippur. That would be an absurd and completely nondisprovable thing to assert. Why would Yom Kippur observance be the determinative factor in a baseball game? Surely Hashem isn’t that petty.”7

But correlation does not require causation. There might be a Koufax Curse in the sense of diminished performance by Jewish players and their teams — whether the cause be divine will, Jewish guilt, regression to the mean, or the nature of baseball as a game of failure.

If there is a Koufax Curse, it finds fertile haunting ground in Jewish baseball’s new gilten alter (golden age).8 Fifteen Jewish players spent all or part of 2019 in the major leagues.9 Their ranks included several regulars who contributed significantly to their teams, and an All-Star and American League MVP runner-up in Alex Bregman. Thirteen spent all or part of the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season in the majors, including five regulars and a star starting pitcher. The last four World Series have featured at least one Jewish player. The 2017 (Bregman and Pederson), 2018 (Pederson and Ian Kinsler of the Red Sox), and 2020 Series (Pederson and Ryan Sherriff of the Rays) featured one Jewish player on each team, including the first game in which each team started a Jewish player and the first Series (2017) in which multiple Jewish players homered.10 Pederson and Bregman have each hit five World Series home runs, most among Jewish players. The two also staged an epic one-on-one contest in the first round of the 2019 Home Run Derby.

This renewal follows a fallow period from the late 1970s to early 1990s, during which the few Jewish players were non-starters.11 Green arguably launched the renaissance when he emerged as a star outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays in 1995, the best Jewish player since pitcher Ken Holtzman in the 1970s; the attention on Green included invitations to Bar Mitzvahs in the Toronto area.12 Numerous Jewish stars and everyday players have followed in the past three decades.

A legacy Jewish press has always covered Jewish athletes wherever they could be found.13 Jewish-issues publications, such as The Forward and Tablet Magazine, publish stories on Jewish baseball players.14 But new sites such as the online Jewish Baseball News, the Jewish Baseball Museum, and the tongue-in-cheek generalist site Jew or Not Jew, which includes a section on athletes, have arisen to report on this emerging topic.15 The result is a perfect confluence — many Jewish baseball players to talk about and many outlets in which to talk about them. And an annual topic remains what Jewish baseball players do or do not do — and should or should not do — on Yom Kippur.16

Rosen is correct that Hashem is not so petty as to smite Jewish players with poor performance if they play on the holy day.17 But a correlative question remains: How do Jewish players, and the teams that employ them, perform when they play or choose not to play on Yom Kippur?

This article identifies 36 Jewish players — 18 nonpitchers and 18 pitchers — since 1966/5727, the year after Koufax sat during the World Series. Through box scores from Yom Kippur games for each season of their careers, it explores whether they played on any part of the holy day and charts how they and their teams performed. It conducts the same analysis for Rod Carew, the Hall of Famer who is not Jewish but enjoys a unique familial and cultural connection to Judaism-in-baseball. From this, we can draw conclusions about whether players or teams are haunted by the Koufax Curse. And whether Yom Kippur 5780 was an anomaly or reflects a broader historical correlation since 1966.

1. Identifying the Koufax Curse

A. The Players

Koufax’s 1965 non-start stands as the watershed event in Jewish baseball.18 This study thus begins in 1966 (Yom Kippur 5727) — the beginning point for any “curse” upon Jewish players who would fail to follow Koufax’s lead.

Given the importance of the number 18 in Judaism as the numerical representation of life, that number frames the study.19 I identify 18 nonpitchers and 18 pitchers since 1966 with at least one Jewish parent and who self-identified to some degree with their Jewish heritage.20 Players are listed in chronological order from their debuts. (As noted, the 1980s were a fallow period for star Jewish players, leaving a bit of gap between starters of the 1970s and the revival in the 1990s and early 2000s.)

Nonpitchers

• Mike Epstein: 1B: 1966-74 (Bal; Was;21 Oak; Tex; Cal)
• Ron Blomberg: 1B/OF/DH: 1969-78: (NYY, ChW)
• Bob Melvin: C: 1985-94 (Det; SF; Bal; KC; Bos; NYY; ChW)
• Ruben Amaro, Jr.: OF: 1991-98 (Cal; Phi; Cle)
• Brad Ausmus: C: 1993-2010: (SD; Det; Hou; LAD)
• Shawn Green: OF: 1993-2007 (Tor; LAD; Ari; NYM)
• Mike Lieberthal: C: 1994-2007 (Phi; LAD)
• Gabe Kapler: OF: 1998-2010 (Det; Tex; Col; Bos; Mil; Tam)
• Kevin Youkilis: 1B/3B: 2004-13 (Bos; ChW; NYY)
• Ian Kinsler: 2B: 2006-2019 (Tex; Det; LAA; Bos; SD)
• Sam Fuld: OF: 2007-15 (ChC; Tam; Oak; Min)
• Ryan Braun: OF: 2007-Present (Mil)
• Ike Davis: 1B: 2010-16 (NYM; Pit; Oak; NYY)
• Danny Valencia: 3B/1B/OF: 2010-18 (Min; Bos; Bal; KC; Tor; Oak; Sea)
• Kevin Pillar: OF: 2013-Present (Tor; SF; Bos; Col)
• Joc Pederson: OF: 2014-Present (LAD)
• Alex Bregman: 3d: 2016-Present (Hou)
• Rowdy Tellez: 1B/DH: 2018-Present (Tor)

Among nonpitchers, five remain active as everyday players. Most enjoyed at least a few seasons as regular or semi-regular players, appearing in 110 or more games with 400 or more plate appearances. Several enjoyed (or continue to enjoy) lengthy careers.

The best in the group are Green (two-time All Star, third in home runs by a Jewish player); Youkilis (three-time All Star, Gold Glove first baseman, key player on two championship teams); Kinsler (four-time All Star, two-time Gold Glove infielder, played in three World Series); and Braun (six-time All Star, 2007 Rookie of the Year, 2011 MVP, career leader in home runs by a Jewish player with 35222).

None is likely to make the Hall of Fame; Green fell off the ballot after receiving two votes in his first year of eligibility, and Youkilis received no votes in his first year of eligibility in 2019.23 Epstein hit at least 19 home runs in four consecutive seasons, including as the starting first baseman for the 1972 World Series champion A’s. Pederson has topped 24 homers four times, including 36 in 2019, and has hit five World Series home runs. Blomberg claims the historic achievement of being the first designated hitter, drawing a first-inning walk on Opening Day 1973. Bregman could become the best of the group — at 26, he has played five seasons, made two All-Star teams, finished second in the 2019 MVP balloting, and hit five World Series home runs.

Pitchers

• Ken Holtzman: (S) 1965-79 (ChC; Oak; Bal; NYY)
• Dave Roberts (S) 1969-81 (SD; Hou; Det; ChC; SF; Pit; Sea; NYM)
• Steve Stone: (S) 1971-81 (SF; ChW; ChC; Bal)
• Ross Baumgarten (S) 1978-82 (ChW; Pit)
• Jose Bautista (S/R) 1988-97 (Bal; ChC; SF; Det; St.L)
• Steve Rosenberg (S/R) 1988-91 (ChW; SDP)
• Scott Radinsky (R) 1990-2001 (ChW; LA; ST.L; Cle)
• Andrew Lorraine (R/S) 1994-2002 (Cal; ChW; Oak; Sea; ChC; Cle; Mil)
• Al Levine (R) 1996-2005 (ChW; Tex; Ana; Tam; KC; Det; SF)
• Scott Schoeneweis (R) 1999-2010 (Ana; ChW; Tor; Cin; NYM; Ari; Bos)
• Jason Marquis: (S) 2000-15 (Atl; StL; ChC; Col; Was; Ari; Min; SD; Cin)
• Justin Wayne (R/S) 2002-04 (Fla)
• John Grabow (R) 2003-11 (Pit; ChC)
• Craig Breslow: (R): 2005-17: (SD; Bos Cle; Min; Oak; Ari; Mia)
• Scott Feldman: (S/R) 2005-17 (Tex; ChC; Bal; Hou; Tor; Cin)
• Dylan Axelrod (R) 2011-15 (ChW; Cin)
• Richard Bleier (R) 2016-Present (NYY; Bal; Mia)
• Max Fried: (S) 2017-Present (Atl)

The pitchers form a less-elite group. Holtzman, Roberts, Stone, Feldman, Marquis, Baumgarten, and Fried spent the majority of their careers as starters; the first five occupy half the spots on the list of top-10 winningest Jewish pitchers. The remainder were spot- and middle-relievers who started the occasional game, some enjoying lengthy careers in this role for multiple teams.24

Holtzman pitched two no-hitters, made two All-Star teams, and won 174 games (nine more than Koufax) in fifteen seasons; he was the third starter on the three-time World Series champion A’s of the mid-’70s. (He also hit the lone World Series home run by a Jewish player in the long gap between Greenberg in 1945 and Bregman and Pederson in 2017). Stone won the AL Cy Young Award in 1980 (the only Jewish Cy Young winner other than Koufax), going 25-7. Holtzman (1970) and Roberts (1971) had better seasons measured by WAR and other metrics. In addition to a decade-plus career as a middle-reliever (including pitching 61 games for the 2013 World Series champion Red Sox), Breslow attended Yale and considered becoming a doctor before pursuing a life in baseball.25

Two pitchers remain active through the shortened 2020 season. Fried won 17 games with a 4.02 ERA and 173 strikeouts in his first season as a full-time starter in 2019, then went 7–0 with a 2.25 ERA in the COVID-19-shortened 2020. Bleier has been an effective reliever since 2017, sporting a 9-2 lifetime record with four saves.

B. The Jewish Narrative

Many of these players were known among teammates, fans, and media for their Judaism during their careers. Epstein carried the nickname “Super Jew;” one writer described him as “Mickey Mantle bred on blintzes and gefilte fish.” Epstein’s A’s teammate Holtzman became known as “Jew” or “Regular Jew.” Following the murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972, both sported black fabric strips on their uniforms.26 As mentioned, Green received invitations to Bar Mitzvahs in the Toronto area.27 Other players describe invitations to people’s homes for Shabbat and High Holy Days.28 Bregman’s Judaism is a flashpoint for a segment vested in his continuing development into greatness.29

Using 1966 as the starting point, the story opens with an adjacent game. Yom Kippur fell on Saturday in late September. Koufax pushed his start against the Cubs to Sunday afternoon. His opponent was Holtzman, a rookie left-hander who had pushed his own start back after telling his manager that he observed the holy days. The rookie Jewish pitcher outdueled the greatest Jewish pitcher, pitching a two-hit complete game with eight strikeouts in a 2–1 victory; Koufax gave up four hits and struck out five in his last regular-season loss before retiring following the season.30 Holtzman’s mother had hoped both would earn no-decisions so neither Jewish pitcher would lose.31

There is a generational divide among the players. Holtzman never pitched on Yom Kippur. Blomberg sat out Kol Nidre games in 1971 and 1974 and made clear early in his career that he could not and would not play on the holy day.32 Epstein played following the end of Yom Kippur as a late-season call-up in 1966, and sat out a late-season afternoon game in 1971 as the starting first baseman for a division champion after it had clinched the title.

Green’s emergence in the mid-90s as the first Jewish star in a quarter century reignited the Yom Kippur debate. The play-or-not question gained strength because it focused on a high-profile star, someone central to his team’s success and expected to play every day. Green endured greater scrutiny and criticism on the subject than did his contemporaries; greater pressure to follow earlier stars such as Greenberg, Al Rosen, and Koufax in not playing; and more explicit suggestions that by playing he had failed as a Jew.33 Green picked his spots. He did not play on Kol Nidre 5762 (in 2001), the holy day falling several weeks after 9/11. He split the difference in 2004, playing on Kol Nidre and sitting the following afternoon, while doing the converse in 2007.

Youkilis is most consistent among recent players, sitting multiple Kol Nidre games, as well as a two-game evening/day combination in 2007. Bautista started a game on Kol Nidre during his rookie year but would not attend Yom Kippur games the remainder of his career.34 Lorraine and Breslow attended games, were in uniform, and were available to pitch. Lorraine attended services in the morning before going to the park.35 Breslow fasted.36 Breslow said that appearing at the park “weighed heavily” on him, but he could not shake the belief that as a non-star player he lacked leverage to demand the day off.37

But no current player — in particular no current star player — talks about sitting on the holy day. Kinsler played every Yom Kippur on which his team had a game. No news stories raised the prospect of Bregman, Pederson, or Fried not playing or not being available in those 2019 Division Series games and none made an issue of their playing.38

This narrative must account for the fact that most of these players — current and past — are not religiously observant, especially the several from mixed marriages. Epstein was unique in this respect, announcing “I put on tefillin at different shuls in different cities. I was Bar Mitzvahed. I can read Hebrew. I’m a Jew.”39 Game One of the 1973 ALCS between the A’s and Orioles fell on Yom Kippur 5734; Holtzman, not scheduled to pitch for the A’s, attended synagogue in Baltimore with the Orioles owner.40 Greenberg attended synagogue in 1934 and received a standing ovation; he described it as one of the times in his life he felt like a hero.41 Bautista and Holtzman were observant and maintained kosher homes.42

Among recent players, many had Bar Mitzvahs (among them Bleier, Bregman, Fried, Lorraine, and Youkilis) and most express deep pride in their Jewish heritage. Green’s father said that baseball placed his son in touch with his Judaism.43 Many have played for Israel in the World Baseball Classic or the Olympics, including Kinsler, who relocated to Israel upon his 2020 retirement.44

But not playing on the holy day lacks force for these players, even those raised in the shadow of Koufax and for whom High Holy Day attendance was part of their Jewish upbringing.45 Kinsler described celebrating Passover and Chanukah with his Jewish father’s side of the family and embraced that part of his identity, but did not practice Jewish rituals, including observing the holy days.46 Explaining his decision to play on Kol Nidre in 2004 (a game for which his rookie teammate Youkilis dressed but did not play), Gabe Kapler said it made no sense for him to miss one important game on one day when he was not religiously observant 364 days of the year. While expressing pride in his Jewishness and welcoming the chance to serve as a role model as a Jewish athlete, sitting out the game was not part of that identity.

David Leonard argues that the will-he-play question evolves as Jews gain greater acceptance in US society and anti-Semitism decreases.47 This works in conflicting directions. On one hand, by not playing, Greenberg and Koufax — operating in eras of greater and more explicit anti-Semitism in which Jews occupied a more tenuous space in American society48 — made it safe to express Jewish identity.49 On the other, Greenberg and Koufax rendered it unnecessary for current players to demonstrate that identity by not playing; Judaism is part of them and they can move through baseball and American society without calling attention to it. Even recent upticks in anti-Semitism seem unlikely to manifest in widespread criticism of a Jewish player who chooses not to play on Yom Kippur.50

2. The Koufax Curse by the Numbers

This part turns to the numbers, for teams and players. The sample of players in the study is naturally limited. The number of Jewish major leaguers is small, which is why it is the subject of many books.51 Howard Megdal wrote that, as of 2008, fewer than 160 Jews, broadly defined, have played in the majors, representing less than one percent of players in MLB history. Focusing on a subset of 18 nonpitchers and 18 pitchers — rather than looking at every Jewish-identifying player — further shrinks the sample, while centering it on players more likely to play in a typical game.

The sample of games also is naturally limited. Jewish holy days run from sundown to sundown, so the study focuses on two days and, at most, two games each season. Teams may have no games scheduled on Yom Kippur.

Following the Hebrew calendar, I treat three categories of games as “on” Yom Kippur: 1) evening, when Kol Nidre and the fast have begun; 2) during daylight the following day, which I define as beginning before 6:00 p.m.; and 3) first pitch between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. the following evening, beginning as the holy day is ending for some number of Jews but finishing after its conclusion.

A. Team Records

The first consideration is team success when Jewish players play. The events of 2019 were striking less because of the performance of three Jewish players than for the fact that all teams lost, two of them series-deciding games.52

Table 1 shows team performance when Jewish players play, broken by three classes of Yom Kippur games and all holy-day games. In the “Team W-L” column, the larger record is for all players, while parentheses show records when the Jewish player is a pitcher.

In 120 games, teams are 53–67 when a Jewish player plays at any point on Yom Kippur, 14 games below .500 — ten games under on Kol Nidre, five games under before sundown the following day, and one game over in games played as or after the holy day is ending. This is a .442 winning average, projecting to a 71-91 record in a 162-game season. Teams won six of 23 games in which the Jewish player is a pitcher, a .261 winning average.

Teams had a –114 run differential when Jewish players played, including a –61 differential on Kol Nidre and a –40 differential at the end of the holy day. Interestingly, teams outperformed that run differential. A team with those numbers of runs scored and allowed expects to win 47 of 120 games (.392 winning average), six fewer than teams won.

Table 2 shows team records when Jewish nonpitchers (excluding pitchers) do not play on Yom Kippur, whether for religious or other reasons.

Teams remain two games below .500 on Kol Nidre and one game below during Yom Kippur day. But the record jumps to ten games above .500 in after-holy-day evening games. This produces a total of seven games over .500 in about half the number of games.

B. Nonpitchers

1. Total Statistics

Table 3 shows combined performance for the 18 nonpitchers in the study, again broken by three categories of games, all holy-day games, and careers.

As a group, nonpitchers match combined career batting average and OPS for all holy-day games. They significantly out-perform on Kol Nidre — surprising, given team records in those games. Only in Yom Kippur day games, the smallest of the three categories, do they under-perform career numbers to a significant degree. Power and run-production numbers are not great, but the sample size is small.

Ninety-seven games represent 59.9 % of one season. Imagining these as the statistics for one Jewish nonpitcher (call him “Moses”), Table 4 projects Yom Kippur performance for a 162-game season.

Moses finishes a full season with a .267 average, .776 OPS, with 120 hits, a modest 17 home runs, 58 RBI, a slash line of .267/.343/.433, and more strikeouts than walks.

2. Individual Statistics

Appendix A shows career performance for the 18 nonpitchers, listed in chronological order of MLB debut.54 For each player, it lists performance in the three categories of games, all holy-day games, and career.

Kinsler (15), Ausmus (12), and Braun (10) have played the most games, a reminder of the small sample size. Ausmus significantly outperformed his career stats on Kol Nidre. Kinsler hit well in eight end-of-holy-day games, but otherwise under-performed his career numbers for the full holy day.

Youkilis never played on Kol Nidre or during the day, but went 2-for-3 with two home runs and 3 RBIs in a 2009 post-fast loss. Pillar provides the standout game, going 3-for-3 with a solo home run in 2015 (Kol Nidre 5776) in a loss. Epstein played at the end of the holy day as a late-season call-up in 1966, going 2-for-4 with a triple and 3 RBIs.

In 2004, Green played on Kol Nidre 5765 so he could sit the following afternoon; he went 1-for-3 with a two-run home run in an important late-season victory. Bregman played two Yom Kippur games in 2017. On Kol Nidre, he went 3-for-4 with a home run and 3 RBIs in a late-season 3-2 win; the following afternoon he went 0-for-4 in a loss.

As a rookie in 2010 (5771), Valencia enjoyed the best overall Yom Kippur. On Kol Nidre, he went 2-for-3 with a solo home run, the lone run for his Twins in a loss. The following afternoon, he went 2-for-4 with a home run, driving in three of the team’s four runs in a victory. Valencia arguably enjoyed the best Yom Kippur career, with eight hits, including two home runs, five walks, and seven runs batted in in eight games.

C. Pitchers

1. Total Statistics

Table 5 shows combined performance for the eighteen pitchers in the study.

Pitchers provide a smaller sample than nonpitchers, with fewer games and fewer innings pitched. Eighteen of 23 Yom Kippur appearances were in relief, the average appearance lasting two innings. A Jewish pitcher earned a decision in five games in which any Jewish pitcher appeared, going 2-3; the win or loss was charged to a different, non-Jewish pitcher in 18 games. There was one save earned.

The sample size for pitchers is too small to extrapolate over a full season.

2. Individual Statistics

Appendix B (below) shows career performance for the 18 pitchers, listed in chronological order of MLB debut.56 The first parenthetical indicates whether he threw lefty or righty; the second indicates starter, reliever, or both.

Breslow made the most appearances with four, all in relief, followed by three for Marquis (two starts) and for Roberts (all in relief). Four pitchers on the list never appeared on the holy day, although only Holtzman appears to have done so as a religious decision, as opposed to not being needed.

The best combined pitching performance occurred in 1980 (Yom Kippur 5741). On Kol Nidre, Baumgarten surrendered one earned run on five hits with four strikeouts in seven innings and left with a 3-2 lead; he earned no decision when the bullpen surrendered the lead. As the holy day ended 24 hours later, Stone surrendered one run on six hits in eight innings, striking out five in a win, continuing his dream season.

Marquis earned the other win in 2001 (Kol Nidre 5762), allowing one run on five hits in six innings. Schoeneweis earned the lone save in the study, striking out three of the four batters he faced to preserve a 2007 (Kol Nidre 5768) win. Breslow never allowed a run and struck out five of his seven outs — an impressive performance considering he fasted.

The three losses reflect poor outings. Marquis surrendered six runs on six hits in 1/3 of an inning in a 2010 (Kol Nidre 5771) loss. Levine surrendered the winning run on three hits in the bottom of the ninth in relief in a 2002 end-of-holy-day game (Yom Kippur 5763). Bautista lost the only Yom Kippur game he pitched in 1988 (Kol Nidre 5749) — five runs on seven hits in 4 2/3 innings.

Several poor relief performances have come in games that the team trailed, resulting in a team loss but no decision. Fried surrendered four runs on four hits in 1 2/3 innings in his 2019 playoff game, but the Braves trailed 4–0 before Fried entered in the first inning of an eventual 13-1 loss. Radinsky surrendered two hits, three walks, and four earned runs in less than one inning in 1990, but his White Sox trailed 7-4 on the way to a 13-4 loss.

D. The Special Case of Rod Carew

Preliminary discussions with colleagues about this article and the players to include in the study precipitated a miniature debate: What of Rod Carew, the Hall of Fame infielder for the Minnesota Twins and California Angels from 1967–85? Carew occupies a unique space in the conversation about Jews and baseball, earning him a unique space in this study.

Were Carew Jewish, he would be on the Mount Rushmore of Jewish players (Mount Sinai?) with Koufax and Greenberg, while perhaps waiting for Bregman to fulfill his potential and form a quartet. Although he lacked power, Carew was among the best hitters of his generation. He had more than 3,000 career hits, ranking ninth all-time in singles; a career batting average of .328; and a career OPS of .822. He was an 18-time All Star; won 1967 American League Rookie of the Year; and won 1977 American League Most Valuable Player, when he batted .388 (second-highest batting average since 1931 by a player not named Ted Williams) with an OPS of 1.019. He was elected to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot in 1991. And MLB placed his name on the AL batting champion award in 2016.57

Carew was born to an African American father and Panamanian mother with West Indian roots. He was married to a Jewish woman during his playing career and raised three Jewish daughters.58 Carew appeared on the covers of Time and Sports Illustrated in 1977 wearing his Twins uniform and a chai (a pendant spelling the Hebrew word “life”) that he wore on the field. He spoke during his playing career about converting to Judaism.59 Baseball writer Thomas Boswell described him in an essay titled The Zen of Rod Carew as a “Jewish convert.”60 Most famously, comedian Adam Sandler included Carew in his first Chanukah Song, including Sandler’s vocal aside: “He converted.”

But Carew never converted, which he explained in a phone call to Sandler.61 Although he took preliminary steps, he never completed the process. Carew’s connection to Judaism made news when his youngest daughter died of a rare form of leukemia in 1996; her mix of African, West Indian, and Panamanian ancestry on her father’s side and Eastern-European Jewish ancestry on her mother’s made finding a bone marrow donor difficult.62 Stories did not mention Carew having converted.

Nevertheless, Carew skipped Yom Kippur games five times.63 In 1980, after missing a Kol Nidre evening game, he did not enter the following evening game until the ninth inning, well after the shofar had sounded and the fast had ended. In 1982, he played in a late-afternoon game prior to Kol Nidre, intending to leave had the game run past eight o’clock.64 In 1977, while Carew’s Twins played in Kansas City on Kol Nidre, Carew was home in Minneapolis; news reports conflicted about whether he went to seek medical attention for an ailing arm or whether he had planned to be home to observe the holy day with his family.65

Non-conversion makes Carew not Jewish for inclusion with the 18 Jewish nonpitchers. But his connection to Judaism and his intentional avoidance of playing on Yom Kippur compel his consideration in the study.

Table 6 shows Carew’s individual performance in nine games — two on Kol Nidre, none during Yom Kippur day, and seven in the late-afternoon or evening following the end of the holy day — while Table 7 shows team records in those ten games.

Carew’s Yom Kippur experience mirrors that of the Jewish players in the study. He performed well, with numbers (in a small sample size of nine games and 34 plate appearances) outstripping even his Hall of Fame career numbers. And his team lost more than it won, although they at least broke even when he played on Kol Nidre.

III. A Koufax Curse?

We conclude with the question that begat this paper: does the Koufax Curse exist, even as a correlative matter?

At the individual level, the answer appears to be no. As a group, Yom Kippur hitting numbers for nonpitchers match their career batting average and OPS, if limited power and run production, with higher numbers on Kol Nidre than in games during the following afternoon or evening. Pitcher performances have been mixed, with several good starts and relief appearances balanced against some poor games.

At the team level, however, something strange happens. Teams are 14 games under .500 in all Yom Kippur games, including ten games under on Kol Nidre. When a Jewish player plays on Yom Kippur, their teams are the equivalent of a 71-91 team. And they project to a worse record.

The events of October 2019 (Yom Kippur 5780), with which the article began, reflect this trend. Neither Bregman nor Pederson played poorly. Bregman had one hit in four at-bats and made some plays in the field, but the Astros surrendered three runs in the first inning. Pederson had two hits, including a double that was initially ruled a home run, scored one run, and made two plays in the outfield, but the bullpen blew a late lead. Fried pitched poorly in surrendering four runs in an inning-plus of work, but the game was lost before he entered.

In other words, any curse appears to target not Jewish players, but their non-Jewish teammates, with consequences befalling the whole team. Perhaps this warrants a new approach to Yom Kippur — teams should welcome and encourage Jewish players to sit these games. The media can retire the historic narrative of a dilemma between team and faith or of a player letting his teammates down by missing one game that could decide the season.66 The story becomes that the Jewish player helps his team and supports his teammates by not playing, at least for one or two games. The player becomes a hero to Jewish fans, offers the team an ironically better chance at victory, and perhaps appeases Hashem.

This revised narrative recalls the biblical story of Jonah, fittingly read and studied on Yom Kippur.67 God’s anger at Jonah causes a storm certain to wreck the boat and kill everyone on board, so Jonah urges his shipmates to throw him overboard. The crew reluctantly does so, after which the “sea ceased from its raging.” Perhaps by casting their Jewish teammates into the sea of a day off, the storm of defeat will cease from raging that day.

On the other hand, overall team record is better than it should be, given performance. While teams won 53 games with a Jewish player, their run differential reflects a team that should have won 47 games. Perhaps winning six more games than expected reflects Hashem smiling upon these teams and their Jewish players.

On a third hand (invoking the oft-repeated phrase “two Jews, three opinions”68), teams do not win when their Jewish players rest on Kol Nidre or during the following day, finishing a combined three games below .500. The foundational events that beget any curse reflect this. With Greenberg sitting during Yom Kippur day in 1934, the Tigers lost — although they had built a lead in the pennant race thanks in part to Greenberg hitting two home runs in a Rosh Hashanah win nine days earlier.69 With Koufax sitting in a Minneapolis hotel room, the Dodgers lost Game One of the 1965 World Series, with future Hall of Famer Don Drysdale surrendering seven hits (two home runs) and seven runs (three earned) in 2 2/3 innings. The story is that when Dodger manager Walter Alston pulled him from the game, Drysdale said, “I bet you wish I was Jewish today, too.”70 Team records without Jewish players improve in evening games, or after the sounding of the shofar and breaking of the fast.

Perhaps the solution is that no one should play on Yom Kippur, at least not teams with Jewish players. Like public schools or the Supreme Court, everyone should benefit from the off day that the Hebrew calendar and a Jewish population provides.71 Jews can recommit to their faith. And everyone can be ready to play the following day.

I make both suggestions with tongue in cheek, of course. MLB should not stop playing on Yom Kippur, nor should it urge Jewish players not to play. But these numbers might relieve Jewish players of the belief, expressed by Breslow, that they lack the leverage to request the day off.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to David Fontana, Michael Helfand, Roberta Kwall, David Leonard, Peter Oh, Howard Simon, and Spencer Weber Waller for help and comments. Thanks to Alexis de la Rosa, Jesse Goldblum, Jordan Roth, Carlos San Jose, and Jesse Stolow for research assistance.

Sources

Unless otherwise stated, all game, season, and career statistics were found on player biography pages on Baseball-Reference.com. All scores and details were found on box scores for the relevant games on Baseball-Reference.com.

Appendix A: Nonpitchers

(Click images to enlarge)

Appendix B: Pitchers

(Click images to enlarge)

Notes

1 16 Leviticus 1-34; 58 Isaiah 3-6; Irving Greenberg, The Jewish Way: Living the Holidays (New York: Touchstone, 1993 184-85.

2 Edward Sherman, “L’dor v’dor: The annual re-telling of the Sandy Koufax Yom Kippur story,” Jewish Baseball Museum. Oct. 10, 2016, http://jewishbaseballmuseum.com/spotlight-story/tradition-annual-re-telling-sandy-koufax-yom-kippur-story/.

3 Armin Rosen, “The Koufax Curse,” Tablet, Oct. 10, 2019, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/sports/articles/the-koufax-curse.

4 Jane Leavy, Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy. (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 170-71, 183-84; Larry Ruttman, American Jews & America’s Game: Voices of a Growing Legacy in Baseball (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), 129; David J. Leonard. “To Play or Pray? Shawn Green and His Choice Over Atonement,” Shofar 25, no.4 (2007): 159 & n.25; Matt Rothenberg, “Sandy Koufax Responded to a Higher Calling on Yom Kippur in 1965,” National Baseball Hall of Fame, https://baseballhall.org/discover/sandy-koufax-sits-out-game-one.

5 Mark Kurlansky, Hank Greenberg: The Hero Who Didn’t Want to Be One (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011); Leonard, “To Play or Pray?,” 157-58; Howard M. Wasserman, “When They Were Kings: Greenberg and Koufax Sit on Yom Kippur.” Tablet Magazine, Oct. 11, 2016, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/when-they-were-kings-greenberg-and-koufax-sit-on-yom-kippur.

6 Leavy, Sandy Koufax, 171.

7 Rosen, “The Koufax Curse.” Hashem (“the name”) is one of the names Jews use to speak of God.

8 David Fontana, “The Return of the Jewish Athlete.” Huffington Post, Dec. 6, 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the-return-of-the-jewish-_b_4601775.

9 Jewish Baseball News, http://www.jewishbaseballnews.com/.

10 The Oakland A’s starting lineup for Games One and Four of the 1972 World Series included pitcher Ken Holtzman and first baseman Mike Epstein.

11 In Howard Megdal’s ranking of the top Jewish players by position, no top-five player at any starting position played the bulk of his career during the 1980s and the only player on his All-Time Jewish team who played the bulk of his career in the ‘80s is a relief pitcher. Howard Megdal, The Baseball Talmud: The Definitive Position-by-Position Ranking of Baseball’s Chosen Players (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), 287-888.

12 Steve Wulf, “The bat belongs to Shawn Green, the Mitzvah is his breakout for the Blue Jays.” ESPN.com, July 10, 2012, https://www.espn.com/espn/magazine/archives/news/story?page=magazine-19990614-article43.

13 Robert L. Cohen, “How the Jewish Baseball Superstars Have Handled the High Holiday Conflict,” St. Louis Jewish Light, Sept. 26, 1984, 3.

14 Jesse Bernstein, “The Greatest Jewish Baseball Players of All Time, By Position,” Tablet Magazine, July 29, 2016, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-greatest-jewish-baseball-players-of-all-time-by-position; David Hazony, “Why Israel’s Sudden Baseball Prowess Actually Means Something.” The Forward, Mar. 10, 2017, https://forward.com/opinion/365646/why-israels-sudden-baseball-prowess-actually-means-something/.

15 Leonard, “To Play or Pray?”, 151, 160-61; http://www.jewishbaseballnews.com/; http://jewishbaseballmuseum.com/; http://www.jewornotjew.com/category.jsp?CAT=Athletes%20and%20Coaches.

16 Leonard, “To Play or Pray?”, 151; Sherman, “L’dor v’dor.”

17 Rosen, “The Koufax Curse.”

18 No World Series game has been played on Yom Kippur since Game One in 1978 fell on Kol Nidre. No Jewish player has missed a World Series game since Koufax. And none will repeat that feat, as Yom Kippur and the World Series no longer overlap. Under the current (and expanding) post-season format, the World Series never will begin earlier than October 20, while Yom Kippur cannot fall later than October 14. This adds to Koufax’s legend.

19 The Hebrew word for life is chai. It is spelled in Hebrew with two letters, the 8th and 10th in the alphabet. This gives the word a numerical value of 18.

20 Traditional Judaism is matrilineal. Observant Jews would not recognize as Jewish a person with a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother, unless the person converted. Reform and more liberal Judaism recognize patrilineal descent.

21 The second iteration of the Washington Senators, that played from 1961-72 before relocating to Dallas-Fort Worth and becoming the Texas Rangers.

22 Jewish Baseball Museum, http://jewishbaseballmuseum.com/stats.

23 Braun’s early-career numbers might have been Hall-worthy, Megdal, The Baseball Talmud, 130, but he has not maintained the pace. His candidacy also may be hurt by his 65-game suspension in 2013 for using performance-enhancing drugs during that MVP season, including defending himself by impugning the integrity of the lab technician who collected his sample. Bernstein, “The Greatest Jewish Baseball Players.” Hall voters have been unforgiving of PED users, and Braun’s response to being caught may not help. David Sheinin, “The key changes that could finally put PED users into the Baseball Hall of Fame,” Washington Post, Jan. 17, 2017.

24 In his position-by-position rankings, Megdal identified 20 Jewish starting pitchers (7 lefty, 13 righty) and 47 Jewish relief pitchers (21 lefty, 26 righty). Megdal, The Baseball Talmud, 181-285.

25 Megdal, The Baseball Talmud, 225; Ruttman, American Jews, 424-25; “Red Sox Reliever Craig Breslow Brings Brains and Jewish Faith to Mound.” Haaretz, Oct. 23, 2014, https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/red-sox-s-breslow-brings-judaism-to-mound-1.5278574

26 Jason Turbow, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley’s Swingin’ A’s (Boston: Mariner Books, 2017), 48-61.

27 Wulf, “The bat belongs to Shawn Green.”

28 Ira Gewanter, “Seven Questions for a Pair of Jewish Birds,” JMore: Jewish Baltimore Living, May 16, 2018, https://www.jmoreliving.com/2018/05/16/seven-questions-for-a-pair-of-jewish-birds/.

29 Armin Rosen, “Is Alex Bregman Having the Best Season Ever By a Jewish Baseball Player?” Tablet Magazine, Sept. 27, 2019, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/is-alex-bregman-having-the-best-season-ever-by-a-jewish-baseball-player; Dave Sheinin, “Alex Bregman nears MLB greatness set in motion generations ago in D.C. sandlots and boardrooms,” Washington Post, Oct. 4, 2018.

30 Ruttman, American Jews, 214-15.

31 Ruttman, American Jews, 215.

32 “Yankees Edge Bengals.” New York Daily News, Sept. 27, 1971.

33 Leonard, “To Play or Pray?”, 150-51, 160-61.

34 Horvitz & Horvitz, The Big Book of Jewish Baseball, 25-26.

35 George Castle, “A Jewish Lefty: Lefty Lorraine continues tradition.” Jewish World Review, Sept. 22, 1999. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0999/lorraine.html.

36 “Red Sox Reliever Craig Breslow.”

37 Ruttman, American Jews, 424.

38 Jonathan S. Tobin, “Did we need another Sandy Koufax?” Jewish News Syndicate, October 11, 2019, https://wwwjns.org/opinion/did-we-need-another-sandy-koufax.

39 Turbow, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic, 49.

40 Ruttman, American Jews, 221-22; “A’s, Orioles Call 1st Playoff Game ‘Vital’,” Sacramento Bee, Oct. 6, 1973.

41 Kurlansky, Hank Greenberg, 10.

42 Horvitz & Horvitz, The Big Book of Jewish Baseball, 26; Ruttman, American Jews, 213.

43 Wulf, “The bat belongs to Shawn Green.”

44 Referred to as “Making Aliyah,” or the “act of going up to Jerusalem.”

45 David R. Cohen, “Max Fried’s Birthright from Israel to SunTrust Park,” Atlanta Jewish Times, Aug. 25, 2017, https://atlantajewishtimes.timesofisrael.com/fried-is-working-to-fill-koufaxs-shoes; Gewanter, “Seven Questions.”

46 Ruttman, American Jews, 488-90; Jackie Headopohl, “Kinsler and Ausmus connect with their family roots,” The Jewish News, June 8, 2017, https://thejewishnews.com/2017/06/08/kinsler-ausmus-connect-family-roots/.

47 Leonard, “To Play or Pray?”, 162.

48 Id. at 159-60; Wasserman, “When They Were Kings.”

49 Leonard, “To Play or Pray?”, 162, 165.

50 Jonathan Weisman, (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018), 11-14, 31.

51 Horvitz & Horvitz, The Big Book of Jewish Baseball; Megdal, The Baseball Talmud; Ruttman, American Jews.

52 Rosen, “The Koufax Curse.”

53 Snyder, “MLB All Star Game.”

54 Mike Digiovanna, “A Father’s Prayer: ‘Give Her More Time’: Rod Carew’s Daughter Michelle, in a Battle for Life, Waits for a Bone-Marrow Transplant,” Los Angeles Times, Mar. 3, 1996.

55 Steve Lipman, “Carew Heading Home to Judaism,” The Journal News, Sept. 29, 1977,16B

56 Thomas Boswell, “The Zen of Rod Carew,” in How Life Imitates the World Series (New York: Penguin Sports Library, 1982).

57 Carly Mallenbaum, “Adam Sandler’s ‘Chanukah Song’: Are of those celebs in the song actually Jewish?” USA Today, Dec. 23, 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2018/11/29/adam-sandler-chanukah-lyrics/2133567002/.

58 “Hall of Famer Rod Carew Ruins Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song By Admitting He Isn’t Jewish.” NESN. Last modified Aug. 6, 2012. https://nesn.com/2012/08/hall-of-famer-rod-carew-ruins-adam-sandlers-hanukkah-song-by-admitting-he-isnt-jewish.

59 Ron Lesko. “Michelle Carew: ‘She Was the Light of the World.’” Associated Press. Apr. 21, 1996.

60 R. Cohen, “How the Jewish Baseball Superstars,” 3.

61 “Angels,” 13.

62 Lipman, “Carew Heading Home to Judaism,” 16B; “Arm Injury.”

63 Megdal, The Baseball Talmud, 67.

64 Leonard, “To Play or Pray?”, 153-54; R. Cohen, “How the Jewish Baseball Superstars,” 3; Sherman, “L’dor v’dor.”

65 Leonard, “To Play or Pray?,” 158, 163; Tobin, “Did we need another Sandy Koufax?”; Wolpe, “A Rabbi’s Advice for Shawn Green,” BeliefNet, Sept. 24, 2004, https://wwwquestia.com/library/journal/1Ps-1318031171/to-play-or-pray-shawn-green-and-his-choice-over-atonement; Marc Tracy, “Marquis to Pitch on Kol Nidre,” Tablet Magazine, Sept 14, 2010, https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/marquis-to-pitch-on-kol-nidre.

66 Greenberg, The Jewish Way, 213.

67 1 Jonah 12-16.

68 Sandee Brawarsky & Deborah Mark, Two Jews, Three Opinions: A Collection of Twentieth-century Jewish Quotations (New York: Pedigree Books, 1998).

69 Kurlansky, Hank Greenberg; Leonard, “To Play or Pray?,” 157-58; Wasserman, “When They Were Kings.”

70 Leavy, Sandy Koufax, 184-85.

71 Nathaniel Lewin, “When Jewish justices got the Supreme Court to shut down on Yom Kippur,” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Sept. 29, 2017, https://www.jta.org/2017/09/29/opinion/when-jewish-justices-got-the-supreme-court-to-shut-down-on-yom-kippur.