Roy Mack affixes his signature to an agreement selling the Athletics to the Philadelphia syndicate on October 17, 1954—a commitment Roy would betray just a day later in a backroom deal with Arnold Johnson. (National Baseball Hall of Fame Library)

AL STANDINGS, JUNE 24, 1954

Notes

1. Johnny Gray made his MLB debut for the A’s on July 18, 1954. Gray was a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, where the A’s did their spring training.

2. Phone interview with Spook Jacobs, September 27, 2010. Jacobs played 14 seasons in the minors, finishing with a .300 career batting mark. Jacobs retired after his 1960 season with Chattanooga. He got four hits in his first MLB game, on April 13, 1954, in the first, third, sixth, and eighth innings (retired in the fifth on pop fly). Jacobs was playing winter ball in Cuba when the A’s selected him. He represented Cuba in the February 1954 Caribbean Series hosted by Puerto Rico and played against Vic Power’s Caguas team. Jacobs was inducted into the Cuban (pro) Baseball Hall of Fame in January 2009, along with Negro Leagues stars Josh Gibson and James “Cool Papa” Bell. He was also inducted in Baseball Hall of Fames of Delaware, South Jersey, the Eastern Shore (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia), and the Columbus (Ohio) Jets.

3. Lee MacPhail—a classmate of the author’s mother at Swarthmore College (Philadelphia area)—in his autobiography, page 49, stated that Vic (Power) was “making his presence felt by 1954 … was an outstanding fielder at first base—I am not sure I have ever seen anyone any better—and a good right-handed hitter with power. He was an aggressive player with an aggressive attitude, and the latter had caused a few problems in the clubhouse. (George) Weiss and (Dan) Topping wanted to be certain that the first black player to play for the Yankees would be a role model. We thought we had the ideal man in (Elston) Howard.” Power hit .328, with 101 doubles, 32 triples, and 38 homers in his three AAA seasons—Syracuse (1) and Kansas City (2).

4. Dr. Bobby Brown, in a phone interview, recalled the A’s—late 1940s—had a very good pitching staff with Kellner, Joe Coleman, Phil Marchildon et al plus solid position players: Buddy Rosar behind the plate, Ferris Fain (1B), Pete Suder (2B), Hank Majeski (3B), Eddie Joost (SS), Barney McCoskey, Ben Chapman, Elmer Valo, and Wally Moses in the outfield.

5. Bobby Shantz won eight Gold Gloves: four in the AL, 1957–60, with the Yankees, and four in the NL, 1961–64. Vic Power earned seven AL Glove Gloves with Cleveland, Minnesota, and Los Angeles, 1958–64. Bobby told me his career highlight was a 14-inning, 2–1 win over the 1952 Yankees where Mickey Mantle hit a third-inning homer. Dykes tried (unsuccessfully) to take Shantz out of the game a few times and Bobby related: “I told Dykes that our bullpen wasn’t that good and if I’m going to lose it, will lose it myself. Threw 300 pitches.” Shantz echoed Bobby Brown’s remarks about earlier A’s teams with two-time AL batting champion Ferris Fain.

6. Marilyn Monroe posed for several publicity shots, in high heels, with Zernial, at the 1951 Chicago White Sox training camp in Pasadena, California, prior to a trade which sent Zernial to the 1951 Philadelphia A’s. Joe DiMaggio first noticed Monroe when he saw footage of those shots and wondered why Zernial was so lucky. Zernial suggested that DiMaggio contact the press agent who coordinated these publicity photos (and he did).

7. Lou Limmer, via a phone interview, related how he left Aguadilla on December 18, 1950, at 3:30 a.m . on a jitney from the town plaza to San Juan. Limmer caught a flight to New York before Island police made it to the airport. Limmer was suspended from winter ball for two years due to his fugitive stunt but returned to Puerto Rico five years later and helped Caguas (led by league MVP Vic Power) win the title. Limmer recalled earning a lifetime supply of single-edged razor blades by hitting for the cycle in the 1950–51 Puerto Rico season. His 244 career homers in the minors culminated with 30 for the 1958 Birmingham Barons in the AA Southern Association. Limmer’s World War II-era shoulder injury was documented by Peter Epross with Martin Abramowitz in their 2012 book: Jewish Major Leaguers in Their Own Words.

8. Frank Fitzpatrick, Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer, shared this on April 14, 2011. Eddie Joost helped spark a final revival for the A’s, who had won five World Series (1910–11, 1913, 1929–30) earlier in the century. The ’47 A’s drew a franchise record 911,566 fans. With Mr. Joost as their acknowledged leader, Mack’s fourth-place team went 84–70 the following year and again broke its attendance mark with 945,076 fans. Joost his .263 with 23 homers and 81 RBIs in 1949. He was an AL All-Star in 1949 and 1952. The San Francisco native died in California at age 94.

9. Bill Renna phone interview February 11, 2013. Renna noted it took a good clout to hit it over center field (447 feet from home), and it was 363 feet to left-center (published data: 358 feet to left-center, 355 feet to right-center at Connie Mack Stadium). Renna, in right field, was near the scoreboard that was 400 feet from home plate, 50 feet high, and once had a 60-foot Ballantine Beer sign attached to it. Bobby Brown recalled it was 330 feet down the right-field line (329). The left-field foul line measured 334 feet. This was the first concrete-and-steel stadium in MLB history. William Steele and Sons built it in less than a year, and had it ready for 1909. The land cost $141,918.92. Stadium building costs totaled $315,248.60. Seating Capacity (1954) was 33,608.

10. Marc Aaron’s SABR bio of Gus Zernial stated this injury was the result of the left fielder’s foolishness and competitiveness. It was 17–0, and Zernial was tired of the team taking a beating.

11. Hemsley’s first major-league coaching job came with the 1954 A’s. He also coached the 1961–62 Washington Senators. His best MLB playing seasons were with the 1934–35 St. Louis Browns, managed by Rogers Hornsby. He hit .304 for the 1934 Browns with 31 doubles, and .290 with 32 doubles in 1935. Hemsley was an AL All-Star with the 1935–36 Browns, 1939–40 Cleveland, and 1944 Yankees. He managed against Rogers Hornsby during the 1950–51 Puerto Rico season, when Hornsby’s Ponce Lions played Hemsley’s San Juan Senators. Hemsley passed away in Washington, D.C. at age 65.

12. The Philadelphia A’s lost 100 or more games in 11 seasons: 1915–16, 1919–21, 1936, 1940, 1943, 1946, 1950, and 1954. They finished 50–59 games behind the first-place team in six seasons: 1915–16, 1919–20, 1939, and 1946. The 1939 St. Louis Browns (43–111) finished 64.5 games behind the New York Yankees. The 1932 Boston Red Sox (43–111) trailed the Yankees by 64 games at season’s end. The 1935 Boston Braves (38–115) finished 61.5 games behind the Chicago Cubs in the NL, in Babe Ruth’s last season as a major leaguer. Ruth’s 1927 Yankees (110–44) finished 59 games ahead of the last place Boston Red Sox (51–103). In 1961, the Yankees won 109 and Detroit won 101, while Kansas City and Washington lost 100 games each. The 1962 San Francisco Giants (103–62) and Los Angeles Dodgers (102–63), along with the 59–103 Cubs and 40–120 Mets expansion team accomplished this feat in the NL.

May 1, 1951: Minnie

On April 30, 1951, the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Athletics, and Chicago White Sox orchestrated a trade. Philadelphia sent Lou Brissie to Cleveland, which in turn shipped Sam Zoldak and Ray Murray to Philadelphia and Orestes “Minnie” Minoso to Chicago. The Athletics also sent Paul Lehner to Chicago in exchange for Gus Zernial and Dave Philley1.

This was a gutsy trade, as Zernial was the Sox’ top slugger, and Minoso a 25-year-old black rookie joining a Chicago team yet to be integrated. Minoso, who had previously played for Cleveland, debuted for the Sox on May 1, batting third and playing third base against the New York Yankees.

In the bottom of the first, he hit a two-run homer off Vic Raschi. After Raschi fired a strike to Minoso, the young outfielder picked on the next delivery and sent it “into the left center field corner of the bullpen, a tap of something like 420 feet.” Unfortunately, Minoso made an error at third, which allowed back two runs, but singled off reliever Tom Ferrick. The Chicago fans immediately embraced him2.

The trade for Minoso paid off quickly. He immediately became a fan favorite and this love affair continues. He was the first to put the “Go” into the “Go-Go White Sox” and changed the team forever.

May 28, 1954: Phil Cavarretta debuts for Sox as player after long Cubs career

Near the end of spring training 1954, Cubs manager Phil Cavarretta, a longtime north side icon, told owner P.K. Wrigley that his team—5–15 at the time—was not very good. Cavarretta had frankly told Wrigley that he felt the team was doomed to another second-division finish. Wrigley was furious with this perceived poor attitude and fired him3, replacing him with Stan Hack. Phil’s position was, “I thought it my duty to give Mr. Wrigley frank views on the ball club’s ability.”4

The South Siders signed Cavarretta as a player on May 24. This move was unusual; at the time, many believed that an unwritten agreement existed between the White Sox and Chicago Cubs to not conduct transactions with each other. Signing a famous Cub such as Cavarretta was major news.

Ferris Fain started at first base for the Sox against the Baltimore Orioles in the opener of a May 28 twin bill. But in the bottom of the sixth, Phil Cavarretta entered the game at first. He made three putouts and was called out on strikes in the eighth. The White Sox won 11–6.6

Cavarretta had not envisioned playing much, and Fain was ensconced as the regular first baseman. Due to a knee injury, however, Fain did not play after June 27 and got into only 65 games. Cavarretta ended up in 71 games. He hit .316, scoring 21 runs and hitting six doubles and three homers and driving in 24 runs.7 Not only did Cavarretta play well for the Sox, he also got a share of playoff money for their third-place finish—and the Sox got to thumb their noses at the Cubs.

April 23, 1955: A record-tying 29–6 victory

The White Sox of the 1950’s were not known for heavy hitting. Sure, they had Minnie Minoso, George Kell, Gus Zernial, Eddie Robinson, Sherman Lollar, and Nellie Fox, but pitching and fielding were really their forte. On April 23, 1955, however, they did score an amazing 29 runs in one game, tying a mark set by the Boston Red Sox on June 8, 1950. Chicago collected 29 hits, just one less than the American league mark, and clubbed seven home runs, which at the time was only one less than the major-league record.8 The line score:

The Sox began the top of the first with Chico Carrasquel singling and reaching third on an error.9 Fox flied out and Minoso reached on another error, scoring Carrasquel. Kell’s single and Bob Nieman’s home run gave the Sox a quick four-run lead. Unfortunately, in the bottom of the first, a Spook Jacobs walk, Jim Finigan’s double, and Bill Renna’s home run cut the advantage to 4–3.

Lollar led off the second with a home run, and Jack Harshman and Carrasquel singled. A ground out, an intentional walk, a force out, Nieman’s single, Walt Dropo’s single, Jim Rivera’s double, and Lollar’s single brought in seven more runs for an 11–3 edge.

In the sixth, up 16–6, the Sox scored six more times. Lollar, Harshman, and Carrasquel singled to fill the bases. Fox’ sacrifice fly plated Lollar. Minoso forced Carrasquel and Kell doubled, chasing home Minoso and Harshman. Nieman walked and Dropo singled for another run. Rivera singled home another, and Lollar singled to score Dropo. It was 22–6.

Minoso’s three-run homer in the seventh and Harshman’s two-run shot in the eighth increased the lead to 27–6. Later in the eighth, Minoso singled in another run and Stan Jok’s sac fly finished the scoring.

Nieman and Lollar each hit a pair of home runs, and Dropo, Minoso, and pitcher Harshman clubbed one each. Lollar twice had two hits in an inning, which itself tied a major league record.

June 22, 1956: Sam Esposito leads Sox to four-game sweep of Yankees

On Friday, June 22, 1956, the first-place Yankees (40–20) came to town to face Chicago (32–22). The Yankees featured eventual Triple Crown winner Mickey Mantle (52 HR, 130 RBI, and .353 BA), and Yogi Berra, Bill Skowron, Gil McDougald, Elston Howard, and Hank Bauer as well as pitchers Whitey Ford, Johnny Kucks, Don Larsen, and Tom Sturdivant.

In the first game of the four-game set, Casey Stengel started Sturdivant against Dick Donovan.10 The Sox scored in the third and fifth, but the Yankees tied it with runs in the eighth and ninth. After a scoreless tenth, the Yankees scored two in the eleventh as reserve first baseman Joe Collins singled to chase home Gil McDougald and Norm Siebern.

Sherm Lollar flied out to open the bottom of the eleventh. Walt Dropo singled, but pinch-hitter Bubba Phillips was called out on strikes. Minnie Minoso hit for Luis Aparicio, putting men on second and third. Light-hitting Sammy Esposito batted for Donovan and he too doubled, scoring pinch-runners Jim Delsing and Billy Pierce. Although Jim Rivera singled and Nellie Fox walked, they could not score the winning run.

The Yankees went out in the twelfth, and Dave Philley singled off Rip Coleman to open the home half and Lollar was hit by a pitch. Phillips struck out, but pinch-hitter Ron Northey walked. Esposito then singled home Lollar, and the Sox had stolen game one. Sandy Consuegra was the winning pitcher.

“Chuck Comiskey strode in amid the shrieking players, shook young Esposito’s hand and said with a wide grin, ‘You’re the new mayor of the city.11’”

On June 23 the Yankees started former 20-game winner Bob Grim while the Sox used Jim Wilson12. Grim pitched a good game, but in the sixth, he hit Dave Philley with a pitch. After a bench-clearing fight, Philley was ejected13. Lollar doubled to score pinch-runner Jim Delsing, and later, Aparicio singled to drive in Walt Dropo. Wilson only gave up four hits and the Sox won 2–0.

Although the Yankees had played six more games, the two teams were now tied in the loss column: NY 40–22 (.645) and Chicago 34–22 (.607).

Sunday June 24 featured a doubleheader. Game One matched aces Ford and Pierce. The game did not begin well for the Sox, as leadoff man Hank Bauer tripled and Mickey Mantle singled to score him14. Fortunately, Pierce retired Yogi Berra and Bill Skowron. Esposito, leading off for the Sox, singled to start the first and went to third on a groundout and a wild pitch. Ford hit Minoso with a pitch and Philley singled to plate Esposito. Larry Doby followed with a home run, pushing the Sox ahead 4–1. The Sox continued to pour it on and won 14–2.

The Yankees started Mickey McDermott in Game Two while the Sox started Gerry Staley, who later became their star reliever15. Again, Esposito played third and led off. The Yankees did not score in the first, and Esposito walked to start the Sox half. Fox singled and Minoso walked, stuffing the bases. Philley’s sacrifice fly scored Esposito and Doby crushed another three-run homer for a 4–0 Sox lead. After Lollar singled, Don Larsen relieved McDermott, but it was too late. Esposito doubled, walked, and scored a run in a 6–3 Sox win.

Falling in four straight to the Sox, the Yankees stood at 40–24.16 The Sox, at 36–22, had pulled within one game of the league leaders. Unfortunately, the Sox dropped from the heights, playing at .500 for two weeks before losing 11 in a row. The club eventually finished third.

Sept. 30, 1956: 16-year-old Jim Derrington becomes the youngest 20^th century pitcher to start a major-league game

While the majors had seen some young pitchers, none had been quite as green as Jim Derrington, who took the hill against the last-place Athletics on September 30th, the season’s last day.17 The Sox had clinched third place, and the third-place post-season share, the day before.

Charles “Jim” Derrington, born November 29, 1939, signed with the White Sox as a “bonus baby” on September 12, 1956. He was only 16 years, 10 months, and 1 day old when he made his first start.

Nuxhall was 15 years, 10 months, and 11 days when he pitched for the Reds on June 10, 1944, but “The Old Left-hander” did not start a major league game until July 13, 1952, when he was 23. Carl Scheib, likewise, was younger than Derrington in his first game, but only relieved. Scheib started his first game in June 1947 when he was 20. Roger McKee, 16 years, 11 months, and 2 days old when he relieved on August 18, 1943, started his first game at age 17.18

Only 13,171 attended Derrington’s start at Kansas City. With one out in the home first, Hector Lopez and Lou Skizas singled. Hal Smith doubled to left, scoring Lopez, but Skizas was out at third trying to advance. Johnny Groth then reached on Esposito’s error as Smith scored. Rance Pless walked and Derrington balked. Jim Pisoni walked, but Joe DeMaestri lined out, ending the inning with the Athletics up 2–0.

The Sox filled the bases in the second. Aparicio and Fox walked to push two runs across, and a third scored on an errant pickoff throw, giving the Sox a 3–2 advantage.

Unfortunately, the A’s tied the score in the bottom half on another RBI double by Hal Smith. Kansas City did not score in the fourth, despite two Derrington walks. In the fifth, he gave up only a single to Johnny Groth. The bottom of the sixth, however, proved to be Derrington’s demise. After Joe DeMaestri walked and Bill Harrington whiffed, Vic Power homered. Skizas also laced a home run later in the inning, and the Sox trailed 6–3.

In the seventh, Doby batted for Derrington and grounded out. The Sox rallied late, but fell 7–6, Derrington taking the loss. He gave up nine hits and six walks, five of which came on 3-2 pitches.19

The following season Derrington pitched 20 games, starting five of them. While he went on to work in the minors from 1958–61, Derrington never returned to the majors.20 He remains, however, the second youngest man to start a major league game.

June 13, 1957: Ditmar, Doby, Slaughter fight

The first-place White Sox, six up in the loss column21, were hosting the second-place Yankees, with Billy Pierce facing Art Ditmar. In the home first, Bubba Phillips struck out, Nellie Fox walked, and Minnie Minoso singled. After Sherm Lollar flied out, Ditmar threw a wild pitch, advancing both runners.

Ditmar then unleashed a pitch toward Larry Doby’s head, which resulted in a 28-minute bench-clearing fight after which Doby, Walt Dropo, Billy Martin, and Enos Slaughter—but not Ditmar—were ejected.22

Doby punched out Ditmar and both Bill Skowron and Martin attacked Doby. Dropo pulled Skowron off, and Slaughter then attacked Dropo. Slaughter’s uniform was nearly torn off him. Manager Al Lopez argued that Ditmar also should banished, but the umpires dismissed this by explaining Doby was the “aggressor.”23 After play was resumed, Jim Rivera’s two-run shot gave the Sox the lead in second, but the Yankees rallied, scoring three in the fifth to take a 4–2 lead and knock out Pierce.

Lollar laced a solo home run in the eighth, but the Sox drew no closer. The White Sox soon lost their huge lead over the Yankees and by June 30 were in second place.

An irate Chuck Comiskey arranged a post-game meeting involving AL president Will Harridge, the umpires, and managers of both clubs. He argued, “Why wasn’t Ditmar thrown out? All Doby said to him was: ‘Why don’t you watch where you’re throwing?’ Then Ditmar said, ‘Go (chase) yourself.’ Doby said: ‘I’ll chase you right now.’ Ditmar turned around and Doby hit him. This is a joke. Are there two sets of rules in the league? I’d like amenity.”24

Harridge, who had been at the game, levied no suspensions, but did fine Doby, Martin, and Slaughter $150 and Dropo and Ditmar $100.25

July 14, 1957: Game #2 of DH against the Yankees at Comiskey Park

One month after the Ditmar/Doby game,26 the Sox were three games out of first. Chicago won the first game of the day’s doubleheader 3–1 as Billy Pierce tamed New York on five hits.27 Comiskey Park fit in 48,244 fans that day, some 1,500 more than official capacity.28 A win in the nightcap would pull the Sox within one.

Chicago’s Dick Donovan fashioned a gem, scattering five singles over eight innings. The Sox scored in the first on Luis Aparicio’s triple and Earl Torgeson’s fly and plated two more in the third. In the fifth, the Sox knocked out Ford and Yankees reliever Tommy Byrne walked in another run.

With a 4–0 lead in the ninth, everyone expected a sweep. But Mickey Mantle singled as did Yogi Berra. Harry Simpson singled in Mantle and Jim Wilson replaced Donovan with the score 4–1. Hank Bauer singled, but Wilson fanned Elston Howard. Bill Skowron then pinch-hit for Jerry Coleman and launched a grand slam home run for a 5–4 Yankees lead.

Pitcher Byrne followed with another home run and the score was 6–4. The Sox went scoreless in their half of the inning and the crowd filed silently out of Comiskey.29 The Sox were not the same afterward; several times they pulled within three games but got no closer. The pennant race had ended that day.

June 27, 1958: Billy Pierce loses a perfect game on a pinch hit with two outs in the ninth

The Sox hosted the eighth-place Senators on June 27, 1958.30 Washington had some quality hitters in the lineup, including Roy Sievers, Jim Lemon, Albie Pearson (Rookie of the Year that season), Norm Zauchin, and Eddie Yost.

Billy Pierce faced Russ Kemmerer. While Kemmerer allowed three runs on eight hits, Pierce retired the side inning by inning. After eight innings, Pierce had whiffed seven batters and no one had reached base. Nobody in the majors had thrown a regular-season perfect game since Charlie Robertson of the White Sox in 1922.

With 11,300 fans cheering him on, Pierce got Ken Aspromonte to ground to Luis Aparicio at short. Catcher Steve Korcheck became Pierce’s eighth strikeout victim. Now down to his last out, Washington manager Cookie Lavagetto inserted Ed Fitz Gerald as a pinch-hitter for Kemmerer.31

“ On the first pitch, a knee high curve ball, he swung late and sliced it fair by a foot just out of Ray Boone’s reach at first base. Fitz Gerald made it to second for a double.” A loud groan went through the stands. Pierce then fanned Pearson for the final out. When asked about breaking up the perfect game, Fitz Gerald said, “I was sent up to hit, wasn’t I?”32

April 22, 1959: Sox score 11 runs in one inning—on one hit

Scoring 11 runs in one inning is interesting enough, but even more so when you are behind 6–1 after just two innings. The Athletics routed Early Wynn, that year’s AL Cy Young winner, from the mound after just 12/3 frames. 33

Reliever Bob Shaw came on for Chicago and tossed 71/3 scoreless innings, paving the way for the White Sox’ decisive 19-run comeback and a 20–6 final.

Chicago knocked out starter Ned Garver in the fourth inning and routed Bud Daley during the sixth, taking an 8–6 lead.34, 35

Things got nutty in the top of the seventh. Tom Gorman relieved for the Athletics and Ray Boone reached on Joe DeMaestri’s throwing error. Al Smith reached when third baseman Hal Smith (usually a catcher) fumbled a sacrifice bunt. Johnny Callison singled—the only hit of the inning—to score Boone, and Smith scored as well when right fielder Roger Maris fumbled the ball. Callison advanced to third.

Luis Aparicio walked and quickly stole second. Gorman also walked Shaw to fill the bases. Earl Torgeson batted for Sammy Esposito and walked to force home Callison and give the Sox an 11–6 advantage. Mark Freeman replaced Gorman, who had faced six batters and retired none of them.

Nellie Fox walked to force in Aparicio with the fourth run. Jim Landis grounded to Freeman who forced Shaw at home. Freeman, however, walked Sherman Lollar, scoring Torgeson with the fifth run. George Brunet replaced Freeman and walked Boone; this scored Fox for the sixth run. Smith walked to push home the seventh run. Brunet hit Callison with a pitch, forcing in Lollar with the eighth run of the inning and a 16–6 lead.

Lou Skizas ran for Callison, and Brunet walked Aparicio to plate yet another run. Shaw struck out. Bubba Phillips batted for Torgeson and—you guess it—walked, scoring Smith with the tenth run. Fox then walked and Skizas tallied the eleventh run. Jim Landis grounded out, Brunet to first baseman Kent Hadley, to end the inning.

The White Sox had scored eleven runs (only two of them earned) on one hit, three errors, ten walks, and one hit by pitch and now led 19–6. The Sox added a final tally in the ninth as Aparicio singled, advanced on a bunt, and scored on Fox’ single.

September 22, 1959: The Sox clinch the AL pennant, Fire Chief Quinn turns on the sirens, and some people think the Russians have attacked

On September 22, the White Sox faced the second-place Indians in a night game at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium. The Sox were 91–59 and within one victory of clinching the AL flag outright.36

Cleveland featured the strong bats of Vic Power, Woodie Held, Minnie Minoso, Jim Piersall, Tito Francona, and Rocky Colavito. Cal McLish won 19 games, Gary Bell won 16, young Jim Perry won 12, and Jim “Mudcat” Grant won ten. Early Wynn started against Perry.

Had the Sox lost, their lead would have fallen to just 2½ games with four contests left against the fourth-place Tigers, while Cleveland would finish with four games against the lowly Athletics.

The Sox scored twice in the third and twice more in the sixth when Jim Rivera and Al Smith clouted back-to-back homers. The Indians scored in the fifth and tacked on another in the sixth, when Bob Shaw relieved Wynn. Chicago seemed to be safe with a 4–2 lead, but in the bottom of the ninth with one out, Cleveland’s Jim Baxes singled and Ray Webster pinch ran for him.

Former Sox pitcher Jack Harshman singled to right, putting runners on first and second. Carroll Hardy ran for Harshman. Jim Piersall then singled to load the bases. The crowd of 54,293, sensing its moment, roared.

Sox skipper Al Lopez brought in ace reliever Gerry Staley. Vic Power offered at Staley’s first pitch and slapped a grounder toward Aparicio. The lithe shortstop sucked up the ball, stepped on second, and fired to first to complete the 6-3 double play, ending the game and clinching the Sox’ first pennant in forty years.37

Chicago Fire Commissioner Robert J. Quinn set off the city’s air-raid sirens to celebrate the pennant.38 This odd nighttime action took many people by surprise, however, and even induced some to think that the Soviet Union had attacked. A Chicago detective tried, unsuccessfully, to obtain a warrant against Quinn for disorderly conduct for sounding the air raid.39

Quinn, a Sox fan, never apologized for the incident, which became another key piece of the team’s legendary 1959 campaign.

STEPHEN D. BOREN, MD, MBA, FACEP is an emergency medicine physician and Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. He has appeared on multiple occasions in the “Baseball Research Journal,” “The National Pastime,” and “Baseball Digest.“

Notes

1. Vaughan, Irving. Sox Get Minoso, Lehner; Play Yanks Today: Gus Zernial and Philley Go … Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); May 1, 1951; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. B1

2. Vaughan, Irving. May 2, 1951. Sox beaten 8-3, Minoso Clouts Homer, Gives Yanks 2 runs. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990), C1

3. Prell, Ed. Cavarretta Sounds Grimm Job As Player-Coach. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) March 31, 1954. B1

4. Official Baseball Guide and Record Book 1955. Compiled by J.G. Taylor Spink. Published by Charles C. Spink & Son, St Louis, 1955. p 99-100.

5. Burns, Edward. Chicagoan—Only His Suit’s Changed: Sox Sign Cavarretta; Face Indians and Lemon Tonight. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); May 25, 1954.

6. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1954/B05281BAL1954.htm

7. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/C/Pcavap101.htm

8. Vaughan, Irving. Sox Tie Major League Records; Beat A’s, 29-6: 29 Hits Fall One Short. Apr 24, 1955; pg. B1

9. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1955/B04230KC11955.htm

10. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1956/B06220CHA1956.htm

11. Dozer, Richard. “Let’s Keep Sam Warm,” Say Sox In Happy Mood: Jun 23, 1956; pg. B1

12. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1956/B06230CHA1956.htm

13. Prell, Edward. Sox Beat Yankees Again! Players Fight: Philley, Grim Trade Blows; Wilson Wins His 10th, 2-0 New York League Lead Narrowed to 3 Games. Jun 24, 1956; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990)

14. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1956/B06241CHA1956.htm

15. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1956/B06242CHA1956.htm

16. A Series Sweep—and How! Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963);Jun 25, 1956; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. C2 pg. A1

17. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1956/B09300KC11956.htm

18. http://www.timeanddate.com/date/duration.html

19. Cromie, Robert. Bonus Hurler and Sox Lose to A’s, 7 to 6. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Oct 1, 1956; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. C3

20. http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=derrin002cha

21. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1957/B06130CHA1957.htm

22. Vaughan, Irving. Players Fight As Yanks Beat Sox, 4-3: Ditmar’s Errant Pitch Sets Off … Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jun 14, 1957; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. C1

23. Doby’s Left Hook Drops Hurler in 1st Inning: 2 Sox, 3 Yankees Ousted for Scrap Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jun 14, 1957; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. C1

24. Cromie, Robert. Comiskey Is Irate; Asks Explanation: Comiskey’s Ire Up After Sox, Yankee Scrap. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jun 14, 1957; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990). pg. C1

25. Doby, Dropo, 3 Yanks Share $650 In Fines. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jun 15, 1957; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. A2

26. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1957/B07141CHA1957.htm

27. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1957/B07142CHA1957.htm

28. Boren, Stephen. New Park Spurs Reflections On Baseball, Medicine and Tradition. American Medical News, American Medical Association, Chicago, April 8, 1991.

29. Villainous Heroes: Sox Too Close, So Yankees Had to Win. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jul 15, 1957; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. C1

30. Dozer, Richard. 27th Man Ruins Pierce’s Perfect Game: Fitz Gerald, a Pinch Hitter… Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jun 28, 1958; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. A1

31. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1958/B06270CHA1958.htm

32. Dozer, Richard. Pierce Just ‘Happy To Win’: Hides Disappointment Over Lone Hit Pierce Hides His Sorrow Over Late Hit. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Jun 28, 1958; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. A1

33. Dozer, Richard. Sox Win, 20-6; Score 11 Rounds On 1 Hit!: A’s Chip In 10 Walks And …Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963);Apr 23, 1959;ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. D1

34. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1959/B04220KC11959.htm

35. How They Did It: Seventh Inning. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Apr 23, 1959; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. D4

36. http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1959/VCHA01959.htm

37. ’ Twas a Long, Long Pull–40 Years!–to Sox Pennant: Lopez Won After 15 Managers Failed. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Sep 23, 1959; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. C1

38. Files Formal Protest Over Sirens For Sox. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Sep 25, 1959; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. A2

39. Muller Loses Air Raid Scare Warrant Plea. Chicago Daily Tribune (1923-1963); Sep 26, 1959; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. W11

In August of 1932, Gus Greenlee added permanent lights to the Pittsburgh Crawfords home field. (NOIRTECH RESEARCH INC.)

The Story of Greenlee Field

Any story requires plot, characters, and setting. In reconstructing the history of Black baseball box scores give us the basic outline of the plot, and biographical records tell us who the players were. But until now, the setting—where teams actually played their legendary games—has been left mostly to our imagination, even for great clubs like the 1930s Pittsburgh Crawfords. The only detail we have known about the exterior of Greenlee Field is that its brick façade had three arched entryways. These are clearly visible in the background of the 1935 team photograph, behind the famous Mack bus and underneath a sign that reads “ENTRANCE.” The park’s interior has also been a mystery. Teenie Harris’s photographs1 show a few interior details, but not enough to imagine the big picture, leaving us wondering about the ballpark’s appearance both inside and out, its orientation on the site, and the playing field’s dimensions.

Gus Greenlee

Pittsburgh’s Hill District businessman Gus Greenlee began investing in the Crawfords by 1931, hoping to build the team from a local semiprofessional club to contenders in a professional league.2 Initially, the team was mediocre, with no superstars but some decent players: Robbie Williams, Moe Harris, “Jap” Washington, Sam Streeter, and Bill Harris. The Pittsburgh Courier called the 1931 Crawfords “a disorganized team of temperamentals…without a single brainy pitcher.” But the same writer assessed, “before the season ended [the] Crawfords were ranked in the first division.” Robbie Williams was the team’s player-manager, and Cum Posey’s brother See was business manager. Sportswriter W. Rollo Wilson declared, “Gus Greenlee has built an exceptional good team in the short while he has owned the former sandlotters.” Yet the Crawfords were still no match for the Homestead Grays, who in 1931 won 33 games against major Black teams and lost just 18, leading Cum Posey to claim his team “undisputed champions.” That season, the Grays featured sluggers Josh Gibson and Oscar Charleston, men who had shared the nickname “the Black Babe Ruth.” But great things were in store for the Pittsburgh Crawfords in 1932, and Rollo Wilson predicted Greenlee was “going into the proposition in a big way.”3

Building a New Ballpark

During the 1931 season, the Crawfords had to rent grounds for their home games, playing most at Ammon Field on Bedford Avenue (now Josh Gibson Field) in the Hill District,4 but leasing Forbes Field from the National League Pirates for important games. While the major league stadium was certainly superior, Black teams were not allowed to use its clubhouse facilities. Plus, Forbes Field was in Oakland, almost two miles away from the African American neighborhoods where most of the Crawfords’ fans lived, and Greenlee recognized the “disadvantage which [they] had to undergo to reach it.”5 Frustrated with the “high rental price charged for parks with inadequate accommodations…[Greenlee] concluded that an enclosed field within walking distance would be attractive to sport fans.” During the summer of 1931, he began searching for a suitable Hill District location to build his ballpark and settled on a site owned by the Entress Brick Company, occupying an entire city block on the north side of Bedford Avenue between Junilla Street and Watt Street.6

An abundance of cheap natural gas and prime clay made southwestern Pennsylvania ideal for brick manufacturing, so such businesses were common around Pittsburgh. The Entress Brick Company had been operating since 1882, sing three large kilns to produce about 20,000 bricks per day during the late 1890s.7 Although the company had been quite profitable, when the Great Depression began, construction projects dwindled, so Entress stockholders were ready to sell the Bedford Street property.

In 1931, Entress Brick Company’s principal stockholder was Dr. Joseph F. Thoms, a White physician who also held the deed to the land. To broker the deal with Entress and gather sufficient funds for building a quality ballpark, Greenlee and Thoms formed the Bedford Land Company, with Latrobe Brewery owner Joe Tito (also White) as their third partner. Prior to this venture, Tito had reportedly been connected with Greenlee’s less legitimate businesses, including his numbers organization. Greenlee only owned 25 percent of the ballpark and held ho office in the company. Thoms served as president, and Tito as treasurer. The secretary for the Bedford Land Company was Robert F. Lane, former bookkeeper of the Entress Brick Factory. Lane handled money, kept records, and arranged contracts for renting the part to other users. Tito’s brother Ralph leased the concession stand, and their relative Tony Christiano was official groundskeeper.8

Understanding business structure and ownership roles in the Bedford Land Company is important. Many contemporaries charged that Greenlee Field failed economically because Greenlee refused to include African Americans in the daily operations. However, this accusation neglects that he was not sole owner an in fact had little control over staffing. Greenlee was the charismatic front man but greatly relied on his White partners for funding and logistical support to book events, maintain the facility, and generate revenues. In return, they controlled most of the ballpark’s staffing and supply arrangements.

The Architect

One of the most interesting untold stories behind the construction of Greenlee Field is the identity of its African American architect: Louis Arnett Stuart Bellinger. A few Pittsburgh Courier articles about the ballpark mention his last name, but none explain who he was or his role in Pittsburgh’s African American community.

Bellinger was born September 29, 1891, in Sumter, South Carolina, about 100 miles north of Charleston. His father, George, and a few other male relatives were carpenters. After graduating from a local academy in 1910, Bellinger enrolled in Howard University and received his bachelor of science degree in architecture in June 1914.9 His first job was teaching mathematics and science at Fessenden Academy in Ocala, Florida, from 1914 to 1915.10 In 1916, Bellinger accepted a new position in Columbia, South Carolina, teaching mathematics at Allen University, an institution which the Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church had founded in 1870 to educate freed slaves.11 When the United States entered World War I in 1917, Bellinger immediately registered for the draft and served a short time in the army. Around this time, he also married Ethel Connel, a music teacher. They had no children.

After the war, Bellinger moved to Pittsburgh and is listed as an architect in the 1919 city directory. The 1920 Federal Census lists him renting a residence at 611 Chauncey Street, less than two blocks south of the future Greenlee Field site. In 1922, Bellinger opened his own practice with a downtown office at 525 Fifth Avenue. Among his first commissions was an apartment building on Junilla Street, in the Hill District. The following year, he took a job as an assistant to the city architect, working on projects to remodel public buildings. Bellinger returned to private practice in 1926 and in 1927 designed the Pythian Temple, which later became the New Granada Theatre. The building still stands at 1909 Centre Avenue, with its rear entrance on Wylie Avenue, and has been nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. It is one of very few remaining examples of Bellinger’s work.12

In 1928, the Harmon Foundation honored Bellinger by including his work in a national exhibition of African American Artists. His featured piece was “Proposed Plan for Church and Apartments.” He was invited to participate in another Harmon Foundation exhibition in 1933, but he materials were damaged in transit. Invitations to participate in these events mark Bellinger’s status not just in Pittsburgh, but in the larger African American creative community.

In 1928, Bellinger designed the $19,000 home he and Ethel occupied at 530 Francis Street.13 However, when his business faltered during the Great Depression, he had to close his downtown office and sell the house. In 1932, he unsuccessfully run for Congress as a Republican candidate. In 1936, Bellinger secured a position as Inspector in the City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Building Inspection; he held this job until 1939 and then again from 1941-42. During the break in between, he again attempted to restart his private practice. Bellinger was elected to the American Institute of Architects (AIA) on July 10, 1945, and work began to pick up after World War II. But then Bellinger died suddenly on February 3, 1946, of a cerebral hemorrhage. His obituary appeared with his photograph on the front page of the Pittsburgh Courier.14

Before beginning the Greenlee Field project in 1931, Bellinger and Greenlee were certainly acquainted, and their wives actually shared advertising space in the Pittsburgh Courier: Mrs. Bellinger offering private music lessons, and Mrs. Greenlee seeking tenants for a boarding house she owned. Later, in 1933, Bellinger drafted plans to remodel a “storeroom” at Greenlee’s Crawford Grill, 1401 Wylie Avenue.15

Bellinger’s association with Greenlee Field appears to have begun early on in planning the project. As one of only 60 African American registered architects then working in the United States, he was an ideal choice to design the ballpark. He and his wife were also prominent in Pittsburgh’s African American community, serving leadership roles at the YMCA and in several fraternal and other organizations. This added an air of legitimacy to Greenlee’s project. Bellinger’s relationship with Pittsburgh government also ensured construction would follow local regulations and hopefully prevent the city from closing the park for code violations. Such tactics were common in cities where Black businessmen tried to gain social and economic strength.

Zoning

Because Greenlee Field required more land than just the acres between bordering streets, the Bedford Land Company worked with the city and adjacent properties—Lincoln Memorial Cemetery to the west and Municipal Hospital to the east—to request zoning variances. This included closing Junilla and Watt Streets north of Bedford avenue so the ballpark’ exterior structure could be built directly on top of the former roads. During this era, zoning appeals and requests for building permits were typically listed in Builders’ Bulletin, the weekly newsletter of the Pittsburgh Builders Exchange. The following listings relate to Greenlee Field:

August 8, 1931

Zoning Appeal Denied

Bedford Land Corporation, 2509 Bedford Avenue, 5th Ward. Occupy property as athletic field.

November 28, 1931

5th Ward. Bedford Land Co., 2408 Bedford Ave., owner; Guibert Steel Co., McKees Rocks, Contractor. Steel bleachers, 2408 Bedford Ave., $3,000

December 26, 1931

5th Ward. Bedford Land Co., 2408 Bedford Ave., owner and builder. Concrete and steel ball stand, 2515 Bedford Ave., $32,000.

January 23, 1932

5th Ward. Bedford Land Co., 2408 Bedford Ave., owner and builder. Granstand, 2515 Bedford Ave., $5,00016

Aside from showing a location change for the Bedford Land Company’s business offices, the building permits also reveal an interesting shift from the company being listed merely as owner to both owner and builder. This would have enabled the partners to conceal funding and other business matters. Hence, while the building permits only total $40,000, it is still possible that the ballpark cost closer to the $100,000 that Greenlee claimed, especially when we consider costs of acquiring the land, appealing zoning decisions, and grading the site.

Unfortunately, it is not clear how or when Greenlee and his partners managed to reverse the initial zoning denial, since no further mention of this appears in the Builders’ Bulletin or Pittsburgh newspapers. However, this was certainly a delicate arbitration since the Bedford Land Corporation was not only changing the use of the site, but also closing off two streets and developing the ballpark snugly between a cemetery and hospital, entities which would have had genuine concerns about their new neighbor. Bellinger’s previous role in the City Architect’s office would certainly have been an asset in negotiating this process.

Grading the Site

Although the Entress Brick property was the best-suited available site for a ballpark in the Hill District, the land was certainly not flat; in fact, it had elevation changes of up to 20 feet. Workers broke ground for Greenlee Field on Monday July 20, 1931.17 To create a level playing field, they used steam shovels to excavate 21,000 cubic yards of soil18 and remove the section of Watt Street between the ballpark and the hospital and the section of Junilla Street between the ballpark and Lincoln Memorial Cemetery.19 Much of the steepest topographical change—a sudden 20-foot drop—was already along part of what would become the right field line, so contractors extended this wall of earth northward along the property line, using additional earth from a 20-foot hill which stood between the future pitcher’s mound and short right field. Adding a wooden fence on top of the earthen wall created a bowl effect for the ballpark and prevented home runs from flying into Municipal Hospital. Later, the sloped wall also held a few rows of additional bleachers.20

The 1935 Pittsburgh Crawfords team photo shows the exterior of Greenlee Field, with its brick façade and three arched entryways. (NATIONAL BASEBALL HALL OF FAME LIBRARY)

The Brick Façade

Aerial and ground photographs taken in 1938 provide a clear picture of Greenlee Field’s physical appearance. The brick façade extended the full length of Bedford Avenue between Junilla Street and Watt Street.

The southwest corner of the building behind home plate was two stories tall allowing room for offices on the second floor and ample space on the first floor to accommodate concessions, locker rooms, storage, and other functions. Upper rows of the grandstand extended above the southwest corner of the façade, and a brick chimney rose above the top seats. Moving east from the corner, the façade had two windows and a doorway (likely the office entrance), followed by six ticket windows and three arched entryways under a White “ENTRANCE” sign.21 Further east are another arched entry/exit, two gated pedestrian exits, and a wide double gate for vehicle access to the field. Besides maintenance equipment, this last gate was also used for cars when Greenlee Field hosted auto races. Beginning in 1934, Greenlee also allowed parking in the outfield during boxing events an “innovation…[that] made a hit with fans.”22

Reflecting economic conditions of the Great Depression, the ballpark’s architecture was quite plain. The façade used locally-kilned red brick with simple corbelling along the top of the two-story section and along the lower section between the arched entrances and the two exit gates. Concrete coping capped the entire length of the wall. The archways were unadorned, lacking limestone keystones and details that were typical of the time.

Inside the Park

From these aerial photographs, we can also use the standard 90-foot basepaths to estimate dimensions of the entire playing field:

• Right Field: 338 feet
• Center Field: 410 feet
• Left Field: 342 feet

These dimensions are on par with or just slightly shorter than typical major league ballparks of the time.23

Bellinger initially designed Greenlee Field to seat 6,000 spectators for baseball games, but the grandstands were eventually expanded to hold over 7,000. For boxing events, portable seating was brought in to accommodate up to 12,000. The field lights were added in September 1932, but an electric public address system was already functioning for the opening game in April. The 1938 photographs show the speakers mounted halfway up the light poles. While the sound system was first rate, the announcer who called out batters was not. In June 1932, the Courier advised, he “should know whereof he speaks. An error now and then is pardonable, but continual mistakes…are disconcerting to fans who are trying to follow the game.24

One of the park’s impressive features was a large scoreboard in left field. Early in the first season, the Courier identified the person who ran it: “Eddie Bryant, a popular uptown youth who…is doing his job efficiently…[and] goes about his task just like they do at Forbes Field, and eleven times out of ten he is right.”25 The 1938 photographs show a Latrobe Beer advertisement along the bottom. This endorsement for Joe Tito’s brewery was certainly added after December 1933 when the 21st Amendment repealed prohibition.

Signing a New Manager

With his new ballpark well under way, Greenlee focused on improving his team. He had already acquired Satchel Paige during the 1931 season, and in December, rumors spread that the Crawfords might have a new manager in 1932. Greenlee said he found “no fault with Robbie Williams” but had “been requested to consider [Oscar] Charleston and [Bill] Pierce.” Greenlee did not specify the source of this “request,” but by then his business partners were surely eager to insure their investments. Responding to the prospect of the Crawfords acquiring Charleston as manager, the Courier remarked, “as a fielder and batter he is the best gate attraction in Negro baseball.” Soon, Dizzy Dismukes was added to the list of potential managerial candidates. William E. Nunn declared in the Courier, “Whether the Crawford threat materializes into anything definite, or not, depends on the next few moves Greenlee and his associates make.” On January 23, 1932, the Courier printed a credible rumor that Greenlee was trying to hire Charleston. Two weeks later, Greenlee announced he had signed his “new pilot,” and that Charleston was already in town making arrangements and assembling a team.”26 One of the manager’s acquisitions was Josh Gibson.

Preparing to Play

On February 5, 1932, M.E. Goodson, owner of the New York Black Yankees, held a reception to honor “present and veteran baseball players.” Among the attendees were Gus Greenlee and Oscar Charleston. During the event, Goodson agreed to bring his team to Pittsburgh for the opening game at Greenlee Field.27 But this was still almost three months away, and much work remained to be done on the field and with the team.

The first of the Crawfords left for spring training at Hot Springs, Arkansas, on February 23, knowing that their new ballpark would be ready upon their return to Pittsburgh.28 The team was traveling in style because in addition to securing a new field, a great manager, and Josh Gibson, Gus Greenlee also provided quality transportation. On February 20, 1932, manager Charleston announced: “A seventeen-passenger Mack bus is now in the paint shop, where the sign man will ‘do his stuff.’ It is a Mack B. G. six-cylinder, 79-horsepower affair, with vacuum booster foot brakes…capable of 60 miles per hour. It is upholstered in genuine grain leather.” This bus was rumored to have cost $10,000, which was a fortune in 1932, when most Negro League players did not even earn a tenth of that sum in a whole season.29

Finishing Touches

While the players were boiling out and limbering up in Hot Springs, “the busy hum of mortar-mixing machines” continued on Bedford Avenue as “the speedy activity of efficient colored bricklayers and their helpers” worked to finish “the fresh-looking, neat brick” structure. On April 9, the Courier reported, “The spacious new…home of the Pittsburgh Crawfords is almost completed. The imposing high red brick wall which surrounds the park has just about reached its topmost point.” The only section of the brick exterior still unfinished was “the triangular corner behind the home plate. And this sector will soon be entirely completed.” The grandstands, “erected upon a strong concrete base and built with the very finest supporting steel beams, are getting their finishing touches.” Beneath the stands were “modern…dressing rooms…where several teams can be easily accommodated.” Bellinger’s design also included “plenty of space for storing…equipment and for the…field business headquarters.” The ballpark “promises to be the finest and largest…ever built in this city for a colored club to cavort upon.” Groundskeepers were still smoothing out a “few remaining minor irregularities,” but the Courier reassured its readers, “Architect Bellinger, who has been kept busy on the project, feels sure that everything will be in readiness for the opening.”30 In all, constructing the ballpark required 75 tons of steel, 14 carloads of cement, and 1,100 linear feet of steel fencing.”31

Play Ball!

After training in Hot Springs, then playing 22 exhibition games across eight states in six weeks and logging over 5,000 miles in their new bus, the Crawfords were ready to open their new ballpark.32 The first game at Greenlee Field—Friday, April 29, 1932—pitted the Crawfords against the New York Black Yankees. Opening day featured many “dedicatory exercises,” and the schedule for events was as follows:

• 3:45: Black Yankees batting practice
• 4:15: Crawfords batting practice
• 4:45: Team photographs
• 5:15: Black Yankees workout
• 5:30: Crawfords workout
• 5:45: Flag-raising exercises
• 6:00: Play Ball33

The Courier reported that a “capacity crowd of 4,000 [witnessed the] dedication of Greenlee Park.”34 It is unclear whether this attendance figure fell below the previously estimated capacity of 6,000 because some of the seating was not yet completed or because hundreds of complimentary passes were not counted in the gate receipts. Scores of prestigious people attended, including Pittsburgh’s “mayor, councilmen, county commissioners, and other prominent city and county officials.”35 Gus Greenlee made a grand entrance: “Clad in a white silk suit, shirt, tie, and buck shoes, [he rode into] the park standing inside a red Packard convertible.”36 Before the game, “The teams lined up behind the band and marched to the flagpole in deep center field, where the American flag was unfurled and raised to the strains of the national anthem.” Next, Pittsburgh Courier editor Robert L. Vann “made a short address…calling attention to the man, Mr. Gus Greenlee, whose investment, vision, and civic pride had made the wonderful park possible.” The crowd gave Greenlee a standing ovation.37 Then Vann took the mound and “…[showed] rare form as he pitched…the opening ball.” The u mpire declared it “a STRIKE! (on first bounce).”38 Courier sports editor Chester L. Washington declared, “All the color, glamour and picturesqueness that usually attends the opening of a big league ball park was in evidence.”39

After the inaugural ceremonies, manager Charleston led his team to the field against the Black Yankees, managed by George “Tubby” Scales. Unfortunately, the contest did not end as Pittsburgh fans wished. The game was close and exciting, a true pitchers’ duel with a double shutout until the top of the ninth inning. The Courier reported the action: “Burning ’em across with all the speed and zip of mid-season form, and with the unerring aim of a machine gunner, Jesse Hubbard of the Black Yankees mowed down the Crawfords, 1-0, in a game that fairly sizzled with action.” Satchel Paige, “the local rifleman,” pitched well but allowed six hits to Hubbard’s three. “So effective was the pitching on both sides that it was the first half of the ninth before the one and deciding marker was rushed across the pan.” Ted Page scored the run; earlier in the game, he had also registered the first hit in Greenlee Field. Pittsburgh fans were hoping Josh Gibson would provide some opening day fireworks, but he went hitless and played left field rather than catching because he was still recovering from an appendicitis operation he had undergone in Hot Springs.40

After the game, a group of local sports fans led by “former athlete” Joe Williams held a “reception and dance in honor of Gus Greenlee and the Pittsburgh Crawfords.” A “high class orchestra provided music in the Princess Hall ballroom, at the corner of Center Avenue and Miller Street. The event was open to the public, and organizers expected a crowd of 1,000.41

The next afternoon, the Crawfords took their revenge at Greenlee Field, defeating the Black Yankees, 2-1, in the bottom of the 10th inning.42 And when New York returned to Pittsburgh on July 8, 1932, fans who braved the heat at Greenlee Field witnessed a spectacular game: Satchel Paige pitched a no-hit shutout against the Black Yankees, winning 6-0 and becoming “the first Crawford moundsman to pitch a no-hitter at the new Greenlee Field.”

Paige repeated this no-hit feat against the Homestead Grays on July 4, 1934, striking out 17 batters in a 4-0 victory.43

Trouble Filling the Grandstands

Baseball games at Greenlee Field drew large crowds throughout May 1932, but once summer temperatures started to rise, gate receipts dwindled. One theory for this was that the uncovered grandstands provided no shade during afternoon games. In the sagging economy, covering the stands offered no guarantee that games would draw more spectators, so Greenlee and his partners decided not to invest in the additional construction. In 1934, Greenlee proposed adding a simple awning over the grandstand, but the other investors balked and declined the suggestion.44

In late summer 1932, Greenlee found a different solution to avoid afternoon heat: he invested a reported $6,000 for lights so the Crawfords could play at night. In early September, while the team was out of town, electricians installed a lighting system that fully equipped the field for night games. The first of these was held on September 16, between the Crawfords and the Grays. This caused a sensation because few ballparks had lights, and no major league teams were yet playing night baseball. The Pittsburgh Pirates did not play their first night game at Forbes Field until June 4, 1940.45

Greenlee Field’s new lighting system also solved another economic obstacle: the inability to play baseball on Sunday, the only day many Hill District residents had free to attend afternoon or early evening games. To challenge the Pennsylvania State Blue Law prohibiting Sunday baseball, Greenlee scheduled a night game between the Crawfords and the Grays, to begin at 12:01 a.m. Monday, September 19, 1932, less than three days after the field’s first game under lights. This midnight affair provided plenty of glamour, bright lights, and color.” The game “proved to be a real novelty attraction and drew out nearly 3,000, including most of the died-in-the-wool night-lifers and many of those who had to go to work in the morning.” Chester L. Washington observed, “there is ‘something new under the sun’ and folks will go for it—if it is a real attraction.”46 The Crawfords repeated this midnight promotion on Saturday, August 11, 1934, with a game against the Birmingham Black Barons. The Courier heralded these events as “the most entertaining baseball novelty the Bedford Avenue enclosure has offered.47

More than lack of shade and Sunday games, the largest influence on shrinking attendance at the ballpark was the economic impact of the Great Depression. Most Hill District residents simply could not afford the luxury of attending baseball games, so Greenlee introduced other promotions to attract people to the ballpark. During a “Ladies’ Night” on June 5, 1933, Satchel Paige struck out 15 in a 3-1 win over the Chicago American Giants. That night, women accounted for over 2,000 of the nearly 5,000 fans in attendance.48 At the start of the 1936 season, Greenlee announced that the Crawfords were trying “two experiments at Greenlee Field…with a view to stimulating interest in the game and increasing attendance.” The first “experiment” was an $8 season pass, which would “admit the holder to a grandstand seat to any game played at Greenlee Field by the Crawfords, whether opposed by a league or independent club.” Spectators could purchase these passes at the Crawford Grill. The other promotion was raffling off a new 1936 Ford sedan. Fans received an entry for the drawing every time they purchased a game ticket, and the drawing was held on July 4. Greenlee noted that “Both innovations [were] launched for the purpose of raising finances to make needed improvements at Greenlee Field. Such as: a second tier of seats, or a cover over the present grandstand, reconstructed floodlight system for night attractions, portable dance floor, etc. These possible enhancements were an attempt to improve public relations. At the time, some local “race men” were faulting Greenlee for not involving enough African Americans in daily operations at the park and not adequately supporting the Hill District community. Greenlee noted “the Bedford Avenue park will solve many problems for religious, fraternal, [and] civic organizations.”49

Turbulence between Greenlee and Homestead Grays owner Cum Posey also affected business at the ballpark. The Crawfords owner accused Posey of limiting his access to star players and trying to keep them out of the East-West League in 1932.50 Then after the Negro National League revived in 1933, Posey accused Greenlee of forcing a stranglehold on Black baseball, expecting the Grays to lease Greenlee Field for their home games. The epic feud resulted in Posey deliberately seeing other grounds and even scheduling some of his team’s games on the same days that the Crawfords were playing. These sour exchanges weakened leagues and helped erode local support of Black baseball in Pittsburgh.

Posey also accused Greenlee of trying to monopolize the best players, evidenced by his luring Oscar Charleston and Josh Gibson from the Grays in 1932. But Posey himself was certainly not innocent in this and seduced his own share of players away from other teams. Black baseball was, after all, a business; and with resources becoming increasingly scarce during the Great Depression, it is not surprising that key stakeholders fought to protect their shares. Writing in the Courier at the end of the 1932 season, W. Rollo Wilson noted, “The Crawfords have taken the play away from the Grays and no longer do Smoky City fans consider Cum Posey’s bunch the penultimate in baseball. A lot of them have a deep suspicion that the Crawfords are now the chosen people.” Wilson further recognized the precarious situation with two teams competing for support within the same city: “The Crawfords…are in Pittsburgh to stay and when the Grays face them this weekend, Cum Posey will be fighting for his baseball life…If there is room for only one team in [Pittsburgh]—I am very much of the opinion that the Grays are closing their books.” Wilson believed Greenlee Field was the key to the Crawfords’ increasing stature: “Whatever doubt there might have been in the minds of the bus as to the permanence of the Crawfords ought to be dissipated by that fine park…out on Bedford Avenue.”51 Such intense rivalries were nothing new in Black baseball. Since the formation of the original Negro National League in 1920, repeated meetings and treaties had attempt to settle disputes over raiding teams, scheduling games, and sharing profits.

Other Uses for Greenlee Field

From the outset, Gus Greenlee and his partners intended to use Greenlee Field for more than just Crawfords baseball games. Even before the park opened, Greenlee declared that no club would be barred from playing in Greenlee Field…[and] any baseball team which would make satisfactory arrangements would be allowed to stage their games at [the park].”52 This included the rival Homestead Grays but also amateur and semi-professional baseball and softball teams, plus other sporting and non-sporting events.

Because even uncovered grandstands are cooler than an overcrowded arena with no air conditioning, Greenlee Field almost immediately replaced Motor Square Garden as Pittsburgh’s primary venue for professional boxing during the summer. In mid-May, the Courier announced that Jules Beck of Motor Square Garden would arrange the matches, and Greenlee Field brought in the Garden’s boxing ring and floor seating. Light heavyweights Larry Johnson and Maxie Rosenbloom topped the ballpark’s opening right card on June 9.53 After the initial event, weekly Thursday night matches of four to six bouts typically featured local amateurs and boxers from the Allegheny Mountain Association. Unlike baseball, professional boxing was not segregated, so Greenlee Field saw fighters of all races “[throwing] the leather mittens fast and furious.” One bout in 1934 even featured a Chinese boxer, Mon Woo.54

Announcing “Pittsburgh’s Amateur Boxing Classic,…sponsored by the Amateur Athletic Union,” to be held at Greenlee Field on Tuesday, July 17, 1934, the Daily News Standard of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, noted, “The big ball park…seats upwards of 10,000 people.” The feature of this event was the anticipated appearance of William “Rabbit” Eley, “crack negro 135-pounder,” who was scheduled to make his last amateur appearance before going professional two days later at Greenlee Field’s weekly Thursday Night boxing match. However, Eley’s manager kept him away from the amateur match so that he would be in top shape for his professional debut, which drew more advance ticket sales than any previous bout in Pittsburgh. The bet paid off and Eley scored a fourth-round knockout against Paddy Gray. Eddie Zivic, a boxer praised by Jack Dempsey, was also scheduled to appear.55

As Greenlee’s involvement in boxing grew, he expanded promotions to host professional bouts affecting national championship standings. These matches generated more income than baseball. For a professional bout in June 1935, promoters offered 5,000 general admission seats at $1.10 each, and reserved ringside seats for $2.20. By 1936, Greenlee himself was managing light-heavyweight title holder John Henry Lewis. However, as the Great Depression worsened, Greenlee had to lower prices to fill the stands at boxing matches too. In 1937, the first outdoor bout of the season offered “the lowest admission prices in local history.” Since fighting was to be staged at the ballpark every Thursday throughout the summer, it was important to start with strong attendance.56

Since baseball and outdoor boxing seasons only lasted through late September, Greenlee and his partners found football teams to lease the field during the fall. Pittsburgh’s professional football team—also called the Pirates—played their National Football League games at Forbes Field but used Greenlee Field at various times from 1934 to 1937 for preseason training, exhibition games, and midweek practices during the regular season.”57 The ballpark also served as temporary training grounds for the Pirates’ opponents. For example, in 1935 the Chicago Cardinals of the National Football League played against the Pirates on October 18, then in New York against the Giants on October 25. Rather than traveling back to Chicago between games, the Cardinals spent the week in Pittsburgh practicing at Greenlee Field. In November 1935, the ballpark hosted a semi-professional National-American Football Conference game with the St. Rosalia Preps, a team associated with the Pirates.58

During its seven-year lifespan, Greenlee Field also held many amateur football games featuring high school and college teams, which were particularly successful on Thanksgiving. The first of these “football classics” was a college game on Thanksgiving Day 1932, between Wilberforce and West Virginia. Over 500 tickets had already been sold by November 5, and the game sold out. Box seats cost $2.50, reserved seats $2.00, and general admission $1.00. On November 24, over 5,000 turned out for the game, and it became such a social event that the Courier ran a special “Classic Visitors” column to list some of the people who had come to town. The game ended in a 0-0 tie.59

To fill the gap between the football and baseball seasons, Greenlee Field also hosted amateur and semi-professional soccer matches and mid-winter tournaments from December through April. In 1937, the Pittsburgh Steel semi-professional soccer club occasionally used Greenlee Field for its games, and on June 2, 1937 the semi-professional Pittsburgh District All-Stars played the professional Charlton club of Great Britain, which was touring the United States. Charlton won, 2-0.60

The spacious ballpark was also suitable for track and field events, such as the Amateur Athletic Union meet on Friday, September 6, 1935.61 But racing of another sort was perhaps the strangest competition held at Greenlee Field. On July 26, 1933, the ballpark was converted to a race track, and “Auto racing patrons of Pittsburgh got their first glimpse of speed demons in action at Greenlee Field.” The races were less spectacular than anticipated due to “a damp track and an unseasoned racing course.” The first two events were 10-mile races, with the winner of the first clocking 12:02, and the victor in the second finishing a minute faster. The third race was “originally advertised as a 25-mile event, but was cut [to 15 miles] because of the hazardous condition of the track.” Although the event drew a large crowd, auto racing did not catch on at Greenlee Field. Testing whether smaller cars would have better luck, on Saturday August 30, 1936, the ballpark hosted a national championship event for midget auto racing.62 The ballpark’s earthen right field wall and bermed centerfield curve were undoubtedly assets for these races, though it is unclear how cars were contained around the rest of the track.

With grandstand seating for over 7,000 people, Greenlee Field provided an ideal outdoor venue for non-sporting events, such as major community and church functions. On Monday, June 27, 1932, Ebenezer Baptist Church held a “Field Day” at the ballpark, with “a bazaar, songfest and…[a] women’s baseball game.” After the other events, a gospel chorus with 200 members sang spirituals.”63

On December 16, 1933, the ballpark was the site of a formal social protest to raise financial support for the legal appeals of “the Scottsboro Boys”—Haywood Patterson and Clarence Norris—who were wrongly accused of raping two White girls in Arkansas and had been sentenced to death. In protest, the International Labor Defense, the League of Struggle for Negro Rights, and other organizations united to hold a parade through the Hill District, ending at Greenlee Field for a formal presentation and mass. It was the first social protest for which the city of Pittsburgh granted official police permits.64

But most non-sporting events at Greenlee Field were of a less serious nature, such as “Bob McKenzie and His Hollywood Suicide Circus,” which performed at the ballpark on July 19, 1938, as a fundraiser for the Iron City Elks Lodge.65

The Fall of Greenlee Field

In 1938, with Joe Tito and his family now fully occupied with their growing business at Latrobe Brewery, the Bedford Land Company investors turned over daily operations at Greenlee Field to Gus Greenlee. In hindsight, this was certainly too late since by then the city of Pittsburgh had other plans for the ballpark.66

Because of its geographic location at the intersection of three major rivers and abundant natural resources, Pittsburgh was ideal for developing major industries, most notably U.S. Steel, founded through a corporate merger in 1901. As such companies flourished, job growth attracted waves of new residents: first immigrants from Eastern Europe, then African Americans from the south pursuing a better life during the Great Migration after World War I. As a result of this influx of new residents the city’s population doubled in less than 30 years.

• 1900: 321,616
• 1910: 533,905
• 1920: 588,343
• 1930: 669,817
• 1940: 671,65967

Unfortunately housing did not keep up with this swelling city. In the Hill District, thousands of people lived either in decaying wood frame houses or dangerously substandard tenements. Even into the late 1930s, many residences lacked basic necessities like running water, indoor bathrooms, and functional kitchens. Oil lamps were still the main means of lighting.68 The continuing effects of the Great Depression escalated these problems. Without jobs, people could not afford to maintain their homes or build new ones and as the economy worsened, absentee landlords walked away from crumbling properties they had no funds to repair or pay taxes on.

By the start of 1938, the city began searching for solutions to construct new sanitary public housing. Dramatically fluctuating topography in the Hill District made finding a suitable site for a large development difficult, since grading the land would be considerably expensive. Unfortunately, the most attractive site was a full city block of perfectly level land: Greenlee Field. Moderate topography of the adjacent Lincoln Memorial Cemetery made the site even more attractive. Thus, by mid-summer 1938, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority was aggressively pressuring the Bedford Land Company to sell their ballpark.

On Wednesday, July 20, Federal Housing Administrator Nathan Strauss announced that he had approved a nearly $7 million federal grant for three low-income housing developments in Pittsburgh. The previous day, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority had offered $50,000 for the Greenlee Field property, and the three Bedford Lan Company stockholders—Greenlee, Tito, and Thoms—had met to discuss the offer. The Courier noted that “No report of the meeting was given out, but it is understood that the stockholders were favorable to the…offer.” The newspaper further added, “It is known that the Authority is bidding on other parcels of real estate contiguous to Greenlee Field, and it is believed that the baseball park would be taken in condemnation proceedings should the stockholders decline to sell.” The Courier predicted the ballpark’s future:

If the plans of the Pittsburgh Housing Authority carry through, Greenlee Field, scene for the last [seven] years of the Hill District’s most spectacular outdoor spectacles, including championship baseball, will blossom within a few months with a low-income housing project, fertilized by a Federal Government grant and a city loan.69

Greenlee and his partners did eventually accept the $50,000 offer but after the deal had been settled the Housing Authority dropped the amount to $38,000. “[T]he stockholders had no alternative but to accept.”70

Ironically, during the time of these negotiations, Greenlee Field’s architect, Louis A.S. Bellinger, was working for the city building inspector, though it remains unclear whether he had any involvement in the ballpark’s demise. In another strange twist, in February 1940, the Pittsburgh Housing Authority named Everett E. Utterback manager of the 432-unit Bedford Dwellings, a position he held until August 1942, when the city promoted him to manage 888-unit Wadsworth Terrace. Utterback had attended the University of Pittsburgh on a track scholarship and became the team’s first African American captain. After graduating from Duquesne Law School, his most prestigious legal client was Gus Greenlee. Utterback had written player contracts for men like Satchel Paige and Greenlee’s managerial agreements with boxing champion John Henry Lewis. Utterback later served as general counsel for the Pittsburgh Housing Authority.71

The End Draws Near

The 1938 baseball season and other events carried on through the rest of the summer, but crowds continued to dwindle as the Depression dragged on. After losing money all season, the Crawfords and other Negro League teams resorted to playing many late-summer games on the road, hoping to attract more spectators in other cities. The last Crawfords game at Greenlee Field was scheduled for Saturday, September 3, 1938, against the Homestead Grays. It was the first of a planned four-game series, but the Courier lamented: “Those hectic ball games which give Greenlee Field fans their biggest thrill will be enjoyed by two of our sister states!” Games on September 4, 5, and 6 were scheduled at parks in Ohio and West Virginia. It is unclear who won the last Crawfords game at Greenlee Field, or if it was ever played, because neither the Courier, nor any other newspaper—Black or White—published a score.72

After the Crawfords’ season was over, other events continued at Greenlee Field. On Sunday, September 4, the ballpark hosted the Western Pennsylvania Softball Tournament, with eight teams competing for the Western Regional title. The winner would compete in the national tournament in Chicago.73 On September 9, 1938, heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis brought his Brown Bombers all-star softball team to play the Smoky City All-Stars.74

But most importantly, sometime during 1938, architect Edward B. Lee and his associates at Marlier, Lee, Boyd, and Prack took aerial and ground photographs of Greenlee Field and surrounding properties, in preparation for their commission to design the Pittsburgh Housing Authority’s Bedford Dwellings public housing project. Today, these photographs are the best images we have of Greenlee Field.

The End

In early December 1938, workers started dismantling the ballpark. “The steel [was] junked, bricks destroyed, lumber and floodlights stored until an attractive bid [was] made.” Eulogizing the ballpark in his December 10, 1938, Courier article “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,” John L. Clark wrote “Seven years ago, 1932 to be exact, Greenlee Field…was recognized and talked about as one of the best baseball diamonds in the United States, not excepting those used by major and minor league clubs.” The park was “hailed to be a welcome answer to a long prayer of baseball fans in the tri-state district.” Yet even though Greenlee Field was “situated within 10 minutes walk of over 10,000 colored voters…The Housing Authority, using all its vested power, selected this site…for its colored colony.”

The ceremonial groundbreaking for Bedford Dwellings was held on December 19, and radio station KDKA broadcast the event.75 The original borders of the 18-acre Bedford Dwellings property were Kirkpatrick and Watt Streets, Bedford Avenue, and Bigelow Boulevard, an area which also included Lincoln Memorial Cemetery. Before excavation could begin, remains of about 200 people were disinterred and relocated to a special section of Woodlawn Cemetery in Penn Hills. In late November 1938, “masked men” began the work using a giant steam shovel, picks, and shovels. Family members of the deceased stood by to watch the process, but few of the new graves at Woodlawn retained their original markers.76 Old Municipal Hospital on the east side of Greenlee Field was also eventually demolished after the city received Works Progress Administration funding in 1939 to build a new Municipal Hospital at the corner of Darragh and Terrace Streets.

The Pittsburgh Housing Authority began accepting bids for construction work in March 1939. The “first formal application for a building permit for Bedford Dwellings” was filed on August 2, 1939, and work was expected to begin two days later. The lead contractor was Ring Construction Company of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which meant that much of the financial profits for this $3 million project would not remain in the Hill District—nor even in Pennsylvania.77

The first residents began moving into Bedford Dwellings at the end of the summer in 1940, and the Housing Authority expected all of the apartments to be full by October when President Roosevelt toured the public housing development and praised this great community improvement project. The 432 new apartments were certainly more sanitary and were even equipped with Westinghouse refrigerators. However, many Hill District residents questioned the fairness of this project. Some displaced by the new development either could not afford to live there or had incomes too high to qualify for public housing. Plus, removing acquired properties from the tax rolls put more burden on other property owners in the Hill District. When the Housing Authority claimed Greenlee Field, Pittsburgh not only lost a ballpark, but a major tax-paying commercial property.78

Over time, local memories of specific details about the Crawfords’ Bedford Avenue ballpark have faded, and much of Greenlee Field’s story will always remain a mystery. But at least now we can again visualize the field where the amazing Pittsburgh Crawfords and so many of their Negro League opponents battled for supremacy on the Hill from 1932 to 1938. Today, only a shadow of the ballpark remains, visible in satellite images which show four of the original buildings at the northeastern end of Bedford Dwellings fanned out across the old playing field.79

During their seven-year occupancy of Greenlee Field, the Crawfords included seven future Hall of Famers: Oscar Charleston, Josh Gibson, Satchel Paige, Cool Papa Bell, Judy Johnson, Willie Foster (Rube’s younger half-brother from their father’s remarriage, also known as Bill), and Jud Wilson. But without his ballpark, Gus Greenlee could no longer afford to keep the Crawfords in Pittsburgh, so in 1939, Oscar Charleston took a handful of willing players to Toledo, Ohio, and tried to rebuild a team while the rest scattered to other clubs. The Toledo Crawfords lasted only a year and moved to Indianapolis in 1940 but then disbanded before the 1941 season.

GERI DRISCOLL STRECKER is a professor at Ball State University, were she teaches English and Sport Studies. As a 2011 fellow at the Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry, she led a 15-credit seminar exploring Black Baseball in Indiana. That same season at the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference in Indianapolis, she gave an impactful and powerful presentation entitled, “Black Baseball in Indianapolis during the Rise of the KKK.” Strecker has won three McFarland-SABR Research Awards, including one for her Fall 2009 Black Ball: A Negro Leagues Journal article printed here, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field: Biography of a Ballpark.”

Notes

1 Several of these images are now available online through the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Charles “Teenie” Harris Archive: http://www.cmoa.org/searchcollections.

2 Sources vary on when exactly Greenlee bought interest in the team, but the Pittsburgh Courier first mentions the connection in 1931. “Grays Prime for Crawfords and Cleveland,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 20, 1931, 4.

3 “Grays Prime for Crawfords and Cleveland,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 20, 1931, 4; W. Rollo Wilson, “Sports Shorts,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 8, 1931, 4; Cum Posey, “Grays Undisputed Champs,” Pittsburgh Courier, October 10, 1931, 5.

4 Today this site is behind the Ammon Recreation Center and Macedonia Baptist Church at 2217 and 2225 Bedford Avenue. In May 2009, a refurbished Ammon Field was rededicated as Josh Gibson Field, providing a quality ballpark for teams in the Josh Gibson Little League. Fittingly, the first game at the new park featured children’s teams playing as the Pittsburgh Crawfords and the New York Black Yankees, the same match-up as the inaugural game at Greenlee Field in 1932. “Battered Hill District Ball Yard Reborn as Josh Gibson Field” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 26, 2009.

5 W.A. Greenlee, “Crawfords’ Owner Makes First Statement about the Team, New Park and Plans,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 27, 1932, 4.

6 John L. Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 10, 1938, 17. Sanborn Insurance and other historical maps show the Entress Brick Company’s location and the original configuration of streets around the site. Prior to its use for brick manufacturing, the site had been a small Carmelite cemetery. The bodies had been relocated to Mt. Carmel Cemetery during the 1880s. American Historical Society, History of Pittsburgh and Environs (New York: American Historical Company, 1922), 291; the Rev. Anthony C. Dressel, “Rev. Angelus Forrestal, O. Carm., 1845-1879,” undated, http://carmelnet.org/necrology/obits/ ForrestalAngelus1845-1879.pdf.

7 Pennsylvania State College Agricultural Experiment Station, Annual Report of the Pennsylvania State College for the Year 1897 (Harrisburg: Wm. Stanley Ray—State Printer of Pennsylvania, 1898), 144.

8 Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field.” The 1930 U.S. Federal Census lists Ralph Tito’s occupation as truck driver for a transfer company and Tony Christiano’s as landscape gardener.

9 Albert M. Tannler, “Louis Arnett Stewart Bellinger,” African American Architects: A Biographical Dictionary, 1865–1945 (New York: Routledge, 2004), 30-32. Unless otherwise noted, all biographical information about Bellinger is from this essay. Special thanks to Albert Tannler, Historical Collections Director at the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation, for also graciously providing access to his Bellinger files. U.S. Federal Census and military records accessed through Ancestry.com. Bellinger’s first cousin Mamie Fields Garvin discusses their extended family in South Carolina in Lemon Swamp and Other Places: A Carolina Memoir (New York: Free Press, 1983).

10 Fessenden Academy was founded by the American Missionary Association of the Congregational Church in 1892, specifically for educating African American children. In January 1914, 225 students were enrolled at the school, being instructed by twelve teachers (three male, nine female), also all African American. Curriculum included “agriculture, mechanics, domestic science, sewing, and…literary subjects.” The school stressed racial pride, and its Carnegie Building was built entirely by African American labor. The school is now a designated historic district in Ocala. United States, Dept. of the Interior, Bureau of Education, Negro Education: A Study of the Private and Higher Schools for Colored People in the United States, 1916, vol. 2 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1917), 174.

11 “Allen University Historical Background,” Allen University, http://www.allenuniversity.edu/dnnweb4/AllenHistory/tabid/140/Default.aspx.

12 The Historic Pittsburgh Image Collections digital archive includes a June 7, 1935, photograph of the Pythian Temple (http://digital.library.pitt.edu/pittsburgh, search Image Collections for Pythian Temple, or identifier: 715.3524662.CP).

13 The 1930 U.S. Census reported the home’s value.

14 “Louis A. Bellinger, Architect, Buried,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 9, 1946, 1. Bellinger’s grave in Allegheny Cemetery is just up the hill from Josh Gibson’s.

15 Albert M. Tannler also provided information on the Crawford Grill storeroom project. It is unclear what part of the establishment was renovated.

16 These entries appear on pages 1, 11, 9, and 11, respectively

17 “Plan New Baseball Park Here,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 18, 1931, 4.

18 “Greenlee Field Data Released,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 9, 1932, 4.

19 Some historians have said that Greenlee also moved some of the Lincoln Memorial Cemetery, but aerial photographs suggest that he merely covered Junilla Street with the eastern wall of the park, without disturbing any graves.

20 Topographical maps of this site from 1929 and 1959 are available online: “City of Pittsburgh Geodetic and Topographic Survey Maps, 1923–1961,” Historic Pittsburgh, http://images.library.pitt.edu/cgi-bin/i/image/image-idx?c=geotopio&page=index (select plate 10 from the key map). Dramatic variations between these two maps show extensive excavations for the ballpark and later uses of the site.

21 The same sign and arched entrances are in the background of the 1935 Crawfords team photograph with the bus.

22 “Good Bouts at Greenlee Field,” Monessen (PA) Daily Independent, July 14, 1934, 3.

23 Philip J. Lowry lists known dimensions for fields in Green Cathedrals: The Ultimate Celebration of Major League and Negro League Ballparks (New York: Walker & Company, 2006). He lists the dimensions of Forbes Field, home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, as left 365 (in 1930), center 435 (in 1930), and right 375 (in 1925). In 1932, Bellinger said the distance to the left field corner was 350. “Crawfords Back, Set for Test,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 30, 1932, 5.

24 “Gleanings from Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 11, 1932, 4.

25 Ibid.

26 “Pittsburgh Crawfords May Have New Manager Next Season,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 19, 1931, 4; William Nunn, “Sport Talks,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 26, 1931, 4; “Oscar Charleston May Manage 1932 Crawfords,” Pittsburgh Courier, January 23, 1932, 5; “New Pilot,” Pittsburgh Courier¸ February 6, 1932, 5.

27 “Old-time and Present Ball Stars Meet,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 13, 1932, 5. Other attendees included Frank Miller, George “Tubby” Scales, Smokey Joe Williams, Larry Brown, Fats Jenkins, Tex Burnett, Frank Grant, and Sol White.

28 “Crawford Vanguard Off for Hot Springs,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 23, 1932, 5.

29 “Crawfords Secure 17-Passenger Bus,” New York Amsterdam News, February 24, 1932, 13; “Pittsburgh Team to Start Tour,” Chicago Defender, February 27, 1932, 9. The Defender article includes a photograph of the bus, which is not the same as the one in the 1935 team photograph.

30 “Greenlee Ball Park Preps for Opener,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 9, 1932, 5.

31 “Greenlee Field Data Released,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 9, 1932, 4.

32 “Crawfords Back, Set for Test,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 30, 1932, 5.

33 Chester L. Washington, “Sportively Speaking,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 30, 1932, 5.

34 “Hubbard Pitches Three-Hit Game To Beat Page (sic), 1 to 0,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 7, 1932, 5. The misspelling is ironic since Ted Page actually scored the winning run against Satchel Paige.

35 “Pittsburgh’s Crawfords to Open Friday,” Chicago Defender, April 30, 1932, 8.

36 Mark Ribowsky, The Power and the Darkness: The Life of Josh Gibson in the Shadows of the Game (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), 91.

37 “Hubbard Pitches Three-“Hit Game To Beat Page (sic), 1 to 0,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 7, 1932, 5. Interestingly, the opening of Greenlee Field also set the tone for “Negro Trade Week,” May 8-15, which the Business and Professional Association of Pittsburgh sponsored to “Encourage Negro Business.” The May 7, 1932 Pittsburgh Courier includes several articles about this event.

38 “Courier ‘Chief’ in Action,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 7, 1932, 5. This article also includes a photograph of Vann pitching the ball.

39 Washington, “Sportively Speaking,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 7, 1932, 5.

40 Washington, “Crawfords, Black Yanks Break Even in Series,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 7, 1932, 5.

41 “Plan Dance to Honor Crawfords,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 9, 1932, 5; “Crawfords Reception on April 28,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 16, 1932, 6. It is not clear whether the “Joe Williams” organizing this event could have been the future Hall of Fame pitcher, still with the Homestead Grays at the beginning of 1932.

42 Washington, “Crawfords, Black Yanks Break Even in Series,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 7, 1932, 5.

43 “New York Yanks Win Series from Crawfords,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 16, 1932, 5; William G. Nunn, “Paige Hurls No-Hit Classic,” Pittsburgh Courier, July 7, 1932, 1.

44 Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,”

45 “Greenlee Field Installs Lights,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 10, 1932, 5; W. Rollo Wilson, “Baseball War In Pittsburgh,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 17, 1932, 14; “Sidelights on Sports,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette¸May 21, 1938, 157; “First Night Ball Game at Pittsburgh Tuesday,” Daily Courier (Connellsville, PA), June 3, 1940, 7.

46 Washington, “2,000 Watch Big Midnight Tilt,” and Washington, “Chez Says,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 24, 1932, A5. Washington also noted that starting the “floodlight battle” soon after midnight and ending at 2:40 emphasized the problem of Negro League games taking too long to play. He wrote, “Two hours and twenty-five minutes is too much time for an ordinary ball game—and it was quite noticeable as the clock neared 3 Ah-Hem.”

47 “The First Night Game of Its Kind,” Evening Gazette (Indiana, PA), August 11, 1934, 3; “Cleveland and Barons Meet Crawfords Here,” Pittsburgh Courier, August 11, 1934, 5).

48 Satchell (sic) Supreme in Craw Victory, Pittsburgh Courier, June 10, 1933, 5.

49 “Free Ford, Season Passes Offered at Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 9, 1936.

50 W.A. Greenlee, “Crawfords Owner Makes First Statement about the Team, New Park and Plans,” Pittsburgh Courier, February 27, 1932, 4.

51 Wilson, “Baseball War In Pittsburgh,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 17, 1932, 14.

52 “Greenlee Ball Park Preps for Opener,” Pittsburgh Courier, April 9, 1932, 5.

53 “Boxing Opens at Greenlee Field June 1,” Pittsburgh Courier, May 14, 1932, 5; “Gleanings from Greenlee Field,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 11, 1932, 4 (contains a photograph of the ballpark rigged out for boxing); “Larry Johnson, Maxie Rosenbloom To Clash Here,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 4, 1932.

54 “Speigal Loses to Negro Pug,” Daily News Standard (Uniontown, PA), August 19, 1932, 12; “Bittner to Box Christof in One Feature Match,” Daily News Standard (Uniontown, PA), July 17, 1934, 8.

55 P.V.A.C. Boys in Big Classic,” Daily News Standard (Uniontown, PA), July 11, 1934, 8; Arnold Goldberg, “Sport Chatter,” Daily News Standard (Uniontown, PA), July 17, 1934, 8; “Pittsburgh Boxing,” Daily News Standard (Uniontown, PA), July 20, 1934, 14; “Good Bouts at Greenlee Field,” Daily Independent (Monesson, PA), July 14, 1934, 3.

56 “Billy Nichy Tries Another Step Up Ladder,” Charleroi (PA) Mail, June 18, 1935, 5; First Outdoor Fight Card Thursday Night at Greenlee Field,” Daily Courier (Connellsville, PA), May 18, 1937, 7.

57 “New Back Joins Pro Grid Team,” Daily News Standard (Uniontown, PA), September 14, 1934, 12; “Pirate Pros To Play Exhibit Game Sunday,” Charleroi (PA) Mail, August 23, 1935, 7; “Pirate Pros Meet Chicago Bears at Pittsburgh Sunday,” Daily Courier (Connellsville, PA), September 28, 1935, 8; “Pirate Gridders Start Practice,” Morning Herald (Uniontown, PA), August 19, 1937, 14.

58 “Chicago Cards Start Here Tomorrow,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 17, 1935, 51; “Ravens Prepare to Battle St. Rosalia Preps Sunday,” Daily Independent (Monessen, PA), November 21, 1935, 7.

59 Floyd G. Snelson, “Gus Greenlee (Big Mogul of Pittsburgh)” Pittsburgh Courier, November 19, 1932, 8; “Over 500 Tickets Sold for Turkey Day Classic Here,” Pittsburgh Courier, November 5, 1932, 1; Wilson, “Force, W. Va. In 0-0 Deadlock,” and “Classic Visitors,” Pittsburgh Courier, December 3, 1932, 4.

60 “Professional Team Will Offer Stiff Competition,” Charleroi (PA) Mail, June 3, 1937, 7; “Charlton Club Tops District All-Stars at Greenlee Field,” Charleroi (PA) Mail, June 3, 1937, 7; “Charlton Soccer Team Meets All-Stars Tonight,” Daily News Standard (Uniontown, PA), June 2, 1937, 9.

61 “Sports Gleanings,” Daily Courier (Connellsville, PA), September 4, 1935, 7.

62 “Auto Races Staged at Greenlee Field Last Nite,” Monessen (PA) Daily Independent, July 27, 1933, 6; “Uniontown Race is Semi-Final for Midgets Saturday,” Daily Courier (Connellsville, PA), August 13, 1936, 10. Interestingly, Indianapolis’s Bush Stadium, home field of the Indianapolis Indians and Clowns, was briefly used for similar auto racing purposes after the construction of Victory Field in 1996.

63 “Ebenezer Field Day,” Pittsburgh Courier, June 25, 1932, 19.

64 “Death Sentences to be Protested,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 16, 1933, 5.

65 A photograph in the Teenie Harris archive at the Carnegie Museum of Art clearly shows an advertising banner for this event (accession number 2001.35.7834).

66 Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field,” 17.

67 U.S. Census records.

68 “Big Demand Evident for PHA Homes” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 6, 1939, 26.

69 “Greenlee Field!” Pittsburgh Courier, July 23, 1938, 6.

70 Clark, “The Rise and Fall of Greenlee Field.”

71 “Housing Project Manager Resigns,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 14, 1942, 6; “Memento Recalls a Different World,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 17, 1983, 14.

72 “Craws Battle Grays in Holiday Series,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 3, 1938, 17.

73 “Yezbaks Entered in West Penn Meet,” Morning Herald (Uniontown, PA), September 1, 1938, 10.

74 Washington, “Sez Ches,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 10, 1938, 16; “Talk O’ Town,” Pittsburgh Courier, September 10, 1938, 9.

75 “Start Housing Project Today,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 19, 1938, 2.

76 “Masked Men Begin Job of Digging Up ‘City of the Dead,’ ” Pittsburgh Courier, November 26, 1938, 6. In January 2001, Tom and Nancy McAdams compiled a list of some of those whose remains were moved to Woodlawn, and this list can be found online at the Woodlawn Cemetery Association website: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tandmnca/woodlawn/lincoln.html.

77 “Housing Bids Asked, Work Will Start Soon on Bedford Dwellings,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 4, 1939, 13; “Housing Job Permit Asked,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 3, 1939.

78 “Home Project To Be Opened,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 16, 1940, 12; “Trip Arranged by President,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 3, 1940, 3; “Buy Refrigerators for Home Projects” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 31, 1940, 13; “The People Speak,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 3, 1941, 8.

79 Online satellite images such as Google Earth clearly show this pattern. The approximate location of home plate was 40° 27’ 4.46”N and 79° 58’ 21.96”W. Using the Carnegie Mellon University Architecture Archive photographs, the author helped determine the exact location for the historical marker placed by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, July 17, 2009. The marker, located directly where Greenlee Field’s arched entry gates had been, was erected during the Society for American Baseball Research’s annual Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference.

Fans of the 1958 Philadelphia Phillies had little to cheer about at the end of a rather dismal season. When the final standings were posted, the club was firmly planted dead last in the National League. One bright note was the team’s pinch-hitting performance: It led both major leagues with an impressive batting average of .308 and 11 home runs.1 A leading contributor to this clutch performance was a well-traveled veteran named Dave Philley, who hit .404 off the bench and ended the season with a remarkable streak of eight consecutive pinch safeties to set a major-league record. Not bad for a 38-year-old journeyman making his second tour of the city.

Philadelphians likely remembered Philley from his first stint in the City of Brotherly Love during the early part of the decade. Back then he was a defensive stalwart for the Philadelphia Athletics, regularly patrolling center field, where he covered lots of ground with his long, graceful strides and exceptional speed. He also possessed a rifle arm, fully capable of cutting down opposing baserunners. Dave Philley’s career was radically transformed during the decade of the 1950s and he did it in his own workmanlike style.

Born May 16, 1920, in Garrett’s Bluff, a suburb of Paris, Texas, David Earl was the second son of Maxie and Leila Philley. Baseball ran in the family; Dave’s dad played semi-pro ball in East Texas, while older brother Noel and younger brother Frank each had brief professional careers. In addition to baseball, Dave excelled at football, track, and boxing at Chicota High School, where he also became a local Golden Gloves champ. 

As a youngster, Dave naturally batted left and threw right-handed, until a fall from a tree cracked a bone in his left arm. The injury made it impossible for the eight-year-old to swing from his natural side, but wanting to continue playing the game he loved, he learned to hit right-handed. Proper healing was a long, drawn-out process, so he had lots of practice batting right-handed and became so adept that he continued to switch-hit after the arm fully recovered.2 

Signed by the Chicago White Sox as a catcher in 1940, he was quickly shifted to the outfield to capitalize on his fine speed. Although an outfield novice, Philley did well enough to warrant a brief (seven-game) trial with the parent White Sox late in 1941. When Manager Jimmy Dykes cautiously inserted the rookie into the lineup against the Washington Nationals, Philley completely lost one ball hit in his direction and, later, a scorching line drive barely missed his head. A Washington sportswriter commented: “A rookie named Dave Philley played left field for five innings and escaped without serious injury.” Dykes later preemptively “removed the youngster before being charged with manslaughter.”3 Philley carried the tattered news clipping in his wallet for many years. 

Philley served in the United States Army from early 1942 until after the end of WWII. He was discharged in 1946 and returned to work out the kinks with Milwaukee in the American Association, hitting .329 in 130 games, which was good enough to warrant another late-season call-up by the White Sox. He became Chicago’s regular center fielder in 1947, hitting .258 in 143 games. His 21 stolen bases ranked second in the league and his 11 triples placed him third in that category. White Sox General Manager Frank Lane admired Philley’s style, calling him “a battler not afraid of anything.”4

The six-foot, 188-pound Philley improved to a .287 mark in 1948, while leading all AL outfielders with 22 assists. A 1949 move to right field didn’t affect his hitting or fielding one bit, as Philley posted a .286 average, while again leading the league with 16 assists. 

Realizing he hit about 100 points higher from the port side of the plate, Philley toyed with the idea of becoming strictly a left-handed batter in 1950. The test ended early in the season at Yankee Stadium, when he was jammed with a pitch.5 The close call prompted him to resume switch-hitting—at the time he was the only regular in the American League to do so. He finished the season with a career-best 14 home runs, although his average dipped to .242. Philley later acknowledged his productivity suffered at this point in his career, due to his self-imposed tendency to swing for the fences.

By 1951, his former skipper Jimmy Dykes was running the Philadelphia Athletics, and on April 30, he acquired Philley as part of a rare three-team deal, involving the A’s, White Sox, and Cleveland. Dykes had always admired Philley’s style of play and was happy to have him back. Philley settled into center field, while fellow acquisition (and roommate) Gus Zernial patrolled left. Right fielder Elmer Valo filled the remaining slot among the outfield corps. It’s interesting to note that all three would go on to become prominent pinch-hitters later in their respective careers. 

After hitting .263 in 1951 with Philadelphia, and again in 1952, Dave decided to switch bats early in 1953. He’d been using a 47.5-ounce model as a left-handed hitter, but from the right side he preferred a 34-ounce piece of lumber. The monstrous war-club was a thick handled model brought to the clubhouse one day by Father William J. Casey, an old friend of Manager Dykes. Father Casey visited the team, accompanied by the 47.5-ounce bat he used in college. Dykes passed it around and intimated that modern players couldn’t handle such a bat. Zernial later recalled: “We all swung it around a little for warm-up, but Dave got to fooling around with it more than the rest of us. He began going up to the plate with it and one day at Yankee Stadium he lined one right into the stands. Well after that, it was his regular bat and he did well with it.”6 Philley abandoned the bat early in 1953, however, and began using his 34-ounce model from both sides.

The lighter bat produced immediate results and helped Philley enjoy his most productive offensive season yet, hitting .303 in 157 games for the A’s. Philley worked hard at his craft and practiced to become an exceptional bunter, and he once led the A’s in sacrifices. Defensively, he again led all AL outfielders with 18 assists. 

After his success in 1953, the A’s simply couldn’t meet Philley’s salary demands. As a result, he was traded to Cleveland just prior to the start of the 1954 season. He learned of the transaction while negotiating a cattle deal in Oklahoma, and he couldn’t have been happier. “With Cleveland, I’ll have a chance at the pennant. They’re nice people and fine players. It’s a real break for me.” Cleveland GM Hank Greenberg added: “He’s fast of foot, a good defensive man, and an outstanding hustler. We’ve got another solid outfielder who can be very helpful to us. He’s the kind of ballplayer we’ve been looking for.”7

The hard-playing Philley liked to win and called himself “the most hated player in the American League.” He confidently stated, “I never look for trouble,” but teammates and opposition alike agreed he never ran from it either.8 “I play so hard to win that if a man gets in my way, I go into him, knock him down. If I was a manager and one of my men didn’t go into the second baseman to break up the double play, I’d fire him. That’s part of team play.”9

In 1954, Cleveland was pennant bound. Cleveland teammates and fans agreed that the Paris outfielder was the man who built the pennant fire under the team, even though he hit only .226 for the season.10 Philley made his only World Series appearance that October, as the New York Giants swept favored Cleveland in four straight. Philley started the first and third games, both against right-handed pitching. In the first inning of Game 1, he narrowly missed a two-run homer when Don Mueller, with his back firmly planted against the right-field fence, hauled in his deep drive.

In 1954, the St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles, but despite relocating, the team still finished a dismal seventh. Under manager Paul Richards, 1955 started out even worse: the O’s opened the season at a 20–53 clip. Desperate to add offensive punch, Richards learned that Philley was available and promptly plucked the big Texan off the waiver list from Cleveland. The acquisition immediately sparked the club, with Philley hitting .299 as a regular outfielder. The Orioles went 37–45 after his arrival and the media voted him Most Valuable Oriole for 1955.

Philley was traded by Baltimore back to the White Sox, in a multi-player deal on May 21, 1956. Hitting .265, while adding first base to his growing resume of defensive positions, he helped Chicago finish third in the American League. The versatile Philley also saw action in the outfield for the White Sox. Traded to Detroit on June 14, 1957, Philley was primarily a pinch-hitter and hit .400 off the bench, while posting an overall mark of .283 for the fourth-place Tigers.

Philley was sold to the Phillies on December 11, 1957, giving the veteran his first opportunity to face National League pitching. Although he was acquired specifically for pinch-hitting duties, the 38-year-old was still agile enough for outfield or first-base duties. On May 17, 1958, while chasing a foul ball, the hard-playing veteran broke his nose while diving into the first base stands. The collision kept Philley out of the lineup for six days. 

Overall, he feasted on NL pitching to the tune of a .309 average, producing 18 hits as a pinch-hitter, with eight coming consecutively at the end of the season. The last safety was on September 28, 1958, against the Pirates. It broke the previous record of seven consecutive pinch hits, set by Debs Garms of the Pirates in 1941. Although the Phillies finished in last place, their pinch-hitting corps, led by Philley and Bob Bowman, paced the club to a league-leading pinch-hitting average of .308. Also prominent off the bench were Rip Repulski and Wally Post. Philley remarked about his approach to pinch-hitting: “I guess you’d call it a battle of wits up there. You learn more about pitchers. You have to keep learning.”11

Philley believed he became a better player at this point in his career. Although he relished the opportunity to play every day, Philley acknowledged he did more thinking about the game as a reserve than he did when he was in the regular lineup. He studied opposing pitchers, learned their best pitches, and became better prepared when called upon in the late innings.

Philley extended his streak to nine hits in a row when he connected in his first appearance of the 1959 season. His seventh-inning double came in Milwaukee on April 16, 1959, against right-hander Lew Burdette, in a 7–3 Phillies loss. Philley elaborated on his overall approach to pinch-hitting: “I walk to the plate with all the confidence in the world. I figure I’ve got only one shot at it. I relax as much as possible, yet manage to bear down. Of course it helps to know the opposing pitchers. I study them as much as I can.”12 Confidently standing at the plate in a significant crouch with his knees bent, Philley utilized a slightly open stance and level swing, usually offering at the first pitch in the strike zone.

A productive .291 mark for the 1959 Phillies resulted in his sale to the San Francisco Giants at the start of the 1960 season. Philley hit only .164 in 39 games. He was reunited with the Orioles and former manager Paul Richards on September 1, 1960. Although 40 years old at the time and once again obtained specifically for pinch-hitting duties, the veteran was immediately pressed into the lineup when starting left fielder Gene Woodling was injured. Philley hit .265 in 14 games. 

By 1961, the Baltimore Orioles had become very respectable, winning 95 games and finishing a strong third in the American League. Coming off the bench, 41-year-old Dave Philley laced 24 safeties to establish an American League record. Despite his success as a pinch-hitter, the Orioles released Philley at the end of the season. By then, former boss Paul Richards was developing the expansion Houston Colt 45’s. He signed Philley as a free agent in 1962, and subsequently traded the veteran to the Boston Red Sox, where he wrapped up his big league career. Philley then returned to work for Richards as a minor-league manager in the Houston organization, helping to develop future stars in spring training, including Joe Morgan and Rusty Staub—the latter went on to tie Philley’s major-league pinch-hitting record. Philley also served as an instructor and scout for the Boston Red Sox.

Overall, Philley’s 1,700 hits in 6,296 at-bats produced a lifetime batting average of .270, with a total of 84 home runs, in a career spanning from World War II to the Kennedy administration. “I figured I’d play five or six years,” said Philley. “I had one thing on my mind and that was to play big-league ball. Nothing was going to interfere with that.”13

Philley was a competitor and strived to improve every aspect of his game. A believer in top physical conditioning, he was a proponent of fingertip push-ups, as taught to him by Ted Williams.14 Former Oriole teammate Willy Miranda related a story from the spring of 1956 when the holdout Philley and the tardy Miranda showed up late for spring training in Arizona. Arriving on the same evening, they were temporary roommates. Miranda commented how Philley arose the next morning at 6 a.m., sprang out of bed, hit the floor, and did 50 push-ups without even losing his breath. He then coaxed Miranda out of bed to do the same. Philley regularly turned in early, always got plenty of sleep, watched his diet, and strictly adhered to training rules. The strongest drink he would consume was soda pop, and an admitted vice was smoking an occasional cigar.15

Dave Philley played major-league baseball with the same no-nonsense efficiency he successfully utilized in operating his 557-acre Texas ranch and managing his other business enterprises. In retirement, he became an active community leader and held several local elected posts. He enjoyed fishing and quail hunting with fellow Texan and former major leaguer Eddie Robinson. Often in demand as an after dinner speaker, Philley would happily appear before youth and church groups. A devout Baptist, he spoke frankly about his religious views, and had no patience for major leaguers who set bad examples with partying and carousing.16 Philley was tending his Texas ranch when he passed away from an apparent heart attack on March 15, 2012, at the age of 91.

Primarily remembered as one of the game’s finest pinch-hitters, fans in Philadelphia could attest that Philley was much more. He actually had two very distinct careers while wearing the uniform of eight different major-league teams. In addition to his pinch-hitting prowess, he earlier played as a regular at multiple positions. He was fast afield and a threat to steal bases. A more than adequate switch-hitter, he possessed some power and a strong throwing arm. “Durable Dave” was quite handy to have around for over 20 years. In many respects, he was the exceptionally rare pinch hitter, possessing all five tools.

CORT VITTY is a native of New Jersey and a graduate of Seton Hall University. A lifelong fan of the New York Yankees, he has been a SABR member ((Bob Davids Chapter) since 1999. Vitty’s work has appeared in “The National Pastime” and “Go-Go to Glory: The 1959 White Sox.” Web articles are posted at Seamheads.com and PhiladelphiaAthletics.org. Vitty has authored SABR biographies of Buzz Arlett, Lu Blue, Mickey Grasso, Goose Goslin, Babe Phelps, Dave Philley, and Harry “Suitcase” Simpson. Vitty resides in Maryland with his wife, Mary Anne.

SOURCES

The New York Times

Paris (Texas) News

Salisbury (Maryland) Times

The Sporting News

The Washington Post

www.astroland.net

www.baseball-almanac.com

www.baseball-reference.com

www.retrosheet.com

NOTES

1 Ford Sawyer, “Bowman, Zernial Top Pinch-Hitters,” The Sporting News, October 28, 1958.

2 “Dave Philley is Fighting Slump,” Salisbury Times, April 24, 1956. 

3 Ibid.

4 Art Morrow, “Hoodooed Hitter Philley Swings on Jinx,” The Sporting News, May 17, 1953.

5 “Hats Off,” The Sporting News, May 6, 1953.

6 Morrow.

7 “Philley Pleased With New Team,” Paris News, February 21, 1954.

8 Morrow.

9 Bill Thompson, “Billboard,” Paris News, April 7, 1954.

10 Bill Thompson, “Billboard,” Paris News, October 10, 1954.

11 Ibid.

12 Allen Lewis, “Philley and Bowman Give Phillies Top Clutch Hitting Team,” The Sporting News, May 20, 1959.

13 Tom Waits, “Memories Vivid for Philley,” Paris News, June 20, 1990.

14 Dan Dunkin,“Dave Philley, Still a Ballplayer After All These Years,” Paris News, July 3, 1983.

15 Bob Maisel, “Morning After,” Baltimore Sun, July 2, 1960.

16 “Dave Philley: Baseball is His Business,” Paris News, March 8, 1959.

    There were two participants in the 1976 campaign who called attention to pinch hitting records and thereby stimulated this research. One was Jose Morales of Montreal, who set new season records for appearances (82), at bats (78), and hits (25). The other was little noticed Tommy Davis, the “have bat, will travel” veteran of 10 major league clubs. Usually thought of as a designated hitter, Davis went 8 for 21 as a pinch hitter in 1976 and has quietly built up a lifetime pinch hit average of .3 20, the all-time high. More about that later.

    First, a discussion of Morales and season marks. How good was the Montreal mauler in 1976? Well, his 25 hits in 78 at bats gave him a .320 percentage. For a heavy duty performer, this is a solid average.  However, it does not compare with several other performers of the past. For those players with at least 40 at bats, Frenchy Bordagaray batted .465 on 20 hits in 43 at bats in 1938, and Jose Pagan hit .450 on 19 hits in 42 at bats in 1969.

    What kind of hits did Morales have in 1976? He had only 8 extra base hits. His 5 doubles were no threat to the 8 collected by Vic Davalillo of the Cardinals in 1970, or the 7 by Dave Philley of the Orioles in 1961. Those were the years when Davalillo and Philley each collected 24 pinch hits, the record Morales broke with 25. None of those 25 hits went for three bases. While pinch triples are indeed rare, Ham Hyatt had 3 for Pittsburgh in 1909, and Davalillo had 3 in 1970.

    Morales had three timely home runs in 1976, but Johnny Frederick of the Dodgers had six in 1932, and several other players hit five in one season. Consequently Jose hit for 39 total bases, still a little shy of the 41 by Davalillo in 1970 and the 40 by Jerry Lynch in 1961.

    The Expo pinch hitter fared better as a run producer. He knocked in 24, only one off the record of 25 by Lynch in 1961 and Joe Cronin in 1934. The Red Sox Manager was particularly productive considering that he went to bat only 42 times. Of course, he had those two 3-run pinch homers, one in each game of a twinbill on June 17. Smoky Burgess batted in 24 runs for the White Sox in 1965, for the American League high.

    Morales had only 4 walks in 1976 compared to the record of 18 established by Elmer Valo for the Yankees and Senators in 1960.  Before leaving the season pinch hit records it would be appropriate to mention two outstanding performances. One is Dave Philley’s feat of collecting 8 consecutive pinch hits from September 9 to 28 in 1958 with the Phils. He added another in his first time up as a substitute hitter in 1959. The other notable feat was by the aforementioned Johnny Frederick in 1932. He collected 9 hits in 29 at bats, which is not that great a batting average (.310); however, 8 of his 9 hits went for extra bases, including 6 homers and 2 doubles. This gave him 29 total bases in 29 at bats for an even 1.000 slugging mark.

    Here are some of the top season marks by pinch hitters, with the asterisk indicating the record holder in a particular category.

    Moving now to career marks for pinch hitters, we find that Smoky Burgess, because of his long service as a substitute batter, is the leader in most departments. He appeared in the most games, 585, had the most at bats, an even 500, by far the most hits, 144, by far the most doubles, 27, and by far the most runs batted in, 142. In fact, he is the only pinch hitter with more than 100 RBIs. He had 16 pinch homers, but Jerry Lynch was tops there with 18. In his 18 years as a substitute batter, the amply proportioned catcher never hit a pinch triple. Ham Hyatt and Gates Brown each hit five.

    Burgess also scored very few runs, because once he got on base he was frequently pulled for a pinch runner. Of course, he was feared as a batter and he received 71 walks, but he is not the leader in that category. Elmer Valo, who had the season high of 18 bases on balls, got on base 91 times with free passes. Ironically, he got on base 90 times with hits, which is a very unusual career ratio.

    What was Smoky’s pinch batting average? Considering the great number of times he batted in the clutch, it was very good at .288.  This is shown by a listing of the ten players most frequently used as pinch hitters.

    Most of those averages seem pretty low for a player to continue to be called on in the clutch. One argument might be that if a batter hit especially well as a pinch hitter, a regular place would be found for him in the lineup. Then in the case of some one like Valo, he was inserted as much to get on base as to drive in a run. And Lynch, Brown, and Burgess could break up a game with a home run. Why are the most frequently used pinch hitters left hand batters for the most part?  Simply because they are two steps closer to first base. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are better batters.

    Lowering the plate appearances to around 150, we find a different set of subs hitting for average. More of these hit from the right side.  Tommy Davis, well traveled former NL batting champ, has the highest batting average (.320) in this expanded group, and Jose Morales, at the height of his career as a substitute batsman, ranks high on the list.

    Burgess still ranks among the all-time leaders in spite of his 500 at bats, but the pinch hitter who deserves the plaudits is Tommy Davis, who compiled his .320 mark in a period when batting marks were generally low. And he produced quietly and efficiently as he went from club to club and league to league.

    In the course of review of pinch hitting, enough information was obtained to correct one of the legends. Most of the stories on this subject state that John McGraw popularized pinch hitting by his use of Moose McCormick as a substitute batter. McCormick did not make any impression as a pinch hitter until 1912 when he collected 11 hits in 30 trips for the Giants. The real pioneer in pinch hitting was Dode Criss of the Browns. In 1908 he had 12 hits in 41 trips, which was almost double the use of any pinch hitter before. He also led the next three years.

    In 1909, Ham Hyatt made a big splash with the Pirates, getting three triples. In 1913 he had three pinch homers. Remember, that was the dead ball era. In 1913 Hyatt had 15 pinch hits, but the Phils had a batter named Doc Miller who went 20 for 56. That was the record for pinch hits which stood for almost 20 years. In 1917 Bill Rumler of the Browns got 16 hits in 71 trips. That was the most at bats for a pinch batter until Sam Leslie had 22 hits in 72 appearances for the Giants in 1932.

    Many of the pinch hit leaders were not well known players. Only occasionally will you see the name of a big star on the way up or down like Mel Ott, Bill Terry, Chuck Klein, Paul Waner, Sam Crawford, Eddie Collins, and Joe Cronin. Instead there will be players like Jack Bentley, John McCarthy, Herschel Bennett, Chubby Dean, Ron Northey, and Joe Schultz Jr. and Joe Schultz Sr., the unheralded but evenly productive father-son combination. Sometimes pitchers show up as pinch hit leaders. The obvious one was Red Lucas, who for many years held the record for most pinch hits. But there also was Al Orth, Lynn Nelson, George Uhle, Schoolboy Rowe, Red Ruffing, et. al.

    One final qualifier on research in this area. Pinch hitting records are very difficult to authenticate. In the early days substitute batters sometime didn’t even get into the box score. Occasionally pinch hitters stayed in the game after doing their initial stickwork. It was not always clear whether the one hit the batter collected was as a pinch hitter or as a leftfielder. Then there is the matter of a pinch hitter coming up twice in a big inning and possibly getting a hit his second time. Vic Davalillo did this during the 1970 season, but the second hit he made was taken away from him because “he was batting for himself.” This ruling has now been accepted by both leagues, so all those second at bats and hits are no longer considered pinch appearances and hits.  They should be deleted retroactively. What a mess! Gates Brown had one of these situations in 1963 when he hit a three-run double in a second PH appearance in one inning. So scratch 1 AB, 1 double, and 3 RBI from his record. Also, the Records Committee has ruled that when one designated hitter bats for another (usually when opposite throwing pitchers are switched), his first at bat in that capacity is as a pinch hitter. Those cases are not so easy to identify.

    The late Ford Sawyer of the Boston Globe did a lot of pioneering working on pinch hitting. Ernie Lanigan did some early work in this area. So did John Tattersall, but it took second place to home runs. The people working on the Macmillan Encyclopedia in 1969 made a tremendous effort. But discrepancies abound among individual efforts, the encyclopedias and the guides. This research effort has not been able to resolve all those problems, but in spite of the discrepancies, we thought a listing of the yearly leaders would be worthwhile and would give some recognition to the long neglected substitute batter. For the pinch average since 1920 we have tried to use a minimum of 20 at bats. However if one batter was 8 for 17 and another 8 for 21, we would be flexible and logical enough to list the batter with the best average.

The listings for each major league follow on the next pages.

NATIONAL LEAGUE PINCH HIT LEADERS, 1900-76

AMERICAN LEAGUE PINCH HIT LEADERS, 1901-76

The majority of Chicago-set baseball films have included (and occasionally showcased) the Cubs. Among them are Joe E. Brown’s Elmer, the Great (1933) and Alibi Ike (1935), the Grover Cleveland Alexander biopic The Winning Team (1952), the Dizzy Dean biopic The Pride of St. Louis (1952), and the family comedy-fantasy Rookie of the Year (1993). Sometimes, a fictional Chicago club is depicted. One example is Boulevardier from the Bronx (1936), an eight-minute Warner Bros. cartoon featuring the exploits of the Chicago Giants, whose star pitcher—a rooster—is named Dizzy Dan. (At the time, Dizzy Dean still was pitching in St. Louis; he did not join the Cubs until 1938.)

The town’s other big league nine has not been completely shut out onscreen. But it should surprise no one that two of the highest-profile Chisox films spotlight the Black Sox Scandal, and are worth comparing because they offer vastly different points of view. Eight Men Out (1988), based on the Eliot Asinof book, is one movie about baseball history that does not glorify its subjects. The Sox are portrayed in ensemble style as a rowdy, hard-playing bunch, easily the best major league team of the era. As depicted by director-writer John Sayles, however, they are also victims, oppressed as much by jowly Charles “The Old Roman” Comiskey (Clifton James), the team’s penny-pinching owner, as by underworld kingpin Arnold Rothstein (Michael Lerner).

Meanwhile, Field of Dreams (1989), adapted from W.P. Kinsella’s novel, deals with the Black Sox from a wholly different perspective. Field of Dreams is the It’s a Wonderful Life of baseball movies, a wistful fantasy about love, hope, and the timelessness of the game. Here, the defamed ballplayers are restored to their glory when their spirits come to play in an eternal, pastoral ball field. Their sins are not dramatized and, consequently, an idealized vision of American innocence is recaptured.

Eight Men Out is deeply cynical. At one point, Eddie Cicotte (David Strathairn) observes: “I always figured it was talent made a man big, you know. … I mean, we’re the guys they come to see. Without us, there ain’t a ballgame … but look at who’s holding the money and look at who’s facing a jail cell. Talent don’t mean nothing.” A heckler yells at Shoeless Joe: “Hey, Jackson! Can you spell ‘cat’?” Jackson (D.B. Sweeney) retorts: “Hey, Mister! Can you spell ‘shit’?”

In the nostalgia-tinged Field of Dreams, however, Shoeless Joe (Ray Liotta) utters “Man, I did love this game. I’d have played for food money” and “I used to love traveling on the trains from town to town. The hotels … brass spittoons in the lobbies, brass beds in the rooms. It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep. Shoot, I’d play for nothing!”

Various non-baseball films also reference the scandal. In The Godfather: Part II (1974), gangster Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg) declares: “I loved baseball ever since Arnold Rothstein fixed the World Series in 1919.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, filmed four times (in 1926, 1949, 1974, and 2013) and as a 2000 made-for-TV movie, includes the character Meyer Wolfsheim, said to have fixed the series and clearly based on Rothstein. In the 1926 film, the character is named “Charles Wolf.” In the 1949 version, he is “Myron Lupus.”

The disparate depictions of real-life ballplayers in Eight Men Out and Field of Dreams serve to emphasize that films featuring real-life individuals offer the subjective views of their creators. They also usually present skewed representations of history. Sometimes, inaccuracies result from sloppy scholarship; more often, they exist to keep the storyline lean and comprehensible.2 Both are the case in The Stratton Story, a biopic about White Sox hurler Monty Stratton.

The real Stratton, a Texas farm boy, was in 1937–38 a promising major league pitcher. But in November 1938, while target-shooting on his mother’s farm, he shot at a rabbit and his revolver accidently discharged while returning it to its holster. The bullet severed the femoral artery in his right leg, gangrene soon set in, and the leg was amputated above the knee.3

Though Stratton played for the Pale Hose in the 1930s—specific years and dates are not cited in the screenplay—The Stratton Story, made in 1949, is more a reflection of post-World War II America. Douglas Morrow, who earned an Academy Award for the film’s story and scripted it with Guy Trosper, had attended a game at the Sawtelle Soldiers Home, a Southern California facility for disabled GIs. “Seeing the armless and legless spectators, Morrow had the desire to find a film story that would give them hope,” wrote film industry reporter-biographer Bob Thomas. “He thought the story should be divorced from the war. Then he remembered Monte [sic] Stratton.”4

Stratton is played in the film by James Stewart. The ex-big leaguer was the film’s technical advisor and coached Stewart on the art of pitching. He noted that the actor “did a great job playing me, in a picture which I figure was about as true to life as they could make it.”5 Despite this hype, however, The Stratton Story is loaded with misinformation. In an effort to ensure narrative clarity, none of Stratton’s siblings are present onscreen and only two of the five seasons he spent in Chicago are represented. The hurler played in the minors in Omaha and Galveston (in 1934) and St. Paul (1935), yet only Omaha is cited in the script.

Other changes are historical revisions designed to make the scenario more acceptable to viewers. In the film, Stratton shoots himself with a hunting rifle rather than a revolver. The film ends with his return to the sport in a Houston exhibition pitting the “Southern All-Stars” and “Western All-Stars,” but he really did so in a White Sox-Cubs charity game, held in Comiskey Park, organized to raise money for him.

Other “facts” also reflect the 1940s rather than 1930s. One example: Stratton’s comeback game took place in 1939. In the film, his mound opponent is Gene Bearden, who did not pitch in the majors until 1947. The last batter he faces is Johnny Lindell, whose first big league appearance was a one-game looksee in 1941. Still others are even less explicable. When Stratton is recalled from the minors, a Clark Gable-Lana Turner film, Honky Tonk, is screening in a movie theatre. The film was released in 1941, three years after Stratton threw his last major league pitch.

Perhaps the most egregious error involves Stratton’s major league debut on June 2, 1934. This was his lone big league appearance that season, coming against the Detroit Tigers, and Stratton surrendered four hits and two runs in 3 1/3 innings. Stratton entered the game with two outs in the sixth inning, relieving Phil Gallivan. Hank Greenberg had just walked and promptly stole second on Stratton. Jo-Jo White then lined out to left field.6

In The Stratton Story, the hurler comes in to pitch in relief against the New York Yankees. “Dickey, DiMaggio, Gehrig. You can’t power past them, kid,” Barney Wile (Frank Morgan), Stratton’s fictional onscreen mentor, advises the hurler. “If you’re gonna get by,” Wile adds, “you gotta out-think ‘em, cross ‘em up, give ‘em what they don’t expect.” (According to the Chicago Tribune, the real-life Wile was “Jockie Tate, a former Texas leaguer, who always had a blank contract handy in case something good suddenly turned up.”)7

Wile’s advice may be sound, but what follows is pure fiction. The first batter Stratton faces is Bill Dickey (appearing as himself). The Bombers’ backstop homers on Stratton’s first pitch. (Stratton allowed no round-trippers in his actual debut.) Also included in the sequence is stock footage of Joe DiMaggio belting a dinger and circling the bases. There is a catch, however: The Yankee Clipper did not debut in the majors until 1936.

So Monty Stratton’s real debut was not nearly as disastrous as depicted in The Stratton Story. The question is: Why rewrite history? Simply put, having Stratton face Hall of Famer Dickey and the New York nine is more dramatically potent than having him pitch to Jo-Jo White.

The Yankees’ success also allowed for some repartee that surely would have delighted George Steinbrenner. Stratton tells his wife, “Honey, do you know there’s a tailor in Chicago that gives a suit of clothes away to any ballplayer that hits the scoreboard in center field? As of yesterday the New York Yankees are the best-dressed team in baseball.”

In June 1948, during the film’s pre-production, Roy Rowland—assigned to direct The Stratton Story—shot footage of the White Sox at Comiskey Park. By the time filming began, Sam Wood had replaced Rowland. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Reporter announced that Gregory Peck would be playing Stratton while Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio producing the film, hyped Van Johnson for the part. But in the end, Stewart got the role.

The studio also reported that 72 pro ballplayers appeared onscreen. Many were at one point or another affiliated with Chicago teams; the list begins with Merv Shea, Hank Sauer, Peanuts Lowrey, Catfish Metkovich, Gene Mauch, Tuck Stainback, Lou Novikoff, Bobby Sturgeon, Steve Mesner, Lou Stringer, Red Kress, Al Zarilla, and Gus Zernial. Most significantly, Jimmy Dykes, who became the Sox player-manager fifteen games into the 1934 season and helmed the team into the 1946 campaign, appears as himself. Of Stratton’s teammates, Ted Lyons has the most screen time, but the real Lyons is not in the film. Instead, he is played by actor Bruce Cowling.8 Legend has it that Ronald Reagan, who three years later played Pete Alexander in The Winning Team, desperately wanted the Stratton role. But he was under contract with Warner Bros., which refused to lend him to MGM.9

Across the years, other real-life Chicago ballplayers have appeared onscreen. The Giants-White Sox Tour (1914) is the first notable feature-length documentary to spotlight big leaguers. Variety, the motion picture trade publication, described it as a “long reeled picture of the baseball players’ trip around the world the past winter… with here and there snatches of a baseball game played between the natives and the teams in foreign countries. The well-known ballplayers who went along are shown individually at different times, with Germany Schaefer always in the foreground whenever the camera was working…”10 (Schaefer had played for the Chicago Orphans [aka the Cubs] in 1901 and 1902.)

Some onscreen Chicago ballplayers are more obscure: Frank Shellenback, Ray French, and Smead Jolley had small roles in Alibi Ike; Shellenback also appeared in Joe E. Brown’s Fireman, Save My Child (1932). Others are Hall of Famers; Ernie Banks has appeared in over a dozen feature films, television movies, and television series. (He was billed as “Steamer Fan” in Pastime [1990], a baseball film, and played a cabbie in a 1985 Hill Street Blues episode.) A highlight reel of other Cooperstown inductees with Chicago connections begins with Rube Waddell, who pitched for the Chicago Orphans in 1901 and appeared as himself in the documentary shorts Rube Waddell and the Champions Playing Ball with the Boston Team (1902) and Game of Base Ball (1903); Leo Durocher, who managed the Cubs from 1966–72 and was seen in Whistling in Brooklyn (1943), The Errand Boy (1961), and such TV series as Mister Ed, The Munsters, and The Beverly Hillbillies; and Frank Thomas, who played The Rookie in Mr. Baseball (1992).11

Some films have actually featured the ballparks themselves. In this regard, Wrigley Field far outweighs Old Comiskey Park and its successor as onscreen locations or references. (Wrigley Field Chicago should not be confused with Wrigley Field in Los Angeles, built in 1925. Besides serving as a Pacific Coast League park, it was a playground for exhibition games featuring Tinseltown celebs. Countless films and TV shows were shot there, from the Babe Ruth feature Babe Comes Home [1927] through “The Mighty Casey,” a 1960 Twilight Zone episode, the Home Run Derby TV show, and “Herman the Rookie,” a 1965 installment of The Munsters.)12

An infinitesimal number of films feature on-location images of Old Comiskey. But one—a non-baseball film—is extra-special. Only the Lonely (1991) includes a sequence shot not long after the 1990 season, just prior to the park’s demolition. The hero is a Chicago cop (John Candy) who shares his first date with the woman he is courting by taking her to Old Comiskey, where they share an on-field picnic.

The then-new ball yard briefly appears, but the focus is on the soon-to-disappear park, which is paid homage via the line, “Boy, it’s a shame they’re gonna tear this all down.” The sequence reportedly was filmed on a Friday, with the demolition beginning the following week. Jacolyn J. Baker, an Only the Lonely location manager, described it as “a special night,” adding: “Everybody knew that this was going to be the last time anybody would be in Comiskey Park… In between takes, people were playing catch on the field. You felt that this was about to be taken away. It was really special.”13

Wrigley Field’s iconic status has more than occasionally been celebrated onscreen. The Chicago location of While You Were Sleeping (1995), a Sandra Bullock-Bill Pullman romantic comedy-drama, is established via a series of city landmarks. One, of course, is The Friendly Confines, as much a symbol of its town as Yankee Stadium is to New York. In Sleepless in Seattle (1993), baseball is a byword for romance, a loving family, and bliss. As the film opens, Sam Baldwin (Tom Hanks), a Chicago architect, has just lost his wife to cancer. As Sam mourns the loss of his beloved, there is a split-second flashback to a memory of a happier time as he, his late wife, and their young son pose outside Wrigley Field.

The first onscreen image in The Break-Up (2006) is a long shot of Wrigley during a game. The second is the red-and-white Wrigley sign. Die-hard Cubs fan Gary Grobowski (Vince Vaughn) is in the stands, and he rests his face in his hands in agony as a fly ball drops between three Cubs fielders. His pal Johnny O (Jon Favreau), who is garbed in White Sox regalia, laughs hysterically.

One of the more celebrated Wrigley references occurs in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), in which the title character (Matthew Broderick), a high school senior, cons most of the world into thinking he is deathly ill so that he can skip school. Ferris is joined by his girlfriend and best pal and the trio spends a day enjoying Chicago’s amenities. How could the afternoon pass without a Wrigley visit?

Ferris’ main nemesis is Ed Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), the pompous school dean determined to bust him. Rooney happens to be inside a pizza parlor and beside a TV set on which the Cubs contest is being broadcast. The home nine are in the field, the inimitable voice of Harry Caray notes that Lee Smith is on the mound, and the unnamed batter hits a long foul ball into the leftfield stands. Who do you suppose nabs it? None other than Ferris Bueller! But Rooney is oblivious. He asks the score and is told “nothing-nothing.” His doltishness is ever-apparent by his next question: “Who’s winning?” The not-amused pizza man tells him, “The Bears.”

Not all screen characters seeing a live Cubs game actually do so inside the park. About Last Night… (1986), a romantic drama based on David Mamet’s play Sexual Perversity in Chicago, is framed by softball games in Grant Park during successive summers in which Danny (Rob Lowe), the hero, and Debbie (Demi Moore), the heroine, meet and then become reacquainted after breaking up. In between, they watch a Cubs game not from Wrigley but from a nearby rooftop, where they can be alone. About Last Night… also features a peek into what some women might discuss at ballgames. Debbie and her pal Joan (Elizabeth Perkins) are chatting, and Debbie observes: “That second baseman’s got a really nice ass.” To which Joan responds: “I refuse to go out with a man whose ass is smaller than mine.”

In Hardball (2001), aimless Conor O’Neill (Keanu Reeves) finds direction in coaching pre-teen Little Leaguers from the Cabrini-Green housing project. At one point, Conor escorts the kids to a Cubs game. The boys are close enough to the field to attract the attention of what then was a premier Cubbie. “Yo, check it out,” one of the boys yells to his pals. “That’s Sammy Sosa over there … right there.” Alas, another boy points out that it is not Sammy, and the Sosa spotter is dissed by his pals. But then he spots the real Sosa, garbed in a warm-up jacket and wielding a bat. Quickly, the kids grab Sammy’s attention. He smiles, kisses his fingers, moves them to his heart, and shoots them a “V” for victory. The music swells on the soundtrack, and the boys are in baseball heaven.

Not only is The Blues Brothers (1980) among the higher-profile Chicago-set films of recent decades, it also features a baseball reference that is the equivalent of a grand-slam homer. At one point, the brothers Jake (John Belushi) and Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) elude the police but are not trouble-free; Jake points out to Elwood, “Those cops have your name, your address …” But not to worry. As Elwood explains: “They don’t got my address. I falsified my renewal. I put down 1060 West Addison.”

Surely, those cops are not real Chicagoans; if they were, they would not need Elwood Blues to tell them: “1060 West Addison. That’s Wrigley Field.”

ROB EDELMAN teaches film history at the University at Albany. He authored “Great Baseball Films” and “Baseball on the Web,” and, with his wife Audrey Kupferberg, “Meet the Mertzes,” a double biography of “I Love Lucy’s” Vivian Vance and famed baseball fan William Frawley. A frequent contributor to “Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game,” he has written articles on baseball and pop culture for many publications.

Notes

1. J. Weintraub, “Why They Call It the Second City,” Chicago Reader, July 29, 1993.

2. Rob Edelman, “The Winning Team: Fact and Fiction in Celluloid Biographies,” The National Pastime, Number 26, 2006.

3. “Stratton’s Leg Amputated Above Knee,” Chicago Tribune, November 29, 1938.

4. Bob Thomas, “Hollywood Highlights.” Spokane Daily Chronicle, February 24, 1948.

5. “Monty Stratton, 70, Pitcher Who Inspired Movie, Is Dead,” The New York Times, September 30, 1982.

6. www.retrosheet.org.

7. Irving Vaughan, “Plowboy to Mound Ace Is Story of Stratton’s Career,” Chicago Tribune, November 29, 1938.

8. Patricia King Hanson, Executive Editor, American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures Produced in the United States, Feature Films, 1941–1950, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1999.

9. “Monty Stratton, 70, Pitcher Who Inspired Movie, Is Dead,” The New York Times, September 30, 1982.

10. Rob Edelman, “The Baseball Film to 1920,” Base Ball: A Journal of the Early Game, Volume 1, Number 1, 2007.

11. www.imdb.com.

12. www.wikipedia.org.

13. Michael Corcoran, Arnie Bernstein, Hollywood on Lake Michigan, Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2013.

Sixteen players have hit 500 or more career home runs. Seven of them played at least five full seasons in the ’50s. An eighth man hit his first 73, and a ninth his first 25.

Of the twenty-six sluggers with seventeen or fewer at-bats per home run, seven (27 percent) logged at least six full campaigns in the ’50s. Three more were active for one to four years.

The 1948 and 1949 seasons were harbingers of the coming explosion. Scoring numbers began to rise after the immediate postwar years. Five teams drove in more than 800 runs. Three players exceeded 150. None of those marks had been reached in the previous eight seasons.

It was the 1950 Boston Red Sox, though, with over 1,000 runs scored and almost 1,000 driven in, who set the power table at which almost all teams would dine for the next ten years. The three tables below illustrate the surge.

(Click image to enlarge)

There had been quantum leaps in offense earlier, most notably in 1930-32, when extra-base hits increased 8 percent, home runs 18 percent, and the home run percent of extra-base hits from 20 percent to 23 percent, but thereafter the homer growth rate was more moderate. Over the next ten years, through 1941, it was 10 percent.

After the initial leaps in the categories as the ’50s began, performance — except in home runs — leveled off. The number of teams with 120 or more home runs in 1946-47 was four; in 1950-51, all sixteen reached that level. By 1953-54 total output rose to over 4,000 in the two-year period, the highest ever.

In 1946-49 one team hit more than 200 home runs in a season — the ’47 Giants of Mize, Cooper, and company, with a record 221. Those Giants were also the only team to surpass 180 in that period. From 1950-60 fourteen teams finished a season with more than 180, three of which were over 200 and one of which (the ’57 Braves) came up one shy at 199. The ’56 Reds tied the ’47 Giants record.

At the same time, “speed” numbers declined. Players went “station to station,” waiting for the big hit. Managers and coaches took off the running signs. There were 1,587 triples in 1946-47. By 1957-58 there were only 1,320, a 16 percent decrease in a decade and a direct contrast to the 60 percent rise in homers over the same span. The Buddy Lewises, Phil Cavarettas, Dale Mitchells, Bob Dillingers, and Harry Walkers were phased out in favor of slow-moving sluggers like Hank Sauer, Gus Zernial, Ted Kluszewski, Joe Adcock, and Roy Sievers. Eventually, we began to see all those Hall of Famers in the 500 club: Mays, Mathews, Mantle, Aaron, Banks, and Frank Robinson. At the same time, Ted Williams, Ralph Kiner, and Johnny Mize continued their long power patterns, and Musial was … well, Musial. But even he caught the long-ball fever: in his first seven years, in the ’40s, he averaged 20 homers per season. In his first seven years in the ’50s, his annual output rose to 30.

Base stealing also became less of a priority. In 1946- 47, over 1,600 sacks were swiped. By 1953-54, steals had dropped to 1,363 (-15 percent). Just as we see so many from that decade high on the home run list, so also do we see few names in the speed categories. Of those who have hit 150 or more triples, only two, Musial and Clemente, played at all in the 1950s. Of the roughly three dozen players with more than 400 career stolen bases, only one, Luis Aparicio, was a ’50s performer.

Even the mobile Dodgers put on the brakes. The Brooklyn pennant winners in 1947 and 1949 averaged 48 triples and 102 steals. The 1956 titleists hit 36 triples and stole 65 bases. Home runs? A jump from 117 to 180.

The only team to buck the power trend successfully was Chicago — the memorable “Go-Go” White Sox. Throughout the decade, they finished second or third in the American League, and finally made it to the top in 1959, becoming the only pennant-winning team of the ’50s with more than 100 stolen bases. They were also the first club in eleven seasons to win a title with fewer than 100 homers and the first team in twenty-five seasons to be a champion with fewer than 100 homers and more than 100 stolen bases.

No position better illustrates the shift than that of catcher. In 1946-47 backstops hit 170 homers (Walker Cooper and Ernie Lombardi hit a third of them). In 1957-58, men behind the plate more than tripled their output to 520. Certainly, new spark plugs Berra and Campanella were big factors, but don’t forget Lollar, Seminick, Crandall, Westrum, Lopata, Sammy White, and, a bit later, Bailey and Triandos. The typical catcher in 1946-47 — scrappy defense, .240-.250, five homers, 40-45 RBIs — didn’t have a job seven or eight years later.

SABR colleagues will not find much support in this corner for overuse of the Home Run/RBI Ratio. It is a suspect statistic in many ways, but it does provide some confirmation of the ’50s style. In an attempt at levity in the midst of the Cold War nuclear arms race, wags in Congress and elsewhere talked about achieving a “Bigger Bang for a Buck.” How did that apply to baseball? Below is a list of the HR/RBI ratios of the important, but non-Hall of Fame, 100-RBI men. Aside from the familiar Hall of Famers, there weren’t any more 100-RBI people in 1946-49 except for four who logged a lot of service before and after 1950 — Gil Hodges, Bobby Thomson, Carl Furillo, and Del Ennis — all fine run producers who exhibited the traits of both periods.

Like Evers and batting champions Dixie Walker and Mickey Vernon, the exciting Minnie Miñoso was the kind of slash hitter who could drive in 100 runs with less than 20 homers. He was an oddity in his time.

The ’50s gave us many more bombers, including Wally Post (3.0 ratio), Larry Doby (3.55), Jim Lemon (3.2), Vic Wertz (3.7), Frank Thomas (3.2), and Roger Maris (3.25). Finally, there was Dale Long (3.23). He never drove in 100 runs, but he set a record with eight home runs in eight consecutive games in 1956.

Not mentioned yet is the player who hit the most long balls in those days: Duke Snider, with 326 homers from 1950 through 1959, including five consecutive seasons at 40 or more. The man with the highest annual output over the most years was fellow Hall-of-Famer Mathews, who averaged 37 from 1952 through 1959, with four 40+ campaigns. Their ratios, however, match the ’50s pattern, with Snider a little over, and Mathews slightly under, 3.0.

When Ted Williams hit his 521st home run in his last at-bat in 1960, the shot not only capped his career, but also closed out ’50s-style baseball. The Yankees, in the next (Maris) year, hit it out 240 times, but expansion muddied comparisons. And the ’60s soon turned to speed and defense, highlighted by the Dodger teams of the ’60s, and the ’68 season in which Bob Gibson, Denny McLain, and others held all teams under 700 RBIs.

Was ’50s big-bang baseball a reflection of the society and the politics of the day? Almost every aspect of life was tied to power and size: Incredibly devastating bombs, hordes of people in military service, expanding corporations, huge automobiles, a vast highway system, increasingly potent aircraft, booming urban areas, and some sense of endless progress. Speculation can be shredded; supposition is safer. And so let us suppose that, yes, there was a connection.

Sometime soon, someone will analyze the “Home Run Derby” that was baseball in the ’90s — not only the McGwire-Sosa races and the big 70, but also the growing number of folks who went deep 45, 50 times. It was the greatest long-ball era ever, but it had a pure and hardy ancestor over forty years before when the motto was: “Fire Away!”

PAUL L. WYSARD is a life-long resident of Hawaii who first saw major leaguers play in military service during World War II. A retired private school administrator, he was also a contributor at the 1998 SABR Convention.

Ted Williams, who had sat atop the league’s hitters for most of the season, had been held hitless earlier in the day by Vic Raschi, while his arch-rivals the Yankees clinched the American League pennant. The “Splendid Splinter” had started the month of September with a 12-point lead and seemed certain to win his fifth batting championship.1 Kell, who had been hampered by injuries in September and was down seven points in late September, had been on a hitting tear that brought him within three points of Williams on the season’s final day.

Word filtered down from the press box to the Detroit dugout that Kell was now ahead of Williams in the race. If his lead held he would be the first third sacker ever to win the American League batting championship. (Debs Garms led the NL in hitting in 1940 with a .355 average but split time at third and the outfield.)

The slick-fielding third baseman knew in the eighth inning that he was leading Williams by a threadlike margin. He had already banged out two hits on the day against the tough Bob Lemon, a double his first time up and a line-drive single to left on his second trip to the plate. Lemon walked Kell to lead off the sixth, coughed up three runs, and was replaced by the Indians’ other fireballer, Bob Feller. Kell flied out to left in the seventh against Feller. With the score tied 4–4, there was a chance that Kell would bat again. He didn’t want to, but he also didn’t want to come out of the game and win the batting crown by sitting on a stool in the clubhouse.2 Another hit would secure his edge over Williams. A base-on-balls would leave things unchanged. If Feller retired him, then Kell would drop behind Williams.3 When the home half of the ninth inning opened, the Tigers were leading 8–4, and three batters were ahead of Kell. Johnny Lipon, batting for Neil Berry, grounded out. Dick Wakefield, batting for Hal White, smashed a single to first off Mickey Vernon’s glove.

Next to bat was Eddie Lake. Lake ended up hitting a two-hopper to Ray Boone at short, for a game-ending double play. An elated Kell threw the three bats he was holding in his hand “as high into the air as I could.”4 He had won the batting title by a couple of decimal points. It was one of the closest batting races in baseball history. The Tigers star had thwarted a bid by Williams for his fifth batting crown by two ten-thousandths of a point—.34291 to .34276. If Williams had managed one more hit or one fewer at-bat, he would have his third Triple Crown—a feat never achieved in the game.5

George Kell was already one of the American League’s best players when the 1949 season began, a rare accomplishment in an era when the men who played his position were known primarily for their glovework.6 Establishing himself as a star, though, did not come easily. The sandy-haired third baseman from Swifton, Arkansas, got his start in baseball in 1940 with Newport, a Class D team affiliated with the Brooklyn Dodgers, only eighteen miles from Kell’s hometown. When the team found itself in need of a shortstop late in the season, the local postmaster in Swifton, who attended almost all of Newport’s games, talked the general manager into giving Kell a try.

Kell had demonstrated his skills locally in American Legion ball, but found playing in the minors harder than he expected. He batted a mere .160 in 48 games and wasn’t much better in the field. He was invited back to Newport the next year and led the league with 143 hits. His .310 average was third in the league and he was the top fielder at his position.7 At the end of 1941, Newport sold his contract to Durham, a Class B club in the Dodgers organization. The team had plenty of third basemen, so when the manager asked if anyone could play short, Kell volunteered. Kell recalled in his autobiography that he got half a dozen hits, but committed the same number of errors. Brooklyn general manager Larry MacPhail saw Kell play and demanded the club get rid of him, saying, “He’ll never be a ballplayer.”8

Kell was heartbroken when he was released and came within a “rabbit’s hair” of quitting baseball.9 But he caught a break with Lancaster, which needed a second baseman. Kell found manager Tom Oliver and talked his way on to the team. He batted .299 for Lancaster and was voted the team’s most valuable player. Kell returned for the 1943 season and opened the eyes of Connie Mack by hitting a phenomenal .396 in 138 games for Lancaster, which was the highest average in all of baseball. His 220 hits were also tops in the league and Kell was again voted MVP. Lancaster had an agreement with Mack and the Athletics, giving the A’s their pick of any three players, and an eager Mack made a special trip to scout him. Kell recalled: “He had watched us play a double-header. And in the clubhouse afterwards he came over to me and asked, ‘Young man, how would you like to come to Philadelphia?’ That’s all there was to it.”10

The A’s brought Kell up at the end of the 1943 season to play one game at third base. He hit a triple his first at-bat on September 28, 1943, to drive in a run. “I tried to act very calmly, like it was just another time atbat for me,” Kell wrote in his autobiography, Hello Everybody, I’m George Kell. “But I was dying to pinch myself to make sure this was really happening.”11

Kell became the team’s regular third baseman in 1944, batting a respectable .268 in 139 games, and helped the Athletics post their second-best record in ten years with a fifth-place showing and a 72–82 win-loss record. Mack exercised patience while the rookie worked out his rough spots. Kell improved on those numbers in 1945, batting .272 and more than doubled his output of extra base hits including 30 doubles and four home runs. Kell also established himself as the league’s top defensive third baseman, leading the league in assists, putouts, and fielding average, and along with Dick Siebert at first and Ed Busch at shortstop gave the Athletics a solid and consistent infield.12

Although the same infield performed admirably in 1945, the Athletics fell to 52–98. Kell banged out 154 hits and had 56 runs batted in. But with the war over, Mack knew that veterans would be returning to their former teams. His war-years players would be unknown quantities against returning pitchers like Bob Feller.13 (Kell was rejected for military service because of bad knees.) Kell worked hard in 1946 to prove he could play at the All-Star level, but in early 1946 Mack made a move. Kell was batting .299 when he unexpectedly found himself traded to the Detroit Tigers. The A’s were in desperate need of an outfielder who could hit, while the Tigers were looking to replace their aging third baseman, Pinky Higgins, who had not played in 1945 and was 37, older than they would have liked. Third base was a weak spot for the Tigers, who had no promising recruit coming up.14

Kell led the American League third basemen in fielding that season. Several American League clubs were interested in trading for Kell. Tigers Manager Steve O’Neill had tried to make a deal to acquire Kell the year before, but Connie Mack had refused every offer. This time, O’Neill offered Mack his choice of eight players. Mack chose Barney McCosky, a proven veteran and solid hitter. It was a straight trade with no cash involved.

Kell had just finished breakfast in the Book-Cadillac Hotel in Detroit where the A’s were staying when Mack got on the elevator with him and told him that he had been traded to the Tigers. Kell was shocked and didn’t want to go. He was playing every day. He hustled. And Mack seemed to like him. He felt like an orphan, like nobody in the world wanted him to play baseball for them. “It was such a shock and felt like a rejection,” Kell recalled. “But Mr. Mack told me, ‘George, you’re going to be a good ballplayer, and I’m sending you to a team that will pay you the kind of money that I can’t.’ As it turns out, it was the greatest day in my life.”15

Kell figured the Tigers must have wanted him to trade away an established star like McCosky. The 29-year-old McCosky was a fan favorite who had helped the Tigers win the pennant in 1940. From 1939 through 1942, McCosky had hit .311, .340, .324, and .293. He joined the Navy in 1943 and rejoined the Tigers in 1946, but at the time of the trade was in a bad batting slump, batting only .198, and had been benched recently with a leg ailment that had bothered him for weeks.16 Kell was batting right around .300 and in 16 times at the plate against Detroit pitching had hit safely seven times (.438).17 Weeks before the trade while the Tigers were playing in Philadelphia, O’Neill told sportswriters that “Kell is the best third baseman in the majors.”18

Fans at the time were left wondering if the Tigers knew what they were doing by trading one of their favorite players for a third baseman they had never heard of. “I felt like Cinderella being traded for the Queen of the Ball,” Kell wrote in his autobiography.19 H.G. Salsinger, a sports writer for The Detroit News, urged the fans to relax. “Kell, at the age of 23, faces a future that should establish him as one of the game’s best third basemen,” Salsinger wrote in his column. “He is fast, quick, alert, aggressive. He has an excellent throwing arm. He is intelligent. In a day when good shortstops are plentiful and good third basemen a rarity, Kell stands out. He may stand out even more with added experience.”20 And the way he figured it, the Tigers picked up Kell just in time. According to his sources, the Red Sox had been on the verge of getting Kell before the Tigers completed the deal. Boston had offered Mack his choice of any outfielder with the exception of Ted Williams.21

Kell didn’t let the talk affect his play. In his first appearance with his new team, he got a hit in both games of a doubleheader against Boston and contributed at least two spectacular fielding plays. After the initial nervousness wore off, Kell came to love playing in Detroit and hit .327 the rest of the year as a Tiger. “It was an excellent place to play ball,” Kell wrote. “And the city was a beautiful place in which to live. There wasn’t a day I didn’t enjoy playing in Detroit.”22 The fans, too, soon warmed to Kell and it was the beginning of a great romance. By August, Kell found his groove and made Detroit fans forget McCosky. It didn’t hurt that there were a lot of fans in the stands from Arkansas—including what seemed to Kell like half the population of Jackson County, where Swifton was located—who had come to work in the automobile factories following the great migration from the South after the war. He finished the year with a .322 average and would go on to hit over .300 in each of the next five seasons as a Tiger. Kell was also an All-Star in every one of those seasons and led American League third basemen in fielding average in 1946, 1950, and 1951.

The trade to the Tigers had been the best thing to happen to his career. “Every time I would see Mr. Mack after that I would thank him for what he had done for my career. Mr. Mack had done me a favor,” Kell recalled.23 The Tigers had found the man they so desperately needed to shore up the hot corner. Tigers center fielder Doc Cramer once pointed to Kell and told a reporter who was looking for a story, “Nobody seems to know it, but he’s the best third baseman in the American League. Look up his record.” Coach Frank Shellenback, who overheard the conversation, agreed. “You’re right about that, Doc,” Shellenback added. “I’ll tell you one thing about Kell; he has a great pair of hands and a fine arm. Why, I have yet to see him make a real bad throw across the diamond, either to first base or second. And he’s getting to be a real good hitter too.”24

In 1947, Kell hit .320 with 93 RBIs, which he said “was pretty good for a second place hitter.” Despite being a .300 hitter, Kell developed a reputation as a “bad ball” hitter. He sprayed hits all over the field and, according to writers Mark Stewart and Mike Kennedy, “changed his stance and swing depending on the pitcher and situation. He inside-outed pitches to the opposite field, but could also turn on inside deliveries and pull them down the left-field line” and was a good drag bunter.25 “I don’t have a particular pitch I like,” Kell said in a 1950 profile. “I just go up to the plate and the first good one I see I swing at it. It doesn’t have to be in the strike zone to hit.”26 Tigers manager Red Rolfe said Kell was all brains at the plate. He studied pitchers’ tendencies, often outguessing them and setting them up to throw the pitch he was looking for. “He hits all kinds of pitching—fast or slow,” Rolfe said. “He’s the steady kind that managers like.”27 Four-time batting champ Harry Heilmann praised his hitting style, saying, “instead of swinging blindly at the ball, [Kell] is always looking for weak spots in the defense and punching a hit through them.”28

Kell entered the 1949 season with something to prove, after 1948 had turned out to be what he considered the worst season of his career. While he kept his string of .300 alive with a .304 mark, Kell was limited to only 92 games that year because of two major injuries—both suffered at the hands of the New York Yankees. Kell broke his wrist in early May on a fastball by Vic Raschi and was out of the line-up for nearly four weeks. Then, any hope of salvaging the season ended in late August when a grounder from Joe DiMaggio took a high bounce and struck Kell in the face, breaking his jaw. Kell instinctively scrambled for the ball and forced the runner at third then passed out. “I had to prove I could bounce back from a few bad breaks and still be the same player I had worked so hard to become,” Kell wrote in his autobiography.29

Although already an established major league hitter, Kell picked up “one of the greatest batting tips I ever learned in my life” while on his way to spring training in 1949. In March Kell and his wife and kids spent the night at the Tuscaloosa Hotel in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. In those days, players drove down to Florida for spring training. Tuscaloosa was the halfway point to Lakeland from Kell’s home in Swifton and he liked to stop there for a night before finishing the journey to camp. Also staying at the hotel was Boston Braves star pitcher Johnny Sain, who was from Walnut Ridge, Arkansas, not too far from Swifton. Kell had told Sain about the hotel and he began to stop there as well. After spending the night, Kell decided to run downstairs for a quick cup of coffee and some toast before hitting the road. When he got to the coffee shop, Sain was sitting at a table with St. Louis Cardinals’ stars Red Schoendienst and Stan Musial, who were on their way to the Cardinals camp in St. Petersburg. Kell was delighted when they motioned him over to join them.30

After some small talk about what they did over the winter and what they hoped to accomplish during the season, Musial began talking about hitting. He told Kell that he went into spring training every year knowing that he was going to hit somewhere between .320 and .340 for the season. Musial was at a point in his career where his confidence in himself would not let him fall short of his goals. Kell went back up to his room thinking that Musial’s advice “was the most amazing thing about hitting that I had ever heard in my life. He was talking about confidence. A player simply cannot become a good hitter without it.”31 Kell made up his mind that from them on that he would hit somewhere between .310 and .325 every year.

While he realized he would never be a great hitter like Musial, Williams, or Joe DiMaggio, Kell figured that if he concentrated hard enough he knew he could post solid numbers at the plate and make the All-Star team every year. It wasn’t until after the season was over and he realized that he had won the batting championship that he fully appreciated what Musial had said.

In 1949, Ted Williams was having one of the most dominant offensive seasons in baseball history. Williams had already won four batting titles, including the last two, and Kell had said all along that Williams would be the man to beat for the batting crown. Kell was fairly consistent through the 1949 season, but never gave much thought to winning the batting title because Williams always looked like he was on the verge of piling up ten hits in his next 15 at-bats to make a joke out of the batting race. It wasn’t until the All-Star break that anybody mentioned Kell’s name in the same breath as the batting title. Kell hit .348 in April, .330 in May, and .392 for the month of June and his overall batting average hovered in the low .350s. Williams, by comparison, hit .306 in April, .343 in May, and .304 in June and was batting around .320.

With a .341 average and a league-high 63 hits in 185 times at the plate, Kell took over the AL batting lead from Gus Zernial after the hard-charging Chicago rookie was sidelined by an injury. Zernial was hitting .355 in 138 times at bat when he injured his right shoulder in a game in Cleveland on May 28 while diving to catch a sinking line drive hit by Thurman Tucker. He landed on his shoulder and cracked a bone in five places. Williams was batting .317 and leading the league with 14 home runs and 48 runs batted in. Kell would also lose time to an injury when he broke his right foot on June 21 in a 7–1 loss to the Red Sox in Boston, and wouldn’t return to the Tigers lineup until July 2. Kell was batting .353 to Williams’s .315 at the time of the injury.

Williams garnered 88 hits in July and August, hitting a torrid .387 and .405. and took over the batting lead from Bob Dillinger on August 2 with a .348 average. By the end of August, Kell trailed Williams .344 to .356. Williams cooled off though in September, hitting only .279 for the month. From September 1 to September 13, Kell had 12 hits, but missed the next seven games as a result of a broken thumb. “In the last couple of weeks of the season, I got hot and piled up a carload of hits to make the race tight,” Kell recalled.32

On September 18, Williams smacked two home runs and drove in six—and held a ten-point lead over Kell with ten games left in the season. Kell returned on September 23 and went 2-for-3 to raise his average to .342. That same weekend against the Yankees in Fenway Park, Williams belted two home runs and remained ahead of Kell at .349 as Boston and New York battled for the pennant. Kell’s Tigers had four days off leading up to the final weekend of the season while Williams and the Red Sox played three games in Washington and two games in New York. Williams went 1-for-10 in Washington and 1-for-3 in the first game in New York to drop his average to .346. Kell then went 1-for-5 in the next two games against Cleveland, while Williams went 1-for-6 with one game to play. Going into the final day of the season, Kell trailed Williams .341 to .344.

The pennant would be decided by the final game of the season. At Yankee Stadium, Williams walked twice and was held hitless in two official at-bats that day by 20-game winner Vic Raschi, as the Yankees beat the Red Sox 5–3 to capture the pennant. The Tigers, meanwhile, were playing Cleveland where Indians starter Bob Lemon squared off against Detroit’s Virgil Trucks. Kell recalled in his autobiography that he got a call that Sunday from his wife, Charlene, who was already back at their Swifton home, with some words of encouragement. “You’re going to lead the league in hitting,” she said. “I know you can.” Kell told teammate Hoot Evers what his wife had said. “She’s right,” Evers replied.33

Evers told Kell that if he got two hits that day that he would win the title. Kell, however, was skeptical that he could beat out Williams. He figured that Williams would likely get a couple of hits on the day. “I remember answering that Williams would probably get it,” Kell recalled.34 Getting two hits off Bob Lemon wouldn’t be easy. Evers told Kell to go out there and get them his first times up. In his first at-bat, Kell rifled a double to center. His next time up, Kell lined a single to left.

Cleveland held a 4–0 lead in the sixth, but the real drama was focused on Kell. Lemon walked Kell, then gave up three runs before being relieved by Feller. Cleveland was trying to finish in third place which was worth another $1,200 to $1,500 per player. Feller was the last guy Kell wanted to see. “I always felt that Bob Feller was the toughest pitcher I ever faced. Lemon was a close second. Together, they were a one-two knockout punch that floored almost every American League hitter,” Kell recalled. Facing Feller was “always as much fun as getting a tooth pulled without any pain killer.”35 Kell flied out to left against Feller in the seventh, but there was still a possibility that he would have to face Feller again. Kell was scheduled to bat fourth in the ninth inning.

Lynn Smith, a baseball writer for the Detroit Free Press, had called New York and found out that Ted Williams had gone hitless against the Yankees. He called down to the dugout to let manager Red Rolfe know that Kell was ahead of Williams in the batting race and that if he didn’t bat again, he would win the batting title. Lipon grounded out to third and was followed by Wakefield, who singled to bring up Eddie Lake. As Lake settled into the batter’s box, Kell heard catcher Joe Ginsberg yelling to him from the dugout. Rolfe wanted to put Ginsberg in to bat for Kell to make sure he would win the batting title, and was trying to let him know that he was going to hit for him.

Kell had no idea what Williams had done on the day, but remembered that Williams had not sat out the last day of the 1941 season when he was hitting at .400, and insisted on batting. In 1941 Williams had a .399955 batting average which would have been rounded up to .400 if he had chosen to sit out a season-ending doubleheader. Williams ended up banging out six hits in the two games.

Kell was sitting on a 2-for-3 day. He decided he was going to win it or lose it right there. “I said, ‘I’m not going to sit on a stool and win the batting title,’” Kell recalled. “I didn’t want to bat again. I felt I had to. I wasn’t about to back into a batting title against him.”36 With Kell kneeling in the on-deck circle, Eddie Lake hit the first pitch up the middle to shortstop Ray Boone, grounding into a double play and ending the game. Kell celebrated by throwing his bats in the air. The batting title was his, with honor.

“I don’t think I could have faced Williams or anybody else walking into the clubhouse and saying, ‘No, I’m not going to hit,’” Kell remembered.37 Feller told Kell at the 2005 Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony in Cooperstown, New York, that he was aware that Kell was on the cusp of winning the batting crown. “I knew what was going on,” Feller said. “I would have walked you or hit you.”38

The race was so close that in order to decide who won the batting title it was necessary to figure their averages down to the ten-thousandths of a point. Baseball had seen close batting titles before. In 1945, Snuffy Stirnweiss of the New York Yankees beat Tony Cuccinello of the White Sox by .00009. The 1949 title marked the third time that a batting championship ended in a virtual tie. The other one was in 1931 when three players, Chick Hafey (.3489), Bill Terry (.3486), and Jim Bottomley (.3482) finished less than a point apart in the National League. Kell was declared the winner by virtue of outhitting Williams .3429 to .3428 and was the first third baseman to win the batting crown since Heinie Zimmerman in the NL in 1912.

Kell not only edged out Williams, but his 13 strikeouts that year was the lowest total for a batting champion since Willie Keeler in 1898, who had struck out only four times. Kell was also second in the AL in doubles (38), fourth in triples (9), and ranked in the top ten in twelve other categories, including on-base percentage and slugging, and came in eighth in MVP voting. Kell had achieved something he had dreamed about for seven years. It was also the twentieth time that a Tigers player had led the league in hitting. Ty Cobb won 11 titles between 1907 and 1919. Harry Heilmann won it four times in the 1920s. Sam Dungan (1899 Class A Western League), Heinie Manush (1926) and Charlie Gehringer (1937) each won a single batting title.

“I’ve had my eye on that title ever since I broke into the majors,” Kell said, when notified he had officially been certified as the American League batting champion for 1949. “And I don’t think anything could make me happier.”39 Kell reflected in his autobiography: “I can’t express how I felt when the news finally sunk in. Winning the American League batting title is one thing. Beating out Ted Williams to do it made it even more special.”40

He now felt that he had earned his place among the league’s best. Actually, the league’s top hitter might have been neither Kell nor Williams, but Joe DiMaggio. The “Yankee Clipper” finished with a .346 average but illness and injuries limited his play to 76 games and only 272 times at bat, far shy of the 400 at-bats then required to be eligible for the batting title.

For Williams, losing the batting title and Triple Crown was a disappointment. However, while he missed winning his fifth title by less than a point, the slugger still led the league with 43 home runs and tied for the lead in RBIs with 159. Williams also led the league in on-base percentage (.490), slugging (.650), plate appearances (730), runs scored (150), total bases (368), doubles (39), and walks (162). He was also voted the American League’s Most Valuable Player. The following season Williams walked across the field when the Tigers and Red Sox met for the first time and shook Kell’s hand. “You won the batting title,” Williams said. “So I’m coming to your dugout.”41

Kell set out next season to prove that 1949 was no fluke. “One thing I really want to do is lead the league again in hitting,” Kell said. “So many people criticized me and called me a cheese champion last year. I want to prove I can do it again.”42 He would go on to have an even better season at the plate in 1950, almost winning a second batting title, finishing second to Billy Goodman of the Boston Red Sox. Goodman was a parttime player who filled in for Williams when he ran into the left-field fence and broke his elbow in the All-Star game. Goodman proceeded to belt the ball at a good clip.43 The 24-year-old Goodman finished with a .354 average and 150 hits in 424 at bats in 110 games. Kell batted .340, but led the league with 218 hits and 56 doubles and a career high 114 runs and 101 RBIs.

In a 1950 profile, sportswriter Ted Smits commented that Kell had gone from being a “brilliant fielder, but no great shakes as a major league hitter,” to a player who “all he does is field flawlessly and hit any kind of pitch.”44 Manager Red Rolfe added, “He came up the hard way. A lot of supposedly good judges of talent thought he would never make the grade. But Kell has proved that major league baseball takes just average ability plus a lot of determination and ambition.”45

Although Kell would go on to hit .319 in 1951 and again lead the league in hits (191) and doubles (36), he was surprised when he found himself traded to the Red Sox in 1952 in one of baseball’s biggest post-war trades. The deal was a whopper—baseball’s first million-dollar swap.46 The Tigers shipped Kell and outfielder Hoot Evers, along with regular shortstop Johnny Lipon, and relief pitcher Dizzy Trout, to Boston for slugging first baseman Walt Dropo, outfielder Don Lenhardt, infielder Johnny Pesky, Bill Wight, and Fred Hatfield.

The biggest surprise was Kell’s departure. Tigers General Manager Charlie Gehringer didn’t want to trade Kell, but Boston insisted he be part of any deal. “There is no way we wanted to move you,” Gehringer told Kell. “But every time we got close to a trade [Boston General Manager Joe] Cronin said there’s no deal if Kell isn’t a part of it.”47 The Tigers were in last place and headed nowhere. Gehringer wanted to do something to shake up the club. “He hadn’t been helping us enough while we were in the cellar, so we gave him up to get some long ball punch in Dropo and Lenhardt,” Gehringer explained to the press. Detroit had offered the star third baseman to Boston in 1951 in exchange for Ted Williams, but the Red Sox turned the deal down.48

Kell was just as shocked by the news as the rest of the baseball world. He loved playing in Detroit and the trade had left him more confused than the one that had sent him there six years earlier. “I wasn’t angry,” Kell wrote in his autobiography. “By this time I realized that anything was possible in baseball. I just couldn’t figure out why it happened. I was in the lineup every day. I hit .300 and made the All-Star team every year. What does a player have to do to make himself secure in this city?”49

But if he had to be traded, he was glad it was to Boston. Boston was in the thick of a pennant race. In his nine years in the majors, Kell had never played on a pennant winner and he was going to make the most of it. He characterized the swap as a “record climb,” telling reporters, “I jumped from a last place club to one in first place. In a single day I made a gain of 10 1/2 games in the standings. That’s hard to beat.”50 While he never wanted to leave Detroit, he was getting the Green Monster, Ted Williams, and all the charms of New England. “I sure didn’t want to leave Detroit,” Kell said. “But the only thing that made it better was going to Boston because that’s the other great baseball town in the American League.”51

The ex-Tigers made an immediate impact, helping to lead Boston to a 13–11 victory over Cleveland. Kell and Evers each hit home runs and drove in three runs apiece. Kell reached base 18 times in his first 30 plate appearances with the Red Sox, and finished the year with a .311 batting average.

Kell had hoped to finish his career in Detroit, but at least the trade to Boston gave him the chance to play alongside Ted Williams, the best hitter he had ever seen. “There was nothing Ted Williams could not do with a bat,” Kell wrote in his autobiography. “He had the most beautiful swing that God ever gave one man. Every time he went to the plate he put on a clinic for hitting. He was always thinking hitting. He knew exactly what a pitcher was going to throw in every situation. He was never intimidated. He was the intimidator.”52

Kell was a little concerned that Williams might be upset with him for costing him the Triple Crown in 1949, but Williams welcomed him. “You’re going to love this park,” Williams said. “It’s a great place to play and you should have been here all the time.”53 Kell said in 2005, “we were primarily a young ball club and he was an elder and I was past 30, so we hit it off real good.”54 Williams was a tough man on the outside, but according to Kell, was a gentleman and “was always quick to give credit to players. If he was your friend, he was behind you all the way.”55

In fact, Williams admired Kell. When asked in 1951 who he thought the most dangerous batter was as a rival for the batting title and as a threat to pitchers, Williams, without a pause answered: “Kell, of course. He just goes along hitting steadily all the time. Take a look at his averages. There may be players getting more publicity for their hitting, like Gus Zernial, but Kell always is up there right near the top, and he’ll stay there. He’s a good hitter for he moves around in the box, pulling and punching the ball.”56

At the National Baseball Hall of Fame ceremony in 1997, Williams joked with Kell about their batting race 48 years earlier. “Here’s the man who beat me out of the Triple Crown in 1949,” Williams said to their fellow Hall of Famers.57

Kell told Williams that for a long time he didn’t realize that he had cost Williams the Triple Crown. Williams reassured him that, far from being upset, he admired the way Kell battled with him the whole season. “Hell no,” Williams said. “You beat me fair and square, the way you’re supposed to. It was a great race. I loved it. That’s the way the game is supposed to be played. I’m glad I got a chance to play with you.”58

MARK RANDALL has been an award-winning journalist for the past 15 years. He has covered a number of beats for newspapers in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Florida, Utah, Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Northeastern University, a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Syracuse University, and a second master’s degree in history from Arkansas State University, where he has also taught undergraduate history courses.

Photo credit

George Kell, National Baseball Hall of Fame Library.

Notes

1 H.G. Salsinger, “First A.L. Batting King at Third Base.” Detroit News, December 23, 1949.

2 David Hammer, “Cooperstown Brings Back Memories For Hall of Famer Kell.” Associated Press, August 3, 2005.

3 Sam Greene, “Kell King By .0002.” Detroit News, October 3, 1949.

4 Tom Gagne, “Quick Question & Answer with Hall of Famer George Kell,” Baseball Digest, September 2001, 54.

5 Harold Friend, “If Ted Williams Had Only Gotten One More Hit.” Bleacher Report. June 2, 2010. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/400159-if-ted-williams-had-only-gotten-one-more-hit.

6 “George Kell: Man with a Plan.” http://www.jockbio.com/Classic/Kell/Kell_bio.html.

7 Jockbio.com.

8 Jockbio.com.

9 Kell, 22.

10 Ed Rumill, “AL Best 3rd Baseman? K-E-Double L. And Here’s Y.” Baseball Digest, October 6, 1946, 48.

11 George Kell and Dan Ewald, Hello Everybody, I’m George Kell. Champaign, IL: Sports Pub., 1998. 42.

12 Dale Smith, “George Kell: A Tiger in A’s Clothing.” Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society. July 10, 2004. http://philadelphiaathletics.org/george-kell-a-tiger-in-as-clothing/.

13 Smith, “George Kell: A Tiger in A’s Clothing.”

14 H.G. Salsinger, “Makes Debut Today.” Detroit News, May 19, 1946.

15 Bill Dow, “Hall of Famer George Kell a Fan Favorite in Detroit.” Baseball Digest, July 2006, 65.

16 “A’s Swap Kell for McCosky.” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 19, 1946.

17 “A’s Swap Kell for McCosky.”

18 “A’s Swap Kell for McCosky.”

19 Kell, 43.

20 H.G. Salsinger, “With Youthful Kell at Third, There’s No Room for Pinky.” Detroit News, May 20, 1946.

21 Kell, 46.

22 Kell, 50.

23 Kell, 47.

24 Rumill, 46.

25 Jockbio.com.

26 Ted Smits, “Heilmann calls Kell ‘Quarterback’ at the Plate.” Associated Press, September 12, 1950.

27 Smits, “Heilmann calls Kell ‘Quarterback’ at the Plate.”

28 Smits, “Heilmann calls Kell ‘Quarterback’ at the Plate.”

29 Kell, 55.

30 Kell, 68.

31 Kell, 68.

32 Kell, 69.

33 Kell, 70.

34 Gagne, 54.

35 Kell, 70.

36 David Hammer, “Cooperstown Brings Back Memories For Hall of Famer Kell.” Associated Press, August 3, 2005.

37 Harry King, “Kell Back Home After Fire, Remembering Hall of Fame Career.” Associated Press, June 3, 2002.

38 King, “Kell Back Home After Fire, Remembering Hall of Fame Career.”

39 “Kell Batting Champ of American League.” Associated Press, December 23, 1949.

40 Kell, 72.

41 Jockbio.com.

42 Ted Smits, “Shot at Series Kell’s Big Goal.” Associated Press, September 14, 1950.

43 Associated Press. “Kell-Hatton Trade Puts Goodman In Infield Lineup.” June 4, 1952

44 Ted Smits, “George Kell determined to be a ballplayer.” Associated Press, September 11, 1950.

45 Ted Smits, Associated Press, September 14, 1950.

46 “May Go down as Baseball’s First Million Dollar Deal.” Associated Press, June 4, 1952.

47 Kell, 76.

48 “Sox Reject Kell Trade For Ted.” Associated Press, October 10, 1951.

49 Kell, 76.

50 Tommy Devine, “Switch to Red Sox Delights Kell: ‘I Expect to Hit Plenty Off It’”. Boston Globe, June 4, 1952.

51 Bill Dow, “Hall of Famer George Kell A Fan Favorite in Detroit.” Baseball Digest, July 2006, 65.

52 Kell, 79.

53 Kell, 80.

54 Baseball History Podcast. http://baseballhistorypodcast.com/2011/11/29/baseball-hp-1147-george-kell/.

55 Kell, 80.

56 “Ted Williams Believes Kell Is Most Feared Batsman.” Associated Press, May 28, 1951.

57 Kell, 80.

58 Kell, 80.

One of Joe McCarthy’s first moves as the new manager of the Boston Red Sox in 1948 is also his least remembered. His moving Johnny Pesky to third base to make room for Vern Stephens at shortstop is still often discussed, and his decision to start Denny Galehouse in the 1948 playoff game is a part of Boston baseball lore. Fans and historians may be able to name Billy Goodman as the team’s first baseman in 1948 but few will remember that Marse Joe’s initial intent was to give outfielder Stan Spence the job, and fewer still can recall that the man McCarthy benched in favor of Spence was a forgotten World War II flying ace named Jake Jones.

Jones had come to Boston in 1947 when Joe Cronin was acting as de facto general manager for an ailing Eddie Collins. Joe first discussed the deal with Chicago manager Ted Lyons at the beginning of June but nothing came of it until the White Sox were in Boston about two weeks later. “Joe asked me what I thought of it,” Tom Yawkey told Harold Kaese of the Boston Globe after the trade. “I told him that it was okay with me if it was okay with him. He was closer to the field and the players than I was.”

The trade—Jones for Rudy York—was completed on June 14 and the next day Jones blasted two balls over the left-field wall and drove in 7 runs in a doubleheader sweep of his old team. His walk-off grand slam in the ninth inning of the nightcap broke a 4-4 tie. “I guess the trade is all right for tonight, at least,” Cronin remarked, with a grin that was likened to that of comedian Joe E. Brown. Jones’s new teammates were awed by his power. “He’s strong,” said Johnny Pesky. “I’m glad he is on our side.” When someone remarked that Jones had a pretty good day, Eddie Pellagrini came back with, “Pretty good day! That’s a pretty good week.” Tex Hughson had prophesized to the bench as Jones walked to the plate, “He’ll hit a home run on the first pitch.” Kaese joked that Jones’s big day had placed him in position to “run the city in the event of Mayor Curley’s absence.”

Jones almost did not receive full credit for his big finale. “Bobby Doerr, who was on first base when Jones hit the ball over the fence,” reported the Globe,

ran down to second base, touched the bag—and then headed to the clubhouse. Just as Doerr reached the vicinity of the pitcher’s box, he saw Coach Del Baker waving at him and suddenly realized that—although the winning run had scored—a rookie’s home run was at stake. He then turned back and resumed his trip around the bases.

That Jones was a “rookie” in 1947 was ironic, as so much had transpired since his big league debut in 1941.

Beginnings

James Murrell Jones was born in Epps, Louisiana, on November 23, 1920, to Luther A. Jones Sr. and Della Virginia Moore Jones. His childhood was spent in Epps and nearby Monroe, Louisiana, where family and friends called him either J.M. or Murrell. The nickname “Jake” was acquired from his minor league days1 or from his time in the service;2 sources differ. The Boston papers referred to him as “Jonesy.”

Jones played for a semipro squad in Clarks, Louisiana, after graduating from high school in 1938. The next year he hit .321 with 14 homers and 103 RBI for Monroe in the Class C Cotton States League. In 1940 he hit .301 with 16 homers and 75 RBI for Shreveport in the Texas League.

The Texas League was a pitcher’s paradise, and Shreveport topped the circuit in 1941 with 66 homers. Jones’s league-leading 24, despite his late-season call-up to the majors, matched the total for the entire Oklahoma City team and exceeded Beaumont’s team (21).

In addition to his powerful bat, Jones demonstrated an innate ability to scoop up low throws around first base. “Jones reached his defensive peak in the Texas League all-star game at Beaumont,” the Shreveport Journal reported (August 14, 1941), “when he practically saved the hides of the southern division team with sensational fielding feats on bad throws. He was so nearly the whole show that he was acclaimed the most valuable player in the game and will receive a trophy designating him as such.”

With 20 home runs by early August, Jones had caught the eye of the big-league scouts. The Pirates, Yankees, Giants, and White Sox were reported to be the most interested parties. An unidentified clipping from his Hall of Fame file reads “Detroit’s immortal Harry Heilmann has labeled Jones as one of the greatest natural hitting prospects he has ever seen.” Amid rumors that “he might draw $75,000 from the pocketbook of a big league magnate,”3 Jones was sold to the Chicago White Sox on August 23, 1941.4 His major-league debut came on September 20, and he went hitless in his first six games—totaling 21 at-bats over two seasons—until breaking through with two hits against Washington’s Early Wynn on April 30, 1942.

Military training

Sent back to the minors, Jones enlisted in the United States Navy during the summer of 1942. Though lacking a college education, he was selected for flight training, and on August 1, 1943, he received his commission as an ensign. Information from the military’s National Personnel Records Center indicates that his place of entry into the service was Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Ted Williams and Johnny Pesky—along with Johnny Sain, Joe Coleman, Pete Appleton, Ray Scarborough, Dusty Cooke, Buddy Hassett, and Harry Craft6—played for the navy team at Chapel Hill in the summer of 1943, but Pesky could not recall having crossed paths with Jones during the war. Christopher Jones, Jake’s youngest son, recalls his father telling him that he played for the basketball team at Chapel Hill.

Combat pilot

The USS Yorktown (CV-10) was nicknamed the “Fighting Lady.” She was the second aircraft carrier of that name to serve in World War II, the original (CV-5) being lost at the Battle of Midway.

In November 1944 the Yorktown launched air strikes on targets in the Philippines in support of the invasion of Leyte. It was during this action that Jones was awarded his first Air Medal. His citation, signed by Vice Admiral J. S. McCain, grandfather of Senator John S. McCain III of Arizona, reads as follows:

For distinguishing himself by meritorious acts while participating in an aerial flight as pilot of a carrier based fighter airplane assigned to strike against enemy installations and shipping in the vicinity of the Philippine Islands on 14 November 1944. He performed his assignment as wingman for the Air Group Commander in an outstanding manner and destroyed an enemy fighter during our attack. His skill and courage were at all times inspiring and in keeping with highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Promoted, Jones quickly picked up a second Air Medal:

For meritorious achievement in aerial flight as pilot of a fighter plane in Fighting Squadron THREE, attached to the USS Yorktown, in action against enemy Japanese forces in the vicinity of the Philippine Islands, December 14, 1944. Participating in a strike against the enemy, Lieutenant Junior Grade Jones pressed home a daring attack against three enemy fighters, destroying one, inflicting severe damage on another and forcing the third to flee. His skill, courage and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Rear Admiral MacPherson B. Williams, U.S. Navy (retired), who had been the Yorktown’s Air Group Commander, later described his harrowing experience in evading capture after being shot down:

It was 16 December 1944. The U.S. Navy Task Force was 150 miles east of the Philippines. As the air group commander in the USS Yorktown, “The Fighting Lady,” I was leading the morning strike. We launched and rendezvoused over the pocket destroyer on the starboard bow and headed west toward our objective, climbing for altitude and checking our guns on the way. We were at 15,000 feet when we topped the cloud cover of the eastern shore of Luzon and saw the wide expanse of the Manila Plain below.

Over Nichols Field, our target, we peeled off, delivered our bombs, and ducked low to Manila Bay to get under their flak. We turned south beyond Sangley Point and the ruins of Cavite Navy Yard to join up over Laguna del Bey. . . .

With 40 minutes to spare, I released the three section leaders to browse on their own and join me … in 30 minutes.

My wing man, Jake Jones, and I went up the Pasig River to Markina Air field, where reconnaissance photos had shown there were hidden Japanese aircraft. The low level attack we delivered resulted in a small antiaircraft hit in my engine. Realizing trouble, we headed toward the hills of the eastern side of Manila Plain. The fire in my engine got bigger and finally into the cockpit with me. Having no choice, I bailed out.6

Williams suffered painful burns but landed safely. He was rescued after spending several weeks behind enemy lines.

As for Jones, ten combat missions flown between January 3 and 15, 1945, in the vicinity of Formosa, China, French Indo-China, and Nansei Shoto earned him his third and fourth Air Medals. A week later he won his first Distinguished Flying Cross, for

heroism and extraordinary achievement in aerial flight as pilot of a fighter plane in Fighting Squadron THREE, attached to the U.S.S. Yorktown, during enemy action against enemy forces in Formosa on January 21, 1945. Participating in a long instrument flight, Lieutenant Junior Grade Jones carried out a low altitude attack in the face of intense antiaircraft fire, scoring rocket hits to set a large hostile oiler on fire and contributed to the success of the mission.

In February the Yorktown launched strikes on main- land Japan near Tokyo. Jones downed five enemy planes. Years later he told his son that, flying back to the carrier from one of those missions, he had a hole in his wing big enough for a man to climb through. He was awarded the Silver Star for 

conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action against the enemy during the first carrier based strikes against the Japanese homeland on February 16, 1945. While flying a carrier based fighter plane he countered aggressive, determined and skillful attacks by numerically superior enemy fighters. He succeeded in shooting down three of these enemy fighter planes. After air opposition had been neutralized he, along with his wingman, made low-level rocket and strafing attacks against air field installations, securing destructive hits on each of six hangars. 

and another Distinguished Flying Cross for

heroism while participating in aerial flight against the enemy during the first carrier based strikes against the Japanese Homeland on February 17, 1945. While flying a carrier based fighter plane as section leader in his Air Group Commander’s division, he countered the aggressive, determined and numerically superior enemy fighters. In this action he shot down two of the attacking planes. His skill and courage were at all times keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Jones returned home a hero. He received a week of shore leave in New York City, where he appeared on Kate Smith’s radio show. Grantland Rice, quoting an anonymous shipmate, wrote of Jones:

A great guy and one of the best flyers I ever saw. Jake was on the Fighting Lady, one of the fightingest carriers in the war. And Jake was one of the fightingest pilots in the outfit—his record was seven planes shot down in combat and, in addition to this, he was responsible for the sinking of at least four ships. His war campaign included the Philippines, Formosa, China, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and missions over Tokyo. It was over Tokyo that three flyers ganged up on him and he got all three.

Jake got to play some baseball between flights, but not too much. . . . It was on the island of Maui. Jake played ball and got two home runs and a triple, to break up the game. He certainly could put wood against the ball.7

Commander George Earnshaw, the star pitcher for Connie Mack’s great Philadelphia World Series teams of 1929–31, was a shipmate on the Yorktown. Several photos of the pair are known to exist, probably used by the navy for publicity purposes, and it is likely that Earnshaw was Rice’s anonymous source.

Jake’s older brother, Luther A. Jones Jr., was also a pilot and commanded City of Monroe, a B-29, in more than twenty combat missions in the Pacific. The aircraft’s bombardier was Hollywood actor Tim Holt.8

Return to baseball

Jones was the only legitimate power threat on the 1946 White Sox team, which finished last in the American League with only 37 home runs. Veteran Hal Trosky opened the season as the starting first baseman, but man- ager Jimmie Dykes soon moved Jones into the lineup, and his first major-league home run on May 3 proved to be the game-winner versus the Athletics. His second, a two-run shot at Comiskey on May 15, countering a Ted Williams homer, was the big blow in a 3–2 victory over the Red Sox. His walk-off double produced a 5–4 victory over Philadelphia on May 22.

Jones had returned unscathed from the Second World War but did not have the same luck on the diamond, where on May 26 he fractured his left wrist and elbow when Detroit’s Eddie Lake ran into his outstretched arm. His season was ended. Surgery was required, and The Sporting News reported shortly after the close of the sea- son that he was having trouble straightening out his arm and had resorted to carrying around a bucket of sand several hours a day as a form of physical therapy.9

1947

When manager Ted Lyons went to spring training in Pasadena in 1947, he didn’t know who his first baseman would be. He looked at Jones, Trosky, and Joe Kuhel be- fore opening the season with Don Kolloway. Jones saw little playing time in April but had four doubles and three home runs in May for the still-punchless White Sox. Then his bat went silent. Streaky as they come, Jones was capable of carrying the team when his bat was hot, but when it wasn’t it could be freezing. The line on Jones was that he didn’t show much emotion on the field. One can speculate about emotional scars from the war—or were they emotional callouses? “When you fly through a lot of flak,” he once said, “you don’t scare easily on a baseball field.”

Fenway Park

Jones’s swing was tailor-made for Boston’s home field, where in 254 at-bats in 1947 he hit .276 with 12 doubles, 3 triples, 14 home runs, and 57 RBIs. In 321 at-bats away from Fenway that year he hit .206 with 9 doubles, 1 triple, 5 home runs, and 39 RBIs. He scored 39 runs in Boston and 26 on the road.10

Three players hit at least 10 home runs at Fenway Park in 1947. Williams had 16, Jones 14, and Doerr 12. The numbers after the Jones–York trade on June 14 were 13 by Jones, 11 by Williams, and 10 by Doerr.11 “Too bad he can’t carry the left field wall with him on the road,” quipped a writer in the Boston Globe (September 10). “Jones is strictly a pull hitter,” according to the Lowell Sun (September 13), which noted that opposing teams had learned to shift against him. “And teams like the Chisox, Yankees, Indians and Tigers shift their infield on him, bunching their men on the left side of second base, just the opposite of the way they play Ted Williams.”

Pitcher Dizzy Trout described Jones’s go-for-broke approach to hitting. “He misses a couple of curves by a mile and you feel certain you’ve got him, and then he makes a monkey out of you by blasting the ball out of the park.”12

Capable of delivering the big hit, Jones had at least two game-winning at-bats while with Chicago in 1947. The first was a fly ball that produced the deciding run in a 3–2 victory over Washington on May 18. The second was a tenth-inning single that accounted for a 9–8 win over the Yankees on June 9. A base hit by Jones following Ted Williams’s triple on July 5 was the difference in Boston’s 7–6 win over the Senators. Jones’s ninth-inning triple off the Senators’ Early Wynn on August 12 resulted in a 2–1 Boston win, and the next day Jones hit back-to-back homers with both Doerr and Sam Mele in a 10–3 victory. Jones drove in all four runs of a 4–1 win over New York on September 1, and his three-run shot on September 9 was the vital hit in a 5–3 win over Detroit. His final home run of the season, coming on September 17, accounted for the first two runs of Joe Dobson’s one-hit, 4–0 win over the St. Louis Browns.

Oddities

The Red Sox took both ends of a doubleheader from St. Louis at Fenway Park on July 27. Jones topped a foul ball down the third-base line in the sixth inning of the first game. The ball appeared to be headed foul. Just as Browns third baseman Bob Dillinger was about to pick it up, pitcher Fred Sanford inexplicably threw his glove at it. Despite vehement protests from the Browns, umpire Cal Hubbard awarded Jones a triple, on a 60-foot foul ground ball.13 The reasoning behind this strange decision was that the word foul was missing from the rule pertaining to the situation. Taking note, the Rules Committee later amended the wording. 

Jones was involved in another odd play, in the 2–1 win against the Senators on August 12. The Senators were batting in the fifth with Rick Ferrell on third and Early Wynn on second. Joe Grace hit a sharp grounder to Jones, who stepped on first base to record the second out of the inning. Wynn raced to third only to find Ferrell still standing there. Jones sprinted across the diamond and tagged them both. The umpire signaled that the final out had been recorded, and the Boston first baseman was credited with an unassisted double play—one out recorded at first, the other at third.

1948

Joe McCarthy replaced Cronin as Red Sox skipper shortly after the 1947 season. McCarthy, arguably the most highly regarded manager at the time, was more skeptical than Cronin in his assessment of Jones’s base- ball abilities. Jones’s 96 RBIs had placed him in a virtual tie, with Tommy Henrich (98) and Joe DiMaggio (97), for second place in that category, but McCarthy was not so impressed. Already two months before spring training, he announced that newly acquired outfielder Stan Spence would be his first baseman in 1948.14

Oscar Fraley of United Press, covering the Red Sox spring camp in Sarasota, wrote:

So Jones sits it out in spring training even though he hit 19 homers last season compared to 16 for Spence and knocked in 96 compared to 73 for the former Senator.

A left-field hitter, Jones is a dangerous batter in the Red Sox home park, and while he may not impress McCarthy, he received a tidy tribute from Cronin last winter when McCarthy was on his shopping spree.

For about that time, Joe DiMaggio bumped into Cronin and, kiddingly, asked the Red Sox manager when Cronin was going to purchase him from the Yankees.

Cronin said the Red Sox might trade Jones for joltin’ Joe, which struck DiMag—and a lot of others—some- thing like swapping a Rembrandt for a comic book.

But Cronin pointed out that DiMaggio hit only one more home run last season than Jones and knocked in one more run. Still Jones gets the deep freeze without an explanation as Marse Joe oils the buttons labeled with stars.

Shirley Povich of the Washington Post interviewed McCarthy and asked him about his changes to the infield.

I was talking to one of McCarthy’s former Yankees the other day at St. Petersburg, and he had some comment on McCarthy’s big decision to shift Johnny Pesky from shortstop to third base, instead of Vernon Stephens. “We thought the Red Sox were going to be tough to beat,” said the big Yankee, “but if McCarthy plays ’em that way, we’ll lick ’em.”

So at Sarasota yesterday I asked McCarthy about that and he wasn’t perturbed at all. “I didn’t move Pesky be- cause he couldn’t play shortstop,” he said. “Why don’t my friends let me do the worrying? Pesky and Stephens are interchangeable, anyway. If my move is wrong, I’ll be the first one to know it.”

Anyway, McCarthy is vastly more excited about another development in the Red Sox camp. He’s babbling, almost, about the showing of Stan Spence as his first baseman.

The former Washington outfielder who hasn’t played more than 50 games at first base in his big league career, is now the sensation of Sarasota and has the first base job all to himself.

McCarthy handed Spence a first baseman’s mitt the first day he reported, and now he is ready to open the season with him. In fact, Murrell Jones, the Boston first baseman of last season, has seen so little action in the exhibition games that he is about to ask someone to introduce him to McCarthy so his presence in camp can be noted.15

No position was secure in the Boston infield. McCarthy was covering all of his bases. Projected as the Red Sox first baseman of the future since his signing in 1947, Walt Dropo was sent to the minors on March 29, and McCarthy announced the next day that Jones and Spence would be platooned. Billy Goodman, an out- fielder in the minors, was being groomed for second base in case Doerr’s bad back did not improve. Spence was hampered by a leg injury and got off to a slow start, and Jones had blasted a two-run homer in his first start, on April 29. Neither, though, could make a bold enough statement with the stick. By May 8, a writer for the Lowell Sun was observing that “baseball fans are all talking about the strange case of Jake Jones.”

This big, curly-haired first sacker has become a real problem. Lately the fellow has looked helpless at the plate. It seems that he couldn’t hit mother-in-law with a base fiddle at two paces. Yet, he can stretch like a rubberneck at a burlesque show when it comes to playing first base.

Time and time again Jake’s two way stretch puts a girdle to shame as he makes almost impossible double plays. He saves his infielders errors at least twice a game, yet is as lost as a two-year-old in a subway when he gets to the plate.

Jones has become a real problem. Stan Spence opened the season as first base but he isn’t half as fancy around the cushion as Jake.

Before long, McCarthy had seen enough. On May 25, with the Red Sox languishing at 12–17, he handed the first baseman’s job to Goodman. Spence moved back to the outfield, where he sometimes hit clean-up between Williams and Stephens, and Jones rode the pine, remaining with the club all season but seeing virtually no action in the second half of the season. He received a full portion ($1,191.71) of the team’s second-place money and in January of 1949 was released to Louisville in the American Association.

Jones hit .243 with 18 homers and 69 RBIs that year—his last—splitting time between Louisville and San Antonio of the Texas League. After retiring he returned to his hometown, where he owned a 400-acre cotton farm. He also operated a flying service, which consisted mostly of crop-dusting work, until 1980. He was recalled to active duty during the Korean conflict to help train pilots. He married twice and raised five children and two stepchildren. He died in Delhi, Louisiana, on December 13, 2000, at the age of 80. Mary and Christopher Jones described their husband and father as a quiet man who shunned publicity. He wouldn’t initiate conversation about the war or his baseball career but would be forthcoming on either topic if asked.

Jones and Ted Williams shared an interest in fishing, flying, and baseball and were great friends. Ted once forgot to return some fishing equipment he had borrowed, and that gave Jones a story he would tell the rest of his life: The greatest hitter in the history of baseball owed him fishing tackle.

DICK THOMPSON, a baseball researcher and historian, was the author of The Ferrell Brothers of Baseball (McFarland, 2005) and more than twenty articles for SABR publications. He was editor of the book Society for American Baseball Research (Turner, 2000). A SABR member since 1979, he lived in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Thompson died in January 2008.

Editor’s note: This article was published posthumously. We were not able to find exact source citations for some of the quotes.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Mary Jones, Christopher Jones, Ray Nemec, Bill Deane, Bill Nowlin, and David Vincent for assistance with this article.

Notes

1. The Sporting News, 7 May 1947.
2. Ibid., 25 June 1947.
3. Chicago Daily Tribune, 28 November 1941.
4. The Sporting News, 23 August 1941.
5. Bill Nowlin, Ted Williams at War (Boston: Rounder Books, 2007), 45.
6. MacPherson B. Williams, “I Was Alone in Enemy Territory,” Naval History, November 2001. The article originally appeared in the S. Naval Institute Naval History magazine. Williams died in 1990.
7. Syracuse Herald-American, 8 September 1946.
8. 39th.org.
9. The Sporting News, 30 October 1946.
10. As tabulated from Jones’s day-by-day logs from the Hall of Fame.
11. SABR’s Tattersall/McConnell Home Run Log, as provided by David Vincent.
12. Lowell Sun, 13 September 1947.
13. Boston Globe, 28 July 1947.
14. The Sporting News, 17 December 1947.
15. The Washington Post, 30 March 1948.

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.