BUDDY ROSAR
"Buddy went through the entire 1946 season without an error. Last year he caught 90 games, hit .255 and continued his superior fielding, leading American League backstoppers with a .997 average.
He spent five years in the minors, joining the Yankees in 1939. In 1942, he went to Cleveland and in 1945 was traded to the A's.
He's one of the top catchers in baseball."
-1949 Bowman No. 138
"The top catcher in the American League last season, Rosar committed only one error in 374 chances for a .997 average. He batted only .255.
Rosar holds two major league records, both set in 1947. He raised his number of consecutive errorless games to 147 and his number of consecutive errorless chances to 755."
-1949 Bowman No. 128
AARON ROBINSON
"1946 was Aaron Robinson's best year in the majors. Catching 100 games for the New York Yankees, he wound up with a .297 batting average and 64 runs batted in.
The next season with the Yankees he led American League catchers in fielding with a percentage of .997. At the end of the season he was traded to the White Sox. He hit .252 in 98 games with the Chisox last year."
-1949 Bowman No. 133
ROLLIE HEMSLEY
TAKE-A-TETE"Rollie Hemsley, the new Nashville manager, has this recollection of the very first game he caught in the major leagues. Johnny Gooch, it was, batting in a game at Brooklyn when Rollie was behind the plate for Pittsburgh and the austere Bill Klem was umpiring.
Hemsley questioned a pitch by Burleigh Grimes which Klem called a ball.
'Be quiet, you fresh busher,' Klem snapped.
'The ball was a perfect strike,' Hemsley said.
Klem called time.
'Mr. Gooch,' the dignified umpire spake, 'will you advise this young man that the pitch was inside at least six inches?'
'Make up your own alibis,' Gooch answered, straight-faced. 'I'm not going to cover up your mistakes any longer.'
And Klem didn't put Johnny out of the game."
-Fred Russell in the Nashville Banner (Baseball Digest, February 1949)
HEMSLEY'S FATAL PARTY: Role of Mystery Host Held Back His Career as Pilot Nine Years
"Rollie Hemsley's appointment as manager of the Columbus, Ohio club brings that fascinating wanderer of baseball trails nearer to an old ambition.
I don't know when the glitter of authority first appealed to this hard-handed native of the Ohio coal country, but it must have been during the summer of 1940, when the Indians rebelled against Manager Ossie Vitt- and by doing so all but chased the fall of Paris off page one.
Hemsley was only of many Indians determined to play no more for the unhappy Oscar, but as the bitter months wore on, he came to be regarded among insiders as one of the ringleaders, possibly because Alva Bradley had appointed him, along with Bob Feller and Hal Trosky, on a committee set up to let the owner know, from time to time, how things were going on the club.
Hemsley, so far as is known, was not a candidate for Vitt's job after the directors decided not to renew old Oscar's contract. But Rollie did apply for the post a year later, when Roger Peckinpaugh was moved from the field to the office. He must have been seriously disappointed when Bradley passed him up in favor of 24-year-old Lou Boudreau.
Yet Hemsley was logical managerial timber that summer of 1940. He was one of the oldest of the players; he was popular with his teammates; he had caught for four clubs in the National League and two in the American; he had become a distinguished member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I suspect that he killed his chances the night he gave that party in Detroit.
That certainly was the most baffling incident of a season of deep mystery. It was the day the Tribe blew a key game of the series with the Tigers, when Vitt brought Feller in to protect Mel Harder's lead- and Bob didn't have a thing.
Late that evening, a half-dozen of us were having dinner with Vitt in the Book-Cadillac dining room. A waitress summoned a morning paper reporter to a table occupied by Hemsley, Al Milnar and Ken Keltner. The reporter talked with the players for a long time, then left the room and his dinner without returning to our table.
The rest of us met him later as he was getting off the elevator, his story in hand. Since he couldn't be scooped, he showed us the copy. The gist of the yarn was that the Indians had held another meeting and had decided that for the rest of the season they'd play a different brand of strategic baseball. Suppose Vitt didn't want to do this? In that case, the story said, the players would take matters into their own hands.
'It is the closest thing to open mutiny,' the story closed, 'in the history of major baseball.'
Well, the morning paper did not exactly underplay the story, and you may recall what the afternoon sheets did with it. Our own page one head, I remember, read: 'We Call Plays, Rebel Indians Tell Vitt.'
Rightly or wrongly- the reporter naturally wouldn't talk- Hemsley was identified in the minds of all concerned as responsible for the mutiny report. The repercussions probably killed the last spark of spirit the Tribe had kept alive through the harrowing weeks of the 'cry baby' treatment. Hemsley became an unpopular, lonely member of the cast.
Johnny Allen called me to protest and to demand the story be retracted. I invited him to write his own version of the meeting. He said he would, but that he'd get his wife to help him with the composition. Later, he decided to let the matter drop. He was afraid he'd be suspected of stirring up further trouble.
'But here's exactly what happened,' he assured me. 'In the clubhouse after the game, someone said that the team was too tense, that what we needed was for everybody to have a few drinks.
'Rollie laughed, and said that he wouldn't drink with us, but he'd be glad to set up the bar. He invited everyone to his room. I went up- and it was nothing but a nice party. Lou Boudreau and Ray Mack were there, and you know darned well that they're not in on any mutiny meetings. The setup was so nice, in fact, I went to my room and brought my wife and little boy back to the party. We talked baseball- naturally. But there was nothing remotely resembling a decision to call our own plays. And I know it didn't come up after I left, because I was the last to leave.'
Angry, bewildered and alone in a party of forty, Hemsley sat by himself in the dining car the day that story broke. He ordered one drink after another- soft drinks. Alcoholics Anonymous met and passed one of its sternest tests that day."
-Ed McAuley, condensed from the Cleveland News (Baseball Digest, November 1949)
CLYDE MCCULLOUGH (Yankee Prospect of the Past)
"Clyde's first pro experience was with Lafayette of the Evangeline League. His first major league team was the Cubs and he joined them in 1940. However, he finished that season with Buffalo.
Clyde was returned to Chicago in 1941, and in 1942 had a .287 average, his best. He remained with the Cubs, spending two years in military service, until traded to the Pirates for the 1949 season."
-1949 Bowman No. 163
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