IT'S GENERAL SHERMAN OF THE WHITE SOX
Lollar's Orders Spark Slabbers
"Something made the White Sox go-go-go this year and in the words of Sherman Lollar it was 'spirit.' Mr. Webster's dictionary defines 'spirit' (among many other meanings) as 'liveliness, energy, vivacity, ardor, enthusiasm, courage.' Mr. Lollar, who did most of the White Sox catching after the first few weeks of the campaign, says, 'The team has a bunch of extra competitors, guys like Fox, Fain, Minoso and Rivera.' With seeming modesty, Mr. Lollar omits a name from this list- his own.
Sherm Lollar, it happens, wears a rather glum expression most of the time; and it isn't his fault- he was born with that kind of face. Unlike Fox, Fain, Minoso and Rivera he doesn't run like an enraged gazelle; in fact, he is rather slow afoot. Working as he does behind the plate he has few opportunities to cavort on-field like his speedier teammates. Which accounts for his being largely overlooked as a key factor in the spurt of the South Side Chicagoans.
Despite the fact that the Sox lineup was mostly comprised of castoffs from the other seven American League teams, Paul Richards' aggregation won 39 games and lost only 15 between June 13 and August 7. Against the New Yorkers they had performed an even more extraordinary feat, winning nine straight at Yankee Stadium.
How was it done? In his soft Arkansas speech, Sherm Lollar credits Paul Richards with masterly generalship. 'He gives a team confidence,' says Sherm. 'He makes the right moves at the right times. He knows exactly when to remove pitchers or stick in a pinch hitter or runner. During spring training he spent days on fundamentals, which is why you seldom see us make silly mistakes.
'Pitchers report to Paul from some other club and he works with them himself. He helps them smooth out their motion if there's a hitch in it. If a pitcher like Connie Johnson, who came up from the minors and pitched a shutout against Washington in his first time out, lacks control, Paul immediately starts to help him by giving him extra drill in finding the plate.
'Paul's always trying to find a new pitch for his staff. If a guy's got a good curve, he tries to find a way of making it break sharper. He shows him how to get a better spin. If he can throw hard, he asks him to work on his fast ball so it'll ride better.
'As for mistakes, Paul doesn't get sore at a player who pulls a boner. At the next clubhouse meeting he analyses a play, shows the player what he did wrong and what he should have done. It all adds up to the feeling that we're getting better and better day by day.'
This is all very true and explains why Chicago plays interesting and winning ball, far beyond the individual capabilities of the players. But Paul Richards sits on the bench when the game begins and the nine men on the diamond have the responsibility of putting his lessons into practice. And it is then that Sherm Lollar plays his role, that of the Sox' secret weapon.
For Sherm, in his quiet way, acts as the translator of Paul's ideas, especially in respect to pitching. It is no mere happenstance that Billy Pierce, Virgil Trucks, Harry Dorish and Bob Keegan boasted earned run averages of 2.80 or less in August; or that three others, Mike Fornieles, Joe Dobson and Sandy Consuegra, were hoving around the 3.50 mark. Pierce and Trucks, of course, are stars of the first water, but others were pitching well above their lifetime averages.
The trick is done in special meetings of Sox batterymen prior to the opening of each series. Richards begins such meetings with a few words on enemy batters such as Billy Goodman, Phil Rizzuto and Bobby Avila, whose versatility at bat adds to the problems of infielders, especially on bunts and topped hits to the infield.
Then Paul turns the meeting over to Sherm, and the young man from Fayetteville, Arkansas, proceeds to act like a walking encyclopedia of batters' strengths and weaknesses.
'Whatever I know about batters is from observation,' he says. 'I don't keep book, don't take notes. I just have the habit of watching batters, noticing the kind of pitches they go for and the kind they can't reach.'
It was Sherm, for example, who baffled the powerful central batting force of the Yankees by analyzing the weaknesses of Mickey Mantle, Hank Bauer, Gene Woodling and Yogi Berra. It's no secret that Mantle can be pitched to or that Bauer does not like a sidearm curve from a right-hander; that Woodling usually taps to the wrong side of the diamond on a low pitch over the plate or that Yogi can't do much with a low outside curve. But Sherm also knows what they can hit and has the knack of communicating his knowledge to his teammates, including the Sox second-string catchers, Bob Wilson and Bud Sheely. The result is that Sox battery meetings are lectures, with Sherm the professor, the pupils dutifully respectful. Few are their corrections. Most of the interruptions are in the form of questions. And the result speaks for itself in terms of earned run averages.
'You can analyze batters in many ways,' he says. 'The kind that swing for the fences usually pull and have blind spots where they can't meet the ball. The toughest hitters are those with the power to the opposite field on outside pitches, and the spray hitter like George Kell will go after everything- in his case the pitcher has to keep the ball moving from place to place so as to cross him up.
'I've been catching all my life. I started catching in corner lots in Fayetteville when I was no more than six. I guess I always knew there's more to catching than sticking out your mitt and waiting for the pitcher to plunk the ball into it.'
Sherm was born 29 years ago in Fayetteville, which is in Ozark county of northwestern Arkansas, not far from the Oklahoma border. 'And not hillbilly country, either,' he says. 'It's been modern in every respect, as long as I can remember. The only other big leaguer from our area is Preacher Roe, who hails from the northeastern part of the state.'
Arkansas is considered a southern state, which requires a bit of explaining about Sherm's first name. 'The 36-30 line which separates Missouri from Arkansas divided the North from the South in Civil War days,' he says. 'There were folks from both camps in that section, and my great-grandfather fought on the Union side in the war, and General Sherman was a hero to him, which is how the Sherman name got into the family.
'We Lollars are Irish, though there aren't many families by that name. We'd been farming in Washington county, but my father came into Fayetteville and opened a grocery store.
'I was wild about baseball from my kid days, played on any old team I could find. Of course, Fayetteville is a long way from the big cities and there wasn't much chance of my catching on in organized ball. I caddied on the links for golfers at country clubs, went to high school and spent a year and a half at the State Teachers College at Pittsburg, Kansas, which probably accounts for the fact that I can talk so well at meetings.
'Meantime, I was catching a lot of baseballs. I joined an American Legion team, I played in a tournament at Pittsburg. Like almost every other kid my age I made no plans then, for the United States had gotten into the war and I was waiting for my draft number to come up. It did, and I was rejected. And that changed the picture completely.'
Not far from Fayettevills is an area where the four states of Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas and Oklahoma almost meet. Just across the Oklahoma border is a town that has become famous in baseball circles as the birthplace of Mickey Mantle- Commerce. 'I took a job working underground in the very same zinc mine at Picher where Mickey's father worked,' says Sherm. 'It was in 1943 and Barney Barnett ran a ball club at Picher, ten miles away. Naturally enough, I got on the club and the breaks came my way.
'One day, a pitcher, Sam Weist, told me he'd had an offer from Baltimore. There was a shortage of ball players because of the war and the minor league teams were signing any likely-looking boy. 'Why don't you ask Baltimore to give a tryout?' he asked me. I did, and there I was in organized ball, without much effort.
'By 1944 there were so few ball players around the Commerce-Picher section that Barney Barnett decided to organize a kid's team. One of the boys who reported to him was Mickey Mantle, which explains how Mickey got such good experience at an early age.'
The Lollar story is typical of the youngster who has to fight his way against indifference and 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.' Sherm arrived in Baltimore in September 1943, when the Orioles still had a chance to win a place in the playoffs. 'I managed to get into 12 games and did about as well as you could expect- I batted .118. And the Orioles dropped out of the first division and playoffs, so there was nothing to do but go home again.
'The following year I was first-string catcher and by 1945 either I'd improved a lot or the pitching was poor, for I hit .364, winning the batting title, leading the league in putouts and assists.
'The Cleveland Indians had a working agreement with Baltimore and by 1946 I was in the big leagues, so to speak. I didn't get much chance to catch, Jim Hegan doing most of the work. And the Indians were having a poor season.
'Then came what looked like another good break- I'd spent part of 1946 in Baltimore but finished the season with the Indians. And they shipped me that fall to the Yankees in the deal which put Gene Bearden on the Indian staff. That meant not what I thought, a chance to play on the Yanks, but another season in the International League, this time with Newark.
'Well, you never can tell about baseball. Just before the September 1 deadline, the Yankees brought me up to the Stadium so that I could be eligible for the World Series. The chances were 100-to-1 that I would get into the Series, but, as it happened, there I was. And when the third game began, I started behind the plate.
'I was jittery- who wouldn't be? But I managed to get two hits, including a double, in that game; and another double in the only time I went to bat in the sixth game. My average was .750- 3 for 4.
'That was enough to convince Bucky Harris, I suppose, that I was worth keeping on the roster for 1948. Again I was second string, this time to Yogi Berra and it looked as if that would be my dish for a while. But when 1949 began I was on the Browns.'
Sherm was part and parcel of the famous- or infamous, depending on how you look at it- $100,000 deal which brought Fred Sanford to the Yankees. Sanford has vanished into the minors and the other chattels in that deal, Red Embree, Dick Starr and Ray Partee, have also drifted off the big league scene. Sherm remained, through the closing days of Zack Taylor's managership of the St. Louisians and into the Bill Veeck era. Midgets, beauty contests and countless players rotated around Sportsman's Park but Sherm stayed on.
'I welcomed the chance to catch regularly on the Browns,' he says. 'I was 23 years old, I didn't think of the future or of my security. And it didn't matter that I was one of a handful of players who stuck around waiting for the team to get going. I studied by job and watched how star catchers worked and learned all I could about opposing batters.
'The biggest kick I got on the Browns was catching Satchell Paige. Old Satch was quicker then than now. I'd give him a sign. He'd take it, then stand around and often change his mind before he threw the ball. He's living proof that the more you use your head the better you'll play.
'And while in St. Louis I became convinced that I'd stay in the majors quite a while myself. I'd met Connie Metard in Cleveland. She knew nothing about baseball- it was at a social affair that I first encountered her. We started talking about getting married, but in 1949 we decided to stop talking. Meantime, she'd moved to Chicago and it was there that we married. We have two kids, Sherman III, whom we call Pete; and baby Kevin.'
By 1951 the resourceful Frank Lane, general manager of the White Sox, had decided that Sherm would solve his catching problem if only Bill Veeck would let him go. It took a lot of palavering- the deal which made Sherm a member of the Go-Go Boys on November 27, 1951, involved no less than seven players. One of these was Jim Rivera, who was subsequently re-traded from the Browns to the Sox.
It was Sherm's first real chance to display his merits as top receiver for a contender. He quickly fell into the Richards pattern. 'This is a team,' he says, 'which is afraid of no one. We play our best ball against the Yankees, Indians and Red Sox. We're not afraid of the Yankees because we know they're human like ourselves, and can be beaten by any team which gives them as good as it takes.
'And speaking of thrills- mine have occurred in games against the Yanks. This year a two-run homer against Johnny Sain beat the Yanks and gave me a wallop. In that game I picked Rizzuto off second, threw out three runners, and my home run in the ninth salted the game away. And it was my third hit of the day.
'As for hitting, well, a catcher sometimes has so much on his mind he doesn't pay attention to his batting form. My best year with the Browns was .280 in 1950; and last year with the White Sox I only hit .240.
'But during the winter I worked hard with a loaded 52-ounce bat to build my shoulder muscles. Then I sat down and figured why so many of my drives were being caught. In St. Louis I'd been strictly a pull hitter because the left-field wall is only 351 feet away. Comiskey Park swings out to nearly 425 feet in left center- and I decided to change my style at the plate and go for hits to right.
'As a result I've been around .300 all year and hope to wind up the season with an average well above .280, my best big league mark. And I've even tried my hand at bunting- I know how difficult it is for a pitcher to outguess a batter who has more than one trick up his sleeve.'
All of which adds up to a sound explanation of Sherm Lollar's advance into the front ranks of major league catchers. He is one more example of Paul Richards' magic, a much-traded player rising rapidly to stardom after earthbound years with other clubs."
-Charles Dexter, Baseball Digest, October 1953
"Sherman appeared in 132 games for the White Sox during the 1952 season and his batting average was .240. His hits included 15 doubles and 13 homers.
Sherman formerly was on the roster of the Cleveland Indians, New York Yankees and the St. Louis Browns. He began in 1943 with Baltimore. He came to the Sox in November 1951."
-1953 Bowman No. 157
"Sherm played two seasons with the Yankees and three with the Browns before joining the White Sox for the 1952 season. He broke in with Baltimore and hitting .364 for the Orioles in '45, he was given a trial with the Indians in '46. Sherm didn't get into many games for the Yankees in '48 and was traded to the Browns where he got a chance to catch regularly. He hit .280 for them in 1950 and .252 in 1951."
-1953 Topps No. 53
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