THE NITRO-GLISTENIN' KID
"Personnel Manager Fred Jones stood evaluating the six-two stature of the 17-year-old job applicant. The executive furrowed his brow as he noted the youngster's anxious glance.
'I want to give you a job, because I know your dad so well, and your sister and brother work for us here at American Viscose Rayon,' Jones finally said. 'If you can play on our plant baseball team, I think I can give you that job.'
'May I think it over,' the deep-voiced boy asked.
That night the youngster sought the advice of his father, who worked as labor foreman at the plant.
'I've never even played in an organized game,' the retiring son reminded. 'I wouldn't even know what position to go out for. I've just played with the fellows in the lots.'
The father mused for a minute, then offered:
'Why don't you try to be a pitcher? You've pitched some on the lots and you want the job while waiting to be called into Service.'
The brown-haired boy went to work as a messenger and tediously studied the basic precepts of pitching. He found help wherever he could. This study session took place in June 1944.
The youngster developed so deftly that he racked up 12 triumphs against only two setbacks for American Viscose Rayon that year. He had mastered a cunning sidearm delivery with brilliant control.
The gangling youngster was Selva Lewis Burdette, Jr., now the stylish right-handed star of the Milwaukee Braves. Burdette, who had been graduated from Nitro, W. Va., Public High School a week earlier, turned to the mound only because his dad, Lewis, Sr., wanted his son to work in the same plant.
Lew is the affable hurler who was one of the chief cogs in the Braves' meteoric climb from seventh place to second in the National League last year. The Braves' tireless ace in 1953 doubled as one of the game's Herculean performers as starter-reliever. The blue-eyed Burdette, known to his teammates as a humorist par excellence, won 15 games while losing only five last year. And he's being counted on for even more triumphs during the 1954 race.
Burdette showed remarkable resoluteness in fashioning pitching knowledge for the lone season he played in the Industrial League. The 180-pound National League standout has continued to display equal determination throughout his storybook career. Manager Charlie Grimm beams every time he mentions the tall right-hander. It isn't often in this era that you come across a rubber-armed moundsman like Lew.
Lew was graduated to the starting corps when Grimm needed an added first-liner last July. But the Braves' pilot couldn't do without Burdette's fireman ability. In his second assignment after joining the starting elite ranks, the off-field prankster whitewashed the Giants, 5-0. In ordinary circumstances, a manager would have been expected to be satisfied and to hunt for a new reliever. But Burdette is no ordinary hurler. Grimm quickly announced that Burdette would continue to be the Braves' first bullpen custodian, while still receiving starting assignments. In his next chore Lew was called in to put out a Cubs' fire in the fifth inning. And he squelched the Chicagoan's blaze. Not a Cub reached second base in the ensuing five frames.
This is the same Lew Burdette who was turned down by a Braves' scout as having no ability in 1947. And on Aug. 29, 1951, Burdette went to the Braves purely as a 'throw-in' along with $50,000 from the Yankees for Johnny Sain. This season Burdette will finally be taking over Sain's berth as the Braves' top right-hander. What a testimonial for the value of determination! Here's a guy who never stops wanting to learn. Bucky Walters, the Braves' pitching coach and himself a former National League great, and the rest of the Braves' coaching staff have found Burdette always willing and able to take instruction.
He came to the Braves with a pretty fair screwball. Walters wanted to help improve the highly specialized toss. Burdette was raring to go and now he possesses one of the best in the business. The screwball goes along with a nifty assortment, including a humming fast ball that sinks menacingly, a sharp-breaking curve and pinpoint control.
It should also be pointed that Burdette still will be in the bullpen this season, even though he's nailed down one of the most coveted mound jobs in the game. Burdette really doesn't care whether he starts or relieves. He reasons positively: 'It doesn't matter, so long as I'm working. The hitters are the same. It's up to the boss.'
Burdette has been asked repeatedly, 'Wouldn't you have rather stayed with the pennant-winning Yankee organization in 1951?'
Lew says he regarded the shift as a chance to play in the majors, even though the then Boston Braves apparently weren't hitting very far.
'I wanted a regular job and also it looked like the Braves were rebuilding for the future. I have to work to be happy.'
Most sentimental youngsters longingly yearn for a chance to play in the Yankee chain, and completely overlook the end result. But Lew, who was 27 last November, realized that he didn't fit into the Yankees' long-distance planning. The Bombers weren't very subtle in their feelings.
The funny thing is that Lew had given baseball his minutest yearnings, following that season in the Industrial League. While in high school, he had played some football. However, his desires were in the line of coaching. Before he was graduated, Lew enlisted in the Air Corps Reserves and was called into service as an Air Corps cadet, April 12, 1945. He didn't touch a baseball during his brief stint and when he was discharged Nov. 9, 1945, he was scouting for a money-making field.
The following school semester Burdette entered the University of Richmond, with his sights trained on a coaching career. That spring, 1946, he pitched with the college freshman team and was so promising the Yankees invited him to a tryout camp with the possibility of a minor league contract. Lew worked out with the Yankees' Norfolk team at Edenton, N.C., during the spring training of 1947. He was signed and the bass-voiced youngster passed up college and coaching.
Burdette, who fits in perfectly with the Braves' pattern of off-field frivolity- this a fantastically spirited club- is a devoted husband and father. He is also a man of adventure and action. After the San Francisco Seals had played on the last Sunday in August 1951, the team was treated to three days off. Burdette and outfielder Joe Grace took their wives to Yosemite National Park for a hurried vacation. The trade between the Yankees and the Braves went through on Monday, but Burdette didn' learn of the deal until he got back to San Francisco on Thursday morning.
The young hurler and his pretty wife, the former Mary Ann Shelton of Charleston, W. Va., looked at each other questioningly. They eyed their five-month-old son Lewis Kent. They packed quickly, set out in their car and drove cross-country to Nitro by Sunday. Burdette joined the Braves in Boston the following Wednesday.
Burdette, who first strikes you as a quiet fellow, is just another of the fun-loving Braves. He often sets the pace in the Braves' familiar clubhouse and bench hilarity. Burdette's stock in trade is his shrill whistle, which is easily mistaken for a policeman's tooting. While the Braves are driving in a bus to the ball park, Lew gets a big kick out of scaring a passing motorist into believing a cop is on his tail. The whole team gets a big bang out of the number of drivers who pull over to the curb when Lew blows his whistle. He simply sets his teeth and lips and the shrill toot comes out.
One of Lew's gags came in the clubhouse at Milwaukee last spring. Lew entered the team's quarters one morning and proceeded to shake hands with his mates.
'I've been traded to the Giants,' he said seriously.
Many of his fellow Braves retorted that they would miss him. Several writers, in the clubhouse looking for their daily stories, began to leave hurriedly for their typewriters. It was then that Lew had to admit it was all a gag.
After Lew had been told to 'forget about the game' by a Braves' scout, the collegian was offered a $100 a month contract by the admittedly mistaken ivory hunter. But Burdette turned down the bid and signed with the Yankees. He was assigned to the Class B Norfolk team in the Piedmont League. He played in only six games, but the Yankee family felt the 20-year-old needed considerably more schooling.
The good-looking youngster was sent posthaste to Amsterdam in the Class C Canadian-American League. Here Lew won only nine games while losing ten. However, his tremendous potential should have been recognized. He chalked up an impressive 2.82 earned run average, striking out 79 in 150 innings. Evidently the Yankees realized the kid had some future promise, for they moved Burdette up to Class B again with Quincy of the Three I League. His 16 triumphs earned him a tie for the circuit's leadership and his ERA was a dazzling 2.02. This record earned Lew a shot with Kansas City of the American Association in 1949. That year he won six and lost seven while posting a mediocre 5.26 ERA. The following season, Lew came out even for the Blues on a 7-7 record and a 4.79 ERA.
In the fall of 1950 the Yankees called up the 23-year-old right-hander. Lew wasn't as Nitro-charged then as he is now. His home town, incidentally, was named when a boom town sprouted around an explosives plant during World War I. Nitro is a small town (pop. 3,314) in which all twelve school grades are housed on one floor.
In the brief stand with the parent Yanks in 1950, Lew worked only one inning and gave up three hits. The Yanks called Lew back for spring training in 1951, but that training season came close to sending Lew to an early grave. He was bedded by a cold and a penicillin shot put him in the hospital and on the critical list. Still, Lew's amazing competitive spirit won out, and he returned to chuck 18 spring training innings for the world champions. He gave up only one run and was understandably disillusioned when he opened the season with San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League. With the Seals, Lew won 14 and lost 12, while going 210 innings. He had an ERA of 3.21.
Late in the season Lew got his chance to play big-league ball on a steady basis with the Braves. He worked in only four innings over three games with no wins or losses.
At Bradenton, Fla., in the spring of 1952, Lew got an even bigger break. Coach Bucky Walters, who has proven a real friend, offered Lew a chance to be the club's bullpen maitre d'. The Braves were well stocked with starters.
Burdette clicked immediately as a reliever, but Charlie Grimm was forced to alter his plans in August when Vern Bickford suffered a fractured finger in Milwaukee. Burdette was called out of the bullpen for six starts. His skein included a 5-2 triumph over the Giants, but Lew was shipped back to the fire station in the outfield, as soon as Bickford returned. Lew wound up the year with a not-too-hot mark of 6-11. However, the continually improving right-hander tacked up an ERA of 3.61 for a faltering club.
Of course, 1953 was Lew's best. He opened the season with seven straight relief successes. These triumphs were amassed in 30 appearances. On one road trip, Burdette relieved in every other one of 22 games. He had three wins and saves in four more games. Although he sincerely points out that 'I wasn't working hard at all,' Manager Grimm gave Lew two days off, lest his star right-hander drop from exhaustion. Lew wasn't even permitted to hold a ball, but he watched the games from his accepted bullpen seat. In July Grimm was hunting for another starter in the vain chase of the Dodgers. He didn't have to look too far, for there was his man in the bullpen. Lew handled the chore magnificently, even relieving on his off days. For the season he registered a 15-5 record and a 3.24 ERA in 46 games. Lew is just as effective in hot or cool weather. It doesn't seem to make any difference.
'I'm looking for a better record in 1954,' Burdette says.
Lew prefers to give credit for his accomplishments to others. For example, he believes that catcher Del Crandall is the best in the business and makes hurling for the Braves a cinch.
'I never- well, hardly ever- have to shake him off,' Burdette says appreciatively. 'He knows his job like no one else and you can have faith in his judgment.'
Those who have watched the limber hurler work on the mound agree that his success has been due to exceptional ability and savvy. But Lew hastens to point out that luck is greatly responsible. Those close to the game guffaw every time they hear him express this philosophy. Burdette's psychology on bullpen work, however, has earned the attention of all keen students of the game. When the West Virginian toils in the bullpen, he matches every pitch with the hurler on the mound.
'I want to keep up with the game psychologically,' he reasons astutely. 'Then when Charlie Grimm sends me in, I'm right up on the game.'
Lew worked this past winter in the promotions department of a Milwaukee brewing company. His job was less strenuous than those he held in previous off-seasons, so that he had to engage in hurry-up workout sessions after the first of the year to knock off the ten pounds he added. The brewery work kept Lew near Milwaukee for personal appearances. The strange thing in this connection is the fact that Lew never had too tender a spot in his heart for Milwaukee before the Braves moved there. While he was with Kansas City, Lew couldn't do too well there on the mound.
Burdette has been tabbed frequently as a real screwball off the field. He's really as sly as a fox on the mound and his relaxing antics are nothing more serious than boyish pranks. But he's modest enough to hasten in reminding that he's not quite 'in the Lefty Gomez class.' Like Lefty, and most other pitchers, Lew takes pride in his hitting. He's not very talented in this department, but points with relish to a spring training home run.
Burdette's spanking success as a reliever is contributable in a large measure to his ability to keep his pitches down around the knees of the opposing batters. Possibly he has earned equal acceptance as a starter because he tries to pitch with level deliberateness over a full route. He figures that he doesn't tire too easily.
Burdette was the fiery subject of a feud with Brooklyn during last season. In a game at Milwaukee, Lew was charged by Roy Campanella with calling the Flock catcher 'a dirty name.' Campy chased after Burdette with a bat after the pitcher allegedly floored the Brook star twice with duster pitches. But the situation became a closed book when Lew made this statement:
'I have never cast any slurs on any man's race and I never will.'
'Campy and I shook hands and ended the situation long before everyone else realized it was closed,' Lew commented later.
When Lew and his new roommate, Chet Nichols, checked into their first visiting hotel room at Miami during spring training, Burdette looked into the quarters first. He was startled. He turned to Nichols and shouted:
'Go back to the Service. I got better rooms last year, when Vern Bickford was my teammate.'
The writer was with the pair and looked to Nichols, just back from the Army, for a sign of indignation. It wasn't forthcoming. Everyone knows Lew Burdette is a good natured kidder and they love him for it. But in Milwaukee they know he isn't kidding when he says expects to win 20 games in 1954."
-Al Jonas (Baseball Digest, May 1954)
"In 1953, Lew was used by the Braves primarily in relief, and he did an excellent job. His overall record was 15-5 and his earned run average of 3.24 was seventh best in the league.
Lew joined pro ball in the Yankees' system, and the Braves acquired his contract from the Yanks in the deal which sent Johnny Sain to New York.
He attended the University of Richmond and made All-State Collegiate in 1946. He's a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity."
-1954 Bowman No. 192
"Lew did a fine job for the Milwaukee Braves in 1953. He appeared in 46 games, 13 of them in starting assignments. Lew won 15 and lost 5 for a .750 percentage. His earned run average was 3.24, the seventh best in the league. He pitched 175 innings, walked 56 and struck out 58.
He started in baseball in 1947, and first appeared in the majors in 1950 with the Yankees."
-1954 Red Man No. NL-24
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