Burleigh Grimes Was As Tough As They Come
"One of our long-time favorites has been Burleigh Grimes, who was named recently to Wisconsin's Athletic Hall of Fame. He is the seventh native son to be elected in recognition of big league stardom. The others: Ginger Beaumont, Addie Joss, George McBride, Kid Nichols, Al Simmons and Billy Sullivan, Sr.
Old Stubblebeard- he didn't shave two days before he pitched- deserves the honor. A tougher competitor probably never breathed. Charlie Grimm, an old pal and opponent, has often said: 'Grimes showed no mercy to anyone. I think he'd been the same against his own mother in a close game.'
That was typical of the husky fellow who was born in Clear Lake, Wis. He was rough as an active player and later as a manager. He spanked a kid pitcher one night in 1935 in Bloomington, Ill., where he managed the Three I League club. The story was told by Bill Davis, a Milwaukee Brewer wartime pitcher.
'Grimes had sent the rookie to the bullpen,' Davis recalled. 'Late in the game, when Burleigh looked for the kid to warm up, the rookie was missing. He had gone to the clubhouse. Burleigh finally caught up with him and gave the kid an old-fashioned tanning. On top of that, Burleigh called the rookie's dad and told him to come and get his son. Pop came the next day and approved Burleigh's spanking. 'Do it again if you think it will help,' the father told Burleigh. 'Maybe it will make a ball player out of him.' '
The rookie was in the majors a few years later, Davis related.
We attended a party in Minneapolis in 1944. Mike Kelley, then owner of the Millers, was the host. Among his guests were Bill (Rosy) Ryan, Grimes and Grimm.
'You were rough,' Ryan told Grimes.
'Maybe so,' agreed Burleigh. 'You had to be to win. Why, one year I led National League pitchers only because I stole three times and put the winning run on second. Those three games made me the leading pitcher.
'I always liked to recall the day I joined the Pittsburgh Pirates in Cincinnati from Birmingham, Alabama, back in 1916,' Grimes continued. 'When I got to my hotel room, it was occupied. I said to the man, who was shaving: 'I'm Grimes. I'm a rookie with Pittsburgh. I was told this was my room.' The man said, 'Glad to meet you, Mr. Grimes. I'm Larry Doyle of the New York Giants. Make yourself to home. We'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on.' '
The Giants had just finished a series and Doyle was getting ready to leave.
'Well, the first time I pitched to Doyle,' Grimes recalled that night in Minneapolis, 'I told myself to be nice to this fellow because he was so pleasant when I met him in the hotel room in Cincinnati. I sent one right down the middle of the plate. Doyle hit a home run.'
Listening to Grimes was Grimm.
'That was typical of Grimes', said Charlie of the Doyle incident. 'If Burleigh liked you he'd be nice. If he hated you, it was mighty dangerous to face him.'
'That's right,' Grimes agreed. 'Maybe that's why I was always so 'careless' pitching to Frank Frisch. Frisch succeeded Doyle as the Giants' second baseman. He was from college. The first time I faced Frisch he hit to my first baseman. I ran to cover the bag for the out. Frisch spiked me badly. I never forgave him for it.'
Ryan, who was a Giant pitcher when Frisch broke in fresh from Fordham University, chuckled as he listened to the spiking incident.
'I remember that well,' said Ryan. 'You really made Frisch bald-headed by grazing the top of his head with your dusters.'
Grimes entered organized baseball in 1913. He quit after the 1935 season when he was 42 and had a 10-5 record in the Three I League. Among his stops on the major league trail was Brooklyn. He was a Dodger when the club was managed by Uncle Wilbert Robinson, a colorful character.
'One afternoon, Jake Daubert, a former Dodger who had been dealt to Cincinnati, tripled off me,' Grimes recalled a few years ago. 'Jake's hit scored two runs. When Daubert reached third, I heard the phone ringing in the dugout. I knew that Charlie Ebbets (president of the Dodgers) was calling Robinson with orders to yank me. Uncle Robbie then came out to get me to leave. I refused, however. I figured I still had a chance to win.
'Robbie finally convinced me, but before I left I wound up and threw the ball over the grandstand. That was the most expensive pitch of my career- it cost me $1,500! You see, I was to get a $1,000 bonus if I gave the club 'my very best.' Throwing that ball over the stands was not interpreted as 'my very best.' I was also fined $500.'
As a manager Grimes gave umpires many sleepless nights. One time when he bossed Louisville and was chased by an umpire, Burleigh picked up a bucket of ice water and tossed in in the air.
'When I threw the pail, I hoped it would land on the umpire's head,' said Grimes. 'But after I was revived I learned that the pail had knocked me out. I had poor control that night.'
Years later, after he had mellowed, Grimes said: 'The most important qualifications for a young ball player today are a good disposition and character. With these, he can't get into trouble. He will listen to instruction and he won't be discouraged by criticism.
Jack Fournier, the French first baseman and a Grimes contemporary, said of Burleigh: 'He was the toughest in my book. I played golf against him in a foursome one morning. An argument came up on the eighth green. We laid down our clubs and fought. The others watched. We finally resumed play, finished the 18th hole, had lunch and went out and played 18 more holes.
'Once, with Grimes pitching, I missed a play at first base. We were both with Brooklyn then. On the next play, Burleigh fielded the ball close to the bag. I was covering, ready to take his throw. Grimes, however, made the putout himself, but he was so mad that I had booted the play before, he stepped right on my foot with his spikes and like to cut my shoe off.'
In 1930 Bill Terry, Giant first baseman, hit .401. The first time he faced Terry in 1931, Grimes walked up to the plate. 'Bill, you must have got a pretty good raise for hitting .401 last year,' Grimes told Terry.
Terry admitted he had. Grimes scowled. 'Well, you won't hit that much this year,' said Burleigh and returned to the mound.
The first pitch set Terry back on his back. Burleigh kept dusting Terry off all season. Terry was not to have any batting feasts against Old Stubblebeard.
Grimes loved to win and sometimes when he figured that teammates' errors had cost him victories, he took it out of their hide. Once Burleigh tangled with his manager, Hugo Bezdek of the Pirates, a rough and tumble guy in his own right. They battled in a Pullman car. It was a bloody affair. The two were finally separated.
'I'd fight you to the finish for a thousand bucks,' Bezdek told Grimes.
Whereupon Burleigh emptied his pockets of his money and went after Bezdek again. Teammates, however, intervened. The club's traveling secretary wanted to put Grimes off the train at the first stop. But Bezdek cooled off. He admired Grimes' spirit.
'You're my pitcher tomorrow,' Bezdek told Grimes.
Grimes lost. It was his 13th straight defeat. But he never gave up. He had many good seasons after that. He became a top star."
-Sam Levy, Milwaukee Journal (Baseball Digest, March 1955)
RECORD BELIES DANGER TAG ON SPITTER: GRIMES
"'All it needs is a different name,' insists Burleigh Grimes. 'That's all ... '
The long-time National League pitcher, now a Kansas City scout, was expounding on a subject dear to his heart and near to his mouth ... the spitter pitch.
'I read the other day where Commissioner Ford Frick said he would like to see them make it a legal pitch again,' observed Grimes. 'I'll buy that one. All that's wrong with it is its name. Doesn't sound good, does it?'
If there's a man in baseball with all the qualifications of a spitter expert, that man is Burleigh Grimes, still strong and alert in his 60's.
'I used it for 18 years,' he explained. 'That's why I get sort of burned when I hear some of the reasons they give for keeping out of baseball now.
'It's dangerous, they say. That's silly. In the 18 years I used it in the big leagues, I only hit one man with it.
'I'm with the Cards and pitching to Mel Ott of the Giants. I hit him all right but he was the only one and on top of that the ball was right over the plate. Melvin just happened to be over the plate, too.'
As high as he is on the values of the pitch which was banned in baseball 35 years ago, Burleigh will admit that things had come to an unsavory situation when the ban was finally clamped on.
'But it really wasn't the spitball pitchers who caused it,' he claimed. 'It was the guys who were cheating ... like putting emery paper in their gloves to rough the ball.
'Some of them had a sharp edge on their belt buckles and would rip the threads on the ball. Others used sandpaper or even put a big wad of wax or chicory on the ball so it would do tricks ...
'But a legitimate spitter was different,' Burleigh declared. 'All I did was just wet my first two finger tips like this.' He delicately put his fingers to his lips. 'I used slippery elm. I put just enough on my fingers so they didn't touch the hide of the baseball.
'I could use it ten times or more on the same ball and there wouldn't be a stain or a mark on it,' he insisted. 'What's unsanitary about that? It was a science ... an art.'
Grimes claimed he could take any pitcher ... preferably one with a strong overhand pitching motion ... and teach him the spitter in a month.
'But he'd have to work on it every day,' he cautioned. 'Be proud of it and really want to learn it. Bring it out in the open and it would be good for baseball, I say.'
In rapid style Burleigh ticked off his reasons for wanting to bring it back. Reasons like these:
'Everything is being done to help the hitters ... livelier baseballs ... smaller strike zone ... they're taking down screens and shortening fences. The spitter would give the pitcher a break ...
'Lots of youngsters have a real good fast ball but no curve. They can't make the big leagues. A spitter is nothing but a sharper curve. Bringing it back would give more kids a better chance to play big league ball.
'Bringing it back wouldn't open the door to the emery pitch and other kinds of cheatin' pitches. What's more, it would legalize what some pitchers are doing on the sly anyway ...
'I still say only the name is against it,' mused Grimes. 'If somebody can come up with a nicer sounding one, it'll sell. And help baseball sell, too. ' "
-Lyall Smith, Detroit Free Press (Baseball Digest, June 1955)
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