-Herbert Simons (Baseball Digest, March 1955)
LION-HEARTED ORIOLE
Rookie Hal Smith's A Blood-And-Guts Catcher
"Knockdown pitches and violent home plate collisions have failed to deter Harold Wayne Smith, a 'blood and guts' catcher of extraordinary polish, from becoming one of the brightest new names on the American League marquee.
This same Smith qualifies as 'Exhibit A' when the Baltimore Orioles are asked the now monotonous question of why they traded away Bob Turley.
Smith's sparkling work at the plate and behind it, particularly, has him high upon the 'rookie of the year' ballot. Paul Richards, a manager of discriminating opinion, especially where catchers are concerned, may or may not be interested in getting out the vote, but he thinks Smith is one of the finest looking receivers to come on the major league horizon in a decade.
The Yankee-bred Smith has more than impressed Richards with his handling of the low ball, snapping rifle shots to second base, running down those high, tantalizing foul flies, drawing the most from a pitcher and doing a satisfactory job of getting his own base hits- when they counted most.
Richards, a cautious man with a quote, nodded his head in the direction of Smith during a dugout discourse the other day. 'If that fellow over there,' speaking of Smith, 'doesn't have the heart of a lion then he's the greatest actor I ever saw.'
Smith has a hungry competitiveness about him and a desire to win that seems almost Yankee-given. He's neither belligerent, brash or boastful, but don't think that he has any inferiority complex about his own ability. He hasn't.
Like Richards, he has a quiet, assured manner which gives the impression that he has everything, including the game, under complete control. But Smith is no pop-off or clubhouse lawyer. He believes in himself and there's nothing wrong with that.
When asked if he could have climbed the ladder of baseball success as a shortstop, the position he played as a kid growing up, Smith uttered matter-of-factly:
'Yeah, I would have fought my way up somehow.'
That the Yankees signed him, raised him up to the majors with six years of minor league apprenticeship and then traded him away came as no disappointment to Hal. 'No, that didn't worry me. Why should it? The Yankees honestly did me a favor by sending me to a club where I could play every day. That's what I want to do. With the Yanks, I would have had Yogi Berra in front of me.'
It seems a certainty that Smith, barring injury, will catch over 100 games in his first major league campaign. Even back in April, Richards was using Smith in both ends of double-headers and it wasn't out of necessity, either. The veteran Les Moss was in good health and waiting for the nod.
Richards has extreme confidence in Smitty. The youngster is on his own calling pitches and he has been used as high as fifth in the batting order. The Oriole pilot believes Smith will be the cornerstone for a rebuilt club in Baltimore which, in time, will move in on the first division and, Richards hopes, offer a serious challenge.
If Richards ever had any doubt about Smith's bravery, he had a demonstration in spring training which should have given him reason to expect that his freshman catcher would stand up to an express train. In a spring training exhibition with the Dodgers, Junior Gilliam tagged up at third after a down-the-line fly had been caught by shortstop Witty Quintana.
Rookie Quintana put his head down as he ran back to the infield. Gilliam broke in a streak for the plate. By the time Quintana realized what was happening, the daring Dodger was homeward-bound. The throw was late arriving, but Smith met Gilliam man-to-man. The Oriole blocked the plate without even a slight chance of getting the ball. Gilliam unloaded on him and Smith came out of the scrimmage with a twisted knee.
Since that time, Richards has worked with Smith in his technique of guarding the plate. 'Paul has taught me how to take a sliding man on my shin-guards instead with my body,' says Hal. 'That way it's less wear and tear on the catcher. He also has moved me closer to the batter and told me not to lean forward with the trunk of my body when I'm receiving a pitch.'
Richards is only the second former catcher Smith has worked under in seven years of organized ball. At Newark, in the Ohio-Indiana League, Smith was managed by Billy Holm, a one-time Chicago Cub receiver.
'Holm helped me a lot when I started out. He himself was one of the best catchers I ever saw,' relates the serious, business-like Hal.
The young Oriole was quickly reminded that when he was a kid in Detroit, the Tigers had a catcher who also knew what he was doing when it came to crouching under a bat, the aforesaid Mr. Richards.
'Yeah, that's right,' agrees Hal, 'but I was just a kid of 14 then and Paul was just another player to me when I went out to Briggs Stadium with my father. I guess if I had any single favorite it was Hoot Evers. And dern if I'm not on the same team with Hoot now.'
Last summer Smith led the American Association with a .350 batting average at Columbus. However, though his footwork and poise in catching leave nothing to be desired, Smith isn't exactly a picture with a bat in his hand. He'll occasionally look bad lunging at a pitch. For the most part, however, he is a line drive hitter and sprays hits to all fields.
He's up on the bat about half-an-inch and rarely strikes out. He resents, though, any inference that he's a 'punch-and-judy' hitter. 'I hit the way I think is most effective for me,' he stresses in a determined tone.
Smith, at Detroit's Redford High School, was a shortstop when Scout Ray Meyers saw him. Smith later played on the Joe Gentile amateur team which featured four other players later in the majors- Ted Kazanski of the Phils, Ray Herbert of the A's, Hobie Landrith of the Redlegs and Joe Altobelli of the Indians.
After Meyers forwarded a flattering report on Smith, he visited Yankee Stadium for a trial in 1949. The Yanks looked at him not as a shortstop but as a pitcher and catcher. They decided his best chance was a catcher and signed him at a $6,000 bonus.
'I wasn't after the big money because I didn't want to be a bonus player. I knew I needed to play every day and going to the minors was the only way I could expect to improve.'
Smith played only briefly his first year out, after reporting to Twin Falls in the Pioneer League and his subsequent shift to Ventura in the California League. But the next year, 1950, he hit .363 at Newark. Then came a .308 season at Quincy in the Three I League;.260 at Beaumont in the Texas League; .311 at Birmingham in the Southern Association and then his excellent .350 at Columbus in the American Association.
Three of his years in the Yankee system were spent with the same roommate, a pitcher named Joe Crowder. Crowder died suddenly after the 1953 season when he suffered a fatal heart attack while fishing in Seneca, Mo. 'Joe and I were real close,' says Hal. Smith and Crowder, batterymates as well as roomies, were both notified of their promotion to the Yankees on the same day in 1953- but Joe didn't live to get the chance.
Smith got to go to spring camp with the Yanks last year and hit .353 before being optioned to Columbus in the Enos Slaughter deal. He didn't get back up to the Yanks at season's end because Columbus was in the Association playoffs. It was during the post-season series that Richards, who had moved to Baltimore from Chicago in early September, scouted Smith personally. He had heard so many glowing things about the young catcher that he decided to go out and take a look for himself.
What he saw of Smith he liked. So much so that he was the one player that Richards insisted on when he sent Turley, Larsen and Billy Hunter along to the Yanks in what was termed a 'million dollar deal.'
On Smith's initial trip to Yankee Stadium this year he hit an opposite field home run into the right field seats for two runs and drove in another as he led the Orioles to a 6-3 victory- their first of 1955 after suffering six straight reversals.
It was his take-charge defensive performance, however, which caught Casey Stengel's eye. Next day Ol' Case was saying that 'Smith is a carbon copy of Richards. He looks like Richards back there already. Richards is doing a good job on that kid. Not only does he catch like Richards, but he moans and groans just like Richards did when the umpire called 'em bad. I never seen anything like it.
'Yeah, that Richards knew what he was doing all right. He got himself one of the best young ball players in the country.'
On the Orioles' first visit into Detroit, Smith was also up to the occasion for the benefit of the home folks and came through with two-for-four against Ned Garver.
Pitchers in the league don't fear the Bird backstopper for any propensity at 'rattling the fences,' but he's the type of hitter whois going to get his hits without too long a dry spell in between.
Washington's Camilo Pascual tried knocking Smith down the first time he faced him in Baltimore. Smith went spinning into the dirt in an effort to keep from having a facsimile of Will Harridge's signature imprinted on his skull.
Smith gathered himself off the ground, picked his spikes clean of mud and glared out at Pascual. He re-entered the batter's box and defiantly planted his right foot deeper than before. Pascual came in with his next pitch and Smitty lashed it hard at Third Baseman Eddie Yost- who got a glove on the ball, but that was all, as it caromed into left field. The next time around he tripled over the head of Jim Busby in left center off the same Pascual.
What's particularly interesting about Smith, when you probe his background, is that he has caught over 100 games a year for the last five seasons. In the last four of these campaigns, he has fielded the same identical percentage- .973. 'Don't ask me to explain that because I can't,' he pleads. 'I didn't even realize it until somebody brought up the point this spring.'
Smith, 195 and an even six-foot, has all the staying power that is needed to go on and become one of the best catchers in the business. He doesn't wilt in hot weather and the grind doesn't worry him. His wife, Shirley, says, 'Hal is honestly sorry when the season ends every year.'
The well-buffed new Oriole was born in West Frankfort, Ill., Dec. 7, 1930, but has lived most of his life in Detroit. His father is a painting decorator and Hal pursues the same occupation in the off-season. He has a younger sister, Pearl, and a brother, George, now playing second base at Michigan State, whom Hal hopes the Orioles sign when he graduates next year.
Looking and reminiscing of his days in the minors, Hal tells of the time he was catching at Beaumont in a game against Oklahoma City. 'Tom Tatum was managing Oklahoma City and coaching at third base. I forget who was hitting. Anyhow, Tatum didn't like a called strike and came storming at the umpire.
'He got himself worked up to a point where he was really wild. He started acting like Tom Mix, the cowboy. He was playing he had guns and was going to shoot the umpire. Then he made like he was riding a horse. It was the derndest thing you ever saw.
'Finally, Tatum starting moving his arms like he was a butterfly and the police had to come on the field to get him to leave. Never saw anything like that in my life before.'
The name Hal Smith, incidentally, has made for some confusion, especially last year when he was on 'loan' to the Cardinal system. The Cards, you see, also have a catcher in their organization named Hal Smith. He's at Houston this year but Hal (Oriole) Smith and Hal (Cardinal) Smith have never met- even though people continue to get their names crossed.
Last summer Stengel was asked what he was going to do with the two most talked-about young catchers in the high minors. Reference was to Elston Howard, the Negro catcher on option to Toronto in the International League, and Smith at Columbus.
'Well,' said Case, 'Smith is a better catcher than Howard right now. But we sent Howard up to Toronto so Luke Sewell could work with him. I wanted to take another look at Smith before we sent him out but he got the virus bug, or something, coming North and was a sick boy. I don't know which one will be the better bet for the future as both have different things to recommend them.'
With Berra to contend with, it meant that either Smith or Howard would be surplus and 'bait' for trading. Richards made his bid for the former. He gave up Turley, Larsen and Hunter and came away with Smith, Gus Triandos, Gene Woodling, Don Leppert, Jim McDonald, Harry Byrd, Bill Miller, Kal Segrist and Willie Miranda.
Moving Turley to the Yankees was supposed to win the pennant. Maybe it will. All Richards knows is that with Smith squatting behind home plate, he didn't get shut out."
-John Steadman (Baseball Digest, July 1955)
"The Orioles hope that Hal will add plenty of hits to the lineup in '55. Judging by his minor league record, there's every reason to believe he won't disappoint them.
Hal batted .363 for Newark in '50 with 108 RBIs. At Quincy in '51 he batted .308 and in '53 for Birmingham batted .311. Last season he was the star of the American Association and he won the batting title."
-1955 Topps No. 8
"The leading hitter of the American Association in 1954, Hal joins the Orioles this year. In 1950 at Newark he hit a sizzling .363 and batted .311 for Birmingham in '53."
-1955 Topps Doubleheader No. 70
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