1956 Yankee of the Past: Lefty O'Doul

FATE TURNS BACK ON O'DOUL, ONCE TOP MINOR PILOT

"So you're having troubles? Consider for a moment the plight of Frank Joseph O'Doul, the former ex-Mayor of Powell Street, San Francisco, U.S.A.

Here's a guy with a full mess kit full of sour K-rations.

Heading into August he was eighth, a poor eighth, in the Pacific Coast League. There are only eight clubs in the Pacific Coast League. How low can you get?

Well, F. Joseph is there, along with his Vancouver club, and it was only a comparatively few years ago that he was the highest paid, highest rolling, highest reaching minor league manager in baseball. During the campaigns of 1946-47-48 he won a pennant, tied for a pennant, and finished third.

The major leagues beckoned. But F. Lefty Joseph, the former big league batting champion, was going good, as they say in the confines of the clubhouse. He turned a high salaried and contented back upon the East, where the money was, but the security wasn't, and marched confidently towards what he thought would be an everlasting alliance with the old home town.

How wrong can you be? 

In 1949 he finished seventh, unfortunate victim of maneuverings in the front office. In 1950 much money was spent to recoup,  and the club missed fourth place by a single game.

The year 1951 was shattering to the man who three years before had been the most desired manager in the minors. He finished eighth with a club even the cat wouldn't drag in. That winter he was fired.

Then he went, on a sort of jilted romantic rebound, to San Diego in 1952. There he fashioned a fifth-place finish, a sixth in 1953, and a pennant, with a playoff with Hollywood, in 1954. It was the first full, clean, non-split season flag the San Diego baseball club had ever won.

He walked away from it last year, went to Oakland, wound up seventh and now he's with Vancouver- floundering.

Too bad, too, because the Pacific Coast League has never had a better manager, or a better man. The ball just bounced wrong too many times."

-Bob Stevens, San Francisco Chronicle (Baseball Digest, September 1956)

1956 Yankee of the Past: Ernie Shore

"TRY TO GET THROUGH ONE INNING"

Ernie Shore Got Through- To A Perfect Game!

"It was a hot, dry day in June, 1917, June 23 to be exact, when a tall, raw-boned North Carolinian unsuspectedly was tapped for a niche in baseball's Hall of Fame. It was the day that Babe Ruth, then pitching for the Boston Red Sox, was thumbed to the showers for speaking somewhat bluntly to Umpire Brick Owens, who had just given Ray Morgan of the Washington Senators a base on balls.

Manager Jack Barry looked down the Red Sox bench, spotted six-foot-four Ernie Shore, and motioned him to the pitcher's mound.

'Try to get through this inning,' Barry said, 'and we'll get someone warmed up to take over.'

What followed is one of the more illustrious chapters in diamond history. Morgan, trying to take advantage of the rattled Red Sox, broke for second base on the first pitch and was thrown out by Catcher Sam Agnew, and Shore went on to mow down the next 26 batters for one of baseball's rare perfectly pitched games as Boston won, 4-0.

It's Sheriff Ernie Shore now, picture-book guardian of the law in Forsyth County (Winston-Salem) and the memory of that day in Washington will always be with him.

'Someone said that Ruth took a swing at Owens,' Ernie remembered, 'but that isn't true. He just cussed him out. You know how the Babe was. I'd been with him in Baltimore, and we went up together when Jack Dunn sold us to the Red Sox.'

Shore went in cold, with only eight warm-up throws to the catcher before resuming the game, and retired the Senators so easily after Morgan was thrown out Barry kept him in. He didn't realize he had a no-hitter going until the ninth inning when someone on the bench mentioned it- strictly against baseball superstition- and the Senators tried it steal it away that inning.

'Jack Henry, their catcher, lined one to Duffy Lewis in left field in the ninth,' Ernie recalled, 'and then Clark Griffith ordered Mike Menosky to drag a bunt. Mike was pretty fast, but we got him.'

There was quite a debate whether Shore should be credited with a perfect no-hit, no-run game, since he came into the game as a relief pitcher, but it's in the record book and few people will say he doesn't deserve the honor.

A 200-pound right-hander, Shore- who only goes 220 now- had a fast ball sinker the Senators couldn't fathom that day, but they weren't the only club that had trouble with it. He pitched five one-hit games that season. Against the Athletics Shore went unscathed after Jimmy Walsh, the first batter up, singled. Later on, against the St. Louis Browns, he went seven innings before a pinch hitter spoiled his game.

Shore won a game for the Red Sox in the 1915 World Series, and lost one to Grover Cleveland Alexander of the Phillies. In the 1916 Series he beat Brooklyn twice.

Ruth was a real whiz, Shore said, at his pitching peak, as his World Series records bear out. But the Sheriff thinks Babe was beginning to have a little trouble with his arm when Ed Barrow shifted him to the outfield, where he became one of baseball's all-time greats.

Shore, who has been sheriff 19 years and has three more to go on his present term, would have been a corking good tackle in football, for size at least, but came along 30 years too soon for the pro game. As a matter of fact, nearby Guilford College, where he went to school, had no football team during his time, only a baseball team. It must have been a pretty good one, too, for Shore won 24 games and lost one in two years there, catching Owner Jack Dunn's eye in Baltimore."

-Lewis F. Atchison, Washington Star (Baseball Digest, November 1955)

1956 Yankee of the Past: Fred Merkle

MERKLE WAS STAR 16 YEARS AFTER IMMORTAL BONER

"Fred Merkle died because of trouble with his heart. The exact reason is easy:

It was broken.

Many years ago when the Minneapolis Millers trained at Daytona, Beach, Fla., Mike Kelley went to see him at his home in neighboring Ormond Beach.

Mike came upon a broken 'old' man, though Merkle then was just 50. He was plaintive, not bitter, about his misfortune.

'If they would only leave me alone,' he said. Everywhere I go, I'm pointed out as 'There's Fred Merkle, who failed to touch second.' Or, 'There's the guy that pulled the boner that cost the Giants the pennant.' ' (On first base at the time, Merkle failed to run out a 'winning single' in the ninth inning of a late-season game against the Cubs, leaving the game deadlocked 1-1 and forcing a playoff for the pennant which the Giants lost.) For many years, Fred was a virtual hermit.

And yet there is something glorious in Fred Merkle's history. I don't suppose 10 per cent of the fans realize Merkle committed that boner of failing to touch second base when he was only in his second year of big league ball. He had played just 33 games.

Know how many more seasons he had? Just SIXTEEN!

That was 1908 and Merkle finished in 1926 with some in between years out of the majors. He played with the Giants for 11 more years, had seasons with the Cubs, Dodgers and Yankees. Twice he hit over .300, usually was around .290. He was one of the great right-handed first basemen, being shadowed only by the splendid George Kelly.

He was an excellent base runner. He was adept at the bunt and hitting behind the runner and all the things John McGraw craved and ordered.

Yet he died, in his own mind, a social outcast. This was bitter and cruel. Wasn't it only last year that an American Leaguer, with the winning run going over the plate, was called out for not advancing from first to second? That name can't be remembered. And it has happened 50, 100 other times.

Yet Fred Merkle's failure cost a pennant. He is a truly hard luck legend."

-Halsey Hall, Minneapolis Star (Baseball Digest, May 1956)

1956 Yankee World Series of the Past: 1955 World Series

 PRAISE 'N' BRAYS FOR SERIES PLAYS

"The World Series of 1955:

Most Spectacular Play: Sandy Amoros' catch of Yogi Berra's high fly in the seventh game.

Best Fielding Play: A double play by the Yankees in the last game. Billy Martin made a great stop of Pee Wee Reese's bounding ball, got the ball to Phil Rizzuto at second and, while flying through the air, Rizzuto made the relay to first.

Biggest Mystery: Don Newcombe's arm, sore or not?

Sharpest Crack: Casey Stengel, when Martin was thrown out at the plate trying to steal in the first game, asked what he said to Martin, the Yankee manager replied, 'I congratulated him on being out.'

Second Sharpest Crack: Duke Snider's home run to right center in the fifth inning of the fifth game, a legitimate home run in any ball park in the world. No other Series homer could make this claim.

Worst Strategy: Walt Alston's failure to yank Billy Loes in the fourth inning of the second game when the Yankees were combing his hair with line drives. Even after a walk and four sharp singles, Alston permitted Loes, a right-hander, to pitch to Eddie Robinson, a left-handed pinch hitter. He promptly hit Robinson. Then with Tommy Byrne, a good left-handed hitter, up, Alston still left Loes in, though Spooner was ready to relieve. Byrne's drive past Loes' ear cracked the game wide open.

Best Manager: In the long one, Alston, despite a wobbly beginning. He refused to be stampeded by his own men, some of whom (notably Zimmer and Newcombe) groused openly. Finally, in the clutch game, Alston and Johnny Podres settled on the type of pitching best suited to Yankee Stadium as contrasted to Ebbets Field.

Best Pitcher: Podres, perod. He had everything a winning pitcher needed, including guts.

Best Game: The seventh, when the only tension and stress of the entire series became manifest in the late innings. As Podres continued to be the master of the Yankees, the regard and affection of the customers for him grew to mammoth proportions.

Biggest Winners: The club owners, who got rich from the fifth, sixth and seventh games.

Best All-Around Fielder: Phil Rizzuto again. The Yankee shortstop handled all chances, several of them requiring agility and speed you wouldn't expect from a 37-year-old shortstop. He ranged the infield, from deep in the hole to back of second. He pivoted, at the risk of limb, on double plays. And he rushed in to make great underhand throws on balls hit slowly past the mound.

Best Second Guess: The Yankees would have won with Mantle able to play all of each game.

Second Best Second Guess: On Stengel in the fifth game. With the Yankees behind, 4-2, in the eighth inning, and with a man and Martin representing the tying run, he didn't pinch-hit Mantle in that spot. A long ball was the Yankees' only hope and in Ebbets Field any kind of a fly ball Mantle might hit might be a home run.

Unluckiest Player: Irv Noren. Handicapped by a leg injury, he grounded into five double plays.

Luckiest Player: Roy Campanella because he has to play in Yankee Stadium only at World Series time.

Luckiest Non-Players: Silvera, Wiesler, Leja, Walker, Howell and Koufax. All got full shares without appearing in a single game.

Cheapest Home Runs: Furillo in the first game in Yankee Stadium, Amoros in the fifth game in Ebbets Field. Furillo's was a slicer that went only about 310 feet, Amoros' was a lazy fly that fell just over the right field fence.

Best Inning: The ninth of the seventh game. You could hear the heartbeats of 62,465 tightened-up fans as Podres retired Skowron, Cerv and Howard in order."

-Franklin Lewis, condensed from the Cleveland Press (Baseball Digest, November 1955)

WHY CASEY DIDN'T BUNT WITH BERRA

Here's Stengel's Playback Of Key World Series Play

"When the Yankees' daily chores are done, Casey Stengel and his coaches gather with the newspapermen and William, maitre de press room in Yankee Stadium, serves refreshments. If a visitor minds his manners and is pure of heart and does good deeds, he may be rewarded with a dissertation on baseball by the incomparable, the imitable, the unmitigated Mr. Stengel.

This was such a day. Talk meandered aimlessly for a while, touching on Mr. Stengel's threat to play nine shortstops occasionally this year just because he had nine shortstops in camp, moving on to the six-man and seven-man infields which Branch Rickey experimented with a few springs ago, and all of sudden the meeting was hips-deep in a discussion of offensive tactics with special reference to the final game of the last World Series.

That was the game of the Wonderful Double Play which Brooklyn won, 2-0, behind Johnny Podres. The Yankees couldn't score on Podres but they were about to score when Yogi Berra sliced a fly to left field with one out and runners on first and second. Sandy Amoros, going faster and farther than Wes Santee, rushed from left-center field to the foul line, caught the ball and fired it to Pee Wee Reese, whose relay doubled Gil McDougald off first base, ending the inning and saving the world's championship. It was a game whose details remain vivid in Casey's memory and probably always will because he's never lost a World Series before.

Now he replayed it.

'I didn't make too many excuses because how can you get mad at that fella for pitching so good and everybody keeps talking all winter about the seventh game but where I lost the Series was in the third, fourth and fifth games because all I got to do is win one of them and there ain't no seventh game. I win the first two games and if you win the first two games of a short series like that you figure to take the series and all I wanted was one of those three games in Brooklyn but I lost three there and after being ahead in one, 6-1.

'Now, they ask me would I bunt with Berra in that situation with two men on base and I say, yes, I would bunt with Berra but let me remind you of Charlie Dressen a couple years before. He bunted with Campanella but I got a man there behind the plate built like a wrestler, you'd say, because he ain't got legs that would look good on a woman.

'Dressen bunted twice with Campanella and the next fella, a pretty good hitter too, and that fella looks like a wrestler, he jumped out there in front of the plate and got the bunts and th'owed men out at third. All the writers said wow, it was close, did the umpire blow the play maybe, but Mr. Berra made the play and the umpire said out.

'Now, you compare catchers, if you can compare American and National League, and I don't think Campanella, the great catcher that he is, could get out there for that ball quite as fast as the wrestler. Ask me a catcher that can th'ow a little better than Berra sometimes and I have to give you Mr. Campanella. Or you want a fella can do a job for you with that stick on a ball up here, Mr. Campanella is a batsman that gets better with age. He will hit that ball for you and Berra will hit some of them, too.

'All right, maybe I could bunt with Berra but baseball today is the greatest act I ever saw in the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. The first baseman charges you and the third baseman charges you and when you got runners on first and second base they can make a force-out at third.

'Suppose Berra does bunt and they move those runners over, are they going to bring the infield in now and give the next batter a chance to get a base hit on a ground ball? With the score 2-0, they are not. That fella over there who I think did an amazing job because he kept his mouth shut and handled some men that were maybe a little tough to handle, he will have his infield back for the double play and concede me that run on third base.

'Maybe I could get that run home but the way that fella was pitching we didn't look like we were gonna score because we had other chances and didn't score. Do you know how many innings I went without scoring? The day before I won, but didn't score after the first inning so it was 17 innings I didn't get a run in those two games and then I went to Honolulu and I didn't score in my first three innings there. That's 20 innings and I'm not used to going that long.

'No, I figure I got a man up there at bat built like a wrestler that can pull a ball into the right field seats pretty good and if we're going to score at all again against that pitcher this might be the time. Remember, I need two runs to tie and if I give up Berra on a bunt then it's two out and the sacrifice fly is no good to me to get any runs home.

'I figure Berra might pull the ball to right field and so do they, because if they were pitching outside to make him hit to left, why was their outfield playing all the way over in right field? Because it's a right field hitter that's up.

'But Berra hits to the foul line in left and with the left fielder way towards center field that's going to be a two-base hit nine times out of ten. McDougald runs past second and I don't blame McDougald because he's looking to tie the score from first base the way our club can do some times. McDougald ain't dumb and he runs the bases pretty good.

'If I was the runner on first base I would do the same thing as McDougald because he is the tying run. If that ball drops in there, they wouldn't have had a chance in the world to get McDougald at the plate, I don't care how good the relay is.

'But the ball don't drop in, and I'm ruined.' "

-Red Smith, New York Herald-Tribune (Baseball Digest, May 1956)

1956 Yankee of the Past: Bucky Harris

OH COME NOW, BUCKY!

Better-Than-Ever Stuff Just Plain Spinach

"Featured in a recent issue of the Saturday Evening Post is an article under the byline of Bucky Harris. The heading reads:

'Ball Players Are As Good As Ever.'

The Detroit pilot is the dean of American League managers, starting his 29th season this spring. He is 60 years old and reached the major leagues 36 years ago, but much of what appears under his name in the Post is plain spinach. Quoting some of his remarks:

'All-around college and high school athletes with pro potential in more than one sport generally choose baseball.'

'There are more first-class players today than ever before.'

'I'm convinced that the old stars in the Hall of Fame would have had conniption fits and considerably lower averages had they faced the variety of trick stuff the pitchers throw today.'

'The slickest fielders and double-play combinations of my time couldn't match the brilliance of the defensive artists on all clubs now.'

'Today, rookies in the deepest bush get intensive schooling in every facet of the game.'

'The old-timers never saw the variety of pitching stuff hitters must contend with today.'

'Nowadays, rookies fresh out of the minors have three or four different pitches.'

'I believe the boys play harder today because there's more incentive for winning.'

'Any way you look at, fielding has improved enormously.'

'In his prime, Hans Wagner, paragon of shortstops, consistently was charged with 40 to 60 errors a year. It's a rare shortstop who boots more than 30 plays a season nowadays.'

'All this yapping about the scarcity of talented rookies is hogwash.'

Harris says that all-around college and high school athletes with pro potential in more than one sport generally choose baseball. Let him tell that to the baseball scouts. They will inform him that the athletes choose football or basketball. College baseball is almost extinct.

As to there being 'more good first-class players today than ever before,' how can Harris explain the fact that major league clubs have been paying bonuses of $25,000 to $100,000 to untried high school and sandlot players. The club that employs Bucky paid $135,000 to three of the players on his present squad when they were graduated from high school.

The millions spent in bonus payments indicates the scarcity of what he refers to as 'good first-class players.'

Harris reflects on the trouble the old-timers would have swinging against the trick stuff that modern pitchers use and claims they never saw the variety of deliveries hitters must contend with today.

Harris came to the major leagues the year that trick deliveries were ruled out. There was no connection between his coming and freak deliveries going, merely a coincidence, but never having batted against doctored balls, Harris is hardly qualified to draw a comparison.

He must have heard of the shine ball, emery ball, licorice-splashed ball, loaded ball, iced ball, fruzzed ball, balls with a few torn stitches, and other inventions. He mentions the spit ball and says it was not in general use because it was so hard to control. This is true but the lads did a fairly good job of controlling the other kinds that were declared illegal at the time he started his big league career.

Harris says that rookies fresh out of the minors have three of four different pitches and presumably considers this a virtue and proof that the modern recruits have an edge over the old-timers.

The fact that the rookies fresh out of the minors have three or four different pitches is a weakness and not a virtue. They have three or four different pitches but are masters of none.

Bucky did not explain why he used 20 different pitchers- count 'em, 20- last year. He should also get together with Willis Hudlin, whom the Detroit club hired to coach pitchers with Tiger farm clubs. He might benefit by reading what Hudlin told Sam Greene of the Detroit News a few days ago:

'It seems to me that if a kid has a good arm all he needs to work on is his curve and fast ball. When he begins to slip is time enough to think of the slider or knuckler or other freak pitches.'

The main criticism has been that recruits in the minors spend their time trying to develop unorthodox deliveries instead of working on fast balls, curves and control.

Honus Wagner retired three years before Harris appeared on the major league scene and Napoleon Lajoie hung up his uniform for the last time four years previously, so Harris never saw either in his prime and is not qualified to judge.

He says Wagner made from 40 to 60 errors a season and that it's a rare shortstop who boots more than 30 a season nowadays.

Using the same reasoning, Harris could proclaim Zeke Bonura the greatest first baseman in history since Bonura each season had the highest fielding average in the league, a fact of which Zeke was very proud. He maintained his standing at the head of the class by ducking every batted ball that he might conceivably fumble.

There was never a better fielding second baseman than Lajoie who once said:

'You will never find the best fielders high in the averages. What makes them good fielders is that they go after everything, take every chance. You've got to feel there's no such thing as an unplayable ball, no matter how impossible it looks. Who knows? The ball may hit a pebble or hard clot of dirt and bounce in your direction.'

Harris says that all clubs now have brilliant double-play combinations but as late as this (February) morning Detroit was still searching for a second baseman.

He also says that 'all of this yapping about the scarcity of talented rookies is hogwash.'

If it is 'hogwash,' Harris had better go out and pick up a few, say a first baseman, a second baseman, a left fielder and three or four pitchers!

The Harris article was ghost-written and ghosts have a habit of introducing some of their own opinions and conclusions in order to pad the material to fill the required space.

This is perhaps what happened here."

-H.G. Salsinger, Detroit News (Baseball Digest, April 1956)