JOLLY GOOD RELIEVER
Braves' Bullpen Ace Recaptures 1954 Form
Back in the Fall of 1952, the Braves picked up a relief pitcher named Dave Jolly in the annual draft. This hardly was cause for excitement and for a couple of reasons. For one, the draft was a dubious medium at best, and for another, Jolly was strictly an unknown.
'Who's Jolly?' was the first question directed at Braves' management after the selection was announced. And 'Who's Jolly?' was the stock question in the pressbox every time the newcomer took the mound in the ensuing season.
Well, they don't ask 'Who's Jolly?' any more. The unknown draftee of 1952 has become one of baseball's outstanding relief pitchers, a man who conceivably could mean a pennant for the baseball burghers of Milwaukee.
This is not to say, of course, that Jolly is likely to bring Milwaukee a pennant singlehandedly. It is not even to say that he will lead the Braves home in front. But relief pitchers being as valuable as they are these days, with the complete game almost a thing of the past, it is safe to say that the Braves won't make it without him.
Who is this relief pitcher extraordinary? He is a solemn looking, slimly built right-hander who admits that his next birthday (Oct. 14) will be his 32nd. He is a native of Stony Point, N.C., with an easy going disposition and a pleasant 'backwoods' type of drawl. And he is a guy who talks so seldom and at such short length that his teammates have come to call him 'Gabby.'
'Ernie Johnson (a fellow pitcher) gave me that nickname in '53,' Jolly recalls, 'but I don't think I live up to it any more. Shucks, I talk a lot more than I did when I first came up.'
Despite Jolly's contention that he has developed into a veritable chatterbox, the 'Gabby' monicker has stuck. And if he does talk more these days, his loquacity hasn't become more evident to those around him.
The little Jolly does say, though, is worth remembering. He has a dry sort of humor which brings laughs with the minimum of effort. A particular forte of his is the art of composing puns.
Perhaps the best compliment one could pay to Jolly's sense of humor is that he didn't lose it during the 1955 season. Rarely has a pitcher had a more trying time, what with a sore arm and attendant inability to retire opposing batters; yet Jolly, outwardly at least, was as cheerful as ever.
'It just seemed that way, though,' Jolly explains. 'Actually, I was down on myself and my confidence was gone. My arm hurt every time I threw a ball. I was happy to see the season end.'
Jolly's ailment of last season is generally referred to as 'tennis elbow,' a strained tendon in the elbow, the currently popular ailment called tendonitis.
Tennis elbow, strained tendon, tendonitis- whatever you want to call it, the poor guy couldn't throw much harder than if his arm had been broken. And to make matters worse, he couldn't throw accurately, either. His base on balls total of 51 in just 58 innings illustrates that more graphically than words.
'I was just pushin' the ball up to the plate,' he recalls. 'Sometimes it didn't even get there without bouncin'. I was aimin' the ball, too, and when you do that your control is sure to suffer.
'There was only one time all year when I really threw a fast ball. That was in St. Louis, around the middle of May, I think. The rest of the time I couldn't have hurt anybody if I'd hit him in the head.'
While perhaps an extreme case, Jolly's major league career to date provides a good example of the ups and downs of a relief pitcher.
In 1953, apparently as little known to Manager Charlie Grimm as to others in the baseball world, he seldom got into a game. When he did, it usually was because the game already was hopelessly lost and Grimm wanted to reserve his more highly regarded pitchers for more important situations. The result was that he won no games at all and lost one- in only 38 innings.
Nobody thought much of Jolly when the 1954 campaign began, except perhaps to point out that, no longer being a newly drafted player, he could finally be sent to a farm club. But the silent Southerner was thrown into a tight spot one day, and did such an outstanding job that Grimm made a habit of throwing him into tight spots. He emerged as a relief pitching sensation, as proved by his 11-6 record and 2.43 earned run average.
Then came 1955 and the sudden attack of tennis elbow.
'It started bothering me in my first game in spring training,' Jolly says. 'After that I felt it every time I pitched.'
Instead of winning 11 games, Jolly won only two, while losing three. And instead of a 2.43 earned run average, he finished with the whopping figure of 5.74.
After that came a winter of rest, and when Jolly reported this spring his arm was as good as new.
'I was still a little leery for the first two weeks,' he says, 'but even the first time out I was throwin' harder than I did last year. I gradually got my confidence back, and I haven't felt a bit of pain this season.'
Although Jolly has pitched only for the Braves since reaching the majors, he has been in four big league organizations all told. He signed originally with the late lamented St. Louis Browns, then was drafted by the Cincinnati Redlegs' farm system and traded into the New York Yankees' chain. It was from the Yankee farm in Kansas City, then in the American Association, that the Braves drafted him.
Why did Jolly sign with the Browns? The answer is simple. As he puts it, 'Nobody else was interested in me. I didn't get a dime for signin', either. I was lucky to get a job.'
Neal Millard, then a scout for the Browns and now handling the same duties for the Redlegs, signed Jolly in 1946 after watching him pitch in semipro ball following his discharge from the Army.
Jolly's first stop on the professional baseball ladder was at Mooresville, N.C., in the Class D North Carolina State League. Also a member of that club, coincidentally, was Hoyt Wilhelm, now a relief ace for the New York Giants.
'We were both starters in those days,' Jolly recalls.'Who'd've of thought we'd both wind up in the bullpen.'
He was not complaining, though, and neither would Wilhelm. From their humble beginnings as $150 a month starters in Class D, Jolly and Wilhelm have blossomed into two of the best relief pitchers in the business.
Like any pitcher, Jolly likes to boast of his feats as a hitter.
'Hittin' is old stuff with me,' he relates. 'When I was with Mooresville I used to play first base and outfield when I wasn't pitchin'. I remember back in 1947 when I hit .375 and hit two home runs. I haven't hit a homer since, except in battin' practice.
'Of course, I didn't play first base very long- just one game, as a matter of fact. My first base career ended when I ruined a no-hitter for Wilhelm. Somebody hit a slow bounder to me, and it took a while to figure out what to do with it. The first thing I knew, the runner was past first and I still had the ball.
'You know, we had quite a club at Mooresville that year. One time we even had two men on third base at the same time and both of 'em scored.'
Asked how this unlikely event occurred, Jolly replied, 'Well, we tried a squeeze bunt with men on second and third. The batter missed the pitch and the man on third slid back to the bag. Wilhelm was the guy on second and he kept coming toward and slid in, too. Then the catcher threw the ball away and they both got home.
'Everything happened that year. I even broke my jaw. I was on second base, goin' toward third, and the ball was hit toward short. Well, we met, and for the next month I ate nothin' but soup and milk shakes.'
Jolly always had been a starter before George Selkirk, now managing the Braves' Wichita farm club, converted him to a relief specialist at Kansas City in 1952. He has started only once as a Brave, and in that game he held the Dodgers to one run in ten innings before being taken out for a pinch hitter with the score tied.
'Who cares whether you start or relieve?' Jolly says. 'Just so you get to play- and eat that big league food.'
Jolly claims the distinction of being one of the few pitchers who never turned in a no-hit game, not even in high school.
'The closest I ever came,' he recalls, 'when I was with Tulsa (Texas League). I pitched a two-hitter against Beaumont, I think.
'Wait a minute, I take that back. I had a no-hitter for eight and two-thirds innings of relief this year before Temple (Johnny Temple of the Redlegs) spoiled it.'
Jolly referred here to the fact that he had pitched hitless ball through his first five relief appearances and for part of his sixth before losing his 'no-hitter.'
'Funny thing, too,' he adds. 'I wasn't a bit nervous.'
Jolly chuckles at the common misconception that he used to be a knuckleball specialist.
'I don't know how that idea got started,' he says, 'but I kept readin' about bein' a knuckleballer when I was goin' good in '54. Sure, I used it once in a while, but the only reason I ever did was to show 'em another pitch.
'The fast ball and slider have always have been my best pitches- except last year, of course. I didn't have any good ones then.'
Asked to name the toughest hitters he has to face in the National League, Jolly replies, 'A lotta hitters give me trouble. I'd say Dark, Reese and Moon give me the most.'
Jolly spent two seasons at Mooresville, posting records of 5-3 in 1946 and 14-7 in 1947. It was then that the Redlegs drafted him for their Tulsa affiliate, for which he had a 3-5 mark in 1948 besides putting in enough time with Columbia (South Atlantic League) to win four and lose two. After that he was 12-7 at Tulsa, 5-11 at Syracuse (International League) and 9-13 at Tulsa before being traded to Kansas City. After he won six and lost one for the Blues in relief, the Braves took their profitable gamble on his services.
'One thing I oughta mention,' Jolly says, 'is the first game I pitched for Tulsa in '48. I beat Dallas, 31-1, and gave up four hits and got four myself. That was the biggest day I ever had at the plate.'
Another big event in Jolly's minor league days came on November 3, 1950, when he married pretty Doris Hunter of Stony Point. The Jollys have two sons now, one three and the other born April 21.
Does he want the kids to follow in their dad's footsteps as a ball player?
'I dunno,' he says. 'We'll see. Maybe they'd be better off going to work!' "
-Bob Wolf, Baseball Digest, July 1956
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