"In 131 games in 1951, his first full season with the Browns, Jim batted .249 and drove in 45 runs. At bat 449 times, he got 112 hits and had eight home runs.
Jim began in baseball in 1942 with Green Bay of the Wisconsin League. He has played for the White Sox and Yankees. He was traded to the Browns in June of 1950."
-1952 Bowman No. 157
"Jim started in pro ball in 1942, when he was only 16. The next year he hit .312 for Lockport and spent 1944-45 in military service.
With Eu Claire in '46, he hit .377 and hit .318 for Milwaukee. After he hit .316 for Hollywood in '47, the White Sox gave him a trial in '48. Jim came up with the Yankees in '49 and was traded to the Browns in '50.
A crackerjack fielder, Jim led outfielders in the Pacific Coast League in 1948 (.997) and American Association in '49 (.991)."
-1952 Topps No. 271
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
1952 Yankee of the Past: Allie Clark
"After three games for the Indians in 1951, Allie was traded to the Athletics. He got into 56 games for the A's, hitting .251. He knocked five home runs, a triple and 12 doubles, and fielded .985.
Allie hit the majors with the Yankees at the end of the 1947 season. He was traded to the Indians in December of the same year."
-1952 Bowman No. 130
"A handy man, who can play third base, first base and the outfield, Allie is an Army veteran. He started in the minors in 1941. After hitting .344 and 334 for Newark in 1946 and '47, he came up with the Yankees and hit .373 in 24 games at the end of the '47 season.
Traded to the Indians, Allie hit .310 in 81 games in 1948. He was sent to San Diego in '49 after a bad start with the Indians and was recalled in 1950. Allie came to the A's in May 1951."
-1952 Topps No. 278
Allie hit the majors with the Yankees at the end of the 1947 season. He was traded to the Indians in December of the same year."
-1952 Bowman No. 130
"A handy man, who can play third base, first base and the outfield, Allie is an Army veteran. He started in the minors in 1941. After hitting .344 and 334 for Newark in 1946 and '47, he came up with the Yankees and hit .373 in 24 games at the end of the '47 season.
Traded to the Indians, Allie hit .310 in 81 games in 1948. He was sent to San Diego in '49 after a bad start with the Indians and was recalled in 1950. Allie came to the A's in May 1951."
-1952 Topps No. 278
1952 Yankee of the Past: Ben Chapman
"'Chappie' played his first season of pro ball at shortstop for Asheville in 1928. He was an outfielder during most of his big league days and ended his career as a pitcher and pinch hitter for Gadsden in '49. Ben has worn the uniform of the Yankees, Senators, Red Sox, Indians, White Sox, Dodgers and Phillies.
He managed the Phillies for four seasons and also managed four minor league teams. He guided Tampa to the Florida-International League pennant in '51 before joining the Reds."
-1952 Topps No. 391
He managed the Phillies for four seasons and also managed four minor league teams. He guided Tampa to the Florida-International League pennant in '51 before joining the Reds."
-1952 Topps No. 391
Friday, April 26, 2019
1952 Yankee of the Past: Tommy Byrne
"After appearing in nine games for the Yankees in 1951, Tommy was traded to the St. Louis Browns. He was in a total of 28 games for the season. His record was 6 and 11.
Tommy began in organized baseball in 1940 with Newark. He has been plagued by wildness in his career."
-1952 Bowman No. 61
"Always bothered by wildness, Tommy seems to have found his control. The Wake Forest star won 15 games in 1949, pitching a 1-hit game that year, and 15 in 1950, striking out a total of 247 in two years. In June 1951, the Yankees traded him to the Browns. That year he was the only pitcher to hit a homer with the bases full.
A veteran of World War II, Tommy started in pro ball in 1940 and had a 17-4 record at Newark in 1942. After two trials, he made the Yankees in 1948."
-1952 Topps No. 241
Tommy began in organized baseball in 1940 with Newark. He has been plagued by wildness in his career."
-1952 Bowman No. 61
"Always bothered by wildness, Tommy seems to have found his control. The Wake Forest star won 15 games in 1949, pitching a 1-hit game that year, and 15 in 1950, striking out a total of 247 in two years. In June 1951, the Yankees traded him to the Browns. That year he was the only pitcher to hit a homer with the bases full.
A veteran of World War II, Tommy started in pro ball in 1940 and had a 17-4 record at Newark in 1942. After two trials, he made the Yankees in 1948."
-1952 Topps No. 241
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
1952 Yankee of the Past: Lew Burdette
"Lew was acquired by the Braves from the Yankees' chain. He got into three games for Boston at the end of the 1951 season and was not involved in any decisions. Lew spent most of the campaign with San Francisco where a 14-12 record resulted from 30 appearances. He was in two games for the Yankees at the end of the 1950 season."
-1952 Bowman No. 244
-1952 Bowman No. 244
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
1952 Yankee Prospect of the Past: Gene Bearden
THE BEARDEN ENIGMA
Boudreau Sets Loyalty Record For Fallen Ace
"If Gene Bearden is with the Cleveland Indians next season, Lou Boudreau should have the services of the most devoted baseball player ever to step on a pitching mound.
Never before in my experience has a Cleveland manager stood so loyally, so stubbornly- and so mysteriously- behind a player whose record was studded with repeated failures.
This writer is prepared to defend almost every move Boudreau makes. Even when he disagrees with the strategy in question, the writer will argue that the manager must have some good reason of his own for doing what he does. But when Boudreau used Bearden, this department was licked. It could think of no possible explanation.
'I have to go with Bearden,' Boudreau said when you asked him about this. 'With his record last year, the good stuff he has when he can get it over the plate and his attitude toward his job, it would be a crime not to give him every chance to get straightened out.'
Mechanically, Bearden's trouble this past season was his wildness. Although Bob Lemon, Bob Feller and Early Wynn all pitched more innings than the handsome southpaw, only Lemon, who worked much more than the others, had issued more bases on balls by September 6.
Because he was forever cluttering up the baselines with free tickets, Gene didn't have to be hit very often before the enemy had a hatfull of runs.
That's why I say he didn't belong in close ball games. I maintain that Boudreau had nine more reliable pitchers than the Long Beach left-hander. I think Gene should have been the last, instead of the first, to be called from the bullpen in such a game as a late season one with the Yankees. The Indians were trailing by only one run when Bearden succeeded Bob Feller. They trailed by three before Boudreau again changed pitchers.
Naturally, there is nothing personal in my attitude. On the contrary, Gene ranks near the top of my list of favorite Indians. I fervently hope that he will come back strong next season. But this season, if I had been Boudreau, I'd write off as one of those things.
You can't help liking the guy, and you can't help admiring his perseverance in the face of a heartbreaking summer. Gene's only hope of entering the big money class this past season was to collect on a 'good year' bonus clause. In mid-season he lost all chance of getting that extra dough. But he never stopped trying to launch his comeback.
'He was the hardest worker at training camp and he's still the hardest worker,' Boudreau said toward the end of the season. 'Just the other night, when he knew he would be called on if we needed a relief pitcher, I caught him throwing hard two hours before the game. I made him stop, of course, but I knew what he had in mind. He was making use of every possible chance to work on his control.'
Bearden's refusal to give up on himself won him the affectionate sympathy, not only of Boudreau and the coaches but of all the other Indians.
I had dinner with Bob Feller and the conversation turned to Bearden's inability to get started.
'Nobody deserves success more than Gene does,' said Bob. 'He works so hard- and he has as much stuff as he had last season. He simply can't get the ball over the plate. I know something about that sort of trouble myself, but I've usually managed to find the range in time to win a lot of games. Gene really must be suffering.'
'What about these rumors,' I asked the straight-speaking Feller, 'that Bearden is a drinking man?'
'They're d----- lies,' snapped Feller. 'Gene may take a drink occasionally, but there isn't a fellow on the club who takes better care of himself. If there is a physical explanation of his wildness, it must go back to the spring, when he hurt his leg a couple of times. I know I couldn't find the plate for weeks after I fell on the mound that night in Philadelphia. But you can't deny those drink rumors too emphatically. They're ridiculous.'
So that's the Bearden story ... a hard-working, popular pitcher who wouldn't quit on himself and whose manager, therefore, would not quit on him, either. I think Boudreau carried the mutual loyalty stunt too far, but come to think of it, if he had to lose games that way, the motive isn't entirely unadmirable, is it?"
-Ed McAuley, condensed from the Cleveland Indians (Baseball Digest, October 1949)
BEARDEN A FLASH IMMORTAL?
His One Big Year May "Outlive" Vets
"Phil Rizzuto has been in the American League for ten years and people are only now beginning to talk of him in the accents hitherto reserved for such as Honus Wagner, Joe Cronin and Lou Boudreau. I mean it took the little guy a whole decade to make the world aware that he was something out of the ordinary in the baseball line.
Gene made it in one season.
A quarter of a century from now Rizzuto will be remembered vaguely, if at all, as the fellow who used to play shortstop for the New York Yankee teams that were topped by that- what was his name again?- that Joe DiMaggio.
Bearden will be remembered as long as the history books are read.
It just goes to show you that fame is one thing and true success is quite another. You don't get to be famous just by being good. You have to be good in the proper spot, the dramatic spot.
Bearden was good, not to say magnificent, in one of the most dramatic spots baseball has ever seen. In the half century of the American League's life, there has been only one pennant tie and only one sudden-death playoff. Bearden, a freshman big leaguer, pitched it with only one day's rest and won it, assuring his team its first championship in twenty-eight years.
He hasn't been a successful pitcher since that day, but his repeated failures won't affect his standing in history. He's in the books to stay.
Bearden was a terrific pitcher in 1948, but I can remember asking Boudreau early in August of that exciting year why he wasn't using the knuckleballer more often. Lou's reply struck me at the time as uncommonly silly.
'Gene is simply not that kind of pitcher,' he said. 'I've got to pick his spots for him.'
Before the year was up Boudreau evidently had changed his mind. Bearden was great in any and every spot, including that final hottest spot of all.
And yet in the light of events it appears that Boudreau had him sized up accurately the first time. Gene simply wasn't that kind of pitcher. He wasn't the kind of pitcher who wins twenty games. He wasn't the kind you counted on in a tough situation. You knew he couldn't do it, and the fact that he had done it and was doing it didn't alter matters.
Early in 1948 it was agreed that he lacked the basic tools. He didn't have a big-league fast ball nor a big-league curve. He had a baffling knuckler, but Boudreau and his coaches doubted that it was enough. For that one year they were wrong, but they were right in the last analysis.
There have been many guesses as to the causes of Bearden's failures last year and this. I'm not adding. I have no theory.
He was wild. He couldn't get his knuckle ball over the plate, and when he was obliged to come in with his fast ball and curve they murdered him. But no one has ever explained why he was impossibly wild with the pitch he had controlled perfectly in 1948.
This I know: He didn't develop a swelled head and he didn't loaf on the job. In the spring training camps of the last two years there was no harder or more earnest worker. He didn't take success for granted. He was willing to pay for it in sweat and aching muscles. But he simply couldn't buy it at that price.
He's had a rough time of it. It's more heartbreaking to hit rock bottom after a brief day at the top than never to have reached the top at all. On the whole he has taken his comedown pretty well.
Not that it will help him much, but I'm wishing him success- the lasting kind- in his new job with the Washington Senators."
-Gordon Cobbledick, condensed from the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Baseball Digest, October 1950)
"Traded to the Browns before the start of the 1952 season, Gene spent 1951 in the uniform of the Detroit Tigers, his third major league team. He got into 38 games, winning 3 and losing 4.
Gene's rookie year in the majors was 1948 with the Cleveland Indians. He had a record of 20 wins, 7 losses."
-1952 Bowman No. 173
"In Gene's rookie year (1948), he won 20 games, while losing 7; he had the best earned-run average in the American League (2.43); he clinched the pennant for the Indians by beating the Red Sox in a playoff game and won a World Series game.
Since then, he had an 8-8 record in '49, was released to the Senators in '50, sold to the Tigers in '51 and traded to the Browns in '52.
In pro ball since 1939, Gene served in World War II. In seven minor league season, he won 90 and lost 51."
-1952 Topps No. 229
Boudreau Sets Loyalty Record For Fallen Ace
"If Gene Bearden is with the Cleveland Indians next season, Lou Boudreau should have the services of the most devoted baseball player ever to step on a pitching mound.
Never before in my experience has a Cleveland manager stood so loyally, so stubbornly- and so mysteriously- behind a player whose record was studded with repeated failures.
This writer is prepared to defend almost every move Boudreau makes. Even when he disagrees with the strategy in question, the writer will argue that the manager must have some good reason of his own for doing what he does. But when Boudreau used Bearden, this department was licked. It could think of no possible explanation.
'I have to go with Bearden,' Boudreau said when you asked him about this. 'With his record last year, the good stuff he has when he can get it over the plate and his attitude toward his job, it would be a crime not to give him every chance to get straightened out.'
Mechanically, Bearden's trouble this past season was his wildness. Although Bob Lemon, Bob Feller and Early Wynn all pitched more innings than the handsome southpaw, only Lemon, who worked much more than the others, had issued more bases on balls by September 6.
Because he was forever cluttering up the baselines with free tickets, Gene didn't have to be hit very often before the enemy had a hatfull of runs.
That's why I say he didn't belong in close ball games. I maintain that Boudreau had nine more reliable pitchers than the Long Beach left-hander. I think Gene should have been the last, instead of the first, to be called from the bullpen in such a game as a late season one with the Yankees. The Indians were trailing by only one run when Bearden succeeded Bob Feller. They trailed by three before Boudreau again changed pitchers.
Naturally, there is nothing personal in my attitude. On the contrary, Gene ranks near the top of my list of favorite Indians. I fervently hope that he will come back strong next season. But this season, if I had been Boudreau, I'd write off as one of those things.
You can't help liking the guy, and you can't help admiring his perseverance in the face of a heartbreaking summer. Gene's only hope of entering the big money class this past season was to collect on a 'good year' bonus clause. In mid-season he lost all chance of getting that extra dough. But he never stopped trying to launch his comeback.
'He was the hardest worker at training camp and he's still the hardest worker,' Boudreau said toward the end of the season. 'Just the other night, when he knew he would be called on if we needed a relief pitcher, I caught him throwing hard two hours before the game. I made him stop, of course, but I knew what he had in mind. He was making use of every possible chance to work on his control.'
Bearden's refusal to give up on himself won him the affectionate sympathy, not only of Boudreau and the coaches but of all the other Indians.
I had dinner with Bob Feller and the conversation turned to Bearden's inability to get started.
'Nobody deserves success more than Gene does,' said Bob. 'He works so hard- and he has as much stuff as he had last season. He simply can't get the ball over the plate. I know something about that sort of trouble myself, but I've usually managed to find the range in time to win a lot of games. Gene really must be suffering.'
'What about these rumors,' I asked the straight-speaking Feller, 'that Bearden is a drinking man?'
'They're d----- lies,' snapped Feller. 'Gene may take a drink occasionally, but there isn't a fellow on the club who takes better care of himself. If there is a physical explanation of his wildness, it must go back to the spring, when he hurt his leg a couple of times. I know I couldn't find the plate for weeks after I fell on the mound that night in Philadelphia. But you can't deny those drink rumors too emphatically. They're ridiculous.'
So that's the Bearden story ... a hard-working, popular pitcher who wouldn't quit on himself and whose manager, therefore, would not quit on him, either. I think Boudreau carried the mutual loyalty stunt too far, but come to think of it, if he had to lose games that way, the motive isn't entirely unadmirable, is it?"
-Ed McAuley, condensed from the Cleveland Indians (Baseball Digest, October 1949)
BEARDEN A FLASH IMMORTAL?
His One Big Year May "Outlive" Vets
"Phil Rizzuto has been in the American League for ten years and people are only now beginning to talk of him in the accents hitherto reserved for such as Honus Wagner, Joe Cronin and Lou Boudreau. I mean it took the little guy a whole decade to make the world aware that he was something out of the ordinary in the baseball line.
Gene made it in one season.
A quarter of a century from now Rizzuto will be remembered vaguely, if at all, as the fellow who used to play shortstop for the New York Yankee teams that were topped by that- what was his name again?- that Joe DiMaggio.
Bearden will be remembered as long as the history books are read.
It just goes to show you that fame is one thing and true success is quite another. You don't get to be famous just by being good. You have to be good in the proper spot, the dramatic spot.
Bearden was good, not to say magnificent, in one of the most dramatic spots baseball has ever seen. In the half century of the American League's life, there has been only one pennant tie and only one sudden-death playoff. Bearden, a freshman big leaguer, pitched it with only one day's rest and won it, assuring his team its first championship in twenty-eight years.
He hasn't been a successful pitcher since that day, but his repeated failures won't affect his standing in history. He's in the books to stay.
Bearden was a terrific pitcher in 1948, but I can remember asking Boudreau early in August of that exciting year why he wasn't using the knuckleballer more often. Lou's reply struck me at the time as uncommonly silly.
'Gene is simply not that kind of pitcher,' he said. 'I've got to pick his spots for him.'
Before the year was up Boudreau evidently had changed his mind. Bearden was great in any and every spot, including that final hottest spot of all.
And yet in the light of events it appears that Boudreau had him sized up accurately the first time. Gene simply wasn't that kind of pitcher. He wasn't the kind of pitcher who wins twenty games. He wasn't the kind you counted on in a tough situation. You knew he couldn't do it, and the fact that he had done it and was doing it didn't alter matters.
Early in 1948 it was agreed that he lacked the basic tools. He didn't have a big-league fast ball nor a big-league curve. He had a baffling knuckler, but Boudreau and his coaches doubted that it was enough. For that one year they were wrong, but they were right in the last analysis.
There have been many guesses as to the causes of Bearden's failures last year and this. I'm not adding. I have no theory.
He was wild. He couldn't get his knuckle ball over the plate, and when he was obliged to come in with his fast ball and curve they murdered him. But no one has ever explained why he was impossibly wild with the pitch he had controlled perfectly in 1948.
This I know: He didn't develop a swelled head and he didn't loaf on the job. In the spring training camps of the last two years there was no harder or more earnest worker. He didn't take success for granted. He was willing to pay for it in sweat and aching muscles. But he simply couldn't buy it at that price.
He's had a rough time of it. It's more heartbreaking to hit rock bottom after a brief day at the top than never to have reached the top at all. On the whole he has taken his comedown pretty well.
Not that it will help him much, but I'm wishing him success- the lasting kind- in his new job with the Washington Senators."
-Gordon Cobbledick, condensed from the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Baseball Digest, October 1950)
"Traded to the Browns before the start of the 1952 season, Gene spent 1951 in the uniform of the Detroit Tigers, his third major league team. He got into 38 games, winning 3 and losing 4.
Gene's rookie year in the majors was 1948 with the Cleveland Indians. He had a record of 20 wins, 7 losses."
-1952 Bowman No. 173
"In Gene's rookie year (1948), he won 20 games, while losing 7; he had the best earned-run average in the American League (2.43); he clinched the pennant for the Indians by beating the Red Sox in a playoff game and won a World Series game.
Since then, he had an 8-8 record in '49, was released to the Senators in '50, sold to the Tigers in '51 and traded to the Browns in '52.
In pro ball since 1939, Gene served in World War II. In seven minor league season, he won 90 and lost 51."
-1952 Topps No. 229
Sunday, April 21, 2019
1952 Yankee of the Past: Paul Waner
CALLABLES ARE SWINGABLES
"Paul 'Big Poison' Waner, recently voted into the Hall of Fame, was talking about protesting called strikes:
'One year I was called out on strikes nineteen times but I never squawked. I always figured that if the umpire missed the pitch, he didn't miss it by more than two inches- and if I didn't take a cut at a pitch that was within two inches of the corner, I deserved to be called out on strikes.' "
-Bill Bryson in the Des Moines Register (Baseball Digest, March 1952)
HE HAD A SEE-ING EYE BAT!
"Paul Waner had his nights out even when he was Pittsburgh's and the National League's best hitter.
Waner showed up for a game with the Chicago Cubs after one of those nights, a bit wobbly and with a big head. Pat Malone, who was scheduled to pitch that day, strolled behind the batting cage, watching the Pirates at their hitting practice. He had a habit of throwing the high, hard one under Waner's chin in an effort to 'loosen' him up at the plate.
Paul turned to Malone and said, 'If you want to knock me down, this is the day. I couldn't possibly get out of the way of a duster.'
Result: Waner hit two home runs that day.
It must be remembered, however, that Paul Waner was one of those extremely rare exceptions in baseball."
-Sec Taylor in the Des Moines Register (Baseball Digest, August 1952)
"Paul 'Big Poison' Waner, recently voted into the Hall of Fame, was talking about protesting called strikes:
'One year I was called out on strikes nineteen times but I never squawked. I always figured that if the umpire missed the pitch, he didn't miss it by more than two inches- and if I didn't take a cut at a pitch that was within two inches of the corner, I deserved to be called out on strikes.' "
-Bill Bryson in the Des Moines Register (Baseball Digest, March 1952)
HE HAD A SEE-ING EYE BAT!
"Paul Waner had his nights out even when he was Pittsburgh's and the National League's best hitter.
Waner showed up for a game with the Chicago Cubs after one of those nights, a bit wobbly and with a big head. Pat Malone, who was scheduled to pitch that day, strolled behind the batting cage, watching the Pirates at their hitting practice. He had a habit of throwing the high, hard one under Waner's chin in an effort to 'loosen' him up at the plate.
Paul turned to Malone and said, 'If you want to knock me down, this is the day. I couldn't possibly get out of the way of a duster.'
Result: Waner hit two home runs that day.
It must be remembered, however, that Paul Waner was one of those extremely rare exceptions in baseball."
-Sec Taylor in the Des Moines Register (Baseball Digest, August 1952)
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