"Jim had a good season with the Tigers in 1953, appearing in 138 games and hitting .288. He had 26 doubles, six triples and batted in 62 runs.
He has played for 10 different teams since 1942. He came to the majors in 1948 with the Chicago White Sox, although he spent most of that season with Hollywood. He was traded to the Yankees in 1949.
In June 1950, Jim was traded to the St. Louis Browns, and came to the Tigers in 1952."
-1954 Bowman No. 55
"Jim's 1953 batting mark was the highest of his career. Before joining the Tigers in '52, he had played for the White Sox, Browns and Yankees.
As a teenager, he was a schoolboy sensation in Wisconsin. When the Green Bay shortstop was drafted in '42 Jim took over. Although he was only 16 he made the grade and went on to compile a .321 batting average while in the minors.
After playing the infield for two years, he became an outfielder in 1946 with Eau Claire where he hit .377. In '48 Jim batted .333 for Hollywood and in '49 batted .317 for Kansas City. "
-1954 Topps No. 111
"Jim's .992 fielding percentage for 138 games for the Tigers in 1953 was only four thousandths of a point behind the best fielding average for an outfielder in the American League. He made but three errors in 364 total chances.
In the batting department, Jim had a .288 average. His 138 hits were good for a total of 209 bases and he included a total of 26 doubles, six triples and 11 homers among his hits. He batted in 62 runs and scored 77."
-1954 Red Man No. AL-24
Wednesday, April 29, 2020
1954 Yankee of the Past: Clint Courtney
"Clint is one of the scrappiest and most rugged catchers in baseball. He hit .251 in 106 games for the Browns in 1953.
He started in pro ball in 1947 with Bisbee and spent four seasons with that club. He once had a string of 10 consecutive hits. During the winter of 1950-51, Clint played ball in Puerto Rico and topped all players in votes cast for the all-star team."
-1954 Bowman No. 69
He started in pro ball in 1947 with Bisbee and spent four seasons with that club. He once had a string of 10 consecutive hits. During the winter of 1950-51, Clint played ball in Puerto Rico and topped all players in votes cast for the all-star team."
-1954 Bowman No. 69
1954 Yankee of the Past: Don Bollweg
"The Athletics acquired Don in a big trade before the 1954 season. He's considered a great prospect.
In 1952 with the Yankees' Kansas City farm team Don hit .325 and had 27 doubles, 14 triples and 23 home runs. He was voted the American Association's Most Valuable Player as a result.
Don played sandlot and Legion ball before he broke into baseball by attending a Cardinal tryout camp. He was with the Cards in spring training in 1951, then sent to Kansas City."
-1954 Bowman No. 115
In 1952 with the Yankees' Kansas City farm team Don hit .325 and had 27 doubles, 14 triples and 23 home runs. He was voted the American Association's Most Valuable Player as a result.
Don played sandlot and Legion ball before he broke into baseball by attending a Cardinal tryout camp. He was with the Cards in spring training in 1951, then sent to Kansas City."
-1954 Bowman No. 115
Saturday, April 18, 2020
1954 Yankee of the Past: Bob Porterfield
PORTERFIELD'S OUT TO RESCUE HIS RESCUER
"The Law of Compensation is working these days for Bucky Harris who is being befriended by the pitcher for whom he went down the line in 1948, at the cost of his job as manager of the Yankees.
Bob Porterfield, central in L'Affaire Porterfield that led to the firing of Harris by the Yankees six years ago, now is the biggest force working toward saving Harris' job as manager of the Senators. It's a warming story of a pitcher's gratitude to his manager.
The Yankees never did give specific reasons for the discharge of Harris at the end of the 1948 season, unless it was his failure to win two pennants in a row. He missed the second one by a two-and-one-half-game margin in a year when Joe DiMaggio was hurt and Harris' Yankee lineup otherwise was so wounded he had to wind up his club with bailing-wire.
But it was rather well understood that General Manager George Weiss was taking a dark view of Harris, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Harris had been the favorite of Larry MacPhail of an older Yankee regime, and latterly Weiss was viewing Harris as the source of his troubles with the New York baseball-writing press which was solidly on the manager's side in the Porterfield case.
The Yankees, in midseason, were suffering from a pitching shortage and Harris on a trip to the Yanks' Newark spotted Porterfield as the fellow who could give them a lift. He asked Weiss to bring up the big right-hander immediately, and Weiss refused. The New York writers fried the general manager.
Eventually, Porterfield was brought up, but too late. He won five games, lost three for the Yankees, but they couldn't get home. Weiss was exceedingly uncomfortable in the continued sharpness of the press section and was unforgiving toward Harris. At the end of the season, Harris was out.
Two years later, Porterfield was no longer with the Yankees, either. Dogged by injuries and a chronic sore arm, he was moved down to Kansas City. In 1950 he won two games only, one for the Yanks, one for Kansas City. Meanwhile, Harris was back in Washington. The Yankees offered him Porterfield along with Fred Sanford, Tom Ferrick and $50,000 for pitcher Bob Kuzava.
Before Harris made the trade, he called Porterfield by long-distance for some assurance on the condition of his arm. 'It's good, and I'll pitch my head off for you, Bucky,' said Porterfield. Harris told the Yankees it was a deal.
Porterfield has, in fact, been pitching his head off for Harris ever since. The high point was last year when he led all the league's pitchers with his 22 victories and nine shutouts. This season Porterfield is indicating he'll repeat that distinction, despite the low-caliber Washington club.
Nothing less than a first-division finish may save Harris' job with the Senators. He's on the tag-end of his two-year contract and the front office is thinking he's expendable. Porterfield is the best thing he has going for him, and Big Bob is geared to give an immense try at rescuing the man who rescued him from the minors.
There is no other pitching stalwart in the league to compare with Porterfield. This season he has stopped Washington losing streaks of six-straight, five-straight and four-straight. Without him the Senators would have completely hopeless. When he is working, there is more than a reasonable certainty they are going to win a ball game.
Harris was talking the other night about some of the Washington pitchers he had managed- Walter Johnson, Al Crowder, Fred Marberry, Earl Whitehill and a dozen other good ones. 'I won't rate 'em all down the line,' he said, 'but this much you can quote me on. After Johnson, slip in the name of Bob Porterfield and you'll have 'em one-two in my most honest opinion.' "
-Shirley Povich, Washington Post and Times-Herald (Baseball Digest, August 1954)
"Bob is a great pitcher who has often worked in very tough luck. However, Lady Luck more than smiled on him in 1953 as she matched his skill. He won the most games in the American League, 22; he had the most complete games, 24; and he turned in the most shutouts, nine. He lost 10 and his earned run average of 3.35 was tenth best in the league.
Bob began in baseball as the property of the New York Yankees. He was a paratrooper during World War II."
-1954 Bowman No. 24
"Bob had an excellent season for the Washington Senators in 1953. His 22 wins were the most in the league, he had the most complete games with 24 and he was responsible for the most shutouts, whitewashing the opposition nine times. Bob lost 10 games, and his earned run average was 3.35.
Hard luck dogged Bob during the earlier stages of his career in the form of injuries, but he has now achieved the promise he showed."
1954 Red Man No. AL-18
"The Law of Compensation is working these days for Bucky Harris who is being befriended by the pitcher for whom he went down the line in 1948, at the cost of his job as manager of the Yankees.
Bob Porterfield, central in L'Affaire Porterfield that led to the firing of Harris by the Yankees six years ago, now is the biggest force working toward saving Harris' job as manager of the Senators. It's a warming story of a pitcher's gratitude to his manager.
The Yankees never did give specific reasons for the discharge of Harris at the end of the 1948 season, unless it was his failure to win two pennants in a row. He missed the second one by a two-and-one-half-game margin in a year when Joe DiMaggio was hurt and Harris' Yankee lineup otherwise was so wounded he had to wind up his club with bailing-wire.
But it was rather well understood that General Manager George Weiss was taking a dark view of Harris, for a couple of reasons. Firstly, Harris had been the favorite of Larry MacPhail of an older Yankee regime, and latterly Weiss was viewing Harris as the source of his troubles with the New York baseball-writing press which was solidly on the manager's side in the Porterfield case.
The Yankees, in midseason, were suffering from a pitching shortage and Harris on a trip to the Yanks' Newark spotted Porterfield as the fellow who could give them a lift. He asked Weiss to bring up the big right-hander immediately, and Weiss refused. The New York writers fried the general manager.
Eventually, Porterfield was brought up, but too late. He won five games, lost three for the Yankees, but they couldn't get home. Weiss was exceedingly uncomfortable in the continued sharpness of the press section and was unforgiving toward Harris. At the end of the season, Harris was out.
Two years later, Porterfield was no longer with the Yankees, either. Dogged by injuries and a chronic sore arm, he was moved down to Kansas City. In 1950 he won two games only, one for the Yanks, one for Kansas City. Meanwhile, Harris was back in Washington. The Yankees offered him Porterfield along with Fred Sanford, Tom Ferrick and $50,000 for pitcher Bob Kuzava.
Before Harris made the trade, he called Porterfield by long-distance for some assurance on the condition of his arm. 'It's good, and I'll pitch my head off for you, Bucky,' said Porterfield. Harris told the Yankees it was a deal.
Porterfield has, in fact, been pitching his head off for Harris ever since. The high point was last year when he led all the league's pitchers with his 22 victories and nine shutouts. This season Porterfield is indicating he'll repeat that distinction, despite the low-caliber Washington club.
Nothing less than a first-division finish may save Harris' job with the Senators. He's on the tag-end of his two-year contract and the front office is thinking he's expendable. Porterfield is the best thing he has going for him, and Big Bob is geared to give an immense try at rescuing the man who rescued him from the minors.
There is no other pitching stalwart in the league to compare with Porterfield. This season he has stopped Washington losing streaks of six-straight, five-straight and four-straight. Without him the Senators would have completely hopeless. When he is working, there is more than a reasonable certainty they are going to win a ball game.
Harris was talking the other night about some of the Washington pitchers he had managed- Walter Johnson, Al Crowder, Fred Marberry, Earl Whitehill and a dozen other good ones. 'I won't rate 'em all down the line,' he said, 'but this much you can quote me on. After Johnson, slip in the name of Bob Porterfield and you'll have 'em one-two in my most honest opinion.' "
-Shirley Povich, Washington Post and Times-Herald (Baseball Digest, August 1954)
"Bob is a great pitcher who has often worked in very tough luck. However, Lady Luck more than smiled on him in 1953 as she matched his skill. He won the most games in the American League, 22; he had the most complete games, 24; and he turned in the most shutouts, nine. He lost 10 and his earned run average of 3.35 was tenth best in the league.
Bob began in baseball as the property of the New York Yankees. He was a paratrooper during World War II."
-1954 Bowman No. 24
"Bob had an excellent season for the Washington Senators in 1953. His 22 wins were the most in the league, he had the most complete games with 24 and he was responsible for the most shutouts, whitewashing the opposition nine times. Bob lost 10 games, and his earned run average was 3.35.
Hard luck dogged Bob during the earlier stages of his career in the form of injuries, but he has now achieved the promise he showed."
1954 Red Man No. AL-18
Wednesday, April 15, 2020
1954 Yankee of the Past: Pat Malone
PAT MALONE'S BIG BETTING COUP
He Got 10-1 He Wouldn't Win and Lost, 1-0, In The 14t!
"It was in a general discussion of players' wages that Paul Richards, the White Sox manager, brought up the name of the late Pat Malone. It was back about 1938 that Malone, one-time Cub great, was hanging on with Chattanooga in the Southern Association and Richards was managing Atlanta in the same loop.
The Lookouts were the whipping boys for the rest of the circuit, especially New Orleans.
With Johnny Beazley and Al Jurisich pitching for New Orleans, Chattanooga used to take steady lickings. The odds were often as high as 8-1 as New Orleans bettors were hard-pressed to find anybody who wanted to wager on the visitors.
Malone mulled the situation over for a while and, all of a sudden, he became the hardest-working pitcher on the Chattanooga team. He cut down on his eating, ran his legs off in the outfield and pitched batting drill at least every other day.
Slowly, but surely, he worked himself back into a reasonable facsimile of his old major league form.
On the next trip to New Orleans, Pat had saved up two pay checks amounting to approximately $300. By this time Chattanooga was going so badly that the price, with Beazley hurling for New Orleans, was 10-1. This was what Malone had been waiting and working for. He asked Manager Rogers Hornsby to let him start that game.
It just so happened that Pat knew somebody who knew where a guy could invest in an afternoon of baseball and up went the $300 against $3,000 on Chattanooga.
Naturally it was all very hush-hush, because nobody is supposed to bet on baseball, except in the grandstands or the bleachers or cigar stores.
There should be a wonderful pot-of-gold ending to this story instead of the one with a moral twist. Malone pitched one of the greatest games of his life that day for a final, last-ditch grubstake. Beazley held Chattanooga to two hits. Malone got both, a double and a triple ... and got beat 1-0 in 14 innings!"
-John P. Carmichael, Chicago Daily News (Baseball Digest, May 1954)
He Got 10-1 He Wouldn't Win and Lost, 1-0, In The 14t!
"It was in a general discussion of players' wages that Paul Richards, the White Sox manager, brought up the name of the late Pat Malone. It was back about 1938 that Malone, one-time Cub great, was hanging on with Chattanooga in the Southern Association and Richards was managing Atlanta in the same loop.
The Lookouts were the whipping boys for the rest of the circuit, especially New Orleans.
With Johnny Beazley and Al Jurisich pitching for New Orleans, Chattanooga used to take steady lickings. The odds were often as high as 8-1 as New Orleans bettors were hard-pressed to find anybody who wanted to wager on the visitors.
Malone mulled the situation over for a while and, all of a sudden, he became the hardest-working pitcher on the Chattanooga team. He cut down on his eating, ran his legs off in the outfield and pitched batting drill at least every other day.
Slowly, but surely, he worked himself back into a reasonable facsimile of his old major league form.
On the next trip to New Orleans, Pat had saved up two pay checks amounting to approximately $300. By this time Chattanooga was going so badly that the price, with Beazley hurling for New Orleans, was 10-1. This was what Malone had been waiting and working for. He asked Manager Rogers Hornsby to let him start that game.
It just so happened that Pat knew somebody who knew where a guy could invest in an afternoon of baseball and up went the $300 against $3,000 on Chattanooga.
Naturally it was all very hush-hush, because nobody is supposed to bet on baseball, except in the grandstands or the bleachers or cigar stores.
There should be a wonderful pot-of-gold ending to this story instead of the one with a moral twist. Malone pitched one of the greatest games of his life that day for a final, last-ditch grubstake. Beazley held Chattanooga to two hits. Malone got both, a double and a triple ... and got beat 1-0 in 14 innings!"
-John P. Carmichael, Chicago Daily News (Baseball Digest, May 1954)
Sunday, April 5, 2020
1954 Yankee Prospect of the Past: Bob Keegan
KEEGAN'S IN FOCUS NOW
Camera Worker Locates Plate With Breaking Stuff, Develops As White Sox Mound Surprise
"In the softness of a pleasant April evening at Boston's Fenway Park this spring, the multitudes had departed and only the clicking of typewriters and telegraph instruments aloft in the pressbox could be heard to break the stillness.
In a matter of a few moments the world would be reading the story of Bob Keegan's 5-0 shutout over the Red Sox. The tall, dark and handsome White Sox right-hander now had pitched 18 consecutive scoreless innings over the then-highly regarded Red Sox.
Across the greensward, where only a few minutes before had been the struggle for victory, there now appeared the lone figure of a man running in the outfield. It was this same Bob Keegan. He would run the length of the field, pause and then do it again.
'You'd think that pitching a shutout would be enough for one guy in a day,' remarked a baseball writer, as he peered over his typewriter. 'Isn't he violating the union rules? Most players would be knocking people down to get into the hotel dining room by now?'
But though Keegan works in the negative department of a camera factory during the off-season he has a positive approach to his baseball. This performance had been his third victory in as many starts in the 1954 season, but this had not been enough.
While interviewers waited on the sideline, the big pitcher ran for 15 minutes. At length he called it a day and was immediately surrounded by a committee from the pressbox.
'I know you guys think I'm nuts,' he began, as if sensing the question. 'But I weigh 207 pounds now and I'd like to get down under 200. I have a tendency to put on weight easily in the winter and that's my biggest problem.
'Then, too,' he went on, 'a fellow can never afford to let his legs get out of shape. I did a lot of running this spring, but I still need plenty more.'
'Is this your own idea?' an interviewer wanted to know.
'No, not exactly,' he smiled. 'Mr. Richards (White Sox Manager Paul Richards) thinks of everything. He suggested it. We didn't even have a set of scales in the clubhouse at spring training, but he knew I was a few pounds overweight. But it's not tough to run after you win.
'A year ago I was on the disabled list for a month and I was plenty worried about it. It was my arm. I usually have some trouble in the spring, but this year I haven't. Last year I didn't get going until late in the season and we're not taking any chances this time.'
Keegan thought the matter a moment.
'I've got to have a good season this year,' he said. 'I'm 32 years old, you know ... and I have a wife and two kids. I spent seven years in the minors before I came to this club. I don't want to go back.
'If I have a good season this year I'll get a better contract in 1955, and then I can give the wife and the kids some of the things we've always wanted.'
It was almost as if Keegan were making a prophecy of things to come. As the season wears on it is increasingly evident that the personable citizen of Rochester, N.Y., has earned a distinction as one of the finest pitchers in the majors.
By June 20 the big right-hander had won ten and lost two. He was the first American League pitcher to win ten games during the 1954 season. On the same date in 1953, he had won none and in fact, had made only three mound appearances. But now he had pitched two shutouts and completed ten of 13 starts. If you included his last three victories of 1953, he had won 13 of the last 15 decisions in which he was the pitcher of record.
With better luck, it could have been ten in a row for Keegan this spring. He held Washington to five hits in May but unfortunately bumped into Bob Porterfield's four-hitter and a 1-0 defeat.
In his first 110 innings of the current season, Keegan gave up only 36 walks. Therein, perhaps, is the secret of his success.
Discussing the phenomenal achievements of the new White Sox ace, Manager Al Lopez of the Cleveland Indians was moved to remark:
'I don't understand it. I watched him for three years in 1948, 1949 and 1950 when he was pitching for Kansas City and I was managing Indianapolis in the American Association. He was much faster then than he is now and he never won more than nine games and in that same season he lost 15.'
Apprised of Lopez' mystification, Manager Richards observed:
'There is probably one thing Lopez hasn't noticed about Keegan. He wasn't getting his breaking stuff over the plate then, but now he is. As a consequence, he is throwing more curves and making it really rough on hitters.
'Actually,' continued Richards, 'I doubt if he could throw a completely straight ball. Even his fast ball breaks a little.
'I watched Keegan closely last fall after he got going and it was monotonous the way he was mowing down the hitters.'
In his last three games of 1953, Keegan pitched two shutouts and won his other game, 7-2. In these same games he pitched two three-hitters and allowed only the meager total of 11 hits.
Keegan's own analysis of his abrupt rise in stature as a pitcher is modest, to say the least.
'It's probably a combination of many things,' he says. 'If I could point to any one thing more than the others, it would probably be the fact that I am holding the ball differently than I did in my earlier days as a pitcher.
'I was with the Yankees, though still the property of the Kansas City club, in the spring of 1951 when I heard Coach Jim Turner drop a remark that he had never had much success holding the ball with the front fingers placed across the seam of the ball.
'I decided to try holding the ball with the fingers parallel to the seams and found it made the ball sink. Don't ask me why. In 1950 I had won four and lost 12 with Kansas City, but now with Kansas City and Syracuse in 1951 I was able to win 14 and lose nine. It was the best year I had since 1947 when I won ten and lost five for Binghamton before I was moved up to the Newark club. But I got off to a bad start with Newark and won only one game while losing six.
'Another thing I think has helped me considerably is that I have gained some weight since 1951 when I scaled about 180. I suppose the added weight has made me a bit stronger and there's a bit more life on my fast ball.'
Manager Richards has a slightly enlarged theory about Keegan.
'I would say that his determination has been his strong point. Of course he's getting his breaking ball over the plate now, but what I have noticed most about him is that usually he manages to retire the hitter who is most apt to hurt him.
'He's a lot smarter now and I suppose that's the natural eventuality with a fellow of his intelligence after so many years in the business.
'Keegan is unlike a lot of young pitchers who are sensational in the minors but fail in the big leagues. They are fooling the weaker minor league hitters with speed and a fast-breaking curve, but the hitters are swinging at balls that are not over the plate. When they come to the majors the hitters just wait for them to get the ball in the strike zone. They don't get it there, so they're dead.'
Richards' handling of Keegan's sore arm also was a factor. He ordered him to cultivate the soreness in January instead of when the season started. 'I had him working out at the University of Rochester in the field house during the winter,' says Richards. 'Sure enough, the arm got sore, but by the end of spring training he had worked it out.'
Unwittingly, Keegan was the inspiration for a minor dispute between Richards and General Manager Frank Lane last September. After months of maneuvering in which the manager was cautiously attempting to prepare Bob for regular starting assignments, he had lost some of his enthusiasm for the right-hander. Keegan had not distinguished himself in several relief appearances and the White Sox were fighting to finish the season in third place.
Keegan had pitched only one complete game before mid-September, but Lane was of the opinion that he should be getting more starting assignments.
'If Keegan doesn't pitch more for us,' stormed Frantic Frankie, 'I'll have to send him back to the minors where he can get more work.'
Finally, on September 15, Richards found a spot and started Keegan against the Red Sox. The result was a three-hit shutout. There would be another shutout against the St. Louis Browns and a five-hitter against the same Browns and the season would end with Richards making plans to capitalize on Keegan's talents in 1954.
By the end of 1953, while Keegan had won only seven games and lost five, his earned run average was a respectable 2.73. This may have been a hint of what was to come.
Quite to the contrary, Keegan had given the astute Yankees small hint of a brilliant future when he was under their spreading wing. To be sure, what was the White Sox' gain was the Bombers' loss, because it was Paul Krichell, the discerning Yankee scout, who first discovered the youth.
Krichell saw Keegan play shortstop for John Marshall High School in Rochester when he first became interested. Bob was a skinny kid weighing 155 pounds then, but he was agile, had an unusually strong throwing arm and he could hit pretty good.
The Yankees offered Keegan a contract after his graduation from high school and he accepted, mainly because he wanted to pursue a baseball career, which was the fervent wish of his father who had played much baseball in his youth, and because the New York club was prepared to pay young Keegan's tuition to Bucknell University.
Bob went to Bucknell for two and a half years before he entered the 13th Air Corps and the study of navigation. He was in Service three years, nine months of which he spent in the Philippines as a navigator. And during his three years in Service there was small opportunity- at least for him- to play any baseball.
Out of the Air Corps, Keegan was sent to the Binghamton club, but not as a shortstop.
'I had gone from 155 pounds to 180 pounds in the Service,' he said, 'and I wasn't quite as agile. We ate well in the Air Corps. But I could still throw hard. I guess I wasn't much of a hitter by then, either, and they knew that.'
Keegan, however, could not always fire the ball.
'I had trouble with my arm every spring,' he said. 'I guess that and their wealth of material was what finally convinced the Yankees I'd never make it.'
In 1951, then, Keegan was sold by the Yankees' Kansas City club to Syracuse, where he won 13 and lost nine that first season. At the end of the 1952 season, when Keegan had won 20 and lost 11, the White Sox moved in and bought up his contract.
Keegan is a clean-cut, earnest young man who is smart enough to know the value of a successful baseball career, but he has no particular ambition to remain in the game after he is through playing.
'My plans may be changed,' he said, 'but I'd like to get established in the sales department of a camera manufacturer in Rochester when I'm through pitching. I work in the firm now in the winter, you know.'
Keegan married Lois Ruth Hansford, his grammar school and high school sweetheart on May 20, 1944, while Bob was still in the Air Corps. Their two children are Robert, seven, and Lynn, five.
The personable pitching star owns his own home, a Cape Cod residence, in Rochester. Last winter he built two rooms in the attic. This summer he's helping the White Sox built 'upstairs,' too."
-John C. Hoffman, Baseball Digest, August 1954
"Big and fast, Bob finished his rookie year in the majors in 1953 with three brilliant wins, two of them 3-hit shutouts and had the second best ERA on the White Sox staff. At Syracuse in 1952, he was the International League's ranking hurler with a 20-11 record, 111 strikeouts and a 2.64 ERA, pitching 27 complete games. Bob had a 13-9 mark at Syracuse in 1951.
Bob was signed by the Yankees as an infielder while in college. He had a very strong arm and the Yanks decided to make him a hurler. And Bob, who played third and short in college, is one of the league's top right-handers."
-1954 Topps No. 100
Camera Worker Locates Plate With Breaking Stuff, Develops As White Sox Mound Surprise
"In the softness of a pleasant April evening at Boston's Fenway Park this spring, the multitudes had departed and only the clicking of typewriters and telegraph instruments aloft in the pressbox could be heard to break the stillness.
In a matter of a few moments the world would be reading the story of Bob Keegan's 5-0 shutout over the Red Sox. The tall, dark and handsome White Sox right-hander now had pitched 18 consecutive scoreless innings over the then-highly regarded Red Sox.
Across the greensward, where only a few minutes before had been the struggle for victory, there now appeared the lone figure of a man running in the outfield. It was this same Bob Keegan. He would run the length of the field, pause and then do it again.
'You'd think that pitching a shutout would be enough for one guy in a day,' remarked a baseball writer, as he peered over his typewriter. 'Isn't he violating the union rules? Most players would be knocking people down to get into the hotel dining room by now?'
But though Keegan works in the negative department of a camera factory during the off-season he has a positive approach to his baseball. This performance had been his third victory in as many starts in the 1954 season, but this had not been enough.
While interviewers waited on the sideline, the big pitcher ran for 15 minutes. At length he called it a day and was immediately surrounded by a committee from the pressbox.
'I know you guys think I'm nuts,' he began, as if sensing the question. 'But I weigh 207 pounds now and I'd like to get down under 200. I have a tendency to put on weight easily in the winter and that's my biggest problem.
'Then, too,' he went on, 'a fellow can never afford to let his legs get out of shape. I did a lot of running this spring, but I still need plenty more.'
'Is this your own idea?' an interviewer wanted to know.
'No, not exactly,' he smiled. 'Mr. Richards (White Sox Manager Paul Richards) thinks of everything. He suggested it. We didn't even have a set of scales in the clubhouse at spring training, but he knew I was a few pounds overweight. But it's not tough to run after you win.
'A year ago I was on the disabled list for a month and I was plenty worried about it. It was my arm. I usually have some trouble in the spring, but this year I haven't. Last year I didn't get going until late in the season and we're not taking any chances this time.'
Keegan thought the matter a moment.
'I've got to have a good season this year,' he said. 'I'm 32 years old, you know ... and I have a wife and two kids. I spent seven years in the minors before I came to this club. I don't want to go back.
'If I have a good season this year I'll get a better contract in 1955, and then I can give the wife and the kids some of the things we've always wanted.'
It was almost as if Keegan were making a prophecy of things to come. As the season wears on it is increasingly evident that the personable citizen of Rochester, N.Y., has earned a distinction as one of the finest pitchers in the majors.
By June 20 the big right-hander had won ten and lost two. He was the first American League pitcher to win ten games during the 1954 season. On the same date in 1953, he had won none and in fact, had made only three mound appearances. But now he had pitched two shutouts and completed ten of 13 starts. If you included his last three victories of 1953, he had won 13 of the last 15 decisions in which he was the pitcher of record.
With better luck, it could have been ten in a row for Keegan this spring. He held Washington to five hits in May but unfortunately bumped into Bob Porterfield's four-hitter and a 1-0 defeat.
In his first 110 innings of the current season, Keegan gave up only 36 walks. Therein, perhaps, is the secret of his success.
Discussing the phenomenal achievements of the new White Sox ace, Manager Al Lopez of the Cleveland Indians was moved to remark:
'I don't understand it. I watched him for three years in 1948, 1949 and 1950 when he was pitching for Kansas City and I was managing Indianapolis in the American Association. He was much faster then than he is now and he never won more than nine games and in that same season he lost 15.'
Apprised of Lopez' mystification, Manager Richards observed:
'There is probably one thing Lopez hasn't noticed about Keegan. He wasn't getting his breaking stuff over the plate then, but now he is. As a consequence, he is throwing more curves and making it really rough on hitters.
'Actually,' continued Richards, 'I doubt if he could throw a completely straight ball. Even his fast ball breaks a little.
'I watched Keegan closely last fall after he got going and it was monotonous the way he was mowing down the hitters.'
In his last three games of 1953, Keegan pitched two shutouts and won his other game, 7-2. In these same games he pitched two three-hitters and allowed only the meager total of 11 hits.
Keegan's own analysis of his abrupt rise in stature as a pitcher is modest, to say the least.
'It's probably a combination of many things,' he says. 'If I could point to any one thing more than the others, it would probably be the fact that I am holding the ball differently than I did in my earlier days as a pitcher.
'I was with the Yankees, though still the property of the Kansas City club, in the spring of 1951 when I heard Coach Jim Turner drop a remark that he had never had much success holding the ball with the front fingers placed across the seam of the ball.
'I decided to try holding the ball with the fingers parallel to the seams and found it made the ball sink. Don't ask me why. In 1950 I had won four and lost 12 with Kansas City, but now with Kansas City and Syracuse in 1951 I was able to win 14 and lose nine. It was the best year I had since 1947 when I won ten and lost five for Binghamton before I was moved up to the Newark club. But I got off to a bad start with Newark and won only one game while losing six.
'Another thing I think has helped me considerably is that I have gained some weight since 1951 when I scaled about 180. I suppose the added weight has made me a bit stronger and there's a bit more life on my fast ball.'
Manager Richards has a slightly enlarged theory about Keegan.
'I would say that his determination has been his strong point. Of course he's getting his breaking ball over the plate now, but what I have noticed most about him is that usually he manages to retire the hitter who is most apt to hurt him.
'He's a lot smarter now and I suppose that's the natural eventuality with a fellow of his intelligence after so many years in the business.
'Keegan is unlike a lot of young pitchers who are sensational in the minors but fail in the big leagues. They are fooling the weaker minor league hitters with speed and a fast-breaking curve, but the hitters are swinging at balls that are not over the plate. When they come to the majors the hitters just wait for them to get the ball in the strike zone. They don't get it there, so they're dead.'
Richards' handling of Keegan's sore arm also was a factor. He ordered him to cultivate the soreness in January instead of when the season started. 'I had him working out at the University of Rochester in the field house during the winter,' says Richards. 'Sure enough, the arm got sore, but by the end of spring training he had worked it out.'
Unwittingly, Keegan was the inspiration for a minor dispute between Richards and General Manager Frank Lane last September. After months of maneuvering in which the manager was cautiously attempting to prepare Bob for regular starting assignments, he had lost some of his enthusiasm for the right-hander. Keegan had not distinguished himself in several relief appearances and the White Sox were fighting to finish the season in third place.
Keegan had pitched only one complete game before mid-September, but Lane was of the opinion that he should be getting more starting assignments.
'If Keegan doesn't pitch more for us,' stormed Frantic Frankie, 'I'll have to send him back to the minors where he can get more work.'
Finally, on September 15, Richards found a spot and started Keegan against the Red Sox. The result was a three-hit shutout. There would be another shutout against the St. Louis Browns and a five-hitter against the same Browns and the season would end with Richards making plans to capitalize on Keegan's talents in 1954.
By the end of 1953, while Keegan had won only seven games and lost five, his earned run average was a respectable 2.73. This may have been a hint of what was to come.
Quite to the contrary, Keegan had given the astute Yankees small hint of a brilliant future when he was under their spreading wing. To be sure, what was the White Sox' gain was the Bombers' loss, because it was Paul Krichell, the discerning Yankee scout, who first discovered the youth.
Krichell saw Keegan play shortstop for John Marshall High School in Rochester when he first became interested. Bob was a skinny kid weighing 155 pounds then, but he was agile, had an unusually strong throwing arm and he could hit pretty good.
The Yankees offered Keegan a contract after his graduation from high school and he accepted, mainly because he wanted to pursue a baseball career, which was the fervent wish of his father who had played much baseball in his youth, and because the New York club was prepared to pay young Keegan's tuition to Bucknell University.
Bob went to Bucknell for two and a half years before he entered the 13th Air Corps and the study of navigation. He was in Service three years, nine months of which he spent in the Philippines as a navigator. And during his three years in Service there was small opportunity- at least for him- to play any baseball.
Out of the Air Corps, Keegan was sent to the Binghamton club, but not as a shortstop.
'I had gone from 155 pounds to 180 pounds in the Service,' he said, 'and I wasn't quite as agile. We ate well in the Air Corps. But I could still throw hard. I guess I wasn't much of a hitter by then, either, and they knew that.'
Keegan, however, could not always fire the ball.
'I had trouble with my arm every spring,' he said. 'I guess that and their wealth of material was what finally convinced the Yankees I'd never make it.'
In 1951, then, Keegan was sold by the Yankees' Kansas City club to Syracuse, where he won 13 and lost nine that first season. At the end of the 1952 season, when Keegan had won 20 and lost 11, the White Sox moved in and bought up his contract.
Keegan is a clean-cut, earnest young man who is smart enough to know the value of a successful baseball career, but he has no particular ambition to remain in the game after he is through playing.
'My plans may be changed,' he said, 'but I'd like to get established in the sales department of a camera manufacturer in Rochester when I'm through pitching. I work in the firm now in the winter, you know.'
Keegan married Lois Ruth Hansford, his grammar school and high school sweetheart on May 20, 1944, while Bob was still in the Air Corps. Their two children are Robert, seven, and Lynn, five.
The personable pitching star owns his own home, a Cape Cod residence, in Rochester. Last winter he built two rooms in the attic. This summer he's helping the White Sox built 'upstairs,' too."
-John C. Hoffman, Baseball Digest, August 1954
"Big and fast, Bob finished his rookie year in the majors in 1953 with three brilliant wins, two of them 3-hit shutouts and had the second best ERA on the White Sox staff. At Syracuse in 1952, he was the International League's ranking hurler with a 20-11 record, 111 strikeouts and a 2.64 ERA, pitching 27 complete games. Bob had a 13-9 mark at Syracuse in 1951.
Bob was signed by the Yankees as an infielder while in college. He had a very strong arm and the Yanks decided to make him a hurler. And Bob, who played third and short in college, is one of the league's top right-handers."
-1954 Topps No. 100
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
1954 Yankee of the Past: Lew Burdette
THE NITRO-GLISTENIN' KID
"Personnel Manager Fred Jones stood evaluating the six-two stature of the 17-year-old job applicant. The executive furrowed his brow as he noted the youngster's anxious glance.
'I want to give you a job, because I know your dad so well, and your sister and brother work for us here at American Viscose Rayon,' Jones finally said. 'If you can play on our plant baseball team, I think I can give you that job.'
'May I think it over,' the deep-voiced boy asked.
That night the youngster sought the advice of his father, who worked as labor foreman at the plant.
'I've never even played in an organized game,' the retiring son reminded. 'I wouldn't even know what position to go out for. I've just played with the fellows in the lots.'
The father mused for a minute, then offered:
'Why don't you try to be a pitcher? You've pitched some on the lots and you want the job while waiting to be called into Service.'
The brown-haired boy went to work as a messenger and tediously studied the basic precepts of pitching. He found help wherever he could. This study session took place in June 1944.
The youngster developed so deftly that he racked up 12 triumphs against only two setbacks for American Viscose Rayon that year. He had mastered a cunning sidearm delivery with brilliant control.
The gangling youngster was Selva Lewis Burdette, Jr., now the stylish right-handed star of the Milwaukee Braves. Burdette, who had been graduated from Nitro, W. Va., Public High School a week earlier, turned to the mound only because his dad, Lewis, Sr., wanted his son to work in the same plant.
Lew is the affable hurler who was one of the chief cogs in the Braves' meteoric climb from seventh place to second in the National League last year. The Braves' tireless ace in 1953 doubled as one of the game's Herculean performers as starter-reliever. The blue-eyed Burdette, known to his teammates as a humorist par excellence, won 15 games while losing only five last year. And he's being counted on for even more triumphs during the 1954 race.
Burdette showed remarkable resoluteness in fashioning pitching knowledge for the lone season he played in the Industrial League. The 180-pound National League standout has continued to display equal determination throughout his storybook career. Manager Charlie Grimm beams every time he mentions the tall right-hander. It isn't often in this era that you come across a rubber-armed moundsman like Lew.
Lew was graduated to the starting corps when Grimm needed an added first-liner last July. But the Braves' pilot couldn't do without Burdette's fireman ability. In his second assignment after joining the starting elite ranks, the off-field prankster whitewashed the Giants, 5-0. In ordinary circumstances, a manager would have been expected to be satisfied and to hunt for a new reliever. But Burdette is no ordinary hurler. Grimm quickly announced that Burdette would continue to be the Braves' first bullpen custodian, while still receiving starting assignments. In his next chore Lew was called in to put out a Cubs' fire in the fifth inning. And he squelched the Chicagoan's blaze. Not a Cub reached second base in the ensuing five frames.
This is the same Lew Burdette who was turned down by a Braves' scout as having no ability in 1947. And on Aug. 29, 1951, Burdette went to the Braves purely as a 'throw-in' along with $50,000 from the Yankees for Johnny Sain. This season Burdette will finally be taking over Sain's berth as the Braves' top right-hander. What a testimonial for the value of determination! Here's a guy who never stops wanting to learn. Bucky Walters, the Braves' pitching coach and himself a former National League great, and the rest of the Braves' coaching staff have found Burdette always willing and able to take instruction.
He came to the Braves with a pretty fair screwball. Walters wanted to help improve the highly specialized toss. Burdette was raring to go and now he possesses one of the best in the business. The screwball goes along with a nifty assortment, including a humming fast ball that sinks menacingly, a sharp-breaking curve and pinpoint control.
It should also be pointed that Burdette still will be in the bullpen this season, even though he's nailed down one of the most coveted mound jobs in the game. Burdette really doesn't care whether he starts or relieves. He reasons positively: 'It doesn't matter, so long as I'm working. The hitters are the same. It's up to the boss.'
Burdette has been asked repeatedly, 'Wouldn't you have rather stayed with the pennant-winning Yankee organization in 1951?'
Lew says he regarded the shift as a chance to play in the majors, even though the then Boston Braves apparently weren't hitting very far.
'I wanted a regular job and also it looked like the Braves were rebuilding for the future. I have to work to be happy.'
Most sentimental youngsters longingly yearn for a chance to play in the Yankee chain, and completely overlook the end result. But Lew, who was 27 last November, realized that he didn't fit into the Yankees' long-distance planning. The Bombers weren't very subtle in their feelings.
The funny thing is that Lew had given baseball his minutest yearnings, following that season in the Industrial League. While in high school, he had played some football. However, his desires were in the line of coaching. Before he was graduated, Lew enlisted in the Air Corps Reserves and was called into service as an Air Corps cadet, April 12, 1945. He didn't touch a baseball during his brief stint and when he was discharged Nov. 9, 1945, he was scouting for a money-making field.
The following school semester Burdette entered the University of Richmond, with his sights trained on a coaching career. That spring, 1946, he pitched with the college freshman team and was so promising the Yankees invited him to a tryout camp with the possibility of a minor league contract. Lew worked out with the Yankees' Norfolk team at Edenton, N.C., during the spring training of 1947. He was signed and the bass-voiced youngster passed up college and coaching.
Burdette, who fits in perfectly with the Braves' pattern of off-field frivolity- this a fantastically spirited club- is a devoted husband and father. He is also a man of adventure and action. After the San Francisco Seals had played on the last Sunday in August 1951, the team was treated to three days off. Burdette and outfielder Joe Grace took their wives to Yosemite National Park for a hurried vacation. The trade between the Yankees and the Braves went through on Monday, but Burdette didn' learn of the deal until he got back to San Francisco on Thursday morning.
The young hurler and his pretty wife, the former Mary Ann Shelton of Charleston, W. Va., looked at each other questioningly. They eyed their five-month-old son Lewis Kent. They packed quickly, set out in their car and drove cross-country to Nitro by Sunday. Burdette joined the Braves in Boston the following Wednesday.
Burdette, who first strikes you as a quiet fellow, is just another of the fun-loving Braves. He often sets the pace in the Braves' familiar clubhouse and bench hilarity. Burdette's stock in trade is his shrill whistle, which is easily mistaken for a policeman's tooting. While the Braves are driving in a bus to the ball park, Lew gets a big kick out of scaring a passing motorist into believing a cop is on his tail. The whole team gets a big bang out of the number of drivers who pull over to the curb when Lew blows his whistle. He simply sets his teeth and lips and the shrill toot comes out.
One of Lew's gags came in the clubhouse at Milwaukee last spring. Lew entered the team's quarters one morning and proceeded to shake hands with his mates.
'I've been traded to the Giants,' he said seriously.
Many of his fellow Braves retorted that they would miss him. Several writers, in the clubhouse looking for their daily stories, began to leave hurriedly for their typewriters. It was then that Lew had to admit it was all a gag.
After Lew had been told to 'forget about the game' by a Braves' scout, the collegian was offered a $100 a month contract by the admittedly mistaken ivory hunter. But Burdette turned down the bid and signed with the Yankees. He was assigned to the Class B Norfolk team in the Piedmont League. He played in only six games, but the Yankee family felt the 20-year-old needed considerably more schooling.
The good-looking youngster was sent posthaste to Amsterdam in the Class C Canadian-American League. Here Lew won only nine games while losing ten. However, his tremendous potential should have been recognized. He chalked up an impressive 2.82 earned run average, striking out 79 in 150 innings. Evidently the Yankees realized the kid had some future promise, for they moved Burdette up to Class B again with Quincy of the Three I League. His 16 triumphs earned him a tie for the circuit's leadership and his ERA was a dazzling 2.02. This record earned Lew a shot with Kansas City of the American Association in 1949. That year he won six and lost seven while posting a mediocre 5.26 ERA. The following season, Lew came out even for the Blues on a 7-7 record and a 4.79 ERA.
In the fall of 1950 the Yankees called up the 23-year-old right-hander. Lew wasn't as Nitro-charged then as he is now. His home town, incidentally, was named when a boom town sprouted around an explosives plant during World War I. Nitro is a small town (pop. 3,314) in which all twelve school grades are housed on one floor.
In the brief stand with the parent Yanks in 1950, Lew worked only one inning and gave up three hits. The Yanks called Lew back for spring training in 1951, but that training season came close to sending Lew to an early grave. He was bedded by a cold and a penicillin shot put him in the hospital and on the critical list. Still, Lew's amazing competitive spirit won out, and he returned to chuck 18 spring training innings for the world champions. He gave up only one run and was understandably disillusioned when he opened the season with San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League. With the Seals, Lew won 14 and lost 12, while going 210 innings. He had an ERA of 3.21.
Late in the season Lew got his chance to play big-league ball on a steady basis with the Braves. He worked in only four innings over three games with no wins or losses.
At Bradenton, Fla., in the spring of 1952, Lew got an even bigger break. Coach Bucky Walters, who has proven a real friend, offered Lew a chance to be the club's bullpen maitre d'. The Braves were well stocked with starters.
Burdette clicked immediately as a reliever, but Charlie Grimm was forced to alter his plans in August when Vern Bickford suffered a fractured finger in Milwaukee. Burdette was called out of the bullpen for six starts. His skein included a 5-2 triumph over the Giants, but Lew was shipped back to the fire station in the outfield, as soon as Bickford returned. Lew wound up the year with a not-too-hot mark of 6-11. However, the continually improving right-hander tacked up an ERA of 3.61 for a faltering club.
Of course, 1953 was Lew's best. He opened the season with seven straight relief successes. These triumphs were amassed in 30 appearances. On one road trip, Burdette relieved in every other one of 22 games. He had three wins and saves in four more games. Although he sincerely points out that 'I wasn't working hard at all,' Manager Grimm gave Lew two days off, lest his star right-hander drop from exhaustion. Lew wasn't even permitted to hold a ball, but he watched the games from his accepted bullpen seat. In July Grimm was hunting for another starter in the vain chase of the Dodgers. He didn't have to look too far, for there was his man in the bullpen. Lew handled the chore magnificently, even relieving on his off days. For the season he registered a 15-5 record and a 3.24 ERA in 46 games. Lew is just as effective in hot or cool weather. It doesn't seem to make any difference.
'I'm looking for a better record in 1954,' Burdette says.
Lew prefers to give credit for his accomplishments to others. For example, he believes that catcher Del Crandall is the best in the business and makes hurling for the Braves a cinch.
'I never- well, hardly ever- have to shake him off,' Burdette says appreciatively. 'He knows his job like no one else and you can have faith in his judgment.'
Those who have watched the limber hurler work on the mound agree that his success has been due to exceptional ability and savvy. But Lew hastens to point out that luck is greatly responsible. Those close to the game guffaw every time they hear him express this philosophy. Burdette's psychology on bullpen work, however, has earned the attention of all keen students of the game. When the West Virginian toils in the bullpen, he matches every pitch with the hurler on the mound.
'I want to keep up with the game psychologically,' he reasons astutely. 'Then when Charlie Grimm sends me in, I'm right up on the game.'
Lew worked this past winter in the promotions department of a Milwaukee brewing company. His job was less strenuous than those he held in previous off-seasons, so that he had to engage in hurry-up workout sessions after the first of the year to knock off the ten pounds he added. The brewery work kept Lew near Milwaukee for personal appearances. The strange thing in this connection is the fact that Lew never had too tender a spot in his heart for Milwaukee before the Braves moved there. While he was with Kansas City, Lew couldn't do too well there on the mound.
Burdette has been tabbed frequently as a real screwball off the field. He's really as sly as a fox on the mound and his relaxing antics are nothing more serious than boyish pranks. But he's modest enough to hasten in reminding that he's not quite 'in the Lefty Gomez class.' Like Lefty, and most other pitchers, Lew takes pride in his hitting. He's not very talented in this department, but points with relish to a spring training home run.
Burdette's spanking success as a reliever is contributable in a large measure to his ability to keep his pitches down around the knees of the opposing batters. Possibly he has earned equal acceptance as a starter because he tries to pitch with level deliberateness over a full route. He figures that he doesn't tire too easily.
Burdette was the fiery subject of a feud with Brooklyn during last season. In a game at Milwaukee, Lew was charged by Roy Campanella with calling the Flock catcher 'a dirty name.' Campy chased after Burdette with a bat after the pitcher allegedly floored the Brook star twice with duster pitches. But the situation became a closed book when Lew made this statement:
'I have never cast any slurs on any man's race and I never will.'
'Campy and I shook hands and ended the situation long before everyone else realized it was closed,' Lew commented later.
When Lew and his new roommate, Chet Nichols, checked into their first visiting hotel room at Miami during spring training, Burdette looked into the quarters first. He was startled. He turned to Nichols and shouted:
'Go back to the Service. I got better rooms last year, when Vern Bickford was my teammate.'
The writer was with the pair and looked to Nichols, just back from the Army, for a sign of indignation. It wasn't forthcoming. Everyone knows Lew Burdette is a good natured kidder and they love him for it. But in Milwaukee they know he isn't kidding when he says expects to win 20 games in 1954."
-Al Jonas (Baseball Digest, May 1954)
"In 1953, Lew was used by the Braves primarily in relief, and he did an excellent job. His overall record was 15-5 and his earned run average of 3.24 was seventh best in the league.
Lew joined pro ball in the Yankees' system, and the Braves acquired his contract from the Yanks in the deal which sent Johnny Sain to New York.
He attended the University of Richmond and made All-State Collegiate in 1946. He's a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity."
-1954 Bowman No. 192
"Lew did a fine job for the Milwaukee Braves in 1953. He appeared in 46 games, 13 of them in starting assignments. Lew won 15 and lost 5 for a .750 percentage. His earned run average was 3.24, the seventh best in the league. He pitched 175 innings, walked 56 and struck out 58.
He started in baseball in 1947, and first appeared in the majors in 1950 with the Yankees."
-1954 Red Man No. NL-24
"Personnel Manager Fred Jones stood evaluating the six-two stature of the 17-year-old job applicant. The executive furrowed his brow as he noted the youngster's anxious glance.
'I want to give you a job, because I know your dad so well, and your sister and brother work for us here at American Viscose Rayon,' Jones finally said. 'If you can play on our plant baseball team, I think I can give you that job.'
'May I think it over,' the deep-voiced boy asked.
That night the youngster sought the advice of his father, who worked as labor foreman at the plant.
'I've never even played in an organized game,' the retiring son reminded. 'I wouldn't even know what position to go out for. I've just played with the fellows in the lots.'
The father mused for a minute, then offered:
'Why don't you try to be a pitcher? You've pitched some on the lots and you want the job while waiting to be called into Service.'
The brown-haired boy went to work as a messenger and tediously studied the basic precepts of pitching. He found help wherever he could. This study session took place in June 1944.
The youngster developed so deftly that he racked up 12 triumphs against only two setbacks for American Viscose Rayon that year. He had mastered a cunning sidearm delivery with brilliant control.
The gangling youngster was Selva Lewis Burdette, Jr., now the stylish right-handed star of the Milwaukee Braves. Burdette, who had been graduated from Nitro, W. Va., Public High School a week earlier, turned to the mound only because his dad, Lewis, Sr., wanted his son to work in the same plant.
Lew is the affable hurler who was one of the chief cogs in the Braves' meteoric climb from seventh place to second in the National League last year. The Braves' tireless ace in 1953 doubled as one of the game's Herculean performers as starter-reliever. The blue-eyed Burdette, known to his teammates as a humorist par excellence, won 15 games while losing only five last year. And he's being counted on for even more triumphs during the 1954 race.
Burdette showed remarkable resoluteness in fashioning pitching knowledge for the lone season he played in the Industrial League. The 180-pound National League standout has continued to display equal determination throughout his storybook career. Manager Charlie Grimm beams every time he mentions the tall right-hander. It isn't often in this era that you come across a rubber-armed moundsman like Lew.
Lew was graduated to the starting corps when Grimm needed an added first-liner last July. But the Braves' pilot couldn't do without Burdette's fireman ability. In his second assignment after joining the starting elite ranks, the off-field prankster whitewashed the Giants, 5-0. In ordinary circumstances, a manager would have been expected to be satisfied and to hunt for a new reliever. But Burdette is no ordinary hurler. Grimm quickly announced that Burdette would continue to be the Braves' first bullpen custodian, while still receiving starting assignments. In his next chore Lew was called in to put out a Cubs' fire in the fifth inning. And he squelched the Chicagoan's blaze. Not a Cub reached second base in the ensuing five frames.
This is the same Lew Burdette who was turned down by a Braves' scout as having no ability in 1947. And on Aug. 29, 1951, Burdette went to the Braves purely as a 'throw-in' along with $50,000 from the Yankees for Johnny Sain. This season Burdette will finally be taking over Sain's berth as the Braves' top right-hander. What a testimonial for the value of determination! Here's a guy who never stops wanting to learn. Bucky Walters, the Braves' pitching coach and himself a former National League great, and the rest of the Braves' coaching staff have found Burdette always willing and able to take instruction.
He came to the Braves with a pretty fair screwball. Walters wanted to help improve the highly specialized toss. Burdette was raring to go and now he possesses one of the best in the business. The screwball goes along with a nifty assortment, including a humming fast ball that sinks menacingly, a sharp-breaking curve and pinpoint control.
It should also be pointed that Burdette still will be in the bullpen this season, even though he's nailed down one of the most coveted mound jobs in the game. Burdette really doesn't care whether he starts or relieves. He reasons positively: 'It doesn't matter, so long as I'm working. The hitters are the same. It's up to the boss.'
Burdette has been asked repeatedly, 'Wouldn't you have rather stayed with the pennant-winning Yankee organization in 1951?'
Lew says he regarded the shift as a chance to play in the majors, even though the then Boston Braves apparently weren't hitting very far.
'I wanted a regular job and also it looked like the Braves were rebuilding for the future. I have to work to be happy.'
Most sentimental youngsters longingly yearn for a chance to play in the Yankee chain, and completely overlook the end result. But Lew, who was 27 last November, realized that he didn't fit into the Yankees' long-distance planning. The Bombers weren't very subtle in their feelings.
The funny thing is that Lew had given baseball his minutest yearnings, following that season in the Industrial League. While in high school, he had played some football. However, his desires were in the line of coaching. Before he was graduated, Lew enlisted in the Air Corps Reserves and was called into service as an Air Corps cadet, April 12, 1945. He didn't touch a baseball during his brief stint and when he was discharged Nov. 9, 1945, he was scouting for a money-making field.
The following school semester Burdette entered the University of Richmond, with his sights trained on a coaching career. That spring, 1946, he pitched with the college freshman team and was so promising the Yankees invited him to a tryout camp with the possibility of a minor league contract. Lew worked out with the Yankees' Norfolk team at Edenton, N.C., during the spring training of 1947. He was signed and the bass-voiced youngster passed up college and coaching.
Burdette, who fits in perfectly with the Braves' pattern of off-field frivolity- this a fantastically spirited club- is a devoted husband and father. He is also a man of adventure and action. After the San Francisco Seals had played on the last Sunday in August 1951, the team was treated to three days off. Burdette and outfielder Joe Grace took their wives to Yosemite National Park for a hurried vacation. The trade between the Yankees and the Braves went through on Monday, but Burdette didn' learn of the deal until he got back to San Francisco on Thursday morning.
The young hurler and his pretty wife, the former Mary Ann Shelton of Charleston, W. Va., looked at each other questioningly. They eyed their five-month-old son Lewis Kent. They packed quickly, set out in their car and drove cross-country to Nitro by Sunday. Burdette joined the Braves in Boston the following Wednesday.
Burdette, who first strikes you as a quiet fellow, is just another of the fun-loving Braves. He often sets the pace in the Braves' familiar clubhouse and bench hilarity. Burdette's stock in trade is his shrill whistle, which is easily mistaken for a policeman's tooting. While the Braves are driving in a bus to the ball park, Lew gets a big kick out of scaring a passing motorist into believing a cop is on his tail. The whole team gets a big bang out of the number of drivers who pull over to the curb when Lew blows his whistle. He simply sets his teeth and lips and the shrill toot comes out.
One of Lew's gags came in the clubhouse at Milwaukee last spring. Lew entered the team's quarters one morning and proceeded to shake hands with his mates.
'I've been traded to the Giants,' he said seriously.
Many of his fellow Braves retorted that they would miss him. Several writers, in the clubhouse looking for their daily stories, began to leave hurriedly for their typewriters. It was then that Lew had to admit it was all a gag.
After Lew had been told to 'forget about the game' by a Braves' scout, the collegian was offered a $100 a month contract by the admittedly mistaken ivory hunter. But Burdette turned down the bid and signed with the Yankees. He was assigned to the Class B Norfolk team in the Piedmont League. He played in only six games, but the Yankee family felt the 20-year-old needed considerably more schooling.
The good-looking youngster was sent posthaste to Amsterdam in the Class C Canadian-American League. Here Lew won only nine games while losing ten. However, his tremendous potential should have been recognized. He chalked up an impressive 2.82 earned run average, striking out 79 in 150 innings. Evidently the Yankees realized the kid had some future promise, for they moved Burdette up to Class B again with Quincy of the Three I League. His 16 triumphs earned him a tie for the circuit's leadership and his ERA was a dazzling 2.02. This record earned Lew a shot with Kansas City of the American Association in 1949. That year he won six and lost seven while posting a mediocre 5.26 ERA. The following season, Lew came out even for the Blues on a 7-7 record and a 4.79 ERA.
In the fall of 1950 the Yankees called up the 23-year-old right-hander. Lew wasn't as Nitro-charged then as he is now. His home town, incidentally, was named when a boom town sprouted around an explosives plant during World War I. Nitro is a small town (pop. 3,314) in which all twelve school grades are housed on one floor.
In the brief stand with the parent Yanks in 1950, Lew worked only one inning and gave up three hits. The Yanks called Lew back for spring training in 1951, but that training season came close to sending Lew to an early grave. He was bedded by a cold and a penicillin shot put him in the hospital and on the critical list. Still, Lew's amazing competitive spirit won out, and he returned to chuck 18 spring training innings for the world champions. He gave up only one run and was understandably disillusioned when he opened the season with San Francisco of the Pacific Coast League. With the Seals, Lew won 14 and lost 12, while going 210 innings. He had an ERA of 3.21.
Late in the season Lew got his chance to play big-league ball on a steady basis with the Braves. He worked in only four innings over three games with no wins or losses.
At Bradenton, Fla., in the spring of 1952, Lew got an even bigger break. Coach Bucky Walters, who has proven a real friend, offered Lew a chance to be the club's bullpen maitre d'. The Braves were well stocked with starters.
Burdette clicked immediately as a reliever, but Charlie Grimm was forced to alter his plans in August when Vern Bickford suffered a fractured finger in Milwaukee. Burdette was called out of the bullpen for six starts. His skein included a 5-2 triumph over the Giants, but Lew was shipped back to the fire station in the outfield, as soon as Bickford returned. Lew wound up the year with a not-too-hot mark of 6-11. However, the continually improving right-hander tacked up an ERA of 3.61 for a faltering club.
Of course, 1953 was Lew's best. He opened the season with seven straight relief successes. These triumphs were amassed in 30 appearances. On one road trip, Burdette relieved in every other one of 22 games. He had three wins and saves in four more games. Although he sincerely points out that 'I wasn't working hard at all,' Manager Grimm gave Lew two days off, lest his star right-hander drop from exhaustion. Lew wasn't even permitted to hold a ball, but he watched the games from his accepted bullpen seat. In July Grimm was hunting for another starter in the vain chase of the Dodgers. He didn't have to look too far, for there was his man in the bullpen. Lew handled the chore magnificently, even relieving on his off days. For the season he registered a 15-5 record and a 3.24 ERA in 46 games. Lew is just as effective in hot or cool weather. It doesn't seem to make any difference.
'I'm looking for a better record in 1954,' Burdette says.
Lew prefers to give credit for his accomplishments to others. For example, he believes that catcher Del Crandall is the best in the business and makes hurling for the Braves a cinch.
'I never- well, hardly ever- have to shake him off,' Burdette says appreciatively. 'He knows his job like no one else and you can have faith in his judgment.'
Those who have watched the limber hurler work on the mound agree that his success has been due to exceptional ability and savvy. But Lew hastens to point out that luck is greatly responsible. Those close to the game guffaw every time they hear him express this philosophy. Burdette's psychology on bullpen work, however, has earned the attention of all keen students of the game. When the West Virginian toils in the bullpen, he matches every pitch with the hurler on the mound.
'I want to keep up with the game psychologically,' he reasons astutely. 'Then when Charlie Grimm sends me in, I'm right up on the game.'
Lew worked this past winter in the promotions department of a Milwaukee brewing company. His job was less strenuous than those he held in previous off-seasons, so that he had to engage in hurry-up workout sessions after the first of the year to knock off the ten pounds he added. The brewery work kept Lew near Milwaukee for personal appearances. The strange thing in this connection is the fact that Lew never had too tender a spot in his heart for Milwaukee before the Braves moved there. While he was with Kansas City, Lew couldn't do too well there on the mound.
Burdette has been tabbed frequently as a real screwball off the field. He's really as sly as a fox on the mound and his relaxing antics are nothing more serious than boyish pranks. But he's modest enough to hasten in reminding that he's not quite 'in the Lefty Gomez class.' Like Lefty, and most other pitchers, Lew takes pride in his hitting. He's not very talented in this department, but points with relish to a spring training home run.
Burdette's spanking success as a reliever is contributable in a large measure to his ability to keep his pitches down around the knees of the opposing batters. Possibly he has earned equal acceptance as a starter because he tries to pitch with level deliberateness over a full route. He figures that he doesn't tire too easily.
Burdette was the fiery subject of a feud with Brooklyn during last season. In a game at Milwaukee, Lew was charged by Roy Campanella with calling the Flock catcher 'a dirty name.' Campy chased after Burdette with a bat after the pitcher allegedly floored the Brook star twice with duster pitches. But the situation became a closed book when Lew made this statement:
'I have never cast any slurs on any man's race and I never will.'
'Campy and I shook hands and ended the situation long before everyone else realized it was closed,' Lew commented later.
When Lew and his new roommate, Chet Nichols, checked into their first visiting hotel room at Miami during spring training, Burdette looked into the quarters first. He was startled. He turned to Nichols and shouted:
'Go back to the Service. I got better rooms last year, when Vern Bickford was my teammate.'
The writer was with the pair and looked to Nichols, just back from the Army, for a sign of indignation. It wasn't forthcoming. Everyone knows Lew Burdette is a good natured kidder and they love him for it. But in Milwaukee they know he isn't kidding when he says expects to win 20 games in 1954."
-Al Jonas (Baseball Digest, May 1954)
"In 1953, Lew was used by the Braves primarily in relief, and he did an excellent job. His overall record was 15-5 and his earned run average of 3.24 was seventh best in the league.
Lew joined pro ball in the Yankees' system, and the Braves acquired his contract from the Yanks in the deal which sent Johnny Sain to New York.
He attended the University of Richmond and made All-State Collegiate in 1946. He's a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity."
-1954 Bowman No. 192
"Lew did a fine job for the Milwaukee Braves in 1953. He appeared in 46 games, 13 of them in starting assignments. Lew won 15 and lost 5 for a .750 percentage. His earned run average was 3.24, the seventh best in the league. He pitched 175 innings, walked 56 and struck out 58.
He started in baseball in 1947, and first appeared in the majors in 1950 with the Yankees."
-1954 Red Man No. NL-24
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