Category Archives: Remembering

Remembering Gus Zernial

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In January, one of my favorite all time players died. Gus Zernial passed after a long battle with congestive heart failure and other ailments.

To casual fans, Zernial was an above average journeyman who had brief, injury-riddled but nevertheless productive stints with the Chicago White Sox, the Philadelphia and Kansas City Athletics and the Detroit Tigers. Over his 11-season career, Zernial hit .265 with 237 home runs and 776 runs batted in. In 1951, Zernial lead the league in homers and RBIs with 33 and 129; in 1953, he slugged 43 homers. From 1951 to 1957, only Mickey Mantle hit more American League round trippers than Gus.

Zernial, no slouch, hit 25 or more homers seven times and knocked in more than 100 four times.

For a kid like me who grew up in Hollywood and lived and died with the Pacific Coast League Stars’, “Ozark Ike” as manager Fred Haney called Zernial, was Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle rolled into one. (See a cartoonist’s version of “Ozark Ike” here

Zernial had two spectacular seasons with the Stars; in 1947, he hit .334 and the following year, Zernial tore the cover off the ball. Get a load of these numbers: Games,186, AB’s-737, H-237, HR-40, RBI’s 156 and BA .322.

Adding to my adolescent fascination with Zernial, Gus once had his picture taken with Marilyn Monroe. (See it here). Zernial’s image also appeared on my favorite baseball card which I own to this day.

After his career ended, Zernial returned to Clovis, CA. worked odd construction jobs, broadcast Fresno State University baseball games and did commercial spots for automobile dealers.

In 1990, Zernial was diagnosed with cancer. Down but not out, Zernial took a community affairs job to help bring the AAA Grizzlies, the San Francisco Giants’ top minor league affiliate, to Fresno. Zernial did color commentary for Grizzlies’ games until 2003. (To learn much more about Zernial, please read my Society for American Baseball Research colleague’s outstanding Baseball Biography Project here.)

Late last year, I learned that Zernial’s autobiography, “Ozark Ike: Memories of a Fence Buster,” had been released. Only 237 copies were printed, the exact number of homers Gus smashed.

Through his publisher I contacted Zernial and we exchanged a few emails. When my copy arrived, the inscription read: “To Joe, my wish to you, all the best, God Bless. Thanks for being my friend all the way back to Hollywood.”

Remembering Duke Snider

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Duke Snider and I were never in the same place at the same time. When I was growing up in Los Angeles in the early 1950s, the Dodgers were playing in Brooklyn. By the time Snider arrived in Los Angeles, my family had moved to Puerto Rico. And when Snider got to New York in 1963 to play out the string for the Mets, I was still two years away from starting my career in Manhattan.

Snider, as far as I was concerned as a youth, was just another big league star I would never see. When my California friends and I debated about whether baseball’s best center fielder was Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays or Snider, we always added the Hollywood Stars’ Carlos Bernier to the equation. Bernier played just one year in the majors, 1953 when he hit .213 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but he thrived in the Pacific Coast League, every bit as good an outfit as the show in our opinion. In 16 seasons in the minors overall, Bernier hit .298 with 2,291 hits and 200 home runs.

As an adult, I’ve gotten to know more about Snider. His death on February 26 came only a few days after I had taken the Yankee Stadium tour that devotes a large section of its museum to the Golden Era of New York baseball, 1949 to 1957, and displayed old uniforms, photographs and equipment from the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers from that period.

To imagine three players as great as Mays, Mantle and Snider in the same metropolitan area all at once is hard to fully grasp. During the only four years that they all played in New York, in 1954 the center fielders averaged 36 home runs, 114 RBIs and .327; 1955, 43, 121 and .312; 1956, 40, 105 and .314 and 1957, 36, 94 and .324

During that period, Snider dominated in homers (165) and RBIs (449) while Mantle led in batting average.

Snider’s relationship with the fans was often contentious. In 1955 Snider told sportswriter Bill Gilbert that “The Brooklyn fans are the worst in the league. They don’t deserve a pennant.” Then a year later, because of a Collier’s article titled “I Play Baseball for Money—Not Fun,” Snider took another public relations bashing.

Never one to mince words, Snider once gave manager Walter Alston a piece of his mind. In 1954, Alston’s first season as the Dodger’s manager, Snider was taking batting practice during spring training. Alston, standing next to the cage, asked Snider if he always held his back leg so deep in the batter’s box. Replied Snider, “I hit forty-two home runs in the big leagues last year. Where did you make your mistakes?” Snider’s barb was a reference to Alston’s single plate appearance as a St. Louis Cardinals when Lon Warneke struck him out on three straight pitches.

Whatever Snider’s true personality may have been, on the field he had few equals. As my final tribute to the Duke, I offer this 1956 Sports Illustrated scouting report:

“Physically, the perfect ballplayer—tremendous left-handed power, vast fielding skill, a fine arm. Last year, hit .309 with 42 home runs, 136 runs batted in.”

Watch a video of Snider almost breaking up Don Larsen’s 1956 World Series perfect game here.

Other recent passings: Chuck Tanner, George Crowe, Art Mahan, Gil McDougald, Billy Raimondi

Remembering Chuck Tanner

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Pittsburgh Pirates fans have known for months that Chuck Tanner was in poor health and fading fast. We saw him at PNC Park mid-summer at a weekend long celebration for the 1979 World Series championship team. From August 21-23, the Pirates honored Tanner, the players, coaches, families, and the uniform style from that season. Tickets went for $19.79 and the Friday night fans got one of those crazy looking caps that the players wore that season.

Tanner’s eulogies have been overwhelmingly positive. Most describe him as the nicest man in baseball and a sound strategist. Almost apologetically, some commentators made a passing reference to the blackest chapter in Pirates’ history—the cocaine scandal that engulfed the team during the early 1980s while Tanner was its pilot. While the consensus is that if Tanner didn’t know what was going on in the clubhouse, as he swore he didn’t, then he most certainly should have.

My Society for American Baseball Research colleague D. Bruce Brown in his daily trivia email reminded me of one the most amusing footnotes in recent baseball history that involved Tanner. On May 11, 1977 in a game against the hapless Atlanta Braves, Tanner became the only manager to defeat Ted Turner in his single managerial appearance. (Sign up for Brown’s email here. SABR members get extra hints; they’re helpful.)

The Braves, who would lose 101 games that year, were floundering under Dave Bristol’s direction. Turner sent his beleaguered manager on an extended “scouting trip” and replaced him in the dugout. Wearing uniform number 27, Turner watched his hapless Braves lose their seventeenth straight game, 2-1. Years later, Tanner named the Pirates winning pitcher, John Candelaria, as the hurler he would most like to have on the mound in a “must win” situation.

The next day Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and National League president Chub Feeney ruled that no one who owned stock in a club could manage it. Turner immediately declared the commissioner’s decision nonsense and said that it represented instead a vendetta against him. At the time, Turner was unpopular among other owners and with the baseball higher ups for his aggressive 1976 pursuit of free agent Gary Matthews that resulted in a one-year suspension eventually delayed on appeal.

Here are a few other fun facts about Tanner.

Born on Independence Day, Tanner hit a home run on the first major league pitch he ever saw. On Opening Day, April 12, 1955, Tanner pinch hit for Milwaukee Braves’ starter Warren Spahn in the bottom of the eigth inning and homered off the Cincinnati Reds’ Gerry Staley.

Then on July 19 at Forbes Field, Tanner played every inning against the Pirates during Vern Law’s heroic 18-inning start. Batting seventh in the right field slot, Tanner went 2-for-seven with an RBI.

As manager for the Chicago White Sox (1970-1975), the Oakland Athletics (1976), the Pirates (1977-1985) and the Atlanta Braves (1986-1988), Tanner won 1,352 games. A public viewing of Tanner was held Tuesday at the Cunningham Funeral Home in New Castle where he was born in 1929.

Other recent passings: George Crowe, Art Mahan, Gil McDougald, Billy Raimondi

Remembering Big George Crowe

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Although I never lived in Cincinnati, St. Louis, Boston or Milwaukee, one of my early baseball favorites was Big George Crowe, a first baseman for the Reds, Cardinals, and Braves.

My first connection to Crowe, who died on January 18 at 89, came when I was a ten-year-old growing up in Los Angeles avidly collecting baseball cards. Crowe’s 1952 and 1953 Topps cards were the most identifiable and treasured in my collection.

When my family moved to Puerto Rico, I went to dozens of Santurce Cangrejeros winter Caribbean League games. Crowe was a key member of the historic 1954-1955 Crabbers squad that many in baseball claim was the best winter squad ever.

Don Zimmer, a stand out shortstop for the Crabbers, considered Santuce as good as or better than any franchise in the major leagues.

Zimmer attested:

Without a doubt, it was probably the best winter club ever assembled. I mean we had guys like Buzz Clarkson, myself, Ronnie Samford, George Crowe, Valmy Thomas and Harry Chiti catching. We had Mays, Thurman and Clemente in the outfield. I mean you’re talking about a big league ball club. Not only that but Herman Franks was an outstanding manager. We could have beaten National League clubs.

The local media referred to the heart of the line-up, Mays, Clemente, Thurman, Clarkson and Crowe, as “Murders Row,” likening them to the famous 1927 New York Yankees.

In addition to the sluggers, on the mound were Ruben Gomez and Sam Jones. Gomez, incredibly, won 179 games over 29 winter league campaigns, all but one of them hurling for the Crabbers.

During his three seasons in Puerto Rico, Crowe hit .337 with 32 home runs and 179 runs batted in.

The Caribbean League allowed only a limited number of “imports,” the word used to describe non-Caribbean-born Americans. But since the Puerto Rican newspapers prominently featured their “off season” summer successes, I could easily follow Crowe’s career.

In 1957 Crowe, at age 36 with the Cincinnati Reds, had his best season. When an injury to Ted Kluszewski gave Crowe a shot at the full time first baseman’s job, he appeared in 133 games, belted 31 home runs and drove in 92 runs placing him sixth and eighth in the league respectively.

Ironically, Crowe was the only Reds starter not selected that year to the All-Star game during infamous ballot stuffing scandal forced the selections of Roy McMillan, Ed Bailey, Gus Bell, Don Hoak, Johnny Temple, Wally Post, and Frank Robinson. Crowe was beaten out by Stan Musial. Nevertheless, Crowe received a degree of revenge the following season when voters selected him as a reserve to the 1958 All-Star team based on his .300 plus batting average for the first half of the season.

Crowe was an outstanding Negro National League star as well as a professional basketball player for the New York Rens and the Los Angeles Red Devils where he teamed with Jackie Robinson. In 1939, Crowe was Indiana’s first Mr. Basketball.

Crowe lived in the Adirondacks until 2006 when he moved to California to join his family. After suffering a stroke in late 2008, Crowe resided in an assisted living facility near Sacramento until his death.

Other recent baseball passings: Art Mahan, Gil McDougald

Remembering Art Mahan

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Mahan

On paper, Art Mahan had a bad year in 1940. In his only season playing Major League Baseball, Mahan hit .244 with two home runs, 39 runs batted in, and an OPS+ of 73, abysmal numbers for a starting first baseman. His team, the Philadelphia Phillies, stocked with end-of-the-road veterans and players who would be minor leaguers for better clubs finished 50-103, 50 games out of first place. When it was over, Mahan would be sent back to the minors in Little Rock, Arkansas, never again to approach the majors. But 1940 was a good year for Mahan.

I interviewed Mahan in February for a book I’m researching on another Phillie from 1940, Joe Marty. At the time of our interview, Mahan was 96 and one of three living teammates of Marty, who played for the Chicago Cubs and the Phillies from 1937 to 1941. For an enchanting, somewhat surreal two hours, I spoke by phone with Mahan and his son Ed. It has to be one of my all-time favorite interviews, and I know it’s one I’m grateful I got. Mahan died last Tuesday at 97 of congestive heart failure at his daughter’s home in Rydal, Pennsylvania.

Mahan spent most of his life and his final years surrounded by what he got out of 1940: family. He met his wife Helen that year, a month into his big league career on a blind date arranged by a friend from Villanova, where he graduated from in 1936. Mahan and his wife had nine children and were married 54 years until her death in 1996. It helped the Somerville, Massachusetts native not regret missing his chance to play for the Boston Red Sox.

“Growing up in Somerville, which is just practically right outside the ballpark everybody wanted to be a Red Sox,” Mahan told me during our interview. “And so… I wanted to be a good ballplayer and play for the Red Sox. Unfortunately for me, just before I got out of college the Red Sox signed Jimmie Foxx. And there was probably at that time, no better hitter than Jimmie Foxx. And I’ll always say personally, if I had signed with the Red Sox, I would have never have met or married my wife and had the children.”

There were other benefits Mahan got from being a Phillie. His son Ed explained that as his dad was young and single in 1940, he sent much of his $6,000 salary back to his family, helping his brothers make down payments on their houses. He got to play with his best friend and roommate from the minors, Bobby Bragan. Mahan also played with Wally Berger and future Hall of Fame outfielder Chuck Klein.

“Chuck Klein, when I was going to high school and everything else, he was a great hitter,” Mahan told me. “And then when I was in high school also, a new rookie came up to the Boston Braves, Wally Berger, and then of course, years later, I just couldn’t believe that I’m sitting in the same dang dugout with Wally Berger and Chuck Klein. I’ll never forget that, and I still treasure it today.”

After spending 1941 in the minors, Mahan enlisted in the Naval Air at the outset of World War II. He didn’t see combat, spending most of the war as a physical fitness instructor in Rhode Island. After the war ended, 32-year-old Mahan became player-manager of a semi-pro club in Providence for the 1946 season. Thereafter, he moved his family back to Philadelphia, took a job as the baseball coach at Villanova in 1950, and was made athletic director in 1960. He worked in the latter position until his retirement in 1978.

I asked Mahan if he looked back fondly on his big league career.

“I loved playing,” Mahan said. “Even though it was one year, I loved every second of it.”

Fondly Remembering Gil McDougald

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Here’s the latest guest post from Joe Guzzardi, on a Yankee infielder who retired near the top of his game. Derek Jeter, take note.

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While I was writing my post about Derek Jeter earlier this week, New York Yankee great Gil McDougald died.

Reading McDougald’s obituaries, I couldn’t help but think about one major difference Jeter’s will have. Both are career Yankees with special on-field accomplishments that played critical roles in their teams’ World Series Championship years. McDougald famously and willingly played three infield positions with equal skill.

But McDougald never entered into nasty contract negotiations at the end. When it appeared the Yankees would not protect McDougald in 1961 during the first expansion draft, he walked away after ten seasons without regrets. Among McDougald’s motivations were that he wanted to be closer to his wife Lucielle and their seven children.

An interesting footnote to McDougald’s retirement is that Los Angeles Angels owner Gene Autry, a fan of his, begged him to join his newly formed team. As an inducement, Autry promised McDougald that when his playing days were over he would turn over to the managerial reins from Bill Rigney. But because McDougald knew he couldn’t perform up to his standards as a player and he admired Rigney, he declined.

One of McDougald’s former teammates said something about him that sent me deep into my baseball library.

Pitcher and Cy Young Award winner Bob Turley: “Before I was traded to the Yankees, Gil and I played against each other in the minors in the Texas League. He was always one of the most serious guys out there, and he loved to win. But Gil was also a person who got along well with everyone. He was always in good spirits.”

In 1958, Sports Illustrated published a series titled “Big League Secrets.” In it, Sal Maglie, Roy Sievers, Del Crandall, Richie Ashburn and McDougald explained how they plied their crafts.

McDougald told readers how from each of his three positions he executed the pivot, fielded the bunt, applied the tag and made the long throw.

As an example of what Turley meant when he spoke of his old infielder’s competitiveness, McDougald told reporter Robert Creamer how he executed the pick-off play:

I can’t stand to see this play go more than two throws. It’s sort of an obsession with me, especially if I’m in it, because if it goes more than two throws, we did it wrong. The runner should never, never get away in a rundown, no matter how great he is.

As much as I admire Jeter, I’m a product of my time. I miss talented, underrated, underpaid team-oriented players like McDougald. The era of a player who will play 599 games at second base, 508 at third and 284 at shortstop without missing a beat are long gone.

I wish McDougald had more financial leverage. But he played in the baseball’s Golden Era which had to be more satisfying to him than living in a 30,000 square foot Florida mansion like Jeter’s.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Former Oakland Oaks catcher Billy Raimondi dies at 97

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Raimondi
Billy and Francis Raimondi with daughter June, courtesy of Mark Macrae

Billy Raimondi didn’t have World Series rings, millions of dollars in career earnings, or a single day of Major League Baseball service. What Raimondi had, when he died on October 18 in Alameda, California at 97, was family: A wife of 72 years, a sister, three children, eight grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren. Raimondi’s love of his family defined him, and it may be one reason he ranks among the best catchers in Pacific Coast League history and has a spot in its Hall of Fame.

Raimondi had been in declining health for some years. His son William E. Raimondi of Alameda said in a phone interview on Sunday that his father was admitted to the hospital on August 25 with internal bleeding, was released two days later, and was admitted the following week with a respiratory problem. He was sent home on hospice care and spent his final seven weeks bedridden. “His mind stayed strong but his body just couldn’t last,” Raimondi said.

Asked what he’d remember about his father, Raimondi said, “The most important thing is probably the devotion he had to his family and to his mother and brothers. He had a very close family, and I think one of the reasons he was very happy to never play in the big leagues was that he was able to play in Oakland where his family was.”

Born William Louis Raimondi on December 1, 1912 in San Francisco, Raimondi grew up in Oakland and attended McClymonds High. When Raimondi was 17, his father was struck and killed by a motorist, making him a breadwinner for the family. He signed with the Oakland Oaks of the PCL in 1931 and played 21 seasons in the league, all at catcher. Lifetime in the minors, he hit .276 with 1,937 hits, and the book Gold on the Diamond said Raimondi was an All Star 16 times and played more seasons in the PCL than any other field player in league history.

Retired MLB scout Ronnie King saw Raimondi play in the 1930s when he was the visitors bat boy for the Sacramento Solons. King told me, “When he caught, he never dropped the ball, he threw people out, and he called a good game.” Bob Usher played with Raimondi on the Los Angeles Angels in 1952 and 1953 and called him a “great teammate and [an] inspirational ballplayer. He kept the clubhouse going pretty well and was a friend to everybody, and all the teammates loved him.”

At different points, Raimondi played with three of his brothers, Al, Walt, and Ernie (who died in action in World War II.) PCL historian and memorabilia collector Mark Macrae met Raimondi in the 1970s at get-togethers for the Oakland Old-Timers Association. In a phone interview on Sunday, Macrae said, “I think Dick Dobbins put it best in his book when he compared the Raimondi family to the DiMaggio family, and how he did that was he said, what the DiMaggios were to San Francisco baseball, the Raimondis were to Oakland baseball.”

A natural question is why Raimondi never played in the majors. About six months ago, I interviewed Raimondi at his home in Alameda, with his wife Francis and their daughter June, for a book I’m researching on his former PCL teammate, Joe Marty. I learned that Raimondi had a couple of chances to go to the big leagues, including with the New York Yankees in 1936, though he never left the PCL. King told me that many players in those days opted for the PCL where the season was longer and the pay often better. And prior to 1958, the majors did not exist west of St. Louis which would have kept Raimondi away from his family longer.

Raimondi’s son offered another possible reason his dad never made the jump.

“He had some doubt because he wore glasses, and in the big leagues they have more night games, and they have the higher stands where even the day games would have those shadows which made it difficult,” William E. Raimondi said. “But I’m pretty confident he would have (been able to play in the majors) because many of the people he played with made it to the big leagues, and many of them have told me that my dad could have played.”

The Oakland Tribune stated that services for Raimondi will be held on October 30, at 11 a.m. at St. Philip Neri Catholic Church in Alameda.