Author: howard

I’m decidedly old school when it comes to baseball and definitely DH free National League, the league where defense and pitching seem to be of a greater necessity than the American League.

Thus far, the 2011 major league baseball season has two no hitters, (ironically both in the American League), and almost nightly pitching duels.

From the opening night matchup between Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum to the as good as advertised Philadelphia Phillies-Florida Marlins dual this past Tuesday, we’ve been seeing some terrifically pitched games.

The May 10th pitching matchup between Josh Johnson and Doc Halladay was indeed something to write home about.

The final tally combined for the two starters read three runs total allowed (Florida won 2-1) 15 innings pitched 11 hits and 16 Ks. This has been typical of many games around both leagues this season and isn’t showing any signs of letting up.

But what are the reason(s) for this pitcher dominated season and will major league baseball panic as they did after the 1968 season and make changes with the belief those fans want to see offense?

Let’s examine some possible answers for this year of the pitcher.

Pitchers are traditionally ahead of hitters in the early going of any season and the cold and wet weather in many parks thus far hasn’t helped the offenses any. But many previously robust hitters in both leagues are off to very slow starts; too many to be explained away by early season catching up and poor weather.

Many scouts seem to be of the opinion that the widespread use of the cut fastball is one of the major factors. The cut fastball looks like a regular fastball coming to the plate but unlike a slider, it won’t hang tantalizing over the plate if thrown incorrectly. It is also much easier to control than a slider or a split finger and allows a pitcher to not have to be so fine with his control. The pitch can be aimed at the middle of the plate or just off on either side or the natural movement of the pitch will result in balls hit off centre of the sweet spot.

Pitchers seem to be learning that hitters continue to be in a swing for the fence mentality and seem to be throwing more high strikes and umpires are now calling the high strike. Until last year, despite the fact that a pitch letter high was technically a strike, few umpires called it as such, forcing pitchers to throw belt high and down. While most pitching experts will tell you that pitching low in the zone is the best way to go, this has allowed batters to look in one zone only making solid contact much easier. It eliminated the climb the ladder with fastballs approach that can be very effective for a pitcher. Now batters are being forced to cover the entire strike zone and unfamiliarness with the high strike seems to be working to the pitchers’ advantage.

These things go in cycles and many starting pitchers are 25 and under but with a few years of major league experience already under their belt. Scouts seem to be going after pitchers who are hard throwers more so than those who get by with finesse and guile and this use your fastball or something as hard thrown seems to be more in favor. With starting pitchers seemingly only needing to go six innings, there is less than a need to conserve their arm.

Hitters still seem to be in the go for the fence mentality which pitchers are taking advantage of. Scoring has been decidedly down and a transition to small ball hasn’t caught on as of yet. There is a greater emphasis on team defense with offensive players with poor defensive abilities being subject to greater criticism and more scrutiny.

Baseball seems to be getting back to its original premise, run prevention. For the pure fan like me, it’s a welcome happening.

During the double header’s heyday, a fan could buy one ticket, see two games and spend an enjoyable, if somewhat long, afternoon at the ball park. On a perfect day, his team would take both ends and his favorite player would stand out.

May 3, 1942 was such a day for the 23, 871 St. Louis Cardinals’ fans as the Birds swept two from the Brooklyn Dodgers, 14-10 and 4-2 in a darkness shortened six inning affair. Not surprisingly Stan Musial, every fan’s favorite, tore the ball off the cover. His combined line: AB: 5; H: 4; R:3, RBI: 2 including two doubles and two walks.

In the nightcap, the teams couldn’t play a full nine innings because during the often delayed opener six players and the two managers, Leo Durocher and Billy Southworth, were ejected in the wild affair that saw the Cards go up 10-2 before the Dodgers rallied to tie the score. The Cards scored ten unearned runs on errors by two normally slick fielders, second baseman Billy Herman and shortstop Pee Wee Reese.

Game two was more subdued; only four Dodgers were tossed.

Although Musial had better individual seasons against the Dodgers than he did in 1942, his numbers against the Cards’ arch rival were nevertheless imposing, .308, .400 and .498 batting, slugging and on base percentage averages. As Dodger manager Durocher once said: “The best way to pitch to Musial is to roll the ball to the plate.

Just how important those two May Cardinals’ victories would be in the 1942 pennant race didn’t become clear until the end of the season. The Cardinals, 106-48, and led by Most Valuable Player Mort Cooper (22-7, 1.78 ERA) edged out the Dodgers, 104-50 by a mere two games.

The Cardinals entered the season with uncertainty. Slugger Johnny Mize had been traded to the New York Giants during the off season. But, behind Musial who despite playing his first full year more than compensated for Mize, the Cards’ prevailed. Musial made a solid impact with 10 homers, 72 RBI (tenth in the league), and a .315 average that was second to Slaughter’s league-best .318. Stan’s 32 doubles and 10 triples (third in the league) were the first of seven consecutive years he would reach double figures in triples. Musial proved that by getting out of the batter’s box quickly, he could compensate for his limited speed.

To cap off a fine year, the Cards’ upset the New York Yankees, winners of 103 games themselves, in a five-game Series.

Double the fun is a Saturday feature here that looks at one notable doubleheader each week.

What he did: More than 80 years after his last game, Carl Mays remains one of baseball’s most notorious figures. Mays threw the pitch that resulted in the only death of a player in baseball history. He also might have intentionally lost games in the 1921 and 1922 World Series, and he wore out his welcome in New York shortly thereafter. Yankee manager Miller Huggins told longtime sportswriter Fred Lieb, “Any ballplayers that played for me on either the Cardinals or Yankees could come to me if he were in need and I would give him a helping hand. I made only two exceptions, Carl Mays and Joe Bush. If they were in the gutter, I’d kick them.”

It’s a strong statement, and it might be one of the reasons Mays never got serious consideration for the Hall of Fame despite boasting a 208-126 lifetime record and 2.92 ERA, not to mention five 20-win seasons and success in both the Deadball and Live Ball eras. Mays might have made some poor choices that curtailed an otherwise bright career and given him a sordid reputation almost a century later. That being said, pitching in the modern era, Mays might have 100 more wins and a whole different legacy.

Era: We’re sticking Mays in the majors of today, and since he won 20 games in two leagues, the idea here is that Mays would be fine in either current circuit. He did his best work with powerhouse franchises, the Boston Red Sox of the 1910s and the Yankees of the early ’20s, so it’s conceivable he could thrive on a large stage once more. And the issues that hampered his career wouldn’t exist today.

Why: A lot’s changed in baseball in nine decades. Perhaps most importantly for Mays’ sake, batters wear helmets and salaries are exponentially higher. Mays might have the same penchant for throwing the kind of inside pitch that killed Ray Chapman, the same greed to sell out his teammates for a quick payoff, but it’s unlikely the harm would be as great. There simply wouldn’t be the same opportunity.

Would Mays be a saint in the modern big leagues? Maybe not, though that’s never been a requirement f0r baseball stardom. It’d definitely be interesting to see if Mays could stick with one team. Upon waiving Mays out to Cincinnati in 1923, Huggins wrote to Reds president Garry Herrmann, “I may be sending you the best pitcher I have, but I warn you that Carl is a troublemaker and always will be a hard man to sign.” Perhaps in the modern era with free agency, Mays could have a better chance to pick the right organization for himself. He’d also have more incentive to behave. Whatever the case, it seems unlikely he’d wind up as much a pariah.

Lieb wrote, “Mays felt he never lived down the Chapman incident. Late in his life I heard him say, ‘I won over two hundred big league games, but no one remembers that. When they think of me, I’m the guy who killed Chapman with a fastball.'” The modern era could offer Mays so much more.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Charles Victory Faust, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty O’Doul, Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Paul Derringer, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Wally Bunker, Willie Mays

On most days between April and September, I talk about Clarence H. “Ginger” Beaumont. Among my duties as a Pittsburgh Pirates PNC Park tour guide is to show guests the home team batting cage.

On the wall is the list of all the Pirates who have won batting championships—-eleven different players (see if you can name them; answer below*) for a total of 25 crowns.

Below Honus Wagner and next to the year 1902 Beaumont’s name is painted in white lettering.  I rarely gave Beaumont more than a passing thought until a visitor asked if “Ginger” was his real name. That simple question started my inquiry into Beaumont’s life and times.

“Ginger,” known on his birth certificate as Clarence, got his nickname because of his red hair. Beaumont holds a place in baseball history that can never be surpassed or outdone. In the 1903 first-ever World Series, the visiting Pirates faced the Boston Americans’ Cy Young. Beaumont, leading off, flew out to center field. Thus, Beaumont became the first batter in World Series history.

Beaumont, as I learned, was a great of a player—good enough so that when Honus Wagner and Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem made out their all-time teams both chose Ginger as their center fielder.

During the Deadball Era, Beaumont was considered baseball’s finest leadoff man, a lifetime .311 hitter. When Beaumont’s contemporaries praised him, they focused on his blazing speed (he was once clocked from home to first in 4.4 seconds), unusual for his 190 pound, 5’8″ frame.

According to famous Pittsburgh sportswriter John Gruber:

He [Beaumont] was an excellent base runner, being very fast on his feet, but nobody who saw him for the first time ambling along on his way to the batter’s box would admit this. A lazier or more indifferent-appearing player, emphasized by a burly body, could not be conceived. But when he hit the ball he was off like a streak, which astonished the uninitiated and made him one of the wonders of the century.

Beaumont began his career the old minor league Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers traded Beaumont to Pittsburgh in 1900 and he played for the Pirates for eight seasons.

In addition to his batting title, Beaumont also led the National League in hits three times and scored 100 runs four times, leading the league once. Ironically, one of the fastest players in his, bad knees ended Beaumont’s career in just 12 seasons.

Once out of baseball, Beaumont returned to his native Wisconsin and settled in Honey Creek where he owned a store, did some farming and auctioneering, conducted the church choir, became a grandfather and enjoyed his status as a local legend. Beaumont died on April 10, 1956 at the age of 79.

______

*Pittsburgh Pirates batting champions: Wagner (8), Beaumont (1). Paul Waner (3), Deb Garms (1), Arky Vaughn (1), Dick Groat (1), Roberto Clemente (4), Matty Alou (1), Bill Madlock (2), Dave Parker (2) and Freddie Sanchez (1)

Willie Mays’ 80th birthday on Friday got me thinking. Baseball’s an interesting sport in that its top competitors often live into old age unlike, say, football which seems to take 20 years off the lives of its veterans. While a few elderly ballplayers like Bob Feller and Duke Snider have died in recent months, there is still at least one Hall of Famer over the age of 80 for nearly every position. Together, these men could comprise a dream team of sorts, even if I wouldn’t recommend this squad take the field today.

The follow lineup is strictly symbolic of how these men played during their careers, with their current ages in parentheses:

CF- Willie Mays (80): Mays could and should hit third, fourth, or fifth with his 660-home run power, though he gets the lead off spot since no one else on the team comes close to matching his speed. Mays might also be the best living Hall of Famer, though that’s fodder for another post.

RF- Monte Irvin (92): Who better to back up Mays than his mentor his rookie year with the New York Giants in 1951? Irvin was a Negro League star and elite contact hitter who’d have probably managed a higher peak batting average than .312 if he’d played somewhere besides the Polo Grounds that ’51 season.

1B- Stan Musial (90): Stan the Man, with his .331 lifetime average, 475 home runs, and seven batting titles, might be baseball’s best living hitter. Certainly, with Feller’s death in December, Musial is the greatest living ballplayer over 90. This earns him the nod at a position he played roughly a third of his career.

LF- Ralph Kiner (88): Playing in a pitcher’s park like Forbes Field, in baseball’s postwar period where hurlers were favored, Kiner managed to lead the National League in home runs each of his first seven seasons. If he played anytime in the last 20 years, his home run totals would be staggering. That being said, he seems a somewhat forgotten slugger to modern fans.

3B- Al Rosen (87): The only non-Hall of Famer on this team, Rosen may have been just as good at his peak. He became a regular player at 26 and played just seven full seasons, twice leading the American League in home runs and RBI and earning Most Valuable Player honors in 1953. Rosen walked away from baseball to take a sales job at 32, and one can only wonder what he might have done with a full career.

C- Yogi Berra (85): At first, my fear was that there were no great catchers over 80, that the rigors of the position made this impossible. Then I remembered Yogi, the three-time MVP and seemingly ageless Yankee legend. He’s not the greatest catcher of all-time, though with Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle long dead, Berra he may be the most famous living Yankee, one of the final remaining links to a classic era for the Bronx Bombers.

SS- Ernie Banks (80): Mr. Cub gets the nod at the position he spent the first half of his career at, a lithe superstar before becoming a broke-down first baseman in later years.

2B- Bobby Doerr (93): One of the final remaining men who played in the 1930s, Doerr was a nine-time All Star, great supporting teammate for Ted Williams on the Boston Red Sox, and a Veterans Committee selection to the Hall of Fame in 1986.

P- Whitey Ford (82): Ford, Billy Martin, and Mickey Mantle set a standard for carousing as Yankee teammates in the 1950s. Martin died in a drunk driving accident on Christmas Day 1989, and Mantle passed of liver cancer five years later, though Ford has lived into old age.

Moms got us to school every day, made sure we had our lunch or money for lunch, fixed our hair and made sure our socks matched.  They always had a shoulder we could cry on and could fix even the most serious injury with a kiss and a “you’ll be alright”.  They straightened us out when needed and looked the other way and pretended they didn’t see something we did that wasn’t allowed. They pretended to believe our stories and pleas of innocence no matter how farfetched and unlikely they might have sounded even managing to look sympathetic to our “plight”.

In my house, Mom had another job as well and that was the keeping together of her baseball player.  Pre Little league was the easiest for her as we were not old enough to wear uniforms, (that was Little League baseball when we got to the mature old age of nine).  We were given t shirts with our team name and logo on the front and our sponsors name on back.  I say given but I think I dragged my father down, (or perhaps Mom insisted so I would stop bothering her about it), to the local registration centre where he handed over some money to a scary looking man sitting behind a table who scribbled my name down and told me which team I was going to play for and who my coach was.

There were no numbers on the “uniform” backs and spikes, sliding and leading off the base were not allowed.  Chewing massive amounts of gum, cleaning the dirt from the bottom of our spotless and shiny new running shoes and getting ourselves as dirty as possible diving into bases and for groundballs was allowed.

We rode our bicycles to the game always with the sound of our mother’s advice of being careful when riding, look both ways when crossing the street and lock your bike ringing in our ear. An embarrassing kiss good luck and have fun, (ballplayers don’t want kisses from girls, and baseball isn’t for fun), and it’s off I went.  I managed to lock my bike most times but I usually forgot the other words of motherly concern.

After the battle was over, Mom would ask me how the game was all the while checking me out for blood and dirt and gum in my hair. This was all before multi tasking became a buzz word.  Then it was off to the bath while mom tried to clean my t shirt and wash my jeans.  After my bath any necessary repairs were done to my scrapped skin or bruised facial features and it was off to bed.

Mom also had one more baseball job.  There were three ways to get baseball cards in those days.  Bubblegum cards, friends and on the back of cereal boxes. As I had no allowance to speak of and even though packs of bubble gum baseball cards were about five cents a pack for ten cards and that wonderful soapy tasting gum, my main method of collecting was post cereal.  On the back of each box of cereal were six baseball cards.  Among my first cards were Vada Pinson of the Cincinnati Reds and Lee Maye of the Atlanta Braves, the 1962 Post cereal baseball card set. Although I had no idea who these players were or knew anything about the teams they played for, they instantly became my two favorite players.

The type of cereal purchased had nothing to do with what I wanted or what was good for me.  Only players I was missing from my probably 40 or 50 card collection mattered.  Mom would patiently wait for me to go through every cereal box in the store until I found a box with six cards on the back I didn’t have. But instead of showing her deserved impatience with me or her insistence that I at least pick a type of cereal that I at least liked, she waited and purchased my final choice.  She always agreed and I brought the box home, found the scissors and quickly emptied the box into a bowl so I could cut out my beloved new cards right away. I kept them all in an old shoe box she had given me.

There was no one else who would clean my dirty uniform or lengthen my stirrups just right and tell me an oh-fer with four strikeouts was okay. There was no one else who would understand my love of the game.

I lost my mom to an aneurism in 1973.  I still miss her terribly. Thanks Mom.

On the last game of the 1947 season, in the second game of a double header against the New York Giants, the Philadelphia Phillies gave the ball to a young left hander who would go on to be one of its best pitchers.
Curt Simmons, then barely 18, went all the way, striking out 9 and giving up only 5 hits in the Phillies 3-1 win. The Giants took the opener, 4-1.

Simmons had been a highly recruited high school prospect since he was 16. In the summer of 1945 Simmons pitched the Coplay American Legion team to the first of two consecutive Pennsylvania state junior crowns.

His mound mastery landed Simmons in an American Legion all-star game in Philadelphia’s Shibe Park where he struck out seven of the nine hitters he faced. Two years later, in Simmons’ senior year, he struck out 102 batters and gave up only 12 hits in 43-1⁄3 innings. Simmons threw two no-hitters, three one-hitters, and two four-hitters and led his Whitehall High School nine to a third straight Lehigh Valley title.

Scouts flocked to Simmons’ Egypt, PA. home with the hope of signing him the instant he graduated. Among them were the Phillies who sent their major league squad to Egypt to field a team against Simmons—the ultimate try out. In the Phillies’ line up were Del Ennis and Johnny Wyrostek—not superstars but big league regulars.

Simmons scattered five hits through seven innings. More impressive were his nine strikeouts, better than one an inning. On the strength of Simmons’ performance and with an infusion of DuPont money from the new Philadelphia owners, the Phillies outbid all competitors for the lefty’s services. Simmons received an unheard of $65,000.

Simmons, along with Robin Roberts, helped lead the 1950 Whiz Kids Phillies to the pennant with his 17-8 record. But Simmons missed the World Series when his National Guard unit was activated. The Yankees’ sweep in four tightly pitched, low scoring duels was attributable in part to Simmon’s absence.

With the Cardinals in 1964, age 35, Simmons finally saw his first World Series action. In two fine starts against the Yankees, he was 0-1 with a 2.51 ERA.

During his 20-year career, Simmons never quite lived up to his teen phenom status. But he was an above average lefty who finished up 193-183 with a 3.54 ERA and 1,697 strike outs. Simmons started more than 25 games eleven times.

Now 81 Simmons, along with Smokey Burgess, was the last player to retire who was active in the 1940s. Named number 27 on the All Time Phillies list, Simmons lives in Montgomery County, PA.

Editor’s note: I’ve been running this Friday feature for a few months now, and it’s lagging. Thus, I’m issuing an open question: What would make this feature better? Would it be better to do away with this post and go back to having standard features on Fridays? Please feel free leave suggestions in the comment section here or send me an email. Thanks.

__________________

• The day after US forces killed Osama Bin Laden, Josh Wilker wrote of a firefighter named Stephen Siller who was killed on September 11. Wilker framed the post around a 1977 George Brett card, since Siller once, as someone else put it, “drove straight to Kansas City for George Brett’s last game, drove straight back, went to work.” The piece is only loosely about baseball, but as is generally the case, Wilker’s a good enough writer to make it work.
• David Nathan published the first installment of a 10-part series on the 10 most quotable players in baseball history. His #10: Dizzy Dean. My quick-take suggestion for the remaining nine: Satchel Paige, Casey Stengel, Yogi Berra, Nick Swisher, Rickey Henderson, Ted Williams, Jackie Robinson, Bob Uecker, and Jim Bouton.
• Cool vintage SI piece linked to on Baseball Think Factory this week: a 1986 conversation on hitting between Williams, Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly, and Peter Gammons.
• Why Roger Maris belongs in the Hall of Fame
• In the Shameless Self-Promotion Department. Monday’s post here inspired something on NBC Sports. Hugely flattered. My ego’s doing a victory lap around my apartment complex as we speak.
  

What he did: In Summer of ’49, David Halberstam posited the major reason for the Yankees’ success in the years following World War II: their general manager, George Weiss. In his time on the job from 1947 to 1960, New York won 10 American League pennants and seven World Series titles, and not long after he was shown the door, the Yankees began an epic decline. Weiss might be the most underrated key to Yankee success in their history, even if I doubt many modern fans know his name.

Halberstam wrote of the stockpiling of talent and the carefully-built Yankee farm system that began to manifest in 1949. “Already the trademark of the Weiss era was emerging,” Halberstam wrote. “The team was never to be allowed to grow old; sentiment was never to interfere with judgment. Each year there were to be three or four new players spliced into the team’s fabric.” Halberstam also wrote of Weiss as a tough negotiator who “treated his athletes as potential adversaries who would take advantage of any kindness bestowed upon them, and who performed best only when they were hungry.”

Reading all this, I was struck how times have changed, with the Yankees now sporting a $200 million payroll and a long-held reputation as one of sports’ most bloated franchises. The days of George Weiss and Yankee austerity are but a distant memory, though I wonder what it’d be like in New York if Weiss were running the team today.

Era he might have thrived in: As good as Weiss was in his time, he might do greater now. The former Yankee farm system director would still have his keen eye for talent and his famously ruthless ability to profit, but in the current era, he’d have more going for him. There’s the obvious greater budget he’d have, even as I’m sure he’d still drive a hard bargain. He’d also have a larger talent pool. Weiss was something of a bigot and one of the reasons the Yankees didn’t field a black player until 1955. Today’s Yankees are black, white, and Latin, and I’m guessing Weiss could come around.

Why: Prejudice in any form, at any time is, of course, never okay. That being said, people sometimes go along with terrible things if these things are institutional, seemingly the norm. In the 1920s, millions of Americans were Ku Klux Klan members (including Hall of Famers Gabby Street, Tris Speaker, and Rogers Hornsby.) A decade later, millions more listened to radio demagogues like Huey Long and Father Coughlin. And for years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier in 1947, the Yankees shunned black players.

Halberstam described how the Yankees considered themselves baseball’s elite team, not needing blacks like their poorer neighboring team, the Brooklyn Dodgers. Halberstam wrote:

The whites-only policy reflected the attitudes of men, born around or before the turn of the century, who felt the use of black players tainted their operation… They would, management believed, draw black fans, who would in turn scare away the good middle-class white fans. When the question of blacks, or Negroes, as they were then called, arose, the Yankee answer was that they would sign one when they found one worthy of being a Yankee.

It wouldn’t take Elston Howard these days for Weiss to craft a racially-diverse roster. Working in more tolerant times, Weiss would have to put aside any personal biases he harbored (assuming they’d be as pronounced) and be the bigger man. I’m guessing he could do it. Heck, plenty of people with less-than-stellar views continue to make a living in baseball. One need only look at Atlanta Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell’s recent suspension for using anti-gay slurs toward San Francisco fans to know there’s an undercurrent of bigotry still in baseball. It’s more closeted, but it’s there. Weiss could follow suit.

Weiss definitely welcomed new challenges. After the Yankees fired him and Stengel in 1960, he spent 1961 at home in Connecticut before joining the front office for the expansion New York Mets in 1962. He was 67 and would spend five mostly-hapless seasons as the Mets general manager. In a classic August 1962 Sports Illustrated story on those Mets, Jimmy Breslin quoted Weiss’s wife, Hazel saying, “I married George for better or for worse, but not for lunch.”As Breslin noted, Hazel Weiss was pleased her husband’s 12-hour workdays had resumed.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Charles Victory Faust, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty O’Doul, Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Paul Derringer, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Wally Bunker, Willie Mays

Few major league managers were more skilled at platooning than the New York Yankees’ great Casey Stengel.

The Hall of Fame manager was famous for striving to play left-handed hitters only against right-handed pitchers and vice versa. His players loathed it. There’s a passage in David Halberstam’s book on the 1949 Yankees and Red Sox, Summer of ’49. Halberstam wrote of the shared duties between Hank Bauer and Gene Woodling, noting:

In the outfield Stengel platooned Bauer and Woodling, close friends. Both were constantly at war with the manager because each wanted to play every day. Bauer smashed water coolers when Stengel pulled him for a pinch hitter. Woodling on occasion muttered darkly that you had to wear a cross on a chain to play regularly, an allusion to the idea that Stengel favored Catholics. Woodling, a marvelous natural hitter, was sure that if he played more often he would hit even better. He called Stengel “that crooked-legged old bastard.”

Stengel made his mark as a funny, if quirky manager, always good for rambling nonsensical quotes in a language sportswriters called Stengelese. There may be some who say Stengel’s chief achievement was happening to manage a well-assembled Yankee team that would have won with anyone at the helm. But just how talented Stengel was at juggling his players to get the maximum offensive production is, to this day, under appreciated.

Halberstam wrote of how in the ’49 season, Woodling and Bauer collectively batted .271 with 15 home runs and 99 RBI, in effect providing New York, “in an injury-filled season, a composite all-star outfielder.” It goes deeper than that. Just look at how Stengel interchanged his first basemen from 1949-1955 to achieve staggering results. During those years, the Yankees won five consecutive World Series titles and one American League pennant.

1949—Billy Johnson, Jack Phillips, Tommy Henrich, and Dick Kryhoski
34 HRs, 178 RBIs

1950—Johnny Hopp, Johnny Mize, Joe Collins and Henrich
40 HRS, 142 RBIs

1951—Hopp, Mize, Collins
21 HRs, 101 RBIs

1952—Hopp, Mize, Collins and Irv Noren

22 HRs, 90 RBIs

1953—Mize, Collins, Gus Triandos and Don Bollweg

28 HRs, 101 RBIs

1954—Collins, Eddie Robinson and Bill Skowron

22 HRs, 114 RBIs

1955—Collins, Robinson and Skowron

41 HRs, 148 RBIs

Average for the seven year period: 30 HRs and 125 RBIs. That kind of run production is the envy of every manager in baseball.