Baseball History — As Seen From The Shadows of Cooperstown: Part VI

In the sixth of a 10-part series, the author takes an in-depth look at Major League Baseball history from 1951 to 1960.

Introduction

Well, it has taken five weeks (or five decades) to finally get to the 1950s. This decade is the cradle where my rooting took shape, and for Pirate fans, it ran the gamut of baseball emotions. By the end of the fifties, baseball was not only in our living rooms a lot more, thanks to television, but it was in color. The fifties was the last decade before expansion, although there was some movement. In 1953, the Boston Braves moved to Milwaukee , and the next year the St Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles. The year after that , the Athletics moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City .

All that moving was before my time as a fan began, in 1957. So the first big changes I experienced were those of the Dodgers and Giants, from Brooklyn and New York , to the West Coast. If my memory is correct, the final games from Ebbets Field and from the Polo Grounds were played against the Pirates, and I saw them both on TV. The main impact seemed to be that now I would not be able to catch the ends of night games broadcast out of LA and SF, unless I stayed up way past my usual bedtime — which I sometimes did. The Tennis Court , a chapter in my life about the sandlot where I played my first games of baseball, has appeared here in Notes more than a few times (for the whole thing, see # 300 ), but here it is one more time, because it says a lot about where I was in that decade, now half a century in the past!

We’d play our usual ball at the Tennis Court until dusk, when the odds of finding lost balls dropped as low as the sun on the horizon. But instead of heading home, we’d unpack our sleeping bags, and gather wood for an all-night campfire.

I’d camped out overnight at our parish’s summer retreat in the Laurel Mountains , a couple of times, but that was with plenty of adult supervision. No counselors at the Tennis Court : Kids Only.

The red bricks that lined the thirdbase/home corner of the field (to prevent rollers over the hill) were converted into a small wall, encircling the pitcher’s mound (which was never very high.) The two-foot by six-inch piece of board that we had nailed into the clay to serve as a rubber was removed, and that’s where our fires were built — on the mound, the center of our universe.

Our bags were strung out like spokes around that inner circle, close enough to the flames to lean our sharpened branches on the bricks and toast marshmallows — while we laid safely inside, tucked away from mosquitoes and no-see-ums.

At eleven, my trusty RCA portable transistor radio was clicked on, and our ghost stories and fireside chatter took second place to Bob Prince and the Pirates’ game. Paradise could not have been much better, for Pittsburgh teenagers.

More often than not, the batteries would fade. Off went the radio, to let them rest up. Click — back on, to catch a critical at-bat or a new score, and so on, into the deep night.

As the batteries died their slow death, we’d take turns pressing the radio against our ears, trying to squeeze out pieces of vital information. We definitely didn’t want to wait until the morning newspaper’s arrival to find out who had won. And if the box from California was late, we’d have to wait until the afternoon paper!

At daybreak, the birds would wake us up. We’d douse any remaining sparks and coals, scatter the ashes, and rebuild the roller barrier, if the bricks were cool enough to carry. Then we’d trudge home, smelling of smoke, to take baths and go to bed — resting up for an afternoon game, perhaps, back at the Tennis Court , where every game was a home game.

1951

The New York Giants had not played in a Series since 1937, but in 1951, Leo Durocher put a rookie named Willie Mays in the outfield where Monte Irvin already roamed, got 23-win seasons from Sal “the Barber” Maglie and Larry Jansen, and tied Brooklyn for the NL pennant. The three-game playoff was climaxed with one of the all-time most memorable games, Bobby Thomson’s three-run HR capping a four-run last-ditch rally in the 157th game of the long summer. Russ Hodges’ famous call of the event was still echoing when I started rooting, and it echoes today. Looking back, this game suggested that drama in October did not have to be restricted to the Series, but playoffs would not become the rule in baseball for another eighteen years.

Despite the momentum, the Giants dropped the Series in six games to the Yankees, who were well-rested, winning the AL by five over Cleveland . The Yanks were in the middle of a five-year run of Series wins. Damn Yankees . Eddie Lopat tossed a couple October gems and retiring Joe DiMaggio hit his final home run.

1952

Brooklyn came back to win the NL by four over the Giants. “The Boys of Summer,” as they were later dubbed by Roger Kahn, were the cream of the league, the team to beat. Hodges, Robinson, Reese, Cox; Furillo, Snider, Pafko; Campanella. I only got to see some of them play, past-peak. They took the Yankees to a game seven in the ‘52 Series, losing the final two in Brooklyn .

The Yankees had a juggernaut going that seemed to have momentum from the days of Ruth and Gehrig. The new Yankees were often not just as good as the players they replaced, but better. Rizzuto anchored the infield as McDougald took over for Coleman. Yogi Berra was making fans forget Bill Dickey. And now Mickey Mantle took over center from DiMaggio. Mantle’s first two World Series HRs — he would eventually hit 18 — were the difference in the Yankee wins in Game Six and Seven.

The Pittsburgh Pirates finished last (eighth) in the NL, with 42 wins, 54.5 games behind Brooklyn . The Pirates lost to the Dodgers 19 out of 22 games in 1952, and 20 in 1953 — but imagine how wonderful those five wins must have felt. Ralph Kiner hit 37 HRs in ‘52, leading the NL for the seventh straight season. It is easy to see why Kiner was so popular, in those tough times.

1953

In ‘53, with Willie Mays in the service, the Giants dropped to fifth (the “second division”!) and the Dodgers romped to the flag with 105 wins, 13 ahead of the Braves. The Yankees coasted home with 99 wins, 8.5 up on Cleveland . The Series ended with the Yankees on top in six games. Mantle HRs won two more games and Billy Martin rapped out twelve hits, the last one scoring the winning run in the bottom of the ninth of the finale.

Happily, this run of five Yankee championships was before my time. But the Yankee reputation lived on into the early sixties, they were always the team to beat, the AL favorite, and because of their success, they were hated or envied by everyone except their own. At least as a National League fan, I did not need to deal with the Yankees at all, until Octobers.

1954

As I started studying recent baseball history in 1957, it looked like the Dodgers and Yankees, after battling each other so often in recent Octobers — four times since 1947 — decided to take a break in 1954 and let someone else have a turn. Of course that was not the case. Willie was back with the Giants (.345, 41 HRs), and Leo’s team fought their way to the flag, by five, over Brooklyn . And the Yankees did not slack off, they won 103 games! But the Cleveland Indians put together one of those years , with Al Lopez at the helm. They won 111 games (Wynn and Lemon 23 each), got 32 HRs from Larry Doby, a .341 from 2B Bobby Avila, and finished eight ahead of the Yanks.

The NL had not won a Series since 1946, and those 111 wins must have made the Indians look like the obvious favorite in October of ‘54. Which makes the sweep by the Giants one of the game’s lingering mysteries. Game One served up “the Catch” — Willie Mays’ clutch grab of Vic Wertz’ long ball, with two on in the 8th, as the Giants won 5-2. It is easy to say, looking back, that the play must have deflated the Indians. But give the Giant pitchers and hitters due credit, they followed with wins of 3-1 (Antonelli), 6-2, and 7-4. Fans of the AL and the Indians cried “Upset” while NL and Giant fans just basked in the moment.

1955

I think my first actual baseball memory comes from 1955. I was not following the majors yet, but every so often, something would make the news so loudly that even boys under ten took notice. For example, in 1954, a Brit named Roger Bannister ran the mile in under four minutes (3 min, 59.4 seconds), which may seem slow today, but it was a first. Anyway, what I remember from 1955 was the big news, the day after the World Series ended — the Brooklyn Dodgers, thanks to Johnny Podres, had finally won a World Championship. It was their first and, as it turned out, their last, and after just two more seasons, the Dodgers were playing in Los Angeles.

Brooklyn got into the Series easily this time, finishing 13.5 ahead of the Milwaukee Braves, as the Giants fell to third. The Yankees won 96, and that was three more than the Indians, even though the Tribe had acquired Ralph Kiner. The Pirates traded Kiner to the Cubs mid-season in 1953; his 35 HRs that summer did not lead the lead, the streak ending at seven. In a full season at Wrigley in ‘54, Kiner hit just 22 HR, and in Cleveland, his career ended (back problems) with 18 HR — 369 in ten seasons, and a Ruthian HR% of 7.1.

It took seven games for the Dodgers to do it to the Yanks. They lost the first two games at the Stadium, 6-5 and 4-2. But they swept three at Ebbets, 8-3 (behind Podres, on his 23rd birthday), 8-5 and 5-3. Back home, the Yankees tied the Series with a 5-1 win (Ford). But in the one that no Dodger fan can forget, Podres won a duel with Tommy Byrne, 2-0, with Gil Hodges driving home both runs. Sandy Amoros made a web-gem catch in the 6th off Yogi Berra, probably converting a two-run double into a double play.

Fans my age have seen the Amoros catch, Willie’s catch the year before, and Al Gionfriddo’s catch in 1947, many times. I’ve read that in those days before replays and cameras posted at various places to catch every angle, fielders sometimes were asked the next day by reporters and photographers to play it again . So we may in fact have seen some re-enactments, edited into the newsreel footage. A lot of the highlight reels were edited, and you can usually tell — closeups of pitchers winding up (taken before the games) and closeups of batters digging in (ditto), spliced in just before crucial at bats. Well, these were dramatic moments, and the editors just wanted to stretch them out a few more seconds. They would be remembered forever.

1956

I still wasn’t following baseball, just playing a lot, with the kids in the neighborhood. I think by 1956, the Davy Crockett fad had faded, and our coonskin caps were worn out. But just like the Podres win in Game Seven of October 1955, something happened to get my attention. This time, it was much closer to home. Here is how I described it in Dear Patrick (see Notes 294-311 ; this excerpt is from # 297 , written around 1990).

In 1956, a Pirate named Dale Long did something that no one else had ever done before. He hit home runs in eight straight games — a feat equaled only once since, thirty years later, by Don Mattingly. After Number Seven (which broke the old record), Long became an instant celebrity and received America’s highest tribute: a guest appearance on the Sunday night Ed Sullivan show. Probably more Pittsburghers watched Ed that night than when Elvis Presley guested, a year or so before. Number Eight came Monday.

I was ten, and ready to start serious fandom. Was Dale Long the new Kiner, who would lead the Bucs out of the cellar? When you’re ten, there’s no limit to your hopes. And it was May, when no team was yet so far behind that a pennant was un-hope-able.

Long’s accomplishment was the sort of event that got the attention not just of baseball fans, but of those countless people on the fringes. Those who become fans in October for the Series. It jumped off the sports pages, onto the front page; it was mentioned first on the TV and radio news, not fifteen minutes later.

The Pirates announcer Bob Prince would look back on the game in which Long hit number eight as the greatest game he saw. For Prince, the game was an epiphany of sorts, revealing the power of baseball to bring together in a common cause, an entire city — Republicans and Democrats; Catholics, Protestants and Jews; labor and management; fans of all colors. I recall the feat simply as a record that put the Pirates on the national news, but I had a glimpse of what Prince was talking about a few years later.

Come October, it was back to business-as-usual, the Yankees beating the Dodgers. It took seven games, but this was a year when no one remembered the hero of Game Seven (it was pitcher Johnny Kucks, who tossed a three-hit shutout in a 9-0 win; when I got a new glove a year or so later, it was a Johnny Kucks model, and I had no idea who he was).

The game we all still recall is, of course, Game Five, Don Larsen’s perfecto, a 2-0 win that came when the Series was tied. I have no memory of that game, none, except from newsreels seen years later. Clem Labine tossed a ten-inning, 1-0 shutout in Game Six, and probably only Dodger fans remember it.

Brooklyn snuck into the Series by edging past Milwaukee by just one game. It was Jackie Robinson’s last season. He left behind many images; I remember him (from films) on the bases, stealing home (19 times), stealing the show. Over in the AL, the Yankees won by 9 over Cleveland. Mickey Mantle won the Triple Crown with .353, 52 HRs and 130 RBI, and as a switch-hitter, how could any kid not root for this guy — despite the pinstripes. I once owned a Mickey Mantle bat, 32 ounces, I think. It felt like that bat in The Natural , capable of hitting long shots all by itself . We wore it out.

1956 would be the last season that would pass pretty much off my radar screen. I’ve described my own baseball memories as inexplicably sticky , and starting with 1957, they are still sticking — or perhaps by now, rattling around inside my head. Here’s how that little essay on Dale Long (above) ended.

But the dreams of May faded in the heat of the summer, and although Long slugged twenty-seven round-trippers, the Bucs never came close to the flag. They wound up in seventh place, and the only consolation was that that broke a streak of four straight eighth -place finishes!

1957

I started following ML baseball in 1957, with the first game I recall being one I heard on radio. Pirates’ manager Bobby Bragan argued with the umps (it went on forever), was ejected, and then was fired. Danny Murtaugh took over, promised that the team would play .500 ball — as strong a boast in his day as it would be today — and I was hooked.

As I said, my family was a Pirate family. But my father and older sister worked for Allis-Chalmers, headquartered in Milwaukee. So when the Braves won the pennant in ‘57, finishing well ahead of St Louis and Brooklyn — and the Pirates, under Murtaugh, played .510 ball to finish not 8th , but tied for 7th — there was joy in our corner of Mudville. To celebrate, I think, my father purchased a color television , making my memories of my first World Series that much more vivid.

I joined the millions of National League fans and Yankee-haters in rooting against the New Yorkers, who had finished eight ahead of Al Lopez, now with the White Sox. The turning point of the Series seemed to be a hit batsman in Game Four, Nippy Jones arguing and then finally proving his point by showing the umps the fresh shoe polish on the baseball that hit his foot. That was in the bottom of the 10th with the Yanks ahead. Eddie Mathews’ HR won the game. But the single memory of that Series that sticks for me is pitcher Lou Burdette, a one-time Yankee, winning three complete games, including shutouts in Games Five and Seven. I learned that the WS MVP got a new car, too.

1958

This season taught me how finishing second can feel just as good as winning a pennant — when your team hasn’t been very good for a long, long time. The Pirates won 84 games that summer, not really close to the Braves’ 92, but the leap from last to second was exhilarating. Ralph Kiner was long gone, but native Frank Thomas poked 35 HRs, rookie Dick Stuart hit 16, and we had Ted Kluszewski at first base. Another pair of rookies, George “Red” Witt and Curt Raydon, went 9-2 (1.61) and 8-4, respectively, and I was really hooked.

Meanwhile, in the larger world, Milwaukee took the pennant. This was a dynastic Braves’ team, with future Hall of Famers at 2B (Red Schoendienst — yes, I could spell it then , too), 3B (Eddie Mathews) and Hank Aaron was in RF; Warren Spahn was winning twenty like clockwork. The Braves had a solid team, and talented rookies, and we NL fans were sure they could beat the Yankees again.

But they didn’t. Finishing ten ahead of Lopez’ Sox, New York out-dynastied the Braves. Mantle, Berra, Ford, Turley, Moose Skowron, Kubek, Bauer, somehow, all the Yankee names were familiar, I guess from previous World Series. The ‘58 Series went seven, but this time Burdette won just once, losing Games Five and Seven. Give the Yanks credit, they came back to win after being down three games to one. They out-homered the Braves 10-3, and won Game Seven by scoring 4 in the 8th, 6-2.

1959

In the years before free agency, there was less movement of players from team to team. There were always trades, of course, and every so often there would be a “big one” — a blockbuster, like a HR champ for a batting champ (Rocky Colavito for Harvey Kuenn, but that was after 1959), or a multi-player. The Pirates pulled off the latter before ‘59, acquiring 3B Don Hoak, C Smoky Burgess and LHP Harvey Haddix from Cincinnati, in exchange for its biggest gun, Frank Thomas, and three prospects.

The Reds, a team that had not won a pennant since 1940, had a powerhouse in the fifties, and almost won in 1956, when they hit 221 HRs and stuffed the All Star ballot box, forcing the Commish to insert Stan Musial and Hank Aaron into a sea of red and white uniforms. The Reds were all muscle, led by Kluszewski, Frank Robinson, Wally Post, Bailey & Burgess, and Gus Bell. They would have their moment in 1961. The Thomas trade worked out for the Pirates. For more on the Reds, see Jim Brosnan’s Pennant Race .
The pennants in ‘59 went to the Dodgers (they needed to beat the Braves in a playoff, and did, two games straight), and the Chicago “Go Go” White Sox, a team that hadn’t played in October since 1919 (and maybe not really then!) But on the way to October, two amazing things happened, and they both involved Pirate pitchers.

On May 26, Harvey Haddix retired the first 36 Milwaukee Braves he faced, before giving up two runners (on an error and an intentional walk) and then a hit, to lose 1-0 in 13 to Lou Burdette. I’ve written more about Haddix’ “Perfect Loss” than about any other game, I think. I listened to it on the radio. The other pitcher who made headlines and history in ‘59 was reliever Roy Face, who went 18-1. It was a crazy streak, with some ugly blown saves in there, but still something to cheer about, when your team is sliding from second to fourth.

I think this is about where I became aware that all fans have things to cheer about. Even Cub fans (Ernie Banks was the NL MVP), even Philly fans (Richie Ashburn won a batting title in ‘58 as the Phils finished last), even the Kansas City (Bob Cerv) and Washington (Sievers, Killebrew) fans. Many years later I would realize that the same thing was true for fans of minor league teams.

Anyway , in October ‘59, this NL-Pirate fan rooted for the White Sox. Not because of Senor Lopez, or Nellie Fox, or that Luis Aparicio, or Minnie Minoso, and not because of the “Go Go” tag and the way this club hustled and fielded and pitched. No, I rooted for them because they had picked up Ted Kluszewski from the Pirates for their stretch run. Big Klu’s only World Series.

Game One was therefore my peak: the Sox won 11-0, with Klu smacking two HRs. Then the pitching-rich Dodgers took over, winning 4-3, 3-1, 5-4, 0-1, and 9-3. Down 9-0 in the last game, Klu homered again with two on, a last hurrah.

Jackie Robinson is often credited for reviving the stolen base as an offensive weapon in baseball, but when Luis Aparicio stole 56 bases in 1959, that sent a message. And the Dodgers had a rookie that summer who would turn the NL upside down in the seasons that followed. Maury Wills, 50 SBs in 1960, 104 two seasons later. Paving the way for Brock, Henderson, et al.

1960

Every fan has a favorite season, I think, and for Pirate fans who were there , 1960 was theirs. I tried to see every NL team at least once, when they visited Forbes Field, in those days, and had also decided that any fan worth their salt should also take in twenty games. We lived nowhere near Oakland, though, so I was totally dependent on my father to get me there. Not to worry, the whole city was flocking to Forbes that summer. 1960 made me wish that every fan, at least once in their life, gets to experience a city in a pennant race. Nothing like it.

The team to beat, of course, was Milwaukee, a team still loaded with talent. But the Pirates simply put together one of those years . They acquired a right-handed catcher named Hal Smith to platoon with Smoky Burgess; Rocky Nelson and Dick Stuart platooned at 1B; the rest of the infield was solid, Mazeroski at 2B, Hoak at 3B, and Dick Groat turned in an MVP/batting champ season at SS. The OF of Skinner-Virdon-Clemente added Gino Cimoli. This was a lineup that would never be mistaken for Murderers Row, but they won the hearts of Pirate fans with an amazing number of come-from-behind wins. When the race ended, they had 95 W’s, seven more than the Braves. I had only been rooting a few years, but for the city, a 32-year pennant drought came to an end.

The Yankees won again in the AL — their tenth pennant in twelve seasons. They were heavy favorites — I guess. Nobody I knew bet against the Pirates.

It was one of the wildest World Series ever. The Yankees set new records, 91 hits, 55 runs, 64 singles, 142 total bases, a .338 average and .528 slugging avg; they won by scores of 16-3, 10-0, and 12-0. But this is baseball , Ray, where the team that wins four in October is the victor. And of course, the Pirates won 6-4, then 3-2 and 5-2 at the Stadium in Games Four and Five, and finally, Game Seven, 10-9. I’ve probably written more about that game, capped by Maz’ HR, than any other except Haddix’ perfect loss.

Since 1960, I’ve read many accounts of this Series, and learned that the defeat of the Yankees that October seemed to be a boost for the mental health of many Americans. The Damn Yankees had been slain, a Goliath felled by David. If the Pirates could pull this off, than anything was possible . Welcome to the Sixties. I think Newsweek compared the Yankees loss to the sinking of the Titanic — it simply was not supposed to happen. But it did.

The Pirates have won a few pennants since 1960, and were World Champs in ‘71 and ‘79. But to be honest, 1960 was enough to last a lifetime. More than ‘71 and ‘79, memories of 1960 have made the sub-.500 seasons since 1992 bearable. I’m not sure I’ve ever made that particular observation before, and I don’t know if any other Pirate fans feel the same way.

So that was the Fifties. The last decade when ML fans had only sixteen teams to follow. When every season ended with just a World Series, no playoffs. I ought to mention one other thing that happened that decade. Around 1958, I got hooked on APBA baseball. In a league with my brother and sister (the Commish), and a couple friends our age in the neighborhood, we played out three or four summers, each managing one or two teams. I had the Pirates and Cardinals. But in those years, I knew the rosters of all eight NL teams and could rattle off lineups. Eventually, I’d purchase the APBA Great Teams of the Past, too, and familiarize myself with rosters from the Deadball Era and many of the years between 1900 and 1940.

And I was also playing baseball back then, not just rolling dice. I never played Little League, just sandlot ball, and a dozen variations to accommodate the numbers of kids who showed up that day, usually between two and six. My family had a fungo bat, and sometimes we just hit long flies to each other. Sometimes just grounders. We played basketball and football, too, and later golf, and all kinds of other card games and board games. But as I noted when I started writing baseball in 1989, my memories of baseball seemed special, they were the “stickiest” and the most vivid. As it turned out, they became a foundation, or maybe even a kind of value-system. I don’t want to get too analytical here, as if Everything I Needed for Life I Learned from Baseball — I don’t think that is the case at all. I grew up in a stable family, in a stable neighborhood, with predictable schools, and in a most stable decade — the 1950s. It just happened that way.

The above is an excerpt from Issue #442 of Gene’s Notes From the Shadows of Cooperstown. To read the rest of the issue (or past issues), click here .