190. Marius Russo: Battle-tested on the Fields of Bushwick

This is the fifth and last of 5 Bushwicks Stories in 5 days. For the introduction to the Bushwicks and this series please go HERE first. 

So far we've seen three of the four types of players that made up the Brooklyn Bushwicks:

1) The guy who had all the talent in the world, but never wanted to turn pro.

2) Aging big leaguer on his way back down into the civilian world. 

3) The career minor leaguer who just didn't have that certain "something" to make the majors.

Today we have Marius Russo, a guy who perfectly personifies the fourth and last type of Bushwick:

4) The young guy from the area who wanted to make a name for himself.

With pin-point control and a nice side-arm fastball, Marius Russo cut through collegiate competition like a knife. The Long Island University student's 8-2 record and headline-grabbing win at the Greater New York College All-Star Game grabbed the attention of the Yankees super-scout Paul Krichell. When Russo's college athletic eligibility was used up in the spring of 1936, the lefty found his services were in much demand in New York City's semi-pro circuit. The college kid hired his arm out to various teams including the Glendale Farmers and Brooklyn Bay Parkways. Krichell sat in the stands and watched closely but before he got the kid's signature on a Yankee contract he wanted to see more. He wanted to see how the lefty did against the best players outside the major leagues. Krichell wanted to see how Russo did against Negro League teams.

After ascertaining the kid wanted was game to pursuing a career in pro ball, Krichell made a phone call to Max Rosner and within days Russo was in a Brooklyn Bushwick's uniform. 

Krichell knew, and Russo soon discovered, that whiffing a bunch of college kids was a lot different than facing the Negro League teams. A great many of the blackball players he would face in the summer of 1936 were of obvious major league caliber but for their skin color. 

His first brush with blackball came against the New York Black Yankees. Formed from the ashes of the old Lincoln Giants, the Black Yankees were the perennial losers of the Negro National League but still had some solid ballplayers like Tubby Scales and Fats Jenkins - not Hall of Famers but had they been the right hue they'd be on a big league roster somewhere. The Black Yanks slapped Russo around for 7 runs on 15 hits. Next he faced the Philadelphia Stars, Negro National League champs two years earlier. The Stars had future Hall of Famers Jud Wilson and Turkey Stearnes in their line up and knocked the kid out of the box by the 5th inning. Russo went on to lose his next four starts against the black teams. None of his losses came close to being as dramatic as the game he pitched against the Pittsburgh Crawfords in June. 

The Crawfords were the New York Yankees of blackball. Ruthlessly assembled by racketeer Gus Greenlee, the Craws had by 1936 assembled the greatest team in Negro League history. No less than five Hall of Famers - Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell and Judy Johnson - came to face Russo and the Bushwicks that day. By now the college kid had faced blackball teams a few times and knew they played fast and hard. His teammates on the Bushwicks were much more experienced - the median age was about 31 - and their advice on how to pitch to those guys was starting to pay off. In that June game against the Craws Russo was holding onto a 4-3 lead going into the 9th inning. It had been a see-saw game but three more outs and Russo would have his first victory over a black team. 

Second baseman Dickie Seay was up first. He was playing on a swollen ankle and had gone hitless all afternoon. Now he led off the ninth with a cheap single that found a hole in the Bushwicks infield. Manager Oscar Charleston put in a pinch runner and the pitcher Leroy Matlock sacrificed him over to second. With one away Cool Papa Bell came up to the plate. Cool already tapped Russo for three hits that day but he popped a ball up to the infield that is caught for out number two. Russo is one out from beating the best team in blackball history. 

Speedy outfielder Jimmie Crutchfield is due up but the Craws manager Oscar Charleston takes the bat from his hands and pencils himself in as a pinch hitter. Charleston, who many say was the absolutely best black (heck, some say of any color) ballplayer of all time, was now into his fourth decade and beginning to pack on the chub. Regardless, when Russo hung his fastball over the inside of the plate Charleston sent it 410 feet over the right field wall for a two run homer and the 5-4 edge. Russo recovered enough to snag Sam Bankhead's liner back to the box for out number three. The Bushwicks still had one more inning to retaliate and the odds weren't bad until Satchel Paige emerged from the bullpen to pitch the ninth. Satch was in the prime of his career and his blazing fastball sent the three Bushwicks he faced back in order for the win.

While many young ballplayers would have been discouraged by continued failure, Russo did not. He'd lose seven times before he could claim a win over the black teams and he used this crash course in blackball to become a smarter pitcher. Over all his stats weren't horrible. Scott Simkus meticulously reassembled Russo's 1936 Bushwicks season and found the kid had a respectable 3.82 ERA in 12 games against Negro League clubs. By the end of the summer Russo was a seasoned veteran, a graduate of the Dexter Park Academy of hardball. On September 2nd he got the chance to face the Crawfords again, and this time it was he who was the victor. As opposed to the 12,000 who watch their first tryst, just 4,400 braved the threatening weather for the night game. In what may have been Marius Russo's greatest pitching performance of his entire career, the lefty shut out the Crawfords on two hits and struck out nine.

Krichell has seen enough. Before the summer was through Russo was part of the Yankees organization. 

The Yankees sent him to their top farm team which happened to be just across the Hudson River in Newark, New Jersey. The team Russo joined has gone down in history as possibly the best minor league team of all time. Of the 32 men who suited up for the Newark Bears  that year, no fewer than 27 would go on to play in the majors, either with the Yankees or other big league teams. The kid from Queens won 8 games for the pennant-bound Bears, and the Yankees ear-marked him to be the heir-apparent to the great Lefty Grove. To give him a touch more seasoning he spent 1938 in Newark where he posted a record of 17 wins and then was called up to the big club for 1939.

Now Marius Russo became an integral part of what historians believe was the greatest team in major league history, the 1939 Yankees. As part of this juggernaut the lefty won 8 games with a 2.41 ERA, not bad at all for a rookie. He followed that up with 14 wins in 1940 and then another 14 in 1941. By now he was the best pitcher on the Yankees and manager Joe McCarthy had him pitch Game 3 of the World Series against the Dodgers. With the series tied at a game apiece he faced off against veteran Fat Freddie Fitzsimmons. Both men pitched magnificently, neither giving up a run through six innings. Then in the bottom of the seventh, Russo hit a line drive that smashed into Fitzsimmons' kneecap. Brooklyn rushed reliever Hugh Casey into the game who promptly gave up 2 runs while Russo cruised to a 4-hit complete game victory to give the Yankees the edge in the series. The hometown kid was an instant hero and the Yanks went on to beat the Dodgers in seven games. 

His fame was short-lived. Sometime early in the '42 season he hurt his arm. He managed a 4-1 record but to relieve the pain in his arm he began noodling with his delivery and soon the velocity was gone from his fastball. 1943 was a disappointing 5-10, but with a still respectable 3.72 ERA. With a good part of his pitching staff evaporating into the service, McCarthy tapped Russo to pitch Game 4 of the 1943 World Series against St. Louis. The Cards had been fortunate in regards to the draft and still had all of their starters in uniform. Russo came through with one last glorious game. Holding Hall of Famers Stan Musial and Marty Marion and the rest of the Cards to seven hits, the sore armed lefty hit two doubles and scored the go ahead run in the eighth. The win put the Yanks up 3 games to 1 in their eventual win over St. Louis.

Russo joined the Army after the series and briefly came back to the Yanks in 1946 but the arm was through. He put away his spikes and worked in the aircraft industry on Long Island, eventually retiring to a life of travel with his wife. The old lefty was a popular character at old-timers games and became a font of first hand knowledge for historians interested in the great Yankees teams of the 1930's. He passed away at the age of 90 in 2005.

Baseball archaeologist Scott Simkus wrote a wonderful piece on Russo and his 1936 season with the Bushwicks in the much-missed Outsider Baseball Bulletin. Simkus meticulously reconstructed the lefty's record against the Negro Leaguers and uses these and other Bushwicks stats in a brilliant formula to accurately gauge the level of talent found in the black leagues. I can't stress how important his book "Outsider Baseball" is to modern researchers and can't recommend it enough. 

This concludes the "5 Bushwicks in 5 Days" series. It's been fun concentrating on one little-known aspect of baseball history in one break-neck marathon session. I'm not quite sure where next week's story will take us, but you can be assured it sure as heck will be interesting!

161. Joe Styborski: The Mystery Man of The 1927 Yankees

If you look closely, he's there, standing on the top right, between the bear-like outfielder Ben Paschal and the diminutive trainer Doc Woods. It's the official team portrait of the legendary 1927 New York Yankees, commonly referred to as "The Greatest Team of All-Time". As the subject of countless books and thousands of articles, they're undoubtedly the most documented lineup in baseball history, so why has this one tall young man who stares straight at the camera remained anonymous and mislabeled until recently?

First of all, the young man's name is not "unknown" or "Walter Beall" or "John Stiborski". His name is Joseph Styborski.

He was born in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, the eldest son of Antoni and Helen Styborski, immigrants from Russian Poland. The family would have 4 more children before moving to the rural Cambridge Springs, tucked away in the upper western corner of Pennsylvania. Antoni rented a dairy farm on which he and his family worked. Joe developed into a husky teen, just shy of six feet tall. Somewhere, like almost every other American boy, he learned baseball. For Joe it wasn't so much a game; it was his ticket to a better life.

After high school Joe matriculated to Penn State. By his sophomore year the big righty was the mainstay of Penn's pitching staff. Like many young pitchers, Styborski got by on just his speed ball, which by all newspaper accounts, was something to behold. Along with his tremendous velocity came the inherent wildness and Penn's coach Hugo Bezdeck worked with him to achieve greater accuracy. The extra work paid off and he was the undisputed ace of the university's 1926 staff. In a May 20th game against Princeton, Styborski gave up a pair of walks in the first inning and then a run scored on two errors, but he held the Tigers to a just two hits, striking out 4 through nine innings, only to lose the game 1-0.  It was a rare loss for Styborski, who soon got the nickname "Cy", a comparison to the great Cy Young. (Plus, "Cy Styborski" is just fun to say - try it).

Coach Bezdeck must have known his ace had the stuff for a career in professional baseball and he began to help Styborski prepare for the 1927 season. In the off season, Bezdeck helped his ace develop a change up and it paid dividends when his senior year came around. In his first start, Styborski beat North Carolina 8-2, scattering 6 hits, striking out 11 and smashing a two-run homer. Against Syracuse he hit a double while giving up 4 hits and whiffing 6 Orangemen. A week later he went the distance against Princeton, striking out 5, scattering 8 hits and again getting a double, winning 8-2. And so it went for the 1927 season, Styborski finishing with a 6-1 record. His solitary loss was from a May 22nd game against NYU when he came in to relieve Russ Van Atta, a lefty from New Jersey who would also eventually wind up in the Yankees farm system. 

With the heavy press coverage Penn State ball games received and his great record over three collegiate seasons, Styborski was courted by major league scouts. While the offers were welcomed, Styborski wanted one thing more than a contract: his diploma. The young ace rebuffed all offers until the sheepskin was firmly in his grasp. On June 13th, 1927 he graduated from Penn State with a degree in Arts and Letters, and signed a contract with the best team in baseball, the New York Yankees. Two days later young Joe Styborski was on a train to New York to join the team. 

It was a great time to be a Yankee, the team blew into the '27 season as defending American League champs. Ruth was in the midst of his greatest season and Lou Gehrig had finally come into his own as one of the games best young stars. The team's starting rotation of Waite Hoyt and Herb Pennock, both future Hall of Famers, and ace reliever Wilcy Moore were the perfect counterpoint to the teams offensive punch.

Due to a rain delayed series with Boston during which the beat writers had nothing much to report, Styborski's signing made the major papers. Much was made out of his college education, which was indeed a rarity amongst major league players of the time. The sportswriters played up his hitting, quoting the Yankee scouts report to manager Miller Huggins "Joe is quite a ball player, hitting about as well as he pitches." The scribes also warned future scorekeepers of the tongue-twisting, pencil-breaking Styborski-Grabowski pitcher-catcher battery. (Johnny Grabowski was the Yankee's back-up catcher).

So by mid-July, Penn State's Cy Young was fitted out for a set of pinstripes and took his place in the Yankees dugout. If Styborski thought he'd soon get a chance on the mound backed by Murderer's Row, he was wrong. During the his tenure as skipper of the Yanks, Miller Huggins habitually brought up newly signed youngsters and had them practice with the team and ride the pines during league games. That was Huggin's way of deciding what minor league level the team should farm the ball player out to. It was tantalizingly close to the big show, riding the pines in a new set of pinstripes, and many young kids foolishly thought they were going to actually get into a game. He did, however get to work out with the team and throw batting practice, all under Huggin's watchful eye.

In the years before corporations and unions took the fun out of the game, it was common for major league teams to spend an off day playing a minor league or semi-pro team for extra money. It was a quaint way for fans in pre-radio days to get to see a big league team play. It was also a time that managers like Miller Huggins used to see what his new or little-used players could do in game situations. So, on Friday June 24th, the Yankees swung into Springfield, Massachusetts on their way home from Boston. Not wanting to waste any of his starters, Huggins penciled in Roy Chesterfield to start the game against the Ponies.

Over 7,000 fans turned out to see the mighty Yankees and they weren't disappointed: Babe Ruth socked two trademark home runs plus a double and Lou Gehrig hit a 2-run blast. Chesterfield gave up 3 runs in three innings before Huggins handed Styborski the ball. Taking the mound in the bottom of the fourth, the pre-rookie blanked the Ponies for a few innings before giving up 4 big runs in the 6th which tied it up. A Ruth homer the following inning put the Yankees ahead by a run.

Joe Giard took the mound in the eighth, which happened to be the last completed frame since the game ended prematurely when 500 boys burst from the overcrowded stands and mobbed Babe Ruth. With a smile on his broad face, Ruth obligingly signed for his young fans. The kindness wasn't reciprocated because in the confusion someone walked out of the ballpark with nine of The Babe's bats, including his favorite. Ruth promptly offered a no-questions-asked $25 reward along with a duplicate bat if the thief would return his lumber.

After the game the Yankees took the train back to New York to get ready for the Philadelphia Athletics. It is probably during this July home stand that the famous photograph was taken. With the Yanks running away with another pennant and Ruth and Gehrig on path to shatter all previous home run records, someone recognized the need to photographically capture this great ball club.

The Yankees were all dressed and on the field taking batting practice. Unlike today, the 1927 Yankees wore what they would wear for that afternoon's game - no special BP jersey or cap. Someone, probably from the front office, gathered the men together in front of Section 10, just to the left of home plate. The dirt before them is churned by spike marks, meaning batting practice had just ended and the grounds crew were about to dismantle the batting cage visible in the far right edge of the photo. The seats behind the players are peppered with men in suits and hats, relaxing in the warm, early afternoon sun. Those were the expensive seats, reserved for the swells that could afford them. The Yankees are posed formally in the time-honored tradition of baseball team photos, front row sitting "Indian-style", second row seated and the back row standing. Front and center is the team's bat boy since 1921, Eddie Bennett. Directly behind him, seated, is manager Huggins, arms folded tightly and cap brim tilted forward to shield his eyes from the sun. The mighty Babe Ruth is standing in the back row, towards the left side, his belly starting to show the effects of too much road cuisine. Lou Gehrig stands off to the extreme left, hands behind his back, his powerful legs apart. There's a playful tilt to his head, like he is amused by something. It isn't a stretch to imagine that Herb Pennock, standing beside Lou, said something funny to mess up the photograph, another timeless component to baseball team pictures. And all the way to the opposite side of the back row, second man in, is the face that was mis-identified or left unknown for many years. Joe Styborski. He stares straight at the camera, hand resting jauntily on his left hip. Then the photographer snapped the shutter and Joe Styborski was forever immortalized beside the Gods of baseball history.

On that home stand the Yanks won 10 out of 14 and then packed up for a series against Detroit. Along the way the team stopped off in Toronto to play the Maple Leafs. This was another chance for Huggins to test the new guys and gauge their level of talent. The Leafs played in the International League, today's AAA level. While not stocked with Hall of Famers, almost every man on the Toronto roster had played in or were future major leaguers. For the Thursday day game, Huggins gave the ball to Styborski. 

The Yankees team that took the field that afternoon were a mixture of starters and subs. Tony Lazzeri, Earle Combs, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig bolstered little used Julie Wera at third, Cedric Durst in left, Ray Morehart at second and a catcher named Pickens. To shake things up, Ruth and Gehrig swapped positions for the game.

Perhaps unnerved by the large crowd and knowing his future was riding on his performance that afternoon, the young pitcher ran into trouble, yielding a single to the first batter. The next Leaf forced the runner out and two walks loaded up the bases. Former St. Louis Brown Bobby Lamotte hit a hot liner right at Ruth who made the play and doubled the runner off first to end the inning. The Babe, who always took his pre-game warm-up at first base, knew his way around the bag.

In the second, Styborski got the first man on a ground out then gave up a single and walk. He bore down and struck out the next batter then lost all composure by walking the next batter, loading the bases again. Styborski still couldn't locate the plate and he gave a free pass to veteran Bill Webb to force a run home. Former Yankee Merwin Jacobson dropped a single in short left scoring another run but Cedric Durst fired the ball to the catcher who tagged out another potential Toronto run to end the inning.

Styborski led off the third and got a hold of an Augie Prudhomme pitch but Merwin Jacobson shagged it for an out. By the time Styborski picked up his glove and took the mound, he'd calmed down a bit and got the side out fast with two ground balls to Lazzeri and an outfield fly out.

The Yankees came alive in the forth, kick started by Gehrig's lead-off single. With one out Lazzeri smashed a double to left, moving Lou over to third. Third baseman Julie Wera knocked in both runners with a long single and suddenly it's 2-0 New York. The catcher Pickens hit into a double play to end the frame. 

On the mound again, Styborski gave up a quick single to the right fielder. With one on and no outs and the game on the line again, Styborski reached deep down and fired a pitch to Fred Bratschi. The left fielder swung and hit it deep to left field but Durst made the play, halting the runners. The pitcher Prudhomme hit the ball back to Styborski who fielded it and threw his counterpart out at first. Now with the runner on second and two away, former Detroit Tiger and lead-off batter Les Burke stepped to the plate. Styborski fired the ball in and Burke hit it back to Wera at third. End of inning. 

The pitcher paused in the dugout just long enough to grab his bat before stepping up to the plate. Prudhomme was a bit wild and he walked Styborski. Earle Combs flied out to center field, freezing Styborski at first. Ray Morehart smashed a ball to Burke at second and beat the throw, moving the runner over to second as well. And that brought up Babe Ruth. While the crowd must have been thinking home run, Ruth hit a cheap fly behind first base and by the time the right fielder caught up with it, everyone was safe and the bases were filled for Gehrig. Lou banged a liner to center and Styborski ran home followed by Morehart. Ruth advanced to third. Pruhomme was rattled by this time and walked Durst to load the bases again, and it was only a well executed double play off a Lazzeri hit that ended the inning. 

Since it was an exhibition game and Huggins wanted to see what his other youngsters could do, the fifth inning was to be Styborski's last of the day. He got Webb to hit an infield out to short, then got Jacobson to hit a foul ball down the third base side that Wera raced over to snag. He put Tony Rensa on with a walk, who promptly stole second off the youngster. Lamotte then hit the ball right at Morehart at second who threw to Ruth at first to end the inning. Styborski walked off the mound, took his glove off and left his final game as a New York Yankee.

A few days later, Miller Huggins finished the evaluation of his collegiate pitcher and sent him back to New York to gather his things: he was headed to the Easton Farmers of the Class D Eastern Shore League. Facing somewhat easier opposition, Styborski got into 12 games and finished with a 4-3 record. After the season ended he entered dental school in St. Louis. While professional baseball was a dream come true for most American boys, Joe Styborski desired to become the first doctor in his family. He returned to baseball every summer after school ended, steadily climbing his way up the minor league ladder. Moved up to Hartford in 1928, the year started off terribly when manager Paddy O'Connor took a dislike to the budding dentist and did a number on his confidence by yanking him every time he walked a batter. Styborski said he became scared to cut loose, lest he miss with a fastball and be pulled from the mound. Mercifully he was traded to Albany. Senators skipper Bill McCorry took the pitcher aside before his first game and told him he was the starting pitcher and was sticking with him for nine innings, no matter what. The show of confidence worked and Styborski began to win. He salvaged his season with a 13-9 record including 4 shutouts. In 1929 he turned in a stellar 19-5 season to become the ace of the Albany staff. Then, as before, he returned to dental school.

Styborski played one more season of pro ball, going 11-10 with three different teams. There his baseball record ends and his dental career began.

After he graduated dental school, the former pitcher relocated to Woonsocket, Rhode Island and opened his own practice. He and his wife Helen had 2 daughters. It was his grandson who was watching CNN in 1993 and heard that Mark Koenig, the last member of the 1927 Yankees had passed away. That was incorrect he knew, because his grandfather Joe Styborski was alive and well. Thus, a former ball player emerged from the shadows of baseball history, correcting over half a decade's worth of mis-identified photograph captions. Not unknown, not Walter Beall or even John Stiborski. 

It was Joe Styborski.

There's a companion piece to this story, which traces my creative process when researching, writing and drawing. It can be seen here.

161a. Joe Styborski: Researching a Mystery

Last week I spent a pleasant morning with Mike Shannon, editor of Spitball Magazine. He was interviewing me about my art for a baseball card and memorabilia magazine (when it gets printed I'll post a link) and one of the things we covered was my creative process. I had handy a file of research for an illustration I was currently working on and shared it with him. A few days later, with the drawing and story completed, I was about to throw it all out  when I thought it might make an interesting side topic before I post the card and story that came from it all.

I get my ideas from many places, conversations I had with my Pop years ago, books I read, tangents I come across while researching other stories and from just general screwing around on the internet. That's how I came across Joe Styborski.

One of my favorite websites I visit is Net54, the venerable pre-war baseball card site. Outside SABR, Net54 must have the highest concentration of baseball history experts in the world. While I usually just stop by to look at the cool looking old cards and memorabilia, sometimes a thread contains the kernel of an story idea. In a topic about collecting the autographs of the 1927 Yankees, someone mentioned that not only would a "true completist" have to collect all the guys who appeared in a regular 1927 season game, but signatures of the trainer, bat boy, batting practice pitchers, bullpen catcher, scouts, executives... and so on. Then someone mentioned Don Miller. He appeared in a few photos of the '27 team but never played a game. He's sometimes called the "mystery man" of the greatest team of all time. But then someone upped the ante with an even more mysterious and unknown guy, a man who until recently wasn't even identified (or mis-identified) on the official team picture, Joe Styborski.

Of course I knew he had to be part of the Infinite Baseball Card Set and promptly made a note of him in my sketchbook. Over the course of a few months I added onto the original note when I found out more about Styborski until I felt it was time to turn on the research.

Off to the library I went, grabbing all the books I could on the 1920's Yankees. Luckily I live right across the river from downtown Cincinnati which boast the best library system in the country. I've always found that if the downtown library doesn't have something (and that's a rare occasion), the Northern Kentucky University, Xavier University, Kenton or Campbell County Libraries do.

After tearing through all the Murderer's Row books in the Ohio River Valley, I moved onto the internet to do contemporary newspaper research. Box scores and game-day news articles popped up, filling out the life of a long forgotten ballplayer. The next stop was Baseball-Reference.com. While I miss my old 1982 edition of "The Baseball Encyclopedia", Baseball-Reference made stats so much easier to access. Plus, their minor league statistical database it indispensable for the kind of players I like to write about. One of the things I pride myself on is the accuracy of the uniforms and equipment I illustrate. In Styborski's instance the Yankees uniforn he will be depicted in is easy. The biggest thing to find out about is what length he liked his sleeves on his jersey - some liked them long, others shortened. I also looked into what kind of glove Styborski would have been using in '27. Old Spalding catalogsues are a great source for them as well as the collectors who share their prized items on Net54. Over the course of a few weeks I made copies of everything I could find and tossed them into my trusty "STYBORSKI" folder.

Now, to find out what Joe Styborski looked like.

I was able to locate two photographs of Styborski; one was the famous 1927 Official team photo that started the whole thing, and the other was a 1927 spring training shot taken in St. Petersburg. While the team photo gives a mugshot-like idea of what our man looked like, the spring training photograph gives me a better clue what his body language was, how he stood, wore his uniform and even what his glove looked like. All these I use when I do my illustration because unlike most baseball artists, I don't like to just reproduce photos you've seen before - I like to create a whole new image of a ballplayer that doesn't exist anywhere else.

For the drawing itself, I knew I wanted to depict Joe Styborski on the mound at Yankee Stadium. Though he never pitched a game there, I felt that after 86 years Joe deserved a shot on the mound in the Bronx. A quick pencil sketch executed while waiting for my pal Todd at the coffee shop one morning became the framework of the illustration I developed. While many times the original sketch varied wildly from what the final card looks like, with Styborski I had a clear idea of what it would be.

Satisfied with the sketch, I then do a few larger ink sketches, about 10" tall. Once I'm happy with the results I work up a hard black ink outline drawing which will then be scanned into the computer to have color added. Sometimes I like to see other variations of the illustration, and in Styborski's case I tried out the idea of depicting him in a Yankees road jersey since his only appearances with the team was during exhibition games on the road. It was an alright drawing, but I decided to go with my original idea and show him in the Stadium. It just seemed right to me.

Now with the illustration completed, I write up the short biographical story for the back of the card. While space is limited on the backs, the small story gives me a basic outline from which I write the longer stories you see on the website. 

Which reminds me, now I have to put the finishing touches on my Styborski story - check back in a day or so for Joe Styborski: The Mystery 1927 Yankee.

157. Casey Stengel: The Old Professor as Student

Thanks to everyone who sent good wishes on my marriage, it means a lot to Andrea and I. After a beautiful wedding (Andrea looked amazing) and a relaxing honeymoon on Coronado Island (where the new Mr. and Mrs. Cieradkowski took in a Padres-Mets game at Petco Field), I'm back in my studio in Kentucky. As such, I'd like to introduce you to a little-known part of Hall of Famer Casey Stengel's baseball career. Of course known by all as the long-time manager of the 1950's Yankees, Stengel had a long career before that as a manager of last place ball clubs, and before that as a decent major league journeyman outfielder with Brooklyn, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. But before even that, Stengel got his start in professional baseball right here in Kentucky playing in the aptly named Blue Grass League.

Before he was Casey, he was known as Dutch. At the turn of the century all peoples of Germanic stock were called "Dutchmen" or "Dutch" (case-in-point, the "Pennsylvania Dutch" actually hail from Germany and Honus Wagner, of German decent, was called "The Flying Dutchman"). The nickname came from the German word "Deutsch" meaning "German people", but disinterested Anglo ears simply heard "Dutch" instead. So all Germans became Dutchmen. Enjoying a comfortable middle-class upbringing, Stengel's old man was an insurance salesman and while he tolerated his son's interest in sports, he pushed the boy to aspire to higher goals in life.

At Kansas City's Central High, Charley was an outstanding athlete, playing football, basketball and baseball with equal ease. In the summer of 1908 at age 16, Stengel joined the semi-pro Kansas City Benton's. The Benton's barnstormed as far west as Utah and Wyoming playing army and factory teams every day to turn a profit. While it was a great learning experience for the teen and a step towards becoming a pro-ballplayer, a career in baseball wasn't Stengel's ultimate goal: Dental college was his aim and baseball was a great way to save up for the tuition.

In his junior year, the 18 year-old's pitching garnered a bit of regional notoriety when the Central High baseball team became the Missouri State champions. In the deciding game Stengel, the team's left-handed ace, injured his pitching arm. When summer came, Stengel rejoined the Benton's, now re-named the Red Sox and embarked on another season barnstorming around the west. To rest his arm he took to playing the infield and outfield to stay in the lineup.

Dutch returned to Central High for his senior year but dropped out in February when he was offered a tryout by the local Kansas City minor league team. The Kansas City Blues played in the Class AA (equivalent to today's AAA) American Association, one of the country's three top minor leagues. When the team sent Dutch a contract calling for a $135 a month salary, the teen was so overtaken with nerves that he turned pale. Being under age, his father reluctantly signed it for him. It was after all temporary, his boy was going to become a dentist. 

Joining the Blues, Stengel soon found the competition to be way over his head. Seeing that the 19 year-old's pitching wasn't close to Class AA league standards, Danny Shay, the team's manager, put Stengel in the outfield to see what he could do. Though still not up to American Association quality, he showed significant promise and Kansas City sent kid to Illinois to play for the Class D (equivalent to today's A) Kankakee Kays. Stengel got into 59 games and was batting .251 when the league disbanded in July.

With the summer half over, Stengel was assigned to the Class D Blue Grass League in Kentucky. By the end of July he was roaming the outfield for the last place Shelbyville Blues. The low minors being a precarious business back then, the Shelbyville team couldn't turn a profit and was soon bought by a group of businessmen from nearby Maysville for $500. 

It was with the Maysville Colts that Stengel began to learn the trade of a professional ballplayer. Though mired in last place, the citizens of Maysville showered their new team with enthusiasm usually saved for a pennant winner. Stengel even had his first fan, a young Maysville boy named Robert Willocks who would carry his spikes and glove to the ballpark where his idol would in-turn get him into the game for free. Though he was barely hitting .220, Stengel earned himself a few prizes with his bat: in September he hit the team's first home run and received a box of candy and safety razor shaving kit. A second round-tripper the next week added a $3 hat to his prize winnings. Late in the summer the Old Mill Tobacco Company included the rookie outfielder in the set of trading cards they inserted in their cigarette packs. The grim faced boy who stares back at you from the orange-boardered 1910 card is a far cry from the grizzled and wrinkled old man who appears 54 years later on his last baseball card as manager of the New York Mets.

It was also in Maysville that Stengel began showing his gift for colorful shenanigans which he later became famous for in the majors. The Colts' home field, League Park, had an insane asylum just beyond its outfield wall. Running to the dugout from his center field position after each inning, Stengel, who was told that he needed to work on his sliding technique, would make a practice slide into third base. The inmates of the asylum watched from their windows and cheered him on with enthusiasm - they thought he was one of their own. On another occasion Stengel drew attention to himself when he pursued a fly ball past the boundaries of an un-walled in ballpark and caught the ball standing ankle-deep in a moving stream. 

When the Bluegrass League season ended, the Kansas City Blues called him up for the rest of their season. Stengel got into 4 games and hit .273 with a double. The 19 year-old ended his first season in professional baseball with a combined .237 with 18 doubles, 6 triples and 3 homers spread out over 4 teams and 3 leagues and was retained by Kansas City for the next season. But more than that, Stengel had made enough money playing ball during the 1910 season that he was able to enroll in Kansas City's Western Dental College, his ultimate goal. 

And so, that might have been the last we ever heard of Charley Stengel had it not been for his being left-handed: most dental tools were manufactured for righties and Stengel had a terrible time trying to use the equipment. After 2 winters studying at Western, Stengel gave up and decided to become a professional ballplayer. And the rest, as they say, is history - but wait - where did he get the name "Casey" from? Well, as a rookie with Brooklyn in 1912, his teammates took to calling him "Kansas City" after his hometown, later shortened to "K.C." and still later to "Casey".

141. Mickey Mantle: Got Them Kansas City Blues...

This is my final installment of Mickey Mantle's days in the minor leagues. The story of The Mick's Yankee days are well known, told and re-told by writers much better than I. However, like a lot of the stars I've featured in the Infinite Baseball Card Set, I like to look into the time before these guys became famous and see how their seasons in the bush leagues forged the player they eventually became. Mantle's pre-Yankee history is a little different than most. Right from the start he was proclaimed the next Yankee superstar, and his seasons in Independence, Joplin and Kansas City open a unique window through which we can see how a kid from the country painfully tries to live up to the expectations so many people have riding on him. Whether you are a Yankee fan or not, Mickey Mantle's minor league story will give even the most cynical baseball fan an appreciation for a boy who was picked to take the mantle of the next great Yankee superstar before he even played a single game in organized baseball.

Yankees' general manager George Weiss was nervous. More than nervous - his God damned heart was palpitating... Here it was, first day of 1951 spring training, and the most valuable kid to ever come out of the team's farm system failed to show up. What could it be? More money? The kid was signed for a song, maybe he and his Okie father were getting wise and wanted some more cash. Or maybe he was having some personal problems. Harry Craft, his manager for the past two seasons reported the kid had some sort of confidence issues. Or it could be vice. In Joplin he was starting to hang around with some unsavory characters and had developed a taste for the sauce. It could be it was a broad. A kid with all that talent would be a prime target for some seasoned chippy with keen foresight. After all, he was heralded as the successor to Joe DiMaggio without even having played a major league game.

Weiss couldn't take it anymore. He picked up the phone and put a call through to Commerce, Oklahoma. A few minutes later the Yankees general manager relaxed with a deep sigh. Turns out the kid hadn't received his transportation money to Phoenix. His own front office had screwed up. The future star of the best ball club on earth was biding his time working as an electrician's assistant 500 feet underground in a zinc mine. Weiss told the kid to stay the hell above ground and immediately wired the travel money.

The Yankees in 1951 was a team in transition. The most popular team in the country was starting to gray around the edges. What remained of the pre-war stars were fading fast and Stengel was in the tough position of trying to flawlessly transform the old team into a new team while not losing their position as the best in the league. Clearly Mickey Mantle was a key component in making the transition from old to new, but there was a problem for the impatient Yankees - the kid just wasn't a major league shortstop. Stengel and his coaches wisely acknowledged that it would take at least two seasons of additional minor league experience to bring his fielding up to professional standards. On any other ball club that would be acceptable but not for the Yankees. If the kid was supposed to be the successor to the great DiMaggio, why not make him an outfielder?

You would think that the great Yankee outfielder Joe DiMaggio would have been the perfect teacher, but he would have absolutely no part of his chosen successor. As with so many things in his life, the touchy DiMaggio imagined he was being insulted. Perhaps no one on the team was more unfriendlier to the rookie than the aging star. When the coaching staff decided on remolding the kid into an outfielder, DiMaggio told the press he didn't agree with the decision. 

He was the only one.

Casey Stengel brought in outfielder Tommy Henrich specifically to tutor him. Henrich had retired the season before and was now one of Stengel's coaches. "Old Reliable" lived up to his name and after working with Mickey every day turned out a respectable right fielder. Mantle for his part was happy with the change in position. He told The Sporting News "I like the idea of shifting to the outfield. It is not as tough as the infield, and out there I get to use my legs."

The sportswriters went nuts covering the rookie superstar and he didn't disappoint. 

Everything about the kid was special - hell, even his name was special. The name "Mickey" was always a nickname, a great baseball name, but a nickname given by someone else, short for Michael or something. This kid's given name was Mickey. Like his prodigious talents he brought with him from Oklahoma, he came with that great name. In all respects he was the complete package.

If anyone had any lingering doubts about the kid, what happened on Monday, March 26th would put them all to rest. Playing at Bovard Field against the University of Southern California, Mantle clubbed two home runs, a bases loaded triple and single. One of the homers was a 650 ft bomb that not only went over the outfield wall but it also cleared the football field behind it as well. After the game the Yankees' bus was almost tipped over when over-excited fans swarmed trying to get the kid's autograph. By the time the team headed East for opening day, right fielder Mickey Mantle was hitting well over .400. Center fielder Joe DiMaggio couldn't crack .200.

The rookie started off just like he was supposed to. Wearing number 6 on the back of his jersey, one couldn't help but notice it was the next number after DiMaggio's own number 5. Ruth had been 3, Gehrig 4. It was only natural the next great Yankee star follow in order. Throughout the first month of the season he was above .300 and batting second in the lineup. But then things started to fall apart. With the Korean War raging, many angry people were asking why this human God was wearing Yankee pinstripes instead of army green. It was a good question. The name "draft dodger" started being thrown around. In fact, Mantle had been given a military physical by his draft board in Tulsa twice, once in 1949 and again just days before opening day. Each time he was rejected as 4F. Due to an earlier injury he suffered from osteomyelitis, a bone infection that never completely goes away. He might be healthy now, but if he was inducted in the service and it flared up, the government would be on the line for a lifetime of disability payments. Because of the liability the military unilaterally flatly turned down anyone with osteomyelitis. Still, no matter how hard the Yankee publicity machine tried to explain the truth, Mickey was heckled on the field as a draft dodger and angry parents sent him hate mail on a staggering level.

The cold shoulder from fellow outfielder DiMaggio also made the rookie's life unnecessarily tough. In their first game against the Red Sox, photographers ushered DiMaggio and Mantle together with Ted Williams for a picture. DiMaggio greeted Williams but consciously neglected to introduce Mickey. After an awkward and wholly unnecessary silence, Williams took it upon himself to put out his hand and make the new kid's acquaintance.

For a rookie not yet 20 years-old, the pressure started to build. The way he was playing would have been more than acceptable for any other rookie, but Mickey wasn't any other rookie. He was supposed to be the next DiMaggio. To be a big league ballplayer was the only thing he was raised to be. Each slump or lapse on the field unleashed his uncontrollable temper. Inside he was seething at himself, unfortunately that anger sometimes overflowed and was propelled outward. After striking out he would swear loudly on his way back to the dugout. When one elderly season ticket owner rebuked him after one particularly nasty outburst he told the woman to "shut your God-damned mouth!" 

Off the field his life got complicated as well. With his long-time girlfriend back in Commerce, the most eligible rookie in New York started slipping around with a showgirl named Holly Brooke. Burke introduced the country boy to the glittering lights of Broadway. In order to cover his awkwardness at cocktail parties he discovered the magic of scotch whiskey. Shyster businessmen circled the 19 year-old kid and he quickly fell prey to countless uneven business deals that took whole teams of Yankee attorneys to extricate the naive rookie from.

His strike outs soon started snowballing. Stengel moved him up and down in the lineup like a slide ruler and was forced to answer daily questions from the beat writers about when he was going to admit defeat and send the kid back to the minors. Stengel stuck to his guns as long as he could but after he started striking out at least once in every game, he submitted to the inevitable. With real tears in his eyes, Stengel told the kid he was being sent down. To make room for a much needed additional pitcher, Mickey Mantle was optioned to the Kansas City Blues. It was back to the minors.

The Kansas City team Mickey joined in the summer of 1951 was a seething pot of dissension. Just like today, the Yankees never had to rely much on a farm system. Being the most successful team in the biggest market, the Yankees could purchase ready-made ballplayers unlike most other teams who had to grow their own. Though Kansas City was New York's top farm team, it wasn't so much stocked with budding stars as filled with has-beens and never-will-be's. While many on the team knew they would never show their mugs in the majors, everyone knew Mantle was just in K.C. temporarily. Before he was even with the team he was resented.

The guy at the helm of the Blues was probably the only man who could relate to Mantle's position as having to replace a legendary Yankee star. On opening day in 1935, George Selkirk put on a Yankees jersey with number 4 on the back and took Babe Ruth's place in right field. If anyone knew the pressure Mantle was under, Selkirk sure did.

Joining the team on the road, Mantle was handed a used jersey with number 20 on the back and promptly continued his batting slump. In his first handful of games he went 3 for 18. The first hit was a swinging bunt which he speedily beat out for a hit. When he reached the dugout at the end of the inning Selkirk chastised the kid. "We know you can bunt, Mick" he said. "You're not here to bunt. You're here to get some hits and get your swing back." Scorned by his teammates, ripped by the press and feeling more alone than ever before, he became depressed. But he did start to hit. When the team rolled into Milwaukee he had one 4 hit game, then began belting the home runs. In Indianapolis he hit two - one from each side of the plate. Against the Toledo Mud Hens he hit for the cycle and then added an additional homer for good measure. By the time the Blues headed back to Kansas City, Mickey was batting a nice .345.

Yet each night he sat in his hotel room and poured over the Yankee box scores. The longer he stayed in Kansas City, the less sportswriters mentioned him in the papers. He was fading away and fast. In Mantle's mind, no matter how many home runs he hit down in the minors, he was sure he'd blown his chance with New York. He was lonely and scared. He wrote to showgirl Holly Brooke and begged her to join him in Kansas City, knowing correctly she'd never hitch her star to a lowly minor leaguer. Each day brought more hate mail that piled up in his room. Especially hurting was the ones from the parents of soldiers calling him a draft dodger. 

When the Blues opened up their home stand at Municipal Stadium he started slumping again and making errors in the field. The depression closed in on him and he needed help. He craved some kind of advice from a friendly face. He called his father Mutt and told him he wanted to go home.

Mickey's father Mutt jumped in his truck and made the half-day drive to Kansas City. If he was expecting a pat on the back and sweet words, he was in for a rude surprise. In his son's hotel room after the day's game was rained out, Mutt listened stoically as his boy explained how he was a failure and wanted to quit and go home to Oklahoma. In what would be known as the most famous and successful pep talk in baseball history, Mutt Mantle stood up and started packing his son's clothes, telling him that he thought he'd raised a man. "I see I raised a coward." Emptying the dresser drawers into a suitcase, the father told his son he could come home and work in the mines with him. The shock treatment did the trick. 

After convincing his father to stop the packing, Mantle realised that if he quit now, that would be the real failure. He resolved himself to stick it out. Mutt got in his truck and drove back to Oklahoma, alone. With the rain gone, Mickey belted two home runs in the next game. He averaged over two RBI's a game and on top of all that, the kid was almost single-handedly leading the Blues on a late-season run for the American Association pennant. 

On August 20th, he got the call he was hoping for: New York wanted him back. Trading in his number 20 Kansas City jersey for a set of pinstripes with number 7 on the back, Mickey Mantle rejoined the New York Yankees.

As with the two other stories about Mantle's early days, I'd like to dedicate them to my Uncle Eddie, a great fan of The Mick. As a boy, my Uncle Eddie would come to my baseball games when my father couldn't make it, something I was always thankful for. More than 30 years later my uncle pinch hit for my Pop again, this time helping my brother and I settle my mother's affairs since her death in this past summer. Thanks again Uncle Ed, this ones for you.

SOURCES

• The Sporting  News (March 21, 1951)
• The Kansas City Star, column by Joe Posnanski (August, 1, 2001)
• Castro, Tony Mickey Mantle: America's Prodigal Son (Potomac Books, 2002)

131. Carl Mays: The unpleasant man with the unpleasant pitch

Most casual baseball fans have heard of Carl Mays, the man who threw the ball that killed a man on the field. There's a photograph of him at the end of his career that is always used to illustrate articles about him - he's hunched over, standing on one leg, his torso coiled around so that his back is showing, his face partially hidden from view with just his eyes peering towards the viewer. It's a striking pose and if not for his being in a baseball uniform you might be partial to thinking that this was some evil character trying to hide something particularly dangerous which he will unleash on you in short order. In a sense, that photograph sums up Carl Mays.

He had a lousy childhood. His father died when he was 12. His mother was stuck with the family farm trying to provide for him and his 7 other siblings. He learned to throw accurately out of necessity - the family owned no rifle so he had to kill game with rocks. A good ballplayer, in 1911 he and a buddy hopped a freight train and headed to California to live their dream of playing pro ball. The made it as far as Price, Utah where the two were thrown in jail for vagrancy. When the sheriff discovered that the two hobos were ballplayers they were paroled on the condition they play on the town ball team. Virtually held hostage, Mays beat the town's big rival and spent the winter in Price. Come spring he high-tailed it out of there and began his professional career with the Boise Irrigators. The next year he went to the Portland Beavers and he adapted the city as his home for the rest of his life. While toiling in the minors Mays injured his arm. To lessen the pain he tried a variety of ways to throw the ball and discovered that when he pitched underhanded the pain went away.

It's called a "submarine" pitch and when it's thrown right it's a formidable weapon. Mays would contort himself on the mound, rocking back on his right leg, twisting his torso behind him as his gloved hand loosely dangled straight down while his pitching arm with the ball swung back behind him, almost out of sight to the batter. As the arm whipped forward Mays dropped it so low to the ground his knuckles sometimes scraped the dirt. To an opposing batter the ball looked like it was being thrown at him from under the third base bag. As the ball came at the hitter it rose from the field instead of gradually dropping as when thrown by a conventional pitcher. It angled upwards at the batter and when it reached the plate mysteriously dropped down sharply. If a batter didn't know what to expect when he faced Mays, it was a frightful and disorienting experience. Opposing players disliked facing him and many thought the underhanded pitch should be banned all together. It was too hard to see and that was dangerous.

As Mays worked his way up to the majors he left behind him a wake of discontent. Though a brilliant pitcher, the submariner was angry, unpleasant and just plain mean. His own teammates disliked him. When he played for the Providence Grays in 1914 his teammates sawed of the handle of his bat then glued it back together. The next time he connected with the ball the bat fell apart, robbing him of a hit and leaving him humiliated. When he bought a new home for his wife and mother someone burned it down to the ground. I'm not sure how much Mays brought on himself or if perhaps he just had one of those disagreeable dispositions and unknowingly rubbed people the wrong way. For sure Mays had a couple of close friends. He married and was a loving husband and father so he couldn't have been that bad.

But to most, especially other ballplayers, Carl Mays was hated. Not to disappoint his detractors, Mays became known right from the start of his major league career as a headhunter. He led the league in hit batsmen in 1917. He had a running battle with Ty Cobb which culminated in Cobb spiking the hell out of the pitcher, leaving a terrifying wound that required many stitches to close. To the end of his life Mays showed it off, almost as a badge of honor, perhaps to prove he could take as good as he could give. He yelled at his own teammates when he thought they messed up a play and backed it up with his fists. When he thought his teammates on the Red Sox weren't trying hard enough he walked off the mound, out of the ballpark and refused to come back unless he was traded.

Carl Mays was the ace of the New York Yankees when he hit Cleveland's popular star Ray Chapman in the head with the ball. Mays insisted he didn't mean to hit Chapman and even fellow ballplayers remarked at how Chapman would typically crowd the plate. The way Mays pitched was hard for some batters to follow and the ball Mays was using that afternoon was supposedly filthy and darkened from being used for too many innings. The odds are the submariner wasn't trying to hit Chapman, let alone kill him. Any other pitcher would have been exonerated for the incident but because Mays was such a disagreeable person he was flayed alive. A few teams threatened to strike if he pitched against them and because of the death, major league baseball banned all "trick" pitches like the spitter and shine ball. Umpires were instructed to replace misshapen and dirty balls with new ones.

The season after the death of Chapman, Mays was spectacular, winning 27 games as the Yankees captured their first American League pennant. As a nod to his place as the best pitcher on his staff, Miller Huggins tapped Mays to start the opening game against the Giants. True to form he tossed a 3-0 shut-out. The Yanks took the second game as well and after losing a game to the Giants, Huggins sent Mays to the mound again in game four.

Mays was cruising along after 7 innings giving up only two hits to the Giants and leading 1-0 when he fell apart. Irish Meusel stepped up to face Mays. From the dugout Miller Huggins signaled Mays to throw a fastball. Instead he threw a slow breaking curve and Meusel bounced it off the outfield wall and had himself a triple. After the game Mays told reporters he had disregarded Huggins' instructions because he'd gotten Meusel out earlier with the same slow curve. A single by Johnny Rawlings scored Meusel and the score was tied. Frank Snyder bunted back to Mays and instead of an easy out Mays fell down and the runners were safe. Phil Douglas tried another bunt but this time Mays fielded the ball flawlessly and got him at first. But now he had 2 runners in scoring position with the score tied and one out. George Burns smashed a double scoring both runners and just like that the Giants were up 3-1. Mays got out of the inning but the Giants scored another run off him in the ninth and the game ended 4-2. It was an unfortunate turn of events and a tough loss for Mays who had pitched 7 stellar innings.

Enter Fred Lieb. The veteran New York Telegram reporter was president of the Baseball Writers Association and one of the most respected writers in the country. After the game he was approached by a "well-known Broadway actor" and told an intriguing tale. The actor, who was also a gambling man, had been tipped off that the Yankees ace had been approached by gamblers to throw any close game he was involved in. The way it was to go down was that a man would approach Mays' wife Freddie and slip her a packet of cash. Payoff in hand, she was then supposed to signal her husband that the fix was in. The actor claimed that Freddie Mays had waved her handkerchief at her husband as he took the mound in the 8th inning that afternoon. A few minutes later Meusel was standing on third with a triple.

These accusations were truly serious. The stain of the Black Sox scandal was still all over the sport and the future of the game was still precarious. Another World Series scandal could be the knock-out blow that would forever damage the way fans followed the sport. Lieb took the actor to see the Yankees owner Colonel Huston and Commissioner Landis. The new czar of baseball took the charges seriously enough to open a full investigation and he instructed Lieb to keep a lid on the story until he finished looking into it.

Meanwhile the Yankees won game 5 to take the lead but then the Giants came roaring back in game 6. The series was shaping up to be an exciting slug fest. With the series knotted up at 3 games apiece Carl Mays took the mound for the Yankees.

Again the Yankees' ace turned in a masterpiece - at least for the first 7 innings. With the score tied at 1 each in the seventh Mays fell apart again. With two out, a double by Frank Snyder scored Johnny Rawlings who had reached first on an error by Yankee second baseman Aaron Ward. That was all the Giants needed as they held the Yankees off to win 2-1.

According to Lieb, the commissioner's investigation of Mays did not turn up anything questionable, but still, rumors swirled around the unpopular pitcher. The following season was one of Mays' worst. He uncharacteristically went 13-14 for the pennant winning Yanks and after the World Series was put on waivers. Despite being one of the top hurlers in the league, the Yankees didn't want him anymore and neither did any other major league team.

When 1923 rolled around Carl Mays was still a Yankee. Miller Huggins basically refused to pitch the submariner and he only got into 23 games that year. Mays, never shy, complained loudly to the press about his lack of use. Despite pressure from the newspapers Huggins let Mays sit on the bench. The manager's dislike of Mays was clearly visible, especially when he finally started him in a game against Cleveland in July. The under worked pitcher got pounded 13-0 and Huggins left him in the entire game. After the drubbing was finally over sportswriters asked Huggins why he left Mays in instead of inserting a reliever. Huggins wryly quipped "he told me he needed lots of work, so I gave it to him."

The next season Mays was shipped off to Cincinnati. In the new surroundings he went 19-12 but it was down hill from there. He retired after the 1929 season and went home to Portland. When the stock market crashed he lost his hard-won nest egg and was forced to go back to baseball to make a living. At the age of 38 he rejoined the Portland Beavers, the club he played for 17 years earlier.

Mays didn't have any luck making friends on his way down as he had on his way up. Right from the start his new teammates disliked him for "big leaguing" them. According to one: "Mays has been a trouble maker all season. He tried that old big league racket on all the gang. Carl couldn't forget he wasn't in the big show and the Coast League was tougher than he figured." Since Mays was still a big name he attracted a good deal of press and sportswriters speculated was that he would be the next manager of the Beavers. This was far from the reality but Mays believed his own write-ups and began acting the part. His teammates decided amongst themselves that they would refuse to play for a guy like Mays. There was talk of a strike if he was named skipper.

Despite all his bluster Mays was getting hit hard by Pacific Coast League batters. By mid season he was 5-9 with a 4.75 ERA. So much for trying to "big league" his teammates. Instead of humbling the submariner, Mays' disappointment and embarrassment over his record manifested into outright belligerence. He took out his frustration on Portland ace, Junk Walters and the two came to blows at the end of July. In the locker room before a night game, the two men went at each other as the rest of the team watched. Walters received a black eye but Mays got the shit kicked out of him. Walters broke his nose, cracked one of his ribs and left the rest of him covered in bruises. The Pacific Coast League quickly suspended him indefinitely. The Portland management had had enough of the troublesome pitcher and on August 4th the Beavers handed Mays his release and transferred his contract to the Toledo Mud Hens of the American Association.

Mays spent the rest of 1930 and beginning of 1931 with Toledo and then was shipped out to Louisville to finish up his career as a ballplayer. Things didn't get any smoother for Mays - his mother died, followed afterwards by his wife Freddie in 1934. To make a living he scouted for the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Braves and Kansas City Royals. As if to totally go against his surly and solitary reputation he operated his own baseball school for over ten years. Red Sox star shortstop Johnny Pesky was one of his students. Though he couldn't be bothered with his teammates, Mays seemed to genuinely love being around kids and none complained of him having a nasty disposition towards them.

As he grew old Mays became even more bitter. Besides the notoriety he received from his part in Chapman's death, Mays was angry about not being considered for the Hall of Fame. Not one to shy away from speaking his mind, Mays railed against contemporaries he considered of lesser talent than he. He was right. Teammate Waite Hoyt got the nod to the Hall and his winning percentage was a mediocre .566. Other contemporaries were ushered in with similar stats: Dazzy Vance's percentage was .585, Herb Pennock's was .598, Burleigh Grimes posted .560 and the final slap in the face: Eppa Rixley had a truly unremarkable .515 winning percentage and even he was considered Hall of Fame worthy. Carl Mays' was .623. The old submariner was convinced that it was the Chapman incident that kept him out, and that may have been true, but there may have been a darker reason for his exclusion.

The rumors of the 1921 series fix continued to swirl around, just out of sight of baseball fans. Fred Lieb related that sometime in 1928 Colonel Huston got drunk and told Lieb that Yankee pitchers had thrown world series games in 1921 and 1922. Lieb asked if Carl Mays was one of them to which Huston said yes. Miller Huggins, who wasn't the kind of manager to hold grudges, absolutely hated Mays. Telling Fred Lieb that he'd lend a financial hand to any of his former players, he paused and said anyone except Carl Mays and Joe Bush. Bush was on the Yankees with Mays and had also been accused of not playing on the level in the world series. Huggins got up out of his chair and said "if they were in the gutter, I'd kick them!" as his leg sliced through the air before the startled writer. As for his exclusion from Cooperstown, Lieb, who was on the voting committee, stated that the Chapman incident never came up when the vote was discussed. That he might have helped throw the world series did, and that's what stood between him and the Hall.

While time soothed the animosity some players held for one another, time did nothing to abate Mays' contemporaries dislike of him. As an old man, former teammate Bob Shawkey called him "a stinker." Ty Cobb, one player whose reputation among his contemporaries mellowed with the passing of time, still despised Mays. He still believed he hit Chapman deliberately.

Mays remarried and retired, and spent his leisure time helping kids learn the game. Each year he would travel from Oregon to San Diego to help his foster son Jerry coach high school baseball. "I love working with kids, especially the pitchers," Mays said. "I try to teach them everything. But the big thing I do is teach them safety in baseball." The old submariner passed away on April 4, 1972. 

SOURCES

• Sowell, Mike, The Pitch That Killed (MacMillan, 1989)
• Spatz, Lyle and Steinberg, Steve, 1921: The Yankees, The Giants & the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York (University of Nebraska Press, 2010)
• Ogden Evening Standard (July 25, 1930)
• Portsmouth Times (July 27, 1930)
• Salt Lake Tribune (August 5, 1930)
• The Charleston Gazette (August 10, 1930)
• The Sporting News (April 17, 1971)

120. Mickey Mantle: The Miner's Son Becomes A Miner

The Yankee organization was plenty pleased with Mickey Mantle's freshman performance with the Independence Yankees. In the spring of 1950 Mickey was invited to come to St. Petersburg, Florida where the big club training. Despite no one knowing who this teenager was, the kid from Oklahoma quickly stood out.

Batting left-handed he knocked ball after ball over the left field wall and switching sides he scattered hits all over the field. Even among the Yankee legends on the field, DiMaggio, Berra and Bauer, this kid was something else. After watching one particularly impressive blast, Manager Casey Stengel was said to have cried out "What'sis name? Mantle?" When the Yanks broke camp and headed North, Casey went back to New York dreaming of when this kid would be sitting on his bench.

The Yankee management agreed with Stengel's evaluation and the consensus was that he had the rare skills to be able to skip the many rungs of the minor leagues and go right into AA level, the highest level of the minors (now reclassified as AAA). While the temptation to do so must have been excruciating, cooler heads prevailed and it was decided to bring Mickey along slowly. He was just 18 and known to be somewhat homesick and lacking a strong self-esteem. The Yankees had a Class-B farm team in Joplin, Missouri, less than 30 miles away on the old Route 66. The youngster would have the comfort of staying close to home as well as having a familiar face in the dugout - his manager in Independence, Harry Craft, was also moved up and was taking the helm of the Joplin Minors.

At the Miners' spring training camp in Branson, Missouri Mickey continued to awe with his unprecedented hitting performance. He'd beefed up since the previous season and took to rolling up the sleeves of his flannel jersey to make room for his muscles.

When Lee MacPhail, director of personnel for the organization and son of former Yankees owner Larry MacPhail came to Joplin to watch a pre-season exhibition game, he told friends that Mickey Mantle was the strongest and fastest man in organized baseball. There was talk already around the Yankees front office that this kid was going to be the usurp the mantle of the aging Joe DiMaggio.

Buoyed by one successful season under his belt and glad to be close to his family, Mickey exploded. Encouraged by Harry Craft to swing away, Micky was soon leading the Western Association in almost every offensive department. In a night game in Joplin he smashed one home run left-handed, then turned around and did the same right-handed. It was obvious to his teammates, fans and opposing players that this kid was something special.

Mickey was allowed to go home to his family after games played in Joplin. The kid had begun hanging out at a local pool hall and discovered beer. Manager Harry Craft figured letting the kid go home every night to his family would help keep him straight. But having his family close was a double-edged sword. After on game where he went 3 for 4 with a home run, his father Mutt told him that he would have got 4 hits had he hustled on a ground ball. The kid had a quick temper as well which he directed at himself, always believing he could do better.

The only problem was his fielding.

Try as he might, Mickey couldn't seem to improve his play at shortstop. Fly balls were so troubling to him that his own teammates would yell for him to stay away when one came towards short. He committed 55 errors in 137 games and his arm, though strong as hell, was so erratic that legend has it the box seats beyond first base were left empty for fear of getting hit by one of Mickey unpredictable throws.

As the 1950 season came to a close, Mickey could look back on an impressive year. He grabbed hold of the next rung of the Yankee farm system and improved by leaps and bounds over his first season. He was popular with his teammates and fans alike and could bask in all the attention lavished on him. The Yankees, on their way to a repeat pennant that year, rewarded the 18 year-old with a September call-up to the majors. For the final 2 weeks of the 1950 season Mickey watched the big leaguers from the security of the Yankees' dugout. Shy and reserved he couldn't even muster the nerve to talk to idol Joe DiMaggio, the man he was destined to replace. Though he didn't get into a single game, that first experience of being a big league ballplayer would help him get him used to what was ahead.

Like my previous post on Mickey's 1949 season, I'd like to dedicate it to my Uncle Eddie, a great Mickey Mantle fan and the guy who came to my little league games when my father could not. Nick Diunte's article in the Examiner was particularly helpful in this story, check that and his other articles out, he's quite a good writer and focuses on New York City baseball.