127. Johnny Grodzicki: The Cardinals Next Big Thing

If you flip through an old St. Louis newspaper or an issue of The Sporting News in 1940 or 1941, the chances are pretty good you'll come across at least a mention of a ballplayer named Johnny Grodzicki. The Cardinals of the early 1940's were arguably the best franchise in the game due in no small part to their vast farm system. Spread throughout the country their vast network of affiliated clubs spewed forth a continuous stream of young arms that fed the mighty St. Louis war machine: Mort Cooper, Howie Pollet, Max Lanier, Johnny Beezley... all stars of their day. So with all this top-drawer talent on the big club why spend the ink on some kid with an unpronounceable name still in the minors?

Because Johnny Grodzicki was that damn good. In fact, he wasn't just damn good, he was a can't miss, full-fledged superstar. Grodzicki was, as they say, the "next big thing."

Growing up in the gritty industrial town of Nanticoke, Pennsylvania, all Johnny Grodzicki thought he had to look forward to was a life spent in one of the many factories that filled the sky above with gray smoke. He came from a big Polish family that resided in the Honey Pot section of town. His parents, Ignatz and Lottie, were recent immigrants and he had five brothers: Stanley, Chester, Casimer, Richard and Edward and two sisters: Jean and Alfreda. To supplement the meager paycheck he received from his job in a silk mill, Grodzicki started selling subscriptions to the Sporting News. Back then, everyone read the Sporting News, and helped by his genial personality, Grodzicki sold enough subscriptions to get himself a scholarship to the Ray Doan Baseball School in Hot Springs Arkansas. Doan's school attracted the best young ballplayers in the country and the 1935 faculty was chock-full of the games' top stars. As a pitcher, the strapping Pole was tutored by none other than Schoolboy Rowe, ace of the world champion Detroit Tigers and the immortal Dizzy Dean, at that time by far the best hurler in the game.

Under the watchful eyes of Rowe and Dean, Grodzicki learned how to properly hold a curve ball and all the other skills needed to become a professional. By the time the school had ended Johnny Grodzicki was signed by St. Louis (undoubtedly due to Dizzy Dean's recommendation) and thrown into the giant swimming pool that the Cardinals called their farm system.

Grodzicki surfaced with the New Iberia Cardinals in Louisiana's Evangeline League. The big righty threw hard but was wild and he ended his first season with a 16-12 mark. He showed great promise but needed work. If nothing else, Grodzicki impressed the Cardinals with his eagerness to learn. Hard work and determination brought him a promotion to Houston in 1937 and he tore up the Texas League with an 18-11 showing. However he was still prone to walks and topped the league with 174 passes. None-the-less the Cards had enough faith in him that they promoted him to their top farm club in Rochester. Under the watchful eye of manager Billy Southworth he dropped to 8-7 trying to get a hold of his control but by the end of the season he was undoubtedly the jewel of the St. Louis farm system.

Tragedy struck during the Red Wings' spring training when Grodzicki came down with influenza. The virus spread quickly and infection wracked his body. A stocky 6'-2" and 215lbs at the time of his illness, nine days later Grodzicki had lost 50lbs and was fading fast. Doctors weren't discussing whether or not he'd be able to play ball again but whether he was going to survive the infection. The Cardinals spared no expense to save their future star and after a battery of operations and round after round of serum injections, Grodzicki emerged from the hospital, weak but alive. He got into 25 games with the Red Wings that season and not surprisingly went 3-3. Trying to regain his strength and form on the mound, Grodzicki traveled south to Panama in that winter. In the four-team Panama League the big Pole came into his own and won 10 games for the Colon ball club and when the season ended, Grodzicki was tanned, bubbling over with confidence and ready for spring training. The bosses in St. Louis had been following his progress south of the border and now he had a guardian angel looking out for him - Billy Southworth, his manager in Rochester, was the new Cardinals manager. Southworth knew what the big fella was capable of and had him report straight to St. Petersburg, Florida. Johnny Grodzicki was spending the spring with the Cardinals.

It was a great spring training by any definition. On the mound the big phenom beat the hell out of the world champion Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees. The sportswriters couldn't find enough adjectives to describe the big Pole from Nanticoke and the Cardinal executives were spraining their brains thinking about all the pennants that lay ahead. By the time the team broke camp Grodzicki was on the train north to St. Louis. Though everyone agreed he still needed some fine tuning, for the time being he was a Cardinal.

On April 18, 1941 he faced the Chicago Cubs in the top of the 9th inning and retired all 3 batters he faced. Two days later he was brought in again in the ninth against the Cubs and retired the last two batters to end the game. After another two days rest Grodzicki was again brought in from the bullpen, this time as the fifth Cardinals pitcher against Pittsburgh with the score tied 7-7 in the 12th inning. The rookie walked three and gave up a run as the Pirates went ahead, but fortunately a double by Marty Marion and a hit by Enos Slaughter put the Cardinals on top in the bottom of the 12th. As the last pitcher standing, Johnny Grodzicki got his first major league win.

Exactly a week later Grodzicki was rushed in to relieve starter Bill McGee in the third against the Giants in New York. In six innings he gave up 1 earned run on 3 hits, whiffed 5 but walked 4. He also picked up his 2nd win as a Cardinal. Despite a pretty good beginning the front office decided it was best if their young phenom spent another year in the high minors honing his craft. With all their existing arms, the Cards could afford to wait another year before unleashing the big Pole on the National League.

Grodzicki was sent to the Columbus Red Birds. Columbus, along with Rochester, was the top rung of the Cardinal organizations farm system. The ball club he joined was stocked with future major league all-stars Harry Brecheen, Murry Dickson, Harry Walker and Preacher Roe. Grodzicki dominated the American Association that summer striking out 136 men in 199 innings and compiling a .792 winning percentage. Besides leading the league in winning percentage his ERA was the lowest and he was undoubtedly the best pitcher in the loop. His 19-5 record led the Red Birds to the Little World Series where they beat the Montreal Royals in 6 games, Grodzicki winning two of them.

The sky was the limit for the Pennsylvania Pole as he went home to Nanticoke for the winter. Come opening day 1942 there was nothing stopping him from joining the Cardinals for good.

Nothing except World War II.

After spending one last Christmas and New Years with his family, Johnny Grodzicki and his brothers went down to the local army recruiting station and enlisted. Because of his notoriety the big Pole was sent straight to Fort Knox, Kentucky and put to use on the ball field. At the time this practice wasn't uncommon. With the huge influx of volunteers the army could spare a few professional athletes and put them to use entertaining the troops. The Navy began a spirited competition with the Army trying to see who could field better teams and the publicity derived from the inter-service rivalry help build an esprit de corp amongst the new citizen-soldiers. Such was Grodzicki's fame that Bob Feller named him to his personal Army-Navy team that played against the American League All-Star team in Cleveland. Though Feller's team lost 5-0, the fact that this guy who appeared in just 5 major league games was selected to play with the best ballplayers in the game says something to the way his contemporaries thought of his talent.

With the war effort moving into full swing, Grodzicki transferred to the 17th Airborne Division and went overseas in the summer of '44. After slugging through the Battle of the Bulge, the 17th did their first combat jump in March 24, 1945 when they parachuted behind enemy lines into Westphania, Germany. After capturing strategic bridges spanning the Issel River they continued into the heart of the Third Reich. After 5 days of combat a German shell exploded next to him, killing three of his fellow paratroopers. Grodzicki was alive but chunks of scrap iron tore into his right side, smashing his hip and lower leg.

At a field hospital doctors discovered that the sciatic nerve was damaged and Grodzicki was told he'd probably never walk again. Surgeons removed the shrapnel and the pitcher began a long, hard regimen of rehabilitation and therapy. By the time Grodzicki returned home to Nanticoke he was on crutches and his right leg below the knee was shrivelled to half of it's former size.

Like his bout with influenza back in 1940, Grodzicki gave it his all in trying to regain his strength. Again, as in 1940, he went south to Panama where he worked out with the Colon ball club and when spring came around he was in the Cardinals camp. Newspapers trumpeted his return and he was held out as a shining example of courage and sacrifice.

But despite everything he and the Cardinals tried, Grodzicki's major league career and dreams were over. He stayed with the club throughout the '46 and '47 season but by the spring of 1948 it was obvious that Grodzicki had better start looking for another line of work. The Cardinals still thought highly of their former phenom and put him to work as a coach and manager in their farm system. In the winters he played and managed in Panama and eventually the Cardinals made him their roving pitching coach. He stayed with the organization until 1964 when he switched to the Mets for two years when he went over to the Detroit Tigers. In 1979 made the majors again, this time as the Tigers pitching coach. After over 40 years in organized ball, Grodzicki retired to Daytona Beach to spend time with his wife Anita and his stepson and stepdaughter. He passed away on May 2, 1998 at the age of 81.

126 Abel Kiviat: Olympian

Like millions of people around the globe, I tuned in to watch the opening ceremonies of this year's Olympic Games in London. A few hours later I found myself trying to make sense of what the crippled kids, scarey demon monkees and high school theater club "dancing-through-time" skit had to do with the world's greatest sporting event. I longed for the time when the opening ceremony meant each team marching around the track carrying the flag of their nation, followed by some speeches by local dignitaries and then the games would begin. The newspaper reporting of the games and participants was centered not like today on an athlete's tragic family history, but on their athletic prowess, vitality and determination to win for their country. In tribute to those more sports-oriented games, I bring to you Abel Kiviat, American silver medalist and a member of the first Olympic baseball team.

Although baseball had been popular in Latin America and Japan since the 1880’s, the game just hadn’t caught on with young men in other countries. The game was seen as too complicated and unrefined especially to Europeans but because of the way immigrants from these same countries embraced and excelled at the sport once arriving in America, the game was given a chance at becoming an official Olympic event. At the 1912 Games in Stockholm a series of two exhibition games were scheduled to gauge spectator interest in the sport. The first game was against a team made up of local Swedish players, the game having become recently introduced to that country courtesy of immigrants returning home from America. The American team was selected from athletes already competing in officially sanctioned events. Due to obvious reasons, the United States Olympic Committee forbade any of their athletes from competing in the exhibition baseball games until their own events were finished. A natural selection for the team was Jim Thorpe who seemed to excel at just about any sport invented, but he had to miss the first game because he was in the process of winning a gold in the decathlon. However Thorpe’s roommate played that day.

By the age of 20 Abel Kiviat was one of the best middle-distance runners in the world. He was a star athlete at his high school on Staten Island, holding the New York City record for the half-mile and mile race as well as being recognized as an All-Star shortstop in baseball. After high school he raced competitively for the Irish-American Athletic Club, one of the best sporting clubs in the States. While representing the Club he set 3 outdoor and 6 indoor records and won an additional nine national titles. Although a Jew and not of Irish heritage he was selected to be the teams captain for five years. While qualifying for the 1912 United States Olympic Team, Kiviat set the world record for the 1500 meter race with a time of 3 minutes 55.8 seconds which remained unbroken until 1917. Although the favorite going into the 1912 Olympics, he managed to win only the silver when he inadvertently eased up towards the end of his race and lost to England’s Arnold Jackson. Kiviat was, however, the American baseball team’s biggest slugger.

In the first game against the local Swedes, Kiviat went 2 for 4 with a triple and stole two bases as the Americans won 13-3 in a game lasting 6 innings. The sparsely attended game mostly attracted Americans and Swedish-Americans who were already familiar with the sport. The game played on the following day attracted a much larger crowd, probably due to the fact that the regular events were winding down and that Jim Thorpe, the sensation of that year’s games was scheduled to play.

The teams were made up solely from American athletes with Thorpe making an appearance in right field on the same squad as his roommate, Kiviat. With the competition much stiffer and being a little rusty since his days as an All-Star high school shortstop, Abel committed 2 errors in the game but more than made up for it at the plate, going 2 for 3 with a double and stolen base. Kiviat’s team won 6-3.

Baseball didn’t make that big of an impression on the Olympic Committee and would not be tried again until 24 years later at the Berlin Games. Abel Kiviat returned to America and continued to run races but his career was cut short when he was suspended by the Amateur Athletic Union in 1915 when he was accused of asking for too much money for expenses in order to travel to a track meet in Upstate New York. Athletes were supposed to maintain their eligibility by not receiving outright payment for their talent but some got around this by accepting large payments under the category of “travel expenses.” Kiviat fought the charges and was reinstated 8 years later but by then he was a long way from his former peak. He stayed active in the sport he loved by volunteering at the big annual track meets held at Madison Square Garden where he became a gregarious fixture in the press box. In 1984, at the age of 91, Kiviat was given the honor of participating in the Olympic torch relay through Manhattan. He lived to the ripe old age of 99, for a time America’s oldest living Olympian.

This story was included in the Premier Issue of "21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball" which highlights the careers of 14 Jewish ballplayers and can be purchased by clicking HERE or on the tab right below the arrow on the main header of this blog.

125. Minnie Miñoso: Big Before He Was Minnie

The strapping young man from the rural providences stood tall and straight as he approached Rene Midesten, the manager of the Ambrosia Candy baseball team. His skin was dark as night and his body was as strong as a bull from working in the cane fields. For the past 4 or 5 years the young man before him had traveled the country making a name for himself playing amateur ball for sugar plantations and mining company teams. Now 16, the time had come to make the move to the big city of Havana and become a professional ballplayer.

The Ambrosia Candy team was one of many factory and government teams that played in the Havana Semi-Pro league. Once a ballplayer got on one of those teams and did well, it was just a short time before the professional Cuban League came calling. Midesten listened passively as the young man described how he could pitch and catch and hit - he'd heard it all before. Every niño from the sticks thought he was the next Martin Dihigo. But as the young man talked he was also watching Midesten's team work out on the field behind him. The third baseman made one bad play after another. Besides pitch, catch and hit, he told the manager, he was also a third baseman. Midesten's ears perked up and moments later for the princely salary of $2 a game and a guaranteed job in the company's garage, Orestes "Minnie" Miñoso became a professional ballplayer.

Two years later and after moving his way up the semi-pro ladder, Miñoso was signed by the Marianao Tigers, one of the Cuban Winter League's best teams. Besides featuring the best Cubans, the winter league attracted the finest Negro league players from the United States. The level of play was top draw and to say the pay was better would be an understatement. Miñoso signed for $150 a month which was quickly bumped up to $200 when the ball club realized how good he was. By the time the season ended he'd batted .301 and was the 1945-46 Rookie of the Year.

In the years before Jackie Robinson, a Cuban ballplayer had two options if he wanted to play in the United States: if he was light skinned with wavy hair, he went into organized ball. If he was a darker hue with kinky hair, it was the Negro leagues. You really couldn't get any darker than Miñoso, so it was the Negro leagues.

The Negro National League had among its clubs a team called the New York Cubans. Though not exclusively made up of Latin players, the Cubans were the main club the Latins gravitated to when they wanted to play ball in the States. The Cubans played most of their games at the Polo Grounds and though they hadn't won a pennant yet, were always among the finest in the National League. It just so happened that one of Miñoso's coaches with Marianao was Jose Fernandez who was the manager of the New York Cubans. By the time the Cuban season had ended Fernandez had convinced the owner of the Cubans, Alex Pompez, to offer Miñoso a contract.

There was a potential problem. The Pasquel brothers, Jorge and Bernardo, who ran the upstart Mexican Baseball League was offering staggering amounts of cash to professional ballplayers in order to stock their new league. Because the Pasquel's were persuading players to break their contracts with existing teams they were considered outlaws and were physically thrown out of many ballparks when they were caught talking to players. The huge salaries they were offering for the upcoming 1946 season was more than many players could imagine and they succeeded in luring a number of major leaguers in addition many of the finest black and Latin players. While the money was good, the risks were high - in short order organized baseball decreed that anyone breaking a contract to play in Mexico were banned from playing in the major or minor leagues. Latin and black ballplayers also were affected because the Cuban Winter League was under a tentative contract with organized ball as well. Even if a ballplayer was not signed by a major or minor league team, he was still ineligible to play in Cuba if he appeared in the Mexican League. It was big risk and when Miñoso was confronted with a large duffle bag of cash and a 2 year contract for $30,000, the young star turned it down flat. He wanted to play in the Unites States.
Miñoso signed his name to the contract Alex Pompez sent and for $150 a month he became the New York Cubans' rookie third baseman.

Playing their home games in the Polo Grounds, the rookie batted a respectable .309 in 33 games for the New York Cubans in 1946. Making his talent known, his salary was doubled to $300 a month to ensure he wasn't tempted by the roving Mexican League recruiters. Miñoso enjoyed playing in the United States and with his generous income he soon established himself as one of the Negro National League's best dressed ballplayers. Nap Gulley, who played against Miñoso in those years swore the Cuban had 40 or 50 immaculate suits. He went on to state that he could have been a magazine model. One other thing Miñoso prided himself on was his language skills. While some other teammates chose to speak only Spanish, Miñoso tried to communicate solely in English. He figured that he was playing in America so he should know the language. It's interesting to note that although players and sports writers always made comments about his accented English and rogue grammar, Miñoso none-the-less was proudly fluent in the tongue of his adapted homeland.

Besides his fashion sense and budding bilingualism, Miñoso impressed his teammates by eagerly learning all he could from the veterans. He watched the stars on the opposing teams and continually improved his craft. Fellow ballplayers soon learned that no matter how well he played his game, Miñoso strived to do it even better.
The next season Miñoso took off, leading the team with a .294 average and establishing himself as the best lead-off man in the league. Black fans across the nation appreciated his play and he was voted to represent the East team in that year's East-West All Star Game in Chicago. He played the whole game but went 0-3 as the West won 5-2. Along with slugger Pat Scantlebury and pitchers Dave Barnhill and Luis Tiant, the speedy Cuban led his team to the pennant. In the Negro World Series against the Negro American League champion Cleveland Buckeyes, Miñoso batted a remarkable .423 as the Cubans defeated Cleveland in 6 games.

The following season Miñoso continued to improve and by the All-Star break in July was batting about .400. Again he was recognized by the sporting public by being selected to his second East-West Game. This year he went 1 for 4 with a stolen base in another loss to the West. By now Miñoso was undeniably a star and it was tempting for him to think organized ball could be a possibility. The stakes were high in that 1948 All-Star Game as the stands were crawling with major league scouts and every player knew it was their best shot at making the big time. Due to the popularity of the game and also presumably to give the players even more of a shot at showcasing their talents to a mixed audience, a second East-West Game was played in the middle of August in New York. Before the game, Miñoso's teammate Jose Santiago was approached by the Cleveland Indians' scout. Besides Jose, the Indians were looking at Miñoso as well. Realizing this was his chance, Miñoso performed spectacularly. In his first at bat he stretched a chintzy single into a double and later knocked in the East's winning run. By the time he'd showered, Miñoso's contract had been purchased by the Cleveland Indians.

Sent to the Dayton Indians, Miñoso hit .525 in 11 games and the Indians made him a big leaguer the following year. His famed nickname "Minnie", probably a by product of too many sprained Caucasian tongues trying to pronounce his last name properly, came shortly afterwards. All-in-all, Miñoso spent almost 30 years spread over 5 decades playing baseball in Cuba, the United States and Mexico. Miñoso is one of those borderline players who always seem to come up short when the Hall of Fame voting comes around. Though I might not be as enlightened as a real live sportswriter who gets the final vote on such things, I am under the impression guys like Miñoso, Gil Hodges and Sammy T. Hughes deserve a plaque in the Hall more than say, Ron Santo, Lefty Gomez or Phil Rizzuto. But hey, I'm just an artist and it's baseball and without what-ifs like this, what else would there be to talk about during those long winter months, soccer?

1927 Yankees Catching Squad

First off, thank you to everyone who sent me notes about my Mom's passing, your kind works meant a lot to me.

In place of a new card and story this week, I thought I'd show a small part of a larger project I have been working on lately. For a while I have been toying with the idea of picturing a whole ball club, not in a team picture type of situation but in a long vertical formal, casually standing around. The idea came to me when I was thinking of something to do for an art show sponsored by the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame. I thought about doing a large size full team picture of the 1940 team. Unfortunately I got side-tracked by other work and didn't get a chance to get started on it. When I finally started kicking around the idea again I decided on the famed 1927 New York Yankees.

Now, those of you who know me know that I am the furthest thing from a Yankee fan. However, the 1927 team is interesting for a few reasons, the first being that it is well documented with photographs. This is of note because i want to show every player, trainer and batboy, as well as the owners. I figure there will be something like 25 ballplayers and about 8 non-players in the competed drawing. As you can see from the 3 catchers above, I plan on drawing all the men in casual poses, almost like they were captured warming up before a game in 1927. Being as interested in vintage graphic design and advertising as I am in baseball history, lining all the guys up against a background of outfield wall featuring old colorful advertising was a bonus and will be fun to do.

As I complete more sections of the drawing I will post them, no telling how long it will take, but it should be an interesting project!

123. Reggie Jackson: This One's For You Mom!

This week's post ain't about Reggie Jackson, per se, or even about baseball for that matter. This post is about my Mom, Pattie. At the young age of 64 and just 3 years since her husband died, Mom is lying in a New Jersey hospital room on "comfort care." That pleasant term is the nice phrase for the "death watch". Mom was diagnosed with cancer a month ago and in that short period suffered a stroke, endured brain surgery to remove 2 bleeding tumors and is now in a coma dying from a third inoperable hemorrhaging tumor. By the time I post this, she may already have passed away. But that's neither here nor there.

My mother was never a huge baseball fan, she much preferred football, and much later, due to my brother's interest, soccer. However back in the late 1970's and early 1980's my Mom was caught up in that whole Reggie Jackson Mania that was sweeping North Jersey where we lived. Most of my friends and neighbors were as well (including my gorgeous 3rd grade teacher, Ms. Keslo, who broke my virgin heart the day she tacked a poster of a shirtless Bucky Dent on the wall next to my desk). But I, brought up as the third generation of a staunch line of bitter Yankee-haters, didn't have that option. No, instead of reveling in the Yankees' seemingly endless string of World Series victories in that gleaming cathedral in the Bronx, I was left with the 5th-rate Mets and that bus station in Queens called Shea Stadium.

From 1977 on, while my Pop and I suffered through sickening seasons of Metropolitan's baseball, my Mom gleefully latched onto the biggest wave of baseball euphoria since Babe Ruth, Reggiemania. While I tortured myself by staying up late huddled under the covers with my blue transistor radio listening to the Mets drop another game to the Padres, Mom tuned the t.v. in to watch the Yankees making chumps of the Red Sox. I spent my money on packs of baseball cards hoping to get another one of the Mets also-rans while chewing that copper-flavored gum that came with the cards. Mom came home from the market with boxes of scrumptious looking Reggie Bars. The fact that they were made with nuts which I was allergic to just made it seem personal, like a kick to the balls.

I'm kind of rambling here, but bear with me. I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that my Mom seemed to take the game for what it was, a game. Me and my Pop, we took every Yankee win as a person affront, irrefutable proof that there was no fairness in the world. To he and I, the whole world was against us, and they were winning. Mom took the whole ride for just what it was, being part of something exciting.

Reggie Jackson seemed to embody late 70's New York City. He was bigger than life, fallible but he came through when you thought he was all but finished. They booed the hell out of him, even in his own house and still he bounced off the ropes and forced you to admire his talent as he rounded the bases on the way to beating the hell out of you. He fought with the press and they loved it. He pouted and complained and sulked. And he won. Jackson made things exciting again. I can't think of any player in my lifetime who made the game as exciting as I imagined Babe Ruth did. If Muhammad Ali played right field and wore God-awful ugly tinted glasses, I imagine he would have been like Reggie Jackson.

I remember when he said something about being "the straw that stirs the drink" on the Yankees. When asked about team captain and universally admired Thurmun Munson, Jackson replied maybe he stirred it up too, but only in a bad way. The papers exploded and so did the fans. No one ever dared to disparage Munson, and Reggie became the guy you loved to hate on a team full of guys you loved to hate.

Now more than 30 years later even a casual fan knows of Reggie Jackson while most know Munson as that guy who crashed his plane.

I hated Reggie Jackson. I held him responsible for all the bad things in my life. The kids I fought with in the neighborhood all wore Yankee caps. The girls I thought were pretty all turned their backs on me, the large number 44 and "JACKSON" arched above it the being last thing I saw as they walked quickly away. Reggie played in a building that was as close to the Sistine Chapel as us Americans can build and my team played in a cruelly enlarged version of the locker room at the Y.

My Mom loved Reggie. She squealed with laughter as he propelled his team to yet another pennant. She felt sorry for him when those mooks in the bleachers threw batteries at him as he stood in right field. When he hit all those home runs to win another world series, Mom spent the winter happy with  boundless optimism for the distant spring.

And when Reggie was traded and the Yankees stopped winning, Mom found something else positive in life to root for. It's just the way she was. Well, I'm rooting for you Mom, but like the 1978 Mets, I know it's a lost cause. But I'm still rooting, just the same. It's just the way I am.

Postscript: Like my '78 Mets, Mom didn't make it. She passed away quietly on Sunday morning, July 1st, 2012. Rest easy Mom and tell Pop I said hi.

122. Curly Williams: A Good First Impression That Lasts and Lasts

For the second week in a row I've been fortunate to have two guest authors take the writing reins from me and highlight a player that they felt needed the Infinite Card Set "treatment." Besides offering a another perspective, writing style and different players than I would have chosen, it also gives me a break from writing and researching. You see, a few weeks ago my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and the past couple of weeks have been spent back in New Jersey visiting her in the hospital and trying to gather up all the loose ends that a sudden illness always exposes. That's enough about all that now, but I'd like to thank last week's author, Gary Bedingfield and this week's, Jay-Dell Mah, for pinch hitting for me when I needed them.

Last year when working on the Satchel Paige All-Stars story I came across a really interesting website dedicated to baseball in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The proprietor of the site, Jay-Dell Mah, has graciously accepted my offer to be a guest author here at the Infinite Baseball Card Set.

Willie “Curly” Williams had a knack of making a good first impression. In Triple-A with Toledo, in the White Sox organization, Williams won three steak dinners and a savings bond for a triple which knocked in the first runs of the 1952 season for the Mud Hens. With Colorado Springs the previous season, he belted a game-winning two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning as the Sky Sox scored seven times for a season-opening victory.

In Canada, the admiration was long-lasting. “Curly Williams was one of the finest gentlemen that I ever met”, said Slim Thorpe the Saskatchewan team’s president. “He was always helping the kids. We'd get these young college boys and Curly was in there talking to them, showing them how to do it.”

The youngest of seven children, Williams, whose father died when he was just six months old, grew up in Orangeburg, South Carolina where he became widely recognized for his athletic achievements both in baseball and football. As a teenager Williams won a spot on the local Orangeburg Tigers (along with his life-long buddy Modie Risher, once touted as a successor to Roy Campanella) who often competed against barnstorming Negro League teams. It was during his Tigers tenure in the latter part of the 1940s that the famous Newark Eagles of the Negro National League took notice. He became the Eagles’ shortstop both in Newark and, upon the team’s re-location, in Houston and New Orleans. In 1950, as a member of the Houston Eagles, he was selected to play in the Negro League’s East-West All-Star Game at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

A few months later, in winter ball in Puerto Rico, with Mayaguez, the left-handed swatter attracted interest at the major league level especially after a memorable six-day stretch in which he clubbed seven home runs.

The White Sox came calling. The 5’10”, 175 pound shortstop was assigned to Colorado Springs in the Western League and further impressed with a .297 batting average and .547 slugging percentage. But, not feeling anywhere near comfortable with continued sleights against black players, Williams left the club to head back to the Negro League Eagles, now in New Orleans, and hit .351 with 11 home runs in less than half a season.

Convinced to return to the White Sox system, he lined up with Toledo for the start of the 1952 campaign. Williams’ recollections of Spring Training at Avon Park, Florida, didn’t focus on the diamond, but a restaurant kitchen. The kitchen where he was forced to sit for his meals while his white teammates enjoyed the service on the other side of the door at tables in the eatery. He didn’t get to stay at the team’s hotel either. The club found a preacher in the community who agreed to house Williams.

In July, a trade found the infielder in the St. Louis Browns’ farm system, assigned to Scranton of the Eastern League and then the first black player to sign with San Antonio in the Texas League. But, Williams decided to go north, not south, in 1953. He crossed the border to Canada to play in the ManDak (Manitoba-Dakota) League with dozens of other former Negro Leaguers including future Hall of Famers Willie Wells and Leon Day. The integration of the majors and the subsequent decline of the Negro Leagues had reduced playing opportunities for black players and many found a home in the ManDak circuit. The 1950 league champion Winnipeg Buffaloes sported an all-black lineup.

When Williams took the field with the Carman, Manitoba, Cardinals it must have seemed like a Negro League reunion. Under playing-manager Chet Brewer, the club featured, among others, Joe Atkins, Lyman Bostock, Willie Hutchinson, Lester Lockett, Chick Longest, Benjamin Lott, Walter McCoy, Jimmy Newberry, Andy Porter, Herb Souell and Williams, who, in spite of a late start almost won the home run crown blasting 12 in fewer than 200 at bats.

In 1954, he returned for a final season in Negro ball with the Birmingham Black Barons and again was among the loop’s top sluggers.

The following summer it was back to Canada, this time to a small prairie town – Lloydminster – split by the provincial border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. He felt so comfortable he kept coming back to put on the Meridians’ jersey.

“(In Canada) we were treated so well up there that's why I stayed up there so long ... We had so much fun there and everybody was accepted, you know, didn't have problems going any place we wanted to eat. Just wonderful people. May not have made a whole lot of money but people were excited and they enjoyed you and would invite you to their homes."

In his first season in Lloydminster, he hit .280 and, as a third baseman, led the league in fielding. The following year, he was in the top five in average while producing an on-base percentage of .457. Again, he led the league in fielding, this time at shortstop.

Williams was a perennial all-star who also took a turn as manager of the club. In his first full month at the helm, in 1961, he led the Meridians to 25 wins in 32 games, including tournament victories at Lacombe and Lethbridge. Curly loved the big tourney at Lacombe. In the 1960 event he reached base 14 times in 15 appearances. In the 1961 go-round, Williams had three hits and scored twice in the semi-final match as a warm-up for the final in which in homered, tripled and doubled, drove in four runs and scored a pair.

Curly retired after the 1963 season and ten seasons in Canada. Fittingly, he went out with a blast -- a .391 average.

Williams played with and against many of the giants of major league and Negro league baseball – Satchel Paige, Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Don Newcombe and Monte Irvin.

"Such a nice man, beautiful, just beautiful", said Risher "too nice sometimes. I used to get on him about it, telling him you can't be the saviour for everybody".

In 1997, the Sarasota, Florida Council declared "Curly Williams Day" in honour of his efforts to raise funds (through the Curly Williams Foundation) to provide college scholarships for needy students.

Williams was also a major figure in winning pension benefits for many Negro Leaguers who had, based on their color alone, been denied an opportunity to play in the majors.

He died in August, 2011 at Sarasota, Florida at age 86.

Jay-Dell Mah is a former radio and television news reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto. Since his retirement from the CBC, in the late 1990s, baseball research has been a prime activity. His web site – www.attheplate.com – documents semi-professional and amateur baseball in Canada (mainly in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) and the northeastern United States from the early 1900s to the mid 1970s. A highlight of his baseball career came in the summer of 2010 with induction into the Saskatchewan Baseball Hall of Fame. In late 2010, he was selected as one of the top 100 most influential figures in baseball in Canada. The native of the prairie border city of Lloydminster, is co-author of Black Baseball Players in Canada: A Biographical Dictionary, 1881-1960 (McFarland & Company, 2009). He’s a member and former webmaster of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research. Mah now lives in the British Columbia interior community of Nakusp.

121. Tom Woodruff: Speed on the Field, Speed in the Air

One of my favorite baseball websites I always check in on is www.baseballinwartime.com. Writer/researcher Gary Bedingfield has created the best clearinghouse of information and stories related to baseball and World War II, from the hundreds of service teams to all-star tours of the war zones to a painstakingly researched list of ballplayers killed in the line of duty. It is a fascinating glimpse of how the sport of baseball helped the United States get through some tough times and it also pays tribute to the hundreds of sports heroes who selflessly put their careers aside in order to help defeat the evil that was threatening our world. When I did my card and story on Bill Niemeyer a few weeks ago, it was Gary's site that I turned to first. Looking over his new creation, Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice, I had an idea - why not have Gary pick one of his ballplayers, I'll do the illustration and we'll give everyone a reason to check out his unbelievable research on wartime baseball...

Tom Woodruff was a league-leading base stealer his first two years in the minors. Five years later he was inflicting heavy damage on Japanese shipping as a US Navy fighter pilot roaming the Pacific from the deck of the USS Enterprise. After earning a string of awards for extraordinary heroism against the enemy, Tom's luck ran out in November 1944.

Thomas J. Woodruff attended St. Louis University High School, where he was a three-sport athlete and an honors student. He was a varsity baseball teammate of Joe Schultz, who enjoyed a nine-year career as a major league catcher with the Pirates and Browns, and went on to manage the Seattle Pilots and Detroit Tigers. Another teammate, William Quinn, became the first governor of the state of Hawaii and president of Dole Pineapple. Yet another, Bob Hyland, became a pioneer in the radio business, becoming the vice-president of CBS radio and creating the talk-radio call-in format. [1]

Following graduation in 1936, Woodruff enrolled at St. Louis University, and was on the Track team and Freshmen basketball squad before signing with the St. Louis Browns in 1938. The Browns sent the young shortstop to the Corpus Christi Spudders of the Class D Texas Valley League, and he batted .271 with 6 home runs, 20 triples, 71 RBIs and a league-leading 44 stolen bases. He also led the team with 84 base on balls and 13 sacrifice hits. In 1939, he joined the Paragould Browns of the Class D Northeast Arkansas League and batted .279 in 120 games with 10 home runs, 56 RBIs, a team-leading 115 runs scored and a league-leading 62 stolen bases. [2]

The 22-year-old began the 1940 season with the Springfield Browns of the Class B Three-I League, playing alongside future major leaguers Ray Coleman, Earl Jones, Ed Busch and Len Schulte. But after batting only .248 in 55 games he joined the St. Joseph Autos of the Class C Michigan State League on July 9. Bringing outstanding speed on the basepaths and combining with manager Elmer Kirchoff to make a neat double play combination, Woodruff helped put the Autos on a winning streak. In 27 games, he was batting .404 and had stolen 17 bases when he broke his leg in a game against Grand Rapids in August. But despite his limited playing time he was voted to the Michigan State League All-Star team picked by the loop's sports editors and team managers.

Woodruff's option was taken up by Springfield at the start of 1941. The team he had played for before joining St. Joseph, and the young infielder was torn between the desire of stepping up into Class B competition and returning to the Autos. "If you consider the calibre of play, the playing conditions, teammates, and the two cities of St. Joseph and Springfield, I'd probably rather come back to the Autos," he told the Benton Harbor News Palladium. "But I've got to also look at it from the baseball angle that the Three-Eye circuit naturally carries more prestige than the Class C Michigan League and baseball men give more recognition to you if you're from a class B loop," he added. [3]

Nevertheless, and with his military draft call looming, he was back with St. Joseph by mid-April. He was batting .278 with 18 RBIs, 4 home runs and 12 stolen bases in 19 games when military service requested his presence June 6. May 28 was the date of the popular shortstop's last game and the event was dubbed "Tommy Woodruff Night" as the Autos faced Grand Rapids before a crowd of 850 at Edgewater Park. Batting in his usual number two spot Woodruff was hitless at the plate but safely handled five chances in the field. As the Autos headed to Lansing to play the cellar-dwelling Senators, Woodruff headed home to St. Louis and reported for induction. [4]

Woodruff began his military life at the Army Replacement Center at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri, where he was attached to the public relations staff, having studied journalismn at St. Louis University. He later transferred to the Navy and as an aviation cadet, trained at Pensacola Naval Air Station, earning his wings as a fighter pilot in June 1942. Lieutenant Junior Grade Woodruff flew the Grumman F6F Hellcat, and saw action in the Pacific from August 1944, as part of Fighter Squadron VF-20 aboard the USS Enterprise. He made fighter sweeps over the Bonin Islands, Yap Island and in support of the landings at Peleliu in September. In October, strikes were made against Okinawa, Luzon and in support of the Second Battle of the Philippine Sea. Woodruff was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal and Navy Cross for his aerial combat achievements.

During November, he made attacks against land targets in the Philippines and enemy convoys including the November 11 attack on an enemy convoy at Ormoc Bay. On that day, the Navy pilots encountered stiff opposition from ant-aircraft fire but sank two destroyers.

On November 14, 1944, he flew a mission against Clark Field in the Philippines that was the most trying for the pilots of VF-20. Anti-aircraft batteries of all sizes had been greatly strengthened since previous strikes and were finding their targets with alarming accuracy. Six fighters were shot down that day, including Woodruff. His body was never recovered and a year later he was officially declared dead.

Woodruff was posthumously awarded a gold star in lieu of a second Distinguished Flying Cross for his part in the attack against the Japanese convoy on November 11, 1944. He is memorialized at the Manila American Cemetery at Fort Bonifacio in the Philippines.

Lt (jg) Woodruff's Navy Cross citation:
The President of the United States of America takes pleasure in presenting the Navy Cross to Lieutenant, Junior Grade Thomas Joseph Woodruff (NSN: 0-145682), United States Naval Reserve, for extraordinary heroism in operations against the enemy while serving as Pilot of a carrier-based Navy Fighter Plane in Fighting Squadron TWENTY (VF-20), attached to the U.S.S. ENTERPRISE (CV-6), in strikes against the Japanese Fleet on 24 - 25 October 1944, east of the Philippines. On 25 October Lieutenant, Junior Grade, Woodruff participated in a coordinated attack on a large formation of enemy warships and in spite of intense anti-aircraft fire scored rocket hits on a destroyer. On 20 October with complete disregard for his own personal safety and in the face of intense anti-aircraft fire he attacked and obtained a direct bomb hit on a light cruiser inflicting severe damage. His courage and skill were at all times in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

General Orders: Commander 1st Carrier Task Force Pacific: Serial 046 (January 31, 1945)
Action Date: October 24 - 25, 1944
Service: Naval Reserve
Rank: Lieutenant Junior Grade
Company: Fighting Squadron 20 (VF-20)
Division: U.S.S. Enterprise (CV-6)

About Gary Bedingfield As an Englishman, my enthusiasm for baseball may seem a tad strange. Baseball is not popular in Britain, and yet I developed a passion for the American national pastime at a tender age. And since 1999, I've been researching the impact of war on professional baseball. Why? Well, it gives me an opportunity to combine two things that fascinate me in life – World War II and the great game of baseball.

Coinciding with the release of my first book on the subject, "Baseball in World War II Europe" in 2000, I launched the now popular BaseballinWartime.com website as a way of sharing the information I was uncovering. A major part of this website was a section entitled "In Memoriam," dedicated to baseball players who lost their lives during World War II. It amazed me that no prior listing had ever been compiled relating to the National Pastime's commitment to the war in relation to deaths and I took it upon myself to rectify the situation. In 2009, McFarland publishers released my second book, "Baseball's Dead of World War II," a collection of 127 biographies of players who lost their lives while serving with the military during World War II. Since the release of "Baseball's Dead" the list has grown to 142 and I decided to look beyond World War II and see what players made the ultimate sacrifice in other conflicts, or even while serving in the military in peacetime.

The result of this research is BaseballsGreatestSacrifice.com, launched in January 2012, and dedicated to the 381 players who died in service. It serves as the only Internet source dedicated to these men and will eventually include biographies for every player I am able to uncover, from major league to amateur.

What do I hope will become of this information? Well, one day, I’d love to see Major League Baseball recognize the players who died in service. Maybe a plaque inscribed with their names. C’mon guys, it’s time they were honored.

www.baseballinwartime.com

www.baseballsgreatestsacrifice.com

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.

Memorial Day 2012

By the morning of March 4th, 1945, the boys of G Company, 2nd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division had become hardened veterans. Most had just arrived in Europe barely 3 months before and now those same freshly minted young soldiers had checked the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, chased their asses back across the Rhine and were now slugging their way into the Third Reich itself. The war was close to being over with, the Allies gaining more momentum everyday and the enemy knew it. If the Germans were only fighting the western powers they most likely would have caved in already. However, on the other side of Germany the Soviets were smashing towards Berlin and every day they held out meant more Germans could make their way west to be captured or at least get to an area occupied by the western Allies. No one wanted to be around when the Russians came so the war ground on.

The boys of G Company probably didn’t care much about the reason why the Germans still fought them tooth and nail. Each man had had his life interrupted and shipped half way around the globe to stop an evil that was threatening to swallow the whole world. The boys of G Company had left pretty young wives, anxious mothers, college classrooms or good jobs and took up a Garand Rifle to do their part. Complaining about what they were missing out on was pointless - the fella next to you had the same story. Maybe even better than yours. Nah, complaining wouldn’t do any good. Best thing was to keep marching forward and get this over with. As they wearily crossed the makeshift bridge built over the Kyll River they just cared about the fight they had ahead of them that afternoon and the one after that and the one after that until these Krauts threw in the towel.

If any of the boys in G Company were still sleepy, chances are the mortar fire that greeted them as the crossed the bridge woke them up. The enemy they’d been chasing since Luxembourg had dug in around the town of Erdorf. As the German lines collapsed and contracted the enemy became more dense, more desperate. Besides regular infantry, G Company was marching right into redeployed artillery and Panzer units. As they pushed forward the resistance became stiffer and more determined. Each gain was met with vicious counter-attacks and artillery barrages.

G Company was deployed to sweep the fields around the village of Erdorf. This was pleasant farm land of rolling little green hills and blooming trees. To the boys of G Company, the area they were clearing of enemy troops looked a lot like familiar places in the northeast and Midwest United States. Perhaps more than a few were suddenly lost in thoughts of an afternoon spent in surroundings much like this. The boys of G Company thought back to little places they left behind called Sussex County, Washington Courthouse, Mechanicsburg or Crescent Springs.

To the officers of G Company, this place was just called Hill 378.

The company spread out and took a low hill like they had countless other times in the last three months. All very textbook. Regrouping and moving forward, they entered a wooded area where entrenched German troops and the Panzer tanks were waiting. This obstacle, too, was eventually beaten aside by G Company and just like every other hill and wood and field G Company had cleared in the past three months, they left behind some of their own. As the troops emerged on the other side of the wood and continued eastward into Germany, one of the 32 boys they left behind that afternoon was 22 year-old Private First Class Bill Niemeyer of Crescent Springs, Kentucky. The life he had put on hold in order to beat back the evil that darkened the world consisted of his young wife Marie, infant daughters Deanna Gail and Mary Johanna and a promising pitching career in the Chicago Cubs organization.

Even though Bill Niemeyer never made it up to the Cubs, I wanted to depict Bill in a Chicago uniform. Was he good enough to have eventually made it to Wrigley Field? I don’t know. We will never know. The same as we will never know what any of the other boys in G Company who died that afternoon in Germany would have accomplished in their lives. The one thing I do know is that is their sacrifices, all veteran’s sacrifices, made it possible for me to have a good life in the greatest country in the world. As I sit here writing this, I can see and hear my neighbors enjoying this beautiful Memorial Day weekend. The shouts of the boys next door, the couple across the street putting a pair of mountain bikes in their SUV and the girl on the corner attempting to train her new puppy on her green front lawn. In a few hours I will be going over to see my girlfriend who I love very much, and share a nice, lazy summer evening. All that I see and hear right at this very moment was possible because of men and women like Bill Niemeyer, a 22 year-old promising ballplayer who once lived right down the street from where I sit right now, the place he left to go off to war and never saw again.

Many thanks to Gary Bedingfield who is the foremost authority on baseball and World war II. While looking around for a ballplayer to feature this Memorial Day I of course consulted his amazing website www.baseballinwartime.com. Consulting a page he constructed showing the many professional ballplayers who died fighting for our country, Bill Niemeyer jumped off the screen. He was born and raised right where I was sitting. I might even pass his relatives at the market or live next door. The fact that he came from this place made his sacrife a bit more personal for me, especially as I sat there with a nice fresh cup of coffee by an open window enjoying the beautiful Kentucky scenery he never saw again. The place of his death was even more interesting as that part of Germany looks very similar to what he had grown up in. I’m glad I found Bill’s name on that website and I encourage every other baseball fan to take a look at Gary Bedingfield’s monumental work. His site features in-depth articles about hundreds (actually it might even be thousands of entries by now!) of players who found themselves in the service during the war. Gary is also an author of two indispensable books on the subject, "Baseball's Dead of World War II: A Roster Of Professional Players Who Died" and one of my personal favorites, "Baseball In World War II Europe (part of the Images of Sports series)."

119. Mickey Rutner: Man On Spikes

When I first started this blog a little over two years ago, I started receiving many requests for players to be profiled on here and given The Infinite Baseball Card Set "treatment." Out of all the emails I began to notice that it was not one particular player that was asked for the most, but rather a whole ethnic group: Jewish ballplayers. I did cards and stories on here of Sandy Koufax and Moe Berg, but I began slowly researching different players of the Jewish faith, trying to find characters who would fit in with the kind of stories I like to write. Guys with interesting stories who may not be known to the casual fan of baseball history. Mickey Rutner was one of those guys, and in fact he appears on page 15 of the Premier Issue of "21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball." Ron Kaplan, founder of the highly informative baseball book review site Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf, told me that no feature on Jewish ballplayers was complete without including Mickey. As far as I was concerned, including Mickey was a pleasure because not only was he the inspiration for a fine baseball novel and made-for-TV movie, but I had actually met him back in 2002 and had a nice talk with him while taking in a minor league ballgame in Round Rock, Texas.

Mickey Rutner wasn’t a great ballplayer, but he was a darn good one. His entire major league career consisted of 12 games with Connie Mack’s 1947 Philadelphia Athletics but it was his long, bittersweet minor league experience that inspired author Eliot Asinof to make him the hero of his best selling 1955 novel “Man On Spikes”. The novel follows hero “Mike Kutner” as he winds his way through the minor league system battling prejudices and the exploitation of the players toiling in its farm system. In Asinof’s novel the prejudice faced by the main character was due to his wearing of glasses - the real “Mike Kutner”- Mickey Rutner, faced anti-Semitism.

Mickey grew up in Hempstead, New York and after starring on his high school baseball team went on to play the sport at St. John’s University. In 1939 while playing in a semi-pro league sponsored by major league clubs and made up of college players, Rutner was teammates with another Jew from New York named Eliot Asinof. The team was run by manager Bill Barrett and after a losing streak approached Asinof telling him “there’s too many Heebs on this club. You’re fired.” Rutner got to stay.

After graduation Mickey was signed by the Detroit Tigers. Given a $3,000 signing bonus which he was later cheated out of, he was sent to play in their minor league system. While playing for Winston-Salem in 1941 Rutner’s manager was none other than Jake Atz, famed Texas League manager now in the last year of his long and successful career. Atz, also a Jew, told Rutner that his name Mickey and degree from St. John’s must have fooled the Detroit management into signing him. If they knew he was Jewish he wouldn’t have been offered a contract. The Tigers already had one Jew on the team, Hank Greenberg.

Mickey moved up a rung to Wilmington in 1942 and batted .277 along with a spot on the league All-Star team. His career seemed to be headed in the right direction when he was drafted. Mickey spent 3 prime years serving in Europe with the 45th Division before rejoining Wilmington in the Spring of 1946. Now playing third base, Rutner exploded batting .310, 126 RBI’s and his 36 doubles lead the league. He made his second All-Star game appearance that year as well. Moving up to the Birmingham Barons in 1947 Mickey responded by hitting .327, earning his promotion to the major leagues.

Playing his first game in an Athletics uniform on September 11th, Mickey went 2 for 4 against the White Sox. In his first appearance at Yankee Stadium, Mickey had the thrill of getting a game-winning base hit off ace Yankee relief pitcher Joe Page. All told Mickey played in 12 games for Philadelphia and hit .250 including a double and home run. He was invited take spring training with the Athletics the next year but by the start of the season he was sent back to Birmingham. Veteran Hank Majeski was the regular third baseman and although Mickey was good, he wasn’t better than Majeski.

Rutner continued to post good numbers playing in the high minors- .312 for Birmingham in 1948, .287 for Tulsa in ‘49, .286 for Toronto in ‘50 - but the majors never called again. The parent team of every club he played for had a good player already manning third base. First it was Majeski in Philly then Vern Stephens in Boston, then Grady Hatton in Cincinnati and finally Willie “Puddin' Head” Jones on the Phillies. As he grew older he slipped back down the ladder into the depths of the minor league system. After 10 years in the minors he hung up his spikes for good after the 1953 season ended. His lifetime average was just shy of .300. It was two years later that Mickey Rutner’s futile plight in the minor leagues was made famous by his former teammate now novelist Eliot Asinof. The book was further popularized when it was made into a television movie later that year.

In his later years Mickey retired to Texas where he took up a job with the Roundrock Express baseball club as the team’s official luxury suites greeter. Shaking hands and telling baseball stories, the old Man On Spikes wound down his last years again working around the game he loved. While undergoing surgery for a torn rotator cuff, Mickey developed a fatal staph infection and passed away at the age of 88.

The Premier Issue of "21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball" is finally released and can be purchased by clicking on the tab right below the arrow on the main header of this blog.