Buker played
professionally from 1940-1952, making it to the major leagues with
Brooklyn in 1945. Buker was called to Brooklyn after having a standout
11-3 season in St. Paul in 1944. Eager to play in Brooklyn, his chances
at the major leagues were temporarily dashed when he was drafted into
World War II service.
“I wasn't there two days before I was in the Army,” Buker said in
an interview with Jim Sargent.
“The Army finally released me about May 15. I was in what they call the
observation unit. I had asthma, and I was wheezing up a storm.”
While in Brooklyn, he
compiled a 7-2 record with a 3.30 ERA in 42 appearances during the 1945
campaign. With that type of record, one would think Buker was a shoo-in
for a spot on the club the following season. What followed was an
intense set of contract negotiations with
Branch Rickey
that delayed Buker’s arrival to spring training in 1946.
After months of back
and forth letters, Rickey offered Buker a $1,500 raise contingent on his
ability to make the team. Resigning from his teaching job, Buker
finally reported to spring training, albeit three weeks late. His
prospects didn't look good.
"I could see that
everyone was mad at me," Buker recalled. "Nobody would even talk to me. I was assigned to
the 'B' squad immediately, without throwing a ball. It went that way
throughout spring training and into the season. I sat on the bench. I
never pitched one ball in 1946. They didn't want anyone to see me. I sat
on the bench until the final hour of the last day before cut-down, and,
you guessed it. I was optioned to Montreal.”
Going to Montreal, Buker found himself in the middle of history as
Jackie Robinson
was beginning baseball's integration. Robinson had just entered the
minor leagues and was beginning to build his legend north of the border.
Buker noted in a 2008 interview that some teammates were weary of his
presence.
“There were many,
especially those from the southern United States who were very
skeptical," he said. "They didn’t think it would work. They were mistaken and after
several months, [they] accepted him.
Buker developed a
relationship with Robinson, so much that he was offered to travel with
him after the end of the season.
“We got along well. In fact, he wanted
me to join his barnstorming team after the season,” he said.
Unfortunately for him, a home plate collision prevented him from joining
Robinson. “I didn’t go because I wasn’t recovered from my injury.”
This injury would
plague him for the rest of his career and Buker would continue to
moonlight between his love for teaching and playing baseball, joining
most clubs after the school year was finished and leaving once football
started. He continued in this fashion until 1952, leaving pitching
behind to fully focus on teaching and coaching. His prowess in the
school system as a coach would see him inducted in to the Wisconsin
Baseball and Football Coaches Associations' Halls of Fame.
After retiring from
teaching in 1970, he started his own body repair and painting business
in Greenwood, which he operated until he was 88 years old. With Buker's
passing, that leaves 44 living former
Brooklyn Dodgers.
* This article was originally published for Examiner.com October 15, 2011.
Kuzava signed with the Cleveland Indians in 1941 out of St. Patrick High School in Wyandotte and only eighteen months later, he was shipped out of the country to serve in the Army during World War II. He put his baseball career on hold for three years to fulfill his military duties.
“[I spent] three years in the Army,” Kuzava said during a 2008 telephone interview from his home in Wyandotte. “I was a sergeant; I spent two years overseas in Burma, India, and China. I came out as a buck sergeant. It was so hot in Burma and India. I played a little recreation softball, but no baseball.
“I was fortunate; I saw a little bit, but no heavy action in Burma. I felt sorry for the guys. There wasn't much going on, except in Burma when they had Merill's Marauders fighting the Japanese. Those guys had to do everything with mules in the jungle because it was the only way you could carry stuff and travel. I didn't get into any action, I was just glad to survive.”
Bob Kuzava signed photo / N. Diunte
Returning unscathed from the Army, “Sarge” had a banner year for Wilkes Barre in 1946, going 14-6 with a 2.36 ERA. His spectacular performance earned him a September call-up at the end of the season. Determined to return to the majors after getting a taste of the big league life, 1947 played out in similar fashion that finished with a cup of coffee for Cleveland. Only this time, one of his rookie teammates was helping to integrate Major League Baseball.
“Larry Doby was a terrific ballplayer and well educated gentleman,” he said. “When he first came up, I was a rookie too. He played center field for us and was a very good major league player.”
The Indians traded Kuzava to the Chicago White Sox to start the 1949 season. Given the opportunity to pitch regularly, he posted a 10-6 record and finished fourth in the American League Rookie of the Year voting. Just as quickly as he was acquired by the White Sox due to the wheeling and dealing of Frank “Trader” Lane, Kuzava was sent to the Washington Senators in 1950 in a six-player trade for slugging first baseman Eddie Robinson.
While his time in Washington wasn't one of pennant contention, his first season in the nation's capital provided one of the most memorable moments of his career. Sporting a lifetime .086 batting average, Kuzava’s lack of prowess at the plate was a prima facie case for the establishment of the designated hitter. While no baseball fan would ever get him confused at the plate for his legendary teammates Joe DiMaggio or Mickey Mantle; however, almost sixty years later, he was proud to tell the story of his only major league home run.
“There was a guy named Bob Hooper who [pitched] for the Philadelphia A's,” he recalled. “We were in Washington and I hit a ball to left field, Paul Lanier came in to make a shoestring catch and the ball rolled all the way to the fence which was about 400 feet away. It was an inside the park home run; I didn't have the power to hit the ball over the fence in Washington.”
While playing for the cellar dwelling Senators was one of the less glamorous major league jobs, a mid-season 1951 trade with the New York Yankees put him on the elevator straight to the top of the American League. Immediately, the difference in the clubhouse atmosphere was obvious.
“We had a guy one day who didn't run too hard to first,” he recalled. “We had an ex-Marine, Hank Bauer on our club. He waited for him. He asked, ‘Are you tired?’ The guy looked at him and said, ‘Well, no.’ Hank asked, ‘Well why don't you run hard to first? We're trying to make a couple bucks, get in the World Series.’ Hank said to the guy, ‘If you are tired, tell the old man, and we'll get somebody in there who wants to hustle.’ That's how it was; we took care of our own.”
The prevailing intense attitude that Bauer reinforced helped to send Kuzava and the Yankees to the 1951 World Series, the first of their three consecutive World Series championships. Serving as a reliever in all three Fall Classics, he made history of his own when he earned a save in the deciding games of both the 1951 and 1952 World Series.
“I am the only guy to have a save in the World Series back to back [in the deciding games on consecutive World Series],” he said. “It's quite an honor. To have a save in back to back World Series, I don't know if it will ever be done again.”
After defeating the New York Giants in 1951, the Subway Series continued in 1952 and 1953, when the Yankees squared off against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Kuzava recalls that there was very little separating the two clubs at the time.
“We played against the Brooklyn Dodgers in ’52 and ’53. Both teams had Hall of Famers in the future; they had 5-6 guys that became Hall of Famers and so did we. There wasn't much difference between the clubs; the teams that got a break during the series won. We just maybe got a few more breaks than they did.”
With all of the talent that Brooklyn had, Kuzava was most impressed by Jackie Robinson, not only for what he did on the field, but also for a humble gesture he made in defeat. After losing the 1952 World Series, Robinson was the first to go to the Yankees clubhouse and give them their due.
“We beat them in Brooklyn and I had the save that day,” he said. “Robinson came over to our clubhouse and congratulated us. That's what kind of man he was. He was a tough guy. He held it back, but he showed it on the playing field.”
Winning three World Series rings with the Yankees cemented his role as a key bullpen member during their dominant run in the early 1950s. As the Yankees cultivated young talent from their rich farm system, Kuzava was let go by the team in 1954 and he latched on with the Baltimore Orioles for the remainder of the season.
He pitched in the major leagues through 1957 with stops in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and St. Louis. As he approached his mid 30s, changing teams so frequently made it difficult to build enough of a rapport with the managers to get on the mound consistently.
“I was getting up there in age,” he said. “I had a few cups of coffee. In Philly I enjoyed the guys, but I didn't pitch much. A lot of times when you go to different ball clubs, the managers don't know you too well and you sit around too long.”
He toiled in the minor leagues until 1960 when he finished up his career as a player-manager for the Charleston White Sox in the South Atlantic League. He went face-to-face with the ugly head of Jim Crow as the progress that Robinson and Doby worked to make was far from finished. He recruited Negro League veteran Sam Hairston to help him mentor the young players and help them deal with the racism they faced in the South.
“I managed one year for Bill Veeck in Charleston, and I had two guys who were colored,” he said. “This was 1960; one was Oillie Brantley, the other was Jim Lynn. [Sam] Hairston came down to help me in the summer; he was an old catcher with the White Sox, a great guy. Even then, I'd get phone calls from people threatening that if those guys played, they were going to do this or that. It was terrible. I'm talking 1960! We had Cubans whose skin was darker than the blacks and they could live with us in the hotels. The blacks couldn't and those were the guys who went to war for us along with me and the other guys.”
After his playing and coaching days were over, he scouted for a decade. While he enjoyed being around the game, the grind of scouting combined with the low pay proved to be too much of a strain on his family. He returned home to Wyandotte to get a job in the beer industry.
“I scouted for 10 years,” he said. “I worked for John McHale and Charlie Finley. It got to be too much traveling and there was no money in scouting. My wife had to do most of the work. I got a job back in my hometown and retired from the beer business.”
When we spoke in 2008, the then 85-year-old Kuzava felt it was easy for old-timers like him to get lost by baseball fans with the abundance of players that followed in his footsteps. Nonetheless, he was happy to be recognized and wasn’t shy about addressing the vastly improved conditions that major leaguers currently enjoyed.
“A lot of people don't remember you anymore because of expansion,” he said. “There are 30 ball clubs now; it’s easy to forget people. We only had eight teams in each league. Our meal money was eight dollars per day and we traveled by train.
“They get $100 per day now and buffets in the clubhouse. They get bereavement days for babies being born. [They play] no doubleheaders! We played doubleheaders almost every weekend and holidays! We did it and we enjoyed it. That's the union and the way it is now. My wife had five babies and I couldn't get home to see any of them. I applaud the union for giving them these things. It was different when I played.”
Kuzava was among the early members of the MLBPA and quickly acknowledged the value of the pension he had from playing baseball. He wished that modern players would honor Curt Flood for the sacrifices he made that led to the tremendous salaries they’re earning.
“We get a nice pension,” he said. “It came into effect in 1947. You could have played 20 years before 1947, retired and got nothing. I went to the big leagues to stay in 1947. I was lucky; I just got in there when the plan started. When I started getting my pension, it was a few hundred dollars a month, now it is a lot more than that.
“They're making so much today because of the rules. When I broke in, you belonged to a club for life; you had no say in the thing. Curt Flood started the ball rolling when guys could make more money and become free agents. They blackballed him because he stepped up and started complaining. In St. Louis, they wanted to trade him and he didn't want to go. These guys today ought to thank the lord for him because now a lot of them are millionaires.”
Go to the two hour and 15 minute mark to see Kuzava pitch in the deciding game of the 1952 World Series.
MartÃn Dihigo is widely regarded as one of the most talented and versatile players in the Hall of Fame. Whether he was on the mound, in the field, or at the plate, Dihigo stood out among the mere mortals that played alongside him.
Cholly Naranjo, a star pitcher for Cuba's Alemendares ball club in the 1950s who later made the major leagues with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1956, had a special connection with Dihigo. Naranjo is the nephew of Ramon Couto, Dihigo's catcher both in Cuba and with the Cuban Stars of the Negro Leagues.
The now 82-year-old Naranjo is one of a handful of players alive that saw Dihigo up close and personal. Speaking with Naranjo in May 2017, he explained what it was like to have contact with "El Inmortal," at an early age.
"Man you should have seen that guy, he looked like a God!" Naranjo said.
In the rest of the interview, which is linked below, Naranjo discusses watching Dihigo play as a youngster and how he was a top line player as both a pitcher and a batter.
A few years ago while Kevin Elster was in New York for a 1986 New York Mets reunion, we discussed about his short tenure with the New York Yankees in 1995 that was hastened by Derek Jeter's arrival. On the day that the Yankees will retire Jeter's number 2, I am sharing a story that I wrote for metroBASEBALL magazine, where Elster recalls how he received a very clear message from the Yankees that Jeter was his replacement and that his services were no longer needed by their organization.
While his tenure with the Yankees was met with little fanfare,
sporting a .057 average (2-for-37), Elster’s departure from the Bronx
allowed for a legend’s career to begin. He knew his time was running out
during a road trip when the hotel staff mistook his identity for
someone named Jeter.
“We were in Seattle around Memorial Day weekend in 1995," Elster
said. "A bellhop knocked on my door and said, ‘Mr. Jeter, your luggage
is here.’ I told the guy that he had the wrong person, and being around
the game, I immediately knew something was up.
"Jeter was staying next door, so I knocked on Derek’s room and told
him I had his luggage. He knew the deal and gave me a big hug. When I
got to the ballpark, Showalter brought me in his office and told me I
was going to be released. Jeter made his debut and the rest was
history.”
Pushed aside for a rookie, a veteran might harbor ill feelings towards his replacement, but not Elster.
“I was a backup at the time and just getting back to the majors. He deserved to be there.”
Bowman gives a nod to their seventh decade with the debut of their 2017 baseball card series, commemorating their history with tributes to their longevity throughout this year’s product. Highlighting special inserts marked with 70th anniversary logos, and reproductions of classic cards, Bowman has created an aura that respects their past while moving their brand forward.
2017 Bowman Baseball / Bowman
Building excitement as the first 2017 baseball card release that focuses on top farmhands within the MLB pipeline through their Bowman Prospects and Chrome Prospects subsets, 2017 Bowman Baseball has positioned itself as the premier set for collectors looking catch the next rising star. The smooth design of the set (which is enhanced by the Chrome parallels) only serves add to its wide appeal.
The aforementioned 150-card Bowman Prospects set features the standout minor leaguers across baseball, many of whom are on the cusp on the major leagues this season, including Amed Rosario, Austin Meadows, and Clint Frazier. While the checklist for the set might disappoint some due to seeing the same players included for a second year in a row, Bowman continues to make the future stars of the game its focal point.
Not to be ignored is the 100-card base set, which is highlighted by rookie cards of the ever-popular Aaron Judge, Yoan Moncada, and Dansby Swanson. The mix of rookies who made their major league debut last season, coupled with baseball’s established veterans, make the base set a valuable accompany piece to the pre-rookie cards that everyone is chasing.
2017 Bowman Aaron Judge / Bowman
In an effort to connect their 70th anniversary to the current stars, inserts that contain a mesh of active stars and retired legends are designed in the fashion of the 1948, 1951, 1952, and 1992 Bowman sets. Also inserted into packs are buyback cards stamped with the Bowman 70th anniversary logo.
2017 Bowman Inserts / Bowman
Each box promises one autographed card. The box provided for this review yielded a Chance Adams autographed Chrome Prospect card. The wide array of autographs available in 2017 Bowman will make consumers happy, as they have the opportunity to pull signatures from the likes of Judge, Mike Trout, and Bryce Harper, as well as Hall of Famers Greg Maddux, Mike Piazza, and Randy Johnson.
Chance Adams Chrome Autograph / Bowman
As Bowman literally puts their stamp on their seven decades of baseball lineage with the 2017 Bowman set, they are simultaneously positioning themselves to be a player in the hobby for potentially another seven decades. This release sets them up perfectly for this generation to place 2017 Bowman Baseball as a landmark set in their collections.
Adrian Burgos of La Vida Baseball expertly documented Olmo's career in the wake of his passing, citing Olmo's influence on generations of Puerto Rican baseball players. His professional career started in the 1930s, leaving him as one of a small handful of peloteros at the time of his death that could document the pre-WWII era of the sport.
Acknowledging Olmo's place alongside those who opened the door for integration, I wrote to him in 2008 asking about the Negro League legends he encountered playing in Puerto Rico. While his answers were brief, they spoke volumes.
The then 89-year-old Olmo gave his insights on three Hall of Famers: Ray Dandridge, Satchel Paige, and Josh Gibson. A copy of the letter is included below, as is a transcript of the questions and his answers.
Q - "Where does Ray Dandridge rank when you think of 3rd baseman? Luis Olmo - "One of the best I ever seen."
Q - What do you think kept the Giants from calling him to the Major League team? Olmo - "Racism."
Q - What are your memories of facing Satchel Paige in his prime while in Puerto Rico during the late 1930s and early 1940s? Olmo - "A great pitcher."
Q- What are your favorite memories of playing with and against Josh Gibson in Puerto Rico? Olmo - "Gibson was able to hit 100 home runs in a season."
Luis Olmo letter to the author in 2008 / N. Diunte
