Monte Irvin (1919-2016) - A true gentleman of baseball

To meet Monte Irvin was to become his friend. At least that’s how I felt as a teenager in high school when I first met Mr. Irvin at a Negro League alumni reunion in 1994. Those feelings compelled me to share my encounters with Irvin upon the news of his death at the age of 96 on January 11, 2016.

I first met Irvin at a 1994 reunion in New Jersey. It caught me off guard to see Irvin choose to sign autographs in a side room with the thirty lesser known players, instead of the main room where Hall of Famers Buck Leonard and Willie Mays were signing. Irvin’s table had little fanfare compared to his Cooperstown counterparts. Despite the ability to affix “HOF 73” next to his name, Irvin relished blending in with everyone else, a theme that repeated during our future encounters.

Milling around the room talking to each player about their careers, I spotted Irvin by himself with nobody waiting at his table. Growing up my uncle told me stories of Irvin’s tremendous abilities as a member of the New York Giants from his view at the Polo Grounds. Eager to start a conversation with him, I showed him a photo from a Hall of Fame yearbook I had recently purchased on a school trip to Cooperstown. He quickly asked me if I wanted him to sign it, and when I informed him I had spent all of my money already at the show, he told me not to worry about it and put his autograph right on the page. I thanked him profusely; he smiled and posed for a photo.

Monte Irvin circa 1994 / N. Diunte

I went back the next year armed with money I earned from digging out cars and driveways from shoveling. This time, I made sure I paid for Mr. Irvin’s signature. I told him of the story from last year and he kindly thanked me for coming and supporting what was going on.

Monte Irvin with the author / N. Diunte

As the end of high school approached, I shifted my focus from researching and collecting artifacts on the Negro Leagues to pursuing an opportunity to play baseball in college. I put keeping up with Monte and his aging counterparts on hold to walk a little bit in their shoes, as I explored how far I could advance my skills on the diamond.

It wasn’t until well after my college playing days were done that I renewed my interest in baseball’s forgotten league. Surprisingly, Irvin outlasted most of his contemporaries, and I looked for an opportunity to meet him again, hopefully to capture one final firsthand account of the Negro Leagues from arguably its last living superstar.

My chance came in 2007 when my friend Lauren Meyer, who was working on a Negro League documentary, had been hired by the New Jersey Historical Society to film an all day tribute to Irvin and three of his former Newark Eagles teammates in Newark, New Jersey. I accompanied her to the ceremonies, and despite his limited mobility, Irvin was bustling at 9AM with a youthful energy that hid his 88 years of age.

Irvin (third from left) with fellow Newark Eagles teammates / N. Diunte

Seemingly everywhere Irvin turned that day, there was a camera taking photos, a reporter asking for an interview, or a fan handing him an item to sign. Every time, his answer was, “yes.” He even eschewed his daughter’s request to eat more during a meeting at the Historical Society, as he felt it was more important to finish the story he was telling an eager baseball fan. He gave this type of attention to just about everyone he met that day; his genuine persona becoming more apparent as I shadowed him at each event. I hoped to catch a mere fraction of the jewels he dropped along the way.

A year later, while interviewing Ernie Harwell, he eagerly recommended I give Irvin a call to help with my research. The late Tigers broadcaster went out of his way to mention his warm persona.

“Monte Irvin would be a great source,” Harwell said during our conversation in 2008. “[He's] very personable, a very intelligent guy; I'm very fond of him.”

I called Irvin shortly after speaking with Harwell, and after telling him of Harwell's recommendation, we spoke for thirty minutes. Irvin shared stories about many of the legends he played with and against in the Negro Leagues, beaming with positivity throughout the entire call. He encouraged for me to send him some correspondence, which I did, but what followed after further illustrated his tremendous character.

A popular figure with baseball fans and autograph collectors, Irvin frequently received mail requesting his signature. He asked those who wrote to him to send a donation to his alma mater, Lincoln University, in exchange for his autograph. Over the years, Irvin raised tens if not, hundreds of thousands of dollars to support the HBCU. In our correspondence through the mail, I donated to Irvin’s cause to have some of my own items signed. When my envelope came back a few weeks later, only one of the items were returned, with my harder to find personal photos missing. I called Irvin to ask if he remembered seeing them, as they were pretty unique. He told me he gets a substantial amount of mail, but he would look to see if he misplaced them.

A few weeks later, I returned home to find a large envelope in my mailbox addressed in Irvin’s handwriting. I open the envelope not only to find my missing items, but a note apologizing for misplacing them, as well as a dozen additional signed photos! I called to thank him again, and he said he felt it was the least he could do for making me wait to get my things back.

A sampling of the items Irvin sent / N. Diunte

Irvin was a Hall of Famer, but he didn’t expect special treatment because he had a plaque in Cooperstown. His treatment of others was duly noted not only by baseball fans, but by his contemporaries as well. While Jackie Robinson was immortalized for breaking the color barrier; however, Irvin will be remembered for his status as a gentleman ambassador of baseball during his 96 years on earth. Former Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Jean Pierre Roy precisely captured how many of his peers viewed Irvin.

“I adored this guy as a ballplayer and a human being,” Roy said during a 2011 interview. “When I started talking with Monte, I could tell he was of the right vein; you could tell why he could communicate so well with the people in general.”

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Vern Rapp | Former St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds manager dies at 87

Vern Rapp, former major league manager with the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds, passed away Thursday December 31, 2015 in Colorado. He was 87.

Rapp, who spent parts of two seasons at the helm of the Cardinals (1977-78) and the Reds (1984), started out as a catcher in the Cardinals minor league system in 1946. After surviving a beaning during his second season, Rapp found himself starting in the playoffs for the Cardinals AAA team in Columbus in 1948 just one step away from the big leagues.

“We had a pitcher by the name of Clarence Beers,” Rapp recalled in 2008. “He could throw all kinds of pitches; he threw knuckleballs, everything. I’ll never forget in the playoffs, we had an old-time umpire by the name of Moore. Clarence threw a knuckle ball to the right and I just stuck out my bare hand and caught it. He said, ‘Well, that’s the first time I ever seen that done.’ I said, ‘Well, it’s done!’”

Vern Rapp 1978 Topps Card / Topps

The promising start for the young catcher was derailed like many others of his era by Uncle Sam. In 1950, Rapp was drafted into the United States Army. He lost two years of his career to his military service, something that he couldn’t recover from.

“I was in the service for two years,” he said in 2008. “They either remember you or forget you. I went in 1950 into the Korean War. Someone else comes along and they forget about you. I had a good chance. You make your own way. The game got different. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I stayed in the minor leagues until I was 32 and then I went into managing. Those two years, you lose a lot of things. Even though I didn’t go over [seas], I was lucky.”

He played at the AAA level until 1960, but spent most of his remaining time in the minors as a player-manager starting in 1955 with Charleston. At only 27 years old, Rapp was offered the job halfway through the season to replace Danny Murtagh. He quickly asserted himself as the manager, ruffling the feathers of many of the veterans, including the 39-year-old legendary slugger Luke Easter.

“We were in Minneapolis one night and Monte Irvin was with Minneapolis,” he said. “Back in those days, you didn’t talk to the other team before the game, it was always a war.

“We got in to this game in the old Nicollet Park. We had it won about 10-4 and they came back and beat us. I was a tough loser. I blew up in the clubhouse and Luke had a contract with Danny if he hit 30 home runs, he got bonus money. We got into an argument. I was talking about all the fraternization, I don’t buy that. If you are going to be a winner, you think about winning, you can’t be buddy buddy [with the opposition]. You can be buddies off the field, but not when the gates opened. I wasn’t against either one of them, but Luke got all upset. … I said, ‘If you don’t like what I’m doing, I can take care of that real easy.’ He said, ‘I don’t like it.’ So I said to the trainer, ‘Get him a ticket back home, you’re suspended for insubordination.’ He was off the team for three days and we got back to Charleston and the GM said you’ve gotta straighten it out with him. … At the end of the season, they were going to choose the MVP; the writer was going to choose Woody Smith. I said, ‘You can’t do that, this guy hit 30 homers and drove in over 100 runs. If you’re gonna have a MVP on the last place team, you’ve gotta put Luke’s name.’ He did. Luke put his arm around me and said, ‘You might have been mad, [but] you the man.’”

Rapp managed in the minors until through the end of the 1976, even getting a base hit at the age of 48 during that season with Montreal’s Denver farm club. During our interview in 2008, he recalled how and why he put himself in the lineup that day.

“We had a kid that was going to play every position so I started out as a catcher to save a spot in the lineup,” he said. “Hank Edwards was managing the other club and he kind of set me up with a good pitch and I hit a line shot up the middle. I threw a guy out that game. I stayed in shape; I threw batting practice two hours every day.”

In 1977, he replaced the easy going Red Schoendienst as manger of the St. Louis Cardinals. Tactics he used in the minor leagues to his players' actions didn’t fare well for him at the major league level. Enforcing strict rules about how the players dressed and forcing players like Al Hrabosky to remove his trademark mustache caused tremendous dissent among the ranks. Shortly after a public spat with catcher Ted Simmons where Rapp referred to him as a “loser,” General Manager Bing Devine fired Rapp after 17 games into his second season.

“The climax could have been averted, but it did appear more or less inevitable,” Devine said in a 1978 Associated Press article. “Frankly, it was a problem, a continuing problem. When it became apparent, we decided, ‘Why wait for something you can’t solve any other way?’”

Rapp quickly got back on his feet, joining the Montreal Expos as a coach from 1979-1983. Just as he was going to retire, the Cincinnati Reds hired him as their manager to start the 1984 season. One of his prized pupils was John Franco, who currently holds the major league record for saves by a left-handed pitcher. Rapp helped encourage Franco’s transition from a starter to a reliever during his rookie season.

“I made him into a relief pitcher,” Rapp said. “I asked [Roy] Hartsfield, how come he couldn’t go past five innings. He said, ‘He’s great a pitcher for five innings.’ I got information. When I saw him in the spring, I could understand. His stature, he wasn’t a big man. He was short and about 170 lbs. I pulled him aside, ‘How about giving it a whack as a short reliever?’ Well, he became a great short reliever. He knew how to pitch inside and wasn’t afraid to.”

His work with Franco was one of his few highlights of his time with the Reds. After posting 50-71 record in which he used 101 different lineups, Pete Rose replaced him in August. Rose was acquired from the Expos as a player-manager. It spelled the end of Rapp’s managerial career. He finished with a 140-160 record in parts of three seasons in the majors.

Despite his reputation as a strict manager, Rapp felt a tremendous obligation towards the fans. Well into his retirement he continued to receive autograph requests sent to his home and he proudly fulfilled every one of them.

“I was taught in the old school that you take care of the fans first,” he said.

Some sixty years later, Rapp continued to look at the game through the his managerial lens. He noted how the minor league system has experienced an upheaval in almost every regard possible.

“When I was managing in the minor leagues it was just me,” he said. “Now they have five coaches and they still can’t do it. In those days, you only had nine pitchers. What are you going to do? You can’t take them out every day. Back then, you had a four man staff. Once they gave money to the pitchers, that’s when it changed. We’ve got $2 million in this guy, what are you going to do, wreck his arm? Then there was the development thing; that’s when it changed. They were making decisions on guys 20 innings. How can you judge on 20 innings? In my day, they’d play two-to-three years and pitch over 100 innings to find out if he’s going to be a prospect.”

The million dollar salaries that Rapp felt were affecting player development were a far cry from the peanuts he made at the lowest level of minor league baseball in 1946. The struggles he had to make a dollar stretch during those years ultimately fostered a deeper love for a game that gave back to him for almost the next 40 years.

“I got $150 per month if you were lucky,” he recalled. “We used to get $1 per day in meal money. We used to go to Walgreens for $.35 for breakfast. That was about the only place you could go on the road.

“When I was in Marion, because I wasn’t old enough, a guy from the bar invited me into the kitchen. He gave me a big platter of spaghetti. I’d eat my garlic bread and spaghetti and he’d charge me $.50. You were always looking for ways to get through because you had no money. They had signs in left field and they would give you $5 if you hit it over the sign, and they [home runs] always seemed to come before payday. I had about 15 home runs, five over the signs. I’d go and take guys for breakfast. That was the love of the game. We didn’t even have showers at the ballpark so we’d go back to my home; I was about 10 blocks from the park. We’d used to just do anything to play the game.”

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Frank Malzone, six-time Boston Red Sox All-Star dies at 85

Frank Malzone, the legendary Boston Red Sox third baseman from the 1950s and 1960s, passed away Tuesday morning at the age of 85 according to an announcement Tuesday on Twitter by Red Sox broadcaster Jerry Remy. This was also confirmed via e-mail from his grandson, John Malzone.

My sincere condolences to the Malzone family. Frank was a staple in the RedSox family and great guy. Jerry

— Jerry Remy (RemDawg) (@Jerry_Remy) December 29, 2015

The Bronx, New York native was a 1947 graduate of Samuel Gompers High School. After playing for their varsity during his last two years at the school, he was spotted by the longtime scout, Cy Phillips.

"I never gave a thought to professional baseball until this bird dog scout, Cy Phillips, recommended me to the Red Sox," Malzone told author Chaz Scoggins in the book, "Game of My Life Boston Red Sox: Memorable Stories of Red Sox Baseball."

"He asked me if I would be interested in playing pro ball, and I said: 'Yes, why not? I'd love to.' You should have seen the expression on my dad's face when the Red Sox offered me $150 a month. He didn't know you could get paid for playing baseball."

Frank Malzone - 1959 / Leslie Jones Collection

After playing four seasons in their minor league system, he served two years in the Korean War that caused him to miss the 1952 and 1953 seasons. Upon his return, the Red Sox jumped him to their top farm club at Triple-A in Louisville, Kentucky. His .310 average in 1955 with Louisville impressed the Red Sox enough to give him his first taste of the majors, calling him up for 20 at-bats at the end of the season.

By 1957, he cemented his position at their third baseman, finishing second to Tony Kubek in the 1957 American League Rookie of the Year Voting. He played virtually every game at the hot corner for the next nine seasons, and by the time he finished his tenure with the Red Sox in 1965, he earned six All-Star selections and three Gold Gloves. He capped his big league career by playing one more season with the California Angels in 1966.

Malzone spent 35 years scouting for the Red Sox and continued to work with them after he retired from scouting in player development. He lived in Needham, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston and made frequent public appearances on behalf of the club. Despite playing in an era where the Red Sox never made the playoffs, Malzone cherished his entire professional career.

"The whole 11 years I was in the big leagues, I enjoyed every minute of it," he told Scoggins. "I wish I had got a chance to play in the postseason. I guess I was 10 years too early, because I would have gotten to play in two World Series: '67 and '75."

Malzone was a six-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove winner during his 11-year career with the Red Sox from 1955-1965. He finished his last season in the majors with the California Angels in 1966. He finished his career with a .274 batting average, hitting 133 home runs and driving in 728 runs. Upon the completion of his playing career, he spent over 35 years as a scout for the Red Sox.

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Evelio Hernandez, former Washington Senator pitcher passes away at 84

Evelio Hernandez, a Cuban-born pitcher for the Washington Senators in the 1950s, passed away Friday December 18, 2015 at his home in Miami, Florida, just days shy of his 85th birthday. The reporting of his death was confirmed by former Almendares teammate Cholly Naranjo.

Born December 24, 1930 in Guanabacoa, Cuba, the right-handed pitcher was signed into the Washington Senators organization in 1954 by the legendary scout Joe Cambria. It was during that winter that Hernandez had his first taste of winter ball, pitching two games for Almendares en route to a Cuban League Championship.

Evelio Hernandez

Hernandez used the lesson he learned from the veterans during the 1954-55 winter ball season to amass 23 victories in 1955 for Washington’s Class C team in Hobbs, New Mexico. This earned him a promotion to Class A Charlotte in 1956. His domination on the mound continued, and after going 18-4, the Senators called him up in September. He pitched four games, earning his first major league win with a complete game 7-1 victory over the Baltimore Orioles on September 29, 1956.

He returned to the Senators in 1957 in a more prominent role as he made the club out of spring training. He pitched in 14 games without a decision before being sent to the minors in June. While he would pitch professionally until 1967, he never returned to the major leagues. He finished his career in Washington with a 1-1 record and a 4.45 ERA in 18 games.

Hernandez found success in the Mexican League, pitching for Monterrey from 1959-1967. On August 10, 1966, he threw what was at the time only the 11th no-hitter in the league’s history, blanking Puebla 2-0. It was a banner season for Hernandez, who pitched in 40 games that season, starting 31 and completing 15.

After his baseball career was over, Hernandez passed on his tremendous knowledge and experience to the youth of Miami, serving as a high school baseball coach for over 20 years. As the head coach at Loyola Miami, he led the baseball team to five Class A state championships during his tenure.

* -Ed. Note - The date of his passing has been corrected to Friday December 18, 2015. Also, his birth year has been reported in his funeral home obituary as 1930, instead of the 1931 as listed in the MLB database.

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Cal Neeman, played seven season in the majors, came up with Mantle in Yankees system

Cal Neeman, a former major league catcher with five different teams in the 1950s and 1960s, passed away Thursday at his home in Lake Saint Louis, Missouri. He was 86.

Signed by the New York Yankees in 1949 out of Illinois Wesleyan University, where he also competed in basketball, Neeman was assigned to their Class C farm team in Joplin. During his second season in Joplin, he was joined by an erratic, but powerful shortstop in Mickey Mantle.

Cal Neeman / Author's Collection

Speaking with Neeman in 2011 in the wake of the tornado that wreaked havoc on the place of his debut, Neeman recalled a more positive image amidst the devastation the town was facing.

“I had all positive memories about Joplin,” he said via telephone in 2011. “It was the first place I played professional baseball. The whole atmosphere there was really good. People liked the ballplayers. We stayed in people’s homes; they would rent a room for $5 per week. Fourth and Main (where the stadium was located) was really close to where that tornado went through, just a tad north up.”

Neeman felt at home in the Yankee organization, primarily due to his Joplin managers Johnny Sturm and Harry Craft. Both had tremendous major league experience, which helped to shape his young career.

“My first manager was Johnny Sturm the Yankee first baseman,” he recalled. “He was just a good manager and I respected him a lot. My second year, Harry Craft was our manager, so I got to play for two good people.”

In 1950, Neeman was joined in Joplin by a young shortstop named Mickey Mantle. His abilities were evident, but he was a far cry from the legend that most know today.

“Everybody knew he had a lot of talent,” he said, “there’s no doubt about that. He did some fabulous things, but he also made some errors too.”

Mantle was so erratic at shortstop that fans were hesitant to sit behind the first base seats for fear of his wild throws. His defensive shortcomings were overshadowed by his trademark speed and power.

“Mantle was just a fun-loving kid that loved baseball,” he said. “He lived for playing ball. We had a fence in center field that was about 420. The first year I was there, no one hit it over the fence during the game. One night in Joplin, Mickey hit one over it left-handed and one over it right-handed. Of course, he could run. People found out about him being able to run like he did and they would usually have races before the away games. They would bring out the other team’s fastest runner and they’d run and win five dollars. Mickey would win every time; he would just run off and leave everybody. The Yankees then sent off a directive that there would be no more races before games.”

Neeman had little time to relish his experiences with Mantle, or the Yankees for that matter. Just as the 1950 season ended, he was drafted into the Korean War, serving two of his prime years in the military.

“After 1950 I went in the Korean War,” he said. “The bad part was I went to Korea itself [for] most of 1952, so there wasn’t any baseball or anything over there.”

The time he spent away from the game while in Korea hampered his return with the Yankees in 1953; however, as with his earlier managers in Joplin, he found a supporter in his manager with Binghamton during his first year back.

“I had a tough time, not physical shape, but to be able to throw, hit, and catch,” he said. “We had a manager Phil Page who stuck with me no matter what.”

Stuck behind Yogi Berra who recently passed away, Neeman was amongst almost a dozen Yankee catching prospects whose paths were blocked to the major leagues. Just as he was about to give up hope on making the big leagues, the Chicago Cubs drafted Neeman from the Yankees at the end of the 1956 season.

“I was ready to look for a job,” he said. “I didn’t think I could stay in baseball any longer. I was married and by that time, I was thinking that I didn’t have enough money to survive on. I was very fortunate and I got to play for a really fine man and manager, Bob Scheffing in Chicago.”

Neeman played in 376 games during his seven seasons with the Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians, and Washington Senators. He had a .224 career lifetime average with 30 home runs and 97 RBIs, serving primarily as a backup catcher.

After the completion of his professional baseball career, he went back to school to become a teacher and a coach. He later ran a school supplies business before retiring in Lake Saint Louis.

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Doc Daugherty, 87, former Detroit Tiger and World War II veteran

Harold “Doc” Daugherty went down swinging in his first major league at-bat. He waited patiently for Detroit Tigers manager Red Rolfe to give him an opportunity for redemption; however, that chance never came. He joined a handful of major leaguers whose careers lasted one fleeting day.

Daugherty passed away August 15, 2015 in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. He was 87. Speaking with Daugherty over a half-century after his debut, the memories of his lone plate appearance were still crystal clear.

“It was in Chicago, it was cold, and it was snowing,” Daugherty said in a 2008 interview. “They sent me up to pinch hit against Billy Pierce. He was quite a pitcher, a really good pitcher. I fouled a couple off and missed the third one. That was the extent of my major league career.”

Doc Daugherty

He made the club out of spring training in 1951 after an injury to third baseman and future Hall of Famer George Kell created a need for depth in the infield. An Associated Press report on March 28, 1951 gave Rolfe’s scouting report on the newest member of the Tigers.

“Manger Red Rolfe said Daugherty is okay defensively, but is weak at the plate. He is being given a thorough trial now with Kell benched on account of a spike wound in his hand.”

Kell’s injury turned out to be less severe than expected and with Johnny Lipon firmly entrenched at shortstop; there was little room for Daugherty in the lineup. Right on the day rosters were set to be trimmed, the Tigers recalled knuckleball pitcher Marlin Stewart from Toledo, sending Daugherty to the minor leagues, effectively ending his major league career.

“I stayed with them for a month,” he said. “They took some of the rookies north with them and May 15th, was the cutoff date where they had to be down to a certain number. They sent the rookies out to the farm clubs. From there I went to Toledo.”

A World War II veteran, Daugherty served in the Army after playing football at Ohio State in 1945. After serving for a year-and-a-half, he signed with the Tigers before the start of the 1948 season. They brought him to major league spring training and the 20-year-old immediately turned heads.

“Look at him pick ‘em up out there,” manager Steve O’Neill said in a 1948 Owosso Argus-Press article. “He’s got ‘class’ written all over him.”

Unfortunately, Daugherty never lived up to those lofty expectations, as Rolfe proved to be correct in his assessment of his batting skills. He finished his minor league career in 1953 with a .230 lifetime average. After hanging up his cleats, Daugherty entered the coaching ranks, managing in the Tigers organization, as well as at the high school level in three different sports for over 30 years.

“When I quit playing my professional career I did some scouting for the Tigers and managed some teams in the rookie leagues,” he said. “I taught high school for 33 years coaching football, baseball, and basketball.”

His love for athletics was passed down to his children, with his son Mike forming a husband and wife coaching tandem, serving as the associate head women’s basketball coach at Washington State University with his wife June at the helm. Mike, who was an Ohio State alum, played professional basketball overseas.

“My oldest son and his wife have been coaching for 15 years,” he said. “They coach the women's basketball team at Washington State University in the Pac-10. They both played at Ohio State and both played overseas. She's the head coach and he's the assistant. They're doing quite well.”

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Bud Thomas went once around the bases for the St. Louis Browns in 1951

John “Bud” Thomas, a former infielder who played with the St. Louis Browns in 1951, passed away on Saturday in Sedalia, Missouri. He was 86.

The Browns first noticed Thomas in 1947 when he was the shortstop for the West squad in the 1945 Esquire All-American Game at the Polo Grounds that featured Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb as honorary managers. He signed with the club in 1947, and within four years he made the majors by climbing his way from the lowest rung of the minor leagues.

Bud Thomas

In his brief time with Bill Veeck’s team, Thomas hit .350 (7-for-20) while playing flawless defense at shortstop, handling 30 chances without an error. One of those seven precious hits was a home run against the Philadelphia Athletics at Shibe Park in Philadelphia. The memory of an unfortunate misplay in the field the inning prior hung a cloud over one of his shining major league moments.

“They gave the guy [Alex Kellner] a hit, but I made an error that let them score three runs,” Thomas said in a 2011 interview. “I replayed that in my mind forever. They scored and it put them ahead 3-4 runs.”

Despite his fielding gaffe, Thomas approached his next at-bat determined to jump on his preferred pitch, a high fastball.

“I come up and there’s nobody on base, and I hit a home run. I know where the pitch was because it was my favorite pitch, high around the letters. I usually hustle down to first base and I didn’t look to see it go out or anything like that. I’m running around and the defense wasn’t moving. I continued running and I think that ball went out of the ballpark. I keep running and nobody was saying anything and I round second base and I say, ‘God I hope to hell that’s a home run. It’s going to be embarrassing if I didn’t hit that out.’”

Thomas returned to the Browns dugout and nobody got up to congratulate him. Sixty years later, the memory of being ignored by his teammates after hitting his first (and only) home run in the major leagues put an even greater damper on what should have been a joyous event.

“I round third base, I get home, and I get on the bench,” he recalled. “I don’t mind saying this now, nobody on that team or the bench never said a thing about it. Nobody said a word. It really got me. That was the recollection. It wasn’t the silent treatment; I didn’t know what the hell it was. That’s [just] the way it was.”

After his standout performance in his short September trial, Thomas was sure that he would get a shot at making the Browns out of spring training in 1952. He later discovered that the cash strapped Browns were looking to make a quick financial play on Thomas’ brief success.

“I had such a great year in ’51,” he said. “I found out when I got there, they were running ballplayers in and out of there all year long to get something going. They figured if they could get someone up there and he showed promise, they could sell him. This is all hindsight. At the time, you don’t think that way. All that other stuff comes out later.”

The Browns sold Thomas’ contract to Toronto of the International League. A surprised Thomas found out not via communication with the team’s front office, but from The Sporting News.

“I’m standing in front of our house and my neighbor said, ‘I thought I you were going to take spring training with the Browns?’ he recalled. “I said, ‘I am.’ He said, ‘Not according to what I read.’ I said, ‘What did you read?’ He said, ‘The Sporting News said you were going to go to Toronto.’ I said, “Get me The Sporting News.’ Sure enough I was traded to Toronto.”

The man who once called future Hall of Famers Leon Day and Satchel Paige his teammates while playing with the Browns organization was out of professional baseball by 1953, only two years after his brief, but shining run in the major leagues. The superintendent of schools in his hometown of Sedalia asked him to come back and teach. He gladly obliged.

“I was primarily an administrator,” he said. “I came back and I was a teacher. I was the first student teacher that came out of the college (University of Central Missouri) that went to Sedalia. I became principal of an elementary school for five years, then I opened another elementary school. For my last 11 years, I was the assistant superintendent of schools.”

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Mahlon Duckett, 92, a Philadelphia Negro League legend dies

Mahlon Duckett, one of the last living members of the Philadelphia Stars in the Negro Leagues, passed away Sunday at a Philadelphia area hospital. He was 92.

Duckett was a Philadelphia native who starred in track at Overbrook High School, where he was recruited as an infielder by the Stars after playing semi-pro baseball for a local team. He shored up their infield for a decade from 1940-49 and finished his career in 1950 with the Homestead Grays as the league was on its decline. He signed with the New York Giants in 1951, but a case of rheumatic fever derailed his major league hopes right before he was to head out to training in Arizona. Sidelined for a year by the illness, his career was over.

Mahlon Duckett (center) at the 2008 Judy Johnson Tribute Night / N. Diunte

I first met Mr. Duckett in 2007 at the Wilmington Blue Rocks annual tribute to the Negro Leagues. Gregg Truitt, one of the chairs of the Judy Johnson Foundation, graciously had me as his house guest for a pre-event ceremony with the players and their families. I sat down with him and after being greeted with a smile and handshake, we immediately connected. At the time, I was playing for the Roxborough Bandits, a semi-pro team in Philadelphia’s famed Penn-Del League. Once we started talking about the intricacies of playing the middle infield positions, I knew that I had made a friend.

Mahlon Duckett (r.) with the author in 2007 / N. Diunte

For the rest of the evening, I became Mr. Duckett’s go-to-guy, helping him get around the ballpark and through the on-field ceremonies. After the pre-game honors ended, I accompanied him to the autograph area. I sat with him as he signed autographs for seven innings as a continuous stream of fans approached the table. During breaks in the action, we continued to talk baseball, as Duckett took pauses from signing just so he could finish telling me some of his vast encyclopedia of stories.

We stayed in touch after that evening, exchanging some photos from the event, a few letters in the mail, and subsequent phone calls. When I returned the next year, he told me that people who visited him at his assisted living home would always remark about the young gentleman in the photo with him. He said he was proud to display it.

In the following years, it became more difficult for Duckett to travel and slowly he watched his crew of fellow Philadelphia Stars dwindle with the passings of Bill Cash, Stanley Glenn, and Harold Gould. He made his final public appearance last month at the opening of the MLB Urban Youth Academy in Philadelphia.



We last spoke in 2013 and our talk returned to his career. Only 17-years-old when he joined the Stars, he told me that he was left to figure out most of the game by himself.

“In the Negro Leagues, you just played on your natural ability, that’s all,” he said during our 2013 telephone interview. “A couple of guys told me a lot of things that they thought would help me, but I never had any one individual say, ‘I’m taking you under my wing and teaching you this that and the other thing.’”

Some seventy years later, he chose to share one of his favorite stories that involved the great Satchel Paige. At an age when most ballplayers were trying to figure out graduating high school, an 18-year-old Duckett approached the plate with the game on the line against arguably the best pitcher in baseball history.

“I hit a game-winning home run off of Satchel in Yankee Stadium in 1941,” he said. “I’ll never forget that; it was a great day, Yankee Stadium, about 45,000 people there. There were a lot of great things that happened in the Negro Leagues that a lot of people don’t know about. It was a great league with great ballplayers.”

For an excellent in-depth interview with Duckett, check out Brent P. Kelley's, "Voices From the Negro Leagues."

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Buddy Hicks, 87, played with the Detroit Tigers in 1956

Clarence “Buddy” Hicks, a former switch-hitting infielder with the Detroit Tigers in the 1950s, passed away December 8, 2014 in St. George, Utah due to complications from a fall. He was 87.
 

Buddy Hicks with the Dodgers in 1949

Hicks started his professional baseball career with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1944 after being plucked from the sandlots in California. He was signed before he was even old enough to vote.
“I was just 17,” Hicks said during a 2008 phone interview from his home in Utah. “I was scouted by the Dodgers playing sandlot ball in Montebello, California. I went to Montreal and sat on the bench waiting for my assignment. I started with Trenton and went to Newport News.”

The talent rich Dodgers organization was filled with bonafide prospects. Branch Rickey’s keen eye for scouting placed Hicks on the same 1944 team in Newport News with future Dodger mainstays Duke Snider, Clem Labine, Tommy Brown, and Bobby Morgan. The group of budding stars first met at training camp in upstate New York during World War II.

“It was at Bear Mountain that the embryonic ballplayers appeared in the war time training camp,” Bo Gill recalled in a 1968 edition of the Evening News. “Duke Snider, Bobby Morgan, Buddy Hicks, Clem Labine and Steve Lemo [sic], 17, and Tommy Brown and Preston Ward, 16, were to be the stars of the future as the Dodgers, under Leo Durocher, made the change from age to youth.”

Hicks (front center) with Dodgers teammates in spring training

As soon as the 1944 season ended, Hicks and Snider traveled cross country to return home to California. With the war escalating, Snider knew that their days as civilians were numbered.

“I made the trip back to the West Coast with my Newport News roomie, Buddy Hicks,” Snider said in his autobiography, "The Duke of Flatbush.”

“We didn’t need to be reminded there was a war on; the evidence was all around us. The train was filled with uniformed servicemen and women traveling home on leave or returning to camp or—worst of all—being shipped overseas. I was looking forward to a few more months of good times, but the Selective Service System didn’t fool around in those days. With more than ten million people in uniform and the manpower needs growing all the time, your friendly neighborhood draft board had a way of letting you know you were always in its thoughts.”

Hicks joined the Navy and didn’t return to baseball until 1947. Upon his arrival, he encountered a flood of ballplayers that finished their service and were looking to regain their places in the organization.

“When I got out of the service, I went back and played some sandlot ball to get me back in shape,” he said. “There were 800 of us in spring training with the Dodgers coming back from the war.”

Used almost exclusively a shortstop in the minor leagues, Hicks was stuck behind Pee Wee Reese on the Dodgers. When the Dodgers tried him out at second and third base, he was looking up to Jackie Robinson and Billy Cox respectively. While he couldn’t crack their major league lineup, the Dodgers thought enough of his abilities to keep a high asking price on his services.

In 1949, when Reese got hurt in spring training, Hicks attracted the eyes of Chicago Cubs scout Red Smith. Dodgers manager Burt Shotton held firm to the Dodger creed that if other teams wanted their players, they would have to dig deep in their coffers.

“Sure we’ve got the men they want. … But they can’t get them for a dime. … We haven’t got that kind. They’re going to have to come up with their prices if they want our boys,” Burt Shotton was quoted as saying in Bob Mack’s “Bird Hunting in Brooklyn.”

The fact that the Dodgers were playing hardball with moving Hicks to another organization frustrated him. He always felt that the constant movement in their farm clubs, combined with their outrageous asking prices, hindered his rise to the major leagues.

“There were a lot of guys coming down from the majors and then working their way [back] up,” he said. “The Dodgers had 27 farm clubs that year, all the way from Class D to AAA. They had three AAA farm clubs. The Dodgers tried to draft talent, and if they couldn't use them, they would sell them. I learned later that the Washington Senators were interested and the Dodgers wanted $100,000; that ended things for me.”

A knee injury in 1950 hampered his performance with Hollywood of the Pacific Coast League. Hicks batted only .239 and in October, the National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies purchased Hicks’ contract from Hollywood. Finally, there was a team willing to meet the Dodgers asking price.

Quickly, Hicks’ fortunes were about to turn. No longer buried deep in the Dodgers farm system, there was immediately opportunity for him at the big league level with the Phillies. On July 3, 1951, the Phillies recalled Hicks from Atlanta of the Southern Association. Now there was more for him to celebrate other than Independence Day; however, his glee was short lived.

For two weeks, Hicks sat on the bench and never once did manager Eddie Sawyer call for his entry. On July 17th, the Phillies returned Hicks to Atlanta without him ever playing in a major league game. Despite this tease of major league immortality, Hicks pressed on.

His contract was sold to the Boston Braves organization the next year and then to the Detroit Tigers to start the 1953 season. For two more seasons, Hicks battled at the Triple-A level, waiting for his break. Finally in 1956, his efforts were vindicated when the Tigers kept him on the roster after they broke from spring training.

“Joe Gordon was instrumental in getting me up there,” Hicks said. “He said if he was managing, I would have been playing short and Harvey Kuenn would be in the outfield. What got me up was when Frank Bolling came out of the service. I spent most of my career at shortstop and I had trouble making the transition from short to second. I think the throw from second more than anything was the hardest thing for me. You have your back to the runner trying to make a double play. It just didn't work out for me.”

Hicks recalled how he could hardly keep calm during his first major league at-bat. It was in the 9th inning with the Tigers down 2-1 to the Kansas City Athletics.

“My first at-bat was a disaster,” he stated. “I was a really good bunter. My knees were shaking so bad, I could hardly stand up. They sent me in to bunt the person over from second to third and I popped the damn thing up to the catcher. That was very disastrous for me.”

Hicks played in 26 games for the Tigers in 1956 at every infield position except first base, handling 52 chances without an error. He hit only .213 and was sent down to the minor leagues in July. It was his final call to the majors.

“I went from Detroit to Charleston,” he said. “I played the first year-and-a-half, and then I was a player coach under Bill Norman.”

He continued as a player-manager through 1962, spanning 17 seasons in which he amassed over 1,700 hits in the minor leagues. Overlapping with the end of his playing career, he spent 10 seasons as a minor league manager in the Braves and Senators systems from 1960-1969 before calling it quits. He then spent the next 20 years working first in sales, and then managing an automobile parts business in California before retiring in 1990.

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Kal Segrist | Former Texas Tech baseball coach, played for Yankees and Orioles, dies at 84

Kal Segrist, a former infielder with the New York Yankees and Baltimore Orioles in the 1950s, and the longtime head baseball coach at Texas Tech, passed away in Lubbock, Texas this weekend. He was 84.

Kal Segrist / Author's Collection

Segrist was signed by the Yankees in 1951 after helping to lead Bibb Falk’s Texas Longhorns to back-to-back national championships in 1949 and 1950, with the latter being the first played in Omaha. After earning All-Conference honors as a second baseman in 1949, he volunteered to play first base in 1950 when he saw there was unsteadiness at the position.

“We had six different guys that tried at first base,” Segrist recalled during a 2008 phone interview from his home in Lubbock. “I went to Bibb [Falk] and I said, ‘Coach, I can play first.’ He looked at me in his office and reached in his locker and pulled out this old first base mitt that Abe Lincoln probably played with, threw it up to me, and said, ‘Well, we’ll try.’ We made that move and everything started gelling.”

After his success at the collegiate level, interest quickly grew from professional teams. After he was made an offer by the St. Louis Cardinals at a semi-pro tournament, his father sent notice to all of the major league clubs. Quickly the offers came rolling in. Right away, the Yankees wanted to do business.

“I ended up getting a call from the Yankees,” he said. “I [went] down to Beaumont and they were managed by Rogers Hornsby. That was the Yankee farm team. They were in San Antonio for a playoff. They had me go there and work out. … They made me an offer and I was one of their first bonus ballplayers.” (Segrist was given a $40,000 bonus.)

The only thing in the way of finalizing Segrist’s deal with the Yankees was a physical exam on his knee. As a kid, he has Osgood-Schlatter disease, and as a result of it, one of his legs was bowed. This condition didn’t affect his play, but the Yankees were about to make a substantial investment in the Texan and they couldn’t take any chances.

“With the knee factor, they wanted me to go to Baltimore to see this outstanding doctor and have my knee checked,” he said. “So dad and I flew to Baltimore, and he checked the knee and we got on the train and went on to New York.”

Most players who signed for such substantial bonuses in the 1950s had to be placed immediately on a major league roster, but the bonus rule was rescinded during the time that Segrist signed his contract. This meant the Yankees could send him to the vast depths of their farm system, but with a few strokes of luck, he wound up only one step away from the big show with their Triple-A team in Kansas City for spring training.

“I was probably the youngest guy there,” he recalled. “The only shortstop we had was Roy Nicely and he had stomach ulcers. We had [a few] second baseman and when we scrimmaged, after about five innings they would take him out and move me to short and someone else would play second. They did that through the entire spring. I basically, never actually spent any time playing there.

“It was a rather unusual spring. When we left, we went north. Just out of Florida, they had a place where there were several different teams. After that, we got back on the bus and they cut several people; they just left people there. We had people standing in the bus. So, again, I didn’t know the general manager had scheduled two series with two bases, one an Army base and one a Marine base. … I think Nicely and a guy named Hank Workman both jumped the club either at the Army or the Marine base. We opened the season at Louisville, guess who played short? I played my first 60 games at short in pro ball. That’s basically how I ended up at Kansas City.”

Kal Segrist (l.) with Casey Stengel (c.) and Tom Gorman (r.) in 1952

About halfway through Segrist’s first professional season, he was joined by a rookie outfielder from the big league club, Mickey Mantle. Casey Stengel felt that Mantle needed more seasoning and sent him down to Kansas City rather quickly to fine tune his skills.

“About the time the season started, they sent Mick to Kansas City,” he said. “One of the things he was supposed to learn was to drag bunt. He was to drag bunt once a game. The first three weeks he hit about .200, and the last three weeks he hit the ball like he could hit it and he was up to stay.”

Soon Segrist would have the opportunity to join Mantle on the Yankees the next season. With two of their top infielders, Bobby Brown and Jerry Coleman departing for military service midway through the season, a spot opened up for Segrist. He could have been there even earlier if he kept his mouth shut with the press.

“My second year, I came back and I was in spring training with New York until we broke camp,” he recalled. “This fella who was a nice guy … he wrote an article on me and was asking me questions. One of the things was about playing in Kansas City or New York. My reaction was, ‘I’d rather be in Kansas City playing, than on the bench in New York.’ Casey heard that and he accommodated me. One thing I learned, it was hard to play in New York if you are in Kansas City! If you are sitting on the bench in New York, you have a chance to make a play or make a move.

“I got back sent back to Kansas City and by July 4th, I hit over 20 homers and was hitting well over .300. I got the word from the manager that I was being called up.”

In his first major league game on July 16, 1952, Segrist singled in the 10th inning against the Cleveland Indians and scored the winning run on a single by Hank Bauer. He stayed with the Yankees for just over two weeks, and in 27 plate appearances, it was his only hit. He found that balls that were dropping in the minor leagues ended up deep in the mitts of speedy outfielders.

“We played Cleveland and I hit two balls that would have been out anywhere else,” he said, “one to right center, and one to left center. They had a center fielder [Larry Doby] that could fly and run. I came back and said, ‘What do you have to do to get a hit in this league.’ We were on the road and had a tough road trip. We were in Detroit and if I would have hit them three feet farther, they would have been out of the park, but they were fly outs.”

After a down year in 1953, Segrist picked it up with an All-Star performance with Kansas City, slugging 15 home runs while manning third base duties for the entire season. Just as things were looking up for the Texan, the Yankees shipped him off to the Baltimore Orioles as part of a 17-player trade that brought Don Larsen and Bob Turley to the Yankees. Moving to one of the lower-tier clubs should have provided more of an opportunity for Segrist to play, but the same bonus rule that saved him from a major league roster when he was signed, was now holding him up from occupying one.

“It was disappointing,” he lamented. “Baltimore signed several players and the rule at that time if you signed someone for so much money, they had to stay on the big league roster and you couldn’t send them down. I got caught in a trap.”

Segrist, ever the consummate team player, accepted a demotion at manager Paul Richards’ behest to Double-A San Antonio so that he could be on 24-hour recall. They paid him an additional $2,000 to accept the offer. He hit 25 home runs and in September 1955, he got to experience another taste of major league life. This time around he fared better, batting .333 in nine at-bats; however, he was hobbled by a leg injury he suffered earlier in the season.

By the time Segrist fully recovered from his injury, the Orioles had another third base prospect emerge, and that was future Hall of Famer Brooks Robinson. With their attention focus on Robinson, Segrist languished in the minor leagues until 1961, when he finished up with Mobile Bears of the Southern Association. In 11 minor league seasons, he hit a respectable .280 with 156 home runs.

Segrist signing autographs for Chris Potter / Chris Potter Sports

Segrist returned to school and earned his physical education teaching degree. After teaching junior high for two years, he went to Texas Tech at the urging of his cousin Herman Segrist, who chaired the physical education program. Serving as a teaching assistant and assistant baseball coach, Segrist integrated himself into the Texas Tech baseball program. By 1968, he earned the head coaching position, a far less glamorous title than today’s Division 1 standards.

“I took over totally and was there from ’68-83,” he said. “The thing about Tech, baseball wasn’t their most important sport. We didn’t even have a facility. We had trees in the outfield. I was not only the coach, I was the only groundskeeper. It’s a different deal now. Back then, I never had an assistant coach. … The guy that is there now has about six guys. The only thing I needed was a paid pitching coach, everything else I could handle. It was a challenge.

“I had to learn how to lay out a field, put down the grass, lay down home plate, the pitching rubber, first base, etc. I had to learn these things at Tech. When I got done in 1983, our ballpark that we have now, I got a new park built. We had $100,000. Most of the parks in Texas are in the millions; I designed with that $100,000. I got us a basic class ballpark built. Since then, they added to it, upgraded, and done a good job. It’s unbelievable what they got now than what I had to deal with.”

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Lennie Merullo made an unlikely pairing with the great Dizzy Dean

Lennie Merullo, a longtime baseball scout and the last living player from the Chicago Cubs World Series team from 1945, passed away at the age of 98 on May 30, 2015. Career baseball men of his ilk who stormed the back roads of the United States looking for a diamond in the rough without the aid of the Internet and advanced statistics are a vanishing breed. They have been replaced in great number by personnel who no longer have to endure hours of travel across state lines to check out a kid whose exploits are fully available online.

Not only are these seasoned scouts being replaced, or in Merullo’s case passing on, so are the volumes of stories they have accumulated through their years of travel across the bush leagues as players and scouts. During his 65-year career, there was nary a star that hadn’t crossed Merullo’s path, and even rarer was the one for whom he didn’t have a special story to tell.

Lennie Merullo / Baseball-Almanac.com

One tale he was gracious enough to share was from his second year in professional baseball with the Tulsa Oilers in 1940. This yarn wasn’t about how he played all 162 games that season in the sweltering heat, taking off his shoes and socks in between innings to find relief from the hot fields, or how his teammate Eddie Watikus (The Natural) didn’t sit out a single play the entire season. A few feet farther down the bench resided an unlikely colleague in a 30-year-old pitcher named Dizzy Dean.

Dean was in the twilight of his career when he played with Merullo in Tulsa. It was just nine years earlier that Dean was MVP of the same league, en route to one of the briefest Hall of Fame careers in Major League Baseball. After suffering a broken toe during the 1937 All-Star Game, he struggled to regain the form that garnered him 30 victories and a World Series championship with the St. Louis Cardinals. Ol’ Diz was trying to hang on with the Cubs and was a far cry from his former self.

“When he was traded from the Cardinals to the Cubs, he was traded with an arm that was giving him trouble,” Merullo said from his home in Reading, Massachusetts in 2009. “They [the Cubs] thought the hot weather would be good for his arm.”

Despite not having his best stuff, Dean was still an attraction everywhere he went. His star performance from only a few years earlier in the 1934 World Series endeared him to fans across the Texas League. Not only did they fill up the ballpark to see him play, they came bearing gifts.

“The fans came out [from] everywhere to see Dizzy pitch,” he said. “They would come out with baskets of fried chicken and they would be at the train station and everything that goes with it. Limburger cheese to stink out the train! … The fans were great!”

Dean wasn’t the only beneficiary of the adulation; Merullo also had his day in the sun thanks to his famous teammate. It involved an off-day and a trip to a car dealership that only the great Dizzy Dean could negotiate.

“Dizzy came by one time and he had a station wagon,” Merullo recalled. “The dealer was Jerry Frey Motors in Dallas. He came by and picked up Hank Wise who was sitting in the wicker chairs outside of the hotel. He asked us if we wanted to take a ride. He took us to his home and to the dealer. We spent the day with Dizzy. He was getting his radio checked out.”

The 23-year-old Merullo was mesmerized by what he saw on the lot, pristine top of the line models worth than what the young rookie could dream up at the time. One car stood out amongst the entire stock.

“There was a brand new Ford Club Coupe with the jump seats in the back,” he said. “There I was sitting there in the front seat, in the driver seat, holding on to the steering wheel of that car. I envisioned myself driving back home to Boston in this new 1940 Ford Coupe.”

Apparently Dean noticed Merullo’s immediate attachment to the car. In a veteran sort of way, Dean gently planted a seed in Merullo’s head. That’s all Dizzy Dean needed to work his magic.

“Dizzy walked by and must have saw the look on my face. He just said, ‘I think I can get you a good buy on this, you thinking of buying the car?’ I got out of the car quick. All I could see was dollar signs. It was about $1,000. Just the thought of it, I couldn't afford it.

“He said, ‘I can get you a good buy on this car.’ He came back with the figures; he got it like $200 off of that. I drove that car home with Eddie Watikus and Barney Olson! I wouldn’t let Olson drive because he drank beer and Watikus didn't have a license. I drove that car 1,400 miles from Tulsa to Boston; the three of us cramped in the front seat of that Ford Club Coupe. A couple nights on that road and we were home. I remember him [Dean] saying [to the dealer], ‘Change those figures around and that car is yours.’... He was something special.”

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Harley Hisner | Gave up Joe DiMaggio's last regular season hit - dies at 88

The thought of facing Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle in the same lineup would make any pitcher restless, but for Harley Hisner, the uneasiness he felt on September 30, 1951 was for a much different reason. He wasn’t shaken by their feared bats, but by the 35,000 fans that would be in attendance when he made his major league debut in a Boston Red Sox uniform at Yankee Stadium.

“I was awake a few times worrying about the game, pitching in front of all of them people,” Hisner said during a 2008 phone interview.

Hisner passed away in Fort Wayne, Indiana on March 20, 2015 at the age of 88. The World War II veteran only had one major league appearance, but his name is forever associated with those Yankees legends from the game he pitched on the last day of the 1951 season.

Harley Hisner / Author's Collection

The first batter he faced in his debut was a 19-year-old Mickey Mantle. The “Commerce Comet,” was in finishing his first major league season, one in which he spent time shuttling between New York and their Triple-A farm club in Kansas City. While pitching for Louisville earlier in the season, Hisner faced Mantle on multiple occasions. Undaunted by the presence of the young upstart, he promptly struck out Mantle to start his big league career.

After giving up a single to Phil Rizzuto and inducing Hank Bauer to hit in to a force out, the great Joe DiMaggio strolled to the plate. Closing the chapter on an illustrious Hall of Fame career, DiMaggio was on display for the Yankee fans one last time. The Red Sox manager Steve O’Neill gave the rookie advice on how to approach the Yankee Clipper.

“He said, ‘Joe − pitch him in on the fists, he can’t hit the good fastball anymore,’” Hisner recalled in a 2013 interview with Wane.com.

The rookie dutifully followed his manager’s instructions, fearlessly going at DiMaggio with his first pitch. Hisner battled the great center fielder, but in the end DiMaggio won out, scratching out a single for what would be the last of his 2,214 major league hits.

“First pitch I threw him, he hit the damn thing in the upper deck left field, foul,” he said during the Wane.com interview. “I said, ‘Uh oh,’ but I came right back with a fastball and I got it where I wanted it. He hit it on the fists; he hit it down between third and short, the shortstop fielded it, but he couldn’t throw him out. That was Joe’s last hit.”

Hisner pitched six innings against the eventual World Series champs (including another strike out of Mantle), surrendering three runs on seven hits. The Red Sox couldn’t muster even one run in support of his efforts, despite Hisner contributing at the plate with a fifth inning single of his own.

“I batted off of Spec Shea and got a hit,” he said during the 2008 interview. “It looks like a line drive in the paper, but it was a dying quail over Johnny Mize’s head into right field. They thought it was a line drive somewhere!”

Hisner was the only rookie pitcher that was called up in September to get a start for the Red Sox. His fortunes banked on the team locking down their place in the division before the end of the season. O’Neill wasn’t going to chance a potential bonus to a rookie’s nervous arm.

“Allie Reynolds threw a no-hitter against us on Saturday before the season ended,” he said. “That was when we had fourth place sewn up. Steve O’Neill told me when I got there two weeks before, ‘Whenever we get a place sewed up, you’re pitching the next day.’ Well, we didn’t get a place sewed up until the next to last day of the season. After Reynolds threw a no-hitter against us, he said, ‘You’re pitching tomorrow.’ No other pitcher that was called up got to pitch.”

Despite his promising start, Hisner would never reach the major leagues again. He was invited to spring training the following season, but with O’Neill out and Lou Boudreau in as the Red Sox new manager, Hisner lost his champion at the helm. They sent him back to Louisville to work on becoming a reliever. When an opportunity came mid-season for Hisner to return to Boston, he was passed over in favor of Al Benton.

“In 1952, they were making a relief pitcher out of me,” he said. “In the first week in July, Boston needed a relief pitcher. San Diego had one. Boston always had a verbal agreement with them. They traded me and Al Richter to San Diego for Al Benton.”

Hisner finished the season with San Diego in the Pacific Coast League and spent one more year with Wichita Falls in the Big State League in 1953. With his hopes deflated from his demotion, Hisner called it quits after his time in Wichita Falls.

"I didn't want him to give it up," his wife Anna said to the Decatur Daily Democrat in 2011. "I never did. But he was getting tired of moving around."

His love for the game couldn’t keep him away from the diamond. He played semi-pro ball in Fort Wayne until he was 37. One of his semi-pro highlights came at the 1957 National Baseball Congress tournament, where he led Fort Wayne to the finals after pitching 38 innings in 11 days, almost tying Satchel Paige’s 1935 record for most wins in the tournament.

“In 1957, we came in second place out in Wichita," he said in 2008, "Texas beat us in the finals. Clint Hartung hit a home run off me in the 10th inning and I only had one day rest off of it. I pitched a nine inning game against Arizona and had one day rest; then I went 10 innings until Hartung hit that home run off me. I can still see that ball in flight! It went over the center field lights. Satchel Paige won five games for South Dakota in 1935 and I came near to tying it. I won the first four games and lost the last game. I threw 38 innings out there in 1957 in 11 days.”

Hisner worked with the Rea Magnet Wire Company until his retirement in 1987. Despite his singular appearance in a major league box score, Hisner remained popular with baseball fans who sought the autograph of the man who stood tall against the mighty New York Yankees.

“I got requests more this year than any other year,” he said in 2008. “I probably got 75-85 this year.”

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