Sightless in the Forest City

Did you know Cleveland's nickname is "The Forest City"? An apt monicker it was for the Tribe in the 1960s and '70s, when management couldn't see the forest for the trees when it came to building a team.

Well, they did build a team: a team with (for a while) great pitching and nothing else. After I wrote those posts about the Cardinals, I couldn't help but feel blue for the boy I was in Cleveland in the 1960s, naively rooting for a team that had no chance of winning the pennant. The Cards were able to grow and groom youngsters as a foundation for a pennant winner (McCarver, Boyer, Javier, Flood, Shannon, Maxvill, Gibson, Carlton, Washburn, Sadecki, Briles, Hoerner, Carlton) while trading astutely for just the right pieces (Brock, White, Cepeda, Maris, Groat) when they needed them. Cleveland could spot good pitchers, but the position players they signed mostly stunk, and their trades became ever more pathetic as they had less and less to offer in trades.

Consider the pitching talent the team had in the 1960s: Jim Perry, Mudcat Grant, Gary Bell, augmented by wiley vets like Cal McLish, Jack Harshman and Dick Donovan initially. Then, as this staff aged, up came Sam McDowell, Luis Tiant, Mike Hargan, Sonny Siebert. Wow! (By the way, the Ron Taylor pictured on the Rookie Card with McDowell was traded in '62 to St. Louis for Fred Whitfield. As a relief ace, he helped both the Cards ('64) and Mets ('69) to pennants. Whitfield helped The Tribe put a lock on fifth place.)

But the Tribe did not use its pitching talent wisely. Since pitching was the team's strength, they needed to trade one or two of them to get some hitting. But the one big guy they traded--Jim Perry--was traded for another pitcher! Perry won 145 games for other teams. The guy they got for him--Jack Kralick--won 20 for The Tribe--over 4 years!

For the decade 1958 to 1968, Cleveland's pitching ranked anywhere from solid to awesome. The Tribe had a Dodgers-type staff. That's a good thing. But then you look at the other side of the coin: the position players of the '60s. Just simply awful. Once the team of Rocky Colavito/Vic Power/Minoso/Piersall/Billy Martin was destroyed through poor trades, the downhill slide was inevitable. Here's a list of "players" I grew up trying to root for in the 1960s:

Jerry Kindall, Larry Brown, Bob "Fat" Chance, Willie Kirkland, Vic Davalillo, Vern Fuller (oy!), Al Luplow (double oy!), Pedro Gonzalez, George Banks, Jack Heideman, Jack Kubiszyn, Richie Scheinblum and Tony Martinez. It makes me weep to see them all together like that. My youth! Undermined by probably the poorest crop of farmhands in the history of the game!

Oh, there were a few decent players in that era, guys like Fred "Wingy" Whitfield, Max Alvis, The Immortal Joe Azcue, Johnny Romano, Chuck Hinton, Chico Salmon and Tito Francona who would have made for a great BENCH if Cleveland had any position players of real value. Leon Wagner was probably the only true above-average player of that period. "Get Your Rags from Daddy Wags" read the sign above his mod fashion store. Had to love him! But the rest? OY!!!!!!!!

This is why I don't spend much time analyzing Cleveland's personnel decisions. It's simple: good pitching, rarely traded for anyone of value; lousy position players who couldn't be traded for anyone of value; and a bad farm system that rarely produced anyone of value. There just wasn't much talent outside of the pitchers for management to misjudge in those days. Colavito-for-Kuenn shot a fatal hole in the underside of an already aging ship, and the poor players produced by the farm system finally sank the ship. Not until 1987 was there even the glimmer of hope for us Tribe fans, and then that's about all it was--a glimmer.

Thome not a HOF shoo-in? gimme a break!

Jack Curry, a New York Times Sports writer, clearly wants attention. As Jim Thome soared past more home run kings this year (513 as of 4/27), Curry decided to become Mr. Controversial by penning a piece suggesting that Thome is not a clear choice for the Hall.

That is bullshit, Jack.

But his piece gives me a chance to say one thing about Thome that has always amazed me. When the guy puts the bat on the ball, he hits over .570. That's correct. If you add up his walks and strikeouts over his career, and subtract those from his ABs, and then calculate his BA, it's amazing. Right up there with the guy who I think Thome is truly similar to, Ted Williams. You see, Thome, like The Splinter, is extremely picky at the plate. As a Tribe fan, I saw him take many a called strike. I truly believe his batting eye is just about as good as Teddy's, but that Teddy actually had the umps convinced that his version of the strike zone was better than theirs. So Ted would get the ball call, Thome gets a called strike.

Nonetheless, when you have a large, slow slugger, it is far better to have him walking a lot and striking out a lot than hitting into double plays. Only one year did Thome even appear on a leader board for GIDP. Compare this to Killebrew, who was on it five times and led the league one year; Ernie Banks (6 times on the GIDP leader board); and Jim Rice (led league 4X, on the board 11 times). (Even Ted Williams was on the GIDP leader board twice.)

I love Thome for many reasons, but I have always found his unique ability to get a clean hit more than half the time when he hits the ball into play uncanny. Here's some more support for his claim to a spot in the Hall: he'[s #44 career in Runs Created; #18 in walks; #16 in slugging; #17 in OPS; #4 in home runs per AB. Why wait, just vote him in now!

Why Gussie Busch Gave Roger Maris a beer distributorship in Florida

Fun Fact: did you know that Roger Maris and Bob Dylan have the same hometown, Hibbing, Minn.? Home runs and harmonicas are Hibbing's trademark.

Collapse was the theme of the Cardinal's 1964 pennant chase. Internally, the management team was melting down. Anger and in-fighting over the controversial reports from consultant Branch Rickey had all the bosses at each other's throats. Rickey even went so far as to declare the Cards out of the race early in '64, and when the team "struggled" in late summer, Gussie Busch fired the man who built the juggernaut, Bing Devine. An outraged field boss, Johnny Keane, threatened to quit.

And then it happened: The Phillies collapsed. Despite the management chaos surrounding them, the Cards' players just kept putting one run in front of another, and snatched the pennant at the end of a bitter five-team fight. After knocking off the Yankees in the WS, Keane followed through on his threat to quit. To underscore his loathing for Busch, he took the managerial job in New York. Now, Busch had to find a g.m. and a manager.

He found two good ones: Bob Howsam replaced Devine, and Red Schoendienst came on as field boss. Together, they would finish the work Devine and Keane had begun, and build a true pennant winner. It took a couple of bad seasons to reveal the hidden holes in the Cards' lineup. The pitching basically collapsed in 1965, Boyer lost another two steps, as did Groat. But young-uns like Maxvill, Briles, Joe Hoerner and Carlton were ready to step in. And ol' Red finally let 'em.

Meantime, Howsam was wheeling and dealing. In a monumentally bad trade, he shipped Bill White and Groat to Philly after the '65 season for basically nothing. But it did clear the way for a new crowd to take over, and of course Mauch couldn't find a way to utilize the remaining good years that White and Groat enjoyed at Philly, so there was no fallout. Howsam sent the aging Boyer to the Mets for Charlie Smith, a third sacker, and lefty Al Jackson. The brilliance of this trade would only be revealed prior to the 1967 season, when Howsam would put the finishing touches on the pennant club by swapping Smith to the Yankees for the disgruntled Roger Maris. More on this later...

Then in May of '66, Howsam swapped Ray Sadecki, on the downside of his career as a starter, to the Giants for Cepeda. (Why did the Giants keep sending great first basemen to St. Louis?) All the pieces were falling into place. Briles, Hoerner and Carlton were about to join Gibson and a resurgent Ray Washburn on the pitching staff. Javier and Maxvill were solid in in the middle of the infield. Flood and Brock formed two-thirds of a great outfield. But that third OF spot was held by Mike Shannon, who couldn't quite cut it. And third base remained a puzzle. That's when Howsam pulled off the Maris-for-Smith trade. Maris had always been a terrific fielder and smooth hitter. St. Louis was perfect for him. He'd never have to play in Yankee stadium again, and he didn't have to be the big star of the team. His acquisition allowed ol' Red to move Shannon to 3B, a much better fit for him, and the team was set.

The trade, made in December of 1966, was Howsam's last hurrah. He resigned six weeks later, but the table was lavishly set. The 1967 and 1968 pennant races weren't even close. The Cards won by 10 games in '67 and by 9 in '68, each time pursued at a distance by an increasingly shaky Giants squad. Bing Devine was lured back as g.m. just in time to enjoy the 1968 campaign; he would remain at the helm for another decade. When Maris retired at the end of the 1968 WS (which saw the Cards blow a 3-1 edge to the Tigers), Gussie Busch was so grateful he bestowed a Busch beer distributorship on Maris. The reigning single season home run king probably made more money from Gussie's beer than he ever made hitting baseballs.

St. Louis was so much better than anyone else at the time that many scribes foresaw a Yankees-type dominance ahead for the Cards. Although the team, reinvigorated by such trades as Cepeda-for-Joe Torre in 1969, finished second three times in the next six years, St. L fans would have to wait for The White Rat to come to town in 1981 to celebrate another pennant. But that's another tale. The point is, Devine and Howsam recognized young talent, were patient with it, and were not patient with aging stars. They made astute trades for the most part, but they avoided trading away young talent. Their field bosses didn't panic and were also patient with the kids. And the big boss, Gussie Busch, liked winning. When you have a Steinbrenner or a Busch screaming for a pennant, it just sort of gives you that extra incentive to get up a little earlier and stay a little later at the office to put that winning team together.

Nothing beats a bunch of career years

When it comes to evaluating talent, some of it has to do with luck. But in baseball, I'm beginning to believe that certain organizations are better at judging young players than others. The Cardinals in the 1950s and 1960s were one of those organizations. As the pennant year of 1964 approached, with '67 and '68 not far off, the Cards had three outstanding young pitchers in their system--Bob Gibson, Nelson Briles and Steve Carlton--who they did not let get away. They also seemed to see something in Lou Brock that the Cubs talent scouts didn't see. They saw a role for Mike Shannon that others might not have seen. They groomed Dal Maxvill for short and told him not to worry about the hitting, the big guys would handle it. And this knack for picking the right young prospects made all the difference to the Cards in the 1960s.

Signed out of Creighton College, Gibson joined the big squad at age 23. He hung around for a few years. In Koufax-like tradition, he didn't start to hit his stride till he was 26 (1962). The Cardinals were patient with him. And oh did it pay off.

I said something about the 1964 flag being a bit of a fluke, compared to the next two pennants. That's because the Cards' lineup and rotation was lousy with guys having career years. Brock, obtained early in the season from the Cubs for Ernie Broglio, had something to prove. (Poor Ernie just had a sore arm. did the Cards know? No one's talking.) He hit .348. Boyer, in one last attempt to recapture his youth, led the league in RBIs. White hit .303. Flood hit .311. McCarver hit .288. Simmons, Sadecki, and aging reliever Barney Schultz had career years, and Gibson went 19-12, k-ing 245 in 287 innings.

It was an extremely close race, with the top five teams separated by just five games. This was the year of the Phillies infamous collapse, the 10 losses in a row that would haunt Gene Mauch to the end of his days. As the Phils self-destructed, the Cards were hitting on all cylinders, Schultz and bullpen buddy Ron Taylor slamming the door in the late innings. Meanwhile, the off seasons by a few rival stars (Ed Mathews, Felipe Alou, Frank Howard, Junior Gilliam, McCovey, Joey Jay,most of the Giants pitching staff) gave the Cards just enough room to sneak in and take the flag. In a wild and closely matched World Series, Gibson brought the world championship home to St. L with his second series win in the 7th game.

Yet the team was not yet at its peak. Boyer was aging quickly. Groat, who had a fine season, was nearing the end of the line too. The pitching staff was just a bit too old. Meantime, the entire franchise, which should have been celebrating its first championship in nearly 20 years, was in disarray. The brilliant Bing Devine didn't even make it to the end of the season, with manager Johnny Keane hanging on by a thread. But of this we will speak no more until tomorrow.

Talkin Baseball, Talkin Cards

OK, I am ready to talk about the Cardinals. Got the turntable cranked up with
Fever Tree's "Another time, another place" (cir. 1968), great psychedelic stuff. Glass of cheap Spanish red at my left.

First, let me mention sources. When I do these posts, I use some or all of the following:
Baseball Digest (I have every issue from 1959-1995)
The MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia (ninth edition)
The Bill James Abstracts
My own personal baseball scrapbooks from the 1950s and 1960s
Various sports magazines from the 1960s
baseball-reference.com
Baseball trading cards (1956-1973)(I don't care about the later cards)

All these sources have unique information to impart, different perspectives and statistics. You could look em up.

Back to the St. Louis Cardinals. What fascinates me about this franchise is its phoenix-like quality, its ability to rise from the ashes of defeat to the top of the heap time after time. In this decade, under Tony LaRussa, the Cards have put it all together, defying and debunking the "small market" theory. Gotta love 'em!

But back in the 1950s, things looked bleak for the Cards. They'd fattened up in the WWII period; Musial didn't get the call from Uncle Sam till '45,which helped immensely. After the 1946 season, the Cards entered what was for them a prolonged pennant drought. The club had good position players like Enos Slaughter, Musial and Red Schoendienst. But the pitching just didn't jell. Certainly not sufficiently for the Cards to catch the Dodgers and Giants and Braves.

The Busch family does not like not winning. There's a difference between doing well and not winning and winning. If you like doing well and don't care about winning...then stay away from competitive sports. (The Texas Rangers should just go away and stop bothering everyone.) You don't belong.

Augie Busch liked winning.

First he tried with the man whose heart I would have loved to have ripped out through his anus: Frank "Trader" Lane. He took over as G.M. in the mid-'50s, but guess what? Busch could see he was an idiot! And he replaced him with home-grown Bing Devine, a man who would leave an indelible impression on this franchise for decades to come.

Devine looked down upon his Cardinals and was displeased. The team, by sheer luck, had finished 2nd in '57, Lane's last year. Under Devine, the Cards went 5-7-3-5-6. But he was not standing pat. Neither the infield nor the outfield quite worked. The pitching staff was still a muddle. Devine went to work. He acquired Bill White, then 26, for an aging but still effective Sad Sam Jones for the 1959 season. He installed Curt Flood in center, and moved Julian Javier to second base fulltime in 1960. Meantime, Ernie Broglio was helping to set the stage for Devine's most brilliant (and luckiest) trade by winning 21 games in 1960.

But still the team sputtered. One suspects that Devine, by 1962, was disturbed by the aging of Cards' stars like Musial, Schoendienst, Simmons, Boyer and Larry Jackson. Especially Musial. So Devine turned to Branch Rickey for advice.
Rickey, the old Mahatma, immediately ruffled every feather in sight. He recommended a complete overhaul of the team, including a demand that Stan the Man retire after the 1962 season. Although many of his suggestions were ludicrous (he wanted to replace Javier with someone named Ed Pacheco), he also advocated the immediate calling up of youngsters Nelson Briles and Steve Carlton. Now that was brilliant. But Devine didn't bite. (They both joined the squad in 1965, following the tumultuous departure of Devine and Johnny Keane.) Rickey was basically run out of town for this radical call to action. But Devine realized Rickey was right about the team needing a shake-up.

And tomorrow, we'll talk about that shake-up, and why the 1964 team was a bit of an illusion as pennant winners go.