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Clockwise from top left: Gil Hodges, Mickey Vernon,
Ferris Fain, Earl Torgeson |
This article originally appeared in Here's the Pitch, the newsletter of the Internet Baseball Writers of America Association (IBWAA)A recent poll on twitter asked readers to choose their
favorite decade of baseball. The clear winner was the 1950s. Former New York
Herald Tribune baseball writer Harold Rosenthal agrees. He called his book
about the national pastime in the 1950s, The 10 Best Years of Baseball.
The 1950s famously had “Willie, Mickey, and the Duke”, that is Mays, Mantle,
and Snider, in centerfield, Jackie Robinson in Brooklyn, Stan Musial in St.
Louis, Henry Aaron and Eddie Mathews in Milwaukee, Ernie Banks in Chicago, and
Ted Williams in Boston. For pitchers we could count on a roll call that
included Warren Spahn, Robin Roberts, Whitey Ford, Early Wynn, and Billy Pierce.
What the 1950s didn’t have was a Hall of Fame first baseman. That oversight has
at long last been corrected with the belated election of Gil Hodges to the Hall
this past winter.
Hodges induction, which happened in July, stirred a question
in my head. If he is the first first baseman from the 1950s to be enshrined,
who were the other players of note manning the first sack in that greatest of
all baseball decades? I went to find out. My criteria: Players who spent more
than 60% of their time on the field at first base and who played a significant
chunk of their career in the 1950s. I did not include Musial because he was
mostly an outfielder, playing only 40% of his games at first. I did not include
Banks because he was a shortstop before moving to first base in the 1960s. I
did not include Orlando Cepeda because his major league career began in 1958,
making him mostly a 1960s player.
Here are the other very good first baseman from the 1950s.
Not exactly “Willie, Mickey. and the Duke,” but a worthy aggregation,
nonetheless. Hodges by the way, had a 41.2 WAR during the 50s, better than any
in the group below. All WAR scores are for the 1950s only.
Mickey Vernon (WAR 21.8.) – Of all the players on
this list, Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania’s Vernon may have the best argument for
Hall of Fame consideration. A left-handed thrower and hitter, Vernon played
from 1939 until 1960, mostly in the obscurity of a Washington Senators uniform.
Like many players of his era, he lost two of his prime seasons, ages 26 and 27,
to service in World War II. He won two batting titles (1946 and 1953) and was
one of the most accomplished hitters of his time. Not a big home run hitter,
Vernon was annually among the top players in both doubles and triples. Vernon
was no slouch as a first baseman either, leading the league in fielding
percentage four times. He still holds the major league record for most double
plays turned by a first baseman, 2,044. Vernon had 2,495 hits in his career
with a .286 lifetime batting average. He was a seven-time All-Star. He made his
last All-Star team in 1958 at age 40, when he hit .293 in 119 games for the
Cleveland Indians.
Ted Kluszewski (WAR 28.6) Big Klu was certainly one
of the most intimidating hitters of the 1950s. With his hulking build and
bulging biceps accentuated by his sleeveless Cincinnati Reds uniform, he was a
daunting presence in the batter’s box. For four seasons in the mid-1950s, Kluszewski
was the premiere power hitter in the game. In those four seasons he hit 171
home runs, compiled 464 RBIs, and batted .315. One amazing stat from those
years shows that he struck out just 140 times, one of the few power hitters in
history to have more home runs than strikeouts over a sustained period. A back
injury that occurred during a scuffle in the clubhouse robbed Kluszewski of his
power and his numbers fell off precipitously after his four-year peak. Big Klu
had one last hurrah, however, with the 1959 “Go-Go” White Sox, when he hit .391
with three home runs in the 1959 World Series that the Sox lost to the Los Angeles
Dodgers, 4 games to 2.
Earl Torgeson (WAR 25) – With his dark rimmed glasses
and broad features Earl Torgeson looked like Superman's friend mild-mannered Clark Kent, but in his behavior,
he more resembled a street brawler. Torgeson might be remembered today as a
great first baseman if he could have held his temper and avoided injury. Instead,
he is best remembered for his fights. Torgeson once slugged Boston Red Sox infielder
Billy Hitchcock during an exhibition game. He broke his own glasses in the
ensuing bench-clearing melee. A few years later, having learned his lesson, Torgeson
first took his glasses off before he charged into the opposing team’s dugout to
slug “his good friend” catcher Sal Yvars. Off the field Torgeson was bright and
funny. On the field he was a crazed demon. He also had a good bit of talent. In
1950, he hit .290 with 23 home runs for the Boston Braves. He had a couple of
decent years with the Philadelphia Phillies and the Detroit Tigers and split
time at first with Ted Kluszewski on the pennant winning Chicago White Sox in
1959, but he never reached what many thought was his great potential. A knee
injury early in his career flared up often and likely robbed him of the career
he might have had. And then there was his personality. Former teammate Gene
Mauch summed up Torgeson well, “He refused to be dull, in his conversations,
his actions, or anything else.”
Joe Adcock (WAR 19.8) – When Joe Adcock first came to
the major leagues with the Cincinnati Reds, he had to play left field because
Ted Kluszewski was the Reds established first baseman. Unhappy in the outfield
in Cincinnati, where the Crosley Field banked outfield bothered his already
creaky knees, Adcock was traded to the Braves just as they moved to Milwaukee,
where he established himself as one of the most feared power hitters in the
game. He is one of just 18 players to ever hit four home runs in a game. He hit
the home run that broke up Harvey Haddix’s 12-inning perfect game in the 13th.
He was the first right-handed batter to hit a ball over the Ballantine Beer
scoreboard in Connie Mack Stadium’s right-centerfield. For his career, Adcock
hit 336 home runs. The total would doubtless have been higher if he could have
stayed healthy. He had knee problems from his earliest days in the minor
leagues and was constantly being hit by pitches on the hands and in the head.
Adcock was one of the first players to adopt the batting helmet. It is a good
thing he did. The day after he hit four home runs against the Dodgers, pitcher
Clem Labine beaned him. Sportswriters noted the helmet likely saved his life.
Ferris Fain (WAR 17.8) – Fain may be one of the least
known five-time All-Star, two-time American League batting champions in
baseball history. His anonymity can be blamed, in part, on the fact that he
played his best years for the woebegone Philadelphia Athletics of the late 1940s
and early 50s, and also to the relative brevity of his major league career, cut
short at the beginning by World War II and at the end by injury. Fain was
another feisty first sacker who became as well known for his drinking and
fighting as he was for his prodigious line drive hitting. He came up to the A’s
in 1947 and by 1951 was one of the top hitters in the league. He led the league
in batting average two straight seasons, 1951 and 52, with marks of .344 and
.327 respectively. He was also selective at the plate, drew a lot of walks, and
was perennially among the league leaders in OBP. Fain ranks 15th
all-time in career OBP with a .424 mark. He was traded to the Chicago White Sox
after the 1952 season for another fine first baseman, Eddie Robinson. The trade
was likely precipitated by concerns over Fain’s drinking. By 1955, with his
knees aching and his batting average plummeting, Fain played his final season
in the major leagues with Detroit and Cleveland.
Honorable Mention – Other first basemen from the
1950s deserve our attention. The Yankees had two solid first basemen during
their run of eight pennants in the 1950s, Joe Collins (WAR 12.1) and Bill
(Moose) Skowron (WAR 14.8). Puerto Rico native Vic Power (WAR 13.4)
came up through the New York Yankee system, where he was blocked by Skowron
and the prejudice of the Yankee management. Traded to Kansas City he proved to
be a dependable hitter and in the estimation of his manager Lou Boudreau, “the
best defensive right-handed first baseman in the league.” Slugging Eddie
Robinson (WAR 10.1) bounced around among seven different teams in the 50s,
averaging 20 home runs a year wherever he went. Robinson eventually became the
general manager of the Texas Rangers. Finally, Luke Easter (WAR 9.5) who
never got a chance to play major league ball until he was 33 years old because
of baseball’s color bar, had three outstanding seasons for the Cleveland
Indians in the early 50s, averaging .271 and 29 home runs a year, before age
and injury caught up with him.
