Old Puddin’ Head’s Big Day

The Phillies have been blessed with some fine third basemen over the years. First and foremost, of course, is the GOAT, Mike Schmidt, followed by borderline Hall of Famer Scott Rolen. In the 1960s, Dick Allen played 600+ games at third base for the Phillies. But long before Rolen or Schmidt and a decade before Allen ever patrolled the hot corner in Philadelphia, Willie “Puddin’ Head” Jones from Dillon, South Carolina was a mainstay at the position. Jones, whose nickname seemed to match his southern drawl and his slow gait, possessed good range and a cannon arm at third base. He was also a clutch hitter with good power who played more games at third base than any other Phillie, save Schmidt. He was the third baseman on the Whiz Kids team that won the 1950 National League pennant.

On August 20, 1958, Jones, past his prime but still holding down his starting third base position for the Phillies, had a career offensive day. The Phillies were in St. Louis to play the Cardinals. The Phillies and Cardinals were battling it out for fifth place in the standings, both well behind league-leading Milwaukee. Future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts was on the mound for the Phillies and Billy Muffett was pitching for St. Louis.

In the top of the first inning, Richie Ashburn led off with single and promptly stole second base. Solly Hemus then singled Ashburn home. Harry Anderson struck out and Wally Post popped up before Ed Bouchee walked. That brought up Jones who launched a home run deep into the left field seats at old Busch Stadium. The blast brought home three runs and finished Muffet’s evening. Nelson Chittum came on to pitch and gave up a double to Chico Fernandez before getting Carl Sawatski to ground out to end the inning.

Roberts gave one run back in the bottom of the inning on a Don Blasingame single, a Stan Musial double and a Ken Boyer sacrifice fly. In the third, Phillie left fielder Anderson led off with a single and scored on a Post double. Bouchee then singled with Post stopping at third. Up came Jones again. Out went the ball again to deep left field in almost the same spot as his first home run. Jones had his second three-run home run of the game. The Phillies now led 8-1 and Jones had 6 RBIs in the first three innings.

Anderson increased the Phillies lead with a solo home run in the fourth inning and Jones flew out to right in the fifth. Ashburn and Hemus combined for a run in the sixth inning with back-to-back singles and Ashburn’s speed. Musial got another hit off Roberts in the bottom of the sixth and scored on a hit by Boyer. After six the score stood, Phillies 10, Cardinals 2.

In the seventh with two out, Jones singled off Cardinal pitcher Chuck Stobbs, but he was stranded when Ted Kazanski struck out. In the ninth Phil Paine was pitching for the Cardinals. Hemus was hit by a pitch and Anderson singled him to second. After Post struck out and Bouchee grounded out, Jones came up for the fifth time in the game. This time Willie doubled down the left field line scoring two more. The Phils led 12-2. Roberts set the Cardinals down in order in the bottom of the ninth for his thirteenth win of the season.

Jones’ hitting line for the game: 5 at bats, 4 hits, 1 double, 2 home runs, 8 RBIs. The four hits came against four different pitchers. The eight RBIs tied a Phillies record that is also held by Kitty Bransfield (1910), Gavvy Cravath (1915), Mike Schmidt (1976) and Jayson Werth (2008).

The 1958 season was Jones’ last full season with the Phillies. In June of 1959, the Phillies traded him to the Cleveland Indians for Jim Bolger and cash. The Indians sold Jones to the Cincinnati Reds a month later. Jones finished out his career in 1961 with the Reds.

Willie Jones is eleventh on the all-time games played list for the Philadelphia Phillies. His 180 home runs rank thirteenth and his 752 RBIs fourteenth. All-in-all Jones was a fine Phillies player for thirteen productive seasons. And “Old Puddin’ Head” had one of the all-time great nicknames.

 

Stan Baumgartner vs. Babe Ruth: A Real Life Casey at the Bat

It is a story as old as baseball itself. The mighty slugger comes to the plate with the game on the line, in the grandstands the fans rise and cheer in anticipation, on the mound the pitcher is trying his best to preserve a precarious lead. Ernest Lawrence Thayer immortalized this tale in his 1888 poem "Casey At the Bat." The scenario has played out hundreds of times on sandlots, Little League fields, and major league stadiums throughout the country over the next 130 years or so. One such occurrence was on May 30, 1924 at Yankee Stadium before 50,000 people. The mighty slugger was the immortal Babe Ruth. The pitcher was a little known left-hander for the Philadelphia Athleticss named Stan Baumgartner.

A side-winding lefthander with a sweeping curve ball, Baumgartner pitched in parts of eight seasons in the major leagues with the Phillies and the As. His career began with the Phillies in 1914 when he was 19-years-old and included several trips to the minor leagues and five years when he pitched exclusively with semi-pro teams in the Philadelphia area. In only two seasons, 1924 and 1925 with the As, was he on the major league roster for the full year. 

Despite a rather mundane professional career played mostly on bad Philadelphia teams and despite feeling the wrath of the notoriously cranky Philadelphia fans on more than one occasion, Baumgartner cherished his time in the bigs. After his pitching career ended, the college educated Baumgartner became a sportswriter for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1942, long after his baseball career was over and after he had established himself as a writer, he gave a remarkable interview to none other than J. G. Taylor Spink, editor and publisher of The Sporting News. In that interview he tells the story of his one shining moment in the major league sun.

Coming into the May 30th game, the second game of a doubleheader, the As (13-21), under Connie Mack, were in last place in the American League. The Yankees (21-13), managed by Miller Huggins, were tied for first with the Boston Red Sox. Baumgartner relieved Phillies starting pitcher Eddie Rommel in the seventh inning with the As behind, 4-1. He held the Yankees in the seventh and eighth as the As staged a four-run rally in the eighth inning to take a one run lead, 5-4. The big hit was a Bing Miller three-run homerun. 

In the bottom of the ninth, Baumgartner got the first two batters out easily. Bullet Joe Bush then pinch hit for Yankee pitcher Sad Sam Jones, and singled on a slow roller to third. Earle Combs came in to run for Bush. Wally Schang batted for Whitey Witt and worked a walk. With Ruth lurking in the on-deck circle, Baumgartner hit Joe Dugan with a pitch to load the bases. In stepped Ruth with the game on the line. 

I'll let Baumgartner tell the story from here.

"Frank Bruggy, who was catching, walked out to the mound. He told me, 'You're  gonna' throw this big lug three curve balls - one in  the dirt, one a foot outside, and one three feet outside. Babe will swing at anything, but if you get one near the plate, I'll come out to the pitcher's box and sock you in  the chin.'"

"The first pitch was low. Ruth swung and missed - as only Ruth can swing and miss - and the throng roared and moaned. The second curve was a foot outside, Ruth swung and missed it by only an inch or two. Bruggy shook his head menacingly and again walked out to the mound. 'This is the one kid. Break it wide enough so that it lands in Miller Huggins lap (in the dugout).'"

"The third curve did not go near the plate. As it started Bruggy jumped out of the catcher's box. He caught it some four feet away from Ruth. Babe, determined to knock the ball out of the lot, swung and missed. 

"Sixty-five thousand* fans moaned and screeched. Hundreds tossed their hats on the field. As I walked across the field to the dugout, four young fellows picked me up and carried me to the stairs. It was the first time I had been carried off the field since I pitched the University of Chicago to the Western Conference championship in a twelve-inning, 2-1 game against Illinois."

"The memory of that one strikeout, Taylor, overshadows all the heartaches, lean years, razzing by fans."

 In 1953, Baumgartner wrote the definitive history of the Phillies with colleague Fred Lieb. It was called The Philadelphia Phillies and is still in print. He covered the Phillies for the Inquirer until his death from cancer in 1955 at age 60.

*Baumgartner is engaging in a little hyperbole here. The announced crowd was 50,000.

Will the Sacrifice Bunt Go the Way of the Dodo?

This article originally appeared in Here's the Pitch, the newsletter of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA). If you are interested in the group and/or would like to subscribe to the newsletter you can find more information here.

 

I was sitting in the stands at Citizens Bank Park on Tuesday, June 8 as the Philadelphia Phillies took on the Atlanta Braves. It was the third inning. The Braves held a 2-0 lead. With the Phillies Alec Bohm on third and Ronald Torreyes on first, and no outs, pitcher Aaron Nola came to the plate. Manager Joe Girardi gave the bunt sign. Normally with runners on first and third, a manager has his pitcher bunt to move an additional runner into scoring position. In this case, however, Girardi signaled for a safety squeeze. Nola got a beautiful bunt down toward the charging Atlanta first baseman Freddie Freeman and Bohm scored easily. One run, one runner moved into scoring position, one very productive out from a pitcher.

I rose to applaud, but before I sat back down, I was saddened by the thought that this is a play that I may never see again. If the National League adopts the designated hitter for the 2022 season, as it appears they most likely will, some position player would have been up in that spot, and some run probability chart would have told the manager that bunting in this situation would reduce the chances of scoring more than one run in the inning. Result? Some .240 hitter swinging for the fences.

I get it. Nobody but the coach of a poor hitting Little League team really loves the sacrifice bunt. Heck, even as a lifetime .230 hitter in Babe Ruth League baseball, I hated to see the coach flash me the bunt sign. Every hitter, even the poor ones, wants to have a chance to swing away during those very few times a game they get to bat. Even one of the great bunters of all time, the Phillies Richie Ashburn, hated a particular kind of sacrifice bunt. As an announcer for the Phillies after his playing days, he would moan in protest whenever a manager ordered a pitcher to bunt, as Nola was, with runners on first and third. I can still hear his lament now, “Why would you just give up an out here?”

And that “giving up of an out” is exactly what threatens the bunt in the modern game. Baseball analytics has shown that bunting almost always reduces run expectancy. Analytics have shown that outs may be the most precious commodity to a ball club. Preserving outs and increasing run expectancy have become goals for the modern manager and so the bunt moves inexorably towards the fate of the dodo.

It wasn’t always that way. In the early 1990s, Pittsburgh Pirates manager Jim Leyland often had his number two hitter, Jay Bell, sacrifice even in the first inning. Bell was considered an ideal second place hitter because he could get the bunt down successfully. He led the league in sacrifice bunts in 1990 with 39 and 1991 with 30. Leyland always wanted to get that first run of the game on the board. In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, the Houston Astros had their own designated bunting coach, Bunny Mick, and a designated bunting practice field in spring training. Mick taught all Astros players, and particularly the pitchers, the art of the sacrifice bunt:  square around early, start with the bat at the top of the strike zone, work down to the ball. His star pupil was pitcher Joe Niekro, who over a two-year period laid down 31 successful sacrifice bunts in 32 attempts.

The sacrifice bunt is being used less and less in the pro game and with reduced use has apparently come reduced proficiency in getting a good bunt down. Increased velocity of pitches has also contributed to making bunting a more difficult task.

And still, I lament the passing of the sacrifice bunt. The bunt is one of those small ball plays that adds enjoyment and texture to the game. These days, as each at bat moves seemingly inexorably toward a home run or strike out result, baseball loses something of what makes it such an incredibly joyful contest to watch. Baseball at its best is a chess match. Not just manager vs manager strategy, but pitcher vs batter strategy, runner vs pitcher/catcher strategy, defensive positioning strategy, starter/reliever strategy, double switch strategy and the agony of the decision to remove a starting pitcher who is pitching well for a pinch hitter. The sacrifice bunt is a key part of that complex baseball maneuvering.

Here is a metric I would like all major league managers to consider. The team that scores first in a game wins 68.9% of the time. Maybe old Jim Leyland was onto something. It seems a good idea to get that first run on the board, even if it means using the sacrifice bunt, giving up an out, and perhaps reducing total run expectancy a bit. The sacrifice bunt, used properly, can increase single run expectancy and sometimes that may be what you want. If I have Jacob DeGrom or Zack Wheeler on the mound, an early run might be all I need.

Most fans want more offense I suppose, and the designated hitter will provide that, but I prefer the good old fashioned pitcher’s duel where the sacrifice bunt that might lead to the only run scored in the game is in play.

On Thursday, June 10, I was in the stands again, this time with my son, Bruce, as the Phillies Zack Wheeler and the Braves Ian Anderson engaged in just such a duel. In the third inning, Anderson appeared at the plate with one out and Kevan Smith at first base after a single. Brave’s manager Brian Snitker ordered a bunt. When Anderson failed in two attempts and the count ran to 1-2, I turned to Bruce and asked, “Does he still have him bunting here with two strikes?” My son said, “Yeah, because mostly he doesn’t care if he strikes out, but he doesn’t want Anderson to hit into a double play with [Ronald] Acuña, Jr. on deck.” So, there it is: just another worthy use of the attempted sacrifice bunt.

 

 

 

Casey Stengel Reluctant Philadelphia Phillie

Casey Stengel

Even the most casual baseball fans likely remember Casey Stengel as the loquacious, syntax-challenged manager of the mighty New York Yankees of the 1950s and the woeful New York Mets of the 1960s. Fewer fans may realize that Casey was a fleet-footed outfielder for several teams in the 1910s and 1920s. And only the most dedicated of Phillies fans are likely to remember that in 1919 Stengel, a full 50 years before Curt Flood refused to report to the Phillies after the Dick Allen trade, also balked at being traded to the Phillies. Instead of reporting to his new team, Casey went home to Kansas City.

In August 1919, Phillies player/manager Gavvy Cravath traded utility man Possum Witted to the Pittsburgh Pirates for Stengel. He was hoping that Stengel would fill his need for a right fielder with speed and a decent bat. Stengel, who was traded two-years earlier by Brooklyn because he was always holding out for more money, refused to report to the Phillies unless he was given a new contract worth an extra $2000. Phillies owner and president, William F. Baker, refused the request and suspended Stengel for his failure to fulfill his contract. 

Casey, who is repeatedly described in newspaper accounts as "eccentric", stayed in Kansas City, the town that gave him his nickname, and played semi-pro baseball for a $100 dollars a week. Reports out of Kansas City were that Stengel was not pleased with the trade and that was the real reason for his holdout. Referring to the team owners who had traded him from Brooklyn to Pittsburgh to Philadelphia, Casey said, "Casey out; Ebbetts to Dreyfus to Baker." He refused to come to Philadelphia to discuss the contract and never played for the Phillies in 1919.

In February 1920, at baseball's annual winter meetings, two significant matters were settled. The spitball was banned beginning in 1921 and Casey Stengel signed his contract with the Phillies. Stengel apparently met up with Phillies owner Baker at the meeting and after a few words were exchanged asked, "Where's the contract?" He signed for $5,500, a $1200 increase over his Pirates pact. Apparently all sides were happy.

In 1920, Stengel played in 129 games for the Phillies batting .292 with 25 doubles, 6 triples, 9 home runs, and 50 RBIs. His excellent outfield defense and solid hitting were a definite asset to the lowly Phillies who would still manage to finish eighth and last in the league for the second straight year. Stengel was a Phillies star. He saved a game with his defense on June 18 against the St. Louis Cardinals. With two men on in the ninth inning, he made a leaping grab against the wall on a wicked drive by the Cards' Jack Fournier to preserve a 1-0 Phillies victory. 

On offense he generally batted third or fourth in the order, teaming with Cy Williams and Irish Meusel to give the Phillies some solid offensive punch. He had three hits in a 5-2 win over the New York Giants on May 1. One month later he hit two home runs and drove in three runs in a 8-4 loss to the Boston Braves.  On September 23, he had three hits, including his ninth home run of the season, in a 6-1 victory over the Braves.

Stengel also became a fan favorite with his antics on and off the field. After he hit a line smash home run to left field, Casey was asked how he hit the ball so hard.

"You have to butcher boy it," he said.

"What do you mean, butcher boy?"

"You have to "meat" it - that's all - just "meat" it." replied Casey.

When asked how he was going to spend a day off. Casey reported that he was going to Valley Forge to climb the hills. "I'm practicing for the wall climbing I have to do here at the ball park."

The good will did not last long. In April of 1921, Casey said, "Sure I'd like to be traded to Brooklyn. Not because I dislike Philadelphia or the Phillies, nor because I have been badly treated by President Baker. I feel I can be a better ball player in Brooklyn because of the outfield conditions. I can't play that right field wall in Philly [at the Baker Bowl]. In Brooklyn, I feel right at home. Also, most of my eastern friends are there."

In May, Casey was laid up with a bad back. After starting a handful of games in early June, he was relegated to the bench. He made his final Phillies appearance as a pinch hitter on June 29th, grounding into a double play. On June 30, Stengel and second baseman Johnny Rawlings were traded to the New York Giants for Lee King, Goldie Rapp, and Lance Richbourg. Beset by back and leg injuries, Casey played only 18 games for the Giants the rest of the year. He bounced back somewhat in the next three years, but was mostly a part time player until his playing career ended in 1925 with the Boston Braves.

Casey Stengel left a mixed legacy with the Phillies. When he was on the field he was one of the team's best players. Whether on or off the field his playful antics made him a fan favorite. But Casey never really wanted to play in Philadelphia and  his fraught relationship with management and clear preference to be traded insured his short tenure here. 

In the end manager Cravath probably said it best, "Casey is a fine player, when he wants to be."