The "Fighting Phils" Live up to Their Nickname: August 12, 1950

 

In the left circle players work to separate Andy Seminick and Bill Rigney. Richie Ashburn (1) can be seen with his hand on Alvin Dark's (19) head. Dick Whitman (37) obscures home plate umpire Augie Donatelli and Robin Roberts (36).  In the second circle, the Phillies Bubba Church has his arms around Giants manager Leo Durocher. In the third circle, Phillies coach Dusty Cooke restrains Giants first baseman Tookie Gilbert. Umpire Lon Warneke has a hold on the Phillies Granny Hamner (2) in the fourth circle. The Phillies Bob Miller, Curt Simmons (28) and Bill Nicholson (12) stand at left.

While the nickname "Fighting Phillies" had been hung on the team almost from its inception in 1883, the 1950 Phillies, a young bunch of upstarts intent on winning the National Leaue pennant, took the name to a whole new level. On August 12, 1950, the Phillies and the New York Giants engaged in a donnybrook for the ages in what journalist Stan Baumgartner described as "the most riotous player demonstration" at Shibe Park since the Detroit Tigers Ty Cobb spiked the Philadelphia Athletic's Home Run Baker in 1910.

Emotions were already running high as Robin Roberts took the mound for the Phillies to face the Giants Sheldon Jones for a Saturday day game before a "Kid's Day" crowd of 23,741. The kids were in for quite a show. The Giants had beaten the league leading Phillies the night before, 3-1, in a game where the Phillies charged that Giants second baseman Eddie Stanky was guilty of unsportsmanlike "bush league" behavior. It seems that, with Andy Seminick at the plate, Stanky positioned himself in Seminick's line of sight and started waving his arms around in an obvious attempt to distract the hitter. The Phillies complained, but to no avail. The umpires said nothing in the rule book prohibited Stanky's actions. The Phillies were not pleased, and the anger spilled over to the next day.

Before the Saturday game, the umpiring crew asked Giants' manager Leo Durocher to ask Stanky to cut it out. Durocher did and Stanky behaved himself at the start of the game. The Giants took the lead in the second inning on two singles, a sacrifice bunt by pitcher Jones and a Stanky sacrifice fly. In the bottom of the inning, Granny Hamner doubled with two out, Seminick walked and Mike Goliat singled, scoring Hamner and sending Seminick barreling to third. Seminick slid hard into third baseman Hank Thompson (the Giants later claimed he threw an elbow at Thompson's head) knocking him out. Left fielder Whitey Lockman's throw got away. Seminick scored and Goliat moved up to second. Thompson was carted off the field and recovered consciousness in the locker room. He was sent to the hospital for observation. Bill Rigney replaced Thompson at third base. After the lengthy timeout, Roberts singled driving in Goliat. The Phillies led 3-1, but Stanky's wrath had been aroused.

When Seminick came to the plate with two out in the fourth inning, Stanky went into his jumping around, arms waving act again directly in Seminick's line of sight. Second base umpire Lon Warneke ejected Stanky for "actions detrimental to the game." Jack Lohrke came in to play third base and Rigney shifted over to second. Durocher argued strenuously and then announced to home plate umpire Augie Donatelli that he was playing the game under protest because there was no rule that said Stanky couldn't do what he was doing.

Unfortunately for fans of decorum in baseball, Seminick then reached base on an error by shortstop Alvin Dark. Goliat followed with another ground ball to Dark, who this time fielded cleanly and threw to Rigney at second for the force out. As Rigney fielded the throw, Seminick slid in hard with spikes high. Rigney, thrown off balance, took exception. 

An enraged Rigney charged at Seminick. Seminick got to his feet and the two swung punches at each other and then wrestled to the ground. Alvin Dark tried to separate them to no avail. Both benches emptied. Players and coaches - 49 in all - streamed onto the field. Phillies coach Dusty Cooke tried to drag Rigney off of Seminick. Richie Ashburn was in the middle of the scrum trying to aid Seminick. The Giants Monte Irvin charged onto the field, bat in hand and was intercepted by the Phillies Bubba Church. The two traded punches. Jimmy Bloodworth landed a left-cross to Leo Durocher's chin and was swinging indiscriminately at others. One unidentified Phillie took a swing at an umpire and missed. Players were pushing and shoving and grabbing each other all around the main battle. The umpires tried valiantly to break things up, but order was not restored until the police came out of the stands onto the field. One officer threatened to arrest Giants first baseman Tookie Gilbert, but umpire Lee Ballanfant talked him out of it.

Once peace was restored, only Seminick and Rigney were ejected. Each was later assessed a $25 dollar fine. Ironically, Eddie Stanky, who started it all was languishing in the clubhouse after his ejection and was not involved in the dust-up. 

When the game continued, Roberts got uncharacteristically wild, walking three batters in the sixth inning and giving up the tying runs on a Don Mueller bases loaded single. In the seventh inning, a Bobby Thompson home run gave the Giants the lead, 4-3. The Phillies tied the game in the bottom of the inning on an unearned run. Goliat reached on a Tookie Gilbert error. Bill (Swish) Nicholson batted for Roberts and singled Goliat up to second. Goliat scored from there on an Eddie Waitkus base hit.

Jim Konstanty replaced Roberts on the mound and pitched four shutout innings as the game went into extra innings. In the bottom of the tenth, Stan Lopata, who had replaced Seminick behind the plate, tripled with one out. Goliat and pinch hitter Jimmy Bloodworth (apparently recovered from the fists he bruised in the fight) were both intentionally walked. Waitkus then lofted a flyball to centerfield, deep enough to score Lopata with the winning run. Phillies 5, Giants 4.

This game, Stanky's actions, and the resultant melee had significant impact on the game of baseball moving forward. As a result of Stanky's flaunting of the rules of good sportsmanship, National League Commissioner Ford Frick gave the umpires wider latitude to rule on players' actions that might be detrimental to the game. Frick said, "I have told our umpires that in all matters not covered in the rules, they may make interpretations and rulings that would be in the best interests of baseball."

For his part, Stanky was unrepentant, saying that he would continue to do anything he could to win. His manager backed him up. Durocher "snorted" at the suggestion that good sportsmanship had any place in a situation of this kind. Leo made it clear that, to him, the only issue is winning.

The game had a few other oddities. The Giants tied the game in an inning where Robin Roberts, statistically the greatest control pitcher of all times, walked three batters. Richie Ashburn, one of the fastest players in the National League, hit into two double plays in this game. And the Giants, due to injury, ejections, and moving players around, fielded four different third basemen (Thompson, Rigney, Lohrke, Irvin) and three different second basemen (Stanky, Rigney, Lohrke) in the first five innings of the game. Hard to believe any of these things happened very often. Topping it all off, the famously feisty Stanky was a native Philadelphian, born in Kensington and a graduate of Northeast High School.

Doolin and Knabe: Double Play Combo Extraordinaire

Mickey Doolin               Otto Knabe

Phillies fans have been fortunate in recent times to have watched one of the finest double play combinations in major league history, Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley. The two would be hard to touch in Phillies history for combined offensive and defensive excellence at the Keystone Corner. Somewhat older fans will remember the World Series winning pair of Larry Bowa and Manny Trillo from 1979-82. The older still may wax nostalgic about the Days of Wine and Rojas - the pairing of slick fielding Bobby Wine with fan favorite Cookie Rojas in the 1960s. 

You have to go all the way back a century before Rollins and Utley, however, to find a Phillies double play combination that rivaled that pair for efficiency at turning the double play and longevity as a double play combo.  That would be the duo of shortstop Mickey Doolin and second baseman Otto Knabe, who formed what many considered to be the finest double play combination of their day. For seven years, from 1907 to 1913, Doolin and Knabe anchored a Phillies infield defense that was second to none.

Mickey Doolin and Otto Knabe were both products of Pennsylvania coal regions. Doolin was born in 1880 in Ashland, PA in the anthracite region of northeastern Pennsylvania. Knabe was born in 1884 near Pittsburgh in the bituminous coal region of southwest Pennsylvania. Doolin, who shortened his name from the original Doolittle, joined the Phillies in 1905 after two seasons at Villanova University and two more with the Jersey City team in the Eastern League. He originally teamed with aging incumbent second baseman, Kid Gleason. Knabe replaced Gleason in 1907, when the Phillies scooped him up off waivers from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Over the next seven years the pair played side-by-side for nearly 1000 games.

Because of a childhood injury to his throwing arm, Doolin was unable to make the long overhand throw from shortstop. To compensate he developed a sidearm snap throw, wristing the ball over to first base. Sportswriter Frank Lieb once said Doolin "could throw standing on his head." That sidearm throw would come in particularly handy when Doolan came across the bag on double-play ground balls. Doolin famously played with a glove that was worn through in the pocket, so his bare palm shone through - the better to control the ball, he said.

Knabe was a short, round fellow with "arms like a blacksmith," according to sportswriter (and former Phillies pitcher) Stan Baumgartner. He was not a smooth fielder, but his determination to get to every ball and his aggressiveness in turning the double play made him an effective second sacker. Paired with the "tall, skinny, stringbean" Doolin, the two made for a "Mutt and Jeff" keystone combination. 

Baumgartner's description of their prowess in turning the double play gives some idea of the rough and tumble world of baseball in the early 1900s. Baumgartner uses an alternative spelling for Doolin's name: Doolan.

Knabe and Doolan were the first Dr. Jekyll-Mister Hyde combination around second base. They were the guys who could inquire politely about your health, ask solicitously about your children, your mother and your father - and then ram a baseball down your throat before you had a chance to answer. 

Knabe would tag 'em and Doolan would jump on 'em or Doolan would jump on 'em and Knabe would rub their faces in the dirt.

Doolan could go from second base to third base like a guy on skates to pick up a ground ball. Then he would whip it to second or first with the speed and accuracy of a bullet. At times the ball hit Knabe in the stomach, sometimes in the chest, but he always managed to get hold of it and whip it to first for a double play.

Doolan had a devastating underhand throw on double plays. If the runner did not get out of the way, the ball buried itself in his ribs or smashed into his shoulders as it traveled to first base. Knabe had a fast overhand toss that shaved the chin or knocked the heads off incoming runners who did not duck quickly.*

Whatever their technique might have been, it was effective. Doolan led the league in double plays in 1907, 1909, 1910, 1911, and 1913. He turned 637 double plays in his career. Knabe was in the top four for double plays turned for five of the duos seven seasons together. He turned 483 double plays in his career. The Phillies great Grover Cleveland Alexander, who had Knabe and Doolin behind him from his rookie season of 1911 through 1913 said, "They gave you everything they had as long as the game was played." 

After the 1913 season, Knabe was hired to be the player/manager of the new Baltimore Terrapins franchise in the Federal League. He didn't have to work too hard to convince his double play partner, Doolin, to follow him to Baltimore. After years of being underpaid by the parsimonious Phillies owner, William F. Baker, Knabe and Doolin were ripe for Federal League picking. Once the Federal League folded after the 1915 season, Doolan and Knabe returned to the National League, Knabe with Pittsburgh and Chicago and Doolin with Chicago, New York and Brooklyn. But the magic was gone, and both saw their playing time was very limited. 

Knabe managed the Kansas City franchise in the American Association for a few years after retirement from baseball. Later he ran a billiard hall and then a tavern in Philadelphia. He died in 1961. Mickey Doolin became a coach for the Cubs and Reds for several years. In the 1930s, Doolin, who had earned a dental degree from Villanova, became a practicing dentist. In 1947 he retired to Orlando, Florida where he died in 1951.

Mickey Doolin is still fourth on the Phillies all-time list for games played at shortstop, behind only Rollins, Bowa, and Granny Hamner. He is third all-time behind Rollins and Bowa in double plays. Otto Knabe is fifth all-time in games played at second base for the Phillies, behind Utley, Tony Taylor, Bill Hallman, and Mickey Morandini. He is fourth in double plays. 

Sources

*Stan Baumgartner, "Miller Another Doolan with Phils," The Sporting News, February 18, 1948. 3 and "Phillies Tab Keystone Kids as Future Crack Combine." The Sporting News, September 7, 1949.

I also relied on these biographies:

 Mickey Doolin – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org)

Otto Knabe – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org)

Skipper Lucchesi: The Manager's Manager

A while back a reader challenged me to name the top 5 Phillies managers in their history. I named Charlie Manuel and Gene Mauch and Eddie Sawyer among others, but my favorite Phillies manager was not on my list. That would be Frank Lucchesi. Lucchesi only managed the Phillies for 2+ seasons and he does not belong on the short list of "best" Phillies managers, but for me he would qualify as the manager who was easiest to love.

Lucchesi was hired to manage the Phillies a few days before the 1969 baseball season ended. It was a period of turmoil for the team. Long-time manager Gene Mauch was fired in the middle of the 1968 season and replaced by Bob Skinner, former Pirate star. Skinner clashed with Dick Allen and failed to produce any on-field improvement and resigned by mid-69. Veteran third base coach George Myatt was a caretaker manager for the rest of 1969. Myatt's lasting legacy as a manager being the line, "I believe God hisself would have trouble handling Richie Allen." On September 26, the Phillies announced they had hired Frank Lucchesi to take the helm for the 1970 season.

Lucchesi had certainly paid his dues. An undersized (5'7") outfielder in the minor leagues for 13 seasons, Lucchesi realized early that his only path to the big leagues would be as a manager. He accepted his first player/manager position at the age of 25 in 1951 with the Medford (Oregon) Rogues of the Class D Far West League. Eventually he was hired by the Phillies as a minor league manager and worked his way through the organization winning six league championships along the way. He had just managed the Phillies top farm team, the Eugene Emeralds, to the Pacific Coast League title when he got the call form the big club.

Lucchesi, who grew up in San Francisco and went to the same high school as Joe Dimaggio, was a popular choice. Friendly, affable, a really fine communicator, but also fiery and tempestuous on the field, Lucchesi seemed to be the manager from central casting in Hollywood. In fact, if you watch actor Vincent Gardenia's performance as the hapless manager in the great baseball movie, Bang the Drum Slowly, you will swear he patterned the performance after Lucchesi. Two weeks after Lucchesi was hired, Dick Allen was traded to St. Louis in the infamous Curt Flood trade. Lucchesi had managed Allen in the minors and rumors were they didn't get along well.

Lucchesi hit all the right notes with the fans, especially the large Italian-American contingent in South Philly.  Philadelphia Daily News columnist, Bill Conlin, reported that Lucchesi was hired to "win back the hearts and minds of fans who had abandoned the Phillies in droves." He was the right man for that job. 

Sportswriters, who had endured years of the often-surly Mauch, were regaled with stories by genial Frank. And if he sometimes mashed his syntax, that was all part of his charm. He was also open and honest with his players. It was a young team. Sixteen of the players on the 1970 Phillies roster had played for Lucchesi in the minor leagues.

Talking about the team's prospects Frank said, “I am going into this job very optimistically. I’m not making any predictions but let me say this: I think there’s only one man who was more optimistic than Frank Lucchesi. That was General Custer at Little Big Horn who told his men, ‘Don’t take any prisoners.'” Lucchesi gave everyone a lesson in how to pronounce his name (it's Loo-CASE-ee) and also asked everyone to call him "Skipper" Lucchesi, which sounded quaint even in 1969.

On opening day in 1970, Lucchesi got the biggest ovation of all the Phillies introduced by the PA announcer. It had been a long journey for Frank and he doffed his cap and tears came to his eyes. That was another thing about Frank, he wore his heart on his sleeve, or as he put it, he "had Phillies red in his veins." The fans ate it up. His daily radio show was a must listen. Lucchesi was always available for public appearances and hospital visits. He did the job the right way.

One of Lucchesi's biggest fans was Larry Bowa. “Frank takes an interest in everybody. He’ll do little things, thoughtful things, that I don’t think other managers do for their ballplayers. You really couldn’t ask for a better manager,” Bowa always credited Lucchesi with sticking with him when he struggled offensively during his rookie year.

A Lucchesi rhubarb was a sight to behold. He would kick dirt on home plate. He would throw his hat in the air and kick it on the way down. He would go chest to chest with the umpire. Or actually nose to chest because even most of the umpires towered over little Frank. Once, memorably, he got down on his hands and knees in the batters box and started building sand castles on home plate. Another time he picked second base up out of the ground and threw it twenty feet. The funny thing was, with all his antics and angry confrontations, even the umpires seemed to like Lucchesi. 

In his single greatest act of fury during a Major League ball game, Lucchesi staged a sit-down strike. On June 27, 1970, the Phillies were in St. Louis playing the Cardinals. The score was tied at 8-8 in the bottom of the eighth inning, when Jim Beauchamp lined a Joe Hoerner pitch to deep center field. The ball reached the wall, 386 feet away, when, as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported, "two fans reached out and one of them touched the ball." Umpire Tony Venzon ruled the ball a home run. The Phillies thought it should have been ruled a ground rule double due to fan interference. 

Lucchesi ran out to join a group of his players surrounding Venzon and arguing the ball had been touched by a fan. Lucchesi asked Venzon to ask the other umpires for help. Venzon refused. The outraged Lucchesi "kicked clouds of dust and gestured wildly," according to the Daily News. Lucchesi was ejected, but instead of leaving the field he plopped himself down on second base and refused to move. "When I sat down on the base, I told [Venzon] I wouldn't move until he asked his buddies. He knew he was wrong and that he hadn't hustled to see the play."

Finally, with the park police about to come and drag Lucchesi off the field, Myatt came out and convinced Lucchesi to vacate the premises. Apparently, Myatt (who Lucchesi kept on after he was hired as manager) had a special code. Whenever the Skipper went too far, Myatt was to come out and say "Luke", which was Lucchesi's signal to get off the field.

All the goodwill and entertainment value were not enough, of course. The Phillies were in rebuilding mode and the young team was not competitive. By July of 1972, with the Phillies off to another poor start, the rumors about Lucchesi's firing swirled around the team. Naturally, the Phillies botched the firing as well. One day general manager Paul Owens assured his long-time friend and colleague his job was safe and the next day Owens fired him and replaced him with none other than Paul Owens. 

The fans, and even the sportswriters, were outraged at the Skipper's treatment. They blamed ownership for not giving Lucchesi a team that could win. For his part, Lucchesi was "heartbroken." He had given his life to the organization and the organization ditched him while his back was turned. In this devastating hour, however, Frank Lucchesi showed what kind of man he was. According to David E. Skelton's SABR biography, Lucchesi reached out to a six-year-old boy who had just had open heart surgery. He wanted to assure the boy that, even though he wasn't the manager of the team anymore, the boy and his family were still invited to attend a game as his guest.

Lucchesi went on to manage the Texas Rangers for two years. He stayed in baseball as a coach or scout after that. In 1987, former Phillie Dallas Green hired Frank as a caretaker manager of the Chicago Cubs for the final month of the season. Lucchesi retired from baseball for good in 1989, after 45 years in the game.

Frank Lucchesi died June 8, 2019 at age 93 in Colleyville, Texas.

The following resources were very helpful in compiling this story. For more information on Frank Lucchesi, I suggest you check out these out.

Why Frank Lucchesi caused commotion on call for Cards | RetroSimba

Obituary: Frank Lucchesi (1927-2019) – RIP Baseball

Frank Lucchesi – Society for American Baseball Research (sabr.org)

Utility Man Barney Friberg: The 1929 Phillies Most Valuable Player?

After losing an astounding 109 games in 1928, the 1929 Phillies amazed everyone by going 72-82-1 and finishing in fifth place "just" 27 1/2 games behind the pennant winning Chicago Cubs. The 27-game improvement by the Phillies was powered by the considerable offensive talents of Chuck Klein, Lefty O'Doul, Don Hurst, and Pinky Whitney. The Phillies finished first in the league in batting average (.309), home runs (153), on base percentage (.377), slugging percentage (.467) and total bases (2559).  An historically weak pitching staff, last in the league with an ERA of 6.13, kept the Phillies from rising higher in the standings. Despite all the fire power the Phillies possessed, manager Burt Shotton declared that the "most valuable man on our team" was a 29-year-old utility player named Barney Friberg.

Barney (short for his given name Gustav Bernhard*) was the Cookie Rojas of the 1920's Philadelphia Phillies. During his time with the Phils (1925-1932), Friberg played every position on the field, including one four inning stint as a pitcher in 1925. Friberg was primarily a third baseman when the Phillies picked him up on waivers from the Chicago Cubs on June 15, 1925. Soon, though, he was a jack-of-all-trades for the Phillies, filling in all over the diamond. His one appearance on the mound occurred on August 25 that year, when the Phillies had fallen behind the St. Louis Cardinals 12-5 in the first game of a double header. Barney pitched four innings, giving up just 2 runs on 4 hits and saving the Phillies bullpen in the process. Along the way, he struck out future teammate Tommy Thevenow.

In the spring of 1929, Shotton decided that he was going to convert Friberg into a full-time pitcher. Whether that one stint on the bump four years earlier had impressed Shotton or not is not recorded, but Shotton apparently decided he had plenty of offensive punch and he needed to strengthen the mound core. Added to this, Friberg had hit poorly in 1927 and 1928, .233 and .202 respectively, so Shotton had little to lose with his experiment. Friberg took regular turns on the bump all spring with mixed results, until shortstop Tommy Thevenow, acquired in a trade with the Cardinals over the winter, was involved in a serious automobile accident. The crash left Thevenow with two broken jaws and shattered cheekbones. With Thevenow in the hospital and out indefinitely, Friberg became the starting shortstop, and his pitching career was shelved.

Friberg responded to his new assignment in spectacular fashion. He had been hitting well all spring and the hot hitting continued into the season. On April 23, his eleventh inning two-run triple to left-center field in the spacious Polo Grounds, scored two and led the Phillies to a 3-1 victory over John McGraw's New York Giants. On Monday, May 13 Friberg was 4-for-5 with 4 RBIs, including a home run and a walk-off two-run double in the bottom of the ninth that gave the Phillies a 10-9 win over the Cardinals at Baker Bowl. He homered again the next day, while going 3-for-3, in a 4-1 loss to the Cards. During one hot stretch, Friberg had 24 hits in 11 games. By mid-May, Barney was hitting over .400.

Friberg couldn't quite keep up that torrid pace, but he continued to contribute. Shotton moved him from the eighth slot in the batting order, to seventh, and finally to second. Thevenow recovered from his injuries and returned to the lineup in July. Friberg spent 10 games on the bench, but when right fielder Denny Sothern was stricken with what appeared to be appendicitis, Barney became the starting right fielder. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that "Barney Friberg is doing a good job in right field - a good job for an infielder." On August 5, he went 4-for 4 and scored the winning run as the Phils beat the Reds in Cincinnati, 7-6.

Friberg moved all around the outfield for the remainder of the season. As the starting centerfielder on August 27, he started the Phillies winning ninth inning rally with a double, scoring the tying run as the Phillies overcame the Cardinals, 7-6. In September, when second baseman Fresco Thompson went out with an injury, Friberg filled in capably there. 

After a bit of a September nosedive, Friberg ended the year with a .301 batting average. He was particularly effective at home in the Baker Bowl, where he hit for a .364 average and clubbed all seven of his home runs. He played in 128 total games, 74 at shortstop, 39 in the outfield, 8 at second base, and 2 at first base. All season long, wherever a hole needed to be plugged, Friberg filled it well. Shotton was not alone in his praise of Friberg. That year he finished 18th in the Most Valuable Player voting. **

Friberg had another fine season in more limited action in 1930, hitting .341, by far the best of his career. The Phillies, however, lost 102 games and fell back into the National League basement. Barney stayed with the Phillies in a diminishing role through 1932. Released after the 1932 season, he hooked on with the Boston Red Sox for part of the 1933 season, his last in the Major Leagues. 

In 1958, at the age of 59, Barney Friberg was found dead in his car, the victim of an apparent heart attack.

* Both the Baseball Reference page on Friberg and his SABR Biography by Bill Nowlin list his name as "Bernie." But all mentions of Friberg in the Philadelphia newspapers refer to him as "Barney" and his family confirms that it is as Barney that he was popularly known.

**O'Doul finished second to the Cubs Rogers Hornsby. 

Where Have You Gone Johnny Callison?

The sweet swing of Johnny Callison

When the film The Graduate with its iconic song "Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio" debuted in December 1967, the question Phillies fans were asking wasn't about Joltin' Joe, but about their own Handsome Johnny. Johhny Callison, the 28-year-old right fielder, the most popular player on the team, the man who should have been the National League's Most Valuable Player in 1964, the gazelle with the shotgun arm, the hero of the 1964 All-Star game, was in decline.  It seemed everyone in Philadelphia had a theory for what was wrong, and it seemed that nobody really knew, least of all Callison himself and the manager who had nurtured his development, Gene Mauch.

Callison, who came to the Phillies in a trade with the Chicago White Sox in 1960, put up DiMaggio like numbers from 1962-65. In those four years, he slashed .280/.336/.498 with an average of 28 homeruns and 92 RBIs a year. He led the league in outfield assists all four of those years, outpointing even the great Roberto Clemente. Sportswriter Stan Hochman called him the "Little guy with steel-cable forearms and quick wrists." (Callison was listed as 5'10", but in reality, was closer to 5'9" and weighed 170 pounds or so.)

Callison played in four All-Star games during those years and won the 1964 contest with his dramatic walk-off three-run home run off the Boston Red Sox' Dick Radatz. Each year from 1962-65, he received MVP votes and finished second to Ken Boyer of the Cardinals after the Phillies folded and lost the pennant in 1964. During the 10-game losing streak that cost the Phillies the 1964 pennant, Callison was one of the few who kept hitting, going 11-for-40 during those games and smashing three homeruns in a game against the Milwaukee Braves on September 27. 

Even as the Phillies fell into a post-traumatic malaise in 1965 and finished a lackluster sixth in the league, Callison had another banner year, hitting a career high 32 home runs and leading the league with 16 triples. And then suddenly it all stopped. In 1966, while he maintained a decent average at .276, his power numbers were way down. Callison hit just 11 homers and drove in only 55 runs and his OPS dropped nearly 100 points. Perhaps even worse, Callison had a falling out with his mentor Mauch, when Gene fined Johnny for "lack of hustle." Callison responded that he could not play for Mauch anymore. 

The 1967 season was more of the same: 14 home runs and 64 RBIs to go with a .261 average. Even his outfield play had declined, as putout and assist numbers fell.  Callison remained the regular right fielder for the next two seasons with similar results until he was finally traded to the Chicago Cubs in November 1969 for Oscar Gamble and Dick Selma.

The question remains: What happened to Johnny Callison? Why the significant decline in performance for a player who, at just 28, should have been coming into his prime?

The answers to those questions are both simple and complex. The simplest explanation was Callison's own. Injuries to his legs over the years had taken a toll and he could not generate the powerful swing he once had. Callison had first injured his knee in 1959 diving for a ball while he was playing winter ball in Venezuela. During the 1960 season, he tore the ligaments in that same knee sliding into home plate after being waved around by Mauch, who was coaching third base.

Teammates of Callison had other ideas about the cause of Callison's struggles. Dallas Green, the future Phillies manager, who was trying to hold on as a middle reliever with the Phillies at the time said, "He had Hall of Fame tools, but he was a real doubting Thomas. He'd be hitting .300 and then go 0-for-4 and go into a funk." Callison, himself, told Sports Illustrated he was "the biggest worrier in the world."

As his slump deepened, Callison tried many things to pull himself out of it. An eye exam and new pair of glasses seemed to help for a while, but the hitting woes returned. He experimented with a conditioning program recommended to him by Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox. The decline in his play continued.

It wasn't so much that Callison was now a poor player. As ESPN writer, Steve Wulf, put it, Callison went from "great to good." Statistically he went from a guy with an 8.0 WAR in the 1963 season to a guy with a 2.0 WAR in the 1968 season. Wulf, by the way, has written the finest piece on Callison I have ever read. It is entitled, A Hard Knock Life, and I highly recommend you read it. Wulf concludes that Callison never lost the fear that he was one step away from returning to the poverty he had experienced as an "Okie" growing up in Bakersfield, California. Callison was simply "acting out the self-fulfilling prophecy that good fortune would end any day now."

Of course, the Philly sportswriters had their own opinion. Stan Hochman called Callison a "quixotic personality" who had "Hall of Fame skills from the eyebrows down." The Evening Bulletin's Sandy Grady said, "When Callison came from the White Sox in 1960, he was a shy, confused, introverted 21-year-old who complained, 'Nobody here knows my name.' Now he's a shy, confused, introverted 27-year-old, and everybody knows his name."

What are we fans left to conclude? Was Callison's decline due to his head, his quirky personality, his youth spent in poverty, his balky knees, his constant worrying? The answer is probably, like most things in life, that the causes were many. The bad wheels certainly didn't help. By his final year, at age 34 with the New York Yankees, Callison said, "I just didn't have the legs to play anymore." Even more important though may have been that a few poor games impacted Callison more than it might some other players who had had his type of success. Most great players find ways to recover from a bad year or even two. Mike Schmidt did it. Carl Yastrzemski did it twice. Callison could not seem to recover. His confidence, or whatever we might want to call it, was too fragile.

I'll give Gene Mauch the last word. Mauch and Callison had a complex relationship. Mauch believed in Callison's ability and nurtured it, but he also took it personally when Johnny did not perform up to his expectations. When Mauch criticized Callison, Johnny got petulant. Johnny's father was not a positive influence on his life. Mauch became both baseball mentor and surrogate father. Mauch concluded, "The only one who can get Johnny Callison out consistently is Johnny Callison." 

Maybe that is our final answer.

Here is Callison's most famous moment. All-Star Game 1964