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