The Sultan of Sawatski

Carl Sawatski

In March of 1956, aging Connie Mack Stadium got a facelift in the form of a huge new electronic scoreboard. The new edifice was positioned in right-center field, 405 feet from home plate. It cost $175,000, was 64 feet high (79 feet if you included the Longines clock on top) and 75 feet wide and was clearly visible wherever you sat in the stadium.  The new scoreboard was nearly a carbon copy of the scoreboard at Yankee Stadium in New York City; in fact, it was built by the same company, All American Scoreboards in Pardeeville, Wisconsin.* The Phillies reported their scoreboard was the "biggest in baseball." It certainly would prove to be a daunting barrier for major league sluggers. The behemoth was dubbed "The Ballantine Beer Scoreboard" because of the large beer advertisement at the top.

In its first two years of existence, while many smacked drives off the scoreboard, no one managed to hit one over it. Finally, on May 25, 1959, in a game against the Milwaukee Braves, a stocky backup catcher for the Phillies named Carl Sawatski got hold of a Bob Buhl fastball and launched it on a high arc up and over the formidable barrier. I saw Dick Allen hit a ball over the roof in left center at Connie Mack Stadium; I saw Greg Luzinski hit a ball off the Liberty Bell in Veterans Stadium; I saw Ryan Howard hit a ball onto Ashburn Alley at Citizens Bank Park, but I have never seen as majestic a home run as that one hit by Sawatski. The flight of that ball is burned in my memory.

Carl Sawatski was born in the town of Shickshinny, in the coal regions of Pennsylvania, about 130 miles north of Philadelphia. The family moved to North Jersey, where Carl played baseball for Pompton Lakes High School and American Legion teams. A fine hitter, Sawatski signed with the Phillies and began to work his way through the minor leagues as an outfielder. Always stocky of build and always battling his weight, Carl decided the best way to get to the major leagues was as a catcher. Despite displaying prodigious power (he led four different minor leagues in home runs), he was dropped by the Phillies and Boston Braves, He finally found his way to the major leagues with the Chicago Cubs, making his debut in 1948. 

Sawatski's career was interrupted by military service in 1951 and 52, after which he served as a backup catcher for the Cubs, Chicago White Sox, and Milwaukee Braves for five seasons. In June 1958, he was dealt to the Phillies for another backup catcher, Joe Lonnett. The Phillies wanted a left-handed bat to complement regular catcher Stan Lopata.

Despite reporting to the Phillies out of shape and overweight, Sawatski's bat made an immediate impact with his new team. Platooning with Lopata, Sawatski went four-for-four including a home run to support Curt Simmons in a 5-1 win over Milwaukee on July 4. Two days later he went three-for-five as Ray Semproch beat the Cincinnati Reds, 7-1. A week later he had four more hits, including one of the five triples he hit in his career, in a Phillies loss to the San Francisco Giants.

In 1959 Lopata was traded away and Sawatski found himself platooning with light hitting Valmy Thomas. Sawatski had a fine offensive season, hitting .293 with nine home runs and 43 RBIs in 74 games, including, of course, that blast off Buhl over the Ballantine Beer scoreboard. He also had a pinch-hit home run in the ninth inning to win a game on July 24. Defense was an issue though. In a September 7th game in Cincinnati, he lost track of a pitch that bounced off his foot as two runners raced around to score. Despite being a part time player, Sawatski managed to be among the league leaders in errors, passed balls, and stolen bases against.

The 1959 Phillies were a bad team and despite his success in Philadelphia, Sawatski demanded to be traded, threatening to retire if he wasn't. General Manager John Quinn obliged the big catcher by trading him to the St. Louis Cardinals where Sawatski enjoyed four more productive seasons as a backup catcher and pinch hitter. 

Carl Sawatski was a career long backup catcher with a good bat, below average defensive ability, who was an always pleasing presence in the dugout and locker room. His career spanned baseball eras. When he first came up to the big leagues in 1948, he backed up the Cubs' veteran Mickey Owen, who caught his first game in 1938. He finished his career in 1963 as the backup to the Cardinals' Tim McCarver, who caught his last game in 1980. After his playing days, Sawatski became a successful minor league general manager and in 1976 was named president of the Texas League, a position he held until his death, from leukemia, in 1991.

* Many readers have no doubt heard the story that the scoreboard was actually purchased second hand from the Yankees and moved to Philadelphia. This story, while ubiquitous, is apocryphal. The Yankees did not get a new scoreboard until 1959 and the Yankee Stadium scoreboard differed in significant ways to the one built in Connie Mack Stadium.

Read more on Carl Sawatski and his career in his SABR biography by Gregory H. Wolf here.