The Mad Monk Delivers a Little Good Luck

Whiz Kid Russ Meyer came by his many nicknames honestly. Monikers like "The Mad Monk", "Russ the Red", and "Rowdy Russ" would indicate a player with a temper. Meyer certainly had one. He is probably better remembered today for his antics on and off the field, than he is for being a pretty good pitcher. Meyer's best season as a Phillie was 1949, when he went 17-8 with a 3.08 ERA. 

Meyer was counted on to be a big winner in 1950, too, but a spring training elbow injury, plus a midseason encounter with a water bucket that resulted in a broken toe, limited his effectiveness. Meyer had shown he was a danger to himself before. In 1947, while pitching for the Chicago Cubs, he injured an ankle kicking the pitching rubber in anger. Meyer's greatest contribution to the pennant winning Phillies in 1950, was one game during the pennant run , when he beat the Brooklyn Dodgers, 4-3 at Shibe Park.

Coming into that September 8 game, the Phillies were in freefall, having lost five games in a row, three of them to the Dodgers. Their seven-game lead had shrunk to five and one-half games. Star left-hander, Curt Simmons, had been called up to military duty. Rookie sensation Bob Miller was on the shelf with a sore arm and aching back. Roberts had just dropped a 3-2 decision the night before. The Phillies needed someone to step up. Meyer answered the call. 

In the first inning, after Meyer got Jackie Robinson to popout with Pee Wee Reese on second, the Phillies staked him to a 2-0 lead, when Granny Hamner slashed a two-out single off Brooklyn starter Erv Palicka, driving home Richie Ashburn and Willie Jones. A Jones error in the second helped the Dodgers get one run back, when catcher Bruce Edwards singled home Carl Furillo. The Phillies got that run right back in the bottom of the inning, when Mike Goliat singled, Meyer sacrificed, and Eddie Waitkus singled home Goliat. The same three players increased the Phillies lead to 4-1 in the 6th. Goliat singled and again was moved up by a Meyer sacrifice. Waitkus drove home Goliat with a double this time.

As it turned out, every one of those runs was needed, because the Dodger's Duke Snider blasted a two-run home run over the high rightfield wall in the top of the eighth. With the score 4-3, Meyer took the mound in the ninth to try to preserve a much-needed Phillies win. He retired Furillo, Gil Hodges, and Edwards on three easy ground balls to notch the complete game victory. The win righted the ship for a while. "The slump's all over," a jubilant manager Eddie Sawyer declared.

What nobody knew until after the game was that the "Mad Monk" had luck on his side for this game. As Meyer related the story, "As I walked into the clubhouse, the guard stopped me. 'Here, he said. Maybe this will bring you some luck.'" Meyer showed the reporters a well-worn piece of copper with the barely discernable inscription, "Good Luck Penny," He kept the coin in his hip pocket throughout the game. Monk grinned, "I guess it did some good at that." 

The Phillies, of course, held on to win the pennant on the final day of the season behind the heroic pitching of Robin Roberts. Meyer appeared in two games in relief in the World Series and was the loser in Game 3, when he gave up a walk off single to the Yankees' Jerry Coleman.

After a couple more mediocre seasons with the Phillies, Meyer was dealt to the Brooklyn Dodgers in a deal that brought the Phillies first baseman, Earl Torgeson. Meyer seemed to find himself with the Dodgers and had an excellent season, going 15-5, helping the Bums win the 1953 pennant. 

Meyer's season was not without incident, however, as two encounters with the Phillies in 1953 illustrate. In the fourth inning of a game at Connie Mack Stadium on May 24, Meyer gave up a single to Richie Ashburn and then walked Johnny Wyrostek and Mel Clark. Meyer was incensed by several of the ball calls and let feisty homeplate umpire Augie Donatelli know about it. Finally, in frustration, Meyer threw the rosin bag thirty feet in the air. When it returned to earth it landed squarely on top of Meyer's head in an explosion of white powder. That was enough for Donatelli who tossed Meyer from the game. 

Meyer was not done, though. He stalked to the dugout, turned, yelled at Donatelli again, and grabbed his crotch. As it happened this gesture was captured by television cameras and touched off a storm of protest from viewers. The incident caused Major League Baseball to adopt the "Meyer Rule" banning TV cameras from the dugout. The rule lasted about 10 years.

In his autobiography Throwing Hard Easy (written with C. Paul Rogers) Phillies great Robin Roberts tells another Mad Monk story. The Phillies were playing the Dodgers. Ashburn was at the plate with the bases loaded. The Dodgers had a big lead. Richie, as he was very capable of doing, fouled off seven or eight consecutive pitches. That was enough for Meyer, who plunked Ashburn in the middle of the back with the next pitch and yelled into Whitey, "Foul that one off you sonuvabithch."