Rocky (60 Years Ago, 1956)

Our last mention of Rocky Colavito was briefly in my previous post on Mickey Mantle. If Mantle was living up to his advance billing for the 1956 season, Colavito was not. Just six days after his two-run homer began a monster comeback in Cleveland's 15-8 victory at Yankee Stadium, Rocky Colavito was sent packing to San Diego in the Pacific Coast League.

Rocky (60 Years Ago, 1956)

 "Looks like a 22-year-old Joe DiMaggio and has some of the traits—speed, a fine arm, real love for the game, and ability to hit the long ball." That's what Sports Illustrated had to say about Rocky Colavito when looking ahead to the 1956 season. Colavito had hit 68 home runs and driven in 230 runs in his 1954 and 1955 seasons with Cleveland's Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis, earning a call-up to the major leagues in September 1955. 

Used sparingly in only five games (entering games twice as a pinch hitter, twice as a pinch runner, and once as a defensive replacement), Colavito had a day to remember and whet Cleveland's appetite as to what he might do in the years ahead in the Indians' next-to-last game of the '55 season, just after they had been eliminated from the pennant race. After Al Smith led off the game with a single, manager Al Lopez put Colavito in as a pinch runner and kept him in for the rest of the game. Colavito doubled in the third, doubled in the fifth, singled in the seventh, and singled again in the ninth. A 4-for-4 day.

Colavito began the 1956 season as Cleveland's fourth outfielder, starting in just 4 of the Indians' first 17 games in right field. The right-handed slugger hit his first major league home run in only his second major league start on April 25 off Kansas City left-hander Bobby Shantz and got a double in his fourth big-league start two days later . . . but those were his only 2 hits in 18 at bats. 

In mid-May, Colavito started 10 consecutive games in right field, but aside from a three-run home run off Kansas City's Arnie Portocarrero to break open a game the Indians were leading by 5-4, Cleveland's young slugger was still struggling at the plate. The homer, the second of his career, was one of only 4 hits in 32 at bats during his starts. His batting average at .120, Colavito started in a platoon role for the rest of the month. His next six starts were all against southpaws; Colavito regained his swagger with 8 hits in 18 at bats during his starts, including 2 more home runs. 

His average now up to .205 for his rookie season, Colavito earned his way back into the starting line-up. In his next six starts, four against right-handers, Colavito got 5 hits in 18 at bats, including that home run off Don Larsen. On June 14 in Boston, three games after he was last in the starting line-up, Colavito was sent up to pinch hit in the ninth inning of a game the Indians were losing 10-9 against left-handed reliever Leo Kiely. A home run could tie the game. Colavito grounded out to short.

It was premature to cue the Rocky theme. 

For the Cleveland Indians, who were 28-24 and about to open a three-game series at home against the Yankees, the front-runner they trailed in second place by 5 games, it was 52 games down and 102 to go. For Rocky Colavito, it was 37 games down (26 in the starting line-up), and back to the minor leagues in San Diego.

Clearly, Joe DiMaggio, Rocky Colavito was not, although it should be noted that SI did not say he was the second coming of the Yankee Clipper, only that he had some of the same traits. DiMaggio's rookie season 20 years earlier, in 1936, was exceptional. He went 3-for-6 in his first game and ended the season with 206 hits, 29 home runs, 125 RBIs, and a .323 average. By going 9-for-19 in his first four games, DiMaggio not only established he was really something, but … from his very first game, Joe DiMaggio never ended a day in the major leagues in which his lifetime batting average was less than .300.

Colavito was batting .215 when he was sent down, with 5 home runs and 17 runs batted in. His next 35 games were for the minor league Padres, and Colavito made a compelling case he belonged in the stadium off Lake Eire, not one off the Pacific Ocean. Batting a robust .368, Rocky knocked out 12 homers and drove in 32 runs for the Padres.

He convinced Cleveland management, and on July 24, Rocky Colavito was back in the major leagues to stay. He was in the starting line-up, batting fifth, and went 3-for-4 in his first game back, against the Senators, driving in three runs. And in the line-up he stayed for the rest of the season. Colavito started all but five of the Indians’ remaining 67 games, batting .301 with 16 home runs and 48 RBIs.

With a statistical line of 21 homers, 65 RBIs, and a .276 batting average, Rocky Colavito finished second to the White Sox’ Luis Aparicio for American League Rookie of the Year honors.

LOOKING AHEAD 60 YEARS AGO: ASSESSING AL CONTENDERS

The Yankees won their sixth pennant in Casey Stengel's first seven years as their manager in 1955, beating out the Indians by three games and the White Sox by five. As close as that race was, and notwithstanding that the Yankees lost—yes, lost—the World Series to the Dodgers, Sports Illustrated's preseason scouting report on the Yankees' prospects in 1956 began with the simple question: "How are you going to beat them?"

LOOKING AHEAD 60 YEARS AGO: WHO SHOULD CONTEND IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE?

If Sports Illustrated underestimated the Yankees in their preview of the 1955 season—they picked them second, in part because the Indians had beaten them out the previous year by a blowout 8-game margin—they were not about to do so again.

The Yankees, of course, had Mickey Mantle. If there were any questions about his talent and ability—and there really weren't—1955 put them to rest. It was by far the best of his five major league seasons. He led the league in home runs for the first time with 37, and also in triples with 11. He drove in 99 runs and batted .306. His .431 on-base percentage and .611 slugging percentage were the best in the league. Advanced metrics weren't then in vogue, but Mantle's 9.5 wins above replacement made him the best player in both major leagues—just ahead of Willie Mays's 9.0 WAR. And Mantle had been consistent all year, having only one "bad" month, in June when he batted just .248 in 30 games, but still hit 7 home runs with 17 runs batted in. Every other month, Mantle was over .300. His best months were May, when his "Triple Crown" home run /RBI /batting average splits were 8/26/.340, and August, when they were 12/22/.333.  

"Mickey Mantle is so good," according to Sports Illustrated's scouting report on the Yankees in its preview of the 1956 season, "they say he has a disappointing season if he doesn't hit .400." They got that right. It turned out he didn't hit .400, so big disappointment, but Mantle did hit .353 with 52 home runs and 130 runs batted in to win the Triple Crown.

But the Yankees were more than just Mantle. They had Yogi Berra, who had just won his third MVP Award in 1955, after having also won the award in 1954. (Mantle, incidentally, came in fifth—can you believe it? fifth—in the MVP voting in 1955, and failed to get a single first place vote.) And if the other Yankee position regulars were not "star" players, they were all solid. SI made a point of observing that while other teams' managers had to worry about finding a single player to fill a certain position, "canny old Casey Stengel worries only about which one or two—or three or four—of almost equal ability is going to play that day."

Of the other Yankee position players besides Mantle and Berra, who would you suppose was the only one to get a specific shoutout by SI in its list of "Mainstays"? Versatile infielder Gil McDougald, "who does everything well" and was slated to play shortstop in 1956? Nope. How about Hank Bauer, "a fixture in right field"? Not him either. Maybe Bill Skowron and Joe Collins, who were expected to platoon at first base? Not them. They just got mentions. 'Twas second baseman Billy Martin got the shoutout as "the peppery spark of the Yankee infield . . . who seems to improve each year." And SI singled him out even though he missed the entire 1954 season and nearly all of 1955 serving in the US Army. Martin played in just 20 games for the 1955 Yankees, hitting exactly .300. The only year he had been a regular on Casey's club was 1953, when he hit .257 in 149 games. And then he got drafted.

SI senior baseball writer Robert Creamer concluded that the Yankees would be in trouble "only if the pitching falters," which raised the rhetorical question in SI's scouting report: "The pitching staff is weak?" Not with Whitey Ford, who led the league with 18 wins in 1955, lost just 7, and had a 2.63 earned run average. Bob Turley won 17, Tommy Byrne won 16, and they were back. The Yankees' pitching was the best in baseball in 1955, with a major-league low ERA of 3.23.

As for the Yankees' competition, SI figured the Cleveland Indians to finish second again. Other than 1954, when the Indians interrupted the Yankees' string of five straight pennants only by virtue of 111 victories, second place seemed to be Cleveland's lot in American League life during the Yankees' Casey Stengel era. They were second to the Yankees in 1951, and 1952, and 1953, and again in 1955. One big thing changed over the winter. That was that the Indians traded their star center fielder Larry Doby (whose "only weakness in Cleveland was his temperament") to the White Sox for shortstop Chico Carrasquel and outfielder Jim Busby. The Indians may have lost a little something on offense, but they shored up their infield.

Either way, however, the Indians with Early Wynn, Bob Lemon, Herb Score, and Mike Garcia still had "the best pitching staff in baseball," SI wrote. Creamer, however, made the astute observation that that had been true for years, and only once had they overtaken the Yankees. Their excellent pitching just would not be enough. He had that right: Wynn, Lemon, and Score would each win 20, and it turned out in the end not to be nearly enough.

Finally, the Chicago White Sox, who went into September 1955 with the slimmest of leads only to fade out and finish third—their fourth consecutive year with third as their final resting place. Third was where they were projected to end up once again in 1956, even though SI's scouting report was very high on them. Chicago's line-up, according to SI, was "one of the most impressive in baseball. They can hit (well), run (very well), and field (beautifully)." Their offense was bolstered by the addition of Doby, and they were counting on highly-regarded Venezuelan rookie prospect Luis Aparicio to be successful at shortstop. He was why Carrasquel was expendable, especially to get Doby in return.

Creamer thought the White Sox had "the best chance of anyone" to beat out the Yankees, but made that contingent on outfielder Minnie Minoso returning to form. After batting .309 in his first four years with the White Sox, Minoso had slumped to .288 in 1955 and was not hitting well in spring training.

SI's bottom line looking ahead to the American League pennant race in 1956: the Yankees? "How are you going to beat them?"