The 1956 Cincinnati Redlegs--For Real, or Not? (60 Years Ago)

Sixty years ago, the 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers were back in the World Series with a chance to defend their championship from the year before. They got there without a game to spare, winning their final game on the last day of the regular season, putting an end to a taut three-team race. The 2nd-place Milwaukee Braves finished just one back, and the 3rd-place Cincinnati Redlegs, two back. The Braves had been expected to contend, and had they won the pennant, it would have been neither an upset, nor a surprise. 

The Reds, for their part, tied the major league single-season record for home runs. Frank Robinson tied the major league record for most homers by a rookie. Brooks Lawrence had the most wins by a Cincinnati pitcher since Ewell Blackwell won 22 back in 1947. The Reds, however, were not expected to contend—yet they did . . . until the very end. Were they a true contender, or more of a pretender?

(60 Years Ago):
The 1956 Cincinnati Redlegs--For Real, or Not?

The Braves spent 110 days in first place in 1956, and the Dodgers only 23. At the end, it might well have been the depth of experience by the aging Dodgers that enabled them to prevail. 

The team that spent the second-most days in first place—29—were the Redlegs. Winning 13 of 18 going into the All-Star break, beginning with three victories in four games at Ebbets Field from June 22 to 24, gave Cincinnati a 1½ -game lead when the season paused for the mid-summer contest between the two leagues. (Back then, the All-Star Game was played, very competitively, for league bragging rights, not for home field advantage in the World Series.) Losing their first two games after the season resumed, Cincinnati dropped out of first place, never to hold the top spot again. But they also did not fade from contention.

Projecting Cincinnati to finish fifth in its preseason prognostications, Sports Illustrated observed that the Redlegs had an offensively very potent ball club with a "tremendous prospect" in rookie left fielder Frank Robinson. They were right on both counts.

Robinson had a terrific rookie year with 38 homers, 83 RBIs, and a .290 average. He played in 152 of the Reds' 155 games, starting in 150 of them. Ahead of Wally Berger's pace when he set the rookie record for home runs in 1930, Frank Robinson seemed certain to break it when he hit his 38th homer on September 11 against the Giants in New York. There were still 16 games left on the schedule and nearly three weeks to go. How could he not hit just one more?

It was not to be. Other than his first month in the big leagues, Frank Robinson had the worst stretch of his season the rest of the way. He had just 13 hits, batting .232, none of them home runs. Wally Berger, who turned 51 a month after Robinson tied his record, no longer held the record alone—but he hadn't been eclipsed either.

And when pinch-hitter Smoky Burgess hit his 12th homer of the year in the 8th inning of their next-to-last game of the season, the Reds tied the single-season team record of 221 home runs set by the New York Giants in 1947. They needed just one home run in their final game of the season to set a new record. That, too, was not to be. They beat the Cubs, 4-2, on the last day, but none of their runs crossed the plate on a home run. 

The 1956 homerific Reds, however, did set a new record by becoming the first team with five players to top 25 homers in a single season. Frank Robinson's 38 were tops on the club (only Mickey Mantle and Duke Snider hit more that year), followed by right fielder Wally Post's 36, slugging first baseman Ted Kluszewski's 35, center fielder Gus Bell's 29, and catcher Ed Bailey's 28.  

Cincinnati's offense was not a problem. The Redlegs led the league in scoring with 775 runs (the Dodgers were second with 720), but the 658 runs they surrendered were much more than either the Dodgers (601) or the Braves (a league-leading fewest 569) allowed. In its preseason issue, Sports Illustrated called the Reds' pitching "nightmarishly uncertain." And so it was. 

Lefty Joe Nuxhall, 17-12 for the fifth-place 1955 Reds, was the opening day starter, led the '56 Reds with 32 starts, but finished just 13-11. In 8 of his starts, Nuxhall gave up more runs than innings he pitched. Right-hander Johnny Klippstein, who had pitched mostly in relief his first six big league seasons, became a regular in the Reds' starting rotation at the end of the 1955 season and made 29 starts for the '56 Reds, winning 10 and losing 11. Art Fowler, 23-20 in his first two big-league seasons, was just 11-11 in 1956 and made only three of his 23 starts after July, while appearing 11 times in relief. Replacing Fowler as a starter was Hal Jeffcoat, a converted outfielder, 10 of whose 16 starts came in the final two months, during which he was 5-1 (8-2 on the season).

It was Brooks Lawrence, however, acquired in the off-season from St. Louis, who emerged as the Reds' ace in 1956. He finished with a 19-10 record—13-9 in 30 starts and 6-1 in the 19 games he was called out of the bullpen. Half of his starts (15) were quality starts, including two in August when he lost each of the 6 games he started. 

Backup Cincinnati first baseman George Crowe, a black player, later insinuated that Lawrence made only three starts in September, and none after September 15 with half the month and 13 games remaining, because manager Birdie Tebbetts did not want a black man to win 20 games.

That allegation seems far-fetched if, for no other reason, than winning a pennant would have been a crowning achievement for Tebbetts, who was in just his third year as a manager. And notwithstanding his struggles in August, it was Lawrence who Tebbetts called upon to relieve in critical games down the stretch for the Reds, which have been discussed in my previous posts since the beginning of September on Baseball Historical Insight. That does not sound like a manager who didn't want his best pitcher to win 20 games for any reason, let alone because he was black.

The answer to the question, "were they a true contender, or more of a pretender," is somewhere in between. The 1956 Reds did not have the pitching or the bench depth to realistically compete with the Dodgers and Braves for the pennant. If not for two black players who were newcomers to the team, the rookie Frank Robinson and the pitcher Brooks Lawrence, the 1956 Cincinnati Reds almost certainly would not have come as close as they did, just two games off pace, to winning what would have been only their fourth pennant since 1901 (and their first since 1940).

Indicative, perhaps, of their real capacity as a team, with most of their core players back the next year—although Kluszewski missed much of that season with a bad back—the Reds were not in the National League pennant picture in 1957, ending up fourth, 15 games out of the running. Frank Robinson, however, had an even better year than in 1956, and arguably so too did Brooks Lawrence, who once again led an otherwise mediocre pitching staff with a 16-13 record.

Pitchers' Day--September 25, 1956 (Sixty Years Ago)

On September 25, 1956, with less than a week left before the regular season ended, Cleveland's Early Wynn beat Kansas City for his 20th win. That had no bearing on the American League pennant race since the Yankees had already officially punched their ticket to the Fall Classic. But in a game that did have significant pennant-race implications, Milwaukee's Warren Spahn won his 20th beating Cincinnati, a pretender that had become a real contender. That kept the Braves on top of the National League and all but officially eliminated the Reds from contention. Oh, and Sal Maglie's 12th win of the year kept the Dodgers within half-a-game of the Braves. But Maglie's 12th wasn't just any win. It was a no-hitter.

Pitchers' Day

(60 Years Ago, September 25, 1956)

In the bottom of the 10th on September 25, rookie Rocky Colavito made a 20-game winner of Cleveland starter Early Wynn with his 21st home run against the KC Athletics. For Wynn it was his fourth 20-win season in six years going back to 1951.  

Wynn's win, however, did not come in the heat of a pennant race since the Cleveland Indians had been officially eliminated nine days earlier when they split a doubleheader with the Yankees. They won their next six games. The fourth of those wins was a 5-hit shutout by Wynn's mound mate, Bob Lemon, on September 19, which made him the second pitcher in the American League, after Chicago's Billy Pierce on September 13, to win 20 games in 1956. Four days after Lemon's shutout, Detroit's Frank Lary ended the Indians' 6-game winning streak with his 20th win of the season.

So, Early Wynn was the fourth American League pitcher to join the 1956 chapter of the 20-win club. The next day, he and Lemon were joined in the 20-win club by their teammate, Cleveland's phenomenal southpaw, Herb Score. It was the third time in six years that the Indians' staff featured three 20-game winners; Bob Feller, Mike Garcia, and Wynn did it for Cleveland in 1951, and Wynn, Garcia, and Lemon in 1952. No other team had as many as three 20-game winners in a single season since the 1931 Philadelphia Athletics with Lefty Grove, George Earnshaw, and Rube Walberg.

Meanwhile, over in the National League, it was 150 games down and just 4 to go when Warren Spahn took the mound at Cincinnati's Crosley Field on September 25, 1956. Not only was he going for his 20th win, which would make for seven 20-win seasons so far in his career, but more importantly, his Braves had the slimmest of leads in a taut three-team pennant race—half a game up on the Dodgers and just 1½ ahead of the Reds. 

Once again for the Redlegs, another critical game. They had won six straight since four consecutive losses—two to the Dodgers and two to the Phillies (discussed in the two previous posts)—had seemed to put an end to their pennant ambitions. But Cincinnati didn't fold; instead they picked up three games in the standings. But they had also played 151 games and were down to their final 3. Lose this game, and they would need to win both of their remaining games against the Cubs in Chicago while hoping that the Braves lost all of their final three games against the Cardinals and that the Dodgers won no more than one of their remaining games.

Larry Jansen started for the Reds. Once a premier pitcher for the New York Giants from 1947 to 1951, he was back in the minor leagues in 1955 trying to recover from arm problems. Signed by the Reds before the '56 season started, Jansen pitched for Seattle in the Pacific Coast League before being called up in August to help with the pitching. He won his first two starts—both complete-game victories—but was 0-2 with an 8.40 earned run average since then, dating back to August 24. He had given up 8 runs in his last 10 innings. Reds ace Brooks Lawrence, meanwhile, had not pitched since working in his seventh game in eight days five days before.

Perhaps Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts should have tried Lawrence. Jansen got just 4 outs and gave up 3 runs before he was shown to the showers. After three innings, the Braves led, 6-1. Lawrence pitched two shutout innings later in the game. Spahn was efficient—9 innings, 6 hits, 1 walk, just 2 strikeouts—on his way to becoming the National League's second 20-game in 1956, more than a month after Don Newcombe had won his 20th. 

It was also a very good day on the mound for the Dodgers' Sal Maglie. He didn't win his 20th. It was only his 12th win of the year. Not only did he not give up any runs, Maglie also didn't give up any hits. Like Spahn in winning his 20th, Maglie was efficient on the mound, striking out three, walking two, and hitting one, and, of course, no hits.

Maglie took the mound knowing this was a crucial game. Since Carl Furillo's walk-off homer to beat Brooks Lawrence eight days earlier, the Dodgers had lost four of six. If he could pitch his team to a victory and Milwaukee lost, Brooklyn could end the day in first place. The other way around, they'd be 1½ back.

Maglie retired the first eight Phillies he faced before walking the opposing pitcher. The Phillies did not have another base runner until Willie Jones walked to lead off the 8th. He was wiped out in a double play. Maglie also hit Richie Ashburn with a pitch with two outs in the 9th, then got Marv Blaylock to ground out to second to end the game. Roy Campanella's 2-run homer in the 2nd was all that Maglie needed in what was, in the end, a 5-0 Dodgers win to stay within a half-game of the Braves. 

It was now 150 games down and just 4 to go for the 1956 Brooklyn Dodgers. With one game left against the fifth-place Phillies, who were 69-81 after being no-hit, and three with the sixth-place Pirates, who were 66-85, while the Braves would be up against a better team—the 74-76 fourth-place Cardinals—Brooklyn, with the same number of losses and one fewer victory than Milwaukee, was in a good position to make up the difference and try to defend their 1955 World Series championship against the Yankees.

This Wouldn't Happen Today (60 Years Ago, Sept. 19, 1956)

As if pitching in five games in six days between September 12 and 17 wasn't enough as the Cincinnati Reds fought to stay close to the National League front-runners with the 1956 season rapidly approaching its end, Brooks Lawrence pitched each of the next two days as well, both times in relief. In fact, from the first day of September, when he pitched a complete game victory, to the 19th, Lawrence started 3 games and relieved in 7 others for a total of 10 appearances on the mound in the space of 20 days. 

This Wouldn't Happen Today

(60 Years Ago, September 19, 1956)

When Brooks Lawrence walked off the mound having given up Carl Furillo's 10th inning walk-off at Ebbets Field on September 17, Cincinnati's pennant prospects looked bleak indeed. Since winning three of four against the first-place Braves at Milwaukee in the beginning of September to get to within 1½ games of the top as of September 5, the Redlegs had won just 3 and lost 6, including that heart-breaker against the Dodgers—the new first-place club in the National League—that seemed quite possibly to be a season-ender.

There were only 11 games left to play, and they were in third place, 4 games behind, and now the Reds faced back-to-back doubleheaders in Philadelphia the next two days. The Phillies, however, were a fifth-place club with a losing record whose pitchers and defense had given up 39 more runs than any other team in the National League. The Dodgers, meanwhile, would play two over the next two days against the fourth-place Cardinals, a team with a winning record. The Braves over the next two days had one against the sixth-place Pirates. If the Reds could win all four of their games and the Dodgers lost both of theirs, they could move within a game of Brooklyn. It would be a real three-team race again.

Instead, they lost the first game of their September 18 doubleheader, 4-3. Not a good opening. Lawrence did not pitch in that game. In the nightcap, the Phillies took an early 5-0 lead behind their ace, Robin Roberts. But a 3-run homer by Ed Bailey capped a 4-run top of the 8th, and with his team now in striking distance of a possible victory, Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts once again called on . . . Brooks Lawrence to hold the Phillies in place.

Including the 6⅓ innings he had thrown in his start on September 15, it was the fourth consecutive day that Lawrence had to pitch for his team. After striking out Roberts, he walked Richie Ashburn, gave up a double to Solly Hemus, and intentionally walked Stan Lopata to load the bases with just one out and the dangerous clean-up hitter Del Ennis at bat. And Lawrence got him to hit a double play grounder, 6-to-4-to-oops . . . second baseman Johnny Temple's relay to first turned into a two-base throwing error. Two runs scored, the first of which was earned. Cincinnati lost, 7-4, dropping both games of the doubleheader.

Meanwhile, Milwaukee moved into a first-place tie with Brooklyn, who lost, and the Reds were now 4½ games behind with just 9 left on the schedule. Still not impossible, but not looking good.

The next day, the Reds scored 4 in the top of the 1st and took a 6-1 lead into the 8th when their starter, Johnny Klippstein, faltered. The score was now 6-3, runners on first and third, and Granny Hamner at the plate representing the tying run when, once again, Tebbetts called on Brooks Lawrence to get the Reds out of the inning. Even though he was not yet 30, Hamner was no longer the Whiz Kid he had been when the Phillies unexpectedly won the 1950 pennant. He was nearing the end of his career. Hamner was hitting only .224, but had a hot hand—he already had two hits in the game, one a triple, and had two hits off the Reds the previous day. 

Lawrence was taking the mound for the fifth day in a row. For the fourth day in a row, Tebbetts was asking his ace starter to get outs as a reliever in a high-stakes situation. He was exhausted. He should have known Lawrence was exhausted. Tebbetts could have called on Hersh Freeman, his relief ace. 

As poorly as he pitched in August, giving up 9 earned runs and 17 hits in 8⅓ innings, Freeman was throwing well in September. He had appeared in 10 games so far in the September stretch and given up just 3 earned runs in 20⅔ innings. But he had also pitched in each of the four previous days, totalling 5⅓ innings, compared to Lawrence's 9. Notwithstanding a run he gave up to the Dodgers in the game Lawrence ultimately lost, Freeman was pitching more effectively. That was the only run he had given up in his four straight days of work, compared to Lawrence having surrendered seven, six earned.

But Lawrence was who Tebbetts wanted. His stalwart right-hander walked Hamner to load the bases, and then Tebbetts decided to bring in Freeman. Freeman got the final out of the inning and pitched a scoreless 9th for his 14th save, and Cincinnati's four-game losing streak had come to an end.

The Reds also won the second game of the September 19 doubleheader, a 3-hit shutout thrown by rookie Tom Acker who was making just his 6th major league start. Even though the Dodgers won their game that day, by winning two, the Reds were able to pick up a half-game on Brooklyn. They now trailed first-place Brooklyn by 4 and were 3½ behind second-place Milwaukee. Cincinnati had played 147 games, however. There were just 7 to go.

Brooks Lawrence had pitched in 7 games in 8 days dating back to September 12, totaling 10⅓ innings, given up 9 earned runs on 14 hits, four of which were homers, and had walked 5. He would get the next five days off.

Paging Brooks Lawrence, Again (60 Years Ago, September 17, 1956)

Just as he had two weeks earlier, Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts called on his front-line ace Brooks Lawrence to save the day in relief  just two days after he had started and won a critical game in a tight pennant race, this time against the new first place club—the Brooklyn Dodgers. Once again, a must-win game in the other team's ballpark. How did it go?

Paging Brooks Lawrence, Again

(60 Years Ago, September 17, 1956)

The Cincinnati Redlegs had been hanging close in the National League pennant race all summer, but had not been on top since the first day after the All-Star break. They had some close calls that could have dropped them from realistic contention earlier than this.

Up till now, the Reds' most important series of the season was in the beginning of September when they took three of four against the Braves in Milwaukee to stay relevant in the pennant race. As readers will recall from an earlier post, Brooks Lawrence arguably saved their season with 7 strong innings in relief for his 18th win on September 3 by coming into a bases-loaded, no-outs situation in the 3rd inning, his team's lead in jeopardy, and retiring Hank Aaron on a short fly out and getting Eddie Mathews to hit into a double play. That was just two days after he had pitched a complete-game victory against the Cubs. His aborting a Braves' rally may have meant a two-game difference in the standings—between the 3½-game deficit they in fact ended the day with, or a 5½-game deficit had they lost.

Lawrence had started twice and relieved twice since his pitching heroics against the Braves. Given four days of rest after pitching 16 innings in three days, Lawrence lost his next start on September 8 in St. Louis, failing to make it out of the 3rd inning. Both of his next two appearances on back-to-back days, in New York at the Polo Grounds and in Pittsburgh, were in relief. Against the Giants on September 12, he came into the game in the 6th inning with the Reds already behind 6-0 and gave up three runs in one-third of an inning. And against the Pirates on September 13, manager Birdie Tebbetts called him into the game with the score tied 3-3 in the 7th. Pitching just the one inning, Lawrence gave up the tie on a home run to Frank Thomas, but Cincinnati scored twice in the 9th to win.

Two days after that, on September 15, Lawrence was back on the mound against the Pirates, making his 30th start of the year. He won his 19th, but left in the 7th inning after surrendering back-to-back homers to Bill Mazeroski, a two-run shot, and Hank Foiles that narrowed the Reds' lead to 6-4, the final score. He had given up 18 hits and 11 earned runs in 9⅔ innings since rescuing, at least temporarily, the Reds' season in Milwaukee back on September 3. The Reds had not been home since, and their next two series were also on the road.

Lawrence's victory in Pittsburgh kept the Reds within two games striking distance as they went to Brooklyn's Ebbets Field for exactly two games with the first-place Dodgers. Meanwhile, the Milwaukee Braves, who were tied with the Dodgers in first, were also in New York for two games, against the Giants at the Polo Grounds.

For the Reds, this was their new most critical series of the season. Thirteen games were all they had left on the schedule. They trailed both the Dodgers and the Braves by two games. These were the last games they had left on their season-schedule against the Dodgers. If they were to make their move towards first place, this was the time. Winning both would put them in a tie with the Dodgers. There was nothing they could do about the Braves, but should the Braves lose twice at the Polo Grounds, all three teams—Brooklyn, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati—would be tied for first place.

With Sal Maglie on the mound, the Dodgers won the first of the two games,     3-2. Lawrence, the very day after pitching 6⅓ innings in his start against the Pirates, was called in to get the Reds out of the 2nd inning with runners on second and third and one out; he did so, retiring Roy Campanella and Maglie  without giving up a run. His job done successfully, and the pitcher's spot due up first in the 3rd, he left the game for a pinch-hitter. 

The Reds' loss left them three behind the now first-place-all-by-themselves Dodgers with just 12 games remaining on their schedule . . . making the second game of the series—and their season finale against the Dodgers on the schedule—one they REALLY HAD TO WIN. Clem Labine started for Brooklyn. Hal Jeffcoat started for Cincinnati. After the Reds scored three times in the 9th on a two-run homer by catcher Ed Bailey and a solo shot by pinch-hitter Ray Jablonski to tie the score at 4-4, it was Brooks Lawrence who Tebbetts once again called upon . . . this time to win the game.

Lawrence was pitching for the fourth time in five days, which included his 6⅓-inning start just two days before. What was Birdie Tebbetts thinking? Especially since the overworked Lawrence hadn't exactly been pitching very well? Perhaps that he had used his putative relief ace, Hersh Freeman, in the 8th (he gave up a run) and pinch hit for him in the top of the 9th? And that, at 19-9, Lawrence was the best pitcher he had available, despite his recent struggles and no rest, and with their pennant chances on the line . . . he had no choice but to go with his best?

Lawrence gave up a single and a walk in the 9th, the runners advancing to second and third on a passed ball with two out, but he got Sandy Amoros on a pop up to short to end the inning and the game went into extra innings. The Reds got their first two batters on in the 10th, but Carl Erskine came in to retire the side without giving up a run.

The first batter in the Dodgers' 10th was Carl Furillo, who was batting .298 and had already driven in two runs in the game. Furillo sent the Ebbets Faithful home happy with his 20th home run of the season over the left-center field wall. Instead of winning his 20th, Lawrence lost his 10th. And for the Cincinnati Redlegs—

—With 153 games down and just 11 to go, times were now desperate. They now trailed Brooklyn by four games and Milwaukee by three. Their next stop   . . .  Philadelphia. For four games. In back-to-back doubleheaders. Perhaps now, Brooks Lawrence would get some rest. Perhaps.

  

Catching Up on the '56 Home Run Chase (60 Years Ago, Sept 13, 1956)

On September 13, 1956, at Kansas City's Municipal Stadium, Mickey Mantle's 3rd inning home run—his 48th of the year—not only proved the margin of victory in the Yankees' 3-2 win over the Athletics, but ended a drought of 10 games and 35 at bats in which he had not hit a home run. With slightly more than two weeks left to the season, he was no longer likely to match, let alone eclipse, Babe Ruth's iconic 60 homers hit in 1927. Meanwhile, both the Cincinnati Redlegs collectively and their spectacular first-year left fielder, Frank Robinson, remained poised to set new single-season records for home runs by a major league team and by a rookie. 

Catching Up on the '56 Home Run Chase
(60 Years Ago, September 13, 1956)

When last we left Mickey Mantle in 1956, his 47th homer of the season had led the Yankees to victory on the last day of August. He was then well ahead of Babe Ruth's pace for 60 home runs. But no more. The Yankees had played 10 games in the first 12 days of September and won 6 of them to run their American League advantage up to 10 games over Cleveland. They had scored 58 runs and hit 13 homers, but Mantle, despite playing the entirety of all 10 games, had none.

It was, of course, inevitable that the best baseball player on the planet in 1956 was bound to hit a wall. He had just 5 hits in those 10 games and went hitless in 6 games. His only extra-base hit was a double, and he had exactly zero—that's "0"—runs batted in. It was not, however, the Mick's first extended long ball drought of the season. From June 22 to July 1, Mantle also went 10 games (and, ultimately, 33 at bats) without going deep, but he did hit .344 with 3 RBIs as the Yankees went 5-5. And from August 15 to 23, he went 9 games without a homer and hit just .121, striking out 10 times in 33 at bats, for the worst stretch of his season. He did drive in 2 runs. The Yankees were 4-5 in those games. Despite those slumps, he was still ahead of Ruth in his quest for 60, or even 61, going into September.

Mantle's 3rd-inning homer off KC's Tom Gorman on September 13 may have ended his latest homerless stretch of games, but it left him with little chance of out-homering the Bambino in a single-season. With the Yankees having played 140 games, they had just 14 remaining in which Mantle, now with 48 homers, would have needed 12 more just to tie the Babe with 60. Through the Yankees' first 140 games in 1927, Ruth had hit 52. It wasn't impossible for Mantle—just nearly so.

Even so, Mickey Mantle was still the Triple Crown leader in the American League. Besides having hit by far the most homers in baseball, his 119 RBIs were the most, and nobody had a higher qualifying batting average than his .353. 

The home run record that seemed almost certain to be broken was the 38 for a rookie set by Wally Berger in 1930. Frank Robinson started the month with 35, hit his 36th off the Braves' Lew Burdette in the first game of a September 3 doubleheader; hit his 37th in the 10th inning the next day off Braves' reliever Ernie Johnson to win the game; and his 38th on September 11 off the Giants' Steve Ridzik at the Polo Grounds to tie Berger's rookie record. 

Robinson went 1-for-4 against the Pirates in Pittsburgh on September 13, without a home run, but his 9th-inning single off Pirates' relief ace Elroy Face drove in the winning run in another must-win game for Cincinnati. With an 82-58 record, the Reds were 3½ games behind the first-place Braves, and 1½ back of the Dodgers. With 140 games down—(they had actually played 141, one game having ended in a tie because of rain)—and just 14 to go, Cincinnati was running out of time to catch Milwaukee. For Frank Robinson, however, there seemed to be plenty of time for him to send one going-going-gone at least once more to set the new record for home runs by a major league rookie.

While Robinson did not go deep in Cincinnati's victory over Pittsburgh, George Crowe, pinch hitting, did. It was the 202nd home run of the year for the Redlegs in 141 games. The 1947 Giants, whose team record of 221 was in sight, had 204 through their first 141 games (also one of which had ended in a tie, same as for the '56 Reds), so the Redlegs were now slightly behind the Giants' pace . . . But not by much. They still had 14 games to hit 20 more homers to set a new record—

—And, of course, hopefully win the pennant for the honor of facing Mickey Mantle and the Yankees in the 1956 World Series.

Brooks Lawrence to the Rescue (60 Years Ago, Sept. 3, 1956)

To those who might have said that Brooks Lawrence's failure to win any of his six starts in August may have cost the Cincinnati Reds the 1956 pennant: if it was not for his gutsy performance against the Milwaukee Braves on September 3rd, the Reds' pennant chances could well have ended right then and there, and it would have been a two-team Milwaukee vs. Brooklyn race to the end, instead of a three-team duel also involving Cincinnati.  

Brooks Lawrence to the Rescue
(60 Years Ago, September 3, 1956)

Trailing the Braves by 3½ games and tied with the Dodgers in second place, the Redlegs traveled to Milwaukee for a critical four-game series that would start with a doubleheader on September 3. This was their chance to cut into the Braves' lead, or it could have been the death knell to their season. That second scenario looked more plausible when their loss in the first game of their doubleheader on a walk-off win by the Braves dropped the Reds 4½ back, especially since they failed to hold onto a 2-0 lead because Hank Aaron hit home runs in the 4th and 7th innings to tie the game, then doubled and scored the winning run on Joe Adcock's single in the 9th. 

In the second game, the Reds held a 5-2 lead in the 3rd when the Braves loaded the bases with nobody out in the last half of the inning. Due up next were Aaron and Eddie Mathews, followed by Adcock. Aaron had 23 home runs, including his two in the first game, 78 runs batted in, and was batting .327. Mathews had 37 homers and 86 RBIs, and had been red-hot since the end of July, having belted 15 round trippers and driven in 38 runs in 39 games since August 1. Adcock had 34 homers, 93 RBIs, and was batting .305.

Did I mention the bases were loaded and there were no outs? Even with a 3-run lead, Cincinnati manager Birdie Tebbetts had no choice but to remove starting pitcher Larry Jansen from the proceedings, because that 3-run lead was looking very precarious. And the reality was: if the Reds hung on to win, they'd be back to a manageable 3½ games behind. But should they lose, they would be 5½ back. That potential two-game swing in the standings could make all the difference going forward. A 3½-game deficit with just 23 games left to play after this one was not too large to overcome, but 5½ games behind just might be.

So, who was he gonna call? Hersh Freeman was the Reds' relief ace, but Tebbetts probably thought it was too early in the game to call on him. Freeman rarely came into games before the 7th inning, and just once as early as the 5th. Art Fowler had often come into games in the early and middle innings and was rested, having last pitched four days ago, 6 innings of shutout ball to get a win against the Giants. There were a few other options, too, but—

—With the bases loaded, nobody out, Aaron and Mathews up next, Birdie Tebbetts wanted Brooks Lawrence, even though Lawrence had pitched a 9-inning complete-game victory just two days before. That was his 17th win of the year, but his first as a starting pitcher in more than a month (since July 29, to be precise).

In fact, Lawrence would not look back kindly on August 1956. He had won his first 13 decisions of the season, although four them were in games he came in to relieve. He ended the month of July on a high note with a complete-game victory in Pittsburgh in which he allowed just 4 hits. He was 15-2 at the time. His earned run average was 3.32. 

Then came August. Brooks Lawrence made 6 starts in August and lost them all. His earned run average for the month was a rather unsightly 5.89. Lawrence's one win was in relief, on August 9 against the Cubs; he entered a tie game in the top of the 9th with a runner at second and one out, retired Ernie Banks and Monte Irvin, pitched a scoreless 10th, and came out a winner on Gus Bell's walk-off homer. 

Two of Lawrence's August losses were against the Braves, the team out front in the National League. On August 12, pitching in Milwaukee where a victory would have cut the third-place Reds' deficit from two games behind to one, Lawrence gave up six runs before being sent to the showers in the third inning. Eight days after that, Lawrence gave up only 3 runs in 8 innings against the Braves, but was the losing pitcher because the Reds' offense was limited to a solo bottom-of-the-9th home run by Frank Robinson. All three runs Lawrence surrendered scored on homers—a two-run shot by Mathews, who was due up after Aaron in our game in question, and a solo shot by Adcock, due up after Mathews.

Lawrence's most recent engagements with the Braves didn't matter to Tebbetts. Neither did his very bad month of August. What mattered was that the bases were loaded, there were no outs, the Reds' 3-run lead was in jeopardy, the Braves three most dangerous hitters were next up, a loss could be devastating to Cincinnati's pennant chances, AND Brooks Lawrence, for all his August struggles, was his best pitcher.

Brooks Lawrence retired Aaron on a short fly to left and got Mathews to hit into a double play. End of inning. He left the mound with the Reds' 5-2 lead intact. Then he pitched the remaining 6 innings of the game. He gave up 3 runs, but not until after Cincinnati had taken a 5-run lead. And he pitched those 7 innings against the Braves in a must-win game on just one day of rest after pitching a 9-inning complete game. Lawrence was now 18-8, and the Reds were back to 3½ games behind the Braves.

Their season rescued by Lawrence, the Reds won the next two games against the Braves and left Milwaukee in second place, 1½ games behind and half-a-game up on the Dodgers. As of that date—September 5, 1956—there were 134 games down for the Cincinnati Reds and 20 to go. 

Pitching on the three days of rest that were typical for pitching aces back then, and assuming he would get them after this intrepid performance, Brooks Lawrence could still to make as many as 6 starts in those 20 games, not taking into account the times his manager might want to use him—as he did on September 3 in Milwaukee—to pitch critical innings as a reliever in a must-win game. 

Problem was, Lawrence had now pitched 204⅓ innings, and there were still maybe those 6 starts and some relief appearances to go. The most major league innings he had pitched before this was 158⅔ in his rookie season of 1954 with the Cardinals, a total he exceeded in the first week of August, explaining perhaps why August 1956 was not kind to Brooks Lawrence. 

Chasing Ruth and Berger and the Giants (60 Years Ago, August 31, 1956)

On the last day of August sixty years ago, the Cincinnati Reds belted two homers to run their major league-team-leading total to 191, which included the 35th of the year hit by rookie sensation Frank Robinson, and Mickey Mantle hit his major league-leading 47th home run. This meant that as the 1956 season turned to its final month, three single-season home run records were under assault—the 1947 New York Giants' team record off 221; Wally Berger's rookie record of 38 set in 1930; and Babe Ruth's famous 60 set in 1927. The first two were little remarked on, but Mantle's run at the Babe's record was a BIG deal.  

Chasing Ruth and Berger and the Giants
(60 Years Ago, August 31, 1956)

The score was tied at 4-4 at Washington's Griffith Stadium when Mickey Mantle came to bat with one out in the 7th inning against Camilo Pascual on the last day of August in 1956. He was batting left-handed against the Senators' 22-year-old Cuban-born right-hander, who was 6-13 so far in the 1956 season—his third year in the majors. Mantle proceeded to knock out his 47th home run of the year, giving the Yankees a 5-4 lead they would not relinquish.

Another day, another game, another Yankee victory. That was even though Washington outfielder Jim Lemon outdid Mantle by hitting three home runs in the same game . . . off Whitey Ford, no less. Jim Lemon hit 164 homers in his 12-year major league career, 7 of them off Whitey Ford. In all his years of pitching, no other batter touched Ford for more home runs than Lemon, and Lemon is the only player to have hit three in one game against the Hall of Fame master lefty. It was also the only time in the 1,010 games he played that he hit three homers in a single game. (Too bad it was in a losing cause.)

The New York Yankees entered the final month with an 83-46 record, 8½ games ahead of second-place Cleveland. It was 129 games down and just 25 to go for the Yankees. It would take a monumental collapse for the Yankees not to win the American League pennant for the seventh time in eight years, especially with the Indians having just two games left to challenge them head-to-head, the only circumstance under which they could assure a victory by them would mean a gain on the Yankees, since the Yankees could otherwise negate a Cleveland win against anybody else with one of their own.

Instead, the September drama for the Yankees would be whether Mickey Mantle would win the Triple Crown, and even more pertinent, whether he could break the record of 60 home runs belted by Babe Ruth in 1927. So far, the odds looked good for both quests. In addition to his 47 homers, Mantle was well ahead in batting average (.366) and runs batted in (118) for the Triple Crown crown. 

As for chasing the Babe? In 1927, Ruth had 43 home runs at the end of August in the 127 games the Yankees had played. In 1956, Mantle had 47 in 129. The Babe reached 60 by hitting 17 in September; Mantle would need 14 to break his record.

Meanwhile, at Cincinnati's Crosley Field, the Reds' Frank Robinson toed in at right side of the plate to lead off the bottom of the 9th against Cubs righty Bob Rush, his team down 3-2. Rush was the ace of the Cubs' staff and working towards his 13th victory of the year. That came to an end when Robinson crashed his 35 home run of the year to tie the score. The Reds went on to score another run that inning for a walk-off win that left them in third place, 3½ games behind the Braves and 1 behind the Dodgers, going into the final month.

Unlike for the Yankees, the September drama in Cincinnati would actually be a pennant race. With 128 games down and their record at 75-53, the Reds still had 26 games to go—more than enough for them to leapfrog both teams ahead of them, especially since they still had five games left against first-place Milwaukee, the first four of which would be their very next series beginning on September 3, and two against Brooklyn.

Paling in comparison, and quite likely little thought about, was the fact that Frank Robinson was comfortably ahead of Wally Berger's pace when he hit 38 home runs as a rookie outfielder for the Boston Braves in 1930. Both of their teams had played 128 games through the end of August. Berger entered September 1930 with 31 homers, and 26 years later, Robinson now had 35 and would need to hit just 4 more in September to set a new major league rookie record.

Hitting a home run earlier in the game for Cincinnati was catcher Ed Bailey, his 24th of the year. Big Klu—slugging first baseman Ted Kluszewski—had 33 and was aiming for a fourth consecutive 40-homer season. Outfielders Wally Post and Gus Bell had 27 and 25, respectively. Including Robinson, five of the Reds' eight core position players had at least 24 home runs. This was a club with long ball power, and it was that power that had them contending with the Braves and Dodgers for the National League pennant.

Cincinnati's 191 home runs going into September was ahead of the 182 the New York Giants had hit when they set the major league team record of 221 nine years earlier in 1947. The '47 Giants had played 127 games through August, compared to the '56 Reds' 128. The 1947 Giants ended up with four players hitting more than 20—Johnny Mize, who tied with the Pirates' Ralph Kiner to lead the league with 51, followed by Willard Marshall (36), Walker Cooper (35), and Bobby Thomson (29), who were the next three players on the 1947 NL home run leader board.

So heading into the home stretch of the 1956 season, Mickey Mantle—who was leading the league by healthy margins in all three Triple Crown categories—Frank Robinson, having a sensational rookie year, and the Cincinnati Reds as a team were all poised to challenge major league home run records. 

The only home run chase anyone was really paying attention to, however, was whether the Mick could catch and pass the Babe. The kind of year Mantle was having, as of September 1, 1956, it would have been foolish to bet against him.

Big Newk's '56 Summer of Dominance (60 Years Ago)

It was less than elegant. He coughed up three home runs. He surrendered 5 runs, the most since he had given up 6 to the Braves exactly 10 starts before. But it was enough for Don Newcombe to become the first major league pitcher to win 20 games in 1956 in a dominating stretch from mid-July to mid-August, and it came against one of the two clubs striving to ensure that the Brooklyn Dodgers not get the opportunity to defend their 1955 World Series championship by winning the National League pennant.

Big Newk's '56 Summer of Dominance
(60 Years Ago, August 23, 1956)

The Brooklyn Dodgers showed up at Crosley Field on August 23, 1956, for the first of a three-game series with the Cincinnati Redlegs. Since their loss to the Braves on July 30 dropped them 5 games behind Milwaukee, the Dodgers had the National League's best record, but had picked up only three games in the standings. They had not had even a share of first place since May 20. The Braves were not only persistent, but a very good ball club, and the Reds were unexpectedly competitive. At the start of the day, the Braves were first, the Dodgers two games behind in second, and the Reds third, three games back.

Don Newcombe took the mound for the Dodgers with a 19-6 record. Except for his start against the Braves on July 13, when he was whacked for six runs and retired to the showers after one inning, Big Newk had been pitching brilliantly since the All-Star break. He got no decision in that game, and he had an 11-5 record at the time, but his 4.01 earned run average was not exactly . . . very good.

Whereupon, Newcombe won 8 of his next 9 starts with a near-microscopic 1.07 ERA and held opposing batters to just 37 hits, a .144 batting average, and 16 walks in 76 innings. That included three consecutive nine-inning complete-game shutouts in which he limited the Cubs to 5 hits in a 1-0 victory on July 29, the powerful Braves to just 4 hits in a 3-0 win on August 2, and the Pirates to 6 hits in another 3-0 triumph on August 7. And before his three straight shutouts, he had a pair of complete-game victories in which he gave up one run—so that was just 2 runs in 45 innings (a 0.40 ERA in five starts). And after his three straight shutouts, he surrendered 2 runs on just 2 hits in a 5-2 win over the Phillies; one of those two hits was a two-run homer by Stan Lopata.

And his one loss since the All-Star break? At home against the Giants on August 15? Well, Newcombe surrendered just 4 hits, but one was a home run by Willie Mays for the only—only—run of the game. Newk gave up just 1 run again in his next start in a Dodgers win in Philadelphia, his last before coming to Cincinnati.

Staked to a 3-run lead in the top of the first at Crosley Field on August 23, Newk gave it all back when Wally Post touched him hard for a 3-run homer in the bottom of the inning. Protecting a 5-3 lead in the sixth, Newcombe gave up a solo blast to Frank Robinson, and now it was      5-4. For Robinson, it was the 32nd home run of his rookie season; he was 8 games ahead of Wally Berger's pace when he set the rookie record for home runs with 38 way back in 1930. And with a 6-4 lead in the 9th, Newcombe gave up a homer to Ed Bailey in the bottom of the inning before getting the final out of his 20th victory.

The run that proved to be the margin of difference in the game was scored in the top of the 9th off Cincinnati ace Brooks Lawrence, who had come into the game as a reliever in the 8th. While Newcombe was on a winning roll, Lawrence had been struggling in the summer heat since starting the season 13-0. He was not the losing pitcher in this game, but he was now 16-7. He had lost all 5 of his starts so far in August. His only victory in the month came in relief against the Cubs in an extra-inning game on August 9.

We will return to Lawrence's struggles later in this Baseball Historical Insight series on the 1956 season. For now, on August 23, 1956 (sixty years ago), Newcombe's 20th win matched his career highs in 1951 (he was 20-9) and 1955 (20-5). There were still five weeks remaining in the season. Even if Newcombe were to start every four days, which was typical for starting aces in the 1950s, he was a long shot to win 30; pitching on three days of rest without missing a start or being given an extra day or two break as a breather would have meant just 9 more starts. And most important was winning the pennant.

Newcombe's 20th left the Dodgers still two games behind the Braves, who won their game against the Phillies, and pushed the Reds to four games back. At 70-47, it was 117 games down for the Brooklyn Dodgers and 37 to go.

It was still a three team race.