Friday the 13th in the 1956 NL Pennant Race

On Friday the 13th sixty years ago in 1956, Phillies' southpaw Curt Simmons singled off Reds' reliever Tom Acker in the 8th inning to drive in the go-ahead run in a 4-4 game at Cincinnati's Crosley Field, and shortstop Granny Hamner singled off reliever Don Gross in the 9th to add an insurance run to topple the Reds out of 1st place. Meanwhile, further west in Milwaukee, the Braves took two in their doubleheader with the Dodgers to regain first place. For those among the Redlegs who might have had a superstitious bent—and baseball is replete with terrific stories about superstitions—their Friday the 13th loss was justifiably, as it turned out . . . ominous.

Friday the 13th in the 1956 Pennant Race

At the All-Star break, the National League pennant race was down to three teams. In first place were the Cincinnati Redlegs at 44-30, there mostly by virtue of a strong power game. They led by 1½ games over the Milwaukee Braves at 41-30, who had played much better since changing managers in mid-June, and by two over the Brooklyn Dodgers at 42-32, hardly enjoying their runaway from the year before.

Beginning with their doubleheader sweep in St. Louis on the first day of July, Cincinnati had won 7 of 9 games before the All-Star break to be able to look down at the rest of the league at the official half-way mark of the season. Five of those victories were against the Cardinals, who were now outed as the pretenders they were. The Reds went into the break with 13 victories in their last 18 games, including winning 3 of 4 against the Dodgers in Brooklyn and splitting a two-game series with the Braves at home on July 2 and 3.

When baseball resumed following the National League's 7-3 victory in the All-Star Game, the Reds returned home to Crosley Field to take on the last-place Phillies. Their first game back on July 12, the Reds took a 3-2 lead into the 9th only to surrender 5 runs as their ace reliever, Hersh Freeman, gave up 3 hits and a walk to the five batters he faced. In Milwaukee, Bob Buhl shutout the Dodgers, 2-0, to pull the Braves within a half-game of the first-place Reds.

Brooks Lawrence was undefeated in 12 decisions when he took the mound for Cincinnati on Friday the 13th. His earned run average at the break was 3.48. But since his masterful 2-hit, 2-walk 6-0 shutout of the Dodgers in Brooklyn on June 22, Lawrence had pitched less elegantly in his three starts previous to this one, showing a propensity for giving up the long ball. In 13⅓ innings in starts against the Pirates, Cardinals, and Cubs, Lawrence had given up 10 runs on 21 hits, including 4 home runs; he had surrendered just 6 home runs in the 87 innings he had thrown before then.

Although he had won both of his previous starts against the Phillies, and had a third victory against them in 2 innings of relief in mid-June, Lawrence was hexed on this day. He gave up a home run to fellow All-Star Stan Lopata in the 1st, and after the Reds tied the score in their half of the inning, gave up a 2-run blast to Granny Hamner in the second to fall behind, 3-1. Lawrence had now given up 6 home runs in his last 15⅓ innings. Judging that his ace did not have his best going for him this day, Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts pinch hit for Lawrence in the 2nd. A three-run homer by Gus Bell put the Reds in the lead, but the Phillies tied in the 4th, and scored single runs in the 8th and 9th to defeat Cincinnati a second consecutive day.

Friday the 13th was good luck for Milwaukee, and not so much for Brooklyn. The Braves scored 6 first-inning runs to end Don Newcombe's day before it hardly began on their way to an 8-6 win in the opener of a twin bill, then came from behind to win the second game 6-5. Including their 11-game winning streak immediately after Fred Haney replaced Charlie Grimm as manager, the Braves had now gone 19-8 under new management and now had a one-game lead in the standings.

The Dodgers were now 3½ games behind the Braves in third place. They had not been in first since May 20, when they were tied with the Braves and Cardinals. Since rising to 8 games above .500 when their victory over Milwaukee precipitated the Braves' managerial change, the Dodgers had gone just 13-14. But while Friday the 13th didn't leave the Dodgers in good spirits, it also didn't kill their spirit.

For the Cincinnati Redlegs, for whom it was now 76 games down with 78 to go, the morning of Friday the 13th turned out to be the last day in the 1956 season they would wake up in first place. And yet, they did not fade from contention. They just wouldn't cross the divide.

LOOKING AHEAD 60 YEARS AGO: ASSESSING NL CONTENDERS FOR 1956

Sixty years ago in 1956, the Brooklyn Dodgers were set to defend not only their eighth National League pennant, but their first ever World Series triumph, having taken down the New York Yankees in seven games after failing in the two teams’ five previous Fall Classic match-ups. And the Yankees were angling to repeat as American League champions. 

After an off-season hiatus, this blog—Baseball Historical Insight—returns this year to follow the 1956 pennant races (along with other items of historical note that might come up from developments in the 2016 season), beginning with this first of two articles on how the would-be contenders stacked up for the baseball season about to begin on April 17, 1956. 

Spoiler Alert (since you can look it up): Both the Yankees and the Dodgers met once again in the World Series, but the Yankees got there by winning in a landslide, while Brooklyn won a hard-fought race by one game over the Milwaukee Braves and two over the Cincinnati Redlegs.

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

In 1955, Sports Illustrated's preseason prognostications cautioned that the Brooklyn Dodgers might have trouble contending against either the Braves or Giants because of the advancing age of so many of their core regulars. As it happened, however, the Dodgers got off to a phenomenal start winning 20 of their first 22 games and never looked back on their way to a blowout pennant. Writing an overview essay previewing the 1956 season, baseball writer Robert Creamer observed that while Brooklyn was a "big favorite" to win again, one had to "wonder if an aging team like the Dodgers can hold up if [their] pitching let's down.”

Amid reports of ailing pitching arms in camp and with World Series hero Johnny Podres doing time in the service of his country—the draft was still in effect even though the Korean War was no longer being fought (it still has not officially ended, as North Korea keeps reminding us)—pitching was considered to be a potential achilles’ heel, notwithstanding the return of Don Newcombe who was 20-5 in 1955. SI's scouting report acknowledged that the Dodgers’ core regulars collectively were "at a fairly ripe old age," but concluded that if their pitching was decent, they "should not have too much trouble—they are that good." Manager Walt Alston was confident in his staff, wrote SI, and Jackie Robinson, just turned 37 and about to begin his tenth season in Brooklyn, "on any given day can be the Most Valuable Man in Baseball."

The 1955 Milwaukee Braves had been considered "a good bet" to win the pennant instead of the old guys in Brooklyn, according to SI at the time, but were overwhelmed by the Dodgers' fast start and never came close. In 1956, SI's projections for the Braves were slightly more modest, concluding that "If Brooklyn can be beaten, the Braves are the team with the best chance to do it." Not only did they have Eddie Mathews (41 home runs and 101 RBIs in 1955) and Hank Aaron, who emerged as a star in 1955, his second big-league season, but they possessed a "solid" pitching staff led by Warren Spahn, Lew Burdette, and Bob Buhl, all three of whom had somewhat disappointing seasons the previous year.

The Giants, third in 1955, could finish "anywhere from first to fifth," SI speculated for 1956, concluding they would most likely be third again. With the best young player in baseball by name of Willie Mays—(although the team on the opposite side of the Harlem River in the Bronx would certainly have disagreed)—the Giants "will be hard to beat" if the "pitching jells." All three of the Giants' top pitchers the previous year—Johnny Antonelli, Ruben Gomez, and Jim Hearn—had losing records, so even if promising prospect Al Worthington delivered as hoped, that analysis in the SI scouting report seemed perhaps a tad optimistic.  

SI projected the Phillies to be fourth before finally getting around to the Cincinnati Reds, then known as the "Redlegs" because at the height of the Cold War, with the brutal Korean War and the McCarthy era of naming names of supposed Communist sympathizers fresh in memory, being called the "Reds" had bad optics. 

Cincinnati, fifth in 1955, had not had a winning season since 1944 during World War II when major league rosters were decimated by many of baseball's best players serving in the war. The Reds had been improving steadily, however, from 68 wins in 1953 to 74 in '54 to 75 in 1955. First baseman Ted Kluszewski hit 47 home runs and right fielder Wally Post had 40. And in 1956 the Reds were adding a young outfielder by name of Frank Robinson, who SI considered "a question mark" in part because he hurt his shoulder in spring training and "now babies his once powerful-arm." That aside, SI's scouting report said he had a good spring and was, all in all, a "tremendous prospect." SI also noted that Brooks Lawrence, a right-hander the Reds had acquired from the Cardinals to bolster their weak pitching staff, had both suffered ulcers and "lost his stuff" in 1955. Lawrence did, however, look good in spring training. 

SI's preseason bottom line on Cincinnati: "On some days, this is the best club in baseball, depending on who's pitching. Except for pitching (and disregarding the inadequate reserves), the Reds have a fabulous baseball team." But SI picked the Reds to finish fifth in 1956.

NOTE: The following is a link to the first article on my series following developments in the 1955 pennant race that was the focus of Baseball Historical Insight last year:  

http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2015/03/60-years-ago-when-wait-for-next-year.html