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.

Don Newcombe Channels Babe Ruth

Strategy aside, opposite arguments in the debate about whether the National League should adopt the DH rule so there is uniformity across the major leagues have been very much in play in the first two months of the 2015 season. On the one side, the month of May saw Mets pitchers Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard both go 3-for-3 at the plate in a game, and Giants right-handed ace Madison Bumgarner hit a home run to help his own pitching cause in outdueling Clayton Kershaw. On the other side, the month of April saw Cardinals ace right-hander Adam Wainwright rupture his Achilles tendon trying to run out an infield popup, ending his season, just two days after Nationals ace righty Max Scherzer injured his thumb while batting. An angry Scherzer, a veteran of the DH American League, complained about NL pitchers having to bat for themselves, prompting Bumgarner to take issue with his comments that nobody really wants to see pitchers hit—a sentiment long popular with the "all-DH" crowd. Sixty years ago, in 1955, there was no such debate because there was no DH anywhere to be had. Had there been, Dodgers ace right-hander Don Newcombe would have been squarely on Madison Bumgarner's side, even if Bumgarner is ... a "Giant."

Don Newcombe Channels Babe Ruth

On May 30, 1955, in the second game of a doubleheader at Ebbets Field, Don Newcombe ran his record to 8-0 with a 2.86 ERA as he beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-3. As satisfying as the pitching victory surely was, Newk might have been more proud of his excellent all-around day. Newcombe went 3-for-4 at the plate to raise his batting average to a robust .357. Who says pitchers can't hit? Two of his three hits were home runs. His two-run fourth-inning blast off Pirates starter Ron Kline with two outs and Gil Hodges on base vaulted the Dodgers ahead in the game, 3-2. He tagged Kline for another home run in the sixth to make the score 5-2.

Don Newcombe now had four home runs and seven runs batted in for the season. It was the second time in 1955 that Big Newk had hit two round-trippers in a game to help his own cause, the first time coming in his first start of the season against the defending-champion and arch-rival New York Giants. See the following article in my series on the 1955 season, sixty years ago: http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2015/04/60-years-ago-april-14-1955-enough-with.html

Newcombe was one of the best-hitting pitchers in the game, and 1955 turned out to be his most productive at the plate (even if not his best on the mound, although he wound up the season with a 20-5 record to lead the league in winning percentage as he also did with his 1.1 walks and hits allowed per inning pitched). Big Newk batted .359 on the year with seven home runs and 23 runs batted in. His on-base plus slugging percentage was 1.028. So potent was his bat, manager Walt Alston used Newcombe as a pinch hitter 23 times during the season, in which role Newk was 8-for-21 for a .381 average and drove in four of his 23 runs. All seven of his long balls, however, were in support of his personal pitching efforts.

Over the course of his career, Newcombe batted .276 as a pitcher with 15 home runs and 98 runs batted in. He struck out in only 14 percent of his plate appearances and had a .308 batting average for the times he did not strike out. His hitting prowess was such that Newcombe appeared in 106 games as a pinch hitter, batting .227 without any home runs but with 10 RBIs. Don Newcombe is in the argument about the best-hitting pitchers of all time. 

Historical comparisons for pitchers as hitters must start with The Bambino, George Herman Ruth. From 1914 to 1917 when Ruth was exclusively a pitcher, but also got into games as a pinch hitter, Babe batted .299 with 9 home runs and 50 RBIs, striking out in 16 percent of his plate appearances. One of those home runs was as a pinch hitter. His season-high as a pitcher was 4 home runs in 1915. Of course, these were the "Dead Ball" days.

Ruth had five more home runs as a pitcher in 1918 and 1919, the years he began his conversion from the mound to become a day-to-day regular. Leading the majors in home runs both years with 11 and 29, Ruth was inaugurating both his legend and a revolution in how the game was played. Once he moved to New York and became a full-time outfielder, Ruth pitched only five more games in his career, during which he hit two more circuit-clouts, giving him a total of 16 home runs (out of his 714) in the games he pitched. The Babe's last home run as a pitcher came the last time he took the mound—the final game of the 1933 season, in the bottom of a three-run fifth inning that gave the Yankees a 6-0 lead, after which Ruth the pitcher gave back five runs to the Red Sox.

The players who hit the most home runs in major league careers exclusively as a pitcher, with the occasional pinch-hitting and rare fielding-position appearances, were Wes Ferrell (who surrendered four of the Babe's home runs) with 38, Bob Lemon with 37, Red Ruffing with 36, Warren Spahn with 35, and Earl Wilson with 33. Don Drysdale just missed 30 with 29. Lemon and Spahn were contemporaries of Newcombe's pitching generation. 

Wes Ferrell's most productive years with the bat were when he hit nine home runs in 1931, seven in 1933, and seven in 1935—probably his best year at the plate, since he also batted a career-high .347 and drove in a career-high 32 runs. One of his home runs in 1935 was as a pinch hitter. Ferrell, whose lifetime average was .280 with 208 RBIs, hit two home runs in a game five times. 

Red Ruffing, a direct contemporary of Ferrell's, hit .269 for his career with 273 runs batted in—the most by a pitcher since RBIs became an official statistic in 1920—and twice hit as many as four home runs in a season (4 in 1930 and 5 in 1936). Two of his career home runs were as a pinch hitter.

Bob Lemon, who failed to make the major league grade as a third baseman but had a Hall of Fame career as a pitcher, had a .232 lifetime average with 147 RBIs. He hit five home runs in 1948, seven in 1949, and six the following year. Lemon's only multi-homer game was in 1949. Two of his career home runs came as a pinch hitter.

The great southpaw (363 victories) Warren Spahn never hit more than four round-trippers in a single season (twice, in 1955 and 1961), did not hit much for average (a lifetime mark of .194), but does hold the mark for the most consecutive years with at least one home run by a pitcher—seventeen, from 1948 to 1964. Unlike the other top pitchers who could hit with unaccustomed power for a twirler, Spahn was rarely used off the bench to pinch hit.

Like Spahn, Earl Wilson's lifetime average was below .200 at .195, but he hit seven home runs in both 1966 and 1968, six in 1965, and five in 1964. Two of his career home runs were as a pinch hitter, and he had only one game in which he went deep twice.

But back to 1955. Newcombe's offensive outburst and triumph on the mound on May 30 made it 42 games down and 112 to go for the Dodgers. Their 32-10 record was the best in all of major league baseball and had them comfortably in front of their prime would-be competitors for the NL pennant—the Giants, who were 10 games behind in third place, and the Milwaukee Braves, who were 11½ games out in fourth place with a losing record. The Chicago Cubs were second, six back of Brooklyn, but nobody took them seriously. Indeed, while the Dodgers would have the best record in the NL in games played after May 30, the Cubs would have the worst on their way to a 72-81 record and sixth place.

The Babe's Ambitions and Superstar Players as Managers in the Roaring 'Twenties

Babe Ruth's now-97 year old daughter, Julia Ruth Stevens, reminds us that The Bambino was disappointed and embittered by not being given the opportunity to manage in the big leagues. With contemporary great players the likes of Speaker, Cobb, Sisler, Collins, and Hornsby all becoming player-managers, the Babe's aspiration to manage at the same time he was bashing home runs was not an unrealistic expectation.

The Babe's Ambitions and Superstar Players as Managers in The Roaring 'Twenties 

In a recent New York Times article on the Babe's daughter  participating in the century anniversary of St. Petersburg as the site of the first spring training by a major league team in Florida, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/11/sports/baseball/yankees-home-at-the-other-house-that-ruth-built.html?ref=baseball, she is quoted as saying, "He really thought he deserved to manage. Daddy knew baseball.  He always felt he would be a better manager than Joe McCarthy.  He always talked about that."

While still in the prime of his career, but with the end horizon in view, the Babe aspired to replace Yankee manager Miller Huggins as a player-manager, both well before as well as immediately after chronic ill health cost Huggins his life as the 1929 season came to a close.  Ruth, however, while certainly a blessing in the Yankee line-up, had been a cursed thorn in Huggins' butt. The defining celebrity of the Roaring 'Twenties, a star with unprecedented magnitude, Ruth had few inhibitions about doing whatever he wanted, team discipline be damned; was a constant challenge to manage; and persistently undermined Huggins' authority in the clubhouse, either deliberately or by the example of his actions.  His behavioral history undermined any prospect of his managing the Yankees in the Jacob Ruppert regime, although Ruppert was not prepared to part with the Babe's ruthian clouts.  Anyway, after one year with former Yankee pitching star Bob Shawkey at the helm, Ruppert turned to Joe McCarthy as manager, and it was McCarthy whose teams consolidated the greatness of the forever Yankee dynasty.  Ruth remained with the Bronx Bombers through the 1934 season, making little effort to hide his disdain for Marse Joe, the man who would arguably become the greatest manager in history.

By the time of Huggins' tragic death, Ruth had seen most of the biggest-name big-name players in baseball, besides himself, become player-managers:

• Tris Speaker, the Cleveland Indians' outstanding center fielder, was 31 and probably the best player in the game at the time he was named manager of the Tribe in mid-July 1919.  The next year, in his first full season in charge, Speaker guided the Indians to their first American League pennant, and the World Series to boot. Speaker was one of the earliest proponents of platooning, using a lefty-righty starting line-up split at both outfield positions he himself did not play (which was center field) when the Indians won their pennant in 1920, and during the World Series he used a platoon at first base.  Unproven accusations that he had conspired to fix the outcome of a baseball game in 1919 forced Speaker to step down as manager after the 1926 season.

• Ty Cobb, the Babe's rival at the time for the sobriquet, "best player in baseball history," and who fueled the fires of their "rivalry" by his disdain for the power game, became player-manager of the Detroit Tigers in 1921 at the age of 34.  With a weaker team, Cobb was less successful than Speaker as a player-manager; his Tigers were in realistic contention for a pennant only once--in 1924, when they were tied for first as late as August 10 before losing four of five to the eventual World Series champion Washington Nationals doomed their prospects.  Cobb was caught up in the same gambling investigation as Speaker and had to give up his managerial reins after the 1926 season.  Both Cobb and Speaker continued on as players for two more years, with different teams.

• The St. Louis Browns named their star first baseman, 31-year old George Sisler, player-manager in 1924.  Sisler managed the Browns for three years and continued on for another year as just a player after being relieved of his managerial responsibilities.  The Browns were a bad team, but Sisler acknowledged that he had not been ready to be a manager.

• Second baseman Eddie Collins, although 37 years old, was still one of the best players in the game and widely acclaimed as a brilliant baseball mind when he became player-manager of the Chicago White Sox toward the end of the 1924 season.  He managed a White Sox team desperately trying to recover from being torn apart by the Black Sox scandal for two full seasons before being let go as both manager and player.

• And then there was Rogers Hornsby, who deserves a paragraph (make that two) of his own.  

Hornsby was 29 and in the midst of his second Triple Crown season in four years, playing second base, when the St. Louis Cardinals made him player-manager early in the 1925 season, freeing up Branch Rickey to devote full time to his general manager responsibilities.  The next year, Hornsby managed the Cardinals to their first first-ever NL title in a tight pennant race decided by two games, and to a stunning World Series triumph over the Yankees in which "Rajah" got to tag out the Babe himself on an attempted steal for the final out of the Fall Classic.  Good feelings quickly dissipated, however, and rather than meet Hornsby's demands for a new three-year contract, the Cardinals traded him to the Giants for second baseman Frankie Frisch. After a year in New York playing for John McGraw, Hornsby was traded to the Boston Braves where he was player-manager  in 1928, but the next year found him in Chicago, where he replaced McCarthy as manager in the final days of the 1930 season.

An undeniably great player, Hornsby was an antagonistic man--definitely not a people person--who alienated his players (and bosses) everywhere he managed.  Hornsby wanted his players to emulate how he did things to prepare for games; he was easily frustrated and quick to anger when players didn't meet his expectations; he was unable to get players to buy into his leadership because he displayed no particular wisdom; he was insulting, crude, and disrespectful.  The Cubs' ownership should have been alert to Hornsby's leadership shortcomings, if for no other reason than because of how he did his deliberate best in 1930 to undermine McCarthy, who had managed the team to the NL pennant in 1929.  Rogers Hornsby within two years of being named player-manager was let go and replaced as manager by first baseman Charlie Grimm in the heat of the 1932 pennant race.  Grimm led the Cubs to the World Series, where they ran into . . . the Babe, and his famous "called shot" of a home run.  

Babe Ruth almost certainly would have regarded being named manager as a validation of his own greatness. To not be named manager when the opening presented itself--as it did with Huggins' death--might well have been perceived by the Babe as disrespectful of his place in the baseball pantheon.  He certainly believed he would have been a successful manager, perhaps even a great manager--especially if he got to manage a team as loaded with talent as the New York Yankees.  (Ironically, 1930 would have been a less than auspicious year for Ruth to break in as a manager, let alone a player-manager, because the Philadelphia Athletics were a much better team than the Yankees and in the midst of three straight pennants.)

As time ran out on Ruth's career in the 1930s, the Babe was certainly aware (and envious) of other star players becoming managers--Bill Terry (Giants, 1931), Grimm (Cubs,1932), Frisch (Cardinals, 1933), and Pie Traynor (Pirates, 1934) in the National League; Joe Cronin (Nationals, 1933) and Mickey Cochrane (Tigers, 1934) in the American League.  Ruth went to the Boston Braves in 1935 believing that he was in line to soon become their manager.  That was not to be.  Nor was it to be in Brooklyn, where he coached in 1938, but come 1939 the Dodgers' new manager was active shortstop Leo Durocher--a former Yankee teammate of the Babe's--not Ruth.  Said Mrs. Julia Ruth Stevens when explaining the sadness that overtook the Babe after he retired as a player: "Daddy really wanted to manage."

See also an earlier post, "Player-Managers in the 20th Century:  A Cursory History": http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2013/08/player-managers-in-20th-century-cursory.html