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.

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.

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.

1956 Reds Power Into First Place (60 Years Ago)

Their Sunday doubleheader sweep of the Cardinals in St. Louis on July 1st, coupled with the Braves single-game loss to the Cubs in Chicago, put the 1956 Cincinnati Reds into a first place tie with Milwaukee (although technically .005 percentage points behind because of the difference in games played). The Redlegs, which was their official nom-de-guerre so as not to be confused with "Reds" at a time when the Cold War was at its height, were on a role with 8 wins in their last 11 games powered by Frank Robinson, Ted Kluszewski, and the long ball. Next stop for the Reds: home to Cincinnati to take on the Braves.

1956 Reds Power Into First Place (60 Years Ago)

The real fireworks would not be until Independence Day celebrations three days hence, but the Reds unloaded on the Cardinals for 26 runs in their Sunday doubleheader The Reds hit 5 home runs to win a 10-inning 19-15 slugfest in the first game, followed by 2 more in their 7-1 victory in the nightcap. Powerful first baseman Ted Kluszewski hit three homers in the opening game off three different pitchers, twice with a runner on, and his final one came with a runner on second and first base open to cap a 6-run 10th inning. 

Big Klu had been a prolific home run hitter in recent years, with three consecutive 40-homer seasons (40 in 1953, 49 in 1954, and 47 in 1955) and seemed on his way to that total once again; he now had 17 for the 1956 season. Kluszewski was up to 227 home runs in his big league career, which began with 12 in his rookie year of 1948. This was the first time, however, that Kluszewski had hit three home runs in a single game. It would also be the last. 

Kluszewski's 17th home run tied him with rookie sensation Frank Robinson for the most on the Reds. Robinson had hit his 17th in the second inning for the first run by either team in the game. On the same day, different city—Brooklyn—Gil Hodges had also hit his 17th, and Duke Snider did all three one better by hitting his league-leading 18th as the Dodgers split their Sunday doubleheader with the Phillies. The Dodgers finished the day a game behind the first-place Braves and Reds.

The latest in a line of exceptional black players who had broken into the National League since Jackie Robinson's debut in 1947—including Willie Mays in 1951, Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks in 1954, and Roberto Clemente in 1955—Frank Robinson was off to a better start than any of them in their rookie season. In addition to his 17 homers, Frank ended the day on July 1 with 38 runs batted in and a .324 batting average. Since being inserted fifth in the batting order behind Big Klu on June 16, Robinson had hit .439 with 4 homers and 13 RBIs and had gotten on base in 53 percent of his plate appearances. His team had won 11 of 17 games in that time.

Frank Robinson had the hottest bat, but in their last 11 games dating to June 22 when they went into Ebbets Field for four games with the Dodgers, of which they won three, the Reds had whacked 20 home runs that drove in 31 of the 69 runs—45 percent—they scored while going 8-3. The Reds had the most home runs of any team in the major leagues with 107; the Yankees were second with 99. Of the two presumed favorites for the NL pennant, both clubs with dangerous power hitters in their line-ups, the Dodgers had 77 homers and the Braves 69. 

Having played 67 games, the Cincinnati Reds were well ahead of the pace set by the 1947 New York Giants when they hit 221 home runs to establish the new major league record for a single year. The Giants had 101 home runs in their first 67 games of the 1947 season. 

Six Reds had double-digit home run totals already on the first day of July—Kluszewski and Robinson with 17, Gus Bell with 15 (including one in the second game of the July 1 doubleheader against St. Louis), Wally Post with 14, and Ed Bailey and Ray Jablonski with 13 each. Three of Bailey's home runs came in the first game of a doubleheader at Ebbets Field the previous Sunday. Like Kluszewski, it was the first time in his career he had hit 3 homers in one game, and even though he was still in his first full big league season, like Big Klu, it would be his last. Bailey wound up with 155 home runs in his 12-year career.

Thanks to their power game, the Reds at the end of the day on July 1 had scored more runs—358—than any other club in the major leagues except the Yankees, who had crossed home plate nearly 400 times. The Dodgers were third in scoring in the National League, and the Braves were sixth. But Cincinnati had also given up the fourth-most runs in the league, and none of the three teams that had surrendered more, including the Cardinals, were presumed contenders. 

Brooks Lawrence had emerged as their best starting pitcher. At 10-0, including 8 victories as a starter and 2 in relief, Lawrence was undefeated so far in the season, but his ERA was also 3.66. He was the Reds' starter in the first game of the July 1 doubleheader, took a 7-1 lead into the bottom of the fifth, and was pulled after surrendering a grand slam to Wally Moon that made the score 7-5 in a game that ultimately ended (it bears repeating, because the score was so outrageous) 19-15.

As the Reds returned home to face the Milwaukee Braves with first place on the line, it was 67 games down, with a 39-28 record, and 87 to go. Despite the questionable quality of their pitching staff, Cincinnati's power game was what had the Reds looking like they might be able to outlast the other presumed pennant pretenders in 1956, like the Cardinals and Pirates, as real contenders to challenge the favored Dodgers and Braves. 

While keeping pace and getting ahead of Milwaukee and Brooklyn were what was most important, Cincinnati also had 87 games in which to hit 115 more home runs that would break the record of 221 set by the 1947 Giants. The two goals were certainly not mutually exclusively, and it was quite possible the first—winning the pennant—might be dependent on achieving the home run record.

Status of Integration in the National League on Opening Day 1956

Exactly nine years and two days after his major league debut in 1947, Jackie Robinson made the first play of the 1956 season for the Brooklyn Dodgers on opening day, April 17, fielding a ground ball hit to third by the Phillies' Richie Ashburn and throwing him out at first. At the beginning of the 10th year of the Jackie Robinson era of integration in major league baseball, 65 blacks—almost all African-American—had so far played in the big leagues. All five rookies on opening day rosters who had yet to play a major league game were on National League teams, including Frank Robinson. 

The 1956 season began with 29 black players on the opening day rosters of seven of the eight National League teams; only the Philadelphia Phillies had still not integrated their roster. Fourteen black players were in their team's opening day starting line-up. All eight clubs played their first game on April 17.

STATUS OF INTEGRATION IN THE NATIONAL LEAGUE ON OPENING DAY APRIL 17, 1956 (SIXTY YEAR AGO)

With seven players, the Cincinnati Reds had more black players on their roster than any other major league team to open the 1956 season. The most talked about were right-hander Brooks Lawrence, acquired in an off-season trade with the Cardinals, and highly-touted rookie outfielder Frank Robinson. Questions about Lawrence focused on whether he could recapture what he had going for him in his impressive 15-6 debut for the Cardinals in 1954 after being a bust in 1955 and being sent to the minor leagues in August. Questions about Robinson were about whether he would really be as good as he gave every indication of being.

On opening day, Frank Robinson made a very strong case that indeed he would be. Robinson was the only one of the Reds' seven black players to start on opening day, batting seventh in left field. Facing the Cardinals' Vinegar Bend Mizell, Robinson hit a ground-rule double in his first major league at bat in the second and singled in his next at bat in the fourth. After hitting into a force-out in the sixth, Robinson was intentionally walked with runners on second and third with two outs to load the bases in a tie game in the eighth; the Cardinals, it seemed, preferred to pitch to veteran, light-hitting shortstop Roy McMillan, who had doubled to tie the game after Robinson's single in the fourth, rather than have to deal with the rookie who was now 2-for-3 in his big-league career. Good move. McMillan fouled out to end the threat and Stan Musial hit a two-run home-run in the ninth that decided the game.

Of historical note, not only was Frank Robinson back in the line-up for the second game of the season—he would start in 150 of the Reds' 155 games in 1956—but Cincinnati started a black pitcher in their next game, rookie southpaw Pat Scantlebury, who gave up 4 runs in 5 innings. He was relieved by Joe Black, an African-American pitcher who was NL Rookie of the Year in 1952 as a stellar relief pitcher for the Dodgers, and Lawrence, called in to pitch in the tenth, got the win when Cincinnati scored in the bottom of the inning. Scantlebury pitched poorly in his next start, however, appeared in four games in relief, and spent the rest of the year with the Reds' Triple-A club in Havana. 

With Lawrence no longer on the team, the St. Louis Cardinals had just one black player on their opening day roster—back-up first baseman Tom Alston. Alston integrated the Cardinals in 1954, was their starting first baseman the first two months of that season, spent the rest of his rookie season with Triple-A Rochester, and virtually all of 1955 in the minor leagues. He would do the same in 1956, playing just three games as a late-inning defensive replacement before being demoted at the end of April. That left St. Louis without any blacks on their roster until outfielder Charlie Peete was called up in mid-July after having hit .350 in 116 games for the Cardinals' Double-A team in Omaha.

The Chicago Cubs started the 1956 season with five black players on their roster. Second baseman Gene Baker batting second, shortstop Ernie Banks batting clean-up, and veteran Monte Irvin, acquired from the Giants, batting sixth in left field were in their starting line-up for the first game of the season.

The Cubs' opening day opponents were the Milwaukee Braves, starting the season with five black players in their dugout. Hank Aaron, batting fourth, in right field and Billy Bruton, the center fielder batting seventh, started on opening day. In the the Braves' 6-0 home victory over the Cubs, Aaron went 2-for-3, driving in the first run of the game with a single and adding a home run. Bruton went 1-for-4 with a triple that finished off Cubs' starter Bob Rush in the seventh.

The Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Giants, who met at the Polo Grounds on opening day, both had three black players on their rosters. Roberto Clemente, after hitting .255 for the Pirates in his rookie season the year before, batted third and was 0-for-4 in the game. Willie Mays in center field batting third and third baseman Hank Thompson, batting fifth, played key roles in the Giants' game-winning eighth-inning rally to break a 2-2 tie. Mays doubled with a runner on first for his only hit of the day, putting runners on second and third to start the inning. After an intentional walk to load the bases, Thompson's flyout to center drove in the tie-breaking run, the throw to the plate on which Mays moved up to third. 

More dramatically, with now one out, Willie Mays being Willie Mays took off for the plate on the next play—a grounder to short—as soon as the throw was released to first base. He was ruled safe when the catcher, in his haste to make the tag, dropped the relay from first baseman Dale Long. Mays's aggressive pursuit of the run providing the Giants with a 4-2 lead was crucial because Long hit a home run in the ninth to make the final score 4-3.

Finally, the Philadelphia Phillies, whose vicious verbal assaults on Jackie Robinson in his rookie season live on in infamy, including in popular culture (see the movie, 42), were in Ebbets Field for opening day. The Phillies were the only National League team—and one of just three big leagues teams, along with the Tigers and Red Sox—that had refused to integrate, even though it was clear by now that there was no going back to segregated major league baseball. 

While the Phillies had no blacks in their dugout—and would not all season—the Brooklyn Dodgers opened with five of their six black players in the starting line-up. Their ace, Don Newcombe, took the mound, against Philadelphia ace Robin Roberts; Jim Gilliam was in left field batting first; catcher Roy Campanella was the clean-up hitter; Jackie Robinson was at third base batting sixth; and Charlie Neal was at second base batting eighth in his major league debut. Sandy Amoros, a left-handed hitter who had platooned in left field the previous year—and who made the catch that saved Game 7 for the 1955 World Champion Dodgers—was on the bench. It looked likely that Amoros would spend most of the season coming off the bench because the Dodgers had decided to move the switch-hitting Gilliam from second base to play left field every day so that rookie prospect Neal could play second.

The Dodgers lost their first game in defense of their 1955 championship. But Gilliam went 1-for-2 with an inside-the-park home run into the left-center field gap off Roberts; Campanella went 2-for-4 and also tagged Roberts for a home run; Neal went 0-for-4 in his first game; and Jackie went 0-for-3 in what would be the last opening day of his career, with a sacrifice fly. Newcombe's second-inning double gave the Dodgers a brief lead, but while his bat was willing, his pitching stuff proved weak as he gave up 5 runs on 5 hits in 4.2 innings and took the loss. He would lose only six more times all year.
  
One game down with 153 to go, the Dodgers were not in first place—after having been there all year in 1955.

The following are links to my posts on the status of integration in the National League on opening day in 1955:

http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2015/04/60-years-ago-opening-day-1955mr-cub.html

http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2015/04/opening-day-60-years-ago-status-report_12.html

http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2015/04/opening-day-60-years-ago-status-report_12.html

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

Opening Day 60 Years Ago: Status Report on Integration—The National League

Nine years into the Jackie Robinson era, there were 36 blacks on the 1955 opening day rosters of the sixteen major league teams—27 on seven of the eight National League teams. Fourteen were in the starting line-up in their team's first game of the year. This is the third of four articles on the state of integration in major league baseball as Robinson was nearing the end of his great and ground-breaking career. 

Opening Day 60 Years Ago: Status Report on Integration—The National League

The first article in this series focused on the National League's traditional season-opening game on April 11 at Cincinnati's Crosley Field, where the Chicago Cubs beat the Reds, 7-5, with all three of the black players—two of whom were in the starting line-up—on their roster playing a significant role in the victory. Both teams played again the next day, as the round of major league season-opening games continued.

The Cubs returned home to Wrigley Field to host the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals, playing in the farthest south of big league cities at the time, had not integrated until the 1954 season—but this day they started Brooks Lawrence, who was a revelation in his rookie season after being called up the previous June, going 15-6, including 9-2 in 18 starts. In his first opening day start, Lawrence didn't have it. He gave up five runs while getting only two outs in the first inning before being relieved. This proved an unfortunate harbinger of his year to come. Lawrence was sent back to the minor leagues in August with a 3-7, 6.35 record in 45 games—mostly in relief.

Lawrence resurrected his career the following year, his 19-10 record with the Reds contributing to their pennant push that fell two games short of success in 1956. Of course, the real catalyst of Cincinnati's revival was the arrival of Frank Robinson, who became the first black player to start an opening-day game for the Reds on April 17, 1956. Robinson, batting seventh, got a double in his first big league at bat, a single in his second, went 2-for-3 in the Reds' loss to the Cardinals, and finished the 1956 season with 38 home runs—matching the then-record for the most by a rookie—and winning the NL Rookie of the Year.

The Reds traveled to Milwaukee on April 12 for the Braves' opening day. As in the opening game, neither of the Reds' two black players were in the starting line-up, although Bob Thurman reached as a pinch hitter and Chuck Harmon went in to run for him. 

The Braves were fully committed to integration, with seven black players on their opening day roster. Center fielder Bill Bruton (in his third season) and right fielder Hank Aaron (in his second), batting first and second, were key contributors to Milwaukee's 4-2 win in their first game of the year. Bruton led off the game with a single and scored the Braves' first run of the season, and with the Braves up by 3-2 in the eighth, singled and scored an insurance run on Aaron's triple. As a rookie in 1954, Aaron had given many indications he would be an elite player. Bruton was among the first black players to be a consistent regular over at least five successive seasons who was not an elite player.

Of the five other black players on Milwaukee's opening-day roster, the most significant was George Crowe, who had batted .334 with the team's Triple-A club in Toronto in 1954 after two relatively underachieving seasons with the Braves in 1952 and 1953, during which he started in only 55 of the 120 games he played. Crowe made the 1955 Braves as the back-up to Joe Adcock at first base and wound up as Milwaukee's regular first baseman the final two months of the season after Adcock suffered a broken arm when he was hit by a pitch on the last day of July. The next year, Crowe was in Cincinnati, the back-up to Ted Kluszewski, and so started only 25 games. The other four black players on the 1955 Braves' opening roster were sent down to the minors in June.

The Giants at Philadelphia and the Pirates at Brooklyn did not begin their 1955 seasons until April 13. While the Phillies were just as bad as the Red Sox, Tigers, and Yankees in their stance on integration and had no blacks on their opening-day roster—it would not be until two years later, at the start of the 1957 season, that they integrated at the major league level—the Giants not only had long been fully committed to integration, but had profited thereby. Hank Thompson had been a regular with the Giants since being called up in July 1949, Monte Irvin and Willie Mays were  instrumental to the Giants' epic come-from-behind pennant in 1951, and in 1954 they were joined by Ruben Gomez, who had a 17-9 record in helping New York derail Brooklyn in the National League, and then Cleveland in the World Series.

Mays in center, Irvin in left, and Thompson at third batted third, fourth, and fifth for Leo Durocher's Giants in their opening-day loss to the Phillies. Mays became the Giants' first base runner of the season when he walked, spoiling Philadelphia ace Robin Roberts' bid for a perfect game. Roberts carried a no-hit bid into the ninth, however, before it was broken up by Alvin Dark's one-out single following an error. After Roberts fanned Mays, Irvin doubled to drive home his team's first two runs of the 1955 season in their 4-2 loss.

Two of the three black players on the Pirates' opening-day roster were in the starting line-up in Pittsburgh's April 13, 6-1, loss in Brooklyn—second baseman Curt Roberts, batting second, and right fielder Roman Mejias, making his big league debut, batting third. Roberts had been the player to integrate the Pirates in 1954 and was their regular second baseman all season, but major league pitching proved challenging and his starting job at second rested on a thin reed. He went 1-for-4 in the game and 1-for-2 the next day against the Phillies, but by the end of April was sent packing to the minor leagues with a .118 batting average in six games and 19 plate appearances. Mejias was 1-for-3, his first major league hit coming in his second at bat against Brooklyn starter Carl Erskine. Mejias started in only 39 of the 71 games he played and batted only .216, earning him another year of seasoning in the minor leagues the next year.

Pittsburgh manager Fred Haney did not use the third black player on his team in any game until starting him in right field, in place of Mejias (who had only two hits in his first 11 at bats) in the fourth game of the year, on April 17, at home, against the Dodgers. Batting third and in right field, Roberto Clemente got an infield single in his first major league at bat and went 1-for-4. Once in the starting line-up, Clemente was there to stay in Pittsburgh—through 3,000 hits in his last at bat of the 1972 season—until his tragic fate on a personally-organized humanitarian mission to bring relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua late on New Year's Eve.  

The Dodgers' opening day line-up in their win against Pittsburgh featured Jim Gilliam at second, batting first; Sandy Amoros, batting fifth in left field; Jackie Robinson—beginning his ninth major league season—at third base, batting sixth; and Roy Campanella, batting eighth and catching. It was Gilliam's home run off Pirates' starter Max Surkont to lead off the bottom of the seventh that proved the ultimate winning run, breaking a 1-1 tie. But it was Jackie Robinson being Jackie Robinson whose at bat was decisive in breaking open the game. With the score still 2-1 on Gilliam's home run, and runners on first and third with two out, Jackie dragged a bunt past the pitcher's mound, where it was fielded by second baseman Roberts, who had no play. Pee Wee Reese scored from third to make the score 3-1 on Robinson's second hit of the day—he had doubled the previous inning—and Carl Furillo followed with a three-run home run to put the game out of Pittsburgh's reach.

Brooklyn's two other black players were both pitchers—reliever Joe Black, for whom there was no need in Carl Erskine's complete game victory—and Don Newcombe, the Dodgers' true ace who was reserved to start the second game of the season, against the hated, despised, and defending-champion New York Giants. Since the Pirates had been the worst team in the league in 1954, and would be again this year, the Giants' home opener at the Polo Grounds on April 14 would be the Dodgers' first true test of the 1955 season.

The fourth article of this series on the state of integration in major league baseball in 1955 will center on that game.