INTRODUCING YOUR 1956 NATIONAL LEAGUE ALL-STARS

The 1956 All-Star Game was played on July 10th in Washington's Griffith Stadium. The Cincinnati Reds, atop the National League standings, had five position players in the NL All-Star starting line-up, and three other players selected by managers and coaches. The Milwaukee Braves and Brooklyn Dodgers, in second and third, each had four players make the All-Star team, none as starters.

Introducing Your 1956 National League All-Stars (60 Years Ago)

One would think that a club in first place by only a game-and-a-half would not have dominated the vote for starting position players quite the way the Cincinnati Redlegs did. One year before ballot-stuffing on behalf of Reds players caused major league baseball to take the privilege of voting for starting All-Stars away from the fans, leaving it to professionals in the game to select who deserved to play in the game, the middle of the Reds' infield, two of their three starting outfielders, and their catcher were all voted in as All-Stars. It was an honor that rookie Frank Robinson clearly deserved, and arguably so did catcher Ed Bailey, although a strong case might be made for Phillies' catcher Stan Lopata (see tables at end of this article).

The non-Reds who were starting NL All-Stars were Pirates' first baseman Dale Long and Cardinals' third baseman Ken Boyer and outfielder Stan Musial. Boyer was leading the league with 60 runs batted in, and Musial was close behind with 58. Ironically, Long bumped out of the starting line-up the Cincinnati player other than Robinson who was most deserving of the honor —first baseman Ted Kluszewski, whose 22 home runs led the league. Kluszewski, however, did make the NL All-Star team as a back-up.

While Johnny Temple may have been the most deserving second baseman in the National League, the selection of Roy McMillan—for all his defensive excellence—to start at shortstop deprived Ernie Banks of a deserved privilege. The Cubs' shortstop was right behind Big Klu in home runs with 21; Banks did make the team as a reserve. 

In the outfield, the fan vote for Gus Bell to play alongside Frank Robinson and Musial in the outfield deprived the following three outfielders of a starting role, although all three were named to the NL All-Star team as reserves—Milwaukee's Hank Aaron (batting .309 with 40 RBIs); the Giants' incomparable Willie Mays (hitting just .288 with 13 home runs, but successful in 19 of 21 stolen base attempts); and the Duke of Flatbush, Edwin Snider, who was almost half-way to a fourth straight 40-homer season with 19 round-trippers at the break while batting .295.

The Reds also had pitchers Brooks Lawrence, a righty, and southpaw Joe Nuxhall make the squad. Lawrence was leading the National League with 12 wins at the break, and he was undefeated. It was Pittsburgh right-hander Bob Friend (11-7), however, who got the start for the National League All-Stars. 

Notable among the other pitchers was the Phillies' Robin Roberts, whose 8-10 record at the break put potentially at risk the continuance of his string of six consecutive 20-win seasons; he had won 138 games between 1950 and 1955. Roberts went on to just miss a seventh straight 20-win year by one victory, finishing 1956 at 19-18.

The most noteworthy players who did not make the 1956 NL All-Star Game, certainly in historical retrospect, were Don Newcombe and Jackie Robinson. At 11-5, Newcombe was second in the league in wins along with Friend, but that wasn't enough to get him on the All-Star squad. Certainly unanticipated was that Big Newk would finish the year with 27 wins.

At 37 years old, Jackie was playing what would be his last year in baseball, although that decision would not be made until after the Dodgers tried trading him to the Giants after the season. He got off to a slow start, then spent most of the month of June on the bench nursing various aches and pains. Robinson was batting just .256. 

In his 10 major league seasons, Jackie Robinson was an All-Star just six times, every year from 1949 to 1954. He did not make the NL All-Star squad in his rookie year of 1947 despite his .310 batting average at the break as the only black player in major league baseball. (Larry Doby made his debut in Cleveland just two days before the All-Star break.) Robinson wasn't on the 1948 All-Star team either. Red Schoendienst was voted in as the starting NL second baseman that year. Chosen instead of Robinson as a backup at second base for the 1948 NL All-Stars was Giants second baseman Bill Rigney, who was batting .275 at the time. Jackie was hitting .295 at the 1948 break. 

It was not until 1949—three years after he broke the major league's institutionally-arbitrary color barrier—that Robinson finally made an All-Star team. He had company with Newcombe and Campanella also making the 1949 NL All-Star team, and Doby was named to the AL team. Batting second and playing second base, Jackie Robinson became the first black player voted by the fans and the first black player to start in an All-Star Game. He went 1-for-4 and scored 3 runs of the National League's 7 runs. Jackie Robinson was 6-for-18 (.333) with 7 runs scored, 1 home run, and 4 RBIs in his six All-Star games.

The following is the list of the National League's starting position players, reserves, and pitchers for the 1956 All-Star Game with their key stats up to the All-Star break.

NL STARTING LINE-UP	RUNS	Power	BA
Temple, CIN, 2B	45 R	24 RBI	.281
F. Robinson, CIN, LF	58 R	18 HR 39 RBI	.313
Musial, StL, RF	43 R	14 HR 58 RBI	.308
Boyer, StL, 3B	57 R	20 HR  60 RBI	.321
Bell, CIN, CF	46 R	15 HR 41 RBI	.289
Long, PIT, 1B	39 R	17 HR 50 RBI	.303
Bailey, CIN, C	30 R	14 HR 33 RBI	.335
McMillan, CIN, SS	26 R	34 RBI	.282

NL POSITION RESERVES	RUNS	Power	BA
Kluszewski, CIN, 1B	48	22 HR 55 RBI	.282
Aaron, MIL, OF	43	9 HR  40 RBI	.309
Mathews, MIL, 3B	42	13 HR 28 RBI	.229
Crandall, MIL, C	23	11 HR 27 RBI	.253
Snider, BRO, OF	54	19 HR 43 RBI	.295
Campanella, BRO, C	26	11 HR  38 RBI	.222
Gilliam, BRO, 2B	49	28 RBI	.295
Repulski, StL, OF	26	7 HR  28 RBI	.335
Banks, CHI, SS	49	21 HR 48 RBI	.283
Mays, NYG, OF	40 R 19 SB	13 HR 36 RBI	.288
Lopata, PHI, C	43 R	14 HR 45 RBI	.256

NL PITCHERS	Record	G	ERA
Friend, PIT ( SP / ASG )	11-7	22 GS	3.07
Lawrence, CIN	12-0	21 G    15 GS	3.48
Antonelli, NYG *	8-7	17 GS	3.26
Roberts, PHI,	8-10	18 GS	4.28
Spahn, MIL *	7-7  3 ShO	16 GS	2.80
Nuxhall, CIN *	6-8	22 G       5 GS	4.06
Labine, BRO	7-3  11 SV	35 G relief	3.11
*  Left-handed pitcher

CORRECTION: In my previous post, "1956 Reds Power Into First Place," I wrote that the 18th home run that Duke Snider hit on July 1 led the league. I was wrong. Ken Boyer and Ernie Banks both had 20 home runs; Banks hit two against the Braves on July 1. 

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.

The '64 Phillies and the Whiz Kids Precedent: Beware the Big Mid-September Lead

The 1964 Philadelphia Phillies are, of course, famous for blowing a 6-1/2 game lead with only 12 games remaining. Fourteen years earlier, the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies--known as the "Whiz Kids" because of their relative youth and inexperience at the big league level--held an even bigger 7-1/2 game advantage with only 11 games remaining and wound up facing the prospect on the final day of the season of squandering the entirety of that lead. 

The '64 Phillies and the Whiz Kids Precedent: Beware the Big Mid-September Lead

When the 1964 season turned to September, the Philadelphia Phillies had a 5-1/2 game lead in the standings over the second-place Reds, 6-1/2 over the third-place Giants and 7 over the fourth-place Cardinals. With a 78-51 record, this was a comfortable lead that was widely assumed sufficient for them to nurse to the City of Brotherly Love's first pennant since 1950. It was not a commanding lead because they still had 33 games to play--and a lot can happen in 33 games. However, even if they went 16-17 down the stretch, the Reds would have needed to go 22-10 to beat out the Phillies. So, commanding?--perhaps not--but certainly pretty darn comfortable.

Back in 1950, the Phillies' Whiz Kids had a similarly comfortable lead when they began the month of September, up by six games over the defending NL-champion Brooklyn Dodgers. They were the surprise team in major league baseball. After having finished a distant third in 1949, the Phillies were no longer a team that for most of three decades was the doormat of the National League. But neither were they assumed to be ready to compete with the powerhouse Dodgers, or even the Cardinals or Braves, for top of the heap. What the '50 Phillies had was the best pitching in the league--paced by 23-year-old Robin Roberts in only his third season, 21-year-old Curt Simmons also in his third season and Jim Konstanty in the bullpen--and a core of youthful gamers, including 23-year-old center fielder Richie Ashburn (a future Hall of Fame guy) in his third season; 23-year-old Granny Hamner in his third season at shortstop; 24-year-old third baseman Willie Jones in only his second full season; and power-hitting right fielder Del Ennis, who was only 25 but an established big league veteran with five years on his resume.

Having just completed a 20-8 month of August that seemed to have broken open the pennant race, the '50 Phillies with a 78-47 record had 29 games remaining. Their 6-1/2 game advantage at the start of September may not have been commanding, but it should have been reasonably comfortable. The Dodgers, however, owing to rainouts earlier in the season, still had 35 games left to play and--with the likes of Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Don Newcombe, Pee Wee Reese, Duke Snider, Gil Hodges and Carl Furillo--a far more formidable team. Making a statement that this thing ain't over yet, the Dodgers came into town for four games on September 6 and won the first three, which extended a Phillies losing streak to five games--equaling their longest of the season to that point. Still, after salvaging the final game of the series, Philadelphia's lead in the standings had diminished by only half-a-game since the start of the month. And the Phillies won five of their next six to up their lead to 7-1/2 games--their largest margin of the season, with time rapidly running out on Brooklyn.

The Phillies' lead was still 7-1/2 games over both the Dodgers and the Braves after they beat the Cubs on September 20. With only 11 games left on their schedule, now their lead did seem commanding if not outright secure. But four of their remaining games were against Brooklyn, three against Boston and the other four against the New York Giants, who had the best record in the National League since the Fourth of July. And their last nine games of the season would all be on the road. Plus, the United States was again at war--this time in Korea--which called into duty the National Guard unit on which Curt Simmons served.

While Roberts posted the first of six straight 20-win seasons in 1950, the southpaw Simmons was on his own way to 20 with a 17-8 record and 3.40 earned run average when he was called into service. His three starts in September gave no indication that having already pitched over 40 innings more than his previous career high was diminishing his effectiveness; he allowed only 4 earned runs in 24 September innings--the last of which, sadly for Philadelphia--was on September 9.

 Rookie right-hander Bob Miller, who had not been a regular in the starting rotation since early August, and veteran right-hander Ken Heintzelman, who had not started a game since July, essentially took Simmons' spot in the rotation alongside Roberts (20-11 on the season), Russ Meyer (9-11) and Bubba Church (8-6) for the final weeks of the schedule. Miller lost two of his three starts after Simmons answered his call to duty, surrendering 9 earned runs in 17 innings, and Heintzelman won one and lost one of his two starts. Jim Konstanty, who at the end of the season became the first reliever in history to win the MVP on the strength of a 16-7 record and 16 saves, was overworked and ineffective as the season drew to a close. Pitching in six of the final 11 games--four times working at least 2 innings and twice at least 3--Konstanty lost twice, blew a save, allowed three of five inherited runners to score after he came in, and had a 6.23 ERA in 13 innings.

The Dodgers came into town, a two-day stand, on September 23 and 24, won both and sent the Phillies on the road with their lead down to five games. Philadelphia's first stop was Boston, where winning two of three eliminated the Braves from the pennant race. Only the Dodgers had a chance, and the Phillies played their part by losing all four of their next games in New York at the Polo Grounds.

When the Phillies came into Ebbets Field to close out the season, however, the Dodgers were the team with momentum, having won 12 of their last 15 games. But being up by two games, all the Phillies needed was one win to escape Brooklyn with the pennant. One win. In the first game, Miller failed to make it out of the fifth; Jim Konstanty in relief was ineffective; the Dodgers won; and the two teams went into the final game of the season one game apart. Should Philadelphia lose, the National League pennant would be decided in a best-of-three playoff.

Game 154 for both teams was a classic. Ten innings, both team's aces--Roberts and Don Newcombe--going the distance; Richie Ashburn cutting down the would-be walk-off winning run at the plate trying to score from second on a single up the middle in the bottom of the ninth; Dick Sisler hitting a three-run home run off Newk in the tenth to send the Phillies to their first World Series since 1915. And thus did the Phillies avert what would have been, at the time, the most epic collapse in history: losing a 7-1/2 game lead with only 11 left on the schedule. They would leave it to a later Phillies team to have that distinction.

The '50 Phillies went on to lose the Series in four straight to the Yankees, thus ending their season by losing nine of the last ten games they played (September stretch and post-season included). Despite two Hall of Famers on their roster--Robin Roberts and Richie Ashburn--and their pennant, the 1950 Philadelphia Phillies were a tease. They were not in the same competitive class as the Dodgers and the up-and-coming Giants (who would add Willie Mays in 1951), and Philadelphia did not factor into any pennant race until 1964. If the Whiz Kids were going to win, 1950 was going to have to be their year. The same could be said of the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies.

The remaining posts of this extended series on the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies will focus on key managerial decisions by Gene Mauch in the final weeks of September that resonate even now ... fifty years later.

The following is a link to the previous post in this series, which includes links to those before that--going back to pre-season prognostications: http://brysholm.blogspot.com/2014/08/august-7-64-phillies-continued-where.html