A Grimm Ending (The 1956 Braves, 60 Years Ago)

After the Milwaukee Braves lost a second consecutive one-run game to the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field on June 16, 1956, veteran manager Charlie Grimm was out and Fred Haney was in. Grimm's fate was sealed by the Braves' desultory start to what was expected to be a great year. They were only 24-22 on the season, but worse—the Braves had won just 5 of the 17 games they had played so far in June.

A Grimm Ending--the Milwaukee Braves 60 Years Ago in 1956

The Braves were supposed to be better than this. They had begun the month of June in first place, at 19-10, having won nearly two-thirds of their games. But they were just one game ahead of the Cardinals at the time, two ahead of both the Pirates and Reds, and three up on the defending-champion Dodgers. 

After spending most of the last half of May on the road, the Braves were back at home for the first half of June, beginning with four games against the Pirates followed by four against the Dodgers. It went badly. They lost three of four to both Pittsburgh and Brooklyn, then four of their next seven. At the end of their 15-game home stand on June 14, the Braves were in fifth place. But they trailed by just a game-and-a-half, behind the Reds and Pirates—tied for first—and the Dodgers and Cardinals, who were half-a-game out of first.

As observed in a previous post, neither Pittsburgh nor St. Louis was expected to keep up the pace in a long marathon, roughly 50 games into the season, two-thirds of which was still to be run.  It still seemed the safe bet was on Brooklyn and Milwaukee being the two clubs most likely to be running neck and neck to the finish line, or that one or the other would break ahead of the pack—as the Yankees were doing in the American League—and run away with it. Either way, the Braves or the Dodgers.

Now the Braves were at Ebbets Field for a four-game series that might set the tone going forward.

In the first game on June 15, the Braves failed to hold onto a 4-1 lead they took into the last of the seventh. Carl Furillo tagged Braves' starter Lew Burdette for a home run that inning to make it 4-2 and then singled in the eighth off reliever Dave Jolly to drive in the tying run. In the ninth, it was a two-out walk-off bases-loaded single by Brooklyn backup catcher Rube Walker that won the game; Walker, batting .167 when he came to the plate, was in the game only because the Dodgers had pinch run earlier for Roy Campanella. 

It didn't go any better the next day. The Braves had just tied the score at 2-2 in the eighth when Duke Snider led off the bottom of the inning with his 15th home run of the year off reliever Ernie Johnson, which turned out to be the deciding run of the game. The day after that, the Milwaukee Braves had a new manager. 

Charlie Grimm had seen this scenario unfold up close and personal before. In 1932, he was a 32-year-old first baseman for the Chicago Cubs when he was called upon in early August to become manager of a club not doing as well as expected. He was replacing an icon—Rogers Hornsby, possibly the greatest right-handed batter of all-time, but as a manager, controversial to say the least; the Rajah alienated both his players and the front office he worked for. The Cubs were in second place, 5 games behind at the time, but treading water. Grimm was a lighter touch. The Cubs went on to win the pennant. 

In 1938, Grimm witnessed that scenario in reverse. This time it was mid-July, the Cubs were in third place, 5½ games behind, and they were nothing if not streaky. Grimm paid the price for his team playing less than their presumed best and was replaced by Chicago's star catcher, Gabby Hartnett, whose somewhat tougher approach helped the Cubs to another come-from-behind pennant.

Charlie Grimm's strong major league managerial resume was why he was named manager of the Braves about a quarter of the way into the 1952 season; he had won three pennants (1932, 1935, and 1945) in two stints as the Cubs' manager (1932-38 and 1944-49), and the Braves' owners, who would move their franchise from Boston to Milwaukee the next year, were counting on that experience being what was needed to lead an increasingly-talented team to the World Series in their new home town. With Grimm in charge, the Braves finished second in 1953—their first year in Milwaukee—then third, then second. The expectation in the Braves' front office was that 1956 was to be their year. But it wasn't working out.

There was now a sense, in 1956, that time had passed him by. Grimm had a reputation for being a players' manager, including participating in boys-will-be-boys clubhouse banter. By the 1950s, however, particularly after the societal and cultural changes in postwar America, ball players had become more sophisticated; the game a bigger business; and even managers popular with their players had to establish professional distance and honor boundaries. For example, in his case, although there is no indication he discriminated against black players when it came to baseball—he insisted, for example, that Hank Aaron be promoted to the Braves in 1954, a full year before the front office had planned—Grimm nonetheless joined in clubhouse razzing of the black players on his team, including the indisputably great Aaron. 

There had been speculation in the days leading up to Grimm's ouster, when the Braves' playing so poorly made it obvious he could not last much longer, that they might try to get Leo Durocher to come to Milwaukee and take charge. Durocher was without a job, having been let go by the Giants after the previous season. Instead it was Fred Haney, now a coach on the Braves, three years older than Grimm and without anywhere near the success of his predecessor in either of his two previous terms as a big-league manager with terrible teams—the 1939-41 St. Louis Browns and the 1953-55 Pittsburgh Pirates.

And if Haney had thought about it (which he probably did), it was no small irony that the Pirates—the team he had managed to three straight last-place finishes and which won just 35 percent of their games under his command until he was fired at the end of the 1955 season—that team was in first place in the National League on the day he took charge of the Braves. 

But Milwaukee was just 3½ games out of first place. And, with just 56 games down, there were still 98 to go. More than enough time.

Rocky (60 Years Ago, 1956)

Our last mention of Rocky Colavito was briefly in my previous post on Mickey Mantle. If Mantle was living up to his advance billing for the 1956 season, Colavito was not. Just six days after his two-run homer began a monster comeback in Cleveland's 15-8 victory at Yankee Stadium, Rocky Colavito was sent packing to San Diego in the Pacific Coast League.

Rocky (60 Years Ago, 1956)

 "Looks like a 22-year-old Joe DiMaggio and has some of the traits—speed, a fine arm, real love for the game, and ability to hit the long ball." That's what Sports Illustrated had to say about Rocky Colavito when looking ahead to the 1956 season. Colavito had hit 68 home runs and driven in 230 runs in his 1954 and 1955 seasons with Cleveland's Triple-A affiliate in Indianapolis, earning a call-up to the major leagues in September 1955. 

Used sparingly in only five games (entering games twice as a pinch hitter, twice as a pinch runner, and once as a defensive replacement), Colavito had a day to remember and whet Cleveland's appetite as to what he might do in the years ahead in the Indians' next-to-last game of the '55 season, just after they had been eliminated from the pennant race. After Al Smith led off the game with a single, manager Al Lopez put Colavito in as a pinch runner and kept him in for the rest of the game. Colavito doubled in the third, doubled in the fifth, singled in the seventh, and singled again in the ninth. A 4-for-4 day.

Colavito began the 1956 season as Cleveland's fourth outfielder, starting in just 4 of the Indians' first 17 games in right field. The right-handed slugger hit his first major league home run in only his second major league start on April 25 off Kansas City left-hander Bobby Shantz and got a double in his fourth big-league start two days later . . . but those were his only 2 hits in 18 at bats. 

In mid-May, Colavito started 10 consecutive games in right field, but aside from a three-run home run off Kansas City's Arnie Portocarrero to break open a game the Indians were leading by 5-4, Cleveland's young slugger was still struggling at the plate. The homer, the second of his career, was one of only 4 hits in 32 at bats during his starts. His batting average at .120, Colavito started in a platoon role for the rest of the month. His next six starts were all against southpaws; Colavito regained his swagger with 8 hits in 18 at bats during his starts, including 2 more home runs. 

His average now up to .205 for his rookie season, Colavito earned his way back into the starting line-up. In his next six starts, four against right-handers, Colavito got 5 hits in 18 at bats, including that home run off Don Larsen. On June 14 in Boston, three games after he was last in the starting line-up, Colavito was sent up to pinch hit in the ninth inning of a game the Indians were losing 10-9 against left-handed reliever Leo Kiely. A home run could tie the game. Colavito grounded out to short.

It was premature to cue the Rocky theme. 

For the Cleveland Indians, who were 28-24 and about to open a three-game series at home against the Yankees, the front-runner they trailed in second place by 5 games, it was 52 games down and 102 to go. For Rocky Colavito, it was 37 games down (26 in the starting line-up), and back to the minor leagues in San Diego.

Clearly, Joe DiMaggio, Rocky Colavito was not, although it should be noted that SI did not say he was the second coming of the Yankee Clipper, only that he had some of the same traits. DiMaggio's rookie season 20 years earlier, in 1936, was exceptional. He went 3-for-6 in his first game and ended the season with 206 hits, 29 home runs, 125 RBIs, and a .323 average. By going 9-for-19 in his first four games, DiMaggio not only established he was really something, but … from his very first game, Joe DiMaggio never ended a day in the major leagues in which his lifetime batting average was less than .300.

Colavito was batting .215 when he was sent down, with 5 home runs and 17 runs batted in. His next 35 games were for the minor league Padres, and Colavito made a compelling case he belonged in the stadium off Lake Eire, not one off the Pacific Ocean. Batting a robust .368, Rocky knocked out 12 homers and drove in 32 runs for the Padres.

He convinced Cleveland management, and on July 24, Rocky Colavito was back in the major leagues to stay. He was in the starting line-up, batting fifth, and went 3-for-4 in his first game back, against the Senators, driving in three runs. And in the line-up he stayed for the rest of the season. Colavito started all but five of the Indians’ remaining 67 games, batting .301 with 16 home runs and 48 RBIs.

With a statistical line of 21 homers, 65 RBIs, and a .276 batting average, Rocky Colavito finished second to the White Sox’ Luis Aparicio for American League Rookie of the Year honors.

Headline: Mickey's in a Slump ! (60 Years Ago, 1956)

As the Yankees began play on June 9, 1956, their lead over the second-place Cleveland Indians—the team considered the most likely to compete with them for the American League pennant—was down to 3½ games. They were shutout by the visiting Indians the previous day, 9-0, behind the 5-hit pitching of their ace, Early Wynn. The first of those five hits was a double by Mickey Mantle, who went hitless in his next three at bats to bring his batting average down to an even .400. The Mick was in a slump.

Headline: Mickey's in a Slump ! (60 Years Ago, 1956)

 In singing Mantle's praises in its preview of the 1956 season, Sports Illustrated wrote: "Mantle is so good, they say he has a disappointing season if he doesn't hit .400." That was hyperbole, perhaps, but the point was well taken. After five big-league seasons, and having led the American League in home runs in 1955 with 37 to go along with 99 runs batted in and a .306 average, Mantle was poised for a tremendous year.

Except, maybe they were really serious about the .400 part. On May 9, after going 3-for-4 in a 6-5 Yankee loss to the Indians, Mantle was batting .446. It was 20 games into the season. Mantle had played in every game. He had gone hitless in just three and been on base in all but one. He had multi-hit games in twelve. And in addition to his .446 batting average, the Mick also had 10 home runs and 24 RBIs in the 20 games. Nobody could get the guy out.

Batting third in Casey Stengel's line-up, Mantle was certainly helped by the protection of Yogi Berra hitting behind him in the clean-up spot. Berra, having also played all 20 games, was batting .351 with 9 homers and 23 RBIs. Pitchers, pick your poison. Undoubtedly worried about the three-time MVP Berra coming up next, Mantle had walked just 12 times as of May 20, and none were intentional walks. 

One month and 29 games later, Mantle was batting a mere .400. Berra, a model of consistency, had seen his average dip to .330, but it was now back to .351. Opposing teams were now definitely pitching more carefully to Mantle. After going 1-for-4 against Wynn in the first game of the series on June 8, Mantle's average since May 9 was .373—certainly excellent for anyone else, but maybe not for the player who SI said would "have a disappointing season if he doesn't hit .400." (Hey, they were just kidding ! Kind of.)

Some slump, if we must call it that. He had failed to get a hit in only five of the Yankees' 29 games since May 9, and he had played in them all. Mantle had hit 11 more home runs, bringing his total to 21 in the Yankees' first 49 games, and he had driven in 28 runs, so now he had 52 RBIs.

There's a reason why .400 is such rarefied air. It's harder to do than to climb the highest Himalayan mountains (not to demean the difficulty and magnitude of that achievement). 

After walking in his first at bat against Cleveland starter Mike Garcia at Yankee Stadium on June 9, Mantle led off the bottom of the third off reliever Don Mossi with a single up the middle. The Yankees were already ahead, 4-0, and he soon came around to score on a 2-RBI single by Bob Cerv. That hit brought his batting average up to .403. The next inning, still facing Mossi, Mantle grounded into a fielder's choice. His average was now .401. 

That would be the last time in what was becoming—and would forever be—the epic Mickey Mantle season, that the Mick's batting average was over .400 for the season. While the Indians came roaring back to win the game, 15-8, starting with rookie Rocky Colavito's two-run homer in the fourth (the fifth of his career), Mantle flied out in the sixth with a runner on first and the Yankees' holding onto a now-slim 8-7 lead. He was now just a shade below .400 at .399. In the last of the 8th, the Mick popped out to the shortstop, making him 1-for-4 on the day and bringing his average down to .397.

The Yankees' loss reduced their lead over the Indians to 2½ games. Their record was now 31-19—a .620 winning percentage—with 50 games down and 104 to go. They played even better with a .635 winning percentage the rest of the way, 6½ games better than Cleveland. 

As for Mickey Mantle, he batted .327 the rest of the season with 31 more home runs and 78 RBIs. When all was said and done for 1956, Mickey Mantle had won the Triple Crown with a .353 average, 52 homers, and 130 runs batted in. 

But he didn't hit .400. 

Disappointing. 

Who's For Real? (The NL Race 60 Years Ago)

If, as mentioned in my previous post, the long baseball season is best thought of as a marathon rather than a sprint, while the Yankees had taken an early lead in the race and were determined to stay ahead of the pack in the American League, the National League runners were bunched at the front and maneuvering for position. Unlike the previous year, when the 1955 Dodgers won 20 of their first 22 games to take a commanding lead in the race that they would never come close to relinquishing, at the close of the day on May 27, 1956, the St. Louis Cardinals had a one game lead over the Milwaukee Braves, the Cincinnati Reds and Pittsburgh Pirates were 2½ out, and the defending-World Series-champion Brooklyn Dodgers were in fifth place, 3 games behind the front runner. Which of those teams were for real?

Who's For Real? The NL Race 60 Years Ago

It is often the case in marathon runs that many who lead early invariably fade as the long grueling race drags interminably on and on and on and on precisely because they are not elite competitors. If they don't drop out relatively soon, there is always a heartbreak hill beckoning in the stretch drive. 

The Cardinals, who swept their Sunday doubleheader against the Cubs on May 27, were one such team. They now had 22 wins, the most in the league, and second to the Yankees' 24 for the most in major league baseball, but aside from perhaps their die-hard and hence ever-optimistic fans, nobody expected them to hang around in the pennant race. At least not for long. 

The Cardinals had finished seventh in 1955—"the best seventh-place team in the history of the National League," according to Sports Illustrated—and were said in SI's preseason prognostications to "definitely be on the way up in 1956," but in the end were nonetheless projected to be just a seventh place club, again. They had the veteran Stan Musial, still great after all these years (his rookie season was 1942), as well as Red Schoendienst, a Hall of Fame second baseman, and the 1954 Rookie of the Year, Wally Moon. SI was also high on the return of pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell, back from two years fulfilling his Selective Service obligations. 

And indeed, after their Sunday doubleheader sweep, second-game-winner Mizell was 4-2, Moon was batting .347, and Musial was batting .293 and with 7 RBIs for the day had increased his total to 33 on his way to leading the league with 109. No mention in the SI article was made of third baseman Ken Boyer, who had hit .264 with 18 home runs in his rookie season the year before, but he had as much as anyone to do with the Cardinals' red hot start. Starting in every game, his batting average was exactly .500 ten games into the season. He was down to .406 on May 18 and now his average stood at .353. Boyer had just hit his 10th home run of the season in the nightcap and now had 35 RBIs in the Cardinals' first 35 games.

But the Cardinals were not an elite team, and one month later had dropped to fourth place, barely over .500, and within two months were out of the pennant race entirely. St. Louis wound up doing better than SI expected, however, finishing fourth.

The Pirates had won 6 of their last 7, but that wasn't fooling anybody about their competitiveness, probably not even in Pittsburgh. SI had said in its preseason preview that they were in "danger of developing a last-place complex." That's where they had finished the four previous years, the last three under Fred Haney, who was fired for his efforts and was now a coach for the Braves. 

Pittsburgh was thought likely to finish in the basement once again. It turns out they did better than that—but not anywhere near the front of the pack as they were on May 27, one-fifth of the way into the marathon. They continued to run with the leaders until mid June, then went into a tailspin with 17 losses in 21 games on their way to finishing . . . next to last.

Losing on Saturday and Sunday in Milwaukee, and having now lost five of the seven games they had played against the Braves—a legitimate contender—so far in 1956, the Reds also seemed to be pretenders. Because their pitching was considered "nightmarishly uncertain" and their bench "substandard," Cincinnati was said by SI before the season to be "lucky" if they were to "finish higher than fifth," notwithstanding their exceptional hitting. 

While in most races those who are not recognized as elite competitors ultimately fall by the wayside, usually sooner than later, the 1956 Reds proved to be an unexpectedly resilient runner who would stay with the two leaders of the pack to the very end of the grueling marathon that is the major league season. 

And the presumptive leaders of the pack? They were the Braves and the Dodgers. Milwaukee was in second place with a 16-9 record, compared to the Cardinals' 22-13, but actually had the higher winning percentage. They had played 10 fewer games than St. Louis, seven fewer than Cincinnati, and six fewer than Brooklyn because rain had washed out so many of their games early in the season. 

As tightly bunched as the front runners were, the Braves looked to be the team in the best position to burst into the lead whenever, as was certain to happen, reality caught up with the Cardinals. For Milwaukee, it was 25 games down and 154 to go. They looked to have more stamina to run the distance than the Dodgers, who were now 17-14, if for no other reason than eight of Brooklyn's core players—pitcher Sal Maglie (39), Robinson and Reese (both 37), Campanella and Furillo (both 34), Hodges (32), and third baseman Randy Jackson and Newcombe (both 30)—were no longer twenty-something.

Batting 8th for the New York Yankees, the Pitcher ... (60 Years Ago in 1956)

It's often said that the baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. After having set the pace out front of everybody else since just the fourth game of the year, the Yankees awoke in Cleveland on May 16, 1956, preparing to play they 27th game of the season—the equivalent of 4.5 miles into a 26-mile marathon—to find that the Indians were now running beside them in the race. True, it was early, but the Yankees definitely preferred that their arch rival since the 1951 season be running behind them, rather than running even. Casey Stengel's starting line-up for the game was quite unorthodox; he had the pitcher bat eighth and his weak-hitting shortstop, Phil Rizzuto, ninth—not so unusual today, perhaps, but in the 1950s it certainly was.

60 Years Ago (1956): Batting 8th for the New York Yankees, the Pitcher . . .

The Indians pulled into a first-place tie with the Yankees in both teams' previous game when left fielder Al Smith led off the last of the ninth with a game-winning, walk-off home run off Johnny Kucks to break a 2-2 tie. Both Yankee runs came on home runs, back-to-back off Cleveland ace Bob Lemon in the fourth by Gil McDougald and Mickey Mantle. For Mantle, it was his 12th of the year, and he now had 26 RBIs in the Yankees' first 26 games. Many had predicted the Mick would have an unbelievable year. They were proving right on that one.

Anyway, Stengel had hard-throwing southpaw Mickey McDermott take the mound for the Yankees in their next game against the Indians. In 1949 McDermott had been a hot-shot prospect for the Red Sox. but he was hardly as disciplined at his craft as, say, his teammate Ted Williams was at his, and never lived up to expectations. He had become a journeyman pitcher. When the Yankees acquired McDermott before the start of the 1956 season, it was primarily to provide pitching depth should something happen to one of their core starting pitchers. He was making his fourth start of the year with a record of 1-2. He was the losing pitcher in his previous start six days before, giving up 4 runs in 5 innings when Cleveland was in New York.

What was unusual about this start was not that Stengel started him opposite Cleveland right-hander Mike Garcia, a very good pitcher in his own right, in a game against the club the Yankees considered to be their principal rival for the pennant, even though Whitey Ford, his ace, was sufficiently rested. No, what was unusual was that McDermott was batting eighth in the line-up and shortstop Phil Rizzuto ninth.

By now, eight years into the Stengel era, if there was any lesson learned about Casey as a manager, it was that he was nothing if not unconventional—from his incessant platooning of players, to his constant manipulation of who batted where in the line-up in any given game, to his frequent in-game position-player substitutions. But there was always a method to his madness that he never tired of explaining, although his explanations usually needed explanation.

In the 1950s, the pitcher always batted ninth. The pitcher was presumed to be the weakest hitter in the line-up, and that's just the way it was. It didn't matter, for example, that a pitcher like Brooklyn's Don Newcombe was a damn-good hitter who hit .271 in his career, had 15 career home runs, drove in 108 runs, and was frequently used as a pinch hitter; in the 294 games Big Newk was the starting pitcher in his major league career, not once did he ever bat anywhere but in the No. 9 spot. 

To the Ole Perfessor, that didn't necessarily make sense. Sometimes, which was rarely, his pitcher was not necessarily the weakest bat in the line-up. If the ninth spot was for the weakest hitter, and that hitter happened to be a position player, maybe the pitcher should bat eighth instead. Casey experimented extensively with that concept the previous year in 1955.

Of the 2,474 starting line-ups that were made out by the managers of the 16 major league teams in 1955, only 15 had the pitcher not bat last. All 15 of those line-ups were written out by Casey Stengel. Tommy Byrne batted eighth in 8 of the 22 games he started and seventh in 3 other starts in 1955, and Don Larsen eighth in 4 of his 13 starts. That was perfectly logical to Casey because the three position players who batted ninth in those 15 games—infielders Rizzuto, Billy Hunter, and Jerry Coleman—were all light-weight hitters in slumps, and both Byrne and Larsen were very good hitters for pitchers. Byrne finished his major league career with 14 home runs and a .238 average. Larsen also had 14 homers in his big league career, while batting .242. 

The game in Cleveland on May 16 was the first time Stengel had his pitcher bat eighth in 1956. McDermott was a good hitter, and not just with the faint praise of "for a pitcher." He was a good hitter, who had hit .281 in his six years in Boston and who would retire with a lifetime .252 average, with 9 homers and 24 RBIs. He was 2-for-7 for a .286 average so far in the season, including 1-for-2 as a pinch hitter. Phil Rizzuto, meanwhile, was still looking for his first hit.

Rizzuto was no longer the Yankee shortstop. In the not too distant past he had been the shortstop cornerstone of the five (pennants)-and-five (World Championships)-in-five (years) Yankee teams from 1949 to 1953. Those years, the Scooter batted first or second in Stengel's line-up. But now he was 38 years old, at the end of his career, and the 25th guy on the club instead of a core regular. On this day, Rizzuto was starting for only the third time all year. He had also played in four games as a late-inning defensive replacement. He was hitless in six at bats.

As it happened, Rizzuto went 1-for-4 to bring his average up to .100 and drove in the Yankees' 3rd run of the game with a sacrifice squeeze bunt. McDermott lasted only 3.1 innings, giving up just one run even though he allowed four walks and three hits. He went hitless in his two at bats. Mantle had a 3-for-4 day to raise his average to exactly .400, including his 13th home run in the seventh to finish off the scoring in the Yankees' 4-1 win. Did I mention many predicted the Mick would have an unbelievable year?

The Yankees were now 17-10 and back in first place all alone, one game ahead of Cleveland and 1½ up on Chicago, their next stop for three games. It was 27 games down and 127 to go. The Yankees never again in 1956 had to look anywhere but down to see how any other team was doing.

As for the pitcher-batting-eighth gambit, of the 2,492 starting line-ups written by managers during the 1956 season (including 4 games that ended as ties because of weather), the pitcher batted 9th in 2,489 of them. On May 9, the White Sox batted pitcher Dick Donovan eighth and struggling rookie Luis Aparicio ninth; then came the game McDermott started against the Indians, and finally on June 3 against Detroit, Stengel batted starting pitcher Larsen eighth and third baseman Jerry Coleman ninth. Coleman had just 1 hit in 10 at bats at the time and was making just his second start of the season.  

BTW: Don Larsen was batting ninth on October 8, 1956, when he pitched his perfect game in the World Series. 

Aparicio's 1st of 506 (The AL Race, 60 Years Ago)

On May 5, 1956, Luis Aparicio stole the first base of his major league career. The highly-touted 22-year-old rookie shortstop did so as a pinch runner, however, because he had been temporarily benched by Chicago White Sox manager Marty Marion to get his head straight after struggling at the plate in his first eight major league games. As we all know, Luis Aparicio went on to become a Hall of Fame shortstop perhaps most renown for ... the art of the steal.

Aparicio's 1st of 506

Following literally in the footsteps of Chico Carrasquel, the White Sox shortstop from 1950 to 1955, Luis Aparicio was the second in a line of athletic, nimble, great-glove, dynamic arm, dazzling defensive shortstops from Venezuela. Both were in the first wave of players from the Caribbean Basin. That wave was a consequence of integration that gained momentum with the success of the White Sox' Minnie Minoso, a black Hispanic from Cuba, who was one of the game's the best players in the first half of the 1950s. And it was not just black Hispanic ballplayers who benefited from this unprecedented major league attention, but white Hispanics as well.

Baseball was popular in Venezuela too, but Cuba and Puerto Rico were the first Caribbean targets of big league scouts because their leagues were well known—including by major leaguers who played in them during the winter off-season. In 1950, Carrasquel became just the third Venezuelan to play in the big leagues; Aparicio was the seventh. The son of a legendary shortstop in Venezuelan baseball history after whom he was named, Luis Aparicio was signed by the White Sox as a 19-year-old in 1954 on the recommendation of Carrasquel.  

By 1956, after just two years in the minor leagues, Aparicio was deemed ready to take over at shortstop in Chicago. As the Sports Illustrated preview for the 1956 season put it, "he looked so good in the minors, the Sox were willing to trade away Carrasquel." His baseball attributes? "Slick defense, fair hitter, a whiz on the bases."

Aparicio was in Marty Marion's opening day line-up, batting eighth against the Cleveland Indians, to whom Carrasquel was traded so Luis could take over at short. He went 1-for-3. Aparicio went 1-for-3 the next game, too, but was hitless in his next 12 at bats before getting a single in his second at bat against the Orioles on May 1. When his turn came to lead off the ninth inning of a tie game, Marion removed him for a pinch hitter. Aparicio was batting .150, had yet to score a run, nor had he stolen any bases. There were no problems with his defense, however; he had made just one error so far in 20 chances through Chicago's first seven games.

Back in the starting line-up the next game, Chicago's eighth of the season on May 3, Aparicio was once again hitless in three at bats, although he did score his first run after reaching on an error. Once again Marion took him out for a pinch hitter in the late innings, this time with a runner on base and the White Sox trailing the Senators by three runs in the eighth. Aparicio's average now down to .130, Marion benched his rookie shortstop each of the next two games.

Aparicio did not get into the game in the White Sox' 5-2 win in Washington on May 4. The next day the Sox were trailing the Senators by a single run, 3-2, when pinch-hitter Bob Nieman led off with a single. With the tying run at first, Marion sent in the speedy Aparicio as a pinch runner. Washington pitcher Chuck Stobbs was a southpaw, and so had the advantage on being able to look directly at Aparicio as he came set. There was a fly ball out to left. Another to right. Aparicio was still sizing up Stobbs from first. Then he stole second base. A popup to third ended the scoring opportunity, and Aparicio finished the game at shortstop. But he had his first major league stolen base.

The Chicago White Sox lost that day, leaving them with a 6-4 record in third place, 2 games behind the first-place Yankees and half-a-game back of the Indians. It was 10 games down and 144 to go for the Chicago White Sox; Aparicio would be the starting shortstop in 143 of them.

Back in the starting line-up the next day, Aparicio went 2-for-4 against the Yankees. That was the start of a 10-game hitting streak that brought his batting average up to .264. On May 20, he was hitting .292.  Aparicio finished the season batting .266 with 21 steals in 25 attempts. He was named the American League's 1956 Rookie of the Year, with 22 out of a possible 24 first-place votes.

Luis Aparicio was at the leading edge of a return to prominence of the stolen base in an era where power was the name of the game. His 21 steals in 1956 were the first of 506 in his career. It was also the first of nine consecutive years he led the league in steals. That's something no other player has ever done. Not Ty Cobb; he led the league just six times in stolen bases. Not Maury Wills, the NL leader in steals six straight seasons from 1960 to 1965. Not Lou Brock—winner of eight NL stolen base titles in nine years between 1966 and 1974, four times in a row, twice. Not even Rickey Henderson, who led the AL seven straight times from 1980 to 1986, and 12 times overall.

Fifth Game of the '56 Season (60 Years Ago): Yankees Move Into First For Good

It was a wild one at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, April 21, 1956. The Yankees blew an early 8-0 lead against the Red Sox, then had to come from behind, trailing 10-9, to snatch their fourth victory in five games. This early in the season, the standings didn't necessarily mean anything—certainly not with 149 games still to play—but their victory combined with the White Sox' loss put the Yankees into first place by half a game. Although there would be one day in May when they had to share top billing, the New York Yankees were never not first in the American League the remainder of the 1956 season.

FIFTH GAME OF THE '56 SEASON (SIXTY YEAR AGO):
YANKEES MOVE INTO FIRST FOR GOOD

The Yankees started the season by winning two of three in Washington and taking the first of a three-game set against the Boston Red Sox in their first home series of the year. The Chicago White Sox, along with the Milwaukee Braves in the National League, were the only undefeated teams going into just the fifth day of the schedule, both with 3-0 records, while the Yankees were 3-1. Whitey Ford had just pitched a five-hit complete game in the Yankees' first home game, with Mickey Mantle hitting his 3rd home run of the year and driving in four runs to pace the Bronx Bombers to a 7-1 victory over Boston.

Wasting no time in their determination to beat up on the Red Sox, the Yankees also made very clear to right-hander George Susce that he was not a "Yankee Killer" despite his success against them as a rookie the previous year. Susce pitched in five games against the Yankees in his first big-league season in 1955, all but the last in relief, giving up just 2 earned runs on 14 hits in 19.1 innings for an anti-Yankee ERA of 0.93. His one decision against the Yankees came in his only start against them, an 8-1 complete-game victory in the last game of the season. 

If Susce thought he might build on that making his first start in the 1956 campaign, the Yankees rudely reminded him why they were the Bronx Bombers. Yogi Berra doubled to give the Yankees a 1-0 lead in the last of the first, then scored on Joe Collins's single. In the second, Hank Bauer hit a 2-run home run, Mantle hit a 2-run home run, the Yankees now led 6-0, and Susce retired to the showers having pitched just one-and-a-third innings. The Yankees scored a pair of unearned runs in the third and Bob Turley, who was 17-13 in his first year in New York in 1955, had a comfortable, two-grand-slams-ahead 8-0 lead.

They were still coasting with an 8-0 lead in the fifth when Turley gave up a two-run homer to Faye Throneberry and a solo blast to Mickey Vernon. The Yankees made it 9-3 in the sixth, and then the Red Sox unloaded for 4 in the seventh and 3 in the eighth on home runs by Jimmy Piersall and backup catcher Pete Daley off reliever Jim Konstanty to improbably take a 10-9 lead.

That lasted … not at all. Berra immediately tied the score by leading off the Yankee eighth with a home run, and before the inning was over the Yankees henpecked the Red Sox for four more runs to make the final score, New York 14, Boston 10.

With the White Sox crushed by the Kansas City Athletics, 15-1, the Yankees were now in first place by half-a-game over both clubs. In their first five games, the Yankees had scored 43 runs. The Red Sox, with 31 runs, were the closest major league team in terms of offensive productivity. The Yankees had hit 8 home runs and were batting .303 as a team.

And as many were projecting, Mickey Mantle looked like he might have a truly outstanding season. He was batting .444 with a league-leading 4 home runs and 11 runs batted in—all in just five games. And Yogi Berra was pretty impressive, too, hitting .467 with 2 home runs and 9 RBIs.

But of course, it was still far too early in the season to draw any conclusions. The Yankees still had 149 games to go, including all 22 against both of their would-be competitors for the pennant—the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox. Still, Casey Stengel ... he who had endless things to say ... sure wasn't complaining about how things so far were going.