1954 -- a Baseball Season

By James Kreis

This book will appeal to life-long baserball fans, particularly those who have followed the game for many years--specifically males over the age of 60, perhaps even age 50, too. Younger followers of athletic contests may also likely have an interest, given the revitalized impact to the sport currently--yearly Major League attendance numbers reflect over 73 Million paying customers in 2009. Cable network coverage proliferates--ESPN and MLB to name just two--continuously streaming the latest information and highlights 24 hours daily to a vast majority of USand international households.

Americans are now living longer on average than they did during the time of this book, there currently existing an ever increasing focus on nostalgia-- perhaps due to a wistful longing for certain things and events from the past--when society seemed to be far less complex and simpler pleasures abounded. E-Bay and the numerous flea markets scattered throughout our nation readily attest to this phenomenon.

Like any good history book, this work attempts to create a perspective of the circumstances and participants who influenced the relative events of 50 odd years ago. These events helped shape the evolution of the modern game today, a game now more widely driven by economics and media hype.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 6, 2011
• ISBN: 9781452018584

James Kreis

The author has been a devout and voracious reader of American and World History for a lengthy period of time, biographies of the famous in particular. In compiling this work, he augmented his stored knowledge with many volumes and articles specifically detailing the events and personalities of the 1920’s decade -- the end result a book filled with the causes and effects of a remarkable period in American life.

Book preview

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2011 James Kreis. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse      5/4/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4520-1856-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-1857-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-1858-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011905065

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

For Dad, who aggressively taught me the game of baseball — while subtly teaching me the game of life.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe a sincere debt of gratitude to the following for their invaluable contributions to this work:

The Sporting News { TSN }, often referred to as the Bible of Baseball, for the basic information and many other components comprising most of which this work is structured upon. This iconic publication was and continues to be the backbone upon which much relevant information for this wonderful game is preserved for our posterity, stretching back to the earlier 20th-Century.

www. Baseball-reference.com is a wonderful website for anyone who desires easy and complete access for many widely-varied, statistics accompanying the game of baseball both today and from the past. It features a play-by play of many games played by year and date as well as player records for virtually everyone who played the game at the major league level. I was able to effectively utilize this site to both double check data used from other sources and fill in the blanks in some instances where there may not have have been absolute agreement on certain events.

Day-by-Day in Baseball History" as noted, is the source of much of the information comprising the TWIBH portion of the individual chapters. There are far more entries in that treatise than could be accommodated in this book and is a terrific resource for the true fan of baseball history.

The Baseball Encyclopedia, 8th edition, also helped to ascertain and validate data on specific players and is also a most thorough, detailed and written publication highly recommended.

Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE

FORWARD

FORWARD

CHAPTER 1 AL: April -- 13-18

CHAPTER 1 NL: April 13 -- 18

CHAPTER 2 AL: April 19 -- 25

CHAPTER 2 NL: April 19 -- 25:

CHAPTER 3 AL: April 26 -- May 2

CHAPTER 3 NL: April 26 -- May 2

CHAPTER 4 AL: May 3 -- 9

CHAPTER 4 NL: May 3 -- 9

CHAPTER 5 AL: May 10 -- 16

CHAPTER 5 NL: MAY 10 -- 16

CHAPTER 6 AL : May 17 -- 23

CHAPTER 6 NL: May 17 -- 23

CHAPTER 7 AL: May 24 -- 30

CHAPTER 7 NL: MAY 24 -- 30

CHAPTER 8 AL: May 31 -- June 6

CHAPTER 8 NL: May 31 -- June 6

CHAPTER 9 AL: June 7 -- 13

CHAPTER 9 NL: June 7 -- 13

CHAPTER 10 AL: JUNE 14 -- 20

CHAPTER 10 NL: June 14 -- 20

CHAPTER AL 11 : June 21 – 27

CHAPTER 11 NL: June 21 -- 27

CHAPTER 12 AL: June 28 -- July 4

CHAPTER 12 NL: June 28 -- July 4

CHAPTER 13 AL: July 5 -- 11

CHAPTER 13 NL: July 5 -- 11

CHAPTER 14 AL: JULY 12 -- 18

CHAPTER 14 NL: JULY 12 -- 18

CHAPTER 15 AL: July 19 -- 25

CHAPTER 15 NL: July 19 -- 25

CHAPTER 16 AL: July 26 -- August 1

CHAPTER 16 NL: July 26 -- August 1

CHAPTER 17 AL: August 2 -- 8

CHAPTER 17 NL: August 2 -- 8

CHAPTER 18 AL: August 9 -- 15

CHAPTER 18 NL: August 9 -- 15

CHAPTER 19 AL: August -- 16-22

CHAPTER 19 NL: August 16 -- 22

CHAPTER 20 AL: August 23 -- 29

CHAPTER 20 NL : August 23 -- 29

CHAPTER 21 AL: August 30 -- September 5

CHAPTER 21 NL: August 30 -- September 5

CHAPTER 22 AL: September 6 -- 12

CHAPTER 22 NL: September 6 -- 12

CHAPTER 23 AL: September 13 -- 19

CHAPTER 23 NL: September 13 -- 19

CHAPTER 24 AL: September 20 -- 26:

CHAPTER 24 NL: September 20 -- 26:

WEEK #25 --- THE 1954 WORLD SERIES Cleveland Indians and New York Giants

LEGEND

RHP -- righthanded pitcher

LHP -- lefthanded pitcher

PH -- pinch hitter

PR -- pinch runner

BA -- batting average

AB -- at bat

RBI -- runs batted in

ERA -- earned run average

K – strike out

BOB -- base-on-balls, a walk

Free Pass -- a walk

Sac Fly--sacrifice fly; batter not charged with an official time at bat

{ 2 hits} -- player totaled two hits in the game

{ 3 runs} -- player scored three runs in the game

{ 4 RBI’s} --- player batted in 4 runs in the game

{ 2 hits, runs and RBI’s} -- player had 2 hits, 2 runs and 2 runs batted in for the game

Circuit Clout, Fourmaster, Four-Bagger, Boundary Belt, Blast, Shot -- a home run

Batted around-- all positions in batting order appeared at the plate in a single inning

Frame, Round, Chukker, Stanza -- inning

Knock, Safety -- a base hit

ML -- Major League

NL -- National League

AL -- American League

Horsehide -- a baseball

Keystone Sack -- second base

Hot corner -- third base

Texas Leaguer -- a lofted flyball, falling safely between outfielders and infielders; usually resulting in a double

Cipher, Whitewash, Calcimine -- a shutout

TWIBH -- this week in baseball history

Southpaw, Portsider -- lefthanded pitcher

TB -- Total Bases

TSN-- The Sporting News

RISP -- runners in scoring position

OPS -- batting average plus slugging average

INTRODUCTION

Hitting a ball and scoring a run are in a way what all of us try to do all our lives. Baseball becomes a symbol, win or lose, and the romance never really ends.

Branch Rickey

The 1954 Major League baseball season is the scope of this book, a year in an era often called The Golden Age of Baseball by many observers. Whether one agrees with that assessment or not, the game as played then was much different than that which the current fan base enjoys today -- both on and off the field of play. Many of those major differences will be chronicled later in this narrative, some resulting due to changes in society itself.

As is the reality of any calendar year one can name, it was a year of many other happenings and serious life events, both nationally and internationally. To wit:

In June 1953, the United States completed a peace agreement with North Korea after a war lasting three years. The country was then going about the business of reacclimating to a non-wartime period under Republican President and former 5-Star General, Dwight D. Eisenhower. Ike was in his first political office of any kind and in his second year as chief executive after a 20-year Democratic hold on the nation’s highest office. Great Britain, the US’s staunchest ally, was once again being led by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the man who had successfully steered his country through the tumultuous Second World War.

Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy was still very much in the news with repeated innuendoes and downright lies in his relentless, bombastic witch hunt for suspected communist infiltration in US government, universities, the entertainment industry and such. He would accuse the U. S. Army of espionage in 1954, resulting in a series of televised, daytime hearings lasting approximately 60 days.

His Senate colleagues would formally censure him later in the year, effectively ending his career. He would suffer the consequences all demagogues ultimately do -- isolation, public disgrace, a quick fade into obscurity and lonely death. Few would lament his passing.

It was the year a new musical phenomenon was on the cusp – called Rock and Roll -- that would soon become a national rage. A band originally from Chester, Pennsylvania, recorded a song titled Rock Around the Clock that would vault to fame as the theme song for a movie released in 1955, named Blackboard Jungle. Thus, a spit-curled Bill Haley and his Comets began the popular movement in mainstream America, considerable fanfare created by an enterprising disc jockey named Alan Freed, he also zealously promoting other performers of this unique, new sound.

The mantle would soon be assumed by a young truck driver from Mississippi named Elvis Presley, he alternately exciting teenagers and angering their parents with his swivel-hipped, renditions of this new music craze. That craze turned out to be much more than a passing fad as this music exploded, flourishing like no other before it and spawning a wide range of diversity and sounds well into the 21st century. Rock and Roll was here to stay.

Prior to Haley’s emergence, some of the 1954 chart-topping, #1 single records were Doris Day’s Secret Love’, Sh-Boom by the Crew Cuts, Eddie Fisher’s I Need You Now, Make Love to Me by Jo Stafford, Mr.Sandman by the Chordettes and Rosemary Clooney’s Hey There. Others played often on jukeboxes were Hearts of Stone by the Fontaine Sisters, the Four Aces’ Three Coins in the Fountain, The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane by the Ames Brothers and the Maguire Sisters’ Sincerely. Presley would record his first record at Sun Records -- That’s All Right, Mama" -- with many more #1 hits to follow.

Television was gradually replacing the movies as the nation’s main entertainment alternative as westerns, comedy shows and sitcoms came to dominate the video programming, the ABC, NBC and CBS networks recognizing they were in stiff competition for the viewing affections of the American family.

Many former movie comedians, such as Groucho Marx, Burns & Allen, Milton Berle, Red Skelton and Abbott & Costello, turned to this new media as their screen successes waned. Shows named I Love Lucy, Dragnet, Your Show of Shows, Father Knows Best, The Perry Como Show were the must-see, weekly fare. A late-night experiment named The Tonight Show, with host Steve Allen, had just begun; Johnny Carson would not take over this institution until the 60’s.

A few of the more popular movies of the year were On the Waterfront, The Caine Mutiny, The Glenn Miller Story and White Christmas. Also, two Alfred Hitchcock thrillers -- Rear Window and Dial M for Murder -- both featuring a young actress, Grace Kelly. She would achieve movie success, then leave Hollywood to marry the monarch of a small European country later in the decade, forever to be known as Princess Grace of Monaco for the remainder of her all-too-brief life. She was one of her era’s most beautiful women and recognizable faces.

Other newsworthy events included the marriage of actress Marilyn Monroe to baseball icon Joe DiMaggio; Britain’s Roger Bannister running a sub-four minute mile for the first time in track history; the debut of the magazine Sports Illustrated { sans a swimsuit edition }; Hugh Hefner also published Playboy Magazine for the first time, thus ushering in a host of new censorship issues.

Automotive manufacturers Nash and Hudson merged to form the American Motor Company and the Dow-Jones Industrial average reached an all-time high of 382.74. The Supreme Court of the US ruled against racial segregation in public schools in the Brown vs. the Topeka Board of Education case. The world population consisted of 2.7 billion people, compared to roughly 6 billion in the year 2000.

The average new home cost $10,250, gas was $. 22 a gallon, a movie ticket cost $.70 and an average new car set one back $1,750. One could buy cigarettes from vending machines charging a quarter per pack, the cellophane on the pack containing two or three pennies in change -- all cigarettes non-filtered.

Most candy bars -- Milky Way, Powerhouse, Fifth Avenue, Baby Ruth to name some -- were a nickel. 12 ounces of Coca Cola or Pepsi in a glass bottle also cost a nickel, 16 ounces a mere 7 cents. One could also return the bottle and get 2 or 3 cents back, invariably used to purchase another bottle of the same thing.

The supermarkets as we know them now were virtually unknown. Most families shopped at the local grocery store -- usually a store-front with limited aisles of goods -- many with their own butcher shop inside. Often, the proprietor was a neighbor, either living above the store or close by, and on a first name basis with all regular customers.

Common 21st-century American society now include staples such as big screen HD TV’s, cable television, radial tires, Viagra, multiplex movie venues, cell phones, Ipod’s, digital cameras, electric/gas clothes dryers, microwave ovens, VCR/DVD video-recorders, fast-food restaurants, jet airliners, thong underwear, 7-Eleven’s, the Internet information highway, E-bay, Walmart/Target all-in-one stores, play-station games, disposable diapers as well as many other utilitarian discoveries too numerous to mention..

Contrast these with 1954 America – AM radio, whitewall tires, roof antennas, clotheslines, downtown movie theaters, reel-to-reel tape recorders, libraries, drive-in movies, Woolworths, drug stores with soda fountains, telephone party-lines, Burma Shave road signs, penny candy, banana splits, saddle shoes, flyswatters, rainy day snails and worms, lightning bugs, double blade razors, unlocked doors, 17/19 inch console B&W TV’s, people dressing up for church, stick-model airplane kits, hopscotch, Sears & Roebuck catalogs, flattops and butch wax, Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, kids playing outdoors, formica tabletops, walking to school, milkmen, initials on a tree, to denote just some of the normal activities, environment and consumer choices prevalent at that time.

Internationally, a relatively unknown sector of Southeast Asia, then known as French Indochina, would successfully overthrow the local, imperial French government -- the final battle at an outpost named Dien Bien Phu. The newly independent colony would split into communist North Vietnam and non-communist South Vietnam.

The liberators were led by Ho Chi Minh, who along with a younger generation of followers, would ultimately lead his country to another war lasting through the next 20 years. That conflict would result in one of the United States’ most divisive periods and to the political demise of U.S. President Lyndon Johnson. Johnson, at the time of the French defeat, served as Majority Leader in the U. S. Senate.

Both the United States and its main protagonist, the Soviet Union, were posturing the capabilities and future potential of their developing atomic weapons -- most unsettling to the rest of the world countries who had none. It was also much about the viability of these two world power’s economic and political systems, i.e., Capitalism versus Communism.

That often contentious verbal battle and its’ catastrophic implications, would rage on for another 40 years until the US finally outspent the USSR into virtual bankruptcy, translating into the eventual downfall of Communism in that nation. Or, another possible reason, the Communists finally realized their philosophy wasn’t working.

Those 40 years, however, subconsciously dominated many aspects of life for each nation’s citizens as they lived with the terrible, potential consequences of all-out atomic/nuclear war.

This book is being written in the 21st century -- well over 50 years in retrospect -- by one who has been a lifelong baseball fan, now pretty much to the exclusion of every other sporting game. While not the scope of this book but to set the record straight, I no longer watch or follow either pro basketball or football. I was never much into hockey.

That is not to say my affinity for baseball comes down to the lesser of evils, nothing is further from the truth; I have simply become disenchanted with the others and now prefer to concentrate my rooting interests to baseball. I have also discovered later in life, there are many other interesting things demanding my time and energies.

Baseball was the game I was introduced to at any early age and grew up with, my father a staunch fan. Then as now, adults could not intelligently discuss such worldly matters as sex, money, politics, life or death with young children, but baseball was another matter -- a common denominator.

It was the bridge permitting male children to interact daily and on an equal level with their larger, male role figures in a mutually-shared, rooting environment for their boyhood heroes. And make no mistake about it, they were our main heroes. Other sports have never have had that shared, unique connection and in my opinion, never will.

The annual timing of this enduring game is no accident; beginning each spring with renewed hope for every team’s fans -- as it does for all peoples, fan and non-fan, who look forward to the new, welcomed warmer season with renewed vigor and hope. It is the start of the green days of Spring and Summer, signaling the end of gloomy weather, dying vegetation and being cooped up indoors.

We can all relate as our environment changes from the dormant to the renewed -- reinvigorating our very existence. No other sporting venue has this seasonal advantage and/or optimism inherent in its’ timing as does baseball.

Competitively, there is also something positive to be said about the game of baseball having no time limit, i.e., an equal opportunity for both participants having the very same chance at coming out on top. Each team always has the potential to exhaust the identical number of failures { outs} before the contest is finally decided. There is no disadvantage in losing a coin toss, going against the wind or any other rule having the intent of shortening the contest, fairness be damned.

All other major sports are clock controlled; participants have correspondingly found ways over the years to use that determinant to their advantage by employing strategies accordingly. Not with baseball -- and commendably so.

A few brief opinions on other professional sports.......

The NBA game has deteriorated over the years from a contest stressing ball movement and teamwork to one of promoting individual skills, to the exclusion of fundamentals and strategic discipline. Who can sky the highest and/or make the fans gasp the loudest, seems to be the ultimate goal these days, a/k/a the Wow Factor. It’ has become Shamu in Shorts, albeit very long shorts.

It also is now a time when the term athletic is continually used to disguise and even rationalize a given players inability to perform basic fundamentals, the age of highlight videos showing players in various degrees of jumping and twisting dexterity. Not my thing.

I have long since tired of the NFL game, every encounter seemingly decided by field goal kickers – actually soccer players in a football uniform -- rather than those with true football skills who have beaten on and battered each other in the trenches for almost 60 minutes.

This game is now very formulaic, virtually every team using the same offensive and defensive formations, the cookie-cutter effect. The net result is far too often dull and unimaginative, notwithstanding the outstanding skills of the men who play the game. For my taste, the College version is far more wide-open, imaginative and exciting. The female fans are also better looking.

Fundamentally, in order to score, all other sports require the opponent achieve a specific objective, such as cross the plate successfully, put the puck in the net or the ball in the basket. There is no reward for close in those endeavors, no reward for failure to do so, as there is in football.

I will never understood why football does not require the opponent to cross the goal line to score, just get close enough. And close enough is too often defined by how good your soccer guy is, thus taking the result out of the hands of the real participants.

To those who feel pro football has taken over from baseball as America’s favorite sport, ok; the numbers taken just factually may well support that proposition. However, any reasonable discussion on that proposition should entail a subjective question.

That is, if it were possible to physically play football every day as it is with the other sports, would the game enjoy the same degree of popularity and success? We’ll never know the factual answer but that, at least, is a starting point for a vigorous argument for those who feel otherwise, including me.

I believe football’s infrequency of games adds most significantly to its’ popularity and ultimate revenue stream, the latter which we now know unequivocally is the real motivation for every professional contest. Also, the game’s popularity ascended during the continued advent of TV’s success during the 1960’s. Many would agree this sport is much better attuned to TV than any other.

But I digress; the NFL has been supremely successful, with full stadia every Sunday, pre and game day media coverage bordering on frenzy and augmented with the numerous weekly, radio and TV programs dedicated to dissecting and detailing every conceivable moment in each contest. My admiration to anyone who has the time, stamina and motivation to take all that in. Even the current Governor of Pennsylvania can find the time to be an in-house analyst for the Philadelphia Eagles post-game shows.

My purpose is not to disparage the fans and followers who have come to relish and look forward to the weekly NFL exploits; ditto to those who follow the NBA. These are my opinions only and hopefully, will not dissuade the reader to stop at this point.

Not withstanding the content of the prior paragraphs, since the 1950’s, we have also seen society change dramatically, becoming a nation transformed and sustained by volumes of information as opposed to the industrial pursuits of our past histories. Sadly, we no longer produce much of what we or the world consumes, most of those goods now emanating from foreign jurisdictions.

The technological revolution helped make all this possible -- a limitless amount of data available on any topic for even the most rudimentary seekers. It is now the age of the Internet, e-mail, cell/camera phones, message machines, etc. A consumer can now purchase pretty much whatever they want without leaving home.

Sports have followed the same path, real-time sports information being easily available -- as much as you want – with the constant use of these ever-changing tools to the point newspapers are an endangered species now. Today’s edition of the newspaper now contains old news, that which has been hashed and re-hashed numerous times by many other, more visual avenues by the time the paper lands in your driveway.

Television cable channels now have 24-hour programming for the NFL, NHL, NBA and ML baseball, the theme dominated by statistical information as media people strive to convey to fans every conceivable facet of a player’s past and current performance. How that player has fared against a given opponent’s pitcher, batting average on the road versus at home, day versus night games, are just a few examples of how these statistics are now sliced and diced.

Baseball has always lent itself to statistics, perhaps more so than other sporting disciplines. Batting averages, hit and runs allowed, etc. have always been a large determinant in a given players value. However, I believe a consistent fan will also develop a certain gut feeling {either positive or negative} based on time and observation in determining a player’s true abilities. I am not in tune with those who wish to take the subjectivity out of the game and somehow, reduce everything we see, hear and feel in watching this wonderful endeavor to mere numbers.

The reader may recall the 1980’s movie, Dead Poets’ Society, in which a poetry textbook instructs the student to graphically measure a given poem’s value by plotting certain poem components on a linear scale, thus removing any feeling or thought in the process of evaluating what are works of emotion by their very nature. That process was appropriately dubbed as excrement in the film.

The data revolution has also spawned baseball historians whose thesis is to compare and rank players from different eras against each other. Excrement!! All due respect to Bill James and his disciples, their efforts have been interesting, thought-provoking and, of course, provide a reasoned source of debate in barrooms, TV studios, etc.

In my opinion, ballplayers can reasonably be compared only to their peers -- how did they do compared to others during their era -- the one fair way to evaluate their performance. I don’t know if Hank Aaron was a more effective/better player than Babe Ruth – nor does anyone else!! I saw Aaron play, but not Ruth. I also saw Barry Bonds play, the game much different than in either Aaron or Ruth’s time.

Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, etc., cannot be compared to Richard Nixon or any other of today’s Presidents; circumstances simply are not the same, period. Too many variables exist, and try as we might, they cannot be reduced to a common denominator. Was there a Middle East crisis in 1863, a Civil War in 1967? The fair test for Presidents can only be a retrospective, subjective analysis of their accomplishments given the factors in play during their time and cannot be an exact science, as some would like it to be.

Everything really is relative.

In the 21st-Century, virtually every professional player has an agent, whose duty it is to negotiate salary and perks on behalf of their client with the club owners and who also contrives to use publicity to put the player in the best possible light. In the latter sense, professional athletes, entertainers, personalities, politicos and the like now share a common ground.

With a preponderance of media outlets and reporters, athletic performers are far more in the spotlight than ever before. It seems every breathing movement is both reported and analyzed to depths unknown before, each observer looking for that morsel of information no one else has. Certainly, players in earlier eras would have been unable to enjoy the relative obscurity of their personal lives had there been a similar feeding frenzy as exists today.

Teams now have a limited time frame in which to control a given player -- usually no more than 6 years at the Major League level. The first 3 years on the ML roster entitles the player to no more financial reward than the minimum ML salary. Should the player not willingly sign a contract during years 4-6, a player may file for salary arbitration individually in each of these 3 years.

In that process, both entities submit a salary figure to an arbitrator. That person selects one of the numbers, that becoming the players remuneration for the year – no compromise is permitted. In reality, most players and clubs agree to a mid-level figure before the arbitration hearing.

After that 6 year period, a player can become a free agent, now having the ability to negotiate with any club and earning a contract for whatever money and length as the new employer will accept. Any other player with 10 years of ML service and/or 5 years with a given team and no longer under contract, can opt for the same circumstance.

Almost all games of a given team are on TV today, if not on their own local network, then on a national venue. Entities such as ESPN and the MLB Network, insure a fan can watch their favorites almost any time they like. If you’re a little more fanatic and/or well-heeled, one can subscribe to a service providing every game, every day.

Some clubs, the Yankees to name one, have exorbitant, local media contracts that guarantee huge sums of monies for the rights to broadcast their games. These arrangements, combined with revenues from the national television contracts, enable certain clubs to attract the more eminent players, the better to compete and profit from.

To help keep some of the less successful teams around, ML baseball now requires those with the highest player salary totals to subsidize their more needy brethren based on something called a payroll tax. Also, all teams now share equally in revenue for souvenirs, jerseys, caps, etc bearing an ML team emblem – regardless of how lopsided sales actually are for a given team’s gear compared to another’s. In 2009, the revenue-sharing monies were over $400,000,000.

On the field, ballparks had been transformed in the 1960’s from urban neighborhoods to multi-function, cylindrical, bigger capacity stadiums outside of the downtown areas, having now changed back to their original, smaller capacity, baseball-only environs. These newer old parks now include luxury boxes and seating, permitting the owners to charge more, despite the fact much of the construction costs were borne by the taxpayers of their respective cities. The field dimensions are mostly irregular again as they had been in the old days, the currently obsolete, multi-purpose fields virtually congruent with one another.

The use of grass surfaces for the playing area is now back in vogue, after having lost out to artificial turf for about 3 decades, those carpeted surfaces creating a much faster game, the art of base-stealing having also undergone a renaissance. A few of the newer, current parks have roofing that can be closed or open depending on weather and if closed, the temperature controlled by thermostat.

A major rule change involves the use of a Designated Hitter in the American League to replace the pitcher in the batting line up – the National League continues to have the pitcher bat. Typically, a DH is a player who can still hit effectively, but neither had had or now has little skill in the field, prolonging their careers.

More recently, teams now play a limited schedule of regular season games against teams of the other league, the identity of their opponents often determined by geographic proximity; for example, Cleveland versus Cincinnati or San Francisco and Oakland. While that practice perhaps dilutes the mystique of the World Series finale to the season, few would argue that it hasn’t had a positive impact on the game.

Schedules now contemplate 162 games a year, with 6 separate divisions including three each in both the American and National Leagues. The playoffs involve each of the 3 division winners plus the remaining team with the best winning record in both the AL and NL, playing 2 qualifying rounds, the winner of each league then meeting in the World Series. TV often dictates both the times and days each of these contests are played. The WS winner is usually not crowned until late October, well into the football season.

Players now are almost encouraged to associate on the field prior to the game. In 1954 and for a number of years later, umpires were placed in the seating sections before a game to watch that opposition players did not communicate before games. Those caught were either admonished severely or fined. It had to do with the integrity of the game, to facilitate the image these games are being waged between entities who do not like each other.

Strategically, the bullpen had been a haven for the lesser lights on a pitching staff, not true any longer. Bullpen pitchers now have a specific role, i.e., long-relief, set-up men { reserved for the 7th or 8th innings} and/or closers. Closers typically work just the 9th inning, their role to protect a slight lead by getting the last 3 outs of the game, good ones rewarded quite handsomely financially.

Some of the lesser changes include multi-colored and interchangeable uniforms, the same umpires work both leagues and baseballs are routinely thrown to the fans after the third out of an inning or when a foul ball ends up somewhere other than the seating area. TV instant-replay is now used to discern if a potential home run is either fair or foul. Many managers now have weekly TV shows and players are routinely interviewed just after the completion of a contest. Virtually all travel is by air, many players now utilizing that time to do other things than discuss baseball with their teammates.

Without question, today’s athletes in all sports are bigger, stronger and faster than their peers of yesterday – and those are measurable quantities. However, I feel the respective games were better back in my youth and early adult years.

Is that thought due to all this available data, too much for the average fan to assimilate { paralysis by analysis}, overexposure, free agency, players too well-paid, long term contracts -- promoting less motivation and accountability? -- player indifference to fans, less player focus on the game itself or a combination of all of them?. Whatever the reason{s}, I don’t sense the intensity of the play is as strong, focused or as life and death-like as it seemed to be in more simple times, like 1954.

When one watches a TV game now, the camera angle is always behind the pitcher’s mound, giving the viewer a first-rate glimpse of where the pitched ball crosses the plate. It is rare to see many pitches severely off the inside part of the plate, even though many batters now crowd the plate -- perhaps that’s the reason why. There are few hurlers today who will intentionally brush back a hitter as was so very common in the earlier decades.

In 1954, if the previous batter had produced a big hit, it was odds-on the next batter was sent a message, either a high, tight fastball or sent sprawling in the dirt -- an accepted part of the game. Conversely, I’ve seen instances in today’s environment where batters have feigned charging the mound, even when the inside pitch was a much slower, breaking-ball – ridiculous!!

New York Giants’ righthander Sal Maglie was nicknamed Sal the Barber for his propensity to shave the batter with a high and tight fastball. The players called those bowties or chin music. It has been alleged by Hall of Famer Richie Ashburn of the Phillies, Maglie once threw a ball at him in the on-deck circle, as Ashburn was trying to time Maglie’s pitch while the latter was throwing to a hitter at the plate. Cleveland’s Early Wynn was another, well-known practitioner of the knock down or purpose pitch.

When a club felt a pitcher was being too excessive, a common practice was to bunt a pitched ball up the first base line, wait for the pitcher to field the ball, then run him over. That often settled the matter.

I remember watching a national Game-of-the-Week later in the 50’s decade between Detroit and Chicago in which Tigers’ hardballer Jim Bunning knocked down the White Sox’s Minnie Minoso with the first pitch of the at-bat. Bunning had the habit of falling off the mound to the third base side after each delivery. Fortunately for him on this day, he also did so as on his next pitch, Minoso’s bat sailed knee-high through the center of the mound – his way of sending Bunning a message.

I do not advocate any pitcher throwing at a batter’s head deliberately under any circumstances. However, the pitcher’s primary duty is to get batters out and use of the inside part of the plate is a key element in their collective abilities to do so – to keep hitters from leaning in and covering the sweeter-hitting areas more completely. That was recognized and accepted in 1954, not so readily today, apparently.

This is a book about a given year in baseball’s long history, written by an obsessive baseball fan who readily confess to a strong partiality for this game of summer that has held his grasp and fascination for these many years. It is the game of my youth and paradoxically, was the sport played as a child I was least good at. Not only couldn’t I hit a curve, I couldn’t hit a fastball, either. I could catch and field, however, another one of those good-field, no-hit kids who would ultimately learn had their fair share of representatives in the Major Leagues.

Why the year 1954 -- as opposed to other years in the same decade or time frame? Hard question to answer definitively. I initially wanted to chronicle the decade of the 50’s; however, that has been done before – and very well I might add. Upon further thought, my intent then became to utilize one year from this particular decade, maybe this one because I had more information readily available for this particular year than the others.

It may also have been as a tribute to my many relatives who were born and live in Ohio, who have followed the Cleveland Indians faithfully for the many, unproductive and frustrating years since -- similar to the fate that has befallen me as a Phillies fan of long standing. Despite the disappointment of that years’ World Series, the Indians had statistically the most successful, regular season on record -- still the highest winning percentage of all time. Arguably, it was the franchise’s finest hour, even more so than their World Series triumph in 1948.

The Indians’ exploits since that pinnacle year had been mostly just mediocre or substandard, not getting back into a real, continuously competitive posture until the mid-1990’s – their quest for a world championship dashed twice -- once in the final game and another in the sixth game of the Fall Classic. Meanwhile, my Phillies also languished badly, with successful teams in the mid-1970’s, finally winning the big one in 1980. More recently, they would again be World Champions in 2008, just their second title in 125 years.

As it turned out, 1954 was also the year in which the ultra-successful New York Yankees were not a World Series participant for the first time since 1948. In both years, the Indians derailed their annual rite of passage, even though the 1954 Bronx Bombers won 103 games and astonishingly, finished eight games out of first place. Imagine, winning two of every three contests and finishing a distant second !!.

As a side note, the Yankees actually won the AL pennant in all but 2 years from 1949 through 1964, failing to do so in just 1954 and 1959 {White Sox}, curiously losing to teams managed by Al Lopez on both occasions. They recorded nine World Series wins from those 14 pennant-winning seasons.

It was also the last year I collected baseball cards; actually being the last year I collected the Topps edition, rather than also the Bowman set as I had from 1950. I did not like the 1954 Bowman offering even though the 1953 edition was a cutting-edge, classic beauty of color and style. I had standards even then.

Ultimately, the rival Bowman Gum Company would sell to Topps in 1956, thus creating a baseball card monopoly that would endure until challenged successfully in the courts during the 1980’s.

1954 would be the year Willie Mays returned from two years of military duty and blossomed as a bona-fide star, capping the year with a World Series catch that may be the most watched and famous defensive play in baseball history. Like many of my generation, I consider Mays the best all-round player I ever saw, even given the statistical superiority accorded a few players who have come after him -- Barry Bonds -- to name one.

For most major leaguers who had been drafted due to the Korean War, many serving a two-year hitch, it was the year marking their return to baseball, the war having been concluded in 1953 after three stressful years.

Regardless of the reasons, my intent was to provide the reader with a historical representation of the factors inherent and influencing the game as played in that era and the day-to-day activity of the many participants. Hopefully, I’ve accomplished that end result.

In 1954 as had been true for many years, there were just 16 Major League teams, eight in both the American and National Leagues. Teams could not qualify for the post season unless they won their league pennant, wild card participation unknown then. And given there were only two teams fitting this conclusion, the World Series would start immediately after the end of regular season play, having not yet been dictated to by television programming. Thus, we knew the identify of the new baseball champions well before Columbus Day, usually in early October.

Television was relatively new and had not yet secured the power to determine how and when the games would be played. The World Series contests were all day games with the Gillette Razor Company having underwritten the viewing of these games nationally for several years. In junior high school then, I can remember students being excused from study hall, allowed to go to the auditorium and watch the games on a very small TV.

As Jackie Robinson { with the 1947 Dodgers} was the first black to play in the Major Leagues in the 20th-century, there were still four ML teams without a black player during the 1954 season: the Yankees, Tigers, Red Sox and Phillies.

Future AL MVP Elston Howard would join New York in 1955 with the Red Sox the last holdout until 1959 when they signed Pumpsie Green. Green was hardly worth waiting for as he batted just .246 in his 5-year ML career while many other black players were elevating the game to new levels. The Phillies, at least, chose one {1957} with a familiar name, unfortunately, not for his baseball prowess. That name was John Kennedy, this one not destined to become a US President.

As now, there were 25 active players on each team and if you paid attention to the sports pages every day {as all my youthful companions did}, you pretty much knew who those players were and how they performed. In fact, one of the things we did to pass time { when not actually playing the game constantly} was take turns guessing the identity of any of these 25 man rosters -- any team, American or National League. Many times these games would end only when the identified body count was in the low 20’s. We were not nearly as successful in naming other lists such as presidents, world leaders, movie stars, for example.

There was not the player movement you now see where virtually any day during the season reflects several coming and goings. With the current 30 team configuration and the constant shuffling of personnel, I would challenge fans, no matter how enthusiastically they follow their favorite team, to name nearly all of their favorite teams’ personnel. And if successful, that answer would likely change tomorrow. Not so in 1954.

I had been the only kid on my block subscribing to The Sporting News {TSN}, a weekly, thick newspaper/magazine devoted almost exclusively to baseball, particularly in season. Each major league team had a local correspondent who wrote a weekly column detailing the past week’s activity for that club; who was hot, who not, and what specifically contributed to the past week’s team success or lack thereof.

It also was full of articles detailing the opinions of those who were an integral part of the game and the columns of some relatively famous sportswriters. In addition, each issue would contain a column detailing last weeks’ events and current team standings for each of the other minor league classifications. Often, one would find the name of someone familiar either on the way up or down the minor-league ladder, mostly, the latter.

However, what I really looked forward to was the full complement of box scores --- not only every major league game -- but those of the top minor league classifications, usually through the AAA minor leagues. This enabled me to monitor who was playing for each of the ML teams in their top minor league system, what they did day-to-day, etc.

One of the other features of the paper was a weekly recap of deals and transactions, including both major and minor leagues. In this book, those reported for the ML teams are reflected week-to-week in the Tidbits section. There were comparatively fewer transactions as it was not the practice of TSN to denote who was being placed on the Disabled List, the duration of which was much longer than the current 15 day length.

That designation borders on an epidemic in today’s game -- see the daily newspapers during the current season. If players are bigger and stronger today and medical procedures have exponentially been improved, why so many casualties now? Other factors, perhaps?

I gratefully acknowledge much of the text of this book is due to TSN’s excellent coverage of the National Pastime in 1954.

Player trades were easier then -- there was no free agency, relatively few big salaries and/or players’ options to contend with. One man, General Manager Frank Lane of the White Sox and later Cleveland, was known as Trader Lane for his almost manic propensity to make deals. It was hinted by many he would make a trade just to stir up a slow news day. He did actually trade one manager for another early in the next decade.

In doing the research for this book, I came across one TSN article in the spring of 1954 indicating the defending, 5-time World Champion Yankees’ total payroll was expected to approach the then staggering total of $800,000. This was baseball’s most successful franchise, the team loaded with many stars such as Rizzuto, Berra, Ford, Raschi, Lopat, Reynolds, Martin, a young Mickey Mantle and others.

The next most successful winning franchise, the Brooklyn Dodgers, were expected to be near $500,000. The two best paid players were reputed to be Boston’s Ted Williams at $100,000 and the Cardinals’ Stan Musial at $80,000. This was well before the big contracts that would follow much later and at a time in which home attendance was a vital factor in determining which teams could produce a profitable return. Player salaries were pretty much a secret then, team executives strongly discouraging and blocking any mention of that taboo subject -- unless to promote their benevolence to a star player.

1954 would see a team shift franchise locations for just the second time since the beginning of the 20th century -- transitioning from the beleaguered St Louis Browns to the Baltimore Orioles. The Boston Braves were the first, having relocated to Milwaukee with great financial success the prior year.

The Browns relocation issue was also the circumstance in which the other American League owners were able to forcibly remove Browns’ owner Bill Veeck from the game, something they had been trying to do for some time.

Veeck had twice been unsuccessful during the 1953 season in having the other owners approve a franchise move, approval requiring six of the eight AL owners to agree. The Browns were hemorrhaging in red ink, the other owners quickly recognizing they had the hammer and would not approve the move unless he sold the team.

Bill Veeck was a maverick who had orchestrated a major league attendance record of 2.6 million in Cleveland in 1948, was an unapologetic promoter and did not fit the conservative mold of the other owners. They felt he was nothing more than a cheap, carnival hustler. His father had owned the Chicago Cubs before the Wrigleys, Veeck assuming control of the Browns in mid-1951 when attendance would total less than 300,000 for the year.

As an indication of his promotional acumen, Veeck would find out the name of all newborn males in St. Louis and mail a Brownie Contract to his home address, thus helping to build a fan base in his new surroundings.

missing image file

The continuing and severe lack of success on the field and resultant low attendance in St. Louis during his reign forced the move. He had hoped a relocation to Baltimore would emulate the success Milwaukee had experienced in 1953, having set a National League attendance record in the process. It ultimately did to some degree -- but without Veeck.

And guess what -- there was no new stadium in Baltimore to lure this team to their locale as is often the major piece of the seduction process in today’s game. It was simply a matter of St Louis no longer able to support two teams, given negligible fan attendance { and chronically poor Browns teams} that even the marketing brilliance of Bill Veeck could not overcome.

The Browns’ attendance figures in 1953 had deteriorated even more rapidly once the fans learned Veeck had asked permission to move during the season. Even with a poor team, Brownie attendance had increased to over $500,000 in 1952, a testament to Veeck’s mercurial, promotional abilities. But that would not last for long, as the bad play on the diamond continued.

Ironically, Cardinals owner Fred Saigh’s selling of his team to the Anheuser-Busch Corporation in 1953, was the tipping point in Veeck’s decision to leave St. Louis. He realized he couldn’t compete with the resources possessed by the new Cardinal owners. In order to stave off bankruptcy, he sold their mutual playing venue {Sportsman Park} to Anheuser Busch for $800,000 -- the new regime immediately renaming the venerable ballpark Busch Stadium. That sale only postponed the inevitable, the eventual sale of the club to the new Baltimore ownership for just under 2.5 million.

Veeck was gone, the AL now had a new territory to inhabit and market their product. As Baltimore is geographically located just 40 miles from Washington, D.C., the Senators were not enamored, given the proximity and their relative lack of drawing power. Those fears were well founded as the franchise would ultimately relocate to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in the early 1960’s and become the Minnesota Twins.

Subsequently, early in 1954, Veeck would be hired by Phil Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, to determine if Major League Baseball could be successfully expanded into the Los Angeles, California market. Wrigley owned the LA team in the Pacific Coast League as well as the ballpark where they played. After a preliminary study, Sport Shirt Bill { known due to his aversion to neckties} indicated it was possible to do so by 1956 or 57 at the latest. Del Webb, co-owner of the Yankees, was also very interested in this project. None of the parties were specific whether this was being primarily evaluated as a means to create a brand new franchise or as an option for an existing team.

As the 1954 year played out, the Philadelphia A’s, with a rich history of field success earlier in the century while being owned and managed by the legendary Connie Mack, would experience the same set of circumstances -- dwindling attendance, lack of competitive teams, competing with a NL team for home fans -- and be sold to a new owner and sent packing to a new frontier { Kansas City, Missouri }.

1953 had been a harbinger of things to come as only 362,000 home fans had seen the A’s play that season and prospects were not good in 54’. As a prelude to this move, Yankee ownership sold the hallowed Yankee Stadium to a consortium from Kansas City, headed by Arnold Johnson, he to become the new owner of the A’s in 1955.

Most teams were then owned by individuals, some with business enterprises to back them up, but for the most part these owners were playing with their own money. With TV contracts in their infancy -- they would become a more important factor -- no league merchandising income, no ballpark luxury boxes as are now common and proceeds from local broadcasting rights not lucrative even by 1950’s standards, it was imperative they fill the stands to survive.

The 1953 attendance for both major leagues approximated 14,400,000 fans with 7.4 million from the NL side, buoyed significantly by Milwaukee’s first year with a big league team. The overall total represented a loss of 250,000 fans from 1952.

The re-energized Braves led the majors’ attendance with 1,826,000 versus under 300,000 in Boston in 52’, bumping the Yankees to second at 1,538, 000. Every team in the AL lost attendance with Cleveland the biggest minus at 375,000. Just the NL Dodgers {1,163.000} and Phillies ( 854,000} recorded increases, both under 100,000 fans.

Attendance trends had been on the decline. Buoyed by Cleveland’s new benchmark, ML attendance reached nearly 21 million in 1948; it had dropped to 17.5 million by 1950 and 14.4 million in 1953 -- a reduction of almost 1/3 in just 5 years!! Other than Milwaukee, the other 15 clubs cumulatively lost approximately 13% in attendance numbers compared to 1952. Further, it was estimated some 6 million less fans had attended professional baseball games, including both major and minor leagues in 1953, than just five years earlier. Total number of minor leagues had shrunk from 59 to 37.

Attendance at the minor league level was eroding the fastest. This was most evident in gate receipts and of prime importance to their owners who looked for other means to reverse this downward trend. Minor league officials believed the smaller attendance numbers were due largely to the encroachment of TV telecasts into their geographic territories. Virtually every minor league team had an arrangement with one ML team to help them with operating costs, some more lucrative than others.

Based on attendance figures alone, just four teams -- the Yankees, White Sox and Cleveland in the AL, the Braves in the NL -- were in the black in 1953. The Indians and White Sox had drawn 1,069,000 and 1,191,000 fans, respectively. As a comparison, the Cubs with attendance of 764,000, claimed to have lost nearly $500,000, a considerable sum then.

The Yankees had received close to $500,000 for broadcasting rights in 1953, significantly more than any other franchise. Both the White Sox and Indians had received about $350,000; the others, substantially less. Broadcasting fees did change the bottom line positively for some others.

To provide an idea of the base revenues a club commanded, the 1954 Yankees increased their ticket prices that year. The new scale had Box Seats at $3.00, Reserved Seating $2.00, Grandstand $1.00 and Bleachers $.75, Box and Reserved having gone up $.50 each. Yankee Stadium full capacity was approximately 65,000 seats. From paid attendance, visiting teams would receive an average of $.40 per ticket.

As a specific illustration of a team’s operating costs, the following was made available by the Philadelphia Phillies prior to the 1954 season. During the 53’ season, with a total NL attendance of 7.4 Million, 853,844 fans paid to see the Phillies at home. This number represented about 100,000 less than the league average for the year. The revenue from those admissions were spent in this manner:

40% -- Team costs. Consisting of salaries and the resultant expenses for the players, coaches and manager.

33% -- Replacement costs. Meaning funds spent for player contract purchases and farm club losses. Curiously, no other franchise spent more than 9% in this category. The significant deviation was not explained.

15% -- Stadium Expenses. Includes the fee of $.10 for every paid admission for salaries for park employees and some other minor costs.

6% -- Publicity & Promotion. Cost of advertising and salaries of sales personnel.

6% -- Office Administration. Employee salaries, office rent and supplies.

For the Phillies, this resulted in a net loss of $53,000 in 1953 even though home attendance increased about 100,000.

Dodgers’ owner, Walter O’Malley has been much maligned over the years for moving the NL’s then most consistent, successful on-the-field-franchise to Los Angeles in 1958. However, in putting out talented and very successful teams -- six times in the World Series from 1947 -- the Brooklyn faithful had rewarded him by showing up far less often, going from 1.8 Million in 1947 to 1.03 Million by 1957.

The Giants, who would also move to San Francisco in 1958, drew 1.6 million in 1947 and with consistent fan loss every year, ended at 654,000 in 1957. The Giants were a generally competitive team with several recognizable stars and participated in two World Series during that period {1951 and 1954}, winning and losing one each. *

As the reader peruses the daily activity illustrated by this book, I’ve listed attendance figures for many of the games. This is the one statistic that belatedly astonished me most -- how often the crowds were so very small -- and not just for the non-contending teams.

It has been suggested reasons for dwindling fan support was due to the location of the playing fields {inner city} with the emerging, more affluent, moving out to the suburbs and being replaced by less civilized and more needy citizens -- making crime far more of a concern for visitors. The lack of adequate parking space was often cited, although many of these venues had public transportation readily available.

The movement to increase the number of night games also possibly exacerbated that concern. In summary, urban decay and the fear of crime.* That perception and analysis is better left to the sociologists to sort out and is not endorsed or addressed any further herein.

1954 was also the continuing heyday of the Sunday doubleheader in which you could see two games for the price of one. As we lived about 100 miles from Philly and my father worked away from home during the summers, we would attend maybe once a year and that day would always be Sunday, featuring either the Phillies or A’s. We saw games at Shibe Park/ Connie Mack Stadium in 1949, 1950 and 1951 with the Indians, Yankees and Pirates providing the opposition. Good news for me, the home team won 5 of the 6 games. We missed 1952 through 1954. With the A’s leaving town in the winter of 1954, our possible Sundays would then be limited to just the Phillies.

Sunday doubleheaders are not scheduled anymore as the owners cannot afford to give away extra playing dates. In fact, there are no twi-night doubleheaders scheduled either, being reserved reluctantly for rainouts and usually only when the visiting team has no more playing dates left in the rainout city.

Shibe Park, to be renamed Connie Mack Stadium in the 50’s, like most old ball parks, was a kids’ nirvana. Upon leaving the entrance area and walking up the ramp, I vividly remember the closeness of the stands to the field, the smooth infield dirt surface, the gleaming white of the foul lines and bases, the freshly cut grass, the billboards on the left field wall and the huge scoreboard in right center field. If you hit one off the latter, it was in play. Center field, at a monstrous 468 feet from home plate, ultimately reduced to a mere 447. Very few parks now have distances greater than 410 feet to dead-center field, many right around the 400 foot mark.

Both New York teams also had a distant centerfield with the Giants’ Polo Grounds’ deepest part leading to the clubhouse steps, a cavernous 480 feet. Paradoxically, the distances to the right and left field fences along the foul lines were 279 feet in left and a mere 257 feet in right field. The Pirates in Forbes Field would park the pre-game batting cage in deep center field, without fear of being in play. Conversely, Ebbetts Field in Brooklyn and Cincinnati’s Crosley Field were listed as under 400 feet in dead center field.

There was also an ambience and smell one tasted upon entering these old yards that newer versions have been unable