Posted on 04/08/2017 8:55:16 AM PDT by EveningStar
Bob Cerv, who holds the single-season record for home runs by a Major League Baseball player in Kansas City history, died Thursday in Blair, Neb. He was 91.
Cerv, who served during World War II, was friends with former President Harry Truman, played basketball and baseball at Nebraska and, as a member of the Yankees, roomed with Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle as they dueled for the home-run title in 1961...
In six seasons with the Yankees, Cerv was mostly a part-time outfielder/pinch hitter, but he played in two World Series (1955 and 1956), and the Yankees won the 1956 Series. Cerv was sold to the Kansas City A’s after that season.
“I was tickled to death because I could play every day,” Cerv told the Omaha World-Herald in 2015. “And I proved to them that I could play every day.”
Although he was 33, Cerv had his finest season in the majors in 1958 and was named to his only All-Star team during a season in which he hit .305 with 38 homers and 104 RBIs...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
I remember him. Brings back memories of the Kansas City Athletics.
First they were the Philadelphia Athletics, then moved to Kansas City in 1955, and on to Oakland in 1968.
And the Boston/Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves have played in three different places also. Not sure if any other teams in baseball moved more than once.
Reggie, of course, also played for one of the most famous A's dynasties ever after they moved to Oakland. And Roger got to play in two additional World Series (1967-8 for the St. Louis Cardinals) after the Yankees were through with him.
Bob Cerv may have collected 50 or more additional home runs in his career had he played every day for a lesser team. But he could only play part-time in an outfield with guys like Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Gene Woodling, Hank Bauer and Elston Howard.
The 1950s were the best era in Yankees baseball history save only the 1920s. During that era, Cerv still managed a respectable .278 batting average, but only 421 at bats during his six years with the Yankees (1951-6) and a .289 batting average and 1323 at bats during his three years (1957-9) with Kansas City in that storied decade.
RIP Mr Cerv, veteran of Base Ball’s “Golden Age”.
When I was younger I played a table top baseball game called Strat-O-Matic. In 1984 they released cars for the entire 1956 baseball season.
Being a Yankee fan, I played the 56 Yankees all the time (and yes, Strat-o-matic being the computerized stat based game that it was, they still beat the 56 Dodgers over half the time, like they did in the World Series).
Well, anyway, being enamored of offense, I always played the 56 Yanks using a DH (designated hitter).
That DH was Bob Cerv. He hit over .300 that year and had the American League used a DH in the 1950s, Bob Cerv would have had a fine career for the Yankees. Anyhow, he did pick up two World Championships with the Yanks in 1956 and again in 1961, as consolation for being a utility player on the greatest dynasty baseball has ever seen.
But, as he showed in Kansas City, he was plenty good enough to have started for most of his career. Nice to see that he still holds a KC record.
BTW that line in my post above should have read: “In 1984 they released CARDS for the entire 1956 baseball season.” Dang typos.
Ed
RIP.
I recall in Ken Burns BASEBALL documentary - before a Yankees game Cerv is sitting in the dugout, Casey Stengel comes over, sits down and says “not many people know this but one of us has been traded to Kansas City” - there went Cerv
To hear Pulitzer Prize-winner Mickey Herskowitz tell it, Cerv’s knees were so shot by the time he played for the expansion Houston Colt .45s in their inaugural National League season in 1962 that he was once thrown out at home trying to score from second on a triple.
That wasn’t quite true as Hall-of-Fame broadcaster Gene Elston recalls:
“With Cerv on first Al Spangler lines a hit to right field that eludes Frank Robinson - then the fun began - Cerv, slow-footed as he is, lumbers around third in an attempt to score. He doesn’t make it. He is thrown out Robinson, to first baseman Gordy Coleman to catcher John Edwards amid the laughter and futile urging of the Colts dugout for that extra run. Spangler was wrongly given a triple by the official scorer - under scoring rules it should have been scored a double - but it remains a triple today in not only Al’s eyes (who missed the fun on his way to third) but in the official stats. Cerv’s gamble didn’t pay off but if you gambled and played poker on the attendance you won if you had 6,666.”
Cerv was released at the end of July, which concluded his big league career.
Your account is true for Maris, but not for Jackson. Reggie was, indeed, a Kansas City A that followed the club to Oakland where he won Worlds Championships in the 1970s. Charlie Finley dismantled his team soon afterwards and traded Jackson to the Baltimore Orioles. When Jackson’s contract expired, he was granted free agency (something not available to Maris) and signed with George Steinbrenner and the Yankees that winter.
Reggie Jackson was never traded to New York.
Milwaukee/St. Louis/Baltimore moved twice
Thanks for the info. The old St. Louis Browns were actually the Milwaukee Brewers before they moved to St. Louis. I forgot about that. Then they became the Baltimore Orioles in 1954.
Some trivia about Baltimore sports, in that, both their baseball and football teams used to be the Browns.
Baseball’s St. Louis Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles. Football’s original Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore and became the Ravens.
There was a baseball community in Independence, MO, just east of KC. It included Whitey Ford, Roger Maris and many other player families. I have a friend that grew up on the same block in the 50s and early 60s.
She is still friends with Maris family members and others.
But Oakland was not that much bigger of an MLB market than Kansas City at the time, particularly when you consider that it had to be shared with the Giants across the bay.
The great dynasty team of the 1970s got too expensive and suffered the same fate as the great Philadelphia A's dynasty teams of the late 20s/early 30s and early teens.
One of the best A's teams ever fielded was the 1927 version. I think they had something like 8 hall of fame players on the roster. Nobody much remembers them because they came in second place after what was arguably the greatest Yankees team ever fielded. Even our Pirates fielded one of the best teams ever that year . . . which proceeded to lost to the Yankees in four straight during that World Series.
Very difficult to hit .289 as a part-timer. Preparation and fundamentals are important to a hitter, but rhythm is also important. Hard to ‘go on a streak’ when you play once a week with a couple of pinch-hit opportunities.
I remember Gates Brown and that ‘68 Tigers team. He was an unbelievable hitter. Growing up in Phladelphia there weren’t many opportunities to see AL teams unless they were televised on “This Week in Baseball” or “Game of the Week”.
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