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.
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.
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.