Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm Dies

Yahoo! News ^ | 23 August 2002 | Associated Press

[BluesDuke]

SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - Knuckleballer Hoyt Wilhelm, the first reliever elected to the Hall of Fame and the last pitcher to throw a no-hitter against the New York Yankees, has died.

Wilhelm died Friday, but the cause of death was not released. Baseball records listed him at 79 years old, though the funeral home handling the arrangements said he was 80.

Wilhelm played from 1952 and 1972 and when he retired, he held the major league record for games pitched at 1,070. Jesse Orosco and Dennis Eckersley have since passed that mark.

While known for his fluttering pitch — it was because of him that catchers began using an oversized mitt — Wilhelm had a smashing debut as a big leaguer.

On April 23, 1952, Wilhelm hit a home run in his first major league at-bat, connecting for the New York Giants at the Polo Grounds. That turned out to be Wilhelm's only career homer.

Wilhelm was 143-122 with 227 saves and a 2.52 ERA for nine teams. He played mostly for the Giants, Baltimore and the Chicago White Sox.

Wilhelm was elected to the Hall in 1985. Rollie Fingers is the only other reliever in the Hall.

Though he made his mark as a reliever, his best game came as a starter. On Sept. 20, 1958, while with the Baltimore Orioles, he pitched a no-hitter against the Yankees at old Memorial Stadium.

Born as James Hoyt Wilhelm, he is the third Hall of Famer to die in the last two months. Ted Williams and Enos Slaughter also died.

Wilhelm began experimenting with his unorthodox pitch after reading a story about knuckleballer Dutch Leonard while playing high school ball in his hometown of Huntersville, N.C.

Wilhelm, who won a Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge, got a late start to his major league career. He was in his late 20s when the Giants decided to give him a chance in their bullpen in 1952.

The Giants were glad they did, as the rookie went 15-3 with 11 saves and a league-leading 2.43 ERA in 71 relief appearances.

A year after his no-hitter, the Orioles kept Wilhelm in the starting rotation. He went 15-11 and led the AL with a 2.19 ERA — it was the last year in his career in which Wilhelm did not record a save.

Orioles catchers, however, had a tough time handling Wilhelm's dancing knuckler that year. They set a modern record with 49 passed balls in 1959.

The next year, on May 27, 1960, Baltimore catcher Clint Courtney broke out an oversized mitt designed by Orioles manager Paul Richards.

Wilhelm also pitched for the St. Louis Cardinals, Cleveland, California, Atlanta, the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles. He pitched for the final time on July 21, 1972, for the Dodgers.

Wilhelm is survived by a son, two daughters, two brothers and six sisters. Funeral services will be 11 a.m. Tuesday at Wiegand Brothers Funeral Home in Sarasota.

[BluesDuke]

I remember watching a game when the Braves had the likes of Joe Adcock and Lew Burdette, Del Crandall, Hank Aaron etc. They were playing the Pirates in in Pittsburgh in the old park which the name escapes me. Anyway, Ol Joe Adcock hit one that would have landed on the moon if it were not for the lights that hung out over the field? The ball hit them lights and landed in the field and the Ump called it a ground rule double or something like that. Ol Joe about burned his spikes off running to get in the umps face.

That old Pittsburgh ballpark was Forbes Field, a beautiful ballpark if you could learn to live with its almost cement-hard infield dirt a little better than Tony Kubek did in the 1960 World Series (when a batted ball took a nasty hop up into his throat).

I don't know about an ump calling an Adcock blast off the lights a ground rule double...but I do know of an Adcock belt against the Pirates being turned into a ground rule double because Henry Aaron, of all people, made a baserunning mistake: a la Fred Merkle, Aaron broke away from the basepaths after Felix Mantilla (who had reached earlier on an error) scored, and Adcock passed Bad Henry by, getting his three-run blast nullified into an out that was later ruled a ground-rule double. The significance: this was the thirteenth-inning sequence that busted up the perfect game Harvey Haddix took to twelve innings.

The Braves' pitcher was Lew Burdette (Red Smith immortalised him as Chief Slobber on Stitches), who also went all the way and got the win. Burdette used the game in the off-season at contract time, negotiating a $10,000 pay raise. That guy pitched the greatest game in baseball history and he still couldn't beat me - so I must be the greatest pitcher of all time! insisted Burdette, who had shut the Pirates out despite scattering thirteen hits. (Burdette got his raise anyway; his 1960 season would include a no-hitter against the Phillies that was a hit batsman - Tony Taylor - shy of a perfect game...Burdette plunked Taylor in the fifth but erased him on a double play.)

[BluesDuke]

Then the time they threw Gorman Thomas the eefis pitch and he about screwed himself in the ground swinging at it. He turned to the catcher and told him to try that again and see what happens. They did and Gorman struck out. I about died laughing when I read about that one.

Obviously, Stormin' Gorman didn't bother reading Ted Williams's advice for hitting the eephus into the ether: take a couple of steps forward in the batter's box and then swing, the technique Teddy Ballgame figured out before taking Pittsburgh's Rip Sewell over the fence in the 1946 All-Star Game. Tony Perez was listening to the Splinter: Perez got surprised by a Bill Lee eephus in Game Seven, 1975 World Series, and Perez in turn surprised it into the seats.

[BluesDuke]

Wilber Wood...

To my knowledge, Wilbur Wood is the only pitcher in major league history to be a 20-game winner and a 20-game loser in the same season (he did it with the 1973 White Sox).

[Tigercap]

I believe Phil Neikro was 21-20 in the late-70's (1979?).

[Tribune7]

Click on the link to the New York Giants and you get the football team. LOL!

[BluesDuke]

The other main reliever besides Hoyt Wilhelm was Don Mossi who came over from Cleveland. He's the guy with the ears that Jim Bouton described as looking like "a taxi coming down the street with all of its doors open."

Since ballplayers do it, we might as well do it...here's an All-Ugly team...

C - Andy Etchebarren (believe it or not, compared to him Yogi Berra resembles Cary Grant), Ernie Lombardi
1B - Moose Skowron, Jack Clark
2B - Frank Bolling, Johnny Temple
3B - Bob Aspromonte, Darrell Evans
SS - Frank Crosetti, Leo Durocher
OF - Charlie (King Kong) Keller, Danny (He'd be ugly even if he was white. - Curt Flood) Napoleon, Babe Ruth, Jeffrey (Penitentiary Face) Leonard, Casey Stengel, Bob Cerv
Pitchers - Galen Cisco, Jesse Orosco, Warren Spahn (who once said, when he joined the Mets and it was thought new Met coach Yogi Berra might catch a little, "What difference would it make if we're the oldest battery in baseball - we'll be the ugliest, by far"), Phil (The Vulture) Regan, Don Mossi, Sparky Lyle, Gary Gentry, Randy Johnson

[BluesDuke]

I sit corrected - Knucksie did, indeed, go 21-20 in 1979. Does it say anything that the only two men who have done this were both knuckleball pitchers?

Story I love to tell about Phil Niekro: During his brief time with the Yankees, when Lou Piniella was managing the club, Piniella and a couple of writers came back to the Yankee hotel late when one of them spotted Niekro in the lobby. Asking whether Piniella would discipline Niekro for being out so late, Piniella grinned. "Aw, I can't tell Knucksie to go to bed. He's older than I am!" (Niekro was 46 at the time).

[Bamaconservative]

I believe it was Tim McCarver, speaking about catching Barney Schultz in 1964 for the Cardinals.

[Reagan Man]

Hoyt Wilhelm was the original prototype for the modern day relief pitcher. He set the standards for what being a stopper was all about. 227 saves may not be an all-time record, but it was a significant number in those days, considering the fact that pitchers threw complete games on a regular basis. In six out of seven years, from 1962 to 1968, Wilhelm's ERA was under 2.00, with a low of 1.32 in 1967. The man was real good.

[BluesDuke]

Hoyt Wilhelm was the original prototype for the modern day relief pitcher. He set the standards for what being a stopper was all about.

It is pleasant to think so, yes...but Wilhelm missed being the prototype by only a couple of seasons. The actual prototypes were Joe Page, the shooting-star relief star of the 1947-49 New York Yankees; and, Jim Konstanty, the old man of the Philadelphia "Whiz Kids" Phillies of 1950.

Converted to relief work by then-skipper Bucky Harris, Page in 1947 was a hellion from the bullpen: 14-8, 17 saves (the stat was recorded retroactively; it didn't exist as an official stat at the time) and a 2.48 ERA overall (including only two starts; his relief ERA was 2.15). He faltered a little in 1948 but in 1949, with Casey Stengel now managing the Yankees, Page went lights out again, going 13-8 with 27 saves and a 2.59 and a spectacular effort in the season-ending, pennant-winning game against the Red Sox - he was brought in in the third after Vic Raschi was lit up early and held on to go the rest of the way as the Yankees came back and win. He weakened in 1950 and was practically washed up (Page's weakness: the bottle); a 1954 comeback proved only too futile.

But Page's two stellar seasons began the awakening that Konstanty would finish in 1950, when he went 16-7 with a 2.66 ERA and 22 saves. Ironically, Konstanty was given the start for Game One of the 1950 World Series and he pitched brilliantly, giving up only one run before handing off to Russ Meyer for the ninth inning. Unfortunately, it was the only run scored in the game, the Yankees winning 1-0 to begin their four-game burial of the upstart Phillies.

Konstanty and Page right before him had touched off a baseball nerve; little by little, over the next several years, more and more managers began to crave that big bomb relief ace after the experience of their performances. Hoyt Wilhelm was seen in such a light when the New York Giants brought him up in 1952. He wasn't the prototype, alas...but he was an excellent relief pitcher. Like Konstanty, though, his signature performance came as a starter, in his case the no-hitter against the Yankees.

Go figure. For the converse, consider Sid Fernandez, usually a starter, making his signature performance out of the bullpen in Game Seven, 1986 World Series, blowing the Red Sox away for two-and-a-third and giving the Mets breathing room enough to take the momentum and tie and win the game and the Series...

[BluesDuke]

Bill James's entry on Hoyt Wilhelm (whom he rates as the 27th best pitcher of all time), in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract from last winter:

One of the interesting things about baseball history - human history, I suppose - is that "beliefs" or "theories" about how the game should be played often sweep the game which have no apparent basis in anything except consensus. In the period 1958-63, the notion that a knuckleball was a "specialty" pitch gathered a consensus, and became a part of baseball's accepted dogma. When I became a baseball fan in 1960, pitching coaches would say and announcers would parrot that a knuckleball was a great pitch for a knuckleball pitcher, but a lousy pitch as part of a repertoire. I have tried to reconstruct since then what happened to cause this belief to gain credence. One of the things that happened was that Hoyt Wilhelm, who came to the majors throwing a knuckleball and other pitches, went through a career crisis after a brilliant start, and didn't emerge from the crisis until he focused on throwing just the knuckleball. Another thing that happened, I think, is that there were one or two prominent pitchers (Tom Sturdivant) who tried to add the knuckleball to a repertoire of other pitches, and sort of fell out of their saddles in the process. Trying to prevent that from happening, pitching coaches developed the aphorism that a knuckleball was a fine pitch for a knuckleball pitcher, but that for it to be effective you had to throw it almost every pitch.

The only problem with this theory is that for 50 years prior to that, there were countless very successful pitchers who did throw the knuckleball as part of a standard repertoire. I do not doubt that throwing a knuckleball along with other pitches creates special problems, and special challenges, but the indisputable fact is that pitchers had dealt successfully with those challenges for a half-century before that time. Paul Derringer, Wes Ferrell, Freddie Fitzsimmons, Larry French, Warren Hacker, Eddie Lopat, George Pipgras, Nap Rucker, Sherry Smith and Virgil Trucks, among others, threw the knuckleball mixed into an assortment of pitches. At that time - about 1960 - there were still many of these pitchers active. Early Wynn, Cy Young Award winner in 1959, threw a knuckleball among other pitches, as did Bob Purkey, Bobby Shantz, Ron Kline, Skinny Brown, Bud Daley, Don Elston, Mike Fornieles, Darold Knowles, Frank Lary, Vernon Law, Gerry Staley, and others. Purkey went 23-5 in 1962, throwing the knuckleball and other pitches, while pitching coaches in ever-increasing numbers were telling young pitchers that you couldn't do it successfully.

I notice this often about the political process, about television and movies, about culture and art, that ideas seize hold of the public mind like a burr on a pair of fuzzy socks, and will hold on for decades although they contradict history and logic in the most obvious ways. Our government at this moment is forcing universities to spend millions of dollars a year on the frankly preposterous theory that women care as much about sports as men do, or anyway ought to. It's not mass hysteria, exactly, because who is hysterical about Title IX, who is hysterical about knuckleball pitchers? It is a gentler phenomenon, a massed agreement not to dispute the point.

Interesting...and, believable...

[Lancey Howard]

Didn't Feller also serve in WWII?

[BluesDuke]

Yes he did, in the Navy, I believe, though I'm not sure exactly what his duty was. A passel of big leaguers were in service in World War II, some of whom actually saw combat, some of whom were training and/or one or another kind of instructor, many of whom played special baseball exhibitions. It varied, pretty much...if it hasn't been written already, there is probably a very good book to be written about baseball in wartime...

[Lancey Howard]

I remember hearing long ago that Uecker owned Koufax. I seem to remember that part of that story was that Uecker was the only major leaguer to hit a grand slam off of Koufax. I find it hard to believe, but with Koufax I suppose it's possible.

[Lancey Howard]

Hey BluesDuke, do you happen to have the web address for the Bill James Encyclopedia? I had to reload AOL and lost all my bookmarks, and now I can't seem to find a link that gets me right to the stats of every major leaguer who ever played. That is one handy reference.

Thanks,
LH

[stylin19a]

Stanky was CHW manager from 66-68. If we focus on the Stanky years, Peters pitched for the CHW from 59-69. Joel Horlen(61-71) was probably the other pitcher he couldn't think of. Mossi pitched only 1 year for the Sox - 64. Wood's 1st year with the Sox was 67. Bruce Howard was there 63-67. The other decent reliever during the Stanky years, was Bob Locker.
Hoyt being 80 means that I'M getting old...now THAT's sad.

[stylin19a]

Not so sure about that Romano story. Romano entered the Majors with the White Sox in 1958, went to the Indians in 60, came back to the Sox in 66 and ended his career in 67 with the Cards. Colavito was sent to the Sox in the middle of 67.

[stylin19a]

Agh.....the Romano story is probably true, he just wasn't traded for Colavito. Colavito got traded for Harvey Kuenn

[BluesDuke]

I don't know for certain if Uecker ever grand salamied off Koufax, but if he was hitting .400 lifetime against the man it is probably not impossible.

Then again, Warren Spahn has the dubious distinction of having had the last homer he ever gave up in major league competition being hit by...Sandy Koufax, of all people. Talk about coming down in the world, considering Spahnie also surrendered the first major league dinger ever hit by a kid named Mays...

On the other hand, don't mention the name Koufax to Harvey Kuenn in the great beyond. Kuenn had the dubious honour of being the final out in two of Koufax's four no-hitters, first in 1963 against the Giants and again in 1965 - the perfect game against the Cubs, a swinging strikeout.

[BluesDuke]

Rocky Colavito was traded to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn the day before the Indians opened their 1960 season...in Detroit. (Detroit sure loved the deal; the Free Press crowed in a headline, 43 Homers For 135 Singles.) But Colavito came back to the Indians in 1965 for Johnny Romano plus a pair of prospects named Tommie Agee and Tommy John. How the deal happened had a bit of complexity, because it began with Colavito still a member of the Kansas City Athletics.

The Indians had offered a package of players to the A's for Colavito but A's owner Charlie Finley didn't like the offer. He also turned town a straight cash deal for The Rock (said to have been $300,000). Meantime, the White Sox wanted Johnny Romano, and the Indians told them that if they could make a deal for Colavito, they'd trade Romano to them for Colavito. The White Sox insisted on prospects going into the deal, too, and that was where Tommie Agee and Tommy John - both of whom had shown raw talent but weak performance numbers in the Tribe system - came into the picture.

Sure enough, the White Sox traded outfielders Mike Hershberger and Jim Landis and pitcher Fred Talbot to the Athletics for Colavito, and then they pulled the trigger with the Indians and sent The Rock back home to Cleveland for Romano, Agee, and John.