Bring In the Right-Hander!

by Jerry Reuss

  Tulsa, Oklahoma, Summer of 1969

  Expansion opened a number of jobs around baseball, as the Tulsa club had just four pitchers return from the Pacific Coast League Championship club of 1968. This meant that many of us who would’ve stayed in AA ball another year had jumped a classification. I was one of them. In 1969 the American Association returned, as the expansion of Major League Baseball created a need for more Class AAA farm clubs. There were growing pains, as I was among the American Association league leaders in walks and hits allowed, but I was also among the leaders in complete games and led the league in innings pitched and games started. All of this happened when I was twenty years old in my first full season of pro ball.17

  There was one day in early July when many of us received a registered letter from the Cardinals. It contained a check in the amount of fifteen hundred dollars, as all reached the ninety-day period in AAA ball that qualified us for part of our progressive bonus. There were some happy players but even happier wives when the checks were deposited in their respective bank accounts.

  4.

  Twenty-Four Hours from Tulsa

  Anytime a Minor League player received mail from the parent club, it was opened immediately. Somehow, for better or worse, the letter inside the envelope changed your life. In this case, the letter was from the Cardinals’ general manager, Bing Devine, dated August 25, 1969, and stated:

  Dear Jerry,

  Your contract has this date been recalled by the St. Louis National Baseball Club of the National League. You are to report to our club in time for a work out at 10:00 AM on Thursday, September 4.

  Best wishes,

  Bing Devine

  That’s how I learned I was called to the big leagues.

  My First Day in the Major Leagues

  When the AAA season ended on Monday, September 1, I was packed and ready for the six-hour drive home to St. Louis. I don’t remember much about the actual drive except it was the first one as a future Major League ballplayer.

  The workout on Thursday included seven other players from the Tulsa club. They were pitchers Santiago Guzman and Reggie Cleveland; infielders Chip Coulter, Jerry DaVanon, and Joe Hague; catcher Ted Simmons; and outfielder Leron Lee. The workout gave the coaches and Red a chance to see what we looked like and an idea of how much we had improved since spring training.

  On Friday morning I couldn’t wait to drive to the ballpark. I jumped into the car and made the fifteen-minute drive to Busch Stadium around one o’clock. Because I had set up my locker after the workout on Thursday, there wasn’t much to do. I do remember putting on the new uniform with my name on the back above the number 49. I walked across the locker room and stood in front of the bathroom mirror to admire the reflection. It was the same uniform I wore in spring training, but that was then. This was St. Louis on my first day in the big leagues. I remembered all the neighborhood games when we all dreamed of wearing our own Cardinals uniform. And there I stood, the first day of living that dream.

  While sitting on the bench watching Nelson Briles shut out the Expos on Teen Night, that same promotion that once lured me to the ballpark, I looked a few sections above the visitors’ dugout and spotted the section where I had bought seats for a previous Teen Night. I thought of how just two or three years earlier, I had sat there with a date, peering into the Cardinals’ dugout, watching how the big leaguers handled themselves. There I was, staring back at those seats. On that day I was the luckiest twenty-year-old kid in St. Louis!

  An Eye-Opening Experience

  Long bus rides are normal for the Minor Leagues. When I played in Little Rock in 1968 and Tulsa in ’69, we rode the bus for most trips, flying only on the longest ones. Things would be different with the Cardinals, with air travel being the rule, not the exception.

  My first trip with St. Louis was to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Most teams in the late ’60s flew commercial and chartered only as a last resort. From a private terminal at St. Louis’s Lambert Field, the September call-ups boarded a United Airlines charter after everybody else and were told to find an empty seat. There was a protocol to be followed. Asking a veteran player for permission to sit next to him was a courteous and wise thing to do. No rookie wants to have his ass chewed out for taking a veteran player’s personal space without asking. Besides, there were plenty of other opportunities to have your ass chewed out for some other real or imagined transgression.

  To some of the older players, rookies were a pain in the ass. Realistically, a veteran knew one day one of the kids would take his job. We reminded him of that every time he laid eyes on us.

  Playing a few years in the Minors taught me that certain seats in the front of the bus or plane were reserved for the manager, the coaches, front-office personnel, and veteran players. Once a player found a seat, it stayed his until a roster change opened another seat. If you wanted that open seat, you could make the switch. If two or more players wanted a seat change, then the one with the most time in the Majors had higher priority.

  The same system was in place for seats on the bus to and from the ballpark and for a place in line for the postgame meal. Once the everyday players and veterans served themselves, then the rookies could sample some of what was remaining. It reminded me of a family breakfast when I was seven or eight. I was eating cereal like my brothers as Dad was served his favorite, soft-boiled eggs. I asked Mom while it was my turn to do the dishes why Dad had eggs and we ate cereal. Her answer was one of life’s lessons. “When you earn the money that puts food on the table for the entire family,” she responded, looking me straight in the eye, “then you can eat what you want.” She continued, “And he’ll have eggs every morning if he wants them. It’s about respect and appreciation.” The next morning I shocked the hell out my dad when I said, “Thanks for the cereal,” as I was excused from the table and headed off to school. I was told Dad said, “Does anybody know what that was about?”

  When Leo Ward, the traveling secretary, issued us our meal-money envelopes, we rookies were thrilled when we saw $75 in cash (the Major League meal allowance was $15 a day as opposed to $5 a day in Triple A). For most of us our monthly pay was around $1,000–$1,200 a month (my salary was $1,150 a month) during our Triple A season. After deductions, rent, food, and savings (we were paid only during the five-month season), not many of us walked around with money in our pockets. For our month in the Majors, we were all paid a prorated amount of the Major League minimum of $10,000, which was around $1,750. With the bump in salary and meal money, we were “living large.”

  Our first stop was Philadelphia and the well-aged Connie Mack Stadium. I couldn’t wait to see the field, so I dressed and rushed down the runway to the dugout. Nobody mentioned the low overhang, and when I stepped up I banged my head. (I repeated this incident at Tiger Stadium in 1987.) I wonder how many players had that happen to them over the years.

  The dugout was tiny, so before the game Red sent the three rookie pitchers to the bullpen. Once the game was under way, Tim McCarver, who wasn’t in the starting lineup, brought over a half-dozen baseballs to sign. I signed them with no questions asked (signing balls during the game is another baseball taboo), as did everyone else in uniform. Tim gave the balls to a man waiting outside the bullpen, and I thought nothing of it. A few innings later the guy returned with a shopping bag, as the veteran players beelined to the grounds-crew garage in the back of the bullpen. With the help of McCarver and the unidentified man, those signed baseballs were magically turned into Philly cheese steaks. When Tim invited the rookies to the garage, there were still a few remaining. With one taste I was hooked. Only Dad’s barbecued pork steaks topped this delicacy. I learned on that warm September evening, signed baseballs were instant currency, for cheese steaks or whatever could be negotiated.

  We won the game, and as I was coming off the field Red grabbed me and asked, “How were those cheese steaks?” I was busted. “You knew?” was all I could say. “Hell yes, I knew,” he laughed. “You still got cheese all over your
face!”

  The Miracle Mets

  On September 1 the Chicago Cubs led the National League East by four games over the second-place New York Mets. The Mets won twenty-four of their next thirty-six games as the Cubs tanked, winning just ten of their last twenty-eight games. On September 24 the Mets clinched the first National League East Championship. I was there to witness it. Future Hall of Famer Steve Carlton lasted just a third of an inning, as five of the first six batters he faced came around to score. The Mets’ starting pitcher, Gary Gentry, threw a complete-game shutout before a paid crowd of 54,928, as the Mets won 6–0.1

  I was in the visitors’ bullpen, watching the game through the panes of Plexiglas when Joe Torre grounded into a double play to end the game. Then all hell broke loose. New York’s finest were in place around the playing field when the game ended, but they were no match for this crowd. Like ants after a fresh kill, they swarmed the field and in the process tore up everything they could. The Mets players barely got off the field, as the fans grabbed the bases and ripped up the grass from the infield. I stood there in a trance with Carlton, who got dressed just to see the celebration, when an off-duty policeman grabbed us and said, “You better get outta here!” We made our way to the runway as he lowered and locked the metal garage door behind us. Within seconds the crowd broke down the field entrance to the bullpen and ravaged the area we had left just seconds earlier. Through the Plexiglas window of the tunnel, I could see the crazed look on the faces of those people. I had never seen anything like it. I hope I never see it again.

  My Major League Debut

  My debut came just a few days after the Mets won the division against us. Red had every intention of putting the call-ups into the September games. Because the schedule had the Cards playing contending teams in the middle of September, it meant that my first outing would wait until we played one of the two teams below us in the standings, the Expos or the Phillies.

  I got the call September 27, a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon, at Jarry Park in Montreal. I remember walking into the visitors’ clubhouse, to my locker, and seeing my baseball jacket . . . moving. Mike Shannon, who called me “Rooster,” brought a live chicken to the ballpark to commemorate my debut. Thanks, Mike!

  All of the nonpitching call-ups from Tulsa were in the starting lineup with the exception of Ted Simmons, who had a U.S. Army Reserve meeting that weekend. My catcher was Tim McCarver, which was a blessing for me, maybe not for him. The start of the game was delayed by rain, which meant I had more time to think about my first Major League start. I was already nervous, so the delay just prolonged the tension. Of course, that tension was nothing like preparing to throw my first pitch in the bottom of the first inning. I swear my knees were knocking.

  Gary Sutherland, the Expos’ leadoff batter, grounded to short for the first out. Any pitcher will tell you that once you get the first out in an inning, you can relax a bit. Maybe I was too relaxed, as I walked Rusty Staub. After a flyout, a hit batsman, and a groundout, I completed my first Major League inning.

  Rain fell steadily throughout the early part of the game, and the umpires called for the tarp in the top of the third. It just so happened I was the hitter with a 2–1 count. So it was back to the clubhouse to think about it. After nearly an hour it took just two pitches to finish the at bat, as I was called out on strikes.

  The game was scoreless until the top of the sixth, when Byron Browne homered. We then scored a second run in the top of the seventh, as Leron Lee and Steve Huntz singled. After a strikeout to Chip Coulter, I singled to right, scoring Lee with my first hit and RBI in the big leagues.

  I allowed just the second hit off me with one out in the Expos’ seventh. I retired the next two batters, as we led by a score of 2–0. Red approached me in the dugout and told me seven innings were enough. My line for my debut was no runs on two hits with three walks, three strikeouts, and two batters hit by pitches. Plus, I got my first hit and RBI. The RBI proved important. It was the difference in the score, as the Expos scored a run in the eighth. Montreal threatened in the ninth, as they had a runner on third with one out. But Tom Hilgendorf retired the next two batters, making me the winning pitcher in my first start.2

  I don’t remember celebrating that evening. I probably had dinner near our hotel, the Queen Elizabeth, as I spent the rest of the night knowing that I was in the books as I had just won my first Major League game.

  When the season ended, the Cardinals invited me to the Instructional League in St. Petersburg. I was there for the duration. When I returned to St. Louis before Thanksgiving, I received a letter from the U.S. Army. It was time for basic training.

  Greetings from Uncle Sam

  I reported for basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington, outside Tacoma. True to the reputation of the Northwest, it rained nearly every one of those winter days. After eight weeks I was sent to the Military Personnel Records Center in Overland to complete my advanced training in military clerical services. Whatever needed to be done, I did. At least that was the description of my duties from the staff sergeant who trained me. Searching records (there were no computers), answering calls, cleaning offices, and making coffee (a few gallons a day for the entire office) were just part of my duties. I had no complaints, as my hours were from 7:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. After work I drove to Ritenour, as Coach Engert allowed me to work out with the high school team.

  When my military duty was finished on April 6, I joined the Oilers in St. Petersburg for the final days of spring training. Fortunately for me, the American Association didn’t begin their season until April 17. The late opening date allowed me some time to transition from a military lifestyle to a baseball schedule. Missing Major League spring training wasn’t my choice. It was up to me to make the best of the situation.

  From the Sleeper Bus to Sleeping in My Own Bed

  A. Ray Smith, the owner of the Oilers, announced to the team that we would make all of our trips on a specially designed sleeper bus that he used on ski trips to Colorado during the previous winters. Instead of commercial flights to the Eastern Division of the American Association (Omaha, Des Moines, Indianapolis, and Evansville), the team would have the bonding experience of twelve- to fourteen-hour bus rides.

  There were some advantages: No early-morning wake-up calls to catch a 6:00 AM flight. Hell, we were probably halfway through our trip by then! No need for the traditional sport coat to board a flight, as the rules were altered for the bus ride. Players boarded the bus wearing shorts and T-shirts, which were perfect for sleeping. If one of us couldn’t sleep, the front of the bus still had traditional seating with reading lights. It was a trade-off of convenience. Leave after the game for the next destination, or try to sleep a few hours, wake up, and catch the first flight out the next morning. If one could sleep on the bus, the bus was an advantage.

  Until I researched the games from 1970, I didn’t remember much about my first start that year for Tulsa. I was surprised to discover that I pitched eleven innings for a no-decision on April 20. If a Minor League manager or pitching coach allowed a starting pitcher to go eleven innings today, especially a pitcher with less than two weeks of spring training behind him, they’d be fired immediately. It was just a different time and place.

  I hit the ground running when I joined the Oilers. By mid-June I sported a 7–2 record in eleven starts with an ERA of 2.12. When Nelson Briles, one of the Cardinals’ five starters, pulled a hamstring in mid-June, they needed someone to take his spot in the rotation, especially with doubleheaders in Chicago on June 21 and in Pittsburgh on June 22. Warren Spahn, now in his third year of managing the Oilers, gave me the news of my promotion to the Cardinals on June 15 after I defeated Wichita in Wichita. The rush from the good news kept me up most of the return trip to Tulsa. Who could sleep after hearing they were headed to the Major Leagues!

  When we arrived at Oiler Park in Tulsa on Tuesday morning, I grabbed my equipment bag from the bus, emptied my Tulsa gear, and replaced it with whatever was in my locker.
I drove to my apartment, packed my clothes and stereo components (I traveled with just the essentials), settled the rent, gassed my car, and headed east on Interstate 44 to St. Louis.

  5.

  Meet Me in St. Louis

  June 16, 1970: Called Up to St. Louis from Tulsa

  Because the Cardinals were completing a three-game series in San Diego on Wednesday, it didn’t make any sense to fly there. Instead, I joined the Cardinals in Chicago on Thursday for the weekend series.

  I started the first game of a doubleheader in Pittsburgh and defeated the Pirates 6–1, hurling my first complete game in the Majors. Plus, it was the only game that I ever pitched in Forbes Field.

  Later in the year I had another first . . . my first fine. The Expos’ Bill Stoneman had a reputation for buzzing opposing hitters. Once, he came too far inside on a pitch to José Cardenal, who then charged the mound. When he just missed Richie Allen’s head with a pitch in a game against the Cardinals in St. Louis on August 9, Allen started to the mound to personally take care of business. Of course, both benches emptied, with the exception of one player, me. That was a serious breach of baseball protocol. Everyone went on the field when a hitter charged the mound. I figured if a fight started, I would be out there. If not, I would take care of Stoneman myself. When the players returned to the dugouts, Red looked my way and said, “I want someone to knock him [Stoneman] on his ass!” I figured that someone was me.