Baseball Hall of Shame™

by Bruce Nash

  Trying hard not to turn red from embarrassment, Gorman replied, “Get him over here.”

  Mauch waved to the bullpen and Hoak jogged in, thinking he was going to pinch-hit. Mauch told him, “Gorman just put you out.”

  “What?” stammered Hoak. He started ranting and raving and jumping up and down. But Gorman would not be swayed. He ordered Hoak to leave the premises.

  The next day Hoak bumped into Gorman in the clubhouse runway leading to the field. “Answer me one thing, Tom,” said Hoak. “How the hell did you know I was hollering at you from down in the bullpen?”

  HEINIE MANUSH

  Left Fielder · Washington, AL · October 6, 1933

  Heinie Manush was fit to be tied with an umpire’s call—and it cost him an inglorious World Series ejection.

  After batting .336 for the season, Manush was anticipating a great performance in the 1933 World Series between his Washington Senators and the New York Giants. But it didn’t turn out the way he had hoped. Entering Game 4, his team was down two games to one, and he had collected one measly hit in 13 at-bats. Disappointed by his poor batting performance, the slumping left fielder took out his frustration on an umpire.

  In the bottom of the sixth inning of Game 4, the Senators trailed 1–0, but had the tying run on second with one out. Manush slapped a hard grounder past a diving Bill Terry at first for what looked like a sure hit. But second baseman Howie Critz tracked it down and fired to pitcher Carl Hubbell, who raced over to cover the bag. Umpire Charlie Moran called Manush out on the whisker-close play.

  Manush was furious over the call and so was Washington player-manager Joe Cronin. They sandwiched Moran and blasted him for his poor eyesight and bad judgment and every other fault they could conjure up. Plate umpire Red Ormsby finally entered the fray and ordered Cronin and Manush back to the dugout.

  Cronin reluctantly returned to the bench, but Manush didn’t. He lashed out at Moran one more time as irate Washington fans heaved hundreds of soda pop bottles at the umpire. Moran didn’t back down.

  “I was too smart to lay a hand on Moran when I was arguing the call,” Manush recalled years later. “But when he bellied up to me and asked me what I wanted to make of it, there was a temptation that was too great.”

  Moran, like the other umpires in those days, wore a black bow tie held on by an elastic band under the shirt collar. “What I did was grab the tie,” Manush recalled. He pulled it out as far as he could and then “I let it snap back into Moran’s neck.”

  The impact left the umpire speechless. When he finally got his voice back, his first words were, “You’re out of the game!”

  A MOUND

  OF TROUBLE

  For the Most Pitiful Pitching Performances of All Time, The Baseball Hall of Shame™ Inducts:

  TOM GORMAN

  MARK FREEMAN

  GEORGE BRUNET

  Pitchers · Kansas City, AL · April 22, 1959

  It was the sorriest exhibition of pitching control ever seen in one inning.

  Kansas City Athletics hurlers Tom Gorman, Mark Freeman, and George Brunet were so wild they couldn’t find home plate with a compass.

  In one deplorable inning, the struggling pitchers walked 10 batters and hit another while allowing the visiting Chicago White Sox to score 11 runs on only one single. What’s worse, eight of those runs were forced in by bases-loaded walks. (For this reason, the A’s performance is even more shameful than the Washington Senators’ record-setting 11 free passes in one inning on September 11, 1949.)

  The White Sox were winning 8–6 in the seventh inning when Gorman came in to pitch. A hit and three errors brought in two runs and put a runner on third base with no outs. Gorman could have escaped further damage if the strike zone had been high and outside. But it wasn’t, and he started the pitiful base-on-balls procession.

  He walked two batters in a row to load the bases, and then threw two straight balls to the next hitter before manager Harry Craft yanked him and brought in Freeman. Whatever control problems afflicted Gorman were passed on to Freeman, who tossed two more balls, which finished the walk and forced in the third run. Then he issued two more free passes sandwiched around a force-out at home for another two tallies.

  Brunet came in to relieve. In keeping with the tradition already established by his colleagues, Brunet forced in the final six runs with a walk, walk, hit batsman (to break up the monotony), walk, strikeout (no big deal because it was the opposing pitcher), walk, walk, and, mercifully, an inning-ending groundout.

  Seventeen White Sox came to the plate in the walkathon half-inning that took 45 minutes to complete. The final score: Chicago 20, Kansas City 6.

  ROGER MASON

  Pitcher · San Francisco, NL · April 13, 1987

  JEFF AUSTIN

  Pitcher · Cincinnati, NL · May 28, 2003

  PHIL DUMATRAIT

  Pitcher · Cincinnati, NL · September 9, 2007

  Giving up back-to-back-to-back home runs is a shameful way for a pitcher to start the game. No one knows that better than Roger Mason, Jeff Austin, and Phil Dumatrait—the only three hurlers in baseball history to have achieved such a dubious deed.

  Mason set the standard for pitching ignobility when he started a 1987 game for the visiting San Francisco Giants against the San Diego Padres. He needed his whole repertoire of pitches to make it into the record books.

  On an 0-2 pitch, he tried to slip a slider past leadoff hitter Marvell Wynne, who hammered it for a homer. Next, with the count 1-and-2, Mason hurled a fastball to Tony Gwynn, who also went yard. Finally, Mason threw a split-fingered fastball on a 2-2 pitch to John Kruk, who smashed it for a four-bagger. It was the first time in the Majors that a pitcher gave up three consecutive home runs to the first three batters in a game. It could have been worse. The next batter, Steve Garvey, walloped a full-count pitch to the warning track.

  After the contest, which the Giants lost 13-6, Mason told reporters, “I’m glad I didn’t have a fourth pitch.”

  Sixteen years later, Cincinnati Reds hurler Jeff Austin matched Mason’s futile feat—but with an added flourish. At the start of a 2003 game against the host Atlanta Braves, Austin served a leadoff homer to Rafael Furcal, whose drive landed in the right field seats. On the very next pitch, Mark DeRosa homered to center. Gary Sheffield then launched a shot into the stands in left, causing Austin to stomp around the mound in disgust. The three record-tying homers came in the span of only six pitches.

  But then Austin bettered (or worsened) Mason’s performance. After retiring the next two hitters—including a flyout by Andruw Jones that was caught at the edge of the warning track—the pitcher gave up a walk and then another homer, this one to Javy Lopez.

  After kneeling on the mound in disbelief, Austin turned his back to the Reds dugout because he didn’t want to see manager Bob Boone come out and yank him, which is what Boone did. Austin then jogged off the mound to sarcastic cheers from the Turner Field crowd.

  Austin became the first pitcher in 11 years to get knocked out of two straight starts without making it through the first inning. In his previous start against the Florida Marlins, the right-hander had failed to get an out, giving up five runs on three hits and four walks in an 8–4 loss.

  After the Braves’ 15–3 shellacking of the Reds, Boone said, “It was awful. Austin feels horrible.”

  Not surprisingly, Austin, who had a 2-3 record, was demoted to Class AAA Louisville right after the game. “My goodness, this team is definitely better without me on it,” he told reporters. “I’m surprised I’ve stayed here this long.”

  He never pitched in the Majors again.

  It took only four years before another Reds pitcher, Phil Dumatrait, duplicated the triple-homer start. His game-opening gopher ball achievement came at home against the Milwaukee Brewers. Leadoff batter Rickie Weeks sent
a 2-1 pitch into the Reds’ bullpen in left-center field. J. J. Hardy followed two pitches later with a drive into the Brewers’ bullpen down the right field line. Ryan Braun then hit Dumatrait’s ninth pitch over the fence in center.

  Dumatrait, who was 0-4, faced five batters in the inning, allowing five hits and four runs before being pulled by manager Pete Mackanin. “Phil just didn’t have any command of his pitches, and the Brewers let him know about it,” Mackanin said. “That might be my quickest hook ever.”

  JACK CHESBRO

  Pitcher · New York, AL · October 10, 1904

  BOB MOOSE

  Pitcher · Pittsburgh, NL · October 11, 1972

  Twice pitchers have thrown ninth-inning wild pitches that lost a pennant.“Happy Jack” Chesbro turned into a Sad Sack after throwing a historically disastrous wild pitch.

  In 1904, Chesbro had pitched phenomenally, winning 41 games to set a record that has never been threatened. On the strength of his arm, the New York Yankees (then known as the Highlanders) fought the Boston Red Sox (then known as the Americans) down to the wire for the pennant that year.

  On the last day of the season, New York trailed Boston by a single game, but the Highlanders could capture the pennant with a doubleheader sweep over the visiting Americans. With Chesbro getting the call in that critical first game, the New York fans had good reason to expect a pennant. About 30,000 rooters were on hand, an astonishing number for those days.

  The game was a nail-biter, and the two teams entered the top of the ninth inning tied at 2–2. Chesbro got the first two outs, but in the process had seen Boston runner Lou Criger make it to third. The pitcher desperately wanted that final out of the inning, so he did what he always did in a jam. He went to his spitter.

  But the pitch that had brought Chesbro so many victories that season betrayed him in the end. He threw the wettest and wildest pitch of his career. Catcher Red Kleinow leaped for the ball, but it sailed past him and headed for infamy. Criger scampered home with the winning run as a collective moan of despair swept through the stunned crowd. New York failed to score in the last of the ninth and lost the pennant to Boston.

  At least Chesbro’s calamitous wild pitch had occurred in the top of the ninth, giving his team a chance to recover. Sixty-eight years later, Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Bob Moose didn’t give his team any such opportunity. He hurled a pennant-losing walk-off wild pitch.

  In 1972, the world champion Pirates were just three outs away from winning their second straight pennant. In the fifth and deciding game of the National League Championship Series at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati, the Pirates held a 3–2 lead over the Reds entering the bottom of the ninth inning. With ace reliever Dave Giusti on the mound, Pittsburgh could already taste the champagne.

  But on this day, of all days, Giusti didn’t have his stuff. He gave up a game-tying home run to Johnny Bench and back-to-back singles before right-hander Bob Moose, normally a starting pitcher, relieved him. Moose retired the next batter, Cesar Geronimo, on a long fly that advanced runner George Foster to third base. Moose bore down and coaxed Darrel Chaney to pop up. Now there were two outs. To send the game into extra innings, Moose needed to retire hitter Hal McRae.

  The wild pitch that sank the PiratesAssociated Press

  The count went to 1-and-1. Then Moose threw a hard slider down and away—but a little too down and a little too far away. The ball skipped into the dirt to the right of home plate and bounced over catcher Manny Sanguillen’s head. The catcher frantically retrieved the ball, but it was much too late. Foster had already raced across the plate with the pennant-­winning run. There was nothing Sanguillen could do but fire the ball into center field in a final gesture of frustration over the inglorious end to the Pirates’ reign as world champs—all because of that pennant-losing, walk-off wild pitch.

  PAUL LAPALME

  Pitcher · Chicago, AL · May 18, 1957

  Chicago White Sox pitcher Paul LaPalme had the easiest pitching assignment ever given a hurler. Just hold the ball. That’s all. Just hold the ball.

  But, incredibly, he didn’t. And he cost his team the game.

  With the Chicago White Sox leading 4–3 over the host Baltimore Orioles, LaPalme went out to the mound to pitch in the bottom of the ninth inning. Sox manager Al Lopez gave him one strict and simple instruction: Stall. Under a prearranged agreement, the umpires were to halt the game at exactly 10:20 p.m. to give Chicago time to catch a train for Boston. It was 10:18 p.m. when Oriole Dick Williams led off the frame. Unable to think of any creative way to dawdle, LaPalme threw a strike and a ball.

  By now, time was almost up. Just a few seconds remained before the White Sox could leave town a winner. All LaPalme had to do was simply stand there. Or tie his shoelaces. Or pick his nose. Or scratch his butt. He could do anything except throw the ball.

  But he threw the ball anyway—and not way outside or into the ground or any other spot that would have been impossible to hit. No, Paul LaPalme threw the ball right down the pipe, and Williams walloped it. As the minute hand struck 10:20 p.m., the ball landed high in the left field bleachers for a dramatic game-tying home run. The umps then called the game with the score knotted 4–4.

  Under American League rules, the tie meant the game had to be replayed in its entirety at a later date. The Orioles won the rematch.

  As for LaPalme, his time ran out. After that year, he never pitched in the Majors again.

  PHIL MARCHILDON

  Pitcher · Philadelphia, AL · August 1, 1948

  Phil Marchildon threw the wildest wild pitch in baseball history. His wayward ball sailed into the 10th row of the grandstand and conked a fan smack on the noggin.

  The Philadelphia Athletics’ Canadian-born hurler was never known for his control. In fact, in his nine-year career, he chalked up 203 more walks than strikeouts and twice led the American League in issuing free passes. So it wasn’t unusual for the right-hander to uncork a wild pitch now and then. Even so, the one he flung in a 1948 game against the host Detroit Tigers was a doozy that astonished even veteran players.

  In the bottom of the fourth inning, Detroit’s Vic Wertz stepped to the plate. Meanwhile, sitting in a 10th-row box seat between third and home, fan Sam Wexler, of Toledo, Ohio, leaned over to light a cigar. Just then Marchildon went into his windup and cut loose with a pitch so wild that it flew into the grandstand and nailed Wexler right on the head.

  Wexler didn’t know what hit him. At first the Briggs Stadium crowd was hushed. But once they saw that the slightly dazed Wexler was not seriously hurt, they burst into raucous laughter.

  “It was just a fastball that got away from me,” Marchildon recalled. “I couldn’t believe it went that far. It just sailed right into the stands and hit that poor fan. Everybody was laughing—even my own teammates. I turned to [catcher] Buddy Rosar and said, ‘I guess that was a little high.’ Then I shouted to [plate umpire] Ed Rommel, ‘You don’t call ’em that high and outside, do you?’”

  Marchildon’s teammates were amazed. “The first thing I thought was, ‘Holy hell, what did I just see?’” recalled A’s left fielder Barney McCosky. “I’ve never seen a wild pitch that wild before. I turned to [center fielder] Sam Chapman and he broke into a smile and shook his head.”

  As for the beaning victim, Wexler was escorted by stadium ushers to the first aid room, but he didn’t need any treatment. After thanking everyone for their concern, Wexler returned to his seat amid a big ovation from the crowd. Then he lit a fresh cigar—while keeping a wary eye on Phil Marchildon.

  LEE GRISSOM

  Pitcher · Cincinnati, NL · 1938

  Suffering from a chronically sore arm in 1938, Cincinnati Reds southpaw Lefty Grissom adopted a painfully bad solution in the hopes of pitching better.

  He eagerly listened up when someone told him that hurler Lefty Grove, by t
hen destined for the Hall of Fame, once had two teeth pulled to restore his throwing arm. As ridiculous as it sounded, Grissom thought it was worth a try. So he rushed to a dentist and had two teeth extracted—and then had two more taken out for good measure. He never stopped to wonder how yanking four good teeth had any bearing on his pitching arm. Until later.

  “I think somebody was filling me full of it,” Grissom ruefully recalled years later. “But it seemed like a good idea when I heard about it. I figured if I could win some games, it was worth it.

  “The teeth-pulling didn’t hurt me. I was back to pitching in a couple of days. But it damn sure didn’t help my arm none.”

  Grissom’s record that ruthless, toothless season: two wins, three losses, and one bill for false choppers.

  BOOING THE

  BOO BIRDS

  For the Most Obnoxious Fan Behavior of All Time, The Baseball Hall of Shame™ Inducts:

  KESSLER BROTHERS

  Philadelphia, AL · 1932

  One was born with a bullhorn for a throat and the other with a loudspeaker for a mouth.

  They were the Kessler Brothers, Bull and Eddie. They sat on opposite sides of the diamond at old Shibe Park, and together they drove Philadelphia Athletics manager Connie Mack out of his mind and A’s third baseman Jimmy Dykes out of town.

  The Kesslers were the first to turn a Philadelphia tradition—verbally abusing the home team—into an art form. Whenever the A’s were home, the Kesslers, who worked on the docks in the morning, turned up their astonishingly loud voices and aimed their vitriolic raps at both home and visiting players.