$Unique_ID{BAS00044} $Title{No Minor League Experience} $Author{ Gagnon, Cappy} $Subject{No Minor League Experience} $Log{} Total Baseball: The Players No Minor League Experience Cappy Gagnon If a group of baseball experts were asked to pick the all-time greatest players, a handful of names would be on everyone's list: Ruth, Williams, Gehrig, Cobb, Musial, Mays, Aaron, etc. Great players, all of them, but none of them made it to the big leagues without first prepping in the minors. In fact, among the more than 13,000 men who've appeared in the big show, only a very small number were able to complete a ten-year career without first spending some time in the bushes. Without the ten-year requirement, many more players would qualify, but this would not be a true indicator of talent, because the list would include players like the Detroit Tigers "fill-ins" of 1912, the midget Eddie Gaedel, and the mascot Charles "Victory" Faust, among others. In addition, many players particularly batterymen, were recruited off sandlots or campuses to replace injured players, or to get a cup-of-coffee tryout. Two other types of players went straight to the big leagues, frequently with disastrous results. The first were the 1950s bonus babies. According to the rules at that time, a player signing for more than a $4,000 bonus was required to stay in the majors for at least two years after signing. Most of these players were not ready for big league competition, but because they could not be sent down, they were unable to receive the minor league seasoning which lower-rated prospects were getting. Among American League players adversely affected by this rule during the 1955 season were Kenny Kuhn of the Indians, Tommy Carroll of the Yankees, and Jim Small and "Diamond Jim" Brady of the Tigers. Kuhn was a schoolboy star from Louisville; Small, a speedster from Portland; Carroll and Brady were signed off the campus of the University of Notre Dame. At the time of signing, most of these bonus babies were faced with the choice of college or the majors. For those like Carroll and Jim Brady, Ph.D., who had both, there was a fallback position if their major-league careers ended without the anticipated stardom. Brady is now the president of Jacksonville University. But many other players found a lot of disappointment in their mid-twenties when they found themselves without a baseball career or a college education. The other type of player who was rushed to the majors was the high school or college "phenom." To paraphrase a comment at the time, most of these phenoms did not "phenominate." The most famous example of this type was David Clyde. In 1973 the Texas Rangers ended the season with the worst record in the major leagues (57-105), costing the manager (Whitey Herzog) his job. The ballclub was in deep financial trouble, and drastic measures were called for. A Texas high-schooler, just eighteen, Clyde was the obvious choice for a quick fix. Barely out of high school, Clyde pitched his first big league game with all the attendant hype. The game was an artistic and financial success. The year's biggest crowd saw him win. Unfortunately, the bubble burst soon thereafter. He developed a sore arm and a taste for drinking and nightlife that his new manager (Billy Martin) was unable to control, for reasons which are well known now. Eddie Bane, of Arizona State, was the collegiate equivalent of Clyde, at least on the field. Various factors play a role in determining how quickly a player will advance to the majors. In the long-ago, a small number of "bird dogs"--injured and retired players mostly--scoured the country for fresh talent. Playing and living conditions were harsh in the big leagues, and there was little coaching to polish a player's skills. The minors, or occasionally the colleges, were the crucible to teach fundamentals and "inside play." In those pre-expansion, pre-TV days, minor league teams would locate, sign, teach and develop their own players until they could get a good price from a higher league or the majors. This practice continued into the 1950s. Bonus baby rules from 1947 until the establishment of the combined draft in the 1960s altered this system. Although many players arrived in the majors straight out of high school or college, their lack of experience doomed most of them to a trip to the minors after their enforced bench sitting was over. For Kuhn, Brady, Carroll, and Small, their careers never lived up to their schoolboy promise. Harmon Killebrew was one of the few bonus babies who was able later to make it big after a stretch in the minors. Some players, however, have had the right combination of polished talent and maturity, or have managed to be selected by a team with a spot on the roster at the right position, or have had a manager who was willing to give a young player a trial or have simply been lucky. It was then up to the player to avoid slumps and injuries. At least forty-three men have skipped the minors and completed ten or more seasons without being farmed out. Seven of them played for only one team. Six jumped directly from high school. Sixteen reached the Hall of Fame, with at least one more likely to make it (Dave Winfield). The group would make a pretty good All-Star squad, except that there are no full-time catchers. There must be something about catching skills and the rigors of the job which have kept backstops from this exclusive club. There are some asterisks to attach to the players on this list. For example, although Walter Johnson did not play in organized baseball before he signed with the Senators, he did play nearly a full season with a Weiser (Idaho) semipro team in 1907. Similarly, Red Murray played a few years of semipro ball in Elmira (N.Y.) while in his first college (Lock Haven Normal School in Pennsylvania). Bob Horner is a more complicated case. He successfully fought the Atlanta Braves' management during the 1980 season when they tried to send him down to the minors, but when he could find no takers in the free-agent market after the 1986 season, he spent 1987 playing in Japan. Since this was in their "major" league and he returned to the American majors for the 1988 season, I have listed him, and, in the spirit of baseball's status in Japan, added his Japanese major league year to his U.S. major league total. Satchel Paige doesn't make the list, but is an interesting variation. He had not played in the minors prior to making the bigs as a forty-two-year-old rookie with the 1948 Indians, but he had more than twenty years behind him in the Negro Leagues and with various barnstorming teams. Paige accumulated five major league seasons before seeing his first minor league time. He returned to the bigs for his swan song at age fifty-nine. Were it not for the color line, Paige might not have had a spot on this list. Winfield is the only current player who has already made the list, with twenty-one years. But there are three with the clock running who give every indication of making ten years. Jim Abbott (Michigan), John Olerud (Washington State), and Pete Incaviglia (Oklahoma State) did their prepping only in the college game. Abbott also starred for the 1988 Olympic Team. Olerud, who flirted with .400 late into the 1993 season, was considered as likely to become a major league hurler as he was a hitter when he was in college. Inky has received a number of pink slips along the way, but seems to have had a rebirth with the Phillies. Another collegian, Ben McDonald (L.S.U.), would also be on the waiting list for this exclusive club, were it not for a couple-game detour to the minors. Ernie Banks and Larry Doby are more troublesome variations of the Horner problem. Gentleman Ernie played for the Negro League Kansas City Monarchs for three years prior to joining the Cubs in 1953; Doby played five years with the Newark Eagles, as a second baseman, before joining the Indians in 1947. Doby's composite career may someday gain him Hall of Fame admission. Only the cruel color line of organized baseball prevented many deserving players from reaching the majors. Some Negro League researchers believe that major league status should be conferred on the Negro Leagues. Most of the players on this list went to college before being picked for the majors. They should probably rate a special category, since colleges have served as the equivalent of a big league farm system for many years. Among the collegians on this list are three who later had their colleges attached to their names: the Fordham Flash (Frisch), Gettysburg Eddie (Plank), and Colby Jack (Coombs). The rough-and-tumble players of the early game often ridiculed collegians. Some of the collegians on this list were, for a time, better known on campus as basketball players (Koufax, Groat, Yost, Chapman, and Winfield). After setting scoring records at Duke, Groat also played a year of NBA basketball with the Fort Wayne Pistons. Charles Albert "Chief" Bender jumped to the majors directly from the Carlisle Indian School. He was the first of ten players on this list to be brought to the big leagues by Connie Mack, all but two of whom (Ross and Scheib) were collegians. Connie liked smart players with good personal habits and seemed to favor collegians. Barry's development as a shortstop moved Stuffy McInnis to first base and gave the $100,000 infield defensive wizards at all four spots. Barry later became one of the college game's most successful coaches, at Holy Cross, which sent many other players to the Athletics, including Dugan. Coombs wrote one of the bestselling and most popular texts on baseball play while coaching Duke University. He is also a little tainted to be on this list, having played in the outlaw Vermont League in 1905. Plank, like Bender, was a Hall of Famer. Ethan Allen also wrote a fine text on baseball and created All-Star Baseball, a terrific table game. Like Koufax, Allen was a product of the University of Cincinnati. Dave Winfield is another author from this list. Although his book angered his employer, Winfield has enjoyed a reputation as a thoughtful man. His athletic ability and tremendous physique were very impressive. Winfield was drafted by all three major pro sports. Cy Williams was also an all-around athlete; at Notre Dame, Cy and Knute Rockne were backup ends on the 1910 football team. Cy also lettered in track as a hurdler. He made the most of his education, graduating as an architect and gaining as much prominence in his postplaying career as when he won four home run titles in the National League. Most of the men on this list possessed a high degree of intelligence along with their ability to hit, run, and throw. This may be a result of the high percentage of collegians, or it may have been the quality which kept them in the majors without minor league preparation. Ted Lyons (Baylor) and Eppa Rixey (Virginia) won 526 games between them during twenty-one-year careers. Pete Donohue and Wild Bill Donovan won 320 games, led their leagues in eleven pitching categories, and had five 20-win seasons. Sisler was such an all-around player that he was both a pitcher and a first baseman in the majors. Brought to the majors by the St. Louis Browns, he played for his former college coach at Michigan, the immortal Branch Rickey. Pitcher George Uhle hit .302 in his brief rookie year, foreshadowing that he would become the greatest hitting pitcher in the history of the game. Steve Milman, who has researched major leaguers who skipped the minors, has discovered three near misses to this list who had nine years in the majors. Joe Genewich played only semi-pro ball in Elmira before beginning his major league career with the 1922 Braves; John "Bull" Henry went to the majors straight from Amherst College; and Russ Wrightstone spent nine years in the majors after playing for the Klein Chocolate Club of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. An interesting aspect of the first-year accomplishments of these players is that except for four of the pitchers (Bender, Plank, Powell, and Rusie) they broke in with modest production. Few were regulars. Most came up to teams with second-division records and a hole to fill, although Connie Mack brought up Coombs and Bender to pennant-winning teams and Barry to a second-place finisher. Milt Gaston also came up to a defending league champ when he joined the 1924 Yankees. Bibb Falk also came up to a defending league champ, but since the 1920 White Sox were decimated by the Black Sox Scandal, there was a lot of room for new blood. Falk later became a prominent college coach at Texas, the school which has produced the second-most current major league players and which is among the top three all-time. Carl Scheib, Eddie Yost, and Johnny Antonelli were sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, respectively, when they first appeared in a big league game, during the forties. The first two were helped by the wartime depletion of talent. Johnny Antonelli was one of the biggest bonus babies of the forties, signing for a reported $65,000 during the Braves' 1948 pennant-winning season. Yost needed federal government intervention to stay on this list. "The Walking Man" grew up in Brooklyn. He attended NYU in the fall of 1944, playing basketball. He skipped college baseball, playing semipro ball in New Jersey on weekends. While Senator scout Joe Cambria was on a rare scouting mission (rare because it was not in a Spanish-speaking country), he spotted Yost. It is alleged that Yost was signed on the spot. He went to the majors right away, playing in a few games at the end of the 1944 season. Yost spent all of 1945 and much of 1946 in the Navy. When the 1947 season began, Clark Griffith decided that Eddie should serve a little time in Chattanooga. The Senators' manager, Ossie Bluege, the former great Nat third sacker, agreed with this assessment. Eddie also agreed, but there was a congressional act that protected jobs for ex-servicemen. This law said that Eddie had to be retained until July 15. Yost would likely have languished on the bench until he could be sent down, except that veteran Cecil Travis slumped badly and, on May 21, Eddie got a chance to play third as a temporary regular. He lasted fourteen years with the Senators. Among this precocious group, three players stand above the others for the uniqueness of their accomplishment: Bob Feller, Al Kaline, and Mel Ott. They each went directly from high school to the majors, without the benefit of college or semipro experience, and completed Hall of Fame careers without ever changing teams. Except for the years taken from Feller during the war, all of these players have had more than twenty years of big league service. In effect, they wore only one uniform after high school! They could be the subject of a story, "From High School to Cooperstown, with Only One Stop in Between." The chart that follows summarizes the accomplishment of the players referred to in this chapter: KEY: YRS = Seasons in the majors; POS = Primary Position(s) played during rookie season; TEAMS = Number of teams on during career; AGE = Years and month of age during April of rookie year; OPPORTUNITY = Finish of team during season prior to rookie year; RESULT = Won-lost record (pitchers) or batting average (others) during the rookie year. No Minor League Experience ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ NAME YRS POS TEAMS AGE OPPORTUNITY RESULT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Allen, Ethan 13 OF 6 22/3 3,1925 .308 Antonelli, Johnny 12 P 3 18/0 3,1947 0-0 Banks, Ernie 19 SS 1 22/3 5,1952 .314 Barry, Jack 11 2B-SS 2 21/0 2,1907 .222 Bender, Chief 16 P 4 20/1 1,1901 17-15 Chapman, Sam 11 OF 2 22/0 7,1937 .259 Coombs, Jack 15 P 3 23/5 1,1905 10-10 Doby, Larry 13 OF 3 22/5 6,1946 .156 Donohue, Pete 12 P 4 20/5 3,1920 7-6 Donovan, Wild Bill 18 P 4 21/6 7,1897 1-6 Dugan, Joe 14 SS 5 19/11 8,1916 .194 Falk, Bibb 12 OF 2 21/3 1,1919 .294 Feller, Bob 18 P 1 17/5 3,1935 5-3 Frisch, Frank 20 2B-3B 2 20/7 2,1918 .226 Gaston, Milton 11 P 5 28/3 1,1923 5-3 Groat, Dick 14 SS 4 21/5 7,1951 .284 Hatton, Grady 12 2B 6 23/6 7,1945 .271 Horner, Bob 11 3B 3 20/8 6,1977 .266 Hunter, Catfish 15 P 2 20/0 10,1964 8-8 Johnson, Walter 21 P 1 19/5 7,1906 5-9 Kaline, Al 23 OF 1 18/4 8,1952 .250 Koufax, Sandy 13 P 1 19/4 2,1954 2-2 Lyons, Ted 21 P 1 22/4 5,1922 2-1 MacFayden, Danny 17 P 6 20/10 8,1925 0-1 Magee, Sherry 16 OF 3 18/8 7,1903 .277 Murray, Red 11 OF 3 22/1 6,1904 .257 O'Dell, Digger 13 P 5 21/2 8,1953 1-1 Ott, Mel 22 OF 1 17/1 2,1925 .383 Plank, Eddie 17 P 3 25/8 0,1901 17-11 Powell, Jack 11 P 3 22/9 2,1896 15-9 Rixey, Eppa 21 P 2 21/11 4,1911 10-10 Ross, Buck 10 P 2 21/2 8,1935 9-14 Rusie, Amos 10 P 3 17/11 7,1888 13-10 Scheib, Carl 11 P 2 16/3 8,1942 0-1 Sisler, George 16 1B-OF-P 3 22/1 6,1914 .285, 4-4 Uhle, George 17 P 4 20/7 2,1918 10-5 Wallace, Bobby 25 SS 3 19/5 3,1893 .154 White, Guy (doc) 13 P 2 22/0 3,1900 14-13 Williams, Cy 19 OF 2 24/4 2,1911 .242 Winfield, Dave 16 OF 2 21/6 6,1972 .277 Witt, Whitey 10 SS 3 20/6 8,1915 .245 Yost, Eddie 18 3B 3 17/6 2,1943 .143 Zachary, Tom 19 P 7 22/1 5,1917 2-0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------