Book Excerpt
From The Curse of Rocky Colavito, by Terry Pluto
Chapter 2
Trader to the Cause
From 1947 to 1959 the Cleveland Indians finished above .500 every year but one. In those thirteen years, they won two pennants and finished in the top three spots nine times. They were a damn good team. But April 17, 1960 was the day Cleveland baseball died — or at least went into a deep, dark, seemingly endless coma. That was when Indians general manager Frank “Trader” Lane traded the team’s star, Rocky Colavito, and “the curse” began …
In many ways 1957 would be the turning point for the franchise.
Before the season, Al Lopez resigned as manager to take over in the dugout for the Chicago White Sox. A former catcher, Lopez was known for his rapport with pitchers and for being just plain smarter than about any manager of his era. He ran the Indians from 1951 to 1956; they won one pennant and finished second five times. The Tribe averaged ninety-five wins under Lopez, and this was in a 154-game schedule.
Kirby Farrell was named the new manager. Indians fans knew managers. They knew Al Lopez. They quickly knew that Kirby Farrell was no Al Lopez. He wasn’t even another Oscar Vitt. Farrell was a skinny, dour man who wore a pained expression as if he were trying to pass a kidney stone. Maybe if you took over the Indians and the first thing that happened was that you lost Herb Score, you’d have a pained expression, too.
In 1957, the Indians tumbled to 76-77, sixth place.
Good-bye, Mr. Farrell.
Good-bye, too, to General Manager Hank Greenberg, who helped build the great teams of the 1950s.
And . . . oh, no . . . hello, Frank Lane.
No name invokes such utter, raw hatred among Indians fans as Frank Lane. If ever there was The Man Who Destroyed the Indians, Lane was it. Fans have suggested hanging, tar-and-feathering, or drawing-and-quartering Frank Lane. But none of that is bad enough.
For proper punishment, Frank Lane should have been forced to watch every Indians game since 1960. He should have had to watch Gus Gil try to play second base, Hector Torres try to hit, and Victor Cruz or Eddie Glynn try to pitch—or at least he should have had to sign Keith Hernandez’s checks. He should have endured Joe Adcock as manager and Gabe Paul telling the fans, “The problem with this team is that we just haven’t jelled yet,” as if the Indians were a dessert requiring thirty-five years of refrigeration.
This was all Frank Lane’s fault, and Frank Lane should have been forced to live with it—as we did. Instead, in his usual scorched-earth style, he did his damage, then he cut and ran. He left after getting a nice chunk of change to leave town, almost as if it were an extortion payment.
The real question at the end of the 1957 season was “Why Frank Lane?” One sixth-place finish after six years in an American League elite? That’s a building that needs some plumbing and an electrical overhaul, not a wrecking ball.
Frank Lane was a wrecking ball.
“You have to understand this about Frank Lane: He could talk himself into any job,” said broadcaster Jimmy Dudley. “He had a real knack for figuring out what people wanted to hear, then he would tell it to them.”
Or as Hank Peters said, “Frank Lane was ahead of his time in some ways. He preached change, shaking up the status quo. If you had a team that was in the doldrums and you wanted something new, Frank Lane was your guy. He was the ultimate advocate of change.”
That sixth-place finish in 1957 hurt the Indians’ owners where they lived—at the bank. The Tribe drew only 722,256 fans, its worst gate since 1945 when there was a war on and the players were mostly graybeards or 4-Fs. Remember that the Indians were among the game’s best draws. When Bill Veeck put more than 2.6 million fans in the Stadium in 1948 and 1949, the Indians were the first team to break the 2 million mark in attendance. So 722,256 was a problem.
Owner William Daley wanted to do something—and that something became Lane. And if that doesn’t make you despise Daley enough, keep in mind that when Lane left in 1960, Daley turned to Gabe Paul. Some guys can really pick ’em, can’t they?
“I’m sure that the Indians knew that Lane would keep the team in the newspapers and in the public eye,” said Peters. “Fans love trades, and Frank Lane loved to make trades. The bigger the deal, the more controversial, the more he liked it. He made trades just to make them, to keep the pot at the boiling point. There was no off-season with Frank Lane. In the press he was ‘Fearless Frank’ or ‘Trader Lane.’ The media loved him, followed him, and wrote about him more than any other general manager. He loved those stories and his reputation for trades. He did make fans pay attention and wonder what he would do next.”
Consider this background: In 1949 he was hired to run the White Sox. Chicago was truly dreadful in 1948. While the Indians were winning the World Series and drawing a record 2.6 million fans, the White Sox lost 101 games and lost them in front of a small circle of friends at Comiskey Park.
“The first thing I did in that job was put the entire forty-man roster on waivers,” said Lane. “Only two guys were claimed—Howie Judson and Cass Michaels. That was when I insisted on a five-year contract.”
Lane lasted seven years with the White Sox. The team did get better, finishing in third place in four of those seven seasons. Lane had a clause in his contract that paid him “a nickel a head for every fan over 800,000.” In 1951 the White Sox set a club record with 1,328,234, and Lane cashed in.
But what Lane did best was trade. How about 242 trades in seven years? “I’ve dealt for the same fellow twice,” he said. “If I think I make a mistake, I try to unmake it.”
In 1955 he went to St. Louis. With Lane in charge, the Cardinals moved from seventh to fourth to second place.
“He got in trouble in St. Louis when he wanted to trade Stan Musial,” said Score. “Stan was the most popular man in town. You couldn’t trade Stan Musial for anyone. I also know that he proposed trading the entire Cardinal team for another team—I’m not sure which. None of those things made him popular with the St. Louis fans.”
The Indians ownership viewed Lane as a quick fix. They romanced him, and Frank Lane was certainly a man who loved romance and attention.
“The Indians told me to write my own ticket. Well, I wrote it, and here I am,” Lane said at the press conference the day he was hired.
The date was November 12, 1957.
It took Lane just three weeks to grab a headline with a monster trade, sending Early Wynn and Al Smith to the White Sox for Minnie Minoso and Fred Hatfield.
“The fans knew Minoso was a good player,” says Nev Chandler. “He had even started his career with the Tribe [in 1949-50]. But trading Early Wynn? Early Wynn was supposed to end his career in Cleveland. You don’t trade guys like Early Wynn.”
Unless you happen to be Frank Lane. Then you don’t care that Wynn won twenty games four times or that he was part of the Big Four. You see that he’s thirty-six and that his last record was 14-17 with a career-high 4.31 ERA. You liked Minoso when you had him in Chicago. In fact, you made the deal with the Tribe to bring him to Chicago. You know it’s a deal that will get everyone talking, so you do it. Of course, two years later you trade Minoso back to the White Sox in a mega-deal that brings you John Romano, Norm Cash, and Bubba Phillips. If only you had stopped there. If only you had kept Cash, a minor league first baseman with major power potential. But you’re Frank Lane, and you can’t stop. You trade Cash before he even plays a game for you. You trade him to Detroit where he hits 355 career homers. You trade him for Steve Demeter who the Sporting News said “swings a good bat but plays only third base and has trouble with his fielding.” The Sporting News was right. Demeter indeed had trouble with his fielding. But his bat wasn’t so great, either. While Cash was holding down first base for fourteen years in Detroit, Demeter’s career with the Indians consisted of five at bats; naturally, he was 0-for-5.
And the deals kept coming.
In his first season, Lane engineered thirty-one trades involving seventy-six players. He also made some that didn’t happen. In early June 1958 he tried to trade star pitcher Cal McLish, Mike Garcia, and Colavito to Washington for Eddie Yost, Jim Lemon, and Pedro Ramos. According to a report in the Akron Beacon Journal, “Colavito frizzled frightfully throughout the contest. Garcia entered the game in the eighth inning and only brought relief to the Senators, who hit safely every pitch that could be reached with a bat. By the end of the game the deal was called off.”
Then Lane tried to deal Colavito to Kansas City for a package of Vic Power, Hector Lopez, Woody Held, Dave Melton, Bill Tuttle, and Duke Maas. That was seven for one. The A’s decided it was too much.
Meanwhile, Indians fans were wondering, “Why trade the Rock?” In 1958 he hit .303 with 41 homers and 113 RBI. He was only twenty-five. But there was more to it than what was happening on the field.
Frank Lane was not a nice man.
“I worked with Frank in Milwaukee in the early 1970s,” said former Indians farm director Bob Quinn. “He had a favorite phrase. He’d say, ‘Sympathy. You can find that in the dictionary, right between shit and syphilis.’ That was what he said when he didn’t want to hear someone’s excuse.”
In his book, You Can’t Hit the Ball with the Bat on Your Shoulder, Bobby Bragan recalled Lane watching Minnie Minoso in a spring training game. Minoso was one of Lane’s favorite players. He was talking up Minoso until Minoso took a called third strike. Then Lane screamed, “You look like a big sack of shit with a cherry on top.” Nearly everyone at Tucson’s Hi Corbett Field heard it.
Bragan was Lane’s first manager with the Indians in 1958. He lasted sixty-seven games. In his last game the Indians lost 1-0 when Boston’s Ted Williams beat Cal McLish with a home run. Lane summoned Bragan to his office and said, “Bobby, I don’t know how we’re going to get along without you, but starting tomorrow we’re going to try.”
Bragan had been hired by Hank Greenberg, who was fired as general manager and replaced by Lane before Bragan ever had a chance to manage his first game for the Tribe. After he was fired, Bragan told reporters, “It’s tough when you have someone breathing hot and heavy on your neck all the time. When I walked into the clubhouse, there was Frank Lane. When I stepped into the airport limousine, there was Frank Lane. I walked out to the batting cage, and there was Frank Lane again.” In spring training games, Lane even sat in the dugout next to Bragan.
Cleveland folklore has it that Bragan put a curse on the Indians after he was canned by Lane. Local talk show host Greg Brinda even persuaded a woman who claimed to be a witch to come to the Stadium and remove Bragan’s spell. It didn’t take.
“I didn’t put a hex on the club,” Bragan said in his book. “Having Frank Lane as the general manager was curse enough.”
So true.
In 1958, Lane kept trading, and he made two monumental blunders. On June 15 he traded pitcher Dick Tomanek, first baseman Preston Ward, and a young outfielder by the name of Roger Maris to Kansas City for Woody Held and Vic Power. This was after Lane’s attempt to deal Colavito to Kansas City for seven players collapsed. Then, on August 23, he sold Hoyt Wilhelm to Baltimore.
Maris had not hit well in parts of two seasons with the Indians—.230 with 23 homers in 161 games—but he was only twenty-three when he was traded. The Indians could have found room for Maris, a natural right fielder. So what if Colavito was in right? Anyone ever hear of left field? Two years later Maris would be the MVP for the New York Yankees. Three years later he’d be the MVP again and hit 61 homers.
As for Lane’s other brainstorm of 1958, Wilhelm had just a 2-7 record with the Indians, but with a terrific 2.49 ERA. The day before the deal, one of Wilhelm’s knuckleballs had eluded catcher Russ Nixon, allowing the winning run to score from third base for Kansas City. Lane blew his cork, roared into the Cleveland locker room, and said the Indians would never lose a game again because of “a damn knuckleball pitcher.” Less than twenty-four hours later, Wilhelm was gone. He would pitch for fourteen more years, ranking among the greatest relievers ever. All the Indians had to show for it was the $75,000 they received from Baltimore.
While Lane never had a manager he liked or a player he wouldn’t trade, the one player he simply couldn’t stand was Colavito.
“It began when Frank was hired right after the 1957 season,” Colavito said. “I had to talk contract with him. I had hit 25 homers and had 84 RBI in 134 games, and all Lane did was tell me how lousy I was. I wanted a $3,000 raise. He offered me $1,500. I told him that I wouldn’t sign for a rotten raise like that. We went back and forth, and finally he said, ‘Take the $1,500 now. I’ll give you the other $1,500 if you play well during the season. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you.’ I didn’t know Frank Lane, but I will take a man at his word until I find out that he can’t be trusted. In early September 1958, I hit my thirty-fifth home run. I had 102 RBI. I had been waiting for a month or so for Lane to give me the $1,500 he promised me. I made an appointment to talk to Lane, and I said, ‘I’ve got 35 homers and 102 RBI. I’ve earned the other $1,500.’ He acted like he had no idea what I was talking about. He said he never promised me the other $1,500. I called him a ‘no-good liar.’ He lied to me and he knew it, and I lost all respect for him at that moment.”
But the conversation wasn’t finished.
“Then Frank tried to sign me for 1959,” said Colavito. “He said, ‘I’ll give you the $1,500 if you take this deal.’ It was really a paltry raise. I told him there was no way I’d sign that contract, and what was more, I expected the $1,500 because he knew he had promised it to me. I ended that year with 41 homers and 113 RBI and batted .303. We went back and forth all winter, and finally he signed me for double what I had made in 1958. Right then I knew I was in trouble with Frank Lane.”
Herb Score sensed it, too.
“With Rocky, his word is his bond,” he said. “If he says he will be there at five o’clock, he is there at five o’clock. He is the most honorable man I know. But if you promise to do something for him and you don’t, you’re off his list. He never forgets anything. There was a time when I was broadcasting, and Rocky was a coach with the Indians. I was talking to a guy who was a pitching coach. He had managed against Rocky and me when we were in the minors about twenty years before. Rocky walked right by us and barely said hello. I said, ‘Rocky, you remember so-and-so.’ Rocky said, ‘Yeah,’ then he walked away. I couldn’t figure out why he acted like that. Later I saw Rocky, and I said, ‘Roomie, what was all that about?’ He said, ‘Herb, don’t you remember?’ I had no idea what he was talking about. He said, ‘In 1953 that guy had his pitcher knock me down.’ I said, ‘Rocky, that was twenty years ago.’ But to him, it was still yesterday. So if he didn’t forget something like that, you can imagine what he thinks of Frank Lane.”
When the Indians arrived in spring training for 1959, no one had any idea that this would be their last legitimate run for a pennant ever, or at least for a long, long time.
The fans were happy with the new manager, former Indians second baseman Joe Gordon. He had once teamed up with Lou Boudreau to give the Indians their best keystone combination in history. When the Indians won the 1948 pennant, Gordon hit 32 homers and had 124 RBI—staggering statistics for a second baseman, especially one with a reliable glove. In 1957, Gordon was managing San Francisco, then a Class AAA franchise in the Pacific Coast League. He replaced Bobby Bragan in the middle of the 1958 season and finished with a 77-76 record. As the team went to spring training in 1959, the mood was upbeat, and the big reason was Colavito.
“As a kid, my favorite player was Rocky,” said Nev Chandler. “Just about all the kids loved Rocky. We played a lot of pickup baseball back then, something you don’t see much in Cleveland anymore. All the kids imitated Rocky’s batting stance. Before he’d step into the box, Rocky would lift the bat over his head and put it behind his shoulders. Then he’d stretch left, stretch right, then bend around. As he stepped into the box, he would meticulously adjust his cap so it was just right above his eyes. For his practice swing he would point the head of the bat right at the pitcher, as if he were aiming a rifle. You’d watch kids’ games, and you’d see most of them pointing that bat, just like Rocky. He was young, handsome, and hit a lot of home runs. They talk about being like Michael Jordan today. In Cleveland in 1959 it was ‘be like Rocky.’ ”
Colavito’s image in the community was impeccable. Former major leaguer Rich Rollins recalls attending Saint Francis DeSales Church in Parma as a teenager and seeing Colavito at Mass.
“Rocky signed a lot of autographs after games,” said Herb Score. “But he had rules. If he was going to sign for one kid, he signed for everyone so no one would be disappointed. But he also would make the kids line up single file, and they had to say please and thank you. The parents loved to see Rocky teaching their kids manners.”
Veteran Cleveland Plain Dealer baseball writer Gordon Cobbledick wrote, “He’s handsome, boyish, and he doesn’t smoke or drink or use violent language.”
Or as Score said, “Rocky had tremendous charisma. Fans gravitated to him not just because he hit home runs, but Rocky never took a short step on the field. I never understand when someone says that a guy gives 110 percent. You can’t give more than 100 percent, and Rocky always gave 100 percent. He was a courageous clutch player. With the winning run on second base and two outs in the ninth inning, Rocky wanted to be at the plate. Some guys get all their RBI early in the game; Rocky relished the clutch situations. He didn’t always come through, but he wanted to be the guy who took that burden on his back.”
Colavito trivia became important to the fans, such as learning that Lou Gehrig was his first favorite player, before Joe DiMaggio. Or learning that Colavito never went to a movie during the day when there was a night game. He preferred to take a nap instead. “What he does is hit so many homers and perform so effectively in the outfield and on the mound, and pull so many fans through the turnstiles, and some say he’s already won the title as the New Babe Ruth,” wrote Cobbledick.
Yes, Cobbledick did utter the “R” word, as in Babe Ruth. And he meant that Colavito could also pitch. In two exhibition innings against Cincinnati, Colavito struck out five. The first time Joe Gordon used Colavito as a reliever in a regulation game was August 13, 1958; he came in from right field to relieve Hoyt Wilhelm. Knowing that Detroit had geared its swings to Wilhelm’s fluttering knuckler, Gordon put some heat on the mound in Colavito and his ninety-mile-per-hour fastball. In three innings he faced twelve batters; none got a hit, and he struck out one.
“As a pitcher, Rocky could have been a twenty-game winner,” Gordon was quoted as saying several times. But the Indians didn’t want to risk Colavito’s getting hurt on the mound, so the experiment was junked. The only other time he pitched was in 1968 with the New York Yankees. For his career, Colavito worked 52/3 innings, allowing one hit and no runs.
But what made Colavito a true Cleveland cult hero was the night of June 10, 1959, in Baltimore. Colavito had been in a 4-for-30 slump with one home run in his last ten games. The Indians had lost 7-3 the previous night, with a throwing error by Colavito being a key play. Rocky also was 0-for-3 at the plate. Before that June 10 game, Gordon met with Colavito and told him to ignore newspaper reports that Lane was about to trade him to Boston for Jackie Jensen.
In his first at bat, Colavito walked and later scored on Minnie Minoso’s 3-run homer.
In the third inning, Colavito faced Baltimore’s Jerry Walker and pulled one left, 360 feet down the line into the left-field bleachers. Walker said the pitch was a change-up. Colavito said it was a fastball down the middle.
In the fifth inning, Arnold Portocarrero was pitching, and Rocky crushed an outside slider over the fence in left-center, about 420 feet.
In the sixth, the pitcher was still Portocarrero, and Rocky smashed another slider, this one for a 410-foot homer.
In the ninth, Colavito went to the plate. Score told him, “Don’t fool around, Roomie. Go for that fourth homer.” Colavito said he was just thinking about getting a fourth hit of some kind, especially since Baltimore was considered the most unforgiving park for home-run hitters in the late 1950s. Until this night of June 10, 1959, no player had ever hit more than 2 homers in a game in Baltimore. The Orioles pitcher was Ernie Johnson, a right-hander who hadn’t coughed up a homer all season. Having watched Colavito hammer outside breaking pitches, Johnson tried to slip an inside fastball past him. No chance. The ball landed in the left-field bleachers, 415 feet away.
The fans gave Rocky a standing ovation, [said the Akron Beacon Journal account]. Ironically, earlier in the game, one of them had poured a beer on Rocky after he made a catch in right field. Rocky was so angry that he nearly threw the ball at the beer pourer, but managed to control himself. He left the field to boos. With each homer, more boos changed to cheers, and Rocky tipped his cap each time. When Rocky reached the dugout after his historic blow, he leaped into the crowd of teammates awaiting the conquering hero. The Rock let out several yells of “Yippee!” and “Wahoo!”
Somehow you get the feeling that the Rock didn’t actually say wahoo and yippee, but it made for a good story, right? Anyway, Colavito became only the eighth player in history to hit 4 homers in a game, just the third to do it in four consecutive at bats, and he was on his way to a year in which he would hit 42 homers and drive in 111 runs.
Colavito’s season wasn’t the only excitement in town. The Tribe was in an actual pennant race. Considering the way Frank Lane behaved during it, maybe the gods simply decided not to risk giving Cleveland another one for the next three decades.
“The [first-place] White Sox came to town for a four-game series over Labor Day,” says Nev Chandler. “The Indians were right on their backs. There were huge, seventy-thousand-some crowds. That was when they would let fans stand behind the outfield fence. There was no padding, just chicken wire. Early Wynn won a big game in that series, and it was hard for Indians fans to watch Early pitching for another team. But I also think it was the start of a trend where the Indians traded a guy and he ended up playing for someone else in the World Series.”
The Indians lost all four of those games to the White Sox and were out-scored 24-10. Lane had been questioning Joe Gordon’s judgment all season, but this series was worse. When the Tribe followed shortly thereafter with a doubleheader loss to the Yankees, Lane blasted off: “Finishing second isn’t good enough for a team that could be on top except for its own mistakes, mechanical and managerial. Go back through the games. You’ll find we gave most of them away by faulty fielding, boneheaded base running, and stupid or stubborn strategies. You’d think that Gordon never heard of the bunt.” Lane added that Gordon had “a fifty-fifty chance of winning reappointment.”
Nice thing to read in the middle of a pennant race, isn’t it? At this point the Tribe was still within five games of first.
Lane contacted Leo Durocher about managing the team, then denied it when asked about it. No one believed him. Gordon responded with a statement that said, “It is obvious that harmony can’t be achieved between Frank Lane and myself . . . . I have enjoyed being in Cleveland and wish to thank the fans for their loyalty. . . but I can’t return as manager in 1960.”
Lane was delighted. Everyone else was dismayed. There were two weeks to go in the season, and the Indians still had a shot at first, but the manager and GM were too busy taking shots at each other.
Two days later, on September 20, Lane told Gordon to forget about quitting at the end of the season; he was fired as of now. When the team returned home from a game in Chicago, several hundred fans met them at Cleveland Hopkins Airport with signs reading down with lane . . . we want joe. Lane was swamped with telegrams demanding that he support his manager, not stab him between the shoulder blades. After two more days, Lane rescinded the firing—for now.
On September 23, Wynn beat the Indians for his twenty-first victory, and the Tribe was eliminated from the pennant race. The Akron Beacon Journal reported the subsequent events as follows: “At 11:15 p.m. Tuesday night, Lane fired Joe Gordon and named [coach] Mel Harder as manager pro-tem. At 10 a.m. Wednesday, Lane called Gordon, and the two men had breakfast. At 3 p.m., Lane called reporters to his office and said, ‘After summing up everything, I decided that the best man to succeed Joe Gordon was Joe Gordon.’ . . . Gordon was given a two-year contract and a $10,000 raise.”
At the offices of American Shipbuilding in Cleveland, young George Steinbrenner had to be taking notes. But even at his worst, he never got this bizarre. Around the country, the Indians—especially Lane—were a joke. And keep in mind that this would be the best Indians team in thirty-five years.
They finished at 89-65, five games behind the White Sox. Despite the insanity with Lane, the fans were hopeful for 1960.
Meanwhile, ownership rewarded Lane with a new three-year contract. It was the same deal he had before: a $60,000 base with the five-cent bonus for every fan over 800,000. With the Indians drawing 1,497,976 in 1959, that bonus was worth $34,898 to Lane. Indians owner William Daley said, “Frank has done a tremendous job here. We are delighted with his performance. . . . He is a credit to the rebirth of baseball in Cleveland.” Ownership especially liked the fact that attendance doubled in Lane’s two seasons.
The worst part of this is that instead of learning something from his debate with Gordon, Lane was actually rewarded for it. Hooked on headlines, he never had as many that were as big as in September 1959 when his team was blowing the pennant!
Lane celebrated trading nineteen-game winner Cal McLish, second baseman Billy Martin, and a prospect named Gordy Coleman to Cincinnati for Johnny Temple, a former All-Star who was an old thirty-one. This was a great deal—for Gabe Paul. Only Gabe Paul was in Cincinnati, not with the Indians.
This deal was just a warmup for what was coming in April 1960.
For the third time in three years, Colavito and Lane engaged in their winter contract ritual. Colavito wanted dollars that seemed fair, given the feudal state that was baseball of the pre-free agency era. Lane was trying to put his foot on the face of his young star, grinding Rocky’s image into the dirt by portraying him as greedy.
What you are about to read will tell you why today’s players have agents—mean, nasty, money-grubbing, gouge-the-owners, grab-the-last-penny agents.
In 1959, Colavito made $28,000. He tied with Harmon Killebrew for the American League lead with 42 homers. His 111 RBI were one behind league-leader Jackie Jensen of Boston.
“Yeah,” said Lane. “But Rocky hit only .257. He batted .303 the year before. I’m not even sure he deserves a raise.”
Colavito mentioned his 42 homers and his 111 RBI.
“Yes,” said Lane. “That was the same as you did in 1958 [41 home runs, 113 RBI], but you needed a hundred more at bats this season. So, really, you had a worse year no matter how you look at it.”
Naturally, this didn’t play very well at the Colavito household in Temple, Pennsylvania.
Lane pointed out that the Yankees had cut Mickey Mantle’s salary. In 1959, Mantle made $70,000. He hit .285 with 31 homers and 75 RBI. New York’s first offer was $55,000. After a two-week spring holdout, Mantle signed for $66,000. That was $4,000 less than the year before, but he remained the highest paid player in the American League.
Colavito said none of that mattered:
1. He had a better year than Mantle.
2. He wanted $45,000, far less than Mantle made. “I didn’t even want that much,” Colavito told reporters. “But Lane’s offer was so ridiculously low, I came up with a ridiculous figure of my own.”
3. In 1958-59, Colavito hit 83 homers, more than Mickey Mantle (73) and Willie Mays (63). More homers than anyone else in those two seasons, period.
4. He drew fans, and with Lane’s attendance bonus, that meant more money for the general manager.
Lane countered by floating a rumor with writers that he might be willing to trade Colavito for Mantle.
“If the Yankees offered Mantle for Rocky, I’d scratch my head,” Lane told New York writers. “If they offered Art Ditmar and Mantle for Rocky, I would not have to scratch. The deal would be made. Don’t forget that Rocky is Italian, and with the number of New York fans who are Italian and want a successor to Joe DiMaggio, Colavito would mean an extra 300,000 fans. Also, Rocky is three years younger than Mantle. Another thing, Rocky is going to beat Ruth’s record of 60 homers.”
But Yankee GM George Weiss made Lane look foolish by saying, “I’m not trading Mantle. I’m not looking for a trade. I don’t know what he is talking about.”
Colavito was still holding out as spring training began. So was another star, a Detroit outfielder by the name of Harvey Kuenn.
Kuenn had led the American League by hitting .353 in 1959 when he made $35,000. He asked for $50,000. The Tigers laughed. He asked for $47,500. Then Frank Lane showed up in the Tiger spring training complex at Lakeland, Florida, peddling a Colavito-Kuenn rumor. Kuenn and his wife liked Detroit. At twenty-nine, he had spent eight years with the Tigers. He felt loyal to the team and didn’t want to move. The trade rumor scared him.
Kuenn signed for $42,000, only a $7,000 raise for winning the batting title.
Then the Tigers GM Bill DeWitt and Lane met the writers together, announcing that any trade talks involving Kuenn and Colavito were over. They “were clearing the air. . . . The deal is off by mutual consent,” said DeWitt.
“The Tigers had enough trouble [signing Kuenn] without taking on Rocky,” said Lane who could never resist taking a cheap shot at Colavito.
Colavito signed in the first week of March for $35,000; like Kuenn, he had received a $7,000 raise. He also would receive a $1,000 bonus if he hit fewer than 40 homers because Lane wanted a higher batting average from Colavito and thought that swinging for the fences was killing Rocky’s ability to make contact. Fewer strikeouts would mean more hits, Lane reasoned.
“I can look back now and see that Lane had a vendetta against me,” said Colavito. “In our contract talks, he lied to me in 1957. Then he just downgraded everything I did. He tried to blame me for not winning the pennant in 1959 because he said I had a slump in September. He kept dwelling on my strikeouts, but I never struck out a hundred times in a season, which is really good for a power hitter.”
Colavito wanted to be a team player in 1960. “I signed because I didn’t want to hurt the team’s pennant chances,” he said.
So these two stars—two good people—made what appear to be financial sacrifices for the good of their teams. They made no threats. They demanded no trades. They wanted to play ball, and they wanted to stay with their teams and play for their fans.
Yet even after Colavito signed and the Kuenn deal was supposedly dead, Lane still talked about it.
“Sure I’d like to have Kuenn,” he said. “Who wouldn’t? I’m a Kuenn man. I like him. But I got to thinking of Harvey’s 200 hits, of which maybe 40 would be doubles. The 150 hits for Colavito, well, 42 would be homers. I like the present margin in my favor. Also, Jimmie Dykes wanted to make the deal. That scared me. He’s pretty smart.”
Jimmie Dykes. Keep that name in mind. He was the Detroit manager in the spring of 1960, but he wouldn’t be for long. Of course, when Frank Lane was involved, nobody was anything for long. In the spring of 1960, the only Tribe players left from the forty-man roster Lane had inherited two years earlier were Score and Colavito.
Rocky Colavito said that Frank Lane was a “lying S.O.B.” Rocky was right. That’s because after saying he would not trade Colavito to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn, he did it—the day before the 1960 season was to open at Cleveland Stadium—against Detroit.
“We were playing an exhibition game in Memphis,” said Colavito. “It was our last spring game before the regular season opened. We were playing the White Sox, and in my first at bat, I hit a home run to left field. In my next at bat, I was at first base [on a force play]. Joe Gordon came out to me and said, ‘That is the last time you’ll bat in a Cleveland uniform.’ I looked at him, not really wanting to hear what he was going to tell me. Gordon said, ‘You’ve been traded to Detroit for Harvey Kuenn.’
“There I was, still standing on first base, and this guy is telling me that I’m traded. Then Gordon said, ‘I want to wish you all the luck in the world.’ All I could think to say was, ‘The same to you.’ But Gordon spread the story that I said, ‘Kuenn and who else?’ That was the biggest lie ever. It implied that I didn’t think Harvey was good enough to be traded for me. That wasn’t it at all. I just couldn’t believe they did it. It caught me totally by surprise. I heard one rumor in spring training, but that had died down [when the two teams said there would be no trade]. But I never said anything negative about Harvey Kuenn. After that, I never had any stomach for Gordon or Lane.”
Colavito was removed from the game for a pinch runner. He went into the dugout and sat down.
“I was in the right-field bullpen,” said Score. “Rocky came down to talk to me. This was right after he left the game. We had heard for a while that we both might be traded in a package. Lane wanted to trade us both, probably because we were the only two guys left from before he got there. But in my last start at Daytona Beach, I got murdered. Until then I heard the Tigers were going to take me, too. But after seeing how I pitched, they changed their mind. No matter what anyone says, Lane was determined to trade Rocky. He just didn’t like Rocky as a person. Part of it was that Lane believed ballplayers should be rowdy, hard-living, hard-drinking guys. But that wasn’t Rocky or myself. I believe that Lane resented the fact that no matter how many trades he made or how much the Indians improved while he was general manager, Rocky would still be the most popular Indian. I know for a fact that Nate Dolin [a vice president and one of the Indians’ owners] did not want Lane to trade Rocky, and he told that to Lane. But Lane did it anyway.”
Several newspaper accounts proved Score correct.
“Toward the end of spring training, Lane called me about the proposed trade,” said Dolin. “I said, ‘But Frank, what we need most is pitching.’ He said, ‘I guess you’re right. It won’t help us.’ The next day I heard on the radio that he had made the deal.”
They liked it in Detroit. The headline in the Free Press was: 42 home RUNS FOR 135 SINGLES.
Lane insisted that Gordon was all for the deal, and Gordon enthusiastically backed his boss: “Kuenn is an all-around player. He can run, he can throw, and he can shag a fly ball. He’s probably the toughest hitter in the league, and I’m glad we’ve got him. I’ll take full responsibility. There hasn’t been a deal made since last September that I didn’t completely approve.”
A Cleveland headline was: colavito fans out for lane’s scalp: reaction violent as trade stirs man in the street. The newspaper held a poll, and the fans voted 9 to 1 against the deal.
A Cleveland Press editorial read: “The Colavito-Kuenn swap has at least put baseball back on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Just about everyone has an opinion, and just about everybody rates it as a major calamity. Colavito was a hero, even when he struck out. His departure for Detroit is about as popular as moving the Indians out of town.”
Lane explained the deal like this: “Joe and I believe that the home run is overrated. Look at Washington. They almost led the league in home runs, yet finished last. I don’t want to knock Rocky. He is a fine player and a fine man. He may hit 50-55 homers in Detroit. . . but we’ve given up 40 homers for 40 doubles. We’ve added 50 singles and taken away 50 strikeouts. . . . I’ll probably make bobby-soxers mad at me, but they’ve been mad at me before. . . . I realize that Colavito is very popular. There were many people who came to the park to see him hit a home run, whereas they wouldn’t come to the park just to see Kuenn hit a single. But those singles and doubles win just as many games as home runs. . . . Rocky’s best year was 1958 when he batted over .300 and hit 41 homers, but our attendance was only 650,000 because we didn’t have a contending club.”
Where do you begin to shovel through this pile of public relations pap spewed out by Lane?
1. What about age? Lane didn’t mention it. Colavito was twenty-six, Kuenn twenty-nine. And Kuenn was an “old twenty-nine” because he had a distressing injury history. In the spring of 1960, he had pulled muscles in both legs while in camp with the Tigers. From 1955 to 1959 he missed an average of twelve games per season with a variety of muscle pulls, leg bruises, and other problems. In 1959 he sat out fifteen games. Colavito had played every game in the 1959 season and never had a major injury with the Tribe.
2. About home runs: By the time Colavito was twenty-six, he had 129 homers. In his last two seasons, he hit 41 and 42, more than anyone in the big leagues. For all the discussion of Colavito’s strikeouts, we’re not talking Bobby Bonds here; he fanned 89 and 86 times in those two seasons. He was a great power hitter in the American League, even better than Maris and Mantle in 1958-59. Kuenn had only 53 homers in eight seasons. As Hal Lebovitz wrote in the Sporting News, “Last time I checked, a single doesn’t count as much as a home run.”
3. About doubles: Kuenn did lead the league with 42 doubles in 1959, but Colavito had 24. All right, Kuenn had 18 more doubles than Colavito, but Colavito had 33 more homers and 40 more RBI than Kuenn.
4. About the gate: This was pure Lane babble. First he said that fans came to the park to see Colavito hit home runs, and no one would make a special trip to watch Kuenn hit a single. Then Lane said that when Colavito hit .303 with 41 homers in 1958, the Indians didn’t draw nearly as well as when he hit 46 points less a year later. What does that mean? The higher Rocky’s average, the fewer the fans? Does it mean that trading a gate attraction should not be an issue? Didn’t Lane have an attendance clause in his contract?
5. Maybe it’s best not to apply any logic to what Lane did. As Mudcat Grant said, “You want to know why Lane traded Rocky? That’s easy. Lane was an idiot.”
In the Plain Dealer, Gordon Cobbledick wrote,
Many are aware of Rocky’s limitations. They know he is an indifferent outfielder. They know he is a slow and uninspired base runner. They know he is capable of long spells when his bat is a feeble instrument. But they love him because he’s Rocky Colavito. . . . No more than a half-dozen players in the history of Cleveland baseball have been accorded the hero worship he enjoys. . . . Rocky was our boy. We raised him. He first came to our attention as a seventeen-year-old who won the Class D Florida State League home run championship at Daytona Beach in 1951. We followed his career through a disappointing season at Spartanburg, and another home run title at Reading and still another at Indianapolis—knowing that someday he would be hitting them for the Indians. We saw him, finally, and almost at once, took him to our hearts.
And now the object of that devotion would be opening the season in Cleveland, but in the uniform of the Detroit Tigers. Maybe the most astonishing thing is that, as gigantic a public relations blunder as that was, trader Frank had one more move up his sleeve: One day after trading Rocky Colavito, Frank Lane sent Herb Score to the Chicago White Sox for Barry Latman.
“Had Score been traded away as recently as a month ago, it would have been press-stopping news,” wrote Gordon Cobbledick. “Yesterday, it was anticlimactic. The citizens were still so enraged over the departure of Colavito that they hardly noticed the end of the Cleveland phase of a career that seemed destined three years ago to be one of the greatest in the game’s history.”
Since the night of May 7,1957, Score’s record with the Tribe was 11-14 with a 4.44 ERA. In the spring of 1960, Score had a 7.61 ERA. He had an ankle injury, the flu, and an ear infection. He said his arm was fine, but most everything else seemed to bother him.
It was a nightmarish spring. The Indians hired veteran pitching coach Ted Wilks to tutor Score. In his first spring appearance, Score pitched three scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs, striking out six.
“Herb had been able to do what he couldn’t in 1959, get his curve over the plate,” wrote Cobbledick. “But no mention was made of the fact that he didn’t appear fast. . . . When he pitched again and again, relying on his curve, whispers began to be heard. Where was his bread-and-butter pitch, the fastball? . . . In Tucson, some of the players denounced what was interpreted as special coddling of Score. Only Colavito spoke in his defense.”
So Score would be traded. The only question was where.
Three days before the deal was announced, Lane said he probably would deal Score, but the one team that wouldn’t get him was Chicago. The fear was that reuniting with manager Al Lopez would somehow revive Score’s career. Score positively, absolutely worshiped every word that came from the mouth of Al Lopez. For that reason, Al Lopez wanted Score. He didn’t care about Herb’s eye injury, his arm injury, his ear infection, or anything else. Al Lopez believed in Herb Score.
“The day after Rocky was traded, we had our Meet the Tribe luncheon in downtown Cleveland,” said Score. “[Indians vice president] Nate Dolin came up to me and said, ‘Al Lopez wants you. Do you want to be traded to the White Sox?’ I told him that it would be the best thing that could happen at this point in my career. Al Lopez had caught more games than anyone in major league history until Bob Boone broke his record a few years ago. Al Lopez had had as much success with pitchers as any manager ever. I knew if anyone could help me, it was Al Lopez.”
Dolin went to Lane. He said something like, “If you have just one ounce of compassion in that bucket of venom you call a heart, you’ll send Herb to the White Sox.” Lane knew that because of the Colavito trade, Dolin still wanted to tear his limbs off and feed them to a family of hungry grizzlies. He also knew that Dolin was a power among the owners.
When it came to making trades, Mudcat Grant was right: Lane could be an idiot. But when it came to saving his own butt, Lane knew when it was wise to follow an order. A deal was struck—Score for Barry Latman.
“Latman was known as ‘shoulders’ because he had the widest ones I had ever seen,” said Nev Chandler. “He was shaped like a triangle, with his shoulders the widest part and then the rest of his body really tapering down.” Lane said the best thing about Latman was that he was twenty-three and healthy, which was meant as a rap at Score, but actually it was a statement of fact. In four years with the Tribe, Latman was 35-37.
Meanwhile, Lane continued to snipe at Score.
“Herb’s troubles are more psychological than physical,” Lane said after announcing the deal. “Maybe a change of scenery will help him.” Then Lane implied that Score was a hypochondriac and a prima donna, explaining, “Lopez won’t be any more sympathetic toward Herb than Gordon was. But Herb will think he is and that may make a difference. Herb has a great imagination.”
It would be nice to say that Lane once again stuck both feet down his throat. And it would make for a wonderful story if Score joined the White Sox and Lopez saw something that everyone else missed, that he had an answer for what was now called by everyone the “Herb Score Problem.”
Lopez and Score certainly tried. Believing that Score had lost arm strength because of his elbow problems, Lopez had Score throwing every day, as well as fifteen minutes of batting practice and another fifteen minutes in the bullpen. The idea was that the arm was a muscle, and the only way to strengthen it was to use it.
“For a while I thought I was coming around,” said Score. “I threw a couple of very good games after the trade. I wasn’t totally my old self, but I felt I was getting there. On some pitches I threw as well as I ever did.”
Early in the season, Score took a pounding. There was a night in Kansas City when he walked five in 32/3 innings. There was a game in Baltimore when he struck out the first two batters, walked the next four, gave up a hit, and lasted only one inning.
But Lopez stuck with him. For his third start of the season, Lopez inserted Dick Brown, Score’s catcher in high school, into the lineup for star Sherman Lollar. It worked, for one night anyway. On May 6, 1960, nearly three years to the day since his eye injury, Score beat Washington, 3-0. He went six innings, walked two, and allowed three hits.
He was only twenty-six years old. There was hope.
Score would produce a few more good games in 1960. He beat Boston, 9-1, but struck out only one. On August 1, he lost to Baltimore, 2-1, but it was the first time in his career that he didn’t walk a batter. He started twenty-two games, completed five, and had a 5-10 record with a 3.72 ERA.
But he would win only one more big-league game. His elbow acted up. His fastball never really came back. The frustration and failures clung to his back like a sweat-soaked T-shirt. But Score kept pitching, bottoming out at Class AAA Indianapolis in 1963.
“I saw Herb pitch in the minors,” said Larry Brown. “In high school and early in his career, he used to kick his leg high over his head, and his arm was like a whip. That was gone. He still threw fairly hard, but it was very stiff-armed and awkward, and his ball had no movement.”
Score was thirty when he finally retired and became an Indians broadcaster.
“People asked me why I went to the minors to pitch,” he said. “I still believed that my arm might come back. I was only thirty. I didn’t want to be sitting somewhere when I was sixty and wondering, ‘What if I had pitched one more year, would I have found it?’ Now I know. I have no doubts. I tried everything, and I pitched until they pretty much tore the uniform off my back.”
Score’s career is a seldom-mentioned subject, at least by him.
“In my five years working with Herb in the radio booth, I never asked about it, and he never talked about it,” said Nev Chandler. “I felt uncomfortable about the subject. Fans would bring it up. In Milwaukee, I remember a fan leaning into the radio booth and saying, ‘Herb, let me see your eye. Is it okay? How well do you see?’ I would wonder how I’d handle a question like that. But Herb was nice. He told the guy that his vision was normal. Then he said, ‘Nice to see you. Thanks for stopping by.’ But that’s Herb. He is a man of no bitterness, no regrets. He says that the game has been great to him, so what does he have to complain about?”
Those who know Score admire this about him: He won’t spend a moment reliving the past, and he truly seems to revel in the present.
“There has to be some private moment when he no doubt thinks back and wonders ‘What if?’ ” said Score’s close friend, Hank Peters. “But Herb is happy with his life. He enjoys his work. There is nothing phony about him.”
Or as Score said, “People tell me that I was unlucky. Me? Unlucky? I started with a great team in the Indians and played under a great manager in Al Lopez. Then I went from the field to the broadcasting booth at the age of thirty, and thirty years later I’m still doing the games. If you ask me, that’s not unlucky. That’s a guy who has been in the right place at the right time.”
