Center Field Gate

Oddly (but not unreasonably), the name Jim Maloney has always been associated in my mind with “The Dave Clark Five” — the North London rock band that, for a short time, gave “The Beatles” a run for their money. The DC5, as they were called, had a number of hits (“Glad All Over,” “Bits and Pieces,” “Anyway You Want It”) and a solid following, particularly among those (and there were some) who thought “The Beatles” were over hyped, over exposed, foppish and a tad too popular. Maloney was that way: the big Cincinnati right hander was one of the best pitchers in baseball during the same year (1964) that the DC5 reached the peak of their popularity, though he was bound to be left out among all the oohing and ahhing reserved for the big four of Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Bob Gibson and Juan Marichal. History is the best judge: Big Jim could never compete for space against Sandy, Don, Bob and Juan any more than Dave Clark could garner the same attention as John, Paul, George and Ringo. Tsk. Tsk.

I remember watching Maloney pitch the front end of a double header in Milwaukee in the deep summer of ’64. It was the week following the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was passed in the Congress, and two weeks after the bodies of three civil rights workers were discovered in Mississippi. But while at least some of the country was focused on war and civil rights, a large number of people in Milwaukee were focused on the August Braves-Reds match-up. The Braves-Reds tilt, it was thought, would determine whether the Braves would contend for the pennant. All of Milwaukee was atwitter with talk about how the Braves front four would match-up perfectly against the mighty Reds — and for good reason. The Braves front four consisted of a legend (Warren Spahn) and three savvy nose-in-the-dirt youngsters: Tony Cloninger, Denny LeMaster and Hank Fischer. Spahn was faltering then, but never mind: Wade Blasingame could come in to spell him in odd starts, and the 20-year-old was something to behold.

The only problem was that Cincinnati’s front four was even more formidable. Jim Maloney anchored the staff, which consisted of Jim O’Toole, Bob Purkey and Joey Jay. If that wasn’t enough, Joe Nuxhall was still kicking around (at the age of 35) and Sammy Ellis was an intimidating presence in the bullpen. The Redlegs’ starting nine was a terrifying mix of heavy lumber and hit-em-to-all-fields stars that included the underrated Vada Pinson, the man-for-all-seasons Frank Robinson and a young Pete Rose. But the real deal on the mound for the Reds was Jim Maloney, a brute of a pitcher whose up-and-in 95-plus fastball was nearly unhittable. Maloney, then all of 24, had just come off a 23-win season, with a sparkling ERA of 2.77. His ’64 season looked like much the same, though he wasn’t as well-supported as he had been the year before. While Maloney’s best games were still a year away (he pitched three no hitters in his career — and won only two of them), he was the one guy who could sink the Braves’ hopes for a World Series match-up. Which is exactly what he did.

But not with his arm.

Memories are strange things, allowing us snapshots of the past — and rarely a comprehensive account, or anything resembling a “film.” So it is that I recall that back in the deep summer of 1964 (and as I sat on the first base side of Milwaukee County Stadium) the great Cloninger-Maloney duel to decide the National League Pennant wasn’t a duel at all. It was an artillery barrage, led by none other than Maloney, a hulking presence, a converted Fresno, California shortstop whom the Reds transformed into a fastball ace because he couldn’t hit a lick. Except (of course) for that day in Milwaukee. And here’s the snapshot: in the sixth inning of the first game, with the bases loaded, Maloney came to the plate (a sure out) and swung his bat through the strike zone (click) and sent the ball sailing high and deep (I can see it still) into the bleachers in left field. It was a Jim Maloney grand slam — the only home run he hit that year and it sent all of Milwaukee into mourning (I swear, I thought Cloninger was going to have a stroke). Suddenly (but certainly, for that is how these things are) and though it was only the first game of the double header, the Braves were d-e-a-d Dead, Dead, Dead for 1964. The second game (as I recall) was all Vada Pinson and ended up a Reds win, but it hardly mattered. By then, Milwaukee fans knew for sure that at least for 1964 (which saw a legendary Phillies collapse) the Braves would not win the pennant.

Jim Maloney is one of those great forgotten pitchers. In June of 1965 he threw a ten inning no hitter and lost, giving up a home run in the 11th. He struck out 18 — still a Reds record — but he took the loss. In August of 1965, Maloney did it again, throwing another 10 inning no hitter, while striking out eight. This time he won. He wasn’t finished; after successive one hitters through ’65, ’66 and ’67 — years in which he battled an increasingly sore arm — he pitched a no hitter on May 13 of 1969 against the Astros. It might have been his best game. In 1970, Sparky Anderson took over as Cincinnati’s manager and inaugurated an era of Red baseball victories. But by then Maloney’s shoulder (and achilles tendon) had exploded. He was shipped to California, in an attempt to revive his career as an Angel, but it was too late, and in 1971 he retired. Maloney — the Dave Clark of pitchers — was only 31.

Remember Bobby Bragan? The bent-backed big-bellied curse of Brooklyn and Birmingham and the fair-haired best buddy of Branch Rickey before that kid infielder Jackie Robinson came along, Bragan was his generation’s Bobby Cox. He could bait an umpire by just being there, but was at his best while shuffling to the mound, muttering under his breath. And the umps would yell at him: “What did you say Bragan? What was that?” It seems a required part of Braves’ baseball even now, a “given” on the single-sheet job description: “Must know the game. Must hate umpires.”

Bragan was that, and classically Birmingham fat, aging gracelessly as the players got younger around him. So Bragan would come out of the dugout, muttering about the unfairness of it all (carrying his Denny Lemaster hook — “oh thank God, he’s pulling Lemaster”) and you would swear he was going to lose his balance, tipping forward as he walked. I never thought he was that heavy, but back in 1965 Milwaukee Braves fan would razz him, ceaselessly, relentlessly, cruelly: “Go on a diet Bobby,” and “you’re a pig, Bragan.” He was of a “type” — a southern boy who was okay behind the plate, a player forever of the verge of being something more than just average. Neither a peripheral great nor even mediocre, Bragan was one of those guys you put in the line-up until someone better comes along. There is a whole community of guys like Bragan wandering through the underworld: Dennis Menke and . . .  well, Dennis Menke.

Bragan would have been a forgettable character, were it not for his memorable 1947 decision to circulate a petition from white players saying they wouldn’t play with Robinson, whom Rickey had brought in the break baseball’s color barrier (and transform the Trolleys from a very good to a great team). Bragan even asked Rickey to trade him: he would not play with a black man. You have to wonder what Bragan was thinking. Did he really believe Rickey would send Jackie packing because his second string catcher was a racist? Bragan quickly changed his mind. “After just one road trip, I saw the quality of Jackie the man and the player,” Bragan later remembered. “I told Mr. Rickey I had changed my mind and I was honored to be a teammate of Jackie Robinson.” Trumpets. Organ music. Fade.

Bragan never lived down that moment, but he tried. He pushed Maury Wills to the majors when he was a minor league manager in Spokane, praised Rickey as the person who had “made me a better man,” and became one of baseball’s smartest and most well-respected administrators — as head of the Texas League and then head of the governing body of minor league baseball. In the 1980 he started the Bobby Bragan Youth Foundation, which raises money for scholarships to keep kids in school and was elected into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame and into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. But back in 1965, Bragan was viewed by the people of Milwaukee as anything but a hero. Bragan was the manager of the lame duck Milwaukee Braves, who had announced the previous year that they would be moving to Atlanta. Milwaukee partisans were shocked — and angered. 

When a group of local businessmen sued, the Braves were forced to stay an extra year in Milwaukee. Bragan, the on-field symbol of the Braves’ ownership bore the brunt of Milwaukee’s anger, but he was never known for being a stoic (or knowing what the word meant). You could see him seeth, and the more he seethed the more fans let him have it. As I remember it (and I was there — blessedly), the anger towards the Braves and Bragan culminated on a hot August day at Milwaukee County Stadium when Bragan walked to the mound to remove a pitcher (probably Lemaster, but I can’t remember for sure) and on the way back to the dugout he motioned in Rico Carty from left field. Carty had just misplayed a fly ball and Bragan was punishing him — in public, humiliating him front of the fans. On purpose. And the Braves fans just let him have it. And I mean they let him have it. I’ve never seen anything like it. I thought the fans in front of me, along the third base line, were going to come out of their seats. And Bragan looked up into the stands and just smiled and nodded his head: yes, yes, I took him out. So go do yourself. You know, whatever else you might think about Bragan, he knew when not to give a damn.

Bobby Bragan died last week in Fort Worth, Texas.  Major League Baseball paid homage to Bragan in a public notice that quoted Bud Selig. “He was a dear friend of mine for nearly 50 years,” Selig said. ”He had a long and wonderful baseball career as a player, coach, manager and executive.” What the announcement failed to mention is that the group of Milwaukee businessmen who forced the Braves to spend ’65 in Milwaukee was organized and led by prominent local car dealer — named (oh yeah) Bud Selig. Selig was convinced that the Braves, and Bragan, owed their home town fans something more than a single press release and an empty stadium. 

Bobby Bragan was 92. Actually I kinda liked him.

Back on August 24, Sports Illustrated put the fading baseball card industry on life support: “The sports trading card industry is dealing with an uncomfortable present and an uncertain future,” SI intoned. “The sales of cards peaked in 1991 at $1.2 billion, according to estimates by Sports Collector’s Digest, but slid to $400 million by the turn of the century and to $200 million last year.” Take it from me — SI is right; baseball cards, once priced at a nickel a pack, now appeal to a shrinking market of grey haired oldsters who are less interested in the game than in finding a good investment. The proof, they say, is in the pricing. The last great baseball card made by the industry (according to the SI report) was ”Ken Griffey Jr.’s 1989 Upper Deck Star Rookie” — the number 1 card in Upper Deck’s inaugural set, and it fetches a pretty fair price; it can bring as much as $150 on ebay, depending on the day and buyer. But it’s more than that: you can go into any store where kids hang out and look for baseball cards and they’re not there. And if they were the kids wouldn’t buy them: the cards are too expensive. The people who make baseball cards have made a terrible mistake — their cards aren’t for kids, they’re for collectors.

But the SI report tells only a part of the story. While the appeal of baseball cards has been shrinking, the market for older cards has not, according to those card dealers who specialize in sets from eras prior to 1980 — the date that is usually given for when the market began to be saturated by an increased number of manufacturers, specialty sets and over printing. It makes sense: when card production became unlimited, card values plummeted. But the very earliest baseball cards (and the cards of the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s — the classics) actually increased in “value.” See, there’s that word. Back when I began to collect baseball cards (and I date myself here, but what the hell) I had no sense of their “value.” I bought them because they were the sole means that I had of learning a players stats — his ERA or batting average and reading the little cartoons on the back that weren’t so much funny as dumb. I stacked ‘em up, kept them in a shoebox, looked at them, smelled them. They had value outside of the nickel I paid for them.

Then baseball card price guides came along. I was well out of baseball cards then, too busy making a living to pay attention, but the appearance of these guides puzzled me and I would stand at the supermarket magazine counter and page through them, noting the ups and downs of card values. It made no sense to me and it still doesn’t. Card grading, it still seems to me, is subjective and dependent on what a dealer views as being off center or faded or . . . whatever. Yeah, okay: a tattered and water-marked 1953 Satchell Paige is not worth as much as a mint condition Satchell Paige, but some of the differences between a grade “9″ and “10″ seems arbitrary and is not so much art as fraud; a way to create a specialty out of an opinion. All of this has generated a lot of controversy, and a mini-industry of its own, which can be found on a number of baseball blogs – of which there are plenty — and which we have linked to here at CFG. (You’ll find the links over there on the right — under the category “What Your Mother Threw Away.”)

It comes down to this: I recently bought a 1953 Topps Eddie Mathews card; it’s in pretty good but not great shape — and as pretty a card as you’ll find anywhere, with a picture of Eddie as a young third baseman. I sit at my desk, when I’m working and I look at it. I’m in the habit of collecting Eddie Mathews cards, not because I’m a Boston Braves or Milwaukee Braves or Atlanta Braves fan (I’m decidely not), but because I’m an Eddie Mathews fan. I saw him play about thirty times, maybe more, and I always rooted against the teams he played for: but always for him. He’s one of the best players I ever saw play the game. He could hit and field and he seemed to play his best when I was in the stands. So I started collecting his cards. And here’s the thing. I’m not collecting his cards in order to sell them, I’m collecting them in order to have them.