The Barber
He
was a beanball artist of the 1950’s
Bygone
baseball
By
C. Philip Francis
Part
1
Prologue: We recently received an E-mail note from 96 year-old Bill R of Delaware who could be the oldest reader of Chatter from the Dugout. Not long ago Bill entered the computer era, and now operates his own computer in a retirement center apartment. Bill wrote, “ When I was a kid living in Niagara Falls we had a legendary hero called Sal Maglio. I think he was a pitcher for the Yankees. Do you have anything about him?”
Bill, yes we do, and are most pleased to accommodate your request.
*
Sal Maglie was an intimidating right-handed pitcher for the three New York teams in the 1950’s. Not only did his perpetual “five o’clock shadow” and scowling face menace the hitters, he was also famous for brushing back the plate-hugging batters. The pitcher once said, “When I’m pitching, I own the plate”, and it was the moniker of “The Barber” that came from “shaving” the batter’s chin with his razor-sharp control. In his battle with the hitter as to “owned” the plate the Barber was prone to send a knockdown pitch. He was once quoted regarding the pitch that will send the batter sprawling, “Do not stop with just one knockdown pitch because the second one lets the hitter know what you meant by the first one.”
Salvatore Anthony Maglie was born on April 26, 1917 in Niagara Falls, New York. Sal worked as a pipefitter until he signed with Buffalo in 1938 at the age of 21 for $275 a month. After two years with the Bisons he moved to Jamestown, and then to Elmira in 1941 where he won 20 games. The New York Giants drafted Maglie that fall, and sent him to Jersey City. He set his baseball career aside during much of the World War II years while working at a defense-related job in Niagara Falls.
The 180-pound, 6’2” Maglie made his major league debut on August 8, 1945, about the same time the war was ending, and finished his season with a 5 and 4 record that included a 2.35 ERA and three shutouts. Five years passed before Sal again wore a big league uniform as not only had the world changed during the past five years - so did baseball.
Three years following the death of autocratic commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis in 1944, professional baseball was finally integrated when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers. With a proliferation of ballplayers returning after the war ended in August 1945, the owners began cutting salaries giving the players little choice. About the same time Jorge Pasquel came up from Mexico to lure American professional ballplayers south of the border to build his Mexican League into a major status.
Stan Musial, Bob Feller, Jackie Robinson, and Ted Williams were some of the stars who resisted temptation, but some of the 18 major league players who defected were Brooklyn’s regular catcher Mickey Owen; the Cardinals’ fine left-hander Max Lanier; brothers Danny and Al Gardella who had played in a handful of games with the New York Giants; Vern Stephens, shortstop for the St. Louis Browns; and…Sal Maglie.
Following the death of Landis, the team owners hired Albert “Happy” Chandler, the former governor and United States senator from Kentucky, to become the new baseball commissioner. After the “Mexican jumping beans” headed south Chandler gave them a five-year suspension. Players from the Caribbean and Negro Leagues primarily stocked the Mexican League, and the life and playing conditions down there were far removed from baseball utopia. Pasquel’s dream soon collapsed. Playing ball and living in Mexico was difficult, and Maglie described some of his time in Mexico, “The buses were driven by madmen. They used to push those old wrecks as hard as they could on those narrow, winding roads in the mountains.” Stephens played in only a few games before he went back north to resume his big league career, but Maglie, Danny Gardella, and Lanier were among those who returned home to find that they were not welcome in big league ball.
Maglie operated a gas station in Niagara Falls, and did pitch for a team in Quebec. Gardella, however, did not take the ban quietly and sued Organized Baseball for $300,000. For years baseball’s reserve clause that kept the players in a unique type of slavery had always been exempt from antitrust laws. Before the Gardella case was to be brought before the United States Supreme Court, Chandler and the owners who knew the reserve clause was on tenuous ground, gave amnesty to the “jumping beans” saying in effect boys will be boys. Gardella settled out of court for $60,000.
Scrappy Leo Durocher had left Brooklyn’s managerial post in 1948 to take over the struggling New York Giants. Leo changed his the Giants into “my kind of team” that included the 33-year old Maglie who returned to his old ball club in 1950. In his first start Maglie won an 11-inning contest with the St. Louis Cardinals, and went on to become one of the National League’s most dominating pitchers of the 1950’s. After a five-year hiatus The Barber was back.
Next week:
Part 2 as The Barber becomes a leading player in two of baseball’s
greatest games.
The Barber
“I
always thought Sal Maglie was the most menacing pitcher – EVER”
-A
Chatter reader and a long time Dodger fan
Bygone
Baseball
By
C. Philip Francis
Part
2
The unshaven and surly right-handed Sal Maglie, often called The Barber, bullied his way through the 1950’s after winning five games for the New York Giants in his rookie year of 1945. He almost wrecked his promising pitching career when he and a number of other major and minor leaguers defected to the Mexican League in 1946. After Commissioner Happy Chandler reinstated the wayward malcontents in November of 1949, Maglie returned to his former team where he became a feared member of the rotation. Maglie’s nickname came from his ability of shaving both the corners and the batters’ chins with his fastball.
Although he pitched little between 1945 and 1950 Maglie became an instant success winning 18 games, including five shutouts, and losing only 4. Following the miracle year of 1951 the Barber had his only 20-win season, but what a season! As late as mid-August the team was still struggling, but righted itself and ended the season in a tie with Brooklyn after an incredible pennant race. That year Sal went 23 and 8 while throwing his most ever 298 innings.
Maglie became famous for beating the Dodgers, and it was Brooklyn’s Pee Wee Reese who said, “Sal was probably the one pitcher we least wanted to see. We always knew we were in for a battle when he was pitching.” The tie forced a three-game playoff, and after they split the first two games the pennant now came down to the third game. With the reputation of winning the “big game” and beating the Dodgers, Maglie was the starter. When Brooklyn scored three in the top of the eighth the Barber stood to be the losing pitcher, but was all but forgotten after Bobby Thomson’s dramatic last of the ninth home run off Ralph Branca.
The Giants lost the World Series to the Yankees four games to two as Maglie went only five innings in his only start losing 6-2. The Barber was 18 and 8 the next year, dropped to 8 and 9 in 1953, but bounced back for a fine 14-6 in the World Championship year of 1954. He was the starting pitcher in the Series opener going seven innings with no decision, but the game is best remembered for Willie Mays' unbelievable over-the-shoulder catch.
In July of 1955 Maglie, now 38, was waived to Cleveland where he joined an array of outstanding throwers such as Early Wynn, Herb Score, Mike Garcia, and Bob Lemon. Sal was used sparingly until the following May when he was traded to Brooklyn for $1,000. There is an old adage that goes, “If you can’t beat him, buy him.” When Maglie was with the Giants the Dodgers saw him as “evil incarnate”, and now he became one of them. Reese said of the trade, “That was about the most unbelievable thing I can think of that happened in my career.” Maglie commented, “I was hated in Brooklyn. At Ebbets Field they booed me, yelled at me, and I loved it.”
In 1956 as his baseball career was winding down the Barber yet again found himself in another gripping pennant battle. Even with a back problem and the strain on his aging arm Maglie gave the Dodgers 13 wins and its last pennant as a Brooklyn team. In the final week of the regular schedule the old fighter with a dour face threw his only no-hitter. It was on September 25, 1956 against the Philadelphia Phillies, and a reader of this column vividly recalls that game of 45 years ago. “I was listening to the radio that day when he (Maglie) pitched his only no-hitter against the Phillies in 1956 I think. (It was.) In the ninth Ashburn led off, and I just knew he was going to break up Maglie’s no-no. Maglie then hit Ashburn, and to this day I will always believe Sal hit the batter on purpose to preserve the no-hitter. Even if Maglie denied hitting Ashburn on purpose, I would never believe him.” Three days later Sal beat the Pirates, Brooklyn was once again ready to meet the Yankees in a subway World Series after beating out both Milwaukee and Cincinnati.
Maglie threw two complete and exceptionally fine-pitched games in the Series, the first was the opener when he downed the Yankees and Whitey Ford 6-3. Sal had the misfortunate of pitching against Don Larsen in Game Five when the Yankee threw the first and only World Series perfect game. Maglie was now just an unknown “other guy” in two of baseball’s greatest games – Thomson’s home run in the 1951 National League playoff, and Larsen’s Series gem in 1956.
After Brooklyn released Maglie a year later, he signed with the New York Yankees thus becoming the last player to achieve baseball’s New York hat trick – playing for the Giants, Dodgers, and Yankees. In doing so he joined an elite group that includes Tony Lazzari, Burleigh Grimes, Wee Willie Keeler, and Waite Hoyt who are all Hall of Famers.