Mize was selected by the Veterans Committee alongside Negro Leagues founder Rube Foster. He and Foster were inducted alongside Bob Gibson, who received 84% of the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA) vote in his first year on the ballot.

It was an unexpected honor for Mize, who had never eclipsed the 43.6% of the vote he received in 1971 in his ninth year on the ballot. Though he knew the Veterans Committee was voting that day, Mize decided not to wait by the phone awaiting a call that may never come. Instead, with a new second-floor porch being constructed on his home in Demorest, Georgia, he decided to assist with the project.

“After always being the next man in line, I told Marge I was either going fishing or golfing on the 11^th,” Mize said. “But with the carpenters here, I decided to help until the noon news came on. I figured I might as well see if they said anything. When it got to be 12:30, I told Marge, ‘Well, that’s it.’”[1]

Incredibly, the call from the Hall of Fame didn’t come because the Hall had the wrong number for Mize. Instead, he was reached by a reporter, who shared the news with him shortly after the Hall’s announcement.

“I knew they were voting again today, but I had already given up hope because no one had called,” Mize said. “It comes as kind of shock, especially since I’ve seen so many guys go in who were behind me when I first became eligible years ago. I’m happy it finally came. Most of all because throughout this long wait, I never knew so many people cared.”[2]

In fact, so many people cared that Mize had to halt construction for the day rather than try to speak to his many callers over the din of their labor.[3]

“I’m just a little disappointed they didn’t see to vote me in earlier,” Mize admitted. “My mother is 87 years old and in the hospital after having both her legs removed after five operations. She always had looked forward to me getting in the Hall. Last year would have been fine, but now she just barely recognizes me and doesn’t realize what’s going on any more than the man in the moon.”[4]

Mize began his path to the Hall of Fame with the Cardinals after Branch Rickey’s brother Frank discovered Mize and placed the 17-year-old with the Cardinals’ farm team in Greensboro, North Carolina.[5] Mize soon became one of the top sluggers in the Redbirds’ system, but in 1934 he suffered a serious leg injury that hampered his movement.

Ironically, the injury helped to keep him in the St. Louis system.

That December, under new ownership that was looking to make a splash, the Reds purchased Mize for $55,000, surpassing the $50,000 the Yankees had paid the San Francisco Seals that November for another highly touted prospect named Joe DiMaggio. However, the high-paying deal came with a caveat – if Mize’s injury hampered him in any way, the Reds could return Mize and get their money back.

Ultimately, the Reds selected that option. Spurs had developed on Miz’s pelvic bone, and that spring it became clear that Mize was playing through an injury. Uncertain whether Mize would ever be able to play on an everyday basis, the Reds voided the deal and sent him back on April 15.

That proved fortunate for the Cardinals.

Mize played in 65 games for the Cardinals’ minor-league club in Rochester that season, batting .318 with 12 homers, before the pain became too much and he required surgery. When Mize came back, he not only was assigned to the Cardinals, but he beat out incumbent Ripper Collins for the first base job. The rookie Mize hit .329 with 19 homers and 93 RBIs and led all of baseball with 21 intentional walks.

“There is not a ballplayer in the major leagues playing better baseball than Johnny Mize,” Cardinals manager Frankie Frisch said.[6]

In each of his six seasons with the Cardinals, Mize hit at least .314 with an on-base percentage above .400. In 1939, he won the National League batting crown with a .349 average. He also led the league with 28 homers, a .626 slugging percentage, a 1.070 OPS (on-base plus slugging percentage), and 353 total bases. That year, he finished second in the NL MVP voting behind Cincinnati’s Bucky Walters.

“He was a great hitter right when he came up,” said Terry Moore, who roomed with Mize in their Cardinals days. “He never swung at a bad pitch. It was a pleasure to watch him hit.”[7]

In 1940, Mize may have been even more impressive. His 43 home runs led all of baseball and set a Cardinals single-season franchise record, one that would hold up until Mark McGwire finally broke the record on his way to 70 homers in 1998. Mize led the NL in slugging percentage (.636), OPS (1.039), and total bases (368), and led all of baseball in intentional walks (24). Once again, Mize finished second in the MVP voting to a Red, this time finishing behind Frank McCormick.

After the season, Mize held out for an increase on his $16,000 salary.

“Why, they even suggested I take a cut,” he said, before noting that the Cardinals later offered him the same salary from the previous year. “My home runs were more than any St. Louis player ever hit,” he argued. “I led the National League in runs batted in with 137, in total bases with 368, and I batted .314 for the season. If that isn’t enough to get a raise, I don’t know what is. Of course, my batting average was the lowest in the five years I have been with the Cardinals, or the five years I spent in the minors, but I think the other records are enough to warrant a little more money.”[8]

Finally, after missing the first 2 ½ weeks of spring training, Mize and the Cardinals agreed to terms, giving the slugger a $1,000 raise over the previous year.[9] Though Mize went on to hit .317 with 16 homers, 100 RBIs, and a league-high 39 doubles, an arm injury forced him to miss the final 10 games of the season. The Sporting News reported that Cardinals manager Billy Southworth was disappointed that Mize spent the final games watching from the grandstand or the press box instead of sitting on the bench.[10]

That December, the Cardinals traded Mize to the New York Giants for Bill Lohrman, Johnny McCarthy, and Ken O’Dea.

“When you hold out a couple of times against the Cardinals you know you’re finished with the organization,” Mize said. “I sensed the change in attitude toward me during the season, and when the schedule was over I cleared out all my belongings in the clubhouse. That’s the first time I ever did that, but I was pretty certain I wouldn’t be with the club in ’42.”[11]

Despite missing three seasons in the prime of his career serving in World War II, Mize proved to be more than worth the cost for the Giants. In 1942, he led the National League with 110 RBIs and a .521 slugging percentage on his way to a fifth-place finish in the MVP voting.

After returning from the war, he led all of baseball in 1946 with 51 homers, 138 RBIs, and 137 runs scored in 1947, finishing third in the MVP race. The following year, at age 35, he led baseball again with 40 homers.

“I’ve always wondered how many more (championships) we would have won if we hadn’t dealt two power hitters in that period, Mize and Walker Cooper,” said Cardinals outfielder Stan Musial, who led the Redbirds to World Series titles in 1942, 1944, and 1946.[12]

In 1949, the Yankees purchased Mize’s contract from the cross-town Giants for $40,000. Used primarily as a part-time player for much of his Yankees career, Mize hit drove home the winning run in Game 3 of the 1949 World Series, then hit 25 homers in just 305 plate appearances in 1950.

When he retired after the 1953 season, Mize’s 359 career home runs ranked sixth all-time. He also had a .312 career batting average, .397 on-base percentage, 2,011 hits, and 1,337 RBIs over 15 major-league seasons. Altogether, Mize had won five World Series titles, been selected for 10 all-star games, won a batting title, and finished in the top five of the MVP voting four times, including two runner-up finishes.

“I was mostly impressed with that sweet swing and the fact that he was a power hitter who rarely struck out,” Musial said. “He had the greatest batting eyes I’ve ever seen.”[13]

“He was proud of hitting all those home runs, and when he was voted into the Hall of Fame, I guess that had to be the day he was most proud,” Moore said.[14]

At his induction speech, Mize referenced his long wait to arrive in Cooperstown.

“I’ve been asked if being elected by the Veterans Committee means going in the back door,” Mize said. “To that I say look who’s on it – ex-players, managers, and executives, most of whom are in the Hall of Fame. Who else would you want to pick you? They were my peers.”[15]

He also noted that years earlier, several sportswriters had told him he was sure to be voted into the Hall.

“So I made a prepared speech,” he said, “but somewhere along the way it got lost.”[16]

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[1] Ken Picking, “It’s Mize’s Moment,” Atlanta Constitution, March 12, 1981.

[2] Bill Madden, “Mize gains Hall of Fame with Negro loop founder,” New York Daily News, March 11, 1981.

[3] Ken Picking, “It’s Mize’s Moment,” Atlanta Constitution, March 12, 1981.

[4] Ken Picking, “It’s Mize’s Moment,” Atlanta Constitution, March 12, 1981.

[5] “Mize, Through Exercise, Will Try To Prove Cards Got a Break When $55,000 Deal For Him Fell Through,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 8, 1935.

[6] Ralph McGill, “An Atlanta Doctor Sent Mize To the Majors!” Atlanta Constitution, May 17, 1936.

[7] Mike Eisenbath, “Mize Is Recalled By Former Mates As A Great Hitter,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 3, 1993.

[8] Associated Press, “Mize’s Slugging Entitles Him to Raise, He Says,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, February 2, 1941.

[9] Sid C. Keener, “Mize Signs Contract And Works Out With Cardinals,” St. Louis Star and Times, March 17, 1941.

[10] “Mize-To-Giants Deal Surprises Breadon,” The Sporting News, December 18, 1941.

[11] Donald H. Drees, “Mize Not Surprised At Deal Sending Him to Giants,” St. Louis Star and Times, December 12, 1941.

[12] Bob Broeg, “M&M’s Bats Didn’t Melt In Their Hands,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 12, 1981.

[13] Bob Broeg, “M&M’s Bats Didn’t Melt In Their Hands,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 12, 1981.

[14] Mike Eisenbath, “Mize Is Recalled By Former Mates As A Great Hitter,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 3, 1993.

[15] Bill Madden, “Hall of Famers win the cheers of bitter crowd,” New York Daily News, August 3, 1981.

[16] Bill Madden, “Hall of Famers win the cheers of bitter crowd,” New York Daily News, August 3, 1981.

The post Why Johnny Mize was shocked to be elected to the Hall of Fame first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.

Mize’s feat marked the sixth time in franchise history that a Cardinal hit for the cycle, joining Cliff Heathcote, Jim Bottomley, Chick Hafey, Pepper Martin, and Joe Medwick, and the first since Medwick did it five years earlier in 1935.

The game pitted two of the game’s best pitchers of the previous decade in New York’s Carl Hubbell and St. Louis’s Lon Warneke. Hubbell was a two-time National League MVP who had just been selected to his seventh career all-star game, which took place four days earlier at Sportsman’s Park. Now in his 13^th season, the 37-year-old Hubbell entered the game with a 5-4 record and a 3.38 ERA.

The Cardinals countered with Warneke, a 31-year-old right-hander who had led the National League with 22 wins and a 2.37 ERA with the Cubs in 1932. Warneke, who had four all-star game selections to his credit, was coming off a tough 10-inning performance in which he took the loss despite allowing just two earned runs. He entered the game with a 5-7 record despite a 2.83 ERA.

Neither pitcher enjoyed an easy afternoon on the mound. The Giants got on the scoreboard in the top of the second inning with an RBI single by Billy Jurges, but the Cardinals answered with back-to-back doubles by Marty Marion and Mickey Owen. Warneke helped his own cause with a single that scored Owen. In the third inning, Mize’s 22nd home run of the season gave the Cardinals a 3-1 lead.

The Giants took the lead in the top of the fourth, chasing Warneke from the game with five consecutive hits to open the inning. After Jurges singled to give the Giants the lead, Cardinals manager Billy Southworth replaced Warneke with Jack Russell, a 15-year veteran from Paris, Texas. Russell got Hubbell to hit into a 6-4-3 double play that gave the Giants a 5-3 lead before ending the inning.

New York added another run in the sixth after Russell walked Mel Ott and Tony Cuccinello. Jurges followed with a sacrifice bunt, and Ott scored on a groundout by Hubbell to make the score 6-3.

In the seventh, the Cardinals rallied to tie the score against a tiring Hubbell. Don Gutteridge, pinch-hitting for Russell, reached on an infield single. Hubbell walked Jimmy Brown and Martin hit a run-scoring single before Mize, who doubled to right field in the fifth, followed with an RBI single of his own to chase Hubbell from the game. Giants reliever Jumbo Brown walked Ernie Koy to load the bases and Joe Orengo hit a sacrifice fly to center field to tie the game 6-6.

The Cardinals’ Max Lanier and the Giants’ Red Lynn each retired the side in order in the eighth, and Lanier induced a 6-4-3 double play to end the top of the ninth. After Martin struck out to lead off the bottom of the ninth, Mize stepped to the plate a triple shy of the cycle. Incredibly, he got it when he smacked a drive off the concrete center-field wall 412 feet from home plate. Giants left fielder Jo-Jo Moore retrieved the ball and fired it back to the infield, but Jurges briefly mishandled the ball before relaying it to the catcher, Harry “The Horse” Danning.

Coaching at third base, Southworth saw Jurges’ misplay and sent Mize home. At first, that appeared to be a mistake. “Mize looked like a gone goose, but Danning, over-eager, despite a thin veneer of nonchalance, took his eye off the ball to see whether he’d have Mize by 10 feet or 20 and that was his undoing,” J. Roy Stockton wrote in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.[1] “He fumbled the bounding ball and Mize scored the winning run.”

The official scorer ruled the play a triple with an error on Danning, simultaneously taking away Mize’s RBI and giving him the cycle.

Mize’s four-hit day raised his season average to .292 and paced a Cardinals offense that finished the game with 13 hits. Lanier was credited with the win after pitching two scoreless innings in relief, while Lynn took the loss for the Giants.

In the second game of the double-header, the Cardinals again broke a ninth-inning tie with a clutch walk-off hit, this time an RBI single by Terry Moore. With the wins, the Cardinals improved to 29-41 on the season and 14-12 under Southworth, who had taken over the club after Ray Blades opened the season with a 14-24 mark and Mike Gonzalez went 1-5 in six games as the interim manager.

The double-header may have been a turning point for both clubs. While the Giants stumbled to a sixth-place finish, Southworth’s Cardinals surged, finishing the year with an 84-69 record, good for third place in the National League.

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[1] J. Roy Stockton, “Cards Beat Giants Twice in Ninth, 7-6, 4-3,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, July 14, 1940.

The post July 13, 1940: Johnny Mize hits walk-off triple to complete the cycle first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.

Heading into their May 7 contest against the first-place Brooklyn Dodgers, the Cardinals had won just five of their first 15 ballgames. They opened the season by losing six of their first eight, and had already lost their first two games in the Brooklyn series.

To compound matters, shortstop Marty Marion had injured his knee and center fielder Terry Moore sprained his shoulder in the first game against the Dodgers, leaving the Cardinals short-handed and desperate for a win.

They would respond with a historic offensive performance that featured 20 hits, including seven homers, four doubles, and two triples in an 18-2 drubbing of the Dodgers. The Cardinals’ 49 bases on the day broke the modern National League record of 47, set by the New York Giants in 1931, and their 13 extra-base hits tied a modern major league record set by the Tigers and Cardinals in 1925 and the Cardinals again in 1931.[1] Their seven home runs also tied the National League record. Along the way, the Cardinals had a hit in each inning and every player in the lineup had an extra-base hit, scored, and drove in a run.

Dodgers starting pitcher Hugh Casey allowed five of the Cardinals’ seven home runs, allowing 13 runs on 15 hits over seven innings. Mercifully, he was replaced by reliever Max Macon for the eighth inning, though Macon didn’t perform any better, allowing five runs on five hits, including two home runs.

Altogether, Johnny Mize and Eddie Lake hit two home runs apiece, while Don Padgett, Stu Martin, and Joe Medwick each hit one.

Padgett got the Cardinals on the scoreboard with a second-inning home run that landed just beyond the 422-foot measurement in center field. He hit the ball so hard that Dodgers center fielder Charlie Gilbert gave up on the play 25 feet short of the outfield wall.[2]

The Cardinals rallied for five more runs in the third. Lake led off the inning with a home run, then Martin singled and scored on a triple by Slaughter. Medwick hit an RBI single to score Slaughter, and Mize blasted a two-run homer to make it 6-0.

At that point, former Cardinal shortstop Leo Durocher, now managing the Dodgers, removed himself from the game and inserted rookie Pee Wee Reese to play the remainder of the game. Making just the 10^th appearance of his career, the future Hall of Famer had little impact on the game’s outcome as the Cardinals continued to build upon their lead.

Martin added a solo homer in the fourth, and in the fifth Johnny Hopp hit an RBI double and Lake added a two-run double. Medwick hit a two-run homer and Jimmy Brown added a sacrifice fly later in the inning to make the score 13-0.

Lon Warnecke shut out the Dodgers through the first seven innings – including a stretch in which he retired 14 consecutive batters – before they finally got on the scoreboard with four hits in the eighth. Casey was finally replaced with a pinch hitter in the inning.

“He asked to stay in there,” Durocher said. “He hadn’t had much work, and as long as the game was gone, I let him continue.”[3]

Macon didn’t fare any better, as Mize and Lake each homered, Hopp hit an RBI single, and Warneke added an RBI double.

For the game, Lake finished with two homers, a double, and five RBIs to lead the Cardinals’ effort. Mize had three hits, including two homers and a double, to finish with three RBIs, and Martin added three hits, including a home run.

Warneke finished the Dodgers off in the ninth to capture his first win of the season. For the day, he allowed two earned runs on nine hits and a walk.

Warneke pitched the ninth inning to catcher Bill DeLancey, who entered the game in place of Padgett for his first major-league appearance in almost five years. DeLancey had caught every inning of the 1934 World Series for the Gashouse Gang and was considered by Branch Rickey to be one of the best catchers he ever saw. In 1935, however, he fell ill with serious lung ailments and retired to Phoenix, Arizona, where it was believed the dry air would assist his recovery. DeLancey missed the entire 1936 season and became a player-manager for the Cardinals’ minor-league affiliate in Albuquerque in 1937.

DeLancey was declared fit to play for the Cardinals in a part-time role in 1940, and he was credited with helping the development of prospect Mickey Owen, who was only four years younger than DeLancey.

“DeLancey, as he strode to the plate, drew even greater cheers than the Cardinals’ tremendous hitting had attracted,” the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported.[4]

DeLancey played in just 15 games, and the next two seasons he served as a minor-league manager. Following the 1942 season, DeLancey left baseball as his health deteriorated once again. He died on his 35^th birthday in November 1946.

After the Cardinals made history with their home run barrage, Brooklyn’s ballclub made its own history. With their flight from St. Louis to Chicago, the Dodgers became the first major league team to travel by plane.[5]

Meanwhile, the win didn’t turn the Redbirds’ season around, but it did show their terrifying offensive potential. After a 9-5 loss to Brooklyn on June 6 that dropped the Cardinals’ record to 14-24, manager Ray Blades was removed from his position. Mike Gonzalez served as interim manager for six games (losing five) before Billy Southworth was named manager.

Southworth guided the team to a 69-40 record for the remainder of the season, good for third place in the final National League standings. Southworth’s Cardinals won 97 games to place second behind the Dodgers in 1941 before winning the National League title and the World Series in 1942.

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[1] Martin J. Haley, “Cards Break 2 Records and Equal 7 in Routing Dodgers, 18-2,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 8, 1940.

[2] Martin J. Haley, “Cards Break 2 Records and Equal 7 in Routing Dodgers, 18-2,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 8, 1940.

[3] “Casey Wanted to Stay In,” The Sporting News, May 16, 1940.

[4] Martin J. Haley, “Cards Break 2 Records and Equal 7 in Routing Dodgers, 18-2,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 8, 1940.

[5] “Dodgers in Chicago After First Mass Plane Flight by Major League Team,” Brooklyn Citizen, May 8, 1940.

The post May 7, 1940: Cardinals clobber seven home runs in 18-2 rout of the Dodgers first appeared on STLRedbirds.com.