Baseball History Podcast

Salvatore Anthony Maglie, nicknamed “Sal the Barber,” was born on April 26, 1917, in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Between 1950 and 1956 Maglie was among the most feared hurlers in baseball.  Although he had an ever-present “five o’clock shadow,” Maglie was called “The Barber” for his practice of throwing close to, or shaving, the batter’s chin.  He explained, “When I’m pitching, I own the plate.”

Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities.  I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.

This is game 30 of the 2009 baseball season

In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 3 week of July.

July 18

1952 Trailing 11-0 after three innings against Sal Maglie at the Polo Grounds, the Cardinals pull off a major comeback defeating the Giants, 14-12. The rally equals largest come-from-behind win in NL history.

Salvatore Anthony Maglie, nicknamed “Sal the Barber,” was born on April 26, 1917, in Niagara Falls, N.Y.

Between 1950 and 1956 Maglie was among the most feared hurlers in baseball.  Although he had an ever-present “five o’clock shadow,” Maglie was called “The Barber” for his practice of throwing close to, or shaving, the batter’s chin.  He explained, “When I’m pitching, I own the plate.”

Although best remembered for his on-field ferocity, Maglie didn’t come by his reputation naturally.  Off the field he was a gentle, courteous, good-natured man, and it took him a long time to learn his trade.

In Maglie’s early years he was such a poor pitcher that his sandlot teams rarely let him take the mound.

Sal spent almost three seasons with the Double-A Bisons, each worse than the previous one.  In 1940 he asked to be sent down, so the manager placed Maglie in the Class D Pony League.  In 1941 he moved up to the Class A Eastern League, and there Sal finally hit his stride, winning 20 games and achieving an excellent 2.67 Earned Run Average.

In 1942, shortly after the beginning of World War II, Maglie failed his pre-induction physical due to a chronic sinus condition.  With the manpower shortage in baseball, Sal’s mediocre record was sufficient for the New York Giants to snap him up for their Jersey City farm team.  He resigned after the 1942 season and returned to Niagara Falls, where he spent the next two years working in a defense plant.

In the spring of 1945 Sal returned to the Jersey City Giants, where he compiled another losing record, but with the continuing manpower shortage, in August he was called up to the majors.  Although in his two months with the New York Giants in 1945 the 28-year-old rookie compiled a modest 5-4 record, he tossed three shutouts, and believed he might join the Giants’ regular rotation in 1946.  But other events intervened.

As the 1946 season opened, major league clubhouses buzzed with the news that two wealthy Mexican brothers, were offering American players fabulous sums to jump their contracts and play in the Mexican League.  Resentful at what he considered dismissive treatment by Giants manager Mel Ott during spring training; Maglie took the gamble.  He left Organized Baseball and played for two seasons in the Mexican League.  Commissioner Happy Chandler banned all the “jumpers” from the majors for five years.

During Sal’s two seasons in the Mexican League his manager turned the mild-mannered Maglie into a grim, tough, ruthless competitor unfazed by weather, taunts, or pressure; a pitcher who could bend a curve like a pretzel, or send a batter sprawling with a fastball that grazed his chin.

After 1947 Maglie did not return to the crumbling Mexican League, but he was still banned from the majors.  He then joined a barnstorming squad organized by a fellow jumper, consisting of other Mexican League refugees.  The team failed to bring in enough money to cover expenses, and disbanded in August of 1948.

In 1949 Maglie pitched in the Provincial League in Quebec.  He put in an outstanding season leading his team to a championship.  During that season, Maglie learned that Chandler had lifted the ban on the Mexican League jumpers, and he would be allowed to return to the New York Giants.

Maglie began his 1950 season with the Giants in the bullpen, working only sporadically.  But finally, in St. Louis on July 21, Sal pitched the contest that turned his career around.  He threw an 11-inning complete game, defeating the Cardinals, 5-4.  For the rest of the season Sal pitched brilliantly, finishing an 18-4 record, at one point hurling four straight shutouts and 45 consecutive scoreless innings.

In 1951, Maglie enjoyed his most successful year, contributing 23 wins to the Giants’ pennant drive.  In the famous third playoff game against the Dodgers that the Giants won on Bobby Thomson’s home run, Maglie labored eight innings, leaving for a pinch hitter with his team behind 4-1, so it was Larry Jansen — who threw only four pitches in the top of the ninth — who gained the win.  In the World Series against the Yankees, Maglie lost Game Four, allowing four runs in five innings, and the Giants fell to the Yankees in six games.

Although Maglie enjoyed another successful season, with an 18-8 won/loss record in 1952, he began experiencing back trouble that limited his effectiveness.  In 1953 his back problems intensified, and he finished with an 8-9 record.  Sal was 36, so many assumed he’d reached the end of the line.

But he bounced back for another successful season in 1954, recording a 14-6 record, as the Giants won the World Championship, although he again failed to win his World Series start in Game One, although he pitched well, allowing just two runs in seven innings.

In the top of the eighth, he allowed two base runners before being removed so that lefthander Don Liddle could face Vic Werts.  Wertz’s blast to deep center field hauled in by Willie Mays, is among the most famous moments in baseball history.  It almost certainly saved the Giants, and Magie, from defeat.  The Giants prevailed in ten innings, but Sal didn’t get the win.

Although he had compiled a 9-5 record by the end of July of 1955, the Giants sold Maglie to the Cleveland Indians.  There, Sal mostly warmed the bench, and even considered retirement.

Early in the 1956 season, the Indians sold Sal to his archenemies, the Brooklyn Dodgers.  In what may be the greatest bargain in baseball history, the Dodgers’ general manager Buzzie Bavasi out-bargained the Indians’ Hank Greenberg and obtained Maglie for a mere $100.

During his years with the Giants, Brooklyn had found Sal almost unbeatable, and on more than one occasion his pitching tactics had ignited nasty on-field brawls.  Dodger fans, at first horrified to see their team’s nemesis in Dodger blue, soon warmed to Sal as the aging hurler won key games that enabled the Dodgers to gain their final Brooklyn pennant.

In one of those must-win late season contests Sal tossed a no-hitter; in another he won the game that clinched a tie for the pennant, and he finished with a 13-5 won-lost record.  In the World Series against the Yankees, Maglie enjoyed his only Series victory, besting Whitey Ford and the Bronx Bombers, 6-3, in Game One.  But in Game Five his opponent was Don Larsen, and Larsen pitched the only perfect game in World Series history.  Almost forgotten in the post-game frenzy was the fine game Maglie pitched that day — in eight innings he allowed the Yankees only two runs on five hits.

During a listless 1957 season, as the aging Dodger squad played out its final Brooklyn season before the move to Los Angeles, Maglie was sent to the Yankees, the last player to wear the uniform of all three New York teams.

At age 41 he pitched well for both Brooklyn and New York, finishing 8-6, with a 2.59 Earned Run Average, and a shutout for each team.  Nonetheless, in 1958 the Yankees passed him on to the St. Louis Cardinals, where Maglie stumbled to a 3-7 record in his final major league season.

After two terms as pitching coach of the Boston Red Sox in the 1960′s, Maglie took a similar post for the expansion Seattle Pilots in 1969.  He was profiled unflatteringly in Jim Bouton’s book Ball Four, despite the fact that he was a boyhood hero of Bouton.  Bouton commented that Maglie rarely gave useful advice to the pitchers, and frequently second-guessed their choice of pitches, often contradicting his previous second guessing.

However, Hall of Fame pitcher Don Drysdale credited Maglie with teaching him to pitch inside, for which Drysdale would be noted.  Jim Lonborg, American League Cy Young Award winner in 1967 also learned to brush hitters back under instruction from Maglie.

Sal Maglie died on December 28, 1992, at the age of 75 in Niagara Falls, NY.

A large part of this biography comes from the SABR Baseball Biography Project written by Judith Testa.  It can be found online at http://bioproj.sabr.org

In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary

Under the letter: G

Game of inches

A euphemism for the game of baseball because there are so many close plays decided by inches or fractions thereof.  This time-honored phrase encompasses several givens about the game.  For instance, by a matter of inches, it is often seen that a batter-runner is safe or out at first base, a batted ball is either fair or foul, a pitch is ei­ther a ball or a strike, and a player stealing a base is safe or out.

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Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast.  I’ll see you later at the ballpark.