Before the Machine. Mark J. Schmetzer

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СКАЧАТЬ in the last month of the season.

      One person he spoke with was Bob Scheffing, a coach with the Braves in 1960 who’d been named manager of the Tigers.

      “He’s always been a slow starter,” Scheffing later told reporters. “If he’s physically sound, you don’t have to worry about him—and if the Reds don’t want him, I’ll gladly take him. He’ll win more games than any other Reds pitcher. I tried to get Jay myself after I signed with the Tigers, but we needed a center fielder more than a pitcher, and after giving up Frank Bolling for Bill Bruton, we didn’t have anything else to offer in a trade.”

      “I was told that it was true that Jay goofed off the first half of the season,” Hutchinson said. “The second half, though, he gave a concentrated effort. They told me he reached maturity. He finally reached the point where he believed he was a major leaguer and was willing to work toward it.”

      Jay was well aware of his reputation.

      “I guess it all dates back to when I was just eighteen,” he said. “In those days, I didn’t know beans about nothing. I ate up a storm during the winter and reported to the Braves training camp weighing 244 pounds. Once you get the reputation for being lazy, it’s hard to shake. During each of the last three springs I spent with Braves, I was told by the manager that I was going to be the fourth starting pitcher, but it never worked out that way. I didn’t pitch much with the Braves, but I couldn’t see where it was my fault. Last spring, I even made a special effort to get off to a good start. I came to camp at 222 pounds, eight less than my usual reporting weight, but it was almost the end of May before I got a chance to pitch, and sitting around during the first weeks of the season isn’t good for any pitcher.”

      Another source tapped by Hutchinson was, of all people, Braves pitcher Lew Burdette.

      “Hutch asked Lew about the Braves’ young pitchers, and Lew recommended me,” Jay said. “I was very pleased. I knew Cincinnati had a good club—hitters like Frank Robinson and Vada Pinson, pitchers like Purkey, O’Toole, and Brosnan.”

      Hutchinson’s case for Jay was strong enough to convince DeWitt to go after the pitcher. The Braves, concerned about the decline of long-time shortstop Johnny Logan—who would be thirty-four going into the 1961 season, his eleventh in the majors—were so interested in McMillan and so confident in their pitching depth that they also were willing to include left-handed pitching prospect Juan Pizarro with Jay in a trade that was completed on December 15, 1960.

      “He’s the pitcher I didn’t want to give up,” Milwaukee manager Chuck Dressen said later, referring to Jay.

      “Yeah, I can believe that,” Jay responded with a hint of sarcasm. “They even tried to trade me during the season last year.”

      “I knew Bill DeWitt was serious when he went out and got Joey,” O’Toole said. “Joey was a big ox out there. He was so nonchalant, we were trying to figure out where he was coming from. He was only twenty-five when he came over here, and he’d already been in the big leagues for seven seasons with Milwaukee. He could do it all out there on the mound. He’d give you eight or nine innings every time out.”

      “He’s going to get a chance to perform every fourth or fifth day, and he’s no dummy,” Hutchinson promised. “He knows if he can’t pitch for us, he’ll have to start thinking about the minor leagues.

      “A lot of people think we gave up on Roy McMillan. It isn’t so. Joey Jay and Juan Pizarro are a couple of good, young pitchers. The Braves were willing to give them up only for what they wanted, and that was McMillan.”

      McMillan, a native of Bonham, Texas, had become so settled in Cincinnati that he purchased a pizza franchise in Hamilton, located about thirty miles north of the city. Still, he wasn’t surprised about being traded.

      “When you read in the paper every day that you may be going, you’re not surprised when you go,” he said. “When you hear so many rumors, it’s not just general manager’s talk. I knew it, but I hoped it wouldn’t happen. No baseball player likes to be traded. It’s the toughest thing in the game. It’s worse than a bad year. You get used to the fellows on the ball club and the town and the way of doing things, but I’ve been around in baseball long enough, so I wasn’t surprised. I knew I was going to be traded.

      “I’ll tell you something. I didn’t like being traded, but I’m glad I’m with a club that has a chance to win it. Third place is the highest we ever finished in Cincinnati. I sure wouldn’t mind playing in a World Series this year.” He would miss, of course, that opportunity.

      Pizarro was only twenty-three, but he also was blocked in Milwaukee’s pitching plans. The Puerto Rican made just ninety appearances, including fifty-one starts, in four seasons with the Braves. Those are averages of twenty-three appearances and thirteen starts. He was 23–19 in those appearances, but by going 6–7 with a 4.55 ERA in twenty-one 1960 games he convinced Milwaukee that he wasn’t going to pan out.

      The presence of O’Toole and Henry and the acquisition of Jay made Pizarro expendable, and DeWitt knew exactly what he wanted to do. He had his sights set on Chicago White Sox third baseman Gene Freese, an outgoing twenty-six-year-old native of Wheeling, West Virginia, known as much for defensive lapses as he was for the pop in his right-handed bat. The solidly built Freese had just completed his sixth season in the majors, but Chicago was already his fourth team. He’d hit twenty-three home runs and driven in seventy runs with Philadelphia in 1959, prompting the Phillies to trade him to the White Sox for outfielder Johnny Callison. Freese’s homer output dropped to seventeen, but he drove in seventy-nine runs while hitting .268.

      Freese was listed on official rosters at five feet eleven and 175 pounds, but he admitted that his height was an exaggeration.

      “I lied on my bubblegum cards,” he said. “I said five-foot-eleven just to make me feel bigger. Other guys lied about their age. I lied about my height.”

      Despite that, DeWitt saw Freese as the power-hitting third baseman common to most winning teams, and he knew the Reds had enough pitching depth to tempt the White Sox. Just hours after completing the deal with Milwaukee, he sent Pizarro and a thirty-five-year-old right-hander grandly named Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish—who’d gone 4–14 with a 4.16 ERA for Cincinnati in 1960—to the White Sox for Freese.

      Ironically, McLish had joined the Reds exactly one year earlier when he was traded with Martin and first baseman Gordy Coleman by Cleveland for second baseman Johnny Temple.

      “I knew Chicago was going after pitching help, and by the process of elimination, I figured I’d be the one to go,” said Freese, who was nicknamed “Augie” but liked to refer to his bat and, occasionally, himself as “The Old Destroyer.” “I was the only one they figured they had a replacement for.”

      He also knew that his defense was the butt of jokes. Sometimes, he made them himself.

      “They don’t make jokes when I’m swinging ‘The Old Destroyer,’” he pointed out.

      Though he didn’t know it yet, with those two bold, decisive moves, DeWitt had added what would become critical pieces of the team that would win the NL championship. He hadn’t answered all of the questions—Hutchinson still had concerns about his second base situation—but DeWitt was confident that he’d shored up the pitching and improved the run production.

      Unfortunately for DeWitt—a portly man who wore rimless glasses and whose wide eyes made him look as if he were perpetually startled—the brilliance he displayed in completing the 1961 СКАЧАТЬ