SAD NEWS: Cincinnati Reds Failed and made a critical mistake in…

SAD NEWS: Cincinnati Reds Failed and made a critical mistake in…

At a critical point in a game against the Cardinals, Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts determined bold action was required.

With Stan Musial at the plate, Tebbetts yanked the Reds’ shortstop from the game and went with an alignment of four outfielders. Tebbetts’ surprise move became the talk of baseball. According to The Sporting News, it was “probably the first four-man outfield formation of its kind ever used in the major leagues.”

Long wait

On May 22, 1954, a Saturday night at St. Louis, the Reds led, 4-2, in the bottom of the eighth when Red Schoendienst singled with two outs against Art Fowler, a 31-year-old rookie who used a quick pitch to keep the Cardinals off stride.

The Cincinnati Enquirer described Fowler as “an old head who knows all the tricks and has all the pitches. He has a fine sense of speeds and seldom makes two pitches alike to a batter.”

Fowler spent 10 seasons in the minors before getting his chance with the 1954 Reds. In explaining why it took him so long to reach the majors, he told the Dayton Journal Herald, “For nine years, I had no ambition whatsoever.”

Decision time

After Schoendienst reached first, up next was Musial, who’d singled twice against Fowler in the game. Musial was perhaps the National League’s best and hottest hitter. He batted .333 in April 1954, and did even better the next month. On May 2, Musial slugged five home runs in a doubleheader against the Giants. In the opener of the Reds series, he belted a grand slam versus Frank Smith. Musial would hit .390 in May 1954.

Knowing Musial was the biggest threat to the Reds’ lead, Tebbetts acted to foil him. Tebbetts, 41, was in his first year as a big-league manager, but he had spent 14 seasons as a catcher in the American League, playing for the likes of managers Mickey Cochrane, Joe Cronin, Joe McCarthy and Al Lopez.

When the Reds hired Tebbetts after he had one season as a manager in the minors, Si Burick of the Dayton Daily News described him as “a gambling type” who will “take advantage of every angle and thinks of everything.” Tebbetts removed shortstop Roy McMillan from the game and replaced him with a fourth outfielder, speedy rookie Nino Escalera.

A month earlier, Escalera and teammate Chuck Harmon made their big-league debuts in back-to-back pinch-hit appearances, integrating the Reds seven years after Jackie Robinson entered the majors. Escalera was a Puerto Rican of African descent and Harmon was an African-American. Boxscore

Plot development

Escalera positioned himself in right-center, joining an outfield of left fielder Cincinnati, center fielder Gus Bell and right fielder Wally Post. The shortstop position was vacant.

“Birdie’s defensive formation against Musial was not something he thought up on the spot,” The Cincinnati Post noted. “For three weeks previous, Birdie talked to his infielders, pitchers, catchers and Nino Escalera about plans for devising shifts against certain dangerous hitters to prevent them from wrecking games for the Reds. Musial happened to be the first one against whom a radical shift was employed. When Birdie sprang it, he probably became the first in major-league history to use this exact sort of a switch in the positions of his players.”

Tebbetts told The Cincinnati Post, “By having the three regular outfielders play their normal positions with Escalera protecting right-center field, we attempted to eliminate the possibility of Musial (hitting) a double or triple, which would score Schoendienst and also put Musial in position to score the tying run.”

As Tebbetts noted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “He’d have a hell of a time getting a ball between those four outfielders spaced so evenly apart.”

Also, if Musial lined a ball against the concrete wall in right or right-center, a fourth outfielder likely would retrieve it on the carom before Musial could advance past first, Tebbetts said.

“With only three outfielders playing for us, the ball might rebound for a double or triple,” Tebbetts told The Sporting News. “I figured that if he did line a ball against the wall, our right fielder, or our right-center fielder, or our center fielder could recover the ball quickly enough to keep Stan from getting more than a single.”

In addition, Tebbetts told The Sporting News, “I had our third baseman, Chuck Harmon, stay close to third to protect the foul line and reduce Musial’s chances of hitting a double past third.”

Tebbetts was unconcerned about Musial trying to push a pitch through the vacated shortstop position for a base hit. “If he should single through our unprotected shortstop position, that would be all right,” Tebbetts said to The Sporting News. “We still would not be in as much danger of losing as if he bounced a double or triple off the fence.”

If Musial opted to try for a single through the shortstop hole, Ray Jablonski would bat with the tying run on first, but Tebbetts said he wasn’t worried about that. “Not because I don’t think Jablonski isn’t a good hitter, but because he’s still not Musial,” Tebbetts told the Post-Dispatch.

Swing shift

All of the maneuvering didn’t matter because Musial struck out swinging to end the threat. According to the Post-Dispatch, Musial was trying to belt a pitch onto the pavilion roof in right for a two-run homer that would tie the score.

“He had to,” Tebbetts said to the St. Louis newspaper. “That’s what they pay him $80,000 a year for _ to go for the long hit in a tight spot. Since I couldn’t play a man on the roof, I did the next best thing by adding a fourth outfielder to prevent the only other kind of hit that would have bothered me _ a double that would have put the tying run in scoring position.”

In the ninth, Tebbetts sent Rocky Bridges in to play shortstop and Escalera was taken out of the game. Fowler retired the Cardinals in order to complete the win. Boxscore

Asked about what would happen if the Reds tried the same alignment against him again, Musial smiled and replied to the Post-Dispatch, “We’ll see. Maybe they’re underestimating Jablonski.”

Tebbetts’ tactic brought him national attention. The Cincinnati Post reported “the most talked about play in baseball today is Tebbetts’ four-man outfield.” The Cincinnati Enquirer called it “one of the most surprising defensive moves in the history of the game.”

The next day, May 23, the Cardinals used an exaggerated shift against the Reds’ Gus Bell, moving fielders to the right side, but he crossed them up with a double to left.

During the 1954 season, the Cardinals shifted heavily toward the right side, leaving only one infielder on the third base side, for Bell and the Braves’ Eddie Matthews. They shifted fielders to the other side for the Cubs’ right-handed sluggers, Ralph Kiner and Hank Sauer. All four consistently beat the shifts by hitting opposite-field doubles and singles. For the 1954 season against the Cardinals, Bell hit .320; Mathews, .304; Kiner, .282; and Sauer, .314.

Postscript

Tebbetts did not try a four-man outfield again in 1954. One of his favorite ploys was to call for sacrifice bunts with one out. He did that 38 times in 1954 and 14 of those paid off, with the next batter driving in the runner from scoring position with two outs.

Tebbetts went on to manage 11 years in the majors with the Reds, Braves and Indians. In 1956, Bob Burnes of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat rated Tebbetts the best manager in the National League “by several thousand miles.” In the book “We Played the Game,” Art Fowler said, “Birdie was the best manager I ever played for.”

Fowler, whose older brother Jesse pitched for the 1924 Cardinals, had three consecutive double-digit win seasons (1954-56) for the Reds. He became the pitching coach on most of the big-league clubs managed by Billy Martin.

The 1954 season was the only one for Nino Escalera in the majors.

Stan Musial finished the 1954 season with a batting mark of .330, including .344 versus the Reds. He hit .353 for his career against Art Fowler.