Gene Bearden's path to the majors is a story of courage and perseverance.

• The native of Lexa AK grew up in Tennessee with Lou Gehrig as his idol.
• He began pitching in the minor leagues in 1940 at age 19.
• Like almost all prospects at that time, his career was interrupted by service in World War II.

Bearden suffered a serious injury while serving on a cruiser in the South Pacific in 1943.

• Three torpedoes struck the USS Helena, eventually sinking it. Machinist's Mate Bearden survived but with his head smashed open and a knee a mass of wounded flesh.
• Drifting in a life boat, he was picked up by a destroyer and spent the next two years in the hospital.
• Surgeons removed some cranial bones and fitted him with a silver replacement. They also inserted a metal hinge in his damaged knee.
• He suffered for the rest of his life with chronic headaches and intermittent optical incidents.
• He self-medicated by drinking ethanol, which made him an alcoholic with all the attendant problems that disease causes.

Gene returned to baseball in 1945.

• He removed any doubts about whether he had recovered sufficiently by winning 15 games at Binghamton of the Eastern League in 1945 and 15 more for Casey Stengel at Oakland in the AAA Pacific Coast League in 1946. Casey recommended Bearden to his friend Bill Veeck, owner of the Cleveland Indians.
• So the minor league P was included in a trade between the Yankees and Cleveland in December 1946.
• He pitched again for Oakland in '47, winning 16 more to earn an invitation to spring training with the Indians the following season.

The pitch that gave Bearden his chance was the knuckleball, which he had practiced since he was a kid.

• Today, his out pitch would be called a "knuckle curve."
• He also threw sliders, sinkers, and changeups. But hitters saw the knuckler 70-80% of the time.
• Because it's thrown without spin, the knuckleball can be very effective because its movement is unpredictable. But that same phenomenon also makes it unreliable.

Gene's knuckler worked in 1948 as he capitalized on the fact that he was new to the league and one of the few southpaw knuckleballers.

• The 27-year-old rookie started the season in the bullpen on a staff headed by Bob Feller and Bob Lemon.
• But player-manager Lou Boudreau started him in the 12th game in Washington.
• Veteran 3B Ken Keltner advised Bearden to "Let them hit it" because of the huge OF distances at Griffith Stadium. Gene followed instructions and won 6-1.
• He ran off three more wins before losing four in a row. But Boudreau stuck with him, and Bearden won eight of his next twelve.

From September 16 on, with the Indians in third place 2.5 behind the Red Sox and 1 under the Yankees, Lou started Gene in five of the remaining 15 games.

• The southpaw won all five games, and the Indians needed every last victory.
  • September 16: Washington 6-3
  • September 20: Philadelphia 6-3
  • September 25: @Detroit 9-3 to tie the Red Sox for first
  • September 28: Chicago 11-0 on two days rest
  • October 2: Detroit 8-0, again with two days rest
• Cleveland finished in a tie with Boston, necessitating the first playoff in American League history.
• Boudreau had no hesitation in choosing Bearden to start the game in Boston with only one day's rest. As Lou explained years later:

Bearden was my best pitcher -- better than Bob Feller, better than Bob Lemon, better than Steve Gromek. He'd come through in the tough games for us all season, and I had absolute confidence in him.

Bearden was calm and collected before the big game.

• He said later that he felt more nervous before his first-ever pitching assignment.
• "He frustrated the Red Sox with his herky-jerky motion and his dead-fish-diving knuckleball" to win 8-3.
• Arthur Daley summarized the contest in the New York Times:

High-powered masterminding strategic concepts and Machiavellian managerial maneuvering are awesomely impressive when they work. Marse Joe McCarthy carefully studied the wind which blew out toward the short left field fence today and abandoned all notions of using his stylish southpaw, Mel Parnell. Instead he gambled on the ancient Denny Galehouse, a cutie on the hill who uses guile in place of speed. However, Lou Boudreau, who probably doesn’t know anything, risked everything on his stylish young southpaw, Gene Bearden. Fenway Park is supposed to be poison on left-handed pitchers, particularly when the wind blows the wrong way. But Bearden fed the poison in large doses to the Red Sox and killed their pennant hopes.

That victory alone, his 20th of the season against seven losses, would have been enough to give Gene a permanent spot in the Cleveland Pantheon. But he added to his legend in the World Series.

• With the Series tied one game apiece, Bearden tossed a two-hitter to shut out the Boston Braves in Cleveland, 2-0, in a snappy 1:36.
• In the sixth game at Braves Field, Bearden relieved Lemon with the bases loaded and one out in the bottom of the eighth and Cleveland leading 4-1.
• After Clint Conatser's SF plated a run, Phil Masi doubled in another.
• With the tying run on third, Gene got Mike McCormick to ground out.
• In the ninth, Gene walked the first batter but got Sibby Sisti to ground into a DP. Tommy Holmes' fly ball gave the Indians their first World Series championship since 1920.

Gene led the AL in ERA with a 2.43 mark. He finished second in the Rookie of the Year voting to Alvin Dark of the Braves.

Veeck and Boudreau looked forward to many more productive years from their southpaw. But he would win only 25 more games scattered across five seasons.

• The Cleveland 1B, Eddie Robinson, recalled in his autobiography Lucky Me: My Sixty-Five Years in Baseball that the seeds of Bearden's demise were sown even before his fabulous rookie season came to a close.

Near the end of the 1948 season we were playing the A's in Philadelphia, and Gene Bearden was pitching for us. Eddie Joost, an intelligent hitter who drew a lot of walks, reached first base. During a brief delay, Eddie said to me, "You know, we're stupid to be swinging at that knuckle curve Bearden throws because it's always a ball." Joost was right; the pitch came to the plate about knee high and quickly broke down and out of the strike zone. Word got around, and the hitters stopped swinging at that pitch after the '48 season. Bearden was never again as effective.

• Nevertheless, Gene started strong in '49, winning his first three starts. Then he pulled a hamstring and tried to come back too quickly. As a result, he went 5-8 the rest of the season and ended with a whopping 5.10 ERA.
• When he started 1950 1-3/6.15, Cleveland put him on waivers and send him to Washington, where he posted a 3-5 mark.
• He made the rounds of three more clubs the next three seasons, each franchise hoping he would recapture the magic of '48, but he never did: Detroit 3-4/4.33, St. Louis Browns (where he reunited with Veeck) 7-8/4.30, and Chicago White Sox 3-3/2.93.
• In 1964, Mel Harder, who was Indians pitching coach in '48, said: It took the league a year to learn to lay off that pitch, so that Gene would fall behind and have to throw his fast ball. Gene didn't have enough to win without that knuckler.

For his one brilliant season, fans elected Bearden to the Cleveland Hall of Fame as one of the top 100 players in franchise history. But his greatest awards were the scars he bore from serving his country as part of "the Greatest Generation."

Youthful Gene Bearden

Casey Stengel

Bill Veeck

Gene Bearden with Indians

Lou Boudreau

Bearden after final out of 1948 World Series

L-R: Joe Gordon, Bob Lemon, Boudreau, and Bearden celebrate

Bearden with Washington

Bearden with Browns

Bearden with White Sox

 

Ned Garver

Zack Taylor

Sherm Lollar

Roy Sievers

Ned Garver signed with the St. Louis Browns when he was 18 and fresh out of high school in rural Ohio.

• Ned had learned an effective changeup at age 18 in D ball. A good hitter, he often played the outfield and pinch hit.
• After he went 17-14 at AA San Antonio in 1947, he made the Browns' roster for the '48 season

Garver led the AL in losses in 1949 with 17 while toiling for the 7th-place Browns.

• After going 7-11 his rookie year, the second-year righthander won 12 games while completing exactly half of his 32 starts. His ERA was 3.98.
• In 1950, he tied Cleveland's ace, Bob Lemon, for the league lead in complete games with 22 while compiling a 13-18 record. He posted the AL's second-beat ERA at 3.39. He also led the Browns in hitting with a .286 average in 91 ABs.

1951 proved to be Ned's career year.

• Manager Zack Taylor had just two other quality players besides Ned: C Sherm Lollar and slugging 1B Roy Sievers, who had won the AL Rookie of the Year Award in 1949.
• Garver took the mound on opening day but didn't last past the six-run second as Chicago romped, 17-3.
• He bounced back to win his next three decisions, defeating Lemon 9-1, then garnering a victory in relief at Detroit before besting the Indians again, 6-3. Those three wins constituted the club's entire total after eleven games.
• In his next start, Garver pitched well but lost 2-0 to Boston.

Ned's next start demonstrates how different baseball was sixty years ago,

• He pitched all nine innings in a 13-10 victory over the Tigers.
• Far from tiring, he finished with three scoreless innings to move his record to 4-2.
• Despite 29 hits, the game lasted just 2:36.

Illustrating another difference from today's baseball, Ned appeared in relief just two days later.

• He allowed one run the last 4 1/3 innings of the 11-8 win over the Athletics in Philadelphia.
• Garver lost to Allie Reynolds at Yankee Stadium 6-1 before reeling off four straight victories.
• He beat Detroit 8-3, shutout Boston 4-0, and cruised against the A's 10-1. Then he endured another slugfest, giving up 18 hits but going the route in a 10-9 triumph over the Washington Senators. Taylor obviously felt more confident with a tired Garver holding a lead than any reliever he could bring in.
• If you aren't counting along at home, that made his record 9-3, giving him over half the Browns' 17 wins.
• On June 16, the Red Sox got revenge for his earlier shutout by scoring 10 runs on only 6 hits - but helped by seven walks - to end his winning streak, 9-5.

That month, the DeWitt family, long-time owners of the lowly Browns, sold the club to Bill Veeck.

• Garver got no decision again until July 1 when he beat the White Sox 3-1.
• He bested Chicago again five days later, 4-1.
• When the All-Star break came, Ned had accounted for exactly half of his team's wins.
• With an 11-4 record, Garver would have made the AL All-Star squad even if the rule requiring at least one player from every team were not in effect.
• Ned started the game, pitching the maximum three innings and allowing only one hit and an unearned run.

Continued below ...

• He beat the Red Sox 3-1 on his first start, then twirled his fourth consecutive complete game, losing to the Yankees 1-0.
• Next, he beat the 7th-place Philadelphia A's 5-4 in another complete-game effort.
• He took the hill on July 31 in Fenway Park but had to lead in the fifth inning because he had pulled a leg muscle in the top of the inning while rounding first base after driving in two runs. The ageless Satchell Paige came in and got the victory.

Garver missed one turn but returned to action a week later.

• He lost to Yankees 6-2 as he started another complete game streak. His record was now 14-6.
• On August 19, Ned lost the first game of a DH against the Tigers 5-2. The second game that day saw the debut of Eddie Gaedel, a midget that owner Bill Veeck hired to add some spice to the game. Wearing uniform number 1/8, Eddie walked in his only ML at-bat, AL President Will Harridge ruling him ineligible the next day.
• Five days later, Garver had a more direct role in another of Veeck's stunts. Ned started the game in which the 1,115 fans behind home plate became managers, holding up signs saying yes or no to advise Manager Zack Taylor.
• After five of the first six batters reached base, the PA announcer asked the Grandstand Managers if the Browns should warm up a P. Most voted no. Ned rewarded their confidence with a 5-3 victory, his eleventh straight over the A's.
• The next game brought one of Garver's few shellings of the season, a 15-2 drubbing by the Yanks.
• He lost his second in a row to the Indians, 5-1. But five days later, he got revenge by beating Cleveland 4-2 to knock them out of first place.
• September 13 in Boston, he lost to Mel Parnell, 5-4. At 16-12, his chance of getting 20 wins seemed slim. But he won #17 in Washington on the 18th, 3-2.
• Four days later, he beat the White Sox, 5-1. Two to go to 20.
• Back home, he conquered the Tigers 7-1. One to go.
• He toed the slab on the final Sunday of the season. 12,000 turned out to root for Ned. Tied with the White Sox 4-4 in the bottom of the fourth, Ned hit his first homer of the year to give the Browns the lead for good. The 9-5 win put him in the select club.
• The last time a P had won 20 games for a last place team was 1924 when Hollis Thurston did it for Chicago.

Ned finished with a 3.79 ERA on team whose entire staff gave up 5.17 earned runs per contest.

• He led the league in complete games with 24.
• He also batted .305 in 95 ABs.
• Amazingly, he finished second to Yogi Berra in the MVP voting.

Garver was traded to Detroit near the end of the '52 season and pitched for them and the Kansas City Athletics through 1961. But his next best year was 1954 with the Tigers: 14-11 and a 2.81 ERA.

 

Ned Garver

Eddie Gaedel

Bill Veeck's Grandstand Managers

Reference: One Shining Season, Michael Fedo | Top of Page

It didn't take long for the legend of Joe Charboneau to form in Cleveland.

• Signed by the Phillies, he quit baseball in his second minor league season because of clashes with management.
• Given a second chance, he hit .350 in class A ball in 1978. But after a barroom brawl, he was traded in the off-season to the Indians.
• Cleveland moved him up to AA where he kept up his torrid pace at .352.
• So he arrived at the Indians' 1980 spring training with questions about whether he could produce anywhere close to those numbers in the Big Show.
• Before the end of spring ball, he was already called "Super Joe." On March 28, he hit his fourth HR of the spring and was batting .380. One scout called the 24-year-old right-handed batter "one helluva hitter, a natural with power." Another described him as "a good, solid hitter. He hits the ball on the sweet part of the bat."
• But bizarre events began to happen to him. When the Indians played several games in Mexico City, a man stabbed Joe in the side with a ball-point pen outside the hotel after Joe refused to sign an auto­graph.
• Joe's hitting overrode his shaky fielding and weak arm. After losing his best outfielder, Andre Thornton, to a knee injury, Manager Dave Garcia installed Charboneau in LF for the season opener.
• Fans began wondering whom the Indians traded to Philadelphia to obtain Super Joe. The answer was Cardell Camper, who was cut by the Phillies farm system. For once, a franchise that hadn't finished higher than 4th since 1968 had put one over on another club.

Charboneau kept on hitting when the season started.

• He hit .354 in April and, though he couldn't maintain that pace, he ended the season at .289 while leading the team in HRs with 23 and RBIs with 87. His slugging % of .488 also topped the Tribe.
• The highlight of his year was a homer into the third deck of Yankee Stadium on June 28. Only two players had previously reached that section: Jimmie Foxx and Frank Howard. Joe later recalled the blast:
  
  I remember it like it was yesterday. Tom Underwood, a left-hander, was pitching for the Yankees. It was the first time I ever faced him, and I got ahead in the count 3-and-1, and looked for a fastball in, which I got. I swung, and I never hit a ball better. As I was going around 2B, I looked up to where the ball landed and thought to myself that I'd probably never hit another ball like that again. And I never did. It was a once-in-a-life­time swing. Later they told me it was one of the three longest HRs ever hit in Yankee Stadium. Imagine that! Yankee Stadium, the "House That Ruth Built." The whole thing was unbelievable. It seemed like the ball carried forever.
  
  
• His performance earned him the AL Rookie of the Year award in a run­away with 73% of the votes.
• A song was written about him.
  Who's the newest guy in town?
  Go Joe Charboneau.
  Turns the ballpark upside down.
  Go Joe Charboneau.
  Who's the one to keep our hopes alive, straight from seventh to the pennant drive?
  Raise your glass, let out a cheer for Cleveland's Rookie of the Year!

 

Dave Garcia

Third deck in LF in old Yankee Stadium