Meet the Brewers #44: Wayne Twitchell

As is usual in September for teams going nowhere, the 1970 Brewers called up a few guys from the minors to give them an opportunity to be around the big club and dip their toes into the big league waters. Such was the case on September 7, 1970, when another tall righty pitcher from the Brewers system made his debut in the first game of a doubleheader.

Six-foot, six-inch tall Wayne Twitchell was summoned from the bullpen for the bottom of the fifth inning with the Brewers having rebounded in the top of the inning from 7-1 down to pull within 7-4 against the Minnesota Twins. Twitchell was tossed into the deep end -- he was asked to face the heart of the Twins order...the 4-5-6 hitters. The first guy Twitchell ever faced in the big leagues was Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, and Twitchell struck him out. In fact, Twitchell struck out all three guys he got for outs in his first inning of work -- sandwiching an error by Roberto Pena and a walk in between each out.

1971 Topps/O-Pee-Chee

Wayne Lee Twitchell was born on March 10, 1948 in Portland, Oregon. As is often the case for players in this era, Twitchell was a multisport star in high school and was named to the Oregon All-State team in both football and baseball. According to the excellent SABR biography for Twitchell, he had the chance to play college football at Arizona State. If he had done that, he would have been following in his father's footsteps, as his dad was a standout running back for Oregon State in the 1930s. 

When decision time came, however, a new option had arisen. Twitchell was selected third overall in the 1966 MLB Draft by the Houston Astros -- behind complete washout Steve Chilcott and Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson. Twitchell's dad had warned Wayne that his family had a history of knee problems, and those problems would have only been exacerbated by trying to play football. 

So, baseball it was. Twitchell was known for being a hard thrower with questionable command, and he toiled for four up-and-down seasons in the Astros organization. As he put it himself, "I always seem[ed] to have the knack of always bringing the teacher out in people. I was taught close to 20 different deliveries, which complicated things." 

The Astros gave up on Twitchell in November of 1969 and sold his contract to the Seattle Pilots. Twitchell was ecstatic to be pitching back in the Pacific Northwest. That ecstasy was dashed when the team was sold and moved to Milwaukee, but Twitchell spent 1970 at home in Portland in Triple-A -- and met his future wife that year as well. 

Twitchell only appeared in 2 games for the Brewers in September of 1970. His second outing was much worse than the first, as he gave up three hits and two earned runs in 2/3 of an inning. Interestingly, Twitchell recorded those two outs by way of a strikeout as well. So, for his Brewers "career," Twitchell has a K/9 of 27. Only the immortal Ray Krawcyzk of the 1989 Brewers finished with more Ks and a K/9 of 27, striking out 6 in 2 innings of work on April 28, 1989 in his only Brewers appearance.

Still, things between Twitchell and Milwaukee were not good. Twitchell's SABR bio quotes him as saying that he "just didn't fit in with Milwaukee. They had their ideas about pitching and it wasn't about my style. I was a fastball pitcher and they were trying to make me into a spot pitcher." This quote makes me wonder if, perhaps, the organizational ethos over the years held back the team from developing pitchers. Obviously things changed a lot in the early years, and that couldn't have helped either.

1994 Miller 25th Anniversary Set

Despite being a 22-year-old pitcher with a history of being a first round pick and for whatever reason, the Brewers gave up on Twitchell quickly as well. At the end of spring training in 1971, Twitchell was traded to Philadelphia for minor league outfielder Patrick Srkable. Skrable played one year of 70 games in Triple-A for Milwaukee and was done. Twitchell himself said that he almost quit baseball after he was traded. 

Thankfully for him, he was sent first to Triple-A Eugene in Oregon. Surrounded by family and his new wife and having a manager in Andy Seminick who left him alone, Twitchell pitched for the last time in the minor leagues -- because he spent the next 9 seasons in the major leagues. Called up to the majors in 1971, Twitchell blossomed in Philadelphia and made the All-Star team in 1973.

Unfortunately, just as Wayne was getting on a roll, those knee problems from the Twitchell family history kicked up. Billy Williams of the Chicago Cubs was trying to beat out an infield single on September 18, 1973 at Wrigley Field and slid head first into Twitchell's knee. That was the end of his season and led to a four-hour surgery and eight weeks in a full leg cast. The rehab was brutal and necessary; his doctor told him that if he didn't follow his rehab to the tee "you'll never walk normal again."

From that 1973 season, it was downhill. Twitchell stayed in Philadelphia into 1977, with his only real success being in 1976 -- a 1.75 ERA and a 3.72 K/BB ratio working mainly as a reliever. Stats like that make me wonder if he wasn't misplaced in the starting rotation. He was traded in 1977 to the Expos on June 15, and stayed there through the 1978 season. In 1979, he pitched in 33 games for the Mets before his contract was purchased in August of 1979 by Seattle. Finally getting to pitch for his "hometown" team had to be a pleasure for him, but he was released after the season and was done with baseball.

After his baseball career, he moved back to Oregon and became a commercial real-estate broker. He fought cancer for quite some time, but lost that battle on September 16, 2010, aged just 62 years old.

The three cards that picture Twitchell as a Brewer are shown above. I don't have any of the 1971 cards, as that card is from the difficult-to-find high number set. Weirdly, by the time that the card came out, Twitchell had long since been traded to Philly, but I guess that card had been designed long before. It's also weird to me that the Brewers/Miller used a New York Mets photo for his 1994 Miller card -- I guess it's all they could find.

Meet the Brewers #43: Floyd Wicker

On September 4, 1970, two dead-end teams were playing out the string in front of a disinterested collection of less than 12,000 people in an almost entirely pointless one-game series on the Friday before Labor Day in Milwaukee. The 49-90 Chicago White Sox limped into Milwaukee in the middle of what would become the Sox's longest losing streak of the season -- 8 games. For their part, the Brewers were not any great shakes either, as the second year team was carrying a 52-85 record.

Brewer #43, outfielder Floyd Wicker, joined the festivities as a pinch hitter for Bernie Smith in the bottom of the eighth inning; Wicker promptly tapped out to the pitcher for the final out of the inning, stranding Tommy Harper at second and then replaced Smith in RF. Yet, Wicker would eventually be the hero of the game. The slog between the two worst teams in the American League went into extra innings tied at 2, and Wicker broke the tie with a single in the bottom of the 10th to drive in Harper for the walk-off victory.

1971 Dell Today's Team Stamps. Wicker's airbrushed Expos hat is in the Brewers' book.

Floyd Euliss Wicker was born in Burlington, North Carolina in 1943. He went to East Carolina University for one season as a 16-year-old, turning 17 in the fall of that freshman year. As a freshman, his team won the NAIA national championship. According to the ECU yearbook for that year, Wicker was the third baseman for that team. 

The major league rules being what they were at the time, his ability drew attention from scouts and he signed after just one year of college with the St. Louis Cardinals. Wicker did an interview in 2012 on a blog called The Baseball Historian where he stated that he had had the chance to sign as a professional right out of high school, but he chose a year of college near home instead.

He played in the Cardinals system in Classes C and D at the ages of 17 and 18 for his first two years in the minors, and he then moved up to A ball in 1963. At that point, his career was interrupted by two years of military service. He still played three to five games a week in the service, but it is hard to say that he faced the same level of competition there as he would have in the majors. 

1971 Topps/O-Pee-Chee

Wicker came back to the Cardinals organization in 1965. He was pushed to Double-A in 1966 and responded with a big season -- .303/.392/.417. He followed that up with a creditable year in 1967 at Triple-A Tulsa and a good spring in 1968 such that he put himself on the Cardinals radar for when their other outfielders had to serve their military service. As such, in 1968, Wicker made his big-league debut on June 23 as a pinch hitter. He appeared in 5 games for St. Louis in total, all as a pinch hitter or pinch runner.

Apparently, that was not enough for the Cardinals to make sure that Wicker was on their 40-man roster, however, and the Montreal Expos swiped him from the Cardinals in the Rule 5 draft after the 1968 season. The Expos gave him 41 plate appearances -- all but one against right-handed pitching for the lefty-hitting Wicker -- and he struggled mightily with an anemic slash line of .103/.146/.103. In fairness, it's tough enough to hit in the major leagues, but it's even tougher when you only get 24 plate appearances between May 16 and September. On the other hand, you don't help yourself when you fail to get a hit in any of those 24 plate appearances.

That Rule 5 season turned into a lost year for Wicker -- one he never got back developmentally. As soon as the season ended, Wicker was named as the player-to-be-named later in a trade in which the Expos received Marv Staehle from the Seattle Pilots. 

Wicker spent most of 1970 in Portland and had an excellent year in AAA -- .329/.441/.521 with 14 HR and 78 BB in 471 plate appearances. He also featured in a Ray Peters story, in that Ray used Floyd's bat to hit the one and only professional home run that Ray ever hit -- a grand slam for the Beavers the week before Ray got married. 

Thus, Wicker got a call up to the Brewers in September. Wicker then played in 11 games in 1971 starting April 30 and ending May 30 for Milwaukee. Again, he struggled for playing time -- getting only 10 plate appearances and never getting a start for the Brewers. He was then traded on June 1, 1971 to the San Francisco Giants in exchange for utility infielder Bob Heise. 

1994 Miller 25th Anniversary commemorative set

Wicker's professional baseball career ended in 1971. As he detailed in an interview in The Times News (Burlington, NC) in 2012, even though he stopped being a pro, he still loved the game. After he left baseball, he went to work for the United States Postal Service for 33 years, retiring in 2005. During that time, he helped out the Southern Alamance High School and Middle School baseball teams and even coached American Legion ball in the 1980s. 

Wicker still shows up in newspapers in the area of North Carolina where he lives. The 2012 article above was done in conjunction with his receipt of the Distinguished Service in Sports Award that he received from the Alamance County Sports Development Counsel. The article notes his heavy involvement with the North Carolina Baseball Museum and his role in getting two teams from the 1910s from his old high school recognized there as champions. Many of the articles with him involved are for golf tournaments for fundraising for that Museum. 

Floyd Wicker has 4 total cards as a Milwaukee Brewer as shown above. I actually own all of them.

Meet the Brewers #42: Pete Koegel

When rosters expanded in September of 1970, the Brewers were quick to make some moves. 

One of the moves made no difference on the field but made every difference in the world to a long-time Milwaukeean: the Brewers signed Harvey Kuenn to a free agent contract and placed him on the active roster to allow him to accrue additional service time to max out his MLB pension. The 39-year-old Kuenn did not get an at bat -- unsurprising since he had been serving as a coach all year and had not played in the majors since 1966. But, it was the thought that counted to Harvey; he became a fierce supporter of Bud Selig from that point forward.

Another more run-of-the-mill transaction also occurred on September 1: minor leaguers getting called up to get a cup of coffee in the majors. Such was the case for Brewers prospect Pete Koegel. Koegel came in to pinch hit in the bottom of the sixth inning for starting pitcher Lew Krausse against Twins ace Jim Perry, who won his 20th game that day and went on to win 24. Alas, Pete tapped out to Perry in his first ever major league at bat. Koegel went on to bat just 9 times total that September, but he did hit his first and only major league homer on September 25 against a guy who should be in the Hall of Fame -- Tommy John.

1971 Topps/O-Pee-Chee

Peter John Koegel was born and raised in Seaford, New York, which is on Long Island about three or four towns west of Amityville and south of the famous suburb Levittown. Koegel was drafted straight out of high school by the Kansas City Athletics in the fourth round of the first-ever draft. 

Koegel was known for his prodigious power even in high school. He was voted the most valuable player in the Hearst Sandlot Classic, played August 21, 1965 in Yankee Stadium, after slamming a 420-foot triple just shy of the auxiliary scoreboard in deep left field in old Yankee Stadium. He received the MVP trophy from Lou Gehrig's widow, Eleanor, days before signing for a $45,000 bonus with the A's. 

Thanks to that bonus and his hitting skills, Koegel was immediately assigned to the Midwest League for his first minor league experience. As an 18-year-old who was about 3 years younger than the average player, he slashed .233/.319/.450 and smacked 21 HR and even stole 10 bases. His team paced the league with 117 HR that season, so he may have been the beneficiary of a favorable home park -- the next highest was 93, and the worst was the San Francisco affiliate, which hit 23 as a team! Still, Koegel hit homers throughout his minor league career everywhere he went, finishing his career with 175 HRs in 1238 minor league games (4722 plate appearances, .248/.335/.429 slash line).

Koegel joined the A's at the time that they were putting together quite a good farm system. During spring training in 1967, he was vying for playing time against such notables as Joe Rudi and Reggie Jackson in the outfield and Dave Duncan at catcher. 

Even in the Arizona rookie league in 1966, he had to contend with future big leaguer Ted Ford, and the A's also had future Brewer Sal Bando playing the position a step higher in the organization.That rookie league team was stacked. It included Rick Monday, Dave Nelson, Cito Gaston, Reggie Jackson, Duffy Dyer, and Rollie FIngers. Later in his career, he shared minor league fields with Vida Blue, Gene Tenace, and Skip Lockwood. The A's did some great player identification work in that 1965 draft.

1994 Miller Commemorative Set

As Koegel worked his way up in the A's system, the biggest problem he had was finding a position. He played third in Arizona, outfield in his first pro season, first base and outfield in his second season, and mostly outfield after that. But when you're behind and play the same position as Joe Rudi, Rick Monday, and Reggie Jackson, you become expendable quickly. 

As a result, Koegel joined the Pilots organization in August of 1969 when the now-Oakland A's decided they wanted Jim Bouton's archenemy Fred Talbot and sent Koegel and Bob Meyer (Brewer #14) to Seattle. It was in the Milwaukee system that an attempt to put Koegel behind the plate as a catcher was tried -- just to get him on the field. 

Koegel went on to play in just nine total games for the Brewers -- 7 in 1970 and 2 in 1971. He was then shipped out by Frank "Trader" Lane along with friend of the blog Ray Peters to the Philadelphia Phillies for John Briggs on April 22, 1971.

Nothing personal, Ray or Pete, but I think Lane got the better of that deal. Maybe it was due to Ray messing up his shoulder in 1971, but Briggs spent parts of 5 seasons with Milwaukee and hit 80 HRs with the club and sported an OPS+ of 131 (31% above league average) over that time.

2018 Topps Heritage Pilots Autograph

After that trade to the Phillies, Koegel appeared in a total of 20 games in the major leagues, with 12 of those appearances being at catcher. Thanks to those 12 games, however, Pete is still the owner of a major league record: at 6-feet-6-inches tall, Pete is tied with Don Gile and Grayson Greiner as the tallest players ever to play catcher in the major leagues. Greiner is the most recent of the three to play, making his debut last year in May.

Because Ray Peters is still in contact with Pete, I asked Ray to ask Pete if the measurement of 6'6" tall was legitimate or if it was like college football measurements -- you know, a little bit of "extra" getting added in to improve appearances. Pete passed along that this is a legitimate measurement -- and in fact shorts him by 1/2"! He was measured at 6'6-1/2" by the United States Government for his military draft physical -- and that half inch meant that he was too tall for military service!

For what it's worth, the 1970 Milwaukee Brewers in spring training had the beginning of a good pickup basketball team. With Pete at 6'6-1/2" tall and with Ray Peters measuring nearly exactly the same, the team also had Gene Brabender at 6'5" tall, Wayne Twitchell at 6'6" tall, and 1971 debutante Bill Parsons also standing 6'6". Add in Don Bryant, who was a Rule V draftee (who was returned to the Astros) and stood about 6'5" tall as well, and you can go 6 players deep!

Ray also passed along a great story that Pete told about height. Pete was watching the MLB game of the week, and Tim McCarver was interviewing Dave Winfield. Winfield also stands a legitimate 6'6" tall, and he made two innings of appearances at third base. Winfield then claimed to be the tallest ever third baseman, and McCarver quickly corrected him to say that no, Pete Koegel is taller than you and he played 4 games at third in 1972.

Finally, Pete was a prodigious hitter in the winter leagues. While I am not sure what records he set with Leones, this Pinterest page says he has some. Plus, it gave us this great shot of Pete after the 1970s caught up to his facial hair:

My thanks to Ray Peters for giving me some great stories from Pete and about Pete, and thank you for reading. Koegel's three Brewers/Pilots cards are shown above, and I am missing the autographed 2018 Pilots Heritage card from last year.

Meet the Brewers #41: Dick Ellsworth

On August 7, 1970, the Brewers purchased Dick Ellsworth's contract from the Cleveland Indians. Ellsworth hurried to Kansas City from Cleveland -- where his final two appearances were both walk-off losses over the previous weekend against the Chicago White Sox. Ellsworth arrived in Kansas City in time to give up three earned runs in mop-up time in the second game of a doubleheader. Luckily for Ellsworth's future employment, however, those would be the final runs he allowed all season as he finished the year with the Brewers on a run of 15-1/3 scoreless innings.

1971 Dell Today's Team Stamp, issued in the Brewers team set.

Richard Clark Ellsworth was born in Lusk, Wyoming, in 1940. Thankfully, Ellsworth has a SABR Biography, so I am drawing liberally from that biography. Ellsworth's family moved to Fresno, California, when he was three years old. Ellsworth grew up there and became the ace for a Fresno High School team that featured (including Ellsworth) three noteworthy future major-league players -- including Jim Maloney and Pat Corrales. Other noteworthy Fresno HS alumni include Frank Chance, Dutch Leonard, Tom Seaver, and former Brewer Sean Halton.

Ellsworth was quite heavily pursued for his signature on a contract out of high school. As his SABR biography quotes him, "Before I graduated I received at least one Christmas greeting from a scout on every major league club." Based on getting a cool $60,000 bonus (nearly $521,000 in today's money), he signed up with the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs decided to start him in their annual crosstown charity event against the White Sox, and Ellsworth promptly pitched a complete-game shutout three days out of high school. So, the Cubs kept him on the roster and let him start against the Reds -- who rocked the kid for 4 earned runs in 2-1/3 innings.

The Cubs were pretty hard up for pitching at that point of their existence, so Ellsworth became a rotation fixture just two years later, in 1960. At the age of 22 in 1962, Ellsworth joined a club of dubious membership -- finishing the season with a 9-20 record (and a 5.09 ERA) for a team that was the first in Cubs history to lose 100 games. 

The next year in 1963, however, the team around him was far better, and Ellsworth got both better run support and super lucky on giving up hits (going from over 10 hits per nine innings to 6.9 hits per nine). He finished 22-10 in 290-2/3 innings pitched and, according to WAR, he edged MVP Sandy Koufax out for being the best pitcher in the NL (Willie Mays beat both of them). The team being better mattered because Ellsworth relied on a sinker as his out pitch, and he learned a slider. Offseason rule changes to expand the strike zone also helped.

1971 Topps

That 1963 season led to Ellsworth being an All-Star in 1964 at the age of 24. He did not get to pitch in a game which the NL won by putting up four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning against Boston's closer Dick Radatz. That 1964 Cubs team came into the season with great expectations that were deflated quickly by the off-season death of Ken Hubbs in a plane crash in Utah (as Ellsworth himself said here). Yet, by far, that 1963 season was the pinnacle of Ellsworth's career.  1965 and 1966 saw the Cubs return to the depths of 1962, and Ellsworth's win-loss records reflected that -- 14-15 in 1965 and another 20-loss season in 1966 (finishing with an 8-22 record).

Since in 1960s baseball being a 20-game loser meant you were morally a bad person -- even if, as Willie McCovey said, the players recognized that Ellsworth's win-loss records was "misleading" -- the Cubs traded Ellsworth to the Phillies in December of 1966 in exchange for Ray Culp and cash. He struggled in Philadelphia, and so he found himself traded again after the 1967 season to the Boston Red Sox. Coming off the "Impossible Dream" season, the Red Sox were trying to improve their pitching, and Ellsworth did exactly that. 

Unfortunately, Boston ace (and future Brewer) Jim Lonborg got injured in a ski accident shortly after Ellsworth was acquired, so Ellsworth ended up as the Red Sox Opening Day starter in 1968. Still, a 16-7 record with a 3.03 ERA (well-deserved, with a 3.04 FIP) despite missing several starts in August thanks to contracting the mumps in August was a good return for the Bosox. But, when it came to 1969, Ellsworth chipped his ankle during spring training. The injury -- along with Boston's self-scouting hinting that he'd lost some speed off his fastball -- led Boston to trade him to Cleveland.

1994 Miller Commemorative Set

Looking at Ellsworth's stats may give a little support for the Red Sox view on his fastball. His strikeouts declined from 4.9 K/9 in 1968 down to 3.2 K/9 in 1969. Then, in 1970 with the Indians, Ellsworth was down to just 2.7 K/9 and up to 2.9 BB/9 prior to his sale to Milwaukee. Ellsworth's great results down the stretch in 1970 did not carry over into 1971, however, and Ellsworth made just 11 appearances for the Brewers in 1971 before he was released at the end of June. He never played in professional baseball again.

But, he was not done with baseball. He was very successful in real estate with Grubb & Ellis/Pearson Realty in Fresno and he is still a Senior Vice President with that company's successor company, Newmark Knight Frank. In fact, he was so successful that he purchased an ownership stake in the Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies. He also had the privilege of getting to see his son Steve Ellsworth make 8 appearances in 1988 for the Boston Red Sox. Steve did not have as long or as successful a baseball career as his dad did, though.

I have three of the four baseball cards that the Trading Card Database has Ellsworth listed as a Brewer. The one I am missing -- and which is missing from here -- is Ellsworth's 1971 O-Pee-Chee card #309. 

Meet the Brewers #40: Bruce Brubaker

On August 5, 1970, Wisconsin native Gene Brabender got knocked out of the box early in the game -- getting hammered by the Chicago White Sox for 6 earned runs on 4 hits and 3 walks in just 1-2/3 innings. Bob Humphreys relieved Brabender ably, giving the team 4-1/3 innings and allowing only one unearned run. To finish out the game, Dave Bristol brought in a 28-year-old pitcher who had made only one other appearance in the majors (and it was in 1967) to finish the game -- Bruce Brubaker. That August 5, 1970 game would be Brubaker's only Brewer appearance, and it would be his last in the majors.

1994 Miller Commemorative Set

Bruce Ellsworth Brubaker Jr. was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, on December 29, 1941. He graduated high school in 1959 at the age of 17 and was a schoolboy phenom -- having pitched in 5 games and giving up a total of 4 hits in those games. Thanks to his high school success, a bidding war for his services broke out, with the Phillies, Orioles, Dodgers, Pirates, Reds, Tigers, White Sox, and Braves all in the competition. Oddly enough, the winner was neither the Pirates nor the Phillies, but instead the Milwaukee Braves, who gave Brubaker a $35,000 bonus to sign.

The Sporting News cited Braves scout John Ogden as saying that Brubaker had a great wrist snap on his pitches and had pinpoint control. Credit for that wrist snap was given to Bruce's father, Bruce Sr., but not because of his baseball skills. No, Bruce Sr. was cited as being "the world's champion bait-caster for accuracy, having won the title [in 1957] in Brussels, Belgium." So, when Bruce Jr. was able, his dad started taking him fly-fishing and teaching him how to use a casting rod.

I was able to get in touch with Brubaker via email. He had fond memories of his time with the Braves. No one gave him a hard time about that big signing bonus at all and no one hazed him at all either. Instead, he only had great memories about dinner and a night out on the town in Bradenton, Florida, with the great Ed Mathews and pitching star Bob Buhl.

Being as young as he was, Brubaker worked his way up fairly slowly through the Braves system. It took him until his fifth season in the minors to reach Triple-A -- by which time he'd already been traded to Detroit for pitcher Pat Jarvis. On multiple occasions with the Tigers, Brubaker received plaudits for being a top pitching prospect and for having the best curveball in the International League. These honors gave him opportunities to go to spring training with the Tigers to win a roster spot, but the results in spring often did not follow his talent level. 

Looking at his minor league stats, it looks a bit like Brubaker was brought down by the lack of understanding of stats beyond wins and losses. He had very good control for most of his minor league career, giving up just 3.0 BB/9 innings, and his strikeout levels tended to run in the 6 K/9 range -- which at the time was excellent.

Brubaker only has one Milwaukee card. I found this through Google Images.

Eventually, the Tigers left Brubaker off their roster and available for the Rule 5 Draft. The Phillies pounced, but once again his work in the spring led him to be sent to the minors. Syracuse (Detroit, really) passed on reacquiring him, so the Phillies sent him to the Pacific Coast League in 1966 to be a Padre. 

He only lasted a year with the Phillies system. His talents led the Los Angeles Dodgers to pick him up in the Rule 5 draft. He got his first taste of major league ball there as a 25-year-old, pitching 1-1/3 innings in mop-up duty early in the year. He was optioned to the minor leagues again, and he spent all of 1967, 1968, and 1969 in Spokane. After the 1969 season, the Dodgers traded him to the Brewers in exchange for pitcher Jerry Stephenson, who had pitched in five seasons for the Boston Red Sox before being a Pilot for a year.

After making his single Brewers appearance in 1970, he found himself back in the minor leagues in Portland in 1971. But 1971 was the beginning of the end of Brubaker's baseball career. As Bruce told me by email, he had a game against Indianapolis where he threw over 200 pitches and, unbeknownst to him, he strained his shoulder. He started the American Association All-Star game, and then went on the DL. For the rest of 1971, he rested his shoulder and hoped it would heal -- but it did not. So, after just three games and five innings in 1972 at Evansville, he retired. 

Some other tidbits from my correspondence with Bruce Brubaker:

• Some of his favorite teammates included Wade Blasingame, John Miller, Sal Bando, Pat Dobson, Ray Orlikowski and Arnold Umbach
• Bruce became a successful businessman after baseball. He started as a car salesman for Ford. He parlayed success as a salesman into purchasing a Ford-Lincoln-Mazda dealership in Owensboro, Kentucky. 
• That dealership was successful enough that he was able to purchase two more dealerships that his sons Bruce III and Tyler run
• He and his wife Leda will celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary this year. They have homes in Owensboro and in Naples and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and he is happy to sign autographs for people resourceful enough to find an address for him.

Brubaker never appeared as a Brewer on a baseball card during his career, so his 1994 Miller Brewing Company card is the only one for him in my collection. He appeared on two Topps cards, though -- in 1965 as a Tiger Rookie with Bill Roman and in 1967 as a Dodger. Then, in 2016, Topps featured him in Heritage as a "Real One Autograph" on his 1967 card.

It's great to get to correspond with guys like Bruce Brubaker. As he put it in closing his email to me, he had "no regrets and I don't know of anything I would have done differently. Playing for all those different managers sure showed me how to manage people and also some showed me how not to!"

My thanks to Bruce Brubaker for taking the time to answer my emailed questions and to you for reading.

Meet the Brewers #39: Bernie Smith

It's about time that I get back to writing about one of my favorite interests: the history of the Brewers. Today, we get to Brewer #39, Bernie Smith. Bernie debuted with the Brewers by playing in both halves of a July 31 doubleheader in which the Brewers were swept by the New York Yankees. 

1971 Topps

Calvin Bernard Smith has an incredible story for a man who who only played in 59 games and got 127 plate appearances between 1970 and 1971 as his entire big-league career. Smith was 28 years old -- almost 29 -- when he made his debut in Milwaukee. He got his first hit in the nightcap of the doubleheader: an infield single off Fritz Peterson. How Smith arrived at that point in time, though, is the intriguing part.

He was listed at 5'9" tall and allegedly weighed 164 pounds. In the two long articles about him that I have read, however, Bernie immediately laughed those numbers off and admitted that he might reach 5'7" tall in spikes and played at 152 pounds. Being so slight of stature hampered his opportunities. While he attended Southern University in Baton Rouge -- a school which 30 years later produced Brewers first round pick Rickie Weeks -- Bernie Smith did not play baseball at Southern. He was too busy trying to get signed to play pro baseball.

His efforts to get signed led him to simply show up in Columbus, Georgia, in 1962 in the spring at Mets minor-league training camp. By "simply show up," I don't mean that Mr. Smith hopped in his car and drove from his hometown of Lutcher, Louisiana, to Columbus. Oh no. Despite being a black man in the Jim Crow South travelling over 400 miles on the hopes of getting a shot to play minor league baseball and despite that timeframe being in the wake of the Freedom Rider movement, Bernie Smith hitchhiked the 400+ mile trip to ask for a tryout.

That took serious guts and serious self-belief.

1971 O-Pee-Chee

He played well enough to get signed to play at Class D Auburn in the New York-Penn League. Not long after, he became a regular outfielder. As the year progressed, Bernie proved to be the best player on the team and was named the Auburn Mets MVP for the year. 

The Baby Mets ended up winning the playoffs of the NY-Penn League that year. Despite his starring role on the team, however, Bernie was not going to be able to afford coming from Lutcher all the way to upstate New York for the annual Mets baseball dinner. As the February 23, 1963, The Sporting News article noted, Bernie was the lowest paid player on that team, so not being able to afford getting to the dinner is perhaps unsurprising. But he made the dinner anyway -- because the guards and prisoners at the state penitentiary in Auburn chipped in to thank him for the excitement of the previous season to pay for Smith to come to Auburn by bus. The article noted that they raised enough money so that "Bernie could eat steaks during the trip."

Despite the auspicious debut in Class D, Smith hardly became a top prospect in the Mets system. He hit nearly everywhere -- over parts of 11 total seasons in the minors, he hit .287/.367/.408 with 87 HRs and 177 SB (though with 84 CS) in 5311 plate appearances. Yet, despite being named the MVP of the Eastern League in 1967 (451 PA, 4 HR, 50 RBI, 22 SB, 37 BB, 47 K, .306/.376/.405; that .306 made him the only qualifier to hit over .300), he barely got a chance with the Mets system as players like Ron Swoboda and Ed Kranepool passed him by in the Mets' eyes. In 1968, he was optioned into the Pittsburgh system for a year at Triple A, but that didn't help either to be behind Clemente and Stargell. 

1994 Miller 25th Anniversary

Smith's break came when the Mets traded him to the Seattle Pilots for minor leaguer Gary Upton. His debut season of 1970 was dreamlike -- first major league hit, of course, and his first major league homer came in the top of the tenth inning on August 25, 1970 to win a game for the Brewers. His break was short-lived, though, as Smith got passed just as quickly in Milwaukee as he did in New York -- especially after the change in general managers after the 1970 season led to the acquisition of journeyman Andy Kosco. 

But that is not where the story ends in baseball for Bernie Smith. He had one last hurrah: he became the first black manager in the Midwest League, named as the manager of the Brewers affiliate Danville Warriors just a few days before Deacon Jones was named manager of the White Sox affiliate Appleton Foxes -- both for the 1973 season. And Bernie was much more successful than Jones. Jones's team suffered through a 15-game losing streak to start the season and finished the year 44-76. On the other hand, Danville finished 66-57 and won the Southern Division.

Yet, that was Bernie's end in baseball. It appears that he went back to Lutcher and opened a store there. That led to some legal and financial issues in the 1980s. To be clear, one of his legal issues sounds fishy in how police targeted his store in 1980, but it appeared that Bernie got in trouble for receiving and trying to sell stolen typewriters in his store. The warrant the police got was bogus, in my non-criminal-lawyer opinion. He received an excessive five-year sentence for the crime, and it happened shortly after his wife Creola had died suddenly after four sons had been born to them. His conviction was just ridiculous, in my book -- I feel assured that a white man in a similar circumstance (especially in the South in the early 1980s, but probably anywhere) would have gotten a lighter sentence.

At any rate, I know Bernie is still alive in Louisiana. I have been meaning to get in touch with him, and my failing to do so is what led me to hold off on writing this. But, now that I have written this up, there are so many questions.

Such as: what was it like to hitchhike to Georgia across the backroads of Mississippi and Alabama?

To close, you see the three baseball cards of Bernie Smith that appear in the Trading Card Database. I do not own the 1971 O-Pee-Chee of Bernie with George Kopacz, but I do own the Topps version and the Miller card.

Meet the Brewers #38: Al Downing

Incredible as it seems, the 1970 Brewers reached the 38th player deployed for the team before the end of June. That seems incredible to me, at least. 1970 was a strange season, too, for the man who was Brewer #38 -- Al Downing -- as well. Downing came to the Brewers in a trade with the Oakland A's along with Brewer #34, Tito Francona, on June 11, yet Downing did not make his Milwaukee debut until June 28. That game was a disaster for Downing; he started the second game of a doubleheader against Oakland and did not make it out of the first inning.

1971 Topps

Alphonso Erwin Downing was born and raised in Trenton, New Jersey. A very good biography of him can be found on the SB Nation Yankees blog, Pinstripe Alley. Downing became a Yankee after spending one year at Rider University. The Yankees signed Downing on the recommendation and advice of former Negro Leaguer Bill Yancy. His first Spring Training in still-segregated Florida in 1961 must have been eye opening to the New Jersey native. This is not to say that he did not deal with discrimination in New Jersey, but the fact that he could not stay at the same hotel with his white teammates must have been incredibly difficult to deal with for him.

Despite the rather rude introduction, Downing did not spend much time in the minor leagues -- totalling only 59 games in the minors over his entire career and with 5 of those games coming in 1968 as he worked on recovering from an injury he suffered in the latter part of 1967. 

1971 O-Pee-Chee

Downing's time with the Yankees was up and down. He struggled with control early in his career -- leading the league in walks issued in 1964 with 120 in 244 innings -- but he paired that with being a big strikeout pitcher -- leading the league in strikeouts in that same 1964 season with 217. He had swing-and-miss stuff, from all indications, and only in his final season in the majors did he ever allow more than one hit per inning.

Downing was an All-Star in 1967 thanks to stellar work in the early part of that season. He pitched the 9th and 10th innings of that game (which extended to 15 innings before Tony Perez hit a game-winning homer off Catfish Hunter in the top of the 15th and Tom Seaver shut down the AL All-Stars in the bottom of that inning for the save). In his two innings of work, Downing retired Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente, Hank Aaron, Orlando Cepeda, Dick Allen, and Bill Mazeroski while surrendering hits to Jim Wynn and Ernie Banks.

As I mentioned above, however, 1970 was a strange season for Downing for a number of reasons -- but first and foremost because he was no longer a Yankee. According to news reports at the time (The Sporting News), the Yankees were looking for a right-handed hitter to play first base -- Ralph Houk claimed that the team was trying to boost its power hitting -- so the Yankees traded with Oakland for 10-homer-hitting Danny Cater (along with a minor-league outfielder named Ossie Chavarria). In that trade, the A's received Downing and catcher Frank Fernandez (who was made surplus to requirements by the emergence of Thurman Munson).

Dell Today's 1971 Sticker (from the Dodgers team book)

Downing did not get much of an opportunity in Oakland. At the time of his trade in early June, he had appeared in just ten of Oakland's 57 games. He had been dropped from the starting rotation after a bad start on May 6 and fell out of favor with the A's. As The Sporting News characterized the trade that sent him to Milwaukee as seeming to be a rip-off of sorts:

The trade that sent Tito Francona and Al Downing to the Brewers for Steve Hovley was a swap that exchanged a 24-year-old .280 hitter who can play all three outfield positions for a 36-year-old pinch hitter who might retire after this year and a pitcher who wasn't being used at all recently.

Indeed, that is exactly what it looked like at the time. If Hovley hadn't been squarely fifth in line in the Oakland outfield behind Felipe Alou, Rick Monday, Reggie Jackson, and Tommy Davis and if Hovley hadn't hit .190/.229/.200 after the trade, that is. 

Of course, Downing's record wasn't exactly great in Milwaukee either. He walked more guys than he struck out -- 59 walks and 53 strikeouts in 94-1/3 innings. As a result, Frank Lane did not hesitate to ship Downing out to the Los Angeles Dodgers in February of 1971 in exchange for Andy Kosco.

1994 Miller Brewing Commemorative Set

I said above that 1970 was an odd season for Downing. That is because Al Downing spent 9 seasons with the Yankees and 7 with the Dodgers. Sandwiched in between is that awkward 1970 season with Oakland and Milwaukee. 

Getting out of Milwaukee was great for Downing's career. He appeared to be rejuvenated on the West Coast. Indeed, 1971 was Downing's best season on surface statistics. He threw 262-1/3 innings for the Dodgers and finished with a 20-9 record and a 2.68 ERA. He also led the league in shutouts with five. Those stats were good enough to garner him a third-place finish in the Cy Young voting -- though Downing's season was nowhere near as good as the guys in front of him (Fergie Jenkins and Tom Seaver). The effort in 1971 led the writers to award him the National League Comeback Player of the Year Award.

That 1971 season -- along with his 1967 All-Star Game -- was the pinnacle of Downing's career. Most people of my generation and younger probably know Downing more as the guy who gave up Hank Aaron's 715th home run in 1974 at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. After he retired from baseball after the 1977 season, he worked as a radio broadcaster for the Dodgers for several years as well as putting in a season on radio with the Atlanta Braves in 2000. He's now retired and comes back to Yankee Stadium on a regular basis for their Old-Timers Day. In fact, he's scheduled to be at the 71st annual version of the event on June 25. 

As for the baseball card aspects, Al Downing appeared on four total cards as a Brewer -- the ones shown above. Ironically, he appears as a Brewer and is listed as a Brewer on just the one card -- the 1971 Topps card above -- while being listed as a Dodger on two cards showing him as a Brewer. Then, when it came time for the Miller Brewing Commemorative set in 1994, the Brewers and Miller could only find a photo of him with the Dodgers. I have the 1971 Topps card and the 1994 Miller card, but not the 1971 O-Pee-Chee or the Dell Today's 1971 Baseball Sticker.

Meet the Brewers #37: Bob Burda

On June 9, 1970, Marvin Milkes reached out to the San Francisco Giants and lined up a small deal. It was so small that it was not even a trade -- just an outright contract sale in which the Giants offloaded spare outfielder Bob Burda to the Brewers. To add Burda to the roster, it appears that friend of the blog and all around good guy Ray Peters saw his major league time come to an end.

1994 Miller Brewing Commemorative Set

A note before I jump in: all the material in this biography was obtained from stories appearing in The Sporting News. Access to these archival materials is available through a website called "Paper of Record." More importantly, access to that website is included for no extra charge as a benefit of membership in SABR.

Edward Robert Burda was born in St. Louis on July 16, 1938. He attended high school in Chicago, however, as his father Edward was working as an assistant bank examiner for the Federal Reserve. As you would expect, Burda was an excellent amateur baseball player. He was a Junior American Legion star and, in 1956, was a member of the Meramec Caverns team that won the National Amateur Federation tournament.

Right after high school and according to The Sporting News, Burda pursued his education in engineering at the University of Illinois and was attending Illinois on an athletic scholarship. Later articles state that he actually was attending Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. 

Midway through his sophomore year of college, however, MLB repealed its "bonus baby" rule, which had required teams that paid a bonus/salary package over a certain amount to place the signed player on the major-league roster or have the player become a free agent. This led to teams splashing cash on players left and right -- such as the Orioles signing Dave Nicholson to a contract with a bonus of $150,000 at a time when the payroll for the whole major league team might reach $500,000.  

The St. Louis Cardinals spent heavily in the 1958 offseason on college players and signed three young outfielders to bonuses: Jimmy Beauchamp from Oklahoma State (who got a $50,000 bonus), Charlie James from Missouri (who received a $15,000 bonus to take him away from being a star running back who eventually was inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame), and Burda, who received $25,000. 

Burda only had one card as a Brewer, so I felt like I needed to add a photo I found.

Articles out of Cardinal spring training in 1958 indicated that Burda was the most polished of the three players, as Burda showed a better approach at the plate. To be honest, that didn't really help him get to the major leagues more quickly. Burda made his major league debut with the Cardinals in 1962, but by that time James had passed him as had another young player: a centerfielder by the name of Curt Flood. The next spring, the Cardinals discarded Burda -- trading him to the Pittsburgh Pirates for catcher Cal Neeman.

Burda seemed to hit well everywhere he went in the minor leagues. He showed some power in 1963 and 1964 with Columbus, but all that got him was another trade -- this time to the Giants in early 1965 with Bob Priddy in exchange for Del Crandall. Burda yo-yoed between San Francisco and Triple-A Phoenix in 1965 and 1966 before sticking in Phoenix in 1967 and 1968. A successful 1968 led the Giants to carry Burda as a pinch-hitter in 1969, but a .230/.317/.391 slash line that year made him expendable when Milkes came calling.

Since the 1970 Brewers were not a great baseball team, Burda got the most at-bats of his baseball career in one season as a Brewer. He did not make much of those at bats -- .248/.303/.342 with 4 homers in 245 plate appearances. He showed a good eye at the plate, of course, with a contact-based approach: he walked 16 times and struck out 17 times.

After the 1970 season, the Brewers dumped Marvin Milkes as the GM. Bud Selig had allowed Milkes a year to see what he could do, and apparently Selig was not impressed. That led Selig to hire Frank "Trader" Lane as his GM. Dumping Burda in a trade back to the Cardinals was Lane's second move as GM. Burda played a year in St. Louis before being traded to the Boston Red Sox for Mike Fiore. After that 1972 season, the Red Sox released him and that was the end of the line.

I haven't been able to determine what Burda did after his release and retirement from baseball. It appears that Burda and his family enjoyed the Phoenix area thanks to his time in the minor leagues there and settled there after his retirement. If Mr. Burda or his family happen across this, I'd enjoy hearing from him.

Bob Burda has just one card as a Brewer -- the Miller Brewing commemorative set from 1994. By the time Topps got around to issuing a card for Burda in 1971, he was already a member of the Cardinals and his card reflected that. As a side note, though, Burda's number has been retired by the Brewers. He preceded Rick Auerbach and some guy named Robin Yount in wearing #19.

Meet the Brewers #36: Dave May

In this series of biographies, I've talked a number of times about how Marvin Milkes seemingly started making moves simply for the sake of making them. Just like the cliched "blind squirrel," it seemed inevitable that Milkes would make a decent move eventually. Perhaps that move came on June 15, while the team was in Baltimore, when, at the trade deadline, Milkes sent minor league pitchers Dick Baney and Buzz Stephen (both of whom had pitched in the majors before) to the Orioles in exchange for Brewer #36, Dave May. The Brewers also optioned outfielder Hank Allen to Baltimore's Triple-A Rochester team on some sort of loan deal.

1971 Topps

David LaFrance May was born in New Castle, Delaware, on December 23, 1943. His parents had nine children in total, and Dave was the fourth. May signed two contracts to play major league baseball -- one with San Francisco and one with Philadelphia. He became a Giant because the Giants were the first to get their contract to MLB. He did not stay in the Giants system for long because the Orioles snapped him up in the old "first-year draft," which allowed teams to draft minor leaguers away from other teams after just one season -- a 249 plate appearance season in the Appalachian League where he hit .379/.457/.561.

1971 Dell Today's Team Stamp

May moved up in the Orioles system fairly quickly thanks to his hitting ability, and he made his major league debut in 1967 at the age of 23. The problem for May was that he was with a team that had the outfield covered quite well already with 23-year-olds Curt Blefary and Paul Blair in left and center and future Hall of Famer Frank Robinson in right. As a result, in 1967 and 1968, May was on the Rochester/Baltimore shuttle, splitting time both years between Triple-A and the majors. 

1972 Topps

May's offense suffered, though, as an Oriole. He was not getting to start many games in the field and was used mainly as a pinch-hitter. As May said in The Sporting News when talking about his trade to Milwaukee, "It was tough playing for the Orioles because when you weren't in there every day, it was hard to get into a groove." Indeed, in the first two-and-a-half months of 1970 before his trade, May had started only two games of his 25 appearances.

1973 Topps

Freed from the Orioles at the age of 26, May was inserted immediately into the Brewers' starting lineup in centerfield. In Milwaukee, May was at home in many respects. He was an All-Star in 1973, which was his best season by far -- he led the American League in total bases and Win Probability Added. Part of that season left its imprint on the Brewers team record book as he hit safely in 24 consecutive games. That streak stayed on the books as the Brewers best until Paul Molitor's 39-game hitting streak in 1987.

1974 Topps

May struggled in 1974. He had the flu in spring training and may not have been right the whole year. It didn't help that Del Crandall decided to move May to right field, ostensibly to help May out after losing weight thanks to the flu. But he never broke out of the season-long funk. As a result, the team decided to trade him away, and May became the answer to a trivia question: Who was the player that the Atlanta Braves received when they traded Hank Aaron to the Milwaukee Brewers?

1974 Kellogg's

May later was traded two years later by the Braves to the Texas Rangers. The Braves sent May, Adrian Devine, Ken Henderson, Roger Moret, Carl Morton, and $250,000 to the Rangers for 25-year-old Jeff Burroughs. Dave spent one year and a month in Texas before he came back to the Brewers in May of 1978. May was nothing more than a bench player behind Larry Hisle, Ben Oglivie, Sixto Lezcano, Jim Wohlford, and Dick Davis -- yes, the team carried six outfielders then -- and ended up having his contract sold to the Pirates in September of that year.

1974 Topps Stamp

By that point, though, May had left his mark on the team record book for the first decade of its existence. Just look at this "team top 10" list from the 1980 Media Guide:

May was 4th in games, 4th in at bats, 4th in runs, 5th in hits, 6th in doubles, 6th in homers, 6th in RBI, 7th in extra base hits, 5th in total bases, and 5th in stolen bases. Yet, in the popularity contest that was the selection process for the 2000 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Brewers All Decades Team for the 1970s, May was overlooked in favor of Larry Hisle, Sixto Lezcano, Gorman Thomas, Hank Aaron, and Tommy Harper. Of those, Aaron was more of a sentimental choice than one actually based on production for the team, and Hisle probably made the team solely due to his being the first big-name free agent to sign with Milwaukee. May deserved better.

1994 Miller Commemorative Set

Dave passed away in October of 2012 at the age of 68. He suffered from diabetes for the last decade of his life after he moved back home to Delaware. May's son Derrick also played in the major leagues in the 1990s, spending 32 games with the club in 1995. 

Just before Father's Day in 2014, Derrick and his older brother David Jr. talked with each other in the form of a wonderful blog post about growing up with dad being a major leaguer on a website called Instream Sports. Derrick and David Jr. were a little more than a year apart in age, so they were partners in crime often. They played catch with the ball that Dave had gotten signed by the entire 1973 AL All-Star Team -- scuffing it up and getting grass stains on it. 

Derrick laughed about riding his bike to the White Hen Pantry and buying Bazooka and Topps baseball cards before going to the games with their dad in Milwaukee. Derrick also recalled one of their early neighbors in an apartment complex in Milwaukee where a lot of pro athletes lived. Their neighbor Lew was a little younger than Dave was, but Dave and Lew became fast friends. Then one day, the boys were told that Lew was no longer Lew -- that he had changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Dave May has 18 cards in the Trading Card Database showing him as a Milwaukee Brewer. I have the 8 shown here. I do not have the two Brewers picture packs from 1970 and 1971, any of his three O-Pee-Chee cards, the 1972 Topps Venezuelan Stamp, the 1973 Jewel Foods photo card, the 1973-74 Linnett Portrait, the 1974 Topps Deckle Edge, or his 1986 TCMA All-Time Milwaukee Brewers card.