An Interview with Ralph Branca

By Bill


Every now and then, as co-proprietors of a blog that a few people sometimes deign to read, we get emails from publishers or publicists (most accurately, publicists for publishers, but there's no non-goofy way to say that) offering advance copies of baseball or other sports books.

Most of them, frankly, aren't that exciting (we're just not that big a deal), but the one pictured to the right -- A Moment in Time: An American Story of Baseball, Heartbreak and Grace, by Ralph Branca and David Ritz -- really caught my eye. I requested and received a copy, and read it (212 easy-reading pages) in a matter of a couple days.

It's a good -- and, again, easy -- read, and I would recommend it to anyone interested in immediately-post-War baseball. I've been a Branca fan for at least ten years now, since I met him at a sports card show alongside Bobby Thomson, with whom he of course is forever linked, and got this (for my dad, who was born later in the month in which the event depicted took place):

What I loved about Branca -- apart from a fascination with a very good, three-time-All-Star pitcher who became known almost exclusively for one single (presumably) bad pitch -- was his friendliness and good humor and, especially, the incredible grace, good-sportsmanship, and sheer oddity of touring the country with (and, from all appearances, being friendly with) the guy who was most directly responsible for making him the goat or antihero of the sport's most famous moment. It's just a very cool, unique thing.

So when I was also offered the opportunity to have a little chat with Mr. Branca, I jumped at it. I was a bit afraid, both in talking to him and reading the book, that he'd reveal an undercurrent of bitterness and resentment that ruined that whole picture of him I have, but while the bitterness and anger are certainly there -- understandably so, when you consider he's lived as the goat for sixty years and has known for most of that time that the team that beat him was implementing an elaborate technological system for stealing signs -- there's also a very genuine good nature, and there was a genuine friendship with Thomson.

At 85, Branca is passionate, funny, and has a tremendous memory. It was the first interview I'd done since serving as the sports editor of my college newspaper about twelve years ago, but Branca is good and interesting enough for both of us. He was kind enough to spend about 25 minutes speaking with me about the book, Jackie Robinson, the Shot, the sign-stealing and more. A transcript -- edited only to remove most verbal pauses and a tiny bit of redundancy -- appears below.

An Extended Interview with Balor Moore (Part II)

By The Common Man

Earlier this week, The Common Man published the first part of his interview with former Expo, Blue Jay, and Angel lefty Balor Moore, whose career TCM explored in detail back in March. Moore was the first ever draft pick of the Montreal Expos, and went 28-48 with a 4.52 ERA in his career. But in his first season in the minors, Balor Moore gave up just 4 earned runs (10 runs total) in 88 IP, for a 0.41 ERA. In 1970, he came back to Earth somewhat, but still managed to make his Major League debut and pitch most of the year at AAA. In Part Two, Mr. Moore speaks about his first two seasons in the minors, the challenges of being a phenom, and the sad reality of playing in the bushes for an expansion club. Once again, TCM is deeply grateful to Balor Moore for his time and his incredible storytelling.

TCM: They kind of threw you in the deep end there, didn’t they?

Balor Moore: Well yeah. And I wasn’t prepared. It wasn’t like you were infantry. You were inexperienced. You’d never been anywhere. And I flew from Atlanta to St. Petersburg, and took a limo down to Pirates City, and when I flew back, I booked a flight from St. Petersburg to Atlanta and from Atlanta to Houston. I didn’t know you could fly direct. Talk about green.

So I just went ahead and pitched that summer, and of course you look at the stats that you wrote about, it’s actually hard to believe. I remember, I look back, and I knew I was doing good. But of course at that point the level of competition highly exceeds high school ball. And you had college guys. And I’ll never forget when I gave up my first earned run, I started crying. I remember thinking, “God, I hope they don’t send me home, because guys are dropping like flies around here. Especially with an expansion team, and we’re sharing a facility with the Pirates and the Reds, so you make a friend one day and he’s gone the next at that level.

So anyway I remember that season really well. I threw really really well that year. I don’t know why. I had two or three times in my career that’s absolutely perfect. That your mechanics, your release, everything was perfect. And somehow I came out of high school that season, and was absolutely perfect. Only a few times did I ever throw that well again. I mean, I didn’t progress through my career and ever get better than I was in that very first year as far as just pure D raw fastball that just exploded. And the stats reflect that. I don’t care what level you’re at when you pitch a whole season and only give up two runs, I don’t care where you are, you just go “Wow.” It doesn’t matter where you are. And they call me up to Class A ball at West Palm Beach, where I did pick up a loss, but I don’t remember how I did that. But I won two games and lost one, and one of them was a no-hitter.

Then, because of Vietnam and the draft, I was eligible for the draft, I had to go to college. So I went back to rookie ball and went to the Junior College there to keep my deferment and play instructional ball that season. So that’s kind of how I started. That next season, what happened is that I was an athlete in High School like everybody. So you never stop doing something athletic. So between that winter and the next spring I didn’t do anything. I mean, I lived in Florida and went to college for reasons I just stated.

So when I went down to Spring Training for the first time, I didn’t have the same rhythm and mechanics and the coordination. Just a little something was off, and it doesn’t take much for your timing to be off. And I was in big league camp and trying to impress, and I’m trying to impress early, and I got kind of out of whack with my mechanics. And I started fighting the strike zone real bad. And it came from rushing my delivery and trying to impress, being billed what I had coming in, and what I had already done, and being the Number 1 pick, etc.

And also, your first spring training, you’re there year round, but I was around Gene Mauch, who was nothing but wonderful for me, but he was intimidating to me, he was intimidating to everyone around him. He was the Little General, right? Well, especially so for a 19 year old, barely 19. Which made me nervous. Of course, one time he said I made him nervous. So sometimes you get two people around each other that’re trying too hard and nothing goes smooth, right?

TCM: Did he say how you made him nervous?

Balor Moore: Because he was trying to put me at ease. And he was trying to say the right thing to a young guy who was sensitive, like I was, and so nothing flowed naturally, because he pressed. And he told me that one time, he said privately, “Do I make you nervous?” And I said, “Yessir.” And he said, “You make me nervous, because I want to say the right thing for you, to know when to pat you and when to kick you, and when to be positive and when to be stern with you, and sometimes I try too hard. So then you’re not sure.” It’s no different from handling a teenager as a parent. It’s like, Oh my gosh, what do I do about that? And so, it was a two-way street there. And you know it makes sense now; at the time, it didn’t.

Anyway, I go through the first spring training, and I think I tried too hard, I was jumping out there, and trying too much to do this, and I got Don Drysdale standing beside me all the time, I was like his shadow. They told me one time, “Donny, take this young kid and make him a big leaguer.” Well, that worked ok at the time, except years later I realized, I’m not Don Drysdale. And of course he thought that meant on and off the field, so I got a crash course in all of it.

So anyway, that kind of is running into the second year. I think I was probably better coming out of high school and pitching than I did in the second year when they called me up to the big leagues. And you did note, in some of those articles that I did get called up early into the season, and pitched three games, and then got sent down, but the environment I was sent to, even looking back now, I think I was accurate with my criticism at the time, I think it was an unhealthy environment to send me back to AAA, the International League.

I remember sitting in Gene Mauch’s office and [GM] Jim Fanning was there, and the pitching staff. And I said, “First of all, OK, I understand I’m not throwing the ball anywhere close to how I was throwing it last year. And I can see how you don’t want me to be at this level, but if you’re going to send me down to the minor leagues, send me down to AA, which was Jacksonville, Florida, an established ball park, an established league, there were a bunch of players there I had played with before, and the level of competition would have added to my confidence.

Instead, I was sent back down to AAA in the International League, and actually, people don’t realize this, but they didn’t have a place to play when I got sent down. They had left Buffalo, which was at Memorial Stadium, so they were nomadic at the time. But they had agreed to play in Winnipeg, Canada. Except that Winnipeg didn’t have a ballpark, per se. So they would convert their football stadium into a baseball stadium, which is common in a lot of places. I mean, Exhibition Stadium in Toronto wasn’t really that much different. It seemed I played in so many ballparks that were football stadiums converted.

So while they’re getting this ready, we proceeded to go on a 47 day road trip, and we would play our scheduled home games in either Richmond, Virginia, which was the Braves affiliate; or if they had scheduled home games, we would move over and play in Tidewater, which was the Mets’ team. If they were on the road, we went back and forth. If both of them were scheduled to be at home, we actually on two occasions went to Montreal and played our scheduled home games in Montreal while the Expos were on the road.

TCM: That sounds like a mess.

Balor Moore: Well, it was something. And again, I’m 19. And let me factor something else in. And don’t mistake my tone, I’m not being critical, I’m just repainting the picture for you. Because sometimes good stories and memories are made out of these crummy little things that happened to you.

You gotta remember too that Montreal was an expansion club that in 1970 won something like fifty-plus games. Now how would you like to be Maury Wills, who was traded from the Dodgers over to with the Expos? Or how many people really wanted to be in Montreal as opposed to where they were before? Well, not many. And you’re playing in Jarry Park, and you’re playing in snow. That a franchise, and all that goes with it. The language barrier, it’s a hockey town, etc.

So the attitude in the big leagues probably wasn’t as healthy as it would have been with another ball club, but factor in AAA. Now who do you think is playing at AAA at the time. Do you think Montreal has any prospects there? And you’re in the middle of a road trip that’s 47 days long back and forth between the cities as I’ve just described.

Well, we get to Winnipeg finally, and we’ve got a 10 game home stand. Now this is a funny story, but I do love to tell it. Now in left field there wasn’t any fence because it was a football stadium. So they built a fence out of 2x4s. They cut 2x4s, laid ‘em across, and put chicken wire across the front, and it was about waist-high. And that was your leftfield fence, it stretched from the LF foul line in a straight line to CF, where there were bleachers. And they were held up by cinder blocks. So we get out there the first day, and they had no idea where to put it, I guess, the grounds crew, so LF was like 290 feet. And we go, “well, we don’t like this, but we can fix this.” And all the pitchers get together and we decided that we would be the first to the ballpark. So the next day we get to the ballpark, and leftfield was like 360’. So it got to be a contest to see who would get to the ballpark first to decide what the dimensions of leftfield would be. And sometimes they’d schedule a split doubleheader, so you could have two gates. Well in between, the Winnipeg Blue Bombers would come out and have their practice, and then we’d have our second game of the split double header. So it got to be a decision of “where’s the fence going to be?” And Jimy Williams, you know, he was my SS and roommate the year we were there. Later on, he ended up being the manager…

TCM: In Toronto.

Balor Moore: Well, actually, in Toronto he was the coach while I was there. But he ended up being the manager on in Boston and Houston, and I can’t really say enough good things about Jimy Williams, I really like him. But everybody always says, “Well, what kind of player were you? We see here where you hit four home runs in one game.” Because he wasn’t known as a power hitter; he only had one year in the big leagues as a player, right? Well, I was doing a radio show, and they said, “Do you remember the day Jimy Williams hit four home runs?” And I said, “I absolutely do; that was the day the hitters beat us to the ballpark!”It was really a popup to deep short.

TCM: Is that the way he tells it too?

Balor Moore: Nah, he doesn’t tell that part of it. So anyway, that’s kind of how it went. At 19 years old, in that kind of environment, I don’t think I really progressed with my growth as a ballplayer experience on the field, with that going on. I remember when they did send me down, Gene Mauch sat down across from me. I think I had just pitched against Cincinnati, I think it was the night before. And he looks at me and says, “We’re going to send you down, let you get some seasoning, some experience. We’re not going to ruin you, like they’re going to do with that other left-hander over there. And he was speaking of Don Gullett. Because Don Gullett, in 1970, was a rookie just like me.

But Sparky cherry-picked every single situation. Now, you can probably look back and see, Gullett came in, never put him in a situation to fail, but they kept him in the Big Leagues, and they brought him along that way. Now, I don’t know what they said to him. You know, “You’re here, don’t worry about it, I don’t care if you walk everybody.” I don’t know, I have no idea, but Montreal decided to send me back down.

You know how this plays out a little bit, through my whole career, only twice I think did I finish the season with the team I started with. I was always up and down and up and down and moving around a lot. And that makes a difference. And I look back, and only once did I start the season where I wasn’t sent down to AAA. Only once was I called up to AAA. Still the same AAA ball club, still the same minor leagues, right? But can you see the difference in the attitude if you were sent down to AAA as opposed to being promoted to AAA?

TCM: Absolutely

Balor Moore: And I could be a little off on that, and you could check on that, but this is my memory over these years. But I just remember thinking so many times, “God, I’d like to be called up to AAA.” Like a promotion, as opposed to... And you know, a lot of my time in the Big Leagues seemed to come down to how you did the day before deciding whether you had a locker and a uniform the next day. A lot of that, I’m sure I put on myself; it wasn’t the case. But I pitched that way. It’s hard to pitch that way. It was. But when you’re young, the communication was different back then, the game was different back that. So that was kind of the up and down part of it that made it hard; you see my career as a lot of unfulfillment of potential.

An Extended Interview with Balor Moore (Part I)

In March, The Common Man wrote a Random Thursday that highlighted the career of Balor Moore, the first ever draft pick of the Montreal Expos, back in 1969, back when he was an 18 year old, fireballing lefty. Alas, Moore’s career never reached the peaks of what Montreal fans expected, and Moore finished his eight-year career just 28-48, with a 4.52 ERA. In April, TCM was lucky enough to be able to interview Mr. Moore, who currently is President of Brittex International Pipe in Houston, TX. That interview has, shamefully, not been published until now, which does a disservice to just how warm Mr. Moore was, and how interesting his story was. But it turns out that Balor Moore is an incredible story teller, so TCM is going to post his interview in several parts because otherwise we'd be here all day. The first installment follows and details the experience of a big time pitching prospect in Texas before agents and professionalism entered into the draft process. Mr. Moore’s text is edited slightly for the sake of readability.

TCM: I want to start at the beginning of your career. You were drafted in 1969 and were the first ever draft pick of the Montreal Expos. Did you know you were going to be drafted in 1969? How familiar were you with the draft process, and where did you think you would be taken?

Balor Moore: Where I came from, which was Deer Park [Texas], it was very hard getting any kind of press coverage. Houston had two newspapers, the Houston Post and the Houston Chronicle, and they didn’t really extend out into the area that we were in for any kind of large coverage. There were a couple of local papers that covered local high schools and such like that, football being the biggest thing like it still is in the area. My dad was not a big sports person. He worked for Ford Motor Company, so what little I knew about baseball had to do with baseball cards that we collected through the summer, like all kids did. And you memorized the cards, and the stats on the back, and you traded them, but there was no national coverage so there was no way to keep up. One time my dad brought home a Sporting News, that’s the only thing I ever had from a national level. And, of course, you only had the game of the week on Saturdays, which was usually the Yankees. And you know, Mickey Mantle. I had two boyhood heroes actually, and that was Mickey Mantle and Audie Murphy. And that’s all I really knew about baseball.

But I knew that I had a talent, and I knew I was dominating, and I knew the scouts would come out and scout me. And so, they said I had a chance to be drafted. But I didn’t understand how the draft worked at all. I didn’t understand about minor leagues, development, money, etc. I really was the most naïve that you could be, but I figured “what difference did it make?” Baseball’s baseball. You know, the mound’s the same difference no matter where you went.

TCM: Do you remember being scouted?

Balor Moore: I tell this often, and very many people say, “you gotta be kidding me, you’re not accurate,” but I am. I pitched on Tuesday in a high school game; I didn’t pitch on Thursday (we had our games on Tuesdays and Thursdays), but we signed up at the last minute for a tournament on the weekend, which was a single-elimination tournament. So I pitched on a Friday night, and the game goes into extra innings, I pitch nine innings and we win. So we advance in the tournament, and Saturday at, like 1:00 is the next game. So I was going to play first base or right field; our pitcher who was going to start that game throws, like, one pitch and says his arm’s blown out, it’s hurt. So the coach comes out, and he really wasn’t a baseball coach, he was a football coach. So he brings me into the game, and I pitch seven innings. And we win again. So we advance to the final game on Sunday during a day game. And I go out and pitch, and it goes into extra innings, and I pitch nine innings and give up one of my only home runs of my high school career in the bottom of the ninth and we get beat, like, 1-0. So you add that up, and I got nine innings, seven innings, and nine innings. And I’m scheduled to pitch the next game of our high school schedule on Tuesday.

So I go out, and I remember because my dad’s there, and he sees the opportunity. And all he wanted me to do was, because we were blue-collar people, limited financially, he had hoped that I could get some assistance going to college, get my education paid for. There were a bunch of college scouts that were in the stands on Tuesday night, and every major league team had a scout there, except I think the Yankees, because I remember being disappointed about that (obviously, you grow up watching the Yankees). So I go out to warm up and I tell my coach, “you know, my arm really feels funny.” And he goes, “well, what is it?” And I said, “well it kind of hurts when I throw.” And he said, “OK, you’re not pitching tonight and he put me in right field. So about that time, when we start the game, and I don’t start as a pitcher, and everybody runs up to the fence and says, “what’s wrong with Baylor Moore?” Now this is really, really bad here. The coach, who means no harm here, he’s actually trying to protect me, he says, “Look, the kid told me his arm hurts, so I’m not going to ruin his arm. He’s not pitching tonight.”

Uh Oh. You can see at this point everybody leaves right? So we know now, well I was just stiff. You know, even at a young age of 18 years old, I was stiff. I pitched the following Thursday and I was back on my game. But it took three weeks for another scout to show up to even look at me, except for Red Murph. Red Murph called and asked, “Is your arm really hurt?” And I said, “Yeah, well I mean, it’s never felt like this. It’s tight. It hurts when I throw.” And he says, “well, have you had your teeth checked?” And I said, “What could that possibly have to do with it?” And he said, “Anytime you have a bad tooth that poison goes into your system.” And he’s doing all this old-fashioned country type remedies. Well, sure enough my mom up and took me to the dentist just to make sure. But it just turned out that I was stiff, so I pitched the Thursday night, and was back on track. I finished great.

So when I graduated from high school, and became eligible for the June draft, I went to a tryout that Red Murph had in Brenham, Texas, and he invited a lot of the top prospects from around. Now this was probably not done that often in that time; it’s very common nowadays. These tryout camps pop up everywhere. Especially after the June draft, because there’s a lot of players that go unscouted. Red Murph scouted me for four years of high school. So he knew me, I mean he came by on a constant basis to visit with me. That’s probably why he’s one of the better known scouts, other than the signing of a lot of major league players.

But a week after I graduated, I went up to the tryout camp and pitched. And we were supposed to do all the drills. The speed and the different skills and such. And Red Murph said, you just go sit up in the bleachers and relax. I’m going to have you start the game tonight for all the camp kids, and you’ll be the starting pitcher. You’re going to pitch against the Brenham Junior College baseball team, and at the time Brenham was one of the better Junior College teams in the nation, if not the best. And so I started that night against the Brenham starting lineup, pitched three innings and struck out all nine hitters that I faced.

TCM: Well, that’s pretty good.

Balor Moore: Yeah, and he come out. And I had no idea. I thought, “I’ll pitch a game.” It’s nothing. Because in the level I was at in high school, you pitched the whole game. I don’t ever remember getting taken out of a game. So my thought was, I wonder what they’re going to play tonight, whether it’s seven or nine innings. Because, you know, high school games were seven innings. So after the third inning, he told me “Well, that’s enough for tonight. Everybody’s seen what they need to see. And then he wanted to hide me, I guess. But I remember the scouts and the coaches being in the stands.

Anyway, I get drafted, and, well, that was on a Saturday that I pitched against Brenham, and the June draft, as I remember it was in a week or a week and a half, and I got drafted by the Expos. And they show up and they offer me ten grand. Well, I don’t know, but I kind of thought it would be more than that, and my dad said, “well I don’t know, what do you think?” And we didn’t have anybody to talk to about it.

So we called the only college coach we knew, the coach of Texas, Coach Gustafson,* because I had signed a letter of intent to go to the University of Texas. And he says, “I wouldn’t sign for ten grand; you need to get to twenty before you make a decision.” And so we wait, and the following Sunday (this has been about a week of a holdout), I had agreed to pitch in a, I don’t know what kind of league it was at the time, but you gather up a bunch of guys and you play another organized team, so I went down to the University of Houston, and I pitched five, or, let’s see, I think I pitched seven innings, and I struck out all 21 guys I faced. And we left and went home that night and they offered me twenty grand and we signed. And my dad says, “you know, I don’t make but $16,000 in a year, and they’re going to give you more just to sign, it sounds like an easy decision, and they threw in the fact that if you go to college, they’ll pay for your tuition, and he said, “well what’s wrong with this?” And I say, ok, so I sign Sunday. And I’ll never forget they say, “OK, you’ll leave tomorrow morning.” And I didn’t even have time to pack. I didn’t know anything about where I was going, what level. I mean, I just knew nothing about baseball. But I knew I was a pro. And at the time you get $500 a month, and that’s all they could pay you. And I reported to Bradenton, Florida.

*Ed. Note: This is legendary coach Cliff Gustafson, whose Longhorns went 1,466-377 from 1968-1996.

Next time: Balor Moore becomes a professional baseball player.

A Half-Hour With Howard Nunn

On Thursday, The Common Man hinted that he wasn’t done talking about Howie Nunn, the relief pitcher who toiled for three seasons for the Cardinals, Reds, and Mets in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Curious about the abrupt end of Mr. Nunn’s career and the lack of details surrounding his time in the big leagues, The Common Man contacted Mr. Nunn and he graciously agreed to be interviewed about his career. Howard Nunn is 73 years old, retired, and currently living in North Carolina, just a few minutes from his hometown. He was very generous with his time and very patient, as he endured some technical difficulties on The Common Man’s end. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation:

TCM: First, Mr. Nunn, thank you very much for the agreeing to speak with me today, I greatly appreciate it. First thing, I would want to know more about the kind of pitcher you were. Can you describe what you threw and, if you were telling someone how you saw yourself as a pitcher, what would you say?

HN: Well, I was a fastball pitcher, and I threw the slider and I threw a knuckleball occasionally. Basically, the sinking fastball was my best pitch. I don’t know, we didn’t have any guns to tell you what the speed was. They would give you an estimate of speed. But as far as today, they’ll tell you how fast a guy is throwing in a heartbeat.

TCM: You were primarily a reliever. In the minors did you start?

HN: I mostly relieved. Well, I only relieved in the big leagues, except for one exhibition game I did start. That was against Cleveland in 1962. We won that game 6-2 and I went 9 innings.

TCM: I’m interested in your knuckler, is that something you came up with or that you developed later?

HN: It’s just something I played around with in semi-pro ball, as a kid, I’d just throw one occasionally. But it was not really a pitch you could rely on, because I never learned to control it. I’d throw it occasionally to a batter just to show it, but I never got hurt or helped by it too much.

TCM: So in 1954 you were signed by the Cardinals. Do you remember the name of the scout who signed you?

HN: George Furrel [not sure of the spelling here]. He was one of the Furrel boys from Greensborough. I can’t think of all of their names. There were three brothers who all played pro ball. And George was scouting for the Cardinals when he signed me. Big bonus. Nineteen and fifty-three, I was seventeen and I graduated from high school. And I signed in September of that year, but of course I didn’t have to report until the spring of ’54. That was back when they paid big bonuses. $500. It’s ridiculous. It wasn’t even a token payment, but that’s what it was.

TCM: So you spent five years in the minor leagues with the Cardinals, and then in 1959 you debuted with them. How did you get the news they were calling you up?

HN: Well, they sent me a contract. I guess it was in the ’57 or ’58 season, I think this is right, I was with Houston in the Texas League and had decent years there. I don’t know whether they were protecting me or whatever, but they called me up and I went to Spring Training. And they were impressed with me enough that I stayed with the club. And in ’59 I won back-to-back games in relief. Could have won the third game, on the third day in a row in relief. But I came in and Ernie Banks was the batter. He hit a ground ball single. It was a ground ball between short and third that went to left field for a base hit. I had won two games on the previous two days before that. If I had gotten out of that I would have won three in a row. [note: This occurred on May 6, 7, and 8 of 1959. Nunn did win games on consecutive days, but entered the third game with the bases loaded and one out (it looks like manager Solly Hemus really liked to ride the hot hand). Play-by-play data on baseballreference.com shows that he walked Randy “Handsome Ransom” Jackson to bring in the run before getting Big George Altman to ground into a double play.]

TCM: Now you were called up that year and you played with another rookie, Bob Gibson.

HN: Yes, he and I talked a lot. Gibby was real tempermental. He was a keen guy, and that’s why he became such a great pitcher. He was like, I don’t know, he might have had one win in five or six. I don’t know. But he was not having a good year. [note: Gibson was 3-5 that year with a 3.33 ERA, but started slowly, giving up three runs in 2.2 innings in the first half of the season.] He was having a horrible time, saying, “Send me back to Omaha; I’m tired of this.” But they never did; they weren’t stupid enough to give up on him.

TCM: Well that seemed to work out okay for him.

HN: He was a real, real competitor, and he was nice guy. I haven’t talked to him in a while. He was moody, real moody, but when he crossed that line and on the mound he was strictly business.

TCM: You also played with a couple of other all time greats that year, and one player who is particularly revered by today’s players, Curt Flood.

HN: Yes, I knew Curt. He was the centerfielder there. After the Cardinals sent me out, there was a lot of controversy with Curt. But he made baseball better for the people playing it. It gave them a little leeway. Because these owners were butchering the ballplayers money-wise. But of course what it is today is ridiculous.

TCM: You also played that year with another all-time great at the end of his career, Stan Musial.

HN: One of the greatest men who ever played the game. A perfect gentleman. You could be a rookie, but he was just as nice to you as if you were a season veteran. And he was a great one, a natural hitter. He could hit the ball.

TCM: In 1961, your contract was purchased by the Cincinnati Reds. Did you make that team out of Spring Training then?

HN: Oh yes, I went straight on in. Matter of fact, I pitched in relief, as usual, in Philadelphia. That was on a Sunday afternoon, I went seven and two-thirds innings in relief of Jim Maloney. He was real wild that day. I came in with the bases loaded in one out. And Bobby Del Greco hit into a double play. And I pitched seven and two-thirds innings in that game, and the most I had pitched in that year was like two or three innings. [Note: this was on June 18, and Mr. Nunn’s recollection is spot on.]

Anyway, we went on back to Cincinnati for an off day on Monday, and played, I think, the Cardinals when they came in on Tuesday. And I was up throwing after pitching seven and two-thirds innings. Didn’t get in the game, but the next day I relieved against the Cardinals. No problem. But then the Dodgers were coming in and I relieved against them. I was into my second inning against the Dodgers in like the fifth inning, and I had two strikes and no balls on Frank Howard and left loose with a hard slider that was like a knife that went straight through my elbow. The next pitch I threw I barely reached home plate, and Frank Howard struck out. And I walked off the mound and into the dugout and my arm just felt exactly dead. It was just like it had no feeling in it. And they said I had tore something apparently inside the elbow. And that was before arthroscopic surgery and all these things that they have today. [Note: Mr. Nunn’s recollection here is pretty solid. He did strike out Frank Howard that last inning (looking), but he also faced Norm Sherry, Ron Perranoski, and Maury Wills to close out the inning (an incredibly impressive feat, given that he had just shredded his elbow.] So I went on from there and that season they put me on the disabled list. And I stayed the rest of the season and played the Yankees in the World Series. I was there in uniform, but I wasn’t eligible because I wasn’t on the active roster. I was disabled.

But then that winter, the Reds sold my contract to the New York Mets in their first year in existence. The sad thing about it was that I had a piece of paper where they signed me with no conditions and I was outright to the Mets. And I went to Spring Training with them. And I was unaware that I was on a “look-see” basis. I think the draft price was $25,000 if they took a man off the roster. But the Mets told me that in Spring Training… As a matter of fact, the first ballgame that the Mets ever played was against the New York Yankees exhibition game in Spring Training, and I was the winning pitcher. Roger Craig started the game and I relieved in the eighth inning or ninth inning and later on we won in 11 innings, 4-3. And that was the first time the Mets ever played. Then they turned around at the end of Spring Training, they called me into the office and said, “You’re going back to Cincinnati.” I said, “What do you mean I’m going back to Cincinnati?” “Well, you were on a ‘look-see basis.’” They would have had to pay $75,000 to keep my contract, and they felt it was too big a risk. And all the while I thought I was a member of the Mets, but actually I was on a “look-see basis.” If they did it today, well, a man can live fairly well off the income, you could probably sue ‘em for it, the way the game is covered up today. [Note: Baseball Reference.com says that on December 21, 1961, “The New York Mets purchased Howie Nunn from the Cincinnati Reds.” On April 2, 1962, it says that the Mets “returned” Nunn and two other players to their respective teams “following a previous purchase.” Perhaps these were deals conditional on the players breaking camp with the big club, but they do not seem to be part of the initial expansion draft.]

In 1960, the Reds finished 67-87 and 6th in the National League. But in 1961, your team surprised everyone and, not only competed, but won the National League Pennant. Were your teammates surprised at that success? Were you surprised at that success? [Note: Here, there were some technical difficulties, and Mr. Nunn was not able to hear my exact question. His answer, however, is an important reminder that Cuba was still open in 1960, and American ballplayers were still playing there. Also, his answer hints at the power dynamics between players and ownership and management at that point.]

Well yes. The previous year, in 1960, I pitched in Havana, Cuba, and they moved the club to Jersey City. And I had had a tremendous year, like a 1.91 earned run average, about 12-6. I had had a real good season. But you know, you go in [to Spring Training] on a “look-see basis” and they look to see what they can use, kind of like an old horse. They take what they need and put the rest out to pasture. But that’s a long time ago.


TCM: In 1961 and 1962, your manager was Fred Hutchinson.

HN: One of the greatest men I ever knew. But he would fight you in a heartbeat. A good manager.

TCM: And in 1962, during Spring Training, you were with the Mets, and you would have been managed by Casey Stengel, wouldn’t you?

HN: Stengel. Cookie Lavagetto was a coach. Red Ruffing was the pitching coach. Rogers Hornsby was the batting instructor. Stengel was the manager.

TCM: Did you have much contact with Casey? What did you think of him?

HN: Sure. I went in to ask him why I was pitching any more than was. And the next thing I know he’s talking about the cutoff play from the outfield, how the outfielders and infielders had to work together to hit the cutoff man. I just walked out of the office. He was talkin’ that Stengelese, and I couldn’t understand. He never answered a question. He just talked around everything.

TCM: Your major league career ended in 1962 and you were only 26 years old. Did you stay in the game after that? Where did you go?

HN: I tried to stay on but the arm wouldn’t do it. I still had the fastball, but I couldn’t throw a breaking pitch or anything. It would blow out the elbow or it would just pop right out like you hit it with a sledgehammer. I went down to Macon, Georgia, Double-A ball. I relieved down there for a while. But it got so I wasn’t throwing well, and I decided to give it up.

TCM: Was that a hard decision for you to make?

HN: Not really. When you can’t excel or can’t do anything that is half of what your capabilities are, you have to let it go.

TCM: What did you do after you were done with the game?

HN: I did shop work for 43 years. I was the plant manager. But I finally gave that up and have been retired for about five years.


The Common Man wishes he had had more time (and stronger interviewing skills) to really delve into more of these topics with Mr. Nunn. In particular, exploring the labor relations of that day, why Fred Hutchinson was so special to him, and discussing his experiences with the Reds in more detail. But The Common Man took up a great deal of Mr. Nunn’s time on a Saturday morning, and is just pleased to have learned as much as he did. Great thanks to Howard Nunn for all his help.

The Common Man plans to make this a semi-regular feature here, interviewing players who are available and willing to talk about their time in the big leagues. If you have any requests, The Common Man is more than willing to take them.