On This Day: Ron Necciai Strikes Out 27 Batters

BRISTOL, TN, May 13th—In the Class D Appalachian League on this night in 1952, a 19 year-old righty from Monongahela, Pennsylvania, pitched one of the most impressive games in the history of professional baseball. 

Ron Necciai, a Pittsburgh prospect then on option with the Bristol (Va.) Twins, absolutely dominated the Welch Miners in a game in which he struck out twenty-seven batters in a nine-inning no-hitter. 

Twenty...seven. Let that sink in. And yet, three years later, Necciai was out of baseball at age twenty-two.

From The Cincinnati Enquirer; May 15th, 1952

It was Shaw Stadium in Bristol, Virginia, that would be the stage for this fairy-tale performance. Necciai had a special bond with the manager of the Twins. George Detore was a baseball lifer, and had been a longtime friend and mentor of Necciai's since the death of Necciai's father Attilio at age thirty-one. He was a steadying influence on the teenage fireballer, one that he sorely needed. The difficulty of adjusting to professional baseball was causing Necciai a tremendous amount of stress, most of which was being internalized, and would soon lead to a bleeding ulcer and a visit to a specialist. 

Necciai was tremendously gifted; he had a fantastic arm. The problem was, he didn't know how to use it. He was all over the place. A Pittsburgh barber named Tony Rockino discovered Necciai while he was pitching for Monongahela High in the suburbs, and passed this information on to the Pirates. The Pirates actually signed him as a first baseman, as Necciai had been moved to the position after breaking two ribs of an opposing batter with a wayward fastball, but after seeing his arm strength on display during practices they quickly moved him to the mound. It was Detore who broke the news to Necciai. 

After two frustrating weeks struggling to learn a new position, Necciai quit the game and returned to Monongahela. He was working in an auto parts plant when Charlie Muse, the scout who originally signed him, finally persuaded him to return to baseball. 

After only the briefest of moments with Salisbury and Shelby, Class D teams in the North Carolina State League and West Carolina League, respectively, Necciai returned to Salisbury and the steadying presence of Detore. Branch Rickey, who watched Necciai throw in spring training, convinced him to drop down to a sidearm delivery, and also taught him an overhand curve. Still, consistent control eluded him. Once again, Necciai was ready to head back to Pennsylvania and the auto parts plant, but Detore convinced him to remain.

The stress continued to eat him up, inside. The Pirates saw fit to push him all the way up to Class-AA (referred to as Class-B, back then) and the New Orleans Pelicans in the Southern League, an awful long way from the ranks of the Class-D ball, and the results were fairly predictable: 1-5 record, 8.45 ERA in 33 innings, but he did strike out 42, in the process.

Still, the organization was continually impressed with his potential, and he received an invitation to Spring Training for 1952. He performed reasonably well, all things considered, though he was now struggling with the bleeding ulcers, frayed nerves (chain-smoking in order to cope), and unpredictable control. He gave up two runs on four hits in three innings in an appearance vs. the St Louis Browns on March 9^th. He picked up a win vs. the San Francisco Seals on March 15^th, then struck out two and walked only one in five shutout innings on March 18^th against the Giants. In a 4-2 loss to the White Sox, Necciai gave up a run on two hits in two innings, striking out one. The Browns touched him up for four runs in the first inning of his March 26^th appearance, but he shut them out over the next four innings in the 4-2 loss. On April 5^th, the Cubs touched him up for three singles and a double, while Necciai cut loose two wild pitches, and allowed four runs in the 7-1 loss.

His lost time and continuing struggle with ulcers wore him down all through spring training (he was down to around 150 pounds, at the time), and the 6'5” righty pushed through it the best he could. He asked the organization to return him to Bristol in order to give him a little more time to get into game shape. On Opening Night in 1952, Necciai faced the Kingsport Cherokees and sent twenty of them down on strikes. In his next start, it was nineteen Ks vs. the Pulaski Phillies.

Then came the masterpiece that was his May 13^th start.

His catcher was an eighteen-year-old named Harry Dunlop (more on Mr. Dunlop, in a later post), a young man who was unknowingly beginning a lifetime career in baseball that would begin with 980 games at various levels in the minors, stints as a minor-league coach and manager, then 21 seasons as a major-league coach with the Royals, Cubs, Reds, Padres, and Marlins. Dunlop later recalled that Necciai threw an unnaturally-light fastball; that it barely felt like it hit the glove, as compared to other so-called “heavy” fastballs. He said it had a natural rise to it (perhaps owing to a tremendous spin rate), and that his curve would drop either to the left or right depending on subtle changes in fingertip pressure by Necciai.

Necciai cruised through the first six innings, and all the while the 1,183 fans present were beginning to count the strikeouts, yelling out the K count as the number became more and more unbelievable. At one point in the game, Detore had to send a glass of milk and a couple of stomach pills to the mound, as Necciai's gut was roiling like an active volcano. Detore said that he remembers Necciai throwing up in the dugout, at some point in the game.

In the ninth inning, pinch-hitter, Frank Whitehead managed to make just enough contact to lift a foul pop-up between home and first. First baseman Phil Filiatrault yelled at Dunlop, who had the ball in his sights, to drop it. Dunlop, of course, denies dropping the ball intentionally, instead blaming poor stadium lights. Nevertheless, the ball fell foul, Dunlop took the big “E” for his trouble, and Whitehead ended up striking out looking. 

Miners center-fielder Billy Hammond was strikeout #26, breaking the previous record of 25, set by Hooks Iott in 1941 and at the time the accepted nine-inning strikeout record. However, Hammond swung and missed at a curve that hit the plate and skipped past Dunlop, and reached first before Dunlop could make a play. 

Bob Kendrick, the Miners' cleanup hitter, stepped in representing the final chance that Welch had to break the mystical hold that Necciai seemed to hold over them, that night. It wasn't long before he, too, was out on strikes. That made it twenty-seven. 

Since Dunlop let a third strike get past him in the ninth inning, that meant the team would end up recording 28 outs that night. Two batters managed to put the ball in play: the aforementioned error came when shortstop Don DeVeau couldn't find the handle on a grounder in the third inning, and the other on a groundout to DeVeau in the second. Necciai was seemingly unfazed by his monumental performance, although the true meaning of it didn't set in until statisticians and writers began checking the record books. 

“I don't know what did it,” Necciai said after the game. “I just did my best and kept it up all the way.”

Interestingly, Necciai told bullpen catcher Don Becker before the game started that he didn't think he'd be able to go the distance, that night. 

In his final start for Bristol, May 21^st, Necciai was showered with gifts from fans in appreciation for his record-setting feat. That game, appropriately, was on “Ron Necciai Night”, an honor shown to him by the Twins and the Pirates organization. Necciai actually handed out his own gifts, as well: to Detore, he gave a watch with the inscription “To the man who made it possible”, and to every teammate he gave a fountain pen inscribed with the words “We did it on May 13th”. His mother even made the trip to Bristol, which Necciai hadn't expected.

Facing Kingsport that night, he struck out 24 batters and allowed a meager two hits in the shutout. 

At the end of his final game in Class-D for the 1952 season, Necciai had put up numbers which seem like typos: 109 strikeouts in 42 2/3 innings, 20 walks, two earned runs on ten hits. His season ERA was 0.42. Nobody could touch him, at least that year. 

Even so, the 27-K game had a legitimate challenger for “most impressive performance of the season” in the Appalachian League. More on that, to come. 

St Louis Icon Stan Musial Passes Away at 92

Cardinal Legend's Unassuming Persona Belied Historic Career 


JAN 20th, 2013-In all honesty, I never met The Man.

Oh, I'll try my very best to describe him. I'll try to explain him as an individual, beyond the box scores and the cheering crowds and the 24 (!) All-Star selections and so on. But I will fail, miserably.

Nevertheless, I must try. I suppose this would be my "Ode to A Total Stranger", if I truly felt that he was a stranger. Somehow, he never struck me as such.

Still, how much can you say about a player you've never even seen in person? I suppose that depends on the player. In the case of Stan Musial, I think the answer would be "quite a lot that's already been said".

There's a reason for that. Musial, who has passed away at the age of 92, was known far and wide among baseball aficionados and casual followers of the game alike as a modest man who had an easy and almost retiring sense of the appreciation he was shown.

He was a great man, to be sure, but not so much for the outrageous numbers he put together while a member of the St Louis Cardinals as for the manner in which he lived his life off the field. There is, as it turns out, much more to be said about Stan the man than there is to say about "Stan The Man". For those of you familiar with Musial's HOF career, you may find this doubtful. For those who knew him, there is surely no doubt, whatsoever.

The story starts out as do so many others: from humble beginnings...

Stanisław Franciszek Musiał was born November 21st, 1920, in Donora, Pennsylvania. Donora was a bustling town of just over 14,000 at the time, when the local industrial and mining activity was the very essence of the town's identity. So it was with many other towns in this region, where a man and his son would often work the same coal mine for the better part of their lives. Lukasz Musial wanted better for his son.

Lukasz left his native Poland in 1910 for the mill town in the Mon Valley Region, 20 miles south of Pittsburgh. He married Mary Lancos, daughter to Czechoslovakian immigrants and a native-born Pennsylvanian, in Donora on April 14, 1913. At the time, he was nearly 23, while she was only 16. Mary, in contrast to her husband, was nearly 6 feet tall and strongly built. "Stasiu", a Polish nickname by which his father called him, was one of six children of Lukasz and Mary. He was also Lukasz's first son.

It wasn't long before the Donora locals had their own nickname for young Stanislaw: "The Donora Greyhound". Stanley (his name was Anglicized by the time he reached high school) soon demonstrated the athleticism by which he would come to be known, starring in basketball and as both a pitcher and outfielder in baseball. Stanley grew into a standout pitcher under the tutelage of Joe Barbao, himself a former minor league pitcher and manager of the Donora Zincs, a semi-pro team on which Musial played at the early age of 15.

Actually, Stan started with the team at age 14. As a batboy, no less. As the story goes, Barbao ran out of pitchers in a game in Stan's first year with the team and hit upon the idea of putting the adolescent Musial on the mound.

He did well enough, it seems. He pitched 6 innings, striking out 13. Thirteen. All of them adults. Signs of that which was to come, perhaps? Not exactly.

As a side note: baseball, for reasons I cannot fully explain or comprehend, is a game of interconnected relationships; player begets player, what's-his-name is cousin of so-and-so who played for the same team, etc. Musial's life is no less connected, being born in the same town and on the same day (though obviously not the same year) as another well-known star left fielder of our generation: Ken Griffey, Jr.

But the connection doesn't end there. Griffey Jr's grandfather, Buddy Griffey, played with Musial on Donora High's resurrected baseball team. Stan was present when Junior hit his 500th home run in June 2004. With that moment, a legend of the past became further intertwined with a star of the present generation. It can be easily argued that no other sport has such reverence for its history, as well as for the men who built it.

It wasn't long before the pro scouts were lurking about, and soon the Cardinals offered the teenager Musial a contract after a workout with their affiliate in the Class D Penn State (referred to in some sourcebooks as Mountain State) League: The Williamson Colts.

The Colts, who changed their name to the Red Birds in 1938 (Musial's second year with the team), worked him as a pitcher, in which position he produced mediocre results. Williamson's manager in 1939, Harrison Wickel, stated thusly: "The only place he can win is in Class D". Well, as a pitcher, Wickel may have been right on target. After Musial hurt his arm while playing the outfield in 1940 and attempting a rather acrobatic catch of a sinking liner, his pitching career came to a sudden halt.

No matter; his hitting prowess was becoming quickly apparent. In an outfield collision with Terry Moore, fellow future HOFer Enos Slaughter broke his shoulder and was lost to the team at a time when his bat and defense would be most sorely missed. Cards GM Branch Rickey made the decision to replace him, at least part-time, with the newly-promoted Musial.

What he accomplished in the majors, I cannot hope to illuminate in any way comparable to such outstanding writers as Peter Golenbock, Roger Angell and John Thorn. I will leave such matters to the true professionals.

Throughout his MLB career (indeed, throughout his life), Musial was never the sort of person who would ever give you the idea that he was even faintly aware of the mythic figure his play on the diamond had firmly ensconced in the minds and hearts of the American baseball fan. Always willing to sign an autograph, make an appearance for both MLB functions and charitable affairs, or simply chat about the game he loved, the true legacy he leaves behind cannot be measured in percentages and league standings.

A quote generally credited to magazine magnate Malcolm S. Forbes, "You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him", is in my estimation an exceptional way of assessing a man's legacy. In this regard alone, I believe it can be said that Stan Musial showed no variance in the way he treated the thousands who flocked to his side for a moment with a baseball god; indeed, he seemed to fully appreciate what he had accomplished as well as how it caused others to view him, without showing any outward signs of egoism or arrogance, neither did he ever seem to feel entitled to such treatment.

In short, he was the sort of person who, had you no prior knowledge of his chosen profession, would never lead you to believe he was anything more than an average man. He could have been the neighborhood milkman or the baker down the street; I imagine he would carry himself with the same humility for which he was known by family, friend, and stranger alike.

But it was even more than that. When LIFE Magazine covered Stan Musial Day in Oct 1963, Stan took the podium and gave careful thought to his words while fighting back tears, overwhelmed by the thought of a giant bronze statue dedicated to him by the team:

"I don't know how I'll feel when I first see the statue", he had said. "Down in Florida, at St. Petersburg Beach, there's this museum--a wax museum--and that was the first time I saw a statue of myself. It was kind of funny, looking at myself. I took a picture--you know, being there and taking a picture of yourself--it gives you a strange feeling".

I can easily imagine that had he been asked the same question while standing in front of his own likeness, immortalized in bronze for countless future fans, he would have been at an utter loss for words.

That, in my mind, is the measure of this man; THE Man. This was a man who, while seemingly comfortable with his fame, would have been just as well-respected even without all the hits and homers, without all the kids who grew up copying that "looking around the corner of a building", almost pigeon-toed stance which produced such prodigious power and EXACTLY the same number of hits at home as on the road (a fascinating stat, to be sure).

His legacy is that, while he knew him, he was what a man should be. And even if he hadn't been "The Man" to the people and fans of St Louis, he most certainly would have been to his children, grandchildren, friends and even minor acquaintances.

He was so much more than just a baseball star. Because if you take away all the accolades, awards and records, he was still The Man to the people who mattered most. As hokey as it sounds, it is nevertheless just as true.

Maybe this incident sums up that sentiment as well as any (from LIFE Magazine; Oct 11, 1963)

"Only once did they ever boo him in St Louis. On August 22nd 1956, against Brooklyn, he made two errors and wound up hitless for the second straight night. They booed him when he stepped to the plate in the eighth inning, but the boos were gradually drowned out by the cheers.

"'It was the worst game I ever played,'" he said later.

The next day, 10 fans bought space in the St Louis press and apologized."