Bill Nicholson: Cubs Fans’ Favorite Right Fielder

Image credits: Bleacher Report

Voted by Cubs fans as their all-time favorite right fielder, left-hand batter Bill Nicholson was a two-time NL home run leader during his 10 years with the Cubs 1939-1948, followed by five years with the Phillies.

He was labelled “Swish” by Brooklyn fans who would holler, “Swish” every time he stood in the batter’s box waving his bat across the plate while awaiting a pitch.

A life-size statue of him stands in the center of his home town, Chestertown, Maryland, where we visited him in May 1989. - By Norman L. Macht

I was always a power hitter, even as a kid on the Chestertown team in an amateur Chesapeake Bay League. Jimmie Foxx’s father was an umpire. Jimmie was seven years older than I was; I never played with or against him until he joined the Cubs in 1942, when he was on his way down fast, drinking too much. 

Washington College in Chestertown had abandoned baseball for lacrosse the first two years I was there, then they brought it back. One day in 1936 a scout for the Philadelphia Athletics offered me $1,000 to sign with them. Nobody else had offered me anything, so I signed.

A week later a Yankees scout offered me $5,000, but it was too late.  I went to spring training in Mexico City with the A’s in ’37. The altitude didn’t bother me; I was young, but they had to send a few of the older players back to the states. We played local Mexican teams, more Cubans than Mexicans. I wound up being traded to Chattanooga and they sold me to the Cubs in August 1939.

The morning I got off the train in Chicago I started my first game.  In the fifth inning I hit my first home run.

My contract for 1940 was $5,000, $6,000 if I played regularly. I was in 135 games but had to battle to get that extra thousand. The most I ever made was $18,000 in 1943. After I led the league in home runs the second year in a row in 1944, the Cubs cut me $3,000. I got it back up to 18,000, but no raise.

The Sun Field

Playing right field in Wrigley Field wasn’t easy. It was the sun field. In fact, right was the sun field in six of the eight National League parks. It wasn’t the fly balls that gave you so much trouble, but the line drives hit at you that stayed right in the sun’s glare. You had to shield your face.

I caught some after they hit me but before they hit the ground. But I had learned how to get a jump on the ball from the Chattanooga manager, Kiki Cuyler. He taught me how to watch the batter’s swing. I got to where I could tell even before he hit it where the ball was headed. A lot of years I had 16-18 assists because base runners didn’t think I could get to a ball to catch it.

In the spring when it was cold and wet and the wind blew in, home runs were scarce in Wrigley Field. When it got nice and the wind blew out it was a good home run park.

Brushback Pitchers

I didn’t mind getting thrown at by pitchers, except in Cubs’ Park, where you lost sight of so many balls coming out of the white shirts in the center field bleachers. It was that way the whole time I played. The wild pitchers were the dangerous ones, not the ones you knew would be throwing at you. 

One day lefty Johnny Vander Meer was pitching, wild as a jackrabbit, bright sunny day, pitching out of those white shirts. We’d scored a couple runs on walks and he loaded the bases again and I was hitting and he got me 3 and 2 and reared back and fired and I’ve never seen that ball to this day. It just ticked the back of my head as it went by. We didn’t have helmets. I was lucky. Coulda killed me.

Bill Nicholson and Jimmie Foxx. Image credits: Baseball History Comes Alive

Giants pitcher Ace Adams hit me up the side of the head. You can still feel the dent it left in my skull. But usually, being thrown at didn’t bother me. One day in St. Louis Lon Warneke, a former Cub, was pitching. Along about the fifth inning, the two hitters ahead of me each hit one on the roof of Sportsman’s Park.

I came up and I knew I was going to get knocked down. Dusted me off. I got up and he did it again. Next pitch he got over the plate and I never hit one harder. When it went over the stands it was just taking off.

1945 World Series

In the 1945 World Series against Detroit we had some bad breaks and bad managing. Claude Passeau threw a one-hitter in Game 3 and started Game 6. He was leading when somebody hit a ball back up the middle and he reached his bare hand and it took the nail off a finger of his pitching hand. That was the end of him.

The game went to twelve innings and Hank Borowy pitched four of them. He had pitched five innings the day before. He was at best a seven-inning pitcher. When he started Game 7, we knew that was bad managing. [The Cubs lost, 9-3.]

The Cubs at the 1945 World Series. Image credits: Baseball History Comes Alive

I’d had a poor year, knew there was something wrong with me. Had a lazy bat. After the World Series they sent me to the hospital for a week of tests. The doctors never told me anything, but the nurse said they thought it was a kidney infection.

I never thought any more about it, but in 1950 when I was diagnosed with diabetes, they sent for my records from 1945 and said, “You’re lucky you’re alive. You were showing sugar in 1945.” I wasn’t a drinker, but I’d have a few beers with the guys after a hot day in Chicago and that’s the worst thing I coulda done, I guess. 

It turned my career around. I didn’t have those big years again.

The Shooting of Eddie Waitkus

I was traded to the Phillies after the 1948 season. In 1949 I was rooming with first baseman Eddie Waitkus when he got shot at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. I went up to our room about 10 p.m. and there was a note on the dresser. I guess the bellhop had put it there. I picked it up and read it. It was for Eddie.

A few minutes later he came in and I gave it to him. He said, “I’ll go up and see what she wants.” We were on the fourth floor; she was on the twelfth. Later they found a list of ballplayers she was going to shoot. He was fourth on the list. I wasn’t on it.

Anyhow, he went up there and rapped on the door and she said, “Come in,” and she was sitting in a chair opposite the door with a .22 rifle. She said, “I’m gonna shoot you,” Eddie thought it was one of those old ballplayers’ jokes, setting him up. He stood there and she shot him right through the lung.  That’s the way it happened.

She said she was raised three blocks from him in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but she wasn’t. She was from the Chicago area. I didn’t hear any shots, but I heard the sirens. Eddie played a few more years but he never got his strength back. Died at 53. They said he drank himself to death.

I bought this farm in 1952. Wasn’t much of a farmer I just wanted to live in the country, not in town.