Billy Sullivan Jr.

Baseball player Billy Sullivan Jr. Credits: Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)

A 6’1”, 170-pound left-hand pull hitter with a .289 career BA,  Billy played every position but shortstop, center field and pitcher with seven teams – White Sox, Reds, Indians, Browns, Tigers, Dodgers and Pirates, in 12 seasons between 1931 and 1947, with three years in the navy. About half his games were as a catcher. 

His father, Billy Sullivan Sr, had been a catcher with the Boston Beaneaters (1899-1900), and the White Sox (1901-1912), managing the club in 1909.

Junior caught Bobo Newsom’s three starts in the 1940 World Series, becoming with his father (1906) the first father-son duo to see World Series action.

He reminisced about players he had played with and against when we visited him in September 1990 in the den of his home in Sarasota, Florida, the two-story Spanish-style former winter residence of Barnum & Bailey circus magnate John Ringling North. - Norman L. Macht.

I was born in Chicago in 1910. I have the vaguest memory of when I was about four, walking through the White Sox clubhouse with my dad.

All I remember is the smell of liniment. Sometime around World War I some fast-talking real estate salesman must have come through the White Sox clubhouse selling all these ballplayers on buying land in Oregon.

Dad bought 20 acres of apple and walnut orchards outside Newberg about 25 miles from Portland, called it the Home Plate Orchard. Another player bought the adjoining 98 acres, called it the White Sox Orchard. We moved there in 1916.

I was encouraged by my dad to play ball but get my education first. He told me what to say if anyone wanted to sign me: “I want $25,000 to sign, a two-year contract at $1,000 a month, and no reduction if farmed out.”

One day the general manager of the Cubs called me and I recited what I wanted and I heard a click. Good-bye. The Yankees’ standard approach was, “We’ll give you $1,000 more than anybody else.”

I was a first baseman. I said, “You got a guy [Lou Gehrig] on first base who’s going to be there another ten years. What am I going to do?” And they wouldn’t go along with my continuing school and missing spring training and the first two or three weeks of the season.

Billy Sullivan Sr. Credits: Society for American Baseball Research (SABR)

The closeness with my dad worked for me with the White Sox. They gave me the thousand a month for two years, but only $10,000 to sign.

Then they said, “We don’t want to give you this money and then you don’t show up. We’ll give you $3300 each of the first two years and $3400 the third year.” Later that would come back to bite me.

They had no objection to my reporting late until I was done with school. I never went to spring training for five years.

I went to Notre Dame where I played first base two years and graduated with a BA in 1931, then went to law school for two years and passed the bar exam but never intended to practice law. 

Major League Debut

In June 1931 I got on a train to join the White Sox in Washington. Overnight trains always arrived early the next morning.

I got to the Wardman Park Hotel, a scared kid, sat in the lobby a couple hours, saw some tanned young men going by, got a cab to the ballpark by myself.

The manager, Donie Bush, says, “Go to the clubhouse and have them give you a locker.” Now they’re going to have a pregame meeting.

I’m way off in a corner sitting on top of two uniform trunks, knowing I’m not going to play, overwhelmed but enjoying it all.

Bush is telling them how to pitch to the batters and how the fielders should play them. Then he reads off the lineup – so and so, so and so, and then he says, “Billy Sullivan, right field.” 

I nearly fell off the two trunks. I’d never played outfield in my life. And I’m batting fifth.

Alvin Crowder was pitching for Washington. After I struck out, I came back and said, “Boy, he’s fast.” The veterans all said, “Fast? No, he’s one of the slower ones.”

We were down about eight runs after the bottom of the eighth. In those days you left your glove out on the field. I tossed my glove back of where the second baseman plays.

Joe Cronin, the Washington shortstop, is standing on second base. He says to me, “Hey, kid,” tosses me my glove and says, “If you get eight runs you can bring it back out.” 

I got my first hit in the ninth inning, a line drive to center field. We go to New York and I’m rushing to get the New York papers to read about my hit.

It said, “Billy Sullivan got a scratch hit in the ninth inning.” Those New Yok writers could be a sarcastic bunch.

The Yankees

I walk into Yankee Stadium and that big ballpark was awe-inspiring. Here are these names that are just magic to me: Ruth, Gehrig, Dickey.

So here I am again out in right field. There were so many home runs going over my head I got a sore neck.

After two games in right field, I’m in the lineup at third base. I had never played there before either.

Eddie Collins always emphasized the importance of the little things in baseball. Now that I’m playing third, I paid attention to whether base runners touched the bag when they came around.

A lot of times they didn’t. One day the Yankees had runners on first and second with two outs. Ruth lined a bullet off the right field fence. Two runs score. Ruth comes into third on his spindly legs.

I went to the mound and told the pitcher to give me the ball. I went back to third and stepped on the bag and the ump says, “The runner missed the bag. He’s out.” Force out. No hit. The two runs don’t count. Boy, was Ruth hot.

In 1930 on my way to Notre Dame I had worked out with the White Sox and shortstop Luke Appling was trying out at the same time.

Now we were roommates. Luke was always moaning low. If he felt okay there was something wrong.  Then he’d go out and foul off 20 balls till he got one he liked, get four hits.

Traveling by Train

Train travel made for team cohesiveness, a fellowship that’s gone with air travel. Now that has to develop in the clubhouse.

 The food on the trains in those days was magnificent, the best chefs. Many trips were overnight; we boarded around six, had a great steak dinner.

Breakfast was a big deal with the players; you didn’t eat lunch. Night ball threw that schedule all off.

Jimmie Foxx

There was a camaraderie among ballplayers, not just teammates. Some players went out of their way to be kind to me.

One day before a game with the Athletics I was taking some infield practice at first base, still using my glove from Notre Dame, when Jimmie Foxx walks by.

He stops and says, “Hey Kid, let me see that glove.” I gave it to him and he says, “We don’t use a glove like that up here. It’s too little.”

I said, “That’s all I could get in South Bend.” Next day he hands me a glove and says, “Here.” It was broken in, better than brand new.

Ted Lyons

I thought I was pretty sharp about manners and etiquette and such, but I learned a lesson early about life and tipping. In the Depression a quarter was a lot of money.

One day on the train I saw Ted Lyons tip a porter a dollar. I said, “You gave him a dollar tip?” He said, “The difference between a quarter and a dollar is only 75 cents.

At the end of the year maybe it amounts to 15 or 20 dollars. It helps that fellow a lot and think what it does to your image.”

Lyons was a wonderful guy. Everybody loved him, even though he was a fierce competitor. And strong? He lifted Jimmie Foxx into an upper berth on a train one day.

Bill Dickey

A couple years later I caught my first game at Yankee Stadium. Lou Gehrig is at bat, hits a high pop-up back of home plate.

I take off my mask running back toward the screen and that ball is so high it looks like an aspirin tablet and then I start backing up and backing up clear back to home plate and the ball comes down and tips off the end of my glove five feet fair and Gehrig’s on second base.

The Yankees’ dugout was on the third base side. A runway ran from it to both clubhouses. Players from both sides would sit along that runway, talking, smoking before a game.

The next day Yankees’ catcher Bill Dickey is sitting there and I sat down next to him. He said, “Sully, you had a little problem out there yesterday, didn’t you.”

“Yeah.”

“The ball goes in the direction in which it spins. You have to learn that in a closed-in ballpark, especially this one, the wind blows in, hits the stands, and has to come back out.”

Here’s a star, talking to a novice catcher from another team. That’s camaraderie. 

Fats Fothergill and Smead Jolley

The White Sox had two outfielders who were good hit no field: Bob ‘Fats’ Fothergill and Smead Jolley.

Fothergill’s initials were RRF. He said, “That’s Runs Responsible For.” I got into a slump, went four days without a hit. One day we’re behind eight or nine runs. I work up a 3-0 count.

Naturally you’re supposed to take a strike. Not me. I swung and hit a line drive single. Got hell from Donie Bush: “You’re not supposed to do that.” I said, “I saw Fothergill do it.” He says, “You’re not Fothergill.”

Smead Jolley’s locker is next to mine. Bush’s locker is next to mine on the other side.

Seems like I’m getting yelled at every day by Bush. “You lost that game today.” In my face with those bushy eyebrows.

One day I’m taking my shoes off and he lit into me and about got me crying and when he finished with me he started in on Smead and that big moose is bending down like me and smiling and winking at me – didn’t bother him.

One time Smead hit a long single and tried to make it into a double and got caught midway and Bush lit into him. “What were you thinking?”

Smead said, “You know, Donie, I was thinking the same thing myself. I got halfway and I said to myself, Smead, what are you doing out here?”

In September Lefty Grove was going for his sixteenth win in a row. First inning I hit a home run. He’s following me around the bases cussing me out. That was the only run we scored.

I never caught the spitball but I played behind Red Faber, one of the spitball pitchers who had been grandfathered in when the pitch was banned in 1920.

One day in Yankee Stadium I was playing third base and the ball was hit to me. I gripped it where this glob of slippery elm was and threw that ball into the camera balcony that hung from the second deck.

Faber was a very smart pitcher. Once when Babe Ruth was up, Faber moved me to play in front of the shortstop, challenging Ruth to hit to left field.

Then he pitched him in on the fists and Ruth was so anxious he just hit a little blooper right to me. 

I’d been playing at Notre Dame in ’30 and ’31 and didn’t need any spring training. But in ’32 I was in law school and couldn’t play, so I joined the White Sox with no spring training.

I’d come in on weekends, pinch hit, and go back to school until mid-June. I still led the team in batting at .316.

In September Ed Walsh Jr. was called up by the White Sox. Because his dad and mine had been battery mates they asked me to catch. I agreed, but left after five innings when he did.

My original two-year contract was up and I got a new one for the same money. No raise. I was screaming but they knew I had to sign to get the last installment of my bonus.

On top of that, they wanted me to be a catcher. I’d caught in a few games but mostly played first.

Here I’d led in batting, I’m not getting a raise, and they want me to change positions.  I held out and finally got them to add to the contract that I would not be required to catch.

Lew Fonseca is the manager. He figured he could play first base. He said, “I know what’s in your contract. You’ll sit your ass on this bench until you catch.” I didn’t play much, hit only .192. 

While I was at Notre Dame, I fell in love with a student from St. Mary’s, the girls’ school across the road. On October 9, 1932, I proposed to her at a hamburger stand. She said yes, but she was only 16.

I said she was too young, but if she still felt the same way next October 9, we’d get married. Now October 9, 1933, comes around and we’re in the City Series with the Cubs. Only way I could get married on October 9 is if we won or lost four out of five.

We lost the first game, and now we had to win four straight. And we did. The next morning we got married. Went to Hawaii and Australia for our honeymoon. 

Then I had to report to Pasadena for spring training and no wives were allowed and we had no home. Hadn’t given it a thought. I stayed in an apartment in Pasadena, but the club insisted: no wives.

I took it up with Commissioner Landis, said we have no home and my wife can’t be barred from living with me in my apartment.

He agreed and I got a reputation for being a clubhouse lawyer. I also got a ticket to the minor leagues: Milwaukee.

Al Sothoron

The Milwaukee manager was the best I ever played for: Al Sothoron.  Never made it to the majors as a manager. He knew that young players needed different treatment. One day after a game he sat down next to me.

“Billy, you have a great background. Your father was a great ballplayer and he really knew the game and he taught you. You know too much baseball to make a play like you did today.”

Is that ever psychological or what? I’d have torn the place down for him. I hit .343 and batted in over 100 runs hitting second.

But I made only $2,000 for the year. I was ready to quit baseball and do something else.

That winter the White Sox shuffled me on paper to Indianapolis, then St. Paul, and finally sold me to Cincinnati. I didn’t do any catching for them.

They had Ernie Lombardi, the only one I ever saw catch a pitch barehanded. I roomed with him once; when he snored you could hear it everywhere. I didn’t get along with the manager, Chuck Dressen, not his type.

Cocky little guy. One-fifth manager and four-fifths big-time gambler.

Becoming a Catcher

A veteran catcher, Steve O’Neill, had seen me catch once in Chicago and had told me if he could ever work with me he thought I’d be a fine catcher. He was now the manager at Cleveland.

At the end of the season I asked the Reds’ general manager, Larry MacPhail, for permission to talk to O’Neill. He said okay, but if they wanted me, they’d have to pay at least what the Reds had paid for me.

They started bickering and got within $5,000 of each other. I said, “I’ll put up the other $5,000.” Finally they split the difference, and I offered to pay the $2,500. I may be the only player willing to contribute to his own purchase price.

I was hitting over .400 in the middle of June and the Indians said to forget about what I owed them. I wound up hitting .351.

At Cleveland I became a catcher. My dad had been a talker behind the plate. He caught the great spitballer, Ed Walsh. A spitter has to be thrown low to be effective. One day Larry Lajoie was at bat.

Dad called for a fastball but as Walsh wound up, Dad yelled, “Get it low, Ed.” Lajoie figured spitter and let the fastball go by for a strike.

Dad was mild-mannered but had his tricks. When Ty Cobb was at bat, if dad walked out to the pitcher, Cobb would follow him.

One day dad went out and Cobb followed and dad said to the pitcher loud enough for Cobb to hear, “When I give you this sign, you throw right at his head.”

 We had been taught to holler and make noise on the bench to distract the other team. I became a talker behind the plate to distract the batter just as the pitcher was ready to throw.

Bob Feller

In the fall of 1937 Bob Feller went barnstorming through the northwest. His catcher was Rollie Hemsley of the St. Louis Browns.

Feller liked pitching to him and came back and persuaded the Indians to trade me for him. Now I’m with the Browns..

One day Feller is pitching against us, really had his stuff. We had no hits until about the sixth or seventh. I was a good drag bunter and he knew it. I faked a drag bunt and he came off the mound toward first, but I pushed it toward shortstop and he couldn’t field it.

Only hit we got. I still hear from Feller about that.

Gabby Street, an old catcher, was the Browns’ manager. Gabby had a friend, another old catcher, Joe Sugden.

They both had fingers all twisted and gnarled from foul tips. The joke was, when they shook hands, it took a locksmith two hours to get them apart.

Traded to Detroit

The Browns traded me to Detroit in 1940. Our road trips could sometimes last for three weeks at a time. At the end of one trip we stopped at Cleveland for a series before returning to Detroit.

I decided I’d fly to Detroit and see my wife for one night and fly back the next morning. When I got my next paycheck, there was a hundred dollar fine taken out.

I wondered how they knew I’d gone to Detroit for one night. I asked about it and they said, “That’s for not sliding at home plate in St. Louis.”

What had happened was I’m heading for home plate and the next hitter is the one who signals whether you need to slide or not and he’s not giving me any kind of sign.

I didn’t slide. The catcher had the ball. Only fine I ever got.

At the end of the season we went into Cleveland needing to win one of three to beat them for the pennant.

When the manager, Del Baker, held a meeting to ask our opinion on who we should pitch against Feller in the first game, I voted for Hal Newhouser. But Floyd Giebell was chosen by Baker.

I was catching and I noticed a white towel sometimes appearing in one of the open squares in the big scoreboard. They were reading my signs. So we changed the signs every inning and threw them off.

Giebell pitched a fine game and won, 2-0. We won the pennant but lost to Cincinnati in the World Series.

In 1942 I was holding out at Detroit and got traded to Brooklyn. The Dodgers had a good team. Won 104 games. Had an eight-game lead in August, lost eight in a row to the Cardinals and lost the pennant by two games.

We had played a game at the Jacksonville naval base and all those sailors were hollering at us, “Why aren’t you fighting? Got flat feet?” I felt very uncomfortable. The Dodgers sent me a contract but I told them I didn’t feel right about playing ball.

They said I’d be suspended unless I asked for voluntary retirement. So I did. I went to join the navy, figuring they could use a lawyer, but they said they needed construction contractors more, so I became a government contractor.

They were building an air base in Venice, just south of Sarasota. I bid on it and got the contract, and wound up building about 30 bases and then I went into the navy and got out in 1946 and went back to the construction and building supply business in Sarasota. 

Hank Greenburg

Hank Greenberg, who had been a teammate at Detroit, was now with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He called me from Miami in the spring of ’47.

He said, “The players’ pension plan is going in and you have to be on a major league roster on April 1, 1947, to qualify, or all your past years are wiped out. They want you here.” 

So that’s how I wound up in Pittsburgh. Hank Greenberg is the smartest baseball man that ever lived, in my opinion. He and I had dinner together about every night that season. He studied every aspect of the game.

There is more to being a star than hitting a ball. How you dress, how you act – he was a star. He took Ralph Kiner under his wing. Kiner had ability, but Hank made him into a star.