Carmen Hill: Pitching for John McGraw and Against Babe Ruth

If you made a bar graph of RHP Carmen Hill’s record in the 10 years he was in the NL between 1915 and 1930—eight of them with the Pirates, it would look like a Kansas wheat field with two tall silos side by side in the middle.

He never won more than three games in any year, except for 1927 and 1928, when he was 38-21, and faced Babe Ruth and the Yankees in the 1927 World Series In 1915 Hill and Lee Meadows were the first pitchers to wear glasses in the major leagues.

We met in the summer of 1985 at his longtime home in Indianapolis.- Norman L. Macht

Starting in 1914

In 1914 I tried out with the New York Giants, pitching batting practice. Their catcher said I’d hear from them. I bragged to my schoolmates about signing with them any day.

When I didn’t hear from them, I made a promise I’d beat them if I ever got the chance. And I did, in my first big league start for Pittsburgh on September 17, 1915, a 5-0 four-hitter.

I had a habit of raising my foot a little before I went into my windup motion.

The Giants got on me because of it. This went on for a few innings. The home plate umpire came out to the mound and said, “Boy, you’re going to have to stop that.”

I said, “What am I doing wrong?”

He said, “That’s all right, my boy. Just go ahead,” and patted me on the back. The Giants’ bench kept whooping it up. The umpire took off his mask, went over and ran John McGraw out of there.

Twelve years later I beat the Giants five times and the Pirates won the pennant by 1 ½ games, 2 games over the Giants.

Baseball legend Carmen Hill

I was up and down between the minors and the Pirates between 1915 and 1919. Casey Stengel was there when I was with them in 1919. There are many versions of this Stengel story.

This is the true one: The Pirates’ owner, Barney Dreyfuss, had promised Stengel a raise if he was hitting over .300 on June 1.

He was hitting about .320, but when he went up to get his raise, he didn’t get it. In the next game, first time up, he kept the bat on his shoulder and took three strikes. The crowd booed him.

One day I was sitting at the end of the dugout and he was next to me. He wasn’t in the game.

A little sparrow flew into the dugout and I caught it. Casey said, “Give it to me.” When the manager called on him to pinch hit, he took that little sparrow and put it under his hat.

He went up to bat, took three called strikes, and the crowd stood up and booed him. He turned toward them and tipped his cap and the little bird flew out.

Casey wasn’t around long after that. [He was traded to the Phillies that night.]

The 1920’s

I was out of baseball 1920-21 with a stomach ailment and had back injuries that plagued me off and on. 

In 1922 the Giants were fighting for the pennant. I was with Indianapolis. The club owner called McGraw and said, “I have a pitcher who can help you.” McGraw says, “Send him.”

I don’t think I was sold. It was more like a loan. They did things like that back then. Maybe it was on a trial. Anyhow, I arrived in New York for the last month of the season.

They were playing Brooklyn in a doubleheader. McGraw called me over and sat me down beside him.

As each player came up to bat, he’d say, “This is so-and-so and this is the way I want you to pitch to him,” through the whole game.

The next day I’m pitching. Earl Smith is catching.

Smitty comes out to the mound and says to me,

“Hill, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. If I call for something you don’t want to throw, just shake me off. But don’t look in there at that potbellied SOB on the bench or he’ll try to pitch your ballgame for you.”

McGraw used to call the pitches. I said, “Oh, no he won’t.” Smitty says, “Well, just don’t look at him. And neither will I.”

Well, McGraw was waving his arms and pacing around during that whole game, but we just ignored him. The score was 1-1 late in the game.

They had a man on second base with two out and Andy High came to bat. He was the only one I remembered McGraw’s instructions about.

He’d said to me, “Pitch low to High.” I got a pitch up a little and he hit it for a triple. When I came into the bench McGraw says to me, “Where did I tell you to pitch to High?”

I says, “Low.” 

“You didn’t do it, did you?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

That was it. He didn’t get on you if you remembered his instructions but failed to execute them. But if you didn’t follow orders, watch out. I learned that in a hurry.

A few days later Irish Meusel, a good outfielder, comes up to bat with a man on base and the score tied. McGraw says to him, “Irish, take a strike.”

Well, Irish hits the first pitch into the left-field seats for a home run. Won the game. He circles the bases, comes down with both feet onto home plate and runs back to the bench feeling pretty good.

McGraw says, “What did I tell you to do?”

Meusel says, “You told me to take one and I took it right out of the ballpark.”

McGraw says, “It’ll cost you 200.”

I never saw a madder Irishman in my life.  Irish says, “Make it 400.”

McGraw says, “It’s 400.” And it stuck.

In 1922 the Giants played the Yankees in the World Series. All the Giants players got blocks of three tickets for each game except me. Other players said I was entitled to the same thing.

When I asked, the club secretary said I didn’t have any coming to me. I said, “I better get them or I’ll go to McGraw.” He’d sold mine, but the next day he gave me some.

The Giants won the Series. The next spring I got a letter from the club secretary: “It is with great pleasure I’m returning your contract to Indianapolis.” But I had a World Series ring.

Earl Smith

Earl Smith and I became buddies. He was the best catcher I ever saw. Never had a banged-up finger in all his years. He said he could sit in a rocking chair and catch me.

He hated McGraw, and didn’t hesitate to needle him in the clubhouse. Earlier that season McGraw had fined him $2,500 for not being in his room at curfew time.

 In 1926 Smitty and I were reunited in Pittsburgh. I won 21 games at Indianapolis by the end of August and the Pirates bought me. I was to join them in Chicago.

I took the train and was late getting in. Bill McKechnie was the manager. At Wrigley Field, you had to go up a stairway to get to the clubhouse.

When I arrived, the players were coming down to go onto the field. Here came McKechnie. He asked me, “Where have you been?”

“Trying to get here.”

“Go up and get a suit.”

As I got to the top of the steps, he said, “Wait a minute.”

He tossed a ball to me. That meant I was pitching that day. 

He said, “I’m going to get you in there before you get a chance to get scared.”

I beat the Cubs, 3-2, in 10 innings. Smitty caught me.

One day in 1927 we’re playing the Giants and McGraw ordered his pitcher to walk Smitty by throwing at him. He was up and down four times.

When we went out on the field, Smitty came out to the mound and said, “Bunker” – he’d given me that nickname – “Bunker, are you my friend?”

I said, “You get back there and catch.”

The first man up, I turned his cap around. The second one up went down one way and his bat flew the other way. The third man up I did the same. I never threw at another batter. And I had an easy game.

It’s up to the opposing pitcher to stop a throwing contest.

The next day, Giants second baseman Rogers Hornsby came out with a newspaper story that a pitcher who threw at a batter should be banned from baseball.

He never mentioned that the Giants had started it. Maybe he said it because he couldn’t hit me with a paddle.

He used to stand way back deep in the batter’s box and step into the pitch. I wouldn’t let him. I’d pitch him inside first, then outside. If he stepped into the pitch and it was inside he’d step right into it.

On the other hand, if I broke even with Bill Terry – got him twice and he got two hits – it was a good day. This was a game in New York: Two outs and a man on second. He’s a left-handed hitter.

I was all ready to throw to him when I noticed he dropped his left foot back in the batter’s box, which meant he was going to shove that ball into left field.

So I just opened my fingers, relaxed my grip on the ball, and threw the damnedest slow ball up there you ever saw, with my usual fastball motion.

It went up there slow and slower. He swung at it, and he swung at it again. And he popped it right straight up in the air and the catcher just stood there and caught it.

He grabbed the bat right in the middle and came running out at me – I’ll never forget it – he was holding the bat up in the air, and he said to me, “Hill, what in the hell was that? You never threw that before in your life.” And I laughed and said, “Bill, that was one I was saving just for you.”

Donie Bush took over the Pirates in 1927. We didn’t get along. He had managed Indianapolis 1924-26 when I was there.

He had to have a whipping boy, somebody he could pick on. In 1925 I had my only really bad year. I couldn’t do anything right for him.

I went to the club owner and told him to get Bush off my back or I’d kill him. He called in Bush and for the rest of the year Bush and I didn’t say two words to each other. Bush got on our shortstop instead of me.

The 1927 Pirates

The ‘27 Pirates were a drinking team. Spring training in Paso Robles we had adjoining rooms. You could go from one into the next one on down the building.

One evening I came in from a show and there was pitcher Ray Kremer standing in the middle of the room.

They had these chandeliers hanging from the ceiling with lots of little lights in them, and he was throwing glasses at them. Had them all busted out but one. Glass all over the floor.

The newsmen were the same way. Once on a trip to Chicago they went into the baggage car and threw all our trunks off the train.

We had to borrow the Cubs’ road uniforms for the next game until we got our things back.

One time we were in St. Louis. The mayor and district attorney from Hot Springs, Arkansas, Smitty’s home town, had come up to St. Louis to see a game.

I had won the first game in the four-game series. Before the third game, Smitty says to me, “Bunker, let’s you and I take them out on the town tonight. We won’t be working again in this series.”

So we did. Hit all the high spots in town. Got in about three or four in the morning. We went out to the ballpark the next day and Bush says, “Hill, you’re working.”

Smitty was all hunched over at the end of the bench, just all bent over. I walked over and said, “Smitty, we’re working.” He just folded up and fell right over on his head onto the concrete floor.

Well, we started the ball game. I had them beat, 1-0, in the sixth. Somebody hit a pop fly into right field.

Paul Waner came running in and as he caught it, he stumbled and his knee knocked the ball out of his glove. There were two men on at the time and one of them scored.

So it was tied, 1-1. That game went on until the eleventh inning. It’s the only ball game I was ever in where I walked up and down in front of our bench begging them to get me just one run.

In the eleventh inning, their first man up was Jim Bottomley, their big first baseman. He hit the second pitch for a home run up on top of the pavilion.

I headed for the clubhouse and got about halfway there and Bush grabbed me by the shoulder and spun me around. 

“Where was that ball?” he yelled. “Where was it?”

I said, “Up on the pavilion roof. Didn’t you see it?”

“You did it on purpose,” he yelled.

In the clubhouse, he came toward me and I said, “Bush, if you don’t get away from me, you’re going to get hurt.” He knew I meant it and walked away. Can you figure that?

That was just one instance of Bush and me. Here’s another. We’re playing Brooklyn at home on a Saturday.

We didn’t play Sunday ball at home, so we’d go to Brooklyn for a Sunday game, then come back and play them on Monday.

I had beaten the Giants on Friday. After the Saturday game Bush says to me, “I’m taking you to Brooklyn.”

I says, “You are like hell.”

“You better be on that train.”

“Don’t hold it for me.”

I didn’t go. They went to Brooklyn and lost, 11-10. Next day Bush was furious. He said, “You lost me that game. I think I’ll fine you.”

I said, “What do you have five other pitchers for?” I was taking my regular turn and relieving too, was in 44 games that year.

Before the 1927 World Series opener, the Yankees were hitting balls out of the park all over in batting practice to intimidate us. They had special baseballs made just for that.

When one of those balls came over to our dugout and we tried to get it, one of their men ran over and picked it up before we could get to it.

I never forgave Donie Bush for not using me at home in the Series, where I was 10-2. I started Game Four at Yankee Stadium after we’d lost the first three. It was do-or-die time.

Our first baseman had a bad hip. The first three batters hit ground balls that went by him just out of his reach into right field. One run scored.

Then I struck out Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri. And those 50,000 people stood up and gave me a standing ovation.

Pitching to Babe Ruth

I learned how to pitch to Babe Ruth by watching Jess Barnes work on him in the 1922 World Series. Barnes stood on the mound and just lifted his leg and threw like a girl and drove Ruth crazy.

Ruth had a funny closed, pigeon-toed stance and he’d see that slow ball coming up and he’d start hopping and dancing in the batter’s box. All four times he pitched to Ruth that way.

After the game, Ruth had come into our clubhouse and wanted to fight Barnes. It took a few of us to hold him back.

I used to pitch that way to him in exhibition games. He’d say, “Put something on the ball, you four-eyed SOB.” I’d laugh and throw him another one.

I remembered all that now. But I almost beaned him his first time up. I didn’t mean to throw at him, but the ball went right for his head. He froze. I thought sure it was going to get him.

He just sort of pulled his head in a little, like he didn’t know what to do. He grabbed that bat in the middle and started out for the mound.

Smitty says to him, “Babe, you better not go out there. If you do, the next one will be even closer.” That stopped him. That was a close call. It scared me, but I bet it scared him more.

In the fifth inning, he hit me for a two-run home run, the cheapest homer he ever hit.

He hit that ball right off his fists, pulling away from it, not stepping into it. The ball dropped into the right field stands 296 feet away, just out of Paul Waner’s reach.

In most parks, it would have been an easy out. That’s the one that wound up on the Babe Ruth stamp, which was drawn based on a photo of him hitting that home run.

In the photo, you can see Ruth, the catcher and the fans all looking up in the air.

We tied it, 3-3, in the seventh and I went out for a pinch hitter. Smitty went out for a pinch runner. Johnny Miljus went in to pitch, and Johnny Gooch took over the catching.

In the last of the ninth, Combs led off and walked. Koenig beat out a bunt down the third base line. They advanced on a wild pitch. Ruth was walked intentionally. Miljus then struck out Gehrig and Meusel.

He had two strikes on Lazzeri when Gooch did something no catcher should ever do. He got down on one knee back where the hitter couldn’t see him and signaled for an overhand curve ball.

He was sure that would strike out Lazzeri. You know what Miljus did? He didn’t know why he did it. He just did it.

He came with a way down motion, a sweeping sidearm, almost underarm pitch that rose as it came in.

Gooch was down on that one knee and couldn’t get up quick enough to do anything but just knock that ball down, just far enough away for Combs to score with the winning run.

If Gooch had been on his feet, he could have reached that ball.

Then the funniest thing happened. We left the dugout and crossed two-thirds of the way across the playing field in utter silence. You coulda heard a pin drop. Then the noise broke out.

It took that long for the fans to realize that the series was over. And, you know, the Yankees never talked about that game. Miljus never mentioned it either.

Featured image credits: Celebriot