Great Pinch-Hitters: A Vanished Breed

Frenchy Bordagaray, a player with one of the top pinch-hitting seasons

The demise of pinch-hitting specialists, once a prominent role on pennant-winning teams, is due to two factors: the booming population of bullpens and pitching staffs that now take up more than half a team’s roster spots, and the invention of the permanent pinch hitter AKA the DH. - Norman L. Macht

These changes also relieved managers of the decision of whether to pinch-hit for a pitcher who was pitching well but trailing in the late innings of a close game, a dilemma sometimes faced in the days before pitching by committee became the norm. 

Today pinch-hitting strategy is more likely to involve something like calling on a .220 left-handed hitter to bat for a .190 right-handed hitter when there’s a pitching change. 

But for a hundred years the role of a pinch-hitting specialist was a difficult one, requiring confidence: the belief that you can hit any pitcher in any situation, knowing that you won’t have the luxury of hitting in a lopsided pressure-free game, and that, as the title implies, every time you pick up a bat, you’ll be hitting “in a pinch”, often with the game on the line; the ability to go for days or weeks without swinging a bat in a game, but be ready when called upon, and the mentality to shake off failure today and be just as confident tomorrow.

Moose McCormick

“Moose” McCormick, John McGraw’s go-to pinch-hitter for the 1912 world champion Giants, once described how he approached his role to sportswriter Grantland Rice:

“The way I looked at it was that I was the fellow who had the edge in the situation. In the first place, I must be pretty good or the manager wouldn’t be sending me up there. And in the second place, I knew the pitcher would much rather pitch to the regular hitter in that spot than to me, so I had that much on him.

“I took advantage of all the circumstances – the pause in the game, the announcement, the expectancy of the crowd. I made the pitcher wait for me and when I walked up there I’d look out at him and laugh and say ‘Well, here I am again. Get ready to duck, sucker.’

“I loved being up there in a pinch and I let the pitchers know it. I figured I had them right back on their heels before they pitched a ball to me. 

“The funny part of it was, the edge was all with the pitcher and I had to bluff him out of it. The edge always is with the pitchers, but few of them realize it. The great pitchers do. But the average pitcher is on the defensive from the time he walks out there. Why? I don’t know.

“The best hitters get a hit only three to four times in every 10 tries. The best. That’s the edge the pitcher has. Baseball is a game of percentage, a fact that great ball players never lose sight of.”

In 1912 McCormick pinch-hit in 37 games, batting .375 with 4 walks, 4 doubles, a triple and 7 RBIs. He hit .333 in two World Series.

Pinch-hitting specialists were usually over-the-hill position players whose defensive abilities had eroded with time, but whose batting eyes were still sharp, or sluggers whose fielding prowess was mediocre at best.

Sometimes they might be in the starting lineup, but that meant they would not be available as pinch-hitters if needed. They were used primarily to bat for pitchers, and even then sparingly, as rosters were small.

The 1905 Giants used only 6 pitchers and 11 men for the eight other positions to win a pennant and World Series. 

John McGraw

John McGraw may have been the first manager to use a player as a primary go-to pinch-hitter.

From 1896 to 1908 switch-hitter Sammy Strang played every position except pitcher and catcher. In 1905 the Giants bought him from Brooklyn.

Strang batted .429 in that role, 9 for 21. In that all-shutouts World Series he batted for the pitcher and was struck out by Chief Bender.

In 1906 he was 3 for 13, and in 1907 4 for 23 with 6 walks and 7 runs scored. Catcher Frank Bowerman was also used in that role, batting .750 in four pinch-hitting appearances in 1903, and .375 with a walk and an RBI in 9 games in 1905. 

New York Giants

Through the years the New York Giants continued the practice. They finished first in 1933, 1936-37, and 1954, with the help of these outstanding pinch-hitting stats:

Lefty O’Doul 1933: in 17 games batted .357 with 4 walks and 5 RBI

Sam Leslie 1936-37: batted .333 and .300. In the ’36 World Series he was 2x3.

Giants’ manager Bill Terry, the last National Leaguer to bat .400, put himself in to pinch-hit 23 times in 1936 and batted .261 with one double, one triple and 10 RBI.

Dusty Rhodes was a journeyman outfielder with a .253 BA over 7 years with the Giants. Used as a pinch-hitter in 49 games in 1954, he batted .326 with one double, one triple, 2 home runs and 13 RBI.

He pinch-hit three times in the World Series and was 3x3 with a home run and 6 RBI. 

.400-Hitting Pinch-Hitters

One of the top pinch-hitting seasons belongs to Frenchy Bordagaray, a journeyman utility player and .283 career hitter.

In 1938 with the St. Louis Cardinals, he was usually called on to bat for a pitcher in the ninth inning. He went 21 for 45, a .467 average, with 9 RBI and 13 runs scored.

Pinch-hitter Frenchy Bordagaray

Among the slugging outfielders with unreliable defensive abilities, Smead Jolley stands out.

As a pinch-hitter with the White Sox in 1931, he batted .452; with the Red Sox in 1933, his four pinch-hits included a double and 2 home runs.

Hall of Fame Pinch-Hitters

Catcher Ernie Lombardi had a 17-year batting average of .306. He was 38 in 1946 when the Giants signed him primarily as a pinch-hitter.

In that role he hit ,320 with 4 home runs and the following year batted .333 with 6 RBI.

Veteran shortstop Arky Vaughan helped the 1947 Dodgers win the pennant, batting .385 with 9 RBI off the bench. He then doubled and walked in 3 at bats in the World Series. In 1948 he was 10x33 in the same role. 

Johnny Mize helped the 1951 Yankees win the pennant, batting .400 with 5 RBI in 20 at bats off the bench.

Enos Slaughter, near the end of his career in 1958, was used as a pinch-hitter in one third of the Yankees, games. His 13 hits included 3 doubles and 6 EBI.

Bobby Brown

Rookies and young players were rarely used in the role of pinch-hitter. The most outstanding exception was Bobby Brown.

A medical student, Brown was signed by the Yankees as a third baseman in 1946. A born clutch hitter, as a rookie in 1947, he was used as a pinch-hitter in 32 games and batted .296 with 5 walks and 7 RBI.

In the World Series he was 3x3 with a walk and 3 RBI. Playing third base most of the time thereafter, he batted .500, .364 and .385 in three subsequent World Series 

Brown became a cardiologist in Texas and was president of the American League 1984-1994.