The Junkmen

"Junkman" Preacher Roe. Image credits: Find a Grave

Ever since 1884, when pitchers were first allowed to throw overhand, baseball people from scouts to fans have oohed and aahed over big strong pitchers who could throw a ball a hundred miles an hour – even before the invention of timing devices – from Cy Young, Walter Johnson and Lefty Grove to Dizzy Dean, Bob Feller, Nolan Ryan, Randy Johnson and down to today’s bullpen flamethrowers.

But through the years there have also been outstanding pitchers who couldn’t raise a welt or black an eye if they hit a batter, who threw “slop” or “junk” or “garbage.”

But they had some other things in common: they knew how to pitch, how to mix their pitches, and relied on control, averaging under three walks per nine innings. Some of them, like Mike Boddicker and Scott McGregor of the Orioles, had a 20-win season while averaging 10 to 13 wins a year. 

Another breed of specialist was the knuckleball artist. They could throw a decent fastball but relied primarily on the knuckler, which nobody liked: hitters, catchers, umpires. It was easy to throw but hard to control. Nobody, including the thrower, knew what it would do, how it would dance or dip when it reached the plate. Some batters fought it by moving up to the front edge of the batters box to hack at it before it reached its dipsy-do range. 

In the 1940s the Washington Senators assembled a staff of knucklers: Roger Wolff, Dutch Leonard, John Niggeling, and Mickey Haefner, and finished 2nd twice with an otherwise mediocre lineup.

Some hard throwers who ran into arm problems or injuries as they aged sought to extend their careers for a few years by relying more on their heads than their “stuff.”

The two most dominant junkmen of the twentieth century were contemporaries who pitched against each other in two World Series.

Preacher Roe

In 1938 a whip-like left arm carried 6-foot-1, 140-pound Elwin “Preacher” Roe out of the hills of Ash Flat, Arkansas, and into the St. Louis Cardinals’ farm system, where his fastball’s allergy to the strike zone kept him toiling for five years before he tamed it, and the Pittsburgh Pirates acquired him in 1944. 

The Pirates finished a distant second to the Cardinals in the war-diminished ’44 race, and Roe actually led the league in strikeouts in ’45. Then an injury turned Roe into a junkman. But it wasn’t his arm that was hurt. It was his head.

During the off-seasons, Roe taught high school math and coached the basketball teams. During a game in February 1946 he was arguing with a referee over a call. Tempers rose, fists flew. Roe crashed to the floor, banging his head and fracturing his skull. When he recovered, he suffered months of dizzy spells and found he couldn’t throw more than a couple fastballs without repercussions in his head. 

If he wanted to stay in baseball, he had to become a junkman, relying on pinpoint control. He shortened his delivery and resembled a dart thrower, always aiming for the corners, mixing slow and slower change-ups, curves and sliders, an occasional unexpected fastball, and a pitch an old catcher had taught him in the minor leagues – the spitball. 

Banned in 1920, the spitter was still occasionally used by sneaky pitchers. It danced and wobbled in unpredictable ways. It required no foreign substances. Roe learned all the tricks: how to spit – or not – on his hand while adjusting his cap, then transfer the moisture to his fingertips. Just planting the suspicion in a batter’s mind was as effective as using it. If a batter asked the umpire to inspect the ball, Roe or the catcher would “accidentally” drop it in the dirt.

Roe struggled through a 4-15 1947 season perfecting his new repertoire with a slow, weak-hitting, poor fielding seventh-place team behind him. 

Then the Pirates traded him to the Brooklyn Dodgers and everything changed for the 32-year-old junkman. He suddenly found himself in pitchers’ heaven: Roy Campanella catching, an outfield of Duke Snider and Carl Furillo and, later, Andy Pafko, an infield of Gil Hodges and Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese and Billy Cox, and plenty of hitting. 

Portrayed as a hillbilly, Roe adopted the role, though he was no dummy. During the other team’s batting practice, he’d stand behind the cage and chatter: “Get your bats ready, boys.  Ol’ Preach is pitchin’ today. You know how you like to hit against Preach.’ He had nothing, and they all knew it, but at the end of the day he’d give up four or five hits and beat them.

He said, “When I get a guy 3-and-2 he’s mine, didn’t matter who the hitter is.” And the hitters knew it, knew they’d probably see an unhittable spitter or an unexpected “fastball,” or a pitch so slow it seemed to arrive at the strike zone on crutches.

Roe thrived in Brooklyn: 93-37 in seven years. His best year was 1951, when he was 22-3 with a 3.04 ERA. He averaged about two walks per 9 innings. He pitched three complete games in three World Series, with a 2-1 record.

Ed Lopat

Ed Lopat was an aspiring left-handed first baseman whose switch to the mound was not caused by an injury, unless it was a blow to his pride when a scout told him he would never make it as a first baseman because he couldn’t throw hard enough to make the throw to second base.

Born in the Bronx in 1918, he grew up as a rabid fan of the dominating 1920s Yankees. But in 1936 he signed with the Dodgers. After several years in the low minors, it became apparent that he couldn’t hit enough to go anywhere. When the manager suggested he try pitching, Lopat found he had no problem throwing a curve, so he became a career-long student and teacher of how to be a winning pitcher without a fastball.

In 1939 he developed a screwball, which became his most effective pitch. It worked partly because batters seldom saw one.

By 1943 he was in his seventh year in the minors. Even winning 19 games with Little Rock and a shortage of big league talent, scouts remained uninterested in a 25-year-old, 5-foot-10 junkman. In the spring of 1944 the White Sox bought him on a 30-day trial basis. He won 11 games for the seventh-place White Sox.

Ed Lopat found his mentor in Ted Lyons. Image credits: Trading Card DB

When Chicago’s longtime pitching ace Ted Lyons became the Sox’s manager in 1946, Lopat found his guru. The future Hall of Famer taught him how to vary the speeds of his different pitches and the effects of mixing short-arm and long-arm deliveries, effectively quadrupling his pitching arsenal. 

On his own, he never stopped experimenting. He added a variety of arm angles – overhand, three-quarters and sidearm -- all of them smooth and stress-free. He took a knuckleball grip and threw a slider with it,

What it all added up to was a display of deception that caused Ted Williams to rank him the toughest pitcher he ever faced.

Like Preacher Roe, Lopat’s mantra became: “Get the ball over the plate and make them hit it.” They both averaged about 2.2 walks per 9 innings.

The Trade

Eddie Lopat was traded by the sixth-place White Sox to the world champion Yankees at the same time Preacher Roe was rescued from Pittsburgh by the Dodgers.

He complemented power pitchers Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi and Whitey Ford as the Yankees won five world championships 1949-1953. During his seven full seasons in New York he was 109-51.

World Series

Preacher Roe battled Ed Lopat twice in the World Series. In 1952 Roe won, 5-3. The next year Lopat won, 4-2. Both pitchers went the distance in both games.

Roe also beat Vic Raschi, 1-0, in Game 2 of the 1949 Series.

Lopat was 4-1 in 5 World Series games. He gave up no home runs in 51 innings.