Ken Raffensberger began his major-league career with the Cardinals, then spent a big part of it pitching against them.
A left-hander who relied on pinpoint control and an assortment of breaking pitches, Raffensberger faced the Cardinals a lot _ 79 times, including 59 starts. He lost (34 times) more than he won (23 times) versus St. Louis, but when he was good he was nearly unhittable.
Seventy-five years ago, in 1948, Raffensberger pitched two one-hitters against the Cardinals.
Making the rounds
A Pennsylvania Dutch boy from the town of York, home of the Peppermint Pattie, Raffensberger entered the Cardinals’ farm system in 1937. His manager at Rochester in 1938, Ray Blades, managed the Cardinals in 1939 and put Raffensberger, 21, on the Opening Day roster.
“He has exceptional wrist action,” The Sporting News noted. “He flexes the wrist with each throw and the result is speed that is a bit startling to the hitter. There is no evidence of the speed in his delivery, which makes for deception.”
The St. Louis Star-Times reported, “He delivers the ball with little or nothing on it _ so it seems _ but it gains speed, twist, curve and what have you, as it floats toward the plate.”
In his lone appearance for the 1939 Cardinals, Raffensberger pitched a scoreless inning against the Reds, then was sent back to Rochester. Boxscore
(The 1939 Cardinals were the only team Raffensberger played for in his 15 years in the majors that finished a season with a winning record. As the York Sunday News noted, “A pennant race was as foreign to Raffensberger as a French dictionary.”)
Traded to the Cubs in December 1939, Raffensberger was mentored in 1940 by their player-manager, catcher Gabby Hartnett. “He taught me the value of control,” Raffensberger told The Sporting News. “I learned almost everything I know about pitching from him.”
Raffensberger spent most of the next three seasons (1941-43) in the minors, learning how to get batters to hit into outs, before being traded to the Phillies in September 1943.
The Phillies were bad but provided Raffensberger with opportunity, if not many runs. In 1944, he had a 2.72 ERA versus the Cardinals in 53 innings pitched, but his record against them that season was 1-5. The win was a shutout Boxscore and, in one of the losses, he pitched 16 innings in a duel of endurance with Mort Cooper. Boxscore
Named to the National League all-star team for the only time in his career, Raffensberger pitched two scoreless innings and was the winning pitcher against the American League in the 1944 game. Boxscore
Despite a 3.06 ERA, Raffensberger was 13-20 for the 1944 Phillies (61-92), who finished 43.5 games behind the league champion Cardinals (105-49).
On May 18, 1947, Raffensberger pitched a 12-inning shutout against the Cardinals, but a month later, after he lost four in a row, the Phillies traded him to the Reds. Boxscore
Slow and steady
Raffensberger, 30, made two starts against the Cardinals in April 1948 and got no decision in either. Stan Musial went a combined 5-for-8 (two singles, a double, a triple and a home run) against him in those games.
Raffensberger spent most of the next month in the bullpen. He had a 4.34 ERA for the season when he got a start in the second game of a Memorial Day doubleheader against the Cardinals at Cincinnati.
United Press called him a “creaking” veteran. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch described him as a “softball-throwing” pitcher. According to The Sporting News, wise-guy teammates nicknamed him “Cannonball” because of his slow pitches.
Nothing indicated the performance he was about to give.
With two outs in the first inning, Raffensberger walked Musial and Whitey Kurowski before retiring Enos Slaughter. Then he set down the Cardinals in order in every inning from the second through the seventh with what the Post-Dispatch called “his nuthin’-at-all pitch.”
Nippy Jones, leading off the eighth, got the Cardinals’ first hit, a lined single to center, but Raffensberger retired the next three batters.
In the ninth, Musial walked with two outs, but Raffensberger got Kurowski on a grounder to shortstop, completing the one-hit shutout. He achieved it with one strikeout. Boxscore
No fluke
The next time Raffensberger faced the Cardinals, on July 4 at Cincinnati, they beat him, scoring four runs in seven innings. His ERA for the season was 4.57 when he got another start, at St. Louis, on July 11.
After the Reds scored in the first, Raffensberger retired the first 10 batters before Marty Marion singled with one out in the fourth. Don Lang drew a two-out walk in the inning but Enos Slaughter’s grounder to third ended the threat.
The Cardinals got only two more base runners (Musial walked in the seventh and Nippy Jones reached on an error in the eighth), and Raffensberger completed his second one-hitter in the Reds’ 1-0 victory. None of the Cardinals’ outs were strikeouts. Boxscore
“His slider, when acting right, breaks about six inches in toward right-handed batters, making them hit it with the handle of their bats,” Reds catcher Ray Lamanno told The Sporting News. “Left-handed batters see it suddenly break away from them. It starts spinning rapidly just as it begins to break. By that time, batters usually are off stride. Kenny threw curves to Musial in both his one-hitters, keeping the ball away from him.”
In a story headlined, “Raffensberger Zero Ball Too Fast for Cards,” Cubs general Jim Gallagher, in St. Louis to see the game, told the St. Louis Star-Times, “Gremlins carry the ball up to the plate for the last 20 feet.”
Raffensberger said to The Sporting News, “To listen to the hitters, I don’t have anything. I take a lot of kidding that I don’t have a fastball, and don’t have a curveball. All I got, I guess, is confidence in myself to get that ball over.”
For the 1948 season, Raffensberger was 11-12 with four shutouts and only 37 walks in 180.1 innings. He made nine starts against the Cardinals and was 3-3 with a 3.04 ERA.
High praise
In 1949, Raffensberger was 18-17 for a Reds team that won just 62. He led the National League in shutouts (five). On Aug. 14, he pitched 12 innings against the Cubs and three days later he went 13 innings versus the Cardinals. Boxscore
Branch Rickey, the Cardinals’ executive who traded Raffensberger in 1939, tried multiples times to acquire him for the Dodgers in 1949, but the Reds wouldn’t deal, The Sporting News reported.
Raffensberger beat the Cardinals four times in 1951. In one of those wins, he pitched 14 innings before his catcher, Johnny Pramesa, walloped a walkoff grand slam. Boxscore
Raffensberger, 35, again led the National League in shutouts (six) in 1952, won 17 (including four versus the Cardinals) and posted a 2.81 ERA. He walked 45 in 247 innings. “I was the best control pitcher in the big leagues during my time,” he told the York Sunday News.
He pitched his last game in the majors for the Reds in June 1954, finishing with a career mark of 119-154. He achieved four one-hitters: one each versus the Cubs and Dodgers and two against the Cardinals.
Asked by The Sporting News to name the toughest batters he faced, Raffensberger chose Musial, Jackie Robinson and Carl Furillo. Musial returned the compliment. According to the Associated Press, when Musial appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” he named Raffensberger as the toughest pitcher he had faced.
In 201 at-bats against Raffensberger, Musial hit .323 with six home runs but also struck out 20 times, according to Retrosheet.org. Only Warren Spahn struck out Musial (30 times) more often than Raffensberger did.
In his autobiography, “Stan Musial: The Man’s Own Story,” Musial said, “The toughest pitchers for me were Ken Raffensberger, Johnny Vander Meer and Curt Simmons, left-handers, and Clem Labine, a right-hander.”
Raffensberger “had nothing except slow stuff, and a forkball,” Musial said. “With changing speeds and control, he made those pitches seem so fat when they weren’t. The forkball looked as big as a grapefruit but fell off the table, low. I stubbornly tried to slug with him and didn’t have much success.”