Joe Schultz batted in a minor-league game when he was 14, played nine years in the majors, helped develop Cardinals prospects such as Bob Gibson and Tim McCarver, and coached for St. Louis clubs that won two World Series titles and three National League pennants.
The role that defined his baseball career, though, was his one season as Seattle Pilots manager.
Fifty-five years ago, in November 1969, Schultz was fired after the Pilots finished at the bottom of their division in their only American League season.
Instead of it being a footnote in his career, Schultz’s stint with Seattle became a climax because of the book “Ball Four.” In chronicling his time with the Pilots, pitcher Jim Bouton made Schultz a central figure in the bestseller.
All in the family
Though born in Chicago, Joe Schultz Jr. grew up in the family home in St. Louis on Labadie Avenue, a couple of blocks from Sportsman’s Park. His father, Joe Sr., was an outfielder who played 11 seasons in the majors, including from 1919-24 with the Cardinals. In those days, little Joe Jr. “wore a cutdown Cardinals uniform, circled the bases after games at Sportsman’s Park and slid until he was a tired tyke,” according to Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
After his playing days, Joe Sr. managed in the minors, including three seasons (1930-32) with the Cardinals’ Houston farm team. During the summers, Joe Jr. joined his dad wherever he was managing.
Dizzy Dean pitched for Joe Sr. at Houston. The manager let his 12-year-old son catch Dean’s warmup throws. “I’d catch him all right _ until he really cut loose,” Joe Jr. recalled to the Post-Dispatch.
(Nearly 30 years later, when Joe Jr. managed Omaha, Bob Gibson pitched for him. So, father and son had the distinction of managing Dizzy Dean and Bob Gibson.)
In 1932, just after he turned 14, Joe Jr. made his pro baseball debut.
“My dad was managing Houston and we were playing Galveston in the last game of the season,” Joe Jr. recalled to the Kansas City Star. “He got to the ninth inning and sent me up (to bat). A left-hander named Hank Thormahlen (35 years old and a 20-game winner) was pitching. I got a single to center field. I don’t remember being nervous about it. I guess I was too young to realize what was happening.”
(After a stint as a Cardinals scout _ he was the one who recommended pitcher Mort Cooper to them _ Joe Sr. became farm director of the Pirates. He was in South Carolina to see Pirates farm teams training there when he died at age 47 of ptomaine poisoning.)
Player and teacher
As a ballplayer for St. Louis University High School and the Aubuchon-Dennison American Legion team, Joe Jr. “could pop the ball on the roof at Sportsman’s Park,” the Post-Dispatch declared.
The Cardinals signed Joe Jr. in 1936 and sent him to their farm club at Albany, Ga., where he roomed with another catcher from St. Louis, Bob Scheffing. (Like Joe Jr., Scheffing would play and manage in the majors.)
Schultz reached the big leagues with the Pirates in September 1939, but the next year, in the minors at Portland, he broke his right shoulder when he tripped over first base. Three years later, he hurt his throwing arm again. “It’s tough catching when you can’t throw properly,” Schultz said to the Post-Dispatch. “Like trying to play the piano without fingers.”
A backup catcher with the Browns (1943-48), Schultz excelled as a pinch-hitter. In 1946, he had a .516 on-base percentage (10 hits, six walks) in 31 plate appearances as a pinch-hitter. The left-handed batter hit .386 overall (22 for 57) that season.
After a year (1949) as a Browns coach, Schultz managed in the farm systems of the Browns, Indians, Reds, Orioles and Cardinals. He managed Cardinals farm teams from 1958-62. The former catcher was instrumental in the development of Tim McCarver, who played for three minor-league teams Schultz managed.
Calling McCarver “a natural born leader,” Schultz said to the Post-Dispatch, “He’s got the best hustle, drive, and most contagious winning spirit I’ve ever seen.”
After leading Atlanta to an International League championship in 1962, Schultz was promoted to the coaching staff of Cardinals manager Johnny Keane. (Thirty years earlier, Keane played shortstop and hit .324 for a Springfield, Mo., squad managed by Schultz’s father.)
Schultz coached first base for the 1964 World Series champion Cardinals. After Keane left for the Yankees, his successor, Red Schoendienst, retained Schultz and made him the third-base coach. Schultz also continued to mentor McCarver, who became an all-star with the Cardinals.
“I feel that my catching has become better,” McCarver told the Post-Dispatch in 1966. “A big reason is Joe Schultz. Schultz stays on me all the time, reminding me to work my arm up and throw strikes. He keeps driving me to work harder on defense and with the pitchers.”
(Schultz also liked backup catcher Bob Uecker. He told the Post-Dispatch, “Uecker has an excellent arm. He gives the pitcher a good target. He moves well around the plate and is an outstanding handler of pitchers.”)
In September 1968, with the Cardinals on their way to securing a second consecutive National League pennant, Schultz was named manager of the Seattle Pilots. He beat out two former Seattle minor-league managers, Joe Adcock and Bob Lemon, for the job.
No pressure
Schultz, 51, brought a relaxed, old-school style to managing the expansion club.
“I liked Joe Schultz a lot,” Pilots infielder John Kennedy said to the Everett (Wash.) Daily Herald. “He knew what he was dealing with. He wanted to win, but he was realistic enough to know that our chances of winning were also slim and none. So he took it that way. He was a fun guy to play for.”
Jim Bouton told the newspaper, “Joe was an easygoing guy, very spontaneously funny, very unintentionally funny. I don’t think he could really stomach being a baseball manager. He was much more suited to the backslapping and cheerleading that comes better from a coach.”
“Ball Four” is filled with examples of Schultz’s sanguine sayings to his players:
_ “Well, boys, it’s a round ball and a round bat and you got to hit it square.”
_ “Boys, I guess you know we’re not drawing as well at home as we should. If we don’t draw fans, we’re not going to be making the old cabbage.”
_ “OK, men, up and at ’em. Get that old Budweiser.”
On June 9, John Gelnar escaped a bases-loaded jam in the 10th inning to earn his first save in a Pilots victory at Detroit. According to Bouton, in the clubhouse afterward, Schultz told his team, “At a way to stomp on ’em, men. Pound that Budweiser into you and go get ’em tomorrow.” Then he spotted Gelnar sipping from a pop bottle. “For crissakes, Gelnar,” Schultz said, “You’ll never get them out drinking Dr. Pepper.” Boxscore
(“Some people have said I made all that stuff up,” Bouton told the Everett newspaper. “My answer is that I can’t write that well. I could never have dreamed up Joe Schultz. I’m not that clever.”)
In “Ball Four,” Bouton wrote, “There’s a zany quality to Joe Schultz that we all enjoy and that contributes to keeping the club loose.”
The Pilots won three of their first four games and continued to surprise skeptics with their play the first two months of the 1969 season. On May 27, their 20-21 record gave them a better winning percentage than the White Sox (17-19), Yankees (21-24), Senators (21-26), Angels (12-28) and Indians (10-27).
Tommy Harper, an infielder and outfielder who’d been in the majors since 1962, thrived under Schultz, who told the Kansas City Star: “At the start of the season, I called Harper in and told him, ‘Why don’t you be like Lou Brock? You can make yourself better known and earn some money. You’ve got speed. Any time you can get a jump, go ahead and steal.”
Emboldened, Harper had 73 steals for the 1969 Pilots and they led the major leagues in stolen bases (167). As Bouton noted of Schultz in his book, “He’s letting Harper run on his own and letting the guys hit and run, and he doesn’t get angry when they get thrown out stealing. It makes for a comfortable ballclub.”
The Pilots also had Don Mincher (25 homers) and Tommy Davis (80 RBI), plus a deep bullpen with Diego Segui (12-6, 12 saves), Bob Locker (2.18 ERA, six saves), John O’Donoghue (2.96 ERA, six saves) and Bouton (2-1, 3.91 ERA).
Overall, though, Pilots batters struck out too much (1,015 times, most in the league) and their pitchers gave up the most runs (799) and most home runs (172) in the majors.
After stumbling to 9-20 for July and 6-22 for August, the Pilots finished 64-98.
One and done
Though as Bouton noted in his book, “I’ve heard no complaints about Joe. I think he’s the kind of manager everybody likes,” Pilots general manager Marvin Milkes fired Schultz.
“I have no regrets,” Schultz told the Tacoma News Tribune. “I thought we did all right for the first year. The players hustled and never got into any trouble … We were an entertaining club … In the end, it’s always the manager’s fault, but I can go down in the record books as the one and only Pilots manager.”
Indeed, with ownership in financial trouble, the franchise was sold, moved to Milwaukee for the 1970 season and renamed the Brewers.
Schultz was a Royals coach in 1970, then joined manager Billy Martin’s staff with the Tigers in 1971. When Martin was fired in September 1973, Schultz became interim manager and guided the Tigers to a 14-14 record. He remained a Tigers coach on manager Ralph Houk’s staff through the 1976 season.
Asked his opinion of “Ball Four,” Schultz told Rich Myhre of the Everett Daily Herald he never finished reading it. “I wouldn’t waste my time reading the rest of it,” he said.
However, according to Bouton in his follow-up book, “I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally,” Schultz said of “Ball Four,” “The more I think about it, it’s not so bad.”