Hank Bauer
Hank Bauer | |||||||||||||||
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Runs batted in | 703 | ||||||||||||||
Managerial record | 594–544 | ||||||||||||||
Winning % | .522 | ||||||||||||||
Teams | |||||||||||||||
As player
As manager | |||||||||||||||
Career highlights and awards | |||||||||||||||
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Henry Albert Bauer (July 31, 1922 – February 9, 2007) was an American
Early years
Born in East St. Louis, Illinois, as the youngest of nine children, Bauer was the son of an Austrian immigrant, a bartender who had earlier lost his leg in an aluminum mill. With little money coming into the home, Bauer was forced to wear clothes made out of old feed sacks, helping shape his hard-nosed approach to life. (It was said that his care-worn face "looked like a clenched fist".) While playing baseball and basketball at East St. Louis Central Catholic High School, Bauer suffered permanent damage to his nose, which was caused by an errant elbow from an opponent. Upon graduation in 1941, he was repairing furnaces in a beer-bottling plant when his brother Herman, a minor league player in the Chicago White Sox system, was able to get him a tryout that resulted in a contract with Oshkosh of the Class D Wisconsin State League.
World War II – Marine Corps
One month after the
After the war – minor league
Returning to East St. Louis, Bauer joined the local pipe fitter's union, and he stopped by the local bar where his brother Joe Bauer worked. Danny Menendez, a scout for the New York Yankees, decided to sign him for a tryout with the Yankees' farm team in Quincy, Illinois. The terms of his contract were $175 a month (with a $25 per month increase if he made the team) and a $250 bonus. Batting .300 at Quincy and with the team's top minor league unit, the Kansas City Blues, Bauer eventually made his debut with the Yankees in September 1948.
Career as player, coach and manager
In his 14-season Major League Baseball career, Bauer had a .277
At the close of the 1959 season, Bauer was traded by the Yankees to the
After his firing at the close of the 1962 campaign, Bauer spent the 1963 season as
Bauer then returned to the Athletics, now based in
Managerial record
Team | Year | Regular season | Postseason | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Games | Won | Lost | Win % | Finish | Won | Lost | Win % | Result | ||
KCA | 1961 | 102 | 35 | 67 | .343 | 9th in AL | – | – | – | – |
KCA | 1962 | 162 | 72 | 90 | .444 | 9th in AL | – | – | – | – |
BAL | 1964 | 162 | 97 | 65 | .599 | 3rd in AL | – | – | – | – |
BAL | 1965 | 162 | 94 | 68 | .580 | 3rd in AL | – | – | – | – |
BAL | 1966 | 160 | 97 | 63 | .606 | 1st in AL | 4 | 0 | 1.000 | Won World Series (LAD) |
BAL | 1967 | 161 | 76 | 85 | .472 | 7th in AL | – | – | – | – |
BAL | 1968 | 80 | 43 | 37 | .538 | fired | – | – | – | – |
BAL total | 725 | 407 | 318 | .561 | 4 | 0 | 1.000 | |||
OAK | 1969 | 149 | 80 | 69 | .537 | fired | – | – | – | – |
KCA/ OAK total | 413 | 187 | 226 | .453 | 0 | 0 | – | |||
Total | 1138 | 594 | 544 | .522 | 4 | 0 | 1.000 |
Personal life
Bauer moved to the Kansas City area Prairie Village, Kansas, in 1949 after playing with the Blues of 1947 and 1948. While there, he met and later married Charlene Friede, the club's office secretary. She died in July 1999.
The family's children attended St. Ann's Grade School in Prairie Village, then Bishop Miege High School in Shawnee Mission.
In 1957, Bauer stood trial in New York for allegedly assaulting a man at the Copacabana. Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Johnny Kucks and Billy Martin all testified. The jury found him not guilty.[6]
Hank owned and managed a liquor store in Prairie Village for a number of years after retirement from baseball.
Bauer died in his home on February 9, 2007, at the age of 84 from lung cancer.[7][8]
Highlights
- October, 10, New York Giants to clinch the 1951 World Series.
- Three-time American League All-Star (1952–54).
- From 1956–1958, Bauer set a World Series hitting streak record of 17 games in a row, which was later matched as a post-season batting record by Derek Jeter, also of the Yankees.
- Bauer led the American League in triples (nine) in 1957.
- Bauer appeared on the cover of the September 11, 1964 issue of Time magazine.
Quotes
- "Hank crawled on top of the Yankee dugout and searched the stands, looking for a fan who was shouting racial slurs at Elston Howard. When asked about the incident, Bauer explained simply, 'Ellie's my friend'". —Excerpt from the book Clubhouse Lawyer, by Art Ditmar, former major league pitcher
- "Hank lost four prime years from his playing career due to his Marine service. This is heavy duty when you figure such a career is usually over when a player reaches his mid-thirties. This is something that does not bother Hank. 'I guess I knew too many great young guys who lost everything out there to worry about my losing part of a baseball career', he says."[9]
- Tommy Lasorda on Bauer: "This guy's tough. He had a face that looked like it'd hold two days of rain."
- Bauer was a no-nonsense leader and could be unforgiving if he felt his teammates' off-the-field activities were hurting the Yankees' on-the-field performance. Pitcher Whitey Ford remembered how Bauer reacted when he thought players like Ford and Mantle were overindulging after hours: "He pinned me to the wall of the dugout one day and said, 'Don't mess with my money'." New York Times, obituary, February 10, 2007.
See also
- List of famous U.S. Marines
- List of Major League Baseball annual triples leaders
- List of Major League Baseball player-managers
References
- ^ Maris goes to Yanks; A's get Larsen in 7-man deal
- ^ "Posada to Start For Kansas City". Springfield Leader and Press. Springfield, Missouri. Associated Press. April 7, 1961. p. 7. Retrieved June 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "FINLEY AND LANE AGREE ON CHANGE; Athletics' Officials Give Job to Bauer, 38, Ex-Yankee --Gordon to be Paid in Full". The New York Times. 20 June 1961.
- ^ "Hank Bauer Will Crack The Whip," United Press International (UPI), Wednesday, November 20, 1963. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
- ^ "Earl Weaver New Orioles Manager," United Press International (UPI), Thursday, July 11, 1968. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
- The Terre Haute Tribune. Associated Press. 24 June 1957. p. 9. Retrieved 18 April 2023.
- ^ [1] [dead link]
- ^ Hal Bock (February 27, 2007). "Former Yankees OF Hank Bauer dies at 84". The Herald. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved 2007-04-22.
- ISBN 0688149561.
External links
- Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet
- Hank Bauer managerial career statistics at Baseball-Reference.com
- Hank Bauer at the SABR Baseball Biography Project
- Kansas City Star obituary
- Hank Bauer – Time cover, September 11, 1964.
- "Old Potato Face" (cover story), Time, September 11, 1964.
- "Hank Bauer". Find a Grave. Retrieved September 22, 2010.