Johnny Mize interview
Date1984 August 10
DescriptionTwo audio cassettes featuring an interview with Johnny Mize conducted by Rod Roerts on the behalf of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on August 10, 1984 in Cooperstown, New York.
Object numberHF-1994-0001-022
Interviewer
Roberts, Rod
Interviewee
Mize, Johnny, 1913-1993
Subject
Mize, Johnny, 1913-1993
Classificationsaudio/visual materials
Library Call NumberCTA 851
Collection NumberBA RMA 001 Rod Roberts oral history collection
Library Call NumberCTA 850
Dimensions2 audio cassettes
TrannscriptionCassette 1Side One -- Track 1 - Born in Jan. 7 1913, Demorest, GA; where he lives now; father was Edward, her mother's maiden name was Emma Loudermilk; German on both sides; just two children, an older brother and himself; brother passed away, mother still living; his brother played Minor League ball but he was away playing, and his wife was homesick, so she talked them into coming; his parents separated when he was very young; raised by his grandmother and aunt while his mother worked in Atlanta; grew up in Demorest, 750 people, back then he knew everybody; used to go hunting rabbit or quail, now about the same but he doesn't know everybody now; town in the northeast corner of Georgia, foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains (00:00:00 to 00:04:29) Track 2 - Played a lot of tennis as a child, only took two people to play tennis, and took more to play baseball; he used to chase balls for the local college, the coach, Harry Forrester would give him bats and baseballs when the stitches were broken, the guys would let him take a few swings; he got into Piedmont Academy high school because the coach asked him to pinch hit for the baseball team, and he finished the season playing left field when he was 15 years old, the next year, they wanted him to play but the town had taken over the high school; the coach fixed it so he could take college courses and play for the team, they didn't have a first baseman, so he took over, and played first base the rest of the season, he played three years of college ball when he was still in high school, he was 6' and about 190 pounds, played center or forward on his high school basketball team, didn't have enough guys to play football in high school, nor baseball, they only had a basketball team (00:04:29 to 00:09:46) Track 3 - On getting into professional baseball, they used to have a town team in the summer, played for the Rochester NY lumber mill team when the team came through town, and Rochester was a farm club for the Cardinals, and somebody said they had a guy who could hit, so Frank Rickey came down to check him out, he went up to Greensboro in the last few games in 1930; got $10-$15 a game for the town teams; today the town and mill teams are gone; the companies used to hire players just so they would play baseball or basketball, they cared more about the ball games sometimes than the business; now there is Little League and school teams, should have better players, but doesn't seem to be that way in the Majors today, due to the expansion teams, have to bring up players from the Minors that they wouldn't have brought up back in the old days (00:09:46 to 00:16:20) Track 4 - On modern ballplayers being better athletes, bigger, faster, but don't have the same skills as old time players; Hank Greenberg says football and basketball have improved, but baseball hasn't; Mize says he can't judge it without hitting against the modern pitchers; hard to compare between clubs, much less from older players with modern players (00:16:20 to 00:18:36) Track 5 - On the transition from high school and college ball into professional ball, just like playing for another town team; didn't know any of the players when he went up the last part of the season, went up the next year, and he still didn't know anyone; he played in the Minors for five years and hit over .300 every time and never even went to spring training with the Cardinals; now people hit .260/.270 and they go to spring training and they bring him up in mid-season (00:18:36 to 00:20:04) Track 6 - On going to Rochester in '33, played 50-some games because Art Shires got hurt, they brought him up from Greensboro; the year before he had played for Elmira, a Class C league, and then they made Class B, so they sent him back to Greensboro, then he went from C to Double AA; he never thought about being sent back down; he went back to Rochester after he was sold to Cincinnati, because he had hurt his leg and missed a bunch of games, so they sent him back to Rochester because they were worried about his leg, they paid him the same money, then he hurt his other leg, and the doctor made him retire for the season, he was considered a bleeder, so he went home and didn't get paid; a doctor in Atlanta did some tests and sent them to St. Louis, and a doctor there checked him and said he had pulled the large muscles loose from the pelvic bone and had growths on the bone, they operated on both legs and chiseled off the growths; then the Cardinals took him as a pinch hitter, because he wouldn't have been able to play in the Minor Leagues, and he got in 120-some ball games in the Major Leagues, it made him a bit slower, but he was slow anyway, he snuck into the Majors but stuck around for 15 years, minus three years in the service; he bruised easily and badly when he got hit by the ball; the Navy wouldn't take him during World War II because he didn't have good coagulation, but he went to the Draft Board, and the doctor said he had an enlarged heart and didn't stand a chance of getting in the service (tape runs out) (00:20:04 to 00:29:21) Side Two -- Track 1. Intv: (Military conversation picks up in middle) Decided to join the Navy because Mickey Cochrane was up at Great Lakes (Naval Training Facility) and he figured he could play baseball; went and saw the doctor, who said he was not sure why the service doctors cleared him, so he should be very careful; the military sent him to more doctors, and they were going to give him a medical discharge (00:00:00 to 00:02:53) Track 2 - He was in the Welfare Department or Athletic Department during the War; at Great Lakes he taught rowing; when he got to Hawaii, they played baseball and fixed up the field; used to smoke cigars during the service, occasionally smokes a pipe (00:02:53 to 00:05:34) Track 3 - On Frankie Frisch as manager, he was hard to figure out; would rant and rave about missing signs; also had Pepper Martin on the club, and if they blew a ball game, Frisch would be ranting and Martin would make a remark that had nothing to do with baseball to get Frisch going; Frisch was a good manager and knew baseball (00:05:34 to 00:07:25) Track 4 - A lot of personalities on the club, with Frisch, Martin, (Leo) Durocher; the Dean brothers; they had a good club, but they ran a little bit short, didn't bring people in to help towards the end of the season when players got hurt; unlike the Yankees, got him from the Giants to help out, the next year they got Johnny Sain, (Johnny?) Hopp, Eddie Robinson, (Enos) Slaughter to come in and help out; in St. Louis they brought in a pitcher that had been released from the Southern League to help them win the pennant; the Yankees brought him in originally to help out; same strategy today, the White Sox picked up (Roy?) Smalley from the Yankees to try and help them win the pennant (00:07:25 to 00:09:38) Track 5 - On Wild Bill Hallahan; he had been traded to Cincinnati when Mize joined the club; they had the Dean Brothers, (Bill) Walker, (Jesse) Haines, and then (Lon) Warneke came over, they traded Dean in that deal, and also got (Roy) Henshaw the next year; the got George Earnshaw from Brooklyn to help them win the pennant; today they bring people up from the farm team and send people down; back then, they wouldn't take the players from the farm teams because of worries about the fans; one time Albuquerque couldn't field a team because the Dodgers had so many injuries and needed the players; one pitcher brought up a bunch of times and sent back down (00:09:38 to 00:13:33) Track 6 - On the Dean brother, Paul was quiet and Dizzy was noisier, Dizzy liked to be seen and heard and attracted attention, Pepper Martin was the same way, along with Ripper Collins, they had a lot of fun, used to enjoy talking about baseball; Mize was talking to Billy Herman and he said to go up to a group of ball players sitting in the lobby today, and the fastest way to break them up was to sit down and talk baseball, they will get up and leave (00:13:33 to 00:15:05) Track 7 - On replacing Collins at first base, they traded him to the Cubs; Dizzy Dean was injured in the 1937 All-Star Game got hit on the foot; people said the Cardinals made him pitch too much too soon, but Dean liked to pitch, used to warm up even before they asked him to pitch; doesn't understand all of the injuries that players get today, Mize played for 15 years in the Majors, 5 years in the Minors and 3 years in the service, and he never pulled his back out; this year (Darryl) Strawberry hurt his wrist and couldn't play from knocking on the door; Mize goes down to the gym to ease his sore muscles, and he looks at the guys lifting weights, and thinks maybe the weight-lifting is causing a lot of these injuries; the muscles get too tight sitting on the bench, like a rubber band and it snaps; doesn't remember all of the rotator cuff injuries and hamstring pulls (interviewer talks about Satchel Paige pitching every day) Mize says the pitchers used to pitch a game, rest the next day, then pitch batting practice, and then had a day off and then pitched a game; on the days off, you ran in the outfield; Johnny Sain believed in pitching every day, but not running, said if running made a good pitcher, then Jesse Owens would have been great; not going to get a guy out by running; on Steve Carlton refusing to run (00:15:05 to 00:24:47) Track 8 - On having great years with the Cardinals, the last year there was his worst year, one year he led the league in hitting, but they said he didn't hit enough home runs, so the next year, he hit 43 home runs, drove in 137 runs and had an average of .319, still a Cardinals record 44-45 years later; and Branch Rickey said he wanted to cut his salary because his average was lower than the preceding year, so he asked to be traded, but he still had a year left on his contract, so he had a bad year the next year, still hit over .300 and drove in over 100 runs, but he was disgusted and just putting in time until they trade him (00:24:47 to 00:27:21) Track 9 - On Branch Rickey, went to visit him once, and a sportswriter called and asked if he had signed a contract yet, and Mize was leaving town the next day, and the headline was "Cardinals Giving Mize the Runaround" and (Sam) Breadon called him in and offered him $500 to cover his expenses, but not to tell Rickey; he wanted to pick up another $1,000; the next day Rickey called him to come out to his house, and offered him $1,500 to sign the contract (tape runs out) (00:27:21 to 00:30:05) Cassette 2Side One -- Track 1 - On contract negotiations, the Giants sent him a contract that was the remainder of his previous two-year contract and he sent it back because he was supposed to get a new contract if he was traded (00:00:00 to 00:01:14) Track 2 - On the off season, hunting birds and ducks; he and Terry Moore used to start working out around the first of the year; and he also had a house in Florida and had a good friend there, so they would go down and play golf and go fishing; Moore started going down with them and renting a guest house, until spring training; his first year he went barnstorming; in '36, Rogers Hornsby was manager, they had Bob Feller, and they played against Satchel Paige and the Kansas City Monarchs, out to Davenport, Des Moines, Denver; it was hard to hit Paige under those lights; they had a hard time hitting Feller, because he didn't have the best control that first year (00:01:14 to 00:03:10) Track 3 - After Freddie Frisch was fired, they made Mike Gonzalez the manager; didn't speak English very well; even today, the Hispanic players don't speak English well; back in the day, they only had a coach at first, and one at third, and the manager was playing second base, now they have coaches all over the place, a bullpen coach, two pitching coaches, one time Yogi (Berra) was the dugout coach; 4-5 coaches on the field at a time; Atlanta had 5 coaches plus the manager; don't know why you need all of them; any club with 2 pitching coaches or 2 batting instructors, they have different styles, so it's a bad thing (00:03:10 to 00:06:16.5) Track 4 - On being in a slump, but a lot of times you were hitting the ball, but it was always at somebody; in '38 he wasn't hitting well and Frisch benched him, so he asked to be traded; he'd send him up to pinch hit, he didn't make the All Star team; after that, he got a double, and he was in the lineup the next day, hitting .260-.270, he went up to .340 or .339, he told Billy Herman that they cost him the batting championship that year; the Cubs beat them to win the pennant, and Larry French called him and said he was pitching that day, and told him his strategy, they'd make sure he'd get a few hits, told him to bunt; the first time he came up, (Tony) Lazzeri was playing second base, close to the bag, and he caught a line drive; the next time he came up, he was over by first, and he hit another one to him; he went 0-4, and when the game was over, (Ernie) Lombardi had stayed the same, so Lombardi beat him out for the batting championship; the year before, he lost to (Joe) Medwick by 10 points, he had gotten hit in the head in NY and missed a few ball games; the following year, Mize led the league; he got hit in the head in NY and the doctors kept him in the hospital; he had told someone to take his bats and put them in the trunk so they didn't get broken, and when they got home, he didn't have any bats, Medwick had broken all of his bats, so he had to wait until he could get new ones and that affected his hitting (Mize goes off-mic) (00:06:16.5 to 00:13:33) Track 5 - On using a Hornsby bat, model H-117; the last two years with the Yankees, he used a 36-inch bat, 36 ounces, and he wanted to take an ounce off, shaved it down a bit, so it changed the bat; the year (Phil) Rizzuto was voted MVP for the league, he used Mize's bat all year, choked on it; can use a bigger heavier bat and choke up on it to get better wood; today's players use smaller bats, doesn't make sense, the harder you swing the harder you hit; Tommy Henrich used to kid him about always hitting for the fence, just one foot over the fence; one time in Detroit he had three home runs off Art Houtteman, two hit the building on the roof, and the third went way up into the upper deck (00:13:33 to 00:16:22) Track 6 - On hitting three home runs a game six times, should have been seven, he had two off the White Sox in NY one time, he'd scored the only two runs, and they gave him the take sign, and he was a fool because he took it, had he swung, it would have been a home run; today they have home run contests, and he might have been able to win (00:16:22 to 00:17:57) Track 7 - Went to the Giants in '42, had a pretty good year, he led the league in runs batted in, but it was a different ball park and he hit balls that were outs in right center that would have been hits in St. Louis; Polo Grounds tough for a left-handed hitter in the Polo Grounds (tape glitches) a lot of right-handed hitters hit to right field; tried to hit the ball low, line drives; never got any inside-the-park home runs at the Polo Grounds, a big ball park; one year he with there with the Cardinals and he led the league in triples with 16 or some (00:17:57 to 00:21:40) Track 8 - On losing three years at the peak of his career to military service; then coming home and having a broken hand and broken toe, missed 100 ball games, and lost the home run batting championship, he got 22 but (Ralph) Kiner got 23; the next year they tied, each with 51, and the following year they tied with 40 each; had he not gone into the military he probably would have hit 100 or more career home runs than he did; during the War years, Boston had put in a fence and they told him they were going to take the fence down before he hit there (00:21:40 to 00:23:18) Track 9 - On coming back to the Giants after the War, rivalry with Brooklyn (00:23:18 to 00:24:15) Track 10 - On Clint Hartung, a rookie phenom, scout Tom Sheehan said Mize should be wary of Hartung, and he said he wasn't going to worry about it; Mize never worried about being sent down to the Minors; compares Hartung to a new player with Atlanta, Hank Aaron said he was the best player, but the guy stood up there and kept striking out; Minor League is supposed to be for development, not the Major Leagues; on writers talking about "superstars" and voting on the Hall of Fame; the game has changed, better uniforms; bigger gloves, hanging down below the knees, grabbing the ball one-handed with the big glove, can't even find the ball; artificial turf, love to see the Waner boys hit on artificial turf, you'd never get them out; the ball is a lot livelier today, a lot more inside-the-park home runs (tape runs out) (00:24:15 to 00:29:50) Side Two -- Track 1 - (Conversation picks up in the middle) On being traded to the Yankees in 1949; getting bonuses for the team winning the World Series; on ticket prices going up, and players having reserved seats, and keeping tickets out of scalpers' hands; having to pay to get your wife in the game; the ballplayers running baseball today, not the Commissioner, the only one who can be fined is the owner; on Ferguson Jenkins being caught with marijuana; on Reggie Jackson being suspended for a day; the managers have to be "yes-men" to the owners; players just do as they please; any fine or suspension gets appealed; even appeal the umpire's decision (00:00:00 to 00:06:41) Track 2 - On watching a lot of baseball on cable TV; watching golf matches; changes in the game, a much smaller strike zone, changes in how the umpires call the game, (problem with tape, noise overcomes conversation) umpires missing calls at the bases and the fans get riled up; on the whole, umpires do a good job; sometimes they have to throw somebody out of the game; the manager doesn't have to get so much in the umpire's face; if Mize was the Commissioner, he would back the umpire rather than the manager (00:06:41 to 00:12:46) Track 3 - On toughest pitchers, Russ Bauers, a right-hander with Pittsburgh, but then he hurt his arm; with the Pirates; on Claude Passeau, threw one of the first sliders; Mize never liked to break his good bats, so he would never use the good ones against left-handed pitchers or against Passeau; he used to order his bats at the beginning of the season, a dozen bats 36/36 and three bats 36/40, one year at spring training, he had 43 bats in the corner of the laundry room, that year he hit 43 home runs, so he should have had 60 bats; never used his good bats in batting practice; he liked a wide grain in his bats, not a narrow grain; used to run his hand down the bat after batting practice to see if the wood was dented, wouldn't use those bats in a game because the ball wouldn't go as far; he used to drive gramophone needles into the bats to keep them from splitting, not sure if it helped at all, might have made the bat a little heavier; Babe Ruth used to hold the ball on the side where the ink was stamped, because it was heavier on that side, and it made a difference (00:12:46 to 00:17:02) Track 4 - On Ruth's wife Clara being Mize's cousin, so he and Dizzy Dean and Johnny Perkins used to go to Ruth's apartment for dinner; they were there the night that Max Schmeling knocked Joe Lewis out, they could have gone to the match, but figured Lewis would win; Dizzy bet them that Schmeling would win (00:17:02 to 00:18:06) Track 5 - On best fielding play being made by his roommate, Terry Moore, in St. Louis; they were playing the Giants, Mel Ott was a left-handed hitter, hit a line drive to left center and Moore dove and caught the ball bare-handed; probably the best catch he ever saw anybody make (00:18:06 to 00:19:20) Track 6 - On greatest day in baseball, he hit three home runs six times; one time he had a day in Chicago against Bill Lee, he hit a double, triple and two home runs in four times up, that was a good day, a lot of days he went 4/4 and a lot of 3/3s and a lot of home runs, wrapping up the interview (00:19:20 to 00:21:05.7)" Public Access NotePlease note that not all works are on view at all times - their availability is subject to change per the discretion of the Museum staff. 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