Cal McLish oral history interview
Date1994 April 15
DescriptionAn interview of Cal McLish that was conducted by Larry Moffi on April 15, 1994 in Edmund, Oklahoma. Content of the interview includes: Side One -- Track 1 - On (Tom) Greenway being a Dodgers scout before going to the Yankees; McLish just returned from a Dodger reunion in New York, less than 50 of them left who played in Ebbets Field; (tape is stopped and restarted, interviewer talks about who he plans to interview for book) runs into Roy Sievers ever now and then at a tournament, he was a good hitter; on growing up in Oklahoma City, playing American Legion ball for (Bill Mosiers?) the only team in Oklahoma City at the time; when he signed the the Dodgers he had just started pitching, he played shortstop and first base in high school, hadn't been a pitcher until he started playing Legion ball; Greenway came through and had a tryout camp, Bobby Moran, Leroy Jarvis (?) and McLish went to the tryout camp; the Cardinals, Cubs and Pittsburgh all had scouts there, but they signed with Greenway because the Dodgers was a coming organization; he turned 18, his senior year of high school and he thought he'd go into the Army, had no idea he'd be playing ball the next year; he got a letter from Branch Rickey telling him to report to Bear Mountain for spring training, they wanted him to take a correspondence course to finish high school, but his teachers wouldn't let him; he stayed for spring training until he got drafted, they did most of their practicing inside, but played games outside; stayed with the Dodgers until August, when he went into the service; Greenway had told him that if he got drafted from a Big League roster, they had to keep him on the roster for one year after he came back from the service, and that was true for him; he had no business being in the Big Leagues at age 18, didn't know anything about a changeup or a curveball; the first time his toe hit the rubber in organized ball, Leo Durocher called him in from the bullpen in the 7th inning against St. Louis to relieve Rube Melton, with bases loaded and no outs; he was in a daze, but he stayed with the club until he got drafted in August, went overseas for 23 months; came back in July and the Dodgers had to keep him for a year; went to spring training in Havana, Cuba in '47; (Jackie) Robinson, (Roy) Campanella, (Don) Newcombe were all on the team; he had hurt his arm in Austria during the War, he was a number one gunner of a 30-caliber water-cooled machine gun, carrying the tripod that weighed about 52 pounds, and hurt his arm, so they sent him to the Minor League teams in Pensacola, sent Tommy Brown over as first base and Jack Paepke to be catcher, so he played 14-15 games for Pepper Martin's Double AA club in Mobile, AL; then the season started and he went back to Brooklyn; was traded Pittsburgh so never played in the Dodgers' Minor League organization; he stayed in Pittsburgh until his year was up in July, Pittsburgh had bought a pitcher from the Yankees, Mel Queen, and in the deal, they had to send a pitcher to Kansas City, the Yankees' Triple AAA club, so he went there on option, the next year he played for Al Lopez in Indianapolis, in the American Association; that winter, he got traded to the Cubs with Frankie Gustine, traded for Cliff Chambers and Clyde McCullough, stayed with the Cubs organization for seven years, most of the time in Los Angeles, then was traded to San Diego, and that winter, purchased by the Cleveland Indians, in the American League, he was there for four years, he was one of the first inter-league trades, going from Cleveland to Cincinnati, then he was traded back to the White Sox, and then to the Philadelphia Phillies (00:00:00 to 00:11:41) Track 2 - On being friends and roommates with Gene Mauch, in the trade together from Dodgers to Pittsburgh, they drove down together with Hank Behrman after the trade; pitched for Mauch in Philadelphia went they were in a baseball-bowling tournament; that winter he had had a double-hernia operation; when you're a pitcher like he was, afraid to give up his chance; he wasn't a very good pitcher, it was hard for him to impress a manager; after he hurt his arm, he could throw pretty hard, but not a power pitcher; he had to change his style of pitching in Los Angeles, sinking the ball, and "put a little tail on it," Ralph Hamner told him how to throw better; he was still pretty young, 21-22; never played below Triple AAA baseball in all that time; he had the determination and figured he'd work his way up; when he got to Cleveland they had (Bob) Feller, (Early) Wynn, (Bob) Lemon, (Herb) Score, (Mike) Garcia, (Art) Houtteman, (Don) Mossie, (Ray) Narleski, (Sal) Maglie; couldn't believe Cleveland would buy him, he was pitching in Venezuela during the winter season when he got the news; he went and worked his way up (00:11:41 to 00:16:07) Track 3 - Hardly knew his father, he was 13 when his father died, wasn't playing baseball yet; one winter, his mother told him where he got his name, (Calvin Coolidge Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish) he said his father must have been in the firewater that night; he has souvenirs of his time playing, three of his favorite players, Robin Yount, (Paul Mulger?) Jim Gantner; worked with Pete Vuckovich (00:16:07 to 00:17:25) Track 4 - On coaching for 16 years, two years for Philadelphia, also advance scout for Philadelphia, seven years for Montreal, seven years for Milwaukee, threw a lot of batting practice; pitched for 17 years piecemeal; won 20 games in the Coast League in '50 and went back to the Cubs, but couldn't get into the rotation and stay in it; when Cleveland bought him, he only started a couple of games; in '57 he got a lot more pitching and relieving; '58 was his first year in the rotation that he stayed there, in '59 after he was 16-8 in '58, he hit a bad spot and was taken out of the rotation early; he pitched well for Joe Gordon; Frank Lane had gotten rid of Bobby Bragan, he pitched Cleveland for Bragan's last game, and the score was tied 1-1 when Ted Williams hit a home run off of him to win the game 2-1, and so Bragan says McLish was the one that got him fired, and Gordon saw that game and liked the way he pitched, so he responded well to Gordon; they had a good club, good hitters, (Rocky) Colavito, Woody Hale, Tito Francona, none of them were hurting for runs; he won 19 games and Lane called him into Gordon's office, and they told him they wanted him to give up the Sunday start to Herb Score, a while after he got hit in the eye; found out later that they had decided to trade him, so he left; good young arms, Gary Bell, Mudcat Grant, Jim Perry, Hank Aguirre, Dick Tomanek, so made sense that they would trade him, but it kicked the legs out from under him, going to another League, he needed to know the hitters and pitch accordingly, so to go to the other League, it hurt him; the players that they had, the National League had more guys that could field and hit; the American League had more players that could hit the balls with power (phone rings, tape is stopped and restarted) the big swingers hit dead-fish pitchers, gave the pitcher an advantage; he had more success with big swingers, the power hitters, he had trouble with the solid hitters like Bobby Richardson, Harvey Keane; Williams hit well off of him; one day he threw four home runs in one inning in Fenway Park; he wanted to start that game at Fenway, but Bud Daley started; a writer for the Cleveland Plain Dealer said McLish had been doing everything; he got up in the bullpen to relieve Daley, and the next inning starts and he threw a change up to Gene Mauch, fastball to Ted Williams, walked Jackie Jensen; (Mike?) Guerra? hit a curve or a slider and (Frank) Malzone hit another one; he was angry, but felt he would have been better as a starting pitcher than as a reliever; managers wouldn't leave him alone and let him pitch (00:17:25 to 00:28:08) Track 5 - Hard to be a pitching instructor, wrote a manual for pitchers; never try to change a pitcher's delivery, but point out things to help improve the pitching; part of coaching is to suggest things to improve the pitch or the control of the pitch, watch for pitchers crossing and show them how not to do that; the hardest pitch to hit is the low outside corner, Ted Williams came out with a diagram showing why that was the hardest to hit; in '44, the word was they wanted to teach Howie Schultz to hit to right field (tape runs out) (00:28:08 to 00:31:13)
Object numberBL-2000-02292-006
Artist, Creator, or Manufacturer
Moffi, Larry
Classificationsaudio/visual materials
Collection NumberBA RMA 002 Larry Moffi oral history collection
Dimensions00:31:13|1 of 4
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RestrictionsDue to copyright restrictions, this interview can only be listened to at the Giamatti Research Center at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Object number: BL-2001-00092-017
St. Louis Cardinals (Baseball team)
1968 February 08