Reds made unorthodox move in bid to thwart Stan Musial
At a critical point in a game against the Cardinals, Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts determined bold action was required.
With Stan Musial at the plate, Tebbetts yanked the Reds’ shortstop from the game and went with an alignment of four outfielders.
Tebbetts’ surprise move became the talk of baseball. According to The Sporting News, it was “probably the first four-man outfield formation of its kind ever used in the major leagues.”
Long wait
On May 22, 1954, a Saturday night at St. Louis, the Reds led, 4-2, in the bottom of the eighth when Red Schoendienst singled with two outs against Art Fowler, a 31-year-old rookie who used a quick pitch to keep the Cardinals off stride.
The Cincinnati Enquirer described Fowler as “an old head who knows all the tricks and has all the pitches. He has a fine sense of speeds and seldom makes two pitches alike to a batter.”
Fowler spent 10 seasons in the minors before getting his chance with the 1954 Reds. In explaining why it took him so long to reach the majors, he told the Dayton Journal Herald, “For nine years, I had no ambition whatsoever.”
Decision time
After Schoendienst reached first, up next was Musial, who’d singled twice against Fowler in the game. Musial was perhaps the National League’s best and hottest hitter. He batted .333 in April 1954, and did even better the next month. On May 2, Musial slugged five home runs in a doubleheader against the Giants. In the opener of the Reds series, he belted a grand slam versus Frank Smith. Musial would hit .390 in May 1954.
Knowing Musial was the biggest threat to the Reds’ lead, Tebbetts acted to foil him. Tebbetts, 41, was in his first year as a big-league manager, but he had spent 14 seasons as a catcher in the American League, playing for the likes of managers Mickey Cochrane, Joe Cronin, Joe McCarthy and Al Lopez.
When the Reds hired Tebbetts after he had one season as a manager in the minors, Si Burick of the Dayton Daily News described him as “a gambling type” who will “take advantage of every angle and thinks of everything.”
Tebbetts removed shortstop Roy McMillan from the game and replaced him with a fourth outfielder, speedy rookie Nino Escalera.
A month earlier, Escalera and teammate Chuck Harmon made their big-league debuts in back-to-back pinch-hit appearances, integrating the Reds seven years after Jackie Robinson entered the majors. Escalera was a Puerto Rican of African descent and Harmon was an African-American. Boxscore
