March 11, 2025 • 66 mins
Jim Gilliam was a terrific infielder for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers for 17 years. After starting his career in the Negro Leagues, he followed in the footsteps of his idol, Jackie Robinson. Signed by the Dodgers, like Robinson, he was sent to Montreal to play for the Royals. After a few seasons, he found his way to Brooklyn and was named Rookie of the Year in 1953. Gilliam, a favorite of Dodger manager Walter Alston, was called the ultimate team player. No matter where Alston needed him to play, Gilliam was up to the task. He was a terrific fielder and a career .266 hitter. Interestingly, though, Gilliam was always on the trading block and rarely got an opening day start because the Dodgers always thought they had someone better. But they didn't, and through it all, Gilliam was one of the most reliable infielders the team ever had. He played in seven World Series for the Dodgers and won four of them. He was so integral to the Dodgers' success that twice he was called out of retirement to help the team. After his playing days were over, Gilliam stayed a part of the organization by serving as a coach and was a member of three other Dodger teams that went to the World Series. In fact, Gilliam was so important to the franchise that his No. 19 was retired by the team. On this episode of Sports' Forgotten Heroes, Steve Dittmore, author of "Jim Gilliam: The Forgotten Dodger," joins for a wonderful discussion about Gilliam, the challenges he faced, his career, and so much more.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(01:29):
Steve, welcome to SportsForgotten Heroes.
Glad you could jump aboard.
Thank you, Warren.
It's great to be here.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, it's a great topic.
My, my father grew up aBrooklyn Dodgers fan.
When they left, we all becameNew York Mets fans, despite the Washington
Nationals.
Top I have on here.
Fair enough.
(01:49):
I got the LA one going.
There you go.
But yeah, great topic.
Jim Gilliam or Junior Gilliam,the Forgotten Dodger.
And I, I title, the ForgottenDodger obviously fits right in with
the title of this podcast,Sports Forgotten Heroes.
Yeah.
(02:10):
Let me ask you, what makes him forgotten?
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
So I, I, there are people thatwould say, oh, he's not forgotten.
There are a number of peoplethat I, I've networked with in different
social media groups onFacebook that are part of, of Brooklyn
Dodger nostalgia.
And they're like, they tookoffense to it, the title of it, because
(02:30):
they're like, oh, we havenever forgotten him, you know, and
all that.
But I think what makes himforgotten really, or maybe overlooked
is perhaps a better, a betterword is, you know, he played so many
years in the Dodgersorganization, 53 to 66.
He was a coach after thatuntil his death in 1978.
So, I mean, he spent a quartercentury in the Dodger organization,
(02:54):
two years in the minors.
He is in the top 10 in manyDodger offensive categories of all
time.
Things like plate appearances,games played, walks, things like
that.
He played on seven WorldSeries teams, won four World Series.
He's the only Dodger to playin four World Series winning teams.
(03:15):
Koufax was on the 55 team butdidn't play.
Johnny Padres was on the 65team but didn't play.
So they only got three each.
Gilliam Zone, one of four.
And he never got a vote forthe hall of Fame, not one singular
vote.
He was overlooked throughouthis career in Brooklyn because of
so many stars on that team.
(03:36):
And then you get to LosAngeles and you've got Maury Wills,
you've got Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale.
You just have bigger personalities.
And he kind of just kept goingalong in the background.
As a Mets fan, I would likenhis career somewhat to that of Ed
(03:57):
Crane pool.
I just thought about that.
He was not hall of Fameworthy, but he was a Met for so long
and he was just there.
And, and we'll get into thissubject of trade rumors and all sorts
of things.
But yeah, as I think about it,a player like that, not a Derek Jeter
(04:22):
who played his entire careerwith the Yankees and was A superstar.
But Jim Gilliam, I mean, thatguy was a Dodger through and through,
like you said.
Even after his playing dayswere over, he remained with the organization
in a coaching capacity.
(04:44):
So let's go back to the beginning.
How was he introduced tobaseball and how quickly did he show
that he had the skills to make it?
Yeah, so he, he was born inNashville, Tennessee, in segregated
Nashville.
Lived in the black part ofdowntown Nashville, attended Pearl
(05:06):
High School, but never graduated.
He dropped out after the 11thgrade to play baseball.
And he just, he gravitated,gravitated toward the game as a child
there growing up playing on sandlots.
Spent a lot of time at SulphurDell park, which was the major baseball
facility there.
Played against some white kids.
Wasn't just playing segregated baseball.
(05:28):
This is the 1930s, early 1940s.
But he was playing someintegration in the sand lots and
whatnot.
And, you know, he, he gotlatched on to the Nashville Black
Falls, which was part of the.
The Negro Southern league.
Played his 1945 season.
So, I mean, that's his age,16, 17 season.
(05:51):
He is playing in the NegroSouthern League.
Then the Nashville Black Falls.
He.
Nashville was the home of theBaltimore Eli Giants.
For spring training, the EliGiants brought him to the Negro American
League.
And so he became part of theBaltimore Eli giants at age 17 and
(06:12):
didn't play a whole lot in1946, but by 47, 48, 49, 50, he was
a mainstay on those Eli Giantsteams, traveling around, playing
in the Negro Leagues, playingagainst Buck Leonard, playing against
Satchel Page.
You know, he played againstall of, the, all of the stars, Josh
(06:33):
Gibson and, you know, that'sreally where he cut his teeth.
That's where he learned how to play.
And he gave a lot of creditover his life to George Scales, who
was a fine Negro leaguesplayer from the 1920s and 30s.
Peewee Butts, who was hisdouble play partner.
Gilliam played second base.
Butts was the shortstop.
(06:54):
Taught him a lot about how toturn the double play and, you know,
play up the infield and all that.
And so those are two playersthat really he credited throughout
his life as just being theinfluence to how he learned to play
baseball.
Yeah, you, you, you speakabout Scales a little more in depth
in your book, I think.
How important was he to thecareer and the development of Gilliam?
(07:17):
Well, he was extremely important.
So he was, at that point intime, he was kind of a player coach,
more of a coach player.
Probably didn't see the lineupthat often, but he was Coaching with
the Eli Giants.
He, he was the one that taughtGilliam basically how to switch it.
So I mean he was watchingGilliam as a right handed batter,
just couldn't hit thecurveball and he, he actually, Scales
(07:40):
actually gave him the nicknameJunior, which you referenced earlier.
And he, basically what he saidis, hey Junior, this is the story
goes, hey Junior, get over tothe other side of the giver, other
side of the plate and see ifyou can hit it there.
And so Gilliam went over tothe other side in the left handed
batter's box and startedtaking cuts and learned how to switch
hit that way.
(08:01):
But the nickname Junior stuckand it was probably appropriate.
Scales was probably twice hisage, so you know, it was probably
an appropriate nickname for him.
But he taught him that and hewas the one that believed him.
You know, depending on whatyou read and kind of your sources
you look at, Scales is the onethat moved him from third base, which
(08:22):
is where he played with theblack Vols, to second base.
And so Scales was extremelyimportant, extremely influential
in Gilliam's approach to the plate.
The, another player on the EliGiants, Henry Kimbrough, really was
influential in helping him hitthe ball as a line drive hitter.
(08:43):
I mean he was in a, wasn't apower hitter, didn't hit a ton of
home runs.
But you know, those are, thoseare the types of individuals that
shaped his baseball career.
Can you tell us a little bitabout the Negro Leagues at that time
and how they were structured?
If I, if I understandcorrectly or if I follow the story
(09:04):
correctly, Junior or Jimplayed in the Negro Southern League.
Tell us about that league as well.
Tell us about.
Yeah, so the Negro SouthernLeague was kind of a, I guess would
be a step below perhaps theNegro American League and the Negro
National League at that time,the year actually that he played
(09:24):
in that 1945, there is verylittle information.
William Platt wrote awonderful book about the history
of the Negro Southern Leagueand he just can't find statistics,
he can't find box scores.
And it's just unfortunate thatwe don't know how he performed a
lot in that.
You know, then he goes intothe Negro American League and that
(09:44):
was still the 1946 season.
This is before Jackie Robinsonhad integrated baseball.
And it was still theopportunity then to have a true Negro
League World Series betweenthe Negro League National League
champ and the Negro AmericanLeague champ.
And the East West All StarGame was still this big thing where
all the black stars came toComiskey park or Yankee Stadium or
(10:06):
someplace and played in theall star game during that summer.
But as blacks started tointegrate major league baseball and
you started to see the.
The talent shift there, thenegro leagues begin to have their
cracks in their foundation.
And, you know, by.
By the end of the 1950s, ofcourse, they're.
They're no longer in existence.
Right.
(10:26):
Yeah.
He was coming up, though.
You mentioned Robinson.
He was coming up during thetime when Jackie Robinson and Larry
Dobie were breaking down wallsand, and crossing the color line.
What was the atmosphere likeat that time for guys like Jim Gilliam?
(10:48):
While it.
It had to be encouraging forthem to see a Jackie Robinson and
Larry Doby, and by the way,there were a couple others that broke
through at that time as well.
Yeah, it still had thetreatment that guys like Robinson
withstood.
(11:09):
How terrifying was it for guyslike Gilliam to hear about this?
And did they ever have anysecond thoughts about trying to make
it in major league baseball?
Yeah, you know, I mean,there's a number of ways I want to
try and try and answer yourquestion there.
I think for, for Gilliam,yeah, he always wanted to try and
(11:31):
aspire to be that.
He saw Jackie Robinson breakthe color barrier, and Jackie would
actually become his firstroommate in 1953 when he finally
makes the Brooklyn Dodgers.
And so it gave him some motivation.
And he talked about that laterin his career.
It's like, well, I saw Jackiedo it, and I knew then that know
I could do this as well.
Gilliam was fortunate becauseof his age.
(11:52):
He was still young.
A player like peewee Butts,George Scales, they.
Even Josh Gibson, you know, those.
Those guys were unfortunatelypast their prime.
They were not something that amajor league team was going to take
a chance on.
And so, but it still took,even for.
For Gilliam, it still tookuntil the end of the 1950 season
(12:12):
for his contract to bepurchased by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
He had a tryout in March of1950 with the Chicago Cubs.
He went to Haines City,Florida, and the Cubs had had him
and several other players tryout, and the Cubs cut it.
They kept Gene Baker instead,who would eventually help integrate
the Cubs and played with ErnieBanks as kind of a middle infield
(12:35):
combination there.
But they kept Gene Baker, whowas a little bit older, a little
bit more mature, didn't take achance on Gilliam.
And that would have beenGilliam's age.
21 season, 1950, he.
So, you know, it was.
It was a disappointment for him.
He expressed he didn'tunderstand why, and he was disappointed.
(12:55):
Went back, played with the eliGiants throughout 1950.
And then he and Joe Black hadbeen roommates with the Eli Giants.
And they're.
They're kind of an interesting pairing.
Black was a pitcher who hadgone to Morgan State, graduated from
Morgan State in Baltimore, hada college degree and Gillian and
was pretty outspoken, pretty,pretty gregarious.
(13:18):
Gilliam was reserved andquiet, didn't have a college education,
barely had, you know, made itthrough 11th grade.
And they just hit it off andthey became really fast friends.
Gilliam eventually becamegodfather to Joe Black's son, Chico.
And Black encouraged him toread the newspaper and kind of, you
(13:39):
know, stay up on events andbecome educated in that regard.
So they wind up playingtogether in 1951 in Montreal, the
Montreal Royals, same teamthat Jackie Robinson was with.
And there was a story that Ifound in.
Actually, it was in thearchives of Roger Kahn's papers from
(14:01):
the Baseball hall of Fame.
It was during the pandemic,and the Baseball hall of Fame was
nice enough to scan a bunch ofpapers for me because people weren't
going to those places at thatpoint and send them to me.
And it was a story that Rogerdid not include in Boys of Summer,
which I thought was fascinating.
But Black was talking aboutbeing called the N word and, you
(14:23):
know, some race issues in agame they were playing in Buffalo.
And Gilliam went to the moundand tried to calm him down.
And he said, I'm going to, youknow, Black's cussing at it.
I'm going to get this guy.
I'm going to throw it.
He's like, no, you're not.
Gilliam's the one that calledhim down.
He said, if you do that, we'llnever get this chance.
So even.
(14:45):
And that was 1951.
So that's four years afterJackie had integrated.
And there was still that there.
So a little bit more longwinded response.
But, you know, I think ithelps kind of set what that was like
for him.
Gilliam really followed in thefootsteps of Robinson.
(15:05):
He.
Robinson was in the Negro Leagues.
Gilliam was in the Negro Leagues.
Robinson got signed by theDodgers, went to Montreal.
Gilliam got signed by theDodgers, went to Montreal.
They were both infielders.
And we'll get into it later.
Gilliam's relationship withthe manager of the Royals at that
(15:30):
time, the Montreal Royals,Walter Alston.
Yep, it was, you know, a veryfortunate relationship for Gilliam.
So Gilliam establishes himselfwith the Montreal Royals, and he's
good enough to make it toBrooklyn to play with the Dodgers
(15:50):
in 1953.
And he had one heck of arookie season.
278.
He led the National League intriples with 17.
He never approached thatnumber again.
Six home runs, 63.
Ribby's 21 stolen bases.
(16:11):
Tell us about his first seasonin Major League Baseball.
And was he surprised that heactually won Rookie of the Year?
Yeah, you know, he wassurprised, I think a little bit that
he won Rookie of the Year.
We came down between him andHarvey Haddock's pitcher that had
an excellent season that year.
(16:32):
And Gilliam felt like he, hewould get it.
But the issue there was, youknow, Haddocks had pitched a lot
in 1952 as well, but stillhadn't been.
Hadn't pitched the minimum,the maximum number of innings to
still be considered a rookie.
You know, that whole processfor him to get to the major leagues,
you know, you draw theparallels there between him and.
(16:56):
And Jackie Robinson.
Robinson spent one year inMontreal, but Gilliam spent two.
And you know, this is one ofthe themes that I had in the book
was Gilliam was at thesedifferent, what I call gates of integration
of baseball.
I have that in here.
Yeah, the first gate, thesecond gate.
Yeah.
And so Gilliam's part of thissecond gate, which is, at what point
(17:18):
in time are major league teamsgoing to just get beyond integrating
and saying, oh, we got a blackplayer or we got two black players,
when are we going to get tofour or five and where the lineup
is has a higher percentage ofblack players.
And you can make a prettystrong case that Gilliam was ready
for the major leagues in 1951and certainly 1952 when he won the
(17:43):
MVP in the International League.
And he probably could havehelped the Dodgers, who were in the
52 World Series, lost it tothe Yankees.
They lost, of course, in 51 tothe Giants on the Bobby Thompson
home run.
He probably would have help them.
And by all accounts, he wasbetter than the bench players that
the Dodgers kept.
Players like Rocky Bridges andBobby Morgan and some of these other
(18:05):
kind of journeymen that werethe utility infielders.
Gilliam was probably a betterplayer than them.
He could switch hit, he couldplay multiple positions.
But the Dodgers weren't readyto do that.
They already had Campanella,they had Newcomb, they had Jackie
Robinson, they had three.
And the Sandy Amorous wouldcome up right about the same time,
a black Cuban.
(18:26):
And it would take until 1954before the Dodgers would start all
five of them in the lineup.
They became the first team tohave a lineup that was greater than
50% black.
And Gilliam helped break that down.
It wasn't until 1971 with thePirates that they had a whole entire
(18:46):
lineup of non white players.
Yeah, yeah, I was going to getto the second gate, but we just sort
of addressed it.
No, no, hey, no problem.
I mean, yeah, I mean, it was.
Well, since we're there, whydo you think the Dodgers pushed it
(19:09):
but never crossed it?
They never opened it?
You know, I don't know.
I mean, there.
So there's a lot ofdocumentation from the 1953 spring
training.
Roger Kahn writes about thisin his book Boys of Summer.
There were other newspaperwriters that were writing about.
It was the fact that ifGilliam broke the lineup and moved
(19:32):
Jackie Robinson off of secondbase, that meant that Billy Cox was
going to the bench.
And it wasn't so much thatthey were upset that, you know, Jackie
was going to take hisposition, but it was like there was
a.
There was a group of people onthe Dodgers and it was, you know,
individuals that wereoutspoken in Kahn's book were Preacher
(19:54):
Rowe, who was from ruralArkansas, Missouri, border area,
and Billy Cox.
And, you know, they wereexpressing concern that a black player
was taking Billy Cox's spot.
And I think the Dodgers werevery cognizant, like every other
team was.
I mean, the giants, they hadthree black players.
(20:15):
They didn't go to the fourth.
The Indians had three black players.
They didn'T go to the fourth.
You know, so there was thiskind of unspoken thing, but.
But even in 1953, not everyteam had integrated.
The Yankees hadn't integratedat that point in time.
The Red Sox didn't integrateuntil the end of the decade.
So, you know, there were stillopportunities for black players.
Of course, the reserve clauseat the time allowed the Dodgers to
(20:38):
stockpile as much black talentas they wanted to.
And there was no incentive forthem really to bring Gilliam up.
He was still young enough atthat point.
So I think the Dodgers werejust kind of like, let's see, let's
wait and see how this plays out.
And you know, that's.
That was kind of, you know,Jackie was certainly having diminishing
(20:59):
skills by 54, 55, and, youknow, you know, certainly by 56,
he was only playing, you know,kind of half the time.
And the Dodgers were movingplayers around and whatnot.
Look, Jim Gilliam played for17 years and he had some very good
years.
But I went back and looked athis stats.
(21:24):
I think there's an argumentthat can be made that his rookie
year, 1953, which, by the way,he also walked 100 times.
The guy had this amazing eyeat the plate.
I think there's an argument tobe made that 1953, his rookie year,
just might have been his best season.
(21:44):
What do you think?
Yeah, you know, he had areally good year in 1963 as well.
Got some MVP votes in both ofthose years.
But it was pretty evident thatif you go back and you compare the
statistics at 53 was a reallywatershed year for him.
You mentioned the triples earlier.
I mean, he never approachedthat number of triples ever in his
(22:04):
career after that.
You know, you mentioned 20,some odd stolen bases.
He struggled a little bit.
He got caught stealing a fairamount of time as well.
14 times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he wasn't a great basestealer, but he was a smart base
runner, knew how to take anextra base, those sorts of things.
And he really transformed andignited that Dodger lineup.
(22:28):
You know, that 53 team wasfamous for starting off 15, 0 or
whatever it was that theystarted off and just kind of coasted
all the way to the World Series.
And they.
They were loaded.
I mean, that was Snider,Hodges, Campanello, Jackie, you know,
Erskine, and, you know,everybody was just on top of their
game in that year.
(22:49):
So I do think that Peewee Reese.
I can't forget about Pee WeeReese, you know, another.
Another hall of Famer there.
I do think his 63 season wasvery impactful.
He helped the Dodgersimmensely in the World Series by
playing smart baseball,getting on base.
He didn't hit very much, buthe walked and got on base and created
a little bit of havoc there.
(23:12):
65 was a.
It was a monumental year forhim, just simply because.
Yeah, we'll get to that, too.
Yeah, I look forward to.
I mean, it was such aunexpected year for him.
Yeah.
But, you know, I think the onething about those seasons is it looks
like, you know, he kind of.53,he knew where he was going to play.
And Alston kept him in thelineup even through some slumps,
(23:34):
and he still had.
You might have the stats infront of you.
I don't have him, but I thinkhe had like close to 700 plate appearances
that year.
710 plate appearances in 1953.
Led.
Led the National League there.
In 62.
He had over 700 as well, but.
Oh, and in 56 as well, the guy.
(23:54):
I mean.
Yeah, 17 years.
He had a heck of his career.
When I watched years ago, themovie that starred Chadwick Boseman
as Jackie Robinson, obviously.
Yeah.
I mean, Robinson crosses thecolor line.
(24:15):
There's a lot of animosity, alot of awful things that happened.
And there were some on theDodgers at that time that weren't
overly thrilled that.
That Jackie Robinson was onthe team as well.
Gilliam comes up in 53 severalyears later.
(24:36):
How did Gilliam and histeammates get along?
I mean, I read in your bookwhere you had to try really hard
not to like this guy.
I think that's true.
I mean, obviously, I neverknew him, you know, but everybody
seemed to really just getalong with him.
I mean, he was.
He was a friend to everybody.
(24:57):
It seemed like he wasn't veryoutspoken and anything like that.
You know, I think that thething that people still maybe overlook
a little bit about integrationwas, yes, Jackie Robinson broke the
color barrier, and then youwound up getting Larry Doby and Satchel
Page and Willie Mays and Banksand Aaron and everybody else comes
into baseball in the mid-1950s.
(25:18):
But there was still a lot ofsegregation that occurred.
They still went to St.
Louis and had to stay in adifferent hotel when they would play
with Cardinals.
The Dodgers shifted some oftheir spring training games down
to Miami, and the blacks hadto stay at a different hotel.
And they loved that hotel.
Loved it.
Yeah.
I mean, it was.
It was the place to be inblack culture.
(25:39):
You know, all the entertainerswere there.
Everybody was.
Was there.
And so, you know, grand tricky was.
Gonna get them out of there.
No, leave us.
We love it here.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Don't.
Don't go spoil this for us,you know, and then.
But even then, still in.
When the Dodgers were in Verobeach, you know, there was still
(26:00):
segregation that occurred inVero beach and that.
And.
And the team would have to goSifford and, you know, the black
players would have to go tothe black part of town just to go
to the barber or go to themovie theater or something like that.
So they did deal with some ofthat Jim Crow, some of that segregation
that existed, even thoughbaseball, you know, they were.
They were in the lineups, andthere weren't the threats that you
(26:22):
from.
From 42 and all that sort of thing.
You said he wasn't veryoutspoken, and it's really interesting.
Was he.
Was he an introvert?
Was he shy?
I think so.
You know, I talked to somepeople, you know, that were.
That were players for him.
So I talked to, like DustyBaker, for example, and Ron, say,
(26:46):
players that were on thedodgers in the 70s, like that, and
they all said, you know, hewas just very quiet, very soft spoken,
very thin, thoughtful aboutwhat he said so that when he did
talk, you wanted to listen towhat he was saying because he knew
what he was doing.
He knew he was, you know, hewas trying to help you and, and become
a better player.
(27:07):
You know, I think even WesParker even told me a story about
how later in his career.
Was it Wes Parker.
I think it was Wes Parkerlater in his career, he was struggling
to hit Bert Hooten'sknuckleball, and Bert Hooten was
pitching for the Chicago Cubs,and Gilliam helped coach him up to,
to learn how to do that.
(27:28):
You know, and Parker had beenin the.
He was in the majors in the1960s, and so this was several years
after that.
So, you know, it was.
He.
He was one of thoseindividuals that wasn't like Jackie
Robinson wasn't speaking outagainst, against integration or,
you know, segregation.
He wasn't.
Willie or Maury Wills was veryoutspoken on a lot of issues and
(27:51):
all that sort of thing.
He unceremoniously, you know,got traded from the Dodgers because
he refused to go on a tripacross to Japan on a goodwill tour
to Japan.
And the Dodgers basicallysaid, no, you're out.
Gilliam never did anythinglike that to try and draw attention
to himself.
Maybe that was because henever finished high school and maybe
(28:13):
he was self conscious about that.
That's one theory that, youknow, has been advanced and that
seems to, to resonate a little bit.
You said he wasn't outspoken.
I didn't.
I use the term.
He wasn't very outgoing.
That might not be the right term.
(28:35):
But he was the way youdescribed Gilliam in your book.
He was an introvert.
He was shy.
But yet he was also very marketable.
And I find that really interesting.
He, he appeared in a lot of advertisements.
(28:55):
So what made him so marketable?
Well, you know, I do thinkthat if you look at some of these
photos, I mean, he's got a,he's got a pretty expressive face
and expressive smile.
I think he, you know, wemarkets that way.
You know, I, I don't know ifJackie Robinson turned people off
a little bit with hisoutspokenness or something.
I mean, the fact that a lot ofthese occurred while Gilliam was,
(29:19):
was still.
While the Dodgers were stillin Brooklyn.
So I mean, you get, you gotMadison Avenue, you got the New York
City marketing and all thatsort of thing.
Campanella was, was in ads,Jackie was in ads.
But Gilliam, for whateverreason, I mean, he was selling cigarettes,
he was selling RC Cola, he wasselling Crosley Te.
(29:39):
Um, but then you Know, thenthey moved to Los Angeles and he's
one of the few players thatreally bridges both of those franchises.
Right, Brooklyn and Los Angeles.
You know, the.
Yes, Gil Hodges and DukeSnyder and Peewee Reese played some
games in Los Angeles, but theywere kind of past their prime and
didn't, didn't last long in,in the majors after they moved.
(30:02):
Gilliam was still, you know,in the prime of his career during
that period.
Koufax and Drysdale, whilethey debuted in Brooklyn, were not
stars in Brooklyn, so theydidn't have that marketability.
They moved to Los Angeles and,and yeah, he's selling Packard Bell
televisions at that point andyou know, he did a lot of, of marketing
and I was surprised by that.
(30:24):
You know, Beechnut Chewing Gumwas another one.
I think we've, we've got aimage of that in the book that he
was in one of an ad forBeechnut Chewing gum.
Let's get back to his game.
What were his strengths?
Talk about his game.
What kind of ball player wasJim Gilliam?
So, I mean, I think he waswithout a doubt a really smart, high
(30:46):
IQ baseball player.
First and foremost.
He knew situations, he knewwhere he needed to be defensively,
he knew what he needed to doat the plate.
He had a tremendous eye.
You mentioned he walked over100 times.
I mean, I forget the exactratio off the top of my head of walks
to strikeouts, but it wassomething like four to one.
Walks bore to strikeouts.
(31:07):
He didn't strike out much at all.
And so from, from thatstandpoint, he was, he was a good
person to put in that secondspot in the Dodger order in Los Angeles.
Maury Wills gets on.
Gilliam could take pitches, hecould foul them off, give Maury Wills
a chance to steal second.
And then if it's a righthanded pitcher and Gilliam's batting
(31:28):
from the left side, he couldcertainly pull the ball the second
or you know, poke it into the outfield.
But whatever he would neededto do, he would get Wills to third
base and then let Tommy Davisor Willie Davis hit a sack fly and
score.
And that was, that was the offense.
Defensively, he played allover the diamond.
The only positions that henever played were pitcher, catcher
and shortstop.
(31:49):
Actually in a major leaguegame played, played two innings at,
at first base late in the gameonce and, and actually had a put
out.
So he had one chance at firstbase, which is the only time I ever
could find that he playedfirst base.
But you know, he was definitely.
You alluded to Alston earlier,they got along Great.
They.
(32:09):
He was.
He was the manager on thefield for the dodgers during those
1960s years.
Alston rarely went out to themound, is my understanding.
Pitcher needed to be calmed down.
Gilliam's the one that walkedover there and just said, hey, you
know, you're doing this oryou're doing that.
Yeah.
His relationship.
Let's talk about hisrelationship with Walter Alston in
(32:30):
the minors and the majors.
Austin said that Gilliam wasthe ultimate team player.
Talk about that.
What does the ultimate teamplayer mean?
And what did he do to earnsuch a compliment?
He was.
He was easily a company man.
I mean, whatever the teamneeded, wherever he needed to play.
(32:52):
I think one of the things tome that cemented the relationship
between Alston and.
And Gilliam was the fact thathe start.
He.
Gilliam started more openingdays on the bench than he did at
a position.
Because the Dodgers, they werealways bringing up some sort of phenom
or some sort of minor league prospect.
(33:12):
You know, maybe it was CharlieNeal while they were in Brooklyn.
Then it was Pee Wee Oliver,Nate Oliver, and there was John Warhas
and all these other guys thatwere supposed to move Gilliam off
of his position.
But then Gilliam had theability to play third base.
He had the ability to playsecond base.
He had the ability to playleft field.
(33:32):
He played some and right.
He could play all over the diamond.
He was a switch hitter, so youdidn't have to sub him out for platoon
purposes or anything like that.
And he, again, Alston justtrusted him.
He was.
He was.
The story is that the firstgame that he played for Montreal,
Alston was the manager.
(33:54):
Gilliam's penciled in thelineup in second base and the leadoff
hitter for Montreal.
They're on the road, playingleft field, gets ejected, arguing
balls and strikes, and Alstontells him to go play left field.
Now, he's never played leftfield in his life.
And the story is that thefirst ball gets hit to him and he
drops it and makes an error,but he doesn't make an error, any
errors after that.
(34:15):
Right.
But he had never played left field.
The coach, the manager, says,hey, I need you to go play left field.
He's like, okay, I'm there.
So he would do whatever ittook to win a game.
He would do whatever it tookto make the team complete.
He would do whatever the teamneeded him to do.
(34:36):
17 years, he plays for theDodgers, you know, the first couple
in Brooklyn.
And the final years, actuallymore than the final.
Probably about the final 12years in Los Angeles.
And yet at the start of everyseason, it was like he was on the
(34:56):
trading block.
He was.
And that was a big theme inyour book.
He was always the one involvedin the trade rumors.
They never traded him?
No.
Why was it always Jim Gilliamin the trade rumors?
Why was he always on thetrading block?
(35:18):
So I think there's two ways tolook at that.
One, you can say, well, that'severy other team recognizes his value
and they want him to be a partof their team.
I mean, he was rumored to begoing to the Phillies or the Reds,
places like that.
Some places like the Phillieshadn't integrated, and so they were
looking to get a black playerthat was established that they could
help integrate their team with.
And so that was one of theimpetuses there.
(35:40):
The other thing is, is thathistorically, during that period,
the Dodgers had a surplus of infielders.
They had Don Zimmer, they hadCharlie Neal, they had Bobby Morgan,
as I mentioned earlier.
So, you know, in the 50s inBrooklyn, there are a lot of those.
The 60s, you get Ken McMullen,you get John Warhast, Darrell Griffith,
Nate Oliver, a lot of playersbubbling up as infielders, but they
(36:02):
didn't have a surplus of outfielders.
And, you know, some of therumored trades would involve Gilliam
going to a team in exchangefor an outfielder.
One of them was Wally Postwith the Cincinnati reds in the 1950s.
And that makes baseball sense.
You trade from a position ofstrength, infield, and you fill a
need outfield.
(36:23):
So that makes sense.
But, you know, Buzzy Bavasi,and I'm sure, you know, you picked
up on this Buzzy with Ace, healways would say the same thing every
spring.
Why would we trade Gilly?
He's four players in one.
He can play the infield, theoutfield, bat left, bat right.
You know, all that, those.
I mean, every year it was thesame can quote.
It seemed like that thenewspaper writers were putting in
there.
He also slumped a little bitduring his career.
(36:47):
And I thought about this, andwe're not going to go on.
I don't want to go into thispart of the Jim Gilliam story.
You wrote a terrific book.
Jim Gilliam, the Forgotten Dodger.
I encourage anyone watching orlistening to pick up a copy of it
because it also talks about hehad troubles off the field.
And I don't mean criminal problems.
(37:08):
He had troubles.
His home life.
It was not.
It was not a stable home life.
And I'm not talking when hewas a kid.
I'm talking as an adult withhis marriage and in children and
all that.
So I'm sure that played a rolein some of his slumps.
But what about all the trade talk?
(37:31):
Did, did he being on the cuspof possibly being traded, did that
toy at all with his mentalapproach to the game?
You know, it's an interesting question.
I'm not entirely sure becauseby the time the season started, those
trade rumors really were done.
You know, they didn't come upduring the season.
It was really only springtraining, the beginning part of the
(37:54):
season that those trade rumorswere, were prevalent, the off season.
So I don't know that if he gotinto a slump mid season that that
was a part of it.
You know, you alluded a littlebit to his home life and yes, he
did have a very public divorcewith his first wife, Gloria, and
they had gotten married whenthey were both very young.
(38:15):
He was still with the Eli Giants.
She was a teenager, he was ateenager, you know, and so I think
they were dealing with a lotof challenges there.
And then he got remarriedlater and had a total of four kids,
two with Gloria and two with Edwina.
And he was much more stable, Ithink later in his career.
(38:39):
Los Angeles, Edwina wasregularly in the kind of the society
pages almost as one of thebest dressed Dodger wives.
The Los Angeles Sentinel orthe black press in Los Angeles would
cover, cover a lot ofcelebrity wives and things like that.
And things seemed like theywere okay there.
It was really, you know, youalluded to the late 1950s when he
(39:01):
was going through someproblems in 56, 57, that time period.
And yeah, I do think, youknow, I don't know firsthand, I didn't
talk to anybody that said, oh,yes, that, that was a situation.
But if you just look at hisstats and when he slumped, the month
that he slumped was when allthis stuff was going on in the Pittsburgh
(39:21):
Courier and the New YorkAmsterdam News.
And it was, again, it was avery public thing that was covered
by the black press.
You know, Steve, someday I'mgoing to do a podcast or write or
find more information, maybeeven write a book, I don't know because
(39:44):
I can't find a whole lot on it.
Barnstorming.
Barnstorming was such a bigdeal in the 20s, the 30s, the 40s,
the 50s.
It was a way for baseball, forthe players to bring the game to
(40:06):
people in cities that didn'tnormally get to see baseball.
It was also a way for theplayers to make a little more money
during the off season becauseobviously back then they didn't get
$765 million contracts likeJuan Soto.
(40:26):
Yep.
No.
Yeah.
Gilliam was a big part ofbarnstorming, and he might have actually
played for the greatest teamin the history of baseball.
Tell us about the 1955 teamand who was on it and how great was
(40:48):
it.
I think you said they neverlost a game.
That's true.
And now you're.
You're putting me on the spotbecause I don't remember everybody
that was on that team, but it was.
Well, you had Mays.
Yeah.
There.
I mean, yeah, we had Willie Mays.
You had Hank Aaron, you hadRoy Campanella, you had Jim Gilliam.
I mean, it was an amazingcollection of black talent, without
(41:10):
a doubt.
And they went through the South.
They.
I think that was the one wherethey went over to Hawaii.
I'm trying to remember whichbarnstorming team it was.
But they.
They went.
They at least went to LosAngeles and played a bunch of games
out on the west coast, becauseat that time, you know, there's no
baseball on the West Coast.
But yeah, they.
Those players, you know, theyadded a month to their.
(41:32):
To their season because thosethings would start as soon as the
World Series would end.
I mean, like two days afterthe World Series over with, these
barnstorming teams would formand they would go on these tours
of the.
Often in the south because theweather was still kind of warm down
in Louisiana, Alabama,Tennessee, those places.
Texas, certainly, becausethere were no teams in Texas that
(41:55):
was fertile ground for this.
But, yeah, it's kind ofamazing that you think about.
And I think, to me, this isone of the things that is so unique
about Gilliam's career.
He played in the Negro leagueswith Satchel Page and Buck Leonard
and Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson.
(42:17):
And then he plays in themajors and he's on teams with Hank
Aaron, Ernie Banks, WillieMays, plus all the Dodgers that he
played with Jackie Robinson toSandy Koufax.
He really was associated withthe Titans of the game.
Yeah, he was.
I mean, he, like, look, hedebuted in 53 and he played until
(42:42):
66.
We could go through every yearand talk about every year, but, you
know, we don't.
We don't want to do that.
But he debuted when he was 24,and I think mentally, all the changes
in position, he's got tobattle this new guy.
(43:04):
He's got to battle that new guy.
Like you said, he doesn't getto play in many opening day games.
I think mentally he started tobecome exhausted and obviously he
was getting older.
And finally 1965 rolls around,he says, you know what?
(43:24):
I've had enough.
I'm going to retire.
The Dodgers say, don't leavethe club.
We got a spot for you righthere on our coaching staff.
So he becomes a coach for theDodgers, and then they called him
out of retirement.
Yeah.
Why did the Dodgers want himto come out of retirement, go back
(43:47):
into the lineup, and just howwell did he do?
So, yeah, so it's really.
It's kind of interesting.
So 64 was arguably the.
The worst season that he had statistically.
I'll just read it off.
He hit.228.
He played in 116 games.
I still had a good eye at the plate.
21 strikeouts, 42 walks.
(44:08):
So he doubled that.
I hit two dingers, 27 ribbies.
But, yeah, his.
His ops wasn't all that great.
It was only.600 and five.
Yeah.
No, so he.
He had a.
He had a poor year.
The Dodgers had a poor year,frankly, in 64.
And they were disappointment.
They'd come off sweeping theYankees in the 1963 World Series,
(44:30):
four straight games.
Gilliam had a great year in63, was receiving MVP votes.
And the Dodgers were lookingto move on from Leo to Rocher as
a base coach.
And so they made Gilliam,after the 1960 season, the first
base coach for the Dodgers.
And that was significant.
And we'll get to him beingactivated, but it was significant
(44:52):
because to me, that was thatthird gate.
You know, we've talked aboutthe first and the second.
The third gate is he becomesthe first black base coach.
He's the first black toactually coach on the field.
Gene Baker, Buck O'Neill hadboth been bench coaches with major
league teams prior to that,but they had not been one of those
on the field player or coachesthat was relaying signals and helping
(45:16):
runners and all of that.
But it was.
It was interesting lookingthrough newspaper archives because
writers were immediatelytalking about the fact that, well,
Gilliam's going to be a coach,but we don't really think he's going
to be a coach.
They're going to activate himat some point in time.
And sure enough, the catalystfor that was Tommy Davis sliding
into second base in a game inMay and breaking his ankle and being
(45:36):
out for the season.
And the Dodgers that they hadhad, the.
The players they had assembledto replace Gilliam in the infield
were not performing.
They had made a trade, traded Ken.
Excuse me, Frank Howard to theWashington Senators and picked up
Claude Osteen, and they got aguy named John Kennedy who was a
all glove, no hit thirdbaseman, but he was supposed to,
(46:00):
you know, hold that down.
But it turned out he wasreally no hit and he wasn't, you
know, helping offensively.
Daryl Griffith was injured andeven though he had torn up aaa, John
Warhass had kind of notperformed the way that they expected.
So they needed somebody.
And so they activate Gilliamand he doesn't play right away.
(46:20):
He starts off slow, just kindof as a pinch hitter.
But by mid summer he isensconced at third base, which is
not the position that he cameup playing, but he's, he is in third
base.
And the Dodgers wound uphaving this all switch hit infield
of West, Parker Lever atsecond, Maury Wills at short.
(46:40):
And then at third they hadGilliam and they helped stabilize
the Dodgers.
They would go on to the WorldSeries in 1965 and, and beat the
Twins in seven games.
And you know, Gilliam gets MVPvotes again in 19.
I think he, I think he wasonly like 30th, but he got some votes
for MVP despite beginning theseason as a retired coach.
(47:04):
Yeah, he did.
He finished the season 30th inMVP votes.
I mean, it's crazy.
He was out of the game, butthey brought him back in and he was
a catalyst for the team.
I mean, he helped them winthat World Series against the twins
in 65.
And he says, okay, that's it,I'm retired.
(47:26):
And once again, 1966, theycall him back into action.
However, it was different.
He.
He just, it didn't go as well.
But why did they call him backand tell us a little bit about the
66 season?
And by the way, I'll just getto it right now.
(47:47):
They got swept by the Oriolesin the World Series.
That Orioles team and thatpitching staff, I mean, Cuellar,
McInally.
Well, yeah, I mean, forget it.
Yeah, no, no, they, yeah.
As good as Drysdale and Koufaxwere, the Orioles had quite a, quite
a pitching staff.
And the Dodgers were really,they, they were struggling offensively.
(48:10):
Gilliam was not hitting.
You know, this is his age, his age.
37, 38 season, something like that.
And so he's, he's clearlydiminished in skills, you know.
And as they get into the WorldSeries, Alston does start him in
games one and two.
He doesn't get a hit in either game.
(48:30):
Austin sits him on the benchfor games three and four, so he never
plays in those last two games.
And you know, it's.
In some ways it was kind ofpoetic, if you will.
That he began his professionalcareer in a lot of ways in Baltimore,
and he ended it in Baltimore,you know, so it was an influential
place for him.
But, yeah, it just.
(48:51):
It just didn't go the way thatit would, the way that the Dodgers
were hoping it would or haddone in 1965.
But, yeah, he was still anintegral part of that, you know,
And I think one of the thingsthat I found fascinating about this
is he was one of a fewplayers, Willie Davis, and I think
(49:12):
there was one other thatstarted all four of Koufax is no
hitters.
So Gilliam was in the lineupin 63, 64, 65, 66 for all four of
Koufax's no hitters, which iskind of remarkable.
That's pretty cool.
That's pretty cool.
Well, he finally retired forgood after the 1966 season.
(49:36):
He coached for the Dodgersfrom 67 until he passed away in 1978.
Do you think.
Did you hear.
Can you take a guess?
Do you think he ever hadaspirations to be a manager?
(49:58):
Because based off of what Iread, the way the players respected
him, his knowledge for thegame, I think he could have been
a good manager.
Yeah, I think he could havebeen a good manager.
The thing you asked aboutearlier aspirations, though, I don't
know.
I got conflicting kind ofinformation about whether he wanted
(50:18):
to do that.
His public comments werealways, yes, I want a chance to manage,
and I'm, you know, I'll waitfor my chance, and, you know, I know
I'll get that opportunity.
He never did get the opportunity.
He did manage one year in thePuerto Rican Winter League and did
okay in San Juan with a teamin the.
(50:39):
In the Puerto Rican league,but he never really had another chance
either in the.
In the minor leagues or in themajor leagues.
Do I think he would have beena good manager?
Yes.
But, you know, one of thethings that.
That always stuck with me wassomething that Dusty Baker said was
he didn't think that Gilliamwanted that role because he didn't
(50:59):
want to have to deal with themedia and deal with all the other
things that went with it.
And, you know, Al Ferrara, whopassed away recently, he told me
he felt, and I agree with this100%, that Gilliam would, in today's
baseball, have been the bestbench coach.
The person that is in the earof the manager thinking, hey, three
(51:23):
players, three batters later,you need to be thinking about doing
this and, you know, kind of the.
The baseball IQ person, youknow, the guy hit it down this way
last time.
You need to move the defense,whatever it was, you know, kind of
the.
The analytics, before we got analytics.
Right.
I think that that would havebeen a great role that he would have
filled and done a good jobwith when Tommy Lasorda did become
(51:46):
the manager.
And, you know, I talked toplayers that had played with Lasorda
in the minors, you know, a Ronsay or a Bobby Valentine, and they
all said that we all knewLasorda, you know, that he was comfortable
with all of us.
Because Gilliam remembers inthe majors, well, these guys are
all in the minors, so they'renot developing that rapport, that
relationship.
So.
So they felt like, yeah, it was.
(52:07):
It was a good move to make la,sort of that.
Lasorda then appointed Gilliamas hitting coach for the 77 season.
And, you know, I.
I think, you know, I askedEdwina, his widow, that question,
did he ever want to be a manager?
And her response was, he wasjust happy doing whatever the Dodgers
wanted him to do.
Yes, he would have liked achance, but he would have done whatever
(52:28):
they wanted him to do.
He was a great ball player.
I mean, for his career, he hit266 over 17 seasons, 65 home runs,
knocked in.625, stole 219 bases.
But his contribution was somuch more than what he did at the
(52:49):
plate.
You know, before we get tothat, though, I do have to ask.
I skipped over this.
Maury Wills.
Yeah.
Tell us about his relationshipwith Maury Wills.
Gilliam was the perfect man tohit behind Wills.
(53:14):
Why?
Why was he the perfect guy tohit behind Wills?
Yeah, he had such a greatrelationship until it wasn't.
Yeah.
Why did it sour?
You know, I.
I think it soured because, youknow, in a lot of ways, again, Wills
was extremely outspoken, andGilliam was not.
And Wills would openlycampaign after the Dodgers reacquired
(53:37):
him in the early 70s.
You know, they had sent him toMontreal or to Pittsburgh after,
you know, Wills refused to goon the.
The goodwill trip to Japan.
They traded him away.
They brought him back.
And then Will startsimmediately campaigning to replace
Alston.
He wants to be a manager, andthe Dodgers send him to Mexico, and
they give him theseopportunities to manage in the off
(54:00):
season that Gilliam's justreally not afforded.
And Gilliam's not the one togo to the media and say, yeah, I'm
going to be a manager one day.
That was.
But that's what Maury was.
And there was.
There was an incident.
I Forget the exact year.
71, 72, some 73.
Somewhere in that time periodwhere Will says to a Pittsburgh reporter
(54:22):
that, you know, he justdoesn't think Gilliam has what it
takes to be a manager.
And it struck me as it was abit of a slap that Gilliam was coaching
and instructing players andwas, by all accounts, everybody else
just revered him andappreciated what he said.
And Wills, I think, was justposturing and positioning.
(54:44):
And I reached out to Willsbefore he passed away.
Kind of a funny story.
Somebody that knows him hadgiven me his phone number, and I
sent a text to it and theresponse explained what I wanted.
And the response was, how didyou get this number?
And I never got any furtherthan that.
So unfortunately, I didn't geta chance to ask him.
(55:06):
But in Wills wrote, to giveyou an idea of Will's ego a little
bit on this, he wrote three autobiographies.
It pays to steal on the run.
You know, I forget stealingthe pennant or, you know, whatever
the.
It was always some play on theword running and stealing.
But he wrote three differentautobiographies throughout the 70s
(55:26):
and early 80s.
And in one of those, he talksabout having a disagreement with
Gilliam because there wasmiscommunication when Gilliam was
at the plate, Wills was.
At first, Wills thought he wasgoing to try and do a hit and run.
Gilliam was waiting for him to steal.
And Gilliam took a calledstrike three.
And, you know, we've talkedabout how good of an eye he had.
(55:47):
He hated to take a strike three.
There was no way that he was.
If he's going to strike out,he's going to go out swinging, not
going to look at strike three.
Took a strike three.
And Gilliam was all.
Apparently was disgruntled,went to the dugout, was all upset.
They got into a little bit of.
A little bit of a jawing match.
And apparently Frank Howardstepped in and kind of separated
the two.
(56:08):
But I think they were perfectcomplements for one another in the
lineup on the baseball thing.
But I'm not convinced thatthey got along real well outside
of baseball.
Yeah, it's a shame.
As I was saying before, he hada really 17 year career, was solid
(56:30):
at the plate, wasn'totherworldly at the plate, but he
was, as Austin said, theultimate team player.
Did what it took to help the team.
Played in 43 postseason games,which, you know, is an amazing number
considering there were no playoffs.
When.
(56:50):
When Jim Gilliam played, heplayed in seven World Series, won
four of them, coached in threeother World Series.
Some of the greatest playersever for the Dodgers Duke Snyder,
Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges,Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale.
(57:12):
And the list goes on throughthe guys in the 70s, Garvey say,
Lopez, Lopes, Russell to theguys today.
Is Jim Gilliam on that list?
What makes him one of thegreatest Dodgers ever?
Yeah, you know, the greatestis, is, is a difficult thing to really,
(57:34):
you know, quantify.
I think, I think he isextremely overlooked or forgotten
as the book was titled Dodger.
I think today's fan of theDodgers probably goes into Dodger
Stadium and sees number 19hanging on the wall, you know, on
the facade and, and can govisit the 19 statue and things like
(57:57):
that, because his numbersretired, but not understand who it
is or why he, his number was retired.
You know, this was a, a bit ofa controversy when they retired his
number when he passed awayright there in 1978.
And at the time, only threeDodgers had their.
Four Dodgers had their numbers retired.
Alston, Koufax, Campanella and Robinson.
(58:18):
That was it.
And yeah, they were all in thehall of Fame or were going to be
in the hall of Fame andGilliam was not.
And, and then the Dodgers kindof adopted a stance of, we're not
going to retire a number foranybody that's not in the hall of
Fame.
And so they didn't retire GilHodges as number 14 until he made
the hall of Fame.
(58:38):
But then, but then the Dodgersdid acquiesce and they, they retired
as, as they should.
Fernando Valens as well as 34.
And so now there are twododgers that don't have their, that
are not in the hall of Fame,that have their number retired.
But I just don't know thatpeople going to Dodger Stadium, you
know, the average 30 year oldwho was born, you know, the mid-90s
or something like that, isgoing to have an appreciation for
(59:00):
what he was like.
I mean, you talked about thenumber of postseason games he played
in when there weren't Divisionseries and wild cards.
I mean, he's still 11th.
All time in bases on balls inthe World Series.
All time.
All the players he's got, he'sstill ranked 11th.
You know, baseball Referenceis great for all of these.
(59:21):
He's walked 24 and again, onlystruck out nine.
Only struck out nine in theworld Series.
Yeah, so, you know, I, I think so.
I think one of the things thatreally was intriguing to me and really
disappointing about baseballis, is he a Hall of Fame player?
Probably not.
Those stats are good.
(59:42):
They're solid, they're consistent.
But he never got a single votefor the hall of Fame.
Not one.
And that, to me is where he isforgotten and overlooked is there's
not one person that was goingto say, put him 10th on their ballot
just so he gets a vote.
You know, I mean, that's ludicrous.
(01:00:05):
I mean, he won the Rookie ofthe year in 1953.
He was in MVP voting inseveral years.
He is the only player inbaseball history, the only player
to hit a home run in the NegroLeague's East West All Star Game
and the Major League All Star Game.
Not Banks, not Aaron, notMaze, Jim Gilliam.
(01:00:28):
Now, you shouldn't put a Hall.
You shouldn't put a person ina Hall of Fame just because they
made that one thing.
I get that.
Right.
But his overall body of workis certainly, I think, impressive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ichiro wasn't on somebody'shall of Fame ballot.
How is that even possible?
I will never understand any of that.
Yeah.
(01:00:48):
As a Mets fan, how is TomSeaver not a unanimous pick?
Yeah, it's just.
There's hall of Fame voting is.
Is a crazy thing.
Zero, but zero votes.
I know.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
Steve, I want to thank you somuch for joining me on Sports Forgotten
Heroes.
This has been terrific.
Hey, tell everybody where theycan get a copy of your book.
(01:01:11):
Thank you, Warren.
I appreciate it.
It's available from any majorretailer, paperback or ebook, so
go to Amazon, Barnes andNoble, Powell's Bookshop.
It's published by AugustPublications, so you can order it
direct from the publisher'swebsite as well.
You know, it's.
It came out this week.
February 4th was the day thatit came out.
So it's.
(01:01:32):
It's really exciting and Ireally appreciate you having me on
here to help promote it.
You got it, man.
Anytime.
It was really fun talking with you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
Steve, welcome to SportsForgotten Heroes.
Glad you could jump aboard.
Thank you, Warren.
It's great to be here.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, it's a great topic.
My, my father grew up aBrooklyn Dodgers fan.
When they left, we all becameNew York Mets fans, despite the Washington
Nationals.
Top I have on here.
Fair enough.
(01:49):
I got the LA one going.
There you go.
But yeah, great topic.
Jim Gilliam or Junior Gilliam,the Forgotten Dodger.
And I, I title, the ForgottenDodger obviously fits right in with
the title of this podcast,Sports Forgotten Heroes.
Yeah.
(02:10):
Let me ask you, what makes him forgotten?
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
So I, I, there are people thatwould say, oh, he's not forgotten.
There are a number of peoplethat I, I've networked with in different
social media groups onFacebook that are part of, of Brooklyn
Dodger nostalgia.
And they're like, they tookoffense to it, the title of it, because
(02:30):
they're like, oh, we havenever forgotten him, you know, and
all that.
But I think what makes himforgotten really, or maybe overlooked
is perhaps a better, a betterword is, you know, he played so many
years in the Dodgersorganization, 53 to 66.
He was a coach after thatuntil his death in 1978.
So, I mean, he spent a quartercentury in the Dodger organization,
(02:54):
two years in the minors.
He is in the top 10 in manyDodger offensive categories of all
time.
Things like plate appearances,games played, walks, things like
that.
He played on seven WorldSeries teams, won four World Series.
He's the only Dodger to playin four World Series winning teams.
(03:15):
Koufax was on the 55 team butdidn't play.
Johnny Padres was on the 65team but didn't play.
So they only got three each.
Gilliam Zone, one of four.
And he never got a vote forthe hall of Fame, not one singular
vote.
He was overlooked throughouthis career in Brooklyn because of
so many stars on that team.
(03:36):
And then you get to LosAngeles and you've got Maury Wills,
you've got Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale.
You just have bigger personalities.
And he kind of just kept goingalong in the background.
As a Mets fan, I would likenhis career somewhat to that of Ed
(03:57):
Crane pool.
I just thought about that.
He was not hall of Fameworthy, but he was a Met for so long
and he was just there.
And, and we'll get into thissubject of trade rumors and all sorts
of things.
But yeah, as I think about it,a player like that, not a Derek Jeter
(04:22):
who played his entire careerwith the Yankees and was A superstar.
But Jim Gilliam, I mean, thatguy was a Dodger through and through,
like you said.
Even after his playing dayswere over, he remained with the organization
in a coaching capacity.
(04:44):
So let's go back to the beginning.
How was he introduced tobaseball and how quickly did he show
that he had the skills to make it?
Yeah, so he, he was born inNashville, Tennessee, in segregated
Nashville.
Lived in the black part ofdowntown Nashville, attended Pearl
(05:06):
High School, but never graduated.
He dropped out after the 11thgrade to play baseball.
And he just, he gravitated,gravitated toward the game as a child
there growing up playing on sandlots.
Spent a lot of time at SulphurDell park, which was the major baseball
facility there.
Played against some white kids.
Wasn't just playing segregated baseball.
(05:28):
This is the 1930s, early 1940s.
But he was playing someintegration in the sand lots and
whatnot.
And, you know, he, he gotlatched on to the Nashville Black
Falls, which was part of the.
The Negro Southern league.
Played his 1945 season.
So, I mean, that's his age,16, 17 season.
(05:51):
He is playing in the NegroSouthern League.
Then the Nashville Black Falls.
He.
Nashville was the home of theBaltimore Eli Giants.
For spring training, the EliGiants brought him to the Negro American
League.
And so he became part of theBaltimore Eli giants at age 17 and
(06:12):
didn't play a whole lot in1946, but by 47, 48, 49, 50, he was
a mainstay on those Eli Giantsteams, traveling around, playing
in the Negro Leagues, playingagainst Buck Leonard, playing against
Satchel Page.
You know, he played againstall of, the, all of the stars, Josh
(06:33):
Gibson and, you know, that'sreally where he cut his teeth.
That's where he learned how to play.
And he gave a lot of creditover his life to George Scales, who
was a fine Negro leaguesplayer from the 1920s and 30s.
Peewee Butts, who was hisdouble play partner.
Gilliam played second base.
Butts was the shortstop.
(06:54):
Taught him a lot about how toturn the double play and, you know,
play up the infield and all that.
And so those are two playersthat really he credited throughout
his life as just being theinfluence to how he learned to play
baseball.
Yeah, you, you, you speakabout Scales a little more in depth
in your book, I think.
How important was he to thecareer and the development of Gilliam?
(07:17):
Well, he was extremely important.
So he was, at that point intime, he was kind of a player coach,
more of a coach player.
Probably didn't see the lineupthat often, but he was Coaching with
the Eli Giants.
He, he was the one that taughtGilliam basically how to switch it.
So I mean he was watchingGilliam as a right handed batter,
just couldn't hit thecurveball and he, he actually, Scales
(07:40):
actually gave him the nicknameJunior, which you referenced earlier.
And he, basically what he saidis, hey Junior, this is the story
goes, hey Junior, get over tothe other side of the giver, other
side of the plate and see ifyou can hit it there.
And so Gilliam went over tothe other side in the left handed
batter's box and startedtaking cuts and learned how to switch
hit that way.
(08:01):
But the nickname Junior stuckand it was probably appropriate.
Scales was probably twice hisage, so you know, it was probably
an appropriate nickname for him.
But he taught him that and hewas the one that believed him.
You know, depending on whatyou read and kind of your sources
you look at, Scales is the onethat moved him from third base, which
(08:22):
is where he played with theblack Vols, to second base.
And so Scales was extremelyimportant, extremely influential
in Gilliam's approach to the plate.
The, another player on the EliGiants, Henry Kimbrough, really was
influential in helping him hitthe ball as a line drive hitter.
(08:43):
I mean he was in a, wasn't apower hitter, didn't hit a ton of
home runs.
But you know, those are, thoseare the types of individuals that
shaped his baseball career.
Can you tell us a little bitabout the Negro Leagues at that time
and how they were structured?
If I, if I understandcorrectly or if I follow the story
(09:04):
correctly, Junior or Jimplayed in the Negro Southern League.
Tell us about that league as well.
Tell us about.
Yeah, so the Negro SouthernLeague was kind of a, I guess would
be a step below perhaps theNegro American League and the Negro
National League at that time,the year actually that he played
(09:24):
in that 1945, there is verylittle information.
William Platt wrote awonderful book about the history
of the Negro Southern Leagueand he just can't find statistics,
he can't find box scores.
And it's just unfortunate thatwe don't know how he performed a
lot in that.
You know, then he goes intothe Negro American League and that
(09:44):
was still the 1946 season.
This is before Jackie Robinsonhad integrated baseball.
And it was still theopportunity then to have a true Negro
League World Series betweenthe Negro League National League
champ and the Negro AmericanLeague champ.
And the East West All StarGame was still this big thing where
all the black stars came toComiskey park or Yankee Stadium or
(10:06):
someplace and played in theall star game during that summer.
But as blacks started tointegrate major league baseball and
you started to see the.
The talent shift there, thenegro leagues begin to have their
cracks in their foundation.
And, you know, by.
By the end of the 1950s, ofcourse, they're.
They're no longer in existence.
Right.
(10:26):
Yeah.
He was coming up, though.
You mentioned Robinson.
He was coming up during thetime when Jackie Robinson and Larry
Dobie were breaking down wallsand, and crossing the color line.
What was the atmosphere likeat that time for guys like Jim Gilliam?
(10:48):
While it.
It had to be encouraging forthem to see a Jackie Robinson and
Larry Doby, and by the way,there were a couple others that broke
through at that time as well.
Yeah, it still had thetreatment that guys like Robinson
withstood.
(11:09):
How terrifying was it for guyslike Gilliam to hear about this?
And did they ever have anysecond thoughts about trying to make
it in major league baseball?
Yeah, you know, I mean,there's a number of ways I want to
try and try and answer yourquestion there.
I think for, for Gilliam,yeah, he always wanted to try and
(11:31):
aspire to be that.
He saw Jackie Robinson breakthe color barrier, and Jackie would
actually become his firstroommate in 1953 when he finally
makes the Brooklyn Dodgers.
And so it gave him some motivation.
And he talked about that laterin his career.
It's like, well, I saw Jackiedo it, and I knew then that know
I could do this as well.
Gilliam was fortunate becauseof his age.
(11:52):
He was still young.
A player like peewee Butts,George Scales, they.
Even Josh Gibson, you know, those.
Those guys were unfortunatelypast their prime.
They were not something that amajor league team was going to take
a chance on.
And so, but it still took,even for.
For Gilliam, it still tookuntil the end of the 1950 season
(12:12):
for his contract to bepurchased by the Brooklyn Dodgers.
He had a tryout in March of1950 with the Chicago Cubs.
He went to Haines City,Florida, and the Cubs had had him
and several other players tryout, and the Cubs cut it.
They kept Gene Baker instead,who would eventually help integrate
the Cubs and played with ErnieBanks as kind of a middle infield
(12:35):
combination there.
But they kept Gene Baker, whowas a little bit older, a little
bit more mature, didn't take achance on Gilliam.
And that would have beenGilliam's age.
21 season, 1950, he.
So, you know, it was.
It was a disappointment for him.
He expressed he didn'tunderstand why, and he was disappointed.
(12:55):
Went back, played with the eliGiants throughout 1950.
And then he and Joe Black hadbeen roommates with the Eli Giants.
And they're.
They're kind of an interesting pairing.
Black was a pitcher who hadgone to Morgan State, graduated from
Morgan State in Baltimore, hada college degree and Gillian and
was pretty outspoken, pretty,pretty gregarious.
(13:18):
Gilliam was reserved andquiet, didn't have a college education,
barely had, you know, made itthrough 11th grade.
And they just hit it off andthey became really fast friends.
Gilliam eventually becamegodfather to Joe Black's son, Chico.
And Black encouraged him toread the newspaper and kind of, you
(13:39):
know, stay up on events andbecome educated in that regard.
So they wind up playingtogether in 1951 in Montreal, the
Montreal Royals, same teamthat Jackie Robinson was with.
And there was a story that Ifound in.
Actually, it was in thearchives of Roger Kahn's papers from
(14:01):
the Baseball hall of Fame.
It was during the pandemic,and the Baseball hall of Fame was
nice enough to scan a bunch ofpapers for me because people weren't
going to those places at thatpoint and send them to me.
And it was a story that Rogerdid not include in Boys of Summer,
which I thought was fascinating.
But Black was talking aboutbeing called the N word and, you
(14:23):
know, some race issues in agame they were playing in Buffalo.
And Gilliam went to the moundand tried to calm him down.
And he said, I'm going to, youknow, Black's cussing at it.
I'm going to get this guy.
I'm going to throw it.
He's like, no, you're not.
Gilliam's the one that calledhim down.
He said, if you do that, we'llnever get this chance.
So even.
(14:45):
And that was 1951.
So that's four years afterJackie had integrated.
And there was still that there.
So a little bit more longwinded response.
But, you know, I think ithelps kind of set what that was like
for him.
Gilliam really followed in thefootsteps of Robinson.
(15:05):
He.
Robinson was in the Negro Leagues.
Gilliam was in the Negro Leagues.
Robinson got signed by theDodgers, went to Montreal.
Gilliam got signed by theDodgers, went to Montreal.
They were both infielders.
And we'll get into it later.
Gilliam's relationship withthe manager of the Royals at that
(15:30):
time, the Montreal Royals,Walter Alston.
Yep, it was, you know, a veryfortunate relationship for Gilliam.
So Gilliam establishes himselfwith the Montreal Royals, and he's
good enough to make it toBrooklyn to play with the Dodgers
(15:50):
in 1953.
And he had one heck of arookie season.
278.
He led the National League intriples with 17.
He never approached thatnumber again.
Six home runs, 63.
Ribby's 21 stolen bases.
(16:11):
Tell us about his first seasonin Major League Baseball.
And was he surprised that heactually won Rookie of the Year?
Yeah, you know, he wassurprised, I think a little bit that
he won Rookie of the Year.
We came down between him andHarvey Haddock's pitcher that had
an excellent season that year.
(16:32):
And Gilliam felt like he, hewould get it.
But the issue there was, youknow, Haddocks had pitched a lot
in 1952 as well, but stillhadn't been.
Hadn't pitched the minimum,the maximum number of innings to
still be considered a rookie.
You know, that whole processfor him to get to the major leagues,
you know, you draw theparallels there between him and.
(16:56):
And Jackie Robinson.
Robinson spent one year inMontreal, but Gilliam spent two.
And you know, this is one ofthe themes that I had in the book
was Gilliam was at thesedifferent, what I call gates of integration
of baseball.
I have that in here.
Yeah, the first gate, thesecond gate.
Yeah.
And so Gilliam's part of thissecond gate, which is, at what point
(17:18):
in time are major league teamsgoing to just get beyond integrating
and saying, oh, we got a blackplayer or we got two black players,
when are we going to get tofour or five and where the lineup
is has a higher percentage ofblack players.
And you can make a prettystrong case that Gilliam was ready
for the major leagues in 1951and certainly 1952 when he won the
(17:43):
MVP in the International League.
And he probably could havehelped the Dodgers, who were in the
52 World Series, lost it tothe Yankees.
They lost, of course, in 51 tothe Giants on the Bobby Thompson
home run.
He probably would have help them.
And by all accounts, he wasbetter than the bench players that
the Dodgers kept.
Players like Rocky Bridges andBobby Morgan and some of these other
(18:05):
kind of journeymen that werethe utility infielders.
Gilliam was probably a betterplayer than them.
He could switch hit, he couldplay multiple positions.
But the Dodgers weren't readyto do that.
They already had Campanella,they had Newcomb, they had Jackie
Robinson, they had three.
And the Sandy Amorous wouldcome up right about the same time,
a black Cuban.
(18:26):
And it would take until 1954before the Dodgers would start all
five of them in the lineup.
They became the first team tohave a lineup that was greater than
50% black.
And Gilliam helped break that down.
It wasn't until 1971 with thePirates that they had a whole entire
(18:46):
lineup of non white players.
Yeah, yeah, I was going to getto the second gate, but we just sort
of addressed it.
No, no, hey, no problem.
I mean, yeah, I mean, it was.
Well, since we're there, whydo you think the Dodgers pushed it
(19:09):
but never crossed it?
They never opened it?
You know, I don't know.
I mean, there.
So there's a lot ofdocumentation from the 1953 spring
training.
Roger Kahn writes about thisin his book Boys of Summer.
There were other newspaperwriters that were writing about.
It was the fact that ifGilliam broke the lineup and moved
(19:32):
Jackie Robinson off of secondbase, that meant that Billy Cox was
going to the bench.
And it wasn't so much thatthey were upset that, you know, Jackie
was going to take hisposition, but it was like there was
a.
There was a group of people onthe Dodgers and it was, you know,
individuals that wereoutspoken in Kahn's book were Preacher
(19:54):
Rowe, who was from ruralArkansas, Missouri, border area,
and Billy Cox.
And, you know, they wereexpressing concern that a black player
was taking Billy Cox's spot.
And I think the Dodgers werevery cognizant, like every other
team was.
I mean, the giants, they hadthree black players.
(20:15):
They didn't go to the fourth.
The Indians had three black players.
They didn'T go to the fourth.
You know, so there was thiskind of unspoken thing, but.
But even in 1953, not everyteam had integrated.
The Yankees hadn't integratedat that point in time.
The Red Sox didn't integrateuntil the end of the decade.
So, you know, there were stillopportunities for black players.
Of course, the reserve clauseat the time allowed the Dodgers to
(20:38):
stockpile as much black talentas they wanted to.
And there was no incentive forthem really to bring Gilliam up.
He was still young enough atthat point.
So I think the Dodgers werejust kind of like, let's see, let's
wait and see how this plays out.
And you know, that's.
That was kind of, you know,Jackie was certainly having diminishing
(20:59):
skills by 54, 55, and, youknow, you know, certainly by 56,
he was only playing, you know,kind of half the time.
And the Dodgers were movingplayers around and whatnot.
Look, Jim Gilliam played for17 years and he had some very good
years.
But I went back and looked athis stats.
(21:24):
I think there's an argumentthat can be made that his rookie
year, 1953, which, by the way,he also walked 100 times.
The guy had this amazing eyeat the plate.
I think there's an argument tobe made that 1953, his rookie year,
just might have been his best season.
(21:44):
What do you think?
Yeah, you know, he had areally good year in 1963 as well.
Got some MVP votes in both ofthose years.
But it was pretty evident thatif you go back and you compare the
statistics at 53 was a reallywatershed year for him.
You mentioned the triples earlier.
I mean, he never approachedthat number of triples ever in his
(22:04):
career after that.
You know, you mentioned 20,some odd stolen bases.
He struggled a little bit.
He got caught stealing a fairamount of time as well.
14 times.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he wasn't a great basestealer, but he was a smart base
runner, knew how to take anextra base, those sorts of things.
And he really transformed andignited that Dodger lineup.
(22:28):
You know, that 53 team wasfamous for starting off 15, 0 or
whatever it was that theystarted off and just kind of coasted
all the way to the World Series.
And they.
They were loaded.
I mean, that was Snider,Hodges, Campanello, Jackie, you know,
Erskine, and, you know,everybody was just on top of their
game in that year.
(22:49):
So I do think that Peewee Reese.
I can't forget about Pee WeeReese, you know, another.
Another hall of Famer there.
I do think his 63 season wasvery impactful.
He helped the Dodgersimmensely in the World Series by
playing smart baseball,getting on base.
He didn't hit very much, buthe walked and got on base and created
a little bit of havoc there.
(23:12):
65 was a.
It was a monumental year forhim, just simply because.
Yeah, we'll get to that, too.
Yeah, I look forward to.
I mean, it was such aunexpected year for him.
Yeah.
But, you know, I think the onething about those seasons is it looks
like, you know, he kind of.53,he knew where he was going to play.
And Alston kept him in thelineup even through some slumps,
(23:34):
and he still had.
You might have the stats infront of you.
I don't have him, but I thinkhe had like close to 700 plate appearances
that year.
710 plate appearances in 1953.
Led.
Led the National League there.
In 62.
He had over 700 as well, but.
Oh, and in 56 as well, the guy.
(23:54):
I mean.
Yeah, 17 years.
He had a heck of his career.
When I watched years ago, themovie that starred Chadwick Boseman
as Jackie Robinson, obviously.
Yeah.
I mean, Robinson crosses thecolor line.
(24:15):
There's a lot of animosity, alot of awful things that happened.
And there were some on theDodgers at that time that weren't
overly thrilled that.
That Jackie Robinson was onthe team as well.
Gilliam comes up in 53 severalyears later.
(24:36):
How did Gilliam and histeammates get along?
I mean, I read in your bookwhere you had to try really hard
not to like this guy.
I think that's true.
I mean, obviously, I neverknew him, you know, but everybody
seemed to really just getalong with him.
I mean, he was.
He was a friend to everybody.
(24:57):
It seemed like he wasn't veryoutspoken and anything like that.
You know, I think that thething that people still maybe overlook
a little bit about integrationwas, yes, Jackie Robinson broke the
color barrier, and then youwound up getting Larry Doby and Satchel
Page and Willie Mays and Banksand Aaron and everybody else comes
into baseball in the mid-1950s.
(25:18):
But there was still a lot ofsegregation that occurred.
They still went to St.
Louis and had to stay in adifferent hotel when they would play
with Cardinals.
The Dodgers shifted some oftheir spring training games down
to Miami, and the blacks hadto stay at a different hotel.
And they loved that hotel.
Loved it.
Yeah.
I mean, it was.
It was the place to be inblack culture.
(25:39):
You know, all the entertainerswere there.
Everybody was.
Was there.
And so, you know, grand tricky was.
Gonna get them out of there.
No, leave us.
We love it here.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
Don't.
Don't go spoil this for us,you know, and then.
But even then, still in.
When the Dodgers were in Verobeach, you know, there was still
(26:00):
segregation that occurred inVero beach and that.
And.
And the team would have to goSifford and, you know, the black
players would have to go tothe black part of town just to go
to the barber or go to themovie theater or something like that.
So they did deal with some ofthat Jim Crow, some of that segregation
that existed, even thoughbaseball, you know, they were.
They were in the lineups, andthere weren't the threats that you
(26:22):
from.
From 42 and all that sort of thing.
You said he wasn't veryoutspoken, and it's really interesting.
Was he.
Was he an introvert?
Was he shy?
I think so.
You know, I talked to somepeople, you know, that were.
That were players for him.
So I talked to, like DustyBaker, for example, and Ron, say,
(26:46):
players that were on thedodgers in the 70s, like that, and
they all said, you know, hewas just very quiet, very soft spoken,
very thin, thoughtful aboutwhat he said so that when he did
talk, you wanted to listen towhat he was saying because he knew
what he was doing.
He knew he was, you know, hewas trying to help you and, and become
a better player.
(27:07):
You know, I think even WesParker even told me a story about
how later in his career.
Was it Wes Parker.
I think it was Wes Parkerlater in his career, he was struggling
to hit Bert Hooten'sknuckleball, and Bert Hooten was
pitching for the Chicago Cubs,and Gilliam helped coach him up to,
to learn how to do that.
(27:28):
You know, and Parker had beenin the.
He was in the majors in the1960s, and so this was several years
after that.
So, you know, it was.
He.
He was one of thoseindividuals that wasn't like Jackie
Robinson wasn't speaking outagainst, against integration or,
you know, segregation.
He wasn't.
Willie or Maury Wills was veryoutspoken on a lot of issues and
(27:51):
all that sort of thing.
He unceremoniously, you know,got traded from the Dodgers because
he refused to go on a tripacross to Japan on a goodwill tour
to Japan.
And the Dodgers basicallysaid, no, you're out.
Gilliam never did anythinglike that to try and draw attention
to himself.
Maybe that was because henever finished high school and maybe
(28:13):
he was self conscious about that.
That's one theory that, youknow, has been advanced and that
seems to, to resonate a little bit.
You said he wasn't outspoken.
I didn't.
I use the term.
He wasn't very outgoing.
That might not be the right term.
(28:35):
But he was the way youdescribed Gilliam in your book.
He was an introvert.
He was shy.
But yet he was also very marketable.
And I find that really interesting.
He, he appeared in a lot of advertisements.
(28:55):
So what made him so marketable?
Well, you know, I do thinkthat if you look at some of these
photos, I mean, he's got a,he's got a pretty expressive face
and expressive smile.
I think he, you know, wemarkets that way.
You know, I, I don't know ifJackie Robinson turned people off
a little bit with hisoutspokenness or something.
I mean, the fact that a lot ofthese occurred while Gilliam was,
(29:19):
was still.
While the Dodgers were stillin Brooklyn.
So I mean, you get, you gotMadison Avenue, you got the New York
City marketing and all thatsort of thing.
Campanella was, was in ads,Jackie was in ads.
But Gilliam, for whateverreason, I mean, he was selling cigarettes,
he was selling RC Cola, he wasselling Crosley Te.
(29:39):
Um, but then you Know, thenthey moved to Los Angeles and he's
one of the few players thatreally bridges both of those franchises.
Right, Brooklyn and Los Angeles.
You know, the.
Yes, Gil Hodges and DukeSnyder and Peewee Reese played some
games in Los Angeles, but theywere kind of past their prime and
didn't, didn't last long in,in the majors after they moved.
(30:02):
Gilliam was still, you know,in the prime of his career during
that period.
Koufax and Drysdale, whilethey debuted in Brooklyn, were not
stars in Brooklyn, so theydidn't have that marketability.
They moved to Los Angeles and,and yeah, he's selling Packard Bell
televisions at that point andyou know, he did a lot of, of marketing
and I was surprised by that.
(30:24):
You know, Beechnut Chewing Gumwas another one.
I think we've, we've got aimage of that in the book that he
was in one of an ad forBeechnut Chewing gum.
Let's get back to his game.
What were his strengths?
Talk about his game.
What kind of ball player wasJim Gilliam?
So, I mean, I think he waswithout a doubt a really smart, high
(30:46):
IQ baseball player.
First and foremost.
He knew situations, he knewwhere he needed to be defensively,
he knew what he needed to doat the plate.
He had a tremendous eye.
You mentioned he walked over100 times.
I mean, I forget the exactratio off the top of my head of walks
to strikeouts, but it wassomething like four to one.
Walks bore to strikeouts.
(31:07):
He didn't strike out much at all.
And so from, from thatstandpoint, he was, he was a good
person to put in that secondspot in the Dodger order in Los Angeles.
Maury Wills gets on.
Gilliam could take pitches, hecould foul them off, give Maury Wills
a chance to steal second.
And then if it's a righthanded pitcher and Gilliam's batting
(31:28):
from the left side, he couldcertainly pull the ball the second
or you know, poke it into the outfield.
But whatever he would neededto do, he would get Wills to third
base and then let Tommy Davisor Willie Davis hit a sack fly and
score.
And that was, that was the offense.
Defensively, he played allover the diamond.
The only positions that henever played were pitcher, catcher
and shortstop.
(31:49):
Actually in a major leaguegame played, played two innings at,
at first base late in the gameonce and, and actually had a put
out.
So he had one chance at firstbase, which is the only time I ever
could find that he playedfirst base.
But you know, he was definitely.
You alluded to Alston earlier,they got along Great.
They.
(32:09):
He was.
He was the manager on thefield for the dodgers during those
1960s years.
Alston rarely went out to themound, is my understanding.
Pitcher needed to be calmed down.
Gilliam's the one that walkedover there and just said, hey, you
know, you're doing this oryou're doing that.
Yeah.
His relationship.
Let's talk about hisrelationship with Walter Alston in
(32:30):
the minors and the majors.
Austin said that Gilliam wasthe ultimate team player.
Talk about that.
What does the ultimate teamplayer mean?
And what did he do to earnsuch a compliment?
He was.
He was easily a company man.
I mean, whatever the teamneeded, wherever he needed to play.
(32:52):
I think one of the things tome that cemented the relationship
between Alston and.
And Gilliam was the fact thathe start.
He.
Gilliam started more openingdays on the bench than he did at
a position.
Because the Dodgers, they werealways bringing up some sort of phenom
or some sort of minor league prospect.
(33:12):
You know, maybe it was CharlieNeal while they were in Brooklyn.
Then it was Pee Wee Oliver,Nate Oliver, and there was John Warhas
and all these other guys thatwere supposed to move Gilliam off
of his position.
But then Gilliam had theability to play third base.
He had the ability to playsecond base.
He had the ability to playleft field.
(33:32):
He played some and right.
He could play all over the diamond.
He was a switch hitter, so youdidn't have to sub him out for platoon
purposes or anything like that.
And he, again, Alston justtrusted him.
He was.
He was.
The story is that the firstgame that he played for Montreal,
Alston was the manager.
(33:54):
Gilliam's penciled in thelineup in second base and the leadoff
hitter for Montreal.
They're on the road, playingleft field, gets ejected, arguing
balls and strikes, and Alstontells him to go play left field.
Now, he's never played leftfield in his life.
And the story is that thefirst ball gets hit to him and he
drops it and makes an error,but he doesn't make an error, any
errors after that.
(34:15):
Right.
But he had never played left field.
The coach, the manager, says,hey, I need you to go play left field.
He's like, okay, I'm there.
So he would do whatever ittook to win a game.
He would do whatever it tookto make the team complete.
He would do whatever the teamneeded him to do.
(34:36):
17 years, he plays for theDodgers, you know, the first couple
in Brooklyn.
And the final years, actuallymore than the final.
Probably about the final 12years in Los Angeles.
And yet at the start of everyseason, it was like he was on the
(34:56):
trading block.
He was.
And that was a big theme inyour book.
He was always the one involvedin the trade rumors.
They never traded him?
No.
Why was it always Jim Gilliamin the trade rumors?
Why was he always on thetrading block?
(35:18):
So I think there's two ways tolook at that.
One, you can say, well, that'severy other team recognizes his value
and they want him to be a partof their team.
I mean, he was rumored to begoing to the Phillies or the Reds,
places like that.
Some places like the Phillieshadn't integrated, and so they were
looking to get a black playerthat was established that they could
help integrate their team with.
And so that was one of theimpetuses there.
(35:40):
The other thing is, is thathistorically, during that period,
the Dodgers had a surplus of infielders.
They had Don Zimmer, they hadCharlie Neal, they had Bobby Morgan,
as I mentioned earlier.
So, you know, in the 50s inBrooklyn, there are a lot of those.
The 60s, you get Ken McMullen,you get John Warhast, Darrell Griffith,
Nate Oliver, a lot of playersbubbling up as infielders, but they
(36:02):
didn't have a surplus of outfielders.
And, you know, some of therumored trades would involve Gilliam
going to a team in exchangefor an outfielder.
One of them was Wally Postwith the Cincinnati reds in the 1950s.
And that makes baseball sense.
You trade from a position ofstrength, infield, and you fill a
need outfield.
(36:23):
So that makes sense.
But, you know, Buzzy Bavasi,and I'm sure, you know, you picked
up on this Buzzy with Ace, healways would say the same thing every
spring.
Why would we trade Gilly?
He's four players in one.
He can play the infield, theoutfield, bat left, bat right.
You know, all that, those.
I mean, every year it was thesame can quote.
It seemed like that thenewspaper writers were putting in
there.
He also slumped a little bitduring his career.
(36:47):
And I thought about this, andwe're not going to go on.
I don't want to go into thispart of the Jim Gilliam story.
You wrote a terrific book.
Jim Gilliam, the Forgotten Dodger.
I encourage anyone watching orlistening to pick up a copy of it
because it also talks about hehad troubles off the field.
And I don't mean criminal problems.
(37:08):
He had troubles.
His home life.
It was not.
It was not a stable home life.
And I'm not talking when hewas a kid.
I'm talking as an adult withhis marriage and in children and
all that.
So I'm sure that played a rolein some of his slumps.
But what about all the trade talk?
(37:31):
Did, did he being on the cuspof possibly being traded, did that
toy at all with his mentalapproach to the game?
You know, it's an interesting question.
I'm not entirely sure becauseby the time the season started, those
trade rumors really were done.
You know, they didn't come upduring the season.
It was really only springtraining, the beginning part of the
(37:54):
season that those trade rumorswere, were prevalent, the off season.
So I don't know that if he gotinto a slump mid season that that
was a part of it.
You know, you alluded a littlebit to his home life and yes, he
did have a very public divorcewith his first wife, Gloria, and
they had gotten married whenthey were both very young.
(38:15):
He was still with the Eli Giants.
She was a teenager, he was ateenager, you know, and so I think
they were dealing with a lotof challenges there.
And then he got remarriedlater and had a total of four kids,
two with Gloria and two with Edwina.
And he was much more stable, Ithink later in his career.
(38:39):
Los Angeles, Edwina wasregularly in the kind of the society
pages almost as one of thebest dressed Dodger wives.
The Los Angeles Sentinel orthe black press in Los Angeles would
cover, cover a lot ofcelebrity wives and things like that.
And things seemed like theywere okay there.
It was really, you know, youalluded to the late 1950s when he
(39:01):
was going through someproblems in 56, 57, that time period.
And yeah, I do think, youknow, I don't know firsthand, I didn't
talk to anybody that said, oh,yes, that, that was a situation.
But if you just look at hisstats and when he slumped, the month
that he slumped was when allthis stuff was going on in the Pittsburgh
(39:21):
Courier and the New YorkAmsterdam News.
And it was, again, it was avery public thing that was covered
by the black press.
You know, Steve, someday I'mgoing to do a podcast or write or
find more information, maybeeven write a book, I don't know because
(39:44):
I can't find a whole lot on it.
Barnstorming.
Barnstorming was such a bigdeal in the 20s, the 30s, the 40s,
the 50s.
It was a way for baseball, forthe players to bring the game to
(40:06):
people in cities that didn'tnormally get to see baseball.
It was also a way for theplayers to make a little more money
during the off season becauseobviously back then they didn't get
$765 million contracts likeJuan Soto.
(40:26):
Yep.
No.
Yeah.
Gilliam was a big part ofbarnstorming, and he might have actually
played for the greatest teamin the history of baseball.
Tell us about the 1955 teamand who was on it and how great was
(40:48):
it.
I think you said they neverlost a game.
That's true.
And now you're.
You're putting me on the spotbecause I don't remember everybody
that was on that team, but it was.
Well, you had Mays.
Yeah.
There.
I mean, yeah, we had Willie Mays.
You had Hank Aaron, you hadRoy Campanella, you had Jim Gilliam.
I mean, it was an amazingcollection of black talent, without
(41:10):
a doubt.
And they went through the South.
They.
I think that was the one wherethey went over to Hawaii.
I'm trying to remember whichbarnstorming team it was.
But they.
They went.
They at least went to LosAngeles and played a bunch of games
out on the west coast, becauseat that time, you know, there's no
baseball on the West Coast.
But yeah, they.
Those players, you know, theyadded a month to their.
(41:32):
To their season because thosethings would start as soon as the
World Series would end.
I mean, like two days afterthe World Series over with, these
barnstorming teams would formand they would go on these tours
of the.
Often in the south because theweather was still kind of warm down
in Louisiana, Alabama,Tennessee, those places.
Texas, certainly, becausethere were no teams in Texas that
(41:55):
was fertile ground for this.
But, yeah, it's kind ofamazing that you think about.
And I think, to me, this isone of the things that is so unique
about Gilliam's career.
He played in the Negro leagueswith Satchel Page and Buck Leonard
and Cool Papa Bell and Josh Gibson.
(42:17):
And then he plays in themajors and he's on teams with Hank
Aaron, Ernie Banks, WillieMays, plus all the Dodgers that he
played with Jackie Robinson toSandy Koufax.
He really was associated withthe Titans of the game.
Yeah, he was.
I mean, he, like, look, hedebuted in 53 and he played until
(42:42):
66.
We could go through every yearand talk about every year, but, you
know, we don't.
We don't want to do that.
But he debuted when he was 24,and I think mentally, all the changes
in position, he's got tobattle this new guy.
(43:04):
He's got to battle that new guy.
Like you said, he doesn't getto play in many opening day games.
I think mentally he started tobecome exhausted and obviously he
was getting older.
And finally 1965 rolls around,he says, you know what?
(43:24):
I've had enough.
I'm going to retire.
The Dodgers say, don't leavethe club.
We got a spot for you righthere on our coaching staff.
So he becomes a coach for theDodgers, and then they called him
out of retirement.
Yeah.
Why did the Dodgers want himto come out of retirement, go back
(43:47):
into the lineup, and just howwell did he do?
So, yeah, so it's really.
It's kind of interesting.
So 64 was arguably the.
The worst season that he had statistically.
I'll just read it off.
He hit.228.
He played in 116 games.
I still had a good eye at the plate.
21 strikeouts, 42 walks.
(44:08):
So he doubled that.
I hit two dingers, 27 ribbies.
But, yeah, his.
His ops wasn't all that great.
It was only.600 and five.
Yeah.
No, so he.
He had a.
He had a poor year.
The Dodgers had a poor year,frankly, in 64.
And they were disappointment.
They'd come off sweeping theYankees in the 1963 World Series,
(44:30):
four straight games.
Gilliam had a great year in63, was receiving MVP votes.
And the Dodgers were lookingto move on from Leo to Rocher as
a base coach.
And so they made Gilliam,after the 1960 season, the first
base coach for the Dodgers.
And that was significant.
And we'll get to him beingactivated, but it was significant
(44:52):
because to me, that was thatthird gate.
You know, we've talked aboutthe first and the second.
The third gate is he becomesthe first black base coach.
He's the first black toactually coach on the field.
Gene Baker, Buck O'Neill hadboth been bench coaches with major
league teams prior to that,but they had not been one of those
on the field player or coachesthat was relaying signals and helping
(45:16):
runners and all of that.
But it was.
It was interesting lookingthrough newspaper archives because
writers were immediatelytalking about the fact that, well,
Gilliam's going to be a coach,but we don't really think he's going
to be a coach.
They're going to activate himat some point in time.
And sure enough, the catalystfor that was Tommy Davis sliding
into second base in a game inMay and breaking his ankle and being
(45:36):
out for the season.
And the Dodgers that they hadhad, the.
The players they had assembledto replace Gilliam in the infield
were not performing.
They had made a trade, traded Ken.
Excuse me, Frank Howard to theWashington Senators and picked up
Claude Osteen, and they got aguy named John Kennedy who was a
all glove, no hit thirdbaseman, but he was supposed to,
(46:00):
you know, hold that down.
But it turned out he wasreally no hit and he wasn't, you
know, helping offensively.
Daryl Griffith was injured andeven though he had torn up aaa, John
Warhass had kind of notperformed the way that they expected.
So they needed somebody.
And so they activate Gilliamand he doesn't play right away.
(46:20):
He starts off slow, just kindof as a pinch hitter.
But by mid summer he isensconced at third base, which is
not the position that he cameup playing, but he's, he is in third
base.
And the Dodgers wound uphaving this all switch hit infield
of West, Parker Lever atsecond, Maury Wills at short.
(46:40):
And then at third they hadGilliam and they helped stabilize
the Dodgers.
They would go on to the WorldSeries in 1965 and, and beat the
Twins in seven games.
And you know, Gilliam gets MVPvotes again in 19.
I think he, I think he wasonly like 30th, but he got some votes
for MVP despite beginning theseason as a retired coach.
(47:04):
Yeah, he did.
He finished the season 30th inMVP votes.
I mean, it's crazy.
He was out of the game, butthey brought him back in and he was
a catalyst for the team.
I mean, he helped them winthat World Series against the twins
in 65.
And he says, okay, that's it,I'm retired.
(47:26):
And once again, 1966, theycall him back into action.
However, it was different.
He.
He just, it didn't go as well.
But why did they call him backand tell us a little bit about the
66 season?
And by the way, I'll just getto it right now.
(47:47):
They got swept by the Oriolesin the World Series.
That Orioles team and thatpitching staff, I mean, Cuellar,
McInally.
Well, yeah, I mean, forget it.
Yeah, no, no, they, yeah.
As good as Drysdale and Koufaxwere, the Orioles had quite a, quite
a pitching staff.
And the Dodgers were really,they, they were struggling offensively.
(48:10):
Gilliam was not hitting.
You know, this is his age, his age.
37, 38 season, something like that.
And so he's, he's clearlydiminished in skills, you know.
And as they get into the WorldSeries, Alston does start him in
games one and two.
He doesn't get a hit in either game.
(48:30):
Austin sits him on the benchfor games three and four, so he never
plays in those last two games.
And you know, it's.
In some ways it was kind ofpoetic, if you will.
That he began his professionalcareer in a lot of ways in Baltimore,
and he ended it in Baltimore,you know, so it was an influential
place for him.
But, yeah, it just.
(48:51):
It just didn't go the way thatit would, the way that the Dodgers
were hoping it would or haddone in 1965.
But, yeah, he was still anintegral part of that, you know,
And I think one of the thingsthat I found fascinating about this
is he was one of a fewplayers, Willie Davis, and I think
(49:12):
there was one other thatstarted all four of Koufax is no
hitters.
So Gilliam was in the lineupin 63, 64, 65, 66 for all four of
Koufax's no hitters, which iskind of remarkable.
That's pretty cool.
That's pretty cool.
Well, he finally retired forgood after the 1966 season.
(49:36):
He coached for the Dodgersfrom 67 until he passed away in 1978.
Do you think.
Did you hear.
Can you take a guess?
Do you think he ever hadaspirations to be a manager?
(49:58):
Because based off of what Iread, the way the players respected
him, his knowledge for thegame, I think he could have been
a good manager.
Yeah, I think he could havebeen a good manager.
The thing you asked aboutearlier aspirations, though, I don't
know.
I got conflicting kind ofinformation about whether he wanted
(50:18):
to do that.
His public comments werealways, yes, I want a chance to manage,
and I'm, you know, I'll waitfor my chance, and, you know, I know
I'll get that opportunity.
He never did get the opportunity.
He did manage one year in thePuerto Rican Winter League and did
okay in San Juan with a teamin the.
(50:39):
In the Puerto Rican league,but he never really had another chance
either in the.
In the minor leagues or in themajor leagues.
Do I think he would have beena good manager?
Yes.
But, you know, one of thethings that.
That always stuck with me wassomething that Dusty Baker said was
he didn't think that Gilliamwanted that role because he didn't
(50:59):
want to have to deal with themedia and deal with all the other
things that went with it.
And, you know, Al Ferrara, whopassed away recently, he told me
he felt, and I agree with this100%, that Gilliam would, in today's
baseball, have been the bestbench coach.
The person that is in the earof the manager thinking, hey, three
(51:23):
players, three batters later,you need to be thinking about doing
this and, you know, kind of the.
The baseball IQ person, youknow, the guy hit it down this way
last time.
You need to move the defense,whatever it was, you know, kind of
the.
The analytics, before we got analytics.
Right.
I think that that would havebeen a great role that he would have
filled and done a good jobwith when Tommy Lasorda did become
(51:46):
the manager.
And, you know, I talked toplayers that had played with Lasorda
in the minors, you know, a Ronsay or a Bobby Valentine, and they
all said that we all knewLasorda, you know, that he was comfortable
with all of us.
Because Gilliam remembers inthe majors, well, these guys are
all in the minors, so they'renot developing that rapport, that
relationship.
So.
So they felt like, yeah, it was.
(52:07):
It was a good move to make la,sort of that.
Lasorda then appointed Gilliamas hitting coach for the 77 season.
And, you know, I.
I think, you know, I askedEdwina, his widow, that question,
did he ever want to be a manager?
And her response was, he wasjust happy doing whatever the Dodgers
wanted him to do.
Yes, he would have liked achance, but he would have done whatever
(52:28):
they wanted him to do.
He was a great ball player.
I mean, for his career, he hit266 over 17 seasons, 65 home runs,
knocked in.625, stole 219 bases.
But his contribution was somuch more than what he did at the
(52:49):
plate.
You know, before we get tothat, though, I do have to ask.
I skipped over this.
Maury Wills.
Yeah.
Tell us about his relationshipwith Maury Wills.
Gilliam was the perfect man tohit behind Wills.
(53:14):
Why?
Why was he the perfect guy tohit behind Wills?
Yeah, he had such a greatrelationship until it wasn't.
Yeah.
Why did it sour?
You know, I.
I think it soured because, youknow, in a lot of ways, again, Wills
was extremely outspoken, andGilliam was not.
And Wills would openlycampaign after the Dodgers reacquired
(53:37):
him in the early 70s.
You know, they had sent him toMontreal or to Pittsburgh after,
you know, Wills refused to goon the.
The goodwill trip to Japan.
They traded him away.
They brought him back.
And then Will startsimmediately campaigning to replace
Alston.
He wants to be a manager, andthe Dodgers send him to Mexico, and
they give him theseopportunities to manage in the off
(54:00):
season that Gilliam's justreally not afforded.
And Gilliam's not the one togo to the media and say, yeah, I'm
going to be a manager one day.
That was.
But that's what Maury was.
And there was.
There was an incident.
I Forget the exact year.
71, 72, some 73.
Somewhere in that time periodwhere Will says to a Pittsburgh reporter
(54:22):
that, you know, he justdoesn't think Gilliam has what it
takes to be a manager.
And it struck me as it was abit of a slap that Gilliam was coaching
and instructing players andwas, by all accounts, everybody else
just revered him andappreciated what he said.
And Wills, I think, was justposturing and positioning.
(54:44):
And I reached out to Willsbefore he passed away.
Kind of a funny story.
Somebody that knows him hadgiven me his phone number, and I
sent a text to it and theresponse explained what I wanted.
And the response was, how didyou get this number?
And I never got any furtherthan that.
So unfortunately, I didn't geta chance to ask him.
(55:06):
But in Wills wrote, to giveyou an idea of Will's ego a little
bit on this, he wrote three autobiographies.
It pays to steal on the run.
You know, I forget stealingthe pennant or, you know, whatever
the.
It was always some play on theword running and stealing.
But he wrote three differentautobiographies throughout the 70s
(55:26):
and early 80s.
And in one of those, he talksabout having a disagreement with
Gilliam because there wasmiscommunication when Gilliam was
at the plate, Wills was.
At first, Wills thought he wasgoing to try and do a hit and run.
Gilliam was waiting for him to steal.
And Gilliam took a calledstrike three.
And, you know, we've talkedabout how good of an eye he had.
(55:47):
He hated to take a strike three.
There was no way that he was.
If he's going to strike out,he's going to go out swinging, not
going to look at strike three.
Took a strike three.
And Gilliam was all.
Apparently was disgruntled,went to the dugout, was all upset.
They got into a little bit of.
A little bit of a jawing match.
And apparently Frank Howardstepped in and kind of separated
the two.
(56:08):
But I think they were perfectcomplements for one another in the
lineup on the baseball thing.
But I'm not convinced thatthey got along real well outside
of baseball.
Yeah, it's a shame.
As I was saying before, he hada really 17 year career, was solid
(56:30):
at the plate, wasn'totherworldly at the plate, but he
was, as Austin said, theultimate team player.
Did what it took to help the team.
Played in 43 postseason games,which, you know, is an amazing number
considering there were no playoffs.
When.
(56:50):
When Jim Gilliam played, heplayed in seven World Series, won
four of them, coached in threeother World Series.
Some of the greatest playersever for the Dodgers Duke Snyder,
Jackie Robinson, Gil Hodges,Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale.
(57:12):
And the list goes on throughthe guys in the 70s, Garvey say,
Lopez, Lopes, Russell to theguys today.
Is Jim Gilliam on that list?
What makes him one of thegreatest Dodgers ever?
Yeah, you know, the greatestis, is, is a difficult thing to really,
(57:34):
you know, quantify.
I think, I think he isextremely overlooked or forgotten
as the book was titled Dodger.
I think today's fan of theDodgers probably goes into Dodger
Stadium and sees number 19hanging on the wall, you know, on
the facade and, and can govisit the 19 statue and things like
(57:57):
that, because his numbersretired, but not understand who it
is or why he, his number was retired.
You know, this was a, a bit ofa controversy when they retired his
number when he passed awayright there in 1978.
And at the time, only threeDodgers had their.
Four Dodgers had their numbers retired.
Alston, Koufax, Campanella and Robinson.
(58:18):
That was it.
And yeah, they were all in thehall of Fame or were going to be
in the hall of Fame andGilliam was not.
And, and then the Dodgers kindof adopted a stance of, we're not
going to retire a number foranybody that's not in the hall of
Fame.
And so they didn't retire GilHodges as number 14 until he made
the hall of Fame.
(58:38):
But then, but then the Dodgersdid acquiesce and they, they retired
as, as they should.
Fernando Valens as well as 34.
And so now there are twododgers that don't have their, that
are not in the hall of Fame,that have their number retired.
But I just don't know thatpeople going to Dodger Stadium, you
know, the average 30 year oldwho was born, you know, the mid-90s
or something like that, isgoing to have an appreciation for
(59:00):
what he was like.
I mean, you talked about thenumber of postseason games he played
in when there weren't Divisionseries and wild cards.
I mean, he's still 11th.
All time in bases on balls inthe World Series.
All time.
All the players he's got, he'sstill ranked 11th.
You know, baseball Referenceis great for all of these.
(59:21):
He's walked 24 and again, onlystruck out nine.
Only struck out nine in theworld Series.
Yeah, so, you know, I, I think so.
I think one of the things thatreally was intriguing to me and really
disappointing about baseballis, is he a Hall of Fame player?
Probably not.
Those stats are good.
(59:42):
They're solid, they're consistent.
But he never got a single votefor the hall of Fame.
Not one.
And that, to me is where he isforgotten and overlooked is there's
not one person that was goingto say, put him 10th on their ballot
just so he gets a vote.
You know, I mean, that's ludicrous.
(01:00:05):
I mean, he won the Rookie ofthe year in 1953.
He was in MVP voting inseveral years.
He is the only player inbaseball history, the only player
to hit a home run in the NegroLeague's East West All Star Game
and the Major League All Star Game.
Not Banks, not Aaron, notMaze, Jim Gilliam.
(01:00:28):
Now, you shouldn't put a Hall.
You shouldn't put a person ina Hall of Fame just because they
made that one thing.
I get that.
Right.
But his overall body of workis certainly, I think, impressive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ichiro wasn't on somebody'shall of Fame ballot.
How is that even possible?
I will never understand any of that.
Yeah.
(01:00:48):
As a Mets fan, how is TomSeaver not a unanimous pick?
Yeah, it's just.
There's hall of Fame voting is.
Is a crazy thing.
Zero, but zero votes.
I know.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
Steve, I want to thank you somuch for joining me on Sports Forgotten
Heroes.
This has been terrific.
Hey, tell everybody where theycan get a copy of your book.
(01:01:11):
Thank you, Warren.
I appreciate it.
It's available from any majorretailer, paperback or ebook, so
go to Amazon, Barnes andNoble, Powell's Bookshop.
It's published by AugustPublications, so you can order it
direct from the publisher'swebsite as well.
You know, it's.
It came out this week.
February 4th was the day thatit came out.
So it's.
(01:01:32):
It's really exciting and Ireally appreciate you having me on
here to help promote it.
You got it, man.
Anytime.
It was really fun talking with you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it.
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