October 1, 1950: Dick Sisler hits a home run off Don Newcombe in the top of the 10th inning at Ebbets Field, and the Phillies beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 4-1, to clinch the National League Pennant. It is the only Pennant the Phils would win in a 65-year stretch from 1915 to 1980.
This was the 2nd of 3 straight seasons in which the National League race came down to the last day of the regular season with the Dodgers involved. The year before, they had to win to clinch and eliminate the St. Louis Cardinals, and they did. The year after, they had to win to force a Playoff with their arch-rivals, the New York Giants, and they did -- for all the good that ended up doing them.
The Phillies were the youngest team, by average player, ever to win the National League Pennant. Before the season started, Harry Grayson, the sports editor of the Newspaper Enterprise Association, gave them the nickname "The Whiz Kids," a takeoff on a radio show titled Quiz Kids.
Managed by Eddie Sawyer, only 40 years old but experienced with them, as he had managed some of them in the minor leagues, the Phillies had been strong all season long, led by center fielder sparkplug Richie Ashburn, slugging left fielder Del Ennis, ace starting pitcher Robin Roberts, and Jim Konstanty, who became the 1st relief pitcher ever to be named either League's Most Valuable Player.
But they had lost 3 starting pitchers down the stretch: Curt Simmons went into the Army when his National Guard unit was called up on September 10, rookie Bubba Church sustained an awful eye injury on September 15, and rookie Bob Miller suffered a shoulder injury the next day. Simmons had won 17 games, Church 8, and Miller 11; but none would win another game that season. If not for Roberts winning 20, and Konstanty winning 16 and saving 22 more, the Phils would have been hopeless.
Richard Alan Sisler was born on November 2, 1920 in St. Louis. His father was George Sisler of the St. Louis Browns, one of the best all-around players of his generation: A .340 lifetime hitter whose 1920 total of 257 hits stood as a major league record for 84 years, a 4-time American League leader in stolen bases, and, according to contemporary observers, the best-fieldling 1st baseman of his time.
His brother Dave Sisler would be a major league pitcher, and his brother George Sisler Jr. became a longtie baseball executive. Oddly, George Sr. was a scout for the Dodgers at the time, and was in the ballpark when Dick hit the home run. A reporter asked George how he felt, and he said, "I felt awful and terrific at the same time."
A 1st baseman and left fielder, Dick debuted with the Cardinals in 1946, contributing to a World Series-winning team a a rookie. He was traded to the Phillies in 1948. That 1950 season was his only selection to the All-Star Game. He was traded to the Cincinnati Reds in 1952, and back to the Cardinals later that year, last playing in the majors with them in 1953. He finished his career with a .276 batting average, and just 55 home runs, but 1 of them won a Pennant.
Dick went into coaching, and won another Pennant in 1961, on the staff of Fred Hutchinson of the Cincinnati Reds. When Hutchison left the team late in the 1964 season due to cancer, Dick stepped in as interim manager. Ironically, his Reds were a big reason why his former team, the Phillies, did not win the Pennant that season. But it was his other former team, the Cardinals, who did.
When Hutch died, Dick was named the official manager, and won 89 games in 1965, but was fired after the season, anyway. The Cardinals brought him onto the coaching staff of his former teammate Red Schoendienst, and, together, they won the 1967 World Series, and lost the 1968 World Series. He later coached for the San Diego Padres and, in 1979 and '80, under Joe Torre on the Mets.
He spent most of the 1980s working in the Cardinal farm system, helping to build a team that won 3 Pennants and the 1982 World Series. He died on November 20, 1998, at the age of 78.
The Dick Sisler Game was is also the last major league game as a manager for Burt Shotton, who'd managed the Dodgers to Pennants in 1947 and 1949, and eased the path of Jackie Robinson as he and general manager ranch Rickey reintegrated baseball.
An outfielder, Shotton had played in the major leagues from 1909 to 1923, including 1915 to 1917 with the St. Louis Browns, where he was a teammate of George Sisler -- hence, George's scouting for the Dodgers. Shotton had previously managed the Phillies from 1928 to 1933, and the Reds in 1934, and had also coached for the Cardinals and the Cleveland Indians.
He left the Indians after the 1945 season. When Rickey needed a manager for 1947 after Leo Durocher's yearlong suspension, he asked for Shatoon, who told Rickey, "I romised my wife I would never put on another uniform." So Rickey talked him into managing in a suit, like Connie Mack.
Speaking of whom...
Also on this day, the Philadelphia Athletics complete a massively disappointing 102-loss season by beating the Washington Senators, 5-3 at Shibe Park. It is the last game for A's manager Connie Mack: Approaching his 88th birthday, his sons Earle, Roy and Connie Jr., agreeing on little else, agree to gang up on him and force him to finally retire as manager -- something he, as also the owner, did not want to do.
Before the A's move to Kansas City, the Phillies, new owners of the ballpark, will rename it Connie Mack Stadium, and will erect a statue of him outside.
Having first played in what we would now call Major League Baseball in 1886, the 1st term of Grover Cleveland, and made it to 1950, the 2nd term of Harry Truman, Connie Mack was involved in 4,490 regular-season games, far and away a major league record. (Vin Scully was on hand for 10,766 games over 67 seasons, but that was as a broadcaster.)
Shotton and Mack were the last managers to wear street clothes during a game. Although no rule specifically mandates that a manager must wear a uniform, there is now a rule that states that, aside from medical and security personnel, no one is allowed on the field of play during a game unless they are wearing some form of baseball uniform.
At 87, Mack remains the oldest manager in MLB history. The oldest who was not also the team's owner is Jack McKeon, who was just short of 81 when he served as interim manager of the Florida Marlins in 2011, having previously led them to win the 2003 World Series. Otherwise, the oldest regular manager was Casey Stengel, who had to retire as manager of the New York Mets after an injury at his 75th birthday party.
Pitcher Bobby Shantz is the last living man to have been managed by Connie Mack, 72 years after Mack's last game. Dodger pinch-hitter Tommy "Buckshot" Brown was the last living player from the Dick Sisler Game. For the Phillies, the last survivor, backup infielder Ralph "Putsy" Caballero, died in 2017. Curt Simmons, who did not appear in the game, was the last living 1950 Phillies Whiz Kid.
In 1978, the Phillies established the Philadelphia Baseball Wall of Fame. They elected one Phillie and one Athletic every year until 2003, and have elected a single Phillie every year after that. From the 1950 Whiz Kids, they have elected Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn, Del Ennis, Granny Hamner, Curt Simmons, Willie "Puddin' Head" Jones.
Mack was the 1st A's figure elected. Also elected from the 1950 A's were Wally Moses, Elmer Valo, Bobby Shantz, Eddie Joost, Ferris Fain, Sam Chapman and Gus Zernial. But it says something about the fall of the A's that, for most of the 1930s and '40s, the only player elected to the Wall was "Indian" Bob Johnson.
Mack, Shantz and Johnson have also been elected to the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame. Of the 1950 Whiz Kids, so have Roberts, Ashburn, Ennis, Hamner, Simmons, Jones, and broadcaster Byrum Saam -- but, oddly, not manager Eddie Sawyer.
UPDATE: Simmons died on December 13, 2022, Brown on January 15, 2025. Shantz turned 100 on September 26, 2025.
*
October 1, 1950 was a Sunday. Actor Randy Quaid was born.
These other MLB games were played:
* The Yankees lost to the Boston Red Sox, 7-3 at Fenway Park in Boston. The game is meaningless, as the Yankees had long since clinched the Pennant. Ted Williams went 4-for-5 with 3 RBIs. Joe DiMaggio was held out, to save his injured heel for the World Series.
* The New York Giants beat the Boston Braves, 5-1 at the Polo Grounds.
* A doubleheader was split at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Chicago White Sox won the opener, 4-3. The St. Louis Browns won the nightcap, 10-6 at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The nightcap was the last game for Luke Appling, the Hall of Fame shortstop for the Chiago White Sox. Appling goes 1-for-4, but, batting .234 at age 43, it was time. "Old Aches and Pains" retires with a lifetime batting average of .310, and 2,749 hits.
* A doubleheader was split at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Cincinnati Reds won the 1st game, 3-2. The Pittsburgh Pirates won the 2nd game, 3-1.
* The Cleveland Indians beat the Detroit Tigers, 7-5 at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. The ballpark was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.
* And the Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 3-2 in 11 innings, at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Stan Musial hit a home run.
Since this was a Sunday, there were also NFL games:
* The New York Giants beat the Cleveland Browns, 6-0 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium.
* The Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Washington Redskins, 26-7 at Griffith Stadium in Washington.
* The Green Bay Packers beat the Chicago Bears, 31-21 at Green Bay City Stadium.
* The next day, the Chicago Cardinals beat the Baltimore Colts, 55-13 at Comiskey Park.
* The Los Angeles Rams beat the San Francisco 49ers, 35-14 at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco. Since the 49ers had come in from the All-America Football Conference, this was the 1st game ever between them and the Rams, which became one of the NFL's best rivalries.
* Two days earlier, on the Friday, the football team named the New York Yanks (not "Yankees") lost to the Detroit Lions, 44-21 at Yankee Stadium.
* And, with some irony, given what else was going on in sports in their city, the Philadelphia Eagles had the week off.
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