Gil Hodges
After Gil Hodges’s sophomore year in college, he was offered a contract by local sporting goods storeowner and part-time Dodgers scout Stanley Feezle. The lure of playing in the major Leagues was too much this time, and Hodges left St. Joseph’s and signed with Brooklyn, who then sent him to Olean, New York. He worked out with the Class-D Oilers but did not appear in a game.
Brooklyn called up the 19-year-old Hodges late in the 1943 season. He made his debut at Crosley Field on October 3, the Dodgers’ last game of the year. Facing Cincinnati’s Johnny Vander Meer, Gil went 0-for-2 at the plate and made two costly errors at third base. Eleven days later, he entered the Marine Corps and was sent to Hawaii, first to Pearl Harbor and later Kauai. Hodges served as a gunner for the 16th Anti-Aircraft Battalion. From Hawaii he went to Tinian, the sister island of Saipan in the South Pacific. In April 1945, Sergeant Hodges, now assigned to his battalion’s operations and intelligence section, landed on Okinawa with the assault troops and was subsequently awarded the Bronze Star. Don Hoak, a future Dodgers teammate, said, “We kept hearing stories about this big guy from Indiana who killed [Japanese soldiers] with his bare hands.” Discharged in February 1946, Hodges went to spring training with Brooklyn.
The solidly built Hodges stood a half-inch over 6-foot-1, and weighed 200 pounds. He batted and threw right-handed, and was considered big for a baseball player of that era. However, Hodges was a gentle giant, often playing the role of peacemaker during on-field brawls. His hands were so large that teammate Pee Wee Reese once remarked that he could have played first base barehanded but wore a mitt because it was fashionable.
Dodgers president Branch Rickey sent the now 22-year-old Hodges to the Newport News (Virginia) Dodgers, the club’s entry in the Class-B Piedmont League, where he was converted from infielder to catcher. Gil played 129 games, hitting .278 with eight home runs for Newport News. For his efforts, Hodges was named to the all-league team. He went to the historic and tumultuous Dodgers 1947 spring training and made the team. He was the second-string catcher but played just 24 games behind the plate as the backup to Bruce Edwards.
On May 17 at Forbes Field, Hodges, batting for pitcher Harry Taylor, singled off Pittsburgh’s Fritz Ostermueller for his first major-league hit. Gil hit his first major-league home run on June 18, at Chicago’s Wrigley Field. His blast came in the seventh inning against Cubs starter Hank Borowy, and broke a 3–3 tie.
Hodges appeared in 28 games overall in 1947, hitting an anemic .156. He clearly needed more playing time, but he was not going to get it behind the plate. With Roy Campanella on the way to take over for Edwards, another position change for Hodges was in order. The next spring Dodgers manager Leo Durocher “put a first baseman’s glove on our other rookie catcher, Gil Hodges. . . Three days later,” Durocher said, “I’m looking at the best first baseman I’d seen since Dolph Camilli.”
By 1949 the Brooklyn Dodgers were poised for the most productive period in the franchise’s history. The fabled lineup was in place: Roy Campanella behind the plate, Hodges at first, Jackie Robinson at second, Pee Wee Reese at short, Billy Cox at third, Duke Snider in center, and Carl Furillo in right with a rotating cast in left. The team did not disappoint; Brooklyn won the National League pennant, edging the St. Louis Cardinals by one game. Hodges was now a key contributor. His first career grand slam came on May 14 off the Braves’ Bill Voiselle. Hodges hit for the cycle on June 25 in a 17–10 victory at Forbes Field. Gil hit a single, a double, a homer, and then a triple before hitting his second homer of the game in the ninth. He was 5-for-6 with four RBIs for the day.
The next two years, 1950 and 1951, brought consecutive second-place finishes. Hodges’s power numbers continued to improve, as he averaged 36 home runs and 108 RBIs for the two seasons. He established his career high in runs scored in 1951 with 118, one of three seasons in which he topped 100. He also established a career high in strikeouts, 99, which led the league. (He finished in the NL top 10 in strikeouts 11 times in his career.)
In the 1951 All-Star Game, Hodges went 2-for-5, including a two-run homer. However, his biggest day came on August 31, 1950, when he became the fourth major leaguer to hit four home runs in a nine-inning game. He went 5-for-6 and had nine RBIs that night at Ebbets Field, hitting the home runs off four different Boston Braves pitchers. His 17 total bases also tied a major-league record.
The Dodgers won pennants in 1952 and 1953, only to fall again each time to the Yankees in the Series. In 1952, Hodges hit 32 home runs and drove in 102, while in 1953 he had 31 home runs and 122 RBIs, despite hitting just .181 through May 23.
The 1954 season saw the Dodgers finish in second place and Hodges post career highs in batting average (.304), home runs (42), RBIs (130), and slugging (.579). It was his second consecutive year over the .300 mark. Hodges had 19 sacrifice flies, yet another career high, which also led the major leagues by a wide margin. On the last day of the regular season, September 26, Hodges had a solo shot and provided the only run rookie Karl Spooner needed for a 1–0 Dodgers victory. The homer was the 25th Gil hit at Ebbets Field in 1954, establishing a new club record. His 42 homers and 130 RBIs were both second in the National League in their respective categories. It was the closest he would come to winning a home run or an RBI title.
In 1955 the Brooklyn Dodgers won their first and only World Series. Hodges, now 31 years old, contributed 27 homers, 102 RBIs and a .500 slugging percentage to the Dodgers’ first-place finish. Brooklyn clinched the ’55 pennant on September 8 with a 10–2 drubbing of Milwaukee, the earliest a team had clinched the pennant in the 80-year history of the National League.
Hodges would appear in two more World Series, 1956 and 1959. He continued to play as a regular over the span of those years, averaging 26 home runs and 82 runs batted in. Hodges homered once in each Series; in the 1956 seven-game series loss to the Yankees, he had a hand in 12 of the Dodgers’ 25 runs, and he batted .391 in the 1959 Los Angeles Dodgers series win over the Chicago White Sox. In that Series, he won Game Four with a solo homer in the bottom of the eighth that snapped a 4–4 tie. In all, Hodges played in 39 World Series games compiling a .267 average (35-for-131) with five homers, 21 RBIs, and 15 runs scored.
Hodges was active for parts of four more seasons, but knee and other injuries limited his playing time. Despite the Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles, the Hodges family maintained their home in Brooklyn, and after the 1961 season, the newly formed New York Mets selected Gil in the first National League expansion draft. He hit the first home run in Mets history, on April 11, 1962. Overall, he appeared in 54 games for the woeful ’62 Mets, hitting .252.
Hodges began 1963 as an active player, but retired when the two-year-old Washington Senators asked him to be their manager. After clearing waivers, he was traded to Washington for outfielder Jimmy Piersall on May 23, ending his playing career.
Each season after Hodges’s arrival, the expansion Senators improved on their record from the previous season, peaking with a 76-85 record in 1967. On December 4, 1964 Senators management engineered a seven-player trade with the Dodgers. The Senators received Hodges’s former teammate, slugging outfielder Frank Howard, pitchers Phil Ortega and Pete Richert, first baseman Dick Nen, and third baseman Ken McMullen.
These players were the core of the Senators franchise for the next several years and helped Hodges bring the Senators from tenth place to their surprising sixth-place finish in 1967. Although he had one year left on his contract, Hodges would not be around to guide the Senators in 1968. When Wes Westrum resigned as manager of the New York Mets in September 1967, the Mets sought out Hodges as his replacement. Senators general manager George Selkirk did not want to lose Hodges, he eventually relented, aided by a Mets payment of $100,000 and a player to be named (pitcher Bill Denehy was sent to the Senators on November 27). Hodges then signed a three-year, $150,000 contract to manage the Mets.
The Mets had never finished above .500, but they were just four games below that mark at the 1968 All-Star break. They could not maintain the pace, however, and lost 46 of the remaining 80 games. On September 24, 1968 the 44-year-old Hodges suffered a “mild” heart attack during a game in Atlanta. In addition to the stress, which he always kept bottled up, and his father’s early death from an embolism, he also had developed a smoking habit on Okinawa, contributing factors for an attack so early in life.
Hodges’ first winning season as manager came with the 1969 Mets, a team that went 100-62, 27 wins more than the previous year. They were led by rising star pitchers Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and promising youngster Nolan Ryan, as well as left fielder Cleon Jones and center fielder Tommie Agee.
What is truly remarkable about Hodges’ managerial achievement, besides the 27-win improvement from the previous season, was the fact that the Mets only had two players (Jones and Agee) who had enough plate appearances to qualify for a batting title. In fact, Hodges platooned at catcher, right field, and all the infield positions. While the Mets did not finish above the league average in any major offensive statistic, they had one more run allowed than the league leading St. Louis Cardinals. Projecting wins based on runs scored and runs allowed (Bill James’ Pythagorean Projection), the Mets were expected to have 92 wins. They wound up with an even 100.
The Mets beat the Atlanta Braves, with four future Hall of Famers on its roster, in three straight games in the NL playoffs. The New Yorkers outscored the Braves by an aggregate score of 27-15. In the first game, despite five earned runs surrendered by eventual Cy Young Award winner Tom Seaver, the Mets won 9-5, capped off by a five-run rally in the top of the eighth which included a two-run single by pinch-hitter J.C. Martin. The Mets accomplished this victory without an appearance by eventual World Series MVP Clendenon, as the Braves did not start any lefty hurlers.
Speaking of the World Series, Hodges and the Mets defeated the heavily-favored Baltimore Orioles (also with four future Hall of Famers, including manager Earl Weaver) in five games in the World Series, making the Mets the first expansion team ever to participate in and win a World Series. The Mets had lost the first game but swept the next four, outscoring the O’s 14-5 in the process, a dominating effort by his young pitching staff.
Hodges was voted Manager of the Year for turning the lovable losers into World Champions. The Mets finished with identical 83-79 records in each of the next two seasons. For Hodges, there would be no more championships.
The spring of 1972 saw the first modern players strike. On April 2, Easter Sunday, Hodges played golf at the Palm Beach Lakes golf course in Florida with coaches Joe Pignatano, Rube Walker, and Eddie Yost. The first two were old Brooklyn Dodger pals, while Yost had been with Hodges since the Senators days. As they walked off the final hole of their 27-hole day toward their rooms at the Ramada Inn, Pignatano asked Hodges what time they were to meet for dinner. Hodges answered him, “7:30,” and then he fell to the pavement. He was pronounced dead of a coronary at 5:45 p.m. in West Palm Beach. He was just 47 years old.
The Mets were scheduled to open the season in Pittsburgh on April 7, the day of the funeral, but the players agreed to forfeit the game to attend. The Pirates graciously canceled the game, which was not played anyway because of the lingering strike. Coach Yogi Berra took over the stunned Mets as Hodges’s replacement and led the Mets back to the World Series in 1973.
Hodges’s funeral Mass easily could have been held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, but that would have not been in keeping with his unassuming ways. During his funeral Mass, held at his Flatbush parish church, Our Lady Help of Christians, the Reverend Charles Curley said, “Gil was an ornament to his parish, and we are justly proud that in death he lies here in our little church.”
Hodges led all major-league first basemen of the 1950s in the following categories: home runs (310), games (1,477), at-bats (5,313), runs (890), hits (1,491), runs batted in (1,001), total bases (2,733), strikeouts (882), and extra-base hits (585). He made the All-Star team eight times, every year from 1949-55 and again in 1957, the most of any first baseman of the time. In addition, Hodges was considered the finest defensive first baseman of the era, winning Gold Gloves the first three years they were given out (1957-59, and there were no separate AL and NL awards). Also, he was second among all players in the 1950s in home runs and RBIs, third in total bases and eighth in runs. Not to mention the managerial feat of 1969.
