Dick Sisler

Dick Sisler
First baseman / Left fielder / Manager
Born: (1920-11-02)November 2, 1920 St. Louis, Missouri
Died: November 20, 1998(1998-11-20) (aged 78) Nashville, Tennessee
Batted: Left Threw: Right
MLB debut
April 16, 1946, for the St. Louis Cardinals
Last MLB appearance
August 1, 1953, for the St. Louis Cardinals
MLB statistics
Batting average	.276
Home runs	55
Runs batted in	360
Managerial record	121–94
Winning %	.562
Teams
As player St. Louis Cardinals (1946–1947) Philadelphia Phillies (1948–1951) Cincinnati Reds (1952) St. Louis Cardinals (1952–1953) As manager Cincinnati Reds (1964–1965) As coach Cincinnati Reds (1961–1964) St. Louis Cardinals (1966–1970) San Diego Padres (1975–1976) New York Mets (1979–1980)
Career highlights and awards
All-Star (1950) 2× World Series champion (1946, 1967)

Richard Alan Sisler (November 2, 1920 – November 20, 1998) was an American professional baseball player, coach, and manager in Major League Baseball (MLB). He was the son of Hall of Fame first baseman and two-time .400 hitter George Sisler. Younger brother Dave Sisler was a relief pitcher in the 1950s and 1960s with four MLB teams, and older brother George Jr. was a longtime executive in Minor League Baseball (MiLB).

Early life[]

Dick Sisler was born Richard Alan Sisler in St. Louis, Missouri. At John Burroughs School, a progressive private school his father helped found in 1923, he excelled in football, basketball, track, and baseball.^[1] Sisler enrolled at Colgate University, where he played baseball for one year before dropping out to sign a minor-league contract with the St. Louis Cardinals. He spent four years in the minor leagues, then, in 1943, enlisted in the United States Navy to help fight World War II.^[2] He rose to chief petty officer and served as a physical instructor at the Bainbridge Naval Training Center in Maryland. Upon his discharge in 1945, Sisler signed a contract with the Cardinals and was sent to Cuba to learn how to play first base.^[2] After a couple of weeks, the Cubans were proclaiming Sisler as their Babe Ruth. In his first game, Sisler recorded two home runs and in another game hit three more.^[2]

Playing career[]

Sisler's 1951 Bowman baseball card

Listed at 6 feet 2 inches (1.88 m) tall and 205 pounds (93 kg), Sisler batted left-handed and threw right-handed.

He was a journeyman left fielder and first baseman for the St. Louis Cardinals (1946–47; 1952–53), Philadelphia Phillies (1948–51) and Cincinnati Reds (1952). In an eight-season career, he hit .276 with 720 hits, 55 home runs and 360 RBI in 799 games. Defensively, he recorded an overall .984 fielding percentage playing primarily at first base and left field.

Only with the Phillies did Sisler play on a consistent basis; he was Philadelphia's most-used first baseman in 1948 and 1949, and regular left fielder in 1950 and 1951. He made the National League All-Star team in 1950, a season during which Sisler reached personal bests in games played (141), games started (136, all in left field), at bats (523), runs scored (79), hits (155), doubles (29), homers (13), runs batted in (83), on-base percentage (.373), slugging percentage (.442) and batting average (.296). The season also gave Sisler lasting fame.

Pennant-winning home run[]

On the 1950 season's closing day, at Ebbets Field, with the game tied at one, Sisler hit a tenth-inning, opposite-field three-run home run against the Brooklyn Dodgers that led to the "Whiz Kids" Phillies winning the club's first National League pennant in 35 years. Had Philadelphia lost, the Phillies and Dodgers would have finished in a flatfooted tie for the NL championship and played a best-of-three playoff.

The home run made Sisler world-famous in baseball and literary circles; Ernest Hemingway immortalized him in his novel The Old Man and the Sea. In a conversation between an aging Cuban fisherman and his young apprentice discussing the unfolding 1950 big-league season, the older man says:

"In the other league, between Brooklyn and Philadelphia, I must take Brooklyn. But then I think of Dick Sisler and those great drives in the old park. There was nothing ever like them. He hits the longest ball I have ever seen."^[3]

His father, George Sr., was a scout for Brooklyn in 1950. When asked after the pennant-winning game how he felt when his son beat his current team, the Dodgers, George replied, "I felt awful and terrific at the same time."^[4]

In the 1950 World Series that followed, however, Sisler would collect only one single in 17 at bats (.059), as the Phillies were swept by the New York Yankees in four games. Earlier, in 1946, he had gone hitless in two at bats as a pinch hitter for the Cardinals in that season's Fall Classic, but picked up a World Series ring when the Redbirds defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games. Twenty-one years later, while serving as the Cardinals' first base coach, he earned his second ring when St. Louis again defeated the Red Sox in a seven-game series.

Coaching and managerial career[]

After managing in the minor leagues with the Double-A Nashville Vols and Triple-A Seattle Rainiers, Sisler became a coach for Cincinnati in 1961, serving under manager Fred Hutchinson.

In August 1964, he was promoted to acting manager when Hutchinson, suffering from terminal cancer, was forced to give up the reins. He led the Reds to a 32–21 record, and the team finished in a second-place tie (with the Phillies), one game behind the Cardinals. After his formal appointment as manager in October 1964, he brought the Reds home fourth in 1965 with an 89–73 mark before being fired at season's end.^[5] He then returned to the major league coaching ranks with the Cardinals (1966–70), San Diego Padres (1975–76) and New York Mets (1979–80). In his late sixties, he was still working with young players as a roving hitting instructor in the Cardinal farm system.

He died November 20, 1998, at the age of 78 in Nashville, Tennessee.^[6]

See also[]

• List of second-generation Major League Baseball players
• List of St. Louis Cardinals coaches

References[]

Further reading[]

• Rich Ashburn (September 1975). "When Dick Sisler Had His Moment in the Spotlight". Baseball Digest.
• John Garrity (1989-08-14). "The College Of Cardinals". Sports Illustrated.

External links[]

• Career statistics and player information from MLB, or ESPN, or Baseball-Reference, or Fangraphs, or Baseball-Reference (Minors), or Retrosheet
• Dick Sisler st SABR (Baseball BioProject)
• Dick Sisler at The Deadball Era
• Dick Sisler at Find a Grave