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Hank Bauer

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For the American football player, see Hank Bauer (American football).

Hank Bauer
Bauer in 1953
Right fielder / Manager
Born: (1922-07-31)July 31, 1922
East St. Louis, Illinois, U.S.
Died: February 9, 2007(2007-02-09) (aged 84)
Lenexa, Kansas, U.S.
Batted: Right
Threw: Right
MLB debut
September 6, 1948, for the New York Yankees
Last MLB appearance
July 21, 1961, for the Kansas City Athletics
MLB statistics
Batting average.277
Home runs164
Runs batted in703
Managerial record594–544
Winning %.522
Teams
As player

As manager

Career highlights and awards
Military career
Allegiance United States
Service / branch United States Marine Corps
Years of service1942–1945
RankSergeant
Battles / wars
AwardsBronze Star (2)
Purple Heart (2)
Commendation Medal
Other workProfessional baseball player

Henry Albert Bauer (July 31, 1922 – February 9, 2007) was an American right fielder and manager in Major League Baseball. He played with the New York Yankees (1948–1959) and Kansas City Athletics (1960–1961); he batted and threw right-handed. He served as the manager of the Athletics in both Kansas City (1961–62) and in Oakland (1969), as well as the Baltimore Orioles (1964–68), guiding the Orioles to the World Series title in 1966. A four-game sweep over the heavily favored Los Angeles Dodgers, it was the first world championship in the franchise's history.

Early years

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Bauer was born in East St. Louis, Illinois, the youngest of nine children to an Austrian immigrant who had lost his leg in an aluminum mill and had been reduced to bartending. With little money coming into the home, Bauer was forced to wear clothes made out of old feed sacks, helping shape his hard-nosed approach to life. (It was later said that his care-worn face "looked like a clenched fist".) He played baseball and basketball at East St. Louis Central Catholic High School, suffering a broken nose from errant elbow in the latter that was never fixed. Upon graduation in 1941 he was repairing furnaces in a beer-bottling plant when his brother Herman, a minor league player in the Chicago White Sox system, was able to get him a tryout that resulted in a contract with Oshkosh of the Class D Wisconsin State League.

World War II – Marine Corps

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One month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bauer enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served with the 4th Raider Battalion and G Company, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. While deployed to the Pacific Theater Bauer contracted malaria on Guadalcanal, however he recovered from that well enough to earn 11 campaign ribbons in 32 months of combat, including two Bronze Stars, two Purple Hearts (for being wounded in action), and the Navy Commendation Medal. Bauer was wounded his second time during the Battle of Okinawa, when he was a sergeant of a platoon of 64 Marines. Only six survived the Japanese counterattack, and Bauer was wounded by fragmentation in his thigh. His injuries were severe enough to send him back to the United States to recuperate. Unfortunately Bauer's older brother Herman, once a solid hitting minor league catcher for the Chicago White Sox organization, never made it back home: after landing in the Normandy invasion, he was killed in action on July 12th, 1944, and is buried in the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France.[1][2]

After the war – minor league

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Bauer returned to East St. Louis and joined the local pipe fitter's union. Stopping by the local bar where his brother Joe worked, he was signed by Danny Menendez, a scout for the New York Yankees, for a tryout with the Yankees' farm team in Quincy, Illinois. Paid $175 a month (with a $25 per month increase if he made the team) and a $250 signing bonus, Bauer batted .300 at both Quincy and the Kansas City Blues, New York's top minor league unit, and made his debut with the Yankees in September 1948.

Major league career

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Player

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Bauer (center), with Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle.

In his 14-season Major League Baseball career, Bauer had a .277 batting average with 164 home runs and 703 RBIs in 1,544 games played. He recorded a career .982 fielding percentage. Bauer played on seven World Series-winning New York Yankees teams and holds the World Series record for the longest hitting streak (17 games). Perhaps Bauer's most notable performance came in the sixth and final game of the 1951 World Series, where he hit a three-run triple. He also saved the game with a diving catch of a line drive off the bat of Sal Yvars for the final out.

At the close of the 1959 season, Bauer was dealt by the Yankees to the Kansas City Athletics in a trade which brought them future home run king Roger Maris (1961).[3] This deal is often cited among the worst examples of the numerous trades between the Yankees and the Athletics during the late 1950s – trades which were nearly always one-sided in favor of the Yankees.[citation needed]

In 1961, Athletics manager Joe Gordon chose to start Leo Posada over Bauer in the Opening Day starting lineup.[4]

Manager

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On June 19, 1961, the Athletics fired Gordon and Bauer was named the team's playing-manager.[5] Bauer retired as a player one month later. He managed the team through the end of the 1962 season, going 107-157 over 264 games (for a .405 win percentage), and the A's finishing ninth in the ten-team American League both years.

Coach

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After his firing at the close of the 1962 campaign, Bauer spent the 1963 season as first-base coach of the Baltimore Orioles.

Manager again

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He was promoted to the Orioles' manager on November 19, 1963, succeeding Billy Hitchcock, who had been dismissed at the end of the regular season.[6] Baltimore contended aggressively for the American League pennant in both 1964 and 1965, finishing third each year. Bolstered by the acquisition of future Hall of Fame outfielder Frank Robinson - and his Triple Crown 1966 season — the Orioles won their first AL pennant and the 1966 World Series championship. However, the ballclub, hampered by an injury to Robinson and significant off-years for a number of regulars and pitchers, finished in the second division in 1967. When the Orioles entered the 1968 All-Star break in third place and 10+1⁄2 games behind the eventual World Series champion Detroit Tigers, Bauer was dismissed on July 10 in favor of first-base coach Earl Weaver.[7]

Bauer returned to the Athletics, then based in Oakland, to manage the 1969 campaign. He was fired for the second and final time by Finley after bringing Oakland home second in the new American League West Division. Overall, his regular-season managerial record was 594–544 (0.522).

Minor leagues

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Bauer managed the Tidewater Tides, the AAA affiliate of the New York Mets, in 1971–72. The team made the finals of IL Governors' Cup playoffs each season, winning the title in 1972. Bauer then retired and returned home to the Kansas City area, where he scouted with the Yankees and the Kansas City Royals.

Managerial record

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Team Year Regular season Postseason
Games Won Lost Win % Finish Won Lost Win % Result
KCA 1961 102 35 67 .343 9th in AL – – – –
KCA 1962 162 72 90 .444 9th in AL – – – –
BAL 1964 162 97 65 .599 3rd in AL – – – –
BAL 1965 162 94 68 .580 3rd in AL – – – –
BAL 1966 160 97 63 .606 1st in AL 4 0 1.000 Won World Series (LAD)
BAL 1967 161 76 85 .472 7th in AL – – – –
BAL 1968 80 43 37 .538 fired – – – –
BAL total 725 407 318 .561 4 0 1.000
OAK 1969 149 80 69 .537 fired – – – –
KCA/ OAK total 413 187 226 .453 0 0 –
Total 1138 594 544 .522 4 0 1.000

Personal life

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Bauer moved to Prairie Village, Kansas, in 1949 after playing with the nearby Kansas City Blues of 1947 and 1948. While there, he met and later married Charlene Friede, the club's office secretary. She died in July 1999.

The family's children attended St. Ann's Grade School in Prairie Village, then Bishop Miege High School in Shawnee Mission.

In 1957, Bauer stood trial in New York for allegedly assaulting a man at the Copacabana. Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Yogi Berra, Johnny Kucks and Billy Martin all testified. The jury found him not guilty.[8]

Bauer owned and managed a liquor store in Prairie Village for a number of years after retirement from baseball.

He died in his home on February 9, 2007, from lung cancer, at the age of 84.[9][10]

Highlights

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  • October, 10, 1951: Bauer's bases-loaded triple led the Yankees to a 4–3 win over the New York Giants to clinch the 1951 World Series.
  • Three-time American League All-Star (1952–54).
  • From 1956–1958, Bauer set a World Series hitting streak record of 17 games in a row.
  • Bauer led the American League in triples (nine) in 1957.
  • Bauer appeared on the cover of the September 11, 1964 issue of Time magazine.

Quotes

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  • "Hank crawled on top of the Yankee dugout and searched the stands, looking for a fan who was shouting racial slurs at Elston Howard. When asked about the incident, Bauer explained simply, 'Ellie's my friend'". —Excerpt from the book Clubhouse Lawyer, by Art Ditmar, former major league pitcher
  • "Hank lost four prime years from his playing career due to his Marine service. This is heavy duty when you figure such a career is usually over when a player reaches his mid-thirties. This is something that does not bother Hank. 'I guess I knew too many great young guys who lost everything out there to worry about my losing part of a baseball career', he says."[11]
  • Tommy Lasorda on Bauer: "This guy's tough. He had a face that looked like it'd hold two days of rain."
  • Bauer was a no-nonsense leader and could be unforgiving if he felt his teammates' off-the-field activities were hurting the Yankees' on-the-field performance. Pitcher Whitey Ford remembered how Bauer reacted when he thought players like Ford and Mantle were overindulging after hours: "He pinned me to the wall of the dugout one day and said, 'Don't mess with my money'." New York Times, obituary, February 10, 2007.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Bauer, Hank". Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice. Retrieved July 28, 2024.
  2. ^ "Bauer, Herman". Baseball's Greatest Sacrifice. Retrieved July 28, 2024.
  3. ^ Maris goes to Yanks; A's get Larsen in 7-man deal
  4. ^ "Posada to Start For Kansas City". Springfield Leader and Press. Springfield, Missouri. Associated Press. April 7, 1961. p. 7. Retrieved June 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ^ "FINLEY AND LANE AGREE ON CHANGE; Athletics' Officials Give Job to Bauer, 38, Ex-Yankee --Gordon to be Paid in Full". The New York Times. June 20, 1961.
  6. ^ "Hank Bauer Will Crack The Whip," United Press International (UPI), Wednesday, November 20, 1963. Retrieved March 4, 2023.
  7. ^ "Earl Weaver New Orioles Manager," United Press International (UPI), Thursday, July 11, 1968. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  8. ^ "Bauer Cleared By Grand Jury". The Terre Haute Tribune. Associated Press. June 24, 1957. p. 9. Retrieved April 18, 2023.
  9. ^ [1][dead link]
  10. ^ Hal Bock (February 27, 2007). "Former Yankees OF Hank Bauer dies at 84". The Herald. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved April 22, 2007.
  11. ^ Berry, Henry (1996). Semper Fi, Mac: Living Memories Of The U.S. Marines In WWII. William Morrow. ISBN 0688149561.
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