Billy Herman: Baseball Hall of Fame legend

By KEVIN HARRIS
Kevin.Harris@newsandtribune.com

July 04, 2009 12:29 am

— When he was living, Billy Herman had hundreds and hundreds of stories to tell his grandchildren about his 40-plus-year career as a Hall of Fame baseball player and professional coach.
One of his grandkids remembers the New Albany legend’s stories vividly — current Indiana First Lady Cheri Daniels.
“He did not talk so much about his accomplishments. But the great thing about him was he was a great storyteller. He would talk about things that would happen on bus rides and traveling with the team,” said Daniels, a 1967 New Albany High School graduate. “He had a great sense of humor. He was so happy to play professional baseball, and he knew how fortunate he was to be able to do that.”
On Tuesday, several Billy Herman tales will probably be recited by his family in celebration of the day he would have turned 100 years old. Herman was born on July 7, 1909 in New Albany as William Jennings Bryan Herman. He was named after three-time Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan.
Herman died on Sept. 5, 1992 in West Palm Beach, Fla., after a bout with cancer.
In an article published in The Evening News and Tribune on Nov. 22, 2007, Herman’s nephew, Bob Herman, described his uncle as a man who never bragged about his achievements on the diamond.
“I would be around him for hours … and he would never mention baseball and I would never mention baseball. It was all about the family,” Bob Herman said. “He was an everyday regular fella.”

EARLY LOVE FOR THE GAME
Herman loved baseball so much as a youngster that his favorite song was “Take Me Out To the Ballgame.” And friends and family could tell because he sang the song over and over again to express his passion for the game.
“As a little boy, he would sing ‘Take Me Out To the Ballgame’ all the time,” Daniels said. “When he would come up to ‘One, two, three strikes — you’re out,’ it would make him sad.”
According to Daniels, a female teacher of Herman’s influenced him to pick up the game of baseball. The national pastime was a chance for Herman to take a break from the everyday grind of attending school and doing chores around his New Albany home.
“It was a chance for him to blow off steam,” Daniels said. “For him, it was a great outlet.”
The more Herman played baseball, the better he got at the game. Eventually, professional teams got interested in him, and his long major-league career began.
“He came from humble beginnings. It was nothing glamorous,” Daniels said. “His ticket out was baseball. He truly got to see the country and the world through baseball.”

IT ALL STARTED AT WRIGLEY
After a stint with Louisville in the American Association, Herman made his major-league debut with the Chicago Cubs in 1931. He played 25 games at the end of the ‘31 campaign, compiling a .327 batting average.
His performance at the end of the 1931 season gave him some momentum heading into spring training in 1932, where he won the starting second baseman job.
Herman called Wrigley Field home for 10 years (1931-41), helping Chicago reach the World Series three times (1932, 1935, 1938). Unfortunately, the Cubs failed to win the world championship in those three Series appearances.
Herman’s best season with Chicago was 1935. He led the National League in hits (227) and doubles (57). He batted a .341 average with 83 RBIs.
Early in the 1941 season, Herman was traded to the Brooklyn Dodgers for two players and $65,000 after starting the campaign with a .194 average. But his hitting improved by the end of the season, as he ended up with a .291 average. He assisted the Dodgers to the NL pennant title, but they lost in the World Series to the New York Yankees, four games to one.
Herman played in Brooklyn during the 1942 and 1943 campaigns before serving in the U.S. military in World War II in 1944-45. Herman returned to the Dodgers in 1946, but then got traded to the Boston Braves at mid-season. In 1947, he played 15 games for the Pittsburgh Pirates as the team’s player-manager.
In his 16-year major-league career, Herman had a .304 batting average with 2,345 hits and 839 RBIs. He batted over .300 eight times and was a 10-time All-Star. On the National Baseball Hall of Fame’s Web site, Herman was called “a master of the hit-and-run play.”
Herman also is best known for his defensive skills at second base. He still holds the NL record for most putouts in a season by a second baseman, which was 466 in 1933. Herman led the league in putouts seven times and topped the NL in assists and fielding percentage three times each.
“He could hit to any field at any time. He was an outstanding second baseman,” Bob Herman said in 2007.

TOUGH MANAGING CAREER
Despite a successful playing career, Herman’s stint as a major-league manager was not that stellar.
In one season as Pirates’ skipper and two years as manager of the Boston Red Sox (1965-66), Herman had a combined record of 189-274. Unfortunately, he got fired by both teams.
Herman managed in the minors after his Pirates tenure. He also was an assistant coach for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Milwaukee Braves, the Red Sox, the California (now Los Angeles) Angels and the San Diego Padres.
Daniels said Herman liked being a coach, but getting released by the Red Sox as manager was a low point in his career.
“I think he did enjoy coaching. But the Boston Red Sox was the most painful moment of his career. That was his darkest day, career-wise,” Daniels said. “But he liked coaching. He was very fair and wise. He had a deep love for the game and he took it seriously. That was his life.”
The best moment of Herman’s coaching career was being a part of the Dodgers’ 1955 world championship coaching staff. Brooklyn won its first-ever World Series title over the Yankees, four games to three, after losing to its city rivals five previous times in the Fall Classic.
It also was Herman’s only World Series title as either a coach or a player.
“I think it meant a lot to him,” Daniels said. “No one expected the Bums (the fans’ nickname for the Dodgers at the time) to win. They didn’t have the spit and polish at the time. It was a great day for Brooklyn and the highlight of his career.”

LONG-DESERVED RECOGNITION
After not being voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in the 1950s and 60s, Herman finally got voted into the shrine in 1975 by the Hall’s veterans committee.
Daniels sat in the front row during the ‘75 induction ceremony in Cooperstown, N.Y., and remembers it like it was yesterday.
“To me, my grandfather was larger than life,” Daniels said. “But that day was the first time I ever saw my grandfather cry. I was touched by that experience. It was a day of great pride for me, and to get that honor was very moving for him.”

HERMAN: RUTH SUPPOSEDLY CALLED HIS SHOT

One of the greatest tales in the history of baseball is Babe Ruth’s called shot in the 1932 World Series, pitting his New York Yankees against the Chicago Cubs.
Legend has it that Ruth pointed to the center-field wall in Wrigley Field during the fifth inning of Game 3 and hit a home run to that spot.
But in a book titled, “Baseball When the Grass Was Real,” the late Billy Herman, who grew up in New Albany and was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1975, stated that, “Ruth supposedly called his shot. I say ‘supposedly.’ He didn’t really do it, you know.”
Herman was a second baseman for the Cubs in that game and got a firsthand look at what happened between Ruth, Cubs’ pitcher Charlie Root and the Chicago bench players, who were heckling Ruth.
The following is Herman’s description in the book of the mythical called shot:
“(Root) threw the first one over and Ruth took it for a strike. The noise got louder. Then Root threw another one across and Ruth took that for Strike 2. The bench came even more alive with that.
“What Ruth did then was hold up his hand, telling them that was only two strikes, that he still had another one coming and that he wasn’t out yet.
“When he held up his hand, that’s where the pointing came in. But he was pointing out toward Charlie Root when he did that, not toward the center-field bleachers.
“And then of course, he hit the next pitch out of the ballpark. Then the legend started that he had called his shot and Babe went along with it. Why not?
“But he didn’t point. Don’t kid yourself. I can tell you just what would have happened if Ruth had tried that — he would never have got a pitch to hit. Root would have had him with his feet up in the air. I told you, Charlie Root was a mean man out on that mound.”
Cheri Daniels, Herman’s granddaughter and the First Lady of Indiana, says Herman always admired Ruth despite the mythical called shot.
“I think he had respect for him,” Daniels said. “He knew (Ruth) more as an individual than for his baseball ability. On a personal level, he liked (Ruth).”

BILLY HERMAN’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• 1975 National Baseball Hall of Fame inductee
• Four appearances in the World Series as a player
• Ten-time National League All-Star
• Led the NL in hits (227) and doubles (57) in 1935
• Set NL record for most putouts in a season by a second baseman in 1933 (466), which still stands today
• Led the NL in putouts seven times, assists three times and fielding percentage three times
• Had a batting average over .300 eight times in his career
• Assistant coach on the Brooklyn Dodgers’ 1955 world championship team
• 1979 Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame inductee

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