THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION ALMANAC INTERVIEWS
BOB WIESLER
BORN: Robert George Wiesler on August 13, 1930 at St. Louis, Missouri
DATE OF INTERVIEW: JULY 14, 2005
TOPIC: PITCHING IN BLUES STADIUM AND THE 1951 KANSAS CITY BLUES
Introduction
Southpaw Bob Wiesler pitched for the Kansas City Blues in 1951, 1953 and 1954 with military duty intervening in 1952. His best American Association career was in 1951 when he won 10, lost 9 with a 2.92 ERA in 194 innings (team leader) for George Selkirk’s third-place Blues. He led the league in walks (143) and strikeouts (162)
and had 2 shutouts that season, tops on the Blues’ pitching staff.
A 6’2”, 195 lb. switch-hitter, Wiesler began his professional career began with the Independence (Kansas) Yankees of the K.O.M. League in 1949 and ended in 1961 with two teams: the Dallas-Ft. Worth Rangers of the American Association and the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League.
Wiesler resides in Florissant, Missouri.
==================================================================
You were Kansas City’s star pitcher in 1951, Bob. Tell me about that team.
We had a team composed of old-timers and a few young guys, and a few people in the middle in age. Joe Page was there, Bob Muncrief, Cliff Melton...do you remember all of these old ballplayers (chuckling)?
I don’t remember them because I wasn’t born until 1957, but I’m trying to learn about those guys in your league of the old American Association.
What exactly do you remember about old Blues Stadium?
To me it was a nice park to pitch in, the fences were reasonable and everything. Today the way the fences are made it’s unbelievable...but that was a good ballpark to pitch in, in Kansas City. It wasn’t like in St. Paul where they had the short left field and then Minneapolis, and you’d go there and they had the short right field! One extreme to the other!
Nicollet Park in Minneapolis. Lexington Park in St. Paul.
That was something else! You’d go to St. Paul and you had the long right field, then you had the short porch in left field, it was unbelievable. You’d go from one town to the other. I forgot the names of the parks.
I’ll be able to help you out with that kind of thing. What else can you remember about old Blues Stadium?
When Kansas City went over to the American League, they played there for I don’t know how many years. What was it, a couple of years they played in the old Blues Stadium?
The A’s started there in 1955...
I remember in left field, they had like a terrace down the left-field line, and they used to charge people sitting in the terrace when they went to the big leagues, so they could get more people into the ball park.
When you were there, was that hill out in right field in play or not?
They had a fence and the hill went up, then it went up to another fence. Yeah, there was a hill but there was a fence in front of that before you got to the hill.
But it was still at least 350 feet out to right, wasn’t it?
Yeah, and center field was 400 and somethin’ feet, if I’m not mistaken, like I said, I thought that ballpark had good dimensions, you know, especially for pitching, not like it is today where instead of keeping one thing the different ball parks should have the same dimensions if they’re building new ones, but they don’t.
They like to build them a little bit different from the old one I guess.
How did you feel about how well the mound and the field were kept up at Blues Stadium?
We had good groundskeepers. They did a good job. We had one game, I’ll never forget, the rain... they wanted to get it in...they had a helicopter there trying to spin the water outta there...they had a gasoline truck on the field, spraying gasoline on the field and putting a match to it... They wanted the game to get on so bad that they didn’t care what was going on...There was a fire truck to deal with the damn infield burning trying to dry it up...
No Kidding...
I’ll never forget that.
Was that in 1951?
I played there in 1951 and I happened to be there in ‘55, but that was in ‘51.
Now that is something else.
Yeah, yeah.
Actually lighting the field on fire?
They brought a gas truck that squirted the field, the infield, they threw gasoline on it, then the truck went out to left field and they put a match to it and burnt the infield to dry it and get the infield dry...They don’t have the chemicals like they have now...They throw that stuff out now, and hell, it must do wonders to dry it up.
Diamond-dri.
Yeah, that’s it. It’s unbelievable, how far it’s come like that, but that was the only way they could get dry fields in the old days.
They must have had a lot of smoke from that.
Ah, not too bad, not too bad.
Do you remember the clubhouse at all?
We had a nice clubhouse, compared to some of these other parks, yeah, we had a nice clubhouse. Some of these clubhouses you went into, geez, I think it was in Minneapolis (chuckling), it was small, but Kansas City had a good clubhouse.
So you could get more than a couple of people in the shower at once?
Oh, yeah, yeah...
And what about the player services, as far as the clubhouse boy? Did they take pretty good care of you guys after a game?
Oh, yeah, we always had clean towels ‘n that, yeah. Well, it was a Yankee organization and to me, the Yankees used to do it up right. When I played in C and D ball, we had our own bus ‘n that ... we didn’t have no guy driving a bus, we had a regular bus, like a Greyhound bus, taking us to ball fields. We were very fortunate compared to a lot of other teams.
Now was that when you were with Independence?
There we had a regular bus driver. He used to come on the road with us and we had comfortable seats, and a lot of ‘em had them old school busses drivin’, and they just had straight up seats. We had the seats that would go back. Like I say, we were taken care of with the Yankees. They took care of us.
They were watchin’ out for their guys.
What was it like pitching in Blues Stadium?
It got pretty hot in the summer, there.
That’s what I’ve heard!
Yeah. Well, I’m from St. Louis and it gets terrible here. I used to throw batting practice in the ballpark, the one they’re gonna tear down now [Busch Memorial Stadium] with the astroturf, and I used to throw batting practice for the Cardinals, and it was like a heat wave out there! Geez, it was terrible! In the summertime in Missouri, it gets pretty warm...with the humidity.
I suppose it didn’t help at Blues Stadium being sunk like it was.
You had the steep hill in right field... going up that hill...I remember that!
That shows you how deep it was sunk then. I’d bet you went through a few t-shirts on pitching nights.
Oh, man, (chuckling), I used to sweat quite a bit! And them uniforms they had, they aren’t like they are nowadays, jeez, we used to have some bad uniforms.
How so?
Oh, heavier uniforms than now. Now they’re so light lookin’, n’ that.
You wore wool uniforms.
Oh, yeah.
Now did they have a summer weight wool?
Yeah, but they weren’t like the old-time ballplayers, good golly! I don’t know know how they did it, those old-timers.
Have you ever seen one of those 1920’s jerseys?
Oh, yeah, when I went up to the Yankees, Pete Sheehan, their clubhouse man, took me in there and showed me what Ruth and Gehrig, what kind of uniforms those guys were wearing, and I thought, my lord! How could them guys...and they played mostly all day games! And...to be so heavy! And be so damn heavy on your body!
They were really like a woolen blanket!
Right, that’s right! (chuckling) I’d have to wear like a long john to put them kinds of uniforms on.... Just thinkin’ of it makes me goose-pimply.
Gives you itches, doesn’t it?
Yeah...Good Golly! (chuckling)
What was the worst thing about pitching at Blues Stadium?
The field was ideal to pitch on, compared to some of the other parks, so the weather, I guess, the heat was the worst part of it, more than anything.
Did you pitch any night games at all?
Oh, yeah, yeah, most were night games, except on a Sunday. Very few day games, maybe Fourth of July or something, but mostly night games so people working could come out and see the ball game.
And be a little bit cooler, anyway.
Well, yeah, right, right.
What was your favorite thing about pitching there?
I played with some pretty good ballplayers. I played with Don Bollweg (1b), and, oh, most of ‘em have passed away. And Bob Cerv (of), him and I got to be good friends...Andy Carey (3b) was there...
Now Andy Carey is still alive...
Yeah, Andy’s out on the coast...Roy Partee (c)...and some of the older fellas, we learned a lot from the older fellas.
Who were some of the older guys you remember?
We had, like I said, Rube (Cliff) Melton, Bob Muncrief, Joe Page, Ernie Nevel, they were all pitchers...and if they thought something was wrong, they’d tell you about it. Selkirk (George) was the manager and Jocko Schulte, he was the coach.
And what was his name?
Schulte. He was from St. Louis. He was a pitching coach. Selkirk was the manager, and Schulte was his assistant. John Schulte. He was up in the big leagues under, on the coaching staff with one of the Yankees farm teams...with Chicago (NL), St. Louis, coached with the Chicago Cubs, coached with the Yankees from ‘34-’45. He was Selkirk’s right-hand man there.
How was it different pitching in Blues Stadium as opposed to the other American Association parks you pitched in?
I was just 20 at the time, going on 21, and I was getting by with a pretty good fastball and curveball...I was just trying to get the ball over the plate! If you’re going up to St. Paul, you want to try to keep the ball inside to the right-hand hitters because they had the short left-field fence. Then you go to Minneapolis and try to keep the ball away from the left-handed hitters because they had the short right-field fence. You’re trying to do that because, like I said, it was unbelievable some of those parks we played in... Columbus too, Columbus had that short right-field fence which wasn’t too long their neither... Indianapolis, I remember that they had the brick wall all around, and they had the vines there too...
What a nice place, eh?
It was, yeah, yeah. That was a good ball park.
You know that’s still standing.
Is that right? Do they still play there?
No, the entire playing field is all about 4-foot grass. I was there two years ago and the night watchman let us in to take pictures.
I’m surprised that nobody’s using it. Place must be worth something.
It’s a beautiful little park, good location, just needs some TLC.
What was your favorite American Association park to pitch in?
I’d say Kansas City, with the way the field was, both the left-field and right-field lines...
So it really matters that much.
I thought it did...if you hit the ball and somebody gets ahold of one, it’d stay in. In the other ballparks, Minneapolis or St. Paul, it’d be a home run.
So it was a lot more forgiving in Blues Stadium.
Right.
That’s good for a young pitcher’s confidence.
Look at that new park down at Houston...I mean, jeeminny, the left-field is, like, for Little League! It’s a shame, these guys the way they swing the bat and the pitcher’s gotta go out and see a fly ball home run, I mean, that’s a joke to me.
And now the Astros are hot on the Cardinals tail.
Well, they’ve got a lot of ground to make up.
Yep, nobody’s gonna catch the Cardinals.
Naw, I don’t think so.
What was your general impression of old Blues Stadium?
It was a good ball park...Dressing rooms were really nice. We had a lot of room in there, we didn’t have the lockers like those school lockers that are so narrow. These were nice lockers, you could practically put a chair in there and sit in there. It was really something. Then you could say, ‘Get outta here, you’re getting all the hot water,’ but we always had hot water...
We tend to see these things as the “little” things, but they really make a difference, don’t they?
Oh, yeah, yeah. For triple A, that was a nice park.
What do you think could have made Blues Stadium a better place to pitch?
I don’t know (chuckling), I was happy the way the ball park was laid out. The mound was ideal...Now, you know what happened with Gibson [Bob] having that great year, how they took the mound away from the pitchers and cut the pitching mound down? Well, we used to have a nice high one there with the Blues. But now, they’ve all gotta be a special height because Gibson “ruined it” for everybody by having a helluva year and then they took the mound away from the pitchers and leave the hitters hit the ball...that’s a joke.
Amazing how one guy’s great season can screw up the whole game...and Gibby was just trying to do his job.
Right, right! That was unbelievable when they did that.
What do you like better, pitching at night or during the day?
The night because I think it was a little cooler at night then during the day. I can’t see how the old-timers how they used to play day ball [in the old woolen uniforms] all the time, that took somethin’ out of their body, all the hot weather. I know here in St. Louis it’d tear you up in the summertime, and down in Houston, I finished triple A down there and it was brutal down there and finally when they got a big league club they had to build a cover and air-condition it because it’s so damn hot down there. In the evening it was cooler than it was during the day...and I think the lights help the pitcher out more (chuckling)...
Little advantage there, eh?
...All the parks should have the good lights (chuckling)....
So Blues Stadium had good lights?
Yeah, I thought they had good lights.
Those are some of the things that people just don’t know about.
Well, down in the minors, jeeminny, it was unbelievable some of the lighting systems, you know, when you play C and D ball, you know, different parks had different...it was darker, it seemed like, at certain parks. I had a great time in Kansas City, I enjoyed it.
What was your best pitch, Bob?
My fastball and a curve ball. I didn’t throw a change up, but my fastball moved, I didn’t throw it straight like most of ‘em...most left-handed balls move because of the way they release it, so most left-handers’ balls move more than right handers’ balls, so... When I was with Washington [1956-58] I noticed that Pascual [Camilo], who was a right hand pitcher, he could throw hard but his fastball wouldn’t move. He had a helluva curveball, and they took that curve ball and wait for the fastball because the ball wasn’t movin’. I don’t know what it is, but more left-handers’ balls, if it’s the way they release it or what, but they move more than the right-handers’. That was always a known fact when I was playing ball. I can’t figure it out, I couldn’t figure it out, but I had pretty good success throwing at Kansas City and then my arm got shot. It ain’t like it used to be...nowadays they can operate and bring it back, you know, but back then once your arm goes, they didn’t have nothing to take care of it, no operation...
That’s true, just something accidental could screw up your entire career.
That’s true. And a lot of these people, I’ll tell ‘em, when it rains, it only takes one wind-up and one follow-through and a pitcher can screw his arm up for life, slipping on the mound when it’s raining, where with a hitter, an infielder or an outfielder it’s different, but they do wonders now with people with surgery and that on the arms, but years back they didn’t have that, you didn’t have no operations on the arms.
Now what about the helicopter that dried off the field using gasoline on the dirt? So didn’t they have a good drainage system there?
I wouldn’t say that, they didn’t get the tarp down on time. If you don’t have the crew to put that tarp down fast enough, if it’s a heavy rain, that screws the whole damn thing up.
Did they get some heavy rain in Kansas City?
Oh, yeah, yeah...hell, one year we were up there that’s when they had the flood, it rained so much up there? As a matter of fact, it rained on Easter and for seven Sundays after that we had rain! We didn’t play all the time in that seven weeks but the rivers went up and it was unbelievable. Well we had one hear in 1993 they had the flood...it rained so much they had places where it was flooded, flooded, flooded, it was unbelievable what damage it did.
You live in Florissant?
We’re considered a county.
How far away from the Mississippi River is that?
I’d say it’s about six miles, the Missouri is about three miles.
So you’re really right in between them.
Where I live, if it floods it’s like Noah’s Ark. We’re pretty well safe here, we’re pretty well safe. The only things that were flooded around here were the creeks and that did a lot of damage...but it was unbelievable what happened here in ‘93.
Getting back to Blues Stadium, you’re saying that it wasn’t that the drainage system was bad, but that you had so much rain...
It was some kind of special day, they wanted to get the game in and it was a big crowd, they brought the helicopter in first and then they decided to put gasoline down on the infield...It was a special day for that because usually they didn’t do that, but on this certain day, they did. But that’s one thing that sticks in my mind what happened that year there. They brought the gas truck in and they put the gas on the infield, and they moved the gas truck out to left-field and they lit the infield up to try to burn the water off.
Did that do any damage to the infield grass?
No, they just put it on the dirt infield. But that’s one thing I’ll never forget (chuckling)! That helicopter and then the gas truck.
I wonder if that might have been a Sunday game.
It probably was, no, it had to be because it was a day game, unless it was the 4th of July or something.
Bob, who do you think was the toughest American Association batter you had to face during your time with KC? The Brewers were tough...
Yeah, George Crowe. I pitched, I think, a ten-hit shutout against them.
No kidding!
Yeah, George hit one deep to right-field, and I thought it was goin’ out...but if I’m not mistaken they had a deep right-field there [at Borchert Field], and it hit the furthest point of the ball park. Yeah, he was a good hitter. Dom Dallesandro, he was with Minneapolis, he was a good hitter...and Vern Benson, I had trouble with him in Columbus. I pitched 17 innings against them in Columbus, and after nine innings he tied it up in the ninth and then he hit another home run to tie it up in the 13th and finally we won in the 17th. He hit two home runs off me that game but I ended up winning it.
He was just about their only .300 hitter on that team.
They had Mo [Maurice] Mozzali there too. He was a little guy who could never take Musial’s place. Mozzali was playing first base and he was always a good little hitter, a .300 hitter in the minors.
He hit .291 that year. He didn’t strike out very often.
He always got a piece of the ball against left-handers...it was tough trying to get him out left-handed! I had trouble with him. That’s been awhile. Billy Hoeft was there, Gene Conley was there, he had a good year with Milwaukee, he was a helluva basketball player too.
What did you do after baseball, Bob?
I worked at Anheuser-Busch. I retired from there in ‘90. We were in the beechwood aging process where we’d clean the tanks and put the wood in there and they’d put the beer on top of it. I had 27 years, so...it was a good company to work for. My brother-in-law got me in down there, and they were in there and I made a pretty good living from being there.
Are you a beer drinker, Bob?
I used to be, but I had to give it up around 10 years ago. That was one of the first things they used to give you when you start down there, a pair of boots, gloves and a beer can...that was the three things they gave you. But see, now they’ve changed that so you can’t drink on the job anymore.
###
