THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION ALMANAC INTERVIEWS

JIM DELSING

BORN: James Henry Delsing at Rudolph, Wisconsin on November 13, 1925

DATE OF INTERVIEW: JULY 15, 2005

TOPIC:PLAYING IN BLUES STADIUM IN KANSAS CITY

Introduction

Jimmy Delsing performed as a left-hand batting, right-hand throwing outfielder with the Kansas City Blues in 1949 when he compiled a .317 batting average in 149 games with 24 doubles, five triples and seven home runs, while knocking in 77 runs. His introduction into the American Association came in 1946 with the Milwaukee Brewers before moving on to play with the Eau Claire Bears of the Northern League later that season. The 5’10” 175 lb. played professionally through 1960. After a major league career spanning 1948-56, Delsing was back in the American Association with the Indianapolis Indians, Charleston Senators
and Houston Buffaloes from 1957-60.

Delsing’s major league career started with the Chicago White Sox with whom he debuted on April 21, 1948. He was a late call-up with the Yankees in 1949 after appearing in 151 games with Kansas City, the Yankees’ AAA farm team. Delsing played for both the Yanks and St. Louis Browns in 1950, staying with St. Louis through the 1951 season. He went from St. Louis to Detroit in 1952, then stayed with Detroit through 1955. In 1956 he came full-circle after being traded from Detroit back to the White Sox. Delsing was called up to Kansas City to play for the Athletics at the home of his 1949 team. The park’s name became Municipal Stadium in 1955 when the Athletics moved from Philadelphia to Kansas City, as Delsing AGAIN came full-circle in his top-of-the-line career in professional baseball.
A career .255 hitter at the major league level, Delsing led the AL in fielding with a .996 fielding average in 1954 with Detroit in 108 games in outfield (career .989 fielder in majors).

Jimmy Delsing now lives in Chesterfield, Missouri.
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Good morning, Jimmy.

Good Morning.

Tell me about career in pro ball.

Started out with Green Bay of the Wisconsin State League ... I played part of a season with Green Bay when I was 16 years old and still in high school. A lot of the players were being drafted into the war and so I had a chance. Then I went back to school that fall and I graduated the next year and went out to play at Lockport (NY) in the PONY League, near Buffalo. That’s Pennsylvania, Ontario and New York state. Then the following year I went to spring training with the Milwaukee Brewers in 1946 when I went there, and I made the ballclub but I went into the service on Opening Day.

That would have been in 1944.

Yeah. The thing about this is that Charlie Grimm was the manager of Milwaukee at that time and that’s the way things go, that’s the way it was...I had just turned 18 in November and I was drafted so I went into the service in April 1944, came out of the service in April 1946...I was in the European theatre during the war and I was in the medical corps.

What exactly did you do?

I originally was in the Field Evacuation Hospital...took care of 1500 people...patients...on the field...I had to have a hernia operation when they went overseas, and I went overseas after I got well, with a collecting company that went up into the lines and collected the wounded and stuff like that...Well, when we got there, we’d had a very tough trip going over, we’d lost some ships, lost our equipment...We were there right at the Bulge [Battle of the Bulge] and when they broke the Bulge they were moving so fast our outfit wasn’t equipped to keep pace with everything else...We ended up where parts of our outfit was in different places taking care of things, ran dispensaries and in some of the towns we took care of the people that we could...a lot of odds and ends...because once they broke through at the Bulge we couldn’t keep up. And so we spent that time over in Europe...we were in France and Germany. And then we came back and were scheduled to leave to go to China and this was about the time they dropped the bomb over on japan and we were leaving and they turned us around and we came back to the states...and I got discharged in April of 1946.

And that’s when you joined up again with Milwaukee.

Then I went back with Milwaukee and at that particular time they were having a tough time weather wise, and getting beat...Nick Cullop was the manager...so I just went up to the office and said, “Get me outta here, I wanna go someplace and play...we couldn’t do anything because the big team (the Cubs) were struggling... so they decided to send me to Eau Claire, Wisconsin in the Northern League. I stayed up there about half the season and I was hittin’ real well when Milwaukee recalled me in August, I believe it was, so I finished the season at Milwaukee... and at the end of the season I was purchased by the White Sox. That was in 1946. That was a pretty active year for me!

You sure did light ‘em up in Eau Claire...you hit .377...7 home runs with 61 runs batted in at Carson Park.

I played every day, and this was something I wanted to do...the two years after being in the service I never did play...didn’t even pick up a ball...so we were very happy to get out and play.

Who was your manager with the Eau Claire Bears?

Joe Skurski. Ed Stumpf was the general manager there (also the Milwaukee Brewers farm director)... Then I was recalled by Milwaukee and finished the season out there...I think I hit .316...

In ‘47 in the Pacific Coast League with the Hollywood Stars you hit .316 with 5 HR and 43 RBI...while with Milwaukee in ‘46 you had a .318 average with 20 RBI ... You weren’t with them long.

Not that long, maybe six weeks...

Let’s fast-forward up to your Kansas City days. You were with the Blues for just that one season and it was a full one!

Yeah, it was a full season. I went to spring training with Kansas City and I finished the season up, then after the season I went up to New York and finished the season there [with the Yankees].

I’d like to focus on your 1949 season in Kansas City. Tell me what you recall about old Blues Stadium.

It was big...and it was hot! The stadium was down, like in a bowl, the right field, outside the fences, it went up a hill to Brooklyn Avenue, I believe, wasn’t it? And that was a steep hill, but the fences were down below...so it was a good minor league ball park. When they went to the big leagues they just expanded on the old ball park. It had a big outfield, a lot of room to cover...I don’t know the distances anymore but left field was the smallest part of the ball park and it wasn’t that small!

And they had the scoreboard in left that you’d have to hit one over...

It was a good minor league ball park...like I said, at those particular times there weren’t many small ball parks, you know, they all were pretty good sized. And it seemed like it had a good background to hit in, and a good background to field in, so I liked it.

Plenty of room for you outfielders to stretch your legs...Which field did you play for the most part?

I played all center field. Some of the other outfielders I recall were Archie Wilson...

I just spoke with him the other day...

Oh, how’s he doing?

Just great...he sounded just like you, like you’re about 50 years old...I’ll tell you, it seems like you guys just do not age.

Oh, yes we do, I can tell you that....Hank Workman was there, we had Joe Collins was there, Joe Muffoletto, Jack Wallaesa [being pronounced here as WALL-uh-see], Ralph Houk, Bill Drescher, Lew Burdette, Paul Hinrichs, the bonus player for the Yankees, Bob Keegan was there, Dave Madison was there...and there’s only a few of ‘em that’s left, believe me...

John “Ernie” Groth, one of your leading pitchers who won 12 and lost 9 that year for the fifth-place Blues. Do you recall his name?

Yes, it’s Groth [pronouncing it Grahth, the “o” with the short vowel sound].

Groth had 14 complete games along with Frank Hiller...

Oh, yeah, Frank Hiller, I forgot about him.

I’m trying to mention some of the more prominent players...

The more prominent player was supposed to be Paul Hinrichs. He was, at that time, signed with the Yankees during the winter time, and he was supposed to be our horse, but it didn’t turn out that way.

Hinrichs finished the season 3-10.

He pitched very well during spring training but then he opened the season at Indianapolis and as i recall we got beat pretty bad. You’ve gotta realize that this is sixty years ago...

You remember a lot, Jimmy!

It’s going back...I’ve got great memories of those days.

Were they a pretty good group?

Oh, yeah, a great group, great group... Muffoletto, and Jimmy Dyck [Dike] was there also...and I’m trying to think of our big right hand pitcher...

Bill Elbert?

That’s who I was trying to think of! And John Lucadello was there.

Did Houk and Drescher platoon at catcher then?

Houk was a right-hand hitter and Drescher was a left-hand hitter. And then we had some kid (catching)...supposed to be a great prospect...who could not throw the ball back to the pitcher.

Was it Vic Mastro?

Yes, that was him.

And Bill Holm caught a few games.

Wasn’t he a coach?

That I don’t know.

And our manager was Bill Skiff.

Yes, Skiff had been a prominent player for the Blues in the 1920’s...

Yeah. Hank Foiles was another catcher. I don’t remember him as well. He might have come up later.

What was it like playing everyday in Blues Stadium? You were out there just about every day. You played in 149 games in 1949.

Like I said, Kansas City was very hot, and we were young and anxious to play. I thought it was a fine ball park... and it seemed like the lights were good...I hadn’t been around that much to know anything any different. It was a good ball park for me because I could run and there was a lot of room in the outfield and so I enjoyed it very much.

Were you a good runner?

Yes, yes. Yeah, I could run.

Got a good jump on the ball and things like that?

Yeah, my strength was going back on the ball over my head.

What did your coaches like best about you?

Well, that I was a fundamentally sound player, the hustling, played the game the way it was supposed to be played. We had some older guys there and it’s amazing how much they can help young kids. You learned something everyday from some of these guys. I think this is what the difference is in how we played the game.

One of the big differences between those days and today was you had the veterans around a lot more to act as teachers. You had your fellow players helping you out.

The thing about this was, at that particular time, what was happening was the guys were coming up but at that time there was only 400 guys in the big leagues and there was a lot of good ballplayers and a lot of these guys were playing in the minors. You just learned, everyday you played you just learned something. You were always with people who would say, ‘This is what you should have done’ or ‘This is how we play it’ and stuff like that, and it was no offense or anything, it was just the way it was. The thing about it is, that, I played four, five, six years in the minor leagues before I even went to the big leagues, so when you play over a hundred and some games a year, you’re bound to learn something.

Tell me one guy from that ‘49 team, Jimmy, that was one of your best mentors.

Two of ‘em. One was Joe Muffoletto. He was an infielder. There was something about him, he was older, he got across to some of the younger players. And of course you had “The Major,” Ralph Houk....There was my good friend and roommate was Joe Collins, and Joe was, I thought, was an extremely good ballplayer.

Was Collins also a little bit older than you?

Yeah, yeah. Not that much older, but there weren’t than many guys any younger than I was, I was 22-23 years old...and so the guys that were in triple A at that time were guys that had played a while and it was like they said, they weren’t prospects any more, they were suspects....

Anyway...

But that’s the way we learned the game.

What did you least like about the ball park, Blues Stadium?

I don’t recall anything, just not anything. I thought about it like this, that if the playing surface was good, the lights are good and stuff like that, what more could you ask? The only thing about it is that it was down in the hollow and extremely hot and close, but outside of that I had no complaints about the place.

So except for the days when it was extremely hot and humid, it was pretty much an ideal place to play. Would you say that?

Yeah, yeah. If go around the Association and see some of the other ball parks, you thought this was a great ball park.

How would you compare Blues Stadium with the other parks you played in?

Let’s start out with Minneapolis and St. Paul. Minneapolis had a band box [Nicollet Park] where right field was real close...St. Paul [Lexington Park] was just the opposite, a close left field and nine miles to right field...Indianapolis [Victory Field] had a pretty good ball park, in fact, probably as good as anybody else...Toledo [Swayne Field] was, for some reason, I wasn’t crazy about it...Milwaukee was a really tough ball park [Borchert Field] to play in. If you were on third-base side, you couldn’t see the left-fielder. And if you were in the right field dugout you couldn’t see the right-fielder. So it was like a real fan shape, narrow, and then really spread out and really tough to play the stands where they came really close to the right and left field foul lines, then it was big after that. It was just an odd ball park.

You being a center fielder, you were probably well acquainted with how deep that center field was at Borchert Field.

Oh, yeah. So were the alleys -- left-center and right-center were big. But you’ve got to realize that it was tough to hit in [as well] because you wouldn’t play close to the line because you couldn’t play the ball off there anyhow. Most people’s power is left-center and that’s where the outfielders played, the right fielder in right-center and the left fielder in left-center. You gave up the ball on the line because you knew you couldn’t get to it anyhow.

I can just see it in my head. Borchert Field was built in 1888 and was squeezed into a city block, just like the old Polo Grounds.

And how about the Minneapolis ball park where you could hit a ball off the right field fence and almost get thrown out at first base! Didn’t they have a guy by the name of Babe Barna who hit all the home runs? Well he could just stand up there an pull the ball a little and it hits against the fence, and stuff like that...And St. Paul was just the opposite where left-field was a little short.

What about the grounds at Kansas City, was it really that much better than at the other parks, or just plain good.

It was good, and another place that was pretty good was Indianapolis. I don’t recall whether...they were just so oddly constructed, that made them tough to play, period. The only thing I remember about Toledo was the big smokestack in left field and they had Jerry Witte playing down there -- he hit all those home runs, and I think one night he almost hit one up in there, seemed like it never come down...What park are we missing?

Louisville. Parkway Field.

For some reason or another I didn’t particularly care for it. You judge things, I guess, on how well you play against a team. Some of these teams eat you up and some YOU eat up...

And Louisville gave you a hard time?

Oh, yeah...

What about Columbus and Red Bird Stadium?

Columbus was another sort of odd-shaped ball park, not as bad or extreme as the others. Left field and left-center were a mile. Right field was medium but had a real tall scoreboard, but the playing surface was fine. It seemed like the stands were awfully close to the field.

And at Blues Stadium how was that?

It was fine. At Blues Stadium it was like sitting in a bowl, they way they came down there...Most of the parks then people were close to the players, it just seemed that way. A couple of them, especially at Minneapolis, they were unreal...

Borchert Field was the oldest of them all and maintained its original configuration for the vast majority of its life, never burned down, only had slight alterations to the stands, etc.

And St. Paul built a new ball park (Midway Stadium) and Minneapolis built a new park (Metropolitan Stadium) ... we opened it up (Metropolitan) with Charleston in ...

1956...Gene Mauch was the manager...

Maybe I was with Indianapolis.... You know, the amazing part about it is that I played for Kansas City in the Association and I played for Kansas City in the big leagues.

I think I just talked to somebody else who did that -- Dick Kryhoski.

Yeah, Kry-Kry.

Kry-Kry?

That was his nickname...I saw him a couple of years ago. He played for St. Louis and the St. Louis Browns always had alumni dinners that he always came in for.

He’s another very easy guy to talk to.

Oh, yeah. Dick’s a great guy.

How else was it different playing in the other Association parks?

It was like night and day. In Minneapolis, if you hit a ball against the right field fence you really had to hustle because they learned how to play that ball off the wall and they’d throw to first base, so you have to learn how play it and you had to adjust on where you play the hitters, like in Minneapolis a lot of balls that you’d normally catch you couldn’t catch because of the fans and everything, so you had to go the other way with it, and just the opposite in St. Paul. Some of those things you had to give to protect some other part of the field.

I would think that as a center fielder you’d really be on the run just backing up the other outfielders continuously.

Oh, yeah, you talk about ... it was a mile in left field in Minneapolis and in St. Paul in right field. This was what they had, this was the only property they had and they made the best of it. Everyday there was a new adventure! Indianapolis had a good ballpark, a big ballpark.

That place is still standing although no one is playing there and it’s crumbling.
And they’re probably going to tear it down.

What about Louisville? They had a ballpark and then they went to the fairgrounds, what’s happened there?

Parkway Field is gone but the outfield wall may still be there. Believe it or not the outfield wall of Swayne Field in Toledo is still there, at least half of the right-field portion of it. Jimmy, what was your favorite Association park to play in?

Really was Kansas City, for the simple reason that the lights were good, the background was what I liked about the ballpark for seeing the ball off the bat and seeing the ball from the pitcher...a lot of the ballparks now have the center field bleachers and sometime that really makes it tough to pick up the ball. And I thought it was always in pretty good shape. The ball carried, there were very few wind currents like some places have a lot of wind currents...

So you’ll take the hot weather in exchange for some consistency in the flight of the ball.

The thing about it is that the hot weather, you played all night baseball, but you only played doubleheaders on Sunday that would kill ya, but... Now, the thing about that what was so tough about that was that you’d play Saturday night and then you get to play a darned Sunday double header!

You better not be goin’ out drinkin’ on a Saturday night if you’ve got a Sunday double header coming up...

You better not go out, period! Saturday nights you’d get to the ball park, leave the ball park 10, 10:30, 11:30 and you gotta be back for the doubleheader starting at 1 o’clock! Those are short nights... And the being as it’s hot... but the other thing is too, I was 23 years old, you know...

So you were just having the time of your life.

Yeah, that’s right. Really enjoyed it.

What about the clubhouse?

I don’t remember the clubhouse at all...I don’t remember any of the clubhouses. I know that in Kansas City we were on the first base side but I can’t even remember how we got to the field from the clubhouse, doesn’t ring a bell at all.

When did you like playing better, during the day or at night?

If you asked me this throughout my career I’d probably prefer 95% to play day time. It’s just so much more natural, I don’t care how great the lights are, it’s just not like daytime. And my average, even when I played in the big leagues, my average showed that daytime I played better. But in the minor leagues you couldn’t have day ball because people wouldn’t be out there, you couldn’t draw flies in the day time.

Especially at the time when you were playing at Kansas City. There was a spike in attendance there right after WWII but then it dropped again because television came in.

Yeah. There’s no question about that. Economics controls it. It’s what it had to be. What people we drew, that’s when they could come out.

What do you think was the most challenging thing about playing in Blues Stadium?

The other team! That other pitcher and those other hitters, they’re the ones that you had to challenge...no, the thing about this is that you go in and there’s certain people and clubs you play better against than others. I don’t know why. But you do, and that was the thing about this, was that some of these times with the opposition you had trouble with, you had to kick yourself a little bit.

You guys finished 9 games under .500 that year, 71-80 under Skiff...

We did not have that good a ball club...our pitching was not that good, and really we didn’t have that good a defensive ball club. We had a lot of holes. We lost Joe Collins, they called him up to the Yankees in August or something like that.

Which American Association team did you respect the most?

I think St. Paul was a pretty good club, the Brooklyn farm. I think that and if I recall, the Louisville team also gave us a lot of problems.

St. Paul did finish in first, and Louisville finished right behind you (70-83).

Who was in second place?

Indianapolis, and they were managed by Al Lopez. They had a 93-61 record, St. Paul had a 93-60 record!

Who managed St. Paul, wasn’t it Alston?

Yes, it was.

You talk about some history about that, there were so many of these guys who ended up [being successful]...like we had Burdette and he wasn’t even a starting pitcher and look what he did when he got his game straightened around...amazing all the players that played in that particular league...Columbus had a couple of horses down there...who was in the outfield at Columbus?

Bill Howerton, Roy Broom, Ernest Logan, then Mel McGaha and Bernard Olson, and that was pretty much it. Howerton was the standout, hit .329 with 43 doubles that year.

Howerton rings a bell. The broadcaster for Milwaukee was a catcher for Louisville, trying to think of his name...

Uecker...

He was the catcher for Louisville...

Oh, my Gosh. Had to be after 1952 because he was born in 1935. I don’t see Uecker in the A.A. roster book, but they also left Duke Snider out and he played with St. Paul in 1947.

Danny Ozark was the first-baseman for St. Paul during that time, and a guy by the name of Anderson was the catcher.

Ferrell Anderson, also called Andy.

He had a bad neck or shoulder, not sure what it was, but he could hit the ball, I’ll tell you that right now.

What was your best day at Kansas City?

I would have no idea.

When you hit home runs, which part of the ballpark did you hit them to for the most part?

Right field or right-center. I was not a dead pull hitter, but I never hit any home runs to left field. I was not a pull hitter, though, but when I did hit a homer it was to right or right center.

They’ve got you down for 7 home runs, 24 doubles, 5 triples for Kansas City in 1949, and you hit. 317. 545 at-bats.

Yeah, I had a lot of at-bats, there’s no question about that.

That led the team.

I was probably the only one that played every game! You know, because Collins was called up, Muffoletto split time, Wallaesa and another shortstop split time. I don’t even know who played third-base for us.

Nicholas Witek, Joe Muffoletto, John Lucadello, Gene Valla, Jimmy Dyck. What did you do after baseball, Jimmy?

After baseball, I retired from baseball in 1960 and I went to work for Kohler Manufacturing Company for about three years, and then I worked for the Archdiocese of St. Louis for 30 years I think.

What did you do for the Archdiocese?

I was with their newspaper in the advertising department.

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