One of my baseball heroes is Sherm Lollar, who played catcher for the Chicago White Sox from 1952-1963 and wore number 10. He was the second best catcher in the American League in the 1950s, behind Yogi Berra of the Yankees.  Earlier this year, I wrote a letter to the Golden Era Committee of the Baseball Hall of Fame, hoping to spur some consideration for induction.  (See Post #5).  I’m currently reading the book Bill Veeck Baseball’s Greatest Maverick by Paul Dickson, and I ran across several references to Lollar.  On August 24, 1951 (three days before my birth), Veeck organized a promotion to give fans the opportunity to manage his team, the St. Louis Browns.  He placed manager, Zack Taylor, in a rocking chair near the dugout and provided selected fans with placards marked YES and NO, which they would hold up to determine what the Browns should do next.  Sherm Lollar had come to the team after the 1948 season from the Yankees, because manager Bill Dickey determined that Berra’s left-handed swing was more compatible with Yankee Stadium.  Lollar earned a World Series ring , despite only 11 at bats and 1 home run in 1947.  Finally in 1948, the year Babe Ruth died and Sherm’s last year in New York, he only got to play in 22 games,  The Browns got him for virtually nothing, but he was still limited to only a part-time role.

Veeck was known for his promotional stunts, including the very controversial “midget” game less than a week earlier.  He used three-foot-seven-inch, sixty-five pound, Eddie Gaedel, as a pinch hitter against the Detroit Tigers.  Because of his narrow strike zone, Gaedel easily walked. and then was replaced with a pinch-runner.  The “fan vote” event was Veeck’s much tamer follow-up, but still irked the other baseball owners.  Bill Veeck had previously owned the Cleveland Indians, taking them to a World Series Championship in 1948, so Lollar would have been part of his 1946 squad, the year he bought the team.  Veeck then orchestrated one of his characteristic “bundled deals” that sent Lollar and Ray Mack to the Yankees in exchange for Hal Peck, Al Gettel, and Gene Bearden.  Veeck re-inherited Lollar when he bought the White Sox in 1959, so their baseball paths are strongly intertwined.  In fact, a cricket promotion that Bill staged in Comiskey Park between games of a double-header with Kansas City, involved both Lollar and Luis Aparicio taking at-bats, while the crowd chanted “That’s not cricket.”  At least, they were not part of the circus show he put on the week before!

The first decision of the fan jury was to determine the starting line-up for the game.  They chose to go with Sherm over Matt Batts at catcher.  After the season, the Browns traded Lollar to the White Sox where he became a regular starter, including the 1959 World Series against the Dodgers.  It just shows how perceptive the Browns fans were in promoting him to a starting role.  According to his 1951 Bowman baseball card, he played in only 126 games in 1950 and hit .280 with 13 home runs.  In 1949, he batted .269 in 109 games.  More importantly, he made only 4 errors in 322 total chances (.988).  Defense would become his trademark, and what should have gotten him into the Hall of Fame.

Veeck added Slugger Ted Kluszewski late in the season to the 1959 White Sox team that he inherited. (See Post #118)  His White Sox lost the series to the Dodgers, despite home runs from both “Big Klu” and Lollar.  After the season, he installed what I consider to be his greatest contribution to Chicago White Sox baseball, “The Monster,” an exploding scoreboard of fireworks in center field to celebrate each home run blast. (See Post #156).  Disco Demolition Night in 1979 was Bill Veeck’s other infamous promotional contribution to Comiskey Park lore, when a stoned mob wrought havoc on the field.  Sherm Lollar died in 1977 and has yet to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, despite a lifetime .992 fielding percentage.  Bill Veeck was inducted in 1991, five years after his death.