Tales From the Hot Corner

Idle time before games amongst scouts brings out some of baseball’s best stories. Taking a look at third basemen brought out several tales of the “Hot Corner”.

Lou Fitzgerald, who was a long time minor league manager and scout, once told the following story of how his buddy, former Orioles manager Paul Richards had a little fun with the media one spring day.

It was back in the early 1960’s as Richards was preparing his Baltimore Orioles for another season. Training in sun-drenched Miami, the club was going through the daily morning routine of batting practice, while pitches did their running in the outfield and coaches hit fungos to the infielders.

A new baseball writer to the Baltimore area approached Richards as he was standing around the batting cage. Looking for a story for the next day’s edition, the inquisitive young scribe asked Richards if there were any good words for the day.

Well, Richards told the young man that a story hadn’t really been written about one of his coaches who was off to the side hitting fungos. Curiously, the writer asked what was so special about the coach, for which Richards responded, “Don’t you see, he’s one of the best fungo hitters ever in the game. If you watch him, you will see that every ground ball he hits will go into that fielder’s glove. It really helps give the young fielders confidence.”

The writer watched intently and sure enough, ground ball after ground ball came to rest in the fielder’s glove. Of course it really wasn’t the coach, as the fielder was a young Brooks Robinson. Robinson would win 16 consecutive Gold Gloves starting in 1960 and continuing to 1975 during his Hall of Fame career.

Being caught in the shadow of Brooks Robinson were several strong fielding third basemen during the ‘60’s and into the 1970’s. One morning, several scouts were sharing a breakfast table with former major league outfielder Del Unser as talk turned to the Hot Corner. Unser enjoyed a 15-year career that began in the late 1960’s and ranged into the early 1980’s. Unser would finish off his baseball career in the Phillies front office and as a major league scout for Philadelphia.

Known for his speed during his younger days playing with the Indians and Senators, Unser was queried by the scouts about Brooks Robinson in the 1960’s. While he noted that Robinson was very good at fielding the slow roller, he surprised the group with the name of Ken McMullen as one of the better third basemen with regard to making the play coming in. Unser related that while McMullen didn’t have a strong arm, he could put zip on the off-balance throw from down under. Also, McMullen had huge hands which allowed him to scoop the ball up with relative ease and with regularity.

Taking a look at McMullen’s 1964 card, the back notes that, “Ken has his sights set on the regular third base job in ’64. The youngster jumped from the C League to Triple A in one season in 1962. Ken has played the outfield in the American Association.”

Sure enough, records show that McMullen was Triple-A Omaha’s left fielder in 1962. With a 33-year-old Daryl Spencer at the hot corner for the Dodgers in 1962, McMullen went to the fall instructional league to learn the nuances of playing third base. McMullen must have done well, as the 21-year-old was the Dodgers’ Opening Day third baseman in 1963.

While the early years weren’t pretty for McMullen at third base as he led the AL in errors in 1965 with 22 once he joined the Washington Senators, but by 1967 the former outfielder began a streak of six consecutive seasons where he bested the league average fielding percentage for third basemen. His total of 38 double plays topped American League third sackers in 1967. From 1968 to 1970 his range factor per game was the most for the Junior Circuit.

Annually hitting around .250, McMullen was never an All-Star, but he became a staple at the hot corner for the Washington Senators (1965-70) and California Angels (1970-72) all while working the shadow of Robinson. Not too shabby for guy who started out his career chasing fly balls in the tall grasses.

With Wade Boggs on Boston scout George Digby’s draft list in 1976, the scout whose career spanned fifty years knew a bat when he saw one. A shortstop out of Tampa’s H.B. Plant High School the Major League Scouting Bureau and many Florida area scouts did not rate Boggs as much of a prospect.

The Major League Scouting Bureau was a MLB sponsored scouting service which clubs would pay as a supplement to their own scouting departments. Throughout the years baseball scouting has routinely come under scrutiny by the leaders of the game as an expensive proposition for clubs. Major League Baseball wanted to consolidate the scouting of players under their control with the creation of the Major League Scouting Bureau back in 1974.

Digby, who passed away in 2014, once told the story that the scouts at the MLSB graded out Boggs as a 25 on scale of 20 to 80, effectively taking the Plant High School product off of teams draft radar. Meanwhile, Digby’s report on Boggs had him rated as a 65 which led the Red Sox brass to question the scout’s grade.

“I want you to forget about the Bureau and select Wade Boggs for me,” as Digby recounted his talk with Red Sox Scouting Director Haywood Sullivan the day before the draft. “He will not be a Major League shortstop, but he’s going to be a good hitter some day.”

The Red Sox would placate Digby and draft Boggs in the 7^th round of the 1976 Amateur Draft. The scout would sign the future Hall of Fame third baseman for $7,500 and monies for college expenses. Luckily for Boston, they listened to Digby as Boggs would win five batting titles during his days with the BoSox.

Later in his career, Boggs would also claim two Gold Gloves as the high school hitter from Tampa enjoyed an 18-year career at the Hot Corner en route to his place in Cooperstown.