New York Baseball

[BullNBear52]

Ned Garver, 20-Game Winner for the 102-Loss Browns, Dies at 91
By RICHARD GOLDSTEINFEB. 28, 2017

Ned Garver, the only pitcher in American League history to win at least 20 games in a season for a ball club that lost at least 100 times, achieving the feat for the 1951 St. Louis Browns, died on Sunday in Bryan, Ohio. He was 91.

His death was confirmed by his son Don.

“The crowd didn’t dare boo us,” Garver once said of his nearly five seasons with the lowly Browns before sparse crowds at Sportsman’s Park, which they shared with the popular Cardinals. “The players had them outnumbered.”

Garver posted a 20-12 record in 1951 with a last-place team that finished at 52-102.

He also batted .305 and hit a home run to break a tie game with the Chicago White Sox on the season’s final day, when he recorded his 20th victory.

He was runner-up for the A.L.’s Most Valuable Player Award. He lost to Yogi Berra, whose pennant-winning Yankees finished 46 games in front of those Browns.


Garver led the league in complete games in 1951 with 24, the second consecutive season he was No. 1, and he was the A.L. starting pitcher in his only All-Star Game, yielding one hit and an unearned run in three innings.

Garver, a right-hander who was just 5 feet 10 and 180 pounds, thrived with sinkers and sliders while changing speeds and taking advantage of hitters’ strengths and weaknesses. He pitched for 14 seasons in the A.L. and won 129 games. He lost 157 times, but never pitched for a first-division team.

“Next to me, Ned knew more about baseball than just about any pitcher in the American League,” Satchel Paige, a Browns teammate of Garver’s, recalled in his 1962 memoir, “Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever,” written with David Lipman. “Even with that slow stuff of his, he did right well all along, just using his head.”

Photo

Garver presented a trophy in 1952 on behalf of his teammates to Bill Veeck, center, the Browns’ owner, to thank him for firing the team’s manager, Rogers Hornsby. Credit Associated Press
The Browns are probably best remembered for their showman-owner Bill Veeck, who once sent Eddie Gaedel, a 3-7 dwarf, into an August 1951 game against the Detroit Tigers as a pinch-hitter. (Gaedel went into a crouch, creating a nearly nonexistent strike zone, and drew a four-pitch walk.)

Five days later, Garver was in the midst of another of Veeck’s promotional stunts.

Fans had been asked to submit ballots choosing a starting lineup for the Browns in advance of their Aug. 24 home game against the Philadelphia Athletics.

More than 1,100 of them were given seats behind the Browns’ dugout on Grandstand Managers Day with placards reading “Yes” on one side and “No” on the other. As the game progressed, Bob Fishel, the Browns’ publicity director, asked them to vote on strategy, such as whether to change pitchers or order a steal attempt.

The consensus was quickly relayed each time to a Browns coach, who carried out the directives while the manager, Zack Taylor, relaxed in a box seat rocking chair.

Sign Up for the Sports Newsletter
Get the big sports news, highlights and analysis from Times journalists, with distinctive takes on games and some behind-the-scenes surprises, delivered to your inbox every week.



Garver, the Browns’ starting pitcher that day, was hit hard in the first inning.

“With three runs already in and runners on first and third, Fishel flashed the sign ‘Shall We Warm Up Pitcher,’” Veeck recalled in his 1962 memoir, “Veeck as in Wreck,” written with Ed Linn.

The grandstand managers vetoed the idea, Veeck remembered, “presumably on the theory that Garver’s feelings might be hurt.”

Garver rewarded them by pitching a complete game in the Browns’ 5-3 victory.

Ned Franklin Garver was born on Christmas Day 1925 in the northwestern Ohio town of Ney (pronounced Nay), where his parents, Arl and Susie, owned a farm. Ned played semipro baseball after his high school days. He was signed by the Browns organization on being discharged from military service in World War II because of flat feet.

Garver joined the Browns in 1948 and became a mainstay of their pitching staff. No other Browns pitcher won more than six games in 1951.

Photo

Garver in 2002, showing off baseball cards from his days as a pitcher in the American League. Credit Tom Gannam/Associated Press
But Garver was hampered by a pinched nerve in his neck in 1952 and traded to the Tigers in August. He pitched four full seasons with Detroit, another four with the Kansas City Athletics, then retired after a stint with the 1961 Los Angeles Angels.

Only one other pitcher in modern major league history — Irv Young of the National League’s 1905 Boston Beaneaters, an ancestor of the Boston (and Milwaukee and Atlanta) Braves — has reached the 20-victory milestone for a 100-game loser. Young had a 20-21 record with a Boston team that was 51-103.

In addition to his son Don, Garver, who lived in Bryan, is survived by his second wife, the former Dolores Hart; another son, Ned, and a daughter, Cheryl Garver, from his first marriage, to the former Dorothy Sims, who died in 1995; his stepchildren Kevin Cottrell, Tonya Cottrell and Tammy Berenyi; four grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

After his pitching days, Garver scouted for the Cincinnati Reds and did promotional work for an Ohio meatpacking company. He was the mayor of Ney for eight years.

The Browns passed into baseball history in 1954, when they moved to Baltimore and became the Orioles.

“Even though we were a losing team, I’m proud to be part of the St. Louis Browns,” Garver told Baseball Digest in 2004. “All of my vehicles still have Browns bumper stickers.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/sports/baseball/ned-garver-dead-st-louis-browns-pitcher.html?