Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,775
By This is the grave of Jimmy Piersall.
Born in 1929 in Waterbury, Connecticut, Piersall grew up in that town and became a high school baseball star. In 1948, the Boston Red Sox signed him to a deal and in 1950, he made his major league debut. That was just a cup of coffee though, getting 7 at bats. He was only in the minors in 1951 and then was on the major league roster for a good chunk of the 1952 season. He proved himself a useful enough pinch hitter and reserve outfielder, enough that he would have a major league career.
However, Piersall had some severe emotional problems and this is why we remember him today. 1952 was a terrible, horrible year for him. He got into a fight with Billy Martin before a game in May. Well, that wasn’t so unusual by itself; Martin was a violent man who fought all the time. But then after the game he got into a scuffle with his teammate Mickey McDermott. Then, he personally spanked the son of his teammate Vern Stephens in the clubhouse in the middle of the game. Today that would get you arrested. For Piersall, it got him demoted to the minors. While playing for the Birmingham Barons, he got ejected four times in three weeks, got into arguments with his teammates, and generally acted psychotic.
The Red Sox suspended Piersall and sent him home to Massachusetts. He checked into the Westborough State Hospital and was diagnosed with “nervous exhaustion,” whatever that meant. He underwent electroshock therapy and was prescribed Lithium, which was just on the market to help with mental issues. He stayed in the hospital for seven weeks.
The Red Sox did not know what to expect with their volatile outfielder for the 1953 season. But….the EST and Lithium seems to have helped a lot. He came back and had a solid season, even finishing 9th in MVP voting, despite really just being a good contact guy. He hit .272/329/354 that year with nine homers and 11 steals so it’s hard to know exactly why he would be considered an MVP candidate. But also people were deeply impressed by his story and his growth as a person. The interesting thing about Piersall is that he was so open with his problems. He wrote an autobiography (dictated more likely, there was a co-author) called Fear Strikes Out that was published in 1955. In 1957, that was turned into a film with Anthony Perkins playing Piersall and Karl Malden as his father. Evidently, a big part of Piersall’s issues is that his father was an absolute bully who pushed and pushed and never was satisfied with his son. Later, Piersall distanced himself from the film and said it made his father out to be far more of a monster than he actually was.
Piersall needed medicinal adjustments for his whole career. He sometimes was on the verge of losing it again, particularly in 1960, when he was playing for Indians, got ejected a bunch of times, started fighting with teammates again, and then started sprinting back and forth in the outfield during a game against the Red Sox while Ted Williams was at bat. The Indians shut him down for awhile and he got the necessary adjustments.
Generally though, Piersall was a solid player. He played all the way through the 1967 season, when he was 37 years old. His best years were in 1956 and 1961, the first in Boston and the latter with Cleveland, when according to Baseball Reference’s WAR stat, he was worth 4.8. In that 56 season, he led the AL with 40 doubles. In 1961, he hit .322, so his generally decent contact based stats all got a nice little boost. He made the All Star Team twice and also won two Gold Gloves at his center field position. Not a great player, but certainly a worthy one.
Piersall also had no problem playing the clown. He leaned into his whackiness and had fun with the crowd when his medicine was right. In 1963, after he was traded to the Mets, he hit his 100th career home run. He ran around the bases running backwards to celebrate it. He once stepped up to bat wearing a Beatles wig after that band got huge with their mop tops. He led cheers about himself in the outfield that he got fans to join in on. Mostly harmless stuff like that. As Tommy John recalled, Piersall said, “Probably the best thing that ever happened to me was going nuts. Who ever heard of Jimmy Piersall until that happened?” John went on, saying Piersall said in 1964, “I’m way past my prime, but I’m making forty grand a year. You know why? Because people come out to the ball park and expect to see me go crazy. So every once in a while I’ll give them a thrill and do something nuts, like sit on the outfield fence or argue with an umpire. Just enough for people to enjoy. It keeps me in the money. Besides, I have nine kids to feed.”
That’s a lot of kids. He was a good Catholic. Though he was married three times, so the Church made its usual compromises.
After retirement, Piersall got a broadcasting jobs, first for the A’s in 1972, then the Rangers from 1974-76, and then the White Sox from 1977-81, where he worked next to Harry Caray. He was fired from the White Sox for criticizing the team’s management, which undoubtedly was deserved. He later worked for the Cubs as a minor league outfield coach and then broadcast on the radio for the Cubs from 1992-2006.
Piersall died in 2017. He was 87 years old.
Jimmy Piersall is buried in Wheaton Cemetery, Wheaton, Illinois.
According to Baseball Reference’s JAWS stat, Piersall is the 92nd best center fielder of all time. For modern context, this puts his career right around such recent players as Grady Sizemore, Josh Hamilton, and Vernon Wells. If you would like this series to visit other center fielders, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. Mike Donlin, who is 91st and who played from 1899-1914 for a bunch of teams but mostly the Reds and Giants, is in West Long Branch, New Jersey, and Cesar Tovar, who is 96th and who played mostly for the Twins in late 60s and early 70s, is in Caracas, Venezuela, if you want to send me on a trip to the world’s most hopping and safest tourist destination. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.