TW Hit List - Al Simmons

“He had a basketful of fun, a wagonload of fame-

But he never was a rooter at a baseball game.”

Al Simmons was born “Aloysius Szymanski.” Why the name change, I have no idea. However, he made his mark in at least two ways: he was another notoriously unfriendly ballplayer (my favorite kind) and he was possibly the best ugly hitter of all time. By ugly, I don’t mean to speak of his countenance or physicality, but rather his swing. He is famous for allegedly stepping away from the plate toward third base (he was a right-handed batter) as he swung and earned the moniker, “Bucketfoot.” Williams claims that his swing was not as awkward as has been made out by historians. However, many historians base their accounts on contemporary testimony. It was noted by reporters and sportswriters, not to mention ballplayers, of the time that his style was not to be commended. Arthur Daley of the New York Times noted that he should have been easily exposed by curves and outside pitches and yet, not only wasn’t he, but he was one of the top clutch-hitters of his day.

Simmons played for 20 seasons and finished with a .334 career average and .915 OPS. He banged out just shy of 3,000 hits and batted in over 1,800 runs. He hit over .380 four times, led the league in batting and hits twice, and won AL MVP honors in 1929. He had eleven consecutive seasons hitting at least .300 with 100 RBIs. These numbers are huge. Surely he is underrated as great hitters go. When he started, Cobb and Ruth were still around, and Foxx took the limelight through most of his prime years. And little doubt that each of those men were bigger draws for the fans. But Simmons was a superstar in his own right. He won the World Series in 1929 and 1930 with Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s and said after his career that Mack was one of the finest men he ever knew.

Williams claims that Simmons and Cobb often criticized him for taking too many pitches. Now many, perhaps most, see such a trait in a batter as the virtue of patience, and we’ve mentioned before that Williams was a strong advocate of the idea that one of the keys to hitting is swinging at good pitches. I don’t know how to argue with that, and so I won’t. Yet, I find something viscerally commendable about those old-style hitters who went up there swinging. Cobb and Simmons and their ilk weren’t swinging at bad pitches, but they didn’t let too many balls an inch or two off the plate go by. Perhaps today’s batters have learned greater patience for which reason we see hitting stats higher than historical averages over the last couple decades. It was only the true greats like a Cobb that could put up numbers swinging at pitches others couldn’t hit (think of Vladimir Guerrero, fellow Halo fans). Or perhaps the game just moves in cycles. Or even more likely, the dynamics of the game between pitchers and hitters change in ways and for reasons that the human mind is not fit to perceive. But don’t be troubled. This is yet another reason for our love of the game. What other game reflects the ultimate reality of the interplay between reason and mystery not just in its overall conception, but as seen in each and every individual contest? Each at-bat is a microcosm of each inning. Each inning is a microcosm of each game. Each game is a microcosm of each season. And so that our beloved pastime unfolds in a cascade of images of what’s ultimate in life, while at once picturing a panorama of life’s rhythms. History is linear. It is going somewhere. But we see patterns. We see variations on a theme even as we progress. And baseball alone of all games is capable of capturing this tense harmony. Baseball alone is sport and art, truth and myth, joy in the midst of despair, wonderment in the midst of certainty. And this is life. It is no cliché that baseball mimics life. It is an apt tribute to the best form of re-creation.

“And though the World pitched,
And the Devil played behind,
And the Seven Deadly Sins were alive,
In the field;"