Drama and Pride in the Gateway City by Bill Nowlin

Author:Bill Nowlin [Nowlin, Bill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4962-1050-0
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Published: 2018-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Simmons also played high school basketball and football, but his father wouldn’t let him play football in his senior year. Curt was disappointed, but his father, Larry Simmons, didn’t want him to jeopardize his baseball promise by getting injured.

Simmons played in the Pennsylvania American Legion All-Star Game at Shibe Park (later Connie Mack Stadium), striking out seven of the nine batters he faced, and was the MVP of the East-West All-Star Game, played at the old Polo Grounds in New York. (Simmons showed the author a photo of him flanked by managers Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth.) Simmons pitched the first four innings before Ruth moved him to the outfield. He singled and tripled for the victorious East team. Having made a similar move in his own career, Ruth advised Simmons afterward to give up pitching and stay in the outfield.

By the spring of 1947, three teams — the Phillies, the Detroit Tigers, and the Boston Red Sox — were still in the running for the left-handed schoolboy. About a week before his high school graduation, his father and Phillies scout Cy Morgan organized an exhibition game that pitted Simmons and the Egypt town team against the Phillies. The Phillies players were not happy playing on an off day, but their lineup featured Jim Tabor, Emil Verban, Johnny Wyrostek, Howie Schultz, Lee Handley, and Del Ennis. Unknown at the time, the twenty-one-year-old Ennis was the first of the Whiz Kids. Simmons would soon be the second. In the exhibition game he struck out the first two batters, Jack Albright and Johnny Wyrostek. The game was tied, 4–4, when it was called because of darkness. Simmons struck out 11, walked 3, and gave up 7 hits. His team committed 5 errors and allowed 2 unearned runs.

After graduation Simmons signed with the Phillies for $65,000, becoming one of the first of the postwar bonus babies. The Red Sox had offered $60,000, but Larry Simmons had offered to let the Phillies match the offer. (Before Simmons signed, the New York Giants offered him $125,000, but the Simmons family kept to its promise.)

Curt Simmons grew up during World War II and before Little League. “We would play pickup games on open fields and behind the schools until we were old enough for American Legion ball,” he recalled. “Some kids had bats, we used tire-tap balls or some kid had a real ball. I remember us walking four miles to play another town. We didn’t have coaching then — my father was working in a cement mill and didn’t have time for baseball. Times were different. A lot of my stuff comes natural to me.” He credited much of his success to his high school coach, Bud Nevins, who had been a catcher in the Cardinals chain. Simmons’s American Legion coach, Sam Balliet, had advised him against signing a $150 contract with the Allentown Red Birds while he was a high school sophomore.

Simmons signed his contract with the Phillies on June 16, 1947, and was

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