The Greatest Hustler, Page Two

"My Dad told me, ‘You don't need any natural ability to hustle.'" -Herb Plews

Interview with Herb Plews, conducted in May 2010.

JM: How did you work your way up to the big leagues?

Plews: I went to the University of Illinois. After graduating from there in 1950, I signed with the Yankees. After playing briefly for their minor league team in Kansas City, I was drafted into the Army, and got out in 1953. The Yankees sent me to Birmingham, and then to Norfolk. I played three years in the minors. The final team I played for was Denver, which was Triple-A. But next season, the Yankees traded five minor leaguers to the Washington Senators for a pitcher named Mickey McDermott. I was one of them, so I wound up playing for the Senators.

JM: Signing with the Yankees must have been pretty exciting. You must have been thinking about how you might wind up playing with Berra and Rizzuto and those guys. Did you envision yourself taking Rizzuto's place at shortstop when he retired?

Plews: Not really. The Yankees had their team pretty well set, with some players who were even younger than I was. By the time I got to Washington, I was about 28 years old.

JM: You were a big star with the University of Illinois, and then you signed with the Yankees. So when you finally wound up with the Senators instead, that must have been a disappointment. They were a pretty bad team at that time.

Plews: I soon found that out. And the Yankee minor league teams were very good. If we didn't finish first, we were right near the top. But when I got with Washington, it was a whole different situation.

JM: Was that discouraging?

Plews: Well, it wasn't, in a way, because I was thankful I was there and in the majors. I probably would have never made it with the Yankees. This gave me the opportunity, and I was glad to have it. Charlie Dressen was the manager my first year there. Years ago (1945), when I was in high school, I was chosen for the Esquire Game in New York City, and Charlie was a coach on the team from the West (Ty Cobb was the manager). And now, I couldn't believe that Charlie was my manager. I don't know whether he remembered me, but he said he did. I doubt that. I always liked him and got along with him well.

"He's learning the ropes now. When he came to us he couldn't pull a ball at all. Casey Stengel, who knew about Plews because he played in the Yankee farm system, used to wave his infielders to the left when Plews was up because he couldn't hit to right. We had a surprise for Casey midway in the season. I've got some pretty good coaches and they went to work teaching Herb how to hit a ball into right. So one day when Casey was out there waving his fielders towards left field, Plews bounced one off the right field wall." -Charlie Dressen, quoted in the Independent Record (Helena, MT), November 11, 1956

Plews: Playing with Washington was different. You wouldn't think the pressure would be on you with a team that was in the cellar. But gosh, if you didn't win the game and you didn't get some hits, you were liable to be out of the lineup. If you won, and you got a hit or two, you could figure that you would be playing the next day. So the lineup was changing all the time, not with the regulars, but with players like me.

JM: Was that Charlie's managing style? You'd go 0 for 8, and he'd bench you?

Plews: Charlie wasn't so much that way, but later on it became that way, after Cookie Lavagetto took over. But I'm not complaining at all. I was tickled to death to be there, glad to be playing with the Senators. They had some great loyal fans. The organization treated me well. I can't say anything bad about them.

JM: During the time you were with Washington, I was growing up in the DC area, and I was able to get to many games at Griffith Stadium. That would have been from about 1946 to 1960.

Plews: So you might have seen me play.

JM: Of course, I did, both at the stadium and on the TV broadcasts. It was frustrating to root for the Senators, because they were always losing.

Plews: It was hard. You could get discouraged, but we were playing our hearts out.

JM: I looked up a lot of the box scores and game summaries in the Washington Post archives. When you came up in 1956, you didn't play much at the beginning of the season, but then they put you in as a pinch hitter one day in early May, and you got the first successful pinch hit for the team that season.

Plews: I remember that. I hit it through the box. That was against the Yankees, and Jim Konstanty was the pitcher.

JM: That was after Konstanty had those great years with the Phillies. You were with the Senators for three full years, but you were traded to Boston in 1959 (June). What do you remember most about your days with Washington?

Plews: I played with some good ballplayers there, like Roy Sievers and Jim Lemon and Pete Runnels and Clint Courtney. The pitching staff was good, with the two Cubans, Ramos and Pascual. Chuck Stobbs was there, and Russ Kemmerer and Tex Clevenger and Dean Stone. I think we had a fine pitching staff, really. It just seemed like we would have a well-pitched game, but we wouldn't get any runs. You know how it goes; if we did get some runs, we couldn't hold the lead. It seems like everything was against us all the time.

JM: Dick Hyde, the relief pitcher, had one really great year (1958).

Plews: Yes, he did. In 1960, Dick and I were going to be traded to the Red Sox. When the time came, he was having some arm trouble. When I went up to Boston, they asked me about him, and I said, ‘Well, he's been throwing well, but right now, his arm is a little tired.' After that, the Hyde part of the deal fell through, but I still went to Boston. As it turned out, I would have been better off if I had stayed with Washington. Boston wasn't doing all that well. There was a lot of pressure on Mike Higgins, the manager. They fired Higgins just a couple of weeks after I got there. Bucky Harris, the general manager, went out and got Bill Jurges, who was a coach in Washington when I was there.

Bill was okay, but we never hit it off very well. I knew that as soon as he became manager, that I was going to be on my way out. He no sooner got there, and he sent me down to Minneapolis. Gene Mauch was the manager then. If Mike Higgins would have stayed with Boston, I would have been fine. All you had to do was hustle for him, and you had it made. So at my age, not being a big slugger or anything, I knew my time was up and that I probably wouldn't make it back to the majors. So my career was cut short. If I had stayed a little longer, I would have qualified for a pension.

"Infielder Herb Plews, who hails from East Helena, Mont., and sometimes is called Montana's third senator, was traded Thursday by the Washington Senators to the Boston Red Sox. In the four player deal, Boston sent relief pitcher Murray Wall and infielder Billy Consolo to Washington, in exchange for Plews and relief pitcher Dick Hyde. Plews is in his fourth season of major league baseball, all to date with Washington. The Senators have used him primarily as a pinchhitter this season after playing..." -Montana Standard (Butte), June 12, 1959

JM: What was your natural position?

Plews: Second base.

JM: But you didn't play second base all that much, as far as I remember.

Plews: No, I didn't. I played second at Norfolk. The next two years, I played third, and then when I got to Washington, they moved me to second again, but sometimes I played third.

JM: You have to make a different kind throw from third.

Plews: That's right. I still threw a little sidearm. But I liked third. And I wasn't very adept at shortstop. I didn't have that great arm you need. I liked second the most. I liked making the double plays.

JM: You hit for a very good average in the minors and at Illinois as well, but you didn't hit nearly as well in the majors.

Plews: Well, I wasn't going to hit .300 in the big leagues. I was pretty consistent in the minor leagues, but I was playing all the time. I only played part time in the majors. You're in and out, and you wind up putting pressure on yourself in that situation. The pitching was much better in the majors, of course. You don't find any fellows throwing much harder in the majors, but they have much better control. But I ended up at about .270 (lifetime average was .262). That's pretty good for an infielder.

"Herb Plews and Roy Sievers each had four hits Friday night as the Washington Senators overhauled a 4-0 New York lead to defeat the American League leading Yankees 6-5. Yogi Berra drove in four of New York's runs with his 27th home run and..." -Wisconsin State Journal, September 8, 1956

JM: Were you married when you were playing for Washington?

Plews: Yes. My wife and I spent the summers in Mt. Ranier (Maryland), in a little complex of apartments. A majority of the players lived there, so the wives had somebody to be with when we were on the road. It worked out very well.

JM: Did you have to work in the off-season?

Plews: We went back to Montana to my hometown of Helena and I always had a job at the post office. That worked out well. I was a mail carrier, going out on my routes. During the winter, it was kind of tough at times, cold and slippery. You were out there about five hours every day. The routes were quite long, and I did plenty of walking.

JM: When you were traded to Boston, did you move?

Plews: We went up to Boston for just a short time. I only played there for about a month. When they sent me down to Minneapolis, we lived there till I finished out the season. The next year, I was sold to Toronto, in the International League. They had a nice ball field, and we had a fine team. The year after that, I went out to Hawaii, in the Pacific Coast League, and I spent three years with them. My last year in the minors (1965), I was with Tacoma and Little Rock. And that was it.

"Then the (Hawaii) Islander home run barrage started, and before the final out they had scored seven runs and the tying run was on third base. In the big ninth, Jack Hiatt and Herb Plews banged out home runs..." -The Bulletin (Milwaukee), May 5, 1964

"Bill Sorrell rapped out four hits Friday night and paced Arkansas to its third straight Pacific Coast League baseball victory, a 4-3 decision over Spokane. Sorrell singled off Indian reliever Mel McGavok with one down in the ninth to send home Herb Plews with the winning..." -Spokesman Review (Little Rock), June 13, 1965

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