Clem Labine

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Surprise! He's dead.

First Met ever to wear No. 41

]March 2, 2007 Clem Labine, All-Star Reliever for Brooklyn Dodgers, Is Dead at 80 By RICHARD GOLDSTEIN Clem Labine, an All-Star relief pitcher of the 1950�s who helped bring the Brooklyn Dodgers four pennants and their only World Series championship, died today in Vero Beach, Fla. He was 80. Labine�s death was announced by the Dodgers, who said he had been ill for a brief time. He recently attended a Dodgers adult camp in Vero Beach. A right-hander with an outstanding sinker and curveball, who was familiar to Ebbets Field fans for his distinctive crew cut, Labine was a late-inning presence on the 1950�s teams whose members became known as the Boys of Summer. He led the National League in saves in 1956 (with 19) and �57 (with 17) and he was an All-Star in both seasons. He appeared in a National League-high 60 games in 1955, posting a 13-5 record with 11 saves, then beat the Yankees in relief in Game 4 of the World Series and saved Game 5. The Dodgers went on to win in seven games after losing to the Yankees in the Series five times, going back to 1941. Pitching in the major leagues from 1950 to 1962, Labine started only 38 games in 513 appearances. But he made several memorable starts. In the 1951 National League playoffs, he threw a six-hit complete game at the Polo Grounds in the Dodgers� 10-0 victory over the New York Giants in Game 2, a day before Bobby Thomson�s pennant-winning home run off the Dodgers� Ralph Branca. In the 1956 World Series, Labine beat the Yankees, 1-0, on a seven-hitter in Game 6, pitching all 10 innings, a day after the Yankees� Don Larsen threw a perfect game. �I always thought Clem would�ve had a great career as a starting pitcher,� Carl Erskine, a leading Dodger pitcher of the 1950�s, said in a statement. �But he told me: �I don�t want to start. I liked the pressure of coming into the game with everything on the line.� � Labine grew up in Woonsocket, R.I., the son of a weaver and a descendant of French-Canadians, and signed with the Dodger organization when he was just out of high school in 1944. He began to flourish as a reliever in 1953, having mastered a sinkerball while pitching in the Venezuelan winter league. Labine�s sinker induced batters to pound balls into the dirt, where they would be snared by Gil Hodges at first base, Jackie Robinson at second, Pee Wee Reese at shortstop or Billy Cox at third base. �They go to swing at it, and it drops on you, and you get the top of the ball,� Labine told Peter Golenbock in �Bums,� an oral history of the Brooklyn Dodgers. �So you�re not gonna hit a lot of line drives off of me, just a lot of ground balls. And don�t forget who we had scooping them up: Gilly, Robinson, Reese and Cox.� Labine remained with the Dodgers when they moved to Los Angeles in 1958 and pitched for their �59 World Series championship team. He was traded to the Detroit Tigers during the 1960 season, joined the Pittsburgh Pirates later that year and pitched in their World Series victory over the Yankees. He finished his career with the original Mets in 1962. Pitching for 13 seasons, Labine had a career record of 77-56 with 96 saves. After leaving baseball, Labine was an executive and designer for a men�s sportswear company in Rhode Island. His family endured travails in those years after he left the game. In an interview with Roger Kahn for �The Boys of Summer,� Labine told how his son, Clem Jr. known as Jay, enlisted in the Marines, then lost a leg when he stepped on a land mine in the Vietnam War. Labine, who had homes in Cumberland, R.I., and Vero Beach, is survived by his wife, Barbara; son Clem Labine Jr. of Woonsocket, R.I.; daughters Barbara Grubbs of Reno Nev.; Gail Ponanski of Smithfield, R.I.; Kim Archambault of Smithfield; and Susan Gershkoff of Lincoln, R.I.; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. Through those summers of the 1950�s, Labine cut a confident figure, coming in from the right-field bullpen at Ebbets Field to relieve pitching mainstays like Erskine, Don Newcombe, Preacher Roe and Johnny Podres. �If you had a lead, there was this thing where about the seventh or eighth inning, where he�d get up, sort of a ritual, and walk down to the bullpen,� the former Dodger pitcher Roger Craig told Bob Cairns in �Pen Men,� an oral history of relief pitching. �Clem was kind of a cocky, arrogant type, which was good. I liked it. He�d fold his glove up and put it in his pocket. I can see him now, strutting down to the bullpen and the fans cheering.�

[Guest Edgy DC]

Bitter Metly Month.

Second-oldest Met, I believe.

[metirish]

Labine had a fine career,why only 4 innings for the Mets?

http://www.baseball-reference.com/l/labincl01.shtml

[Frayed Knot]

Maybe because he gave up 6 runs in those 4 innings?

Labine was an old Dodger and the early Mets - somewhat concerned about whether they'd be accepted just 5 years after 2 National League teams abandoned NYC - made a habit of stacking the rosters with aging Dodger & Giant favorites for sentimental reasons.
It's part of the reason it took them so long to re-orient themselves in the direction of winning baseball.

[metirish]

I suppose 35 was old back then,there can't be many old Brooklyn Dodgers left.

[G-Fafif]

Clem Labine did not like Dick Young, which makes Labine all that much more likable. From Boys of Summer:

]I've got no bitterness. I'm here and he's still in New York with his column. I remember when the Mets dropped me. I deserved it. Still, it was the end. All Young could say, he'd known me thirteen years, was this. He said, 'That's the way it goes.'

[Guest sharpie]

In the article in this morning's Times, some longtime Dodger employee mentioned that he was very ill and now this.

[nymr83]

]It's part of the reason it took them so long to re-orient themselves in the direction of winning baseball.

they were still the quickest team to win a WS from its entry into the league until the Marlins.

[G-Fafif]

Also, not a lot of great expansion options for N.L. teams in '62. Maybe the Mets could have drafted younger and with less of an eye toward old hometown heroes, but (and I'd have to look up the details) the existing teams were given great latitude in who they could protect, greater than it would be in later expansions. Also, no free agency, something the '90s expansioneers (especially the Diamondbacks) would take advantage of.

[Theoldmole]

It was nice, having all those old Dodgers. And we lived with some losing teams...that was OK too. It was kinda fun. Casey, Choo Choo, Marvelous Marv...

[G-Fafif]

Available to the Mets and Colt 45s via the expansion draft:

A pool of 15 players from each N.L. team -- seven from the active roster as of 8/31/61 and eight from the rest of the players under their control. No individual club could lose more than four players to one team (or eight to both teams).

In other words, you could protect just about everybody you wanted to protect. In those reserve clause days, leaving seven major leaguers and eight minor leaguers out by the curb was probably doing the existing clubs a favor.

Quotes from the front offices right after the draft:

Paul Richards, Colt 45s...

]We have a strong nucleus for a fine young club, which should help us build a contender in a hurry. From now on, we ask favors from no one.

George Weiss, Mets...

]We did as well as we expected to do, maybe a little better, but please don't think this will be our starting club on opening day. We plan to purchase many more players and have some deals in mind.

Richards, in retrospect, was kitting himself. Weiss tamped down expectations yet was still ("a little better?" A little better than what?) kidding himself.

With all that dreck in the air, may as well revel in the opportunity to bring back Clem Labine and other expatriates.

[Guest Yancy Street Gang]

Clem Labine, until his death today, was the second oldest living Met. Because Yogi Berra outlived him, Labine was unable to take a turn holding the coveted title of Oldest Living Met.

I made the following post in the now-archived "People Who Are Still Alive" thread on October 21, 2005:

Yancy Street Gang wrote: The Twenty Oldest Living Mets Yogi Berra 5/12/1925 Clem Labine 8/6/1926 Duke Snider 9/19/1926 Joe Ginsberg 10/11/1926 Dave Hillman 9/14/1927 Herb Moford 8/6/1928 Frank Thomas 6/11/1929 Joe Pignatano 8/4/1929 Jimmy Piersall 11/14/1929 Hobie Landrith 3/16/1930 Frank Lary 4/10/1930 Tom Sturdivant 4/28/1930 Bob Friend 11/24/1930 Don Zimmer 1/17/1931 Roger Craig 2/17/1931 Willie Mays 5/6/1931 Carl Willey 6/6/1931 Norm Sherry 7/16/1931 Chico Fernandez 3/2/1932 Ed Bressoud 5/2/1932 Yogi inherited the title from Warren Spahn, who held it from April 14, 1965 until his death on November 24, 2003. I don't think we'll ever see anyone else with a 38-year reign. (Berra would need to live to be 116 for him to tie Spahn's record.)

Since then Herb Moford has died (on December 3, 2005) and now Clem Labine.

When Moford died, Jim Marshall moved into 20th place, and the death of Labine brings Sammy Taylor onto the list.


So here's the current Top Twenty:


Yogi Berra 5/12/1925
Duke Snider 9/19/1926
Joe Ginsberg 10/11/1926
Dave Hillman 9/14/1927
Frank Thomas 6/11/1929
Joe Pignatano 8/4/1929
Jimmy Piersall 11/14/1929
Hobie Landrith 3/16/1930
Frank Lary 4/10/1930
Tom Sturdivant 4/28/1930
Bob Friend 11/24/1930
Don Zimmer 1/17/1931
Roger Craig 2/17/1931
Willie Mays 5/6/1931
Carl Willey 6/6/1931
Norm Sherry 7/16/1931
Chico Fernandez 3/2/1932
Ed Bressoud 5/2/1932
Jim Marshall 5/25/1932
Sammy Taylor 2/27/1933

[Guest iramets]

"Gone is the romance that was Clem Labine's..."

[MFS62]

Why do I get the feeling that the last surviving member of the 1962 Mets will be Don Zimmer? How ironic will that be. But if you were a fan of the '62 Mets, and Brooklyn, too, it would somehow be appropriate.

Later

[Theoldmole]

I thought Jim Piersall had died...?

[Guest iramets]

Labine also provides one of my best examples of the sort of shameless bullshitting that went on before the advent of sabemretric-style analysis (i.e., fact vs. legend). As is now being documented on retrosheet, "the Dodgers.com obituary for Clem Labine [claimed that] 'At one point, Labine retired future Hall of Famer Stan Musial 49 consecutive times,' " but Dave Smith of Retrosheet pointed out --in 1999!!!!!--that this simply isnt so, not nearly.

Smith writes ":I mean, I saw this and sent the following note to the Dodgers and to the author of
the story. The MLB story was later revised and that claim was removed.
Labine certainly did well against a great hitter, but even at a quick glance
the claim is silly. This is reminiscent of the bogus claims by Dick Radatz
about his prowess in striking out Mickey Mantle. That circulated when
Radatz died and I tried to debunk it, but I am sure my correction did not
get nearly wide enough distribution to remove the myth. The same will
probably be true this time."

t's one thing to claim that "Musial had a hard time with Labine, as I vaguely recall," and quite another to make up numbers (or to accept someone's imaginary figures) just because they OUGHT to be true. I see this all the time in printed books, some blowhard just spewing the unlikeliest of facts, thinking that there's no way the facts can be proven or disproven, and I argue that when they are disproven, that author (or that source) has taken a serious hit to his general credibility on ALL factual and non-factual events.

[stevejrogers]

Heh, Carl Erskine repeated this "fact" yesterday with Chris Russo on WFAN. I didn't hear the interview or rest of the show, but I highly doubt it was corrected on the show.

Whats that line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance? "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."

[Guest iramets]

Great line (shitty movie, but great line). I don't doubt that Clem Labine helped create the legend, or even invented it himself--after all, it reflects well on him. But shame on the gullible dopes (like Russo) who accept the self-aggrandizement and so trash their own credibility.

BTW, the actual stats (from Dave Smith):


Career results of Stan Musial vs Clem Labine

Report prepared May 15, 1999 from Retrosheet data

AB H 2B 3B HR BB HP SO SF RBI BA OBA SA
42 10...1..1..1...6...0.....2... 0... 3..238 .333 .381


Good, but hardly 0-for-49.

[Frayed Knot]

TheOldMole wrote: I thought Jim Piersall had died...?

No, but Anthony Perkins did.





I heard Erskine claiming the Labine/Musial stat yesterday too and found it hard to believe (I had never heard it before). I mean .. Rey Ordonez would get more hits than that off of Sandy Koufax, even if only by accident.

One other thing that story does is provide an example (one of many) of why ballplayers don't always provide the best perspective on things, even when they were a part of them.
Erskine sounds perfectly rational and sharp even in his advanced age but, at this point, has probably just heard and then repeated the story so often that I'm sure he truly believes it to be fact.

[Guest iramets]

Frayed Knot wrote: One other thing that story does is provide an example (one of many) of why ballplayers don't always provide the best perspective on things, even when they were a part of them.

To put it kindly.

Ballplayers are consistently and grossly unreliable. It drives me batty when their memories are cited as fact on the grounds that "they were there." I mean, think about this one. Is there ANY significant event you've dealt with some 40 times on your job in the last decade or so that has turned out negatively for you ten times but which negative outcomes you will vigorously in pulbic deny having ever occurred? If you're an HR manager, say, who has dealt with 42 sexual harrassment claims over the last decade or so, can you imagine claiming on the radio that you have dealt with 49 of them and never once has one of them turned out to be valid? If you're the president of the firm, how do you deal with such a claim? I'd fire the HR person pronto when it becomes public that we've lost 10 out of 42 sexual harassment cases. If you're a college student called into the Dean's office and you claim you've never failed a course in 49 courses, and the Dean whips out a transcript showing you've in fact failed 10 courses out of 42, is that a major loss of face? I'd say so.

The point being that Musial getting a hit off Clem Labine ought to be something Labine remembers--pitchers are supposed to remember such things, and use that memory. "The sonofabitch hit a low, outside curve off the wall--gotta remember that next time"--but this happens ten times and he remembers it as zero? That's a pretty serious discrepancy.

[Guest Edgy DC]

If we're going to use facts to debunk the myth, let's try and back up and find the facts that link him to the myth before digging him up and hanging him for it.

I likewise think the notion that Bob Ueker wore out Sandy Koufax (he didn't) could be traced to Bob himself, but I don't have it handy.

[Guest iramets]

Edgy DC wrote: let's try and back up and find the facts that link him to the myth before digging him up and hanging him for it..

Huh? Didn't several posters say they heard Labine yesterday say (in a recorded conversation, presumably) that he'd gotten Musial out 49 straight times? You want a better link than that?

[G-Fafif]

From Bill Madden's obit in Saturday's News:

]Labine was 77-56 with a 3.56 ERA in a career that began in 1950 and ended with his release by the original Mets in 1962. But it was his unparalleled success against Musial, an otherwise notorious Dodger-killer, that Labine maintained was his proudest accomplishment. He retired Stan the Man an incredible 49 consecutive times. "My pitches were neutral," Labine said. "They didn't run in on a batter or away, just straight up and down, so I was just as efficient against lefties as I was with righties. With Stanley, I didn't have a good changeup - which he loved - so I just never threw him one."

He could certainly be proud of holding him to .238 and 3 RBI.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Sorry, I saw two posters write that Erskine made the claim.

[Guest iramets]

Actually, you're right. It was Erskine. It's not clear from G-Fafif's post that Labine was claiming credit for opher 49 or just pitching well generally against Musial. My bad.

[Guest iramets]

Jerry Grote recalled hitting a dramatic extra-inning walkoff HR against the Braves in 1969, and in recalling it in Stanley Cohen�s book A Magic Summer, he further claims that �I only hit six home runs that year, but I think three or four of them won ballgames.� Well, I�m sure that 3 or 4 HRs will tend to come in handy, but I decided to investigate Grote�s HRs to see if they all conformed to the drama of this 11th-inning walkoff shot. The HRs did all come in victories (when Grote jacked one out, it was likely that the opposing pitcher was not at the top of his game) but they were not all game-winners by a long shot, and often came in the early innings of a game.

In his first HR of 1969, on 6/30, for example, the Mets were already leading 3-0 in the top of the first. Since they eventually won 10-2, I hardly see where this one could remotely be called a game-winner.
METS 1ST: Agee walked; Pfeil grounded out (first to second to
pitcher) [Agee to second]; Boswell singled to right [Agee
scored]; Shamsky walked [boswell to second]; Kranepool walked
[boswell to third, Shamsky to second]; Gaspar singled to left
[boswell scored, Shamsky scored, Kranepool to third]; WASHBURN
REPLACED BRILES (PITCHING); Grote homered [Kranepool scored,
Gaspar scored]; Weis popped to shortstop; McAndrew was called
out on strikes; 6 R, 3 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Mets 6, Cardinals 0.

In his second HR of 1969, on 7/18, the Mets were ahead 3-2, and Grote homered. They won 5-2, so that�s another one that can�t remotely be counted as a game-winning HR:
METS 8TH: MCGINN REPLACED WICKER (PITCHING); Shamsky singled to
right; GASPAR RAN FOR SHAMSKY; Garrett was called out on
strikes; CLENDENON BATTED FOR KRANEPOOL; Clendenon flied to
center; Grote homered [Gaspar scored]; Weis walked; RADATZ
REPLACED MCGINN (PITCHING); Weis stole second; Koosman struck
out; 2 R, 2 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Mets 5, Expos 2.

His third HR of 1969 (on 8/1) is very marginal. It turned out to be the winning run of the game, a solo shot in a 5-4 victory, but at the time he hit it, it was the fourth inning and the Mets were up 4-3, so even if you count this as a GW-HR, it lacks the drama Grote�s narrative implies.
METS 4TH: Grote homered; Koonce struck out; Harrelson flied to
left; Pfeil grounded out (third to first); 1 R, 1 H, 0 E, 0 LOB.
Braves 3, Mets 5.

Two days later, Grote hit the extra-inning HR that started this image in his mind of multiple 1969 HRs being big. This one was:
METS 11TH: Grote homered; 1 R, 1 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Braves 5, Mets
6.

His fifth HR of 1969, on 9/5, came with a 3-1 lead in a game the Mets won 5-1. Again, a nice thing, I�m sure, but no game-winner:
METS 8TH: BOOZER REPLACED HARMON (PITCHING); Agee singled to
left; Clendenon flied to center; Swoboda flied to right; Grote
homered [Agee scored]; Gaspar grounded out (second to first); 2
R, 2 H, 0 E, 0 LOB. Phillies 1, Mets 5.

And his final HR came the next day, a solo shot leading off the third inning of a game the Mets eventually won 3-0. Technically again this was a game winner, but the timing of it makes Grote�s claim seem a little silly.
METS 3RD: Grote homered; Harrelson singled to second; Cardwell
singled to second [Harrelson to second]; Agee out on a sacrifice
bunt (pitcher to first) [Harrelson to third, Cardwell to
second]; Garrett hit a sacrifice fly to left [Harrelson scored];
Clendenon struck out; 2 R, 3 H, 0 E, 1 LOB. Phillies 0, Mets 2.

So to sum up:

Of the other five HRs Grote hit in 1969, none of them changed a losing game into a winning game, and only one of them changed a tied game into a winning game�that tie was a 0-0 tie in the top of the third inning. They occurred in the first, third, and fourth innings, plus two in the eighth inning. Of those two eighth inning shots, they simply added to a lead that the Mets had-- the opposing team never scored another run after the Mets had gone into the lead, so neither of Grote's two 8th inning HRs affected the final outcome of either game.

In other words, if you assert on the basis of Grote�s recollection that in 1969 he hit three or four home runs that won games, you will be seriously overstating the case.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Musial grounded to Labine (in the midst of a five-run inning) the only time Clem faced him as a Met.

[Guest iramets]

Edgy DC wrote: Musial grounded to Labine (in the midst of a five-run inning) the only time Clem faced him as a Met.

And drove in a run while doing so.

[Guest iramets]

Edgy DC wrote: If we're going to use facts to debunk the myth, let's try and back up and find the facts that link him to the myth before digging him up and hanging him for it. I likewise think the notion that Bob Ueker wore out Sandy Koufax (he didn't) could be traced to Bob himself, but I don't have it handy.

The fax of Uecker vs. Koufax

1962: 0-for-0
1963: 0-for-1
1964: 0-for-4
1965: 6-for-15
1966: 0-for-9
Total: 6-for-29 , or a shade over .200. Not good, as Edgy says. OTOH, Uecker did have a huge game against Koufax on July 24, 1965�he got a single in the third inning, a HR in the fifth, and most flattering of all, when he faced Koufax in the 8th with two out and a runner on second base with the game tied 2-2, Koufax walked him intentionally. (The Cardinals won it in the 10th on a Willie Davis error.) Outside of this one magnificent effort, however, Uecker sucked hairy moose balls vs. Koufax, as did pretty much everyone else.

[RealityChuck]

MFS62 wrote: Why do I get the feeling that the last surviving member of the 1962 Mets will be Don Zimmer? How ironic will that be. But if you were a fan of the '62 Mets, and Brooklyn, too, it would somehow be appropriate.

More likely, it'll be the guy this forum's named for.