Solly Hemus

Baseball career

As a player (1949–59) with the St. Louis Cardinals and Philadelphia Phillies, Hemus was primarily a shortstop, although he also saw significant time as a second baseman. He compiled a lifetime batting average of .273 in 961 games and collected 736 hits, with 51 home runs. He batted left-handed and threw right-handed, stood 5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) tall and weighed 165 pounds (75 kg).

Hemus was a hard-nosed player known for battling with opponents and umpires. When he was traded to the Phillies in May 1956, Hemus wrote a letter to Cardinals owner August "Gussie" Busch, expressing his pride in being a Cardinal and his gratitude to the baseball club. Nearing the end of his playing career, he was reacquired by the Cardinals on September 29, 1958—one day after the 1958 season ended—and named the St. Louis player-manager by Busch, who admired Hemus' fiery personality and remembered his letter from 2½ years before.

As a player in 1959, Hemus appeared in 24 games—mostly as a pinch-hitter—before concentrating on his managerial responsibilities. His Cardinals were inconsistent. Hemus' first club lost 15 of its first 20 games and stumbled to a seventh place (71–83) finish in 1959. That was followed by a 15-game improvement (86–68) and a leap to third place in his second season (1960). The Redbirds followed with mediocre start in 1961 and were mired in sixth place in July (at 33–41) when Hemus was replaced by one of his coaches, Johnny Keane. His career major league managing record was 190–192 (.497).

Hemus then served as a coach with the New York Mets (1962–63) and Cleveland Indians (1964–65). He was on manager Casey Stengel's coaching staff when the 1962 Mets expansion team ended up with a record of 40-120, still the most losses by a Major League team in a single season since the nineteenth century. He managed the Mets' top farm club, the Jacksonville Suns of the AAA International League, in 1966 before leaving baseball and entering the oil business in his adopted home city of Houston, Texas.

During his tenure in Philadelphia, Hemus made history when he was removed for pinch runner John Kennedy at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City, New Jersey, during a league game against the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 22, 1957. It marked the Major League debut of Kennedy, the first African-American player in the Phillies' history. Coincidentally, in 2011 Hall-of-Famer Bob Gibson indicated that racial prejudice on Hemus' part had intruded on his later role as the Cards' manager when Hemus disparaged both Gibson and teammate Curt Flood by telling them they were not good enough to make it as Major Leaguers and should try something else. Hemus' replacement, Keane, was a Gibson supporter who had managed the pitcher in the minor leagues.