The All-Time Jacksonville Team: For Hoyt Wilhelm, everything always turned out just fine
When Jacksonville faced off against Akron in the “Legends Begin at Home” virtual MLB The Show simulation featuring each club’s all-time best alumni, all but one player on the Jumbo Shrimp’s roster came from the club’s modern era (1962-present), with Henry Aaron understandably being that exception. But what if we included players dating back to the 1904 Jacksonville Jays, which jumpstarted professional baseball in Northeast Florida? How much, if it all, would the roster change in picking the best possible lineup of players who suited up for Jacksonville on their big league journey?
Legends Begin at Home selections: Dan Quisenberry, Andrew Miller, Francisco Cordero
Our options: Hoyt Wilhelm (46.8 bWAR/27.3 fWAR), Dan Quisenberry (24.6 bWAR/14.5 fWAR), Andrew Miller (7.7 bWAR/12.6 fWAR) and Francisco Cordero (16.9 bWAR/12.3 fWAR)
You would think that the relief position for our All-Time Jacksonville team would be one that the Legends Begin at Home era (1962-present) would cover; bullpens have become more and more important since about the 1980s, and relievers were not exactly a key component in building a ballclub in baseball’s so-called Golden Age (1920–1960). There is one exception to that, and with apologies to the great and underrated career of Dan Quisenberry, Hoyt Wilhelm is the clear and obvious centerpiece for our All-Jacksonville Team.
It is amazing and entirely coincidental that each of the two knuckleball pitchers in the Hall of Fame, Wilhelm and Phil Niekro, pitched in Jacksonville in the minor leagues during their rise to The Show. Wilhelm’s story is particularly interesting; he was never considered a “prospect,” had an integral point in his career completely wiped away and somehow found a way into making his major league debut in 1952 during his age-29 season with the New York Giants. He promptly led the National League in ERA (2.43), ERA+ (152) and appearances (71) and went 15–3 to finish fourth in the MVP voting*. Wilhelm also homered in his very first MLB at-bat.
*Wilhelm came in second in the Rookie of the Year balloting to Dodgers right-hander Joe Black, who finished third in the MVP balloting. Hank Sauer won the MVP Award with future Hall of Famer Robin Roberts taking second. Jackie Robinson came in seventh and Stan Musial registered fifth, with each posting a higher yet-to-be-invented WAR than Sauer.
One of 11 children growing up on a farm in Huntersville, North Carolina, Wilhelm claimed he learned the knuckleball after seeing a picture of Washington Senators knuckleballer Dutch Leonard. After messing around with it while playing with friends, he began throwing it consistently at Cornelius High School in North Carolina. The knuckler was pretty good almost instantaneously; Wilhelm earned a scholarship to Davidson College, but passed on it to sign with the Mooresville Moors of the unaffiliated Class D North Carolina State League.
After going 10–3 with a 4.25 ERA in 1942 for the Moors, Wilhelm was drafted into the Army. He served three years, saw combat in Europe and ultimately earned a Purple Heart for wounds he received at the Battle of the Bulge.
When he returned to the United States, Wilhelm continued pitching for Mooresville, posting two solid seasons in 1946 and 1947. But by this time, the knuckleballer was about to turn 25 and was pitching in the lowest levels of the minor leagues. A Charlotte newspaper actually reported “Wilhelm is never going any place. He throws like a washer-woman.” The big leagues seemed a far-off pipe dream for Wilhelm.
Somewhat improbably, the Giants drafted Wilhelm and sent him to Class B Knoxville for the 1948 season. He posted 13–9 with a 3.62 ERA in 189.0 innings to earn a promotion to Class A Jacksonville of the South Atlantic League. Things did not quite go too well for Wilhelm on the First Coast, where he was battered for 11 runs, 10 earned, on 18 hits in 11.0 innings. However, when he returned to Jacksonville for the 1949 campaign, Wilhelm improved to a 17–12 mark and 2.66 ERA.
The right-hander ultimately earned a promotion to Triple-A Minneapolis for the 1950 and ’51 seasons, posting decent, yet not spectacular ERAs of 4.95 and 3.94, respectively. Still, he was about to turn 29 years old and was a career minor leaguer not quite standing out amongst the masses.
Again, Wilhelm enjoyed a massive stroke of luck. He impressed Giants manager Leo Durocher so much in Spring Training that Wilhelm made the big-league team out of camp. With a strong starting rotation already in place from a squad that had won the 1951 NL Pennant, Durocher opted to place Wilhelm in the bullpen, rationalizing his move by saying “The knuckler can fool ’em for four or five innings, even if Wilhelm doesn’t have the hard stuff to go nine.”
Outside of the 1959 season in which Wilhelm made 27 starts out 32 appearances and led baseball with a 2.19 ERA for the Baltimore Orioles, “Old Sarge” was mainly a fixture in the bullpen from his MLB debut in 1952 until he was released in the midst of the 1972 campaign at the age of 49. He was selected as an All-Star eight times, won the ERA title twice, helped the Giants win the 1954 World Series and posted a career 2.52 ERA in 2,254.1 innings over 1,070 MLB games (52 starts). Ted Williams, arguably the greatest hitter of all-time, thought so highly of Wilhelm that he said, “Don’t let anybody tell you they saw a better knuckleball than Wilhelm’s.” It was a stellar career that ultimately earned Wilhelm induction in 1985 as the first relief pitcher into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
There are three bits of wonderful nuggets in Wilhelm’s extraordinary career. Over Wilhelm’s first 16 MLB seasons (1952–1967), his team led its league in passed balls in every year except the 1953 campaign.
When Wilhelm died in 2002, his death certificate revealed that his birth date was actually July 26, 1922, not the July 26, 1923 that had been presumed for the entirety of his career. It is ironic that “Old Sarge” was actually older than known for the length of his entire career, meaning his MLB debut actually came during his age-30 season, and Wilhelm did not finish pitching until he was five days shy of 50 years old.
Perhaps the best story, though, comes from when Wilhelm was pitching for Jacksonville. The club, then known as the Tars, was playing in a game in Columbus, Georgia when Wilhelm spotted a beautiful woman in the stands. He asked a vendor for her phone number and called to ask her on a date.
Wilhelm and Peggy Reeves dated for the next three years, seeing each other whenever Wilhelm was able to make it to Columbus. They were married in September of 1951 until Hoyt’s death in 2002. They could not have known what was to come, but in the end, it worked out perfectly. That’s what Hoyt Wilhelm’s life was all about.
