Preacher Roe: Forgotten Boy of Summer

Elwin Charles Roe was born on February 26th, 1916, in Ash Flat Arkansas. He was one of seven children born to Dr. Charles Roe and his wife, Elizabeth. Dr. Roe was a right-handed pitcher, who played semi-pro ball until he passed 60.

He once formed a team with his six sons, his son in law, a grandson and himself to play against 9 men who were running for sheriff. Another Arkansas major leaguer, Marlin Stuart, claimed to have lost games to father and son 25 years apart.

How did Elwin become Preacher? There are a couple of stories. One, his uncle Bathis, his dads only brother, asked him what his name was and he replied, Preacher. And it stuck. Two, when he was little, he was an nasty little cuss, and his grandmother called him that hoping he would grow up to be one. Three, maybe it was because of the Methodist minister with his horse and buggy. They did not have any children and they took him with them everywhere. His mother thought he wanted to be called Preacher.

Whatever the reason, the nickname would stick with him the rest of his life. The kid could throw like pure heat. In college and American Legion ball, he would strike out 16 and walk 17. In one game against Arkansas Tech, he struck out 26 in a 13 inning game. Some sources say the game was only 11 innings.

He was spotted by Cardinals scout Frank Rickey, Branch’s brother, and he signed him. He used part of his 5000 bonus to buy uniforms for the Harding college team. He was one semester short of his degree in 1938. He also married his longtime girlfriend, Mozee Vida Clay.

Roe was called up to the Cardinals late in the 38 season. On August 22, fellow Aransinian, Lon Warnecke, took him into the clubhouse to teach him how to dip snuff. Frank Frisch, picked that moment to send him into his first game with the Cardinals trailing the Reds, 5-2 in the fifth inning. He gave up 4 runs in 2 innings in his debut.

He then disappeared into the Cardinal farm system for the next 5 years. He played on a Columbus team that won three straight Junior World Series, 41-43. His manager, Burt Shotton, said he was fast as hell, and wilder than any human he had ever seen.

Frisch became the manager of the Pirates and he traded two young major leaguers, pitcher, Johnny Podgajny, and outfielder, Johnny Wyrostek and cash for Roe. Roe pitched the opener and lost 2-0 to the Cardinals when Max Lanier held the Pirates to two hits. Roe got one of the hits, but he was usually hapless at the plate.

For most of the year he was sweating out his draft status. But he was declared unfit for duty due to a back injury suffered when a tree fell on him the previous winter. He went 13-11 with a 3.11 ERA.

The press at this time was presenting him as a hick in the city. And to his credit, Roe played the part, using his southern drawl and seemingly hick ways to approach the game.

But the man was really well educated and taught high school math in the off season. Pitching against weak wartime competition, he led the league in strikeouts in 45, going 14-13 and lowering his ERA to 2.87. He made the All-Star team, but the game was not played due to wartime travel restrictions. Measured by wins above replacement, he was the game’s best pitcher. At age 29, it seemed like he was on his way to a stellar career.

In the offseason, he also coached girls and boys basketball at Hardy High School. In February of 1946, he disputed a ref’s call and the ref slugged him. He banged his head on the floor and suffered a concussion. He reported to spring training late and then only completed one of his ten starts, with an ERA of 5.14. He went home in August, he was weak and could not fight through the headaches and dizziness.

During that time, catcher Al Lopez, helped him change his delivery and his position on the rubber. 47 was not any better, he finished with a 4-15 mark, a 5.25 ERA and just four complete games. But if you look closely, you see that the Pirates scored no more than 2 runs in 10 of those losses. Branch Rickey, now running the Dodgers, was watching closely.

After the season, Rickey traded Dixie Walker, Vic Lombardi and Hal Gregg, to the Pirates for Roe, Billy Cox and Gene Mauch. The backstory is Walker asked to be traded because he did not want to play on the same team as Jackie Robinson. In fact several players had signed a petition saying they did not want to play with a Negro ballplayer. One notable exception, Kentuckian Pee Wee Reese.

Roe was now healthy, but his fastball had not returned. He could throw it maybe four or five times a game. One day Durocher was catching his new pitcher and a pitch got away from him. “What was that?” Roe replied, “a slider”.

Leo knew better. Roe had decided it was time to break in the spitter he had learned in the minors. Campy told him there was no use for a sign, he had caught plenty of them in the Negro leagues and knew one when he saw it.

When the hitters caught on, he would simply throw another pitch going through the same motions. The batters, expecting the wet one, would be surprised by a mediocre fastball. To load up his spitter, Roe would reach for the bill of his cap and spit into his hand. He would then tug on his belt, and transfer the moisture to his fingertips.

Preacher was 32 when he joined Brooklyn. He became successful and famous. He cut his ERA in half to 2.63. He led the league in fewest walks per 9 innings and he was 12-8. Burt Shotton replaced the suspended Leo Durocher in July, and said he did not look like the same pitcher.

In 49, Newcombe joined the team beginning the Boys of Summer, Snider, Jackie, Campy, Newk, Pee Wee, Hodges, Furillo and Erskine. I always felt Roe was a forgotten member of that group. Of course, he was much older than the rest.

The Dodgers battled the Cardinals all year. They finally overcame the Cardinal lead and clinched the pennant on the final day of the season. Roe did his part, 15-6 with a 2.70 ERA and the league’s best strikeout to walk ratio, 2.5. He made the first of four consecutive All-Star selections as a Dodger.

Newcombe started the first game of the series, and lost a nail biter to Allie Reynolds, 1-0 on Henrichs ninth inning homer. Roe started game 2 against Raschi. His parents were in the stands, it was the first time his mother had ever seen him pitch.

The Dodgers scored in the second on a double by Robinson and a two-out single by Hodges. Roe worked out of a couple jams caused by errors by Reese and Hodges. But in the fourth inning, he took a line drive by Lindell off of his finger on his glove hand. It took half the nail off of his ring finger.

The team doctor drilled a hole in the nail to relieve the swelling. Roe pitched the rest of the game with a bandaged and throbbing finger. He later learned it was broken. He pitched a six hitter. Only one Yankee reached third base in his 1-0 win.

It would be the only game the Dodgers would win. He was unable to start game 5 because his finger was so swollen. Six Dodger pitchers got pounded for 10 runs, and the series was over.

The Dodgers battled until the last game of the season again in 1950, this time against Philadelphia’s Whiz Kids. They were beaten on the last day on a three run homer by Dick Sisler. Roe and Newcombe were both 19-11, but Roe had a 3.30 ERA, the best on the team. But he gave up 34 home runs, tied for the league lead with Ken Raffensburger, another junk throwing lefty.

Long balls were his weakness because he refused to give in to hitters. “I would rather take a chance on a homer, because there is no defense for a walk.”

Preacher threw a fastball, change-up, curve and a slider. He never mentioned the spitball, but the hitters did. Stan Musial, who hit 12 homers off of Roe, by far the most by any one hitter, said he always tried to avoid getting two-strikes because he knew that the spitter was coming.

Players called the pitch a Beech-Nut curve after his favorite brand of chewing gum. When a batter complained and asked the ump to check the ball, Roe would roll it to the plate. Or if the umpire asked Campy for the ball, he would drop it on the ground and step on it to erase the evidence.

He once said, ” I would aim for the corners, never throwing the same pitch twice or what the hitter was expecting.” One day he threw a fastball past a hitter for strike three, the hitter yelled, ” that’s the last fastball you’ll ever throw by me!” ” That’s the last one I’ll ever throw you!” Roe replied. The next time up, Roe worked the count to 0-2, and then threw another fastball for strike three. That caused a distasteful attitude among the hitters, according to Roe. ” All them batters are suspicious, none of them believes Ol ‘Preach anymore!”

Roe and his family spent the summers in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn, where many of the Dodgers lived. But each winter they would head home. Roe moved his family to West Plains, Missouri, about 50 miles from his hometown.

The nearby town of Salem Arkansas asked Roe for help to raise money and install lights on the local baseball field. A local bank agreed to a loan for the lights as long as Roe would pitch one exhibition game to raise funds each fall. One year, a teenager playing center field ran down a long fly ball. Roe asked the kids’ name. He was Bill Virdon, a star player for West Plains High School. Virdon would later become the ROY in 1954 with the Cardinals. He would also manage for 12 years in the majors.

“I knew right away when I saw that kid run down that fly ball that he warnt no farmer!” The field where the lights were installed was later named Preacher Roe Park.

In 1951, Preacher went 22-3. An .880 winning percentage which is still a major league record for a 20 game winner. He had a 3.04 ERA that year. But for the Dodgers, it was a heartbreaking season. They blew a 13 game lead in August and September, finished in a tie with the Giants and lost the three game playoff.

Roe started fast in 51, winning his first seven games. But Dressen started pacing him. Giving him four full days off between starts. The reporters called it a disappointing season because he won only 11 games. He made 27 starts. He lost 2 and had a 3.14 ERA with 8 complete games.

The Dodgers won the pennant and faced the Yankees in the series. They split the first two games, then Roe started game three. He held the Yankees to six hits, two of them homers by Berra and Mize. He walked five, but the Dodgers held on to win 5-3. He was used in relief the last two games of the series, but the Yankees prevailed.

In 53, it was more of the same, he started 24 games, but at age 37, he knew his career was winding down. His ERA climbed to 4.36, but he won 11 again and lost only 3 on a team that won 105 games. He got one more shot at the Yankees in game two of the series against another junk balling lefty, Eddie Lopat.

The Dodgers led 2-1 in the 7th inning. They had touched Lopat for 8 hits, the Yanks had 2 off of Roe. Billy Martin led off the seventh with a homer to tie the score. Roe said he hit a high curveball,” the biggest mistake since they invented buttermilk.” Roe would say.  In the 8th, Bauer singled and Mantle hit a ball that was below his knees into the left field seats for the eventual game winner. The Yanks won the series in six games.

In 1954, he was bothered by arm and leg problems, he only appeared in 15 games, going 3-4. The Dodgers nevertheless included him in a trade with Billy Cox to Baltimore for a couple of minor leaguers and 50 grand. Preacher announced his retirement and the Orioles could not talk him out of it. The trade stood and Preacher went home.

Preacher Roe and Johnny Podres

Years after he was left paralyzed, Roy Campanella called Roe the best pitcher he ever worked with. ” He was a guy who knew what he was doing every minute of every game.” When Roe’s spitball confession appeared in Sports Illustrated in 1955, some of the sportswriters who built his reputation called him a cheat. But others pointed out he was not the only one with wet fingers.

He was paid 2000 dollars for the story. He said he did it because he wanted to see the spitter legalized. Ford Frick, the commissioner, and AL President Joe Cronin agreed with him. The baseball rules committee did not.

Not long after he retired, he drove Mozee to the grocery store to buy groceries and he chatted with the owner while she shopped. When she got to the checkout counter, he told her, ” Just push them out, they’re ours, I just bought the store.”

He called the store in West Plains Preacher Roe’s Super Market and ran it for two decades . He coached youth baseball and was active in the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club, and his church. He was honored by the company when they named one of their main streets, Preacher Roe Blvd.

Roe would later be elected to the NAIA Hall of Fame and the Arkansas Hall of Fame. His memoir, When Baseball Was Still A Game, was published in 2005. 32.86 on Ebay.

Preacher also attended more than 20 Fantasy camps at Vero Beach. He quit when his wife got ill, but returned after she passed in 2002. In one of his last appearances at a camp, he told the campers this. ” Now fellows, I want to leave you with this. Live every day like it was your last because one day, you are going to be right.

Roe passed away on November 9th, 2008, from complications of colon cancer. He was 92. Unless you are familiar with Brooklyn Dodger history, he is easily overlooked.

But here are some of his standings on the All-Time Dodger list. WAR 19th with 25.1. Higher than Newcombe, Jansen and several others. ERA 49th. Wins 23rd with 93.  Won-Lost Pct. 3rd. .715. Only Greinke and Buehler are higher.  Strikeouts. 42nd. Higher than Gagne, Greinke, Astacio, Lowe and Pena. He is in the top 30 with 173 starts.

Yes, he was an underrated and valuable member of the Dodgers.

Pee Wee, Jackie, and Preacher