Atlanta Braves add Joe Adcock to the Braves Hall of Fame

Atlanta Braves Alumni weekend includes the induction of three individuals into the Braves Hall of Fame. Today we remember Joe Adcock.

Fans look at Atlanta Braves sluggers like Austin Riley and marvel at how far he hits the ball, but over the years, many power hitters called the Braves “home”. None of them hit the ball harder, drove it farther, or were more fearless at the plate than Joe Adcock.

Big Joe

Adcock’s SABR biography tells us that his first love was basketball. He attended LSU because he wanted to play basketball and was good enough that he was offered a contract to play pro basketball his junior year.

Adcock was watching the baseball team practice and was drafted onto the team because they were short of players.

“I’d never worn spikes. I’d never had a uniform. I never played a game with nine men on a side.

He was, however, a quick study and soon became both adept at playing first base and a powerful right-handed hitter, attracting scouts throughout his junior year when he helped the Tigers win the Southeastern Conference championship.

Reds Paul Florence signed him in 1947 and sent him to A-Ball in the Sally League. He was promoted to AA in 1949 and crushed pitching there, batting .298/.347/.485/.832 and hitting 19 homers.

Adcock was 22 when he broke in with the Reds in 1950, but the Reds had a power-hitting first baseman and experimented with Adcock — who had never worn a fielders glove — in the outfield. His defense would have made Marcell Ozuna look like Jason Heyward; it was a disaster, and injuries to Adcock’s knees and legs compounded the problem.

Adcock became an unhappy player, so the Reds decided to move him.  In February 1953, the Reds traded Adcock to the Braves in one of the most convoluted deals baseball’s ever seen involving four teams, five players, the Phillies sending money to the Braves… don’t ask.

Adcock settled in as the Milwaukee Braves’ first baseman and set about scaring pitchers and destroying baseballs. According to his SABR biography, Adcock hit his first homer for the Braves off Giants righty Jim Hearn. Remember this… there’s a test later.

His blast landed ten rows up on the left side of the center-field bleachers, 475 feet from home plate: the first ball hit there since the ballpark opened in 1923. This link shows how the ballpark looked at that time.

He followed that with a homer against the Pirates that cleared the 457-foot sign in Forbes Field.

Record setter

In 1954, Adcock became the eighth hitter to crush four homers in a game — one homer off each Dodger pitcher he saw — and set an all-time record of 18 total bases in a game. In the next game, Dodger pitcher Clem Labine beaned Adcock, cracking his batting helmet.

In the next series against the Dodgers, he hit his ninth homer of the season in Ebbets Field, the most for any visiting player. The next day Don Newcomb hit him and broke Adcock’s thumb.

Remember Jim Hearn?  In 1955, two years after Adcock embarrassed Hearn with that monster home run. Hearn hit Adcock, breaking his wrist and ending his season.

Braves fans who remember how they felt when Aaron Loup broke Freddie Freeman’s wrist in 2017 will know exactly how Milwaukee Braves fans felt.

Ask about getting hit so often; Adcock’s answer was straightforward.

“You’ve got to make up your mind – do you run away from pitches or stay in there and hit? There are a dozen different stances but I’ve got to use the one that’s natural for me and stay in there.”

Braves first basemen own Brooklyn and Queens.

Joe Adcock owned the Dodgers and the Giants. In June 1956, Adcock hit his record-setting 13th home run against Brooklyn, over the center field walk at the 365-foot mark, and landed 83 above the wall onto the double-deck roof of Ebbets Field.

In July, Adcock was on a home run rampage, hitting 15 homers and driving in 36 runs. Giants pitcher Ruben Gomez decided Adcock needed a lesson and hit Adcock on the wrist. Adcock hadn’t done anything that day to warrant a reprisal and considered it head-hunting. Then, as they say, the fight started… or would have had Gomez not run like a rabbit. Adcock’s SABR bio describes the scene that followed.

In the ensuing melee, Gomez threw another ball at Adcock, striking him in the leg. Adcock then chased Gomez into the Giants’ dugout, where by some accounts, Gomez found an ice pick but was wrestled to the ground by teammates before he could return to confront Adcock. Two days later, Adcock took revenge by clouting two home runs, including one of his ten career grand slams, and driving in a career-high eight runs in a 13-3 Braves victory.

Pain? What pain?

The Braves rewarded Adcock with a two-year, $50K deal, a highly unusual contract for 1957. However,  Adcock’s injury demon returned; he was batting .306/.349/.562/.911 when he tore the ligaments in his knee.

Atlanta Braves fans will remember what that looks like and how long it took Ronald Acuna Jr. to return. However, it was 1955, and Adcock returned to the lineup as a pinch hitter three days later, entered the game at first base in the ninth inning the next day, and started the game at first base on June 5, ten days after he tore his injury.

Adcock tried to play through his injury but went on the disabled list at the end of June, missing July and August. In what I consider an amazing act of strength and endurance, Adcock appeared in 34 games after tearing up his knee, hit eight homers, five doubles, and a triple, and batted .261/.353/.511/.864.

Joe played in five World Series games and drove in the run that beat lefty Whitey Ford 1-0 in game six as the Braves claimed their first World Championship since 1914.

League Champs again, but no cigar.

Recurring knee issues – no surprise there – forced Adcock to platoon with Frank Torre at first base over the next three years. Adcock hit 19 home runs, batted .275/.317/.506/.823 and finished 22nd in NL MVP voting in 1958, and batted .308 in the World Series,

Only three men played at least 1000 games at first base and hit 200 home runs between 1953 and 1961. New Hall of Famer Gil Hodges, Joe Adcock, and Ted Kluszewski. Statistics from Stathead.

Hodges had a much longer career.

Adcock continued to mash over the next four seasons, hitting 25, 25, 35, and 29 homers. After posting a .757 OPS in 1953, Adcock consistently posted an OPS of .807 or more.

And one more record

When the Milwaukee Braves squared off against the Cincinnati Reds on June 8, 1961, the Reds were leading the NL, with the Braves in seventh place, 13 games behind them.  Entering the top of the seventh, the Reds led 10-2.

Frank Bolling singled to lead off the inning and what happened next made baseball history.

Eddie Mathews homered to right off of starter Jim Maloney. Henry Aaron said I can do that too, and hit one to left.

The Reds decided Maloney might be tired and brought Marshall Bridges in to face Adcock, who promptly crushed a homer to dead center field, and Frank Thomas followed with a homer of his own, once again to center field.

For some reason, Joe Torre didn’t join the homer parade, but the Milwaukee Braves had just become the first team to hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back homers in a game. The Braves lost, but only Reds fans remember that part.

When Aaron, Adcock, Mathews, and Thomas hung up their spike, they had a total of 1,889 homers. The total would have reached 1890 had Aaron not left the field after an Adcock walk-off homer in another game, causing Adcock to be called out for passing the runner.