Always on a sensible budget, of course, because neither of us are J.P. Morgan.
As a collector you find yourself drawn inevitably to a subject or a category of collectibles that are beyond your financial grasp. Oh, how would I love to have an extensive collection of Ernie Lombardi memorabilia? Lombardi single-signed baseballs are practically non-existent and the few known specimens of even modest quality require securing a second mortgage. Onto that bankrupt dream add Lombardi game-used bats or catchers mitts. You sometimes feel like a kid with his face pushed up against a candy store window until W.C. Fields comes along and says "Go away kid, you bother me!"
While the ransom of Croesus variants of memorabilia remain out of reach, sights necessarily are set on the equally interesting yet infinitely more attainable collectibles. This is how I came to be in possession of glassware from Johnny Bench's short-lived Homestretch restaurant [Pro Tip; don't pay more than $15 per glass]. What little may be discerned from the Oracle of the Interwebz, Johnny Bench's Homestretch (located in Florence, KY) survived for approximately 18 months before shuttering. Glassware (and other items) from Johnny Bench's chain of Homeplate restaurants are more plentiful but they do not carry, for me, the value-added combination - dare I say cachet? - of baseball and horse racing. Perhaps I should crowdsource funding to re-open Johnny Bench's Homestretch?
Athlete's owning (or having their names attached to) restaurants and bars is nothing new, locally or nationally. From Joe DiMaggio's in San Francisco to Stan Musial's in St Louis (and elsewhere), well-known baseball players have ventured into the food industry as a means to supplement their post-playing career livelihood. The restaurant industry is known for its high failure rate and maybe without exception all baseball player-connected restaurants have failed after short terms. Johnny Bench's chain of Homeplate restaurants soon followed the Homestretch into the trash compactor and Pete Rose's own 70's era Cincinnati dining establishment folded in short order.
Hopes of a worth-it's-weight-in-gold game-used, autographed Ernie Lombardi baseball bat having long since been dashed, years ago I began collecting those more affordable artifacts pertaining to former Reds first baseman and 4-time All-Star [what is the record for hyphens in a single, probably run-on sentence?], Ted Kluszewski.
Students of Reds history, like Reds fans themselves in the 1950s, marvel at the playing achievements, kind nature, spotless personal character and Paul Bunyan-esque physique of the "Big Klu" (shown, above, towering over some pipsqueak first base coach for..... hmmm..... the Milwaukee Braves?).
Would ya look at the guns on that guy?! Holy Big Red Smokey!
Perusing the vendor tables at RedsFest I came across a menu for Ted Kluszewski's Charcoal Steak House. I had not previously been aware of the existence of said fine dining establishment (or perhaps had forgotten) and so - considering my modest collection of Homestretch tableware and ephemera - naturally I felt myself being drawn toward this piece of Reds player restaurantabilia [note: this doesn't seem to be an actual word]. Printed in the 1960s, I found it to be in surprisingly good - and intact - condition and reasonably priced. Having picked up the menu to inspect its condition I then did not put it down again until I got home later that evening. I had to have it and it was mine!
12-ounce New York Cut Strip Sirloin for $3.95? 1-pound "Man's Size" (gotta love the Swingin' Sixties!) for one dollar more? Filet Mignon for $4.95?! God love Jeff Ruby, I know that I do, but these days you can't hear the sizzle of his Filet Mignon for less than ten-times that amount!
The wine list:
A bottle of "gay, bubbly and delicious" Korbel's Brut for $7.50?! It's "delightful anytime" and at $7.50 a bottle I'd be mighty hide-the-women-and-children delighted myself. Bob Evans' drilled me for almost $3 for a single glass of milk last week.
Cocktail more your style? Room for dessert?
$0.85 for a glass of straight bourbon? A glass of local beer (here I'm imagining a frothy glass of Hudepohl) for two quarters? Dish of ice cream (or sherbet) for $0.35?!
More research will need to be conducted but so far I've discovered evidence of Ted Kluszewski Steak Houses (or sometimes "Steakhouses") sprinkled around the greater Cincinnati area; 27 East Sixth St. (downtown), 1106 East McMillan St., at the Mohawk Motor Inn on Central Parkway, at the Sharon Rd. exit on the North Mill Creek Expressway (Holiday Inn), at the Park Terrace Motel on U.S. Route 40 in Springfield, OH (northeast of Dayton, OH) and in Kentucky on the Dixie Highway in Ft. Mitchell (Holiday Inn, again). While most of what the Information Superhighway turns up references Kluszewski Steak House memorabilia ranging from the late-1950s into the early 1960s, some locations may have survived into the 1970s. Here again, more investigation will be required.
Who knew?
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Travel restrictions during World War 2 meant that the Reds needed to find facilities closer to home in which to conduct Spring Training. From 1943 to 1945 the Redlegs held Spring Training in Bloomington, Indiana on the campus of Indiana University. Attending I.U. then was a two-sport scholar athlete named Theodore Bernard Kluszewski who excelled at baseball.....
.....and American rules football.....
Whether by free choice or by direct order Klu, along with some of his fellow Hoosier student athletes, worked as part of a makeshift grounds crew for the Reds. Legend has it that the Redlegs' head groundskeeper spotted the Big Klu and immediately notified Reds manager Bill McKechnie that he should check out the gentle giant with battleship-class guns who was raking the infield dirt (or chalking the baselines or whatever). Ted signed with the Reds following his 1946 graduation and after a cup of coffee in 1947 was by 1948 the Cincinnati Reds starting first baseman.
Ted Kluszewski played 11 seasons for the Reds, from 1947-57. During that period he was a four-time National League All-Star (1953-56) and three times finished among the Top 10 in N.L. MVP voting. In 1954 the Big Klu led the National League in home runs (49) and RBI (141) but was second in the MVP vote to Willie Mays, the Say Hey Kid. Maybe all that Kluszewki needed was a popular song to put him over the top? Isolating Klu's 11 years in a Reds uniform, he batted .302/.357/.512.
Following the 1957 season Ted was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates where he played a season and a half before again being traded to the Chicago White Sox for the last half of 1959 and all of 1960. Klu played for the expansion team Los Angeles Angels in 1961, retiring at the end of the '61 season.
Kluszewski played in the World Series just once, in 1959 with the White Sox. In six World Series games (25 plate appearances) Klu batted .391/.440/.826 with 3 home runs and 10 RBI.
Ted Kluszewski was not just a great hitter. He led the NL five consecutive seasons in fielding percentage among all first basemen (1951-55), four consecutive seasons (1952-56) Klu led all NL first basemen in double plays turned and ranked first (retroactively) in Range Factor during 1951 (and was Top 5 in Range Factor five different seasons).
If ever you have been granted the sublime honor of my company at a ballgame, or perhaps you've been a long-time subscriber to Heavy Artillery (or the ol' web page prior to that), then you will be familiar with my all-time favorite statistic regarding Ted Kluszewski. Quoting here from Bill James' New Historical Baseball Abstract;
Can you name the last three players to hit 40 or more homers in a season with 40 or fewer strikeouts? Ted Kluszewski, 1953, Ted Kluszewski, 1954, and Ted Kluszewski, 1955. Altogether it's been done seven times - Mel Ott, 1929, Lou Gehrig, 1934, Joe DiMaggio, 1937, Johnny Mize, 1948 and three times by Kluszewski.
The Big Klu retired having played 15 seasons in the Big Leagues. His lifetime "slash line" stats (batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage commonly presented with slashes dividing them) are .298/.353/.498. On the surface those numbers appear to be good enough for serious Hall of Fame consideration. For comparison, in 2009 the Hall of Fame inducted former Red Sox outfielder Jim Rice (1975-89) who retired with a slash line of .298/.352/.502. A superficial scan of comparable Hall of Fame slash lines reveals the following:
Ted Kluszewski .298/.353/.498
Jim Rice .298/.352/.502
Orlando Cepeda .297/.350/.499
Ivan Rodriguez .296/.334/.464
Billy Williams .290/.361/.492
Eddie Murray .287/.359/.476
Yogi Berra .285/.348/.482
Carl Yastrzemski .285/.379/.462
Dave Winfield .283/.353/.475
Andre Dawson .279/.323/.482
Tony Perez .279/.341/.463
To be fair, there is an obvious bit of apples and oranges in that list. Due to a host of reasons it's generally not fair to compare the batting achievements of corner infielders and outfielders with those of middle infielders or catchers, and you can see there are two catchers on that list (Rodriguez and Berra [although Yogi did play some outfield late in his career]). Due to the physical rigors of the position, catchers play fewer games than other position players and are more often to be playing hurt than, say, a first baseman or left fielder. Otherwise, that is a list of outfielders and first basemen. Let's continue with a few more corner infielders/outfielders:
Ted Kluszewski .298/.353/.498
George Brett .305/.369/.487
Jackie Robinson .311/.409/.474
Kirby Puckett .318/.360/.477
Ernie Banks .274/.330/.500
When looking at Hall of Fame averages among all position players (infielders, outfielders and catchers):
Klu batting average .298
HOF batting average .302
Klu OBP .353
HOF OBP .376
Klu SLG .498
HOF SLG .463
Ted Kluszewski has a higher batting average than 81 of the 156 Hall of Fame position players, a higher on-base percentage than 35 of the 156 Hall of Fame position players and a higher slugging percentage than 115 of the 156 Hall of Fame position players. Here is a brief list of the Hall of Famer "sluggers" with a lower career slugging percentage than the Big Klu:
Reggie Jackson
George Brett
Yogi Berra
Andre Dawson
Al Kaline
Johnny Bench
Eddie Murray
Tony Perez
Ryne Sandberg
There are 500 Home Run Club guys and All-Century Team players on that list. Double that when you include the other 4 players (cited by Bill James, above) who hit 40 or more home runs in a season with 40 or fewer strikeouts. So, you might be asking:
Why isn't Ted Kluszewski in the Hall of Fame?
Then the realization hits you, this must be the point where Mr Heavy Artillery pummels me into submission with his aggressive, combative arguments in favor of the Big Klu being a Hall of Famer.
If you find yourself thinking this, I'm sorry to say, you're wrong.
Two factors work against Klu, one that would be evident to students of the game outside of Reds Country and one factor that is more likely to be known only to Reds fans from the Crosley Field era of Redlegs baseball.
Let's examine the latter, first.
1) During the early years of Ted Kluszewski's playing days with the Reds, from 1947-1951, the distance down the right field line at Crosley Field was 366 feet [today at Great American Ball Park the distance from home plate to the right field corner is a scant 325 feet]. For a left handed (primarily) pull hitter like the Big Klu - even with his massive guns - it was difficult to juice one good enough to get it to fly into the Sun/Moon Deck. Ted's season-by-season home runs totals from 1948-1951 were 12, 8, 25, 13. During Willie Mays' first four (full) seasons for the New York Giants he belted 20, 41, 51, 36. The Crosley Field handicap placed Kluszewski nearly 100 home runs behind the pace of Willie Mays after each had four full seasons in the Bigs. Afterward, the Reds shortened the right field line to 342 feet - still quite a poke by modern standards - and from 1953 through 1956 the Big Klu blasted 40, 49, 47, 35 bombs.
What a difference those 24 feet made for Kluszewski.
Beginning in 1958, his age 33 season and embarking upon his post-Reds playing career, Klu only once more batted double-digit home runs in a season (15 for the Angels in 1961). While still hitting for a good average during those years - he batted over .290 in '58 and '60 - his slugging dropped suddenly and precipitously. Ted's career total of 279 home runs lags well behind that of Hall of Fame sluggers.
2) Ted Kluszewski's playing career didn't have the longevity of many (most, really) of the Hall of Fame's sluggers. If you review the list of "comparables" (above) from Jim Rice to Ernie Banks they all played more years than Klu's 15 seasons save for two; Kirby Puckett (12 seasons) whose career ended prematurely when he went blind in one eye and Jackie Robinson (10 seasons) who spent his early years playing in the Negro League. Yaz, Brett, Winfield and Tony Perez played for 21, 22 or 23 seasons. Perez played into his age 44 season, a point at which Ted Kluszewski had been retired for 8 years. As such, when trying to compare Klu's lifetime slash line to, say, that of Tony Perez one should - and doubtless Hall of Fame voters did so - attempt to formulate some natural regression of performance beyond the age of Klu's retirement at 36 years old which puts Klu onto something of a more equal footing with those Hall of Fame players having more longevity. Observing Klu's steep drop in home runs it would be hard to extrapolate many more career homers for him up to age 40 and beyond yet it's easier to assume his slash line would see some degree of more significant erosion, especially in lifetime slugging percentage.
Ted Kluszewski also saw 6 of his 15 seasons attaining fewer than 400 plate appearances. Perhaps this hurt Klu's Hall of Fame chances as much as anything. He simply did not have nearly as many opportunities to hit home runs or drive in runs as did so many Hall of Fame sluggers. Ted ended his playing career with 6,469 plate appearances. Our list of "comparables," above?
Klu 6,469
Rice 9,058
Cepeda 8,698
Rodriguez 10,270
B. Williams 10,519
Murray 12,817
Yogi 8,359
Yaz 13,992
Winfield 12,358
Dawson 10,769
Perez 10,861
Brett 11,625
Robinson 5,804
Puckett 7,831
Banks 10,394
As of this writing, the Hall of Fame has enshrined 24 first basemen. When you eliminate those players who played part or all of their careers in the Negro Leagues (and whose Negro League statistics are not counted among Major League records) and when you also eliminate those players who played part or all of their careers in the 19th century when the game was significantly different and additionally when you eliminate "High Pockets" Kelly and "Sunny" Jim Bottomley who both sneaked into the Hall of Fame thanks to the HOF's Veterans Committee you're left with 14 Hall of Fame first basemen (alphabetically):
Ernie Banks
Rod Carew
Orlando Cepeda
Jimmie Foxx
Lou Gehrig
Hank Greenberg
Harmon Killebrew
Willie McCovey
Johnny Mize
Eddie Murray
Tony Perez
George Sisler
Bill Terry
Frank Thomas
Ted Kluszewski was good. He was excellent for a few seasons. Rightfully he is a legend in Cincinnati. But Lou Gehrig or Jimmie Foxx or Ernie Banks or Frank Thomas or Bill Terry he ain't.
In fact, among all Hall of Fame position players when you eliminate the 19th century guys, the Negro Leaguers, those who lost years to military service, those who died (Ross Youngs) or were paralyzed (Roy Campanella) during their careers or were sneaked into the Hall by their cronies on the old Veterans Committee you end up with one - just one - Hall of Famer with fewer games played and fewer plate appearances than Ted Kluszewski..... left fielder Ralph Kiner who played five fewer seasons than Klu.
Klu .298/.353/.498 279 HR 1,028 RBI
Kiner .279/.398/.548 369 HR 1,015 RBI
Ted Kluszewski's Hall of Fame vote total reached its peak in his final year of eligibility, 1981, at just 14% of the vote (75% is needed for induction).
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In 1969 Ted Kluszewski returned to the Reds as a coach. Klu served as the Reds hitting coach during the Big Red Machine's back-to-back World Championships in 1975 & 1976.
Ted Kluszewski retained his legion of fans over the years due in part to his playing exploits but also because he was universally known to be a warm, kind, and decent human being who maintained a visible presence in Cincinnati. In August of 1976, Cincinnati magazine ran an article titled "Me and Mom and Ted Kluszewski" which illustrates this point as well as anything I've found while researching elements for inclusion here. Have the tissue box handy.
As a tribute to Ted go to Cincinnati sometime this summer, patronize one of the city's leading steakhouses, order yourself a "Man's Size" steak, pair it with a local beer or cocktail or a gay, bubbly glass of champagne, save room for dessert, punch up this Heavy Artillery post on your mobile device and have a conversation with your table mates about the great baseball career of the Big Klu and the wonderful human being that was Ted Kluszewski.
Afterwards, don't light up. It's not good for you.
Roll the credits!
