Kessinger entertains local crowd with classic baseball tales

Donnie Kessinger, considered one of the greatest all-round athletes Arkansas has every produced, had a rich career in Major League Baseball and has the stories to prove it.

He gave the Arkansas Sports Club at healthy dose Monday before the second largest crowd (66) in the monthly luncheon's history.

Kessinger, a four-sport star during a run of great athletes from Forrest City in the 1950s and early 1960s, was a baseball and basketball standout at Ole Miss and signed with the Chicago Cubs right out of college and spent less than a year in the minors. Kessinger played for the Cubs, briefly with the St. Louis Cardinals and finished his career as a player-manager for the Chicago White Sox.

He played for some of the worst Cub teams and one of the best and his memory is full of stories about Leo Durocher, the lively manager of the Cubs most of the years Kessinger played for them.

"In my first full years with the Cubs (1965), we were literally not very good; we finished eighth when the National League just had 10 teams," Kessinger said. "At Leo's first press conference, he told the media, 'I guarantee you one thing, we are not an eighth-place team. And he was prophetic. The next year we went out and finished 10th. We sewed up last place on opening day and never looked back."

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He recalled one game in which Durocher wanted to pinch-hit Willie Smith, pretty much a career pinch-hitter for the Cubs.

"Leo was in the dugout and called out, "'Willie Smith, get a bat!'" Nobody moved. 'Willie Smith, get a bat!' Nobody moved. Then, Jim Hickman slowly walked over to Leo and said, "If you really want Willie Smith to hit, we'll get him for you. But he retired two years ago." (Durocher had gotten him confused with Al Spangler, another roster player)."

Durocher, one of the most colorful and quotable managers in baseball history, was known for his fits concerning umpires and umpires' decisions.

Kessinger recalled one afternoon in Los Angeles, where Durocher had a lot of friends, that he was on an umpire from the beginning. In the top of the first, Kessinger said the umpire went to the dugout and told Durocher, "'You're outta here.'

"'I'm not going anyplace,'" Kessinger said Durocher replied.

The umpire then informed Durocher that he had 60 seconds to get out of the dugout or the Cubs would have to forfeit in the top of the first.

Kessinger said Durocher replied, "I know I'm gonna have to stay here at least a minute because you can't see your watch."

One of Kessinger's most memorable moments occurred in September of 1965 in Los Angeles. Hall of Fame lefthander Sandy Koufax was on the mound for the Dodgers.

"Usually, the leadoff batter tries to get a gauge of what kind of stuff the opposing pitcher has," Kessinger said. "Glenn Beckert came back to the dugout and we asked how Koufax was throwing. Beckert said, 'He doesn't have it tonight; we're gonna get him.'"

Koufax pitched a perfect game and struck out the last six batters.

"I have never seen anything like Koufax that night," he said. "He had great curve ball but he threw fastballs to the last six batters and struck them all out.

"We had a pinch-hitter named Harvey Kuenn, who was one of the American League leaders hit hitting for a few years. He went up to pinch-hit in the ninth and told Joey Amalfitano, our on-deck hitter, 'Joey, wait right here, I'll be back in a minute.'

"But the weird part of that game was our pitcher (Bob Hendley) threw a one-hitter and we lost 1-0. It was quick. When we were leaving the stadiium, we met that late-arriving Dodger crowd."

His most embarrassing moments occurred in the top of the first in a game against the Cardinals. He led off with a single and Beckert doubled and the Cubs had runners on second and third with no one out and Billy Williams, one of the best hitters in baseball, coming up.

"Pete Reiser, our third-base coach, made a couple of mistakes," Kessinger said. "His first mistake, when he noticed the third baseman and the first baseman were playing in, was to tell me if Williams hit the ball to use my own judgment. His second mistake was telling Beckert to do what I did."

Williams hit a sharp liner down the first-base line that the Cards' Joe Torre caught while on first base. One out.

"I had decided to head home then about halfway, I realized my judgment was not good," Kessinger said. "I headed back to third and got there very easily but so did Beckert, who had come in from second after I had started home."

A rundown ensured and Kessinger was tagged out heading back to third. Two outs.

As Kessinger was tagged out, he said , "Beckert took off running and shouted to me, 'I'm going back to second but I don't think I'm gonna make it!'" He was tagged out halfway to second. Triple play.

"The worst scene was me and Beckert standing in the middle of the infield trying to figure out which one of us was gonna go back to the dugout and get our gloves and face Durocher," Kessinger said.

He said his biggest disappointment was not being a part of a pennant winner for Cub fans. The Cubs came close in 1969 when they led most of the year before they were overtaken by the Cinderella New York Mets (the eventual World Series champions) the last week of the season.

"We may have had the best team in baseball that year and we went in a funk," he said. "We were 30 games above .500 at one point. But what people forget is the Mets won 38 of their last 45 games. That's impossible but they did it."

While with the Cubs, Kessinger played with three Hall of Famers, Williams (an outfielder) infielder Ernie Banks and pitcher Ferguson Jenkins.

"It was a pleasure to play behind Jenkins," said Kessinger, a shortstop. "When he told you he was going to pitch a guy a certain way, you could take it to the bank. Banks was the greatest ambassador for baseball that baseball has ever seen. He'd come into the clubhhouse saying, 'This is a Cubs day. We're gonna win two even if we were just playing one.'"

He described Williams as the best pure hitter he had ever seen.

"Billy always had good success against Gaylord Perry; I never had any success against Gaylord Perry; I'd always hit a bunch of grounders to the infield," Kessinger said. "He had a pitch he called a super sinker that we called a spitball. The ball would come across the plate awfully wet. I asked Williams how he seemed to hit Perry so well. He told me, 'I just hit it on the dry side.'"

He said one of his great memories came right after he was traded from the Cardinals to the White Sox. In his first game, he was called on as a pinch-runner after Lamar Johhnson doubled.

"In Chicago, with the White Sox and the Cubs, there was no middle ground; you loved one and hated the other," he said. "When I was about to run on the field to pinch run, I didn't know whether I would get shot or booed or what. When I ran out of that dugout, the fans gave me a standing ovation that lasted two minutes and they had to stop the game. Bucky Dent, the shortstop for the Yankees, asked me what I had done to those people. I told him I didn't know but don't say a word."