Billy Pierce 1927-2015 |

Billy Pierce

Billy Pierce, one of the game’s top pitchers during the 1950s, has died at the age of 88. Pierce debuted as a teenage fill-in for the Tigers in 1945 before moving on to the White Sox where he spent most of his career, teaming up in 1959 with Early Wynn and Dick Donovan to lead the Pale Hose to their first AL championship in 40 years. Pierce would finish his playing days with the Giants and play a key role in San Francisco’s pennant-winning season in 1962.

More on Pierce after the jump.

Pierce did not play organized baseball until high school, and then only when prevailed upon to try out after his school’s (Highland Park High in Detroit) pitcher transferred to another school (reportedly because they had better-looking uniforms). Pierce first gained notoriety in his junior year when selected to the East squad at the 1944 “All-American Boys Baseball Game” (Richie Ashburn played on the West team; Connie Mack and Carl Hubbell were the managers), pitching six shutout innings at the Polo Grounds in an 8-0 East win. Pierce signed with his hometown Tigers and made the team coming out of spring training to start the 1945 season. The 18 year-old Pierce hardly pitched for Detroit that year, but did spend more than half the season on the Tiger roster, thus earning a World Series ring when Detroit bested the Cubs that October.

After 3 more seasons (mostly in the minors) in the Tigers’ organization, Pierce was traded to Chicago for Aaron Robinson (Robinson got the call to catch game 7 of the 1947 World Series, one of three Yankee catchers to start multiple games in that series). Given a spot in the Sox rotation starting in 1949, Pierce turned in better-than-league average ERA over his first two seasons despite walking over 5 batters per 9 innings both years. With Paul Richards installed as Chicago’s skipper in 1951, the Sox started to become competitive, in part due to Pierce’s improved performance resulting from a walk rate that was immediately cut in half under Richards’ tutelage.

Pierce had a sustained 7-year peak from 1952 to 1958 during which he recorded these MLB placements among his pitching brethren (min. 1000 IP for the period).

1st – Shutouts
2nd – WAA, ERA+, FIP
3rd – WAR, ERA, WHIP, H/9, SO/9, BA against
4th – CG, IP, Starts, Wins

Right in the middle of that peak was Pierce’s career best 1955 season when he led all MLB pitchers in WAR, ERA, ERA+, FIP and WHIP. A measure of his dominance that year was leading in ERA by a full two-thirds of a run over Whitey Ford in second place. Both his ERA (1.97) and ERA+ (200) that season were the top scores in baseball over the 14 years (1949-62) that Pierce was a regular starter.

Pierce’s White Sox challenged for the AL crown in 1955, staying in first place as late as Sep 3rd, after being more than 2 games back on only one day since July 15th. Second place finishes followed in 1957 and 1958 before Chicago finally took the prize in 1959. Pierce was 32 years old that year, the first season of his decline, but still a fixture in the Chicago rotation. Thus, it was a great disappointment to him to be left out of the rotation for that year’s World Series against the Dodgers (Sox manager Al Lopez felt that Pierce, as a southpaw, would be vulnerable to the right-handed power bats of Gil Hodges, Charlie Neal and Don Demeter, especially with the ridiculously short left-field dimensions at the LA Coliseum).

Chicago sent Pierce to San Francisico for the 1962 season in which he dominated NL bats over the first two months of the season, winning his first 8 starts (no other pitcher has started his Giant career with more than 5 consecutive winning starts). Pierce also finished strong, with a 7-3 record for August and September, and followed that with a shutout win over Sandy Koufax in the first game of the NL pennant playoff (Pierce also pitched a perfect 9th inning to preserve a 6-4 Giant win in the deciding third game). In the World Series, Pierce pitched 6 strong innings in game 3 but took the loss after three singles and an error in the 7th plated two Yankees. With the Giants facing elimination in game 6, Pierce took the hill and turned in a complete game 3-hitter to force the deciding 7th game, won by New York 1-0.

Quiz: Pierce is one of twelve retired live ball era pitchers with a BB/9 of 5.0 or worse in 400+ IP through age 23. Of the other eleven, who is the only one to post a better BB/9 over the rest of their careers than Pierce’s 2.74 mark?

Thanks to baseball-reference.com for statistical data, and to sabr.org for biographical details.

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Richard Chester

8 years ago

Quiz answer: Sandy Koufax with BB/9 = 2.55.

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Doug

Reply to Richard Chester

The very one.

Pierce’s 6.1 BB/9 through age 23 was the second worst score of that group of 12, trailing only Mickey McDermott’s 6.3 mark. McDermott also improved over the remainder of his career but only modestly, knocking off one walk for a 5.3 BB/9 (at least he could help his own cause at bat).

Hartvig

The Aaron Robinson for Pierce deal worked out about as well for Detroit as the John Smoltz for Doyle Alexander deal 4 decades later.

My memories of him are mostly as a Giant from the cards I collected as a kid.

oneblankspace

Reply to Hartvig

Like Pierce, Alexander also pitched for San Francisco, if only for one strike-shortened season.

The Yankee manager in 1947 was Bucky Harris.

Oops!

Thanks for the correction, Richard.

On June 27, 1958, while pitching against the Senators, Pierce came within one out of a perfect game. Pinch-hitter Ed FitzGerald was the spoiler who doubled. Pierce retired the next batter for his third straight shutout.

That was the the third of four one-hitters that Pierce would twirl.

The first came 8 years earlier against the Yankees when he struck out Joe DiMaggio twice (something that happened to Joe only 32 times in his career, including 9 times in his last two seasons; Joe *never* struck out more than twice in a game).

Brent

Great post, but to make another correction, Duke Snider was a left handed batter and hardly played against lefties in 1959 (only 20 plate appearances), so Al Lopez might have been afraid of Hodges v. Pierce but not Snider.

Reply to Brent

Double-oops!

I guess it was Charlie Neal and Don Demeter that Lopez was worried about. Those names don’t sound too scary, but they had some pop that year – 18 and 19 home runs. The Dodgers spread out their power quite well with 5 guys having 18 or more but none over 25 (the fifth was Wally Moon, noted for hitting his “moon shots” – sky-high opposite field pop flys that could clear the 40 foot-high screen in left).

e pluribus munu

Thanks for taking time to prepare this tribute, Doug. When I was little and just starting to pay attention to baseball, my older brother instructed me that Billy Pierce was the best pitcher in the American League – I suppose that must have been in 1955 or 1956. I believed him because he was my older brother, and I always regarded Pierce as a premier pitcher – especially when I watched him beat the Yankees at the Stadium during the years when my baseball attendance was limited to rooting against the Yankees. Although, as a Brooklyn fan, I hated the… Read more »

Reply to e pluribus munu

Thanks for sharing those memories, epm.

It wasn’t just your brother who thought Pierce was something special. According to his SABR bio, no less an authority than Joe DiMaggio thought Pierce’s fastball was the best he’d seen (and that was at the end of Joe D’s career).

Pierce is correct in relating that he won his first 8 decisions in 1962, but it was more impressive than that as those 8 decisions came in his first 8 starts.

Kahuna Tuna

One regular AL pitcher improved his 1950-51 BB/9 rate even more than Pierce: teammate Lou Kretlow, who in 1950 walked 45 in 35.7 IP with the Browns and White Sox (11.4 BB/9), then in 1951 walked only 74 in 137 IP (4.9 BB/9). Kretlow’s 2.34 ratio of 1950 BB/9 rate to 1951 BB/9 rate is a shade higher than Pierce’s 2.06. Of course, Pierce was posting ERA+s in those seasons of 113 and 133, while Kretlow checked in with 67 and 96. Kretlow was good for the Sox in 1952 (123 ERA+ in 79 IP), but he was traded back… Read more »

brp

Pierce had 9 years in a row (1950-58) with 10+ CGs and at least 1 save as well. There are 9 guys ahead on the play index with more seasons matching that criteria though I can’t be sure if anyone beat that number of consecutive seasons.

Hal Newhouser (1942-50) and Herb Pennock (1920-28) did the same, 9 years in a row.

Reply to brp

The only one I found with more than 9 consecutive such seasons was Walter Johnson with 16 seasons.

Pretty big gap! Pierce had the most such seasons post-integration, then, and would imagine that’s never going to be approached again.

Seven years with 15 wins on the South Side. With the Sox, his career ERA was 3.19, trailing only five major league pitchers (with 1000 innings pitched) during that time. When his teams did not score for him (0-2 runs), he had a record of 21-112 (4 ND) with an ERA of 3.30 and 56 CG, including 6 CG-L where he only gave up 1 run. When he had 3 or more runs scored behind him, he was 178-47, and his ERA was also 3.30 (the non-significant digits are little bit different). Most Wins, White Sox career (from MLB stats… Read more »

KalineCountry

When we lived in Highland Park before moving to Boston in 1957, Dad knew Billy from the neighborhood, and spoke with him briefly on occasion. When Billy was traded to the whitesox, (and yes Hartvig, that trade turned out to be as bad as the Smoltz trade, and also imo the Bunning for Demeter and iirc Triandos trade for the Tigers.) Dad saw him and Billy as a Detroit native was dejected/sad that the hometown Tigers had traded him. All Dad said was that he should look at it as an opportunity to pitch as a starter and give it… Read more »

Reply to KalineCountry

Thanks for sharing that memory, KC.

The stats certainly backup your boyhood impressions of Pierce. Except, it was more like top 5 in baseball, not just in the AL.

Paul E

a little late to the tribute here, but when he retired, Pierce was 13th in career K’s for the period 1901 – 1964 with 1999. We probably have 20 guys with over 3,000 at this point – just guessing and exaggerating.