Cuban defector Yasiel Puig created quite a stir in MLB, hitting at a .436 pace over his first MLB month (26 games), with seven home runs and 16 RBI. Even BBRT succumbed to Puig-O-Mania (see post of July 2), joining in the rush to compare Puig’s first month with that of Joe DiMaggio (.381-4-28 in 26 games).
All of this, plus the influx of new, young stars in the 2013 All Star game, got BBRT to thinking about one of the heroes of my youth. It was late July 1957, I was ten-years-old and a baseball (and Milwaukee Braves) fanatic. The Braves were in a tight pennant race with the Cardinals, Dodgers and Reds. Milwaukee’s chances, however, seemed to be dimming as center fielder and lead-off man Billy Bruton went on the disabled list in mid-July with a season-ending knee injury. The Braves looked to patch together an outfield, calling on Andy Pafko and calling up 26-year-old outfielder Bob “Hurricane’ Hazle, who was hitting .279, with 12 homers and 58 RBI at Triple A Wichita. (Hazle, who began his minor league career at age 19, had a .287 minor league career batting average, with 66 home runs in seven seasons and 771 games, when called up to the Braves.)
Hazle got into his first game on July 29, when he went to the plate (as a pinch hitter) and dropped down a sacrifice bunt in the fifth inning of a 9-8 Braves’ win over the Giants. At the time, the Braves stood at 57-41, tied with the Cardinals for first place and 1 ½ games ahead of the Dodgers – but Hazle’s status and the Braves’ fortunes were about to change. Hazle got his first start in the Braves’ outfield two days later (going one-for-four with a double and an RBI) and thirty days and 20 games played after that, he marked the one month anniversary of his first Braves’ plate appearance by boasting a .507 average, 33 hits, four home runs and 22 RBI. In the 18 games Hazle started in the first 30 days after his initial plate appearance, Milwaukee went 14-4. That included four wins and two losses against the rival Cardinals, in which Hazle hit .478 with one home run and eight RBI.
Hazle played a total 41 games for the Braves in 1957, hitting .403, with 54 hits, 26 runs scored, twelve doubles, six home runs and 27 RBI. He also walked 18 times, four intentionally. And the Braves, tied for first when Hazle played in his first game, ended up finishing eight games ahead of the Cardinals (and went on to win the 1957 World Series). The Braves had a .582 winning percentage when Hazle first took the field for them that season – and played .679 ball the rest of the way. Hazle finished fourth in the 1957 Rookie of the Year balloting, despite playing in only 41 games.
Eddie Mathews, third baseman (and future Hall of Famer) on the `57 Braves, summed up Hazle’s pennant drive performance in his book Eddie Mathews and the National Pastime, writing “What can you say about Hurricane Hazle? He came up to the Braves at the end of July, and for the rest of the year nobody could get him out. I’ve never seen a guy as hot as he was – ever. He was something else to behold … I don’t know what happens to suddenly make a minor league ballplayer into Babe Ruth, but Hazle was right out of ‘The Twilight Zone.’”
Note: Hazle’s first month with the Braves does differ a bit from DiMaggio and Puig. Hazle, still a rookie, had garnered 13 at bats (three hits) with the Cincinnati Reds after a late 1955 call-up.
Just as a hurricane blows over, however, Hazle’s gale-force MLB career was short lived. Hazle was hit in the head by a pitch during Spring Training in 1958, suffered an ankle injury early in the season and, on May 7, was hit in the head again – this time by a pitch from the Cardinals’ Larry Jackson. Hazle was hospitalized for about a week. He returned to action, but was hitting only .179 on May 24, when he was traded (cash and a player to be named later) to the Tigers. The move came as the Braves’ Billy Bruton was cleared for a return to the active roster.
Hazle hit .241, with two homers and five RBI in 43 games for the Tigers. He was sent to the minors (AAA) in 1959 and played in Charleston, Birmingham and Little Rock in 1959-60. He hit .266, with four homers and 41 RBI at Triple A in 1959 and .291-9-57 at Double A in 1960 before retiring from baseball in April 1961.
In his brief (110 games) MLB career, Hazle hit .310, with nine home runs and 37 RBI. For a couple of months at the end of the 1957 season, however, Hurricane Hazle stormed through National League pitching with success seldom seen from a rookie – or a veteran. In the process, he energized the Braves, changed the pennant race and helped bring Milwaukee its first NL and World Series Champion. Not a bad legacy for someone who logged only 110 MLB games.
