Baseball fans remember Game One of the 1954 World Series for New York Giants center fielder Willie Mays’ spectacular over-the-shoulder catch of Cleveland Indians slugger Vic Wertz’s towering eighth-inning drive. For 13-year-old Jimmy Barbieri, however, it was the first pitch of this fall classic that was most memorable – not Giants starter Sal Maglie’s opening toss to the visiting Indians, but his own ceremonial first pitch, an honor bestowed upon the youngster for captaining his Schenectady, New York, team to the Little League World Series title. A dozen years later, a grown-up Jim Barbieri would make his second appearance at an “adult” World Series – this time as a player for the National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers. This was the pinnacle of Barbieri’s 11-year career in professional baseball, which took him from the East Coast to the West Coast, and finally to Japan.
Born on September 15, 1941, in Schenectady, James Patrick Barbieri was the second son of Joseph and Stella Barbieri. In 1949, when Jimmy was 7 years old, Little League baseball debuted in New York’s electric city, as it did in many other working-class American cities and towns during the Baby Boom years following World War II. At age 9, Barbieri began his Little League career on the General Electric team; two years later, he was the center fielder for the team of Schenectady all-stars that made it all the way to the final game of the 1953 Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, losing a 1-0 heartbreaker to a squad from Birmingham, Alabama. The following year, again under the guidance of no-nonsense manager Mike Maietta, Schenectady returned to Williamsport and this time captured the crown, defeating a team from Colton, California, 7-5.
It was Barbieri’s reputation as a hard-playing, undersized underdog that endeared him to fans, especially those in Spokane, Washington, where he played for the hometown Indians from 1963 to 1969. In four of his seven seasons with the Dodgers’ Pacific Coast League affiliate, Spokane fans voted Barbieri the team’s most popular player. Kids sent him letters telling him he was their hero and inspired them.7 “Jim Barbieri was a fan favorite in Spokane, and my favorite Spokane Indian,” wrote blogger Mark Hinton. “I remember him playing hard, or at least I remember my dad and my uncles telling my brother and cousins that we should watch how hard and smart he played.”8 In addition to his tenacious style of play in the field, Barbieri was also known in Spokane for his skills at the plate. He hit .279 in 789 career games with the Indians, and had some pop in his bat too, smacking 60 home runs.
The hustling outfielder’s finest season was 1966, when he hit .357 with a PCL-leading 14 triples. Throughout that season, rumors abounded that Barbieri would be called up by the Indians’ parent club, the reigning world champion Los Angeles Dodgers. The long-awaited phone call from Dodgers general manager Buzzy Buvasi came on the morning of July 5. At 6 P.M. that evening, Barbieri signed his major-league contract. An hour later, Los Angeles manager Walt Alston started him in left field in the team’s game against the Cincinnati Reds. Not only did Barbieri have to borrow another player’s glove, but his number 17 uniform was too large.9 Barbieri went 0-for-2 in his first game, although he drew a walk, stole a base, and threw out a runner.
Barbieri continued to contribute to the Dodgers’ pennant drive, by coming off the bench as a pinch-hitter. The team was engaged in a fierce battle for the National League lead with the San Francisco Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Los Angeles leapfrogged both teams in the standings the weekend of September 10-11 and took sole possession of first place, but the pennant would nevertheless come down to the season’s final day. Needing one win in a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies to clinch the crown, the Dodgers lost the first game 4-3, but held on to a 6-3 victory in the second behind a herculean effort from Koufax.
Barbieri was not the only Los Angeles batter who failed at the plate. In their four-game sweep at the hands of the Orioles, the Dodgers hit for a paltry .142 average and did not score a run in the final 33 innings of the Series. They established World Series records for fewest hits and runs, and never led in any of the four games. During the team’s postseason exhibition tour of Japan, a physically broken-down Sandy Koufax announced his retirement from the game. The Dodgers were entering a rebuilding phase.
1 Martin Ralbovsky, Destiny's Darlings: A World Championship Little League Team Twenty Years Later (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1974): 63; Ogdensburg (New York) Journal, August 16, 1970.
2 Quoted in Ralbovsky: 62. All subsequent quotations from Jim Barbieri on his playing career are from Ralbovsky's book Destiny's Darlings, unless otherwise noted.
3 Ralbovsky: 65-66; Schenectady Gazette, September 21, 1959.
4 All minor-, major- and Japan-league statistics were obtained from baseball-reference.com.
5 “Omaha Area Marriages & Anniversaries,” Greater Omaha Genealogical Society, omahamarriages.wordpress.com.
6 Houston Post, October 8, 1966. This article was included in Jim Barbieri's player file from the Giamatti Library at the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
7 Spokesman-Review (Spokane), August 22, 1999.
8 Mark Hinton, “Poem: Jim Barbieri (Topps 1966),” Montana Writer, montanawriter.com/?p=1071.
10 Tom Adelman, The Golden Arm, the Robinson Boys, and the 1966 World Series That Stunned America (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006): 91.
11 Although Barbieri and Powell were the only members of their respective Little League squads to play in a MLB World Series, they each had a teammate who made the major leagues. Billy Connors from Schenectady and Carl Taylor from Lakeland also played at the sport’s highest level.
12 Spokane Chronicle, June 26, 1985.
13 Schenectady Gazette, February 11, 1971.
14 Spokesman-Review, August 22, 1999.
15 Spokesman-Review, August 23, 2003.
16 Times Union (Albany, New York), August 25, 2011.