Overview:
Eddie Mathews was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1978 after having hit 512 home runs during his 17-year Major League career
Eddie Mathews was once the toast of Milwaukee.
That’s saying something, considering the city’s long-standing nickname of “Beer Capital of the World.”
Our own seaside village did get credit for helping raise Mathews every time Milwaukee Braves announcer Earl Gillespie called him “the Santa Barbara Bomber.”
But fame for Mathews, a 1949 graduate of Santa Barbara High School, came mostly from the 13 summers he spent walloping baseballs for the Braves on the Wisconsin shores of Lake Michigan.
Milwaukee will forever revere the National Baseball Hall of Fame third baseman for the walk-off home run he hit against the New York Yankees in the 10th inning of Game 4 in the 1957 World Series.
He also got the clinching, final out of Game 7 with a back-handed stab of the one-hopper that Bill Skowron smashed down the third-base line.
It marked the last time the Beer Capital of the World broke out the World Series champagne.
That Mathews Moment of nearly seven decades past is sure to be replayed on television screens around the world this week when Milwaukee gives it another go with a different club.
The Milwaukee Brewers, who fell short in the city’s only other October Classic appearance in 1982, swept the back-to-back defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers in four games in last week’s National League Championship Series.
They will face the winner of the American League Championship Series between the Cleveland Guardians and Tampa Bay Rays beginning Friday at Milwaukee’s American Family Field.
“The people here tell me if you can win here, this place would just go nuts,” said Matt Arnold, a 2001 graduate of UC Santa Barbara who now serves as the Brewers’ president of baseball operations.
“The people here still talk about the 1982 World Series.”
A Kid’s Game
Most of the Milwaukeeans who can still recall the glory days of the late 1950s were mere children when the Braves won baseball’s ultimate championship.
I was a 3-year-old toddler in 1957, more interested it tossing clumps of Play-Doh than baseballs.
But I jumped aboard the Eddie Mathews bandwagon a few years later when I fell in love with America’s Pastime.
The first sports feature I ever wrote as sports editor of the Lancers’ Scroll, the mimeographed student newspaper of La Cumbre Junior High School, was about the 1968 baseball retirement of its most famous alum.
Mathews recalled taking batting practice from his mother, Eloise, on the same La Cumbre diamond where I was now playing. His dad, Edwin Mathews, shagged balls in the outfield.
“If I hit the ball up the middle at Mom, she’d make me do extra chores,” he said in a letter responding to my interview questions. “That was what turned me into a pull hitter.”
He decided to call it quits in 1968 after winning another World Series ring with the Detroit Tigers.
Mathews noted that he won his first pro championship at Class D High Point, North Carolina just a few months after his Santa Barbara High graduation.
“So why not go out on top, too?” he said.
I caught up with him in person a decade later, in May 1978, when Santa Barbara held “Eddie Mathews Day” to celebrate his impending induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
I was in just my first year of covering sports for the Santa Barbara News-Press.
I had to beg sports editor Dave Kohl — volunteering to work a month’s worth of Sunday night desk shifts — into letting me cover the festivities.
They began with a parade down State Street. It led to De la Guerra Plaza where local officials lauded Mathews to no end.
The late, great Mike Moropoulos, Santa Barbara High’s athletic director at the time, told the crowd that the school was renaming its Most Outstanding Athletic Performance trophy the “Eddie Mathews Award.”
“Let me tell you, it’s not easy to get them to do that at the school,” Moropoulos said. “But for Eddie, it was easy.”
Christina Cavallero, speaking for the SBHS Alumni Association, introduced him as “Our Eddie.”
Mathews rubbed his one good, moist eye as he took the podium. The other eye was hidden beneath the patch that protected his infected cornea.
Moropoulos’ announcement, he told the crowd, gave him a “special tingle.”
“The more I travel and the more I see of the rest of the country, the more I appreciate the city of Santa Barbara,” Mathews said.
“When I get to Cooperstown, I’ll remember this — I’ll mention Santa Barbara.”
He told me during the subsequent reception at El Paseo that Milwaukee Mayor Henry Maier had written him upon learning of Santa Barbara’s “Eddie Mathews Day.”
“He said, ‘I always thought you belonged to Milwaukee,’” Mathews said with a laugh.
“You know, I miss this place more and more all the time,” he continued. “I only wish I could earn a living here. It’s just too tough.
“The closest friends I’ve ever had are right here.”
Our Eddie
Ron Shelton, a former minor leaguer from Santa Barbara High who earned greater fame as a Hollywood writer and film director, also called Mathews “Our Eddie” in his book, The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham.
“I wanted to be Eddie,” he said. “Every little boy in Santa Barbara did.”
The 1957 World Series provided him with a vivid childhood memory — and “a great moral crisis” for his father.
“We grew up with this evangelical whirlwind of a church — the First Baptist Church — which was on Chapala and Victoria,” Shelton said. “We never missed Sunday school or church.
“We also didn’t have a television.”
But his father, Rath Shelton, risked the wrath of heaven one Sunday morning by intercepting his four sons as they headed from Sunday school to the regular church service.
He drove them home to where an employee of Ott’s Department Store — local baseball star and future coach Johnny Osborne — was hooking up a new TV.
“He understood the moment — he just said, ‘Eddie’ as he left,” Shelton recalled.
Mathews was having a rough World Series to that point, having gone hitless through the first three games.
But a sportswriter came to the rescue — naturally! — by giving him three pennies for good luck before Game 4. Mathews famously tucked them into the pocket of his uniform pants.
“I wasn’t hitting worth two cents, so maybe three would help,” he recalled in the autobiography Eddie Mathews and the National Pastime, which he co-authored with Bob Buege.
He connected with a belt-high fastball from Yankees’ reliever Bob Grim in the bottom of the 10th inning, sending it over Hank Bauer’s head and into the stands beyond right-centerfield.
The two-run homer evened the World Series at two games apiece.
“I didn’t see the ball go into the seats, but the crowd reaction left no doubt that it was a home run,” Mathews said.
“My feelings at that moment are hard to describe,” he added. “I know I told reporters that as I circled the bases that I felt at least 10 feet tall.”
Young Ron Shelton, just 12 years old at the time, jumped at least that high while watching Mathews’ blast clear the fence.
“A great weight lifted up out of the room,” he recalled. “My father looked around. His shoulders lightened.
“And we started going to church less and less.”
Baseball Heaven
Milwaukee has long been a church-going city. The 1957 Braves tapped into that by having their players appear at church events.
“The publicity director would make all the arrangements,” Mathews said, “and then he’d say, ‘We need three or four guys to visit the veterans hospital’ … Or ‘Saint Jahoozis Church (the Basilica of Saint Josaphat) is having a smoker or a sports night,’ and we’d go, no problem.
“Most of the time, we enjoyed ourselves. The people were great to us. We did hundreds of these appearances.
“I’d say the Catholic Church were the champs. They always had something planned.”
The city showered the players with gifts. They included the sudsy beverage that, as the ad jingle goes, “made Milwaukee famous.”
Miller Brewery, the major sponsor of the team’s radio broadcasts, gifted a case of its beer to a Braves’ player every time he hit a home run.
Mathews had 27 by the All-Star break of his first season in Milwaukee in 1953.
“They deliver it right to your hotel room,” he said. “We had to rent another room just for the beer.”
His money, as the saying goes, was also no good in Milwaukee.
An automobile dealer even let the players use his cars free of charge.
“And gasoline, Clark Gas Stations gave us all we wanted,” Mathews revealed. “We didn’t even have to tell them who we were because everywhere we went, people recognized us.
“Free dry cleaning, free food — you name it, we got it.”
Mathews paid it back with his bat.
He led Major League Baseball with 47 home runs in 1953 — just his second season with the club and its first after moving from Boston.
He also hit .302 with 135 runs batted in while finishing second to Brooklyn Dodgers catcher Roy Campanella in the voting for the National League’s Most Valuable Player Award.
Mathews thought he had a great shot at winning the new Cadillac provided by Blatz Brewing Co. for winning the fans’ vote as the “Best of the Braves” that season.
But he was again the runner-up. Outfielder Andy Pafko, a devout Lutheran, won the vote despite a lesser stat line of 17 homers, 72 RBI and .297 batting average.
“The fans had a special night for Andy, as they did for a number of us,” Mathews explained, “and over 10,000 Lutherans showed up.
“At that point, I said, ‘I’m not going to win that voting,’ and I didn’t.”
Pafko won the Cadillac.
“I ended up buying a Mercury to drive home in,” Mathews said.
The rental car freebie only went so far … and Santa Barbara was a long way from Milwaukee.
Homer, Sweet Home
It didn’t take long, however, for Mathews’ fame to grow.
The first cover of Sports Illustrated magazine pictured him batting at Milwaukee’s County Stadium during the pennant race of 1954.
He hit 40 homers that year and 41 more in 1955. He had 190 career homers before turning 25 — the most ever for a big leaguer that young.
Mathews’ good looks and pretty stroke — Hall of Famer Ty Cobb himself called it one of the “three or four perfect swings in my time” — won the affections of all Milwaukee.
Charlie Grimm, the Braves’ former manager, famously joked that Mathews “couldn’t even walk down the street without five or six women following him.”
He was the Pied Piper of the town’s youth, as well.
Mathews recalled in his book about how a mob of children once massed outside the quaint, neighborhood restaurant where he and pitcher Bob “Bullet” Buhl were dining.
“When we came out, there must have been 300 kids out there,” he said. “Somebody had spotted us going in and spread the word.
“We started signing autographs, and this one kid said, ‘We live right across the street, and my dad says to come over and get away from this madhouse’ … He said he’s made his own wine in the basement.”
They wound up having “a hell of a good time with the family.”
The fans had their own nickname for Mathews, calling him “Eddie Mattress” for how he gave them so many nights of good rest.
Mathews hit 512 home runs during his 17-year career.
He helped give the Braves the best one-two punch in baseball history from the 13 seasons he played with the legendary Hank Aaron.
Their 863 homers as teammates eclipsed the record of 859 set by the New York Yankees’ Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.
“My proudest achievement in baseball was the record we set together,” Mathews said. “But I’m most of all proud to call Hank my friend.”
He was the Braves’ manager when Aaron broke the MLB record for career home runs by hitting No. 715 against the Dodgers’ Al Downing on April 8, 1974.
The Braves fired Mathews later that summer, however, when the team’s record dipped to 50-49.
The move greatly disturbed Aaron. He had considered Mathews to be the ultimate teammate, calling him “our spiritual leader.”
Mathews was known to be a brawler, but most of his scraps came in support of teammates.
“With Eddie, you never worried about anything,” Braves’ pitcher Lew Burdette once said. “If somebody charged the mound when you were pitching, you knew he was going to be there.”
Mathews was especially protective when Aaron began receiving racial threats as he approached Ruth’s career home run record.
“It’s their club and they can do anything they want to,” Aaron told United Press International when asked about Mathews’ dismissal. “Personally I thought he did a hell of a job.
“I’ve seen a lot of managers fired, but this one touched me especially hard.
“It was a blow to me.”
Milwaukee’s Magic Moment
Mathews and Aaron had propelled the Braves into pennant contention for several seasons, but 1957 was their breakout year.
They got extra motivation when the cocky Yankees arrived in Milwaukee for the World Series.
“One of them, maybe it was Casey Stengel, saw the excitement and called it ‘bush,’” Mathews recalled, referring to the Yankees’ manager. “That did not bother the ballplayers, but it bothered the fans.
“I guess it made winning that much sweeter.”
I sat with Mathews at El Paseo in 1978 as he watched film clips of that World Series.
He got another “special tingle” when his younger self snared Skowron’s one-hop missile off a pitch from Burdette and stepped on third base to secure a forceout … and a World Series championship.
Skowron usually hit straight-away, but Mathews went against the scouting report by creeping closer to the foul line.
“I knew Burdette was going to throw him a spitball,” he said. “That pitch sank so much that I figured he’d pull it.”
The triumphant return home from New York was one of his best memories.
“They closed some of the bars and took the beer kegs right out onto the street,” Mathews said.
“The whole town went crazy, jamming the downtown area.”
The team flew straight back to Milwaukee after the game. The city planned to parade the Braves in limousines from the airport and through downtown to a celebration at County Stadium.
The caravan, however, had to take a detour.
“Wisconsin Avenue was solid people,” Mathews said. “The police chief said it was the biggest crowd in the city’s history, twice as big as the one celebrating the end of World War II.
“All along the way, we saw hand-lettered signs: Burdette for president, Mathews for vice president, (Warren) Spahn for mayor, and ‘We love you, Bush Leaguers.’”
When he returned to his home in the Milwaukee suburb of Brookfield, he found it decorated with streamers, bunting and pennants. A big sign on his front lawn read “Welcome Home, Eddie.”
“After we arrived, they built a big bonfire on the street and partied the night away,” Mathews said.
Endgame
Every beer-soaked celebration will eventually evolve into a hangover.
That happened for Milwaukee beginning in 1962 when owner Lou Perini sold the club to a group led by William Bartholomay.
The new owners were based in Chicago — a city not beholding to the good folks of Milwaukee.
They were intent on moving the club to Atlanta to cash in on the television and radio market of America’s Southeast.
“They knew they could make a whole lot of money,” Mathews said. “The problem was that Milwaukee County had a lease on the stadium that ran through 1965.
“The Braves owners tried to buy their way out for a million dollars, but it was no deal.
“So we stayed.”
The crowds dwindled during those final three, lame-duck years in Milwaukee.
The fans did give Mathews an emotional farewell when the Braves faced the National League champion Dodgers in the final home game of the 1965 season.
“Most of the ballplayers didn’t want to go to Atlanta,” Mathews said. “Aaron and I had been around the longest, and we certainly didn’t want to go.
“The fans cheered us all night.”
They arose to their feet to give Mathews a raucous ovation when he came to bat in the last of the eighth. They figured it was his swan song in Milwaukee.
“I was overwhelmed,” he said. “My eyes filled up with tears.
“I tried to bat, but I had to step out of the batter’s box three or four times.”
The game went into extra innings, giving Mathews another turn at bat in the 10th.
“Again, the fans stood and cheered for a long time,” he said. “I felt very humble at that moment.
“Everyone should have a moment like that in his life.”
Milwaukee got another turn at bat when the Seattle Pilots moved their American League franchise to the Beer Capital of the World in 1970 and changed their name to Brewers.
Mathews actually joined that club a few years later as a roving batting instructor and scout.
He served behind the scenes in that capacity with several other teams until tuberculosis took its toll.
Shelton never met his boyhood idol, but their paths did cross at the ballpark in Durham, North Carolina, when he was scouting locations for his movie.
Mathews was noticeably ailing, sweating and breathing hard, when he took a break after a batting cage workout with some of Durham’s players.
“He looked familiar,” Shelton said. “I stared until I finally had to ask a young player who the old guy in the dugout was.
“‘That’s Eddie Mathews … Ever heard of him?’” the player replied.
“The image of the aging Mathews sitting there stopped me in my tracks,” Shelton said. “It was upsetting.
“I started to go over and introduce myself, but what would I say? … I left him alone.”
Mathews was 69 when he died of complications from pneumonia on Feb. 18, 2001, at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla.
He was laid to rest at Santa Barbara Cemetery.
It’s just a few miles from the home where he grew up on West Micheltorena Street.
I know exactly where that was. The first home I bought in Santa Barbara in 1978 was just a few doors up the street.
Every time I walked past his former house, I’d picture him playing catch in the yard with his mom or dad.
I’ll think of him again on Friday when the World Series finally makes it back to Milwaukee.
