John McGraw, Christy Mathewson, Frankie Frisch, Mel Ott, Bill Terry and Carl Hubbell, as great as they were, get forgotten because so much time has passed. But even the Giant Pennant winners of 1951 and 1954 get forgotten, largely because, unlike their arch-rivals, the Brooklyn Dodgers, they didn't have a Roger Kahn to write their version of The Boys of Summer.
Mays and Thomson get remembered, but not Monte Irvin, Sal Maglie, Alvin Dark, Don Mueller, Whitey Lockman... and Johnny Antonelli.
John August Antonelli was born on April 12, 1930 in Rochester, New York. A star pitcher at Jefferson High School in Rochester, Major League Baseball teams fell over themselves trying to sign him. The Boston Braves got him, for $52,000, and, under the "bonus baby" rule, had to immediately put him on their major league roster and keep him there for at least 2 years.
That was in 1948, and he made his major league debut within days of his graduation, on the 4th of July. Wearing Number 34, he pitched the 8th inning in relief, allowing a run, as the Braves lost 7-2 to the Philadelphia Phillies at Shibe Park in the 1st game of a doubleheader. The Phils won the 2nd game, too, 5-2.
He appeared in only 4 games that season, although he did get a save (not that anyone knew about that statistic at the time), mostly pitching batting practice. Therefore, when the Braves won the Pennant, he was not included on the World Series roster. In a combination of starting and relief, he went 3-7 in 1949, and 2-3 in 1950, then was drafted into the Korean War, missing the entire 1951 and 1952 seasons.
When he got back in 1953, the Braves moved to Milwaukee, and he was almost entirely a starter, going 12-12, but with an ERA of just 3.18. That got the Giants' attention, and on February 1, 1954, they sent the aforementioned Bobby Thomson and Sam Calderone to the Braves, for Antonelli, Don Liddle, Ebba St. Claire, Billy Klaus and $50,000.
(Thomson would break his ankle in Spring Training. This made the Braves' decision of who their 4th outfielder should be considerably easier, and they chose Hank Aaron.)
Antonelli was a lefthander whose pitching style was good for the Polo Grounds, as he didn't make hitters pull the ball down either foul line. Now wearing Number 43, he went 21-7, led the NL in 2.30, and made his 1st All-Star Game, as the Giants needed few dramatics to win the Pennant, unlike in 1951.
He started and won Game 2 of the World Series against the Cleveland Indians, then relieved to get the save in Game 4 to seal a sweep. Along with Mays and Dusty Rhodes, whose 10th-inning walkoff home run won Game 1, Antonelli was one of the heroes of the Series.
But that would be it for that generation of Giants. They tailed off in 1955, and Antonelli went just 14-16. He bounced back in 1956, going 20-13. But he was only 12-18 in 1957, the team's last year in New York. They moved to San Francisco, and he recovered his form, going 16-13 in 1958 and 19-10 in 1959, as a new set of stars came up, including Willie McCovey, Orlando Cepeda and Juan Marichal.
But he got off to a bad start in 1960, and was shifted to the bullpen. In 1961, he was traded to the Indians, and then back to the Braves. He appears not to have been injured, and there was no substance abuse or personal issue. It was a case of what would later be called "Steve Blass Disease": Overnight, for no apparent reason, a pitcher just lost it.
The Braves sold him to the expansion Mets in 1962. It was part of the early Mets' strategy of getting as many ex-New York baseball stars as they could, which backfired, as most of them had little left to give. We'll never know if Antonelli would have been one of them: Claiming to be "tired of traveling" -- or perhaps foreseeing that the Mets would be one of the worst teams of all time -- he retired as a player, finishing at age 31, with a career record of 126-110, an ERA of 3.34, 6 All-Star berths, and a World Series ring.
He went back to Rochester, and owned a chain of Firestone tire salons, totaling 28 before he got out of the business, unhappy that Bridgestone had bought Firestone and with how they were running it. For 40 years, Johnny Antonelli Tire Company held special nights at games of his hometown team, the Class AAA Rochester Red Wings, at Silver Stadium.
His 1st wife, Rosemarie, died in 2002. They had a son and 3 daughters, leading to 12 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. He later married a woman named Gail, who survives him. He attended some Giants reunions in San Francisco, and remained a fixture at Red Wing games after they moved to Frontier Field in 1997.
It leaves Del Crandall and Bert Thiel as the last 2 living men who played for the Boston Braves. And it leaves Eddie Basinski as the last living player mentioned in Dave Frishberg's song "Van Lingle Mungo."
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