Blast From the Past: Bob Shaw

The first game I ever listened to on the radio was pitched by Bob Shaw for the Giants. I'm pretty sure it was during the '65 season. It was an evening game in New York against the Mets. I was about 9 years old. My family was driving from Yosemite to Southern California on a road trip vacation to visit relatives. My dad was trying to find something on the radio to keep him awake while driving. He found the game and left it on, possibly at my urging, because my dad was never interested in sports. There was just something about the way Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons were describing the action that caught my imagination. I was forever hooked as a baseball fan from that day on. I don't remember too much about the game, but the Giants won 2-1. For awhile, it seemed like every game I listened to had Bob Shaw pitching for the Giants. It wouldn't be until the following mid-season that I would get to listen to a game Juan Marichal pitched. More on that later.

Bob Shaw came to the Giants before the 1964 season in a trade with the Milwaukee Braves for Felipe Alou, among others. He was a journeyman RHP who managed to put together 3 or 4 pretty good seasons in a 10 season career. Prior to pitching for the Braves, he was a member of the Go-Go White Sox who lost to the Dodgers in the 1959 World Series. Shaw pitched two of those games winning one against none other than Sandy Koufax, and losing one. He had played in college, something of a rarity back in those days, and was known as a bit of a flake. He broke in with the Detroit Tigers. When the Tigers sent him back to the minors, he refused to go. After staring them down for 10 days, they traded him to the White Sox where his career flourished and he got to play in a WS. One time, after getting into a contract dispute with the White Sox ownership, he climbed on the roof of Comiskey Park and shouted down at fans coming into the Stadium, "What are you doing here, they're going to lose!", or something to that effect. He was also known for getting called for 5 balks in one inning in 1963 while pitching for Milwaukee.

Shaw was always suspected of throwing a spitball, not an entirely unusual situation in those days. Most baseball pitchers back then probably threw some type of illegal pitch. It wasn't until the late '60's when pitching became so dominant that baseball cracked down and started disallowing pitchers to go to their mouths on the mound. Shaw always denied throwing a spitter. He said that if opposing hitters thought he was, it just gave him an advantage with his conventional pitches because they were distracted. In his book, Gaylord Perry identified Shaw as the person who taught him the spitter. Shaw allegedly worked with Perry through the '64 and '65 seasons helping him perfect the pitch. Perry had his breakout season in 1966. Shaw was sold to the Mets during the '66 season after posting a 1-4 record with a 6.25 ERA in 13 appearances.

Bob Shaw was used mostly in relief in '64 after coming to the Giants, but moved into a fulltime starter role one game into the '65 season. He went on to post a 16-9 record with an ERA of 2.64 as the Giants second best pitcher that year after Juan Marichal. I remember his games tended to be laborious affairs. I don't think anyone kept track of pitch counts in those days, but it seemed like Shaw went to 3-2 on almost every batter he faced. Ultimately, he didn't strike out or walk very many batters, he just took his time getting them to put the ball in play. I remember the first time I listened to a Juan Marichal game, the difference was striking. Juan would jump ahead of the hitters and put them away quickly rarely getting to 3 balls in the count. Juan's games were much more crisp, fast moving and fun to listen to. Shaw was a classic contact pitcher whose success was largely dependent on what happened to the ball after it was put in play, in other words, luck. He would have a great season followed by 2-3 mediocre ones then another great season. Less than 2 years after his stellar '65 season, he was out of baseball for good.

Shaw was an avid student of pitching mechanics. He wrote a book called Pitching that can still be purchased on amazon.com. There were 4 copies available when I looked. The amazon.com add has several testimonials from little league coach types about how they used the book in their coaching to great success. He was the pitching coach for the Milwaukee Brewers until he "resigned" in 1973. He was criticized for tinkering too much with the pitchers deliveries and blamed for ruining at least one Brewers pitcher's career. On the other hand, Jim Colburn credited Shaw with turning his career around. Shaw retired to Jupiter, Florida and continued to teach pitching in baseball clinics and camps. He was an avid investor in the stock market and in real estate. He was honored at US Cellular Field in Chicago, along with the other 1959 White Sox when the Sox played in the WS in 2005. That is the last reference I could find on him. I assume he is still alive and living in Florida. Born in 1933, he will be 77 sometime this year.