Spear: Life is good after your name gets in the paper

ONCE UPON A time, in the days of a half-century ago when each of baseball’s major leagues included only eight teams and today’s communication network could not be imagined, scouts beat the bushes in search of talent, and some potential prospects no doubt escaped notice.

Bob Bolin almost belonged to that category.

Instead, a persistent high school principal kept nagging the area’s biggest newspaper for publicity, and the story helped Bolin emerge from the backwoods of York County. He capitalized on the opportunity, pitching his way into the big time.

The journey’s final chapter unfolds Monday night with Bolin’s induction into the South Carolina Athletic Hall of Fame.

In today’s high-tech world, the idea that a player who would win 88 major-league games and save 50 would not be recognized sounds ridiculous. But the mid-1950s meant hit-and-miss scouting, especially in rural areas, and Bolin’s surroundings — Smyrna and Hickory Grove — defined “rural.”

Besides, those who knew of Bolin’s athletic prowess saw basketball in his future.

Four consecutive no-hitters for his Hickory Grove High baseball team ended his anonymity.

“My principal aggravated The Charlotte Observer until the editor sent a reporter and photographer,” Bolin says now. “A story with pictures started the scouts coming.”

They found a diamond in the rough, a hard thrower with control issues.

Then, as now, baseball brass loved big guys — Bolin stands 6-foot-4 — with a fastball in the mid-90s, but his career could have been derailed at the start. He signed his first contract illegally.

Living a pitcher’s dream. From that inauspicious introduction to professional baseball, Bolin climbed the ladder to the majors in four seasons and pitched in the majors for 13 years. He career included stops with the Giants, Brewers and Red Sox, and he played in the 1962 World Series.

His achievements included finishing second in the National League with a 1.99 earned-run average in 1968, outdueling Bob Gibson in a surprise start against the Cardinals, winning the first home game for the Brewers after the franchise moved from Seattle to Milwaukee, firing two one-hitters and living a pitcher’s dream — throwing a shutout and hitting a home run in the same game.

His biggest thrill came, he says, from just walking onto the field wearing a major-league team’s uniform.

“My first game, I pitched relief against the Reds, and Frank Robinson was the first hitter I faced,” he says. “I tried to throw him a fastball low and away, and the ball went behind his ear. He couldn’t have thought I was throwing at him; I was wild at times.”

He threw enough strikes to fan 1,175 batters in 1,576 innings, win 14 games for the Giants in 1965 and save 15 for the Red Sox in 1973.

“I pitched a one-hitter against the Pirates in 1965 or ’66 during a tight race with the Dodgers,” Bolin says. “(Bill) Mazeroski got a checked-swing single in probably the fifth inning. We won 2-0, but they beat us by a game or two to win the pennant.”

He came close to another gem before the Braves’ Ed Bailey broke up his no-hit bid with an eighth-inning single — one that, Bolin says, “He always reminded me” of.

His dream game — a shutout and home run — came against the Cardinals, and so did his 1968 duel with Gibson.

“(Juan) Marichal was supposed to pitch, but (Giants manager) Herman Franks said he didn’t want Marichal against Gibson. I got the ball and beat him like 2-1. That was the year he finished first in ERA and I was second. He got the ball back (from the catcher) and worked so fast that he shut you out so quick that you wondered if you came to the ballpark that day.”

Three games, no fly balls. Bolin, who lives in Easley near his first major-league manager, Alvin Dark, received a rude introduction to pro baseball. The Pirates flew him to Pittsburgh before teams were allowed to spend money on American Legion players.

“I told them other teams had said I couldn’t sign, but Branch Rickey (the Pirates’ general manager) took that cigar out of his mouth, waved it around and said, ‘Kid, if you don’t sign that contract, nobody will find you again,’ ” Bolin says.

He signed and spent the bonus cash before commissioner Ford Frick ruled the signing illegal.

“I thought I would have to give the money back, and that would have been a problem,” Bolin says and laughs.

He signed, legally this time, with the Giants, and he will never forget the scene.

“I was out plowing a mule, and (scout) Tim Murchison drove his 1956 Buick Roadmaster down a wagon road,” he says. “No car had ever been down that road.”

Murchison got a player who pitched two no-hitters in the minors and once struck out the first five Dodgers in a game.

“He knew about no-hitters,” says Whitey Adams, who played on the Rock Hill American Legion team with Bolin.

Adams mowed the grass for Rip Wilder, the Rock Hill Herald sports editor, and would accompany him on trips to games.

“One time Rip asked me, ‘Have you ever heard of Bolin? He’s pitched a couple of no-hit games with 17-18 strikeouts,’ ” Adams says. “I told him I hadn’t. The next week, he told me Bob had pitched his third no-hitter. Later, he said, ‘You won’t believe this, but he pitched another one.’

“He was pitching for a Class C (smallest classification) high school team, and you wondered about the competition, but I found out. Later, when we played Legion ball together, I played in the outfield and went three games and never got a fly ball.”

That’s pretty good pitching, especially for a guy the scouts nearly missed.