Stories about Tony Freitas

Tony Freitas was one of the greatest minor league pitchers ever.  His 342 minor league victories, most of them for the old Sacramento Senators/Solons of the Pacific Coast League, is the most by any left-hander in baseball history.

Freitas was only 5’8″ and 160 lbs and didn’t have what would normally be considered “big league stuff.”  Instead, he relied on pin-point control, a good curve and change-up, and later in his career developed a screwball.  Like a lot of minor league stars, he needed better than average defense behind him to succeed at the major league level, but generally didn’t get it during his major league opportunities.

I am in the process of reading Baseball’s Forgotten Heroes by Tony Salin (Masters Press 1999).  The book has a Chapter on Tony Freitas largely based on interviews with Freitas.  Here are a few stories from his career.

Tony was born and raised in Mill Valley, Marin County, California, part of the San Francisco Bay Area.  However, the team to scout and sign him was the Sacramento Senators of the Pacific Coast League (“PCL”), and they initially assigned him to the Arizona State League.  After a year and half of seasoning, he was promoted to Sacramento, where he was an immediate success, winning 19 games in back-to-back seasons in 1930 and 1931.

At this point, the Senators began to look for a major league team to whom they could sell Freitas.  Most likely in 1931, Freitas was sent to jail for five days for speeding.  He had a 1929 Model A roadster and was busted several times for speeding through Novato, presumably driving between Sacramento and his family home in Mill Valley.

The judge apparently decided that fines weren’t having the desired effect, so he sentenced Freitas to five days in the County jail.  However, claiming a shortage of pitchers, Sacramento’s manager convinced the judge to let Freitas out of jail long enough to pitch a game against the San Francisco Mission Reds.  Freitas won the game 5-3 and then returned to jail to complete his sentence.

Another version of the story has it that a major league scout was in town, and the Senators were determined to have Freitas pitch in the series so they might be able to sell him.

On May 5, 1932, his 24th birthday, Freitas pitched a no-hitter against the Oakland Oaks.  Before the end of that month, his contract had been sold to the Philadelphia A’s.

After getting hit hard in his first half dozen major league appearances, Freitas won nine starts in a row and finished the 1932 season 12-5 for the A’s. During that streak, Freitas was involved in a play that got him a notice in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.

With runners on second and third with one out in the fifth inning in a game versus the Tigers, Freitas fielded a come-backer and saw that the man on third was caught too far off the base.  Freitas ran straight at the base runner, faking throws and eventually tagging the runner out himself.  Freitas then looked at the runner at second and saw that he too was caught too far off the base.  Again, Freitas ran directly at the base runner and ended up tagging that runner out as well.  Unassisted double plays by the pitcher on ground balls don’t happen very often.

Freitas had been written up in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not once before.  A year or two earlier in a PCL game, Freitas struck out Henry “Prince” Oana, a famed Hawaian ballplayer and another great minor league star.  However, the pitch got away from the catcher.  Freitas raced in, picked up the ball and managed to throw Oana out at first, even though Oana was not regarded as a slow baserunner.  (If I had to guess, I’d say the ball ricocheted off the backstop back towards Freitas, and Oana got a late jump out of the box not immediately realizing the catcher had not caught the ball.)

Freitas got off to a poor start with the A’s in 1933 and quickly found himself back in the minors.However, the Cincinnati Reds purchased his contract in late May 1934.

While Freitas had little success with the Reds over the next three seasons, recording an 11-24 overall record, he pitched in an exceptional game against Dizzy Dean on July 1, 1934, the year Diz won 30.

Neither Freitas nor Dean was particularly effective through nine innings, both pitchers allowing five earned runs.  Both hurlers then settled down and threw seven consecutive shut out innings.

In the top of the 17th, Freitas weakened and allowed the Cardinals a run.  However, in the bottom half of the inning the Reds struck back, scoring a run off Dizzy to even the score again.  Both Freitas and Dean came out after 17 innings pitched, and Reds reliever Paul Derringer allowed two runs in the top of the 18th to lose it.  Dean received credit for the win, and Freitas got a no-decision.

Freitas was also on hand for the first night game in major league history played at the Reds’ Crosley Field on May 23, 1935.  Freitas had similarly been in attendance for the PCL’s first night game five years earlier in Sacramento.

After starting the 1936 season 0-2, the Reds sold Freitas to the Columbus Redbirds of the American Association.  Columbus was a franchise in the St. Louis Cardinals’ huge minor league system, as were the Sacramento Senators.  Freitas, at his wife’s suggestion, asked Cardinals’ general manager Branch Rickey, to assign him to the Senators, since both franchises were the same classification (AAA today, AA back then).

After the 1936 season, Columbus sold Freitas to Sacramento (now called the Solons).  Back where he considered home, Tony won 20 or more games with ERAs under 3.00 the next six seasons in a row.

Freitas says that, after the first two 20-win seasons, Branch Rickey offered to trade him to another major league team, but that Freitas requested to remain in Sacramento and Rickey agreed not to trade him.

This story is likely true.  Even though Sacramento was a small-market team, PCL teams played 30 to 50 more games each year than major league teams, and Freitas, as a marginal major league pitcher but a great PCL star, could probably make the same money playing in the PCL as he would have made pitching in the major leagues.  Freitas was much more comfortable pitching near home in California, where he felt less pressure compared to pitching in the major leagues.

Freitas was not above the horse-play that many ballplayers love.  He would occasionally buy leftover army store dynamite (it was truly a different era), which he would roll into homemade firecrackers that he’d later toss onto the playing field to liven things up.

Another highlight of Freitas’ career was late 1942, when the Solons finished in 1st place their one and only time after staging an incredible comeback against the Los Angeles Angels in the season’s final week.  With a two game lead, the Angels traveled to Sacramento for the season’s final seven games.

The Angels won the first two games of the series to pull ahead by four games, but the Solons then astoundingly won the last five games in a row to take the title.  The last two games were a double-header.  In the first game, the Solons came back from a 5-0 deficit to win 7-5 with Freitas pitching a one-two-three ninth inning.  In the second game, Freitas started and won 5-1.  [Unfortunately, the Solons then lost to the Seattle Rainiers in the first round of the Governor’s Cup in which the top four finishing PCL teams played two best-of-seven series to determine the league champion.]

After the 1942 season, Freitas joined the military and did not return to professional baseball until 1946, when he was nearly 38 years old.  He continued to pitch in the PCL until 1950, when he was cut by the Solons after a poor start.

However, Freitas was not ready to retire, instead signing first with the Modesto Reds and later the Stockton Ports of the California League.  Against younger, less experienced (and in many cases, less talented) players, Freitas was again dominating, winning 20 or more games with ERAs under 3.00 four years in row.

Late in the 1953 season, Freitas, now age 45, declared his intent to finally retire.  Before his final start, the Stockton Ports presented him with a new 1953 Ford automobile, and Freitas finished his long pitching career by striking out the final three batters he faced.

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