William Woodrow “Bill” Hart, who was born in Wiconisco, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, on March 3, 1913, was a professional baseball player in both the major and minor leagues from 1935 through 1952 and a minor league manager from 1949 to 1951 (three seasons). While much information is available about his wartime play with the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1943 to 1945 seasons, little has been reported about the one year he spent with the Cairo Dodgers as a player-manager and the two years he spent as a player-manager with the Santa Barbara Dodgers of the California League. In 1949 Bill Hart took his team to the final round of the playoffs and in 1951 he led his team to the pennant of the California League and afterward that same year to win the Governor’s Cup in the playoff tournament.
From the Lodi News-Sentinel, Lodi, California, September 4, 1951:
Clinch Cal League Crown
Santa Barbara Champs
SANTA BARBARA, September 3 [1951] (UP) — Santa Barbara clinched the California League pennant today by sweeping a double bill from defending champion Ventura, 8 to 7 and 4 to 2.
Dodger Manager Bill Hart had a two-run homer in the ninth inning of the second game to give Dick Hanlon his 18th win of the year.
Ray Malgradi, Santa Barbara relief pitcher, made his 45th appearance on the mound and got credit for the win.
Going into today’s twin bill, the dodgers had an eight-game lead with nine left to play.
An article in the Sacramento Bee, September 21, 1951, gave the results of the playoff for the Governor’s Cup:
Santa Barbara Wins League Cup Playoff
By United Press
The Santa Barbara Dodgers are celebrating a grand slam sweep of the baseball season and the arrival in Santa Barbara of both the California League pennant and the Governor’s Cup.
Last night the pennant winners defeated the Visiala Cubs, 7 to 4 before a disappointed Visalia crowd. The victory gave the dodgers the final playoff, 4 games to 1.
The winners wrapped up their scoring in the early innings getting six big runs in the third on five hits, three walks and one error.
The Cubs committed a total of four errors to contribute to their own downfall….
During the 1951 season, the team was led by several players including Astrubal Baro of Cuba, a 22 year-old in his first season in professional baseball. Baro contributed by playing left field on a daily basis and registering a .300 batting average. Unfortunately for him, he never developed into a major league level player. His minor league record spans the years 1951 to 1959, playing with teams affiliated with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Chicago White Sox (American League), Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles, and Chicago Cubs. In 1959, he joined the Mexican League which had no major league affiliated teams. His play lasted through 1964, when he retired at the age of 37.
Baro’s baseball stats can be found at Baseball Reference.
Another person of note on the championship team was Gabe Gabler, the 20-year od first baseman, who batted .305 for the season. This was Gabler’s second year as a professional baseball player, he having played the year before also under Bill Hart‘s management on the Santa Barbara Dodgers. Gabler remained with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization playing on various minor league teams until 1955, when he was picked up by the Chicago Cubs, then the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Milwaukee Braves, and then returned to the Chicago Cubs in 1957. In 1958, he spent most of the season in Fort Worth of the Texas League, but the Cubs called him up and he was able to get nine games of major league experience – which turned out to be the only play he ever had at that level. In 1959 he was moved to the Boston Red Sox organization, from which finished his baseball career.
Gabler’s baseball stats can be found at Baseball Reference.
Other than Bill Hart himself and Gabe Gabler, the only other player on the Santa Barbara team who had major league playing experience in his career was Ed Palmquist. On the 1951 team, he was an 18-year-old pitcher in three games with a total of nine innings to his credit. He ended up with the worst E. R. A. on the club, a disastrous 14.40. He continued under contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization through their move to Los Angeles and finally in 1960 he made the major leagues, that year posting an E. R. A. of 2.54 in the 20 games/39 innings in which he pitched. He remained with the Dodgers through part of 1961, when he was traded to the Minnesota Twins (American League). In 1962 he went to the minor leagues in the Twins organization. In 1963, his last year in professional baseball, he played in the Japan Pacific League.
Palmquist’s baseball stats can be found at Baseball Reference.
The photo of Bill Hart (above ) is from a old baseball card from 1946 or 1947, when he was playing for a AAA non-affiliated minor league team, the Oakland Oaks, of the Pacific Coast League.
Hart’s first managerial job was in 1949 with the Cairo, Illinois, team of the Kentucky-Illinois-Tennessee League, also known as the “Kitty” League; the team was an affiliate of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hart was a player-manager that year and ended the season with a batting average of .404 while the team went 74-51 and came in 2nd in the race for the pennant, which was won by the Owensboro Oilers, an affiliate of the Boston Braves. In the ensuing tournament in which the top four teams competed, the Cairo Dodgers under Hart won in the semi-final round and proceeded to the finals where they were behind 2-1 in the series, when, due to bad weather, the seven game series was abruptly cancelled with agreement by both teams.
The next managerial job for Hart came with the Santa Barbara Dodgers in 1950. Again, Hart was a featured player, finishing the season with an average of .309 but the team was only able to post a record of 52-88. Other than Hart, who had prior major league experience, there were two players who eventually made the major leagues.
One of those players was Gabe Gabler who is profiled and pictured above. The other player was Norm Sherry.
Norm Sherry was an 18-year-old catcher whose first season in professional baseball was with the Santa Barbara Dodgers team in 1950. His record on that team was not stellar, but he showed enough promise so that by 1951 he had moved up and played at the AA or AAA level until he made the major leagues in 1959 as a rookie catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. After spending seasons 1959-1962 at Los Angeles, he played for the New York Mets in 1963, then went again to the minor leagues where his playing career ended in 1967. However, he has some stats from 1972, where at age 40 he played for an affiliate of the California Angels while he was also managing that team. Sherry’s career as a manager and coach, spanned from 1965 through 1977, with his most notable achievement being taking over for Dick Williams in 1976 as manager of the losing California Angels and salvaging the season with a 37-29 record. Norm Sherry is only one of nine members of the Jewish faith to manage a major league baseball team.
Sherry’s baseball stats can be found at Baseball Reference.
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This blog post was researched from information provided by Lynda Wiest, of Reno, Nevada, formerly of Wiconisco.
News articles from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.