Mel Ott- the Little Giant
Melvin Thomas Ott was born in Gretna, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, on March 2nd, 1909. His parents were of Dutch ancestry, Charles and Carrie Ott, with his father working as a laborer in a cottonseed oil plant to provide for his family. He and two of Mel’s uncles played on a semi-pro team, so it was natural that Mel would take up the game as a youngster. Mel was a fine athlete, even though he was short and stocky for his age. He became a catcher, starring on his high school baseball team, which played twice a week. When he wasn’t anchoring the school nine, he plied his trade for a semi-pro squad, also as a catcher, at the tender age of fourteen.
The New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association turned Mel Ott away when he was sixteen, citing his lack of size as the reason. Ott then joined a lumber company’s semi-pro team in Patterson, Louisiana, located about ninety miles from New Orleans. When Ott became a star, the millionaire owner of the company, Harry Williams, told New York Giants’ manager John McGraw about the kid while he was in the Big Apple on business. Williams arranged a tryout for Ott, who was so skeptical of the whole scenario he refused to believe it. Only when Williams actually bought Mel a train ticket to New York did it begin to dawn on him that it was for real.
The overwhelmed Ott reported to the Giants for his tryout in early September of 1925. The left handed swinging Ott overcame his jitters and knocked the ball all over the park, leaving the amazed McGraw to remark to a writer, “He’s got the most natural swing I’ve seen in years. This lad is going to be one of the greatest left-handed hitters the National League has seen.” Even the Hall of Fame bound McGraw couldn’t have foreseen how right he would be!
McGraw awarded Mel Ott a $400 bonus and a contract in January of 1926, but let Mel know that he would need to convert to the outfield. At the time Ott was only one hundred and fifty pounds, too light and small to be an everyday catcher. McGraw and his staff tutored Ott on the fine points of playing the outfield and hitting, running the bases and throwing. McGraw tried to keep his star pupil away from the club’s veterans, so they would not “corrupt” the boy. McGraw was so enthralled with Ott’s potential that he kept him on the bench with the Giants for two seasons rather than risk him picking up bad habits in the minor leagues, until he made him the starting right fielder in 1928. Mel Ott was only nineteen years old.
Ott did not disappoint. He hit over .300 with 18 homers and 77 RBI. He busted out in a big way in 1929 when he smashed a career high 42 homers with 151 RBIs, the most ever for any player who was twenty years old or younger when the season began. He hit at home and on the road, as his record 87 RBI away from the Polo Grounds attested. His lessons learned at the hands of McGraw resulted in his racking up a fantastic 29 outfield assists and being involved in a record 12 double plays, as he mastered the quirky caroms and ricochets the Polo Ground’s outfield walls had to offer.
Ott put up great numbers over the course of the next three seasons. First baseman Bill Terry, another future Hall inductee, replaced McGraw as the Giants’ manager on June 3, 1932, as the legendary skipper had become physically and emotionally drained. The National League switched to a less lively ball in 1933, and Giants’ pitching thrived behind Carl Hubbell, who won 23 games with 10 shutouts. The Giants won the pennant by five games over the Pittsburgh Pirates. In the World Series, Hubbell won a pair of games and Mel hit two home runs, including the Series clincher as the Giants downed the Washington Senators four games to one.
The Giants came in second the next two years by a combined six games to the Cardinals and then to the Cubs. In 1934, Ott, with his now familiar high right leg lift as the ball came hurtling towards him as he batted, had a banner year. He hit .326 with 35 homers and sent 135 runs scurrying across home plate. He was a favorite with the fans and players alike, a gentleman in every respect. He had a fine 1935 as well, and in 1936 Mel Ott once again led his Giants to the World Series. He nearly duplicated his 1934 numbers, but the Yankees of Joe DiMaggio proved too tough an adversary as they took the Series four games to two despite Ott’s .304 hitting.
Ott was switched to third base for sixty games during the 1937 campaign, a move designed to help the offense and the club. Ott responded by playing great baseball and his 31 home runs led the club by 17. The Giants once again won the pennant, by three games over Chicago, and once again were beaten by the juggernaut Yankees, this time four games to one. Ott had a fantastic 1938 season, with 36 round trippers and 116 RBI, but age began to catch up with the rest of the team and they failed to repeat. The Giants fortunes took a downturn over the next few years, but Ott remained a fixture. Although he would never again knock in over one hundred runs, more a testament to the lack of talent around him than to any fading of his skills, he became so popular with the fans that they voted him the nation’s top sports hero in a 1944 vote by war bond buyers. From 1929 through 1938, Ott finished with over one hundred RBI every year except 1937, becoming the first National League player to post eight consecutive one hundred RBI seasons. The Giants named him player-manager in 1942, and the slugger kept producing home runs.
A stomach ailment brought on by the strain of managing war time players made his 1943 year his worst by far since he
had become a regular. He rebounded nicely the next couple of years, hitting his 500th home run on August 1st, 1945. As the post WW II years dawned, Ott went to spring training in 1946 still only thirty seven years old. But right before Opening Day, Ott was beaned in batting practice. He hit his 511th home run as the season began, but injured his knee diving for a fly ball the next day. That, combined with the effects of the beaning, led to the end of his career. He played sparingly in 1946 and made only one appearance in 1947, retiring in July after twenty two seasons, all as a Giant. Only five NL players {Cap Anson, Willie Stargell, Tony Gwynn, Stan Musial, and Mel Ott} spent twenty plus years with the same club.
His 511 home runs were over 200 more than any National Leaguer had compiled when he hung up his spikes for good. Only Babe Ruth and Jimmy Foxx had hit more than Ott to that time. He held since surpassed NL marks for runs scored, batted in, and bases on balls. He led the league in home runs six times, walks six times, runs twice, and on base percentage four times, as well as being recognized hands down as the best right fielder of his day.. He continued on as the Giants’ skipper until July 16th, 1948, being replaced by his exact polar opposite, Leo Durocher. Mel, a twelve time All-Star, was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame in 1951.
He stayed in baseball through various jobs as a broadcaster. Following the 1958 season, Mel Ott and his wife Mildred were driving in dense fog on a Mississippi highway when another driver crossed the middle line and hit them head on. His wife survived her injuries, but Ott succumbed to his a week later, passing away on November 21st, 1958. He left his wife and two daughters.
As the baseball world and the nation mourned his loss, sportswriter Arnold Hano put it best about a slugger so feared he was once walked with the bases loaded, and so revered he was voted Sport Magazine’s “Sport Father of the Year” in 1943. “His death was the worst that could have happened to baseball, but his playing career had been the best.”
