Swoonin' A's, 6-16-61: Rookie Krausse brings magic to Municipal

Lew Krausse is shown on his 1966 Topps baseball card, when he had his best major league season. Five years earlier, the 18-year-old Krausse pitched a three-hit shutout in his major league debut, leading the Kansas City Athletics to a 4-0 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on June 16, 1961.

By Phil Ellenbecker

  As successful as the Kansas City Royals were at the beginning of their history compared with the Kansas City Athletics -- a second-place finish in the Royals in third year of existence, nothing ever higher than sixth for the A's -- fans might presume they were more successful at the gate.

  They would be wrong. The A's, who'd moved to K.C. in 1955 from Philadelphia, topped 1 million fans in each of their first two years, while the Royals, one of two American League expansion teams in 1969, didn't draw a million until their fifth year. The A's drew more fans than the Royals in three of the first four years for the two teams, both of which played at Municipal Stadium.

  But that began to change as the Royals kept getting better and moved into a new stadium in 1973, and the A's just stayed bad -- never a winning season in 13 years in K.C. before moving, again, to Oakland. The Royals finally topped a million in '73 and topped the A's, and that's where it stayed. The A's never again brought in more than the 774,944 they drew in 1960. By 1961 there just wasn't much to bring fans in to Municipal.

  An exception was the Friday night of June 16, when 25,869 streamed into the ballpark at 22nd and Brooklyn to see the major league pitching debut of Lew Krausse, an 18-year-old who'd pitched 18 no-hitters as an amateur before signing for a $125,000 bonus with the influence of his father, an A's scout.

  Fresh out of Chester (Pennsylvania) High School, Krausse didn't disappoint. The 6-foot, 175-pound right-hander threw a three-hit shutout as the A's beat the Los Angeles Angels 4-0.

  Krausse put a muzzle on the Angels, one of two new American League teams in 1961, not allowing any Los Angeles base runner into scoring position until the ninth inning. He worked around five walks with the help of six strikeouts and three double plays.

  He retired the Angels in order in two innings and in five faced the three-batter minimum thanks to two conventional twin killings and catcher Joe Pignatano throwing out a would-be base stealer on a strikeout.

  With three outs to go to close out the whitewashing, Krausse got Albie Pearson to ground out to second leading off the ninth and struck out Ted Kluszewki, a once-feared power hitter now in his last year in the majors, and at 36 twice Krausse's age. But when Leon Wagner walked and Steve Bilko reached on Dick Howser's error at shortstop, the shutout was in some danger. No problem. Lee Thomas popped up to Reno Bertoia at third base, and the opener of an 18-game A's homestand was off to a rousing start.

  Krausse -- whose father, also named Lew, had pitched for the Athletics in 1931 and '32 when they were in Philadelphia -- kept the Angels at bay by inducing a steady diet of balls hit into the dirt, with 15 batters being retired on ground outs. Howser, the future Royals manager who would lead the team to its first World Series title in 1985, and second baseman Jerry Lumpe each had five assists and combined on two double plays, one going 6-4-3 and the other 4-6-3.

  Besides the three Angels hits, the only other balls that got into the outfield were three fly outs to Deron Johnson in right.

  Krausse retired the first four batters before Thomas singled in the second. Bilko singled in the sixth and Ken Hamlin singled in the seventh for L.A.'s other hits.

  The seventh was the only inning besides the ninth that the Angels put more than one runner on base. But after Eddie Yost drew a leadoff walk, the A's got an unconventional double play when Pignatano caught Yost trying to steal while pinch hitter Earl Averill struck out. Hamlin was rubbed out on a fielder's choice by Ken Hunt, another pinch hitter.
  (Yost, nicknamed "The Walking Man," was in the next-to-last season of an 18-yeaer major league career in which he finished 11th all time in number of walks drawn, six times leading the league.)

Jerry Lumpe went 2-for-3 and played some strong defense behind Lew Krausse, turning two double plays at second base, as the Kansas City Athletics defeated the Los Angeles Angels on June 16, 1961.

  The Athletics managed just enough offense to ease whatever nerves Krausse may have had.

  They got on the scoreboard in the fourth when Norm Siebern drove in Wes Covington with a double to left. Covington was on after he'd forced Lumpe at second on a grounder to first. Lumpe had led off the inning with a single.

  K.C. gave Krausse more breathing room with a three-run sixth. Bertoia, one of eight players in baseball history born in Italy, drove in the first two with a bases-loaded single to right, after a single by Lumpe, an intentional walk to Siebern and an unintentional walk to Johnson. After Bertoia, who had only one other multi-RBI game on the year, made it 3-0, Pignatano drove in Johnson with a sacrifice fly to center.

  The A's scored all their runs off starter Ken McBride, who in seeing his record fall to 5-5 went 6 1-3 innings and gave up four earned runs and seven hits, while walking four and striking out one.

  Besides stifling the Angels on the mound, Krausse also solved them at bat, going 2-for-3. Lumpe also was 2-for-3 for K.C., which with the win improved to 26-31 on the season, good for seventh place in the 10-team AL. Los Angeles fell to 21-41, in last place.

  After drawing a season-high crowd for Krausse on June 16, the Athletics topped that with the 26,304 who showed up for his next start, June 23 against Boston. The results weren't so happy this time, though, as the Red Sox got to Krausse for three runs, two earned, while he walked eight in seven innings in a 5-4 loss.

  And Lew-mania had faded by June 29, as only 10,415 turned out to watch Krausse give up eight hits and six runs, five earned, while he walked five over five innings of a 6-2 loss.

  And in his first road start, July 4, the same Angels he'd tamed 17 days earlier treated him rather rudely, raking him for five runs in 2 1/3 innings in a 12-5 loss. The June 16 firecracker was a dud on this Independence Day.

  The June 23 start began a string of five straight losses for Krausse, after which he was demoted to the bullpen. He did get two more starts, with varying results.

  In his final home start Sept. 5, again against the Angels, he gave up six runs, all earned, in five innings in a game where Los Angeles eventually prevailed 13-12. Lew-mania was a distant memory now, as only 4,692 were in attendance.

  Krausse ended on a bright note, though, much as he began his season. He threw his first complete game since that magical night of June 16, stopping the Washington Senators on five hits and two runs, both earned, with one walk and three strikeouts in a 3-2 win.

  That victory enabled Kansas City to escape sole possession of the AL cellar and tie Washington for ninth, each at 61-100, 47 1/2 behind the eventual World Series champion New York Yankees.

  The Senators joined the Angels as AL expansion teams that year, replacing the Senators who'd vacated the nation's capital for Minnesota. The Angels finished eighth in their initial season at 70-91, nine ahead of the A's and Senators.

  Krausse's final totals for 1961: 2-5 record, 4.85 ERA, 49 hits and 46 walks given up over 55 innings, with 32 strikeouts.

  Sent down for minor league seasoning the next year and remaining there for parts of the next three seasons, Krausse went on to pitch 12 years in the major leagues with five teams, posting a 68-91 record with a 4.00 ERA. His best season was 1966 with Kansas City, when he went 14-9 with a 2.99 ERA. He was sixth in the AL in wins and ninth in ERA that year.

  The only time the A's drew more to Municipal in 1961 than in Krausse's first two starts was Aug. 25-27. An average of 32,348, topped by a Sunday crowd of 34,065, came out to see a Yankees team amid a historical season in which both Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle were chasing Babe Ruth's single-season home run record.

  Krausse wasn't the only pitcher who came on like a shooting star only to fade afterward. And he lasted longer than many of those phenoms. Two flameouts from a few years earlier come to mind, Karl Spooner and Von McDaniel.

  Spooner threw shutouts in his first two big league starts in 1954 with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Not only that, he set a debut record with 15 strikeouts in his first start and had 12 Ks in his next one. But he was out of the major leagues after his 1955 season, derailed by shoulder problems. His final record was 10-6 with a 3.09 ERA.

  McDaniel, like Krausse just out of high school, threw a shutout in his first start in 1957 with the St. Louis Cardinals, following two four-inning scoreless stints. But he, too, was out of the majors after two years, due to somewhat mysterious reasons that revolved around control and mechanical issues. His final ledger: 7-5, 3.45 ERA.

  Regardless of their future success, when pitchers like these come along, they remind baseball fans that you just don't know what you might see when you show up at the old ballpark.

  And in the case of Krausse, he must have indeed been a sight for sore-eyed Kansas City fans accustomed to misery. Following his smash debut, the A's won only four games for the remaining 17 of their homestand en route to their 61-win season. Coming off a 58-win season, the most victories they could muster in a year from then on before leaving K.C. in 1967 was 74 in 1966, when Krausse had his best season.

  On top of their lack of success on the field, the A's became somewhat of a joke after Charlie Finley became their owner in 1960, what with his sideshow promotions and constant threats to move the team.

  But K.C. fans didn't need a sideshow to be entertained June 16, 1961. What Krausse gave them was some serious pitching of the baseball, something to be relished, if only for one night. 

Sources:

Play-by-play: https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1961/B06160KC11961.htm  

Krausse biography: https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/e423e439 
Additional background came from various sources on the Retrosheet and Society for American Baseball Research's Biography Project and Games Project websites, as well as baseballreference.com.