NJ Jewish News | Glory days with the A’s

by Ron Kaplan
NJJN Staff Writer

On May 2, 1951, Philadelphia Athletics rookie Lou Limmer stepped up to bat against the Detroit Tigers’ Saul Rogovin; Joe Ginsberg was the catcher. Home plate umpire Joe Paparella commented on the unusual situation: “Well, well, three Heebs. Wonder who’ll prevail?” As if in response, Limmer smacked a home run.

“That’s a true story,” Limmer told NJ Jewish News in an interview in his Manalapan home.

Although Limmer’s major league career lasted just two seasons, he earned his place in baseball lore by becoming the last player to hit a home run for the A’s before they moved to Kansas City in 1954. He also had the final base hit for the Philadelphia franchise.

And now Limmer is the answer to another trivia question, appearing on a baseball card put out by the American Jewish Historical Society and Jewish Major Leaguers, Inc., that names the 81-year-old Limmer as one of the two oldest living Jewish ex-players (the other is another A’s alumnus, 86-year-old Mickey Rutner). (Another card commemorates the Limmer-Rogovin-Ginsberg game.)

There is a bit of discrepancy about Limmer’s age: Some sources list his year of birth as 1925, others as 1927. Limmer chuckles as he admits to lying about his age. “It made things a little easier,” he says, “maybe get a better chance at a better [signing] bonus.”

Limmer, who at six-foot, two-inches looks like he could still pop one out of the park, gets lost in reverie as he recalls the old days. He employs a few Yiddish phrases as he speaks of growing up in the Bronx with 11 athletic brothers, including two professional wrestlers, a middleweight boxer, a New York State fencing champion, an Olympic hopeful, and a champion swimmer.

Theirs was a kosher household. “One day my brother brought home a ham and tried to fool our mother, telling her it was roast beef. She smacked him and threw it down the dumbwaiter.”

Connie Mack, who owned and managed the A’s for 50 years, signed Limmer to a contract, but not without a bit of drama. When the young prospect asked for a large bonus, “Mack grabbed at his heart. I got scared, I thought I killed him.” He quickly recanted and accepted a mere $200; Mack quickly recovered.

As he was leaving the ballpark, a scout for the NY Giants asked if he had signed a contract. “When I said I had, he pulled out a document that said they were prepared to pay me $10,000!

“I cried all the way home.”

Growing up in New York, Limmer rarely experienced overt anti-Semitism. He had a rude awakening when he began his pro career in Lexington, NC, in 1946. “They had signs along the railroad tracks, ‘Jews, niggers, and dogs: Stay out.’”

Limmer made his debut for the A’s in 1951. “I pinch-hit in Boston [against] Ellis Kinder. He struck me out,” he says, recalling the events of more than a half-century ago.

A happier memory came the next day when he hit his first major league home run off Vic Raschi at Yankee Stadium in front of a large group of family and friends. “My feet never touched the ground; I was flying.” That last home run for the A’s, also against the Yankees, came three years later.

In those days, veteran players, fearful of losing their jobs to the up-and-comers, were hard on rookies. In Limmer’s case, he says, the animosity was more because of his religion.

“There were a few like that,” he says, reluctant to mention names. They taunted him with barbs like “Sheeney” and worse. Ironically, Limmer says, he never received any guff from opponents, only teammates. One of his fellow A’s was particularly bothersome.

“Finally I had it up to here and I went after him.” But a teammate who had taken a liking to Limmer warned the offending player to lay off. “He knocked him on his fanny, and I never had trouble after that.”

Limmer played another four years in the minors before retiring in 1958. “I finished on top,” he says proudly, and the big league statistics (30 home runs, 96 runs scored, and 100 runs batted in) bear him out. All told, Limmer hit 258 homers in his 13 minor league campaigns. Limmer and his wife, Pearl, raised two sons, Craig and Danny. Danny was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the mid-1970s but opted to go to college. Two laminated diplomas — along with commemorative plates from the boys’ b’nei mitzva — are displayed on the dining room wall.

Limmer still enjoys hearing from old fans and ballplayers. The Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society helps with that, hosting an annual reunion.

“People come from South America, from Hawaii, Canada. I mean it’s crazy. It’s just great. It makes you feel people remember you.”

Until recently, Limmer, who suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, served as a volunteer at Pine Brook School in Manalapan. Stephanie J. Cayne-Meiskin, director of The Generation Connection and a special education teacher at the school, praised Limmer in an e-mail to NJJN.

“One visit was all it took to get Lou hooked on the kids (and the kids hooked on Lou). [He] would stroll through the hallways as if he had won the World Series.

“Lou speaks to the children about the challenges he faced as a young Jewish man in a world that did not accept (or was not kind to) Jews and blacks.”

“It made me alive,” Limmer says of his visits to the school. “It’s one of the happiest times of my life when I go to these places.”