Legends of the Pen: Clear The Deck For Football
11/4/2010 12:10:20 PM | Football
John Fox's Legends of the Pen Archives:
Sept. 23:The Syracuse-Colgate Rivalry
Oct. 14: The Syracuse-Pittsburgh Rivalry
Clear the deck for football. Finally!
An hour shy of November 2, the World Series ended as Syracuse heading toward the ninth game of its schedule, already -- glory be! -- one win from bowl-eligibilty with six victories.
The Lords of Baseball used to know their place on the calendar, and abide by it. 'Used to' ended a long time ago.
The last time the franchise won a World Series, the date was October 2 when the New York Giants' four-afternoon sweep was completed at Cleveland. The 1954 Orange remained unbeaten (1-0) until later in the day when Penn State held sophomore Jim Brown to a 4-for-14-yard rushing total at Archbold Stadium.
Four years earlier, there'd been another four-game World Series sweep by a different New York team, the Yankees over the Phillies.
At the time, Jim Brown was a high-school sophomore wunderkind a few miles out on Long Island, and had no idea of the rare distinction that he would later share with another "Big Jim" who was the Phillies' remarkable pitching workhorse in season and Series alike.
In athletics' most recent 70-plus years on "The Hill", only James Nathaniel Brown and Casimir James Konstanty lettered in four different sports. If there were predecessors, SU history has slighted them.
Besides Brown becoming a lacrosse legend and unanimous All-America power back in football, he was an under-employed basketball force and completed his Block S 'quad-fecta' in track. Konstanty's varsity years, more than a decade and a half earlier (1936-39), were more moderate doses of baseball, soccer, basketball and boxing. Esteemed SU baseball coach Lew Carr used him primarily at third base and first.
As a Cleveland Brown, Brown immediately became the NFL's MVP, age 21, afterwards awarded it twice more before retiring not yet age 30. In contrast, Konstanty's first minor-league season was a horrendous 4-19 won-lost. Nine years later, 33, he was voted National League MVP in a landslide over runnerup Stan Musial, fourth-time NL batting champion; he drew 20 of the writers' 24 first-place votes and one for second, although three of the writers didn't consider a mere relief-pitcher worthy of even the 10th-place line on their ballots. .
His 74 regular-season appearances, all in relief including stays of nine and 10 innings, broke the majors' previous record. He finished 68 of the 74, and won 16 plus a majors' high of 22 saves, a stat not recognized at the time. The bespectacled righthander hadn't started since 1948, but with the rotation stripped by injuries and an Army call-up, manager Eddie Sawyer chose Konstanty for the Series opener against Yankees ace Vic Raschi. A Yankee sacrifice fly decided the ensuing 1-0 duel. Two days later, in came Big Jim with the bases loaded, two out in the eighth; the only batter he faced tapped a soft grounder that shortstop Granny Hamner booted as the tying run scored. To top it off, relieving after two first-inning runs in Game 4, Konstanty retired the next 10 Yankees and remained in the game until pinch-hit for in the eighth.
They made a unlikely pair from Central New York campuses, Sawyer a Phi Beta Kappa at Ithaca College with a Masters from Cornell, who never reached the majors as a player. Even more unlikely, undertaker Andy Skinner, a neighbor in wife Mary Konstanty's little Otsego County hometown of Worcester, who became the winter-months catcher Konstanty forever credited as teaching him the palm ball that became his newfound bread-and-butter pitch.
The magic faded in 1951 and with it the "Whiz Kids" lineup's sudden success. Konstanty remained in the majors until he was 39, however. Sold to the Yankees for the 1954 stretch-drive, there was no catching Cleveland, but the next year, he was 7-2 with 11 saves and 2.32 ERA only to be left off Casey Stengel's World Series roster which lost in seven games to Brooklyn.
By then, Konstanty's sporting-goods store had long been thriving in Oneonta, where he also spent five years as Hartwick College athletic director. He ran unsuccessfully for the state legislature shortly before his death at 59. His son, also named Jim, is a former county attorney and assistant DA.
Both Sawyer and Konstanty spent some of their early 'winters' as schoolteachers -- Jim's stops beginning at St. Regis Falls (where he'd played summer Northern League ball before and after graduation), later at Endicott, Westfield (Chautauqua Co.) and Worcester. Sawyer served at least a couple of fall semesters at Binghamton North and was head football coach in at least one of them
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