With Tommy Edman‘s near cycle against the Diamondbacks, we were bound to be reminded of other Cardinal’s cycles. Nolan Arenado had the pleasure of doing it just last year in a loss – always a fun way to remember a game. He’s not alone! Willie McGee hit for a cycle against the Cubs. But he did so in the freaking Ryne Sandberg game. So to remember Willie’s cycle is to remember one of the greatest moments in Cubs history. Joy. John Mabry hit for a natural cycle. That was cool. Ray Lankford hit for the cycle as a rookie back in 1991, and did so by homering in his last at bat well past the 415 wall in straight away center at Busch 2 against the hated Mets. Ooooh, did anyone else just get chills?
But then, one must ask themselves, why do the announcers never mention Cliff Heathcote, the owner of the Cardinals first cycle? I mean he’s CLIFF HEATHCOTE! The people need to know about Cliff Heathcote!
OK, so you’ve never heard of Cliff Heathcote – or maybe if you’re especially baseball savvy, you’ve heard of him for something different. In the early 20s, Cliff was playing for the Cardinals in a double header against the Cubs. And after game one, he was traded…to the Cubs. In game two, Cliff had a pair of hits against his teammates from less than an hour before. So that’s a neat bit of trivia.
But really, it doesn’t compare to the wacky, wild story of Cliff Heathcote getting the first cycle in Cardinals history. Hold on to your butts.
Cliff Heathcote was basically not a baseball player when the Cardinals signed him in 1918. He hailed from Pennsylvania – he went to college in Pennsylvania – and he didn’t even play baseball for his own college. After college, he signed as a minor leaguer for the Cardinals in the class B Texas league in Houston. Just to be clear to modern audiences, this was not considered to be on the doorstep of playing in the majors.
But this was 1918, and in 1918 there was this thing happening that people called the Great War, and that we know better today as the World War II prequel. That’s the thing about World Wars, St. Louis is still considered part of the World. And so the Cardinals, who were pathetically hopeless at the time, saw themselves get pathetically more hopeless when they started losing player after player to the draft.
Let me assure you: The Cardinals were hit harder than most teams. You see, being a Cardinal wasn’t exactly considered a wartime necessity.
I’ll try another way to demonstrate just how completely invisible and forgotten the Cardinals were during this time period. Here’s an article announcing Heathcote’s promotion:
Why just imagine the Browns’ surprise!
So why Heathcote? Well, I’d like to tell you that he was smashing balls all around Texas, and the Cardinals had to call him up because he was an unstoppable force. But…he was super young. Under 21. That meant he wasn’t yet subjected to the draft, so Branch Rickey putting him on the team was a nice way of saying “I don’t have to deal with this crap anymore!” Branch would have probably put it more eloquently.
Cliff wasn’t JUST a warm body though, he was fast. That’s what he had going for him. And the Pennsylvania papers marveled at his promotion explaining that his strength was his ability to “beat out infield taps.”
“It was seldom that a man not good enough for the minors makes it in the majors” explained another paper.
Hoo boy, you can bet fans were excited for this up and coming prospect!
Cliff started his career on June 4th, 1918 – and proceeded to go 3-19 (all singles) in his first 5 games.
On June 12th they wrote of him: “Cliff Heathcote…appears to be very weak with the stick.” – Stay tuned for how he would be described in his native Pennsylvania just a week later.
You see on June 13th, the Cardinals happened to start a series against the Phillies in Philadelphia. The local boy was about to make good.
Heathcote led off the game with a foul pop up to 3rd. By the time he came up again in the 4th, the Phillies were leading 6-0 including a Fred Luderous grand slam, which was big news in dead ball times.
Heathcote began his run by getting the tough stuff out of the way. He tripled to center, later scoring on a Hornsby single.
His next at bat was in the top of the 5th with the Cardinals down 8-1, where he promptly cranked a 3-run-homer over the short right field wall in the Baker Bowl.
OK, I have to stop here and tell you something absolutely crazy. Something I’m absolutely certain did not happen, but at least one paper did print.
Before this at bat, Phillies manager Pat Moran decided to heckle the Pennsylvania boy:
“Curses on you, Clifton Heathcote! You have thwarted me today with your city manners and metropolitan ways, but my time will come – mark you, my time will come. I’ll get you yet, Clifton Heathcote, and repay you, blow for blow, for your dirty work this afternoon. Cur-r-rses.”
Now, I don’t believe that happened for a second. I don’t believe Pat Moran knew the NAME of the Cardinals rookie, and I don’t believe he tried to put a curse on him, while winning 8-1, after Cliff had only tripled to that point in the game. Perhaps this story happened later in the game – or more probably it was a bit of fancy to entertain readers, but it is at least the sort of fun you don’t see today.
Cliff grounded out in the top of the 7th, and singled in the 9th, and normally that would be it. Except the Cardinals had fully come back from their 8-1 deficit to tie the game. And we were on to extras.
And BOY were we on to extras. This wasn’t some wimpy beer league softball runner on 2nd extras, this was dead ball era play under the moon type of drama. And the game went on, and on, and on, and on.
In the top of the 11th Heathcote led off with a double, thus completing the cycle, or as stated in the Philadelphia Enquirer, “and that’s all the various dimensions of hits there are in the game.” It’s not hard to figure out why it was shortened to “cycle” about 3 years later.
Heathcote was bunted to 3rd, but could not score – and he was criticized in the papers the next day for NOT stealing home! Come on kid! I thought you were fast!
His production at the plate was over, but the game went 19 freaking innings – until it was called a tie at 9 PM. Remember, this was decades before lights. How in the Hell did they play that late?
In addition to his cycle, Heathcote apparently also made several dazzling plays ranging from over the shoulder catches, to shoe top snags. The papers marveled the next day that besides his hitting, running, and fielding, Heathcote was a bum.
Several days later the Cardinals ended their series with a double header. Heathcote picked up a single in the first game, and 3 hits (and a steal!) in the 2nd, leading them to victory. A few days after the announcement that Cliff was “very weak with the stick,” here’s how his home town Pennsylvania newspapers described him:
Clifton Heathcote, the demon slugger. It may be the greatest nickname in baseball history. Besides the initial cycle, perhaps this was the birth of Cardinals Devil Magic?
Heathcote turned out to be no slouch, by the time the Cardinals traded him away to the Cubs in the middle of that double header several years later, he had amassed a .270 batting average in almost 1500 at bats. That happens to be tied – after today – with one Tommy Edman.