Dusty Rhodes; his clutch hits helped Giants win '54 title

Mr. Rhodes, whose left-handed swing was tailor-made for the short right-field porch at the New York Giants’ home in the Polo Grounds, never batted more than 244 times in seven big-league seasons and had a career average of just .253.

But in his only World Series, in 1954, he delivered a game-winning pinch-hit home run in the 10th inning of Game 1, a game-tying pinch-hit single in Game 2, and a two-run pinch single in Game 3 to help the Giants win the title by sweeping the heavily favored Cleveland Indians.

Mr. Rhodes also hit a solo home run later in Game 2, remaining in the game after his pinch-hit single. His two home runs were the only ones hit by the Giants in the series.

Although that World Series is best remembered for “The Catch,’’ the great running grab by Willie Mays of a Vic Wertz drive in the opening game, it was Mr. Rhodes’s bat that proved the difference. Yet, earlier that season, Giants Manager Leo Durocher promised to quit unless the team traded Mr. Rhodes.

The Giants tried, but no other team wanted him.

“I decided Rhodes couldn’t run or field a ball and I decided I didn’t want him around,’’ the late Durocher, a Hall of Fame manager who won his only title that year, said after the series. “Get rid of him. He can’t do nothing. He convinced me now how wrong I was.’’

The World Series wasn’t Mr. Rhodes’s only brush with baseball history. In both the 1953 and ‘54 seasons, he homered in three consecutive at-bats in the same game.

The ‘54 season was his best; he hit a career-high .341 with 50 runs batted in and 15 home runs in only 164 at-bats.

In his autobiography, “Nice Guys Finish Last,’’ Durocher called the fun-loving Mr. Rhodes “the worst fielder who ever played in a big-league game.’’

But he also wrote that Mr. Rhodes’s personality kept the team “confident and happy.’’

“He was a lovable guy. He was a party guy. He was just a good old boy,’’ Frank Turco, a cousin of Mr. Rhodes’s wife, Gloria, said yesterday. “Did he live a hard life? Did he go out at night? Yes. But he was a good man. He was a Southern gentleman.’’

James Lamar Rhodes was born in Mathews, Ala., and grew up “dirt poor,’’ Turco said.

He joined the Navy shortly after his 17th birthday, seeing action on a warship in the Pacific theater during World War II, then signed his first baseball contract with the Chicago Cubs in 1947. But he spent his entire big-league career with the Giants, following the team from New York to San Francisco, where he played his final season in 1959.

A product of the segregationist South who played his first professional game the year that Jackie Robinson became the first African American player in the major leagues, Mr. Rhodes was “color blind,’’ former teammate Monte Irvin said.

“He was like a brother to all the black players,’’ Irvin told the New York Daily News. “He sure did like the good life, though, which would drive Leo crazy.’’

After his baseball career ended, Mr. Rhodes returned to New York, where he worked on a tugboat in New York Harbor. Tugs there flew their flags at half mast in his memory, his family said.

He retired to Henderson, Nev.

“Just by mentioning his name, I start to smile - which maybe is as good a tribute to a man as anything,’’ Vin Scully, Hall of Fame broadcaster with the Los Angeles Dodgers, told the Associated Press last night. “He had that marvelous time in 1954, when ‘all Rhodes led to the World Series.’ ’’