Simmons, Al
[Aloysius H. Szymanski]
Baseball
b. May 22, 1903, Milwaukee, WI
d. May 26, 1956
A young right-handed hitter who steps toward third instead of directly toward the pitcher is always warned, "Don't put your foot in the bucket." That was Al Simmons' batting style. He was such a good hitter that no one ever tried to change him, but it won him the nickname "Bucketfoot Al."
After he spent two years in the minor leagues, the Philadelphia Athletics bought his contract for a price of somewhere between $40,000 and $70,000 in 1924 and he became the team's starting left fielder, hitting .308 with 102 RBI.
Simmons led the league with 253 hits, still the record for a right-handed hitter, and a .599 slugging percentage in 1925, when he batted .387. After a .341 average in 1926, he hit .392 in 1927 but finished second in the batting race to Harry Heilmann's .398.
In 1929, Simmons won the AL's most valuable player award. He hit .365 with 34 home runs, a league-leading 157 RBI, and 114 runs scored as the Athletics won the first of three consecutive pennants. Philadelphia beat the Chicago Cubs in a five-game World Series, with Simmons batting .300 and hitting 2 home runs. He got 2 hits, including a home run, in the seventh inning of the fourth game, when the Athletics scored 10 runs to overcome an 8-0 deficit.
Simmons won consecutive batting titles with a .361 average in 1930, when he also led the league with 152 runs scored, and a .390 average in 1931. In the 1930 World Series, a six-game victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, he hit .364 with 2 home runs. He batted .333 with 2 more home runs and 8 RBI in 1931, when the Athletics lost to the Cardinals in seven games.
After he led the league with 216 hits in 1932, owner-manager Connie Mack decided he had to get rid of some of his high-salaried players because of the depression. Simmons and two other players were sold for $150,000 to the Chicago White Sox.
He hit .331 and .344 in his first two years in Chicago, then dropped to .267 and was sold to the Detroit Tigers. He batted .327 in one season there and went to the Washington Senators, where he hit only .279 in 1937.
Simmons rebounded with a .302 average, 21 home runs, and 95 RBI in 125 games with Washington in 1938, split the 1939 season between the Boston Braves and Cincinnati Reds, and then returned to the Athletics as a player-coach. He spent 1942 out of baseball, but in 1943 he signed with the Boston Red Sox, who were desperate for players because of the World War II manpower shortages.
In Boston, he hit only .203 in 40 games. Philadelphia then re-hired him as a coach. He appeared in 4 games in 1944, his last season as a player, but remained as a coach through 1949. After two seasons as a coach with Cleveland, Simmons became director of a sandlot baseball program in New York City. He died of complications from phlebitis.