Tuesday, Eddie Joost died. He was 94. Here’s a slightly edited version of an essay I wrote about Joost, some years ago ...
Eddie Joost’s Career Transformed By Eyeglasses
If Eddie Joost had played nearly as well in his 20s as he did in his 30s, he would be in the Hall of Fame.
The young Joost couldn't hit, but Reds manager Bill McKechnie loved great defense up the middle, and Joost played great defense up the middle. He took over as Cincinnati's every-day shortstop in the second half of the 1940 season -- the Reds would win the World Series that fall -- and held the job through 1942. In 1943, he joined the Boston Braves and batted just .185, even though many of the good pitchers had, by then, been drafted. Joost didn't play baseball in 1944 -- instead he worked in a meat-packing plant, supporting the war effort -- but came back in '45 to play 35 games for the Braves before his season was cut short by a broken wrist.
For a variety of reasons, most of which have now been lost in the mists of time, Joost had acquired a reputation for being hard to get along with. This, coupled with his lousy track record as a hitter, made it hard for him to find a good job in his chosen profession. So in 1946, with all those good players back from the war, Joost turned 30 and spent the entire season playing for Rochester in the International League.
So let's see ... 30-year-old player in the minor leagues, with a .225 career batting average in the major leagues. Ninety-nine times out of 100, this guy's career would essentially be over. However, in 1946 the shortstop position was a disaster for the Philadelphia Athletics, and owner-manager Connie Mack, after personally checking out the stories about Joost, took a flyer and picked him up.
Joost batted just .206 in 1947 with the A’s, but that .206 was accompanied by 13 home runs and 114 walks. Both of those figures were career highs by quite a lot ... but the best was yet to come. As Joost would later recall,
The 1947 season went by and I wasn’t having the type of year I wanted. The reason was that I had astigmatism, but I didn’t want Mr. Mack to know it because only Bob Dillinger, the Browns’ third baseman, wore glasses. But it got worse. When we played night games, I’d see two balls coming at me. I struck out 110 times. I finally got up the nerve to tell Mr. Mack that I’d probably have to wear glasses. He said, “So?” So I got my glasses. The first time I came up to the plate at Shibe Park, the pitcher looked 10 feet away. I couldn’t believe my eyes had been that bad ...
If not for the prejudice against baseball players -- especially non-pitchers -- wearing glasses, there’s no telling what kind of hitter Joost might have been, earlier in his career. What we do know is that with the glasses, he was one hell of a hitter. In 1948, Joost turned 32. From that season through 1952, his last as a regular, he batted .257 (a big improvement over what he’d done before) and, more to the point, averaged 19 home runs and 120 walks per season.*
* Joost’s 149 walks in 1949 is easily the all-time record for a shortstop ... and he’s tied for No. 2 on the all-time list, too.
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