<Archive Obituaries> Allie Reynolds (December 26th 1994)
Bill Schenley
Photo:
http://www.library.okstate.edu/about/awards/images/reynolds.jpg
FROM: The Daily Oklahoman (December 28th 1994) ~
By Mac Bentley, Staff Writer
Allie P. Reynolds, who won 182 big-league baseball games and seven
more in World Series play from 1942-54, was still pitching 40 years
later. In his sleep.
"He was throwing fastballs and curves," grandson Dave Reynolds
said Tuesday. "He would rough up the ball - he used to do it with
his thumbnail, and he had real calluses on his first two fingers -
to get a better grip.
"He'd do that in his sleep, then he'd hurl his arm back and
throw. I guess he was dreaming of baseball. "
Reynolds, whose brilliant baseball career was the stuff from
which dreams are made, died just before midnight on Monday at St.
Anthony Hospital. He had suffered from lymphoma and diabetes, but
was in good spirits through his 79th Christmas, said his grandson.
"He had talked to people on the phone until late Christmas
(Sunday) night, talked to all the family and wished them a merry
Christmas," Dave Reynolds said. "He died peacefully, no pain. A
good part of the family was there. "
Reynolds will be remembered as a pitcher for the Cleveland
Indians and New York Yankees, an oilman and a philanthropist. He
was also part Creek Indian, and was nicknamed the Superchief as a
6-foot, 195-pound right-hander with the Yankees.
"He was a dominating pitcher," said Dr. Bobby Brown, who played
third base behind Reynolds for the Yankees and will deliver the
eulogy for Reynolds during Friday's 10 a.m. funeral at First
Presbyterian Church. "He was as good as any pitcher that pitched
during his time. He was extremely instrumental in the success of
the Yankees. "
He especially wanted to be remembered, said his grandson, for
winning the 1951 Hickock Award, which goes to the professional
athlete of the year, and for serving as player representative for
the Yankees from 1952-54, and the American League rep in 1953-54,
when the players pension fund was established.
Reynolds was 182-107 with 49 saves during 13 big-league seasons.
With the Yankees from 1947-54, he was 131-60, and 7-2 on six World
Series championship teams, starting nine games, completing five,
throwing two shutouts and making six relief appearances.
His best season was 1952, when he posted a 20-8 record and led
the American League with a 2.06 earned run average, 160 strikeouts
and six shutouts. In the World Series, which the Yanks took from
the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games, he started two games and
relieved in two others, had a 2-1 record with one save, a 1.77
earned run average and struck out 18 batters in 20 1/3 innings.
Reynolds said in 1986 that it didn't bother him that he had not
been elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
"I'm indifferent now about whether I make the Hall of Fame," he
said. "If it happens, it happens. They've gotten real strong on a
200-victory thing, and I'm a little short there. I knew that was
going to happen with all the relief work I did for the Yankees.
"That really was a career-shortener. But to me, that was
important. Teamwork was more important than some kind of honor. "
Reynolds' wife of 47 years, Earlene (Jones), died of cancer in
1983. He is survived by a son, J.D. Reynolds of Mustang, and a
daughter, Bobbye Kay Ferguson of San Francisco, eight grandchildren
and 10 great-grandchildren.
Another son, Allie Dale Reynolds, and grandson, Michael, died in
a 1978 airplane crash.
"Those were the only times the family ever saw him cry," said
Dave Reynolds, who lost a father and brother. "First at Allie Jr.'s
plane crash, then with his wife's death. "
Allie Pierce Reynolds was born Feb. 10, 1917, in Bethany. He
moved to Oklahoma City as a high school senior and played football
and track at Capitol Hill. He had never played baseball until 1936,
when a young Henry P. Iba coaxed him into putting down his javelin
and pitching some batting practice.
"I had some pretty outraged batters up there, because I was
trying to get them out," Reynolds recalled in 1982 at the
dedication of Oklahoma State's Allie P. Reynolds Stadium. "In the
first place, I wasn't too accurate; I was just out there in my
street shoes throwing as hard as I could. Mr. Iba finally said
that's enough and told me to go get a uniform. "
Reynolds was also drafted by the New York football Giants after
graduation, but opted instead for a baseball contract.
"At that time, 1939, baseball was by far the best job, because
football was just getting started," he said in 1982. "Besides, I
got a thousand dollars to sign up and that was the most money I'd
ever seen scraped together in one pile. I enjoy playing any game,
and I thought paying you to play was the greatest thing in the
world.
"And if they paid you before you even started - that was even
better. " Reynolds became owner and president of the Atlas Mud Co. in
1957, then Mid-Continent president of Newpark Drilling Fluids when
it acquired Atlas in a stock swap in 1980. He was a member of the
May Ave. Methodist Church board of directors, a 32nd-degree Mason,
a member of the Oklahoma City Golf and Country Club, the Petroleum
Club and the Independent Producers Association.
He also had served as Oklahoma Kids baseball commissioner,
United Fund co-chairman, Muscular Dystrophy state sports chairman,
Uniti treasurer, American Indian Hall of Fame president, Center of
American Indian president, a member of the Oklahoma Chapter of the
National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame board of directors
and as the Red Earth president.
Interment will be at Memorial Park Cemetery near Memorial and
Kelley.
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Photo:
http://www.jimthorpeassoc.org/jimthorpeassoc.org-asp/allieny_180x250.jpg
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Allie Reynolds, Star Pitcher For Yankees, Is Dead At 79
FROM: The New York Times (December 28th 1994) ~
By Claire Smith
Allie Reynolds, a pitcher Manager Casey Stengel once called "two ways
great" because of his skills as a starter and a reliever for six New
York Yankee World Series champions from 1947 through 1953, died
yesterday in Oklahoma City. He was 79.
The cause of death was complications of lymphoma and diabetes, a
grandson, David Reynolds, said.
His death followed the deaths in recent years of the Yankee pitchers
Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat who, with Reynolds, formed a starting corps
that helped pitch the Yankees to a record five consecutive American
League pennants and World Series titles from 1949 to '53.
Reynolds carved out a niche for himself on those teams by pitching two
no-hitters in one season, 1951, a feat only a handful of other major
league pitchers have accomplished.
He was a 20-game winner once in a 13-year career that saw him win 182
games, lose 107 and save 49. He also pitched 36 shutouts on the way to
a career earned run average of 3.30. Reynolds, a right-hander, twice
led the league in strikeouts and once in e.r.a, a brilliant 2.06 in
1952, when his record was 20-8.
But it was in the post-season that Reynolds's talents really came to
the fore. He appeared in 15 World Series games for the Yankees, with a
7-2 record, four saves and a 2.79 e.r.a. Reynolds's Series highlight
remains a two-hit, 1-0 victory over the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1949
Series opener. But his legend was built after World Series calls to
the bullpen.
When the Yankees defeated the Dodgers in a seven-game Series in 1952,
Reynolds won two games and lost one. The second victory came in relief
in the seventh game at Ebbets Field. In six World Series relief
appearances, Reynolds recorded either a victory or a save each time,
including the clinching games in the 1950, '52 and '53.
"Reynolds was two ways great, which is starting and relieving, which
no one can do like him," Stengel once said. "He has guts and his
courage is simply tremendous."
Albert Pierce Reynolds, who became known as Super Chief, was born in
Bethany, Okla., the son of a minister whose mother was a Creek Indian.
He starred in baseball, football and track while attending the college
now known as Oklahoma State, and he returned to Oklahoma, where he
became a successful oil businessman, after retiring from baseball in
1954.
At the time of his death, Reynolds was president of the National Hall
of Fame for Famous American Indians in Anadarko, Okla.
Reynolds reached the majors to stay with the Cleveland Indians in 1943
and was acquired by the Yankees after the 1946 season in a trade for
the All-Star second baseman Joe Gordon in which Joe DiMaggio had some
input.
Cleveland, the story goes, wanted Gordon so badly that it offered the
Yankees any pitcher but Bob Feller. When the Yankee executive Larry
MacPhail consulted DiMaggio on the matter, he is said to have replied:
"Take Reynolds. I'm a fastball hitter, but he can buzz his hard one by
me any time he has a mind to."
Reynolds was 19-8 with an American League-leading .704 winning
percentage in his first season in New York. In 1950, he won 16 games
despite pitching with bone chips in his elbow. The following season he
was 17-8, but two of the victories were no-hitters: one was a 1-0
verdict over Feller and the Indians and the other was an 8-0 decision
over the Boston Red Sox, in which Ted Williams made the final out on a
pop foul after the catcher Yogi Berra's misplay of an earlier pitch on
a foul pop had prolonged Williams's turn at bat.
Reynolds always played down the significance of his double no-hit
season, saying: "A no-hitter is not the best standard by which to
judge a pitcher. That's just luck. I've pitched four games better than
the no-hitters and lost three of them."
Reynolds's career ended after the 1954 season because of a back injury
he suffered when the Yankees' team bus crashed into an overpass in
Philadelphia.
Reynolds received a track scholarship to Oklahoma Agricultural and
Mechanical College, but carried only 140 pounds on a 5-foot-11
1/2-inch frame at the time and could not immediately make the
college's baseball team. So to build up his body, Reynolds competed in
the javelin and discus throws, and he eventually added 60 pounds.
Although several of his former teammates -- DiMaggio, Yogi Berra,
Whitey Ford, Mickey Mantle, Johnny Mize and Phil Rizzuto -- have been
elected to the Hall of Fame, Reynolds never was.
Reynolds also contributed to the game off the field. As the American
League player representative, he was instrumental in negotiating an
agreement with the owners that led to the major league players'
pension fund.
He is survived by a son, James D.; a daughter, Bobbye Kay Ferguson, 8
grandchildren and 10 great grandchildren.
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Photos: http://www.collectr.com/bb/images/bpreynoldsa.jpg
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~kp7s-ootk/NOHIT/A_REYNOLDS.jpg
http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/sports/images/baseball/reynolds-beechnut.JPG
1952 Topps (#67) baseball card:
http://www.vintagecardtraders.com/virtual/52topps/52topps-067.jpg
1953 Topps (#141) baseball card:
http://www.vintagecardtraders.com/virtual/53topps/53topps-141.jpg
1953 Bowman (#68) baseball card:
http://www.vintagecardtraders.com/virtual/53bowman_color/53bowman_color-068.jpg