A Real Life Field Of Dreams
by Mike Ashmore
July 27, 2006 - Hunterdon County Democrat



In "Field of Dreams," Ray Kinsella builds a baseball field on his Iowa farm and gets to rub elbows with the legendary Chicago Black Sox. But that was just a movie, just fiction. If it's the real thing you're looking for, the closest you'll get just might be the story of Bobby Malkmus.

Today, Malkmus serves on the advisory board of the Flemington-based Jack Cust Baseball Academy. But nearly 50 years ago, he was an infielder coming through the Milwaukee Braves system when he got the call he'd been dreaming about ever since he was a young man growing up in Newark.

Bobby Malkmus was about to become a big league ballplayer.

"It was an exciting time, I'd never played in front of 40,000 fans before," Malkmus said.

June 1, 1957 was the date of his first Major League baseball game, and not only would he be playing in front of more people than he'd ever seen in his life, he was also stepping between the lines with some of the greatest players to ever play the game.

His story wasn't turned into a movie, but it sure could have been. Just imagine, the camera closes in on a 25-year-old rookie, standing at second base in Milwaukee's County Stadium. In front of him, Warren Spahn is on the hill, throwing darts to catcher Del Crandall. Across the diamond, Eddie Mathews is manning the hot corner.

Spahn won 363 games, Mathews hit 512 home runs. Both are in the Hall of Fame. Crandall, the owner of four Gold Gloves, was no slouch either.

Malkmus looks behind him to see that Bobby Thomson is standing in one corner of the outfield, with Hank Aaron standing in the other. Thomson hit "The Shot Heard 'Round The World" and Aaron's hit more shots than anybody in Major League Baseball history.

The game starts, and Spahn gets the first two out, but he's cautious with the third batter, and understandably so. Standing at the plate is St. Louis Cardinals slugger Stan Musial, so feared that he got away with simply going by "The Man."

That's six legends of the game, and the first inning isn't even half over yet. Not quite the Black Sox, but not bad either.

He was only able to get into 12 more games for that 1957 Milwaukee Braves team, but they did go on to win the World Series, and Malkmus earned a championship ring for his efforts. And despite his limited playing time, he had a much more direct impact on the season than you might think.

"After they found out I wasn't ready to play in the big leagues, they traded for Red Schoendienst," Malkmus said of the Hall of Fame infielder. "I can always say I was bad enough to win the World Series for them."

A Rule 5 draft pick of the Washington Senators before the start of the 1958 season, he'd play 47 games over the course of the next two seasons for them, again sharing a dugout with a future Hall of Fame third baseman.

This time it was Harmon Killebrew, who he not only got to play with, but also roomed with on the road.

“I had a nice experience with Harmon,” Malkmus said. “I didn’t get to enjoy the whole season with him, I was only there about a month and a half. But he was a cool, low-key kind of guy, really good personality.”

1959 was Killebrew's breakout year -- he went on to hit 42 home runs and drive in 105 runs -- but Malkmus wasn't sure if he'd ever evolve into the player he ended up becoming.

“It wasn’t easy for me to say that he was going to be the superstar that he ended up being,” he said. “He had a lot of power, and as a hitter he just overpowered the ball. It was just a matter of him getting going.”

Again a Rule 5 pick, this time selected by the Phillies after that 1959 season, the tables would be turned on Malkmus in 1960. His teammate just three years earlier, he was now the only obstacle that stood between Warren Spahn and his first career no-hitter.

"I was the last batter of the ballgame," Malkmus said. "I hit a line drive over his head, but he was able to get a glove on it and knock it down. The ball rolled behind the mound, and (Johnny) Logan came in and barehanded it and threw it to first. He short-hopped (Joe) Adcock, and I'd have liked to have seen an instant replay on it, but they called me out."

But Philadelphia provided many good memories as well, as it was there where he got his chance to crack the lineup on a regular basis, playing in a career high 121 games for the club in 1961. It was also where he got to play for legendary manager Gene Mauch.

“He gave me a chance with the Phillies,” Malkmus said. “He also took me under his wing and showed me how to manage. He would call me over during ballgames, and when he made a move, he’d ask me what I thought he was doing. I would try to analyze it, and he’d tell me what he was trying to do.”

Mauch’s tutelage proved to very beneficial for his eager student.

“After my playing career was over, the Phillies asked me to manage in the minor leagues, and that really helped me a lot,” Malkmus said.

Having celebrated his 75th birthday on July 4th, Malkmus is still remarkably active in the game, not only working with the Jack Cust Baseball Academy, but also serving as a part-time scout for the Cleveland Indians.

Now a resident of Union, he can frequently be spotted at Somerset Patriots games, looking for the next diamond in the rough.

But even if he found the next Bobby Malkmus, that wouldn’t be so bad either. After all, his career turned out to be the stuff dreams are made of.

Photo courtesy of Mike Ashmore

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