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© St. Petersburg Times, published March 27, 2002
CLEARWATER -- Shake hands with Andy Seminick. It is not unlike grabbing a fistful of walnuts: fingers knobby and gnarled and going off in all directions, fingers that caught, blocked and deflected thousands of fastballs, curves, knucklers ...
They are badges of honor of half a century ago, when all a fractured finger called for was enough tape to weld it to the next one when the inning was over. You got hurt, you kept playing until you couldn't.
Maybe those players were more committed, maybe more foolhardy. Maybe the pain of playing was superseded by the fear of sitting.
"I didn't go out of a game because of something like that," Seminick said, displaying leathery fingers permanently twisted and bent where there are no joints. "I wasn't going to let them take me out. I wasn't going to let them take my job away."
They are 81-year-old hands pointing out the intricacies of playing behind home plate to Phillies kids, some of whose fathers aren't old enough to remember when Seminick was a Whiz Kid.
Robin Roberts cackled at the thought. "He was too old to be called a Whiz Kid. Just say he was there," said the Hall of Fame pitcher, another member of the Phillies, among the youngest major-league teams ever, who won the 1950 National League pennant.
Roberts turned 24 the day before the Phillies clinched it by beating Brooklyn on the final day. Seminick was an ancient 30.
Seminick walks haltingly onto the diamonds at the Phillies Carpenter Complex these days, propelled by artificial knees, rewards of a career blocking countless runners who saw him as an obstacle to be run through.
But if need be, he still can squat at home, showing a rookie just how to play the position.
Seminick's fifth tour of duty as a special spring-training instructor is drawing to a close. He'll soon head home to Melbourne to wait until autumn, when he is summoned again to share his knowledge with rookies in the instructional league.
He is reluctant to peg any of his charges as future major-leaguers. The innate ability of some rookies is obvious, just as it was when he was starting out. But a few of these fresh-faced 19- to 21-year-olds barely off the sandlots already have an attitude.
"Maybe that's the biggest difference," he said. "They think they've got it made already. They've got to realize nothing comes easy, especially in baseball. There's no politics involved in getting (to the majors). You do the job or you don't."
Seminick had enough drive to get away from the coal mines where his father spent his life, enough talent to play in the majors for 15 seasons.
"I knew what hard work was," he said. "I worked on a dairy farm. You milked cows from noon to 6 and midnight to 6, and all the other stuff. ... You didn't make enough playing baseball. You had to work in the offseason." He was a meat cutter, a bulldozer operator and, one year, worked in a funeral home.
His career began in 1941 with the first of two $75-a-month seasons at Elizabethton, Tenn., in the Class-D Appalachian League. That's where he met Augusta Anderson. She was helping her mother run the boarding house where Andy lived. They were 21.
Andy and Gussie Seminick were married for 53 years. She died nine years ago. "I'm by myself now," he said. He is active in his church, busy with volunteer work. Nothing much else, he said. "This is kind of a lift for me, being with these kids. It's probably the most fun I have during the year."
In 1943 Bill Veeck, owner of the American Association's Milwaukee Brewers, bought his contract from Elizabethton and sold it the same day to the Phillies.
Seminick was drafted about then and told Veeck he couldn't report to Philadelphia. Go, Veeck told him; there'd be a $500 check for showing up. Go, a friend at the draft board said; the Army could wait until the next call-up.
Seminick played the final three weeks of the '43 season with the Phillies and reported for military service. "I was picking up (cigarette) butts at Fort Oglethorpe (Ga.) when I got called in," he said. "They told me I was 4F. Bad knee. That was all right with me."
He had 24 homers and 68 RBIs in 1949 and was an All-Star. He put up identical numbers the next season when the Phillies won their first pennant since 1915. "He was a big part of the club that year," Roberts said. "I don't think anyone contributed more to that pennant year than Andy did."
Seminick retired in 1957 and became a Phillies coach, scout and, for 15 seasons, a manager in their farm system, sending Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, Bob Boone and others to the Show.
Seminick hit Giants pitching hard in 1950. He was batting Aug. 11 when second baseman Eddie Stanky moved behind the pitcher and began doing jumping jacks. "I asked (umpire) Larry Goetz, "He can't do that, can he?' Goetz told me, "There's no rule in the book that says he can't.' "
After the game, the umpires told Stanky to cut it out. He did, for one at-bat. In the second inning the next day Seminick collided with third baseman Hank Thompson, knocking him out. In the fourth, with Seminick batting, Stanky resumed his shenanigans and was tossed. Bill Rigney replaced him. Seminick got on and, on a force play at second, slid into Rigney. Both came up swinging, precipitating the season's biggest rhubarb. Two days later NL president Ford Frick banned arm-waving and similar tactics and fined Seminick and Rigney $25.
On Sept. 27, in the opener of a doubleheader at the Polo Grounds, Monte Irvin scored the Giants' winning run in the 10th inning, clipping Seminick's left ankle as he slid home. "I knew it was bad but I didn't go to the hospital or anything," said Seminick, who sat out the second game, then played the final one in New York and all three in Brooklyn.
And all four World Series games. "After I got that far I didn't want anybody to take my place. ... After the Series I was on a table in the trainer's room and the team doctor squeezed the ankle and said, "You've got a broken bone in there.' That's the first time I knew it was broken. ...
"The (rookies), they can't understand how I kept playing," Seminick said. "They're amazed that I did. When I think about it, I am, too."