Stan Musial played in 3,026 regular-season games for the Cardinals. Only once did he strike out three times in a game. The pitcher who did it: Dick Ellsworth.
A left-hander who pitched in 13 seasons with the Cubs, Phillies, Red Sox, Indians and Brewers, Ellsworth had a career record of 115-137. He twice lost 20 in a season with the Cubs (9-20 in 1962 and 8-22 in 1966).
Ellsworth’s biggest success came in 1963 when he was 22-10 for the Cubs. His 2.11 ERA that season ranked second in the National League to the Dodgers’ Sandy Koufax (1.88).
It was during that breakout season that Ellsworth did to Musial what no other pitcher had been able to do.
Top talent
As a youth in Fresno, Calif., Ellsworth followed the local minor-league team, an affiliate of the Cardinals. One of the players who made a strong impression on him was Larry Jackson, who had a 28-4 record for the 1952 Fresno Cardinals.
Ellsworth developed into an outstanding pitcher with Fresno High School. He had a 15-0 record his senior season and struck out 195 in 100 innings, according to the Fresno Bee. He was one of three future big-league players on the 1958 Fresno High School team. The others: Jim Maloney and Pat Corrales. Later, Tom Seaver attended the school.
The day after he graduated in June 1958, Ellsworth, 18, signed with the Cubs, who brought him to Chicago. Five days after his graduation, Ellsworth started for the Cubs in a charity exhibition game against the White Sox at Comiskey Park and pitched a four-hit shutout.
A week later, Ellsworth made his official big-league debut in a start against the Reds at Cincinnati. With the bases loaded and the score tied at 1-1, Ellsworth was lifted for Glen Hobbie, whose belt-high fastball was slugged for a grand slam by Gus Bell. Boxscore
Sent to the minors, Ellsworth came back to stay with the Cubs in 1960. In his first appearance against the Cardinals, on May 14, 1960, at Chicago, he pitched seven scoreless innings and got the win. Boxscore
A year later, on May 20, 1961, Ellsworth earned his first big-league shutout, a 1-0 win against the Cardinals at Chicago. Matched against the pitcher he used to watch at Fresno, Larry Jackson, Ellsworth won the duel, tossing a three-hitter. After Ellsworth got Musial to tap to the mound with a runner at second for the final out in the top of the ninth, Ed Bouchee led off the bottom of the inning and walloped Jackson’s first pitch for a walkoff home run. Boxscore
Words of wisdom
After Ellsworth’s 20-loss season in 1962, two former Cardinals _ Cubs pitching coach Fred Martin and (there’s that name again) Larry Jackson _ helped convert him into a 22-game winner in 1963.
Ellsworth had stopped using a slider because the pitch caused him elbow pain, but at spring training in 1963 Martin showed him a better way to throw it, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
(Martin later taught Bruce Sutter to throw the split-fingered pitch that put him on the path to the Hall of Fame.)
Larry Jackson, acquired by the Cubs from the Cardinals after the 1962 season, helped Ellsworth develop the slider taught by Martin. “When Jackson joined our club, I asked him how he threw his slider because he has one of the best in the business,” Ellsworth told The Sporting News. “He showed me how to grip the ball and release it without jerking my arm. Now I can throw it without the slightest twinge in my arm.”
Jackson and another veteran Cubs pitcher, Bob Buhl, mentored Ellsworth on his approach to pitching. “I’d sit and talk to them after a game and they’d ask, ‘Why did you throw this pitch to that hitter in that spot?’ or ‘Why didn’t you curve with a 3-and-2 count?’ They helped teach me to think.”
Ellsworth, 23, learned his lessons well. He won eight of his first 11 decisions in 1963. One of the losses was to Ernie Broglio and the Cardinals by a 1-0 score. Boxscore
The next time Ellsworth faced the Cardinals, on July 15, 1963, at St. Louis, he used his bat, as well as his arm, to beat them. Ellsworth pitched 6.2 scoreless innings, exiting after a strikeout of Musial, and drilled a two-run single to center versus Broglio in the 2-0 victory. Boxscore
Though his sinking fastball remained his best weapon, “the slider gave me a pitch that kept them honest,” Ellsworth explained to The Sporting News. “I’d push the right-handers back by jamming them on the wrists with the slider.”
Special stuff
Two weeks later, on July 28, 1963, Ellsworth started against the Cardinals at Chicago and beat them for his 15th win of the season. Ellsworth pitched a complete game, drove in a run, and struck out 10. Most remarkable, though, were his three strikeouts of Musial. No one had done that to The Man. Boxscore
With his whiff on July 15, followed by the three on July 28, Musial struck out in four consecutive plate appearances versus Ellsworth.
“It surely marked the lowest point of his 1963 season,” author James N. Giglio wrote in his book “Musial: From Stash to Stan the Man.”
Though 42 and in his final season as a player, Musial remained a tough out. That month, for instance, he belted a home run against Juan Marichal and produced two hits in a game versus Warren Spahn. He still made consistently hard contact and would finish his 22-year career never having struck out as many as 50 times in a season.
Against Ellsworth, it was different. Musial hit .219 with 10 strikeouts versus Ellsworth for his career. All seven of his hits against him were singles.
“I just can’t seem to pick up his ball,” Musial told the Post-Dispatch. “My timing hasn’t been right against him.”
Ellsworth said to the Fresno Bee, “I never think about strikeouts. I try to make them hit my pitch. I get more satisfaction in using my head than my arm. I don’t think I’m doing a real good job when I strike out a batter.”
On Sept. 2, 1963, Ellsworth beat the Giants for his 20th win of the season. That same day, his former high school teammate, Jim Maloney of the Reds, beat the Mets for his 20th win of the season.
Ellsworth was the first Cubs left-hander to achieve 20 wins in a season since Hippo Vaughn did it in 1919.
“I wouldn’t trade him for Sandy Koufax,” pitching coach Fred Martin told The Sporting News. “Dick has more pitches than Koufax and he gets them over.”
Moving on
Ellsworth had losing records in each of the next four seasons. On July 18, 1966, at St. Louis, he gave up a pair of three-run home runs. Tim McCarver hit one and Mike Shannon belted the other 450 feet to left. Boxscore
In 1968, Ellsworth had a resurgence with the Red Sox, posting a 16-7 record for the defending American League champions.
Ellsworth finished with a career record of 15-14 versus the Cardinals. He had more wins against the Cardinals than he did versus any other club.
A son, Steve Ellsworth, pitched for the Red Sox in 1988.
Dick Ellsworth had a long and successful second career as a real estate salesman in Fresno. He died on Oct. 10, 2022, at 82.