Horace Lisenbee

Infobox MLB retired
name=Hod Lisenbee
position=Pitcher


bgcolor1=black
bgcolor2=black
textcolor1=white
textcolor2=white
bats=Left
throws=Left
birthdate=birth date|1898|9|23|mf=y
city-state|Clarksville|Tennessee
deathdate=death date and age|1987|11|14|1898|9|23
city-state|Clarksville|Tennessee
debutdate=April 23
debutyear=1927
debutteam=Washington Senators
finaldate=September 7
finalyear=1945
finalteam=Cincinnati Reds
stat1label=Win-Loss Record
stat1value=37-58
stat2label=Strikeouts
stat2value=253
stat3label=ERA
stat3value=4.81
teams=
*Washington Senators (1927-28)
*Boston Red Sox (1929-32)
*Philadelphia Athletics (1936)
*Cincinnati Reds (1945)
highlights=
*Led AL in shutouts (4) in 1927

Horace Milton (Hod) Lisenbee (1898-1987) was a baseball pitcher whose career spanned over 28 years (1921-1949). Horace Lisenbee was born on September 23, 1898, in Clarksville, Tennessee to John M. Lisenbee and Sarah Adiline Lisenbee, both of Clarksville. He was the second of six children. He attended Southwestern Presbyterian University, now Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, and he was married to Ms. Carrie West a nurse graduate student. Together they had two daughters. [The Leaf Chronicle, Clarksville, newspaper, November 15, 1987, front page lead story/obituary]

Early years

Lisenbee did not play baseball until he entered high school at age twenty-one. He had attended elementary school until he was twelve, and dropped out of school to help his family survive financially. He labored for the next nine years working twelve-hour days on a tobacco farm. He would run to and from work and credits this time in his life as building endurance, a quality that helped him get through his lengthy baseball career. [The Leaf Chronicle article about naming a road for the former MLB pitcher Lisenbee]

In his spare time, Lisenbee loved to fling rocks into the Cumberland River. At age 21, Lisenbee entered Clarksville High School, and talked his way onto the baseball team. He told the coach that he was ready to pitch, but was soon cut from the team due to his poor baseball catching skills. Soon Lisenbee moved to Memphis, Tennessee in search of advancing his career. He arrived at the Memphis Chicks playing field seeking a position as a pitcher, but his services were not needed.

Not to be put off, he moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and applied to pitch for their D league team. The club manager refused to allow Lisenbee to show his pitching skills and was promptly dismissed as a skinny kid with no apparent pitching ability. He made a phone call to his contact on the Memphis Chicks team and was tipped to try out for the Brookhaven, Mississippi baseball team instead. Within two days, Lisenbee was pitching against the Vicksburg team, pitching a four-hit game, including nine strike-outs, and notching a 4-1 win for Brookhaven. In his first season as a pitcher in minor league play he earned a 10-5 record. [The Leaf Chronicle newspaper, December 4, 1966 issue, interview of Lisenbee]

Transition to Major League Ball

Lisenbee joined the Tupelo, Mississippi minor league team of the Tri-State League in 1925, and was traded to the Memphis Chicks, minor league team of the Southern Association in 1926. At the age of twenty-eight, he was acquired by the Washington, D. C. Senators for $44,000, and got his first pitching start on April 23, by|1927. He led the Washington Senators to a 6-0 victory over the Boston Red Sox. Lisenbee was an overnight success as a pitcher in the major leagues.

One of Lisenbee’s notable accomplishments as a rookie pitcher, was his consistency against the team dubbed the "Murderers' Row" (New York) Yankees. He faced the New York Yankees six times that year and won the first five outing against this storied team. The 1927 Yankees were the object of much touting and praise, they established a record setting 110-44 season. The Yankee hitting was vicious and frequently devoured pitchers in one inning, but Lisenbee appeared unflappable. Lisenbee faced the best and had a better than 83% winning record against the Yankees.

In his first meeting versus the Yankees, Lisenbee was called onto the pitcher’s mound to face Babe Ruth. The Senator’s starting pitcher had fallen behind on the count and had tossed balls. The count was 3-0, and the manager told Lisenbee to walk Ruth. Lisenbee disagreed and threw three strikes in a row to retire Ruth. Hod pitched the remaining 7 and two-thirds innings for the win over the Yankees and he struck Ruth out three times in a row. According to Hod’s recollection Ruth later quipped that it looked as though he was throwing balls at the plate from out of a hole. This was an apparent response to Lisenbee’s scrawny appearance.

Babe Ruth also set the major league home run record with 60 home runs in 1927. During their sixth meeting, Lisenbee tried to sail his side-arm curveball past Ruth to no avail. For Ruth, this was a golden opportunity to connect with the ball, and the result was Ruth’s 58th home run of the year. Some reports indicate that this was Ruth’s 58th career home run, but this was the 58th of his 60 hits in the 1927 baseball season. Lisenbee’s first year record was 18-9 for the third place Senators, and he set the American League pitching record pitching four shutouts.

The following season was less favorable for Lisenbee’s pitching success, and in December by|1928, he was traded to the Boston Red Sox. From this point in his career, Lisenbee became a journeyman pitcher in both the majors and minors. He became known as the one-year wonder. One game in particular stands out as a low-point in his career. On September 11, by|1936, the Philadelphia Athletics manager, Connie Mack, made a tactical decision and chose to minimize the number of pitchers to take on a road trip. Lisenbee, who was 37 at the time, was forced to pitch the full nine innings. He ran into trouble and allowed a record-tying 26 hits and the Athletics lost to the Chicago White Sox 17-2. This game with Lisenbee's pitching record is still listed as a tied record for 26 hits allowed in one game.

In by|1942, Lisenbee retired from baseball to run the family farm and to help grow crops for the Army. But he decided to make a come-back in by|1944, with the Syracuse Chiefs of the International League, a minor league team and in the latter part of the season, pitched a no-hitter at the age of forty-five years-old. This game was considered a perfect record-setting event. Lisenbee had completed a no-hit, no-walk, and no-run game. According to Lisenbee, in an article published by The Leaf-Chronicle newspaper in 1945, he was hailed as man of the year in Syracuse sports and when he left town, the local fans gave him $200 in War Bonds.

The following year, he received a $3000 sign-on bonus from the Cincinnati Reds and pitched 31 games for the Reds, as a reliever. Lisenbee played his last game in major league baseball at the age of 47 on September 07, 1945, and was released by the Cincinnati Reds on September 11, 1945. Following his release from the Reds, he returned to his hometown of Clarksville and continued to pitch for the Clarksville Colts of the Kitty Hawk League until he was fifty-one-years-old. He then sold the Clarksville Colts and retired from baseball.

Later Years

According to an online article titled KITTY KHARACHTERS, Lisenbee's erratic pitching style, while pitching in the Kitty League, prompted a change to baseball rules concerning the balk. “Lisenbee was able to fool the younger batters in the Kitty with his unique windup style. He would windmill both the pitching hand and the gloved hand, often in opposite directions. He would then move into the pitch and follow through, catching the batter unaware, flatfooted, and off balance. While he was still pitching, the baseball rules were changed and this move was declared illegal and was classified as a balk.”

Hod Lisenbee was manager and half-owner of the Clarksville Colts club from 1946 to 1948. During the 1948 season, he bought the remaining half of the team, but the Colts continued to have problems both in attracting paying customers with their playing abilities on the ball field. He lost money on the Colts and sold the team.

Lisenbee lived in his hometown of Clarksville from the fall of 1945, until his death in 1987. His final years were spent farming on his convert|800|acre|km2|sing=on farm near Clarksville. He was elected to the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 1971. He died at age 89 on November 14, 1987, in Clarksville and is buried at the Liberty Presbyterian Church Cemetery.

In 1998, the Clarksville City Council renamed a portion of Dover Road (Highway 79) near the Dover Crossing interception as Hod Lisenbee memorial highway. The sign sits near the convert|800|acre|km2|sing=on plot of land that Lisenbee farmed for his last years of life. Lisenbee raised cattle and sold them for breeding purposes.

References

*The Colossus, In this excerpt from Sports Illustrated, we visit the finale of 1927 season where The Babe became The Legend, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/centurys_best/news/1999/07/14/baseball/

*Baseball Reference, Hod Lisenbee, http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Hod_Lisenbee

*Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame, 1971 Inductees, Horace Milton "Hod" Lisenbee, http://www.tshf.net/inductees/inductees.html

*Article from KITTY KHARACHTERS, Horace Milton "Hod" Lisenbee, http://www.unioncitygreyhounds.homestead.com/files/hodlisenbee.htm

*Baseball Library, "The Stories Behind the Stats," http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/L/Lisenbee_Hod.stm

*Baseball Almanac, Hod Lisenbee, see birth year of 1898, http://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/last_player_born_in_each_year.shtml

Outside Sources

*The Leaf-Chronicle, article February 28, 1945, page 6, Story outlining Lisenbee's career highlights and offer to return to MLB, includes information about his year with the Syracuse International League, and his no-hitter game pitched in 1944.

*The Leaf-Chronicle, article December 4, 1966, page 1B, Interview with Lisenbee, covers early years in the minor league in Tennessee and Mississippi and first year with the Washington Senators.

*The Leaf-Chronicle, front page, lead story and obituary of Lisenbee's career in baseball and farming.

*”Ramblings of a Tennessee Boy,” by Charles Bryant, biography of Hod Lisenbee

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Footnotes