Joe Cunningham: He moved for Stan Musial, and for a while, he hit a little like him

Joe Cunningham got off to one of the greatest starts ever when he debuted in MLB. He homered in his third at-bat and singled in his fourth for the Cardinals on June 30, 1964, knocking in five runs in an 11-3 win over the Reds. He followed that the next day at Milwaukee with two home runs off Hall of Famer Warren Spahn and four more RBIs. After two games, Cunningham, who died this week at age 89, had three homers, nine RBIs, a .500 average and a 1.625 slugging percentage. Had Cunningham maintained that pace, he would have hit 1,711 home runs and knocked in 5,134 in his 1,141-game career. (The three home runs in his first two games, according to baseball-reference.com, remain the most by any player in his first two games; the nine RBIs were surpassed in 2018 by Angels catcher Francisco Arcia, who had 10 in his first two games. If Arcia’s name isn’t familiar, it’s because he drove in only 13 more that season and hasn’t played in the majors since.) Alas, baseball being the sport it is, Cunningham went Games 3-6 of his career without an RBI and had just two in his next 11 games. A couple of oh-for-fours were followed by seven hits in two games, and then he went 1-for-his-next-19. He knocked in 50 runs in 85 games in 1954, but in 1955 he knocked in 70 all the in the minor leagues. Cunningham was farmed despite a .284/375/445 first half season. He was not a nimble fielder — according to Rick Hummel’s St. Louis Post-Dispatch appreciation, Cunningham was “not necessarily known for his defense”, and his career -6.2 defensive WAR appears to back that up. Cunningham vacated first base in 1955 for Stan Musial, who approaching his 35th birthday, needed to move in from the outfield. Cunningham spent almost all of the next two seasons in the minors and returned an outfielder despite apparently never having played it in the minors (Cunningham’s defensive stats from 1950 and 1951 are unavailable at baseball-reference.com; in 1952-53 he was in the military during the Korean War and didn’t play). The Cardinals of the mid-1950s were nothing if not ill-prepared.. Cunningham’s power tapered when he returned to the majors in 1957, but he hit .318, .312 and .345 the next three seasons, walked 226 times and even played right field. He struck out just 99 times from 1957-59 combined, and in his .312/449/496 1958, he walked 82 times while fanning just 23 times in 424 plate appearances. His .345 average in 1959 was second in the NL to Henry Aaron, and Cunningham’s .453 on-base percentage led MLB by 18 points and the NL by 52. Aaron was a distant second at .401. Cunningham wasn’t as great as he was his first two games, but he was a superior hitter from 1957-59 who put up three straight plus .900 OPS seasons with OPS+s of 145, 146 and 143. But the Cards traded for Bill White in 1959, moved Musial back to the outfield in left and Cunningham, already a defensive liability, was relegated to right. Cardinals pitchers might have liked Cunningham’s potential run support, but an outfield with the approaching 40-year-old Musial in left and the defensively challenged Cunningham in right left a lot of outfield for young centerfielder Curt Flood, a rookie in 1960, to cover. Flood was good, but that was a vast expanse of Busch Stadium for him to be responsible for. Cunningham hit .280 and .286 instead of .300 in 1960 and 1961 — he never hit .300 again — and though he maintained a .403 on-base percentage in ’61, the Cardinals tightened up their outfield defense and traded him to the White Sox for Minnie Minoso (in the rare deal of players who were 1-2 the previous season in hit by pitches; Minoso was first in MLB with 16, Cunningham tied with Jim Gentile for second with 11). That didn’t work for the Cardinals — Minoso played 36 games, batted .196, broke his wrist and was sold to Washington the following April. Cunningham had one more big season before an injury did to his career what the broken wrist did for Minoso’s. Cunningham moved back to first base for the White Sox in 1962 and had one final plus season at age 30. He didn’t hit .300, but came close at .295 and walked 101 times, had a .410 on-base percentage, .837 OPS and finished 18th in the MVP vote for the fifth-place White Sox. But the following June he was batting .258 with a .688 OPS when he broke his collarbone, and though he hit .383 for the last month when he returned in September, he soon became a part-time player. He batted a powerless .250 to start 1964 for the White Sox, who traded him to Washington. He hit .214 for the Senators to finish 1964 at .231, hit .229 in 1965, started 1966 1-for-8 and the Senators released him. He made his way back to the Cardinals, for whom he coached, managed in the minors and worked in the front office in sales. Cunningham is credited with the idea of the suites so popular today in professional sports. Fans eat and drink, occasionally pose for the camera and mostly ignore the games, so maybe the jury is still out on that. Career numbers: .291 average, .403 on-base percentage, .417 slugging percentage, 64 home runs (7 off Hall of Famers Spahn, Robin Roberts and Don Drysdale)., 436 RBIs, 525 runs scored, 980 hits, 177 doubles, 599 walks, 369 strikeouts, 49 hit by pitches (league-leading 11 in 1961); 120 OPS+, 22.3 WAR (3.9, 3.8, 3.5 from 1957-59, and 4.3 in 1962); two-time All-Star in 1959; two-time top 20 in MVP vote (13th in NL in 1959, 18th in AL in 1962)