Hector Lopez: ‘What A Pair of Hands’

Hector Lopez may not have been the greatest Yankee player from Panama, but he was probably No. 2, though the distance between him and No. 1 was even farther than that between Yankee Stadium and Panama City. Given that No. 1 was the only unanimous Hall of Famer, closer Mariano Rivera, that shouldn’t reflect poorly on No. 2. Lopez, who died late last month at age 93, was a good-hitting, poor-fielding infielder-outfielder who played for the Kansas City Athletics and New York Yankees. With the former, Lopez was on teams in the 1950s that weren’t very good; they never finished better than sixth and were an average of 26-and-a-half games out of first. With the latter, though, Lopez was on teams that won five straight pennants and two World Series — clearly a different Yankee era than today. Lopez played mostly second base and third base for the A’s and outfield for the Yankees, but he was probably a generation ahead of the position that best suited him — designated hitter. “Hector Lopez,” wrote Bill James in The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, “was as bad a defensive player as you would ever want to see.” James should know. Growing up as a fan of the misbegotten A’s, he saw plenty of Lopez. Lopez hit 67 home runs in parts of five seasons for Kansas City, but he also committed 97 errors. Every season Lopez was in Kansas City, he committed more errors than he hit home runs. From Lopez’s New York Times obit: “According to (Times sports columnist George) Vecsey, he was known as Hector ‘What a Pair of Hands’ Lopez, because of his ‘exciting duels with ground balls.'” The ground balls won often enough that the A’s dealt him in the middle of 1959 to the Yankees. It was the kind of trade that kept Kansas City in the second division and the Yankees stocked to win World Series. The A’s got second baseman Jerry Lumpe, who wasn’t going to beat out Bobby Richardson. Lumpe improved Kansas City’s defense and had a couple of good seasons at bat. But it cost them Lopez’s power — he had a .771 OPS and 107 OPS+ in his career for the A’s and a 130 OPS+ when dealt in 1959. The A’s didn’t quite understand the concept of maximizing trade value. They also added Ralph Terry, who might have thrown Bill Mazeroski’s Game 7 home run, but won 73 games for the Yankees as they won those five straight pennants, including 23 in 1962, and that year’s Series Game 7. Manager Casey Stengel might not have been sure what to do with his new player, but after Lopez committed 17 errors in 76 games at third base for him, Stengel figured it might be safest for all to evacuate Hector from the infield. Added to the 11 errors Lopez committed for the A’s before the trade, and the three more he made in the Yankee outfield, that was a career-high 31 errors. It only dampened one of his best offensive seasons — .283 average, 22 homers, 93 RBIs, .804 OPS, 121 OPS+ — a little. From Lopez’s obit in the Times: “Stengel, described Lopez, ‘a man which batted in 93 runs,’ as a conundrum: ‘If I bench him I bench 93 runs, but I would like better fieldin’ outta my 93 runs.'” Casey wasn’t all wrong, even if a sabermetrician might have phrased it differently. The answer Stengel employed was to move Lopez to the outfield, where he did less damage and his playing time depended greatly on Mickey Mantle’s health. Lopez’s weakest season was, ironically enough, 1961, which was his strongest World Series. Lopez batted just .222, and had career-lows in home runs (3) and OPS (.596) But with Mantle reduced to six at-bats in the Series, Lopez had seven RBIs in nine at-bats, including a three-run homer and five RBIs in the clinching Game 5. He even caught the final out, without incident. Lopez from his bio at sabr.org: “I had to do something, because I had such a lousy season in 1961.” Jim Bouton, who always did see things differently, had another take on Lopez defensively, if perhaps biased. Lopez was in left field for Bouton’s first career start in 1962, a 7-0 shutout of the Senators despite seven hits, seven walks and who knows how many pitches. Bouton was going through the lineup for the fifth time when he finally, mercifully, got the 27th out. From Ball Four: “(I) had to pitch from a stretch position all game. They were hitting line drives all over the place and Hector (What A Pair of Hands) Lopez bailed me out with about four leaping catches in left field.” Bouton really called him that in the book, without explaining the origin of the nickname. The boxscore credits Lopez with four putouts, but perhaps leaping is how he made all his catches. Whatever works. Most Yankees might not have been pleased with Bouton’s book, but Lopez must have felt a little smug to be portrayed as a positive in the field. Take that Casey Stengel. What A Pair of Hands indeed. Lopez’s career wound down as the Yankees’ dynasty did, and he last played in the majors in 1966. The USA Today didn’t hold his defensive struggles against him (according to baseball-reference.com’s defensive WAR, Lopez was a negative defender in nine of his 12 seasons, though a plus 0.8 in 1958, a season in which he made 21 errors.) They named him to their all-time Panamanian team in 2021 at third base (the outfield was Ben Oglivie, Roberto Kelly and Omar Moreno, and Carlos Lee was at DH). Long after Stengel, someone saw Lopez’s versatility as a plus. In 1969 Lopez became the minor league’s first Black manager, taking over the Washington Senators AAA team in Buffalo. “It doesn’t really depend on how Hector Lopez does at Buffalo,” wrote Vecsey in the Times in 1969 announcing the hiring. “It depends more that time has come, that (Senators owner) Bob Short was aware of it, and that he has made 23 other club owners aware of it themselves.” Lopez’s team finished seventh of eight, 18-and-a-half games out of first. Frank Coggins led the team in average at .296, Gene Martin in homers with 15, Jan Dukes and Woody Woodson in wins with 11. Who were they? Good question. Tom Grieve, a big-league outfielder primarily with the Rangers who just retired as a broadcaster, is one of the few recognizable names. But Vecsey was right. Six years later, Frank Robinson became the first Black manager in the majors. Career numbers: .269 average, 136 home runs, 591 RBIs, 1,251 hits, .330 on-base percentage, .415 slugging percentage, .745 OPS, 623 runs, 193 doubles, 170 errors, AL-high 23 double plays grounded into in 1958, 103 OPS+, 12.9 WAR, .286 average, .536 slugging percentage and .869 OPS in five World Series, seven Series RBIs, all in 1961.