Bud Podbielan

Clarence Anthony Podbielan

• Bats Right, Throws Right
• Height 6'1½", *Weight 170 lb.
• High School Sherwood (OR) High School
• Debut April 25, 1949
• Final Game June 13, 1959
• Born March 6, 1924 in Curlew, WA USA
• Died October 26, 1982 in Syracuse, NY USA

BR page

Biographical Information

Bud Podbielan (pronounced pod-BEEL-unn) was a pitcher for 16 years (1946-1961) - nine in the majors (1949-1955, 1957 and 1959); and eleven in the minors (1946-1951 and 1957-1961). Podbielan was a World War II Veteran (BN).

Signed as an amateur free agent by the Brooklyn Dodgers after the War, he broke into organized baseball at age 22 with the Santa Barbara Dodgers, going 14-9 with a 3.83 ERA, tying for third in the California League in wins. He went 14-8, 2.38 for the Fort Worth Cats in the Texas League, tying for sixth in the league in ERA in 1947. Continuing to move up the ladder, Bud went 13-8, 2.79 for the Montreal Royals in 1948 and was second in the International League in ERA, trailing only Bob Porterfield. At the Dodgers' spring training camp in 1949, he came north with them and was 25 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 25th.

Celebrating his debut in the major leagues, he married Mona Whitmore on July 25, 1949. Deemed not ready (he was 0-1, 3.65), he was optioned to Montreal and was not as effective as the prior season, going 9-13 with a 3.98 ERA. He was recalled in 1950 after a stint with Ft. Worth (5-7, 3.41). He played for Brooklyn for the next two years as well.

On September 30, 1951, Jackie Robinson hit an upper-deck home run in the 14th inning off Robin Roberts, who came on in the 8th, to give the Dodgers a critical 9–8 win over the Philadelphia Phillies. Robbie saved the game in the 13th by making a great catch of an Eddie Waitkus line drive and throwing to second base for a double play. Podbielan entered the game with two men on. The little-known reliever squirmed from that jam and was elated in the top of the 14th when Robinson blasted his solo home run to push the Bums ahead, 9-8. In the last of the 14th, Podbelian allowed a leadoff single to Richie Ashburn and then saw the pesky Phillie sacrificed to scoring position. With the tying run 180 feet away, the Dodger righthander retired Del Ennis on a harmless pop-up and enticed Waitkus to fly to left for the win. Podbielan was the winner in relief, the victory keeping Brooklyn in a first place tie with the New York Giants. The Dodgers overcame a 6–1 deficit to win and set the stage for the three-game playoff with the Giants and "The Shot Heard 'Round the World".

On June 15, 1952 he was traded by the Dodgers to the Cincinnati Reds for Bud Byerly and cash. He played with Cincinnati from 1952 to 1957, with minor league stints with the Seattle Rainiers in the Pacific Coast League in 1956-1957, going 13-11, 3.31 the first year and 8-4, 2.91 the next.

Two wretched outings

Podbielan walked 13 batters in 10 innings in a game May 18, 1953 against his old Brooklyn teammates, but held on to win, 2–1, on a Ted Kluszewski homer off starter Preacher Roe. No one had walked 13 in the National League since 1918. The Dodgers stranded 18 runners, tying the NL mark.

One day in June of 1953, Reds manager Rogers Hornsby mercilessly left him on the mound into the 8th inning while the powerful Dodgers pounded him for 17 hits, including seven doubles, a triple, and two home runs.

Over the hill

In October of 1957 he was purchased by the Cleveland Indians from the Cincinnati Redlegs. (Date given is approximate. Optioned out, he played for the San Diego Padres (1958-1959) and was given one last chance with Cleveland in 1959 when he played his final major league game on June 13th, at age 35. He was 10-9, 4.08 for the 1958 Padres and 11-5, 3.00 in 1959. He was with San Diego (6-2, 4.79) and the Buffalo Bisons (2-2, 5.11) in 1960. He finished with the Portland Beavers and Hawaii Islanders of the PCL in 1961 (2-10, 6.73), ending his baseball career at age 37. Overall in the major leagues, he was 25-42 with 20 complete games in 76 games started, with 242 strikeouts, 245 walks and 2 shutouts in 641.0 innings pitched with an ERA of 4.49 and a WHIP of 1.463 in 172 games. Overall in the minors, he was 113-91.

He had brown hair and blue eyes, his ancestry was Slovak and his principal hobbies were golf, hunting and fishing. He died at age 58 in a Veterans Administration Hospital in Syracuse, NY after a long illness on October 26, 1982 and is buried at St. Mary's Cemetery in Syracuse.

Records Held

• From 1951-1954, Podbielan had the same number of RBI each year (2) as a batter. Only nine other men, including Deion Sanders (28) and eight other pitchers, have done this.
• Most walks, game, by a Cincinnati pitcher: 13, on May 18, 1953

Sources

Principal sources for Bud Podbielan include newspaper obituaries (OB), government Veteran records (VA,CM,CW), Stars & Stripes (S&S), Sporting Life (SL), The Sporting News (TSN), The Sports Encyclopedia:Baseball 2006 by David Neft & Richard Cohen (N&C), old Who's Who in Baseballs (1952-1956) (WW), old Baseball Registers (1952-1955) (BR) , old Daguerreotypes by TSN (none) (DAG), Stars&Stripes (S&S), The Baseball Necrology by Bill Lee (BN), Pat Doyle's Professional Ballplayer DataBase (PD), The Baseball Library (BL), Baseball in World War II Europe by Gary Bedingfield (GB) and The Pacific Coast League: A Statistical History, 1903-1957 by Dennis Snelling; The Texas League in Baseball, 1888-1958 by Marshall D. Wright; and The International League: Year-by-year Statistics, 1884-1953 by Marshall D. Wright and independent research by Walter Kephart (WK) and Frank Russo (FR) and others.

Related Sites

• Bud Podbielan at the Baseball Almanac
• Bio at Baseball Page
• The Baseball Chronology for Bud Podbielan
• and a full Bibliography from SABR's The Baseball Index (TBI)