Routine Moments in Baseball History: Milt Bolling in Decline

Welcome back to Routine Moments in Baseball History, a running weekday feature that looks back at plays that have been ignored by the history books because history books only talk about things that are important or interesting. Today's installment is "Milt Bolling in Decline." 

Baseball is like life in that it ain't fair. Prospects get hurt, pitchers lose a couple miles on their fastballs and get tossed back to the minors, fielders get the yips and can't throw the ball without launching it into the stands. No one knows that like Milt Bolling does. In the early 50s, he advanced through the Red Sox farm system thanks to his skill as a fielder, and by the time he made it to Boston in 1952 as a 21-year-old he could patrol that gap between second and third as well as anyone. He won the starting shortstop gig year after year—then, in a 1955 spring training game, he broke his elbow on a bang-bang play at second. He was out for over a month, long enough for Billy Klaus, who was a better hitter, to become the everyday starter at his old position. He played just six games that year and in 1956 he was benched in favor of rookie Don Buddin even though Bolling was healthy. Just like that, he was a defensive replacement, then he was a commodity who got shipped to Washington followed by Detroit, then he was out of the game at the tender age of 27.

Buddin got hurt late in 1956, and Bolling got a chance to start again in August. He had one of his best days on the year in a thrilling, up-and-down contest that the Sox won 11-10, going 3-for-7 at the plate. In the bottom of the first he smashed a pitch from Camilo Pascual off the centerfield wall and came roaring around the bases for a triple. Whatever confidence he had lost in those long months of sitting in that tobacco juice-stained dugout, watching and waiting for his chance, he would have gained back in those few minutes he spent on third. Not knowing the man's inner life, we can only speculate that he thought something like, Fuck them, these assholes who benched me! I'm going to show them what I can do. I'm gonna do this every goddam day, I'm gonna tear the face off this fucking ball and force them to stick me at the top of the lineup even when Don fuckin' Buddin comes back.

Or maybe Bolling had happier thoughts than that. Either way, Klaus, who was playing third base that day, drove him in with a single during the next at-bat.

This has been Routine Moments in Baseball History. Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.