Does anyone here remember Dino Restelli? Does anyone even know the name Dino Restelli?
I know that one, maybe two regular readers of this site remember Restelli and what he did, but otherwise I doubt that very many people recall the phenom who flashed through our young lives and burned up in space.
Nearly 70 years ago, Dino Paolo Restelli was Aaron Judge before Aaron Judge was Aaron Judge.
Son of immigrant Italian parents, Restelli was born in St. Louis in 1924, eight months before Yogi Berra and 17 months before Joe Garagiola were born there.
Berra and Garagiola grew up to have their own fame and success, but what Restelli did was unique. Restelli, whose family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area when he was 12 years old, stunned the baseball world in 1949 by hitting 7 home runs in the first 12 games of his major league career. Judge, despite his own impressive beginning to his Yankees’ career, did not match that feat.
Judge actually had an inauspicious start to his major league career. Playing in 27 Yankees’ game in the last six weeks of last season, the 6-foot-7 Judge hit 4 home runs and batted .179. But fast forward six weeks into this season and the team’s first draft pick in 2013 leads the American League with 13 home runs and a .772 slugging percentage.
Judge looks like he’s off to a sizzling career (though he had only 3 hits, none of them a homer, in the Yankees’ three-game sweep of the Cubs this past weekend), but then, so did Restelli, whose career turned out to be unlike most others, if any others. His career began in a profusion of fireworks and ended like a limp candle in a puddle of water.
Restelli, a 24-year-old outfielder, whom the Pirates purchased from the San Francisco Seals of the Pacific Coast League, did not hit his first seven homers against just any old pitchers. In his second game, he connected for his first two against Warren Spahn, who won more games than any other left-hander in history.
The right-handed hitter also slugged two homers against Robin Roberts, perhaps the finest right-hander of his era. He hit the other three against Curt Simmons, a Roberts teammate; Ralph Branca, who two years later would give up Bobby Thomson’s playoff-deciding homer, and Larry Jansen, a former minor league teammate in San Francisco.
But Restelli did more in his early weeks than hit home runs. In his first 15 games, he batted .356 with a .424 on-base percentage and a .763 slugging percentage for what today is called OPS (on-base plus slugging) of 1.187.
Restelli was so phenomenal that he intruded on the established home-run prowess of Ralph Kiner, the Pirates’ left fielder, who by the time Restelli hit his first homer had hit 128 and had won the National League home run title three times and was on his way to winning seven straight.
Kiner would not have long-term competition from his younger teammate.
Restelli played the rest of the 1949 season with the Pirates but hit only 5 more home runs in 60 games. Restelli hit no major league homers in 1950 because he didn’t play in the majors in 1950.
He was back in 1951 but not on a regularly starting basis. His first two appearances came as a pinch-hitter, his third as the starting left fielder. In his third time at bat, in the sixth inning, he homered against Cincinnati’s Ken Raffensberger. He would bat 33 more times that season but would hit no more home runs.
He last batted as a pinch-hitter for Bill Werle June 12, and the Boston Braves’ Johnny Sain struck him out.
Restelli’s major league career was over. The Pirates sent him to the minors, then sold him to the Washington Senators Sept. 10. The Senators sold him to Cleveland Dec. 17. The following July 15 the Indians traded him to Sacramento of the Pacific Coast League, which was the league where Restelli started with the San Francisco Seals.
Restelli tried to revive his career at a series of minor league stops, but he never made it back. His flame out was always a puzzle, prompting all sorts of speculation, ranging from physical to psychological. Probably the most intriguing explanation centered on a pitch that hit him.
Ewell Blackwell was the pitcher who threw that pitch. He was a tall side-arming right-hander for the Cincinnati Reds, and his pitches appeared to come by way of third base, striking fear in the minds of some right-handed batters.
Integral to this story is the large red bandana that Restelli kept in his back pocket so he could clean his eyeglasses well enough so he could see the pitches.
In one at-bat against Blackwell, the story goes, Restelli delayed the inevitable by calling time, then pulling out his bandana and carefully cleaning his glasses. When he was finished, he waved the bandana at Blackwell, signaling that he was ready.
Restelli’s red bandana was said to serve the same purpose to Blackwell as a red flag does to a bull. Enraged at the young hitter’s act, Blackwell fired his best fastball aimed directly at Restelli’s shoulder or neck. The pitch hit its target, and Restelli supposedly never was the same.
Restelli’s supporters dismiss the story as fiction, but it remains one of the better explanations for the rapid demise of Restelli’s career.
Following his career, Restelli became a police officer in San Francisco, became engaged in community work and was said to be well liked by fans and others alike.
Following Restelli’s death in 2006, a few weeks short of his 82nd birthday, Fred Claire, former general manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers, quoted Pat Gallagher, longtime executive with the San Francisco Giants as saying about Restelli, “He was one of those bigger-than-life guys who kind of filled up the room, and everybody gravitated to him.”
It seems to those who knew him Restelli was more than a guy who hit 7 home runs in his first 12 games.