Hall of Fame catcher Lopez dies at 97

MIAMI – Al Lopez, a Hall of Fame catcher and manager who led the Cleveland Indians and Chicago White Sox to American League pennants in the 1950s, died Sunday at 97.

Lopez had been hospitalized in Tampa, Fla., since Friday, when he suffered a heart attack at his son’s home, Al Lopez Jr. said.

Lopez was the oldest living Hall of Fame member, said Jeff Idelson, spokesman for the Hall.

Lopez hit .261 with 51 homers and 652 RBIs during a 19-year career in which he was one of baseball’s most durable catchers and set the record for most games caught in the major leagues at 1,918. The record was later broken by Bob Boone, then Carlton Fisk.

Lopez was best known for being the only A.L. manager to lead teams that finished ahead of the New York Yankees between 1949-64. He helped the Indians to the 1954 pennant and, until last week, was the last manager to lead the White Sox to the World Series – their 1959 loss to the L.A. Dodgers.

“We’re saddened by the news,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said. “Al lived a long and good life. We’re so pleased we were able to win the World Series this year and that he was able to see it before he died.”

The two-time All Star’s first full season in the majors was 1930, and he played 18 seasons for Brooklyn, Boston, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. He managed the Indians from 1951-56 and the White Sox from 1957-65 and 1968-69.

Every off-season, Lopez returned to Tampa, where he was born in 1908.

“They’ve treated me real nice here,” Lopez said in a 1994 interview. “They’ve given me parades, they’ve given me banquets, they named a ballpark after me. Now they tore the ballpark down, so they named a park after me and put up a statue.

“I say, ‘Why are you doing this? I was just doing something I liked.’ “

Lopez caught Bob Feller, Dizzy Dean and Dazzy Vance, but never forgot working as a teenager with Walter Johnson, who won 417 games and possessed a legendary fastball. During spring training in 1925, the Washington Senators hired the 15-year-old Lopez to catch batting practice for $45 a week.

Johnson was nearing the end of his career by then, but still made an impression on the youngster.

“He wasn’t firing like he used to, but he was still very fast and had very good control,” Lopez said. “All you had to do was hold your mitt around the strike zone, and it’d be right there.”

Lopez also recalled the time as a manager that he was thrown out of an exhibition game in Tampa after umpire John Stevens blew a call on the first day of spring training.

“I hollered, ‘John, are you going to start out the year like that? First play we have and you miss it. Are we going to have to put up with you all spring?’ Lopez said.

“He said, ‘One more word out of you and you’re gone.’ I said, ‘You can’t throw me out of this ballpark. This is my ballpark – Al Lopez Field.’ He said, ‘Get out of here.’ He threw me out of my own ballpark.”

Though baseball players got bigger and stronger though the decades, Lopez still revered the players he knew, his son said.

“I don’t think he thought there were any players today that were better than Babe Ruth, the old-timers he played with,” said the 63-year-old Lopez Jr.

Although he held the record for most games caught until Bob Boone caught his 1,919th game in 1987, Lopez was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1977 as a manager with a .581 winning percentage.

The Indians won a then-A.L. record 111 games in 1954, and his 1959 “Go-Go” White Sox won Chicago’s first A.L. pennant since 1919. His teams finished second to the Yankees every other season that decade.