Nov. 12, 1964 - Commissioner Ford Frick summed it up for all baseball today with the heartfelt remembrance: “I am proud that I was Fred Hutchinson’s friend.”
These words were echoed in various ways from all over the country when players and officials learned of the death by cancer of the former major league pitcher and manager.
Hutchinson, who guided the Reds through 5⅔ years, died at 3:58 a.m. this morning of chest cancer at Manatee Memorial Hospital, Bradenton, Fla.
“Baseball will feel deeply his loss both as a baseball figure and a man,” Frick said sadly. “As a boy out of high school, he came into baseball and brought credit to it at all times — on and off the field.”
Although the seriousness of his illness was known, the death shocked the baseball world. George (Birdie) Tebbetts, manager of the Cleveland Indians and a neighbor of Hutchinson, took the news hard: “I am very, very shocked — he was my very best friend. I don’t feel like talking about it.”
Dick Sisler, who replaced Hutchinson as manager when Hutch resigned last October because of his illness said: “I think any sport which loses a great competitor like Fred Hutchinson has suffered a great loss. He was just a grand guy.” Hutchinson was called “Stone Face” by a great many people, but as Joe Garagiola put it: “He was a happy guy inside, only his face didn’t show it.” Stan Musial, former St. Louis great who collected his 3,000th hit while Hutchinson was managing the Cardinals, said: “If you couldn’t play for Fred, you couldn’t play for anybody. I always enjoyed being with him because he was a man’s man.”
Mets manager Casey Stengel said Hutchinson would be missed by everybody.
“He was a high-class fellow who had something on the ball at all times,” said Casey. “He did exceptional work with players who had just ordinary ability, and off the field he had a wonderful method of changing his character. After you lost, if you put out, it made no difference about the game itself.”
National League president Warren Giles said: “To use baseball language, he was one from the old school, whose rough surface only covered a kindly and sentimental person. He made a great contribution to baseball, and we can’t afford to lose men like him.”
At Hutchinson’s bedside when he died were his wife, Patricia, and their two oldest sons, Rick, 20, and Jack, 19. A third son, Joe, 11, and a daughter, Patty, 16, were at the family home on nearby Anna Maria Island at Holmes Beach.
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