All-Time Indians: Bob Kennedy

Signed as a free agent in 1937 by the White Sox, it would be a decade before Bob Kennedy played more than 100 games in consecutive seasons thanks to a slow start and three years in the Marines during World War II. Once he finally returned, he played two decent seasons in Chicago in the outfield and third base before he was traded mid-season 1948 to the Indians for Pat Seerey and Al Gettel.

Like Kennedy, Seerey was young (only 25), but 1948 would be his final full season of Major League ball. Gettel was older, but was coming off the worst start to a season in his career and would never return to his level of play from his first three seasons in New York and Cleveland. This trade would easily go down as yet another steal by Bill Veeck as Kennedy would play in Cleveland five more seasons and become one of the better right fielders in team history.

In 1947, the Indians outfield was one of few weak spots. They had a Hall of Fame infield with Joe Gordon and Lou Boudreau up the middle, Ken Keltner at third, one of the best catchers in franchise history in Jim Hegan and a starting rotation that hasn’t been matched since. In the outfield, however, they regularly trotted out Hank Edwards, Hal Peck, Catfish Metkovich and Seerey. This changed in 1948. Dale Mitchell remained in left, but Larry Doby took over center for good. This left a hole in right that was filled by Seerey at first, but not sufficiently for an otherwise championship caliber club. After an extremely disappointing 1946 season and a less than ideal 1947, both Veeck and Boudreau were under pressure to win now and picking up Kennedy was a big part of that.

The 66 games played by Kennedy after the June 2nd trade were some of the best of his career so far, batting .301 while playing right, left, first and second. When the Indians got to the World Series that year, Kennedy would only play in three games and get two at bats, but he’d make them count with an RBI single in the Indians 4-1 game two win. Wally Judnich and Allie Clark would get the starts in right, but that would change in 1949 when Kennedy took over full time.

Never a big base stealer or slugger, Kennedy was used in 1948 and on for one major reason, his defense. He remains the top right fielder in Indians history in terms of fielding percent with at least 400 games played at the position (unfortunately we don’t have more modern stats from the 1950’s) and among the Indians top glovemen at the position, only Cory Snyder threw out runners on the bases with more regularity.

With this in mind, Kennedy was also a big part of the offense in 1949, hitting 23 doubles and knocking in 57 with a .417 slugging percent that came in fourth on the team behind only Doby, Mitchell and Mickey Vernon. He would go on to have his top offensive season in 1950, setting career bests in average, walks, doubles, hits and runs while tying his best marks in triples and home runs. This year, he was only surpassed offensively by Al Rosen, Doby and Luke Easter. All the while performing as an elite defender, worth eight runs more than the average right fielder in both 1949 and 1950 according to Total Zone Rating.

As long as it took Kennedy to reach this offensive level, he didn’t stay there long. He hit .246 in 1951 in 108 games, then played just 22 in 1952. After seeing his skills diminish even further in 100 games in 1953, Kennedy was traded to Baltimore after playing just one game in 1954. This did, however, make him one of very few players to play during two seasons that the Indians made it to the World Series.

After Baltimore it was Chicago again where he had a resurgence as a utility man in 1955. After playing with Detroit, back with the White Sox and finally with the St. Louis Browns in 1957, Kennedy called an end to his playing career after 16 years and 1,484 games.

This would be far from the end of Kennedy in baseball, however. He would come back to Cleveland in 1958 as a scout and eventually work his way up to assistant farm director the next year. He would stay in that role until he got a promotion of sorts to be part of the collage of coaches for the Chicago Cubs, an extremely ill fated experiment that gave all coaches equal responsibility rather than having a manager.

After leaving Chicago, Kennedy coached at different around baseball including stops in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Oakland, St. Louis and back to the Cubs again. He had gigs managing, scouting and in the front office, but none really lasted long. His jump back to Chicago in 1976 was the biggest promotion as he became the GM of the Cubs, a role he continued in until 1981. He continued in management in Houston and San Francisco until he retired from baseball for good in 1992.

While he was working off the field for the sport, his family continued to have success on the field, particularly Terry Kennedy, his son. The first round pick by the Cardinals would play 14 years as an All-Star catcher for four different teams. He would win a Silver Slugger as well as he was one of the best catchers in the game during his prime from 1981 through 1987. His son would follow in his footsteps in other ways as well as his RBI in the 1984 World Series made the pair the first father and son duo ever to each have an RBI in the World Series. He also followed his father into management as he worked as a minor league manager for the Cubs and continued on with them through at least 2014 as a scout.

As for the father, Bob Kennedy retired to Mesa, Arizona (home of the Cubs Spring Training facility) where he died at the age of 85 in 2004.