By Jeff Stuart
On Jun 29, 1963; The Los Angeles Dodgers announced that they had recalled infielder Ken McMullen from Spokane to replace Don Zimmer who had recently been traded to the Washington Senators.
McMullen signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers upon graduation from Oxnard High School. He was one of the last of baseball’s bonus babies.
His first major league home run was a grand slam off the St. Louis Cardinals’ Ernie Broglio on the Fourth of July He pulled a hamstring on September 26 and didn’t play in the World Series against the New York Yankees.
He started the 1964 season with the Dodgers, but poor fielding and a .209 batting average led the Dodgers to trade him, along with Frank Howard, Phil Ortega and Pete Richert to the Washington Senators for John Kennedy and Claude Osteen.
McMullen won an everyday job batting second for Gil Hodges’ Senators. Hodges considered him the sleeper in the trade.
“He’s loose and handles himself well. He appears capable of doing the job in the field and now we’ll have to see if he can hit. General Manager George Selkirk asked McMullen to report early to receive the benefit of personal tutoring from Eddie Yost, one of the American League’s finest third basemen for 13 years. After hitting a couple of hundred grounders at McMullen who scooped up all sorts of chances, “He’ll do,” said Yost. “For a while I wondered abut him going to his left. But he can do it. He has remarkable action for a youngster. McMullen wore the uniform of John Kennedy, #2, who had been traded to the Dodgers.”
“I’m glad to work under Yost,” said McMullen. I watched him when he was with the Angels, I played third, first, and the outfield in Omaha. And when the Dodgers called me up, I even played second base. Nothing upsets a fielder more than to be moved around from position to position. I made some errors.” McMullen wasn’t proud of his batting average in Spokane either. “I’ll have to do much better than that to stay in the big leagues.”
McMullen became the Senators’ regular third baseman and hit 18 home runs in his first season with the club in 1965. Though he led the American League with 22 errors, he soon earned a reputation as one of the better fielding third basemen. On August 13, he tied an AL record by starting four double plays against the Baltimore Orioles. And on September 26 against the Boston Red Sox, he set an AL record with 11 assists. He led AL third basemen in total chances over three seasons from 1967 to 1969, and led AL third basemen in double plays in 1967 and putouts in 1969.
Ken had a 19-game hitting streak in 1967, the longest streak for any expansion Senator. The Senators, at one time 13 games under 500, climbed to a 56-57 record when he was injured by a line drive off the bat of Minnesota’s Bob Allison. The team lost 7 of 8 without him in the lineup. He finished the season batting .245 with 16 homeruns and 67 RBI’s. McMullen had his first career multi-home run game on July 16. Later in the same month, he hit a game-winning home run to end a twenty-inning marathon with the Minnesota Twins.
He was the Nats most valuable player in the drive to the .500 mark in Mid-August.
Nats won 76 games in 1967, 14 games better than the 52 games they won the previous year. And they were in the pennant race in mid-August . Ken hit 20 homers in 1968,
Under new manager Ted Williams, Ken batted a career-high .272 while driving in a career-high 87 runs in 1969.He hit 19 home runs. All career highs. The club finished 86-76, ten games over .500. It was the first winning season for a Washington franchise since 1952 and the only winning season in the tenure of the expansion Senators. It was “A whole new ballgame.”
His play drew praise from Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle, who called him “the most underrated player in the league.”
Bur Williams was not sold on McMullen.
Williams, a five-time American League leader in runs batted in, wanted more production out of Ken. . In 159 more at-bats he drove in only two more runs than Epstein. “Work up the figures on l\1cMullen for me and see if they prove what I think,” Williams asked Burton Hawkins, the Senators’ secretary. “Get me last sea son’s figures and this year’s, too,” said Williams Turned out the stats showed Mullen left more men on base last season, 285, than any other Washington player.
On April 27, 1970, he was traded the California Angels for third baseman Aurelio Rodriguez and Rick Reichart . , “I’ll be one surprised son of a (deleted) if I can’t help both of those guys hit’ more than they’ve been hitting for the Angels.” He wanted a right-handed hitting outfielder and felt that Reichart was misusing his 6’3, 216-pound frame. He promised he could help Reichardt with his hitting. , “You don’t know how long I’ve been looking forward to having Mr. Williams look me over.” Saud Reichart.
McMullen hit .444 against the Angels in 1969. Small wonder , they had visions of him as the righthanded power they needed.
“I had misgivings about the Ken McMullen deal because we didn’t get a pitcher, “ said Nat’s oner Bob Short. “William’s deals have been working out well. But I’m not trading any more of our top players if we can’t get pitching help.” Well after the 1970 season he traded Eddie Brinkman and Rodriquez to Detroit for Denny McLain. We all know how that turned out.
McMullen hit 21 home runs for the Angels in 1971. After the 1972 season, he was dealt back to the Dodgers as part of another seven-player trade. Over the next three years, he was primarily used as a pinch-hitter.
Reichart did not meet William’s expectations. One of the last of baseball’s bonus babies he hit 15 home runs, batting in 46 runs, He hit ,277 Prior to the 1971 season he was traded to the Chicago White Sox for pitcher Gerry Janeski.
After returning to the Dodgers in 1973 McMullen’s wife, Bobbie, was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was three months pregnant at the time with the couple’s third child, and she declined treatment that could have taken the life of the unborn child.
The baby, Jonathan, was born healthy in November 1973. Bobbie died in April 1974. McMullen continued as a reserve that season and finally made it to the World Series, where the Dodgers lost to the A’s. In the 1974 National League Championship Series, he struck out against the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Bruce Kison in his only post-season at-bat.[
Prior to the 1976 campaign, he was let go by Los Angeles and soon caught on with the Oakland Athletics, for whom he led the AL with 9 pinch hits that summer. He spent 1977, his final season, with the Milwaukee Brewers. In his final big league at-bat, on September 14th against the Seattle Mariners, he hit a two-run home run. taking an 0-1 pitch from Seattle’s Tom House over the left field fence at the Kingdome.
Ken was an Air Force reservist with the 831st Tactical Air Wing at George AFB, in Victorville, CA. more
He made ends meet by working at a service station in the offseason. Such was life for non-superstars in the 1960s and 1970s.
After retiring, McMullen ran baseball camps, created a youth benefit golf tournament, co-owned a minor league team in California and did community relations work for the Dodgers, including fantasy camps.
As of 2009, McMullen is a member of the Los Angeles Dodgers organization serving as a representative of the Dodgers Legend Bureau.
