By Jim Force | Special to Wausau Pilot & Review
When Marathon City’s Bill Fischer got a Baltimore Oriole batter to ground out in September, 1962, he had pitched 69 consecutive innings without issuing a base on balls, a new Major League record.
And he fulfilled these prophetic words written in the 1948 Marathon City High School yearbook:
“Billy Fischer has carved his name into the Hall of fame of Marathon High School…. It is with pride that we dedicate this page to a great athlete and a fine leader. It is with hope that we send Bill into the world of baseball—may he carve a name that will make him famous and his alma mater proud.”
Fischer went on to string together 84 1/3 walk-less innings before his remarkable run of control ended on September 30, the last game of the 1962 season. The old record had been 68, held by the legendary Christy Mathewson. Fischer’s achievement still stands.
Wausau-born
Born in Wausau on October 11, 1930, Fischer grew up in Marathon City, just west of Wausau. He died in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in October 2018 at the age of 88.
As a youngster, he tossed baseballs in the backyard with his brothers Tom and Gary. His senior year in high school he pitched Marathon to a 6-0-1 record, giving up just three runs the entire season.
The Chicago White Sox snapped him up immediately after graduation. He pitched brilliantly in the minor leagues before serving in the Marine Corps from 1951-52. He got the call to the big leagues in 1956, and in 1957 won seven games for Chicago while losing eight, posting an admirable earned run average of 3.48 in 33 games.
But his pitching career never really took off. Except for his clean innings record, he had only moderate success with the Senators, Tigers, Twins, and Royals, compiling a 45-58 won-loss record over nine seasons.
Impact on the game
His real impact on the game was yet to come. For the rest of his life, he scouted, coached, and advised pitchers for several major league franchises, including Boston, Cincinnati, Tampa Bay, and Kansas City.
His mentorship was legendary.
“He knew the game,” said Dave Eiland, who pitched for him in Tampa and coached with him at Kansas City. “He saw it in different ways over several decades. He was around a lot of great players—Tom Seaver, Roger Clemens, Bob Stanley, Al Nipper and others.
“As a coach you learn from the players, you gather information,” said Eiland, now a coach with Pensacola, a Miami Marlins farm team. “Nobody has this game totally figured out. Fish understood that.”
“My bread and butter”
Fischer’s connection with Clemens—one of the game’s most dominant pitchers—was special.
Melissa Nunley, Omaha resident and Fischer’s stepdaughter, says her family was once invited to a Christmas party at Clemens’ home in Texas. She recalls Clemens telling the guests that he wouldn’t have been the pitcher he was had it not been for Fischer. “That man was my bread and butter,” Clemens said.
“We followed dad in his coaching career,” she said. “We went down for spring training, then spent an entire summer in Boston when he was with the Red Sox. He would be the first one into Fenway Park in the morning, and the last one to leave the clubhouse after the game. We’d have to wait for him in the parking lot while he hung around talking with the players.
“My dad was old school,” Nunley said. “He was very knowledgeable about pitching techniques. He would show pitchers different ways pitches could be thrown.
“The older guys listened, but some of the younger pitchers may not have respected that,” she said. “They didn’t want to take his advice because they thought they already knew everything.”
Living proof
Did Fischer teach control and targeting the strike zone?
“Every pitching coach worth his salt teaches that,” Eiland said. “But with Fish, it wasn’t just chatter coming out of his mouth. He was living proof of how to throw strikes and limit bases on balls.” (In that entire record-setting 1962 season, Fischer gave up only 8 walks while facing 533 batters.)
“He was tough and brutally honest,” Eiland said. “You knew where he was coming from and that was something I appreciated.”
What did Fischer value most about his career? Nunley said you can’t pick one thing. Baseball gave him life-changing opportunities, she said. “He traveled with my mom one year to Japan to coach the Japanese players.
“It was the different experiences he had with all the teams…the camaraderie.
“When he passed,” she said, “I was talking with the different players. I knew him as my dad. But until the funeral, I didn’t realize what an important part he had played in the baseball world. He was a good man all around, and very respected in baseball.”
Eiland agrees.
“He was still active in 2017, at age 87,” Eiland said. “Even though he was slowing down a bit he was still learning. Baseball is part of your life, part of your fabric. You want to stay with it as long as you can. That was Fish right up to the end.”
