For the 2003 Issue of Lexington Legend’s Yearbook Magazine
By Rich Herles
Well, it’s the Lexington Legends third year in the South Atlantic League and they are going to be taking the field with a new skipper, Russ Nixon. So, let’s take a look at our new headman.
Russ Nixon was born on February 19,1935 in the small town of Cleves, Ohio (which is about fifteen miles east of Cincinnati) along with his twin brother, Roy. The two boys grew up on the farm, but it was their grandfather’s love of baseball that started the boys on the path to professional baseball. The twin’s grandfather, who was a semi-pro player, dreamed that Russ & Roy would grow up to be ball players. His dream was so strong that he cleared part of their farm to create baseball diamond for the boys to practice on. Unlike the movie, this Field of Dreams did not have the ghosts of past players playing on it, but rather the hopes and aspirations of future players. “During the week we had a lot of chores to do on the farm, (but) on Saturdays and Sundays when there wasn’t a whole lot of work to do, that’s when we’d play ball.”
The Nixon battery, of Russ catching and Roy pitching, first played organized baseball for their consolidated school district. “We only had two players, my brother and myself, who could play ball in our grade school. So, we had to go to three or four other schools to get enough players. We had to go to Cincinnati to play and those clubs had uniforms. We didn’t even have uniforms. It worked out. Mom would get us a bat every two weeks, because that was all it would last. The bat and ball probably had thirty pounds of tape on it. It made us stronger anyway.”
When the boys finished grade school they went on to high school at Harrison, Ohio for one year and that summer they stay in Harrison to work and play ball for the Harrison Post American Legion team. Even though the two were just fifteen years old they made an impression on “the big boys” and the coach. The coach wanted them to play for him the next season at Western Hills High School, “but that was like a forty mile round trip and mom and dad had to pay tuition. We didn’t have that kind of money then, but they said that it would be OK. So, we went from a school of three hundred students to one of three thousand. Our homeroom was bigger than the whole school that we had come from. It gave us a chance to play better baseball. The high school was a 4A school and the Bentley Post team was renowned for the teams that they’ve had in the past.” That year their post team finished third in the nation and the following year won it all.
Right after high school the twins both signed with Cleveland and played together a year and a half with Green Bay and Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Then the Indian organization split them up. Roy continued pitching for Cleveland’s mid-level minor league teams for three years and Russ went to Iowa (B level) and then jumped to AAA, which was unheard of back then. (Each major league team had at least seventeen teams. Teams at levels D, C, B, A, AA, AAA. It was common for 600 players to be at spring training for each major league team.) The winter of 1955, the Indians sent Russ down to Mexico to play winter ball. Even though he had led the Florida State League and AAA in batting, he needed to brush up on his catching, especially with older pitchers. “That really helped me. It’s the reason that I made the AAA team the next year. From there I went to the Big Leagues and never came back.”
In his twelve years of playing in the Major Leagues, Nixon played with and against what could be summed up as a ‘Who’s Who in Baseball’. As a rookie, Nixon had the privilege of catching some Hall of Fame greats like Bob Feller, Early Wynn and Bob Lemon. Russ came up to the Indians with Roger Maris. As a rookie, “Roger was one of the better athletes that I’d ever seen. He could throw. He had power. He could run and he was just a “good guy”. He had all kinds of talent.” Midway through his second here with Cleveland, Maris was “traded to Kansas City. If you were a left handed hitter with any power in Kansas City the next year you would be in New York.” Today that would be illegal, but owners of the two teams were business partners and they would shuttle players back and forth. Baseball’s history would bring the two together again, but before that could happen Nixon's career would make a strange twist.
Russ Nixon has the strange distinction of being traded twice in the same season by the same team to the same team. During spring training in 1960, the Indians General Manager Frank “Trader” Lane made a trade with the Boston Red Sox. Russ Nixon was to report to the Red Sox camp at Scottsdale and Sammy White and Jim Marshall were report to Tucson. “I loaded up the wife and kids and drove the hundred miles to Scottsdale. When I got there, John Holland met me and said come up to my room once the kids get settled, we have some business to take care of. I go in there and they give me a five thousand-dollar raise just like that and I thought wow a five thousand-dollar raise. I was just making ten thousand (dollars a year). I knew Boston paid well, but… So, I’m happy and I’m settling in OK. White reports down there and had been there for two days. He had always played in Boston; he lived in Boston, and had businesses there. He told Lane that with his businesses he had to go back and set guidelines on how they are to be run, because he’s not going to be there. So, he goes back and two days later he calls Lane and says he’s quitting. Now, they didn’t know what to do with me and Marshall. For two weeks they couldn’t make up their minds what to do with us. We could play or even practice. Finally, they say it’s nullified. So, we had to go back to our original teams. I pack the kids up and we go back to Tucson. ‘Trader’ Lane meets me in the parking lot and tells me that there was no way that he was going to give me the raise. He was just going to honor the ten thousand-dollar contract. So, I said, ‘OK, how can I argue with you?’ And went back to my business of getting ready for the season. Then on the fifteenth of June, (Jim) Piersall calls me. He was our center fielder in Cleveland and he says, ‘You’ve been traded back to Boston.’ I said, ‘well, nobody’s told me except you’ and nobody did. I called Spud Goldstein, our traveling secretary, and told him that Piersall had just called me and told me I was traded. He said, ‘that’s right.’ I said, ‘Doesn’t the general manager usually do that?’ He said, ‘I don’t know if Lane is going to or not, but I have an airline ticket for you to Detroit’ (to join the Red Sox). That’s how I left Cleveland. Here’s the kicker. John Holland picks me up at the airport in Detroit in the huge limo. We’re sitting in the back and he opens his briefcase pulls out a contract, flips it to me and says sign it. I look at it and it’s for fifteen thousand dollars and he says, ‘that is retroactive to the beginning of spring training.’ That was it. It was Ted’s (Williams) last year and I got to see him hit his last home run, which was exciting and just being able to spend time with him was just great.” After Nixon’s Boston years with players like Williams and Carl Yastrzemski, he was traded to Minnesota and played with baseball greats Harmon Killebrew, Jim Kaat and Camilo Pascal. Even though he was plagued with injuries, his ability as a dependable left-handed pinch hitter as well as an extra catcher helped to prolong his playing career through the 1968 season.
Upon the completion of his playing career, it only seemed logical that he should use his baseball knowledge as a coach. Nixon returned to baseball as a minor league coach with his hometown Cincinnati Reds farm teams. He remained in the Reds farm system for six years and then was promoted to the “Big Red Machine” coaching staff in 1976, where he was a part of the World Series Champs, along with Rose, Gullette, Bench, Griffey, Perez, Morgan, and Concepcion. In 1982 Russ was promoted to the Reds manager midway through the season and remained at the helm through the 1983 season. Next stop, he joined the Montreal Expo staff. Nixon returned to the major leagues manager post in 1988 with Atlanta and was the Braves chief for two and a half seasons.
For the past twelve seasons he has worked in the minors. Nixon said, “I’m at a point in my career where I can pick and choose (what I want to do) and that’s what I am going to do.” As for why he chose the Lexington Legends, “I’ve had a lot of fun with this game and that is one thing that isn’t going to stop. Fun is now watching my kids excel, how they grasp the game. It’s not so much what you teach them, but how they play the game and respect it and not abuse it. Anybody that abuses the game and disrespects it I have no use for.”
This little journey through the Legend’s new skipper’s life should show you just how lucky we are to have someone who not only knows the game, but has the deep down love and respect that we need to be passed on to the next generation of major league superstars.
Remember to keep your eye on your goals and swing for the stars!
Copyright 2003 by Richard G. Herles
Any reprinting of this article without written permission is prohibited. (Reprinting via email is authorized.)
