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Don Richard "Richie" Ashburn, soprannominato Putt-Putt, The Tilden Flash e Whitey (Tilden, 9 marzo 1927 – New York, 9 settembre 1997), è stato un giocatore di baseball statunitense di ruolo esterno nella Major League Baseball (MLB).
È stato indotto nella National Baseball Hall of Fame nel 1995.
Nato a Tilden, Nebraska crebbe in una fattoria, diventando un esterno professionista e poi un cronista televisivo per i Philadelphia Phillies, la squadra dove aveva trascorso la maggior parte della carriera, diventando una delle figure più amate della storia sportiva della città.
Uno dei famosi "Whiz Kids", come fu chiamata la squadra dei Phillies del 1950 che conquistò la National League, fu convocato per sei All-Star Game e per due volte fu il miglior battitore della NL.
Le ultime stagioni della carriera le passò con i Chicago Cubs (1960-1961) e i New York Mets (1962).
Amante del bridge, partecipò alla famosa sfida del 1972 tra alcuni atleti di altri sport e gli Aces.
Don Richard "Richie" Ashburn (March 19, 1927 – September 9,
1997), also known by the nicknames, "Putt-Putt", "The Tilden Flash", and "Whitey"
due to his light-blond hair, was an American center fielder in Major League
Baseball. He was born in Tilden, Nebraska (some sources give his full middle
name as "Richie"). From his youth on a farm, he grew up to become a professional
outfielder and veteran broadcaster for the Philadelphia Phillies and one of the
most beloved sports figures in Philadelphia history. He was inducted into the
National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995.
One of the famous "Whiz Kids" of the National League champion
1950 Phillies, Ashburn spent 12 of his 15 major-league seasons as the Phillies'
center fielder (from 1948 through 1959). He sported a .308 lifetime batting
average, leading the National League twice, and routinely led the league in
fielding percentage. In 1950, in the last game of the regular season, he threw
Dodgers' runner Cal Abrams out at home plate to preserve a 1–1 tie and set the
stage for Dick Sisler's pennant-clinching home run. He had been playing in to
back up a pick-off throw on a pitchout, but pitcher Robin Roberts had instead
thrown a fastball to the batter, Duke Snider.
The following year Ashburn displayed his fielding skill on the national stage in
the All-Star Game at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. The Associated Press reported,
"Richie Ashburn, fleet footed Philadelphia Phillies outfielder, brought the huge
Briggs Stadium crowd of 52,075 to its feet with a brilliant leaping catch in the
sixth inning to rob Wertz of a near homer. Ashburn caught the ball in front of
the right centerfield screen 400 feet distant after a long run." He was also the
last Phillies player to collect eight hits in a double-header when he singled
eight times in a twinbill at Pittsburgh on May 20, 1951.
Ashburn was a singles hitter rather than a slugger,
accumulating over 2,500 hits in 15 years against only 29 home runs. In his day
he was regarded as the archetypal "spray hitter," stroking the ball equally well
to all fields, thus making him harder to defend against. Ashburn accumulated the
most hits (1,875) of any batter during the 1950s.
During an August 17, 1957, game, Ashburn hit a foul ball into the stands that
struck spectator Alice Roth, wife of Philadelphia Bulletin sports editor Earl
Roth, breaking her nose. When play resumed Ashburn fouled off another ball that
struck her while she was being carried off in a stretcher. Ashburn and Mrs.
Roth maintained a friendship for many years, and the Roths' son later served as
a Phillies batboy.
Ashburn was traded to the Chicago Cubs following the 1959 season for three players. He went on to anchor center field for the North Siders in 1960 and 1961. Anticipating a future career behind a microphone, Ashburn sometimes conducted a post-game baseball instruction clinic at Wrigley Field for the benefit of the youngsters in the WGN-TV viewing audience.
Ashburn was drafted by the expansion New York Mets for the 1962 season. He had a good year offensively, batting .306, and was the team's first-ever All-Star Game representative. It was, however, a frustrating year for the polished professional, who had begun his career with a winner and found himself playing for the least successful team in modern baseball history (with a record of 40–120). He retired at the end of the season.
One oft-told story is that on short flies to center or left-center, center fielder Ashburn would collide with shortstop Elio Chacón. Chacón, from Venezuela, spoke little English and had difficulty understanding when Ashburn was calling him off the ball. To remedy matters teammate Joe Christopher taught Ashburn to say "Yo la tengo," Spanish for "I’ve got it." When Ashburn first used this phrase it worked fine, keeping Chacón from running into him. But then left fielder Frank Thomas, who did not speak a word of Spanish, slammed into Ashburn. After getting up Thomas asked Ashburn, "What the heck is a Yellow Tango?"
In his last five seasons Ashburn played for the 8th-place
Phillies, the 7th-place Cubs, and the 10th place Mets. The infamous first-year
Mets club won only a quarter of its games, and Ashburn decided to retire from
active play. The last straw might have been during the Mets' 120th loss, when
Ashburn was one of the three Mets victims in a triple play pulled off by his
former teammates, the 9th-place Cubs. According to Jimmy Breslin, it was the
prospect of sitting on the bench that led Ashburn to retire: "He sat on the
bench for a while with another team once and it bothered him badly. And he said
that if he ever had to be a benchwarmer for the New York Mets he'd commit
suicide.
Throughout his playing career, Ashburn, who lived in his hometown of Tilden
during the offseason, officiated high school basketball games throughout
Nebraska as a way to stay in playing condition. He became a well-respected
official, but retired from officiating when he retired from baseball.
Starting in 1963 Ashburn became a radio and TV color commentator for his original big-league team, the Phillies. He first worked with long-time Phillies announcers Bill Campbell and Byrum Saam. In 1971 Campbell was released by the Phillies and Harry Kalas joined the team. Ashburn worked with these two future winners of the Ford C. Frick Award for the next few years. Saam retired in 1976, and Ashburn continued working with Kalas for the next two decades, the two becoming best friends. Kalas often referred to Ashburn as "His Whiteness", a nickname Kalas would use for the rest of his life for the man he so openly adored. Ashburn also regularly wrote for The Philadelphia Bulletin and, later, The Philadelphia Daily News.
According to his mother, Ashburn planned on retiring from broadcasting at the end of the 1997 season. He died of a heart attack on September 9, 1997, in New York City after broadcasting a Phillies-Mets game at Shea Stadium. A large crowd of fans paid tribute to him, passing by his coffin in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. He is interred in the Gladwyne Methodist Church Cemetery, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.
Ashburn was well known for his dry humor as a broadcaster. On one occasion he was talking to Harry Kalas about his superstitions during his playing days. He said that he once had a habit of keeping a successful baseball bat in bed with him between games, not trusting the clubhouse crew to give him the same bat the next day. Ashburn told Kalas that he had "slept with a lot of old bats" in his day.
When calling late innings, Ashburn would occasionally ask
on-air if the staff of Celebre's Pizza, a nearby pizzeria in South Philly, was
listening to the radio. Pizza would then arrive at the radio booth 15–20 minutes
later. The Phillies requested that Ashburn discontinue the practice, as
Celebre's was not a Phillies sponsor, and it was considered free advertising.
Ashburn was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Hall's Veterans
Committee in 1995 after a long fan campaign to induct him, which included bumper
stickers that read, "Richie Ashburn: Why The Hall Not?" He accompanied Phillies
great Mike Schmidt, who was inducted in the same ceremony. Over 25,000 fans,
mostly from Philadelphia, traveled to Cooperstown for the ceremony.
The Phillies retired Richie Ashburn's number in 1979.
Ashburn was inducted into The Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia Hall of Fame in 1997.
Ashburn was posthumously inducted into the inaugural class of the Philadelphia Sports Hall of Fame in 2004.
Each year the Phillies present the Richie Ashburn Special
Achievement Award to "a member of the organization who has demonstrated loyalty,
dedication and passion for the game."
The center-field entertainment area at the Phillies current stadium, Citizens
Bank Park, was named "Ashburn Alley" in his honor after numerous fans urged the
Phillies to name their new stadium after Ashburn (Ashburn's 47 seasons of
service to the Phillies organization was second in length in Philadelphia
baseball history only to Connie Mack, who was so honored by the renaming of
Shibe Park in 1953).
At Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies' radio-broadcast booth is named "The Richie 'Whitey' Ashburn Broadcast Booth". It is directly next to the TV-broadcast booth, which was renamed "The Harry Kalas Broadcast Booth" after Kalas's death in 2009.
The book, "Richie Ashburn: Why The Hall Not?", is about Richie's journey to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
He is a bridge lover and he participated the famous ACES challenge of '70.
