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Remembering Sal Maglie The Demon Barber For Italian-American Heritage Month

By Joe Guzzardi

When Sal Maglie was finishing his two years, 1956-1957, with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he gave advice to his two future Hall of Fame teammates, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Known around baseball as “The Barber,” Sal told the future greats: “Throw that second brushback pitch right away so the batter will know you meant the first one.” Koufax and Drysdale were quick studies, and with Maglie, rank numbers 3, 4 and 8, respectively, in the Top Ten among baseball history’s most feared moundsmen. The always-intimidating St. Louis Cardinals’ Bob Gibson tops the list.

Judith Testa, in her book, “Sal Maglie, the Demon Barber,” described Maglie as “a glowering, 6-foot-2-inch, 180-pound righthander whose game-day face bristled with thick black stubble.” Although Maglie looked fearsome and his high, hard one whistled right under batters’ chins – hence his nickname – off the field, he was gentle, courteous and good-natured. 

Born Salvatore Anthony Maglie, he was his parents’ third and youngest child, and their only son. His father, Giuseppe Maglie, came from a prosperous Italian family, and he had earned a high school degree. But once in America, Giuseppe’s limited English meant he had to work as a common laborer. Sal’s mother, Maria Bleve, was from a peasant background and never attended a day of school. Despite their economic challenges, Sal’s parents worked hard. They encouraged Sal to be determined and to pursue the life that he wanted.

Sal’s first passion was baseball; he turned down a basketball scholarship that Niagara University offered him in order to play baseball at the Union Carbide plant where he worked, and also with local semi-pro teams. Along the way, Double A Buffalo Bisons’ manager Steve O’Neill, a former MLB catcher who managed four big league teams, noticed Maglie. In 1938, he added Maglie to the team’s roster.

Maglie struggled and was demoted to Class-D by 1940. In I945, he had pitched well enough to earn an invitation to join the New York Giants. After pitching in the Cuban Winter League and the short-lived Mexican League, Maglie had mastered the art of effective pitching. Banned for years from MLB because he had played for the outlaw Mexican League, Maglie returned to the Giants in 1950, where he posted an 18-4 record, followed by 23-6 and 18-8 for the next two seasons. Then, in 1955 at age 36, and plagued by back pain, Maglie was sold to the Cleveland Indians. The Indians, in 1956, sold Magie to the Brooklyn Dodgers for $100, a mistake General Manager Hank Greenberg rued for years.

Supposedly washed up, Maglie became the key figure in Brooklyn’s nail-biting 1956 pennant drive. The Dodgers edged out the Milwaukee Braves by one game, and the Cincinnati Redlegs by two. Maglie’s 13-5 record included winning two of the season’s final five games and pitching a no-hitter against the Braves. Maglie kept his hot streak going when he won the World Series opener against the New York Yankees, 6-3. In the series’ fifth game, however, Maglie faced Don Larsen, allowed only two runs over eight innings, but no pitcher could have outdueled the perfect game pitcher.

In 1957 and 1958, Maglie pitched ineffectively for the Yankees and the Cardinals before closing out his MLB career as a Boston Red Sox and Seattle Pilots pitching coach. In 1966, Maglie’s wife, Kay, died, and he became a 49-year-old widower with two young children. Sal’s life began a downward spiral. Although Sal happily remarried in 1971, his adopted son Sal Jr. became addicted to drugs and had frequent police encounters.

For a few years, putting his personal heartache aside, Maglie played golf, socialized with friends, signed autographs at card shows, and attended old timers’ games. But, Maglie’s good health ended abruptly in 1982 when he suffered a brain aneurysm. After making a remarkable recovery, Sal enjoyed several more good years. But tragedy struck again in March 1985. Sal Jr. fell from a window and died. Law enforcement, aware of the troubled young man’s drug associations, suspected foul play. After that, Sal’s physical and mental health declined rapidly, and he was placed in a nursing home in 1987 where, for five years, he struggled with dementia. “The Barber” died on December 28, 1992, at the age of 75.

Maglie is one of the most recognizable players in baseball history. He is the last to hold the distinction shared by seven others of having pitched for the New York Giants, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Few remember, however, how dominant Maglie was. His won-lost record was 119-62; a .657 winning percentage which ranks him 22^nd on the all-time list just below Randy Johnson and just above Koufax.

The last chapter of Roger Kahn’s book, “The Head Game: Baseball Seen from the Pitcher’s Mound,” is titled “A Golden Dozen: a Listing of Armed Men.” Along with Bob Feller, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson is Maglie’s name with Kahn’s observation: “No one on any mound was any meaner. Like Iago, he didn’t know the meaning of remorse.”

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Remembering Sal Maglie The Demon Barber