Ernie Andres
From SoSH
| Born: | Friday Jan 11 1918 |
| Birthplace: | Jeffersonville IN USA |
| Hometown: | Bradenton, FL USA |
| Height: | 6 ' 1 |
| Weight: | 200 |
| Bats: | Right |
| Throws: | Right |
| Drafted: | Signed with BOS in 1939 |
| College: | Indiana University |
| High School: | Jeffersonville IN |
| Other Teams: | |
| Years with Boston: | 1946 |
Contents |
Overall Career
Ernest Henry Andres Jr. was a third baseman who spent the first month of the 1946 season with the Red Sox. A two-sport star at Indiana University who captained both the baseball and basketball teams, Andres is among a select group of athletes who played professionally in two different sports. He signed with Boston in 1939 but didn't reach the majors until seven years later due to his military service during World War II. Following his playing career, Andres served as assistant basketball coach for the Hoosiers for 11 years and head baseball coach at his alma mater for nearly a quarter-century.
When Ernie was at Jeffersonville High School, Indiana basketball coach Everett Dean was more interested in his backcourt teammate Bill Johnson. Dean agreed to take both players because they wanted to attend the same school. Dean was also the Hoosiers' baseball coach, but Andres initially wasn't in that picture. "Everett never knew I could play baseball while he was recruiting me. Turns out I helped him more than Bill did," Andres recalled years later.
Andres hit .303 over his three-year baseball career with the Hoosiers. As a junior at I.U., he led the team in hitting (.385) and runs scored (23). In a game against Purdue, his RBI double in the 12th-inning won both the game and the Big Ten crown.
Ernie made his biggest mark at Indiana on the basketball court in an era where low-scoring games were commonplace. As a junior he became the team's leading scorer with 250 points (a school record that would stand for eight years) and a 12.5 per game average, including a then-Big Ten record 31 points in a game at Illinois. As a senior under new head coach Branch McCracken, Andres scored 160 points for an 8.4 average as the Hoosiers finished 17-3 overall and 9-3 in conference play. Over his three seasons at Indiana, Andres scored 511 points for an 8.7 average, and earned All-America and All-Big Ten honors in both of his final two seasons.
After graduating, Andres signed with the Red Sox and was assigned to the Lousiville Colonels, the team's AAA affiliate in the American Association. It was a homecoming for Ernie, as his hometown of Jeffersonville was right across the Ohio River, and he hit .298 in 1939. That year, he shared the left side of the infield with future Hall of Fame shortstop Pee Wee Reese (whose rights were eventually sold by the Red Sox to the Brooklyn Dodgers at season's end).
Beginning in 1939-40, Andres spent his baseball off-seasons playing pro basketball with the Indianapolis Kautskys of the National Basketball League, the precursor to the NBA. Over four seasons, including three after World War II, Ernie averaged 7.6 points, scoring 983 in 130 games. He started alongside future Boston Celtic and Basketball Hall of Famer Arnie Risen on the 1947 team that defeated the Toledo Jeeps, 62-47, in the championship game of the World Professional Basketball Tournament in Chicago.
After hitting .276 in 1940 and .289 with 15 homers and 100 RBI in 1941, Andres seemed a good bet to advance from Louisville to the Red Sox in 1942 -- until Japanese planes attacked Pearl Harbor. He was recruited into the U.S. Navy Physical Training program as a CPO specialist and stationed at Great Lakes Naval Air Station, where he played on the baseball and basketball teams. Mickey Cochrane, the ex-Tiger catching great who would later be enshrined in Cooperstown, was baseball coach at Great Lakes and gave Ernie some high praise. "Andres is a great prospect," Cochrane said. "I don't know of a man I'd rather have in there at third base. And that includes the major leaguers, too." In July 1942, Andres was chosen to play with the Service All-Stars against the American League All-Stars, and had two hits in a losing cause.
Following the 1942 baseball season, Andres served a five-month mission aboard a sub-chaser off the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. Upon his return, he was assigned as the athletic Officer at the Miami Navy Training Center in Florida, and played for the Sub Chasers team that finished second in the Dade County Victory League. In 1945, he served at Shoemaker Naval Receiving Barracks in California, where he batted over .400 in the 12th Naval District Tournament. That December, Lieutenant Junior Grade Ernest H. Andres was honorably discharged from the Navy after four years of distinguished service. Three months later he reported to spring training with the Red Sox in Sarasota, Florida.
Andres earned the starting third base job after incumbent Jim Tabor was released, and spent a month playing alongside shortstop Johnny Pesky. Two years later, Ernie played in the same infield with Pee Wee Reese, who would go on to a Hall of Fame career with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In Bill Nowlin's biography of Pesky, Andres had this to say about his Sox teammate:
- "John was a good shortstop. I played next to Reese one year and next to John one year. Of course, they were both fine shortstops. I think Reese was a little better shortstop and probably had more power, but John was a better hitter for average. They both had pretty good speed."
Andres debuted with the Sox on April 16, 1946, against the Senators at Griffith Stadium in Washington, D.C. Wearing jersey number 35, he wound up hitting just .098 (4-for-41) with three walks, two doubles, one RBI and no home runs in 15 games. Andres reflected on his brief stint with the Red Sox in a 2003 interview:
- "After 15 games I was hitting .100, and you don't keep third basemen very long hitting .100," he said with a laugh. "I hit the top for about six weeks. It was the cup of coffee they talk about."
- The cup wasn't very lucrative.
- "I can tell you exactly what I made. I signed one major league contract. I was a rookie, so it was probably the minimum, which is what it should have been. It was for $5,000," he said.
Despite his struggles at the plate, Andres fielded 33 chances at third base without an error and was with the Sox as they won 15 straight games from April 25 through May 10. Ernie played his final game in the majors May 16 against the Browns at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis. Two days later, as the rest of team continued on to Detroit, Andres was on a train to Minneapolis, where the Millers had replaced Louisville as Boston's American Association affiliate.
He hit .287 with 4 homers and 59 RBI in 90 games with the Millers in 1946, and batted .266 with 13 home runs and 84 RBI in 1947. The following year he was traded to the Cleveland Indians and sent to the Indianapolis Indians, where he played two seasons before retiring as a pro ballplayer.
From 1949 to 1973, Andres was the head baseball coach at Indiana University. He led his alma mater to the Big Ten crown his first season at the helm, and went on to amass more than 400 wins. He also served as the Hoosiers assistant basketball coach from 1948 to 1959. After retiring from the head coaching position, Andres worked in the Indiana alumni office for 11 years.
Ernie retired to Bradenton, Florida in 1984 and resided there until his death at age 90 on September 19, 2008. Survivors included his wife, Doris; a daughter, Carol Jordan of Woodstock GA; a son, Stephen Andres of Greenwood IN; and three sisters, Norma Trebing, Ann Phillips and Martha Leach, all of Jeffersonville IN.
Moments in the Sun
- Ernie was a two-time winner of the Balfour Award twice as Indiana University's top athlete.
- On March 4, 1938, despite playing with the flu and stomach cramps, he notched a career-high 30 points on 13-of-30 shooting in a 45-35 Indiana win over Illinois, setting the single-game scoring individual record for both his school and the conference.
- While serving as assistant basketball coach at Indiana for 11 years, Andres helped guide the Hoosiers to a 151-71 record, four Big Ten titles, and a 23-3 NCAA Championship season in 1953.
- Inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame in 1975.
- Inducted into the Indiana University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1983.
- Inducted into the Indiana Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999.
Trivia
- Indiana has won just four Big Ten baseball championships since 1896; Andres played on one and was head coach for another.
- His nickname was "Junie," short for Junior.
- Donned jersey number 5 during his Indiana basketball career, one of three All-Americans at the school to wear it along with Vern Huffman (1936) and Ralph Hamilton (1947).
- Ernie became known for his expedience at completing the New York Times crossword puzzle. "He was always very good at them. He'd have that thing done in 10 minutes," said Bob Lawrence, a former Indiana player and assistant coach under Andres.
- Andres was an avid golfer, bowler, and bridge player.
External Links
- Baseball-Reference.com - Career Statistics and Analysis
- Obituary, Jeffersonville (IN) News and Tribune, 9/20/08
- Memorial page at findagrave.com
- Indiana University Athletics Hall of Fame
- Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame
- Gary Bodingfield's Baseball in Wartime pages
- Hiner, Jason. Indiana University Basketball Encyclopedia, Sports Publishing LLC, 2004.
- DiPrimio, Pete. Hoosier Hitmen: Indiana University Baseball, Arcadia Publishing, 2003.
- Nowlin, Bill. Mr. Red Sox: The Johnny Pesky Story, Rounder Books, 2004.
