Obituary: Art “Red” Swanson (1936-2024)

RIP to Art Swanson, a former bonus baby whose major-league career began when he was 18 and ended before his 21st birthday. He died at his home on January 19 at the age of 87. Swanson played for the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1957.

Arthur Leonard Swanson was born in Baton Rouge, LA, on October 15, 1936. His father, A.L. “Red” Swanson, was very renowned in the Louisiana sports world. He played for Louisiana State University in the early 1920s and got into coaching soon after that, He coached football at Southeastern Louisiana and LSU during the 1930s and ’40s. He also coached a few basketball games at LSU and led the baseball team to an SEC championship in 1943. His last coaching role came in 1950 with the football team at Southwestern Louisiana Institute — now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1951, he was named superintendent of the Louisiana Training Institute for Boys in Monroe, a reformatory that he was attempting to run more as a school and less as a place of punishment for wayward boys.

Meanwhile, the younger Swanson had inherited his father’s love of sports, plus the nickname, evidently. “Little Red,” as he was called, threw a no-hitter for his American Legion team in 1951. The next year, while pitching for Neville High School in Monroe, he gave up 4 runs in the first inning against Marion but threw 6-no-hit innings after that. He also had two key hits as Neville rallied to win 6-4. Baseball was just one of the many sports that Swanson played, including football, basketball, tennis and track. Pitching, though, remained his strong suit, and he fanned 22 batters in a 14-inning Legion game in 1953, allowing just 3 hits. Swanson finished his high school pitching career in 1954 with 26 straight no-hit innings spaced out over six games. The streak included 2 no-hitters to help Neville win its second straight Louisiana Class-A baseball championship.

Source: *The Pittsburgh Press*, June 19, 1957.

“Little Red” attended LSU in 1954 and spent a year there, playing freshman baseball and basketball. That summer, he spent three days working out at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, as general manager Branch Rickey observed. On August 25, it was announced that Swanson had signed a 2-year, $25,000 bonus contract with the Pirates. Under the “bonus baby” rules of the day, he had to report directly to the Pirates major-league club and spend two years there. Sometimes the contract worked in the player’s favor — Al Kaline is a notable example of a bonus baby whose career flourished. All too often, though, the player spent two years sitting on a bench, hardly ever getting into a game, when they would have been better served getting two years of proper coaching in the minor leagues. Swanson pitched in just one game for Pittsburgh in 1955. He entered a game in relief on September 10, 1955, when the Milwaukee Braves were pounding the Pirates. Swanson, a month shy of his 19th birthday, pitched the bottom of the seventh inning and retired Danny O’Connell on a fly ball to center. He then walked Del Crandall, Ray Crone and Bill Bruton, and Johnny Logan cleared the bases with a double. Logan was caught off second base and tagged out, and Eddie Mathews grounded to first to end the inning. In his second inning of work, Swanson gave up a home run to Chuck Tanner but retired Henry Aaron on a grounder, so no future Hall of Famers were able to hit the ball out of the infield against him.

Life as a bonus baby didn’t improve much for the rookie — now going by “Art Swanson” — in 1956. Manager Bobby Bragan had to work around Swanson and Laurin Pepper, another bonus pitcher, by using them as infrequently as possible. He would have had a third bonus pitcher in Paul Martin, but the young hurler suffered a career-ending torn ligament in his shoulder. Swanson’s first appearance came on April 27 against Brooklyn, and he made it through 2 of his 3 innings unscathed. The other inning involved a 2-run homer to Roy Campanella. He struck out 3 batters, including Duke Snider and Gil Hodges. Swanson didn’t have very many effective outings, but then again, he frequently went weeks between pitching appearances. It would be hard for any pitcher, especially an inexperienced teenager, to have any success with that workload. In his best outing, he threw a scoreless eighth inning against Milwaukee on May 8, retiring Mathews, Aaron and Bobby Thomson. But on the season, he pitched in 9 games and gave up 21 hits and 13 runs in 11-2/3 innings, for a 10.03 ERA.

Source: *The Columbus Ledger*, June 13, 1959.

Swanson’s Pirate teammates liked the youngster, and he certainly stood out. He was the team’s fashionplate, with more than 20 suits. He also donned an early version of a protective shield, which the team physician designed to protect pitchers against line drives to the face. Predictably, it came soon after the Herb Score incident. It was essentially lens-less goggles made of coat hangar wire and a rubber coating, and Swanson was the only Pirates pitcher willing to wear them. Bragan said the goggles made him look like a space cadet.

The team was rooting for Swanson, and in 1957, it started to pay off. Bragan began using him a little more frequently, and Swanson delivered with a string of solid outings in relief. With an ERA of 3.48 in 7 games, Swanson made his first major-league start on June 18 in St. Louis. He threw 8 innings of 2-hit ball until the Cardinals scored a run on a pair of singles in the ninth inning. But it was too little, too late. The Pirates scored 8 runs, including a pair of home runs by Bill Virdon, and Swanson cruised to an 8-1 vicrory for his first win in the majors.

Swanson later told Pittsburgh Press columnist Les Biederman that he was scared in the first inning but merely nervous in the ninth. When asked the difference, he explained, “When I’m scared, I can’t talk. When I’m only nervous I can talk. I couldn’t talk in the first inning and couldn’t keep from talking in the ninth.” His arsenal for the game was mainly fastballs and a few curves and change-ups… and one knuckleball that he threw on a lark to Stan Musial. Bragan later asked catcher Dick Rand if the Cardinals star was surprised to see a knuckler. “No, Musial wasn’t surprised but I was. I had signaled for a fastball,” the catcher said with a grin.

Swanson made a handful of other starts but did not see that level of success again. He fared better as a reliever, however, and remained on the Pirates roster past the point where his 2-year contract expired and he could have been sent to the minor leagues. In 32 games, which included 8 starts, he had a 3-3 record and a 3.72 ERA. Swanson walked 31, struck out 29 and gave up 9 home runs in 72-2/3 innings.

Swanson, in an LSU uniform, shows a proper pitching form during a youth clinic. Looking on are former big-leaguers Len Yochim and Red Munger. Source: *Daily World*, May 19, 1968.

Swanson embraced a weight-training program and showed up to training camp in 1958 looking like a different person. Where he had been a skinny 150 pounds, he gained 40 pounds of muscle over the course of a single winter. “My aim was to develop my body and make me stronger as a pitcher,” he said. “Right now I feel so strong I’d challenge Ted Kluszewski to a fight if he didn’t have that bad back.” Unfortunately, the Pirates were no longer under any requirements to keep him on the major league roster, so they didn’t. He split 1958 between Triple-A Columbus and Class-A Lincoln and turned in a 5-9 record and 4.50 ERA in 37 games, 16 of which were starts. The rest of his time in the Pirates minor leagues was about the same. He moved up and down throughout the organization, sometimes working as a starter and sometimes as a reliever. Sometimes he reached double digits in wins, and his control improved to the point that it was one of his biggest assets. But the Pirates never brought him back to the majors. Swanson spent much of his later playing years with the Asheville Tourists. He won 10 games with them in 1961 and fanned 109 batters in 152 innings, but he struggled as a swingman there in 1962. The Pirates released him after one relief appearance for the Tourists in 1963, ending his playing career.

Over 3 seasons in the majors, Swanson accumulated a 3-3 record and a 4.90 ERA in 42 games, including 8 starts. He walked 42 batters and struck out 34 in 86-1/3 innings. He had a career WHIP of 1.541 and an ERA+ of 79. Hank Aaron was 0-for-8 lifetime against Swanson, and Willie Mays was hitless in 4 at-bats with a strikeout.

Swanson was named LSU’s freshman baseball coach in September 1963, and he later coached on the varsity squad. He served as director of intramural athletics at LSU from 1966 until 1978. Swanson also scouted for the Philadelphia Phillies and participated in many youth clinics in Louisiana. He remained an avid fan of LSU sports for the rest of his life.

Swanson is survived by his wife of 67 years, Mary, and children Laurie, Linda and Arthur.