‘Toy Cannon’ left indelible mark
5-9, 165-pounder was ‘smaller version of Mays,’ belted moonshot homers
In an era when Houston took pride in being the biggest and boldest in all endeavors, it also came to appreciate a more diminutive combination of grace and power in the 5-9, 165-pound frame of Astros outfielder Jimmy Wynn, the “Toy Cannon,” who died Thursday at age 78.
Wynn, who had been in declining health in recent years, was last greeted by fans last season at Minute Maid Park when he was honored among the inaugural members of the Astros Hall of Fame.
He made his mark, though, at the Astrodome, where he played nine of his 11 seasons in a Houston uniform between 1963 and 1973 at a time when the arrival of Major League Baseball in Houston contributed to an era of dynamic growth and change. He hit 97 of his career 291 home runs in the cavernous Dome, where the outfield fences ranged from 340 feet down the foul lines to 400 feet in center.
The nickname Toy Cannon was bestowed on Wynn by Chronicle sports writer John Wilson, and it reflected the explosive
strength of a man who is invariably listed among the best major league power hitters under six feet tall.
Had he played on a better team, said Joe Morgan, Wynn’s roommate on the road for seven years with the Astros, he had the skills to merit consideration for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
“He was a true five-tool player,” Morgan said. “He had the power to hit 37 home runs in a season while playing in the Astrodome, which is almost impossible, and one year he stole 43 bases and was caught four times.
“He could run the ball down in the outfield, he had a great arm, and if he could have gone to a winning team like I did, I think he could have made the Hall of Fame. There would have been nothing to stop him.”
Wynn was known for tape measure blasts, and he hit one of the most memorable in his home town of Cincinnati. On June 11, 1967, facing the Reds’ Sammy Ellis, he drove the ball out of Crosley Field and onto the exit ramp of Cincinnati’s Mill Creek Expressway.
“I’m just swingin’ the bat,” he said afterward. “and lettin’ wood meet horsehide.”
A month later, another tape measure job in Pittsburgh went over the 457foot center field fence at Forbes Field. His longest Astrodome home run, in 1970, traveled more than 500 feet into the sixth row of the upper deck.
“Jimmy had such power,” said Bob Aspromonte, Wynn’s longtime teammate with the Colt .45s and Astros. “He had that incredible upward swing. He brought the bat through with such speed and quickness.
“We used to laugh all the time about how his hits went into the stands and mine died at the warning track. He had such ability and such talent, and he handled himself so well off the field. He was a dear friend.”
Born March 12, 1942, in Cincinnati, Wynn initially was signed as a free agent by the Reds in 1962 but was selected in the postseason first-year player draft by the Colt .45s, who had just finished their first season in the National League.
He made his major league debut on July 10, 1963, and within two years was a regular in the Astros lineup, hitting 22 homers with 73 RBIs during Houston’s first year in the Astrodome.
Two years later, during a season in which he made his only All-Star Game appearance in an Astros uniform, he hit 37 homers with 107 RBIs as one of the few bright spots on a ninthplace team.
Wynn also was a good baserunner, with 225 career stolen bases, and sufficient vertical hops to touch the concrete beams that stretched 11 feet above the floor of the Astros’ clubhouse.
“He was a smaller version of Willie Mays,” said Astros pitcher and manager Larry Dierker. “He had the same gait, he had the same uppercut swing and the same uniform number (24). He could run, and he could dunk a basketball. He could do extraordinary things on the field.”
Another noteworthy element of Wynn’s career was his presence in the Colt .45s and Astros clubhouses during a time when Houston and cities across the south were still coming to grips with integration in the mid-1960s.
In that vein, pitcher Jim Bouton took note in his tellall autobiography “Ball Four” that Wynn was among the leaders among the Astros in bringing together all players from all backgrounds.
In contrast with his previous team, the doomed Seattle Pilots, where, Bouton wrote, “There was not a lot of — what to call it? — integration,” he said the Astros of Don Wilson, Curt Blefary, Norm Miller, Joe Morgan and Wynn were a more harmonious group.
“It doesn’t seem forced, and I think it’s worth a lot to the ballclub,” Bouton wrote.
Wynn remained in Houston through the 1973 season and was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers, in one of a series of calamitous trades that characterized the early 1970s Astros, for minor league pitcher David Culpepper and pitcher Claude Osteen.
He prospered with the Dodgers, making the National League All-Star team in 1974 and 1975, and hit 32 homers with 108 RBIs for the Los Angeles team that lost to Oakland in the World Series.
Wynn was traded after the 1975 season to Atlanta in a trade that brought current Astros manager Dusty Baker to the Dodgers. After one season in Atlanta, he split the 1977 season between the Yankees and Brewers before ending his 15-year career.
Baker said Wynn was a valuable mentor to young players across baseball in the late 1960s, when he broke into the major leagues with Atlanta.
“On every team, there were players that took care of rookies if they thought you could play,” Baker said. “It was Joe (Morgan), Toy Cannon, Don Wilson and Bob Watson that really took care, especially minority guys.
“He treated us great and gave us a sense that we belonged in the big leagues. He helped our progress.”
Baker said Wynn continued in that role with the Dodgers after leaving Houston. He said his former teammate, Rick Sutcliffe, said that Wynn gave him his first pair of running shoes when he signed with the Dodgers in the mid-1970s.
Wynn’s kindness, Baker said, continued years after they were traded for each other in the 1970s.
“I think he was about seven or eight years older than me. He was kind of on the decline and I was on the incline. But when I started managing, he’d always come by the clubhouse and see me, even toward the end, when he could barely walk.”
But in his prime, “I remember this cat was like Mighty Mouse,” Baker said. “He was 161 pounds and could hit that ball out of the Astrodome like a big man. He was a player.”
Wynn finished with eight seasons of more than 20 home runs, four years with more than a hundred runs scored and two seasons in which he led the National League in walks.
While he never made it to baseball’s Hall of Fame while playing most of his career with sub-.500 teams, Morgan said Wynn’s desire and talent helped pave his own journey to Cooperstown.
“Jimmy wanted to be the best he could be, and he pushed me along with him,” Morgan said. “Ernie Banks once said to me, ‘You and Jimmy compete against each other, but not in a bad way. You want to outdo each other, and you keep pushing each other.’
“That meant a lot to me, and Ernie was right. I couldn’t do the things Jimmy could. He had more power and was faster and had more skills than I did. I saw him do so many things.
“And he was an everybody person. He liked everybody. Jimmy Wynn was good people.”
In retirement, Wynn remained involved with the Astros in community outreach, and the training center at the team’s Youth Academy in Acres Homes is named in his honor. His uniform number 24 was retired by the ballclub in 2005.
“As an All-Star player in the 1960’s and 70’s, Jimmy’s success on the field helped build our franchise from its beginnings,” the Astros said in a statement Thursday night. “After his retirement, his tireless work in the community impacted thousands of young people in Houston.
“Although he is no longer with us, his legacy will live on at Minute Maid Park, at the Astros Youth Academy and beyond. We send our heartfelt condo-lences to his wife Marie, daughter, Kimberly, son, James, Jr., to the other members of his family and to his many fans and admirers.”