The Hardball Times -- Frank Jackson http://www.hardballtimes.com/main Baseball. Insight. Daily. en studes@hardballtimes.com Copyright 2013 2013-05-17T08:57:15+00:00 Craig Anderson’s greatest day http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/craig-andersons-greatest-day/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/craig-andersons-greatest-day/#When:07:07:15 Craig Anderson.

Anderson was the first Lehigh University alum (Class of 1960) to play in the major leagues. He still holds two school records for strikeouts (18 in one game, 289 in one season). Before the 1960 season, the Cardinals signed him to a three-year guaranteed contract and sent him off to Double-A Tulsa.

As a 22-year-old rookie with the Cardinals in 1961, he compiled a 4-3 record with a 3.26 ERA in 38.2 innings. I think most teams would be satisfied with such a debut. They would likely include such a young pitcher in their plans for the following season. But 1962 was an expansion year and not everyone could be protected.

So on Oct. 10, 1961, four days before his wedding, Craig Anderson was picked in the eighth round (for $75,000) of the expansion draft by the New York Mets. The Cardinals were a team on the rise with a lot of young talent and Anderson was on the cusp.

One of the advantages of expansion is it provides opportunities for players who might otherwise get lost in the shuffle. We’ll never know how much opportunity he would have had with the Cardinals, but he certainly was given plenty of opportunities (131.1 innings) with the Mets in 1962. Whether he failed the Mets or the Mets failed him is debatable. Actually, there was enough blame to go around.

Somehow Anderson managed to avoid the loss column during the Mets’ nine-game losing streak at the beginning of the season. But after the Mets’ first win (a 9-1 complete game victory by Jay Hook at Pittsburgh on April 23), Anderson got his first loss of the season. In classic Mets fashion, the loss was a singular achievement. Anderson was taken out after the first inning with the Mets behind 4-0. The Mets had plenty of opportunities to get him off the hook, however. Sammy Ellis, the Reds’ starting pitcher, walked 11 men in five innings, but the Mets could score no more than three runs.

Anderson’s first victory was just around the corner, however. On May 6, 1962, he pitched four shutout innings in relief at Connie Mack Stadium, earning the win in a 7-5, 12-inning victory over the Phillies.

The Mets were well on their way to making their inaugural season a monument to underachievement. Anderson’s first month, however, was relatively uneventful. He had a 1-1 record and the Mets were 5-17 as of the dawn of May 12.

That day the Mets were to host the Milwaukee Braves in a double-header. The Braves were no longer the National League juggernaut of the late 1950s, but compared to the Mets, they were world-beaters. A sweep by the Braves would have surprised no one. A split would have been a good day for the Mets. The least likely outcome was a sweep by the Mets. Yet that is what happened. And how it happened was even more amazing.

In the first game, Anderson entered in the eighth inning with the Mets behind 2-1. In the bottom of the ninth, Hobie Landrith launched a two-run pinch-hit homer, giving the Mets their first-ever walk-off win. How strange to look at the box score and see Craig Anderson with the (W) and Hall of Fame left-hander Warren Spahn with the (L). You have to wonder what was going through Spahn’s mind as he watched the left-handed hitting Landrith trot around the bases. Spahn led the league with 22 complete games in 1962, but this was one he would have gladly done without.

In the second game, Anderson came into the game in the ninth inning of a 7-7 tie. He came on in relief of Vinegar Bend Mizell, who was making his first appearance for the Mets after being acquired from the Pirates. Surely, Anderson did not want to see extra innings on top of the 18 already played. He kept the Braves from scoring, but could the Mets pull out another victory in the bottom of the ninth?

Could and did. It was their second walk-off victory of the day—and again it came on a home run. This time the hero was Gil Hodges, who had entered the game earlier after Marv Throneberry had been removed for a pinch-runner. Again, Anderson got the victory.

Imagine the euphoria felt by the 19,748 on hand at the Polo Grounds. Inexplicably, the Mets won three double-headers in 1962, including another against the Braves in Milwaukee just eight days later. Braves manager Birdie Tebbetts must have been beside himself.

For the record, the other double-header victory was over the defending NL Champion Reds on Aug. 4 at the Polo Grounds. Reds’ manager Fred Hutchinson, renowned for his temper tantrums, must have been a sight to behold.

But those double-header sweeps could not match the May 12 twin victory for sheer drama. Arguably, that double-header victory was the high point of the Mets’ season. As it turned out, the same was true of Craig Anderson’s career. The difference is that as bad as the Mets were the rest of the season, they did win a few more games. The same could not be said for Craig Anderson.

At the close of business on May 12, Anderson’s record was 3-1. He could not have guessed that at the end of the season he could count his 1962 victories on one hand... even if that hand belonged to Three-Finger Brown. Yet he would need all his fingers and most of his toes to count his losses.

After his red-letter day on May 12, Anderson proceeded to lose 12 in a row. One more and he would tie Dutch McCall, the last hurler to lose 13 in a row, who did so in 1948.

That benchmark was on the line on Aug. 21 when the Mets themselves were riding a 12-game losing streak. Playing back-to-back doubleheaders versus the Pirates at the Polo Grounds, the Mets chose Anderson to go to the mound in the first game of Aug. 21. In classic Mets fashion, they botched it, but Anderson dodged the bullet. Pitching into the ninth inning with a 6-4 lead, Anderson got the first out. After an infield hit and a walk, Roger Craig was summoned from the bullpen. He walked Roberto Clemente, laoding the bases, and up came pinch-hitter Jim Marshall.

Jim Marshall was not the first man in baseball history who could call himself a former Met, but he was one of the first. The first man to be accorded this honor depends on how you define a former Met. For example, pitcher Billy Loes, who was acquired from the Giants on Oct. 16, 1961, was returned to them on March 2, 1962. He never played for the Mets, but Bobby Gene Smith did, and he was traded to the Cubs on April 26. So a case could be made for him.

For his part, Marshall had spent the first month of the season with the Mets and responded with a .344 average (11 for 32 and three home runs). This made him attractive to the Pirates, who acquired him in early May in exchange for Mizell. (This was truly one of those trades that failed miserably for both teams, as Mizell was released by the Mets three months later, while Marshall hit .220 in 100-at bats for the Pirates; neither played major league ball again.)

In his pinch-hit appearance, Marshall grounded to shortstop Felix Mantilla, who had a number of options. Ideally, he could get two by throwing home and then the catcher throwing to first after the force; another possibility would have been a 6-4-3 double-play. A force play at home or second would have been a decent consolation prize. Inexplicably, Mantilla threw to first—wildly. The Mets got no outs on the play, all three runners scored, and the Pirates added one more for good measure. The Mets failed to score in the bottom of the ninth, so the final score remained Pirates 8, Mets 6.

The baseball gods, who could have decreed that both Anderson and the Mets would lose their 13th straight game simultaneously, gave the former a reprieve. Instead, they decided that it was more important for Roger Craig to lose his 20th game of the season (he went on to lose four more). Anderson got a no-decision, but his streak was still intact.

No sense in delaying the inevitable too long, however. So on Aug. 26, Anderson and the Mets rose to the occasion. When Anderson came out of the game after 5.1 innings, he was behind 11-0, thanks to eight unearned runs.

When the 1962 season was history, Anderson’s losing streak was at 16. He finished up with a 3-17 record and a 5.35 ERA. Control was a big problem, as he walked 63 batters in 131.1 innings. His teammates did their part: 30 of the 108 runs scored against Anderson were unearned. He did lead the team with four saves, however. Of course, leading the 1962 Mets in saves is a textbook example of damning with faint praise.

One can imagine how glad Anderson must have been to put aside 1962 and get started in 1963. Little did he know his time in the majors was growing short. In 1963 and 1964, Anderson spent most of his time (155 innings each season) at Triple-A Buffalo.

In 1963, he was 0-2 with an ERA of 8.68 in just 9.1 innings with the Mets. He was around long enough, however, to go down in history as the last pitcher to lose a game at the Polo Grounds. He was the starting and losing pitcher in a 5-1 loss to the Phillies. Again, his teammates helped him out. Of the three runs scored against him, none was earned. A mere 1,752 were on hand to close out the Mets’ two-year tenure at the Polo Grounds.

In 1964, hampered by a broken hand suffered in spring training, Anderson was 0-1 with a 5.54 ERA in 13 innings. And that was the end of his major league career. As luck would have it, Anderson’s losing streak ended at 19—not with a victory but by the end of his tenure in the majors. He lingered in the minors for two more seasons. One suspects that May 12, 1962 often wafted through his mind during those remaining seasons.

Anderson, however, did not give up on baseball—far from it. He served as a pitching coach, among other positions, at his alma mater for 34 years. He was enshrined in the Lehigh Athletics Hall of Fame and retired to Florida in 2001.

Anderson likely paid close attention to Anthony Young’s career with the Mets. Young lost 27 straight games for the Mets covering 1992 and 1993. He really didn’t pitch that badly. His 4.17 ERA in 1992 isn’t so hot, but it isn’t deserving of a 2-14 record. His 3.77 ERA in 1993 should not have resulted in a 1-16 record, but against all odds, it did. Like their 1962 counterparts, the Mets were in the doldrums in those years.

Anderson had been there. Surely, he could have offered Young some advice. Or could he? After all, what can you say in such a situation? Don’t worry, kid, things will turn around.

They didn’t for Anderson.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-05-08T07:07:15+00:00 When Waite Hoyt matched Mathewson http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/when-waite-hoyt-matched-mathewson/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/when-waite-hoyt-matched-mathewson/#When:06:59:15 Christy Mathewson, who pitched three shutouts in 1905. To be sure, a number of pitchers have won three games in one World Series and some (Lew Burdette in 1957, Whitey Ford in 1960, and Sandy Koufax in 1965) have pitched two shutouts in one World Series. And while we’re at it, extra credit to Ford, as he pitched 32 scoreless innings spanning the 1960 and 1961 Series

But for sheer invincibility in one World Series, Mathewson’s achievement is still the gold standard. Given the way starting pitchers are used today, it would astounding if a contemporary pitcher came away with three complete games in a Series, much less three shutouts.

So Mathewson’s record, set in the second World Series ever, is one of those records that will never be broken. Of course, to break it, one would have to pitch four shutouts, and to do that, a pitcher would have to get four starts in a World Series—highly unlikely. So let’s be more specific and say it is a record that will never be matched.

Turning to World Series ERA records, it is no surprise to see Mathewson at the top of the heap with an ERA of 0.00 based on his 27 scoreless innings pitched in 1905. The big surprise is that Mathewson has company. In the 1921 Series, Waite Hoyt, like Mathewson, pitched three complete games without giving up an earned run. So why isn’t his feat celebrated like Mathewson’s?

For one thing, Hoyt’s performance might have gotten lost in the shuffle. Even before it began, the 1921 World Series was guaranteed to make a big mark in baseball history. For one thing, it was the first Series to be broadcast on radio. For another, it was the last Series with a best-of-nine format. Also, it was the first (of 14) all-New York Series, and the first-ever appearance of the Yankees. Babe Ruth was no stranger to the postseason, but this was his first Series as a Yankee.

Finally, it was the first Series to be played at one stadium, namely the Polo Grounds, owned by the Giants and rented by the Yankees. Predictably, John McGraw balked at his Giants having to wear their road uniforms for half the Series contests, but Commissioner Landis had the final say-so.

Actually, McGraw was probably more upset about the very presence of the Yankees in the Series. The two teams were not only competing for baseball fans in Gotham, they also represented two distinctive baseball philosophies.

McGraw’s team represented the last gasp of the deadball era. His was a world of sacrifice bunts, stolen bases, and hitting behind the runner. The Yankees exemplified the future. They played power ball and Babe Ruth was the ringleader. But he had a lot of help. Aside from Ruth, the Yankees hit 75 home runs. That was more than any other team in the league other than the A’s, who had 82.

There is no question that the 258-foot distance down the right field line at the Polo Grounds helped Ruth’s home run stats. The Polo Grounds had been the long-time home of the Giants, but they had allowed the Yankees to play there since 1913. From that point through 1919, the Yankees were undeniably in the shadow of the Giants. That turned around after the 1919 season when the Yankees acquired Babe Ruth from the Red Sox.

In 1920, for the first time ever, the Yankees drew more than a million fans (more than double their 1919 total), largely due to the fact that Babe Ruth hit 58 home runs—more any other team in the American League. The Indians won the American League pennant, but the Yankees finished strong at 95-59, just three games behind. Their landlords, the Giants, drew 929,609.

The following year, the Yankees and Giants both finished on top, but Babe Ruth hit 59 home runs, and the Yankees again outdrew the Giants by 1,230,696 to 933,477. The Giants were turning a handsome profit, but the Yankees were outpacing them.

McGraw, upset about being upstaged by the upstart Yankees, told them they would have to find a new home after 1922. Not that it mattered, attendance-wise. Whether they played in Yankee Stadium or the Polo Grounds, the Yankees continued to outdraw the Giants. In fact, the Giants did not pass the 1,000,000 mark till 1945.

After that 1920 season, the Yankees acquired another in a series of players from the Red Sox. This one was hardly the stuff of headlines. Waite Hoyt had pitched for the Red Sox in 1919 and 1920 with mediocre results (10-12 in 226.2 innings total). At the time, he probably looked like just another arm in the bullpen. As it turned out, he paid short term-dividends (19 victories in 1921), as well as long-term dividends (157 victories in ten seasons).

Hoyt’s breakout season was only good enough for second on the team in wins, as Carl Mays won 27 games. Accordingly, in 1921, the Yankees’ World Series rotation had Mays leading off with Hoyt in the second slot. Actually, manager Miller Huggins could hardly go wrong with his rotation, as the Yankees led the American League in ERA in 1921.

It was all Yanks at the beginning of the Series, as Mays shut out the Giants 3-0. The next day Hoyt out-dueled Art Nehf, again shutting out the Giants by a 3-0 score. The shutout was especially gratifying to Hoyt, as the Giants’ notorious bench jockeys had been working him over big time.

To that point in World Series history, no team had ever come back from a two-game deficit, so the Yankees may have felt they had it in the bag. Not only were the Giants down two games, they had not even scored a run! So when the Yanks jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the top of the third inning of the third game, Giant fans were likely looking ahead to 1922. Then it all turned around.

The Giants came storming back with four runs of their own in the bottom of the third and tacked on eight more in the seventh inning. The largest crowd of the Series (36,509) witnessed a 13-5 Giants victory, the only blowout of the Series. The next day the Giants won 4-2 behind Phil Douglas, and just like that, they had pulled even.

Then in Game Five, it was again Hoyt’s turn in the rotation. He was equal to the task, and again he bested Nehf. This time the score was 3-1, thanks to an unearned run the Giants scored in the first inning. Hoyt’s outing was something of a juggling act, as Giant base runners were abundant, thanks to ten hits and two walks.

Thanks to Hoyt, the Yanks took a 3-2 lead in the Series, but the betting odds might not have favored them, thanks to the fact that Ruth, who had wrenched his knee in Game Five and later collapsed in the dugout (he had also injured his elbow while stealing third base in Game Two), was through for the Series, save for a pinch-hitting appearance in Game Eight. During the regular season, Ruth had 59 homers, drove home 181 runs, and scored 177, so it is hardly a stretch to say he was irreplaceable.

Game Six went to the Giants (8-5), so again the series was knotted. Then the Giants won Game Seven to take a 4-3 lead in the Series. So in Game Eight it was up to Hoyt to save the Yankees from elimination.

On Oct. 13, Hoyt and Nehf locked horns for the third time. This was the smallest crowd (25,410) of the Series but they were privy to a classic pitcher’s duel. As in Game Five, Dave Bancroft scored on a first inning error (in this case, a grounder through the legs of shortstop Roger Peckinpaugh), and the Giants took a 1-0 lead. Unlike Game Five, there was no more scoring that day. Nehf pitched a complete game shutout, Hoyt took the loss, and the Giants took the series. It was the Giants’ first title since 1905... the year of Christy Mathewson’s shutout trifecta.

So Hoyt pitched three complete games without giving up an earned run. But he wasn’t the only outstanding pitcher. Nehf, whom he had bested two out of three games, wasn’t far behind, pitching 26 innings with a 1.38 ERA. Mays, despite a 1-2 record, had a 1.73 ERA in his three starts. His 26 innings pitched without giving up a base on balls is a World Series record that still stands. The Giants’ Phil Douglas had a 2-1 record with a 2.08 ERA in 26 innings.

Relying for the most part on Douglas, Nehf and Jesse Barnes (1.65 ERA in 16.1 innings), McGraw used only four pitchers during the eight games. The only ineffective hurler was Fred Toney, who was treated rudely in his two starts (Games 3 and 6) and ended up with a 23.63 ERA in 2.2 innings pitched.

And so the battle of New York came to a close. Rather, it was the close of chapter one, as the Giants and the Yankees met again in the 1922 and 1923 Series. So Hoyt had plenty of opportunities to improve on those 27 innings without an earned run. The odds were against him. In 1922, another Giants’ triumph (this time in just five games), Hoyt gave up one earned run in two appearances, resulting in a 1.13 ERA. 1923 was another story, as he gave up four earned runs in one appearance, good for a 15.43 ERA, but the Yankees, in Yankee Stadium’s inaugural season, finally overcame the Giants in a six-game series.

During those three consecutive showdowns, John McGraw had plenty of opportunity to see Hoyt in action. He surely held Hoyt in high esteem, and why not? After all, he had discovered Hoyt pitching high school ball (he threw three no-hitters) for Erasmus Hall High in Brooklyn. For whatever reason, the Dodgers showed no interest, so McGraw stepped in.

Hoyt’s major league debut was on July 24, 1918 when he pitched one inning (striking out two) for the Giants. That was the extent of his career in a Giants uniform. On Jan. 2, 1919 he was traded to Rochester of the International League. McGraw must have regretted that move many times over, but in truth Hoyt’s career minor league record had been a curious one. How do you reconcile a 21-44 log with a 2.18 ERA? Who could have predicted that he would be a polished professional by 1921?

Hoyt was less than a month past his 22nd birthday when the 1921 Series began. In his three starts, Hoyt gave up a total of 18 hits and struck out 18. In 1905, Mathewson (who was then 25 years old) gave up 14 hits and struck out 13. The one glaring difference in stats is that Hoyt walked 11 while Mathewson issued just one free pass.

But those stats don’t begin to explain why Mathewson’s achievement resounds throughout baseball history while Hoyt’s is little more than a footnote. In short, Hoyt’s teammates were the culprits, as their fielding lapses led to unearned runs in Game Five and Game Eight, and their much-vaunted offense left something to be desired, as they scored just 22 runs in eight games (and only one run in the last two games).

Although both pitchers authored three complete games without giving up an earned run:

1. Mathewson pitched three shutouts, Hoyt only one;

2. Mathewson won three games, while Hoyt won two and lost one; and perhaps most important of all,

3. Mathewson’s team won the World Series, while Hoyt’s team lost.

Actually, both pitchers had outstanding career World Series records. Hoyt pitched in seven World Series (six with the Yankees, one with the A’s). He went 6-4 with a 1.83 ERA in 83.2 innings. Mathewson, of course, never matched his 1905 World Series, but he could have used a few more shutouts after 1905, thanks to the Giants’ lack of support in his subsequent post-seasons (1911, 1912, and 1913). Mathewson’s composite record in four World Series was only 5-5, despite an ERA of 0.97 in 101.2 innings.

Mathewson surely noticed Hoyt’s achievement in 1921, even though he was not in good health. Mathewson's lungs had been severely damaged by poison gas during a World War I training accident and he had never really recovered. He would linger for four more years, passing away during the 1925 World Series, when both the Pirates and the Senators donned black armbands.

Hoyt may not have captured the nation’s fancy with his 1921 World Series, but he won plenty of fans during his 21-year career. When his playing days were over, he embarked on a 24-year career as a broadcaster for the Cincinnati Reds. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1969.

Hoyt’s glory years with the Yankees ended with the decade of the 1920s, but he managed to earn his keep through 1938 playing for five teams and retired with 237 victories. In fact, he even got another tour of duty with the Giants in 1932, signing with the club three weeks after McGraw retired. The results were no big deal (a 4-5 record, 3.42 ERA in 97.1 innings), but John McGraw, even while watching the proceedings from his Polo Grounds office, must have seen him in that Giants uniform and thought about what might have been had he just held on to him.

The retirement of McGraw in 1932 was the end of an era—the deadball era, to be exact. The home run totals of the 1920s showed that the Yankees were pointing the way to the future and even McGraw knew he had to change with the times if he wanted to win ball games.

No matter what kind of offense a manager espouses, one truism reigns supreme: Good pitching stops good hitting. In 1921, Waite Hoyt and the other Yankee pitchers were very good (3.09 ERA); but the Giants pitchers were just a little bit better (2.54 ERA).

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-04-25T06:59:15+00:00 Bronx Bomber http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/bronx-bomber/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/bronx-bomber/#When:07:08:15
Once major league ball got going in the Bronx, it looked like it was going to be the permanent home of the American League home run title. For nine straight seasons, from the stadium’s inaugural year through 1931, a Yankee led the league in home runs. Jimmie Foxx, then with the A’s, halted the streak in 1932 with 58 long balls.

Eventually, other American League teams crowned their own home run kings, but the Yankee sluggers still loom large in American League history. Despite the worst home run title drought in franchise history (1981 through 2004), a New York Yankee has managed to lead the pack 28 times during the modern era.

Deadball star Wally Pipp, before his name became synonymous with unemployment, was the first Yankee to lead the league in homers with 12 in 1916. The following season, he was the last AL single-digit home run king with nine.

Three years later, Babe Ruth opened the floodgates with 54. The following year, he hit 59 for an encore. But that was during the Yankees’ tenure at the Polo Grounds.

The Babe hit the first-ever home run at Yankee Stadium and went on to lead the league with 41 in 1923. Subsequent Yankee home run champs include Bob Meusel, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, Reggie Jackson, Graig Nettles, Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Nick Etten ...

Wait a minute, Nick who? Run that name by me again.

His name may not ring a bell, but Nicholas Raymond Thomas Etten, a left-handed hitting first baseman, once hit enough dingers to win the American League home run crown. Pay close attention here because you might be able to win some bar bets with this guy.

Etten’s career started off quietly enough when he debuted with the Class B Davenport Blue Sox in 1933 at age 19. He made his major league debut with the Philadelphia A’s on Sept. 8, 1938. Through the end of the season, he went 21 for 81 (.259) with no homers and 11 RBIs. In other words, neither here nor there.

In 1939, he split the season between the majors and the minors. In 1940, he was strictly minor league, but he hit .321 at Double-A ball. That earned him a return ticket to Philadelphia (this time with the Phillies) in 1941, and he did not disappoint. On opening day, he went 4-for-4 with a homer. At the end of his first full MLB season, he had a .321 average with 14 homers and 79 RBIs.

Then came World War II, the ultimate game-changer. But Etten was not a participant. He was only 28 years old on Pearl Harbor Day, so I can only speculate as to how he avoided service. Maybe he was 4-F, maybe he had too many dependents, maybe he was an only surviving son, maybe his maiden aunt was on the draft board. Whatever, he remained a full-time major league ballplayer for the duration.

In 1942, his results were mediocre, but mediocrity with the last-place Phillies (42-109) was enough to make him a team leader. He led the team in OPS at .732. His eight home runs and 41 RBIs placed him second, right behind Danny Litwhiler, who finished the season with nine homers and 56 RBIs.

That same season, the Yankees won the AL pennant with a record of 103-51. What did they want with Etten? Well, first base had become something of a revolving door for them.

Johnny Sturm, their rookie first baseman in 1941, was in the service. His fame in baseball history resides in the fact that he was the first married major leaguer to get drafted. As it turned out, his rookie year was simultaneously his last year. Given his .239 batting average and just three homers and 36 RBIs in 524 at-bats, he was probably not destined for a long career in the Bronx anyway.

His 1942 replacement, Buddy Hassett, acquired from the Braves, went into the Navy at the conclusion of the season. At age 31, his major league career was over, as he played only minor league ball after the war.

Hassett was an upgrade over Sturm, but he was no candidate for Cooperstown. After seven years in the bigs (including three seasons apiece with the Dodgers and the Braves), he had 1,026 hits and a .284 batting average, but only 12 home runs. Only five of those home runs came in 1942 when he was playing half his games in Yankee Stadium with its 296-foot right field line and a 3-¾ foot high wall. I think it is safe to conclude that Hassett was no power hitter.

Etten was a left-handed batter, but he was hardly a slugger. On the other hand, he had hit 14 homers in 1941, and Yankee Stadium might have been more to his liking than Shibe Park. More importantly, the Phillies were financially strapped and needed to slash the payroll. Perhaps most significantly, Etten was not subject to military service, and that might have enhanced his value. A reliable warm body at first base was not to be taken for granted during the World War II years.

The deal worked out superbly for Etten and the Yankees in 1943. He not only duplicated his home run high of 14, he also drove home 107. The Yankees won the pennant and the World Series (versus the Cardinals). And as it turns out, the Phillies didn’t miss him, as they improved their record to 64-90, which vaulted them all the way to a seventh-place finish.

This brings us to 1944, the year Etten really earned his wings as a Bronx Bomber. The military losses finally took their toll, as the Yankees slumped to third place with a record of 83-71. But Etten took his place in the history books as the American League home run leader ... with the princely sum of 22.

Apparently, AL pitchers wanted no part of him, as he also led the league in walks with 97. Throw in a batting average of .293 and 91 RBIs and you have the ingredients of a pretty decent season, even if it was during the tainted years of World War II.

But how to account for Etten’s total of 22 leading the league? That was the lowest total since 1918. Sure, the talent level was lower during the war years, but that held for American League pitching staffs, too, so hitters should have been a match for them. Etten somehow managed to hit more homers than such name players as Vern Stephens (20), Rudy York (18) and Bobby Doerr (15).

One might be tempted to conclude that someone or something put a hoodoo on the American League that year. After all, this was the one and only season the St. Louis Browns won the pennant. And if you’re curious, the National League leader was Bill Nicholson of the Cubs with 33 long balls. Not an earth-shaking total, but it was 50 percent more than Etten had.

So what could Etten do for an encore in 1945? Well, it was a forgettable year for the Yankees, who finished in fourth place at 81-71, but Etten led the league in RBIs with 111. He also had 18 homers and a .285 average, and a spot on the AL All-Star squad. Apparently, he had found a home as the Yankees' first baseman.

Then the war ended. Time for the Yankees to get back to business as usual, namely winning American League pennants. But results were not immediately forthcoming. In 1946, they finished at 87-67, which got them only as high as third place, 17 games behind the Red Sox.

In 1946, all those front-line American League pitchers came back from the military, and Etten became a part-timer (323 a- bats). The nine home runs and 49 RBIs weren’t bad, given his number of plate appearances, but that .232 batting average was cause for concern.

Obviously, it was time to shake up the Yankees. So they acquired veteran George McQuinn to play first base in 1947. He responded with 13 homers, 80 RBIs and a .304 average, and the Yankees responded with a pennant and a World Series title.

Etten became expendable, so he was sold down the riverthe Delaware River, that is—and back to the Philadelphia Phillies. Well, once you’ve been a league-leading power hitter and won a World Series ring, such a deal was quite a blow.

In 1946, the Phillies actually had finished in fifth place with a 69-85 record. But in 1947, the best Etten could do for them was one home run, eight RBIs and a .244 average in 41 at-bats. The Phillies returned him to the Yankees, who wanted no part of him and sent him to the minors, where he remained through 1950.

Etten did have one last season of glory, however. At age 34, in 164 games for the PCL Champion Oakland Oaks, he hit .313 with 43 homers and 155 RBIs. In those days, the Pacific Coast League was considered by many baseball pundits to be an unofficial third major league, so Etten’s season is particularly noteworthy.

The record books bear witness to Etten’s offensive talents, but it must be noted that he was a notoriously bad fielder, the Dick Stuart of his day. Like Stuart, Etting and his fielding lapses inspired witticisms.

During Etten’s career, players left their gloves on the field before returning to the dugout between innings. After observing a foul ball rolling into Etten’s glove behind first base, sportswriter Joe Trimble noted, “Etten’s glove fields better without Etten in it.”

Unlike Stuart, Etten never led the league in errors (he had anywhere from 16 to 23 during his five full-time years of 1941-1945), nor did he have the lowest fielding percentage at his position. Of course, to make an error, one usually has to touch the ball, and Etten felt his job was not to field grounders but just to take throws from other infielders.

According to second baseman Danny Murtaugh, his teammate on the Phillies, “There were a few balls hit between first and second that I felt Nick should have tried for, but he'd just run to the bag and let me attempt to get them. So one day I said to him, 'Nick, I think there are a few balls being hit down there that you should make an effort to reach.' He looked at me and replied, 'Son, they pay Ol' Nick to hit. You can't hit, so you catch all those balls, and I'll knock in the runs for both of us."

When Murtaugh managed the Pirates, one of his charges was Stuart. It was less physically taxing to watch an inept first baseman from the dugout, but doubtless just as painful.

Etten’s career MLB totals are 89 homers and 526 RBIs. Not exactly Ruthian, but in 1944 and 1945, when so many Yankees were serving on bombers, he was a bona fide Bronx Bomber.

If you don’t believe Nick Etten once was the AL home run leader, then, as Casey Stengel was wont to say, “You can look it up.” He should know because, after all, he managed Etten in Oakland in 1948.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-04-15T07:08:15+00:00 It was 20 years ago today http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/it-was-20-years-ago-today/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/it-was-20-years-ago-today/#When:07:04:15
Like human beings, expansion teams have a conception and a birth. In a sense, the Rockies and the Marlins were conceived many years ago by any number of serious baseball folk in Denver and Miami who figured they were ready to move up to major league status. In a formal sense, they were conceived when they were awarded National League franchises in 1991. Actually, “awarded” might not be the right word, as the Rockies and Marlins had to pay $95 million each for the privilege of joining the league.

The 1993 round of expansion can largely be attributed to the Senate Task Force on Major League Expansion during the 1980s. Colorado Sen. Tim Wirth was the point man for the group, which also included future U.S. vice-presidents Al Gore and Dan Quayle. Major League Baseball, ever mindful of maintaining that precious antitrust exemption, sat up and listened when heavy-hitting politicos spoke.

Most fans would designate the birth date of their team as the first regular season game, though an argument could be made for the approval of the franchise application (in this case, June 10, 1991) or the approval of the league owners (July 5, 1991). The expansion draft (Nov. 17, 1992) was another key date— can’t have a team without players! A case could be made for the opening of spring training camp, or the first spring training game—ample proof that a near-term baby can survive outside the womb. In fact, the ultimate preemies might be the minor league teams that started play one season in advance of their major league affiliates.

Thanks to a larger talent pool, fans had greater expectations for the Rockies and the Marlins than fans of previous expansion clubs did. For the first time, the new teams could draft players from both leagues—even though the expansion was strictly a National League affair. The American League was persuaded to go along thanks to a revenue-sharing plan hatched by Commissioner Fay Vincent.

The Rockies were set to play in the seven-team National League West and the Marlins in the seven-team National League East. The National League Central (and an expanded postseason) came into being one year after the Rockies and Marlins debuted, but they remained in their original divisions.

Perhaps the most striking difference between the two franchises was climate. The Rockies played in a cool, dry (except when it snowed) climate, the Marlins in a hot, humid one. The altitude and light air made Denver a hitters’ paradise and a pitchers’ hell. The heavy air in South Florida had the opposite effect. The Rockies’ inability to attract free agent pitchers has been a long-term problem.

Free agent pitchers haven’t exactly flocked to South Florida either. I’m thinking climate plays a part in that. The most stifling night I ever spent at a ballpark was a Marlins game in August of 1997, and I’m sure numerous starters readily figured out it was not the most pleasant place to throw 100 pitches or so. The opening of Marlins Park (with its retractable roof) in 2012 may change hurlers’ attitudes.

Climate aside, both new franchises started out with football stadiums for their new homes. Mile High Stadium (76,037 capacity), on the west side of Denver, was best known as the home of the NFL Broncos. Ironically, the edifice had started life as a minor league baseball park in 1948. Even after the arrival of the Broncos in 1960, the minor league Bears/Zephyrs continued playing there.

Mile High Stadium was unique and not just because of the altitude. For one thing, the playing surface had a heating system under the turf to stimulate growth even on the coldest winter days. Even more impressive was the design of the east stands. If you saw it during a football game, it wouldn’t look like anything out of the ordinary, but thanks to hydraulics, the three-level structure—all 9 million pounds of it, from end zone to end zone—was moved back 145 feet, literally at a snail’s pace (two hours), to create the baseball configuration. Virtually all seats available for Broncos games were also available for Rockies games. The enormous seating capacity had already enabled Denver to set a number of minor league attendance records.

The Marlins also moved into an NFL facility, the Miami Dolphins’ home (and later the home of the University of Miami Hurricanes), then known as Joe Robbie Stadium. Technically, it was a football-only stadium, but the architects had made allowances for the possibility of baseball—notably by adding extra space between the sidelines and the first row of the stands, making the stadium floor almost square.

Located in Miami Lakes, 15 miles north of downtown Miami and just south of the boundary between Dade and Broward Counties, the facility held 43,800 for baseball when the Marlins moved in. The neighborhood didn’t offer much in the way of attractions (nearby Calder Race Track might have held some appeal for the horsey set), but it was easy to get to. The stadium was adjacent to the Florida Turnpike and not far from Interstate 95. The parking lot had room for 23,000 cars.

The stadium opened for football in 1987, and the very next spring (on March 11, 1988, to be exact), the Dodgers and the Orioles played an exhibition game there before 43,909. Three years later the Orioles and Yankees played a two-game series. For the Orioles, it was a homecoming of sorts, since they had a long spring training presence (1959-1990) in Miami and still had many year-round fans there. The two games attracted 125,013 fans, including a sellout crowd of 67,654. The stadium didn’t see a baseball crowd of that magnitude till the 1997 World Series. Even so, it took $6 million to $10 million (depending on your source) to make the stadium ready for regular season major league games in 1993.

There was no need to worry about the Marlins or the Rockies poaching on the fans of any neighboring major league franchises. Not one of the states bordering Colorado hosted major league baseball. Actually, the extreme eastern portion of Kansas was in the Kansas City Royals market area, but that was 600 miles east.

The Marlins were also geographically isolated. The nearest major league outpost was Atlanta, some 665 miles north. Like Denver, South Florida had a lengthy minor league history. Thanks to spring training, major league baseball had also left its footprint in Florida. In fact, in 1993 the Yankees were training in Fort Lauderdale, just a few miles north of Joe Robbie Stadium.

In 1993 it was no novelty for a city’s major league football and baseball teams to play at the same facility. But just one year before, the Orioles had opened Camden Yards, simultaneously giving birth to ballpark envy, a contagion that spread throughout both major leagues. Multi-purpose stadiums were suddenly passé, but the Rockies were on top of the situation. They had broken ground on Coors Field almost six months before their 1993 debut. The design was by HOK Sport (now known as Populous), the same architectural firm responsible for Camden Yards.

The Marlins’ plans for the future were, pardon the play on words, less concrete. Yet they could boast they were already on board with HOK Sport, as that firm had also designed Joe Robbie Stadium.

H. Wayne Huizenga, renowned as the Blockbuster Video honcho, was the owner of the Marlins. (For those who seek out locales with baseball connections, albeit tenuous, be sure to visit Huizenga Plaza when in downtown Fort Lauderdale.) Huizenga knew that a baseball-only facility was a must, but he was never able to convince the public to pony up for it. Perhaps the locals noticed that Joe Robbie Stadium had been built with private money and figured a baseball-only facility should follow suit.

Huizenga could be forgiven for putting a new stadium on the back burner. Marlins President Carl Barger, who had served in the same capacity with the Pirates, died of an aneurysm while attending the baseball winter meeting at Louisville a little more than two months before catchers and pitchers were due to report.

Huizenga was so shaken (or touched) by this loss that he left the position vacant through the 1993 season. In addition, the number 5 (worn by Barger’s favorite player, Joe DiMaggio) was retired until the Marlins moved to their new park in 2012. As a result, Logan Morrison was the first player in Marlins’ history to wear the number 5. Carl Barger Drive remains outside the Marlins’ old home, now known as Sun Life Stadium.

It is worth pausing to note that when the Marlins finally got their baseball-only home, it still had a football connection, as it was built on the site of the old Orange Bowl. Seems the Marlins just can’t get out from under the Dolphins and the Hurricanes! Not that baseball was entirely foreign to the site, as Bill Veeck had once arranged for a minor league contest in the Orange Bowl. The charity event was a match-up between the Triple-A Marlins (with Satchel Paige on the mound) against the Columbus Clippers. 51,713 fans witnessed the 6-2 Miami victory on Aug. 7, 1956.

In 1993, once the Rockies and Marlins began spring training, the discrepancy in their facilities was obvious. The Rockies trained at Hi Corbett Field in Tucson, long-time spring home of the Indians, who had just shifted spring operations to Florida. Built in 1927, the facility had undergone a $4.5 million facelift to get ready for the Rockies. By contrast, the Marlins trained at a complex in Cocoa, Fla. that had been abandoned by the Astros in 1984 and consigned to amateur sports in the intervening years. True, the Marlins upgraded in 1994 when they moved north to Space Coast Stadium near Melbourne, but during that first year they were clearly slumming.

Both teams started the regular season on April 5, 1993. The Rockies opened against the Mets in New York. Their first game was a disappointment, as Doc Gooden shut them out on four hits. The Mets took the second game of the series, so the Rockies headed for Denver still looking for the first win in franchise history.

The Marlins opened at home against the Dodgers (no doubt a large contingent of Dodgertown faithful from Vero Beach were present). The three-game series drew a total of 126,575, so the Marlins’ front office was likely content with that, as well as the 6-3 victory on Opening Day.

Elder statesman Joe DiMaggio, then 78 years old, threw out the Marlins’ first ball. (Marlins starter Charlie Hough, a knuckleball specialist, observed, “DiMag throws harder than I do.”) While DiMaggio is usually associated with San Francisco and New York, he had also had ties to South Florida. In September the year before, the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital at Memorial Regional Hospital opened in nearby Hollywood, Fla. In a sense, DiMaggio remained involved with the facility right to the end, as he died at Memorial Regional in 1999. The Children’s Hospital opened the Joe DiMaggio Sports Memorabilia Gallery the following year.

The Marlins’ brass could be forgiven if they felt a twinge of envy once they saw the results from the first three games in Denver. For the home opener on Friday, April 9, the Rockies filled up Mile High Stadium and then some, setting a record not just for National League Opening Day games, but for any regular season National League contest (the old record was 78,762, Giants versus Dodgers at the Coliseum on April 18, 1958). Thanks to cavernous Yankee Stadium and Municipal Stadium, the Yankees and Indians sat atop the heap of major league records for single-game attendance.

So 80,227 people listened to Colorado native Dan Fogelberg sing the national anthem, and then witnessed the first major league game in Denver, the first in the state of Colorado, and the first in the Mountain Time Zone. Add to all of that an 11-4 victory over Montreal, and it was indeed a Rocky Mountain High.

Obviously, crowds of that magnitude would not be the norm—but the remaining 80 games weren’t that far behind. The three-game series against the Expos drew a grand total of 212,475. Now that’s an opening weekend! The rest of the home stand included three weekday contests with the Mets. The smallest crowd was on a Tuesday with 52,087.

During that opening home stand, the 374,659 fans consumed 230,000 hot dogs, 22,000 pizzas, 41,000 boxes of popcorn, 37,000 bags of peanuts, and 475,000 beverages. But the season was six months long, and surely that pace couldn’t continue. Or could it? The Rockies had sold 24,000 season tickets; those patrons combined with subsequent demand enabled the team to surpass the million mark after 17 openings.

Even so, there were striking similarities between the home openers for each expansion team. Both teams had players who went four for four: Jeff Conine for the Marlins and Eric Young for the Rockies. Young led off for the Rockies in the bottom of the first and, well, right off the bat, the Rockies had their first-ever home run. Curiously, Young did not hit another home run till the last game of the season at Mile High Stadium (on Sept. 26)—and then he went deep twice.

Souvenir sales were brisk, to put it mildly, at both locales. In Miami, Opening Day souvenirs were sold out an hour before game time. In Denver, the throngs that engulfed the souvenir stands created a fire hazard, forcing the stands to close prematurely.

By the end of the season (79 home dates), the Rockies had drawn a major league record of 4,483,350 fans. That’s an average of 56,751 per game. The crowds forced the Rockies to literally go back to the drawing board to alter the design for Coors Field, then under construction, to accommodate more fans (from 43,800 to 50,381)

Granted, the Rockies had an abundance of cheap seats at Mile High Stadium (the Rockpile seats in center field went for just $1), but it was obvious that the high country was ravenous for major league baseball, despite the often inclement weather in Denver at the beginning and end of the season. The team’s nickname was particularly appropriate; it was truly the team of the Rocky Mountain states.

The Marlins also enjoyed healthy attendance in 1993. They ended up with 3,064,847, an average of 37,838. On the field, they weren’t far behind the Rockies. Both teams finished in sixth place, the Marlins ahead of only the Mets, the Rockies ahead of only the Padres. Both teams had avoided the dreaded 100-loss stigma, suffered by five of the previous expansion teams (the 1961 Senators, the 1962 Mets, the 1969 Padres and Expos, and the 1977 Blue Jays).

The Rockies finished the season at 67-95 (.414 wining percentage) and the Marlins were a few games behind at 64-98 (.395). Most previous expansion teams had done worse, but a few (the 1961 Angels and the 1969 Royals) had done better. The larger talent pool might have made a difference but it wasn’t a dramatic one. Even so, the Rockies’ 67 victories remains the high-water mark for a National League expansion team.

Typically, one doesn’t associate players on expansion teams with league leaders, yet the Marlins’ Chuck Carr led the circuit with 58 stolen bases. Rockies first baseman Andres Galarraga won the NL batting championship with a .370 average. As it turned out, he was the first of many, as the Rockies subsequently won six more batting titles (Todd Helton in 2000, Matt Holliday in 2007, Carlos Gonzalez in 2010, and Larry Walker in 1998, 1999, and 2001).

So in the beginning, it looked as though both teams got off on the right foot. The Marlins might have envied the Rockies’ attendance—but so did every other team in major league baseball! But the two teams were about to diverge.

In 1994 the Rockies and Marlins again had similar records. At the end of the strike-shortened season, the Marlins were 51-64 and the Rockies 53-64 The Rockies’ attendance craze continued, however. Their average attendance was actually higher than in 1993. Had the baseball strike not intervened, they could have surpassed their own attendance record.

Despite the strike, when the 1995 season finally got off to a belated start, the Denver crowds were still enthusiastic. The inaugural season at Coors Field pulled in 3,390,037 fans in 72 dates. The per game average was 47,084, less than at Mile High, but the smaller capacity at Coors Field meant that an even higher percentage of available seats was sold.

The Marlins’ attendance was trending the other way. The inaugural 1993 season was the only year the Marlins topped three million. They were on target to top two million in 1994, but the strike stopped them short at 1,937,467. In 1995, while the Rockies were thriving at Coors Field, the Marlins drew only 1,700,466 – almost 10,000 per game below their 1994 average. In fact, the only other time they topped two million was 1997, their first championship year. They bottomed out in 2002 with a grand total of 813,111 (average 10,038).

As an amusing aside, in the spring of 2003, I attended an Orioles-Mets spring training game at Fort Lauderdale Stadium (8,340 capacity). One of the locals came in, looked around, and bellowed, “Geez, the Marlins could play here!” and his fellow locals responded with a ripple of laughter. He wasn’t far off the mark. Allowing for no-shows, he might have been right on the money. Attendance picked up in 2003, the Marlins’ second championship season, but they were still below the National League average and remained there till the introduction of Marlins Park in 2012.

The reasons for the Marlins’ decline are numerous. First, there is the usual drop-off after a new team comes to town and then becomes part of the woodwork. Second, there are the numerous recreational options in South Florida. The hot, muggy climate likely encouraged the area’s numerous elderly fans to stay home and watch games on TV. Inadequate public transit didn’t help either.

But management must also take some of the blame. The wholesale disposal of players after the 1997 title year was a textbook case in how to alienate a fan base. The Marlins went from a World Series championship in 1997 to 108 losses in 1998. One can readily imagine the disillusionment of fans who purchased season tickets after the World Series euphoria. Once snookered, twice shy.

That the Marlins were able to recover from that 108-loss season and win another title just five years later is a notable achievement. But the fact that attendance was less than robust was likely due to lingering effects from the 1998 debacle.

Also, in its attempts to gain a new ballpark, the Marlins’ management continually complained about the inadequacies of Joe Robbie/Pro Player/Dolphins/Land Shark/Sun Life Stadium. Small wonder people stayed home. If the people who work there don’t want to be there, why would fans want to go there? In a retirement and vacation hotbed like South Florida, it’s no surprise that visiting teams often had cheering sections. But they often outnumbered the hometown fans.

Twenty years after expansion, it’s safe to say that MLB has no regrets about placing a team in Denver. Second thoughts about Miami, which might have been allayed somewhat by the opening of the new stadium in 2012, are sure to return in 2013, now that the Marlins management has once again alienated the fan base. Despite two championships, Miami might not have been the best expansion choice in 1993.

As for the Rockies, despite their success at the box office, I think it’s fair to say that their on-field performance has been disappointing. They made the postseason (as the Wild Card team) in the third year of their existence, which was also their first season at Coors Field. Then began a long dry spell of more than two decades.

The Rockies’ finest hour was clearly the stretch run and postseason that led to their only World Series appearance in 2007. Tying the San Diego Padres for the Wild Card spot, they defeated them in a tie-breaker game, swept the Phillies in the National League Division Series, and swept the Diamondbacks in the National League Championship Series. Baseball fans in Denver and all across the country were wondering if the Rockies’ perfect postseason could continue. In an abrupt reversal of fortune, the Rockies were swept by the Red Sox.

The Rockies’ only other postseason appearance was in the 2009 Division Series, which they lost, three games to one, to Philadelphia. Note that in all three postseason appearances, the Rockies were the Wild Card team. In 20 years, they have never won the National League West. Given the heady beginning of the franchise, that probably would have surprised a lot of folks in the mid-1990s. As for the Marlins, despite their two World Series championships, they have never won the National League East.

The Marlins, however, have given us a nifty trivia question. They have reached the postseason only twice, but each time they won the World Series. Consequently, they remain the only team in major league history that has never lost an elimination game. That record appears safe for the time being, as the Marlins do not appear to be headed for the postseason any time soon. Same for the Rockies.

So the two teams started off in life with similar records, then went in different directions, and ultimately found that their on-field fortunes had converged in 2012. Both teams finished at the bottom of their divisions, the Marlins at 69-93 and the Rockies at 64-98, dooming them to the franchise’s worst-ever won-lost percentage (.395)

After another round of expansion in 1998, the Marlins and the Rockies are no longer the new kids on the block. In fact, if the Marlins and Rockies were people, they would be one year away from attaining their majority. With adult status comes accountability. Both teams have a decent-size market area, and now both have highly desirable ballparks and spring training complexes. If they fail to compete now, whose fault is it?

Even a talented team can have an off year, but when the guys wearing baseball uniforms continually disappoint, it’s usually the guys wearing the suits who are responsible. In that respect, the Rockies and Marlins are no different from the other 28 teams in major league baseball.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-04-09T07:04:15+00:00 Major achievements in minor league ball http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/major-achievements-in-minor-league-ball/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/major-achievements-in-minor-league-ball/#When:07:04:15 Bob Turley, this is especially true, largely due to the fact that the best years of his career were with the New York Yankees. Had he registered the same statistics but spent his entire career with his original organization (the Browns/Orioles), the amount of line space devoted to his passing would doubtless be less.

I guess it comes with the territory when writing obits. When some major movie star shuffles off to that big Beverly Hills in the sky, they never mention what he did in regional theater or summer stock. They stick with the “big league” achievements.

The tributes to Turley, among other players, shows just how shortsighted the obit writers are. If all you knew about baseball was what you read in the obituary columns, you would never know the minor leagues existed. That’s too bad, because a lot of notable achievements in minor league ball get overlooked. And Turley, who died last weekend, is a case in point.

After signing with the St. Louis Browns, Turley began his professional career in 1948 at age 17 with Belleville of the Class D Illinois State League. The following year, he was promoted to the Aberdeen Pheasants of the Class C Northern League. His 23-5 record and 2.31 ERA warranted a promotion, so in 1950, he was bumped up to Double-A San Antonio.

Unfortunately, he was not ready for such a big jump, so he was demoted to the Class A Wichita Indians. The results there were mixed (11-14 with a 4.28 ERA), but he was back at San Antonio in 1951, and that is when he wrote his name into the Texas League record books.

Getting off to a 10-2 start, Turley was with the 1951 Missions for their entire season, going 20-8 with a 2.96 ERA. Though his control left something to be desired (142 walks in 268 innings), he was named the Texas League Pitcher of the Year.

Obviously, Turley had a lot of good games that year, but two were especially memorable. One was an outing against Tulsa on Aug. 11, when he was shooting for his 20th victory of the season. His opposite number, Bob Curley, was plodding through a less memorable season (he ended up at 6-12).

Still, one imagines Bob Turley vs. Bob Curley gave the radio announcers something to joke about. I don’t know if this was the first or only time in baseball history that both starters had the same first name and rhyming surnames, but even by SABR standards, this would be an arcane research topic.

On that August evening at Mission Stadium in San Antonio, Turley struck out 22 Tulsa batters. That was more than 10 percent of his strikeout total (200) for the season. That he did so in 16 innings dilutes the record somewhat (he had 16 through nine innings) but adds an iron-man aspect to the accomplishment. Given that it was mid-August in San Antonio, the weather that evening was probably not conducive to an extra inning complete game.

The game was knotted at two apiece after nine innings and remained tied (3-3) seven innings later. Then came the curfew. The attendance that evening was 3,143, but there’s no telling how many fans remained to the end to see Texas League history in the making.

Think of the pitch count limits on minor league pitchers today, then reflect on Turley’s durability. To wit:

In order to strike out 22 batters, you’d have to throw 66 pitches minimum. By the time you factor in the nine walks (minimum 36 pitches) and 12 hits (all singles) Turley gave up, you’re up to 114 minimum. I don’t believe they kept pitch counts in those days, but I think it’s safe to say that few at any level of professional or amateur baseball will ever surpass Turley’s total ... whatever it was.

The record Turley broke had been set in 1909, when Willie Mitchell of the San Antonio Bronchos struck out 20 Galveston Sand Crabs in his first professional season. Mitchell, however, did not go into extra innings, so after Turley’s feat, he still held the record for most strikeouts in a nine-inning contest. Mitchell earned a promotion to the big leagues (Cleveland) later that season and embarked on an 11-year career.

Curiously, even though Turley went the distance in his game, he did not get a decision because of the curfew. A victory in this marathon would have been a particularly memorable 20th win, but it was not to be.

The man most responsible for this situation was the Missions’ center fielder, Bobby Balcena (whose major league career was only marginally better than Moonlight Graham’s, as it consists of a mere two at-bats for the Reds in 1956). His miscue in the top of the eighth inning allowed Tulsa to score two runs and tie the game.

After Tulsa pushed across a run in the top of the 16th inning, Balcena re-knotted the game with a solo home run in the bottom of the inning. So he cost Turley the complete game shutout, yet he kept him from getting stuck with the loss. Well, one’s teammates giveth and one’s teammates taketh away.

We sometimes hear of a hard-luck loser, but there is no turn of phrase for the hurler who pitches his heart out and comes away with no decision. At least Turley had the strikeout record as a consolation prize; normally, all a pitcher gets from such an experience is a life lesson.

That Aug. 11 game also went into the Texas League record books for most strikeouts combined. Tulsa’s modest total of six strikeouts (courtesy of starter Bob Curley and reliever Dave Jolly) brought the grand total to 28. That record lasted all of 23 days. And Turley was involved in breaking it.

On Sept. 3, Turley struck out 14 in a contest against the Houston Buffs. This time around, however, he was upstaged by his opponent, Vinegar Bend Mizell, who fanned 17. The combined total of 31 remains the Texas League record. Unfortunately for Turley, this entry in the record book didn’t result in a victory either, as the Buffs won, 3-2.

Despite the nickname Vinegar Bend (derived from his hometown), which conjures up visions of lazy, looping breaking pitches, Mizell was, like Turley, a fireball phenom. Indeed, just four days after Turley’s 22-strikeout game, Mizell challenged the record with an 18-strikeout performance. Mizell ended up as the Texas League strike outking in 1951. Of course, Turley and Mizell both went on to bigger things, notably the 1960 World Series, when the former was with the Yankees and the latter was with the Pirates.

In St. Louis, Browns owner Bill Veeck was certainly aware of Turley’s achievements in San Antonio, so he brought him up to the show after the Texas League postseason (the Missions lost to Houston). Turley’s major league debut, on Sept. 29, 1951, gave no hint of future success. In the next-to-last game of the season, he gave up six earned runs in 7.1 innings in an 8-3 loss to the White Sox

Turley was in the Army for all of 1952, but the following year he returned to the Browns long enough to pitch 60.1 innings before they packed up and moved to Baltimore.

Fun fact: Bob Turley was the winning pitcher (3-1 over the White Sox) in the Orioles’ first-ever victory on April 15, 1954. That season, he pitched well enough (14-15) with the seventh-place Orioles (54-100) to attract the attention of the Yankees. They must have had some concerns about his walk-to-strikeout ratio (181 to 185—both totals led the league), but even so they acquired him on Nov. 17, 1954 in a 16-player deal.

At this point, let’s hit the pause button and observe that the trade netted the Yankees another hurler of note. Coming off a disastrous (3-21) sophomore season with the Orioles, Don Larsen made baseball history with the Yankees just two years later.

And FYI, Willie Mitchell’s Texas League record for strikeouts in nine innings was eventually broken by Dave Righetti, who struck out 21 Midland Cubs while pitching for the hometown Tulsa Drillers on July 16, 1978 in front of a throng of 226 die-hards.

Like Turley, Righetti did not come away with a victory. He left after nine innings with the game tied at 2-2 and the Drillers lost it 4-2 in the 10th inning. There seems to be some sort of jinx attached to setting strikeout records in the Texas League. I guess we could call it the curse of Willie Mitchell.

Well, Righetti is only 54 years old, and he looks hale and hearty as he goes about his duties as Giants pitching coach. So it will likely be a long time before we read any obits on him. But when we do, I suspect they will fail to mention his achievement with Tulsa. After all, he pitched 11 seasons for the bygosh New York Yankees, so we can’t waste space on that sort of thing.

The rule seems to be this: When it comes to major league player obits, no minors allowed.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-04-05T07:04:15+00:00 Remember the Alamodome! http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/remember-the-alamodome/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/remember-the-alamodome/#When:07:05:15
In a strict geographical sense, the closest major league market area is Houston, less than 200 miles to the east, where the Astros are engaged in a couple of exhibition games against the Cubs at Minute Maid Park. Houston had first dibs on San Antonio fans, as it had big league ball 10 years before Dallas-Fort Worth. But in recent years, that advantage has eroded.

Local radio stations carry Rangers and Astros games, but the Rangers have far more local TV exposure on cable. Given the contrast in the teams’ records the past few seasons, it is no surprise that the Rangers have overtaken the Astros, and the latter have no immediate prospects of achieving parity, much less returning to dominance.

Given its long history of baseball (first pro game in 1888) and its status as the seventh largest city (population: 1,144,646) in the United States, San Antonio should have at least a Triple-A team. But the city has a long, enduring relationship with the Double-A Texas League, and it has never sought to go up another notch. Actually, the visiting Padres have a vested interest in San Antonio, as it is currently the home of their Double-A affiliate.

In a serendipitous harmonizing of team nicknames, the San Antonio Padres’ minor league team is called the Missions. South Texas, like Southern California, has a heritage of Spanish missions. The Padres’ mascot, the swinging friar, would be just as much at home in San Antonio as in San Diego.

Unfortunately, he did not make the trip, but Ballapeño and Puffy the Taco, longtime Mission foodstuffs mascots, are here. So is Captain, the Rangers’ palomino mascot. He looks a lot like Mr. Ed but unlike that equine icon, Captain must hold his tongue. That’s tough to do when you have a hoof instead of a hand—but it comes with the mascot territory.

The Easter weekend games are certainly not the first major league exhibition games played in San Antonio. During the first four decades of the 20th century, San Antonio hosted 29 seasons of spring training involving 11 major league teams. The St. Louis Browns were the city’s best customer with seven spring seasons. Also, barnstorming teams have often included San Antonio on their exhibition schedules. What makes this particular exhibition series unusual is the venue, namely, the Alamodome.

These days, baseball and football are rarely played in the same stadium. A generation ago strange bedfellows were common in big league stadiums. Today Oakland is the only American city where the local MLB and NFL franchises share a stadium; in Toronto the Rogers Centre houses both the Blue Jays and the Argonauts of the Canadian Football League.

Occasionally, one hears about a football game, a soccer game, a hockey game, or some other sporting event being staged at a baseball park. One rarely hears about a baseball game being staged in a park that was not designed for it, but that is the case here in San Antonio.

When it opened 20 years ago, the Alamodome (estimated cost: $186 million) put San Antonio on the map, stadium-wise. It seats 65,000 for football even though it doesn’t have a pro tenant, unless you count arena football. Believe it or not, San Antonio—a mere 142 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border—actually had a team in the Canadian Football League for three seasons (1993-1995). The Dallas Cowboys, who have a big local following, have used it for training camp and exhibition games in years past.

Courtesy of Hurricane Katrina, a few New Orleans Saints “home” games were played here in 2005. Also, the stadium has served as a neutral site for a number of college football games, including the annual Alamo Bowl, and now serves as the home for the University of Texas at San Antonio, which revived its football program in 2011.

After two decades without gaining a hometown NFL team, the Alamodome is something of an enigma with a stigma. In fact, a souvenir post card puts it plainly: “Those who opposed its construction now refer to it as the ‘Dead Armadillo.’ Because of its failure to maintain a sports team, along with the 4 external pillars resembling the 4 legs of a dead critter laying on its back, it was given this comical nickname.”

That’s a colorful turn of phrase but perhaps an overstatement. I think it’s more accurate to say the Alamodome has been a disappointment but not a disaster. In addition to football, the stadium has hosted NBA Spurs and Final Four basketball, monster trucks, ice hockey, concerts, conventions, and high school graduations too numerous to mention—but never baseball at any level, much less of the major league variety.

In fact, the only baseball connection, albeit indirect, is the presence of the San Antonio Sports Hall of Fame on the main concourse. A number of baseball people with local ties can be found here: Gary Bell, Norm Charlton, Cito Gaston, Jerry Grote, Joel Horlen, Cliff Johnson, Davey Johnson, Nelson Wolff (a county judge for whom the local minor league ballpark is named), and Ross Youngs, who also has a plaque in Cooperstown. Youngs died of kidney disease in a San Antonio hospital in 1927, but the others are all still alive and doubtless were amazed to find out that baseball was to be played in the Alamodome in the spring of 2013.

The two exhibition games have been sponsored by the HEB supermarket chain and Ryan Sanders Baseball (the Ryan half of that enterprise refers to the Nolan Ryan family, owners of the minor league Round Rock Express and Corpus Christi Hooks). Two million dollars, half of that for new turf, have been spent on readying the dome for this weekend.

Despite the expenditure, the dome is a long way from baseball-ready. They’ve done about all they can for a two-game series, and they have dutifully posted signs about watching out for bats, balls, and other things flying into the stands. But the Alamodome makes the old Minneapolis Metrodome look like Wrigley Field. Consider the following:

The scoreboard just isn’t up to the task (among other shortcomings, it doesn’t have an “at bat” slot for the batter’s number), the “dugouts” are little more than aluminum benches, the press box is down the left field line, and the foul “poles” look like gigantic pest strips hanging from the ceiling. The nets shielding the seats down the first and third base lines are definitely bush league. And the bullpens? They’re somewhere under the left field stands. Who’s warming up for the Rangers? Don’t ask, don’t tell.

The most noticeable feature of the field layout is the 285-foot distance (the wall is 16 feet high) down the right field line. Obviously, the lower deck in right field is the place to be if you want to snag a “long” ball during batting practice, and the fans rapidly clog the area after the gates open. In fact, it looks like the right-handed batters are working overtime on going to the opposite field. That’s a rare sight during BP.

The other dimensions (354 down the left field line, 387 in the power alleys, and 410 to center) are much more presentable. And if you’re wondering about dome height, fret not. The fixed roof varies from 165 to 190 feet from the playing surface, and presented no problems during the two games.

The baseball capacity has been set at 52,295, but you really wouldn’t want to see a baseball game here as part of a capacity crowd. On Friday night when I take my seat in the upper deck behind home plate, I immediately discover a minor flaw and a major flaw: the minor flaw is third base is not within my sight line; the major flaw is that the batters box is not within my sight line. So I abscond for the left field upper deck, a long way from home plate but completely unobstructed.

The Friday night crowd is 34,641, the largest crowd to ever witness a baseball game in San Antonio. The record lasts all of one day, as the Saturday afternoon crowd is announced at 40,569. A good thing there are lots of other seats to move to, and the clusters of empty seats show you where not to sit.

Of the six home runs hit during the two games (and if you really care, the Rangers won both games, 5-4 and 5-2), three (Max Venable, Jonathan Galvez, Chris Denorfia) were legit, one was marginal (Jedd Gyorko), and two definitely took advantage of the right-field dimensions. In the Saturday game, Rangers rookie Leury Garcia hit a line drive that barely cleared the wall, and Padres outfielder Denorfia lofted one just over the fence for his second home run of the day (and of the spring).

Otherwise, the two games were uneventful. After their two-game sweep, the Rangers made the short trip to Houston for the season opener and the Padres moved on to Gotham to meet the Mets. After a four-day furlough, baseball returns to San Antonio, with the Missions’ home opener on April 4. This game was duly promoted throughout the weekend, but even though a number of former Missions were on the Padres’ roster, there was never any doubt that the Rangers were the home team.

In truth, the two games at the Alamodome felt like Rangers home games. The public address system featured the voice of Chuck Morgan, the Rangers’ regular PA announcer. Rangers souvenirs were abundant and Rangers highlights were shown on the scoreboard.

Appropriately, the Rangers’ racing Texas Legends made an appearance on Saturday. The racers include Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett, both of whom perished at the Alamo in San Antonio in 1836, immediately achieving legendary status. (Sam Houston, who lived to fight another day, is also among the racing Texas Legends, as is, somewhat anachronistically, Nolan Ryan).

There will be no more baseball at the Alamodome this season, but the Rangers will be on TV in homes throughout the city for the next six months, and I’m sure the two games played there helped to market the Rangers and create a lot of good will. But is that all there is?

The San Antonio Easter weekend experiment is worth keeping in mind should MLB relocation become a possibility. Now no one expects the Alamodome to be the permanent home for a major league franchise, but if a team wanted to re-locate on short notice and needed a place to go...well, the Alamodome has already auditioned for that. Now to be sure, a lot more money would have to be spent to ready the Alamodome for regular season ball, but the seating capacity assures a decent revenue stream from day one.

In days of yore, a new or transferred franchise would take up residence in a less-than-ideal home while waiting till its new home was built. The City of Los Angeles offers two distinct examples. During the first round of major league expansion, the Angels played in cozy Wrigley Field, a former Pacific Coast League ballpark south of downtown Los Angeles. In contrast, the Dodgers, who had moved to Los Angeles just three years before, had taken up residence at the L.A. Coliseum. Neither was suitable for a permanent home, but the Coliseum offered roughly four times the seating capacity of Wrigley Field. When it comes to revenue streams, that’s the difference between a trickle and a torrent.

By and large, subsequent franchise shifts and expansions reflected the two Los Angeles patterns: the bandbox (whether left over or hurriedly built) or the behemoth. A year later, for example, the Mets had the Polo Grounds, a relic, albeit one with a large capacity, while the Colt .45s were stuck in tiny, jerry-built Colt Stadium waiting for the adjacent Astrodome to be completed.

During the next round of expansion, the Expos opened in tiny Jarry Park, and the Kansas City Royals spent four years at Municipal Stadium, the A’s old home, waiting for their new home to be built. The Seattle Pilots also went old school. In 1969 they opened for business at historic but tiny (25,420 ) Sicks Stadium. After just one year, they were off to Milwaukee, where County Stadium (with roughly 20,000 more seats) was ready and waiting for them.

Some franchises, however, were in modern facilities from day one. When the A’s vacated Kansas City after the 1967 season, Oakland Coliseum (opened in 1966) was there for them. The San Diego Padres, one of the four 1969 expansion franchises, also had a big, modern ballpark (Qualcomm Stadium, then known as San Diego Stadium) ready for them on opening day.

The lesson was clear by the next round of expansion in 1977. You don’t need a showplace to start off, but if you want to put butts in the seats, be sure you have plenty of seats to sell.

Seattle got the message. When the Mariners came along, eight years after the Pilots debacle, the Kingdome was ready and waiting on Opening Day.

The Blue Jays played in Exhibition Stadium, designed for football and soccer, but it seated almost 40,000 in its original baseball configuration and topped out at 43,737 in 1989 before the Blue Jays moved to SkyDome (now known as Rogers Centre).

Seating capacity was no problem in 1993 when the Marlins and Rockies were added to the major league mix. In fact, Denver’s Mile High Stadium was big enough to enable the Rockies to establish a major league attendance record. In 1998 when the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays got underway, they had indoor stadiums ready and waiting.

During the last franchise shift, the Montreal Expos pulled up stakes in 2005 and went to Washington, D.C. Now the Expos were on borrowed time in Montreal, so it was no surprise that they left. Washington, D.C. was the odds-on favorite, but would that have been so without RFK Stadium available as a short-term home? Sure, it was 43 years old, and it was one of those doughnut-shaped baseball/football monstrosities (actually, it was the first of its kind) but at least it offered major league seating capacity!

So the lesson from this long digression is that if a franchise is going to move, it needs a place to play immediately. It need not be state of the art, but it must be major league size. If a sufficiently large baseball-only park is not ready, then the stop-gap facility must be one with suitable capacity. No bandboxes need apply.

Expansion isn’t on the agenda any time soon. Now that MLB finally has six divisions with five teams each, adding a couple more teams would upset the balance (unless baseball wanted to go to eight divisions with four teams each). But should relocation be a possibility, San Antonio can say if you come, we will build it...just not right away. But, hey, we have a temporary home for you with plenty of seats, if you can be patient for a few years.

There’s no point in excess speculation at this point, so don’t roll out that name-the-team contest just yet (but when you do, put me down for the Vaqueros). Even so, I’m pretty sure MLB execs were watching those San Antonio exhibitions and making mental notes. After all, one day they might have to vote on a franchise transfer and they want to get it right.

So the two exhibition games in San Antonio might be an advertisement to major league baseball. If Tampa Bay and Oakland can’t get their ballpark situations resolved, they may look for alternatives further afield. The Alamodome beckons, saying, hey, we’re not your long-term solution, but we could be your short-term solution.

So should moving day ever come for an existing franchise, the Alamodome might give San Antonio the edge over the usual suspects... Portland, Orlando, Las Vegas, Charlotte, or wherever. The ultimate irony would be that the Alamodome, erected with the hopes of attracting an NFL team and having failed at same, would actually end up attracting a major league baseball franchise.

So who would be likely to lead this quest to bring major league baseball to the Alamo City? Well, how about the two men who threw out the first pitch for the Alamodome games?

On Friday night, the first pitch was delivered by the San Antonio mayor, Julian Castro, one of those rising stars the political junkies and pundits like to crow about. It sure would look good on Castro’s resume if he could bring major league baseball to San Antonio, and if he were seeking statewide office, it would surely enhance his name recognition. As long as it happens on his watch, he doesn’t really have to do much heavy lifting.

Of course, as with major league prospects, political whiz kids fizzle out more often than they come through. There’s no better example than former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros. After he got the Alamodome for the city, both it and his career failed to meet expectations.

But far more important than politicians is the man who threw out the first ball for the Saturday afternoon game. I refer to Nolan Ryan.

Ryan, the native Texan, has loomed so large in the history of the Rangers and the Astros, one sometimes forgets that he was a 13-year major league veteran before he came home. His Ryan Sanders baseball company has been highly successful in Central Texas at Triple-A Round Rock, and in South Texas at Double-A Corpus Christi. He is well-connected throughout the state, and not just in baseball enterprises.

And as we know from recent weeks, his role with the Rangers appears to be up in the air. Now the Rangers would never fire Ryan. The PR fallout from that would be deadly. But suppose he resigned (in the time-honored phrase) “to seek other opportunities.” Wouldn’t obtaining a major league franchise for San Antonio be a great opportunity? After all, “There’s nothing quite like baseball in the Lone Star State!” Ryan’s words (from the Big League Weekend program), not mine.

Ryan is 66 years old and he may have room for one more notch in his belt before he hangs it up for good. To be sure, I don’t have any pipeline to inside information. In fact, I previously voiced my doubts about San Antonio as a potential major league city (see “American Top 40,” posted on Aug. 20, 2012), but that was before Nolan Ryan showed up at the Alamodome. I don’t know if that qualifies as a game-changer, but it does provide food for thought. I can’t think of anyone in baseball better positioned to legitimize an effort to bring major league ball to San Antonio.

Counting the Alamo, San Antonio already has five missions. Could the sixth San Antonio mission be Nolan Ryan seeking a major league baseball franchise for the city?

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-04-03T07:05:15+00:00 A short history of the Milwaukee White Sox http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/a-short-history-of-the-milwaukee-white-sox/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/a-short-history-of-the-milwaukee-white-sox/#When:07:05:15
The city of Milwaukee had been left behind once before. The first major league franchise shift in the 20th century involved a 1902 move of the Brewers to St. Louis, where they became the Browns. That Brewers team played in Milwaukee only one year, the inaugural season for the American League. After a 48-89 season witnessed by a mere 139,034 home fans, the franchise shift was not exactly headline news. Anyway, a minor-league version of the Brewers carried on in the American Association from 1902-1952.

In 1965 Milwaukee was again devoid of major league ball, but this time it wasn’t like 1902. During their 13-year tenure (1953-1965) in Milwaukee, the Braves might have been the ultimate riches to rags story in major league history. The Braves led the NL in attendance from 1953, their inaugural season, through 1958, when they won their second consecutive pennant but failed to retain their World Series title. Their attendance mark of 1,826,397 in their first year enabled them to set a NL attendance record—which they proceeded to break the next year.

Considering the 281,278 the Braves had drawn in Boston the year before, there was no doubt that the franchise shift was warranted. Since the move was not announced till March 18, while the Braves were still training in Sarasota, Milwaukee did not have long to get ready for major league ball. Milwaukee County Stadium, the first baseball park built with public money, was intended for the minor league Milwaukee Brewers, the Braves’ former Triple-A affiliate, who were hastily transferred to Toledo.

From 1954-1957, the Braves drew more than two million fans per season—heady numbers in those days and still pretty good in some markets today. In 1959, they lost a three-game playoff to the Dodgers to decide the NL pennant. The Dodgers, thanks to cavernous Los Angeles Coliseum, were able to out-draw the Braves in the pennant fever sweepstakes that season. The Braves were still a force to be reckoned with, but they had already peaked, though at the time no one would have guessed that.

Though they never had a losing season in Milwaukee, the 1960s Braves were no match for the 1950s version. The County Stadium faithful had been spoiled. A mere winning record was not enough. Attendance declined to disastrous levels. The Braves sank to ninth in the league in 1962 with 766, 921.

But that wasn’t the worst that happened to the Braves. The sale of the team to a syndicate headed by Bill Bartholomay nudged the team away from Milwaukee. Bartholomay had his sights set on Atlanta and the fans were making it easy for him. In 1963 the Braves again finished ninth in attendance with 793,018. There was an uptick in 1964 to sixth place (910,911), but by then it was too late to make a difference.

After the 1964 season, the rumored move to Atlanta was confirmed. When the team’s $500,000 buyout offer to Milwaukee County was refused, the Braves were compelled to remain in Milwaukee for a lame duck season. Understandably, it was their worst year at the gate, as they drew just 555,584, last in the league. The last home game was an 11-inning, 7-6 loss to the Dodgers on Sept. 22. The prospect of seeing Sandy Koufax in his prime on the mound would normally fill up a ballpark. The best Milwaukee fans could do was 12,577.

The franchise shift was especially hard on one minority owner, a car dealer by the name of Bud Selig. A longtime fan of the minor league Brewers, he was a frequent visitor to old Borchert Field, where the locals had witnessed baseball since 1888. He had also followed the White Sox and Cubs via radio. The arrival of the Braves when he was 18 years old had been a dream come true. Their departure (when he was 31) was his worst nightmare. But if Milwaukee had once been a great baseball town, it could be again. Of course, to prove it, the city needed another team.

When it first appeared that the Braves were Atlanta-bound, Selig started recruiting local movers and shakers (such as the CEO of Schlitz and a local federal judge) and organized the opposition. He kept his organization intact after the Braves’ move was a done deal. On July 30, 1965, with two months left in Milwaukee Braves history, he named his group Milwaukee Brewers Baseball Club, Inc. Whether he was paying tribute to the minor league team of his youth or indulging in prophecy is open to debate. But Selig’s group needed to work fast because in 1967, both major leagues voted to expand.

On July 24, 1967, Selig’s group staged a Monday night exhibition game between the first-place (53-40) White Sox and the Twins. More than 51,000 fans turned out. Since County Stadium held 43,768 in those days, that was an achievement—especially for a game that didn’t count. It’s fair to say that most of the fans were local, as the White Sox and Twins fans had ample opportunities to see their own clubs play. Why would they bother to drive to Milwaukee to see an exhibition game?

The Twins were on the road between Anaheim and New York and had agreed to break up the trip with this exhibition game. The White Sox had just played a double-header against the A’s in Kansas City and probably would have liked to have an off day before returning to Chicago to take on the Indians. How Selig prevailed on the two teams to spend an off day in Milwaukee we’ll never know. But the turnout certainly justified the trip.

Selig also managed to persuade the White Sox to stage nine “home” games—not exhibition games—in Milwaukee in 1968. The White Sox were coming off a competitive year in 1967, having finished just three games behind the Red Sox in a four-team showdown that went into the final season of the weekend. The attendance, however, was 985,634, not exactly overwhelming for a pennant contender, so White Sox President Arthur Allyn agreed to the Selig plan.

Savvy baseball fans in Chicago might have remembered that the Dodgers had played “home” games in Jersey City in 1956 and 1957 right before they vacated Brooklyn. To the hard-core White Sox fan, the Milwaukee games must have been a worrisome development.

Also, during the late 1960s the Cubs were emerging from the doldrums and were getting more attention in the Chicago sports pages. In 1967, they drew 977,226, not too far behind the White Sox. In 1968 they surpassed the million mark (by just 43,409) for the first time since 1952. The trend continued in subsequent years. The Friendly Confines got more and more crowded; White Sox Park, “the Baseball Palace of the World” when it opened in 1910, now offered an overabundance of seats at popular prices.

The Milwaukee games served as a reminder to MLB that County Stadium was only 15 years old and ready and waiting for an expansion team. One can imagine Selig’s heartbreak on May 27, 1968, when the National League announced that Montreal and San Diego would join the league the following season. In the American League, Kansas City was pretty much a given since Charlie Finley’s move to Oakland had raised political hackles in Missouri. The other American League franchise was awarded to Seattle, but Selig would never have guessed then the key role the fledgling Pilots would play in his quest to land a team.

The 1968 plan was for each American League team to play the White Sox one time in Milwaukee. All games were weeknight affairs and were either the first or last game of a series. The extra travel and hotel arrangements were a headache to American League traveling secretaries, and one can imagine the players grumbling about the side trip to Milwaukee. Nowadays, given the power of the players’ association, it would surely be more difficult to set up such an arrangement.

The nine White Sox “home” games in Milwaukee in 1968 were:

Wednesday, May 15	Angels 4 - White Sox 2			        23,510  
Tuesday, May 29		Orioles 3 - White Sox 2 			18,748
Monday, June 17		White Sox 2 - Indians 1				28,081
Monday, June 24		Twins 1 - White Sox 0 (5 inning game)	        25,267
Thursday, July 11	Yankees 5 - White Sox 4				40,575
Monday, July 22		Athletics 4 - White Sox 0			30,818
Friday, Aug. 2	        Senators 11 - White Sox 6			20,622
Thursday, Aug. 8	Red Sox 1 - White Sox 0				33,872
Monday, Aug. 21	        Tigers 3 - White Sox 0			        42,808


Obviously, the results on the field for the White Sox were dismal. Not only did they go 1-8, they were shut out four times. In these nine games, they scored a grand total of 15 runs. Granted, 1968 was the Year of the Pitcher, but I doubt the White Sox were facing aces every time out.

The attendance, however, was another story. The grand total of 264,478 works out to an average of 29,366 per game. By contrast, for their “real” home games, the White Sox drew 539,478 at White Sox Park in 58 openings. You can tell at a glance that the Sox average wasn’t much more than 9,000 per opening.

For a team that would finish the season in ninth place at 67-95, while playing most of its home games at an aging South Side ballpark, such attendance was understandable. Almost one third of the White Sox home attendance occurred in Milwaukee, so Arthur Allyn probably didn’t need Selig to twist his arm too hard to bring the Sox back to Milwaukee for an encore in 1969.

The setup was the same: each American League team (thanks to expansion, there were now 11 visitors) would play one weekday game in Milwaukee. The games were:

Wednesday, April 23	White Sox 7 - Angels 1		 8,565 
Thursday, May 22	White Sox 7 - Tigers 3		15,948
Wednesday, May 28	White Sox 7 - Yankees 6		16,749
Wednesday, June 11	White Sox 4 - Indians 3		15,715
Monday, June 16	        White Sox 8 - Pilots 3		13,133
Wednesday, July 2	Twins 4 - White Sox 2		23,525
Monday, July 7		White Sox 2 - Athletics 0	26,659
Wednesday, Aug. 6	Senators 4 - White Sox 3	25,520
Wednesday, Aug. 13	White Sox 5 - Red Sox 3		24,708
Monday, Sept. 1	        Orioles 8 - White Sox 0		18,102
Friday, Sept. 26	Royals 5 - White Sox 3		 9,587


For whatever reason, the White Sox actually played (7-4) as though they had a home field advantage in Milwaukee. And why not? Given the depressing environment at White Sox Park, perhaps they began to enjoy the occasional jaunt to Milwaukee.

Overall, the Sox’ record in 1969 was about the same as the year before. The difference was that this was the first year of divisional play in the American League, so the Sox finished fifth in a field of six (the Seattle Pilots finished last) in the American League West.

Attendance was down in both Milwaukee and Chicago, but the percentage of fans attending games in Milwaukee was even greater than the year before. Of the 589,546 fans who attended White Sox games in 1969, 391,335 did so at White Sox Park (average 6,673), while 198,211 attended games at Milwaukee (18,019 average). So the average attendance at Milwaukee was almost three times the average attendance at White Sox Park.

Having been stiffed by the major leagues during expansion, acquiring the White Sox became Selig’s Plan B. I doubt Selig relished the idea of raiding the Windy City of an heirloom franchise, but what other choice did he have? At least Chicago would still have the Cubs, whose fortunes seemed to be on the rise.

So Selig arranged for his group to buy the Sox. Unfortunately, the American League owners did not want to abandon the enormous Chicago market, so the deal was killed. Arthur Allyn sold the team to his brother John, who was opposed to moving the team out of Chicago.

If Selig had packed it in after so many years of frustration, no one would have blamed him. Then came deliverance right out of left field... or from the left coast, to be more exact.

The Seattle Pilots were in deep financial trouble after just one year of play. During spring training 1970, the courts were hashing out the team’s fate. The clincher came when the team filed for bankruptcy in federal court, thus rendering moot a lot of local maneuvering. Selig’s offer to buy the team and move it to Milwaukee was obviously in the best interests of the debtors.

On March 31, 1970 at 10:15 p.m., Selig got the phone call he’d been waiting for. The bankruptcy judge had approved of his purchase of the Pilots. The team equipment truck had left Arizona and gone only as far north as Utah. Now the driver knew to go east rather than west. Selig had one week to get ready for Opening Day in Milwaukee. In 1953, the Braves, lucky stiffs, had all of four weeks to get ready!

So from that point on, the possibility of the Chicago White Sox moving to Milwaukee shrank to zero. Had the team moved, it would have been interesting to see if it would have remained the White Sox or would have been changed to Brewers, as happened to the Pilots in 1970. The name “Pilots” was a good one for Seattle, as it incorporated the area’s links to aviation and seafaring. In fact, the team logo combined a pair of wings and a ship’s helm. Pilots wouldn’t have been totally inappropriate for Milwaukee, perched on the banks of Lake Michigan, but a more appropriate option was at hand. Brewers was as apt in 1970 as it was in 1901 and as it is today.

In a sense, the city of Milwaukee had come full circle. In 1902, after one year of operations, Milwaukee lost the Brewers to St. Louis; 68 years later, after one year of operations, Seattle lost the Pilots to Milwaukee.

Given the 1969 end-of-season rosters of the White Sox and the Pilots (they were, of course, the team Jim Bouton wrote about in Ball Four), it wouldn’t have made much difference, talent-wise, which team went to Milwaukee. The White Sox were fifth in the American League West at 68-94, and the Pilots were right behind them at 64-98.

In the short term, the difference in attendance at County Stadium and White Sox Park continued. With only a week to get ready, the Brewers still managed to pull in 37,237 for a Tuesday afternoon Opening Day on April 7, 1970. On the same day, the White Sox drew 11,473 for their opener against the Twins. That’s pitiful for Opening Day, but it looked positively robust compared to the crowd of 1,036 who witnessed the Brewers’ first game at White Sox Park a few days later.

For the 1970 season, the Sox drew a mere 495,355, their lowest total since 1942. The Brewers, meanwhile, drew 933,690 for the season. The Brewers tied with Kansas City for fourth place in the American League West with a 65-97 record. The White Sox were mired in the cellar with a 56-106 record.

As it turned out, that June 16, 1969 game between the Pilots and White Sox in Milwaukee provided a preview of Milwaukee’s home team the following season. With all signs indicating the White Sox would be heading north, it must have been quite a surprise to find deliverance via the Pilots flying east.

Now, 43 years after the return of baseball to Milwaukee, the White Sox and Brewers have both come a long way. The same is true of Bud Selig. Whatever criticism you might make about his actions as commissioner—and I’ve always thought it unseemly for an owner to occupy the commissioner’s office—it’s hard to find fault with his efforts on behalf of Milwaukee. I suspect baseball fans in Wisconsin would have been just as happy with the Milwaukee White Sox as they were with the way things eventually worked out.

So if you go to a Brewers game at Miller Park and see a statute of Selig, rest assured he deserves it. Same goes for his induction into the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame. And now that I think about it, Cooperstown is a strong possibility.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-03-27T07:05:15+00:00 Back home again in Indiana http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/back-home-again-in-indiana/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/back-home-again-in-indiana/#When:07:01:15
You say you never heard of the Limestone League? It’s not surprising. It lasted only three years and it was preseason baseball. As spring training goes, it wasn’t nearly as formal as a present-day Grapefruit and Cactus League season. If not for World War II, it wouldn’t have happened.

The war’s effect on baseball has been a popular topic for baseball historians. A familiar part of baseball lore concerns Franklin Roosevelt giving his okay to wartime baseball in his famous “green light” letter to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis. But it was hardly business as usual.

Young men in peak physical condition were in demand by Uncle Sam as well as major league teams, but Uncle Sam had first dibs. The effects of conscription (enacted in 1940) on major league rosters, and the attendant degradation in the quality of play, were all too obvious, as 4-Fs and retreads dominated the rosters. No help was available from the minor leagues because those players were also caught in the draft. Indeed, most of the pre-war minor leagues had to suspend operations during the war.

But Uncle Sam needed more than manpower. For one thing, he needed transportation for troops and supplies. “Is this trip really necessary?” was a catchphrase coined to prod Americans to curtail non-essential travel. And after the war was a little more than a year old, the question was posed to major league baseball.

On Jan. 5, 1943, Joseph B. Eastman, head of the Office of Defense Transportation (ODT), held an emergency meeting with team owners and Commissioner Landis. The ODT was charged regulating transportation regarding personnel and goods related to the war effort, and didn’t want baseball players clogging up the trains and impeding troop movements.

There was no way to avoid travel during the regular season, but the meeting resulted in an agreement that each team would play three, not four, series at the home of each opponent. The total number of games would remain the same, but the teams would play longer series. Also, the 1943 season would start a week later than usual.

Eastman and Landis claimed that their agreement would save 5 million man miles, counting players, coaches, sportswriters, and the other camp followers who accompanied major league teams on road trips. It is not clear if that 5 million figure included savings from spring training, but the war’s effect on preseason travel was arguably greater than on regular season travel. I wouldn’t go so far as to say spring training was gutted, but it was severely restricted.

In short, Eastman, Landis and the owners set up a boundary around the northeast quadrant of the United States, where all the existing major league teams were located. The teams could go no further south than the Ohio River (where Cincinnati was located) or the Potomac (where Washington, D.C. was located). West of the Mississippi River was also off limits, aside from the two St. Louis teams, whose home base was on the west bank of the river. The Browns and the Cardinals could train in the designated area or anywhere in Missouri.

Of course, the eastern boundary was taken care of by the Atlantic Ocean, and a northern boundary was not necessary, because no one was going to head for colder climes for spring training anyway. Even so, spring training in those years was waggishly referred to as the Long Underwear League.

The agreement ensured that a balmy, palmy spring training was not an option for the duration. The deal may have been struck not just for patriotic reasons but also for good public relations. After all, how would Americans react to stories and pictures of ballplayers cavorting on Florida beaches while their peers were assigned to combat zones in Europe and Asia?

The teams had only two months to decide on locales, so they had to act fast, but actually the message was simple: Train anywhere you want, so long as it’s close to home. As a result, such unlikely venues as Bear Mountain, N.Y. (Dodgers) and Cape Girardeau, Mo. (Browns) played a small part in major league history.

For the record, the southernmost site was the Cardinals’ choice of Cairo, Ill., where the Ohio River flowed into the Mississippi. That was probably as warm a choice as the Cardinals (or anyone else) could make, but it was a long way from their former spring home of St. Petersburg, Fla.

Some teams didn’t even leave their metropolitan areas. The Senators went no further than a suburb (College Park, Md.), as did the Red Sox (Medford, Mass.) in 1943.

South Jersey found favor with a few teams, as the Yankees spent two springs in Atlantic City and one in Asbury Park. The Giants chose Lakewood for three seasons and the Red Sox trained in Pleasantville in 1945.

Curiously, the Braves set up camp one year in Washington, D.C. Presumably, the Senators (either the team or the politicians) had no veto power over that, or chose not to exercise it. World War II presented many novel situations on the home front.

The most stable spring training venue during the war years was Indiana, where six teams readied themselves for the 1943-1945 seasons. The presence of so many teams in one state created a de facto confederation. The numerous limestone quarries in southern Indiana (and the numerous buildings and monuments crafted from native limestone) inspired the name Limestone League.

The league was as follows in 1943:

Chicago Cubs              French Lick        (from Catalina Island, Calif.) 
Chicago White Sox         French Lick        (from Pasadena, Calif.) 
Cincinnati Reds           Bloomington        (from Tampa, Fla.) 
Cleveland Indians         Lafayette          (from Fort Myers, Fla.)
Detroit Tigers            Evansville         (from Lakeland, Fla.) 
Pittsburgh Pirates        Muncie             (from San Bernardino, Calif.)

Right off the bat, the above Indiana towns may seem like odd choices. One wonders why Indianapolis, the state capital and the state’s biggest city, was not chosen. But given the wartime restrictions, the choices made good sense. For one thing, the presence of local colleges (Indiana University in Bloomington, University of Evansville in Evansville, Ball State in Muncie, and Purdue University in Lafayette) assured that some sort of field house would be available for indoor workouts when the weather was too cold outdoors.

Of all the towns chosen, only French Lick had never hosted minor league ball. French Lick (2010 pop. 1,807) was too small to support a pro team. One can only imagine how the presence of not one but two major league teams must have affected the springtime social life of the locals. Since both Chicago teams were ensconced there in 1943 and 1944, it’s easy to imagine baseball fans in the Windy City rationalizing a pilgrimage to French Lick as a necessary trip.

Bloomington had been a longtime minor league town, having hosted Three-I League ball most seasons from 1902 to 1939. Lafayette had hosted minor league ball, but not since 1911 when the Lafayette Farmers played in the Northern State of Indiana League. Muncie had an even longer hiatus, as the last year of minor league ball there was 1908, when the Muncie Fruit Jars played in the Ohio-Indiana League.

The strongest minor league presence was in Evansville, a longtime member of the Three-I League (the Evansville Bees were affiliated with the Boston Bees/Braves just before the war). Indeed, the locals had been fortunate enough to witness Warren Spahn in some of his fledgling professional efforts before he went off to war.

One can conclude that the clubs were, for the most part, satisfied with their digs in the Hoosier State, though the Cubs and White Sox were dismayed to find their practice fields under water when they arrived at French Lick in 1943. Yet of the six teams that trained in Indiana from 1943-1945, only the White Sox shifted their operations, moving from French Lick to Terre Haute for 1945.

Terre Haute, by the way, had hosted minor league ball as far back as 1884 and had been a mainstay of the Three I League from 1919 to 1937. Terre Haute also hosted the Minneapolis Millers of the American Association in the spring of 1943. Minor league teams that had not suspended operations were also subject to travel restrictions.

In 1946, Terre Haute rejoined the Three-I League, and the following year the Muncie Reds took the field in the Ohio State League. Since neither city had hosted minor league for decades, one can’t help but think that the presence of major league teams during spring training must have played a part in re-awakening interest in baseball in those two towns.

Though the three seasons of spring training in Indiana were just a footnote in major league history, there are still links to the past via the old ballparks where the teams played.

In contemporary Evansville, there is a major relic of the era. Bosse Field, the Tigers’ temporary home, was already a seasoned stadium when the Tigers moved in. Built in 1915, the park is still in use, and currently houses the Evansville Otters of the independent Frontier League. I’m guessing baseball fans in Evansville are pondering some sort of centennial celebration for 2015.

In Muncie, McCulloch Park, home of the Pirates, is still in use. At least, the field is still in use; the grandstand is long gone. Supposedly the longest home run in the field’s history was hit by Rudy York when he and the Tigers were visiting.

And in Terre Haute, Memorial Stadium housed the White Sox for the 1945 spring season. It first hosted baseball two decades earlier. The first game, on May 5, 1925, was between the Terre Haute Tots and the Peoria Tractors. The facility is still in use, but you wouldn’t recognize it. Located at 3300 Wabash Ave., it is still called Memorial Stadium, but now it is used for football and soccer by Indiana State University, who acquired the property in 1967.

In its baseball days, it must have been a formidable venue, as the distance down the foul lines was 440 feet and dead center was 592 feet away. All that is left from those days is the memorial arch that gave the stadium its name, but I’m guessing that the local tourist information office gets very few inquiries about the 1945 White Sox spring training season.

In the three seasons the six major league teams spent the preseason in Indiana, the locals had a rare opportunity to see big league players whose exploits they had read about in the papers or listened to on the radio. Although many of the game’s biggest stars were serving in the military, a number of familiar names showed up in Indiana.

Among those who took part in the Limestone League were Mel Harder, Lou Boudreau and Allie Reynolds (Indians); Luke Appling, Tony Cuccinello and Wally Moses (White Sox); Johnny Vander Meer, Bucky Walters and Hank Sauer (Reds); Rip Sewell, Al Lopez and Lloyd Waner (Pirates), Phil Cavarretta, Stan Hack and Bill Nicholson (Cubs); and Hal Newhouser, Rudy York and Paul Richards (Tigers).

To no one’s surprise, when spring 1946 rolled around, the Limestone League was history. All the teams went back to where they had trained in 1942, except for the Indians, who returned to Florida but chose Clearwater over Fort Myers, before heading west to Tucson, Ariz. in 1947.

Like their fellow Americans in other states, the good citizens of Indiana were glad to see World War II come to a victorious conclusion. Still, I’m guessing a lot of the local baseball fans felt a mild sense of loss in the spring of 1946 when it was back to business as usual.

Now, as we approach the 70th anniversary of the Limestone League, it is worth pausing to shine the light on the Hoosier State’s brief but notable moment in the major league baseball sun. When the state celebrates its bicentennial in 2016, one hopes there will be some attention paid to those three historic spring training seasons.


Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-03-20T07:01:15+00:00 My own private Opening Day http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/my-own-private-opening-day/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/my-own-private-opening-day/#When:06:19:15
That Opening Day will coincide with April Fool’s Day fairly begs for commentary, if not wisecracks, depending on what team you’re talking about. Come to think of it, considering the Astros open on Easter Sunday, could you name another franchise more sorely in need of resurrection? Of course, the visiting teams on Opening Day are twice blessed, as they will have a second Opening Day when they start their home season.

For whatever reason, Opening Day is a big deal for baseball, but not so much for other sports. For football, basketball, soccer, ice hockey, or whatever, opening day would not be worthy of capital letters. It’s just the first game of the regular season. I’m thinking baseball gets more attention because Opening Day more or less occurs as springtime is taking hold on the land, so it taps into some sort of quasi-pagan consciousness. As part of the opening ceremonies, a Maypole would not be out of place, even though it would be a month early.

To my way of thinking, baseball’s real Opening Day is the first day of the year I see a baseball game in person. Normally, that will happen long before the official major league Opening Day. In fact, some years it happens long before spring training exhibition games start. And there are some years when it starts even before the training camps open. 2013 is such a year.

College baseball starts in February. The NCAA Division I teams don’t open till the third weekend of the month, supposedly to level the playing field so the sun belt teams won’t be so far ahead of the teams from the northern tier of the country.

The NCAA Division II and III teams, as well as NAIA teams can start their seasons earlier. This year that was the weekend of Feb. 1-3, which offered me three options. Two of them were NAIA contests (University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma at Northwood University; Mid-America Christian at Texas Wesleyan University), but I chose an NCAA Division III match, Texas Lutheran University at the University of Dallas.

Despite its name, the University of Dallas is in Irving, Tex. I think some clarification is in order here. Keeping in mind the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, how about something like the University of Dallas Crusaders of Irving? Another institutional quirk: Despite its name, which certainly sounds public and secular, the University of Dallas is not only private but Catholic.

UD is not the only geographically-challenged school in the area. The University of Texas at Dallas (also Division III) is in Richardson, Texas. Dallas Baptist University, the only Division I school in Dallas County, is within the city limits of Dallas—but just barely.

The Crusaders’ opening day was Saturday, Feb. 2. It was not a good day, as they lost a double-header to Texas Lutheran by 8-7 and 15-1 scores. I couldn’t make it that day, as I had some home repair issues. So my personal opening day would have to be postponed 24 hours.

But that was all right, as Sunday, Feb. 3, was a good day to sit outside and watch a game. This is not something to be taken for granted in North Texas. Such weather isn’t that unusual in February, but you can’t count on it; all you can do is exploit it when it’s present.

To attend a day game and remain comfortable in the sunshine the whole time is almost impossible during Ranger games. Today, however, I can move around without breaking a sweat or I can sit still without shivering. Meteorologically, I wouldn’t change a thing, yet on this day I note one timid soul in the stands deploying an umbrella to fend off that fierce winter sunshine.

At the major league level, Opening Day can be expensive if you are not fortunate enough to secure tickets at face value. Of course, you get a lot more pageantry than with the other 161 games on the schedule: bunting, color guards, flyovers, extended player introductions, marching bands, parachutists, flag-raising, a celebrity singing the national anthem... some of the aforementioned, maybe all the aforementioned, maybe something unexpected.

In sharp contrast, my own private Opening Day is decidedly Spartan—but priced accordingly. Unlike professional franchises, colleges do not always charge admission. The University of Dallas is one such institution. Since the Dallas Area Rapid Transit recently opened a station adjacent to the campus and I have an annual transit pass, it cost me nothing to get there. I didn’t see a concession stand at the ballpark, so it was absolutely impossible for me to spend money at this ball game—an extremely rare situation. My money’s no good here. Neither is anyone else’s.

Unfortunately, the minimalist approach to staging a baseball game meant there were no scorecards. I brought one of my own, but I had forgotten to print out roster sheets from the internet. Clearly, I am far from midseason form and in need of trimming that mental flab.

There were no names on the backs of the uniforms, but I wasn’t flying totally blind. A loudspeaker system, more or less the equivalent of an ad hoc arrangement for a backyard party, had been set up. I didn’t see anything that looked like a press box, so I wasn’t sure where the voice was coming from. The speaker fidelity was less than crystal clear so I had to guess on some of the names. I’m not hooked on phonics, but I am hooked on keeping score, so in some cases I had to be content with phonetic spelling.

For the most part, the University of Dallas names were audible and recognizable... Thornton, Vargas, Pierce, Johnson, Farris, Allred, McRoberts. Catcher Dylan Wadyko was another matter. Over the loudspeaker, it sounded vaguely Japanese, and I tried to spell it accordingly. I was way off... about as far as the distance from Ukraine to Japan.

Texas Lutheran was far more challenging. In my score book, I had Tony Genusa with two “n”s; Christian DeBlanc I had down as Christian LeBlanc; Jennings Boothe appeared without the “e” on the end; as for Von Wendel, I added an extra “l” at the end of his name; Derek Kanas I totally botched; Klaus Bohrmann I had down as “Boorman.” Actually, I thought he was executed after the Nuremberg trials. Obviously I was wrong. I thought he’d be older.

Another problem with depending on the public address announcer is that he sometimes omits information, such as the name of the UD starting pitcher. A right-hander wearing No. 14 took the mound, but I didn’t know his name till I checked the box score after the fact. Turns out his name was Joshua Crapps, which is an open invitation to wallow in adolescent humor.

On this Sunday afternoon, that name is something of a misnomer, as he goes six innings and gives up just one run. I think any coach or manager at any level would be happy with that effort for the first start of the season.

Interesting to note that Crapps is one of four UD players to hail from Anchorage, Alaska. The next biggest source of players (three) is The Woodlands, Tex., a planned community north of Houston that is something of a prep baseball hotbed. Three players from The Woodlands is no surprise at a Texas college, but four natives of Anchorage dropping anchor at UD definitely defies the odds. Obviously, the Alaska pipeline doesn’t terminate at Valdez any more.

Once underway, the game is played cleanly, quickly and crisply. Crusader Field itself appears to be in decent shape for opening weekend. In fact, as the game unfolds, there is only one error and one bad hop, though not on the same play.

On the whole, both teams seem to be in good form. Oftentimes, during these early season college games, the players look a bit out of synch. There is no grapefruit or cactus league for college ball; they just jump right into the regular season. February fuzziness is understandable.

I watched the entire game while standing behind first base. I could have moved around but I was satisfied with the perspective. One of the benefits of college ball is fan mobility. Generally, the smaller the institution the greater the mobility. If you decide you don’t like where you’re sitting, go sit somewhere else; if you decide you’d rather stand, you can usually do so close to the field. If you want a little elevation, there’s often a berm or a hill close by, and such is the case at Crusader Field. In fact, the field is surrounded by a densely wooded area, which is likely a treasure trove of unretrieved foul balls by the end of the season.

At the end of nine innings the score is tied 1-1. An extra inning is required to settle the affair in favor of Texas Lutheran, 2-1. The box score says the time of game was two hours and 51 minutes. That squares with my scorecard. Attendance is listed at 181. How they came up with that figure without ticket sales or a turnstile is beyond me.

So my personal Opening Day coincides with the last game of a three-game sweep of the University of Dallas at home. Their woes continued as they traveled to Brownwood, Texas to meet Howard Payne University and lost two more contests. Since then, they have righted the ship, and as I write this, their record is 5-6. Still plenty of time to rise to the top of the SCAC (Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference) over Centenary College, Austin College, Trinity University and Southwestern University.

So the curtain came down on my own private Opening Day, more than two months before the Rangers’ home opener. But there was still plenty of daylight left. On the way home, I felt my day would be incomplete if I didn’t spend some money somewhere, so I got off the train to pay a visit to a legendary beer joint called Club Schmitz.

If there is a Hall of Fame for dive bars, this place (founded in 1946) would be elected on the first ballot. You can get a mug of beer for $2 and the menu is wall-to-wall artery-clogging concoctions. As if that weren’t enough, you can even buy a T-shirt with a slogan about getting “Schmitz-faced.” Could you ask for better way to bring your Opening Day to a close?

My own private Opening Day for 2013 is not the earliest date I have ever witnessed a baseball game. Last year I saw Texas Wesleyan University start the season on Jan. 31. This is the only game I’ve ever seen during the first month of the year. I would like nothing more than to witness a midnight game right after the ball drops on New Year’s Eve. It’s highly unlikely, but it sure would be a nifty addition to the Mexican or Caribbean winter league schedule.

Even so, Feb. 3, 2013 is a respectably early beginning for my baseball season. Of course, that was also the date of the Super Bowl, but as that annual event gets more and more bloated, it resonates less and less with me. Granted, it sits atop the heap of mass media sports experiences, but it just doesn’t compare to my own private Opening Day.

Click here to learn about THT's download subscriptions.]]> Frank Jackson 2013-02-28T06:19:15+00:00 Baseball’s biggest losers deserved better http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/baseballs-biggest-losers-deserved-better/ http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/baseballs-biggest-losers-deserved-better/#When:06:30:15
Multiply 20 by 10 and the principle still holds. You have to be a pretty darn good pitcher to lose 200 major league games. After all, there are plenty of former MLB pitchers who never got close to 200 total appearances, much less 200 decisions, win or lose.

As a general rule, when you see pitchers on the list of most lifetime losses, you are looking at Hall of Fame pitchers or at least candidates worthy of consideration. For the most part, these innings-eaters have posted even more victories than losses, so they are on the positive side of the ledger when they retire.

Cy Young is at the top of the list with 316 losses, but there’s no way Major League Baseball would name an award after a loser, right? Young’s 511 victories overshadow the losses, and he retired with a superb winning percentage of .618.

Next comes Pud Galvin, the only other pitcher with more than 300 losses. He ended up with a .540 winning percentage (based on a 361-308 record), nowhere near Cy Young, but he wasn’t just spinning his wheels on the mound.

Once we go below 300 losses, we see more renowned names, such as Nolan Ryan (292 losses), Walter Johnson (279), Phil Niekro (274), Gaylord Perry (265) and Don Sutton (256). Hall-of-Famers all, they need no introduction. But that may not be the case with the next name on the list.

John Joseph "Jack" Powell (born July 9, 1874) is a Deadball Era player whose claim to fame is that he lost more games (254) than any other hurler not in the Hall of Fame. Likely the reason he has been bypassed by Cooperstown is that he lost more games than he won (245). In other words, he has the most losses of any hurler with a winning percentage below .500.

In a big league career spanning 1897 to 1912, Powell pitched for the Cleveland Spiders, the New York Highlanders, and both St. Louis franchises. Some of these teams were good, some were bad, and some were atrocious. None won a pennant, so don’t waste your time looking for Powell’s post-season record.

It all started out well enough for Powell. As a 22-year-old rookie with just one year of minor league ball (with the Fort Wayne Farmers of the Inter-State League) under his belt, he went 15-10 for the Spiders.

Sophomore jinx? Nope, he went 23-15 the following year. When the Cleveland owners gutted the team and transferred the best players to the St. Louis Perfectos (forerunners of the Cardinals) in 1899, Powell was among those chosen, and he did not disappoint, going 23-19. He continued to eat innings but the next two seasons the results were mediocre, as he went 17-16 and 19-19.

In 1902 Powell quit the Cardinals and jumped to the Browns during their inaugural year (they had moved to St. Louis after one year in Milwaukee) and rebounded to 22-17. The Browns finished at 78-58, good enough for second place in the American League in 1902. But the following season, after a 15-19 season, even though Powell had lowered his ERA from 3.21 to 2.91, the Browns shipped him off to the New York Highlanders.

A curious footnote to this portion of his career was Powell’s employment as a relief pitcher. His ability to warm up quickly made him a valuable man out of the bullpen and subsequent research revealed that he led his league or tied for the league lead in saves from 1901 to 1903. Granted, we’re talking about two or three saves a year here, since starting pitchers were expected to go the distance in those days. During this same three-year period, Powell himself pitched 102 complete games, yet he wasn’t close to the league leaders in that department.

In 1904, when Powell joined the Highlanders, forerunners of the Yankees, they were a long way from a dynasty, though they did go 92-59 in 1904, and Powell (23-19) experienced his only pennant race. But Powell was 30 years old, and his winningest years were behind him. Though he pitched till age 38, he had just one more winning season (1908 when he went 16-13). Curiously, his ERA shows he was still an effective pitcher. He registered a 3.50 ERA with the Highlanders in 1905, but after that, playing out his career in a second tour of duty with the Browns, his ERA ranged from 1.77 to 3.29.

Of course, playing for the Browns rarely enhanced any pitcher’s won-loss record. During Powell’s first seven seasons with the Browns, he was 93-96. Not great but, by Browns' standards, hardly a disaster.

Then in the last three years of his career (1910-1912) the Browns went 47-107, 45-107, and 53-101, finishing 57, 56½, and 53 games out of first place. Powell went 7-11, 8-19, and 9-17 during those years. That 24-47 stretch closed out his career record with the Browns at 117-143, and doomed him to a sub-.500 career. With ERAs of 2.30, 3.29, and 3.10 during his three final seasons, he surely deserved better.

One can appreciate Powell’s dilemma. He was an effective pitcher right up to the end, yet despite his best efforts, his legacy was deteriorating to the point where he had to retire as a “losing” pitcher.

What’s an aging hurler to do? Well, after those three dismal seasons with the Browns, he was nine games below .500 for his career, despite a 2.97 career ERA. He must have figured he didn’t have time to turn it around, and after 4,389 inning pitched (30th all-time), he was likely tired—so he hung ‘em up. (He did, however, play Double-A ball in 1913 and 1914.)

Powell’s consolation prize for logging so many seasons with the Browns was that he loomed large in their record books. Though he retired four decades before the Browns moved to Baltimore, he remained the team’s all-time leader in games started, innings pitched, strikeouts, and shutouts. Only Urban Shocker had more victories (126).

All well and good, but put them all together and they don’t spell Cooperstown. A relief specialist might get by with a losing record (e.g., Rollie Fingers, who was 114-118, and Bruce Sutter, who was 68-71) if he has a lot of saves, but that won’t work for a starting pitcher. If a starter aspires to Cooperstown, he must win more than he loses, no matter how many lousy teams he plays for.

Powell had four 20-win seasons and he still ranks 15th on the all-time list of complete games. His 45 shutouts ranks him in a tie for 26th place all-time. It’s a shame Powell didn’t get a chance to pitch for better teams, but those are the breaks.

Indeed, when one looks at the “loss leaders” below Powell, the HOF roll call continues: Eppa Rixey, Bert Blyleven, Robin Roberts, Warren Spahn, Steve Carlton, and Early Wynn. So of the top 14 leaders in career losses, Powell is the only one without a plaque in Cooperstown. If you’re curious, No. 15 on the list is Jim Kaat, who finished at 283-237.

Powell finished with 499 career decisions. Just one more decision and he would have had the 500 benchmark all to himself among losing pitchers. But he does have company at the 400+ level. So let’s pay tribute to a couple more unsung heroes.

Bob Friend lost 230 games pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates for all but one season. He finished three victories short of 200 victories. Friend had the misfortune to pitch for the Bucs during what was arguably the nadir of the franchise. The team finished below .500 from 1949 through 1957. Of course, that is nowhere near the team’s current record of 20 straight sub-.500 seasons, but the Pirates during Friend’s formative years were exceptionally bad. Their worst record was 42-112 in 1952; the club’s deepest last-place finish was 1953 when the Bucs were 55 games behind the Dodgers; and attendance bottomed out in 1955 at 469,397.

Friend was a 20-year-old rookie in 1951 so he was on hand for the all the Pirates’ lowlights of the early 1950s. In truth, his own record for the first four years was nothing to write home about (in fairness, GM Branch Rickey had rushed him to the big leagues), as his ERA varied from 4.18 to 5.07. But those four seasons must have given him some valuable experience, because he went 14-9 with a league-leading 2.87 ERA in 1955. He peaked with a 22-victory season in 1958 (tying Warren Spahn for the NL lead) and won 18 games during the Pirates’ 1960 championship year.

By 1966, at age 36, he found himself pitching for the Yankees and the Mets when both teams were doormats. He must have felt he had come full circle, so he retired after the 1967 season at age 36.

As of this writing, he is still the Pirates’ all-time leader in batters faced (14,644), innings pitched (3,480), strikeouts (1,682), and games started (477). The flip side of his longevity is franchise leadership in home runs (273), earned runs (1,372), losses (218), hits (3,610), and walks (869).

A few years ago I encountered Friend at an autograph session at PNC Park. I’m happy to report that he appeared to be none the worse for wear (3,611 innings pitched). At the time he was pushing 80 but looked hale and hearty. Hope that’s still the case.

Next on the loss list is Bobo Newsom, who frequently appears on lists of baseball’s most colorful characters. Newsom won 211 games and lost 222. Like Powell and Friend, Newsom spent most of his career with bad teams, notably the Philadelphia A’s (twice), the Browns (three times), and the Washington Senators (five times!).

Newsom started his major league career with Brooklyn at age 21 on September 11, 1929, just before the stock market’s decade-long boom was about to go south. He bounced back and forth between the majors and minors until 1934 when he became a regular in the Browns’ rotation, going 16-20. After a few indifferent years, he had a string of 20-victory seasons with the Browns and Tigers from 1938-1940.

That first 20-game season was quite a feat, considering he had a 5.08 ERA and the Browns won only 55 games. By contrast, his 1940 record with the Tigers was 21-5 with a 2.83 ERA. He topped it off with an outstanding performance in the World Series against the Reds. He won two games (including a Game Five shutout after the death of his father) before Paul Derringer out-dueled him, 2-1, in Game Seven. Even so, Newsom had nothing to be ashamed of, as he had a 1.38 ERA in 26 innings. At age 33, he had reached his zenith. It was all downhill after that, but it turned out to be a surprisingly long journey.

Newsom lost 20 game for the Tigers in 1941, followed by 19 for the Dodgers and the Senators in 1942. He continued to log innings during the World War II seasons, losing 20 games again in 1945, this time for the A’s. He was a likely candidate for retirement when the front-line talent came back from the front lines in 1946, yet he managed to hang on.

He was 38 years old at the beginning of the 1946 season and managed to stick around three more years with fair-to-middling results. As a member of the Yankees, he even managed to work his way into the 1947 World Series.

And more than likely, that should have been the end for Newsom. But no! At age 41, he went to Double-A ball—for three seasons! At the time, his big league record was 205-217, so perhaps he harbored some hope of returning to the big leagues and boosting his victory mark beyond his loss mark.

In 1952, he was back in the big leagues with the Senators and the A’s. He retired after the 1953 season, his losing record intact, yet the fact that he had pitched till age 46—after making a comeback at age 44—is more remarkable than the results themselves.

Before ending this survey, honorable mention must go to Charlie Hough, who ended up at 216-216. Hough pitched 25 seasons and would have had a winning record had he hung it up after his 18-13 season with the Rangers at age 39 in 1987. Unfortunately, that was his last winning season. He hung around for another seven years of losing records, thus assuring he would not go down in baseball history as a winning pitcher. In fact, just one more errant knuckleball in a tight game and Hough would have been below .500 for his career.

Looking back on the careers of these durable hurlers, can we learn anything from their travails? Well, for one thing, the reserve clause must be called to account, as it had the effect of binding good pitchers to bad teams. Had they been able to play out their contracts and put their services on the open market, they would have had the chance to pitch for better teams and would have ended up with better records and a better shot at Cooperstown.

But the ultimate lesson to be learned is this: You don’t have to be a winning pitcher to have a distinguished career.

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