Yankees Need To Honor Hank Bauer
ALSO: APPROACHING BOOK DEADLINE PUTS SQUEEZE ON WRITER
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
A pre-game pep talk from Barry Bonds prompted Joc Pederson’s three-homer, eight-RBI game against the Mets Tuesday night . . .
In a major blow to the Brewers, Milwaukee starter Freddy Peralta could be out for the season with a posterior shoulder strain . . .
Yankee regulars Josh Donaldson, Kyle Higashioka, and Joey Gallo all went on the Covid-19 list earlier this week with symptoms of the malevolent virus . . .
What torn ACL? Atlanta’s Ronald Acuña, Jr. went 8-for-8 in stolen bases in his first 14 games — the first time in his career he’s stolen eight bases without being caught over so few games in a single season . . .
Lefty-hitting slugger Michael Conforto, still just 29, remains the highest-profile free agent who failed to sign — thanks in part to April shoulder surgery — but the Braves and Phils could make offers for the outfielder right after he proves OK physically . . .
Hall of Famers Mike Piazza and Pedro Martinez will headline the first Mets Old-Timers Day since 1994 when they come to CitiField on Aug. 27 . . .
Command issues have dogged veteran Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman this season but the Cuban closer hadn’t blown a save in nine chances as this week started and had crafted a decent 2.63 earned run average.
Leading Off
As The Yankees Honor Paul O'Neill, They Should Also Take The Time To Remember And Recognize Hank Bauer
By Paul Semendinger, Ed.D.
The Yankees do a great job of honoring their great history. One can't watch a Yankees telecast or go to Yankee Stadium without seeing images and hearing of the many great players from yesteryear including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, Reggie Jackson, and countless others. The Hall-of-Famers are always remembered...
The Yankees also do a great job in honoring their most recent legends: Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez, and Jorge Posada among others. Many of these recent players will not reach the Hall of Fame, but they were important figures in the Yankees' most recent championship seasons.
This summer, Paul O'Neill will have his uniform number 21 retired. Some will say this is well-deserved. Who am I to argue? Paul O'Neill was the right-fielder and a leader on four Yankees World Series championship teams. He led the American League in batting in 1994. He was known as "The Warrior" and was a fan favorite.
But as the Yankees honor O'Neill and other heroes of the recent past, they keep missing the opportunity to recognize so many of the other greats who were equal to, or even better than, the players who are getting honored now.
One of those players was Hank Bauer.
People today do not know what an excellent baseball player Hank Bauer was but Hank was every bit the ballplayer Paul O'Neill was... and more
Both Paul O'Neill and Hank Bauer were championship Yankees. If O'Neill deserves credit for being a leader on four championship teams, Bauer also deserves that same credit, and then some. Bauer was a leader on seven World Championship Yankees teams.
Paul O'Neill was known to be a solid defender with a strong outfield arm. People who saw Hank Bauer would say that his arm was probably even stronger than O'Neill's and he was also a top-notch defender.
Hank Bauer spent 11 years with the Yankees. In those years, the Yankees won nine pennants. Few players, anywhere, have been leaders on teams that successful.
In his Yankees career, Bauer hit .277 with 158 home runs and 654 runs batted in. The Yankees utilized Bauer in various spots in the lineup. At times, he was the lead-off batter. Other times, he batted in the heart of the order. He was a dangerous hitter who was also versatile. Bauer was a player who would do whatever it takes to win. Teams don't win championships without players like Hank Bauer.
In the post-season, Bauer was especially tough. At one point, he hit in a record 17 consecutive World Series games.
Paul O'Neill is remembered for a great game-saving catch in the 1996 World Series. Bauer also had a game-saving catch in the 1951 World Series.
As great as Paul O'Neill was, Hank Bauer was the better ballplayer. That's not taking anything away from O'Neill, it's just recognizing an obvious point. Paul O'Neill's career WAR as a Yankee was 26.7, good for 36th all-time on the Yankees' list. Bauer's WAR as a Yankee was 29.3. He is 27th on the all-time list.
Hank Bauer was also a war hero in World War II. He fought as a marine in the Pacific and won two Bronze Stars and two Purple Hearts. Bauer wasn't just a great Yankee, he was a great American.
After his playing days, Hank Bauer managed the Baltimore Orioles to a World Championship. He then scouted for the Yankees in the Kansas City area for many years.
Unfortunately, as the Yankees honor the players of recent vintage, and as they recognize the greatest superstars of the past, they most often forget the other important players who were also essential members of their team's rich legacy. Hank Bauer is one of those players. He deserves a plaque in Monument Park. If Paul O'Neill's number is retired, so, too, should Bauer's be.
I know that the push-back to this will be that as the Yankees retire #21, they cannot possibly retire the numbers of every great player, but here's the beautiful thing — retiring Hank Bauer's number wouldn't change anything uniform wise. His number 9 is already retired for Roger Maris. By retiring the number in Bauer's name as well, the Yankees would simply be recognizing another great Yankee. The fact that this is so easy and obvious makes me wonder why this hasn't been part of the plan already.
It would take nothing away from Paul O'Neill's big day to announce that another great right-fielder is also being recognized that same day. It's time for Hank Bauer to get the recognition from the Yankees that he has been denied all these years.
As the Yankees honor right-fielder Paul O'Neill, they should also honor Hank Bauer. It's time to right that wrong. (It's also time for the Yankees to recognize so many other worthy players like Roy White, Graig Nettles, Earle Combs, Charlie Keller, Tommy Henrich...and so many others, but starting with Hank Bauer would be an excellent way to start.)
Dr. Paul Semendinger of Ridgewood, NJ has been an educator and school leader for 32 years. He is currently the principal of the greatest elementary school in the whole world. Paul runs the great Yankees site Start Spreading the News and the Start Spreading the News Podcast on the North East Streaming Sports Network. Paul's book on the Yankees, The Least Among Them, has earned a great deal of industry-wide praise. Paul also still pitches for two teams in over-35 baseball leagues. He's won a few games already this year and is wondering what is taking the Yankees so long to give him a call-up to the big club.
Cleaning Up
Author Feels Pressure Of Fast-Approaching Baseball Book Deadline
By Dan Schlossberg
It’s Crunch Time!
If it weren’t true, it would actually be funny.
As author, co-author, or ghostwriter of 39 previous baseball books, including the 480-page The New Baseball Bible, I should understand how to deal with a deadline. But life finds a way of interfering, no matter how well a writer budgets his time.
In this case, the deadline is June 15 for a book called Baseball Zeroes — an illustrated listing of thousands of things that never happened, never could happen, or actually did happen, such as players who wore 0 or Double-0 as their uniform numbers or the .000 team batting average of the Chicago White Sox before and after Opening Day 1940.
Putting it together involved finding an illustrator, a baseball-savvy colleague to pen the foreword, and enough one-line anecdotes to make this volume stand out on the 2023 baseball bookshelf.
Every day, something happens that would fit into the book. Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina suddenly turn into relief pitchers, Hunter Greene & Co. throw a no-hitter that isn’t, or Joc Pederson bursts out of the May doldrums with a three-homer game.
Also every day, something unexpected happens off the field that precludes early completion.
Two members of my immediate family announced June surgeries. My dog needs a vet appointment sooner than the one that had been planned for September. And I myself had two long-scheduled doctors’ appointments in May.
The central air-conditioning system died, causing a four-man crew to spend a full day inside and outside the house setting up a new one that actually works (thankfully three days before a weekend when mid-May temps in North Jersey approached triple digits).
Even worse, my dependable desktop computer — less than four years old — went belly-up, resulting in a pair of 30-minute round-trips to the office of my computer guru, who usually fixes computer issues remotely. Naturally, even after the desktop returned, there were glitches that did require his wireless expertise.
Fortunately, I was able to use my Lenovo netbook, which I also bring with me to baseball press boxes and on trips of any duration, and which I find fast and dependable. Plus that computer guru is always a phone call away.
Regular responsibilities — including writing and editing weekend editions of Here’s The Pitch, crafting at least five baseball columns per month for forbes.com, and hosting morning and evening travel shows on Thursdays — were never shoved to the back burner. And when a travel magazine editor asked me to profile Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, my two favorite ballparks, I couldn’t say no.
And there were those two 1200-word features for the Hall of Fame Induction Preview of USA TODAY Sports Weekly. Thanks, Jim Kaat, for being a terrific first interview.
The month of May also included my birthday (same day as Willie Mays), Mother’s Day, a book-signing in my old card store, a Sunday morning Men’s Club presentation by Jay Horwitz, an annual hour-long visit by a home health aid, senior fitness classes, and my first pickleball lessons (a guy has to stay in shape somehow).
I did manage to do some work on the book during a four-day trip to Puerto Rico for an annual conference I have never missed — held by the North American Travel Journalists Association, an organization I co-founded in 1991.
Since variety is the spice of life, I am proud to be the only U.S. journalist who covers baseball and travel exclusively. I even wrote a column years ago for Yankees Magazine called “On The Road,” spotlighting places to see in cities where the team was going.
As an AP alumnus, I also enjoyed heavy workloads and short deadlines. Now it’s time to rely on that experience again. Plus it’s time to get back to work!
Baseball Zeroes, featuring a foreword by Doug Lyons and artwork by Ronnie Joyner, is due from Skyhorse next spring. Not to worry: I’ll get it done before deadline.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg has written or co-authored 40 baseball books, including The New Baseball Bible. He’ll speak at the Baseball Hall of Fame on July 6 and sign on Main Street, Cooperstown on Saturday, July 23. E.mail him at ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
“Every loss is an adjustment that organizations have to make. Shame on you if you haven’t at least thouthgabout what you were going to do if X player isn’t able to play for an extended period of time.”
—Mets manager Buck Showalter on the likely loss of ace Max Scherzer for 8 weeks
Former Red Sox outfielder Jonny Gomes, sitting in the seats above the Green Monster at Fenway Park, caught a Trevor Story grand-slam at Fenway Park on May 20, 2022.
The 2022 ball may be dead but Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton is still hitting them out of sight, sometimes with an exit velocity of 118.1 miles an hour . . .
Surprise, surprise: Pete Alonso of the Mets went into last weekend leading the majors in RBI . . .
With Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, and Tylor Megill sidelined simultaneously, the Mets will need Carlos Carrasco, Chris Bassitt, and Taijuan Walker to pick up the pace – and might still need help from newly-signed Trevor Cahill or erstwhile Atlanta ace Julio Teheran . . .
After a fine first start, Colorado starter German Marquez has been beyond brutal.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Brian Harl [bchrom831@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.