Al Santorini Was Jersey Pitching Legend
ALSO: BASEBALL WAS BETTER IN THE GOOD OLD DAYS
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know ...
Reader Irwin H. Berkowitz writes, “The reason Aaron Boone needed a pacemaker, besides bad luck, is that he had a congenital heart disease bicuspid aortic valve. This valve was replaced 3-4 years ago.”
Boone, now in his fourth year as manager of the New York Yankees, had open-heart surgery on March 26, 2009, while he was a player with the Houston Astros. That procedure corrected a swelling of the aorta – a condition first discovered while Boone was in college.
Now 48, Boone had annual electrocardiograms ever since but when monitored for several weeks this winter, his heartbeat was too low: 30-39 beats per minute instead of 60-100 that it should be. To correct the problem, a pacemaker was inserted on March 3 at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Tampa.
“I was very at peace and comfortable getting it done,” he told The Associated Press. “They told me I’ll notice a big difference.
“I still have some arm restrictions so I can’t lift weights like I do normally. But as far as just getting around, my energy in the mornings and all day is so much better.
“I’ve done some Peloton rides I haven’t done in a few months and didn’t even realize that, oh, this is what it’s supposed to be like.”
The pacemaker is designed to keep the manager’s heart rate from dropping below 50-60 beats per minute or from rising too high.
Thanks, Irwin, for your sharp-eyed comment.
Leading Off
Al Santorini Was Hot Stuff in Jersey Days
By Howard Megdal
Boston Red Sox pitching prospect Jay Groome has a chance to help that franchise return to glory, after several seasons of struggles. He’s hitting 96-97 on the radar gun this spring after Boston added him to the 40-man roster this past winter, a sign of respect and an indication he could well be in the team’s future plans.
“There’s a lot of work with him but you saw it today, stuff-wise — the slow breaking ball, the change-up, the fastball — that was a good one,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said this week after seeing him pitch. “We’ve been patient and we’ll keep being patient with him. We’ve got to keep working with him and if he keeps throwing the ball like he threw it today, the future is bright.”
If Groome continues to impress, he has a chance to help Boston by 2022, if not sooner. That will complete a trip that took him from Barnegat, NJ, where he played at Barnegat High School and got selected 12th overall in the 2016 draft. That would make him the 11th primary pitcher in New Jersey history to reach the major leagues as a first-round draft pick.
The very first? That would be Al Santorini, the Union, NJ legend.
You might think that is hyperbole, but the Union High School multi-sport star — described by rival Plainfield head coach Abe Smith as a quarterback “capable of doing anything” in a November 12, 1964 edition of The Courier-News — received a parade and a civic honor, “Al Santorini Day,” after he completed his rookie season in the big leagues.
“Mayor F. Edward Biertuempfel said the town will honor the San Diego Padres pitcher, who won 35 of 36 decisions while at Union High School, with a parade and a testimonial dinner,” reported the Passaic Herald-News on October 4, 1969. Three weeks later came the parade.
It was hardly the first time much was made of Santorini, the prized pitcher for Union High School coaching legend Gordon LeMatty. The Atlanta Braves selected Santorini 11th overall in the 1966 MLB Draft and were unpleasantly surprised, after leaving him unprotected in the winter of 1968, when Santorini was plucked in the first round of the expansion draft by the fledgling Padres.
It was a rough year for San Diego, finishing 52-110, but Santorini held his own as a 21-year-old rookie, finishing 8-14 with a 3.95 ERA. An enterprising young reporter with The Associated Press, Dan Schlossberg, caught up with Santorini’s brother Art that July.
“San Diego is a good young organization and Al says he’s treated real well,” Art told Dan. “And he gets along well with Roger Craig,” then the Padres’ pitching coach.
Alas, the very thing that led to Atlanta assuming the Padres wouldn’t pick him — arm troubles — continued to plague him. He pitched in the major leagues through 1973, but the 184 ⅔ innings he logged in 1969 would be his highest total.
Still, glimpses of what a healthy Santorini might have done were occasionally seen. Late in the 1972 season, Santorini, by then a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, threw a complete-game shutout, besting the New York Mets, 4-0, and striking out 12 in the process.
“I’d never had double figures in the majors,” Santorini told The Associated Press following the game. “Never since I was in high school have I had 12 strikeouts.” Naturally, the AP copy was picked up in the September 28, 1972 edition of the Passaic Herald-News.
Santorini retired after spending the 1974 season in the minors — he’d entered the spring in Phillies camp but didn’t make the ballclub. Even so, there have continued to be Al Santorini sightings around the state.
Other New Jersey hurlers have followed Santorini, from Bob Stanley to Matt Morris, Willie Banks and Rick Porcello. The legendary Englewood Cliffs, NJ product, Rob Kaminsky, served as the most recent graduate of the New Jersey first-round pitching pipeline when he debuted with the Cardinals in the 2020 season.
Hopefully, the world will open up again soon, so that Englewood Cliffs can have a Rob Kaminsky Day and a testimonial dinner too. They should invite Al Santorini to be a guest speaker.
Howard Megdal writes for Baseball Prospectus, FiveThirtyEight and numerous other outlets. He is the founder and editor of The Next Women's Basketball Newsroom and The IX Newsletter. He's written books including The Cardinals Way, Wilpon's Folly and The Baseball Talmud. A new edition of The Baseball Talmud will be published by Triumph Books in 2022.
Cleaning Up
Baseball Needs To Turn Back The Clock
By Dan Schlossberg
Should baseball emphasize tradition, progress, or a little bit of both?
As a staunch fan of The Good Old Days, I believe the game was better when it featured day games on grass fields, balanced schedules, no inter-league play, no designated hitters, and no wild-cards or One-and-Done wild-card playoff games.
During the days when each league had eight teams, there was no such thing as divisional play and the top four teams in each league shared World Series loot because they were in the “first division.” Everybody else was in the “second division.”
At the same time as it gives lip service to the idea of reducing team travel, MLB schedules single games in places like Williamsport, PA; Dubuque, Iowa; and Omaha, Nebraska and two-game stands in London, Mexico, and Puerto Rico – all in the name of expanding the game’s “reach” even though some of the host ballparks are smaller than spring training facilities. We’re still waiting to hear a rational reason for these jaunts.
As a professional baseball writer and avid fan for more than a half-century, I think it’s important that the best teams in each league meet in the World Series – and not before. I also think it’s awful that we could actually have world champions who didn’t finish first (see Angels-Giants of 2002), not to mention a World Series between wild-card winners who are not actually champions of anything (see Royals-Giants of 2014).
Anything that compromises the integrity of the World Series may good for team bank accounts – at least when they derive game-day revenue again – but otherwise hurts the game.
I especially don’t like the idea that baseball is trying to copy football, basketball, and hockey postseason formats. Last year, when the playoffs expanded to a 16-team tournament, the baseball playoffs (potentially 22 games) seemed almost as long as the regular season (60 games because of the pandemic and the inability of the owners and players to agree on anything).
Almost all teams in the majors play various Turn Back the Clock games when they wear vintage uniforms – often of teams that no longer exist but have some local connection (i.e. Montreal Expos in Washington, St. Louis Browns in Baltimore, Seattle Pilots in Milwaukee).
So why not Turn Back the Clock instead of playing Beat the Clock?
Let players, coaches, and managers elect All-Star lineups, with the caveat that they can’t vote for teammates. That will return fairness to the All-Star voting for the first time since Bowie Kuhn was blundering around in the Commissioner’s office.
Don’t ruin extra-inning games by starting extra innings with designated runners on second base. Don’t take away the fun of manager-umpire arguments by relying on boring and time-killing instant replay. And don’t increase the size of the bases or the distance between them.
Want to bring families to the ballpark? Stop blaring ear-splitting rock music that makes it impossible to talk – or even think – between innings. Stop turning ballparks into outdoor saloons.
Eliminate weekend night games that face intense competition for the hard-earned entertainment dollar.
Better broadcasting would also be a boon to baseball. That means hiring trained professional broadcasters and not handing microphones to every former player who wants one. Some of them would never pass the voice-quality test required by WAER, the Syracuse University station, before it allowed them use of the airwaves.
Bring back the formal baseball box score – not the abbreviated version that runs in too many places – and encourage newspapers to print them. Show position changes, how pinch-hitters fared, and how many batters relief pitchers faced when they failed to record an out. Kudos to The Albany Times-Union for being one of those that still do this but jeers to USA TODAY for dropping all box scores from its sharply-decreasing coverage of the game.
And stop revealing everybody’s salary, a fatal flaw that keeps the salary spiral spinning into the stratosphere. The signing of Fernando Tatis Jr. immediately raised the demands of Francisco Lindor, Trevor Story, and Freddie Freeman, to name three extension candidates.
In what other job does everyone know everybody else’s salary?
If he were still alive today, Marvin Miller would be wearing that snide sneer for good reason. And putting him in Cooperstown? There’s no good reason for that – especially with innovative visionary Charlie Finley still waiting for a long-overdue invitation.
The good news is the game is back. The bad news is it could be a whole lot better than it is.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ admits he is a grumpy old man – like Oscar Madison – who loves baseball anyway. His byline appears in USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, forbes.com, Latino Sports, and Ball Nine. He’s also the author or co-author of 38 books. Write him at ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
Albert Pujols was the last repeat MVP in the National League . . .
The last time Tony La Russa managed a game for the Chicago White Sox, on June 19, 1986, no player on the team’s current 40-man roster was even born . . .
The Braves never won a post-season game during the time Phil Niekro was with the team . . .
Niekro may be a Hall of Famer but he holds the Braves franchise record for wild pitches in a game (6) and in a career (200) . . .
During his run of four straight NL Cy Young Awards, Greg Maddux had a 75-29 record and 1.98 ERA while allowing less than one runner per inning . . .
Since the advent of the Live Ball Era in 1920, the only pitchers with full-season ERAs under 1.65 were Bob Gibson, Luis Tiant, Doc Gooden, and Maddux (twice).
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.
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