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Pregame Pepper
Did you know ...
San Francisco native Al Michaels, winner of the Ford C. Frick Award for broadcast excellence, won an Emmy for his impromptu coverage of the Bay Area earthquake that stopped the 1989 World Series . . .
Current general managers Chaim Bloom (Red Sox) and James Click (Astros) worked under Andrew Friedman, president of baseball operations for the Dodgers since 1974, when Friedman held the same position with the Tampa Bay Rays . . .
Crafty executive Alex Anthopoulos acquired Josh Donaldson twice: once while he was with Toronto and later when he was with Atlanta . . .
Jay Johnstone was the only man in baseball history who dragged the infield in the fifth inning and pinch-hit a home run in the sixth — with a good tongue-thrashing by Tommy Lasorda in between.
Leading Off
Christmas Day HOFers
By Michelle Frost
Baseball includes three legendary players who were born on Christmas Day. All three came from humble beginnings, overcame obstacles to achieve greatness, and were fan favorites during their careers.
Rickey Henderson has perhaps the most dramatic “born on Christmas Day” story. During a cold Chicago winter, as his mother Bobbie was being rushed to the hospital, Rickey was delivered in the back seat of an Oldsmobile on December 25, 1958. He later joked about the circumstances: “I was already fast. I couldn’t wait.”
His birth father was out of the picture by the time Rickey was two years old. Bobbie moved the family to Oakland, California, when Rickey was seven.
Growing up, Rickey was a standout in whatever sport he played. His first love was football, and he received more than a dozen college scholarship offers after high school. But his mother was concerned about potential injuries, and Rickey deferred to her judgment in pursuing baseball instead.
Rickey was a fourth-round draft pick of the Oakland Athletics in 1976. Three years later, he made his major league debut. It was a typical game for Rickey on June 24, 1979, and would set the tone for his career: two hits and a stolen base.
Between 1979 and his eventual retirement from MLB in 2003, Rickey tallied a staggering 1,406 stolen bases and 3,055 hits for nine different teams. He holds records for career stolen bases, runs, unintentional walks, and leadoff home runs. He was inducted into the HOF on his first ballot appearance in 2009.
Rickey was one of those players who was hard to dislike. He was flashy but thrilling, brash but endearing.
After striking out in a game against Seattle, Rickey was overheard saying to himself: “Don’t worry, Rickey, you’re still the best.”
It took a plaque in Cooperstown to humble him, albeit in a Rickey sort of way. At his induction ceremony, Rickey told the audience that he wanted to be remembered as a “kid from the inner city that played the game with all his heart and never took the game for granted.” He then quoted his idol, Mohammad Ali, and a desire to be “the greatest.” Standing at the podium in Cooperstown, Rickey said his journey felt complete. “At this moment,” he said, “I am very, very humble.”
Thirty-one years before Rickey’s birthday, Nelson “Nellie” Fox was born in a farm town in rural Pennsylvania. His father was a carpenter who had played semi-pro ball. Nellie’s mother, like Rickey’s, is the one who guided him into a baseball career. She wrote a letter on Nellie’s behalf to Connie Mack, then-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics. The letter earned Nellie a tryout in 1944 when he was 16 years old.
Nellie was a small player (Casey Stengel referred to him as “that little feller”) but scrappy and determined. His best years were with the Chicago White Sox where he was a 12-time All-Star second baseman. He died in 1975 at age 47 and was posthumously inducted into the HOF in 1997.
The end of Nellie’s playing career overlapped with the beginning of Joe Morgan’s in Houston. Joe was a prospect in the Astros system and poised to take Nellie’s job at second base. “He didn’t know me from Adam and all of a sudden, he’s coaching me,” Joe said. “He was still a player. He still wanted to play. He put that aside. How many guys would do that? He worked with me every day. He taught me everything he could.”
James Francis "Pud" Galvin was born December 25, 1856. Pud was a dominant pitcher in the 1880s and is known for holding most major pitching records before Cy Young came along. Pud won 46 games in a single season not once, but twice. His nickname reportedly came about because he made hitters look like pudding. He was inducted into the HOF by the Veterans Committee in 1965.
Pud grew up in an Irish immigrant neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri. He was also nicknamed "The Little Steam Engine” because he was small but mighty and "Gentle Jeems" because of his likable disposition.
Pud’s other dubious claim to fame is being known as the first player who used a PED. According to reports, Pud was seen injecting himself with an elixir that contained monkey testosterone prior to a game in 1889.
After retiring from baseball, Pud struggled to make ends meet financially and provide for his family (which included a wife and 11 children). He owned a saloon for a short time but reportedly gave away too many drinks to be profitable. He died at age 45 in 1902, buried with a pauper’s headstone in Pittsburgh.
Nearly a century of time separates the births of Pud Galvin, Nellie Fox, and Rickey Henderson. At some point during the holiday this year, I’ll be raising a glass to them in a “Happy Birthday” toast of appreciation.
Michelle Frost, also known as Padres Geekster, writes for The Kept Faith, a San Diego sports content provider. Her focus is the fan experience and shared connections in the baseball community. Follow her on Twitter, @PadresGeekster, and IG, PadresGeekster.
Cleaning Up
Original Mets Were Both Historical And Hysterical
By Dan Schlossberg
I’m old enough to remember the year the Mets started play.
It was 1962, when Vietnam seemed like a far-away skirmish, segregation still gripped the south, and baseball consisted of two eight-team leagues whose winners went directly to the World Series without passing GO.
The New York Mets and Houston Colt .45s, created to fill two of the cities in Branch Rickey’s proposed Continental League, joined the National League – making it a 10-club circuit with no divisions.
Stocked by an expansion draft that allowed existing teams to protect 15 players in the first round, the Colts went for kids while the Mets went for familiar names. That was a costly mistake.
Hoping to fill the cavernous Polo Grounds, which had been the home of the relocating New York Giants, the Mets became the Over-the-Hill Gang. Its roster sagged under the weight of retreads like Gus Bell, Gil Hodges, Don Zimmer, and Roger Craig. There were even two pitchers with the same name – Bob Miller – and a No. 1 expansion draft pick – Hobie Landrith – who would hit exactly one home run for the Flushing nine.
The Mets even had a pitcher who could explain the dynamics of a curveball but couldn’t throw one. The aptly-named Jay Hook – who was not the captain Peter Pan knew – was an off-season mechanical engineer who never should have traded in his civvies. He did get the first win for the Mets but that was after they lost their first nine.
Zimmer started 0-for-34, Craig was en route to 24 losses, and Bell wasn’t ringing very often. Neither was Hodges, a fine first baseman during his heyday with the Brooklyn Dodgers who would later manage the Miracle Mets of 1969.
Although the Mets had one solid performer in centerfielder Rich Ashburn, who went on to Cooperstown, most of their players were more like Choo-Choo Coleman, a catcher who couldn’t hit, run, field, or throw.
A lifetime .197 batter whose fielding percentage wasn’t much higher, Coleman was once invited onto Kiner’s Korner when the host couldn’t find any other guest.
The conversation, never strong to start with, quickly deteriorated. Ralph Kiner, exasperated, said, “What’s your wife’s name and what’s she like?”
Choo-Choo, hardly the cerebral type, thought for a minute and said, “Her name is Mrs. Coleman and she likes me.”
Landrith, whose pop-fly home run down the short right-field line beat Warren Spahn out of a sure win, was soon traded to the Orioles for Marv Throneberry.
A first baseman with a penchant for strikeouts, errors, and bad base-running, he once complained about not receiving a slice of birthday cake from manager Casey Stengel, another retread. “I would have given you a piece, Marv, but I was afraid you’d drop it.”
When Throneberry was thrown out for allegedly missing third base, Stengel came out to complain. The umpire informed the manager Throneberry had also missed second base.
Then there was the time Stengel called the bullpen and said, “Get Miller hot.” The bullpen coach said, “Which one?” Stengel said, “Bob Miller.” The coach said again, “Which one?”
Even Ashburn contributed to the comedy. Running in for a pop-up, he yelled, “I got it. I got it.”
But shortstop Elio Chacon, who did not speak English, chased the same ball and crashed into the onrushing Ashburn, knocking the ball from his hands. So Ashburn asked for the Spanish version of the words. Another batter hit a pop-up and Ashburn went from it, yelling “Yo tengo! Yo tengo!”
Chacon stopped but left-fielder Frank Thomas, who spoke no Spanish, careened into Ashburn and the ball fell again.
No wonder that team lost 120 games. It would have lost 122 but mercifully had two rainouts that were not rescheduled.
Jimmy Breslin used a Stengel quote as the title of his book about the ‘62 Mets. It was called Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game?
Speaking of books, find much more on the Original Mets and everything else about the game in my 2020 book, The New Baseball Bible: Notes, Nuggets, Lists & Legends From Our National Pastime. Both a bathroom book and a coffee-table book, it’s 480 pages for less than a sawbuck. Here’s the direct order link: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1683583469/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tpbk_p1_i0
HERE’S THE PITCH Weekend Editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ is a national baseball writer for forbes.com, a columnist for Ball Nine, senior writer for Latino Sports, and contributor to Sports Collectors Digest. He’s also an author, speaker, and radio host. Reach Dan via e.mail address ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
Milt Pappas is never mentioned in Cooperstown discussions but finished with the same number of wins as Hall of Famer Don Drysdale (209) . . .
New Marlins GM Kim Ng spent 30 years in various front offices before becoming the first female general manager last month . . .
Before he became 2020 World Series MVP, Dodgers shortstop Corey Seager and brother Kyle, the Seattle third baseman, became the first brothers to homer in the same game since Cesar and Felipe Crespo in 2001 . . .
Major League Baseball consumed more than 100,000 COVID-19 tests during the shortened regular season and expanded postseason this year.
Readers React
Umpires Suffer Stupid Injuries Too
Long-time umpire Al Clark, who worked in the majors from 1976-2001, writes that he enjoyed the HTP piece on stupid injuries:
Today's meme brought back a rather humorous (now) umpire situation that was almost unexplainable.
While umpiring home plate in Tiger Stadium I became so infuriated at Gregg Jefferies’ antics as a hitter protesting a called third strike ... that as he was being ejected I pulled a hamstring that not only hurt like hell but brought me to my knees in pain.
The game was halted. Tigers manager Larry Parrish came to home plate inquiring, "What happened and what the hell is going on?" Fellow umpire Rick Reed came to home plate (more laughing) also inquiring about what happened (yeah, he knew exactly), and all the while Jefferies was protesting now not only the called third strike, but also the ejection!
Somehow I managed to stay in the game (a different time and mindset) and finished the final three innings.
After the game, in the tiniest of dressing rooms, the Tigers doctor came in to tend to my injury. He too was still laughing and declared that THAT was the most peculiar injury he'd ever seen occur on the field.
Yup, crazy injuries are sometimes just unavoidable!
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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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