Saturday, July 8
PLUS: DISABLED ATHLETE ADVOCATE CONVINCED MLB TO CHANGE 'DISABLED LIST' TO 'INJURY LIST'
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Pregame Pepper
Did you know…
If six Braves reach 30+ homers this season, as projected, that would be a major-league record. The 2019 Twins (Eddie Rosario, Nelson Cruz, Mitch Garver, Miguel Sano and Max Kepler) are the only team to have five different players hit 30-plus homers the same season . . .
With six 2023 All-Stars, including four starters, the Texas Rangers are two short of their 2012 club record . . .
NL teams that had eight All-Stars in a season: 2023 Braves, 2008 Cubs, 1960 Pirates, 1956 Reds, 1943 Cardinals . . .
With Spencer Strider and Bryce Elder selected, the Braves have two starting pitchers on the All-Star team for the first time since 2000, when future Hall of Famers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine were chosen . . .
Elder was the Opening Day starter at AAA Gwinnett in April . . .
Veteran Braves third base coach Ron Washington, 70, said he is especially proud to see his entire starting infield headed to Seattle as All-Stars.
Leading Off
A Pitcher with Uniform Number 1? It’s Happened Before
By Andrew C. Sharp
Five pitchers in MLB history had worn the uniform number 1 before MacKenzie Gore, now with the Nationals, began wearing it in 2022.
Gore became the first Nationals’ pitcher to wear a single-digit number, let alone number 1. He also became the first MLB pitcher to wear it for more than one season. (He had done it while with San Diego in ’22.)
Gore told the Washington Post’s Jesse Dougherty in May that he began wearing No. 1 on youth teams because at the time he was smaller than his teammates.
One of the five pitchers before Gore to wear number 1 was a member of the 1962 Senators: Jack Jenkins. (As an avid fan of the expansion team, I have to admit I don’t remember that guy.)
For the record, as a 19-year-old, Jenkins started -- and completed, sort of – the last game of the 1962 season. It was the second game of a double-header in Boston. He got the first batter in bottom of the ninth of a 1-1 game before issuing a walk and a game-ending home run; still, a pretty creditable performance. He pitched in four games for the Nats in ’63 before making it back briefly with the Dodgers -- in 1969.
Ed Gallagher of the 1932 Boston Red Sox was the first pitcher to wear No. 1. Numbers weren’t yet universal. The Phillies in 1939 were the last team to adopt them.
Uniform No. 1 isn’t available today on eight teams. The Brewers, Cardinals, Dodgers, Phillies, Pirates, Red Sox, Reds and Yankees all have retired the number worn by revered players or managers.
In the first decade of the 20th Century, several teams began assigning numbers to players in the day’s scorecard and displaying those numbers on the scoreboard batting order. By 1911, Washington was among the teams doing this. The numbers for the players were changed frequently so fans would have to buy new scorecards.
Uniform numbers were used by Negro League and minor league teams before they appeared on the backs of players in the majors. In 1916, Cleveland, newly known as the Indians, experimented with uniform numbers on the players’ sleeves, but soon abandoned them. The Cardinals briefly tried numbers in the early 1920s.
Then, before the 1929 season, the Yankees announced that the team would begin putting numbers of the back of players’ uniforms. Cleveland quickly followed suit and, because of a New York rainout, actually beat the Yankees onto the field with the numbered players.
The Yankees assigned the first set of the team’s numbers according to positions in the batting order. So Babe Ruth got 3 and Lou Gehrig got 4. Today, no other Yankee wears those retired numbers. In fact, with Derek Jeter’s retirement (he wore No. 2), no single-digit number is available to a Yankee player.
Traditionally, No. 1 often has been assigned to a player who bats at the top of the order. When most teams began using numbers, they were assigned based on the batting order.
In 1939, the Reds began assigning their manager uniform No. 1. That ended forever once Fred Hutchinson’s No. 1 was retired following his death from cancer in 1964. Over the years, other managers have worn No. 1, retaining it after their playing days. Billy Martin with the Yankees was an example.
A pitcher for the Rays, Luis Patiño, wore No. 1 in 2022. In 2020, so did Shun Yamaguchi of the Blue Jays. Neither is a household name, but neither is Gore, yet.
Gore wore No. 1 through high school, but didn’t ask for it when he was in the minors. That would have been an audacious move for a young player.
He wore 89 in his first major league camp with the Padres, Dougherty wrote. When Gore made the team out of spring training, Padres’ general manager A.J. Preller offered him uniform No. 1. Preller had scouted Gore in North Carolina before the Padres drafted him in 2017 and recalled the pitcher’s unusual choice of a number.
The 2022 deadline trade for Juan Soto and Josh Bell sent Gore to the Nationals with CJ Abrams, James Wood, Robert Hassell III, Jarlin Susana and Luke Voit. Because of arm trouble, Gore didn’t appear in a game the rest of the season.
None of the seven Nationals who have worn No. 1 did it for more than two seasons, Dougherty reported. The last was Cesar Hernandez in 2022.
Three active pitchers wear number 0, if that’s a number, rather than a placeholder: the Mets’ Adam Ottavino, the Cubs’ Marcus Stroman, and the Yankees’ Domingo German. A handful of other pitchers, including former Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell of San Diego, wear single-digit numbers.
Nats’ manager Davey Martinez wore No. 1 as an outfielder with the Expos, Giants and Rangers. “Numbers are just numbers,” he told Dougherty. “I don’t know MacKenzie other than him wearing No. 1. He loves it. It’s good.”
Andrew C. Sharp is a retired daily newspaper journalist and a SABR member who has written several dozen Bio and Games Project essays. He blogs about D.C. baseball at Washingtonbaseballhistory.com
Cleaning Up
Why the Disabled List Isn’t the Disabled List
By Dan Schlossberg
The Commissioner of Baseball gets thousands of emails — and even a few letters — every day. But few have the impact of the mailed message Rob Manfred received five years ago from Eli Wolff, a member of the U.S. Soccer Team at the 1996 and 2004 Paralymic Games.
As an experienced and articulate advocate for disabled people like himself, Wolff was offended that Major League Baseball had something called “the disabled list.”
With one-handed pitcher Jim Abbott a notable exception, the vast majority of players who landed on it were injured but not disabled. And Wolff said so in his firm but polite letters to Manfred and his aide Billy Bean, then Vice President and Ambassador for Inclusion in the Office of the Commissioner.
According to Baseball Prospectus, Bean had an instant reaction. “This is an easy one for us,” he said before showing the suggestion to Dan Halem, then chief legal counsel for MLB.
After discussing the change with Manfred, they asked the Players Association for agreement — never an easy task between parties with a long history of acrimony.
The reasoning was simple: players sidelined by injury or illness are unable to play but are not disabled. On the other hand, disabled athletes are able to compete every day.
Agreement came quickly, creating the new injured list (IL) before the 2019 campaign. Bean and Wolff not only worked to convince skeptics the change was a good idea but worked together on such disability-related issues as making sure renovations at Fenway Park, Wolff’s “home” ballpark, met standards for accessibility.
Wolff, who later became Advocacy Coordinator for the Boston-based Ruderman Family Foundation, used his publicity skills to promote the new IL, leaning on team publicists, MLB Network, team broadcasters, and media members to use it.
They did, changing only one word in a baseball rule that had existed for more than a century.
Created during a National League club owners meeting in 1915, the original disabled list allowed teams to keep injured players out of games for at least 10 days without those players counting against their 21-man rosters. Since that time, rosters have expanded to 26 and the injured list has separate sections for concussions (7 days), position players (10), pitchers (15), and long-term injuries (60).
Born with a heart condition, Wolff suffered a boyhood stroke that left him paralyzed on the left side. Even without the ability to use his left arm or leg, he re-learned his motor skills so well that he became accomplished in ping-pong — a sport that requires great eye-hand coordination.
He also mastered soccer, founding the Men’s CP National Team (for people with stroke, cerebral palsy, or TBI). He also advocated on behalf of others with disabilities.
A co-founder and director of the Disability in Sport Initiative at the Center for Sport in Society at Northeastern University, Wolff also was instrumental in the creation of the ESPY award for Best Athlete With a Disability, Men’s and Women’s Sports.
He lived to see the change from disabled list to injured list, though he passed away at age 45 at the start of the current baseball season. Survivors include his wife Cheri Blauwet, a specialist in orthopedic surgery, and children Stella and Spencer.
Wolff’s widow is an eight-time wheelchair marathon winner and three-time Paralymian who won seven medals.
Former AP sportswriter Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ has covered all aspects of baseball since 1969. His byline is published by forbes.com, Memories & Dreams, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest, and Here’s The Pitch, among others. He’s also the author of 40 books, with two more in progress. E.mail him at ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
In addition to the eight current Braves on the National League roster, the Senior Circuit also includes former Braves Freddie Freeman, Dansby Swanson, and Jorge Soler . . .
Freeman follows Gil Hodges and Steve Garvey as All-Star first basemen from the Dodgers but is their first corner infielder to start in the Midsummer Classic in 43 years . . .
Speaking of the Dodgers, Clayton Kershaw is an All-Star for the 10th time, tying the franchise record of Pee Wee Reese, but will miss the game with shoulder problems . . .
The only pitchers with more All-Star selections were Warren Spahn (14), Mariano Rivera (13), Tom Seaver (12), and Roger Clemens (11), while Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson, and Tom Glavine made it 10 times each . . .
Mike Trout, at age 31, has already been an All-Star 11 times . . .
This is the first time both leagues have rookie position players (Josh Jung AL and Corbin Carroll NL) starting the All-Star Game, following the 2008 pairing of Kosuke Fukodome (NL) and Geovany Soto (AL) . . .
This is the also first year since 1960 that the Braves have at least three position players starting. They had four that year in Henry Aaron, Eddie Mathews, Joe Adcock, and Del Crandall.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Benjamin Chase [gopherben@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.