Moonlight Graham

Archibald Wright Graham died on this date, sixty years ago in Chisholm, Minnesota.  Graham, better known to most as Moonlight and in Chisholm as Doc, came to wide attention as a character in WP Kinsella's novel Shoeless Joe, and the 1989 film based on his book, Field of Dreams.

(Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, from wikipedia)

I recently caught Field of Dreams on TV.  It remains highly rewatchable.  If you haven't seen it, I won't describe the plot because it makes the movie sound ridiculous, while it is really wonderful (and ridiculous at times).  The last scene always moves me. And it is about much more than baseball.
 

I already knew that the real Archie Graham played in the outfield for two innings in a June 1905 game after being called up from the minors to join John McGraw's New York Giants.  It was his only major league appearance and he never got a chance to bat.  Graham (Burt Lancaster) tells the story in Field of Dreams.  In the 1970s, author WP Kinsella ran across a mention of Graham while perusing the Baseball Encyclopedia, was captured by his brief career and nickname, and included him as a character in Shoeless Joe.  Graham reportedly garnered the nickname Moonlight because he was "fast as a flash".

What I had not realized was how closely the fictionalized version of Moonlight Graham in the book and movie was to the real Archibald Graham.

In the movie, Graham's one appearance with the Giants takes place in 1922.  He later retires from baseball and moves to Chisholm, Minnesota, becoming a doctor and dying in 1972.  Doc Graham, as he is known, is a beloved figure in that small town, with a sterling reputation, and devoted to his wife Alicia, who always wears blue.  Doc always walks with an umbrella.  In one scene, Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones) interviews older townsfolk about Doc Graham and they tell endearing stories of him.  Terrence and Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) also go to the local newspaper where a reporter reads to them from Doc Graham's obituary.

It turns out the real Archibald Graham was a college graduate, unusual in baseball in those days, and received his medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1905, the same year he played for the Giants.  After a couple of more years in the minor leagues he moved to Chisholm in 1909, because he was suffering from a respiratory condition and heard the climate in the Iron Range mining town could help him.  The town immediately to the south of Chisholm is Hibbing, where Robert Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) grew up.  Graham opened a medical practice, a few years later becoming the school system doctor, a role he remained in until 1960, along with being the team doctor for all of the school sports teams. He married Alicia Madden, who always wore blue, and he always carried an umbrella.  Doc Graham died in 1965 and Alicia in 1981. The anecdotes used in the movie are from the life of the real Graham, and the reporter in the film is reading from his actual obituary.

From the Chisholm Free Press & Tribune (1965)

"And there were times when children could not afford eyeglasses or milk or
clothing. Yet no child was ever denied these essentials because in the
background there was always Dr. Graham. Without any fanfare or publicity,
the glasses or the milk or the ticket to the ballgame found their way into
the child's pocket." [This was the portion read in Field of Dreams]

From a 2005 article in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:

While still new in Chisholm, he grew sweet on Alicia Madden, a
schoolteacher. She was a farmer's daughter from Rochester, and they married
in 1915.

They never had children. Instead, they showered their affection on every
child in town -- he as the full-time doctor for the public schools for more
than 40 years, she as the director of countless community plays.

They built a house that still stands in southeast Chisholm, on the fringe of
a neighborhood known as Pig Town, for the livestock kept by the hardscrabble
immigrant miners' families.

"That was Doc," said Bob McDonald, who grew up in Chisholm and has coached
high school basketball there for 44 years. "He and Alicia could have lived
up with the high and mighty on Windy Hill, but they chose to be among the
common people."

McDonald remembers a wiry, athletic man, dapper in an ever-present black hat
and black trench coat, walking everywhere and always swinging an umbrella.
Yes, he said, Alicia did always wear blue.

On the opening night of all of her plays, Graham would sit in the same seat
in the back of the high school auditorium, a dozen roses in his lap,
Ponikvar said.

People were poor, but schools used mining company taxes to meet needs. Under
Doc's care, kids got free eyeglasses, toothbrushes and medical care. He
lectured them on nutrition, inoculated them, rode their team buses, made
20-year charts of their blood pressure, swabbed their sore throats, made
house calls if they stayed home sick.

He bought apartment houses but charged rock-bottom rents, and no rent to a
single mother and her eight children, Ponikvar remembers.
"Doc became a legend," she wrote when he died. "He was the champion of the
oppressed. Never did he ask for money or fees."

Below is a preview (narrated by Vin Scully!) of a Mayo Clinic film about Doc Graham's collaboration with the clinic on a groundbreaking study of blood pressure in children.

Greatness Meets Greatness

 Top artists in their respective fields.  Ella Fitzgerald and Willie Mays.

 

Anniversary

Today is the 50th anniversary of a personal event that is significant for two reasons.

The first is that on the evening of July 18, 1975 the future Mrs THC and I attended a Red Sox game at Fenway Park.  It was the first Red Sox game we attended together.  We'd met a few weeks prior and attending this game is the first event in our relationship that we can place a firm date upon.  And, in two weeks, we celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary.

It was also the occasion of the longest home run I've seen hit in person, courtesy of Jim Rice.  

This led to the post from 2017 which follows. 

------------

This is prompted by a conversation at the recently concluded Analytics Conference of the Society for American Baseball Research held in Phoenix.  At lunch I was talking with a fellow attendee who mentioned that at his first game at Fenway he'd seen Mark Fidrych pitch against Luis Tiant.  It turned out I had been at the same game on May 25, 1976 (see The Bird).

I'd been able to figure out the date of the game with the invaluable help of Baseball-Reference.  I've also used BR to reconstruct the first time I saw Willie Mays play and the day I met him (see Meeting Willie Mays), as well as narrowing down the possible dates on which I'd seen my first major league game (My First Ballgame?), and even figuring out what New York Giants game my dad had attended in 1939 based on a blank scorecard he left me (Baseball Scorecard 1939).  After the lunch conversation, I decided to use BR to track down another event I remembered vividly and to see how my recollection matched up with the facts.

What I remembered for certain

The longest HR I ever saw in person was hit by Jim Rice in a game at Fenway in 1975 against the Kansas City Royals.  I remember being stunned at how hard it was hit, how fast it got out of the park, and how far it went.

What I thought I remembered

The homer was hit off Jim Busby, the hard throwing KC pitcher.
Bill Lee was pitching for the Sox.
The Red Sox won the game easily.
The HR was a rising line drive that went over the left center field wall, to the right of the Green Monster and to the left of the flagpole (this was before the centerfield scoreboard was built).
The ball was still rising as it disappeared into the night.
We were sitting in the grandstands underneath the overhang between home and third base.  "We" refers to the future Mrs THC and I.

(Fenway in 1975.  This photo of Fred Lynn shows the outfield as it existed then.  You can see the flagpole.)

What I found out

The game was on July 18, 1975.  Busby and Lee were the pitchers and the Sox won 9-3.  Rice's homer was off Busby, who lasted only 3 1/3 innings, giving up seven runs, but striking out six.

Bill Lee tossed a vintage Bill Lee-style complete game, giving up six hits, walking one and not striking out anyone.  Lee got 16 outs on grounders (including seven in a row at one point) plus two more on  pop ups.  The only Royals to cause Lee trouble were Hal McRae (single, double and triple) and Harmon Killebrew (double and two-run homer in the 9th).  It was also great fun to see Lee tie John Mayberry up in knots with an eephus pitch.  George Brett went 0-4, with three grounders.

I found several articles referencing Rice's titanic blast leading off the third inning for Boston.

Mercy! A Celebration of Fenway Park's Centennial by Curt Smith, describes Rice's homer as one of only six to clear the centerfield wall before the 1976 park alterations.  The others were by Hank Greenberg (1937), Jimmie Foxx (1937), Bill Skowron (1957), Carl Yastrzemski (1970), and Bobby Mitchell (1973).

On July 23, 2015 the Boston Herald, as part of a series about the 1975 Red Sox, carried an article entitled "Jim Rice's Mammoth Home Run off Steve Busby":

The righthander mis-spotted a fast ball and Rice, the Boston rookie slugger, sent the ball out of the park just a little to the left field side of dead center. Rice's home run, making the score 6-0, didn't clear the famed Green Monster, but rather the back wall of the park behind the rows of bleacher seats.

And it did not just slip over that back wall – which in itself constituted a feat reportedly accomplished only five times previous – it exited Fenway somewhere near the top of the flagpole reaching far above the wall.

Then Boston Globe sports writer Peter Gammons famously wrote the "ball was stopped by Canadian customs".  In a 2009 Boston Globe story, reporter John Powers wrote that Yawkey said it was ""unquestionably the longest ever'' hit at Fenway.

The winning pitcher that night, Bill Lee got a good look at Rice's clout.

"Once it leaves the ballpark, it goes over Landsdowne Street, it usually lands in the flatbed of a truck, a train, a truck that's heading west, so it ended up in Buffalo, for all we know," Lee said during a recent visit to Axis Bat Technology in Fall River. "It was an amazing line drive type shot. It wasn't one of those towering high fly balls that (Dave) Kingman hit.

I also learned from the article the game was not televised

At the Sons of Sam Horn website, I found this recollection from someone in the bleachers that night:

I was sitting in the Fenway CF bleachers in July 1975 when I saw Jim Rice teed off on Steve Busby and hit the longest home-run I've ever seen at Fenway. This was before the "600 Club" so there was probably the jet-stream effect, and before the centerfield scoreboard, so there was just a moderately high wall behind the seats in CF. Rice hit a bomb to straight-away CF, that cleared the CF back-wall (behind the batters eye) and from my vantage point some 430-450 ft from home that ball still had an upward trajectory as it left Fenway. It was probably a 500 footer.

At the Baseball Think Factory, Rice answered a question about a homer he'd hit in Comiskey Park this way:

I don’t remember that home run.  Comiskey was a very small ball park.  It was shorter than Fenway to centerfield, short to leftfield, and shorter than that in right.  I had two long home runs in my career that stand out in my mind:

I hit one into the 3rd or 4th deck (however many they have, it was the top one) in Yankee stadium off Matt Keough.  I think Keough hit me with a pitch twice in that game, but third time I got him.

The other home run, which is probably the biggest shot of my career, was off of Kansas City pitcher Steve Busby in 1975.  Mr. Yawkey said it was probably the longest home run he had ever seen.

I'm a little surprised at how close my memory was to the actual event.  Nice to have my recollections confirmed.  It doesn't always happen that way.

The entire game took only 2:07 to play!

And, by the way, it was the very first game that the future Mrs THC attended with THC.  Not a bad night at all.

Polo Grounds

The Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan was the home of the New York Giants from 1891 through 1957 and of the New York Mets in 1962 and 1963.  I only saw one game there, on June 3, 1962, the day Willie Mays returned with the San Francisco Giants to play the Mets, three days before I met Willie at Wrigley Field during batting practice.

Baseball History Nut recently featured a day devoted to the Polo Grounds from which the depictions below are taken.  Here's a piece I did on Mel Ott, the great Giant slugger in the 30s and 40s.

This colorized photo is from before 1920 and shows Coogan's Bluff looming above the park.  There was an elevated subway station atop the bluff, at which you would disembark and walk down to the stadium.

 

This shows the unusual configuration and dimensions of the playing field.

 

 What that configuration looked like:

 

Stan Musial at the Polo Grounds, his favorite park for hitting home runs: 49 in 171 games while also batting .343.  Because of its unusual configuration, the Polo Grounds was the only one of the ten parks in which Stan had at least 100 at bats where he had fewer doubles than home runs - 24 v 49.  It's also the place where he had the second highest on base (.438) and slugging percentage (.633) of the ten.  Ebbetts Field was his favorite - Stan the Man had 100 extra base hits in 161 games at the home field of the Dodgers, batting .359 with a .660 slugging percentage.

 

Raffy's Last Game

 

And now Rafael Devers is gone from the Red Sox.  Pictured are my two Devers bobbleheads.  His last game with the Sox was on Sunday against the Yankees in which Raffy homered in the 5th and drew a walk in his next, and last, at bat in the 8th.

After a miserable start to the season, going 0-21 with 15 strikeouts, Raffy had been the best hitter on the team, averaging .296, slugging .538, with an on-base percentage of .413.

The return haul from the Giants in the trade is not impressive.  Nor was the return from the Dodgers in 2018 in the Mookie Betts trade.  There are some differences in the circumstances.  Mookie had an expiring contract and a was much better all-round player.  Devers is in the 3rd season of a ten-year contract, defensively challenged, and playing solely as a DH.  In addition, he and management clearly did not see eye to eye.  Still disappointing as the Sox had just swept the Yanks, won 7 of 8, and were above .500 for the first time in over a month.  Guess management needed to find something to break the momentum.

Solly's Last Game

On this date in 1959, 36 year old Solly Hemus entered the game in the 8th inning as a pinch-hitter for shortstop Alex Grammas.  The St Louis Cardinals, playing at home, entered the 8th down 3-1 to the Cincinnati Reds.  With two out, George Crowe doubled home Ken Boyer, reducing the Reds' margin to one, and Solly came to the plate with Crowe on second and a chance to even the score.  Instead, he hit a weak grounder to shortstop Eddie Kasko who made the easy throw to first, ending the inning.  It was Solly's last appearance as a player in a major league game.

 

My first memory of collecting baseball cards was of the most frequent cards being those of Phillies shortstop Granny Hamner and Solly Hemus of the Cards, so this must have been 1959, or possibly 1958 (when Hemus was also with the Phillies).  It was always a disappointment getting Granny or Solly because I wanted the big sluggers and top pitchers who were rarities in the card sets we purchased, although a stick of gum came with each pack!

Solomon Joseph Hemus was a shortstop, second baseman, and pinch hitter, who came up to the Cards in 1949, after spending four years during WW2 as an ordnance loader on aircraft carriers, playing with the Birds until traded to the Phillies during the 1956 season and returning to St Louis before the 1959 season. 

Born in Phoenix in 1923, Solly's SABR biography starts with this description:

Pepper pot. Bulldog. Firebrand. Scrapper. Solly Hemus answered to all those descriptions in 11 years as a major-league player and 2½ as a manager.

It goes on to quote Cards GM Bing Devine, “Solly was a hell-bent-for-leather, fiery ballplayer with limited talent.”   

Hemus was considered a weak defensive infielder.  That description is consistent across the board from the observers reported in the SABR biography. However, it raises an interesting question about the newer baseball metrics, because from 1951 through 1953, Hemus is rated by Baseball-Reference as the fourth, first, and sixth rated defensive player in the National League according to Wins Above Replacement (WAR).  Defensive performance is notoriously difficult to quantify and I think it more likely this is a problem with WAR than with contemporary observers.

Solly is also rated by WAR as a top ten offensive player in 1952 and 1953, even though his conventional stats (HR/RBI/Avg) don't look too impressive (15/52/.268 and 14/61/.279).  However, he drew a lot of walks, something no one was paying a lot of attention to at the time, finishing 4th and 5th in the league, making him 6th and 3rd in on-base percentage (another stat no one used at the time).  His effectiveness as a hitter also explains his extended career as a pinch hitter after he stopped being a regular after the '53 season.

According to the SABR biography, Solly was also a racist, something that became apparent in his 2 1/2 tenure as Cardinals manager which began with the 1959 season.  The Cards were one of the last National League teams to integrate and two young black players, Curt Flood and Bob Gibson, began their careers under Hemus.  Both grew to despise their manager for his remarks and treatment; Gibson about to quit baseball because of it until coach Harry Walker persuaded him to stay. Years later Hemus apologized to both players but the damage had been done.  The SABR bio concludes with this:

Late in his life he told author David Halberstam that he had grown up and started in baseball in an era when ethnic insults were common, and had failed to keep up with changing times. He always thought of himself as the underdog: “If you can’t hit, you can’t run, and you can’t throw, you’ve got to holler at them.”

Hemus prospered in his post-baseball career and lived until he was 94, passing in 2017.

Genius

 Willie Mays was born 94 years ago on this date.  He passed last year, but we'll still remember him here.

"There have been only two authentic geniuses in the world, William Shakespeare and Willie Mays."

Tallulah Bankhead

Veteran Pitching

Patriots Day in Boston, April 19, 1948.  The Philadelphia Athletics are in town to play an opening day doubleheader against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park.  

Connie Mack, the 85 year old Athletics team owner and manager, would start two veteran pitchers that day.  And by veterans, I mean World War Two veterans, Phil Marchildon and Lou Brissie.  The unusual part was not that the two were veterans, after all, of the 21 players on both teams who started at least one of the games that day, 19 had been in military service during the war.  What was different about for these pitchers was their wartime experience, Marchildon surviving being shot down on a bombing raid and eight months as a German prisoner of war, while Brissie had been so badly wounded in Italy, no one thought he'd pitch again.

(Lou Brissie)(Phil Marchildon)

Phil Marchildon was Canadian, born in rural Ontario in 1913.  Phil got a late start, not  playing baseball until he was 18 or 19, but showed enough promise to be signed by the Athletics in 1940, becoming a starter for the downtrodden A's in 1941 and 1942, going 10-15 and 17-14, in the latter season being the top pitcher for a team which went 55-99.

After the '42 season, Phil joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, becoming a tail gunner on a Halifax bomber.  On his 26th mission on August 17, 1944 Marchidon, along with a buddy, bailed out of his damaged bomber, plunged into the North Sea, and after being rescued by Danish fishermen, was captured by the Germans.  Phil and his crewmate were the only survivors.

He was sent to Stalag Luft III, where the events depicted in the movie The Great Escape, took place, and was there until the end of the war.  Marchildon lost 40 pounds as a POW, and witnessed some of his fellow prisoners executed for petty infractions.

Phil returned to Canada very depressed and showing symptoms of what we now call PTSD.  He rejoined the A's but according to his SABR biography:

"A fairly open, friendly enough person before the war, Marchildon came back a different, guarded man. As teammate George Kell said, 'Phil really changed after his war experiences; he was very serious and rarely spoke about what he had gone through.'

Returning as a full time starter in 1946, Marchildon went 13-16 and then had an outstanding '47 season, going 19-9 and finishing 9th in the MVP balloting.

On April 19, the A's hurler started out easily setting down the first three Red Sox hitters, Dom DiMaggio, Johnny Pesky and Ted Williams, but seemed to briefly lose it in the bottom of the 2nd when Stan Spence, Vern Stephens, and Bobby Doerr hit back to back to back solo home runs. 

The A's scored one in the 5th and two in the 8th to tie the game, which went into extra innings.  In the top of the 11th, the A's added two more runs and while the Sox scored an unearned run in the bottom of the frame, Phil Marchidon came away with a 5-4 victory.  Over the last nine innings, Phil gave up only 4 hits and no earned runs.

Unlike Marchildon, Lou Brissie had no pre-war major league experience.  A South Carolina boy, born in 1924, Lou signed with the A's right out of high school in 1941.  The plan was for him to attend college and then join the club.  The world had other plans for Lou.

Brissie enlisted in 1942 and ended up in the 88th Infantry Division which saw a year of combat in Italy during 1944 and 1945.  It was hard fighting.  A WW2 US infantry division had about 15,000 soldiers and during its time in Italy, the 88th suffered 12,464 dead, wounding, and missing (excluding captured).  Lou, by then a squad leader, was one of the casualties.

In the Apennine Mountains, near Florence, on December 7, 1944 Lou's unit came under heavy German artillery fire, which killed eight enlisted men and killed or wounded three of the company's officers. The shell that got Lou broke both his feet, shattered his left tibia and shinbone, inflicting shrapnel wounds to his right shoulder, both hands and both thighs.  Knocked unconscious he was found several hours later and taken to a hospital where he successfully pleaded with the surgeons not to amputate his leg.

Lou wrote Connie Mack from the hospital and according to Brissie:

"He told me that my duty now was to try to get well, and whenever I felt I was ready to play, he would see I got the opportunity. That meant an awful lot to me. It was a tremendous motivator.”  

After two years, 23 operations, and with a metal plate in his left leg, Lou was to get his opportunity.  In 1947, pitching for the A's Savannah Indians farm team, Brissie went 23-5 and made his major league debut in late September against the Yankees who hammered him.  His second start was against the Red Sox on April 19, 1948.

Brissie retired the first 6 Red Sox batters before a double and single scored a run in the 3rd, knotting the game at 1-1.  The A's added three runs in the 4th on two hits, including a Brissie single, a walk, and an error, to take a 4-1 lead into the 6th.

In the 6th, after a Dom DiMaggio double, Ted Williams hit a line drive that ricocheted off Brissie's metal leg with DiMaggio scoring.  Williams stopped at first, called time, and went to the mound to check on the prone Brissie.  According to Brissie:

"When Ted leaned down, I said, ‘Damn it, Ted! Why don’t you pull the ball?’” 

The score would remain 4-2, with Brissie tossing a 4-hitter and striking out seven.  He'd go on to compile a 14-10 record and finish 4th in Rookie of the Year voting.

Marchildon and Brissie went on different paths after that day.  For Phil, the opening day victory was the highlight of the season as he finished 9-15 with a sore arm.  He would only pitch 17 more innings in 1949 and 1950 before his baseball career ended.  Marchildon continued to have adjustment problems, sitting around the house and drinking beer according to his SABR bio.  With the help of his wife and friends he eventually pulled himself out of the depths, passing in 1997 at the age of 83.

In 1949, Lou Brissie went 16-11 and pitched in the All-Star game.  His major league career ended in 1953.  After retiring he became Commissioner of the American Legion Junior Baseball Program, and then worked as a scout for the Dodgers and Braves.  Later he served on the South Carolina State Board of Technical Education.  Throughout the years his damaged leg required treatment at Veterans Administration hospitals every four to six weeks.  Lou Brissie died in 2013 at the age of 89.

My thanks to the Society for American Baseball Research biography project which made this piece possible.  I came across a reference to Phil Marchildon, looked up his biography, and while doing further research realized he and Brissie pitched on the same day.

A Memory

Over the years it became overshadowed by the later inning drama of Game 6 of the 1975 World Series between the Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds; Bernie Carbo's pinch hit 3-run homer with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the 8th, Denny Doyle getting thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the 9th, Dwight Evans' miraculous snag of Joe Morgan's line drive in the 11th, and Carlton Fisk's dramatic walk off home run in the 12th, but I still vividly remember the incident depicted above, which occurred in the 5th inning, and the image of a crumpled Fred Lynn so still at the base of the Fenway Park centerfield wall.

The Big Red Machine was ahead 3-2, entering Game 6, and looking to wind things up.  Sox starting pitcher Luis Tiant got through the first 4 innings before running out of gas.  At that point, the Sox were up 3-0 on a three-run home run by rookie sensation Lynn.

In the top of the 5th, Tiant got Caesar Geronimo to fly out but then walked Ed Armbrister and gave up a single to Pete Rose, leaving runners on 1st and 3rd.  Next up was Ken Griffey Sr and he slammed a hanging breaking pitch deep to center.  Lynn racing after it crashed into the concrete wall (padding was added later) and slumped awkwardly and immobile at the base of the wall.  Griffey ended up on third and two runs scored.  Meanwhile, the crowd was completely silent as Lynn stayed motionless.  It was also silent in the living room in which I watched in Maynard, Massachusetts.  Everyone was wondering if he had broken his neck or back.

As Lynn explained years later in this video, he turned just as he hit the wall so that his back, not head, took the impact.  He was fully conscious when he was on the ground, but initially he could not feel anything below his waist and thought the best course of action was not to move.  Fortunately, he got the feeling back and was able to continue in the game, but I will never forget that moment.

Fred Lynn has a very positive, upbeat twitter account, and often visits Fenway.  Take a look.

Rickey's Gone

Super Sky Point to Rickey Henderson, the greatest leadoff man and base stealer to ever set foot on a baseball diamond. I’m stunned. Some guys seem larger than mortality. Rickey was one of them. #RIP pic.twitter.com/CFnizuJAog

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) December 21, 2024

 

The greatest lead-off hitter in major league baseball's 150 year history.  A top-tier Hall of Famer.  One of the most exciting players anyone has seen.  With that distinctive crouched batting stance, of which sportswriter Jim Murray wrote, "He has a strike zone the size of Hitler's heart".  And the source of many funny stories, including his penchant of referring to himself in the third person.

Born Rickey Nelson Henley Henderson, named after Ricky Nelson.  Died a baseball immortal.

A Rickey story told by Harold Reynolds:

One of the best Rickey Henderson stories pic.twitter.com/cGNpH8KA4b

— Baseball Quotes (@BaseballQuotes1) December 21, 2024

Let 'Em Pitch

Watching post season baseball with its parade of pitchers used in every game, prompts me to write up this episode I came across while doing some research after the recent passing of Luis Tiant.

On June 14, 1974 the Red Sox played the California Angels in Anaheim, with Luis starting against Nolan Ryan.  In 1974 Tiant would set a career high in wins with 22 and innings pitched with 311, completing 25 of 38 starts and tossing 7 shutouts.  

Nolan Ryan would also win 22 games that season, tossing 332.2 innings and leading the league in both walks (202) and strikeouts (367).

Luis was pitching on three days rest, having beaten the eventual World Series champs Oakland Athletics at Fenway 3-1, with the A's one run unearned.  The Ryan Express had four days rest, having been roughed up by the Tigers in his previous outing, giving up 11 hits and 5 runs in eight innings while only striking out 6.

Ryan started out on fire, striking out 13 in the first six innings.  He did give up a run in the 4th, when he walked four Sox; he struck out the other three.  At that point the Angels were leading 3-1 because Luis gave up three on three hits and a walk in the 4th.

The Angels lead held until one out in the top of the 9th, when Carl Yazstremski hit a two run homer off Ryan, sending the game into extra innings.  In today's game, Ryan would have already been removed no later than the end of the 7th and he certainly would have been pulled after giving up the home run.  Manager Bobby Winkles left Nolan in.  In fact, he left him in for 13 innings.  The game was still tied at that point.  Ryan had given up eight hits and three runs while walking ten and striking out 19.  It is estimated he threw well over 200 pitches.

Both Luis was still throwing, setting down the Angels in the 14th before finally giving up the winning run with one out in the 15th inning.  He'd given up 11 hits, four runs, four walks, and struck out five.  The game was played in four hours and two minutes.  Tiant threw more than 160 pitches.

Ryan would next pitch on June 18 against the Yankees, going on three days rest and pitching six shutout innings.

Tiant got four days rest, starting against Oakland on June 19, throwing ten innings while giving up only three hits and winning 2-1.  In 14 starts after the Angels game, El Tiante would go 12-2, with nine complete games and four shutouts.

El Tiante

(Enjoying a victory cigar in the whirlpool after the game)

Back in the 70s, I used to imitate his pitching motion.  After bringing the ball down from your chest to your waist in herky jerky fashion, you twisted your body around, back to the batter, looked up at the sky, and then turned back around and threw a strike.  At least Luis did.  I never could.

Luis Tiant passed today at 83.  Written about him a few times; here's one - pitching against Mark Fidrych.

A joy to watch.  Near the end of his time with the Red Sox, I went to Fenway solo and got a ticket a few rows behind home, enabling me to closely observe Tiant.  By that time, he'd lost the blazing fastball, but I was surprised at how slow his fastball had become.  He was still able to fool the batters using different pitching motions and changing speeds.  I was watching a masterclass in the art of pitching.

One of the most beloved players in the history of the franchise.  He should be in the Hall of Fame.

Carlton Fisk agrees. https://t.co/9LxtG16N3V pic.twitter.com/PYDuAqDudl

— Honest☘️Larry (@HonestLarry1) October 8, 2024

Stats II

Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani have had seasons for the ages, separating themselves offensively from everyone else in the league, in a year off general offensive decline in baseball.  The only closely competitive overall performance is by the young Kansas City Royal shortstop, Bobby Witt Jr, who combines sterling offense with top-notch defense.

In my stats post on August 24, I reported on Judge's performance over a 94 game stretch, but used some 100 game benchmarks for comparison.  Aaron's best 100 game performance actually ended on August 28.  During those one hundred games he batted .382, with on-base percentage of .517, while slugging .854 with 45 home runs and 105 RBI.

Meanwhile, Ohtani has had a incredible season, but his last eight games have seen as torrid a performance as any over a similar period in the game's history.  Beginning with his 6 for 6 night against the Marlins, he has 24 hits in 34 at bats, along with 6 doubles, 6 home runs, and 7 stolen bases.  He's hitting .706 and slugging 1.412.  Shohei has been successful in his last 34 steal attempts and is 57 of 61 for the season.  While not as prolific on the basepaths as Ohtani, Judge has stolen ten bases this season without being caught.

Stats

Time for some baseball stats, old and new.

The new: Aaron Judge is not chopped liver.

On May 2, thirty three games into the season, Aaron Judge was batting .197 with a slugging percentage under .400.

In 94 games since, Judge is hitting .384, slugging .852, with an on-base percentage of .504.  He has 68 extra base hits, of which 43 are home runs and has driven in 101, more than an RBI per game.  He's been on base 207 times in those 94 games.

According to OpStats, which compiles esoteric statistical information, Judge is the first player in major league history to, over a 100 game period, bat above .375 with at least 45 homers and 100 RBIs.(1)

And he's a likeable guy, which is terrible for a Red Sox fan.

The old: Lefty Grove was pretty good.

Well, we already knew that.  Lefty had a lifetime 300-141 record, leading the American League a record nine times in ERA.  

But let me tell you about the time when Lefty was really good.

From July 1, 1930 through September 24, 1931, Grove pitched in 69 games for Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics.  Those seasons were in the midst of the greatest offensive explosion of the 20th century in baseball.  The A's won the pennant both years, and their record during the 69 games Lefty appeared was 62-7, with his personal won-loss record 49-5 with eleven saves, because Grove both started and relieved.  During this same period, the A's were 99-64 in games in which Lefty did not make an appearance.

Lefty completed 40 of the 45 games he started, while picking up the eleven saves and seven wins in 24 relief appearances, including one relief stint of 9 innings and another of 8 innings.  Grove appeared in 30% of the games played by the A's in this period.

Of his five losses, two were in relief and three as a starter.  The losses as a starter: 1-0, 2-1, and 3-2 (in this game only one of the 3 runs against Grove were earned).  The 1-0 loss was quite memorable.  Lefty had tied the American League record with 16 straight wins, when on August 23 he faced the weak St Louis Browns lineup.  In the 3rd inning rookie Jimmie Moore, playing in left field in place of the injured Al Simmons, misplayed a fly ball into a double scoring the only run of the game, a miscue not charged as an error.  Grove, highly competitive and with a fiery temper, exploded in the clubhouse after the game, going on a long rant against Simmons and, according to his SABR biography, trying to "tear off the clubhouse door, shredding the wooden partition between lockers, banged up the lockers, broke chairs and ripped off his shirt, buttons flying. 'Threw everything I could get my hands on — bats, balls, shoes, gloves, benches, water buckets, whatever was handy,' he told author Donald Honig"

Over 447 innings Grove's ERA was 2.07.  During this same period the league ERA was about 4.50.

In the middle of this streak, Grove appeared in three games during the 1930 World Series against the St Louis Cardinals.  On October 1, starting Game One, Grove won 5-2.  Four days later, he started and lost Game Four, 3-1, despite tossing a 5-hitter and giving up only one earned run.  The next day, he pitched two innings in relief, picking up the win 2-0.

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(1)  These composite stats are fun but can be misleading.  If you change the .375/45/100 line to .375/40/100 you get other streaks that are as, or more impressive.  Take Babe Ruth, for instance:

1920 - .408/42/107 with OBP of .566 and slugging .933

1921 - .403/41/117 with OBP of .537 and slugging .908

 

Some other comparable Ruth seasons with 100 game streaks:

 

1923 - .412/28/88 with OBP of .556 and slugging .777

1927 - .364/42/121 with OBP of .488 and slugging .778

1931 - .388/32/119 with OBP of .503 and slugging .709

 

In 1932 Jimmie Foxx had a 100 game stretch of .364/41/122 with OBP of .467 while slugging .775

 

On the other hand, during these seasons the league batting average was about .40 points higher than 2024 and about .4 to .5 runs more were being scored per game by each team.

The Catch

Reading about Willie Mays after his passing, I came across this account of what Vin Scully called Willie's greatest catch, and it is not what is now called The Catch - Willie's catch of Vic Wertz's 400+ foot rocket in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series.  Indeed, it is what Willie also thought was his greatest catch and it happened in Ebbets Field in a game against the Dodgers.

It took place at the Dodger's home opener on April 18, 1952.  Willie was beginning his sophomore season, and a month later he was scheduled to report for military service, missing the rest of that season and all of the '53 campaign.

The Giants jumped on starter Clem Labine, scoring five runs in the top of the 1st inning, but the Dodgers slowly chipped away and entered the bottom of the 7th trailing 6-4.  The first two batters were easy, Roy Campanella popped out and Duke Snider hit a one-hopper back to pitcher Dave Koslo.  Then things fell apart; Andy Pafko homered to deep left field on a 0-2 pitch, Gil Hodges singled, and Koslo issued a 4 pitch walk to Carl Furillo.

Bobby Morgan came to the plate, pinch hitting for Carl Erskine.  On the first pitch, the light hitting Morgan hit a long line drive to left center that looked certain to be at least a double, more likely a triple, giving the Dodgers the lead.  Here's Scully's description:

In those days the Ebbets Field warning track was gravel, and the wall concrete.  It was a sinking liner, and in my mind, it would score two runs.  But Willie runs as fast as he could and dives for it with his body parallel to the ground, fully stretched out.  He catches the ball and literally bounces off the gravel and into the base of the wall, rolling over on his back with both hands on his chest.  I'll never forget Henry Thompson, the left fielder for the Giants, walking over, bending down, and taking the ball out of Willie's glove and showing everyone he made the catch.  It was incredible.

This is the AP account of the catch, saying Mays bounced twice on the gravel.

A Society for American Baseball Research article on the catch describes other contemporaneous reactions:

Morgan ripped a liner into left-center-field and Mays began his sprint toward the wall. According to a reporter from Baltimore’s Afro-American, “[I]t was doubtful that anyone in the park, even the most optimistic of the Giant rooters, entertained a hope that (Mays) would catch it.”5

Mays “grabbed Morgan’s blast with a desperation lunge.”6 Dick Young wrote that Mays made “another one of his description-defying catches.” The second-year player “left his feet. He actually bounced, crashed into the wall on the first hop, and rolled over on his back. But he held the ball.”7 Young’s colleague at the New York Daily News, Dana Mozley, insisted “Willie Mays just had no right” to catch Morgan’s liner.8

After the game, the talk turned more to Mays’ catch than Pafko’s heroics. “The greatest catch I ever saw in my life,” [Dodger Pee Wee] Reese said. “He came with it. I know that. There’s no argument. It was in his glove when he turned over, and Thomson went over and picked it out.”10

Brooklyn Eagle sportwriter Harold Burr, in an article titled "Mays’ Catch Greatest, Dodgers, Giants Agree”, wrote “It looked as if the best Willie could do with the drive was to hold it to the double.”

Unfortunately, we have no film of the catch.  Based on Mays' later recollection and accounts of others it seems like Willie momentarily lost consciousness when he bounced into the wall.  Accounts have players of both sides running out to center field after the catch.  Willie remembered waking up and seeing Jackie Robinson and Leo Durocher (Giants' manager) standing over him, Jackie to see if he really caught the ball and Leo to make sure he was okay.

Mays stayed in the game, but struck out in his next two at bats.  In the bottom of the 8th, Jackie Robinson hit a home run to tie the game, and the Dodgers won in the 12th when Pafko hit his second round tripper.

Late in life, Willie said: “That (the catch off Morgan) was a good catch, better than the World Series catch. I believe my best catch.”

Bobby Morgan died in his hometown, Oklahoma City, on June 1, 2023, a month short of his 97th birthday.  At the time, he was one of only two surviving members of the Boys of Summer, the Dodgers' pennant winning teams of 1952 and 1953.  With his passing, and that of Carl Erskine in April of this year, they are all gone.  

During his time with the Dodgers, Bobby was a utility infielder known for his fielding, not hitting, though he had a good eye at the plate, drawing a lot of walks.  You can read about Bobby and some of the stories of his time in baseball here, here, and here.  

Willie Mays was the last living player from the Giants' pennant winning 1951 squad.

Goodbye Willie

He was the first athlete I knew by name because my dad spoke so frequently about him.  His major league debut was when I was three months old, so he's been around my entire life. Willie Mays is gone at 93.

My dad's favorite ballplayer and mine.  Willie was part of our shared lives and conversations over the years.  Dad passed ten years ago, also at the age of 93, and since then, every time I see, read, or think about Willie, I think about my father.  I knew Willie was declining but this is hard news nonetheless.

George Arrives At St Mary's

(Ruth, on right)

On this date in 1902, seven year old George Herman Ruth arrives at St Mary's Industrial School for Boys.  It was at St Mary's that little George would be introduced to organized baseball under the instruction of Father Matthias and it was directly from St Mary's that George would be signed and go to the Baltimore Orioles of the International League in 1914.  Later that year his contract would be purchased by the Boston Red Sox.

The child was escorted to the school by a local police officer.  Whether beat cop Harry Birmingham was asked to do a favor for a friend, George Ruth Sr, is unknown, but the boy was not in formal police custody. Unlike his parents, Birmingham would occasionally visit George at St Mary's.  According to Jane Leavy's biography of the Babe, The Big Fella, Birmingham later told his children and grandchildren:

He felt sorry for the boy, living above a bar . . .

Leavy quotes him telling a Baltimore sportswriter years later:

"I remember that Babe was a little rascal.  Although he was not a bad boy - just mischievous, and no more so than any other boys his age.  He certainly never gave the police any trouble.  But his father decided to send him to St Mary's because he just couldn't make him mind at home."

Though George's sister claimed he was sent to St Mary's because he refused to go to school, he was too young at the time to be attending school.  His homelife was chaotic.  George and his sister were the only survivors of six siblings, the other four dying a very young ages.  His parents had a fractured relationship with his father eventually suing for divorce on grounds of adultery.  His father died in a street brawl during Babe's teunure with the Red Sox.

For most of the next twelve years, St Mary's was George's home.  Everything he did was communal, sleeping, eating, school. 

St Mary's stood on a hill on what was then the rural outskirts of Baltimore.   Built by the Roman Catholic Church, the building was five stories tall.   According to Leavy, St Mary's:

. . . was unique among the religious institutions create to care for what Baltimore industrialist Alex Brown called 'the broken wreckage of industrial society', because it was funded by Baltimore City and the state of Maryland.  Founded by the archbishop as a refuge for Catholic boys who faced bias in public institutions, St Mary's became a nondenominational public charity eight years later, when it was incorporated by the city and state as a place to settle vagrant and homeless boys.

Its remit was expanded beyond the homeless and orphans in 1882 when a state statute allowed parents to commit a child they deemed beyond their control and were required to designate the school's superintendent as the child's legal guardian.  That is how George Ruth came to St Mary's.  Or perhaps not.  No court order has ever been found, and the Babe's sister remembers that her father paid tuition while George was at the school.

The Xaverian Brothers who ran the school instilled a minimal sense of discipline in George and harnessed his energy into playing baseball.  There were many Brothers who played a role in his development but it was Brother Matthias to whom Ruth gave the most credit, calling him "the greatest man I've ever known".

Throughout his life Babe Ruth helped support St Mary's, making substantial financial gifts as well as organizing and sponsoring fundraising activities.  He also helped many of his fellow inmates who befriended him during those years.  And the New York Yankees called on the Xaverians of St Mary's on several occasions to visit Babe during one of his wild periods in order to adjust his behavior.

Saying Goodbye

Powerful photograph of Babe Ruth standing in front of Lou Gehrig’ casket, paying his last respects to his former Yankees teammate. pic.twitter.com/o7L1QjCB2e

— Baseball’s Greatest Moments (@BBGreatMoments) April 21, 2024

 

Lou Gehrig died on June 2, 1941, after ending his consecutive game streak in May 1939.  Until recently I'd never seen this photo of Babe Ruth at the funeral, gazing at his teammate in an open casket - dead at the age of 37.  Babe would die only seven years later at 53.

Willie Turns 93

Happy birthday, Willie Mays!  Here he is with San Francisco Giants catcher and future Hall of Fame member Buster Posey, who made his major league debut 36 years after Willie retired.

Willie Mays and Buster Posey pic.twitter.com/ldGh9JZAGT

— BaseballHistoryNut (@nut_history) December 21, 2023

The Last Of The Boys Of Summer

Earlier this month Carl Erskine passed away at the age of 97.  The last of the Brooklyn Dodger players on the 1952 and 1953 teams that were the subject of Roger Kahn's best selling The Boys of Summer.  A good long life for a good man, about whom I wrote in 2020.  He leaves behind his wife of 76 years and fond memories among all those he encountered and helped.

Carl was one of two surviving members of the Dodgers 1955 World Championship team.  Now only Sandy Koufax, 88, is left.