Nerd Alert: This Hot Stove thing grew out of the euphoria of the 2015 World Series. The idea was to supplement my playoff postings for the “serious” baseball fans during the Hot Stove season. Many casual fans also signed on and sometimes the commentary can get a little long for them. As my wife and editor Rita says, I occasionally “get down into the weeds.” Mostly I try to listen to her. Sometimes I just have to be in the weeds.  So I have compromised and will do a short version and then take a commercial break for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Then, for the nerds, the long version, which is so long that there will be a Part Two in Hot Stove #26. Think of it this way. You can listen to the hit single (no pun intended) or the long play album. There will be no test.

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Rita and I have returned from Cuba and the Telluride Film Festival. My Hot Stove sabbatical is over. If you are a movie fan, my Telluride reviews are on Lonnie’s Jukebox. As for Cuba and getting back to Hot Stove baseball, please read on.

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Sabbatical Notice: It is hard to read and write at the same time. I am way behind on my book reading because of Hot Stove and some recent political writing (more on that later in this post). So Hot Stove is going on sabbatical. Rita and I head to Miami on Saturday to catch a cruise ship to Cuba – spending my 75^th birthday in Havana. The trip after that will be the Telluride Film Festival over Labor Day Weekend. After Telluride, Hot Stove will return, though not likely reporting on the Royals approaching the playoffs. But I will have some movie reviews and more baseball nostalgia and trivia.

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Without knowing it at the time, this Hot Stove post began percolating in my mind at Van Horn High School in about 1957. I had turned 16 and now had the pleasure of listening to rock ‘n’ roll while driving. Jim Graham, a pal since grade school, and Bill Lochman, a new friend in high school, invited me and my 1954 Ford to join their hot rod club, the Draggin’ Diplomats. My parents were not that keen on the hot rod thing, but they passed along some info on my new friend Lochman – they said that Bill’s dad Walt was well known to them as the early radio voice of the Kansas City Blues.  It turned out that almost everyone from my parents’ generation was familiar with Walt Lochman who broadcast the Blues games from 1935 to 1942. Bill of course confirmed this to me, but I never met his dad who had died in 1954. Over the last year, a couple of reminders of Walt Lochman put me on the trail of a special KC baseball story.

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In Part One of this second base discussion, we took a look at Hornsby, Collins, Lajoie, Morgan and Robinson as candidates for the best of all-time. Feedback from readers included Gehringer, Sandberg, Alomar, Richardson and Carew. Cardinals fans not only have Hornsby to tout, but also Frankie Frisch, the “Fordham Flash,” and Red Schoendienst. Bobby Grich and Lou Whitaker are in the top 10 of WAR, but not in the Hall of Fame. Nor is Willie Randolph. Bill Mazerowski is in the HOF, but not Frank White who has almost identical numbers, right down to the eight Gold Gloves. Time to talk about Frank.

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