I receive comments from time to time from Hot Stove readers, and this post collects some of these and adds some trivia and nostalgia.
Derek Jeter/The Players’ Tribune: Jay Anderson (in NY and a Yankee fan) reminded me of the media platform founded by Derek Jeter soon after he retired in 2014. “The Players’ Tribune” provides athletes with an opportunity to connect directly with their fans in first-person stories. Jay sent me one by Torii Hunter, a long-time tormentor of the Royals when he played for the Angels, Twins and Tigers. Hunter begins his story in 1997 when he was a minor league rookie in Double A ball. After spring training, his team was scheduled to play seven home games, and he had not yet received his first pay check. He could not afford the $19/day for a hotel room, so he and another player rented a Geo Prizm at $6.99/day to sleep in overnight. They showered in the clubhouse before other players arrived. They were glad for the first road trip when the club paid for the hotel. He thought about quitting, but in August, he was called up to the Twins to temporarily fill a roster slot. After his short “cup of coffee” in the majors, he returned to Double A, but by 1999, he was in the majors for good. Click here for the full article.
I scrolled through the baseball part of the Tribune and came up with these on the 2015 Royals:
http://www.theplayerstribune.com/eric-hosmer-kansas-city-royals/. As the playoffs began, Eric Hosmer wrote a piece to assure fans that the Royals team of 2014 was no fluke and that 2015 would prove his case.
Photo gallery of the “Instant Classic” Game 1 of the World Series.
Ozzie Smith and a Love Story: We have all heard the sad stories about mothers throwing out baseball cards after their sons go off to college (like mom Katie Shalton). Here is a variation of that story. About 20 years ago, my wife Rita introduced Cheryl Dillard, a friend from our political days, to our dentist, Pat Titterington. Rita’s fix-up worked as Cheryl and Pat were married two years later. In the last Hot Stove post, I wrote about the great defensive shortstop Ozzie Smith, and this prompted an email from Pat:
“Many years ago Cheryl’s company had a table at the opening banquet for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. Many great players from the past were there signing stuff so I got a few baseballs signed by players like Lou Brock and Ozzie Smith. Got home that night, put the baseballs in a bookcase in our front hall, and basically forgot about them. I would look at them every once in a while but since Cheryl wasn’t a baseball fan, we never had any together time with the balls. Fast forward a few years when a patient comes in my office and tells me how generous it was for me to donate my baseballs to the silent auction she was at last weekend, where she bought them for her son Jack. Well, I didn’t answer her, and after some silence, she said “I bet you didn’t know that Cheryl had put them up for auction” and I had to reply that I didn’t know anything about It. Since she and her son lived across the street from us I told her that all was fine because I would always know where they were. When I got home that night I asked Cheryl what happened. She said that since I never looked at the baseballs that she was sure I would never notice that they were gone. Knowing that I loved my wife far more than the baseballs I let it go at that, but that is the story of how I had and lost a baseball signed by Ozzie Smith.”
Better an Ozzie Smith baseball than a Ty Cobb baseball card – more on that below.
1962 World Series, Game 7: Bill Carr sent me a Peanuts baseball strip that I had not remembered. Here is the backstory. The Yankees were at Candlestick and tied with the Giants at three games each in the 1962 World Series. The Yankees had a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the ninth, and two men were out. Matty Alou of the Giants was on first. Starter Ralph Terry was still on the mound for the Yankees. Willie Mays at the plate. Willie hit a double to right, and coach Whitey Lockman held Alou at 3rd after a good play by Roger Maris to cut off the ball in right. With runners at 2nd and 3rd, Willie McCovey came to the plate. Manager Ralph Houk conferred with Terry, left him in, and they agreed that Terry would pitch to McCovey rather than walk him to fill the bases. The next batter would have been the even more dangerous Orlando Cepeda. McCovey smashed a ball toward right, and for a split second it looked like the Giants would score the two runners and win the World Series. But second baseman Bobby Richardson snagged the ball in a bang-bang play for the third out. Game and Series over. Damn Yankees.
Charlie Brown and Linus, fans of the Giants, pouted about this for months. They went public with their sadness in a strip on December 22, and they were still at it on January 28. In the later strip, Charlie Brown reduced his request by a foot, apparently believing that this might have been enough for McCovey’s drive to escape the reach of Bobby Richardson’s glove.
[Trivia 1: Did you catch the parallel of coach Whitey Lockman holding Alou, the tying run, at third with two out in the bottom of the 9th of Game 7 of the World Series? You remember: Alex Gordon and Royals 3B coach Mike Jirschele in 2014. In both cases, replays show that the runner would likely have been thrown out by several feet. Nevertheless, there was a lot of second guessing by Giants fans back in 1962, just like we had in Kansas City in 2014.]
[Trivia 2: Two years earlier, the Yankees played Pittsburgh in the 1960 World Series. The same Ralph Terry was on the mound for the Yankees in the bottom of the 9th of Game 7. This was a wild game, and Terry was the last of nine pitchers. The Yankees led 5-4 going into the eighth and scored two more runs to make it 7-4. But the Pirates came back with five in the bottom of the 8th to go ahead 9-7. Sounds like the Royals. The Yankees came back with two in the 9th to tie the game at 9-9, setting the stage for Terry to face Bill Mazeroski leading off the bottom of the 9th. Maz then hit his historic walk-off home run to make the Pirates the 1960 champs. It was the first ever walk-off homer to win a World Series and has only been matched since by KC resident Joe Carter who did it for the Blue Jays in 1993.
[Trivia 3: Charlie Brown pitched in the major leagues in 1897 (click here).]
More Catches: The catches by Mays, Edmonds and Trout in prior Hot Stove posts generated responses from a couple of my law partners. Larry Ward sent this video of Rick Monday making the “greatest play in baseball” in Bicentennial Year 1976, almost 40 years ago. Monday was playing center field for the Cubs in a game against the Dodgers at Chavez Ravine. Two protestors came on the field to burn an American flag, and Monday ran in and snatched the flag to the cheers of the Dodger fans (click here for video).
In 1965, Monday was the first overall pick in the first baseball draft ever held. He was selected by the KC A’s and played his first full season in the majors in 1967 – the A’s last in KC. The next year, he moved with the team and owner Charlie Finley to Oakland. He had a 19-year career, including stints with the Cubs and Dodgers. Monday was not with the A’s when they won the World Series in 1972, 1973 and 1974, but he still contributed in an important way – after the 1971 season, he was traded to the Cubs for pitcher Ken Holtzman who became an ace for those championship A’s teams.
Pete Levi reminded me of the Bo Jackson catch made in Baltimore in 1990. Bo caught the ball on the dead run and wanted to avoid a collision with the wall because it might reinjure his bad shoulder. So, instead of crashing his body into the fence, he ran up the wall. Easily one of baseball’s most memorable plays – don’t miss the announcer’s reference to “Spiderman” (click here). Remember the “Bo Knows” Nike campaign? “Bo you don’t know Diddley.” Click here.
Bo made his MLB debut with the Royals in late 1986 and retired from baseball in 1994. He played football for the Raiders from 1987 to 1990. He is the only player to be an all-star in two major sports. His rookie football card noted on the reverse that he was also playing for the Royals:
Bo was drafted by the Royals in the 1986 draft, but he was not the first football star they tried to sign. In 1985, they drafted Deion Sanders, but he did not sign with them. In 1988, Deion was drafted by the Yankees and went on to play in parts of nine major league seasons. His true stardom was as a cornerback in the NFL from 1989 to 2005. Brian Jordan was drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals and Atlanta Falcons in 1989, and he played both sports from 1989 to 1991. The safety became a full-time outfielder in 1992, and he played 15 seasons in the major leagues. His 1998 Topps card gave a nod to his football past:
Ty Cobb Baseball Cards: Hollis Hanover sent me the story of the seven rare Ty Cobb baseball cards recently discovered in a crumpled paper bag in a dilapidated house. “Rare” is a relative term here since the card is now not as rare as before this find (the known cards having now increased from 15 to 22). The cards are part of the same T206 series that spawned the Honus Wagner card discussed in a recent Hot Stove post – the card that sold for $2.8 million. The typical card in the T206 series had a cigarette ad on the back, but Cobb’s features him as the “King of the Smoking Tobacco World.” Here is a good NPR article on the discovery.
This is an opportune time to mention Charles M. Conlon, sometimes called the Mathew Brady of baseball. Brady was the famous photographer who chronicled the Civil War. Likewise, Conlon did this for the early years of baseball from the turn of the century to WW II. Click here for an article on Conlon from the National Pastime Museum. One of his most famous photos is this one of Ty Cobb sliding into third base (like his baseball card, circa 1910; look at the dirt flying).
Coming Hot Stove Attractions: Spring Training – Then and Now; Best all-time at 2nd base (Hornsby, Morgan, Robinson, Lajoie, Collins?); 2016 Opening Day.