From June 28 to July 2, Rita and I took an East Coast stadium bus tour organized by Triple Crown Travel. It was hosted by two very nice guys, and we can recommend the experience – at least for baseball nuts. Among the other 39 on our bus were fans of the Cubs, Pirates, Mariners, Red Sox, Indians, Dodgers and Angels. Some highlights:
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.
Before you think I have referred to the wrong Yankee center fielder, I should tell you that I am talking about my 1952 Mantle baseball card, not Paul Simon’s lament on the loss of heroes like Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio.
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.
On Charlie Brown’s team, Linus is the regular second baseman and forms a double-play combo with Snoopy at shortstop. Linus often has an issue of what to do with his security blanket while batting and fielding. Another fielding issue is that he takes his position by standing on second base, somewhat limiting his range. He also pitches when Charlie Brown is unable to do so, and these are the few games that the team wins.
My dear friend Bob Morantz died in March. He was 73. Rita and I attended Bob’s memorial service in Florida on April 18.
With your permission, I won’t talk about the just-concluded series with the current Washington team. Let’s just go with the headline in the KC Star this morning: “Swarmed by Nats.”
The Royals will be hosting the Washington Nationals this week, and my partner Tim Sear has scored tickets for us for tonight’s game. As of today, the best records in baseball belong to the Cubs (17-6) and the Nationals (17-7). I am looking forward to seeing Bryce Harper who was on the cover of Sports Illustrated at age 16 and National League MVP last year at age 22. His idols are Mantle, Rose and Brett. He wears #34 because 3 and 4 add up to Mantle’s #7. Here is what Brett had to say about Harper’s MVP season (click here, 37 seconds). This past weekend, the Nationals swept the Cardinals in St. Louis, but Harper was 0 for 11. So look out. And on Wednesday afternoon, the Royals will face Stephen Strasburg (4-0). They are two of the most hyped players of recent years with Strasburg being the #1 overall draft pick in 2009 and Harper the same in 2010.
Prince of Baseball: The death of the music artist Prince this past week was widely noted, including on baseball diamonds. Prince songs were played in many stadiums and several players changed their walk-up songs to honor Prince. Alex Rodriquez used a different Prince song for each of his four at-bats (0-2 and 2 walks). Over the years, Prince’s hometown team, the Twins, have welcomed new players with a ritual where the player sings excerpts from Prince’s “Little Red Corvette” (click here, 39 seconds). The song is about a one night stand with a fast woman (she being his “Little Red Corvette”) – my generation’s version was Chuck Berry’s “Maybellene” (“why can’t you be true…”). General Motors ran its own tribute ad:
The National League had eight teams until 1962 when the New York Mets and the Houston Colt .45s became the NL’s first expansion teams. The Mets played their first two seasons at the old Polo Grounds where the Giants had played until they left for San Francisco in 1958. In 1964, the Mets moved to the new Shea Stadium located in Queens next to the fairgrounds of the 1964-64 New York World’s Fair. The Mets left Shea after the 2008 season to play in the new Citi Field.