Good afternoon, baseball fans. I’ll begin with a shout-out to Central Catholic High School in Pittsburgh, which produced, inter alios, Sam McDowell, Tony LaCava, Cam Balego, Marc Bulger, Dan Marino, and Jack Twyman, and where I’ll be attending my 50-year high school reunion this evening.
Those Literate Tigers
September 20, 1934: Before the Detroit Tigers suffered an 11-7 defeat at the hands of the New York Yankees at Navin Field this afternoon, in a sign of how times have changed, the Wahl-Eversharp Pen and Pencil Company presented Tigers broadcaster Ty Tyson and manager/catcher Mickey Cochrane with a desk set and players Charlie Gehringer, Hank Greenberg, and Schoolboy Rowe with a pen and pencil set. This probably isn’t the greatest story ever to appear here, but the notion of presenting ballplayers with pens and pencils before a game struck me as funny. Contrast that with Rickey Henderson, who, when the Oakland Athletics gave him a brand-new Porsche for breaking the all-time stolen base record, said he preferred a Mercedes-Benz, while acknowledging that the Porsche was “a nice summer car.” What would he have said to a pen and pencil set? “What, no personal stationery?”
“I Think the Time is Right”
September 20, 1998: That’s what Baltimore Orioles third baseman Cal Ripken Jr. said to his manager, Ray Miller, five minutes before his team was to take the field against the Yankees at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Miller inserted rookie Ryan Minor, who made his major league debut just a week before, into the lineup in Ripken’s place. Thus ended Ripken’s remarkable consecutive games played streak at 2,632, while Minor entered the annals as perhaps the most famous replacement in baseball history. It was just three years and two weeks ago that Ripken broke the thought-to-be unbreakable record when he played in his 2,131st straight game, surpassing Lou Gehrig. Ironically, he ended the streak against Gehrig’s former team.
After the Yankees’ leadoff batter, Chuck Knoblauch, opened the game by taking the first pitch, the Yankees moved to the top step of their dugout and applauded Ripken. Ripken, who wasn’t injured or sick, waved his cap toward the Yankees. This caused a standing ovation from the crowd, which brought Ripken out for a curtain call. The Orioles lost the game, 5-4, with Minor hitting a single in four trips to the plate. “What Cal did is so unbelievable,” commissioner Bud Selig told David Ginsburg of the Associated Press. “That’s one record I do think will be around for a generation. What he’s done, he’s done a great thing for baseball.” It made me almost feel guilty anytime I had to call off work sick. I said “almost.”
Farewells
September 21, 1952: In the final game at Braves Field, the Boston Braves lost to the Brooklyn Dodgers, 8-2, before a “crowd” of 8,822, their second largest of the season. That raised their 1952 attendance to a mere 281,278, the lowest in the National League and the worst since the present ownership took over seven years prior. Two teams simply couldn’t survive in Boston. Hard as it is to fathom today, in 1952, the major leagues consisted of 16 teams in 10 cities, none west of the Central Time Zone. The Braves’ exit from Boston was a harbinger of things to come. In 1954, the St. Louis Browns would move to Baltimore and change their name, and in 1955, the Philadelphia Athletics would relocate to Kansas City.
On this day 1952: The #Braves played their final home game at Braves Field in Boston. The site is now Boston University’s Nickerson Field. https://t.co/lpeqLe4Uck
— Grant McAuley (@grantmcauley) September 21, 2017
September 24, 1957: And of course, in 1958 the Dodgers and Giants would leave New York for the West Coast. This date saw the final game at Ebbets Field in front of 6,702 fans. It was secondary that Brooklyn beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-0, behind the complete-game pitching of rookie Danny McDevitt, who recorded his first win at Ebbets in his final start there. Teams and ballparks come and go, but this finale had to have been the saddest of all. After the last out, organist Gladys Gooding played “Till We Meet Again,” “May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You,” and “Auld Lang Syne” as fans tore apart the field.
In Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers, author Peter Golenbock wrote of the final season, “Everything seemed so somber inside, as though a loved one were about to die.” Golenbock asked a few long-time Brooklynites how they felt when the Dodgers left. The following from Bill Reddy was typical:
Owner Walter O’Malley “did nobody, including himself, any favors when he left. He may have gained a lot of money. But if it’s true that there’s a hereafter, every Dodger fan knows exactly where he is right now. . . As old as I am now, and as much sense as I have, I was not unhappy when he died, and I don’t think there were too many Dodger fans who were. He did a terrible thing to the people of Brooklyn, because he took away part of the cohesiveness that used to hold the borough together.”
September 25, 1933: It’s not often that the death of a syndicated sportswriter is front-page news in newspapers across the country. Then again, Ring Lardner was no ordinary sportswriter. He approached early 20th-century baseball as though he were an uneducated rube who wasn’t quite sure what he had witnessed, writing in a vernacular that included intentional butchering of the English language and spelling and grammatical errors. His style probably wouldn’t fly today; we take our sports too seriously. But in his heyday, his stories, especially his coverage of the “World Serious,” were required reading.
Lardner failed out of the Armour Institute of Technology in Chicago after one year in 1901. Four years later, an editor from the South Bend Times knocked on his door with a job offer for his brother, Rex, who was a writer. Rex wasn’t available, but Lardner lied and said he was qualified for the job (much in the same way I landed this gig). He wrote his first baseball article in 1908, soon covered the game for the Chicago Tribune, and eventually for the Bell Syndicate. A series of short stories for a magazine would become You Know Me, Al, perhaps the greatest and funniest baseball fiction ever produced. Such was his fame that he would insert himself as the main character in his stories and once played golf with President Warren G. Harding. Lardner is sadly forgotten today. The reader would be well advised to track down his writings.
September 25, 2016: Admit it. Even when the victim was your favorite team, it was fun to watch Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez in the dugout while the bullpen was finishing a game where he was about to be credited with a win. On this day, the 24-year-old Cuban native was killed in an early-morning boating accident. He was the NL Rookie of the Year in 2013 and a two-time All-Star who posted a 38-17 record, 2.58 ERA, and 1.054 WHIP in four seasons. Clark Spencer of the Miami Herald wrote that Fernandez “was as exuberant as he was exceptional.” Marlins manager Don Mattingly told Spencer, “When I think about Jose, I see such a little boy in him. That’s the joy that Jose played with, and the passion that he felt about playing.”
“Skip, Are You Sure?”
September 21, 1963: Those were the words of Pirates coach Gene Baker when ejected manager Danny Murtaugh handed him the lineup card and told him to take over the club in the top of the eighth inning at Dodger Stadium. Murtaugh and first base coach Frank Oceak had been ejected by umpire Doug Harvey for arguing a call at the base. Usually, whenever Murtaugh was ejected, Oceak took over as manager. With Oceak also banished, Baker was next, thus breaking a color barrier and becoming the first black manager in Major League Baseball history, however briefly. At the time, The Independent Press-Telegram of Long Beach was the only newspaper to report the milestone. In the Los Angeles Dodgers dugout was future Hall of Famer Walter Alston, but Baker certainly didn’t sit on his hands. In his two innings as the manager, Baker made three pitching changes and used two pinch hitters and a pinch runner. Dodgers center fielder Willie Davis spoiled Baker’s evening when he hit a three-run homer off Tommie Sisk in the bottom of the ninth to win the game for Los Angeles, 5-3.
Young Guns
September 21, 1970: At Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, fireballing rookie left-hander Vida Blue of the Athletics tossed a no-hitter against the Minnesota Twins, winning, 6-0. Blue struck out nine and walked only one. He was recalled from the minors only 18 days earlier. Ten days ago, he twirled a one-hitter against the Kansas City Royals. The Twins came close to a hit on only one occasion, when George Mitterwald’s line drive was snared by leaping shortstop Bert Campaneris.
September 22, 1954: Another hard-throwing rookie left-hander, the Dodgers’ Karl Spooner, never had the career Blue had, but for one shining moment, he looked like a star in the making. On this day, he debuted against the New York Giants at Ebbets Field and threw a complete-game, three-hitter while striking out 15 and winning, 3-0. The strikeouts set a record for a rookie pitcher making his first start. He notched six consecutive strikeouts across the seventh and eighth innings. This, after striking out 262 in the Texas League while pitching for the Fort Worth Cats.
Brooklyn pitcher Clem Labine told Golenbock, “That man had a fastball that was unbelievable, not for sheer speed, but for how much the ball moved. He was one of the toughest left-handers that I’ve ever seen.” Spooner would follow this game up with another strong start as the season ended. During spring training in 1955, he developed a kink in his shoulder. He was never the same pitcher afterward, and after 29 games in 1955, his major league career was over. It’s one of baseball’s great what-might-have-been stories.
Karl Spooner was born #OTD in 1931. The lefty threw hard before injury. In minors in 1954 he was 21-9 with a 3.14 ERA & 262 k’s. Came up & threw 2 straight shutouts to end year, striking out 27. Set record with 15 ks in debut & had 6 straight. Hurt his arm the next spring. https://t.co/iZMjgiKRKu
— Scott F (@TheFrizz87) June 24, 2023
Tovar Does It All
September 22, 1968: At Metropolitan Stadium, Cesar Tovar of the Twins did what Campaneris did in 1965 when he played all nine positions in a game against the Athletics. Tovar did a little better than “Campy” because he didn’t give up a run on the mound or commit an error in the field in six chances, and his team won, 2-1. The line in the box score read: Tovar, P-C-1B-2B-SS-3B-LF-CF-RF. Here’s how Twins manager Cal Ermer shuffled the deck:
| Inning | Where’s Tovar? |
| 1 | Tovar starts at P. |
| 2 | Tovar moves from P to C. Tom Hall enters game at P. C Jerry Zimmerman leaves game. |
| 3 | Tovar moves from C to 1B. Bruce Look enters game at C. Graig Nettles moves from 1B to CF. |
| 4 | Tovar moves from 1B to 2B. Jackie Hernandez moves from SS to 1B. Rod Carew moves from 2B to SS. |
| 5 | Tovar moves from 2B to SS. Carew moves from SS to 2B. |
| 6 | Tovar moves from SS to 3B. Ron Clark moves from 3B to SS. |
| 7 | Tovar moves from 3B to LF. Nettles moves from CF to 3B. Bob Allison moves from LF to CF. |
| 8 | Tovar moves from LF to CF. Allison moves from CF to LF. |
| 9 | Tovar moves from CF to RF. Allison moves from LF to CF. Jim Holt moves from RF to LF. |
Nettles a center fielder? Who knew?
The Letter, Part 3
September 23, 1908: Three NL teams were engaged in what was, up to this point, the most exciting pennant race in baseball history. Entering this day, the “Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance” Chicago Cubs were in first place at 90-53, tied with the 87-50 Giants. The Pirates were breathing down their necks at 88-54. The Giants were hosting the Cubs after losing both games of a doubleheader to them on the previous day. The 20,000 fans who packed the Polo Grounds had no inkling that the game would end in chaos.
During the offseason, the Giants had acquired veteran Fred Tenney from the Braves. Tenney had started every game at first base thus far, but on this day he developed a case of lumbago and was replaced by 19-year-old rookie Fred Merkle, making his first start of the season. Fast-forward to the bottom of the ninth inning, with the score tied, 1-1. With one out, the Giants’ Art Devlin hit a single off Cubs left-hander Jack Pfiester. After Harry McCormick’s grounder forced Devlin out at second base, Merkle followed with a single down the right-field line, advancing McCormick to third. Al Bridwell then singled to center field, appearing to score McCormick with the game-winner.
However, with fans storming the field, Merkle stopped halfway to second and headed off the field without touching second. After all, that was the custom in those days: When the game was clearly won, players didn’t go through with the formality of touching the next base. Nineteen days ago in a game at Pittsburgh, umpire Hank O’Day ruled it unnecessary in awarding a game to the Pirates, and O’Day was the umpire on this day, too.
However, regular readers of this column recall that on July 19, Cubs second baseman Johnny Evers read a letter to the sports editor of the Chicago Tribune, to which the editor replied that in a similar situation, the run shouldn’t count where the inning ends on a force-out. This time, the wily Evers alerted O’Day to the play and shouted for center fielder Solly Hofman to throw him the ball. Then all hell broke loose.
Giants pitcher “Iron Man” Joe McGinnity, who was on the coaching lines that day, saw what the Cubs were doing, ran across the field, and intercepted the ball. Several Cubs converged and wrestled the ball away and into the crowd, where it passed through several individuals. Cubs pitcher Rube Kroh, who wasn’t even in the game, slugged and knocked down six spectators until the ball came loose. Shortstop Joe Tinker recovered it and relayed it to Evers, who tagged second. O’Day escaped the chaos without making a call as police broke up the scene. Later, in the umpire’s dressing room, O’Day said Merkle was out and declared the game a tie, which would be replayed on the final day of the season on October 8.
Both teams filed protests with NL president Harry Pulliam, the Cubs on the grounds that the game should have been forfeited to them because it couldn’t be continued due to the rioting fans, the Giants on the grounds that Merkle touched second. Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson told the New York Evening Mail, “I remembered the trick they tried to play on Pittsburgh and caught Merkle by the arm and told him to go touch second. Merkle touched the bag. I saw him do it.” Both protests were denied.
There’s a lot to unpack here. Merkle should have been declared out immediately due to interference as soon as McGinnity snagged the throw from Hofman. If, in fact, Mathewson grabbed Merkle by the arm, he should have been called out because nobody is permitted to aid a baserunner in that fashion. In any event, leading up to the season finale, the Cubs went 8-2, and the Giants went 11-5. The Pirates went 10-2 and finished at 98-56, destined to lose out to the winner of the makeup game. Tied at 98-55 going into the final day, the Cubs beat the Giants, 4-2, to win the NL pennant. The following July, Pulliam committed suicide. His doctors cited the stress that followed his decision in “the Merkle game.”
However, Giants fans never forgave Merkle, who did what baserunners normally did in similar situations at the time. They unfairly blamed him for costing the Giants the pennant and gave him the nickname “Bonehead,” which followed him for the rest of his career. The tag may have originated from Gym Bagley of the Evening Mail, who wrote on September 25, “Fred Tenney is playing solely on his nerve. His feet are in very bad shape, and his back is lame. Every time he stoops it is in pain. But McGraw had enough of Merkle the day before and called on Tenney for his brains. A one-legged man with a noodle is better than a bonehead.”
The Wit and Wisdom of Sparky
September 24, 1978: Cincinnati Reds manager Sparky Anderson was a loud critic of the comeback attempt by 39-year-old knuckleball pitcher Jim Bouton of the Atlanta Braves. The Reds were locked in a tight pennant race with the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. After Bouton lost to the Dodgers in the first start of his second act, Anderson angrily told the press, “Bouton should have to pitch against the Giants and Reds, too.” Anderson got his wish. Bouton had pitched against the Giants and beaten them, and on this date, he took the mound against the Reds at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. He pitched eight innings, giving up just two runs on five hits and five walks, and lost, 2-1. Afterward, Anderson told the media, “We didn’t even hit the ball hard off him and we got two runs we shouldn’t have gotten.” Recounting that quote in Ball Four Plus Ball Five, Bouton wrote, “Sparky Anderson is a gentleman.”
September 23, 1984: Anderson was also quite the salesman, known for touting his players for postseason awards, with the voters often following suit. By this time, he was managing the Tigers, and on this date, his relief ace, lefty Willie Hernandez, earned his 32nd consecutive save as Detroit beat the Yankees, 4-1, at Tiger Stadium. Five days later, Hernandez would blow his first save of the season in a meaningless game. All year long, Anderson had been promoting Hernandez for both the American League Cy Young and Most Valuable Player Awards. The voters dutifully would follow suit and award both to Hernandez in one of the great absurdities in the history of sports awards. Hernandez had 32 saves for a team that won its division by 15 games. Meanwhile, Royals reliever Dan Quisenberry posted a league-leading 44 saves for a team that won its division by three games yet finished well behind Hernandez in the voting for both awards. Make that make sense.
An Appropriate Promo?
September 23, 1992: On the same night the San Diego Padres held “Unemployment Night,” when discounted tickets were offered to the unemployed, they “unemployed” manager Greg Riddoch and fired him. The Padres’ record was an unsatisfying 78-72 at the time. I have nothing more to add to this, being unfamiliar with the concept. Writers are never unemployed because we’re never employed in the first place.
A Medical Breakthrough
September 25, 1974: The papers merely mentioned that Dodgers pitcher Tommy John had surgery on his left elbow. But this wasn’t just any surgery. It was the brainchild of Dr. Frank Jobe and involved replacing the ulnar collateral ligament, whatever that is, with a tendon from elsewhere in the body. The new procedure would change baseball forever, extend the careers of countless pitchers, and forever be known as “Tommy John surgery” after the first recipient. I wonder how many pitchers would sign on for the operation if early 20th-century player Dave Brain were the first.
