Cleaning out the Inbox: Baseball Passings

       I continue catching up at TRS with another tribute post.

Goodbye to Carl Erskine at the age of 97.

Erskine played for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1948-59, winning two World Series titles.

Erskine won twenty games for Brooklyn in 1953 and struck our fourteen Yankees in game three of that season's World Series to set the record (since broken by Sandy Koufax) for strikeouts in a World Series game.

Erskine threw no-hitters in 1952 and 1956, which places him with Sandy Koufax as the only Dodger pitchers to throw multiple no-hitters.

Erskine was the sole remaining Dodger from the famed "Boys of Summer" Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s at the time of his passing.

Goodbye to Whitey Herzog at the age of  92.

A journeyman outfielder for eight seasons, it was as a manager that Whitey Herzog made his reputation, winning three division titles with the Royals from 1976-78 and after accepting the manager and general manager roles for the Cardinals in 1980, revamped the entire organization into a perennial contender through the 1980s.

Voted into the Hall of Fame, Herzog won the 1982 World Series and arguably was robbed of the 1985 title by the brutal call in game six by Don Denkinger that decided the game and cost the Cardinals a chance to clinch the series.

Herzog employed a style known as "Whitey Ball" with the Royals and Cardinals, using fast players with the ability to put the ball in play in vast stadiums with hard artificial turf, along with a willingness to platoon and use role players to their potential that allowed those teams to take advantage of their home park.

Goodbye to Ken Holtzman at the age of 78.

The lefthander pitched for four teams in his career, all contenders, winning three World Series with the Oakland Athletics.

Holtzman won seventeen games or more six times with a high of 21 for Oakland in 1973, and threw two no-hitters, both with the Cubs in 1969 and 1971.

Holtzman is the winningest Jewish pitcher in major league history as his 174 wins is nine more than Sandy Koufax.

 Goodbye to Fritz Peterson at the age of 82.

Peterson was a twenty-game winner for a mediocre Yankees team in 1970 but is more remembered for his off-the-field affairs, most notably his wife-swapping with teammate Mike Kekich in 1973, along with his elaborate practical jokes which were written about in books by Jim Bouton (Ball Four) and Sparky Lyle (The Bronx Zoo).

Peterson led the American League in walks per nine innings from 1968-72, which had only been accomplished previously by Cy Young, and won fourteen games or more on five occasions, four with New York and once with Cleveland. 

Goodbye to Jerry Grote at the age of 81.

The long-time catcher for the Miracle Mets and their terrific pitching staff, Grote was one of the best-throwing catchers in the game and one of the top defenders behind the plate.

Grote played in four World Series, two each with the Mets and Dodgers, and made the All-Star team twice in his sixteen-season career.

Goodbye to Larry Brown at the age of 84.

Brown played for four teams but spent most of his career with the Cleveland Indians as a light-hitting infielder for nine of his twelve seasons.

Browns is remembered for his frightening 1966 collision with Leon Wagner in Yankee Stadium with both chasing a fly ball Brown suffered a fractured skull, broken nose, and both cheekbones.

Har Tru, Bruti'?

I was using Facebook Messenger recently with Ryan, Battlin' Bob, and Joe Plum as I do almost every day (BTW, if there was a way to do a podcast with this bunch and Jeff, who wasn't there yesterday, but often is,-there would be a lot of people laughing their rear off and perhaps as many wondering what is wrong with these people.) and out of nowhere came a memory that I hadn't thought of in years, but at one time was something I dealt with almost every day during baseball season.

Har-Tru is a material that is often used as a replacement for clay on tennis courts.
Several countries use clay as the dominant surface for tennis, mostly in Europe with a few South American countries using clay as well, and there is even a clay court only tournament schedule with fifteen tournaments in Europe and four more in South America.
The most prestigious clay-court tournament is the French Open, which is considered one of the four major tournaments in the game with the grass court at Wimbledon and two conventional "hard courts'' with the Australian and United States open tournaments.

Why these words on clay surfaces from a sport that I seldom watch and don't remember watching since the 70s and 80s?
I'm getting to that, but first, we move to baseball and 1993.
Cherie encouraged me to do something in baseball and on a March Saturday, I drove around to various little leagues and looked to manage a "minor league" team.
As it turned out, times had changed in the nine years since I had left my summer job sitting in a public address booth announcing names, running the scoreboard, and keeping the official scorebook.
Suddenly, coaches were pitching half the game, stealing bases was limited to the second half of the season, and to my shock, there weren't official standings although everyone kept them off the record!
I found all of this out after we had started practice and the worst was yet to come- for the only time that I can ever remember in any league that I watched, played, coached, or umpired- you could clinch a game officially before its conclusion!

How could this occur?
Well, each team in a six-inning game could score only four runs per inning.
That was fine as when I played the limit was six runs per inning, but a limit was reasonable because with weaker teams against stronger teams if you had unlimited scoring every inning, you might play two-inning games at 50-2 as a common score.
However, in this league, even in the last inning, each team could only score four runs, so if you were leading by nine at the end of four innings, the verdict was decided.
Yet unlike "mercy" rule games, the game continued with both teams knowing no matter what they did, the game was decided.
It felt more like "Baseball Math" than actual baseball- keep your fingers crossed that Rob Manfred doesn't hear about this!

My problem was this- when I played and announced (remember only nine years had passed between the booth and coaching) in the sixth and final inning, each team could score as many as they could.
Teams rarely would come back to win from huge deficits, but theoretically, the chance to win was still there and it was easier for the kids to stay involved.
In my first year playing, I remember our last place team losing to the eventual champions by something like 15-1 entering the final inning and rallying with the winning run at the plate with one of our better players at-bat before losing, as one of the more memorable games that I played in.

I despised this rule as it didn't seem natural, but it also caused problems keeping children under control in the late innings.
If you had "won" the game, kids could often be out of control with all the things that excited eight to twelve-year-olds bring and should you be on the side that had lost the game, those final innings could be drudgery complete with some players having to be coaxed to continue and often times giving no effort when they took the field.
In our first season, we didn't have a top pitcher so I decided under this rule, the way to pull upsets was to hopefully get a big lead early with your better pitcher or two, and then pray you had enough to clinch the game early when a lesser pitcher didn't make a difference.
Think of it as a "reverse closer" and we likely won a game or two that we shouldn't have in the first season (I have the records written down from my coaching years, we finished 7-11-1 and fourth of six teams), but I hated "Baseball Math".

Battlin' Bob was my coach and the dugout could be quite hilarious.
One famous time was when this player that always showed up late, often after the game had started and wanted to eat and go to the bathroom.
One rule that I always had from year one to year ten of coaching was no food in the dugout (other than gum and seeds, those were problem enough), so the mother wasn't happy about that, but as I didn't want to spend hot summer hours smelling a player that had pissed himself, the bathroom was allowed (why the kid didn't go before he left his house always made me wonder, he was going to be late anyway?).
This kid used a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles glove that was the type that was barely above the plastic "gloves" that you would find at a Dollar Tree, but that seldom mattered as he wasn't interested in catching the ball anyway and if he did catch a hard thrown/batted ball, it likely would have hurt his hand with that glove!
The game has started, so here comes said player, dragging "Donatello" along and before he even hits the dugout- Asks Battlin' Bob if he can use the bathroom.
Bob's been listening to this all season as he was generally in charge of the dugout and Bob wheels on the kid before he can finish the sentence and says "yeah, yeah, go to the bathroom- PEE PEE".
Brought the house down- I wasn't sure I could continue for a minute!

And all of that brings me back to Har Tru- "The surface of the future".
The people from the higher league constantly lectured us on the wonders and easy maintenance of Har Tru, yet never seemed to want to install it on their field!
Bob did most of the work on the field for our team so I could work on lineups and game preparation, but I did our team's umpiring for other teams and after games (especially umpiring), I would come off the field, coughing this green dust and this stuff would get all over you.
It would get caught into your arm hair, leg hair, and about everything else you could imagine.

Ryan would play on the "Surface of the Future" and he claims that kids from that should consider contacting one of those TV attorneys that advertise their services for various ailments caused by things like asbestos!
The stuff was this green/gray mix in color and it came in bags (similar to ready-mix concrete) that you spread all over the place before wetting it down, which made the field look like a pool table in need of resurfacing.
And if it started to rain during the game, this substance would turn into this concoction that looked like pistachio pudding and would cake on your clothes like someone tossed wet concrete on you-assuming that said concrete was very light green.
I can only imagine the problems that parents had getting those stains out of white uniform pants!

So, that's the memory that came back to me twenty-seven years later when Bob mentioned Har Tru and I was at work thinking about all those times.
I have many stories that I didn't mention and the world of youth sports is such an odd one that's filled with corruption on many levels both on the field (coaches favoring certain players, especially their own) and even more off the field, but I have more good memories than bad from my baseball years with friends I met there to this day.

And for the record, if you ride by that baseball field today- the Har Tru surface is long removed...

P.S- I really wanted to stop by the field and snap a picture, but in the middle of a heat advisory over the next few days, I decided to post now and add a picture later...

Cleaning out the Inbox-Baseball

Before I start, please allow me to mention this to Blogger and Google- the new Blogger Interface SUCKS!

This will be the third rewrite of the same post as the new version wouldn't allow me to save, move pictures, or even label.
I've returned to the "legacy" version which has served me so well for 13 years, but Google/Blogger plans an elimination of this by late July and a forced move to the new version.
I'm sure that they are working on the flaws and hopefully fix them before then because if not, I'll be looking for a new home for TRS.
This is supposed to be fun and it's not fun to spend hours writing the same thing three times because what you expect to be reliable lets you down.
On to what's more fun to write and hopefully for you-read.


Bob Watson's recent passing (I'll have more on Watson in the next passings post) made me think of the contest to see who would score the one-millionth run in baseball history in 1976.
The contest sponsored by Tootsie Roll (what a way to have kids pay attention!) and Seiko would give prizes to the player that scored it and prizes to various fans had more interest than one would think and came down to Watson in San Francisco and Dave Concepcion in Cincinnati racing around the bases as fast as they could in an attempt to be number one million.
The 2015 article from the New York Daily News looked back at the contest and then estimated that MLB's two-millionth run was on track to be scored sometime in the 2020 season, but I've been unable to find any other notes on the status.

Will Clark's era in San Francisco was before my start of Giants fandom, but I've always been a fan of Clark, who had such a beautiful swing from the left side of the plate, is starting to gather some steam as a potential induction to the Hall of Fame and this article from The Athletic uses the oral history format to speak with "the Thrill's" teammates to talk about Clark's Giants tenure.
While I am a fan of Clark, I'm not sure I'm quite on board for a Cooperstown train.
His Giants numbers are certainly of that ilk, but after leaving San Francisco ( the surprising thing is the numbers declining after leaving Candlestick Park!), Clark hit more than 20 homers only twice and exceeded 100 RBI once along with some problems staying in the lineup with nagging injuries.
As a fan, I'd like to see Clark in, but honestly, I think his numbers fall a little short.

Slate takes a swing at one of the oldest myths from the life of Donald Trump- Was he a baseball player of the level that would have major league teams scouting him in the middle 1960s?
In what would surprise few, that doesn't appear to be the case in the slightest, although Trump did play on his high school team as what appears to be an extremely light-hitting first baseman.
The "best" part was reading the Trump claim that he appeared to be "the best player in New York State" and the even better- "Pro Ball was in the equation until a Giants tryout with a young player named Willie McCovey".
Yes, as in Hall of Famer Willie McCovey.
For the record, when Donald Trump was a high school senior for this supposed tryout, Willie McCovey was entering his sixth year in the big leagues, was coming off a season that saw him smack 44 homers to lead the National League, and had already hit 108 homers in his career.
Insert your snicker here.

Sports Illustrated writes of the "sports card boom" during the pandemic and what is "Fueling it", which is "Box Breaks" online.
Box Breaking is basically this- someone breaks a box of cards, oftentimes as much as a case of cards, and after you purchase a team either on a straight purchase or in an auction, you receive all of the cards from that particular team from the opened product.
The auction is streamed live online to keep everything above board and apparently it is very popular.
I've never participated in any of these, although I'm not against it, I don't see it happening anytime soon!

The Athletic writes about baseball cards as well with an article about Topps and mostly about the card that every modern card traces back to in the 1952 Topps set.
The 1952 Topps set was the first with stats, thicker card stock, and is far closer in size to the modern baseball card than those of the leader in the industry before 1952 in Bowman.
Bowman sued Topps over the set for using players that Bowman had exclusive contracts with, but by the time the suit hit the courts (which Topps would lose), Topps had shoved Bowman aside for dominance in the hobby and would buy the Bowman company in 1956.
Honestly, while the Topps sets of the 50s are the sets that started baseball cards toward the trail traveled today, I've never been a huge fan of those seasons.
I like the simplistic look of 1957, but the photographs often look like they were taken at dusk and for some reason, they seem to fade easier than other sets of the era and that's my favorite set of the decade.
If I'm placing 1957 against the sets of the sixties, it doesn't beat the top five (in order 1965, 1963, 1968, 1967, and 1962) and would be in a tough battle to lead the bottom five (my sixth choice would be 1966).

Jeff's Day

We continue Friends and Family with my nephew Jeff's day to select a topic.

Jeff didn't get specific, but he wanted me to write about baseball.
I'm pretty disgusted with the game right now under the control of Rob Manfred and between Manfred's tweaking of game-changing rules. his determination to take down minor league baseball, and now his bungling of an already-struck deal for compensation with the players in a shortened season, so I'm going to add some notes in various styles of baseball-related topics that might get your brain thinking a bit to agree, disagree or even add an option of your own.

Five players that have been overlooked for the Hall of Fame (excluding the obvious)
1) Dick Allen
2) Curt Schilling
3) Dale Murphy
4) Minnie Minoso
5) Luis Tiant

The team that I wish would use 70s Uniforms Full-Time
Rangers

Top Five Pitchers of Baseball's Greatest Era-1960s
1) Sandy Koufax
2) Bob Gibson
3) Juan Marichal
4) Ferguson Jenkins
5) Jim Bunning

If I was drafting a team from scratch and the player talent was equal, what position (other than pitcher) would I draft?
1) Shortstop
2) Catcher
3) Center Fielder

If Minor League Baseball cuts the 42 teams as planned, will Hagerstown and Frederick survive after both were named on the original list?
Hagerstown-No
Frederick-Yes

Will Hagerstown ever see affiliated or independent baseball again?
Affiliated- Never.
The one asterisk- IF Frederick would not survive (Frederick would own the Hagerstown territory)
and a new stadium would be built (Same chances of ice surviving hell), then maybe eventually.
Independent- Atlantic League-Only with a new stadium
College Summer League-Maybe, but it'll be a failure.

If I could pick ballparks from the past to return with modern amenities, but with original dimensions.
which would I pick?
Bonus points for replacing a current park that I dislike.
1) Comiskey Park- White Sox
2) Polo Grounds- Giants/Mets
3) Yankee Stadium-Yankees
4) Crosley Field-Reds
5) Tiger Stadium-Tigers
Asterisk- Forbes Field would have made this, but I love PNC Park in Pittsburgh.

And I'll wrap with the one topic that Jeff did ask me about- pitchers with personal catchers.
It's happened more than you think through the years.
Often, it has been catchers that are needed to catch the knuckleballer that fills this role.
It does vary depending on team and situation as sometimes it can be a case of the starting catcher struggling to catch the knuckler and in others, it can be that a team has a backup or an available catcher that does an excellent job in catching the knuckler such as Boston keeping Doug Mirabelli for Tim Wakefield as one example.
With Boston, Jason Varitek hated catching Wakefield, and Mirabelli did well catching him and it worked well.
It worked so well that Boston took Mirabelli's skills for granted and traded him to San Diego as the BoSox thought Josh Bard could move into the slot.
That was a disaster as Bard struggled defensively and Wakefield struggled as well, so Boston was forced to get Mirabelli back and it cost them Bard, a decent reliever in Cla Meredith and cash to land Mirabelli, who basically had one big-league skill that was keeping him in the league.
Another pitcher with a personal catcher was Mel Rojas, who closed games for the Expos in the 1990s.
Rojas would enter to save a game and the Expos would send in Tim Spehr, who was the only catcher with Montreal that could handle the vicious forkball of Rojas in an unusual case of a reliever having his own catcher.

There have been some all-time great hurlers that used them as well- the two most famous examples were Tim McCarver catching Steve Carlton for the Cardinals and the Phillies, Charlie O'Brien with Greg Maddux and in recent years, David Ross catching for Jon Lester with the Cubs and A.J. Ellis backstopping Clayton Kershaw with the Dodgers.

There can be baseball reasons and there can also be personal reasons.
Steve Carlton was known for his eccentricities and McCarver, who was the starter for a young Carlton with the Cardinals but was nearing the end of the line with the Phillies, was able to deal with those awkward issues and helped Carlton relax a bit as well.
Carlton's tremendous 1972 season with the Phillies (mentioned on Facebook recently as the 1973 Baseball Card of the Day) was with McCarver behind the plate until late in the season when McCarver was traded to Montreal.
Carlton lost twenty games in 1973 without McCarver and even though he improved some in 1974 and 75, it wasn't until the Phillies reacquired McCarver in 1976 that Carlton began his return to dominance for close to a decade, although McCarver would stay only through 1980 before retiring.
Clayton Kershaw has been known to be high-strung on the mound and A.J. Ellis provided a calming influence as the catcher that moved through the minors with him.
Kershaw has been an excellent pitcher in his three seasons since the loss of Ellis with numbers that would be considered outstanding for the average pitcher, but aren't quite as dominant as those with Ellis.

Jon Lester of the Cubs had tremendous numbers at his peak, but Lester struggled in keeping runners close to first base and would allow many stolen bases.
Pairing Lester with David Ross, a strong-armed backstop that was excellent defensively made sense and allowed Lester's liability in holding runners close to be a less important factor in the game as base stealers would be less likely to challenge Ross.
The Braves had a similar issue with Hall of Famer Greg Maddux with runners on base as Maddux would literally ignore a man on first base as he intently focused on the hitter.
Charlie O'Brien was a journeyman that had one elite skill- he was always at or near the top of catching base stealers by percentage and therefore it made sense to give the veteran Maddux a catcher that had a chance to nullify the runners' advantage.

I don't have an issue with personal catchers, but there can be situations that affect the roster, and a catcher that often catches one pitcher can become a burden under certain conditions.
One can make the argument that when you have a Hall of Fame level pitcher with what they can do and for the money that you pay them that you keep their performance as high as possible and that's a good path to take- as long as the performance is elite.
Should the pitcher's performance drop to the point that they are average for two years or so, the personal catcher might be a luxury that contending teams cannot afford.

Thanks to Jeff for the personal catcher and I hope he (and you reading) found the other parts interesting.
I still have more from the Friends and Family series to go and an inbox that is beginning to need cleaning, so which post will be next up will depend on what I feel like writing about next.

Cleaning out the inbox-Baseball

Cleaning out the inbox brings an all baseball version as I attempt to catch up here at the home office from various time spent doing several things, few of those that I wanted to spend my time doing.

One baseball goodbye of note that I didn't want to wait for a passings post as Bill Buckner passed at 69 from complications from Dementia.

Remembered by most for his error in game six of the 1986 World Series with the Red Sox that really shouldn't have happened (I still wonder why Red Sox Manager John McNamara with a two-run lead moving into the bottom of the tenth, didn't replace Buckner with the defensively superior Dave Stapleton), I'll remember Buckner for reasons other than the error.
Buckner started with the Dodgers and hit over .300 three times for Los Angeles including a .314 mark for the 1974 National League champions, but really flourished after being traded to the Cubs as the main part of a package that sent Rick Monday to the Dodgers.
Buckner won the 1980 batting title, hit over .300 four times with the Cubbies and it was his lefthanded contact first swing that I envied as I couldn't emulate that swing because I was a right-handed swinger.
Never a power hitting first baseman (Buckner's career high was 18 with those 1986 Red Sox), Buckner was similar to Wade Boggs before Wade Boggs as he consistently made contact, put the ball into play and see what happened.
Buckner's ability to make contact shows with his strikeout numbers as he never struck more than 39 times in a season and only 18 times in over 600 at-bats in his battling title-winning season.
I'll remember the error of course, but there were far more good things to recall about the career of Bill Buckner than just one miscue.

Photo Credit: Josh Bean AL.com

Alabama.com discusses the past and the possible future with plenty of cool pictures of the slowly crumbling Joe Davis Stadium in Huntsville Alabama, the former home of the AA Southern League's Huntsville Stars.
The Stars moved to Biloxi, Mississippi after the 2014 season and Joe Davis Stadium has sat idle ever since.
Joe Davis was built for the Stars franchise in 1985 and will likely be demolished rather than renovated
Minor league baseball will return to the Huntsville area next season in the Huntsville suburb of Madison as the (sigh) Rocket City Trash Pandas as Madison built a new stadium to entice the move of the current Mobile Bay Bears to the Huntsville area.

The Athletic and baseball writer Ken Rosenthal looks at the man that seems to be possibly behind the turmoil of the Miami Marlins front office as Gary Denbo isn't looking to make friends and that's good for him as he doesn't seem to be making any.
Derek Jeter's right-hand man, as the article referred to Denbo certainly has his own ideas and apparently has more than a few problems in dealing with employees.
One very interesting area was where it was an incident with Denbo that caused the Greensboro Grasshoppers to change affiliates leaving the Marlins after 16 seasons and joining the Pittsburgh Pirates.
I was surprised to hear the news of Greensboro's decision last year and the story behind it was one that I did not know about.

The Athletic is back again with an article on the Giants 2014 trade for Casey McGhee that resulted in two minor league pitchers joining the Reds organization.
Five years later, one of those pitchers is Luis Castillo, who is 6-1 with an ERA under two and a half.
The article also mentions other bad trades that were made by the Giants of that era, which has set the stage for the current state of the parent club.

We wrap up with Dallas SportsDay and their behind the scenes article on Fox Sports Southwest field reporter Emily Jones McCoy and her relationship with some of the Texas Rangers.
I found it interesting because I've mentioned before remembering McCoy in her first days in television covering various Big 12 sports and football previews, but I've met many of the Rangers mentioned in the article and I found their thoughts on Jones intriguing as well.

Minor League Fantasy Draft- Round Six Elehuris Montero

With my final pick, I was thinking about taking another lower level player to develop and hope for an impact player.
However, one player stood out as in "Why is this guy still on the board"?

I mean really, it seemed like he had been taken, but I scanned the results and nope, still available.
I was surprised, but I also was hoping for a younger, albeit riskier, player, but in the end class and performance won out as I finished the draft with the selection of Elehuris Montero, a third baseman from the St.Louis Cardinal system.

The 20-year-old Montero hit .322 with 15 homers and 69 RBI in 103 for Low A Peoria in 103 games before a promotion to High A Palm Beach for the final 24 games where he hit .298 with a homer.
Montero is one of three excellent young third base prospects with the Cardinals along with 2018 first rounder Nolan Gorman and international signee Malcolm Nunez, so it's not out of the question that Montero could be a trade piece near the deadline, should the Cardinals be in playoff contention.

Montero is from the Dominican Republic and was noted by Baseball America to have "Plus raw power" "bat speed to overcome swing holes" and could be an eventual "25 to 30 homer with a steady average player".
Montero's defensive position is less certain as some scouts think he could stay at third as an average defender with work, while others think he will wind up at first base or even possibly left field.
Montero won the Midwest League MVP last season and was expected to be assigned back at High A Palm Beach where he finished last season, but was challenged with advancement to AA Springfield to start 2019.

It'll be interesting to see if Montero zooms up the prospect charts if he plays well at 20 (turns 21 in August) in the Texas League, but should he do there what he did in Peoria, Elehuris Montero will be a name that you hear often not only around the trade deadline but in the 2021 Hot Stove League as well.

Cleaning out the inbox:Baseball

The inbox is bursting at the seams and I'm going to start the chore of cleaning with an only baseball edition.

Fred Landucci sends me this very poignant article from the Los Angeles Times on the tenth anniversary of the tragic death of local star and Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart from a drunk driver hitting the vehicle he was riding in.
Former Angel teammates are spoken with and Adenhart is remembered by other members of the organization as well.
The article also discusses the tragedy with the driver of that vehicle, who serves a 50-year prison sentence, who offers the standard cliche's used by people that have caused such senseless deaths.
I hope that person is sincere and I couldn't imagine what he has to live with, but in these situations, it's usually all about ministries these folks are involved in or other such works and that's all well and good, but it always smacks of a working rehabilitation in the eyes of others- even if it could be true.

We move to the Athletic for what I could not recommend higher with an article by Emily Waldon on the conditions of minor league baseball for the players that play there.
I know that the Athletic is behind a paywall, but if you can or would take advantage of a trial run sometime, consider checking this out.
Baseball may be glamorous, but the minors are certainly not and even at AAA where cities that host major league teams in other sports, the conditions aren't great with the increased cost of living.
The wages that minor league players are paid (other than a signing bonus when they sign their first contract, which is where the real money is until the big leagues are reached) is downright paltry when you consider the expenses of living the dream.
The article is extensive, so I'm not going to get into details, but they are certainly there.
I know many of us would like to think that with the skills to play pro baseball, we would pay our dues, but would we really all things considered if we were not sure the gold at the rainbow was within reach?
I'm just not sure.

Another Athletic piece discusses the 25th anniversary of Jacobs (don't call it Progressive) field in Cleveland.
This article writes of the dreariness of old Cleveland Municipal Stadium, the process of what it took to be able to build the Indians the Jake, the rumors of where they could have been headed had a vote for a stadium tax failed and the pomp and circumstance of the home opener where the soon to be contending Tribe faced off against the most feared pitcher in the game- Seattle's future Hall of Famer Randy Johnson.

Veteran baseball writer Marty Noble writes on the website of another longtime baseball writer, Murray Chass about his conflicting thoughts on another Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver.
Seaver, who we noted recently in another cleaning of the inbox, has been diagnosed with dementia and has retired from public life,
Seaver always had an almost regal aura about him that came off at times as condescending on television (I've never met Seaver) and the article shows that to be true, although it appeared that Seaver mellowed with age.

Frank Robinson

Hall of Famer Frank Robinson passed away yesterday at the age of 83 from bone cancer.
Robinson played for five teams, with his best seasons with Cincinnati and Baltimore and won the 1966 Triple Crown in his first season with the World Champion Orioles.

Robinson was the first player to win the MVP award in both leagues (1961 Cincinnati and 1966 Baltimore), made the All-Star team fourteen times and hit 586 home runs in an era filled with dominant pitchers.
Robinson is also remembered for being the first African-American manager in the big leagues with the Cleveland Indians in 1975, a post he held until midway through the 1977 season.
Robinson would later manage the Giants, Orioles and the Expos/Nationals, piloting the Expos through their final three seasons in Canada and the Nationals first two years in Washington.

As a player. Robinson was always thought of as a great one in his time but often wasn't thought of first among his peers.
That is far from an insult considering those peers were players named Mays, Aaron, Clemente to name just a few, but it shows that not only did Robinson play in smaller cities and that he wasn't always the most media-friendly player either.
Still, Robinson was a player and manager for that matter, that didn't suffer fools lightly and it showed.
One of the major issues with Robinson in managing the Indians (besides the Indians being an average team at best) was his dealings with Gaylord Perry, who was the best player that the Indians had at the time and Perry was eventually dealt to the Rangers before Robinson's first season was complete.
Robinson's hiring was a major news story with the above cover of the monthly SPORT magazine shows (Wearing the hat that I hope the Indians would consider using with the absence of Chief Wahoo) at the time as his hiring gained far more publicity than a lower division team in Cleveland would have received.

The 1956 Rookie of the Year, Robinson slugged 38 homers and would only hit less than 29 homers once in his first twelve years in the league (21 in 1963), but yet isn't always remembered as a master of the long ball despite his career numbers and the as noted 586 career homers.
Robinson was a better runner than is recalled as he finished with double figures in steals in nine of his first ten seasons in an era where the stolen base was not nearly as common as it would become in the artificial turf era.
Robinson won the 1961 MVP with a dominant season (.323 37 HR 124 RBI and a career-high 22 steals to lead the Reds to what would be their only pennant between 1940 and 1970, but what isn't always remembered is Robinson's follow-up campaign in 1962 when he exceeded his MVP season (.342 39 HR 136 RBI and a league-leading 51 doubles), but finished only fourth in the MVP voting.

Following the 1965 season at Crosley Field that saw his typical strong statistics ( .296, 33 HR and 113 RBI), Robinson, at the age of 30, was traded to Baltimore for three players, most notably pitcher Milt Pappas with one of the most memorable quotes by a GM ever as Reds general manager Bill DeWitt claimed that Robinson was an "old 30".
Robinson led Baltimore to the World Championship as he won the Triple Crown with Pappas, a solid, but far from an elite pitcher, winning 28 games in the two seasons that he spent in Cincinnati.

Baltimore would win the American League for three seasons in a row from 1969-71, winning the 1970 Series in five games over Robinson's former club in Cincinnati.
Following the 1971 series in which the Orioles lost in seven to the Pittsburgh Pirates, Robinson was again at the center of a puzzling trade.
Robinson hit well at 35 for Baltimore in 1971 (.281, 28 HR 99 RBI), but was traded to the Dodgers for a four-player package headed by pitcher Doyle Alexander, who would be part of another memorable trade 16 years later when Alexander was traded to Detroit by Atlanta for a minor leaguer.
Alexander would win nine games without a defeat to help the Tigers down the stretch to win the American League East title, but the minor leaguer was Hall of Famer John Smoltz.

Robinson would struggle in his lone season as a Dodger as he hit only .251 (19 homers) in 103 games and feuded with manager Walter Alston.
Robby would bounce back with 30 homers in a season spent as the DH for the California Angels in the initial year of the position.
Robinson would be traded to Cleveland late in 1974 with the surprising Indians on the edge of contention until September and would be named player/manager to start the 1975 season.

Robinson started himself as DH to start the season and wearing those fire engine red uniforms of the time, hit a home run on Opening Day before hitting only .237 with nine homers in 118 at bats.
Robinson would bat 67 times in 1976, adding three homers to his final stats before concentrating on managing the Tribe.
Robinson was the opposite as expected, relating well to the younger players such as Dennis Eckersley, Rick Manning, and Duane Kuiper, but battled with veterans such as Gaylord Perry, John Ellis and Rico "The Big Man" Carty.
Robinson would fare better in future managing stops, often when teams least expected it as he kept the 82 Giants in the NL West race until late in the season, finished second with the 89 Orioles after they had won only 54 games the season before and finished second with the league-owned and shoestring budget Expos in 2002.

Frank Robinson also might have the record for most statues outside stadiums ( I didn't check anyone else!) as he has statues of his likeness outside the parks in Cincinnati, Baltimore and Cleveland.

One of the toughest players of his time and one of the best ever, it's hard to believe that you can be in the Hall of Fame with tremendous performance and still be underrated, yet that is the legacy of Frank Robinson, who might be remembered best simply as a ballplayer that doesn't come along every day.

Forgotten Superstars:This Week In Baseball

"Dunnt Dunnt,, Dunnt Dunnt"
Those sounds might not read well on the printed page, but if you grew up in the 70s and 80s and were a baseball fan, I'm willing to bet that you could name that tune in two notes.

The instrumental known as "Jet Set" was just the theme to a game show named "Jackpot" that lasted less than two years on NBC before April of 1977.
And then that theme became a part of the sports fans culture with the start of "This Week in Baseball".

Major League Baseball's film department never approached what Steve Sabol built with NFL Films in the 1970s and I'll always believe that Sabol's work with the NFL was a key reason in football passing baseball as America's most popular sport, but they did make one solid contribution with "This Week in Baseball".
The syndicated show could be bought by any station but was usually purchased by NBC affiliates and placed in front on NBC's baseball "Game of the Week", which at that time was the only national telecast of MLB as ABC's Monday Night Baseball generally televised one of a few regional games.
One couldn't have a better "pre-game" show than highlights that you haven't seen unless it involved your local team that then would happen to have televised that game.
Unless you lived in those days, you cannot understand just how little baseball that fans actually watched live.
You had some road games of your local team, maybe the home opener, the NBC game on Saturday afternoon (and the Monday game in later years) and that was the ball game, so to speak for the available games to see.


The smartest decision that the show made was installing veteran Mel Allen as the voice of the show.
The folksy Allen was known as the "Voice of the Yankees" and between the location of the largest city in the country and in the days when the two participating teams announcers were used for the postseason, the Yankees dynasty meant Allen was extremely well-known by the national audience.
After Allen's surprising firing by the team following the 1964 season (the Yankees would not return to the postseason until 1976 when they had hired Allen back as pregame host), Allen hadn't been seen on the national stage with baseball since.
Scooping the veteran up for the premiere of the show gave the show a veteran presence to older fans, yet his lack of recent exposure allowed Allen to be more of a fresh voice to younger fans than he might have been otherwise.
A comparable example would be Ray Scott, who was the longtime voice for the NFL through the 50s and 60s, but by the mid-70s was considered past his prime and would never have the same exposure even on NFL Films, where he once did their "NFL GOW" in syndication.
Had Allen continued on Yankee broadcasts, he might have never gotten the TWIB position because he might not have been "cool enough" to the younger fans on a Saturday afternoon watching in between cartoons and the game of the week.

From the highlights from teams playing well from around the league to the spectacular plays, all the teams were well represented, which isn't always the case today, let alone in the time of TWIB.
Allen's catchphrases "How 'bout that?" "Hello, there everybody, this is Mel Allen" and of course "This week in BASEball!" became everyday lingo among baseball fans and kids playing pickup games and Allen's narration added so much to the show.
Mel Allen was the key to the show's success as it really suffered after his passing as replacement Warner Fussell, while not doing a terrible job by any means, was never going to be Mel Allen and
Allen may very well have been irreplaceable in the position.

Much like NFL Films, TWIB did an excellent job of pairing music to their highlights with big brassy sounds booming out of the speaker along with Rod Carew slapping a ball into the gap, Mike Schmidt driving a ball into the seats, or George Brett diving into the seats in an attempt to catch a popup.
Half of putting together a highlight video is matching the perfect music to what highlight is being shown and while the NFL version often has to match good and bad results, TWIB usually, with the exception of the blooper segments, were advertising the best in the game and matching spirited, upbeat backgrounds to what is happening on the screen.
Music in these situations set the tone and the right music just makes the viewer feel the anticipation and emotion of the moment.
MLB didn't master the total emotional peaks and valleys with TWIB as the NFL counterpart did, but they were doing a different type of program and what they did the music matched perfectly.

TWIB ran from 1977-1998, but its heyday was from 1977-1989 when NBC held the rights to MLB.
CBS would pay a record amount to move baseball to their network for the 1990 season and then made a ridiculous decision to limit their telecasts to the postseason with the elimination of the game of the week.
Without TWIB being able to slot in as the natural lead-in to the game of the week, the ratings for the show dropped and with exposure dwindling the demise of the show was a matter of time and the 1996 death of Allen (his participation had begun to decrease anyway due to declining health) saw that the end was coming and in 1998 it did so.
Fox revived it in 2000 for an eleven-year run, but times and viewing habits had changed and it never seemed to find its audience as much of its content was old news in an era of cable television and internet.

Still, I have such a fondness for that show which was such a part of my baseball fandom as a fan that didn't root for the local team and between pro wrestling from 11-12, TWIB 12;30-1, the game of the week after and then the various network boxing shows, Saturday's were loaded with things to watch for me and I'm not sure I'll ever have that level of excitement for that type of lineup again.
Whether it was nostalgia for times gone by or it really was fun to enjoy the weekend, TWIB was a big part of those days and it'll always be special to hear that opening blast of brass!

Opinions, Opinions, Opinions

Nothing special to write about, but at this time of the year, it is easy to fall into a rut.
Football and boxing take up the majority of the time here and other than a passings post or cleaning of the inbox, it's hard to find time to write anything else.

That will change in a few weeks when the Browns season ends and the Buckeyes finish the Urban Meyer era in Pasadena, then suddenly in a season without a winter team to follow every day, TRS will have lots of different things to write about and hopefully, you'll find them interesting.
If anyone out there actually reads this, feel free to send me questions.
I really enjoyed the Q and A, I did a while back, so feel free to ask sports, non-sports or even questions about me.
I'm surprised sometimes after all these years of writing, how much people know about me and how much they don't know, so ask if interested- I can always decide not to answer!
I also might have another list post in the future this winter as well.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say the Dodgers trade with the Reds was a salary dump.
I do know better though and I'd say they are scraping paint to find money for a chance to sign Bryce Harper along with rumors that have the NL Yankees seriously targeting Corey Kluber.
If I'm the Indians, I don't see what the rush to trade Kluber or Trevor Bauer as rumored.
The team is still the favorite to win the AL Central and Kluber is very affordable and under team control for three more seasons (2019 and two team options), so if I'm moving Kluber, I want at least three prospects and perhaps a 4th, if I toss another player into the deal.

As for the Giants, signing veteran vagabond reliever Pat Venditte isn't exactly a big bang, but this team needs to take a step back and look for bargains more than high ticket items that will turn the franchise around.
It'll be interesting to see just how the Giants under new management attempt to move in the off-season.
Are they in full rebuild yet? Or do they attempt to move a few players in order to try to compete on a certain level?

I've always enjoyed watching college bowl games and I still watch as many as I can, but the trend of top players not playing in them is a troubling one.
I understand the financial ramifications with an injury and I would likely recommend that my son skip too if I was in that spot, but it's not good for the game and I'm not sure how it can be fixed.

I watched a lot of boxing yesterday and I'm not finished watching everything yet, but as I watched the ESPN+ card, I also was watching the Armed Forces Bowl to watch Houston play Army.
I picked Army to win since Ed Oliver was sitting out (see above) and record-setting quarterback D'Eric King was injured as well, I thought the triple option of Army would carry the day in a close game that could be entertaining for the different style of offenses.
What I didn't expect was a 70-14 beating.
Offensive coordinator Kendall Briles left before the game for the same job at Florida State (leaving days after signing the largest contract for an assistant coach in the country to stay at Houston) and with the various issues late in the season in Coog Land with head coach Major Applewhite's screaming match with Ed Oliver in front of a national audience, a defense that plays like a Big 12 defense, the departure of Briles and a bowl loss that set several records for a defeat and to Army for goodness sakes- Could Houston decide to let Applewhite go now or at minimum, he'll go into next season on the hottest of coaching hot seats?
It's an interesting time for a program that seemed to be on the verge of a potential move up in status to one that seems to have driven off the road.

Finally, I find I'm really looking forward to the AAF, which is the new spring league that will start the week after the Super Bowl.
I've always been a fan of the new leagues and I'm trying to decide which team will be my favorite team and will have their games followed here.
Without an Ohio team, which would have been a slam dunk choice since the league assigns players to teams territorially, I have a few contenders to decide from.

The Arizona Hotshots have bright green and gold uniforms, I always liked their coach in Rick Neuheisel from his USFL playing days and for some reason, Texas Tech was assigned to the Hotshots as a territorial school and they are the early favorite.
The San Antonio Commanders have the Houston Cougars as a territorial school and have interesting helmets with a logo on one side and the player's number on the other.
The Salt Lake Stallions have cool blue and silver uniforms as the ice to the Hotshots heat.
The more I see them, the more I can see them as a contender.
The Memphis Express has the best name (I keep hearing Jim Cornette introduce the Midnight Express), coach Mike Singletary and I did root for the Memphis USFL entry.
I think it'll be one of those four.

Coming soon- Browns vs Bengals and the weekend in boxing including a shocker in Brooklyn!

Minor League Fantasy Draft-Round Two-Heliot Ramos.

In the second round, I was pretty pleased to be able to select a player that I was considering in round one when I picked outfielder Heliot Ramos, the 2017 San Francisco Giants first-round pick from Puerto Rico.

Ramos has huge upside but is a far riskier pick than my first round outfielder Luis Robert.
I didn't expect to have to choose between Robert and Ramos so I decided to go with the more refined prospect in Robert and hope for the best that Ramos would slide to the second round.

Ramos was a somewhat criticized first rounder of the Giants last season as some teams loved him and others wondered about his bat.
Ramos answered some questions in the Arizona Rookie League last season as he hit .351 with three homers in 37 at-bats for the Giants rookie league entry.
Ramos does have plenty of questions to answer still as he struck out 15 times, but the scouts that like him project him as a potential five-tool player.
Those that don't wonder about a lot of strikeouts, don't like his arm as much as others and remember his older brother Henry Ramos, who was a highly touted player in the Red Sox system, but never seemed to put it together with Boston and now is a AA/AAA level player for the Dodgers at soon to be 26.
Still, when the Giants were making trades for Evan Longoria and Andrew McCutchen (and tried for Giancarlo Stanton), the first name that opposing general managers asked for was reported to be Ramos.
Some of that may have been the less than deep San Francisco system, but it is always a good sign when other teams ask about a prospect frequently, which makes me think that Ramos may have won over some doubters already around the game at this early stage.

Heliot Ramos from the video below does seem to have plus tools and can turn on the ball pretty well at the plate.
For the Giants, who haven't seemed to produce a top power hitter since the Clinton administration, Ramos gives them some hope that in a few years, he could be just that.
Ramos doesn't turn 19 until September, which means he'll be very young for a full season player.
The Giants are likely to challenge him at Low A Augusta in their new ballpark and see what happens, but there is a slim chance that the Giants could take it a little slower, keep him in Arizona for a few months and start him with their Northwest League short-season team-the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes.

Heliot Ramos is far from a sure thing and as I mentioned earlier, there is some risk involved, but late in round two, I was ready to gamble on Ramos and take my chances...
Back later with either my third round pick (Unlikely to get to me that soon) or more likely a cleaning of the inbox...

Cleaning out the inbox-Sports Version

The inbox is just overflowing with items and it's funny how that works out sometimes.
Sometimes it takes me a few weeks to build an inbox and others a few days is enough to build up a sports and a non-sports version as it is currently.

We'll start today with the sports version and two articles on our favorite college football player that didn't play for Ohio State in years-Houston defensive tackle Ed Oliver, who is as dominant a defensive lineman as I've seen in years.
I've written before about Oliver and the amazing things that he does on the field and you'll only hear his name more and more in the future.
Oliver is almost sure to be (barring injury) a top-five selection in the 2019 NFL Draft and I have to admit I'm already dreaming of a Browns defensive line with Myles Garrett on the outside and Ed Oliver up the middle.
Dennis Dodd of CBS Sports writes of the working background of Oliver and it seems like his family sure isn't going to allow fame and prosperity to go to the head of the Houston Cougar star.
ESPN writes of the legend of Ed Oliver and asks can Oliver win the Heisman?
I don't think he has a chance even though he'll be the best player in the game as the bias against defenders for the award and playing for a Group of Five team should take care of that-deserving or not.
Don't believe the hype (Think about how many times you have read me overhype someone and get back to me)?
Watch this video with some of the plays that I've raved about in the past...


ESPN is back with an article on Kinston, North Carolina and the large amount of NBA stars that Kinston has put into the league.
It seems like every few years, another Kinston product makes it big in the NBA and the article looks at the city of Kinston and all of the problems that the city has dealt and continues to deal with.
It's quite interesting and makes you realize what it takes to make the big time and the issues that players have to overcome, even in a small city the size of Kinston.

Eleven Warriors writes of an idea, which is unlikely to happen, but would be terrific if it did- in creating the Ohio Classic, an event that would include all thirteen of the Division I basketball teams in Ohio.
I'd love to see something like that as I've been a proponent of Ohio State playing Cincinnati and Xavier for years, but I can't see a tournament that large happening.
I'd be pleased with an annual four-team tournament with Ohio State, Cincinnati and Xavier joining a fourth team that would either rotate or have the team with the highest power ranking from the year before earn the fourth slot, but the Ohio Classic would be even better.

The Hardball Times writes of the 50th anniversary of the 1968 season in baseball, known as the "Year of the Pitcher".
The article is about baseball, but it discusses most the ineffectual commissioner of the time, General William Eckert and how baseball handled the in-season assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy,
It's interesting to see how it was handled then and wonder how it would be handled today in the 24/7 news cycle climate...

Hardball Times finishes the inbox with Bruce Markusen's look back at the late Oscar Gamble, who passed away in late January.
Gamble was best used as a platoon outfielder against righthanded pitchers in his best years with the Indians and Yankees, especially in Yankee Stadium where Gamble could take advantage of the short right field dimensions.
Gamble's career year though came in 1977 with the White Sox with 31 homers for a team filled with one-year contracts that surprisingly contended for the American West title and won 90 games.
However, what most fans of the time (especially younger ones like me) remember was the massive Afro from his days in Cleveland that appeared on Topps cards in 1974,75,76 before being forced to cut the Afro upon his arrival in New York.
The 1976 Topps Traded card is a longtime favorite of collectors of the age with the Afro shown with an airbrushed Yankee hat on the card.

Cleaning out the inbox-Baseball

The inbox is just overflowing, so to get a few things out of there, I'll be taking care of the baseball notes.

Bruce Markusen and his "Card Corner" on the Baseball Hall of Fame website takes a look at the career of the "Toy Cannon" Jimmy Wynn.
The smallish Wynn at 5'9 was the first true power hitter for the Houston Astros in the notoriously power sapping Astrodome.
Markusen selected Wynn as his player to write about since the parameters for the article was a player that played for both World Series teams (Astros and Dodgers).
Wynn's first year with the Dodgers was the last big year of his career and I've always thought that his .271/32/108 line should have been enough to beat out his teammate and eventual winner Steve Garvey for the 1974 National League MVP.

The SABR website has thousands of player profiles and a recent one that caught my eye was that of early 1960's thumping first baseman Jim Gentile.
It was a very intensive profile of Gentile's career and I found his years of being blocked by Gil Hodges in the Brooklyn/Los Angeles system a story that was interesting.
Two Gentile points that were new to me- the first was that it was Gentile, not Hodges that played first base for the final game of the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.
The other was a classy move by the Orioles back in 2010.
In 1961, Gentile had a clause in his contract that would have given him a $5,000 bonus for leading the American League in RBI, but his 141 RBI fell one short of Roger Maris for first place in the league.
Almost 50 years later, a SABR researcher found that Maris had been given an extra RBI in a July game and that it was Gentile and Maris that led the league.
The Orioles brought Gentile to Camden Yards and surprised him with a check for five thousand dollars fulfilling their commitment.
Very classy by Baltimore.

SABR's baseball card blog has two articles of note from the inbox.
The first discusses Luis Tiant in "An ode to El Tiante".
The author connects Tiant to his comeback from arm injuries to explode on the Boston sports scene
in 1972, his lack of an appearance in the 1972 Topps set and the resulting first card with the Red Sox in the 1973 release, which stood out to me as a kid when you didn't exactly see a lot of red gloves around.
I always like when an author explains his interest in the topic and the author (Mark Armour) attaches his Tiant fandom as part of the piece.

SABR also adds an article on Pat Neshek, ace reliever, card collector and autograph hound.
Neshek's the biggest collector that actually plays in the league and his interview discusses all of his memorabilia collections.
Neshek was also in the news for collecting earlier this season when Neshek ripped Zach Greinke for not signing cards for Neshek after allegedly promising that he would do so.

There aren't specifics, but it appears that Wichita Kansas might be bringing affiliated baseball back to their town after a reference to a December Chamber of Commerce meeting there.
Supposedly, it could be AAA ball from the Pacific Coast League, but no teams have been mentioned as possible prospects to make the jump.

Cleaning out the inbox-All Baseball Version!

I have several baseball notes, so I decided to do an all baseball version.
It isn't often that I fill up the box with so much on one topic, but it works this time.

Sorry to hear of the passing of well-traveled outfielder Jim Landis at the age of 83.
Landis won five Gold Gloves patrolling centerfield for the White Sox and was considered the best fielding outfielder of his day.
Landis had his career year with the bat for the White Sox in 1961 with career highs in all three major categories at .283/22/85.
The SABR biography of Landis can be found here.

Two articles from Bruce Markusen's Card Corner with the topics both being outfielders from my youth in long time favorite Al Oliver and Bobby Tolan.
I remember Bobby Tolan more as an ace pinch hitter more than a star, but he was on the verge of becoming a headline player with excellent 1969 and 1970 seasons with the Reds.
I knew Tolan (article here) had missed the entire 1971 season with a torn Achilles tendon, but what I didn't know was how it happened.
Back in the days where players weren't making a ton of money, in the off-season, players used to make money, free meals etc when it was offered, there were a lot more use of promoting themselves and their teams as well and one manner of doing so that doesn't happen anymore is barnstorming winter basketball teams.
Usually, a few players get together (with a couple of ringers, if not enough players are on the team) travel around and play a game against some locals, sign some autographs and pick up a few bucks.
The problem with this is when you take in the chance of injury and the Reds banned the winter basketball team from playing even though manager Sparky Anderson gave permission.
And of course, that meant something had to happen and it was Tolan's Achilles that went.
Tolan would return with a strong 1972, but that was the last above average season for Tolan's career before leaving Cincinnati.
I thought I might have a chance of meeting Tolan when his son Robbie played for the Suns in late 2007, but he didn't return for 2008 due to injury and then a tragic shooting incident in Dec.2008.

Almost ten years to the day, the second Forgotten Superstar in the series was long time TRS favorite Al Oliver.
Markusen writes of the career of the almost Hall of Famer and what Oliver is doing today.
I found one interesting note that Texas had a trade set for Oliver to go to the Yankees for Oscar Gamble, Bob Watson and Mike Morgan that was scuttled when Gamble used his no-trade clause to block the trade.
If Oliver and his lefty swing would have gone to New York with the short right field wall-Oliver would have made the Hall-Bank on it...

SABR's Baseball Card Blog writes about card #28 in the 1959 Fleer Ted Williams set and the "Williams Shift".
The shift was created to deal with Williams and was the forerunner of the shifts (far too overdone for my tastes) in today's game.
I used to have a few cards in that set and despite considering myself a Williams fan, it's never been a set that I found all that visually appealing.

It's becoming more and more of a trend in minor league baseball for major league teams to buy minor league teams in order to ensure that their teams cannot be moved out of a particular league or keep them in a geographical footprint that is desirable.
Three teams changed hands of late as the Milwaukee Brewers are the new owners of the Carolina League's (High A) Carolina Mudcats, the New York Mets bought the International League (AAA) Syracuse Chiefs and the Texas Rangers purchased the South Atlantic League's (Low A) Hickory Crawdads.
The Brewers and Rangers were buying teams in towns that their farm clubs were already playing in, but the Mets bought Syracuse, despite the Mets having one year to go on their contract with Las Vegas so the Mets will own a team for one year that the Washington Nationals will provide the players for-unless the two teams can come to an agreement to switch now, which I am sure the Mets would jump at, but I doubt that Washington would be thrilled to do.

My Top Ten Baseball Movies-1-5

My top ten baseball movies conclude today with my top five films.
Keep in mind that these are just what I like and my list may be far different than yours!
Again, please remember that documentaries are not rated.

1) The Natural
You could have taken any of these films and asked on a particular day, which is my favorite and gotten a different answer, but upon careful thought-The Natural wins this.
The film perfectly captures its time (1939) and the surroundings make one think of the parks of the time like the Polo Grounds and Ebbetts Field.
Robert Redford plays like an actual player and swings like Ted Williams and that gives you first place in my rankings!
Darren McGavin is great in an uncredited role as gambler Gus as one of the villains.
Interesting Note: The film was made at Buffalo's War Memorial Stadium, which hosted minor league baseball teams, but is better known as the home of the two time AFL champion Buffalo Bills from 1960-1972.

2) Major League
Major League was going to be a favorite of mine as soon as the film was written to include the Indians and not only was it funny with so many lines that trail baseball fields to this day, but it had so many younger actors that would become stars in both television and film.
Plus it has all of those shots of 1980's Cleveland, even though the film was made in Milwaukee!
Margaret Whitton (who recently passed away) should have been a much bigger star after her tremendous portrayal of the nasty owner of the Tribe-Rachel Phelps.
Interesting Note: The original ending was to have Rachel Phelps tell Lou Brown that her persona' was a charade to motivate the team and she never intended to move the team to Miami.
Screenings preferred Phelps as the villain and the ending was changed.

3) Field of Dreams
This movie features lots of great performances from Kevin Costner, Ray Liotta, James Earl Jones and Amy Madigan among others and every son has to be touched at one time or the other by the 'catch scene" at the end of the movie.
Similar to For the Love of the Game, another Costner vehicle, baseball is what ties all the film together.
It may be overly sentimental, but if you ever played baseball with your dad-it gets you every time.
Interesting Note: Ray Liotta played Shoeless Joe Jackson as a righthanded batter when he actually was a lefty swinger.
The people involved with the film decided to lose a little historical accuracy to gain with Liotta looking like a legitimate player batting his natural righthanded stance.

4) Eight Men Out
The only film that is based on a real team, the Black Sox scandal of 1919.
It tells the story reasonably accurately and the baseball holds up as well.
The young stars of the film (Charlie Sheen, John Cusack, and D.B.Sweeney) all look like real ballplayers.
The only downside is the bad guy gamblers that set the scandal up are pretty much the stereotypical bad guys without any fleshing out.
Interesting Note: D.B.Sweeney actually played pro baseball briefly with the Kenosha Twins.

5) Mr.Baseball
I'm not the biggest Tom Selleck fan in the world, but he was perfect for this role as a former major league star with faded skills that carries his name to the Chunichi Dragons of the NPB in Japan.
The story is based on former Expo Warren Cromartie's Japanese career and it explains many of the differences between Japanese baseball and American.
It's not drop-dead hilarious overall, but if you are a hardcore seamhead, this film is worth a look.
Interesting Note: The love interest of Selleck in the film (Aya Takanashi) is reported to have left show business after this film.

Hope you enjoyed this two-part series.
I might do another one sometime maybe with other sports films.

My Top Ten Baseball Movies:6-10

I'm back with a post that was going to go up while I was gone, but wifi woes on the final night of my trip waxed that board for me.
I'll be dropping road trip posts later this week on Augusta, Kannapolis, Winston-Salem, and Danville along with all the usual stories from the road.
Until then, enjoy this and the final part of the feature that I'll post later today or Wednesday!


Movies, like so many things, are subjective.
We all have things that touch us, things that we know may not be great art, but make us howl with laughter and others that just are entertaining for other reasons.

Considering that, this and a future post with my top five choices for baseball films are subjective.
Documentaries are not included as there may be a future list for sports documentaries.
Your list may not rank with mine and some may make you wonder just what I'm thinking, but lists are usually fun to make, so here go my favorite baseball movies from 6 through 10!

6) Bull Durham
                          This might be lower than many have it rated, but it's still a fun movie.
Kevin Costner hits well as the aging vagabond "hired gun" that those of us on the minor league scene see all the time-especially in AA baseball and Tim Robbins as the young wild fireballer offers inspired work as well, although he does look a little older for the role than I'd like.
I've never been much of a Susan Sarandon fan, so that might have kept this out of the top five.
Interesting note; In some of the game action, you'll see Hagerstown Suns uniforms and players against the Durham Bulls, but they are usually announced as the Peninsula Pilots!

7) A League of Their Own
The story of the short-lived women's baseball league didn't make a lot of mistakes in the surroundings, although I would have preferred that they just used the actual name of P.K.Wrigley instead of the pseudonym "Walter Harvey" for the league founder (and Cubs owner) played by Garry Marshall.
Lots of ladies in this movie went onto major and minor roles in television and films even on the opposing team as Tea' Leoni and Janet Jones (Mrs.Wayne Gretzky) were on the rival Racine team.
Geena Davis was sensational in her role, but Tom Hanks as "Jimmy Dugan" (based on Hall of Famer Jimmie Foxx, who actually managed in the league) stole every scene he was in.
Love the little kid dancing around pointing at Dugan and taunting him with "You're gonna lose, you stink" before being drilled by a thrown glove! Got him, indeed!!
Interesting Note: Geena Davis says that the film has baseball, but not baseballs as they used spongy baseballs to not hit the cameramen

8) Major League II
This sequel isn't quite as good as the original mainly for two reasons.
One is the Indians home field moved from decrepit "Cleveland Stadium" (the filming was actually in Milwaukee County Stadium) to the unnamed stadium (This was Baltimore's Camden Yards).
Camden was a much better stadium, but its quality takes away a little from the grit of the original.
The other? The new characters (except one) didn't really make the cut for me, although Omar Epps was good enough replacing Wesley Snipes as Willie Mays Hayes.
I did think Jack Parkman (David Keith) was great as the villain of the film, Randy Quaid was hilarious as the angry fan and it still had several great scenes that I love and recite even now.
Interesting note: The movie never acknowledges the new stadium, even though the Indians had moved to Jacobs Field when this film was released.

9) Bad News Bears-1976
Ahead of its time in dealing with the hypocrisy of little league baseball, this film had so many things that were funny, yet offensive and a word for word remake couldn't be made today, which is why the remake despite having Billy Bob Thornton isn't nearly as good.
It's funny with a few flaws. Kelly Leak is said to be 13 or 14 in the movie (which is too old for little league play) and it's not hard to see Jackie Earle Haley isn't hitting the ball and Tatum O'Neal is clearly a boy pitching in a wig for her scenes.
Still, the kids are a riot and Walter Matthau was the perfect casting as the burned-out manager...
Interesting Note: Yankee pitcher Joey Turner was played by Brandon Cruz, who a few years earlier had been "Eddie" as the child star in the TV series "Courtship of Eddie's Father". 

10) Bad News Bears-Breaking Training
Even though this movie doesn't quite match the original, I can't help myself to watch it almost every time that MLB network shows it and that's a lot.
It's different because it lacks the social commentary, but it has many scenes that you remember to this day-Who hasn't done the "let them play" chant from the big game at least once in everyday life?
Combine that with cheesy current gold shill William Devane coaching in an old army jacket and you have a funny film.
Besides the real star is my beloved Astrodome with shots of the stadium inside and out along with those great 1970's Astros uniforms with the rainbow stripes and Astros of the age!
Name another movie that you get this-"Look, guys, it's Bob Watson and Cesar Cedeno"!!!
Interesting Note: Brett Marx as third baseman "Jimmie Feldman" is the grandson of "Gummo" Marx.

Bonus: Cobb
Tommy Lee Jones is terrific as the older Ty Cobb, but the baseball segments really show his age and take away from the film a bit.
Robert Wuhl has never been a favorite and that might be what kept Cobb out of my top ten.
Still, some great lines and Lou Myers as Willie, who quits as an employee of Cobb's owns his few scenes in the film,
Jones and Myers's scenes together alone are enough to watch this film if you never have watched it previously!

Honorable Mention-No particular order.
61-The Mantle/Maris story is told well and the casting of the pair is excellent. Just missed.

The Sandlot-Some would put this far higher, but it doesn't bring the nostalgia to me that Breaking Training does.

The Rookie-Dennis Quaid is great as Jim Morris, but a little too much time in Texas and not enough in the minors hurt its grade.

For the Love of the Game-More of a love story wrapped around a baseball game, but enough baseball to make it watchable.
Kevin Costner and John C.Reilly are great as aging and grizzled batterymates.

The Scout-Albert Brooks is my pick as the underrated comic genius of my time and he carries Brendan Fraser (who is a little better than normal here) to a pretty decent film with tons of cameos from baseball celebrities.

Podcast:Special Guest Stacey Gotsulias

The podcast returns with freelance writer Stacey Gotsulias with a wide ranging conversation ranging from baseball to my prom to Don Johnson and way more!
This was one of the most fun shows that I have worked on!!
The Don Johnson song will make more sense,if you listen to the show!!