Author: howard

After returning to the Yankees in 1953 after two years in the U.S. Army, Ford dominated the American League.

For more than a decade the 5’10” 180-lb lefthander controlled games by mixing up his outstanding change up, curve and effective fastball. Ford had one of the league’s best pickoff moves and he was an excellent fielder.

By the time he retired, Ford had become known as “The Chairman of the Board,” not to be confused with the other chairman from nearby Hoboken.

Ford’s most prominent statistics are his consistently low ERAs and high winning percentages. In 11 of 16 seasons, he was under a 3.00 ERA and his worst was 3.24. His .690 winning percentage, higher than the Yankees’ team percentage for the same period, ranks first among modern pitchers with 200 or more wins. He allowed an average of only 10.94 base runners per nine innings and posted 45 career shutouts, including eight 1-0 victories.

During Ford’s 18-year career with the Yankees, the only team he played for, the Bronx Bombers won 11 pennants. He ranks first all-time in World Series wins (10), games and games started (22), innings pitched and strikeouts. In the 1960, ’61 and ’62 Series, Ford pitched 33- 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings, breaking Babe Ruth’s record of 29- 2/3.

Ford, 82, is a Baseball Assistance Team advisory board member. BAT is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to helping former Major League, Minor League, and Negro League players with financial or medical difficulties.

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“Double the fun” is a Friday feature here that looks at one notable doubleheader in baseball history each week.

To say that my hometown of Pittsburgh is in the grips of Pirates mania is the understatement of the season.

All of a sudden, fans are coming out of the woodwork. The question on everyone’s lips: “How about those Buccos?” As of Wednesday morning, the Pirates are in first place ½ game ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers.

Eighteen years of sub .500 baseball will do that to long suffering Pirates fans. We knew we had finally made it when the word reached us that ESPN will televise the Monday night August 18 game against the Atlanta Braves. And rumor has it that the Pirates will also be ESPN’s Sunday night game August 21 against division rivals Cincinnati.

Sports Illustrated and the veritable New York Times will send reporters to PNC Park this Saturday to cover the Pirates-St. Louis Cardinals’ game that may have the division lead at stake.

Everything the Pirates have touched this year has turned to gold. Consider Mike “Fort” McKenry, the ninth starting catcher the Pirates have employed this year. Picked up from the Boston Red Sox AAA Pawtucket franchise, McKenry has been solid defensively and clutch at the plate.

Or how about Alex Presley called up from Indianapolis when regular left fielder Jose Tabata went on the disabled list? As of Tuesday, Presley is hitting .352 from the lead off position and supplying plenty of speed on the bases.

Then there’s shortstop Chase d’Arnaud replacing the injured Ronnie Cedeno. d’Arnaud, a Pepperdine University star, is an upgrade from the erratic Cedeno.

Jeff Karstens defines good pitching. He throws strikes (two of every three pitches), mixes his speeds, works fast (about eight seconds in between pitches) and to use the old adage in reference to Mike Mussina and Tom Glavine, “makes a living on the black.”

Chief Bender: The Hall of Fame pitcher had his last full season in the big leagues in 1917 at 33 but pitched off and on in the minors until 1937. He won 67 games his first three years in the bushes, and, still in his mid-30s at that point, had offers from the majors. Tom Swift, author of Chief Bender’s Burden, wrote that Bender wasn’t interested since his $8,500 salary with New Haven in 1921 was likely better than what he could make in the bigs. Swift wrote:

The minor leagues during Bender’s time were much different than the organized, affiliated leagues in the decades that followed. For the most part, they were independent, and rosters often contained players who were of Major League caliber–or at least once were. Players, especially those with name recognition, could make a decent living kicking around for five or ten years in places such as Richmond and Erie.

Joe McGinnity: Officially, McGinnity earned his nickname Iron Man working in a foundry. It could also refer to how he won over 200 games in the minors after leaving the majors in 1908 at 37. He pitched 15 years in the bush circuit in all and was active as late as 1925, four years before his death.

Rube Waddell: After drinking himself out of the big leagues in 1910, Waddell went 20-17 with a 2.79 ERA for Minneapolis in 1911, helping the team to an American Association championship. He contracted pneumonia while helping fight a flood in the offseason, which led to tuberculosis. Waddell managed a 12-6 mark against a 2.86 ERA for Minneapolis in 1912, slipped to 3-9 for Fargo-Moorhead in 1913, and died the next April. Prior to Waddell’s death, his manager from Minneapolis, Joe Cantillon paid his way to a sanitarium in San Antonio so he could be closer to his family.

Nap Lajoie: Lajoie spent 21 Hall of Fame seasons in the majors and last played in the show in 1916 two weeks shy of turning 42, outstanding longevity for his era. But he wasn’t done, becoming player-manager for Toronto of the International League in 1917 and hitting a circuit-best .380 with 221 hits. He bowed out the following year with Indianapolis in the American Association where he hit .282 in another player-manager gig.

Three Finger Brown: Brown won 20 games six straight years, Juan Marichal for an earlier generation. He last pitched for the Chicago Cubs in 1916 at 39, though he played another decade between the minors and exhibitions. In 1919, he was 16-6 with a 2.88 ERA for Terre Haute, his hometown, of the Illinois-Indiana-Iowa League.

Joe Jackson: Following his lifetime ban from organized baseball in 1921 for his alleged role in fixing the 1919 World Series, Shoeless Joe played outlaw ball under an assumed name for another two decades, mostly in Georgia and South Carolina. Photos from those days can be seen here.

Joe Gordon: A lot of ex-big leaguers opted to wind out their careers in the Pacific Coast League in the days before the majors came west. Gordon didn’t look like an old show horse out to pasture his first year in the PCL in 1951, when the former New York Yankees second baseman hit 43 home runs with 136 RBI for the Sacramento Solons. He declined dramatically the following year, and that was essentially the end of his playing days.

Luke Easter: Some sluggers might quit after being cut at 38. Easter was just getting started, heading to the minors where he hit 231 home runs over the next 11 years. He had his best years with Buffalo of the International League, hitting 113 bombs from 1956 to 1958. In ’57 at age 42, Easter had 40 home runs, led the league in RBI, and became the first man to clear the center field scoreboard at Buffalo’s home park.

Rickey Henderson: One of my favorite baseball stories in recent years was Henderson taking to ESPN in 2003 to ask for another shot in the big leagues. As he was in the midst of hitting .339 for Newark of the Atlantic League, Henderson got his chance, signing with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He didn’t do much for them, and that was the end of his big league career after 25 seasons. All the same, Henderson played another two years in the independent leagues and said in 2009 at 50 that he was interested in coming back.

Jose Canseco: As of Sunday, the 47-year-old former Bash Brother was hitting .233 with two home runs and 17 RBI as player-manager for the Yuma Scorpions of the North American Baseball League. It can’t be helping his preseason aspirations, shared via Twitter, of returning to the majors for the first time since 2001 and leading the American League in home runs.

I became a Pittsburgh Pirates fan five years ago after my beloved Montreal Expos were moved to Washington.  Logically I suppose, I should have become a Nationals fan but there was seemingly little connection between them and my Expos anymore at that point.  If I was going to pick a new team to cheer for it couldn’t be a successful one as that would be front running in my book.   In 2006, my daughter moved to a town a mere one and a half hours from Pittsburgh.  My decision was a perfect combination of family ties and a poor baseball team.  Pittsburgh also had the most beautiful ballpark anywhere and some of the better play by play announcers.  Hey, the more reasons the better no matter how frivolous.  I became a Pirates fan.

I have been able to watch most of their games since then and I have suffered a sort of designed resignation.  The Pirates were so inept that even when they were victorious, it looked painful and sloppy. Last season, the second half was a total disaster especially away from PNC Park.  I wasn’t foolish enough to believe the typical winter optimism and promises from Pirates management as to the prospects for the 2011 season.   Sure there had been some positive signs during the 2010 season as players such as Andrew McCutchen, Neil Walker, and Pedro Alvarez  looked like they might live up to the hype surrounding them.   There was still the problem of no starting pitching and a too many Triple A or bench players being used in the role of everyday players.  With no significant offseason changes, how were the Pirates going to improve for 2011?   The problem was, they probably weren’t.

All of the above brings me to this week’s topic.  Here were are in the middle of July, a mere days after the all star break and the Pittsburgh Pirates are in first or within a game.  They have a record going into today of 48-44 and sit one game back of the division lead.  They were tied for first yesterday.  They could once more be tied for first after today.  Until recently, Pittsburgh had seven players on the DL.  Some, such as Ryan Doumit and Pedro Alvarez, have been on the DL for weeks.  They have major holes at catcher, first base, shortstop, third and right field.   They have been winning with minor leaguers, a starting staff which has played well above their abilities and a lights out closer in Joel Hanrahan.  The Pirates have little or no power.  Most of the players on the DL aren’t going to help the team much anyway.

My only explanation is the ponderence of artificial parity.  There are simply too many mediocre teams in major league baseball this season and the proposed introduction of two more playoff teams only exasperates the problem.  I’m not picking on the Pirates but they have no business contending for a playoff spot this late into the season.  They simply have far too many holes.  There are too many teams with too many holes.  This can make for exciting regular season games of course but these teams will be only cannon fodder for teams such as Philadelphia, Boston and the New York Yankees come playoff time.

It’s wonderful for the fans and gives them hope as evidenced by the sellout crowds recently at PNC Park  but it’s all smoke and mirrors.  Should this be the goal of major league baseball, a National Hockey League type of regular season?

The owners love it and Fox Sports will love it as the money will come flowing in from more and more franchises.   I just don’t like to see it.

What he did: One of my favorite forgotten greats of yesteryear, Bobby Veach might have been a Hall of Famer in another era. In a 14-season career that spanned 1912 through 1925, Veach hit.310 lifetime with 2,063 hits, and he may be known most for being one of Ty Cobb’s supporting bats on the Detroit Tigers of the ’10s and early ’20s. Playing the majority of his best years in the Deadball Era, Veach hit just 64 home runs in his career, though his three American League RBI titles hint what he could have done in a time where home run hitters ruled baseball.

Era he might have thrived in: Veach was a diminutive left-handed batter standing just 5’11” at 160 pounds, though his SABR bio notes he “swung the bat like a powerful slugger, down at the end of the handle, and with similar results.” Mel Ott was a similarly built lefty, and like Ott, perhaps Veach could have excelled in a ballpark with a short right field fence during the offensive heyday of the 1930s. This leaves the Polo Grounds in New York or the Baker Bowl in Philadelphia. In either place, I’m guessing Veach’s career high of 16 home runs in 1921 might be double if not triple.

Why: Some eras and ballparks make Hall of Famers, others make it more difficult. Veach didn’t have an impossible task in his own time, as fellow Deadball outfielder Tris Speaker successfully transitioned to the Live Ball Era. And I suppose one could argue the best possible role for Veach was being Cobb’s teammate. Still, I can’t help but wonder how much better Veach’s stats would be if his career had started even 10 years later.

New York in the 1930s was a veritable factory of future Hall of Famers, both for the offensive juggernaut in the Polo Grounds and the fact that decades later, former Giant Frankie Frisch pushed for the enshrinement of many of his former teammates while he ran the Veterans Committee. The Baker Bowl meanwhile produced at least one player who wouldn’t have been a Hall of Famer elsewhere, Chuck Klein who hit .395 lifetime there and maybe .280 away. Then there’s Lefty O’Doul who doesn’t have a spot in Cooperstown but put up gaudy numbers in both parks (as well as another hitter’s cove, Ebbets Field) and almost hit .400 in Philly.

Granted, even with loftier statistics, I’ll concede Veach might have been operating with the same skill set. After all, looking at the numbers of the 1999 Colorado Rockies doesn’t lead me to believe Dante Bichette is anything more than a mediocre hitter with a dream job. A different era wouldn’t make Veach a better player, per se. But then the Veterans Committee has been notorious historically for not dealing in context, and sometimes, better stats regardless of their era have been enough for a plaque. It’s one reason guys like High Pockets Kelly are in Cooperstown and others like Bill Dahlen, another Deadball great, are not.

As it stands, Veach received exactly one vote in 1937, died in 1945, and I’m guessing that except among the baseball research community, he’s long since forgotten.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Others in this series: Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies, Barry Bonds, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Carl Mays, Charles Victory Faust, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Joe Posnanski, Johnny Antonelli, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty Grove, Lefty O’Doul, Major League (1989 film), Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Paul Derringer, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Wally Bunker, Willie Mays

I was reading through a collection of interviews with old sportswriters the other day, No Cheering in the Press Box when I came across a passage from a former Philadelphia scribe named Al Horwits. He made an assertion that struck me, saying Jimmie Foxx could have been greater if he’d taken better care of himself. Horwits said:

It would have meant a lot to [Foxx] if he had broken Ruth’s record. But there wasn’t much stress put on statistics in those days. And then the drinking affected his batting. He started getting a little heavy in the chest. This is where it affects sluggers. They can’t get the bat around fast enough on the baseball. That’s what happened to him.

It seems a little harsh to say that a man with a .325 lifetime batting average, 534 home runs, and a reputation as one of the best sluggers in baseball history could have done more. But Foxx was effectively done in his mid-30s, able to play through World War II since he was past draft age, though he struggled to hold a spot in the majors even then. With better care, he might have come close to Ruth’s 714 career bombs.

Truth is, baseball history is filled with men who could have done more if they’d drank less, taken better care of themselves, etc. Some of these players are prominent, others little more at this point than historical footnotes. Here are 10 of these men:

1. Mickey Mantle: Maybe the most famous example of this in baseball history, the Commerce Comet was touted as the potential greatest player ever when he debuted. He wound up with more than 500 home runs lifetime, though drinking and carousing might have cost him a couple hundred more.

2. Denny McLain: McLain had two Cy Youngs by the time he was 25, but was out of the majors by 30, plagued by a massive weight gain and ties to gamblers.

3. Hal Chase: Longtime sportswriter Fred Lieb devoted a chapter to Deadball Era first baseman Chase, saying he might have been an all-time great but that “he had a screwball brain.”

4. [Tie] Dwight Gooden/Darryl Strawberry: Cocaine.

6. Rube Waddell: Drank himself out of the big leagues, though he did enough to make the Hall of Fame.

7. Don Newcombe: Ditto, minus the Hall of Fame.

8. Albert Belle: The temperamental slugger quit in his early 30s due to injuries, though I wonder if a lessened will to compete drove Belle from the game early and helped him fall short of Cooperstown. In his prime, he may have been one of the best power hitters of the 1990s, though he looked a shadow of his self toward the end.

9. Mysterious Walker: Walker was a big league pitcher who had to flee his team in 1910 after being accused of a crime. He resurfaced in the Pacific Coast League, pitching under a pseudonym and refusing to even allow his picture to be taken. He reportedly said he’d forgo a salary if he didn’t win two-thirds of his games; the fact Walker went 6-4 that year for the San Francisco Seals makes me wonder if he had to go without.

10. Steve Howe: Bright relief pitcher and 1981 National League Rookie of the Year for the Los Angeles Dodgers who battled drug problems much of his career and was at one point handed a lifetime ban before being reinstated.

Editor’s note: In honor of tonight’s All Star game, Joe Guzzardi’s usual Wednesday post will run one day early this week.

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During baseball’s Golden Era, players didn’t have hammies, quads, obliques or menisci. What they had instead was a deeply ingrained desire to play baseball and a respect for the honor of being chosen, in those years chosen by the fans, to represent their team and league in the Mid-Summer Classic.

For the umpteenth year in a row, I didn’t watch either the game or the horrible Home Run Derby. I heard this morning that derby winner Robinson Cano’s father Jose pitched to him. Maybe next year his mother, Claribel Mercedes, can lob the ball into him.

I can’t turn on ESPN without a deep dread that Wendy Nix might start to scream baseball inanities at me. Nix’s credentials seem to be that she was, depending on which Internet version of her personal life you trust, either married to or once married to a Boston Red Sox assistant general manager. Regardless of her marital status, I’d bet lots of money Nix could not answer most baseball questions without a prompter in front of her.

I’ll spare you rehashing which of the “All Stars” thumbed their noses at the fans and why they didn’t show up. You probably already know. If you don’t, chronicling their lame excuses would be too depressing for me to write and for you to read.

Let’s go back in time to a great All Star game, maybe one of the best ever: the July 13, 1954 slugfest at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium won by the American League, 11-9. Sixteen future Hall of Famers played.

The game started as a pitcher’s duel between the Philadelphia Phillies’ Robin Roberts and the New York Yankees’ Whitey Ford. Roberts was the first pitcher to start four consecutive games, 1950-1954. Casey Stengel’s selection of Ford was a surprise, however. The lefty had pitched three innings of relief at Washington on the Sunday before the game (!).

The American League jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the third on Al Rosen’s home run blast off Roberts. Another four-bagger by the next batter Ray Boone upped the score to 4-0.

Interesting sidebar about Rosen, especially in light of the 2011’s namby-pambys.

In 1953, Rosen was the American League Most Valuable Player and in the All Star balloting garnered the second most votes behind only Stan Musial. Rosen was playing a new position, first base, to which he agreed so that the Indians could make room for rookie third baseman Rudy Regalado.

On May 25, Rosen fractured his index finger and fell into a deep slump. By All Star game time, Rosen approached Stengel and offered to withdraw. But Stengel, after consulting with Commissioner Ford Frick, left the final decision to Rosen who elected to play.

Said Rosen: “With the bum finger and being in a slump, I was scared to death about being the All Star Game goat. But that strike out [in his first at bat] made me mad and I forgot about my finger.”

Rosen’s line, which included a second home run in the fifth inning that earned him All Star MVP honors: AB 4; R 2; H 3; RBI 5

Another 1954 oddity. The winning pitcher, Washington Senators’ 23-year- old rookie Dean Stone, sent in to face Duke Snider in the top of the eighth, didn’t retire a batter. With the count 1-1, Red Schoendienst broke for home from third. Stone easily threw him out in a play that National League manager Leo Durocher insisted was a balk.

I hadn’t been to a major league baseball game in almost two years and so with Blue Jay tickets in hand and the chance to see Roy Halladay in person, I hopped on the train and made the four and one half hour trip to the Rogers Center.

The weather was perfect, (July1-3), the crowds were loud and noisy and the games certainly didn’t disappoint.  Either team could have swept all three but the Philadelphia Phillies won two.  Their only loss was on the Sunday after Cliff Lee uncharacteristically fell apart late in the game and surrendered three homeruns in the eighth inning.

Apart from the welcome home Roy Halladay celebrations, (even when Halladay beat the Jays the home crowd still gave him another standing ovation at the conclusion of the game much to the chagrin of the local media), the real and continuing story was/is the impossible if I didn’t see it myself season and one half of top American League all-star vote getter Jose Bautista.

This past offseason I was one of those writers who wrote off his amazing 2010 season as a steroid induced fluke.  I chastised the Toronto management for signing Bautista to a multiyear big money deal.

Couldn’t they see that 2010 was a fluke on the level of Brady Anderson?

Won’t these GMs ever learn?  Players such as Bautista always come crashing back down to earth.  Pitchers will figure them out and without steroids they will go quietly back to the mediocrity of seasons past.

I was wrong. Jose Bautista is the real deal.  Whether playing right field or third base, his defense is superb and his attitude is one of team first, second and third.   When asked to move back to third base he did so without hesitation.  He is the team leader.

But it’s his bat.

It impressed, amazed and astonished me and it wasn’t simply a player having one of those hot weekends where everything goes better than perfect.  Even his outs were very hard hit balls which the fielders looked reluctant to get in front of. He seemed at times to be toying with the opposing pitcher. He went deep and quick against Halladay and Cliff Lee.  He seemed to seek out the big situations, the game on the line situations.  He delivered time after time with a big homerun to tie the game or put his team ahead. The sound of the ball off of his bat was one that few players can produce.  The ball exploded. The ball was gone over the fence, almost too quickly and too far, almost impossible to follow.

There was electricity in the park when he stepped onto the on deck circle. I had to stop whatever else I was thinking of doing (beer, hot dog, chatting with the fans beside me), and an incredible anticipatory hardly dare to breath silence fell on the park when he stepped into the batter’s box.  We knew something big was about to happen.  The ballpark was waiting to explode.  When it did, we stood there and shook our heads, Blue Jay and Phillies fans alike.  How could a player do this again and again and again?

I’ve heard rumors that Bautista changed his stance and approach at the plate a couple of years ago.  I’ve heard that all he needed was regular playing time. I’ve heard that some players mature later in their careers. I really have no idea if any or all of these stories are true but I do know what I saw even if I still can’t quite believe it.

Bautista has claimed in interviews that his development of a leg kick was the key.  It vastly improved his timing and allowed him to start his swing earlier but keep his body back allowing the bat to explode into the zone when he swings. He also claims that this allows him to see the ball much better.

This season the incredible power has remained and his batting average has climbed some 60 points.  He has learned to take what they give him or do what the situation asks for.  If the pitches are not there, a two run single will do just fine.  Of course, he is beginning to be pitched around or simply walked at a greater frequency as more and more opposing pitchers and managers are coming to realize what I did on that weekend.

Bautista is no fluke.  He is the most powerful hitter in baseball. Count me in.

The 1951 Pittsburgh Pirates were one of a long string of bad Bucco teams that, because of poor hitting, pitching and fielding, consistently finished at the bottom of the National League standings. From 1949 through 1957, the post-World War ll Pirates had only one winning season.

But from time to time, the Pirates’ rose to glory even though their best games were often flawed. Consider the no-hitter thrown by Bucco left hander Cliff Chambers on May 6, 1951 at Boston’s Braves Field.

Chambers had notched an Opening Day win in Cincinnati against the Reds and followed up with another road win against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Then, Chambers took the mound that cold spring afternoon to pitch the second game of a double header. In the first game, future Hall of Famer Warren Spahn shut the Buccos out 6-0.

When Chambers walked the first Braves’ batter, he set the tone for rest of his outing. By the time the Pirates racked up his 3-0 victory in a tidy 2:00 hours, Chambers had issued eight free passes to Braves batters, an incredible five of them to the leadoff hitter.

Chambers’ wife June at the family’s Pittsburgh home listening to Rosey Rowswell and Bob Prince call the game on radio. As she told Pittsburgh Press sports editor Les Bierderman, “In the ninth inning when Cliff needed only three more outs to make his no hitter, I gathered my two little girls around me and we said a prayer. I hope it helped.”

Chambers’ no-hitter was only the second in Pirates’ history. In 1907 at Exposition Park, rookie Nick Maddox became the first Bucco to throw a no-hitter and also at age 20, the youngest player in major league baseball history to accomplish the feat. In the Pirates’ 125 year history, only four other pitchers have tossed no hitters—none of them at Forbes Field.

Curiously, Chambers’ no-hitter was his last win for the Pirates. Four consecutive losses and five weeks later, the Pirates traded the popular Chambers to the St. Louis Cardinals for Joe Garagiola.

Chambers, a Portland native who grew up in Washington and graduated from Washington State University, is 89.

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“Double the fun” is a Friday series here that looks at one famous doubleheader each week.