Baseball: Past and Present

Last week I finished off my column with the words, “I’m just getting started”.  The more I think about the Bud Selig illegacy, the more I am realizing that this topic could indeed turn into a novel of epic length, something akin to The Decline and fall of The Roman Empire.   There is so much to reveal and discuss concerning the man who has tried everything in his power to destroy this wonderful game of baseball.  And the hits just keep on coming.

Selig has long had a very shady relationship with current Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria.  Loria is a name which is still reviled in the city of Montreal .  The dubious financial transactions between Loria and the now owner of the Boston Red Sox; bribery and the contraction scheme of a few years past to the present day investigation by the securities; and exchange commission concerning the Miami Marlins stadium deal– all hint at the possible involvement of Selig.   The baseball world should be gathering outside of Miller Park to, as was done in ancient Roman times, unceremoniously tear down the statues of their corrupt and former Caesars.

Selig, as owner of the Brewers, is thought of fondly in many parts of Milwaukee as the man who brought baseball back to that wonderful city.  This is all despite the fact that he ran this franchise into the ground, left the fans with a team in which little money was ever invested in and then as owner was at the same time, the commissioner of baseball.  The term conflict of interest began to rear its ugly head.  After being exposed for this conflict of interest, Selig defended himself by switching the day to day operations of the Brewers to his daughter.  He claimed that this would satisfy any conflict of interest charges as he had little or no influence…on his own daughter.

The Montreal Expos were allowed to wither and die on the vine.  Star players were allowed to be traded for what amounted to little more than Triple A players and plans for a new and modern baseball park in downtown Montreal were scuttled by Loria and I suspect his good friend Bud Selig.  Almost any other franchise you could name would not be allowed to hurt the city and destroy a franchise whose fans showed they were very supportive of a team which, through good times and bad, did support the team.  Loria wanted to buy the then Florida Marlins, owned by current Boston owner John Henry, and Selig was just the man to do it.  At one point, Henry owned both the Marlins and RedSox, illegal by any business laws.  The evoking of the best interest of baseball remained securely locked in the top drawer in the commissioner’s office.  Baseball purchased the Expos from Loria allowing him to buy the Florida Marlins.  There were also interest free loans involved.

There’s more. The owner of the Minnesota Twins was offered hundreds of millions of dollars by Selig to contract the team a few seasons ago.  This money was much more than Carl Pohlad could have received had he sold the team on the open market. There was no logical reason to contract the Twins.  Attendance was good and they had been successful.  Pohlad and Selig were very good friends and financial buddies. After the media became aware of this situation, the flood of negative press saw Selig suddenly abandon these contraction plans.  But Loria got the Marlins and Henry got the RedSox.

All of the above, brief as this discussion is, point to obvious and very dubious and probably illegal, financial wheeling and dealings encouraged if not tacitly sanctioned by the one man who is supposed to be looking after major league baseball.   All of this by the man who boasts that revenues have quadrupled over the last few years.  So have ticket prices, concession prices and team souvenirs.

I’ll be going on to part three next week.  The awarding of another, (third time is the charm), franchise to Washington, steroids, the All Star game, November baseball and other topics-if I have the stomach for it.  Right now I’m suddenly not feeling that well.

In his recent guest post on Hardball Times, my friend and fellow baseball historian Graham Womack mentioned in passing that he had never heard of pitcher Bob Kuzava.Read Graham’s post “Getting One Vote for the Hall of Fame” here.

Let’s be clear from the outset. There’s not a reason in the world that anyone outside of diehard New York Yankee fans from the mid-1950s should recognize Kuzava’s name. The journeyman left hander who pitched for eight teams in 10 years (Cleveland Indians, Chicago White Sox, Washington Senators, Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Philadelphia Phillies, Pittsburgh Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals) and compiled a 49-44 record with a 4.05 ERA is completely forgettable.

But as was so often the case with the Yankees during their run of five consecutive World Championships, a player—usually a pitcher—would rise out of obscurity to perform spectacularly at a critical moment to help deliver a key game to the Yankees.

So it was with Kuzava in 1951, his best season. After posting an 8-4 record with a 2.40 ERA Kuzava, who had started eight games, took a seat in the Yankees’ bull pen for the World Series against the crosstown rival New York Giants. With Vic Raschi and Eddie Lopat winning 21 games and Allie Reynolds 17, manager Casey Stengel’s starting rotation was set.

In the sixth game, the Yankees were coasting with a 4-1 lead in the top of the ninth. But Johnny Sain, pitching in relief of starter Reynolds, faltered, gave up two runs and left the bases full when Stengel summoned Kuzava.  Press box reporters thought Stengel was crazy since the next two batters were right handed, Monte Irvin and Bobby Thompson. But Stengel’s gamble paid off. Irvin and Thompson hit back-to-back sacrifice flies that scored two runs but left Kuzava with only one out to collect.

With the score now 4-3, it was Giants’ manager Leo Durocher’s turn to play a hunch. Durocher chose right handed, back up catcher Sal Yvars to hit for the lefty Hank Thompson. Yvars, understudy to Wes Westrum, had made a mere 41 regular season plate appearances.

That set the stage for one of the World Series’ most thrilling finishes. With Whitey Lockman in scoring position and representing the tying run, Yvars lifted a weak fly ball to right field that, in the late afternoon sun and with the shifting winds, seemed sure to drop in. But Hank Bauer, playing right in place of the injured Mickey Mantle, made a lunging dive and came up with the ball. The game and the series were over.

Kuzava earned the save, an achievement he repeated in 1952 in the seventh gameagainst the Brooklyn Dodgers. Although the Dodgers slugging right handed line up feasted on lefties, especially in Ebbets Field where the game was played, Kuzava set down the last eight batters: Duke Snider, Jackie Robinson (on another famous lunging catch, this one by Billy Martin falling on his knees near the pitcher’s mound), Roy Campanella, Andy Pafko, Carl Furillo, Bobby Morgan, Billy Cox and Pee Wee Reese. Once again, Stengel’s faith in Kuzava paid off.

Now 88 and living in Michigan, Kuzava’s friends call him “Sarge,” his rank during World War II where he served from 1943 to 1945.

What he did: In 1934, Babe Ruth was nearing the end of his storied career. With Ruth’s production having once again slipped and his 40th birthday looming, the New York Yankees chose to release their legend after he returned from a goodwill trip to Japan. The Sultan of Swat’s fondest wish was to manage in the majors, though the best the Yankees could offer was for him to run their top farm club. As owner Jacob Ruppert famously remarked of Ruth, “How can he manage a team when he can’t even manage himself?”

Ruth rejected New York’s offer, listening to his wife who told him he was strictly a big league person. Instead, Ruth went to the Boston Braves for one more bleak, bloated season, looking grotesque in the outfield and serving in an empty role as vice president. He lasted a few months, and save for a role as hitting coach for the Brooklyn Dodgers two seasons later was done in baseball. The apocrephyal story, told by Ruth’s wife after his death in 1948, was that he sat by the phone the rest of his life waiting for a call to manage that never came.

Era he might have thrived in: It’s interesting to wonder what might have been if pride hadn’t gotten the best of the Bambino. The minor league team he refused to run, the Newark Bears went on in 1937 to have one of the greatest seasons ever for a farm club, going 109-43 and winning the International League by 25-1/2 games. A number of future big leaguers starred for those Bears including Charlie Keller, who hit a circuit-best .353.  Once, after a player got promoted to the Yankees, a fellow Bear remarked it was “because he couldn’t crack the lineup here.” It seems if Ruth had sat on the Newark bench, he’d have gotten some credit for their success and earned his shot managing in the majors.

Why: First of all, this tact worked for the Newark manager in ’37, Ossie Vitt, who parlayed his team’s brilliance into a stint the following three seasons managing the Cleveland Indians (interestingly, Vitt went 262-198 those years, never finishing worse than third, though he was unpopular with his players and didn’t last as manager beyond 1940.) While I don’t know if the Bambino could have unseated Joe McCarthy in pinstripes, as the Yankees were on an unprecedented run of their own in the late ’30s, an impressive showing in Newark might have gotten Ruth the job in Cleveland or elsewhere.

I’ll add that I think Ruth was unfairly judged. No doubt he drank and caroused, but I can’t see character resolutely determining a manager’s odds for success. There have simply been too many exceptions to this throughout baseball history, the Boston Red Sox new hire Bobby Valentine only the latest example. In earlier years, John McGraw was a wild young manager with the New York Giants, Leo Durocher returned from a gambling-related ban to lead New York to multiple World Series, and Billy Martin won and drank everywhere he went. Even Casey Stengel told his players not to drink at the hotel bar “because that’s where I do my drinking.”

I don’t know if Ruth was terribly worse as a person than any of these men, and he’d have also brought a wealth of baseball experience. I doubt it’s on talent alone that he swatted 714 home runs, hit .342 lifetime, or won 94 games as a pitcher. It’s a shame he couldn’t have passed more of his knowledge on.

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: Al Simmons, Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies,Barry Bonds, Billy Beane, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson,Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe,Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Don Drysdale, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jim Abbott, 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, Ollie Carnegie, Paul Derringer, Pedro Martinez, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson,Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson,Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, Wally Bunker, Wes Ferrell
, Will Clark, Willie Mays

Of the eleven players who won four or more batting titles, only Bill Madlock isn’t in the Hall of Fame. (The other ten are listed at the end of my column; try to name them before looking. Note: some spoilers in the text.)

Editor’s note: It is my pleasure to present the latest from Alex Putterman. With the recent National League Most Valuable Player Award being given to one of the players here, Alex’s piece seems very apropos.

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When I was playing, I used to resent being singled out as a Jewish ballplayer. I wanted to be known as a great ballplayer, period… Lately, though, I find myself wanting to be remembered not only as a great ballplayer but even more as a great Jewish ballplayer.

-Hank Greenberg

From the birth of professional baseball through the present day, Jews have played and succeeded in the Major Leagues. And as baseball history has progressed, the fraternity of Jewish players has grown to the point where an all-time 25-man Jewish roster is exceedingly easy to compile. Here are my selections for the all-Jewish all-star team, beginning with the starting line-up:

C Brad Ausmus – Ausmus didn’t hit much during his 18-year career but is a three-time Gold Glove winner with an impressive career defensive WAR of 9.8. He was inducted into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 2004, one of ten players on this list to have received that honor.

1B Hank Greenberg – The Hebrew Hammer was a two-time MVP, a four-time home run champ, and a Hall of Famer, but Jewish fans of his era admire him just as much for a religious-stance as for a batting-stance. In 1934, with his Tigers engaged in a pennant chase, Greenberg, by his own admission not a particularly religious man, opted to sit out on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, prompting poet Edgar A. Guest to write that, “We shall miss him on the infield and shall miss him at the bat / But he’s true to his religion–and I honor him for that.”

2B Buddy Myer – Baseball-Reference.com lists Hall of Famers Billy Herman and Joe Sewell as the batters most similar to Myer, suggesting that the Senators middle-infielder, who received only .7% of the HOF vote in his only year on the ballot, is somewhat underrated. A two-time all-star and one-time batting champ, Myer is the all-time hits leader among Jewish players.

3B Al Rosen – Rosen’s career was short but tremendously productive. From 1950 to 1954, he hit .296 with 156 home runs and an OPS+ of 150, earning the 1953 AL MVP award and very nearly winning that year’s Triple Crown. Rosen embraced the attention from the Jewish community that his success yielded, calling himself “one Jewish kid that every Jew in the world can be proud of.”

SS Lou Boudreau – Boudreau was raised by a Christian father and never identified as Jewish, but his mom was Jewish, and the Hall of Famer therefore qualifies for this team. Without him, we’d have a hard time filling the shortstop position (although Myer could move to short and Ian Kinsler into the starting lineup), and given that Boudreau hit .295 career, played terrific defense, and won the 1948 AL MVP award, I’m happy to claim him as Jewish.

LF Ryan Braun – The recently-crowned National League MVP could eventually challenge Greenberg’s undisputed title of Greatest Jewish Hitter Ever. Braun has hit over .300 in three consecutive seasons and has topped 30 home runs in four of his five big league campaigns. He has also developed into somewhat of a five-tool player, having stolen 33 bases in 2011 and greatly improved defensively from year to year. If Braun, 28, continues to grown in all facets of the game, he could pick up another MVP trophy or two before he’s done.

CF Lip Pike – One of baseball’s first stars, Pike was a home run champion in the 1860’s and ’70s, playing in the National Association of Base Ball Players, the National Association, and eventually the National League. He was also the first person ever to legally receive a salary for playing baseball.

RF Shawn Green – Green’s peak was short and his career’s ups and downs parallel to the steroid era, but for years Green was the only recognizable Jewish ballplayer and therefore holds a special place in the heart of a 90’s born Jewish baseball fan. As a New York Times headline once pronounced, Green was “A Power Hitter. And a Source of Jewish Pride.”

SP Sandy Koufax – Owner of four no-hitters and three Cy Young awards, Koufax is the all-time Jewish leader in strikeouts and is second among Jewish pitchers in career ERA and wins. When Game 1 of 1965 World Series fell on Yom Kippur, Koufax followed Greenberg’s precedent, sitting out to honor his religion. The Dodgers won that game and the series, with Koufax throwing three gems, including complete game shutouts in games 5 and 7.

Outfielder and third-baseman Sid Gordon (129 career OPS+) is the first man off the bench for this Jewish all-star team and could arguably start over Green or Pike. Kevin Youkilis and Ian Kinsler may one day sneak into the starting lineup but for now are relegated to the pine. Since Mike Lieberthal “does not wish to identify himself as a member of the Jewish community,” Harry Danning gets the nod as back-up catcher. Our All-Jewish team thins out a little bit at the end of the bench, with Mike Epstein (nicknamed Superjew) and Elliot Maddox occupying the final spots, at least until Ike Davis and Danny Valencia eventually usurp them.

All-time Jewish wins leader Ken Holtzman, 1980 AL Cy Young award winner Steve Stone, The “Yiddish Curver” Barney Pelty, and journeyman lefty Dave Roberts round out the starting rotation (Jason Marquis’s inexplicable longevity has put him fourth all-time among Jewish pitchers in wins and strikeouts, but this team deserves better than his 4.55 career ERA).

The bullpen is not the all-Jewish team’s strength. We’ll use Erskine Mayer as a spot-starter and long-reliever, Al Levine and Scott Schoeneweis as middle relievers, Harry Eisenstat as lefty-specialist, Craig Breslow as set-up man, and severely under-qualified Lance Sherry as closer. Let’s just say Koufax better go all nine innings.

Given his success as a player-manager, Boudreau seems like the logical choice to skipper the team. Gabe Paul and Theo Epstein can run the front-office, with Ruben Amaro Jr. and Randy Levine working under them. Former-Pirates headman Barney Dreyfus (one of the key figures in the creation of the World Series) could be team owner, although current-MLB owners Chuck Greenberg, Ted Lerner and Jerry Reinsdorf are viable candidates as well. And if the All-Jewish team needs a comissioner, Bud Selig qualifies.

Okay, okay.  I’m happy that baseball has signed a new agreement and there will be no strike for the next five years.  I get it.  I remember the previous strikes and no baseball definitely equaled no fun.  But someone has to stop this maniac who presides over Major League Baseball.  Someone has to shout from the highest mountain that the emperor has no clothes.

I’ve noticed after the gleeful announcement that an agreement had been signed that some of my fellow baseball journalists are finally getting the point and are calling it what it is– a shambles and a shame.  Some of my fellow journalists have even put aside the relief that there will be no baseball strike for the next few years and managed to see past another chapter in the disastrous reign of King Bud. This is an agreement which serves no one but the rich and powerful of the owners and the television networks.  Again, the average fan such as me has been left out of the equation amidst the joyous pronunciations of those who run the game.

An agreement for the sake of an agreement is often not an advantageous result, no matter the industry.  Smiles and handshakes all around do not constitute success.  The, at least we did something, simply doesn’t cut it.   The smiles looked more painful than joyful.  Lessons were not learned and successful models were not followed.  Profits should not be the only thing that matters and baseball should not become like all the other sports.  It was unique.  Now it is on the precipice of that slippery slope of mediocrity and sameness.  Nothing that needed to be fixed was, all in the name of profit.

The luxury tax instituted way back when was a good idea… in theory.  But in actual fact, it was little or no restriction at all.  Teams such as the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox could afford to spend at will and could and can afford any luxury taxes which may be imposed on them.  These taxes were and are distributed amongst the so called smaller market teams but with no accountability as to how this money should be spent.  Love him or hate him, the late George Steinbrenner had a valid point.  He stated that he didn’t mind paying a luxury tax, the price of success, but he did mind that those owners who receive this money could merely pocket the cash and continue to neglect the product on the field.  There was no minimum team salary in place. Franchises like Pittsburgh continue to pocket this money, charge high ticket prices, and field poor teams. This was not addressed.

Now we have regulations in place which punish small market teams for spending the necessary money to sign high round draft picks.  This will effectively limit their ability to sign such potentially franchise altering players and allow the rich teams which can afford any penalties to snap them up and continue their dominance of the sport.   Selig makes the argument that baseball is one of the few sport to field different championship teams almost every season but this argument is deceptive.  It is based on mediocre teams qualifying for the wild card berth and getting hot at the right time.

This brings me to additional wild card teams.  This will see more and more barely above .500 teams making the playoffs each season.  The one game playoff format is interesting and may serve to make a first place finish meaningful once again.  However, once a team survives this sudden death round, the roll of the dice playoff situation again rears its ugly head.  Where is the disadvantage to winning 83 games?  If home field advantage is as important as Selig seems to believe, why are wild card teams not disadvantaged throughout the playoffs?  A second place finish shouldn’t mean as much as a first place finish above and beyond those fluke seasons whereby a second place team has a better record than a division elsewhere.  The wild card, albeit giving more fans in more cities hope deeper into a season, is really little more than a money grabbing scenario for the teams and baseball in general.

I’m just getting started.

What he did: Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful, to have gratitude. So what might Ollie Carnegie have been grateful for? Carnegie is perhaps the best American baseball player never to appear in the majors, one of a small group of players who carved out a good, long career exclusively in the high minors. If Carnegie had played in a more recent era than his own, one can only wonder what might have might been.

A Pennsylvania Railroad worker and semi-pro ballplayer, Carnegie started playing in the International League at 32 in 1931 after losing his job with the railroad. His age kept big league clubs from pursuing him, though Carnegie played from 1931 until 1941 with the Buffalo Bisons of the IL and spent 15 seasons all told in the minors, hitting .309 with 297 homers and more than 1,000 RBI. He was a man born at least 30 years too soon. In an era with expansion teams, Carnegie would have reached the majors, even if he’d been over 30 when it happened. And in the American League, with the opportunity to DH, Carnegie could have been a star.

Era he might have thrived in: There’s a certain temptation to place Carnegie in the National League of the 1990s on the Colorado Rockies, where men like Dante Bichette, Ellis Burks, and Andres Galarraga were pulled off their respective scrap heaps to find new offensive life. But I don’t think Carnegie would only be a star in Colorado, and elsewhere, he could make more of a difference. In Toronto in 1977, Carnegie might have made the Blue Jays relevant a few years sooner.

Why: As far as expansion teams go, Toronto did well relatively quickly, becoming a playoff-caliber club by the early ’80s behind All Stars like Dave Stieb and George Bell. But the Blue Jays’ initial few seasons were a bleak affair, Ernie Whitt and Jim Clancy their only picks in the 1976 expansion draft who would eventually factor into the glory years. Expansion drafts often provide slim pickings for the newly-minted teams, and sometimes, that’s all that’s needed for an unconventional player like Carnegie to get his shot. With Toronto, Carnegie could have been the favorite son that northern fans so lacked in those early days.

I believe a lot about success in baseball comes down to being in the right place at the right time. Carnegie suffered from playing in an era when good offensive players were easy to come by and guys without much defensive ability didn’t last long in the majors, Dale Alexander, Johnny Frederick, and Smead Jolley just a few of the talented hitters who returned to the minors after short stays in the show. If any of those men were DHs in the majors today, they might be well-known. Same goes for Carnegie, even as he was a right-handed batter who stood 5’7″ and weighed 175 pounds. I’m sure he’d have welcomed not having to roam the outfield in the modern American League.

Carnegie’s International League numbers late in his career hint at what might have been. In 1938 at 39, Carnegie hit .330 for Buffalo with 45 homers and 136 RBI. There is no stat converter on Baseball-Reference.com to project what those numbers would be with Toronto in 1977, but I like to think the end result would be at least good for a starting gig if not stardom. Carnegie might be like a modern-day Lefty O’Doul who had better luck in the Depression making the majors as a good hitter on the wrong side of 30.

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: Al Simmons, Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Bad News Rockies,Barry Bonds, Billy Beane, Billy Martin, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson,Bobby Veach, Carl Mays, Charles Victory Faust, Chris von der Ahe,Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Don Drysdale, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, Gavvy Cravath, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Hugh Casey, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jim Abbott, 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, Pedro Martinez, Pee Wee Reese, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rick Ankiel, Rickey Henderson,Roberto Clemente, Rogers Hornsby, Sam Crawford, Sam Thompson,Sandy Koufax, Satchel Paige, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Vada Pinson, Wally Bunker, Wes Ferrell, Will Clark, Willie Mays

What better season to talk about the magnificent T-3 Turkey Reds baseball card set than Thanksgiving?

Collectors argue about which among the Turkey Reds, the T-206 or the Topps 1952 sets is most stunning. I’ve seen examples of all three cards side-by-side-by and it’s hard to choose against Turkey Reds.

In terms of their art work, both the tobacco card sets dwarf the Topps.

From mid-1910 through mid-1911, packs of Turkey Reds, Old Mill and Fez brand cigarettes contained coupons redeemable for a full-color, cabinet sized (5 3/4″ X 8″) premium picturing one of 100 different baseball players and 26 boxers. See the boxing set here. The cards survive as wonderful pieces of art and history.

In the first series of T-3s, numbered 1-50, is a pitcher known to virtually every baseball fan because of his unusual name and nickname—Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown. See Brown’s #1 card here. And—sign of our times—visit his website here.

Brown, dubbed “Three Finger” because of a childhood farm injury, was the dominant pitcher for the Chicago Cubs from 1906-1912. During that period, Brown won 20 or more games six times and was part of two World Series championships.

Brown had a curve ball that Ty Cobb called the “most devastating” that he had ever faced. Although Brown didn’t have what could be called a traditional fastball, he threw his pitches from various angles and showed batters different looks within their same turn at the plate.

The rivalry between Brown and the Giants’ Christy Mathewson was legendary stuff. Giants’ manager John McGraw said the two were the best he had ever seen. In their 25 matchups, Brown had a slim career 13-11 edge on Mathewson with one no-decision.

In one of baseball’s oddities, Brown and Mathewson ended their Hall of Fame careers by facing off against each other on September 4, 1916. Billed as the final meeting between baseball’s greatest hurlers, Mathewson prevailed in an atypical 10-8 slugfest.

Mathewson on Brown:

Brown is my idea of the almost perfect pitcher… It will usually be found at the end of a season, that he has taken part in more key games than any other pitcher in baseball.

Brown finished his major league career with a 239-130 record, 1375 strikeouts and a 2.06 ERA, the third best ERA in Major League Baseball history amongst players inducted into the Hall of Fame, after Ed Walsh and Addie Joss. His 2.06 ERA is also the best for any pitcher with more than 200 wins.

Following Brown’s retirement, he returned to his home in Terre Haute, Indiana.  In addition to coaching and managing, Brown continued to pitch in the minor leagues and local exhibition games for more than a decade. According to his biography, Three Finger: The Mordecai Brown Story, Brown was still masterful at age 51. In a 1928 exhibition game against the famous House of David, Brown pitched three innings for the home team and struck out all nine batters.

From 1920 to 1945 Brown ran a filling station, as they were quaintly called decades ago, that also served as a town gathering place and an unofficial museum. Brown was also a frequent guest at Old-Timers’ games in Chicago.

On Brown’s website, Ferguson Jenkins offers a wonderful quote that explains why baseball has such an important place in our hearts. Said Jenkins:

It’s interesting that Mordecai Brown pitched fifty years before I showed up, and yet we stood on the same field. We both hurled a ball toward a batter standing in virtually the same location…… We both won a lot of games for the Cubs; he won the second highest number of games for the club, and I’m number five. We both managed to pitch several shutouts in the Windy City. It’s my honor to have been the pitcher who broke one of Three Finger’s records. Until I finished my sixth consecutive season of more than 20 wins, in 1972, Mordecai had been the only Cub to do it.