Baseball: Past and Present

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.

What it was: A friend suggested choosing a baseball film for one of these columns and exploring how it might play out today. I could think of no finer subject than one of my all-time favorites, Major League, the 1989 hit about a lovable loser Cleveland Indians team that starts to win after learning it has been assembled expressly to finish last. The film’s been in the news recently, between Charlie Sheen’s admission he used steroids to portray pitcher Rick Vaughn and his desire to make a fourth movie in the series. After two lackluster sequels, the franchise could use a kick-start.

How it might work today: Part of the appeal in the first film may have been that it featured a bunch of otherwise ordinary men who happened to find themselves on a Major League Baseball team, playing light years beyond expectations (as a bonus, the film also included some hilarious, R-rated comedy.) I watch that kind of movie and think, “Hey, I can do that,” and while I concede it’s a little grandiose and delusional, I’m guessing I wasn’t the only person with these thoughts. Good movies have that power.

It wasn’t as easy to relate with the 1994 sequel or the follow-up to that in 1998, which relied more on goofy gimmicks and gave viewers little to care about. In a sense, maybe some things about the original film can’t be replicated. It’s been a long time since the Indians played to empty, decrepit parks or fielded teams bad enough to inspire talk of relocation. I suppose a new film could be set with a current moribund franchise like the Royals, Pirates, or Marlins, though I don’t know if there’s anything fresh or compelling about that. If the series is to be rebooted, I think it’s time to once again take it in a new direction and get it back to its everyman roots.

The premise for the new Major League film, I’ve heard, is to have Vaughn attempting a comeback. Perhaps he could go to the independent leagues where big name ballplayers down on their luck sometimes find themselves. It seems to be a haven in particular for pitchers, with former All Stars like Armando Benitez and Keith Foulke among the many hurlers who’ve gone independent in the past decade. I occasionally wonder why sputtering clubs don’t stock their bullpens with all the recognizable names on the Long Island Ducks or Newark Bears at any given time. Vaughn could be one of these guys, albeit with better odds of returning to the show thanks to the magic of a screenplay.

Beyond this, the independent leagues are  a circuit where Vaughn’s veteran teammates from the majors could be coaches (and have an excuse to be in the movie), equivalent Tommy Johns or Gary Carters. Vaughn’s laid back catcher, Jake Taylor, for one, seems like a bush league manager waiting to happen. It’s worth noting, too, that Vaughn’s 40-something age wouldn’t be an issue in these parts, considering 47-year-old Jose Canseco is holding down a player-manager gig in Yuma, Arizona at the moment. In a perfect world, Canseco gets a part in the film, too, perhaps as the source of Vaughn’s juice.

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, 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

Editor’s note: Joe Guzzardi is on vacation until July 8.

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I was struck to see recently that Charlie Sheen acknowledged using steroids in his preparations to portray power pitcher Rick Vaughn in the 1989 film, Major League. “Let’s just say that I was enhancing my performance a little bit,” Sheen told Sports Illustrated for a July 4 retrospective on the movie. “It was the only time I ever did steroids. I did them for like six or eight weeks. You can print this, I don’t give a f—. My fastball went from 79 to like 85.”

Major League was and remains one of my favorite baseball films. I’ve seen it 15 or 20 times dating back to elementary school, and I doubt Sheen’s revelation will effect my desire to dig out my worn, VHS copy again at the start of next baseball season. Frankly, I may watch the film closer now. That being said, I’m reminded of the sometimes less-than-glamorous realities of my favorite baseball movies. The following are a few that come to mind. Feel free to add to the list:

Shoeless Joe hit from the wrong side of the plate in Field of Dreams: I love this movie, another one I’ve seen at least a dozen times, and I’ve liked Ray Liotta in his other work from Goodfellas to Narc to Observe & Report. Still, I do not understand why the makers of Field of Dreams could not find a decent, left-handed hitting actor instead. Shoeless Joe had a swing famous enough to be copied by Babe Ruth. It deserved better onscreen tribute.

Crash Davis doesn’t really set the minor league home run record in Bull Durham: He was about 200 home runs off.

Roy Hobbs’ character in the book for The Natural is bad news: I interviewed Joe Posnanski last September, and he told me in a bit I didn’t use for my post that The Natural is his favorite baseball movie. Sure, there’s some magic in the film as Robert Redford’s character Roy Hobbs returns from a long hiatus from baseball and heroically leads his team to dramatic triumph via thrilling home run. Bernard Malamud’s book is vastly different, though: dark, satirical, and about Hobbs’ corruption, ending with him embroiled in a Shoeless Joe-esque gambling scandal. I prefer it to the film.

The aforementioned Major League featured the Cleveland Indians but was filmed in Milwaukee: No great “Aha!” moment here, just something to note.

Ruth was frustrated he couldn’t get William Bendix to swing convincingly in The Babe Ruth Story: I’ve never seen this movie, which made an appearance in a book I used to have on the worst films of all-time, though I know Ruth didn’t care much for it, walking out on a screening of it near the end of his life. On a side note, Cubs pitcher Charlie Root also refused to recreate for the film the supposed called shot Ruth had in the 1932 World Series. Why? It never happened.

Nothing special happened in major league play 75 years ago today, at least nothing that was especially noteworthy at the time. The Philadelphia Athletics suffered their 12th straight loss, facing the Boston Red Sox and Jimmie Foxx, the final star of Connie Mack’s disassembled dynasty. Wes Ferrell, Mel Harder, and Jimmie DeShong each won their 11th games of the season, on their way to 53 wins collectively, though no man had an ERA under 4.00. Meanwhile in Washington D.C., an old baseball player I doubt many people had heard of died.

I can’t find any record on the death of Phil Wisner, who was not quite 67 when he passed. Nor is there much information on the Web about his career, though what I saw intrigues me. Wisner got in exactly one game, August 30, 1895 for the Washington Senators. Playing shortstop, the 25-year-old had no plate appearances, and of his four chances in the field, he committed three errors. He did manage an assist, but otherwise, that was the end of it for him in baseball, especially bleak considering Washington went 43-85 and seemingly could have used a young, left-handed hitting shortstop.

I love baseball for its history, for the fact that more than 17,000 men have played in the majors in over a century with more than 17,000 stories accordingly. I’m of the belief that everyone has a story, everyone, and I’m curious what it was for Wisner. I wonder what it’s like to make the show at 25, play one game, and live 40 more years. Does it make for an interesting life story, something to tell the dinner party guests or is it an excruciating case of what might have been, something to obsess on? Depends on the person, I suppose.

In the book Shoeless Joe, which became Field of Dreams, there’s the part where Ray Kinsella tracks down Moonlight Graham, who played one game for the New York Giants. “I think I came here because your time was so short,” Kinsella tells Graham in the book. “I wanted to know how it affected your life. But I can see you’ve done well. It would have killed some men to get so close. They’d never do anything else but talk about how close they were.” Graham replies, “If I’d only got to be a doctor for five minutes, now that would have been a tragedy. You have to keep things in perspective. I mean, I love the game, but it’s only that, a game.”

Would if everyone could have such humility. I will say I’ve heard expressions of it talking to baseball folk. I started research about a year and a half ago on a book on Joe Marty, who came up in the Pacific Coast League with Joe DiMaggio and was once thought to be the better prospect. Of course, the rest is history, and the crux of my research is about determining what effect this had on Marty’s life. I interviewed one of his close friends about a year ago, and his take was that Marty never even thought about it.

Maybe some people don’t place too much stock in the times they fall short in life, learning what they can and moving on. Whether Phil Wisner falls into this rank, I don’t know, though if anyone out there has more info, please feel free to email me.

“On this day in baseball history” is an occasional feature here.

Comedian Steven Wright would probably never claim to foresee the future but this musing graphically illustrates the number one problem with our western society and a problem which has become all too apparent in Major League baseball.

Baseball boss Bud Selig continually claims that Major League baseball is in tremendous financial shape while raking in record profits. More Selig smoke and mirrors?

19 teams are apparently over their debt percentage allowance as set down by baseball, (I’m not an economist or a mathematician so I’m loosely quoting several articles) and two of baseballs’ storied franchises are in deep financial trouble.

The ownerships of the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers are different situations and perhaps call for different solutions. This is my take based on what I have heard and read over the past few months.

The New York Met ownership are in financial trouble and were forced to sell off a minority of the team in order to meet financial obligations in the wake of a lawsuit against them for $1 billion. The lawsuit contends that the Met owners should have noticed that their investments were part of a massive investment scam and are therefore partially responsible for the losses incurred by certain investors victimized by convicted financial advisor Bernie Madof.  Major League baseball and the commissioners office couldn’t have foreseen this situation and I believe acted in a responsible manner by demanding that owner Fred Wilpon sell some of his assets to cover his baseball obligations.  There seemed to be an implied threat that the choices Mr. Wilpon had were selling all or part of the team, selling off some of his multi million dollar real estate holdings to cover any costs, or allowing MLB to takeover the team.  Wilpon reluctantly sold off some of the team to meet his obligations although he retained majority ownership. His friend Bud is happy…for now.

The situation in Los Angeles seems far different and far more unstable.  Potential owners are put through a thorough financial and personal evaluation. Except perhaps when they are good friends with the current commissioner, (see Expos, Twins, Red Sox, Nationals-don’t get me started.)

Frank McCourt was allowed to purchase the Dodgers even though he had neither the cash or investments of his own which would allow him to do so.  McCourt was allowed, after his purchase, to “borrow” money to support his and his wife’s lavish and extravagant lifestyle (lives of the rich and shameless?) from the team and its various holding companies with little or no protest from the league office. Continually painting the front door while the foundation was cracking and borrowing from Peter to pay Paul allowed the McCourts to project the image that all was well in Dodger land.  That is until the McCourts were no more.

Now Bud Selig is deciding to play hardball with the Dodgers and with the recent Chapter 11 filing, the stage is set for a messy and long term battle between McCourt et al and baseball.  Selig may not simply be able to takeover the Dodgers and sell it to whomever he deems fit.

Bankruptcy courts may have the final say and the McCourt/Selig divorce may be even messier than the McCourt/McCourt.  Jamie McCourt’s contention that 50% of the assets includes 50% of the Dodgers may hold some water.

While we poor working stiffs must scrimp and save for any luxuries and are not allowed to live beyond our means with creditors knocking on our door the second a payment is late, the McCourts and Wilpons of this world are allowed to keep all of their toys no matter if their means don’t justify their ends and no matter how much they owe.

Bud Selig’s implied contention that Major League baseball needs stable and responsible ownership is correct.  However, his actions of denial to non friends, (Mark Cuban), and look the other way for his rich friends should not be part of that equation.   If you can’t afford the toys you have, sell them or get out of the playground.  That rule should apply equally to all the kids in the playground.

Editor’s note: Joe Guzzardi is on vacation until July 8.

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There have been six expansion drafts in baseball since 1960, and each time, it’s essentially the same story. Jimmy Breslin wrote about it in a classic Sports Illustrated piece on the 1962 New York Mets, noting, “For players, the Mets were given a list of men made available to them by the other eight National League teams. The list was carefully prepared and checked and rechecked by the club owners. This was to make certain that no bona-fide ballplayers were on it.”

The Mets went 40-120 that long, first season with a roster boasting all the allure of a JC Penny discount rack. Every so often, though, a player selected in the expansion draft goes on to respectability. Here is a starting lineup of these men:

C- Ernie Whitt, selected 34th in the 1976 expansion draft by the Toronto Blue Jays: Whitt played 12 years in Toronto and was an All Star in 1985 when he hit 19 home runs and helped the Blue Jays to the American League Championship Series.

1B- Nate Colbert, selected 18th in the 1968 NL expansion draft by the San Diego Padres: Colbert might not be the most famous first baseman selected by a new team, seeing as Gil Hodges went to the Mets in 1961. But the idea here isn’t to mine out the washed up big names that find their way into most any expansion draft. Colbert was a three-time All Star and the best thing going on some abysmal San Diego clubs in the late ’60s and early ’70s, twice hitting 38 home runs.

2B- Eric Young, selected 12th in the 1992 expansion draft by the Colorado Rockies: Quietly, Young stole almost 500 bases lifetime and led the National League in 1996 with 53.

3B- Vinny Castilla, selected 40th in the 1992 expansion draft by the Colorado Rockies: No real contest here, seeing as Castilla hit 191 home runs between 1995 and 1999, peaking with 46 homers, 144 RBI, and a .319 batting average in 1998. He hit 320 home runs in his career, not bad for a castoff from the Atlanta Braves who didn’t hold a starting job in the majors until he was 27.

SS- Jim Fregosi, selected 35th in the 1960 expansion draft by the Los Angeles Angels: Some may knock Fregosi as the lesser end of the Nolan Ryan trade in December 1971, though he made six All Star teams in his 11 years with the Angels leading up to that and had 46.1 WAR in his career.

OF- Lou Pinella, selected 28th in the 1968 AL expansion draft by the Seattle Pilots: Sweet Lou never played a day for the Pilots, getting dealt to the Kansas City Royals at the start of the 1969 season. “It was a giveaway,” teammate Jim Bouton wrote in Ball Four. “Bound to happen, though. Lou wasn’t their style.” Pinella had the last laugh, hitting .282 with 11 home runs and 68 RBI for Rookie of the Year honors. He played 18 years overall, hitting .291 lifetime.

OF- Bobby Abreu, selected 6th in the 1997 expansion draft by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays: Another player who didn’t play a day with the expansion club that nabbed him, this one might sting a bit more for Tampa, seeing that Abreu could be in the final stages of a Hall of Fame career.

OF- Carl Everett, selected 27th in the 1992 expansion draft by the Florida Marlins: Everett only had two home runs in his two seasons with Florida but went on to hit 200 more in various stops around the majors. He was an All Star in 2000 with the Red Sox and again in 2001 with the White Sox.

P- Dean Chance, selected 48th in the 1960 expansion draft by the Washington Senators: Chance isn’t the only pitcher to win a Cy Young after being selected by an expansion club, as the Seattle Pilots picked Mike Marshall in 1969 and the Toronto Blue Jays nabbed Pete Vuckovich in 1976. Chance gets the starting nod here since he had over 100 wins by his 27th birthday, and he uncorked his 20-9, 1.65 ERA masterpiece for an 82-80 Angel club.

CL- Trevor Hoffman, selected 7th in the 1992 expansion draft by the Florida Marlins: Hoffman collected just two of his record 601 saves with the Marlins, being packaged for Gary Sheffield midway through his rookie season.

What he did: Paige pitched off and on for 40 years between the Negro Leagues, the majors, and beyond, estimating he won 2,000 games. Only 28 wins of these wins came in big league play, since segregation kept Paige from the majors until 1948 when he was 42 (at the youngest, since some dispute exists about his year of birth.) One of baseball’s great “What Ifs?” is how many wins might Satchel Paige have had with a full career in the majors.

Era he might have thrived in: Paige endured the rugged conditions of Negro League and independent ball, once living in a converted boxcar while playing for an integrated team in North Dakota. In other words, he probably could have made his mark in any era of big league play. But to do best in the majors, Paige might need a pitching coach as good as his one in reform school, Edward Byrd who, as Paige’s SABR biography notes, “showed Satchel exactly how to exploit his storehouse of kinetic energy.”

We’re giving Paige a start with the Detroit Tigers of the late 1960s and their legendary pitching coach, Johnny Sain. It might have been an ideal launching point for Paige.

Why: For much of his career, Paige was a drawing card, a soldier of fortune in black baseball and beyond. When a team’s finances were in doubt, Paige was sent for. Perhaps he thrived under the attention, the pressure, the limelight. Some people are built that way. But perhaps Paige would do ever better if he debuted in the majors playing a quieter, supporting role and getting the chance to learn from the best. In 1968 in Detroit, he’d have this opportunity.

The Tigers went 103-59 that season, led by Denny McLain who won 31 games. Mickey Lolich wasn’t bad either, going 17-9 and saving his best work for the World Series, winning three games including Game 7. The rest of the starting pitching was something of a crap shoot for the Tigers, though, and it doesn’t seem unreasonable to think a young Paige could have been Detroit’s third-best starter. He might have been a younger, better version of the man who held that title in ’68, Earl Wilson, another victim of segregation in the sense he got buried in the Red Sox minor league system in the 1950s as a young, black man.

Whatever the case, Paige would’ve debuted at a peak time for pitchers and gone on to pitch the bulk of his career in the 1970s and ’80s when less was demanded of hurlers and five-man rotations became commonplace. Paige’s longevity in real life is all the more impressive considering he overcame a dead arm in the 1930s, which he incurred through injury and overwork. Imagine him not having to go through that and getting good medical care. He’d also make a better salary and be among the first free agents. I’m guessing one of baseball’s most famous self-promoters would do well with it.

Then there’s Sain, who made 20-game winners out of Lolich and Wilson and guided McLain to his 1968 triumph and had him on his way to another Cy Young in 1969 when the Tigers fired him in August after clashes with management. Lolich praised his former coach in Sports Illustrated in 1972, noting, “He made me a 20-game winner. Yet, he never taught me a single thing about pitching a baseball. Maybe that’s because John’s not a pitching coach, he’s a headshrinker. Even when you learn from Sain, you never feel you’ve learned a thing from him. He lets you think you did it yourself.”

Given Paige’s spartan accommodations most of his career, perhaps he did come by most of his success himself. How much better he’d do with expert help, one can only wonder. I brought it up with one of my readers who noted that Sain coached 17 20-game winners. My reader also suggested that Sain’s emphasis on not having pitchers run in practice might go well with the easygoing philosophy of Paige, who had well-publicized tips for staying young (such as Avoid fried meats, which angry up the blood.)

The thought here is that barring catastrophic injury, Paige wins somewhere in the neighborhood of 325 games like others of his prospective era, Nolan Ryan, Don Sutton, and Steve Carlton. Sure, it wouldn’t be anywhere close to 2,000 wins, seeing as Paige wouldn’t be pitching year-round or for as long and as many teams as he could. In this era, he’d have the luxury of bowing out in his 40s.

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, 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, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Wally Bunker, Willie Mays

1. George Herman Ruth- The Sultan of Swat, The Bambino, The Colossus of Clout, Babe: No surprise here- the greatest baseball player of all-time also inspired the greatest nicknames. Sportswriters of the 1920s outdid themselves to come up with new names for the Yankee slugger.

2. Joe Jackson- Shoeless Joe: Would the most famous of the Black Sox be so remembered without such a romantic moniker? Granted, a lifetime .356 batting average would assure immortality in the record books even for a hitter named Peanuts McGee, but Shoeless Joe sounds like something from myth.

3. Lou Gehrig- The Iron Horse

4. Pete Rose- Charlie Hustle: Whitey Ford derisively nicknamed Rose during spring training in 1963 after watching him sprint to first base on a walk. The name quickly came to epitomize Rose’s all-out style of play.

5. Joe Wood- Smoky Joe: Like Shoeless Joe, Smoky Joe is another baseball nickname that made an otherwise mundane name timeless. Wood earned his moniker because he of how hard he threw.

6. Reggie Jackson- Mr. October

7. Stan Musial- Stan the Man

8. Willie Mays- The Say Hey Kid

9. Mordecai Brown- Three Finger: Same deal as Wood. Ask most fans about Mordecai Brown, and I imagine there would be plenty of blank stares. But I imagine Three Finger Brown would draw some looks of recognition, even a century after the Deadball Era great’s Hall of Fame career.

10. Joe DiMaggio- The Yankee Clipper, Joltin’ Joe

11. James Bell- Cool Papa: Negro League baseball remains a somewhat mysterious world nearly six decades after its demise, records incomplete, many players forgotten to history. Here’s one exception, thanks to a memorable name (for a superb player, of course.)

12. Ted Williams- Thumper, The Kid, Teddy Ballgame, The Splendid Splinter

13. Ted Radcliffe- Double Duty: Damon Runyon nicknamed Radcliffe after watching him pitch one game of a doubleheader and catch another.

14. Leo Durocher- Leo the Lip, The All-American Out: Durocher would have a spot on this list for the nickname he earned as a bombastic manager, Leo the Lip. He gets some dubious bonus points for his other nickname, which Ruth bestowed upon him during his playing days. It seems apt for a man who hit .247 and had a lifetime OPS+ of 65 playing most of his career in the 1930s, a Golden Age for hitters.

15. Jim Hunter- Catfish: A memorable Sports Illustrated retrospective on the 1974 Oakland A’s recounted how Hunter came by his handle:

On the day in 1964 that the 18-year-old Jim Hunter became a Kansas City Athletic, Finley asked him if he had a nickname. Hunter told him that he did not. “Well, you’ve got to have one,” said Finley. “What do you like to do?”

“I hunt and fish,” replied Hunter.

“Mr. Finley kind of hesitated on the phone,” recalls Hunter. “Then he said, ‘You were six years old when you ran away from home. You went fishing. Your mom and dad looked for you all day. About three o’clock your mom and dad found you. You had caught two catfish and were bringing in a third, and from that day on you were Catfish. Now repeat the story to me.’ ” When Hunter did, Finley said, “Anybody ever asks you anything, that’s how you tell it.”

16. Nolan Ryan- The Ryan Express

17. Bob Feller- Rapid Robert, Bullet

18. Ozzie Smith- The Wizard

19. Ernie Banks- Mr. Cub

20. Honus Wagner- The Flying Dutchman: Nearly a century on from the end of Wagner’s Hall of Fame career, it stands to reason– politically incorrect nicknames just don’t find their way into baseball anymore.

21. Mickey Mantle- The Commerce Comet, The Mick

22. Walter Johnson- The Big Train

23. Juan Marichal- The Dominican Dandy

24. Ty Cobb- The Georgia Peach: Not one of my favorite baseball nicknames, as it seems a man as complex and unbridled as Cobb might have inspired descriptions that better captured the fury with which he played and lived. Still, I’d be remiss to not include Cobb here.

25. Branch Rickey- The Mahatma: The Cardinals, Dodgers, and Pirates executive earned his moniker both for his baseball acumen and scrupulous religiosity.

26. Sal Maglie- The Barber: So named because of his menacing reputation on the mound, though he never struck out more than 146 in a season. Still a great nickname.

27. Earl Averill- The Earl of Snohomish: The Cleveland Indians Hall of Famer was dubbed for his hometown of Snohomish, Washington.

28. Lenny Dykstra- Nails: Between career-ending injury problems and his ongoing legal issues in recent years, Dykstra’s had a rough go of it since finishing second in National League MVP voting in 1993. But in his prime, both for his nickname and the style of play it connoted, Dykstra may have been a poor man’s Rose (a Rose by any other name, we could say.)

29. [Tie] Hugh Mulcahy- Losing Pitcher, Walter Beck- Boom Boom: Mulcahy and Beck earned their nicknames as hapless pitchers for the Philadelphia Phillies of the 1930s. One of my baseball books notes of Beck:

It must have been on just such a typical Baker Bowl day that stocky Hack Wilson, hot and sweating, waited out in right field, hands on knees, eyes downcast, while his manager walked to the pitcher’s mound to replace [Beck.] Line drives had been caroming off the wall all afternoon– after all, Beck wasn’t called ‘Boom, Boom’ for nothing– and Wilson was exhausted from chasing the ball.

Unhappy at being removed, Beck angrily heaved the ball toward right field with all his might.

Hearing a familiar sound as the ball glanced off one of the tin advertising signs on the right-field wall, the startled Wilson awoke from his reverie, ran after the ricocheting ball as fast as he could, and fired it on a line to second base– a perfect peg to get the runner trying to stretch a single into a double, if only there had been one!

31. Charlie Keller- King Kong: One of the best players not in the Hall of Fame and certainly one of my favorite nicknames among that bunch.

32. Frankie Frisch- The Fordham Flash: Sounds more like a comic book character.

33. Pepper Martin- The Wild Horse of the Osage: Western novel.

34. Hideki Matsui- Godzilla: One of the few nicknames I like among current baseball players. Either sportswriters have stopped being as creative or I’m just unfamiliar with a new generation of nicknames.

35. Mose Solomon- The Rabbi of Swat: Solomon was supposed to be John McGraw’s great coup, the National League version of Ruth, able to help pack the Polo Grounds with a broad base of Jewish fans. But Solomon couldn’t field, making 31 errors in 108 games in the minors in 1923. The Giants called him up that fall, and McGraw refused to play him in the field. Solomon made three hits in eight at-bats over the last few weeks of the season, and that was the end of it.

36. George Kelly- High Pockets: Bill James ranks Kelly as one of the worst Hall of Famers, and I don’t know if I can dispute seeing as Kelly boasted a career batting average of .297 during a great time for hitters and may have been ushered into Cooperstown through the influence of former teammate and Veterans Committee head Frisch. I will say High Pockets Kelly is one of the coolest names on any plaque in Cooperstown. It sounds Dickensian.

37. Frank Thomas- Big Hurt

38. Hank Aaron- Hammerin’ Hank

39. Will Clark- Will the Thrill

40. Don Mattingly- Donnie Baseball

41. Orlando Cepeda- Baby Bull

42. Marv Throneberry- Marvelous Marv: The expansion 1962 New York Mets may have been one of baseball’s all-time worst clubs, going 40-120, but their fans adored them. They nicknamed their first baseman Marvelous Marv even though he was marvelous at nothing and once missed two bases on a triple. Later in life, he endorsed Miller Lite, noting in a commercial, “If I do for Lite what I did for baseball, I’m afraid their sales will go down.”

43. Buck O’Neil- Nancy: O’Neil recounted in the Ken Burns’ Baseball series about how he came by one of the more unusual nicknames in baseball history. In essence, teammate Satchel Paige invited an Indian maiden named Nancy to come visit him at a hotel in Chicago, not knowing his future wife Lahoma would also be in town. Paige wound up with both women in the same hotel, and when he went calling for Nancy in the night and Lahoma heard, Paige said he was just looking for O’Neil. The name stuck.

44. Bill Lee- Spaceman: The SABR biography of former Red Sox hurler Lee notes, “His often-outrageous statements and bizarre actions marked him as an oddity and ensured him a lasting reputation in the buttoned-down baseball world. They also earned him the nickname ‘Spaceman,’ a title he never fully embraced, arguing that his first priority was always Mother Earth.”

45. Sandy Koufax- The Left Arm of God

46. Mark McGwire- Big Mac

47. Carl Hubbell- King Carl, Meal Ticket

48. Walter Maranville- Rabbit

49. Jimmie Foxx- The Beast, Double X

50. Hideo Nomo- The Tornado: When I think of the first great Japanese player in the majors, I’m forever reminded of the image of him on the mound,  body contorted as he prepares to unleash his pitch. In the spirit of other great nicknames here, Nomo’s describes him aptly.

Editor’s note: Doug Bird’s weekly column is moving to Mondays.

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It’s almost July and having been lucky enough to watch more than my share of baseball games thus far, today I am offering some quick fixes for those teams which plainly need to do something to either become contenders or to right the proverbial ship.  Sometimes these decisions will not be made due to money considerations and sometimes the solution is in house and staring them in the face, money not really being a consideration.  Pay strict attention because I’m only going to say this once and afterwards it may well be too late.

1.     Pittsburgh Pirates:  The Pirates are doing much better than expected, (obviously pitching coach Ray Searage has been doing something right, especially with the starters).  Offense is and continues to be a big problem for the Pirates.  Solution:  Say goodbye to Lyle Overbay, move Pedro Alvarez to first now and keep rookie Josh Harrison at third.  Give Xavier Paul regular playing time and sit Jose Tabata down or send him down to Triple A.

2.     Washington Nationals:  Who pays all this money to turn a fifth place power hitter into a leadoff hitter?  Can anyone explain to me why Jayson Werth has been the Nationals lead off man  Come to think of it, with a .233 average, why is Werth batting anywhere above sixth in the order?   Perhaps he’s feeling the pressure of that big contract and let’s face it, he was never a $20 million a year player anyway.

3.     Baltimore Orioles:   The Derrek Lee, Mark Reynolds and Vlad Guerrero era simply isn’t working.  It pains me to watch one of my favourite all time players falter, (Guerrero), Derrek Lee hasn’t cared since the big Cubs contract and Mark Reynolds can’t hit .200.  Brian Roberts can’t stay healthy either. Time to, once again, load up on young players and deal these guys while they still have something reasonably tangible left.

4.     Chicago Cubs:  Oh the sink hole of the long term, big money, under performing contract.  Everyone knows that Zambrano, Ramirez, Soriano, Fukudome, have to go.  Heck, even the Cubs know that.  Problem is the Cubs don’t have much on the farm, (Vitters is still in Double A) and the other 29 teams know that they can pretty much call the tune on any deal. The only teams that could afford them don’t want them.  Get what you can for them, eat lots of money and finally start over.  Wrigley Field is still beautiful…

5.     Los Angeles Dodgers: Which, if either of the McCourt’s, will get to keep the Dodgers?  Apparently Frank wants them but so does Bud Selig.   Don Mattingly’s inexperience is showing.  Clayton Kershaw, Chad Billingsley, Jamey Carroll and Matt Kemp are playing like major leaguers.  Can’t say the same for the rest.  Rumours have Carroll on the trading block but why sacrifice one of only two position players who gets his uniform dirty?  Maybe Selig should buy this team.  Maybe Jack McKeon should manage this team instead of Florida.

6.     Oakland A’s:  Billy Ball should have worked but it hasn’t.  The pitching was there until all the injuries and Josh Willingham and company are hitting whiffle balls.  The team average is second worst in the league, (.239) with no power. None of the seemingly offensive improving acquisitions can hit. An Oakland A’s rally is a 3-2 count.  Firing one bad manager and hiring another bad manager isn’t going to help.   In the year of the pitcher Oakland should be in a good position.  Trade a couple of the .240 hitters with speed for a power guy.  Bat Matsui eighth.  Do you know the way to San Jose?

7.     San Diego Padres: This team needs to play in a major league park and not the Grand Canyon.  You can’t build a team entirely around pitching and I doubt even the New York Yankees could hit much here. After 30 or 40 games here, even the best hitters begin to believe that they really are .230 hitters with no power.  Bring in the fences to reasonable dimensions and make the game a two way affair once again. You can’t rally from two or three runs back if it takes seven singles to do it each night.  You can’t sign an Albert Pujols if he knows his homerun totals will drop to 10 over the course of 81 games at Petro Park.

Just a few simple strategies. For some, it’s only a speed bump.  For others it’s a brick wall. For still others it seems to be both.

In the mid-1920s, Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitchers Carmen Hill and Lee Meadows made baseball history when they became the first two twirlers to wear glasses while on the mound. Their glasses must have helped since both notched 20 game winning seasons with the Bucs. In 1926 Meadows’ 20 victories led the National League and in 1927 Hill topped all hurlers with 22.

In May 1923, the Pirates traded for Meadows who won 88 games for the Corsairs until a nagging sinus infection and a sore arm forced his 1929 retirement.

Nicknamed “Specs,” the nearsighted Meadows ranks sixth on the All-Time Pirates list with his .629 winning percentage. Meadows, a pivotal part of the era’s National League dominating Pirates, appeared in the team’s two World Series, 1925 and 1927. During his 15 year career, Meadows won 188 games for the St. Louis Cardinals, the Philadelphia Phillies and the Pirates.

Meadows most memorable baseball moment came with the Phillies when during the second game of a 1919 double header in the Polo Grounds against the New York Giants, he absorbed the 6-1 loss in baseball’s shortest ever nine inning game: 51 minutes.

Unfortunately for Meadows, despite his efficient pitching that day, he suffered his 20th set back. Meadows’ Giants’ opposite Jesse Barnes out pitched him to rack up his 25th win. Barnes’ pitching line: 9 IP, 1 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 SO.

The Giants prevailed in the nightcap, 7-1. The doubleheader had little significance in the standings. The Giants finished a distant 9 games behind the first place Reds; the Phillies ended up dead last with a 47-90 record, 47.5 games behind.

Meadows died in Daytona Beach in 1963 at age 68.

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