Baseball: Past and Present

For we non professional athletes working nine to five or whatever the hours may be, aging gracefully is putting in 30 plus years and hoping to have the house paid off, the kids finished college, and having a bit of leftover cash to travel to exotic or not so exotic destinations with maybe some fishing or golf thrown in. Our job skills have probably improved over the years and being over the hill is often just a state of mind. We look forward to no traffic jams, no alarm clocks and t-shirts and shorts. We retire and soon after, we are usually forgotten in the collective office minds, replaced by a younger generation full of vim and eager to work hard and prove their worth. Yuh know-like most of us were way back then.

For the professional baseball elite, the story and result can be much different. Most of us would trade places in a minute being able to retire for life at 40, wealth beyond our imagination and many moments in the seemingly glorious spotlight. We would have a big home, a fancy car, money enough to take care of our grandchildren’s children’s children.

But for many baseball stars, those rewards can fall far short of why they sought out such a career in the first place. Baseball at the major league level is an extremely difficult game, mentally and physically.

When you possess every toy and necessity you could possibly use, why continue?

As the recent Jorge Posada blow-up illustrated, being successfully competitive and maintaining a personal pride in your ability to continue to be one of the elite players is the common drive. The belief that, despite your obvious to everyone else eroding of skills, you maintain the firm belief that father time catches up with all players, but not you. It’s only bad luck and bad breaks or a temporary mechanical problem which is the cause of you sub .200 with no power batting average. Those balls which you reached easily in the beginning of your career are simply being hit harder than you remember back then or the wind is more of a factor than ever before.

One of my more painful memories was watching the decline and stumble of the great Willie Mays in the 1973 season, the last of his Hall of Fame career. There have been many others who went on too long but his decline was particularly heart breaking. Routine fly balls and mediocre pitching made him look old and foolish. Players and fans who had been witness to his astonishing feats of years before could now only look away. Fortunately, Mays is far and away remembered for his brilliant play before his downfall and continues to be rightly revered but it could have been the opposite.

Many over the hill stars continue to demand salaries which might have been commiserate with their performance of the past and angrily declare that their team does not appreciate their talents and what they mean to the organization. Many of these same players move on to a lesser role with another team, ending a long and successful career with their original teams.

Present management are often reluctant to agree to such demands and hope that their aging former star will come to realize on his own that his skills are no longer among the elite and that he should retire gracefully and afford his team to accord him richly deserved accolades his final season. Players who realize that their productive playing days are over are rewarded and celebrated in parks throughout baseball for their stellar careers. They continue to be celebrated for years afterward.

Say what you want about those evil New York Yankees but this past winter, they agreed to salaries for Jorge Posada and Derek Jeter which did not reflect their current playing abilities but rather rewarded them for outstanding careers. Jeter has rebounded somewhat in the month of May but Posada is clearly finished. He has threatened to leave the Yankees and seek employment elsewhere but that would ruin his place among Yankee legends. Clearly, New York had no option when it came to Jeter. Clearly they are hoping that Posada realizes the inevitable and calls it a career. I don’t want to remember Posada as the player who was released by New York with a final season of hitting .145 with no power and unable to catch.

Players such as Posada have nothing to apologize for and everything to be proud of. Maybe I should send them a copy of the book written by the greatest National Football League running back ever, Jim Brown, Out of Bounds. Brown got out at the top of his profession. Maybe there is a lesson to be learned there.

During a recent Cincinnati Reds-Pittsburgh Pirates game, announcer Bob Walk waxed poetically about a former Reds great and one time Pirates bit player, Ted Kluszewski.

As Walk ticked off Big Klu’s achievements, seemingly in awe of them, I recalled what an imposing sight Kluszewski was at the plate.

For the first half of the 1950s, Big Klu hit for average and power as well as anyone. Toward the end of the decade, reduced to a bench role because of his bad back, Klu nonetheless turned in productive seasons for the Pirates and the Chicago White Sox.

Kluszewski came onto the Reds’ radar when he was an Indiana University standout tight end. During the war years, the Reds’ trained at IU. During a pick-up game, one of the scouts saw Klu blast balls beyond the reach of any Reds’ outfielder and tried to sign him on the spot. But Klu, more interested in his football career, resisted.

Eventually, the Reds prevailed. Sent to the minor leagues, Klu immediately rewarded his employers. While working his way up to the majors, Klu had a stint with the minor league Memphis Chicks. One afternoon double header against the New Orleans Pelicans, in ten times at bat Klu hit a home run, three triples, two doubles and two singles. His day’s work put him far out in front as the league’s best batter, boosted his average to .412 which was 55 points ahead of his nearest rival.

Kluszewski was selected as an All Star in four seasons and in 1718 games was a career.298 hitter with 279 homers and 1028 RBIs. Perhaps most amazingly for a power hitter, in ten of his fifteen seasons, Kluszewski walked more often than he struck out ending with a career ratio of 492:365. In 1955, he hit 47 homers while striking out only 40 times. No player since Klu has hit 40 homers and struck out 40 or fewer times in the same season.

“Big Klu” enjoyed his most productive years from 1953 through 1956, with home run totals of 40, 49, 47 and 35 while driving in over 100 base runners in each, including a league-leading 141 RBIs in 1954. He also hit .300 or better eight times. Kluszewski led National League first basemen in fielding percentage five straight years, a major league record.

In 1954, Klu enjoyed his best year came when he lead the National League in home runs (49), RBIs and narrowly lost out to Willie Mays in the MVP voting. Kluszewski batted .326, drew 78 walks, had a slugging percentage of .642 and scored 104 runs. He ranked third in the NL in total bases (368), fourth in extra base hits (80) and hit a home run every 11.7 at bats which made him the NL leader in that category.
Klu’s highlight game came on September 12, 1954. In the first game of a doubleheader, Klu hit two home runs and drove in six men in an 11-5 victory. It was one of his six 1954 multi-homer games with his first home run coming as one of his 33 go-ahead hits.

In the nightcap, also won by the Reds 13-2, Klu continued his batting rampage, going 3 for five with another 3 RBIs. His line for the day: AB: 10; R: 5; H: 6, RBI: 9

Kluszewski died in 1988 at age 63. The Reds’ honored Klu by retiring his number 18 and erecting a statue of the sleeveless giant in front of the Great American Ballpark.

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

What he did: As regulars to this site may know, I had the opportunity last September to interview Posnanski, the baseball blogosphere’s favorite son and Sports Illustrated writer. Gracious as he’s been with many other bloggers, Posnanski spoke with me for almost an hour. I got much more material than I used here, and among the outtakes, I asked Posnanski what other era he’d have liked to have been a sportswriter in. It’s an odd question, granted, but bear with me a minute.

I’ve long had an interest in the history of sports journalism, which dates back formally in America to the late 19th century. I like Fred Lieb’s stories of beginning as a young baseball writer in New York in the early 1910s. I like longtime Washington Post columnist Shirley Povich talking of traveling with ball clubs by train, when maybe three road trips occurred per season, each a multi-week long jag. “There you were with the ballplayers,” Povich remembered years later. “You got to know them. You got to be friendly with those you wanted to be friendly with, and you learned which ballplayers didn’t like baseball writers. A great many!”

So the question is what other era might have best suited Posnanski.

Era he might have thrived in: With the literary flourishes evident in his work, Posnanski might have done well in the 1920s when sportswriters like Grantland Rice published books of poetry in down time. But as a married man with two school age daughters, it seems Posnanski might have a hard time enduring the long train trips. He told me he’d have opted for the 1960s.

Why: I’ll start by relaying what Posnanski told me. He said:

I really like the ’60s. I just think there was so much going on, and there was so much crossover between sports and culture. It was a very trying time, and it was a difficult time, and I just think there were a lot of great stories right then.

There are other reasons Posnanski might have excelled. The ’60s were a time when the arts thrived and took on new life, when the studio system of film production gave way to more independent works, when rock music and Motown came into its own, and when there was perhaps no better time to be a magazine writer. Long before the Internet slammed print revenues, more magazines existed and offered good opportunities. The ’60s also saw the development of New Journalism, and seeing as Posnanski has diverged from many of his contemporaries and embraced blogging and used it to reach more readers, I think he’d have been an innovator.

It’s worth noting that if Posnanski were covering baseball in the 1960s, he’d be doing it ahead of the 1970 publication of Ball Four, the landmark success of which significantly changed the reporting style of the sport, making it acceptable to print risque locker room tales. But considering how gentle Posnanski comes across, I doubt he’d mind milder subject matter. And seeing as he writes often about the likes of Hall of Fame standard bearer Willie Mays and his SI cover subject last August, Stan Musial, I can only imagine Posnanski’s thrill at the chance to cover them in action.

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, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Carl Mays, Charles Victory Faust, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty O’Doul, Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Paul Derringer, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, 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

Baseball’s first “Babe” wasn’t Ruth but rather Charles Benjamin Adams, a Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who won three 1909 World Series games as a 27-year-old rookie.

According to baseball historians, Adams acquired his nickname because of his popularity with female fans. During a 1907 minor league stint in Louisville, more than five years before Ruth debuted with the Boston Red Sox, women cried out “Oh you babe” whenever Adams took the mound.

Adams was one of the best control pitchers ever. His record low of 1.29 walks per nine innings during his 19 major league years ranks second on the modern day list behind only teammate Deacon Phillippe’s 1.25 mark. On his stingiest day, July 17, 1914, against the New York Giants and its ace Rube Marquard, Adams pitched 21 innings, walked none but still lost a 3-1 decision.

In his first season, Adams pitched mostly in relief and led the Pirates to the National League pennant by tossing 130 innings and compiling a 12-3 record with a microscopic 1.11 ERA, a rookie record that still stands.

Adams followed up his 1909 brilliance with an 18-9 season in 1910 and back-to-back 20-win seasons in 1911 and 1912 to establish himself as one of the baseballs best pitchers.

In the 1909 World Series, Adams fired three consecutive, complete game 6-hitters to shut down the Detroit Tigers in games one, five and seven. As evidence of his dominance Adams held Ty Cobb, a .366 lifetime hitter, to lone single in his eleven plate appearances.

Adams stuck around baseball long enough to throw a single shut out inning in the 1925 World Series at age 43 against the Washington Senators.

During his career, all but a single game of it with the Pirates, Adams logged a 194-140 record with a 2.76 ERA.

I was reading through Ken Burns Baseball over the weekend, and I was struck by a passage that noted Ty Cobb struck out 357 times in his career and sported a .367 lifetime average. While this passage turned out to be incorrect, since it didn’t count the first eight seasons of the Georgia Peach’s career, it got me thinking. Treating batting average as a round number, I wondered how many players who had at least 5,000 plate appearances retired with a higher batting average than number of strikeouts. From what I can tell, it’s a rare feat, and it might be unheard of today.

Baseball’s undergone many shifts over the years, and one of them is that players strike out much more these days. Joe Sewell played from 1920 to 1933 and fanned just 114 times in his career. Mark Reynolds almost did twice that in 2009. Heck, Sewell had whole seasons where he struck out less than Reynolds does in a day. Granted, Reynolds is far from the only player seemingly less concerned with making contact than swinging for power. The trend seems to go back to at least the 1950s. I don’t know what it is, if pitching has gotten better or coaches have de-emphasized contact hitting, but batters like Sewell are long gone from baseball.

The following is a list of players with at least 5,000 plate appearances who retired with a higher batting average than number of strikeouts. The list is by no means comprehensive, and I invite anyone to add to it. I organized the list by year of debut, and I think it’s worth noting that I didn’t find anyone who has played in the last 50 years or retired with a batting average below .300 and accomplished this feat. This exercise would also appear to favor lighter-hitting players, though Joe DiMaggio may deserve an honorable mention for his 369 lifetime strikeouts against a .325 batting average and 361 home runs.

The list is as follows:

Player	Strikeouts	Batting Avg.	Plate App.	Career Span
Cap Anson	330	.334	11331	1871-1897
Dan Brouthers	238	.342	7676	1879-1904
Buck Ewing	294	.303	5772	1880-1897
Pete Browning	168	.341	5315	1882-1894
Willie Keeler	136	.341	9610	1892-1910
Nap Lajoie	304	.338	10460	1896-1916
Tris Speaker	283	.345	11988	1907-1928
Shoeless Joe Jackson	164	.356	5690	1908-1920
George Sisler	327	.340	9013	1915-1930
Sam Rice	275	.322	10246	1915-1934
Joe Sewell	114	.312	8329	1920-1933
Pie Traynor	278	.320	8293	1920-1937
Riggs Stephenson	247	.336	5134	1921-1934
Freddie Lindstrom	276	.311	6104	1924-1936
Mickey Cochrane	217	.320	6206	1925-1937
Lloyd Waner	173	.316	8326	1927-1945
Joe Vosmik	272	.307	6084	1930-1944
Arky Vaughan	276	.318	7721	1932-1948
Cecil Travis	291	.314	5414	1933-1947
George Kell	287	.306	7528	1943-1957
Jackie Robinson	291	.311	5802	1947-1956

I wonder if any current or future player will eventually make this list.

I’m decidedly old school when it comes to baseball and definitely DH free National League, the league where defense and pitching seem to be of a greater necessity than the American League.

Thus far, the 2011 major league baseball season has two no hitters, (ironically both in the American League), and almost nightly pitching duels.

From the opening night matchup between Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum to the as good as advertised Philadelphia Phillies-Florida Marlins dual this past Tuesday, we’ve been seeing some terrifically pitched games.

The May 10th pitching matchup between Josh Johnson and Doc Halladay was indeed something to write home about.

The final tally combined for the two starters read three runs total allowed (Florida won 2-1) 15 innings pitched 11 hits and 16 Ks. This has been typical of many games around both leagues this season and isn’t showing any signs of letting up.

But what are the reason(s) for this pitcher dominated season and will major league baseball panic as they did after the 1968 season and make changes with the belief those fans want to see offense?

Let’s examine some possible answers for this year of the pitcher.

Pitchers are traditionally ahead of hitters in the early going of any season and the cold and wet weather in many parks thus far hasn’t helped the offenses any. But many previously robust hitters in both leagues are off to very slow starts; too many to be explained away by early season catching up and poor weather.

Many scouts seem to be of the opinion that the widespread use of the cut fastball is one of the major factors. The cut fastball looks like a regular fastball coming to the plate but unlike a slider, it won’t hang tantalizing over the plate if thrown incorrectly. It is also much easier to control than a slider or a split finger and allows a pitcher to not have to be so fine with his control. The pitch can be aimed at the middle of the plate or just off on either side or the natural movement of the pitch will result in balls hit off centre of the sweet spot.

Pitchers seem to be learning that hitters continue to be in a swing for the fence mentality and seem to be throwing more high strikes and umpires are now calling the high strike. Until last year, despite the fact that a pitch letter high was technically a strike, few umpires called it as such, forcing pitchers to throw belt high and down. While most pitching experts will tell you that pitching low in the zone is the best way to go, this has allowed batters to look in one zone only making solid contact much easier. It eliminated the climb the ladder with fastballs approach that can be very effective for a pitcher. Now batters are being forced to cover the entire strike zone and unfamiliarness with the high strike seems to be working to the pitchers’ advantage.

These things go in cycles and many starting pitchers are 25 and under but with a few years of major league experience already under their belt. Scouts seem to be going after pitchers who are hard throwers more so than those who get by with finesse and guile and this use your fastball or something as hard thrown seems to be more in favor. With starting pitchers seemingly only needing to go six innings, there is less than a need to conserve their arm.

Hitters still seem to be in the go for the fence mentality which pitchers are taking advantage of. Scoring has been decidedly down and a transition to small ball hasn’t caught on as of yet. There is a greater emphasis on team defense with offensive players with poor defensive abilities being subject to greater criticism and more scrutiny.

Baseball seems to be getting back to its original premise, run prevention. For the pure fan like me, it’s a welcome happening.

During the double header’s heyday, a fan could buy one ticket, see two games and spend an enjoyable, if somewhat long, afternoon at the ball park. On a perfect day, his team would take both ends and his favorite player would stand out.

May 3, 1942 was such a day for the 23, 871 St. Louis Cardinals’ fans as the Birds swept two from the Brooklyn Dodgers, 14-10 and 4-2 in a darkness shortened six inning affair. Not surprisingly Stan Musial, every fan’s favorite, tore the ball off the cover. His combined line: AB: 5; H: 4; R:3, RBI: 2 including two doubles and two walks.

In the nightcap, the teams couldn’t play a full nine innings because during the often delayed opener six players and the two managers, Leo Durocher and Billy Southworth, were ejected in the wild affair that saw the Cards go up 10-2 before the Dodgers rallied to tie the score. The Cards scored ten unearned runs on errors by two normally slick fielders, second baseman Billy Herman and shortstop Pee Wee Reese.

Game two was more subdued; only four Dodgers were tossed.

Although Musial had better individual seasons against the Dodgers than he did in 1942, his numbers against the Cards’ arch rival were nevertheless imposing, .308, .400 and .498 batting, slugging and on base percentage averages. As Dodger manager Durocher once said: “The best way to pitch to Musial is to roll the ball to the plate.

Just how important those two May Cardinals’ victories would be in the 1942 pennant race didn’t become clear until the end of the season. The Cardinals, 106-48, and led by Most Valuable Player Mort Cooper (22-7, 1.78 ERA) edged out the Dodgers, 104-50 by a mere two games.

The Cardinals entered the season with uncertainty. Slugger Johnny Mize had been traded to the New York Giants during the off season. But, behind Musial who despite playing his first full year more than compensated for Mize, the Cards’ prevailed. Musial made a solid impact with 10 homers, 72 RBI (tenth in the league), and a .315 average that was second to Slaughter’s league-best .318. Stan’s 32 doubles and 10 triples (third in the league) were the first of seven consecutive years he would reach double figures in triples. Musial proved that by getting out of the batter’s box quickly, he could compensate for his limited speed.

To cap off a fine year, the Cards’ upset the New York Yankees, winners of 103 games themselves, in a five-game Series.

Double the fun is a Saturday feature here that looks at one notable doubleheader each week.

What he did: More than 80 years after his last game, Carl Mays remains one of baseball’s most notorious figures. Mays threw the pitch that resulted in the only death of a player in baseball history. He also might have intentionally lost games in the 1921 and 1922 World Series, and he wore out his welcome in New York shortly thereafter. Yankee manager Miller Huggins told longtime sportswriter Fred Lieb, “Any ballplayers that played for me on either the Cardinals or Yankees could come to me if he were in need and I would give him a helping hand. I made only two exceptions, Carl Mays and Joe Bush. If they were in the gutter, I’d kick them.”

It’s a strong statement, and it might be one of the reasons Mays never got serious consideration for the Hall of Fame despite boasting a 208-126 lifetime record and 2.92 ERA, not to mention five 20-win seasons and success in both the Deadball and Live Ball eras. Mays might have made some poor choices that curtailed an otherwise bright career and given him a sordid reputation almost a century later. That being said, pitching in the modern era, Mays might have 100 more wins and a whole different legacy.

Era: We’re sticking Mays in the majors of today, and since he won 20 games in two leagues, the idea here is that Mays would be fine in either current circuit. He did his best work with powerhouse franchises, the Boston Red Sox of the 1910s and the Yankees of the early ’20s, so it’s conceivable he could thrive on a large stage once more. And the issues that hampered his career wouldn’t exist today.

Why: A lot’s changed in baseball in nine decades. Perhaps most importantly for Mays’ sake, batters wear helmets and salaries are exponentially higher. Mays might have the same penchant for throwing the kind of inside pitch that killed Ray Chapman, the same greed to sell out his teammates for a quick payoff, but it’s unlikely the harm would be as great. There simply wouldn’t be the same opportunity.

Would Mays be a saint in the modern big leagues? Maybe not, though that’s never been a requirement f0r baseball stardom. It’d definitely be interesting to see if Mays could stick with one team. Upon waiving Mays out to Cincinnati in 1923, Huggins wrote to Reds president Garry Herrmann, “I may be sending you the best pitcher I have, but I warn you that Carl is a troublemaker and always will be a hard man to sign.” Perhaps in the modern era with free agency, Mays could have a better chance to pick the right organization for himself. He’d also have more incentive to behave. Whatever the case, it seems unlikely he’d wind up as much a pariah.

Lieb wrote, “Mays felt he never lived down the Chapman incident. Late in his life I heard him say, ‘I won over two hundred big league games, but no one remembers that. When they think of me, I’m the guy who killed Chapman with a fastball.'” The modern era could offer Mays so much more.

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, Bob Caruthers, Bob Feller, Bob Watson, Charles Victory Faust, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, George Weiss, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Honus Wagner, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty O’Doul, Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Monte Irvin, Nate Colbert, Paul Derringer, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, 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

On most days between April and September, I talk about Clarence H. “Ginger” Beaumont. Among my duties as a Pittsburgh Pirates PNC Park tour guide is to show guests the home team batting cage.

On the wall is the list of all the Pirates who have won batting championships—-eleven different players (see if you can name them; answer below*) for a total of 25 crowns.

Below Honus Wagner and next to the year 1902 Beaumont’s name is painted in white lettering.  I rarely gave Beaumont more than a passing thought until a visitor asked if “Ginger” was his real name. That simple question started my inquiry into Beaumont’s life and times.

“Ginger,” known on his birth certificate as Clarence, got his nickname because of his red hair. Beaumont holds a place in baseball history that can never be surpassed or outdone. In the 1903 first-ever World Series, the visiting Pirates faced the Boston Americans’ Cy Young. Beaumont, leading off, flew out to center field. Thus, Beaumont became the first batter in World Series history.

Beaumont, as I learned, was a great of a player—good enough so that when Honus Wagner and Hall of Fame umpire Bill Klem made out their all-time teams both chose Ginger as their center fielder.

During the Deadball Era, Beaumont was considered baseball’s finest leadoff man, a lifetime .311 hitter. When Beaumont’s contemporaries praised him, they focused on his blazing speed (he was once clocked from home to first in 4.4 seconds), unusual for his 190 pound, 5’8″ frame.

According to famous Pittsburgh sportswriter John Gruber:

He [Beaumont] was an excellent base runner, being very fast on his feet, but nobody who saw him for the first time ambling along on his way to the batter’s box would admit this. A lazier or more indifferent-appearing player, emphasized by a burly body, could not be conceived. But when he hit the ball he was off like a streak, which astonished the uninitiated and made him one of the wonders of the century.

Beaumont began his career the old minor league Milwaukee Brewers. The Brewers traded Beaumont to Pittsburgh in 1900 and he played for the Pirates for eight seasons.

In addition to his batting title, Beaumont also led the National League in hits three times and scored 100 runs four times, leading the league once. Ironically, one of the fastest players in his, bad knees ended Beaumont’s career in just 12 seasons.

Once out of baseball, Beaumont returned to his native Wisconsin and settled in Honey Creek where he owned a store, did some farming and auctioneering, conducted the church choir, became a grandfather and enjoyed his status as a local legend. Beaumont died on April 10, 1956 at the age of 79.

______

*Pittsburgh Pirates batting champions: Wagner (8), Beaumont (1). Paul Waner (3), Deb Garms (1), Arky Vaughn (1), Dick Groat (1), Roberto Clemente (4), Matty Alou (1), Bill Madlock (2), Dave Parker (2) and Freddie Sanchez (1)