Baseball: Past and Present

I’m dedicating this post to all my good friends who are devoted Boston Red Sox fans. As of Wednesday morning, their team stands at 2-9. Many have edged dangerously close to the ledge. If only they had heeded my spring training observation: before printing the World Series tickets, there’s that small formality of playing the games.

To lift my friends’ spirits, I’ll transport them back to a time when the Red Sox had bats booming and pitchers dominating. If fact, so lively were the Sox bats that they scored a record 17 runs in a single inning.

The Sox scoring extravaganza lasted two days. On June 17, 1953, the Red Sox destroyed Detroit Tiger pitching by racking up 20 hits against four hurlers in a 17-1 rout.

Watching from the bull pen, Steve Gromek who had just joined the Tigers via a trade with the Cleveland Indians sympathized with his new teammates.

What Gromek didn’t know at the time was that on the very next day in his Tigers’ debut, he would be mauled much worse. With Ned Garver starting for the Tigers, the game remained competitive into the sixth inning, a 3-3 tie. But when Garver walked the leadoff man, had an error committed behind him and gave up back to back singles that allowed two runs to score, manager Fred Hutchinson summoned Gromek who got the final two outs.

Unfortunately for Gromek, Hutchinson left him in for the seventh. Gromek retired only one batter, gave up seven hits including a home run, three walks and nine earned runs. After Hutchinson mercifully lifted Gromek, Dick Weik took over and, unbelievably, did worse. Weik’s line: IP, .1;  H, 3; BB, 1; ER, 4,   Hutchinson gave Weik the hook in favor of Earl Harrist whose pitching line was the best of the three “firemen”:  IP 1.1; H, 7; ER 5; BB, 3; SO, 1. By the time the Boston half of the 48-minute seventh ended, the Red Sox had scored 17 runs on 14 hits (three by Gene Stephens and two each by Sammy White and Tom Umphlett) en route to 23-3 win.

For the afternoon, Billy Goodman had five hits and White, four. In all, the Red Sox broke or tied 16 American League offensive records. For the two days, the Red Sox scored 40 runs on 47 hits.

Interviewed after the game, Gromek said: “I never saw anything like it. They got some clean hits but most of them were flukes. The ball kept bouncing out of reach of our infielders or just in of our outfielders.”

But as proof that you never know in baseball, five days later to Gromek’s amazement and without any forewarning, Hutchinson handed him the ball and said: “You pitch today.” Gromek shut out the Philadelphia A’s 5-0 on only four hits. No Philadelphia batter reached third base.

Recalled Gromek years later: “I was flabbergasted. I thought I would never pitch again at least not for Detroit.”

Baseball is an elite profession. For every player who makes it to “the show,” countless aspiring players fall short. A recent post here raised the question of whether growing up as the son of a famous player makes for an even more difficult path to the big leagues. As Graham Womack stated in his March 28 post, “children of top ball players have tough standards to live up to.”

Searching Baseball-Reference.com and retrosheet.org, I can find only ten sons of Hall of Fame players who have ever made it to the major leagues. If not for their famous fathers, we would have little reason to discuss these players, most of whom played at or near the replacement level. Interestingly, two sons of George Sisler, Dick and Dave, account for more than half of the collective WAR of the group. Please note that Earle Mack is not on this list, although he would fit right in with his -0.2 WAR. His father Connie is enshrined as a manager, not a player.

Player	Years	WAR	HoF Father	Years	WAR
Dick Sisler	1946-1953	5.8	George Sisler	1915-1930	50.4
Earl Averill, Jr	1956-1963	4.1	Earl Averill	1929-1941	45.0
Dale Berra	1977-1987	3.7	Yogi Berra	1946-1965	61.9
Dave Sisler	1956-1963	3.2	George Sisler	1915-1930	50.4
Tony Gwynn, Jr	2006-Present	1.0	Tony Gwynn	1982-2001	68.4
Eduardo Perez	1993-2006	0.2	Tony Perez	1964-1986	50.5
Charlie Lindstrom	1958	0.1	Freddie Lindstrom	1924-1936	29.2
Queenie O’Rourke	1908	-0.4	Jim O’Rourke	1872-1904	53.9
Eddie Collins, Jr	1939-1942	-1.0	Eddie Collins	1906-1930	126.7
Ed Walsh, Jr	1928-1932	-1.1	Ed Walsh	1904-1917	54.8
	Total	15.6

In all fairness, Tony Gwynn, Jr, is young and still an active player. Currently with the LA Dodgers, he could rise to the top of this list with one or two solid seasons.

In contrast to the above group, brothers of Hall of Famers are much more accomplished. Lloyd and Paul Waner are both in Cooperstown, making them both brothers of Hall of Famers. Wes Ferrell and Dom DiMaggio are not enshrined, but each has a camp of fans advocating for his candidacy. Jim Perry and Joe Niekro were each superb pitchers in their own right, even if they were overshadowed by their more famous brothers.

Player	Years	WAR	HoF Brother	Years	WAR
Paul Waner	1926-1945	73.8	Lloyd Waner	1927-1945	24.3
Wes Ferrell	1927-1941	41.3	Rick Ferrell	1929-1943	22.9
Jim Perry	1959-1975	33.3	Gaylord Perry	1962-1983	96.3
Dom DiMaggio	1940-1953	31.9	Joe DiMaggio	1936-1951	83.6
Joe Niekro	1967-1988	30.2	Phil Niekro	1964-1987	96.8
Lloyd Waner	1927-1945	24.3	Paul Waner	1926-1945	73.8
Vince DiMaggio	1937-1946	17.2	Joe DiMaggio	1936-1951	83.6
Jim Delahanty	1901-1915	15.8	Ed Delahanty	1888-1903	74.7
Sandy Alomar, Jr	1988-2007	13.2	Roberto Alomar	1988-2004	63.5
Harry Coveleski	1907-1918	12.8	Stan Coveleski	1912-1928	54.0
Ken Brett	1967-1981	11.3	George Brett	1973-1993	85.0
Paul Dean	1934-1943	11.0	Dizzy Dean	1930-1947	39.6
John Ewing	1883-1891	10.8	Buck Ewing	1880-1897	51.8
26 others		0.8
	Total	327.7

The list of brothers has some lesser lights, too. Larry Yount and Joe Evers epitomize the expression “cup of coffee.” Billy Ripken played above the replacement level (2.1 WAR), but Tommie Aaron, Chris Gwynn, and three more Delahanty brothers didn’t. Also included is Hall of Fame manager Harry Wright, who played briefly in the 1870s and whose brother George is in the Hall as a player. In all, 39 brothers of Hall of Famers have made it to the big leagues, and they have accumulated more than 300 WAR.

In short, Major League Baseball has employed nearly four times as many brothers as sons of Hall of Famers, and the brothers’ accomplishments, as encapsulated by WAR, are approximately 20-fold greater. Even if you have objections to distilling a player’s performance to a single number, you cannot quarrel with the notion that the Waners, Vince and Dom DiMaggio, Jim Perry, and Ken Brett are a cut above the likes of Dale Berra and Eduardo Perez. Are the sons underachievers, or have the brothers performed above expectations? Or perhaps is it some of each?

I do not know whether there are simply many more brothers of HoF players than sons. If true, this could account for the difference in numbers of major leaguers that have emerged from each group. However, this idea seems remote to me. As a group, men have about the same number of brothers as sons, perhaps somewhat fewer sons as family sizes have steadily shrunk over the past hundred years. If there is a difference in the case of Hall of Famers, though, I’ll wager it is nowhere near 4-fold.

What’s striking to me is not so much the absence of Hall of Famers among the sons, but the absence of even solid, steady, double-digit WAR players. Why there are no equivalents of Harry Coveleski and Sandy Alomar, Jr among HoF sons, I can only speculate.

While a host of social and family factors might play into the disparity between the brothers and sons, the way that I can best reconcile the different accomplishments of the two groups is by drawing a parallel to coaching. It is often said that star players typically do not make good coaches or managers. There are exceptions of course, such as Joe Torre, Frank Robinson, and perhaps Tony Gwynn, who has had success coaching at the college level. However, the accepted wisdom is that the game comes easily for star players and, as a result, they do not relate well to the struggles of the majority of players for whom the game brings its usual challenges. Bobby Cox, Tony LaRussa, and Tommy Lasorda, for example, are all great managers, and they all have enormous personal insight into the struggles of the marginal player.

A good coach teaches, nurtures, offers encouragement, and does an array of other things to maximize the abilities that his players bring to the sport. It might be that Hall of Famers in general are at a disadvantage in fulfilling this role. And when it comes to baseball, often a son’s first and most influential coach is his father.

Well, none of us saw that one coming did we?  As of today, the Boston Red Sox are 1-7.  That’s one win this 2011 season. That’s last place in the American League East.  Boston is looking up at the Baltimore Orioles and worse than the Kansas City Royals.

I’ve read a couple of columns this week wondering if it’s time to fire manager Terry Francona, and those articles weren’t even in the Boston papers. The general consensus seemed to be the following: Carl Crawford can’t hit so far and probably never will, and Josh Beckett is finished. Kevin Youkilis hasn’t been able to and won’t be able to make the adjustment to playing third base, and old veteran Jason Varitek will have to do most of the catching. Could non-scalpers tickets become available for an upcoming game at Fenway? Don’t worry Sox fans: Bad teams that start 1-7 finish last, but good teams with good managers who start 1-7 will be right up there at the end.

The Tampa Bay Rays are also 1-7, batting .145 with only B.J. Upton and reserve player Sam Fuld doing much offensively. Johnny Damon says something has to start clicking and soon. But the Rays haven’t put up eye-popping offensive numbers during the last two seasons, and while they’ve managed to win a lot of games, there could be more challenges in store. The retirement of offseason pickup Manny Ramirez is just the latest blow to a team that lost several players from last year and has star Evan Longoria on the disabled list. About the only thing going for the Rays is that their series with the Red Sox starts Monday.

The Baltimore Orioles are winning baseball games. Manager Buck Showalter is getting lots of press for his turnaround of the team last season and its good start in 2011 and deservedly so. However, I think the remake of the starting eight has much more to do with it. Baltimore for the past few seasons has had to use utility players and bench players as regulars, or rookies with a high ceiling but with little experience. These players were thrust into roles they were unfamiliar with and burdened with responsibilities they had difficulty handling.

There was no way for the Orioles to deal with the inevitable injuries every team suffers because those players who should be injury fill ins were being used as starters and were the players being injured. Baltimore  now has legitimate major league starters at every position making the everyday lineup much stronger and providing a deep bench.

It sure has been fun watching Tim Lincecum pitch in 2011.  His first start, which was  against the Los Angeles Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw on Opening Day  was a pitching duel that I was hoping would never end. Lincecum was very good but Kershaw was lights out and the Dodgers won that game.  It was good old fashioned hardball at its very best.

Lincecum’s second start was a real gem, typical of what he has done the last three seasons.  He struck out five of the first six San Diego Padres and had all four pitches working to perfection.  Lincecum gets the ball back from his catcher, and with little to no time wasted, throws it again.  When a Tim Lincecum is on his game, there is nothing better to watch.

It’s been great to see Alex Gordon finally making some progress at the major league level. It must have been very tempting for the Kansas City Royals to give up on this potential face of the franchise but I must admit, I admire the Royals, who really had nothing to lose by keeping him, for giving him another shot. He seems relaxed and might finally have realized that he’s only one player, and one player cannot win every game. Actually it’s been fun to watch the Royals, like Baltimore, being competitive, at least while it lasts. Maybe all those scouts weren’t wrong about Gordon. Time will tell.

The continuously disappointing Daisuke Matsuzaka took to the hill for the Boston Red Sox Tuesday night against the Cleveland Indians. To the surprise of no one, Dice-K was gone after five innings in which he allowed six hits, three walks, three earned runs and was charged with the loss in the 8-4 drubbing.

You will remember that Matsuzaka arrived on the scene in 2007 to enormous hoopla.

Management, fans and sports writers were convinced that Matsuzaka was worth every dime of the Red Sox $100 million dollar investment.

According to reports, Matsuzaka had not only the usual repertoire of pitches but he had two kinds of sliders, a fork ball and the never-before-seen gyro-ball that was, admirers claimed, certain to baffle every hitter in the league.

Matsuzaka madness included a CD titled “Music from the Mound” that included as the first cut, “Gyro Ball, Dice-K” If for some inexplicable reason you want to add the disc to your music collection, you’re out of luck. It was pulled from the shelves when batters immediately started knocking Matsuzaka’s gyro ball all over the park.

Fast forward to today when Matsuzaka’s career includes long stints on disabled list where he was sent for the various reasons including “shoulder weakness” after the World Baseball Classic and weight problems. Other Matuzaka issues over the years involve his polite but insubordinate refusal to change his pitching style that’s created resentment among his lesser paid teammates.  They also wish he gave up fewer walks and picked up his pitching pace before they fall asleep playing behind him.

The disappointing truth about Dice-K’s limited talent has been hard for many Sox fans both here and in Japan to come to grips with.

But former ESPN announcer and Hall of Fame great Joe Morgan spotted it immediately.

While I was listening to the 2007 World Series, Morgan in a moment of unusual candor said about Matsuzaka: “He’s not as good as the Red Sox thought he was.”

Only a week into the 2011 season, the Red Sox (0-6 entering into the weekend series against the New York Yankees) are in complete disarray. Whether Red Sox manager Terry Francona will continue to trot Matsuzaka, barely holding on to his fifth starter’s slot, out to the mound for another shellacking or whether he’ll reach down to Pawtucket for a substitute is hard to tell.

One thing is sure. Fickle Red Sox fans won’t put up with much more of Matsuzaka’s underachieving.

• Good news for fans of Cal baseball. It looks like the program will be continuing beyond this season.
• Manny Ramirez is retiring, the federal government’s perjury case against Barry Bonds has gone to the jury, and baseball’s Steroid Era takes another sad turn. On a side note, next Tuesday’s edition of Does he belong in the Hall of Fame? will be on Manny. I’ll do one before too long on Barry, as well.
• Rob Neyer offers a look at what Manny’s departure could mean for his final team, the Tampa Bay Rays. Short answer: It’s not good.
• With all of Nick Swisher’s struggles in recent years (read: most, if not all of his career, though I like the guy from having covered him in the minors) it would seem like apt advice to tell him to break a leg. This can’t be what was meant, though.
• Regular contributor Rory Paap writes of the Giants’ bullpen and something called Shutdowns and Meltdowns in a post for Bay City Ball of the ESPN Sweet Spot Network. Rory does a good job absorbing obscure metrics and told me recently they’re not hard to pick up, somewhat intuitive really. Whatever you say, dude (I’m amazed I have a basic grasp of OPS+ and WAR.)
• Adam Morris suggests Jim Palmer might have been the most overrated pitcher of all-time. My vote’s Catfish Hunter, Rube Waddell, or Dizzy Dean.
• Non-baseball link: It’s Masters time which means we get some golf-themed blog fare this week from Joe Posnanski, who began his newspaper career two decades ago as a young reporter in Augusta. I interviewed Posnanski back in September, and in a portion I didn’t include in the transcript I posted, he told me he once met legendary sportswriter Jim Murray in the press tent there.

What he did: I read something in The Glory of Their Times on Wagner, the Deadball Era legend and arguably the greatest shortstop in baseball history. Tommy Leach spoke of learning of Wagner’s prowess when he joined him on the Louisville ball club in 1898, shortly before both men were transferred to the Pittsburgh Pirates. Leach spoke of getting stuck behind Wagner at third base, his position in the minors, but how “it turned out for the best” since the two became part of the first baseball dynasty of the 20th century.

Leach said:

And it also turned out that while Honus was the best third baseman in the league, he was also the best first baseman, the best second baseman, the best shortstop, and the best outfielder. That was in fielding. And since he led the league in batting eight times between 1900 and 1911, you know that he was the best hitter, too. As well as the best base runner.

A few chapters later, another contemporary, Sam Crawford echoed Leach, comparing Wagner with Ty Cobb and saying Wagner “could play any position” and became “the greatest shortstop of them all.” Wagner spent the bulk of his career at shortstop, 1,887 games, but also logged time at every other infield position, played 373 games in the outfield, and pitched 8.1 scoreless innings between 1900 and 1902. He also hit .328 lifetime with 3,420 hits, and it all makes me wonder what he might do if he played today.

With his stocky 5’11” and 200-pound build, I think it unlikely Wagner would be groomed in the minors as a shortstop. My hunch is that in the current game, he might excel at a position he never played: catcher.

Era he might have thrived in: We’ll put Wagner on the Minnesota Twins where he might rival Joe Mauer as the best-hitting catcher in the game today.

Why: This is all based on a big assumption, of course, that Wagner’s bulk and versatility could make him a great backstop. His arm might also lend itself to the position, seeing as a scout signed an 18-year-old Wagner after watching him chuck rocks across a river. He was tough too, supposedly splitting Cobb’s lip with a hard tag in the 1909 World Series after the Georgia Peach yelled, as recounted in Ken Burns Baseball, “Watch out, Krauthead, I’m coming down. I’ll cut you to pieces,” and Wagner replied,  “Come ahead.” It seems Wagner would be a tank guarding home, and I wonder why he never played catcher. I think he’d be a natural.

Regardless of whether Wagner could muster Gold Glove-caliber defense behind the plate, though, he’d be something special on offense for the Twins. I ran his numbers through the stat converter on Baseball-Reference.com, seeing how he’d do for Minnesota in 2010. Seven of his seasons would be good for a batting average of .360 or better, and his 1908 season converts to a .400 batting average with 12 home runs and 154 RBI to go with 254 hits, 24 triples and an OPS of 1.074. That would trump Mauer, who in his 2008 American League MVP season put up a career-best 1.031 OPS along with a .365 batting average, 28 home runs, and 96 RBI.

Playing today, Wagner might not have the same appeal to a massive influx of immigrants in the early 20th century, which made him so representative of his time as iconic players often are from Babe Ruth to Hank Greenberg to Jackie Robinson. One of the contributors here, Joe Guzzardi, wrote in a recent column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “When immigrants watched Wagner, the ‘Flying Dutchman,’ at shortstop, they saw a mirror image of their hard-working selves. Wagner was one of five children born to German natives, and at age 12, he left school to join his father and brothers in the coal mines.”

 

There might not be the same connection for fans today. All the same, Wagner’s unique abilities would be hard to deny in any generation.

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, Denny McLain, Dom DiMaggio, Eddie Lopat, Frank Howard, Fritz Maisel, George Case, Harmon Killebrew, Harry Walker, Home Run Baker, Ichiro Suzuki, Jack Clark, Jackie Robinson, Jimmy Wynn, Joe DiMaggio, Johnny Frederick, Josh Hamilton, Ken Griffey Jr., Lefty O’Doul, Matty Alou, Michael Jordan, Nate Colbert, Paul Derringer, Pete Rose, Prince Fielder, Ralph Kiner, Rickey Henderson, Roberto Clemente, Sam Thompson, Sandy Koufax, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Stan Musial, Ted Williams, The Meusel Brothers, Ty Cobb, Wally Bunker, Willie Mays

In January, one of my favorite all time players died. Gus Zernial passed after a long battle with congestive heart failure and other ailments.

To casual fans, Zernial was an above average journeyman who had brief, injury-riddled but nevertheless productive stints with the Chicago White Sox, the Philadelphia and Kansas City Athletics and the Detroit Tigers. Over his 11-season career, Zernial hit .265 with 237 home runs and 776 runs batted in. In 1951, Zernial lead the league in homers and RBIs with 33 and 129; in 1953, he slugged 43 homers. From 1951 to 1957, only Mickey Mantle hit more American League round trippers than Gus.

Zernial, no slouch, hit 25 or more homers seven times and knocked in more than 100 four times.

For a kid like me who grew up in Hollywood and lived and died with the Pacific Coast League Stars’, “Ozark Ike” as manager Fred Haney called Zernial, was Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle rolled into one. (See a cartoonist’s version of “Ozark Ike” here

Zernial had two spectacular seasons with the Stars; in 1947, he hit .334 and the following year, Zernial tore the cover off the ball. Get a load of these numbers: Games,186, AB’s-737, H-237, HR-40, RBI’s 156 and BA .322.

Adding to my adolescent fascination with Zernial, Gus once had his picture taken with Marilyn Monroe. (See it here). Zernial’s image also appeared on my favorite baseball card which I own to this day.

After his career ended, Zernial returned to Clovis, CA. worked odd construction jobs, broadcast Fresno State University baseball games and did commercial spots for automobile dealers.

In 1990, Zernial was diagnosed with cancer. Down but not out, Zernial took a community affairs job to help bring the AAA Grizzlies, the San Francisco Giants’ top minor league affiliate, to Fresno. Zernial did color commentary for Grizzlies’ games until 2003. (To learn much more about Zernial, please read my Society for American Baseball Research colleague’s outstanding Baseball Biography Project here.)

Late last year, I learned that Zernial’s autobiography, “Ozark Ike: Memories of a Fence Buster,” had been released. Only 237 copies were printed, the exact number of homers Gus smashed.

Through his publisher I contacted Zernial and we exchanged a few emails. When my copy arrived, the inscription read: “To Joe, my wish to you, all the best, God Bless. Thanks for being my friend all the way back to Hollywood.”

Josh Wilker posed an interesting question last week on his blog. Expanding on a list of his five favorite authors, Wilker offered an Opening Day batting order of his top nine writers. He asked about other people’s starting lineups, and I’m happy to offer mine here:

2B- Lawrence Ritter: A second baseman gets a lot of chances in the field, and who better for this than Ritter, who interviewed a couple dozen former greats in his outstanding oral history, The Glory of Their Times.

LF- Bill Watterson: The author of Calvin & Hobbes is perfect in the outfield, where his protagonist once accidentally stayed after his team went to bat and wound up catching one of its fly balls.

3B- Tobias Wolff: It’s a dream for any team to have a great infielder who can also hit, and Wolff could be its star. His memoirs This Boy’s Life and In Pharaoh’s Army are two of my favorites– vivid, touching, powerful– and there may be no finer short story than Bullet in the Brain. Wolff is the Albert Pujols of this squad.

RF- John Krakauer: The author of three fine books in my collection, Into the Wild, Into Thin Air, and Under the Banner of Heaven, Krakauer writes with a forceful, masculine style. He’d be the power hitter here.

1B- Joe Posnanski: How to protect Krakauer in the order? By having a bat behind him as good as Poz, the Sports Illustrated writer, inspiring blogger, and two-time Associated Press Sportswriter of the Year. With his warm, gentle style, Posnanski would do capable work at first base as well.

DH- David Sedaris: A designated hitter has one job and one job only: hit well. David Sedaris does not spur any great introspection in me. His essays leave no real lasting impact on my life. But they make me laugh, consistently. As a humorist, Sedaris is a .350 hitter.

CF- David Halberstam: A great center fielder has superb range, which Halberstam certainly had, starting as a Pulitzer Prize-winning Vietnam correspondent for the New York Times before transitioning into writing sports books, among them the classic Summer of ’49.

C- John Irving: Catchers need to be sturdy and dependable, and Irving is a hallmark of this, having written good books since 1970. A Prayer for Owen Meany is one of my absolute, top favorites, I read most of The Fourth Hand in one epic night, and I appreciated The World According to Garp, even if that sucker was long.

SS- Joan Didion: The lone female author here (though I also like what I’ve read of Sarah Vowell and Isabel Allende, to name two), Didion went to the same high school as me, albeit 50 years earlier, C.K. McClatchy in Sacramento. We both wrote for the campus newspaper, and supposedly when Didion did so, she’d crumple her articles and throw them away in frustration, only to have them retrieved by classmates. She went on to UC Berkeley and a lifetime of writing essays, screenplays, and books. Slouching Toward Bethlehem and The Year of Magical Thinking are both excellent.