Baseball: Past and Present

Here’s the latest guest post from Joe Guzzardi

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Last Sunday, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette sports page story about the Pittsburgh Pirates’ 10-inning 5-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds was on page 14. Preceding it were accounts of high school and college football, the Steelers, the Penguins, the U.S. Open tennis tournament, the upcoming basketball season, horse racing, Reggie Bush, lacrosse and assorted other minor events.

In Pittsburgh, “Dog days” has a different meaning. The phrase refers to the season’s last month when Pirates baseball mercifully ends.

Today’s Buccos remind lifelong fans of the horrible 1950-1955 Pirates known as “Rickey’s Rinky-Dinks,” a play on general manager Branch Rickey’s name and the teams under his direction.

That’s not entirely fair to Rickey since the Corsairs were National League cellar dwellers for years before he arrived on the scene. The one bright spot who kept Pirates fans glued in their Forbes Field seats even as the losses mounted: Ralph Kiner

During his first seven seasons, Kiner led or tied for the National League in home runs, an unmatched feat.

Kiner also achieved a still-standing major league record when in 1947 he hit eight home runs in four consecutive games. Four of them came during a September 11th double header. During the preceding month, Kiner previewed his prowess when he hit seven home runs during a similar four game stretch.

Kiner started his tear on September 10th against the New York Giants when his two home runs off Larry Jansen (18-5) accounted for the Bucs only runs in 3-2 defeat.

During the next day’s double dip, with the Boston Braves in town, Kiner hit one in the opener off losing pitcher Johnny Sain (19-10) to help lift the Pirates to a 4-3, 13 inning triumph. In the nightcap, Kiner slugged two more off starter Bill Voiselle and another off losing pitcher Walt Lanfranconni (4-4) for a 10-8 Pirate sweep.

Kiner wrapped up his power-packed four days when on September 12th, he blasted two more off Red Barrett (11-12) to propel the Bucs to a 4-3 victory.

Kiner’s four-day line: AB 16; R 8; H 10; HR 8; RBI 12

Over his ten-year career, Kiner hit 369 home runs for an average of one every 14.11 at bats, eighth best all-time. Historians calculate that if Kiner had played in a more hitter friendly park than the monstrous Forbes Field and had not also lost nearly three seasons serving in World War II, he would easily have hit 500.

From 1948 through 1953, Kiner played in six consecutive All Star Games before being ignominiously dumped off to the Chicago Cubs for the proverbial bunch of broken bats, namely Toby Atwell, Bob Schultz, Preston Ward, George Freese, Bob Addis, Gene Hermanski and $150,000 cash.

Kiner and Rickey had been locked in a salary dispute all season before the notorious cheapskate famously told the slugger: “We finished last with you and we can finish last without you.”

Although Kiner hit 50 home runs during his season and a half with the Cubs and another 18 with the Cleveland Indians in 1955, his most productive years were over.

In 1961 Kiner began a new career as a Chicago White Sox broadcaster before moving to the New York Mets where he joined Lindsey Nelson and Bob Murphy. One of the most popular features of Mets’ broadcasts was “Kiner’s Korner” where Kiner might call Darryl Strawberry “Darryl Thornberry” or say: “If Casey Stengel were alive, he’d be spinning in his grave.”

Kiner, although ailing, still appears from time to time making him the only Mets’ announcer to be part of the broadcast team since the Mets first game.

Post-career, Kiner has received many accolades. In 1975, the Hall of Fame elected Kiner. Twelve years later, the Pirates retired his number 4. The Sporting News placed Kiner on its 1999 “Top 100 Greatest Player’s” list.

Just inside the entrance to PNC Park, which opened in 2001, a statue of Kiner’s hand holding a bat honors his seven leading home run seasons. Then, in 2007, the Mets held “Ralph Kiner Night” with Tom Seaver giving a commemorative speech. Also present were Bob Feller, former Met manager Yogi Berra and the late Ernie Harwell. (See it here.)

Billy Meyer, one of Kiner’s Pirates managers, had only good things to say about his star outfielder: “During all the time I managed the Pirates, there was never a time that Kiner didn’t do everything I asked him to for the general good of the club. No matter what I said it was perfectly okay with him.”

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Last weekend, Pete Rose got a one-day reprieve from his lifetime ban from baseball so he could celebrate the 25-year anniversary of breaking the all-time hit record. It was a nice gesture from Major League Baseball, though too little, too late for a player punished cruelly. Rose got banned in 1989 for betting on baseball and is among a small group of players formally barred. Every so often, a ballplayer is informally shunned as well.

Here are four men who were never officially banished, but effectively may have been:

Mike Marshall: In March 1981, Jim Bouton issued a follow-up to his bestseller, Ball Four. In it, he wrote of his former Seattle Pilots teammate who had been released by the Twins at the end of the 1980 season and not yet picked up by another team. Bouton wrote:

Why would the Twins release a guy they still had to pay for two more years, who had won or saved 31 games for them as recently as 1978? And why hasn’t any other team signed this 39-year-old physical fitness expert who could probably pitch for another five years?

Well, because baseball hasn’t changed that much. Everybody but the Baseball Commissioner suspects the owners want to keep Marshall, a militant leader, out of the Player’s Association. His release keeps him off the very important joint study committee working on the question of free agent compensation. Also, Marshall has been heard to say that when Marvin Miller retires, he would like a shot at Marvin’s job. If there’s anyone the owners fear more than Marvin, it’s Mike.

Marshall finally found a team to sign him for 1981 on August 19, weeks after the strike that year ended. It doesn’t seem coincidental to me that Marshall was team-less before, which likely kept him out of strike negotiations. Despite going 3-2 with a 2.61 ERA for the New York Mets for the rest of the season, Marshall was released in October and gone from baseball.

Carl Furillo: In another baseball classic, The Boys of Summer, Roger Kahn detailed the lives of former Brooklyn Dodger greats, about a decade beyond their careers. Kahn located the former rightfielder installing elevator doors in the old World Trade Center, then under construction.

The Dodgers released Furillo at 38 in 1960, and he sued because he was injured at the time and the club refused to pay the balance of his contract, which violated its terms. While the legal matter was pending, Furillo wrote to 18 teams in the spring of 1961 offering to pinch-hit or play. No one signed him.

Kahn wrote:

If one thinks of blacklist in terms of the old McCarthyism when the three television networks in concert refused to employ writers or actors with a so-called radical past, then Carl Furillo was not blacklisted. As far as anyone can learn, the owners of the eighteen major league clubs operating in 1961 did not collectively refuse to hire him. What they did was react in a patterned way. Here was one more old star who wanted to pinch-hit and coach. He could have qualified marginally, but once he sued, people in baseball’s conformist ambiance decided he was a ‘Bolshevik.’ Hiring him at thirty-nine was not worth the potential trouble. Walter O’Malley was no Borgia, plotting to bar Furillo from the game. Only Furillo’s decision to hire lawyers was at play. The existential result was identical.

Dave Kingman: I heard Susan Fornoff speak at a SABR meeting in Sacramento in July. Fornoff helped get female reporters admitted into locker rooms in the 1980s, and she said at the meeting that Kingman sent her a rat in the press box. The A’s released Kingman subsequently, he never played again in the majors, and he later sued Major League Baseball for collusion and got some money. Fornoff told us, “I think baseball can collude pretty easily.”

Rafael Palmeiro: Several players connected to steroids have seemingly been excised from the game, from Jose Canseco to Barry Bonds to Roger Clemens. Perhaps no one had as much left as Palmeiro, who played just seven games after an August 2005 suspension for a positive steroid test. Palmeiro hit .266 in 2005, was starting until the time of his suspension, and would have been 41 to start 2006. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to think he could have been a designated hitter for another year or two.

Related: Time for baseball to call an amnesty on Pete Rose and Shoeless Joe

What he did: If ever a baseball superstar played in precisely the wrong era for his skill set and temperament, it was Barry Bonds. Sure, one could glance at his power numbers after he probably started taking performance enhancing drugs and think they helped him. He might not have broken the single-season and career home run records unaided. But as Bonds approaches his fourth year under federal indictment, it seems like no ballplayer has lost more because of steroids, needlessly.

Bonds was one of the best in baseball clean, a rare player who could hit for average and power, run fast, and field well.  According to Game of Shadows, Bonds started using after watching Mark McGwire’s record-breaking 1998 season. Steroids inflated Bonds’ average and power, but they also added bulk, limiting his speed and defensive range. They also set him up for legal problems.

Imagine if Bonds played in an era where he never would’ve been presented with the decision to use, where there would have been no artificially bulked-up sluggers to envy, where weightlifting hadn’t even entered the game. Imagine if Bonds played before steroids.

Era he might have thrived in: Legions of Giants fans supported Bonds at his peak. I know another time this might have occurred: In the early 1920s, with the New York Giants (assuming we suspend disbelief about Bonds’ skin color keeping him from playing.)

Why: With his talents, Bonds could have shined in many eras. In the 1960s, he’d have rivaled his godfather Willie Mays. In the Deadball Era, he might have hit close to .400 or racked up gaudy stolen base totals. But I like the idea of him on the Giants of the early ’20s for a few reasons.

First, as the film Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story noted, those Giants wanted an ethnic slugger to rival the Yankees and Babe Ruth. In 1923, they signed a Jewish right fielder named Mose Solomon, who appeared in two games, got into a salary dispute, and never played again. Like Solomon, Bonds would have appealed to a large potential fan base. The Polo Grounds was near Harlem, and by the ’20s, the neighborhood was largely black. Bonds could have been one of its heroes.

Granted, I don’t know how Bonds would have interacted with his manager in New York, John McGraw, given that Bonds and Jim Leyland had some epic shouting matches in Pittsburgh. I’m also not sure how Bonds would coexist with the New York media. But there are other reasons this could work.

Like Solomon, Bonds hit left-handed and could have exploited the right field short porch at the Polo Grounds, which ran 258 feet to the foul pole. The vast expanses over the middle of the outfield could have provided Bonds with massive numbers of triples and a few inside-the-park home runs. And for a player who sometimes worked with little lineup protection, Bonds would have been on a 1923 Giants club that hit .295 and lost to the Yankees in the World Series.

A regular reader sent me converted stats from Baseball-Reference for Bonds playing every season of his career on a team like the 1923 Giants. While I discount the converted later seasons, since I believe those are a reflection of steroid-aided numbers, I think Bonds’ totals from his early seasons are telling. The stat converter has the Bonds of 1992 and 1993 posting back-to-back years with at least a .350 batting average, 40 home runs, and 120 RBI for New York.

I’m guessing Bonds would be good for 30-40 home runs annually with roughly the same career longevity, 20 or so seasons. That comes out to about 700 home runs. Legitimate ones.

Any player/Any era is a Thursday feature here that debuted June 3 and looks at how a player might have done in an era besides his own.

Here’s the latest guest post from Joe Guzzardi, a regular Wednesday and Saturday contributor.

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For years, I’ve listened to Pittsburgh Pirates’ announcers Steve Blass and Bob Walk urge Bucco hurlers to pitch fastballs inside. Although Blass and Walk were accomplished major league starters with more than 100 career wins, their advice is ignored—and not just by the Pirates.

Pitching inside is baseball’s lost art. Whether the commissioner’s office, umpires or pitchers and their coaches have decided that taking the inside of the plate is not politically correct, the fact remains that the high hard one is as rare as a complete game. Baseball is the poorer for it, too.

The name synonymous with inside pitching is Sal “the Barber” Maglie whose reputation as a headhunter dwarfs his outstanding career statistics.

On the mound, Maglie with his gaunt appearance, grim expression and stubble cut a fearsome presence that contributed to his reputation as a rough customer.

In 1958, Maglie spoke to Sports Illustrated reporter Roy Terrell for the first installment in a series titled “Big League Secrets.” Maglie’s chapter, in which he described his philosophy and nickname, was titled “The Art of Pitching”

Said Maglie: “You can’t let anyone run over you, for example. O.K., so they hit you a little. Right then is when you have to show them who’s the boss. Every batter is a challenge. I’ve been accused of giving some close shaves in my time and I guess I have. I don’t throw at hitters but I won’t deny that I make pretty sure that they aren’t digging in on me. I know I have to keep them loose.”

Maglie listed the three attributes necessary for a pitcher to succeed: 1) control of his pitches and himself, 2) confidence and determination and 3) knowledge and experience.

“The Barber” practiced what he preached. I count three back-to-back-to-back seasons when if it had existed, Maglie could have won the Cy Young Award. With the New York Giants from 1950 through 1952, Maglie posted records of 18-4 (2.71), 23-6 (2.93) and 18-8 (2.92). By 1956, the award’s first year, Maglie (13-5, 2.87) finished second to Don Newcombe in the Cy Young and Most Valuable Player voting.

In 1951, during the Giants famous end of season pennant run against the Dodgers, Maglie rolled off eleven straight victories and earned the All-Star Game win.

During his ten seasons, Maglie had a 110-62 record (3.15 ERA). Had Maglie not been banned by baseball from 1945 until 1950 for playing in the outlaw Mexican League, he may have reached the Hall of Fame. If you assume 15 wins during each of Maglie’s lost years, his average from 1950 through 1954 after he returned, that would put his win total at 185. Given that Maglie played an important role on championship Brooklyn Dodgers and Giants and earned the admiration of the baseball writers, he might have made Cooperstown.

Maglie holds two further distinctions. Maglie is the last player to be a member of all three New York teams, the Dodgers, Giants and New York Yankees. And infamously Maglie, despite pitching masterfully, lost to the Yankees’ Don Larsen in his 1956 perfect World Series game.

After Maglie’s career ended in 1958, he coached pitching for the Boston Red Sox (his star pupil was Jim Lonborg) and the Seattle Pilots.

Just how tough a cookie Maglie was in real life is debatable. Maglie’s first wife Kathleen, who died in 1967, couldn’t understand the fuss. According to her, “He isn’t tough at all. He lets his beard grow before a game so he’ll look fierce. I used to wonder what people were talking about when they said he scowled ferociously at the batters. Then I stayed home one day and watched him on TV. I hardly knew him.”

Watch this classic video from the old “What’s My Line?” television program with Maglie as the mystery guest and Phil Rizzuto appearing as a panelist. Notice Maglie’s neatly folded breast pocket handkerchief.

Then decide for yourself whether Maglie, out of uniform, was a good guy or a bad guy.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research, as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

A regular reader emailed me recently with a question. He wrote: Besides Henry Schmidt (only season) and Mike Mussina, can you think of any other major leaguers who won 20 games in their last season?

The answer is yes, though it’s a small club. I found nine pitchers who’ve managed this feat and only two who have done so since 1920. This is because most hurlers, even future Hall of Famers, don’t bow out gracefully. Most are lucky not to wind up like Steve Carlton, bouncing from team to team or Roger Clemens, in disgrace or Nolan Ryan, whose ESPN highlight his final season might have been putting Robin Ventura in a headlock during a brawl.

Occasionally, a pitcher finishes well. Here are nine men who won 20 games their last year:

Mike Mussina: It’s a wonder Mussina didn’t keep playing after his 20-9 season in 2008. Mussina quit just shy of his 40th birthday with 270 wins when he might have stuck around to win 300. In fact, I think he could still be pitching if he wanted. Or Mussina could go the route of Jim Palmer and try an ill-conceived comeback in a few years.

Sandy Koufax: Has a pitcher ever done better his final season? This may be the standard. Koufax went 27-9 with a 1.73 ERA and 317 strikeouts in 1966, winning the Cy Young and leading the Dodgers to the World Series. Afterward, Koufax retired at 30 because of his arthritic arm and later was the youngest man inducted into Cooperstown. He’s also the only Hall of Famer here, at least until Mussina gets in.

Jim Devlin, Eddie Cicotte, Lefty Williams: Devlin went 35-25 in 1877 and, late in the season, participated in baseball’s first game-fixing scandal, costing his team the pennant and earning a lifetime ban. Decades later, Williams and Cicotte were rotation-anchoring hurlers for the Chicago White Sox who played crucial roles in throwing the 1919 World Series. Williams and Cicotte pitched again for Chicago in 1920 and won a combined 43 games but were barred before the 1921 season.

Henry Schmidt: Perhaps my favorite on this list, Schmidt went 22-13 as a 30-year-old rookie for Brooklyn in 1903 and then wrote the club a note saying he didn’t like playing on the East Coast. He never pitched in the majors again. Brooklyn had a hard time keeping pitchers in those days, losing another promising starter the year before, Jim Hughes, for similar reasons.

Charlie Ferguson: Ferguson won at least 20 games each of his four seasons in the majors, but died at 25 in 1888 after contracting typhoid fever. Overall, he went 99-64 with a 2.67 ERA and also hit .288 as an outfielder and second baseman.

Toad Ramsey: Going 23-17 in 1890 didn’t turn this Toad into a prince, at least not for the St. Louis Browns of the American Association who released him that September. Ramsey was done in professional baseball and so was the nickname Toad, which probably left the game for good reason.

Hank O’Day: Another pitcher who won at least 20 games in 1890 but didn’t play thereafter, O’Day’s 4.21 ERA that year and .227 batting average as an occasional outfielder perhaps doomed him. O’Day later became an umpire and was the official who ruled Fred Merkle out at second on the infamous Merkle’s Boner play on September 23, 1908 that helped the Giants lose the pennant.

Did I miss anyone? Let me know.

Here’s the latest from Joe Guzzardi, a regular contributor. Every Saturday, Joe offers “Double the fun,” recounting a memorable doubleheader.

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In 2007, the Washington Nationals offered Frank Robinson, its former manager, a special day during a May 20th game against his old team the Baltimore Orioles.

Robinson refused. After all the Nats, who claimed that Robinson “retired,” had pushed him out the door in 2006 in favor of Manny Acta.

Said Robinson: “I don’t feel like this organization has extended an open arms welcome to me even though they said they want to honor me. It doesn’t make me feel like it would be pleasant to have me around for a day.”

That’s Frank Robinson for you. He’s never been one to sugar coat things!

Although Robinson’s talents in his early days as a Cincinnati Reds put him in the same category as his widely admired peers Willie Mays and Hank Aaron, he had few baseball friends.

Even his teammates couldn’t warm up to him. When the Los Angeles Dodgers traded Don Newcombe to the Reds, the big pitcher said: “I try to get along with all the guys but, even though he’s my teammate, I can’t take Robinson. That guy is out there trying to maim people.””

Around the National League where Robinson was quick with his fists and his spikes, he was known as “the black Ty Cobb,” a player who would do anything to beat you.

Robinson summed his hard-nosed philosophy up this way: “Baseball isn’t a popularity contest. Some players are afraid of losing friends. Not me. I’m not out there to win friends. Just ball games, and I’ll do that any way that I can.”

In 1956, Robinson got off to a torrid start on his Hall of Fame career. Robinson hit 38 home runs, batted .290, led the National League with 122 runs scored, drove in 83 runs, was named to the All-Star team and was the Rookie of the Year. He also led the league in being hit by pitched balls, 20, on his way to a career total of 198 that places him eighth on the all time list.

Robinson’s 38 homers were the first among his career 586. He hit his historic 500th playing for the Baltimore Orioles during a 1971 double header against the Detroit Tigers.

How Robinson became an Oriole is a chapter from the “Worst Baseball Trades in History” book. On December 9, 1965 the Reds swapped Robinson for Orioles’ pitchers Milt Pappas and Jack Baldschun and outfielder Dick Simpson. In his six seasons as an Orioles, Robinson hit .300 with 179 homers and 545 RBIs. For their new teams, Pappas went 30-29, 4.04 ERA (three seasons); Baldschun, 1-5, 5.25 (two seasons) and Simpson, .246, 5 homers and 20 RBIs (two seasons).

To appease irate fans, Reds’ general manager Bill De Witt called his slugger “an old 30” But that was far from the case as Robinson proved six years later.

On September 13th, the Tigers faced off in a double dip against Baltimore. Although the two teams finished in first and second place, the Orioles had all but formally wrapped up the pennant by that Monday afternoon.

In game one, Dave McNally (18-4) faced Mike Kilkenny (4-4); game two, Pat Dobson (17-7) versus Joe Niekro (6-7). Robinson went two for four in the first game with three RBIs, all of which were accounted for in the first inning on his 499th home run. The Orioles won 9-1.

In the nightcap, won by Detroit 10-5, Robinson hit number 500 in the bottom of the ninth.

After Robinson retired as an active player, he became baseball’s first black manager (Cleveland Indians) and piloted the San Francisco Giants, Orioles as well as the Nats.

The consensus among baseball experts is that Robinson, the manager, was not nearly as effective as Robinson the player. In 2005 and 2006 polls conducted by Sports Illustrated among 450 MLB players, Robinson was twice selected the worst manager in baseball.

But it is not as a manager that fans remember Robinson. Among his many on the field achievements are his Most Valuable Player awards in both leagues (with the Reds in 1961 and the Orioles in 1966 when he won the Triple Crown), Robinson ended up 57 hits shy of the 3,000-hit club but with, in addition to his 538 homers, a .294 batting average, .389 on-base percentage, .537 slugging and .926 OPS.

Last week, I saw Robinson at the U.S. Tennis Open, taking in the matches and looking very good for a 75-year-old. Interviewed by fawning Baltimore native Pam Shriver who called Robinson her “childhood hero,” Robinson was gracious.

Of course, he wasn’t wearing cleats.

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Joe Guzzardi belongs to the Society for American Baseball Research, as well as the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America. Email him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com