Tag Archives: baseball

(Blogathon ’16) David Brown- Taters, tobacco and terror: Baseball in the Future

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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In the year 2025 — if man is still alive, anyway — attending a Major League Baseball game might be very different than what fans experience today. Sound unlikely on the surface? Just look at what’s going on in the news recently. Changes won’t happen overnight, but…

In the year 2025…

• Pitchers, like the great Bartolo Colon, might not hit for themselves anymore in the National League. And not just because Colon would be in his early 50s by then.

• Sluggers like David Ortiz might not dip smokeless tobacco when they stroll the plate. Grab yourself, spit and repeat.

• Fans like you and me might not be allowed to consume ballpark food such as hot dogs, popcorn, peanuts and Cracker Jack because of ISIS.

Taters, tobacco and terror. What in the name of Aldous Huxley is going on here?

Granted, we’re in the annual baseball no-man’s land right now, in which we’ve got more time and less to write about. Free-agency has stalled, spring training isn’t ready yet. We’re caught between seasons and we’ve got writers digging deep into the minutiae.

In other words, the NL isn’t about to adopt the designated hitter in 2016 or 2017. The sight of tobacco isn’t going to disappear from MLB ballparks overnight, no matter that it will be illegal at three stadiums in 2016. And there’s no chance you won’t be able to try the 9-9-9 challenge (consuming nine hot dogs and nine beers over nine innings) in the coming season.

But in another decade, it might be different. Can you handle it?

Anyone who has grown up with baseball over the past 40 years has done so with the DH in the AL and eight-men lineups in the NL. With the introduction of interleague play in 1997 and the elimination of the league presidents, the differences between leagues are not so distinct anymore. The DH is really the only thing. And its existence represents a competition issue. It’s not fair for either side when it comes to regular season or the World Series. Beyond the quaintness of it all, MLB should have one set of rules.

Although he has since “hit the brakes,” on expanding the DH, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is on the record saying that it’s more likely to come to the NL than it was, say, 20 years ago. This is him, via ESPN:

“Twenty years ago, when you talked to National League owners about the DH, you’d think you were talking some sort of heretical comment,” Manfred said Thursday. “But we have a newer group. There’s been turnover. And I think our owners in general have demonstrated a willingness to change the game in ways that we think would be good for the fans, always respecting the history and traditions of the sport.”

While lots of owners, players and fans like the status quo, the quality of hitting among pitchers has really waned. Not that it ever was great. But they can’t all be Madison Bumgarner or Colon, who at least entertains if not produces at the plate.

Smokeless tobacco is in the news because Los Angeles became the third major city Tuesday to ban chaw at ballparks — from municipal Little League fields to Dodger Stadium. Boston, with Fenway Park, and San Francisco, with AT&T, have done likewise. You can’t dip if you sit in the stands or play on the field. Some will complain about government continuing to meddle in individual lives, and they have a point — although worrying about what the NSA does is a little more troubling — but it’s also a public health issue. It’s a disgusting and dangerous habit, and kids don’t need to see ballplayers doing it.

That’s how representatives of the San Francisco Giants look at it — somewhat surprisingly — via MLB.com:

After considering the issue carefully, left-hander Madison Bumgarner issued a statement: “Hopefully it will be a positive thing for us players. It’s not an easy thing to stop doing, but I support the city.”

Manager Bruce Bochy approved of the law.

“It’s a step in the right direction,” he said. “I think it can be a good thing. It’s going to be hard to enforce. It’s a tough habit to break.”

Smokeless-tobacco use has been banned in the Minor Leagues since June 15, 1993. Major Leaguers cannot be prohibited from chewing or dipping tobacco without an agreement from the Players Association.

Still, Lenny Dykstra, you know? The sight of a ballplayer putting a pinch between his cheek and gum, hocking a loogie and swinging the bat is indelible. Dipping tobacco, while disgusting, is “baseball tradition,” as John Ferrell put it. It’s ubiquitous with the sport. If it disappeared tomorrow, we’d all be better off. But it would be weird.

The last big change would be the weirdest. No concessions, at least as we’ve come to know them, at the ballpark. Jeh Johnson, the Secretary of Homeland Security, suggested last week that MLB parks could be made safer by not selling food. Marlins president David Samson said as much via ESPN:

According to Samson, Johnson told the group a stadium could be 100 percent secure if additional steps were taken, such as prohibiting fans from bringing any bags and eliminating food and food-services workers. Checking the trunks and bottoms of cars entering parking lots outside ballparks could be another step discussed at some point.

No pitchers hitting. No tobacco. No hot dogs. What’s next? No beer? Baseball in the future sounds fun! When do we get there?

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A member of the Baseball Writers Association of America, Dave has worked for CBS Sports, Yahoo, the Northwest Herald, and the Associated Press. He grew up in Chicago and resides with his family in Kansas City.

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This guest-post was part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

 

 

(Blogathon ’16) The Author of @OldHossRadbourn: Three Catches

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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I would have enjoyed seeing Game 6 of the 1947 World Series.  It was yet another Dodgers/Yankees affair, when both the event and the outcome seemed inevitable.  It had been a hell of a Series, including a stunner in Game 4: the Yanks’ Bill Bevens pitched a ten-walk no-hitter into the ninth when, with two outs and two runners on in a 2-1 game, Cookie Lavagetto smacked a game-winning double to right — the last hit of his career! — that Tommy Henrich could not reach. Game to the Dodgers.

By Game 6 the Yanks were up 3 games to 2 with Allie Reynolds, in his first year in the Bronx, on the mound. He had nothing, and was done in the third.  Relief ace Joe Page also got lit, though the Yankees slowly crept back. Down 8-5 in the 6th, Joe DiMaggio came up to bat with 2 on and 2 out. He crushed Joe Hatten’s pitch to left center. Left fielder Al Gionfriddo raced toward the visitors’ bullpen, over 400 feet from home plate, and managed to jjuusstt make the catch. DiMaggio, sure he’d just lost at least a double, did something extremely rare: he showed emotion, and kicked a patch of dirt between first and second. Inning over.  The Yankees would go on to lose 8-6.

This catch has been on my mind after a recent bit of baseball reading.  What stands out after looking at three works — Roger Kahn’s The Era 1947-1957; David Halberstam’s Summer of ‘49; and Richard Ben Cramer’s Joe DiMaggio: The Hero’s Life, — is how differently they portray this one catch, DiMaggio’s reaction, and the man himself.

I have mixed feelings about Kahn.  I’m the father of a special needs son, and reading his description in The Boys of Summer of Carl Erskine raising a “Mongoloid” is a nice reminder that, despite Kahn’s desire, the glory days of the past have no place in my present.  But, goddammit, the man can tell a story.  He describes the catch over several pages, focusing on Gionfriddo’s reaction, including (according to Gionfriddo) comments made by DiMaggio about the man who stole his hit: “…[he] never gave up and he made the greatest catch that anybody ever made in the whole history of baseball.”

It’s not hard to imagine DiMaggio, even then aware of his aura, describe the catch this way.  Only the greatest catch of all time denies the Yankee Clipper his glory.  DiMaggio would return to this topic years later: asked to evaluate Willie Mays’ catch off Vic Wertz in the ‘54 Series (a catch, one scribe noted, that would “have left any other park than the Polo Grounds, including Yellowstone”), DiMaggio invoked his past, telling Kahn “…Mays had plenty of room. Running back, all he had to worry about was the ball. On my drive, Gionfriddo had to worry about the ball and those iron gates. He had to worry about running out of room, about getting hurt. With all that, I say he made the greater catch.”

DiMaggio, as Kahn portrays him, is aware of his image, proud of it, and ceaselessly builds on it. Not so in Cramer, who describes the catch as follows:

As DiMaggio rounded first, he could see the outfielder Al Gionfriddo dancing a spirited tarantella — unsure where to run, which way to turn, how to get under the ball. Joe was digging for second base when Gionfriddo, in an act of God, stumbled under the ball, stuck his glove over the wire fence and — Cazzo! Figlio di putana! — stole the home run away from DiMaggio.

This . . . well, this is different.  It’s not a good catch.  It’s a lucky grab by a fool who stumbled to just the right place to become a part of history.  The tone here is also different.  Cramer’s DiMaggio is a miserable figure, aloof and alone, proud only of his legacy, and a prisoner of it.  After the game, in the locker room, came the following:

“The Catch” might not have burned Joe up, if Gionfriddo hadn’t been out of position, clueless in that outfield, and a busher in the first place . . . after the game, he didn’t answer questions, and told the photographers: no pictures. The next day, when one cameraman asked Joe to autograph a picture of that home run theft, DiMaggio snarled him away: “Whyn’cha get the other guy? He made the catch.”

Two takes, two tones.  There’s overlap, sure, but Cramer’s DiMaggio comes across again and again as just a colossal son of a bitch.  This version of DiMaggio will not compliment the bush-league Gionfriddo on his catch. It’s unlikely he saw it as superior to Mays’.

And then there’s Halberstam, who has a pretty significant deviation:

During the 1947 World Series, in a rare burst of emotion, he kicked the ground near second base after a Brooklyn player named Al Gionfriddo made a spectacular catch, robbing him of a three-run home run. The net day while he was dressing, a photographer who had taken a picture of him kicking the ground asked him to sign a blowup of it. At first DiMaggio demurred and suggested that the photographer get Gionfriddo’s signature. “He’s the guy who made the play,” DiMaggio said. But the photographer persisted, and so reluctantly DiMaggio signed it. Then he turned to a small group of reporters sitting by him. “Don’t write this in the paper,” he said. “but the truth is, if he had been playing me right, he would have made it look easy.”

Again a different take.  This is a bad catch once again – DiMaggio would have effortlessly made it – but this time, you’ll note, he signs the photo.  This DiMaggio is graceful.  Halberstam is writing about a man in his early thirties, but it’s hard not to see the silver-haired, immaculately dressed gentleman of DiMaggio’s later years leaning over to reporters with a conspiratorial wink and telling them how he really felt about that catch.  The legend is strong here.

Does any of this matter?  I don’t know.  We have one catch, three stories, and three somewhat different men featured in each.  I am reminded, however, of what is so fascinating and frustrating about history: at the end of the day, I have no idea what DiMaggio thought about that catch.  I know what our authors thought of it, and of the man himself.  Cramer gives us a DiMaggio fierce in his misanthropy, alone with nothing except the memory of his greatness.  I’m not sure Kahn or Halberstam get us closer to the truth.  Kahn, like all old men, wants us to remember an era better than our own, when giants walked the land.  So, too does Halberstam, though he understands baseball – as Bill James reminds us – perhaps the least of these three authors.   In the end we’re left with three sources describing a catch made under an October sky, a man so shrouded by a legacy that his thoughts are lost, the mentalités of three historians imposed upon the past, and the recession of an event from history to myth.

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The Author of @OldHossRadbourn is the individual behind the @OldHossRadbourn Twitter account.

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) Jessica Quiroli- The Minor League Baseball Lawsuit: Wealth vs. the Working Class

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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Few things personify living the American Dream better than professional sports.

From poverty to fame and fortune, we’ve learned their remarkable stories, and drawn inspiration from them. Willie Mays was the son of a steel mill worker, and the grandson of a sharecropper. Joe Namath’s grandfather came to Ellis Island from Hungary, and he too, and later his son, worked in the steel and coal mills. LeBron James was raised by a single mother, who became pregnant when she was sixteen, then worked tirelessly to make ends meet. James credits her for his success and wealth. It was their specialness, their rare physical talents and physicality that led them there. Many make it, but many, many more fall through the cracks.

In baseball, the trick is not falling through the cracks. The minor leagues are made up of a few thousand players and player cuts are common. Reaching the majors isn’t. The minor leagues are the workshop, where players must condition their bodies and minds to play every day, and not burn out, or fall behind, because the next guy is trailing you and ready to replace you. The odds aren’t great they’ll see major league time for more than a few days or weeks, if at all. A Mother Jones study found that just 10% of minor league players make it to the major leagues. That stacked-with-odds challenge is one player’s commit themselves to. They room together, live with host-families; they take their meal-money per diem, $25 a day, compared to major leaguers who receive $100 a day. Minor league players start out making $1,100 a month in the salary pyramid.

Being major league-ready and transitioning to the highest level of the game is one part of the developmental experience. Add to that the challenge of remaining healthy and strong, well-fed, rested and able to care of themselves and anyone depending on them.

In December of 2014, at the annual Baseball Winter Meetings, Stan Brand, the VP of Minor League Baseball, delivered a speech addressing a lawsuit filed against MLB regarding wage and labor issues, Senne vs. the Office of the Commissioner of Baseball. The meetings, a mix of social and professional engagement, are conducted with a drink in hand if you choose, as major trades are made and breaking news emerges from a high-end hotel full of players, ex-players, executives, reporters and those hoping to get in the business. Some attendees are just fans hoping to catch a glimpse of the action.

But as the usual business dealings transpired at the 2014 gathering, another story rose to the surface. Brand came forward to explain MiLB’s stance on the lawsuit. Baseball America’s Josh Leventhal reported Brand’s comments.

“In the coming year, we will be seeking legislation to clarify that professional baseball players are not covered by these federal wage and hour laws. Just as we did in the 1990s to save the antitrust exemption, we will need your help to explain to our legislators the importance of minor league baseball and their communities’ investments…I do not want to overstate the threat this suit presents, but I think my honest assessment is that it is equally perilous for our future…I will ask you to heed the clarion call, man the battle stations and carry the message to Congress loudly and clearly.”

Of Note: Major league players make a minimum of $84,000 a year. Minor league players make a maximum $2,150. Major League Baseball makes more than $8 million dollars annually, with the major league salary rising 2,500 percent in the last forty years. Minor league salaries have increased 75 percent.

The lawsuit was filed by three former minor league players, with the intention of applying the terms of the Fair Labor Standards Act to minor leaguers. But to this point, MLB has an antitrust exemption. The lawsuit later expanded to include 34 former minor league players.

Brand could prove to be a tough opponent. A lawyer with a wealth of experience dealing with lobbyists and politicians is well-known in Washington, DC where he’s litigated cases for forty years, including Supreme Court cases. He clarified that, in major league baseball, minor leaguers must know their place. They weren’t expected to rise up and disrupt the framework of the minor league business model, but to continue working as contributors to the wealth that eludes them. Brand’s speech presented minor leaguers as an enemy among them in baseball. His determination to protect the financial interests of Major League Baseball, in effect, established an us-against-them class war.

Leventhal filed a second report for Baseball America in April of 2015, in which Brand “contends that playing minor league baseball was never meant to be a career.” Leventhal wrote that Brand likened playing in the minors to an internship.

The corporate system of Major League Baseball seems impenetrable, but Garrett Broshuis emerged as a willing fighter. The former San Francisco Giants minor leaguer, a pitcher and 5th round pick in 2004 retired from professional baseball and began practicing law. He’s not just one of the players that took part in the original filing; he’s also representing them collectively.

Broshuis responded to Brand’s winter meetings comments, laughing at first, amused or baffled, maybe both, then, after some thought, sought to describe Brand’s stance.

“It’s fear-mongering,” Broshuis said by telephone in mid-January. “It’s inconceivable that a $10 billion dollar a year business is lobbying congress for an exemption.”

They’re men without a union. The powerful MLBPA, with all its protections can wield power in any number of situations, making sure major leaguers are treated fairly and reap the financial benefits of their work.

Brand first portrayed the minor leaguers suing as some kind of outlaws wreaking havoc on a quiet town. He later tried to sell an idea that minor leaguers are comparable to college interns. For the numerous players who went to college and proudly don the cap of the major league team that’s drafted them for the cameras, that’s often news to them. The minor leagues are for developmental time, acting as a unique step ladder to the majors. But they are no amateur hours. And the interns are in the office.

With the annual earnings MLB pulls, working class baseball fans aren’t likely to deeply sympathize with MLB and view it as a sacred institution being threatened by big bad minor leaguers making meal money. Sure, some fans scoff at minor league players asking for more, viewing them as spoiled. But if they regard them within the context of major league greed, maybe they’d see the fight differently. They might see themselves in those guys, working for a giant, money-making company where thousands of employees make a miniscule percentage of those at the top.

All of this doesn’t rest on Brand’s shoulders, however. He’s the voice of the cause, not the leader. Fans know that MLB is full of corporate greed. They knew when they learned that MLB was a willing participant in the use of steroids in the game, by doing little to nothing to stop the problem. Had they done anything, they would’ve risked losing a cash windfall from fans high with baseball fever in the late 1980’s, and throughout the 90’s.

Brand’s speech simply served as a reminder of what’s been proven. But this time, there were no gods of baseball being torn down. Players with little money and an uncertain future were being belittled, ridiculed and shamed. Brand’s word choice made the face of this fight the Grinch, or, perhaps, that fictional hero of Wall Street, Gordon Gekko. Brand could’ve easily bellowed, ‘Greed is good, now let’s play ball!’

Gleaning the meaning behind his words isn’t so tough: minor league players are worthless.

Minor league teams are worth everything. The players are the component, the trusty cog, which allows MLB to continue to adding increasing its considerable wealth. We’re given to understand that minor league baseball players, by asking for a living wage, would hurt the community, the employees in the stadium they play in, and the entire way baseball’s run. Minor League Baseball is a community-driven enterprise. Hurt the system as it is, hurt the community. Essentially, they’d ruin everything.

One player, speaking on the condition of anonymity, reached out privately the same January weekend that Broshuis spoke about the lawsuit.

“I need to make sure that if I do sign up that it would not affect my opportunity to play in the big leagues, or have me being released because of it,” he said.

MLB’s powerful hand has to be a driving factor for any players considering, then re-considering, joining the lawsuit. Why risk it? They might ask themselves. The players fighting for a fairer wage aren’t making millions and have no sense of job security. Those high-ranked players can clearly see the payday. They aren’t treated as disposable.

“I’ve considered it. The amount we get paid is deplorable,” the player said.

But he points out that that’s not enough for him to join. He indicated uncertainty about how the outcome would impact teams and players. Knowing the truth might not be enough to motivate players to put themselves on the front lines.

“I’ve felt mistreated. But I think that’s the reason so many guys push themselves to get better [and] get out of the minors. It almost acts as motivation for us to move up as quickly as we can,” he said, then continued, “even though that’s not up to us. It’s survival of the investments teams make, and who can help them now. It’s cutthroat. But it’s a business.”

And business is good.

As reported in a 2015 report by Lindsay Kramer, minor league baseball drew the third-highest attendance in its history, also marking the 11th consecutive year MiLB drew over 41 million fans.

The driving force of the community-driven entertainment of minor league baseball is based on the tested theory that if you build a stadium, employment will come. When a stadium’s built, or a team affiliate is established or moved, the hope is that fans will show up for an affordable summer activity. For families, particularly those with multiple kids, seeing a sporting event for less than twenty dollars is a very big deal. It relieves parents of the school’s-out dilemma, and allows them to see a baseball game with their kids. If all goes well, a major league player’s injury could lead to his rehab at the stadium they’re attending. Oddly put, but a rehab appearance by a top player in the majors draws crowds. Maybe a young kid’s never seen his favorite player in a big league game outside of on TV. In the minor leagues, he or she not only gets a glimpse, but an intimate one.

A minor league team as a business works for many, including interns gaining experience working in professional sports and executives looking for a foot in the door. The players, for their part, suit up and play the game. They fit in the business model that serves families and communities. They work for everyone else’s families, but struggle to support their own or even themselves.

“For the long term, we should all be able to come to the table and strike an agreement,” Broshuis said.

The business is clicking along, a well-oiled machine in no danger of losing fuel. The rich definitely get richer. The poor, well, they stay the same, get poorer, or try to figure out a new way. Soon, retirement is unavoidable; maybe before the age of thirty. Few can become those icons of sports history, Mays, Namath or James. Few can make it to even elite status. But minor league baseball players know what they’re up against. At a certain point, just surviving and getting a uniform must be preferable to giving up the dream altogether.

Many play out their professional careers, notable, known, and with a considerable amount to retire with. Many, many, many more scrap, scrape, hope, and work to get the hell out of the minors, with even the possibility of a cup of coffee in the majors often a glimmer. Those are the players Broshuis is fighting for; brandished as trouble-makers.

A scout once said something about the minor leagues while standing in the press box of then Waterfront Stadium, home of the Trenton Thunder. Watching the game, with a distant look in his eyes, without arrogance or joy, he said. “The top prospects need guys to play with.” It was a clarifying moment, impossible to forget. That’s the reality.

Broshuis described the process as now in the “discovery phase”, the longest portion of building a case.

A few weeks after initially speaking, in response to follow-up questions, the player who’d requested anonymity said he was still on the fence about joining the lawsuit, explaining that he had to be “careful.”

“I haven’t decided,” he said. “I’m an outsider in professional baseball.”

Broshuis said that they’re now in the “discovery phase”, the longest portion of building a case. The trial is set for February 2017. The outsiders, those rabble-rousers looking for a living wage, will have their day in court.

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Jessica Quiroli is a Minor League Baseball writer/reporter and the creator of ‘Heels on the Field: A Minor League Blog‘. Her work has appeared on MiLB.com and FanGraphs and in Junior Baseball Magazine. She is also the screenwriter of the so-far-unfilmed screenplay, “Minor League Guys”.

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) Gary Cieradkowski: Win Ballou

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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winSince I was a kid, I was always more fascinated with baseball’s “small stories”. While guys like The Babe and Hank Aaron have great stories, I gravitated towards the players you don’t find in the record books. For every Walter Johnson there were hundreds of players who toiled anonymously. Each one had a unique and often interesting story to tell. This is one of those “small stories”.

Back during the teens and twenties, professional teams would schedule exhibition games against small town semi-pro teams to both generate revenue and scout young ball players. When the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts came to Middlesboro, Kentucky in 1920 to play the local nine, they expected an easy win. Unfortunately this small Kentucky town possessed a secret weapon named “Win”.

Noble Winfred Ballou was a recent Eastern Kentucky University grad from Mount Morgan. By the time he pitched and beat Chattanooga that day, Win had earned a reputation as a pitcher for hire who lived up to his name. Like many other young ball players, each weekend Win Ballou suited up for a few different town or factory teams, a temporary superstar brought in to even the odds or settle once and for all a heated town rivalry.

After Chattanooga’s loss, their manager tried his best to sign Ballou, but the pitcher’s friends convinced him to remain in Kentucky. Later that summer, Chattanooga’s manager secretly arranged for a town farther away to hire Ballou. Separated from his friends, the young pitcher was convinced to sign a professional contract.

The Washington Senators brought Ballou up to the majors at the end of the 1925 season, and within weeks he was pitching in the World Series against the Pirates. Ballou jumped around from the Senators to the Browns and finally the Dodgers before he was returned to the minors in 1930. Playing in the Pacific Coast League, Ballou found his niche as a relief pitcher, one of the first to perfect that role. A fan favorite and nicknamed “Old Pard” because of his age and reliability, Ballou pitched for the Los Angeles Angels and San Francisco Seals until he was 45. When Win Ballou passed away in 1963 he was admiringly eulogized in the West Coast newspapers as a beloved fixture of West Coast baseball.

Ol’ Win Ballou didn’t set any records, nor did he leave any mark on the history of the game besides some forgotten box scores. Yet it’s guys like Win who make the history of the game fun. Imagine what he must have felt like – a kid reluctant to leave to hills of his native Kentucky and just a few years later pitching in a World Series! Sure it’s a small story, but it’s those small stories that combine to make up the greatest game ever invented.

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Gary Joseph Cieradkowski is the artist and writer behind The Infinite Baseball Card Set blog and the book “The League of Outsider Baseball: An Illustrated History of Baseball’s Forgotten Heroes“. He is also the 2015 recipient of the Tony Salin Award for contributions to baseball history. An award winning graphic artist and illustrator, chances are you have visited or bought something he designed: Bicycle Playing Cards, the music department of Barnes & Noble, the Folgers Coffee can, and the graphics for Oriole Park at Camden Yards, still regarded as the best designed ballpark in the Majors. Growing up a New York Mets fan in the 1970s, Gary learned to live with pain and disappointment until he married his beautiful wife Andrea. The two live happily in Northern Kentucky, unless they discuss the merits of the designated hitter rule. You can visit his blog at www.infinitecardset.blogspot.com.

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) Stephanie Liscio- Forgotten Champions: The 1945 Cleveland Buckeyes

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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The 1945 Homestead Grays boasted five eventual Hall of Famers – Ray Brown, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, and Jud Wilson. They were a powerhouse team, the kind of team on which dynasties are built. So how were they defeated in the 1945 Negro League World Series by the Cleveland Buckeyes, a team with zero eventual Hall of Fame members that was relatively new to the Negro League circuit? That 1945 series is a true tale of David versus Goliath, one in which a vastly underrated team not only defeated their heavily-favored opponent, but shut them down completely.

Negro League baseball struggled in Cleveland for years before the Buckeyes came onto the scene. They city had their first entry into the formal league structure in 1922…it fell apart before the end of the 1923 season. Cleveland (and the league hierarchy) refused to give up on the Negro Leagues in the city. They continued to introduce brand new teams, sometimes as often as each year, between 1922 and 1940. In that 18-year span, the city hosted 10 different Negro League teams. The reasons for their failures varied; the Depression played a role in the demise of several teams, while poor management and bad play were behind some of the others. By the time the Buckeyes were formed in 1942, they were buoyed by a surge in popularity in Negro League baseball nationally, and war workers that had more disposable income to spend attending games.

Of those 10 early teams in Cleveland, only two had non-losing records – the short-lived 1931 Cleveland Cubs (which had a winning record), and the 1939 Cleveland Bears (who finished at .500). As an example of the struggles of some of these teams, the 1926 Cleveland Elites only won six games the entire season. It is no wonder that some folks were likely skeptical about the potential success of the Buckeyes. However, during their first year they already proved competitive in the Negro American League with powerhouse teams like the Kansas City Monarchs, Chicago American Giants, and the Birmingham Black Barons. In the past, when those teams travelled to Cleveland, they made a mockery of the home team. The Buckeyes managed to hold their own against some of the best competition the league could offer.

By 1945, the team started to pull everything together under the tutelage of new catcher/manager Quincy Trouppe. The local African-American newspaper, the Call and Post, dubbed the Buckeyes’ lineup as a “murder’s row” prior to the start of the season, and while they were quite good, they couldn’t compare to a Grays lineup that included one of the greatest power hitters of all time in Josh Gibson. The difference came from the Buckeyes’ pitching staff; a group of arms that were definitely not household names, and while talented, were viewed as somewhat unthreatening to the Grays. However, they shut Homestead’s offense down as they went on to win the series four games to none.

Game one saw a pitcher’s duel from Buckeyes hurler Willie Jefferson and the Grays’ starter, Roy Welmaker, as both took a shutout into the seventh inning. Trouppe hit a triple and was driven home on a sacrifice fly by second baseman Johnny Cowan to make the score 1-0. The other Buckeyes run came in the eighth inning on an RBI single from outfielder Willie Grace. The Grays managed to make some noise in the ninth inning, after the made the score 2-1 on an RBI single from Gibson. However, the Buckeyes managed to hold on for the 2-1 win.

In game two, the Buckeyes were shut out 2-0 until a solo home run from Grace to lead off the bottom of the seventh inning made it 2-1. They were able to tie the game later in that inning, after outfielder Buddy Armour scored on an error (he doubled to reach base). The game was still tied 2-2 in the bottom of the ninth, when Trouppe doubled and later moved to third on a passed ball. The Grays intentionally loaded the bases, but a sacrifice fly from pitcher Eugene Bremmer made that a moot point.

These first two games were played in Cleveland; game one was played downtown at the cavernous Cleveland Municipal Stadium, while game two was played at League Park in Cleveland’s Hough neighborhood. (The Indians split their time between Municipal Stadium and League Park until owner Bill Veeck chose to move the team downtown permanently in time for the 1947 season – the Buckeyes rented their facilities from the Indians). Game three was scheduled to take place in Pittsburgh; however, a rain-out moved it to Washington, D.C. This wasn’t completely out of the ordinary, since the Grays spent some of their time playing in DC, plus Negro League teams often traveled around to increase their gate receipts. Game four was played in Philadelphia.

The first two games in Cleveland were close affairs that were both won in the later innings. The same could not be said for games three and four; the Buckeyes were in the driver’s seat for both of those match-ups. George Jefferson (brother of game one starter Willie Jefferson) got the win in game three as the Buckeyes defeated the Grays 4-0. In the final game, the Buckeyes closed out the series with a 5-0 victory. Even though the Grays had what was considered the more threatening lineup, the Buckeyes managed to tame their bats and put some runs of their own on the board.

Even though this World Series win was the high point of Negro League baseball in Cleveland, a time when the city was finally able to put forth a team capable of running with the big boys (and beating them), it was still a bit bittersweet for them in hindsight. Just a month after they closed out their win against the Grays, Jackie Robinson signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers, a harbinger of the upcoming integration of the formerly all-white major leagues. Within a few years, other MLB teams started to sign players from the Negro Leagues; Cleveland became the first American League city to do so with Larry Doby in 1947 (formerly of the Negro National League Newark Eagles). While integration obviously was the first and most important priority, it essentially signaled the downfall for the Negro Leagues. The Buckeyes managed to return to the Negro League World Series in 1947 as they lost to the New York Cubans; but by 1949 the team attempted a move to Louisville, Kentucky in a bid to survive in a city without an integrated team like the Indians. That experiment failed, and they returned to Cleveland by the 1950 season. The Buckeyes had trouble making payroll though, and longtime star Eugene Bremmer went to the press in May to discuss the fact that he’d never been paid. The team’s owner and general manager owed money to what seemed like everyone; the team didn’t even make it to the end of the season, and collapsed and disbanded in the summer of 1950.

While some Negro League teams lost tons of players to the major leagues, only Quincy Trouppe and star outfielder Sam Jethroe would go on to play in the majors from the Buckeyes. Trouppe spent a very brief amount of time with the Indians in 1952 (and spent time in the minors prior to that), while Jethroe had a very successful rookie season in 1950 with the Boston Braves, earning him the title as the oldest person to win the Rookie of the Year award. However, the Buckeyes had to contend with an Indians team that not only signed Larry Doby in 1947, but also signed one of the Negro League’s biggest stars when they inked Satchel Paige to a deal halfway through the 1948 season. The Indians’ 1948 World Series title dramatically increased their popularity and set a single-season attendance record that held until 1962. In addition to their progressive moves on the field, the Indians also integrated the press box, hired African-American vendors, and hired track and field gold medalist Harrison Dillard to work in a public relations role with the team. African-American fans embraced the Indians and stopped attending Buckeyes games. While a few Negro American League teams were able to survive into the 1950s, the Buckeyes weren’t one of them.

Last fall, it was the seventieth anniversary of the Buckeyes’ surprising win over the Homestead Grays. Even though this was a great moment for Negro League baseball in the city of Cleveland, it’s often forgotten; overshadowed by an Indians team that continuously made headlines in the late 1940s. It deserves recognition as a great baseball series though, when the underdog unseated the giant.

A side note – The Buckeyes’ home park for the 1945 season, League Park, was recently refurbished by the city of Cleveland and features a brand new baseball diamond and the renovation of the park’s original ticket office building. Located at the corner of E. 66th St. and Lexington Ave. in Cleveland, it is also the home of the Baseball Heritage Museum. (http://baseballheritagemuseum.org/)

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Stephanie Liscio (@stephanieliscio) is the author of Integrating Cleveland Baseball: Media Activism, the Integration of the Indians, and the Demise of the Negro League Buckeyes, and co-owner of the ESPN SweetSpot Indians affiliate blog It’s Pronounced Lajaway (http://itspronouncedlajaway.com).  A Ph.D. student in history, Stephanie has also spent the past six years as president of Cleveland’s SABR chapter.

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

 

(Blogathon ’16) Stacey Folkemer: Baseball is more than a game, it’s part of the family

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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Baseball has always been a part of my family life. I can’t remember a time when summer evenings didn’t include the ballgame on the radio or television, or when a holiday passed that my uncle didn’t offer his opinions on how to fix the rotation while my grandfather complained about a slugger who strikes out too much.

For most of my life, the Baltimore Orioles have been a bad baseball team. They’ve had their moments, but I was born after their glory years. And for my entire adult life until four years ago, the Orioles weren’t just bad, they were a laughing stock. But it was during those years that they became an even bigger part of my familial relationships as I grew into adulthood and my grandparents, especially my grandmother, advanced in age and became less a part of the everyday world.

If you have spent time with someone who doesn’t often leave the house, you understand how difficult it can be to come up with new and fresh things to talk about. My grandmother spent many of her last years confined to her home, limiting her ability to speak about things that she didn’t see on TV or hear about from someone else. But thanks to baseball, we always had plenty to say during our visits. She watched every game from her living room and had strong opinions on every player.

She and my grandfather were two very different types of fans. She was the ultimate pessimist. The Orioles were never good enough, they’d never going to return to their former glory with these players or this manager. It was an extension of her personality at large, where she was often times harsh but passionate for those people and things that she cared about. But she never gave up on them, even if she expected them to lose. If the game was close in the ninth inning, she couldn’t take it. She’d take refuge on the patio, smoking a cigarette and waiting for me to come out and tell her who won. If the answer was the Orioles, she’d smile but comment on how it’s just like them to almost throw it away.

My grandfather, on the other hand, has always been a baseball optimist. Even in the darkest years, as the O’s losing streak stretched across a decade, he always believed they could win. Every year during Spring Training, as reports flooded in that players were in the best shape of their lives, my grandfather believed them all. “They’ve got the hitters, the pitching might come around,” he’d say, as my grandmother and I disagreed and told him he was crazy. He and I had a conversation before the 2012 season in which he repeated the same optimism he’d shown every year prior, and I laughed at how misguided he was. We made a bet on their record, with him claiming they’d be over .500 and me stating that they didn’t have a chance.

Well, if you recall the 2012 season, the Orioles won 93 games, captured the Wild Card, and made it to game five of the ALDS before their season came to an end. I heard a lot about my pessimism that year, let me tell you. I still hear about it sometimes, almost four years later.

As a fan myself, I have to admit that I’m more like my grandmother. Even now, with the Orioles having four straight non-losing seasons and two playoff appearances since 2012, my natural instinct is to think the worst. The starting pitcher will always implode, the offense will never get a hit in the clutch, the Orioles of 2012-15 were a fluke.

I wish I didn’t have that attitude. Outwardly, I have tried to take on the more optimistic view that has always been modeled by my Granddad. Over the last few years I have argued on Twitter and my internet home of CamdenChat.com about how the Orioles are better than people think. When the game is on the line late I profess my faith in my team despite a sinking feeling in my stomach. I am trying to fake it until I make it, basically, but I don’t think I’ll ever be fully successful.

We lost my grandmother to cancer in 2008, so I was never able to share the winning Orioles with her as an adult. As the O’s participated in the 2012 playoffs, I thought about her a lot, wondering if she would have changed her pessimistic ways after watching the magical 2012 team. Probably not. We are who we are, after all. I imagine that she would have seen Jim Johnson’s implosion coming from a mile away (or at least claimed she did). She wouldn’t have witnessed Brian Matusz giving up a walk-off home run to Raul Ibanez in game three of the ALDS (she would have been on the porch, unable to take it) but she never would have forgiven Matusz for as long as he was in an Orioles uniform. But she still would have been ecstatic for our guys even as she cursed them, and I’m sad I didn’t get to experience that with her.

I have been able to spend the last four seasons of good Orioles baseball with my grandfather, and for that I’m grateful. Finally, he has seen a return on his optimism. The ultimate payoff would be a World Series win (though he, unlike me, has at least gotten to see three of those for the Orioles in his life), and maybe he’ll soon be rewarded for his faith in his team.

I wouldn’t count on it, though. Have you seen the starting rotation?

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Stacey Folkemer has been writing for Camden Chat, SB Nation’s Baltimore Orioles blog, since 2008. You can find her there or follow her @StaceyMFolk. She lives in Maryland with her husband, who is also a sports writer. In the winter she dreams of baseball. In the summer she watches it from section 334 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

(Blogathon ’16) James Attwood: Slow to Change is Not Always a Bad Thing

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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Baseball, as we know it, has evolved greatly over the years. Prior to the 1880s, the ball was actually tossed underhand to a “striker”, not a batter, and it was tossed up there, not how the pitcher wished it, but how the striker called for it. There was rarely an outfield fence, and like the flagpole that recently sat in center field in Houston, trees and the like were not uncommon in the field of play. No gloves were used, and catching the ball on a single bounce still resulted in the striker being out. Also, there was only one umpire, and that person sat or stood slightly behind and to the side of play. When calls were contested, sportsmanship was expected to win out. When it did not, the umpire could consult the crowd for input on making a definitive ruling.

Once the game underwent the fundamental change of being played for money in 1871, the gentlemanly nature of the sport took a back seat, and the competitive edge was ratcheted up. Yet, despite all the changes that have taken place, the game has always more or less resembled the one we have now. Baseball has always been a mutable sport. But just how mutable? Sure, all those differences seem extreme when compared to the game we watch now, but the vast majority of changes all came about before 1900. That’s right, the vast majority of changes to the game came within the sports first 45-50 years of play. Over the following 115 years, the changes to play have been minimal, and have come only after the slowest of deliberations.

The biggest, and most fundamentally changing was the integration of baseball with the debut of Jackie Robinson during the World War II era. In 1903 it was determined that foul balls would be considered strikes. In 1910, cork was added to the interior of the baseball, marking the end of the “dead ball era”. Today’s uniform size and weight ball standard was established in 1934. In 1969, a year after pitching dominated the game like no time since 1918, the pitcher’s mound was lowered five inches, a change that was years in the offing and brought to a head by the likes of 30-game winner Denny McLain (the last of the 30-win pitchers) and the ever-intimidating 1968 NL Cy Young winner and HOF pitcher, Bob Gibson. The last big change to come about that was anything other than a technological evolution (machined bats, instant replay, games under the lights) occurred in January of 1973 when commissioner Bowie Kuhn. This new rule, much like the changing of foul balls to strikes was cut from whole cloth and not some gradual evolution, making it one of the biggest changes made to the game in the modern era.

Sure, over the last 30 years, we have added extra divisions, expanded playoffs, gone with interleague play during the regular season, and even made the All-Star Game “count” for something in allowing it to determine home field advantage in the World Series. None of that actually impacts how the game is played though.

Rob Manfred worries for the future of baseball. Manfred’s solution is to “modernize” baseball by implementing some changes to the game. Unlike the previous changes though, Manfred is in a hurry to get there as soon as possible. The minor leagues have already started implementing pace of play rules and pitch clocks. Those rules are likely headed to MLB in the near future. Even bigger though, Rob Manfred wants to take the AL DH experiment and make it a part of both leagues as a permanent part of the game.

This change would indeed “level the playing field” between the leagues, something that is not nearly as skewed as some would like to claim. It would allow pitchers to pitch and hitters to hit. A few extra aging sluggers would get to artificially extend their careers. It would also all but eliminate an entire aspect of baseball that has existed since the earliest days, that of in-game strategy, most notably, that tied to playing small ball.

With all due respect to Madison Bumgarner and the mind-boggling performance he turned in during the 2014 World Series, without the DH there is no way he gets to put on that show. Some might say that allowing the DH both ways only increases the chances of such a performance. Really though, how often is a performance for the ages going to be turned in? How much different does that game playout if the managers, especially Bruce Bochy, has to start worrying about making a pitching change after only 2 innings of Bumgarner? Other than filling out a lineup card and making the rare defensive switch in the 8th or 9th inning, exactly how much influence does a manager’s ability to call a game matter if the game is turned into hitters hitting and pitchers pitching?

Manfred says he wants to appeal to a younger crowd. How many youths will be trying to decide by the time they are 10 or 12 if they want to throw the ball or hit the ball? Part of what has always set baseball apart from the other sports was the number of athletic skills a player needed to be good at all at once in order to excel at the game. Only the very best of the best hitters and pitchers can reasonably expect to go deep into amateur careers and possibly reach the majors if they are not able to, at some point, hit field, run, catch, and throw all with some semblance of authority.

There is a push to possibly have these changes in as soon as 2017. That is an awful lot of fundamental change in a very short period of time. One could argue that NL organizations cold need as many as three seasons to properly align themselves to adopt the DH. As far as pace of play goes, these changes are not cutting significant time off of the game. In many cases, it is under 15 minutes being shaved from the average league-wide. Baseball was never designed for or intended to be consumed by a generation of people looking for and expecting instant gratification. Furthermore, if the DH is adopted across both leagues, scoring will go up, this will erase any pace of play gains made by keeping the game on a clock.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to modernize the game and appeal to a younger demographic. Baseball makes changes of such a magnitude at a glacial pace though. That’s something that should never change. Small tweaks followed by periods of evaluation to determine what is and is not working can have just as big of an impact as those changes that fundamentally change how the game is played.

Regardless, this game will continue to resemble the one I have grown up loving. I will not walk away simply because I can no longer watch a chess game between managers in the dugouts. For a game so steeped in history, and so tied to the identity of all-around athletic excellence, I do wonder if the game could ever “feel” like it always has, or if it will simply feel like a poor imitation.

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(Blogathon ’16) CLASSIC CONTINUUM- BIZARRE BASEBALL CULTURE: COSMIC SLAM

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This piece from the blog’s archives is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

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In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

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Originally posted Nov. 19, 2013

I’m coming to you from the Auxiliary Headquarters of the Continuum… AKA a Living Room instead of my usual Family Room or Bedroom writing area, due to the great Wi-Fi Crisis of 2013. The reason I have braved such perils is simple: Cosmic Slam. The sequel to Shortstop Squad, and another great epic from the folks at Ultimate Sports Entertainment (AKA “Ultimate Sports Force”). Just as Shortstop Squad brought us late-90s shortstops fighting monsters and aliens, Cosmic Slam does the same with late 1990s sluggers. Jeff Bagwell, Sammy Sosa, David Justice and Mark McGwire all grace the cover, and Gary Sheffield, Bobby Bonilla and Frank Thomas all show up in the story as well.

It also involves Bagwell complaining about missing a fishing trip, Sosa making a corked bat joke, Greg Maddux‘s fastball being insulted, and of course, the making of a baseball bat out of the body of your defeated foes.

No, I’m not joking about the last one. Seriously, that really happens.

So, place your tongue firmly in cheek and go below the jump for Cosmic Slam.

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(Blogathon ’16) CLASSIC CONTINUUM- Bizarre Baseball Culture’s “SHORTSTOP SQUAD”

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This piece from the blog’s archives is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page.

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Originally published October 25, 2013

In Bizarre Baseball Culture, I take a look at some of the more unusual places where baseball has reared it’s head in pop culture and fiction.

In the last years of the 20th century and the first years of the 21st, there existed a company called “Ultimate Sports Force”. It is gone now, existing only in old websites and undeleted news items, but in it’s day, it was a staple advertisement in things like Sports Illustrated for Kids.

What was “Ultimate Sports Force”, you ask?

Ultimate Sports Force was a comic company that made books in which professional athletes were superheroes, that’s what! They had licenses with MLB, NBA, NFL and others, and they made comics that involved them saving the world. And then, like a shooting star across the sky, they were gone.

But, oh, man, the stuff they left behind. I’ve come into possession of many of their great products, and while their quality varies from “surprisingly good” to “OH-DEAR-GOD-KILL-IT-WITH-FIRE”, they all represent a special point in our history, a time when we could think of our sports heroes as actual superheroes, and not individuals who got into arguments, used PEDs, had tumultuous love lives, politics we disagree with or other flaws. No, Ultimate Sports Force was the last Golden Age before we all became so jaded.

Perhaps the crown jewel of Ultimate Sports Force’s non-team-affiliated content was Shortstop Squad. Truly a marvel of the Bizarre Baseball Culture arts, it paid tribute to those that went before and followed in their traditions, as Cal Ripken led his team of Barry Larkin, Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez against a fish-monster that basically is meant to be fish-Godzilla.

You may think I’m being sarcastic, and you are probably right, but, well, this is SHORTSTOP SQUAD, so your logic is irrelevant.

After all, just LOOK at this cover:

SHORTSTOPSQUADcover

Your mind is now blown.

So, let’s get started with Shortstop Squad #1 from 1999… after the jump, of course:

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(Blogathon ’16) Andrew Martin: A talk with Alex George

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This guest-post is part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer are not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.

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What would be tougher? Being good enough to play major league baseball but to only get in to five games? Or having all of those five games come before your 17th birthday? Only one person knows that answer for sure, and it’s former shortstop Alex George, who reached the pinnacle of his baseball career as a teenager in the autumn of 1955.

Growing up in Kansas City, George was a multi-sport star and after graduating in 1955 at the age of 16, he enrolled at Kansas University with a dual scholarship in baseball and basketball. Upon reaching campus that fall he was introduced to his basketball team—including fellow newcomer, Wilt Chamberlain.

George had hardly cracked the books when he heard from his father that his hometown Kansas City Athletics wanted to sign him and have him join the team for the remainder of the season. That proved to be an offer too sweet to pass up, so he left campus and donned his glove and spikes.

The Athletics finished at 63-91 and were already well out of the pennant chase. This gave them the luxury at being able to look at prospects like George. The left-handed hitter got in five games, collecting a single and a walk in 10 official at bats. His seven strikeouts showed how overmatched he was, but he did pick up his lone hit on September 20th against fellow rookie Duke Maas and the Detroit Tigers, leading off what would be a 7-3 loss. He is still the sixth-youngest player to appear in the majors since World War I.

George spent the next seven seasons in the minors, experiencing modest levels of success (.254 batting average and 81 home runs) but never got back to the big leagues. By the time he was 24, he had been slowed by injuries to the point that it resulted in the end of his career.

He ended up returning to Kansas after his playing days were over and went on to have a successful career in radio and television sales. Now 77 and retired, he answered a few questions about his career when I contacted him (a few years back).

Who was your favorite coach or manager?: When I signed, Lou Boudreau was the manager. I had read a lot about him playing shortstop. Harry Craft was one of the coaches and was very nice to me. He had managed the Yankees Triple-A affiliate in Kansas City; the Kansas City Blues, so he was familiar with me and my family.

What was the strangest thing you ever saw as a player?: Probably the strangest play is when two or more infielders are all calling for a pop fly and then they all stop and look at one another and the ball drops between them. It’s not that unusual of a play, but it always struck me as odd and strange that they would just let the ball drop.

Who was the toughest pitcher you ever faced?: I didn’t faze too many major league pitchers, but I’ll always remember facing Billy Pierce in Chicago. He was a lefty and I just couldn’t catch up with his fastball.

If you could do anything differently about your career, what would that be?: I would probably wait until I was 18 to sign. At 16, I was really too young.

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Andrew Martin writes The Baseball Historian blog. You can follow him on Facebook or Twitter @historianandrew

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This guest-post has been part of the 2016 Baseball Continuum Blogathon For Charity, benefiting the Roswell Park Alliance Foundation. The Roswell Park Alliance Foundation is the charitable arm of Roswell Park Cancer Institute and funds raised will be “put to immediate use to increase the pace from research trials into improved clinical care, to ensure state-of-the-art facilities, and to help improve the quality of life for patients and their families.” Please donate through the Blogathon’s GoFundMe page. Also, please note that the opinions and statements of the writer were not necessarily those of the Baseball Continuum or it’s webmaster.