BATTER UP!

[2jakes]

1992 Sporting News Conlon collection

 

[Ghostsoldier]

I wonder how Mr. Mays felt about being the guy who threw the ball that killed Mr. Chapman?

I know it was most likely an accident (maybe, given that purposely throwing at batters was a form of intimidation, back in the day), but he still had to feel bad about killing Ray.

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

There's a myth that the popularity of baseball on the West Coast owes itself to the machinations of one Walter F. O'Malley, but that's a long long way from the truth. When Whalebelly was still a scheming mortgage lawyer for a bank, baseball thrived out west in the form of the Pacific Coast League, the most successful and powerful minor league that ever existed -- a league with several teams that could have competed on a major league level. The PCL had its own culture and its own stars -- and none was more beloved than "the Babe Ruth of the Bushes," Steve Bilko.

A massive man who officially tipped in at 230 pounds, but privately admitted to considerably more, Bilko started his career at the end of World War II as just another player buried in the low echelons of the Cardinals farm system. He rose gradually, landing at Rochester of the International League in 1949 and performing well enough to earn a short trial with the big club, in which he failed to impress. Bilko bounced back and forth between St. Louis, Rochester, and Columbus for several years before the Cardinals gave up and traded him to the Cubs -- who sent him to their PCL affiliate, the Los Angeles Angels, in 1955. When Bilko took one look at the thimble dimensions of the West Coast Wrigley Field, he knew he'd finally found a home.

Bilko hit well that season, and in 1956 he went on the rampage that earned him his repuation -- winning the PCL Triple Crown with a .360 batting average, 54 homers, and 164 RBIs. He was almost as impressive in 1957, stroking 56 homers and sending Los Angeles fans into fits of excitement. In each of his three seasons in an Angel uniform, Bilko was named Most Valuable Player of the PCL, and he hoped to spend the rest of his career at Wrigley West. But larger forces were at work -- Philip Wrigley had sold the Angels and their ballpark to Walter F. O'Malley at the start of the 1957 season, along with the territorial rights to Los Angeles, and everyone knew what was coming. Bilko played briefly for the LA Dodgers in 1958, but O'Malley had disdained Wrigley Field and set up temporary operations at the Los Angeles Coliseum, a park Bilko found impossible.

The Dodgers moved the Angels franchise to Spokane, where Bilko had a good year in 1959, but not quite of the legendary dimensions he had achieved in LA. The Dodgers sent him on to the Tigers, where the bottom fell out of the Bilko market, and at age 32 it looked like the "Babe of the Bushes" was done. But fate had one more little gift for the slugger -- the American League was expanding to ten clubs for 1961, with Los Angeles one of the new teams. That new franchise was scheduled to play in a spiffed-up Wrigley Field, and Bilko was overjoyed to be one of the new Angels' selections in the expansion draft. He was going home.

He wasn't quite Babe Ruth in 1961, but at age 33 Bilko had one good year left, and turned in a respectable .279 average with twenty homers. Angel fans embraced him once more, but knew it was a farewell performance -- the next season the team was required to move into Walter F. O'Malley's new park as a tenant, and Chavez Ravine held no joys for the aging slugger. His undistinguished 1962 season was his last in the majors. With the PCL in shambles after the big league invasion of the West, Bilko caught on with Rochester, now a Baltimore Orioles affiliate, for one final minor league campaign, and then he was done. "The Babe of the Bushes," once "more popular in Los Angeles than Marilyn Monroe," disappeared into obscurity and died in 1978 at the age of 49.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wonder how Mr. Mays felt about being the guy who threw the ball that killed Mr. Chapman?

I know it was most likely an accident (maybe, given that purposely throwing at batters was a form of intimidation, back in the day), but he still had to feel bad about killing Ray.

Rob

At the time he was extremely remorseful, and turned himself in to the New York City DA that afternoon, but he wasn't prosecuted. But as he got older, he got more resentful of being defined by the incident. Mays had had a pretty decent career -- and would remain in the major leagues until 1929 -- but he never received any serious consideration for the Hall of Fame, and he grew more and more bitter about this as he got older, blaming the Chapman incident for obscuring his other accomplishments. To the day he died he was angry about this.

One good thing that did come out of the Chapman incident was a rule requiring umpires to discard and replace dirty balls. It had been the custom for pitchers to get the ball as grimy as possible so as to make it difficult for batters to pick out of afternoon shadows, but with this factor contributing directly to Chapman's death, a new policy went into effect requiring a fresh white ball at all times.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Thanks, Lizzie...I knew about the ball changing rule, but I seem to recall reading somewhere that Mays was a contentious SOB, and was just wondering if he ever elaborated on his feelings concerning the incident.

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

Mays once said of another pitcher "He has no friends and wants no friends, and that's why he's a great pitcher." He might as well have been talking about himself.

Along with the Chapman incident, there were suspicions about Mays' conduct during the 1921 and 1922 World Series, to the point where Judge Landis began an investigation into whether he might have been involved with gamblers. While the findings of that investigation were inconclusive, many writers of the Era believed that the suspicions swirling around Mays over those two Series, even more than the death of Chapman, were what really kept him out of the HOF.

He got 23 percent of the vote the last time he was on the Veterans Committee ballot, in 2009, so at this point it doesn't appear that he'll ever get in.

 

[Fading Fast]

The strong foundation in action. Twenty-year-old Babe Ruth warms up before a game at Comiskey Park.

But for a quirk of fate, this man, Ray Chapman, shortstop for the Cleveland Indians from 1912 to 1920, would be remembered in the same breath as Jack Barry or Everett Scott on the list of quality but unspectacular middle infielders of the 1910s.

I love the look of these uniforms - so iconic / so of the period.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Yankee Pinstripes appear for the first time in 1912 -- along with the familiar interlocking NY logo. The whole package was designed to imitate the uniform of the Giants, who had featured their own interlocking NY design on a pinstriped background for several years previous.

Oddly, both the NY and the pinstripes were dropped after one season. The pinstripes were back in 1915, but there was no NY crest -- nor would there be one until 1936. Despite going down in history as the greatest of all Yankees, Babe Ruth never wore the iconic Yankee uniform as an active player -- he played his entire New York career wearing a pinstriped home jersey with no insignia at all on the front.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

I liked the fact that they didn't use the player's names, only numbers...you had to know "your guys" from memory.

Rob

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Babe in his last major league uniform, as first base coach for the Dodgers in 1938. At left is Dodger manager Burleigh "Ol' Stubblebeard" Grimes, already counting the days until he gets fired, and at right is shortstop Leo Durocher, who is already planning to take over as manager when Grimes gets canned. The Babe was caught in the middle -- he had taken the coaching job when Larry MacPhail offered it believing that he himself would be Grimes' replacement in 1939. But MacPhail had no such intention -- he had brought in Ruth to goose attendance by hitting ball after ball over the screen into Bedford Avenue during batting practice -- and when Ruth got beaten up in the locker room by Durocher during a confrontation over who would be the future manager, MacPhail made up his mind not to offer him a coaching job in 1939 either. Ruth would spend the rest of his life trying to find some way to get back into uniform, but nobody would take him on.

As a final indignity with the Dodgers, second baseman Pete Coscarart wouldn't give up number 3 -- so the Babe did his coaching with a big blue 35 on his back.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

The Babe shoulda quit while he was ahead.

Rob

 

[2jakes]

The day Babe Ruth hit his first major league home run, he also
pitched 12⅓ innings.

Box score from the May 7, 1915, Boston Globe.

May 1915 — in a 4-3, 13-inning loss to the Yankees at
the Polo Grounds in New York.

Ruth, described in The Boston Globe story about the game as impressing
“the onlookers as being a hitter of the first rank, broke a scoreless tie in
the top of the third.
He swatted a low ball into the upper tier of the right-field grandstand
and trotted about the bases to slow music.
He looked as tall as the Woolworth Building."


The two teams exchanged runs, and the Red Sox held a 3-2 edge through the
top of the ninth, until Hugh High “raced over the rubber in the 13th inning with
the winning run.”

The solo shot was one of Ruth’s three hits; he was 3-of-5 with an RBI and struck
out twice. On the mound, he faced 50 batters, gave up 10 hits and two earned runs,
walked three, and struck out three.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Names on the backs of uniforms were another innovation of old Sportshirt himself, Bill Veeck -- who put the names on the backs of the White Sox in 1960.

Oh, that zany Veeck sense of humor.

Charlie Finley, who couldn't go to the toilet unless Bill Veeck did it first, had his own twist on player names -- when he adopted them, he insisted on using the players' nicknames until the league made him cut it out. If the player didn't have a snazzy nickname, he'd make one up.

 

[belfastboy]

Names on the backs of uniforms were another innovation of old Sportshirt himself, Bill Veeck -- who put the names on the backs of ththite Sox in 1960.

Oh, that zany Veeck sense of humor.

Charlie Finley, who couldn't go to the toilet unless Bill Veeck did it first, had his own twist on player names -- when he adopted them, he insisted on using the players' nicknames until the league made him cut it out. If the player didn't have a snazzy nickname, he'd make one up.

A few weekends back when baseball held the players weekend when players placed their nicknames on the jerseys . It struck how unimaginative the names. I found it sad. I know they have legal issues around trademarked names and the PC police but shamefully boring nonetheless

 

[HudsonHawk]

Big Klu was also famous for his muscles He started cutting the sleeves off of his jersey so the girls in the stands could get a good look, and it became his trademark:

 

[HudsonHawk]

A few weekends back when baseball held the players weekend when players placed their nicknames on the jerseys . It struck how unimaginative the names. I found it sad. I know they have legal issues around trademarked names and the PC police but shamefully boring nonetheless

You just don't see a lot of great nicknames like Pickles Dillhoefer anymore.

 

[Frunobulax]

You just don't see a lot of great nicknames like Pickles Dillhoefer anymore.

Dennis "Oil Can" Boyd may be my favorite.


Sent directly from my mind to yours.

 

[ChazfromCali]

Some guys definitely throw a "heavy" fastball. I've caught a few knuckleballers, and I wouldn't recommend it. I think the old "wait til it stops rolling then pick it up" is the best way to catch the knuckler.

I remember one pitcher I caught who had a terrific overhand curve...a real 12-6er. If I had a nickel for every time it bounced and came up and hit me right on the inside of the forearm...It was a great pitch, but it left me constantly in bruises.

The fastest I've seen in person was a young Vida Blue in September of 1970, pretty consistently he was in the upper 90's and batters were just over-matched. Also another lefty, a guy named Tom Hall of the Twins had a fastball that was as fast or even slightly faster than Vida. But Hall was little guy and could only "muscle up" maybe 6 or 8 times per game while Vida seemingly could throw nine innings of heat.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I was always impressed by "Blue Moon" Odom's nickname, even though it was another one that Charlie Finley just made up.

And then there's Wilmer Mizell, who looked and acted like a character played by Will Rogers in a movie made in 1933, and preferred to be called by his nickname, "Vinegar Bend," the name of his sleepy Alabama home town.

Folksy old Vinegar Bend later went on to serve three terms in Congress until he was washed out by the post-Watergate tide in 1974.

"Choo Choo, how come they call you Choo Choo?"
"I don't know, Ralph."

 

[LizzieMaine]

Scenes from the third inning of the first game of the 1916 World Series between the Red Sox and the Dodgers.

Boston home games for this series were played at Braves Field, which had a much larger seating capacity than Fenway Park. The structure visible in the foreground is the edge of the left field pavillion, which still stands as part of Boston University's Nickerson Field.