May I have your attention please…

I’ve been reading through the archives of The Sporting News a lot the past few days as I continue researching the Marion Mets, an Appalachian League team that played in the small Virginia town of Marion.

Part of the joy of the research is finding items like the one below, which involves, baseball, a police chief and the threat of tear gas.

Frank Barnett, police chief of Twin Falls, Idaho, had some unsettling information for 1,586 fans at the July 4 Treasure Valley-Magic Valley (Pioneer) contest. Taking the public address mike in the second inning, the chief announced there was a chance the park might be the target of a tear gas attack. It seems some local summertime soldiers has swiped some tear gas grenades at camp and the police had a tip they would be used on the crowd during the post-game fireworks display. Happily, there was no attack.

From The Sporting News: Saturday, July 23, 1966, page 46

The one where the '55 Yankees were mistaken for West Virginian Boy Scouts

While researching another item, I came across this funny story about a mix-up of the ’55 Yankees and a group of Boy Scouts from West Virginia. The story below was published in The Sporting News on September 7, 1955:

Yankees mistaken for troop of Boy Scouts at K.C. Stadium 

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Yankees thought it was a gag. But it was strictly on the level. On arrival here they were mistaken for a boy scout troop from West Virginia.

On detraining early in the morning on August 29, the Bombers were told to get into a bus for the trip to the Muehlebach. The bus was waiting for the pace-makers of the American League – they were in first place at the time—climbed aboard.

They waited and waited, but no driver. Finally a man showed up, examined the gang with wrinkled brow, shook his head and started the bus.

“Too bad it’s raining for this three-hour sight-seeing trip,” he said. The Yankees laughed.

Suddenly it dawned on the driver that he had a lot of men, not boy scouts. He called his office and got permission to take the players to their hotel. Meanwhile, the scouts from West Virginia waited.

“Split a double-header and you’re a boy scout,” said Casey Stengel, who was one of the troop.

“Could be the driver had us pegged right.”

Media salute ‘father’ of baseball cards

MEDIA
Baseball card pioneer Sy Berger died Sunday, Dec. 14, at the age of 91, prompting a multitude of media stories about the man who, as the New York Times stated in its obituary headline: “turned baseball heroes into brilliant rectangles.”

The New York Times’ obit delves briefly into Berger’s life and career, from collecting cards as a kid to his rise to Topps vice president to dumping dozens of unsold 1952 Topps cases  - yes, including the now treasured ’52 Mickey Mantle card – into the Atlantic Ocean.

The Times article also quotes Berger from an interview he conducted with SABR in 2004.

Tyler Kepner also penned a must-read piece for the NY Times saluting Berger.

In its own tribute, Forbes.com wrote “10 Business Lessons to Follow from Baseball Cards’ Father.” Berger also was recognized by People.com, and the Los Angeles Times, which led its article with the Atlantic Ocean anecdote.

On the broadcast side, ESPN’s Keith Olbermann, fittingly donning a bubble gum-colored suit jacket, beautifully eulogized Berger as only Keith can.

#####

MLB Network ratings spike during busy Winter Meetings

MEDIA

This post first appeared on SABRmedia.org.

How often are you glued to a television watching men chat in a hotel?

If you’re like me, that’s what you did during the 2014 MLB Winter Meetings, held Dec. 7-11 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel. But don’t feel too bad for spending hours of tube time on what many baseball outsiders may see as the TV equivalent of watching paint dry. 

Since launching into our living rooms in 2008, the MLB Network has been a game changer in terms of how we get our baseball fix. It’s baseball 24 hours a day, seven days a week, a concept I couldn’t imagine while growing up in the 80s and reading box scores and game recaps in the morning newspaper.

The network offers its viewers a plethora of options from games and highlights to loads of chatter from a talented, knowledgeable and entertaining – I could listen to Billy Ripken talk all day about baseball – group of studio hosts and reporters.

MLB Network has developed a successful formula for attracting viewers and giving them a reason to put down the remote. Its live coverage of the Winter Meetings serves as a prime example.

According to Forbes’ Maury Brown, MLB Network’s primetime coverage set a new ratings high for the network by attracting 179,000 viewers, an increase of 48 percent over the previous record.

“The record speaks much to how deals that go down during the meetings, when there is so much interest, and yet often times, when the meetings yield little in terms of such critical contracts that create a domino effect, can affect television ratings,” wrote Brown on Forbes.com.

Much of the interests, as Brown notes, was the Jon Lester watch. For which team would the lefty sign and when. Would it be the Cubs? Or, the World Series Champion Giants? How about a return to Boston? There was even talk the Yankees were lurking, waiting to swoop in at the right moment.

That’s a lot of drama, even for night-time TV.

I’m not a fan of any of the teams that were reported to be targeting Lester at the time, but being a baseball fan, I wanted to know the minute he committed to a team, a city. I knew MLB Network had us covered.

And sure enough, when I hoped out of bed at 4:45 a.m. Wednesday and turned on the television – the channel was still, of course, on MLB Network from my previous night’s viewing – I saw in a little red box on the bottom right of my screen that Lester had indeed agreed to be a Cubbie.

“Yes,” I said with a half-hearted fist pump. As I said, I’m not a Cubs fan, but I was excited for their fans, one of which is my 9-year old son, Ty.

But it wasn’t just Lester drawing us in. This was one of the most active Winter Meetings, in terms of players swapping teams, in recent memory. Free agent signings, trades and persistent rumors of both types of transactions left us feeling like we couldn’t turn away from MLB Network.

I couldn’t.

Being a Nationals’ fan, my ears perked up even more when there was talk of my team potentially making a trade that would “blow the roof off this place.”

According to MLB.com, 79 players – 15 of those were All-Stars – changed teams during the 2014 Winter Meetings through free agency, trades or the Rule 5 Draft.

“Teams handed out more than $500 million in guaranteed contracts and signing bonuses this week in deals that either became official or were agreed upon at the Winter Meetings,” MLB.com reported after the meetings broke up.

The Winter Meetings were gold, and so was MLB Network. It provided us baseball enthusiasts with the ability sit in our living rooms and man caves and track the hot stove league in front of, to paraphrase Homer Simpson, “TV’s warm glowing warming glow.”

#####

Bumgarner is SI's Sportsman of the Year

MEDIA

Sports Illustrated recently named Madison Bumgarner its Sportsman of the Year for 2014 following the pitcher’s masterful and gritty performances throughout the MLB playoffs and World Series.

Since its beginnings in 1954, SI has awarded the annual honor to 16 Major League ballplayers and one team, the 2004 Red Sox. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and then Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling were co-recipients in 1998 and 2001, respectively.

Dale Murphy shared the honor in 1987 with a handful of athletes from other sports. In 1979, Willie Stargell and Terry Bradshaw split the award in a Pittsburgh “We-Are-Family” fashion.

As SI’s Tom Verducci writes in his cover story, Bumgarner, 25, is the third youngest baseball player to be named Sportsman of the Year, behind only Johnny Podres (1955) and Tom Seaver (1969).

Here is the complete list of MLB players to receive SI’s Sportsman of the Year award:

Johnny Podres, 1955; Stan Musial, 1957; Sandy Koufax, 1965; Carl Yastrzemski, 1967; Tom Seaver, 1969; Peter Rose, 1975; Willie Stargell (and Terry Bradshaw), 1979; Dale Murphy (and four athletes from other sports); Orel Hershiser, 1988; Cal Ripken Jr., 1995; Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, 1998; Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling, 2001; Boston Red Sox, 2004; Derek Jeter, 2009; and Madison Bumgarner, 2014.

#####

Today in Baseball History – November 26

National League President Ford Frick, on this date in 1948, sent money to cover the funereal expenses for one of the baseball’s most under-appreciated players, Lewis Robert “Hack” Wilson.

Wilson died a day earlier, at age 48, apparently with no money despite making a good living playing professional baseball. He was paid $33,000 by the Chicago Cubs in 1931.

At one time, Wilson held a National League record of 56 homers in a season and collected 191 RBI in 1930, a record that has yet to be matched.

In addition to Frick’s monetary support – many accounts, including this New York Times article – say that patrons of a bar Wilson frequented passed around a hat to collect money for the funeral.

Below is a brief Associated Press article announcing Wilson’s funeral.

BALTIMORE – (AP) – A simple funeral service in a neighborhood undertaker’s parlor will be held today for one of baseball’s mightiest sluggers, Hack Wilson.
The funeral is being paid for by the National League. Wilson, who earned as much as $30,000 a season with the Chicago Cubs, died broke Tuesday.

For two days no one claimed the body and a pauper’s burial was awaiting Wilson when fans started pouring in offers to contribute toward a decent burial. Then Ford Frick, president of the National League, sent the money to cover expenses.

Thursday night, hack’s second wife who has been living with her parents in Martinsburg, W.Va., requested that burial be there where Wilson started his professional baseball career in the Class D Blue Ridge League.

Inverted triangle

Sporting an 18-inch neck and a size 6 shoe, Hack Wilson was the inverted triangle personified.

There will be more about Hack here tomorrow in “Today in Baseball History.”

Did he get a hit today?

Last night, for some reason, I felt an urge to take a look through the two-volume set of the “DiMaggio Albums.” Maybe it was because today would have been Joltin’ Joe’s 100^th birthday, and perhaps I could have gleaned from those pages something worth mentioning on the blog today.

Yep, that would have been perfect. But, of course, I passed and watched the Jets instead. Watching the Jets is rarely a good choice.

Anyway, there is plenty of DiMaggio-related content on the web today, including this New York Daily News piece which puts a few dings in the DiMaggio legacy.

Today in Baseball History – November 25

As I try to revive and think about a new direction for this awful – yeah, I admit it’s awful – baseball blog, I’m going to try a new daily category: Today in Baseball History. It’s pretty straightforward. I pick an event or two that happened on each day’s date in baseball history and write a brief post about it.

Later, if I don’t get bored with this topic, I hope to conduct more research and write more in depth – but not too much – about the event.

Forty-four years ago on this day, Nov. 25, 1970, Yankees catcher Thurman Munson was named American League Rookie of the Year. The backstop finished the season with a .320/.386/.415 slash line, hit 25 doubles and belted six home runs.

Munson’s selection for the award was a near unanimous decision for the Baseball Writers Association. He collected 23 of the 24 first-place votes. Indians outfield Roy Foster got the other top vote.

Defensively, Munson threw out 52 percent of runners who tried to steal against him. The following year, he led the league in that category with 61 percent.

Words search

I found it!

Several years ago, while reading William Safire’s “On Language” column, I got the idea to write a blog – yes, another one – about the language of baseball. It seemed like a great idea at the time. I remembered I had bought The Dickenson Baseball Dictionary (first edition) in the early 90s, and that would make a terrific resource.

As I began thinking of ideas for the blog, I was also searching around my bookshelves and boxes for the dictionary. But it wasn’t turning up. I knew there was no way I had tossed the book because I used to love thumbing through the nearly 500 pages, checking out the meanings and etymologies of the numerous baseball words and phrases I was familiar with, and many I had no idea about.  

Kangaroo cave?

Anyway, the dictionary was nowhere to be found. It was more elusive than a .400 season. I thought, “someone will get picked off first base to lose a World Series game before I find that book.” Ok, I didn’t really foresee Kolten Wong’s Game 4 slip-up.

But then it happened; I found my dictionary. It wasn’t in a box of books or in the back of a closet. It was in an old storage building. Imagine that.

So, of course, I immediately thought about the blog again. Maybe it would be fun. It will take some work, a lot of work. And that’s what usually dooms my other blog projects.

It’s not that I’m lazy – well, maybe a little – but, like many aspiring and well-intentioned bloggers, I have little time between work, an hour-plus commute and family to do research for blog posts.

But with that said, I am thinking about it again.

I’ll need a name.

On Baseball Language? Maybe!

Chad’s Baseball Words Blog? No!

$hit Ballplayers Say? No, but that’s kind of funny.

I’ll keep thinking and searching for the perfect name.

I’m sure I’ll find it.

Not buying it, but it's great! But not buying it

If I’m a Cardinals fan living in St. Louis, there’s no way I’m grabbing this Post-Dispatch out of the newspaper racks Thursday morning. What an image, eh? It captures about all you need to know about the final out of the World Series, the exuberance of winning and the heartbreak of defeat. Even the headline “It’s Over,” almost makes you want to hang your head and walk out into traffic. If you rooted hard for the Cards, seeing this image on the front of your hometown newspaper has to be heart wrenching. I wonder how many of these were sold in St. Louis Thursday. And, while discussing the cover image, I also wonder how much thought, if any, was given to sales.

Hum it, Deuce

Baseball truly is a kids’ game, and two videos circulating around the Internet express that sentiment more than words can. In two separate videos, MLB pitchers Gio Gonzalez and Hyun-Jin Ryu are seen playing catch with kids.

Think back to when you were a kid. What major League Baseball star from that era would you have loved to play catch with from the stands, just like the kids in these videos? For me? Dave Winfield.

The Rx My Car Needs

My dad once looked the Washington Nationals cap on my head and asked, "Why are wearing a Walgreens cap?"

Back in the summer, I relayed that story to my friend, Chad, and he has teased me about it sense.

Today, I see my home state, Virginia, is now offering a Washington Nationals license plate, well that is if the state receives 450 prepaid applications.

Make that 449 because I'm sending in my application today, so I can, as the news release states, show off my "Natitude."

With the good feeling the Nats left us with – I'm talking about the season as a whole, not the dreadful game 5 of the NLDS – I'm sure those 449 applications will be no problem, particularly in the Northern part of the commonwealth.

Sure, it's an additional $25 to my annual vehicle registration, but if I can show off my Natitude on the mean streets around Southwest Virginia, it’ll totally be worth the extra cash.

I'm sure I'd waste that $25 someplace else, anyway.

And you know, I'm guessing I'll one the only person in Southwest Virginia with the plates. This, for some strange reason, is Braves country.

I emailed the rendered image of the Curly Dub plate to my wife, asking her if she wanted a set for her sporty minivan.

Her reply: "No. I don't want people to think I'm a pharmacist."

Eveyone's a wiseguy.

Tony Oliva Has My Hall of Fame Vote Just Because He Was So Nice to Me One Day

I saw yet another one of those exhausting Internet lists today ranking the top – I can't remember the number – players who are not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Every time that debate is reared, I can't help but think of the time I talked on the phone with Tony Oliva.

I hate to admit, I don't remember much of the conversation. I just remember he was a super nice guy, who took time out of his busy schedule – he was still working with the Twins organization back then – to chat on the phone with a goofball college kid writing a series of newspaper stories about small-town minor league baseball.

(That's a lot more than I can say about Nolan Ryan, whose secretary told me Mr. Ryan would call me back if he wanted to talk, but not to count on it.)

At that time, I was writing about minor league and semi-pro baseball in rural Wytheville, Va. I contacted Oliva because he played there for the Appalachian League Class D Twins in 1961 – he hit .410 in 64 games – and many folks in the town remember Oliva and recall a monstrous home run he slammed off a building a long way away from home plate.

There's even a plaque describing the homer there now, in a public park, where home plate once resided. (I have photos of it… somewhere.)

I asked Oliva about the home run. He just laughed and gave me a few vague details. I'm sure he hit a lot of those and perhaps that particular one was lost in long line of moonshot memories.

His brief recollection wasn't what I wanted for the story, of course. I wanted great detail.

What was the pitch? Fastball? Hanging curve? What did it feel like when your bat struck the ball and you saw the ball smack the building? Did the crowd go wild? Did grown men cry? Did women throw panties your way?

I got none of that, but I got a lot of other good stories… and a lot of laughs out of Oliva, who seemed to genuinely enjoy our conversation.

I'm not much of a stats guy and I'm no Hall of Fame master debater, so I don't really know if Oliva belongs in the Hall of Fame or not.

But I know he would like to be included in Cooperstown. And just because Oliva was so nice to me for 10 minutes one last summer day in 1996 – I'm really good at making this about me, aren't I? – I hope he gets his wish someday soon.

-- 108 Stitches -- 

Opening Day is Scheduled; I Feel Sick

Flash forward a couple of months. It's 7:55 a.m., Monday, April 1.

I make a phone call.

Hello, boss. (Cough)

Oh, hello Chad. You don't sound so good.

Yeah, I can't go to work today. I've been sick all weekend. I think I need one more day to rest.

Ok, feel better soon and take care of you.

Thank (Cough. Cough.) you.

Click!

Hehehehehehehehehe.

I did it. I'm off work.

What?

No, I'm not celebrating April Fool's Day. (Who takes off work for that?)

I'm playing hooky April 1 because it's opening day of the 2013 baseball season. And the Yankees are hosting the Red Sox at the Stadium. First pitch, to be tossed, I'm guessing, by CC Sabathia, is scheduled for 1:05 p.m., and the contest will be broadcast on ESPN.

I love opening day. It's usually a bit cold at most ballparks, which doesn't bother me since I'm sitting in my cozy man cave watching on a 52-inch TV. But the site of long sleeves throws off the baseball aesthetic a bit for me. But not in a way I can't enjoy the game.

I still remember a few years ago seeing Kelly Clarkson singing the national anthem on opening day at the Stadium. She looked very cold and uncomfortable all bundled up in a blue Yankees jacket.

I still have no idea why Kelly Clarkson, who's from Texas, was singing the national anthem at Yankee Stadium.

Back to the cold for a second. I totally dig the look of fans bundled up and freezing in October. Being a Yankee fan 34 years – yes, I've been having an affair with the Nationals since they moved to D.C. – I guess I've gotten used to that site and, with the Yankees playoff accomplishments the last 15 or so years, have associated the frozen fan look with success.

But no matter the temperature in the Bronx, or at any of the other Major League cities on opening day, I embrace the excitement. This year will be particularly nice with the Yankees playing the hated Red Sox.

Yuck, the Red Sox.

They make me sick.

Hello, boss. I may need take off Tuesday also.