Baseball Minutiae and Trivia Only

If I asked you who hit the first double at Wrigley Field you might go to the wrong part of the record books before thinking.. . Um, which Wrigley Field? At the Wrigley Field in LA it was Minnesota Twins Don Mincher in 1961 against the Angels.

2B on 27-Apr-1961 at Wrigley Field, Los Angeles

Mincher was on the Washington Senators team that moved to Minnesota & became the Twins. He then came back to the 2nd incarnation of the Senators that became the Texas Rangers.

In the bottom of the 7th on 09-Jun-1966, Twins batters Rich Rollins, Zoilo Versalles, Tony Oliva, Mincher & Harmon Killebrew all homered. All were solos except Rollins’…

I always wondered. Was Sam really mealy, or was that just an impression given by his last name.

Not a Mele quote, but a Mele story below:

"While in Boston, Sam Mele played under legendary disciplinarian Joe McCarthy, who would not abide alibis or excuses of any kind. One bright, sunny day in 1949, Mele was playing Fenway's right field, an infamous 'sun field,' when a line drive was hit in his direction. The ball took a bad bounce, and Sam ducked as the ball caromed over his head. As he came to the dugout at the end of the inning, Mele made his second and more costly error - this one with McCarthy. 'Oh geez, the ball got lost in the sun, and I didn't have time to pull my sunglasses down,' he whined. 'You know something my boy?' replied Marse Joe. 'They play all night games in Washington.' Mele finished out the year where the sun never shone - with the lowly Senators in the basement of the American League." …

Sam Mele was the Washington Senators (1901-1960) last right-handed hitter to lead the American League in doubles (36 doubles in 1951. The last lefty batter to lead in doubles before the team moved to Minnesota was Mickey Vernon…

This may have been Don Larsen’s second biggest moment in base ball. The day he hit a grand slam:

www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYA/NYA195604220.shtml

Archie and Edith sang it best:

And you knew who you were then
girls were girls and men were men
Mister we could use a man like Joe McCarthy again…

inger, I wanted to tell you that perusing your Misc. Bullshit and now Baseball Minutiae and Trivia Only threads is one of my best part of the day. Thank you for all your hard work.

Now Inger I am pretty sure you know the correct lyric here is Herbert Hoover -- and as an aside, it would have been highly unlikely for a blue collar worker from Queens who grew up during the Great Depression like Archie Bunker to be a fan of Herbert Hoover -- Hoover was a highly ethical man and a great humanitarian who had a rags to riches life story that almost seems like a caricature, but he was not exactly a hero to the urban working class.  But back to Joe McCarthy ---

One of my favorite stats about him was that in his first year with the Cubs, they improved by 14 games over the previous year -- in his first year with the Yankees they improved by 8 1/2 games -- in his first year with the Red Sox they improved by 12 1/2 games.  Those can not all be coincidences.  Billy Martin was great at getting first year improvements too, but McCarthy was in his own universe for that.  And managing in the minor leagues at Louisville he consistently won championships.  His impact was immediate and lasting.  Ed Barrow said McCarthy could see a problem coming two years ahead of time and dealt with it.

Although he was known as a disciplinarian, McCarthy was fairly lenient on personal behavior as long as you followed his basic rules on playing solid fundamental baseball.  As a drinking man himself -- and toward the end of the line it did become a bit of a problem for him -- he was always tolerant of his hard-drinking players as long as it did not affect on-field performance.  If that happened, they were gone in a heartbeat. 

He was great with second-chance players.  His first Cubs championship team in 1929 was almost entirely made up of players who had been cast off from other teams because of conflicts with management.  He knew how to trim his sails enough to deal with Babe Ruth when Joe first came to the Yankees.  Babe was in his final great seasons, and McCarthy was diplomatic enough to know that it wouldn't work to confront him on disciplinary issues, but at the same time Babe had enough sense to not embarrass McCarthy by openly flouting the rules.  They reached at least a truce.  Disciplined, button-down players like Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio worshipped McCarthy.  And as team leaders, their attitude permeated the rest of the players.

He was not a screamer -- he got his points across sternly but quietly.  He was a Philly boy who idolized Connie Mack, from whom he emulated a self-control that came more naturally to Mack than to McCarthy.  And he was adamant about discipline on and off the field -- he was the original dress code, look and act professionally manager -- but especially on the field, he insisted on plate discipline and not chasing bad pitches.  His teams led their league in walks 14 times.  The next closest manager to that number was Sparky Anderson with 10, and then Leo Durocher with eight.  Long before pitch counts were contemplated, McCarthy thought in terms of wearing down the starting pitcher until he began to weaken.  This was also before modern bullpen usage obviously -- and McCarthy was the first to have strictly defined roles of starting pitchers and bullpen pitchers, although not in the way they are used today.

For players who cared about winning above all, Joe McCarthy was the best manager you could play for.