|
|
Post by kaybli on Jan 2, 2024 21:03:23 GMT -5
kaybli -- thanks so much for posting the photo of Clete Boyer. I didn't expect him to actually write back, but he did. No problem pipps. Clete kept his word! |
|
|
|
Post by inger on Jan 2, 2024 21:06:53 GMT -5
kaybli -- thanks so much for posting the photo of Clete Boyer. I didn't expect him to actually write back, but he did. No problem pipps. Clete kept his word! They were better times back then. Somehow guys making $30K or so were more appreciative of what they had… |
|
|
|
Post by inger on Jan 2, 2024 21:16:49 GMT -5
No problem pipps. Clete kept his word! They were better times back then. Somehow guys making $30K or so were more appreciative of what they had… It was like Bouton said. When we can’t do this anymore we’ll have to get a real job… |
|
|
|
Post by bomberhojoe on Jan 3, 2024 10:43:15 GMT -5
I actually got to meet him a while back in Cooperstown. He was a nice guy. He had a restaurant up there called I believe the Hamburger Hall of Fame. He took the time to talk to us and autographed a couple of pictures for us as well as the menu. I had a similar experience back in 1997. Met Clete Boyer in a Cooperstown restaurant (presumably his) and he talked to us for close to an hour. Telling us stories about Mickey, Yogi and so many others. He was one of the nicest people I have ever met! |
|
|
|
Post by kaybli on Jan 3, 2024 10:59:22 GMT -5
I actually got to meet him a while back in Cooperstown. He was a nice guy. He had a restaurant up there called I believe the Hamburger Hall of Fame. He took the time to talk to us and autographed a couple of pictures for us as well as the menu. I had a similar experience back in 1997. Met Clete Boyer in a Cooperstown restaurant (presumably his) and he talked to us for close to an hour. Telling us stories about Mickey, Yogi and so many others. He was one of the nicest people I have ever met! Very cool!
From pipp's, bruner's and bomberhojoe's accounts he seems like he was a real standup dude. |
|
|
|
Post by bigjeep on Jan 3, 2024 16:18:44 GMT -5
Nah, you had the main issues right. You remembered the Cards made a late charge with a long winning streak and then were skunked by the Dodgers. Who is going to remember a Pete Richert start from 60 years ago? I had to look it up for sure. BTW did you know that Ron Perranoski and another great 60s reliever, Dick "The Monster" Radatz, were teammates at Michigan State in the late 50s? Like many Dodgers, Perranoski managed to get on a TV show. In his case it was "Branded" which starred ex-Dodger and ex-Boston Celtic Chuck Connors. It was his show after "The Rifleman." It seems odd to me that Connors is usually referred to as “the ex- Dodger”. In 1949 he appeared in one game for the Brooklyn boys and grounded into a DP In his only AB. Admittedly tgat does make him an ex-Dodger, but his other 66 games were all for the Cubs, in 1951… He couldn't hit the curve ball! Became an actor!  |
|
|
|
Post by gottagotomo on Jan 4, 2024 10:42:08 GMT -5
Clipper, it's so good to see you over hear. You are the face of Yankee history. Happy New Year to you.
|
|
|
|
Post by fwclipper51 on Jan 6, 2024 19:57:42 GMT -5
Clipper, it's so good to see you over hear. You are the face of Yankee history. Happy New Year to you. Mo, A very Happy New Year to you! I joined this board before Christmas. It's nice to have a new home for the This Week in Yankees History Thread. I had retired in October, 2023. I was looking towards doing some different projects on Yankees History, when Chas had sent me the e-mail about the closing. Clipper |
|
|
|
Post by inger on Jan 6, 2024 20:26:16 GMT -5
Clipper, it's so good to see you over hear. You are the face of Yankee history. Happy New Year to you. Mo, A very Happy New Year to you! I joined this board before Christmas. It's nice to have a new home for the This Week in Yankees History Thread. I had retired in October, 2023. I was looking towards doing some different projects on Yankees History, when Chas had sent me the e-mail about the closing. Clipper Their loss is our gain… |
|
|
|
Post by fwclipper51 on Jan 13, 2024 15:28:30 GMT -5
Urban Shocker
Article Written by Joseph Wancho, Edited by Clipper
Although the question about who is the best major league baseball team is quite subjective, the answer that is given on many occasions is the 1927 New York Yankees. The team that was dubbed “Murderers’ Row” included Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Earle Combs, Tony Lazzeri, Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt. All are members of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. There are some who would argue that OF Bob Meusel could join them. Throw in stars 3B Joe Dugan and shortstop Mark Koenig, plus catcher Pat Collins and you have the whole starting 9.
It almost seemed unfair that the Yankees obtained Urban Shocker from the St. Louis Browns. Shocker had won 20 games 4 years in a row for the Browns, and now he was an added gun to the best team in baseball. Especially when one considers the Yankees were Shocker’s 1st MLB club and they unloaded him to St. Louis in 1918. “There were a lot of things I had to find out, even about my own players,” said Miller Huggins, who had just taken over as manager of the Yankees in 1918. “So, I poked around and found out as much as I could about them before the training season started. One of the things I was told was that I would do well to get rid of Shocker as quickly as possible because he was a trouble-maker. I later discovered that my information had done Shocker a grave injustice. Urban has never made trouble for anyone.” Huggins righted his wrong, reacquiring the St. Louis ace.
Shocker was able to fulfill the dream of most ballplayers; winning a World Championship. Shocker pitched that 1927 season on guts and guile. What was known to very few, and certainly not outside the Yankee organization, was that he was suffering from a heart disease that corroded one of his valves. But he battled through the pain on his way to 18 victories and a 2.84 ERA, the 3rd-lowest in the league.
Urbain Jacques Shockcor was born on September 22,1890, in Cleveland, Ohio, the 5th of 8 children born to William and Anna Shockcor. William Shockcor, who was of French origin, who made his living as a machinist. Anna Shockcor, maiden name Spies and of German derivation, made her living as a dressmaker. The Shockors’ raised their family on the lower west side of Cleveland, where Urbain attended Dennison Grammar School and Lincoln High School. The reasons are vague as to why or when Urbain Shockcor relocated to Michigan. What is clear is that Shockcor embarked on his baseball career there, joining semipro teams in both Michigan and Canada. A catcher, he signed with Windsor, Ontario, a Class D Independent team of the Border League in 1912. He alternated between catcher and pitcher, but a freak accident in 1913 moved Shockcor permanently from behind home plate to the pitching mound. One day while catching, he stopped a baseball with the tip of the third finger on his pitching (right) hand. When the broken finger healed, it had a hook at the last joint. “That broken finger may not be pretty to look at,” said Shockcor, “but it has been very useful to me. It hooks over a baseball just right so that I can get a break on my slow ball and that’s one of the best balls I throw. If the finger was perfectly straight, I couldn’t do this. As it is, I can get a slow ball to drop just like a spitter. Perhaps if I broke one of my other fingers, I could get the ball to roll over sideways or maybe jump in the air, but I am too easy-going to make the experiment.”
Shockcor had posted a 6-7 record with a 4.54 ERA for Windsor in 1913. But the ratio of strikeouts to walks was nearly 3 to 1; he fanned 90 batters while issuing 33 free passes. He moved on to Class B Ottawa of the Canadian League, where he established himself as a viable major league prospect with 2 breakout seasons. In 1914, Shockcor would win 20 games and followed that up with a 19-win season the following year. But as was the case at Windsor, it was his control that made him special. Shockcor had struck out 158 men in 1914, while walking 60. He was even better in 1915, racking up 186 K’s while opposing batters walked only 40 times. Shockcor alluded to the fact that he was a “slow ball” pitcher, which enabled him to maintain pinpoint control. The Ottawa Senators won the league championship both seasons, making it 4 straight overall as the champions of the Canadian League. At the conclusion of the 1915 season, Shockcor was drafted by the New York Yankees in the MLB Rule 5 Player Draft. The Yankees would cough up $750 for the services of the young righty.
It is unclear as to when Shockcor changed his name. His nephew Roger Shockcor says that the name switch came about as the result of writers continually misspelling his name. Urbain Jacques Shockcor would be known to the world as Urban James Shocker thereafter.
During a spring training game in 1916, a ball was hit down the line near 1st base, Shocker moved to cover the bag, but was spiked on the foot by the base runner. It turned out to be a minor setback, as Shocker pitched well enough to break camp and head north with the varsity. He made his MLB pitching debut on April 24,1916, pitching 3 innings of relief in an 8-2 loss to Walter Johnson and the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium. With a surplus of pitching, the Yankees would option Shocker to Toronto of the International League, with whom New York had a working agreement. Shocker reported to the Maple Leafs on May 15th. At this point of the season, Toronto was a woeful 2-12. His 1st assignment was against the 12-1 Newark Indians and Shocker toppled the league leaders with a 5-3 victory. On July 8th, Shocker started a string of pitching 4 straight shutouts covering 36 scoreless innings. Not only was he on a hot streak, the Maple Leafs won 10 of 12 games during the stretch. On July 22nd, Shocker tossed an 11-inning no-hitter at Rochester. “He had his spitter snapping over the plate in such a way that it appeared to hypnotize the local batsmen,” noted the Rochester Sun. His string was snapped at 54 1/3 scoreless innings, when he surrendered 2 runs in the 8th inning on July 26,1917 against Montreal in a 2-2 tie that was called on account of darkness. For the year, Shocker was 15-3 with a 1.31 ERA and 152 strikeouts in 185 innings. He was recalled to New York and started 9 games, going 4-2. (He had lost 1 game before his demotion and was 4-3 on the season with a 2.61 ERA).
In spite of his success at Toronto, Shocker was used sparingly by New York Manager Wild Bill Donovan in 1917. He would make 13 starts, going 8-5 with 7 complete games for the 6th-place Yankees. Shocker gave a preview of coming attractions on September 11th by fanning 10 Athletics in a 4-1 New York win at Shibe Park. Donovan was replaced by Miller Huggins as the Yankees Manager for the 1918 season. Huggins was looking for stability at 2nd base, as Luke Boone, Joe Gedeon and Fritz Maisel all took their shot at the keystone position. None provided the offense that Huggins had desired. He would set his sights on 2B Del Pratt of the St. Louis Browns. With Wally Pipp at 1st, Pratt at 2nd base, Roger Peckinpaugh at shortstop and Frank “Home Run” Baker at the hot corner, the Yankees would have a tremendous infield. Pratt, who would end his 13-year career with a .292 batting average, had a down year in 1917, hitting just .247. On January 22, 1918, Pratt and pitcher Eddie Plank were sent east for Gedeon, Maisel, catcher Les Nunamaker and pitchers Nick Cullop and Shocker. The Browns also received $15,000 in the deal, but Plank decided to retire instead of reporting to the Yankees and a portion of the payment was refunded.
Urban had posted a 6-5 record with a 1.81 ERA before his draft board tapped him to change into an army uniform at the end of June. Shocker returned from France the following year, joining his teammates and making his 1st appearance on May 11,1919, losing to Detroit, but he rebounded to win his next 6 of 7 starts, shutting out the Senators twice and the Athletics once.Shocker, who relied on the spitball in his repertoire of pitches, was facing adversity. A new rule banned pitchers from using a foreign substance on the baseball or scuffing it. The 1920 season was to be a year of transition so that the spitball pitchers could wean themselves from throwing it. However, the players, who relied on the spitball as their “money” pitch lobbied to be able to continue to use the pitch. Seventeen of them, including Shocker, were allowed to throw it until their careers ended. (Burleigh Grimes was the last legal spitball pitcher. He hurled until he was 41, his last stop being with Pittsburgh in 1934.)
The St. Louis Browns usually finished in the middle-to-bottom of the American League standings. But the tide was beginning to turn in their favor. A powerful hitting team was being assembled in the Mound City, and it began with George Sisler. Sisler was the Browns’ only “name” player, and the only member of the Browns of this era who was enshrined at the Baseball Hall of Fame. The 1st baseman hit over .400 twice in his 15-year MLB career and failed to hit over .300 in only 3 seasons. He was joined in the lineup by outfielders Jack Tobin, Ken Williams and William “Baby Doll” Jacobson. All 3 players had the ability to drive in runs and hit for average with some long distance “pop” in their bat.
The Browns needed pitching, and they may never have expected the return they received when they dealt for Urban Shocker. Shocker won 20 games in 1920. He was backed by Dixie Davis, who won 18 games while leading the league in walks with 149. The Browns were one of the few teams that used a walk as a strategy, often issuing a free pass to the better hitters of the game, rather than risk a more damaging hit. The Browns frequently used this strategy against Babe Ruth, who was hitting HRs at a record pace in 1920. “If they won’t let me use base hits as a mode of transportation,” said the Babe,’ they ought to at least issue me a bicycle.” Shocker bucked this trend in the 1st game of a doubleheader against New York on July 13,1920. He had fanned a career-high 14 batters, whiffing the Babe 3 times in the 6-4 Browns victory. To prove it was not a fluke performance, Shocker would scatter 5 hits in defeating his former teammates 1-0 on July 28th at Sportsman’s Park.
The Browns would finish in 4th place in 1920, their highest finish since 1908. Shocker was 9-5 against the 3 clubs (Cleveland, Chicago, New York) that placed higher than the Browns. Over the next 3 years, Shocker topped the 20-win mark in each season, leading the league in wins with 27 in 1921. With the exception of Elam Vangilder, the Browns’ pitching staff was very thin. However, the additions of Marty McManus at 2nd base and Frank Ellerbe at 3rd base solidified the St. Louis infield. Add Hank Severeid as the starting backstop to go with the powerful outfield, and a championship team was being put into place. They would finished 3rd, trailing only the Yankees and Indians.
Shocker provided a glimpse as to what he tried to achieve when he was pitching in order to be successful: “The secret of Ty Cobb’s success as a batter is the fact that he always establishes a mental hazard. He was always on the offensive and you never knew exactly what he would do. Sometimes he would choke up on the bat and punch a hit through the infield. Sometimes he would slug. Sometimes he would bunt. Sometimes he would wait them out. But you never could tell what he was going to do or how he was going to do it'. “To my mind, the successful pitcher does the same thing. He also establishes a mental hazard. He has the batter guessing, and to the extent that he has the batter guessing, he has him at a disadvantage for he can give the batter any kind of ball he chooses. The batter has to take what comes and if you can contrive to give him something he isn’t looking for, you have him.“You can tell very often what is in a batter’s mind by the way he shifts his feet or hitches his belt or wiggles his bat. Keep him guessing. That’s the point and if possible, get him to bite on bad balls. Once you have him swinging, you have his number. And still, as long as your control holds good, there is really nothing else for him to do. Sometimes I wonder why pitchers ever lose a game and then I reflect that there’s a fellow also pitching for the other side.”
But there was more to Shocker’s game then pitching. “Best fielding pitcher I ever saw,” said Browns 3rd baseman Frank Ellerbe. “He could field that position, he’d leave that mound and jump on the ball like a cat. You’d see a slow one down the 3rd base line, a bunt or sacrifice or anything, and if the runner from 2nd would come, he’d jump on that ball and we’d cut him off at 3rd…and if the man didn’t come, he’d jump on the ball and we’d get him at 1st. He could really field his position.”
After the conclusion of the 1921 World Series, won by the New York Giants over the Yankees, Bob Meusel and Babe Ruth took part in a barnstorming tour, a common practice among players of the day to earn some extra money during the offseason. However, baseball rules forbade members of the teams that participated in the World Series to barnstorm. Commissioner Landis would fine both Meusel and Ruth to the tune of $3,362, equal to the player’s shares from the World Series. In addition, each player was suspended for the 1st 6 weeks of the 1922 season. All signs pointed to 1922 being a banner year for the Browns. And Shocker was a main ingredient in the mix of talented ballplayers in St. Louis. General Manager Bob Quinn said “With another like him we’d win the championship. Even as we stand, we’ve got a good chance.” Shocker led the staff with a 24-17 record and a 2.97 ERA. He also led the league in strikeouts with 149. Even more surprising was the fact that Shocker was 2nd in the league in innings pitched with 348, considering he was sidelined from June 11th through July 4th with an injured leg. Vangilder won 19 games and Davis 14 . The real surprise was Ray Kolp, who at 28, in his 2nd MLB season, posted a 14-4 record. The Browns were not a “1-man band” when it came to the starting rotation. Sisler batted .420 with 246 hits and 19 triples, all league highs. The Browns as a team hit .310 for the season.
When Ruth and Meusel returned to the starting lineup on May 20th, the Yankees held a 2-game lead over St. Louis. As it would happen, the Yankees’ opponent that day was the Browns at the Polo Grounds. Shocker was on the hill, and breezed to his 8th win of the year, 8-2 . It was a dog fight between the 2 clubs the rest of the way. St. Louis trailed the Yanks by only half a game when the Yankees came calling for a 3-game series at Sportsman’s Park beginning September 16th… . Bob Shawkey would top Shocker in the 1st game, 2-1. The they split the next 2, and the Yankees left town with a 1 ½ game lead. Then St. Louis would lose 2 of 3 to the Senators in the next series to fall 3 ½ games back. Even though they won their next 5 of 6 contests, they could not overcome the deficit. They finished in 2nd place by 1 game. “I also blame our club for not hustling more after the Yankees beat us, 2 out of 3, in a September series.” said Jacobson. “After the Yanks left town, we blew our next games to Washington, then a 2nd division club. When we eventually lost the pennant only by a game, the importance of those Washington defeats may well be realized.” Manager Lee Fohl had the horses, as he guided the Browns to a 93-61 record. The Browns dominated the rest of the league, but were 8-14 against the Yankees. Shocker accounted for half those wins, going 4-7 against New York.
Over the next 2 seasons, the Browns would slipped back to the middle of the pack in the American League. Fohl was replaced in 1923 by longtime Browns INF Jimmy Austin. Shocker won 20 games in 1923 and it may have been more. But the veteran pitcher took a stand against the club rule prohibiting wives from accompanying the team on road trips. Shocker refused to join the Browns on a trip to Philadelphia without his wife, Irene. When Shocker was threatened with fines and suspension, he held his ground. He was suspended for the remainder of the 1923 season, pitching his last game on September, 7th at Chicago. Shocker brought his case to Commissioner Landis, making a plea that he be declared a “free agent”. However, a settlement was finally reached between Shocker and the Browns.
Sisler assumed command of the team in 1924. But that change made little difference in the club’s fortunes. Shocker again ran afoul of management when he showed up late one day. Sisler fined his ace pitcher, who by some accounts made showing up late a habit. “Shocker is a great pitcher; the greatest in the game when he takes care of himself…However, infractions of the unwritten rules of baseball cannot be overlooked. A man must keep in shape, fit to play, and if he doesn’t, something must be done,” said Sisler.
“He had control. He had the best control of that spitball of anybody I ever saw. He was a little wild, not with his pitching, but a little wild in his living,” said Ellerbe. “When he wasn’t pitching someday maybe he might not show up, supposed to get 4-day’s rest. But he’d come back in the club house and say ‘Give me 1 today boys, 1 run today and I’ll beat ‘em.’ Sometimes he’d come in and say, ‘Well I might need 2, give me 2 runs and I’ll beat ‘em’. And he came dang near doing it too.”
Shocker was not one to follow the crowd. He did his own thing and was considered somewhat of a loner. While his teammates might gather for breakfast or a night on the town, Shocker chose to either go off by himself, or more likely stay in his room when the team was on the road. He loved newspapers, a voracious reader who subscribed to out-of-town papers as well. “I used the time reading the papers from the next city on our schedule,” Shocker explained, “and that way I could keep book on the streaky hitters. Gave me a little edge.”
There was one day in particular that Shocker demonstrated his value, and more. In the 1st game of a doubleheader at Comiskey Park on September 6th, Urban went the distance in a 6-2 win over the White Sox. Shocker started the nightcap as well, winning again by an identical score of 6-2. Again, he went the full 9 innings, walking 4 batters and striking out none. Shocker’s record slipped to 16-13 in 1924 and his ERA ballooned to 4.20. His age (34) and his recent disagreements with management made him expendable. The Browns found a willing trade partner in the Yankees. Huggins coveted Shocker and jumped at the chance to snatch him up. On December 17,1924, Shocker was sent to New York. St. Louis would received 3 pitchers: “Bullet Joe” Bush, Milt Gaston and Joe Giard. “He’ll just about make our pitching staff,” said Huggins. “All I want is another left-hander besides Pennock. Shocker will win at least 20 games, and I expect him to work hard and pitch winning ball with a change of atmosphere.” Huggins was slightly off in his appraisal. The pitching staff was not as strong as believed, as Pennock, Waite Hoyt and Sad Sam Jones all finished with losing records. Shocker was an even 12-12, a subpar season for him. Babe Ruth was hospitalized in spring training and did not break into the lineup until June 1st. His 25 HRs and 67 RBIs were career lows, at least in the time he wore the Yankee pinstripes. Furthermore, Ruth was suspended and fined $5,000 for “insubordination” after showing up tardy for a game in St. Louis on August 29th. The suspension was intended to last the remainder of the year, but Ruth was back on the field in early September. Lou Gehrig was in his 1st full season, and except for Bob Meusel, who led the league in HRs and RBIs, the team was barely treading water. They would sink to 7th place. Then the Yankees got younger with a new keystone combo, as Tony Lazzeri and Mark Koenig took over at 2nd base and shortstop, respectively. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the Babe rebounded to have one of the finest seasons in his career. He led the league in runs (139), HRs (47), RBIs (153), walks (144), OBP (.516) and SLG (.737). Herb Pennock led the staff with a 23-11 record, while Shocker was right behind him at 19-11.
The Yankees held off Cleveland to win the American League pennant by 3 games. Their opposition in the World Series was the St. Louis Cardinals. Shocker got the starting assignment in Game 2, with the Yankees leading the series 1-0. The game was tied at 2, when Shocker surrendered a 3-run HR to Cardinal right fielder Billy Southworth. The Cards went on to win the game, 6-2. Shocker’s only other appearance was in Game 6, as he pitched 2/3 of relief as St. Louis battered New York, 10-2. The Cardinals eventually won the series in 7 games.
By 1927 Shocker was pitching with a lot of courage. He was fighting heart disease, although few people knew it. He told writer Bill Corum; “I’ve had a bum heart for some time. You’ve seen me sitting up late at night in my Pullman berth. I couldn’t lie down. Choked when I did.” There was no drama in the 1927 American League race. New York trampled the opposition, besting 2nd place Philadelphia by 19 games. Still, on a team that was loaded with pitching, including Waite Hoyt, Wilcy Moore, Dutch Ruether and Pennock, Shocker posted a record of 18-6 with a 2.84 ERA. After a victory over his old mates from St. Louis, James M. Kahn of the New York Graphic wrote, “Professor Urban Shocker enjoyed his best game of the season yesterday, allowing only 4 hits, all singles. How the professor continues to do it is a mystery. After 13 years in the big leagues, Shocker hasn’t the varied assortment of deliveries that he once had, but it has leaked out that he has passed by a studious and diligent process into his head. Professor Shocker is nobody’s straight man, though he makes the batters look like a very droll lot of comedians.” In the World Series, they swept Pittsburgh in 4 straight. Shocker did not appear in the World Series, as George Pipgras started in his place.
Ruth, Combs, Meusel, Pennock, and Shocker were all holdouts when the 1928 season rolled around. Ruth received a 2-year $70,000 deal, which opened the floodgates for negotiating with the others. But Shocker announced in February that he was retiring. He had an interest in the radio business and aviation and planned to pursue a career in those fields. Although Huggins tried to get Shocker back in the Yankee fold, he was resigned to go onward. “I am not going to waste any more time or telegraph tolls on Shocker,” said Huggins. “He says he has quit, so I will take him at his word. In cases like this we put him on our voluntarily retired list. Naturally I could have used a pitcher like Shocker this year. What’s the sense of denying that obvious fact? But he is not indispensable and his place on the roster will be taken by one of my young pitchers who otherwise would have been farmed out.”
Huggins felt that Shocker was bluffing all along, and it turns out that Urban did change his mind and came to terms with the Yankees on a $15,000 deal just before the start of the regular season. “Just as soon as he shows me that he is fit and ready to take his turn, he will get a contract. But not before that. It wouldn’t be fair to the other players who went to training camp and worked hard were I to greet Shocker as the return prodigal and put him right on the payroll. He should have had his training when the training season was on.” Shocker was battling a wrist injury, not to mention a dramatic loss of weight. When he was healthy, he weighed 190, but it dropped significantly to 115. He was also waiting to be reinstated by the Commissioner’s office as he was still on the voluntarily retirement list until he got into shape. Shocker made his only appearance of the year in a Memorial Day matchup with the Senators. He would pitch 2 innings of scoreless relief. Not long after, Shocker was pitching batting practice at Comiskey Park, when he collapsed. He was given his release on July 6,1928, citing poor health as the reason. “Shocker has gone because he could not get into shape to pitch. He ignored his big chance while we were down in Florida,” said Huggins. ”He is essentially a spring pitcher and once behind in his work, he could not catch up. I wish him lots of luck.” His career record in the MLB was 187-117 with a 3.17 ERA. He had registered 983 strikeouts and 657 walks.
Shocker headed to Denver in an attempt to revive his career, and to seek medical attention for his heart. He pitched briefly for a semipro team in Denver, then was admitted to St. Luke’s Hospital in mid-August of 1928. Urban Shocker had passed away from a combination of pneumonia and heart disease on September 9,1928. He was survived by his wife, Irene. As it happened, the Yankees were starting a series in St. Louis at the time of Shocker’s funeral at All Saints Church. Over 1,000 mourners would attend the service.His Yankee teammates Hoyt, Gehrig, Combs, Mike Gazella, Gene Robertson and Myles Thomas served as pallbearers. He is interred at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.
When the Yankees had reacquired Shocker, it was to the delight of Babe Ruth. “Shocker is a mighty smart hombre out there on the mound, believe me,” said Ruth. “Time was when he used to have a good assortment of stuff, too- but now, as he gets older, he’s losing a lot of the swift. And his hook doesn’t break any more, it just bends a little. But Shocker has 2 things that most pitchers lack. He has control-and he has a lot of knowledge up there under that old baseball cap of his. And the 2 get him over many a tough, tough spot, believe me.”
What was the secret to Urban Shocker’s success? It would seem pinpoint control, studying box scores, and a crooked middle finger was the recipe. Who knew?
|
|
|
|
Post by fwclipper51 on Jan 13, 2024 16:08:52 GMT -5
Yankees Pitcher Russ Ford (1910-1913)
This article was written by T. Kent Morgan - David Jones
Edited by Clipper
The 1st player born in the western Canadian province of Manitoba to reach the major leagues, Russ Ford burst into the spotlight in 1910, winning 26 games for the New York Highlanders with a baffling new pitch never before seen in professional baseball. Using a piece of emery board hidden in his glove, Ford roughed up one side of the ball, causing it to break at odd angles depending on how he threw it. For 2 seasons, Ford used the emery ball to dominate the American League, all the while hiding the origin of his new discovery. “He kept his secret a long time by pretending he was pitching a spitter,” Ty Cobb later recalled. “He would deliberately show his finger to the batter and then wet it with saliva.” Though Ford’s signature pitch was banned by 1915, his invention set the precedent for a long line of scuff ball artists, including contemporaries Cy Falkenberg and Eddie Cicotte and Hall of Famers Whitey Ford and Don Sutton.
Russell William Ford was born in Brandon, Manitoba on April 25,1883, the 3rd of 5 children of Walter and Ida Ford, a 2nd cousin of future U.S. President Grover Cleveland. When Russell was 3 years old, his family would immigrate to the United States, eventually settling in Minneapolis, where Walter worked as a clerk. Following high school, Russ would spend several years pitching in the minor leagues. In 1905, the 5’11”, 175-pound right-hander would debuted with the Cedar Rapids Rabbits of the Three-I League. That same year, Ford’s older brother Gene, who had been born in Nova Scotia, briefly appeared in the major leagues as a pitcher for the Detroit Tigers. After winning 22 games for Cedar Rapids in 1906, Russ would moved up the professional ladder to the Atlanta Crackers of the Class A Southern Association, where he won a total of 31 games in 1907 and 1908. His success in Atlanta led the New York Highlanders to draft him prior to the 1909 season. Primarily a spitball pitcher, Ford made his MLB pitching debut against the Boston Red Sox on April 28,1909, pitching 3 innings in relief, surrendering 4 runs, 3 of them earned, on 4 hits, 4 walks and 3 hit batsmen. The New York Times noted that “the cold weather seemed to affect” Ford, but the Highlanders, unimpressed, farmed the 26-year-old out to the Jersey City Skeeters of the Eastern League.
In a 1935 interview with The Sporting News, Ford explained that he first discovered the secret behind the emery pitch in 1908, when he was still with Atlanta. On a rainy spring morning, Ford was warming up under the stands with catcher Ed Sweeney when he became wild. One pitch struck a wooden upright; another sailed sideways about 5 feet. When Sweeney returned the ball, Ford examined it and saw that it was rough where it had hit the upright. He wondered if the roughened surface was responsible for the ball’s odd movement, so he gripped the sphere on the side opposite its roughened surface and when he pitched it, the ball shot through the air with a sailing dip. “It never occurred to me that I had uncovered what was to become one of the most baffling pitches that a Cobb, Lajoie, Speaker or Delahanty [sic] would be called upon to bat against in the big leagues,” Ford told The Sporting News.
After being demoted to Jersey City in 1909, Ford returned to his discovery and conducted additional experiments during batting practice. At 1st, he used a broken pop bottle to scuff the ball deliberately. After his teammates missed hitting the ball by as much as 12 to 18 inches in practice, Ford began employing the scuff ball during games, using a small piece of emery he carried in his glove. Throughout the season, Ford worked on various ways of concealing the pitch, which helped him strike out 189 Eastern League batters.
Ford’s solid performance in Jersey City earned him another shot with the Highlanders at the start of the 1910 season. Now armed with the emery pitch–which he continued to disguise as a special kind of spitball called the “slide ball”–Ford authored one of the finest rookie pitching seasons in baseball history. In his 1st MLB start, Ford had struck out 9 batters, walked none and shut out the Philadelphia Athletics, 1-0. By the end of the season, Ford ranked 2nd in the league in wins (26) and tied for 2nd in shutouts (8), while posting a brilliant 1.65 ERA, 7th best in the league. With 209 strikeouts and 70 walks, he also boasted the 4th best strikeout-to-walk ratio in the league. Ford’s 26 victories also established the American League rookie record, which still stands. Thanks in large part to Ford’s dominating performance, the Highlanders would finished in 2nd place with an 88-63 record, their best showing in 4 years.
Ford continued to guard the secret of his new pitch, boasting to the press that he had 14 different versions of his “spitball.” “Ford worked cleverly,” Umpire Billy Evans recalled. “He had the emery paper attached to a piece of string, which was fastened to the inside of his undershirt. He had a hole in the center of his glove. At the end of each inning, he would slip the emery paper under the tight-fitting undershirt, while at the start of each inning he would allow it to drop into the palm of his glove.”
In 1911, the Highlanders would slumped to 6th place, but Ford continued to rank among the best pitchers in the league, posting a 22-11 mark with a 2.27 ERA. On July 24th, Ford also pitched for the all-star team that played a benefit game against the Cleveland Naps in the wake of pitcher Addie Joss‘s death, hurling 4 innings in relief of Joe Wood and Walter Johnson. Another measure of respect came the following spring, when Ty Cobb spoke to a Baseball Magazine reporter about his participation in a vaudeville tour through the South. A month of 1-night stands was worse than facing Walter Johnson or Russ Ford 154 games in the season, Cobb said.
But opposing batters had a much easier time handling Ford’s deliveries in 1912, as the pitcher lost a league-high 21 games, though his 3.55 ERA was still slightly better than the league average. By the following year, the secret behind the emery pitch had also made its way around the league, and the delivery was picked up by Cleveland right-hander Cy Falkenberg, who used it to win 23 games in 1913. That year, Ford battled through a fatigued right arm to post a 12-18 record with a solid but unspectacular 2.66 ERA. In a sign of his reduced strength, Ford struck out just 72 batters in 237 innings, a distant cry from the dominance he displayed as a rookie 3 years earlier.
When New York offered him a cut in pay in 1914, Ford would move to the new Federal League, where he went 21-6 and posted a 1.82 ERA (2nd best in the league) with Buffalo. Ford’s .778 winning percentage led the league, as did his 3:1 strikeout to walk ratio and his 6 saves. It proved to be the last great season of his career, however, as the emery ball, already illegal in the American League, was banned by Federal League President James Gilmore in 1915. Deprived of his signature pitch and again nursing a sore arm, Ford would struggled to a 5-9 record for Buffalo before the club released him on August 28th, ending his major league pitching career.
Following his release from the Federal League, Ford would pitch 2 more seasons in the minors with Denver of the Western League and Toledo of the American Association. After his baseball career had ended, Ford lived with his wife, Mary Hunter Bethell, whom he had married in 1912. The couple had 2 daughters, Mary and Jean. Ford worked in Newark, New York City and in Rockingham, North Carolina, near his wife’s hometown. He died of a heart attack in Rockingham on January 24,1960, at age 76. His cremated remains were buried in Rockingham’s Leak Cemetery. In 1989, Ford was inducted into the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame; his 2.59 career ERA remains the best of any Canadian-born pitcher.
|
|
|
|
Post by fwclipper51 on Jan 13, 2024 17:10:38 GMT -5
1947 New York Yankees: The 19-game winning streak
This article was written by Brendan Bingham
This article was published in 1947 New York Yankees Essays
Edited by Clipper
On June 29,1947, the New York Yankees would begin a 19-game winning streak to set a franchise record and tied a 41-year-old American League mark for consecutive wins. Fans of the New York Yankees awoke on June 29,1947, with their team in 1st place in the American League with a 39-25 record. Striving to return to the World Series for the 1st time in 4 seasons, the team, under the direction of Manager Bucky Harris, held a 3 1/2-game lead over the Boston Red Sox. The 3rd-place Cleveland Indians were 6 1/2 back; the Philadelphia Athletics and Detroit Tigers were each 7 games off the pace.
On the Yankees’ schedule that Sunday afternoon was a doubleheader in Griffith Stadium against the Washington Senators. The Yankees sent rookie Karl Drews to the mound against the Senators’ ace Early Wynn in the 1st game, and experience held to form. Wynn pitched like the 300-game winner he would become, allowing just 1 run on 5 hits. Drews pitched well in pursuit of what would have been just his 3rd career victory, allowing 1 earned run in 7 innings, but he could not overcome 2 unearned runs that resulted from a Snuffy Stirnweiss error. Washington won the game 5-1.
At the time the loss seemed unremarkable. It appeared to be just another step in the 154-game journey from spring to fall, unremarkable except that it would be the team’s last loss for nearly 3 weeks. The 2nd game of the doubleheader began a streak that would not be snapped until the Yankees had set a team record and tied the 41-year-old American League mark for consecutive wins. Game Two was a 3-1 win for the Yankees. Another rookie, Don Johnson had started for New York, but when he faltered in the 6th inning, Allie Reynolds, who had started in Philadelphia only 3 days earlier, came out of the bullpen to throw 3 2/3 scoreless innings. From Washington the Yankees traveled to Boston for a single game, a 3-1 win that came on the strength of a 1st-inning 2-run triple by Joe DiMaggio. Spec Shea tossed a complete-game, 4-hitter, earning the rookie pitcher his 10th victory against only 2 defeats.
A 6-game home-stand followed in which the Yankees hosted the Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics. The New Yorkers would swept Washington by scores of 8-1, 7-3 and 4-2. The last of those games was a tight one. New York trailed in the bottom of the 7th, but pinch-hitter Bobby Brown delivered a 2-run, game-tying single, and an inning later the Yankees earned the win by scoring 2 runs on hits by DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto. Completing the home-stand, the Yankees would swept the Athletics by scores of 5-1, 8-2, and 9-2, which brought New York to the All-Star break with a record of 47 wins and 26 losses and a lead of 8 games over Detroit and Boston. It was at this point that the streak became newsworthy. With 8 straight wins, the Yankees had tied Boston for the longest winning streak of the season.
Reynolds, Shea and Spud Chandler were a strong threesome of starting pitchers for the Yankees during the 1st half of the 1947 season. Johnson and Bill Bevens rounded out the rotation, with others on the staff occasionally contributing starts. Shea, Chandler and Reliever Joe Page were among the Yankees honored with selection to the All-Star team, with Shea earning the victory over the National Leaguers and Page collecting the retroactive save.
After the 1947 All-Star break, the New Yorkers embarked on an extended road trip. In the days before any city west of St. Louis had secured a Major League franchise, the so-called Western swing took the Yankees to St. Louis, Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit. The opener in St. Louis was a narrow New York victory. Chandler, who had made a habit of pitching complete games, produced an uncharacteristically weak outing, giving up 10 hits in 6 1/3 innings. With the game tied, 3-3, Page came in and gave a doubly heroic performance. Not only did he complete the game by pitching 2 2/3 scoreless innings, but in the top of the 9th, he blasted a Nelson Potter pitch over the right-center-field fence for the game-winning HR. As it turned out, Chandler was injured. The 11-year veteran would not start another game until September and would not return to the Major Leagues after off-season elbow surgery.
The remaining 3 games in St. Louis were not as close. The Yankees won on a Reynolds 6-hitter, 3-1, then swept a doubleheader by scores of 12-2 and 8-5. The offensive outbreak was well-timed, as the Yankees’ starting pitching struggled in both games of the twin bill. In the opener Shea could manage only 1 inning on the mound before withdrawing with arm stiffness. Butch Wensloff completed the game in relief.
In the nightcap, Bevens “staggered through 4 innings” as sportswriter James Dawson put it, before being lifted for a pinch hitter. Drews and Page pitched well out of the bullpen, earning the win and save, respectively. The performance by Bevens continued a trend that had seen him lose 8 of 9 decisions since May 3rd. The 30-year-old Bevens had been, by contrast, a solid starter for New York the previous 2 seasons. Despite serious concerns about 3 of their starting pitchers, the Yankees ended the day with a winning streak that stood at 12 games and with a 9 1/2-game lead.
A doubleheader in Chicago followed, and the Yankees sought to adjust to their starting pitching woes by sending 2 newly acquired hurlers to the hill. Bobo Newsom pitched the opener only 2 days after having been purchased from the Senators. One month shy of his 40th birthday, the well-traveled veteran came through with a 5-hit, complete game in the Yankees’ 10-3 win. Vic Raschi, also with the team only 2 days since being recalled from Portland of the Pacific Coast League, started the nightcap. Raschi pitched 6 strong innings before fading in the 7th; Page and Reynolds finished the Yankees’ 6-4 win. Raschi’s solid starting effort foreshadowed the role he would play for the team for some years to come. The 28-year-old had very little Major League experience to that point, but he would continue as a high-performing starter for the balance of the season and remain an anchor of the New York rotation through the 1953 season.
New York’s hitting stars that Sunday in Chicago were Billy Johnson (5 hits in the 1st game), Tommy Henrich (3 hits in each game) and Rizzuto (4 hits for the day, including a Grand Slam HR in the opener). The Yankees pitching staff got a welcome rest the next day when their contest in Chicago was rained out.
While the Yankees’ starting rotation was in a state of uncertainty, the position players Harris used were practically invariant. The infield starters for every game of the streak, and most games of the season, were George McQuinn at 1st base, Stirnweiss at 2nd, Billy Johnson at 3rd and Rizzuto at shortstop. Similarly, Johnny Lindell, DiMaggio and Henrich were steady starters in the outfield, although Lindell’s opportunity came as a result of a back injury suffered by Charlie Keller earlier in the season. Only the catcher’s position changed regularly, as Yogi Berra and Aaron Robinson mostly shared the role, with an occasional start going to Ralph Houk.
With the Yankees having won 14 in a row, the team record 16-game winning streak was in sight, as was the league record of 19. The opportunity to break one and equal the other came in a 3-day, 5-game series in Cleveland.
Reynolds pitched the opener of the Tuesday twin bill, and was not at his best. He had allowed 4 runs on 10 hits, but he went the distance for the 4th time during the streak. The outcome of the game was in little doubt, as the Yankees put up 9 runs, including solo HRs by McQuinn and DiMaggio.
The 2nd game was a low-scoring affair that the Yankees won late. Bevens returned to winning form by outdueling future Hall-of-Famer Bob Feller. The decisive run in the Yankees’ 2–1 win came in the top of the 9th when Billy Johnson’s 2-out triple scored DiMaggio. The team record of 16 straight wins had been matched, a noteworthy accomplishment given the long shadow cast by the Yankees’ greats of the 1920s, who had forged that record.
Louis Effrat put the feat in perspective:
Maybe the Yankees of 1947 are not quite as great as the Yankees of 1926. Maybe the current edition does not quite measure up to the Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig and Pennock and Shawkey. This is hardly the time to weigh their respective merits. Suffice to report that the New Yorkers tonight matched that 1926 aggregation’s 16-game winning streak by defeating the Indians, 9-4 and 2-1 in a twilight-night double-header. Nor can the men under Bucky Harris’ command be accused of picking a soft one for their 16th straight victim. Rather, it was against one of the all-time greats, Bob Feller, that the New Yorkers, in a dramatic finish, achieved their latest success.
The middle game of the Cleveland series was an 8-2 New York win. The team’s 1st 4 batters produced hits, including a HR by Henrich, giving the Yankees a 3-run lead before Cleveland could record an out. Wensloff pitched ably for 5 innings before Relievers Drews and Page finished the game. With the win, Harris’s Yankees had set the team record for consecutive wins. Again, recognition in the press came with a mix of celebration of the current accomplishment and deference to the team’s history.
John Drebinger wrote: The Yankees of 1947 have just bettered the consecutive string of victories which those other Yanks of incredible deeds set a score of years ago. However, when the Yanks of ’47 surpassed the mark of their illustrious predecessors, it at least proved that what has been done once can be improved upon regardless of the fact that the 1st breathless record was written by such immortals as Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Bob Meusel and Tony Lazzeri.
The American League record winning streak was held by the “Hitless Wonders,” the 1906 Chicago White Sox, who won the pennant and the World Series despite their .230 team batting average. A Yankees sweep of the July 17th doubleheader in Cleveland would equal the record. McQuinn was the hitting star in the opener with a HR in the 4th inning providing 2 runs toward the Yankees’ 3-1 victory. Newsom pitched the complete game, further proving his worth as a midseason acquisition. The victory was his 2nd as a Yankee and the 200th of his career. In the 2nd game of the day, a barrage of singles in the early innings brought the Yankees a 5-0 lead. They cruised to the 7-2 victory behind Raschi’s 6-hit pitching. The streak that began in Washington in late June had grown to equal the 1906 White Sox’ mark.
The Yankees’ lead in the pennant race had widened to 11-1/2 games. The 2nd-place Tigers had played well since late June, and Detroit would be the setting for the New Yorkers’ chance to break the league-record winning streak. However, a winning streak could not have met a more decisive end than the one that befell the Yankees’ 19th-game streak in the Motor City. Detroit starter Fred Hutchinson pitched one of the best games of his career, a 2-hit, no walk, complete-game shutout. Meanwhile the bats of George Kell, Vic Wertz, Eddie Mayo and company pounded Randy Gumpert and Karl Drews for 8 runs on 18 hits. The streak was over, but New York’s 19th straight wins had all but ended the 1947 American League pennant race. The Yankees had stretched their slender late-June lead to an almost insurmountable mid-July margin. New York would not only remain in 1st place for the remainder of the season, but its lead would only briefly drop below 10 games.
Team accomplishments emerge from individual contributions. The Yankees batted .292 as a team during the streak. Not surprisingly, Joe DiMaggio led the attack, but he was not alone in providing offensive firepower. None of New York’s starters was slumping during the streak; only Lindell posted a batting average during the 19 games that was substantially below his season and career marks.
The team ERA was a superb 2.00 for the streak, and no fewer than 11 pitchers earned victories, led by Reynolds with 4 complete-game wins and 2 critical relief outings. All Yankees pitchers outperformed their season and career ERA marks, except Chandler, who at 2.94 was only slightly above.
Viewed from the distance of more than 6 decades, the 1947 Yankees’ winning streak remains a monumental accomplishment. Of note, the streak was achieved mostly on the road and included 6 sweeps of doubleheaders. The American League record for consecutive wins would not fall until the Oakland Athletics won 20 straight in 2002 and meanwhile no team has approached the Major League mark of 26 straight set by the New York Giants in 1916. Nonetheless, any baseball team in any era would be thrilled to put together the kind of run that the Yankees did in June and July of 1947, when they combined consistent hitting, superb pitching, and timely roster moves to amass 19 consecutive victories.
|
|
|
|
Post by fwclipper51 on Jan 14, 2024 22:38:03 GMT -5
Stefan Wever Story
 A dream unfulfilled
09/12/2005 10:00 AM ET
Written By Doug Miller/MLB.com Edited by ClipperSAN FRANCISCO -- Stefan Wever has always been a dreamer, and he doesn't apologize for his latest recurring reverie.
"It's usually the same dream, and the latest has been pretty vivid," says Wever, whose huge, athletic frame dominates the space behind the bar at the Horseshoe Tavern in San Francisco's Marina district.
"I'm on a field, but it's more like a cow pasture. Don Mattingly's there, Buck Showalter's there, all of my old teammates are there. And I'm there, trying to make it back to the big leagues. But I never quite get on the field."
Wever made it to that field once but didn't stay long.
It was Sept. 17, 1982, and Wever was a 24-year-old New York Yankees callup fresh from Double-A. The top prospect, all 6-foot-8 and 240 pounds of him, started a game against the Milwaukee Brewers, pitched into the 3d inning, tore his rotator cuff and never played in the Majors again.
Twenty-three years later, he's 47 and owns the Horseshoe and another popular San Francisco haunt, the Grant and Green. He has success -- financial freedom and a loving family. Still, one can detect a tinge of sadness in his eyes when he tells the story of his brief baseball career.
"I have no bitterness," Wever says. "I look back on it with mostly happiness. They say things happen for a reason, so I've learned to live with it that way."
What Wever didn't expect to happen was for everything to end so suddenly.
Not wanting to make a commotion, the rookie kept quiet about the injury, which he considered minor. He tried to rehab his shoulder and pitch through it in Spring Training of 1983 while the club used what Wever called a "conservative approach."
Wever didn't find out it was a torn rotator cuff fo 2 years and a year later he was out of the game.
But he made sure he had fun while he was in it.
A day after Wever had locked up the Double-A championship for Nashville to cap off an 18-win season, he was called into the office of skipper Johnny Oates, where his pitching coach, Hoyt Wilhelm, awaited. A call to Triple-A Columbus seemed logical based on his talent.
"He was tall and he threw hard," says Mattingly, Wever's rookie-ball teammate. "He was definitely a hot prospect for us."
Hot enough that the shuttle to Ohio wasn't mentioned in the conversation.
"I was going to go home to San Francisco," Wever says, "but they told me there would be nobody waiting at the airport for me. They said, 'You're going to New York.' "
Wever says he was overjoyed when his taxi pulled up to the House That Ruth Built and stunned when the fans outside the players' entrance shouted his name and spouted off his Nashville numbers.
Then he walked into the clubhouse.
"I figured, I'm some kid from Double-A, so I'd get some locker in the corner with No. 84 or something," he says. "But my locker was in the middle of the room and I had No. 25- Tommy John's old number.
"I looked up and the locker on my right was Dave Winfield. The locker on my left was Goose Gossage. What more can you ask for?"
How about this: After flying 1st class on the team charter to Baltimore, Wever lucked into a suite vacated by veteran catcher Barry Foote, who had left the team for personal reasons.
Wever, who should have been sharing a double, got a pad with a view of the Inner Harbor, a wet bar and a gold-plated telephone by the toilet.
"It was awesome," Wever says. "And word got out, you know, 'Hey, the rook's got the suite.' "
Wever ended up hosting a poker game and the Yankees partied until 6 a.m.
"I was like, 'Wow, I like it up here,' " Wever says. "I know it had nothing to do with me, but it was a great initiation."
The next day, the initiation continued when legend Ron Guidry came up to Wever and said, "Welcome to the New York Yankees." Six-foot-six All-Star outfielder Winfield took Wever aside and filled him in on the "high-end tall men's clothing stores in the big cities."
Big-league life was as good as advertised and Wever hadn't even thrown 1 pitch.
His chance came on his 6th day in the Majors in Milwaukee.
It had rained during the day and Wever stepped onto a muddy mound at old County Stadium, home of world-famous bratwursts and "Harvey's Wallbangers," the Harvey Kuenn managed team of sluggers on its march to the World Series.
"I don't know if anyone making their Major League debut has faced 2 Hall of Famers to start their career, but I did," Wever says, before recanting the blur of baseball that followed.
"What if Pavarotti, on his 1st night as a tenor, ruined his vocal chords? That's how I look at it. It might be egotistical, but that's how I have to look at it. I keep myself going by knowing that I was the best there was and that if I was healthy, I would have had a great career."
- Stefan Wever
"Paul Molitor hit a 5- or 6-hopper through the right side for a single," Wever says. "Robin Yount hit a legit double and Molitor scored.
"The next batter was Cecil Cooper, and I threw him a really good changeup. He took a big swing and our center fielder, Jerry Mumphrey, must have thought the ball was going to the wall. He broke back and the ball bounced in front of him, then past him. That should have been the 1st out."
Ted Simmons followed with a ground ball between shortstop Andre Robertson's legs -- "That should have been the 2nd out" and the Wallbangers were in business.
Gorman Thomas was next, the at-bat that would very quietly change Wever's life. It didn't start quietly, though.
"He hit one a mile," Wever says of the 3-run HR for the Brewers' long-ball leader. At some point in the at-bat, Wever says he felt a "twinge" in his shoulder. He didn't tell anyone.
"There's no way I was coming out of that game," Wever says. "I'm not going to say, 'Hey, take me out of my Major League debut' because I had a little twinge in my arm. I needed to show them that I was tough."
He kept pitching and the Brewers kept hitting.
Look up Wever's statistics and you'll see the ugly numbers. Record: 0-1, 1 game, 2 2/3 innings, 6 hits, 9 runs (8 earned), 3 walks, 2 strikeouts, 1 HR, 3 wild pitches. The Yankees lost, 14-0.
"It just wasn't a good game for us," Wever says. "I had no idea it was my last game."
"He was good. He was the real deal," says Showalter, now the manager of the Texas Rangers, but Wever's Double-A teammate and running mate on the road in the early 1980s.
"He had a hard sinker and slider. He was very personable and everybody liked Stef. He was funny and really fun to be around. Intelligent.
"You wish all the medical help and technology was available then. Back then, a rotator cuff? You're done. He thinks about it. So do I. You never stop thinking about making it to the big leagues."
Wever didn't pitch again in 1982 and felt pain the 1st time he picked up a baseball over the winter. The Yankees told him to take it easy and he did, but when he arrived at Spring Training in 1983, new Yankees Manager Billy Martin pumped him up by saying, "Stef, you're gonna be my No. 5 starter."
"He liked me," Wever says. "He liked big, strong guys with power arms."
Martin didn't know that there was a serious problem, though. Wever's arm didn't have much power anymore. He was struggling to reach 86 or 87 on the radar gun and his trademark diving movement had flattened out. Wever, not knowing any better, persevered.
"I was determined to tough it out and not let this reputation of an injury-plagued guy follow me," he says.
In July 1984, after months of stopping and starting again, Wever became frustrated.
"I said, 'This is ridiculous,' " Wever says. "I used to throw 95, now I throw 85. I'd like to go see an expert."
He saw noted specialist Dr. James Andrews, who took his arm and, "In 2 minutes," figured out what Wever needed to know: His rotator cuff was fully torn, there was torn cartilage and Wever needed surgery immediately.
Wever missed the rest of that season, but rehabbed aggressively on his own all winter, lifting weights 6 hours a day and throwing against a brick wall at a school near his home. It didn't matter. He didn't have it anymore and he knew it.
While attempting a comeback in Triple-A camp the next year, Wever walked up to Foote, who had become the Columbus manager.
"I just said, 'I can't do this anymore,' " Wever says. "It was so tough. I had been so certain that I was a big-league pitcher. I thought in very grandiose terms. I was the best prospect in baseball. I thought I would be a Hall of Famer and a Yankee savior. And then it just ended."
Wever tearfully broke the news to his mother and came home. He wandered around San Francisco for what he calls "aimless months" in search of an identity that for the 1st time in his life didn't include the word "baseball."
"I was drinking a lot and staying out late," Wever says. "I don't regret anything in my baseball career, but I regret the year or 2 years after I got out.
"I was educated. I had an English degree [from Cal-Berkeley]. I should have kept my contacts and gotten into the game-you know, front office, coaching, broadcasting. But I didn't."
Wever got into the bar business and it snowballed into a solid career. Still, there's always that day in Milwaukee to look back on.
"It simmered under the surface for a while, that feeling that you've lost your dream," Wever says. "Baseball was in the marrow of my bones. It's what I was the best at.
"What if Pavarotti, on his 1st night as a tenor, ruined his vocal chords? That's how I look at it. It might be egotistical, but that's how I have to look at it.
"I keep myself going by knowing that I was the best there was and that if I was healthy, I would have had a great career."
Walk into the Horseshoe and odds are you'll see Wever. He's hard to miss. He still has that boys-of-summer grin and he usually holds and twirls a baseball.
"It just feels good," he says.
He says he's never had a "woe is me" sentiment and that in some ways his life might have worked out better the way it happened.
"My thinking is that if I made it, maybe I would have turned into a big jerk and an alcoholic," he says. "Maybe I didn't make it because that's not who I am."
So who is he, really? Is he a man who's managed to move on from his dashed dream?
"I'm not really sure I have yet, to tell you the truth," he says quietly.
"Maybe I'll always be searching for an answer."
|
|
|
|
Post by fwclipper51 on Jan 14, 2024 23:04:55 GMT -5
The Jackson Melian Story
Outfielder Jackson Melián was signed as a international free agent on July 3,1996 at the age of 16 by the New York Yankees. He had received a $1.6 million signing bonus, which was a record at the time for an international free agent. He was named the Yankees #3 prospect by tools-focused Baseball America before he even played a professional baseball game. Jackson was named after Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson as his father Vincent was a longtime Yankee fan. He was compared to Ruben Rivera, then who was considered the top prospect in the Yankee system by Baseball America.
1997-1999: Early years in the Yankees Minor League system
Jackson Melián made his pro baseball debut in 1997 with the Rookie GCL Yankees. In 213 at-bats, he batted .273/~.326/.376 with 3 HRs, and 9 stolen bases in 10 tries. His 110 putouts led GCL outfielders as he showed good range. Baseball America picked him as the #6 prospect in the circuit. Despite a less-than-jaw-dropping season, he was named the Yankees' #2 prospect and baseball's #40 prospect after the season according to Baseball America. He moved up to Single-A with the Greensboro Bats (SAL) in 1998. He batted .255/~.315/.353 with 8 HRs and 120 strike outs. He stole 15 bases, but also got caught 12 times. While Baseball America continued to boast about how he impressed scouts, he didn't make the SAL's top 10 prospect list, which featured 4 other outfielders including Milton Bradley and Vernon Wells. It was a horrible year personally for Melián as his parents died in a car crash after having watched him play a game. Some have argued that this severe loss caused some of his later struggles on the field. Jackson began to mature at the plate in 1999. He began to cut down his strikeouts (to 98) and batted .283/.358/.431 with 6 HRs with Single-A Tampa (FSL). He stole 11 bases in 18 attempts and his 13 triples were tops in the Yankees organization.
2000-2002: Bouncing around AA with the Yankees, Reds, Brewers, Cubs Organization
Still only 20 years old, Melián made his AA player debut in 2000 with the Norwich Navigators (EL). He was selected to play in the 2000 Futures Game, going 0 for 3 as the starting RF for the World team. His power and speed numbers began to improve as he had hit 9 HRs with 17 steals in 18 attempts, but his average and on-base percentage fell to .252 and .299 respectively. He would slugged .400 and fielded just .954 in the outfield. In July, he was traded by the Yankees along with 3B prospect Drew Henson, Pitchers Ed Yarnall and Brian Reith to the Cincinnati Reds for MLB Starter Denny Neagle and Resererve OF Mike Frank. He only played 2 games in the Reds system that season, going 1 for 6 for the AA Chattanooga Lookouts (SL).
In 2001, Jackson would returned to the AA Chattanooga Lookouts (SL). He would hit a career-high 16 HRs, but he batted only .237/.311/.401. He was caught in 7 of 17 steal attempts. Defensively, he tied for the Southern League lead with 15 OF assists but was also 1 shy of error leader Joe Borchard with 11. He played for 2 more Southern League teams in 2002, the Huntsville Stars and West Tenn. Diamond Jaxx, after being picked up on waivers by the Brewers. He was traded to the Cubs for Catcher Robert Machado. He would hit .223/.362/.364 in 56 games for AA Huntsville and .308/.375/.432 for AA West Tenn. His overall line read .270/.369/.402 with 20 steals in 29 tries and 125 strikeouts in 418 AB.
2003 to 2007: Cubs, Yankees, Braves, Tigers Minor League Organizations
In 2003, Jackson had batted .258/.318/.397 in 79 games for the Diamond Jaxx and made his AAA debut, hitting just .178/.226/.279 in 43 contests for the Iowa Cubs (AA). Melián signed by the Yankees as a free agent following the 2003 season. Again he would split playing time between AA, .264/.343/.438 in 41 games for the Trenton Thunder (EL) and hitting .300/.400/.567 in 11 contests for the AAA Columbus Clippers (IL). In June, he was traded to the Atlanta Braves for a player to be named later. Jackson was ineffective with the AA Greenville Braves (SAL) producing at a .193/.271/.335 clip. Jackson would play the 2005 and 2006 seasons in the Detroit Tigers organization. In the 1st year, he only played 7 games for the AA Erie Sea Wolves (EL), batting .261/.280/.348. In 2006, he would bat .269/.323/.478 for AA Erie (EL) with 15 HRs and made brief appearances with the Class A Lakeland Tigers (FSL) and the AAA Toledo Mud Hens (AA).
Through 2006, Jackson Melián has a career line of .254/.329/.394 in 1,000 career minor league games over 10 seasons. He has yet to appear in a MLB game, but will only be 27 years old in 2007. He has resigned with the Tigers organization for 2007. He would play for AA Erie (EL) batting .310 with 14 HRs with 65 RBIs in 88 games.
Footnote to the article: He would continue to play minor league baseball until 2010, never reaching the MLB level. From 2010 to 2016, he would continue to play in the winter leagues.
|
|
|
|
Post by fwclipper51 on Jan 15, 2024 0:42:48 GMT -5
Former Yankees Player and Long Time Minor League Manager Frank Verdi
This article was written by Eric Vickrey, Edited by Clipper
Frank Verdi accumulated 1,832 hits across 18 seasons playing minor-league baseball (1946-1963), but appeared in just 1 MLB contest. He played a single inning at shortstop for the Yankees in 1953 and never got to bat. Verdi is perhaps most remembered for his 24 years of managing in the minor leagues and independent ball, in 12 different cities, over a period spanning 1961 to 1995. His teams included players such as Thurman Munson and Don Mattingly. His minor-league achievements earned him induction into the International League Hall of Fame.
Figuratively speaking, Verdi gave his life to baseball. He almost did literally as well, taking a bullet to the head during a 1959 game in Havana, Cuba.
Frank Michael Verdi was born on June 2, 1926, in Brooklyn, New York. His childhood spanned the years of the Great Depression. He grew up in Bedford-Stuyvesant, at that time a nighborhood composed mostly of Jewish and Italian immigrants and African Americans. His Italian family had 3 generations living in the same brownstone. Frank had one older brother named Joseph. Their father, Michael, was a butcher, and Frank made deliveries for him riding his bicycle. The boys’ mother was Aida (née Spizuoco), known familiarly as “Edy.”
As of the 1940 census, the Verdi family (without the elder generation) was living at 1508 President Street in Crown Heights, a mile or so east of where Ebbets Field then stood. Frank and his friends used to station themselves outside the ballpark to battle for real baseballs that were hit onto the street during batting practice. At least as late as 1953, 1508 President was still listed as Frank’s address in a Brooklyn Eagle article. Verdi had attended Brooklyn Boys High School, where he played basketball, soccer, and baseball. On the basketball court, he finished 3rd in the league in scoring in his senior year. The right-hander played 3rd base, shortstop and center field for the baseball team. He would graduate in 1944 and shortly thereafter enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He played shortstop for the base team and tried his hand at boxing while stationed at Camp Shelton in Virginia. His skills on the diamond may have kept him from being sent overseas to fight in the war.
In 1946, after his military service, Verdi had enrolled at New York University on a basketball scholarship. Years later, a fellow NYU basketball recruit would say that Frank was talented enough to have played professionally. He was also very talented on the baseball diamond, however and was lured away from college when offered a contract with the New York Yankees during his 1st semester. Paul Krichell, the scout who had previously signed Lou Gehrig and Phil Rizzuto, persuaded Verdi to sign a contract for $200 per month. Whether the Dodgers-Yankees rivalry entered Frank’s feelings is not known, but he had realized his dream of becoming a pro ballplayer.
The 5-foot-10, 170-pound infielder spent his 1st 3 seasons bouncing around the lower levels of the minors, at that time Classes B, C, and D. In his 1st year of pro ball, Verdi developed a friendship with a teammate named Edward Ford, who would go on to become better known by his nickname of “Whitey.” A few years later, in Binghamton, New York, Ford introduced Verdi to an “athletic and beautiful” 18-year-old named Pauline Pasquale, when Ford was dating Pauline’s sister. Frank and Pauline were married on February 3, 1951. From 1949 to 1952, Verdi spent most of each season in Binghamton, 1 of the Yankees’ Class A affiliates. In 1950 and 1952, he hit over .300. His hustle, versatility on defense, and ability to pull off the “hidden ball trick” on opponents made him a popular player for Binghamton. The team hosted a “Frank Verdi Night” in 1951 in which he was presented with a “nice hunk of cash from the Sons of Italy and his teammates.”
After spending 1953 spring training with the Yankees, Verdi had a status of “pending future assignment.” At that time, teams could carry extra players until having to trim the roster to 25 on May 15th. Verdi remained with the Yankees for home games, but did not travel on road trips in April, and it was not clear to reporters, if he was even on the MLB roster. On Sunday, May 10,1953, the Yankees were playing the Red Sox at Fenway Park. In the 6th inning, Joe Collins pinch hit for Rizzuto, the Yankee shortstop and leadoff man. Manager Casey Stengel called Verdi’s name, and the rookie entered the game at shortstop in the bottom of the 6th. The Red Sox were retired in order without a ball hit Verdi’s way. In the 7th inning, with 2 outs, 6 straight Yankees reached base and 3 runs were in with the Bronx Bombers taking a 5-3 lead. With the bases loaded, Verdi was due up. As he stepped into the batter’s box, the Red Sox made a pitching change, replacing Ellis Kinder with Ken Holcombe. Stengel countered the move by replacing Verdi with another rookie, Bill Renna, who had knocked 28 HRs in the minor leagues the year before. Just like that, Verdi’s major league career was over. He was assigned to Triple-A Syracuse 2 days later, when MLB rosters had to be trimmed.
Verdi would spent the rest of the 1953 season in Syracuse, hitting .270 with an OPS of .689. His fiery nature on the field was evident on multiple occasions, including a couple of incidents that made the newspapers. He received a $25 fine and 3-game suspension for throwing a ball at and bumping an umpire. He was also involved in a home plate collision that left the opposing catcher with “a fractured cheekbone and loss of teeth.” His season ultimately ended in late August, after he was involved in another collision at the plate and injured his ankle. The Yankees went on to win the World Series in 1953. For his inning of play, Verdi would receive a partial World Series share of $500, a hundred dollars more than the batboys. For the next 3 years, Verdi would play for Kansas City, Columbus, and Tulsa, mostly at 2nd and 3rd base. In 1955, while with Columbus (a Kansas City A’s affiliate), he was named player of the month for June, receiving a $100 wristwatch for the honor. He played hard and was not afraid of confrontation. On July 8th of that season, he was involved in a wild game versus Toronto in which there were multiple brawls involving Toronto 1st baseman Lou Limmer. The incidents culminated in a donnybrook in which Verdi “leaped on Limmer’s back and then connected with a right to the jaw.” It took “11 sheriff’s deputies, 7 local policemen, and umpires” to break up the melee. During a playoff game between Tulsa and Houston in 1956, a brawl broke out between the 2 teams, and an AP photo shows Verdi in the middle of the fracas.
In the spring of 1957, Verdi’s contract was purchased by the Rochester Red Wings, then the Triple-A affiliate of the St. Louis Cardinals. Verdi would spend 3 seasons manning 3rd base for Rochester. He made the International League All-Star team in 1957, a season in which he hit .284 with a .359 OBP. It was during his tenure with Rochester that Verdi was involved one of the wildest events ever to take place on a professional baseball field. In late July 1959, the Red Wings were in Havana, Cuba, to play the Sugar Kings, then a member of the International League. The game of Friday, July 24th was preceded by a 2-inning exhibition in which Fidel Castro’s “Bearded Rebels” played against a team of military police. On July 25th, the Red Wings and Sugar Kings finished a suspended game from earlier in the year, and then the regularly scheduled game went to extra innings. At midnight, with the game tied in the 10th inning, the stadium went dark and a spotlight highlighted the Cuban flag in center field as the national anthem was played to commemorate July 26th, the anniversary of the Cuban revolution. Then approximately 40 to 50 soldiers in the stadium began shooting guns in the air to celebrate the occasion. Verdi recalled the scene in 1999: “Bullets were falling out of the sky everywhere. We didn’t know what the hell was happening.”
Play eventually resumed after things settled down and the gunfire ceased. In the 11th inning, Rochester Manager Cot Deal was ejected for arguing that a Havana player missed 1st base on his way to a double. Deal’s heated argument and ejection fired up the crowd, some of whom resumed firing their guns. Verdi, who was not active on the roster following a beaning a few weeks prior, assumed managing duties and took the field to coach 3rd base as the game went to the top of the 12th. While standing in the coaching box, Verdi took a stray .45 caliber bullet to the head, knocking him to the ground. As luck would have it, he was wearing a plastic insert inside his hat, then an alternative to wearing a batting helmet. Verdi credited this insert with saving his life. “If that bullet had been 2 inches to the left, the boys on the ballclub would have had to chip in $5 apiece for flowers,” said Verdi after the incident.
Another player, Havana shortstop Leo Cardenas, was grazed on the shoulder by a bullet around the same time. At this point, the umpires called the game, and it went in the books as a 4-4 tie. The following season, with political tensions rising, the Sugar Kings were relocated to Jersey City.
After spending the 1960 season with Charleston in the American Association, Verdi was named a Player-Coach for Syracuse in 1961. Syracuse had a dismal record of 22-52 when their manager, Gene Verble, turned in his resignation. Verdi took over as manager, and the team had a record of 34-46 the rest of the way with him at the helm. He remained as Syracuse’s manager in 1962. In May, with his shortstop injured during a six-game losing streak, the 35-year-old skipper came out of retirement and inserted himself in the lineup at shortstop. In his 1st at-bat in almost a year, he tripled. However, Syracuse continued to struggle, and on July 12th, he was replaced as manager by Johnny Vander Meer, a move suggested by Verdi himself. Verdi remained with Syracuse as a coach and then had another short stint as a player after being purchased by the Yankees to fortify their Double-A team in Amarillo, Texas. Verdi’s last handful of games as a player came in the 1963 season while managing the Greensboro Yankees, a Single-A team in the Carolina League. Greensboro won the pennant that year with a record of 85-59. During his minor league career, which spanned 18 seasons, Verdi accumulated 1,832 hits in 6,776 at bats for a batting average of .270. He hit 48 HRs and walked more times than he struck out.
Verdi managed in the Yankees farm system for the next 7 seasons, with stops in Fort Lauderdale, Toledo, Oneonta, and Binghamton before returning to Syracuse midway through the 1968 season. With Binghamton and Syracuse, he had managed Munson, a young 1st-round draft pick. When Verdi’s son, Frank Jr., asked about the catcher with a less-than-impressive physique, the manager said that it was just a matter of time before Munson was playing in Yankee Stadium. His assessment proved accurate. Wherever Verdi managed, the whole family was involved. In Syracuse, Pauline played the organ and their four sons (Michael, Frank Jr., Paul, and Christopher) served as bat boys, scoreboard operators, and members of the grounds crew. Mike went on to manage for several seasons during the 1980s and ’90s in the minors and indie ball. Pauline’s support no doubt played a role in Verdi’s successful career, and her legendary cooking became well known to players, writers, and friends over the years. “What these wives put up with…I take my hat off to them,” said Frank Jr. in a 2020 interview.
Verdi had guided Syracuse to International League pennants in 1969 and 1970. In the latter, Syracuse had defeated Omaha in the Junior World Series and he earned the league’s Manager of the Year award. Sportswriter Dick Young noted in The Sporting News in October 1970 that “if some club in the majors is looking for a man with a Vince Lombardi-style of discipline that players seem to appreciate, Frank Verdi is their man.”
Coming off 2 successful seasons with Syracuse and several in the lower levels of the minors, Verdi felt he deserved a job in the big leagues or at least a raise in pay. After neither came to fruition, he sat out the 1971 season and worked as a steamfitter in New York before being laid off that summer. “I’ve been in this game 27 years and I don’t have 5 cents to show for it. This is why you have to fight for a raise sometimes,” he said. That winter, Verdi managed Ponce in the Puerto Rican Winter League, a position he had also held in previous winters and his team won the Caribbean Series. In 1972, he returned to the managerial seat with Syracuse. “What you do,” he said at the time, “is do your job and pray for a break.” Verdi managed only 1 of the next 4 summers: in 1974, when he piloted the Astros’ Triple-A team in Denver. He spent a couple of years in between working security at Aqueduct and Saratoga racetracks. He also worked on construction of the World Trade Center (as did at least one other former big leaguer, Carl Furillo, whose account was documented in The Boys of Summer).
In 1977, Verdi received an offer to skipper another International League team: the Tidewater Tides, a Mets affiliate. Not a fan of the Mets organization, he was hesitant to take the job but acquiesced at his wife’s urging. With the Tides, he managed several players who would have success in the big leagues, including Mike Scott, Wally Backman, Hubie Brooks, and Mookie Wilson.
By then in his early fifties, Verdi maintained his fiery competitiveness. During a game versus Charleston in 1979 in which he argued with the home plate umpire about the strike zone, he was grazed by a ball he thought was thrown at him by the opposing dugout. “Verdi removed his jacket, cap, and spectacles, and charged Charleston’s bench” before umpires and players from both teams restrained him.
Author J. David Herman described Verdi’s feelings about umpires: “He could respect an ump who reached a certain standard, but very few did in his eyes. Even mentioning the profession could make Verdi cross. To hear him tell, their incompetence threatened his livelihood. He resented them. He had years of practice doing so.” Mike Bruhert, a pitcher on Verdi’s Tidewater teams, recalled that he would turn his hat backwards so he could get as close to the umpire as possible without making contact. Bruhert compared his tirades to those of Earl Weaver.
In 2020, Bruhert recalled a meeting that took place with the Tidewater pitching staff. One relief pitcher wanted to know his role with the team. “I tell you what,” said Verdi, “if you pitch well in the 6th inning, you’re my 7th-inning man, and if you pitch well in the 7th, you’re my 8th-inning man, and if you pitch well in the 8th, you’re my 9th-inning man.”
Verdi was fired by the Mets after the 1980 season in what the Tidewater GM called “an organizational decision.” It was later reported that Mets Farm Director Dick Gernert had campaigned for Verdi’s dismissal. Frank Verdi would return to the Yankees organization in 1981, this time managing their Triple-A team in Columbus, Ohio. The Clippers were coming off back-to-back International League championships. The big-budget Yankees invested heavily in their minor league system, and owner George Steinbrenner expected his affiliates to be successful. Columbus was loaded with up and coming players such as Dave Righetti, Steve Balboni, and Andre Robertson, as well as talented players, such as Marshall Brant, who were blocked on the depth chart by a successful Yankee roster.
Herman chronicled the 1981 Columbus Clippers season in his book Almost Yankees: "The Summer of ’81 and the Greatest Baseball Team You’ve Never Heard Of." Though Verdi still occasionally lost his temper, he had mellowed out some by this point. Herman told the story of Verdi’s reaction when loud music was playing in the clubhouse during an early-season losing streak. Rather than berate the team, he broke out into an awkward dance which loosened up the clubhouse. The team’s fortunes turned around quickly thereafter. Herman also described how Verdi sometimes eased tension in the dugout by “having a few sips of wine or something stronger during games.” There was also the time in 1981 when Verdi got together with old friends Ford, Mickey Mantle, and Yogi Berra, among others. Ford choked on a chili bean and couldn’t breathe. Verdi calmly punched his friend in the chest, dislodging the bean and likely saving Ford’s life.
When Major League Baseball players went on strike for nearly 2 months in the middle of the 1981 season, several of the Clippers’ games were broadcast on national television. The team finished with a record of 88-51 and won a 3rd straight International League championship. Marshall Brant was a player with a lot of experience playing for Verdi, spending 2 years in Tidewater and then 2 more seasons in Columbus under the veteran manager. In 2020, Brant would recalled that his 1st 2 years playing for Verdi were difficult because the manager was “continuously tinkering” with his swing. Brant was purchased by the Yankees in 1980 and assigned to Columbus, where he played under a different manager and had a dedicated hitting coach, Brant had a breakout season and won the International League’s Most Valuable Player Award. When reporters asked him about his turnaround, Brant recalls that “as polite as I could, I threw some jabs at Frank.” When Verdi got the Columbus job in 1981, the 2 were reunited, and Brant’s experience was better the 2nd time around. “I give him credit. He said, ‘Hey Marsh, just do what you feel comfortable with.’ From that point, I grew to like him and felt more relaxed.”
“He always wanted a shot to manage or coach in the big leagues. He was just jinxed for whatever reason. Maybe he rubbed some people the wrong way. He was not always politically correct,” assessed Brant. “Frank was tough but had a big heart. He was one of a kind.” said Bruhert, who also played for Verdi’s Columbus teams, enjoyed many afternoon card games with the skipper, and kept in touch long after his playing career. “If you played hard, you played, and if you didn’t play hard, you didn’t play.” This philosophy did not always align with front office preferences for playing time to be distributed based on draft position or salary rather than effort or merit.
The 1982 Columbus squad featured Mattingly, a 21-year-old 1st baseman. The team finished in 2nd place despite poor pitching and a constant churning of the roster. At the end of the year, Verdi was fired. The Clippers’ General Manager, George Sisler Jr., explained Verdi’s ousting: “From a Columbus standpoint, Frank was great. He did everything we wanted him to. Evidently, New York felt there were other areas of managerial duties that Frank was deficient in. It was reported that Verdi had not filed some game reports on time and didn’t have infield practice the last 2 weeks of the season. However, Verdi himself was not given any reason for his firing. He later learned from Yankee Scout Birdie Tebbetts that Steinbrenner was poised to promote him to a big-league coaching role until Clyde King, who had butted heads with Verdi decades earlier, spoke up and inaccurately criticized some of his managerial decisions. With that input, Steinbrenner would change his mind and would fire Verdi.
After spending the 1983 season managing the San Jose Bees in the Class-A California League, Verdi took the helm as manager of Rochester. The IL team for which he had played in the 1950s had become a Baltimore Orioles affiliate in 1961. In 1984, the Red Wings limped to a 52-88 record, and after the team got off to an 18-40 start in 1985, Verdi was let go. As Greg Boeck pointed out in Rochester’s Democrat and Chronicle, Verdi was a victim of a poor Baltimore farm system. Whitey Ford went to bat for his old friend, urging Steinbrenner to rehire him, and the Yankee owner agreed to bring him back as a scout. Before that, however, there was a brief and odd interlude. Ahead of the 1986 season, San Jose, which featured numerous substance-abuse reclamation projects such as Steve Howe, Mike Norris, and Ken Reitz had named Verdi manager. Even before Opening Day, however, Frank resigned to take the scouting job. He recommended that his son Mike become the club’s skipper and the younger Verdi did get the job later that bizarre season.
Verdi spent 3 seasons as an Assistant Coach at Saint Leo College in Florida in the early 1990s. He would remain out of prof baseball until 1993, when at age 67, he was hired by the Sioux Falls Canaries of the independent Northern League for their inaugural season. “I have spent a lot of time telling people retirement is not all it’s cracked up to be. I’m glad to be back at work,” he said at the time. Mike Verdi was a coach for Sioux City, another Northern League team. “There are not too many men who endure 14-hour bus rides, but he’s a real trooper,” said tTOwner Harry Stavrenos. The Sioux Falls roster included former MLB players Pedro Guerrero and Carl Nichols. When asked about his experience playing for the veteran manager, Nichols recalled in 2020 that Verdi “was very no-nonsense but he was always teaching.”
During the 1994 season, Verdi was hospitalized twice with chest pain. His 2nd visit included a stress test that showed signs of heart disease. He underwent quadruple-bypass heart surgery on July 29th. He wouldannounced he planned to take the remainder of the season off. Stavrenos took over as manager in his absence. Players remarked that Verdi’s leadership would be missed. “He knows how to deal with all the little things that come up, whether it’s something that happens in a game or during the course of a season,” said Mike Burton, the Canaries 1st baseman. After 5 weeks, Verdi’s recovery was going well and he returned to manage the last 3 games of the season. Verdi came back to Sioux Falls in 1995, but he was removed from the manager’s position after just 9 games. He accepted a role as hitting instructor. Stavrenos expressed concerns over his health as the reason for his demotion, though Verdi disagreed. “There’s nothing wrong with my health. But it’s his money, it’s his ballclub.” By the end of the year, Verdi’s tone was more caustic: “If you want to know the truth, [Stavrenos] cut my legs out from under me. Who’s gonna hire a 69-year-old man that people say is sick.” On September 19th, Verdi filed charges against Stavrenos, claiming his demotion was in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission dismissed the charges. This was Verdi’s last job managing in professional sports.
Fifty years had passed between Verdi’s 1st season playing in 1946 to his last days managing in 1995. In addition to his dozen stops managing in the minor leagues, he managed winter league teams in Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and the Dominican Republic. He had won Puerto Rican championships with Ponce in the 1971-1972 season and with Mayagüez in 1983-1984. When no job was available, Verdi spent off-seasons in such odd jobs as bartender, postal worker, and used-car salesman. To show for his years in the game, he received a minor league pension of $142.60 per month (the pension program was not established until he was well into his managing career).Verdi spent his reluctant retirement in New Port Richey, Florida, where he helped coach local high school kids. He returned to the Independent Atlantic League as a pitching coach with Newark Bears in 2002. Newark had advanced to the league championship series when Manager Marv Foley was suspended for his involvement in a brawl. Verdi would manage the team in his place, and the team captured the league title in his last game wearing a uniform. Verdi was inducted into the Syracuse Baseball Wall of Fame in 1999, the Binghamton Baseball Shrine in 2004 and the International League Hall of Fame in 2008.
In his Florida home, Verdi had a display case with numerous mementoes from his years in baseball. He also kept a notebook full of stories he wrote in retirement. Although Verdi had only the briefest of major league careers, according to Frank Jr., his father “considered himself blessed that he could do what he loved. . .He loved the thinking part of the game. He knew the game inside and out. Billy Martin once said that it was a sin that he didn’t get to manage in the big leagues.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind I could’ve managed in the big leagues, no doubt in a lot of people’s minds. But that’s life,” Verdi said in 2004.
Frank Verdi would pass away on July 9, 2010, at the age of 84. He is buried at Grace Memorial Gardens in Hudson, Florida.
|
|
