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mikelink45

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  1. mikelink45
    Today we have turned to the Dominican Republic like we used to look to Cuba. Nelson Cruz, Miguel Sano, Alaberto Mejia, Michael Pineda, Jorge Polanco, Fernando Romero, and Ervin Santana. We also have three from Venezuela. Perhaps the best way to get past the border wall is to hit a ball over it. In the past it was Cuba that was the birthplace of ballplayers.
     
    In the 1930s, Cuba like the rest of the world was trying to fight the depression and Cuban baseball, a main stay of their nation and a feeder system for baseball elsewhere was hurting. President Gerardo was overthrown and the dictator Bautista came in to power. The Cuban League was hurting but this winter league had talent - Cuban native Martín Dihigo and Negro League stars Ray Brown, Ray Dandridge, Josh Gibson and Willie Wells. Then after a 1947 agreement with the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues American clubs sent their top prospects across the Gulf of Mexico for more seasoning in winter ball.
     
    Minnie Miñoso, Camilo Pascual and Zoilo Versailes, Negro League stars like Monte Irvin and Don Newcombe and fresh-faced American prospects Jim Bunning, Tommy Lasorda and Brooks Robinson created one of the most stacked collections of baseball talent anywhere in the world. This was Cuban baseball and to Cuba, it was not the winter league, it was the major league with four teams all playing in the same stadium and competing for the national championship.
     
    But, of course, history and politics intervened, and a different dynamic took place. Our most important Cuban connections were probably in our very first years as a Twins team when Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Zoilo Versalles and Tony Oliva made our Cuban Connection. They were lucky to get out of Cuba before the two countries became such enemies that a player could not sign and leave. Lucky for the Twins or the 1965 World Series would not have happened.
     
    Tony's father was a cigar roller in Cuba who promoted his sons movement to the US to play ball. On his immigration papers he was listed as his 18 year old bother Pedro instead of the 21 year old Tony. He came over and changed his middle name to Pedro. He came to the US during 1961 spring training and had 7 hits in 10 at bats in the final three games of the spring, but the Twins decided their rosters were full and let him go. Luckily he went to Charlotte to train with a friend and the Charlotte GM, Phil Howser, called and convinced the Twins to sign him. He led the league with a 410 average.
     
    Versalles was signed in 1958 – before the Cuban revolution. Camilo Pascual was in US Professional Baseball in 1951 and Ramos by 1955. All of them missed our hatred of Cuba and the communist government.
     
    Cuba has also contributed to the HOF with Cepeda and Perez, but has great stars like Canseco, Pascual, Campenaris, Palmeiro, Luque, Cuellar, Minoso, and Tiant ( a Twin in 1969).
     
    In 2014 a Twins Daily post looked at all the Minnesota Twins Cuban players –
    ”Once upon a time, when I was young, the Twins were a team that had a lot of Cuban players. In 1961, six Cuban natives saw time on the Twins' roster, including All-Star Camilo Pascual and future MVP Zoilo Versalles. In 1962, two more Cubanos played for the Twins, one of them being Twins Hall-of-Famer Tony Oliva. All of these players left Cuba before Cuba was closed off to the US by Castro.
    In recent years, the Twins have had only one Cuban-born player, Livan Hernandez, who lasted less than a year as a member of the Twins' rotation.
    Here is a list of all Cuban-born (169) major league ballplayers:\
    http://www.baseball-...ce.php?loc=Cuba
    Here is my unofficial list of Cuban-born Twins: Julio Becquer, Leo Cardenas, Bert Cueto, Livan Hernandez, Hank Izquierdo, Marty Martinez, Tony Oliva, Camilo Pascual, Pedro Ramos, Jose Valdivielso, Sandy Valdespino, and Zoilo Versalles.
    All of this brings us to the Twins' newest acquisition, Kendrys Morales. He had been in the US long enough that I had forgotten that he was a Cuban defector. He would be the first position player from Cuba to play for the Twins in almost 40 years.” By stringer bell

    The revolution was understandable – Bautista was a terrible man and a terrible dictator and Castro was an unknown. “We heard bombs going off and we knew (Fidel) Castro was in the mountains, and Bautista was there,” said Brooks Robinson, a member of Cienfuegos in the winter of 1957, in an interview with the Hall of Fame, “but we would have a bomb go off in the city and then one went off behind the ballpark one time, so we knew there were some things happening.” https://baseballhall.org/discover/hall-of-famers-played-in-cuban-winter-league
     
    The Hall of Fame website recounts an part of Lasorta’s memoirs – THE ARTFUL DODGER, “When Castro took over the city on the first of January, me, Art Fowler and Bob Allison came out of a New Year's party with our wives, and it was 3:30 in the morning and I look up and three planes were flying overhead,” said Lasorda. “I said ‘Geez who in the world is flying at this time at night?’”
     
    The planes were carrying Batista and his cabinet as they fled the country. Then, Lasorda ended up having his own brush with Castro, when the new leader – a noted baseball aficionado – asked for a meeting with Almendares' star pitcher.
     
    “Howie Haak, the scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates, was with me at the time,” Lasorda recalled in a 2008 interview with Newsday, “So I said, ‘Come on Howie, you come with me.’ When we went into the Havana Hilton into his suite, Howie couldn't believe it. Castro was waiting to talk to me. We talked baseball. And Howie enjoyed that, as I did too. Everybody thought that he was the savior of the country.
     
    “When Castro came in, the people were celebrating because they thought he would be good for the country, and so did I,” Lasorda continued. “I found out I was wrong. I wanted to get out of there, but we continued playing baseball after the strike was over. It was a gorgeous country, until Castro took over.”
     
     
    Yes,, that was our Bob Allison, the muscular and talented outfielder of the Minnesota Twins.
     
    Following the revolution we found out that we could support a terrible dictator – Bautista, but not a communist – Castro, and so we entered a time when good players in Cuba had to turn to shady characters to get out of one country and into another.
     
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_baseball_players_who_defected_from_Cuba - many of them are still active and thankfully may be the last to have to go through this political nightmare.
     
    The Twins have not had as many defectors as other teams, but Livan Hernandez and Kendry Morales both had a brief time with the team.
     
    Now MLB has a new accord with Cuban baseball and hopefully the flow of great players can escape the wall and politics and we can again enjoy the best in the world in our own leagues.
  2. mikelink45
    With our new manager comes a lot of new stories and expectations, but his arrival actually got me thinking about Italian heritage and the game of baseball. Like the earlier essay regarding the American Indian and another essay looking at the black pioneers who crossed that large barrier of prejudice I know that other ethnic groups also had a lot of challenges. To discover more I found a superb book – Beyond Dimaggio by Lawrence Baldassaro to guide my search.
     
    In our age where we see so much racism raising its very ugly head again and so much angst about immigration, it might be hard to remember that these stories are not new and that the Italians were the focus of such issues and sentiments at one time.
     
    From 1881 – 1890 307,000 Italians (approximately) came to America, in the next two decades the numbers went to 625,000 and then 2,136,000. To the many of the already existing Americans they posed a threat that was both economic and moral – threats to their jobs and their families. They had darker skin, were Catholic, spoke a different language and brought their customs and beliefs with them. They were judged guilty of being poor, uneducated, and certainly brought crime with them. The press said they were criminals and radicals and hatred exploded into incidents like New Orleans – 1891- lynching of 11 Italians after they had been acquitted. Is it any secret why Italians lived, worked, and socialized in their own neighborhoods? Or is it any secret why one of the first three Italians to become Professional baseball players would choose to go by the name – Ping Bodie – instead of Francesco Pezzolo?
     
    It took time for the Italian to be established in MLB – the first was – Ed Abbatichhio who played with Honus Wagner, and made it through 9 seasons as an average ball player. The fact that he was first was significant. The fact that Ping Bodie would follow, then Babe Pinelli would complete the triumvirate as the only Italians in MLB until Tony Lazzeri in 1926. Pinelli was essential for taking on one of the biggest generalizations – Italians are hot heads! Actually he was, but he learned to control his emotion and went on to two decades as an umpire after leaving the bat and glove behind.
     
     
    It was Tony Lazzeri who led the way in the 1920’s filling a role that the Yankees were searching for – an Italian who could bring in the fans from the large Italian boroughs. He did that and more as a member of the murderer’s row and eventually was elected a hall of fame 2B. But even his effectiveness in drawing fans did not stop the press from calling him a WOP – in the headlines. He was soon joined by Frank Crosetti – SS, who went on to hold the position until he groomed his replacement – Phil Rizzuto. In fact, he was so good at grooming he became a coach and his last stint was with the Minnesota Twins in 1970 – 71!
     
     
    And all of this without talking about DiMaggio – all three brothers, Lombardi, Berra, Rizzuto, and all the other great Hall of Fame contributors to our favorite game.
     
     
    The first Italian Manager would be Oscar “Spinach” Melillo in a short stint with the Browns, but that would change. Phil Cavarretta in 1951 was the first Italian to manage a full season. The Twins would have Sabath Anthony “Sam” Mele, Billy Martin, Frank Quilici, and Cookie Lavagetto who came with the Senators to the Twin Cities. Now we move into the new age of analytics, player/manager relations, and hopes and I welcome Rocco from our long list of Italian baseball legends.
  3. mikelink45
    I thought I would expand on my comment about the team and the fact that a team that gets along, is filled with nice guys, and causes no issues does not necessarily mean that they are winners.
     
    Does anyone remember the A's when they dominated the game?Rudi, Henderson, Bando, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, Gene Tenace, Bert Campaneris, Blue Moon Odom, Vida Blue, Dick Williams and Charlie Finley?They hated each other and especially their owner.
     
    "The stories have the feel of something ripped off from a Hollywood script.
    All the conflict, humor and triumph of the early 1970’s Oakland A’s did, in fact, hit the big screen Thursday night. The best thing is that all the anecdotes are true.
    The MLB Network held an advance screening of its newest documentary, “The Swingin’ A’s,” which chronicles the roller coaster ride of the 1972-74 A’s, winners of three consecutive World Series.
    The film, which debuts Tuesday at 6 p.m. on the MLB Network, features revealing interviews with lots of key players from that era —Vida Blue, Rollie Fingers, Reggie Jackson, Gene Tenace, Sal Bando, Ray Fosse and Joe Rudi among them. Blue attended the premiere and took part in an audience Q&A hosted by the MLB Network’s Matt Vasgersian (an East Bay native and self-described A’s diehard).
    “The Swingin’ A’s” is not so much a nostalgic recap of those seasons, but an honest and entertaining account of just how dysfunctional the environment was with this bunch, even as the A’s were building one of baseball’s top dynasties.
    A small group of media attended Thursday’s premiere at the New Parkway Theatre in Oakland, but most of the seats in the small venue were filled by fans who cheered often throughout the one-hour documentary.
    Not surprisingly, the film centers around the friction between A’s players and then-team owner Charlie Finley, the eccentric outside-the-box thinker whose penny-pinching ownership style quickly wore thin with players.
    One of the more entertaining moments revolves around Jackson showing up to spring training in 1972 with a beard, a no-no under Finley. The owner offered $300 to any of the other players who grew a mustache, thinking that if facial hair became so commonplace it would persuade Jackson to eventually shave.
    Instead, the idea caught fire throughout the clubhouse, and the heavy facial hair came to symbolize the free-spirit mentality of those A’s teams that ran so counter to other major league clubs. Fingers’ handlebar mustache, of course, became iconic.
    “The only reason I grew this thing was to get $300 out of Charlie,” Fingers shares.
    Also included is the entertaining story of young Stanley Burrell, who became an A’s batboy, eventually was granted a “vice president” title by Finley and acted as the owner’s eyes and ears in the clubhouse. Burrell, as is well-documented, went on to gain world fame as rapper MC Hammer. The Oakland native narrates the documentary.
     
    The A’s fought with each other in the clubhouse, but above all else, they were a tight-knit bunch that formed a united front in opposition to their owner, who didn’t stand for having his authority challenged. But the film also takes care to mention the good that Finley did, such as the time he helped pay for medical expenses for a player’s wife. And, as A’s players acknowledge, Finley deserves credit for putting together this championship roster in the first place."
     
    I know this is Minnesota Nice and we are all supposed to be great buddies, but lots of teams have made their way to a championship without being pen pals.We have had a lot of very close knit losers.
     
    "According to CSN Bay Area’s Joe Stiglich, who also attended the advance screening.
    “‘The Swingin’ A’s’ is not so much a nostalgic recap of those seasons, but an honest and entertaining account of just how dysfunctional the environment was with this bunch, even as the A’s were building one of baseball’s top dynasties,https://www.mlb.com/news/swingin-as-movie-revisits-oakland-dynasty/c-215154198
     
    The conflicts with the Owner lead to a strike - http://research.sabr.org/journals/owner-player-conflict
    Conflicts are something that must be dealt with, but they are also part of team chemistry.A passive loser is not something I want to see.That is one of the big complaints about Mauer - Mr MN Nice - does not stir the pot in any direction.When Torii Hunter clobbered Morneau it was a shock, but was it terrible?
    Don't give me a bunch of guys who can pat each other on the back or the butt, give me players who want to win.
     
    Or try to remember or check out the Bronx Zoo - Yankees under swing first manager Billy Martin and excitable George Steinbrenner. "No secret was made of the hostility between Jackson and Munson. Their teammates took sides in the split. Though they were winning ballgames, there was anything but good cheer in the Yankees locker room. Billy Martin, never one to cater to star players, joined Munson in his animosity towards Reggie. Both the manager and the captain were firm believers in fundamentals and routine. They unfairly viewed Reggie as a slacker who was only interested in padding his personal stats. The rest of the country saw it play out on live TV, when Martin and Jackson had to be restrained from brawling with each other in front of a national audience during a game of the week at Fenway Park. The Red Sox swept that series, and the Yankees seemed to be spiraling out of control." Reggie said Munson was nothing, it was Reggie that was the straw that stirs the drink. And of course there was the Martin and Steinbrenner relationship - Billy was hired and fired 5 times over 13 years. During that period Billy managed the Twins too!
     
    In 2002 San Francisco's two stars, Jeff Kent and Barry Bonds, were known for their behind-the-scenes feud that was tearing the team apart, but they decided to make their relationship public. Kent left for the Houston Astros in the offseason and manager Dusty Baker left for the Cubs.
     
    Darryl Strawberry said beer was the basis of the Mets "alcoholic lifestyle." He added that the team "hauled around more Bud than the Clydesdales." In his autobiography he added, "The beer was just to get the party started and maybe take the edge off the speed and coke."
     
    I do not advocate for creating Chaos like the Red Sox team that got Terry Francona fired after a championship, http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/sc-spt-0910-4corners-20120909-story.html, but I also think that we have to accept some personalities to clash and being a nice team, even a Minnesota Nice team is not necessarily the best. Wouldn't you like to see Mauer show some emotions and get the team stirred up once in a while?
  4. mikelink45
    In the comments there were some discussions that I replied to with the statement that baseball is an individual game played as a team sport. I thought it might be worth exploring.
     
    Start with the Pitcher and Batter. It is true that the catcher is a third wheel in this conversation. While the batter is concentrating and the Pitcher is dealing the other players must wait, watch and react. They are not part of the play until the ball is hit. If it is a homerun, they are no factor, if the result is a walk there is no team involvement, if it is a strikeout, only the catcher participates. This Washington Post story indicates that batters strike out 22.6 percent of the time this year https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2018/05/04/mlb-batters-are-recording-more-strikeouts-than-hits-thats-a-big-problem-thats-unlikely-to-soon-change/?utm_term=.217f7a6331e3 That means that the team gets involved 78% of the time.
     
    In one 2013 study they said that 68% of pitches are hit (I think that has changed a lot) but even is it is true, that means 32% of the time no one has anything to do except for the catcher to toss the ball back to the pitcher. http://www.highheatstats.com/2013/05/fraction-of-balls-put-in-play-is-at-an-all-time-low/
     
    If it is a fly out - one non pitcher is involved, if it is a Home Run we cannot credit team work to those who watch it go over the fence. With increased launch angle and increased use of infield shifts the flyball has been increasing. Typically it is just one outfielder, unless there is a lack of communications.
     
    A ground ball out is high on teamwork - usually two or more players are involved and with runners on base the intensity increases. Ground ball pitchers definitely require a higher teamwork percent. And double and triple plays ratchet up the teamwork.
     
    Fangraphs says that balls hit are on average 21% line drive (one fielder) 44% ground balls, multiple players, 35% Fly balls (one fielder) and 11% infield flies (one player). https://www.fangraphs.com/library/pitching/batted-ball/
     
    If I assume that 22% are strikeouts and 78% are put in play and 44% of them are ground balls (34% of the total) the remainder are individual flyball experiences. My team work formula would put the majority of the plays into 2 player situations (taking strikeouts as a catcher/pitcher combo).
     
    So flip the player to offense. Batting is about as individual as you can get unless the previous player set you up for an intentional walk. Sure we can have those smart at bats that take a lot of pitches and wear down the opposition and bring in the heat throwing relievers, we can have a sacrifice to put the runner in scoring position or a stolen base, but most of the time it is just throw and hit. I give offensive baseball an even lower team work quotient.
     
    This reflects on the overall importance of the manager too. Put the right players in at the right position and quess who will be the most effective batters and relief pitchers and the job is done.
     
    This quote captures some of the essence of the individual experience of the game - Baseball is a team game but, at the same time, it's a very lonely game: unlike in soccer or basketball, where players roam around, in baseball everyone has their little plot of the field to tend. When the action comes to you, the spotlight is on you but no one can help you. Chad Harbach
    Read more at:
     
    The Author of Group Genius - Dr R. Keith Sawyer says - "A baseball team doesn’t look like an improvising group, and frankly, doesn’t look much like a business team either. The reason is that in baseball, each team member’s contributions are relatively independent. As Pete Rose once said, “Baseball is a team game, but nine men who reach their individual goals make a nice team.” It’s rare that more than one player is involved in a play. More than just about any other team sport, the overall performance of the team is additive." https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-r-keith-sawyer/is-baseball-really-a-team_b_50071.html
     
    Peter Gammons in an excellent essay says "Unfortunately, the sad reality is that once a player starts his Minor League career, the game really changes. Minor league rosters change daily, with players being called up, sent down, as well as released. It is highly unlikely to play with a teammate for 3-4 years like in college, which only adds to the lack of the team game.
    "Players become far more interested in their personal performance, than the performance of the team. While it is always more fun when the team wins, winning takes a back door to personal statistics as players are working towards individual promotions and making their way up the Minor League ranks, with the hopes of one day cracking a Major League roster.
    "Front Office and Player Development personnel also take valuing personal performance over team performance in Minor League Baseball. They are far more concerned with the development of a young prospect who could one day make a big impact with the Major League Club, than whether their Single-A or Double-A affiliate is going to compete for the playoffs." http://www.gammonsdaily.com/baseball-is-it-a-team-game/
     
    In 2017 Mookie Betts had the most put outs by a right fielder - 366. For a 162 game season if all games go 9 innings each team records 4374 outs. He recorded .08% of the teams outs. For most of the other 92 he was backing up or watching. And CFs on average handle 15 - 30 more outs per year. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/MLB/2017-fielding-leaders.shtml
     
    A final thought - how many players negotiate on the basis of their teamwork?
  5. mikelink45
    Okay it is mid season and we are getting a reshuffle of prospects and their ratings. Which makes me wonder - what if the ratings include the players already in the major leagues?
     
    For example - if all the starting pitchers were put in one pot and we said who has the most potential for the next five years - I would certainly keep Berrios at number 1, but who is number 2? I take Romero. Then I think I would go back to the minors and then Brusdar Graterol. Is it time for someone on the MLB team? I think I would lean to Gibson and then Gonsalves. That is my top five. Who should you invest in?
     
    For the Bullpen - I am thinking of five years so we have to drop Rodney - I would drop Belisle if it was five days. So who are the top ranked prospects? Hildenberger has solidified his position. Who is next? Give me Tyler Jay, John Curtiss, Nick Anderson, Andrew Vasquez, and Busenitz. The vets are low on the list.
     
    Positions
    C
    Rortvedt
    Garver
    very poor list
     
    1B/DH
    Sano
    Rooker
     
    2B
    Nick Gordon
    Wander Javier
     
    SS
    Royce Lewis
    Jorge Polanco
     
    3B
    Eduardo Escobar
    Travis Blankenship
     
    OF
    Byron Buxton
    Eddie Rosario
    Alex Kiriloff
    Akil Baddoo
    LaMonte Wade
    Jack Cave
     
    List them anyway you want - but by position, this is my Twins of the near future top prospects.
  6. mikelink45
    I am always interested in the back stories – some of which are not typical baseball anecdotes. Each year now we celebrate #42 – in fact most of you reading this have already identified Jackie Robinson from his number and we can look at his Hall of Fame plaque and celebrate his strength of character as well as his baseball prowess. And there is no doubt his ten-year career is Hall Worthy. He averaged 6.1 WAR with a peak of 9.7 despite the hate and abuse he endured daily. His career average was .311 and he had just under 20 stolen bases per year at a time when his baserunning forced a change in the opposing teams fielding and pitching strategies. He had a career OPS+ of 132. Late summer saw pitcher Dan Bankhead join Jackie on the team.
     
    Of course, he was not the first black player in the majors – that would be Moses Fleetwood Walker of the Toledo Blue Stockings, however, because of the racism of the game’s biggest star – Cap Anson – he was forced not to play against the Chicago team and it established a racist code that would not be broken until Robinson over a half century later. Yes, I do resent Anson and I admit that he was not the only racist, but no one else had his leverage or sought to use it like he did.
     
    Mid-season of 1947 the American League brought in it’s first black player – Larry Doby with the Cleveland Indians. He had played for the Newark Eagles in the Negro League and like Jackie, served in the war before breaking in to MLB. In his second season with Cleveland he was joined by the already ancient – Satchell Paige – and they won the world series. He accumulated 49.6 WAR in 12 ½ years with a 286 BA and 135 OPS+. He too is in the Hall of Fame.
     
    Less recognized was Hank Thompson and Willard Brown who played for the St Louis Browns in 1947. Coming in two days apart they were the third and fourth African American players to integrate the game. Thompson was a third baseman with seven seasons in the Negro Leagues and was known for his strong arm. He played nine years of MLB before being sold to the Minneapolis Millers. He achieved 24.8 WAR in 8 ½ years batting 267 with a 116 OPS+. When Brown joined him it was the first game with two African Americans starting for one team. “Home Run” Brown had played in the Negro Leagues for 13 years before coming to MLB and he opened his career with an inside the park home run, but racism drove him from the game and back to the Negro Leagues.
     
    1948 saw the Dodgers add another Hall of Famer – Roy Campanella and Cleveland add Hall of Famer Satchel Paige. Campanella suffered a terrible car accident and paralysis to end his career. The Catcher had 34.1 WAR for 10 years, batted 276, averaged 24 homeruns and had 123 OPS+. How does his stats match up with Mauer before his concussion? Roy had three MVPs.
     
    Entering 1949 only three teams had added black players and only one team – The New York Giants with a very old Monte Irvin would add to the ranks. Irvin had only 7 1/2 years left on his Hall of Fame career, but he made the most of them with 21.3 WAR, 293 BA, and 125 OPS+. The other teams that had black players added to their rosters too. Minnie Minoso joined the Cleveland Indians and should be in the Hall of Fame. He had 50.3 WAR, nine times an all-star, a 298 average and OPS+ of 130. Luke Easter was 33 and played only three full seasons out of six that he appeared in with 9.3 WAR, 274BA and 125 OPS+ . The Dodgers added too – Don Newcombe. Newcombe would go 149 – 90, 3.56 ERA with 38 WAR in 10 years with a two year military service breaking up the consecutive years of playing.
     
    Going in to the 1950’s the braves added Sam Jethroe in centerfield. He would achieve 8.7 WAR in three years and was 33 when he debuted. In 1951 the league had its biggest surge in black players. The Braves added Luis Marquez, the Giants Ray Noble and Artie Wilson, and a guy named Willie Mays! I do not need to give Mays stats to remind you of his status. The White Sox joined the list of teams with two signings in 1951 – Sam Hairston and Bob Boyd, while the Indians continued to add with pitcher Sam Jones (102- 101).
     
    Entering the 1952 season there were 16 teams and only six had African-American players. In 1953 Philadelphia (Now Oakland) A’’s added Bob Trice and the Cubs hit the jackpot with Ernie Banks! This meant half the teams now had crossed the colored barrier.
     
    1954 saw that jump to ¾ when Curt Roberts signed with the Pirates, Tom Alston with the Cardinals, Nino Escalero and Chuck Harmon joined the Reds and Carlos Paula signed with our predecessors – the Senators.
    The Yankees finally moved in 1955 with Elston Howard, a terrific catcher, who might have been a HOF except for having to share a position with Yogi Berra. John Kennedy signed with the Phillies in 1957 leaving just two teams without African American representation.
     
    Detroit with the largest African American population of any city in the US was next to move and signed Ozzie Virgil, Sr in 1958! It took the team 11 years to get the courage or rather to overcome their biases.
     
    And this left Boston. It was 1959 when the last team broke the color barrier and signed Elijah "Pumpsie" Green. Green pinch-ran for Vic Wertz in a 2-1 loss to the Chicago White Sox. Later in 1959 Earl Wilson became the first black pitcher to play for the Boston Red Sox.
     
    According to baseball historians the Red Sox held a try out for Jackie Robinson in 1945 but decided not to sign him. They could have been first but ended up last and certainly lost out on a lot more. Jackie led the Dodgers to six pennants and one World Series victory in his 10 seasons in Brooklyn. We know how long it took the Red Sox to get their series title.
     
    As bad as that miss was, two years later, the Red Sox had a chance to sign Willie Mays, but passed again.
    Pumpsie Green retired in 1963 after five seasons in the big leagues, four in Boston and one as a sub for the New York Mets. He hit .246 added 2.9 War, 721 OPS.
     
    Think of what this initial class meant to baseball – Hall of Famers: Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, Satchel Paige, Roy Campanella, Ernie Banks, Monte Irvin, and Willie Mays. Add to that list Hank Aaron who also debuted in the Negro League before signing with the Braves. Plus all-stars – Elston Howard and Minnie Minoso. Considering the time from Fleetwood Walker to Jackie Robinson it is acceptable to look at the baseball records with some question marks.
  7. mikelink45
    https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-18-036/?loclr=eanotw The library of Congress has given us a historical gift - the scouting reports of Branch Rickey. He was a vital part of baseball history, even beyond signing Jackie Robinson and this is where you can check it out.
     
    Here are some notes from the introduction and entries that struck me:
    Rickey’s 1963 scouting report on Hank Aaron, who broke Babe Ruth’s long-standing home run record of 714 in 1974. Rickey wrote "Surely one of the greatest hitters in baseball today. Can hit late with power, - good wrists. But in spite of his hitting record and admitted power ability, one cannot help think that Aaron is frequently a guess hitter."
    A 1955 scouting report on Roberto Clemente, who amassed 3,000 hits in his Hall of Fame career for the Pittsburgh Pirates
    A report dated March 30-31, 1964, on future National Basketball Association great Dave DeBusschere, where Rickey predicted that DeBusschere “should become a corking good major league pitcher.”
    For Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, Rickey noted on March 14, 1964, “when trying out young players… scouts and coaches would keep in mind Bob Gibson as a model for comparison and rate the prospect’s stuff accordingly.”
    About Richie Allen - “Rollie Hemsley at Indianapolis, Bill Adair at Toronto, Larry Shepard at Columbus, Kerby Farrell at Buffalo and Harry Walker at Atlanta all believe that outfielder Allen is the best major league prospect in the International League. A colored boy, very young, and belongs to Philadelphia. He has extraordinary power to all fields. Arm not great, but adequate. Highly desirable in any deal with Philadelphia. I am sorry not to have been able to see this boy in action, but rating give to the player by baseball men generally put him immediately as a regular in any major league outfield. I would risk a heavy deal to have the Cardinals Get this player.”
    Minnesotan Twins 2B Bernie Allen – “Tall boy from Purdue. Left hand hitter, has power and I believe he can outrun Rollins. I doubt if he is a .300 hitter. Hit .269 in 1962, Not hitting a lick this year…”
    Bob Allison – “A 275 hitter with exceptional power. Looks the part of a great athlete. Right hander all the way. He has everything it takes to be a long time major league regular.”
    Earl Battey – “A big colored catcher. Looks overweight, but has a remarkable action. Quick and has power at the plate, plenty of it. Looks like he likes to play. I can imagine him in a World Series.”
    Minnesota born, Yankee – John Blanchard – “If Blanchard’s habits were good and his team relationship satisfactory, St Louis could use him. I would not take him unless I were permitted to have a conversation with the player with results satisfactory to myself.”
    Harmon Killebrew – “A big right hand hitter with as much distance power as any man in the game. Strikes out a great deal. I would not be interested in obtaining his contract in any kind of possible trade. I don’t want him at the price.”

     
    It will take a lot of time to sort out everything, but this is a very personal glimpse into the game in the early 60's.
  8. mikelink45
    I have read and thoroughly enjoyed Aaron Gleeman’s Minnesota Twins the Big 50 and thoroughly enjoyed the nostalgia and stories. It is an excellent book and I am sure that Aaron dislikes the one big editing error that has the big page for Jim Kaat as Jim Katt. Otherwise Aaron should be very proud of the book and the quality he maintained. There are players for every era and some choices that surprised me, but nothing that I completely disagree with.
     
    I was surprised that it was not 50 players and there were sections on world series games and teams and even our previous two managers – where is Billy Martin? This made me wonder if we did not have 50 worthy players. I tried to think of who I would add.
     
    I am sorry that Lyman Bostock was not there and as an old Twin fan I missed Vic Power. Two seasons for Vic, but gold gloves and 280 average with 26 homeruns. He was colorful, exciting to watch and a player who really connected with the fans and the other one was Mudcat Grant who also had too shore a Twins career but was so much fun to watch and cheer for and his 21 wins made him worthy of our fandom.
     
    However, since we had managers and teams and games in the Gleeman book I thought about who I would have as NUMBER 51 – and Is THE OWNERS. What can I say to summarize the owners of this franchise? Of course, there is the forever echo of fans calling Pohlad cheap, but I think the most egregious of all his actions was during that low point in major league baseball when they were considering contraction and Carl volunteered to let the Twins be eliminated. Willing to accept $250,000,000 Carl was not going to lose money, but he certainly gave up Twin City admiration.
     
    “Well, he was frustrated,” Selig told the Pioneer Press last month during an interview. “The guy tried everything. I know. I was up there. I thought we had a deal two or three times and every time it fell apart, mainly for political reasons.
     
    “Contraction had nothing to do with Minnesota. Baseball was really struggling at the time, losing a fortune as a sport. There were owners who believed that contraction might help. I wasn’t of that particular view, but the owners were searching around,” Selig said.
     
    Then a local judge stepped up – “Hennepin County Judge Harry Seymour Crump became a local folk hero when he issued a temporary restraining order that forced the Twins to honor their lease and play the 2002 season at the Dome.
     
    “The vital public interest, or trust, of the Twins substantially outweighs any private interest,” Crump wrote in his ruling.” (Brian Murphy)
     
    Then there was the original owner – Calvin Griffith. In a well written article Kevin Hennessey wrote, “Calvin reacted to the new baseball economics by futilely trying to resist changes such as salary arbitration, player agents, free agency, and the increasing importance of television revenue, which gave an advantage to teams in larger markets. As time moved on, Griffith was considered a “dinosaur” or a “vestige of yesterday” relative to the new baseball owners of the late 1970s.
     
    Then there was the Waseca Lions Club meeting where Calvin let his tongue run loose and ended up losing Rod Carew - “Griffith interrupted himself, lowered his voice and asked if there were any blacks around. After he looked around the room and assured himself that his audience was white, Griffith resumed his answer.
     
    “I’ll tell you why we came to Minnesota,” he said. “It was when I found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don’t go to ball games, but they’ll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it’ll scare you to death. It’s unbelievable. We came here because you’ve got good, hardworking, white people here.”
     
    Next was the feud between Calvin and his son Clark who refused to serve an apprenticeship in the minors. And in 1983 the team considered moving the franchise to Tampa Bay. http://sabr.org/research/calvin-griffith-ups-and-downs-last-family-owned-baseball-team-0
  9. mikelink45
    Max Kepler, being a German, seemed like quite an exception in baseball history, so I had to do some research. Bleacher Reports was so fascinated by his story that they published http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2568511-max-kepler-the-german-baseball-player-who-spurned-soccer-for-mlb-dreams. The article included this Max Kepler quote – "Soccer is the No. 1 sport in Germany," Kepler said. "Baseball was barely poking its head out the window at the time. Being one of the best [soccer players] in my school, people frowned about it and they were just surprised that I would take baseball which is kind of a long jump."
     
    What I found out follows - https://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/History_of_baseball_in_Germany Baseball Reference says that in a 1796 book by a German, Johann Guts Muths, rules for a game called "English base-ball" appeared and as you might imagine it was a little different than what we play today. Then in 1936 Germany hosted an exhibition of baseball in the Olympics. Baseball was played by American prisoners of war in the notorious Nazi prison camps. http://mopupduty.com/baseball-in-germany-091412/ Following WWII the GIs that were occupying Germany introduced the sport again on their bases.
     
    The military men followed their American examples and set up a league that included - Frankfurter Black Knights, Mannheimer Tornados, Münchner Broncos, and Stuttgarter Hawks. The Tornados – an all-black team was the best and the most popular. These teams had many Negro League and Major League players, but as service representation diminished Germany set up its own league – “In 1951, the first season of Baseball-Bundesliga was played, the first German championship.” Eventually they became part of a European baseball association that helped spread the sport through the Continent.
     
    Now Max Kepler came out of this history, but he was not the first German player in the majors. Baseball Reference has this to say about the history of German’s in the American League and interestingly it is not Max Kepler who is the noted Minnesota Twins German: “The first Major League players from Germany were David Lenz and Marty Swandell who both debuted from May 7, 1872 for Brooklyn Eckfords. Swandell had played for the club since 1863, while Lenz was a 21-year old catcher who played the opening four games of the season with the club before being replaced by William Bestick. Over the next twenty years another eight players played in the majors, but only two played more than forty in their career - the most successful of which was pitcher Charlie Getzein who won 145 games. From 1893 through 1897, there were no Germans in the majors, but then until the American entry into World War I another twelve players played in the majors.
     
    Of course, Germans were part of American history since the beginning so many players in the early years were still recognized by their home country and there have been 41 players who were born in Germany, including Max and Gardy - http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php?loc=Germany Check out the list.
    Only three Germans played in the Majors between the two World Wars, a single player (Heinz Becker) played in the World War II-era, and during the 1950s and 1960s no Germans played in the majors. Thirteen players have debuted from 1972 onward, most of whom were the children of American service members stationed in the country. When Ron Gardenhire became the manager of the Minnesota Twins in 2002, he was the first German skipper since Chris von der Ahe in 1897.”
     
    Germany’s domestic league – the fifteen team Bundesliga – reformed in 1982 and continues to play to this day. Baseball in German website says that from this league baseball started to sign players like Mitch Franke in 2000, and then Rodney Gressman, Donald Lutz, Max Kepler, Tim Henkenjohann, Simon Guhring, Kai Gronauer, Ludwig Glaser and Jennel Hudson with Max leading the way into the majors.
     
    In the book – Beer, Brats, and Baseball – the author Jim Merkel writes about the 1860’s when many Germans, including some of distant uncles – settled in St Louis where the brewed beer and started a local baseball club – not the Cardinals – while joining the Union and helping preserve Missouri as a free state. This coincides with the official advent of Baseball in the US.
     
    Baseball history is also filled with “Dutch” nicknames like Hubert Benjamin "Dutch" Leonard, (April 16, 1892 – July 11, 1952) was an American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball who had an 11-year career from 1913 to 1921, and 1924 to 1925. He still holds the record for the lowest ERA ever – 0.96 in 1914. But he was born in Birmingham, Alabama. Lots of nicknames were based on the players ethnic backgrounds.
     
    Should you want to see how German born players did in baseball careers – Baseball Reference provides this summary of statistics https://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/Germany_born.shtml You will be happy to know that Gardy is the greatest German born manager in history! Glenn Hubard is the best career hitter, and Edwin Jackson is the greatest German born pitcher. And Max – three years, two full years in the majors – his line is 239 – 310 – 422.
  10. mikelink45
    I thought I would wait to post this, but of course my curiosity got the best of me so I had to explore the all time ranks of pitchers and see what milestones lie ahead in 2018.
     
     
    Let’s start with wins, which I know people now discount. It is true that now wins are a combination of more than offense and the starting pitcher. No long do we have the complete game stat meaning anything. Jack Morris completed 175 to rank 176 and Syl Johnson ranks number 500 with 82 complete games and in that 500-pitcher list there is not one current pitcher. So yes wins don’t count so much now, but they did. Current leaders in complete games are Sabathia – 38 in 17 years of pitching, Colon 37 in 20 years, Hernandez 25 in 13 years, Kershaw 25 in 10, and Shields 23 in 12 years. Ervin Santana is 8th among active pitchers with 21 in 13 years and new comer Anibal Sanchez is 23 with 9 in 12 years. It is almost embarrassing, my favorite all time pitcher who I used to watch in Milwaukee had 382 complete games in 21 years with 363 wins. Camilo Pascual – my favorite early Twin had 132 in 18 years and Blyleven had 141.
     
    Colon has the most wins – 240 – and ranks 54 – and 5 wins gets him to rank number 50. He ranks 81 in losses. Sabathia has 237 wins – rank number 58. That is it for top 100. Going to 150 on the list is Lackey and Verlander – 188 rank 143.
     
    MLB’s lifetime ERA list has Felix Hernandez 3.20 ranked 107 which is the highest current teacher. Hamels at 161, Greinke at 171 – 3.40, Verlander 193 – 3.46 are the others in the top 10. MLB did not give a cut off for how many innings are required to be on this list. Going to ESPN and Kimbrel 2, Jansen 9, Chapman 16, and Betances 29 are the current pitchers in the top 30, but if you are like me ERA for one inning pitchers has no value. Kershaw is tied for 38 on this list and would be higher than that on MLB, but I think 10 years is required for the MLB list. The only other current pitcher in the top 50 is Chris Devenski and all of his 44.1 innings. Ken Giles and Darren O’Day are the only other active pitchers in the top 100.
     
    Sabathia is number 18 in strikeouts 2846 and should pass Jim Bunning this year. Colon is 37 right behind Jim Kaat and with 24 he can catch Jack Morris at 34 – that sounds possible, but based on what I saw last year I would not guarantee it. Verlander has 2416, ranks 41 – tied with Luis Tiant and he should move to 23 with another 200 Ks this year putting him near David Cone. Felix Hernandez is 48, Grienke 57, Hamels 58, Scherzer is tied with Dennis Martinez at 66 and Clayton Kershaw is 68. Shields is 72 which seems to reflect on the abundance of Ks in this period. Lester in 77 and our own Ervin Santana is the last current pitcher in the top 100 – he ranks 99 and 107 Ks (when he is healthy again) will catch Catfish Hunter at 81. Eventually there will be many current era pitchers near the top of the list which makes Nolan Ryan all the more remarkable.
     
    Fernando Rodney is tied with Bruce Sutter (HOF) and Jason Isringhausen at #26 in saves. Thirty more saves and he ties with John Wetteland for #14 and is right behind Rollie Fingers. There are more current players on the list below Rodney, but of course there are, in the past pitchers pitched when needed and the artificial Save stat was not important or kept.
     
    In WAR, Cy Young has set the standard – 170.3, second is Walter Johnson with 152.3 from our Twin predecessor team, our Bert Blyleven is 11 with 96.5, and Juan Marichal closes the top 50 with 61.9. No active pitchers there. The highest ranked active pitcher is CC Sabathia with 60.7 at 56 tied with Charlie Buffinton which is a player I never heard of – he played for 11 years in the 1890s and was both a pitcher and first baseman. Clayton Kershaw is 68 with 57.4, while Greinke and Verlander are tied with Eddie Cicotte at 72 with 56.9 and just behind Minnesotan – Jerry Koosman. Cole Hamels is 87 with 52.7, Felix Hernandez is 91 with 52.2. Johan Santana is ranked number 100 with 50.7 and Bartolo Colon is 116 with 47.5 just ahead of our Frank Viola 47.4. Jim Kaat is 130 at 45.3 and just two ahead of Max Scherzer at 44.6 and ranked 133.
     
    Minnesota native, Ojibwa pitcher from Brainerd and in the HOF Chief Bender is 137 and two places ahead of Jack Morris who had 43.8. My favorite – Twin/Senator great, Camilo Pascual is 191 with 37.8.
     
    I do wonder if applying WAR to past performers really is accurate. I suspect many of them are under valued because the game was so different in those days when relievers did not bail out the starter every game.
  11. mikelink45
    They Played for the Love of the Game
    Untold stories of black baseball in Minnesota
    By Frank White
     
    This is the third book written about black baseball in Minnesota which might be an indication of how important this was to the history of Minnesota and the history of Baseball. Frank White, a St Paul native, is a perfect writer for this topic. His father, Louis Pud White, was an outstanding, if little remembered catcher in the baseball leagues as evidenced by Buck O’Neil, and he was a friend of Dave and Steve Winfield.
     
    This is a thoroughly researched and well written book that really uncovers some special experiences and beyond black baseball, shows how important baseball was in all the towns of the Midwest, if not the entire country with semi-pro teams gathering both press and audiences all over. These teams were lucky in one season because Major League baseball created one of the great injustices of all time by excluding blacks from all their leagues which meant that not only are the records suspect before Jackie Robinson joined the Dodgers but gave the local semi-pros and eventually the Negro Leagues some real stars.
     
    And if you want a villain in this it would be Cap Anson, who deserves to be taken out of the Hall of Fame. If we question the veracity of Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens, Shoeless Joe, Pete Rose, than this is the individual who committed the most grievous offense when he refused to let his White Stocking team play against the Newark Giants of the International League if their two black players played in the game – he set the town for the exclusion of black players in the majors.
     
     
    In the first decade the St Paul Colored Gophers were dominate, even winning the fictitious, but still accepted championship of Black Baseball in 1909 when they defeated the Giants of Chicago. Minneapolis had a top team too with the Keystones and great players who would not be recognized without this book entertained the ticket holders.
     
    In the 1920’s the Negro National League formed and even though the St Paul Colored Gophers were an established power Minnesota was deemed too far and too expensive and thus was left out. A second injustice, this one much more serious and reflective of the racism that still exists was The Association of Minnesota Amateur Baseball Leagues decision to ban colored players. African Americans had been part of many teams, but from 1927 – 1947 no African American was allowed to play.
     
    The idiocy of racism was such that catcher Lee Davis was a Ho-Chunk Indian and Indians were playing MLB, but his skin was too dark, so he had to play in the black leagues. While Billy Williams, who was black, was invited by the Baltimore Orioles to play on their Montreal team as an Indian. The more I read, the madder I become with the stupidity of racism.
     
    It is fun for me to look at players who came from my Alma Mater – Minneapolis Central, but it is also crazy to see teams in places like Pipestone, Des Moines, Bertha fielding excellent teams because racism forced these players to the outposts of baseball.
     
    After all the struggles of Jim Crow and blatant racism it is sad to see the switch to track, basketball, and football by many top black athletes, but it makes sense. Those sports offered scholarships and new opportunities. Baseball did not exactly open the major league floodgates after signing a few top players. The book captures that demise and baseball would to well to reflect on its missed opportunities.
     
    The story of black baseball in the 1950s shifted to three minor league teams – St Paul Saints, Minneapolis Millers, and the St Cloud Rox. With players like Willie Mays, Roy Campanella, Orlando Cepeda, Ozzie Virgil, and Lou Brock among the many great stars that graced the Minnesota diamonds.
     
    But since Dave Winfield we have seen very few African Americans from Minnesota get a chance. Thanks to the author who works for the Twins in the RBI program – reviving baseball in the Inner City – maybe the future will take us a step towards the years of great African American baseball players.
     
    In the end, we find this most American sport is also a window into our own history and mores. This book is truly a history of African American people in Minnesota through the lens of Baseball just as baseball reflects our racial tensions, our addictions to drugs, temptations to gambling, the challenging aspects of war, and now our need for speed and quickness because of diminished attention spans.
  12. mikelink45
    As you probably know, if you have been ready my blogs, I like the stories that are part of the lore and history of baseball more than the gold rush for free agents. Maybe it is because I am old I like to think about players who really loved the game and not the agents and owners. I recognize the talent and the ability of the Hall of Famers and even those who struggle for years in the minors without making it to the big spotlight. In fact I have my own strange sense of hall of fame with deaf, one legged, and one armed players, players who had a double life as spies and players who lost prime years to the service and still put up great careers. So I thought I might put up some profiles of these personal favorites over the next couple of months starting with Peter Gray who was born in Pennsylvania in 1915, as Peter Wyshner, and lost his left arm at age six when he fell off a farmers wagon and got his arm caught in the spokes of one wheel.
     
    Still he continued to play his favorite game and play it well. He was known for his speed which certainly helped him, but speed alone does not make up for the loss of one arm. He played on local teams and even semi-pro teams like the Canadian-American League where, in 1942 he hit 382 in 42 games!
     
    This performance got him into the minor leagues which most of you know was much different in those days where we had so few major league teams. Many of the minor league teams were close to major league – check out Joe DiMaggio’s success and records with the Seals in the Pacific League. He almost did not want to go to the majors, but that is a different story.
     
    Gray caught on with the Memphis team in the Southern Association in 1943, played centerfield and hit 281! That got everyone’s attention and allowed him to continue at this high level where he hit 344 with 5 home runs and 68 stolen bases in 1944, giving him recognition as the minor league player of the year.
     
    Then in 1945, he made the majors as a St Louis Brown. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=graype01 Yes, this was the war years and they needed bodies to fill out the rosters. He might not have made it if not for WWII, but never-the-less he did make it. I wish I could say he blew everyone away with an amazing line of statistics, but he didn’t. He got in to 77 games and hit 218 with 13 RBIs and 5 stolen bases.
     
    He was done in by the breaking ball, with one arm he could not alter his swing as other batters could. His best hitting weapon was the bunt – he would tuck the end of the bat into his side and guide the bat with his hand. But of course he could not bunt every at bat and both infielders and outfielders played in to take away his speed and hits
    His fielding was still exceptional and his managers – Luke Sewell said, "He shows us something everyday. You really don't believe some of the things he does. Believe me, he can show plenty of two-handed outfielders plenty." The statistics do not back up this quote as he had 7 errors in 61 games.
     
    “As he played, Gray wore a glove without the padding. When the ball was hit to him, he made the catch with the glove directly in front of him -- normally about shoulder height. As the ball hit the glove, he would roll the glove and ball across his chest from left to right.
     
    Somehow, in this process, he learned to separate the ball from the glove. In the motion, this glove would come to rest under the stump of his right arm and the ball would end up in his left hand.
    In handling ground balls, he would let the ball bounce off his glove about knee height in front of him. He would flip off the glove and grab the ball while it was still in the air.
     
    Some said this process allowed Gray to field balls faster than other outfielders he was playing with who didn't face the same handicap. When he was backing up another outfielder, he would drop the glove and be ready to take the ball in his hand.” http://http://www.historicbaseball.com/players/g/gray_pete.html As I read this quote I thought about Jim Abbott, another player on my list who was a one armed pitcher with some real success in the majors, and how he handled his glove.
     
    That wartime effort was not appreciated by all the players – in fact many resented it and considered it a stunt to get bigger gates as his New York Times obituary stated, “''He didn't belong in the major leagues and he knew he was being exploited,'' his manager, Luke Sewell, recalled in ''Even the Browns'' by William B. Mead (Contemporary Books, 1978). ''Just a quiet fellow, and he had an inferiority complex. They were trying to get a gate attraction in St. Louis.''
     
    He was evidently resented by some teammates: ''Some of the guys thought Pete was being used to draw fans late in the season when the club was still in the pennant race and he wasn't hitting well,'' Don Gutteridge, a Browns infielder, told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1994. ''But I certainly marveled at him. He could do things in the outfield that some of our other outfielders could not.''
     
    He was sent down after that 1945 season with veterans returning from the military and he would not play major league ball again, however, he did not give up. He hit 290 Elmira in 1948 and played on barnstorming teams into the 1950s.
     
    His effort was an inspiration to many, but especially to injured service men who were returning to learn how to succeed in a peace time world. Gray visited many of them in their hospital wards. His numerous visits to Walter Reed hospital gave a lot of veterans hope.
     
    He lived out his live in Nanticoke where he suffered depression and alcoholism for years until he turned his life around with his biography and a television movie. He never married and died in 2002.
     

    This short film gives you a glimpse of Pete as a professional. 
    If you want to know more about him try – the 1986 television-movie A Winner Never Quits, starring Keith Carradine and Mare Winningham;
    and Gray's biography, One-Armed Wonder: Pete Gray, Wartime Baseball, and the American Dream written by William C. Kashatus, published in 1995 by McFarland & Company.  
    His glove is in the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
  13. mikelink45
    In 1961 Minnesota joined the ranks of Major League Baseball and the National Football League. It might be hard to believe today, but before that there were no Twins and Vikings in the state history, unless you buy the story of the Rune Stone in Alexandria and those Vikings might have tossed rocks, but not footballs. There has never been another year like this in Minnesota sports history and happily I can say I was there – both as a high school sophomore at Central High School in Minneapolis and as an usher in Met Stadium!
     
    I loved the Met, the big erector set in the distant community of Bloomington. This was the big leagues for both football and baseball (shortly after we added the Soccer team – the Kicks) and it was in this rural suburb that we planted the seeds for this part of our community lore. Of course, they were not called the Bloomington Twins or the Bloomington Vikings. It might have been appropriate, but then Wold Chamberlain – our massive international airport (just joking) was also located nearby and no one thought to call it the Bloomington airport.
     
     
    Of course, we had a sports history before this. In 1960 the Minnesota Gophers were named the number one college football team in the country – yup, Alabama did not get that one. Playing under Murray Warmath with players like Sandy Stevens at QB (he then played in Canadian football league) we were at the top of big time college football and then we went to the big game – the Rose Bowl, where we set the precedence for the soon to arrive Minnesota Vikings - but lost the biggest game of the year to Washington 17 – 7. In the year of the Vikings and Twins the Gophers ranked 6th in the nation and corrected their previous loss by winning the Rose Bowl against UCLA 21 – 3.
     
     
    There was no NHL team in the cities (that still amazes me), but that did not mean that there were no sports memories to be had. When I asked a friend, John Helland who retired from working at the state capitol about his impressions of that time he wrote, “Hey, Mike, here's what I remember: Gopher baseball was great, winning the NCAA championship in 1960 over So. Cal. Jim Rantz, longtimeTwin's farm club director, and Tom Moe, also a good football player and much later Athletic Director, were on that team. They also won four years later. Some Gopher hockey players, incl. Herb Brooks, almost made the U.S. hockey team (he was the last team cut). The Saints vs. Millers was a great hockey rivalry then, but don't remember names of good players. Jim Beattie was starting his pro boxing career as an up and coming heavyweight. This is going back almost 60 years now, so just a kid. The 1960 U.S. Olympic team featured Minnesotan’s John Mayasich, Jack McCarten, the goalie, and Warroad's Christian brothers who later developed iconic hockey sticks.”
     
     
    We were excited about our sports legacy and we still had a professional team – The Minneapolis Lakers – in 1960. But Mikan retired – he was so good they changed the court – enlarging the lane so that he would not get every rebound. And we were champions – 5 times in 6 years with a roster of NBA Hall of Famers. In the 1958/59 season we drafted Elgin Baylor and the future looked bright. Sitting in the Minneapolis Armory where many games were played there were no bad seats. Unlike the Timberwolves stadium where you need binoculars in the upper deck to watch seven-foot players, at the Armory the players towered over us and it was almost like being on the court. It was great, but attendance was not – how many can you get in the Armory, so in 1960 just as we were getting excited about our new teams – the Lakers were moved – to the west coast, to Los Angeles, to a city that does not even know what a Lake is!
     
     
    We would have been depressed, but the Twins were coming. There were minor league teams still playing – the Minneapolis Millers were in Nicollet Stadium, just six blocks from where I lived, until 1956 when they moved to Metropolitan Stadium (who came up with that name for a stadium in the middle of a field in Bloomington?) where they played until 1960. In St Paul, the Saints were the farm team of the Dodgers, who were about to move to the west coast. Who knew then that the Giants would be enticed to move with them. But 1960 would be the last year of this franchise until Mike Veeck and others created the new Saints in independent ball who would play at the same stadium – Midway – that the original Saints used in their final season.
     
     
    In 1958, future Twins manager Gene Mauch was the skipper of the Millers – now a farm team for the Red Sox, having been associated with the Giants for years. Mauch led us to the championship and then we lost the Minor League World Series. We knew that major league baseball was coming, and Horace Stoneham of the Giants played us for country bumpkins, promising to move here and using the leverage to get to San Francisco. Our final year was pretty glorious – Carl Yastrzemski was here as was future Twin, Al Worthington.
     
     
    This left an opening for a team which we had no association with – the Washington Senators, and their owner/GM – Calvin Griffith. But who cared – this team, so famous for the saying – Washington DC, first in war, last in the American League – was coming. Time to learn who they were. From Senators to Twins – what a transition. Some bonus player named Harmon Killebrew showed up and so did some Latin players like Camilo Pascual and Pedro Ramos. The Pirates were the reigning champions – they were FAMILY – we were in baseball heaven.
     
    In the meantime, something else was brewing – the NFL was going to put a team in the state the same year and the same stadium. It was Viking time. And we would be playing outside like real Vikings. Norm Van Brocklin would be our coach and we would have a rookie QB named Frank Tarkington and no one expected him to do anything. As an expansion team, we were expected to be the tackling dummies for the rest of the league. The champions were from Philadelphia – a team called the Eagles, but we knew we would get even with them someday - we hope.
     
     
    April 11, 1961 the Twins played the very first Major League Game in Minnesota. There were 39,615 fans – a sellout, and I was an usher. We were so new to this that we still did not know who those players were, but they were ours, so we cheered. Metropolitan stadium with its three decks had never felt the feet of so many people and when they got their coordination together, they would stomp their feet and rock, or should I say – sway, the stadium. Unaccustomed to the rules of the major leagues I remember being booed by thousands of people when I would go to make sure someone was not hurt by a foul ball. They were sure I was there to take the ball back!
     
     
    We loved the fresh air, the breeze coming in from right field, the uniforms and excitement of the game, even if we had no idea who manager Cookie Lavagetto was. We had Billy Martin, a future manager at 2B, Harmon Killebrew a future HOF player at 1B, Zoilo Versalles at SS, and Bob Allison in the OF. With Pascual and Ramos was Jack Kralick and Jim Kaat in the rotation. This was so heady we hardly noticed that one of our own – Roger Maris – was hitting the baseball out of the park more than anyone in history. Actually, we knew but it was not as important as the fact that we won 70 games! Of course we also lost 90, but who cared, this was the majors and our guy – Harmon had hit 46 home runs. When the season was over the Twins had drawn 1,256,723 fans, the third highest total in MLB and we were in 7th place, not last (10).
     
    Now it was Viking time! The Senators were an established team that moved, but the Vikings were an expansion team and they were not supposed to win. After opening with an exhibition in Sioux Falls, SD the team came home to a rousing welcome. Like good Minnesotans, the fans were all on time, the parking lot was full, and the ushers helped people find their seats quickly. It was an excited crowd, but everyone knew we would lose, that is, everyone but Fran Tarkington who had not read that script and came off the bench to replace the wily old vet, George Shaw, and beat the mighty bears 37 – 13 on opening day!
     
     
    For a week we had a perfect record in the NFL. True, we had the Minneapolis Marines and Duluth had the Eskimos, but that ancient history hardly makes a dent in our professional football story, even if the Eskimos had Ernie Nevers, the first Superstar.
     
    We got a franchise in the American Football League, but never played a game. The fact that we got awarded this new team meant the NFL (which was not merged with the upstarts) decided to put a team in Minnesota if we gave up that first AFL franchise which subsequently became the Oakland Raiders. The new owners included Ole Haugsrud who had given up the original Duluth team to the league with a provision that he would be allowed ownership in any future NFL team. It took forty years.
     
    Playing outside the Viking fans became the new version of the Packers – standing in the cold, breath frozen in the air, a unique sound of clapping gloves, and a rabid excitement that would continue right up today’s softer indoor fans. The opening win shocked everyone, and the roar was similar to the playoff games of the future, but the shock wore off with 7 straight losses and a final 3 – 11 record.
     
    Being in the stadium at the end of the season no one minded that we were packed in tightly, it just made us warmer. Thermos’ went from coffee to slightly stronger beverages and the sounds of the stadium faithful echoed across the frozen prairies of Bloomington. An average of 34,586 people attended the games, many of them lopsided contests. Norm Van Brocklin, the ex-quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles was the grumpy head coach because the quiet man of the north – Bud Grant – would not cancel his contract with the Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League. Eventually we would get him.
     
    I only ushered for one year, but that was enough to create a love for sports that continues today. Only baseball remains with as much passion, but that dates back to my childhood when the only vacation my parents would take was a trip to County Stadium in Milwaukee to watch the Milwaukee Braves in their championship seasons. My career would take me in many directions, including one-year writing for the short-lived Midwest Spectator, a Twin Cities sports publication, and finally into my career in the Outdoor/Environmental Education.
     
     
    Like many people I was moved by the events that I witnessed when I was young and even though I attended all the 1991 world series games at home, nothing will be as lasting as that first night when the sun was setting, and the stadium lights came on, when the green of the stadium grass seemed to turn luminescent and the players uniforms sparkled in the light. There was the smell of the concessions, the sound of the bat, and the collective anticipation that something good was going to happen – something good that would continue for the next 57 years and who knows how long into the future.
  14. mikelink45

    Coach Rickey

    By mikelink45,

    I have hardly been able to keep up with all the free agents signings this winter. Kaat, Cuddyer, Morneau, join Hawkins and Hunter - and I almost forgot Eddie Guardado who will probably be joined in our front office bullpen by Glen Perkins soon. it is like an all star team! Is Johann next?
     
    http://m.twins.mlb.com/roster/coaches
     
    I have never seen so many coaches or so many special assistants - the team front office should be able to beat any other front office in a game! And I cannot begin to explain all the men hired for the pitching staff from minors to majors to FO.
     
    But who am I to care about that? I want to add one or more. I have stated in some threads that they can take the Yu Darvish money and give Gonsalves and Romero personal coaches to follow them around and get them in the rotation, but now I have another addition - Rickey Henderson. Who else can understand Byron Buxton and his unique combination of speed, power, and potential? Only Rickey combined so many attributes. Of course it would take a second coach or translator so we could figure out what Rickey would say, but boy would he give the writers something to write about.
     
    But, if that is not possible, how about having Byron acquire a few hours of Rickey being Ricky (before Manny was Manny).
  15. mikelink45
    We have all heard the complaints (legitimate to me) about the use of names like Redskins, Indians, and Braves professional sports teams. I will not go into the reason these are offensive and the degrees of offensiveness attached to each. What I am interested in is where the Indians are when it comes to the ball field. The photo I have put up with this is from my relatives in WI. I found the following list of American Indian professional players -
     
    http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/american_indian_baseball_players.shtml.
     
    Louis Sockalexis is the first, a Penobscot from Maine, who played in the 1897 – 1899 era and the massacre at Wounded Knee was in 1890 – perhaps the end of the major plains wars. The last acknowledge battle was 1914 in Utah – Ute/Mormon war. So imagine we have an Indian playing baseball in the major leagues and other Indians performing in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. How crazy is history. Louis was a track and football star like soon to be legend – Jim Thorpe, but his career was derailed by alcoholism, but his athletic feats were still prodigious and if racism did not mix with alcohol he might have been more than a footnote in our history. Erroneously he is credited with the Cleveland Indian name – he played for the Cleveland Spyders. As the following short biography describes he was certainly an influence on the name -
     
    http://sabr.org/bioproj/person/2b1aea0a
     
    Out of 48 American Indian Ballplayers 29 played by the year 1930. The most famous includes Jim Thorpe, a member of the Sac and Fox nations, who is often cited as the greatest athlete in American History. His greatest fame came when he won the decathlon and the, now defunct, pentathlon in the same Olympics (1912) and recognized as the world’s greatest athlete. He was a star in the Carlisle Indian School where he played football at the highest level as a running back, kicker, and defensive back. He is in the Football hall of fame. His baseball career was less well documented and sad. He lost his Olympic metals for playing professional baseball for the New York Giants and because he did not understand the connection that existed at that time he had given up his amateur status and lost his Olympic medals because of those seasons (which included a world series). As a very poor man from a destitute family he was simply earning the money he needed to survive.
     
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe
    The baseball Hall of Fame includes another famous Indian – Albert (Chief) Bender – the pitcher that Connie Mack said he wanted on the mound for any and all important games. He pitched for the Philadelphia Athletics and distinguished himself as a true Ace. Bender was from the village of Crow Wing, near Brainerd, MN and a member of the Ojibwe nation.
    Chief Meyers (notice the nickname pattern) was a Cahuilla Indian from CA and played 10 years for the New York Giants (principally) with a nice but not Hall of fame career.
    Looking through the remainder of the list there are some very recognizable names who are listed as American Indian – Pepper Martin of the Cardinal Gashouse Gang, Rudy York, who starred for the Tigers, Cal McLish, Choctawm who I got to see pitch for the Indians, and recently – Kyle Lohse, Nomlaki Wintun, Jacoby Ellsbury, Navajo, and Joba Chamberlain, Winnebago. Today’s players are seldom acknowledged by baseball for their heritage, it is an important part of who they are. Again, I have no idea what percent their heritage is to make this list.
    But the point I would like to make is that we have lost a lot of potential on the Indian Reservations due to lots of errors in our cultural wars and from a baseball perspective we have made a mistake by not investing in the reservations to develop new players for the future. We have clinics in the Caribbean, and in South America, but nothing on the major reservations.
    With the money generated by the logos and teams that carry the Indian culture as a part of their corporate structure, shouldn’t they pay a royalty to the tribes, maybe through scholarships or baseball schools. Out multi-racial baseball landscape needs to include all races and this is an opportunity that has been overlooked for too long.
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