James Doyle, of Syracuse, third baseman of the Chicago [National League] club last season, who was stricken with appendicitis on Monday, was reported as being in a critical condition last night.
Doyle died 100 years ago today.
His was a really improbable, if brief, success story. The Cubs’ third baseman, Harry Steinfeldt, held out to start the 1911 season. In response, Frank Chance (completely rationally) waived Steinfeldt and gave the hot corner to Heinie Zimmerman, previously a utilityman. A month or so into the season, Johnny Evers broke down due to “Fudge Orgies and Nicotine Sprees”, so Zim slid over to second and Doyle, a 29-year-old rookie, became the third baseman. He played well in 1911; hit .282, 40 extra-base hits, OPS+ of 110, 3.5 BB-Ref WAR. Not bad for a guy who never would have seen a regular job if not for holdouts, nicotine, and fudge.
Less than four months after the 1911 season ended, Doyle was dead.
And on another significant note, McGuirk disclosed that the Braves are locked into 25-year local TV contracts that will prevent the franchise from cashing in on Major League Baseball’s trend toward dramatically higher telecast rights fees.
Fun fact: When the Rockies came into existence, Jaime Moyer was in his eighth Major League season.
The Rockies’ search for a veteran for the starting rotation could take them to the ultimate veteran, 49-year-old left-hander Jamie Moyer.
Colorado and Moyer have agreed to a Minor League deal that includes an invitation to Spring Training, the club announced on Wednesday. The agreement is pending a physical.
Moyer underwent Tommy John surgery on his throwing elbow in 2010 and didn’t pitch last season. The lefty worked as an analyst for ESPN in 2011 but stated that he intended to try to pitch again in ‘12.
Moyer went 9-9 with a 4.84 ERA for the Phillies in 2010.
Marty Springstead, who at the age of 36 in 1973 became the youngest umpire crew chief in World Series history, has died. He was 74.
Major League Baseball said Wednesday that Springstead was found dead at his home in Florida on Tuesday night.
A native of Nyack, N.Y., Springstead was an American League umpire from 1966-85. Among his three World Series were 1978 and 1983, and he also was an umpire at the All-Star game in 1969, 1975 and 1982 and at five AL championship series.
After retiring from the field, he became the AL’s executive director of umpires, then worked as an umpire supervisor for MLB after umpire staffs from the leagues merged.
He retired from his management position before the 2010 season.
“For a quarter-century, Marty mentored a new generation of our umpires, not only in the major leagues but around the world,” Commissioner Bud Selig said. “Marty was an avid teacher, a great storyteller and a friend to countless people around our game. Like so many of my colleagues, I always appreciated his wonderful sense of humor and the pride he had for his profession.”
Don Carter, one of the most prominent and successful players in the sport of bowling, died at his home in Miami on Thursday night. Carter, who had recently been hospitalized with pneumonia complicated by emphysema, was 85.
...Born in St. Louis, Mo., on July 29, 1926, Carter was more interested in baseball and football while in high school. After graduation, he served two years in the Navy before signing a baseball contract with the Philadelphia Athletics. He was sent to the minor league team in North Carolina.
In a Bowlers Journal interview in 1970, Carter said he hit .304 and did pitch some games, but the team played 128 games in 112 days and he lost 30 pounds from his 180-pound frame.
“I got $150 a month plus room and board,” Carter recalled. “Riding that bus all over the countryside to games was too much. I quit after a season.”
That would lead Carter back home to St. Louis and the start of his career in bowling.
Andy Carey, a former Yankees third baseman who helped preserve Don Larsen’s 1956 perfect game, passed away on Dec. 15 in Costa Mesa, Calif., his family announced. He was 80.
A career .260 hitter, Carey played in 11 Major League seasons from 1952-62, beginning with the Yankees at age 20 in ‘52 and spending nine seasons wearing pinstripes.
Born on Oct. 18, 1931, in Oakland, Calif., Carey signed with the Yankees after spending a summer playing semi-pro ball in Weiser, Idaho. As New York’s everyday third baseman in ‘55, Carey led the league with 11 triples and was known as a solid defender and clutch hitter.
Carey played on four Yankees World Series teams, winning rings with the 1956 and ‘58 squads. He is remembered as playing a key role in Larsen’s Oct. 8, 1956, perfecto against the Dodgers at Yankee Stadium.
Ted Beard 90, professional baseball player and WWII veteran, passed away December 30, 2011 with his family by his side. Ted, voted most popular player for the Indianapolis Indians in 1948 and 1951, began his professional career in 1941. His career was interrupted to serve in the Pacific Theatre in WWII.
St. Louis native Don Mueller, who led the majors in hits in 1954 and roamed the outfield with Willie Mays of the New York Giants, died on Wednesday. He was 84.
Mueller, who played at CBC, was signed by the Giants in 1944 and made his big-league debut four years later.
At age 23, he became a starter for the Giants in right field and hit .291 in his first full season.
...A career .296 hitter, Mueller became known as “Mandrake the Magician.” He finished his career with two seasons with the White Sox in 1958 and 59.
[Red Sox manager] Jake Stahl says that he is sure he has no more dead players on his list. Since he discovered Lockwood, the dead Vancouver man on the list, he has been over it very carefully.
The mother of Mitch MacLean — a ballplayer from P.E.I. who was killed in an Alberta murder-suicide last week — read her poem called Last Time at the Plate during her son’s funeral that was attended by hundreds.
Cars were lined up along the road by Winsloe United Church, just north of Charlottetown, for the service. An overflow room was set up for those who could not get one of the 220 seats in the chapel. An estimated 600 attended.
A former girlfriend of MacLean’s, Melia Thompson, said after the service it was “exactly what Mitch would’ve wanted.”
MacLean was a promising young baseball player, and the sport played a prominent part in the service.
The poem read by his mother was one she had written herself. His casket left the church to the tune of Centerfield by John Fogerty.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s top investigative reporter, Nancy Phillips, has written a story containing what we’re told are allegations of child molestation against sportswriter Bill Conlin, a longtime columnist at the rival Daily News. Conlin resigned just moments ago, according to a source at the Daily News.
Conlin, who turns 78 this May, won the Ford C. Frick Award last May. The story supposedly will drop soon (the newspapers publish under a joint-operating agreement, sharing some resources and a website but otherwise competing for the same readers). Conlin has hired an attorney to defend himself against the piece. We’ll have more details on this. For now, we can tell you that Conlin is at his condo in Largo, Fla.
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, commissioner of baseball since 1921, died at St. Luke’s hospital Saturday morning at 5:35. He was 78 years old.
...
Landis, a gruff speaking old man with shaggy white hair, battered hat and keen wit, became a legend in his lifetime. He was noted for his fairness and as a man who always gave the underdog a break.
Unless they had too much melanin. In which case they were screwed.
In all seriousness, though, the linked article is an excellent obituary.
I don’t even feel right referring to Greg as a baseball player. Obviously he was a baseball player, and that was how we knew him, but I don’t feel right giving him that label, that identity. Still, while “baseball player” wasn’t Greg Halman’s full identity, it was a part of it, so it’s worth noting how much Halman achieved, and what he came to represent. He wasn’t just a Mariners prospect on the brink of a big league career. He was the first Dutch-born, Dutch-raised, and Dutch-developed player in Major League history, and from the bottom of Geoff Baker’s piece:
[Coach] Chlup said Halman was surprised that so many fans in the Czech Republic seemed to know who he was. Other than [Prince] Fielder, Chlup said, Halman got the loudest reception of any player introduced to the crowds.
“He knew that, for a lot of Dutch kids, he was the one who got it done.”
Halman was one of the faces of European baseball. In one sense, he was trying to make it. In another sense, he already had…
Greg Halman was born in Haarlem in 1987. He learned four languages. He graduated from college. He signed with the Seattle Mariners in 2004. He represented his country in 2009. He made the Major Leagues in 2010. He hit his first Major League home run in 2011. All the while he comported himself with an eagerness and a joie de vivre sufficient for envy. This is a paragraph summary of Greg Halman’s life, and I hate it. I hate that it’s insultingly brief, and I hate that it had to be written.
The proposed deal which is said to involve the transfer of the Boston Rustlers to a company headed by Henry Killilea of Milwaukee and Charles Baird of Kansas City is off.
...
Should the present owners of the Rustlers come down a little in the price quoted there many be some chance of the deal going through.
Former major league pitcher Charlie Lea, a star at Kingsbury High and then-Memphis State University before embarking on a successful pro career, was found dead in his Collierville home Friday. He was 54.
Collierville Police Chief Larry Goodwin said Lea died of a suspected heart attack.
Winner of 62 games in an eight-year major league career that ended with the Minnesota Twins in 1988, Lea pitched a no-hitter for the Montreal Expos against the San Francisco Giants in 1981, and was the starting and winning pitcher for the National League in the 1984 All-Star Game.
The area lost another of its sports gems with the passing of Paul “Jake” Martin on Tuesday.
For those who don’t know, Martin grew up in Fayette City, was a graduate of Marion High School and played with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1955.
He pitched two scoreless innings against the Brooklyn Dodgers after signing his pro contract, which included a $20,000 signing bonus, and later that season suffered an arm injury that cut short his career. He pitched in seven games for the Pirates before the injury.
Scott continued to live in Binghamton after his career. He opened a bar, called “Mickey’s Mound,” which I remember driving by when I was a teenager, having no idea that it was Mickey SCOTT’s Mound. I wonder how the conversation would have went if I asked my folks if we could just pop into a bar to see if a former major leaguer was there. (Mickey’s Mound is now The Brass Lantern Tavern).
Scott pitched for a Yankees farm team, the Binghamton Triplets, during the 1960s, and kept his connections to the Yankees after his career, working in various capacities. Yankees manager Billy Martin often frequented Scott’s bar.
But on Sunday, Scott went out to rake leaves. He never returned. His lifeless body was found slumped over outside of his home in Binghamton. Relatives believe he suffered a heart attack or stroke. Mickey Scott was 64.
In this article, Scott’s sister calls her brother a “super, super guy” and “fun-loving.” “Mickey was a hell-raiser, but everyone had good things to say about him,” she said.
Hell-raiser indeed. His card sure raised hell with me in that basement in 1976.
Santo Domingo.- One of the most inconic Major League Baseball greats from the Dominican Republic, Mateo Rojas Alou (Matty Alou) died early Thursday in Miami of unspecified ailment.
Alou, one of the famous brothers Jesus and Felipe, who all started with the San Francisco Giants in the 1060s, crowned his career while playing with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1969, when he won that National League Batting title with an average of .342.
Dominican Olympic Committee president Luisin Mejia made the announcement on Channel 9 Thursday morning.
“We all know we lost the Series yesterday. We shouldn’t have let it slip away. We came back today to try to win it, but the momentum just took them and they won it. It’s not a nice feeling.
“We had in our mind that we were going to win the World Series. We were one strike away, but it didn’t happen. It would be easier if you lose four games in a row than having the thought that you were one strike away. It’s not easy. That game [on Thursday] will be hard to forget.”
Ricky Adams, whose Major League Baseball career featured being a member of the Angels’ 1982 Western Division championship team, died early Friday following a lengthy bout with cancer.
Adams was 52.
“The Angels organization and their alumni are deeply saddened to hear of Ricky’s passing,” said Tim Mead, Angels vice-president of communications. “There is always a special bond with any member of the Angels family.
...At the age of 23, Adams made his major-league debut with the Angels on Sept. 15, 1982. He played in 66 games as a utility infielder during the 1982 and 1983 seasons.
He became a free agent in 1984 and signed with the Giants, with whom he spent two seasons. His final pro season was 1987 with the Angels.
The 76-year-old from Red Oak, Texas, was a big Rangers fan who had been battling cancer for several months. She was recently profiled in the Dallas Morning News and was quoted by the paper when telling her doctors that she had only one dying wish:
“I only want to live long enough to see the Rangers win the World Series,” she said.
Unfortunately, the paper reports that Short passed away on Wednesday night, when the Rangers might have clinched their first title had it not been for the rain postponement in St. Louis.
Khadafy was beaten, bludgeoned and shot by a wolf pack of Libyan fighters as he made a mad dash to escape his embattled hometown of Sirte—but the Libyan tyrant was ultimately done in by Bombers cap-wearing Mohamed El Bibi, 20, who was credited with firing the fatal bullet, according to Arab media.
The photo caption:
MR. OCTOBER: Yankee fan Mohamed El Bibi triumphantly waves Moammar Khadafy’s golden gun as jubilant Libyans celebrate his shooting the dictator dead yesterday.
As we used to say when collecting baseball cards…“Open a new and there’s always Ranew.”
Merritt Thomas Ranew, an Albany native who became a Major League baseball player and successful local horse trainer and businessman, died Tuesday, Oct. 18 at Langdale Hospice House in Valdosta. He was 73. Kimbrell-Stern Funeral Directors is handling the arrangements.
Ranew was born on Tuesday, May 10, 1938. In 1957, at the age of 19 young Ranew was discovered by baseball scout and Albany legend Paul Eames. He was signed with the Milwaukee Braves as an amateur free agent. He played for many farm teams and even played in Venezuela in the off season. He was the 17th pick in the 1961 expansion draft in October 1961; he was only 23 years old when he broke into the big leagues on April 13, 1962, with the Houston Colt .45s.
...Ranew was also a respected horse trainer, training champion award-winning horses at his stable on Old Leesburg Road. He also trained horses in Texas as well as in Florida. One horse Ranew trained locally, was crowned World Champion Appaloosa. He not only trained the winning horse, he rode it in the championship.
Ranew was also co-owner, along with Gene Connell, of the Jolly Fox night club in Albany. The Jolly Fox hosted many singers and bands, as well as other celebrities in the 1970s, including “Tiny Tim” of “Tip Toe Through The Tulips” fame. Ranew picked Tiny Tim up at the Albany airport and escorted him all over Albany.
Lester admitted Monday that he and other pitchers had an “occasional beer” in the clubhouse during days they were not scheduled to pitch, but on Tuesday WHDH-TV in Boston cited Red Sox employees as saying that Lester, Josh Beckett and John Lackey drank beer in the dugout during games.
The sources said that the trio would leave the dugout around the sixth inning, walk back to the clubhouse and fill cups with Bud Light. They would then return to the dugout and watch the game while drinking beer. One Red Sox employee told the station that the pitchers were “bored on nights they weren’t pitching and this is how they entertained themselves.”
According to the report, another Red Sox employee said: “Beckett would come down the stairs from the dugout, walking through the corridor to the clubhouse and say ‘it’s about that time’. Becket was the instigator but Lester and Lackey were right behind him.
“It was blatant and hard not to notice what was going on with all three guys leaving at once.”
Financier Carl Lindner Jr., who used his experience running the family dairy store to build a business empire whose reach included baseball, banks and bananas, died Monday night. He was 92.
A person close to Lindner’s family but not authorized to speak until a statement had been issued confirmed his death. Lindner had been taken to the hospital gravely ill on Monday morning.
Lindner became controlling partner and chief executive officer of the Cincinnati Reds in a 1999 deal that ended Marge Schott’s rocky 15-year reign as owner. In contrast to her grandstanding, Lindner stayed mostly in the background - save for a lasting memory in 2000 when he picked up Ken Griffey Jr. at the airport in his Rolls-Royce following the blockbuster trade.
The University of Tampa gave Eddie a full scholarship to play baseball. He pitched so well for two years, the Cleveland Indians drafted him and gave him a $25,000 bonus and a ticket to the minor leagues.
At 19, he won 13 games for the Daytona Beach Islanders. He met Kate at the beach and they married on Sept. 22, 1951. The next season, “The Big Q” won 20 of 27 decisions. He expected Cleveland would call him up any minute, but the Indians already had four of baseball’s best pitchers: Bob Feller, Mike Garcia, Bob Lemon and Early Wynn.
On June 29, 1952, Eddie and Kate celebrated the arrival of a daughter they named Katherine Ann. A few months later, the Army came calling. Pvt. Gasque’s assignment for the next two years: baseball. The 220-pound right-hander pitched the Third Army to the service championship.
After his discharge, he played three more seasons for Cleveland’s minor league teams. In Indianapolis, his roommate on road trips was 21-year-old Roger Maris, who would go on to break Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record as one of the greatest of all New York Yankees.
Eddie, meanwhile, grew tired of the travel. He suffered several injuries, including a broken bone in his throwing arm during winter league competition in Venezuela. At 28, with a wife, daughter and 3-year-old son, he yearned for a more traditional life.
I don’t think the headline actually makes any sense, but who wants more gossip??
Carl Crawford kept more and more to himself as the season progressed, largely because the clubhouse culture here was unlike any he’d experienced during his decade with Tampa Bay. A consummate pro, Crawford had once grabbed Pat Burrell and thrown him up against a wall, angrily telling Burrell that his unprofessional ways were not accepted in the Rays’ clubhouse. Tampa Bay management had their speedy outfielder’s back, trading Burrell a short time later. That’s the kind of cache Crawford had in that room, and with that organization. But in Boston, Crawford apparently felt he couldn’t exert his influence because he wasn’t one of the veterans who understood what the Sox organization considered acceptable and what had led them to victory. Finally, late in the season but before the team entered its death spiral, Crawford had had enough. He launched into an impassioned speech, imploring teammates to get it together. It fell on deaf ears.
Crawford wasn’t the only newcomer marginalized by the Sox’ toxic culture. The other big offseason acquisition, Adrian Gonzalez, was dumbfounded by the lack of professionalism that surrounded him, and couldn’t believe it was allowed to continue. And while he struggled with a variety of injuries that sapped him of his power, Gonzalez still showed up, still worked, still competed. The same couldn’t be said of some of his new teammates.
California’s Donnie Moore on allowing Dave Henderson’s two-out, two-strike ninth inning home run that tied Game Five of the ‘86 ALCS:
“My job’s not an easy job. I gotta make the pitches. When you’re bad, you’re bad. I can handle bad. I’ve had a roller-coaster career. Things have never come easy for me. I can handle it.
“I got a tired arm now, but I can’t blame my arm. If my arm felt that bad, I wouldn’t have gone out there today. I was (horsebleep), no other excuses, I was (horsebleep).”
