"Them Waners! It's always the little poison on thoid and the big poison on foist!"

...and two great nicknames were born!

Speaking of born, he's the only HOFer born on my birthday (April 16th), and will soon be the only HOMer on my birtday.

wishing the belated Happy Birthday to Dr. Chaleeko, and these possibly exaggerated notes from baseballlibrary.com....

"Always a threat to break up a ball game but never a party, Waner had the sharpest bloodshot eyes in baseball. He hit doubles and triples during games and drank them after. Nonetheless, he amassed 3,152 hits with good power.
One year he announced he was on the wagon, but when his batting average hovered around .250, his manager personally shepherded him to his nearest watering hole. Within a few weeks, he was back over .300."

I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank Paul Waner for hitting something like .380 with 20 HRs for my Tony Larussa Baseball 2 team seven or eight years ago.

It was mentioned how good his hitting was in the PCL. Here are the numbers from Daguerrotypes. These are his age 20-22 seasons.

year Gms ABs Rns Hts 2B 3 HR RBI avg. slg.
1923 112 325 054 120 30 4 03 039 .369 .514
1924 160 587 113 209 46 5 08 097 .356 .492
1925 174 699 167 280 75 7 11 130 .401 .575

He led the league in avergae in 1925.

Defense
POs As Es Pct
230 16 12 .953
284 28 10 .969
744 36 18 .977 (I guess he switched to CF this year)

Pirates are finally retiring his number on July 21.

This was an interesting anecdote from the mlb.com story:


Dick Groat received batting help from Waner as a rookie in 1952.

"Paul Waner had a batting cage out in Harmarville," Groat recalled. "And this was my rookie year and I was struggling. George Sisler was the hitting instructor with the Pirates and he helped me tremendously..... I got to know Waner and went out to his driving range and batting range in the morning before a night game, when we were home, probably two or three days a week.

"He was the greatest -- I loved him. He had to be 55 or 60 at that time and he could still hit. He'd get in the batting cage and show me this and show me that. In fact, he even held the bat differently than most of us. It was almost like he held it like a golf club. I mean 55 or 60 years old and still be able to hit line drives -- it was amazing."

He had to be 55 or 60 at that time and he could still hit.

He celebrated his 49th birthday, April 6.

Groat to Wendt: "Hey, Paul, I'm on a roll here - work with me!"

;)