San Francisco Call, 100 years ago today

Browns to Train on Ice Incrusted Diamond

President Hodges and Manager Wallace of the St. Louis American league team, met this morning to complete plans for the home training work of their players, following their return from West Baden yesterday.

Although the diamond at Sportsman's park is covered with several inches of snow, Colonel Hedges declared that the players would not be taken to warmer climes for spring training.

Such training, he said, would tend to unfit them for real work here rather than to improve their present condition.

Gosh, I wonder why this franchise spent the first 60 years of its existence as the laughingstock of the American League.

Two Hall of Famers and a center fielder with one great arm on the Birthday Team.

C: Bob Swift
1B: Willie Stargell
2B/Manager: Cookie Rojas
3B: Bill Sweeney
SS: Clint Barmes
LF: Marcus Thames
CF: Pete Gray
RF/RP: John Coleman

SP: Lefty Grove
SP: Terry Adams
SP: Eduardo Rodriguez
SP: Bud Podbielan
SP: Bert Husting
RP: Ted Abernathy

Writer: Ring Lardner
Not that one: Roberto Duran, James Lofton

"unfit them"???

New item up at THT: "Don Mincher career highlights" about the recently deceased former AL first baseman. It covers his personal best (and worst) moments, the greatest and most important games he played in, and some odds'n'ends. Also, since he played on the 1969 Seattle Pilots, I added in a few anecdotes about him from Jim Bouton's Ball Four.

It covers everything from him being the first player to homer at home in Minnesota for the Twins, and in Seattle for the Pilots. (Though he played on the first Rangers team, they didn't use him in their first game in Texas. Nuts). It also includes Mincher homering in his first World Series at bat in 1965 and getting an RBI single in his last career AB in the 1972 World Series. He's also the last Washington Senators to hit a grand slam, the only Seattle Pilot to appear in an All-Star game (stump your friends with that trivia question), and once had a road game in Washington postponed because it was the same day as the Martin Luther King Jr led March on Washington.

(One side note: I didn't remember to include the part about Mincher being one of five All-Stars traded away by the White Sox in the 1959-60 offseason, along with Norm Cash, Johnny Callison, Earl Battey, and Johnny Romano).

Also, 50 years ago today St. Louis votes approved a bond issue to finance downtown improvements - including a new baseball stadium.

Who, in your opinnion, after seeing both work, was the greatest leader, Alexander, Caesar, or Connie Mack?

This is wildily off-topic, but has "both" only recently come to mean two? Here, Rice is clearly using it to suggest three.

The OED has this on "both"-

b. Extended to more than two objects.

c1405 (1385) Chaucer Knight's Tale (Hengwrt) (2003) l. 1440 To whom bothe heuene and erthe and See is seene.
c1430 Lydgate tr. Bochas Fall of Princes i. vii. 18 She was also bothe ioly, fayre, and good.
1523 Ld. Berners tr. J. Froissart Chron. (1812) I. 351 Bothe prelates, bysshoppes, abbottes, barownes, and knyghtes.
1593 Shakespeare Venus & Adonis sig. Eiijv, Both favour, savour, hew, and qualities.
1612 J. Brinsley Ludus Lit. xxviii. 283 Rewardes?giue all kinde of hartning?both to Masters, Vshers, and Schollars.
a1616 Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 1 (1623) v. vii. 108 Margaret shall now be Queene and rule the King; But I will rule both her, the King, & Realme.
1678 J. Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress 38 To help them; both by awakening of them, counselling of them, and proffering to help them.
1782 Johnson Let. 2 Mar. (1994) IV. 15 Both Williams, and Desmoulins and myself are very sickly.
1798 S. T. Coleridge Anc. Marinere vii, in Wordsworth & S. T. Coleridge Lyrical Ballads 50 He prayeth well who loveth well, Both man and bird and beast.
1842 T. De Quincey Pope in Encycl. Brit. (ed. 7) XVIII. 404/1 For both Chaucer, and Shakespeare, and Milton

The OED has this on "both"-

b. Extended to more than two objects.

So it does happen, but not much. Interesting.

Thanks.

2B/Manager: Cookie Rojas

My very first favorite player,
When he made a good play the Royals' scoreboard had a graphic that would say "That is the way the Cookie crumbles."

Octavio "Cookie" Rojas was the player whom the Phils got for headache pitcher Jim Owens. The Phils' line at the time was "sometimes you add by subtracting", implying to my 11 yo self that they expected nothing from Rojas. By 1964, Cookie was a very valuable utility piece for mad scientist Gene Mauch, in the run-up to the great collapse that nearly ruined my childhood**.

** I finally felt the ghost of 1964 lift away while watching the 2008 WS parade. So Mets' fans, expect the collapse of 2007 to no longer infect your psyche by 2051.

Self-promotion alert!

Here's a bio of Rojas I wrote about his time with the Royals. He was considered washed up when the young expansion franchise acquired him, and he turned into an All-Star, and one of the most popular players in franchise history, and was one of the first players inducted into the Royals Hall of Fame.

Carlos Guillen has retired.

On a similar note, Carlos Guillen was still playing baseball?

Carlos Guillen has retired.

Freddy Garcia celebrates his status as the last remaining player from the Mariners-Astros Randy Johnson trade.

Hell of a return--the three of them (John Halama was the other) put up over 60 career WAR in exchange for 2 ridiculous months of the Big Unit.

2B/Manager: Cookie Rojas

A Philly newspaper once (70s?) had a poll on the best position by position Phillie team of all time-Cookie was overwhelmingly selected at 2B by the fans. I know this, having never lived on the East Coast, because of an article in Sporting News (or Baseball Digest) about how ignorant the fans of that day were of baseball's history.

Didn't they ever hear about Napoléon Lajoie?

Looking it up on BRef, Nap actually didn't play that many games at 2B for the Phillies, so Tony Taylor was the correct answer (okay I had Tony's rookie card so I'm biased).

so Tony Taylor Dave Cash was the correct answer

By WAR as a Phillie, Lajoie had 19.8, Taylor had 11.9, Cash had 10.9, and Rojas had 1.5. Of course, if people in the 1970's had known about WAR, they probably would have known Chase Utley would have 42.3 a few decades later.

Spanning Multiple Seasons or entire Careers, Playing for the PHI, From 1901 to 2011, Played 70% of games at 2B, (requiring At least 300 games), sorted by greatest WAR Position Players

                                                  
Rk             Player WAR/pos    G From   To   Age
1         Chase Utley    42.3 1109 2003 2011 24-32
2           Dave Cash    10.9  484 1974 1976 26-28
3         Juan Samuel     9.8  852 1983 1989 22-28
4          Otto Knabe     9.8  946 1907 1913 23-29
5        Manny Trillo     6.1  502 1979 1982 28-31
6    Mickey Morandini     3.3  965 1990 2000 24-34
7        Bert Niehoff     2.8  408 1915 1917 31-33
8        Cookie Rojas     1.5  880 1963 1969 24-30
9     Marlon Anderson     1.0  479 1998 2002 24-28
10        Emil Verban     0.9  348 1946 1948 30-32
11        Kid Gleason    -0.1  587 1903 1908 36-41
12    Fresco Thompson    -1.3  575 1927 1930 25-28
13        Denny Doyle    -3.0  446 1970 1973 26-29