Missing Among The Memorables?

The Diamond District....A Baseball Review ^ | 12 July 2002 | Jeff Kallman

[BluesDuke]

OK, so I put one of my blog essays up myself - so shoot me. But I thought this a worthy call for our ever-engaging, ever-thinking, ever-eager-for-any-excuse-to-do-it FREEP baseball debating society...aside from which, for some ferblungen reason my blog host is having technical trouble updating today and I have a feeling I'll be lucky to see it take before Sunday...

[BluesDuke]

calling my baseball people...calling my baseball people....(and *blushing* for using "hirsute" to describe Chris Chambliss - he had a decent thatch of hair but not quite that much...brains cross-firing when writing; I actually meant to say "humble"!)

[2Trievers]

I really can't keep up with you Dukester .... your proclivity is becoming too prolific! &;-)

Other BD gems ...

Next of Kim

They Said It...Would You?

Arsonic and Old Lace

Gasoline Alley

Elementary, My Dear Watson

Darryl Kile, RIP: Everyman Mourned As A Star

The Other Competitive Balance

King Solomon's Land Mines - The All-Star Farce Wasn't Quite Bud's Fault

[BluesDuke]

You make it sound like I've got a fast ball you can't see, you flatterer! ;)

[2Trievers]

And the best part ... no one is keeping score! &;-)

[BluesDuke]

Then I'd better not tell them that when I was a kid my best pitch was a weird kind of palm ball I used to throw, semi-submarine style, where the ball would tip off my fingertips as I released it - I'd hold it with my fingers off the ball from the middle knuckles up and otherwise throw it like a fastball...the tip off the fingertips would make it come in with no speed even though it looked like the hard one, and it dropped when it reached the plate unless I turned my hand, in which case it rose just so. When I threw it right, that is. When I threw it wrong, it rose, all right - over the fence off the end of a bat.

[Charles Henrickson]

Here's the one that most amazes me for not being in either MLB's list or yours, Bluesy:

1932: Ruth Calls His Shot. During the 1932 World Series, in response to a bunch of bench jockeying by the Cubs, aging Yankee slugger Babe Ruth points out toward the right-centerfield bleachers at Wrigley Field . . . and then hits a home run to that spot!

Through the years, there has been some controversy over whether Ruth actually was "calling his shot" or if his gesture had some other meaning.

Also, as he was rounding the bases, Ruth was really giving it back to the Cubs' bench: "Atcha! Atcha!"

Or how about another Ruthian moment:

1935: Ruth Goes Out with a Bang! Fat, old, broken-down Babe Ruth, now playing with the lowly Boston Braves, summons up enough strength to blast three home runs in one game right at the tail end of his career.

Finally, one last moment from the most legendary and memorable player of them all:

1948: The Babe's Farewell. Dying of throat cancer, a gaunt, ashen, raspy-voiced George Herman Ruth bids a touching farewell to the fans at Yankee Stadium.

[BluesDuke]

In a way, I wasn't surprised to see nothing from Babe Ruth represented - because the man was just too damned big to isolate really, legitimately memorable single moments (Ty Cobb and Honus Wagner have the same problem, seemingly, and you can make a case that likewise applies to Walter Johnson). A lot of what one might deem the Bambino's memorables were in due course eclipsed by later men in various ways and places. Those can never take Ruth's place in the history of the game, but it is no insult to his memory to say that when the record is reviewed objectively, the Bambino's entire career was a more memorable moment than individual performances or appearances therein turned out to have been. That of itself is one hell of an achievement, if pondered the right way.

Consider: The "called shot". Never happened. Those who were there have said mostly that what Ruth was holding up was a finger signal indicating how many strikes were in the count. Ruth himself seems to have admitted he never actually called his shot but, since the story got around anyway and he was a big fat ham as it was, what harm was there in going along with the gag? (Both the Yankees and the Cubs were taking bench jockeying to new levels of constancy in that World Series.)

Consider, too: The final three homers. Would have been nice if he really did go out with a bang like that. Trouble is - it didn't happen in his actual final game. Reality bites, alas.

As for the Babe Ruth farewell, it was legitimately touching (anyone who has ever heard an uncut recording of the speech cannot say otherwise) - but it insults both Ruth and Lou Gehrig to compare it to Gehrig's farewell. Gehrig was a far younger facing death than Ruth was a decade later.

[BluesDuke]

Though, speaking of Ty Cobb, you could make a case for this as an all-time memorable moment candidate...

1912: Four Apostrophes For Cobb Ty Cobb is suspended indefinitely after he storms into the stands to beat a heckler senseless. Tiger teammates protest the suspension and strike. Facing a heavy fine for failure to field a team, Tiger management rounds up a gang of sandlotters to face the Philadelphia Athletics. The A's pound the living whey out of the game sandlot fellows: 24-2, and when American League president Ban Johnson reduces Cobb's suspension to ten days, the Tiger regulars come back and spare the sandlotters further Eighth Amendment violations. Cobb's replacement in center field for that voluntary manslaughter is unknown to this day - because his surname was too long to appear in the box score in any way other than this: L'n'h's'r.

[Charles Henrickson]

I know the three homers didn't come in Ruth's final game, but it was right near the end, when it looked like he was all washed up, and no one expected it from him. Also, if I'm not mistaken, one of the three was a mammoth tape-measure blast. But that part might be just the imagination that Ruth always conjures up. What a bigger-than-life character he was! And with performance on the field to match! Truly the greatest baseball player ever, and, in my opinion, the greatest player in any sport.

As for the most memorable moment in baseball history, I might vote for Mazeroski's 1960 seventh-game, ninth-inning, Series-winning home run for the underdog Pirates against the much-favored Yanks (who had vastly outscored the Buccos in that Series). Can't get more storybook than that.

[CARDINALRULES]

1925: One For The Road.

1926. ;-`)

One of my top moments...50 or so years before I was even born.

[BluesDuke]

But that part might be just the imagination that Ruth always conjures up. What a bigger-than-life character he was!

That was probably one of his most endearing qualities. Self-centered he may have been as a man, but he had at least the grace of a sense of humour about it in the right places. And if people wanted to exaggerate what he did, he probably figured who the hell was he to argue. I'm given to understand he couldn't resist adding to the mythology about the "called shot" homer once he realised nothing he said could straighten it out, anyway.

I don't know that I'd disagree if the Mazeroski homer ended up in the final top five memorables. You nailed one of the critical reasons: the Yankees outscoring the Pirates in that Series, not to mention the high score of the game by the time it got tied up for the bottom of the ninth. That Pirate team was a pretty good team, too, very underrated pennant winner among discussions of great single-season teams.

[BluesDuke]

I sit corrected on the year- thanks Cardinal!

Postscript: Want to know just how well regarded Rogers Hornsby was as a person? He was the player-manager for that World Series champion Cardinal team - and he got traded to the New York Giants after the Series!

[BluesDuke]

Speaking of the Pirates, you could make a case for memorability for...

1959: Harvey's Wallbanger - Twelve perfect innings. Wrecked in the thirteenth on an error, a hit, and a two-run homer that turned into a long double (because Henry Aaron inadvertently let Joe Adcock, who hit the blast, pass him on the basepath - or was that Adcock passing Hammerin' Hank on his own steam?) but still meant the game. Could you blame Harvey Haddix if he felt like banging his head against the wall? (Sidebar: The winning pitcher also pitched all the way that night: Lew Burdette (a.k.a. Chief Slobber on Stitches) of the Braves. When he argued for a contract raise the following year, he used the Haddix broken perfecto as his rationale: That guy pitched the greatest game in baseball history and he still couldn't beat me - so I must be the greatest pitcher in baseball!)

[BluesDuke]

er, make that a three-run homer negated into a single-run double...my bad...

[CARDINALRULES]

Yeah I know...and the fans were pissed and let it be known.

Rajah ended up getting over $100,000 from the sale of his stock he held on the Cards.

Of course the Cards got Frankie in the deal.

[BluesDuke]

Hornsby had the nasty habit of making himself persona non grata just about everywhere he went from that point on. He lost his last managerial job when he had the St. Louis Browns in the early 1950s and so alienated the team that a contingent led by pitcher Ned Garver were ready to go to owner Bill Veeck with a petition to dump him...unaware that Veeck himself was planning to make that very dump. When the news came, the players threw a huge party.

Ned Garver has another interesting footnote: he was part of the first three-way tie for first place in MVP voting ever - in 1951, Garver, Yogi Berra and Allie Reynolds of the Yankees got the same number of first-place votes! Berra ultimately won the award (his first of three). Garver rated because he had had his career season in '51, a 20-game winner with a dead last club.

[Dawgsquat]

I'll never get over the Oakland A's destroying my Big Red Machine (was it 1974?). Was it Sal Bando that hit all those homers? Damn, what a pi$$er!

[BluesDuke]

Those Oakland Athletics began their World Series three-peat against the Big Red Machine in the 1972 Series, winning in seven games. Here were the home runs:

Game One: Gene Tenace, Oakland (2)
Game Two: Joe Rudi, Oakland
Game Three: None
Game Four: Tenace
Game Five: Pete Rose, Denis Menke, Cincinnati
Game Six: Johnny Bench, Cincinnati
Game Seven: None

In 1973, the A's took on my surprise New York Mets (they'd won the NL East after starting September at the bottom of the heap and beat the Reds in a somewhat wild League Championship Series). The A's won in another arduous seven-game set. Here were the home runs:

Game One: None
Game Two: Cleon Jones, Wayne Garrett, Mets.
Game Three: Garrett
Game Four: Rusty Staub, Mets
Game Five: None
Game Six: None
Game Seven: Bert Campaneris, Reggie Jackson, Athletics

Finally, the A's got the Los Angeles Dodgers for the 1974 Series, and of all three of the consecutive Series triumphs it was against the Dodgers that Gang Green had their easiest time, winning in five. Here were the home runs:

Game One: Jimmy (The Toy Cannon) Wynn, Dodgers; Reggie Jackson, Athletics
Game Two: Joe Ferguson, Dodgers.
Game Three: Bill Buckner (yes - that Bill Buckner), Willie Crawford, Dodgers.
Game Four: Ken Holtzman (believe it - or not), Athletics.
Game Five: Ray Fosse, Joe Rudi, Athletics.

Kind of looks to me like Gene Tenace and Joe Rudi did the bulk of the long bomb damage against the Big Red Machine. I still remember people saying how surprising it was that even the Mets' precision pitching staff was keeping the Oakland big boppers in the park until Campaneris (who wasn't exactly a big bopper) and Jackson unloaded in the final game. It's probably even more surprising that the 1972-74 A's, who were the powerhouse their reputation has had them being, won only one of those three straight Series titles in less than seven games, and that even the 1973 Mets - who'd turned it on in the final month and made themselves play like the only quality team in a very weak NL East that year (they went 27-13 after 20 August and it included winning 21 out of their last 29 games) - could have taken those A's to a seventh game. The 1974 Dodgers, who were probably a somewhat better team than the 1973 Mets, were probably stunned that the Series ended in five.

[Dawgsquat]

Excellent. Thanks for refreshing my very faulty memory.