It was fifty years ago today that Hammerin’ Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run surpassing Babe Ruth’s long-standing record for lifetime home runs. On that cool early April afternoon in 1974 in Atlanta Stadium Aaron blasted a deep fly ball over the left-field wall against LA Dodger lefty Al Downing and became Major League Baseball’s all-time home run king.
I remember watching the momentous event with a small group of my college buddies. Yes, we cut classes to watch it. We had our priorities in order, although we were thankful that Hank came through that day saving us any further conflicts with our priorities.
Growing up a Yankee fan in the northeast in the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s I didn’t get to see Aaron on a regular basis. But I’ll never forget attending a mid-60’s game at Shea Stadium, Mets against the Braves. We had great seats in the loge section courtesy of the corporate perks of my buddy’s father. I distinctly remember being in awe of Aaron. He had an almost regal presence as he slowly ambled up to the plate. He had an unusual habit of carrying his helmet to home plate and then slowly donning it over his cloth hat as he settled into the batter’s box. He would then take one or two practice swings flexing his powerful wrists. Aaron was known for his powerful wrists. (As kids and wannabe ball players we actually did Hank Aaron inspired exercises to strengthen our wrists.) Then with a flick of those wrists Aaron treated us with a long home run. One of his 755 lifetime home runs. Most of us at that time thought it would be Mickey Mantle or Willie Mays who would pass the legendary Babe. But looking back on it, if my college self could tell my teenage self, “Hey, Hammerin’ Hank just passed the Babe,” my teenage self would have said, “Wow! Hey, I knew he could do it!”
Hank Aaron’s 23-year Major League Baseball career spanned three decades playing for only two cities, Milwaukee, and Atlanta and only two teams the Braves for 21 years and his final two years in 1975-76 with the Milwaukee Brewers.
He is the all-time leader in RBI’s, extra base hits, and total bases. He is second in lifetime home runs to Barry Bonds and second in at bats to Pete Rose. During his Hall of Fame career, he led the National League in home runs four times, RBI’s four times and batting average twice.
In 1957 he won the National League MVP award while leading the Braves to a World Championship over the New York Yankees.
Hank Aaron passed away in 2021 at the age of 86.
Many regard Aaron as the best professional baseball player of all time.
Few realized that baseball history would be made on July 16, 1866, a sweltering, humid afternoon, when the Philadelphia Athletics took the field against the Alerts of Danville at their new ball grounds in the City of Brotherly Love. Just a year earlier, the field served as a bivouac and staging area for the Union Army in the waning days of the Civil War. Up to the plate stepped 21-year-old Brooklyn native Lipman Pike, the son of Jewish refugees from Holland and the fastest, strongest player on the Athletics squad. Pike clouted the first pitch he saw deep to the gap in center field, using his tremendous speed for an inside-the-park home run. In each of his next four at-bats, Lip deposited the ball over the right field fence onto Columbia Avenue. Standing only 5’ 8” and 158 pounds, Lipman Pike was a veritable David amongst Goliaths, hitting five home runs in five consecutive at-bats in one game – a feat that hasn’t been matched in 158 years.
A local newspaper published that Pike, and two other players were paid $20 per week under the table by the Athletics, violating the amateur status of the “gentlemen’s sport”. Pike was ordered to appear before the governing committee of the National Association of Base Ball Players. The matter was dropped when no one from the Association bothered to show up for the hearing. As a result, Lipman Pike is considered one of the first professional athletes in America. Lipman Pike went on to a storied career as professional baseball’s first slugger, first Jewish player and manager, and the first American Jew to gain national fame as a sports icon. Tales of his feats became the stuff of legend. 1871 was the first year of the first professional baseball league, the National Association. Lipman Pike signed to play with the Troy Haymakers, who named him their captain and field manager – the first and only Jewish manager in baseball for the next 71 years. Pike led the National Association in home runs in 1871, 1872 and 1873, hitting 17.2 percent of the home runs swatted in the league in 1872, a record not broken until Babe Ruth in 1920. He holds the all-time career records for home runs and extra base hits in the National Association and won the home run crown in the National League in 1877, its second year of existence.
This newspaper photo from 1866 features the Brooklyn Atlantics and the Philadelphia Athletics of the National Association of Base Ball Players. Pike is one of the mustachioed players though I’m not sure which one.
Pike was one of the fastest men in baseball. He would race any challenger for a cash prize and a side bet. In 1873, Pike raced against a trotting horse named Clarence in a 100-yard sprint at Baltimore’s Newington Park and won by 4 yards in a time of 10 seconds flat, earning $250 (worth about $6100 today). While playing a game at Lakefront Park in Chicago in 1878, Lip Pike hit the longest double in major league history. Pike’s blast not only cleared the fence, but also a freight shed and half a dozen railroad cars, landing in a freight car traveling east. The Cincinnati Enquirer estimated the ball flew 600 feet, but legend has it that it traveled another 482 miles by rail. Due to the ground rules at Lakefront Park, Pike was only credited with a double. A few years later in Albany, Pike hit a ball over the wall at Riverside Park into the river. Right fielder Lou Knight began to go after the ball in a boat, but finally gave up. This time, in spite of the ground rule, Pike was credited with a home run.
His baseball career over, Lipman Pike became a successful haberdasher in Brooklyn, where he was beloved and celebrated by the Jewish community. Lip’s haberdashery became a successful business and a meeting place for the local baseball cognoscenti. There was an outpouring of grief after his death from heart disease in 1893 at the age of 48. The Sporting News wrote: “Pike . . . was one of the few sons of Israel who ever drifted to the business of ball playing. Called out by Umpire Death . . . Lip Pike was one of the greatest sluggers who ever batted.”
In the inaugural election for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, Lipman Pike received one vote. He may not have a plaque in Cooperstown, but never fear. Lipman Pike, this pioneer who held many of early baseball’s firsts, who as a young man lived up to the nickname bestowed upon him, “The Iron Batter”, became professional baseball’s first legitimate slugger. He was a 19th century ballplayer whose prowess on the ballfields reflected the pride and hope felt by America’s most recent immigrant influx, Jewish people. In 1985, one hundred nineteen years after he hit 5 home runs in 5 consecutive at-bats in a game; ninety-two years after he succumbed to heart failure, Lipman Pike was decisively elected to a place of honor on the bimah of the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in Netanya, Israel. You know how to get to the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame? Start out in Cooperstown and when you can’t find a Lipman Pike plaque, take a hard right and travel 6,000 miles straight to Netanya.
One of my favorite blogs is Archived Innings by Precious Sanders. While recently going through some past posts on Archived Innings I came upon a post honoring Buck O’Neil the talented Negro League ball player who had just been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. I have always been a fan of Buck O’Neil since I first learned about him watching Ken Burns’ documentary series Baseball. O’Neil was interviewed in the documentary and his stories about playing in the Negro Leagues were both enlightening and entertaining. He had such a warm and ingratiating personality I became an instant fan.
O’Neil was born in Carrabelle Florida in 1911 and became a steady if not spectacular first baseman for the Kansas City Monarchs, one of the best teams in the Negro Leagues. He had a lifetime batting average of .311. After his playing days were over, he became the first African American to coach in the Major Leagues. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.
For his on-field accomplishments and his extraordinary contributions to the game of baseball O’Neil was posthumously elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022. The following video is a round table discussion about that long overdue event. The remarkable panel includes Bob Kendricks curator of the Negro Leagues Museum, filmmaker Ken Burns, writer Joe Posnanski, sports announcer Bob Costa and former Major League pitching star CC Sabathia. It is a wide-ranging discussion that covers much of O’Neil’s inspiring life story, the Negro Leagues, and the eventual integration of Major League Baseball.
I hope you’ll take the time to click on the discussion and watch it in full. I do caution however that the discussion starts off slowly. The first fifteen minutes consists of long-drawn-out praise of O’Neil which, though justified, becomes a bit repetitious. There is also too much discussion about the delay in finally inducting O’Neil. But once you get by that the discussion is thoughtful, insightful, and entertaining in which the commentators bring to life a truly fascinating and vitally important slice of American History.
(As the dreary days of winter drag on and Opening Day still seems so far away, I have found one antidote for these doldrums is to check out Gary Livacari’s excellent blog Baseball History Comes Alive. While doing so I came upon Gary’s fine retelling of this timeless baseball tale. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.)
“I’ll knock a homer for Wednesday’s game. Babe Ruth” –Inscription on baseball scrawled by Babe Ruth during the 1926 World Series and given to little Johnny Sylvester, recovering from a near-fatal illness.
One of baseball’s most enduring legends occurred during the 1926 World Series. Of course it had to involve none other than the great Bambino himself. We’re all aware the Babe had his share of personal shortcomings (and don’t we all!); but when there was a kid in need, no one was more likely to come through in a big way than the Babe.
The Babe’s Famous Promise
The ball signed by Babe Ruth with his promise to Johnny Sylvester to hit a home run for him.
In 1926, little Yankee fan Johnny Sylvester was just 11 years old, recuperating from a horseback riding accident that resulted in a serious injury. He was hospitalized near his home in Essex Falls, New Jersey. The prognosis wasn’t good. The Yankees got wind of Johnny’s condition, and so during a rain delay in Game Three of the World Series in St. Louis, a few ball players signed a baseball just for Johnny. Babe Ruth inscribed more than just his signature, though. He penned his famous promise:
“I’ll knock a homer for you in Wednesday’s game” Babe Ruth
Babe visits the ailing Johnny Sylvester in the hospital.
In the classic photo above, we see the Babe and little Johnny together. Johnny still has a bandage on his forehead from his horseback riding injury. Thanks again to Don Stokes for another super colorization which really helps bring the story to life.
The Bambino Delivers…
On Wednesday, October 6, 1926 – Game Four of the series, a 10-5 Yankee victory – the Babe delivered on his promise…and then some! Amazingly, he didn’t hit just one homer, he hit three. On the day after Game Seven, Oct. 11, Ruth personally visited Johnny Sylvester in the hospital in Essex Falls.
…And Johnny Miraculously Recovers!
And sure enough, something miraculous happened: Against all odds, Johnny’s health gradually started to improve. According to Andrew Lilley, Johnny’s great-nephew, the visit from the Babe changed everything:
“Babe Ruth’s home runs and his visit helped Johnny find the will to survive.”
On Dec. 16, 1926, Ruth penned another letter to the boy (shown at right, in Babe’s distinctive, florid handwriting), inquiring about his recovery and inviting him to Yankee Stadium during the 1927 season “to help win another pennant.”
Johnny didn’t just survive…he thrived. He went on to graduate from Yale University in 1937, and later became a successful business owner and much-beloved family man. He even served in the Navy during World War II, rising to the rank of lieutenant. All because the Babe saved his life…or so the story goes!
Life Turns Full Circle!
In 1947, Johnny Sylvester visits an ailing Babe Ruth.
Fast forward to 1947. The situation had now completely reversed. Now it was Babe Ruth who was ailing and it was Johnny Sylvester’s turn to repay the man who had come to his bedside when he was gravely ill. As Andrew Lilley described the scene:
“The story had come full circle at this point. Here was the kid all grown up going back to the Babe and showing the same generosity to his hero, just as the Babe showed him all those years ago.”
Reading about this reunion 75 years later, it’s still hard not to shed a tear…
Ruth wasn’t the only sports celebrity to reach out to the ailing boy. “Big Bill” Tilden, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, sent him an autographed tennis racquet. Hall-of-Fame halfback Red Grange sent a letter and an autographed football. Baseball Hall-of-Famer Rogers Hornsby, in a rare show of compassion, was another famous athlete who sent little Johnny a letter. Of course, none of these other displays of concern did as much for little Johnny’s recovery as the Babe’s fulfilled promise and later visit.
Forty Years Later, Johnny Sylvester Is Found!
Johnny Sylvester at the time of his graduation from Yale in 1939
In 1986 – the 40th Anniversary of the Johnny Sylvester story – the Babe Ruth Museum tried to investigate the story for authenticity. The museum eventually tracked down the real Johnny Sylvester, finding him as a retired banker living in Connecticut. When asked for some proof that these events actually happened, Mr. Sylvester produced the baseball with Babe’s handwriting and signature. The ball said, “I’ll knock a homer for Wednesday’s game. Babe Ruth.” The ball is now on display in the Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore along with the other artifacts in “The Little Johnny Sylvester Collection.” It’s been on loan to the Babe Ruth Museum for 36 years.
The Babe Ruth Museum located Johnny Sylvester in 1986.
But Is the Story True?
Is this heartwarming story completely true, or has it been embellished? Was the whole thing a hoax? Maybe we’re falling for a sappy publicity stunt dreamt up by Babe Ruth’s ubiquitous agent and “image-maker,” Christy Walsh. It certainly has that ring to it.
If so, it was highly successful. The publicity was priceless for Babe Ruth’s image. Years later when asked about the incident, Ruth is purported to have blurted out, “Who the hell is Johnny Sylvester?”
True or not, it remains one of the most timeless anecdotes in all of baseball lore and is one of the wonderful stories contributing to the endearing legacy of the great Bambino, Babe Ruth. Sadly,Johnny Sylvester passed away on January 6, 1990 at age 74 while residing in Garden City, New York.
Gary Livacari
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This year marks the 25th anniversary of what could be regarded as the best baseball team of all time, the 1998 New York Yankees. In his new book The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever The 1998Yankees author Jack Curry makes a convincing case. If you are a baseball fan and you haven’t read Curry’s book you should. If you are a Yankee fan you must.
As a long time Yankee fan, I didn’t need much convincing, though I had to do some research on the 1961 Yankees, the team I grew up watching, to make sure Curry’s argument held up. And it does. It also holds up against all the other great teams in baseball history. By all means get Curry’s informative and enjoyable book to see his complete argument. For my blog here I will focus in on what I believe are the most important facets support the conclusion that the 1998 New York Yankees are the best team ever.
First, to set some parameters: I am not talking about the best collection of players, nor am I measuring the team over a course of several seasons. I am not talking about a dynasty team (though the 1998 Yankees were part of a dynasty team that won four World Championships and five AL Pennants over the course of 6 years; 1996-2001). I’m talking about a team having the greatest single season ever. And for this I believe there is no doubt.
The two most important categories to consider are wins, of course, and winning the World Series. A lesser category would be winning percentage.
Let’s start with winning percentage as the fairest way to differentiate a really good team from a great team. Afterall, winning percentage accurately accounts for the significance of the different lengths of seasons from baseball’s different eras. Specifically, the change from 154 games to 162 games which occurred in 1961. Using .700 as the dividing line we find nine teams in modern baseball history (since the beginning of the World Series in 1903) that had a regular season winning percentage over .700.
Here is the list:
1906 Chicago Cubs .763 W 116 L 36
1909 Pittsburgh Pirates .724 110-42
1954 Cleveland Indians .721 111-43
2001 Seattle Mariners .716 116-46
1927 NY Yankees .714 110-44
1998 NY Yankees .704 114-48
1931 Philadelphia Athletics .704 107-45
1907 Chicago Cubs .704 107-45
1939 NY Yankees .702 106-45
Of these nine teams four can be eliminated because despite their fantastic regular season they failed to win the World Series. In my book you can’t be considered the best team ever if you couldn’t even win the championship. So, despite having the most regular season wins at 116 both the 1906 Cubs and the 2001 Mariners are both eliminated because they failed to win the World Series. The Cubs lost to their crosstown rivals the White Sox and the Mariners failed to even make it to the World Series, losing in the playoffs to the Yankees. The 1954 Indians and the 1931 Athletics also failed to win the World Series so that leaves us with five teams remaining.
Honus Wagner
This is a tough call, but I’m going to eliminate the 1909 Honus Wagner led Pittsburgh Pirates because they had a difficult time in the World Series needing seven games to beat Ty Cobb’s Detroit Tigers. The remaining four teams all went undefeated in the World Series although the 1907 Cubs took five games to defeat the Tigers with one game ending in a tie.
To differentiate the four remaining teams, I will use a rough metric from the Baseball Almanac where the teams’ yearly stats are compiled showing the leaders in ten offensive categories such as batting average and runs and eight pitching categories such as ERA and strikeouts. The best team here is the 1927 Yankees who led in 12 categories, the 1939 Yankees 10 categories, the 1998 Yankees eight categories, and the 1907 Cubs only five categories. Using this metric, I will give the 1907 Cubs with the lowest score the boot leaving the three Yankee teams as the finalists. I know, I’m a Yankee fan, but what can I say, the stats don’t lie.
The Baseball Almanac’s metric has however a significant flaw. It can’t account for a major difference between the two eras; before and after the leagues expanded. The 1998 Yankees competed against twice as many teams as the 1927 and 1939 Yankees, thus it was much more difficult to lead in a category. But we can use that metric to compare the 1927 Yanks and the 1939 Yanks, and we can give Babe Ruth’s Yanks the nod over Joe DiMaggio’s lower scoring Yanks, thus eliminating the 1939 Yanks and leaving just the 1998 Yankees and the 1927 Yankees in the competition.
Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth
So, comparing two teams from two different eras can be difficult but it also can be fun. I know growing up and watching the 1961 Yankees every day; as the season went on there were discussions as to whether the 1961 Yankees with the M&M Boys, Mantle and Maris, could compare with Ruth and Lou Gehrig and the Murders Row of 1927. At that time the 1927 Yankees were considered the best team of all-time, at least in my neck of the woods and without any advanced metrics. The ’27 Yankees certainly had all the power and glitz with two of the all-time greats in their lineup, Ruth, and Gehrig. The ’98 Yankees didn’t lack in star power with two emerging Hall of Famers, Derek Jeter, and Mariano Rivera on their roster. They also had the AL batting champ Bernie Williams and a solid pitching staff with borderline Hall of Famer David Cone, plus Andy Pettitte and David Wells. As a result, I must contend that it all comes down to wins. The 1998 Yankees, winning 114 regular season games and 11 post season games for a total of 125 wins, had more wins than any other team ever, and 11 more than the 1927 Yankees. Now you could argue that if the 1927 Yankees played 23 more games, they probably could have won at least 12 of them. The problem is, that would be mere speculation and there is no way to know, and we will never know. There is no other way around it, the 1998 New York Yankees, winner of 125 games, are simply the best.
Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter
A couple of footnotes.
One reason the 1998 New York Yankees do not get the credit they deserve is that the year 1998 in baseball is primarily remembered for the incredible home run competition between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. As the Yankees dominated the American League with record setting precision, McGwire and Sosa were captivating the entire nation with their quest to break Roger Maris’s single-season home run record. Prior to any suspicions of PED’s they were America’s sports heroes as McGwire blew by Ruth and Maris with 70 home runs and Sosa doing the same with 66.
Curry’s book also mentions a comparison of the greatest teams done by the website FiveThirtyEight using a complex set of metrics. FiveThirtyEight lists the 1939 Yankees as number one, kudos to Joe D, but the ’39 Yanks had the lowest winning percentage of our nine .700 teams, and it somehow rates the 1906 Cubs number two despite losing the World Series. For those reasons I believe their metrics are flawed. They even dropped our 1998 Yankees to fifth, behind the ‘27 Yankees and the ’09 Pirates which I certainly find unjustifiable.
References:
The Inside Story of the Greatest Baseball Team Ever The 1998 Yankees by Jack Curry
On Thursday night Shohei Ohtani had an historic performance on the mound and at the plate by pitching a shutout and hitting two home runs on the same day.
My friend Al Zevin, who is an amateur baseball historian, did some research and discovered that the remarkable feat occurred only four other times in modern baseball history.
2023 Shohei Ohtani vs. Detroit
1971 Sonny Siebert vs. Boston
1971 Rick Wise vs. Cincinnati
1962 Pedro Ramos vs. Baltimore
1961 Milt Pappas vs. Minnesota
As a big Ohtani fan, I then boastfully claimed to Al that Ohtani has probably hit more home runs this year than those four pitchers combined for their entire careers.
I did some research and well…I was wrong.
Here’s what I found. All four pitchers, Siebert, Wise, Ramos and Pappas are what we might have called good hitting pitchers in that they did hit an occasional home run. So, it was not merely a fluke that they hit two home runs in a game that they pitched a shutout. As a matter of fact, both Sonny Siebert and Rick Wise each hit 6 home runs in the 1971 season. Here’s how the career home runs stack up for these four pitchers.
Sonny Siebert: 12 years, 18 home runs
Rick Wise: 18 years, 15 home runs
Pedro Ramos: 15 years, 15 home runs
Milt Pappas: 17 years, 20 home runs
So, their total career home runs of 68 are more than twice that of Ohtani’s current number 38.
This of course is a very arbitrary comparison but insightful none the less. (And aren’t these statistical comparison’s fun and part of the charm of baseball)? What we see here is that pitchers really could hit back when they were allowed to. The four mentioned here could all be described as having occasional power though their lifetime batting averages were dreadful. Wise .195, Siebert .173, Ramos .155, and Pappas .123. But yes, they had occasional power and averaged about 5 home runs per season. They all had solid career pitching stats with only Ramos clocking in with a below .500 won-loss record and plus 4.00 ERA. They may even have had more hitting success if there was a DH back when they pitched, though Rick Wise pitched half his career in the DH era.
One other note: these four pitchers also accomplished the two-home run-shutout feat in the same game. Ohtani needed a double-header, pitching the shutout in the first game and blasting two homers in the second.
None of this though can in any way diminish from Ohtani’s incredible accomplishments. Right now, he leads both leagues in home runs, he’s second in RBI’s, third in strikeouts and two off the pace in wins. He is having a truly remarkable season and should continue making history.
References: Al Zevin, Jeff Robinson, ESPN, Baseball-reference.com
It was a century ago that Babe Ruth was in the middle of what can be considered his best season ever and one of the best in Major League Baseball history.
We all know the basics of the Babe Ruth story—the son of a saloon keeper, the rowdy youngster sent off to private school. The young man who could hit a baseball a mile and pitch darts with unmatched velocity. There were his early years with the Boston Red Sox where he pitched them to three World Series Championships and then began his conversion from outstanding pitcher to phenomenal hitter. And then the astonishing, fateful trade from the Sox to the New York Yankees in December 1919.
Ruth changed the sport with his sensational 54 home runs in 1920 as he became a full-time outfielder and the game’s first superstar slugger. He was even better in 1921 when he hit 59 home runs and led the Yankees to their first ever American League pennant. With his unmatched power and fun-loving personality Ruth was now the most popular and dominant player in baseball. The country had just come out of the dark days of a world war and baseball was recovering from the “black sox scandal” of 1919. The bombastic Babe was just the tonic the country yearned for, and baseball needed so desperately.
Ruth hit an unfathomable total of 113 home runs over those first two years with the Yanks and single-handedly changed baseball from a game of station-to-station strategy to one of crowd pleasing, majestic moon shots. But his career had a setback in 1922 when he missed the first month due to a suspension and more games due to an altercation with a fan. He missed a total of forty-two games, and his production was way lower than was expected of him. Although the Yankees once again won the pennant, the New York Giants for the second straight time, beat the Yanks in the World Series. The Babe was a huge disappointment for his growing fan base as he batted a miserable .118 against the Giants.
Determined to make amends for his lackluster 1922 season Ruth went on a tear in 1923. One hundred years ago this month Ruth was hitting .381. He ended July batting .390 with 24 home runs. In August he hit .500, going 40-for-80 and moved his average over .400 as he battled Harry Heilmann for the batting title. One notable change for Ruth was the opposition’s strategy to walk him constantly. Lou Gehrig was not yet a fixture in the Yankee lineup and Ruth lacked his protection, so it was common to give the Bambino a base on balls. One afternoon in June against Cleveland, the Babe doubled in his first at bat and was walked intentionally his next four times up. He walked an incredible 170 times that year—a record that stood for the rest of the 20th century and was only broken during the steroid era. Ruth eventually came in second in the batting race, though his .393 still stands as one of the highest ever for a power hitter eclipsed only by Ted Williams in 1941. Ruth completely dominated the AL in stats in 1923. He won the home run title with 41, was first in runs (151), total bases (399), RBIs (131), walks (170), on-base percentage (.545), and slugging percentage (.764). His on base plus slugging percentage was a scintillating 1.309. He was fourth in hits (205) and third in doubles (45). But his most incredible stat was one that we don’t hear much about. He reached base an astonishing 379 times. Think about it. In 152 games the big guy averaged being on base almost 2 ½ times per game! And that is a record that no amount of PED’s could overcome and still stands today.
Ruth continued his torrid hitting in the World Series as the Yankees once again faced the Giants. The Bambino blasted three home runs and batted .368 leading the Yankees to their first World Series Championship beating their cross-town rivals four games to two. This was also the year Yankee Stadium opened having been built because the Yanks, who were also playing in the Polo Grounds, were no longer welcome. Along with helping to bring the first championship to the new stadium Ruth christened the sparkling new venue with its first home run which he hit on opening day in April.
What makes this Ruth’s best season ever was his outstanding performance in the field. He was the American League’s best right fielder. The Babe is not often thought of as a great fielder, but he was a sound outfielder for most of his career and in 1923 he was at the top of his game leading all AL right fielders with a .973 fielding percentage. He also threw out 20 baserunners and had 378 putouts.
Babe Ruth would go on to have many stellar seasons and a Hall-of-Fame career but in 1923, one hundred years ago, he had his best season ever.
References: New York Yankee Seasons of Glory by William Hageman and Warren Wilbert and Baseball-reference.com
Last night New York Yankees’ righthander Domingo Germán pitched a perfect game against the Oakland Athletics in the Oakland Coliseum. It was only the 24th perfect game in major league history and the first since 2012. The flawless Yankee hurler used only 99 pitches to set down the A’s compiling 9 strikeouts in the process. He used an awesome curveball fifty percent of the time and completely corralled the Oakland batting order. For the most part it was an easy game for the Yankee defense with only a nice, backhanded stop by first baseman Anthony Rizzo needed to preserve the gem. The New York offense came to life providing 11 runs, the most ever in a perfect game. Yankee manager Aaron Boone called Germán’s performance a masterpiece. Catcher Kyle Higashioka agreed saying it all came together for Germán and he was amazing. What is most surprising is that Germán had been awful in his last two games allowing 17 runs in 5 innings. He is the only pitcher ever to pitch a perfect game after giving up ten runs in his prior game. But that was all in the past as the crafty Dominican was in complete control last night.
It was the fourth perfect game pitched by a Yankee. The first one was the memorable performance by Don Larsen in game five of the 1956 World Series against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Almost 43 years later in 1998 David Wells spun a perfect game on Beanie Baby Day at Yankee Stadium. David Cone followed up the next year with a perfect game against the Expos. Ironically that performance occurred on Yogi Berra Day at the Stadium and Larsen was in attendance.
Germán, having been born in the Dominican Republic, is only the third pitcher born outside of the USA to pitch a perfect game; Félix Hernández in 2012 for the Seattle Mariners was born in Venezuela and Dennis Martínez in 1990 pitching for the Montreal Expos was born in Nicaragua.
Of the previous five perfect games three came in 2012 and two in 2010. Hernández pitched his against Tampa Bay on August 15, 2012, Matt Cain against Houston on June 13, 2012, and Philip Humber against Seattle on April 21, 2012. The perfect games hurled in 2010 were by Roy Halladay against Miami on May 29 and Dallas Braden against Tampa Bay on May 9.
It seems as if perfect games occur in bunches so be on the look-out this year!
On a personal note, those of you who are into Fantasy Baseball will appreciate this. Domingo Germán is on my fantasy team and based on his recent miserable performances I strongly considered benching him this week. But I saw that his start this week was against Oakland, the team with the worst offense in the majors. For that reason, fortunately, I kept Germán active this week. What could be worse than to have one of your fantasy pitchers inactive while pitching a perfect game? Whew! That was a close one.
One hundred years ago this day the new home of the New York Yankees opened on 161st in the Bronx. The Yankeess who had previously played in the Polo Grounds, sharing the facility with the National League New York Giants, were asked to leave following the 1922 season. It was for the better since the two teams were becoming intense rivals having squared off in the 1921 and 1922 World Series. Both were won by the Giants. The new ballpark which cost $2.5 million would be called Yankee Stadium and soon earn the nickname “The House That Ruth Built”.
Yankee Stadium
April 18, 1923 was the season opener for New York against the Boston Red Sox, the Babe’s former team. According to the Chicago Tribune reporting on the event, “governors, generals, politicians, and baseball officials gathered solemnly today to dedicate the biggest stadium in baseball. But it was a player who did the real dedicating. In the third inning, with two teammates on base, Babe Ruth smashed a savage home run into the rightfield bleachers, and that was the real baptism of the new Yankee Stadium.” The Yankees went on to easily defeat Boston 4-1.
The Babe
The Stadium would remain on that location for 86 years hosting 39 American League Pennants for the Yankees and 26 Yankee World Championships until it was demolished for the New Yankee Stadium which opened in 2009. Ruth would go on to hit 258 more Yankee Stadium home runs, only Mickey Mantle who played for 18 years in New York hit more.
On a personal note: I attended Yankee Stadium many, many times; as a kid with my father and brothers, as a teenager with my buddies and as an adult with my family. Some of the trips are loosely portrayed in my novel Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run. In those scenes in my book, I routinely referred to Yankee Stadium as The Stadium, “stadium” always capitalized. This gave my editor fits. In my neck of the woods here in northern New Jersey going to a Yankee game could commonly be expressed by saying going to The Stadium. We all knew that meant Yankee Stadium. Sure, Shea Stadium was around but The Stadium could only mean Yankee Stadium. As happened far too often, my editor won out, explaining that if I wanted to appeal to a larger audience, clarity would be best, and Yankee Stadium would be Yankee Stadium not The Stadium in my book. For the most part I accepted my editor’s suggestions and my book benefited from it, but to me, to this day, Yankee Stadium will always be “The Stadium”.
References: The Yankee Encyclopedia by Mark Gallagher and Walter LeConte
New York Yankees Season of Glory by William Hageman and Warren Wilbert
As we continue to remember the legacy of Tim McCarver who passed away last Friday, we should not overlook his contribution to that elusive thread of racial healing that drifted precariously throughout the turbulent 1960’s. Growing up in Memphis Tennessee the son of a policeman, McCarver could never be expected to be at the vanguard of the roiling civil rights movement of the sixties. He was a product of white America and possessed what he would describe as latent prejudices against African Americans. When he arrived in the major leagues his team, the St. Louis Cardinals, had already made a strong thrust toward integration by acquiring some of the best black ball players in the country such as Curt Flood, Bill White, Lou Brock, and Bob Gibson. It was his relationship with these players and especially Bob Gibson (who passed away in 2020) which would test McCarver’s ability to overcome his prejudices. All indications are that he did so successfully and during an era of civil unrest the McCarver-Gibson relationship became a model of racial harmony.
McCarver became the starting catch for the Cardinals in 1963 and he and Gibson would be battery mates for the next six years before McCarver was traded to the Phillies. Gibson played his entire 17-year career with the Cardinals, winning 251 games, earning the Cy Young Award twice and MVP once while eventually being inducted in the Hall of Fame. His 1968 season was one for the record books. That year he had an incredible 1.12 ERA. The lowest ERA by any pitcher in the modern era (since 1920). During their six years together, Tim caught 197 of Gibby’s starts and they had tremendous success winning the National League Pennant three times and the World Series in 1964 and 1967.
Through this time Gibson was considered an extremely talented pitcher and an intimidating figure on the mound. Some would consider him mean and menacing with racial undertones. But McCarver always considered his battery mate a gentleman and friend who was just a fierce competitor on the mound in much the same way as LA Dodger pitcher and contemporary, Don Drysdale.
Over the years the pair became good friends despite their different backgrounds and were goodwill ambassadors for the game of baseball during an unsettled time. One such example was their appearance together on The Ed Sullivan Show just after defeating New York in the 1964 Series. Their relationship though was not without some give and take. McCarver often spoke of the education he received as a newcomer in St Louis. His teammates Gibson and outfielder Curt Flood were Black players who did not hesitate to confront or tease McCarver. As reported by The Guardian “when McCarver used racist language against a Black child trying to jump a fence during spring training, Gibson would remember getting right up in McCarver’s face. McCarver liked to tell another story about drinking an orange soda during a hot day in spring training and Gibson asking him for some, then laughing when McCarver flinched.”
“It was probably Gibby more than any other Black man who helped me to overcome whatever latent prejudices I may have had,” McCarver wrote in his 1987 memoir “Oh, Baby, I Love It!”
There were also lighter moments between the two. According to Tim Kirkjian of ESPN, “when McCarver went to the mound to talk to Gibson, he wasn’t always given a kindly welcome. McCarver famously said that Gibson was particularly ornery during one trip to the mound, and said to McCarver, the only thing you know about pitching is you can’t hit it.”
Probably the most significant incident between the two occurred in the morning after the assassination of Martin Luther King. The country was reeling with hatred and on the verge of an explosion, but McCarver tried to discuss the tragic news with Gibson. According to reporter Tim Wendell, “Gibson told McCarver that it was impossible for whites, no matter how well intentioned, to understand how he was feeling that morning. It didn’t help that McCarver was from Memphis, where King was murdered. Yet McCarver stood his ground, telling Gibson that it was possible for people to change. If anything, he was a prime example. McCarver reminded Gibson that when the catcher was new to the team, Gibson and Curt Flood teased him about his reluctance to share a sip of soda offered by a black man. Bob and I reached a meeting of theminds that morning, McCarver later said. That was the kind of talk we often had on the Cardinals.”
Gibby and Tim remained friends through the years.
What is most important about the Tim and Gibby relationship is they learned from each other. They learned how to listen, respect each other and to get along together on the biggest stage in a complicated world. One can only assume that our country was made just a little bit better by the actions of these two very talented and gracious gentlemen.
Sources:
Baseball-reference.com,
The Guardian
Tim Kirkjiian
Tim Wendel
On a personal note: If you have had the chance to read my novel Mickey Mantle’s Last Home Run you will remember that one of the protagonists, an African American teenager named Jonathan, was a huge fan of the St. Louis Cardinals and especially Bob Gibson. Jonathan was looking for role models and, as a struggling JV pitcher, who could be a better role model than Bob Gibson? Jonathan, who had a rebellious spirit, especially liked Gibson because Gibson was “mean”. And if you were black in the white dominated society you had to be mean according to the teenager’s reasoning.
The main theme of the novel is played out as Jonathan reacts to the murder of his other hero Martin Luther King and refuses to accept the condolences from his white friend TJ the book’s narrator. The emotions expressed by Jonathan and TJ are nearly exactly those described by Wendel’s reporting. I was unaware of the Tim and Gibby incident in April 1968, but surely similar confrontations were common back then and remain so today.
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