Baseball in the 1960's

Monday, January 11, 2021

A Third Major League Brings the NY Mets

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to David Rolfes of Las Vegas, NV, who correctly identified Lou Brock as the base stealing leader of the 1963 Chicago Cubs with 24. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: IF YOU ANSWER THE TRIVIA QUESTION CORRECTLY YOU WILL BE ENTERED INTO A WEEKLY DRAWING FOR A Starbucks Gift Card. YOU MUST ENTER VIA THE EMAIL AT THE END OF THIS COLUMN. DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR MAILING ADDRESS IN WITH THE ANSWER SO WE CAN SEND YOUR GIFT IF YOU WIN.

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TRIVIA QUESTION: Who was the winning pitcher in the New York Mets very first win? Hint; He pitched a five hit, complete game against Pittsburgh.

ANSWER TO TRIVIA QUESTION IN THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: Lou Brock led the 1963 Chicago Cubs with 24 stolen bases.

The name Branch Rickey rings many baseball bells but as seen in the video below, there may be something you never knew about Mr. Rickey, and it was all the brainchild of someone else you may never have heard of; William Shea.

(Branch Rickey, President of the Continental League on "What's My Line")
The Continental League - the third Major League - was scheduled to start play in eight cities beginning in 1961. It was already to go with some heavy duty backers, but then suddenly, it did not. And you can blame William Shea for that. If the name sounds familiar it should. His name was later on Shea Stadium, the home of the New York Mets. In fact, the Mets came into existence because of what he started and stopped with the Continental League.

With the Dodgers and Giants fleeing New York for the sunny confines of California and the Kansas City A's about to do the same several years later, Shea and his friends figured to start their own major league to bring baseball back. Initially the first cities which locked in were
Denver, Houston, Minneapolis–St. Paul, New York City, and Toronto, with Atlanta, Buffalo and Dallas-Ft. Worth added before the first pitch in April, 1961.

Now if those cities seem familiar today, they should. All but one eventually got a Major League franchise, which was the actual goal in the first place; expansion. Only Buffalo remains a city without MLB, but continues to have minor league baseball. Shea's dream would ultimately come to pass.

A shrewd lawyer, each of the owners would pay $50,000 for their franchise and put up another $2.5 million to get the games going. Stadiums would have a minimum seating capacity of 35,000. A far cry from the $2 billion-plus a team might go for today. Owners included Jack Kent Cooke (Toronto) and yes the same JK Cooke who owned the Los Angeles Lakers. They had a big name League President too; Branch Rickey. Rickey of course was the architect of the Brooklyn Dodgers who brought Jackie Robinson to the big leagues and who later GM'd Pittsburgh. Rickey appeared on the popular TV show, "What's My Line" as the head of the Continental League. He stated "it was as inevitable as tomorrow morning."

How did MLB owners react? They didn't like it even though the new league wanted to come in with the permission of MLB Commissioner Ford Frick, who did his best to be non committal. So what did they do? They expanded the NL and AL, and they did it in cities where the new league had teams planned. The first four expansion teams were the Houston Colt 45's, Washington Senators, Los Angeles Angels and yes, the New York Mets. The old Senators had moved on to Minnesota, leaving the nation's capitol without a part of the American pastime.

Oh, and who did they offer the New York Mets franchise to? The owner of the Continental League franchise in New York, Joan Whitney Payson . It effectively killed the Continental League on the spot. On August 2, 1960, the Continental League formally disbanded.

The goal of the Continental League owners was to expand and compete. By the end of the decade they got their wish to fully expand. Washington moved to Dallas-Ft. Worth (another Continental League city), the Montreal Expos came into existence and eventually moved to Washington, Kansas City got the Royals after Charlie Finley took his A's to Oakland, and while Seattle had a team for one year the Pilots moved to Milwaukee (replacing the Braves who moved to Atlanta (another Continental League city) and became the Brewers. Denver would eventually complete the disbanded CL city list except for Buffalo.

For his part William Shea was honored with the new Met's stadium named after him — Shea Stadium. In 2008, the New York Mets retired the name "Shea" on the outfield wall next to the other great Mets Tom Seaver, Mike Piazza, Gil Hodges, Casey Stengel, and Jackie Robinson. Although Robinson was not a Met (a Dodger traded to the Giants but retired before ever playing for them) he was added at the request of Major League Baseball. That wasn't all. Shea was instrumental in both the NFL and the NBA as well as the NHL in handling league mergers and team movement. William Shea died in New York in 1991 at the age of 84.

TRIVIA CONTEST; After reading this column you can enter the weekly trivia contest for a chance to win a Starbucks Gift Card. Enter via the following email. Send 1) your answer to the trivia question at the top of the column, 2) your name, address and email so where we know where to send the card if you win 3) any comment you have on the column. One winner will be selected at random each week based on correct answers with the odds being based on the number of correct entries. Please cut and paste or enter the following email into your email system.
SEND YOUR ANSWERS TO; brillpro@gmail.com
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Need to get out of a baseball hitting slump, or a golf swing slump? Order my new book "Beating the Slump; An athlete's guide to a better career." See it on Amazon for only $5.99. That is for the Paperback, you can also order Kindle on that link. You can also order paperback copies directly from me via the email below for my other books.

You can get a signed paper back copy of the above book "Tales of My Baseball Youth - a child of the sixties" for $15 Shipping Included

Use PayPal to brillpro@prodigy.net or contact us at the same email for other payment.

Thank you to those of you who purchased my book after reading this column.

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

The Awful 1962 Cubs Heard Round the World

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Chuck Riffee, of Mineral, VA, who correctly identified the four Boston Braves who played in the Negro Leagues as Sam Jethroe, Luis Marquez, George Crowe, and Buzz Clarkson. . The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

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TRIVIA QUESTION: Who led the Cubs in stolen bases in 1963?

ANSWER TO TRIVIA QUESTION IN THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: There were four Boston Braves who also played in the Negro Leagues; Sam Jethroe, Luis Marquez, George Crowe, and Buzz Clarkson.

When you start the season losing your first 10 games there is little elsewhere to go but up. Well, except in the case of the 1962 Chicago Cubs. With the likes of Ernie Banks (37 HR), Billy Williams (22 HR, .298), George Altman (22 HR .318) along with Ron Santo, Ken Hubbs and Andre Rodgers, you'd figure this club for better than a 9th place finish drawing just barely 609,000 fans (10th of 10 teams in attendance). But the Cubs did have one highlight that year (see video below). They lost that game too, 5-3 before 6,699 fans as you can see the stands are pretty empty.

(Cubs vs Phillies July 23, 1962)

Pitching was pretty bad. Bob Buhl and Cal Koonce both won in double figures but Dick Ellsworth was 9-20. Four of the top 10 pitchers had ERA's over 5.00. It got so bad right out of the gate that after 20 games manager El Tappe was gone (4-16), replaced by Lou Klein who didn't do much better at 12-18. with Charlie Metro taking them the rest of the way (43-69).

It wasn't that the club was so bad, it's just they never could pull together anything seriously resembling a winning streak. They lost 10 straight starting opening day. They lost four in a row several times, mixed in with losing streaks of 7 and 10 games. They never won more than five in a row and that was in mid-June when they were already 20 games out of first place.

The saddest day was perhaps September 15th at Wrigley Field when before 16,000 fans, the Dodgers spotted them four runs with Don Drysdale on the mound. The Cubbies were drubbed 6-4 and fell 45.5 games off the pace! They only played 162 that season. The team would fix itself for the final 30 days of the season and go 7-7 down the stretch to finish at 59-103.

However, a year later the club really did right itself and under new manager, Bob Kennedy they finished above .500 at 82-80. It moved them up to seventh place and the amazing thing was, they did it basically with the same guys. Larry Jackson was added and Altman was gone. Ron Santo stepped it up and banged 27 homers and hit .297 but Banks fell off to 18 home runs and a .227 BA. Williams did about what he did the previous year and Ellsworth went from a 20 game loser to a 22 game winner. Now that's progress.

SEND YOUR ANSWERS TO; brillpro@gmail.com
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Need to get out of a baseball hitting slump, or a golf swing slump? Order my new book "Beating the Slump; An athlete's guide to a better career." See it on Amazon for only $5.99. That is for the Paperback, you can also order Kindle on that link. You can also order paperback copies directly from me via the email below for my other books.

You can get a signed paper back copy of the above book "Tales of My Baseball Youth - a child of the sixties" for $15 Shipping Included

Use PayPal to brillpro@prodigy.net or contact us at the same email for other payment.

Thank you to those of you who purchased my book after reading this column.

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Embracing the Negro Leagues - Finally (Satch)

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EDITORS NOTE: We thought with Major League Baseball finally bringing the Negro League players into the MLB world, it was only appropriate that we brought this column back this week as a tribute to one of the great players of that era. While there were many who made the jump from the Negro Leagues to the Major Leagues, Paige perhaps had the biggest impact in the 1960s of those who had long careers before the color barrier was broken. Willie Mays and Hank Aaron both played in the Negro Leagues for a short time, but their careers were really made in MLB. Not so for the likes of Paige and others. This is a slice of time for the great Satch.

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Marykay Honel of Bourbonnais, Il, who correctly stated Hoyt Wilhelm pitched five shutouts in his career as a starting pitcher. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

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TRIVIA QUESTION: While the Boston Red Sox did not have any players on their roster who played in the Negro Leagues, the Boston Braves did. How many Boston Braves players actually spent time in the Negro Leagues. Bonus if you can name them.

ANSWER TO TRIVIA QUESTION IN THE PREVIOUS COLUMN: Hoyt Wilhelm pitched five shutouts in his career as a starting pitcher in the big leagues.

Who was the last player to ever get a hit off the great Satchel Paige? A lot of names might run through your mind considering the man who said he "pitched long enough to put butts in the seats" spent an entire career in the Negro Leagues before becoming a big leaguer in 1948.

Before we answer the question let's set the scenario. In September, 1965 the Kansas City A's signed Paige to a contract. Whether it was a stunt by promoter extraordinaire Charlie O. Finley or whether it was a bonafide (usually with Charlie O., the word is "bonehead") attempt to let the fans get one last look at the grand old man. Either way it was a full treat for everyone in baseball, or anyone who just loves the game.

(Actual footage of Satchel Paige earlier in his career.)

Paige was signed on the 10th of September at age 58! The A's were long out of the race and were on their way to a 103 loss season and landing in 10th place in the American League, 43 games back of the Twins. They would finish 10th in attendance with barely over half a million fans entering the ballpark. In fact, they rarely drew more than a few thousand people. On September 24th, they only put 2304 fans into Municipal Stadium.

When it was announced Paige was pitching the night of the 25th, attendance soared. Old Satchel put 9289 "butts in the seats." Four times as many people came out to see the nearly 60 year old hurler compared to the night before. The opponent? The lowly Boston Red Sox who were just four games better than the A's at that point in the season on their way to a ninth place finish.

Satch got the start and for three innings he was untouchable. And that was that. He faced 10 batters in three innings, did not give up a run, struck out one and did not walk a batter. The lone hit was by Red Sox future Hall of Famer, Carl Yasztremski. A harmless double in the first.

Paige began the game getting Jim Gosger to pop out. He ended his string getting Gosger to ground out to short. He faced one over the minimum and was remarkable. He left leading 1-0 in a game the A's eventually lost to Boston, 5-2. He didn't qualify for the win if they had won. He was taken out after three innings with the minimum needed by a starter being five innings. He was relieved for the last time by Diego Segui.

Paige got his final at bat in the big leagues in that game. He struck out.

Paige's career was legendary. There was talk he would be the first player to break the color barrier but that honor went to Jackie Robinson. Hit finally got his chance with the Indians in 1948 and pitched in the World Series. He was 42 and faced two batters, got them out, and also was called for a balk. A rarity at any level, let alone a World Series game. That season he went 6-1 with a 2.47 ERA.

During his Major League career he saved 33 games, or five more than his 28 wins. He lost 31. His 3.29 ERA was respectable, especially for a pitcher who came to the big leagues at an advanced age. He pitched for four other seasons after the initial rookie year. At age 45 he tossed 138 innings and at age 46 he threw another 117. In 1952 he also tossed a pair of shutouts.

Paige passed away in Kansas City in 1982 at the age of 76. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1971 as the first of the Hall's Negro League Inductees.

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