Baseball in the 1960's

Monday, September 19, 2022

The Fateful Day the Angels Changed Their Name

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Alan Drooz of San Diego, CA, who knew that Manny Jimenez played for the Columbus Jets of the International League. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

NEW TRIVIA CONTEST: By answering the TRIVIA QUESTION CORRECTLY you are automatically entered into a weekly drawing for a Starbucks Gift Card. Please enter via brillpro@gmail.com and please put your mailing address in with the answer so we can send you the gift card in the mail.

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Elmer Valo was the player in 1960 who came to bat 92 times, 81 as a Pinch Hitter.

EDS NOTE; Since we are trying to expand our mailing list and readership we want to build our mailing list. Readers on our email list receive the column each Monday directly into their mailbox. Please help us out by sending your email to brillpro@gmail.com. We DO NOT SELL your emails.

NOTE; At the top right corner of the side bar you will see a link to daily sports scores. We made an agreement with Baseball 24 in a mutual sharing situation.

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NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: OOOOOOOOPPPPPPPSSSSS; YES I screwed up. My question was mis-worded as I meant to ask which teams were the only two teams he had a lifetime losing record with and that would have been the Angels (21-29) and Milwaukee (2-7). So as a result just send me an email to brillpro@gmail.com and you will be entered into this week's drawing. My Bad!

~~In eight MLB seasons Marcelino Lopez pitched for five different teams but only had one "losing" season. Which season was that and what was his record?~~

What's in a name change? For the Los Angeles Angels the answer is "not much," at least at the beginning. Since their inception the Angels, who played at Dodger Stadium, were known as the Los Angeles Angels. They were the Hollywood version of an American League team, counteracting the Dodgers who had arrived less than a handful of years later.

However, the day they changed their name to the California Angels should have been something much stronger and brighter. It wasn't to be. The teams first game as the new CA Angels they faced the not so strong 1965 New York Yankees. An aging Whitey Ford was on the hill for the Bombers to face Marcelino Lopez. Lopez, as it turned out, wasn't up to the name change.

Inning number one. Bobby Richardson led off with a single. Tom Thresh doubled him to third. It was too early to walk Mickey Mantle but he should have. The Mick blasted one deep to left center field and it was 3-0 Yankees. Elston Howard singled, Joe Pepitone bunted him to second and after a Hector Lopez ground out, Clete Boyer singled him home, 4-0. Phil Linz singled before Ford, batting before ever throwing a pitch, grounded out. It was pretty much all over.

Tresh and Mantle combined for another run in the second before Rudy May came on in relief of Lopez. New York would score three more in the seventh while the Angels lone run came on a Jose Cardenal single to drive home Paul Schall. The final 8-1 New York. Ford went the distance giving up four hits.

The Angels would go 13-14 the rest of the way as the California Angels. The club would remain that way until 1996 when they became the Anaheim Angels and then later the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. With the team for sale again, who knows what they will become next.

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.
brillpro@gmail.com
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I've written more than a dozen books including at least two sports books. You can find these at my Amazon page or at my own website www.bobbrillbooks.com. Please take a look at the sports books, the western novel series or the "Tattoo Murder," which is a crime book set in Ventura, CA.

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Monday, September 12, 2022

When An Owner Screws UP; Charley O. FInley

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Jim Depitro of Syracuse, NY, who knew that Elmer Valo was the player in 1960 who came to bat 92 times, 81 as a Pinch Hitter. The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Elmer Valo was the player in 1960 who came to bat 92 times, 81 as a Pinch Hitter.

NOTE; At the top right corner of the side bar you will see a link to daily sports scores. We made an agreement with Baseball 24 in a mutual sharing situation.

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NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: In 1967 Manny Jimenez batted .331 for a Pittsburgh minor league team. What was the name of that team?

In the classic baseball film "Field of Dreams" Shoeless Joe Jackson tells Ray Kinsella in response to the farmer's reasoning for adding lights to baseball fields; the owners thought it would bring in more fans and more money if they could play games at night. Jackson (played by the late Ray Liotta) answers back "phh, owners." He did it with a dismissive response, basically saying owners can do more to wreck the game than anyone else.

Such was the case with a rising star in Kansas City, who fell to earth way before he should have. Manny Jimenez was an outstanding hitter in the minor leagues and upon making his debut in 1962, he seemed to be on track for stardom. Jimenez batted .301 with 11 homers for the Kansas City A's.

In his first game on April 11, 1962 in front of only 4,064 fans in Kansas City, he faced the Twins Camilo Pascual and got three of the teams four hits off the all-star pitcher. It seemed he was well on his way. It should be noted the next night he did not even start. It was okay as only 854 fans remember it. That was the total attendance at game three of the 1962 season.

It was another week before Jimenez appeared again and he got a pinch hit in his only at bat. The season went on in strange fashion. When the dust settled on the A's season, they finished in 9th place out of 10 and won only 72 games while losing 90. Jimenez on the other hand capped an outstanding rookie season.

Not only did he bat .301, but slugged 11 homers and 24 doubles but he drove in 69 runs. Then in the off season owner Charlie O. Finley pulled Manny aside. He instructed him to stop trying to hit for average (he'd batted .340 in one minor league season) and to go for power. He wanted more home runs, like the Yankees asked Roger Maris to do after he was traded by the A's to New York. While Maris responded with 100 dingers over the next two years, Manny hit 12 over the next three years.

Not surprisingly, in his second year, the year after he debuted with 11 homers, he hit zero - none- nada! In addition, his average fell to .280, .225 and then .114. He was shipped off to Pittsburgh where he served as a pinch hitter and was out of baseball by the end of the 1969 season.

To take a rookie who could have been rookie of the year and turn him completely around, Finley later admitted what he did probably hurt the player more than helped. The proof was in the pudding.

Despite his devastating exit from MLB Jimenez did have some highlights. He had three 4-hit games, including 3 home runs and 5 RBI against All-Stars Eddie Fisher, Sam Jones, Ken McBride, Camilo Pascual, and Juan Pizarro and hit a combined .429 (24-for-56) against Hall of Famers Whitey Ford, Ferguson Jenkins, Robin Roberts, Don Sutton, and Early Wynn.

Take it from Shoeless Joe; "phh owners."

Monday, September 5, 2022

Swingin' Gates Brown; The Best Ever?

TRIVIA WINNER: Congrats to Mickey Bauchan of Flint, MI, who knew that Nellie Fox was the 1963 White Sox starting player with the least strikeouts (17). The Prize: Starbucks Gift Card.

ANSWER to the Trivia question in the previous column: Nellie Fox had the least strikeouts of any starter on the 1963 White Sox with 17.

NOTE; At the top right corner of the side bar you will see a link to daily sports scores. We made an agreement with Baseball 24 in a mutual sharing situation.

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NEW TRIVIA QUESTION: In 1960 which player came to bat 92 times with 81 of them being as a pinch hitter, setting a baseball record for most pinch hit appearances in a season?

Their names read like a who's who of non-position players. Indeed, they officially don't even have a position - at least not in the official annals of baseball, but they do exist. And, they are among the most important players in the game. They are the "pinch-hitters" or the PH in the boxscore. The guys whose only role is to bat for someone the manager feels, at the moment, is the lesser option to do what the team tries to do; win.

The likes of slugger Jerry Lynch of Cincinnati, high average Manny Mota of the Pirates and Dodgers, Vic Davalillo, Smokey Burgess, Bubba Morton of the Angels, all made their mark in the 1960's. It was said Mota could get out of bed on a Sunday morning and get a hit for someone else. However, there was one guy who had a marvelous year. So much so, he became what may have been the first player to ever have the designation by position as "Pinch-hitter" on his Strat-O-Matic Baseball Card; Gates Brown.

Brown was an awesome player when it came to coming off the bench cold and cranking out a hit. He broke into the big leagues with Detroit and in an auspicious debut, his first appearance was as a pinch-hitter on June 19th at Boston's Fenway Park. He came up to bat for Don Mossi in the fifth inning of a game the Red Sox were winning 4-1. He promptly smashed a Bob Heffner pitch over the wall for a home run in his first at bat in the bigs.

The following year Brown got the chance to play regularly and while still being used in the pinch, he did find time to bat over 400 times on his way to hitting .272 with 15 homers.

He could always hit and was used in various ways throughout the years but in 1968 he became a valuable part of the Tigers run to the pennant. He hit .370 in 92 at bats, smashing seven doubles, a pair of triples and six homers while driving in 15 and drawing a dozen walks. Brown was extraordinary. More importantly as a pinch hitter he batted .450 on the season! He appeared only 18 times in the field in his 67 games.

In the 1968 post season he only batted once and did not get a hit, but in later years he continued to bat well. In his career, Brown collected 107 hits batting for someone else, including 16 homers. The slugger holds the record for the most at bats in the AL by a pinch hitter with 414.

Brown died of a heart attack at the age of 74 and did some coaching before then with his beloved Tigers where he spent his entire career, finishing in 1975 with a .257 lifetime average. He will always be remembered for a great 1968 season when the Tigers took it all and Swingin' Gates Brown played a key role.

Followers

Monday, September 19, 2022

The Fateful Day the Angels Changed Their Name

Monday, September 12, 2022

When An Owner Screws UP; Charley O. FInley

Monday, September 5, 2022

Swingin' Gates Brown; The Best Ever?