1980. Pete Rose and Fred Lynn pose for a photo together at the MLB All-Star Banquet. While there is much to dislike about Pete Rose, there will always be quite a lot to love as well. This photo is one of those things. I wish I could find a nice quality image of this without the autograph.
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1914. Babe Ruth warms up during his rookie season with the Red Sox. This is easily one of the best photos I have seen from Ruth’s early years with Boston.
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I REALLY love this photo: A young Casey Stengel during his playing days with the Brooklyn Dodgers. The “Old Perfessor” played with the Dodgers from 1912 to 1917 and actually had some good seasons with them. He played parts of 14 seasons in the big leagues while playing with the Dodgers, Pirates, Phillies, Giants, and Braves.
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I’m a sucker for anything related to the Brooklyn Dodgers so of course I love this photo. When I initially found this, I had to look up Billy Cox because frankly I just didn’t know much about the guy. Well it turns out he played with the Dodgers from 1948 to 1954. That’s right, after 7 seasons with the “Dem Bums” they finally won a World Series the year after he left (1955). He HAD to be somewhat bitter about this.
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An incredible color photo of Ted Williams at-bat. Seriously, what is there not to love about this? This is absolute Baseball perfection as far as I’m concerned.
The trailer for the Jackie Robinson biopic entitled “42” was released early today and I must say that it looks like it is going to be amazing. The Jay-Z music is a bit of an odd choice for the trailer but I guess since the words “Jackie Robinson” and “Brooklyn” are in the track, it somewhat fits.
Oh yeah, Ebbets Field Flannels did the uniforms for the all the Minor League and Negro League uniforms in the film which is so awesome. April 12th can’t get here soon enough!
If there’s one person that I’ve covered in 90 Feet of Perfection more than anyone else, I would assume it would have to be Satchel Paige with Ted Williams coming in not far behind in 2nd place. With posts such as “It’s a Satchel Paige kinda day,”“How old would you be…,” and “Rules for staying young” along with dozens of other Satchel related topics and photos over the last 2 years, I would say he is almost the unofficial mascot of the site in some ways. So with all that said, I have another all-Satchel Paige related post for you all. I hope you enjoy!
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For a few years now I have been looking for photos of Satchel Paige from 1961 during his time with the Portland Beavers. I have had ZERO luck in this and kind of assumed it wasn’t well documented. A few weeks ago while looking around on eBay I came across a Satchel Paige Portland Beavers bobblehead which I promptly purchased (photo HERE). When I received the bobblehead, it came in a box that had several photos on it including the photo above with Paige wearing his Beavers cap. Also by pure coincidence, the day the I received the bobblehead I discovered an article online entitled “Satchel Paige in Seattle”which also has a great photo of him with the Beavers.
I guess my search for old Satch during his days in Portland are now over.
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Satchel Paige poses for a photo in 1943 as a member of the Kansas City Monarchs. Since finding this photo, I have thought this was a very odd pose due to how he is holding his bat. I could not figure out how this could possibly be effective during an actual at-bat. Well, last week while watching a Mets game I saw Pitcher Chris Young hold the bat in a very similar way and he ended up laying down a perfect sacrifice bunt while doing so.
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1968. Satchel Paige converses with fellow pitching legends Dizzy Dean and Tom Seaver during his time as a “Pitching Coach/Trainer” with the Atlanta Braves. I would love to ask Seaver what he remembers of this interaction with Paige and if so, what was said. I certainly hope this was not just an interesting photo op.
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September 25th, 1965. Satchel Paige leaves the field at old Municipal Stadium in Kansas City after his last pitching appearance in the Major Leagues. The 59 year old Paige pitched 3 scoreless innings against the Red Sox as a member of the Kansas City Athletics. I would kill for an entire video of this entire pitching performance.
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Paige relaxes with his fellow members of the Miami Marlins bullpen. I’m incredibly fascinated with Paige’s time in Miami and have covered this era several times here on 90 Feet of Perfection. From 1956 to 1958, Paige pitched incredibly well and easily warranted a call up to the big leagues from the Phillies as the Marlins were their AAA affiliate. Unfortunately this never happened.
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1939. A very old photo of Paige as a member of the Kanas City Monarchs. What’s crazy to think about while looking at this photo is that Paige was 32 years old. This is an age when many ball players are starting to decline in their skills and probably struggling to come to terms with the beginning of of the end of their Baseball careers. Paige was only getting started and essentially had 30 more years left in his incredible Baseball career.
On Thursday, August the 23rd, 2012 I made a short trip with some friends up to the North Bay from my home in San Francisco to witness Bill “Spaceman” Lee make another triumph return to professional Baseball. If you did not hear, Lee signed a 1 game contract with the San Rafael Pacifics of the independent North American Baseball League to pitch against their divisional rival Maui Na Koa Ikaika. The contract with the Pacifics guaranteed that Lee would get a shot to break his own record of being the oldest pitcher to win a professional Baseball game. For those of you that are not aware, in 2010 the then 63 year old Lee broke the previously held record by winning a game for the Brockton Rox of the Canadian-American Association of Professional Baseball.
I went to the game not knowing what to expect as I was not really sure who was even familiar with Bill Lee outside Baseball history nuts like myself. In addition, the Bay Area is so incredibly wrapped up in the Giants and A’s that I had doubt that a Baseball team with no major league affiliation would even spark the interest of leisurely fans of the game. It turns out that I was wrong.
I quickly realized that Lee is still very well known in the Bay Area (he is originally from the North Bay) and the Pacifics are doing quite well for themselves as Albert Park was packed with fans. From what I understand, the park seats 1265, however I heard from various people there was around 1500 folks at the game due to the extra seating created for the game. For those of you not familiar with Independent Baseball, that’s a LOT of fans at a game. The place was rocking and I was genuinely more excited about the game then I had been for any Major League game in a long time.
On a side note, I must thank my buddy Rich Janeway for hooking up our group of friends with free tickets in the ground level area near the Pacifics dugout. Rich used to play for the Chico Outlaws, who were essentially the Pacifics prior to the 2012 season and he still has a good relationship with the team since retiring. Thanks again, Rich!
I’m not going to go into every detail of the game as the information is everywhere online and most readers probably heard about the history made by Lee. However I will a list of my personal highlights of this awesome baseball filled night:
-65 year old Lee went all 9 innings for the win and threw 94 pitches while doing so. Even when getting trouble mid-game, he held in there and basically refused to be taken out by Manager Mike Marshall. Quite impressive.
-Lee played for the price of the plane ticket to fly out from back East. His only request was that the DH rule be waived for the game so he was able to hit. How cool is that??
-Speaking of hitting, Lee went 1 for 3 with a RBI single. That RBI was actually the first run of the game also. He also had a sacrifice bunt and crushed a ball the opposite way to left-center that was unfortunately caught by the Maui left fielder. I’d say it was a good day at the plate.
-Lee was VERY fan friendly. After the game he stuck around on the field while signing autographs and chatting with fans and the media for a long time. In fact, I got Lee to sign a ball for me. This is the first and probably only autograph I have asked for in my adult life.
-After the final out, Lee was rushed by his teammates and the media to congratulate him on his accomplishment. While walking off the field, he stopped by the first base line, dropped to his knees and kissed the grass. So very cool. You can watch a video of this that I filmed here:
PS. To listen to a great Bill Lee interview regarding the game from KNBR San Francisco Sports radio, click HERE.
Hey folks, I just wanted to give a quick apology for the lack of recent posts lately. Unfortunately life and work has been quite busy lately. Have no fear though as I will be back on regular posts starting tonight.
In the mean time, enjoy this hilarious George Brett video:
ninety feet of perfection. 
