30 Teams. 30 Posts: New York Yankees.

•January 20, 2011 • Leave a Comment

The New York Yankees: My second installment of 30 teams. 30 posts and I decided to go with a team that everyone has a true opinion about. As I have mentioned before in the past, I have always had mixed feelings about the Bronx Bombers. If you are a true Baseball fan I think it is impossible to not admire the classic players like Ruth, Gehrig, Dimaggio, and Mantle. In addition, I don’t know how anyone can not root for SOME of the more modern classic players who have also wore the pinstripes such as Jeter, Bernie, and Mattingly. With that said, so many aspects of the Steinbrenner era set the table for what is wrong with Baseball today and I can never truly get behind this team after the way Steinbrenner treated Dave Winfield. Now what I am going to say next contradicts my dislike for the Steinbrenner’s Yankees: I was happy for Torre when got his first ring, so I guess you can say I definitely have conflicted feelings about the team. I can go on and on with what I like and dislike about the team but I am going to cut it off now. Ladies and gentleman; the winners of 27 World Series championships, the New York Yankees:

 

Mickey Mantle. For 18 seasons he played with the Yankees and for 18 seasons he played with pain. From the moment he blew out his knee in the 1951 World Series until he hung up his cleats after the 1968 season he dealt with injury after injury which limited his production on the field. From what I understand, he wrapped both of his legs up like this every day to help deal with it. A cool article based on a new book about Mantle was published back in October which suggests that he was a “neuromuscular genius” and that he might have played with a torn ACL for 17 years. Read the article HERE. It makes me wonder what Mantle would have accomplished if modern science existed during his playing career and if he took a little better care of himself.

 

Reggie Jackson clowning around with his skipper, Billy Martin. I guess they didn’t always hate each other?

 

Roger Maris in the clubhouse in 1961 after breaking the single season Home Run record. I think it’s safe to say that he was relieved.

 

May 2, 1939 in Detroit. Lou Gehrig talks to Babe Dahlgren in the dugout in a game against the Tigers. Dahlgren replaced the Iron Horse at First Base that day when Gehrig benched himself and effectively broke his streak of 2,130 consecutive games played.  This had to be a crazy day for Dahlgren but at the same time he knew a little something about streaks himself as he had a 621 game streak when he played in the PCL as a member of the San Francisco Mission Reds during 1931-1934. Smaller scale of course, but still impressive to say the least.

 

Yogi Berra, Reggie Jackson, and Goose Gossage at an old timers game at Yankee Stadium. I love this photo, especially Berra in it.

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Babe vs Big Train. Van Slyke & Bonds. Dom & Joe. The Babe in Brooklyn. Dick vs. Philly.

•January 19, 2011 • 3 Comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE9D0oAyCC4

1942. During WWII, a benefit game at Yankee Stadium placed retired players Babe Ruth and Walter Johnson against each other for one last showdown. Ruth was now 48 years old Johnson was 55 years old. So awesome.

 

As a kid I LOVED Andy Van Slyke. He was without a doubt one of my favorite players as he was one of the guys who rarely left the field with a clean uniform, was a great hitter, and had one of the must unbelievable arms I have ever seen. Well as a kid my dislike Barry Bonds started before he joined the Giants due to his attitude with the media and for brushing Van Slyke off during the 1992 NLCS and effectively losing the game for Pittsburgh. Let’s just say the Pirates have not really had an ounce of success since that game. The photo above is from right after Sid Bream scored. Andy doesn’t look too happy and if I remember correctly he sat there like this in Centerfield for quite a while.  Here is Van Slyke setting the record straight about the incident:

Q: There’s an urban legend in Pittsburgh that, from center field, you tried to wave Barry in to play more shallow in left before Francisco Cabrera’s famous game-winning hit in the 1992 NLCS.

Van Slyke: That’s not a legend, that is not a rumor, that is an absolute, 100-percent, truth that I did.

Q: Was he just ignoring you?

Van Slyke: I always felt that I got a sixth sense on the field that, as an outfielder, I had these premonitions that seemed to come true about half the time. I just felt, given when I saw, that Cabrera was going to hit the ball to left field and nowhere else. Based on scouting reports, based on the count, and that he had just ripped the ball down the left-field line foul when it was 2-0. I was trying to make Barry move in to not let the winning run score from second. He chose to ignore me. Now, if he had moved in two steps, I don’t know if it would have made a difference. I’ll never know that. It might have been a harder play for him because the ball was hit to his left a little.

Q: Maybe he could have trusted you?

Van Slyke: Barry was a great player. It’s sort of like, dealing with Barry made me a greater player in center. But also, it was sort of like being a catcher with a pitcher. He made the last decision. He chose not to move. The unfortunate thing was, if the ball had been hit 10 more feet to his right, I have no question he would have thrown out Sid Bream.

God, Bonds is such a dick. For the rest of the interview, click HERE. Van Slyke is a very entertaining dude and it’s worth reading the entire thing.

 

Dom DiMaggio of the Boston Red Sox along with brother Joe of the Yankees. While everyone knows that Joe was incredible in so many ways, Dom often lived in the shadows of Joe but he in fact had an incredible career. He played in Boston for 11 seasons during his career which would have been 14 seasons if not for the WWII, was a 7 time All-Star, had a career average of .298, and was one of the fastest and smartest base runners of his time. Oh yeah, the oldest brother Vince was awesome also and had a great Baseball career. Their parents must have been extremely proud.

 

Babe Ruth in 1938 as First Base Coach of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

 

1969. Dick Allen played his final season of his first stint with the Philadelphia Phillies. Allen had become extremely unhappy in Philly due to racism from fans and the local media turning on him. He demanded a traded which he was promised after the season was over. When the hometown fans booed him, he took to writing messages in the dirt back which everyone (players, umpires, fans) loved and thought was clever…with the exception of the Phillies upper management who demanded he stop which of course he didn’t. Oh yeah, he wore a helmet in the field for the rest of his career after fans would throw batteries, bolts, and other things at him. Let’s just say Allen had a rough time in Philly and dealing with racism of the 1960’s which still was very much heavy in Baseball. I have said it once before and I will say it again, I think Allen is a Hall of Famer and that anyone who has the slightest interest in Baseball should read his autobiography “Crash, The Life and Times of Dick Allen,” by Dick Allen & Tim Whitaker.

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MLK Day.

•January 17, 2011 • Leave a Comment

MLK and Jackie, never forget.

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The Sultan of Swat.

•January 17, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Man, the Babe was one cool dude.

 

1935. Ruth meeting with ex-teammate Lou Gehrig during his final season of his playing career as a member of the Boston Braves.

 

In 1938 Ruth was the First Base Coach of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dodger outfielders Tuck Stainback, Buddy Hassett, Kiki Cuyler sing with their lovable coach.

 

The Babe pitching. Now it is common knowledge that he was originally a Pitcher in the Red Sox organization prior to coming over to New York. But did he ever pitch for the Yankees is what I recently found myself wondering? Well it turns out he took the mound for a combined 31 innings with a 5 – 0 record for NY during the 1920, 1921, 1930 and 1933 seasons. The Southpaw finished his combined pitching career with a 94 – 46 record and a 2.28 ERA. Add that to his incredible post-season pitching record from his Boston days and I gotta say that I admire the dude even more then I already did. I found THIS blog which has a write-up on each of Ruth’s Yankee appearances on the pitching mound, definitely read it if you get the chance.

 

October 3rd, 1923. A great photo of Babe Ruth in a New York Giants uniform alongside Hall of Fame Manager John McGraw. Ruth played for the Giants during the game as it was an exhibition game against the Minor League Baltimore Orioles in which the proceeds went towards a benefit. The 1923 Orioles are often brought up in discussion as being one of the best Minor League teams in Baseball history.

 

July 5th, 1924. In a game against the Washington Senators, Ruth collided with a concrete wall while chasing a fly ball hit by Joe Judge. Ruth was knocked out for a full 5 minutes and was eventually awakened when the Yankees trainer Doc Woods threw cold water over his face. The next day he hit a home run against the Senators while most certainly battling post-concussion syndrome. Something tells me that there is not a chance in hell that would go down today.

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30 Teams. 30 Posts: San Francisco Giants.

•January 11, 2011 • 1 Comment

Ok, so I spend a lot of my extra time researching Baseball online and during this time I have saved so much Baseball related stuff onto my hard drives that it is kind of ridiculous. Add all that crap with all the books, magazines and scanned stuff I have and I literally have a small library. Well recently I decided to do a little segment on the blog called “30 Teams. 30 Posts”  where I take each current MLB team and do a 5 photo blog post specific to that team in addition to some feelings, memories, thoughts, etc that each specific photo gives me. I still have interviews I am working on, book reviews, and some really cool posts in the works for 90 feet of perfection but this is a little something to spice it up in the mean time as many of those are works in progress. With that said here we go:

The San Francisco Giants: Congratulations to The 2010 World Series Champions and I DO mean that. Any time a team who has not had much post-season success in the past wins the World Series I am happy for them and their fans on a certain level regardless of whether I truly root form them or not. Especially if they are a West Coast team. I am the first to admit that like many, since the Bonds-Era began and even after it ended I have had some serious reservations about this organization that I will never completely get over. However, as a San Diego kid growing up in Northern California I rooted for the Bay Area teams after my Padres for the most part. The Giants and A’s always had many of my favorite players as they were the “local heroes” in a sense up here in Northern California. So here’s to the team in my own backyard and to the Giants players of the past and present and their dedicated fans.

 

Barry Bonds, April 5th 1994 in Oakland, California. I have looked for photos of this late Spring Training game for a long time but all I can find are these of Bonds courtesy of Sports Illustrated so I apologize for the SI logos on there. On this day the Giants played in throwback San Francisco Seals uniforms and the A’s played in throwback Oakland Oaks uniforms. I wish organizations would honor the old PCL teams more often as I think this is so freaking cool. A few years ago the Padres and Mariners played a regular season inter-league game wearing the PCL Padres and Seattle Rainers uniforms which was awesome, so come on MLB its time for some more PCL throwback days!

 

J.T. Snow. Now this was one of the players on the Giants during the Bonds years that I could not help but love. As a member of the Angels I loved him and when he came over to the Giants I appreciated him so much more as I got to become much more familiar with him. This dude was awesome as he played the game right and looked so cool while doing so. He could hit and my god could he catch. Some of the plays he made at First Base literally left me shaking my head at times in disbelief. The only First Baseman since then that I have seen with my own eyes with that kind of glove is Adrian Gonzalez. Albert Pujols may be a great First Basemen but I think defensively both Snow and Gonzalez are more talented. Ok back to Snow, I was bummed when the Giants declined to offer him salary arbitration after the 2005 seasons and let him sign to Boston. This dude was a Giant through and through and deserved to finish his career in the black & orange. I was at the game on September 27th, 2008 when they brought him back for a 1 day contract so he could “retire as a Giant” and he took fielding practice before being pulled. It was one of the cooler moments I have seen in my life at a Baseball game. The infielders kept throwing balls in the dirt to screw with him and get him dirty it seemed but he kept coming up with them. All hail J.T. Snow.

 

Willie Mays. Without a doubt the greatest player to ever put on the Giants uniform, regardless if it said New York or San Francisco on the front. Such a cool photo of the Say Hey Kid. Little did he or anyone else know what kind of legendary career was right around the corner for this young man.

 

Randy Johnson wrapped up his career as a member of the Giants in 2009 and won his 300th career game on June 4th of the season against the Nationals (This photo was taken from that day) . I can honestly say that if there was one pitcher on Earth that I would have hated to hit against, it would have been the Big Unit. A 6 Foot 10 Southpaw with his intensity who had in his arsenal a 100 Mph Fastball and a Slider that very few hitters could manage to do anything. This was a terrible experience for hitters for 22 seasons.

 

Will Clark and Kevin Mitchell. Now these dudes were some of my favorite players as a kid. Will Clark made me want to play First Base and Kevin Mitchell wanted me to catch balls bare handed in the Outfield. While they had the Bash Brothers across the Bay with Mcgwire and Canseco, I always liked these guys more. Maybe because they were in the National League, but then again I was always an A’s fan more than the Giants so who knows what my logic was? Maybe as a kid I subconsciously knew that Bash Brothers were roiding over in Oaktown? It was awesome seeing these guys smash for 5 seasons with the Giants. 2 random thoughts to leave you with: I believe #22 needs to be retired by the Giants in honor of Will The Thrill. Also, Mitchell’s 1989 MVP season was one of the most impressive slugging seasons pre-steroid era. (I really doubt Mitchell ever used, he was probably to stubborn to follow the directions to do so even if he tried.)

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