The 2005 White Sox were the Major League team since the 1927 Yankees to lead wire-to-wire, and then go on to sweep the World Series, their first World Series championship since 1917. This fact appeared on my tear-off Chicago White Sox trivia calendar.
Category: Baseball History
Three Finger Brown born 133 years ago today
Happy Birthday Three Finger Brown!
Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown would have been 133 years old today.
As a kid, I learned a little about baseball history from an old-timers bubble gum baseball cards I bought at the dime store. Of course, Three Finger Brown was one of them. As a Cub fan, I had an affinity for him.
Some interesting (and perhaps lesser-known) facts about Brown.
- Made his major league debut at age 26 in 1903.
- Brown accumulated 239 wins in his career but also led the league in saves four years in a row (1908-1911, unrecognized at the time of course).
- Known primarily as a Cub, Brown did get picked up by the Reds later in his career and even played in the Federal League. In 1916, he was purchased by the Cubs for his last year where he pitched in 12 games.
- Broke and held for many years, the record for number of chances handled by a pitcher without an error in 1908 with 108.
Here is his obituary that was in the New York Times when he passed in 1948
Greatest White Sox CF’er Ever!
As a lifelong White Sox fan, I found today’s White Sox tear-off calendar page of particular interest.
Johnny Mostil – This native Chicagoan patrolled centerfield for the White Sox through most of the 1920s with great distinction. In 1969, he was voted the greatest-ever for the White Sox at that position.
Centerfield what a glorious position, free, ranging, taking every ball he can get to, arguably the best athlete on the field. The corner outfielders can’t hold the centerfielder’s jock when it comes to outfield defense, which is why I’ve argued for some time now that the Outfield Gold Glove Award should be given to one leftfielder, one centerfielder, & one rightfielder, rather than just outfield. The way it’s done now, three outfielders in each league, would be like giving out four infielder gold gloves, not, one firstbaseman, one secondbaseman, one shortstop, & one thirdbaseman.
My personal favorite White Sox centerfielder was Ken Berry, or the Bandit, as he was known back then. I remember one year where he actually leaped over the centerfield wall to catch at least 100 potential home runs, well maybe not quite that many, but still it was alot.
Later I came to appreciate Chet Lemon, nicknamed Juice, he was always in a hurry, often times diving headfirst into firstbase, trying to beat out an infield hit. With Ralph Garr & later Ron LeFlore in LF and Richie Zisk & later Claudell Washington (I can still see the banner brought in by a clever fan, “Washington Slept Here”) in RF, Chet had to cover alot of ground.
I still remember oldtimers talking about Jim Landis, as the greatest defensive centerfielder ever to play on the Southside of Chicago. But that, no doubt, has something to do with the White Sox winning the pennant in 1959 with Jim patrolling CF, the same way current White Sox fans will remember Aaron Rowand out there for the 2005 World Champion ballclub.
But who was this Johnny Mostil? Turns out he was born in Chicago, ended his career with a .301 career batting average. It looked like this kid could fly. In 1925 he stole 43 bases, leading the league, he also walked 90 times & scored 135 times that season. Mostil had 82 career triples. Johnny only played two seasons after his failed suicide attempt in 1927, after it was discovered he was having an affair with teammate Red Faber’s wife.
Cap Anson – Was also a Racist
On my tear-off White Sox calendar today was the question, "Whose Hall of Fame plaque begins with the words: GREATEST HITTER AND GREATEST NATIONAL LEAGUE PLAYER-MANAGER OF THE 19TH CENTURY"? Answer: Cap Anson
Here’s more on Anson from wikipedia…
Anson was well known to be racist and refused to play in exhibition games versus dark-skinned players. This attitude was not considered unusual in his day, and Anson remained very popular in Chicago while playing for the White Stockings. On August 10, 1883 Anson refused to play an exhibition game against the Toledo Blue Stockings because their catcher, Moses Fleetwood Walker, was African American When Blue Stockings Manager Charlie Morton told Anson the White Stockings would forfeit the gate receipts if they refused to play, Anson backed down. On July 14, 1887 the Chicago White Stockings played an exhibition game against the Newark Little Giants. African American George Stovey was listed in the Newark News as the Little Giants’ scheduled starting pitcher. Anson objected, and Stovey did not pitch. Moreover, International League owners had voted 6-to-4 to exclude African-American players from future contracts. In September 1888 Chicago was at Syracuse for an exhibition game. Anson refused to start the game when he saw Walkerâs name on the scorecard as catcher. Again, Anson pressured his opponents to find a Caucasian replacement.
HOFers Interesting Baseball Facts
I have a tear-off White Sox calendar, here are some interesting facts I came across recently regarding Hall of Famers that I thought I’d share with you.
1) Bruce Sutter is the only player in the Hall of Fame never to have started a game.
2) Ty Cobb hit nine homers 100 years ago in 1909, to lead the AL with long balls (the only time he topped the Junior Circuit in home runs), he also had the highest batting average .377, 107 RBIs were also tops, his only Triple Crown. Cobb also was tops with 76 SBs, 216 hits, 116 runs scored, .431 OBP, .517 SLG, .947 OPS, 194 OPS+, & 296 total bases, not a bad day at the office.
In 21 seasons with the White Sox, pitcher Ted Lyons won 260 games, faced Ty Cobb and Ted Williams, hurled a no-hitter, and pitched a 21 inning complete game loss. He later managed the club for two seasons. In 1955, Lyons was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Tilly Walker’s place in baseball history
On this day in 1887, Tilly Walker was born. Unless youâre a devoted baseball historian, Walker is pretty much an unknown as baseball players go.
Coming to the bigs in 1911, he was a journeyman outfielder playing for the Senators, Browns and Red Sox before finding a more permanent home with the Philadelphia Athletics where he played for six years between the years of 1918-1923. He was a solid hitter for his era, ranking up there among the leaders in extra-base hits, slugging and yes, even homeruns.
His homerun numbers during his career werenât Ruthian by any means. He ranked 3rd in the American League in 1914 with a grand total of six. As time went by, his total grew getting up into the double-digits even reaching as high as 37 in 1922.
But Tilly Walker has one major distinction, perhaps fodder for a trivia question. In 1918 while playing for the Philadelphia Athletics, he tied Babe Ruth for the AL lead in homeruns with 11. He was the last person to lead the league in that category before the Babe Ruth era. Ruth then continued his dominance of baseball by leading the AL in homers 10 of the next 12 seasons (the exceptions? In 1922 when Ken Williams had his career year for the Browns and 1925 when Ruth had his famous âBellyache Heard âRound the Worldâ aka gonorrhea).
If you look over Walkerâs stats, youâll note that those 11 homeruns he hit in 1918 is only time he ever led his league in any category.
Walker ended his career with 118 career homeruns which probably doesnât seem like a lot. But considering that the career leader at the time of his retirement had 238 and that was Babe Ruth, he probably ranked pretty high.
Tilly Walker has obviously passed on (in 1959) in his home state of Tennessee. But he does have a place in baseball history. Happy Birthday, Tilly Walker!
Know the 3000 K pitchers? Take the quiz
Courtesy of Sporcle.com, can you name all pitchers with 3000 career strikeouts?
Sporcleâs cool quiz interface gives you a time limit but does allow you to keep guessing till you get it right.
(Iâll give you one hint: one last name is a two-for-one)
Ironically, it was the current ones that I had the hardest time with.
Digital archive of Baseball Magazine definitely a treat
I found a wealth of historical baseball knowledge in LA84 Foundationâs archives. They have digitized much of Baseball Magazineâs contents from the early 1900âs. Iâve spent a good hour just reading and browsing the material and itâs fantastic! Even the advertisements are great!
You can get a list of articles from 1908, 1909, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1917, and 1918 (click on each year and it will take you to their individual yearâs archive). All articles are in pdf format.
I have some favorites already. Thereâs a preview of the 1912 Giants-Red Sox World Series. Then thereâs The Art of Big League Trading by none other than John McGraw.
And no magazine is complete without ads and Jake Stahl is hawking Ide Silver Collars in the 1912 archives (âYour Collar is the âHigh-Lightâ of Your Dressâ).
What I found amazing is that baseball media back in the early 1900âs was not so much different than it is now. As I said, I saw previews for important postseason series. There was an article comparing stats on all the NL secondbasemen in the league. Whoâs whos, interviews, retrospectives, everything you would see in a pre-season baseball mag or maybe even say, a baseball blog.
I guess the technology has certainly changed but the tried, true formulas of good sports journalism has remained strikingly similar.
Anyway, this is indeed, a treasure trove, especially for those who love old baseball history.
25 things we miss
I enjoyed reading through Sports Illustratedâs list of 25 Things We Miss in Baseball.
Thereâs no reason to expect any of the listed 25 will ever come back nor for the most part, should they⌠we live in a different world (#11- Fans Running Out onto the Field, #9- Wimpy Middle Infielders)
But I get it. Some of the listed are products of baseball when it was a sport in age of more innocence. And if wasnât innocent, we didnât know it.
I still would like to hear organ music (#13) at a ballpark and quality mustaches (#7) would certainly bring some character to the game (Rollie Fingers, anyone?)
(link via Circling the Bases)
A retro look: Making a lot out of nothing
Take a look at this 1999 box score between the White Sox and the Devil Rays and tell me if you see anything odd.
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.
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Give up?
Look at Frank Thomasâ line:
2 runs scored, 2 rbis, and 0 at-bats.
Heâs the only player in the last 55 years to score at least 2 runs AND drive in at least 2 runs without registering an at bat in one game. He did so on the basis of three walks and a sacrifice fly.
With the score 10-0, Jerry Manuel pinch hit for him with Brian Simmons (who?) in the 8th inning. James Baldwin got the win for those scoring at home.
Incidentally, 1999 was the year the White Sox placed second in the Central Division based on their whopping 75-86 record.