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Spoiler Alert: Game 3 of ’62 Season Report

February 28, 2018

Thursday the 12th, April 1962 (UPI Photo)
3 Colt Lefties Celebrate Colt Sweep of Cubs
Dean Stone, Bobby Shantz, & Hal Woodeshick

Spoiler Alert: If you have not yet read yesterday’s report on the 1962 Game 2 in Houston Baseball History, please avoid reading the Comment Section there. One of our fond readers has chosen to reveal the outcome in Game 3 to those of us who are now too young – or too old – to remember – and furthermore – our overly eager good friend – even dared to project – we surmise – because we have done columns on both the first two historical games over the past two days – that we would be writing about the first three-game series finale today.

Well, whoop-tee-do! – Who’da thought it? – Would you?

We will now try to ease you into that recollection as comfortably as possible by simply going straight to the obvious conclusions drafted by our spoiler friend: (1) Yes, the Colts won again – again by 2-0 – with a third straight lefty, Dean Stone, going the distance. (2) Yes, the Colts swept the first series they ever played, getting a complete game from Shantz in the first one as well. Only Woodeshick in Game 2 needed an inning of help from Farrell in the 9th to capture his own 2-0 beauty. Shantz rollicked in the fun of an 11-2 Colt win in the April 10, 1962 Opener.

But the musical soundtrack of our new fan delusions soon died away as the 1962 season wore away all wistfulness.

We had a great bunch of guys playing for the Houston Colt .45s back in 1962, but they were nowhere near the kind of club they would need to be over the whole season. What they appeared to be in their first home series against the low-riding Chicago Cubs lacked staying power.

Besides, the Cubs also suffered from a history of faltering, and they had some real talent too. Cripes! They had four future Hall of Famers playing for them. The young two former Houston Buffs, Billy Williams and Ron Santo, were pillars-to-be in a lineup that already included the great Ernie Banks and Lou Brock, whom they would unfortunately lose in a bum deal with the Cardinals. They just didn’t have the pitching depth or much else. They did have – or should have had by 1962 – a lot more wisdom than the fledgling Colts as to how tough it is to win over the full season.

Irony note. In 2017, the Houston Astros won their first World Series in their 56th year of play. In 1962, the Chicago Cubs had not won a World Series in 54 seasons.

That being said, let’s go to the way UPI writer Fred Down covered Game 3 of that first Houston MLB series for the Arlington Daily News Texan in a Thursday, April 12, 1962 game story that went to print on Friday the 13th of April 1962. One more irony, one we feel sure has not escaped recognition by many of you other older birds. Back in 1962, Arlington, Texas media didn’t have a big league team of their own to cover in news print.

As per always, thank you, Baseball Almanac.com for the beautiful work on the box score.

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Houston Colt .45s Tame Cubs Again

By Fred Down, UPI Sports Writer

Friday, April 13, 1962

They always said pitching was 90% of baseball but the Houston Colt .45s may yet prove it’s really 100% of the game.

The Colt .45s aren’t supposed to have anything else except pitching but that’s all they’ve needed to become the surprise team of the 1962 major league baseball season. And it all comes as no surprise to General Manager Paul Richards because that’s the way he planned it.

The Colt .45s made it three in a row Thursday when they beat the Chicago Cubs, 2-0, behind the three-hit pitching of Dean Stone. Their pitching staff has now allowed the grand total of 2 runs and 17 hits in three games – which means that either Richards or manager Harry Craft have come up with a “sleeper” pitching staff or that somebody bored holes in the Cubs’ bats.

Stone, who formerly pitched in the majors with the Washington Senators, Boston Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals struck out nine batters and walked two. It was his first big league victory since May 26, 1957, when he shut out Baltimore.

Stone, who had a 12-8 record for Charleston in the International League last season was drafted by the Colts last Nov. 27. It was the second straight shutout turned in by Colt pitchers and ran the Cubs’ consecutive scoreless innings to 19.

Colt catcher Hal Smith drove in Houston’s first run in the fourth inning Thursday with a single to deep left field. Bob Aspromonte scored in the 8th. He singled, stole second, and came around (to score) in successive wild pitches by Cub relievers.

A double play ended Chicago’s only threat in the first inning after Stone gave up his first hit – a double by Hubbs – and walked Billy Williams. Then Banks hit to Aspromonte to start the double play.

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Footnote: What a great start we enjoyed in Houston during that first 1962 Cubs series, but we Houston fans would get the more difficult message – and long before season’s end – at least part of it, anyway. Winning a World Series was going to take time and patience. – We just hoped our wait would not rival the one the Cubs had been going through since 1908.

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Chicago Cubs	ab	h
Brock cf	3	0
McKnight ph	1	0
Gerard p	0	0
Anderson p	0	0
Hubbs 2b	4	1
Williams lf	3	0
Banks 1b	4	0
Altman rf	4	0
Santo 3b	3	1
Rodgers ss	3	0
Thacker c	2	0
White ph	1	0
Murphy cf	0	0
Curtis p	1	1
Barragan ph,c	1	0
Totals	30	3

Houston Colt .45s	ab	r	h	rbi
Aspromonte 3b	3	1	1	0
Amalfitano 2b	2	0	0	0
Gernert 1b	3	1	1	0
Mejias rf	3	0	1	0
Smith c	3	0	1	1
Pendleton lf	3	0	0	0
Heist cf	3	0	0	0
Spangler cf	0	0	0	0
Buddin ss	3	0	0	0
Stone p	3	0	0	0
Totals	26	2	4	1

Chicago	0	0	0		0	0	0		0	0	0	–	0	3	1
Houston	0	0	0		1	0	0		0	1	x	–	2	4	1

Chicago Cubs	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO

Curtis L (0-1)	7.0	3	1	1	3	3
Gerard	0.2	1	1	1	1	1
Anderson	0.1	0	0	0	0	1
Totals	8.0	4	2	2	4	5

Houston Colt .45s	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Stone W (1-0)	9.0	3	0	0	2	9
Totals	9.0	3	0	0	2	9
E–Santo (1), Buddin (1). DP–Chicago 2, Houston 1. 2B–Chicago Hubbs (1,off Stone). Team LOB–5. SB–Aspromonte (2,2nd base off Gerard/Barragan). CS–Aspromonte (1,2nd base by Curtis/Thacker). WP–Gerard (1), Anderson (1). U-HP–Vinnie Smith, 1B–Mel Steiner, 2B–Dusty Boggess, 3B–Stan Landes. T–2:02. A–7,838.

Baseball Almanac Box Score |

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:Spoiler Alert: Game 3 of '62 Season Report
Posted in Baseball | 5 Comments »

1st Texas MLB Season Night Game

February 27, 2018

Colt Stadium in Houston
April 11, 1962
1st MLB Regular Season Night Game
In Texas History

As we indeed try – never to forget the 4th of July – it is also pretty much emblazoned into the cultural memory of ancient Astros fans, extending back to our very first three identity years (1962-64) as the “playing-in-the-parking-lot, chomping-at-the-bits-to-get-inside” Houston Colt .45s, to (almost) flawlessly remember that our very first MLB game played out on April 10, 1962 as an 11-2 romp-and-stomp win into the land of brief delusions in a Colt Stadium mauling of the Chicago Cubs.

But, the question here is – how did our boys do in the April 11th Game Two? Do you remember? Here’s how Associated Press writer Harold P. Ratliff covered it in the April 12,1962 article that appeared variously across the land the following day. The box score that follows comes courtesy of Baseball Almanac.com. This particular representation is how it laid out for publication on that same next date in the sports pages of the Bryan Daily Eagle:

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Colts Blank Cubs, 2-0;

Smith’s Single Stands

By Harold V. Ratliff

Associated Press

Houston, Tex. – Hal Smith’s two-run single in the first inning made the difference Wednesday night as the Houston Colts blanked the Chicago Cubs, 2-0, behind the pitching of Hal Woodeshick and Dick Farrell.

Farrell came in to get the last three outs after the Cubs, beaten in Houston’s National League debut Tuesday, 11-2, had put two on base in the ninth with none out. Farrell got pinch batter Bob Will to rap into a double play, then fanned another pinch batter, Danny Murphy, after Sammy Taylor had walked.

A crowd of 20,336 watched the first major league night game in Texas despite rains that caused a delay of more than an hour while the Cubs were batting in the fourth inning.

Al Spangler singled and Norm Larker and Jim Pendleton walked, loading the bases in the first before Smith rapped a single to left for both Houston runs.

The double play that cut off the Cubs’ ninth inning threat was the fourth of the game for the Colt infield. They also stopped threats in the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings.

The loser was Cub ace Glen Hobbie, who went all the way and allowed but six hits. The Cubs got nine off Woodeshick, three by Ernie Banks.

George Altman walked leading off the Chicago ninth and took second on a fly by Ron Santo. Farrell relieved Woodeshick at that point and put it away.

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Chicago Cubs	ab	h
Brock cf	4	1
Hubbs 2b	4	1
Williams lf	4	1
Banks 1b	4	3
Altman rf	2	0
Santo 3b	4	1
Rodgers ss	3	0
Will ph	1	0
Thacker c	3	0
Taylor ph	0	0
Lary pr	0	0
Hobbie p	2	2
Murphy ph	1	0
Totals	32	9

Houston Colt .45s	ab	r	h	rbi
Aspromonte 3b	4	0	0	0
Spangler cf	4	1	1	0
Mejias rf	4	0	2	0
Larker 1b	3	1	1	0
Pendleton lf	3	0	0	0
Smith c	4	0	1	2
Amalfitano 2b	3	0	1	0
Buddin ss	2	0	0	0
Woodeshick p	2	0	0	0
Farrell p	0	0	0	0
Totals	29	2	6	2

Chicago	0	0	0		0	0	0		0	0	0	–	0	9	1
Houston	2	0	0		0	0	0		0	0	x	–	2	6	0

Chicago Cubs	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO

Hobbie L (0-1)	8.0	6	2	2	3	7
Totals	8.0	6	2	2	3	7

Houston Colt .45s	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Woodeshick W (1-0)	8.0	9	0	0	3	4
Farrell SV (1)	1.0	0	0	0	1	1
Totals	9.0	9	0	0	4	5
E–Brock (1). DP–Houston 4. 3B–Houston Larker (1,off Hobbie). SH–Woodeshick (1,off Hobbie). Team–7. SB–Spangler (1,2nd base off Hobbie/Thacker); Amalfitano (1,2nd base off Hobbie/Thacker). U-HP–Stan Landes, 1B–Vinnie Smith, 2B–Mel Steiner, 3B–Dusty Boggess. T–2:33. A–20,336.

Footnote: Dick “Turk” Farrell also bags the first pitching Save in Houston franchise big league history.

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:1st Texas MLB Season Night Game
Posted in Baseball | 2 Comments »

Houston Opening Day #57 Almost Here

February 26, 2018

Opening Day
Colt Stadium
Houston, Texas
Chicago @ Houston (NL)
April 10, 1962

For the first time in memory, the 2018 MLB season begins in March. The Astros will be on the road for the March part, playing their very first four games at Texas from March 29, 30, 31, and April 1, Thursday through Sunday, before returning here for the 57th home opener in Houston MLB history at 6:30 PM on Monday, April 2, 2018 at Minute Maid Park against the visiting Baltimore Orioles, who will also remain in town for two more games on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings each.

For what now is becoming a handful of us, it seems like yesterday that the then so-identified Houston Colt. 45s were getting ready to play their very first MLB Opening Day Game at the short-lived makeshift place we called Colt Stadium at the corner of OST and Fannin on April 10, 1962 against the Chicago Cubs.

Times have changed.

From We Can’t Make It to Come and Take It

On Opening Day 1962, Houston and the New York Mets began the NL season as talent-patched-together expansion teams, looking up at the rest of the baseball world. In 2018, the AL and World Series Championship Astros begin the year looking out at baseball as their contestable kingdom.

In 1962, Houston survived as the playful guys who gladly accepted the few wins they cobbled. In 2018, the smiling Astros look out at the baseball world and say, “if you want what we have, you are going to have to take it away from us.”

For Astro fans, it’s enough to make the long challenging wait all the more worthwhile.

Even Brief Delusions Bloomed on April 10, 1962.

Hope you enjoy this little story of the 1962 Opening Day on Tuesday, April 10, 1962 that Associated Press did for fans at The Victoria Advocate in a next day publication of April 11th. And thank you again too, Darrell Pittman, for sending it along and spreading that early tweak of joy with the rest of us.

As per usual: “Go Astros!”

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:Houston Opening Day #57 Almost Here
Posted in Baseball | Leave a Comment »

Cool Hand Curt Walker

February 25, 2018

Curt Walker, OF
.304 Career BA
1919-1930

We had not planned to spend the weekend with Curt Walker, but sometimes an everyday writer’s mind works that way. Once it attaches to a subject, the substantive matter simply comes spewing forth, in drips or droves. In Curt’s case, our use of the great Beeville, Texas native outfielder, who was also one of the really good contact hitters of the 1920s MLB scene, came easily to a point I have been wanting to touch upon since our mighty SABR work, “Houston Baseball, The Early Years, 1861-1961” came out in 2014.

In our major history book on Houston’s long and full baseball history, there wasn’t room to cover everything in great detail and Curt Walker’s 1919 time and field accomplishment-limited first professional season with the Houston Buffs was fairly shortened to an appropriately brief caption to a generously large photo of him on page 129.

The caption read as follows: “Curt Walker, who was born and died in Beeville, TX, had lackluster numbers during his year in Houston.”

True. In 1919, Walker batted only .215 (29 for 135) with only six of his hits going for doubles. The other 23 were all singles for the first year man in his 41 games for the Houston Buffs of the Class B Texas League.

The 22-year old Walker (BL/TR) began his first 1919 pro season as an outfielder for the Augusta Dollies of the Class C Sally League, where he batted .278 in 53 games (54 for 194) and a distribution of 39 singles, 11 doubles, 3 triples, and 1 home run. The Cardinals pretty much controlled things at both of Walker’s first year minor league stops so we are fairly safely assuming that they are responsible for the move from Augusta to Houston.

Unfortunately for me, I was beginning my senior year in high school here in Houston when Curt Walker died in Beeville on September 9, 1955. By the time I was old enough to care, my also now late dad had none of the details we now seek on how these changes happened in detail – and how the really big move in the rookie’s first season occurred at all.

My dad and Curt Walker played some town ball together down in Beeville during Curt’s early 1930s retirement years. Dad and Curt were great friends – like much older Curt to my much younger father – brothers close. Dad would have known the details we are about to next share with you about what was so special in the matter of Curt Walker’s rookie pro season. So far, I haven’t been able to find all the answers in Retrosheet, Baseball Almanac, or Baseball Reference. Have not tried The Sporting News, nor have I used them for any other query. Not sure how user friendly they are to folks like us. We shall see.

Here’s the deal. – If you check out Curt Walker’s stats online, you will see that his 1919 rookie season does not go to rot on a South Texas open window for open bottles of “flat Coke.” Curt Walker concludes his first season by going zero for 1 as a member of the New York Yankees on September 17, 1919.

Let me repeat that destination for you relative to the kinds of stats that Curt Walker had been putting up in 1919, especially at Houston. It was not a record that was designed to get anybody up to the roster of the New York “freakin” Yankees, even in 1919 – or maybe even especially in 1919, with this growing devotion to earning one’s way up through gradient levels of farm team experience.

Post-Original Publication Contribution, 2/26/18

Respected contributor Cliff Blau added the following earlier today by comment: “The 9/18/1919 Houston Post reported that Walker was released by Houston when he stopped hitting, then Augusta signed him, eventually selling him to the Yankees.”

Retrosheet was no help with individual game reports for 1919, but Baseballs Almanac and Reference were both helpful in pinning down the fact that Curt Walker went 0 for 1 as a pinch hitter in the bottom of the 9th of the second game in a twin bill loss by the Yankees to the forthcoming 1919 AL Champion Chicago White Sox at the Polo Grounds. The fated date was September 17, 1919.

The blossoming Black Sox took the first game, 2-0. Then they put the crusher on the Yankees in the second game. By the time young Walker was called to pinch hit for pitcher Ernie Shore in the bottom of the 9th, the Yankees were down 11-2 and simply looking for a way to end the day. – But what did Walker do?

Given his later MLB establishment of himself as an excellent contact hitter for average, we had to wonder? Did he avoid the “K” from his very first day?

Luck was with us. I found a copy of the game coverage in the next day’s New York Times, September 18, 1919 sports section. Curt Walker was retired by Bill James of the White Sox on a harmless fly ball to left fielder Nemo Leibold in the 9th inning of Game Two the previous afternoon.

Curt Walker did not strike out. If it were a tryout, however, it was a one-at-bat short one. Walker was back playing at Augusta in 1920. Baseball Reference indicates that Augusta then sold Walker’s contract on July 27, 1920 to the New York Giants for $7,000.

Walker would hit .304 lifetime for his work with the Yankees, Giants, Phillies, and Reds. His .337 mark and 196 hits for the 1923 Phillies would be his best season. In 1926, Curt hit 20 triples – with 2 of them struck in the same inning of a single game for the Reds against the Braves. What are the odds of any batter ever hitting 3 triples in the same inning? – – Right. And I agree.

And thanks for your patience. This article has been overdue from my heart for way too long.

So, how does young Curt Walker get a call to pinch hit for the Yankees near the end of his first less than stellar minor league season?
Res Ipsa Loquitur.

Two For The Road

Curt Walker was sometimes known as “The Undertaker” because of his regular off-season, then forever job. He owned a funeral home in Beeville. He was an undertaker.

One time, Curt walks into the American Cafe in downtown Beeville with Dad and me. He stops inside. Starts listening to a table of ranchers talking about a coyote problem they are all having with their small livestock disappearing. Finally, when they reach a point in which they get stuck on the date of their worst previous coyote issue, Curt, who was standing up, coffee in hand by this time, leans in over the shoulders of a few just long enough to ask, “Wasn’t that the year that the owls were so bad?”

Silence. Followed by chatter resumption. Now the group is debating. What was the year the owls were so bad?

Curt says nothing else. He looks over at my dad and me and smiles. Then he urges us to find a table of our own. I’m in high school now. And I’m feeling like big stuff.

Second story: If at all, this next one is only going to be funny if you can accept my word that Curt Walker was not as uncaring as it may make him sound, but he wasn’t either as thoughtless as it may make him seem. Curt was just one of those kinds of people who would say anything deadpan-faced, if he thought it would generate a distractive stir, or, maybe relieve him from taking serious responsibility for his actions.

Dad and Curt went deer hunting at our Bee County ranch one time. They split up down there to hunt from separate sites. Dad says he heard a lot of shots going off. At the end of the day, Dad had one small buck, but Curt had five!

“Good Lord, Curt,” Dad said. “You are going to be in big trouble if the game warden stops us. Couldn’t you leave some deer for your grandchildren?”

“Why should I?” Curt answered. “My granddaddy didn’t leave me any buffalo!”

Forget humor. It is the bemusement of pathos this second story evokes.

Although Dad and Curt remained friends to the end, it was their last joint hunting trip.

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:Cool Hand Curt Walker
Posted in Baseball | 4 Comments »

Is Baseball Now All About the Next HR?

February 24, 2018

Curt Walker, OF, .304 BA
MLB: 1919-1930
Struck out Less Than 5% of the Time

Back in the 1920s, two good old Texas-born and raised outfielders, Ross Youngs and Curt Walker, were two of the best when it came to avoiding strikeouts. In the second half of the 20th century, as the game moved even deeper into the layers of commitment to bomb baseball, two more modern bangers, Reggie Jackson and Mickey Mantle, swung many of the dry bat toasts to nothing but air as a regular outcome consequence of their aims and swinging styles.

The following little K/PA chart easily displays the oceanic career differences that exist between these two different eras of the game. Although, as we all know, there was a guy named Ruth already rewriting the game for today by his own dramatic thunder-crunching of baseballs into the stratosphere.

A K/PA Selective Comparison of Different Style Hitters

K per PA Comparisons	K/PA	=	K	/	PA
Curt Walker	.046		254		5572
Ross Youngs	.073		390		5336
Mickey Mantle	.173		1710		9907
Reggie Jackson	.228		2597		11418

Brief Notes:

Curt Walker (1919-1930) (.304 BA) (64 HR) struck out less than 5% of the time.

Ross Youngs (1917-1926) (.322 BA) (42 HR) held the strike out K down to a little over 7% time experience.

Mickey Mantle (1951-1968) (.298 BA) (536 HR) mourned the loss of his .300 BA at the end.

Reggie Jackson (1967-1987) (.262 BA) ((563 HR): When Reggie wasn’t stirring, he was whiffing.

In General: Curt Walker did some exciting things with the bat during his career. In 1926, he became one of the few to ever hit two triples in one inning. What are the odds of anyone ever getting three triples in one inning? But no matter, what he did was not enough for those who honor greatness. Walker is the only one of our four players here who is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Specific to the Question: Would it hurt the game to have a few more guys in the lineup today who batted more like Walker and Youngs? Or – are we headed toward a time in which the long ball is going to be expected of at least 7 of the 9 hitting players?

And how much has the almost 100-year-old long ball expectation shift contributed to the decline in fundamental skills on balls in play – and an apparent disinterest among some clubs in not working too hard on defensive decision-making and play execution in game situations with runners on base?

Forgive me if I seem to be posting news that’s as fresh as the attack on Pearl Harbor, but maybe Astros manager A.J Hinch already has put in motion a plan that covers greater emphasis on building a team that has to work on developing a deeper understanding of fundamental baseball.

Hinch plans to train several key Astros to play several different positions. That’s great. It will both protect the club against the nettlesome problem of losing a key player to injury during the season – and it automatically forces players to take a sharper refreshing look at the fundamental differences that come into play from one spot to another in key game situations.

Gotta love it.

At any rate, the subject needs to stay fresh, even if it has aged. Once the introspection stops, baseball becomes like the 4th of July. As fans, we just go to the game and wait for the fireworks.

Oh. – Are we already there?

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:Is Baseball Now About Waiting for the Next HR?
Posted in Baseball | 4 Comments »

An Ogden Nash Early Blink On Jose Altuve

February 23, 2018

Jeff Luhnow
General Manager
Houston Astros

Jose Altuve
2nd Base
Houston Astros

Scott Boras
Business Agent
Jose Altuve

An Ogden Nash Early Blink

On The Future of Jose Altuve

Humbly Offered, By Bill McCurdy

Jeff and Scott – their wounds forgot

Sat down to talk – Altuve

Jeff bid small – and Scott smiled tall

As things did not start – groovy

“Oh, don’t you see – he’s Houston’s heart

The guy that fires our engine?”

“Oh, don’t you see – he’s much too smart

To buy that home town binging!”

Late this year – with outcomes near

Perhaps they’ll find – firm reason

As Jose makes clear – the point of his spear

Is it heart – or most dough per season?

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:An Ogden Nash Early Blink On Jose Altuve
Posted in Baseball | 2 Comments »

Astros Bring Attitude to Picture Day

February 22, 2018

Gerrit Cole, Pitcher
#45, Houston Astros
——–
Houston Chronicle Photo

Wednesday was “Picture Day” at the Astros’ West Palm Beach spring training center and the boys showed up to lean a little “come-and-take-it” attitude into just about every photo that’s on display. And that’s a good thing. The veteran stars who were around to take the 2017 first World Series victory in Houston MLB history have earned the right to say loudly to the other 29 clubs that “hey, if you want the 2018 title, you are going to have to take it from us or forget about it.”

Carlos Correa is especially convincing in getting that message across, we think. And good old Evan Gattis naturally looks like a guy who would squash you like a bug, if you tried to take anything from him. (Don’t worry, Evan! We’ll keep your secret. We will do all we can to make sure that no one finds out that the answer to your menacing glare is to keep throwing the ball low and outside each time you have two strikes and you know we have to get the pitch into the zone.)

Check out the ones on display at Chron.com. You may enjoy seeing some of our newest Astros, via both trades and system graduations, in full home Houston gear for the first time.

Here’s the link. We recommend it:

https://www.chron.com/sports/astros/article/The-Astros-were-serving-looks-on-picture-day-12630993.php?ipid=happening

Along with warmer, drier weather – and the soon-to-be-sprouting rush of new spring green life, there’s nothing like the tactile feel, sight, sound, taste, and smell of spring and all that that comes at us with the games starting up again. I miss the aroma of horsehide. It had a tang you just don’t get with cowhide. We had to start actually playing games to keep me from wanting to whiff the baseball every time I picked it up as a kid. After all, if you’re an outfielder, fielding a ball hit into the gap, there’s no time to nostralize the thing. You’ve got to get the ball back in as quick as possible. Taking even a single brush-by whiff on the throw to a cut-off man could be the difference between the batter/runner getting a triple out of a batted ball that should have been held to a double – but for the time lost to ill-advised errant whiffing.

Ah, yes. The elixir of spring training is upon us. If we could just keep the state of mind that this short sweet part of the season creates, we might all live far into a state of near immortality. And, if more of us simply lived longer in relatively good health, maybe people would stop complaining about the games lasting too long.

Who among us really wants the game to end, anyway? Really?

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:Astros Bring Attitude to Picture Day
Posted in Baseball | Leave a Comment »

The Possible SABR Name Change

February 22, 2018

Yesterday I wrote the following as part of my coverage of this past Monday’s February SABR meeting in Houston. The entire column, “Another Dierker Tale Spins SABR”, including the essential additions shown here, is available at the following link:

Another Dierker Tale Spins SABR

Here’s a reiteration of (1) what was was published originally about the name change possibility, followed by (2) the clarifying comment from Jacob Pomrenke of SABR National, and (3) my additional comments – also retro-included in yesterday’s column content and repeated here for broadest coverage. Mr. Pomrenke makes some important clarifications to what is – and is not -under present consideration:

(1) The original column report.

SABR/SIBR. Bob Dorrill led a brief discussion of the movement in place to change the name of SABR to one which more vividly expresses our organization’s interest in the growth of the game worldwide. Cast me among those who find themselves less than enchanted with a change to “Society for International Baseball Research” (SIBR for belibbering short). I’m strongly on the side that says leave our unchangeable identity alone. We ARE “American Baseball” – no matter where we spread to play in this world. Our original identity is immutable – even as the worldwide love for our American Game continues to grow internationally. This trans-borders migration movement does not obliterate the American roots of our game – nor should we yield to the politically correct idea that “Made in America” as a hashtag should be removed from anything American that works so well anywhere it travels – and just to do so as a matter of deferential cultural modesty.

Please. – We ARE – The Society for American Baseball Research – anywhere the game is played.

(2) Mr. Pomrenke’s E-Mail Response to me today.

Post-Publication Inclusion, 5:30 PM, CST, Wed., Feb. 21, 2018, 46 Hours Post-The Meeting Covered. >

Three hours ago, I heard from Jacob Pomrenke, SABR’s Director of Editorial Content at our national office, with a very important clarification by e-mail. It follows here verbatim:

Hi Bill,

Thanks for this fine recap and all the great photos from the Houston chapter meeting. Just wanted to clarify one quick point in your article, in case there was any confusion:

The suggested name change for the organization that the Board of Directors asked all local chapters to discuss was “Society for the Advancement of Baseball Research” — which still keeps the familiar and beloved acronym, SABR, that we’ve always used. That alternate name was originally suggested by the founders at the very first meeting of SABR back in 1971, but after considerable debate, they voted to use “Society for American Baseball Research” instead. The name change has come up again and again over the past 40+ years and with the tremendous growth in our global membership over the past decade, the Board thought it was a worthy topic to bring up for discussion now.

The phrase you used in your article, “Society for International Baseball Research” (SIBR), has never been suggested, nor is it being considered, as a possible name for our organization.

Thanks,

Jacob

(3) My Response Today to Mr. Pomrenke.

Thanks, Jacob, for that very important clarification. The proposal either wasn’t made clear, or wasn’t heard clearly by me at the meeting, and I reacted to what I heard – with one of those possibilities suggested by someone there whom I now I cannot recall mentioning the “Society for International Baseball Research” possibility.

My apologies are offered with a combination of grief and joy. Grief shrouds the spread of wrong information; joy embraces the relief that the De-Americanization of our game’s identity is not quite as ruthless as I feared it might be.

My first blush reaction is easy to express: I still prefer the name that fully describes our game for what it is and who we are: The “Society for American Baseball Research”.

“Society for Advancement of Baseball Research” remains inoffensive to our comfortable acronym identity, but it promotes the idea that we are here as an organization to research ways to advance the game, either by territorial expansion or the pursuit of superior rule changes – like putting the game on the clock – or putting a runner on 2nd base in the tenth inning for no better reason than ending the game more quickly.

Advancement? I don’t think so. Baseball is not Star Trek – and SABR is not the Good Ship Enterprise, going places where no other game has previously ventured by interference guised as advancement.

Others may disagree, but I’ll take my SABR for what it exactly says it is now.

Thank you, anyway, Jacob for clearing up the misunderstanding.

********************

Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:The Possible SABR Name Change
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Another Dierker Tale Spins SABR

February 21, 2018

Larry Dierker Addresses SABR
February 19, 2018

Larry Dierker. – The guy’s ingenuity, smarts, sense of humor, baseball wisdom, and genuine human ability to care is just incredible. It made another manifesting whole presence appearance again last night in a lead-off talk to the members of his namesake Larry Dierker Chapter of SABR. About 40 people showed up. It was the February 19, 2018 monthly meeting of SABR at our current stomping and Italian food chomping eatery, the Spaghetti Western Ristorante on S. Shepherd in Houston, about two blocks south of the Katy Freeway.

If people remember nothing else, they will remember Dierk’s tongue-in-cheek (we think) suggestion for resolving the hell-or-limbo status question that continues to blank out Pete Rose, the game’s all-time hit king, from a full life in baseball.

The Dierker Rose-Selig Prescription: “Give Pete and former Commissioner Bud Selig each a pair of boxing gloves and let ’em go at for as many rounds as it takes. If Selig wins, Pete has to either go away of shut up forever about not being in the Hall of Fame. If Rose wins, Selig and all other obstacles get out of the way and leave the door open from here to eternity for Pete’s total return to the game.”

“What a great idea,” smiled my listening mind. “I’m putting my dime on Pete to take Bud in less than 1 minute and 30 seconds of the 1st round.”

Please. – We ARE – The Society for American Baseball Research – anywhere the game is played.

*******************

Post-Publication Inclusion, 5:30 PM, CST, Wed., Feb. 21, 2018, 46 Hours Post-The Meeting Covered. >

Three hours ago, I heard from Jacob Pomrenke, SABR’s Director of Editorial Content at our national office, with a very important clarification by e-mail. It follows here verbatim:

Hi Bill,

Thanks for this fine recap and all the great photos from the Houston chapter meeting. Just wanted to clarify one quick point in your article, in case there was any confusion:

The phrase you used in your article, “Society for International Baseball Research” (SIBR), has never been suggested, nor is it being considered, as a possible name for our organization.

Thanks,

Jacob

My first blush reaction is easy to express: I still prefer the name that fully describes our game for what it is and who we are: The “Society for American Baseball Research”.

Others may disagree, but I’ll take my SABR for what it exactly says it is now.

Thank you, anyway, Jacob for clearing up the misunderstanding.

I’m also going to run this exchange between us here as tomorrow’s column for the sake of those who don’t see it here as an improbable second read of yesterday’s column on our February SABR meeting in Houston.

********************

Scott Barzilla

Scott Barzilla presided over a feisty discussion of “wins in replacement” as a more meaningful way to discuss the value of players relative to the other players on their team. Best example, by question, which Scott also provided: (1) Were the 1955 Dodgers better because they had Gil Hodges playing first base? Or was Gil Hodges better because of the great players on his team who pulled him up to a higher performing level?

I admit to some 1950s “batting averages were good enough for me” bias to not being fully charmed or in depth informed of how this dynamic of analytics works in baseball over the career distance, but I am able to apply the questions to my experience in the mental health field. (1) I do think my mentors and peers were important to the growth of my own abilities as a therapist over time, but (2) the most important teachers I had were – and will always be – my patients. (3) The harder things get to be, the more you have to grow into what is needed in response to the challenge. (4) And that only happens when you both really care about the results of your work – with an understanding of your own strengths and limits – and with an understanding that you will win some, lose some, and in some cases, be the guy who needs help from the mental health bullpen. And it all sums up far more on the feeling level like the same row that has to be plowed by career baseball hitters and pitchers. I can’t really think of it as something we could have measured better by our own therapeutic team replacement theories. We could have, however, given you a pretty long jargon picture on ways to do things differently in different situations.

Karen Walker
The Astros Scrapbook Lady

Karen Walker was our last speaker of the evening – and what a refreshment she turned out to be. Karen is well-known to a number of Astros and the off-season followers of the Astro Line radio program as “The Scrapbook Lady.” If something appears in a local Houston publication about the Astros, it has an apparent 90% chance of ending up in one of the many scrapbooks she brought to show us. Karen is a teacher in the Cy Fair School District. If she teaches like she talks Astros baseball, she’s giving those kids a model for the kind of passion they will need to find joy in their own devotion to work, love, and creativity.

She also shares my sentimentality for hallowed ground. Karen has a bottle of dirt from the pitcher’s mound at Minute Maid Park that former manager Phil Garner helped her collect. I have a bottle of dirt from the sandlot home plate area of the Pecan Park Eagle Field in SE Houston from 1950 that Bob Dorrill helped me collect.

Joe Thompson

Our Baseball PhD-to-be, Joe Thompson, served up last night’s Trivia Quiz. Can’t tell you who won because I had to leave while the quiz was still in motion.

A Membership Renewal Reminder. Bob Dorill also reports several local SABR members need to settle up and pay their current annual dues to avoid the loss of goodies and privileges from SABR. Please take of your stuff, guys. We need you.

Bill Brown

ASTROS GAMES NOTICE. Get ready for the TV action from West Palm Beach. The Astros and Nationals will be on the air this Friday and Saturday in their first two games of the Spring Training season. Bill Brown will help doing some of the ST telecasts. We are unsure of his availability for these first two.

**********

Photo Credits. The lead photo of Larry Dierker in lecture gear and the small photo of Bill Brown in the audience were donated to us by Mike McCroskey. The other photos and “art” work are our own Pecan Park Eagle stuff.

********************

Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:Another Dierker Tale Spins SABR
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Baseball Reliquary: Black History 2018

February 20, 2018

Friends & Reliquarians:

Greetings from the Baseball Reliquary! We’d like to begin by sharing details regarding two outstanding programs being co-sponsored by the Reliquary this week, in Pasadena and in San Francisco.

On Saturday, February 24, at 2:00 p.m., in celebration of Black History Month, the Reliquary collaborates with the La Pintoresca Branch Library, 1355 N. Raymond Avenue in Pasadena, to present “From Monarchs to Barons: The Legacy of the Negro Leagues.” La Pintoresca is a beautiful library built in 1930, and it is located just blocks from Jackie Robinson’s childhood home; in fact, Jackie and his brother Mack frequented this library while growing up in Pasadena. The Saturday program will feature a lecture/slide presentation on the Negro Leagues by author and historian Byron Motley, whose father Bob Motley was the last surviving umpire in the Negro Leagues. In addition, one of Los Angeles’s cultural treasures, folk singer Ross Altman, will perform a couple of his baseball songs: “Ballad of Jackie Robinson” and “Civil Rights and Baseball.” Arrive early to view an exhibit on the Negro Leagues and Jackie Robinson, including artworks by Bill Cormalis Jr., Tina Hoggatt, and Ben Sakoguchi. A flyer for what should be a very memorable afternoon is attached.

On Wednesday, February 21, at 6:30 p.m., Robert Elias, Professor of Politics and Legal Studies at the University of San Francisco, will present a lecture/slide show entitled “Before Branch Rickey: The Hidden Forces Behind the Breaking of the Color Barrier.” The program will be held in the Latino/Hispanic Community Room at the San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street. While the story of the Branch Rickey-Jackie Robinson collaboration is familiar, Elias believes that it is also incomplete and, in many ways, misleading. Aside from the ordeal faced by Robinson, Branch Rickey essentially gets all the credit. In this version of the story, Rickey — motivated by his moral values and Christian beliefs — pursued an isolated and heroic initiative. Some have questioned Rickey’s motives, arguing that he was as much, or more so, propelled by money: the profit he would realize from a big new set of paying fans and the championships the Dodgers would likely win with Negro League talent.

While not interested in second-guessing Rickey’s motives in his presentation, Elias will argue that rather than a lonely and heroic initiative, the breaking of the color barrier was the result of a long-term social protest movement, where Rickey was only the last piece in the puzzle. Rickey always denied that he was influenced by others in signing Robinson and he denied credit to the people, groups, and movements that paved the way for his initiative and made it possible. As Elias will explain, there were particular, political reasons why Rickey did so. Pieces of the back story and the hidden history of baseball’s integration have been occasionally raised, but on Wednesday, Elias will provide a more comprehensive picture. His talk will focus on some of the forgotten heroes of baseball’s integration, including Octavius Catto, Thomas Fitzgerald, Moses Fleetwood Walker, Jack Chapman, Wendell Smith, Paul Robeson, Lester Rodney, Bill Veeck, Sam Nahem, Ben Davis, Pete Cacchione, Vito Marcantonio, Isadore Muchnick, and Fiorello LaGuardia.

Arrive early and visit the exhibition, “A Game of Color: The African-American Experience in Baseball,” being presented by the Baseball Reliquary and the Institute for Baseball Studies in the San Francisco Main Library’s sixth-floor Skylight Gallery. For more information on the program or exhibition, phone the San Francisco Public Library at (415) 557-4400.

Speaking of “A Game of Color,” the exhibition was the subject of an article by Joe Kukura in the February 14 edition of SF Weekly. Kukura writes, “If you’ve got baseball on the brain, a new historical exhibit at the S.F. Public Library will give you goosebumps with its mind-blowing array of artifacts and historical items from some of baseball’s most significant African-American players and beloved hellraisers.” We are pleased to share this link to the online version of Kukura’s article:

Baseball Reliquary. Jackie Robinson. Painting by Michael Guccione

http://www.sfweekly.com/culture/pitch-black/

Finally, for this edition of “Baseball Reliquary News & Notes,” we now have an official date for the Shrine of the Eternals Induction Day. It will be Sunday, July 22, 2018 at the Donald R. Wright Auditorium in the Pasadena Central Library, Pasadena, California. The festivities will begin at 2:00 p.m. As usual, the ceremony falls between the Major League Baseball All-Star Game (July 17 at Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.) and the National Baseball Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (July 29 in Cooperstown, New York). This summer’s Shrine of the Eternals Induction Day marks the 20th anniversary, with the first ceremony having been held in 1999. The voting for the Class of 2018 will take place in April, but we wanted to share the date of the induction ceremony now in case anyone wishes to include the festivities in their travel plans for the summer.

Please advise if we can provide any further information or details.

Sincerely,
Terry Cannon
Executive Director/The Baseball Reliquary
Co-Director/Institute for Baseball Studies
www.baseballreliquary.org

e-mail: terymar@earthlink.net
phone: (626) 791-7647

Support from Pecan Park Eagle readers in, nearby, or traveling to the Los Angeles area – are especially appreciated here too. “TBR” comes across as the cat’s meow when it turns to the matter of preserving baseball on an honest, passionate, and artistic plane. We love and support what they are doing.

Sincerely, Bill McCurdy, Publisher, The Pecan Park Eagle

********************

Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:Baseball Reliquary: Black History 2018
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