William Edward White

July 9, 2018

Brown University Baseball Team,
1879 National Champions.
One of these players is now regarded as the earliest black baseball player in big league history.

His name was William Edward White.

 

William Edward White
Is sitting directly behind the manager in the team photo.

 

“An answer commonly given to the question of who was the first black man to play major-league baseball is still Jackie Robinson in 1947. Knowledgeable baseball people know that Robinson was preceded by the Walker brothers, Moses and Weldy, for Toledo in 1884. Recent research, led by SABR’s Peter Morris, has uncovered evidence of still earlier African American participation in the major leagues. Morris’s detective work reveals that William Edward White, a former slave, had a one-game career for the National League’s Providence Grays on June 21, 1879.”

To read the balance of this most informative brief article by John R. Husman, please click the following link:

https://sabr.org/gamesproj/game/june-21-1879-cameo-william-edward-white

The Pecan Park Eagle also wants to thank reader/colleague/friend, Bill Hickman for calling our attention to the deeper meaning of the same Browns baseball photo that we used yesterday in a much lighter look column on the sport in the “good old summertime days” era. In irony, Bill’s mention of William Edward White “to have been (documented as) the first Afro-American (to play) in the majors, preceding Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Weldy Walker by five years,” as a far more accurate display of the zeitgeist of post-Civil War America.

So-called “people of color” simply didn’t have the same rights and opportunities as white people in America and, like almost all other avenues of possibility, baseball was busy signing on to the idea that our country could go from slavery ending with the Civil War to a “separate, but equal” society that divided people on the basis of color. ~ What a pile of crock that was!

Today we, at least, have a game in which everybody who plays well enough, will play. In fact, these are the good old days – the only ones we’ll ever have. – Smack dab in the here and now. – The only place anything ever gets done.

Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance once had a nice ring, but I like our Houston Astros 6-4-3 play better, especially when all three of our main guys are in the lineup for the Astros. It’a a long one. It goes from “Puerto Rico-to-Venezuela-to-Cuba-Ole!”

Enough rambling. Racism is the human race cancer. And it needs to die. In all forms.  As this man did, no one ever should have to pass for white, just to get a foot in the door. And that’s why it’s important to remember people like William Edward White, even if others suffered far more by comparison. No one among us should have to go through what he encountered to hide his true identity for the simple sake of avoiding someone else’s need to hate.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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In The Good Old Summertime

July 8, 2018

 

WON BY THE BOYS.
_______________________
Livingston, Texas, July 15. – The married
men and the boys played a game of ball
here today, the losing side to pay for an
ice cream supper, given at the school
house tonight, resulting in a score of 44
to 16 in favor of the boys.
________________________
Houston Daily Post, July 15, 1896.
_________________________
Contributed by Darrell Pittman.

 

After receiving Darrell’s 1896 story, we looked for a team photo of “the boys” club, but came up empty. So, even though the actual club shown here is one of the 19th century Brown University teams, we have prevailed upon these silent thespians from baseball’s history to portray for us a sidebar note in the Livingston game story. We received no complaints from any of them to the exercise. – So, here we see “the boys” cooling their heels down at the school house after the game, as they patiently await the “married men” to show up and pay for the ice cream.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Posted in Baseball, culture, History | 3 Comments »

MMP Error Call Should Be Reversed

July 7, 2018

Yuli Gurriel
Robbed of a Double by the official scorer at MMP on Friday night.

 

In the Friday night big 7-run 8th inning for the Astros, Chicago right fielder Avisail Garcia was charged with an error when he allegedly misjudged a fly ball hit by Yuli Gurriel and it bounced behind him, just inside the line fair, and sailed into the near side lower right field stands. The bases were loaded at the time and two more Astros runs scored as a result. Even the Astros broadcast crew spoke what almost all our eyes first told us as we watched the tough play unfold – that Gurriel would be credited with a ground rule double and two runs batted in.

Not so, according to the official scorer, whomever that dubious authority may be. He or she ruled the play as an error on Garcia for misjudging the descent of the ball, taking away Gurriel’s double and 2 RBI, and earmarking the two runs as unearned.

The MLB office needs to both review the “E” call and also look into the MMP official scorer’s general readiness to carry out the charge that goes with this important scoring assignment. I can think of a lot of outfielders who could have made this play, but all of them are either Astros or players who are much more familiar with MMP than Avisail Garcia.

A larger point – anyone who has actually played the outfield, especially the two corner spots, would know that Garcia was not guilty of an error on that fluke play and that Gurriel has now been deprived of the ground rule double and other accolades that go with it. The call needs to be reversed and our local official scorer either needs a continuing education seminar or a replacement in this role. The integrity of the game deserves the best – and this call wasn’t even close.

Even if we don’t talk about it enough in these terms, those of us who’ve played enough outfield at any level understand this much about fly balls:

  1. The fly balls that reach us off the bat while we are positioned in the vertical cone path of ascent are the easiest to catch when they are coming at us 10 to 20 feet either side of where we stand. Of this total group, the line drives hit directly at us are the hardest to judge. On these, we have to rely heavily upon the sound the ball makes coming off the bat to tell us if a ball is going to be sinking to the ground before it reaches us – or still soaring in ascent to go over our head. “The Catch” by Willie Mays of the Vic Wertz blast in the 1954 World Series is my favorite memory of such a dangerous ball being captured. On these within the vertical cone blasts, a slight side vantage view within the cone is a big help on the depth question by the way it gives us a slant on the “coming down early” to “headed for deeper ground than me” question.
  2. The ball that “fooled” Garcia had a vertical cone path whose dead center proved to be one-foot fair down the right field line. From there, as we saw, the ball had the ability to take a high bounce foul into the stands, located only a few further feet away.
  3. Garcia was not in the vertical cone path of Gurriel’s batted ball in the 8th. He had a great bead on where it was coming down from his running view outside the cone, but he had a very long horizontal run just to get under it almost simultaneously when the ball hit the ground fair behind him and bounced – untouched by Garcia – into the stands.
  4. Even when they help us track where the ball is coming down, horizontal runs to a ball’s vertical cone path cause the head to bob as the fielder now tries to keep a closer eye on the ball’s descent from afar. At MMP, a fielder less familiar with the park may also be much more conscious at the same time of wanting to avoid an injury slam into the low-laying stands.
  5. My conclusion: Avisail Garcia did not misjudge or err in his play of the ball hit by Yuli Gurriel in the 8th inning of Houston’s 11-4 Friday night win over the White Sox. He simply could not make the play. And there is no basis for an error assignment. The error call should be reversed and a hit credit should be restored to Yuli Gurriel.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

 

 

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Posted in Baseball, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Health Tip of the Day

July 7, 2018

 

CARTOONS-TPPE-01

Health Tip of the Day: To make sure you complete your one hour walking time plan, walk indoors. ********** Illustration by Bill McCurdy

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Lagniappe: July 6, 2018

July 6, 2018

A Hometown Pennant

The Face of Minor League America. A Houstonian friend of mine from Syracuse brought me this pennant from his recent vacation home to the old ball park there and a game in which he watched the Syracuse Chiefs play their big rivals, the Rochester Red Wings. The halcyon days of bitterness between the two upstate New York clubs must be all but done. We did not even discuss the game or the eventual outcome. I also couldn’t name half the clubs I saw on the pennant by logo, but, of course, like most observers, Kevin Costner included, I did recognize the Durham Bulls and the Hollywood Stars in there. – The old Houston Buffs did not even make the layout cut. Maybe you had to be a living club to make the canvas. – At any rate, the pennant now has a decorative place on my Wall of Honor. – Thanks again, dear friend.

Yuli Gurriel
Now Hitting .300

Gurriel BA on the Upward move. Yuli Gurriel’s game-winning hit in the bottom of the 10th last night not only gave the Astros a 4-3 comeback walk-off win over the White Sox in the their four-game series opener at MMP, it also boosted his batting average to .300. The surreal bat of Jose Altuve, at .332, good enough for second place in the current AL batting average chase, is the only other .300 mark among qualifying Astros hitters. Altuve’s recent dip has opened the door for Mooky Betts of Boston to take the lead with a .338 BA, as Jean Segura essentially ties Altuve for 2nd place at .332 also. Gurriel at .300 is currently sitting just outside the Top Ten.

Please kill my former PO Box mailing address from your records. I have terminated my use of that box and will receive nothing you mail to me there. Please e-mail me for my usable US Mail address.

Please Discontinue the Use of PO Box 940871 immediately! For future necessary contact between us by US Mail, please e-mail me at houston.buff37@gmail.com and I will supply you with an alternative (snail) mailing address. Thank you.

Simply do not send anything to any PO Box number attached to my name at this time. It will be given the Elvis Presley “Return to Sender” treatment without any explanation by our most uncaring United States Postal Service.

 

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Posted in Baseball | 2 Comments »

Bobby Bragan’s Doubleheader Problems

July 5, 2018

Bobby Bragan

Double your pleasure?

Double your fun?

Don’t ask Bobby Bragan,

He’d rather play one!

Few, if any, of these reasons offered by the late Bobby Bragan had anything to do with the disappearance of the planned doubleheader on the MLB season schedule. As with all things, follow the money for the best current answer.

Two games for the price of one was never going to be a big seller for club owners as they moved into areas of operational cash need that have grown like wildfire since this simple little interview with writer Murray Olderman back in 1965 revealed the regard Bragan held for the impact that these twin bills had upon the players and the playing of the game itself.

Thank you again, Darrell Pittman, for this submission from the July 14, 1965 edition of the Victoria Advocate. Like the fiery old manager of the Fort Worth Cats himself, it speaks for a man who cared about the game and the best interests of the men who played it – and way earlier then the MLB clubs’ needs for gazillions to make payroll.

 

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Pin Ball Baseball Was Great 4th of July Fun

July 4, 2018

 

During the summer of 1950, this little pin ball baseball game was my “heat of the day” companion during the 12 noon to 3 pm time that we were all forced inside from the so-called polio vulnerable period of Houston’s worst heat, and probably with good reason prior to the polio vaccine of 1957. In the summer of 1950 alone, over 500 Houston kids came down with polio from mild to fatal effect.

 

POOSH M UP, JR. had 4 games you could play on the same field, but baseball was the only one that held my interest from the start. My actual copy of the game was discarded by my dad years ago. He would do that with our things once we seemed to have “outgrown” them. ~ Sometime in the late 1980s, My brother John found this replica of my original game from our Pecan Park Eagle days and gifted it to me. For one evening, at least, I reacted like an addict who had not snorted a line of cocaine for several decades. Then I found a place for it on my wall of memories and have since settled thereafter for its now-quiet presence as a fond reminder of a very happy early time in my life.

 

Under the lower left side, the part that’s covered by the glove in the first photo, there is a lever you pull that propels the little pin balls, one at a time, up the release channel and onto the field. Pulled at full strength, the ball shoots fast on an arc around the top and then bounces off a metal piece that is designed to carry it bouncing all over the place. ~ Over time, you learn what it takes to reach that tiny space between the two large “U” spaces above that are marked here as “single” and “walk”. Get into the narrow slot between these and it counts as a “home run.” I did reach a point as a kid with my perseverating play time with the game in which back-to-backs were not uncommon. No brag. Any kid with finger dexterity and my capacity for obsession could also do it.

 

 

Happy Fourth of July, everybody! ~ Stay cool! Let Love & Peace rule! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Bill Gilbert: A June 2018 Report

July 3, 2018

Evan Gattis (L) and Alex Bregman were among the Astro hitters to smile this past month and they had good reason to shake on their common ground. ~ They each banged home 30 RBI in June 2018, a new calendar month record in Houston MLB franchise history.

 

Astros Led the Pack in June 

By Bill Gilbert

The Houston Astros had the best record n the major leagues in June (19-8), building a 1.5-game lead over the Seattle Mariners in the American League West Division. They took advantage of a soft spot in the schedule by sweeping a 10-game road trip against three non-contending teams (Texas, Oakland and Kansas City.)

June was the month that the hitting finally picked up. The team batted .275 in June, raising the season average to .263, while scoring 5.33 runs per game. The pitching remained strong but not at the April=May level. The staff ERA was 3.17 in June compared to 2.68 in the first two months. For the season through June, the Astros are scoring an average of 5.07 runs per game and allowing 3.06.

As usual, Jose Altuve led the offense in June with an average of 3.54. Four other Astros batted over .300 for the month – Josh Reddick .333, Yuli Gurriel .330, Tony Kemp .327 and Alex Bregman .306. Bregman and Evan Gattis each had 30 RBIs to supply the power. Bregman had 11 home runs and Gattis had 8.

The five pitchers in the starting rotation have started all 85 games through June. However, only Lance McCullers had an ERA under 3.00 for the month (2.81). The bullpen had an outstanding month with five relievers posting an ERA under 1.00 – Chris Devenski, Brad Peacock, Collin McHugh, Hector Rondon and Tony Sipp. Devenski did not allow an earned run in June and the other four each allowed only one earned run.   Closer, Ken Giles converted his only save opportunity but was replaced in his role by Rondon, who converted 5 out of 5.

While the Astros had great success in June, the month didn’t end well. They lost their last two games in the month and scored only 7 runs in the 4-game series with Tampa Bay. Carlos Correa and George Springer are out with minor injuries and Justin Verlander has been roughed up in the early innings of his last two starts. Meanwhile, Seattle is enjoying a 7-game winning streak. The July schedule doesn’t look too tough, so the Astros have time to increase their lead before a series in Seattle at the end of the month.

Bill Gilbert

   7/2/2018

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Where Sunday’s Game Dagger Was Delivered

July 2, 2018

Where Sunday’s Game Dagger Was Delivered

Nobody died and it’s not the end of the world. Having said that, it’s still hard to go through team slumps when so many of your really exceptional players are all out of sync with the basics of winning at the same time. Aside from our great pitchers, and they’ve had their moments too, most of our hitters are dialed way back to almost nothing when it comes to their usual note of lusty contribution to run-scoring on the road. A.J. Hinch said it best after today’s Sunday loss of their third of four games at Tampa Bay: “We didn’t play well enough to win a game or the series.”

Except for a sparkling double burp of power from Evan Gattis and his two home runs today, lesser single hits by Bregman, Stassi, and Kemp were all the ‘Stros could otherwise muster Sunday, as they also plodded through some defensive lapses, as well. We still aren’t sure what Josh Reddick was thinking as he casually threw that ball back in almost lob-speed as the Rays runner scored the eventual winning run in the bottom of the 7th.

The heart of the loss, however, unfolded on two pitches in the top of the 8th. With one out, the Astros batting, and the Rays leading, 2-1, Diego Castillo came in for Rays starter Blake Snell to pitch to Jose Altuve with the bases full.

As you will see, and probably remember from the Sunday game, his 2-2 up and tight fast one to Altuve’s ear sent our star reeling back in pursuit of safe ground.

The first thought that struck home here as a result was – now we’ve got him. No way Castillo is going to walk or risk hitting Altuve on a 3-2 pitch “up and in” a second time – nor is he going to plate one that allows Jose to do his own damage to their cause. He’s going to hope he can get Altuve on a nasty slider in the dirt “low and outside” that looks so hittable as it approaches the plate and then falls off the cliff and becomes impossible to reach near the plate in any good way. – If Altuve can just hold back and let it go, he’s walked – and we’ve got a tie ballgame.

Photo # 1: Sunday, Astros @ Rays
8th Inning, 2-2 Pitch
Castillo Pitching
Altuve Batting

Photo # 2: Sunday, Astros @ Rays
8th Inning, 2-2 Pitch
Castillo Pitching
Altuve Batting

Oh No! – Photo # 2 says it all. Altuve bit. Swung and missed. Strike Three. Now there were two outs.

Yulie Gurriel then hit a 2-2 pitch for a slow grounder, 6-3 putout. Castillo had done a great job for the Rays. And the game was essentially over. You could just breathe the air of resignation and defeat through the electronic transmission of team despair. Except for the second mighty blast from Mr. Gattis in the top of the 9th, that dire sense of resignation would carry forth with the other remaining Astro batters.

Tampa Bay won, 3-2.

Time to snap out of it, guys. With your help, the Mariners almost have made up all the loss arrears to the Astros they encountered in New York and Boston in the last few days.

Yes. It’s a long season. And these things happen. Even to the reigning world champions.

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

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Posted in Baseball | 5 Comments »

Great Thoughts from the Houston Colt .45 Era

July 1, 2018

Watch out for the 360 degree rotations of the wire you complete each time you return the phone call receiver to the hook. One of these days, you are going to have to let the receiver spin free in the middle of a future phone call, or else, hold the whole tangled mess to your chin as you try to finish talking.

Great Thoughts from the Houston Colt .45 Era

…. About the Use of Telephones

  1. Unless you like standing up and trying to talk while someone else is washing dishes, never locate your phone high on the kitchen wall at home.
  2. Try to make sure that Ma Bell installs your phone in a room where its comfortable to sit, but never so close to the bedroom that you have to take the phone off the hook to keep callers from ruining a beautiful nap.
  3. Small pillows or blankets make good sound mufflers to phone rings you do not wish to hear.
  4. Always have a pencil and paper handy at the location spot of your phone. It will be helpful to taking messages and writing down phone numbers of new callers that you probably do not presently have in your Roll-A-Deck files.
  5. Remember. – If you do not have the phone number recorded somewhere, there will be no way to get it later from a silent phone, if you do not know who placed the call.
  6. Remember too. – People are only reachable by phone when they are near the instrument that connects them by wire with others. Try to build at least a mental list on the best times to try and reach certain others by phone.
  7. Make sure you always have up-to-date copies of the white and yellow pages near your phone. That one step alone will give you about a 95% chance of finding and reaching the party you wish to call at the right time.
  8. Phone technology is improving by leaps and bounds. New advances in swivel hooks have experts optimistic that we shall soon enough have a new phone connection wire that will not tangle and have to be unswiveled manually in the middle of an important phone call.
  9. With telephone lines that do not entangle coming our way soon enough, what more could we hope for in the future?
  10. One final consoling thought: If you are tired of getting phone calls, simply go for a walk, take a drive, or go to a ball game or movie. The phone will never catch up with you there.

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Bill McCurdy

Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher

The Pecan Park Eagle

Tags:
Posted in Baseball, culture, History | 3 Comments »

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