THE BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF BASEBALL Donald Dewey and

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THE BIOGRAPHICAL
HISTORY OF
BASEBALL
Donald Dewey
and
Nicholas Acocella
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Copyright © 2002 by Donald Dewey and Nicholas Acocella
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, Triumph
Books, 601 S. LaSalle St., Suite 500, Chicago, IL, 60605.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dewey, Donald, 1940–
The biographical history of baseball / Donald Dewey, Nicholas Acocella.
p. cm.
ISBN 1-57243-470-8 (hard)
1. Baseball players—United States—Biography—Dictionaries. 2. Baseball—United States—History. I. Acocella,
Nick. II. Title.
GV865.A1 D45 2002
796.357'092'2—dc21
[B]
2002020035
This book is available in quantity at special discounts for your group or organization. For further information, contact:
Triumph Books
601 South LaSalle Street
Suite 500
Chicago, Illinois, 60605
(312) 939-3330
Fax (312) 663-3557
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 1-57243-470-8
Interior design by Carol Hansen
Photo insert design by Patricia Frey
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FOR
GEORGE SHEA
AND
CAROLINE ACOCELLA
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Contents
Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v
A: Hank Aaron to Joe Azcue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
B: Carlos Baerga to Tommy Byrne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
C: Francisco Cabrera to Kiki Cuyler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
D: Jay Dahl to Len Dykstra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
E: Joseph Eastman to Buck Ewing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
F: Red Faber to Carl Furillo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
G: Eddie Gaedel to Tony Gwynn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
H: Stan Hack to Cap Huston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
I: Pete Incaviglia to Art Irwin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
J: Bo Jackson to Billy Jurges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
K: Jim Kaat to Bob Kuzava . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
L: Chet Laabs to Ted Lyons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
M: Connie Mack to Jim Mutrie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
N: Jim Nabors to Joe Nuxhall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
O: Rebel Oakes to Danny Ozark. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
P: John Paciorek to Harry Pulliam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Q: Tom Qualters to Jack Quinn. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
R: Charlie Radbourne to Nolan Ryan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340
S: Fred Saigh to Stuart Symington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
T: William Howard Taft to Jim Tyng . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
U: Peter Ueberroth to George Uhle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 429
V: Bobby Valentine to Chris Von Der Ahe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 431
W: Rube Waddell to Early Wynn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440
Y: Abe Yager to Robin Yount . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
Z: Zip Zabel to George Zoeterman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472
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Foreword
by Jerome Holtzman
Official Historian for Major League Baseball
If you have been looking for a centerpiece for
your baseball library, the search is over. This newly
revised and extended edition of The Biographical
History of Baseball is the answer. It is not the usual
lengthy textbook treatment of how and where the
game began, loaded with stats and standings, but a
tapestry of biographical studies of the men and the
few women who made significant contributions.
Better yet, instead of the usual chronological order beginning with the 1869 Cincinnati Reds, the biographies are an easier read and assembled in alphabetical order—from Hank Aaron to George Zoeter-
man, who has been lost in the fog of time. The
White Sox signed Zoeterman in 1947 in violation of
the “spirit” of the high school rule and were suspended from the American League for one week,
until they paid the $500 fine.
Virtually all of the Hall of Fame players, managers, and executives are accounted for. One would
expect brief and cursory biographies, run-of-themill stuff, but the authors had the wisdom to lengthen them according to their relative importance. Also,
and this is crucial, their subjects are exposed as never before. You won’t find any pap here.
Introduction
On June 12, 1939, a dual ceremony was held
in Cooperstown, New York. The more conspicuous
one celebrated the opening of the National Baseball
Hall of Fame and Museum. The second—implicit
in the first—formalized major league baseball’s
move to enshrine itself as the national pastime and
to charge an admission price for its past as well as
its present.
In the six decades since that afternoon in Cooperstown, the history of baseball has lagged behind
only the sport itself as a growth industry. Books,
magazines, television documentaries, computer
bulletin boards, newsletters, and academic treatises
have charted the careers of all the Cincinnati milkmen who happened to drop by a ballpark and pitch
a no-hitter in an 1882 exhibition game, while statistical research societies have furnished all the numbers necessary for demonstrating how many of
those wunderkinder were really better than Cy Young
(give or take 500 victories). The more expansive
school of historians has produced mountains of evidence that major league baseball, while not always
aware of it, had a revolutionary impact on racism,
management-labor strife, the Nazi threat, and other
evils plaguing American society as a whole. A third
concentration of writings in recent years has identified baseball with the securities of the nuclear family and the sublimations of the detonated psyche—a
force for the continuity of sons relating to fathers
and potential rooftop snipers redirecting their furies
at umpires. othat kind might be congratulatory.
It is not the intention of The Biographical History of Baseball to slap together another congratulatory tour of baseball’s names and numbers. Although one of this book’s assumptions is that the
game has indeed served as a pastime for countless
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THE BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF BASEBALL
rope of restrictions against capable but otherwise
uninspiring contributors to the sport. This has been
particularly obvious with regard to players (e.g.,
Ted Lyons and Herb Pennock) who owe their election to the one-time preponderance of big city sportswriters among voters and to officials who owe their
enshrinement to the sport’s penchant for consecrating every aspect of the founding of the National
League (e.g., Morgan Bulkeley) or its tendency to
commemorate fealty over an extended period (e.g.,
Ford Frick). At the very least, however, the inclusion of all those who have received plaques at the
Hall of Fame reflects Major League Baseball’s own
estimation of its standards, priorities, and achievements. Beyond that, naturally, are the numerous
players, officials, and others who have been indisputably seminal in their athletic or organizational
accomplishments.
The Protagonists. Those who have been at the
center of the game’s defining dramatic moments.
The Innovators. In everything from playing regulations and playing gear to administrative and broadcasting structures, changes in the sport have been
the result of an individual’s insight, resolve, or, in
some instances, misfortune.
The Record Holders. More markedly than in other professional sports, baseball has always prized
primacies, superiorities, and durabilities as part
of its competitiveness. In some cases (e.g., Roger
Maris and Hank Aaron), changes in the record holder have occasioned more than a bigger number as
a standard.
The Character Actors. Baseball has always been
replete with thieves, hustlers, clowns, and buffoons
whose antics have provided the color for a franchise,
a season, or even an era.
The Suits and the Scouts. Not all front-office functionaries have been defined by their ability to blend
into the background.
The Fans and the Media. Baseball has never been
a tree falling in an empty forest. The central contention of The Biographical History is that we would
be watching an entirely different game today—if we
were watching it at all—were it not for the impact of
the people discussed in this book. Credit them or blame
them. History, too, has always been a partisan sport.
millions over 15 decades or more, and as such merits a cogent record of its development, The Biographical History does not accept that 19th-century
trivia has become 20th-century significance merely
for being recalled or that the journeymen players of
the 1920s have turned into venerable all-stars simply for no longer being forgotten. We are not interested in electing people to the Hall of Fame or even
in reducing the number of those already on the
premises. What we are interested in is singling out
those who, on and off the diamond, have been most
responsible for developing baseball—primarily in
athletic and business ways, but also in its larger cultural impact as a mass entertainment and in its
smaller personal imprint as an arena for the imaginative, traumatic, and even tragic. The individuals
listed in The Biographical History have, in the view
of the authors, done the most for consolidating the
legitimacy, respect, and criticism that the Hall of
Fame and other repositories of baseball’s chronicles
and legacies have attracted over the years.
The Biographical History is not a Who’s Who.
There has been no attempt to include every distinguished player and front-office executive in the annals of the game. The criterion for choosing entries
has been one, and only one: for better or worse, has
the subject influenced the game, the popularity of
the game, or the image of the game? Has baseball
become richer or poorer as a sport, a business, or an
entertainment because of his or her involvement in
it? Did he or she leave a game that was different
from the one entered?
The subjects covered by The Biographical History have been drawn mostly from the development
of the National and American leagues. But since the
history of the sport has hardly been exhausted by
those two circuits, other entries owe their inclusion
to their influence on a proto–major league (the National Association), the three 19th-century leagues
(the American Association, the Union Association,
and the Players League) recognized as having been
major, the one defunct 20th-century circuit (the Federal League) accorded the same status, the more begrudgingly acknowledged Negro leagues, the minor
leagues, and some foreign circuits. The individuals
cited within these areas fall into the following—and
sometimes overlapping—groups.
Hall of Famers. Admittedly, election to Cooperstown has allowed several figures to slip under the
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A
HANK AARON (Hall of Fame, 1982)
Aaron ultimately prevailed over the racist lunatics who threatened him during his pursuit of Babe
Ruth’s career home run record, but he has had a
much more difficult time erasing the impression that
his feat was a sequel to Ruth’s achievement rather
than an improvement upon it. Baseball’s vested interest in promoting its all-time icon has also served
to reduce Aaron to a one-dimensional slugger, obscuring not only his all-around skills as a player but
also his significant role as the farm director of the
Braves for many years. This is why Willie Mays and
other contemporaries have continued to insist into
the new century that the righthand-hitting outfielder
with a drawerful of lifetime offensive records and a
plaque in Cooperstown has remained the game’s
most underrated figure.
Aaron started out with the Milwaukee version of
the Braves in 1954 after Bobby Thomson’s broken
ankle opened up a starting spot in the outfield. Over
the next 23 years he batted .305, forging major league
career records not only with his 755 homers, but also
with his 2,297 RBIs, 6,856 total bases, 1,477 extrabase hits, and 15 years of scoring 100 runs, 15 seasons with 30 or more home runs, and 20 campaigns
with at least 20. He averaged higher than .300 14
times, won hitting titles in 1956 and 1959, led National League batters in home runs and RBIs four times
each, drove in 100 runs 11 times, had the most doubles four times, reached 200 hits three times, and had
at least 40 home runs in eight years. His 3,771 lifetime hits trails only Pete Rose and Ty Cobb. For all
that, Aaron won merely one MVP award—in 1957
for leading the Braves to a pennant by pacing the NL
in home runs (44), RBIs (132), and runs (118), batting
.322, and slugging a round .600. It was also the first
of three straight years that he won a Gold Glove as
the league’s premier defensive right fielder.
Although he eventually lost his franchise in fielding awards to Roberto Clemente, the Gold Gloves
suggested Aaron’s defensive qualities. Before tearing
up a leg, he was also a superior baserunner with a
full complement of Negro league abilities at forcing
infielders to hurry throws and outfielders to make
them to the wrong base. Aaron had only three opportunities to show off his talents under postseason pressures, but he made the most of them. In the 1957
World Series against the Yankees, he clouted three
home runs and batted .393. In another meeting with
the Yankees the following year, he batted .333. And
against the Mets in the first NLCS in 1969, he homered in each of the three games. Especially during
the feel-good years in Milwaukee, Aaron seldom
called attention to anything but his playing. With the
Braves move to Atlanta in 1966, however, the Alabama native began responding to inevitable questions about playing in the South by denouncing
baseball’s continuing aversion to hiring blacks as
managers or general managers. After years of poohpoohing reassurances that the situation was much
better than it had been, he himself demonstrated it
wasn’t by attracting death threats for encroaching
upon the “white man’s record” in 1973. As bad as
the poisonous scrawls and anonymous telephone
calls were the ostensibly intelligent, objective discussions held on radio and television about whether the
Ruth record should be broken. The climate was thick
enough with hatred for the Atlanta Police Depart1
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THE BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF BASEBALL
indirectly led to the revival of the franchise in the
1990s. On several occasions he also gave interviews putting his own name forward as a candidate
for baseball commissioner; he never received a serious response.
By his own admission Aaron has never been able
to separate his satisfaction at retiring as baseball’s
greatest home run-hitter from the hatred he and his
family endured over the months leading up to the
drive off Downing. Not only has he kept the ball
that broke the record, but also some 500 letters
warning him off belting number 714.
ment to assign Aaron a bodyguard. To complicate
matters further, he ended the 1973 season with only
713 homers—one shy of Ruth—so police surveillance had to be continued over the winter. With the
Braves scheduled to open the 1974 season in Cincinnati, Aaron came under additional pressures when
Atlanta owner William Bartholomay made it clear
he wanted the outfielder benched for the contests at
Riverfront Stadium so the Ruth record could be broken at home for attendance purposes. This brought a
storm of criticism from traditionalists and prompted
Commissioner Bowie Kuhn to intervene with an order to have Aaron in the lineup for the opener against
the Reds. The slugger responded by tying the record
with his 714th home run in his first swing in the first
inning, but that was it. Bartholomay got his wish
when 53,775 poured into Fulton County Stadium on
the cold and miserable night of April 8, 1974 and saw
Al Downing of the Dodgers surrender number 715.
Only a few months after surpassing Ruth, Aaron
got another lesson in baseball’s race relations when
Braves general manager Eddie Robinson ridiculed
his candidacy as a successor to the fired Eddie Mathews as manager; Robinson also broke with franchise
tradition by giving Clyde King a multiyear contract,
just in case Aaron got the idea that he would be a
fallback choice in the immediate future. The King
appointment effectively ended the outfielder’s ties to
the Braves as a player; he agreed to return to Milwaukee, to the American League Brewers, after the
season. Clearly on his last legs, he generated mild
interest as a gate attraction in 1975 but made it clear
prior to the start of the 1976 campaign that it was
going to be his last. As it developed, his career as an
active player ended sourly. On the final day of the
season he singled in his last plate appearance and
was then removed by manager Alex Grammas for
pinch-runner Jim Gantner. Gantner eventually scored
with a run that would have enabled Aaron to break a
tie with Ruth for second place in that category behind Cobb. Chagrined by Aaron’s anger at having
been lifted for Gantner, Grammas explained he had
only wanted to give him one last chance to run off
the field to a standing ovation.
After his retirement Aaron served for a number
of years as farm director of the Braves. Those who
didn’t write him off as merely an emblematic presence altogether were hard put to credit him with the
development of several prospects who directly or
CAL ABRAMS
Abrams became the shame of Brooklyn when he
was thrown out at the plate in the ninth inning of the
final game of the 1950 season with what would have
been a run forcing a special playoff between the
Dodgers and the Phillies for the pennant. Over the
years, the bang-bang play on Richie Ashburn’s throw
to home after Duke Snider’s single has been alternately attributed to Abrams’s small lead off second
and third base coach Milt Stock’s rashness in sending him to home plate. In fact, the outfielder had little choice trying to score since Pee Wee Reese, the
runner behind him, was dashing up his back to get to
third base.
JOHN ADAM
Adam was honored by the Professional Baseball
Athletic Trainers Society after the 2001 season for
making his training staff on the Brewers the best
in the major leagues. He received the award a few
weeks after being fired by Milwaukee for not dealing adequately with the team’s injuries.
BABE ADAMS
Adams had as flashy a rookie year for the Pirates
in 1909 as he had a messy end with the same club 17
years later. After a debut season that saw him win 12
games and post an ERA of 1.11, the righthander
stunned Detroit in the World Series by throwing
three complete-game victories for a Pittsburgh championship. Until 1926 he remained a mainstay of the
team’s staff, winning 20 games twice. In that final
year, however, he became innocently involved in a
bitter me-or-him showdown between coach Fred
Clarke and outfielder Max Carey. The nub of the
controversy was a Carey-led mutiny against Clarke’s
2
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THE BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF BASEBALL
trio ever led the National League in double plays for
his position. Adams’s verse goes:
presence on the bench after the coach had compared
his effectiveness to that of the team batboy. Although a majority of the team refused to back Carey
and another outfielder, Carson Bigbee, in the revolt,
and Adams himself voted to keep Clarke on the premises, the coach wouldn’t leave well enough alone,
insisting that owner Barney Dreyfuss get rid of all
those opposed to him. Mainly because Adams was
on record for saying “managers should manage and
nobody else should interfere,” the owner agreed with
Clarke that the pitcher had also been part of the uprising. The upshot was that two of the A(dams) B(igbee)
C(arey) Mutineers, as the Pittsburgh press branded
them, were released, while Carey was sold to the
Dodgers. The three players protested to National
League president John Heydler, but Heydler, while
absolving the trio of insubordination, also upheld an
owner’s right to get rid of any player he wanted to.
Adams, 44 and near the end of his pitching effectiveness, didn’t attempt to catch on with another team.
“ There are the saddest of possible words—
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Trio of bear Cubs and fleeter than birds
Tinker to Evers to Chance.
Thoughtlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double,
Words that are weighty with nothing but trouble—
Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
JOE ADCOCK
Although not on a level with Hall of Fame teammates Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews, Adcock accomplished a number of prodigious slugging feats
while playing for the Braves in the 1950s. His 336
career blasts included four in one game against the
Dodgers, the first ball ever hit completely over the
left field grandstand of Ebbets Field, and the first
ball ever hit to the left-center field bleachers of the
Polo Grounds (an officially estimated distance of
465 feet). In the July 31, 1954 game in which he hit
Brooklyn pitchers for four home runs, he also clouted a double, setting a total bases record.
Adcock, a righthanded first baseman, also hit the
“non-homer” that ended Harvey Haddix’s 12-inning
perfect game on May 26, 1959; when he ran past
Aaron on the bases in what he later admitted was a
“daze,” the hit was scored a double. As a pinch-hitter in his 17-year career with the Reds, Braves, Indians, and Angels, he established the best career ratio for home runs, hitting a four-bagger every 12.75
times he came off the bench.
DANIEL ADAMS
Among the candidates for the honorific title of
Father of Baseball is Adams, a medical doctor and
president of the Knickerbocker club from 1847 until
1862. As the head of the country’s oldest baseball
team, he was given the gavel at an 1857 convention
of clubs, and in that role established nine innings
(rather than 21 runs) as the duration of a game. After
that first meeting seeded the National Association of
Base Ball Players in 1858, Adams chaired the rules
committee, and in his three years in the position set
the distance between the bases at 90 feet and from
the pitcher’s box to home at 45 feet.
Adams had begun playing an early version of
baseball in 1839 for exercise and amusement. He
had a hand in making the Knickerbockers balls and
bats, and claimed to have been the first to move into
the shortstop position—less to improve infield defense than to make it easier to relay the relatively
light balls of the day from the outfield.
BOB ADDY
An outfielder for Chicago in 1876, Addy is credited with being the first player to slide into a base.
He apparently pioneered the technique while playing for the Forest City Club of Rockford, Illinois in
the 1860s. A bit of an eccentric, Addy was forever
contriving schemes he considered more worthy of
his talents than conventional baseball; among them
was an effort to popularize ice baseball in a Chicago
skating rink he owned.
FRANKLIN P. ADAMS
Writing for New York’s Evening Mail, Adams
published one of baseball’s most famous verses in
1910 under the title of “Baseball’s Sad Lexicon.”
The work’s popularity was key to the election of
Cubs infielders Joe Tinker, Johnny Evers, and Frank
Chance to the Hall of Fame; in fact, not one of the
TOMMIE AGEE
There have been many great catches made by outfielders in World Series games, but Agee has been
3
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THE BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF BASEBALL
DALE ALEXANDER
By being traded from the Tigers to the Red Sox
during the 1932 season, Alexander became the first
major leaguer to win a batting crown while splitting
time between two teams. His overall average of .367
could not have come as a surprise to Detroit, since
he had batted .343, .326, and .325 in his earlier seasons with the club and had also driven in more than
130 runs in two of the three years. Pressed to explain
the exchange for outfielder Roy Johnson, manager
Bucky Harris said that he couldn’t stand watching
Alexander’s ineptitude around first base. As it developed, Boston had little to crow about. In 1933 team
physician Doc Woods decided to treat an Alexander
leg injury with an innovative heat lamp treatment
during a game but then got so caught up in a home
team rally that he forgot about his patient. By the
time he got back inside the clubhouse, Alexander had
third-degree leg burns that later degenerated into
gangrene. That was the end of his career.
the only one to make two in the same contest. Diving grabs of drives up the alley by Baltimore’s Elrod Hendricks and Paul Blair in the third game of
the 1969 World Series saved the Miracle Mets in
two crucial situations, helping pave the way to New
York’s eventual championship. Although usually
slotted in the leadoff spot for his speed, Agee also
had five straight years of more than 100 strikeouts,
including a high of 156 in 1970. Only Bobby Bonds
had a worse strikeout ratio among leadoff men.
DANNY AINGE
Long before Deion Sanders was holding up the
Braves for contract concessions that would allow
him to play professional football, Ainge was lavished with the same rights by the Blue Jays so he
could pursue basketball. In 1979 the high school star
made it clear he preferred the court to the diamond,
but Toronto was so insistent that it drew up a pact
practically fitting baseball around the National Basketball Association schedule. After three partial seasons and a .220 batting average, Ainge dumped the
major leagues for his first love.
GROVER CLEVELAND ALEXANDER (Hall of
Fame, 1938)
There weren’t many things that Alexander didn’t
accomplish during his 20-year (1911–30) career—
and not many that he wasn’t forced to do afterward
because of his physical ailments and his alcoholism.
If the righthander had one statistical shortcoming,
it was his failure to snatch the 374th victory that
would have broken his tie with Christy Mathewson
as the National League’s all-time winner.
Alexander’s biggest numbers include: six years
of leading the NL in wins, five in ERA, six in complete games, six in strikeouts, seven years in shutouts (including a record-setting 16 in 1916), nine
years of at least 20 wins (including three seasons in
a row of more than 30, in which he also set the pace
in ERA and strikeouts to take the pitching Triple
Crown). Between 1915 and 1917 he rolled up 94
victories, while his ERAs between 1915 and 1920
were 1.22, 1.55, 1.83, 1.73, 1.72, and 1.91. Most astonishing, he achieved these numbers while pitching
all but three of his seasons in hitter-friendly Baker
Bowl and Wrigley Field.
As smooth as his accomplishments often appeared between the lines, Alexander had a full quota
of off-the-field demons. Even before joining the
Phillies, he had to battle attacks of double vision to
win 29 games for a minor league Syracuse team. To-
EDDIE AINSMITH
Ainsmith’s 15-year (1910–24) career as a backup
catcher for the Senators and several other teams assumed secondary importance in 1918, when he appealed against being drafted into the military during
World War I on the grounds that he was engaged in
a patriotic endeavor since baseball was the national
pastime. The appeal, engendered by Washington’s
Clark Griffith, prompted a ruling from Secretary of
War Newton D. Baker that baseball was an inessential amusement, with all its players and personnel
subject to the draft. Prior to the Ainsmith case players
had been able to appeal their call-ups on a case-bycase basis. Earlier the same year Yankees pitcher Happy Finneran had successfully argued that his 10 years
of professional baseball had left him unequipped for
seeking another job after getting out of the service
and that he had to play to maintain his standing. At
the heart of both the Ainsmith and Finneran cases was
baseball’s refusal to ask for a special exemption as an
essential public entertainment—as various branches
of show business had. The ownership stance of asking the War Department to rule on a player-by-player
basis aided Finneran but ultimately worked against
Ainsmith and those called up after him.
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THE BIOGRAPHICAL HISTORY OF BASEBALL
league-leading 13 triples and 125 runs. He contributed all that offense while playing third base for
the first time in organized ball—an effort that didn’t
spare him catcalls from Philadelphia fans for also
leading the NL with 41 errors. In 1965 his relations
with the hometown fans got even worse when his
offensive production dipped somewhat, he paced
the National League for the second year in a row
in strikeouts, and he began issuing his ever-morefrequent pronouncements on the state of baseball.
The atmosphere got particularly heated after an early July game when he and backup outfielder Frank
Thomas traded blows during batting practice over
alleged racial remarks, Thomas came off the bench
in the ensuing game to hit a key pinch-hit home run,
and then returned to the clubhouse to be told he was
being released because of his conflict with the franchise’s young star. Philadelphia fans became so abusive—even throwing garbage at him—that Allen
wore his batting helmet in the field.
Over the next few years, he continued as the team’s
major run producer and major headline while the
Phillies began sinking to the lower depths of the
standings. Most of his observations were along the
lines of his “Baseball is a form of slavery. Once you
step out of bounds, that’s it, they’ll do everything possible to destroy your soul.” At the same time he developed the habit of skipping exhibition games and missing team planes with feeble excuses. In June 1969
there was a showdown of sorts when manager Bob
Skinner fined the slugger for not showing up for a
game against the Mets. When owner Bob Carpenter
first hesitated to collect the money, then rescinded
the fine on the grounds that there had only been some
kind of “misunderstanding,” Skinner quit and the fans
went even wilder. The reaction became so hostile that
Allen requested a trade. When he was accommodated
after the season, it was in the deal that helped change
the economic structure of the game—the swap with
the Cardinals that Curt Flood refused to accept.
Allen played only one season in St. Louis, but
that was long enough to show his power (34 home
runs) was not compromised even by the distant fences of Busch Stadium. With the Dodgers the following year, he and manager Walter Alston provided
season-long proof of how oil did not mix with water.
But, in retrospect, even their tense relations were
only a warmup for his next three years in a White
Sox uniform.
ward the end of the 1917 season he made the mistake of informing Philadelphia’s money-grubbing
owner William Baker that he was about to be drafted and was promptly sold to the Cubs. An accident
while in military uniform rendered him deaf in one
ear and prone to epileptic seizures—both conditions
strengthening his dependence on the bottle. For a
few years Alexander kept all his disabilities at bay,
winning two ERA crowns and posting two 20-win
seasons for the Cubs, but by 1926 he was reeling off
the field more frequently than he was reeling off victories on it. Waived to the Cardinals, he had enough
left not only to provide key victories down the stretch
for a St. Louis pennant, but also to hurl two complete-game wins in the World Series against the Yankees and then make a dramatic relief appearance in
the seventh inning of the final game to strike out
Tony Lazzeri with the bases loaded.
Alexander staggered through yet another year to
compile 21 wins, but from that point on his waning
effectiveness and the rising impatience of his employers before his drunkenness were synonymous.
Even Baker’s gate-inspired notion of bringing him
back to Philadelphia in 1930 went for naught when
he was belted around in three starts and six relief appearances. The club finally suspended him for showing up once too often under the influence. This last
failure became even more poignant when research
in the 1950s credited Mathewson with a 373rd win,
creating the deadlock neither pitcher knew existed
while they were active.
Alexander’s post-major league life wasn’t much
better. At one point he grew a beard to join the
House of David team; for another period he worked
in a Times Square flea circus. None of these details
emerged in The Winning Season, a 1952 Hollywood
movie with Ronald Reagan portraying the hurler.
DICK ALLEN
Allen was among the more conspicuous players
who inhaled the social protest atmosphere of the
1960s–1970s but who exhaled it in ways calculated to
have him perceived merely as a reckless egotist. By
both accident and design, he exposed a small army of
hypocrites and toadies in the baseball establishment.
The righthand-hitting slugger began his 15-year
(1963–77) career with Philadelphia, winning Rookie of the Year honors in 1964 for batting .318 with
201 hits, 29 homers, 91 RBIs, 38 doubles, and a
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to go, he ended up as the AL home-run king for the
second time.
Informed that he had been dealt to Atlanta, Allen
announced that he would never play for a team in
the South, forcing the Braves to trade him back to
his original home in Philadelphia. With the Phillies
the second time he contributed enough clutch performances from part-time first-base duty to help the
team to an Eastern Division win in 1976. But he
boycotted the clubhouse celebrations for the clinching in protest against manager Danny Ozark’s decision to leave veteran second baseman Tony Taylor
off the postseason roster. Although Mike Schmidt
and other players also remonstrated against Taylor’s
exclusion, it was Allen who paid for it by being released shortly after making his only appearance in
postseason play. He ended his career as a platoon
first baseman with Oakland in 1977.
Allen, who lost much of his baseball earnings on
breeding and betting on horses, provided one of the
more memorable quotes on artificial turf when he
once declared: “If horses can’t eat it, I don’t want to
play on it.” He also earned a baseball footnote on
April 12, 1965 by hitting the first indoor home run
in a regular-season game, his two-run blast defeating Houston in the newly opened Astrodome.
On the field Allen swung his way to American
League MVP honors in 1972 by batting .308 while
piling up league-leading numbers in homers (37)
and RBIs (113). He took the trophy after playing tag
with the White Sox right up to spring training, releasing announcements periodically that he was getting tired of being traded and was considering retirement. What ultimately talked him into reporting for
his MVP season was the biggest contract ever awarded to a sports figure in Chicago. When his field performance attracted more than one million fans through
the turnstiles of Comiskey Park for the first time in
seven years, he received the biggest pact in the major leagues, while general manager Stu Holcomb
and manager Chuck Tanner told anyone who would
listen that the slugger was the franchise player. That
didn’t sit too well with righthander Stan Bahnsen,
who had been offered only a modest raise after winning 21 games, and several other White Sox players who saw their salaries slashed. To make matters
worse, Tanner and Holcomb went out of their way
during 1973 spring training to keep a roster spot
open for Allen’s brother Hank, an outfielder of no
particular talent. Hank Allen lasted only a handful
of at bats into the season, but any relief in the clubhouse over that development dissipated in June when
the franchise player, with 16 home runs already in
the record books, fractured his fibula in a collision at
first base and was sidelined for the rest of the year.
Allen’s third and final year with Chicago was the
most eventful of all. Although he came back in perfect health and began bashing the ball from Opening
Day, he evinced gradually decreasing interest in the
club’s .500 fortunes as the season wore on. Whenever his hitting put the White Sox ahead in a game,
however marginally, he persuaded the cooperative
Tanner to yank him for the last couple of innings to
he could avoid having to talk to sportswriters after
the contest. Then, in early September, he called a club
meeting and announced his retirement, effective immediately. Tanner’s reply was to say only that Allen
was “the greatest player I ever saw.” He kept to that
reaction even after the season, when the slugger said
he had had another change of heart and would return
the following year. The Chicago front office thought
otherwise, trading him to the Braves for $5,000 and
second-string catcher Jim Essian. Obscured during
all the late-season melodramatics was that even after
walking away from the White Sox with three weeks
JOHNNY ALLEN
Allen was a model “rabbit ears” whose transparent sensitivity to heckling underminded his mound
effectiveness. It didn’t help that he fueled his temper
with liberal doses of alcohol. After one loss with the
Indians in the 1930s, the righthander trashed a hotel
lobby before dousing the desk clerk with the contents of a fire extinguisher; he responded to another
defeat by thrashing his third baseman for having
made a decisive error. Incidents of the kind were a
mere prelude, however, to a game against Boston
on June 7, 1938, when Allen stalked from the hill to
the dugout rather than obey plate umpire Bill McGowan’s order that he cut off the sleeve of his tattered uniform. While the fans in Fenway Park grew
ugly, he sat stubbornly on the bench ignoring pleas
from pilot Ossie Vitt and his teammates to snip off
the offending sleeve before the game was forfeited
to Boston. Finally, Vitt fined him $250 for leaving
the mound without permission and told him he was
out of the game. Allen promptly told Vitt to go to
hell and announced his retirement. A couple of days
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won him no popularity contests in the Yankees front
office. Allen’s absence from the booth during the
1964 World Series and his subsequent dismissal in
December have been attributed variously to sponsor
Ballantine’s irritation at a perceived aloofness, the
Yankees front office’s desire to project a new image,
and the annoyance on both their parts at Allen’s
undisguised on-the-air consumption of the product
he hyped and after-hours taste for harder stuff. Coming on the heels of the firing of Yogi Berra as Yankees manager, the dismissal was a public relations
disaster, and accelerated the mid-century end of the
Yankees dynasty.
In 1978 Allen and one-time partner Barber were
the first recipients of the Ford C. Frick award and a
place in the broadcasters’ corner of the Hall of Fame.
later Cleveland owner Alva Bradley made the gesture of buying the controversial uniform from Allen
for the $250 levied by Vitt and had it put on display
in the department store he owned in Ohio. Although
the owner’s move calmed Allen temporarily, it also
underlined the chaotic relations between Vitt and his
employers; the latter situation would degenerate a
few years later into the revolt of the so-called Crybaby Indians.
LEE ALLEN
As the historian of the Baseball Hall of Fame in
the 1960s, Allen indefatigably pursued old ballplayers, tracking down the whereabouts of the living and
uncovering the ultimate fates of the deceased in
small towns across the country. A one-time Cincinnati sportswriter and then a public relations director
for the Reds, he also wrote some highly regarded
baseball histories.
ARTHUR ALLYN, JR.
When Allyn bought the White Sox in 1961, it
marked the end of the Comiskey family’s involvement in the franchise. And nobody was more surprised than the Comiskey heirs.
Head of the Artnell conglomerate of oil and clothing companies, Allyn purchased the majority interest in the franchise held by his father, Arthur Allyn,
Sr.; Bill Veeck; and Hank Greenberg. But the acquisition did not deter Chuck Comiskey from selling
his 46 percent interest in the team to Chicago insurance executive William Bartholomay as part of a
grand scheme in which Bartholomay would also buy
out Allyn to assume total control and give the organization presidency back to the family that had been
running the White Sox since the founding of the
American League in 1901. Unfortunately for Comiskey, Allyn rejected the Bartholomay offer; moreover,
aware that their 46 percent would make for only a
loud but ineffective minority, Bartholomay and his
associates then sold their holdings to Allyn.
Allyn wasn’t so fortunate in actually running the
franchise for most of the 1960s. Although the club
played .500 ball more often than not during the decade, it was a dull squad that attracted fewer and fewer spectators every year. The low point was reached
on Opening Day in 1968, when a mere 7,756 fans
showed up in the immediate wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Claiming that the
black neighborhood around Comiskey Park was discouraging white fans, Allyn kept badgering the city
for the construction of a new downtown stadium.
MEL ALLEN
The Voice of the Yankees, Allen parlayed a relaxed Alabama drawl and an unabashed rooting interest into a popularity rivaling that of the New York
players whose on-field activities he described on radio and television between 1938 and 1964. While
his orotund style irritated almost as many people as
his “homer” approach, to Yankees fans he was an indispensable link connecting several successive
Bronx dynasties. As a result, his signature lines—introducing broadcasts with “Hi there, everybody”;
following the flight of “Ballantine Blasts” with “Going . . . going . . . gone”; and punctuating everything
but the most mundane field incidents with “How
about that!”—became part of the New York vernacular. In addition, the sobriquets he popularized for
almost every Yankees regular—from Old Reliable
for Tommy Henrich, to the clunky Commerce Comet for Mickey Mantle—were efforts to impart some
of his personal flair to a team that seemed to many a
pennant machine. (Conversely, Red Barber was for
much of the same period lending his sober approach
to the often less than sober rival Dodgers.)
Allen’s one-man-show approach annoyed several partners, including Jim Woods and Curt Gowdy,
shortening their careers in the Yankee Stadium booth.
He also showed hostility toward sharing play-byplay with what he considered unqualified former
players (e.g., Joe Garagiola, Phil Rizzuto), and this
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help, he was greeted with an elaborate plan that
would have forced him to sell the franchise to a Seattle group that included comedian Danny Kaye and
that would have left Chicago open for one of Charlie
Finley’s periodically broached invasions, this time
from Oakland. Allyn said no, deciding instead to
close a 15-year circle by selling the club back to Bill
Veeck, from whom his brother Arthur had originally
bought the White Sox in 1961. Allyn retained a 25
percent interest in the second Veeck ownership.
When his appeals continued to fall on deaf ears, he
announced that the White Sox had agreed to play 10
home games in 1968 in Milwaukee’s County Stadium—ostensibly to give the AL an incentive for including Milwaukee in its planned 1969 expansion
but mainly to find ammunition if he sought to sell
the team to a Wisconsin group. The games in Milwaukee accounted for a third of Chicago’s home attendance in 1968, spurring Wisconsin lobbyists headed by Bud Selig into making an outright $13 million
offer for the club. In the meantime, Texas millionaire Lamar Hunt made another approach with a similar offer and with the declared intention of moving
the franchise to Dallas. But before Allyn could decide between the tenders, the league told him it would
never approve any transfer out of the Chicago market.
He finally opted to sell 50 percent of his Artnell stock
to his younger brother John and retire to Florida.
ROBERTO ALOMAR
Offensively and defensively, in speed and in spittle, Alomar was the second baseman of the 1990s. A
career .300 batter with enough power to be slotted
third in lineups, he also topped 30 stolen bases seven times and monopolized Gold Glove awards for
his position in successive stints for the Blue Jays,
Orioles, and Indians. His ability to star for three different franchises epitomized the era of the highpriced free agent.
Alomar’s diamond feats were overshadowed for
some time by a September 27, 1996 field argument
that culminated in the infielder’s spitting in the face
of umpire John Hirschbeck. The ugly confrontation,
uncharacteristic of the normally mild-mannered Alomar, triggered a near-crisis in relations among Major League Baseball, the players union, and the umpires union over the appropriate punishment for the
assault. Alomar was eventually suspended for five
games at the start of the 1997 season—a slap on the
wrist that incensed umpires and helped fuel subsequent frictions with the commissioner’s office. Although fans around the country booed Alomar for
years after the episode, they never hesitated to give
him enough votes as the AL’s starting second baseman for annual All-Star Games.
Originally with the Padres, Alomar was dealt to
the Blue Jays with Joe Carter for Fred McGriff and
Tony Fernandez in 1990. During the 2001 winter
meetings the suddenly cost-conscious Indians traded
him back to the National League in an eight-player
swap with the Mets.
JOHN ALLYN
Allyn took over the White Sox from his brother
Arthur in 1970 just in time to preside over the worst
team (106 losses) in organization history. Things
improved only minimally after that.
On the plus side Allyn brought in Northwestern
University athletic director Stu Holcomb to head
baseball operations, Harry Caray as the team announcer, and Dick Allen as the most highly paid
player to wear a uniform up to that time; on the minus side he brought in Holcomb, Caray, and Allen.
Within a couple of years the owner was having to
mediate ongoing intrigues among Holcomb, personnel director Rollie Hemond, and manager Chuck
Tanner, finally getting rid of Holcomb and Hemond.
As for Caray, his initial popularity and role in bringing fans back to Comiskey Park was soon counterbalanced by repeated snipes at the team and individual
players, leading Allyn to accuse him of discouraging
atendance. Meanwhile, Allen was alternately winning
league honors and taking off when the mood hit him.
By the middle of the decade Allyn was pleading
poverty before both the Internal Revenue Service
and his brother Arthur, who had to go to court to
claim $500,000 that he still had coming from selling the franchise. The situation grew so critical that
catcher Ed Herrmann was sold to the Yankees because Chicago couldn’t pay him his salary and outfielder Buddy Bradford was dealt to the Cardinals to
meet the payroll. When Allyn went to the AL for
FELIPE ALOU
The oldest of the three Alou brothers, Felipe had
the most power, topping the 20-homer and 30-double marks four times each. With the Braves in 1966,
he led the National League in both hits and runs
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to have a wired-up producer behind even its most
volatile events. His image as a loyal, quiet, but intestinally strong tactician worked as a tempering influence both on those who wanted to believe that
the Dodgers would always be the Dodgers whether
on the East Coast or West Coast and those who
were only too quick to accuse the franchise of going Hollywood.
Not that Alston always appreciated his role. From
the day his appointment was announced in Brooklyn, and greeted by headlines of WALTER WHO?,
to his final campaign in California, when he acted
baffled by innovations like free agency, he was seldom allowed to forget he wasn’t the most exciting
figure to grace a dugout. Team owner Walter O’Malley, for instance, made a habit of flanking him with
such coaches as Leo Durocher, Charlie Dressen, and
Bobby Bragan for “creative tension.” With Durocher,
at least, the tension became a little too creative in the
mid-1960s, prompting Alston to ream his coach on
the bench in front of the team for second-guessing
him. A typical O’Malley solution was to fire Durocher
but also to bounce Alston’s righthand man Joe Becker
as a warning that a one-year contract was still a oneyear contract. During Alston’s tenure the Dodgers
won seven pennants and three World Series (including the only one won by Brooklyn, in 1955).
scored; two years later he once again led NL batters
in safeties. His 17-year (1958–74) career, which began with the Giants, ended with three plate appearances in 1974 with the Brewers—enabling him to
join Hank Aaron and Phil Roof as the only players
to appear for both of Milwaukee’s big league franchises in the second half of the 20th century. While
with San Francisco on September 10, 1963, Alou
and his brothers Matty and Jesus wrote a footnote to
baseball history by making all three outs in an inning, against the Mets. Five days later they appeared
together in the only all-sibling outfield. Alou managed the Expos from 1992 to 2001, keeping the club
respectable and even better while the front office
dealt away one star after another. Among those he
managed in Montreal were his son Moises and
nephew Mel Rojas.
Matty, the middle brother, won a National League
batting crown in 1966 with a .342 average while a
member of the Pirates after batting .231 the year before. The lefty-hitting outfielder attributed the difference to batting coach Harry Walker’s insistence he
choke up on the bat. Alou kept the lesson in mind
for the rest of his career, reaching the .330 mark in
three additional years and averaging .307 for 15 big
league seasons. The 111-point improvement to the
batting title is the biggest by a regular from one season to the next.
Jesus, the youngest of the Alous, lacked Felipe’s
extra-base punch and Matty’s consistency but still
managed to hit .280 over 15 seasons with four clubs.
His most memorable game came on July 10, 1964,
when, as a member of the Giants, he collected six
hits off an equal number of Chicago pitchers. When
the righty-hitting outfielder picked up his 1,000th
hit, it not only made the Alous the only triumvirate
of brothers to reach that mark but also assured them
of first place in combined career hits for three or
more siblings. Against the Alous’ 5,094 safeties, for
instance, the three DiMaggios managed only 4,853
and the five Delahantys a mere 4,217.
NICK ALTROCK
More noted as one of baseball’s first professional
clowns, Altrock had two 20-win seasons for the early-century White Sox. The southpaw posted 23 victories and an ERA of 1.88 in 1905, then came back
the following year to help Chicago to a pennant with
20 more wins. Although his arm went the following
year, he had a friendship with Clark Griffith to thank
for being picked up by the Senators in 1909. Altrock
set a dubious record of sorts by appearing on the
Washington roster 10 times between 1912 and 1933,
never once in that time getting into more than five
games and usually listed only so he could make the
questionable claim of being a five-decade player.
His main value to the Senators, usually in partnership with Al Schacht, was in a pantomime act before
games and between ends of doubleheaders. The
original Sunshine Boys, Altrock and Schacht got into
an argument early in their careers and went through
their routine for years without talking to one another
on or off the field.
WALTER ALSTON (Hall of Fame, 1983)
Working off 23 one-year managerial contracts
between 1954 and 1976, Alston was an integral part
of the Dodgers gradual shift in identity from Brooklyn’s blue-collar franchise that seemed to generate
its glories and crises spontaneously to the buttoneddown-collar Los Angeles organization that seemed
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trained belief that Opening Day rosters should be
changed as little as possible and for his view of starters as relievers who just happened to be on the mound
at the beginning of games.
One of a handful of major leaguers who played
regularly for one season (with the 1959 Phillies) but
never appeared in a single game before or afterward,
Anderson called the shots for the Big Red Machine
between 1970 and 1978, winning five division titles,
four pennants, and two World Series. Most of his
field decisions with the heavy-hitting team involved
knowing when to go to the bullpen because of so-so
starters; his frequent trips to the hill earned him the
sobriquet of Captain Hook. For the most part he remained aloof from his star players’ recurrent salary
battles, generally winning their loyalty by consulting a circle of clubhouse veterans (Joe Morgan, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez, and Pete Rose) whenever
some issue threatened club cohesion. If he had one
notable failure in team relations, it was his inability
to prevent the disastrous trade of Perez to the Expos
following the 1976 season. When he himself was
cut loose from the club after the 1978 season by
newly installed general manager Dick Wagner, even
the mayor of Cincinnati joined the outcry by charging that the Reds front office had “gone bananas.”
At the time Anderson’s winning percentage of .596
was second only to Joe McCarthy’s.
Moving over to the Tigers during the 1979 season,
Anderson found another club without deep pitching
and accustomed to banging its way to victory. For his
first decade at the helm, he kept the team above .500,
winning a world championship in 1984 and an Eastern Division title in 1987; that gave him a record (later tied by Bobby Cox) for winning the most pennant
playoff series (five). He frequently pointed to the
1987 win as his most satisfying achievement in baseball because of the aging and modest talents on the
team. With such stars as Kirk Gibson and Lance Parrish leaving as free agents, however, the Tigers soon
disintegrated, exhausting Anderson in the process. In
1989 he suffered a breakdown caused as much by
family problems as by the strain of managing a team
that would lose 103 games. Sent home for three
weeks, he returned with a relatively casual attitude,
rarely missing an opportunity to tell interviewers he
could no longer manage “25 hours a day.” With the
added incentive of owning a small interest in the
team, he hung on until 1995 before retiring for good.
SANDY AMOROS
Left fielder Amoros’s startling one-handed catch
of an opposite-field drive by Yogi Berra in the seventh game of the 1955 World Series squashed a
late-inning rally by the Yankees and helped ensure
the only world championship won by the Brooklyn
Dodgers. Amoros made the grab after being put into
the game for defensive purposes. Following his retirement, the Cuban outfielder became a symbol of
the impoverished state many former major leaguers
were reduced to because of inadequate pension and
medical plans. His plight helped energize players in
better financial circumstances to organize the Baseball Assistance Team.
BRADY ANDERSON
Anderson created the biggest power anomaly
since the 19th century when he belted 50 home runs
for the Orioles in 1996. In a 14-year career that began in 1988 he has otherwise never hit more than
24, topping even 20 only on two other occasions.
Twelve of the blasts led off games—a big league
record. The lefthand-hitting outfielder also stole 53
bases for Baltimore in 1992, making him the only
American Leaguer to attain the half-century mark in
a season for the two categories.
WILL ANDERSON
Anderson was the composer of “Tessie,” a Broadway tune from the 1903 musical The Silver Slipper
that became the unofficial anthem of Boston baseball
fans in both the American and National leagues.
Both Braves and Red Sox rooters chorused it during
successful World Series triumphs between 1903 and
1918, then stopped. Since neither Boston franchise
won another title after that, the Tessie Curse has explained a great deal of life to Massachusetts fans not
in thrall to stories about the Curse of the Bambino.
SPARKY ANDERSON (Hall of Fame, 2000)
The only manager to win world championships
for teams in both leagues, Anderson was never quite
convincing as either the latter-day Casey Stengel or
the successful Gene Mauch that media pundits alternately represented him as over the years. While he
was not always at ease with the English language and
was occasionally given to elaborate chess games with
opposing pilots, his 25 years of steering Cincinnati
and Detroit were more conspicuous for his Dodger10
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Herzog later blasted Andujar, and was quick to deal
him to the Athletics in the offseason.
In the name of boosting the self-confidence of
prospects, Anderson was embarrassed more than
once by spring training evaluations of rookies (e.g.,
Chris Pittaro, Rico Brogna, Torey Lovullo, and Ricky
Peters) as sure bets for the Hall of Fame. He stubbed
his toe again in unloading Howard Johnson on the
Mets in 1984 behind the view that the third baseman
couldn’t hit and didn’t have the fortitude to last as a
major leaguer. His penchant for extravagant assertions probably reached its low point following the
1976 World Series, when he called the Reds the
greatest team in the history of the National League,
mocking suggestions that Yankees catcher Thurman
Munson could be compared to Bench.
PETER ANGELOS
A Baltimore attorney who specialized in defending labor unions and pursuing workers disability
claims, Angelos headed the consortium that purchased the Orioles in 1993 for $173 million. His
high-profile partners included novelist Tom Clancy,
movie director Barry Levinson, sportscaster Jim McKay, and tennis player Pam Shriver. Described by
some as a second Steinbrenner and by others as the
second coming of Charlie Finley, Angelos refused to
sign the September 1994 owners’ declaration that
formally ended the season after the players strike.
According to the longtime defender of workers rights,
the document’s charges that the players had not bargained seriously were “counterproductive.” On the
other hand, he has also come under fire for listening
too much in formulating Orioles policy to his young
sons John and Lou, whose only previous connection
with baseball was as managers of a rotisserie league
team. The influence of the Angelos offspring prompted the departure of such veteran baseball ball men as
Davey Johnson, Frank Robinson, Rollie Hemond,
and Doug Melvin in the 1990s, while the owner
himself seemed to identify experience only with the
out-of-touch Syd Thrift, usually to be seen nodding
to Angelos during Baltimore games. After years as a
power in the American League East, the precipitously aging Orioles became a distant also-ran at the turn
of the millennium.
MIKE ANDREWS
A second baseman for Oakland in the 1973 World
Series, Andrews made two 12th-inning errors that
enabled the Mets to win the second game. When
owner Charlie Finley attempted to have him declared physically unfit for the rest of the Series and
to replace him with Manny Trillo, Athletics manager Dick Williams announced that, win or lose, he intended quitting as soon as the season was over. Even
though Commissioner Bowie Kuhn turned thumbs
down to Finley’s ploy, the Oakland players showed
their resentment of the owner by having the infielder’s number sewn on their uniforms for the rest
of the Series.
JOAQUIN ANDUJAR
Andujar saw vague conspiracies against him everywhere, but the one time he pointed a finger produced one of the nastiest incidents in postseason
play. A journeyman for most of his 13-year (1976–88)
career, the righthander turned into a 20-game winner
in 1984 and 1985 after Cardinals manager Whitey
Herzog started pitching him on three days rest; tiring toward the end of the latter season, he was ineffective in the League Championship Series against
the Dodgers and was reduced to mopping up in the
final Series game, with the Royals holding a commanding lead. Walking the first batter he faced and
yielding a hit to the next, the Dominican decided to
blame his—and the Cardinals—fate on home plate
umpire Don Denkinger for a blown call that had
given Kansas City a win the previous day. Denkinger tossed both the pitcher and Herzog but not
before the former threw a tantrum on the mound.
CAP ANSON (Hall of Fame, 1939)
Anson was to 19th-century field managers what
Al Spalding was to club owners of the same era:
coldly efficient, militarily strict, and highly successful. The fates of the pair were intertwined for the
first decade-and-a-half of the National League’s existence; only when the pitcher-turned-magnate withdrew from active involvement in the affairs of the
Chicago club after the 1891 season, in fact, did the
first baseman-manager’s fortunes begin to decline.
Anson’s jump from the National Association Philadelphia Athletics to Chicago paralleled Spalding’s
from the Boston Red Stockings in the events leading
up to the founding of the National League in 1876. A
righthanded batter, he won four batting championships, was the first major leaguer to record 3,000 hits
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Especially after his political career ended, Anson
fell on hard times, but he still refused NL president
John Tener’s offer of a pension with the same scorn
he had shown toward Hart’s charity game.
Anson’s literary endeavor confirmed the racism
he had manifested in the 1880s in refusing to let his
team take the field against clubs that included black
players Fleet Walker and George Stovey. Among
other things, his memoir referred to Clarence Duval,
the mascot and clown who was part of the 1888–89
world tour, as a “chocolate-covered coon” and a
“no-account nigger.”
(in comparatively short seasons), and finished with a
lifetime average of .333. Anson was also durable,
serving as a regular for all 22 of his National League
seasons (in addition to five in the NA). He is the oldest major leaguer to hit a grand slam, knocking in
four runs with one clout in July 1894 at age 42, and
the second-oldest—at age 45—to hit a home run at
all, connecting for two on October 3, 1897, the last
day of his career.
After succeeding Spalding as manager in 1879,
Anson won five pennants, compiled a .636 won-lost
percentage during the 1880s, and was among the
first to use more than one pitcher, employ the hitand-run, and formalize spring training routines. A
ferocious disciplinarian, he barred even Spalding
from the clubhouse when he thought it necessary,
and enforced his rules with fists. A temperance enthusiast, he administered a no-drinking pledge to the
entire team in the owner’s office in 1886. He also
knew a little about promotion, often dressing his
players in outfits ranging from Native American
garb to formal wear and parading them through the
streets of National League cities in open carriages to
irritate local fans and stimulate them to buy tickets.
The extent of the public’s identification of Anson
with the franchise was measurable by its nickname
changes—from the traditional White Stockings to
Colts, when he launched a youth movement in 1886,
then to Orphans after he left the team in 1897.
Anson’s troubles with the team trace to the arrival of James Hart as president in 1892. He disliked
Hart so much that he had refused to contribute toward the purchase of diamond cuff links Spalding
had given the then-travel secretary for handling
arrangements on an international goodwill tour after
the 1888 season. It didn’t help that the team had
twice as many losing seasons as winning ones after
Hart took over from Spalding. Fired after the 1897
season, Anson indignantly refused Hart’s offer to
hold a benefit game for him. Out of organized baseball after a three-week stint as Giants manager in
1898, he dabbled in the formation of abortive new
leagues (the New American Association, of which
he was briefly president in 1900, and the United
States League in 1914); politics (he was elected city
clerk of Chicago in 1905 but left office two years
later under a cloud of financial scandal); and writing
(his autobiography denouncing players who had
sabotaged him and owners who had betrayed him).
LUIS APARICIO (Hall of Fame, 1984)
Aparicio’s 18-year (1956–73) major league career has generated more than one misconception. It
is not true, for example, that the righthand-hitting
shortstop, who had most of his glory years with the
White Sox, was the ideal leadoff man; on the contrary, he batted more than .280 only once, drew more
than 53 walks only once, and had an overall on-base
average of only .313. On the other hand, he was no
mere spear-carrier in the revival of the running game
in the late 1950s and early 1960s; years before Maury
Wills appeared on the scene, the Venezuelan speedster broke all existing records by leading the American League in stolen bases in his first nine big league
seasons. And although he ended up with fewer career steals than Wills, he also had a better success
rate (79 percent to 74 percent).
In the field, Aparicio was the Ozzie Smith of his
day, establishing career marks for assists and double
plays along the way to nine Gold Gloves. Some of
that achievement was due to his hardiness, since he
played in at least 100 games in every one of his 18
seasons. Another part of it was due to his longtime
Chicago partner, second baseman Nellie Fox, the
other half of Aparicio’s double-play mark. As key
members of the 1959 Go-Go Sox, Aparicio and Fox
regularly fashioned the wins of their pennant-bound
club with little more than a single and stolen base by
the shortstop, a ground ball to the right side by the
second baseman, a sacrifice fly, and then nine innings of vacuum-cleaning defense. Aparicio provided some of the same leadership with the world
champion 1966 Orioles. Ironically, however, he also
literally fell down on the job with the Red Sox in
1972, when, carrying a decisive run in late September, he fell in the third-base coach’s box to kill a ral12
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in 1984, Appling belted a 275-foot home run into
the left field seats off Warren Spahn, thereby equaling or topping his long-ball production for 11 of his
20 seasons in a Chicago uniform. When he hit the
ball, Appling was 77 years old.
ly and doom Boston to a second-place, half-game
finish behind Detroit.
LUKE APPLING (Hall of Fame, 1964)
Before Ernie Banks came along, Appling was
Chicago’s most exasperated player—toiling for 20
years (between 1930 and 1950) as the shortstop for
the White Sox without getting closer to the World
Series than a couple of third-place finishes. As Comiskey Park’s only consistent offensive light for
two decades, however, he compiled a .310 batting
average, going over the .300 mark 15 times. In 1936
the righthanded slap hitter reached a peak of .388,
winning the batting title in a duel with Cleveland’s
Earl Averill by going four-for-four on the final day
of the season; Appling took another title in 1943. Although he never hit more than eight home runs in a
season, his .388 mark in 1936 sent 128 runners
across the plate.
To the chagrin of the Comiskeys and other American League owners, Appling was as proficient at
fouling off balls as he was at dropping them out of
the reach of opposition fielders. He once retaliated
against Washington owner Clark Griffith’s refusal to
cough up passes for a group of friends by fouling off
an estimated 16 straight pitches into the grandstand
at Griffith Stadium. On another occasion, Detroit
hurler Dizzy Trout became so incensed at having
more than a dozen deliveries wasted that he fired his
glove at Appling in the batter’s box. The infielder
was so raw defensively when he came up that manager Lew Fonseca pressed the front office to deal
him away. Mainly because the club didn’t have a
feasible alternative, he remained where he was, going on to lead the AL in assists seven years in a row
and maintaining enough range that, in 1949 at age
42, he became the oldest starting shortstop in baseball history.
Appling’s nickname of Old Aches and Pains derived in part from hypochondria and in part from
rooming for many years with the White Sox trainer;
in fact, a broken leg in 1938 was his only serious big
league injury.
As a follow-up to the bizarre 1964 trade between
Detroit and Cleveland of managers Jimmy Dykes
and Joe Gordon, Appling and Jo-Jo White were also
swapped in the first recorded exchange of coaches.
Playing in the Cracker Jack All-Star Game of Old
Timers at Washington’s Robert F. Kennedy Stadium
BUZZ ARLETT
Selected the premier minor league player of all
time by the Society for American Baseball Research,
Arlett’s atrocious fielding limited his big league career to only one season. In 19 years in the high minors between 1918 and 1937, the switch-hitter batted .341 and clouted 432 homers. (Having begun as
a pitcher with the Pacific Coast League Oakland
Oaks, he also won 108 games in his first five seasons.) While with the International League Baltimore
Orioles in 1932, he twice knocked four home runs in
a game.
Finally given a berth in the majors with the Phillies in 1931, Arlett hit .313 with 18 homers. But manager Burt Shotton kept looking for a place to hide his
leaden glove by moving him from the outfield to first
base to a pinch-hitting role before finally giving up
and letting him drift back to the minors.
HAROLD ARLIN
On August 5, 1921 Arlin became baseball’s first
play-by-play man when Pittsburgh radio station
KDKA carried his broadcast of an 8–5 Pirates win
over the Phillies. The announcer completed the assignment from a Forbes Field box seat.
LIZZIE ARLINGTON
Taught to pitch by Boston hurler Jack Stivetts,
Arlington became the first woman to appear for a
professional team, in 1898. She was hired for exhibitions in several Atlantic League cities by Ed Barrow, then president of the minor circuit. Born as Lizzie Stroud, she chose what she considered a less
humdrum name for her efforts to boost attendance
during the doldrums of the Spanish-American War.
BOB ASBJORNSON
A backup catcher for the 1932 Reds, Asbjornson
was given a day in his honor by fellow natives of
Concord, Massachusetts, during a team trip to Boston. After receiving a hefty check in pregame ceremonies, he celebrated by hitting his only major
league home run. After the game he discovered that
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