Baseball – Past, Present, Future . . . but mostly the Past

What follows is an article about the upcoming All Star game being played in Arizona by a wonderful sportswriter with a social conscious named Dave Zirin. I will personally be boycotting this year’s All Star game for the reasons Mr. Zirin enumerates. If you’ve ever read this site, you already know what I think about Bud Selig. The sooner MLB gets rid of Selig, the sooner the game will win back some of the integrity and respect it once enjoyed.

Adrian Gonzalez Will Attend the 2011 All-Star Game. We Should Not

That’s very good news for Major League Baseball and many fans. But it’s bad news for immigrant rights activists who have looked to Gonzalez to boycott the game because of Arizona’s horrific  “papers please” immigration law SB 1070. Last year, as protests gathered outside 20 Major League ballparks with a focus on moving the 2011 All-Star Game out of Arizona, Gonzalez became the highest profile player to indicate that he wouldn’t participate if the “midsummer classic” went ahead as planned. He said last May, “It’s immoral. They’re violating human rights. In a way, it goes against what this country was built on. This is discrimination. Are they going to pass out a picture saying ‘You should look like this and you’re fine, but if you don’t, do people have the right to question you?’ That’s profiling.”
In a different interview he said, “If they leave it up to the players and the law is still there, I’ll probably not play in the All-Star Game. Because it’s a discriminating law.”

[Dave Zirin is the author of “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) and just made the new documentary “Not Just a Game.” Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.]

My sons and brother and I traveled to Cooperstown yesterday for the 3rd annual Hall of Fame Classic. It was our second year in a row attending this wonderful gathering of “old timers.” I put that phrase in quotes as some of these players are now younger than I am!

Unfortunately, I’m having some trouble with my computer so I’m unable to post my pictures from the game as of yet. I’ll try to find some images for the web to post for you.

Sadly, last years two team captains both passed away since last year’s game – Bob Feller and Harmon Killebrew. They were both missed but appropriately honored at yesterday’s festivities. In fact, the games MVP award is now named in honor of Feller.  The absence of these two gentlemen may have been a bad omen because this year’s event was not as riveting or enjoyable as last year’s contest.

The first disappointment came when one of the players, Tony Perez, had to drop out at the last minute. For me, Perez and Jim Rice were the two guys I was most anxious to see. They had both been favorites of mine when I was a kid.

Amazingly, it was another glorious day weather-wise just as it had been last year. After the wet, wet spring we had I was a little nervous but we never saw a drop of rain yesterday and the sun shone brightly all day long on Doubleday Field. In fact, it started to get darned hot after being out there for three-plus hours!  You see, except for the small section of enclosed seats behind home plate, the entire grandstand is in the sun. No roof, no awnings, no shade.

The biggest negative is all the promotional hoo-hah that they cram in between innings. They announced at the beginning of the game that the game, which starts at 2:00 p.m. would be either seven innings long or two hours. They only played five and a half innings yesterday but as my son said, “If they didn’t waste all the time with that crap in between innings they could have played nine innings!” They have dance contests, races, American Legion BB awards, interviews, etc.  I imagine some of it is to give the players a little more rest and/or warmup between innings. Of course, some of it also provides more time to tell us the name of the sponsor over and over and over . . . and over again.

Another negative review was earned by the game’s announcer. I have no idea who it was but I think just about all in attendance found him to be rather intrusive and annoying. It would have helped if he just gave us the players names and then shut up. He wasn’t funny just obnoxious. He sounded like a combination of Foster Brooks and Harry Caray only he wasn’t in the least bit entertaining.

They start the festivities off with a HR hitting contest. This year’s contestants were Dmitri Young, Reggie Sanders, Dave Henderson, and Frank Catalanotto. Interesting considering that other attendees included Andre Dawson, Jim Rice, and Dale Murphy – three guys with 1218 lifetime home runs between them! Even so, Young and Sanders put on a great show with Young winning the contest in the third and final round. Young hit some towering shots while Sanders cranked a number of line drive bullets to left that exited the stadium very quickly.

Now we get down to the nitty-gritty, the game itself. The range of ages for these old-timers extended from 72 years old for starting pitcher Phil Niekro to 37 years old for infielder/outfielder Frank Catalanotto. The age, however, does NOT seem to be the primary indicator as to how good a shape these guys are in or how willing and/or able they are to play the game at this point in their lives. Kudos must be given to guys like the 72 year old Niekro, 64 year old Bill “The Spaceman” Lee, 52 year old Henderson and all the other guys who really put forth one hell of an effort to play. Niekro looks great and was still pitching damn well for a guy in his eighth decade! Bill Lee was phenomenal playing all over the field included both pitcher and catcher while sporting what looked like nothing more than a batting glove. When he caught, he did so with nothing but a mask! Former pitcher Rick Wise was respectable at second base while Doug Glanville, Frank Catalanotto, Reggie Sanders, Steve Braun, Mike Timlin and Rick Lancellotti all appeared to give their best efforts.

It’s hard for me to compliment Goose Gossage because even though he played for the White Sox and the Padres, he’ll always be a Yankee to me. That said, he’s still got some fire in his arm. Ozzie Smith played but didn’t seem to play as long or as hard as last year. Andre Dawson was a bit of a disappointment as he did not play the whole game and I can’t remember him even batting more than once. My man Jimmy Rice really seemed to be unable to run. He couldn’t hit the long ball either although he did hit a few blistering line drives and/or ground balls that got him a couple hits and a couple of runs. The biggest disappointment of all was Dale Murphy. He ran slower than Rice, hit worse than Dawson and seemed generally disinterested. I will, however, give special credit to Smith, Gossage, Dawson, and Rice as I think they signed the most autographs of all the guys there. I know that Dave Henderson, Billy Sample, Mike Timlin, and Dick Williams signed as well but that was about it. Oh wait, I did see Reggie Sanders sign some in the outfield and Murphy even signed a few in the outfield – while the game was going on! It’s OK though because Murphy wasn’t about to make a move toward any ball hit near him anyway so it didn’t matter.

A great effort and performance was put in by the games MVP and Bob Feller Award winner Dmitri Young who clubbed at least two hits including a three-run HR while also making a couple of plays in the field as well. He played to the crowd while also playing hard on the field. He did NOT as far as I could tell sign any auto graphs but he I believe he threw one or two balls into the stands.

Jon Warden, 1968 Detroit Tiger pitcher, continued his antics as Class Clown and my 10 year old son certainly felt that warden was one of the highlights of the game.

All in all, a fun day at the ballpark. It should be noted that Niekro, Gossage and Smith all appeared at last year’s Hall of fame Classic. Here’s hoping next year’s game will have more than six HOF’s show up and really try their best to please the crowd.

Twin’s legend Harmon Killebrew died today at the age of 74. My sons and I got to meet him briefly a couple of years ago when he came to Rochester for a signing at Frontier Field. We waited in line for almost two hours to get his autograph and he was very polite and gracious.

Last year we cheered him and other baseball legends as they made their way down Main Street before the Annual Hall of Fame Classic in Cooperstown, NY. As his car was passing us on the street he spotted my older son who was all decked out in his Twins’ jersey, hat, etc. and Killebrew smiled, pointed at him and waved hello. My son was thrilled by the recognition from one of the greatest Twins of them all.

Killebrew just released a statement last week that he was discontinuing his cancer treatments because the doctors told him his prognosis was bleak. Even so, it was a shock to hear of his passing just a few short days after that announcement.

Harmon Killebrew was from a different time. He came from a small town in America’s Northwest and he carried a sense of honor, humility and small town values with him throughout his journey. He will be remembered and he will be missed.

Here’s another wonderful piece by sportswriter/activist Dave Zirin.

The reason nobody wants to stand up for the truth in this country anymore is because if you do, you get booed. There’s precious little patriotism in America, just blind nationalism. If you care about this country, you’re only supposed to talk about how wonderful it is. You’re not supposed to talk about what’s wrong with it.

Santana is Booed for Using Baseball’s Civil Rights Game to Speak Out for Civil Rights

by Dave Zirin

Major League Baseball’s annual Civil Rights Game was poised to be a migraine-inducing exercise in Orwellian irony. Forget about the fact that Civil Rights was to be honored in Atlanta, where fans root for a team called the Braves and cheer in unison with the ubiquitous “tomahawk chop.”

Forget about the fact that the Braves have been embroiled in controversy since pitching coach Roger McDowell aimed violent, homophobic threats at several fans. Forget that this is a team that has done events with Focus on the Family, an organization that is to Civil Rights what Newt Gingrich is to marital fidelity.

The reason Atlanta was such a brutally awkward setting for a Sunday Civil Rights setting, was because Friday saw the Governor of Georgia, Nathan Deal, sign HR 87, a law that shreds the Civil Rights of the state’s Latino population. Modeled after Arizona’s horrific and unconstitutional SB 1070, HR 87 authorizes state and local police the federal powers to demand immigration papers from people they suspect to be undocumented. Those without papers on request will find themselves behind bars. Civil rights hero, Atlanta’s John Lewis has spoken out forcefully against the legislation saying “This is a recipe for discrimination. We’ve come too far to return to the dark past.”

But there was Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig, celebrating civil rights in the Georgia, and chortling excitedly about the 2011 All-Star game in Arizona. In the hands of Selig, irony becomes arsenic. Thank God that Commisioner Selig was stupid enough to choose the Civil Rights Game to honor, among others, the great musician Carlos Santana. Santana was supposed to be the Latino stand-in, a smiling symbol of baseball’s diversity. And maybe, he would even play a song!

But Bud picked the wrong Latino. Carlos Santana took the microphone and said that he was representing all immigrants. Then Santana added, “The people of Arizona, and the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.” In a perfect display of Gov. Nathan Deal’s Georgia, the cheers quickly turned to boos. Yes, Carlos Santana was booed on Civil Rights Day in Atlanta for talking about Civil Rights.

Then in the press box, Santana held an impromptu press conference where he let loose with an improvised speech to rival one of his virtuoso guitar solos. He said, “This law is not correct. It’s a cruel law, actually, This is about fear. Stop shucking and jiving. People are afraid we’re going to steal your job. No we aren’t. You’re not going to change sheets and clean toilets. I would invite all Latin people to do nothing for about two weeks so you can see who really, really is running the economy. Who cleans the sheets? Who cleans the toilets? Who babysits? I am here to give voice to the invisible.”

He went on to say, “Most people at this point they are either afraid to really say what needs to be said, this is the United States the land of the free. If people want the immigration law to keep passing in every state then everybody should get out and just leave the American Indians here. This is about Civil Rights.”

Where was Bud Selig during all this drama? It seems that Selig slunk out of a stadium backdoor in the 5th inning. If there is one thing Bud has become an expert at, it’s ducking his head when the issues of immigration, civil rights, and Major League Baseball collide. If Selig really gave a damn about Civil Rights, he would heed the words of Carlos Santana. He would move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Arizona. He would recognize that the sport of Jackie Robinson, Roberto Clemente and Curt Flood has an obligation to stand for something more than just using their memory to cover up the injustices of the present. If Bud Selig cared about Civil Rights, he would above all else, have to develop something resembling a spine. But if Bud is altogether unfamiliar with the concept of courage, he received one hell of an object lesson from Carlos Santana.

[Dave Zirin is the author of “Bad Sports: How Owners are Ruining the Games we Love” (Scribner) and just made the new documentary “Not Just a Game.” Receive his column every week by emailing dave@edgeofsports.com. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com.]

Last week we celebrated Willie Mays’s 80th birthday. Today is the 72nd birthday of a guy who Mays no doubt faced a few times in his long career, Milt Pappas.

Milt Pappas was a right-handed pitcher who spent 16 full seasons in the major leagues and chalked up more than 200 wins! He should be far better remembered today than he is. In fact, he probably deserves at least some consideration for the Hall of Fame but he never even received more than 1.2% of the vote. Part of the problem, no doubt, is that he only appeared in the postseason once with the 1969 Atlanta Braves. In just over two innings he gave up three earned runs. To be fair, 1969 was not one of his best years. In fact, it was one of only two seasons in the major leagues when Pappas did not win 10 or more games.

Pappas is also remembered as being the primary player traded to the Reds for Frank Robinson prior to the 1966 season. In his two and a half seasons with the Reds he won 30 games and lost 29. Frank Robinson, on the other hand, won the Triple Crown in 1966 and led his new team, the Baltimore Orioles, to a World Championship.

Milt Pappas pitched 16 full seasons in the big leagues. I’m not counting his first season of 1957 when he appeared in only four games. He won a total of 110 games in the American League and 99 games in the National League. He also pitched a No-Hitter in 1972 when he enjoyed a wonderful year for the 2nd place Cubs with a 17-7 record. His next year he went 7-12 and that was the end of his baseball career.

Another under-appreciated pitcher who was born on this day was Truett Banks Seweel, better known as Rip Sewell. His numbers are similar to Pappas’ numbers in ERA and winning percentage. Sewell won 143 games while losing just 97 with an ERA of 3.48. Sewell played pro ball from 1931 until 1950 but like most players of his time spent a good deal of time in the minor leagues before breaking into the big leagues. Unlike Pappas, who never won 20 games in a season, Sewell accomplished the feat twice in his 11 year major league career.  In 1943 he led the National League with 21 wins and 25 complete games.

Sewell had two cousins who were major leaguers as well – Joe Sewell who played for the Indians and the Yankees from 1920-1933 and Joe’s brother Luke Sewell who played for the Indians, Senators, White Sox and Browns from 1921 – 1942. Of the three, only Joe Sewell made it to the Hall of Fame.

Interestingly, both Rip Sewell and Milt Pappas were also pretty good hitters as pitchers go although Pappas was more of a power hitter with 20 lifetime home runs and Sewell was a better contact hitter with a lifetime .203 average.

If you’re a fan of Phil Silvers or Sgt. Bilko, check out my birthday salute to Silvers at my other blog which can be found HERE.

How can it be that Willie Mays is 80 years old? Remember, he wasn’t called the Say Hey Young Adult or the Say Hey Middle Aged Man – he was, and always shall be, the Say Hey Kid because he exhibited the kind of joy and exuberance for the game of baseball that we all had as children. Unlike the rest of us, Willie Howard Mays was given not only the gift of joy and appreciation for America’s game but the gifts of speed on the base paths, power at the plate and judgment in the outfield.

Even so, never let the childlike passion that Mays had for the game ever lead you into thinking he didn’t work hard to become the Hall of Fame player that he was. No one accomplishes what Mays did on the field without lots of hard work. What might be misleading is that Mays never complained about the injuries or the travel or the other challenges that can fatigue a professional player particularly back in the days when he was just starting out. That’s where that youthful joy masked the reality of the hard work.

It’s hard to think of Willie Mays as 80 years old because that also makes us realize that we, too, are growing old. However, even with the reality of my increasing years, I still think of myself as a young guy. Some days I think of myself as that young boy running around in the outfield shagging flies and making throws to third or to home. Just as we always keep the memory of our youth burning bright in our own minds, so, too, will we always keep the memory of the youthful Willie Mays alive in our hearts and minds as well . . . making that great catch at the Polo Grounds or running the bases with that cap flying off.

Happy Birthday Willie. Thanks for all our youthful memories.

Here’s another tidbit from The Glory of Their Times, the absolutely fabulous 1966 book from Lawrence Ritter. The following paragraph actually comes from a 1910 book entitled Touching Second but it’s used as an introduction to the chapter on catcher George Gibson who played in the Major Leagues from 1905 – 1918 primarily with the Pirates.

The number of times a catcher is injured in a season is surprising. At one time in 1909, for example, George Gibson of the Pittsburgh Pirates had black and blue marks imprinted by nineteen foul tips upon his body, a damaged hand, a bruise on his hips six inches square where a thrown bat had struck, and three spike cuts. Yet he had not missed a game and was congratulating himself on his “luck.”

—Johnny Evers and Hugh Fullerton, Touching Second, 1910

The only thing I would argue with in that statement is the fact that anyone would actually be surprised by the number of times a catcher got hurt back in those days. Here’s a quote from Gibson himself telling about his earliest days in the game:

I began as a catcher for London West [Canada] in 1898, when I was eighteen years old, and took to it like a duck takes to water. Lots of times I didn’t even wear a catcher’s mask in those days; I couldn’t see clearly enough through it, so I’d take it off. And of course many’s the day I’d come home with a black eye or a bloody nose.

—George Gibson, The Glory of Their Times, 1966

At least a black eye or a bloody nose, I bet! Gibson goes on to say the following:

Catching’s a pretty rough deal and you better love it or do something else for a living. Every finger on my right hand has been broken at least twice. I have two sons, George and Bill, both of whom are medical doctors in Pittsburgh, and one of them once X-rayed that hand. He couldn’t believe the number of times each finger had been broken.

For those of you wondering, Gibson was still around when Roger Bresnahan (seen above), catcher for the New York Giants, became the first catcher to wear shin guards. Gibson’s manager Fred Clarke ordered Gibson to get some and he did. However, he felt they were too bulky and hard to move around in and so he quickly abandoned their use.

I’d give anything to know what these guys would think about today’s player sitting out a game because of a broken cuticle or a sore back. It’s clear when reading Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times that most of the oldtimers thought the modern day ball player then was a bit “soft” and that was in the early sixties. Those guys in the sixties would have to be thought of as tough as rocks compared to today’s players.

Fascinating stuff. Lawrence Ritter’s The Glory of Their Times. A couple of weeks ago I wrote that if you ever came across this book you should buy it. Now I’m telling you to go and look for it – it’s a must have book for any fan of baseball history.

If you’re interested in old movies, music and television, the way you are in baseball, you may be interested in visiting my other site as well at http://www.ottobruno.org

Just happened upon Hack Wilson’s stats at that most addictive of all websites, BaseballReference.com and noticed, among other things, that today is the 111th anniversary of Mr. Wilson’s birth.

Wilson was a National League slugger with the Giants, Cubs and Brooklyn teams ( and a brief 7 games with the Phillies) from 1923 – 1934. He died very young in 1948 at the age of 48. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979 by the Veteran’s Committee back in the days when the Veteran’s Committee actually inducted people they felt had been wrongly overlooked by the Baseball Writers.

Looking at his records today (which you can do if you go HERE), I notice that he really only had five stellar years in his relatively short eleven year career. The most incredible of these years came in 1930 when he banged out 56 home runs and drove in the remarkable number of 191 runs. These are indeed exceptional numbers, however, one of the reasons often cited for certain players not being in the HOF who seem to be deserving of the honor, is that they didn’t play long enough or maintain their greatness over the long haul. That’s why the fact that Wilson only having five exceptional years makes his induction all the more puzzling. Quite honestly, I’d never examined his records too closely before and although I knew his career wasn’t a long one, I’d just assumed that he’d had a career like Ralph Kiner – short but consistently solid throughout.

Now just for the sake of argument, check out the statistics of Riggs Stephenson HERE. You’ll see that Mr. Stephenson played a few more years than Hack Wilson but has almost the exact same amount of Games and At-Bats. Stephenson also has a lifetime batting average of .336! Stephenson, of course, is NOT in the Hall of Fame. Do you know why? No, neither do I. Both Wilson and Stephenson, by the way, appeared in two World Series and Stephenson’s numbers are better.

Don’t think I’ve searched high and low to find someone as good or better than Hack Wilson who’s not in the Hall of Fame. I have nothing against Hack Wilson. In fact, as I say, I never really knew until today that he’d had only a few really good years. My point is that there are so many questionable players in the Hall of Fame and so many obvious choices that are not that I wonder how seriously we can take the Hall of Fame and its selection process. As I hinted at the beginning of this post, the Veterans Committee whose duty it once was to induct those players who, for whatever reason, were unjustly overlooked by the Baseball Writers, have left dozens of deserving players lost in the dust of the ages.

You want someone else besides Riggs Stephenson? How about Babe Herman? Herman played thirteen years and over 1550 games with a .324 lifetime average. You can see his complete stats HERE. The examples of deserving ballplayers left on the outside looking in are numerous. Part of the problem is America likes might and strength and power. Therefore, if you hit 56 home runs in a season you’re a hero but if you bat .336 over a career you’re just another forgotten player among the thousands who’ve played the game.

I just finished reading a fine new book by author Lawrence Baldassaro entitled Beyond DiMaggio: Italian Americans in Baseball.This was a book I was looking for almost thirty years ago but no one had written it yet. It’s kind of amazing that it took so long to finally appear. It’s obvious that Mr. Baldassaro has been working on this project for a number of years. His research and his passion is evident as you read through this long overdue tome.

As a person who has a fairly substantial Italian American library of books, I was familiar with much of the background information that Mr. Baldassaro provides about the Italian American experience in the U.S. since the late 1800s. Nevertheless, I was still pleasantly surprised at just how thorough and accurate he was in his presentation of the history. He covers the dilemma of surnames and the immigrants who felt the need to change them and why. He discusses the resistance met by the first generation American boys who tried to explain to their parents that they wanted to play baseball for a living. He even suggests the initial resistance to Italian American ball players as pitchers because they weren’t thought to be bright enough to handle that pressured position.

For me, the greatest value of this book comes from the subject matter suggested by the title – Beyond DiMaggio. For years, whatever information we’ve had, particularly in book form, about Italian American ball players centered around Joe DiMaggio and his fellow Italian American Yankees like Phil Rizzuto and Yogi Berra. There were so many other great Italian American ball players that had been overlooked through the years – people like Ernie Lombardi, Dolph Camilli, Babe Pinelli, Cookie Lavagetto, and dozens of others.  Baldassaro’s work covers the careers of all of these players albeit to varying degrees. He’s particularly helpful in identifying those Italian American ball players whose names do not suggest their Italian American ancestry like Jimmy Bloodworth, Hank Steinbacher, Herman Franks, and Tommy Brown.

The highlights among Baldassaro’s profiles of lesser known ballplayers is the information presented about Ed Abbaticchio and Tony Lazzeri. Abbaticchio is one of the earliest of all Italian American players and certainly the first with an obvious Italian surname. I’ve read information about Abbaticchio in other sources but none cover him as thoroughly as Baldassaro. I was especially delighted in a quote presented by Baldassaro from none other than Honus Wagner, the great Hall of Fame shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Wagner and Abbaticchio were teammates on the 1909 championship Pirates. Wagner wrote of his teammate that “‘Batty’ was one of the best of his day as a player and one of the finest of any baseball era as a man and a true friend. He was an everlasting credit to baseball, to Pittsburgh, and to his home section of Latrobe [PA]. . .”

Tony Lazzeri is another Italian American player from the past who’s all too forgotten in modern circles. In fact, Baldassaro calls Lazzeri “one of the best ‘forgotten’ players in Major League history.” Lazzeri was the second baseman on six pennant winning Yankee ball clubs between 1926 and 1937. In his fourteen year major league career, Lazzeri posted ten seasons of double-digit home run totals and drove in over 100 runs in seven different seasons. Baldassaro describes Lazzeri as a “stoic on the field as he was in his private life, but as many have testified, he was the leader of the Yankee infield from his rookie year on. He was the archetypal hard-nosed blue-collar second baseman – no flash, no frills, just steady, dependable work every day.” Many may have testified to this but Baldassaro is certainly the first in recent memory to present it so prominently.

The vacuum of historical material on Italian American players has traditionally been so great that I began my own campaign to address this issue a few years ago when I started writing profiles of former Italian American baseball players for Fra Noi, the Italian American monthly published in Chicago, Illinois. I would go to Cooperstown, NY a couple of times a year and research their player files to gather information from original newspaper and magazine articles covering a given player’s career. In three years I wrote profiles on guys like Tony Cuccinello, Gino Cimoli, Jim Gentile, Ernie Broglio, Don Mossi, Zeke Bonura and more. I learned, among other things, that Italian Americans were not just ethnic footnotes to the game’s history but accounted for a wide variety of talented, honorable, important and proud players of America’s great game.

Baldassaro’s Beyond DiMaggio reminds me of another Italian American history book written almost twenty years ago by scholars Jerre Mangione and Ben Morreale – La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience.  Both books are valuable in that they draw attention to issues and aspects in history not fully appreciated or covered in previous histories. However, both serve more as a jumping off point than a complete and thorough treatise. The breadth of the subject matter makes it just about impossible to definitively cover the issue in one volume. Hopefully, Beyond DiMaggio will serve as a foundation that encourages further, more in-depth studies on the various topics brought to light in these well-researched pages.

Beyond DiMaggio was published by the University of Nebraska Press. For more information about this book and their other baseball titles, you can find it HERE.

Took a trip to Cooperstown last week and visited one of my favorite used bookstores, Willis Monie Books. I picked up an enlarged edition of Lawrence Ritter’s classic The Glory of Their Times. I believe the original edition came out in 1966 and was a series of profiles/interviews/first person accounts of life in the big leagues or, as the subtitle described it, “The Story Of The Early Days Of Baseball Told By The Men Who Played It.” This particular edition is from 1984 and included a new preface and four additional profiles that were not in the original publication.

Like many fans, I’m fascinated with the era of the 1940s and 1950s that was marked by the prominence and rivalry of the three great New York ball clubs. Having been born in the early 1960s, I also have a special place in my heart for the ballplayers of the 1960s and 1970s because they were “my guys.” I’ve never been as interested in the dead ball era of the early twentieth century but the players and the game of the 1900s – 1930s are starting to gain my attention.

I’ve always felt it is a silly exercise in futility to compare players who played in completely different eras of baseball. With nearly every decade of play have come changes in the rules, the equipment, the travel and accommodations, the training, and the competition. It makes absolutely no sense to compare a guy who played in 1925 to a guy who played in 1985 – they played completely different games from one another. The Glory of Their Times is filled with examples of just how different a game these old-timers played than the one the current player participates in.

Here’s a story I came across today that made me laugh and I just had to share it. It comes from Hans Lobert who played third base and shortstop for the Pirates, Reds, Phillies and Giants from 1903 – 1917. He’s talking about how the teams had no actual trainers or doctors on staff to help players with injuries. If someone got injured during the course of a game they merely looked up and shouted out the question, “Is there a doctor in the stands?” I’ll let Lobert tell you a story that is extremely interesting in light of the current discussion in professional sports about concussions and how to treat them.

. . . playing conditions were very primitive then. The fields were bumpy and the gloves were nothing compared to today. And you know we were only permitted to have 17 men on a club, not 25 like they have now. If you got banged up, it was just too bad. You had to play. Actually, I believe there are a greater number of better players around today, but they’re not as rugged as we used to be. We didn’t have any choice, you see.

I remember once, in 1907 I think it was, I got hit in the head with a pitched ball. We were playing the Cubs and Orvie Overall was pitching for them. . . Overall let go with a high fast one and it hit me smack on the temple. I thought I was down about five seconds, but it was about ten minutes. Even so, when I came to, I had to stay in the game. They didn’t have anybody else to put in. Every step I took I felt the ground was coming up to meet my feet, or I was stepping into a hole. But I had to stay in there.

I thought I was getting over it after a week or two, but then suddenly I started to get plate shy. I couldn’t stand up there at the plate and I began to get terrible headaches every night. I couldn’t see the ball very well, either. It was September by then, and our position was pretty set, so I finally asked Mr. Hanlon if I could go home for the rest of the season. When I got home I went to a doctor for the first time, and he said I had a concussion.

So it was a different setup then. The boys were pretty rough.

-Hans Lobert, The Glory of Their Times

Yes, I’d say they were pretty rough and pretty tough. Just amazing.

If you ever come across this book – buy it. I’m sure you’ll find it as fascinating as I have.