With the Draft fully behind us (unless they’re in some 50th round we didn’t know about), we continue our look at Baseball history this week. This time with comedy!
June 7, 1966
In the second amateur draft in sports history, the A's (then in Kansas City) select future Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson in the first round as the second overall pick. The Mets, with the first overall pick (again), choose Steve Chilcott, a high school catcher who will see a single day of major league action. Gosh, that’s a stark juxtaposition isn’t it? Thankfully, make-it or break-it guys like Chilcott are much less common then we saw back in the ‘good ole days’. Hey, how many of them would have ended up in a Lady Gaga outfit? The world may never know.
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| An unidentified Lady Gaga fan |
You can make it to the show, but sometimes you can end up being just another Wally Pipp. Take the case of tough time Tommy. After eight games and 13 innings, the Dodgers (then in Brooklyn) option rookie left-hander Tom Lasorda to Montreal (at the time they’re triple-A affiliate) to make room for a bonus baby who was also a southpaw. The kid is a guy by the name of Sandy Koufax, heard of him? Koufax had injured his ankle that spring, putting him on the 30-day disabled list to begin the season. While his first five seasons were forgettable, he would lock in by 1961, becoming the youngest player elected to the Hall of Fame in 1972. It just gives me chills down my spine to think of what would have happened if Tom Lasorda hadn’t been optioned after all had worn a Lady Gaga suit.
Bobby Valentine’s got a checkered history with the national pastime. He’s been known for some off-the-wall antics, but this probably steals the show(well?). After being ejected in the 12th inning for arguing a catcher's interference call, Bobby V. returns to the dugout wearing some new shades and lip hair. The National League suspends the Mets' manager for an additional two games and fine him for the stunt. Luckily for Bobby, being the manager of a New York team meant that he had access to some top-shelf acting talent on Broadway. While this performance wasn’t TONY worthy, we won’t close the book yet on a future acting career for this spunky manager. Even George Clooney had a bad film or two (I’m looking at you ‘Batman and Robin’).
June 10, 1944
At least for Bobby, his ‘debut’ was at a more ‘mature’ age of forty-nine. For some guys, they just get thrown out there to the lions. Just six weeks shy of his 16th birthday (voice change much?), Joe Nuxhall (that’s a keeper) becomes the youngest person to play in a major league contest in the 20th century. After being called in the ninth inning into a 13-0 rout by the Cardinals at Crosley Field, the 15 year-old high school southpaw will stay with the Reds organization for over sixty years (playing all of them? WOW!). He becomes best known as the voice for the team's radio broadcasts but his start was pretty memorable enough. He retired the first batter he ever faced, but was unable to get out of the inning, yielding five walks, two hits, one wild pitch and five runs. Well, at least he had time to develop for sure.
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| Joe Nuxhall (right) presumably being explained what a baseball is before his big day |
June 11, 1995
History has a funny way of making you thank your lucky stars things go your way after the fact. Just take the case of Yankee reliever Mariano Rivera as a startling reminder of this fact. After allowing five runs on seven hits in the first 2.1 innings in the team's eventual 10-7 victory over Seattle, Mariano is sent down and optioned to the minor leagues. By being sent down for the fifth time this season, Mariano was placed on waivers for an entire week before being cleared back to the Yankees triple-A farm team in Trenton. On that date, the American League team with the worst record would have had the first crack at acquiring the struggling starter. That team, was the Boston Red Sox. Oh boy that’s an image, Mariano with a big puffy beard. Along with Mariano, the Bombers' also sent down a 20 year-old infielder and fellow future Hall of Famer Derek Jeter, after his first trip to the big leagues. I think it’s safe to say both ended up okay.
June 12, 1970
Baseball stats have a way of making certain players look like their sky high in performances. This time, you’d have to say it was meant for real for on this memorable day, Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis threw a 2-0 no-hitter against the Padres in San Diego (his hometown) during the first game of a day-night doubleheader. The eccentric former Pirates' right-hander, who later became a staunch proponent of drug decriminalization, would later famously claim that he was under the influence of LSD while tossing the most outstanding outing in his decade long career. Is it safe to say that he was the first guy to admit to using performance enhancing drugs or is that too much? A new movie on his tragically short life and story (No-No) is out if you want to know more.
June 13, 2006
Sure, sports have a love hate relationship with new technologies, but eventually the two have a way of reconciling their differences. Baseball back in its stone age used smoke scr . . . I mean, semaphore flags to signal for a pitcher from the bullpen (if they indeed had a bullpen), but soon landline phones came in vogue by the 50’s and 60’s. But times they were a changing. By 2006, Baseball bowed to the inevitable call (get it?) of progress when the first wireless bullpen communication system in baseball history was used at Wrigley Field (not U.S. Cellular?, that's ironic) on this day. A cell phone, which will be sent to the Hall of Fame, is first used to call the bullpen. From the dugout, Cubs pitching coach Larry Rothschild calls the bullpen during the third inning to start warming up reliever Angel Guzman (that early?). It only took 30 years for baseball to adopt it? That was fast! On a serious note, I wonder if the Cubs ended up getting a team plan and how they managed their roaming and data charges. Some baseball players were above the curve as we see in baseball phenom Brian Harper (any relationship to Bryce) who was rockin' the cell before it was cool.
We'll see you again next week.
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