Another Birthday - Not a Home Run King, But One of My Favorite Cubs.. Who Was Traded for Geoff Zahn and Eddie Solomon

Burt Hooton was 34-44 with the Cubs from 1971-1975.  He pitched a no-hitter in his fourth MLB start.  He ended up playing ten seasons with the Dodgers and one for the Rangers.  He won four post-season games for L.A.

Hooton was 18-7 with LA in 1975.  In 1978 he was runner-up in the Cy Young voting after finishing with a record of 19-10.  Gaylord Perry (21-6) was the winner getting 22 of 24 first-place votes.  Hooton got no votes for first.

Two players from the same Texas high school as Hooton, Barry Bonnell and Bobby Bonner, were both active during Hooton's playing days.  They probably weren't together in high school much since they were born in 1950, 1953 and 1960.

Hooton was the second pick in the 1971 June secondary draft.  

Even though he's not remembered well by casual fans, baseball-almanac certainly recognized his career.  His stats are resemble most closely the stats of Rick Rhoden, Jim Lonborg and Doug Drabek.

Babe Ruth's Birthday - Lets Try the Back of the Kellogg's Cards

Sorry that I haven't replied to a few of the comments lately.  I am having technical difficulties with that feature.

Happy Birthday to Babe Ruth today.  The Great Bambino appears often in posts so I won't go into his stats today.  I'm going to check out the text on the back of his 1972 Kellogg's All-Time Greats cards.

Here is the back of card #6.

Here is the back of card #14.

He was good enough that they could write different card backs.  There was certainly a lot to say about his career.  Was there anything I didn't know much about?  Here is what I learned from the card backs.

1.  Both of Ruth's card say "Greatest Player Ever" near the bottom.  Other players in the set have the distinction "Greatest Players Ever".  I'm going to see if I have any variations from that.

2.  There was still specific mention to Ruth's record in a season of 154 games.  Many wouldn't accept Maris' record since the season was expanded to 162 games.  Maris' record celebrated more when McGwire and Sosa passed him.  Too bad Maris didn't get to be celebrated more since had already passed away.  

3.  I never noticed if the card backs differed in 1970 and 1972.  The text also talked about his career home run lead.  By 1972 Mays and Aaron were certainly getting close.  If the text was done in 1969 then there wasn't a huge issue with that yet.

Happy Birthday to Hank Aaron

Hank turns 81 today.  I was surprised to see that he not only played all three outfield positions in his career, but that he also played 1B (210 games), 2B (43 games) and 3B (7 games) at some time.  Hank's brother Tommie played seven years from 1962 - 1971.  They combined for a record 768 career home runs, more than any other brother combo.  That's also more than Barry Bonds who had no brother in the majors.

I've mentioned before about Aaron not appearing in Kellogg's sets.  I need someone from SABR to find out about that.  (Players Not in Early 1970s Kellogg's Sets).

Aaron didn't appear in a Kellogg's set until 1991.  We didn't spend a lot of time wondering who was in or not in the Kellogg's set each year because everyone was in the Topps set.  Back to the 1991 set - this is a great set.  Check it out sometimes.  The 1992 set of current all-stars isn't as good.

Here are my biggest memories of Hank Aaron from the 1970s.

1.  The 1974 Topps card #1 was high sought after.  Since no one cared about rookie cards back then this was the card everyone wanted in trade.

2.  Watching him break Babe Ruth's career home run record was a big deal.  I remember almost everything about it except for which family members were in the room.  I can still picture that huge television that weighed about as much as a Honda Civic.  I can also picture the small portable television that we actually were watching because it sat atop the large television that was never getting fixed.  Please refrain from adding a sentence that ends with "you might be a redneck".  We just didn't have money.

I know my parents were watching and a few others were occupying the other seats.  My brother and I had our usual spots, on the floor or course, where we watching Monday Night Baseball and Monday Night Football.  I had gotten a small, cheap tape recorder at some point.  I remember sitting close to the television to record the event for future generations.  I don't remember ever hearing that recording again so it probably didn't work out so well.  

Casey At the Bat - There is a Link to George Brett's Kellogg's Cards

On this day in 1893 the first recorded version of the poem Casey at the Bat was released.  The version that most of us know wasn't published until 1906.

I was lucky enough to see a special version of this play in Kansas City in 1994.  The play was there for a while but on only one night there was a special event.  On that night Casey was played by a retired Royal.  Not just any Royal they went all out and got George Brett to play the part of Casey.

Too bad that this event was held before cell phones because I've got no pictures.  We had front row seats at home plate so the pictures would have been amazing if they were allowed during the play.

 Check out the unique signature above

In the play home plate was on the left as the audience watched.  I don't know the theatre term, so I will just leave it at that.  Since that was the case Brett actually batted right-handed as Casey.  Had he stood in his classic left-handed pose, the audience would have only seen his back.  It was great to see his face when he.......  Oh, I don't want to ruin the ending if you've never read the story.  For the ending try taking a trip to your local library.  How's that for a 1970s-1980s PSA - that's public service announcement?  If you prefer Schoolhouse Rock, it will be featured sometime in the blog.

Casey was the right fielder.  Brett played 36 games in the outfield and 11 at shortstop.  I didn't know either of those facts.

Brett got over 3,100 career hits but, like Rod Carew, he missed a lot of games.  Not counting his first year when he played 13 games, Brett averaged 135 games per season over the next 20 years.  So he missed 27 games per year over 20 years or 540 games.  That's well over three missed seasons and lots of hits.        

A Player From Both the First and Last Kellogg's Sets Was Traded on This Day

The Twins traded Rod Carew on this day in 1979 to the Angels.  He played 12 years with Minnesota and 7 more years with California.  He won 7 AL batting titles and finished his career with 3,053 hits.
I expected his hit total to be higher than that in 19 seasons.  Here is what I found.  He played 137 games in his first year and 127 games in his last year.  What surprised me was that his career average was only 130 games per season.  Eight times he played less than 130 games in a season.

If he averaged 156 games per season that would be a 20% increase.  That would probably have put him over 3,600 hits.  Those injuries and missed games really add up over a career.

In his healthiest season of 156 games he also had a career high 49 stolen bases.  

During the All-Star break in 1985 I have no idea what he did.  Why is that news?  He was all all-star every year from 1967 - 1984.

Why was he traded?  There were many other issues with Carew and the team besides the fact that he would have been a free agent after the 1979 season.  You can find out more about that elsewhere.

Rod is one of only three players to appear in the first and last main Kellogg's sets (Three Players in the 1970 and 1983 Kellogg's Sets).  Pete Rose was also traded before the 1979 season.

Unique Ways to Get Stopped by the Police - Mike Marshall and I Have Something in Common

Mike Marshall, the pitcher not the first basemen from Illinois, did something impressive that not many players have been able to do.  He got arrested for playing baseball in East Lansing, Michigan. Michigan State school officials were worried about student safety near the tennis courts and Marshall had ignore their warning.  Marshall had attended Michigan State.

I always liked to run and ride my bike.  Both of those things put me in a category with Mike Marshall.

As a kid I was pulled over by police three times while riding my bicycle.  Once it was for not following the rules of the road when I proceeded through a stop sign without stopping.

Twice I was reprimanded for riding double on a bicycle.  It turns out that in Hometown, IL (a real suburb) that is against the law.  Luckily these three incidents don't appear on my permanent record.

As an adult I've been pulled over four times (so far) -- as I was out running.  Here is how I remember them:

1.  In southern Arizona I was enjoying a nice run in a mostly rural area when the police officer called me over.  He asked why I was running on the street.  I was so confused that I didn't have an answer.  I always ran on the street in Illinois.  He asked again, this time with a longer sentence - "Why are you running on the street when there is a perfectly good sidewalk right next to it?".  Based on his tone I didn't try to explain the difference in stress on the body between concrete sidewalks and asphalt roads.  No citation, just a warning.

2.  In Colorado we normally did our trail runs near the top of Pikes Peak.  We'd finish someone and then hitch-hike down the road with tourists who always loved to hear our stories.  One day as we got near the top of the trail, a thick fog had rolled in.  No cars were allowed up the last two miles of the trail.  Well, our cars were six miles down the road or 12 miles via the hiking trails so we decided to run down the Pikes Peak Highway to save lots of time.  It was a great run, for the view and especially since it was all downhill.  The police didn't like our idea since it was illegal.  The road didn't contain any sidewalks, shoulders or guardrails, so they weren't happy with our decision.  They did give us a ride and only a warning.

3.  In California over New Year's we were running through Pasedena before going to the FB game/parade.  We got pulled over and the first question asked was "are we from out of town?".  Then it was explained to us that jaywalking is actually enforced in CA as compared to IL.  Just a warning once again.

4.  In Oklahoma......oh, I can't talk about that until the case closes.  Just kidding.  I can't remember the fourth one now so I will add that if/when I remember the fourth time.

Other Times When I Didn't Do Anything Wrong

1.  In Flagstaff, Arizona I was enjoying a run in an urban nature park.  The police drove up and stopped me.  This time I hadn't done anything wrong.  They wanted to let me know that they were tracking a mountain lion in this park that was only about two miles wide and two miles long.  That run ended immediately.

2.  In southern Illinois I was running a relay race when the police stopped to see me after I ran my portion of the race.  I was sent back to identify a house where dogs had come from because one of these dogs had attacked a runner in the race.

3.  In Alaska at a trail race a crew got into a truck to look for me and two runners from San Diego when we didn't return from a trail race.  We were all running fairly fast, the course record was 26 minutes and we were gone for over 2.5 hours.  The leader of the search party packed some shotguns and big knives while telling my girlfriend that grizzly bears were common sitings on that mountain.  We found our way back before anyone pulled us over or any animal found us.  

Something Else I'd Never Heard about Charles Comiskey or John McGraw

My mother used to babysit for the Comiskeys when she was young but I never heard any stories about their family.  This story is one I never heard anything about.

After the 1913 season, Charles Comiskey and John McGraw organized a 56-game world tour to promote baseball.  On this day in 1914 the White Sox and Giants played a game in the Egyptian desert.  

Here is a nice story about this journey which was headlined by Jim Thorpe.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-story-baseballs-grand-world-tour-1914-180950228/?no-ist