I Found Another Reason that I Always Liked Manny Sanguillen

Even though I was a Cub fan I always liked Manny Sanguillen as a player.  I was never on the Pirates as a kid and I only played catcher one time in 10 years.  And that was in practice!  The curse of being a lefty I guess.  That's okay because I doubt that I would have liked being a catcher.

Sanguillen hit .296 in 13 years, 12 with the Pirates.  After the 1976 he was traded to the A's for Chuck Tanner, their manager.  After the 1980 season he was traded to the Indians but they released him in February.   Baseball-Reference.com lists the most similar player to Sanguillen as Thurman Munson.  That says a lot for Sanguillen who played on two World Series winners with the Pirates.

On this day in 1972 Roberto Clemente died in a plane crash.  The plane was carrying urgently-needed supplies to victims of an earthquake in Nicaragua.  Clemente boarded the plane from San Juan, P.R. because he feared profiteers were trying to intercept the humanitarian aid.  The plane crashed soon after takeoff.

Clemente was a native of Puerto Rico and Sanguillen was from Panama.  I'd forgotten a bit of my Central American geography, so here is a map.  

Sanguillen was the only Pirate not to attend a memorial service for Clemente.  Why?  He was in Central America helping to search for victims of the crash.  Clemente was never found.

This was really big news in the pre-ESPN days.  I was never awake for the 10:00 pm news so the morning paper was how I got most of my news.

More about legal issues that followed : Legal Issues After the Crash

Old Baseball Stadiums and What Ballparks are Shown on Kellogg's Cards?

I loved the early Donruss cards that featured so many pictures of Comiskey Park and Wrigley Field.   I've been to each park many times and it's great to see Comiskey and see the old Wrigley Field outfield with the catwalk.  If you don't know what the catwalk was at Wrigley Field check out some old photos or 1981 Donruss cards.  

What ballparks are featured on the Kellogg's cards?  Is it a real park or not?  I've got some research to do on this.  

Only six of the current MLB ballparks are old enough to have been used for Kellogg's cards in their regular run from 1970 to 1983.  If it wasn't for the 1994 baseball strike I would have been to all of these parks.  I had a trip set in August of 1994 to visit the west coast and go to games everywhere.  The strike messed that up and I went on strike against baseball for over 10 years.  

Those six parks are Fenway Park, Wrigley Field, Dodger Stadium, Anaheim Stadium, Oakland Alameda County Coliseum and Royals Stadium.  Sorry, I either don't know the new names of all of these parks and/or I refuse to use the every-changing sponsor naming.

The big surprise for me to see in this research relates to New Comiskey Park as it was known back in 1991.  Comiskey is now the 9th oldest field in use by MLB.    

Something I Didn't Know About Ty Cobb and Eddie Collins and the Black/White Sox

On this day in baseball history in 1926 it was reported that the Detroit Tigers intentionally lost four games to the White Sox over two days in 1917.  The White Sox ended up winning the pennant and the World Series that year.

Tigers included Ty Cobb who was 6-for-17 in the four-game series.

Eddie Collins was with the White Sox.  He was 4-for-14.

It was quite a different era.  Back-to-back doubleheaders and the starters just played all of the games.  Detroit had a game in Cleveland the day before these games in Chicago.

What did Commissioner Landis do after hearing about this?  Nothing to the players.  Landis was commissioner from 1921-1944 and he wanted to keep gambling from bringing baseball down.  He already was working on the 1919 Black Sox Scandal.   In early 1927 he did help enact a new rule that banned anyone from baseball for life if they bet on a game and participated in the game.

Great Memories of My Dutch Friend - The Piano Story Might Fit in Some Other Time

I went for a run in an ice storm yesterday.  Not many people out - just the lunatics like me.  I crossed paths with a few long-time running friends and we ran together for about 30 minutes.  It was great catching up with them.

I probably hadn't seen these guys in six months or more.  At some point the discussion turned to remembering friends who were recently deceased.  Since we were in a running group together a long time ago we've got lots of mutual friends.

At some point I reminded them that a good friend passed away earlier in the year.  My friend was quite a unique guy.  The three of us enjoyed reminiscing about our Dutch friend for a mile or two.

My friend had come to the USA from Holland as a young adult.  He was quite proud to mention if a well-known person or company was Dutch.  I knew of one Dutch player that my friend always mentioned.  Surprisingly, there have been 12 MLB players born in The Netherlands as it is listed on the Lahman database.

None of the other 11 were stars like Blyleven.  Win Remmerswaal was the only one I recognized and that's only because he got himself onto some baseball cards.

Thanks to my three friends for helping me take a nice walk down memory lane and get a story for today.  

UPDATE - Immediately after finishing the post I went to the laundry room.  There I saw a reminder of my friend who sold us some storage items from one of his Dutch businesses. 

My Favorite Hit-By-Pitch Moments - None Involved Ron Hunt, Don Baylor or Andre Dawson

On seven baseball players have been hit by pitch more than 200 times in their careers.  Hugh Jennings leads the way with 287 with most of them coming before 1900.  He is followed closely by Craig Biggio with 285.

From the Kellogg's era Don Baylor is fourth and Ront Hunt is sixth.  These two were well known for getting hit by a pitched ball.  Hunt led the league seven times while only playing 12 seasons.

Hunt and Baylor were quite different as players.  Hunt had career highs of 10 HR and 42 RBIs in this rookie season.  He finished with 39 homers.  Baylor's MVP season saw him end up with 36 HR and 139 RBIs.  Baylor hit 338 homers.  Surprisingly, the home run hitter had 285 steals and Hunt only had 65.

Sure, I remember those players finding ways to get hit by a pitch.  Andre Dawson had a well-known moment against Eric Show, but even though Dawson was hit by the ball it was a strike since Dawson was leaning into the strike zone.

Nothing can top watching my little brother get hit by the same kid three times in one game.  None was a minor incident either.  In all three pitches my brother ended up like Charlie Brown with bat, helmet, hat and ball flying in every direction.  Yes, we all wore our hats under the cheap helmets because the helmets were always too big.  The hat kept the helmet from falling off or sliding over your eyes.

The one I remember most saw my brother end up face down on top of home plate.  He stayed there for a long time.  Being 30 years ago there was no panic in the stands and no one threatened the pitcher with a lawsuit.  I will need to find out from my brothers more details about that game.  

Eventually he got up and got himself to first base.  I guess no one in the stands worked in marketing for a laundry detergent manufacturer because that would have been a perfect commercial.

Kellogg's Proof Cards - Here is Another One That Differs From the Regular Issue

I've got about 15-20 proof cards from different years.  They are all graded and labelled as proof cards, but I don't know much else about them.

A while back (Hickman Post) I found that the Jim Hickman from 1971 had a different background in the proof than appeared in the card issued.  I've found a few more differences with some begin subtle.  Today's wasn't obvious to me but it should have been.

I have a 1970 Billy Williams proof.  I noticed yesterday that everything seemed the same as the normal card.  I checked the background, the picture of him, his bat, etc.  Nothing seemed different.  That was too bad since he was my favorite player when I was a kid.

Then I put the cards side-by-side and the difference was obvious.  Kellogg's moved his signature to the top of the card when they issued it in cereal boxes.  Now I'm going to try to see if any of the regular cards appear with the signature in the location that the proof shows.  If anyone has one let me know.

For those who have to have everything as player collectors you might want to check out Kellogg's proof cards.

Carl Yastrzemski Did Something Odd - Did Anyone Else Demonstrate This on a Kellogg's Card?

Another thing that I noticed recently while watching a Ken Burn's baseball video is the topic of today's post.  Carl Yastrzemski was shown in the video during his Triple Crown season.  What surprised me was that he was shown with a batting glove only on his top hand which for him was his left hand since he batted left-handed.

If wearing only one glove, most batters wear it on their bottom hand to enhance their grip and prevent blisters.  Since I grew up playing baseball in cold weather it would also have helped to have gloves to deal with the sting of hitting the ball.  The sting didn't bother me that much since I didn't hit the ball with any regularity.

Back to Yaz.  He's got seven different Kellogg's cards.  There is no consistency regarding batting gloves.  From 1981 to 1983 he is shown with a glove on the top hand while in a batting pose.  

His Kellogg's cards from 1975 and 1979 show him without a glove on either hand.   In both shots he is in a batting pose.

In 1976 and 1980 he's taking a knee but he has the glove on his left hand.

Yaz was teammates with Hawk Harrelson who is credited with being the first to wear a batting glove.  They played together from 1967 - 1969.  Yaz won the Triple Crown in 1967 and Harrelson led the league in RBIs in 1968,

Did anyone else wear the glove on the top hand?  I'll need to check out my Kellogg's cards.