Did You Know....? (pitchers, president, pitcher, game)
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I don't have the answer to that one, jtur88. Seems likely though.
Of the 110 or so players to homer in their first MLB AB, two are in the Hall of Fame. One is a pitcher who played for a bunch of different teams, six of which were with the White Sox. The other played most of his career as a center fielder with the Indians.
The most career HRs by any in the group was 360 by a third baseman who played the bulk of his career with the Twins.
DID YOU KNOW that the left field wall of Washington Park (an ancient facility where the team that eventually became the Brooklyn Dodgers played before Ebbets Field went up) is actually still standing? (3 Avenue & 5 Street in Brooklyn, if anyone happens to be in the neighborhood).
...Indeed, my humble home borough is a repository of baseball history. Did you know, for example, that the first enclosed baseball stadium in the world was built in Brooklyn? The Union Grounds opened in Williamsburg in 1862 (prior to that year, baseball was played in open fields with bleachers set up for fans).
The oldest continuously-used baseball field in the world is Labatt Park, in London, Ontario. Note, I said "field", not stadium, as for a long time, various spectator accommodations came and went, but the playing field remained in use continuously for the playing of baseball at least back to 1877. I saw the London Werewolves play there, in a Frontier League game in 2000.
In 1877, the London Tecumseh played there in the International Association, along with Columbus, Guelph. Lynn, Manchester, Pittsburgh and Rochester. The last time the field was used for professional baseball was in 2003, and one of their Canadian League stars was Braves playoff hero Francisco Cabrera, on his way back to Santo Domingo.
I don't have the answer to that one, jtur88. Seems likely though.
Of the 110 or so players to homer in their first MLB AB, two are in the Hall of Fame. One is a pitcher who played for a bunch of different teams, six of which were with the White Sox. The other played most of his career as a center fielder with the Indians.
The most career HRs by any in the group was 360 by a third baseman who played the bulk of his career with the Twins.
And the answers in order are...
Spoiler
Hoyt Wilhelm / Earl Averill / Gary Gaetti
I knew the Wilhelm answer and guessed correctly on Gaetti. Didn't have a clue about Averill.
By the way, that was the only homer Wilhelm ever hit.
Joe Torre has been a witness to all three perfect games in Yankee Stadium history: He saw Don Larsen's as a 16-year-old fan and was managing when David Wells and David Cone pitched theirs.
You might know that the all-time record for wins in a season is held by Charles Radbourne (Providence-NL), who racked up 60 in 1884. But did you know that the previous season, he won 49? The man played only ten full seasons in the majors (1881-91) yet ranks 7th all time in complete games (489). Talk about changing times!
Athalon Sports publishes a pre season baseball magazine each year. Its analysis of the coming race isn't anything of note, but it is the best written of the pre season rags and always starts with a review of the oddball stuff from the past seasons. Some examples from this year's issue:
In seasons '05, '06 and '07, there were a total of five games featuring a walk off hit where the batting team lost the game. (Hit followed by runner being thrown out to end game.) In three of those five games, the Cub's Ryan Dempster was the pitcher on the mound when it happened, and each time he was credited with a save despite giving up a hit to the final batter he faced.
Rough debuts: On May 23rd, 2011, the Reds rookie Todd Frazier stepped up to the plate for his first ML at bat. Frazier liked the first pitch that came his way and took a full cut....missed the ball and his bat went flying into the stands. On June 4th of that same year, Brian Dinkelman made his plate debut for the Twins. The first pitch thrown to him hit him in the foot.
Adrian Gonzalez came to the Red Sox with 858 career games under his belt, during which he had stolen one base. In his first game with Boston, Gonzalez swiped his second career bag. At the end of the 2011 season his career total stands at two.
On May 25th the Phillies and Reds staged a marathon 19 inning game. Philadelphia's manager Charlie Manuel ran out of pitchers after the 18th, and secondbaseman Wilson Valdez volunteered to take the mound. Valdez retired all three batters he faced and in the bottom of the 19th, the Phillies pushed across a run on a sac fly to win it. That made Valdez the winning pitcher and in the previous 90 seasons, no position player had left his fielding slot, taken the mound and come away with a win. The last time it happened was in 1921 and the winning pitcher was Babe Ruth.
Valdez retired all three batters he faced and in the bottom of the 19th, the Phillies pushed across a run on a sac fly to win it. That made Valdez the winning pitcher and in the previous 90 seasons, no position player had left his fielding slot, taken the mound and come away with a win. The last time it happened was in 1921 and the winning pitcher was Babe Ruth.
There have been plenty of position players who pitched well enough to earn a win, but just didn't because their teammates didn't score. One of them was Jose Oquendo, in 1988, who pitched three scoreless innings against the Braves, and the Cardinals had the winning run on third with nobody out, but couldn't nail down the win. Oquendo then gave up two runs in the 19th to lose it.
In that game, Jose deLeon and Tom Brunansky might have set a record for changing position the most times. They switched RF/LF eleven times, with deLeon, a pitcher, occupying the field the ball was least likely to be hit to. He caught one fly on the warning track.
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