Chuck Klein Says…

On the 1935 Goudey baseball card series, known as the Gehrig series, there is a blue strip on the card that states ‘Lou Says’. Without question Lou Gehrig was THE player of that year. But part of the series was dedicated to one Chuck Klein. Yes. There was a strip on the card that stated ‘Chuck Says’.

Why Chuck Klein? He is one of only of six players ever to have had five or more consecutive 200-hit seasons since 1901. Imagine, only six players have ever accomplished this spectacular feat. The ‘Hoosier Hammer’ was one of the great sluggers in the late 1920s and in the 1930s. He was the first player to be named to the All-Star Game as a member of two different teams, as he played for the Phillies fifteen years (1928-33, 1936-39 and 1940-44), the Cubs (1934-36) and the Pirates (1939). He is acknowledged as one of the Top 100 players all-time. The right fielder was named to the Hall of Fame in 1980.

He was one of the great Philadelphia Phillies. The Great Depression hit the city hard, and as unemployment climbed, fans stopped coming to baseball games. Attendance at Baker Bowl, where the Phillies played, dropped from 299,000 in 1930 to 156,000 in 1933. The Phillies were on the verge of bankruptcy. The team owner Gerald Nugent had no choice but to unload his most valuable player to help satisfy the club’s debts. And so on November 21, 1933, the Phillies traded Klein to the Chicago Cubs for shortstop Mark Koenig, outfielder Harvey Hendrick, pitcher Ted Kleinhans, and $65,000 in cash. The Cubs paid their new outfielder $30,000, the highest he made in the Major leagues.

While with the Cubs, he was injured, he was part of the team that got them to the 1935 World Series.

After one season with the Pirates he was back with the Pirates in 1940. One of the few bright spots of the season came on September 4 with the Phillies held ‘Chuck Klein Night’ at Shibe Park to honor their longtime slugger. More than 18,000 fans attended the game, the largest crowd to watch a Phillies game all season.

For a few bright years, Chuck Klein was one of the great stars of the game. He is honored by not having his number retired but by have an old English type-font ‘P’ retired by the Phillies. He is one of only two to be so honored. The other? Grover Cleveland Alexander. They join #1 Richie Ashbury, #14, Jim Bunning, #20 Mike Schmidt and #32, Steve Carlton for a team founded in 1883..

There were only five other players to accomplish the feat of hitting 200+ hits in five or more consecutive 200-hit seasons. Al Simmons (1929-1933); Charlie Gehringer (1933-1937); Wade Boggs (1983-1989); Ichiro Suzuki (2001-2010) and Michael Young (2003-2007).

All of these players are members of the Hall of Fame or will be upon eligibility.

Play Ball!

The Yankees Are In Town.

Photo by Lance Hanish © 2014 all right reserved

It felt like post season play. The small market Cream City Nine was taking on the mighty New York Yankees…the Bronx Bombers…the Gotham Nine…the biggest of the big major league baseball teams in the world. Arguably one of the best know sports brands on the planet, the Yanks stride into a city, heads held high, looking smart and comfortable within their skins as the legends they represent on today’s playing fields are. No team has won more World Series Championships than the men in pinstripes. They are so great they may have invented pinstripes.

When they come out before the game, there are no pinstripes on the grey traveling uniforms and no names on their jerseys. ‘You can’t tell a player without a program was not invented by the Yanks because everyone knows who the players are. There are way more people than normal in the stands, showing up for BP. These are not the Pittsburgh Pirates. These are the real deal, honest to God, Yankees. They don’t even need a city locater in front of their name on their website (www.yankees.com). Everywhere you look there is a story: Mark Teixeira, 34-year-old big first baseman and former All-Star who is back after missing most of last season. He’s bigger than you think. Out jogs Ichiro. At 40 years old, he doesn’t need a last name as he is one of the greatest baseball players of this generation who was in every All Star game for a decade. Batting .373 this season and fewer than 300 hits away from 3,000,  strangely he is relegated to pinch running roles which give a whole new meaning to steal a base when he is on, or an occasional Sunday start. There’s Jacoby Ellsbury, the 29-year-old former Boston center fielder and All-Star, jogging in the outfield. Isn’t that Alfonso Soriano, a former seven-time All-Star, taking ground balls? CC Sabathia, 33-year-old former hero of Milwaukee and a six-time All-Star, is taking BP. Welcome back to the Senior Circuit, CC. Brian McCann, 30-year-old former Braves’ All-Star, walking out, swinging a bat ready to go into the cage. Walking back to the dugout is Carlos Beltran, 37-year-old, 8 time All-Star, now playing right field for his fourth team. Then, last out of the dugout comes The Captain…Derek Jeter. In his farewell trip, and always a crowd favorite, he comes out just as he always has with his head held up high, jogging out to short to take a few grounders. He is the man. Even coming into the dugout to grab his bat, there is a regal kind of presence.

Then, out in the bullpen, there is the Master of Hyogo, Masahiro Tanaka, who was 24-0 in his homeland, and is still perfect in the Bigs too, throwing bullets. There is a reason he hasn’t lost sometime since 2012. His control is perfect. His demeanor is perfect. His presence is perfect. Imagining him anywhere else in major league baseball is imaginable. He is a Yankee.

It is that kind of night. The Yankees are in The Keg.

When Jeter comes to the plate, as will happen when CC Sabathia comes to the pate the next day, these Midwestern folks who know their baseball and understand the moment like few others in the game, rise and give him a standing ovation. A STANDING OVATION for an opposing player. In all of baseball, that is unheard of. But there is a reason. Derek Jeter is one of the great baseball players that has ever lived. And, he has represented his sport like few other professionals in the history of the game.  Here is a guy who even warns some guy who runs out to short during the game to ask for a hug and Derek Jeter just says to the fan near his idol, “You’re going to get in trouble. “And then he repeated that the fan wanted a hug, and Jeter said, ‘Look out.’, just before security guards grabbed the guy and took him out of the ballpark. What kind of a guy is Derek Jeter?

He is the Lou Gehrig of our day.

He is the Captain of the Yankees.

Play Ball!

Why #9 May Have Been The Greatest

“He stood out like a brown cow in a field of white cows.”, Eddie Collins said. While still in high school, this ‘brown cow’ was offered contracts with both the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Yankees. His mother said no. He was too young to leave home. Instead, before his Senior year in high school, he signed and played with the then major league of the West, the Pacific Coast League’s local team, the San Diego Padres. This was Nuxhallian. A kid, ‘The Kid’ graduated and rejoined the Padres for his second year and entered the starting lineup on June 22nd with an inside-the-park home run in his first at bat. That season he would lead the PCL in hitting with a .291 average and 23 home runs, all of this in about 100 days and pushed the Padres to win the PCL Championship. That was 1937.

Born Teddy Samuel Williams (that’s right…not Theodore), this mother’s son did not take to his Mom’s Salvation Army soldiering nor her evangelism, but instead to a bat and a ball, for which he would gain immortality in the world of 109 stitches.

Then, history rewritten by baseball, states that Ted was signed as an amateur free agent in December 1937. In fact, the General Manager of the Boson Red Sox, one Eddie Collins, traded for his favorite brown cow and in turn, gave the San Diego Padres (who had been paying the brown cow for two season, hopefully more than hay and oats) two major league ballplayers and two minor leaguers plus $35,000. You’ve gotta love the story telling by the historians of  baseball. That’s where baseball’s fictional tale and Mr. Williams’ amateur status ends.

He spent one year with the Minneapolis Millers, then the Red Sox Triple A club, where he crafted his art of hitting and won the American Association Triple Crown. Then in his very first Major League game, on April 20, 1939, on Opening Day, the torch was passed. It was on that day, for the one and only time, Ted Williams played against Lou Gehrig. Ten days later, Gehrig played in his 2,130 consecutive game. He went hitless in that game against the Washington Senators and in the next game, at Detroit, he took himself out of the lineup. Tiger fans, upon the announcement being made over the public address system, gave Lou Gehrig a standing ovation. He never played in another game again. On June 13th, he went to the famed Mayo Clinic. On July 21st, the New York Yankees announced his retirement from baseball. On June 2, 1941 he died.

Gehrig was THE player before Williams. He was the torch bearer between Babe Ruth and ‘Teddy Ballgame’. Gehrig was the last man to have won a triple crown with .363 BA, 49 HR and 159 RBI in 1934. Here was the only player in history to have 400 total bases per year for five seasons.

Ted Williams was worthy of carrying on the tradition as he was the youngest man ever to hit .400 (.406 in 1941) and seventh youngest to ever win a batting title. Sure there was Joe DiMaggio, who throughout Williams early career, was his main rival. But for pure hitting, no one compared to ‘The Kid’. He was one of 15 men to win the Triple Crown and only the second ever to win it twice (the first being his former manager of the Minneapolis Millers, Rogers Hornsby). He also hit .388 sixteen years later in 1957 (age 39) and the oldest ever win the batting title at the age of 40 in 1958. ‘Teddy Ballgame’ was an All-Star 17 times; finished with a career .344 batting average, seventh best in the history of the game and 20 points better than DiMaggio; won the MVP twice; was the Runs leader six time and leader in doubles twice; took the Home Run title four times, and, perhaps most important, was the wingman for Marine Captain John Glenn in Korea.

He served his country through his military obligation not once, but twice. He volunteered and entered Naval Aviation which lead to his commission as Marine officer. He retired from the Marines after serving in both the Second World War and the Korean War. He was honored by earning an Air Medal with two gold stars; the Navy Unit Commendation, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George H. W Bush; awarded the American Campaign Medal; the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with service star; the World War II Victory Medal; the Navy Occupation Service Medal; the National Defense Service Medal; the Korean Service Medal with two service stars; the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation; the United Nations Service Medal and the Republic of Korea War Service Medal.

On his 40th birthday, he received an oil painting of his hero with the inscription: “To Ted Williams – not only America’s greatest baseball player, but a great American who served his country. Your friend, Douglas MacArthur, General, U.S. Army”

Greatest hitter of all-time? How about the greatest United States Military Veteran baseball player of all-time!

The ‘Splendid Splinter’ was an American original, the last player to bat .400 in a season. He was simply magnificant.

Play Ball!