Category: Sports

There’s an article in today’s WaPo about Fleetwood Walker, a black man who played in the major leagues before Jackie Robinson, albeit in the 19th century.

I’m glad to see Fleet get the recognition he deserved, but I’m not even going to link to the WaPo article because it is basically wrong about everything. (Could Trump be right about “fake news”? I hope WaPo’s contributors know more about politics than they know about baseball.)

1) Fleetwood Walker wasn’t the first black man to play in the majors, although he was the first regular, as far as we know. The first one we are currently aware of was a star Brown University player named William Edward White, who played one game on June 21, 1879 when called into emergency service by an injury affecting the crosstown National League team, the Providence Grays. He had a single in four at-bats, two stolen bases, scored a run, and played errorless ball at first base, recording 12 putouts.

One of the very cool things about William Edward White is that he looks like a time-traveling Barack Obama!

2) Jackie Robinson wasn’t the first black man to play in the modern game, and therefore did not break the modern “color” barrier. His specific achievement was that he was the first African-American man to play in the 20th century. In 1944, however, three years before Robinson’s debut, an African-Cuban man named Tomas de la Cruz slipped under the radar as a regular starting pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds. (De la Cruz’s achievement is doubly impressive, because he wasn’t even playing in a friendly home town. Cincinnati is just about a southern city, with suburbs in Kentucky! One must wince to think of the problems he must have endured.)

With WW2 raging, the majors were so desperate for players in 1944 that “Tommy” was barely noticed. Although he pitched respectably (9-9, 3.25 ERA), he was no longer on the roster once the first white guys started drifting back from the war. In an odd coincidence, de la Cruz also wore #42, the number Robinson would make famous.

3) De la Cruz was obviously a black guy, but even before him came at least three Latin-American players of mixed descent (some African included) who slipped under the racial radar: Roberto Estalella, Alex Carrasquel, and Hiram Bithorn.

4) Hi Bithorn also owns a claim to another bit of historical importance. He was the first Puerto Rican to play in MLB, and should also be called the first Puerto Rican star, easily preceding Vic Power and Roberto Clemente, because in 1943 he won 18 games for the Cubs and led the National League in shutouts. (Clemente was 9 years old at the time.)

Mauer’s is a great story in many ways, and it’s nice to write about something positive.

The 6’5″ Mauer was arguably the best high school multi-sport athlete in history. In 2000, he was USA Today’s high school player of the year – in football. He repeated as the player of the year in 2001 – but this time for baseball. Oh, yeah, and he was also all-state in basketball.

He was the MLB #1 draft pick overall. That’s not surprising, given that he batted above .600 in his senior year of high school, which was completely expected because he had never dipped below .542 in any previous season. Hell, he had batted over .500 with no strike-outs as a freshman, while playing against the big kids. In his four years of high-school baseball, he struck out only once!

He spent his entire major league career with the same team. As ESPN notes: “He is one of 22 former MVPs to play his entire 15-plus-year career with one franchise. Each of the previous 21 is in the Hall of Fame.”

But it was not just any team that he dedicated his entire career to. What makes the story really great is that it was his home-town team. The only city where he ever played major league baseball was the very same one where he was a high school phenom. In fact, he was born in the twin cities and never left home.

A quick summary of his achievements in pro baseball:

He is one of the best offensive catchers in baseball history, and won three gold gloves on defense as well.

He won three batting championships en route to a .306 lifetime average, but as high as that is, it is deceptively low. According to baseball-reference.com, he batted .328 lifetime in games he played as a catcher. (He stopped playing that dangerous and demanding position after a serious injury.) Among all catchers with 3000 or more at bats, that is the highest lifetime batting average in baseball history.

The top five:

Joe Mauer .328
Mickey Cochrane .320
Mike Piazza .313
Bill Dickey .313
Ernie Lombardi .308

In his MVP year, 2009, Mauer may have had the best offensive year any catcher ever had. He led the American League in both on-base percentage and slugging average, and got 27 of the 28 votes in the MVP balloting. To put that in perspective: Mike Piazza, who is generally considered the best offensive catcher in MLB history, never led his league in either OBP or SLG, but Mauer led in both in the same year, and also led in OBP in another year.

The Brewers’ Christian Yelich achieves a baseball rarity

He’s only the fourth player in history to hit for the cycle with two additional hits, and only the second in the history of the National League, which dates to 1876. He had three singles, a double, a triple and a homer.

The others:

Bobby Veach for the Tigers in 1920: three singles, a double, a triple, a homer. Veach was the only man to achieve this feat in pro baseball’s first 124 seasons, but it has now been done three times in the past quarter century.

Rondell White for the Expos in 1995: two singles, two doubles, a triple, a homer. White is the only other National Leaguer to do it.

Ian Kinsler for the Rangers in 2009:  two singles, two doubles, a triple, a homer. Kinsler is the only infielder to do it.

All three of the previous players to accomplish the feat had major league careers spanning at least thirteen years, so this is not an achievement accomplished as a fluke by a mediocre player. Yelich is not really a household name, but he probably would be if he played in NY or LA. He is already a star, possibly going nova. He is batting .319 (first in the league) with a .943 OPS (third in the league), and plays a solid CF.

So long, Stasiu. 

He was the last of the baseball dinosaurs, as respected for his gentlemanly demeanor as for his hitting prowess. “I never heard anybody say a bad word about him – ever,” Willie Mays said in a statement released by the Hall of Fame.

I grew up in the Polishtown section of Rochester, New York, so The Man has special significance to me. Stan played ball for our own Rochester Red Wings before getting called up by the Cards, and the old Red Wing Stadium was right in the heart of Polishtown, truly a felicitous venue to welcome the greatest Polish baseball star.

The ball park was only a short walk from St. Stan’s church. I don’t think that church was named after Musial, but if you ask me who was the most popular figure in the eyes of that baseball-mad Polish-Catholic community, I’d have to say it was pretty close between Stan and Jesus. And I’d have to give a slight edge to Stan, because Jesus was a little slow getting down the line in those sandals.

I don’t have to tell you baseball fans how good Stan was, but I’ll remind you of some of his superlative achievements. He won three MVPs and finished second four other times. He led the league in slugging six times. He also led the league in OBP six times.

In 1948, Stan had one of the greatest years any National Leaguer ever had, perhaps THE greatest. He narrowly won the slugging average crown, by a mere 138 points! He missed by one from leading the league in homers. That one stinkin’ homer cost him the triple crown, and that’s the closest any National Leaguer has come since World War Two. But wait, there’s much more. He also led the league in doubles and triples that year. And, most amazing of all given that he had 103 extra base hits, he also finished fourth in singles, and seventh in walks! He had 429 total bases and the second-place guy had only 316. Stan also led in on-base percentage. And runs scored.

But the real measure of Stan the Man as a ballplayer and as a man was this comparison to his AL rival, Ted Williams:

Yes, Teddy Ballgame was even better than Stan with a bat in his hand, but Williams was booed at home. Musial was applauded on the road.

That says it all.