From New York to Frisco

Giants Logo

So it’s the Giants, is it? They’ve had a long and distinguished history. Interestingly enough they’ve never played Detroit in the postseason. Of all the original American League teams from 1901 the Giants have played each except for Detroit and the team now in Baltimore (via Milwaukee and St. Louis). How have they done?

Frankly, the Giants have, as a rule, been a disappointment in postseason play (I reference here only the 20th and 21st Century teams, not the successful 19th Century team.). In 1904 they won a pennant then refused to play Boston in the World Series. In 1905, under great public pressure, they changed their mind and bested Philadelphia in five games. It was their last win until the 1920s. They made the World Series each year from 1911 through 1913 and proceeded to lose all three. They lost again in 1917, going 0 for 4 for the teens.

They did better in the 1920s. From 1921 through 1924 they won consecutive National League pennants. In World Series play they beat the Yankees in the first two “Subway Series” in 1921 and 1922. Then they lost to the Yanks in 1923 and to Walter Johnson and the Senators in 1924. That was it for John McGraw’s tenure as manager.

In the 1930s they got back to the World Series on three occasions: 1933, 1936, and 1937. They won the first (against Washington), then dropped two Subway Series to Lou Gehrig’s Yankees.  For the 1940s they did nothing. The decade was doubly painful because they saw their status as New York’s premier NL team be eclipsed by the Dodgers.

In 1951 they won the most famous of all playoff games and finally got back to the World Series. I’ve always been amazed at the number of people who think that either Bobby Thomson’s home run won the World Series, or that the Giants went on to coast to a World Series victory. They didn’t as the Giants hashed the Series in six games. They were back again in 1954 when they pulled off one of the great upsets ever by knocking off the 111 game winning Indians in four games.

And that was it for the New York version of the Giants. In 1958 they headed for San Francisco. They won the pennant in 1962 and faced the Yankees in a “Jetliner Series”. They lost in seven games on a smoking line drive by Willie McCovey that Bobby Richardson speared (The ball was hit so hard I always wondered if it dislocated Richardson’s shoulder). And then they went into hibernation. For the rest of the 1960s, most of the 1970s (one playoff appearance that they lost), and the 1980s they were dismal. In 1989 they made a second San Francisco World Series losing the “Bay Area Classic” to Oakland in four games (interrupted by an earthquake).

Then it was back to the boondocks until 2002. They won the NL pennant that year, had the Angels on the ropes in game six of the World Series, and managed to hash another playoff run. That finally changed in 2010 when they blew Texas out of the Series and claimed their first championship in San Francisco.

So it’s a very mixed bag if you’re a Giants fan. You lose more than you win, but your wins are as glorious as they are for any other team. And like Detroit, you can put together a heck of a team. Here’s a sample of what they Giants could put in the field over the years: an oufield of Mel Ott, Willie Mays, and Barry Bonds (before his head got big); an infield of Willie McCovey, Frankie Frisch, Al Dark, and Matt Williams; and Roger Bresnahan behind the plate. And the pitching? Try this staff without leaving the letter “M”: Christy Mathewson, Joe McGinnity, Rube Marquard, Sal Maglie, Juan Marichal. And of course that leaves out Carl Hubbell and company. They’ve even got a great pair of managers in John McGraw and Leo Durocher. Not bad, right?

So good luck to the Giants (You have any idea how hard that is for a Dodgers fan to type?). Win or lose I hope they play well. Most importantly, I hope it’s a great Series.

The Player-Manager

 

Solly Hemus

Baseball changes all the time. Some of the changes are immediate and noticable, like changing the pitching distance in 1893. Some are more subtle. No one seems to have realized what changing the strike zone in the 1960s would do to offense. Other things just seem to drop out of use without much fanfare. Player-Managers are like that. Once upon a time there were lots of them. Now there hasn’t been one since Pete Rose hung up his glove in 1986.

It actually makes since that there should be a lot of Player-Manager’s in the early days of baseball. Small rosters, limited talent pools, poor conditions make for having one man responsible for running the team and holding down a position. Harry Wright played center field for the 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings. He also managed the team. So the tradition goes back a ways and carries on through players like Cap Anson and Charles Comiskey who both held down first base and managed in the 1880s.

Further, the expansion of Major League baseball from eight to 16 teams in 1901 meant that more managers were needed and the talent pool was small. So what better way to pick up a manager than to assign one of the players the managerial job (and toss in a couple hundred bucks for his troubles)? In 1901, four of the eight American League managers were player-managers. In the more established National Leage three of eight managers were player-managers. This trend continued for most of the Deadball Era (although not in those proportions). If you look at just the World Series, player-managers rule for much of the Deadball Era, especially early. Between 1901 and 1912 at least one team was managed by an active player in each Series except two. In both of those, 1905 and 1911, John McGraw faced off against Connie Mack. But in 1903 player-manager Jimmie Collins won. In ’06 it was Fielder Jones; in ’07 and ’08 it’s Frank Chance. In 1909 Fred Clarke played left field and managed Pittsburgh, in 1912 it was Jake Stahl as both first baseman and manager for Boston.

The rest of the Deadball Era saw a continued use of player-managers, but they were being less successful. Between 1913 and 1920, only Bill Carrigan at Boston in both 1915 and 1916 (44 games played in ’15, 33 in ’16), and Tris Speaker in 1920 were player-managers who led their team to the World Series (each happened to win). In the 1920s Rogers Hornsby in 1926 and Bucky Harris in 1924 were successful player-managers. In the 1930s you get something  of a rebirth with Bill Terry, Frankie Frisch, Charlie Grimm, Joe Cronin, and Gabby Hartnett all winning pennants (although Grimm, Cronin, and Hartnett’s teams all lose). The 1940s, a time that, because of a lack of players, should have produced mostly managers who were done with playing in the field gave us only Leo Durocher and Lou Boudreau as successful player-managers. It it should be noted that both had their greatest success on either side of the war. Boudreau became the last player-manager to win the World Series. The trend away from player-managers continued into the 1950s. Solly Hemus was at St. Louis in 1959 (he got into around 30 games), and appears (I may have missed one or two) to have ended the tradition until Pete Rose shows up in the 1980s.

So why did the tradition end? I’ll be honest, I’m not certain. I have some guesses, and that’s all they are.

1. As teams got more professional, a full-time manager was necessary.

2. Expanding rosters made it difficult for part-time managers to spend the time necessary to address the needs of individual players, especially bench players.

3. Once you get beyond 1910, full-time “professional” managers are almost always more successful than player-managers.

4. It’s easier for a full-time manager to act as a buffer between players and press than it is for a player-manager.

5. Full-time managers don’t have to worry about their individual stats, other than win/loss record.

I’m sure there are others. Feel free to add your own to the list.

Nicknames

I adore nicknames. Most people I know have one. My son is “Ace”, my niece is “Gorgeous” (she is), a lot of my friends have them too. Baseball used to have really good ones. I don’t know if the quality of play is actually gotten better or worse, but the quality of nicknames has gone down. Check out the latest Yankees World Series winners. “The Hammer of God” certainly works for a closer, but “Tex”, “A-Rod”, “”Godzilla” is the best they can do? YUCK. Maybe the writers aren’t as creative anymore, maybe TV makes it harder to use nicknames because you don’t actually see them written down, maybe the frequency of player movement means fans don’t get close enough to become endeared of modern players.

Now I’m not saying all modern nicknames are awful, “Big Papi” has a heck of a ring to it, or that all old nicknames were great, “Babe” isn’t anything special for Ruth (but I do kinda like “The Sultan of Swat”). But as a rule the old names were better. So in the spirit of a good nickname is worth remembering, here’s my All Nickname Team of Great Players. To get on the team you gotta be a heck of a player and have a heck of a nickname. There are better players. There are better nicknames, but not better combinations.

First-Lou Gehrig, “The Iron Horse”

Second-Frankie Frisch, “The Fordham Flash”

Short-Harold “PeeWee” Reese

Third-J. Frank “Home Run” Baker

Left-Stan “The Man” Musial

Center-Joe DiMaggio, “The Yankee Clipper”

Right-”Hammerin” Hank Aaron

Catcher-Lawrence Peter “Yogi” Berra

Starting Pitcher-Walter Johnson, “The Big Train”

Closer-Mariano Rivera “The Hammer of God”

DH (per a comment from SportsPhd below)- Frank “The Big Hurt” Thomas

and to manage them, “The Little Napoleon,” John J. McGraw.

And I had to leave out “The Splendid Splinter” (Williams), “The Georgia Peach” (Cobb), “Ironman” (McGinnity), and “Dizzy” (Dean).

So who you got? Gimme better nicknames to go with better players.

Best Possible Game 8

For 2 short periods the World Series wasn’t a best of seven series, but a best of nine. The World Series in 1903 was a best of nine and it happened again from 1919-1921. None of the Series’ went nine, but three did go eight.

A quick disclaimer. In 1912 game 2 was a tie and had to be replayed. The Series went the full schedule thus making game 7 the eighth game played. If I had wanted to be pedantic about it, I could have added the last game of 1912 to this list. I didn’t. It resides with the other game 7′s.

The best of the game 8′s is 1921. This was the first of three consecutive “Subway Series’” between the New York Giants and the New York Yankees. John McGraw’s Giants featured future Hall of Famers Frankie Frisch, Dave Bancroft, Ross Youngs, and George Kelly. Miller Huggins’ Yankees countered with Babe Ruth, Frank Baker, and Waite Hoyt. Ruth didn’t start game 8, but came in as a pinch hitter. The starting pitchers were lefty Art Nehf and Hoyt.

With one out in the top of the first, Bancroft walked,  Frisch made the 2nd out, Youngs also walked sending Bancroft to second base, where he came home on an error by Yankees shortstop Roger Peckenpaugh. It held up. Neft shut out the Yanks on 4 hits and 3 strikeouts, while walking five. Hoyt gave up only the unearned run while allowing 6 hits, walking 4, and striking out seven.

In the bottom of the 9th the Yankees tried to rally. Ruth pinch hit and grounded out.  Second baseman Aaron Ward walked, then Home Run Baker grounded to Frisch. The easy out was recorded at first, but Ward dashed toward third. A great throw caught him sliding in and the series ended with a double play.

Other game 8:

1903-Bill Dinneen pitched a 3 hit shutout to win the first World Series over Pittsburgh 3-0. The Red Sox got 2 runs in the fourth and tacked on one more in the sixth.

1919-this one was a blowout, the Reds scoring 4 runs in the first, one in the second, and coasting to a 10-5 victory. Of course this is the “Black Sox” series so not everything was on the up and up.