First in St. Louis

Johnny Mize with the Cardinals

Did you ever notice how certain teams breed players at particular positions? The Yankees do it at Second Base, in Center Field, and Catching. The Red Sox produce great left fielders. The Dodgers and Giants come up with superior pitchers. St. Louis is one of those. As the title of this little excursion should alert you, for the Cards it’s First Base.

The Cardinals began business in the 1880s as part of the fledgling American Association. They were then called the Browns and were immediately successful and began with an excellent first baseman. Charles Comiskey started at first for the Browns for most of the 1880s. He wasn’t that great a hitter, but he was considered a good fielder (for his era), an innovator in first base play, and spent much of the decade as the team manager. The team won four pennants with him as player-manager.

The team moved to the National League in 1892 and slipped back toward the bottom of the field. They got very little out of their first baseman until Jake Beckley joined the team in 1904. He had one great season, winning a number of league titles, but wasn’t much beyond that. He was followed by Ed Konetchy and Dots Miller as first basemen for the rest of the Deadball Era. They weren’t bad (Konetchy hit over .300 a couple of times), but weren’t particularly notable either and the Cards floundered.

That changed in the 1920s. St. Louis began a long drive toward the top of the standing that culminated in the 1926 National League pennant. Most of the glory had to go to Rogers Hornsby, but the Cards found a pretty fair first baseman to help the Rajah along. He was Jim Bottomley and he was good enough to enter the Hall of Fame, although some think he’s one of those guys who shouldn’t be there. Bottomley won a home run crown and a couple of RBI titles. He lasted through the championship seasons of 1926, 1928, 1930, and 1931 before being replaced by Rip Collins. Collins was a power hitter who fit in quite nicely with the raucous Cardinals team of the 1930s. He hit well, won a home run title, drove in a lot of runs, and became a mainstay of the “Gas House Gang.”

But by 1936 St. Louis had found another power hitting first baseman. His name was Johnny Mize and he became the dominant first baseman in the NL for several years. (I’ve never done anything on him and I need to remedy that). He won a batting title, and RBI title, and a couple of home run titles before being traded to the Giants. He did well there and later helped the Yankees to a couple of championships. But he left just as the Cardinals found the promised land again. The 1942 through 1946 Cards won three championships and four pennants. Ray Sanders did most of the work at first (with Johnny Hopp holding down first in 1942). He was no Mize, but he played well enough. His departure led to a long series of Cardinal first basemen that didn’t last long nor did they provide a lot of thrills. But in some ways it didn’t matter. If all else failed, St. Louis could always bring Stan Musial in from the outfield to play first. He did it a lot and no one cared if he could field or not. He was pretty good with the glove, but his forte was the use of the bat.

Things got back to normal for St. Louis at first with the arrival of Bill White in 1957. He would hold down the position through 1965 and become a major factor in the Cardinals championship run of 1964. He was good with the bat, good with the leather. He was one of the men who constituted an all-St. Louis infield in the All Star game of 1963 (Julian Javier, Dick Groat, and Ken Boyer were the others). White hung around until replaced in 1966 by Orlando Cepeda. Cepeda had been, with Willie McCovey, part of a terrible fielding left field combination at San Francisco. One of them could go to first, but the other would have to stay in left and leak runs or be traded. McCovey was younger, so he got to go to first and Cepeda was traded. The trade was to St. Louis where he ended up at first also. It worked. He won an MVP in 1967 and was part of two pennant winning teams in 1967 and 1968, the ’67 team winning the World Series.

But Cha Cha was getting old and was never much at first, so by 1969 the team was looking for a new first baseman. They tried a couple of different options, but finally settled on ex-catcher, ex-third baseman Joe Torre. He lasted a couple of years before moving on for Keith Hernandez.

Hernandez was the great fielding first sacker of his day. He was universally touted for his defensive skills, so much so that people forgot he could also hit. He won an MVP in 1979 (a tie with Willie Stargell of Pittsburgh), then joined in a championship season in 1982, before moving on to the Mets. And that was it for a while for St. Louis at first base. True they had Jack Clark for a while (and picked up a couple of pennants with him at first) and Pedro Guerrero but neither was a satisfactory answer to their woes at first. That changed with the arrival of Mark McGwire in 1992.

McGwire was the power hitting machine that eventually set a single season home run title. We’ve come to see that record as dubious because of the steroid issue, but for St. Louis it provided a boost in attendance and in winning. By 2001, after a couple of playoff appearances, injuries, questions about steroids, and age took McGwire to the showers. But St. Louis had one throw left at first.

Albert Pujols came to the Cards in 2001. He was rookie of the year and a heck of a hitter. But he had no set position. They tried him in the outfield, then at third. Finally they decided to move him to first. He wasn’t very good at first, at least not for a while. But he got better with the leather and there was never anything wrong with the way he swung the lumber. The team won a pennant, then two World Series’ with Pujols at first. He picked up a ton of hardware including three MVP awards. In 2012 he left for Southern California. St. Louis has yet to replace him.

Although there have been periods when St. Louis first basemen were pedestrian, it’s not all that common. Throughout most of their history they’ve managed to find excellent, if not truly great, first basemen. There’s no Joe DiMaggio to Mickey Mantle handoff nor a Ted Williams to Carl Yastrzemski baton pass, but over a century and a half, the Cardinals have produced an excellent first base tree.

 

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My Own Little Hall of Fame: Class of 1913

With Black History Month over, it’s time to return to my more mundane ravings. Here’s a look at My Own Little Hall of Fame and the Class of 1913. Remember, this is a look at how the Hall of Fame would differ if it began in 1901 and the writers of the era were dealing only with the info available to them in 1913 (and other years) rather than the info available in the mid-1930s or currently.

 

Jake Beckley

Jacob “Eagle Eye” Beckley was a southpaw first baseman who played for five teams over a 20 year career lasting from 1888 through 1907. He is the all time leader in triples. His 2934 hits and 473 doubles are both second among retired Major League players.

Hugh Duffy

Winner of two batting titles, including a century high .440 among Major Leaguers, Hugh Duffy led the league in home runs and hits twice, and in doubles once. He helped his team to five National League pennants and an 1892 win in the split season postseason series.

John J. McGraw

John Joseph McGraw was a starring third baseman for the Baltimore Orioles in the 1890s. Twice he led the National League in both runs and walks. He helped lead his team to three National League pennants and the 1896 Temple Cup victory. He later managed the National League New York Giants to five pennants and one World Series championship.

Now the commentary:

1. Beckley was an easy choice based on my premise that we’re doing this in 1913 with info available then. He has those big raw number stats that impressed writers and fans of the 1913 era. By this point he no longer leads the Major Leagues in triples (he’s now fourth). The comment about hits and doubles is worded funny because Honus Wagner was getting close to retirement and eventually passed Beckley in both. I didn’t feel like taking the time to see if he’d done so by 1913 (I presume he had in hits, but not sure about doubles) so I made a stipulation that was true, but possibly misleading.

2. Hugh Duffy was also an easy choice for pretty much the same reasons. He was a major player on five teams that won the NL pennant and his 1894 average was known (although there was some dispute about the exact number). In one of their articles, the guys at the wonderful Hall of Miller and Eric (who, ironically, just eliminated Beckley from their hall–they use modern stats I’m not allowed to use) pointed out that hitting .400, like hitting 61 home runs or getting an extraordinary number of strikeouts, tends to come very close to a period when there is a significant change in the game (like creating the mound or juicing the ball ala 1930 or expansion in 1960). In Duffy’s case that’s certainly true. His two batting titles occur in 1893 and 1894 (the move to a mound occurred in 1893) so his titles can be seen as a direct result of the move to 60’6″. I don’t think the writers of the era saw that as a problem. At least I can’t find one who says “Duffy benefitted from a new rule and his numbers are tainted” or some such comment. So I ignored that as a factor in his election. This issue will pop up again with Nap LaJoie, whose 1901 average is way out of line with the rest of his career (which is very, very good) and occurs with the first year of the American League.

3. And now, McGraw. As a player McGraw is, at best, a borderline Hall of Fame candidate. His numbers are fine, but they are fine for a very short period of time. So the counting numbers (hits, runs, walks, etc.) aren’t all that high and most of the percentages we use today weren’t around yet (batting average being an obvious exception). But as Kortas pointed out when I mentioned my John McGraw problem it is the Hall of Fame and in the period 1905-1913 there are only a few people in baseball more famous than John McGraw. His team was the toast of New York. They’d been in three consecutive World Series’ (and lost them all). Outside guys with names like Cobb, Wagner, Mathewson he was easily the most well-known man in the sport. It seemed that eventually the writers would compound the playing numbers with the managing and notoriety and put McGraw in the 1901 version of the Hall of Fame. The end of the 1913 pennant run seemed like a good time to do it.

4. I’ve noticed that the statistical information available is becoming more stable. By that I mean you can start finding the same types of stats (AB, H, R, etc.) each time. Also, the numbers associated with those statistics are beginning to firm up. There are still differences in the numbers, but the differences are getting closer and something like a consensus is starting. It makes it a bit easier to determine who makes the list.

5. New everyday players arriving on the 1914 list include both Joe Kelley and Jimmy Collins. Collins was considered, at the time, one of the two or three top third basemen ever, which will certainly enhance his chances. Kelley seems to be much less well known, not as highly thought of as others. I’m not sure yet what will happen with him. That pushes my holdover list to 21 and either someone will have to be added to the Hall or at least one player must be dropped.

6. Among pitchers Joe McGinnity is added to the 1914 list while Thomas Lynch, an umpire and later President of the National League, joins the contributors list. Adding Lynch will give me 11 contributors and someone either makes the Hall of gets dropped. Currently I’m leaning toward not adding a contributor in 1914, putting Lynch in the holdover pool, and dropping Bud Hillerich, the Louisville Slugger guy. Lynch will be the first umpire that I’ve found out enough about (mostly because of his NL Presidency) to make him seem a viable candidate. Will let you know.