The T206 Collection: The Players & Their Stories

"The T206 Collection: The Players & Their Stories is a tribute to the men featured in the greatest baseball card collection that has ever existed. This book is for baseball fans, hobbyists, and history buffs. The brief biographical narratives along with the personal and professional statistics of each player offer you a peek into the developing world of baseball during the early part of the 20th century. The stories of the amazing array of T206 players from all walks of life with dramatically different skill levels will give you a real sense of how our national pastime was shaped by the events and players of that era. The last chapter discusses the value and grading system of this storied collection and brings the reader full circle. You will learn how a card like Kitty Bransfield’s with the Sweet Caporal back is graded and valued. In addition, elsewhere in the book, you will learn about the 'Bransfield Curse' and what it meant to Pittsburgh Pirates fans."
The T206 Collection: The Players & Their Stories
PSA Card: The Men Of T206
amazon: The T206 Collection: The Players & Their Stories

Mickey Cochrane

Wikipedia - "Gordon Stanley 'Mickey' Cochrane (April 6, 1903 – June 28, 1962) was a professional baseball player and manager. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the Philadelphia Athletics and Detroit Tigers. Cochrane was considered one of the best catchers in baseball history and is a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame. Cochrane was born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts to Northern Irish immigrant John Cochrane, whose father had immigrated to Ulster from Scotland and Scottish immigrant Sadie Campbell. He was also known as 'Black Mike' because of his fiery, competitive nature."
Wikipedia
SABR: Mickey Cochrane
Mickey Cochrane
YouTube: Biographies: Mickey Cochrane

M. T. Corrigan - "Sandlot Dad"

Not to say too much, nor paint those shadows
deeper than they were, his serves just clearing
the drop of the woods, and that line of maples
along Route Two, a deeper green. Greater matters
attach themselves to the sense of things
we learned, like the shockless strokes of triples
scalded down the lines, singeing the Nadeaus'
birch trees: overspin, top hand. What meaning
could one assign to batting practice; who grapples
light enough to comprehend that meadow's
darknesses? He pitched from deepeer shade, peering
in to catch the sign to get me out. No scruples
for the dustbacks that flung me down to dirt:
"Get up, son. Hang in. Baseball doesn't hurt."


Spitball

Inside the Park Home Runs

Arizona Diamondbacks - Ryan Roberts
Wikipedia - "In baseball parlance, an inside-the-park home run, 'leg home run', or 'quadruple', is a play where a batter hits a home run without hitting the ball out of play. To score an inside-the-park home run, the player must touch all four bases (in the order of first, second and third, ending at home plate) before a fielder on the opposing team tags him out. If the defensive team commits an error during the play, it is not scored as a home run, but rather advancing on an error. In the early days of baseball, with outfields more spacious and less uniform from ballpark to ballpark, inside-the-park home runs were common. However, in the modern era, with outfields less spacious, the feat has become increasingly rare, happening only a handful of times each season."
Wikipedia
Baseball Almanac
SABR: Inside the Park Home Runs

What Happened to the Yankees?

"Turning the end of the Yankees' season into a referendum on Alex Rodriguez is reductive. This is a team that suffered multiple major injuries to key players, yet still won 95 games and an AL East title before an ALCS loss to the team with the best pitcher and best hitter on earth.1 Rodriguez was hardly alone in his struggles as the Tigers swept the Yankees out of the playoffs, joining Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, and Nick Swisher to form a Voltron of playoff incompetence. 2013 and beyond are a different story. When asking, 'What the hell do the Yankees do from here?' the answer starts with, 'What the hell do the Yankees do with A-Rod?'"
Grantland

The Pine Tar Incident

Etsy
Wikipedia - "The Pine Tar Incident (also known as the Pine Tar Game) was a controversial incident during an American League game played between the Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees on July 24, 1983 at Yankee Stadium in New York City. With his team trailing 4–3 in the top half of the ninth inning, George Brett of the Royals hit a 2-run home run to give his team the lead. However, Yankees manager Billy Martin, who had noticed a large amount of pine tar on Brett's bat, requested that the umpires inspect his bat. The umpires ruled that the amount of pine tar on the bat exceeded the amount allowed by rule, nullified Brett's home run, and called him out. As Brett was the third out in the ninth inning with the home team in the lead, the game ended with a Yankees win."
Wikipedia
MLB: BB Moments: The Pine Tar Game (Video)
ESPN - 67: Pine tar nullifies home run, so Brett goes ballistic
NYT: The Pine Tar Home Run By Murray Chass, July 24, 1983
HOMAGE T-Shirt

1973 World Series

Catfish Hunter
Wikipedia - "The 1973 World Series matched the defending champion Oakland A's against the New York Mets with the A's winning in seven games to repeat as World Champions. The New York Mets won the National League East division by 1 1⁄2 games over the St. Louis Cardinals then defeated the Cincinnati Reds, three games to two, in the National League Championship Series. The Oakland A's won the American League West division by six games over the Kansas City Royals then defeated the Baltimore Orioles, three games to two, in the American League Championship Series."
Wikipedia
Baseball Almanac
SI: Mutiny and a Bounty
Oakland A's History: Finley Fires Andrews
Tom Seaver and the '73 World Series
Let's Go to the Videotape: The 1973 World Series (Video)
YouTube: Game 3, Shea Stadium, Tom Seaver vs. Catfish Hunter, Game 3, Shea Stadium, 9th inning, Tug McGraw, Ray Sadecki, Yogi Berra Goes Nuts At Bad Call

Commons and Minor Stars

"I have spent a lot of time the last few days watching baseball and thinking about this baseball card collecting concept -- at least it was a concept when I was younger -- of commons and minor stars. When I was in high school, this would be in the early 1980s, I decided for a time to get serious about collecting baseball cards. This is the sort of thing high school kids do, I think, when they are not getting dates. I had collected baseball cards as a kid, but that was different, more about the social experience, flipping cards, trading cards, putting cards in the spokes of my bicycle and all that. My Mom, following the Mom Handbook of my generation, threw out my card collection one day when I wasn't looking, and I have come to believe those shoeboxes of baseball cards were filled with Mickey Mantle rookie cards, Sandy Koufax rookie cards, Willie Mays rookie cards even though all of these people played years before I was born, much less before I started collecting cards."
Joe Posnanski

Larry Eickstaedt - "Babe Ruth"

Ted Williams was my idol.
Ruthie and I were always the Boston Red Sox
for our farmyard baseball games
but I paid grudging respect
to Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees –
my brother's team.

Stories our dad told about the greats
like Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson,
provided an historical feel for the game.

More important than school lessons –
lifetime batting averages, most runs,
most hits, most stolen bases –
were committed to memory.

And
At the top of the list, records
held by the most famous of Yankees,
the Babe –
most home runs in a season,
most in a lifetime –
were sacred.

In the afternoon of August 16, 1948,
a wave of silence,
like a sharp line drive,
swept the family when Mom
came out to the yard and announced
to Dad, my brother, sister, and me,
Babe Ruth died today!

That's all she said.
As though in a trance,
stunned by the news,
she slowly went back inside.

Time was suspended
like one of his towering home runs
and tears were near as I struggled
with unsettling feelings
like striking out with the bases loaded
in the bottom of the ninth.


Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine

Why It's Especially Tough to Root for the Yankees This Postseason

"There were two truly tremendous baseball games in the American League playoffs last night. Two bottom-of-the-ninth comebacks, two walk-off wins. I could almost say that for a Yankees fan, it was fun. Playoff baseball often isn't: For champions of the mind in April, anything short of a World Series title is a failure. A Yankee season is measured not by its sum of achievements but by its distance from the ultimate goal. October in New York brings tension, a lurking sense of something slipping away. For a baseball fan, though, this October has been unquestionably fun. The Baltimore Orioles and Oakland Athletics, two teams widely predicted to finish at the bottom—28th and 29th respectively in the ESPN pre-season power rankings—are playing playoff baseball."
The Atlantic

Big Leagues Monthly

"The October issue of Big Leagues Monthly is live now! Lots of great features, an interview with Mike Ferrin of MLB Radio, prospect notebook, AFL preview, and my cover piece on Max Scherzer's breakout season!"
Big Leagues Monthly
Big Leagues Monthly Blogspot

The 1964 Phillies: The Story of Baseball's Most Memorable Collapse

"In 1964, thousands of Philadelphia baseball fans were caught up in the Phillies’ unexpected run at the National League pennant. Nearly a decade of continuous defeat had earned them little more than the reputation for an unprecedented record of consecutive losses. But in that ’64 season the Phillies shocked the baseball world, taking over the National League in mid–July and holding on to first place for 73 consecutive days. And then, as the team’s first pennant in a generation seemed within reach, the Phillies collapsed in the greatest meltdown in baseball history."
amazon: The 1964 Phillies: The Story of Baseball's Most Memorable Collapse
SABR: Beyond Bunning and Short Rest: An Analysis of Managerial Decisions That Led to the Phillies’ Epic Collapse of 1964
The Legend of Chico Ruiz: Forty Years Later, A City Still Bleeds
Project MUSE: September Swoon: Richie Allen, the '64 Phillies, and Racial Integration (review)
amazon: September Swoon: Richie Allen, the '64 Phillies, and Racial Integration
Google: The 1964 Phillies: The Story of Baseball's Most Memorable Collapse
Chico F***ing Ruiz and the Bonehead Play of the Year
W - 1964 Philadelphia Phillies season

"There Used to Be a Ballpark"

Wikipedia - "'There Used to Be a Ballpark' is a song written by Joe Raposo and recorded by Frank Sinatra for Sinatra's 1973 album, Ol’ Blue Eyes Is Back. The song expresses sadness at the loss of a baseball team and its ballpark, which once gave its fans and players joy, along with other childhood delights such as 'rock candy and a great big Fourth of July'. A key phrase in the song is 'Now the children try to find it / And they can't believe their eyes / For the old team just isn't playing / And the new team hardly tries.' The song has often been cited by books and websites that discuss old-time baseball."
Wikipedia
YouTube: "There Used to Be a Ballpark"
SportsLifer

2012 August: Brooklyn Dodgers: Ghosts of Flatbush

John Thorn

"John Thorn, the Official Historian of Major League Baseball, thinks and writes about other subjects, too. Sometimes he writes about football, sometimes about New York history, and sometimes about arts and letters, especially of the nineteenth century. He resides in Catskill, New York."
Wikipedia
Our Game Blog
Thorn Pricks - May 01, 2009
amazon: John Thorn
SABR42 Day Two: John Thorn’s keynote speech
Hardball Times - Interview: John Thorn

2012 September: Baseball in the Garden of Eden: The Secret History of the Early Game

The Felice Brothers - "Cooperstown"

The water's wide
It's deep and wide
It's down a long and windy road
And everyone knows that a boy can't swim it

In narrow's church
The white walled church
They're singing that gospel song
“bye and bye, I will see my king”
The clouds will break
And the pews shake
And the choir softly cries
And it's Georgia in the spring of 1905

Ty Cobb
You're dead and gone
You had a game like a war machine
And through the great
Hall of Fame you wander
In Tigers field
A girl in heels

She had a face like a magazine
And through the long metal stands she wandered

The ball soared
The crowd roared
The scoreboard sweetly hummed
And tomorrow you'll surely know whose won

I'm on first
And you're on third
And all the wolves are all between
And everyone's sure that the game is over

The catcher's hard
He's mean mean and hard
And he nips at the batter's heels
And everyone's sure that the game is over

The ball soars
And the crowd roars
And the scoreboard sweetly hums
And tomorrow you'll surely know whose won

The water's wide
It's deep and wide
It's a down a long and windy road
And everyone knows that a boy can't swim it

The clouds break
And the pews shake
And the preacher's feet do pound
As the rain beats the streets of Cooperstown


Lyrics Mania: "Cooperstown"

Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution

"Jackie Robinson's breaking of baseball's color line has long been seen as a singular, unrepeatable moment in American cultural history -- especially because baseball really was the national pastime in 1947. But two new books demonstrate that for race in baseball, as for race in America, Robinson's moment was neither a simple culmination nor a clean slate. Neil Lanctot's Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution is notable for treating its storied subject primarily as a business enterprise. There are few anecdotes about outsized characters such as Satchel Paige, the barnstorming life or even on-field action. But Lanctot's approach lets him tell the story without making integration -- and the apotheosis of Robinson -- the be-all and end-all. He makes you understand thoroughly why Negro League ball -- like black banks, hotels and hospitals -- stood up stoutly in the face of segregation, but couldn't long survive its fall."
Pittsburgh City Paper
Cover the Bases Interview with Neil Lanctot (Video)
NYT: Before You Could Say Jackie Robinson
W - Baseball color line
amazon: Negro League Baseball: The Rise and Ruin of a Black Institution
W - Neil Lanctot

The 30, Week 26: Ace in the Hole

"In our final installment of the season, we're interested in how little has changed in six months. Check out the very first installment of this column, before it even adopted its current name: Six of the top 10 teams then are likely to make the playoffs 156 games later, two others are still in the mix, and the Cinderella Orioles were already 3-0. There've been a few changes, with the Braves and Giants shaking off 0-3 starts to crack the postseason, and the A's nearly there now after a rough start of their own. It's Week 26 of The 30. See you in the playoffs."
Grantland

Whitey Ford

Wikipedia - "Edward Charles 'Whitey' Ford (born October 21, 1928) is an American former Major League Baseball pitcher who spent his entire 16-year career with the New York Yankees. He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1974. Ford was a native of the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, located in New York City. By the Triborough Bridge, it was a few miles from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. Ford graduated from Aviation High School in nearby Sunnyside, Queens. Ford was signed by the New York Yankees as an amateur free agent in 1947, and played his entire career with them. He was nicknamed 'Whitey' while in the minor leagues for his light blond hair."
Wikipedia, Baseball Reference
SI: July 24, 1961, Whitey Throws For 30
Whitey Ford
Baseball Card Hall of Fame</>

Sam Crawford

Wikipedia - "Samuel Earl Crawford (April 18, 1880 – June 15, 1968), nicknamed 'Wahoo Sam', was a Major League Baseball player who played outfield for the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1957. Crawford batted and threw left-handed, stood 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m) tall and weighed 190 pounds. He was one of the greatest sluggers of the dead-ball era and still holds the Major League's records for triples in a career (309) and inside-the-park home runs in a season (12). He has the second best all-time record for most inside-the-park home runs in a career (51)."
Wikipedia, Baseball-reference
SABR: Sam Crawford
Any player/Any era: Sam Crawford
Wahoo Sam was one of greatest stars in early days of Navin Field
Late Innings
YouTube: Baseball Hall of Fame - Biographies: Sam Crawford

Tony La Russa: Great Manager, Terrible Memoirist

"As longtime season-ticket holders for the St. Louis Cardinals, my father and I spent unseemly portions of the past 15 years bickering from our seats along the first-base line about Tony La Russa's unorthodox managerial style. As a La Russa skeptic, I continually second-guessed the manager's incessant lineup tinkering. My father, ever the optimist, assured me that his in-game moves were all grounded in meticulous preparation and statistical analysis."
The Atlantic

Louis Phillips - "The Curve"

Life throws you a curve,
Breaking so sharply,
That just before it crosses the plate,
You flinch, bend back.
You still have two strikes to go.
Next a change up or a slider.
Perhaps followed by high heat.
A 100 mph fastball.
Even if you know what pitch is coming,
You still can’t hit it out of the park.
Soon you are not allowed
Any more pitches. 3 strikes.
Return to the bench.
No sense hanging around.
You’re out. That’s it.


Spitball Magazine

The 30, Week 25: Brewers Hoping for an Octoberfest

"Work got you down? Wife and kids hate your guts? Life kicking you in the head? Jon Miller, Gangnam Style. You're welcome. This week, we're only covering the teams that have a realistic shot at making the playoffs. Don't worry, we'll have plenty of coverage of the non-contending teams in the coming weeks. It's Week 25 of The 30."
Grantland

The Numbers Game - Alan Schwarz

"Most fans, players and even team executives assume that baseball's infatuation with statistics is simply a byproduct of the information age, a phenomenon that blossomed only after the arrival of Bill James and computers in the 1980s. They couldn't be more wrong. Alan Schwarz, the senior writer of Baseball America and a weekly contributor to ESPN.com, will forever change that misperception with his new book, The Numbers Game, just published by St. Martin's Press."
ESPN: Darwins of the Diamond by Alan Schwarz
amazon: The Numbers Game
W - Alan Schwarz

Paul & Lloyd Waner

Wikipedia - "Paul Glee Waner (April 16, 1903 – August 29, 1965), nicknamed 'Big Poison', was a German-American Major League Baseball right fielder. He, along with his brother Lloyd, starred in the Pittsburgh Pirates' outfield in the 1920s and 1930s."
Wikipedia, Baseball Reference
SABR: Paul Waner
Great Pirates In History: Paul Waner

Wikipedia - "Lloyd James Waner (March 16, 1906 – July 22, 1982), nicknamed 'Little Poison', was a Major League Baseball center fielder. His small stature at 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m) and 132 lb (68 kg) made him one of the smallest players of his era. Along with his brother, Paul Waner, he anchored the Pittsburgh Pirates outfield throughout the 1920s and 1930s."
Wikipedia, Baseball Reference
Lloyd “Little Poison” Waner
amazon: Big and Little Poison: Paul and Lloyd Waner, Baseball Brothers
YouTube: Paul and Lloyd Waner, Baseball Hall of Famers

The 30, Week 24: Return of the Freak

"With the regular season now in the home stretch, it's time to focus on those teams still in contention. Here, then, are our all-contender rankings. It's Week 24 of The 30. 1. Texas Rangers, 87-59 (746 RS, 623 RA) (last week: 2). The mockery started almost immediately after the trade was consummated. Ryan Dempster's career year was about to burst into flames, what with a move to the American League and to the AL's toughest ballpark for pitchers to navigate. In his first start with the Rangers, Dempster got creamed for eight runs on nine hits (including two homers), the Angels knocking him out after 4⅔ innings."
Grantland

A National Mistake

Illustration by Niv Bavarsky
"Let's start by making one thing clear: Everyone wants what's best for Stephen Strasburg. He is the greatest collegiate pitcher of all time, and in his short major league career, Strasburg has averaged more strikeouts per nine innings than Randy Johnson. No matter where you stand on The Strasburg Rules, everyone wants to see him pitch for 20 seasons, strike out 5,000 batters, and make a pretty speech in upstate New York in the summer of 2039. It's worth stating the obvious, because to hear some of the rhetoric, you'd think that there are only two positions on the subject — those who believe the Nationals are correct to shut down Strasburg and those who think it's fine to sacrifice Strasburg's arm on the altar of October baseball."
Grantland - Sep 12
The Atlantic: The Faulty Logic Behind the Decision to Shut Down Stephen Strasburg By Adam Felder - Aug 23
The Atlantic: Why the Nationals Are Right to Shut Down Stephen Strasburg - Aug 22
Bloomberg: Stephen Strasburg’s Season Didn’t Have to End This Way - Sep 8
PBS: Washington Nationals' Star Pitcher Stephen Strasburg Benched For Rest of Season - Sep 10 (Video)
YouTube: Stephen Strasburg Highlights - Jan 2012, 103 MPH fastball....Baseball's Next Big Thing - May 2009

Larry Eickstaedt - "Babe Ruth"

Ted Williams was my idol.
Ruthie and I were always the Boston Red Sox
for our farmyard baseball games
but I paid grudging respect
to Joe DiMaggio and the Yankees –
my brother's team.

Stories our dad told about the greats
like Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson,
provided an historical feel for the game.

More important than school lessons –
lifetime batting averages, most runs,
most hits, most stolen bases –
were committed to memory.

And
At the top of the list, records
held by the most famous of Yankees,
the Babe –
most home runs in a season,
most in a lifetime –
were sacred.

In the afternoon of August 16, 1948,
a wave of silence,
like a sharp line drive,
swept the family when Mom
came out to the yard and announced
to Dad, my brother, sister, and me,
Babe Ruth died today!

That's all she said.
As though in a trance,
stunned by the news,
she slowly went back inside.

Time was suspended
like one of his towering home runs
and tears were near as I struggled
with unsettling feelings
like striking out with the bases loaded
in the bottom of the ninth.


Spitball Magazine

1963 World Series

Wikipedia - "The 1963 World Series matched the two-time defending champion New York Yankees against the Los Angeles Dodgers, with the Dodgers sweeping the Series in four games to capture their second title in five years, and their third in franchise history. This was the first time that the New York Yankees were swept in a World Series in four games (the 1922 World Series had one tie). Of the Los Angeles Dodgers four World Series championships since the opening of Dodger Stadium, this was the only one won at Dodger Stadium. Also, of the six championships from the Dodgers franchise, it remains the only one won at home. Starting pitchers Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Johnny Podres and ace reliever Ron Perranoski combined to give up only four runs in four games."
Wikipedia
Baseball Almanac
SI: Koo-Foo the Killer
YouTube: 1963 part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4

The Long, Strange Trip of Dock Ellis

"'Get to the f---ing stadium. I got to pitch.' Decades later, Dock Ellis remembered it like this: sitting in a taxi outside the San Diego airport, running late for work, tripping on acid. So yeah, maybe the words aren't verbatim. It was a Friday. That much is certain. June 12, 1970. Three years after psychedelic Pied Piper Timothy Leary invited America to 'Turn on, tune in and drop out.' Four years before Richard Nixon's resignation marked an inglorious denouement to the counterculture era. The middle of things. A purple haze. The perfect moment for the first and only known no-hitter in major league history pitched under the influence of lysergic acid diethylamide, thrown by the first and only player in major league history to inspire both a biography penned by a future American poet laureate and a seminal article in High Times."
ESPN
Dock Ellis and the LSD No No (Video)
amazon: Dock Ellis in the Country of Baseball
ESPN: Ex-pitcher Ellis dies of liver disease
Snopes - True

2010 June: Dock Ellis

Walk-off home run

Wikipedia - "In baseball, a walk-off home run is a home run that ends the game. It must be a home run that gives the home team the lead (and consequently, the win) in the bottom of the final inning of the game—either the ninth inning, or any extra inning, or any other regularly scheduled final inning. It is called a 'walk-off' home run because both teams walk off the field immediately afterward, rather than finishing the inning, though it originally was directed to the pitcher, who had to 'walk off' the field alone as the other team celebrated."
Wikipedia
MLB Notebook: Thome is king of walk-off homers
YouTube: Scott Hatteberg Walk Off Home Run (Clinches the Oakland A's 20th Consecutive Victory, Featuring both "Moneyball")