baseball obituaries 2020

tom seaver

:( rip

paul giamatti's dad waxes hardcore rhapsodic on seaver after the mets traded him: https://harpers.org/archive/1977/09/tom-seavers-farewell

this is pretty cool

Every Mets player has dirt on their right knee as a tribute to Tom Seaver, who’s knee would hit the ground as a result of his delivery 🧡 pic.twitter.com/3QkXueO8di

— SI MLB (@si_mlb) September 3, 2020

Nice tweets from Palmer ("Baseball lost the best pitcher of my era") and Jenkins. One of my favourite SI covers:

http://phildellio.tripod.com/toughest.jpg

Mr Baseball to me

His beginnings:

https://mcusercontent.com/70117f7e29064e68418377637/files/9ac95a1f-1d62-433b-8de2-44f0e9716a50/20073_Seaver_Beginning.pdf

RIP Jay Johnstone, who played for 8 teams in his 20-yr #MLB career (1966-1985). A excellent PH & role player, Johnstone was one of baseball's great pranksters & fan favorite. He was 74. His @sabr bio https://t.co/a82uL7ta16 pic.twitter.com/81At5sLOu4

— SABR BioProject (@SABRbioproject) September 28, 2020

Bob Gibson

RIP to a real one

damn, within a couple weeks of lou brock, too.

RIP Bob Gibson. :(

One of the two times I was in Cooperstown, he was on the street signing autographs--not near anything, just sitting there on his own. I remembered reading something where he wished fans would just shake his hand instead of asking for autographs, so, very proud of myself, that's what I did, walked up and asked to shake his hand--not thinking that there might be a difference between signing for money and getting interrupted in a restaurant and signing. He put out his hand, half looked away, and gave me the deadest handshake in the history of handshakes.

I view it as a funny, embarrassing story. I in no way stopped being a fan or anything. I cut major slack for any African-American player who came up through the '50s.

World moves on...sad to see them go.

I remember Jay Johnstone having some big pinch hits for the Cubs back in 84.

I dunno, clem, I don't think Ernie Banks or Buck O'Neil would've done that.

The Roger Angell profile of Gibson I posted two weeks ago:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1980/09/22/distance

They wouldn't have, no, but I understand both reactions. The whole signing business--I'm not part of that world, but my collector friend is immersed in it, so I hear all his stories--is bizarre.

In my telling, Gibby watched a nine-pitcher shutout in October and decided he’d seen enough.

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) October 3, 2020

They changed the rules of baseball to stop Bob Gibson. That's the only epitaph you need.

— Richard M. Nixon (@dick_nixon) October 3, 2020

Was reading Joe Posnanski's obituary for Gale Sayers from 10 days ago, and there's this:

The basics of his career are well known. He was a prodigy in Omaha, Neb. — where he was coached for a time by Baseball Hall of Famer Bob Gibson’s brother Josh — and he became a star at the University of Kansas.

Besides the coincidental timing, I didn't know Gibson had a brother named Josh.

https://www.mlb.com/video/bob-costas-reflects-on-bob-gibson?t=remembering-bob-gibson

Bob Costas (who I've never minded)--you probably know the story of Gibson's final pitch and the aftermath, but if not, it's here.

Pete LaCock... I had forgotten it.

What's really impressive is the time he faced two or three hitters with a broken leg.

xpost i had never heard of the pete LaCock story, thank you

that's a really godo one

you know what i mean

;_;

Pete LaCock is the son of Peter Marshall (Hollywood Squares). Did he actually think it was a good idea to change his name from Marshall to LaCock? I mean, I know you don't want to live in your father's shadow, but still.

Ralph Pierre LaCock (born March 30, 1926, is better known by his stage name Peter Marshall. He is an American television and radio personality, singer, and actor. (Still alive at 94.)

Duh...that actually occurred to me after I posted--maybe it was dad who changed his name.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ej5YT3IXgAMnJxK?format=jpg&name=small

noooo

Not sure if I got this from Ball Four or not: if Cronin's name wasn't stamped on straight, he could make the baseball drop.

Ford's autobiography was one of my favourites growing up, I read it countless times.

The last of Casey’s Whiskey Slicks

really?! what makes it so interesting? (i know nothing about the man outside of his stats)
xpost

His off the field stories are interesting (plenty of stuff about partying all night in New York clubs), his takes on baseball personalities come across as real, three dimensional opinions, obviously he glosses over some of the seedier stuff that was surely going on but the book feels more honest than those by many of his contemporaries that I read at the time. He admits to cheating in the 60's when he was losing something off his fastball -- it was rare (maybe unprecedented?) to read something like that from a HOFer of his calibre.

Thanks, I might make that my next book!

Whitey Ford: A HOF Cheater
by The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall

joe morgan

What a month this has been, jfc

Christ.

RIP

Reading his capsule bio, I had no idea he was 5'7".

Glad I witnessed his historic '75/76 peak.

That's what, five HOFers who passed away in the past month? Can 2020 get any worse?

His '75-'76 peak was really something, no 2Bman since then has really come close to his combination of power/speed/patience/defense.

I always thought it ironic how much Morgan hated sabermetrics etc, but as a player he excelled at a lot of the stats that advanced Stats people loved.

indeed

New Favorite Joe Morgan stat I discovered today.

His line in the 1976 NLCS: .000/.462/.000

0-for-7 with 6 BB, 2 SB, 2 R

(And the Reds swept the Phillies)

— Matt Meyers (@mtmeyers) October 12, 2020

As I've mentioned before, I was a huge Reds fan in the early '70s, before the Jays. Between Rose, Morgan, and Bench (not so much Perez), they had an arrogance about them that I'm not sure any baseball team has equaled since. Maybe those '90s Yankees teams, but that felt more like a revolving cast (with a core, true), and there was also the late '80s A's.

Xpost to Thermo

Definitely. His reasoning was that it was his job to set the table so it made sense for him to take a walk, whereas other guys had to drive him in and thus shouldn't be taking walks. I think he understood the value of what he was doing but for him every player has a label that he couldn't escape. Like why can't an RBI guy also work the count? Why can't a middle infielder be a power hitter? He just never got it.

I'm probably one of three living people who's read his autobiography--I bought a remaindered copy for the free baseball card!

http://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/514kY1EQj+L._SX328_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/514kY1EQj+L._SX328_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Best 2B I ever saw. RIP.

class a greensboro grasshoppers bat dog miss lou lou gehrig, aged 9

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EkOIT3jXYAAkSwE?format=jpg&name=small

goddammit. miss lou :(

Forgot about this, from Ball Four--someone posted it on Facebook.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/mfc.jpg

http://phildellio.tripod.com/mfc.jpg

I don't get that at all...is Tripod blocking images now? Anyway.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/mfc.jpg