Baseball Passings 2020

[G-Fafif]

Bob Watson, top-flight Astro, 73, from kidney disease. Scored baseball's millionth run.

[Edgy MD]

Total baseball lifer.



Turned around a wrecked Yankee franchise.



Should have stepped in and tossed Roger Clemens in 2000.

[MFS62]

Edgy MD wrote: Turned around a wrecked Yankee franchise.

Nobody's perfect.

RIP

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Watson became the Yanx GM for the '96 season (replacing Gene Michael who was forever falling in and out of favor w/George) so the franchise was already pretty much turned around at that point.

I don't remember if he had been with the organization prior to that or was poached from the outside. He then resigned the GM post in February before the '98 ever got going -- so just two seasons

as GM for 'Bull' -- and was replaced by Brian Cashman who has now stunningly been there ever since. Nobody would have bet on THAT way back when.



IIRC Watson was against the deal which brought Chuck Knoblauch to the Bronx, specifically it was the inclusion of LHP Eric Milton, a former NYY 1st round draft pick and a top prospect that winter.

Watson didn't like that his calls were being overridden and walked away in protest over completion of that deal. Turned out that neither Knoblauch nor Milton were all that their acquiring teams

hoped they'd be. The Twins actually got more out of the 'throw-ins' in that deal, Brian Buchanan (also a former NYY 1st rounder) was a role player for them before ending his career with 3 ABs for

the 2004 NYM, and especially Christian Guzman who went on to be their starting SS for six seasons. As they always say, prospects can be summed up in one word: Yaneverknow!









Another NYY passing: RHP Larry Gowell, 72

Yeah, I never heard of him either, and with good reason as he pitched in just two ML games, both with the 1972 Yanx at the tail end of the season.

But those two games produced a couple of odd distinctions: the first was hitting a double in his only ML AB, and the second was having that hit be the final one by a pitcher in the pre-DH era.

A handful of AL pitchers have notched hits since on account of their teams losing the DH via double-switches and the like, but Gowell's hit was the final one on the final day of the '72 AL season.

From the baseball hotbed of Lewiston, Maine (where he apparently died also), Gowell stayed in the minors through 1975 but never got back to 'The Show'.

P.S., his double didn't help matters as he wound up being the losing pitcher in that game, leaving him with a lifetime line of 1-for-1 as a batter but 0-1 as a pitcher. Sucks when the only run

you allow in your career (7 IP in total) gives you a losing record. Gowell started that day and went five innings but the Yanx lost 1-Zip

[G-Fafif]

I sat next to Mrs. Marte at Citi Field last season. This is a shock.

[LWFS]

Jesus, that's terrifying. She's, like, 30.

[G-Fafif]

Biff Pocoroba, 1970s Braves catcher and possessor of one of the decade's Top Ten baseball names, 66.

[Edgy MD]

I killed it with the 1978 Braves in Strat-o-Matic, platooning Pocaroba with former Met Joe Nolan and playing Dale Murphy mostly at first.

[G-Fafif]

Drew Shea, grandson of Bill Shea, 54.



https://myrye.com/my_weblog/2020/05/in-memory-drew-shea-age-54.htmlhttps://myrye.com/my_weblog/2020/05/in-memory-drew-shea-age-54.html

[G-Fafif]

Lonnie Wheeler, co-author to the stars, notably with Mike Piazza on Long Shot. “In his sixties,” according to his obit.



https://www.wvxu.org/post/lonnie-wheeler-cincinnati-sportswriter-and-author-has-died#stream/0https://www.wvxu.org/post/lonnie-wheeler-cincinnati-sportswriter-and-author-has-died#stream/0

[G-Fafif]

Mike McCormick, the first National League Cy Young winner (in 1967, when the award was split in two), 81. Was, for years, the youngest-living New York Giant. Suffered from Parkinson's.

[MFS62]

=G-Fafif post_id=38794 time=1592326740 user_id=55]
Mike McCormick, the first National League Cy Young winner (in 1967, when the award was split in two), 81. Was, for years, the youngest-living New York Giant. Suffered from Parkinson's.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Mike McCormick, the first National League Cy Young winner (in 1967, when the award was split in two)....

Good lord, what a dreadfully nenaderthalish vote. McCormick led the NL in Wins in '67, yet finished outside of the top 10 in virtually every other pitching category.



RIP



https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1967-pitching-leaders.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/NL/1967-pitching-leaders.shtml

[G-Fafif]

Eddie Kasko, who managed the Red Sox directly after pennant-winner Dick Williams and directly before pennant-winner Darrell Johnson, 88. Four seasons, 1970-1973, all winning records.

[MFS62]

=G-Fafif post_id=39300 time=1593071545 user_id=55]
Eddie Kasko, who managed the Red Sox directly after pennant-winner Dick Williams and directly before pennant-winner Darrell Johnson, 88. Four seasons, 1970-1973, all winning records.

[G-Fafif]

Adrian Devine, Braves reliever in the ‘70s, 68, from cancer.

[G-Fafif]

Mike Ryan, catcher for the Phils, later a coach of theirs for a long time, 78.

[G-Fafif]

Another Phillie family loss: longtime infielder Tony Taylor, 84.

[MFS62]

=G-Fafif post_id=40588 time=1594914404 user_id=55]
Another Phillie family loss: longtime infielder Tony Taylor, 84.

[G-Fafif]

The UMPIRE Rick Reed — not the pitcher — 70.



https://www.closecallsports.com/2020/07/former-umpire-rick-reed-dies-at-age-of.htmlhttps://www.closecallsports.com/2020/07/former-umpire-rick-reed-dies-at-age-of.html

[G-Fafif]

Bob Sebra, Expos pitcher, 58, from organ problems.



Bob dealt the 1986 Mets their final regular-season loss, a complete game 1-0 two-hitter in which Mitch Webster tripled in the first inning and scored on a groundout. The Mets were 103-54, but I was semi-convinced they weren't going to score at all in the postseason after this game and the previous weekend in Pittsburgh (they swept but hit tepidly). Though they won their final five, I saw Sebra as a harbinger of Mike Scott and Bruce Hurst.



Earlier in September, Sebra beat Ojeda in a rare bad Bobby O outing, which turned out to be the last game I ever went to with my parents. Given that we were 19 or so games in front, it was the least bothersome 9-1 loss on record.

[G-Fafif]

John McNamara, manager of the 1986 AL champion Red Sox, 88.

[G-Fafif]

Horace Clarke, flagship player of the oft-referenced “Horace Clarke Yankees,” 81.

[Frayed Knot]

Ahh yes, the "Horace Clarke Yankees". From the inception of WFAN in the mid/late '80s through the early parts of their 1990's WS run, YLDB's saying that they were fans "from back in the Horace Clarke days"

was their version of claiming to be a 'long suffering' MFY fan and/or a badge of honor to differentiate themselves from the mid-'90s bandwagon jumpers..

I often wondered how HC felt about being tagged as the poster child for the only era in the memories of many fans when the team sukked.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Guest

[Edgy MD]

Better than Sandy Alomar, who replaced him at second after the Steinbrenner era began.

[Benjamin Grimm]

https://www.tcdb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/8664/8664-494645Fr.jpg>



https://www.tcdb.com/Images/Cards/Baseball/8664/8664-494645Bk.jpg>

[Edgy MD]

That Horace Clarke mask looks kinda creepy.

[G-Fafif]

Bert Thiel, 94, who was half of the remaining living former Boston Braves.



https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickdiunte/2020/08/02/bert-thiel-one-of-two-remaining-boston-braves-dies-at-94/#578af6943268https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickdiunte/2020/08/02/bert-thiel-one-of-two-remaining-boston-braves-dies-at-94/#578af6943268



Del Crandall is the last of the New England Mohicans, so to speak.

[G-Fafif]

Carroll Hardy, who pinch-hit for Ted Williams (which nobody else did), 87.



https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/sports/baseball/carroll-hardy-dead.htmlhttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/12/sports/baseball/carroll-hardy-dead.html

[G-Fafif]

Jay Johnstone, dependable fourth outfielder and staple of “characters of the game” features in his day, 75.