Baseball Passings 2012

[Edgy MD]

Came out of retirement to scab a little during the 1994 strike. Marge Schott tried to make him a model of what a real ballplayer is with the loyalty and the love of the game. Of course, he became a model of what a fake ballplayer is with the washed-uppiness and all, and it lent a meaningful discredit to the rest of the scabbbers.

I guess I should have appreciated the latter turn of events, but the affair was just so loaded with a plantation dynamic that it was more than a little sickening.

[Edgy MD]

Borbon in the archives:

Borbon acquitted of assault.

Borbon convicted of different assault. ("I sorry I bite you.")

Borbon plays symbolic role of how awesome it is to be a scab. (Note: The "Chief" Bender in that article is not THE Chief Bender.)

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Warner Fusselle, who used to host This Week in Baseball and associated syndicated baseball programs but more recently was doing the Cyclones radio broadcasts, died last night.

[G-Fafif]

Lovely remembrance of Fusselle by William Weinbaum here.

Less personal obits list the Virginia Squires as one of the minor league baseball teams he broadcast for. They were an ABA basketball team, of course. Fusselle, who had not only a rich, throwback voice but a dedication to precision, wouldn't have made that kind of mistake.

[G-Fafif]

Dave Boswell, 67, won 20 for the AL West champion Twins in 1969 and still found time to fight Billy Martin.

[Edgy MD]

Roger Jongewaard, former Mets scout who championed Darryl Strawberry, among others, succumbs to a heart attack at 75.

Jongewaard went on to the Tigers after the Mets and then to the Mariners. Helped build some damn good teams.

In 1987, the Mariners had the first overall draft pick. Owner George Argyros wanted to take Cal State Fullerton pitcher Mike Harkey. Jongewaard wanted a high-school outfielder from Cincinnati named Ken Griffey Jr. Jongewaard's judgment prevailed.

[Frayed Knot]

He was the scout portrayed (though I don't believe named) talking to young Billy Beane and parents in 'Moneyball'

[Edgy MD]

The actor looked the part, if I recall correctly.

[Farmer Ted]

Hawk Taylor. First pinch hit granny in Mets history. Now hitting them for Casey again.

[G-Fafif]

Mike Hershberger, 71, outfielder I remember from his 1967 Kansas City A's card.

[Edgy MD]

Great card. Looks like that guy still isn't shaving yet.

[MFS62]

My old pal Shoeless Don the White Sox fan must be very sad tonight.
RIP, Mike.

Later

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Red Sox legend Johnny Pesky, 92.

[MFS62]

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Red Sox legend Johnny Pesky, 92.

His full name was John Michael Paveskovich, which sounds Russian.
That's funny, I thought he was a pole.
RIP, Johnny.

Later

[Frayed Knot]

Looking over Pesky's record:
- he led the AL in both hits and sac hits as a 22 y/o rookie in 1942 while hitting .331/..375/.416 and was 3rd in MVP voting
- then missed all of the next 3 seasons in the military
- came back in 1946 to lead the AL in PA, AB, & hits and was 4th in MVP voting
- he led the league in hits in his 3rd season as well
- by 1951 at age 31 he had seven seasons played and was a career .315/.403/.396 hitter
- Boston traded him during the 1952 season and he was pretty mediocre after that, drifting through 3-1/2 seasons with Detroit & Washington before being released by Baltimore just before opening day 1955
- he played all of 1955 at AAA Denver in the Yanqui system and briefly in '56 in the Detroit system (possibly as a player/mgr or player/coach) with Durham in Class B ball before retiring as a player


I had never really looked at Pesky's record before. I knew of him as a long-time Boston icon and his rep as being a scrappy-type / no-power player as middle infielder tended to be described in that day. But he was a much better hitter than I imagined despite being robbed of three prime years and until falling off pretty quickly by his early 30s.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, Bill James did an essay speculating that the pattern of Hall of Fame inductions suggests that there is a depression among WWII-era players and that there are a cool dozen players who would have been in the Hall of Fame, hadn't an important chunk of his career --- or perhaps the bulk or totality of it --- been otherwise taken from him. Acknowledging that some of these may have been teenagers killed in action whose game we never really got to see, he came up with the dozen best candidates. Pesky was fourth, right behind Dom DiMaggio.

Speaking of Dom DiMaggio, he, Pesky, and Ted Williams leave Bobby Doerr as the last of them.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Yankees not being douchebags.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Mets � Willets Point wrote: Yankees not being douchebags.

And if you haven't heard this one yet, that's one goddamn beautiful scoreboard. A scoreboard like it oughtta be. Big and simple.

[G-Fafif]

Champ Summers, 66, victim of kidney cancer. Enjoyed his time as a Tiger most, according to his wife; I remember him more as a Cub (drew a walk vs. Seaver in the 10th inning of the Joe Wallis Game) and a Red (pinch-hit for Pat Zachry, struck out in Seaver's last Shea pre-trade start).

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Champ Summers is a star in this violent video
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=5955859

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Champ Summers is a star in this violent video http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=5955859

Now this is spooky. Not only is Champ Summers from this video dead (see above) but news this morning is that the other star, Crazy Pascual Perez, was murdered in a robbery in the Dominican Republic. If I'm Craig Lefferts I'm watching my step.

[Edgy MD]

I'd never in all my baseball loving days guess that anybody would get the jump on Pascual Perez. That guy was one scary mean pitcher. Volcanic temper too. Everything was cool and then BAM!, Pascual wanted to kill somebody and four guys would be holding him back.

There were three Perez brothers in the big leagues --- the less ill-tempered (but still intimidating) Melido and Carlos joining Pascual. Yorkis was a cousin. There was a fourth brother, in the Mets system, named Vladimir. My boss at the time took a trip up to Little Falls to see the baby Mets play. I asked him how it went and he said it didn't go so good, as Vladimir started and got tossed in the second inning for headhunting.

Pascual was also known for missing his first home start for the Braves after getting lost trying to find the ballpark, circling the city for hours. Don't know how angry Joe Torre got, but he started Pascual the next night against the Mets and he went 9 2/3 innings in the Braves' extra innng win.

[seawolf17]

When I was a kid, I remember being fascinated that we had a Perez brother in our system. I wanted very much for him to do well. I used to play Micro League Baseball on the C64, and I had created a whole Mets universe; I played games, kept score, compiled stats, the whole nine. I still have oddly strong connections to guys like Chris Donnels and Lou Thornton and Terrel Hansen and Perez who did so much more for my fake Mets than they ever did for the real ones. I think Lou Thornton stole 100 bases for me one year.

Even now, a bajillion years later, I have similarly odd attachments to my Out of the Park Baseball Mets. Yusmeiro Petit won a few Cy Young Awards in one of my iterations.

[Edgy MD]

[Edgy MD]

While remembering Pascual's wonderful pitching and enigmatic and often self-defeating personality, we must pay tribute to his outstanding contributions he made to eighties pop-funk-soul outfit Cameo.



RIP, Pascual.

[Edgy MD]

Howard Johnson ?@20Hojo RIP Pasqual Perez...only pitcher I ever knew that could try to pick you off 1st by throwing BEHIND his back from the rubber...tru character

[Frayed Knot]

Longtime baseball exec, former Orioles & Yankees GM, and also AL Prez, Lee McPhail - 95

[G-Fafif]

Gail Harris, who on September 21, 1957, at Forbes Field hit the last two New York Giants home runs, passed away Wednesday, November 14, in Gainesville, Va., at the age of 81. He spent most of 1955, some of 1956 and all of 1957 with the Giants before being traded to Detroit for Ozzie "Call Your Sister" Virgil ahead of the 1958 season.

[G-Fafif]

Frank Pastore, 55, teammate of Cincinnati Red pitcher Tom Seaver. Dug the Lord.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Somewhere I have a VHS copy of a THIS WEEK IN BASEBALL episode from 1983 in which they ask Reds reliever Brad Lesley what's the strangest thing he'd ever seen in baseball and he answers "Frank Pastore's face."