Baseball Passings 2014

[MFS62]

Jerry Coleman - player and HOF broadcaster - 89
http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/entertainment&id=9382658&rss=rss-ktrk-article-9382658
RIP
Later

[Frayed Knot]

Coleman's announcing could rival Ralph in quantity of malapropisms.


Nice careers: on the field, in the booth, and in the military.

[G-Fafif]

Somewhere, Rich Folkers is throwing up in the bullpen.

[Edgy MD]

Only MLBer to see combat in both World War II and Korea.

That's something all by itself.

[G-Fafif]

Ken Levine remembers his friend and colleague.

He was your favorite uncle. Always cheerful, always there for you. His passion for the game of baseball was infectious and his zest for life was inspiring. Other than having to broadcast meaningless spring training games, I can�t think of anything Jerry Coleman didn�t view in a positive light. You can see why it was such a pleasure to be around this man. He was also incredibly humble. To baseball fans of a certain age, Jerry was a God in New York. Whenever we would go into New York to play the Mets, the pressbox attendants and TV tech people treated Jerry as if he were Prince Charles. And yet he always downplayed it. He shook everyone�s hand, asked how they were, and joked with them.

[G-Fafif]

KO on JC...

[youtube:328jhwqz]t-OHPjIsisI[/youtube:328jhwqz]

[Frayed Knot]

When Olbermann is good he's really good.
That this was not only a good memory of Jerry Coleman but probably the only mention of Jerry Coleman on ESPN is another point in his favor here.

[MFS62]

Thank you for posting that.
Lovely tribute.
Semper Fi.

Later

[Edgy MD]

What's the point of being angry about the malapropisms, though? (And while repeating three of the top ones?) The longest list you saw had 67 of them --- this suggests you've done some reading yourself.

To their credit, more than a few obituaries seem to have worked around that or made clear that he was far more than the malapropisms.

[dgwphotography]

Thank you for sharing that - that was so wonderful, a bunch of dust flew into my eyes...

[G-Fafif]

Jorge Arangure, Jr., grew up in San Diego. For him, Jerry Coleman was very much Bob Murphy.

Coleman had been there through all the lows -- and there have been many of them -- and some of the rare highs, moments made more special because Coleman was there to call them. "Nettles to Wiggins, and the Padres have won the National League Pennant! Oh, Doctor!" was Coleman's call in 1984 when San Diego upset the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series to advance to its first World Series. I vividly remember exactly where I was when I heard Coleman utter those words. As a young boy growing up in south San Diego, I had the responsibility of being the scorekeeper for my father's semi-pro men's adult league team in Tijuana. It so happened that one of the games fell on the same day as the deciding Game 5. I never thought twice about skipping out on my scorekeeping responsibilities, because I knew Coleman would describe the game to me on the radio as well as anyone would on television. So I took my small G.I. Joe transistor radio and listened to the game while in the dugout keeping score. I excitedly listened to Coleman describe San Diego's surprising late-inning comeback. Then, when the game was coming to a close, the group of semi-pro players gathered around my little radio to hear Coleman's call of those final outs. When it was over, we all jumped up and down in joy, knowing that our lovable losing Padres had finally made it to the World Series. From that moment on, I tried to relive Nettles to Wiggins again and again in my backyard by bouncing a tennis ball against the wall and pretending I was making that final out throw to second base. Nettles to Wiggins. Each time I would shout "Oh, Doctor!" pretending that Coleman was using his signature catch phrase. If I close my eyes now, I can still hear Coleman's call rattle around in my head. Coleman's death is truly an end of an era in San Diego sports history, one of those heartbreaking signs that life moves on more quickly than you hope or wish that it would. Coleman wasn't the greatest game caller, and his mistakes become almost legendary -- at times he'd mistake a shallow pop fly for a fly ball to the warning track -- but that wasn't the point. Every night for 162 games, during his peak game calling years, you could count on Coleman to describe the action, to bring you close to the games on the days and nights when you were at school, or working, or were supposed to be asleep in bed but instead had snuck a small G.I. Joe transistor radio into your bed to listen to the final few innings. Announcers play a unique role in people's lives. They are the caretakers of the game. For many fans, announcers become as important as the players themselves. Of course the dynamic has changed. Technology has brought new ways to track games. In Coleman's day, most games weren't televised, so you were forced to listen to the radio in order to know what was happening on the field. But that wasn't a bad thing. You wanted to listen to Coleman. You wanted to hear the "Oh Doctors!" Now, most every game is televised, and fans can chose to watch on television, on their computer or on their smart phones or tablets. Fans on the East Coast can watch games from the West Coast. If you don't have the time to listen or watch, then there are gamecasts on most every major sports website. It's never been better to be a sports fan. Yet the one constant is that while national broadcasts are often slicker and better produced, hometown announcers still play an important role. In reliving a historic moment, fans still want to hear the hometown call. The Dodgers may very well win the World Series next year, and you can be assured that any Dodger fan worth their salt will want to hear Vin Scully call the final outs of the game rather than listen to the Fox broadcast. That's the way it was with Coleman too. It wasn't an important San Diego baseball moment unless you heard him call it.

[Zvon]

dgwphotography wrote: Thank you for sharing that - that was so wonderful, a bunch of dust flew into my eyes...

ditto.

[Edgy MD]

You think his liberal use of the term "Doctor" was something he picked up from Casey?

[Lefty Specialist]

Edgy MD wrote: Only MLBer to see combat in both World War II and Korea. That's something all by itself.

Ted Williams would disagree.

[Edgy MD]

Well, his head might disagree, if it were revived, but I imagine his head would be the first to tell you that his World War II service was all stateside. He trained a lot of men for combat as a flight instructor, but never received any orders to ship out himself.

[Theoldmole]

"Oh, Doctor!" Was Coleman's homage to Red Barber.

[Edgy MD]

Nice.

[G-Fafif]

Bill Conlin, whose Spink award was overshadowed by revelations that he was the worst kind of creep, 79.

[Edgy MD]

The Other Shoe That Won't Stop Falling

I hope that craziness led to some reflection by whatever body has been responsible for the Spink Award, and in the future they will try and reward quality work instead of the longest surviving blowhard.

Conlin was embarrassing (like Madden is) long before anybody ever accused him of being a ped. And when we reward that sort of work, we perpetuate it.

[G-Fafif]

Bill Conlin to Roger Angell in three years' time. Something's improving via the BBWAA.

Dennis D'Agostino, former Jay Horwitz assistant (later director of Knicks PR) and author of the indispensable This Date in New York Mets History, was completing his loving oral history of Conlin-era beat writers (Gammons, Madden, Maury Allen, Chass, Phil Pepe, Stan Isaacs among others), Keepers Of The Game (sort of an update on Jerome Holtzman's No Cheering In The Press Box), just as the story broke. He explained in the foreword that Conlin was a gracious, wonderful interview, but he decided against using it in the book in light of who he turned out to be.

[Edgy MD]

G-Fafif wrote: Bill Conlin to Roger Angell in three years' time. Something's improving via the BBWAA.

True that.

I was thinking about Conlin's lament that he had hoped to retire earlier but the paper made him an offer he couldn't refuse, and thinking about how men (and women too, I'm certain, but certainly men) get trapped by their own bullshit. We reward them for their worst and their cruelest because it looks like courage and manly swagger, and their worst and cruelest grows and takes over even as they become dimly aware how hateful it all is.

How many papers have there been in the last 10 years barely hanging on, with their last draw bringing hits to their site being their signature ancient loathsome blowhard sideshow of a sports columnist?

[G-Fafif]

From December, but just came across it today: Jim Burton, 64, pitched for the Red Sox in the storied 1975 World Series. Was traded to the Mets in the spring of '78 for Leo Foster. He pitched for Lynchburg and Tidewater that season before calling it a career.

[G-Fafif]

Eddie O'Brien, 83, known as much for being a twin as a Pirate.

[Frayed Knot]

Was also known as a Pilot, or at least as a coach for them to a generation of BALL FOUR readers.

[G-Fafif]

Dr. Frank Jobe, 88, the Tommy John surgery guy.

Remember him when Matt Harvey comes back.

[Edgy MD]

Don't have time to read his obit, and maybe it's in there, but I wonder who his last patient was.

Wouldn't it be something if it was like Captain America, and all knowledge of the procedure died with Jobe? A dozen years from now, pitchers would be dropping like flies like they used to, and some mook like Jeremy Hefner would still be bringing it, and announcers would be reverently speaking of the last active Jobe-repaired elbow.

[G-Fafif]

Charley Feeney, longtime Pittsburgh writer, 89. Have to admit that for years I confused/conflated him with Charles "Chub" Feeney, the NL president between the serendipitous years of 1969 and 1986. But this Feeney had quite the career of his own.

Mr. Feeney spent 41 years in the business, starting in 1946 after he served two tours of duty in the Pacific with the Navy during World War II. He received the Bronze Star for his work as a radio man on the aircraft carrier USS Essex. The son of a New York newspaper man, he went to work after school as a messenger boy for the old New York Sun before the war. Mr. Feeney began covering the New York Giants baseball team in 1951, and he covered the playoff game in which Bobby Thomson put the Giants into the World Series with a ninth-inning home run against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Mr. Feeney moved on to cover the Yankees, the Mets and the NFL's Giants for the New York Journal American. When that paper folded, Post-Gazette sports editor Al Abrams hired him to cover the Pirates in 1966. There, he covered two World Series winners, the death of Roberto Clemente and baseball's 1980s drug scandal in Pittsburgh. He also met what would become his best friend, a little pitcher for the Pirates, Elroy Face. The two met in Mr. Feeney's first spring training covering the Bucs in 1966. Mr. Face invited Mr. Feeney and his wife, Bea, to a party at his house and they hit it off. "He never knocked anybody unless they deserved it," Mr. Face recalled Monday about his friend's coverage of the Pirates. Covering baseball was quite different in Mr. Feeney's time. There was no World Wide Web, no Twitter, no "chats." But Mr. Feeney's work day was full. He arrived at the ballpark at mid-afternoon and filed an early story for the old Post-Gazette "bulldog" evening edition that would go on sale in the ballpark before that night's Pirates game ended. He then had at least two separate deadlines to meet after the game ended. He also served as one of two official scorers who alternated at home games. He called everyone, even his close friends, "Pally" because he was not good at remembering names and he did not want to offend anyone. Naturally, he earned that nickname himself, leading to this famous exchange when he phoned the Post-Gazette one night and clerk Danny Palmer answered. "Pally," Mr. Feeney addressed him. "This is Pally, get me Pally." Mr. Feeney's Spink Award at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., includes a brief bio about him along with this descriptive paragraph: "Highly respected for his integrity, knowledge of the game and journalistic skills, Feeney thrived under the pressure of A.M. deadlines. He had a unique ability to satisfy readers and please editors while simultaneously maintaining a positive relationship with ballplayers and front office personnel, earning their confidence and trust."

BTW, if he was covering the Giants in 1951, he surely crossed paths with the other Charles Feeney, who was Horace Stoneham's nephew and VP before moving on to run the NL.

[Edgy MD]

Bob Welch, Dodger champ and the last guy to win as many as 27 games with the 1990 A's, passes away at 57 (10 years younger than the rock star Bob Welch was). Cause of death not yet announced.

The 1990 Cy Young Award was a hotly contested subject among my friends and me, but 27 is a big number.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I thought this was a cool bb card.

[Edgy MD]

Makes my long-assed list of pitchers who were every bit as accomplished as Jack Morris, or better, who got little or nothing with regard to Hall of Fame consideration.