Baseball History Daily
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Heroes, Villains, Oddities and Minutia--The Forgotten History of the National Pastime. Thom Karmik is the author of the Baseball History Daily. A resident of Chicago's Hermosa neighborhood and Chloride, Arizona, he is a baseball historian and photographer with a particular interest in the 50 years of the game and the experiences of African American players in the pre-integration era.
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
John McGraw told The New York Mail before the 1911 season that only larger pitchers would succeed moving forward: “You, Know, the time has come in baseball when the pitcher of small stature will have little chance of making the big league. The constant use of the arm in pitching has a wearing effect upon ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
Johnny Evers’ 1913 Chicago Cubs finished a respectable 88-65 in third place, but the first-time manager was forever bitter about the season; Henry Farrell of The Newspaper Enterprise Association said, “he almost cried (and said) every ball player on the club, with the exception of (pitcher) Larry Cheney, laid down on him.” Never in first ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
Upon being named president of the National League in 1910, Thomas Lynch spoke to a reporter from The New York Telegraph about his experiences as an umpire from 1888 to 1902: “The personal discussions and individual adventures I had with the old-time ball players were innumerable. In those days umpires were not nearly as well ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
The Tabasco Kid had softened. Kid Elberfeld, a man so contemptuous of umpires he hit a few and once told John McGraw, “I intend to fight ‘em as long as I live,” as 64-year-old in 1939 said he’d changed. Elberfeld was asked by Val Flanagan of The New Orleans Times Picayune if he still held ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
Umpire Billy Evans wasn’t a fan of “hunches.” In 1925, in his nationally syndicated column, Evans said Lefty Grove was struggling after being purchased by the Philadelphia Athletics, and was being called the “$100,600 Lemon,” as Philadelphia battled the Washington Senators for the American League pennant. By Labor Day, The Athletics were seven games out ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
Mickey Welch was not happy In January of 1938, the 78-year-old future Hall of Famer couldn’t believe Joe DiMaggio was seeking a raise to $35,000 for the coming season. Current salaries were “scandalous,” he told The Associated Press, and having high-salaried players would be “damaging to team spirit,” by making the lesser players jealous. “’Most ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
A syndicated article that first appeared in The Cleveland News said of Addie Joss, then coming off his fourth straight 20-win season: “The Cleveland twirling star has batters guessing with his ‘false rise’ ball. The ‘false rise’ is not new. It was a favorite with (Old Hoss) Radbourne [sic] and at various times since that ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
Buck Ewing, during his final season managing the Cincinnati Reds in 1899, “wrote” a syndicated article regarding his, “study of the science of batting.” The article introduction said, “young players would do well to study,” Ewing’s conclusions and promised, “many an old League player could better his stick work,” by following Ewing’s advice: “Footwork has ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
Ollie Pickering told The Cleveland Plain Dealer in 1902 the lengths he went to get “discovered” and signed to his first professional contract 10 years earlier: “I went bankrupt buying postage stamps. I wrote to all the managers I ever heard of asking for a job and enclosing stamps for reply. None of them answered ..read more
Baseball History Daily
2y ago
Oscar “Flip Flap” Jones had a promising rookie season for the Brooklyn Superbas in 1903; he was 19-14 with a 2.94 ERA for the fifth-place club. He was 25-40 over the next two seasons. His major league career was over at age 25; he then spent most of the next decade pitching on the West ..read more