NY Times Writes "In St. Louis, Celebrating a Team Long Gone"

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By Hillel Kuttler
Published: October 19, 2013
 In the corridor of a St. Louis-area hotel last month, Sam Cash waited in line for autographs from members of the long-departed major league team known as the Browns. The signatures secured, he then sat at an adjacent table with his own Browns display that featured team trivia, a team time line and photographs of his favorite Browns player, Bud Thomas. Fans and several former Browns took a look.

Most of those attending the St. Louis Browns Historical Society and Fan Club’s annual luncheon that day were, understandably, in their 70s and 80s. Cash, a talented baseball player and Kansas City Royals fan, is 10.

Leaders of the Browns group — founded in 1984 on the 40th anniversary of the team’s first and only appearance in the World Series — know that Cash is an exception, that the clock is undoubtedly ticking on a 330-member organization dedicated to a sad-sack franchise that left town six decades ago to become the Baltimore Orioles.

Read the entire article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/sports/baseball/in-st-louis-celebrating-a-team-long-gone.html?_r=0

Two Big Leaguers and One Who Kept Trying

In 1950, a young Filipino named Bobby Balcena played in the outfield for the Wichita Indians, a Class-A affiliate of the St. Louis Browns.

Minor league baseball was just returning to Wichita after a 17-year absence and Balcena held the interest of the fans, batting .290 with 32 doubles, 12 triples and 11 homers for a 77-77 team that included a pair of young right-handed pitchers who would go on to make their marks in the big leagues – Don Larsen and Bob Turley.

In the minor leagues, though, Balcena played in 1,948 games. He had more than 7,000 at-bats and 1,995 hits. He played 15 seasons in the bushes, six of those after his call-up by the Reds.

Bobby Balcena

Balcena did get to play in some future major league cities, such as Toronto, Kansas City, Seattle and Dallas. He also played in San Antonio, Buffalo, Vancouver and Hawaii.

But he kept waiting for a call that came only once. The major leagues taunted and tease Balcena for many years. He was a .284 career hitter in the minors with enough extra-base pop to make him dangerous.

It makes you wonder what made Balcena so persistent in his quest to get to the major leagues. And it’s fascinating that 12 years after playing in Wichita, he was still bouncing around the minors in Vancouver, where he played parts of three seasons from 1960-62.

Balcena played more than 500 minor-league games in Seattle and, according to reports, is still fondly remembered there. He played in nine organizations: St. Louis Browns, New York Yankees, Cincinnati, Kansas City A’s, Baltimore, Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee, Los Angeles Angels and Minnesota.

Larsen and Turley, meanwhile, also spent more time than you might imagine in the minors, especially considering their success as big league pitchers.

Larsen, who pitched parts of nine seasons in the minors, hurled the only perfect game in World Series history, in 1956 for the New York Yankees. It came in Game 5 against the Brooklyn Dodgers. He will forever be an icon for that game, but otherwise his major league career was mundane, thanks to an 81-91 record and one of the worst/toughest luck seasons in big league history.
In 1954, the year the Browns moved from St. Louis to Baltimore and became the Orioles, Larsen was 3-21. But he didn’t pitch that badly and it was the only season of his 14-year major league career that he topped 200 innings pitched.

Larsen was just 20 when he pitched for the Wichita Indians and finished the 1950 seasons with a record of 6-4 and an ERA of 3.14 in 21 games.

Turley, meanwhile, was 11-14 as a 19-year-old in Wichita. He and Larsen were part of a trade from the Orioles to the Yankees in 1954 in what turned out to be a 17-player deal.

And also like Larsen, Turley had his best years in New York, winning the Cy Young Award in 1958 with a 21-7 record and an American League-leading 19 complete games. Turley also won two World Series games that season, including Game 7 against the Milwaukee Braves, 6-2. Ironically, Turley relieved Larsen in that game as the two former Wichita Indians teammates teamed up on a five-hitter.

Don Larsen Expected at Browns Luncheon 9/26/13

Mark your calendar for September 26 for the 2013 St. Louis Browns player and fan club member reunion. The official reservation notice will be sent out soon. 

Only in Baseball; Unusual Plays Happen Every Day

>>  1947 Pee Wee Reese is picked off base in an original way. When teammate Carl Furillo loses his bat in a swing, base runner Reese decides to pick it up and hand it back. He forgot to call time.

>>  Getting back to Larsen, the perfect game wasn’t his only brush with a no-hitter. Three years earlier he nearly had one as a rookie on the St. Louis Browns. On August 30, 1953, in a home game against the Senators, Larsen kept a no-hitter going until the eight inning, when Wayne Terwillinger broke it up with a single. In that August game, Larsen walked the leadoff batter and so never had a chance at a perfect game, but followed that up by fanning the next five straight batters. He ended the game with a two-hitter.

>>  1962 Hank and Tommie Aaron homer in the same inning, the first brother combination to do so since Lloyd and Paul Waner in 1938. Both Aaron brother homers in the bottom of the ninth inning to key a Brave comeback over the Cardinals. Tommie’s pinch hit solo shot makes the score 6-4 Cards. Shortly after that, Hank Aaron hits a walkoff grand slam to end it, 8-6. It’s the only walkoff slam Hank Aaron ever hits.

>>  1972 Bob Gibson hits a home run and tosses a complete game shutout. This is the sixth and final time he combines those achievements, which I believe is the record. Cardinals 7, Braves 0.

The 10 MLB Feats We Will Never See Again

#1 - A Perfect Game in the World Series (From a x-Brownie)
by Ray Tannock

Throughout each and every MLB season, the discussion always seems to arise over the next great feat to be achieved by a single player.

These feats are also—more often than not—indelible marks in the record books that sometimes seem unbreakable.

But within the mix of these conversations are also discussions about giant feats in baseball that will NEVER happen again, and I put together a top 10 list highlighting some of these feats.

I realize in sports that anything is possible, and you may find one or two here that almost happened, but most of you should agree that this list is basically a collection of feats that we will never see again.

You can read the other 9, but here is the #1 feat that will never happen again.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/405791-the-10-mlb-feats-we-will-never-see-again#page/11

1. A Perfect Game in the World Series

Pitching in any regular season is one thing to have to deal with. Pitching in a World Series is a whole different beast to burden.

So when we think of things like a complete game, a no hitter, or even a perfect game in a World Series, the chances of that happening again are slim to none, with emphasis on the none.

I know anything is possible in sports, but the level of intensity handcuffed to the World Series is monumental; the pressure to keep your team in a series competition—whether you are up three games to none, or down three games to none—is unimaginable.

With so much mental baggage loaded on the plane so to speak, pitching a perfect game in a World Series will probably never happen again. Pitchers will rarely even get a fighting chance, let alone achieve such a feat.

The last individual to do so was Don Larsen’s perfect game in Game Five of the 1956 World Series. It has never been achieved since.