Big Things Happening on June 2; Browns Pitcher Steals Home

This was a big day in baseball history, over a number of years. 

On this day in 1903, the Pittsburgh Pirates won a tripleheader against the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In 1925, New York Yankee Lou Gehrig played the first game in what would become his streak of 2,130 straight games.

In 1950, pitcher Harry Dorish of the St. Louis Browns stole home plate against the Washington Senators. No American League pitcher has stolen home since.

In 1958, Baltimore Oriole Brooks Robinson hit into the first of his four career triple plays, a major league record.

Also in 1958, New York Yankee pitcher Whitey Ford struck out six consecutive batters, tying the then-American League record for the second time, having struck out six in a row in 1956.

In 1989, Cincinnati Red Eric Davis hit for the cycle — a single, double, triple and home run.

In 1990, Seattle Mariner Randy Johnson pitched a no-hitter in a 2-0 victory against the Detroit Tigers.

Browns Fan Club Shows Up in Springfield.

Saturday, May 17 was opening day for the Springfield Missouri Metro Baseball League. On hand were former players Phil Gagliano and Jerry Buchek from the 1964 Cardinals along with Diego Segui and Jay Hankins from the KC Athletics. Also joining the group was Bud Thomas from the St. Louis Browns. Browns Fan Club President said the welcome Bud got was the longest and the loudest applause from the fans.

Bill Rogers, President of the Browns Fan Club and Jim Jay from the Kansas City Baseball Historical Society were also in attendance. Congratulations to all.

Springfield Metro Baseball Director, Rob Ginocchio, said, "The important thing is we are trying to make it fun. This year we are trying to teach them history at the same time, by using the old time uniforms and using wooden bats only and some different things."

The teams wore retro uniforms representing the Browns, Cardinals and other teams. Rogers said, "I must have had 40 boys in various uniforms shake my hand thanking me and the Browns for being there on their opening day. I never felt as proud. It was a great event and being a part of it.

Click on photos to enlarge.

A Modest Proposal for St. Louis: Speak of 'St. Louis' Records, not 'Franchise' Records

I would like to see Cardinals' and Browns' records be essentially combined to determine "all St. Louis" all-time leaders.  The Orioles do not in most cases include Browns records in franchise records.  My logic is: if an exploit was committed by a Brownie or committed by a Cardinal, St. Louis fans will have seen both.  So why not include both?

Thus, statistics such as this, which include 1880s St. Louis Brown stockings records, which the Cardinals do not even acknowledge as being a contiguous franchise (all the hats say "Establish 1892"), why not include the American League Browns?

So, I will start.
Q: Who is the all-time St. Louis leader for hits in a season?
A: George Sisler, 1920, 257.

Bobo Holloman Pitches No-Hitter in First Major League Game

Bobo Holloman played for one season in the American League with the St. Louis Browns in 1953. In 22 career games, Holloman pitched 65.1 innings and posted a win-loss record of 3–7 and a 5.23 earned run average (ERA).

Bobo Holloman

 

Holloman served in World War II before starting his professional baseball career. From 1946 to 1952, he gradually rose up the minor leagues, and got a spring training invitation from the Chicago Cubs in 1950. After the 1952 season, he was signed by the St. Louis Browns, who played him on the major league roster. He made his debut April 18, and in his first start on May 6, he threw a no-hitter, one of two players to do so in his first start. Holloman played in 22 games that season for the Browns before being released. He spent the rest of 1953 and 1954 in the minor leagues before retiring from the game. (Click on all photos to enlarge)

Mets Break Record of Browns Set in 1914

When Jenrry Mejia grounded out to end the third inning Saturday night, he helped Mets pitchers make history. Said Mets pitchers have, at this writing, begun the 2014 season by going 0-for-46 at the plate. That's a modern-day record (i.e., from 1900 onward).

The current Mets had been tied with the 1914 St. Louis Browns, whose pitchers went hitless in their first 45 ABs of the season. The 1932 Red Sox check in at third with a 0-for-44 start.

Browns No-Hit Trivia on Today's Date

1917 — Bob Groom of the Browns duplicated teammate Ernie Koob's feat of the previous day by pitching a 3-0 no-hit victory against the Chicago White Sox in the second game of a doubleheader in St. Louis.

1953 — Bobo Holloman of the St. Louis Browns pitched a 6-0 no-hitter against the Philadelphia Athletics in his first major league start. He never pitched another complete game in the majors.

How the Browns Helped the Orioles Acquire Frank Robinson

Bob Turley and Don Larsen were Brownies  ....

... and two hot right-handed pitching prospects as ever there was.  But the Orioles traded them to the Yankees for Willie Miranda, in 1955

(who, by the way, was an ex-Brown traded away to the Yankees by Bill Veeck)

Willy Miranda (his preferred spelling) was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers in 1960 for Jim Gentile

... who was traded in 1963 to the Kansas City Athletics for Norm Siebern (another left-handed-hitting first baseman)

… who was traded to the California Angels December 2, 1965 for Dick Simpson….

yes, THIS Dick Simpson:

and a week later, the Orioles dangled him before the eyes of Cincinnati Reds general manager Bill DeWitt Sr.,  who found the 1965 Angels Rookie Star too good to resist, so he promptly traded

for him (plus Milt Pappas and Jack Baldschun).  "Surely a young Dick Simpson will eventually make up for that hole in the outfield," Dewitt must have thought.   

And just like that, F. Robby was a Brownie, er.... Oriole. (Frank doesn't look very happy about the trade. The Reds recently won a pennant, but the Orioles haven't won one since since 1944.  And then they weren't even the Orioles, but rather the Browns.  But Frank will be happy with the trade soon enough.  It sucks to have a receding hairline. General managers think you are old.  And shaved heads to hide it won't be in style for another 40 years yet.)

So to Review, 

 += .

And that is how the Browns helped the Orioles acquire Frank Robinson, Hall of Famer.



[Another Brownie connection, this one quite real: Jim Russo -- the scout who'd been trying to get the Orioles to make the deal for Robinson since 1961 -- was the last employee of the Browns still with the club.  ~Ed.]

From Brewers to Browns to Orioles

1901: When the National League got rid of four teams it opened the door for a second Major League. Ban Johnson, who was the President of the minor Western League, decided to step up his league to the next level. He placed teams in cities that the NL just shunned, and other teams were placed in NL cities to create a rivalry. 

With all this moving around only two cities survived from the Western League, and that was Detroit which was about to have a boom thanks to the Automobile Industry, and Milwaukee which was years away from being a Major League city. 

Almost from the start of the season plans were under way to relocate the Brewers, this resulted in the club finishing dead last with a 48-89 record. The Brewers would move on to St. Louis the following season, and become the Browns. 

As for Milwaukee they would be a successful minor league city for years, before, getting another Major League team in 1953, when the NL's Braves moved from Boston. After the Braves left Milwaukee without a team again in 1966, the Brewers were re-incarnated in 1970. 

Ironically the Brewers moved from Seattle after just one season as had the original Brewers 68 years earlier.

The Legacy of the Browns/Oriole, Bob Young

April 16, 2014
The Baltimore Sun

The St. Louis Browns became the Baltimore Orioles 60 years ago on March 30, 1954.  Billy Hunter threw out the ceremonial pitch on the exact date of the first home game this year (2014).

Billy Hunter's outstanding double-play partner at second base was the late Bob Young, the only native Marylander to arrive in Baltimore with the former Browns.

Bob Young

Young played all or part of eight years in Major League Baseball, primarily as a second baseman. He played most of his career for the St. Louis Browns/Baltimore Orioles franchise.

He was first signed by the St. Louis Cardinals before the 1946 season, and appeared in three games for them in 1948 before being traded to the crosstown Browns in June 1949. He was the Browns' regular second baseman from 1951 to 1953, tying for the American League lead in double plays as a 1951 rookie with 118, and leading the league again in 1952 with 127.

He continued as the starting second baseman after the team relocated to Baltimore before the 1954 season, and was in fact the first player signed to a contract that year.

Casey Stengel, of the New York Yankees, paid Young a great compliment when he said: "Only two guys pivot properly on the double play — my fellow and the fellow in Baltimore."

As leadoff man, Young was the first Oriole to bat in the stadium on 33rd Street.

A Triple Play

http://m.mlb.com/video/topic/6479266/v32159635/nyytb-solarte-starts-an-aroundthehorn-triple-play/?content_id=&source=MLB&c_id=mlb&tcid=facebook_embedded_player&gid=2014_04_17_bosmlb_chamlb_1

This Day in Browns history, this day in *St. Louis* History

April 17, 1948: The first televised baseball game in St. Louis

KSD-TV (the longtime NBC affiliate in St. Louis)  broadcast the very first televised baseball game in St. Louis. Labeled “The City Series,” it saw the St. Louis Cardinals take on the St. Louis Browns at Sportsman’s Park. KSD purchased complete broadcasting rights for the price of four seats at the game because that was the amount of space needed to set up their cameras.

KSD-TV (now KSDK-TV) was the only television station in the St. Louis market, until WTVI (channel 54, now KTVI channel 2) signed on in August 1953.  Guess what that station signed on with?  A Browns game broadcast by a mic team that included Buddy Blattner, Dizzy Dean and Milo Hamilton!





Courtesy, Missouri History Museum

Ballpark Village Museum Features Cardinals & Browns Memorabilia

Click on Photos to Enlarge

 

NOTICE: We're recycling the Memories

Clothes Beating Clothes

As Jerry Seinfeld once said, it’s hard to justify remaining loyal to a team with players constantly changing sides. ''You're actually rooting for the clothes, when you get right down to it," he said. "You are standing and cheering and yelling for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city.”

Eddie Gaedel Jersey Returns Home

Not only was the famous '1/8' St. Louis Browns jersey housed at the National Baseball Hall of Fame a hit jersey, it was his jersey. Bill DeWitt Jr. wore it before Eddie Gaedel did.

Bill DeWitt Jr. has owned it ever since.

And within the next month it's coming home, to St. Louis.

DeWitt, the chairman of the St. Louis Cardinals, confirmed this past week that he has requested the return of the jersey from Cooperstown. For years, he has loaned the jersey from Gaedel's famous plate appearance to the Hall of Fame for display there. But with the Cardinals opening their team museum and Hall of Fame in Ballpark Village, DeWitt decided to bring the Gaedel jersey home.

The distinctive Browns jersey has the action on the back instead of an integer. DeWitt's father, Bill DeWitt, had the jersey made for his son with the number of his favorite player Bobby Dillinger, No. 6. But when owner Bill Veeck decided to spark interest in the Browns with a ploy by giving 3-foot-7 Gaedel an at-bat, they needed a jersey. The "6" was removed from the younger DeWitt's jersey and replaced with the now-famous, "1/8."

That day in August 1951, Gaedel walked to the plate with a 17-inch, 23-ounce bat. He was told not to swing it. Ever. Not once. Gaedel took four pitches outside of his micro strike zone and walked.

He was replaced by a pinch-runner.

That was the total of his big-league career.

The jersey was returned to DeWitt, and even then with an eye for history he kept it. The Cardinals' collection set for the Hall of Fame comes from items acquired by the DeWitt family, some even from their private collection, and from a treasure trove of items donated by Stan Musial through the years.

 There is the ball from the first homer Musial hit as a grandfather. There is a ball signed by the 1926 Cardinals after the franchise's first World Series. Babe Ruth also, inexplicably, signed the ball -- on the sweet spot. The Cardinals have a jersey worn by Pete Alexander and one owned by Branch Rickey.

Now they have home for all of these items with the opening of Ballpark Village this month. The Hall of Fame and museum will open with the Cardinals' home season, on opening day April 7.

Gaedel's jersey will be back home for the festivities.

Derrick Goold covers the Cardinals and Major League Baseball for The Post-Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @dgoold or on Facebook at Facebook.com/BirdLandPD

Ballpark Village Opening March 27; Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum Opening April 4

After a number of curveballs over the years, Busch Stadium’s neighboring entertainment complex, Ballpark Village, is set to open its doors with a big reveal of Phase I on March 27.

The first phase of the project includes the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum, restaurant Budweiser Brew House, rodeo-themed cowboy bar PBR St. Louis, piano bar Howl at the Moon and Fox Sports Midwest Live!, which features a TV studio. It also houses five live performance stages and an outdoor festival space

Phase I opens a week and a half before the Cardinals home opener on April 7.

Here’s the schedule of special opening events, with more details to roll out in the coming weeks. For more information, visit stlballparkvillage.com.

MARCH 27

5 p.m. Opening ceremony

6 p.m. Private VIP party

9 p.m. Third Eye Blind on the Fox Sports Midwest Live! Stage, free

MARCH 28

11 a.m. Fox Sports Midwest Live!, Budweiser Brew House, entertainment venue Cardinals Nation and restaurant Drunken Fish open

MARCH 29

6 p.m. Cardinals Nation grand opening

7 p.m. Blues hockey watch party at Fox Sports Midwest Live!

8:30 p.m. Budweiser Brew House grand opening

8:30 p.m. Fireworks over Busch Stadium

MARCH 30

11 a.m.-5 p.m. Ballpark Village family fun event

9 p.m. Red Bull hospitality party

MARCH 31

11 a.m. Fox Sports Midwest Live! grand opening

3:10 p.m. Cardinals season opener watch party at Fox Sports Midwest Live!

APRIL 3

6 p.m. Throwback Thursday debut at Fox Sports Midwest Live!

APRIL 4

5-7 p.m. Inaugural Fridays on Clark event, featuring Dr. Zhivegas

9 p.m. PBR St. Louis grand opening

APRIL 7

10 a.m. Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum grand opening

Noon Ballpark Village Opening Day rally 

Bud Kane, Deceased

Frank (Bud) Kane

We regret to report that our long time Browns Fan Club member and Treasurer, Bud Kane, passed away on March 4, 2014.

Bud joined the Fan Club when it was organized in 1984 and served as its treasurer for 26 years. He’s been a Brownie fan going way back to the 1930s. Bud is also a member of SABR (Society for American Baseball Research). His business career, of over 40 years, was in the trucking business.

Bud was somewhat of a walking encyclopedia of baseball with a heavy focus on the history of the St. Louis Browns. One of Bud’s many memories was attending the first night game in Sportsman’s Park against the Cleveland Indians and Bob Feller.
 
There is no funeral as he donated his body to St. Louis University. More information on Bud's contributions will be in Pop Flies due out next month. 

_____________________________________________________

Dear Brownie Fans, Friends, and Colleagues . . . . From Bill McCurdy

I'm only ten minutes into the news that we've lost Bud Kane, so please forgive me if I cannot find all the words to fill the need I immediately had to reach out to all of you. I have only known Bud since 1996, the first year I came to St. Louis for a Browns banquet with Jerry and Mary Witte, but I can tell you this much. - Bud Kane was one of the big reasons I joined the club and kept coming back for several other banquets over the years. Like many of you, I felt like the lucky new kid on the block who just met the one guy who got me into the sandlot game that was already going on.

http://sabr.org/latest/memoriam-frank-bud-kane

Bud was that kind of guy. He made strangers feel welcome. And he helped those of us newbies who loved the Browns to quickly realize that , if we loved the Browns, we never were strangers at all.

Bud was a little older than me, but we came from the same Irish-American ethnic and religious pot that ladled its way all over the USA from the 19th century forward. We were children of the Great Depression, but summer citizens of the sandlot that once owned American kids in every city and state back then and in the immediate years that followed WWII.

Over the years, Bud and I have kept in regular, if sporadic touch, on everything from our shared sandlot experiences to the Saturday serials, westerns. and B movies of  Charlie Chan that we also treasured at our local neighborhood movie houses in the separate, but connected picture show worlds of St. Louis and Houston.

I already miss you, Bud. Now there's one less of us in this world who remembers both Baby Doll Jacobson and Al "Lash" LaRue.

Rest in Peace, Friend, The Big Field of Dreams Come True - is now all yours - in all you now do.

I wrote a poem many years ago about my own reawakening to the sandlot. I call it "The Pecan Park Eagle" - the name our gang once  gave to our sandlot baseball team in Houston. The poem wrote itself through me after my son Neal, then age 8. had gone to a nearby abandoned school to throw the ball around and play some flies and rollers.

On the way home, I thought I saw an old baseball in the weeds. So I pulled it out, only to find that it was only an old baseball cover. Still, I kept it as we headed down the two block walk home.

"What are you going to do with that old ball cover, Daddy?" Neal asked.

 "I have no idea," I said.

When we got home, I plunked the cover down on the kitchen table and reached for a pen and paper. The poem wrote itself in about ten minutes.

Thank you, Bud, for being open to taking in new old friends, even those of us who only found you late in each other's "Gasoline Alley" comic strip lives.

Love and Peace, Your Pal, Bill McCurdy