Hi gang. Two Wongs dont make a Right. Sorry, couldnt resist. Kolten Wong, the speedy, and allegedly gifted, Cardinal prospect got picked off first base to end Game 4 in St. Louis last night. Can I get an R Pat? Add an R to his name and you get...WRONG. Enough of the jokes. After watching the game last night, the first thing that came into my head (maybe the second thing because the first was a Felony, Murder in the First Degree) was if this was any time in the 1970s or 80s and Wong was on the Yankees, George Steinbrenner would have been in the clubhouse calling for Wongs head and his first born male childs blood. But, it is 2013 and Wong is on the roster of the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cards dont do business that way. They never have and they never will. It is the Cardinal Way to leave the kid alone to think about the situation without getting in his face. The Cardinal brass knows that Wong actually understands that he was in the wrong and has no excuse to make. No authority figure can tell he anything he does not already know. If the Cardinals really think that they have a potential star in Kolten Wong (and everything I have heard and read say they do) then they will treat this as a learning experience not a time to humiliate their own player. The Cardinals, from the Show Me State of Missouri, will tell Kolten Wong to learn from this experience and come to spring training in 2014 and Show Me why you are our #1 guy. That is the Cardinal Way. Thursday is Halloween. Lets scare up some baseball history. Ugh. Henny Youngman lives. 1. On October 28, 1953, Red Barber resigns as broadcaster of the Brooklyn Dodgers and, within a short time, takes his talents to the N.Y. Yankees for the 1954 season. Walter Lanier Barber was born in Columbus, Mississippi in 1908. Red was raised in rural Mississippi until he moved with his family to Sanford, Florida when he was eighteen. At 21 years old, Red barber (yes he had flaming red hair) enrolled at thye University of Florida majoring in Education. Red took a job as janitor to help pay for college. The college radio station, WRUF, was moments away from having an agricultural professor present a scholarly paper on the air when he was nowhere to be found. Someone at WRUF grabbed the janitor, shoved the papers into his hands, stuck him at a table with a microphone and told him to read the papers over the air. When Red barber was finished reading, Certain Aspects of Bovine Obstetrics he was hooked on a radio career. Barber changed his major, became the director of WRUF, assumed the role of the schools chief sports announcer and started broadcasting University of Florida Football Games that season. After Red Barber graduated from college he was hired by the President of the Cincinnati Major League Baseball Team, Larry MacPhail, to broadcast Reds games in 1934. When MacPhail moved on to the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1939 season he took Red Barber with him as the play by play man. The rural southern boy was now going to the Big City. Barber became widely admired for his down home folksy style developed growing up in a slower paced southern atmosphere. He was also admired and appreciated as an educated man for replacing Brooklyns dees and dems speech. Barber became widely known for some of many catchphrases like; rhubarb (a heated on field discussion usually followed by the ejection of a player or manager), tearin up the pea patch (going on a hitting or winning streak), bases loaded with FOBs (full of Brooklyns), sittin in the catbird seat (a term used by Barber when a player or team was on an exceptional streak of some kind, like three or four homers in a row or scoring five or six runs in an inning. The term came from a short story by James Thurber.) and many others. Many of Red Barbers catchphrases have been adopted (copied is such a vile word) by present day announcers like San Diego Padres Jerry Coleman a N.Y. Yankee 2B when Barber was doing Yankee games or ESPNs Chris Berman.) In 1948, Barber developed a bleeding ulcer. He need to take a leave of absence for a few weeks. Dodger President Branch Rickey (remember him, he brought Jackie Robinson to the Dodgers to break the color barrier in baseball in 1947) arranged for the announcer of the minor league Atlanta Crackers to be sent to Brooklyn as Red Barbers temporary replacement.(The Atlanta Crackers were an Independent minor League team from 1903 until 1950 when they became an affiliate of the Braves.) The Atlanta Crackers announcers name was Ernie Harwell, he would go on to have a 55 year broadcasting career, 42 with the Detroit Tigers, and become inducted into the Baseball Hall Of Fame in 1981. In return for Harwell, Branch Rickey sent Dodger catcher Cliff Dapper to the Crackers. Thus, the Brooklyn Dodgers traded a Major League catcher for broadcaster Ernie Harwell. Harwell would stay with the Dodgers even after Barbers returned from his illness for two years. Harwell left the Dodgers in 1950 to broadcast games for the Dodgers National League rival from the Borough of Manhattan, the N.Y. Giants. By 1950, in addition to his Dodger duties, Red Barber was running CBS Sports. Barber recruited a recent Fordham University graduate (for all you out of towners, the college is in the Bronx) named Vin Scully to do CBS football coverage. When Ernie Harwell left the Dodgers a few weeks later Barber put Scully into the Brooklyn Dodger broadcast booth. (There some people, me included that Red knew Harwell was leaving and it was he plan all along to get Scully into the Dodger booth.) Red began to teach the young Scully the proper way to broadcast a major league baseball game in general and a Dodger game in particular. Vin Scully is still broadcasting Dodger games. He is going into his 64th tear in the 2014 season in Los Angeles. Red Barber was the only person outside of Branch Rickey (and, of course, the Dodger brass and Jackie and Rachael Robinson) who knew about the Robinson racial integration plans. Red Barber had grown up and lived surrounded by racial segregation in Mississippi and Florida as a fact of life. Although he was an educated and liberal man Red was not sure if he would be able to broadcast Dodger games when Jackie Robinson joined the team. This preyed heavily on Barbers mind. After his meeting with Rickey, Red walked for hours pondering the situation he was being put into. When he finally went home to Westchester County, Red sat down to speak wiyth his wife about the upcoming situation. Reds wife was also from the south and Barber knew she would have sound advice. She suggested to Red that his worry was premature. She told Red that she thought he needed to observe the situation as it unfolded, whenever it came to pass, and evaluate it then. Red Barber took his wifes advice. Red Barber began to observe Jackie Robinson in spring training 1947, both the ball player and the man. Barber saw, at once, Jackies skill on the diamond but he also admired Jackies disposition and pride in the way he conducted himself against the viscous abuse heaped up him by the fans and the players. Red also saw the way many southerners like Dodger Captain Pee Wee Reese (who was from Kentucky) befriended Robinson and, not only, showed a genuine respect for him but treated him like they would a family member. During this period, Red Barber broadcast numerous World Series for Mutual Radio and NBC Television between 1948-1952. He frequently partnered with N.Y. Yankee announcer Mel Allen. Barber also called N.Y. Giants football from 1942-46, other professional and college football games on radio and TV, including NFL Championship games, Army-Navy Games and Orange Bowls. In 1953, he was to do the World Series on TV. Broadcasters, as was the custom back then, got paid by the sponsor of the program, which in the case of the World Series was Gillette. Red Barber wanted a higher fee than he had gotten in the past. Gillette did not want to pay a higher fee to Red. Barber looked for Dodger Owner Walter OMalley to go to bat for him with Gillette considering Barbers vast experience in broadcasting Dodger games, all he had done for the team since coming in 1939 with Larry MacPhail, all the training he had done for Vin Scully and all the egos he has soothed as a broadcaster with southern roots during the transition of Jackie Robinson into baseball. Instead, much to Reds surprise, OMalley refused to back him up. Red Barber refused Gillettes fee. To add insult to injury, Gillette hired Vin Scully to partner with Mel Allen for the 1953 World Series. Red Barber never forgave OMalley--just as the people of Brooklyn never have forgiven OMalley for moving their bekoved Dodgers to L.A. after the 1957 season. Red barber quietly packed his bags and moved his golden pipes and catchphrases to the Bronx to partner with Mel Allen doing N.Y. Yankee games starting in the 1954 season. If you like Vin Scully, you should thank the Old Redhead. It was Red Barber who taught Vin Scully the ropes about the proper way to broadcast major league baseball and to respect the fan. I personally loved listening to Red Barber especially on the radio (yes I am old enough.) When Red spoke it was as if you were sitting in Ebbets Field. It was like you were Sittin in the Catbird Seat, watching the left-fielder camped under A Can Of Corn or the shortstop fumbling he ball like it was slicker than boiled okra. Red Barber could paint a picture with words as well as Picasso could paint on a canvas. 2. On October 28, 1954, the owners of major league franchises vote down the sale of the Philadelphia Athletics to a hometown syndicate. Barely one week later, the they approve the sale of the As by the family of long time owner Connie Mack to a group headed by Arnold Johnson and also approve the move of the team to Kansas City. Major League baseball was comprised of sixteen teams (8 in each league) in 1950. Of those 16 teams, the 1950s would see five teams move to another city. In 1954, the Boston Braves (National League) moved to Milwaukee. In the American League, the St Louis Browns moved to Charm City and began play in 1954 as the Baltimore Orioles and the Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City to begin play in 1955 as the K.C. Royals. In 1958, both National League teams from New York, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants moved to the Left Coast. The Dodgers became the L.A. Dodgers beginning the 1958 season and the Giants became the San Francisco Giants beginning the 1958 season. Shortly, the Major Leagues will start expanding (beginning with the N.Y. Mets and the Houston Colt 45s in 1962) until there are now 30 Major League teams. The overriding question (and there are many) will be, is the talent of baseball now on the major league level too watered down? 3. On October 28, 1958, the City of San Francisco begins construction of a new baseball park on Candlestick Point. The City had agreed to build a stadium for the N.Y. Giants baseball team if they moved to San Francisco following the 1957 baseball season. The name Candlestick Park was chosen by the Giants team after a name-the-park contest on March 3, 1959. The new stadium will be the first built entirely of reinforced concrete. The Giants will play their first two years in Seals Stadium and move into the new Candlestck Park for the 1960 season. Then President Richard Nixon will throw out the ceremonial first pitch on April 12, 1960. The San Francisco 49ers Football team will move into Candlestick in 1971. The S.F. Giants moved into a new baseball only stadium called Pacific Bell Park (which was renamed AT&T Park) in 2000. The 49ersare scheduled to move into their own digs, to be called Levis Stadium, in Santa Clara, California for the beginning of the 2014 NFL season. 4. On October 28, 1961, ground was broken for a new stadium in the Flushing Meadows (Queens, N.Y.) The new stadium will be called Shea Stadium in honor of William Shea, a New York lawyer, who helped bring back National League baseball back to the Big Apple, after the Giants and Dodgers moved after the 1957 baseball season. The New York Mets will begin play in the 1962 season. The team will play their first two years in the Polo Grounds and begin play in the 1964 season when Shea Stadium is scheduled to be completed. The majority shareholder of the N.Y. Mets franchise is Joan Whitney Payson. Mrs. Payson and her husband, Charles Shipman Payson, were minority shareholders in the N.Y. Giants team for many years. Both Mr. and Mrs. Payson were opposed to the Giants moving to San Francisco after the 1957 season. After the majority of the Giants shareholders voted to move the team to California, the Paysons sold their shares and Mrs. Payson began working to replace the Giants (and the Dodgers who had also moved) with a new team for New York City. M. Donald Grant, the only other Giants minority shareholder to oppose the move, joined Mrs. Payson in forming a group that won a franchise in the new Continental League, a proposed third major baseball league. The National League responded to the threat of a third major league by awarding two new expansion franchises in 1961 (for the 1962 season) one in N.Y. and one in Houston, Texas. The N.Y. franchise went to Mrs. Paysons group. Mrs. Payson became the majority shareholder, the first woman to own a majority share of a major league team by purchase instead of by inheritance. The new franchise would call their team the New York Mets. Their team colors would be Blue (from the Dodgers) and Orange (from the Giants). Joan Whitney Payson, of the very prominent Whitney family, was an American heiress, businesswoman, philanthropist, Patron of the Arts, Fine Art Collector, Co-founder and Majority Shareholder of the N.Y. Mets and Partner in thoroughbred racings Greentree Stables and Manhasset Stables. Joan Whitney Payson passed away on October 4, 1975. Prior to her passing, she was especially delighted to accomplish two of her baseball dreams. The first, of course, was to bring back baseball to New York City. She did this through tireless work in securing the new National League franchise dubbed the New York Mets. The second, was to see the greatest player in baseball history return to his roots in New York City and play in front of the fans who first came to love him. This last baseball dream of Mrs. Payson was accomplished when she was instrumental in arranging and influencing the return of Willie Mays to New York baseball in May, 1972 by way of trade and cash from the Carpetbaggers, the San Francisco Giants. Joan Whitney Payson could converse with Presidents and Kings, she could have cocktails with Captains of Industry and Curators of Art Museums, she could converse with Heads of Religion and Political Parties, but she was never as happy as when she was one of the boys at a ball game. 5. On October 28, 1979, Dick Howser is named to replace Billy Martin as Manager of the N.Y. Yankees for the upcoming 1980 season. Howser would compile a record of 103-59 in winning the A.L. East Crown. However, Yankee Owner George Steinbrenner over-reacts and wants 3B coach Mike Ferraro (from Kingston N.Y.) fired after he waves Willie Randolph home and he gets thrown out at home plate leading to the K.C. Royal Sweep in the playoffs. Howser refuses to fire Ferraro. In a show of power, Steinbrenner disregards the seasons accomplishments and fires Howser. Howser goes on to manager the K.C. Royals from 1981-1986. Ferraro goes on to Coach for Howser. Dick Howser died of cancer at age 51 on June 17, 1987.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Oct 2013 16:48:48 +0000
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