Wesley Branch Rickey was born in a small Ohio town on Dec 20, 1881. His father was a farmer. He had an older brother, Orla, {B 1875} and a younger brother, Frank {B 1888}. His father, Jacob, was a very religious man, and the household was your typical pious Methodist family. Rickey finished grade school, but then labor on the farm called. He got help from a retired educator who…
Wallace Wade Moon, born 4/3/1930 in Bay Arkansas, was the son of Henry Albert Moon and the former Margie Leona Vernon. He was the second of their three children. Bay is a swampy hamlet by some railroad tracks. Henry was a factory worker who later became mayor of Bay. Henry would read every sports page he could get his hands on. Wally was named after Alabama football coach, Wallace Wade….
Earlier in the week I had a dialogue with MT and Bluto regarding the lack of confidence I have in RVS as a competent MLB Team Batting Coach. I have no doubts that his methodology can and does work for some, but each batter is different and needs a different approach. At least that is the way it used to be. I concede that the LAD method of hitting is…
Hi gang! I thought I would lighten the mood around the morgue and talk about a subject I know a little about. Beards. As I was looking through my baseball cards, I noticed the obvious. There is a lot more facial hair in the game today than when I first started watching the game. Clean faces were the thing. Back in the 1800’s, a lot of players favored wearing a…
Mark did such a great job in his tribute to Lasorda. It was moving and fitting. And as usual, it got me thinking of how many of those who influenced us in our lives have passed on over the last few years. I remember how sad I was when Duke Snider passed in 2011. He was 84 at the time, but I was glad that Duke had been alive to…
This season, our long drought ended, and the Dodgers brought home the trophy. What a great feeling. And over the last few years we have come close, and just fell short. But in the days before the present system was set up and league expansion, there were only 2 winners. No second chance at a title. Just two teams battling it out for MLB supremacy. Four times in their history,…
With the passing in the last week or so of Bob Gibson, Whitey Ford, and now Joe Morgan, I got to thinking about players who always seem to be at their best against the Dodgers. It has always seemed to me like some players just have another team’s number. Take for example, Willie McCovey. His BA against the Dodgers in 297 games was .241. He hit 45 HR’s and had…
I have had over the years many favorite comedians. Red Skelton, Robin Williams, Richard Prior, George Carlin, just to name a few. But there have been some people connected to baseball who I found to be very funny also. Probably the first I remember was Joe Garagiola. As most of us know, Joe played for the Cardinals and Pirates. He was a decent catcher, but not as good as his…
So I wrote and submitted this article to Jeff on July 22nd in the a.m. He then let me know he had a couple of other articles lined up and that it might be posted later this week. Then, the Dodgers go and sign Mookie Betts. Wow! I decided to leave the article intact with a few adjustments. ● I’m glad that I was proven wrong. I did not…
I’m going to come right out and say that I believe that Gil Hodges should be in the Hall of Fame. Much has been written about the subject and nothing that I offer here is unique or original to me. I will just say this, if a player can be voted in for being a tremendous person, then Gill Hodges would be a unanimous first ballot selection. I was too…