Results tagged ‘ august ’
August 26 – Happy Birthday Jayson Nix
When the Yankees brought up Jayson Nix in May of 2012 to take the place of Eduardo Nunez as the team’s primary utility infielder, I thought someone in the front office had made a big mistake. I agreed that Nunez’s defensive shortcomings warranted the demotion, but Nix had batted just .169 for the Blue Jays in 2011, making me think he’d be too big of an offensive liability to play very much. What a difference a couple of months can make.
I’ve now nicknamed Nix “the Caulk Gun” because he’s done such a credible job filling in the numerous cracks that have developed this season in both the Yankee’s offense and defense. Thus far in 2012 he’s appeared in 56 games for New York, making 24 starts. He’s played all or parts of 18 games at third, 15 at short, 8 at second and 11 in left field, plus he’s DH’d in a couple more. He’s been more than adequate defensively in each of those positions and he’s also hit a very respectable .250, while contributing some mighty timely hits along the way. About the only negative thing Nix has done since donning the pinstripes is hit the ball in batting practice that Mariano Rivera was attempting to catch when the fabled closer blew out his ACL.
The Caulk Gun was born on this date in Dallas in 1982. He came up with the Rockies in 2008 and in addition to the Blue Jays, he’s also played for the White Sox and Indians. His older brother Laynce is a big league utility outfielder, who currently plays for Philadelphia. Nix shares his birthday with this one-time Yankee third baseman.
August 25 – Happy Birthday Pedro Feliciano
It was another bad pitching acquisition decision by Brian Cashman. Pedro Feliciano had been the Mets’ ironman in the bullpen for the previous six seasons when the Yankee GM signed the lefty to a two-year $8 million deal just before Christmas in 2010. After watching the Red Sox add two more left-handed bats to their lineup with the signings of Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford earlier in that same postseason, Cashman knew he needed to counter by adding some left-handed pitching to the Yankee bullpen. At the time, Boone Logan was New York’s only southpaw reliever. Signing Feliciano was like adding two lefties in one because the guy had proven he could pitch just about every day. “Perpetual Pedro” had led the National League in appearances the previous three seasons, setting a new record by appearing in 266 games during that span.
The situation started smelling fishy when Feliciano reported to his first Yankee spring training camp with a sore left shoulder. Turned out he had torn the posterior capsule in that critical throwing joint and was shelved for the entire 2011 season. He hasn’t pitched in 2012 either. When the injury was discovered, a bitter Cashman blamed the Mets for abusing Feliciano by pitching him too much. Dan Warthen, the Mets pitching coach actually admitted the Amazin’s had not made any attempt to re-sign the guy because of his heavy workload history, but he denied the Mets knew about the pitcher’s injured wing. The ironic thing about the whole scenario was that the Yankees had signed Feliciano in part, because he seemed to have a left arm that never tired. You can bet the Yankees were planning to pitch him about 70 times last year if he had been available.
As his Yankee contract nears completion, there is a possibility that Feliciano may get a chance to actually take the mound in pinstripes. He’s currently pitching for the Yankee’s Gulf Coast league team and by all reports he seems to be throwing the ball well. With Mariano on the shelf, Joba’s comeback a bust thus far and a tiring Yankee bullpen, Cashman’s $8 million acquisition may actually still get an opportunity to pay some dividends.
Feliciano shares his August 25th birthday with this reliever who did get a chance to pitch in pinstripes and this former Yankee starting shortstop.
August 23 – Happy Birthday Sherm Lollar
Today’s Pinstripe Birthday Celebrant’s career initially suffered from poor timing. He started out as a catcher in the Cleveland organization right about the time the Indians’ Jim Hegan was just beginning to establish himself as one of the best defensive receivers ever. When he was brought up to the parent club in 1946, he begged management to send him back down instead of letting him rot on the bench. Instead, that December, the Cleveland front office traded the right-hand hitting Lollar to the Yankees.
Poor timing again. The Yankee organization and big league roster were both loaded with promising catchers. In 1947, they included Aaron Robinson, Ralph Houk, Ken Sylvestri and a young left-handed receiver named Yogi Berra. Lollar was sent to New York’s Newark farm team and he had a solid year with the Bears. The Yankees decided to give him a look-see late that season and ended up keeping him on their postseason roster. When Lollar got into two World Series games that year against Brooklyn and went 3-for-4 at the plate, his standing in the organization went up dramatically.
But the following year, the Yankees added the right-hand hitting Gus Niarhos to their big league roster and skipper Bucky Harris began platooning him and Berra behind the plate while Lollar again sat the pine. He got into just 22 games that season while Berra, who played the outfield when he wasn’t catching, had a breakout season at the plate, hitting .305 and driving in 98 runs. That’s when the timing in Lollar’s career went from bad to good. That October, the Yankees replaced Harris as Yankee manager with Casey Stengel. Though the Ol’ Perfessor would establish a legacy as the master of platooning, he would soon ignore that strategy when it came to Berra, and Yogi would go on to catch close to 1,700 games as a Yankee. Two months after Stengel got his pinstripes, Lollar lost his when he was traded to the Browns. In St. Louis, he finally got a chance to play regularly and quickly began to realize his potential. But after just three years there, Lollar was again traded, this time to the Chicago White Sox. It would be in the Windy City where this native of Durham, Arkansas would establish his legacy as one of baseball’s best catchers. He played a dozen seasons for the White Sox, and during the first nine of them, the team never finished below third in the AL Pennant race. Lollar’s career year was 1959, when his 22 home runs and 84 RBIs led Chicago to that year’s World Series, which they lost to the Dodgers.
Lollar would continue playing for Chicago until 1963, when he retired with 155 career home runs and a .264 lifetime batting average. He died suddenly from a heart attack in 1977, when he was just 56-years-old. In his NY Times obituary, the White Sox GM who traded for Lollar, the legendary Frank Lane was quoted as saying that trade was the best one he ever made. As Lane went on to explain, “Sherm turned out to be one of the best catchers in the American League behind only Yogi Berra and maybe Jim Hegan.” Some things never change.
Lollar shares his August 23rd birthday with this MLB’s first-ever DH.
August 22 – Happy Birthday Wally Schang
Wally Schang was one of baseball’s premier catchers for close to two decades beginning in 1913 and he was also the first of the long line of star players who started behind the plate for baseball’s most successful franchise. The son of a western New York State farmer, he signed with Connie Mack’s Philadelphia A’s team in 1913, when the club was in the middle of its first dynasty. He won his first World Series ring in his rookie season and then became the team’s starting catcher the following year. In 1915, he set a big league record by throwing out six would-be base stealers in a single game. A switch-hitter, in 1916 he became the first player in history to hit home runs from both sides of the plate in the same game. In addition to great defensive skills and above-average power, Schang had an outstanding batting eye. During his 19 seasons in the big leagues he averaged .284 lifetime but his career on-base percentage was a hefty .393.
In 1918, Mack made a trade with the Red Sox that sent Schang to Boston just in time to win his second World Series ring. He would spend three total seasons as starting catcher in Beantown before following his Red Sox batterymate, Babe Ruth to the Yankees in 1921.
Again blessed with good timing, Schang was Miller Huggins’ starting catcher on the 1921, ’22 and ’23 AL Pennant winners and won his third World Series ring on that 1923 Yankee squad, the first World Championship team in franchise history.
During his five seasons as New York’s signal-caller, Schang hit .297 and threw out just less than half the runners who attempted to steal against him. He hit .316 during his first season in pinstripes and .319 in his second. By the 1925 season, he had reached 35 years of age and was losing playing time to the younger Benny Benough. Just before the 1926 Yankee spring training camp opened, New York traded Schang to the Browns for pitcher George Mogridge and cash.
Determined to prove he could still play the game, Schang hit .330 during his first season in St. Louis and caught there for an additional three seasons. His last big league season was 1931 with Detroit, when he was 41 years-old. The depression made it impossible for him to return to farming, so he kept playing and then coaching in the minor leagues. As one of the Game’s best catchers of his era, Schang deserved a lot more attention in Hall-of-Fame voting than he ever received. He died in 1965 at the age of 75.
Schang shares his birthday with this former Yankee pitcher.
August 20 – Happy Birthday Brad Arnsberg
On August 5, 1987, the Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians, 5-2 to remain in first place in the AL East, a half-game ahead of the Blue Jays and three games ahead of third place Detroit. After the game, reporters asked then Yankee skipper Lou Piniella, what he thought about the performance of his rookie right-hander, Brad Arnsberg, who made his second-ever big league start that evening and got his first-ever Yankee victory. Sweet Lou took a puff on his victory cigar and praised the poise of the then-24-year-old, six foot four inch Arnsberg, telling reporters the youngster had shown a lot of poise out there.
Arnsberg had been showing a lot of poise since he first signed with the Yankees after New York selected him in the first round of the secondary phase of the 1983 MLB Amateur Draft. He had been assigned to the Yankees’ Greensboro farm team in the single A level Sally League and finished 12-5 with 4 shutouts in 1984. In ’85, the Yankees brought him north to Albany-Colonie, which is where I got to see him pitch for the first time and where he frequented the headlines of the Times-Union sports pages all season by going 14-2 for the double A A/C Yankees, with a microscopic 1.59 ERA. That got him a ticket to Columbus and triple A ball, where Arnsberg stumbled at first, going just 8-12 against the stiffer competition. He then rebounded to 12-5 for the Clippers the following year and everyone in the Yankee organization thought he was ready for the big show. His performance that night against Cleveland seemed to confirm those expectations.
Five days after that victory against Cleveland, Piniella gave the kid a start against the Royals and Arnsberg got hammered, giving up seven earned runs and three home runs against the Royals in Kansas City in a 10-1 Yankee loss. By then, New York had fallen a half game behind the Jays. They would end the season in fourth place nine games behind first-place Detroit who nipped ahead of second-place Toronto in September. Arnsberg would make a couple of more relief appearances in pinstripes but never again get the opportunity to start for Piniella or the Yankees. That November, the once promising Yankee right-hander became the property of the Texas Rangers, when New York made him the player to be named later in the trade they had made with Texas for Don Slaught.
After spending much of his first year with Texas on the DL and back in the minors, the Rangers put Arnsberg in their bullpen in ’89 and the following year, he appeared in 55 games, went 6-1 and saved 5, including Nolan Ryan’s 300th victory. That would be the Medford, Oregon native’s finest big leagues season. Within two years he found himself back in the minors and he eventually became a big league pitching coach for the Marlins, Blue Jays and most recently the Astros.
Arnsberg shares his August 20th birthday with this outstanding former Yankee third baseman.
August 23 – Happy Birthday Ron Blomberg
On April 6, 1973, Ron Blomberg came to the plate in the top of the first inning at Fenway Park with two outs and bases loaded during that year’s Yankee season opener and he was walked by the Red Sox’ Luis Tiant. “Boomer” thus became the very first designated hitter in Major League history. Blomberg, who was born on this date in 1948 in Atlanta, GA, might have been in the Hall of Fame today if there were no left handed pitchers in baseball. He hit over .300 against righties during his eight-year big league career and just .215 against southpaws. Unfortunately, a string of injuries limited him to one game of action during the Yankee’s 1976 AL Championship year and he was released by New York the following season.
On his Website, RonBlomberg.com, Boomer informs visitors that it was his boyhood dream to play baseball for the New York Yankees. He certainly had lot’s of options back then. According to his Wikipedia article, Blomberg is the only high school athlete ever selected to Parade Magazine’s High School All American Teams for the sports of baseball, football and basketball. When he graduated from high school in 1967, the Yankees made him their number 1 draft choice. Two years later, he was in the Bronx wearing pinstripes.
A dependable clutch hitter, I’ll always be convinced that Boomer would have been a key cog in the Yankee championship teams of the late seventies if he could have stayed healthy. He had a great eye at the plate and he didn’t strike out a lot. Being such a great athlete, you have to believe that given the opportunity, this guy could have learned to hit left-handers.
But Boomer just couldn’t stay off the DL. He had the knees of Mickey Mantle with chronically sore shoulders thrown in for good measure. Still, after the Yankees released him, he was able to secure a three-year , half-million dollar deal with the White Sox. His final big league season was 1978.
Blomberg shares his August 23rd birthday with this one-time Yankee catcher who had to get traded from New York to finally get some playing time.
August 20 – Happy Birthday Graig Nettles
The Dodgers and the Yankees clashed in the 1978 World Series. If you’re a longtime Yankee fan, older than forty, you simply don’t forget Graig Nettles defensive performance in Game 3.
The Dodgers had jumped ahead of New York two games to none and only “Puff” and his well worn fielders glove prevented them from making it three straight wins. He made four great plays in that game. In the third inning, with New York ahead 2-1 and Bill Russell on first base with two outs, Nettles made a diving stop of Reggie Smith’s smash down the third base line and threw Smith out at first. In the fifth, with the tying run on second, Nettles again victimized Smith by knocking down his screaming line drive, preventing the run from scoring and holding the Dodger outfielder to an infield single. The very next hitter, Dodger first baseman, Steve Garvey then scorched another one at Nettles who backhanded it on his knees and forced the runner at second to end the inning. Yet again in the visitors’ half of the sixth, the Dodgers loaded the bases and with two outs, LA second baseman Davey Lopes sent another hard grounder in Nettles’ direction. After another great stop, he made another great throw, forcing the runner at second and ending another Dodger threat. As he ran toward the dugout, the Yankee Stadium crowd gave him a standing ovation. Nettles won Gold Gloves in 1977 and ’78.
Born in San Diego on this date in 1944, he was the AL Home Run Champion in 1976 and when he retired after the 1988 season he had 390 career home runs. 319 of those blasts were the most home runs ever by an AL third baseman. Great glove, plenty of power, a quick irreverent wit and that Game 3 performance sum up my memories of the Yankee’s All-Time great third baseman.
Nettles shares his August 20th birthday with this one-time top Yankee pitching prospect.
Recent Comments