Results tagged ‘ january 25 ’
January 25 – Happy Birthday Steve Roser
He was considered the best pitcher in the history of Clarkson University, a small engineering school in northwestern New York State. Born in Rome, New York in 1918, his real first name was Emerson but his Clarkson coach started calling him “Steve” instead because it was easier to both say and remember. Roser had a choice to make in 1940. He could either finish his senior year at Clarkson or sign a contract with the Yankees. He signed the contract and spent the next four years pitching his way up New York’s minor league ladder.
Joe McCarthy put him on the parent club’s roster for the first time in 1944, and Roser pitched well enough to stick around the entire season. His big league debut came on May 5th of that year against the Red Sox. He relieved starter Atley Donald in the top of the fifth inning with the score tied and finished the game, which the Yankees won, earning him his first career victory. He got his first career start two months later and earned a complete game 8-2 win over the Tigers. He would finish that first season with a 4-3 record and one save and he earned good marks from McCarthy who kept Roser on the roster the following season.
In 1946, his slow start combined with the mass return of Yankee pitching talent from military service in World War II got the right-hander sold to the Boston Braves in early May. He pitched OK but sparingly in Beantown for a few weeks and then spent the second half of the season with the Braves triple A team in Indianapolis. Despite a good record in Indy, he failed to make the Braves roster the following spring and when he pitched poorly during the 1947 season in the minors, he quit the game for good. Roser returned to upstate New York where he and his wife opened a sporting goods store and a restaurant. Roser passed away in 2002.
He shares his birthday with this long-ago Yankee starting catcher and this one-time Yankee reliever.
January 25 – Happy Birthday Les Nunamaker
Les Nunamaker was the second starting catcher in New York Yankee history. He succeeded a guy named Jeff Sweeney who in addition to being the first starting catcher for the Yankees in 1913, had also been the last starting catcher for the New York Highlanders the season before. The Yankees purchased Nunamaker from the Red Sox during the 1914 season and immediately put him in the starting lineup. He set a record that first season with New York that can never be broken, when he threw out three runners attempting to steal second base all in the same inning. Not a great hitter, Nunamaker was a big burly guy who was fearless behind the plate. He caught for New York for four years until Miller Huggins took over for Bill Donovan as Yankee skipper after the 1917 season. Huggins included Nunamaker in a package of five players that he traded to the Browns for future Hall of Fame hurler Eddie Plank and Del Pratt, in January of 1918.
After one season in St Louis, Nunamaker was traded to the Indians where he became best buddy with and a regular fishing and hunting partner of the great Tris Speaker. He was also involved in a whacky moment off the field during the 1920 season. One morning he awoke in his hotel bedroom to find a wad of bills wrapped up under his pillow. Since this was just one season after the Black Sox scandal, Nunamaker immediately turned over the cash to then baseball commissioner, Ban Johnson. When the wad was unrolled it was found to consist of sixteen Confederate one dollar bills. Nunamaker played until 1922 and then became a coach and manager in the minor leagues. He passed away in his native Nebraska in 1938 at the very young age of
49-years-old.
Other Yankees born on this date include this former New York pitcher and this one too.
January 25 – Happy Birthday Dale Mohorcic
This veteran reliever was acquired by the Yankees from Texas in a trade for fellow reliever Cecilio Guante, late in the 1988 regular season. Guante had begun that season as a favorite and frequent late-inning pitching choice of Yankee skipper Billy Martin. But Martin had gotten fired in late June of that year and replaced by Lou Piniella. Sweet Lou was not as sweet on Guante as Billy had been and quickly lost faith in him. Mohorcic had been a closer with Texas and the big right-hander had just put together his best year in 1987 with 16 saves and 7 victories. He had however, gotten off to a horrible start during the ’88 season and it was obvious that both teams were hoping simple changes of scenery would be the elixir these two right-handers needed to once again get late-inning outs. Unfortunately for both clubs and both players, that did not happen.
A native of Cleveland, Mohorcic won two games and lost two more for New York that September and then appeared in 32 games for the Yanks the following season, going 2-1 with two more saves. But his ERA went sky-high that second season in the Bronx and the Yanks released him. He than finished his career with Montreal in 1990.
Other Yankees born on this date include this long-ago starting catcher and this former pitcher.
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