Happy Day 9 to everybody! Today brings us three more players, and a whole team of south siders. George Culver had a nice career, and even managed to squeeze a no-hitter into his resume. It appears he was also guilty of shaving his eyebrow hair, and applying it to his chops to enhance the Elvis look. The other two guys both had special at-bats for expansion teams, along the way. Jerry McNertney, as you remember from Bouton’s Ball Four, was the catcher on that Seattle Pilots team. On his card, it seems that even as late as 1971, flying machines still left him rather bewildered. McNertney was one of the few guys that didn’t have any problem with the book when it came out, mostly because Bouton saw him as a choir boy, staying out of trouble. As for the special at-bat, it was McNertney who brought a close to the Seattle Pilots short history, striking out on Oct 2, 1969 to make the final Pilots out. The same year the Pilot debuted, so did the Royals. It wasn’t until th fifth game of the season, but Mike Fiore was the first Royal in history to go yard, off of Blue Moon Odom, of the A’s. Being a Cubs fan, I didn’t get to a lot of games at Old Comisky, but occasionally we’d do the Cubs by day, and take the train down to see the Sox that night. Of course, it might be best remembered for Disco Demolition night, where the fans destroyed the field in between games of a double header. Not only did the 50,000 drunks come out of the stands, but another 20,000 broke in through the gates to start the giant bonfire in centerfield. Tickets were 98 cents, and the beer just as cheap, so Bill Veeck had to know that wasn’t going to turn out well. Comisky did have some cool stuff, like that shower out in centerfield, where you always hoped some hottie would go to cool off. Comisky also hosted an NFL Championship Game, in the best year of Chicago Cardinals history, 1947. It also hosted four World Series, including the the famous 1919 Black Sox games. It wasn’t around for the 1906 Series against the Cubs, but the Sox played the 1917 and 1959 Series there, as well. The other one was actually the 1918 Cubs and Red Sox World Series, where Babe Ruth won game one in Comisky Park, because the Cubs thought Wrigley was too small for the event. For as long as Comisky Park was around, you would have thought somebody would have 100 home runs there, but nobody ever did. Carlton Fisk was the all-time leader with 94, which I guess is a testament to a park built to keep Ed Walsh’s pitches in play.
