My Thoughts on Vintage Baseball

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by WillowGrove

Thanks for your comments guys. Anyone else have their own random comments on vintage baseball?

I have one besides the fact I like the Dots Miller reference in your first post, don't know how I missed it.

I was just saying to my dad today it's sad how few people care about baseball history and the proof was in two articles I wrote for the Pirates website I write for yesterday. A story about a rumor about Vicente Padilla pitching for the Pirates scouts down in Nicaragua gets picked up by tons of sites and plenty of people discuss it(took me about 30 minutes total to write the story,if that). I post a bio of Claude Ritchey early this morning that took about 3 hours to write/edit and it gets about 1/10th the amount of hits. Makes me a little sick how big of a difference there can be between those two stories.

Oh well, I guess years from now the Ritchey article will still be interesting to a select few, hopefully, for the hobbies sake.

[Ladder7]

Fun thread.

I have this pc Im nearly certain it's 1904 Jimmy Collins and positive it's is Huntington. Why he's playing second base wearing Florsheims is anyones guess.

Wait, is that fellow sliding who I think it is?!

[timzcardz]

Great post!

Reading it reminded me of Andy Rooney. R.I.P.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

Peter that was fantastic!

I have spent the past year with a great group of fellow SABR members working on our Hot Springs Historic Baseball Trail which will debut this Spring. We will have 25-35 plaques around town tying those location to significant/fun baseball events here during our golden age of Spring Training 1886-1929.

Speaking of Rabbitt, he basically ended his lengthy career here jumping out of a second story window after refusing to pay for an evening with a lady of questionable repute. His ankle was fractured.

On St. Patrick's Day in 1918 Ruth hit a homerun against the Dodgers that supposedly covered 565 feet into an alligator farm.

I have had enormous fun over the years talking baseball with my Dad who turns 94 in a few weeks. He missed most of the heyday here but did see many players who continued to come for the thermal baths.

Hot Springs celebrated Cy Young Day on Feb. 24th, 1938 to thank Cy for still coming to town every year. That was on my Dad's 20th birthday by the way.

A fellow by the name of Ray Doan opened a baseball school on the old fields in 1933 right across the street from my grandparent's house. Dad worked there raking the infield, watering and such. That first year 11 future hall of famers were the instructors.

My Dad used a glove given to him by Jimmy Foxx for years.

While I never had the chance to see or hear any of these people being born in 1954 I have closed my eyes and wondered about them many times. I have used that link between my Dad and his Dad that did see the game and it's stars in the deadball era and beyond.

Did my Grandfather see Charlie Grant the black bellhop from here that McGraw tried to sign as an indian? McGraw was fined here for shooting craps on the sidewalk on one visit. Was he downtown when "Nuff" Ced McGreavy and "Honey Fitz" brought the Royal Rooters on a special train to see their beloved Red Sox on several occasions? He lived until 1968 but I was not baseball educated enough to ask.

My Grandfather was fined in 1938 while on jury duty when a woman hung that jury during the World Series. Papa wanted to listen to his Giants and he told her to "Either bleep or get off the pot, the games was about to start."

It was here in 1925 that Babe either ate too much or contracted whatever that led to the "bellyache heard around the world."

Dad as a child with a couple of his brothers ran into Ruth walking on the mountain a few times with several other players, I wonder who they were? The players gave them a nickel each!

Just some of my random thoughts.

I did have my baseball moment this past July while sitting at an Arkansas Travs game with my daughter. A fellow came in and sat next to me with a large back pack. He pulled out his radar gun and note pad. We began talking and it turned out to be Hal Morris. Best nine innings ever for me, he was a great gentleman.

[David Bender]

For what it's worth, I thought the Claude Ritchey piece was really interesting as all of your historical pieces have been. Thanks for writing those.

I read the Padilla piece too of course.

Originally Posted by z28jd

I have one besides the fact I like the Dots Miller reference in your first post, don't know how I missed it.

I was just saying to my dad today it's sad how few people care about baseball history and the proof was in two articles I wrote for the Pirates website I write for yesterday. A story about a rumor about Vicente Padilla pitching for the Pirates scouts down in Nicaragua gets picked up by tons of sites and plenty of people discuss it(took me about 30 minutes total to write the story,if that). I post a bio of Claude Ritchey early this morning that took about 3 hours to write/edit and it gets about 1/10th the amount of hits. Makes me a little sick how big of a difference there can be between those two stories.

Oh well, I guess years from now the Ritchey article will still be interesting to a select few, hopefully, for the hobbies sake.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by David Bender

For what it's worth, I thought the Claude Ritchey piece was really interesting as all of your historical pieces have been. Thanks for writing those.

I read the Padilla piece too of course.

Thanks David, the funny part is the Padilla rumor turned out to be just that, the Pirates denied it so it could've been just something made up by the agent to make it seem like their was interest in his client

On another note, love that Collins postcard above!

[Mark]

Originally Posted by z28jd

I have one besides the fact I like the Dots Miller reference in your first post, don't know how I missed it. I post a bio of Claude Ritchey early this morning that took about 3 hours to write/edit and it gets about 1/10th the amount of hits. Makes me a little sick how big of a difference there can be between those two stories.

Oh well, I guess years from now the Ritchey article will still be interesting to a select few, hopefully, for the hobbies sake.

I read your article on Pirates Prospects. In fact, I read almost all of them. You do nice work. I didn't comment on it because it makes me mad to think how we lost him in such a lousy trade to Boston. Anyway, that site is helping me get through another January.

[z28jd]

Originally Posted by Mark

I read your article on Pirates Prospects. In fact, I read almost all of them. You do nice work. I didn't comment on it because it makes me mad to think how we lost him in such a lousy trade to Boston. Anyway, that site is helping me get through another January.

I read that part of the reasoning for that trade was because of the Italian population in Pittsburgh at the time, Barney Dreyfuss wanted an Italian player to take advantage of that and his choices were basically Ed Abbaticchio or waiting around for the DiMaggio brothers to be born. The funny, or not so funny from a Pirates fan standpoint, is that the Pirates went 93-60 in 1906 before the trade and they drew about 395,000 fans. The next year they went 91-63 and drew just under 320,000....so much for drawing in the Italian fans with a star.

It was also said the deal got more one-sided because the Giants got involved in the bidding and Dreyfuss wasn't a big fan of them so he added more to outbid them. They also thought Beaumont was done as a player due to injury and Flaherty wasn't anything more than an emergency starter so they figured they were upgrading at 2B and giving up a couple of bench/bullpen options but they were obviously wrong.

The other thing I saw was that Abbaticchio was hyped up a bit so during a time with less scouting options and stats to go on, they may have fell for it. A perfect storm of poor reasons to overpay for a guy who sat out an entire season in 1906, you would think as a non-superstar that would've lowered his price! Especially since he was 30 years old at the time during a period when skills declined rapidly at that age for many

[Mark]

Fred Leib wrote that Dreyfuss was always willing to pay a fair price for the players that he acquired---I suppose that he had deals like this one in mind.