2020 Hot Stove

Ryne Duren once hit a batter in the on-deck circle....

Dick Allen, another bespectacled player, once said “Bob Gibson would knock you down and then meet you at the plate to see if you wanted to make something out of it.”

KEY I am starting to wonder how old this LogCottage is,IRONically,I mean Bob Veale was what a 1960 something Pittsburgh Pirate?And I do believe as you type Rose and gamble you did do the chuckle and loved it and you are Mentioning guys that names you do not remember unless you watch a lot of old old games because you have nothing else to do.

SAC you have issue's with the real fisherman,how many Salmon have you caught in Alaska?Just wondering,IRONically.lol.

Interestingly, '68 was McLain's 30 win season and Gibson's 1.12 e.r.a. MLB chopped 5 inches off the mound and the game changed forever.

Key you lower that mound for any of those hitters and those before them and 400 BAs would of been much higher,Williams would of had a 1/2 dozen himself,how about the year he was at 399.55 going to last game and the Mgr.takes him or asked him out of the line up,they round up in baseball so that was 400,but the guys in here know he played a Double Header and ended up at 406.So now the real news of being screwed as a Red Sox in the 40s,he also had most homers and was 5 rbi's from triple crown,easy MVP winner right?

That happened to have been the same year Keys right fielder from the NY Yankees had his 56 game hitting streak and in the previous 20 years 5 players had hit 400+,so he was not really given much attention for his Dream Season,in fact Joe DiMaggio another guy who came from Sicily had twice the #1 first place votes over Williams to add insult to injury the Yankees met the Dodgers in the WS and even in Boston his feat was on the front page one day before the 56 streak and Yankees-Dodgers took him off the page.Another casualty of the Ruth Jink Boston had to live with.So you do not have to goggle it Williams went 6 for 8 in DH for his final average and now its going to the 79th season since he was last to hit 400 and is there going to be a season this year,we can only hope for a 400 hitter this year.

I missed my calling I am starting to believe,  sac you see you else IRONically came from Sicily???

You guys are great

”....mentioning guys that names you do not remember....”  WTF? If I didn’t remember them, how could I mention them?

JEG, IRONically, there is more to the DiMaggio legend. I don't know if his ancestry was Sicilian or just Italian, but he was raised in San Francisco of fisherman stock. Now, as for the streak; on the last out of the day the streak ended he hit a hard grounder in the hole and it was a bang-bang play at first. Umpire called him out. Rant? Rave? Go berserk? The answer "is none of the above". He accepted the call and trotted back to the dugout. Today you would have a player losing his mind and threatening the umpire, or running off at the mouth to the press after the game about how he screwed.The little known part of the story is that after that game DiMaggio hit safely in another 11 or 12 consecutive games. That streak could theoretically been near 70 games with a different call, but umpires did not just give away calls back then either.

Pete Rose openly hated the pitchers that ended his streak, and accused them of pitching him like it was the seventh game of the World Series. What were they supposed to do? Just feed him a meatball to (artificially) keep his streak alive? Punk City. Too bad we can't have a round table at a pub with a lot of old boys like LC and myself, the stories would be endless, as one inspires another, most of them true, or at least close to it. Who was that newspaper editor that said "If the legend is better than the facts, print the legend."?

Key, if you are looking for something to read, I just heard that Baseball Digest is making its entire online archive of over 800 issues available for free until 7/15. Apparently, they go all the way back to 1942. I haven’t checked it out yet.

Is there going to be a charge after that date LC?I was just curious if since alot of us are staying home if they are giving us some free reading material and then pulling it or could you have paid for it before for us old guys that do not use our phones for everything,

Key IRONically I did remember that he hit in a few games after losing the streak,but I had forgotten about the close play at first,between little league and up until high school ball,I played my share of games growing up,was a decent pitcher and was even looked at once,0ther than a couple head shakes about a non strike we would of never thrown a fit about a bad call,you just did not do it.Even a close pitch was a part of the game and if someone was testing you by standing on the plate you were suppose to get his ass off it,there was no charging the mound and getting hit by a pitch ball was all part of the game,now kids with get in fights over close pitches not to mention High School and College ball where they learn the art of a baseball brawl,which for you young-ins was being able to be part of a brawl and not get hit,just find someone to dance with you that looked like you were pushing and shoving,how IRONically is that.

LOGCOTTAGE I would hope you misunderstood my comment,I mean WTF,I was just surprised that you must be Key or my age,Key being the Elder spokeperson,Bob Veale was actually not a bad pitcher for Pittsburgh and as soon as I read it knew and remember him,I thought it was cool that you brought up his name,I had his card at one time, long ago,so I was not being rude and I remember both,but you if taken at face value as not being banter were being rude.jmho IRONically.

I didn’t take it as being rude. I just thought if you mentioned Johnny Roseboro, you would remember Bob Veale. Roseboro started his career years before Veale. And yes, Key & I are close in age. To answer your question, I believe they charge for their issues any other time, but are providing this as a free service only until July because of the current state of the world. 

IRONically, guys back in the day didn't overdose. They threw perfect games. They drank, smoked, gambled, woke up hung over and played baseball.

Today's players have to be careful of peanut allergies.

After watching this, why on earth would anyone want robo umps?

sac everyone was taking drugs back then,IRONically I was the only one that wasn't.

They should have a little corner or niche at the HOF for Bill Lee and Timothy Leary. Bill Lee was definitely a hippie kid that "experimented" more than a little. Remember what he said when interviewed before the World Series? "If this is the biggest thing in the world, why are they going to do it again next year?" Total air-head, probably came from JEG's neighborhood. 

I was in Berkeley and Haight-Ashbury in the late 60s,then a 3+ year trek across Country and settled in Conn.,did the Army thing in 72-73 and from that period I took alot of chemicals,which would of been from 69-73 and they talk about drugs in Calif.,but I was in Conn.and spent time in Cape Cod and was at a party once with a famous family that had a Mansion there.I was on Martha Vineyards for a couple months and I have to tell you the East Coast did not miss out on there share of the 60s lifestyle and being from Calif.back there was not the worst thing.

Now reason I tell you that story was your SpaceMan Lee had to of just taken LSD and in big doses,and though I saw some of Timothy Leary sugar cubes I stayed away from those,I saw people after taking them and my older Brother took 2 cubes and we were in a small town outside SF and it was all over town how he was freaking out from an LSD OD.It was awesome,he knocked up his Girlfriend to stay out of Nam and had a small Apt.for the 3 of them,there was 100 cars in front of his home and it just made it worse,we finally had to call the wagon to take him to the funny farm to get a shot of Thorazine and he was lucky he was only 17 and by 19 draft age he had 2 kids and he is the hardest person I know to get along with.And even he is not as loony as Bill Lee seemed to be.

Sac I heard that story about Doc and I have to tell you I can not even fathom pitching a MLB Game under that drug,how he even knew where he was and what was going on around him and being able to catch the ball though it sounds like his team-mates knew and would of tried to help him esp.since the game he had,and I know he admitted it but it is still hard to believe and we just figured that he did it on another game than that one but we did not see it as back than you could not see every game.

Those are the drugs stories I heard about and I saw some that were suppose to have come from that famous family but to me Timothy Leary was just a name in a Moody Blues song,great song it was BTW,but hell Key you were there at the start of that era,no telling what you ran across esp.in your circles.

Some hallucinogenic drugs give people lazer focus. Others freak out. Some laugh uncontrollably. Some get emotional. Some find the meaning of life in a bubble gum wrapper. Everyone is different.

Doc didn't remember much about the game. IRONically, memory, and the brain's main function of relaying info to and from the body are 2 different things.

While he can't remember it, he was pitching well. Did the lsd help his performance? Maybe. I vote yes.

I might have experimented with lsd and mushrooms myself...there are stories of me scaling trees and apartment balconies with ninja like precision. Do I remember much of it? Not really, but it happened.

I assume you guys are talking about Dock Ellis. I never believed that story for a minute. Either that was the mildest tab of acid ever or he was duped. Hell, we used to sell sweet tarts and used magic markers to color them to match whatever the flavor of the month was, i.e. orange barrels or whatever. And believe it or not, had people return to make a second purchase. Ellis may have believed he was tripping, but there’s ABSOLUTELY no way. Anyone who’s ever really experienced that type of high will tell you the same thing.

That was why I wrote that in my post,it just seems hard to fathom,I used to laugh like sac was saying and then after a 10 min.crack-up laughing fit I would always forget where I was so would then get serious and try to remember what we were doing or where we were,one time we had gone about 2 blocks in a couple hours and I could not figure out which street we were on,so I see a street sign and tell my friend I was with I will figure this out,we were still on his street he lived on and I remember thinking that was so funny and off I went again.

Sac playing Ninja Warrior,that is also to funny,do not think I did that one but you Chicago Guys are a bit nutty I have been told IRONically by someone I do not remember.

Well, I know just by talking to myself I was never effected by any of that sh/t. Every time I see stories like these my inner self personal id reassures me I am not among the space case kiddies that saw eagles sitting on fire hydrants, or poisonous snakes conducting seances on my neighbors roof. The times I witnessed that were very, very real and not chemically induced. Sorry about you guys. BOL 

Fish on

I would have to say that seeing things that were not there was not a place I ever visited either,worst I ever got was a bit confused a couple times which is why I never partook of that stuff but a couple times and very small amounts,but to pitch a game and not remember would be an amount I never reach either,fact the Hippies at Golden Gate where they had some very good bands playing for free,drank this stuff called Red Mountain by Gallo.You could not drink it for a couple reason,first being I do not think they used any grapes to make it so the taste was not good but the worst reason was they were loading it up with the acid of the week as LogCottage was mentioning,purple haze blue something or whatever so a couple big gulps could of been way more than I would of wanted,but the Hippies were taking it everyday and had a nice tolerence built up,every so often one band member would mention to watch out for the Red Mountain,its loaded.

If the MLB plays a quarantined season in Arizona, will Key be the ball boy?

It would only be generous of him to PM us inside info in between innings.

For example, who dropped acid and when.

I don't have the agility anymore to be clubhouse or ball boy help, but I will tell you this; if I were privy to between-innings clubhouse info I would get my own bets down before you guys heard anything. I like you guys, but cash is king.