Results tagged ‘ Mickey Mantle ’
Hall Monitor: The Final Tallies Are In
By Trevor Hayes
We’ve had a champion for several weeks now, but with last week’s announcement of the final major BBWAA Awards, the 2010 season is complete. Now it’s time to look back a little and then move on to 2011. During the next few weeks, we should see a flurry of free agent activity, starting with the Winter Meetings, which begin this weekend in Orlando.
Less can be more: Last week, Josh Hamilton handily won the AL MVP Award. Hobbled by broken ribs and playing in 133 games, he’s only the second position player over the last 30 years to play in that few games (with the exception of strike-shortened seasons) and be named league MVP. 
In fact, he’s only the fifth player to ever earn the Award after playing 133 or fewer during a full 162 game season. The others are the Giants’ Barry Bonds in 2003, the Royals’ George Brett in 1980, the Pirates’ Willie Stargell in 1979 and the Yankees’ Mickey Mantle in 1962. Like Hamilton, Brett and Mantle both suffered injuries that held them out for long periods of time, while Bonds and Stargell were slowed by age.
Twice as nice: With Awards Season coming to a close, the AL champion Rangers now boast the hardware to back-up the run to their first-ever World Series appearance. Josh Hamilton’s MVP Award and Neftali Feliz’s Rookie of the Year Award, make them the 13th pair of teammates to sweep both Awards in a year – not including 1975 and 2001 when Fred Lynn and Ichiro Suzuki won both Awards, respectively.
Of the 13 pairs, Hamilton and Feliz join eight others in reaching the World Series. The others were Jackie Robinson and Don Newcombe (1949 Dodgers), Yogi Berra and Gil McDougald (1951 Yankees), Roy Campanella and Jim Gilliam (1953 Dodgers), Mickey Mantle and Tony Kubek (1957 Yankees), Mantle and Tom Tresh (1962 Yankees), Joe Morgan and Pat Zachry (1975 Reds), Willie McGee and Vince Coleman (1985 Cardinals) and Jose Canseco and Walt Weiss (1988 A’s).
It should also be noted that Lynn’s 1975 Red Sox made the World Series and Suzuki’s 2001 Mariners finished the regular season with the best record in baseball, but lost in the ALCS.
Joey joins Reds’ best: Ten different Cincinnati Reds have been honored with the National League’s MVP Award. Joey Votto became the 10th last week after he denied Albert Pujols his fourth Award, which would have put the Cardinal slugger into rarified air as only the second player to collect more than three MVPs.
Votto’s honor links his name with Reds MVPs like Hall of Famers like Johnny Bench (1970, 1972), Joe Morgan (1975-76), Frank Robinson (1961) and Ernie Lombardi (1938).
Vlad and Texas heaping it on: It’s not a major award, but some major names have been attached to it. This year’s recipient of the Outstanding Designated Hitter Award, Vladimir Guerrero, gave the Rangers yet another piece of hardware last Wednesday to celebrate 2010.
Renamed after Edgar Martinez in 2004, the list of former winners extends beyond the longtime Mariners legend. Among the Hall of Famers to take home the honor are inaugural winner Orlando Cepeda (1973), Jim Rice (1977), Dave Winfield (1992) and Paul Molitor (1993, 1996).
150 Million Dollar Man: Troy Tulowitzki will be staying in Colorado for the next 10 years and that’s just fine with the slugging shortstop. Not only did he sign a deal this week that will pay him an average of $15 million a year until 2020, but he’s now got a shot to be like his idol, Hall of Famer and Oriole legend Cal Ripken Jr., and stay with one team for his entire career. Of the 292 Hall of Famers, 47 spent their entire playing career with one team. Aside from Ripken, the only other shortstops in that group were the White Sox’s Luke Appling, the Cubs’ Ernie Banks, the New York Giants’ Travis Jackson, the Yankees’ Phil Rizzuto, the Pirates’ Honus Wagner and the Brewers’ Robin Yount.
Hall of Famers around town: Bob Costas brings three more Hall of Fame names to his show tonight on MLB Network. Big Red Machine cogs Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan and Tony Perez, will be Studio 42 tonight at 8 p.m. ET.
I
n other Reds news, the team’s annual winter celebration, Redsfest, will feature tributes to Sparky Anderson. More than 60 current and former Reds players will be on hand tonight and tomorrow at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati.
Tomorrow, Tigers legend Al Kaline will be at the Comerica Park Retail Shop. The Hall of Famer will be promoting and signing copies of his book “SIX: A Salute to Al Kaline.”
And as the Winter Meetinsg convene this weekend, several Hall of Famers will be in Orlando to participate in the Expansion Era Committee’s Hall of Fame Induction voting. The 16-person committee will vote on Sunday and includes Bench, Whitey Herzog, Eddie Murray, Jim Palmer, Perez, Frank Robinson, Ryne Sandberg and Ozzie Smith. Results will be announced on Monday at baseballhall.org.
Trevor Hayes is the editorial production manager at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Hall Monitor: A Masher, A Freak, A Winner and A Legend
By Trevor Hayes
Just the final weekend of the regular season remains. This season has been a long and exciting haul, but it’s not quite time for reflection with milestones still falling.
Pushing to the finish: Toronto hitting sensation Jose Bautista hasn’t quit yet. Now with 54 homers, he collected his ninth multi-homer game of 2010 last night in Minnesota. Before this year, he had just two in his career. The Jays slugger has 15 more than the next highest American League total. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, only three players in AL history have finished with wider gaps than Bautista’s over Paul Konerko (39), and all three are Hall of Famers: Babe Ruth (six times), Jimmie Foxx and Mickey Mantle.
Giant talent in Tiny Tim: After fanning 11 on short rest Wednesday, Tim Lincecum may or may not get one more regular season start – pending the Giants’ plans. What is certain is that unless Roy Halladay pitches and reels off a 10-plus K start, the pitcher known as The Freak will win his third straight strikeout title. Beyond Halladay, no pitcher is within 15 of Lincecum. With his third consecutive title, Lincecum would join Randy Johnson and Hall of Famer Warren Spahn as the only National Leaguers to string together three straight since World War II. Furthermore, the Giants ace is doing it as a righty, something not done in the NL since another Hall of Famer, Dizzy Dean from 1932 to 1935.
Evolving into quite the strikeout artist, Lincecum made his last start his 26th career game with 10 or more strikeouts. The fourth-year hurler broke a tie with Juan Marichal and now sits behind only Jason Schmidt (27) and Christy Mathewson (28) among Giants since 1900.
The Captain and the Mick: The winningest franchise in baseball has a new winningest player in team history. The Yankees own a .568 franchise winning percentage and once again employ the winningest player in team history. As of Sunday night, Derek Jeter passed Mickey Mantle for the most wins while wearing pinstripes. Mantle finished his career at 1,376 wins and Jeter, after adding one more win Tuesday, sits at 1,378 regular-season victories. Mantle still leads Jeter – 2,401 to 2,293 – for most total regular-season games.
50 Years since Ted hung ‘em up: The Red Sox plan to pay tribute to one of the legends of the game tonight at Fenway. A pre-game ceremony will mark the 50th anniversary of Ted Williams’ final game. During the bottom of the eighth on Sept. 28, 1960, he stepped to the plate and hit a home run to deep center field – the 521st of his career. In the top of the next inning, Williams trotted out to his position and then to an ovation from the Fenway faithful, was removed – never again to take the field as a major leaguer.
Trevor Hayes is the editorial production manager at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Billy Ball a hit in Cooperstown
By John Odell
Billy Crystal has spent a lifetime – professionally and personally – in love with baseball.
On Friday, he got the guided tour of a lifetime at the Hall of Fame.
Crystal, in Cooperstown for Friday’s Hall of Fame tribute to the HBO film 61*, visited the Hall of Fame archive for the first time. The award-winning actor, who brought 61* to life in 2001 as the film’s director and co-executive producer, donated several artifacts from 61* to the Hall of Fame, including a bound shooting script.
Later, Crystal got to see Hall of Fame treasures like the bat Roger Maris used to hit home run No. 61 on Oct. 1, 1961 and a bat Mickey Mantle used during his 1956 Triple Crown season. Both players have a special meaning for Crystal, whose meticulous adaptation of their story resulted in a timeless cinematic production.
Crystal also got a tour of the Museum’s National Baseball Library, where he examined day-by-day records of the 1961 season – charting Mantle and Maris’ pursuit of Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record – and a Library file on his own career, documenting his 2008 Spring Training at-bat with the Yankees as well as his work on 61*.
As he began his tour, a Hall of Fame staffer said to Crystal: “Have a great day!”
Crystal – sounding just like his baseball-fan character Mitch Robbins in the movie City Slickers - replied: “I already am!”
John Odell is the curator of history and research at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
A Hall of Fame honeymoon
By Samantha Carr
Ben Nelson grew up an Atlanta Braves fan and always figured he would make a trip to Cooperstown if longtime Braves third baseman Chipper Jones gets elected.
Nelson’s new bride decided that was too long to wait.
“You never know what will happen in the future and if we would be able to go, so I figured let’s not wait,” said Elyse Nelson.
Ben and Elyse made the trip from Waynesboro, Ga., to Cooperstown for their honeymoon and a VIP Experience at the Baseball Hall of Fame. They were married on May 15th and share a love for the game.
“I grew up playing baseball and have been a huge fan of the history of the game. I have always wanted to come here,” said Ben. “And Elyse grew up playing softball since the tee ball stage and had a brother who played.”
The newlyweds began their trip in New York City with a stay in Times Square and drove to Cooperstown to take in baseball history.
“Knowing how much history is in this building is just amazing,” said Ben. “There are artifacts from some of the greatest players of the game, like Mickey Mantle. I never got to see him play, but I can see the uniform he played in.”
“We really got a kick out of the plaques,” said Elyse. “That was what we expected to see when we came here, but there is really so much more history here. And it is so close you can almost touch it.”
A VIP Experience package is a behind-the-scenes fan package at the Baseball Hall of Fame. It begins with exclusive after-hours access to the Hall of Fame on a Thursday evening and wrap up on a Friday afternoon with a private reception. In between fans receive a Library archive tour and Museum collections artifact presentation.
The Museum has partnered with Cooperstown accommodations to offer this unique package with the next select dates scheduled for October 2010 through May 2011. For more information, contact the Membership Department at 607-547-0397.
Samantha Carr is the manager of web and digital media at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
A trip through time
By Craig Muder
Whitey Herzog leaned forward in his chair to get a closer look at the outfielder crashing into the Yankee Stadium fence.
“I ended up with 57 stitches, but I caught that ball,” said Herzog. “To this day, Yogi still reminds me that he would have had 359 career home runs if I had just let it go.”
The photo, part of the collection of more than 500,000 at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, showed Herzog as a Baltimore Oriole right fielder in 1961 as he robbed Yogi Berra of a hit. It will be a one of many stories told again this summer as Berra – along with more than 50 other living Hall of Famers – helps welcome Herzog into the Hall of Fame.
Herzog took his Hall of Fame Orientation Tour on Monday in preparation for his July 25 induction. Along with Andre Dawson and Doug Harvey, Herzog will be enshrined as the Class of 2010 in Cooperstown.
Monday’s tour gave Herzog a chance to look behind the scenes at the Hall of Fame, and the former reserve outfielder for the Senators, Athletics, Orioles and Tigers seemed overwhelmed when he considered his surroundings.
“You know, I got a bigger bonus than Mickey Mantle when I signed with the Yankees,” said Herzog, who began his playing career in 1949 as a Yankee farmhand. “That’s the only time I ever made more money than Mickey.”
However, as a manager, Herzog had few peers and was widely regarded as one of the best in the game. Herzog led his team’s to six postseason berths in 18 seasons, winning National League pennants in 1985 and 1987 with the Cardinals and the 1982 World Series with the Redbirds.
He is just the 19th former big league manager elected to Cooperstown.
Craig Muder is director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
54 years ago today, Murray began Hall of Fame journey
By Craig Muder
Despite the offensive explosion in Major League Baseball during the last 20 years, this fact remains: Only 10 men in big league history have driven in more than 1,900 runs.
And just two of them – Eddie Murray and Barry Bonds – began their careers after 1960.
Bonds’ 762 home runs tell the story of many of his RBIs. But Murray – one of the most consistent run producers in the game’s history – remains underappreciated.
Murray turns 54 today, making him one of the youngest Hall of Famers (62nd out of 68) despite the fact it’s been seven years since his election. He was a first-ballot choice by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in 2003 after finishing his career with 504 home runs, 3,255 hits and eight All-Star Game selections.
Murray’s consistency was staggering. In his 21 big league seasons, Murray’s team played at least 150 games 18 times. Murray appeared in at least 150 contests in 16 of those seasons – and topped the 160-mark six times.
Consider this: Over a typical 162-game season, Murray averaged 103 RBIs – the exact number as Willie Mays, one more than Mickey Mantle.
Few players answered the bell more consistently – and as well.
Twenty-one big league seasons, 1,917 RBIs – ninth on the all-time list. It’s a standard of excellence that will remain for generations to come.
Craig Muder is director of communications for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
Oct. 7, 1950: Ford gets first of six rings
By Thomas Lawrence
The Chairman of the Board emphatically shut the door on Philly’s 59 years ago today — Oct. 7, 1950.
Whitey Ford, dubbed the “Chairman of the Board” by teammates, is the all-time World Series leader in wins (10) and strikeouts (94). It all began in Game 4 of the 1950 Fall Classic, as his Yankees were looking for a sweep of manger Eddie Sawyer’s Philadelphia Phillies.
On a Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium, in front of more than 68,000 fans, Ford had the ball opposite Phils hurler Bob Miller with a chance to earn the Bombers’ 13th World Series title.
Ford, as a rookie, went a sterling 9-1 with a 2.81 ERA in 1950 – finishing second in the AL Rookie of the Year voting to the Red Sox’ Walt Dropo.
The Yankees were defending champions, after taking the ’49 series against cross-town rival Brooklyn under new manager Casey Stengel.
Ford might not have had Game 7 pressure on him, with the Yankees’ three-game cushion, but nonetheless the rookie faced a daunting task at the age of 21. And while it didn’t hurt to have future Hall of Famers like Yogi Berra, Joe DiMaggio, Phil Rizzuto and Johnny Mize on his side, Ford was fearless every time he toed the rubber.
“He was my banty rooster,” said Stengel. “He used to puff his chest out, like this, and walk out to the mound against any of those big pitchers.”
Despite that “rooster” persona, Ford was a pensive pitcher who chose deception over brute force. Ford promptly demoralized the Phils on Oct. 7, twirling 8.2 innings of brilliant baseball – giving up only two unearned runs.
A native of New York City, Ford went on to those record-setting 10 World Series wins as well as a fantastic postseason ERA of 2.71.
Ford not only owned October in the win column, but the 20th century as well. His 236-106 record makes him the most consistent victor — among pitchers with at least 200 wins — during those years, with a .690 winning percentage.
“I don’t care what the situation was, how high the stakes were… it never bothered Whitey Ford,” said Yankee great Mickey Mantle. “He pitched his game. Cool. Crafty. Nerves of steel.”
In fact, Ford harnessed those “nerves of steel” to toss 33 consecutive scoreless innings in World Series play, another signature “Chairman” mark. Ford also had seven complete games in the Classic, good for fifth all-time, and was part of six Yankees championship teams.
Ford was welcomed into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown in 1974.
Thomas Lawrence was the 2009 publications intern at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum.
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