Born this date in 1919. You can read (most of) this baseball lifer’s 2002 memoirs (527 pages worth), Safe by a Mile here.
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From the category archives:
Birthday greetings
Rogers Hornsby 1896 Enos “Country” Slaughter 1916
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Born this day in 1917 Sal “The Barber” Maglie Virgil “Fire” Trucks
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The poster-boy for Jewish sports of the boomer generation turns — wait for it — 74 today! Hard to believe he’s been away from the game for more than 40 years, but his legacy goes on. Even today, parents invoke the Hall of Fame pitcher: “If Sandy Koufax could miss the World Series for Yom […]
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The Iron Horse for a new generation turns 49 today.
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The Yankees slugger turns 35 today. Two books tell his story: Hideki Matsui: Sportsmanship, Modesty, and the Art of the Home Run and Godzilla Takes the Bronx: The Inside Story of Hideki Matsui. Gee, without looking at the book cover, I wonder which title was written by a Japanese and which by a U.S author.
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Davis was another of those ballplayers with Mickey Mantle-potential, compared with his friend Darryl Strawberry, who had Ted Williams-potential. Neither of them fulfilled the predictions but both did share a life-threatening malady: colon cancer. Davis wrote about his travails in Born to Play: The Eric Davis Story, Life Lessons in Overcoming Adversity on and off […]
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The “author” of one of the game’s most-played highlights turns 52 today. Bottom of the Ninth
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Henry Aaron — whom some believe is still the real all-time home run king — turns 75 today. Where does the time go? Aaron has been the subject of many books over the years, quite a few of which came out in 1974-75, as he was approaching Ruth’s record. I still have baseball magazines from […]
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Rapid Robert turned 90 on Nov. 3. Feller was one of those players from “the greatest generation” — including Ted Williams, Warren Spahn, Bob Buhl, Hank Greenberg, Joe DiMaggio and many others — who lost precious years to the service of their country. Yes, some, like Feller and Williams, were on the front lines while […]
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Aug. 30 is a red letter day for the game, so I’m combining several elements: Happy birthday: Ted Williams, aka, The Splendid Splinter (Nickname of the Day), was born this date in 1918. Welcome to the Big Leagues: Ty Cobb (1905) and Keith Hernandez (1974) began their storied careers on Aug. 30. Fare thee well: […]
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(Not to be confused with “Sweet Lou” Johnson of the Los Angeles Dodgers of the 1960s) Lou Pinella, now in the midst of guiding the Cubs to the promised land of the post-season, was born this date in 1943. Younger fans don’t realize what a good player he was “in the day: a .291 average […]
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The Hall of Famer, both as a ballplayer and humanitarian, would have been an unbelievable 74 today. As is the case for many such inspirational icons, the books are split between books for adults and and juveniles. Clemente is important on many levels: as an elite athlete, as a role model for kids, and as […]
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Yeah, I know, it’s also Roger Clemens’ birthday, but haven’t you heard enough about him for awhile? Jones, who with teammate Tommie Agee, helped lead the Mets to their Amazin’ world championship in 1969, turns 66 today. The Amazon Report on Cleon Jones: The Life Story of the One and Only Cleon The Life Story […]
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Sure, there have been plenty of biographies about the ol’ perfesser, but what about fictional accounts of the daffy Stengel? Try Troy Soos’ historical baseball fiction, Murder at Ebbets Field, one of several in a series of mysteries featuring utility journeyman player Mickey Rawlings. (My profile on Soos appeared in the Summer, 1998 issue of […]
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who turns 100 today. For someone who played in the 1930s, Werber had some decent pop in his bat. He broke in with the 1930 NY Yankees, as a teammate of Babe Ruth. The best of his 11 seasons came in 1934, when he had career highs in runs scored (129), hits (200), doubles (41), […]
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The All-Star outfielder for the Tigers, Expos, and White Sox turns 60 today. LeFlore wrote about his experiences in prison in Breakout: From Prison to the Big Leagues, which was turned into One in a Million: The Ron LeFlore Story, one of those terrible ABC Made for TV movies, starring Levar Burton as the ballplayer. […]
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is available on Amazon.com,
*Happy (belated) birthday, Frank Robinson
September 2, 2008
The two-time MVP (one in each league) and veteran manager was born Aug. 31, 1942. Robinson was the first big-league manager I ever met. I was doing research for a book on what was then supposed to have been the last season of the Montreal Expos. I drove up for the week of the final […]
Tagged as: Frank Robinson, Montreal Expos
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