Family Ties: Baseball Style

I've been waiting to find the right occasion to spotlight an Orioles minor leaguer with a last name baseball fans will recognize: Mike Yastrzemski. Despite the famous family ties, he's never made it past Triple A ball, and after appearing for the O's during spring training, he's spending 2018 with Bowie in the Eastern League.
OK, so what's the occcasion? It connects back to his legendary grandfather. On May 9th, 1961, in the 17th game of his Hall of Fame-bound career, Carl Yastrzemski belted the first of his 452 home runs. It came off Jerry Casale of the Angels at the West Coast's Wrigley Field.
So enjoy these images of the young Yaz. At age 27, the odds are against him joining his granddad as a major leaguer. But at least this spring, Mike got the chance to suit up with the big club. And I got the chance to catch him in action.
Let's get back to that game when Yaz cracked his first homer. It was tied heading to the last of the 9th, when Steve Bilko -- the first ballplayer to have a sitcom character named for him -- hit a walk-off single. The hulking slugger drove in 5'5 Albie Pearson to give the Angels an 8-7 victory. Besides finding a good reason to use the Mike Yastzemski photos, I'm so pleased for the chance to weave Steve Bilko into a story.
I don't believe I ever saw him play -- his final seasons in the majors came with the early Angels when I was seven and eight years old. But he's one of those characters perfect for fans who love learning about baseball history.
A prodigious minor league slugger, especially with the Pacific Coast League's L.A. Angels, he only played two full big league seasons. What held him back? A reputation for striking out too much. Yet his highest total in a season was 125, a rather ordinary number these days -- but on the 1953 Cardinals, it led the National League. So here's a tip of the cap to the original Bilko, a classic name, with skills that were decades ahead of his time.

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