If Your Birthday is June 16th...

... you share it with Wally Joyner. A sweet-swinging 1st baseman whose 16-year career began with the Angels, where he was runner up for the 1986 AL Rookie for the Year.  The suburban Atlanta native and BYU product later coached for the Padres, Phillies and Tigers.

Kerry Wood struck out 20 batters as a 20-year old rookie with the '98 Cubs.  And while he pitched for 14 seasons in the majors, injuries kept him from living up to his early promise.

Ian Hamilton was doing the best work of his major league career out of the Yankees bullpen when a groin injury landed him on the I-L back in May.

Ron LeFlore's journey from inmate to major league star was chronicled in the movie One in a Million, in which he was played  by LeVar Burton.  Over his nine year career, he batted .288 with 455 stole bases.

And we remember:

Pancho Herrera was a highly touted Phillies prospect who finished second for the NL 1960 Rookie of the Year.  But he struck out too much (136 led the league that season) and was a shaky fielder -- which landed him back in the minors in 1962.  There, he flashed his power for the rest of the decade but never made it back to the show.

Ernie Johnson spent most of the 1950s in the Braves bullpen, but is best remembered as one of the team's longtime TV voices during its Superstation TBS days.  His namesake son follow him into the media business and is Turner's lead studio host for its NBA and MLB coverage.

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rare Remnant of a Lost Ballpark

Image
When the subject of baseball in Brooklyn comes up, the discussion centers around Ebbets Field, the Flatbush venue most famously home to The Boys of Summer.  Those legendary 1940s and '50s teams that featured such historic and beloved players as Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Gil Hodges. Ebbets Field hosted its last major league game in 1957 and was torn down during the winter of 1960. But decades earlier, just before World War One, the Dodgers were based in the Park Slope area and played at Washington Park.  Once they moved out, the land was occupied by another stadium, which housed a different franchise.  The upstart Federal League, which played in the 1914 and '15 seasons, had a Brooklyn team called the TipTops.  Owned by a local baking magnate Robert Ward, whose company produced TipTop bread, the club took over the abandoned lot along 3rd Street and built a new brick and steel venue. The only no-hitter in the Federal League's two-year r
Read more

Another Yankee Trade

Image
Yankee fans: here's a last look at shortstop Trey Sweeney .  The 2021 first round draft choice was part of the three player trade with the Dodgers that brings reliever Victor Gonzalez and infield prospect Jorbit Vivas to New York. Now seeking to rebuild their pitching depth after dealing for Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo, the Yanks deemed Sweeney expendable.  While the Louisville native showed promising power in his three seasons with the organization -- he batted only .248 to go with his 36 career homers -- Brian Cashman has committed to Anthony Volpe and Oswald Peraza as his young middle infielders.  So Sweeney became a trade chip. ( My images of Trey Sweeney are from the Somerset/Binghamton AA games on July 15th and September 19th, 2023. )
Read more

Will He Wear Zero in the Bronx?

Image
The Yankees bolstered their starting rotation with Thursday's signing of Marcus Stroman .  The Long Island native, who spent 2019 and '21 with the Mets before moving onto the Cubs, brings a 77-76 career record to the Bronx, along with a recent loyalty to uniform number (?) zero.  If he requests that, he'd become the third Yank to wear it, following the path of Adam Ottavino and Domingo German.  Of course, neither of their Yankee tenures ended all that well -- Ottavino struggled badly in 2020, before reviving his career with the Red Sox and Mets; German's alcohol and domestic violence issues sabotaged such Yankee highlights as last year's perfect game. Can a number truly be lucky? You can understand kids in little league or high school ball wanting to wear 2 in honor of Derek Jeter or 7 for Mickey Mantle.  But is there an heroic ballplayer associated with 0?  The closest I recall comes from pro football, where the Oakland Raiders Hall of Fame center Jim Otto wore 00
Read more