Ladies & Gents: There was some hope that in this off season, we'd see a good-sized group of players coming up from the 55s, which, with free agents, would give the division two new teams.
Right now, the division appears to have one team, not two.
Jim Jasiewicz and I were taxed with creating a new team each. I haven't spoken to Jim, so I don't know how his proposed over-62 Reds are doing, though, from the word I've heard, they should make it.
To know for sure, guys should contact Jim (email: jimjazz@hotmail.com) or league commissioner John Reel (johnreel55@gmail.com)
The Haymakers haven't fared as well. After working the phones and writing emails for a month, we got only three guys saying yes. Each is a fine player, but four players, counting me, isn't fourteen. So with the division's draft coming up soon (not sure of exact date) it's likely that the division will go into the season with seven teams. John Reel, of course, will know the exact numbers.
Again, I'm not clear just how many guys will put their names in the draft. I've heard that each of the seven teams can expect to pick two to three guys from the 55s if existing teams want to draft them. Teams are not obligated to draft players.
I'd like to put the name "Haymakers" on hold, for this season if I may. It's an historic name. The 1871 Troy Haymakers were one of the twelve clubs in the original National League, along with New York, Boston, Washington DC and even Fort Wayne, Indiana. The team left Troy after two years to move to New York City, where they became the Gothams and later, the Giants (of Willie Mays fame.)
The 1871 club had two noteworthy events while it was here: It set a major league record, still standing, of having the fewest fans to watch a game: Two. And their third baseman was Esteban Bellan, called "Steve" by his teammates, a Cuban native who played third base at St. John's College (later called Fordham) in the Bronx in the late 1860s and then with the Haymakers. After four years with the Haymakers, Esteban moved back to Cuba, where he formed the still-standing Cuban Professional Baseball League. Not long after, he was honored in Cuba with being named "The Father of Cuban Baseball." (There's also a plaque to him at Fordham.)
One last thought: If at least ten over-62 guys want to play this season and don't have a team, I think we could get the Haymakers going pretty quick. Those ten and my four would be a necessary fourteen. If you're interested, email me at mhart44@me.com.
Otherwise, good season to all.
-Mike
-- Edited by mikehart on Friday 22nd of November 2024 08:18:50 PM
Mike, thank you for a bit of baseball history, something I was unaware of and the impact a local professional team had in the early years of professional baseball.
Your baseball history lesson (below) is very interesting.
"The 1871 Troy Haymakers were one of the twelve clubs in the original National League, along with New York, Boston, Washington DC and even
Fort Wayne, Indiana. The team left Troy after two years to move to New York City, where they became the Gothams and later, the Giants (of Willie Mays fame.)
The 1871 club had two noteworthy events while it was here: It set a major league record, still standing, of having the fewest fans to watch a game: Two. And their third baseman was Esteban Bellan, called "Steve" by his teammates, a Cuban native who played third base at St. John's College (later called Fordham) in the Bronx in the late 1860s and then with the Haymakers. After four years with the Haymakers, Esteban moved back to Cuba, where he formed the still-standing Cuban Professional Baseball League. Not long after, he was honored in Cuba with being named "The Father of Cuban Baseball." (There's also a plaque to him at Fordham.)"
__________________
Stefan K.
Arachnids 62 / Twins 55 / PFRS All-Stars 45
Nice of you to say that, Stefan. Glad you enjoyed it. Thank you.
The library has a few locally written books about the area's connections to the big leagues. A number of pros were born here. Mike "King" Kelly and Johnny Evers were two, both from Troy, and both are in the Hall of Fame.
Kelly, a very speedy, three-position player (career BA, .308 and 1813 hits playing for eight teams from 1873 to 1893) was one of America's first popular crossover stars. He was handsome with a big handlebar mustache and had the distinction of having a song written about him called, "Slide, Kelly, Slide," that became the first popular record ever pressed in America, and the basis for a play and a movie of the same name. During and after the season, Kelly performed twice a day. by day in baseball and by night in Vaudeville.
My favorite Kelly story? He was a player/manager for Cincinnati's Kelly's Killers, and one day, about 1891, a high pop was hit near the bench where he was sitting. Kelly was mainly a catcher, and knew that his team's catcher named Ganzel couldn't get to it. So Kelly stood, shouted to the ump, "Kelly in for Ganzel!" and ran to catch the ball for what became a protested out. The other team shouted "No!", and Kelly replied, "Yes!" He lost the protest. Kelly was also supposed to have been the model for Ernest Thayer's poem, "Casey at the Bat." Kelly never denied it. He died in Boston at 36 of pneumonia. Seven thousand people passed by his casket.
Then there's Johnny Evers of the "Tinkers to Evers to Chance" fame of the 1908 World Series winning Cubs was raised here. Beyond winning it all for the Cubs, those three had the distinction of never, or almost never, speaking to one another during the whole season. They rubbed each other the wrong way, apparently. I figure that at least one of them had to be 90 percent crank. Maybe all three. Imagine? When he retired, Johnny Evers opened and ran a sporting goods store on Central Avenue, called "Johnny Evers Sports." Its sign was still up when I moved to Albany in the early 1980s.
Then, closer to our days, former Blue Jays pitcher John Cerutti was from Albany. He played in the majors for Toronto and then one year for Detroit from 1985 to 1991, but unfortunately died young from a heart attack, at 44, when he was working as a Jays' TV announcer. He pitched just fine for the Jays: 49-43 record, 3.94 ERA.
In June of '89, he pitched the Jays' to their first win in their new Skydome. He said that one of his biggest thrills in the game was starting, on June 9, 1987, in Yankee Stadium against his boyhood idol, Ron Guidry. Ceruttti, also a lefty, pitched 5 2/3 scoreless inning and got the win. The Jays beat the Yanks that day, 7-2.
Playing ball here, I've met several fellows who knew him and each said he was a terrific guy. So, online, I just found this: "The Toronto chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America paid tribute to John Cerutti in November, 2004, giving him its annual Good Guy Award and renaming the honor for him. The award has been handed out every year since Toronto's inaugural season in 1977."
Well, I've gone on. Some days readers should look up Buck Ewing, after whom our A Diamond was renamed.
Buck was an all-star catcher for the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues for several years, hitting in the mid-.300s. Only three things cost him his job: bad lighting, a fastball that was supposed to be a curve ball and so claiming a finger, and a rookie named Josh Gibson. After he left Pennsylvania, Buck moved to Schenectady where he worked for GE and played, till 1945 or so, for the Negro Leagues Mohawk Giants, often on the A Diamond. In the years, 1930 to 1945, the Giants drew several thousand fans a year to their games. Imagine having that many at one of our A Diamond games?
History's something, ain't it? Thanks again for your note, Stefan. -Mike
-- Edited by mikehart on Friday 22nd of November 2024 08:21:24 PM
Mike, thanks for more baseball history and of the locals who played. I know of Evers history and used to shop at Evers Sporting Good. FYI, John Cerutti was a friend of mine. We grew up in the same neighborhood, although 3 long Albany City blocks apart in the Pine Hills area. We were in the same class year at VI Elementary/Middle School and CBA, Class of 1978. We also competed against each other in youth baseball for 8 years at National Little League and Central Babe Ruth. Not only was John a heck of HS pitcher, he was also and very good golfer. I remember watching the game TV when he beat the Yankees. He was a good guy, gone too soon.
__________________
Stefan K.
Arachnids 62 / Twins 55 / PFRS All-Stars 45
Wow, Stefan, you brought history home. Thanks! Well said.
If you want to enrich your holidays a bit more with some funny and smart baseball writing, recommend highly Jim Bouton's "Ball Four." It's the best selling sports book (not just baseball), of all time. It's still being sold in lots of bookstores and, of course, it's in the good old library.
Bouton was another local guy, lived in Egremont, Mass., and one day in 2013, your Arachnids' manager Jim Edelman, who was then my teammate on the club I'd founded and managed, the Red Hot Peppers, asked me if Jim Bouton could pitch for us. The two Jims were neighbors and often chatted baseball when they bumped into each other in town.
Jim's question got a quick "Yes!" from me. Pitching for local adult rec clubs wasn't new for Bouton. For years, to stay in the game and spur himself to stay in shape, he offered to play for adult rec teams from New Jersey to Vermont, including a few Twilight League games and once for twice for CDMSBL.
We got walloped that game, 18-3, by the first-place Yankees (of all names). After Jim had tossed his knuckler for three innings (he was still recovering from a stroke he'd had some time before), he sat the bench. I asked our catcher, Pete Zamory, what he saw of Jim's knuckler. Pete let out a rue smile and said,"His knuckler floated, but it didn't knuckle."
The score didn't matter: Seeing a former NY Yankee All-Star pitcher, a guy then about 74, in great shape and still playing was a lift for both teams.
I'd watched Bouton on TV as a kid and seeing him in the flesh was not only a treat, but it brought back memories of Bouton's big league pitching. In his All-Star year of 1963, he used a good fastball to go 21-7 with a 2.53 ERA, while playing with the confidence boosters of Mantle, Berra, Ford, Maris and Tresh. We had history, good history, on the mound.
The year, 2013, when Jim pitched for us, was about four years before CDMSBL created the over-62 division so very likely guys who were playing in the 55s then might have looked at the 74-year-old Bouton and thought of him as really old. Then, a few might have thought, too: "Hmmm? Maybe I can still play at 74?"
I've often wondered if the sight of Bouton was part of the reason that commissioner John Reel and the board decided to create the over-62 division less than five years later?
There was some actual history behind that question:
Our umpire didn't make it that day.
So his substitute?
John Reel.
Again, good chatting with you Stefan.
-Mike
-- Edited by mikehart on Monday 25th of November 2024 12:53:50 PM
