How many angels on the head of this pin?

The Cosmic Commissioner of Baseball must have something to do with this: Mickey Mantle, Phil Rizzuto and Johnny Pesky all join the Celestial Choir on August 13.

Our national pastime

CAUTION: Extremely blue.

This was directed primarily at John McGraw's Baltimore Orioles, only a few years before American League president Ban Johnson would move the team to New York to become the Gordon's Highlanders, aka New York Americans, a name soon to be shortened by the headline writers to the New York Yankees.

Of course, McGraw had by then moved on to the National League's New York Giants.

Our present madness...

...is really nothing new.

The anti-Communist fervor of the 1950s resulted in numerous social conformist reactions. A face powder called “Russian Sable” was renamed “Dark Dark,” and libraries in Indiana were pressured by anti-communists to remove Robin Hood, with its lenient view of “spreading the wealth,” from their bookshelves. In 1954, the Cincinnati Reds changed their club nickname to “Redlegs,” and by 1956 the word “Reds” was completely absent from the team’s uniform. That season marked the first time since 1912 that Cincinnati’s home uniform failed to feature the team’s nickname. By 1961, with the era of McCarthyism over, the club’s original nickname and its use on the team uniform were re-established.

From a great on-line Hall of Fame exhibit, "Dressed to the Nines, A History of the Baseball Uniform."

"I was trying to survive"

It's not fair to excerpt anything from Joe Posnanki's lyrical portrait of Bob Gibson -- you really should go read it, it rights the wrong of being absurdly painted as a one-dimensional character all these years -- but I will:

“This guy came up to me a little while ago,” Gibson says. “Did you hear him? He goes: ‘You were so mean when you pitched. You hit all these guys.’ Stuff like that. I mean, that’s all right, people can think what they want. They can have their own memories. But you know how many times I’ve heard that? And I was thinking: Who comes up to you and says something like that?

“I wasn’t mean. I don’t buy into any of it. I was just doing my job. You hear people talk about this glare that I had. You know, I’ve been wearing glasses for almost 60 years. I wasn’t glaring … I just couldn’t see the catcher’s signals. I was just trying to see. That’s all. But people turn everything into something else.”

He shakes his head. People turn everything in something else. He’s not angry, or anyway he does not sound angry. That voice. So friendly. He seems almost amused by it all — the reputation, the aura, the way people seem endlessly fascinated by the way he looked, the way he threw a baseball. It’s like there was this part he once played, when he was young, this part of a pitcher who scowled and raged and struck out hitters on high fastballs … and that part lives on, grows bigger every year.

Only he doesn’t play the part anymore.

The comments section includes an interesting "twist" to the story as well.

Vin Scully

I may have to tune in to the Dodgers' radio station this evening.

There had been much more fanfare the last time the Dodgers triumphed at Yankee Stadium. That was in 1955, when Scully said the words Brooklyn fans had never heard before, and would never hear again: “Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the champions of the world.”

Walter O’Malley, the owner, took the Dodgers’ executives and Scully to the Lexington Hotel, where they rested before the victory party at the Hotel Bossert in Brooklyn. Scully picked up his date — Joan Ganz, who would one day create “Sesame Street” — for an unforgettable drive.

“In Manhattan, it was the fall and football was in the air, two hours after the baseball game,” Scully said. “We drove through the tunnel — I don’t know if we went through the Lincoln or the Battery tunnel — and it was like V-J Day and V-E Day all rolled into one in Brooklyn. They were dancing in the streets. It was just one monumental block party.”

Scully continued: “And when we got near the Bossert hotel, the streets were lined with people. They had sawhorses to restrain them — although the people were very good, they weren’t about to do anything — but they took our cars about a block from the hotel, and we had to walk down the street into the hotel, like you were in a parade, with people cheering. We walked down the street together into the Bossert hotel where all hell was breaking loose, and that was amazing.”

Michael Kay, the Yankees TV broadcaster, has sounded like a little kid all week in anticipation of being in Dodger Stadium with his hero.

Baseball that most beautiful of pasttimes

Do not read this.

Instead, appreciate the meditations of Joe Posnanski:

If I could sum up my general philosophy on the game of baseball, it might include all sorts of scattered and confused thoughts about poetry and statistics and how teams score runs and what makes for great pitching and the Willie Mays catch, and the Fisk homer, and the Doggie homer the next day, and Pujols against Lidge, and Ozzie going into the hole, and Joe Carter pulling Mitch Williams, and Kirby Puckett at the wall and Pedro in bloom, and Maddux on the outside corner, and Buck O’Neil telling a story, and Rickey stealing third, and Beltran rounding second, and Duane Kuiper diving and on and on and on and on.

Or it might be the following simple statement about the Mark Buehrle play.

I don’t think Paul Konerko had to barehand the ball. But I’m SO glad that he did.

And yeah, definitely follow the link.

"Hare Maranville"

The history of the "swasti-cap." Very cool.

Deadball era

Amazing stuff.

Every kind of game

Sam Borden got tired of hearing about how many big games Andy Pettitte had thrown in postseason over the years that he decided to quantify it. A remarkable career.

A less whiter shade of pale

It's been so long since the Yankees and Phillies have met in the Serious, Cliff Corcoran reminds us, that the last time they met, in 1950, they fielded two all-white teams.

That fact is not as trivial as it might sound. The Yankees’ struggles in the late 1960s and early 1970s had several sources, including the institution of the amateur draft and the corporate ownership of CBS, but their failure to properly exploit the African American talent pool was undeniably a contributing factor. When they finally emerged from that slumber, it was with black stars such as Mickey Rivers, Willie Randolph, Chris Chambliss, Roy White, Oscar Gamble, and Gamble’s replacement, Reggie Jackson.

Similarly, the Phillies’ surprising pennant in 1950 fed the organization’s resistance to integration. The 1950 Whiz Kids got their name not only because they won the pennant, but because they were the youngest team in the National League on both sides of the ball. In fact, the 1950 Phillies were the youngest pennant winners ever. The Phillies’ oldest regular was first baseman Eddie Waitkus (the player whose shooting the previous year inspired The Natural). Just one of the six men to make more than ten starts for them was over the age of 26, and future Hall of Famers Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts were both just 23.

Assuming that young squad would only get better with age, the Phillies didn’t even begin scouting black players until 1954, when Roy Hamey took over as general manager following four seasons in which the Phillies finished between third and fifth place. The Phillies didn’t field their first black player until 1957, didn’t have an African-American starter until 1961, and didn’t have an African-American star until the arrival of Richie Allen in 1964.

That was awful timing for Allen, who despite one of the best rookie campaigns in major league history, fell victim to the Phillies infamous Phlop, in which they blew a 6.5-game lead over the final dozen games of the season thanks to a ten-game losing streak (during which Allen hit .415/.442/.634). Allen’s ensuing battles with the Philadelphia faithful as well as the organization’s brutal treatment of Jackie Robinson back in 1947 were key factors in Curt Flood’s decision to refuse to report to the Phillies after being traded from the Cardinals, ironically for Dick Allen, after the 1969 season. The Phillies wouldn’t return to the postseason until 1976 (again ironically with Dick Allen back in the fold as their first baseman), and despite the Philadelphia fans’ affection for center fielder Gary Maddox and a late-career cameo by Hall of Famer Joe Morgan on the superannuated 1983 pennant winners, the Phillies didn’t have a black superstar who was embraced by the city until the arrivals of Jimmy Rollins and Ryan Howard in the new millennium.

Actually, Cliff, it didn't sound all that "trivial," anyway. And I guess Allie "Superchief" Reynolds doesn't count as a person of color then.

Piling up the hits

The Yankees fail to sweep the Mariners, but Derek Jeter now is the leader in most hits as a shortstop in the history of the game, passing Luis Aparico.