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Thread: Those Wacky Owners....

  1. #16
    Haunted by walks
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    Charles Finley offered to pay Vida Blue to change his name to True Blue.

    Orange baseballs, a mechanical rabbit that popped out of the ground to deliver baseballs to the umpire.

    George Steinbrenner hired a private eye to follow Dave Winfield.

    Ted Turner named himself the manager.

    Not an owner, but Bob Howsam tried to figure out how to get a ballpark to smell like a bakery.

    That whole Astrodome thing... what a crazy idea that was.


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  3. #17
    Member mth123's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    Great story Cyclone and very well told.

    For the record, I always thought the No No Nanette story was true as well. Actually, the story Cyclone just posted makes a lot more sense.

    I also didn't know all of those other Yankee stars were with the Red Sox first.
    Maybe it should have been the Curse of Herb Pennock and Waite Hoyt.

    And the part about Carl Mays is interesting. He sounds like the Albert Belle of his day (from a personality standpoint). It makes you wonder if he hit and killed Ray Chapman on purpose. Maybe the remorse was just for show.

  4. #18
    Baseball card addict MrCinatit's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    Charlie Finley creating the Designated Runner possition with Herb Washington.

  5. #19
    Danger is my business! oneupper's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    I kind of liked the shorts...probably not too practical, thought.
    "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."

    http://dalmady.blogspot.com

  6. #20
    breath westofyou's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    Quote Originally Posted by oneupper View Post
    I kind of liked the shorts...probably not too practical, thought.
    LA Angels wore them in the early 50's in the PCL


  7. #21
    breath westofyou's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    And the part about Carl Mays is interesting. He sounds like the Albert Belle of his day (from a personality standpoint). It makes you wonder if he hit and killed Ray Chapman on purpose. Maybe the remorse was just for show.
    Mays must have picthed to contact, averaged under 2 K's per nine as a Red and won 20 and 19 one year.

  8. #22
    Member texasdave's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    Chicago Cubs tried some weird stuff:[edit] Unusual Management Practices
    Evil Eye: For one year during the United States Great Depression, P.K. Wrigley hired a man for $5,000 U.S. Dollars to sit behind home plate of Wrigley Field and hex the opposing baseball teams' pitchers with an "evil eye" procedure.[1] It failed.
    College of Coaches: During the 1961 and 1962 seasons, P.K. Wrigley instituted a never-before-tried team management system of rotating of coaches between the team and its minor leagues and farm system. It also failed with a combined 123-193 won-loss record[1]
    Eye tests, rubber tires and balance beams: Cubs' Player Developement Chief, Al Goldis once instituted a player developement program during spring training which required the players to undergo eye tests and practice their coordination, batting stance and bat swing atop a series of 25 old rubber tires and a pile of two-by-fours[1]

    And in basketball this courtesy the Boston Celtics:Auerbach's greatest triumph, however, came in 1956, when he persuaded the owner of the Rochester Royals to pass up drafting Bill Russell. In exchange, Auerbach arranged for Rochester to get the Ice Capades. Bill Russell went on to win 11 titles. Of course, what seems laughable today may have made perfect economic sense in the low-revenue 1950s.

  9. #23
    breath westofyou's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    Reds owner Sidney Weil had secretly bought up the Reds shares around town despite having mostly paper worth, the Stock Market crash wrecked him and he and thus the Reds were broke.

    At the time they were just starting to get bad, they had 1 minor league contract, so he cut that to save costs.

    They had no good hitters, nothing worth top tier, so they went looking for a hitter. In St Louis Chick Hafey had just turned 28 and was being pushed out by cost and younger players, even despite having hit .326/.379/.568/.948 in 3000 at bats for the Cardinals. Seeing Weil and the Reds in need Branch Rickey the Cards GM offered him up to the Reds for $50,000. Which the Reds didn't have, despite salivating for Hafey. "No Problem" said Rickey, "We'll loan it to you." Which Weil said sure. So he borrowed 50 K from Rickey and turned around and gave it back to him for Hafey.

    Hafey developed a sinus infection and that led to him also develop eye problems and he had to wear glasses, making him one of the 1st regular players to wear glasses in the game.

    He only batted 253 times in his first year as a Red and finished his Reds career with this line .301/.359/.452/.811, only playing in over 100 games twice in five seasons, he only had 50 ab's in 1935 and missed the whole 1936 season, which also happens to be the only whole season that the Reds had Babe Herman on the team. Babe was a laid backed Californian and had a reputation of a non hustler, therefore Reds owner Larry MacPhail cut a deal with Babe, he would give Babe $500 every month that he hustled. Judge Landis eventually heard of the deal and the payouts and raised a big stink about it, citing that performance payments for what should be played out naturally just was wrong in his world... the only one that mattered when it came to baseball matters. So thus the payments stopped.
    Last edited by westofyou; 11-09-2006 at 10:42 AM.

  10. #24
    Mailing it in Cyclone792's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    If the late Frank J. Navin had any confidence in William Yawkey's knowledge of baseball, Walter Johnson would have joined Detroit instead of Washington. Yawkey, who owned the Detroit club at the time, walked into Navin's office one morning and handed him a letter from a friend of his, advising Yawkey to buy the "best pitcher in the country." Navin scoffed.

    "Where is this phenom pitching?" asked Navin.

    "It says here in the letter that he's pitching independent ball out in Weiser, Idaho," Yawkey told him.

    "This friend of yours, what does he do?"

    "He's a cigar salesman. He travels all around the west."

    "So you want me to go to the expense of sending a scout out there on the word of a cigar salesman?" said Navin as he pigeon-holed the letter. Navin never ignored a tip after that, but unfortunately there were no more Johnsons setting the prairie leagues on fire.

    --H.G. Salsinger, "Tigers Spurned Johnson For Free," Baseball Digest, August 1946

    ------------

    Amidst pennant fever, there appeared in Washington in his big league debut a gawky, six-foot, two-inch right-hander who had started in southern California as a catcher and ahd been discovered in the Idaho bushes by a traveling cigar salesman. The cigar drummer had passed word that the hayseed, now a pitcher, had thrown 72 innings without allowing a run. Walter Perry Johnson was extremely long-armed and with his slingshot delivery had shocking speed, along with good control. At nineteen he broke in against the Tigers on an August day.

    Routinely Cobb inspected all new players, even rookies, before facing them. After watching Johnson warm up, he told Jennings, "Have everybody stand deep in the box today. This farmer throws out of his hip pocket so fast that you can't follow it."

    As for Cobb, he bunted, and the rookie misfielded the bunts. Cobb also did the usual on the base paths, and Detroit beat Johnson, 3-2. That night, Cobb said, he urged Navin as follows: "Get this kid even if it costs you twenty-five thousand dollars. That's the best arm I've ever seen. He's so fast it scared me. When he learnes a curve, nobody can stop him."

    Big Train Johnson never did find an outstanding curve, yet the quiet man became a pistonlike career winner of 416 games [he actually won 417 games], threw 110 shutouts , and once rang up 16 consecutive decisions. "All he did for the next twenty years was beat Detroit," said Cobb, sarcastically, long afterward. "Jackass Navin did nothing to sign him when Johnson was still available."

    --Al Stump, Cobb: A Biography, 1994

    ------------

    Tigers staff ace Wild Bill Donovan after witnessing Walter Johnson's debut:

    "It is no wonder to me that Johnson pitched 85 innings without allowing a run and struck out 166 men in twelve games up in Idaho," he said. "It is only a wonder to me that he didn't strike out every one of those bushers up there. He has remarkable speed and a great shoot on his fast ball, and to tell you the truth, he is the best raw pitcher I have ever seen. If nothing happens to that fellow, he will be a greater pitcher in two years than Mathewson ever dared to be. Mark that prediction. Look at that build. Nineteen years old. Well, I guess that fellow won't improve within a year or two."

    Several of the Tigers went to Frank Navin, the team's president, urging him to buy Johnson at once. "Even if he costs you $25,000, get him." Cobb told Navin, but the frugal ex-accountant just looked at his star as though he were crazy.

    --Henry W. Thomas, Walter Johnson: Baseball's Big Train, 1995
    Last edited by Cyclone792; 11-09-2006 at 11:41 AM.
    The Lost Decade Average Season: 74-88
    2014-22 Average Season: 71-91

  11. #25
    Goober GAC's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    Giving a player a multi-year contract that pays him 25 Mil/yr.
    "In my day you had musicians who experimented with drugs. Now it's druggies experimenting with music" - Alfred G Clark (circa 1972)

  12. #26
    Member mth123's Avatar
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    Re: Those Wacky Owners....

    Quote Originally Posted by GAC View Post
    Giving a player a multi-year contract that pays him 25 Mil/yr.
    ... when only bidding against yourself.


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