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Old 11-06-2021, 08:23 AM   #841
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I am also looking forward to more chapters! I know that Tibs is busy so I just patiently wait for the next chapter to come, devour it and then wait some more. It was great when I first discovered his writing I could just read and read and read. But then I ran out of story and now here I am. LoL. Anyway, if your out there Tibs, Chop! Chop! When you have time of course.
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Old 01-28-2022, 01:09 AM   #842
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I haven't been on these forums in years, but I found myself here when reliving some ITP stuff.

This thread is nothing short of masterful. I spent most of the last three hours reading the story of David Driscoll and loving every part of it. Between his baseball career, his family life, and his relationships with others, it's incredible, substantial stuff you don't see in dynasty threads on message boards.

Tib, if you're still out there, know that what you wrote is some of the best stuff of its ilk that has ever been written.
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Old 01-30-2022, 04:17 AM   #843
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Much appreciated, 128. Yes, I'm still here, still working sporadically on Short Hop. Thankfully, COVID has kept its distance in my life, but other projects have taken my time. Other stories, book projects, and some game design. One day I'll post some of it so you can see what kept me from Short Hop for such long stretches.

I'll be posting the next part of History of Pro Baseball in the coming week. As I get closer to the present it has somehow become harder to organize. Like real baseball, ABA/CBA history has gone from league expansion and competitive changes to nothing but money and business. If I plan it correctly, History will end when Short Hop ends.

As for Dave's story, the recent Win 11 upgrade had me a little worried, so I have resolved to finish simming Dave's career all at once -- something I wasn't planning to do (I usually only simmed a half season in advance so I wouldn't be tempted to do much pre-planning). I couldn't bear it if Win 11 somehow messed with the OOTP5 game file. Yes, that's right. OOTP FIVE. (I am running WIn7 currently).

So I've been simming and collecting info, and printing each year out on paper so I could make notes. About 25 pages of data per year. I have no teasers for you because I haven't looked at the numbers too deeply yet.

Thank you all for the kind words. Maybe one day I'll ask you to send testimonials to prospective publishers... In the meantime, look for more Short Hop just as soon as I make sense of all these stats...
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Old 02-19-2022, 02:49 PM   #844
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History of Pro Baseball: Part Six: Transition

“A Renewal of Trust”
The Birth of the Continental Baseball Association, 1966

The rumblings of unrest among minority players were not a new phenomenon in 1965. The Union lawsuit was not a surprise to ABF owners. It was, in fact, anticipated and planned for. The Continental Baseball Association existed on paper almost five months prior to the General Fund trial.

The ABF owners knew what they were facing. It is a safe bet that all of them knew their manipulation of Fund money to keep white players happy in the wake of integration could lead to a lawsuit and an adverse ruling. Ironically, their misguided efforts to avoid a serious labor stoppage created the very thing they feared. And if they believed remuneration would be the only penalty, they would have been confident that their pockets were deep enough to pay for all “current discrepancies”. But when Judge Barnhardt’s ruling included punitive damages, with interest penalties, to retired players (who no longer had contracts in force and in the owners’ minds should not have been included as plaintiffs) the price tag far exceeded the amount in the Fund itself. The actual damages depleted their available working capital and made it impossible to pay for their current expenses (remember, Fund money was loaned at very low interest rates and payments were made at the discretion of the debtor teams – a very advantageous arrangement for someone borrowing millions of dollars). Owners were, in fact, deeply indebted – to each other. As a result, this circular debt imploded the ABF and many teams were facing bankruptcy, not to mention the staggering cost of future civil suits brought against them by minority players. Under these conditions, bankruptcy was almost desirable.

But owners understood these possibilities, even if they miscalculated their impact. The first bylaws of the Continental Baseball Association were written in July 1965 on a cloth napkin in the private dining room of the Plaza Hotel in New York City. The first bylaw? “No group of Teams working in Concert shall establish a Common Fund of money.”

Arranged by New York Admirals owner J. Walker Bowen, and attended by the wealthiest members of the ABF, this clandestine meeting discussed a new national baseball league, the creation of which would solve two significant problems facing the ABF: the Union’s questioning of the use of the General Fund, and the rancor surrounding expansion.

The use of the General Fund had been a topic of labor concern before, even among white players. The use of Fund money by individual teams to augment contract offers and pay bonuses had been under scrutiny for years. Its use had been challenged during the Players’ Strike of 1950, but only as leverage against their concerns about rundown facilities and the generally poor condition of other “usable assets” like locker rooms, road accommodations and transportation (buses and trains). It was never made a serious issue because, in the owners’ minds, players making far more than the average American worker did not want to complain too loudly about any system that could potentially pay them even more money.

Nonetheless, the owners felt this new generation of Union representatives was more sophisticated, more knowledgeable, and was not going to leave the Fund alone. They would push hard for greater access to its workings and the trail of monies transferred into and from it. Even if the Fund rules were rewritten, Bowen said, no one would trust that teams were following them. Not anymore. There was only one solution: eliminate the Fund altogether. He knew this would incite the smaller market teams to even greater efforts to expand the league, creating a longer schedule and more opportunities to earn revenue.

Owners had been sharply divided on expansion for several years. They knew more teams meant more fans, and this meant more money for everyone. But many owners were reticent to authorize more franchises because, to them, more teams meant more players and more players meant the average skill level would decline. A declining skill base was not the way to attract more fans, they argued, and more teams meant increases in travel and lodging costs, insurance, and payroll. The divide was very clearly marked; small market teams with limited budgets wanted a General Fund and expansion. Rich, older teams with plenty of cash wanted to eliminate the Fund and opposed expansion. Tellingly, when J. Walker Bowen invited owners to his secret meeting, he didn’t invite the small fish.

It should be mentioned at this point that in 1965 the ABF was also negotiating the largest media contract in professional sports history. Broadcast rights in the ‘30s and ‘40s were exclusively for radio. Radio, limited by the technology of time, was a regional endeavor. In 1933, when teams first started selling broadcast rights to radio stations, there was no National Radio Network. Contracts were smaller, more localized, built more by a handshake than by pages of legal documentation. The NRN didn’t come into the discussion until after WWII. Certainly, the money NRN provided helped smaller teams compete, but the amount was not enough to threaten the wealthier teams, and that was just the way the big teams wanted it.

But in 1958, the Columbia Broadcasting System negotiated a national contract with the ABF to televise, exclusively, selected ABF games throughout multiple markets, featuring matchups selected for their regional appeal. The Television Age was here, and the ABF was at its forefront. The CBS money was divided equally among the teams, and this helped the competitive balance (smaller market teams could afford more expensive players), but it also led to the manipulation of the Fund. There was no way to hide discriminatory bonus payments to players without the Fund.

The CBS deal was renewed in 1962 for three more years. The money was flowing in. Post-war America flocked to the national game as never before. The U.S. economy bloomed, and baseball profited. In 1965, the league was poised to enter the largest media contract in history, but before they could, the PBPA vs. ABF happened. Trust in the league was shattered, and with it the credibility of ABF ownership. Unwilling to partner with an entity being sued in federal court, CBS suspended the deal. Come back to us when this is over, they said.

In the event of an adverse ruling that included punitive damages, what could ABF owners do? During the discussion that day at the Plaza one thing was clear: if punitive damages were levied, the league would have to fold. To continue professional baseball, they were going to have to create a new league, a new entity not subject to civil suits from minority players. And, Boston Rovers owner Peter McMahon added, it would have to be ready to go the instant that ruling was issued.

Bowen declared that the new league had to be markedly different. It had to be more than just a new league. It had to be a “renewal of trust”. There could be no General Fund. He praised the Fund for shoring up franchises from the economic hardships experienced in the past but added that when it had outlived its usefulness it had been expediently manipulated. To win back fans, he said, CBA teams will have to survive on their own. That meant money.

The CBS deal, if it could be revived, meant lots of money. Enough, possibly, to prevent bankruptcy for the half-dozen teams facing financial ruin. That was good, Bowen said, but the league must also limit expansion only to financially stable teams, teams that could survive without a General Fund. The original CBA model used only the wealthiest twelve teams, but Bowen was willing to consider as many as 24 teams in the new league, including any bankrupted ABF team that had enough cash to survive and could restructure in time for the 1966 season. He tentatively identified fifteen additional successful teams from regional leagues to approach, should the CBA model move forward and some ABF teams fail. Some of those regional teams, like the Phoenix Ravens and New York Scouts, had courted the ABF for expansion for years.

When the Supreme Court upheld Judge Barnhardt’s ruling, the owners incorporated the CBA and the new league was born. When negotiations with CBS concluded a month later, a mere 48 days prior to the first scheduled preseason game, the influx of media money staved off bankruptcy for most of the other teams, but not all. Some teams were sold outright to new owners with the cash to revive the franchises, but ultimately all former ABF teams survived to join the new league, albeit not in their original incarnations. The Los Angeles Stars became the Legends, for example, and Texas became the Dallas Marshals. The San Francisco Prospectors became the Gulls.

The CBA in 1966 was made up of 24 teams, 20 that survived the demise of the ABF and 4 other franchises, mostly from the very successful Pacific League in the West. Several teams changed divisions in this restructuring. The CBA retained the ABF’s playoff model, but expanded it to eight teams, the six division winners and two Wild Cards – the second-place teams (one from each League) with the best record who would play the division winner with the most losses in the first round. The new franchises were the Phoenix Ravens, New York Scouts, Oakland Mammoths, and Seattle Lumberjacks.

The new league was here, and it was no coincidence that the CBA logo featured the same colors as the New York Admirals. J. Walker Bowen was its intellectual father. His renewal of trust had begun.

Last edited by Tib; 02-19-2022 at 02:57 PM.
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Old 02-19-2022, 02:53 PM   #845
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History of Pro Baseball: Part Six: Transition

“New Life in the Old Game”
Baseball’s Rebirth, 1966-1972

The socio-economic impact of restarting baseball cannot be underestimated. After the demise of trust in the old league and its economic structure, the CBA knew it must embody the best of principles and commit to a new way of presenting professional baseball to the country. The planning was done. What the league needed, and what the public waited to see, was to implement a new incarnation of the national game that made things better.

To this end, owners approved a large slate of new rules and regulations, starting with economic autonomy for each team, a restructuring of divisions based on geographic area (to reduce travel expenses), bylaws created to provide recourse for Union and individual player grievances, and the highly contentious proposal for an expansion draft.

In the early spring of 1966, during the busiest weeks of preseason training, the CBA finalized articles of incorporation, initial franchise payment structures, and the official schedule. It was a frenetic time, and owners’ days were filled from dawn to dusk with planning meetings, team and budget meetings, and league and union meetings. Teams submitted economic forecasts to the league office, conducted press conferences, and planned travel. General Managers engaged on the usual trade and contract negotiations, though preseason trade activity was down during this first spring as teams fought to maintain roster consistency in the face of so many other changes and requirements. All this under the shadow of a planned expansion draft. During all conversations with the media, owners’ responses were conspicuously similar. This was “a new era” full of “new possibilities” forged with a “new commitment to competitive equity”. They were going to ‘put new life in the old game”.

Considering the ABF ruling, players welcomed the new league, but were understandably skeptical. They didn’t want the same problems and issues disguised as a new way of doing business. The Fund was gone, never to return, but players burned by owners’ self-serving economics in the past were wary of the new system. Many believed owners simply wouldn’t operate the league unless they could tip the scales with a significant and secret stash of money somewhere. Rumors of a secret Fund circulated in the early months of 1966. Players’ responses were also conspicuous. “We’ll see,” they all said.

Add to this the proposal for an expansion draft, a special draft of “unprotected” professional players from existing rosters by expansion teams for the purpose of helping them be more competitive more quickly. Players, though vindicated by the ABF ruling, remained suspicious of owners. Up to this time, teams joining the league brought their own rosters with them, sub-par though the talent may be in comparison to the bigger league. Team records in those first few seasons were typically dismal, but established rosters were less costly, enabling owners to amass greater profits in the early years and eventually compete to sign stars. These several years of struggle were the price paid for entry into the very profitable ABF. But now, stung perhaps by the reprimand they just received, owners proposed an expansion draft to reinforce the idea of equity so important to the players. To many players this was nothing more than another attempt to manipulate them.

After struggling to win better control over the forces that decided their professional careers (and personal lives), players were asked now to risk their futures for the sake of balance. In the end, despite the new “visibility economics”, players were simply not willing to place their futures into the owners’ hands again. The owners cried foul, reminding the Union that, according to the proposal, existing contracts would remain in force to be honored by the acquiring team, and that the new economic structure of the league would ensure no team defaults on any in-force contract. The league sent the Union what came to be known as the Penny Papers, a packet of drafts and spreadsheets in support of the proposal which outlined costs and projections down to the penny. The owners also reminded the Union that teams still had the right to negotiate trades, and an expansion draft was simply an open-ended trade agreement involving every player on every roster. It was, they said, nothing more than a very large trade block clearing house. This description did not make the players any happier. In time, players began requesting no-trade clauses in their contracts, inspired, they said, by the Penny Papers.

But nothing like a no-trade clause existed in 1966. Players had no recourse, except to strike, but it would have been fruitless. As proposed, the expansion draft did not violate federal law or the existing labor agreement. The players, the taste of champagne still on their lips, were compelled to accept this bitter pill.

Ultimately, the expansion draft was less compelling in reality than in speculation. Grumblings still came from players, especially those claimed by the four new teams, but rosters were not “decimated”, and veterans were not “discarded”, as the Union forecasted. Contracts remained in place. The Scouts and Lumberjacks even offered small bonuses to draftees to ease the cost of relocation. Certainly, there were some disgruntled players, forced now to change teams for no other reason than they were no longer a priority, but that was nothing new, and it was better than being out of baseball. Compared to the major changes being undertaken, the draft was almost a formality.
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Old 02-19-2022, 02:55 PM   #846
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History of Pro Baseball: Part Six: Transition

“Caught in the Middle”
Transition Players and the Hall of Fame, 1966-1975

“Transition” has become the word to describe this time in baseball. It is applied to all the actors on this stage. ABF owners who founded the CBA were transition owners. Fans who kept allegiance throughout this ordeal were transition fans. The renewed television contract was the transition contract. Players who played in both the ABF and CBA during their careers were transition players – and, like the General Fund, they became one of its casualties.

The ruling against the ABF included a provision which prohibited CBA owners (specifically former ABF owners) from profiting from the ABF or its properties. It could not enter any arrangement in which it used its reputation, history, intellectual property, or images to establish “marketable monetary value”. The ruling’s list of “intellectual property” included “all statistics used to establish marketable value”. It was clear Judge Barnhardt’s ruling was meant to define a clear division between what was once the ABF’s and what would now be CBA property. It made sense. No one questioned the marketability of past accomplishments, which has always been represented by statistics. Each team with a new home run king or 20-game winner saw increases in ticket sales, for example. If the ABF was to remain dissolved, all earnings from it or its associated images and players had to be stopped.

This meant a new record book, a blank one, to be filled with new numbers and new accomplishments. This also made sense. The CBA was a new beginning, after all. But caught in the tides of change were the players who only months earlier were playing in the ABF. All their ABF statistics had to be retired, and not just retired, but buried in the cemetery of history. No ABF stats could become part of or referenced in the CBA record book. Understandable, given the nature of the lawsuit and ruling, but this restriction raised significant questions. Players traded on their abilities and accomplishments to earn good contracts. Did this mean contract values, which were built in part on past accomplishments, were invalid? Were players under the same monetary restriction as other entities formerly associated with the ABF? If so, how were players supposed to enter legal contracts? Every contract was based in part on past accomplishments, and any new contract signed by a former ABF player would be based in part on their ABF accomplishments.

Adding to the confusion, as an assurance to players, existing contracts had already been guaranteed by the new league. Salaries were already being paid. Barnhardt’s ruling did not address in-force player contracts. The judge did not dissolve them, nor did he endorse them as continual and legally binding. In the mad dash toward opening day, and in the absence of any specific direction from Barnhardt, teams and players moved forward without applying Barnhardt’s ruling to individual playing contracts.

On March 11th, three weeks from Opening Day, the Players Union appealed. Union chief counsel Philip Sacchi said the Union wasn’t looking to invalidate existing contracts. It wanted clarification. Eliminating monetary gains from ABF association was one thing – and appropriate for owners – but players innocent of General Fund collusion should not have their future livelihoods compromised by it. The Union wanted player contracts recognized as being outside the purview of the ruling.

Sacchi said later it should have been an easy fix. A quick review by Barnhardt and a confirmation. And the judge did confirm the legality of existing contracts, adding that the purpose of that passage was to ensure that former ABF owners could not use their association with the former league to gain greater credit with lenders and thus “profit” by receiving loans based on valuations influenced by the illegally used General Fund.

Fair enough. But players were caught in the crossfire of between an owner’s artificially increased credit valuation and a player’s legitimate market value. If the owners could not use their association with the ABF to get more operating money, how then could a player?

Ultimately, the answer lay in the nature of the agreement. Barnhardt’s ruling went to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals for review. The review took ten days. On March 24th, just two weeks before the start of the season and while preseason games were being played across the country, the court issued its ruling. It further defined the nature of Barnhardt’s sanction as a preventative measure to ensure Federal lending and labor laws could not be broken even by good faith loan and credit valuations. The court re-confirmed the necessity of a hard break and a clean slate – for corporations doing business as baseball franchises. It did not sanction players in this way. Player contracts were not based on General Fund levels or balances, the court said. The General Fund was only the means by which many teams paid their players. Thus, the court wrote, players could not be said to profit directly from General Fund manipulation. Therefore, their contracts were not evidence of overt collusion. They were not subject to the restriction because the players had no knowledge they were being paid in violation of Federal law. In essence, the contracts were legal, the method of payment was not.

This was welcome news to the league. There wasn’t much time left to have a full season. This was also welcome news to players, but there was an unintended ramification of the clear division between old stats and new stats. It had nothing to do with money and everything to do with legacy.

The ABF Hall of Fame came into being after a unanimous vote of the owners in 1934. It was only an agreed-upon idea. It had no location, no curator, and no money. The money was solved by a dip into the General Fund, but the search for its first curator took several months. Finally, after purchasing the empty Delaware State College campus in Wilmington, the owners selected retired Merrimack College Dean of Economics Aulden Griffin to lead the way. An experienced and respected leader in education, Griffin (at a spry 78 years of age) was also a huge baseball fan. His unflappable support for his Boston Rovers aside, Griffin oversaw everything from building modifications and exhibit design to construction contracts and a state-of-the-art, humidity-controlled reference library.

But even an economist like Aulden Griffin could not have foreseen the troubles to come for the new addition to baseball history, led, ironically, by his determination to quantify the concept of fame in baseball terms. Swayed by Griffin’s passion, the Baseball Hall of Fame Board of Directors established the tier system for induction consideration in 1935, a year before its opening. Griffin’s purpose was to recognize certain indisputable levels of accomplishment and on that basis begin the debate over worthiness for enshrinement. It was the setting of a standard (instinctive for an economist), and at the time none questioned it. The first players inducted all had numbers that far exceeded the threshold, so where was the issue? The league was in strong support of the tier system. Hall of Fame caliber players should amass a significant number of wins, or hits, or home runs, shouldn’t they? This was not unreasonable, and it was heartily endorsed by both owners and the press. But several times since 1935 the Hall was criticized for limiting worthiness to statistical thresholds and disregarding the impact of great players who simply did not play long enough to put up eligible numbers. Even as early as 1938, it was accused of essentially hiding behind the tier system and ignoring great players. If 2,500 hits were the minimum, why not consider a player like Artie Gentry, who had 2,438? Surely, Artie Gentry deserved to be considered. Another three months and he would have qualified anyway. But the Hall stayed firm. “These numbers define greatness in baseball,” said Griffin in 1939. “If we reduce the qualifications for enshrinement, we risk becoming the Hall of Mediocrity.” Teams still rewarded such players with induction into their own franchise Halls of Fame, but it wasn’t the same. Under the tier system, players like Harmon Simmonds (.287 career avg., 2,214 hits) and George Kelmer (3.76 ERA, 194 wins) failed to reach eligibility.

Due to the immense responsibility of getting the new Hall of Fame up and running, Aulden Griffin and Hall of Fame Library published only four seasons (1881-1884) before his retirement in 1940. He was succeeded by Assistant Curator Alexander Huyke only two months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into WWII. Wartime baseball had its own challenges, including a reduction in Records staff as many were drafted into military service. Huyke published only two seasons (1885-1886), doing most of the research himself, and kept the tier system intact.

Loyalty to the tier system became the Hall’s legacy well into the 1960’s. When the league expanded in 1950, league averages increased with the dilution of talent. Against the prevailing opinion of the time, Curator Ed Solomon increased the qualifying numbers. Convinced it was the way to quantify fame, Solomon administered the tier system until the Hall was sold in 1965.

The Hall was liquidated as part of dissolving the ABF. It turned out, admission fees to the Hall counted as ABF-related income for owners. Considering Barnhardt’s mandate was to remove any source of revenue for ABF owners, there was talk of closing the Hall and sealing the records to prevent further sanctions. This would, of course, have been a huge blow to the game – a blow which might have been unrecoverable. But as so often happened in the history of baseball, an unexpected person arrived to save it.

The Hall could not be owned by anyone associated with the ABF, so the solution was to bring in someone new. That someone was aviation pioneer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Lawrence Fairwell Blair, a longtime friend of J. Walker Bowen. The charismatic Blair was clear in his purpose: he intended to use interest in the Hall to provide an anchor in Wilmington for his Mid-Atlantic Airlines. And that’s exactly what he did. Under Blair’s ownership, the ABF Hall of Fame became the American Baseball Hall of Fame. And because it was now privately owned, income generated by the Hall was no longer under the purview of Barnhardt’s ruling. ABF Hall of Famers continued to be enshrined and fans continued to travel to Wilmington to revel in baseball’s past. Though Blair ultimately sold Mid-Atlantic to Mercury Airlines in 1952, the Blair family kept the Hall, became its stewards, and have been worthy caretakers of baseball’s history, accomplishments, and legacy ever since.

But criticism of the tier system did not stop with private ownership. In fact, it intensified. During the Transition years (1966-1975), calls for the Blair family to remove the tier system were constant. To many fans, the prohibition against officially recognizing the combined statistical accomplishments of great players was nothing short of a miscarriage of justice. The ABF was gone. No former ABF owner was making any money off the Hall. Players “caught in the middle” had been absolved by the Appeals Court. So what was the problem? A hit is a hit, they argued. And if you get 2,500 of them you should be in the Hall of Fame, regardless what league you played for. And now that the Hall was privately owned, the Blairs could do whatever they wanted.

But the Blairs kept the tier system, inspiring fans in 1966 to start calling for the combining of ABF and CBA statistics for Transition players. This became known as the Inclusion Movement. Those who favored Inclusion began to use new, “unofficial” statistics to make their points. Statistics that exist today, like Versus League Average [VLA] and the Objective Productivity Arc [OPA]. Transition players like Vince Travesano, Alex Aponte, and Dick Shirley became examples of how two separate sets of statistics were harming players’ legacies.

Vince Travesano was perhaps the most valuable treasure ever found in an expansion draft. He played for the Pittsburgh Drillers from 1962-1965 and produced decent numbers in those seasons, averaging .244/21/57, but fell short of Pittsburgh’s projections. After he was selected by the expansion New York Scouts, his career took off. Over the next ten seasons, Travesano averaged .265/27/80, making him one of the most consistently productive first basemen in the Mutual League. But when he retired in 1975, Travesano found himself on the outside looking in. While his CBA numbers did not qualify him for consideration, his career stats did. During his CBA career, Travesano’s VLA averaged 1.21.

Baltimore centerfielder Alex Aponte was one of the most feared base stealers in the United League for his first six seasons (1960-1965), averaging 41 steals per year, for a total of 245, 55 short of the 300 required for Hall consideration. After the Transition, Aponte finished his career in Baltimore, another six seasons, and went on to steal another 277 bases, including his record 99 in 1968. He retired in 1971 with 522 steals, which ranked him 12th on the all-time list, but under the tier system Aponte did not qualify for consideration in either league. Aponte’s OPAs for base stealing were 78.2% in the ABF and 84.6% in the CBA.

Atlanta southpaw Dick Shirley was perhaps the most consistent lefthander of the 20th century. During his long career with the Generals (1952-1965), Shirley won 14-16 games a year, and never lost more than 12. When the ABF ended, Shirley had 182 victories. After the Transition, Shirley pitched two more years and won another 23 games for a total of 205. While his career totals qualified him under the tier system, the CBA record book credits him with only 23 wins. Shirley’s comprehensive ABF VLA was 1.23.

Make no mistake, the fight for Inclusion in the late Sixties mirrored other movements occurring around the country at that time. It is no coincidence it was called a movement. It may have been about baseball, but it was also about justice. The Hall, however, remained firm. Combining statistics, they felt, would bring the specter of the ABF back into the mix and invite further scrutiny by the Federal Government. To many socially conscious baseball fans, players like Travesano, Aponte, and Shirley took on the role of the oppressed while the Hall became the Establishment.

Inclusion for Transition players was not resolved for another two decades.

Apart from the drama behind Hall consideration, the Transition Years (1966-1975) were marked by terrific growth, something the CBA desperately wanted. Not only was it a larger league, but rosters now included more African American and Latino players, bringing more fans of color into the baseball community. It seemed that, after the nightmare that was the end of the ABF, brighter and more profitable days were ahead.

Unrealized at the time, however, ingredients for a very significant change were brewing. The new league used the Penny Papers to justify the Expansion Draft, which many players felt marginalized them. The closing of the ABF record books sent the careers of hundreds of players into the shadows of history, something players laid firmly at the feet of owners. The Inclusion Movement, started not by players but by fans, gained no traction. Players began to see the small gains they’d earned over the decades slowly sliding back to pre-1950 labor conditions. It seemed they were closer to anonymity than to fame. But they knew ABF contracts would be expiring soon. They prepared themselves to claim any advantage they could as a new era of negotiations commenced.

The players were preparing for battle, and the battlefield was free agency.

Last edited by Tib; 09-07-2022 at 06:57 PM.
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Old 02-19-2022, 02:57 PM   #847
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A quick note:

These last few pieces of History of Pro Baseball were supposed to dovetail with Dave's entry into free agency, but they just weren't ready. Every time I looked them over there was something new I had to add. Anyway, here they are.
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Old 02-21-2022, 03:01 AM   #848
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He's Back!

Fantastic Tib! Great piece of work creating the back history of not only the story but the two leagues as well. Fascinating stuff.
Keep rockin' and we'll keep cheering!

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Old 09-07-2022, 06:56 PM   #849
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Chapter 72:
Full Steam Ahead

Baltimore is cold, and when you build your stadium to overlook the harbor, you invite even more cold. The Hunting Grounds could get cold, too, but being in the heart of Chicago’s South Side helped protect it from the wind coming off Lake Michigan. Harborside Stadium, as I was to learn, was built intentionally open to the Patapsco River to give fans a view of the Inner Harbor. And it was a great view, one of the most photographed in baseball, but sometimes (and especially in the afternoons) the wind off the ocean swept right up the channel and into the stadium. In short, your eyes would have a feast looking out at the docks at Tide Point, but the rest of your body would freeze to death. I was spoiled to spend the first month of my Steamer career in Florida, but it wasn’t long before I rediscovered my love of heavy wool coats.

The team returned to the city on March 30th for the traditional preseason finale series against the Sentinels before we returned to Florida to start the season on the road in Miami. Game 1 was a balmy 48 degrees. Game 2 was 51. Game 3 was 58. People were in tank tops in the stands. I admit, after having to wear layers to keep warm I was looking forward to Florida. I may have played in Chicago, but I was still a California kid.

Throughout the preseason I shared shortstop duties with Matt Norrell, a switch hitter who impressed last season (.314/6/35 in 103 games), and although Stokes told me I was his starter, he was also honest enough to tell me he intended to give Norrell plenty of at bats. I was turning 32 on Opening Day, and no matter how physically able I was, 32 is a threshold in professional baseball. It’s the age of greater scrutiny, when everyone says nice things about what you’ve accomplished so far, but secretly wonders how much gas you still have in the tank. And an $18-million contract doesn’t change that. Thirty-two is a conspicuous age, the number at the end of certain statistical demographics. The commonly accepted age range for a player’s offensive prime is 27-32, for example.

Strangely, I wasn’t feeling any pressure. By now I’ll bet you’re thinking “Dave was probably stressed about being past his prime”. Nope. I just signed a good contract, for a length of time that most players don’t get offered, and I had a good spring at the plate (.282/2/11, 4 steals). My elbow and knee were healthy. And most of all, I was ready to prove my worth to my new team.

Let me tell you about my new team.

As most of you know, if you’ve followed professional baseball at all, the Baltimore Steamers are one of the league’s most mercurial teams. The franchise has a history of stringing together multiple winning seasons, even championship chasing seasons, but is also known for its long playoff droughts. The Steamers also have a history of not performing according to plan. Baltimore has won titles without the strongest lineup or pitching staffs, but they’ve also failed to finish .500 with the most expensive payroll in the game. During my career, Baltimore won more than one championship while finishing dead last in their division four times. Joining this team for me was a gamble, and not just professionally. When you play for the Steamers, you’re never quite sure where you’ll end up in the standings.

The team Theo put together was a good one. There were always questions, of course, about bullpen depth and the health of the injury prone, but not about talent. In 2016 I was one of the new guys, along with my old teammate Rudy Galindo and relievers Telmo Vasco and Jimmy Kappler from Seattle and Pittsburgh respectively. Perhaps the thing that put off most of the pundits was the absence of a lefthanded starter. On the other hand, Theo didn’t believe in lefty-righty splits, just like he didn’t believe in ghosts or the Loch Ness Monster or the perfect waffle.

Phil Corkery was a two-time All-Star with a fratbro sense of humor (his description). He was always ready to laugh, even if the joke wasn’t that funny. He had a three-day beard every day, even the day after he shaved. His feet were simply too big for his body and his shoulders were so wide he had to turn to the side to go through doorways. He wore number 86 because before he made the team he was cut from Baltimore’s final Big League roster three times. He was tall (6’5”), a painfully slow runner, but a huge target at first base. His slash-type swing could drive a ball into the gaps with power, but could also shank one down either line for a double. During games he kept a wad of gum in his mouth the size of a golf ball and liked to chat up baserunners. He used an immense glove almost as long as his feet. His wife Laurie was Miss Mississippi 2009. He had two blond toe-headed kids, Muriel and Grant, who liked to help by hanging up game day jerseys. Muriel once drew a picture of me as a gift and left it in my locker. She couldn’t remember my name, so she wrote simply: “Not Terry”. I have it framed above my desk.

Second baseman Marcelo Calderon was a 31-year-old converted shortstop of Mexican/Italian descent who told everyone, “My name is ‘Mar-chello’, not ‘Mar-sello’”. He was a Baltimore farmhand Theo loved for his solid glove, but his bat was streaky. When he got hot, though, he was on base all the time. He had just gone through a messy divorce and missed his daughter terribly, so much he began talking about going back to play in the Dominican to be near her. He used one of the trendy new shallow pocket gloves and his hands were so fast you could barely track the ball before it was coming at you. He was one of the two hundred or so players who still used a wooden bat. He called it the “caldero”, which he said is a kind of Hispanic pressure cooker. I think he just wanted to name it after himself. He was quick-footed, quick-witted and funnier than people gave him credit for. I was looking forward to playing with him. I thought we could make a very exciting duo up the middle.

Matt Norrell was the new blood, full of promise and talent, and my main rival for playing time. He was a terrific hitter, but inconsistent in his efforts to improve. I say this not to be cruel or critical, but to describe the kind of obstacles he faced in his career. His father, former Big Leaguer Tom Norrell (six seasons as a starter with Detroit: 63-68), was a big influence on him, both positively and negatively. Again, not to be critical. He described his challenges with his dad in his interview in the November 2019 issue of Baseline magazine. By his own description (and statistically), Matt was a poor fielder, which in part explains my disproportionate playing time, though he was without a doubt the better hitter. He was also a high-profile draft pick, having starred on Nevada State’s 2014 Division I championship team. I knew going in he was seen as a potential future All-Star, but I also knew Theo and his bias toward defense, at least at shortstop. Hell, Horatio Munoz hit .231 his first season with Theo, but Theo stuck with him. Essentially, shortstop was my position to lose.

James Wills. What can be said that hasn’t already been said? He was a bona fide superstar. 551 career home runs, a 10-time All-Star, a future HOF lock and the all-time franchise golden boy. An absolute pro beloved by fans, his #33 was the best-selling jersey for the last six seasons – in all of baseball. He was the first Steamer player to shake my hand when I got to Florida for Spring Training. His wife sent my wife a gift basket and a welcome card. His business first attitude and shrewd baseball mind were envied by all, especially companies like Amerisports and National Pastime, who fought over his after-retirement career in broadcasting (Wills never mentioned anything to anyone while he was still playing). He was a consummate pro, insanely talented, with records he accomplished almost by willpower alone. He holds the Big League record for errorless games at third, an insane 53 games in his age-25 season. No fast-food, energy drink, or shoe deals for James Wills. His endorsements included banks, investment companies, luxury car makers, and international resort hotels. And in an era where the internet decided your nickname, he was James Wills. No one called him Jim or Jimmy or Jimbo, not even the internet. Our manager, Tim Stokes, affectionately called him Mr. Wills.

This didn’t stop Theo from calling him Jimmy, though. Of course, we all cringed whenever he did, because we knew Wills. But Wills never did or said anything, at least in front of anyone. I think Wills instinctively knew Theo wasn’t trying to start something. Theo didn’t have that kind of subtlety. Besides, James Wills only fought the battles he could win, so he let it go. Theo was not his favorite person, but I’m sure James Wills understood the futility of reasoning with Theo Garner.

One of my former teammates, Rudy Galindo, joined the team with me. He was 38 years old this season, and he was losing velocity on his fastball, but he still had the devastating sinker. Still, it was a risky signing. Critics quickly dismissed him as a veteran too long in the teeth hanging on to his career by strength of past accomplishments, but that wasn’t fair. Rudy had some great seasons, knew how to pitch and how to get outs. Nothing impressed Theo more than a pitcher who “knew which end of the ball to hold”.

So the Steamers, with added veteran experience and some question marks in the bullpen and no lefthanded starters, began the season in Miami with a quality start, a 3-1 victory, and a James Wills homer. The team was 3-3 in week one and 3-3 in week two. The vets were playing well. Wills had three homers by Game 6 and I grabbed Player of the Game with a bases clearing double in an 11-5 victory over the Admirals in New York. Standing at second base, I enjoyed the boos tremendously, though the New York fans’ displeasure may have been more for the slider that didn’t slide then any kind of anger at me.

On April 12th we scored five in the eighth to win 5-2 over powerhouse Denver team. The next day, a cold Sunday getaway game, Norrell started and I finished, driving a low fastball into the stands along the left field foul pole for a pinch hit homer, my first of the season.

Our starting pitching had a hot start. Galindo and crew didn’t give up more than three earned runs for almost two weeks, and by the end of April we were 16-10 and in first place. I was hitting .277 with 5 doubles and starting most every game. I had been experimenting with ceramic bats for most of the spring and settled on a Maxibat Montauk BX-225 that was +3 mph on barrel contacts. All in all, I was pleased with my production at the plate, which was unusual for me. I was used to grinding mightily for hits early in the season. I began to think, “Could it be a good offensive season without having to work my ass off?”

It was not. But for the first time in my career, offense was the least of my problems.


Next up: Dave's struggles in Baltimore begin

Last edited by Tib; 09-07-2022 at 06:58 PM.
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Old 09-14-2022, 12:23 AM   #850
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New chapter!

Hey Tib!

Good to see you and a new chapter! Just in time for my birthday too. How thoughtful man. Thanks. . Great chapter as usual. Hope things are well with you. Take care.
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Old 09-15-2022, 06:52 PM   #851
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Happy birthday, P!
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Old 10-01-2022, 11:04 AM   #852
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Chapter 73

Grounders: A Love Story


I’m going to try to explain why I love ground balls so much, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to explain it completely. Loving ground balls is like a fisherman loving baiting the hook or casting the line. Loving ground balls is like a basketball player loving free throws. It’s only a part of the game itself, but it holds an indescribable attraction for some. And some fishermen can cast a line into a very small space. And some basketball players almost never miss a free throw. And some baseball players never seem to make an error.

From an early age, maybe playing juniors at seven or eight, I realized I was good at picking up a rolling ball and getting an out. I was a good hitter. I made contact and could run out a lot of hits. I bunted. I stole bases. I scored runs. I even pitched for a few years, until I stopped growing and the bigger kids took over. But for whatever reason, I just knew I could field a grounder and get the out. It was fun, and not everyone could do it, not at the age of seven. Believe me, I knew it was special when I heard other parents compliment my dad after the games.

Grounders. Thinking about it now, the whole concept is weird. It’s only a bouncing ball, after all. Just pick it up and throw it to first, why don’t you? Simple. Not exactly thrilling. It was expected. I loved it. All of it.

And the equipment. Real leather. Faux leather. Synth-Leather. Weave pockets. Web pockets. Solid pockets. Munoz pockets. Shallow pockets. 9” gloves. 9.5” gloves. 10” gloves. I remember my dad taking me to Brookins Sporting Goods in Mount Rose for my first real glove, the glove I was to use for all of high school and my first two years in pro baseball. I remember standing at the glove wall, this immense expanse covered in metal pegs, peppered with posters of Big Leaguers, and from each peg hung multiple versions of every glove. Glovemaster. Web Gems. Diamond Star. Haley. Choice. And the beautiful rich smell of leather that came off that wall… I was in heaven.

And I didn’t choose a Munoz pocket, after all. Shocking, I know. My first real glove was a Haley 95. 95 for 9-inch fingers, 5-inch-wide pocket. The Xavier Sainz model. I sat in the car and smelled it all the way home.

Of course, I had to work in the pocket. Every aspiring Defensive Player of the Year has to have the perfect pocket in his glove. It was a real father/son project. My dad taught me how to oil the leather (no synth leather for young Davey), how to pound the pocket with your fist, or in my case the head of a meat tenderizer with a shop towel duct taped around it. I must have pounded that pocket a thousand times. Then he secured a ball in there, tied it tight with an old shoestring, and fired up the oven. For those of you following this recipe at home, that’s five minutes at 350 degrees, then remove the very pliable glove. Take a moment to smell the leather, then double check the fold. This is very important. The fold has to be perfect, or it won’t lay flat when you toss it into dugouts. Gotta lay flat. Can’t sit there half open like it was broken in by some kind of amateur.

Then put in under your mattress and sleep on it for three nights. Not one night. Not two nights. Three nights. Like a magic spell or something. And you can’t keep taking it out and looking at it and messing with it. It has to set, like wet cement. After three nights you can bust it out and start using it. Let me tell you, those three nights were like an eternity for me. As I lay awake at night I considered the major decisions I still had to make.

Index finger out? Index finger in? Batting glove on? Batting glove off? Full name and phone number or just last name and phone number? Sharpie or ballpoint pen? On the back of the thumb, or inside on the pinkie finger? There was so much to decide. Initially I was a batting glove on finger out kind of guy. It looked really cool, and that was the way Brian Reese did it, but, ultimately, I became a no glove no finger guy, like my new hero (I found out years later Munoz was finger in because he needed all his digits to work his special pocket). I went with ballpoint pen because my dad’s name in his glove was in ballpoint pen and you could still read it and his glove was almost twenty years old

Then I started using it. This was the acid test, the proof in the pudding. And it was glorious. I took every ground ball my dad had time to hit me. He built a strip in our side yard filled with Diamond Dirt (remember Diamond Dirt?) so I could field grounders. We played catch like most fathers and sons, but we always ended with grounders. He didn’t make me do it. I asked for it. He must have hit me ten thousand grounders in that side yard and a couple thousand more on Saturday mornings on the deserted varsity diamond at our high school. I wanted him to hit me even more on Sundays, but Sundays was for church and my exhausted father said even God got to rest one day a week.

But I was good at it. That was part of the equation. When you’re young and you try something and discover you’re good at it, you just want to keep doing it forever. Every clean pick was another small pat on the back. Fielding was unlike getting base hits. Hitting always carried a randomness to its results, because, well, the whole round bat round ball thing. But fielding, that was skill and anticipation, and readiness, and hitter knowledge, and pitcher knowledge, and vision. It was a controllable outcome in a game with so few controllable outcomes. And at its best it’s pure artistry.

Most kids idolized sluggers. Mort Jones. Joe Bugliatti. Pat Patrick. And growing up in Los Angeles we all loved Tom Faraday and Olavo Senega and especially Matteo Agapan (A-ga-PAN! A-ga-PAN!). But for me it was Lalo Garcia, then Mike Burns when he was with the Vipers. I liked the way Brian Reese sidearmed the ball to first, so I tried that for a while, but I was wild and my dad made me stop. I liked Xavier Sainz and Ronny Frabel. I even had a Pete Mortenson poster on my wall. Pete Mortenson! Not exactly a household name, but if you hit a ball to his side of the infield you were out. Guaranteed. The guy was amazing. I have no idea where my dad found that poster; there was no Bazaar.com in the late Nineties. Then when I was thirteen, I discovered Horatio Munoz. The Pete Mortenson poster came down and a new poster went up.

Of course, he had been in the league for a few years before I knew of him. I was only two when he made the Knights. Like most kids growing up in L.A., I was focused on my hometown Legends (and the occasional Colt), but he caught my attention in 1997 when I was thirteen and started to get really serious about defense. That was the year he won his seventh UL Defensive Player of the Year at the age of thirty-five (the oldest shortstop to win it in UL history). Looking back, it’s amazing he never appeared on my radar before then. I guess I was just a Legends kid through and through (Adrian Nimitz, anyone?).

After I saw Horatio play, I never wanted to watch anyone else. The quickness. The speed. The unbelievable instinct. His focus, his lightning-fast hands. His situational intelligence. All two steps above anyone else in the league. And that mustache. It was like a living thing making a home on his upper lip. When I was eighteen, I tried to grow a mustache too, just like Horatio, but my dad made me stop. It looked like a living thing died on my upper lip.

Bouncers. Skippers. Bounders. Two-hoppers. Three-hoppers. Six-hoppers. Fifteen-hoppers. Wormburners. Short short hops. Long short hops. High hops. Bad hops. Barehanders. Backhanders. High hop backhanders. Bad hop backhanders. Burners up the middle. Burners in the hole. Horatio got them all. He was what I wanted to be. Hell, he was for a decade what I was hoping to be for one season.

In 1984, the year of my birth, he made nine errors. The whole season. They didn’t have Defensive Range when he played, but by today’s reckoning Munoz was a 5.62, a full point above second place Lalo Garcia. In the fall of 1999, I went to his baseball clinic in San Diego. I saw there were a lot of kids just like me, only most of them had Munoz pockets, and they all wanted to be him, too. We got instruction from other Big Leaguers, did a ton of drills, and played a few pick-up games. He didn’t show until the last day. He put on an hour-long clinic, and I drank in every word. Then a short question and answer session, a group picture, and he was gone. Never got to meet him, but that was okay. I got to be on the same field as him, and that was enough. When I got home, I told my dad I had to have a Munoz pocket. My dad never blinked. It was like he knew. Off we went again to Brookins’ glove wall. I gave the Xavier Sainz glove to my sister and never looked back.

After ten years in the Bigs, nothing about grounders had changed for me, except how hard they were hit. From Hinesville to Baltimore, it was still (and always would be) impact-react-track-scoop-set-throw. I still had the same focus and determination. I still worked my drills. My instincts were still sharp, which is why the whole thing was so confusing. It’s one thing to have a problem and know it’s a problem. It’s something else when everything you know is good and right and bad things still happen. That’s what gets into your head. In Baltimore, during the first of what might be my last few seasons in the league, with a reputation for excellent defense, I began to make errors.

I shrugged them off at first. New team, new infield, new surroundings. The first few didn’t phase me. I had confidence in my abilities. But by May 1st I had made nine errors. One May 2nd I made two more. These were not just fielding errors or just throwing errors. They were both, and they were sloppy. I was not as quick as I once was, but I was not feeling overly rushed or out of position. My entire career had been in the UL, and the batters I was facing I had seen each season for most of the last decade. But the routine outs that had come so easily to me my whole baseball life were not so routine anymore.

I made fourteen errors the first ten weeks of the season. Bobbles, late positioning, low throws, wide throws, high throws, rushed throws. It was a smorgasbord of mistakes I had never committed so frequently my whole career. Stokes stuck with me at first. He was a former player and knew what it was like to go through a rough patch. Norrell still got the Sunday starts (and was hitting .327 as a part time DH). At the beginning of June, the team was 29-23 and in first place, but I was hitting a whopping .235/2/18 with 23 runs scored and 8 stolen bases. I hit .167 in May, the result of a 1-23 slump. With offense like that you had better be getting outs with the glove and I wasn’t getting them all.

Then the specter of Terry Ruddy began to appear, first on social media where Steamer fans will never forget him, then in the press with comparisons between his first months with the team and mine. Coming to a new team creates some stress but coming to Baltimore was its own brand of pressure. When I made the Knights, I played on the same dirt as one of the KC greats, Horatio Munoz, but I didn’t replace him. In Baltimore I was replacing one of the greats. That’s different. A little voice in my head said, you have to at least be as good as him in the field. And during the quiet moments after an error when I was gathering myself, another voice chimed in.

Come back, Dave. We were so great together. Why did you ever leave? The Munoz pocket began to talk to me. I began to wonder if I should switch back, but the logic didn’t follow. If it took longer to release with a Munoz pocket, why would I switch back and be rushed even more than I already was? No, Munoz pocket and I had to stay broken up. It was for the best. I still got texts in my head from Munoz pocket. U up? Why are you ghosting me? You know you still love me.

Of course I still love you. It’s not you, it’s me. The data says I need a shallower pocket.

Don’t listen to the data. Listen to your heart, Dave. You’re not playing well. You need me.

No, we’re done.

If we’re done, how come you didn’t throw me away? Why am I at home on the shelf next to your computer?

I can’t talk to you right now.

Why not?

Because it’s the sixth inning.

So what was it? Was I not seeing impact? No, my eyes were fine. Were my reactions too slow? Maybe. I had to admit, maybe. I realized I had to get quicker, or more accurately, I had to regain lost quickness. With the help of the team’s fitness trainer, Jeff Noriagi, I started a couple of new workouts and drills and began to feel better about things. I don’t know if I was any quicker, but my confidence was better, and renewed confidence helps everything.

I made two errors in June. I hit .294. By the end of June, we were 42-36, three games back of New York. I drove in twelve runs from the leadoff spot and raised my average to .248. This silenced all the voices, both in my head and in the stands. Baltimore fans are knowledgeable and impatient. They will wait for you to get your feet under you, but they will not wait long.

Then I made two decisions, one using my head and one using my heart, and they changed the entire season.

Last edited by Tib; 12-05-2022 at 02:10 AM.
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