Diamond Days

In an era before radar guns, the best measure of a pitcher's velocity came from the hitters who faced him. By that standard, Amos Rusie—nicknamed "The Hoosier Thunderbolt"—was among the hardest throwers the game had seen at the time.

Rusie led the National League in strikeouts five times and won at least 20 games in eight seasons. But his overpowering fastball came with erratic control. He led the league in walks five times and remains the owner of baseball's single-season record with 289 walks in 1890.

Rusie's combination of overwhelming velocity and wildness was one of the factors that prompted baseball to move the pitching distance to 60 feet, 6 inches beginning with the 1893 season. Rather than diminishing his dominance, the change did little to slow him. Rusie led the league in strikeouts in each of the next three seasons and captured the pitching Triple Crown in 1894.

His fearsome reputation was well deserved. In 1897, one of his fastballs struck future Hall of Famer Hughie Jennings in the head, leaving him unconscious for four days before he recovered.

At the height of his fame, Rusie became a genuine celebrity. Weber and Fields worked his name into their vaudeville act, a 25-cent booklet titled "Secrets of Amos Rusie, The World's Greatest Pitcher: How He Obtained His Incredible Speed on Balls" was sold to fans, a cocktail called the "Thunderbolt" was named in his honor, and famed actress Lillian Russell even sent him a personal message. Rusie was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1977.

Many baseball fans know Orlando Cepeda—but in Puerto Rico, the name Pedro Cepeda became legendary first.

Pedro’s career stretched from 1928 to 1950. In 1929, he hit .429 for the Sandino club in the Dominican Republic. Eight years later, he played for the championship-winning Ciudad Trujillo Los Dragones alongside future Hall of Famers Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, and Cool Papa Bell.

When the Puerto Rican Winter League began in 1938, Cepeda quickly became its first great star. He led the league with a .411 average over its first four seasons and helped the Guayama Brujos win championships in 1938–39 and 1939–40.

Cepeda won batting titles in both seasons, hitting .445 and .383. He followed with averages of .421 and .377 over the next two years.

Despite his greatness, Pedro never earned more than $60 a week playing baseball. During the 1940s, he worked for the San Juan Water Department while continuing to dominate the winter league.

In 1955, his son Orlando signed a $500 professional contract. Orlando went on to win the 1958 National League Rookie of the Year Award, make 11 All-Star teams, and eventually join the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Stealing for the Cycle!

This one goes into the: “You learn something new about this game everyday” file!

I discovered that today is the one-hundred-twelfth anniversary of an unusual feat accomplished by Shoeless Joe Jackson. On this date in 1912 the twenty-five-year-old Jackson completed the "stolen base cycle" when he swiped home in the seventh inning of the Indians’ 8-3 victory over the New York at Cleveland’s League Park. According to the National Pastime website:

"The 25-year-old outfielder made his way around the bases by stealing second and third base before his thievery of the plate to complete the deed."

Wow… the “steal cycle,” where a player steals second, third, and home in the same inning, is something I had never even thought about. Doing a little research, I discovered that the “steal cycle” has happened 50 times since 1899, and only 11 times since 1928. The last player to do it was Dee Gordon on July 1, 2011.

Kansas City Municipal Stadium (1923-1976) - Originally built for the American Association minor league team, the Kansas City Blues, this ballpark was host to various sports teams in its 53 year lifespan. From the Blues to the legendary Negro League team Kansas City Monarchs to two Major League ball clubs, the Athletics (1955-67) and the Royals (1969-72). It was also home to the NFL Chiefs from 1963 to 1971.

It also took many shapes, when first built it was a simple single-tier ballpark fit to hold a modest capacity of 17,476. In 1954 when it looked like Kansas City would finally join the Major Leagues, plans to add a second deck to the already existing structure took place, only to find the footing was too weak to hold the additional deck, so the old ballpark was razed and in its place, in a hurried fashion of 90 days, a new structure was built to hold 30,296. I suspect the photo is when the finishing touches were put on newly rebuilt Municipal Stadium.

Once the Athletics moved in from Philadelphia in 1955, the new team in town was a hit drawing 1,393,054 fans in their first year, only the New York Yankees had better attendance in the American League.

But it would be the same Yankees that would eventually drive a wedge between the Athletics ownership and their with trades with these two teams always seeming to benefit the Bronx Bombers, by 1965 attendance for A's games in Kansas City reached a low with just 528,344 showing up to the gate.

By the next year the Athletics franchise was on the move again, this time to Oakland.

But the ballpark wouldn't stay vacant long for baseball, in 1969, MLB added two new teams, the Seattle Pilots and in Kansas City, the Royals, who would play at Municipal Stadium from 1969 through 1972.

Once the Royals left after the 1972 season for Royals Stadium, the end was near for this historic ballpark, in 1976, Municipal Stadium was demolished and in its place was a municipal garden.

-Ron A. Bolton

Reposting one of my favorite pieces from the past - the initial plans for a new St Louis Cardinals ballpark drawn up in 1949!

At the time, the Cardinals had been renting the use of Sportsman Park as the ballpark was not owned by the Cardinals, but instead to their crosstown rivals the St Louis Browns. The Cardinals moved in as tenants in 1920 after their own ballpark, Robison Field and one of the last of the wooden ballparks, was considered obsolete.

After beating the Browns in the 1944 World Series and clearly becoming St Louis’ team, the Cardinals started exploring building their own ballpark. In 1949, Cardinals new owner Fred Saigh put forth the sketch you see here, a three-deck horseshoe shape ballpark in the Streamline Moderne style, a design popular since the 1930s.

But Saigh was also quite evasive when pushed on where this new modern ballpark would be built, only assuring the press it would be on 18 acres of land that he personally owned and set aside $5 million to finance it.

But before Saigh could break ground he was indicted on tax evasion charges and in January 1953 was sentenced to 15 months in prison. Commissioner Ford Frick pressured Saigh to sell the team and he finally relented in February 1953 when Anheuser-Busch purchased the team for $3.75 million.

At about the same time the struggled cash-strapped Browns, now owned by the colorful Bill Veeck, were struggling badly at the gate. But Veeck, always an opportunist, saw light at the tunnel with Saigh being sent to prison and had high hopes of driving the Cardinals out of town. But when Anheuser-Busch took ownership of the Cardinals, Veeck saw the writing on the wall knowing he couldn’t complete with the beer company’s resources, so he sold Sportsman Park to them for $800,000 and bolted to Baltimore and changing the name of the Browns to the Orioles.

In turn Anheuser-Busch, now owners of Sportsman Park, started to put money into the ballpark and renovating it, thus killing and prospects of a new ballpark in St Louis and making this drawing a cool after thought.

-Ron A. Bolton

"To play 18 years in Yankee Stadium is the best thing that could ever happen to a ballplayer."

-Mickey Mantle