well, i still have a bunch of these scanned, so let's take a look at a few more of these cards from the 1000 or so in the set.
jimmy canavan
canavan, whose career lasted from 1891 - 1897, spent his last season with the brooklyn bridegrooms. apparantly their uniform more resembled brooklyn inmates. or referees. anyway, canavan also played for the reds, brewers, chicago colts and cincinnati kelly's killers. awesome.
gus getz
getz played with the organization for 3 years when they were the robins, back in the 1910's. he was on the 1916 world series team that lost to babe ruth and the red sox. in fact, getz pinch hit for nap rucker in game 4, making the last out of the game. he faced dutch leonard in that, his only world series at-bat. a fun fact: casey stengel was on first!
zack taylor
taylor began his career in 1920 with the robins and ended it in 1935 with the dodgers. in all, he spent 7 seasons in brooklyn. his 1934 season consisted of appearing in a handful of games with the yankees. 1934 was babe ruth's last year with the club, and in one game, taylor actually replaced ruth in the lineup. ruth was called on to pinch hit for the starting catcher (arndt jorgens) and then taylor took over behind the plate. baseball reference is a wonderful thing.
nelson greene
greene was a teammate of taylor's on a couple of those robins teams in the 20s. he pitched in parts of 1924 and 1925, winning 2 games and losing 1. he once gave up 18 hits and 15 runs in 6+ innings against the pirates. yikes.
john wetteland
hey - it's a bona fide los angeles dodger! too bad tommy lasorda didn't ever figure out how to use wetteland (he started a few games, then would go to the bullpen in middle relief, then start some more) as he notched only 1 save in his 3 years in los angeles. he was traded (with tim belcher) to the reds in the deal that brought eric davis to town. the reds quickly flipped him to montreal where the expos instantly installed him as their closer, and the rest is history. the 1996 world series mvp is currently a coach with the mariners. hopefully he is doing well after his brief hospitalization during the offseason.
bob logan
bob logan appeared in exactly 2 games for the dodgers. that was in 1935. in his second game, he tallied his only strikeout as a dodger. it occurred against the boston braves, and, while there is no play-by-play on baseball reference, only two braves struck out that day. one was babe ruth, and the other hal lee. sadly, based on the fact that lee replaced ruth in the lineup and logan was the last dodger pitcher, it was not the babe that logan k'd that day. logan played for a few other teams in his career, including detroit as seen in the photo used for the card. the funny thing there is that he only made 1 appearance in the majors for the tigers.
doc mcjames
mcjames was with the franchise when they were known as the superbas! that would have been the turn of the century. the 20th century. he pitched for the club in 1899 and 1901, winning 19 games for the 1899 national league champions. his 156 strikeouts for the washington senators in 1897 were enough to lead the league. sadly, in september of 1901, 2 months after making his final appearance in a game, mcjames was killed when he was thrown from a carriage. how's that for an early 20th century demise?
eddie stanky
the brat was the second baseman on the 1947 dodger team, which is why jackie robinson played first that year. he was also one of the players who signed dixie walker's protest against having jackie on the team. after the 1947 season, his 4th with the dodgers, stanky was traded to the boston braves opening up second for robinson. there are a lot of great stories about stanky and the way that he played the game, and i am happy to be able to link to a jim murray column that recounts some of them. enjoy.
thanks baseball reference!
Great Post, dude. I love baseball reference, but your able to find things that I haven't figured out yet on that site. The extent of my knowledge on BR is to find a players OBP and mock/praise accordingly.
ReplyDeleteGetting thrown from a carriage is a crappy way to go. I wonder who threw him?
you're
ReplyDelete(I really hate it when I mess up your/you're. Bugs the heck out of me.)