Yankee4Life

Make this roster even funner for me? You mean make this roster more fun for me. Please if anyone can do this reach out to me. Ok, now that that is out of the way you have to realize it is a lot of work to take one team out and substitute another. It does sound simple. Take one out and put a new one in but like most things it is more involved than that.

2 out of 10, 79 seconds. This may have been the hardest set of baseball questions they've thrown at me! 😞

10 out of 10, 32 seconds. Finally a good day all around. I have not had one of these fast days in awhile.

Lou Finney Lou Finney was a tough man to strike out. A fast, feisty left-handed hitter with line-drive power, Finney made contact often enough and was versatile enough in the field to play an important role first for Connie Mack’s Depression-era Philadelphia Athletics and later for Joe Cronin’s World War II-era Boston Red Sox. A scrappy, curly-haired Alabaman who spoke with a Southern drawl, Finney stood 6 feet tall and weighed 180 pounds; batted from the left side; and threw from the right. He spent 15 years in the major leagues between 1931 and 1947, and fanned just 186 times in 4,631 at-bats, or only once for every 24.9 official turns, one of the 50 best ratios in major-league history. A .287 career hitter who hustled whenever he was on the field, the fiery Finney slugged just 31 big-league home runs, but hit 203 doubles and 85 triples. Although he could scamper around the bases, he was not a strong basestealer and swiped just 39 sacks in 84 tries. A top-of-the-order slap hitter, Finney scored 643 runs and drove in 494. He collected 1,329 career hits and walked 329 times to post a .336 on-base percentage. At his best in his natural position, right field, Finney also played first base for Mack and Cronin. “What almost clinches a post for Finney is the fact that he can play first base like a regular,” James Isaminger wrote for The Sporting News. “He is great on ground balls and handles all kinds of throws. He really is an artistic first sacker. A man who can play both first and the outfield as Finney does is too good to be turned loose.” Most often a reserve, Finney still appeared in 100 or more big-league games in seven seasons. He was highly competitive – Jimmie Foxx once said, “He’s a guy that’ll cut your heart out to win a ballgame” — and loved to needle opponents. Sporting News editor J.G. Taylor Spink recalled in a story about player superstitions, “Bobo Newsom, the garrulous Senator slinger, also has an allergy for small pieces of paper. It was worked to the limit one day by Lou Finney, who, along with the rest of the Athletics, was being mesmerized by Bobo’s fast ball. As he took the field one inning, Finney stuffed a newspaper in his pocket. Out in right field, he tore the thing to little bits, and spilled them all over the mound as he came into the dugout after the third out. Newsom went into a tantrum; park attendants had to be called to clean up the wind-blown bits before Buck would agree to pitch again. By that time he was well cooled out again and the A’s hitters knocked him out of the box.” Finney played semipro baseball at Akron, Ohio, in 1929, but when the 1930 Census reached the Five Points Hamburg Region of Chambers County in April, he was back on the family farm and at work at a rubber plant. Legend suggests that he was seated behind two mules in late June 1930, when a neighbor informed him that the Carrollton (Georgia) Champs of the Class D Georgia-Alabama League needed an outfielder. Finney answered the call. Just 19 years old, he launched a barrage on the league in his first season in organized baseball. He batted .389 with 17 doubles and 7 home runs before Carrollton and Talladega, the league’s cellar dwellers, disbanded on August 14. By that time, he had been spotted by Ira Thomas, a scout for Connie Mack’s Athletics. Philadelphia purchased Finney’s contract after the 1930 season and assigned him to the Harrisburg (Pennsylvania) Senators of the Class B New York-Pennsylvania League for 1931. However, he failed to impress the Harrisburg manager and was transferred to the York (Pennsylvania) White Roses in the same league. At York, he resumed his assault on minor-league pitchers. He batted .347 for manager Jack Bentley and earned The Sporting News’ All-NYP honors. Mack purchased the young Alabaman’s contract for the season’s final weeks. Just a month past his 21st birthday, Finney made his big-league debut for the Tall Tactician on September 12, 1931, against the St. Louis Browns. The Athletics were in the midst of a 19-game home stand, and Finney appeared in nine games – all at Shibe Park – and rapped out nine hits, including a triple, in 24 at-bats. He scored seven runs and drove in three in his three-week stint. Finney spent the 1932 season with the Portland Beavers of the highly competitive Pacific Coast League. Often called the Third Major League, the PCL boasted a number of future and former major leaguers. Two of the best in 1932 were Finney and fellow Philadelphia farmhand Michael Franklin “Pinky” Higgins, both of whom made The Sporting News’ All-PCL team. One or the other was among the league leaders in every offensive category to propel Portland to the PCL pennant with a 111-78 record. Finney slapped 268 hits and batted .351 with 7 triples, all team highs, and finished third in the league’s Most Valuable Player voting. Sporting News correspondent “Beaver-Duck” reported that “Lou Finney is just about the sensation of the league in right field. In batting, fielding, and throwing, but above all in pepper and hustling spirit, this 22-year-old looks like a certain major leaguer. He loves to play, does his best work in the pinches, and does it with the eager enthusiasm of a youth to whom winning the game for his team means much more than base hits for his individual average.” Still 22 years old, Finney rejoined the Athletics and his Portland teammate Higgins, who was Philadelphia’s third baseman in 1933. Finney enjoyed a splendid spring training and was viewed as a replacement for Al Simmons, one of baseball’s all-time great outfielders, whom Mack had traded to Chicago before the season. Finney was “emulating Ty Cobb of a quarter-century ago with his base-running,” Bill Dooley gushed in The Sporting News. “I think Finney will not be long in making Mack forget Simmons,” Dooley wrote. “Not a slugger like the great Milwaukeean, Finney is none the less a sharp hitter and a lot faster than Simmons. Here is a lad whose baserunning will open a lot of eyes. He is not only fast on the basepaths, but alert and daring. Any fielder who loafs in returning one of Finney’s hits to the infield will find him taking an extra base.” Dooley was also impressed by the “Alabama flychaser’s” desire to improve. “Finney didn’t know how to slide into a bag when he reported to the Athletics this spring. One of the first requests he made of the coaching staff was a sliding pit. He practiced in it day after day until he learned.” When the regular season started, Finney was still hot. But he was nervous and quickly cooled off, and Mack sold his contract with the right to recall the outfielder on 24 hours’ notice, to Montreal of the Double A International League. There, Finney hit .298 with 23 extra-base hits in 65 games. His second home run for the Royals came on his last at-bat, on August 15, after Mack notified Montreal to return Finney to Philly. The sudden recall derailed the Royals’ playoff hopes and created friction between Montreal and Mack. Back in Philadelphia, Finney continued to hit well. For the season, he played 63 games as an outfielder, appeared in 11 additional games as a pinch hitter, and batted .267 with 12 doubles and 3 home runs in 240 at-bats. Between seasons, there were rumors that Mack would trade the youngster to Boston, but when the 1934 season opened; he was Philadelphia’s fourth outfielder behind Indian Bob Johnson, Doc Cramer, and Ed Coleman, and sometimes spelled slugger Jimmie Foxx at first base, roles he reprised the next year. Finney played in 201 games in 1934 and 1935, batted .276, and though he hit just one homer in the two seasons, he smacked 22 doubles. Mack continued to feel the effects of the Depression and declining attendance at Shibe Park, and dealt the powerful Foxx to Boston before the 1936 season for players and cash. Rookie Alfred “Chubby” Dean (77 games) shared the first-base duties with Finney, who also played the outfield in 73 games. Playing nearly every day for the first time, he batted .302 in 151 games and collected 37 extra-base hits, though just one was a home run – an inside-the-park effort. The AL leader in at-bats with 653, he scored a career high 100 runs and drove in 41. On July 27, he collected five hits in a 15-8 win over the White Sox. Finney’s fifth hit came in the ninth when the Athletics scored seven runs off two Chicago pitchers. Despite Finney’s fine season, he and Dean split the first base duties in 1937. (Dean, a lifetime .274 hitter, later unwisely moved to the mound and compiled a 30-46 record and a 5.08 ERA as pitcher.) Finney did play 50 games at first in 1937, made the only appearance of his career at second base, where he recorded an assist, and played 39 games in the outfield. Bouncing around the lineup and battling an ailment he picked up in Mexico in spring training, a hernia, a chronic sinus infection, and later, appendicitis, he saw his average slip to .251. He hit another round-tripper, again inside the park, his sixth home run in six major-league seasons. With 10 days left in the regular season, Finney, with Mack’s consent, returned home to Alabama and underwent surgery on his sinuses, had a hernia repaired, had the inflamed appendix that had bothered him for months extracted, and had his tonsils removed. Healthy in 1938, the 27-year-old “Alabama Assassin” enjoyed a power surge when he slugged 10 home runs – with nine of them clearing the fences. He finished fourth in the AL with 12 triples and smacked 21 doubles. He split time at first base with Dick Siebert, Nick Etten, and others, served as a fourth outfielder behind Johnson, Moses, and Sam Chapman, and played in a total of 122 games. In 1939 Siebert started at first base and Finney batted just .136 in nine games before Mack sold him to Boston on May 9. Detroit and Boston had both claimed Finney on waivers; Mack dealt him to the Red Sox, who paid $2,500 more than the $7,500 waiver price. He joined a Boston team that boasted former teammates Jimmie Foxx, Doc Cramer, and Lefty Grove, along with 20-year-old Ted Williams, who had made his big-league debut 18 days earlier. The Alabaman enjoyed great success as a pinch-hitter – he led the AL with 13 pinch hits in 40 at-bats — then finished the season at first base after Foxx underwent an appendectomy. For the Red Sox, Finney flourished under manager Joe Cronin and veteran scout and hitting instructor Hugh Duffy. He credited Duffy, the legendary New Englander, for teaching him to snap his wrist. The results were immediate. Finney batted .325 in 249 at-bats in his 95 games with Boston, with 22 extra-base hits, including a pinch-hit home run at Sportsman’s Park. The next spring, he praised Duffy to the Boston Traveler’s John Drohan, among others: “I was with the Red Sox for a week or so when Hughie Duffy, who led the National League in batting way back in 1894, asked me if I were willing to take some advice from a 76-year-old man (Duffy was actually 72 at the time). As I realized I was not going anywhere, I told him I was more than willing. Consequently, Hughie, who was one of the Red Sox coaches and batted grounders in the infield practice despite his age, converted me from a choke hitter into a batsman who grabbed his bat way down at the end and swung from the hip. He also changed my stance in the batter’s box, spreading my feet a trifle further apart. He also told me to put more wrist into my swing like Ted Williams. Well, I was not hitting my weight when I left the Athletics and I wound up the 1939 season with a mark of .310, the best I ever had.” The Red Sox posted an 89-62 record and finished second to the Joe DiMaggio-led Yankees, who methodically captured their fourth straight AL pennant despite the loss of Lou Gehrig to the illness that would tragically cut short his life. In spite of a broken finger in spring training, courtesy of Cincinnati’s Johnny Vander Meer, and a nagging cold, Finney enjoyed another fine season in Boston in 1940. He played in the outfield in place of the injured Dom DiMaggio, and hit so well that the Red Sox postponed DiMaggio’s return, before Finney himself suffered a leg injury. When he came back, he moved to first when Foxx injured his knee in a collision. When Double-X returned, Cronin asked his team captain to play catcher for the injured Gene Desautels, which allowed the Boston manager to keep both Finney and DiMaggio in the lineup. In either position, Finney hit well. He was the first major-league player to record 100 hits that season, ranked among the league batting leaders through the summer, and finished with a .320 average, ninth best in the AL. Finney and New York’s Charlie “King Kong” Keller tied for second in the league with 15 triples, four behind league leader Barney McCosky of Detroit. The 15 triples were a career best for Finney, who also achieved personal highs with 31 doubles and 73 runs batted in. He scored 73 times and was the AL’s toughest man to strike out, fanning just once per 41.1 at-bats, well ahead of runner-up Charlie Gehringer of Detroit, who struck out once every 30.2 AB’s. “Finney has been tremendous for us,” Cronin said in June. “His hitting has won him the right-field job and I’m going down the line with him. He’s a great team player. Never squawks and does a great job every day.” Finney continued to credit Duffy, and attributed some of his success to a trip to the Louisville Slugger factory. “I never had a bat I liked in my life,” Finney told United Press writer George Kirksey. “So last May when the Red Sox played an exhibition game in Louisville, I went out to the bat factory to get the kind of stick I wanted. I saw some old Max Bishop models stuck away and I picked up one of them. I liked the feel of them so I had a model made up with a few minor changes. Right away I began to hit better. Then I began to watch Ted Williams and with coaching from Hughie Duffy, I learned to copy Ted’s wrist action and follow-through.” Duffy was somewhat modest. “Finney goes around telling everybody I made a batter out of him, but he’s exaggerating,” Duffy told the Traveler’s Jack Broudy. “ It’s true I saw several things he was doing wrong when he came to the Red Sox and we worked on them together until he straightened them out, but that doesn’t mean I should get the credit for it. Lou is a fine boy and very appreciative.” Duffy told another writer, “Sure I told him about the bat swing, but he worked hard in changing his style and it was by his own perseverance that he improved.” In July, Finney made his only All-Star Game appearance, and coaxed a walk from Carl Hubbell in the NL’s 4-0 win. On May 11, he hit one of his two career grand slams, off Marius Russo at Yankee Stadium, to help Boston send New York to a defeat, the Bronx Bombers’ eighth straight. Though never again an All-Star, he continued to provide valuable depth for the Red Sox the next two years. In 1941, Finney banged out 24 more doubles and 4 home runs, and batted .288. In 1942, he hit .285 in 113 games for the Red Sox at the age of 31. He was particularly adept in night games, collecting 14 hits in 35 after-dark at-bats between 1939 and 1941 — a .400 average, even better than the .324 mark Williams posted in 34 at-bats. By 1942, World War II was changing the face of baseball. Players began to leave the game to enter the military or to work in industries vital to the war. After the season, Ted Williams entered the Navy, where he served as a fighter pilot. Finney, who had applied for a chief specialist rating in the Navy at one point, returned home to the 171-acre cotton farm near White Plains, Alabama, that he and his wife, the former Margie Griffin, owned in Chambers County. Finney, who was 32 years old and had no children, had received his draft notice, and had to choose between entering military service and staying on his farm to grow food, an occupation deemed critical to the war effort. On January 11, 1943, the New York World Telegram reported, “Lou Finney, Red Sox outfielder, was told by his Alabama draft board to remain on his farm or be inducted.” He voluntarily retired from the game and sat out the entire 1943 season and the first months of the 1944 campaign. While Finney farmed through the first half of the 1945 season, the Allied nations subdued Germany in May, and moved closer to victory in the Pacific over Japan. Once again, Finney journeyed north to rejoin the Red Sox. Cronin, who broke a leg on April 19 and hadn’t played since, inactivated himself to open a roster spot for Finney on July 15, but used the Alabaman just twice, both times as a pinch hitter, before the Red Sox sold his contract to the defending American League champion St. Louis Browns on July 27, 1945. Finney spent time at first base and in the outfield, though Pete Gray, who had lost an arm in a childhood accident, served as the fourth outfielder for manager Luke Sewell. Finney also played one game at third base, and handled one of two chances successfully. In 58 games, he collected 59 hits, including 8 doubles, in 213 at-bats, a .277 average. On August 1, he smacked a grand slam off Dizzy Trout at Briggs Field (later called Tiger Stadium), and on September 9, he scampered around the bases for the final home run of his major league career, an inside-the-park circuit clout against Washington’s Alex Carrasquel at Griffith Stadium. At 35, he returned to the Browns at the start of the 1946 season. But the war had ended the previous year, and many of the veterans had started to return to organized baseball. And though Finney collected nine singles in 30 at-bats, a .300 average, the Browns released him on May 29. Finney took one more shot at the brass ring when he pinch-hit unsuccessfully four times for the Philadelphia Phillies, his only at-bats in the National League, before the Phillies released him on May 13, 1947, at the age of 36. Less than a week later, with his major-league career done, Finney returned to the minors, this time with St. Petersburg in the Class C Florida International League. With the Saints floundering in last place and 17 games behind in the standings, his old teammate Jimmie Foxx was fired on May 17. Finney took over a few days later as a player-manager and guided St. Pete to a 71-80 record, good for fifth in the eight-team league. Primarily a first baseman, he continued to spray the ball around. He hit .308 with 26 doubles, 9 triples, and 2 home runs. The Saints posted a 78-73 record in 1948 and improved to fourth with a full season under Finney. St. Petersburg’s attendance of nearly 137,947 was more than 23,000 better than the year before, the second best in the league behind league champion Havana. Finney played first base and in the outfield. He hit .314, with 27 doubles, 4 triples, and 8 homers. The fiery Finney not only drew fans to the park, he got them fired up. After a 1948 doubleheader, The Sporting News reported, “The fans’ ire was fanned when manager Lou Finney was tossed out of both contests. The umpires were given a police escort to their quarters, but some 500 gathered outside and refused to leave. Finally, the arbiters rode out in a police car, while policemen made way with a flying wedge through the crowd." At the baseball meetings after the season in Minneapolis, wealthy new West Palm Beach owner Lucius B. Ordway lured Finney away from St. Petersburg, which then slumped to seventh under four different managers in 1949. Finney piloted West Palm Beach to a fifth-place finish in the league, which had moved up to Class B. The Indians posted a 74-78 record, 4½ games better than the previous year, and enjoyed an attendance increase of 8,000. Despite his success, when Ordway entered into a working agreement with Philadelphia, the Athletics picked a new manager for West Palm Beach for 1950. The Indians finished seven games worse than in 1949 and attendance fell by more than 24,000. Finney managed to catch on with Temple (Texas) of the Class B Big State League. Temple had finished last the year before, and Finney again turned things around on the field and at the gate. The Eagles improved by 17 2/3 games, to 74-70 in 1950 and attendance leapt up to 105,081, nearly 32,000 more than the year before and the best in the league. Finney batted .345 in 68 games for the fourth-place Eagles, who lost in the playoffs to regular-season champion Texarkana. In December 1950, Finney was appointed to manage the Raleigh Capitals of the Carolina League, but resigned in February 1951 to devote time to his business in Chambers County and was replaced by Joe Medwick. Two years later, Finney left Alabama to manage the Lincoln (Nebraska) Chiefs, a Milwaukee Braves farm team in the Class A Western League. The Chiefs managed nine more wins than they had the previous year and drew 26,000 more fans, but in the final month of the season, Finney resigned in order to again to join his brother Hal in the family feed and grain business, and was replaced by Walter Linden. With that, Finney’s baseball career came to an end. Lou ran the family firm for the remainder of his life with his brother Hal. Like Lou, Hal broke into the major leagues in 1931. That year he played 10 games; six at catcher and four as a pinch-hitter, for the Pirates. He played 31 games the next year, and 56 in 1933, when he hit his lone homer and drove in 18 runs. He played in five games in 1934, spent the rest of that season in the minors with the Albany (New York) Senators in the International League, missed the 1935 season because of a fractured skull and an eye injury suffered in a tractor accident and started the 1936 season without a hit in 35 at-bats before the Pirates released him.

7 out of 10, 72 seconds. This one was a tough one today. Baseball card questions always get me because I don't buy them.

10 out of 10, 42 seconds. Again I was too slow. 😕

George Pipgras In the 146 years of professional baseball, no team has come close to attaining the legendary status of the 1927 New York Yankees. They were, and are, the symbol of greatness, both individually and as a team. As the prominent baseball historian Donald Honig said, “Never before or since has there been in the game such a coalescence of talent, such a fusion of lusty hitting and sharp pitching, and all of it torrentially consistent, dismembering the League with a meat cleaver, losing just 44 of their 154 games, setting records … with a near-homicidal attack….” Whether one is a Yankee lover or hater, the names are forever part of baseball lore — Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, Meusel, Combs, Pennock, Hoyt, Pipgras … et al. “When we got to the ball park,” George Pipgras said, “we knew we were going to win. That’s all there was to it. We weren’t cocky. I wouldn’t call it confidence either. We just knew. Like when you go to sleep you know the sun is going to come up in the morning.” Although not as well-known as the superstar batters, it was the pitching staff who provided the balance and strength, leading the league in earned-run average (3.20); and having four of the league’s seven pitchers with E.R.A.s of 3.00 or less. On that staff was an Iowa-born, Minnesota-raised farm boy, whose only prior major-league experience was a two-season “stop in for a cup of coffee” resulting in a 1-4 record with a nearly 6.00 E.R.A. average. So how was it that George Pipgras came to be a key link in the Yankees’ rotation from 1927-1933; an undefeated World Series pitcher; and whom Hall-of-Famer “Goose” Goslin in 1928 called “the best pitcher in the American League.” George Pipgras was born into a baseball-loving family on December 20, 1899 in Ida Grove, Iowa. His father William was a farmer who played baseball before gloves were used, umpired local games occasionally, and raised five sons — all over six feet tall — four pitchers and a catcher. Pipgras’ early life was filled with farm chores beginning at 4:30 a.m. — milking cows, feeding sheep, currying horses — followed by work in his father’s butcher shop in Anton, Iowa. In between were the demands of schoolwork, including forming the battery for his Schleswig, Iowa high school baseball team with his brother Herman. His family moved to a farm in Slayton, Minnesota, where “Pip” continued to pitch for the high school team. America entered World War I in 1917 and Pipgras, lying about his age, enlisted in Sioux City, Iowa with the U.S. Army 60th Engineers serving for a year and a half in France, England, and Germany. Unfortunately, after 18 months in Europe, he became a victim of the influenza epidemic of 1918. Returning to Minnesota in 1919, he went back to work on the farm, and to playing baseball for the local town team. It was when pitching a game for Woodstock, Minnesota with eight other farm boys as teammates that he attracted the attention of Frank Flynn, a railroad conductor and volunteer scout for a number of minor-league clubs. Ralph Works, a former American League pitcher, scouting for the White Sox, dropped in and tried to sign him for Chicago. Pipgras wanted to accept, but he had already accepted terms with Jimmy Hamilton, manager of the Joplin, Missouri team. He played for Joplin in 1921, but was so wild, they almost immediately farmed him out to Saginaw, Michigan where in a game against the London, Ontario Club, he walked 15 men in five innings, lasted one game, and was given a ticket back to Minnesota. Down on his luck, nearly broke, and stranded back in Worthington, Minnesota, “Pip” spent 35 cents on a breakfast and with 15 cents in his pocket, wondered if his dream of the big leagues was over. His choices were limited. On the one hand, the farm and the corn fields beckoned. On the other, Minnesota’s harsh hobo laws threatened, because Pipgras was convinced he’d end up a hobo if he couldn’t get a job pitching somewhere. Playing a hunch, he placed a five-cent phone call to a baseball savvy friend to see if any midwestern teams were looking for a pitcher. “Sure,” said the friend. “Hop over to Madison, South, Dakota, and tell the manager I sent you. The South Dakota League season is opening today and he needs a pitcher.” He got there just in time to pitch the opening game of the season. He stayed, pitching in 24 games with Madison and finishing with a 12-6 record while his team finished in the second division. The Boston Red Sox secured Pipgras in the Spring of 1922 for $1,000 before the season started and sent him to Charleston in the South Atlantic League. He pitched 42 games for Charleston, winning 19 and losing 9 and was a key factor in Charleston’s winning the league title. His record led to his recall by Boston; interest by Bob Connery, the New York Yankees’ head scout; and on January 3, 1923, he was traded with outfielder Harvey Hendrick to the Yankees for the 1923-24 seasons. As the Yanks won their third pennant and their first World Series in a row in 1923, Pipgras warmed the bench, while finishing with an anemic 1-3 record. That was followed by an even more disappointing 1924 record of 0-1. Pipgras was fast, but wild, so Huggins sent him down to work on his control. “Two years in the minor leagues will cure him,” Huggins said — and he was right. In 1925, he was farmed out to Nashville and Atlanta of the Southern League, where he had a 19-15 record. The next season, the Yankees sent Pipgras to St. Paul where he established a very respectable 23-18 record. In 1927, he was called back up to the Yankees and became a regular. After coaching from Shawkey and Pennock, and Miller Huggins’ patience and faith in Pipgras, he was asked to pitch a game in July 1927 for a sick “Dutch” Ruether against the Detroit Tigers. He responded by pitching a three-hitter. His time had arrived. Now a complete pitcher, he had a fastball with good control, and a curve, courtesy of future Hall-of-Famer Herb Pennock. Now he was the fifth starter for the 1927 club, and finished the season with a 10-3 record. In control all the way, he beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-2, with an impressive “seven hitter” in the second game of the World Series — which the Yankees swept in four games. Manager Miller Huggins was the first to congratulate him, “You pitched a wonderful game, and I’m proud of you.” He went on to a notable career and was one of the Yankees’ key pitchers from 1928-30. In 1928, he was the Yankees’ ace, with a 24-13 record and after that he never had a losing season until his last, when he was 0-1 with Boston. His 93-64 record in nine years with the Yankees established him as a key link in those years of Yankee domination. Mike Gazella, a Yankee substitute infielder said he heard Babe Ruth say that Pipgras “with his fast ball he couldn’t be beaten.” Since 1928, no right-handed Yankee pitcher has since won more games than Pipgras’ 24. After a relatively dismal 7-6, 1931 season, Pipgras roared back with a 16-9 record and he was a main factor in the Yankees’ winning that year’s World Series. After the 1932 season, the Yankees traded Pipgras and infielder Billy Werber to the Red Sox. Although he recorded a respectable 11-10 record in 1933, he broke his arm in a freak accident while pitching against Detroit, accelerating a premature end to his baseball career. Pipgras finished with an anemic 0-0 record in two games in 1934 followed by a 0-1 record in five games in 1935. Forced to retire from baseball, he wanted to stay involved with the game he loved. His former boss, Tom Yawkey of Boston, invited him to join him, Eddie Collins, and a few others for a weekend of duck hunting at South Island Plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina. Yawkey suggested umpiring and arranged for Pipgras to umpire in the old NY-PA League (now known as the Eastern League), a job he held from 1936-38. American League President Will Harridge, who had helped Pipgras get his initial umpiring job in the NY-PA League, had kept tabs on him and was so satisfied with his progress that he appointed him to the American League regular staff in 1939. Including training games, he umpired in 192 contests in 1939. He umpired until 1945, including officiating All-Star games and World Series and earning a reputation as one of the game’s best umpires. “Yes, I like umpiring,” reflected Pipgras. “It is pleasant work. Perhaps you don’t get the thrill out of umpiring a game in which there have been no kicks as you do over pitching a low-hit shut-out, but you’re still in baseball, and in quite an important department of the game.” He had the distinction of both having played and umpiring in World Series games. He finished his baseball career supervising umpires from 1946-49 and working as a scout for the Boston Red Sox. In his 11-year career Pipgras had a 102 - 73 record with a 4.09 earned run average. He struck out 714 and pitched sixteen shutouts.

4 out of 10, 104 seconds. Friday can not get here soon enough. 😢

5 out of 10, 138 seconds. I got the first four in a row right and then everything went south as the questions became impossible.

4 out of 10, 158 seconds. Now that's a nice way to start a month! Here are the final standings for September. I believe this was our closest one yet. It was decided in the last few days. And I think October is going to be even closer because I have got in the habit of looking on what day the month will end. This month it ends on Thursday and that means it will be tougher on me because I do not do well on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Wednesday is hit and miss for me. Thank you all. this was not easy.

Well to tell you the truth it's not by design. I get up around that time and let out the dog and before I go back to bed I get my trivia game out of the way. There are times when I don't but that's what usually happens.

7 out of 10, 65 seconds. Some questions were downright crazy. I was asked what kind of pitch Pete Rose hit when he broke Ty Cobb's record. Naturally I got it wrong.

Did you read the first post in here?

10 out of 10, 40 seconds. The time was not what I wanted because I hesitated on one of them. 🤔

7 out of 10, 67 seconds. Another frustrating day. This month is going to go down to the final day. Look for yourself at the standings!

Isn't that something Jim? Sometimes you think you've done ok and then you get a time like that.

9 out of 10, 40 seconds. As soon as I saw my time and result I knew I had messed up bad. First I was too slow . Everyone will fly past that. But the one that I missed is still upsetting me. Trying to go fast I read "what does TPA mean" and I clicked on total plate appearance. I should have clicked on total plate appearances! 😟

9 out of 10, 102 seconds. No rugby, no soccer, no NASCAR questions. I got lucky.

6 out of 10, 86 seconds. I'm scraping just to stay even but the questions today were no bargain.

Ben Chapman More than anything, Ben Chapman is remembered these days for the vitriol he heaped on Jackie Robinson in April of Robinson’s first year in the majors. Chapman was the Phillies’ manager that day in 1947 and “decided to make Robinson’s color an issue and encouraged at least three of his men to do the same.” The verbal assault unnerved Robinson, but had the effect of bringing Robinson’s teammates more fully behind him. Dodgers GM Branch Rickey later said, “Chapman did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers. When he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and unified thirty men … Chapman made Jackie a real member of the Dodgers.” He was a competitive player even in high school. Phillips High won the Alabama state championship in 1927, and Chapman pitched as well as played infield. He told the New York Post in April 1935 that he’d won the game against Warrior High, 32-2, and that earlier in the season he’d thrown a one-hitter while striking out 19. Part of the reason for his success was his competitiveness. “All a pitcher has to do in high school ball … is to throw the ball at the batter’s head and then feed him a wide curve on the outside for him to go fishing.” Asked if that’s how he engineered the one-hitter, he replied, “What do you think? I hit four batters.” Chapman was offered a contract by a scout for the New York Yankees, but then it was his mother who stepped in and pushed for him to go to Purdue, where he had been offered a football scholarship. He did go to Purdue, but left after about a month to play professional baseball. Chapman was 6-feet tall and listed at 190 pounds. Ben became a very good ballplayer, with a .302 lifetime average over the course of 15 major-league seasons and 1,717 games. Chapman was primarily an outfielder, though he played 153 games as an infielder (every position but first base), and he even pitched in 25 games – with a winning record at that. He managed the Phillies for the latter half of 1945, all of 1946 and 1947, and the first half of 1948. Chapman was initially signed by Johnny Nee of the Yankees, in 1927, while Ben was still a junior in high school. Being a minor at the time, his father had to sign the contract for him. The spring following his graduation in January 1928, the Yankees had him report to Asheville in the South Atlantic (SALLY) League. He appeared in 147 games, batting .336 with seven homers for the Class-B Tourists, who won the pennant with ease — by 18 games over the second-place Macon Peaches. Chapman was the shortstop on that year’s league All-Star team. He was clearly good on offense, but committed a league-leading 67 errors. He bumped up to Double A in 1929, and hit for exactly the same average: .336, for the St. Paul Saints (American Association), but this time with 31 homers and 137 RBIs. He moved from shortstop to third base, but the penchant for errors continued; he chalked up 43 of them. This was a ballplayer ready for the majors, though, and the Yankees brought him up in 1930. Even before spring training began, it was thought he would make the team. Manager Bob Shawkey announced Chapman as his third baseman six weeks before the season began. He played 91 games at third base and 45 games at second, and he hit 10 home runs contributing toward his .316 average. His average remained very consistent all year long. Playing with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth in the same lineup no doubt helped. Chapman’s 24 errors at third base led the league; three leagues, three times he’d committed the most errors. In his second year in the majors, Chapman was moved to the outfield, where his strong throwing arm and his speed could perhaps better be utilized. In part the move was because Earle Combs got injured, but it was a position for which he was better suited. Manager Joe McCarthy explained: “He didn’t get the ball away quickly enough for an infielder and lost too many double plays. He had a full arm action instead of a snap throw. This was an asset in the outfield but a handicap in the infield. There wasn’t any question that he belonged in the outfield.” He played 137 games (with only 11, all at second base, in the infield.) He played left field primarily but a substantial number in right field, too. His average held steady, dipping just one point – to .315. His homers jumped from ten to 17, and where he had driven in 81 runs in 1930, he drove in 122 in 1931. Only five American Leaguers drove in more. Chapman was fast on the basepaths, too. He led the league with 61 stolen bases in 1931, the first of four years he led in thefts, including three years in a row: 1931, 1932, and 1933. (It should be noted that he also led the league all three years in times caught stealing, too.) Both in 1928 and 1929, he’d also led the league in stolen bases in the minors, with 30 stolen bases and 26, respectively. Dubbed the “Dixie Flyer” and the “Alabama Flash,” there were a few times when he competed against other players in pregame sprints on the field. In 1931, the Christian Science Monitor reported that Chapman had run 100 yards in 10.5 seconds, on grass at Comiskey Park. His 1932 saw him again surpass 100 RBIs and 100 runs scored (107 and 101, respectively), tailing off just a bit in batting average, too, to .299. Though he topped 100 runs scored four more times, the closest he came to driving in 100 was in 1933, when he fell two short (98). In 1933 and 1934, his average climbed back over .300. The year 1933 was the first of four years in a row when Chapman was voted an All-Star (he couldn’t have been earlier, because 1933 was the first year that Major League Baseball held an All-Star Game.) Batting leadoff, he was the first American League player ever to bat in an All-Star Game. He grounded out. In the game, he was 1-for-5, a bunt single to third base. Chapman’s only appearance in a World Series came in 1932 (from 1929 through 1935, it was the only year the Yankees won the pennant.) His outfield play presented some interesting moments; working center field in 1935, he led the American League again in errors (15) but also in outfield assists (25). The Yankees finished in first place again in 1936, but Chapman was no longer with the team after midseason. He’d caught a really bad cold in early May and never quite got right. He was traded to Washington on June 14, 1936, for Jake Powell. In part, the Yanks were making way for an up-and-coming center fielder: Joe DiMaggio. Chapman was called the Yankees’ “biggest disappointment” that year. The trade was said to be a case of “giving up Chapman’s defensive ability for a heftier hitter.” One could say that Chapman was moved twice—once by the Yankees to make room for DiMaggio, and once a very few years later to make room on the Red Sox for Ted Williams. Chapman’s average over the seven seasons in which he appeared for the Yankees was .305. He was with Washington for two season halves – the second half of 1936 and the first half of 1937. On June 11, 1937, just a few days short of the anniversary of his arrival in D.C., he was traded by the Senators (along with Bobo Newsom) to the Boston Red Sox for Mel Almada and the two Ferrell brothers, pitcher Wes and catcher Rick. It was kind of a trade of temperamental titans, with Chapman, Wes Ferrell, and Newsom all ranking among some of the top contenders for that honor in baseball history. He’d appeared in 132 games for the Senators and been remarkably consistent with his batting average — .300. The Red Sox found a very productive right fielder; Chapman hit .324 in his two seasons with Boston. He had hit .307 in the second part of 1937, but in 1938, with a full season playing for the Red Sox, he hit .340, with 80 RBIs and 92 runs scored. One might think that the last thing a team would do was let a 29-year-old batter with that sort of production go—but on December 15, 1938, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians for Denny Galehouse and Tommy Irwin. Boston believed they had a replacement waiting in the wings, a player who had won the Triple Crown in the American Association that year playing for the Minneapolis Millers—Ted Williams. The Indians were glad to get him, though there was some thought he might be traded on to St. Louis to help secure a second baseman, the team’s greatest need. That didn’t happen, and Chapman performed well for manager Ossie Vitt and the Indians in 1939. His average was .290, but he had a .390 on-base percentage. More importantly, he drove in 82 runs, third most on the club, and he led the team in runs scored with 101. He felt he could have been more productive but for the huge outfield in League Park. “I figure I lost at least 20 hits” compared to playing in Fenway Park. He did tie a major-league record with three triples in one game, on July 3, but oddly that was in the relatively small Briggs Stadium in Detroit. There was a dropoff in 1940. Though he played only six fewer games (143 in 1940), his RBI total dropped to 50 and his runs scored to 82 – though his average was almost the same and his OBP wasn’t off by much. During the course of the season, he experimented with wearing eyeglasses. The Indians scored less than 90% of the runs they’d scored in 1939, but much of Chapman’s decline was his own. This was the year of the notorious player mutiny against manager Vitt, the players later dubbed the “Crybabies” because of their complaints against their skipper. Chapman was said to be one of the ringleaders. It may have paved the way for his departure from Cleveland. He later expressed regret for his involvement, telling Vitt, “I don’t know what got into us. It was all so silly.” Chapman was with three ballclubs in the next six months. The day before Christmas in 1940, the Indians traded him to the Washington Senators for left-handed pitcher Joe Krakauskas. In his second stint working for the Senators, he played in 28 early-season games, mostly in left field, but was only hitting .255 and had only knocked in ten runs. The Senators were well-enough set with outfielders, and they simply released him on May 26, 1941. Chapman was heard to say it was to get out from under his high $12,000 salary. It was back to the minor leagues again in 1942, as player/manager for the Richmond Colts in the Piedmont League. Chapman would have played for Richmond in 1943, too, but for his fiery temper. In baseball, it’s frowned upon when a player or manager hits an umpire. In the final game of the playoff series against Portsmouth, on September 16, Chapman was called out at first base by umpire I. H. Case. Fellow umpire James B. Clegg, working that game behind the plate, told The Sporting News what transpired. “As he prolonged the argument, I walked out from my plate position just as Case ordered Chapman from the field. ‘Chapman said, ‘If you say I’m out of the game, I’m going to let you have it.’ Case then said, ‘You’re out.’ Chapman swung and struck umpire Case in the face, whereupon Tony Lazzeri ran out and grabbed Chapman. A policeman quickly appeared and escorted Ben from the field.” The league suspended Chapman from Organized Baseball for a full year. As a manager, Chapman was perhaps even more competitive than he had been as a player. Dan Albaugh said he used to berate his own players a lot—the very reason the Indians had mutinied against Vitt—and that he fought constantly with umpires, a favorite tactic being to “give the men in blue a Nazi salute.” Chapman served his suspension for all of 1943. He was classified 1-A for the World War II draft, and was called for a physical; he received two letters in the mail on February 24, 1944. One contained his contract as manager for Richmond, and the other directed him to report for induction on March 1. But the war was coming to an end, and he had a trick knee. Ultimately, he was declared 4-F and was never inducted into military service. He was hired by Richmond again for 1944, and Chapman combined three jobs once more – pitching, playing outfield, and managing. He hit .303 in 57 games, pitching in 21 of them and recording 13 wins against only six defeats. His ERA for ’44 was 2.21. In early August, he was brought up to the Brooklyn Dodgers (traded by Richmond for Clyde King and some cash) and appeared in 20 big-league games, ten in August and ten in September. He hit for a .368 average in 44 plate appearances with 11 runs scored and 11 RBIs. In 1945 he began the year with Brooklyn, and worked three games in April, five in May, and two in June – reflecting his role as a pitcher. He was hitting for a .136 average in 24 plate appearances, with a 3-3 mark as a moundsman (with a 5.53 ERA), until he was traded to the Phillies for catcher Johnny Peacock on June 15. He threw seven innings for the Phillies in 1945 and 1 1/3 in 1946, without any decisions either year and with a combined 6.48 ERA. He only appeared in one game in 1946, the May 12 game. On June 11, the Phillies released him. But that was deceiving. They released him as a player. He remained the manager. Chapman had taken over as Phillies manager after 69 games in 1945 (Freddie Fitzsimmons had the team 18-51 at that point, and it’s not surprising there was a change made. It was reported that Fitzsimmons resigned.) Chapman’s first game as manager was June 30, 15 days after arriving in the Peacock trade. His first edict, supposedly, was to tell everyone on the team that if they so much as mentioned last place, they would be sent forthwith to the minors. In 1946, Chapman said his team was the best-trained team in the majors and he predicted they would surprise. GM Herb Pennock said of Chapman, “Ben has gotten the Phils over their last place complex, and from here on in we’re moving.” He was still a fiery personality, ejected four times in 1946. The formerly Futile Phils moved up to fifth place (69-85), and they set new attendance records, more than doubling any previous attendance in franchise history save for the 1916 team (and they were only several thousand short of doubling that mark.) In 1945, they’d drawn 285,057 but it 1946 they drew 1,045,247. It was a good move of Chapman’s to have asked for a bonus clause for attendance in his contract, for any totals exceeding 400,000. He reportedly made more ($15,000) through the bonus than his $12,500 salary. In 1947 — the year in which Chapman taunted Jackie Robinson so viciously — they dropped back to eighth place and attendance dipped to 907,332, still well over the 400,000 bonus threshold. Bench jockeying was an established practice in baseball, the intent often being to get under the skin of opposing players. At the time, it wasn’t uncommon to bring up opponent’s ethnicity, but Chapman went well over the line more than once — and he had a history of it. He remembered the way he’d been taunted when he first came up. “The first words I remember hearing when I was a rookie with the Yankees were, ‘Hey, you redneck so-and-so, go back to Alabama where you belong.” As to Robinson, Dodgers traveling secretary Harold Parrott wrote “Chapman mentioned everything from thick lips to the supposedly extra-thick Negro skull, which he said restricted brain growth to almost animal level when compared to white folk. The Dodger players had told him privately, he said, that they wished that the black man would go back into the South where he belonged. Commissioner of Baseball Happy Chandler had to intercede and demand that Chapman stop. So did National League president Ford Frick. They didn’t waste any time. They realized the P.R. problem. Nationally syndicated columnist Walter Winchell asked the question in print: “If the baseball player insults the ump he can be thrown out of the game. Why, then, can’t bigoted ball players (who insult Americans) be thrown out of baseball?” As early as May 8, Frick had already made it clear: “I told Ben and the Philadelphia club that such language was not becoming from any National League bench and I warned them not to do it any more. They agreed to abide by my directive.” Chapman and Robinson were asked to pose for a photograph together, to try and counter the negative publicity. It had to be very uncomfortable for both, but they did it. The photo ran in many papers on May 12. Dodgers officials said they took Chapman at his word that he knew he had erred, and believed he was sincere. Robinson himself, wrote about the photo shoot at the time in the African American newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier. He said, “I was glad to cooperate and when we got over to the Phillies’ dugout, Chapman came out to shake my hand. We said hello to each other and he smiled when the picture was snapped. Chapman impressed me as a nice fellow and I don’t really think he meant the things he was shouting at me the first time we played Philadelphia.” Years later, Chapman still bridled at the memory of bearing the brunt of the charge of racism. He said, “I’m no bigot. I believe that every man, be he black, or white or whatever, is entitled to equal opportunity. The pigment of a man’s skin is God’s doing.” He also said, “I had already managed five black players. People have told me that was the reason I was fired at Philadelphia. I don’t believe that… I remember three black writers coming into my office in Philadelphia. They wanted to ask me some questions. I told them I wanted to ask them … questions first. ‘Do you want this guy to make the big leagues like all the other guys did? Do you want him treated like all the other players?’ They said that’s what they wanted. That’s the way they wrote it, that I was treating Jackie like Gehrig was treated, like Dixie was treated. That’s the way it should have been.” At the time he had said, “Robinson is just another ballplayer to us… We’ll ride anybody if it’ll help us win.” He was the first of three Phillies managers in 1948, gone a little more than halfway through the season (37-42). The team was in seventh place at the time. Did he resign, or was he fired? It depends on who one asked. The newspaper headlines all said he was dismissed, and quoted owner Bob Carpenter as saying he had informed Chapman it was time for a change. For several years, stories ran from time to time that Chapman had never been told why he was fired. In 1953, Frederick Lieb and Stan Baumgartner’s book The Philadelphia Phillies suggested that he was fired “as a way of showing that he (Carpenter) was taking charge of the front office following the death of Herb Pennock.” Chapman’s last involvement in baseball was as a coach for the Cincinnati Reds in 1952, though he resigned on August 1 when he learned that incoming manager Rogers Hornsby himself planned to work the third-base coaching box. Around 1992, a year or so before he died, Chapman told author Ray Robinson, speaking of Jackie Robinson (the two Robinsons were not related): “A man learns about things and mellows as he grows older. I think that maybe I’ve changed a bit. Maybe I went too far in those days. But I always went along with the bench jockeying, which has always been part of the game. Maybe I was rougher at it than some players. I thought that you could use it to upset and weaken the other team. It might give you an advantage.” He then paused, and added, “The world changes.

3 out of 10, 139 seconds. This lousy score means that it's Tuesday! 😟

9 out of 10, 58 seconds. I had to get s good score today because I probably will not tomorrow. 😊

10 out of 10, 45 seconds. This last week is going to be tough.

7 out of 10, 98 seconds. I had some tough ones today but I'm happy with my score.