|
|
Post by psuhistory on Mar 31, 2016 21:25:45 GMT -5
As one of the great ML one-hit wonders, I belong in any discussion of obscure Reds leftfielders. Banished from a weak Reds club for lackluster performance, I had not only a career year but, in a sense, my career in a year for another club in a different league, a landmark achievement that would stand for 24 years...
As the star of my team, I remained so little-known in its home city that a news photographer sent by the local paper to take a picture of me at the plate photographed the wrong player...
|
|
|
|
Post by quantumfootball on Mar 31, 2016 22:51:21 GMT -5
Does competitive eating have teams? I'm assuming your use of the word plate means this is Frank Pastore.
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Apr 1, 2016 6:15:13 GMT -5
In this case, "at the plate" just fits the sentence better than "batting" or "hitting" do, and Frank Pastore doesn't match the rest of the clue, so no dice...
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Apr 1, 2016 6:15:42 GMT -5
At six feet, 170, I was no Babe Ruth off the field...
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Apr 1, 2016 11:03:54 GMT -5
During my career year, I reached a significant ML single-season milestone that's still highly regarded...
|
|
|
|
Post by Lark11 on Apr 1, 2016 14:48:55 GMT -5
I have no clue.
Here's a WAG: Hack Wilson.
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Apr 1, 2016 17:17:25 GMT -5
Hack Wilson is the right era and position, but he didn't spend any time with the Reds, and, as a member of the Hall of Fame, can't match my obscurity, even if he lacks the celebrity of Ruth or Cobb...
He also never came close to reaching my career milestone...
|
|
|
|
Post by quantumfootball on Apr 2, 2016 4:15:04 GMT -5
Is this someone like Chief Wilson?
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Apr 2, 2016 9:03:52 GMT -5
Chief Wilson and I knew the same city, but he played for nine years during the decade or so before me. I was a much better offensive player over my fourteen seasons, with a lifetime batting average fifty points higher than Wilson's and an ops more than two hundred points better...
The Reds just never saw it in me...
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Apr 2, 2016 9:06:57 GMT -5
Great guesses, both interesting players who identify the era. I was part of the long transition to big inning baseball during the 1920s and definitely the type of hitter who would interest teams now...
|
|
|
|
Post by Lark11 on Apr 3, 2016 20:23:35 GMT -5
Yeah, I don't know. I'd be tempted to cheat, but I'm not sure how I could cheat.
If it's a player who would be interesting to teams today, then I'd say he was a strong OBP player.
|
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Apr 3, 2016 22:45:44 GMT -5
I had a career .393 obp and a .924 ops. In April, during my career year, I hit three home runs in one game at Sportsman's Park, the first time this had been achieved since the 1890s...
|
|
|
|
Post by quantumfootball on Apr 4, 2016 2:20:17 GMT -5
Ken Williams?
|
|
|
|
Post by Lark11 on Apr 4, 2016 10:26:57 GMT -5
I'd say he's right. Gotta be Ken, right? |
|
|
|
Post by psuhistory on Apr 4, 2016 11:42:54 GMT -5
Yes, Ken Williams of the St. Louis Browns became baseball's first 30/30 player in 1922, hitting 39 home runs and stealing 37 bases, while putting up a .332/.413/.627/1.040 slash line for a club that won 93 games and finished second in the AL, a game behind the Yankees. Willie Mays didn't become the second 30/30 player until 1956. Williams, largely forgotten now, formed part of a core of players, including George Sisler, who made St. Louis a Browns town before the emergence of the Cardinals during the late 1920s...
Williams spent half an undistinguished 1915 season with the Reds (.242/.297/.324/.621 in 71 games, mostly in left field) before the team shipped him back to the minor leagues early in the 1916 season, when his hitting didn't pick up. The Reds' manager, Buck Herzog, had notoriously little patience with underperforming players, and it's an interesting question whether Christy Matthewson, who took over the team later during the 1916 season, would have been as quick to dismiss a hitter who had put up .340/.489 for Spokane during the first 79 games of the 1915 season. Curse of the small sample size strikes again...
Good job, quantumfootball, Williams has little recognition as a star and barely shows up as a former Red...
|
|
