He won over 100 games in his 10-year major league career. After his playing days were over, Jansen worked as a pitching coach for the Chicago Cubs. RIP.
Larry Jansen, the winning pitcher for the New York Giants in the 1951 playoff game decided by Bobby Thomson’s “Shot Heard ‘Round the World,” has died. He was 89.
The San Francisco Giants said Jansen died at his home in Oregon on Saturday.
Jansen spent nine years in the major leagues, making his biggest mark with the Giants during their pennant-winning season. He won 23 games in 1951, including one of the biggest in team — and baseball — history.
Jansen, in relief of Sal Maglie, struck out two batters in the top of the ninth before the Giants rallied with four runs in the bottom half of the inning to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4 in the third and deciding playoff game.
Jansen won 21 games as a rookie in 1947 and finished with a 122-89 career record and 3.58 ERA. He spent eight seasons with the Giants before pitching briefly for Cincinnati in 1956.
He allowed Mickey Mantle’s first World Series hit — a bunt single in Game 2 of the 1951 Series — and gave up a double to Joe DiMaggio in the eighth inning of Game 6, the final at-bat of the Hall of Famer’s career.
Jansen was the losing pitcher in Game 2 and Game 5 of that Series.
Chris Carpenter took it upon himself to get the Cardinals back on track.
The St. Louis ace hit a grand slam and set a team record for pitchers by driving in six runs as the Cardinals rolled to a 13-0 rout of the Cincinnati Reds on Thursday.
*****
Carpenter’s first career homer capped a five-run second inning for the Cardinals, who had lost five of six — including three straight since clinching the NL Central title with a win at Colorado last Saturday. He added a two-run double during a four-run fifth to match the career RBI total he brought into the game.
I know from my days of youth league and middle and high school baseball, that when you’re pitching and a real bad batter is at the plate, you may want to just throw it down the middle. That guy can’t hurt you. Which is what may have happened here. Kip Wells put out out over the middle of the plate and Carpenter connected.
Carpenter’s grand slam was the 10th by a Cardinals pitcher and first since Kent Mercker connected at Florida on Sept. 2, 1998.
The previous major league pitcher to hit a grand slam was Jason Marquis for the Chicago Cubs off New York Mets left-hander Jonathon Niese on Sept. 22, 2008, at Shea Stadium, according to STATS LLC.
A little bit of Grand Slam history. The only National leaguer in the first 100 years of the league’s history to hit two bases loaded homers in one game, was a pitcher. Tony Cloninger did it for the Atlanta Braves in 1966.
The Pirates have won only 3 of 21 games they have played this month. From AP-
Bronson Arroyo limited Pittsburgh to one run over seven innings and the Cincinnati Reds completed their second sweep of the plummeting Pirates in less than a month, winning 4-1 on Thursday to push the Pirates closer to a 100-loss season.
Joey Votto had a two-run double following Drew Sutton’s RBI double in a four-run third inning against Charlie Morton (4-9) as the Reds won their eighth in a row against the last-place Pirates. The Reds are 15 games ahead of the Pirates in the NL Central standings after falling behind them following a loss on Aug. 22.
Since then, fourth-place Cincinnati is 21-10 — although it remain only one loss away from a ninth consecutive losing season — and Pittsburgh is 5-25. Five more losses by the Pirates will give them 100 on the year.
Pittsburgh, long since assured of a record 17th consecutive losing season, has lost six in a row, nine of 10 and 23 of 26 amid the franchise’s worst September spinout since it was 5-22 in September 1998.
The Pirates have obviously given up for 2009. Speaking from experience, it’s hard to impossible to remain interested in a game or a sport you’re competing in if the outcome is of little or no value. In such situations, the usual inclination is to put up no more effort than is absolutely necessary.
At least for the Pirates’ sake, there weren’t many spectators. The paid attendance was 15,892, but the turnstile count was about 3,000
So Pirate fans are about as enthusiastic as the players are about the closing games of the 2009 season. Or is there another factor at work?
the G-20 summit being staged in downtown Pittsburgh held down the turnout.
The crowd was so small that the Pirates closed PNC Park’s upper deck for the first time since the 38,362-seat ballpark opened in 2001 and allowed fans to sit in the lower level.
Were all fans allowed to sit at field level? May as well, it might encourage people to come back to a game next September when the Pirates are again out of the playoff race.
Crowds of under 1,000 are not unheard of for a MLB game. I remember Atlanta Braves games in the 1970’s being played before such small crowds. A no-hitter in the 1960’s was also played before like 1-2,000 fans.
Fans had to go through metal detectors to enter the park. Combine that with the inconveniences caused by the G-20 summit and the meaninglessness of any games the Pirates play this year, I don’t blame Pittsburgh baseball fans for staying home today.
He was a journeyman reliever for six teams. I remember Collum’s name well from my playing of Strat-O-Matic Baseball past seasons. RIP.
Collum, who was born in Victor and lived in Grinnell for much of his life, pitched in the 1950s and 1960s.
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He died Saturday at Mayflower Health Care Center in Grinnell. Memorial services were held Thursday.
Collum served in the U.S. Army in World War II in the Philippines. He returned home to pursue his major-league dreams.
As a minor leaguer in St. Joseph, Mo., in 1948, he had a 24-2 record.
Collum reached the majors in 1951 and compiled a 32-28 record and a 4.15 ERA with six teams: St. Louis, Cincinnati, the Los Angeles Dodgers, Minnesota, Cleveland and the Chicago Cubs.
Collum played alongside Hall of Famers such as Stan Musial, Sandy Koufax and Ernie Banks.
He pitched until 1958, then had stints with the Twins and Indians in 1962. He was known as a good hitter, too, with a .246 career batting average.
He won a career-best nine games in 1955 with the Reds.
He hopes to be back playing in the major leagues before the 2009 season is completed. From AP-
Aaron Boone is back playing baseball, appearing in a minor league game in Texas less than five months after open-heart surgery.
Boone batted second Monday night for the Corpus Christi Hooks, a Double-A affiliate of the Houston Astros. He swung at the first pitch and popped up to the first baseman in foul territory. Boone played third base against Midland and was hitless in two at-bats before leaving the game.
“It felt good to get out there and play in a real game,” Boone told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “I felt good physically. I always have nerves whether it’s a spring training game or my first game in Corpus.
“I was excited tonight. I think it went really well. I had a couple of balls come my way and got to face pitching for the first time in a long, long time. A little overwhelming, but a necessary step on the way back.”
The 36-year-old Boone had an operation in late March because of a congenital defect in his aortic valve.
Boone is perhaps best remembered for his game 7 winning homerun in the 2003 ALCS. He was a favorite player of mine during the 2001 Star Tournament season. I platooned him with Eric Chavez at both the Fort Lauderdale and Fall Orlando tournaments where I each finished 2nd.
It sounds as if Boone was born with a bicuspid heart valve and had AVR(Aortic Valve replacement) surgery. Something I have more than a passing familiarity with. I had AVR performed on me one year ago this week. Boone is stronger than me, I don’t know if I would be swinging a baseball bat so soon. I wish him well in his recovery and comeback.
He is one of the last original Florida Marlins to still be playing in the Major Leagues. From AP-
The Milwaukee Brewers have acquired Cincinnati right-hander David Weathers for a player to be named later.
Weathers is 3-3 with a 3.32 ERA in 43 games. He pitched one inning and got the win in Friday’s 10-5 comeback win over the San Francisco Giants.
The 39-year-old reliever starts his second stint with Milwaukee. He previously pitched for the Brewers from 1998-2001.
Weathers, who first came up with Toronto in 1991, is still putting up decent numbers. Anyone want to take a guess how much longer he can keep on pitching in the majors?
He returns to the organization that he started his professional baseball career with. From AP-
Ken Griffey Jr. has decided to return to the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners announced the move Wednesday night. The 39-year-old star’s contract is for one year and believed to be worth $2 million in base salary, plus incentives.
Earlier in the day, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press that an apparent agreement with the Atlanta Braves had fallen through. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the Mariners had yet to announce the deal.
Griffey is fifth on baseball’s career home run list with 611.
Atlanta appeared to be Griffey’s choice on Tuesday for the same reason the former Mariners star left Seattle in 2000: geography. The Braves’ spring training camp is about a 20-minute drive from the Griffey family home in Orlando, Fla., and Atlanta is about an hour away by plane.
Griffey asked for a trade from the Mariners in 1999 to be closer to home. He eventually got one just before the 2000 season, to Cincinnati.
Griffey has been increasingly injury prone, but his batting stats remain good. He can draw a walk and hits for power. His batting averages have slipped but the other two compensate. Overall he can help a team, but Seattle is so rotten right now, that Griffey isn’t likely to turn things around He will probably bring some fans to the ballpark though.
I remember Uhlaender both from my extensive baseball watching as a youth, and later through the playing of past seasons of Strat-O-Matic. He was a very good defensive center fielder but offensively he wasn’t all that good. After his playing career was over, Uhlaender remained in baseball working as a scout and coach. RIP.
Former major league outfielder Ted Uhlaender, whose daughter races for the U.S. skeleton team and is eyeing her second Olympic berth, has died. He was 68.
Uhlaender died Thursday after a heart attack, the San Francisco Giants said. He had worked as a scout for the team since 2002, and was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer last year.
He spoke with his daughter, Katie Uhlaender, by phone Thursday morning, shortly before she ended the World Cup skeleton sliding season with a silver medal in Park City, Utah. On the awards podium following the race, Katie Uhlaender said she raced that day to give her family a needed emotional boost.
At the time, she didn’t know her father had already died.
Ted Uhlaender played in the majors from 1965-72 with Minnesota, Cleveland and Cincinnati. A sure-handed, fleet center fielder, he hit .263 with 36 home runs and 285 RBIs.
His health was failing for months, and Katie Uhlaender — who competed in the 2006 Turin Olympics and is a favorite to lead the U.S. team into Vancouver next year — said it affected her focus on sliding.
“All year I was feeling like my priorities were messed up, and I felt like I should be with my family instead of sledding,” she said shortly before learning her father died.
Ted Uhlaender had been hospitalized for another round of chemotherapy, and doctors found a blood clot Thursday morning.
His daughter has since returned to Lake Placid, N.Y., where the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation is based, and is training for the world championships to be held there later this month.
“She’ll slide because she knows her father would have wanted her to slide,” USBSF spokeswoman Amanda Bird said Saturday night.
Katie Uhlaender will leave Lake Placid on Monday to join her family for the funeral, which has been scheduled for Thursday.
Ted Uhlaender started out with the Twins, joining them too late in the 1965 season to be eligible for the World Series that October. He played five years on a team more noted for big hitters such as Harmon Killebrew and Tony Oliva.
Uhlaender was traded with Graig Nettles and Dean Chance to Cleveland in a package for Luis Tiant after the 1969 season. He was traded to Cincinnati for his final year, and ended his career with a pinch-hitting appearance in a Game 7 loss to Oakland in the 1972 World Series.
In later years, he worked for the Arizona Diamondbacks and New York Yankees. He spent two years with the Giants, became Cleveland’s first base coach in 2000-01 and then returned to San Francisco.
Monday, Griffey became the sixth player in major league history to hit 600 home runs. He deposited a Mark Hendrickson first-inning pitch about a dozen rows up into Section 130 of the right-field bleachers as part of a 9-4 Reds win at Dolphin Stadium. Stuck on 599 since May 31, Griffey is 10 shy of eclipsing Sammy Sosa for fifth on the all-time list.
Just 10 of Griffey’s 600 homers have come against the Marlins, a team he did not face until 2000. Five of those have come at Dolphin Stadium, where he hadn’t hit one since June 1, 2004.
Here’s the video.
So far as I know, no one has mentioned Griffey as a user of steroids. Griffey, who began his career with the Seattle Mariners, will make the Hall of Fame. Abusers like Sammy Sosa will have a long wait if they ever do get voted in. As Mark McGwire is presently finding out.
A journeyman pitcher with a career record of 39-38, his career spanned sixteen years, with a 6 year span in the middle where Ridzik pitched 29 innings or less of ML ball or was out of the league entirely. He was a VERY small part of the 1950 pennant winning Philadelphia Phillies known aka The Whiz Kids. Being a fan and player of Strat-O-Matic’s past seasons, I was somewhat familiar with Ridzik’s accomplishments. RIP
BRADENTON — Former professional baseball player Steve Ridzik never forgot the fans who helped him fulfill his dream for more than a decade.
The former pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies, the New York Giants and several other teams, who died Jan. 8 of heart disease at 78, helped create a players’ alumni association that raises money for charity.
Ridzik helped organize a Bradenton golf tournament with former baseball players that raised more than $50,000 for Manatee Memorial Hospital in the early 1990s, said his wife, Nancy Ridzik of Bradenton. The ex-ballplayer had undergone open-heart surgery there for a triple bypass a couple of years earlier, she said.
In addition to taking part in several other fundraisers over the years, Ridzik also regularly granted fans’ requests for autographs by signing baseball cards and blank cards that arrived by mail on almost a daily basis, his wife said.
“We’ve even had baseball bats and baseballs sent here” and he obliged, she said.
Born April 29, 1929, in Yonkers, N.Y., Ridzik was signed by the Phillies’ in 1945 at age 16 and pitched his first major league game in 1950, the same year the Phillies went on to win the National League pennant for the first time in 35 years.
Nicknamed “The Whiz Kids” that year because their average age was 26, the Phillies were the youngest team to ever reach the World Series, which they lost to the New York Yankees.
Ridzik subsequently played for the Cincinnati Redlegs, the Giants, the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Senators before retiring from baseball in 1966. He later worked for a food distributor in the Washington, D.C., area before retiring and moving to Bradenton in 1988.
He helped former Senators teammate Chuck Hinton establish the nonprofit Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association in 1982 for former players to serve as goodwill ambassadors of the sport.
Ridzik returned to Philadelphia in 2000 for a 50th anniversary reunion of his pennant-winning team before a crowd of 40,000 in Veterans Stadium.
“He wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” his wife said. “I think there were 13 of the original ‘Whiz Kids’ still around back then, and now there are only about six left.”
In retirement, he enjoyed golfing and watching horse and dog racing.
