Sports Then and Now

It was 40 years ago that Hank Aaron became the all-time home run king.

Given how much emphasis sports put on championships, it may seem a little strange that the most significant home run in Major League Baseball history was not hit during the month of October, but instead was struck in early April by an aging player on a team that wouldn’t come close to reaching the postseason.

Such was the case 50 years ago, on April 8, 1974, when Hank Aaron forever cemented a place for himself in baseball lore with his record breaking 715th home run.

Every die-hard sports fan has a number of moments that are forever etched in their subconscious memory – to the point that even years after the fact they can recall not just the special moment, but also where they were and what they were doing at the time.

Though I was only six-years old, the night when Aaron set the home run record is one of those moments for me.

My family was paying special attention to the record because we had family friends who were from Atlanta and thus big fans of Aaron and the Braves. “Hammerin’ Hank” had tied the record during the season opener in Cincinnati and there seemed to be little doubt that he was going to set the record during the home opener, which was being shown on national television by ABC. However, for a while there was some doubt whether we would be able to see it.

It was a stormy Monday night in my hometown of Keysville, Virginia, thanks to a powerful early spring thunderstorm that brought lightning, thunder and heavy rains. There was no such thing as cable television in our town in 1974 and because we were about 75 miles from the closest television station, even with having an antenna on the roof we never really had crystal clear reception. The general practice at that time was also to unplug the television during electrical storms so that the TV wouldn’t get zapped. Read the rest of this entry →

There are quite a few exciting young players in Major League Baseball, but while most of them fit the traditional model of players in baseball history, in my opinion one stands out as part of a very elite lineage of special athletes in baseball.

Whether he is throwing a 100 MPH fastball, launching a tape measure home run or gliding around the bases like an Olympic sprinter, Shohei Ohtani is clearly a unique athlete within the current game of baseball.

In my opinion, Ohtani is the fourth player over the last 100 years who stood out from the crowd, not just in relation to their baseball production, but more specifically in how their unique level of freak athleticism allowed them to do things never seen before.

The first of these four was Babe Ruth. Though most common images of him are from later in his career when he was slightly overweight, the reality is that the young Babe Ruth was a transcendent athlete who forever changed the game of baseball.

Ruth first burst on the scene in 1914 as a 19-year-old left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. He posted an 18-8 record with 2.44 ERA as a 20-year-old in 1915 and then won 23 and 24 games respectively over the next two seasons. He also led the American league with a 1.75 ERA in 1916.

Part of three World Series Championship teams in four seasons with the Red Sox between 1915 and 1918, Ruth set a World Series record by pitching 29.2 consecutive scoreless innings (it stood until 1961).

Since its inception in 1933, the Major League Baseball All-Star Game has provided fans an annual opportunity to see most of the great stars of the game on the same field. While the game is an exhibition and has withstood periods of indifference by some players, management and fans, it remains a special mid-season moment.

Because of COVID-19, there will not be an All-Star Game played in 2020, marking only the second season without a game (the first was in 1945 during World War II) since the start of the annual contest in 1933.

Though there will not be any new memories this year, there have been many memorable games and moments in the 90 meetings between the top players of the American and National Leagues.

This is the first of a three-part series where we will relive some of the great moments and games in the history of this special series.

July 6, 1933 – Comiskey Park, Chicago
The idea of bringing the top players from both the American and National Leagues together in the middle of the season for one “All-Star” game was initiated by Arch Ward, a sports editor for the Chicago Tribune. The first game was played at Comiskey Park to coincide with Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition.

In a fitting testimonial to his legendary career, Babe Ruth hit the first home run in All-Star history when he lifted a pitch from Bill Hallahan into the right-field stands in the third inning.

The American League went on to win the game 4-2 with Lefty Gomez earning the victory.

Baseball players have lots of quirky habits.

Baseball players and teams are a superstitious bunch of guys. Despite all the advancements in sports science, they continue to indulge in practices that have zero grounding in fact. That’s okay because some of the most decorated players are also obsessed with pregame rituals. Pregame rituals have changed over the years for players and teams, but what has never changed is how strange they are.

Team Gravy Drinking

All the way back in 1894, the Baltimore Orioles won the National League pennant through winning 24 of their 25 games. The entire team drank a glass of turkey gravy the day before every batting practice.

It was both a team building exercise and a way to psyche themselves up for the game. Sadly, the team was found to be cheating by icing the balls and putting soap around the pitcher’s mound.

Touching the Statue

After the time of Babe Ruth, baseball had a gaping hole left behind. Roger Clemens won the World Series twice with his pre-game ritual. Each time the Yankees had a home game he would touch the Babe Ruth statue outside the stadium.

Eating the Right Breakfast

Stan Musial is a legend in the game of baseball. He was elected to the all-star team on twenty-four separate occasions; one of only three players to do it.

His pre-game breakfast during the 1940s onwards was to eat an egg for breakfast, then two pancakes, and finally another egg. Read the rest of this entry →

It was 50 years ago that Roger Maris blasted a record 61 home runs in a single season.

It was 50 years ago today, October 1, 1961, that New York Yankees slugger Roger Maris broke what many thought was an unbreakable record by swatting his 61st home run of the season. Though his mark has now technically been eclipsed on six occasions by three different players, the accomplishment is still considered to be something special and now that there is testing for performance enhancing drugs might never again be topped.

Though Maris had been the American League MVP in 1960, no one expected him to threaten Babe Ruth’s hallowed mark of 60 home runs in a single season.

In the 33 years since Ruth had hit 60 home runs in 1927 the 50 home run plateau had been reached only 10 times with Jimmie Foxx in 1932 and Hank Greenberg in 1938 coming the closest with 58 home runs each.

The way Maris started the 1961 season, no one could have predicted that he would finish the campaign by breaking Ruth’s record.

Maris hit only one home run in 15 games during April and through the first 28 games of the campaign had only three homers.

Then on May 17th he started a streak of four straight games with a home run and then added five more home runs the rest of the month to enter June with 12 home runs.

Maris wasn’t the only Yankee who entered June with double digits in home runs. Mickey Mantle blasted seven homers in each of the first two months to enter June with 14 home runs.

In June, Maris slugged 15 homers and Mantle 11 to give both players totals near the pace of Ruth as the season neared its mid-point.

When the Yankees played their 81st game on July 8th, Maris had 32 home runs and Mantle 29 to put both players in range of the record.

Maris blasted four home runs in a double header against the Chicago White Sox to give him 40 for the season and people started to discuss the possibility that Ruth’s record could be in jeopardy.

When Maris then went eight straight games without a home run and ended up having one homer in a 16 game stretch, the attention started to shift to Mantle, who was still blasting long balls. Read the rest of this entry →

Reggie Jackson's play in the post season earned him the nickname "Mr. October."

You can debate whether or not there’s such a thing as “clutch” hitting. Scoring runs in the first inning is just as important as scoring runs in the ninth inning, right? Does the process of securing a hit change dramatically as the situation changes dramatically? Should we completely ignore the human elements of emotion, concentration and focus, each of which may fluctuate depending on the person in the batter’s box?

The following players (five hitters, five pitchers), for whatever reason, hit and pitched extremely well during the postseason, a period of time when the margin for error — and patience for under performing — is at a minimum.

1. Babe Ruth
He’s the greatest for a reason. As a pitcher in the postseason, Ruth boasts a microscopic 0.87 ERA in 31 innings pitched, a shutout and a 3-0 record. His best performance came in a 14-inning, complete game win in Game 2 of the 1916 World Series. In both World Series in which he pitched, the Red Sox won (1916 over the Brooklyn Robins and 1918 over the Chicago Cubs). As a hitter, he amassed 15 home runs in 167 plate appearances, accumulating an impressive 1.211 OPS. In 1928, he hit .625 in a four-game sweep of the Cardinals, notably mashing three home runs in the series-clinching game.

2. Reggie Jackson
Mr. October kindly disagrees with the idea that clutch hitting doesn’t exist. He was the first player to win World Series MVP with two different teams (Athletics and Yankees), and was just the second player to hit three homeruns in a World Series game — that, as you probably know, came in the series-clinching Game 6 of the 1977 World Series versus the Dodgers. During the six games, he hit five home runs with a .450 average and 1.792 OPS. A year later, he led the Yankees to a repeat in a rematch, hitting a meager two home runs with a .391 average and 1.196 OPS. He hit 18 home runs during his postseason career. Read the rest of this entry →