Michael's experiment ends

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - Basketball superstar Michael Jordan's foray into baseball ended on this date in 1995. The former Chicago Bull gave up his dream of becoming a major league baseball player after one minor league season. Jordan said a players' strike, which was going on at the time, was blocking his development, "As a 32-year-old minor leaguer who lacks the benefit of valuable baseball experience over the past 15 years, I am no longer comfortable that there is a meaningful opportunity to continue my improvement."

Thanks to the fact that Bulls' owner Jerry Reinsdorf also owned the Chicago White Sox, when Jordan retired from basketball in 1994 he was given an opportunity to play for the Birmingham Barons, a White Sox Double-A farm team. He played one season:

Michael Jordan, Birmingham Barons - 1994
Games  -  127
Average  -  .202
Home Runs  -  3
RBI  -  51
Stolen bases  -  30

While his stats were mediocre, 51 runs batted in and 30 stolen bases in 127 games against professional baseball players weren't bad for a guy who hadn't played baseball since he was a kid.

The basketball world now awaited the inevitable - Jordan's return to the National Basketball Association where he led the Chicago Bulls to three championships before retiring in 1993 to try baseball. Michael Jordan returned to the NBA a month after he announced his retirement from baseball. He went on to lead the Bulls to three more world championships - 6 in all.

Contributing sources:
Chicago Tribune, Chicago, IL, March 11, 1995
More Michael Jordan stats
More MJ

The "Indian" who played for Cleveland

CLEVELAND, OHIO - A member of the Penobscot Indian tribe was signed by the National League Cleveland Spiders on this date in 1897, and some later claimed that's where Cleveland's American League franchise got its name. Louis Sockalexis showed superb athletic ability and ferocious power playing baseball as a kid on the Penobscot reservation in Maine. Stories, some of them apocryphal, had him throwing a ball 600 feet over the Penobscot River and hitting a baseball just as far. He went on to play ball at Holy Cross College and the University of Notre Dame before signing a major league contract. His career didn't last long, before the turn the century he was no longer a major league baseball player. Heavy drinking reportedly took its toll. Sockalexis died in 1913 at age 42.

A year after Sockalexis died Cleveland's American League team was in need of a new name. They had been called the Naps, after star player Nap Lajoie, but he was traded in 1914. The name "Indians" was chosen. As time went by the story that the team was named in honor of a real Indian, Louis Sockalexis, was allowed to surface. Ithaca College Professor Ellen Staurowsky, among others, looked into the issue and wrote in the Sociology of Sport Journal, in 1998 that the name "Indians" was more likely chosen for exploitative purposes. The real story of why "Indians" was chosen was that it was a take off on the Boston Braves which were a baseball sensation that year for going from last place on July 4th to winning the World Series.

Contributing sources:
"An Act of Honor or Exploitation?: The Cleveland Indians' Use of the Louis Francis Sockalexis Story," by Ellen Staurowsky, Sociology of Sport Journal, 1998
The American Indian Quarterly
Baseball Reliquary

[Photo source: State of Maine]

Once you've seen Paris

PARIS, FRANCE - A dream came true for Albert Spalding on this date in 1889. A team of touring American baseball players he organized played an exhibition baseball game in Paris, France. There was some difficulty finding a suitable field. As Mark Lamster wrote in Spalding's World Tour, "Paris was endowed with countless formal parks and squares, but a large, enclosed space that would allow Spalding to charge admission was proving harder to come by." They finally settled on, and got permission to use, the Parc Aérostatique, a park in the shadow of Eiffel's rising tower, which would be completed later that year.

Albert Spalding, the fledgling sporting goods magnate, was a good ballplayer in his own right, and quite the promoter. He decided to tour the world to promote baseball and, in turn, get more business for his sporting goods venture. He set out west from Chicago after the 1888 season with a group of 20-odd ballplayers, including stars Adrian "Cap" Anson and John Montgomery Ward. They barnstormed across the western states playing in cities like Omaha, Denver and Salt Lake City, eventually reaching San Francisco and settling sail for Hawaii and Australia. Spalding's tour also played in Sydney, Cairo, Paris, London and numerous ports along the way. They would return in April 1889, more than a year after leaving.

Contributing sources:
Spalding's World Tour, by Mark Lamster, Published by Public Affairs, New York, 2006
Eiffel Tower

Bring back the spitball?

CLEARWATER, FLORIDA - Baseball Commissioner Ford Frick believed baseball had tipped in favor of the hitter so on this date in 1955 he said if he had his way he would bring back the spitter. While visiting the Philadelphia Phillies training camp Frick said, "Something positive should be done to help the pitchers." In advocating the return of the spitball Frick added, "There's nothing dangerous about it. It was nothing like the screwball they have to throw today, with a twisted elbow and tricky snapping of the wrists. No wonder today's pitchers can't go on as long."

But what did the statistics say? Below is a look at total runs scored in the major leagues for 3 seasons in the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's when each league had eight teams.

................runs scored.......avg ERA
1955 NL-5,578 AL-5,490...4.00
1954 NL-5,624 AL-5,203...3.90
1953 NL-5,914 AL-5,512...4.15
1945 NL-5,512 AL-4,774...3.58
1944 NL-5,292 AL-5,058...3.52
1943 NL-4,892 AL-4,795...3.34
1935 NL-5,806 AL-6,220...4.24
1934 NL-5,695 AL-6,304...4.28
1933 NL-4,908 AL-6,081...3.81

Runs and ERA's were up in the 50's compared to the 40's (during World War II), but runs and ERA's were down from the 1930's. It's true, throughout the years pitchers have been steadily pitching fewer innings and throwing fewer pitches, but for a variety of reasons, two of the most prominent being the proliferation of the home run, and the increased strategic prominence of the bullpen. Needless to say, the spitball did not come back - legally.

Contributing sources:
Associated Press, Clearwater, Florida, March 8, 1955
Retrosheet

Kirby Puckett, gone too soon

PHOENIX, ARIZONA - Kirby Puckett always tried to look on the bright side, which would have helped his family, friends and fans when he died on this date in 2006. The former Minnesota Twins outfielder and member of the Hall of Fame suffered a massive brain hemorrhage the previous day, and died after surgery to relieve the pressure. Puckett probably would have said something like, "It was a short life (45 years), but a fulfilling one." This is what Puckett (5' 8" 210 lbs) actually did say when he was forced to retire in 1996 after waking up one morning blind in one eye, " I was told I would never make it because I'm too short. Well, I'm still too short, but I've got 10 All-Star Games, two World Series championships, and I'm a very happy and contented guy. It doesn't matter what your height is, it's what's in your heart."

Kirby Puckett was born in Chicago and raised in the Robert Taylor Homes, at the time, the largest public housing project in the country and one of the most notorious; infested with drugs, gangs and crime. But Kirby make it out, attending Bradley University for a short time where he was an all-conference outfielder as a freshman. He transferred to Triton Junior College outside Chicago and was drafted by the Minnesota Twins in the 1982 draft, after his hometown Cubs passed him up. He finished his 12-year career with a lifetime .318 average, and despite a shortened career finished with over 2,000 hits and 1,000 RBI's.

Puckett's pristine, community-conscious image took a turn for the worse after he was forced to retire. His former wife accused him of threatening her, and he was accused (and acquitted) of groping a woman in a Twin Cities restaurant. As time went on he gained a tremendous amount of weight, ballooning to well over 300 lbs, which likely lead to his hypertension and contributed to his death.

Contributing sources:
Kirby Puckett - Baseball-Almanac
1982 Amateur Draft - mlb.com