Author: Bill Grimes

I'm from Chicago. I worked in broadcast journalism for much of the 1970's and 80's. In 1990 I became a litigation consultant, retiring in 2017. Around 2005 I recall flipping through the sports section of the newspaper coming across "On this day in baseball history Willie Mays hit his 600th home run." I enjoyed the one-liners, but I wanted more. I wanted a story. I took my news reporting skills and started researching and telling baseball stories, one for every day of the year. TodayinBaseball.com is the result.

AUGUST 8: Dodgers score 12 after 2

AUGUST 8, 1954 | BROOKLYN, NEW YORK – There are rallies and then there are rallies. How about one the Brooklyn Dodgers had on this date in 1954? The Dodgers scored 12 runs after two outs in the eighth inning. They scored 13 total and went on to pound the Cincinnati Reds 20-7 at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn.

The game also provided a couple good examples of why the official scoring for earned run average (ERA)  should be changed.

Amazingly, only one of the 13 runs given up in the eighth was earned, despite four Reds pitchers giving up seven hits and seven walks. Neither Cincinnati pitchers Jackie Collum nor Frank Smith got anybody out, but their ERAs did not go up a lick (there’s something not right about that type of scoring) because twelve of the runs scored after an error by Reds third baseman Chuck Harmon, long before Collum or Smith got in the game.

Here’s another example of what’s wrong with ERA scoring; a relief pitcher can be called into a game because the starter is showing some weakness. He could give up a bases clearing triple. None of those runs are charged to him. I get that. But here’s what’s crazy. Despite giving up a bases clearing triple, if he gets the next batter out his ERA goes down.

Contributing Source:
August 8, 1954 box score

AUG 7: Amazing Walter Johnson

AUGUST 7, 1907 | WASHINGTON, D.C. – Only Cy Young was more dominant on the mound than Walter Johnson, and they named an award after him.

Walter Johnson’s road to immortality began on this date in 1907. Johnson was just 19-years old, and fresh off the family farm in Humboldt, Kansas when he pitched the Washington Senators to a 7-2 win over the Cleveland Naps (today’s Indians) – the first of 416 career wins . Only Cy Young has more career wins (511) than Walter Johnson.

Johnson’s accomplishments are stunning. From 1910 to 1919 he won 25, 25, 33, 36, 28, 27, 25, 23, 23 games.

  • He started 666 games in his 21-year career, completing 531.
  • He pitched 110 shutouts (11 in 1913 alone).
  • He pitched over 300 innings 9 times.

Johnson could hit, too! He had a .433 batting average in 1925 – 42 hits in 97 at bats. He hit .283 in 1924, .270 in 1921, and had a career average of .235 with 24 home runs and 255 runs batted in.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCE:
Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train, by Henry W. Thomas, 1995

Aug 6 in baseball history: One of the Greatest Pitching Duels of all-time

AUGUST 6, 1952 | ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI – Satchel Paige got a rare start on this date in 1952, and ended up in one of the greatest pitching duels of all-time against Virgil Trucks.

Despite the consensus among players, black and white, who played with and against him that he was the greatest pitcher of his day, Paige didn’t make the majors until after Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947.

Paige had been playing professional baseball in the Negro Leagues since the mid-1920’s. He was finally invited to play for the Cleveland Indians in 1948. He was 41.

Paige pitched mostly relief. But on August 6, 1952, now with the St. Louis Browns, he got the start against Detroit Tiger right-hander . They were two cagey veterans; though Paige had 10 years on Trucks. Virgil was 35 years old. Satchel was 45.

They matched each other pitch for pitch, inning for inning. Trucks pitched 9 scoreless innings. Paige pitched 12 and won 1-0.

Satchel Paige’s long overdue major league career lasted six seasons. He went 6-1 with a 2.48 ERA in his first year, helping the Cleveland Indians win the 1948 World Series. He retired in 1953 at the age of 46, but came back to pitch in one game in 1965 at the age of 58. His career mark was 28-31, but three of those years were with the Browns who usually lost 100 games a year. He finished with a career Earned Run Average of 3.29.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCE:
August 6, 1952 Tigers vs Browns game stats

Aug 5 in baseball history: First game on the radio

August 5, 1921 | PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA – Major league baseball was heard on the radio for this first time on this date in 1921. KDKA radio studio announcer Harold Arlin became the first play-by-play man as he described the Pittsburgh Pirates‘ 8-5 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies from Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. Baseball and radio – they said it wouldn’t last.

Not everyone in major league baseball welcomed the exposure on this new medium called “radio.” Many were concerned games on radio would keep fans at home rather than at the ballpark, an observation that seems shortsighted today.

Staff at KDKA looked at that first broadcast as a one-time thing; baseball would be too slow moving to become regular programming. It turned out radio’s intimacy made it and baseball an ideal match.

Radio’s portability helped too; at home, in the car, at the office, a transistor radio under the pillow. Still, it took years for many teams to recognize the marketing ability of broadcasting games. It was 1938 before major league games were regularly broadcast in New York City, the country’s largest market.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
“Radio and its impact on the sports world,” by Eric C. Covil  
Baseball’s future

Aug 3 in baseball history: Let’s Play Two All-star games

AUGUST 3, 1959 | LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA • The Major League Baseball all-star game was such a hit since it was introduced in Chicago in 1933, many people thought, ‘Let’s play two all-star games.’ For four seasons that’s what was done.

A second MLB all-star game was played on this date in 1959. Dual classics were the norm for four seasons – 1959, 1960, 1961 and 1962. The American League won this contest in front of 55,105 fans at the Los Angeles Coliseum, avenging a National League victory on July 7th at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The LA Coliseum (predominantly a football stadium) was the home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, who came to the west coast in 1958, while Dodger Stadium was being built.

The pitchers of record for this second mid-summer classic were the starters. Jerry Walker of the Baltimore Orioles won it for the American League. Dodger Don Drysdale, pitching in front of his hometown fans, was the loser for the National League.

Jerry Walker was a 20-year old rising star with an 8-4 record at the time of the second all-star game. He never became the kind of star this all-star game foreshadowed. Walker never won more than eight games in any season and finished his eight year major league career with a record of 34 and 44.

The highlights of the 1959 all-star game were the introductions of superstars Stan Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals and Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox, both were reaching the ends of their careers. Both would end up in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.

CONTRIBUTING SOURCES:
The Associated Press, August 4, 1959, Los Angeles, CA
1959 All-star games

OTHER STUFF – An excellent series of articles on Midwest Ballparks in Chicago Magazine by Jeff Ruby: “Playing the Fields”