The fans speak out

Baseball Digest, July, 2005 by Jake Alyea, James Soderman, Charles E. Rice, Ed Nelson, Doug Anderson, K.A. Coble, Bill Eisentrager, Erroll Malone, Frank Golloway, John P. Zaso, Ron Vairo, Tom Riley, Keith Gers, Everett Fraissinet, Ernie Hafner, Greg Dunne, David Freeman, John Nicholas, Joseph C. Grimaldi, Dwight Rounds, Pete Palmer, Jose Mencia, Barry Bahrychuk, Miguel Villapando, Max Keizerstein, Jim Winthrop, David Stevenson

In 1984, the Detroit Tigers started the season with a 35-5 record. How many consecutive road wins did they have to start that year?

Jake Alyea

Gardnerville, Nev.

The Tigers were undefeated in 17 consecutive games on the road in 1984, winning two games in Minneapolis, three in Chicago, one in Boston, two in Arlington, three in Cleveland, three in Kansas City and three in Anaheim before losing to the Seattle Mariners, 7-3, on May 25. They also lost their next two games in Seattle by scores of 9-5 and 6-1.

Their impressive start helped them win the American League pennant with a 104-58 record.

To my knowledge, the only natives of Minnesota who are in the Hall of Fame are Chief Bender, Dave Winfield and Paul Molitor.

Are there any other Minnesota natives in the Hall?

Also, could you tell me which states have the most native-born members in the Hall of Fame?

James Soderman

Spring Lake Park, Minn.

There are no other Minnesota natives in the Hall of fame besides Molitor, Winfield and Bender.

New York has produced the most Hall of Fame players and managers, 21 in all, followed by California and Pennsylvania with 18 each; Ohio with 13, and Texas with 12, including five members of the Negro Leagues.

The players (19) born in New York include pitchers Whitey Ford, Waite Hoyt, Sandy Koufax, Jim Palmer, Charles Radbourn, Warren Spahn and Mickey Welch: first basemen Dan Brouthers, Lou Gehrig and Hank Greenberg; second basemen Eddie Collins, Frank Frisch and Bid McPhee; shortstops George Davis and Phil Rizzuto; third baseman Jimmy Collins," left fielder Carl Yastrzemski, and right fielders Willie Keeler and King Kelly.

The New York-born managers (2) include Bucky Harris and John McGraw.

In the May Quick Quiz, you omitted Cy Young from your list of pitchers who had 100 or more wins in both the American and National Leagues.

Young won 289 games in the N.L. and 222 in the A.L.

In 16 seasons, he won 20 or more games, including five years when he won 30 games. Are these major league records?

Charles E. Rice

Prattville, Ala.

Regarding the Quick Quiz question, readers should have been asked to name pitchers who have won 100 or more games in each league since 1900 which would have eliminated Young who posted all but four of his National League victories between 1890 and 1900.

Young holds the record for winning 20 or more games the most seasons (16).

Kid Nichols, a pitcher for the Boston Beaneaters National League club, holds the record for winning 30 or more games seven times (1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1896, 1897 and 1898).

There has always been a lot of discussion on how much greater the records of players like Ted Williams and Bob Feller would have been if World War II had not interrupted their careers.

My question, however, is this: How many players who were in the big leagues sacrificed their lives during the war?

Ed Nelson

Ida Grove, Ia.

At the end of World War II in 1945, there were a reported 384 major league players in military service, according to the Cultural Encyclopedia of Baseball.

Only two former major leaguers, however, were killed in combat during the war. Elmer Gideon, who played a few games in the outfield for the Washington Senators in 1939, was killed on April 20, 1944 in air action over St. Pol, France. He had just turned 27 at the time of his death. Harry O'Neill, who caught for the A's in 1939, was killed, also at age 27, on Iwo Jima on March 6, 1945.

Major leaguers who were injured during the war included pitchers Lou Brissie, Bert Shepard and Gene Bearden, and shortstop Cecil Travis. Brissie's legs were badly injured from shelling in Italy in 1944. Shepard lost his right leg when he was shot down in aerial combat, also in 1944. Bearden was on a cruiser in the Pacific in 1943 when his ship was hit by a torpedo. He suffered skull and knee injuries. Travis incurred frostbitten feet during the Battle of the Bulge in 1944.

Besides Feller, some other major leaguers who were in combat during the war included Warren Spahn, Hoyt Wilhelm and Phil Marchildon whose bomber was shot down over the North Sea and who became a prisoner of the Germans.

Back in the early 1980s when we lived in Baltimore, I listened on the radio to an Orioles game in which all three outs in an inning were the result of pickoffs at first base by pitcher Tippy Martinez.

Manager Earl-Weaver had replaced all of his catchers with pinch batters, and second baseman Lenny Sakata, who had caught long before this game, was put in as catcher.

The opposing team thought Sakata couldn't throw well enough to catch someone trying to steal second, and though each of the three batters got on first by walk or hit, each was picked off.

Has this ever happened before or since? The announcers, Jon Miller and Tom Mar, thought it was the first time all three outs were by pickoff, but I was wondering if it had happened at another time.

Doug Anderson

West Chester, Pa.

The game you are recalling took place on August 24, 1983, pitting the Orioles against the Toronto Blue Jays. Victims of Marintez's pickoff throws were Barry Bonnell, Dave Collins and Cecil Upshaw.