For some baseball players, the game takes second place to a good life

The Houston Astros baseball club has come under fire and investigation from accusations of stealing signs of opposing teams.

Specifically, the Astros are accused of using a camera in center field to view signals from catchers to pitchers. Someone somewhere in the Houston ball park then decrypts the signals, determines which pitch is to be thrown and then relays that information to the Astros dugout, where players bang on a garbage can to let the Astros batter know what kind if pitch he will receive.

Sign stealing is alleged to have given the Astros the 2017 World Series title, as well as playoff wins in 2018 and 2019.

All of that sounds plausible – a camera in center field focused on an opposing catcher, someone viewing the signs and determining the coming pitch and relaying that information to the Houston dugout.

What is strange in the accusations is, the Astros have to bang on garbage cans to let a hitter know the pitch. A digital camera sends images to a digital receiver, but the end communication is a bat banged on a garbage can.

Major League Baseball has rules against using electronic devices to steal signs. However, stealing signs through eyeball observation and then in some fashion passing information to a hitter is not illegal.

It is not illegal because every team steals signs, or tries to.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has promised an in-depth investigation and harsh punishments should the accusations be proved true.

MLB acts as though no team in the history of baseball ever stole signs before the Astros secreted a camera in center field and a receiver somewhere else, as well as a metal garbage can and a spare baseball bat in the dugout.

Baseball players talk about stealing signs the old fashioned way – a runner at second base decrypting a catcher’s signs and then relaying the decryption to the hitter. Cliff Floyd of MLB Network talked stealing signs as a teaching tool. Floyd and other players in the dugout watched other players to figure out who was signaling what to whom. Other players, Floyd said, taught him things he had not thought about.

And then there is Al Worthington, who played 14 years for five teams in the Major Leagues and who was traded because he told management that as a Christian he could not play for a team that cheated.

“In September 1959, with the Giants holding a slim lead over the Dodgers in the National League pennant race, he heard that the Giants were using a spy in the grandstand, armed with a pair of binoculars. He went to manager Bill Rigney. ‘I told Bill that I had been talking to church groups, telling people you don’t have to lie or cheat in this world if you trust Jesus Christ. How could I go on saying those things if I was winning games because my team was cheating?’” Within two days, Worthington was traded to the Boston Red Sox.

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/db42b586

In 1960, the Chicago White Sox bought Worthington’s contract from Boston. After four games with the Chicago team, Worthington went home to Alabama. He had learned that the White Sox were stealing signs.

Worthington was a good baseball pitcher, but for at least one player his personal beliefs had more influence than did his baseball performance.

Felipe Alou, longtime National League player and manager said this of Al Worthington: 'The day I joined the Giants was one of the most important days of my life," he (Felipe Alou) recalled. "That was the day my new teammate, Al Worthington, introduced me to Jesus Christ. I don't believe in accidents. I believe that was a man who was waiting for me.”

https://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/player.php?p=aloufe01

A couple of Oklahoma boys playing baseball

On Sept. 9, 1962, two Oklahoma-born baseball players, Howie Goss and Willie Stargell, pinch hit in a Pittsburgh Pirates 6-4 win against the San Francisco Giants.

Neither of the players got a hit.

Howie Goss, born in Wewoka OK, played parts of two seasons in the majors, 1962 and 1963. He was 27 years old when he made his major league debut on April 10, 1962, as a defensive replacement. Goss played in 222 games, posted a career batting average of .216, hit 11 home runs, and knocked in 54. He played all three outfield positions and had a .991 fielding average, handling 331 of 334 chances. He threw out nine base runners. Goss stole nine bases and was caught stealing eight times. Goss was 6-4 and weighed 204 pounds. He died July 31, 1996, in Reno, Nev., at age 61.

Willie Stargell, born March 6, 1940, in Earlboro, Okla., and a graduate of Encinall High School in Alameda, Calif., played a little longer than Goss. Nineteen years longer. His first major league game was as a pinch hitter on Sept. 9, 1962, at age 22. He also had more than 10 times as many games as Goss – 2,360. His career average was .282. He hit 475 home runs and knocked in 1,540. He played all three outfield positions, plus 848 games at first base. His lifetime fielding average was .985. Stargell stole 17 bases and was caught 16 time. He was 6-2 ½ and weighed 225.

Stargell also was named a National League All Star seven times and played in two World Series, 1971 and 1979. He died April 9, 2001, in Wilmington, N.C., at age 61.

Stargell played his entire career with the Pirates. He was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1988.

Odes to Bob Gibson

“(Hank Aaron told me) ‘Don’t dig in against Bob Gibson, he’ll knock you down. He’d knock down his own grandmother if she dared to challenge him. Don’t stare at him, don’t smile at him, don’t talk to him. He doesn’t like it. If you happen to hit a home run, don’t run too slow, don’t run too fast. If you happen to want to celebrate, get in the tunnel first. And if he hits you, don’t charge the mound, because he’s a Gold Glove boxer.’ I’m like, ‘Damn, what about my 17-game hitting streak?’ That was the night it ended.”
—Dusty Baker

“Gibson was so mean, he’d knock you down and then meet you at home plate to see if you wanted to make something of it.”
—Dick Allen

“Between games, (Willie) Mays came over to me and said, ‘Now, in the second game, you’re going up against Bob Gibson.’ I only half-listened to what he was saying, figuring it didn’t make much difference. So I walked up to the plate the first time and started digging a little hole with my back foot…No sooner did I start digging that hole than I hear Willie screaming from the dugout: ‘Noooooo!’ Well, the first pitch came inside. No harm done, though. So I dug in again. The next thing I knew, there was a loud crack and my left shoulder was broken. I should have listened to Willie.”
—Jim Ray Hart

“I’m in the league two weeks, playing in St. Louis. [Bob] Gibson hits a double, I’m playing second base. I go over and say, ‘What’d you hit, Gibby, a fastball?’ And he stood there like this, not moving, not saying anything. So maybe I didn’t say it loud enough. ‘What’d you hit, Gibby, a fastball?’ Nothing. Now the inning’s over, my manager’s Fred Hutchinson, I went over and said, ‘Hey, skipper, let me ask you a question.’ He said, ‘What do you want, rook?’ I said, ‘Is Bob Gibson a deaf mute?’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘I asked him what he hit, and he won’t talk to me.’ He said, ‘No, he don’t talk to the opposition.’ So the next day I’m out there early hanging on to the cage watching Groat and Boyer and Musial and Julian Javier. And Gibson comes out of the dugout. In those days there wasn’t fraternizing, and I’m watching batting practice. And he walks by me and says, ‘It was a slider, rook.’ It took him 24 f–king hours, but he talked to me!”
—Pete Rose

Tim McCarver once went to the mound when Bob Gibson was pitching and was quickly told to return. “The only thing you know about pitching is that you can’t hit it.”

“Barry Bonds? I’ll tell you what, if he hit a home run off Gibson or (Don) Drysdale and stood and admired it, they’d knock that earring out of his ear the next time up.” – National League Umpire Doug Harvey

One night Dusty Baker saw Gibson eating in a restaurant. His teammates encouraged him to walk over and say hello. “It’s OK,” they told him. “It’s away from the field. This is a good time. Bob will be happy to talk.” Then, while those teammates snickered, Baker and his wife walked over and, Dusty said, “Excuse me, Mr. Gibson.”
And Gibson looked up and without even a hint of a smile he snarled, “Why the *$*#&$* should I talk to you?” Then he looked past Dusty, to his wife, and said, “It’s very nice to meet you Mrs. Baker.”

Bob Gibson on Bob Gibson

“Have you ever thrown a ball 100 miles an hour? Everything hurts. Even your ass hurts. I see pictures of my face and say, ‘Holy shit’, but that’s the strain you feel when you throw. I had one of those faces you look at it, man, and say, ‘Man he’s an ass-hole.’ Could be, depends on if you pissed me off or not.”

“When I knocked a guy down, there was no second part to the story.”

“Why do I have to be an example for your kid? You be an example for your own kid.”

“I’ve played a couple of hundred games of tic-tac-toe with my little daughter and she hasn’t beaten me yet. I’ve always had to win. I’ve got to win.” Source: The Summer Game by Roger Angell

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What baseball fans do when having nothing to do

Babe Ruth’s first major league game was on July 11, 1914, with the Boston Red Sox. The oldest player on that team was catcher Bill Carrigan, 30. Carrigan broke in on July 7, 1906, with Boston. The oldest player on the 1906 team was Cy Young, 39. Young broke in with the Cleveland Spiders on Aug. 6, 1890. The oldest player on that team was Joe Ardner, age 32. Ardner broke in with the Cleveland Blues on May 1, 1884. The oldest player on that team was Doc Bushong, who was 28. Bushong broke in with the Philadelphia Athletics on July 19, 1876. The oldest player on that team was Nealy Phelps, age 35. Phelps broke in with the New York Mutuals on July 1, 1876. The oldest player on the Mutuals was Joe Start, age 33. Start broke in with the Mutuals on May 18, 1876. Major league baseball started in 1876, so you can’t go farther back than that.

Major league baseball was 38 years old when 19-year-old George Ruth put on his Boston uniform.

Stats at www.baseball-almanac.com