Yankee4Life

7 out of 10, 55 seconds. Somehow I got the first seven in a row right and then I blew it on the final three.

You're right Jim. I should have included that important part too.

6 out of 10, 95 seconds. This was a bad one all around. Score and time was bad today.

September 28, 1951: Allie Reynolds throws his second no-hitter of the season Allie Reynolds, New York Yankees. "I knew it all the time,” said Yankees right-hander Allie Reynolds jokingly after holding the Boston Red Sox hitless in the first game of a doubleheader on September 28. “How could I help it? The scoreboard was right there.” Described as a “smashing triumph” by John Drebinger of the New York Times and a “mound masterpiece” by Springfield (Massachusetts) Union correspondent Dutch Robbins, the no-hitter was Reynolds’ second of the season and guaranteed the Yankees at least a tie for the AL pennant. That point was moot when the Bronx Bombers, behind Vic Raschi’s complete game, mauled Boston in the second game,11-3, to capture their third straight pennant and 18th in 31 seasons. “After all these years,” lamented syndicated columnist Red Smith, “the Yankees just had to find a new way to make sure of finishing in first place.” An outright pennant was far from guaranteed when the Yankees (93-56) prepared to play five games against their rival Red Sox at Yankee Stadium on the final three days of the regular season. New York owned what appeared to be a comfortable 2½-game lead over the Cleveland Indians; however, skipper Casey Stengel’s squad was playing its worst ball of the season at the most inopportune time. They had split their last 14 games, and were coming off an uninspired 4-1 loss to the second-division Philadelphia Athletics two days earlier. Though New York led the AL in home runs (140) and finished second in runs scored (798) in 1951, the club did not incite the same fear in its opponents that the previous two pennant-winning teams did. Injuries and age seemed to have crept up on them. Joe DiMaggio was having his worst season and Phil Rizzuto’s offensive output had fallen off dramatically from his MVP performance a year earlier, but the team found a way to win behind its “Big Three” pitchers, Eddie Lopat, Raschi, and Reynolds, who combined for 59 victories and just 27 defeats. Manager Steve O’Neill’s Red Sox (87-62) were in a free-for-all, having lost their last four games and seven of eight. Trailing New York by six games, Boston had no chance for a pennant, but wanted nothing more than to play the role of spoiler, or at least make the Yankees and their fans squirm. The pitching matchup in the first game featured two two-time All-Star hurlers. Boston’s ace, 29-year-old southpaw Mel Parnell (18-10) relied on a fastball and an assortment of breaking balls (sliders, curves, and sinkers) to fashion a stellar record of 78-38 in parts of five seasons. New York’s Reynolds was a 34-year-old right-hander with a career-record of 135-88 in parts of 10 seasons, including 16-8 thus far in ’51. A member of the Creek nation, the Oklahoma-born Reynolds was known as “Superchief.” Sportswriters regularly made reference to his Native American background, calling him a “noble red-man” and oft times much worse. Described by Tommy Holmes of the Brooklyn Eagle as “one of the truly magnificent competitive pitchers in the game,” Reynolds had tossed a no-hitter on July 12, outdueling the Indians’ Bob Feller at Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, 1-0. Reynolds, bothered by chronic elbow pain all season long, hoped to put off impending offseason elbow surgery to remove bone chips as long as possible. If that weren’t enough, Reynolds was suffering from a cold, and was concerned about his wife, who had supposedly fainted a day earlier before leaving their home in Oklahoma to join her husband for the final weekend of the season. As the crowd of 39,038 settled into its seats in the “House That Ruth Built” on a Friday afternoon, Reynolds walked the leadoff hitter, Dom DiMaggio. In what was arguably the most important defensive play of the game, Rizzuto fielded Johnny Pesky’s grounder back through the mound, stepped on second, and fired to Joe Collins for an easy twin killing. The Yankees led off the bottom of the first with consecutive singles by Rizzuto, Jerry Coleman, and Hank Bauer, the latter of which resulted in the first run. After rookie Gil McDougald drew a one-out walk to load the bases, Yogi Berra hit a slow roller between the mound and first base to drive in Coleman, but was easily thrown out at first. With a chance to break the game open, Gene Woodling grounded weakly to Pesky to end the inning. After Reynolds set down the Red Sox in order in the second and third, the Yankees scored two more in the third to make it 4-0. Coleman led off with a walk, stole second, and scored on McDougald’s two-out single to center field. Berra followed with a single that center fielder DiMaggio booted, allowing McDougald to score and Berra to scamper to second. The Yankees tallied another run in the fourth when Collins led off with a double off reliever Ray Scarborough and subsequently scored on Coleman’s sacrifice fly. “The crowd became no-hit, no-run conscious in the sixth inning,” wrote Joe Looney of the Boston Herald. While many in the stadium held their breath every time a Red Sox batter swung his bat, Reynolds seemed impervious to the mounting tension, and was “breezing along at times,” according to Dutch Robbins. Given yet two more runs when Collins belted his ninth home run of the season with Woodling on via a single for a seemingly insurmountable 7-0 lead in the sixth inning, Reynolds appeared to be enjoying every minute of it. He was “laughing on the mound” in the seventh while facing Ted Williams, whom he had struck out in the first and walked in the fourth. This time the Splendid Splinter grounded out. Reynolds’ mood changed in the eighth when Lou Boudreau and Fred Hatfield belted hard-hit balls to deep right field that Hank Bauer caught easily. Bearing down, Reynolds heaved a fastball to Aaron Robinson. From the sound of the ball connecting with the bat, Reynolds was concerned. “I didn’t even look back at it,” said the hurler after the game. “I was sure it was out of the park.” Bauer snagged it or the last out of the frame. The Yankees tacked on another run in the eighth on Woodling’s 15th home run, and Reynolds took the mound for a date with history. He was three outs away from joining Cincinnati’s Johnny Vander Meer as the only pitchers to toss two no-hitters in one season. Jack Hand of the Associated Press described the ninth as a “fantastic thrill.” Reynolds retired pinch-hitter Charlie Maxwell on a grounder to second. After Dom DiMaggio drew a walk, Reynolds’ fourth free pass of the game, the stout, 6-foot hurler caught Pesky looking at a wicked curve for his ninth punchout of the game. Up stepped “Teddy Ballgame,” who had managed only six hits and two RBIs in his previous 30 at-bats. Williams hit a high popup behind the plate for what appeared to be the last out. The normally sure-handed Berra misjudged the ball as it moved in the wind. The ball “squirmed out of his glove,” wrote New York Times sportswriter John Drebinger, and the catcher tumbled, “sprawling on his face.” Reynolds, after colliding with Berra and concerned that he might have stepped on his All-Star backstop’s hand, went back to the mound. Armed with what Joe Looney called a “blazing fastball” all afternoon, Reynolds fed Williams another heater which “The Kid” popped up again. This time Berra caught it easily to secure Reynolds’ no-hitter, completed in 2 hours and 12 minutes. Reynolds needed 119 pitches to record the fifth no-hitter in Yankees history and his league-leading seventh shutout. Other than Reynolds’ four walks, which pushed his season total to 100 (the seventh consecutive season he broke the 100-barrier), the good-natured hurler tossed a flawless game. According to both the Boston and New York press, the Red Sox did not come close to collecting a hit, and the Yankees’ fielders needed no stellar play to preserve the no-hitter. “I had a good curve out there,” said the proud pitcher, “but didn’t put it where I wanted.” It was the major leagues’ fourth no-hitter of the season. (Cleveland’s Bob Feller and Pittsburgh’s Cliff Chambers threw the other two.) Boston had not been held hitless since Bob Burke of the Washington Senators turned the trick on August 8, 1931, at Griffith Stadium. The Yankees had little time to celebrate Reynolds’ gem. Both teams were soon on the field again to play the second game. Trailing 3-0, New York erupted for seven runs in the second inning and cruised to an 11-3 victory to capture the pennant. It was a “fantastic and dramatic conclusion to the American League pennant race,” opined Bob Holbrook of the Boston Globe. The party in the Yankees’ clubhouse was subdued compared with those of seasons past. “It’s still a thrill,” said Joltin’ Joe DiMaggio. New York capped off the season by sweeping Boston and then defeated the New York Giants in six games to win their third of five consecutive World Series titles. Allie Reynolds (left) looks on as Yogi Berra clutches the game ending out, a pop up off the bat of Red Sox outfielder Ted Williams.

Thank you Jim. You beat me to it. Let me add TBJ1977 that any newer computer, well any computer made in the past fifteen years or so has these requirements. In fact I should say longer than that.

10 out of 10, 35 seconds. Honestly I thought I was faster today. This is not going to be good enough today!

7 out of 10, 72 seconds. I don't know what happened here. I was so slow but at least I got seven. That will not be good enough today.

I realize that this thread has not been updated in eight years but after I was reading my latest baseball book something in it made me stop and wonder what was being talked about. I’m going to talk about two rules that were in baseball up until 1950. None of us can go back that far and that’s why these rules have been lost to time. Read on. It seems that Babe Ruth had people run for him and I originally thought that they were talking about spring training or exhibition games. I was wrong. There used to be substitute runners or courtesy runners up until 1949. Here’s the rule: 3.05 A player whose name is on his team’s batting order MAY NOT BECOME A SUBSTITUTE RUNNER for another member of his team. Through 1949, “courtesy runners” were allowed. Rule 17, Section 3 had read, “A base-runner shall not have another player whose name appears in the batting order of his team run for him except by the consent of the manager or captain of the other team.” The 1950 overhaul of the rules included a prohibition of such runners, even with the opposing team’s consent. Here’s another one that you are not going to believe. Before 1950 the home team had the choice to bat first or last in the game. Today it would not even be considered but this did happen before 1950. You can see it here. 4.00 – Starting and Ending a Game 4.02 The players of the HOME TEAM shall take their DEFENSIVE POSITIONS, the first batter of the visiting team shall take his position in the batter’s box, the umpire shall call “Play” and the game shall proceed. (N)Previous Rule 26: The choice of innings shall be given to the manager or captain of the home team.The 1950 rules were the first to mandate that the home team would take the field first. I have also included the .PDF file Baseball Playing Rules Changes Year by Year Since 1950. It is amazing what you can learn about this great game. Baseball Playing Rules Changes Year by Year Since 1950.pdf

10 out of 10, 35 seconds. Very good but not fast enough for all of you. I messed up on two of them even though the questions were easy.

Starting tomorrow night in Toronto it is the Dodgers against the Blue Jays for the World Series championship. Who will win?

5 out of 10, 49 seconds. Middle of the road score for a day like this. All I really expect.

Yes. Don't use them. You may think that is a sarcastic answer but it actually is not.. Keep in mind that this game is twenty years old (soon to be twenty-one in February) and when they were made for the game Windows XP was the operating system it was made for. It has not been updated to be used on later operating systems, a fact that I find very unfortunate because I loved to use Studio to add my uniforms. The same can be said about Mvpedit.

I got one more. You said in your first post in here that where you work is a liaison between the department you are in and the folks at the stadium. Have you ever had the chance to do your work on-site at a stadium?

7 out of 10, 79 seconds. Can't complain at all about this score because these were tricky today.

8 out of 10, 61 seconds. Very lucky today because there were some baseball questions.

And if it goes extra innings that means things will be kind of rushed when the game is done?

6 out of 10, 85 seconds. These were some of the most difficult baseball ones I have had to answer in awhile.

I'm glad you did give your complete backstory here because it was a good one and a good read for me. I'm very happy for you and I am also happy that you are appreciated there since you got that promotion. There is one thing that I have to wonder about and I guess it is something you can't even answer. You said in 2013 you aced an interview with them and that everyone was impressed. Now when that happened you must have figured that you were going to get that job, right? What was their excuse for not hiring you? But at least they kept you in mind for the next one. I'm glad you got it and that you are doing well there.

10 out of 10, 42 seconds. 42 seconds? I can't explain it at all. Now I'll sit back and watch all of you fly past that. Wave as you go by. 🙂

This is a very good article that I wanted to post in here even though it did not have anything to do with Yankee news. I watched this World Series game Mike Vaccaro is talking about here and I was exhausted the next day when I went to school. Unfortunately I must admit I have not watched all the endings of the World Series games since 1975 because I refused to watch the ones when the Red Sox were in it. Other than that I think I got the rest covered. The World Series viewing decision that changed my sports life at 8 years old — and is worth passing on by Mike Vaccaro, New York Post. Boston Red Sox' catcher Carlton Fisk #27 runs to home and is met by his teammates after hitting a home run against the Cincinnati Reds in the 12th inning of game Six of the World Series at Fenway park on October 21, 1975. I’m not a parent. If I were, I’d like to think I would have done for my child what my father did for me late in the evening of Oct. 21, 1975 (actually, early in the morning of Oct. 22). Are you a parent? Do you do this? Does anyone anymore? I was 8 years old. I was in the third grade. And I have long maintained that baseball never means quite so much to us as it does when we are 8 years old. I know that was the case for me. It was when I was 8 that baseball stopped being something I watched because my father did and instead became something I immersed myself in. Completely. (TRUE STORY: The proudest my father may have ever been when it came to his only son happened the previous spring. I’d made my First Communion on May 17. My parents asked how I wanted to celebrate. There was only one answer: Yankees-A’s, Shea Stadium that night. And off we went. In the fifth inning they had a baseball quiz. Alvin Dark was managing the A’s. The year before he’d become the third manager to win pennants in both leagues. Who were the first two? My dad asked if I knew. I did: Yogi Berra and Joe McCarthy. Behind us, a couple of middle-aged guys with their bottles hidden in paper bags started giving me a hard time. “Joe McCarthy, kid? No way!” “I guarantee it,” he said, and my old man bet him a dollar I was right. He accepted. I was right. The guy laughed and handed my pop the bill. “Hey kid, what kind of school do you go to, baseball school?” My father lived for another 28 years, 1 month and 23 days. I believe he may have retold that story to somebody on every one of those days that followed.) Former Mets manager Yogi Berra. So, as I say: Baseball mattered a lot to 8-year-old me. We’d made our first trip as a family to Cooperstown a week earlier. And I was obsessed with the Reds-Red Sox World Series, which the Reds led, three games to two, that evening of Oct. 21, 1975 — exactly 50 years ago Tuesday. The game started at 8:30, which also happened to be my bedtime. A series of intense negotiations followed, and the resulting compromise was this: I could stay up to watch the first inning. If it looked like the Reds were going to win the game, he’d wake me up. We shook on it. The Sox scored three in the bottom of the first. I went to bed, figuring I was done for the night. And was stunned three hours later when he came to get me. “The Reds are up 6-3, bottom eight,” he said. “You still want to watch?” I was out of bed and in the living room in a flash — in just enough time to watch Bernie Carbo hit a game-tying three-run homer off Rawly Eastwick. My father looked at me, as wide awake as if it were noon. He realized there was no going back to bed. So we settled in: through the ninth, through the 10th, through the 11th. Finally as the Reds went down in the top of the 12th, he warned that this was it. He had to be up in about three hours. And, well, you probably know what happened then. You’ve seen Carlton Fisk wave his walk-off home run fair 100,000 times. So have I. But I also saw it live. I saw it on TV, 3 ¹/₂ hours after I was supposed to be fast asleep. My father wanted me to see the final out of the World Series for the first time, and instead we got so much more. Do you do this? Does anyone anymore? I never had a child to roust. But I know for a fact that this year, for the 50th straight year, I’ll make sure I watch the last out of the World Series. You can enjoy that at 58 every bit as much as at 8. Trust me.

How did you get the job that you have? Have you told the baseball fans that you work with about the mod that you made? Because you should be very proud of it. I know I would be.

Sad Sam Jones For a player so significant in Red Sox history, surprisingly little is known about Samuel Pond “Sad Sam” Jones. Despite his incredible contributions to the Red Sox World Series victory in 1918, the most often discussed thing about Jones is his curious nickname. Born July 26, 1892, to Delbert and Margaret Clingan Jones, in Woodsfield, Ohio, about 20 miles west of the West Virginia Panhandle, Sam developed his arm on his grandfather’s farm by throwing potatoes across a field to his brother Robert. He pitched well in high school, but quit ball to take a full-time job at Schumacher’s grocery store. Though he intimated to family that he preferred basketball, and would have played it professionally had there been a league at the time, he kept pitching in pickup games, and in 1913, he was asked to try out for Zanesville of the Inter-State League. That was where he first broke into professional baseball, winning two games and losing seven but also getting good experience — including pitching in a June exhibition game against the New York Giants. However, Jones was only 20 years old and very homesick, so when he was forced to take a pay cut, he refused, and when he saw his manager, Marty Hogan, on the street the following day, the young hurler demanded to be released immediately. In what Sam’s son, Paul, would later call “probably the craziest release in baseball history,” Hogan obliged, writing Jones’ release in pencil on the inside of a chewing tobacco packet. Sam was not home for long. Just three days after he returned to Woodsfield, he was offered a contract by Lee Fohl, the manager of the Columbus team in the same league as Zanesville. Ironically, Sam ended up taking a pay cut from his Zanesville wage anyway, and when the league folded on July 15, Sam went home to work as a clerk in the grocery store. During the offseason, Jones played semipro basketball, a sport he claimed to be better at than baseball, but in the spring of 1914, he returned to baseball, spending some time at the Bill Doyle baseball school in Portsmouth, Ohio. Later that summer, Jones left the school to sign with the Portsmouth team in the Ohio State League, where he posted another losing record (5-6) but showed some potential when it mattered. One day, with Cleveland Indians scout Bill Reedy watching the game, Jones pitched well enough to earn a victory and hit a triple and home run to help his own cause. Reedy was impressed and signed Jones for the Indians later that year. He spent most of the year pitching for Cleveland’s American Association team (10-4 in 23 games, with a 2.44 ERA), earning a promotion to the big-league Cleveland club for one game in the middle of the year. Jones debuted with the Indians on June 13, 1914. After starter Rip Hageman gave up nine runs to Philadelphia, Jones threw the final three and one-third innings, allowing two hits and one run, while going 1-for-2 at the plate. Though that was his only appearance of 1914, in 1915 he became a regular — his second of 22 seasons pitching for six of the eight American League clubs. In his only full year with the Indians, Jones was 4-9 (3.65 ERA) and walked more (63) than he struck out (42). Jones batted .156 for the Indians — his career batting average was .197 in 1,243 at-bats. In the book The Glory of Their Times, Jones told Lawrence Ritter that he “loved” playing with the Indians–probably because it was so close to where his sister lived. On April 9, 1916, the Indians traded Jones to the Red Sox with minor leaguer Fred Thomas and $55,000 for future Hall of Famer Tris Speaker. The Joseph Lannin-owned Red Sox were dumping Speaker and his high salary, to the distress of Red Sox fans. Thomas was the man Lannin wanted; Jones himself was an afterthought at best. The 1916 Red Sox pitching staff was essentially the same one that had won the 1915 World Series; Vean Gregg who got most of the work the sore-armed Smoky Joe Wood had previously handled, while Jones threw only 27 innings, all in relief, losing his only decision. Jones was used even less in 1917, reprising his 0-1 record. The loss came in his only start of the year, in Cleveland on August 19. He was hammered for two runs in the first and two in the fourth; the Boston Globe said that when it was over, “he looked like a crazyquilt.” At the start of his tenure with the Red Sox, Jones hardly seemed a big part of the ballclub. The Boston Herald and Journal reported that Jones “wasn’t even sent a contract [in 1918] by the Hub Hose. The team was at Hot Springs when owner Harry Frazee got a letter from Sam along these lines: ‘Forgotten me altogether? I’m not worth a contract of any sort? If I am through, let me in on it.’ ” Red Sox executives told the Globe that they thought he was at Camp Sherman in the Army and had placed him on the voluntarily retired list in error. [Globe, March 27, 1918] They wired Jones to come quickly, and told the newspaper they expected him to get a fair amount of work. Fortunately for Jones, the Red Sox were right. The new manager for 1918, Ed Barrow, saw that Jones had a “most baffling delivery” and nurtured him into a pitcher who delivered 16 victories against only five losses (2.25 ERA). Though Barrow would later say that he was equally as proud of turning Babe Ruth into an outfielder as he was of turning Jones into a great pitcher, Jones and his manager had a contentious relationship at best. In his interview with Laurence Ritter for The Glory of Their Times, Jones admitted that he was a bit hard to handle as a ballplayer in his younger years, something that would become a semi-serious problem in his years with the Washington Senators. On May 23, 1918, Jones had his first start of the season and pitched extremely well against Cleveland–though he was on the short end of a 1-0 decision. Jones’s next two starts were brilliant. He outpitched Walter Johnson on May 29, winning a 3-0, five-hit shutout, and followed that with a 1-0 shutout of Cleveland on June 6, again allowing just five hits, but this time in 10 innings. (The June 6 game was interesting in that pitcher Babe Ruth played left field for Boston and pitcher Joe Wood played left field for Cleveland.) After allowing just one run in three starts, Sam Jones had cemented himself in as part of the starting rotation. In the first three starts he threw against his former ballclub, Jones allowed Cleveland just one run. After he beat the Indians on August 19, the very player he had been traded for, Tris Speaker, told the Boston Herald and Journal: “Sam Jones is the best pitcher Boston has… Those two years Sam sat on the bench made him. He simply absorbed everything that went on in the games. He’s smart and learns rapidly. That slow ball of his simply floats up there and you swing your head off, and then he has a fast one that is on top of you before you realize it. In addition, he has as good a curve ball as anyone in the league. Yes, I believe he’s the best pitcher on the team.” A baffling delivery might be one thing, and it seemed to take him a while to harness his pitches (he walked more than he struck out in each of his first three full seasons in the majors), but Jones maintained that during a five-year stretch he only once threw over to first base to hold back a runner, believing that “there are only so many throws in an arm,” something future Hall of Famer Eddie Plank had told him. When Ernie Shore left for the Navy, Dutch Leonard took a shipyard job, and Babe Ruth cut back a bit on pitching, Joe Bush and Sam Jones got the opportunity to pitch in 1918. Bush won 15, Jones won 16, and Carl Mays won 21. It was a terrific year, and Jones led the league in winning percentage as the Red Sox advanced to the World Series against the Chicago Cubs. Though Jones lost his start in Game Five, 3-0, the Sox won the Series–it would be their last world championship for 86 years. The next year, 1919, wasn’t as kind to Jones as 1918, and Sad Sam finished the season 12-20 with an inflated 3.75 ERA. The team itself had a losing record, and several headlines mentioned Jones’s wildness and wobbling. Jones got more work than anyone else on the staff, but others pitched better. He did dominate Washington, throwing three shutouts in a row before losing in the last matchup. In 1920, Jones’s workload increased to 274 innings but he again had a losing record (13-16, with an ERA that grew to 3.94.) He often pitched very well indeed, but was inconsistent and also often suffered from poor run support — though he perhaps single-handedly denied the pennant to the White Sox. Chicago finished two games behind the Indians, and Jones beat them six times. Only once in the first five of those wins did Jones give up as many as two runs. There were, though, the losses: On June 12, he gave up six runs to the St. Louis Browns in the first inning, left the game, and lost. Trying again the very next day, he was left in to pitch the full game and lost again, 11-5. It took until 1921 for Jones to turn it around again. Even though the team again had a losing record (as it did throughout the 1920s), Jones became a 20-game winner (23-16, 3.22 ERA), making himself an attractive target for the acquisitive New York Yankees. Five days before Christmas 1921, Harry Frazee traded Jones, and Bullet Joe Bush (between them, the two pitchers had accounted for 39 of Boston’s 75 wins in 1921) and threw in eight-year veteran Everett Scott, for four New York players–Roger Peckinpaugh, Rip Collins, Bill Piercy, and Jack Quinn–plus $100,000. Sam was 13-13 with the Yankees his first year, but went to the World Series again. Jones threw two late innings against the New York Giants without giving up a run, but the Giants swept the Series in four games (not counting a Game Two tie). It was back to the Series again in 1923, Sam’s 21-8 and Herb Pennock’s 19-6 pacing the Yankees during the season. In what he later called one of his proudest moments in baseball, Jones pitched a no-hitter on September 4, beating the Philadelphia Athletics, 2-0, without striking out a single batter. In the Series, he started and lost Game Three, but it was a 1-0 loss, a four-hitter spoiled only by Casey Stengel’s home run for the Giants. Jones took his World Series record pretty seriously; he would later grumble to the press that he got “no run support,” a fair assertion. Jones entered 1924 with a sore right elbow that lasted two months and contributed to a disappointing 9-6 record. In 1925, he pitched a full year again but the Yankees collapsed all the way to seventh place. Jones was 15-21, and his ERA increased one full run from 3.63 to 4.63. The earned run average bumped up again to 4.98 in 1926, and his 9-8 record was mediocre on a team that featured 58 wins from Pennock, Urban Shocker, and Waite Hoyt, and took the World Series to Game Seven before losing to the Cardinals. Jones pitched just the ninth inning in Game Two, giving up the final run in a 6-2 loss. Jones spent five years pitching in New York, but it didn’t change him as a man. Jones was, according to those who knew him, a homebody. He hated leaving his Woodsfield hometown for spring training, and minutes after the season ended, he would hustle his belongings, his wife, Edith, and their sons, George and Paul, into their LaSalle automobile and drive straight to Woodsfield. In early February 1927, Sam was swapped to the St. Louis Browns for Cedric Durst and Joe Giard. In his one season with St. Louis, Jones was 8-14 with a 4.32 ERA. Right after baseball wrapped up postseason play, St. Louis sent Sam and Milt Gaston to Washington for Dick Coffman and Earl McNeely. Sad Sam pitched four years for Washington, rebounding nicely with a 17-7 (2.84) in 1928, despite the Senators finishing 26 games out of first place. His hopes for another strong season in 1929 were dashed when he sprained his back on May 22. He returned to Woodsfield for a month and next started in early July. He finished the season with a 9-9 mark and a 3.92 ERA. Owner Clark Griffith signed him again for 1930, but to a “bonus contract” based on incentives. Right as the season began, Jones ran afoul of manager Walter Johnson. Accused of “speaking out of turn” (New York Times) and displaying what Johnson termed “not the proper attitude” (Washington Post), Johnson sent Jones back to Washington while the Senators traveled from Boston to Philadelphia. The rift didn’t last long, though, and Jones was back in a few days. Jones was what we could call a “difficult sign” during his years in D.C., but in this case it was perhaps Johnson who “possibly may have been a little harsh” in the words of Post correspondent Frank H Young. Perhaps the bonus clause worked; he won 15 and lost seven (with a 4.07 ERA). In 1931, Jones was 9-10, and in December the Senators traded him and Irving “Bump” Hadley to the White Sox for Carl Reynolds, Jackie Hayes and Johnny Kerr. The Washington Post said that Jones “undoubtedly is nearing the end of his career.” He would turn 40 during the summer of 1932. Sam Jones won 10 games for the White Sox in 1932 and again in 1933, but was under .500 each year. Chicago was competing with the Red Sox for last place in those years and in his four seasons with the White Sox Jones’s won-loss percentage was higher than his team’s. In 1934, he celebrated his 42nd birthday with a six-hit, 9-0 shutout of Washington. In November 1935, after he had posted a winning 8-7 record, the White Sox gave Sam Jones his unconditional release at age 43. His 22-year career was finally over. He had a 229 - 217 career mark with a 3.84 ERA and struck out 1, 223 hitters. He kept busy, teaching kids in Woodsfield how to play ball (and securing donations of major-league equipment from some of his old teammates), according to his friend, Ronald Turner; one of those children, from nearby Stewartsville, Ohio, was another Sam Jones, nicknamed “Toothpick Sam,” who would go on to play 12 years in the major leagues. Jones’s last season as a professional came in 1940, after four years out of the game. He appeared in eight games for the Toronto Maple Leafs, for a total of 12 innings, with a winning 1-0 record and a somewhat meaningless 2.25 ERA. Soon after his 48th birthday he was released by the Maple Leafs. In his final appearance, he’d thrown one inning without giving up a hit or a run. The Associated Press obituary explained the origin of his nickname, “Sad Sam, the Cemetery Man,” as emanating from “a new sportswriter whose only acquaintance with the pitcher was watching him from the press box. The dour features of the pitcher at that distance completely hid the twinkle in his eye.” The story deemed him a “whimsical and quietly humorous man, brimful of quips and backwoods humor.” Sam Jones, throughout a lengthy baseball career that took him from Cleveland to Washington, Boston to Chicago, and many places in between, was a small-town man at heart; he was a local institution in Woodsfield when he lived, just as much a part of the village as the County Library or the abandoned railroad. A marker detailing his career in baseball stands on Creamery Street in Woodsfield, ensuring that the village remembers the man who cherished it more than any other place until the day he died in 1966.

8 out of 10, 42 seconds. Not a good outing because I missed this question. Which of these M.L.B. Hall of Fame pitchers had the most hits in his major league baseball career? For some crazy reason I picked Bob Gibson and the correct answer was Walter Johnson with 547. I should have known this because I read a book about Johnson earlier this year.

This is not the same team I grew up with.