Yankee4Life

George Pipgras In the 146 years of professional baseball, no team has come close to attaining the legendary status of the 1927 New York Yankees. They were, and are, the symbol of greatness, both individually and as a team. As the prominent baseball historian Donald Honig said, “Never before or since has there been in the game such a coalescence of talent, such a fusion of lusty hitting and sharp pitching, and all of it torrentially consistent, dismembering the League with a meat cleaver, losing just 44 of their 154 games, setting records … with a near-homicidal attack….” Whether one is a Yankee lover or hater, the names are forever part of baseball lore — Ruth, Gehrig, Lazzeri, Meusel, Combs, Pennock, Hoyt, Pipgras … et al. “When we got to the ball park,” George Pipgras said, “we knew we were going to win. That’s all there was to it. We weren’t cocky. I wouldn’t call it confidence either. We just knew. Like when you go to sleep you know the sun is going to come up in the morning.” Although not as well-known as the superstar batters, it was the pitching staff who provided the balance and strength, leading the league in earned-run average (3.20); and having four of the league’s seven pitchers with E.R.A.s of 3.00 or less. On that staff was an Iowa-born, Minnesota-raised farm boy, whose only prior major-league experience was a two-season “stop in for a cup of coffee” resulting in a 1-4 record with a nearly 6.00 E.R.A. average. So how was it that George Pipgras came to be a key link in the Yankees’ rotation from 1927-1933; an undefeated World Series pitcher; and whom Hall-of-Famer “Goose” Goslin in 1928 called “the best pitcher in the American League.” George Pipgras was born into a baseball-loving family on December 20, 1899 in Ida Grove, Iowa. His father William was a farmer who played baseball before gloves were used, umpired local games occasionally, and raised five sons — all over six feet tall — four pitchers and a catcher. Pipgras’ early life was filled with farm chores beginning at 4:30 a.m. — milking cows, feeding sheep, currying horses — followed by work in his father’s butcher shop in Anton, Iowa. In between were the demands of schoolwork, including forming the battery for his Schleswig, Iowa high school baseball team with his brother Herman. His family moved to a farm in Slayton, Minnesota, where “Pip” continued to pitch for the high school team. America entered World War I in 1917 and Pipgras, lying about his age, enlisted in Sioux City, Iowa with the U.S. Army 60th Engineers serving for a year and a half in France, England, and Germany. Unfortunately, after 18 months in Europe, he became a victim of the influenza epidemic of 1918. Returning to Minnesota in 1919, he went back to work on the farm, and to playing baseball for the local town team. It was when pitching a game for Woodstock, Minnesota with eight other farm boys as teammates that he attracted the attention of Frank Flynn, a railroad conductor and volunteer scout for a number of minor-league clubs. Ralph Works, a former American League pitcher, scouting for the White Sox, dropped in and tried to sign him for Chicago. Pipgras wanted to accept, but he had already accepted terms with Jimmy Hamilton, manager of the Joplin, Missouri team. He played for Joplin in 1921, but was so wild, they almost immediately farmed him out to Saginaw, Michigan where in a game against the London, Ontario Club, he walked 15 men in five innings, lasted one game, and was given a ticket back to Minnesota. Down on his luck, nearly broke, and stranded back in Worthington, Minnesota, “Pip” spent 35 cents on a breakfast and with 15 cents in his pocket, wondered if his dream of the big leagues was over. His choices were limited. On the one hand, the farm and the corn fields beckoned. On the other, Minnesota’s harsh hobo laws threatened, because Pipgras was convinced he’d end up a hobo if he couldn’t get a job pitching somewhere. Playing a hunch, he placed a five-cent phone call to a baseball savvy friend to see if any midwestern teams were looking for a pitcher. “Sure,” said the friend. “Hop over to Madison, South, Dakota, and tell the manager I sent you. The South Dakota League season is opening today and he needs a pitcher.” He got there just in time to pitch the opening game of the season. He stayed, pitching in 24 games with Madison and finishing with a 12-6 record while his team finished in the second division. The Boston Red Sox secured Pipgras in the Spring of 1922 for $1,000 before the season started and sent him to Charleston in the South Atlantic League. He pitched 42 games for Charleston, winning 19 and losing 9 and was a key factor in Charleston’s winning the league title. His record led to his recall by Boston; interest by Bob Connery, the New York Yankees’ head scout; and on January 3, 1923, he was traded with outfielder Harvey Hendrick to the Yankees for the 1923-24 seasons. As the Yanks won their third pennant and their first World Series in a row in 1923, Pipgras warmed the bench, while finishing with an anemic 1-3 record. That was followed by an even more disappointing 1924 record of 0-1. Pipgras was fast, but wild, so Huggins sent him down to work on his control. “Two years in the minor leagues will cure him,” Huggins said — and he was right. In 1925, he was farmed out to Nashville and Atlanta of the Southern League, where he had a 19-15 record. The next season, the Yankees sent Pipgras to St. Paul where he established a very respectable 23-18 record. In 1927, he was called back up to the Yankees and became a regular. After coaching from Shawkey and Pennock, and Miller Huggins’ patience and faith in Pipgras, he was asked to pitch a game in July 1927 for a sick “Dutch” Ruether against the Detroit Tigers. He responded by pitching a three-hitter. His time had arrived. Now a complete pitcher, he had a fastball with good control, and a curve, courtesy of future Hall-of-Famer Herb Pennock. Now he was the fifth starter for the 1927 club, and finished the season with a 10-3 record. In control all the way, he beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 6-2, with an impressive “seven hitter” in the second game of the World Series — which the Yankees swept in four games. Manager Miller Huggins was the first to congratulate him, “You pitched a wonderful game, and I’m proud of you.” He went on to a notable career and was one of the Yankees’ key pitchers from 1928-30. In 1928, he was the Yankees’ ace, with a 24-13 record and after that he never had a losing season until his last, when he was 0-1 with Boston. His 93-64 record in nine years with the Yankees established him as a key link in those years of Yankee domination. Mike Gazella, a Yankee substitute infielder said he heard Babe Ruth say that Pipgras “with his fast ball he couldn’t be beaten.” Since 1928, no right-handed Yankee pitcher has since won more games than Pipgras’ 24. After a relatively dismal 7-6, 1931 season, Pipgras roared back with a 16-9 record and he was a main factor in the Yankees’ winning that year’s World Series. After the 1932 season, the Yankees traded Pipgras and infielder Billy Werber to the Red Sox. Although he recorded a respectable 11-10 record in 1933, he broke his arm in a freak accident while pitching against Detroit, accelerating a premature end to his baseball career. Pipgras finished with an anemic 0-0 record in two games in 1934 followed by a 0-1 record in five games in 1935. Forced to retire from baseball, he wanted to stay involved with the game he loved. His former boss, Tom Yawkey of Boston, invited him to join him, Eddie Collins, and a few others for a weekend of duck hunting at South Island Plantation near Georgetown, South Carolina. Yawkey suggested umpiring and arranged for Pipgras to umpire in the old NY-PA League (now known as the Eastern League), a job he held from 1936-38. American League President Will Harridge, who had helped Pipgras get his initial umpiring job in the NY-PA League, had kept tabs on him and was so satisfied with his progress that he appointed him to the American League regular staff in 1939. Including training games, he umpired in 192 contests in 1939. He umpired until 1945, including officiating All-Star games and World Series and earning a reputation as one of the game’s best umpires. “Yes, I like umpiring,” reflected Pipgras. “It is pleasant work. Perhaps you don’t get the thrill out of umpiring a game in which there have been no kicks as you do over pitching a low-hit shut-out, but you’re still in baseball, and in quite an important department of the game.” He had the distinction of both having played and umpiring in World Series games. He finished his baseball career supervising umpires from 1946-49 and working as a scout for the Boston Red Sox. In his 11-year career Pipgras had a 102 - 73 record with a 4.09 earned run average. He struck out 714 and pitched sixteen shutouts.

4 out of 10, 104 seconds. Friday can not get here soon enough. 😢

5 out of 10, 138 seconds. I got the first four in a row right and then everything went south as the questions became impossible.

4 out of 10, 158 seconds. Now that's a nice way to start a month! Here are the final standings for September. I believe this was our closest one yet. It was decided in the last few days. And I think October is going to be even closer because I have got in the habit of looking on what day the month will end. This month it ends on Thursday and that means it will be tougher on me because I do not do well on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Wednesday is hit and miss for me. Thank you all. this was not easy.

Well to tell you the truth it's not by design. I get up around that time and let out the dog and before I go back to bed I get my trivia game out of the way. There are times when I don't but that's what usually happens.

7 out of 10, 65 seconds. Some questions were downright crazy. I was asked what kind of pitch Pete Rose hit when he broke Ty Cobb's record. Naturally I got it wrong.

Did you read the first post in here?

10 out of 10, 40 seconds. The time was not what I wanted because I hesitated on one of them. 🤔

7 out of 10, 67 seconds. Another frustrating day. This month is going to go down to the final day. Look for yourself at the standings!

Isn't that something Jim? Sometimes you think you've done ok and then you get a time like that.

9 out of 10, 40 seconds. As soon as I saw my time and result I knew I had messed up bad. First I was too slow . Everyone will fly past that. But the one that I missed is still upsetting me. Trying to go fast I read "what does TPA mean" and I clicked on total plate appearance. I should have clicked on total plate appearances! 😟

9 out of 10, 102 seconds. No rugby, no soccer, no NASCAR questions. I got lucky.

6 out of 10, 86 seconds. I'm scraping just to stay even but the questions today were no bargain.

Ben Chapman More than anything, Ben Chapman is remembered these days for the vitriol he heaped on Jackie Robinson in April of Robinson’s first year in the majors. Chapman was the Phillies’ manager that day in 1947 and “decided to make Robinson’s color an issue and encouraged at least three of his men to do the same.” The verbal assault unnerved Robinson, but had the effect of bringing Robinson’s teammates more fully behind him. Dodgers GM Branch Rickey later said, “Chapman did more than anybody to unite the Dodgers. When he poured out that string of unconscionable abuse, he solidified and unified thirty men … Chapman made Jackie a real member of the Dodgers.” He was a competitive player even in high school. Phillips High won the Alabama state championship in 1927, and Chapman pitched as well as played infield. He told the New York Post in April 1935 that he’d won the game against Warrior High, 32-2, and that earlier in the season he’d thrown a one-hitter while striking out 19. Part of the reason for his success was his competitiveness. “All a pitcher has to do in high school ball … is to throw the ball at the batter’s head and then feed him a wide curve on the outside for him to go fishing.” Asked if that’s how he engineered the one-hitter, he replied, “What do you think? I hit four batters.” Chapman was offered a contract by a scout for the New York Yankees, but then it was his mother who stepped in and pushed for him to go to Purdue, where he had been offered a football scholarship. He did go to Purdue, but left after about a month to play professional baseball. Chapman was 6-feet tall and listed at 190 pounds. Ben became a very good ballplayer, with a .302 lifetime average over the course of 15 major-league seasons and 1,717 games. Chapman was primarily an outfielder, though he played 153 games as an infielder (every position but first base), and he even pitched in 25 games – with a winning record at that. He managed the Phillies for the latter half of 1945, all of 1946 and 1947, and the first half of 1948. Chapman was initially signed by Johnny Nee of the Yankees, in 1927, while Ben was still a junior in high school. Being a minor at the time, his father had to sign the contract for him. The spring following his graduation in January 1928, the Yankees had him report to Asheville in the South Atlantic (SALLY) League. He appeared in 147 games, batting .336 with seven homers for the Class-B Tourists, who won the pennant with ease — by 18 games over the second-place Macon Peaches. Chapman was the shortstop on that year’s league All-Star team. He was clearly good on offense, but committed a league-leading 67 errors. He bumped up to Double A in 1929, and hit for exactly the same average: .336, for the St. Paul Saints (American Association), but this time with 31 homers and 137 RBIs. He moved from shortstop to third base, but the penchant for errors continued; he chalked up 43 of them. This was a ballplayer ready for the majors, though, and the Yankees brought him up in 1930. Even before spring training began, it was thought he would make the team. Manager Bob Shawkey announced Chapman as his third baseman six weeks before the season began. He played 91 games at third base and 45 games at second, and he hit 10 home runs contributing toward his .316 average. His average remained very consistent all year long. Playing with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth in the same lineup no doubt helped. Chapman’s 24 errors at third base led the league; three leagues, three times he’d committed the most errors. In his second year in the majors, Chapman was moved to the outfield, where his strong throwing arm and his speed could perhaps better be utilized. In part the move was because Earle Combs got injured, but it was a position for which he was better suited. Manager Joe McCarthy explained: “He didn’t get the ball away quickly enough for an infielder and lost too many double plays. He had a full arm action instead of a snap throw. This was an asset in the outfield but a handicap in the infield. There wasn’t any question that he belonged in the outfield.” He played 137 games (with only 11, all at second base, in the infield.) He played left field primarily but a substantial number in right field, too. His average held steady, dipping just one point – to .315. His homers jumped from ten to 17, and where he had driven in 81 runs in 1930, he drove in 122 in 1931. Only five American Leaguers drove in more. Chapman was fast on the basepaths, too. He led the league with 61 stolen bases in 1931, the first of four years he led in thefts, including three years in a row: 1931, 1932, and 1933. (It should be noted that he also led the league all three years in times caught stealing, too.) Both in 1928 and 1929, he’d also led the league in stolen bases in the minors, with 30 stolen bases and 26, respectively. Dubbed the “Dixie Flyer” and the “Alabama Flash,” there were a few times when he competed against other players in pregame sprints on the field. In 1931, the Christian Science Monitor reported that Chapman had run 100 yards in 10.5 seconds, on grass at Comiskey Park. His 1932 saw him again surpass 100 RBIs and 100 runs scored (107 and 101, respectively), tailing off just a bit in batting average, too, to .299. Though he topped 100 runs scored four more times, the closest he came to driving in 100 was in 1933, when he fell two short (98). In 1933 and 1934, his average climbed back over .300. The year 1933 was the first of four years in a row when Chapman was voted an All-Star (he couldn’t have been earlier, because 1933 was the first year that Major League Baseball held an All-Star Game.) Batting leadoff, he was the first American League player ever to bat in an All-Star Game. He grounded out. In the game, he was 1-for-5, a bunt single to third base. Chapman’s only appearance in a World Series came in 1932 (from 1929 through 1935, it was the only year the Yankees won the pennant.) His outfield play presented some interesting moments; working center field in 1935, he led the American League again in errors (15) but also in outfield assists (25). The Yankees finished in first place again in 1936, but Chapman was no longer with the team after midseason. He’d caught a really bad cold in early May and never quite got right. He was traded to Washington on June 14, 1936, for Jake Powell. In part, the Yanks were making way for an up-and-coming center fielder: Joe DiMaggio. Chapman was called the Yankees’ “biggest disappointment” that year. The trade was said to be a case of “giving up Chapman’s defensive ability for a heftier hitter.” One could say that Chapman was moved twice—once by the Yankees to make room for DiMaggio, and once a very few years later to make room on the Red Sox for Ted Williams. Chapman’s average over the seven seasons in which he appeared for the Yankees was .305. He was with Washington for two season halves – the second half of 1936 and the first half of 1937. On June 11, 1937, just a few days short of the anniversary of his arrival in D.C., he was traded by the Senators (along with Bobo Newsom) to the Boston Red Sox for Mel Almada and the two Ferrell brothers, pitcher Wes and catcher Rick. It was kind of a trade of temperamental titans, with Chapman, Wes Ferrell, and Newsom all ranking among some of the top contenders for that honor in baseball history. He’d appeared in 132 games for the Senators and been remarkably consistent with his batting average — .300. The Red Sox found a very productive right fielder; Chapman hit .324 in his two seasons with Boston. He had hit .307 in the second part of 1937, but in 1938, with a full season playing for the Red Sox, he hit .340, with 80 RBIs and 92 runs scored. One might think that the last thing a team would do was let a 29-year-old batter with that sort of production go—but on December 15, 1938, he was traded to the Cleveland Indians for Denny Galehouse and Tommy Irwin. Boston believed they had a replacement waiting in the wings, a player who had won the Triple Crown in the American Association that year playing for the Minneapolis Millers—Ted Williams. The Indians were glad to get him, though there was some thought he might be traded on to St. Louis to help secure a second baseman, the team’s greatest need. That didn’t happen, and Chapman performed well for manager Ossie Vitt and the Indians in 1939. His average was .290, but he had a .390 on-base percentage. More importantly, he drove in 82 runs, third most on the club, and he led the team in runs scored with 101. He felt he could have been more productive but for the huge outfield in League Park. “I figure I lost at least 20 hits” compared to playing in Fenway Park. He did tie a major-league record with three triples in one game, on July 3, but oddly that was in the relatively small Briggs Stadium in Detroit. There was a dropoff in 1940. Though he played only six fewer games (143 in 1940), his RBI total dropped to 50 and his runs scored to 82 – though his average was almost the same and his OBP wasn’t off by much. During the course of the season, he experimented with wearing eyeglasses. The Indians scored less than 90% of the runs they’d scored in 1939, but much of Chapman’s decline was his own. This was the year of the notorious player mutiny against manager Vitt, the players later dubbed the “Crybabies” because of their complaints against their skipper. Chapman was said to be one of the ringleaders. It may have paved the way for his departure from Cleveland. He later expressed regret for his involvement, telling Vitt, “I don’t know what got into us. It was all so silly.” Chapman was with three ballclubs in the next six months. The day before Christmas in 1940, the Indians traded him to the Washington Senators for left-handed pitcher Joe Krakauskas. In his second stint working for the Senators, he played in 28 early-season games, mostly in left field, but was only hitting .255 and had only knocked in ten runs. The Senators were well-enough set with outfielders, and they simply released him on May 26, 1941. Chapman was heard to say it was to get out from under his high $12,000 salary. It was back to the minor leagues again in 1942, as player/manager for the Richmond Colts in the Piedmont League. Chapman would have played for Richmond in 1943, too, but for his fiery temper. In baseball, it’s frowned upon when a player or manager hits an umpire. In the final game of the playoff series against Portsmouth, on September 16, Chapman was called out at first base by umpire I. H. Case. Fellow umpire James B. Clegg, working that game behind the plate, told The Sporting News what transpired. “As he prolonged the argument, I walked out from my plate position just as Case ordered Chapman from the field. ‘Chapman said, ‘If you say I’m out of the game, I’m going to let you have it.’ Case then said, ‘You’re out.’ Chapman swung and struck umpire Case in the face, whereupon Tony Lazzeri ran out and grabbed Chapman. A policeman quickly appeared and escorted Ben from the field.” The league suspended Chapman from Organized Baseball for a full year. As a manager, Chapman was perhaps even more competitive than he had been as a player. Dan Albaugh said he used to berate his own players a lot—the very reason the Indians had mutinied against Vitt—and that he fought constantly with umpires, a favorite tactic being to “give the men in blue a Nazi salute.” Chapman served his suspension for all of 1943. He was classified 1-A for the World War II draft, and was called for a physical; he received two letters in the mail on February 24, 1944. One contained his contract as manager for Richmond, and the other directed him to report for induction on March 1. But the war was coming to an end, and he had a trick knee. Ultimately, he was declared 4-F and was never inducted into military service. He was hired by Richmond again for 1944, and Chapman combined three jobs once more – pitching, playing outfield, and managing. He hit .303 in 57 games, pitching in 21 of them and recording 13 wins against only six defeats. His ERA for ’44 was 2.21. In early August, he was brought up to the Brooklyn Dodgers (traded by Richmond for Clyde King and some cash) and appeared in 20 big-league games, ten in August and ten in September. He hit for a .368 average in 44 plate appearances with 11 runs scored and 11 RBIs. In 1945 he began the year with Brooklyn, and worked three games in April, five in May, and two in June – reflecting his role as a pitcher. He was hitting for a .136 average in 24 plate appearances, with a 3-3 mark as a moundsman (with a 5.53 ERA), until he was traded to the Phillies for catcher Johnny Peacock on June 15. He threw seven innings for the Phillies in 1945 and 1 1/3 in 1946, without any decisions either year and with a combined 6.48 ERA. He only appeared in one game in 1946, the May 12 game. On June 11, the Phillies released him. But that was deceiving. They released him as a player. He remained the manager. Chapman had taken over as Phillies manager after 69 games in 1945 (Freddie Fitzsimmons had the team 18-51 at that point, and it’s not surprising there was a change made. It was reported that Fitzsimmons resigned.) Chapman’s first game as manager was June 30, 15 days after arriving in the Peacock trade. His first edict, supposedly, was to tell everyone on the team that if they so much as mentioned last place, they would be sent forthwith to the minors. In 1946, Chapman said his team was the best-trained team in the majors and he predicted they would surprise. GM Herb Pennock said of Chapman, “Ben has gotten the Phils over their last place complex, and from here on in we’re moving.” He was still a fiery personality, ejected four times in 1946. The formerly Futile Phils moved up to fifth place (69-85), and they set new attendance records, more than doubling any previous attendance in franchise history save for the 1916 team (and they were only several thousand short of doubling that mark.) In 1945, they’d drawn 285,057 but it 1946 they drew 1,045,247. It was a good move of Chapman’s to have asked for a bonus clause for attendance in his contract, for any totals exceeding 400,000. He reportedly made more ($15,000) through the bonus than his $12,500 salary. In 1947 — the year in which Chapman taunted Jackie Robinson so viciously — they dropped back to eighth place and attendance dipped to 907,332, still well over the 400,000 bonus threshold. Bench jockeying was an established practice in baseball, the intent often being to get under the skin of opposing players. At the time, it wasn’t uncommon to bring up opponent’s ethnicity, but Chapman went well over the line more than once — and he had a history of it. He remembered the way he’d been taunted when he first came up. “The first words I remember hearing when I was a rookie with the Yankees were, ‘Hey, you redneck so-and-so, go back to Alabama where you belong.” As to Robinson, Dodgers traveling secretary Harold Parrott wrote “Chapman mentioned everything from thick lips to the supposedly extra-thick Negro skull, which he said restricted brain growth to almost animal level when compared to white folk. The Dodger players had told him privately, he said, that they wished that the black man would go back into the South where he belonged. Commissioner of Baseball Happy Chandler had to intercede and demand that Chapman stop. So did National League president Ford Frick. They didn’t waste any time. They realized the P.R. problem. Nationally syndicated columnist Walter Winchell asked the question in print: “If the baseball player insults the ump he can be thrown out of the game. Why, then, can’t bigoted ball players (who insult Americans) be thrown out of baseball?” As early as May 8, Frick had already made it clear: “I told Ben and the Philadelphia club that such language was not becoming from any National League bench and I warned them not to do it any more. They agreed to abide by my directive.” Chapman and Robinson were asked to pose for a photograph together, to try and counter the negative publicity. It had to be very uncomfortable for both, but they did it. The photo ran in many papers on May 12. Dodgers officials said they took Chapman at his word that he knew he had erred, and believed he was sincere. Robinson himself, wrote about the photo shoot at the time in the African American newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier. He said, “I was glad to cooperate and when we got over to the Phillies’ dugout, Chapman came out to shake my hand. We said hello to each other and he smiled when the picture was snapped. Chapman impressed me as a nice fellow and I don’t really think he meant the things he was shouting at me the first time we played Philadelphia.” Years later, Chapman still bridled at the memory of bearing the brunt of the charge of racism. He said, “I’m no bigot. I believe that every man, be he black, or white or whatever, is entitled to equal opportunity. The pigment of a man’s skin is God’s doing.” He also said, “I had already managed five black players. People have told me that was the reason I was fired at Philadelphia. I don’t believe that… I remember three black writers coming into my office in Philadelphia. They wanted to ask me some questions. I told them I wanted to ask them … questions first. ‘Do you want this guy to make the big leagues like all the other guys did? Do you want him treated like all the other players?’ They said that’s what they wanted. That’s the way they wrote it, that I was treating Jackie like Gehrig was treated, like Dixie was treated. That’s the way it should have been.” At the time he had said, “Robinson is just another ballplayer to us… We’ll ride anybody if it’ll help us win.” He was the first of three Phillies managers in 1948, gone a little more than halfway through the season (37-42). The team was in seventh place at the time. Did he resign, or was he fired? It depends on who one asked. The newspaper headlines all said he was dismissed, and quoted owner Bob Carpenter as saying he had informed Chapman it was time for a change. For several years, stories ran from time to time that Chapman had never been told why he was fired. In 1953, Frederick Lieb and Stan Baumgartner’s book The Philadelphia Phillies suggested that he was fired “as a way of showing that he (Carpenter) was taking charge of the front office following the death of Herb Pennock.” Chapman’s last involvement in baseball was as a coach for the Cincinnati Reds in 1952, though he resigned on August 1 when he learned that incoming manager Rogers Hornsby himself planned to work the third-base coaching box. Around 1992, a year or so before he died, Chapman told author Ray Robinson, speaking of Jackie Robinson (the two Robinsons were not related): “A man learns about things and mellows as he grows older. I think that maybe I’ve changed a bit. Maybe I went too far in those days. But I always went along with the bench jockeying, which has always been part of the game. Maybe I was rougher at it than some players. I thought that you could use it to upset and weaken the other team. It might give you an advantage.” He then paused, and added, “The world changes.

3 out of 10, 139 seconds. This lousy score means that it's Tuesday! 😟

9 out of 10, 58 seconds. I had to get s good score today because I probably will not tomorrow. 😊

10 out of 10, 45 seconds. This last week is going to be tough.

7 out of 10, 98 seconds. I had some tough ones today but I'm happy with my score.

A phenomenon?

10 out of 10, 36 seconds. There's a very close race going on and the next ten days are going to be exciting.

Vean Gregg At 6′ 2″ and 180 lbs, Vean Gregg was a lanky, loose-jointed southpaw who had a world of confidence, a wicked curve ball, and a roller-coaster career hampered by arm injuries. As a 26-year-old rookie for the 1911 Cleveland Naps, Gregg was only three years removed from pitching in the deepest bush of the remote Pacific Northwest when he won 23 games and led the American League with a 1.80 ERA. Both Ty Cobb and Eddie Collins called him the best left-hander in the league, and Hall of Fame umpire Billy Evans said Gregg was “one of the greatest southpaws I ever called balls and strikes for.” The only twentieth-century pitcher to win at least 20 games in his first three years in the major leagues, Gregg is Cleveland’s career won-lost percentage leader (with a minimum of 100 decisions). Traded by the Naps in 1914 to the Boston Red Sox, where he floundered and was eventually demoted to the minors, Gregg retired after pitching for the Philadelphia Athletics in 1918. Out of the game for three years, he staged a comeback, and after a six-year absence made a miraculous return to the American League at the age of 40. A legendary minor league pitcher, Gregg won 224 games in 15 seasons of organized professional baseball. Gregg initially made a name for himself as a pitcher by winning amateur and semi-pro games in the Palouse region of eastern Washington. By the time he was 23 years old, he was a sandlot star, a hired gun pitching for numerous town, semi-pro and college teams. (He remains the only major leaguer to have pitched for South Dakota State University.) An obvious candidate for organized professional baseball, Gregg delayed pursuing it because he felt he could earn more money plastering during the week and pitching for $25 a game on weekends. “I did not go into professional baseball any sooner because I could make more money outside than I could inside,” Gregg later explained. “In my semi-pro days I played baseball all over Washington, Montana and Idaho. On these barn-storming tours a player can often make more money than he could as a member of a regular league.” In March 1908 Gregg relented and attended a tryout with the Spokane Indians Northwestern League team. He impressed the Indians’ management, but apparently did not care for the team’s offer. After pitching a few early-season games for an industrial league team in Spokane, Gregg finally made his organized professional baseball debut in the short-lived Class D Inland Empire League in June. Pitching for the Baker City (Oregon) Nuggets, Gregg won seven of eight games, dominating a circuit which included the likes of future major leaguers Jack Fournier, Pete Standridge, Les “Tug” Wilson, and Tracy Baker. In 1909 Spokane manager Bob Brown was able to sign Gregg for $185 a month. In a season when the Spokane team won 100 games and finished 34 games over .500, Gregg’s won-lost record was a mysterious 6-13. He had a knack for losing close contests, but mainly was ineffective due to arm problems suffered from “practicing too much.” However, after watching two of Gregg’s better games, Cleveland scout Jim “Deacon” McGuire, outbidding Pittsburgh and Detroit, bought Gregg from Spokane for $4,500 and two players. This was reportedly the largest amount ever paid for a player from the West Coast. At the time his contract was purchased on July 8, 1909, Gregg’s record was just 3-6 but he had struck out 82 batters over his past eight games. Seeming a bit indignant and unappreciative of an opportunity, Gregg refused to sign a $250 a month contract offered by Cleveland for 1910. Sold on option to Portland, Gregg had a breakout, historic season. He won 32 games, including a record 14 shutouts, struck out 379 batters in 387 innings, and hurled four one-hitters and a no-hitter. His best game came on August 16 against Portland’s main pennant rival, the Oakland Oaks, when Gregg struck out 16 batters in a twelve-inning, one-hit shutout. In the no-hitter at Portland’s Vaughn Street Ballpark on September 2, Gregg won 2-0 and struck out 14 Los Angeles Angels, including eight men in a row, only one of whom managed even to foul a pitch. Behind the strong arm of Gregg, the Beavers won the Pacific Coast League championship. Years later, whenever old West Coast sportswriters or ballplayers were asked to pick their all-time PCL teams, inevitably they would include Vean Gregg based upon his dominating 1910 season. Even the local census taker was impressed; that year he listed Gregg’s occupation as “star pitcher.” In 1911 Gregg joined a “disorganized” Cleveland team that included a very old Cy Young, an aging but still productive Napoleon Lajoie, and a 23-year-old Joe Jackson, who hit an astounding .408 that year. Finishing under .500 and in the second division the year before, the Naps lost revered right-hander Addie Joss when he took ill and died on April 14. However, the team overcame that setback and improved under interim manager George Stovall, finishing the season with a winning record and in third place. One day shy of his 26th birthday, Gregg came out of the bullpen and made his major league debut on April 12, 1911, at St. Louis, giving up three runs in four relief innings while also hitting a double. After striking out Detroit’s Sam Crawford twice in a second relief appearance six days later, Gregg moved into the starting rotation and won his first start, 5-2, against Chicago. By mid-July he was the talk of the American League. When he beat Philadelphia on July 27, he won his tenth consecutive game and ran his record to 18-3. After winning a July game against New York, Hal Chase called Gregg “the leading pitcher of the league, and in my opinion, the most marvelous southpaw I have ever looked at.” Gregg’s pitching motion was described as “a free and easy delivery, and his wind-up is a graceful sweep above the head that bothers the batters not a little.” In addition to throwing overhand, he would mix in “an under-hand toss and cross-fire for variety.” While his fastball was described as “good,” he was known for his curve ball, a pitch that “drops between three and four feet in a space of eight or ten feet, possibly less.” Gregg had such good control of his curve ball that he would not hesitate to throw it with the bases loaded and a full count on the batter. Whether it was the strain of throwing too many curve balls, or “practicing too much,” or throwing too many innings for Portland, Gregg experienced recurring arm pain over the years. He would have periods where the arm “never felt better,” but would also suffer through entire seasons where he was a shadow of his former self. With a good arm, he was very, very good. With a bad arm, he sat on the bench and lost opportunities. Gregg’s arm was sore the latter part of his rookie season, and after beating Chicago 9-2 on September 4 he did not pitch again. He went home to Clarkston in early October, missing the Naps postseason series with Cincinnati. In addition to leading the league in ERA, Gregg also led the circuit in fewest hits per nine innings. He was especially adept at beating Chicago, besting the White Sox seven times without a loss during the 1911 campaign, including three wins where he matched up against Sox ace Ed Walsh. Named in The Sporting News as a member of the “all-American League” team, Gregg received a $500 bonus from the Naps, bringing his total 1911 salary to $2,600. “Unless something unexpected happens,” the Chicago Tribune wrote, “he promises to take a place among the great left-handers of baseball history.” Gregg had his last outstanding season in the major leagues in 1913. He started the season off underweight, the result of illness during spring training, but by June he had regained his strength and ran off 32 consecutive scoreless innings, beating Boston, Philadelphia, Washington and Detroit during the streak. When Gregg beat the league-leading A’s and Chief Bender on August 17 in front of the largest crowd in League Park history, the Naps were in second place, only 5½ games back of Philadelphia. However, arm soreness again crept its way into Gregg’s season. He struck out Ty Cobb three times on September 4, only to lose when Cobb drove in Sam Crawford with the game winner in the twelfth inning. With his arm growing lamer as the season entered its final stages, Gregg became a 20-game winner for the third time on October 1, beating the Tigers 8-1. But it was too little, too late, and the Naps ultimately faded to a third-place finish under new manager Joe Birmingham. That fall, in a postseason series with Pittsburgh, Gregg’s arm came back to life. He beat the Pirates in the second game, 2-1, in eleven innings, striking out nine. Then, on October 13 at Forbes Field, he may have pitched the best game of his career. In a pitcher’s duel with Claude Hendrix that went 13 innings and tied the best-of-seven series at three games apiece, Gregg scattered five singles, struck out the unheard of total of 19, including Honus Wagner twice, and doubled and scored the game’s only run. Cleveland manager Birmingham and former manager Lajoie called it the greatest game a Cleveland pitcher had ever thrown, including Joss’s perfect game and Bob Rhoads‘s no-hitter. Home plate umpire Bob Emslie said, “I have seen all of the great ones; Rusie, Radbourne, Mathewson; but I am confident that I never saw any pitcher show the stuff that Gregg had.” Dots Miller, the Pirates’ first baseman said, “I can’t understand how anyone ever hits that fellow.” In the spring of 1914 the Federal League war wreaked havoc on the diminishing finances of Cleveland owner Charles Somers. Losing ace right-hander Cy Falkenberg to the Feds, Somers did not want to lose Gregg, too, and signed him in March to a reported three-year $8,000 contract. When Gregg’s balky left arm reared its head and his disposition turned surly playing for a poor team, Somers decided to reduce his risk and on July 28 traded Gregg to the Boston Red Sox for three players. On a last-place team which had won only 30 of 91 games, the sore-armed Gregg had still managed a 9-3 record. Gregg, while well paid, spent the next two and a half seasons dealing with his sore arm and stewing on the Red Sox bench. He won a total of nine games for Boston during that time and was an afterthought on a team that won the World Series in both 1915 and 1916. In 1917 Gregg was optioned to Providence, where he had one of the finest seasons in International League history, winning 21 games and leading the league in ERA and strikeouts. In one of Connie Mack‘s infamous sell-offs, Gregg, who had been brought back to Boston after the 1917 season, was traded with two players and $60,000 cash to the Philadelphia A’s for Joe Bush, Wally Schang, and Amos Strunk. Making his first comeback to the majors, Gregg suffered along with a poor A’s team in 1918, posting a 9-14 record. When the season was cut short by the World War I work-or-fight order, Gregg, who was too old to serve, went to the Alberta, Canada, ranch he had purchased in 1912 and dropped out of the game for three years. When crop prices hit rock bottom in 1921, Gregg abandoned the farm and decided to get back into baseball, returning to the league where he never failed. Pitching for the Seattle Indians he solidified his esteemed standing in Pacific Coast League history when he won 19 games in 1922, led the league in ERA in 1923, and in 1924 won 25 games to lead Seattle to its first-ever PCL championship. Pitching as he had for Cleveland over ten years earlier, the 39-year-old Gregg became the object of a bidding war. Clark Griffith and the Washington Senators won, paying $10,000 and giving three players to Seattle. In a repeat performance from his halcyon days with Cleveland, Gregg was a holdout in the spring of 1925. Gregg was described as “attempting an experiment that is absolutely original. No other hurler ever attempted a major league comeback – his second at that – at such an advanced age.” Working mostly out of the bullpen for Griffith’s Senators in 1925, Gregg pitched in 26 games for the repeat pennant-winners, winning two, losing two, and saving two games. Although he performed admirably in the role he was assigned, Gregg was optioned to the New Orleans Pelicans of the Southern Association before the end of the season and did not participate in the 1925 World Series against Pittsburgh. In nine games at New Orleans, Gregg won three and lost three. Traded to Birmingham for the 1926 season, Gregg chose to retire rather than play for the Barons. Except for a brief comeback in the spring of 1927 with the Sacramento Senators of the PCL, the remainder of his pitching career, which lasted until 1931, took place in his home state of Washington in the highly competitive semi-pro Timber League. Gregg's major league career record was 92–63 with a lifetime 2.70 ERA in 1,393 innings pitched with 720 strikeouts. All this with a chronic sore arm.

2 out of 10, 197 seconds. These were supposed to be general\easier questions? On to Friday!

7 out of 10, 178 seconds. For me, very tough today.

3 out of 10, 184 seconds. Bad day. Oh my God!