Boston Americans 1901

Early baseball shows us, when you think about it, how impossible it is to compare different eras. Players dominate their era and then that era is gone. Cy Young, second row third from the left,  is in this photo and he dominated his era but his pitching trophy lives on. The Boston Americans changed their name to Red Sox,

Bob Coyne, baseball cartoonist

I was a newspaper clipping junkie before computers wishing now I could thumb through the baseball cartoons of Bob Coyne, who drew pen and ink drawings, many of which are in the Hall of Fame. Now a lost art form prominent before television, he usually drew a big block of small cartoons in the Boston Post. Also I believe in the Herald American, they traced the events in the previous day's game in a large box of smaller drawings in the sports section. I can see now in my mind's eye a drawing of Bobby Doerr flipping the ball over his shoulder depicting the start of another great double play. Coyne, 78, died in 1975 and I see his cartoons are still sought after in the auction houses.

the most perfect sport

The most perfect sport should not depend on a player's size, all sizes should be able to participate. In baseball the big and the small have equal advantages. The big is strong and the small is quick. This is why many shortstops are not huge people. The perfect sport should highlight the individual as well as the team. Baseball pits the batter against the pitcher and then he must deal with the entire team if he gets a hit. So here the team is involved as well as the individual. The game should depend more on skill rather than physical attributes just as baseball does. A perfect wedding between the individual and the team, baseball is the most perfect sport.

Vern Stephens Memorial

Many a time your double play work got a Red Sox pitcher out of trouble. You were a good hitter also. I haven't forgotten how good you were.

- Spencer G Corkum
Added: Mar. 16, 2004

See Find a Grave link for Vern Stephens, lifetime batting average 286. He was power hitting shortstop nominated to the Hall in 2009. Vern and Bobby, had three outstanding years together, what an infield!

clutch baseball

I always admired the play of Tommy Heinrich because I thought he was a clutch hitter. Some hits are just more important than others and they are linked to the team winning. Some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. These people cannot relate to clutch players because the statistics do not easily reflect clutch play. Bobby, as I watched him in action, always seemed to be getting the Sox out of deep trouble with an unexpected double play no one saw coming. His moves were wonderful to watch. He got rid of the ball so quick for the second out and he looked good doing it no matter what awkward position it took to snare the ball. It all looked natural somehow, as if he was in perfect balance despite everything. He was the same hitting. My memories remember a desperate need to score Pesky from third in Yankee Stadium, the house that the Red Sox Ruth built for the New York fans. Bobby's back was bothering him and perhaps he did not think he could lift a sacrifice fly to bring the run across. So anyway, surprise! He laid down a perfect bunt and Pesky scored. That right there that was clutch hitting. Who was looking for a perfect bunt? When he retired shortly after that his rbi total was higher or very close to Ted's at that time.

lousy 280 hitter all your life

Ted gave Bobby hitting advice it is told and eventually Bobby responded, that he would just have to keep doing it his way. Whereupon an exasperated Ted said something like ok then be a lousy 280 hitter all your life. (Bobby would finish with 288.) But it seems Bobby gave some advice of his own and apparently to good effect.

"As Boston's unofficial batting instructor during 1967, Doerr worked with Carl Yastrzemski to convert the seven-year veteran from an opposite-field "doubles" hitter who had never before hit more than 20 homers in a season to a pull-hitting slugger who belted 44 home runs and won the Triple Crown and AL Most Valuable Player award that season." Wikipedia

hitting for the cycle

When I was young this might show you just how far in the tank for Bobby Doerr I really was. When Bobby hit for the cycle, his second time, I assumed he had hit four home runs because his face drawing came on the tv screen in white cartoon style after his fourth at bat which was a home run. I did not know about cycles so I thought it was four home runs instead of four hits each to a different base. Televisions then were black and white and installed in someone else's house. Don't forget when I grew up I bet a whole quarter in the tenth grade he would get five hits in the next day's game and he only got four. Even then it was a long time before I eventually found out instead of four home runs it was really his second time hitting for the cycle.

Doerr and Foxx

My information is largely hearsay, youngster recollection, and chance reading. Jimmie Foxx, who I never saw play, was like Bobby in that he never would bellyache a bad call. They never yakked it up with an umpire. I know some do it probably to get their team emotionally jacked up. I think it is childish and entertainment for the yahoos in the stands.

 It is nothing but adult tantrum. Billy Martin appeared to be a crybaby kicking sand on the umpires shoes. Did he really do that? The umpire is a part of the game of life. You are not playing with the umpire even if you are playing against him. It does not matter if he is wrong or not, you play the cards you are dealt.

 I learned that when I was young watching Bobby Doerr. I knew he was class even then. I thought he knew everything because he was a veteran and he was old. In my crowd we all knew that 30 was the ancient of days. Even so, at thirty I thought he would play forever. However I linked those two ideas together I can no longer fathom.