Ernie Banks – Mr Cub The Best I Ever Saw Bewfore we get to Mt Cub the best I ever saw list, a little bit about Ernie Banks spent his entire 19-year career (1951-71) with the Chicago Cubs, finishing with a .274 average and 512 home runs. The right-handed hitting slugger, who lead the league…
One of the most prolific home run hitters of all time, Henry Aaron withstood tremendous pressure to break Babe Ruth’s career record. Aaron is often overlooked when historians debate the best player of the 1950s and 1960s. He was a great hitter, winning two batting titles. He was an outstanding base runner with…
You’d be hard pressed to find a better combo in baseball’s Golden Age than Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale, the twin aces of the LA Dodgers. But the pair also were also shrewd negotiations who realized their power together when they announced 54 years ago this week that they’d be holding out. Mike and Bill…
Bob Gibson and Sandy Koufax
Bobby Richardson talks Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Bob Feller and the pitches he liked to hit. Casey Stengel once said of Bobby Richardson, “Look at him. He don’t drink, he don’t smoke, he don’t chew (tobacco), he don’t stay out too late, and he still don’t hit .250!” That remark exemplifies the kind of relationship…
Sports Illustrated names Derek Jeter as its Sportsman of the Year, making the ‘Captain’ the first Yankee honored by the magazine. The other baseball recipients to win the award, given annually since SI’s inception in 1954, include Johnny Podres (Dodgers – 1955), Stan Musial (Cardinals – 1957), Sandy Koufax (Dodgers – 1965), Tom Seaver (Mets – 1969), Pete Rose (Reds – 1975), Orel Hershiser (Dodgers – 1988), Cal Ripken Jr. (Orioles – 1995), Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa (Cardinals, Cubs – 1998), Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling (Diamondbacks – 2001), and the entire Red Sox team (2004).
Cincinnati’s Tom Browning defeats Montreal’s Dennis Martinez, 11 – 3, in the first matchup of perfect game hurlers in 25 years. Sandy Koufax and Jim Bunning were the last such pair to meet on October 2, 1966.
1980 – Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon head a group of investors who purchase the New York Mets from the DeRoulet family for a reported $21.1 million, the highest price paid for a major league franchise up to that time. Doubleday, whose publishing company supplies 80 percent of the purchase price, and is also a relative of Abner Doubleday, will serve as chairman of the board, while Wilpon, a former teammate of Sandy Koufax’s at Brooklyn’s Lafayette High School, will serve as team president and chief operating officer.
On September 28, 1974, Nolan Ryan of the California Angels pitches his third career no-hitter punching out 15 twins. He also walks eight to run his season total to 202 bases on balls, joining Bob Feller in 1938 as the only pitcher to walk more than 200 in a season. Ryan will again top 200 in 1977. Ryan’s 4-0 shutdown of the…
California’s Nolan Ryan strikes out 12, including the side in the 1st, and hurls his first career no-hitter in beating Kansas City, 3 – 0. For C Jeff Torborg, it is his third no-hitter. SS Rudy Meoli preserves the no-no with a spectacular over-the-shoulder catch in the 8th. It is the first of a record seven no-hitters the “Ryan Express” will throw during his career, including another one in two months.