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How Things Used To Be

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Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Bonus Babies Out, Amateur Draft In

“Bonus Baby” Rule Eliminated, Amateur Draft Implemented in 1965   If you read my recent blog article “Players Who Went Right To The Major Leagues” you will know that from 1947 to 1965 any player who signed with an organization for $4,000 or more was considered a “Bonus Baby” and had to spend their first year of professional baseball on a major league roster. This meant little playing time and very little opportunity to develop into a better player. There were 71 players in this categor
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Players Who Went Right To The Major Leagues

In baseball there is a chance for something special to happen in every game. One of the rarer events is for a player to make his major league debut and never had spent any time in the minors. Since the advent of the American and National League in the early 1900’s, only 102 players can make this claim. There are 4 subsets of players who have achieved this rarity. 1) Prior to World War II – Thirteen players are in this group. Almost half of these players have been inducted into the
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

What Does It Take To Be A Major League Manager?

What Does It Take To Be A Major League Manager? Sitting on my couch in the middle of a New England winter, trying to pick a topic to write about for my weekly blog, my attention turned to X (I’m not going to say formerly Twitter). Staring at me was a posting by Dan Hayes of The Athletic from TwinsFest with manager Rocco Baldelli in the photo. There are only 30 managers in Major League Baseball, so the odds of getting a managerial position are far smaller than the odds of being a major
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Can There Be More Than One Unicorn?

The airwaves have been flooded with all the hysteria of the otherworldly accomplishments of Shohei Ohtani, and rightly so. He is indeed a “unicorn”, a unique baseball player who has taken MLB by storm since coming from Japan to the US. To be able to hit and pitch with such excellence is almost unequal to any other baseball player ever, especially when you take into account that he is in the upper echelon of both pitchers and hitters at the same time. But is Ohtani not really unique and is h
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

A Man of Many Gloves

One of the most underrated players for the Twins may have been Cesar Tovar. His professional career became reality largely because of his close friend Gus Gil. On New Year’s morning in 1959 Cincinnati Reds General Manager Gabe Paul would sign Gil and at the urging of Gil, Cesar Tovar. Gil received a $2,000 signing bonus, Tovar got nothing. Tovar’s first professional season was with Geneva of the NY-Penn League (Class D). He batted .252 in 87 games with 3 HR’s and 41 RBI’s. His 2nd summ
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Was Zoilo Versalles A "One Hit Wonder"

Was Zoilo Versalles a One-Hit Wonder? When the Washington Senators relocated to Minneapolis/St. Paul for the 1961 season they brought a team that had finished 7th, 8th, 8th, 8th, and 5th the previous 5 years. After the move the team finished 7th in 1961, then 2nd, 3rd and 6th in the 10 team American League. The 6th place 1964 team had a starting lineup of Earl Battey-catching, Bob Allison, Bernie Allen, Zoilo Versalles, and Rich Rollins in the infield, and had an outfield of Harmon Kil
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Nicknames in Baseball - A Very Interesting Project

Of all the professional sports, no sport seems to have as many and as many colorful nicknames as Major League Baseball. This was especially true in the early years of the sports. Some nicknames were so attached to the player that when they were inducted into Baseball’s Hall of Fame, their nicknames were included on their plaque. Most nicknames have a known beginning, “Dizzy” Dean’s resulted from an incident in his military career when a sergeant found Dean throwing potatoes against a garbag
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

Minneapolis/St. Paul Was Supposed to be an Expansion Team!

The 1961 American League season was unique because for the first time since the turn of the century the league was not made up of 8 teams. Not only did the Senators move from Washington to Minnesota, but the league added 2 expansion teams, the Los Angeles Angels and the “new” Washington Senators. Originally the expansion teams were supposed to be located in Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul, but Calvin Griffith, the owner of the Washington Senators, asked for and received approval to move the
Baseball in the 50's and 60's

What It Was Like Growing Up in the 1950's/1960's

Growing up in the 1950’s was so different for those of us who loved to play baseball. Today you can drive past a ball field during the summer and find it empty. With us we needed to rise early in the morning, have a quick breakfast and ride our bikes to the closest field hoping to be there before another group staked its claim. And besides bringing your baseball equipment, you needed to have a lunch with you. If you didn’t eat lunch at the field you took a chance that the field wouldn't be empty
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