Remembering Baseball Legends Lost

Sometimes, we miss making due tribute to those who left us in a given year, but also left us even a single memory over the years, never mind a pocketful of them. Remember, too, these who became safe at home this year:

Lyman Bostock, Sr. — Negro Leagues first baseman and the father the namesake major league outfielder shot to death at the peak of his career.

Don Blasingame — Major league infielder (Jim Brosnan usually called him Blaze), later a manager in Japanese baseball.

Nelson Briles — Best known for two achievements on the mound: the two-hitter he threw that brought the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates to within a game of overthrowing the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, and his periodic bellyflopping after following through on a pitch. It became such a trademark that the personable Briles even did it in Old-Timers' Games.

Bob Casey — Popular Metrodome ballpark announcer, famous for his exaggerations of Minnesota Twins' names as he announced them at bat, perhaps none more signature than: "The center fielder — Kirbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Puckett!" (It sounded like nothing more than Kirbeeeeeeeeeeeeeee on television, what with the reverberating din liquidising the applause and cheering inside the big old gasbag.)

Bob Broeg — Hall of Fame sportswriter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Broeg eventually revealed that the Cardinals players never actually threatened to boycott if the Brooklyn Dodgers brought up Jackie Robinson, but the alleged threat (which brought a reprimand from National League president Ford Frick) was mulcted by writers in other cities (particularly Stanley Woodward of the New York Herald-Tribune) from comments made by the Cardinals' then-owner, Sam Breadon. Broeg covered Cardinal pennant winners in 1946, 1964, 1967, 1968, 1982, and 1985. He must have had great fortitude to go with his legendary laughter: he started his career covering the St. Louis Browns, switching to the Cardinals in 1946.

Chico Car-ra-skell! (as White Sox announcers invariably pronounced his name) — The bridge between Luke (Ol' Aches and Pains) Appling and Luis (Little Looie) Aparicio, the first Latino to be picked for an All-Star Game, Carrasquel himself had pressed the White Sox to sign and groom Aparicio, his fellow Venezuelan, which amounted to signing his own death warrant: the White Sox swapped Carrasquel to the Cleveland Indians at mid-decade.

Nick Colosi — The answer to the following trivia question: name the only Copacabana maitre d' who also put in time (1968-1982) as a major league umpire.

Harry Dalton — The mastermind of the trade that still makes Dick Wagner's name mud in Cincinnati: Dalton, as the Baltimore Orioles' general manager, managed to get away with the larceny of swapping pitchers Milt Pappas and Jack Baldschun and outfielder Dick Simpson to the Reds in exchange for the "old 30" Frank Robinson.

Marv Grissom — The answer to this trivia question: name the reliever who ended up the winning pitcher in the Willie Mays "Catch" World Series opener. Later a pitching coach whose ritual included leaving a baseball in the shoe of the day's starting pitcher — in the right shoe for a right-hander, in the left shoe for a left-hander. (He told a 1962 Los Angeles Angels rookie lefthander, getting his first major league start, "Win, kid, or you're gone." The kid's name: Bo Belinsky, who wouldn't be gone until he reeled off a major league career-opening five-game winning streak, the fourth of which was the no-hitter he rode to fame, fortune, sex symbolism, dissipated talent, and 28 lifetime wins in eight major league seasons.)

Cesaer Gutierrez — Utility infielder whose 15 minutes of fame came when he went 7-for-7 for the Detroit Tigers against the Cleveland Indians in a June 21, 1970 extra-inning contest: six singles and a double. Gutierrez tied the major league record for consecutive hits without an out — Rennie Stennett tied it in due course.

Elrod Hendricks — Smart catcher who often got half the credit for the Baltimore Orioles' four 20-game winners in 1970. Hendricks was also the single longest-tenured coach in Oriole history, a popular figure in Baltimore on and off the field (often the face of the franchise for his tireless community activity), and only his stroke earlier this season prompted the Orioles to think of moving him to an off-field position.

Bob Kennedy — A survivor of the infamous Chicago Cubs "College of Coaches" experiment of the early-to-mid 1960s, Kennedy became the first Oakland Athletics manager, after the team moved from Kansas City. His charges included Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Sal Bando, Lew Krausse, and Bert Campaneris.

Al Lopez — Respected defensive catcher (and one of Casey Stengel's favorite players, during the hard times managing the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Boston Braves); respected major league manager. Shepherded the 1954 Cleveland Indians to a record 111-win season (since eclipsed by the 2001 Seattle Mariners) and an American League pennant (they were squashed in four straight by the New York Giants), and the 1959 "Go-Go" Chicago White Sox to the American League pennant (they fell in six to the Los Angeles Dodgers). He was the oldest living Hall of Famer at the time of his death.

Herb Moford — Pitched in relief in the first regular-season game in New York Mets history, in 1962, and became the only Met pitcher on the day to surrender no runs during his appearance. Obviously, Moford just didn't get what being an Original Met was all about. Oh, he lived up to Perfesser Stengel's observation ("He'll get the ball over the plate"), maybe too well (21 hits, 15 runs, 12 earned as an Original Met), but he also had a 4-1 strikeout to walk ratio (four punch-outs and one pass as an Original Met). Clearly Moford didn't understand the way things were supposed to be and, when he was sent to minors, the former Cardinal, Detroit Tiger, and Boston Red Sox decided retirement was the better part of valor.

Charlie Muse — The father of the modern batting helmet. After years of various experiments, Muse under Branch Rickey's aegis developed one that the Pittsburgh Pirates of 1952-53 began to wear, which slowly caught on elsewhere around the major leagues.

Mickey Owen — Major league catcher who handled his entry into the hall of World Series infamy with dignity. Even after Red Smith composed this memorable doggerel that pretty much bags his moment:

Oh, them Brooklyn wights have seen strange sights
but the strangest they ever did see
was today revealed in Ebbets Field —
when Owen fumbled strike three!

Owen's fumble, allowing Tommy Henrich to reach first safely in the ninth, opening the door for a punishing Yankee comeback win in the 1941 World Series, was recalled only too vividly when the Los Angeles Angels' reserve catcher Josh Paul (since cashiered) and the Chicago White Sox's regular catcher A.J. Pierzynski collaborated on strike three in this year's American League Championship Series.

Vic Power — A decent hitter who was better remembered as perhaps the single most slick and effective-fielding first baseman until Keith Hernandez came down the proverbial pike. Power was originally a Yankee product, in a time when the Yankees' administrators still struggled with whether to promote a black player (regardless of whether he was Africa-American or, in Power's case, black Latino), and he never missed an opportunity to rub it in ("I like to beat the Jankees") after the Yankees gave up on him, but he had a particularly good game against them.

Ted (Double Duty) Radcliffe — The nickname almost made the writers forget his real name. That'd teach him to catch one game of a doubleheader and pitch a shutout in the nightcap. Not to mention going to six Negro Leagues All-Star Games: three behind the plate and three on the mound. What they didn't forget: his endearing personality and his ability.

Chuck Thompson — It seemed almost like forever that he had been the voice of the Baltimore Orioles, which he began in 1955 and continued well into the 1990s. He was elected to the Hall of Fame's broadcast wing in 1993.