Welcome to the Baseball History Podcast: Featuring This Week in Baseball History, baseball dictionary and a tour of baseball cities. I’m your game announcer Bob Wright.
This is game 18 of the 2007 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 1 week of April.
April 1
1937 Reds’ Babe Herman is sold to the Tigers.
Floyd Caves Herman, nicknamed “Babe,” was born June 26, 1903 in Buffalo, New York.
He was one of the most noted power hitters of the late 1920s and early 1930s.
Raised in California, Herman signed with a minor league team in Edmonton at age 18, and spent five years playing for six different teams, including tours in the farm systems of the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers.
He was signed by Brooklyn in 1925 and made his major league debut as a first baseman with them in 1926, hitting .319 as a rookie
As the lefthanded-batting Herman put it, “I wasn’t the world’s greatest fielder, as a lot of stories will attest, but I was always a pretty fair country hitter.” Babe led the National League in errors in 1927 as a first baseman and in each of the next two years playing in right field.
Teammate Fresco Thompson observed: “He wore a glove for one reason: because it was a league custom.” Herman developed a self-deprecating attitude about his shortcomings; when informed by a local bank that someone had been impersonating him and cashing bad checks, he was reported to have said, “Hit him a few flyballs. If he catches any, it ain’t me.”
He enjoyed an outstanding year in 1929, setting team records with a .381 batting average and a .612 slugging average while collecting 217 hits, 105 runs and 113 RBI; but the National League was in the middle of an offensive explosion, and he finished behind Lefty O’Doul, who batted .398, for the batting title and was only seventh in the league in slugging.
He is one of only two players to have hit for the cycle three times. The .393 batting average, 416 total bases, 241 hits, and 143 runs he amassed in 1930 still stand as Dodger records.
He also reached a high of 35 Home Runs in 1930, and, with the Reds in 1932, led the National League with 19 triples. On July 10, 1935 at Cincinnati, he hit the first home run in a night game.
The “headless horseman of Ebbets Field,” as Dazzy Vance called Herman, once “tripled” into a double play, although Herman was officially credited with a double. The play happened during his rookie year and was not entirely his fault.
During a game on August 15 at Ebbets Field, he tried to stretch a double off the right field wall into a triple with one out and the bases loaded; Chick Fewster, who had been on first, advanced to third base – which was already occupied by Dazzy Vance, who had started from second base but was now caught in a rundown and was dashing back to third. All three of them ended up at third base, with Herman not having watched the play in front of him, and the third baseman tagged all three just to be sure of getting as many outs as possible.
The slow-footed Vance had been a major contributor to this situation, but according to the rules the lead runner was entitled to the base, so the umpire called Herman and Fewster out. Thus, Babe Herman was said to have “doubled into a double play”; he would later complain that no one remembered that he drove in the winning run on the play.
This play led to the following popular joke of the time:
* “The Dodgers have 3 men on base!”
* “Oh, yeh? Which base?”
On two occasions in 1930 Herman stopped to watch a home run while running the bases and was passed by the hitter, in each case causing the home run to count only as a single.
And on September 20 of the following year, he was thrown out trying to steal a base against the St. Louis Cardinals, even though opposing catcher Gabby Street was the 48-year-old Cardinals manager, appearing as an emergency substitute in his first game since 1912.
In 1931 Herman slipped to a .313 average, and although he led the National League with 77 extra base hits and hit for the cycle on both May 18 and July 24, he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds before the 1932 season. He bounced back with a solid year hitting 19 triples and 16 home runs.
Herman went on to play for the Chicago Cubs in 1933-34, batting .304 in the latter season.
On July 20, 1933 he hit three home runs, and on September 30 he hit for the cycle for the third time, a feat only he and Bob Meusel have accomplished. After a brief stint with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1935, he was traded back to the Reds, staying with them through 1936.
He played briefly for the Tigers in 1937, hitting .300 in 17 games, and then returned to the minor leagues. Nine years later in 1945, he was re-signed by Brooklyn at age 42, and played his 37 final big league games with the team.
After retiring, he worked as a scout for several teams until 1964.
Herman ended his major league career with a .324 batting average, 1818 hits, 181 home runs, 997 RBI, 882 runs, 399 doubles, 110 triples and 94 stolen bases in 1552 games.
He died in Glendale, California at age 84 following a bout with pneumonia and a series of strokes.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: N
National League Style
The real and imagined style of play and officiating in the National League, commonly portrayed as emphasizing the running game and defense. The strike zone is supposedly lower in the National League.
And now for the ninth inning…
Continuing our trip around baseball cities…
The Las Vegas 51’s
This team is a AAA affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers and play their home games at Cashman Field in Las Vegas, NV
The Las Vegas Triple-A franchise was not the first pro baseball franchise to come to Las Vegas. Professional baseball took root in Southern Nevada in the spring of 1947 and the population of the city was under 20,000. The Sunset League was formed in 1947 and the Las Vegas Wranglers became the first professional baseball team to play in the city. The league was comprised of teams from Anaheim, Reno, Riverside, Ontario and El Centro. A few years later, the league expanded with teams from Arizona and Mexico. Las Vegas played in the Sunset League from 1947-50.
The Wranglers played exhibition games in Boulder City and Henderson and made their debut in Las Vegas on April 14, 1947 when they concluded spring training at the New Youth Town Park in Sunrise Acres. The home opener was on April 25, 1947 around the site of the Dula Community Center. The Wranglers defeated the Reno Silver Sox, 5-2, before a crowd of 2,000 that fought harsh dust and wind, according to newspaper reports.
The original Cashman Field in the new Elks Stadium was planned for the 1948 season. The Wranglers debuted at “the original” Cashman Field, which up until that time had been used for football and rodeos, on May 21, 1948. Las Vegas defeated Reno, 10-7, before a crowd of 1,515. In 1949, Las Vegas captured the Sunset League title with an 88-39 regular season record. In 1951, the Sunset League combined with the Arizona-Texas League to form a 10-team Southwest International League. Following one season, the league split again. In 1953, the Sunset League as well as the Wranglers folded.
Five years later, in 1957, Las Vegas joined the Arizona-Mexico League and played one season. In 1958, the San Jose Pirates of the California League moved to the city on May 26 and the L.V. Pirates played the remainder of the season.
From 1959-82, Las Vegas was without a professional baseball team until the Spokane, Washington franchise relocated to Las Vegas to begin the 1983 Pacific Coast League season.
Cashman Field, a 9,334 permanent seat stadium, serves as the home field for the Las Vegas franchise for the past 24 seasons (1983-2006). The facility saw its first professional baseball game on April 1, 1983, when the San Diego Padres faced the Seattle Mariners in front of 13,878 fans. The Cashman Field attendance record was set on April 3, 1993, before a crowd of 15,025, between the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs. Las Vegas hosted the Triple-A All-Star Game on July 11, 1990. The National League defeated the American League, 8-5, before a crowd of 10,323.
You can email me at baseballhistory@gmail.com. Transcripts of the game can be found at baseballhistorypodcast.blogspot.com. Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
TWIBH- Babe
Herman,
Baseball Dictionary- National League Style,
Tour- Las Vegas 51â?s
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