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 79 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 November.
November 2
1976 After winning 22 games, Randy Jones captures the National League’s Cy Young Award. Two years ago the Padre hurler had lost 22 games.
Randall Leo Jones, nicknamed “Junkman,” was born January 12, 1950 in Fullerton, California.
A poised, fast-working control pitcher and a master of the slider and sinker, this left-handed pitcher was known for the large number of ground-ball outs he induced. He became the first home-grown star for the San Diego Padres after being selected by the club, which began play in 1969, in the 1972 entry draft. By June of the following year, Jones was playing for the major league team.
The transition wasn’t easy however. In 1974 Jones posted a record of 8 wins and 22 losses with a 4.45 Earned Run Average. He was able to turn it around in 1975 when he won 20 games and led the National League with a 2.24 Earned Run Average earning the National League Comeback Player of the Year honors.
Padre pitching coach Tom Morgan is credited with changing RJ’s delivery, to throwing across his body, which made his pitches harder for the hitters to pick up. It’s not clear whether the change in delivery was responsible for, or coincidental with, dramatic improvement in his sinker, but it is said that Randy increased the drop on it to 5-10 inches.
In 1976 Jones won the National League Cy Young Award, going 22-14 for the Padres with league highs in wins, starts, complete games, and innings.
That year, he tied Christy Mathewson’s National League record of 68 innings without issuing a walk and became the first National League pitcher since WWII to win 20 games and not strike out 100.
Randy owns the distinction of recording a save for the National League in the 1975 All Star game and being the starting and winning pitcher the next year. Randy entered the 1976 All-Star Game with a record of 16-3, an All Star break win total that no one has equaled since. During his last start of the 1976 season, Randy injured a nerve in his pitching arm that required exploratory surgery, and he was never quite able to regain his Cy Young form.
The owner of two one-hitters, Jones established a Padre record by hurling three consecutive shutouts in May 1980.
Jones pitched effectively for San Diego through the 1980 season. On December 15, 1980, he was traded to the New York Mets.
He was often injured and generally ineffective after the trade and had trouble winning at Shea Stadium even in periods when he was pitching well on the road.
After the 1982 season, Jones signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He was released by the Pirates before the 1983 season started, thus ending his playing career.
Jones established the Major League season record for most chances accepted by a pitcher without an error (112 in 1976), tied Major League pitchers’ records for highest season fielding percentage (1.000, 1976) and most assists in an inning (3, 9/28/75), and tied the National League pitchers’ season record for the most double plays (12, 1976).
Randy can occasionally be found around Petco Park where he sells barbeque at Padres games.
His career statistics include a 100-123 won-loss record and an Earned Run Average of 3.42. He was named an All-Star in 1975 and 1976.
After his retirement, Jones’ uniform #35 was retired by the Padres.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: G
Gashouse Gang
A nickname given to the St. Louis Cardinals of the mid-1930s, but most strongly associated with the 1934 world champions. They were a rowdy, passionate crew that included Dizzy Dean, Pepper Martin, Ducky Medwick, Leo Durocher, and manager Frank Frisch.
Etymology. Originally, the Gashouse District was an area on the lower East Side of Manhattan that once housed several large gas tanks. It was a rough neighborhood described in part by Frank Moss (The American Metropolis, 1897): ”Perhaps the most unique of all vicious drinking places is a ‘dead house’ on 18th Street in what is called the ‘gas-house district,’ a ‘Mecca’ for vagrants and ‘bums’ of New York, Brooklyn and New Jersey.” The neighborhood, however, was best known for a vicious band of thugs known as the Gashouse Gang.
There are several versions of how the cognomen was applied to the Cardinals. One version has the St. Louis team coming into New York from Boston where they had just played in the rain. Their uniforms were particularly dirty because they were a “sliding” team, and the equipment man did not have time to have them cleaned.
When they appeared on the field at the Polo Grounds, one shocked reporter commented that they looked like “the gang from around the gas house.” This version was given by Frisch in a radio interview, on May 11,1963, in which he acknowledged that his was not the only version of the story. Frisch added that he thought the reporter was Frank Lamb of the New York Evening Journal.
In his biography of Dizzy Dean, Ol’Diz, 1992, Vince Staten questions this version. ”If that were true, the date would have been either May 20 or July 23. Those were the only two days during the ’34 season that the Cardinals played in New York a day after a game in Boston. The problem is both those contests in Boston were played under clear skies, with not even a trace of rain, according to weather information published in the Boston Globe. In fact the second occasion, July 22, was so hot and dry across the country that the New York Times published a story about the heat wave on its front page, sandwiched between stories about a bus crash and the police slaying of mobster John Dillinger.”
More commonly heard is the story of a conversation between Frank Graham of the old New York Sun and Durocher. Graham said that the Cards were so good that they could play in the American League, then regarded as superior to the National League. Durocher replied: “They wouldn’t let us play in the American League. They’d say we were just a lot of gashouse players.” From then on Graham called the team the Gashouse Gang. The very same story has been told and published with Pepper Martin in Durocher’s place.
Then, one must consider what Durocher himself wrote in his autobiography, Nice Guys Finish Last, 1975. He tells of the team arriving dirty and unkempt for the confrontation with the Giants. ”The next day I saw a cartoon in the World-Telegmm by Willard Mullin. It showed two big gas tanks on the wrong side of the railroad track, and some ballplayers crossing over to the good part of town carrying clubs over their shoulders instead of bats. And the title read: The Gas House Gang.’” Finally, Staten points to the autobiography, as told to J. Roy Stockton, of Frankie Frisch, Frank Frisch, the Fordham Flash, 1962, the manager and second baseman on the Gashouse Gang, who credits Warren Brown of the Chicago Herald-Examiner with using the phrase in print in July 1935. Frisch writes: “[Brown] climbed aboard the Cubs’ train, New York bound. Curtains were drawn. All the little and big Cubs apparently had turned in for the night. ’What’s the matter?’ Brown wanted to know in a loud voice. Are you boys afraid that Pepper Martin is on the train? You had all better stay on your side of the tracks, or the Gas House Gang will get you.’”
Extra Inning
…And the winner is…
As you regular listeners to bhp know, during the last two games I have invited you to enter a drawing. The drawing was for the book “Haunted Baseball: Ghosts, Curses, Legends, and Eerie Events” co authored by Dan Gordon. The book was being offered by fellow OC Podcaster, Cat Dumas of the Creepycast Podcast.
Well, we have a winner, and the winner is Justin Murphy. Justin, check your email inbox for instructions on how to receive your prize. Congratulations!!
Cat, thanks again for making the prize available.
As some of you know, I am a member of the OC Podcasters, here in OC California. Another member of the group is Cat Dumas of the Creepycast Podcast.
On her web site, at Creepycast.net, Cat says the following about her shows: “They include interviews of paranormal investigators, psychics, horror authors, podcast novelists, dark musicians and artists of gothic or weird tastes. On some occasions I read my own short fiction pieces.”
In Episode 34, Cat interviewed Dan Gordon, co-author of the book, “Haunted Baseball: Ghosts, Curses, Legends, and Eerie Events.” In the interview he talks about the fun he had gathering information for this book.
Cat now has a copy of the book and is offering it to BHP to have a drawing for it. The drawing will be held on October 29, 2007, just in time for Halloween. To enter the drawing, send an email to BaseballHistory@gmail.com. In the subject line put the word “Drawing.” Entries must be received by midnight October 28, 2007 Pacific Time.
Thanks Cat
If you would like to a part of Baseball History Podcast, submit your written contribution for the tour segment. I will only be doing the tour when one is sent in by a listener. You can do the segment on any stadium or team; past or present; Minor League, Major League, Negro League or any league outside of the US. Write about 1 page in a conversational tone, send it to me, I will record it, and you will get the credit.
You can email me at baseballhistory@gmail.com. You can leave a voice mail at: 206-888-6506. If you need more baseball, I invite you to check out Just Baseball at justbaseballpodcast.com. Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
TWIBH- Randy Jones
Dictionary- Gas
House Gang
Creepycast
drawing winner
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