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 06 of the 2009 baseball season
In the first inning let’s take a look at This Week in Baseball History for the 2 week of February.
February 8
1982 The longest-playing infield foursome is broken up as the Dodgers trade Davey Lopes to the A’s for minor leaguer Lance Hudson. The second baseman had played with Steve Garvey, Ron Cey and Bill Russell since 1974.
David Earle Lopes was born May 3, 1945 in East Providence, Rhode Island.
Davey graduated from Washburn University in Topeka, KS in 1969 after earning All-America honors in both baseball and basketball.
One of the most efficient thieves in a basestealing era, Lopes stole five in a game on August 24, 1974 to tie a 70-year-old National League record. In 1975 he set a since-broken Major League record with 38 consecutive successful steals.
He spent nine seasons with the Los Angeles Dodgers as their regular second baseman. Along with Steve Garvey at First Base, Bill Russell at Short Stop, and Ron Cey at Third Base, he formed the longest running infield in baseball history. They were known collectively as “The Big Blue Wrecking Crew”.
Used in the leadoff role most of his career, Lopes was one of the most effective base stealers in baseball’s modern era, retiring with 557 stolen bases at an 83.01% success rate.
He was the league leader in 1975 with 77 steals and 1976 with 63, and he stole five in the 1981 League Championship Series and added four more in the World Series.
A rare blend of speed and power, Lopes hit a career-high 28 home runs in 1979, becoming one of only six second basemen in National League history to have hit the most home runs in a season.
Lopes also won a Golden Glove at second base in 1978.
Perhaps the best moments in Lopes’s career came in the 1978 World Series against the Yankees. He hit two Home Runs and drove in five runs in Game One, and added another Home Run in the sixth and final game. In a losing cause, he hit .308 with two steals for the Series.
When the Los Angeles Dodgers traded Lopes to the A’s following the 1981 World Series, they broke up the longest-running infield ever. They had played together for nine seasons.
With Oakland, Lopes teamed with Rickey Henderson to steal 158 bases, setting a new record for teammates. Henderson collected 130, Lopes 28.
Lopes went on to play for the Chicago Cubs and Houston Astros. Amazingly, he stole 47 bases at the age of forty and 35 at forty-one He retired at the end of the 1987 season.
Following his retirement as a player, Lopes coached for several teams, including stints as manager of the Milwaukee Brewers and first base coach for the Washington Nationals.
In 2001, Lopes was the target of controversy following statements he made regarding stolen-base king Rickey Henderson. Managing a game for the Milwaukee Brewers, Lopes was enraged that Henderson had stolen second base in the seventh inning while Henderson’s Padres held a seven-run lead. Lopes believed that this violated an unwritten rule against “showing up” the opposing team.
Lopes made the following statement: “He was going on his ass. We were going to drill him.” Henderson then withdrew from the game as a result of Lopes’ threat to have him beaned. Lopes was suspended for two games for a violation of league rules.
The Elias Sports Bureau subsequently documented that during his own playing career, Lopes had stolen seven bases while his teams were leading the game by seven or more runs.
Lopes was diagnosed with prostate cancer following a routine physical in February, 2008.
Currently, he is the first base coach of the Philadelphia Phillies.
A recreation facility in Providence RI is named the Davey Lopes Recreation Department Pool Facility.
In this inning we’ll open up the Baseball Dictionary
Under the letter: P
Rookie of the Year Award
An annual award presented by the Baseball Writers Association of America to the outstanding rookie in the major leagues in 1947 and 1948 and to the outstanding rookie in each major league since 1949. Selections are made by two writers from each league city.
Since 1980, writers name three rookies, with 5 points allotted for each first-place vote, 3 points for each second-place vote, and 1 point for each third-place vote. In 1971, formal guidelines were established for determining rookie status: 130 at-bats, 50 innings pitched, or 45 days on a major-league roster.
Since 1987, the award has been officially known as the Jackie Robinson Award, to honor the first recipient of the award in 1947.
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 follow me on Twitter; I’m BaseballHistory.
Look for the new BHP web site at Baseball History Podcast at baseballhistorypodcast.com.
Well, that’s it for today’s game of Baseball History Podcast. I’ll see you later at the ballpark.
