I wrote a post on my blog about pitcher Joe Grzenda, who died a couple days ago. You can check my blog for details of his life, but he has the distinction of being the last Washington Senators pitcher. He got the first two outs of the 9th innings in the last Senators game before the team moved to Texas to become the Rangers. Before Grzenda could get that third out, fans stormed the field and started tearing it up. Both the Senators and visiting Yankees fled the field, resulting in a 9-0 forfeit loss for the home team. Grzenda kept that final ball, and he brought it back to RFK Stadium in 2005, when the Washington Nationals debuted. That last Senators ball was used by President George W. Bush in the ceremonial first pitch.
Anyway, I tell you all that to tell you this: Joe Grzenda’s manager on the Senators was Ted Williams, and the lefty reliever had his best season under Williams. When Grzenda was traded to St. Louis in November 1970, Williams was asked why the journeyman pitcher had such a great season after more than a decade of kicking around the majors and minors for multiple teams. This was his response. And you wonder how Teddy Ballgame got a reputation for hating his pitchers.
#joegrzenda #tedwilliams #pitchers #washingtonsenators #teddyballgame #baseball #baseballhistory #mlb #mlbhistory #mlbmemorybank
Here lies Johnny Blanchard, a backup outfielder/catcher and a World Series hero. Blanchard played for the New York Yankees (1955; 1959-65), Kansas City Athletics (1965) and Milwaukee Braves (1965).
John Blanchard was born in Minneapolis on February 26, 1933. About a month after graduating high school, he signed with the Yankees. He was a power threat from the start, hitting 30+ homers in the minors a couple times. The Yankees didn’t know where to play him and settled on catcher. Learning the position, plus a couple years in the Army, delayed his trip to the majors. He started 1 game for the Yanks in 1955 and was called up for good in 1959.
Blanchard’s best season came in 1961, when he slashed .305/.382/.613 in 93 games. He homered 21 times and drove in 54 runs. He homered in four consecutive at-bats, which was a record at the time. Two of those came in pinch-hitting appearances. Another one of his four pinch-hit homers in ’61 helped defeat his hometown Twins on June 5.
Blanchard and the Yankees won the World Series in 1961 & ‘62. He was a star in the ‘61 Series, clubbing 2 homers against the Reds.
Blanchard was a super sub, stepping in when Elston Howard, Berra, Mantle or Maris we’re hurt or needed a day off. He only hit .300 the one time, but he was usually good for 10+ homers a season in limited action.
Blanchard was traded to the A’s after a slow start to 1965. He hit .200 in Kansas City and was sold to the Braves. The final hit of his career was a pinch homer against the Giants.
In his 8-year career, Blanchard slashed .239/.317/.441, with 285 hits in 516 games. He recorded 200 RBIs and 137 runs and homered 67 times.
Blanchard retired when the Braves, who moved to Atlanta, wouldn’t trade him to his hometown Twins. He tried to come back in 1968 with Atlanta to no avail. He wanted a coaching job in baseball, but nobody called. He said his reputation as a heavy drinker as a player was held against him. (He quit drinking in the ‘70s.)
Blanchard owned a liquor store at one point. He also worked in hotel-motel promotions, as well as sporting goods sales, printing and other jobs.
Johnny Blanchard died on March 25, 2009 from a heart attack. He was 76 years old.
Here lies - kinda - Yip Owens, early 20th Century catcher. I say “kinda” because the Lakewood Cemetery lists his burial place as “POND.” I’m assuming his ashes were scattered here. Owens played for the Boston Red Sox (1905), Chicago White Sox (1909), Brooklyn Tip-Tops of the Federal League (1914) and Baltimore Terrapins of the Federal League (1915).
Frank “Yip” Owens was born on January 25, 1886 in Toronto, Ontario. There’s not a ton of info on his early life, but he played for a team in New York, which may be how the Red Sox found him and tried him out for one game in 1905. He went 0-2 with 3 passed balls, so he failed the audition. He played in the minors in Memphis for 3 years, improving his game, and the White Sox signed him for 1909 as a backup to catcher/manager Billy Sullivan. In 64 games, Owens hit .201 and knocked in 17 runs. Owens’ biggest play took place before the start of the season, when the White Sox were playing an exhibition game in April in Oklahoma City. During the game, a roof holding some fans collapsed, and Owens pulled four badly injured boys from the debris.
Owens played in the short-lived Federal League, which existed as a major league in 1914-5. He hit well - .277 for Brooklyn in 1914 and .251 for Baltimore in 1915. In his 4 seasons in the majors, Owens had a .245/.284/.334 slash line with 170 hits in 222 games. He hit 5 homers, drove in 65 runs and stole 9 bases.
Most of Owens’ career was spent with the Minneapolis Millers, a championship minor-league team. He became a fan favorite for his hitting and durability. He was also quite a character, known for his hard drinking, massive 37-ounce bats and his Ugly Club. He came out with a regularly updated roster of the ugliest players in the American Association, and being named to it was somewhat of a backhanded honor. Owens was the manager.
Owens died on July 2, 1958. According to his death notice in The Minneapolis Star, he had been in failing health and suffered a severe hemorrhage. He was 72 years old.
There’s way more about his life on my blog (link in bio). Check it out for stories of armed robbery and why he was nicknamed “Yip.”
Here lies Don Wheeler, a catcher who played with the 1949 Chicago White Sox. His last appearance in the minor leagues as a player came eight years after he thought he’d retired.
Donald Wheeler was born in Minneapolis on September 29, 1922. He graduated from Minneapolis South High School and was signed by his hometown team, the minor-league Minneapolis Millers, in 1941. He went to their farm team, the Eau Claire Bears. He caught and played in the outfield, and he hit well in both positions. In 112 games, Wheeler hit .280 with 35 doubles and five home runs. After a good season in 1942, he was brought to the Millers but failed to hit over .200.
He would have to wait a few years to get another shot with the Millers, as he was drafted into the Army. Wheeler served with the 100th division in France and Germany, earning four battle stars, a unit citation, a Bronze Star and a combat infantryman’s badge.
He returned to baseball in 1946 and went back to being a top hitter in 1947 and ‘48. The White Sox took notice and drafted him in the offseason.
With 220 plate appearances, Wheeler was technically the Sox #1 catcher that year. Backup Joe Tipton had 219 PAs. Wheeler drove in 5 runs against the Yankees on July 30 with a double, triple and two singles. He led the Sox to a 9-2 win, spoiling the 59th birthday of Yankees skipper Casey Stengel. For the year, Wheeler slashed .240/.333/.323, with 46 hits that included 9 doubles, 2 triples and 1 home run. He drove in 22 runs, scored 17 times and drew 27 walks.
Wheeler returned to the minors and hit well until quitting baseball in 1952. He was a postman in Minneapolis and officiated high school sports. He also worked for the Millers as a batting practice catcher and pitcher. In 1960, when he was 37, he got in 1 more game for the Millers when injuries left them thin at catcher.
Along with his job at the USPS, Wheeler worked the sidelines for Minnesota Vikings football games for 32 years and was a penalty time-keeper for the Minnesota North Stars.
Don Wheeler died on December 10, 2003 in Bloomington, Minn., at the age of 83. He suffered a heart attack while blowing snow out of a neighbor’s driveway.
Last night’s ghost tour was incredibly fascinating. Even before I got into baseball research, I was a history geek, so seeing so many of the historic sites around Chicago made for a great evening. These pictures were from the alley behind the Nederlander Theater, which is where the Iroquois Theatre once stood. If that sounds familiar, it’s because of a fire there in 1903 that killed more than 600 people. This alley is significant because theater-goers ran to fire escapes. The theater’s owners hadn’t actually FINISHED the fire escapes when the theater opened, so hundreds of people dashed out the fire escape doors and fell to their deaths here. It was the worst theater fire tragedy in the country and led to major fire code changes. Of course, Chicago being Chicago, the owners bought their way out of prosecution.
But this was a GHOST tour, right? My wife and I used some dowsing rods and got very odd responses. The rods crossed and uncrossed on demand and moved where we asked them to move. Not very scientific, but pretty interesting. As for the green thing in the pictures, I can’t account for it. It’s in some pictures and not in others. It could be a camera phone glitch, but I couldn’t recreate it. And it only showed up in this alley and not in any of the other locations. Make of it what you will, I suppose!
