Also Dave Ricketts brother Dick, born 12-04-1933

12/5: Mike Mahoney (40)

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--- blingboy wrote:

Also Dave Ricketts brother Dick, born 12-04-1933



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Dick Ricketts is one of an elite group of 12 who played both in the NBA and MLB. A few others include Dick Groat, Danny Ainge and Dave Dubusshure(my apologies to Dave for butchering the spelling)....hmmmm, all of these guys' first names begin with the letter "D". I'll have to check on the first names of the other 8. Anyway, Dick Ricketts was the first pick in the 1955 NBA draft..the St.Louis Hawks nabbed him. Another little trivia tidbit.....all we baseball fans have heard the phrase "and that ball goes thru the wicketts of the 2nd baseman(or whichever fielder let the ground ball go under his glove and thru his legs). Well the correct word is "ricketts" and not "wicketts". That phrase was coined by Dick's Cardinal teammates back in 1959. It seems that in batting practice, Dick loved shagging ground balls.....but the guy couldn't field a lick and almost every grounder would go untouched under his legs. Thus the phrase "Thru the Ricketts". I'll also have to check Dick's ML fielding stats.

Three other additions for today, 12/5: Gus Mancuso (died 1984). Patsy Tebeau (died 1918) and Pugs' late and great favorite, Pink Hawley (died 1938).

Ron Reed, a former Cardinal, played for the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Braves.

pugsleyaddams wrote:

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--- blingboy wrote:

Also Dave Ricketts brother Dick, born 12-04-1933



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Dick Ricketts is one of an elite group of 12 who played both in the NBA and MLB. A few others include Dick Groat, Danny Ainge and Dave Dubusshure(my apologies to Dave for butchering the spelling)....hmmmm, all of these guys' first names begin with the letter "D". I'll have to check on the first names of the other 8. Anyway, Dick Ricketts was the first pick in the 1955 NBA draft..the St.Louis Hawks nabbed him. Another little trivia tidbit.....all we baseball fans have heard the phrase "and that ball goes thru the wicketts of the 2nd baseman(or whichever fielder let the ground ball go under his glove and thru his legs). Well the correct word is "ricketts" and not "wicketts". That phrase was coined by Dick's Cardinal teammates back in 1959. It seems that in batting practice, Dick loved shagging ground balls.....but the guy couldn't field a lick and almost every grounder would go untouched under his legs. Thus the phrase "Thru the Ricketts". I'll also have to check Dick's ML fielding stats.

12/6: Bruno Betzel (died 1965).

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--- Domeboys wrote:

Three other additions for today, 12/5: Gus Mancuso (died 1984). Patsy Tebeau (died 1918) and Pugs' late and great favorite, Pink Hawley (died 1938).

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Pink was a player! As a case in point, let us examine the last 4 first names of Cardinal birthday boys. Patsy, Gus, Pink and Bruno. What can you tell by a name? The answer to that question is "A LOT"! I've briefly visited this subject before and it is an important one. Want to have a rough tough kid? Name him Nick or Alex. Want your little bundle of joy to grow up to play the harp or possibly one day become the cultural attache to Greece? Christen them with the name Poindexter or Thaddeus. Now trust me when I say that I have not researched the stats on any of these 4 Redbirds from many moons gone past. The odds are heavily in favor of Gus and Bruno being power hitters or power pitchers while Pink and Patsy having been punch and Judy type light hitters or soft tossing hurlers of light physical stature who spent their careers nibbling on the corners.

A quick check of the stats revealed Bruno to be not quite the power hitter that I would have thought, but there are almost always one exception to the rule....and that describes Bruno in this particular case. I probably should not admit this...especially to this group, but during this search, I unearthed the fact that both Pink Hawley and your's truly were born in the same sleepy little town......Beaver Dam, Wisconsin
What are the odds of that!!??

Pugs, I admire your theories about how player names can relate to performance. The St. Louis Browns had a minor league guy with the most unfortunate name of all time, and of course his teammates gave him the perfect nickname. I'd appreciate your thoughts.

www.baseball-reference.com/pla...dicksjo01.shtml

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--- blingboy wrote:

Pugs, I admire your theories about how player names can relate to performance. The St. Louis Browns had a minor league guy with the most unfortunate name of all time, and of course his teammates gave him the perfect nickname. I'd appreciate your thoughts.

www.baseball-reference.com/pla...dicksjo01.shtml

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Sure, Bling....and thanks for the rare but warranted vote of confidence. Johnny "Peewee" Dickshort was as one would imagine.....a pesky little player who while short in the dong department(only 4 career jacks in 542 plate appearances), could still delight in many other ways....in which should best be left unsaid at this hour of the day.

A bigger day today, slightly...

12/7: Ryan Theriot (33), Tino Martinez (45), Alex Johnson (70).

Looking over the stats on Alexander Johnson.....geesh we traded him at the wrong time. He was a bit before my time so I don't recall his 2 year stint in St.Louis where he hit a pedestrian .186 in 1966 and followed that up by hitting .223 in 1967. Then we trade the guy and he emmulates Rod Carew by hitting .312, .315 and .329 the following 3 campaigns.

12/8: Brant Alyea (71), Ed Brinkman (died 2008).

pugsleyaddams wrote: Looking over the stats on Alexander Johnson.....geesh we traded him at the wrong time. He was a bit before my time so I don't recall his 2 year stint in St.Louis where he hit a pedestrian .186 in 1966 and followed that up by hitting .223 in 1967. Then we trade the guy and he emmulates Rod Carew by hitting .312, .315 and .329 the following 3 campaigns.

Alex was a total malcontent and the Cards (and the Phils, Reds, and even the Angels - both of whom he hit for) couldn't wait to get rid of him.

He blew his chance to appear in the 1967 World Series when Schoendienst called for him to pinch-hit and he was nowhere to be found - turned out he was gorging himself in the clubhouse.  Schoendienst used Gagliano instead and Alex never appeared in the Series, and was traded (for the immortal Jim Hicks) that winter.

12/9: Darold Knowles (71).

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--- Jmodene1 wrote:

Alex was a total malcontent

He blew his chance to appear in the 1967 World Series when Schoendienst called for him to pinch-hit and he was nowhere to be found - turned out he was gorging himself in the clubhouse.  Schoendienst used Gagliano instead and Alex never appeared in the Series, and was traded (for the immortal Jim Hicks) that winter.

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Don't you mean Jim Hickman and not Jim Hicks, JMo? That story is just too funny. In the heat of a World Series game how does a player decide to sneak on down to the clubhouse for a 4 course dinner? And not think he'd be caught? I wonder what Red said to him? What if whatever Alex was cooking had smelled so wonderful that the Redbird skipper succumbed to the moment and just dug right on in to the chow instead of reprimanding his would-be pinch-eater..... make that "pinch-hitter"? Then realizing their screw-up they both scurry on up to the dugout and in his haste, Johnson strides up to the plate sporting one of those huge white chefs hats instead of his batting helmet. Maybe that's where the phrase "ham and egger" came from?

No, it was Jim Hicks.  Hickman was taken from the Cards by the Mets in the expansion draft going into 1962, and the Cards finally got him back around 1972 at the end of his career.

Hicks was traded, IIRC, to the Angels a year or two after we got him, although I can no longer remember for whom.  Let me look it up...

Well, the old memory isn't what it used to be.  We did have Hicks for a couple of seasons, and we did deal him to the Angels (in mid-1969 for Vic Davalillo) but we didn't get Hicks in the Alex Johnson deal... although it was about the same time, October 1967, when we bought his contract from the White Sox.

Johnson was traded to the Reds in January 1968 for Dick Simpson... who we sent to Houston early in the 1968 season along with Hal Gilson for outfielder Ron Davis... who is the guy who let Mickey Lolich's blooper fall in front of him in Game 5 of the 1968 World Series.

12/10: Ted Martinez (65), Frank Shugart (died 1944).

12/11: Thomas Howard (48), Bob Sykes (58).

For me, Sykes will always hold a special place in my heart as the lefty reliever was sent to the Yankees after the 1981 season for an unknown outfielder named Willie McGee. Sykes never played a single game in the majors for the Bombers. JMo can fill everyone in on the Steinbrenner-Busch backstory...

Oh, yes.  If I wasn't about to head out the door to work, I'd do it now - but suffice to say that Steinbrenner was so upset over the way the Sykes-for-McGee trade worked out that he basically held Gussie up a year later so we'd give them two additional players - Bobby Meacham and Stan Javier.