Today we are covering August 19 – 25, we are going to be talking about – Jimmie Foxx pitching career, Gooden early excellence, Bill Veek grand stand moment, Yogi Berra and the harmonica, Juan Marichal and John Roseboro fight and the professional pinch hitter Matt Stairs.  

If you love the history of the game, and relate all your stories in life to baseball, and you tend to get goose bumps, grim and even water your eyes a bit when Ray Kinsela asks his Dad to play catch. You are truly at the right place.

This podcast is part of thisdayinbaseball.com, if you love baseball history, no matter who you search for you are going to find great nuggets of information.

TRIVIA:

What owner once bought a jackass as a team mascot and named it after himself? He also had a nickname :The Wizard of ODD.

On August 19, 1945 – In game two of a doubleheader against the Cincinnati Reds, 37-year-old slugger Jimmie Foxx makes his first major league start, pitching the first seven innings for the Philadelphia Phillies at Shide Park. He leaves with a 4 – 1 lead, and Andy Karl saves Foxx’s only decision, a 6 – 2 final.  Here is his stat line his ERA in 10 appearances is 1.52, ERA+ was 243, batters only hit .171 with a .479 OPS and of the 76 batters that faced Foxx not one of them was able to get an extra base hit. The only black mark was 14 Base on Balls vs 10 K’s.

Foxx also known as “The Beast” had always wanted to pitch, he was a star hurler in High School. However it was the WAR and the end of his career that really gave him a chance. After the 1944 seasons he appeared in only 15 games, but the War gave him another chance as he signed with the Phillies for a final go round. The 3 Time MVP was not fairing any better so they last place Phillies gave him a shot on the mound, and Foxx the future Hall of Famer. Foxx made the most of it to finish his spectacular career.   

On August 20, 1964 — During a bus ride after a Chicago White Sox sweep the Yankee’s 4 straight, Mickey Mantle misinformed his teammate Phil Linz who had been playing Mary Had a Little Lamb on his harmonica that their manager Yogi Berra had asked for the harmonica to be played louder, when in fact he asked him to stop, a confrontation occurs on the back of the team bus between the skipper, and the utility player.

As told Mel Stottlemyre a rookie at the time - “Yogi told Phil he was going to shove the harmonica up his ass if he kept playing — plus a few other things. I don't know if it scared Phil but he tossed the harmonica toward Yogi, who slapped it out of the air and whacked it off Joe Pepitone's knee.

Linz apologized the next day and he was fined $200,

With a bus full of reports the event was well well-publicized Linz apologized the next day and he was fined $200. Some say that seeing that side of Berra fired up the third-place team, , to a successful pennant run, but may have reinforced the perception Berra had lost control of the team with so much dissension on the club, leading to his dismissal after Game 7 of the World Series.

Yogi had many Yogisms, here is one I will think about allot, “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else”

On August 21, 2010 — Matt Stairs sets the career record for pinch-hit home runs when he goes deep off Ernesto Frieri in the...