Rounding Third | Presented by BadderSports

On July 2, 1963, at Candlestick Park, a 42-year-old Warren Spahn and a 25-year-old Juan Marichal walked to the mound, and neither one would come off it.

Sixteen innings. Nobody scored through fifteen. Marichal threw 227 pitches. Spahn threw 201, and the last one left the park on Willie Mays' bat in the bottom of the 16th. Final score 1 to 0, four hours and ten minutes. Both men were working on three days rest. Neither missed his next start.

Spahn was a Battle of the Bulge veteran who won 363 games and did not throw his first big league pitch until he was 25.

Marichal was a kid from the Dominican Republic who would win more games than anyone else in the 1960s. Peter Lemieux tells the story of the night two aces refused to be taken out of a game, and the friendship their families built out of it.

0:00 Hats Off, Here We Go

1:12 The Friend Who Gave Me This Story

4:04 Candlestick Park, July 1963

5:45 Who Warren Spahn Really Was

7:33 The Kid From the Dominican Republic

9:23 Fifteen Innings, Nobody Scores

12:32 The 227th Pitch

13:02 Willie Mays Ends It in the 16th

14:15 The Standing Ovation

More great games on Rounding Third

- The Greatest Baseball Game You Never Heard Of https://youtu.be/OtKk1WCLlxc

- Mets vs Braves: The Marathon Game That Wouldn't End https://youtu.be/cZa8RgWGDTw

- 1.12 ERA. 28 Complete Games. 1968 Was Bob Gibson's Year https://youtu.be/qAREG6XVQ5c

- The Baseball Game That Should Be Taught in History Class https://youtu.be/NUgyX18i7Rk

Sources: Society for American Baseball Research, MLB.com, Jim Kaplan's book on the game.

Rounding Third is baseball history storytelling from Peter Lemieux on the BadderSports network. Subscribe, send this to someone who loves the game, and tell us in the comments which story you want next.

#WarrenSpahn #JuanMarichal #BaseballHistory

Everybody knows Babe Ruth hit 714 home runs. Almost nobody remembers that before any of it, he was the best left-handed pitcher in baseball.

From 1915 through 1917 he won 18, 23, and 24 games for the Boston Red Sox. He led the American League in 1916 with a 1.75 ERA and nine shutouts. In Game 2 of that World Series he pitched all 14 innings, gave up one run in the first, and won it 2 to 1.

Then Boston decided they would rather have his bat, cut his innings in half, and sold him to New York.

Peter Lemieux tells the story of the pitcher hiding inside the slugger, the strangest no-hitter in the record book, and the 86 years Boston spent paying for the decision.

0:00 The Player You Think You Know

1:34 Nobody Remembers He Was a Pitcher

2:16 The Strangest No-Hitter in the Record Book

4:28 The Numbers Nobody Quotes

5:16 14 Innings, One Run, One World Series Game

6:50 Boston Wanted His Bat, Not His Arm

9:15 Sold to New York for a Broadway Play

10:55 86 Years and the Curse of the Bambino

More Babe Ruth and more Red Sox on Rounding Third

- Beyond the Home Runs: The Untold Stories of Babe Ruth https://youtu.be/PClozv1HACE

- Unrecognized No Hitters https://youtu.be/HXEa2z6oeLM

- Shoeless Joe Jackson's Surprising Life After Scandal https://youtu.be/cBBsVtKDOro

- Who Was Smokey Joe and Why Did Baseball Forget Him? https://youtu.be/a90bf0vqTTo

Sources: Society for American Baseball Research, National Baseball Hall of Fame, Library of Congress.

Rounding Third is baseball history storytelling from Peter Lemieux on the BadderSports network. Subscribe, send this to someone who loves the game, and tell us in the comments which story you want next.

#BabeRuth #BaseballHistory #RedSox

Twenty-seven outs. Not one base hit. It is the thing every pitcher dreams about from Little League on, and most of them never get within a mile of it.

Six times in Major League Baseball history, a pitching staff threw one and lost the game anyway.

Ken Johnson, Houston, 1964. Steve Barber and Stu Miller, Baltimore, 1967. Andy Hawkins, the Yankees, 1990. Matt Young, Boston, 1992. Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo, the Angels, 2008. Hunter Greene and Art Warren, Cincinnati, 2022. Between them they gave up nothing, and they won nothing.

Peter Lemieux tells the story of the best thing these men ever did on a baseball field, and why almost nobody remembers it. Think of the golfer who stops after work, plays a few holes on an empty course at six in the evening, aces a par 3, and has no one there to sign the card.

Have you ever done something extraordinary that nobody saw?

CHAPTERS

0:00 A different kind of opening

0:09 Field of Dreams and the Hall of Famers in the corn

1:07 This field, this game: say it with me

1:51 Why baseball is a reflection of real life

3:05 The hole in one nobody saw

4:11 Six pitchers, one impossible box score

5:14 1964: Ken Johnson, Houston Colt .45s

6:24 1967: Steve Barber and Stu Miller, Orioles

7:32 1990: Andy Hawkins, Yankees

9:02 1992: Matt Young, Red Sox

10:13 2008: Jered Weaver and Jose Arredondo, Angels

11:19 2022: Hunter Greene and Art Warren, Reds

12:39 The accomplishment no one saw

13:41 People will come, Ray

MORE NO-HITTER STORIES ON THIS CHANNEL

Dave Stieb's heartbreaking road to a no-hitter: https://youtu.be/pbTQPKW-zFI

Nolan Ryan, Bob Feller, and the rarity of the no-hitter: https://youtu.be/K_Wa9rRXUAw

Rounding Third is baseball history storytelling from the BadderSports network: https://baddersports.com/roundingthird

Love baseball? Like, subscribe, and tell us your story in the comments.

#baseball #baseballhistory #nohitter

Everyone knows The Natural. Robert Redford, Roy Hobbs, Wonder Boy, the home run into the lights. Pure Hollywood fiction, right?

Not quite. In June 1949, All-Star first baseman Eddie Waitkus was lured to a room in Chicago's Edgewater Beach Hotel and shot by Ruth Ann Steinhagen, an obsessed fan he had never met. He nearly died. The next season he was back at first base for the 1950 Phillies "Whiz Kids," starting every game and helping bring Philadelphia its first pennant in 35 years. Bernard Malamud knew his story. Roy Hobbs came from it.

Peter Lemieux tells the story of the decorated World War II veteran, All-Star, and survivor that baseball forgot.

CHAPTERS

0:00 A story everyone thinks is fiction

0:12 The Natural: the Roy Hobbs myth

3:19 Or did he exist?

3:50 Eddie Waitkus, the forgotten All-Star

4:38 The war years

5:47 The shooting at the Edgewater Beach Hotel

7:31 The comeback: 1950 and the Whiz Kids

10:45 Remember Eddie Waitkus

Rounding Third is baseball history storytelling from the BadderSports network: https://baddersports.com/roundingthird

Love baseball? Like, subscribe, and tell us your story in the comments.

#baseball #baseballhistory #TheNatural

He was six foot eight. He threw harder than almost anyone alive. And for five and a half seasons, nobody in the National League could touch him. Then, at 30 years old, his arm went dead.

This is the story of James Rodney Richard, the pitcher I ranked No. 1 on my list of careers cut short. Back to back 300 strikeout seasons. An ERA title. Hitters batting .156 against him at home. Then one July afternoon in 1980 took all of it away.

But the career is only half of it. What J.R. Richard did with the four decades that followed is the part almost nobody talks about, and it is the reason I wanted to tell this one last.

I also go back to the four players from Part 1 and ask a question I did not expect to be asking: what happened to them after baseball, and who really lost more, the players or the fans?

Watch Part 1 first: https://youtu.be/pXJodFiNnzE

0:00 The one I ranked No. 1

1:01 Meet James Rodney Richard

2:36 The years nobody could touch him

6:24 1980: the tragic year

8:36 The rest of the story

10:10 What happened to the other four

11:51 What five shortened careers taught me

I am Peter Lemieux and I tell baseball stories. New ones every week on Rounding Third, part of the BadderSports network. If you like this one, subscribe, leave a comment, and tell me who you think I should cover next.

Rounding Third: https://baddersports.com/roundingthird

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1809173168

Podbean: https://roundingthirdpodcast.podbean.com

#JRRichard #HoustonAstros #BaseballHistory #MLBHistory #RoundingThird #Astros #BaseballStories

https://youtu.be/xSlTygH5nvI - From the Archives

Four players. Four careers that should have been legendary. One rookie owned the summer of 1976 and packed every ballpark he pitched in. Another had 100 home runs by age 22. A third set a rookie strikeout record that stood for almost 30 years. The fourth was one of the best pure hitters of the 1970s and maybe the most generous man in the game. None of them got the career they earned, and each one lost it in a single moment.

Peter Lemieux counts down numbers five through two on Rounding Third. Number one is coming in Part 2.

Like, subscribe, and drop your guess for number one in the comments, along with other great players whose careers ended too soon.

0:00 Intro

0:50 #5

3:40 #4

5:50 #3

8:50 #2

12:35 Recap and the #1 tease

The Philadelphia Athletics were once one of baseball’s great powers, a proud American League franchise built by Connie Mack and loaded with names like Jimmie Foxx, Lefty Grove, Mickey Cochrane, and Al Simmons.

Then everything fell apart.

In this episode of Rounding Third, Peter Lemieux tells the story of how the Athletics went from Philadelphia powerhouse to Kansas City embarrassment, and how their relationship with the New York Yankees raised serious questions about baseball’s integrity.

Arnold Johnson owned the Athletics, had business ties connected to the Yankees, and oversaw a run of trades that sent major talent from Kansas City to New York. Roger Maris, Bobby Shantz, Clete Boyer, Hector Lopez, Art Ditmar, Ralph Terry, and others all passed through Kansas City before helping the Yankees.

Was Kansas City essentially serving as a Yankees pipeline?

This is the story of a dynasty crumbling, a proud franchise losing its way, and one of baseball history’s strangest collapses.

Chapters:

00:00 Edgar Allan Poe and a baseball tragedy

01:05 The Philadelphia Athletics dynasty

02:20 Connie Mack and the Great Depression

03:35 Selling off the stars

04:35 Philadelphia turns toward the Phillies

05:25 Arnold Johnson buys the Athletics

06:20 The move to Kansas City

07:05 Johnson, Yankee Stadium, and Del Webb

08:10 The suspicious Yankees pipeline

09:10 Roger Maris, Bobby Shantz, Clete Boyer, and more

10:20 Was Kansas City treated like a farm team?

11:35 Baseball integrity and the forgotten scandal

12:45 Charlie Finley inherits the wreckage

13:45 From Kansas City to Oakland

14:40 A dynasty crumbles

15:35 Final thoughts

Subscribe to Rounding Third for baseball history, forgotten stories, strange scandals, and the characters who shaped the game.

#BaseballHistory #Athletics #Yankees

Hi folks, I'm Peter Lemieux with Rounding Third, where I tell baseball stories. Today's story is about a Hall of Famer almost no one remembers, who holds a record that will never be broken.

It starts with something that has quietly vanished from the game: the 20-game winner. In the 1950s the big leagues produced thirty 20-game winners. The 1960s had twenty-nine. Then the slide began: twenty-three in the 1970s, twenty-two in the 1980s, eighteen in the 1990s, nineteen from 2000 to 2009, and just twelve from 2010 to 2019. Since 2020 there have been none at all. The last 20-game winner was Justin Verlander in 2019.

Rewind to 1971 and it was a different world. That year the Baltimore Orioles had four 20-game winners on one staff: Jim Palmer, Dave McNally, Mike Cuellar, and Pat Dobson. A year later Steve Carlton won 27 games for a Phillies team that won only 59 all season, nearly half of his club's victories. Then the bullpen took over, the save became an official statistic in 1969, and starters stopped going the distance.

To find the real record, you have to go all the way back to the 1880s and a pitcher named Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn. In 1884, pitching for the Providence Grays, Radbourn won 60 games in a single season. When his rival Charlie Sweeney was thrown off the team in the middle of the year, Old Hoss pitched nearly every game the rest of the way. His arm got so sore he could not comb his hair, so he warmed up by tossing from a few feet away and slowly stretching the distance until he could pitch.

The numbers from that one season are almost hard to believe: 60 wins, 679 innings, 73 complete games, 441 strikeouts, and a 1.38 ERA. He led the National League in wins, ERA, and strikeouts, then pitched every inning of every game in the three game World Series. He finished his career with 310 wins, later lost an eye in a hunting accident, and died at 42. In 1939 he was elected to the Hall of Fame.

That era is gone and it is never coming back. But here is a tip of the hat to Old Hoss Radbourn and the most unbreakable record in baseball.

CHAPTERS

0:00 A record that can never be broken

0:24 The vanishing 20-game winner

1:02 20-game winners by decade

2:24 The 1971 Orioles and four 20-game winners

3:12 Steve Carlton's 1972: 27 wins on a 59-win team

3:44 How the bullpen changed everything

4:21 Cy Young and 511 wins

4:51 Meet Old Hoss Radbourn

5:20 The 1884 season: 60 wins

5:56 Every inning of the World Series

6:24 The Charlie Sweeney feud

7:04 Sweeney quits and Old Hoss carries the team

8:22 An arm too sore to comb his hair

8:41 The staggering 1884 numbers

9:07 After baseball

9:29 A tip of the hat to Old Hoss

If you love baseball stories like this one, hit like and subscribe to Rounding Third for more.

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@RoundingThirdPodcast

More from BadderSports: https://www.baddersports.com

#Baseball #BaseballHistory #OldHossRadbourn #RoundingThird #BadderSports

The New York Mets just put Bobby Valentine and Lee Mazzilli into the Mets Hall of Fame, and most fans still know Bobby for one thing: the fake mustache. Peter Lemieux of Rounding Third tells the rest of the story, the parts most people have no idea about.

Yes, we cover the famous Mustache Game from June 9, 1999, when Valentine was ejected against the Blue Jays at Shea Stadium and snuck back into the dugout wearing eye black and fake glasses. But that is where most people stop, and that is where the real story begins.

Long before the majors, Bobby Valentine was an all state high school star in football, baseball, and track at Rippowam in Stamford, Connecticut, setting state records that still stand. He was also a champion ballroom dancer who performed at the opening of the 1964 World's Fair. He went on to USC, signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers, won minor league MVP honors two seasons running, and built a lifelong friendship with manager Tommy Lasorda.

His playing days were those of a respected journeyman, but his time as a manager was anything but quiet. From the Texas Rangers to the New York Mets, to a championship in Japan with the Chiba Lotte Marines, to a turbulent season with the Boston Red Sox, his drive to win followed him everywhere. He later became athletic director at Sacred Heart University, where a 57,000 square foot recreation center now carries his name, and in 2021 he ran for mayor of Stamford and came up just short.

Bobby Valentine is a lot more than the mustache guy. This is the fuller story, and a tip of the hat to an extraordinary athlete and human being.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Why tell the Bobby Valentine story now

0:36 The Mustache Game, June 9, 1999

1:54 The side of Bobby most people never knew

2:06 All state star at Rippowam High School

3:09 Champion ballroom dancer

3:43 USC and signing with the Dodgers

4:01 A respected journeyman in the majors

4:24 Minor league MVP and Tommy Lasorda

5:18 Injuries

5:31 Managing: Rangers, Japan, and the Mets

6:00 Controversy with the Mets and Red Sox

7:23 Sacred Heart and the Bobby Valentine Center

8:55 Running for mayor of Stamford

9:31 More than the Mustache Man

If you love baseball stories like this one, hit like and subscribe to Rounding Third for more.

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@RoundingThirdPodcast

Listen to the podcast: [paste your Apple Podcasts / Spotify / website links here]

#BobbyValentine #Mets #BaseballHistory

Hi folks, I'm Peter Lemieux with Rounding Third, here to share another incredible baseball story with you. We dive deep into mlb history, bringing you classic baseball moments and compelling mlb stories from the archives. Join us as we explore the rich baseball history of the game, celebrating the legendary players and unforgettable events that shaped it. ⚾

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