Baseball Stuff I Didn't Know

Seventeen or 18 years ago, I was covering a minor league baseball game in Charlotte, and I found myself sitting next to Hall of Famer Billy Williams. He was the roving hitting instructor for the Cubs then. I was in awe, of course, but Billy was one of the nicest people I've ever been around. He just started talking to me, asking me questions about my life, my ambitions, and he was so open and friendly that finally I asked him a question that had been bugging me since I was a kid.

I asked Billy Williams: "What is the difference between a curveball and a slider?"

There were four or five people within earshot of that simpleton question, and I remember them groaning. I was embarrassed. I do look back and think about what kind of nerve/innocence it took for a 22- or 23-year old kid to ask Sweet Swingin' Billy -- one of the game's great hitters -- a goofy question like that. It might have been like asking Hemingway the difference between a noun and a verb.

But that's not what I remember most -- no, what I remember most is Billy's answer. He asked me for a sheet of paper and a pen, and for the next 20 minutes or so he broke down the curveball ("See, you have to understand the curve moves slower and breaks more") and the slider ("From a hitter's perspective, it can look like a fastball, and then it will break late on you,"). He drew diagrams, he talked about the various challenges of hitting the two pitches (I remember he told me there was nothing on earth harder to hit than a 12-6 curveball). It was like taking a college course in hitting from a Hall of Famer -- I wish I had recorded it.

And at the end, he whispered to me: "That was a good question. Don't let those guys bother you -- they don't know the difference between a curve and slider either."

It remains one of my favorite memories as a sportswriter, and it taught me one of the most important lessons of my life: Don't pretend like you know. It seems like all the time I come across some new baseball fact or story that I probably should have known, but didn't.

So I'll pass along five bits of baseball info that I didn't know until recently. Who knows? Maybe this will become a regular feature.

-- Pitchers are called that because when the game began in the 19th Century, they were not allowed to throw overhand. They had to "pitch" the ball -- like horseshoes. Thus, they are called pitchers. I'm sure you knew that already, but I didn't until a little while ago. I learned that and quite a few other historical things from Alan Schwarz's terrific book, The Numbers Game.

-- In 1953, Al Rosen was one hit away from winning the Triple Crown. He led the American League in homers (43 -- one more than Gus Zernial) and RBIs (145 -- 30 more than anybody), but he lost the batting title by one point to Mickey Vernon, .337 to .336.

There are quite a few unsavory details in that batting title too. Apparently on the last day, Vernon dropped a bunt down the third base line and the third baseman didn't even try to throw him out. Also Vernon's teammates would say they purposely made outs so Vernon did not have to come up a fifth time on the last day. There have been those who have claimed that antisemitism against Rosen was a factor the last month of the season -- some did not want a Jew to win the Triple Crown.

I can't speak to that (though it's interesting enough to research), but I do wonder what Rosen's legacy might have been had he won the Triple Crown. Look at the other Triple Crown winners since 1900:

1967, Carl Yastrzemski: .326, 44, 121. First ballot HOF.
1966, Frank Robinson: .316, 49, 122. First ballot HOF.
1956, Mickey Mantle: .353, 52, 130. First ballot HOF.
1947, Ted Williams: .343, 42, 114.
1942, Ted Williams: .356, 36, 137. First ballot HOF.
1937, Joe Medwick: .374, 31, 154. HOF ... took 10 ballots.
1934, Lou Gehrig: .363, 49, 165. HOF
1933, Jimmie Foxx: .356, 48, 163. HOF
1933, Chuck Klein: .368, 28, 120. HOF
1925, Rogers Hornsby: .403, 39, 143.
1922, Rogers Hornsby: .401, 42, 152. HOF
1909, Ty Cobb: .377, 9, 107. HOF
1901, Nap Lajoie: .426, 14, 125. HOF

So you can see that every single player who hit for the Triple Crown is in the Hall of Fame (as is Hugh Duffy, who did it in 1894. Tip O'Neill, who hit for the Triple Crown in 1887 and Paul Hines who did the trick in 1878 are not). More than that, they are almost all viewed as all-time greats.

Rosen did not make it up to the big leagues full-time until he was 26 because of World War II and the star power of Cleveland's third baseman Ken Keltner. He retired when he was 32. So he only had seven full seasons -- but in those seven seasons, he hit, hit for power, walked, played terrific defense and almost won a Triple Crown. He was, for that short while, as good as any third baseman the game has known. Few remember him though (he did not even play long enough to be eligible for the Hall of Fame), but they would had he gotten one more hit in '53.

-- Eddie Stanky came up with a tag-up trick in 1945 -- when he was on third and a fly ball was hit to the outfield, he would take four or five steps BACKWARD into left field. Then as the ball was about to be caught, he would take off for home. He would touch the bag just as the ball was caught, and he would already be going full speed making it just about impossible to throw him out at the plate (he scored 128 runs that year). The maneuver was outlawed at the end of the year, but you have to say: It was pretty brilliant.

Then Stanky was always a little stinker. He used to jump up and down to distract hitters until that was outlawed. He hit .268 in his career, but he had a .410 OBP -- he walked 996 times and had 811 hits. Now that's a leadoff hitter. He also has a special place in the book "The Boys of Summer" as a nasty anti-Jackie Robinson racist.

-- The Baltimore Chop came from John McGraw (of course) who was the manager in Baltimore for a short while. He told the groundskeeper not to water the ground in front of home plate. So that ground was hard as concrete, and when the Baltimore players would crack the baseball into dirt, the ball would bounce high like a superball, and they would get base hits. Picked up that tidbit from Frank Deford's fun book "The Old Ball Game."

-- Boog Powell's nickname derives from "Booger." I love that.

A few other baseball-related thoughts:

-- Earlier in the week, with the Royals mired in yet another awful early season start, they had a rainout. The headline in The Kansas City Star was: "Buddy Hopes Rainout Will Help." My thought was, "Wow, that's what is has come down to ... the Royals are now hoping for rainouts to solve their problems."

But that wasn't the weird part. The weird part is how familiar it all seemed. It was like I had thought along those lines before. Then I realized we had almost the EXACT SAME HEADLINE a year ago. The Royals were playing lousy, and the Royals had a day off, and our headline was: "Buddy Hopes Day Off Will Help." You know I love Buddy Bell and all, but apparently things would be a lot better for the club if they had nothing but days off and rainouts.

-- I've always wanted to invent a maxim. OK, I'm exaggerating there, when I was a kid I wanted to eat candy and play second base for the Cleveland Indians, and when I was in high school I wanted to date Valerie Bertinelli, and when I was in college I wanted to date Winona Ryder (and yes I may be using "date" as a euphemism).

But at some point I got old and Winona was caught shoplifting, and now I want to invent a maxim. Every day, on my Google home page, I get some sort of maxim (Today's maxim comes from Bob Edwards: "A little learning is a dangerous thing but a lot of ignorance is just as bad") And a lof of them -- including Bob Edwards' maxim --aren't very good. We are lacking maxims in America today.

Anyway, here are my best attempts so far:

Maxim 1: The more a baseball team talks about fundamentals, the more certain it is that the team lacks them.

Editor's note: I just got an email from my friend Rany Jazayerli who says he came up with this maxim first: He wrote it in a Rob and Rany chat -- he says in May 1995, but I assume he meant May 2005. His version of the maxim goes like so:

A team's ability to execute the "fundamentals" is inversely correlated to the time spent discussing the importance of executing them."

That's better. Maxim credit goes to Rany. I will say, though, that if that shows up on my Google page I'm going to be ticked off.

Maxim 2: The chances that your favorite college sports team is cheating is exactly inverse to the average temperature on campus in the winter.

Maxim 3: When anyone uses the word "Frankly" or the phrase "I'll be honest with you" -- it is a sure bet that what follows will not be frank or honest.

Maxim 4: Never bet on Andy Roddick or the Phillies.

Maxim 5: It's just plain stupid to to promise blog readers that you will come up with an all-time Gold Glove team for every single team in baseball. That's a ridiculous amount of work. But, as the spider says in Charlotte's Web, a promise is a promise (yes, I have two young kids, which means I've watched Charlotte's Web -- the new version -- about 23 times). We'll start that defense series up again tomorrow or no later than Sunday. Tonight, though, we will be at Kauffman Stadium for some Royals-Twins excitement. Maybe we'll come up with a few thoughts live.