It's Montie, folks ...

Editor's note: It's the beginning of the shorter more frequent blogs! This afternoon, we will have another one on the All-Star Game.

You never know who is reading this blog. For instance, did you know that John Updike, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Eggers, Jon Stewart and Wynona Ryder are all regular readers of this blog? Of course you didn't know that; I just made that up. I have no idea who reads this blog. Are you kidding? It wasn't until last week that I figured out how to check my email at postmaster@soulofbaseball.com.

Anyway, I did finally check that email, and I got one from Richard Weaver, the grandson of former Major Leaguer Montie Weaver. At least that's what he says -- but I believe him. I cannot imagine why he would make that up. Montie Weaver was a pitcher in the 1930s, mostly for Washington, and he won 22 games in his rookie season despite walking more batters than he struck out.

I must admit, I thought this was a rare feat -- but it really isn't. Fifty-one pitchers since 1900 have won 20 games while walking more than they struck out. Even since the Deadball Era, it has happened 36 times -- most prominently by Ted Lyons in 1925 (21 wins, 45 strikeouts, 83 walks) and Sloppy Thurston in 1924 (20 wins, 37 strikeouts, 60 walks). I love that there was a guy named Sloppy Thurston in the big leagues.

It happened most recently in 1975 when Mike Torrez struck out 119, walked 133 and won 20 games.

ANYWAY, Montie struggled after that rookie season -- the story according to Baseball Library is that he became a vegetarian and "lost the zip on his fastball." It's a cool story, but unlikely -- how much zip could he have had on his fastball to begin with since in 1922 he struck out 83 and walked 112. Montie seems like a guy who got by on his wits -- he was a brilliant man, he had a master's degree in mathematics and they called him "Professor."

But the reason he comes up here is that there is some debate about how he spelled his first name -- Monte or Montie. Bill James weighed in on this in our least intimidating pitchers ever blog:

From Bill: "How in the bloody hell they decided (to spell his name Montie), I have no idea. I found in my library, with a few minutes checking, 20 or 30 places where he had signed his name -- Monte. (His first name was Montgomery). ... Further, since Monte Weaver had a master's degree in some kind of engineering from the University of Virginia, we can hardly assume that he was some semi-literate goon whose spelling of his own name was haphazard. For some reason, this just irritates the living hell out of me."

Well, Richard Weaver responded on behalf of his grandfather:

From Richard: This posting mentioned my grandfather, Montie Weaver. I thought you would be interested to know that that is the correct spelling of his name. It is not short for Montgomery. Professionally, the "Monte" spelling was used and most of his signatures were written that way.

I want to thank Richard for writing in. And there you go, another world problem solved. Next, we take on the Middle East.