Brooklyn Triumphant and Other October 4 Anniversaries

October 4, 1955, 57 years ago today: The Brooklyn Dodgers beat the New York Yankees, 2-0, in Game 7 of the World Series.

(This is a previous post, updated.)

After losing the World Series to Boston in 1916, to Cleveland in 1920, and to the Yankees in 1941, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953; blowing Playoffs for the National League Pennant to St. Louis in 1946 and to the New York Giants in 1951; and blowing Pennants on the last weekend of the season to St. Louis in 1942 and Philadelphia in 1950, the Dodgers had finally won their first undisputed World Championship in 55 years, since they finished the 1900 season as National League Champions, with no postseason series available.

But in 1955, it all seemed to come together. True, the Dodgers had traded away two of the beloved players who would later be known, in the title of the book that Roger Kahn wrote in remembrance of his days covering them for the New York Herald Tribune, as "The Boys of Summer": Pitcher Elwyn "Preacher" Roe and third baseman Billy Cox. The team was in transition: Jackie Robinson was still a factor, but his replacements had arrived in Jim "Junior" Gilliam and Don Zimmer. Ralph Branca, the goat of the 1951 Playoff, had retired, but the Dodgers still had Don Newcombe and Carl Erskine, and they were joined by a hotshot lefty named Johnny Podres.

The Dodgers won their first 13 games of the '55 season, and finished 13 games ahead of the preseason favorites, the Milwaukee Braves. But the Yankees took the first two games of the World Series, despite Robinson's steal of home plate in Game 1. But the Dodgers took the next three at Ebbets Field. Then the Yankees tied it up. In fact, the home team won each of the first 6 home games.

October 4, 1955. Game 7 of the World Series. Yankee Stadium. The Boys of Summer were getting old. The younger Dodgers didn't quite seem ready. The team was in transition, and it did seem like it had been a seamless one; but for veterans like shortstop Pee Wee Reese, first baseman Gil Hodges, center fielder Duke Snider and catcher Roy Campanella -- along with Robinson, all but Hodges are in the Hall of Fame and he damn well should be -- it was now or never.

Podres was the choice of manager Walter Alston, having won Game 3. Yankee manager Casey Stengel, with ace Whitey Ford having pitched brilliantly in Game 6, had to go with Tommy Byrne, a lefty who was occasionally wild, but had come up big for Stengel in several big games.

The Dodgers scored a run in the 4th and another in the 6, to take a 2-0 lead. But the Yankees got two men on in the bottom of the 6th. And Yogi Berra, as much a "Mr. October" as the Yankees have ever had, was coming up. Yogi had delighted in hitting Series homers off the Dodgers, and would again. To hell with the lefty-on-lefty matchup: Yogi had no fear. And, despite usually being a pull hitter, Yogi hooked the ball down the left-field line, into the corner.

Left field had long been a troublesome position for the Dodgers. Gene Hermanski. Cal Abrams. George "Shotgun" Shuba. Andy Pafko had played it well, but for whatever reason they got rid of him. Now Zimmer was the usual left fielder, though he was a natural infielder. But Alston had pinch-hit Gilliam for Zimmer, and put Gilliam in at second, replacing the righty-throwing Zimmer in left with lefty-throwing Sandy Amoros, a Cuban whose English was halting but whose play, on this day, changed baseball history.

A righthanded fielder, like Zimmer, never could have caught this ball, no matter how fast he was. But Amoros was fast and lefthanded, and he stuck out his right hand and caught the ball. Then he wheeled it back to the infield. Reese relayed it to Hodges, and Gil McDougald was unable to get back to first in time. Double play end of threat.

Doris Kearns was a 12-year-old girl living in Rockville Centre, Long Island at the time. Years later, award-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin would cite Amoros' robbery of Berra and the ensuing rally-killing double play as a sign that the Dodgers would win. "There's always these omens in baseball," she said. Translation: If the Dodgers could get Yogi out in a key situation, then that was it, the Yankees would not threaten again.

Bottom of the 9th. Two out. Podres has pitched a stomach-churning game: Eight hits, but no runs. The last batter is Elston Howard. Six months earlier, Howard had become the first black man to play in a regular-season game for the Yankees, and was now the left fielder and Yogi's backup at catcher. In 1959, they would switche positions, and Ellie would become one of the game's best catchers. In 1955, he was a 26-year-old "rookie," having played in the Negro Leagues for a while.

Howard grounded to short. It was so appropriate that it went to Harold Henry Reese, the Dodgers' Captain and senior player. Pee Wee threw it to Gil Hodges, and Hodges, perhaps the best-fielding first baseman of his era, had to trap it on the ground to keep it from being an error and bringing the tying run to the plate. But he got it.

Ballgame over. World Series over. With Red Barber having been chased out of Brooklyn by team owner Walter O'Malley after the 1953 season, it was Vin Scully who got to make the announcement over the airwaves: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Brooklyn Dodgers are the World Champions of baseball."

Not exactly how Mel Allen, Phil Rizzuto or John Sterling would have described it.

It had been 55 years -- or 52 years if you count only from the first World Series forward. The 0-for-7, and 0-for-5 against the Yankees, no longer mattered.

“Please don’t interrupt,” Shirley Povich wrote for the next day's Washington Post, “because you haven’t heard this one before: The Brooklyn Dodgers are World Champions of baseball.” (Povich wrote for the Post from 1924, when Walter Johnson finally pitched them to the World Series, until his death in 1998. His son is the TV journalist Maury Povich.)

And they did it at Yankee Stadium, no less. They never clinched a World Championship at Ebbets Field -- although the Yankees had, in '41, '49 and '52, and would again in '56. Not until '63 would the Dodger franchise clinch a World Series win on their home field.

The party in Brooklyn was the biggest since V-J Day ended World War II 10 years earlier. Scully told the story for Ken Burns’ miniseriesBaseball: "When we were riding through Manhattan, it was fall. Football was in the air. We came out the other end of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, and it was New Orleans chaos!"

No more "Wait 'Til Next Year." This was Next Year. The next day's New York Daily News had the famous headline, "WHO'S A BUM!" Willard Mullin, who had drawn the "Dodger Bum" cartoon character, drew him again, a big nearly-toothless smile, for that front page, consisting only of that headline and that drawing.

Two personnel notes should be made. One is that Mickey Mantle was injured and unable to play in Game 7 for the Yankees. Does that mean the one and only World Series won by the Brooklyn Dodgers should have an asterisk? No. There's no guarantee that Mickey would have made the difference, even though he had hit the Dodgers hard in the '52 and '53 Series, and would again in '56. Although he was one of the true Mr. Octobers, he didn't always have a good Series, and in fact went only 2-for-10 in the 3 Series games he did get into in '55, even if one of those hits was a homer off Podres in Game 3.

The other personnel note is that Jackie Robinson was not put into the lineup in Game 7. The noblest character in the history of baseball was deemed unworthy of this moment by his manager. Alston was not a Jackie Robinson fan. Neither was owner O'Malley. But on the highlight film, you can see Number 42 running onto the field. After all he'd been through, at 36 he still had enough energy to be one of the first men into the celebratory pile, if not enough energy to persuade his manager to put him into the lineup. But can we really argue with the decision? After all, it worked.

There are still 7 living members of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers. Zimmer and Shuba are the only 2 who played in the game, plus Carl Erskine, Roger Craig, Ed Roebuck, and two lefthanded pitchers worth mentioning.

One was a Brooklyn kid who had made his major league debut that season, appearing in 12 games, nothing remarkable yet. He wanted to be an architect, and had so studied at the University of Cincinnati. He also preferred basketball to baseball. Eventually, he would get his pitching straightened out, and become one of the very best men ever to mount a pitcher’s mound. His name was Sandy Koufax.

The other was a chunky guy from outside Philadelphia who had starred for the Dodgers’ Triple-A farm team, the Montreal Royals, but his entire big-league career consisted of 4 games for Brooklyn in both the ’54 and ’55 seasons, then 18 more the next season for the Kansas City Athletics. Despite his pitching for that team, he never got on the Kansas City/Bronx shuttle. Maybe it was because he got into a fight with Yankee 2nd baseman Billy Martin. But by 1977, he and Billy were shaking hands in World Series pregame ceremonies, as Pennant-winning managers. And Italians. His name was Tommy Lasorda. Ironically, it was Lasorda’s Dodgers who went back to his old stomping grounds of Montreal and ended the one and only postseason run ever made by the Royals’ National League successors, the Expos.

There are 9 living members of the 1955 New York Yankees. Berra, Bob Cerv and Bob Turley played in Game 7; also on the roster were Ford, Jerry Coleman, Don Larsen (still a year away from his moment in time), Johnny Kucks (a Hoboken, New Jersey native whose moment came 2 days after Larsen’s), Irv Noren and Tom Carroll (a Queens native who was a defensive replacement in 2 games and only played 64 games in the majors).  Bill “Moose” Skowron and Andy Carey were on that list, but both have died since last October 4.

October 4, 1955, 3:43 PM Brooklyn Standard Time. Dem Bums had finally dooed it.

Two years later, it would all be over. And only one man had imagined such a blasphemy. Unfortunately, the blasphemer was the caretaker of the faith, Walter Francis O'Malley.

In 1962, the Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York -- that was the original corporate name of the team we know as the Mets -- did something that had previously been done only by hatred of the Yankees: United the fans of the Brooklyn Dodgers and the fans of the New York Giants. Until 1996, including even the Yankees' quasi-dynasty of 1976-81, the Mets were New York's most popular team.

That is no longer the case, and a person would have to be at least 60 years old to have any memory of the previous National League teams of New York; more like 65 to remember such events as the '55 win and Willie Mays' catch in '54, nearly 70 to accurately remember Bobby Thomson's homer in '51, 75 to remember Jackie Robinson's debut season in '47, about 80 to remember the '41 season that began the Dodgers' renaissance, and at least 85 to remember the Giant teams that won 3 Pennants in the 1930s.

Long time passing.

*

October 4, 1923: Charlton Heston is born in Wilmette, Illinois.  He played an aging quarterback in the 1969 film Number One.

October 4, 1935: Game 3 of the World Series is a wild one.  Chicago Cubs manager Charlie Grimm and 2 of his players, 3rd baseman Woody English and outfielder Tuck Stainback, are thrown out of the game for bench-jockeying.  Coach Del Baker of the Detroit Tigers is also thrown out, for arguing a pickoff play at 3rd base.  That's 4 uniformed men thrown out of 1 World Series game -- and none was actually playing in the game! The game goes to 11 innings, and is won 6-5 by the Tigers, on Jo-Jo White's single scoring Marv Owen.

October 4, 1948: In a one-game playoff for the AL pennant at Fenway Park‚ the Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox 8-3, behind 30-year-old rookie knuckleballer Gene Bearden, who wins his 20th game.

It was the year of a lifetime for Bearden: He had never been that good before, and he never would be again. Red Sox manager Joe McCarthy, who had won so much with the Yankees, ignores the well-rested rotation pitchers Ellis Kinder and Mel Parnell to go with journeyman Denny Galehouse, who was 8-7. It wasn’t a totally crazy pick: Galehouse had helped the St. Louis Browns win the 1944 Pennant. With the score 1-1 in the 4th‚ Ken Keltner hits a 3-run home run over the left-field fence. Indians shortstop-manager Lou Boudreau gets 4 hits‚ including a pair of homers‚ and finishes the year with just 9 strikeouts.

Who is still alive from this game, 64 years later? For the Indians, no one: Allie Clark, a South Amboy, New Jersey native whom the Yankees had traded with Joe Gordon to get Allie Reynolds, died this past April.  For the Red Sox, only Bobby Doerr and Tom Wright, with Johnny Pesky having died in August.

That same day, in St. Louis‚ Taylor Spink‚ publisher of The Sporting News, writes in a Baltimore newspaper that Baltimore will have an AL team within two years: "You can put a clothespin in this: Baltimore will be in the American League‚ if not next year‚ then surely in 1950."

He turned out to be off by 4 years. It was his hometown Browns who became the new major-league version of the Baltimore Orioles, following previous major- and minor-league teams with those names. Spink and the NL’s Cardinals were tight, and he didn’t particularly care whether the Browns moved.

October 4, 1959: Game 3 of the World Series is played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, in front of a record crowd of 92,394. It is the first World Series game played in Los Angeles, in the State of California, indeed anywhere west of St. Louis. The Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox, 3-1.

October 4, 1962: Game 1 of the World Series is played at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, the first World Series game played in Northern California. The Yankees beat the Giants, 6-2.

October 4, 2001: Rickey Henderson hits a home run for the San Diego Padres, allowing him to score his 2,246th career run, passing Ty Cobb as baseball's all-time leader. The Padres beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 6-3 at Jack Murphy Stadium.

And on the same day, Tim Raines Sr. plays left field for the Baltimore Orioles, while Tim Raines Jr. plays center field for them. It is only the 2nd time, and there has never been a 3rd, that a father and son have played in the same major league game. The first was Ken Griffey Sr. and Jr. in 1990. The Orioles lost to the Red Sox, 5-4 at Camden Yards.

Cleveland's All-Time Baseball Team

The Yankees beat the Cleveland Indians last night, 3-2 at Jacobs Field -- okay, okay, Progressive Field -- but lost to them 4-1 tonight.

Cleveland’s All-Time Baseball Team

This team consists of players from the northern half of Ohio -- including the northwest corner, the Toledo metropolitan area, which is closer to Detroit than it is to Cleveland, and in fact the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens have been a Tiger farm team for as long as I can remember. Still, if you ask a Toledo-area athlete if he would rather accept a scholarship to The... Ohio State University or to the University of Michigan, he would be less likely to say "M Go Blue" and more likely to say, "Go Bucks, Michigan Sucks."

The dividing line is pretty much the northern edge of Interstate 270, the "beltway" around the State capital of Columbus. The State House is 107 miles from Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark, and 142 miles from Progressive Field.

When Jim Tressel, now the head coach at Ohio State, was the head coach at Youngstown State University, about halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh, he called the stretch of eastern Ohio and western Pennsylvania between them "The State of Youngstown." It helped with recruiting. It also seems to have inspired Greg Schiano to call the region that includes the entire States of New Jersey and Delaware, plus the rest of the New York and Philadelphia metropolitan areas, "The State of Rutgers."

This might be a better team than an all-time Indians' squad, and does have a few Indians on it. It certainly has one hell of a pitching staff.

1B Joe Kuhel of Cleveland Heights. Playing in the American League in the 1930s and '40s, he was not going to break through onto the All-Star team with Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx and Hank Greenberg in the way. But the Washington Senator was 3 times a .300 hitter, twice a 100-RBI man, and collected 2,212 hits.

Honorable Mention to Bill White of Warren, who won Gold Gloves and hit well for the St. Louis Cardinals, helping them win the 1964 World Series, before becoming a Yankee broadcaster from 1971 to 1988 and President of the National League from 1989 to 1993. He could have been the 1st black Commissioner... but that would have required the baseball team owners to think forward, and they usually don't do that. He should be in the Hall of Fame for all his contributions.

Honorable Mention also to Fred Merkle, whose baserunning blunder (a.k.a. Merkle's Boner) seemed to cost the New York Giants the 1908 NL Pennant. Actually, his blown popup in the 12th inning of the deciding Game 8 (yes, Game 8) of the 1912 World Series was much more his own fault, and perhaps more damaging. He had a career OPS+ of 109, and won Pennants with the Giants (1911, '12 and '13), Brooklyn Dodges (1916), and, ironically considering they benefited from his Boner 10 years earlier, the Chicago Cubs (1918). He was a very good player.

2B Bill Mazeroski of Tiltonville. Born in Wheeling, West Virginia, closer to the team he ended up playing for, the Pittsburgh Pirates, although Ohio is Ohio, so he's in the Indians' sphere of influence. He hit the only home run ever to win a Game 7 of a World Series, in 1960. He also won a Series with the Pirates in 1971.  He was a member of 7 All-Star teams, 8 Gold Gloves, and is often considered the greatest-fielding 2nd baseman ever.

Hall of Fame, Number 9 retired. This October 13 will be the 50th Anniversary of the day Maz gave Pittsburgh its greatest sports moment, greater than any Steeler Super Bowl, greater than any Penguin Stanley Cup, greater even than the Immaculate Reception. Hopefully, Maz, who seems to be in good health at age 73, will be alive to enjoy it.

Honorable Mention to Bill Wambsganss of Cleveland. A hometown hero for the Indians, he was a member of their 1920 World Champions, and, of course, pulled off the only triple play in the history of postseason baseball thus far -- an unassisted triple play. He wasn’t much of a batter, but in 1920 he stroked 11 triples, and in 1921 and ’22, he led the AL in sacrifice hits.

Honorable Mention to Solomon "Sol" White of Bellaire. He played on all-black teams in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, and in 1907 wrote what is believed to be the 1st published history of black baseball, Sol White's History of Colored Baseball. He later became an organizer of black leagues and teams. He was elected to the Hall of Fame.

SS Roger Peckinpaugh of Cleveland. He debuted in the majors in 1910 with the Indians, at age 19. In 1914, he was traded to the Yankees, and at the end of the 1915 season, he was named the interim manager for the last 15 games -- at age 23, even younger than Lou Boudreau was when he took over the Indians a generation later.

He went on to help the Senators win their 1st 2 Pennants, winning the World Series in 1924, but he's probably best known now for the 8 errors he made in the '25 Series, including 2 in Game 7, bracketing an RBI, going from goat to hero to goat real fast. He was named Most Valuable Player in the AL in 1925, although this is a predecessor award to the official one recognized by MLB that began in 1931. He would manage the Indians in 2 later terms, but never won another Pennant.

3B Sal Bando of Cleveland. The Captain of the Oakland Athletics' dynasty of the early 1970s, he was a 4-time All-Star, hit 242 homers despite playing most of his home games at the Oakland Coliseum and Milwaukee County Stadium, and twice drove in 100 or more runs. In 1973 he led the AL in doubles and total bases. He later served as general manager of the Indians, while his brother Chris was their catcher.

LF Ed Delahanty of Cleveland. The best of 5 brothers to reach the majors, a record, the others being Frank, Jim, Joe and Tom. Lifetime batting average .346, 3 times batted .400, 7 times had 100 RBIs in the Dead Ball Era, 522 doubles, OPS+ of 152, 2,597 hits. But he was an alcoholic, and died under mysterious circumstances in 1903. He was only 35. He's in the Hall of Fame, and the Phillies inducted him into the Philadelphia Baseball Hall of Fame.

Honorable Mention to Gene Woodling of Akron. He batted .300 4 times, led the AL in on-base percentage in 1953, and won 5 straight World Series with the Yankees, 1949 to 1953. The Yankees traded him to the Baltimore Orioles after the 1954 season, the trade that brought pitchers Bob Turley and Don Larsen. Unfortunately, he was one of several ex-New York baseball stars brought in to the early Mets, but he was 39 and done. Still, he was a Yankee star and should be remembered.

CF William Ellsworth Hoy of Houcktown. Some called him Billy, because they didn't want to use the usual nickname that deaf people got at the time, which was then used to describe those unable to speak but was becoming a slur meaning stupid. But after learning to speak, he told people, "Call me Dummy."

He first reached the majors in 1886 with the NL version of the Washington Senators, and led the league in stolen bases. He had his best seasons with the Cincinnati Reds, and had a lifetime batting average of .288 and 2,048 hits in just 14 seasons. At the time of his retirement, he held the career records for games played and putouts by a center fielder.

In 1961, at the age of 99, he was invited to throw out the first ball at a World Series game between the Yankees and Reds at Crosley Field, which was built on the site of a previous Reds ballpark in which he played. He got a standing ovation that he could see, if not hear. He died shortly thereafter, then believed to be the oldest living former player ever. He is in the Reds' Hall of Fame, and count me in with the people who believe he should be in Cooperstown, even if the story that he was the originator of baseball umpires' left hand for balls, right hand for strikes calls is probably untrue.

RF Elmer Flick of Bedford. He started with the Philadelphia Phillies, and led the NL in RBIs in 1900 before becoming one of the NL players raided by the AL. He led the AL in batting, slugging, on-base percentage and triples in 1905; and in runs, triples and stolen bases in 1906. He also led it in stolen bases in 1904 and triples in 1907. There were no MVP awards or all-star teams in his era, but his lifetime batting average was .313, and his OPS+ a mighty 149.

He never appeared in postseason play, so he can't be remembered that way, and there were no uniform numbers to retire in his time, so there's no number of his on the wall at Progressive Field. But he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and he is honored in the Indians' Hall of Fame in their Heritage Park, so he isn't be completely forgotten.

Honorable Mention to Tommy Henrich of Massillon. He was such a great clutch hitter that Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen nicknamed him Old Reliable. He's probably best known for a strikeout: In Game 4 of the 1941 World Series, he swung and missed for what seemed to be the last out, but Brooklyn Dodger catcher Mickey Owen couldn't hang on to the 3rd strike, and Henrich reached 1st base, starting a Yankee rally that ended with a Series win in the next day's Game 5.

He led the AL in triples in 1947 and '48. In Game 1 of the 1949 Series, also against the Dodgers, Henrich hit a home run to break up a scoreless duel between Allie Reynolds and Don Newcombe, the 1st-ever walkoff homer (as we would now call it) in postseason history. He reached 5 All-Star teams, played on 8 Pennant winners and 7 World Champions from 1937 to 1950. His career OPS+ was 132. He hit 183 home runs despite only playing 11 major-league seasons -- he didn't reach the majors until he was 24 and missed 3 years in the Coast Guard in World War II.

When he died a few months ago at age 96, he was the oldest living ex-Yankee. It's a shame that the Yankees have never given him a Monument Park Plaque.

C Thurman Munson of Canton. AL Rookie of the Year in 1970, MVP in 1976, still the only Yankee ever to win both awards. The 1st Yankee to be awarded the team captaincy since Lou Gehrig. 3 Pennants, 2 World Championships, 7 All-Star Games.

Let me tell you why I love Thurman: In Game 3 of the 1978 ALCS, when the Yankees most needed a home run from him, he hit the longest home run of his career, appropriately enough into Monument Park. Sadly, he would be the next Yankee to be honored there. Number 15 retired.

Utility: Roger Bresnahan of Toledo. Played every position, including pitcher, but best known as a catcher for the New York Giants. A member of their 1905 World Championship teams, he would have made at least 9 All-Star Games had they been played in his time. Lifetime OPS+ of 126. Hall of Fame.

Special Mentions to Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker and his brother Welday Walker of Steubenville, briefly the 1st black players in Major League Baseball before the blacklist came down in 1884; and to Elmer Gedeon of Cleveland, who played 5 games in the outfield for the 1939 Senators, before being killed in World War II.

SP Denton True Young of Newcomerstown. In his first professional tryout, he threw a ball so hard that it smashed through a fence. His manager said it looked like it had been wrecked by a cyclone. So Dent Young became Cyclone Young, later shortened to Cy Young.

We've all heard the words "Cy Young Award" so many times that the man for whom the most valuable pitcher award is named gets lost in the shuffle. So here's the facts: Most career wins, 511; losses, 313; games started, 815; complete games, 749; innings pitched, 7,355; and batters faced, 29,565. Think about that: Nearly 30,000 times, he faced a big-league batter.

Career winning percentage, .618; ERA, 2.63; ERA+, 138; WHIP, 1.130; no-hitters, 3, including the 1st perfect game under the 60-feet-6-inches pitching distance in 1904; and strikeouts, 2,803, most ever until Walter Johnson surpassed him.

He pitched for the NL Cleveland Spiders, the Boston Red Sox (winning the 1st World Series in 1903), and the AL Cleveland Naps (named for Nap Lajoie, and became the Indians in 1915). He was elected to the Hall of Fame in its 2nd class in 1937, and to the MLB All-Century Team in 1999, even though nearly half his career was in the 19th Century.

In Boston, on the campus of Northeastern University, roughly on the site of the pitcher's mound of the Huntington Avenue Grounds, the Red Sox' home before Fenway Park, there is a statue of Young. And his former home in Newcomerstown is a museum in his honor. He pitched before uniform numbers, but I've seen film of him in an old-timers' game wearing Number 29.

SP Richard "Rube" Marquard of Cleveland. When the New York Giants signed him, his bonus was $11,000, a record at the time. The lefty's first few games were poor, and he was called The $11,000 Lemon. Then he found his control, and he became The $11,000 Beauty. He was nicknamed Rube after another superstar lefty pitcher, Rube Waddell. He won 201 games, and is one of the few pitchers to pitch in the World Series for both the Giants (1911, '12 and '13) and the Dodgers (1916 and '20). Hall of Fame, although he played before uniform numbers.

SP Hubert "Dutch" Leonard of Birmingham. That's Ohio, not Alabama, or Michigan. A master of the knuckleball, well before the Ohio-born Niekro brothers, in 1914 he set a major-league record for lowest ERA in a season, 0.96. His ERA+ that season? A touched-by-God 279. He helped the Boston Red Sox win the World Series in 1915, '16 and '18. Finished with a 139-118 record and an ERA+ of 115. Not to be confused with a later pitcher, Emil "Dutch" Leonard of Illinois, also a knuckleballer.

SP Urban Shocker of Cleveland. The Yankees traded him to the St. Louis Browns in 1918, and that proved to be a bit of a mistake: They won the Pennant in 1921, '22 and '23, but not in '20 and '24, and Shocker's pitching nearly got the Browns past the Yanks in '22. He won 27 games in '21, and the Yanks undid one of their worst trades with one of their best, getting him back in '25, helping them to win the '26 Pennant and the '27 World Series.

He compiled a record of 187-117 win an ERA+ of 124. He was 18-6 in his last full season, 1927, before a heart defect killed him at age 37. He's not in the Hall of Fame, but he should be. And what a great name.

SP Phil Niekro of Blaine. He was the master of the knuckleball, the last remaining active player for the Milwaukee Braves, and the 1st great pitcher for the Atlanta edition. He is a member of the 300 Win and 3,000 Strikeout Clubs. With his brother Joe (who doesn't quite make this team), he formed the winningest brother combination ever. Hall of Fame, Number 35 retired, statue outside Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium moved to Turner Field.

The rotation for this Cleveland area team is so strong, it has no room for George Uhle (won 200 games, mostly for his home-State Indians), Jim Bagby Jr. (born in Cleveland while Jim Sr. pitched for them, and pitched pretty well for them himself), Denny Galehouse and Ned Garver (both pitching for the only St. Louis Browns Pennant ever in 1944), 2 great pitchers named Sam Jones (Sad Sam of the 1920s Yankee dynasty and the Sam who in 1959 became the 1st black pitcher who threw a no-hitter in the majors), Dean Chance, Steve Stone, Bob Knepper and Dave Dravecky.

Honorable Mention to Ray Brown of Alger, who pitched for the Homestead Grays of the Negro Leagues, and was elected to the Hall of Fame for his contributions. We may not be able to trust the stats we have available, but in 1938, the Pittsburgh Courier, a black paper, suggested 5 Negro League players to the Pirates in a telegram: Brown, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell and Satchel Paige. That was pretty good company that Brown was in. The telegram was never answered. Brown was already 39 when Jackie Robinson debuted, and he never made it to the majors.

RP Rollie Fingers of Steubenville. He was the fireman -- not the "closer" -- of the 1970s Oakland Athletics dynasty, before becoming the 1st big-money reliever, with the San Diego Padres and then the Milwaukee Brewers, winning the AL MVP in 1981 (28 saves and an ERA of 1.04!).

He was on the mound to close out the World Series for the A's in 1972, '73 and '74, and also pitched for the Brewers in the '82 Series. When he retired, his 341 saves were the most all-time. Both the A's and the Brewers retired his Number 34. He is the only pitcher with a losing record in the Hall of Fame, but who cares about that? Oh yeah, he also had that great handlebar mustache.

The bullpen could also include Dick Drago of Toledo and Brett Tomko of Cleveland.

MGR Walter Alston of Darrtown. One at-bat as a major league player, a strikeout with the 1936 St. Louis Cardinals. But with the Dodgers, in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, 4 World Series (1955, '59, '63 and '65) and 3 other Pennants (add '56, '66 and '74, plus a lost Playoff in '62).