What You're Saying About Tommy John

Given his body of work both on and off the field, the selection of Tommy John as the inaugural inductee of The Hall of Very Good™ was an easy one.

Getting people to talk about was him much easier.  Here’s a smattering of what they had to say.

“I didn't hit that well against Tommy.  He was a real good pitcher and he always kept the ball sinking and down.” - Major League Baseball hit king Pete Rose

“To me, ‘Tommy John surgery’ means every time TJ took the mound and dissected each hitter one by one…on his way to 288 wins!” - Seth Swirsky, author of Baseball Letters, A Fan's Correspondence With His Heroes

“Tommy and I have become good friends over the last 14 years. He and I are both avid golfers and enjoy the game about as much as we do our professions.” - Chicago Bears longsnapper (and Tommy John’s son-in-law) Patrick Mannelly

“The name ‘Tommy John’ obviously brings to mind stories of injuries, lost seasons, recovery times and surgeries.  The operation itself has become so common place that I almost expect it to become part of a minor league career prior to call up these days.” - Baseball Bloggers Alliance president Bill Ivie

“Tommy John surgery is one of the four or five most significant advances in baseball history…which is pretty good considering the actual Tommy John had a helluva career.” - Jonah Keri, lead baseball writer at Grantland.com

“I've always thought John should be in the real Hall of Fame without question, both for the wins and for the operation.” - Mark Whicker, Orange County Register sports columnist

“Congratulations to Tommy for being the inaugural member of The Hall of Very Good.  I’ve been very fortunate to both work and know Tommy.  He is a great friend and has been incredibly supportive of 'A Glove Of Their Own'.” - Bob Salomon, A Gloveof Their Own

Do you have any thoughts on Tommy John?  Feel free to share them below!

Bleacher Creatures Salute Tommy John

When I told my buddy "Bald" Vinny Milano, de facto leader of the famed "Bleacher Creatures", and told him Tommy John was going to be inducted as the inaugural member of The Hall of Very Good™, his response was overwhelming. 

Perhaps it's because the former pitcher played a chunk of his career for the New York Yankees.

Ten More Facts About Tommy John’s Tommy John Surgery

When I caught up with 2012 Hall of Very Good™ inductee Tommy John the other day, he claimed that he and Dr. Frank Jobe were heading to Dodger Stadium to “operate on some pitchers”.

Then we both laughed.  Little did I know that he was probably serious.

After a little digging, Hall contributor Lou Olsen (from the wonderful site Reviewing the Brew) found ten MORE facts about Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery that you might not have known.

• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery has already arranged his own funeral.  He will be bronzed, placed on a black marble base, and cemented right in front of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery doesn't believe in pickling eggs.  Cucumbers are fine…just not eggs.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery owns six different Dairy Queens in California.  He just forgot which ones.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery is a proud sponsor of the US Olympic Shotput team.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery was never married to Olivia Newton-John, contrary to popular belief.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery has been banned from competitive arm wrestling in 39 of these 50 United States.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery also goes by “Thomas Jack”.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery does not know how to swim.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery is wanted for the murder of a one, Funn E. Bone, who has been missing since 1993.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery has filled up two passports, exclusively with trips to Canada and Mexico.

Lou Olsen is the author of the widely popular "John Axford Mustache Facts". You check them out over at his site Reviewing the Brew.

Have you unearthed a fact about Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery?  If so...make it public in the comments section below!

Mark Whicker: Tommy John and Frank Jobe Revolutionized Baseball

His career is dwarfed by his incision.

"It's the ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction while using the Palmaris longus tendon," Tommy John said. "That's why they call it Tommy John surgery."

That is why teenage pitchers, with scarred elbows, should have attended Pasadena Central Library on Sunday and offered thanks.

They could have learned the operation is named after a real live pitcher, one who got 164 of his 288 career victories after exposing his left arm to a knife that never had gone exactly there before.

But it is actually the Frank Jobe surgery.

The Dodgers' orthopedist performed the first one on John in 1974. John thereupon won 20 or more games in three different seasons, and he went 6-3 with a 2.65 ERA in 14 playoff games.

The career that was supposed to end with one faulty pitch on July 17, 1974 wound up lasting 26 years, one short of the all-time record.

On Sunday, John introduced his doctor as Jobe was inducted into the Shrine of the Eternals by the Baseball Relinquary, as were pitchers Jim "Mudcat" Grant and Luis Tiant.

The Shrine recognizes baseball people whose careers were too short or controversial to make the Cooperstown class but are often more influential. Marvin Miller, Fernando Valenzuela and Bill Veeck, to name three.

Both John and Jobe deserve to enter the real Hall. There is no calculating the years, victories and money that they recovered for pitchers.

Just on Sunday, Tommy John alum Ben Sheets made his first start in two years, for the Braves. Two-time patient Chris Capuano rushed into the Dodgers' breach when Chad Billingsley's elbow acted up.

In the final game of the 2012 season, TJ veteran Chris Carpenter won the World Series for the Cardinals. Texas signed 37-year-old closer Joe Nathan, two years removed from Tommy John, last winter.

Until John, a felled pitcher just rested and hoped. Or he kept pitching, and wound up selling insurance.

Now? There are 41 pitchers on major league rosters who have had the surgery in the past 24 months.

"When you add up all the procedures in the United States and Japan, it would have to go well into the thousands," said Dr. Chris Jobe, Frank's son and an orthopedic surgeon at Loma Linda University.

"Sixteen year olds come to see you now. Their parents have the MRI results. You have to explain that Tommy John was a major league pitcher before his surgery."

Has it become routine, like filling a cavity?

Not quite, but Chris Jobe said his dad, who turns 87 today, was performing the surgery in 40 minutes at the end of his career. The first one took three hours, just because it was unplowed ground, if you will.

"But Tommy's attitude was the special thing," Frank Jobe said. "He didn't hesitate. He said, 'Let's do it.'"

Options were gone. Trainer Bill Buhler had actually taped up his elbow, as he would an ankle, to allow John to grunt the ball 60 feet, 6 inches. But John knew he couldn't get major league outs.

Vin Scully watched John run endless, wishful laps in the Astrodome before a game and wondered how John could push this boulder back to normalcy.

Yet John trusted Jobe. The doctor had opened up his elbow in 1972, to clean out bone chips after John had hurt himself sliding. "I was absolutely petrified before that surgery," John said.

Now it was down to cut or run.

Jobe told John that the new surgery "might" restore his career.

"I had been the valedictorian in my high school class," John said. "I knew might was better than never. There was no downside risk."

But Jobe also brought in Herb Stark, a hand surgeon who had performed tendon transfers, and other experts, too.

"That's because I don't know what I'm doing," Jobe said.

"I knew right then that's why I wanted him operating," John said Sunday. "He admitted to being human."

Jobe transferred the Palmaris longus, located in the wrist, and made it into a ligament, figuring it would regenerate itself.

John missed 1975. His first post-op game was a loss, five tentative innings against Atlanta. But he went seven in each of the next three outings and got an L.A. standing ovation when he beat the Pirates on April 26, 1976. "I felt like jumping over the fence," he said.

Jobe had other moments, too. In World War II, he landed in Belgium, on a glider and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He also delivered 200 babies.

"And he published seven books," John said, smiling. "I dug a little deeper and found that one of the titles was 'Fifty Shades Of Orthopedic Surgery.'"

The audience laughed, but hundreds of pitchers know that they're all shades of green.

Mark Whicker is a sports columnist for the Orange County Register.  You can follow him on Twitter at @MWhickerOCR.

Ten Facts About Tommy John’s Tommy John Surgery

When I caught up and congratulated 2012 Hall of Very Good™ inductee Tommy John the other day, we specifically chose NOT to talk about his landmark 1974 surgery.

Sure, it would have been nice to have discussed the 164 wins the man had POST Tommy John surgery…but that would have seemed cliché.

That said, after a little digging, Hall contributor Lou Olsen (from the wonderful site Reviewing the Brew) found ten facts about Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery that you might not have known.

• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery opened the first ever Florist/Butcher Shop in US History.  He said that he wanted to show the ladies his softer side, with the flowers, but also wanted the men to know that he could still chop a pig in half.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery has a license to carry fire arms, but chooses to leave them at home.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery wears socks with his sandals...and doesn't care what you think.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery speaks fluent hummingbird.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery can, and has, beat up your Dad.  And some of his friends.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery was the inspiration for the film, “Rookie of the Year” (this may also be a fact...hard to tell).
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery does not possess the sense of smell.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery has seen eight of the seven wonders of the world...he never speaks of the eight.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery takes his scotch on actual rocks.  No ice necessary.
• Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery has turned down “Dancing with the Stars”, for six straight seasons.

Lou Olsen is the author of the widely popular "John Axford Mustache Facts". You check them out over at his site Reviewing the Brew.

Have you unearthed a fact about Tommy John’s Tommy John surgery?  If so...make it public in the comments section below!

Tommy John Inducted into The Hall of Very Good™

In an effort to celebrate the fifth anniversary of The Hall of Very Good™, Dr. Aaron Perlut from the esteemed American Mustache Institute and Mike Lynch from Seamheads.com kicked off “HOVG Heroes”.

Five weeks later, we’re ready to make good on a promise.

But first, it’s only appropriate to thank the individuals who helped make “HOVG Heroes” a reality.

Dr. Aaron Perlut, Andy Woolley, Bo Rosny, Bob Bleacher, Bob Salomon, Chuck Porter, Curt Hogg, Dan Epstein, David Allan, David Jordan, Dean Hybl, Derek Erdman, Gene Hutmaker, Gordon Holmes, Jeff Montgomery, Jeff Polman, John Parent, John Sharp, Josh Caray, Josh Eisenberg, Kevin Chanel, Lou Olsen, Mario Lanza, Mark Whicker, Mike Clair, Mike Lynch, Nate Aderhold, Norman Quebedeau, Pete Nash, Peter Chen, Ryan Petzar, Sam Fuld, Scott Simkus, Steve Cook, Tim Anderson, Todd Coppernoll, Tom Knuppel Vinny Milano and Will Johnson.

Now, you're in for a treat.

When the idea of a Hall of Very Good induction was conceived, a small group of us came to the consensus that it couldn’t begin without one guy in particular being part of the inaugural class.

And that guy is Tommy John.

Now...quotes!

“You look at two aspects of my career,” John said upon receiving word of his induction.  "You look at 26 years and you figure you’ve got to be doing something to be around for 26 years.  You look at the wins, the complete games, innings pitched…and you couple that with coming back from Tommy John surgery, I think that my name should be up there with anybody.”

“Tommy John surgery is one of the four or five most significant advances in baseball history," Grantland.com's lead baseball writer Jonah Keri said, "which is pretty good considering the actual Tommy John had a helluva career.”

"Tommy was a successful Major League pitcher, falling just shy of marks that would ensure him enshrinement in Baseball's hallowed halls," Baseball Bloggers Alliance president Bill Ivie said.  "He is a loving father, a humanitarian and a lover of the game.  I was ecstatic to hear that he was the inaugural inductee in The Hall of Very Good™."

Here’s what the plaque says: 

TOMMY JOHN

The Hall of Very Good

Inaugural Class of 2012

A sinkerballer with impeccable control, Tommy John's big league career spanned 26 seasons and seven United States presidents.  Both Major League records.

Mid-career, he made history by becoming the game's first "right-handed southpaw" when he had a tendon transplanted from his right forearm to his left elbow to fix a tear that threatened to drive him from baseball.

Despite missing a year-and-a-half to his arm troubles in mid-career, Tommy John won 288 games.  His last at age 46.

So, yeah…July 20, 2012 is “Tommy John Day” here at The Hall of Very Good™.  You’re going to get more Tommy John posts than any other site has ever produced in one day.

Probably.

In all seriousness, it’s with great pleasure that The Hall of Very Good™ inducts Tommy John as its inaugural member.  We’re happy.  Tommy is happy. 

And we hope you’re all happy as well.

HOVG Heroes: Al Reach

PETER NASH on AL REACH

As a young boy, Al Reach peddled newspapers on Broadway and soon after cut his teeth as an amateur ballplayer on the sandlots of Brooklyn in the late 1850s. In the 1860s he was one of the game’s first paid professionals as a member of the Athletic Base Ball Club of Philadelphia and by the close of the nineteenth-century he had become one of the most prominent figures ever connected with the National Pastime. However, nearly a century after his death in 1928, Reach stands in relative obscurity as one of baseball’s forgotten pioneers who Hall of Fame immortality has sadly passed by.

Not only has Al Reach been dissed by the baseball Gods, his name has only appeared recently in the news because rare photos of him were stolen from the New York Public Library’s famous A. G. Spalding Collection and have appeared for sale on eBay. Today’s BBWAA or Veterans Committee members might not know the Reach name from a hole in the wall, but FBI agents tracking his stolen photos online know him well. And not only has Reach been passed over by Cooperstown voters, the Hall of Fame has also lost a rare donated artifact that ties him to early Philadelphia baseball history. Al Reach hasn’t been able to get into the Hall, but an 1870 picture of him sure did make its way out, thanks to some sticky fingers.

This rare cabinet photo of Al Reach was stolen from the NYPL and appeared for sale on eBay, before it ended up in the hands of the FBI.

When the Hall of Fame was founded in the late 1930s a concerted effort was made to identify and honor the pioneers of the game with permanent enshrinement into the newly formed institution. Reach’s contemporaries like brothers Harry and George Wright, Albert Spalding, Henry Chadwick, Candy Cummings and even Alexander Cartwright were honored with bronze plaques in the Cooperstown shrine. It could be argued Reach’s contributions to the game equalled, and in some cases even surpassed, the accomplishments of some of these enshrined Hall of Famers.

A great case for Reach’s deserved enshrinement was made in a SABR National Pastime article, “Philadelphia Baseball’s Unappreciated Founders,” written in 2003 by early-Philly baseball authority Dr. Jerrold Casway. Casway presented a biographical sketch of Alfred J.Reach as a player, team executive and sporting goods magnate whose accomplishments were extraordinary. Born in London in 1840, Reach’s family emmigrated to America in 1841 and ended up settling in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. It was there in the late 1850s that Reach first joined the Jackson Juniors Base Ball Club as a catcher and by 1861 had moved on to the prominent Eckford Base Ball Club as an amateur infielder.

Reach was one of the key members of the 1862 Eckford team leading them to a 14 and 2 record in the NABBP and, having defeated the 1861 champion Atlantics, the Eckfords claimed the 1862 championship. Casway noted that, “Reach was known as the “Scratcher” for his ability of “digging” up hard-hit balls.” Of his prowess in the field he also wrote that “Reach set the standard for playing second base” as one of the first “to play his position mid-way between the bases.”

In 1865, Reach joined the ranks of the very first openly professional players in the game as he accepted a salary of $25 a week to commute to Philadelphia and play for Thomas Fitzgerald’s Athletic Base Ball Club. Another Philadelphia baseball historian, Tom Shiffert, said of the pioneer in his book Base Ball in Philadelphia: A History of the Early Game, “Reach got to Philadelphia for the 1865 season, and never looked back, establishing himself as the premier individual name in Philadelphia baseball for the next 60-odd years, or at least until Connie Mack started winning pennants with regularity.” During his career as an Athletic player, Reach excelled on the field offensively and defensively putting up numbers that were always near the league leaders. In 1871, Reach led the Athletics to the first National Association championship and as Shiffert also noted, was named as the best second baseman on theNew York Clipper’s All-Star team.

In 1874, he acted as the player-manager of the Athletics in England during baseball’s first European tour, but three years later in 1877 his playing career was over and he established his sporting goods business in Philadelphia.

Reach would end up becoming the founding President of the Phillies franchise of the National League and also partnered with the likes of Ben Shibe and A. G. Spalding to further revolutionize the sporting goods industry. In addition, Reach was instrumental in helping his partner Ben Shibe establish the first American League club in Philadelphia, Connie Mack’s A’s. If that wasn’t enough for his baseball resume, Casway also describes Reach’s skills as “an innovative ball park designer” who enhanced the fan experience in the city of brotherly love. Alongside Harry Wright, Reach is, no doubt, one of the most significant figures in the history of Philadelphia baseball.

In an interview last week Casway expressed his opinion that Reach was, perhaps, the most important. Said Casway, “Al Reach was a seminal ballplayer, successful manager, franchise president and sporting goods manufacturer. He was among the first professional ballplayers, and until his retirement in the mid-1870s, was considered the game’s best second baseman. He led the Athletics on the first overseas exhibition tour and became the Philadelphia Phillies first president. Reach, together with Ben Shibe changed the nature of the sporting goods industry. He and Shibe pioneered the (manufacturing of) the modern baseball.”

An argument could be made for Reach to enter the Hall singularly as either a player an executive or a pioneer. Considering his career in its totality, its hard to believe he’s been overlooked. Whatever baseball politics played a part in the Hall of Fame committee’s overlooking his accomplishments are unknown.

The 1870 Philadelphia Athletics CDV produced by Gihon is extremely rare. Here are seven of the known examples that have survived.

One of the few surviving artifacts to document Al Reach’s career as a standout player for the Philadelphia Athletics is an 1870 carte-de-visite card featuring the portraits of Reach and his teammates. Produced in 1870 by Philadelphia based photographer A. Gihon, the card is one of the earliest visual representations of Reach’s career as a ballplayer and the card is of the utmost rarity with less than ten examples known to exist.

Back in 1984, the Society for American Baseball Research conducted a photo shoot at the Baseball Hall of Fame for a publication slated as a photographic “Review of Baseball History in the Nineteenth Century. A copy of the 1870 Athletics CDV was part of the Hall’s collection and was documented in the photo shoot on a Kodak contact sheet along with many other rare images housed at the National Baseball Library. The SABR contact sheet was marked on the front and reverse as “HOF-9.”

The same CDV photographed at the Hall of Fame in 1984, with its unique scratch visible on this contact sheet image (left), appeared several years later in a book published by Mark Rucker (right).

The CDV captured on film at the Hall featured an imperfection unique to this particular card, a fine scratch on the bottom of the albumen print affixed to the cardboard mount. The same card, with the exact same imperfection, appeared in the 1988 book, Base Ball Cartes by Mark Rucker, however, it was not credited to the Hall of Fame. Like many other images featured in the book, the card was listed as part of Mark Rucker’s collection.

The same card that was originally photographed at the HOF appeared for sale in Robert Edward Auctions 1994 auction catalog.

In 1994, the same card appeared again as an offered lot in a Robert Edward Auctions sale. The auction description noted the rare card had a “single insignificant scratch in brown background.” It was One of the finest of the very few examples of this important card in existence.” The auction also noted “an extremely small abrasion” on the card’s reverse. It is likely that handwritten Hall of Fame accession numbers were defaced on the reverse of the card.

The image of the 1870 CDV is strong evidence of a Hall of Fame heist. Haulsofshame.com notified the Hall of Fame of the evidence of the 1870 Athletics photo theft last year but Hall officials refused to comment.

Since the early 1980s the Hall has fallen victim to massive thefts of rare documents and photographs from the National Baseball Library collections, but they have never vigorously pursued recovery of the donated artifacts they were entrusted to safeguard. Ex-Hall of Fame officials and employees have confirmed that recovery efforts have been thwarted to avoid what one official called a “potential PR nightmare.”

So, will the kidnapped CDV featuring the portraits of Al Reach and his fellow Athletics ever make its way back into the Hall of Fame archives? If it does make it home to Cooperstown it would be fitting if a bronze relief of “Pops” Reach was already hanging in the Gallery of Plaques.

Until that day comes, Mr. Reach will have to enjoy his extended stay in the Hall of Very Good.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Nash joined the Society of American Baseball Research at the age of 12 as an avid baseball fan and card collector. His early research intensified his interest in the pioneers of the game like Harry Wright, Albert Spalding and Henry Chadwick, and he moved from collecting bubble gum cards to rare and unusual baseball artifacts of the 19th century. By the time he graduated magna cum laude from Columbia College in 1989 he was known as the recording artist Prime Minister Pete Nice of the Def Jam Recordings group 3rd Bass. Still, even as he toured the world performing with the likes of hip-hop artists Public Enemy, De La Soul and LL Cool J, he managed to keep up with his baseball research and collecting, becoming more involved in the growing baseball memorabilia business.

But from 1989 to 1995 Nash experienced the dark side of the baseball collectibles field as he discovered, with the help of his friend and world renowned handwriting expert Charles Hamilton, that close to a quarter million dollars worth of materials he’d purchased were either bogus or stolen goods. Some of the stolen items were believed to originate from the collections of the New York Public Library and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY. Over the past fifteen years, Nash has conducted his own personal investigation into the hobby, which now constitutes the backdrop for his compelling exposé on the fraud-ridden industry. In particular, Nash has succeeded in unraveling some of the hobby’s greatest mysteries involving massive thefts from the historical baseball collections housed at the New York Public Library, Boston Public Library and National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Nash is the author of two baseball history books, Baseball Legends of Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery (Arcadia 2003) and Boston’s Royal Rooters (Arcadia, 2005) as well as the writer and producer of the 2007 Emmy-nominated baseball documentary, Rooters: Birth of Red Sox Nation. In 2008, Nash re-opened Nuf Ced McGreevy’s 3rd Base Saloon at 911 Boylston St. in Boston, MA.

You can visit Nash's site online at Hauls of Shame.

HOVG Heroes: Willie McGee

GORDON HOLMES on WILLIE McGEE

My family lived in Jakarta, Indonesia for a couple of years when I was a kid. It was a wonderful experience and I wouldn’t trade it for anything, but there was a downside…it created a two-year gap in my pop culture knowledge. When I was preparing to return to the United States in 1986, terms like ‘Crane Kick,’ ‘Decepticon,’ and ‘Flux Capacitor’ meant nothing to me. Worse than that, I figured the ‘Rah Rah’ Cardinals homerism that played so well when I was in second grade wasn’t going to fly with the more worldly fifth graders.

Suddenly it wasn’t enough to know that Ozzie Smith was the greatest human being who’d ever lived, or that Vince Coleman was the fastest man on the face of the planet, or that Jack Clark hit roughly a billion homeruns. Now people were talking about runs batted in, earned run averages, and (gasp!) even players from other teams.

So, unwilling to let me lack of statistical baseball knowledge turn me into a social pariah, I bought as many packages of Topps baseball cards as my meager allowance would allow. My foolproof plan consisted of two parts; first I’d hold onto the cards until I was older and become ridiculously wealthy, and second I’d study the back of each card as if I was preparing for some kind of baseball SATs.

And study those cards I did. I even went so far as to memorize any number in italics. You see, italics were good, italics proved that you were the leader of your league in that particular stat. It was during one cramming session that I noticed that the Cardinals’ center fielder had enjoyed quite a 1985 campaign. This unparalleled talent had three (count ‘em!) sets of italics in one season. Further research went on to show that this freak of nature had even been named the National League’s Most Valuable Player. My young mind was blown. The best player in the NL played for my beloved Cardinals and his name wasn’t Ozzie Smith, Vince Coleman, or Jack Clark? How is that even possible?

Needless to say, I was sold. I couldn’t wait to return to the states and watch the juggernaut that is Willie McGee prowl Busch Stadium’s outfield. The first game I was able to attend almost managed to live up to expectations. Ozzie Smith pulled off one of his trademark diving catches, Vince Coleman stole second and third base on consecutive pitches, and Jack Clark went deep. But Willie? Less than impressive.

Over the years, the real-life Willie McGee never could quite match the one in my Lik-Em-Aid-feuled imagination. But eventually I was able to appreciate him for what he was; a solid player who was always good for strong defense, speed on the basepaths, and some occasional power.

In fact, whenever the term ‘Hall of Very Good’ is brought up, he’s always the first name to pop into my head. And while I do regret never being able to witness Willie during his MVP season, the Beverly Hills mansion I purchased with the proceeds from the sale of my collection of 1986 Topps baseball cards does provide some solace.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gordon Holmes provides "Survivor" coverage and various other stuff for XFINITY.com. In his free time, he posts random musings on his personal site, morewhatnot.com. He is also an unapologetic St. Louis Cardinals fanboy who doesn't buy into the "Best Fans in Baseball" business, but does believe that Cardinals fans are superior to Phillies fans in every conceivable way.

 

HOVG Heroes: John Donaldson

SCOTT SIMKUS on JOHN DONALDSON

If you go back to the days before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier, you'll discover a treasure of forgotten baseball talent, performing on the fringe. Athletes who, because they had no other alternative, loaded up inside rattle trap cars, criss-crossing the nation, playing baseball for peanuts, in small towns and big cities alike.

African-American pitcher John Donaldson was born in Glasgow, Missouri on February 20, 1891, and became a folk hero in his own time; a left-hander with a blazing fastball and wicked curve, known for racking up unprecedented strikeout numbers in the early part of the twentieth century. In 1916, he was credited with 240 strikeouts over a 12 game stretch.

He was Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and Johnny Appleseed, dressed up in a flannel baseball costume.

Donaldson first rose to prominence with J.L. Wilkinson's All Nations ballclub during the teens, pitching against small town clubs in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and the Dakotas. The All Nations were an interesting attraction, and as their name implies, their roster featured players from around the globe: Asians, Cubans, blacks, whites. A couple seasons, they carried two female players; one of whom, known as "Carrie Nation," anchored first base, dazzling fans with her steady glove work.          

They were a good club who, playing against mainly amateur competition, won more than 70% of their games, season after season. But it was Donaldson who really carried the club. He not only dominated with his arm, but hit well and played a steady centerfield when not on the mound, grabbing the majority of headlines. He was a regional sensation whose exploits were celebrated in newspaper wire stories across the country, in the years before the actual Negro leagues were formed.

Owner J.L. Wilkinson got out of the barnstorming baseball business during World War I and Donaldson took his services to several of the better known independent all-black clubs of the era, including the Indianapolis ABCs, Brooklyn Royal Giants and Detroit Stars. Finally getting an opportunity to compete against big league caliber black clubs, including top notch pitchers such as Smokey Joe Williams and Cannonball Dick Redding, Donaldson fared okay, finishing with a record around .500, and an ERA and rate stats (k/9, h/9, bb/9) slotting him firmly among the top black pitchers in the country.

When the Negro National League was formed in 1920, Donaldson returned to the Midwest, rejoining J.L. Wilkinson's new team, the Kansas City Monarchs. Curiously, Donaldson emerged as the team's fourth starter, behind Rube Curry, Sam Crawford and future Hall of Famer Joe Rogan. He finished 6-5 and his 3.54 era was highest among the starters. Donaldson made his biggest contributions as the team's starting centerfielder, batting .295 with a team-high 5 home runs in 75 games. The next season, the 30-year-old Donaldson appeared in 101 games, mostly in the outfield, batting .284 with a team-high 20 sacrifice hits. He pitched sparingly (and poorly), going 0-3 with a 4.97 era.

In 1922, Donaldson appeared in 25 games for the Monarchs (none as a pitcher), then left to spearhead Wilkinson's new side venture: a reincarnation of the old All Nations club, playing the same bush league amateurs as the original edition. Although Donaldson was rumored to have suffered some arm troubles*, he was immediately back on the mound, going 13-5 in games thus far uncovered by researcher Pete Gorton.

*It should be noted that NO one has yet found any confirmation (or even any evidence) of arm trouble for J.D., not in game stories or interviews. Its one of those assumptions which has been passed down from one historian to the next, based on (I believe) what was a rather pedestrian record in the official black leagues.

The next season, after another brief non-pitching stint with the Monarchs, Donaldson was shipped out to run Wilkie’s All Nations group again, which now served as the unofficial minor league team for the big club. Future Negro league stars William Bell and Newt Allen played for the All Nations at this time. Donaldson was the star attraction and manager of the group, marking what may have been the first time an African-American skipper was in charge of white professional ballplayers. According to Gorton’s figures, Donaldson went 18-3 in games that have been thus far uncovered.

In 1924, Donaldson bolted the Wilkinson-owned clubs, signing with an all-white semipro club in Minnesota. Although he’d make brief, periodic returns to the Monarchs in the 1930s, when he was well past his prime, Donaldson basically spent the rest of his active career playing in Minnesota, with an assortment of mostly white semi-pros.

John Donaldson’s career has had its own warming and cooling periods, in terms of how serious baseball fans and analysts view his accomplishments.

In 1952, five years after Jackie Robinson broke the Major League color barrier, the African-American Pittsburgh Courier newspaper ran a poll honoring the veterans of the old Negro baseball leagues. They compiled several all star clubs featuring the greatest black ball players from before integration, based on the input of 31 former players, team officials and sports writers. John Donaldson was selected as one of the top five pitchers of all-time, alongside Smokey Joe Williams, Satchel Paige, Bullet Joe Rogan and Bill Foster.

In 1970, author Robert Peterson featured Donaldson among the top twenty-five or so black ballplayers of all time in his watershed book, Only the Ball Was White. Then in 2006, Donaldson was included on the short list of candidates being considered for induction into the Hall of Fame during a special election honoring blackball veterans, but failed to gain enough support for enshrinement.

Donaldson went from hot, to less hot, to cold in a span of about 50 years. What’s interesting to me is during the entire time-- in fact, from the year Donaldson basically retired from major black baseball (1923) until to 2006, there was very little statistical information to verify or debunk the mythology.

The good news is a lot has changed in the last five years, thanks in large part to the efforts of baseball researcher Pete Gorton of Minneapolis. He’s assembled a team of baseball sleuths, running what they call The Donaldson Network, whose work is hosted at http://johndonaldson.bravehost.com.

Using data from the TDN, I've rebuilt one of Donaldson's prime seasons, before the Negro leagues existed. In 1914, when he was 23 and the ace of the All-Nations barnstorming troupe, he rolled up a 23-12 record with a 1.15 era, 304 innings pitched, 135 hits allowed, 72 base on balls and, wait for it, 509(!) strikeouts. Granted, he was pitching against mostly farm boys from small town teams in Iowa and Nebraska, but still. For comparisons sake, his teammate Jose Mendez (who IS in the Hall of Fame,by the way) went only 10-4 with a 3.56 era and 126 strikeouts in 134 innings pitched, although he was said to be battling a dead arm during this period. (Mendez's arm problems have been confirmed as accurate)

Using the latest and most accurate Negro league data, Donaldson finished his major black baseball career with a 22-22 mark and a fine 2.82 era. Although he regularly fanned 15-plus against white town ball clubs, he only struck out 5 men per nine innings in the black big leagues.

Against the stiffer competition, quite a bit of the luster is lost from Donaldson's glow. A very good pitcher? Yes. A Hall of Famer? Probably not.

But when all is said and done, when all the box scores have been collected and the figures added up, it's likely Donaldson will exceed 500 wins against all levels of competition. And more than 6,000 career strikeouts isn't out of the question (he fanned more than 500 several times before World War I), and there are already dozens of no-hitters which have been gathered up.

There HAS to be a place for a man like John Donaldson. And that place is probably the Hall of the Very Good.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Simkus is editor of a subscription baseball e-zine called the Outsider Baseball Bulletin.  He also served as the lead consultant on the Negro league set issued by the Strat-O-Matic Game Company in 2009. His work has been written about in Sports Illustrated, The New York Times and the USA Today. He can be found on twitter at @scottsimkus1.

HOVG Heroes: Lou Whitaker

JOHN PARENT on LOU WHITAKER

"It hurt my family more than it hurt me. I said a long time ago, if I didn't make it in my first time, don't bring my name back up."

And they haven't. Yet.

Noted baseball historian Bill James rates Lou Whitaker as the thirteenth greatest second baseman ever to play in the major leagues. For parts of 19 seasons, Whitaker took the field alongside shortstop Alan Trammell for the Detroit Tigers, forming the longest-tenured double-play combination in the game's history.

Trammell and Whitaker were thought of together more than Stockton and Malone; they even appeared together as guest stars in an episode of “Magnum P.I.”, but the while they each carved out outstanding Major League careers, I think the presence of Whitaker hurts Trammell's Hall of Fame case a bit and I think playing next to Trammell for so long overshadows Whitaker as well.

As much as you cannot mention one without the other, Whitaker's career stands on its own.

In the history of the game, there have been two -- just two -- second baseman ever to play in at least 2000 games at the position while also collecting at least 2000 hits and amassing at least 200 home runs. Those players are Lou Whitaker and Hall of Famer Joe Morgan.

Sweet Lou began his career with a September call-up in 1977, a mere two years after the Tigers had used a fifth-round pick on him out of a Martinsville, Virginia high school. Whitaker started at second base, hitting second in the order, in the second game of a double-header at Boston on September 9. It was his Major League debut. In the top of the first, Whitaker lined a single off Boston starter Reggie Cleveland, and he wasted little time in adding his first Major League stolen base the same inning. By April of 1978, the Tigers had turned the everyday job over to Whitaker.

Whitaker, who had connected for only five minor league home runs before his first trip to Detroit, managed only three as a rookie in 1978, but fueled by a .361 On Base Percentage, Whitaker impressed the writers enough for them to award him with Rookie of the Year honors. That season he walked 61 times versus just 65 strikeouts. It was a sign of things to come.

In the early 1980s, the Tigers were a young, but extremely talented club. Along with Trammell and Whitaker, Detroit had brought outfielder Kirk Gibson, catcher Lance Parrish, and right hander Jack Morris up to the big leagues all within a season of one another.

A bottom-feeder for most of the 1970s, suddenly the Tigers were once again a club to be reckoned with and Whitaker was a big part of the reason why.

In 1982, playing at age-25, and already his fifth full year in the big leagues, Whitaker suddenly began to show some pop in his left handed bat. Coming into that year, Whitaker had amassed over 2000 plate appearances and had cleared the wall 12 times.

His career slugging percentage coming into 1982 was a paltry .344, or lower than the career numbers offered by guys like Luis Castillo, Juan Pierre, and Will Rhymes. That season, however, Whitaker produced his first season with more than 20 doubles.  He matched a career-best mark with eight triples, and he cleared the fence 15 times in producing a slugging percentage of .434 - nearly 100 points higher than his career average.

It wasn't an outlier season for Whitaker, however, extra-base power became his new normal.

In an era where middle infielders were often all glove and no bat, Whitaker began producing what were eye-popping numbers. If we consider the Steroid Era to have started somewhere around 1992, we'll use that as the cut-off point for Sweet Lou. In the 11 season between 1982 and 1992, Whitaker never hit fewer than 12 home runs in a season, maintained a slugging percentage of .442 during that span and produced an .802 OPS.

Let's not forget, we're talking about a period in baseball (specifically the 1980s) where we went 14 seasons between 50-home run hitters, where Fred McGriff once lead the National League by hitting 35 home runs in a season, and where Ryne Sandberg was widely considered the best offensive second baseman in the game.

It wasn’t only Trammell that stole the spotlight; Whitaker played in Sandberg’s shadow as well.

Sandberg, for what it's worth, posted an OPS of .809 during those same 11 seasons (including a MVP season and a 40-homer season), but Whitaker posted the higher OBP, higher adjusted OPS, walked far more often, and struck out far fewer times.

Unlike Sandberg and many other "elite" second basemen, Whitaker never really had that one explosive season where he piled up 8-10 WAR. His best early-career campaign was probably the 1983 season when he set a career-high in batting average and posted a slash line of .320/.380/.457/.837. In

1991, Whitaker completed his evolution as a hitter, setting a career-high in both slugging and OPS. That season, he posted twice as many walks (90) as strikeouts (45).

Whitaker's consistency was his calling card. During the course of his career, only four players worked more walks, yet Whitaker appeared no higher than seventh in walk totals in any given season.

From 1978-1995, only ten players collected more hits than Whitaker did, and all ten of them are in the Hall of Fame, yet Sweet Lou managed 200 in a season just once and more than 160 only two other times.

During his career, only four players (again, all of the Hall of Famers) amassed more WAR than did Whitaker, though he managed a 6+ WAR season only twice and never higher than 6.5.

In terms of his place in history, Whitaker is often overlooked. Despite his career comparing so favorably to that of Sandberg, and their careers spanned almost the exact same seasons, it was Sandberg who got all the press. While Whitaker was going to five all-star games for the AL, Sandberg had a strangle-hold on the NL squad, making 10 appearances. Despite a reputation as a solid to above-average defender, Whitaker won only three gold gloves and despite his consistent success at the plate, Sweet Lou won only four silver slugger awards. His name appeared in the MVP voting only once.

Sadly, when it came time for the BBWAA to cast their 2001 Hall of Fame ballots, Whitaker's first season of eligibility, he was left off of 500 of the 515 ballots cast. His total of just 2.9 percent of the vote meant he would drop off the ballot for future consideration.

2001 wasn't that long ago, but it was a lifetime when it comes to the advancement of how we view baseball. That year, Steve Garvey garnered 34.2% of the vote. His career OPS, as a first baseman mind you, was .775. Whitaker's was .789 at a position where offense is almost viewed as a bonus.

Unfortunately, in the seasons leading up to Whitaker's lone appearance on a Hall of Fame ballot, baseball was in the middle of the offensive explosion of the Steroid Era. In the seven seasons between 1995 and 2001, there were 27 instances of a second baseman hitting at least 20 home runs in one campaign. In the previous 15 seasons combined, there were only 17 instances and the majority of those came from Sandberg (five times) and Whitaker (four). In short, just as the writers were getting ready to consider the merits of Sweet Lou, suddenly his power numbers didn't look so great when guys like Bret Boone and Rich Aurilia are hitting 37 bombs in a year.

Many times, Hall of Fame voters talk about the eye-test. They use this term to describe how a player looked in the moment; how much he may or may not have dominated in his time or at his position. Jim Rice didn't have the raw numbers compared to other Hall of Fame outfielders, but he was dominant for a short period of time and that eventually carried him into the Hall.

Sandberg's career, take away the awards, is one of a few seasons of dominance and a host of decent to very good campaigns. Whitaker's career may not have had the peaks that Sandberg's had, but it also had fewer valleys. Sandberg played 16 seasons and accumulated 62.6 WAR according to Fangraphs. That works out to 3.91 WAR per season. Sandberg was inducted to the Hall of Fame in his third year on the ballot.

Roberto Alomar, who was inducted in his second year on the ballot after fans and writers alike were enraged that he wasn't a first-ballot guy, had exactly three seasons with more WAR than Whitaker's best campaign. Alomar played 17 seasons and amassed 68 WAR. That averages 4.0 WAR per season.

Whitaker played in 19 seasons if you count his 11-game cameo in 1977. That season he was worth -0.3 WAR. For his career, Whitaker was worth a total of 74.3 WAR and including that 11-game cup of coffee as a full season, he averaged 3.91 WAR per season.  Or the exact same total per year as Sandberg.

Remove that 1977 season and Whitaker's 18 year average was 4.14 WAR per year.

Sweet Lou wasn't the best second baseman of all-time; not by a long shot. He wasn't the most gifted fielder, though he was often very good. He wasn't a tremendous hitter, though he hit tremendously at times. He showed up every season, stayed relatively healthy and was remarkably consistent and very productive for a very long time.

Only 18 second basemen have been elected to baseball's Hall of Fame and only three in the game's history have more career home runs than Whitaker, who never hit more than 28 in a season. His total of 2369 hits would place him ahead of nine of those Hall inductees.

Only seven second basemen in history have accumulated as much WAR as Whitaker did in his career; all seven are in Cooperstown. Among those with fewer WAR are Sandberg and Alomar, Hall of Famers Nellie Fox and Joe Gordon, and future Hall of Famer Craig Biggio.

WAR may not be the be-all, tell-all stat but it does do a pretty good job of encapsulating the all around play of a given ballplayer. Going back to 1876, only 60 players, ever, at any position, have earned more career WAR than Whitaker did. Sixty. By the single most inclusive stat we have at our disposal, Whitaker was worth more wins than all but sixty players ever. Sandberg waited three years to get the Hall call. Alomar just two.

Lou Whitaker got one turn on the ballot and if not for a rules change would have never gotten another chance. Fortunately, the Veteran's Committee has an opportunity to right the wrong of the BBWAA when they can consider Whitaker for enshrinement in 2016.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Parent is the Senior Director of Human Resources for the FanSided Network. His writing appears semi-regularly at Call to the Pen, FanSided's flagship baseball site. You can reach Parent via email or through Twitter. 

HOVG Heroes: Toad Ramsey

MICHAEL CLAIR on TOAD RAMSEY

Think back, if you can, to the 1880s.

In this quaint, pre-Jitterbug-and-automobile era, baseball was in its fledgling state, bearing little resemblance to the product we have today. Not only did the game not yet have a term for sacrifice bunts (I’m guessing that because every player was white, there was no need for sportswriters to figure out who was “gritty”), baseball lacked the great equalizer between athletes and non-athletes: the knuckleball.

Fortunately, Toad Ramsey arrived on the scene in 1885 to change all that.

Ramsey, whose given name was Thomas, earned his nickname by being a tub of goo that quite literally looked “like a toad.” Which is quite an accomplishment considering that Hot Pockets and cookie butter were still decades from being invented.  He was also the world’s first baseball magician; the first player to throw those floating, flitting, cross-dimensional pitches known as The Knuckleball.

Just as Bruce Wayne needed to lose his parents to become a crime fighter and John Henry Kellogg needed to give enemas to sanitarium patients so he could invent corn flakes, Ramsey had to undergo personal tragedy to ascend to his pitching throne. While working as a bricklayer, Ramsey sliced the tendon of his index finger with a trowel, forcing him to hold the baseball with the tip of his finger. No longer able to grip a baseball like the rest of his much more boring contemporaries, Ramsey now had two distinct “curves” as they were called, for the pre-20^th century mind just couldn’t comprehend the sheer awesomeness of the term, “knuckleball.”

As described in the January 6, 1923 Youngstown Vindicator:

“The ball would leave the hand and go on a straight line to the plate, then suddenly shoot down. Ramsey has almost perfect control of this curve and threw it with as much ease and confidence as most hurlers possess when they slam through straight ones. Ramsey’s other curve left his hand in exactly the same manner, but would fly off at a sharp angle just as the batsman would wing at it. Ramsey’s curve was pronounced by experts to be the perfect demonstration of rotating a sphere.”

And that “curve” was just so good, so unstoppable, that batters struck out at a dizzying pace despite the rule book requiring pitchers to show the ball before the pitch and with batters getting four strikes in each at-bat. With his futuristic offering, Ramsey struck out 499 batters in 1886 (albeit in 588.2 innings) followed by a league leading 355 in 1887, including 17 against the Cleveland Blues on June 21 of that year.  Of course, the Blues went 39-92 and featured a player by the name of Scrappy Carroll who hit .171 in his Major League career, but Ramsey is not to blame for the Blues’ roster construction.

 

In addition to striking out batters by the bushel-load, and forever changing the face of the game, Ramsey was also the most intensely humble man you would ever meet. One night, while checking into a hotel, a fan told him that he should get a good night’s sleep because the opposition would “take some of the conceit out of you tomorrow.” Most men would have ignored this affront or perhaps offered a hearty “Fuck off,” but Ramsey was not most people. Instead, Ramsey grabbed the man and said:

“Take that back. Take it back, or I’ll choke the life out of you. If I thought there was one drop of conceit in me I’d cut off my left arm.”

Oh yeah, did I neglect to mention that Ramsey was once arrested for not paying his bar bill? Because he did that, too. But I’m guessing that he was just too darn humble to alert the bartender of his outstanding debt. Of course, Ramsey is also credited as the inventor of the “Toad Ramsey cocktail” in which he dropped a shot of whiskey into a pint of beer and was known to imbibe up to three in a day. But hey, he’s also an inventor, that’s something!

The final proof that Toad Ramsey may indeed have been baseball’s equivalent of Nikola Tesla and/or was some kind of baseball terminator was his belief in BABIP.

“If I yield up a groover and the fellow at bat gives it a slap and it goes to short, who fields it to first in time, why is that an out for the baseman and an assist for shortstop, and all right for me, in a manner of speaking. But look at you—if that shortstop had been playing a slightly different position, and the ball had got by him, it would have counted as a hit off me. That’s funny as after the ball left my hands I had no further control over it.”

1.)    We need to call more pitches “groovers.”

2.)    The idea for BABIP was not birthed until Voros McCracken stumbled upon it in 2001. Which was also the year that the computers were supposed to rise up and rebel against us. How would Toad Ramsey know about the concept unless a bordering universe, which was destroyed by Y2K, sent Ramsey back in time as their last, great hope for survival?

So for all you hard-living, sabermetrically-inclined baseball fans who enjoy watching RA Dickey embarrass muscle-bound baseball-crushing mutants by throwing up some floaters, remember this man. Because modern society would not have been possible if not for the corpulently humble, rotundly irascible, Toad Ramsey.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michael Clair is a writer and comic living in Los Angeles. He can be found at Old Time Family Baseball and on Twitter @ClairBearAttack. He spends a lot of time considering the viability of fictional characters breaking through into our plane of existence.

HOVG Heroes: Nick Adenhart

 TIM ANDERSON on NICK ADENHART

One in every 25,000 people becomes a professional athlete.

The odds are slim. Those who look past the numbers, or at the stat as a challenge, employing hard work and dedication as tools for success, however, are the ones. Growing up in a town barely inhabiting 1,500 residents, nearly 80 miles northwest of a major city, the dream of becoming a professional athlete seems that much more impossible. In 2003, a major league pitching talent was developing in front of Williamsport, Maryland's eyes.

Before his junior year of high school, 16-year old right-handed pitcher Nick Adenhart was named the top junior prospect by Baseball America. Pitching to a 6-0 record with an ERA barely above one, Adenhart lived-up to hype and gained even more by being named the Maryland Gatorade Player of the Year.

One in nine Major League pitchers received Tommy John surgery, according to USA Today research in 2003.

Committed to play baseball at the University of North Carolina, Adenhart posted a 5-1 record with a 0.73 ERA and 2.2 strikeouts per inning entering the final game of his senior season. With his draft stock rising, Adenhart began to set his sights on the Majors. In Baseball America's Class of 2004 Prospect Rankings, Adenhart was listed number one in the nation, ahead of current MLB pitchers Gio Gonzalez, Phil Hughes, Yovani Gallardo, and David Price, as well as position players Matt Wieters, Dexter Fowler, Mark Trumbo, and Billy Butler.

While pitching his final game in front of reportedly a dozen scouts, Adenhart felt a pop in his elbow while facing the third batter of the game; an injury that ultimately lead to Tommy John surgery, dropping him from the projected number one overall pick to 413th by the Anaheim Angels, prompting him to forgo his scholarship from UNC.

Pitching through the minor league affiliates of the Angels, Adenhart quickly became a serious major league talent again. Ironically, the curveball that dropped him from first to 413th was tearing up the minors, being voted the best in the Angels organization in three consecutive seasons.

One in roughly six minor league players reach the Majors.

As the youngest pitcher on an active Major League roster, 22-year old Adenhart made his big league debut against the Oakland Athletics. Lasting only two innings, Adenhart surrendered five earned runs on three hits and five walks. Adenhart finished the 2008 season with only three starts, collecting a 1-0 record with 12 innings pitched, 18 hits and 13 walks allowed, only four strikeouts, and 9.00 ERA.

In an interview with Baseball America, published April 6th, 2009, Adenhart spoke of his miserable 2008 season and his hopes for 2009. “I got called up, and I was realizing a dream. I felt like I had to not give up any runs and throw a shutout every time out and wow everybody. I put pressure on myself. That was enough of that. I'm just having fun now,” said Adenhart. Fans, the Angels, and Adenhart himself had high expectations for his 2009 season.

Making the club out of spring, Adenhart earned the third spot in the Angels' rotation and a start against the Oakland Athletics on April 8th in Anaheim. Pitching with an assumed chip on his shoulder, – a chip with the memory of the two-inning, five-run, five-walk debut against the A's – Adenhart pitched six shutout innings, striking out five in a no decision.

"I battled early and it felt good to get out of some jams," said Adenhart postgame.

One in three people will be involved in an alcohol-related accident in their lifetime.

As a passenger in a vehicle driven by a friend after the game, Adenhart and two others were killed while a fourth was injured when a drunk driver ran a red light and struck the car containing the pitcher, sending it into a telephone pole. The driver, a 22-year old with a DUI already on his record, received the maximum sentence: 51 years to life in prison.

One in one can prevent drunk driving.

Despite the obvious dangers of drunk driving, the statistics are staggering. Nearly three-fourths of convicted drunk drivers continue to drive on a suspended license while those who have yet to be convicted of a DUI have driven drunk an average of 80 times prior.

There are many services available to prevent other drunk driving fatalities and injuries; do not underestimate the power of preventing a friend from driving drunk, or even driving tipsy. One friend – one person – could have saved Adenhart's life. And the life of his friend. And the life of his other friend. And the life of his injured friend. And the life of the driver that is now spending his life in prison. Alternatives to driving when drunk are unlimited.

Taxiserviceusa.com offers a directory of over a thousand taxi services for all fifty states and public transportation is available throughout all major cities.

Major League Baseball is also doing their part in preventing fans from driving drunk after games. Along with numerous shuttles and transportation services to and from the games that can be found on each team's website, every stadium offers a program that allows fans to receive free beverages with their pledge to be a designated driver that night. Also, alcohol sales stop after the seventh inning at all ballparks.

For more information on how you can save lives through drunk driving prevention, visit adcouncil.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Anderson is an 18-year-old that you may have spotted before in the bleachers of Camden Yards.  When he isn't chasing home runs in leftfield, Anderson aspires to be a journalist.  You can read more from him at Baseball and Things as well as over at The Diamonds Edge.