My birthday is October 4th, which means that while it usually is just after the season ends, sometimes it falls on the final weekend of the season. Recently, I was curious if there were any games played the day I was born, so I did a little research.
It turns out that the only game played that day was game two of the ALCS between a pair of 101-win squads: the Orioles and the A's. Baltimore won 5-1 behind Mike Cuellar, with Brooks Robinson, Boog Powell & Elrod Hendricks hitting home runs. The win pushed the O's to a 2-0 series lead, and they would finish off the sweep the next day in Oakland.
More interesting than that though, was something else I noticed. Less than a week earlier at Shea Stadium in New York, the Mets hosted the Cardinals in what was the second-to-last game of the season for each team. With both teams already eliminated
from pennant contention, it wouldn't seem to be all that noteworthy of a game.
What made the game particularly interesting to me looking back at it almost 50 years later was the two starting pitchers: Starting for the Cardinals was their big southpaw, Steve Carlton. Going for the Mets was their young flame-throwing righthander, Nolan Ryan. It would be the last game either man would pitch for his team, with both of them getting traded in the off-season. They would eventually become the two greatest strikeout pitchers in MLB history!
The Cardinals would immediately regret trading Carlton, as the next season he would have one of the great pitching seasons in history, assembling a 27-10 record for a Phillies team that went 30-85 when he didn't pitch. He won the Cy Young Award with 310 strikeouts and a 1.97 ERA, and even finished top-5 in the MVP voting. All told, post-trade he would accumulate 252 wins and more than 3,000 strikeouts over the remainder of his career.
The results for Ryan were just as quick, and every bit
as bountiful! Pitching for the Angels in 1972, Ryan would lead the American League in strikeouts (329), shutouts (9), and hits/9 innings pitched (5.3!) on his way to a 19-16 record and a 2.28 ERA. After leaving the Mets, Ryan would win another 295 games, strike out over 5,000 more batters, and toss seven no-hitters!
The one thing that would plague Ryan (especially in those earlier days of his career) was wildness. He would go on to lead the league in walks in six of the next seven years, including two seasons where he walked over 200 batters. On that day in September of 1971, this wildness reared its ugly head as he walked four of the five batters he faced, before being pulled from the game without even retiring a batter.
Carlton had more success that day, picking up his 20th win of the season. Perhaps reaching that milestone gave him the confidence to ask for $5,000-&10,000 (reports vary) more than the Cardinals were offering on his 1972 contract. Cardinals owner Gussie Busch found such a contract dispute to be impertinent and had Carlton traded to the last place Phillies for hurler Rick Wise. The rest, as they say is history.
As far as TTM requests go, this one was definitely a little different! Though he never took a single at bat in the Majors, Ted Giannoulas was as big a part of my childhood baseball fandom as many players! In his role as "The Chicken," he starred alongside Johnny Bench in what was at the time my favorite TV show, The Baseball Bunch. Each week, a big league player would guest star on the show, giving an instructional lesson to the kids on some aspect of baseball.
In those days, NBC's "Game of the Week" on Saturdays might be the only game you saw all week long. And in that pre-internet age, players seemed so distant that they were almost like mythical heroes. The opportunity to see them interacting with real kids (just like me!) and giving a lesson that I could learn from was a treat beyond compare.
To add a comic element though, the show included The Chicken. Giannoulas played the mascot, who had begun in 1974 as The San Diego Chicken, sponsored by KGB-FM, a radio station in San Diego. He grew in popularity over the next five years, but a series series of legal disputes and court proceedings between Giannoulas and KGB culminated in the Chicken flying the coup and setting out on his own. On June 29, 1979, the San Diego Padres hosted his Grand Rehatching, in an event that can only be described as a spectacle! Giannoulas counts it as his favorite baseball memory.
Giannoulas was very kind to not only sign my card, but to also respond to my brief questionnaire. I asked him what his favorite episodes of The Baseball Bunch, and he responded that his two favorite were when Ozzie Smith and Jim Rice visited. Those two are included below.
One last thing about The Chicken: I was fortunate enough to see him perform in person once. The week after I graduated from college, a couple friends and I made a trip down to Birmingham to see a certain basketball player take a crack at minor league back in 1994. Though Michael Jordan was the reason for our visit, it was a thrill to get to see The Chicken perform, as he was in classic form!
TRIVIA QUESTION: What do Wallace Johnson and Danny Ainge have in common, other than playing Major League Baseball for teams in Canada and looking resplendent in powder blue? (Answer below.)
As I work on Project87, Wallace Johnson recently got me to 230 cards that I've gotten autographed from the 1987 Topps set. He also signed the '89 Topps card for me, and I thought both looked great in blue!
What made the return even better though, was the fact that he also filled out the short questionnaire that I've been sending with recent autograph requests. I generally ask players what their favorite baseball memory was, and ask who their favorite manager and teammate(s) were, and ask them about the toughest opponent(s) they faced.
Johnson's most intriguing answer revealed his favorite baseball memory: His team's 1979 MVC Championship season of 1979 while he was at Indiana State. I found it incredibly interesting for a number of reasons. First, it surprised me that a guy who played in the big leagues for nine seasons and had one of the more memorable hits in Expos franchise history (more on that later) would consider his senior college more worthy of such mention.
There was another thing though. When someone mentions Indiana State and 1979, you can't help but think of Larry Bird, who led the Sycamores to the NCAA championship game in basketball that year. Just an instant after that came to mind, I recalled that I had once seen a picture of Bird in an Indiana State baseball uniform, and I began to wonder if he and Johnson had perhaps played together. That sent me off on a spree of research that culminated in this blog post.
First, the story behind Bird's foray into baseball. He did indeed play in a doubleheader for Indiana State's baseball team against Kentucky Wesleyan on April 28th. He struck out in his first at bat, but later rapped out a 2-run single. More to the point, Indiana State had (by far) their largest baseball attendance of the season!
TRIVIA ANSWER: Both Ainge and Johnson were (at least for a time) teammates with Larry Bird!
That wasn't the only memorable part of that season for Johnson and the Sycamores though. Individually, Johnson was one of the leading hitters in the nation, batting .491 to set what still stands as an ISU record. His success wasn't just personal though. He was captain of a Sycamore team that had a great season, going 41-11, winning the Missouri Valley Conference championship (with Johnson as Tournament MVP), and advancing to the NCAA Tournament. Johnson was inducted into the ISU Sports Hall of Fame in 1985.
After being drafted in the 6th round, Johnson spent the 1979, '80 & '81 seasons in the minors. He started the last of those seasons with the AA Memphis Chicks, before moving up to the AAA Denver Bears, who were coached by Felipe Alou to an American Association championship.
When MLB rosters expanded on September 1st, Johnson got the call to join the Expos who were in the midst of a race for the second-half NL East title in the strike-split 1981 season. He didn't see a lot of action, only coming to the plate ten times, but facing New York Mets closer, Neil Allen on October 3rd (the second to last day of the season), he hit a two-run triple to put the Expos ahead 3-2, on their way to winning 5-4, and clinching the only postseason berth in Montreal Expos history. Johnson would be added to the postseason roster, and
subsequently had an RBI single in one of his two pinch hit at bats.
Johnson would go on to put together a solid nine-year career as a pinch-hitter, spending his entire MLB career with the Expos except for eight plate appearances with the Giants in 1983. He retired as the Expos' all-time leader in pinch hits, with 86.
After his playing days were over, Johnson spent a number of years coaching, first in the Braves' minor league system from 1995-97, followed by a five year stint (1998-2002) with the Chicago White Sox as their third base coach.
One final thing I found interesting about Johnson was from a newspaper article from all the way back in 1979. In it, Johnson stated,
"I was a paper boy in Gary when I was younger and sometimes when I'd get enough money together, I'd go to see the Cubs and White Sox play in Chicago." Johnson continued, "I still have autographs from Ernie Banks, Billy Williams and Ron Santo."
How crazy is it that all these years later, guys like me are still excited about getting HIS autograph!
We’ve been cleaning out our basement, and in the process have uncovered some items that I’ve had tucked away. One of them is this fun pennant that I remembered I had, but hadn’t been able to locate for over a decade! As you can probably see, it had something spill/drip on it (that happened long ago when we still lived in St. Louis), but I still think it’s a fun item.
1985 was the summer between 7th and 8th grade, and I think it was one of the first summers that my friend Craig and I went to games by ourselves and tried to get players’ autographs before and/or after the games. It was a magical season as the Cardinals won 101 games on their way to the National League Pennant. Perhaps it was the style of ball they played (stealing over 300 bases) and perhaps it was the age I was at the time, but even though they fell one game short of winning the World Series, all these years later, the '85 Birds are still my favorite team ever! In fact, I even administer a Twitter account that recaps their season day-by-day!
Anyway, the pennant above was one that I got signed by a many of the players on that team (in addition to a couple Cardinals legends). While many of the signers played multiple seasons with the Cardinals, two of them (Ivan DeJesus and Bill Campbell) played for the team only in 1985. And one of the signers (Todd Worrell) only joined the club for the last six weeks of the season, so I must have gotten at least some (if not all) of the autographs relatively late in the season.
Two Hall of Famers signed my pennant back in 1985:
Lou Brock (who was inducted to the Hall of Fame in '85, and is my all-time favorite)
I have no idea how much something like this is "worth." Probably not a whole lot, given the condition. But for the memories it evokes of a 13-year old kid getting those autographs, it is absolutely priceless to me! And 35 years later, it makes me want to track down Ozzie Smith and Tom Nieto to sign it so I could have a whole starting lineup's worth!
almost 50 years later was the two starting pitchers: Starting for the Cardinals was their big southpaw, Steve Carlton. Going for the Mets was their young flame-throwing righthander, Nolan Ryan. It would be the last game either man would pitch for his team, with both of them getting traded in the off-season. They would eventually become the two greatest strikeout pitchers in MLB history! 
