A par-ticularly interesting addition is Wally Yonamine,who was both the first Japanese American to play inthe National Football League and the first Ameri-can to play professional baseba
Trang 2BASEBALL
Trang 5Editor in Chief: Dawn P Dawson Editorial Director: Christina J Moose
Managing Editor: R Kent Rasmussen
Manuscript Editor: Christopher Rager
Research Supervisor: Jeffry Jensen Production Editor: Andrea Miller
Photo Editor: Cynthia Breslin Beres Acquisitions Editor: Mark Rehn Page Design and Layout: James Hutson Additional Layout: Frank Montaño and Mary Overell Editorial Assistant: Brett Weisberg
Cover photo: John Angelillo/UPI/Landov
Copyright © 1992, 1994, 2002, 2010, by Salem PressAll rights in this book are reserved No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner what-soever or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, record-ing, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright ownerexcept in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews or in the copying of imagesdeemed to be freely licensed or in the public domain For information, address the publisher, Salem Press,P.O Box 50062, Pasadena, California 91115
∞ The paper used in these volumes conforms to the American National Standard for Permanence of per for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48-1992 (R1997)
Pa-Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Great athletes / edited by The Editors of Salem Press ; special consultant Rafer Johnson
p cm
Includes bibliographical references and index
ISBN 978-1-58765-473-2 (set : alk paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-477-0 (vol 1 baseball : alk paper) — ISBN978-1-58765-478-7 (vol 2 baseball : alk paper) — ISBN 978-1-58765-479-4 (set baseball : alk paper)
1 Athletes—Biography—Dictionaries I Johnson, Rafer, 1935- II Salem Press
Trang 6Publisher’s Note vii
Introduction xi
Contributors xvii
Complete List of Contents xxv
Hank Aaron 1
Jim Abbott 4
Grover Alexander 7
Roberto Alomar 10
Sandy Alomar, Jr 13
Cap Anson 15
Luke Appling 18
Jeff Bagwell 20
Ernie Banks 23
Josh Beckett 26
James “Cool Papa” Bell 28
Albert Belle 31
Johnny Bench 34
Chief Bender 37
Yogi Berra 40
Craig Biggio 43
Wade Boggs 46
Barry Bonds 49
George Brett 53
Lou Brock 56
Mordecai Brown 59
Crystl Bustos 62
Miguel Cabrera 64
Roy Campanella 66
José Canseco 69
Rod Carew 72
Steve Carlton 75
Gary Carter 78
Orlando Cepeda 81
Frank Chance 84
Oscar Charleston 87
Will Clark 89
Roger Clemens 92
Roberto Clemente 97
Ty Cobb 100
Mickey Cochrane 103
Eddie Collins 106
David Cone 109
Stan Coveleski 112
Johnny Damon 115
Andre Dawson 118
Dizzy Dean 121
Ed Delahanty 124
Carlos Delgado 127
Joe DiMaggio 130
Larry Doby 133
Don Drysdale 136
Herb Dudley 139
Dennis Eckersley 141
Johnny Evers 145
Eddie Feigner 148
Bob Feller 150
Lisa Fernandez 153
Jennie Finch 156
Rollie Fingers 159
Carlton Fisk 162
Curt Flood 165
Whitey Ford 168
Jimmie Foxx 171
Julio Franco 174
Eric Gagné 177
Andrés Galarraga 180
Nomar Garciaparra 182
Steve Garvey 185
Lou Gehrig 188
Charlie Gehringer 191
Bob Gibson 194
Josh Gibson 197
Tom Glavine 199
Lefty Gomez 202
Juan González 205
Dwight Gooden 208
Rich Gossage 211
Mark Grace 214
Hank Greenberg 216
Ken Griffey, Jr 219
Burleigh Grimes 222
Lefty Grove 225
Vladimir Guerrero 228
Tony Gwynn 231
Gabby Hartnett 235
Todd Helton 238
Rickey Henderson 240
Orel Hershiser 243
Gil Hodges 246
Trang 7Trevor Hoffman 249
Rogers Hornsby 252
Carl Hubbell 255
Catfish Hunter 257
Torii Hunter 260
Monte Irvin 262
Reggie Jackson 265
Shoeless Joe Jackson 268
Ferguson Jenkins 270
Derek Jeter 273
Howard Johnson 276
Judy Johnson 279
Randy Johnson 282
Walter Johnson 285
Andruw Jones 288
Chipper Jones 291
Joan Joyce 294
David Justice 297
Jim Kaat 300
Al Kaline 303
Dorothy Kamenshek 306
Masaichi Kaneda 308
Tim Keefe 310
Willie Keeler 313
Jeff Kent 316
Harmon Killebrew 319
Ralph Kiner 322
Sandy Koufax 325
Nap Lajoie 328
Bob Lemon 331
Buck Leonard 334
Pop Lloyd 337
Kenny Lofton 339
Al Lopez 342
Willie McCovey 345
Mark McGwire 348
Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 8Publisher’s Note
The two volumes of Great Athletes: Baseball are part
of Salem Press’s greatly expanded and redesigned
Great Athletes series, which also includes
self-con-tained volumes on basketball, boxing and soccer,
football, golf and tennis, Olympic sports, and
rac-ing and individual sports The full 13-volume series
presents articles on the lives, sports careers, and
unique achievements of 1,470 outstanding
com-petitors and champions in the world of sports
These athletes—many of whom have achieved
world renown—represent more than 75 different
nations and territories and more than 80 different
sports Their stories are told in succinct,
1,000-word-long profiles accessible in tone and style to
readers in grades 7 and up
The 13 Great Athletes volumes, which include a
cumulative index volume, are built on the work of
three earlier Salem Press publications designed for
middle and high school readers: the 20 slender
vol-umes of The Twentieth Century: Great Athletes (1992),
their 3-volume supplement (1994), and the 8
stouter volumes of Great Athletes, Revised (2002) This
new edition retains articles on every athlete covered
in those earlier editions and adds more than 415
en-tirely new articles—a 40 percent increase Great
Ath-letes: Baseball adds 60 new articles to the 165 in the
previous edition to cover a total of 225 baseball and
softball players The content of original essays has
been updated as necessary, with many articles
sub-stantially revised, expanded, or replaced, and
biblio-graphical citations for virtually all articles have been
updated Information in every article is current up
to the beginning of the 2009 baseball season
Criteria for Inclusion
Within these pages, readers will find articles on
virtually all the legends of baseball—from Hank
Aaron and Grover Alexander to Carl Yastremski
and Cy Young In selecting new names to add to
Great Athletes: Baseball, first consideration was given
to players whose exceptional achievements have
made their names household words These players
include such undeniable stars as Johnny Damon,
Don Newcombe, Phil Rizzuto, and Ichiro Suzuki
Consideration was next given to accomplished
play-ers who during the early twenty-first century peared destined for more greatness, such as MiguelCabrera, Albert Pujols, and Alfonso Soriano A par-ticularly interesting addition is Wally Yonamine,who was both the first Japanese American to play inthe National Football League and the first Ameri-can to play professional baseball in Japan
ap-These volumes also include articles on softballplayers Most of these athletes are women, but thelist also includes Eddie Feigner, the legendary “King
of Softball” who reputedly pitched more than 900no-hitters during his long barnstorming career
Organization
Each article covers the life and career of a singlebaseball or softball player, and all names are ar-ranged in one alphabetical stream Every article isaccompanied by at least one boxed table, summa-rizing the career statistics, honors and awards, rec-ords, and other milestones that set apart each greatplayer Most articles are also accompanied by pho-tographs of their subjects Every article lists up-to-date bibliographical notes under the heading “Ad-ditional Sources.” These sections list from three
to five readily available books and articles ing information pertinent to the athlete and sportcovered in the article Appendixes in volume 2 con-tain additional sources in published books andWeb sites
contain-Averaging three pages in length, each article iswritten in clear language and presented in a uni-form, easily readable format All articles are di-vided into four subheaded sections that cover theathlete’s life and achievements chronologically
• Early Life presents such basic biographical
in-formation as vital dates, parentage, siblings,and early education It also sketches the socialmilieu in which the baseball or softball playergrew up and discusses other formative experi-ences
• The Road to Excellence picks up where the
player’s earliest serious involvement in sportsbegan This section describes experiences and
Trang 9influences that shaped the player’s athletic
prowess and propelled him or her toward
greatness These sections also often discuss
obstacles—such as poverty, discrimination,
and physical disabilities—that many great
ath-letes have had to overcome
• The Emerging Champion traces the player’s
ad-vance from the threshold of baseball or
soft-ball stardom to higher levels of achievement
This section explains the characteristics and
circumstances that combined to make the
player among the best in the world in baseball
or softball
• Continuing the Story tracks the player’s
subse-quent career, examining how the player may
have set new goals and had achievements that
inspired others This section also offers
in-sights into the player’s life away from sports
Readers will also learn about the innovations
and contributions that the players have made
to their sports and, in many cases, to society at
large
• Summary recapitulates the player’s story,
pay-ing special attention to honors that the player
has won and to the human qualities that have
made the player special in the world of sports
Appendixes
At the back of volume 2 of Great Athletes: Baseball,
readers will find 13 appendixes, most of which are
entirely new to this edition These appendixes are
arranged under these three headings:
• Resources includes a bibliography of recently
published books on baseball and a
catego-rized listing of sports sites on the World Wide
Web that provide baseball information This
section is followed by a Glossary defining
most of the specialized terminology used in
Great Athletes: Baseball and a Time Line, which
lists names of all the players covered in these
volumes in order of their birth dates
• All-Time Great Players contains 4 appendixes—
2 lists of all-time great players and members
of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and the
Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame
• Annual Awards and Honors contains 5
appen-dixes listing Major League Baseball’s annualmost valuable players, rookies of the year, CyYoung Award winners, and batting and homerun champions
The Cumulative Indexes volume, which nies the full Great Athletes series, includes all the ap- pendixes found in this and other Great Athletes vol- umes on specific sports, plus additional appendixes
accompa-containing information that pertains to all sports.These appendixes include a general bibliography,
a comprehensive Web site list, a Time Line
inte-grating the names of all 1,470 athletes in Great letes, 2 lists of the greatest athletes of the twentieth
Ath-century, 3 multisport halls of fame, and 10 ent athlete-of-the-year awards
edition of Great Athletes Because some athletes
have excelled in more than one sport, readers may
wish also to consult the Cumulative Indexes volume.
Its sport, country, and name indexes list all the
ath-letes covered in the full Great Athath-letes series.
Acknowledgments
Once again, Salem Press takes great pleasure inthanking the 383 scholars and experts who wrote
and updated the articles making Great Athletes
pos-sible Their names can be found at the ends of thearticles they have written and in the list of contribu-tors that follows the “Introduction.” We also takeimmense pleasure in again thanking our specialconsultant, Rafer Johnson, for bringing his uniqueinsights to this project As an Olympic championand world record-holder in track and field’s de-manding decathlon, he has experienced an ex-traordinarily broad range of physical and mentalchallenges at the highest levels of competition.Moreover, he has a lifetime of experience workingwith, and closely observing, athletes at everylevel—from five-year-old soccer players to Olympicand professional champions He truly understandswhat constitutes athletic greatness and what is re-quired to achieve it For this reason, readers willnot want to overlook his “Introduction.”
Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 10Acronyms Used in Articles
Salem’s general practice is to use acronyms only
after they have been explained within each essay
Because of the frequency with which many terms
appear in Great Athletes: Baseball, that practice is
partly suspended for the acronyms listed below:
ABC American Broadcasting Corporation
AL American League
ALCS American League Championship Series
CBS Columbia Broadcasting SystemERA earned run average
ESPN Entertainment and Sports ProgrammingNetwork
MLB Major League BaseballNBC National Broadcasting Corporation
NL National LeagueNLCS National League Championship SeriesRBI runs batted in
Publisher’s Note
Trang 12Five decades after reaching my own pinnacle of
success in sports, I still get a thrill watching other
athletes perform I have competed with and against
some of the greatest athletes in the world, watched
others up close and from a distance, and read
about still others I admire the accomplishments of
all of them, for I know something of what it takes to
achieve greatness in sports, and I especially admire
those who inspire others
This revised edition of Great Athletes provides a
wonderful opportunity for young readers to learn
about the finest athletes of the modern era of
sports Reading the stories of the men and women
in these pages carries me back to my own youth,
when I first began playing games and became
inter-ested in sports heroes Almost all sports interinter-ested
me, but I gravitated to baseball, basketball,
foot-ball, and track and field Eventually, I dedicated
most of my young adult years to track and field’s
de-cathlon, which I loved because its ten events
al-lowed me to use many different skills
Throughout those years, one thing remained
constant: I wanted to win To do that meant being
the best that I could be I wondered what I could
learn from the lives of great athletes From an early
age I enjoyed reading about sports champions
and wondered how they did as well as they did
What traits and talents did the greatest of them
have? I gradually came to understand that the
essence of greatness in sports lies in competition
In fact, the very word athlete itself goes back to a
Greek word for “competitor.” Being competitive is
the single most important attribute any athlete can
have, but other traits are important, too Readers
may gain insights into the athletes covered in these
volumes by considering the ten events of the
de-cathlon as symbols of ten traits that contribute to
athletic greatness All champions have at least a
few of these traits; truly great champions have most
of them
Speed and Quickness
Decathlon events are spread over two days, with
five events staged on each day The first event is
al-ways the 100-meter dash—one of the most
glamor-ous events in track and field Men and women—such as Usain Bolt and Florence Griffith-Joyner—who capture its world records are considered thefastest humans on earth In a race that lasts only afew seconds, speed is everything, and there is noroom for mistakes
Appropriately, speed is the first of the three dards of athletic excellence expressed in the Olym-
stan-pic motto, Citius, altius, fortius (faster, higher,
stron-ger) Its importance in racing sports such as cycling,rowing, running, speed skating, swimming, andthe triathlon is obvious: Athletes who reach the fin-ish line soonest win; those who arrive later lose.Speed is also important in every sport that requiresmoving around a lot, such as baseball, basketball,boxing, football, handball, soccer, tennis, volley-ball, water polo, and virtually all the events of trackand field The best athletes in these sports are usu-ally fast
Athletes who lack speed generally make up for it
in other kinds of quickness For example, whilerunning speed has helped make some footballquarterbacks—such as Vince Young—great, somequarterbacks who are slow afoot have achievedgreatness with other forms of quickness Joe Na-math is an example Although he was embarrass-ingly slow on his feet, he read opposing teams’ de-fenses so fast that he could make lightning-quickdecisions and release his passes faster than almostany other quarterback who played the game
As important as speed is, there are a few sports inwhich it means little Billiards, bowling, and golf,for example, all permit competitors to take consid-erable time responding to opponents’ moves Even
so, speed can be important where one may least pect it For example, major chess competitions areclocked, and making moves too slowly can costplayers games
ex-Courage
The decathlon’s second event, the long jump,represents one of the purest contests in sports:Competitors simply run up to a mark and jump asfar as they can Each jumper gets several tries, andonly the best marks matter While it sounds simple,
Trang 13it involves critical little things that can go wrong
and ruin one’s chance of winning When the great
Jesse Owens jumped in the 1936 Olympics in
Ber-lin, for example, he missed his takeoff mark so
many times that he risked disqualification What
saved him was the encouragement of a rival
Ger-man jumper, who advised him to start his jump
from well behind the regular takeoff mark It takes
courage to overcome the fear of making mistakes
and concentrate on jumping It also takes courage
to overcome the fear of injury
A great athlete may have abundant courage but
rarely need to call upon it However, most truly
great athletes eventually face moments when they
would fail if their courage abandoned them In
fact, courage is often what separates being good
from being great True courage should not be
con-fused with the absence of fear, for it is the ability to
overcome fear, including the very natural fears of
injury and pain A wonderful example is gymnast
Kerri Strug’s amazing spirit in the 1996 Olympics
Ignoring the pain of torn ligaments and a serious
ankle sprain, she helped the U.S women win a
team gold medal by performing her final vault at
great personal risk
Some sports challenge athletes with real and
persistent threats of serious injuries and even death
Among the most dangerous are alpine skiing, auto
racing, boxing, football, horse racing,
mountaineer-ing, and rodeo—all of which have killed and
dis-abled many fine athletes No one can achieve
great-ness in such sports without exceptional courage
Consider also the courage required to step up to
bat against a baseball pitcher who throws hardballs
mere inches away from your head at speeds of
more than ninety miles an hour Or, imagine
pre-paring to dive from atop a 10-meter platform,
rest-ing only on your toes, with your heels projectrest-ing
over the edge, knowing that your head will pass
within inches of the rock-hard edge of the
plat-form Greg Louganis once cut his head open on
such a dive After he had his scalp stitched up, he
returned to continue diving into a pool of water
colored pink by his own blood He won the
compe-tition
Another kind of courage is needed to perform
in the face of adversity that may have nothing to do
with sport itself The best known example of that
kind of courage is the immortal Jackie Robinson,
who broke the color line in baseball in 1947 As the
first African American player in the modern majorleagues, Jackie faced criticism, verbal harassment,and even physical abuse almost everywhere heplayed He not only persevered but also had a ca-reer that would have been regarded as exceptionaleven if his color had never been an issue
Strength
The shot put, the decathlon’s third event, quires many special traits, but the most obvious isstrength The metal ball male shot putters heaveweighs 16 pounds—more than an average bowlingball Agility, balance, and speed are all important tothe event, but together they can accomplish noth-ing without great strength Strength is also thethird standard expressed in the Olympic motto,
re-Citius, altius, fortius.
Strength is especially valuable in sports that putcompetitors in direct physical contact with eachother—sports such as basketball, boxing, football,and wrestling Whenever athletes push and pullagainst each other, the stronger generally prevail.Strength is also crucial in sports requiring lifting,pulling, pushing, paddling, or propelling objects,
or controlling vehicles or animals Such sports clude auto racing, baseball and softball, bodybuild-ing and weightlifting, canoeing and kayaking, golf,horse racing, rowing, and all track and field throw-ing events
in-One sport in which the role of strength hasnever been underestimated is wrestling One of themost impressive demonstrations of strength in thesport occurred at the 2000 Olympic Games at Syd-ney when Rulon Gardner, in a performance of alifetime, defeated former Olympic champion Alek-sandr Karelin in the super-heavyweight class ofGreco-Roman wrestling
Visualization
Visualization is the ability to see what one needs
to do before actually doing it Perhaps no sportbetter exemplifies its importance than the highjump—the decathlon’s fourth event In contrast tothe long jump and throwing events—in which com-petitors strive to maximize distance in every effort,the high jump (like the pole vault) sets a bar at afixed height that competitors must clear Beforejumping, they take time to study the bar and visual-ize what they must do to clear it If the bar is set at 7feet, a jump of 6 feet 113⁄4inches fails; a jump of 8
Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 14feet succeeds, but counts only for 7 feet To
con-serve strength for later jumps, jumpers must
care-fully calculate how much effort to exert at each
height, and to do this, they must be able to
visu-alize
Great baseball and softball batters also visualize
well Before pitches even reach the plate, batters
see the balls coming and visualize their bats hitting
them Likewise, great golfers see their balls landing
on the greens before they even swing Soccer
play-ers, such as Ronaldo, see the balls going into the
goal before they even kick them Billiard players,
such as Jeanette Lee, see all the balls moving on the
table before they even touch the cue balls Bowlers,
like Lisa Wagner, see the pins tumbling down
be-fore they release their balls
Visualization is especially important to shooters,
such as Lones Wigger, and archers, such as Denise
Parker and Jay Barrs, who know exactly what their
targets look like, as well as the spots from where
they will fire, before they even take aim In contrast
to most other sports, they can practice in
condi-tions almost identical to those in which they
com-pete However, the athletes against whom they
compete have the same advantage, so the edge
usu-ally goes to those who visualize better
Players in games such as basketball, hockey,
soc-cer, and water polo fire upon fixed targets from
constantly changing positions—often in the face of
opponents doing everything they can to make them
miss Nevertheless, visualization is important to
them as well In basketball, players are said to be in
a “groove,” or a “zone,” when they visualize shots so
well they seem unable to miss Kobe Bryant and
Lisa Leslie are among the greatest visualizers in
their sport, just as Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, and
Al-bert Pujols have been great at visualizing home
runs in baseball In tennis, I always admired Arthur
Ashe’s knack for planning matches in his mind,
then systematically dismantling his opponents
At another level, boxer Muhammad Ali was great
at visualizing his entire future Big, strong, and
quick and able to move with the best of them, he
had it all I had the great pleasure of touring
col-lege campuses with him after we both won gold
medals at the Rome Olympics in 1960 Muhammad
(then known as Cassius Clay) had visualized his
Olympic victory before it happened, and when I
first knew him he was already reciting poetry and
predicting what the future held for him He saw it
all in advance and called every move—something
he became famous for later, when he taunted ponents by predicting the rounds in which hewould knock them out
op-Determination and Resilience
The final event of the first day of decathlon petition is the 400-meter run Almost exactly aquarter mile, this race stands at the point that di-vides sprints from middle-distances Should run-ners go all out, as in a sprint, or pace themselves, asmiddle-distance runners do? Coming as it does, asthe last event of the exhausting first day of decath-lon competition, the 400-meter race tests the met-tle of decathletes by extracting one last great effortfrom them before they can rest up for the nextday’s grueling events How they choose to run therace has to do with how determined they are to winthe entire decathlon
com-Every great athlete who wants to be a championmust have the determination to do whatever ittakes to achieve that goal Even so, determinationalone is not enough This was proven dramaticallywhen basketball’s Michael Jordan—whom journal-ists later voted the greatest athlete of the twentiethcentury—quit basketball in 1994 to fulfill his life-long dream to play professional baseball Despiteworking hard, he spent a frustrating season and ahalf in the minor leagues and merely proved twothings: that determination alone cannot guaranteesuccess, and that baseball is a more difficult sportthan many people had realized
Resilience, an extension of determination, isthe ability to overcome adversity, or apparentlyhopeless situations, and to bounce back from out-right defeat Some might argue that no one can begreater than an athlete who never loses; however,athletes who continually win are never required tochange what they do or do any soul searching Bycontrast, athletes who lose must examine them-selves closely and consider making changes I havealways felt that true greatness in sports is exempli-fied by the ability to come back from defeat, asheavyweight boxer Floyd Patterson did after losinghis world title to Ingemar Johansson in a humiliat-ing 3-round knockout in 1959 Only those athleteswho face adversity and defeat can prove they haveresilience
Among athletes who have impressed me themost with their determination and resilience is
Introduction
Trang 15speed skater Eric Heiden, who was not only the first
American to win world speed-skating
champion-ships, but the first speed skater ever to win all five
events in the Winter Olympics Another amazingly
determined athlete is Jim Abbott, who refused to
allow the fact that he was born with only one hand
stop him from becoming a Major League Baseball
pitcher—one who even pitched a no-hit game
Who could not admire Bo Jackson? An all-star in
both professional football and Major League
Base-ball, he suffered what appeared to be a
career-ending football injury After undergoing hip-joint
replacement surgery, he defied all logic by
return-ing to play several more seasons of baseball Cyclist
Lance Armstrong also falls into this category He
won multiple Tour de France championships after
recovering from cancer
Execution
Day two of the decathlon opens with the
techni-cally challenging 110-meter high hurdles A
bru-tally demanding event, it requires speed, leaping
ability, and perfect timing In short, it is an event
that requires careful execution—the ability to
per-form precisely when it matters Sports differ greatly
in the precision of execution they demand Getting
off great throws in the discus, shot put, and javelin,
for example, requires superb execution, but the
di-rection in which the objects go is not critical By
contrast, archers, shooters, and golfers must hit
precise targets Some sports not only demand that
execution be precise but also that it be repeated A
baseball pitcher who throws two perfect strikes fails
if the opposing batter hits the third pitch over the
fence Likewise, a quarterback who leads his team
down the field with five consecutive perfect passes
fails if his next pass is intercepted
Consider the differences between the kind of
execution demanded by diving and pole vaulting
Divers lose points if their toes are not straight the
moment they enter the water By contrast, pole
vaulters can land any way they want, so long as they
clear the bar Moreover, a diver gets only one chance
on each dive, while pole vaulters get three chances
at each height they attempt—and they can even
skip certain heights to save energy for later jumps
at greater heights On the other hand, a diver who
executes a dive badly will merely get a poor score,
while a pole vaulter who misses too many jumps
will get no score at all—which is exactly what
hap-pened to decathlete Dan O’Brien in the 1992 U.S.Olympic Trials Although Dan was the world’s topdecathlete at that time, his failure to clear a height
in the pole vault kept him off the Olympic team.(To his credit, he came back to win a gold medal in1996.)
Figure skating and gymnastics are other sportsthat measure execution with a microscope In gym-nastics, the standard of perfection is a score often—which was first achieved in the Olympics byNadia Comaneci in 1976 However, scores in thosesports are not based on objective measures but onthe evaluations of judges, whose own standards canand do change By contrast, archery, shooting, andbowling are unusual in being sports that offer ob-jective standards of perfection In bowling, thatstandard is the 300 points awarded to players whobowl all strikes
Among all athletes noted for their execution,one in particular stands out in my estimation: golf’sTiger Woods After Tiger had played professionallyfor only a few years, he established himself as one ofthe greatest golfers ever He has beaten the bestthat golf has had to offer by record margins in ma-jor competitions, and wherever he plays, he is thefavorite to win Most impressive is his seeming abil-ity to do whatever he needs to win, regardless of thesituation Few athletes in any sport, or in any era,have come close to matching Tiger’s versatile andconsistent execution
Focus
After the high hurdles, the decathlon’s discusevent is a comparative relief Nevertheless, it pre-sents its own special demands, one of which isfocus—the ability to maintain uninterrupted con-centration Like shot putters, discus throwers workwithin a tiny circle, within which they must concen-trate all their attention and all their energy intothrowing the heavy disk as far as they can
Not surprisingly, one of the greatest discus ers in history, Al Oerter, was also one of the greatestexamples of focus in sports His four gold medalsbetween 1956 and 1968 made him the first trackand field athlete in Olympic history to win anyevent four times in a row In addition to beating outthe best discus throwers in the world four consecu-tive times, he improved his own performance ateach Olympiad and even won with a serious rib in-jury in 1964 Eight years after retiring from compe-
throw-Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 16tition, he returned at age forty to throw the discus
farther than ever and earn a spot as an alternate on
the 1980 U.S Olympic team
Important in all sports, focus is especially
impor-tant in those in which a single lapse in
concentra-tion may result in instant defeat In boxing, a
knockout can suddenly end a bout Focus may be
even more crucial in wrestling Wrestlers grapple
each other continuously, probing for openings that
will allow them to pin their opponents Few sports
match wrestling in nonstop intensity; a single
split-second lapse on the part of a wrestler can spell
di-saster Great wrestlers, such as Cael Sanderson and
Aleksandr Karelin, must therefore rank among the
most focused athletes in history
Balance and Coordination
Of all the decathlon events, the most difficult to
perform is the pole vault Think of what it entails:
Holding long skinny poles, vaulters run at full
speed down a narrow path toward a pit; then,
with-out breaking stride, push the tips of their poles into
a tiny slot, propel their bodies upward, and use the
poles to flip themselves over bars more than two or
three times their height above the ground, finally
to drop down on the opposite side Success in the
pole vault demands many traits, but the most
im-portant are balance and coordination Vaulters use
their hands, feet, and bodies, all at the same time,
and do everything at breakneck speed, with almost
no margin for error There are no uncoordinated
champion pole vaulters
Despite its difficulty, pole vaulting is an event in
which some decathletes have performed especially
well—perhaps because they, as a group, have
versa-tile skills I have long taken pride in the fact that my
close friend, college teammate, and Olympic rival,
C K Yang, once set a world record in the pole vault
during a decathlon C K.’s record was all the more
impressive because he achieved it midway through
the second day of an intense competition Imagine
what balance and coordination he must have had
to propel his body over the record-breaking height
after having subjected it to the wear and tear of
seven other events
I cannot think of any athlete, in any sport, who
demonstrated more versatility in coordination and
balance than Michael Jordan, who could seemingly
score from any spot on the floor, at any time, and
under any conditions Not only did he always have
his offensive game together, he was also one of thegreatest defensive players in the game Moreover,his mere presence brought balance to his entireteam
Preparation
The ninth event of the decathlon is the javelin—
a throwing event that goes back to ancient times Amore difficult event than it may appear to be, it re-quires more than its share of special preparation.This may be why we rarely see athletes who com-pete in both the javelin and other events, thoughthe versatile Babe Didrikson Zaharias was an excep-tion
Along with determination—to which it is closelyallied—preparation is a vital trait of great athletes,especially in modern competition It is no longerpossible for even the greatest natural athletes towin against top competition without extensive prep-aration, which means practice, training for strengthand stamina, proper diet and rest, and studying op-ponents diligently Football players, especially quar-terbacks and defensive backs, spend hours beforeevery game studying films of opponents
I was fortunate to grow up with an athlete whoexemplifies preparation: my younger brother,Jimmy Johnson, who would become defensive backfor the San Francisco 49ers for seventeen years andlater be elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.Every week, Jimmy had to face a completely differ-ent set of pass receivers, but he was always ready be-cause he studied their moves and trained himself
to run backward fast enough to keep offenses infront of him so he could see every move they made.Coach Tom Landry of the Dallas Cowboys oncetold me that he always had the Cowboys attack onthe side opposite from Jimmy
Another exceptionally well prepared athlete wasMagic Johnson, the great Lakers basketball guard,who played every position on the floor in morethan one game During his rookie season he hadone of the greatest performances in playoff historyduring the NBA Finals When a health problemprevented the Lakers’ great center, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, from playing in the sixth game against Phil-adelphia, Magic stunned everyone by filling in forhim at center and scoring 44 points He went on tobecome one of the great point guards in basketballhistory because he always knew where every player
on the court should be at every moment
Introduction
Trang 17If there is one event that most decathletes dread,
it is the grueling 1,500-meter race that concludes
the two-day competition While C K Yang once set
a world-record in the pole vault during a
decath-lon, no decathlete has ever come close to anything
even resembling a world-class mark in the 1,500
meters On the other hand, it is probable that no
world-class middle-distance runner has ever run a
1,500-meter race immediately after competing in
nine other events To win a decathlon, the trick is
not to come in first in this final race, but simply to
survive it For decathletes, it is not so much a race as
a test of stamina
When I competed in the decathlon in the Rome
Olympics of 1960, I had to go head-to-head against
my friend C K Yang through nine events, all the
while knowing that the gold medal would be
de-cided in the last event—the 1,500 meters C K was
one of the toughest and most durable athletes I
have ever known, and I realized I could not beat
him in that race However, after the javelin, I led by
enough points so that all I had to do was stay close
to him I managed to do it and win the gold medal,
but running that race was not an experience I
would care to repeat
Stamina is not really a skill, but a measure of the
strength to withstand or overcome exhaustion Rare
is the sport that does not demand some stamina
Stamina can be measured in a single performance—
such as a long-distance race—in a tournament, or
in the course of a long season
The classic models of stamina are marathon
runners, whose 26-plus-mile race keeps them
mov-ing continuously for more than two hours Soccer
is one of the most demanding of stamina among
team sports Its players move almost constantly and
may run as far as 5 miles in a 90-minute game that
allows few substitutions Basketball players runnearly as much as soccer players, but their gamesare shorter and allow more substitutions and restperiods However, the sport can be even more tir-ing than soccer because its teams play more fre-quently and play more games overall Baseball play-ers provide yet another contrast They spend agreat deal of time during their games sitting on thebench, and when they are on the field, playersother than the pitcher and catcher rarely need toexert themselves more than a few seconds at a time.However, their season has the most games of all,and their constant travel is draining All thesesports and others demand great stamina from theirplayers, and their greatest players are usually thosewho hold up the best
To most people, chess seems like a physically demanding game However, its greatest playersmust be in top physical condition to withstand theunrelenting mental pressure of tournament andmatch competitions, which can last for weeks.Bobby Fisher, one of the game’s greatest—and mosteccentric—champions, exercised heavily when hecompeted in order to stay in shape Even sprinterswho spend only 10 or 11 seconds on the track ineach race, need stamina In order to reach the fi-nals of major competitions, they must endure thephysical and mental strains of several days of pre-liminary heats
un-In reducing what makes athletes great to just tentraits, I realize that I have oversimplified things, butthat matters little, as my purpose here is merely to in-troduce readers to what makes the athletes in thesevolumes great Within these pages you will find sto-ries exemplifying many other traits, and that isgood, as among the things that make athletes end-lessly fascinating are their diversity and complexity
Rafer Johnson
Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 18Southern Illinois University
Elizabeth Jeanne Alford
Southern Illinois University,
Eastern Kentucky University
Jo-Ellen Lipman Boon
Trang 19University of Northern Iowa
Richard Hauer Costa
Texas A&M University
North Carolina State University
Mary Virginia Davis
California State University, Sacramento
Trang 20Arkansas State University
Jane Brodsky Fitzpatrick
Graduate Center, City University
Auburn University, Montgomery
Margaret Bozenna Goscilo
Trang 21Kent State University, Stark
Bernadette Zbicki Heiney
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania
East Tennessee State University
Raymond Pierre Hylton
Virginia Union University
Eastern Illinois University
Mary Lou LeCompte
University of Texas, Austin
Denyse Lemaire
Rowan University
Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 22Nancy Farm Mannikko
Centers for Disease Control &
Wendy Cobb Orrison
Washington and Lee University
Trang 23Bill Plummer III
Amateur Softball Association
John David Rausch, Jr
West Texas A&M University
Ohio State University
Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 24University of Massachusetts, Lowell
Elizabeth Ferry Slocum
Pasadena, California
John Slocum
Pasadena, California
Gary Scott Smith
Grove City College
Texas A&M University
Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling
Appalachian State University
Roger Williams University
Felicia Friendly Thomas
California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
Jennifer L Titanski
Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania
Evelyn Toft
Fort Hays State University
Alecia C Townsend Beckie
New York, New York
Anh Tran
Wichita State University
Marcella Bush Trevino
Texas A&M University, Kingsville
Spencer Weber Waller
Loyola University Chicago
Annita Marie Ward
Trang 25Jerry Jaye Wright
Pennsylvania State University, Altoona
University of North Texas
Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 26Complete List of Contents
Ed Delahanty 124Carlos Delgado 127Joe DiMaggio 130Larry Doby 133Don Drysdale 136Herb Dudley 139Dennis Eckersley 141Johnny Evers 145Eddie Feigner 148Bob Feller 150Lisa Fernandez 153Jennie Finch 156Rollie Fingers 159Carlton Fisk 162Curt Flood 165Whitey Ford 168Jimmie Foxx 171Julio Franco 174Eric Gagné 177Andrés Galarraga 180Nomar Garciaparra 182Steve Garvey 185Lou Gehrig 188Charlie Gehringer 191Bob Gibson 194Josh Gibson 197Tom Glavine 199Lefty Gomez 202Juan González 205Dwight Gooden 208Rich Gossage 211Mark Grace 214Hank Greenberg 216Ken Griffey, Jr 219Burleigh Grimes 222Lefty Grove 225Vladimir Guerrero 228Tony Gwynn 231Gabby Hartnett 235Todd Helton 238Rickey Henderson 240Orel Hershiser 243Gil Hodges 246
Trang 27Great Athletes: Baseball
Trang 28Cy Young 644Robin Yount 647Barry Zito 650Bibliography 655Baseball Resources on the
World Wide Web 660Glossary 663Baseball Players Time Line 669Major League Baseball
All-Century Team 677Major League Baseball All-Time Team 678National Baseball Hall of Fame 679Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame 684Major League Baseball
Most Valuable Players 687Major League Baseball
Rookies of the Year 691
Cy Young Award Winners 693Major League Batting Champions 695Major League Home Run Champions 701Name Index 709Country Index 711Position Index 713Team Index 716Complete List of Contents
Trang 30BASEBALL
Trang 32Hank Aaron
Born:February 5, 1934
Mobile, Alabama
Also known as:Henry Louis Aaron (full name);
Hammerin’ Hank; the Hammer
Early Life
Henry Louis Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama,
on February 5, 1934, in the midst of the Great
De-pression Although his family was poor, in some
ways they were better off than many other African
American families Hank’s father, Herbert, had a
job, although his salary was barely enough to feed
his wife and seven children Hank helped build the
family’s house, pulling nails out of old boards so his
father could use the wood
As Hank grew up, he learned to love baseball so
much that he occasionally skipped school to watch
games His parents punished him for this, because
education was important to them In 1947, when
Hank was thirteen, Jackie Robinson became the
first African American to play in modern Major
League Baseball (MLB) This gave Hank hope that
he, too, might one day play in the big leagues
The Road to Excellence
Hank was the star player for the Central High
School team, which twice won the Mobile Negro
High School baseball championship At the same
time, Hank also played for a semiprofessional team,
the Mobile Black Bears One day, the Bears played
against the Indianapolis Clowns, a famous Negro
League team After seeing how well Hank could
play, the Clowns’ manager, Bunny Downs, recruited
him A year later, after Hank graduated from high
school, he joined the Clowns Hank’s parents put
him on the train with two pairs of pants, two
sand-wiches, and two dollars Though lonely and
home-sick at first, Hank was determined to be a
profes-sional baseball player
The first thing Hank learned as a professional
was how to hold the bat properly Although he had
always been an excellent hitter, he held the bat
cross-handed, with the wrong hand on top The
owner of the Clowns, Syd Pollock, made Hank
learn the correct way to bat The new way of hitting
gave Hank more power, and soon major-leaguescouts were watching him During one game, whenDewey Griggs, a scout for the Milwaukee Braves,came to watch him, Hank got seven hits, including
2 home runs, and helped make five double plays.Afterward, Hank was offered a spot on the Braves’Class C team
The Emerging Champion
During Hank’s first year in the Braves’ minor-leaguesystem, he batted 336, hit 9 home runs, and had 61RBI He was chosen for the all-star team and wasnamed the league’s rookie of the year The nextyear, Hank moved up to the Braves’ Class A team inthe South Atlantic League, in which he was one ofthe first black men to play Many people wanted tokeep African Americans out, but Hank proved withhis bat that he was as good a player as the others
Hank Aaron, during his Atlanta Braves years (NationalBaseball Library, Cooperstown, New York)
Trang 33That year, he led the league with a 362 batting
aver-age, hit 22 home runs, and had 125 RBI He was
named the league’s most valuable player
Over the winter, Hank learned to play the
out-field, and, in the spring of 1954, he made it to the
big leagues as a left fielder for the Milwaukee
Braves In April, Hank hit his first major-league
home run, off Vic Raschi of the St Louis Cardinals
Two days later, he hit his second He was on his way
Over a twenty-three-year major league career, Hank
would hit 755 home runs, surpassing Babe Ruth’s
career home-run record His record would then
stand for thirty-one years, until Barry Bonds of the
San Francisco Giants would break it in 2007
Mean-while, Hank helped Milwaukee win the World
Se-ries in 1957, during which he had an exceptional
season He batted 322, led the National League
(NL) with 44 home runs, and had 132 RBI He was
named the NL most valuable player
Continuing the Story
Hank continued to play hard and improve In
1963, Bobby Bragan, the Braves’ new manager,
en-couraged him to work on his baserunning That
year, Hank became the third player in history tosteal at least 30 bases and hit at least 30 homers inone season In 1966, the Braves moved to Atlanta.Five years later, Hank made another move: to firstbase As he got older, he was not able to run as long
or as hard He moved to first base from the field to save his energy for hitting Hank kept hit-ting home runs, getting closer to Ruth’s record.Finally, on April 4, 1974, he hit home run number
out-714 to tie Ruth Four days later, he broke the recordwith a powerful home run against the Los AngelesDodgers
Hank played his last two seasons for the kee Brewers Switching to an American Leagueteam allowed him to bat as designated hitter, free-ing him from the wear and tear of playing in thefield for nine innings in every game In 1976, afterretiring as a player, Hank returned to the Braves ascorporate vice president in charge of player devel-opment One of few African American men to hold
Milwau-a high mMilwau-anMilwau-agement position Milwau-at thMilwau-at time, HMilwau-ankbuilt the team’s farm system into one of baseball’sbest In 1989, he became the senior vice president
of the Braves
Hank Aaron Great Athletes
Major League Statistics
Season GP AB Hits 2B 3B HR Runs RBI BA SA
Trang 34Hank suffered racial discrimination as
he chased Ruth’s home run record and was
often the target of racially motivated death
threats Nevertheless, he found the
cour-age to become a spokesperson for African
Americans and for Major League Baseball
In 1999, MLB introduced the Hank Aaron
Award, given annually to the best offensive
performer in the American League and
National League In 2002, Hank was the
re-cipient of the Presidential Medal of
Free-dom—an honor bestowed previously on
his baseball hero, Jackie Robinson By the
turn of the twenty-first century, Hank was
one of the most beloved persons in all of
sports In 2007, he humbly saluted Bonds
when the latter broke his career home run
record
Summary
It takes more than natural ability to become a
champion Hank Aaron battled poverty and racism
and spent his entire career working to improve his
skills By the time he retired from playing in 1976,
he had amassed several batting records, and staked
his claim to the moniker of greatest baseball player
ever
Cynthia A Bily
Additional Sources
Aaron, Hank, and Dick Schaap Home Run: My Life
in Pictures Berkeley, Calif.: Total Sports, 1999.
Flowers, Kevin “Hank Aaron Recalls ’74 Game
When He Broke Ruth’s Record.” Baseball Digest
ford, Conn.: Lyons Press, 2006
Stone, Christian, and Mark Mravic The Hammer: The Best of Hank Aaron from the Pages of Sports Illus- trated New York: Sports Illustrated Books, 2007 Vascellaro, Charlie Hank Aaron: A Biography West-
port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2005
Major League Records
Second most career home runs, 755 Most career runs batted in, 2,297 Most career extra-base hits, 1,477 Most career total bases, 6,856
Honors and Awards
1955-74 National League All-Star Team
1957 National League most valuable player 1958-60 National League Gold Glove Award
1975 American League All-Star Team
1982 Inducted into National Baseball Hall of Fame
1999 MLB All-Century Team Uniform number 44 retired by Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers
2000 Library of Congress Living Legends Award
2002 Presidential Medal of Freedom
2003 Robie Award for humanitarianism
2006 Milwaukee dedicated Hank Aaron State Trail
2007 Inducted into Alabama Academy of Honor
Trang 35James Anthony Abbott, best known as Jim, was
born on September 19, 1967, in Flint, Michigan, to
Mike and Kathy Abbott, when both were only
eigh-teen and just out of high school Though it was a
struggle, Jim’s parents graduated from college;Mike became a beer distributor, while Kathy be-came an attorney specializing in education law Jimwas born with a shortened right arm and no righthand When he became fascinated with sports,Jim’s parents tried to guide him to soccer, where hishandicap would not be important Jim, though,loved baseball and spent hours pitching imaginarygames against a brick wall outside his home Inthese backyard shadow games, he began to develop
“the Abbott move,” the eventually quick hand-glove switch that enabled him
lightning-to catch the ricocheting caroms—and pete with his peers
com-The Road to Excellence
After excelling in baseball and football atFlint Central High School, Jim was recruited
to play baseball at the University of gan As a Wolverine freshman in 1986, the6-foot 3-inch, 200-pound left-hander led histeam to the Big Ten title During his career
Michi-at Michigan, Jim compiled an overall 26-8record with a 3.03 earned run average (ERA)and won college baseball’s Golden SpikesAward, the equivalent of football’s HeismanTrophy
During his collegiate career, Jim also ledthe U.S national team to a first-place finish
in the 1987 Pan-American Games In 1987,Jim became the first baseball player to winthe Sullivan Award as the best Americanamateur athlete, over a field that includedJackie Joyner-Kersee, Greg Louganis, andDavid Robinson In 1988, he pitched thegame that clinched the gold medal for theUnited States at the Seoul Olympics.Jim’s accomplishments attracted major-league scouts as early as high school In fact,Jim was offered a $50,000 contract with theToronto Blue Jays in 1985, an offer he turneddown in order to complete college Still, ashad been the case at every level of competi-tion, questions arose about his ability tofield and hit Although he had developed a
Jim Abbott pitching for the New York Yankees (Rich Pilling/MLB/
Getty Images)
Trang 36unique hitting style that served him well during
college, experts predicted that his chances were
probably better in the American League (AL),
where the designated-hitter rule freed pitchers
from batting, than in the National League (NL) In
June, 1988, the California (later Los Angeles)
An-gels made Jim its first pick in the first round of the
major-league draft
The Emerging Champion
In 1989, Jim won a spot in the Angels starting
rota-tion, making him only the fifteenth player since the
1965 inception of the amateur draft to debut and
remain in the majors without having spent a single
day in the minor leagues His initiation into “the
big show,” however, was a difficult transition In his
first major-league game, he lost a 7-0 decision to
the Seattle Mariners Three more losses followed
Then, on April 24, 1989, Jim edged the Baltimore
Orioles 3-2 for his first major-league victory Jim
also tossed two shutouts in his first campaign, both
against the Boston Red Sox, including a win against
ace Roger Clemens Although he had an
up-and-down rookie season, Jim’s solid won-lost record
and 3.92 ERA were good enough to win him a spot
on the Topps all-star rookie team
Jim baffled hitters with a ninety-mile-per-hour
fastball and a repertoire of pitches that included a
curve, a changeup, and a cut fastball, a pitch that
moves like a combination of fastball and curve
Though he fell to 10-14 in 1990, Jim proved a
dura-ble workman by pitching 211 innings His record
was somewhat deceptive, though, in that Jim was
victimized by the Angels’ inability to score runs on
his behalf After that sophomore dip, he returnedwith a career-best 18-11 record and 2.89 ERA in
1991 For his outstanding effort, Jim finished third
in the voting for the AL Cy Young Award He wasalso named the Angels’ co-most valuable player.The 1992 season was another combination ofups and downs In spite of his 7-15 record, Jim’ssparkling 2.77 ERA was the fifth-lowest in the AL.Again, Jim was victimized by a weak Angels’ attackthat produced only 2.64 runs per game when hepitched In regard to perennial concerns about hisfielding, Jim again proved his defensive prowess byhandling 46 fielding opportunities without an er-ror, the second-highest total of errorless chancesamong AL pitchers in 1992 For the third consecu-
Major League Statistics
Season GP GS CG IP HA BB SO W L S ShO ERA
Honors and Awards
1985 March of Dimes Amateur Athlete of the Year
1987 Golden Spikes Award James E Sullivan Award U.S Pan-American Games Team
1988 Big Ten Conference Player of the Year Big Ten Jesse Owens Male Athlete of the Year Gold medal, Olympic Baseball
Sporting News College All-American Team U.S Olympic Committee Male Athlete of the Year
1989 Topps Major League All-Rookie Team
1991 National Rehabilitation Hospital Victory Award Owner’s Trophy
1992 Tony Conigliaro Award
1995 Hutch Award
2007 Inducted into College Baseball Hall of Fame
Trang 37tive year, Jim also topped the 200 innings-pitched
mark, solidifying his iron-man reputation
Continuing the Story
In December, 1992, Jim was traded to the New York
Yankees Expectations for the 1993 campaign were
high, and until mid-September, the Yankees were
in contention with the Toronto Blue Jays and
Balti-more Orioles for the AL Eastern Division
Champi-onship For Jim, it was yet another season of
tri-umphs and disappointments Inexplicably, Jim lost
some velocity on his cut fastball His ERA
bal-looned to 4.37 and his won-lost record slumped to
11-14
In the midst of his struggle to live up to his own
high expectations, Jim achieved one of baseball’s
transcendent accomplishments by tossing a
no-hitter on September 4, 1993 Pitching against the
Cleveland Indians, a team that had hit him hard in
his previous starting assignment, Jim used an
as-sortment of cut fastballs and curves to bewilder the
Indians’ potent lineup Amazingly, it was a game in
which Jim walked more batters, five, than he struck
out, three There were several sparkling fielding
plays, and seventeen outs resulted from ground
balls hit to the infield Though it was not pretty, it
was a no-hitter just the same, and a testament to
Jim’s intelligence as well as to his athletic ability
and gritty competitiveness
Jim began the 1995 season with the Chicago
White Sox but returned to the California Angels in
July After a poor showing in the 1996 season, Jim
took a year off before signing a minor-league
con-tract with the Chicago White Sox in 1998 He
re-turned to the majors in September of 1998,
win-ning all five games he started for the White Sox In
1999, Jim signed with the Milwaukee Brewers as afree agent, but after posting a record of 2-8 and a6.91 ERA, he was released following the all-starbreak During his playing career, Jim spent much
of his free time visiting children that suffered fromdisabilities Upon retiring, he continued to workwith charities as a motivational speaker, sharing hisinspirational story In 2007, Jim was inducted intothe College Baseball Hall of Fame
Summary
Immediately following Jim Abbott’s no-hitter, theNational Baseball Hall of Fame asked for his hatand the game ball Jim’s place in baseball historywas thus assured at the age of twenty-five Just as sig-nificant was Jim’s unique place as a “disabled” per-son who proved himself in the heat of big-leaguecompetition Downplaying his own “story” and pre-ferring to be known simply as a pitcher, Jim wasnevertheless an inspiration to millions
Chuck Berg
Additional Sources
Bernotas, Bob Nothing to Prove: The Jim Abbott Story.
New York: Kodansha International, 1995
Kramer, Jon Jim Abbott Austin, Tex.: Raintree
Steck-Vaughn, 1996
Ohebsion, Rodney, and Thomas Mesenbring Field
Athletes That Inspire Us: The Remarkable True Life Stories of Twenty Unique Athletes Los Angeles:
Immediex, 2005
Savage, Jeff Top Ten Physically Challenged Athletes.
Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow, 2000
Swaine, Rick Beating the Breaks: Major League players Who Overcame Disabilities Jefferson, N.C.:
Ball-McFarland, 2004
Jim Abbott Great Athletes
Trang 38Also known as:Grover Cleveland Alexander (full
name); Pete Alexander; Old Pete
Early Life
Grover Cleveland Alexander, born on February 26,
1887, in Elba, a small farming community near St
Paul, Nebraska, was named after the man then
serving as president of the United States Grover’s
family was large He had eleven brothers to share
both the rigors of farm chores and the relaxation of
recreational activities, including baseball
When only a young boy, Grover made up his
mind to become a professional baseball pitcher
Legend has it that he sharpened his skill by
knock-ing down chickens and turkeys with stones He also
knew that to fulfill his dream he had to desert thefarm After his school years he left Elba to take a job
in St Paul, where he started playing sional ball to supplement his income
semiprofes-The Road to Excellence
Grover first played in the minor leagues at burg, Illinois, but an accident on the field almostended his career before it advanced any further.During a game, as a base runner trying to movefrom first to second, he was struck between the eyeswith a hard-thrown ball The blow left him uncon-scious for two days and impaired by double vision
Gales-He tried to pitch despite the problem, but his finecontrol had deserted him He was sent home, dis-couraged but not beaten Determined to overcomethe problem, Grover continued to throw to anyonewilling to put on a glove He had been traded byGalesburg to Indianapolis, which in turn traded
him to Syracuse, where, in 1910, hewas scheduled to report On the eve
of his departure, while practicing in aschoolyard, he suddenly regained hisability to focus his eyes
The Emerging Champion
Grover won twenty-nine games forSyracuse and was soon picked up bythe Philadelphia Phillies, for whom,
as a rookie, he won an astonishingtwenty-eight games He also quicklydispelled any doubts about his stay-ing power In a seven-year period be-fore the United States entered WorldWar I, Grover chalked up 190 wins, in-cluding 31 in 1915, which propelledthe Phillies into the franchise’s firstWorld Series The next year, he won
33 games, 16 of which were shutouts,
a modern-day major-league record
He was also the National League’spitching triple crown winner from
1915 through 1917 and in 1920.One of Grover’s nicknames, “OldPete,” reflected his pitching style He
Grover Alexander, who won at least thirty games three times in his
ca-reer (Library of Congress)
Trang 39made pitching look effortless, lulling many
oppos-ing batters into believoppos-ing that he was tiroppos-ing and
therefore slowing down They were badly deceived,
however He was simply much quicker than he
looked, and his fastball dipped and curved, to add
to an opposing batter’s woes “Old Pete” also had
superb control Between 1915 and 1917, while
win-ning ninety-four games for the Phillies, he issued
only 172 walks in 1,152 innings, an average of fewer
than three for every two games He was also
re-markably durable Like some of the other great
pitchers of the “dead-ball era,” he sometimes
pitched both ends of a doubleheader and on two
occasions completed and won both games A fast
worker, he finished game after game within an
hour and a half
Grover’s prewar performance on the mound
propelled him to the most career pitching wins in
the National League, a record that he shared with
the great Christy Mathewson when it was later
dis-covered that Mathewson should have been
credited with one more win than the records
indicated
Continuing the Story
Grover’s career was interrupted by World
War I, when, with patriotic enthusiasm, he
vol-unteered for service with the artillery branch of theAmerican Expeditionary Force under General JohnPershing The trench warfare in Europe caused anumber of problems for Grover, including partialdeafness, headaches, and epilepsy, which, in turn,provoked him to rely heavily on alcohol
Grover returned to baseball to win another 181games before retiring in 1930, but he never fullymatched his brilliant prewar achievements ThePhillies traded him to the Chicago Cubs at thewar’s end, and that club eventually waived him.The St Louis Cardinals picked up his contract in
1926 In 1930, he was back in Philadelphia for thelast, and only losing, season of his career
Between 1919 and 1929, despite the physical tolltaken by alcohol and repeated seizures, Grovermanaged to win a season average of sixteen games
In three of those years, he had twenty or morewins, including 1927, when he was forty years oldand near the end of his career In the previous
Grover Alexander Great Athletes
Major League Statistics
Season GP GS CG IP HA BB SO W L S ShO ERA
Honors, Awards, and Records
1915-17, 1920 National League Triple Crown Winner
1916 Major league record for the most shutouts in a season, 16
1938 Inducted into National Baseball Hall of Fame
Trang 40year, he had turned in a World Series performance
against the Yankees for which he is still
remem-bered: He “handcuffed” Babe Ruth in winning
two games and then, in the final game, struck out
Tony Lazzeri with the bases full to save the last
game of the series
After he had a poor start in his last season, the
Phillies sent Grover to the Texas League and, in
ef-fect, out of baseball Although his diamond
ex-ploits were not forgotten, he faded into a
retire-ment of anonymity He died on November 4, 1950,
nearly impoverished, in St Paul, Nebraska, a few
miles from his hometown
Summary
Grover Alexander was his own worst enemy, as he
admitted, but he pitched in an era when fast living
and hard drinking were common in professional
baseball Epilepsy perhaps took a greater toll than
alcoholism Although he never had a seizure on
the field, after the war he had them fairly
fre-quently in the clubhouse and dugout Still, he wasone of the iron men, a winner for two decades, andone of the greatest pitchers of the early part of thetwentieth century
Silverman, Jeff Classic Baseball Stories Guilford,
Conn.: Lyons Press, 2003
Skipper, John C Wicked Curve: The Life and Troubled Times of Grover Cleveland Alexander Jefferson,