Baseball History Daily

Hughie Jennings on Ossie Vitt, 1915

Hughey Jennings told The Detroit News in 1915:

“Vitt is the most valuable player in the American League.  He is the most valuable because he can play three positions in the infield.  He is also an excellent outfielder and can field with the best of them.  Vitt lacks the class to gain a regular position because he cannot hit.”

Ossie Vitt

Over ten seasons with the Tigers and Red Sox, Vitt hit just .238

A White Stockings Player on George Washington Bradley, 1876

After winning their first four games of the National League’s inaugural season—and scoring 40 runs–the Chicago White Stockings were shut out by St. Louis pitcher George Washington Bradley on May 5, 1876; Bradley yielded just two hits in the 1-0 win.  An unnamed Chicago player was quoted by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

Bradley

 “A man might just as well try to successfully strike his mother-in-law as one of his balls.”

Bill Terry on John McGraw, 1934

Despite their often-strained relationship—they once went two years without speaking, Bill Terry, speaking to The Associated Press, said of John McGraw after the man who managed him and whom he replaced as manager, died in 1934:

“I don’t think there ever will be another manager as great as McGraw.  I had my little arguments with him but there was always a soft spot in my heart.  He was the only man I ever played big league ball for, and to hear that a man who has spent his whole life in baseball has gone makes me feel humble.  We will call off practice on the day of his funeral.”

Hal Schumacher on John McGraw, 1934

Hal Schumacher played for John McGraw as a 20-year-old rookie in 1931, and for part of 1932 before McGraw was replaced by Bill Terry.  When McGraw died in 1934, Schumacher told The Associated Press:

McGraw

“I never could understand his reputation as an iron-fisted ruler.  I never heard him bawl out a rookie.”

Harry Wright on fans and winning, 1888

Harry Wright, told The Pittsburgh Press about the difference between how fans treated winning clubs in 1888 versus his time with the Red Stockings in the 1870s:

 Wright

“I won the championship six times, and the most we ever got was an oyster supper.  Now the whole town turns out to meet the boys when they return from a fairly successful trip.  They are learning how to appreciate pennant winners nowadays.”

Dick Hoblitzel on his “X-Ray Eye,” 1911

Dick Hoblitzel told The Cincinnati Times-Star in the spring of 1911 he was “training his batting eye,” and:

“(B)elieves he will soon be able to count the stitches on a ball before it leaves the pitcher’s hand.  ‘It’s the X-ray eye that does this,’ he avers, and he has made a bet of a suit of clothes that he will finish in the .275 class or better.”

Hoblitzel, perhaps as a result of his “X-ray eye,” hit.289 in 1911.

Tommy Corcoran on Umpiring, 1897

Tommy Corcoran told a Sporting Life correspondent in 1897:

Corcoran

I believe I’d rather carry scrap iron for the same money than umpire a ball game.  There is no vocation in which there is less sympathy or charity than in baseball.  It must be awful for an old player to listen to the abuse he has to stand from those he once chummed with.  There is an illustration of the heartlessness of some players.  That umpire’s playing days are over, or he wouldn’t be an umpire.  He is trying to earn a living and his old comrades won’t let him.”

Tags: American League, Bill Terry, Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Stockings, Cincinnati Red Stockings, Detroit Tigers, Dick Hoblitzel, George Bradley, Hal Schumacher, Harry Wright, Hughie Jennings, John McGraw, National League, New York Giants, Ossie Vitt, St. Louis Brown Stockings, Things I Learned on the Way to Looking Up Other Things, Tommy Corcoran