Hello and welcome to Issue 023 of Clearing The Bases, an email newsletter in conjunction with the My Baseball History podcast hosted by Dan Wallach.
By the time the next issue of this newsletter comes out, Episode 1 of Season 4 will be live. We’re very excited about the episodes we’re bringing to you this season, and hopefully you’re all excited to hear them and learn from a bunch of new guests, too. In the meantime, if you miss my voice and want some new content of me talking about Shoeless Joe Jackson, you can listen to the latest episode of the This Week In Baseball History podcast with Mike Bates and Bill Parker, which just dropped earlier today. In Episode 346 of their show, we discussed the Tim Murnane Benefit Game, which happened September 27, 1917 - 107 years ago today. One of the first All-Star gatherings in baseball history, the Boston Red Sox beat the American League All-Stars 2-0 behind the strong pitching of one Babe Ruth. Joe Jackson and Buck Weaver were in Boston representing the Chicago White Sox, who had already clinched the American League pennant before going on to win the 1917 World Series against the New York Giants.
Mike, Bill, and I were lucky enough to spend some time together in Minneapolis at the SABR Convention this past July, which is when and where we got the idea to connect for an episode of their podcast. We talked about much more than the Tim Murnane game, however. We spent a long time talking about Joe Jackson’s childhood and early baseball career in South Carolina, and why things didn’t work out during his time with the Philadelphia Athletics. We discussed his career in Cleveland, why he was traded to the Chicago White Sox, and what happened in his life and career after the Black Sox Scandal. We also theorized why Joe is really the only one of the Eight Men Out who most people still talk about more than 100 years after they were banned from the game. It was a very fun conversation, and we all hope you listen to it, which you can do HERE.
This past week in the happenings of modern baseball was jam-packed, as well. The Chicago White Sox disappointed their fans again, this time by not losing games, if you can believe it. They swept the helpless Angels, refusing to set the all-time record for most losses in a season in front of Sox fans during the last home series of the season. They have three more chances to break the record in Detroit to close out the year. While I fully expect the Sox to be swept by a surging Tigers team who is trying to clinch a spot in the playoffs, it would be a VERY White Sox thing to do to lose 120 games but then win the last six games of the season and not actually break the record.
This past week, Shohei Ohtani became the first player since 2001 to reach 400 total bases in a single season, something which has only happened 30 times since 1900. Ohtani created the 50 Home Runs / 50 Stolen Bases Club in a monster performance on September 19 which saw him go 6-for-6 at the plate with 3 home runs, 2 doubles, 2 stolen bases, and 10 RBI. That was only a week ago, and somehow, he is already on the verge of becoming the first player ever with a 55/55 season. Ohtani currently has 53 home runs and 56 stolen bases, but by the time you finish reading this email, those numbers might already be outdated.
The Dodgers have 3 games remaining in their season, so there’s not a ton of time left for Shohei, but those three games are against the 61-98 Rockies, who he has homered against four times already this season. In 22 career games against Colorado, Ohtani is hitting .385 with 30 hits, 8 home runs, 22 RBI, and 21 runs scored. If anyone can hit 2 home runs in three games, it’s him. Well… either him or Aaron Judge, who is up to 58 home runs and 392 total bases this season, leaving him just shy of a couple significant milestones.
Heading into the last three games of the Yankees season against the Pirates, Judge already has the third 50-home run season of his career. That is already impressive, considering only 10 players in MLB history have multiple seasons of 50+ home runs. However, if Judge hits two more in his final three games, it will put him in even more rarified air, giving him his second career 60+ home run season. That’s a feat only Mark McGwire (1998, 1999) and Sammy Sosa (1998, 1999, 2001) have achieved. He would also become only the 20th player in MLB history with a season of 400+ total bases.
This past week, we also saw what was probably (though, still only possibly) the last Athletics games at the Oakland Coliseum. I was lucky enough to see one game there. In 2011, one of my all-time favorite bands reunited for one show at a small club in San Francisco. I flew out to see them play, and made a week of it, as it was the first time I was really in California as an adult. I went to see the A’s play the Kansas City Royals on June 16 with a friend, a day game in uncharacteristically cool but perfect 66-degree weather. As Julie and I sat out in the left field bleachers, we watched Hideki Matsui lead the A’s to an 8-4 victory with a home run in front of 11,773 of our closest friends.
By that point, the Coliseum was already the laughingstock of MLB stadiums, so I went in with very, very low expectations. Maybe it was the perfect, sunny weather. Maybe it was the great company. Maybe it was the fact that we saw an A’s victory in a game during which they took a commanding lead early on and never relinquished, so the fans who were in attendance were actually in a good mood the whole time. But I left the stadium that day thinking it was actually a really fun atmosphere to watch a game, and that for the price of the tickets, I would be happy to go there multiple times a season if I was a local. (A side note apropos of nothing: During that game, Chris Getz went 1-4 for the Royals, right on pace with his season average of .255 in 2011. Getz was named General Manager of the Chicago White Sox in August of 2023, and a player with a .255 average would have led the 2024 Chicago White Sox in batting.)
In Episode 9 of Season 1 of My Baseball History, we spoke with Warren Brown, who was the Bat Boy for the Cincinnati Reds from 1970 to 1972. The Reds played the A’s in the 1972 World Series, and Warren was lucky enough to fly with the team to Oakland to be in the dugout and in the clubhouse on the road during those incredible, historic games. It was Warren’s first time on an airplane, and he has fond memories of the trip and of the World Series. He tells stories about the major rainstorms before Game 3, and recalls many other significant moments he witnessed and experienced during his time with The Big Red Machine. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to Warren’s episode yet, I highly recommend it. You can listen to it and follow along with the liner notes HERE.
Earlier this week, super-agent Scott Boras commented that Sacramento – which is where the Athletics are supposedly moving for the next few years until a permanent stadium is allegedly being built for them in Las Vegas – isn’t fit for MLB. A’s fans, media members, and many people behind the scenes in Oakland and Sacramento have been saying for months that the infrastructure just isn’t there in Sacramento, and that a minor league stadium which regularly sees field temperatures reaching the high 120s, sometimes pushing past 130 degrees during day games, just isn’t safe for the players or the fans. That there’s still time for this to all fall apart, and possibly for the other MLB owners, players, and/or the MLBPA to do whatever they can to force a sale of the franchise. I’m not holding my breath that something like that will happen, but Boras’ comments this week seem like maybe there’s still a glimmer of hope.
Episode 1 of Season 4 of My Baseball History goes live on Wednesday, October 9. That means you have a little less than two weeks to get caught up on the previous three full seasons of episodes we have already released, so go back through the archives and pick out an episode or two (or 27) and get to listening. Once Season 4 begins, we’ll be back to our in-season schedule of one new episode dropping on the second Wednesday of every month. That will last until the season ends with the final episode in June of 2025.
If you want to support the podcast, you can become a paid subscriber to this newsletter, you can make a donation on OUR WEBSITE, and now, for the first time ever, we’re also offering t-shirts for sale. For this first run, we went with a classic black Gildan 5000 tee with white ink, using the MBH microphone logo on the left chest, and the My Baseball History wordmark under the back collar. That wordmark was designed by Gary Cieradkowski, and can be found on the trunk in the locker on the MBH artwork. The shirts are $20 each plus shipping, so if you want one, email me at shoelesspodcast@gmail.com with your size and mailing address, and we’ll get everything taken care of.
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Until next time, I’m Dan Wallach, and this is My Baseball History.
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