Bloomington-born Wolf brings 1932 back to life with ‘The Called Shot’

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Thomas Wolf knew he wanted to write about the compassionate prison warden who took an inmate serving a life sentence to the World Series.

It became so much more.

Charlie Ireland took charge at Anamosa (Iowa) Men’s Reformatory and soon bonded over baseball and the Chicago Cubs with convicted murderer Harry “Snap” Hortman. The warden made a promise that if the Cubs made it to the Series, Ireland and Hortman would attend games at Wrigley Field. 

That pledge was kept and they, Charles Ireland (the warden’s son) and inmate Shorty Wakefield were there to see the Cubs take on the New York Yankees in Games 3 and 4 on Oct. 1 and 2 in 1932.

In the fifth inning of Game 3, Babe Ruth ripped the fifth pitch from Charlie Root for a home run. Many of said that the Bambino predicted the blast and pointed to where he would deposit it.

Wolf’s book, “The Called Shot: Babe Ruth, The Chicago Cubs, & The Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932 (Nebraska Press, 2020),” covers that the many events swirling around that fabled clout.

“1932 was such a fascinating year,” says Wolf. “It was a pretty pivotal year in American history.”

On the diamond, there was Ruth, Lou Gehrig and the rest of the powerful Yankees, Philadephia Athletics slugger Jimmie Foxx belting 58 home runs and a tight pennant race in the National League.

The 1932 World Series was Ruth’s last. That year was also the final time he hit 40 or more home runs and or drove in 130 or more runs in a season.

The Babe had a rather un-Ruthian 1925 campaign, hitting .290 with 25 home runs and 67 runs batted in over 98 games.

“People were writing him off, saying he was past his prime,” says Wolf. “But he had a lot of gas left in the tank.”

From 1926 through 1932, Ruth hit .353 with 343 homers and drove in 1,070 runs. In 1927, his slash line was .356/60/165.

The Cubs ended up taking the NL flag even though manager Rogers Hornsby was fired after 99 games and replaced by Charlie Grimm. Hornsby was at the end of his playing days and had many legal problems, some related to his gambling habits.

“The Rajah,” who hit .358 from 1915-37 with three .400 seasons (.401 in 1922, .424 in 1924 and .403 in 1925), was known to be a prickly character.

“He did not get along well with other players, managers or management,” says Wolf of Hornsby, who was not voted a World Series share by the ’32 Cubs.

Cubs shortstop Billy Jurges was shot by his girlfriend/showgirl Violet Popovich at the Hotel Carlos on Sheffield Avenue near Wrigley and recovered in time to help Chicago down the stretch.

The Jurges story is likely an inspiration for the 1951 novel, “The Natural” by Bernard Malamude. The movie adaptation stars Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs.

Former player and AL umpire George Moriarty was suspended for a fight with the Chicago White Sox.

After making one big league appearance in 1930, colorful right-hander Dizzy Dean had a breakout year in 1932, winning 18 games for St. Louis Cardinals.

Guy Bush, Kiki Cuyler, Woody English, Gabby Hartnett, Billy Herman, Mark Koenig, Pat Malone and Lon Warneke were among the other key performers for the 1932 Cubs.

The 1932 Yankees, managed by former Cubs skipper Joe McCarthy, also had Sammy Byrd, Ben Chapman, Earle Combs, Frank Crosetti, Bill Dickey, Lefty Gomez, Tony Lazzeri, Red Ruffing and Joe Sewell.

Away from baseball, 1932 was a presidential election year. Both the Democrat and Republican nominating conventions were held in Chicago thanks to mayor Anton Cermak. 

With the Great Depression swirling and World War I veterans staging a Bonus March and then camping out in Washington D.C., Franklin D. Roosevelt would replace Herbert Hoover in the White House. FDR was in attendance at Game 3 of the World Series. 

So was baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis with nephews Charlie and Lincoln Landis from Logansport, Ind., and entertainer Bill “Bojangles” Robinson.

Prohibition was on its way to be repealed in 1933.

Wolf weaves these and other details together in “The Called Shot.”

“It was fascinating to research the ’32 season and challenging to put all the stories together for the book,” says Wolf. “I wanted to tie in the world outside of baseball since 1932 was such an important year in the nation’s history — again, the research was eye-opening for me, and I learned a lot.

“I suppose that’s true for everyone who writes non-fiction — the research exposes us to facts and characters and perceptions about events that we only vaguely knew — in my case, for example, the history of the Bonus Army.”

Wolf enjoyed studying what it was like for ballplayers in the 1930’s. They spent many hours on trains, playing cards and talking baseball. Old players mentored new ones.

In that era, there were eight teams in each league with St. Louis being the farthest point west or south. Likely for monetary reasons, road trips would take weeks. For instance, the Cubs might play games in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York, Brooklyn, Boston and Cincinnati before coming back to Chicago.

As the Yankees travel from New York to Chicago during the World Series, they made a stop in Elkhart, Ind., to change engines.

“Fifty youngsters charged onto the train and searched for ballplayers,” wrote Wolf in “The Called Shot.” “They found Babe Ruth and mobbed him. Ruth and other players signed autographs for their young fans, and then the youths were shooed from the train.”

The routine and relationships between the press and the ballplayers were different in those days.

Wolf notes that today’s athletes will talk to reporters after a game and then tend to their social media accounts — Instagram, Twitter etc.

“Every player is his own brand,” says Wolf. “They’re in their own world with their own followers.”

Wolf says he first began taking notes for what would become “The Called Shot” around 2000, began the writing process around 2013. 

He began talking to literary agent Stacey Glick in 2007, began working on a book proposal after that and got contract with the University of Nebraska Press around 2013. He turned the manuscript over to UNP early in 2019 then did the bibliography and end notes. 

“It was about a six-year process,” says Wolf.

The book came out during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was not easy with book stores being closed, book festivals being canceled and newspapers doing less reviews on baseball books.

With the help of Adam Rifenberick of Press Box Publicity, Wolf did about 40 podcasts and radio interviews to promote the book in June and July. He has been on Baseball by the Book Podcast with Justin McGuire (Episode 258) and The Sporting Life with Jeremy Schapp (ESPN).

Born in Bloomington, Ind., in 1947, Thomas Wolf is the son of Irvin and Jeanette “Jan” Wolf, who met at Indiana University. Irvin was born and raised in Wabash, Ind., attended Manchester College in North Manchester, Ind., and then got a doctorate in psychology at IU. 

Irvin Wolf was a college professor. He was at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill when Thomas was 1 to 7. From second grade through high school, his father taught at Denison University in Granville, Ohio.

Irvin’s brother, Jack, attended DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., and lived most of his life after college in New York City.

Eugene “Gene” Wolf, grandfather of Thomas and father to Irvin and Jack, moved to Wabash from Germany and was a partner in the Beitman & Wolf department store and married to Rachel Simon Wolf. The Cubs began broadcasting their games on the radio and Gene Wolf became a big fan. He would travel to see games in Chicago.

The ’32 Series was aired by the Mutual Broadcasting System, CBS and NBC.

Thomas Wolf has a bachelor’s degree from Knox College Galesburg, Ill., and a master’s in Fiction Writing from the University of Iowa.

Wolf taught at Carl Sandburg College in Galesburg, UNC Chapel Hill and Santa Clara (Calif.) University and was a testing specialist and writing consultant before focusing on writing projects.

Patricia Bryan, Wolf’s wife, is a professor at the UNC School of Law and has been teaching at the university since 1982. She was a visiting professor at her alma mater — the University of Iowa — when she and her husband toured the prison grounds at Anamosa. 

Bryan and Wolf co-authored “Midnight Assassin: A Murder in America’s Heartland (University of Iowa Press, 2007).”

Wolf has produced several articles (many in conjunction with Bryan), including “The Warden Takes a Murderer to the World Series: A Tale of Depression-era Compassion,” “On the Brink: Babe Ruth in Dennis Lehane’s The Given Day,” “The Golden Era of Prison Baseball and the Revenge of Casey Coburn” and “Jack Kerouac and Fantasy Baseball.”

There are plans to write another true crime book set in Iowa.

Wolf has been a regular attendee of the Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture and is a Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) member. He says he tapped into the SABR Baseball Biography Project for background on many subjects and Retrosheet for game details in “The Called Shot.”

Thomas Wolf and Patricia Bryan have three sons — John and twins David and Mike. John Wolf (29) is a dog trainer living in North Carolina. David Wolf (27) works in the public relations department for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Mike Wolf (27) is an assistant men’s basketball coach at Purdue-Fort Wayne.

Thomas Wolf, who was born in Bloomington, Ind., is the author of the book, “The Called Shot: Babe Ruth, The Chicago Cubs, & The Unforgettable Major League Baseball Season of 1932 (Nebraska Press, 2020).”

Fireballer Klein anxious to begin professional career

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Will Klein is pumping gas and saving a little gas.

Klein, a right-handed pitcher who was selected in the fifth round of the 2020 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the Kansas City Royals out of Eastern Illinois University, has regularly hit 99 mph on radar guns.

Last summer while competing in the Northwoods League All-Star Game, the 2017 graduate of Bloomington (Ind.) High School North hit triple digits. 

In his last appearance of the summer, he pumped in a pitch at 100 mph.

Klein was the EIU Panthers’ Friday starter in 2020 and went 1-2  in four appearances with a 3.33 earned run average, 33 strikeouts and 13 walks in 24 1/3 innings before the season was halted because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While university facilities were off limits, Klein and two of his three roommates stayed in Charleston, Ill., and got ready for the MLB Draft, which was shaved from 40 to five rounds this year. 

Klein played catch in parking lots and open fields, threw PlyoCare Balls against park fences and used kettle bells, benches and dumb bells in the living room.

Kansas City took Klein with the 135th overall pick.

“I talked to every team,” says Klein, 20. “I could tell some were more interested than others.

“The Royals were definitely the team that communicated with me the most.”

With the Minor League Baseball season called off, Klein has been training with PRP Baseball’s Greg Vogt at Finch Creek Fieldhouse in Noblesville, Ind., up to six days a week. 

The pitcher, who has added muscle and now packs 230 pounds on his 6-foot-5 frame, saves time and fuel by staying with an aunt and uncle in Fishers.

“The Royals sent a weight lifting, throwing and running schedule,” says Klein. “I blend that with what Greg’s doing.”

Klein first worked out at PRP Baseball last summer and also went there in the winter.

Klein’s natural arm slot has been close to over the top.

From there, he launches a four-seam fastball, “spike” curveball (it moves from 12-to-6 on the clock face), “gyro” slider (it has more downward and less lateral movement than some sliders) and a “circle” change-up.

In three seasons at EIU, Klein’s walks-per-nine innings went from 9.6 in 2018 to 9.9 in 2019 to 4.8 in 2020.

Why the control improvement?

“A lot of repetition and smoothing out the action,” says Klein. “I’ve been able to get a feel for what I was doing and a more efficient movement pattern with my upper and lower halves.

“Throwing more innings helped, too. I didn’t throw a whole lot in high school.”

Playing for head coach Richard Hurt, Klein was primarily a catcher until his senior year. In the second practice of his final prep season, he broke the thumb on his pitching hand and went to the outfield.

The previous summer while playing with the Indiana Bulls, Klein had gotten the attention of Eastern Illinois at Prep Baseball Report showcase held at Grand Park in Westfield, Ind.

Klein would be an NCAA Division I pitcher. He played at EIU for head coach Jason Anderson and had two pitching coaches — Julio Godinez in 2018 and 2019 and Tim Brown in 2020.

“(Anderson) was very helpful coming from pro ball,” says Klein of the former University of Illinois right-hander who pitched in the big leagues with the New York Yankees and New York Mets. “He knew what it took mentally and physically and took me from a thrower to a pitcher.”

Former catcher Godinez brought energy and also helped Klein learn about pitch sequences.

Brown was given full reign of the Panthers staff by Anderson this spring.

Klein struggled his freshmen year, starting three of 14 games and going 1-1 with a 6.62 ERA. He was used in various bullpen roles as a sophomore and went 1-1 with a 5.11 ERA. 

He was the closer and Pitcher of the Year with the Lakeshore Chinooks in the summer of 2019 when he hit 100 on the gun and was told he would be a starter when he got back to EIU in the fall.

For his college career, Klein was 2-2 and struck out 62 in 42 1/3 innings.

Born in Maryville, Tenn., Will moved to Bloomington at 3. Both his parents — Bill and Brittany — are Indiana University graduates.

Will played youth baseball at Winslow and with the Unionville Arrows and then with local all-star teams before high school. During those summers, he was with the Mooresville Mafia, which changed its name the next season to Powerhouse Baseball. 

At 17U, Troy Drosche was his head coach with the Indiana Bulls. At 18U, he played for the Mike Hitt-coached Indiana Blue Jays. 

The summer between his freshman and sophomore years at EIU, Klein was with the Prospect League’s Danville (Ill.) Dans.

Will is one semester from earning his degree in Biological Sciences.

“I grew up loving science,” says Will, who has had both parents teach the subject. Bill Klein has taught at Jackson Creek Middle School with Brittany Klein is a Fairview Elementary. Both schools are in Bloomington.

Will is the oldest of their three children. The 6-4 Sam Klein (18) is a freshman baseball player at Ball State University. Molly (13) is an eighth grader who plays volleyball, basketball and softball.

Will Klein pitched at Eastern Illinois University. (D1 Baseball Video)

Will Klein, a 2017 graduate of Bloomington (Ind.) High School South, pitched three baseball seasons at Eastern Illinois University and was selected in the fifth round of the 2020 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft by the Kansas City Royals. (Eastern Illinois University Photo)

Friend to Indiana baseball Cava passes at 73

BY STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Indiana’s baseball community lost a great friend with the sudden passing Dec. 18 of Pete Cava at 73.

Indiana broadcast pioneer Reid Duffy may have said it best.

“Pete certainly lived up to the reputation of ‘never meeting a stranger,’” said Duffy, who knew Cava for decades and lived near him in Indianapolis.

When you were his friend, Cava greeted with a warm smile and hand shake that turned into a hug.

So many remember him as their cheerleader. He always seemed to be there with encouraging words of advice.

Cava was sharing stories with friends at an Oscar Charleston Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research planning dinner when he suffered an attack that turned out to be an aortic dissection. He died soon after being rushed to a nearby Methodist Hospital.

Cava lived in Indianapolis for more than 40 years though his New York roots never really left him.

A native of Staten Island, he was born July 26, 1946 and was a New York Yankees fan and a first baseman as a young man. In 1969, he graduated from Fordham University, where he worked in the sports information department.

He served in the U.S. Army, working in the Public Affairs Office of the First Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kan. He worked as a sports reporter and a radio program director before joining the Amateur Athletic Union in 1974.

He spent more than 20 years as a media information director for USA Track & Field and also served as a press liaison for the first two editions of the World Baseball Classic, The Athletics Congress, the AAU and other groups.

Cava was a regular at SABR conventions, frequently as a presenter.

The owner of International Sports Associates and a writing and editing specialist, Cava also wrote columns for the Indianapolis Star, Agence France-Presse and the National Scholastic Sports Foundation. He contributed to Baseball America.

Cava could frequently be found in the press box at Indianapolis Indians games or covering high school contests around central Indiana.

He shared his knowledge on Hoosier History Live! on WICR 88.7 FM.

Years ago, Cava coached Little League with Todd Webster, who went on to be head coach at Pike High School.

Later on, Cava kept the scorebook for the Indiana Pony Express travel team.

In recent years, he has covered games for Prep Baseball Report Indiana and has been publicizing his latest book, “Indiana-Born Major League Baseball Players:  A Biographical Dictionary, 1871-2014.” It’s a work that took 22 years to complete. He kept readers up-to-date on Indiana-related baseball doings with his weekly Facebook posts. He also authored “Tales from the Cubs Dugout.”

Cava is survived by his wife, Molly, son Andy and daughter Nancy. Visitation is 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 2 at Leppert Mortuary, 740 East 86th St., Indianapolis with funeral mass 11:30 a.m. Friday, Jan. 3 at St. Luke Catholic Church, 7575 Holliday Drive E., Indianapolis.

Pete Cava (1946-2019) was a fixture on the Indiana and international baseball scene. He died in Indianapolis Dec. 18, 2019.

Motus Baseball technology aimed at injury prevention, performance improvement

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Over-use in baseball has led to many injuries and countless hours on the operating table.

Will Carroll, a former Bleacher Report and FanDuel writer who has been tracking athletic injuries for the past two decades, says that 30 percent of Major League Baseball pitchers end up with the tell-tale scare of reconstructive surgery on their elbow.

“Teams, through no fault of their own, are ramping up pitchers wrong and overextending these guys,” says Carroll, who resides in the Indianapolis area. “There were like 106 Tommy John surgeries at the professional level (majors and minors) in 2016. That’s just too many.

“This is a problem in baseball without any solution. We have a chance to really make a dent in it and maybe reverse it.

“Most people don’t understand the forces they’re putting on their elbow. Ask a player, ‘How many times did you throw?’ The player has no idea. Coaches have even less of an idea.”

But what if these throws could be tracked and the subsequent injuries could be prevented while also improving performance?

That’s the idea behind a product from Motus Baseball that tracks every throw and calculates arm stress and throwing workload.

Motus, founded in 2010 and headquartered in New Jersey, makes biomechanics accessible to athletes and more with clinical-grade motion capture data.

A lightweight sensor is placed into a Motus Baseball compression sleeve and data is collected as the player goes about his daily routine — warm-up, bullpen, long toss, game action.

“It is a product that demos itself and manages itself,” says Carroll, who has joined the Motus team as chief storyteller. “All you have to do is put it on.”

With the aim of protecting young arms, the IHSAA adopted a pitch count rules (1 to 35 pitches requires 0 days rest; 36 to 60 requires 1 day; 61 to 80 requires 2 days; 81 to 100 requires 3 days; and 101 to 120 requires 4 days) in 2017.

Carroll says this approach is better than nothing.

“There are better measures,” says Carroll. “We think there’s a smarter way to do it.”

Motus wearable technology can help track fatigue and show that a pitcher’s arm is dropping.

Before, when a coach suspected this, the exchange would go something like this:

Coach: “How do you feel son?”

Pitcher: “I’m fine, coach.”

“They’ve lied to us for 100 years,” says Carroll. “This is demonstrably better.”

Carroll sees the hesitation of those who see this as another baseball gimmick.

“It’s a tool,” says Carroll. “Gimmicks are just tricks. This isn’t a trick, it’s data and it’s powerful data.”

This data is being used all over baseball and is endorsed by New York Yankees right-hander Dellin Betances.

The University of Indianapolis has started using it and head coach Gary Vaught reported at the 2018 Indiana High School Baseball Coaches State Clinic in Indianapolis that he is more than pleased with the early results.

“I haven’t heard a college coach get more excited about something,” says Carroll of Vaught. “This is the big thing. Arm injuries will kill baseball if we don’t fix it. He took a big leap of faith once he saw it.

“I haven’t seen a team buy in like that and I think they’re going to see the results.”

It’s not just UIndy pitchers using the Motus product. The Greyhounds also have sensors for all their hitters.

Since the state clinic in January, Carroll has watched Indiana high school programs like Center Grove and Carmel begin to use Motus and he has a list of schools that want him to visit.

“When Center Grove and Carmel get something, everybody else is going to want it,” says Carroll. “We think we’ll have 10 or 15 by the time school starts and 100 by next year.”

The tool becomes even more effective in the hands of knowledge coaches.

“This is going to make the best coaches better,” says Carroll. “They can make quicker adjustments. At worst, it will be an early warning system for some coaches.”

Carroll says customer services is important to Motus.

“We don’t sell a product and forget you,” says Carroll. “We don’t change what you’re doing. We want to enhance what you’re doing.”

Motus team members, including Carroll, will help teams analyze the data and essentially serve as part of their medical staff.

“It’s like they just hired five new assistant coaches,” says Carroll.

And it’s not just at the high school level where this will make an impact.

“It’s the younger guys that will pick this up, adjust and use the data that they’re getting,” says Carroll. “This is going to grow from the bottom up.”

Understanding this data will only help them when it comes time to talk with college recruiters and pro scouts.

New York Yankees right-hander Dellin Betances is a Motus Baseball athlete. (Motus Photo)

A lightweight sensor is placed into a Motus Baseball compression sleeve and data is collected as the player goes about his daily routine — warm-up, bullpen, long toss, game action. (Motus Photo)

The Motus Baseball sensor is small, but helps collect much useful data. (Motus Photo)

 

Notre Dame, Southern Illinois professors author book that connects baseball and the law

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

Stated simply, a law is a rule or set of rules.

Baseball is governed by a set of rules.

The connections between the two disciplines are many as evidenced in a book authored by two law professors — Ed Edmonds of the University of Notre Dame and Frank G. Houdek of the Southern Illinois University-Carbondale.

“Baseball Meets the Law: A Chronology of Decisions, Statutes and Other Legal Events” (published by McFarland & Co., 2017) highlights many interesting intersections of jurisprudence and the Grand Old Game.

While it was produced by two men who once directed their respective school’s law libraries and provides exhaustive footnotes and a subject index for legal scholars who wish to dig deeper into a topic, the 336-page book is intended for a general audience.

“Baseball & The Law: Cases and Materials,” written by Louis H. Schiff and Robert M. Jarvis and published by Carolina Academic Press in 2016, is a 1,040-page book aimed at law school students.

Edmonds says the chronologically-based “Baseball Meets the Law” uses vignettes to tell stories like “A League of Their Own” being the only baseball movie selected for the Library of Congress National Film Registry, an annual list that recognizes 25 films for historical and aesthetic significance.

The earliest sighting of baseball meeting the law comes from 1791 in Pittsfield, Mass. It was ruled that no bat and ball games could be conducted within 80 yards of the meeting house.

Why?

Too many broken windows and too much noise.

“It was an early attempt at zoning,” says Edmonds, who started teaching sports law at the College of William & Mary 35 years ago and taught the subject for 11 years at Notre Dame (he was an ND undergraduate from 1969-73). “We show how that incident connected baseball and the law.”

The book combines research with Edmonds’ teachings with Houdek’s large bibliography of sports law articles.

Did you know that Pennsylvania passed a blue act in 1794 prohibiting baseball on Sunday? Philadelphia was the last city to host a legal Sunday baseball game in 1934. “Sunday Baseball: The Major Leagues’ Struggle to Play Baseball on the Lord’s Day, 1876-1934,” authored by Charles Bevis and published by McFarland & Co., is devoted to the subject.

Wonder why baseball and other sports have so many “throwback” uniforms?

“It’s to protect that trademark,” says Edmonds.

Trademark law is also the reason the South Bend Cubs and Chicago Cubs have similar but distinguishing logos.

“We bring awareness that these issues exsist,” says Edmonds. “It goes beyond antitrust, strikes and labor organizations.”

Edmonds notes the law’s hand in starting the Negro National League in 1920 and that journalists from the Indianapolis Defender and Indianapolis Freeman newspapers had a hand in drawing up the league constitution. The Indianapolis ABC’s were a charter member of the NNL.

A Society for American Baseball Research member, Edmonds attended the Jerry Malloy Negro League Conference in Harrisburg, Pa., in July. He also went to his first SABR national convention in New York in June and belongs to the society’s Baseball Card Committee. He knows about the legal fights between card companies and the players who were signed to exclusive contracts.

Edmonds is very involved with the tracking of Major League Baseball salary arbitration and the Collective Bargaining Agreement. His findings are found on in the scholarship repository of the Notre Dame Law School’s Kresge Law Library.

In delving in antitrust and labor issues in baseball, Edmonds has written about U.S. Supreme Court cases (Federal Baseball v. National League, Toolson v. New York Yankees and Flood v. Kuhn).

Edmonds has spoken at the annual Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture and the Annual Spring Training Conference on the Historical and Sociological Impact of Baseball sponsored by Nine: A Journal of Baseball History and Culture.

As part of the Jerome Hall Law Library’s Annual Welcome Week activities, Edmonds and Houdek will discuss their book at noon Monday, Aug. 28 at Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s Moot Court Room.

Monument to first pro league baseball game placed in Fort Wayne

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

A significant happening in baseball history was commemorated exactly 146 years to the date after it happened on Indiana soil.

The first professional league game was contested between the Fort Wayne Kekiongas and Cleveland Forest Citys Thursday, May 4, 1871 and a two-sided marker was dedicated to celebrate the occasion on Thursday, May 4, 2017 at the site of the game, which is now Camp Allen Park.

As Society for American Baseball Research Kekionga chapter president Bill Griggs points out, that’s 5-4-71 to 5-4-17.

Because of heavy rains, it was very brief and a more formal ceremony is expected at a later date so more people can attend.

Archie Monuments of Watertown, Wis., constructed the marker, which is part of David Stalker’s Memorial Baseball Series. The Lou Criger monument, placed in Elkhart by Stalker and this writer in 2012, is part of the series.

Chapter founder Bob Gregory, a Fort Wayne resident and expert on early baseball, wanted to see the important time in baseball and American annals recognized, and pushed for Kekionga to be attached when he founded the Fort Wayne SABR chapter.

Gregory died of cancer in 2016. Working with current chapter president, Bob’s widow Mindy helped gather several of Bob’s books to be auctioned off to help pay for the monument, which now stands at the corner of Center and Huron near the St. Mary’s River as a reminder of the Summit City’s important place in the game’s history.

The list of others who helped is long. Some of those include local politician Geoff Paddock, local baseball historians Bob Parker (Fort Wayne Oldtimers Baseball Association), Don Graham, (Northeast Indiana Baseball Association), fundraiser Tim Tassler, Fort Wayne TinCaps executive Mike Nutter, the Fort Wayne park board and Fort Wayne News-Sentinel sports writer Blake Sebring.

More about the monument is sure to be learned by any attending a Kekionga SABR meeting at noon to 3 p.m. Saturday, May 6 on the west end of the second floor at the downtown Allen County Library.

The first professional league game was contested between the Fort Wayne Kekiongas and Cleveland Forest Citys Thursday, May 4, 1871 and a two-sided marker was dedicated to celebrate the occasion on Thursday, May 4, 2017 at the site of the game, which is now Camp Allen Park. (Bill Griggs Photos)

International baseball expert, Indiana resident Bjarkman to receive SABR’S Chadwick Award

By STEVE KRAH

http://www.IndianaRBI.com

One of the most prestigious baseball awards will be presented to a longtime Indiana resident this summer.

Lafayette’s Peter Bjarkman — aka “Dr. Baseball” — will get the Society for American Baseball Research’s Henry Chadwick Award at the group’s national convention June 28-July 2 in New York.

According to the SABR website, the “Henry Chadwick Award was established in November 2009 to honor baseball’s great researchers—historians, statisticians, annalists, and archivists—for their invaluable contributions to making baseball the game that links America’s present with its past.”

Bjarkman, a Hartford, Conn., native, has authored more than 40 books on sports history. His latest work in “Cuba’s Baseball Defectors: The Inside Story.”

A former professor, he has taught at multiple places including Butler University, Ball State University and Purdue University. Wife Ronnie B. Wilbur, a leading researcher and authority on deaf sign languages, is a Purdue linguistics professor. The couple spends portions of each each in Europe.

At a recent gathering of the Oscar Charleston SABR chapter prior to an Indianapolis Indians game, Bjarkman shared his vast knowledge on the World Baseball Classic (he writes extensively about the subject in “Defectors”) and other diamond topics.

Bjarkman has been to all four WBC’s (2006, 2009, 2013, 2017) as part of the media contingent wherever Cuba was playing. He witnessed the finals in 2006 in San Diego, where Cuba was runner-up to Japan, and 2009 in Los Angeles, where Japan took gold by topping South Korea.

A fan of the old International Baseball Federation World Cup (which breathed its last because of financial reasons), Bjarkman was skeptical when Major League Baseball came along with plans for the WBC. MLB was attempting to take ownership of baseball on a global scale with an Olympic-style event.

“What the original IBAF World Cup did was foster interest in baseball in a lot of countries throughout the world

Sweden would go and lose three games but it would inspire young people in Sweden to try to be on the national team,” Bjarkman said. “You knew from the beginning MLB’s version was designed to showcase international players in the major leagues.

“It did not emphasize and foster international baseball. These guys may be playing for the Dominican now, but they’ll be playing at a ballpark near you soon in April.”

Bjarkman said MLB was hoping to gain financially in the same way FIFA has done with soccer’s World Cup. Of course, the scope could never be the same because not nearly as many countries play baseball and soccer.

IBAF trademarked the term Baseball World Cup in international courts so MLB went with World Baseball Classic.

“There’s a lot of things I love about MLB,” Bjarkman said. “It’s really not about globalizing and internationalizing the game as much as it is about creating international markets for major league products and Major League Baseball — the same way the NFL is doing by having its games in London and the NBA having games at locations outside the United States like China.”

When the WBC came along, Bjarkman enjoyed the event in-person.

“It was really a lot of fun,” Bjarkman said. “There was that element of seeing these players play for their own country.”

That sense of national pride differs from country to country. Bjarkman said players and fans outside the U.S. identify with their national flag. Here, fans tend to be a part of Red Sox Nation, Yankees Nation or wherever their team loyalties lie.

As Bjarkman sees it, the WBC was not marketed probably when the tournament began.

“The first couple tournaments they should have given tickets away,” Bjarkman said. First-round games in Miami in the first few years of the WBC and maybe 1,500 would be there for USA vs. Puerto Rico. “People see these games on TV and there’s nobody there, they say ‘this can’t be worth watching.’”

WBC eventually became a recognized brand and began getting a foothold, but it still has issues.

There’s the timing. Coming during spring training, many players (especially pitchers) are not a full-go yet and team owners don’t like having their expensive talent leaving camp for extended periods.

With the size of the field, Bjarkman there are now eight countries with legitimate national teams with others using mostly players with ethnic ties rather than natives.

Take Team Israel in 2017.

“It was a team full of American players with ethnic Jewish family backgrounds,” Bjarkman said. “This is not an Israeli team.

“This is what MLB has been stuck with by expanding this thing out. You’d probably want to have a six- or eight-team tournament. But that’s going to be a problem because how many games can you market on television?”

Bjarkman also pointed out that countries like the Dominican and Venezuela have much of their baseball talent drained by Major League Baseball.

Two countries who run baseball independent of MLB are Japan with its posting system and Cuba for political reasons.

What happens if Puerto Rico becomes a state, a realistic possibility in the near future?

Bjarkman ask that if there is a Puerto Rican team in the WBC after P.R. becomes a U.S. state, why can’t there be a Miami Cuban team?

A faction in the U.S. would like to put united Cuban team together with players such as Aroldis Chapman and Jose Abreu.

Cuba is opposed to the idea.

“They are still trying to maintain their own national baseball league,” Bjarkman said. “There has been a tremendous loss of players (to defection).”

Team Cuba at the 2013 WBC had seven of eight everyday players go on to the play in the MLB. Bjarkman’s research shows that 200 Cuba-born players since 1871 have played in the majors as of Opening Day 2017. He classifies 66 of those as “defectors.” The first in the post-revolution period (1961 to the present) Barbaro Garbey, who debuted with the Detroit Tigers in 1984. The next one is Rene Arocha, who first pitched in the bigs for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1993.

Discussion in Indianapolis also turned to the international tiebreaker rule used in the 2017 WBC and first adopted at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The “Schiller Rule” allows that the team at bat began the 11th inning with runners on first and second base.

“It’s not baseball as we knew baseball, but tournament baseball isn’t either,” Bjarkman said. “In the context in which it’s used, it’s really exciting.”

The rule, which has been used during regular-season games in Cuba in the past, was adopted for expediency. Tournament directors are trying to avoid extra-long contests.

“How long is it going to be before we see this in Major League Baseball?,” Bjarkman said. “Why are we going to see it in Major League Baseball? Because of the commercial aspect. You don’t want games going past a certain time.

“They do all these things to try to shorten games. If you want to shorten games, don’t have so many commercials between innings.”

Other factors that lengthen games are the way pitchers are now. There are lefty and righty specialists and so many visits to the mound. It was once rare to have a pitching change before the seventh inning unless a pitcher was getting shelled in the early going.

“They’e trying to shorten games on one hand, but there are all these breaks for video reviews,” Bjarkman said.

Lafayette’s Peter Bjarkman — aka “Dr. Baseball” — will get the Society for American Baseball Research’s Henry Chadwick Award at the group’s national convention June 28-July 2 in New York.