Today in sports history -- Frankie Frisch

On this date 35 years ago, Hall of Fame second baseman Frankie Frisch died in Wilmington, Delaware, succumbing to injuries suffered in a car accident a month earlier. He was 74.

Frisch played for the New York Giants from 1919 to 1926, then was traded to the Cardinals with Jimmy Ring for the great Rogers Hornsby. He spent 11 years in St. Louis, where he was a key player in the great "Gashouse Gang" teams of the 1930s. Frisch won four World Series with John McGraw's Giants, and four more with the Redbirds. For the last of those, in 1934, he was a player-manager. Frisch ended with 2,880 career hits, and was reportedly a wizard with the leather. It took him until his fifth ballot, in 1947, to get enough votes for Cooperstown enshrinement, but he's a legitimate Hall of Famer.

He is, however, personally responsible for the enshrinement of several illegitimate Hall of Famers. Frisch became a member of the Hall of Fame veterans committee in the 1960s, and used the position to get large numbers of his former teammates elected. Dave Bancroft, Chick Hafey, Jesse Haines, George Kelly, Rube Marquard and Ross Youngs were all fine players, but they have no business being on busts in Cooperstown. All put up numbers that were inferior to those of dozens of players who have not been inducted, all played with Frisch in New York or St. Louis, and all were elected by the Veterans Committee when Frisch was a member.

But hey, the man's been dead for 35 years. Let's remember his great career more than we remember his urinating all over the standards of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Today in sports history -- Larry Doby

Ten years ago today, Indians great Larry Doby was named to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee. Doby was the American League's first black player, debuting a couple of months after Jackie Robinson in 1947. And he certainly had a tough time of it too, as documented in the excellent 2007 Showtime documentary "Pride Against Prejudice: The Larry Doby Story."

Doby made seven straight All-Star teams (1949 to 1955), and he had remarkably consistent seasons during that period. His first truly great year was 1950, when he hit .326 with 25 home runs and 102 RBIs, and he led the AL with a .442 on-base percentage and a .986 OPS. He finished eighth in the MVP voting that year, at age 26.

He also led the league in home runs, runs scored and slugging in 1952; and home runs and RBIs for that great 1954 team that won 111 games. Doby finished second in the MVP voting in '54, behind Yogi Berra. And he hit a pinch-hit home run in the All-Star game that year, in front of his own home fans at Cleveland Stadium.

He finished his career with 1,515 hits, 253 homers and 970 RBIs. If he hadn't been a trail blazer, would he have gotten into the Hall of Fame? Probably not. Doby was only a truly great player for about six years; most Hall of Famers were great for at least a decade. It took him nearly 40 years after his retirement to get in as it is, and the Veterans Committee undoubtedly gave him extra credit for being the AL's first black player -- as well it should have, in my opinion.

In 1997, when Robinson's No. 42 was retired throughout the major leagues, Doby was virtually ignored, despite having suffered many of the same indignities Robinson did. But the All-Star game was at Cleveland's Jacobs Field that year, and Doby was given the honor of throwing out the first pitch. Maybe that attention helped get him into the Hall the next year. I'm glad it happened when he was still alive to enjoy it (he died in 2003).

Today in sports history

I seem to be doing this a lot, but it's this time of year that the Baseball Hall of Famers are announced, and 30 years ago today, one of the tragic figures in Tribe history got in: Addie Joss, the only Hall member who's had the 10-year career minimum waived. There's a good reason for that. He died after his ninth major-league season.

Many fans may know that the Indians were the first team to have two pitchers throw perfect games. Joss' perfecto on October 2, 1908, was one of the great clutch performances of all time. He beat fellow Hall of Famer Ed Walsh and the White Sox 1-0 in the midst of a four-team pennant race, needing just 74 pitches (!) to send 27 men back to the dugout. Walsh tossed a four-hitter himself. The Naps, as they were then known, wound up losing the pennant by half a game to Ty Cobb's Tigers, but Joss certainly did his best. He finished 24-11 with a 1.16 ERA. This was the dead-ball era, of course, but 1.16 is still pretty damned impressive, and it was good enough to lead the league.

Joss died of tubercular meningitis on April 14, 1911, just as what would have been his 10th season was starting. He was 31 years old. Had he lived 100 years later, he'd have probably spent a few days in the hospital and been ready to pitch again by mid-May. But medical science wasn't there yet. He was a well-loved man by teammates and opponents alike, and the first "all-star game" was organized that year to raise money for his family. As the great Cy Young said of Addie, "He was a great man. I feel sure he never made an enemy."

I seem to be posting a lot of sad stories lately. Sorry about that. I'll try to find something more cheerful for my next post.

Today in sports history

Fifty years ago today, a car crash tragically paralyzed Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella, ending his baseball career at age 36. With intense physical therapy, he eventually regained the use of his arms and hands, but he never walked again. However, there's a silver lining to this story, as you will learn in a few moments, if you'll be kind enough to bear with me.

Campanella's career was cut short on both ends. He didn't get his first shot until age 26, in 1948, because of the color of his skin. But he was comparatively lucky in that regard; if he'd been 10 years older (as fellow black catcher Josh Gibson was), he might never have gotten his shot (as Gibson didn't). But he became the Brooklyn Dodgers' second black player, after Jackie Robinson. Given that he was playing in the Negro Leagues at age 15, it seems likely that Campy would have reached the majors several years earlier, had it not been for the poisonous and euphemistically named "gentleman's agreement" that barred black players from the majors.

On a side note, 2008 will mark the 62nd major-league season since Robinson broke the color barrier in 1947. Before that, the last black players to play major-league games were Moses Fleetwood Walker and his brother Welday Walker, who played catcher and outfield, respectively, for the now-defunct Toledo Blue Stockings of the now-defunct American Association in 1884 before racist pressure from the other teams' owners forced Toledo to drop them from the team. So the majors still haven't been integrated as long as they were segregated. What a dirty shame. I've often been bothered by the extent to which race is still an issue in American politics, but when you consider where we came from, it's hardly surprising.

So anyway, Campanella played 10 years for the Dodgers. They were moving to Los Angeles in 1958, so he'd have had to pack up and move out there. He was running a liquor store in Harlem, and was on his way home to Long Island from said store on January 28, 1958, when his car hit an icy patch, skidded into a telephone pole and overturned.

The Dodgers retained Campanella as a spring training instructor for the young catchers in the organization, and in 1959, he wrote (with a ghost writer) the inspirational "It's Good to Be Alive." The book chronicles his recovery from the crash that nearly took his life, and expresses his refusal to succumb to self-pity. I admit I've never read it, but I'd like to. Michael Landon, of "Little House" and "Highway to Heaven" fame, made his directorial debut in a TV-movie version of the book, in which Paul Winfield played Campy.

Roy Campanella died of a heart attack in 1993. He'd been named to the Hall of Fame in 1969 (he was first eligible in 1963; why it took the voters so long is beyond me), and the Dodgers retired his number 39 in 1972. He was posthumously named the 50th best player of all time by the Sporting News in 1999, and in 2006, the Dodgers created the Roy Campanella Award, given to the Dodger who best exemplifies his spirit and leadership. That same year, he was featured on a U.S. postage stamp, along with Mickey Mantle, Hank Greenberg and Mel Ott.

Today in sports history

Forty-five years ago today, our man Elmer Flick was elected to the Hall of Fame, along with Sam Rice, Eppa Rixey and John Clarkson.

Who was Elmer Flick? He was a dead-ball-era outfielder, born in Bedford, Ohio, in 1876. He made his major-league debut in 1898 with the Phillies, and after four years with them, he broke his contract and signed the crosstown Athletics, now, of course, in Oakland. After 11 games, the Phillies obtained a court order stopping him and other players who were under contract to them from playing for the A's. They were undoubtedly hoping he'd come back to them, but instead, he signed with Cleveland. He spent the remainder of his career with his hometown club, finishing up in 1910.

He was a .313 career hitter, winning one batting title (1905, .308; the second-lowest number for a batting champion in major-league history) and one slugging title (also in 1905, .462). He'd put up far better numbers in other seasons, but there wasn't a lot of hitting in the American League in 1908, for whatever reason. He also won three straight triples titles (1905-07), and is now 30th on the all-time triples list. He won an RBI title in Philly (1900, 110) and two stolen base titles (1904 and 1906).

After the 1907 season, the Tigers offered Cleveland a young outfielder named Ty Cobb for Flick, but the Indians refused because of Cobb's prickly reputation. As much as I dislike Ty Cobb, that was pretty stupid. Cobb was 21 years old and coming off the first of his 11 batting titles, and he remains the career leader in batting average to this day. Flick was 31 and on the decline. He wound up playing just 79 more games for the Tribe.

Elmer Flick is, by any measure, a marginal Hall of Famer; there are numerous men with better numbers who are still on the outside looking in, and there are very few Hall of Famers who played as briefly as he. I cannot hazard a theory as to why he was elected over some others (perhaps his memorable name?), but he went in 53 years after he played his last game. He was still alive to enjoy the honor, and January 27, 1963, was surely one of the best days of his life. He died in 1971 in Bedford, two days shy of his 95th birthday.