Hoosiers on Cardboard, Part 3

It's hard to imagine what Mordecai Peter Centennial Brown was thinking on Oct. 8, 1908, clutching a half-dozen death threat notes inside his coat pocket, and entering the game for his Chicago Cubs in a pennant-deciding final regular season contest against Christy Mathewson and the New York Giants.

Not to mention, he surely was completely unaware that a century later he'd still have arguably the best nickname in baseball history. That alone could have broken his concentration.

The native Hoosier was clear on the message of the notes, what with being death threat notes and all: We’ll kill you if you pitch and beat the Giants. A black handprint marked each note, the signature of the Italian Mafia.
Brown, early in the game, relieved the starter, and then held the Giants in check as the Cubs won 4-2, and the pennant. The Cubs went on to win their second consecutive World Series championship, their last to date. Yes, last to date.

On the plus side for fans of the Cubs, nobody killed "Three Finger" Mordecai Brown.

Sadly, this card is not part of my collection. Now, off to find Mordecai reprints.

Mordecai Peter Centennial was named after his father, his uncle and the year of his birth - 1876. He was born in a small West Central Indiana farming outpost called Nyesville.

At age seven, while feeding material into the farm's feed chopper, he slipped and his hand was mangled by the knives, severing much of his index finger and damaging the others.

A doctor did the best he could but, while the injuries were healing, young Mordecai fell, and broke several finger bones in the same hand. He kept quiet about the fall and the fingers were not re-set properly, with the middle finger terribly bent.

And, with that, eventually, came one of "the most devastating" - Ty Cobb once said - curve balls in Major League Baseball history. The extra topspin from his unusual grip made it difficult for batters to connect. In short, he "threw ground balls." Interestingly, he also had a deceptive fast ball and change-up.

Legendary New York Giants manager John McGraw regarded Mathewson and Brown as the two best pitchers in the National League. Brown, in fact, often defeated Mathewson in competition, holding a slim career 13-11 edge, with one no-decision in their 25 classic pitching matchups.

Mathewson v. Mordecai Brown. Oh, to have witnessed one of those games.

Hoosiers on Cardboard, Part 2

Congratulations! You're about to read the second in a series on pro athletes who either were born in Indiana or spent their formative years here. Go here for the first installment about a pitcher who last week made his major league debut, hurling 5.2 shutout innings against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Don Larsen

Don Larsen was a journeyman pitcher.

I always had the notion that he was an ace - probably among the best of his era. As a kid breathing baseball facts, I didn't dig deep enough.

Of course, he pitched a gem of a ball game just about 55 years ago. It was Game 5 of the World Series, Oct. 8, 1956. Larsen's New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers. Larsen didn't allow a hit or a walk. It's the only time in World Series - wait, post-season history that a pitcher has accomplished this.
  
"Sometimes a week might go by when I don't think about that game, but I don't remember when it happened last."  - Don Larsen, who turned 82 on August. 7.  

Larsen was born in Michigan City, Ind., roughly 45 minutes from downtown Chicago. Michigan City is best known as a place for bargains on clothes and shoes courtesy of their swell outlet mall.

This is my only Don Larsen card, acquired this Spring at a card show for $4.

He finished playing the game with a career record of 81-91and a respectable ERA of 3.78. His best year came in 1956, when he posted an 11–5 record, a career best 107 strikeouts and a 3.26 ERA. 
 
Larsen started in the majors in April 1953 with the St. Louis Browns. I had assumed he pitched most of his years with the Yankees. Not so.

His career arch:

• New York Yankees (1955-59)
• Kansas City Athletics (1960-61)
• Chicago White Sox (1961) 
• San Francisco Giants (1962-64)
• Houston Colt .45s/Astros (1964-65)
• Baltimore Orioles (1965)
• Chicago Cubs (1967) 

In New York, manager Casey Stengel used Larsen as a backup starter and occasional reliever. He went 45–24 with the Yankees, making 90 starts in 128 appearances.

Described as gangly righthander, Larsen was called "Gooney Bird" by his teammates.

And he had a reputation for partying. Stengel: "The only thing he fears is sleep."

When Larsen crashed his car into a light pole in the middle of the night during spring training, after curfew, Stengel said, "He must have gone out to mail a letter."

Here's what he did after his history-making game, according to his words in a New York magazine piece earlier this year:

"The first stop was a place called Fifeto Squeri's, it was on 50th and Second Avenue; it was a little Italian place that I frequented. I knew the family. We had Champagne. It was a ball.

"Then, we went to a place called McAvoy's. I stopped in there with a bunch of my friends. We were just goofing around, having fun. That was on Lexington Avenue, downtown, or maybe just in town. You never know. New York's a big place.

And then we went to the Latin Quarter, I was with [sportswriter] Arthur Richman. Joe E. Lewis was performing - the comedian. We were there until late. I had to be on Dave Garroway's show the next morning. Early. Like six o'clock."
 
Don Larsen: A native Hoosier, journeyman pitcher and baseball legend.

Hoosiers on Cardboard, Part 1

Congratulations! You're reading the first installment of a series on pro athletes who either were born in Indiana or spent their formative years here. Happy reading!

Jarrod Parker

Two months ago, about a week after moving back to Indiana after 25 years in West Texas, Ohio and Chicago, I paid a visit to a nearby small town to check out a baseball card shop I read about online. I haven't written about this experience yet but will one of these days. Suffice to say it was much improved from this experience.

A nice gent greeted me as I walked in. He sat behind a three-sided counter jammed with Jarrod Parker cards, surely every one produced to this point. I used my keen brain and deduced he must be a local.


And sure enough, Parker grew up just down the road - about 12 miles from my hometown - in a sneeze of a town called Ossian, Ind., population: a shade under 3,000. 

I wasn't surprised to learn a big leaguer is from these parts. I was more surprised that I hadn't heard about it before. I guess 25 years away has a way of making you lose touch.

An image borrowed from checkoutmycards.com. I need to check out their cards (and begin my Parker collection.)

Parker, just 22, is a top prospect - by some accounts the top prospect - for the Arizona Diamondbacks.
A righthander, his main pitch is a fastball that reaches 96 mph. According to Baseball America, before this season he was the #33 MLB prospect. He's hovered around that number every pre-season since being drafted straight out of Norwell High in Ossian - 9th overall in the 2007 MLB draft.

Now, I'm no scout but I am a roughly 20-time fantasy baseball league champion so clearly I'm a baseball genius, yet I somehow still have no idea whether Parker will bust out or break out. Who does, really, when it comes to prospects. Considering he missed all of 2010 after Tommy John surgery in October 2009, his future success - much like any pitching prospect, I guess - is far from guaranteed.

This season, he pitched pretty well in AA but didn't exactly light the league on fire. I imagine he's still another year away from the majors.

But I'm rooting for him. 

Whatever happens with his career, Parker is a natural for me to collect. Beyond our regional link, I had been thinking some about adding two or three prospects a year to my PCs. I'm not really much for prospecting - but a bit of it here and there is kind of fun. I guess I'd better get back to that shop since I didn't buy any Parkers that day.

Well, I did buy one Parker - but I'll write about that in the coming days.

So there you have it, the first in a series on Indiana-ish baseball players. The first of any series on the Indianaland blog. History has been made.