I screwed up last week.
To explain how I screwed up, I have to give you some background on how I work here.
Those of you who have been subscribed for a while probably noticed that I don’t typically post anything on the weekends. I’ve developed a strictly Monday-to-Friday routine, both in writing and in posting, which means that I usually write Tuesday’s edition on Monday, and Wednesday’s on Tuesday, and so on. That makes Friday the day to write the edition for the following Monday.
Once each edition is written, I schedule it to post the following morning at 8AM, my time. Or, in the case of the edition I write on Friday, I schedule it to post Monday morning. That’s more of a forcing function than anything else. It gives me a self-imposed deadline re-read the edition and make any edits or updates that are needed. I’m awake and working before 8AM each day, so my usual practice is to do a final read-through of the piece, clean up typos or language, that sort of thing. Then, rather than wait until 8AM, I go ahead and post it. After that, I head over to various social media platforms and post links to the new edition. Gotta advertise.
Okay, so here’s where I screwed up; On Friday, after I finished writing the edition about Luis Gonzalez being a late bloomer, I set it to publish the next day, as usual. Only, like a dummy, I forgot that it wasn’t supposed to publish the next day, a Saturday. It was supposed to post today, Monday.
That’s why everyone got a Saturday email about Luis Gonzalez that was littered with typos. I scheduled it for the wrong day. And when eight o’clock rolled around that morning, I hadn’t re-read it and done my final edit. I wasn’t sitting at my desk like I am on weekdays. I was doing what I usually do on Saturdays instead, which was sitting in my kitchen eating breakfast with my wife and giving leftover bacon to my dog.
So, apologies for the curveball of dropping an unexpected Saturday edition. Thank you for slogging through the explanation of my fouled-up process that allowed it to happen. And, as you’ve probably figured out by now, I didn’t have anything prepared to post today, because that edition published on Saturday instead.
But life often turns on happy accidents, and there was one in this case.
Part of the unexpected Saturday edition resonated with
. He commented that he wished I’d expanded on my brief mention of Rudy York, because he had a Rudy York baseball glove as a kid. And THAT prompted a response from , in which he offered the awesome suggestion to start a series about players whose gloves we had as kids.I’m not sure what that series would look like, exactly, but I think it’s a good idea. If anyone wants to drop their first gloves into the comments, I’ll do my best to include at least a fun fact about each of them into a future edition.
And, in honor of David’s childhood first baseman’s mitt, let’s talk a bit about Rudy York.
As David mentioned in his original comment, York once hit 18 homers in a single month. It was August of 1937, his rookie year. To that point, York was having a solid season. It wasn’t particularly remarkable, but he’d hit 12 homers and slugged .521 in 46 games, mostly playing third base. But at the end of May, Tiger manager and starting catcher Mickey Cochran was beaned by a pitch and hospitalized. He never played again, and Detroit used rookie Birdie Tebbetts to replace him at catcher.
The problem was that Tebbetts was pretty awful that year. In June and July he batted .186 with a .503 OPS. Cochrane, who had returned to reclaim his managing duties by that point, decided to install York as his regular catcher and put veteran Marv Owen back at third base.
This was a pretty audacious move, because York wasn’t a catcher. I mean, AT ALL. He played exclusively first base, second base, and the outfield in the minor leagues, and his only time at catcher had been three years earlier when he got a very brief three game call up to the Tigers and Cochrane inexplicably used him at catcher for two of them.
That’s how bad Birdie Tebbetts was in 1937. Cochrane was desperate, so he turned to York.
York’s first game behind the plate that season was on August 4. He homered and the Tigers won. He homered again two days later, and again the day after that. And on the days after that, too.
And that’s pretty much how the rest of the season went for York. As David noted, he clouted 18 home runs that August, all but one of them as a catcher.* He cooled off and hit “only” five homers in September, but his batting line after being installed as Detroit’s regular catcher that season was .353/.432/.759, with 23 homers and 60 RBI in just 57 games.
(*Note: That one non-catching homer came as a pinch-hitter in the second game of a doubleheader on August 22. He had caught the first game and homered in it, then pinch-hit in the second game and homered. Two days later they played another doubleheader and he homered in both of those games, too.)
Overall, York compiled 101 RBI in just 104 games in 1937. That remains the fewest games in major league history for any rookie who surpassed the 100 RBI mark. The next-closest is Dave Orr, who played 110 games when he surpassed 100 RBI in 1884. No other rookie has done it in less than 127 games.
And, oh by the way, York also had a month with 17 homers. In 1943, York entered the month of August with 13 homers in 91 games. His slugging percentage was a good but pretty ordinary .470. Then, in 31 games in August, he smashed 17 homers and slugged .848. They included a homer off Hall of Famer Early Wynn, and homers in both games of a doubleheader three different times.
Man, that guy loved hitting in August. He had 83 career August homers and a .575 slugging percentage in that month. His best totals in any other month were 46 homers and a .477 slugging percentage.
I guess Rudy York loved the heat.
Anyway, here’s a photo of a vintage Rudy York first baseman’s mitt. I hope it brings back fond memories for David.
My first glove as a 5 year old that took me through my Little League years was a tiny Bob Cerv model. I graduated to more upscale gloves through Babe Ruth, high school, and college, but whenever I had a bad game, I returned to Bob Cerv.
OMG that’s my Mitt! Awesome job Paul! And my fielder’s mitt was Duke Snider. The mitt pic almost brought tears to my eyes. Thank you!