San Diego Chargers Quiz: [Every fan base gets a chance, folks.]
1) Most rushing yards, career? [This is as hard as they come]
2) Most pass receptions, career? 3) Most TDs, career?
4)How many seasons did Don Coryell lead the Chargers to the
playoffs? Answers below.
Two Ordinary Joe”s
Joe Hauser and Joe Bauman, among the greatest home run hitters
in baseball history, albeit in the minor leagues. They are two of
the 9 players in minor league history to have hit 60 or more home
runs in a single season.
Hauser was born in Milwaukee, 1899. At an early age, the
Philadelphia Athletics Connie Mack took a liking to “Unser
Choe” (German for “Our Joe”) as he was affectionately known,
and by 1922 he was in the big leagues. For the period 1922-
1924, he hit between .288 and .323 with 52 homers. In 1924, his
115 RBIs were second in the league to Babe Ruth. That same
season, on Aug. 2nd, Hauser clubbed 3 homers and had double,
the A.L. record for total bases at the time.
But then in 1925, just before the regular season was to begin,
Hauser broke his kneecap simply running during an exhibition
game. Picture that sports medicine wasn”t quite like what it is
today. The doctor just put some wires in his knee to hold the
kneecap in place.
Well, Joe sat out the ”25 season and when he came back he was
but a shell of his former self. It didn”t help that the wires holding
his kneecap in place also broke, but the doctors left them in there.
In 1930, Joe signed to play with Baltimore of the International
League and that”s where his legend grew. Hauser smashed 63
homers that year and drove in 175 runs. Three years later, with
Minneapolis of the American Association, he hit 69, drove in 182,
and scored 153, all in 153 games. During one stretch he hit 20
dingers in 21 days.
Well, ol” Unser Choe broke his leg again in 1937, but by then his
legend was solidified. He died at 98, but forever has a spot in the
Wisconsin Hall of Fame. Joe Hauser, 399 career minor league
home runs.
Joe Bauman
And then there is the other Joe. Now Bauman was a real piece of
work. Born in Welch, OK back in 1922, Joe grew to be 6”5″,
235 lbs., quite an imposing figure in those days.
Bauman started off in the minor leagues in 1941 but then World
War II hit and from 1942 to 1945 he didn”t play professional ball,
putting in a stint, first, at Beechcraft in Wichita, KS before joining
the Navy. But this wasn”t your normal Navy stint. He was
stationed at Norman, OK the whole time, playing baseball. [A
former Cardinals shortstop was head of the athletic department at
the base and sought Joe out.]
With the war over, in 1946 Bauman played with Amarillo in the
West Texas League. His 48 home runs set the league record and
his contract was sold to the Boston Braves a year later. The
Braves then assigned him to Milwaukee and later Hartford of the
Eastern League.
Bauman hated it, didn”t play well, and saw his salary cut from
$600 a month to $400. [So like a whopping $2,000 for the
season.] Joe was told to take it or leave it. He said, “Well, I”m
leaving it,” and headed to Oklahoma City.
The town of Elk City, OK was undergoing an oil boom of sorts at
the time (as were a lot of towns in the area during this era…I was
in one, Maud, back in 1978 that had gone through the whole
boom / bust cycle…man, that”s a story and a half…for later) and
the locals wanted a top flight semi-pro team that could compete
for the national championship so Joe Bauman, a man with major
league potential, was content to play semi-pro for three years,
1949-51.
When the oil boom began to dry up, so did the owners wallets.
Joe listened when a doctor, who was just a plain old baseball
fanatic, suggested that he was going to buy Bauman”s contract
(the Braves still owned him, after all of these years) and wanted
Joe to play for a team the doctor was involved with down in
Artesia, New Mexico. The money was good and Joe accepted.
1952 was Bauman”s first year in the Longhorn League and he
slammed 50 home runs to go along with a .375 batting average.
The following season he went 53 – .371.
Then in 1954, with Artesia becoming affiliated with a Texas
League team (and losing its independence), Bauman signed with
Roswell of the same league. All he did in 1954 was accomplish
something no professional ballplayer has ever surpassed. Bauman
hit 72 home runs, drove in 224, had an incredible 150 walks, and
hit an even .400…all in just 138 games.
Three years later, Bauman was out of baseball, never having made
it to the big time, but he had established his mark. 337 HRs in
just 3,463 at bats for his career.72 in a single season. And this is
a guy who was out of organized ball for 7 years!!
[Source: “Baseball”s Forgotten Heroes,” by Tony Salin…and the
author did something neat with the book. He donated 20% of the
royalties to the American Red Cross. God bless him.]
Farmer Killed by Deer
True story from Reuters…On Friday, William McCavanagh, a 54-
year-old southern Ontario resident, was discovered by a neighbor
with bite marks and other injuries that appeared to have been
inflicted by a buck.
It seems that the farmer entered a compound where the buck was
messing around with 13 doe during mating season. Bad move.
“The deer had been at him but we”re not sure if the deer killed
him or he maybe had a medical problem beforehand,” said the
local constable.
Let that be a lesson to you, boys and girls.
“People have to be very cautious when handling the deer and
interacting with them during rutting season, when the male
hormones are flowing,” said Brian Tapscott, a livestock specialist.
Personally, I just think it”s another example of the animals
attempting to take over North America. And perhaps it”s a good
excuse for joint Canadian-American military action.
Janice Stevenson
Stevenson soars to the top of the list of candidates for the
StocksandNews “Dirtball of the Year” award.
The Wyoming woman faces a federal charge of setting a forest
fire that burned 83,000 acres in the Black Hills of South Dakota
this summer.
Investigators said that on Aug. 24, Stevenson lit a cigarette and
tossed the burning match on the ground, according to U.S. Forest
Service agents.
“Rather than putting the fire out, she looked at it and decided to
leave the area,” a court affidavit said.
Stevenson faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Plus she can be billed for the cost of putting out the blaze.
Because she risked hundreds of firefighters lives, she deserves
life.
Tragedy Averted
On Saturday at Newark Airport, two locals were electrocuted
while working at the Federal Express terminal. They were in a
small utility shed and somehow a metal object hit some live wires
(they thought the power was off to the shed). Their clothing and
hair caught fire and they had to roll on the ground to extinguish
the flames. Of course they needed immediate medical attention
and, as bad as this was, they could have died were it not for a
strange coincidence nearby.
Stationed about 100 feet away were paramedics participating in a
simulated airplane-crash along with a dozen local emergency
response units. A Fed Ex worker ran up to one and at first they
thought it was part of the drill. After a moment of confusion, the
emergency crews yelled “Code Real” and took off to help.
Both victims should recover, though one is not in great shape.
Nat Fein
Fein died last week at the age of 86. His claim to fame was the
1949 Pulitzer Prize-winning photo that he took on June 13,
1948.Babe Ruth”s farewell at Yankee Stadium. The rearview
picture shows Ruth in his old uniform, leaning on a bat, and other
players lined up in the background with their hats off. Fein said
he took the rear shot simply because he wanted to get Ruth”s
uniform number (#3) in the picture. The Babe died of cancer two
months later.
Brazil and Soccer
Not only did the Brazilian team do poorly in the Olympics, but
the national team (far more experienced than the Olympic
version) is going through some very tough times of its own.
Understand that soccer in Brazil is big.really big. Or as one
national commentator put it, “Soccer and music are the two
reasons for us Brazilians to be proud and look down on the rest
of humanity from above.”
The nation has won 4 World Cups over the years and, until this
year, lost only one qualifying match in the entire 70-year history
of World Cup play.
But this year, Brazil has lost to Paraguay and Chile, while only
eking out ties against Colombia and Uruguay. They are in real
danger of not qualifying for 2002.
The coach, Wanderley Luxemburgo da Silva, has been accused of
taking all manner of clandestine payments from the sale of player
contracts to European teams as well as money laundering. In
Brazil, the coach of the national team is held in as high esteem as
the president himself.
So there is your international soccer report for the year. We try
and have something for everyone here at Bar Chat. And heck,
how about Cameroon capturing the gold in Sydney?! Now that”s
a great story…too bad I didn”t watch it.
Baseball…or was it Football?
On Saturday, the Oakland Athletics defeated the Texas Rangers,
23-2. The same day, the Seattle Mariners defeated the Anaheim
Angels, 21-9.
Albert Belle
One of the truly awful people in the world, the Orioles outfielder
was billed by the Cleveland Indians for ruining the carpet in the
visitors” clubhouse after a recent road trip.
According to Sports Illustrated, after several of Belle”s at bats, he
returned to the clubhouse, opened a bottle of red All Sport, took
one gulp, then poured the rest on the floor.
Top 3 songs for the week of 10/2/61: #1 “Take Good Care Of
My Baby” (Bobby Vee) #2 “The Mountain”s High”
(Dick & DeeDee) #3 “Crying” (Roy Orbison)
Chargers Quiz Answers: 1) Career rushing – Paul Lowe, 4,963.
2) Career pass receptions – Charlie Joiner, 586.
3) Career TDs – Lance Alworth, 83. 4) Don Coryell led the
Chargers to four playoffs, 1979-82, including 2 AFC
Championship games.
Next Bar Chat, Wednesday. A little anecdote about the Nixon –
Kennedy debates. Or rather, what happened prior to them.
