New York Mets Quiz (1962-present): 1) Non-pitcher, games,
career? 2) Runs, career? 3) Hits, career? 4) Doubles, season?
[44] 5) Who are the only two to hit four pinch homers in a
season? [1980s] 6) Who lost 27 straight decisions over two
season? 7) Aside from Tom Seaver who did it three times, who
is the only Mets hurler to start 36 games in a season? 8) Stolen
bases, season? Answers below.
Tony Conigliaro
Every now and then you’re reminded just how good, how early,
this famous Boston Red Sox slugger was…and how his career,
and later, life, ended so tragically.
When you watch young sluggers Adam Dunn and Albert Pujols,
both of whom at this point seem destined for 700+ home runs,
just know that Tony C. reached 100 home runs earlier, having
accomplished the feat in 1967 at the age of 22. [Pujols was 23
when he reached 100, Dunn 24.] And he’s still the youngest to
hit the century mark, ever, in the A.L.*
Conigliaro was born on Jan. 7, 1945, Revere, Mass., and became
the classic local boy done good and an instant favorite in Boston.
In 1964 at 19, and despite missing six weeks to injuries, Tony C.
hit 24 homers, the most by any teenager in major league history.
[Ken Griffey Jr. hit 16 when he was 19….and actually didn’t
exceed 22 home runs in any one year until he was 22.]
In 1965 Conigliaro hit 32 home runs to become the youngest
ever to capture a home run crown.
But Tony C. was injury-prone, suffering two broken bones in his
fingers, a broken wrist, hand, and shoulder blade.
He was also quite the ladies man, hooking up with Mamie Van
Doren, who had been dating no-hit wonder Bo Belinsky.
Conigliaro even sang a duet with Dionne Warwick and appeared
on “The Merv Griffin Show.”
Tony C.’s life changed forever, though, on August 18, 1967. In a
game against the then California Angels at Fenway Park,
Conigliaro stepped in to face righthander Jack Hamilton.
The year before with the New York Mets, Hamilton threw 18
wild pitches in just 148 innings (2nd in the league despite the
relative lack of work) and in 1962 as a rookie he led the N.L. in
this category. In other words, control wasn’t Jack Hamilton’s
forte and he threw hard. Unfortunately, his control was off that
August night and he threw a fastball that smashed into
Conigliaro’s face.
In his autobiography, Tony C. described what happened.
“The ball came sailing right toward my chin; normally a hitter
can jerk his head back a fraction and the ball will buzz by. But
this pitch seemed to follow me in. I know I didn’t freeze. I
definitely made a move to get out of the way of the ball. In fact,
I jerked my head back so hard that my helmet flipped off just
before impact….
“When the ball was about four feet from my head I knew it
would get me. And I knew it would hurt because Hamilton was
such a hard thrower. I was frightened. I threw my hands up in
front of my face and saw the ball follow me back and hit me
square on the left side of the head. As soon as it crunched into
me, it felt as if the ball would go in one side of my head and
come out the other; my legs gave way and I went down like a
sack of potatoes. Just before everything went dark I saw the ball
bounce straight down on home plate. It was the last thing I saw
for several days.”
Red Sox manager Dick Williams remembered, “My heart nearly
stopped. I raced to the plate and saw a man motionless, with
blood rushing from his nose and a left eye already beginning to
blacken and swell as we watched. In a few minutes he started
flipping his legs around in agony and we could no longer watch.”
Conigliaro was carried off the field and rushed to the hospital
while the Red Sox went on to win the game, a big one in that
year’s great pennant race.
A doctor would tell Tony C. that had the pitch hit just inches
higher he would have been dead. As it was, the next week Sports
Illustrated had a famous cover shot of a slugger whose face was
basically black and blue.
Conigliaro’s left cheekbone was fractured, and when he took his
first look at his own face, after regaining some of his sight, he
was able to make out the imprint of the stitches where the ball
hit. Jack Hamilton was one of the first to visit him in the
hospital.
But as the Red Sox wrapped up the pennant, edging out Detroit
and Minnesota by just one game, Tony C. laid in the hospital.
Only a few teammates stopped to see him, and manager Dick
Williams never did. What Conigliaro didn’t know, however, was
that Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey had asked the team to stay
away for his own good. [According to one source I read.]
Conigliaro’s vision in his left eye was reduced to 20/100; his
right eye was 20/15. He tried to come back in 1968 but he
couldn’t and he went into a deep depression. It didn’t help when
Dick Williams said at the start of the season, “We did it without
his butt last year, and we’ll do it without his butt this year.”
[For you younger baseball fans out there, trust me, Dick
Williams was a helluva baseball man, but also a true asshole.]
Conigliaro finally went down to the Instructional League to try
his hand at pitching, but minor league manager Billy Gardner
forced Tony to take batting practice and after a while his swing
came back. When he went to the ophthalmologist that winter,
the doctor said his left eye was greatly improved so Tony went to
spring training for the 1969 season.
He appeared to be OK, but both Conigliaro and the Red Sox hid
the fact that he wasn’t indeed all better, rather he was still
basically blind in his left eye.
Remember, he was a righthanded hitter and he’s seeing the pitch
first with his bad left eye. Somehow, he still managed to hit 20
homers and drive in 82. The following year, 1970, he did even
better, slamming 36 home runs and driving in 116, the latter
second-best in the league.
Despite missing a full season and a bunch of other games
because of his various ailments, Tony C. was still just 25 with
160 career home runs. But Boston traded him to California and
then his eyesight worsened again. After 74 games, just 4 home
runs, and a .222 average for the Angels, Conigliaro announced
his retirement. He tried coming back one more time in 1975 but
was only 7 for 57 and whiffed five times in his last game; hardly
the way to go out.
Tony C. then went into broadcasting but in 1982, on his way to
an audition with the Red Sox for a spot in the television booth,
he suffered a massive heart attack. It was so bad he needed 24-
hour nursing care for the rest of his life. Tony Conigliaro would
die of kidney failure in 1990. He was 45.
[Sources: “Baseball Anecdotes,” Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf;
“Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia,” from the editors at
Total Baseball; “Ninety Feet from Fame,” Mike Robbins]
*FYI…Mel Ott and Eddie Mathews were the first in the National
League to reach the 100 mark in homers, also in their 22nd year.
We’ll hold off on another tragic tale, that of pitcher Don Wilson,
until next chat.
Stuff
–It turns out that Floyd Landis held 12 television and newspaper
interviews on Monday in what is clearly a futile campaign to
repair his image. The organizers of a new race outside Chicago,
the Tour of Elk Grove, told him he’s not wanted, not even to sign
autographs.
Among the excuses Landis and his attorneys are offering is the
whiskey / beer defense, the thyroid medication he is taking,
dehydration, a naturally high testosterone level, a combination of
these, or, the dog ate his homework.
He’s not only a pitiful character at this point, he’s truly
detestable in the way he carries himself.
–But speaking of cheating, Dylan Loeb McClain has a story in
The New York Times on potential chicanery at the World Chess
Open. Held a month ago in Philadelphia, some players are
suspected of receiving help from computers or from accomplices
using them. While none were actually caught, one was expelled.
Tournament director Bill Goichberg explained that one signal is
if a player shows sudden improvement. In Philadelphia he
became suspicious of Eugene Varshavsky.
“Varshavsky was among the lowest-ranked players in the top
section of the tournament. In his first four games, he beat three
high-ranked masters and played another to a draw. Then after
losing to a grandmaster, he played almost flawlessly to beat
another grandmaster in his next game.
“Larry M. Christiansen, a grandmaster who did not play at the
Open, ran the moves of the game through a commercially
available chess-playing program called Shredder. He found that
the last 25 moves of Varshavsky’s win against the grandmaster
matched those played by the program.
“Goichberg said that he asked to see Varshavsky before the next
round but that Varshavsky hurried off to the bathroom.
Goichberg waited 10 minutes outside a stall until Varshavsky
came out. Varshavsky consented to be searched, and Goichberg
said that no device or transmitter was found.
“Varshavsky was allowed to proceed in the tournament.
Directors then went to search the bathroom stall and found it
occupied. Goichberg said they waited 45 minutes before a
director peeked under the door and saw Varshavsky’s shoes.
After Varshavsky left the stall, nothing was found in it.
“In the last two rounds, Varshavsky played against two
grandmasters and lost each game quickly.”
The player who was expelled, Steve Rosenberg, was found with
a wireless earpiece. When an official asked to see it, Rosenberg
said it was a hearing aid. “The director wrote down the name
and the serial number and looked it up on the Internet,” where he
discovered the device was called Phonito, a wireless receiver that
was ideal for undetected communication between two people.
So I’m thinking, why aren’t the chess officials in the CIA, for
crying out loud. Maybe Osama would have been caught by now;
you know, follow the pawns to get to the king.
–Chuck Wepner, the “Bayonne Bleeder” who was the model for
“Rocky,” has settled with Sylvester Stallone after a three-year
legal battle, as reported by John P. Martin of the Star-Ledger.
Wepner had sought $15 million for the ‘unauthorized use’ of his
life story. No word on what Wepner ended up receiving.
It was March 24, 1975, that Wepner fought Muhammad Ali for
the heavyweight title. It wasn’t supposed to be for the big prize
since the fight had been arranged months before Ali had won the
title back. Wepner ended up taking Ali to within 19 seconds of
the final round and floored the champ in the ninth.
Watching the fight was Stallone, who later acknowledged it was
“a catalyst” to help him finish his “Rocky” script and the film
was out a year later.
But Wepner didn’t file his suit until he learned Stallone was
planning another “Rocky” flick, to be released this coming
December. While Wepner said Stallone used his name for 28
years (at the point he brought the suit), Stallone argued in court
that Wepner made the most of the connection himself, calling
himself “the real Rocky.”
–Hugh Hefner denies he suffered a stroke. As rumors circulated,
Hefner talked to a reporter from the AP on Monday.
“We had a lingerie party Saturday night and I went up a little
early because (girlfriend) Holly (Madison) had a cold. I am in
very good health,” Hefner said.
Oh yeah…the old ‘cold excuse.’
Hef is 80, in case you forgot.
–Uh oh…if you’re an elephant in Kruger National Park in South
Africa you may want to catch the next bus out of there. It seems
the population of pachyderms is exploding, up to 12,500 in a
park as large as the state of New Jersey, but they are destroying a
popular tree, the baobab that can live thousands of years.
Elephants eat 300 pounds of leaves, bark and grass a day, which
is a good reason why you should always watch where you walk.
Kruger attracts about one million tourists a year and there have
been few attacks on humans in this particular sanctuary.
But there are so many elephants they’ve been crashing through
the fences to raid nearby villages of Chex Mix.
Well, park officials desperately want to cull the herd, a practice
that has been banned since 1994. But with 270,000 elephants in
all of southern Africa, imagine the revolution that could take
place if the South Africans move against Kruger. Why there are
120,000 woolly mammoth-wannabes in Botswana alone!
So my advice to the good folks at Kruger is….hold your fire.
–From John Ritter / USA Today:
“No evidence proves sport hunting reduces fatal encounters
between people and mountain lions,” according to a new study.
Bottom line, 9 of 10 states that allow hunting had higher attack
rates than California, which doesn’t.
“Confirmed cougar attacks have killed 18 people in the USA
since 1890…Six were in California, which has an estimated
4,000 to 7,000 lions.”
But did you know between 1990 and 2004, 50,000 lions were
killed in the 10 states? Goodness gracious. These cats can’t be
happy.
–Holy Toledo! Brad K. passed along the story that a fellow was
on a personal watercraft in the Suwannee River, Florida, when a
“jumping sturgeon knocked him unconscious.” Blake Fessenden
almost drown. Luckily for Blake, his girlfriend was riding
nearby and held his head above water until help arrived.
Yoh, Blake….you better marry the girl, know what I’m sayin’?
As for the sturgeon, just another reason not to go in the water.
–Ryder Cup standings for the U.S. team with just two events
left. It’s getting interesting. Remember, the first ten after the
PGA go to Ireland, with Captain Tom Lehman getting two picks
himself.
1. Tiger
2. Mickelson
3. Furyk
4. Chad Campbell
5. David Toms
6. Chris DiMarco
7. Vaughn Taylor
8. J.J. Henry
9. Zach Johnson
10. Brett Wetterich
11. John Rollins
12. Jerry Kelly
13. Lucas Glover
14. Davis Love III
15. Fred Couples
You need to finish in the top ten in a tourney to earn points. I’ll
have more on this following this coming weekend’s action at
“The Thunderstorm International.” [At least it seems like every
year this event, held in the foothills of the Rockies, is plagued by
those later-afternoon thunderstorms that are so prevalent in this
part of the country.]
–So I received a letter from the Wake Forest athletic department.
“Dear Editor,
“The Time is Now! Optimism for the 2006 football season is at
an all-time high.”
It is?
Here’s the deal. We play Syracuse and Duke the first two weeks,
both at home. If we win them both, we’ll go 4-8. If we split or
lose both, 2-10. After all, we finish against North Carolina,
Boston College, Florida State, Virginia Tech, and Maryland.
–Wow…my other football team, the New York Jets, has this
new teenage coach, Eric Mangini, who sees himself as a Bill
Belichick clone. Only one problem. There’s but one Bill
Belichick. In other words, Mangini is a total jerk and Jets
players hate him after just one week of training camp.
Oh yeah, this bodes well for the season….NOT!
I’m pegging the Jets for 2-14.
–Michelle Wie dumped her caddy after she finished 26th at the
Women’s British Open. I’m willing, ready and able to fill the
void.
–Did you see Atlanta’s Andruw Jones on Monday night? He hit
a ball over the center-field wall, 410 feet away, yet broke his bat
clean at the handle. Something doesn’t add up.
–Johnny Mac came up with this baseball tidbit for junkies only.
Player A…137 innings, 142 hits, 39 walks, 74 Ks, 4.47 ERA,
.265 batting average against.
Player B…137 innings, 136 hits, 40 walks, 79 Ks, 4.59 ERA,
.261 BA against.
Player A is Seattle’s Jarrod Washburn, who is 5-11
Player B is Detroit’s Kenny Rogers, who is 11-5
–I’ve watched “Deadwood” and “Entourage” each week this
season. The former is back on track after a weak season two,
while I finally caught on to the latter. It always takes me a year
or two before I latch on to new comedies; a major character flaw,
I admit.
–Guess who just turned 68? Connie Stevens. Geezuz, I feel old.
But imagine how she feels?
Top 3 songs for the week of 8/12/67: #1 “Light My Fire” (The
Doors) #2 “All You Need Is Love” (The Beatles) #3 “I Was
Made To Love Her” (Stevie Wonder)…and…#4 “Pleasant
Valley Sunday” (The Monkeys) #5 “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy”
(The Buckinghams) #6 “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” (Frankie
Valli…classic scene in “The Deer Hunter”) #7 “A Whiter Shade
Of Pale” (Procol Harum) #8 “Windy” (Association) #9 “Carrie-
Anne” (The Hollies) #10 “A Girl Like You” (The Young
Rascals)
New York Mets Quiz Answers: 1) Games, career: Ed
Kranepool, 1853. 2) Runs, career: Darryl Strawberry, 662. 3)
Hits, career: Ed Kranepool, 1418. [The other #7 in New York.]
4) Doubles, season: Bernard Gilkey, 44, 1996. 5) Pinch homers,
season: Danny Heep, 1983, and Mark Carreon, 1989, each hit
four. 6) Anthony Young lost 27 straight decisions over two
seasons; 14 in 1992, 13 in ’93. Overall, he was 2-14 and 1-16
those years, or 3-30, even though his ERA was 4.17 and 3.77,
hardly awful. For his career, Young was 15-48 and no doubt has
nightmares each and every night. 7) “Fat Jack” Fisher is the only
other pitcher aside from Tom Seaver to start 36 games in a
season, 1965, a year in which he went 8-24. 8) Stolen bases,
season: Tricky one….I think…Roger Cedeno, 66, 1999.
Next Bar Chat, Tuesday….Don Wilson, and what could have
been.
