Baseball Quiz: Since 1960, name the following pitchers who led the National League in strikeouts. 1) The four with Los Angeles. 2) The two with St. Louis. 3) The two with San Diego. 4) The two with Cincinnati. Gotta get ‘em all to earn a premium. Answers below.
The other day I’m reading an article on Phillies pitcher Jamie Moyer, 46, and how he will end the 2010 season (should he fulfill his contract) as the sixth-oldest player since 1900 to throw a regular-season pitch; the others ahead of him being Phil Niekro (48), Hoyt Wilhelm (49), Jack Quinn (50), Nick Altrock (56) and Satchel Paige (allegedly 59).
So wrote the New York Times’ Ben Shpigel last December. I had placed it in a folder to use later but in looking up Altrock, according to baseballreference.com, Nick last pitched in 1924 when he was 47. He did get a time at bat, though, in 1933 at 56…but he didn’t pitch then! So bad job, Mr. Shpigel (who is otherwise a terrific reporter).
Anyway, I was just musing about guys who played late in their careers and any baseball fan has to then think of Minnie Minoso.
Minoso retired in 1964 at the age of 42, but then famously went 1-for-8 in 1976 at age 53 and then had two pinch-hitting appearances in 1980 at 57, so he could claim to have played in five decades, Minoso first making an appearance in 1949. So who was Minnie Minoso, and why isn’t he in the Hall of Fame?
From “The Biographical Encyclopedia of Baseball,” by the editors of Total Baseball:
“Minoso (born 1922 in Havana), grew up in Cuba’s Matanzas Province and left school at age 14 to work in the region’s sugar fields. He helped form a plantation baseball team, eventually becoming its manager. His skills sent him to Havana, where he secured a position on a semipro team sponsored by the Cuban Mining Company. In 1945 winter league play in Cuba, he was named Rookie of the Year.
“In 1946 he signed with Alex Pompez’s New York Cubans for $150 a month plus a boat ticket to Key West and train fare to New York. On the recommendation of Abe Saperstein, the Harlem Globetrotters’ owner who was also a part-time scout for the Indians, Cleveland purchased the 25-year-old Minoso in 1948 and assigned him to Dayton in the Class A Central League. He made it to Cleveland the next year, but he lasted only nine games.”
Minoso was sent back down, this time to San Diego, where he had back-to-back 20-homer seasons. Then in 1951, he was brought up by Cleveland, but after 8 games was traded to the Chicago White Sox as part of a three-way deal (the Sox losing Gus Zernial to the A’s, as Zernial proceeded to lead the league in homers and RBI, a fact I brought up in a Bar Chat quiz a few weeks ago).
Minoso homered in his first at bat for the White Sox, a 450-foot shot to dead-center field off Yankee Vic Raschi, and hit .326 that season, leading the league in triples and stolen bases, but he lost out on Rookie of the Year to the Yankees’ Gil McDougald.
A dark-skinned Latin, Minnie was the first black to wear a White Sox uniform and became one of the most popular, and exciting, players in the game’s history. In fact he was so popular that at the end of his first season, the White Sox declared Minnie Minoso Day, a rather unprecedented gesture for a rookie, whereupon he was given a brand new Packard by owner Bill Veeck.
Minoso had a simple philosophy about the game, “One, if you think you’re great, you’re through. Two, if you don’t feel like you give your best, you’re through.”
Minnie loved to get hit by a pitch. In fact he led the league in this category ten times and held the A.L. record for decades. But rather than charge the mound after getting plunked, he’d pick the ball up with a smile and toss it back to the pitcher. “It was accident every time,” he would say. “I been hit in head eight times. But I rather die than stop playing.”
In May 1955, in a game against the Yankees, Minoso almost did die when he was struck above the left eye by a Bob Grim fastball, Minnie suffering a hairline fracture of the skull.
Around the league the feeling was Minnie would emerge “gun shy” at the plate. Instead, he came back and hit in 23 straight. [According to the book “Crossing the Line: Black Major Leaguers, 1947-1959,” written by Larry Moffi & Jonathan Kronstadt. I’m trusting this is accurate.]
“In December 1957, after hitting .310 with 103 RBIs, Minoso was traded to Cleveland in a deal that sent Early Wynn and Al Smith to Chicago. Minoso was heartbroken. ‘I feel like the whole world was over for me,’ he later said. ‘Like my city…had put me out.’
“The deal proved to be one of the keys to the 1959 White Sox winning their first pennant in 40 years. Even though Minoso wasn’t part of it, White Sox owner Bill Veeck presented him with a championship ring. Soon after that, Veeck reacquired Minoso in a seven-player trade. Minoso responded in 1960 by leading the A.L. in hits, with 184, and by finishing second to Roger Maris in RBIs. He was 37. [Ed. BaseballReference.com has Minoso’s birth date as 1925, thus he would have been 34. I have to go with the former source on this one.]
Here’s a great tale, from “Baseball Anecdotes,” by Daniel Okrent and Steve Wulf:
“The flamboyant Minoso was a very popular player wherever he went, and many stories are told about him, most of them having to do with his command of English. In 1958 he was late for spring training with the Indians in Arizona, as was his annual custom. One night Nate Wallack, the club’s PR man, got a phone call from Cuba, some 1,800 miles to the southeast. ‘I no mean to be late,’ Minoso told Wallack. ‘I be there. Only I can get no plane reservation. No room on the planes.’ Wallack offered to work something out. ‘I no place to stay,’ said Minoso. Wallack said there was plenty of room at the hotel.
“After a small silence, Minoso asked, ‘Rain there?’ Wallack wondered why Minnie would be asking about the weather, but he told him that the sun was shining every day. ‘No, not rain,’ said Minoso. ‘Rain. Ballplayer Larry Rain. He there?’ Taking the non sequitur in stride, Wallack said, ‘Oh, Larry Raines. Yes, he’s here.’ ‘Okay,’ said Minoso, buoyed by the social note. ‘I be there right away.’”
On September 11, 1976, Veeck, back running the White Sox, activated the 53-year-old Minoso so he could be a four-decade major leaguer. The first day he went hitless against Frank Tanana of the Angles. But the next afternoon against 25-year-old Sid Monge, Minoso singled to left on the first pitch.
But what of his overall career? 1,963 hits, a .298 average, led the league in triples and stolen bases three times, drove in 100 four times, scored 100 five times, and with all those hit-by-pitches and walks, he had a superb .389 lifetime on-base percentage. Plus he was a seven-time All-Star and won three Gold Gloves. And talk about consistency, six straight seasons he fanned only 40-46 times despite having well over 600 official plate appearances. Alas, he’s not in the Hall of Fame. I never viewed him that way before, but upon further review, it’s a shame the Veterans Committee hasn’t voted him in.
–Boy, the Preakness has gotten quite controversial. As of this writing, super filly Rachel Alexandra is in but it was touch and go for a while. As the Preakness is limited to a field of 14, some owners were contemplating throwing other horses in that would have had preference under the rules and thus preclude Rachel from running. In the end, the owners realized the sport is already in deep trouble and blocking a superstar from the Preakness would have been rather disastrous from a PR standpoint. But then there is the issue of Derby winning jockey Calvin Borel, who is jumping from Mine That Bird to Rachel Alexandra.
Ray Kerrison / New York Post
“Shame on him. Borel, everyone’s favorite jockey after winning the Kentucky Derby on 50-1 shot Mine That Bird, has run out on the gallant little gelding….
“He has opted to ride the superstar filly, Rachel Alexandra, becoming the first jockey in 134 years to dump his Derby winner for a supposedly better horse for the Preakness.
“He has given the back of his hand to the horse that gave him the greatest ride of his life, the horse that engraved his name in turf history, the horse that put $140,000 cash in his bank account for 10 minutes of work. [Ed. I forgot the jock got 10%….winner’s total purse was $1.4 million. A golf caddy also gets 10% if he’s on the winning bag.]
“You’d think Birdie’s owners and trainer would return the favor by giving Borel the traitor’s flick. Instead, they legged him up on the horse yesterday for a breeze at Churchill Downs and insisted he’s still their first choice.
“Borel jumped off the horse and crowed, ‘Terrific. He’s ready.’ With that, he hopped a jet for Los Angeles to appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
“Does anyone think Leno flew Borel to the West Coast because he won the Kentucky Oaks on Rachel a day before the Derby? Not a chance….
“Borel’s move is not unusual in racing. Jockeys get off winners every day to ride a better horse in a future race. Business is business.
“In any other circumstance, Borel’s maneuver would not raise an eyebrow. But this is different. It’s unacceptable to thumb your nose at the horse that won you a Kentucky Derby. And he knows it….
“At Pimlico yesterday, jockey John Velazquez was asked what he thought of Borel’s decision.
“ ‘It’s shocking,’ he said, laughing. ‘It surprised me. How many times have you seen a jockey win the Kentucky Derby and get off to ride another horse? But he knows she has the potential to win the Preakness.’”
Velazquez did the same thing once. He got off another horse to ride a filly, Rags to Riches, in the Belmont two years ago, beating Horse of the Year Curlin in the process, but Velazquez wasn’t deserting a Derby winner.
But for Borel, as Ray Kerrison writes, “there is no escaping the backwash. Opportunism won the day. Borel has effectively devalued the horse that won him the Kentucky Derby, leaving a bad taste in the mouth.
“He’d better win on Rachel, because if Birdie, with new rider Mike Smith, gets the money, Borel is going to look like the chump of the year.”
—Roger Clemens broke his silence to declare once again that he was steroid-free. Appearing on ESPN Radio, Clemens’ new handlers pushed him out front due to release of the book “American Icon: The Fall of Roger Clemens and the Rise of Steroids in America’s Pastime.”
The Daily News’ award-winning sports journalism team wrote the tome, chronicling the last decade of Clemens’ career. In the ESPN interview, Clemens said he was never injected with HGH or steroids, as claimed by trainer Brian McNamee. Plus Andy Pettitte continues to “misremember” a conversation he had with the Rocket about HGH.
—Manny Ramirez was done in by some excellent sleuthing on the part of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which first realized the testosterone spike in Manny’s urine sample was synthetic, meaning it was ingested. When Major League Baseball was notified of this, MLB was able to request all of Manny’s medical records per the drug-testing policy, and within those records was a prescription written for the HCG, the fertility drug that is on the banned substances list. And since the testosterone could not have come from the HCG, according to the experts, they realized they were dealing with two drugs. That’s why Manny saw the handwriting on the wall so quickly and agreed to the suspension.
—David Ortiz said he was “shocked” upon learning of Manny’s 50-game sentence. “The only thing I know about him is that he’s a guy who works hard every day and gets prepared to play the game.” For his part, Ortiz still hasn’t homered this season, 119 at-bats. The guy is breaking down at 33. Wonder why.
–As of this writing, Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has yet to say a word about Manny Ramirez.
–Bob Raissman / New York Daily News…on the over-the-top reaction in the Yankees broadcast booth to A-Rod’s home run on his first pitch back after hip surgery.
“In case anyone forgot, this man who homered on his first swing of the season is the same guy who, while married, paraded a stripper through a Toronto hotel lobby. The same guy who was often seen – while still married – hanging with a faded pop star. What else? Oh yeah, Rodriguez is the subject of a book by Selena Roberts (whom Rodriguez falsely accused of trespassing) that has turned him into a sympathetic figure.
“Maybe (announcer Michael) Kay actually knew what he was talking about. After all, in order to work at YES it is essential to bend reality. Much of Friday’s half-hour pregame show was devoted to Rodriguez’s return. Not once was the world ‘steroids’ mentioned. The words Manny and Ramirez got more play on the pregame.
“There was video of A-Rod munching on Twinkies, served by the media, during a dugout interview. There were a couple of pointed questions about steroids (did he juice as a member of the Yankees?) but YES did not air those exchanges. Instead, it highlighted Alex the Sincere, talking about returning his total focus to baseball.
“That’s big of him. Still, Rodriguez deserves much credit for this. Not for committing to rededicate himself, but for having the onions to tell the world he was mailing it in, while getting paid millions, during the 2008 season. Last season, A-Rod was playing the field all right. His best game was reserved for outside the lines. This reality was ignored on YES. There was only talk about A-Rod returning to his ‘laser-like focus.’”
For those of you not from the area, you just can’t imagine how it truly is all A-Rod, all the time.
–From the New York Post:
“Madonna is so over Alex Rodriguez she’s even dumped the Yankees and is now rooting for the Mets. Madge took her kids, Lourdes, Rocco and David, to see the Mets play at Citi Field on Mother’s Day, and just to rub salt in A-Rod’s wounds, brought new flame Jesus Luz. The group sat in Jerry Seinfeld’s seats with Anderson Cooper, whom they’d partied with Saturday night at the Monkey Bar.”
Us Mets fans would certainly prefer Bar Rafaeli over Madge. If anyone knows Ms. Rafaeli, please extend the invitation.
–Mets pitcher Johan Santana is 4-2 with a 0.78 ERA. Think about that. In his seven starts, Santana should be 7-0 but instead the Mets are 4-3. He has allowed just four earned runs…four…but thanks to shoddy defense, another four unearned runs have scored. In the two losses, Santana didn’t give up an earned run, and on Tuesday’s Mets broadcast we learned this is the first time since 1918 this has occurred (where a pitcher lost two this early in such a fashion). Johan needs to march into New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s office and ask the AG to prosecute his teammates to the fullest extent of the law for lack of support. Perhaps this would create a rather uncomfortable situation in the clubhouse, but something needs to be done.
–Thus far attendance is down 5% at Major League ballparks vs. year ago levels, with attendance at the new Yankee Stadium down 12%. But the Kansas City Royals’ is up 15%, owing to a remodeled park and an improved product on the field.
Bob Nightengale of USA Today had some bits from around the majors.
The Giants had a Manny Pacquiao (the Filipino boxing champion) bobblehead day and drew 39,314…including a rather remarkable 11,000 walk-up crowd. The Giants’ president said this was “A totally unheard-of response.”
Other figures: Detroit’s attendance is down a whopping 10,000 fans a game thanks to the problems in the auto sector, while the Arizona Diamondbacks, despite the real estate crash there (and a lousy team) are seeing steady attendance vs. last season.
Meanwhile, thanks to their pennant in ‘08, the Tampa Bay Rays have seen ticket sales rise 61%.
By the way, only the Houston Astros prohibit all outside food and drink from the park. Some, including the Oakland A’s and Giants, are touting their Bring-Your-Own-Food policies on their Web sites.
As for my Mets, attendance is off 23% vs. last year though the seating capacity of their new park is substantially lower than Shea Stadium.
“The market for Yankees tickets has collapsed. Not only has the team slashed prices on the most expensive seats at the new stadium, but extraordinary discounts are available online as fans and ticket brokers race to unload even the most affordable seats.
“For example, on the morning of last Wednesday’s game against the American League champion Tampa Bay Rays, tickets behind the third-base dugout with a face value of $95 were going for as little as $44 at FanSnap.com. Seats in the upper deck directly behind home plate with a face value of $85 were selling for just $40. And for the truly budget-minded, seats high in the upper deck were quoted on FanSnap at $10 – less than half their $25 face value.”
Granted, lousy weather may have had something to do with it, but if you’re Yankee management, you better be concerned, especially with the team at 15-17 (thru Tuesday).
–The success Tampa Bay’s Evan Longoria is having is truly amazing when you think of just how far he has come, even as he’s just 23. He’s not only leading the big leagues in RBI, with 45, but he’s an outstanding third baseman. So consider that in 2003, 1,480 players were selected in the spring draft and he wasn’t one of them. Longoria didn’t get any Division I scholarships and wound up at Rio Hondo Community College, about 12 miles from his home in Bellflower, Calif.
Longoria then transferred to Long Beach State after one year and roomed with Colorado’s Troy Tulowitzki. Then he starred in the Cape Cod League in 2005 and the scouts took notice. Suddenly, in 2006 he was the third pick in the draft. Talk about a rapid rise from obscurity.
–Better just mention for the record that as I go to post, Washington’s Ryan Zimmerman has a 30-game hitting streak. Not bad…not bad at all.
—1969 Mets, continued…
We pick up our story with the Metsies 12-15 and going nowhere.
Lots of rainouts, it would seem, as the Mets last played on May 7 before entertaining Houston on Sat., May 10. Mets win 3-1 behind a complete game for Tom Seaver (4-2), who limits the ‘Stros to 4 hits but walks six! [And only 4 strikeouts.] Cleon Jones homered and is hitting .402. Losing pitcher Denny Lemaster is 0-5.
May 11…doubleheader. Mets lose first, 4-1, as Houston gets all its runs off Don Cardwell (1-5) in the fourth, including the 7th homer of the season for Jimmy Wynn, the “Toy Cannon.” Tommie Agee hit his 4th round-tripper. Thanks to two errors by Wayne Garrett, Cardwell gave up only two earned runs in six innings. Larry Dierker (5-3) went all the way for Houston.
In the second game, the Mets won 11-7 in an incredibly sloppy contest…three errors committed by each team. Tug McGraw only went 4 2/3, allowing 4 earned runs, but Cal Koonce picked up the win by going the last 4 innings. The Mets shelled Houston starter Don Wilson, knocking him out in the first as Wilson walked 3 and allowed 4 hits (but only 2 earned runs). Tommie Agee homered twice (nos. 5 and 6), while Jones went 2-for-2 to hike his average to .411.
May 13…Atlanta comes into town. Mets lose 4-3 to the Braves’ Ron Reed (4-1). Orlando Cepeda and Hank Aaron homered for the Braves. Gary Gentry (2-3) takes the loss.
May 14…Mets win 9-3, but what a weird contest. Tom Seaver (5-2) allowed 3 runs on 10 hits in 8 innings and left trailing 3-1, but the Mets scored 8 runs in the bottom of the 8th as Phil Niekro (6-2) suddenly lost it. In fact, Niekro had a no-hitter going into the seventh. Cleon Jones hit a grand slam (first of his career) and had 5 RBI. The Mets scored their 9 runs on just 5 hits. Turns out the 8 runs for an inning equaled the club record set in 1964.
May 15…Mets lose to Braves, 6-5. Don Cardwell (1-6) took the loss again, going 3 innings in allowing 3 runs on 6 hits. But Cardwell’s ERA is still just 2.93. Hammerin’ Hank Aaron hit home runs no. 6 and 7 as Pat Jarvis (3-2) got the win. Wayne Garrett had 3 hits to hike his average to .302. [Pssst…seeing as he finished the year at .218, this had to be close to his high-water mark…not that I’m looking ahead.] The Braves, by the way, are now 22-10 in the N.L. West. The Mets are a dismal 15-18. Another lost season.
–A USA Today study has found that just 7.5% of head coaches (nine out of 120) in major college football are minorities and 39 of 261 offensive and defensive coordinators. The nine head coaches are actually a record, as are the 39 coordinators.
–USC basketball Coach Tim Floyd is in hot water. The Los Angeles Times seems to have compelling evidence that Floyd received $1,000 in cash from a shady character, Rodney Guillory, who was attempting to steer then high school phenom O.J. Mayo to the school. This has long been rumored and of course USC had major issues with football star Reggie Bush and gifts Bush may have received while at the school.
I just want to add that any transgressions have nothing, zero, to do with the USC cheerleaders, whose performance continues to be top rate.
–In 1999, golfer David Duval won four PGA Tour events including the TPC, made 20 of 21 cuts with 12 Top 10s, shot a 59 at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, and was ranked No. 1 in the world. In 2001, he won his only major, the British Open. Duval hasn’t won since. In fact this is how his ranking on the money list has plunged.
Duval also hasn’t had a top 10 since 2002. But he’s still just 37, and Duval insists he will be back. “I expect to. People kind of identify with struggles, you know, especially if you keep fighting and keep trying.”
–The New York Post has a story the Knicks could be interested in Stephen Curry in the upcoming draft. Phil W. correctly notes that would be a career-breaker for Curry.
–From the Tehran Times:
“Longtime Iranian stuntman Payman Abadi was killed in the course of shooting a scene from the action telefilm ‘Invisible Eyes’ on Wednesday.
“The accident occurred while filming a scene that involved a bus falling into a valley. Abadi, 37, was to jump out of the bus when apparently the bus overturned on Abadi and burst into flames.”
—Jack Bauer has been able to successfully stretch his final hours on ‘24’ into this coming Monday, where it appears he will either die or survive between 9:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. Eastern. In the meantime, he has to deal with this issue of head-butting a guy and breaking Jack McCollough’s nose.
But a spokesperson for Brooke Shields, who Bauer was allegedly protecting at the party the other night (Bauer having gotten away for an hour when told that the FBI was successfully tracking Tony Almeda) said that “(Bauer) has always been a gentleman in her company.” A source at the party told the Daily News, McCollough “may have shoved (Bauer) first.” Of all the issues Bauer has had to face, including the bio-virus that threatens to take his life, this could be his toughest test.
–Depressing story the other day in the Star-Ledger on how white-nose syndrome is killing off bats in New Jersey. Now as much as bats scare the hell out of me, I recognize their value in the grand scheme of things. Like biologists “contend a bat population of 100,000 eats upward of 21 tons of insects from spring to fall.”
So about 40 minutes from the world headquarters of StocksandNews is an old mine where one of the larger bat populations in the country exists and an official with the Division of Fish and Wildlife, during a spot check, “counted only 750 bats…We normally find between 26,000 and 29,000 bats in our counts there at the same time each year.”
Yikes. White-nose syndrome is a fungus that appears on the noses and wings of affected bats and because it impacts navigation, they can’t feed properly and thus can’t reproduce. White-nose hasn’t made it to the South and Southwest, and the huge bat populations there, which is the chief fear at this point.
“An Australian kangaroo shot through the head with an arrow is expected to make a full recovery, wildlife officials say.
“The injured kangaroo was found on Thursday in parklands near Melbourne’s outer suburb, where it is believed to have survived for up to a week.”
An Aus$10,000 (US$7,600) reward has been posted to find the person responsible. Reader Brad K. says the authorities are looking in the wrong direction. It was Piglet, he proclaims. I’m not ready to go there myself.
–“Ape shorts out a fence but stays in zoo home”
“A zoo in Adelaide was evacuated yesterday after an ‘ingenious’ 137-pound orangutan short-circuited an electric fence and hopped a wall surrounding her enclosure.
“The ape, a 27-year-old female named Karta [Ed. not exactly a sexy name], jammed a stick into wires connected to the fence and then piled up debris to climb a concrete and glass wall at the Adelaide Zoo.
“Zoo curator Peter Whitehead told reporters Karta sat on top of the fence for about 30 minutes before apparently changing her mind about the escape and climbing back into the enclosure.”
What the wire service report doesn’t mention is that, first, Karta was seen beforehand tossing a baseball against the wall, and, second, after 30 minutes she realized the motorcycle wasn’t coming to whisk her away.
–“Oldest Human Hairs Found in Hyena Dung”
“The oldest known human hair belonged to a 9,000-year-old mummy disinterred from an ancient Chilean cemetery.
“Until now: a recent discovery pushes the record back some 200,000 years.
“While excavating in Gladysvale Cave, near Johannesburg, South Africa, a team of researchers from the University of the Witwatersrand discovered an ancient brown-hyena latrine.” There they found the fossilized dung and hair.
Lucinda Backwell said it’s possible the hyena scavenged an ancestral human’s remains, which is how it came to be lodged in dung. The hyenas have been laughing at us ever since. [Sarah Hoffman / Natural History Magazine]
[The following material is rated, M, for mature audiences only.]
–The Daily News asks the question, “Which buxom B-list pinup only helps out charities that ply her with cocaine?” I don’t have a clue. Tara Reid?
As reported by John von Radowitz, “Women with brains have more fun in bed than the average bimbo, new research has suggested.
“A study of more than 2,000 female twins showed that those with greater emotional intelligence had larger numbers of orgasms.
“Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to monitor and manage feelings and emotions in oneself and others.
“The findings suggest that low EI is a risk factor for female orgasmic disorder, one of the most common sexual problems suffered by women.”
As for guys, I’m assuming I’m not hurt by my dreadful GPA in college.
Top 3 songs for 5/12/84: #1 “Hello” (Lionel Richie) #2 “Against All Odds” (Phil Collins) #3 “Hold Me Now” (Thompson Twins)…and…#4 “Let’s Hear It For The Boy” (Deniece Williams) #5 “Love Somebody” (Rick Springfield) #6 “To All The Girls I’ve Loved Before” (Julio Iglesias & Willie Nelson…25 years ago! Good lord, I feel old. Talk about depressing…I need a premium, quick) #7 “You Might Think” (The Cars) #8 “Footloose” (Kenny Loggins) #9 “Oh Sherrie” (Steve Perry) #10 “Time After Time” (Cyndi Lauper…ughhh)
*The other day, reader Tim L. just wanted me to mention singer/songwriter Billy Joe Shaver. I’m kind of jealous. Last 4th of July, Tim caught Billy Joe and David Allen Coe at Willie Nelson’s picnic event. That sounds like a total blast. And, heck, didn’t know Tim himself studied with Charlie Byrd’s drummer and played in a classic rock band for 14 years. [Tim got the ladies, in other words.]
Billy Joe is a devout Christian, it would seem, and his latest CD has a track titled “If You Don’t Love Jesus Go To Hell,” though it seems there was a time when he shot a man in the face up in Waco, allegedly in self-defense, according to Tim.
Now Tim told me of Billy Joe’s connections to Waylon Jennings so I found this bit in Irwin Stambler & Grelun Landon’s “Country Music: The Encyclopedia.”
“By the start of the 1970s…Waylon was not considered a first-rank star by most country industry people. He was still essentially a cult figure with an enthusiastic, but limited, following. His recordings often made the charts, but rarely the highest level and none had reached number one.
“Doggedly, Waylon went on his own way and, in fact, went even further in what was to be known as ‘modern country’ with his own writings and with presentation of the work of avant-garde country writers such as Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joe Shaver, and Mickey Newbury. His new repertoire of material began to take shape…Good Hearted Woman (2/72), which first presented that Willie and Waylon classic title song, ‘Heartaches by the Numbers’ (3/72)…and Honky Tonk Heroes (7/73). [All the songs but one on the last named were written by Billy Joe Shaver or by Jennings and Shaver.]”
With the Jennings/Shaver collaboration, Waylon gained a big following with young fans in both country and pop fields. “Waylon was received with riotous applause and cheers at a broad spectrum, such as the Bottom Line and Max’s Kansas City in New York; a set presented at a Grateful Dead concert show at San Francisco’s Kezar Stadium in May 1973 (where the 20,000 fans gave him a standing ovation); SRO concerts at Los Angeles’ Troubadour in 1973 and 74; a set at Willie Nelson’s Dripping Springs Festival in Texas on July 4; and many other country and pop nightspots around the United States.”
Jennings won CMA’s Male Vocalist of the Year Award in 1975.
Alas, as the sales grew, so did Waylon’s cocaine habit; spending $1,500 a day at one point before facing his addiction.
Well, whaddya know…I did find another book with something on Billy Joe. From Paul Kingsbury’s “The Encyclopedia of Country Music”:
Shaver was born in Corsicana, Texas, Aug. 16, 1939. He was raised by his grandmother, and later in Waco by his mother. A stint in the navy led to a series of go-nowhere jobs, including one at a sawmill that cost him most of the index and middle fingers on his right hand.
“Most of Shaver’s songs marry stately acoustic country rhythms with lyrics that veer between plainspoken truths and images that are unimaginable from anyone else; for example: ‘I’m just an old chunk of coal / but I’m gonna be a diamond someday,’ from the song of that title, which (John) Anderson turned into a sizable hit in 1981.”
In the album Honky Tonk Heroes, there’s a great line in the song “Black Rose.”
The devil made me do it the first time
The second time I done it on my own
I’ve resembled those lines from time to time, not that I’m recommending you kids at home take them to heart. I’m a professional, after all.
Baseball Quiz Answers: Leading N.L. in strikeouts since 1960. 1) Dodgers: Don Drysdale (1959, 60, 62); Sandy Koufax (61, 63, 65, 66); Fernando Valuenzuela (81); Hideo Nomo (95). 2) Cardinals: Bob Gibson (69); Jose DeLeon (89). 3) Padres: Andy Benes (94); Jake Peavy (05, 07). 4) Cincinnati: Jose Rijo (93); Aaron Harang (06).
