Supposedly, there was a signal to the gamblers that the fix was on. The White Sox pitcher was to hit the first Reds batter. Sure enough in game one in Redland Field in Cincinnati in the bottom of the first inning, Eddie Cicotte hit leadoff hitter Morrie Rath. Except, it wasn't on the first pitch, which was a called strike. Suppose Rath had swung at the first pitch ... and gotten a hit? A home run?
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/event_hr.fcgi?id=rathmo01&t=b
Rath hit four home runs in his career, all IPHR, ironically, including his only 1919 homer, which was off Hall of Famer Rube Marquard leading off the bottom of the first inning. The 32 year old Marquard pitched only 59 innings in 1919 and Rath's was the only home run he allowed.
So what message would have been sent to the gamblers if that had happened? What seems more likely is that the HBP story was made up or imagined after the fact to embellish some details.
In the final 1951 game the Brooklyn Dodgers held a 4-1 lead going to the bottom of the 9th inning in the Polo Grounds, home field to the New York Giants who we now know were stealing the signs of the opposing catchers using means that were against the rules at the time.
1951 New York Giants sign stealing: a peak at coach Herman Franks and more. Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Bobby Thomson hit a home run off Ralph Branca, who had just relieved starter Don Newcombe, to win the pennant in the third of three extra games played in 1951 between the Giants and Dodgers after they finished in a tie. Roy Campanella caught for the Dodgers in the first game but Rube Walker caught games 2 and 3...
The bottom of the 9th went single, single, pop out, double by first baseman Whitey Lockman scoring a run.
So it was Dodgers 4, Giants 2 with Giants on second and third with one out. Branca relieved Newcombe to face Thomson. Did Dodger catcher Rube Walker use complex signs with Lockman on second base?
In terms of the sign stealing, the Giants had a runner on second base, so they didn't really need the extra help from center field. Or did they? Did the Giants first baseman Whitey Lockman know enough to interpret the signs and convey the information to the batter Bobby Thomson? ...
Branca somehow sneaked a fastball down the middle for strike one. “A ball I should have swung at,” Thomson, a fastball hitter, admitted later.3
At 3:58 pm, Branca’s second pitch, another fastball, came in high and tight. Thomson swung, his uppercut driving the ball deep toward the corner in left. Pafko, dashing toward the high wall, ran out of room. The ball landed in the first row, just above the 315 ft. sign for a three-run home run. Game over.OK, so the Dodgers did not have Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella in the game but they did have Hall of Fame shortstop Pee Wee Reese and Hall of Fame second baseman Jackie Robinson in the game. Even if backup catcher Rube Walker had not been reminded by Reese and/or Robinson to use complex signs with Lockman on second base, they had one pitch after which they could have corrected that. Since Thomson was a right handed batter, it would have fallen on Robinson, the middle infielder on the non pull side, to view the catcher's signs and signal to SS Reese either fastball or not (open mouth or closed mouth) so that they could get a slight jump in the anticipated direction of a batted ball.
Show of hands: who thinks that Jackie Robinson was negligent that day? Hint, before leaving for the clubhouse in center field, Robinson supposedly watched Thomson round the bases to make sure that Thomson actually touched each base.
Rube Walker played 1948-1958 and joined the 1951 Dodgers from the Chicago Cubs: 37 games for the Cubs, 36 for the Dodgers. It's possible 25 year old Walker was negligent, sloppy, ... However, ...
https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ca9f78f3
The Miracle Mets of 1969 rode their powerful young pitching to an improbable World Series championship, and the man who developed and nurtured that staff was an easygoing ex-catcher named Rube Walker. Despite not being a pitcher himself, he had an innate sense of the mental side of pitching and he used this to help his young stable of arms mature and get them to pitch with a savvy beyond their years...
In Brooklyn, Walker backed up future Hall of Famer Roy Campanella and, after Campy was injured, Walker was behind the plate for Games Two and Three of the playoff series against the New York Giants. The series ended with the famous Bobby Thomson home run off Ralph Branca in the bottom of the ninth of the decisive third game, and years later Rube said that pitch was supposed to be a brushback, but “Branca didn’t get the ball far enough inside.”1 ...
his roommate, Dodgers captain Pee Wee Reese (he named his first child after Pee Wee’s daughter)
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Brushback? Say what? Did the Giants steal that information, and if so, why the heck wasn't Thomson backing away?
1951 sign stealing Giants shutout first 15 innings of final 2 home games against Brooklyn. Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Even with stealing the Brooklyn Dodger catcher signs when playing at home in the Polo Grounds, the New York Giants were shutout at home in the first 15 innings of the two final games of the 1951 regular season. The Giants scored a single run in the 7th inning of the final game, then four more in the bottom of the 9th, three on the legendary pennant winning walk off home run by Bobby Thomson, who had also homered in game one in Brooklyn off the same pitcher.
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Interpreting catcher's signs is not that easy. Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Showing posts with label Signs.
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