$Unique_ID{BAS00026}
$Title{Lives of the Players:  A}
$Author{}
$Subject{Lives Players Aaron Adams Alexander Allen Alston Anderson Anson
Aparicio Appling Ashburn Averill}
$Log{
Hank Aaron's 715th home run (with audio)*0003501.scf,44000020.aud
Dick Allen*0003801.scf
Walt Alston*0004301.scf
Sparky Anderson*0004401.scf
Cap Anson*0004601.scf
Luis Aparicio*0004701.scf
Luke Appling*0004801.scf
Richie Ashburn*0004901.scf
Earl Averill*0005101.scf}

Total Baseball:  The Players


Lives of the Players:  A


Hank Aaron
Outfielder, Mil (N) 1954-65, Atl (NL) 1966-74, Mil (A) 1975-76

If charisma were a baseball stat, Aaron would have been benched.  No question
he was great, but was he box office?  Yearly, while lesser lights adorned
magazine covers, the unassuming Alabaman quietly went his Hall of Fame way,
winning baseball games with his quick feet, strong arm, and powerful bat.  No
Rodney Dangerfield, he always got respect; he deserved adulation.
     His numbers were terrific:  four times he led the league in home runs,
four times in RBIs, thrice he scored the most runs, twice he had the most
hits, and twice he topped all National Leaguers in batting average.  In 1957,
when his Braves were world champs, he was MVP, but most fans recognized him as
a great player quicker than they'd have recognized him on the street.  He made
a more exciting stat line than an interview.  It didn't help that he played in
Milwaukee and Atlanta, places New York-based media still have to look up
before they can point to them on a map.  Worst of all, he was pleasant,
modest, hard-working, and uncontroversial.
     Then, as he neared the end of his career, this unpretentious superstar
was thrust into the full glare of media hype as he fought the battle of his
life--taking on Babe Ruth's ghost.  "Hammerin' Hank" finished the 1973 season
with 713 career home runs, only one less than Ruth's lifetime 714.  After
enduring a whole winter of "experts" speculating when he would, whether he
could, and even if he should break the record, Aaron tied it in his first
at-bat of 1974.  A few days later, on April 8, at 9:07 EST, before 53,775
Atlanta fans, he elevated Al Downing's pitch into the record books as number
715.  Before retiring in 1976, Aaron brought his record total up to 755.
     More than a decade later, the "greatest home run hitter" ruckus remains
unsettled.  Aaronites like to point out that Hank faced some un-Ruthian
obstacles in playing most of his career in a "pitcher's park," facing more
"good" pitchers and batting under lights.  Ah, yes, say the pro-Ruthians, but
the Babe had charisma!
     Although he was never spectacular, on the basis of consistency Aaron was
awesome.  Among all players, he ranks third in games and hits, second in
at-bats, runs, and total runs (runs plus RBIs), and first in home runs and
RBIs--and grounding into double plays.  His average season over twenty-three
years was .305, 33 home runs, 100 RBIs.  He hit 40 home runs or better eight
times, the last when he was thirty-nine years old.  Just running out his
homers covered over fifty-one miles.  He was named to the Hall of Fame in
1982.
     When Reggie Jackson hit his 400th homer, he was asked if he could catch
Aaron's 755.  Reggie shook his head.  Aaron, he said, was still an entire
career away.


Charles "Babe" Adams
Pitcher, StL (N) 1906, Pit (N) 1907-26

The 1909 World Series had Detroit's Ty Cobb and Pittsburgh's Honus Wagner, but
the star of the classic was Adams, a twenty-seven-year-old Pirate rookie.  The
quiet righthander from Indiana--a creditable 12-3 in 1909 but hardly the Buc
ace--might not have pitched at all had star hurler Howie Camnitz not come
down with an attack of quinsy.  Pittsburgh manager Fred Clarke had been tipped
that Adams threw with the "same style but faster" than AL pitcher Dolly Gray,
who'd stumped Detroit batters during the season.  Playing the hunch, Clarke
sent the boy to do a man's job in the Series opener.  Adams responded with a
six-hitter, then six-hit the Tigers again in the fifth and seventh games to
make the Pirates world champs.
     Babe's best pitches were a good fastball (which earned him his nickname
as a kid) but especially a curveball that could freeze batters in their
tracks.  His real talent, however, was his control.  It took him to 194 Pirate
wins over eighteen seasons, including 22-12 in 1911 and 21-10 in 1913.  In
1914, he pitched a twenty-one-inning game without allowing a single walk.  He
averaged just 1.29 walks per nine innings over his career, with a pinpoint
0.62 record in 1920 (18 walks in 263 innings), tying with Christy Mathewson
(1913) for best of all time.


Grover Cleveland "Pete" Alexander
Pitcher, Phi (N) 1911-17, 1930, Chi (N) 1918-26, StL (N) 1926-29

When Grover Cleveland Alexander retired in 1930, he saw his name at the top of
the "Games Won" column in the National League record book.  A recount
eventually added one more win to Christy Mathewson's lifetime total to leave
them tied at 373 (Matty has now lost a win after all, returning him to 372),
which was kind of fitting because one or the other was certainly the best NL
righthander of the first half of the twentieth century.  Alexander went into
the Hall of Fame in 1938, two years after Mathewson.  Military service in
World War One cost Alex one-plus years after three straight 30-win seasons,
and a shell that burst in his ear may have triggered the epilepsy and led to
the alcoholism that plagued him for the rest of his days; a gas attack in a
training drill eventually cost Mathewson his life.  Matty's out pitch was his
fadeaway; Alex had a good fastball and better curve, all delivered with an
easy, just-tossin' motion.  Both had the kind of control that could carve a
roast.  Alex won two of the three games in which they faced each other.
     Not even Matty ever had a moment like Alex's in the 1926 World Series.
The grizzled veteran, nearing forty, won his second Series game for the
Cardinals in Game Six and then allegedly went out to save St. Louis from
alcohol by drinking it all himself.  The next day, more hung over than the
Gardens of Babylon, he was summoned to the mound in the seventh inning of the
final game.  The Cards led 3-2, but the Yankees had slugger Tony Lazzeri up
with two outs and the bases loaded.  Alex worked the count to 1-and-2,
including a heart-stopping foul down the left field line, then whooshed strike
three past Lazzeri's bat.  After two more shutout innings, the Cards were
champs and Alexander was a legend.  The incident served as the climax of the
movie The Winning Team, with Ronald Reagan portraying Alexander.
     The Lazzeri strikeout crowned a career that glittered with three 30-win
seasons and six 20-win seasons.  His 90 career shutouts are second only to
Walter Johnson's 110.  His lifetime ERA of 2.56 included seasons of 1.22,
1.55, 1.72, and 1.73.
     Alexander's 227 strikeouts in 1911 was the rookie record until Dwight
Gooden broke it.  But his 28 wins still stand as the freshman mark.  Four of
his wins were consecutive shutouts.  In 1915 he led the Phillies to a pennant,
winning 31 and clinching the flag with a one-hitter.  He won one more in the
Series against Boston--the last Series win for the Phils until 1980.
     All this was doubly impressive because he pitched his home games from
1911 to 1917 in little Baker Bowl, with a right field wall just off the second
baseman's hip, and from 1918 to 1925 at hitter-friendly Wrigley Field.  In
1916 Alexander tied a forty-year-old mark with 16 shutouts--and nine of these
were registered at Baker Bowl.
     As his career closed, Alex's alcoholism was so bad he couldn't shake
hands without taking three stabs at it, and his wife hid her perfume so he
wouldn't drink that.  He ended up re-enacting the Lazzeri strikeout with a
flea circus on Broadway.  In 1950, he died alone in a rented room.


Dick Allen
Third Baseman/First Baseman, Phi (N) 1963-69, 1975-76, StL (N) 1970, LA (N)
1971, Chi (A) 1972-74, Oak (A) 1977

Dick ("Don't call me Richie!") Allen had baseball talent and opera-star
temperament.  When his mood was right, he was a one-man offense who could
carry a team for a week or a month.  When his mood was wrong, he could pout or
even disappear for an equal length of time.  He found spring training a waste
of time and avoided as much of it as possible.  He drove enemy pitchers and
friendly managers crazy with equal nonchalance.
     He came to the Phillies a professed third baseman in 1963, led the league
in errors a couple of times, and from 1969 until he retired in 1977 was more
or less a first baseman.  Allen lived by his bat:  seven seasons over .300,
ten seasons with 20 or more homers, and six seasons of 90-plus RBIs.
     In 1970 the Phillies traded him to the Cardinals, who kept him a year and
then passed him on to the Dodgers.  In both cases, the teams improved their
records, but decided Allen would never win the Employee of the Month award.
In 1972 he was sent to the White Sox and patient manager Chuck Tanner (a.k.a.
Job).  Allen responded with an MVP year, hitting .308 and leading the AL in
homers (37) and RBIs (113).  After that, he got bored or sulky or whatever.
By 1974, even Tanner was miffed over such Allen foibles as taking the last
month of the season off to go tend his prize horses.  Always his own man but
often his worst enemy (despite heated competition among former teammates),
Allen was ever an enigma.


Walter Alston
Manager, Bkn (N) 1954-57, LA (N) 1958-76.  First base, StL (N) 1936

For twenty-three years--all on one-year contracts--Alston managed the
Dodgers, overseeing their migration from Brooklyn to Los Angeles and presiding
as they became baseball's most financially successful franchise.  The Dodgers
topped two million in attendance seven times with Walter in the dugout, their
prosperity based on consistent wins.  Alston brought them to four world
championships, seven pennants, and eight second-place finishes.  Only John
McGraw, who managed thirty-one years, won more National League games or
pennants.
     Alston's entire major league playing career consisted of one at bat.  Lon
Warneke struck him out.  But twenty years of playing and managing in the
minors taught him to handle a team with patience and straightforward honesty.
He was managing Nashua in the Dodgers' system in 1946, when the presence of
black players was a hot potato.  He volunteered to be the first white manager
for a couple of talented black prospects and sent Roy Campanella and Don
Newcombe on to stardom.
     His Dodger teams had many stars but were renowned for their pitchers.
Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale are Hall of Famers, and countless others starred
while hurling in the Dodger blue.  Some of the credit goes to Alston and his
patient handling.  Named Major League Manager of the Year by The Sporting News
in 1955, 1959, and 1963, Alston was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in
1983.


George "Sparky" Anderson
Manager, Cin (N) 1970-78, Det (A) 1979-90.  Second base, Phi (N) 1959

To paraphrase Will Rogers, Anderson never met a man he didn't talk to death.
If he could have hit as well as he talks, he'd have been an All-Star player.
Instead he batted a mute .218 in his only major league season as a player.
Despite his own lack of prowess, the loquacious leader has become one of
baseball's great managers.  Employing a slow fuse with problem players, a
quick hook for pitchers, and an outlook more upbeat than a Basie riff,
Anderson is the only man to win a World Series in both leagues, to win 100
games in both leagues, and to be Manager of the Year in both leagues.  In
1970, his first year at the helm, he guided Cincinnati's Big Red Machine to a
pennant, then followed with more in 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1976; the latter two
years also produced World Championships.  It was the first time since John
McGraw's New York Giants in 1921-1922 that a National League team had won
back-to-back championships.  In 1984 he led the Tigers to a world title.  All
told, he's guided his teams to seven first-place finishes and five seconds.
His postseason record, 34-21 and .619, is the best of any manager.


Adrian "Cap" Anson
First Baseman/Third Baseman, Rock (NA) 1871, Phil (NA) 1872-75, Chi (N)
1876-97. Manager, Chi (N) 1879-1897, NY (N) 1898

Anson was the biggest star of the nineteenth century, one of the men who
popularized baseball. During his twenty-seven-season career (1871-1897), he
became the first man to make over 3,000 hits, even though nineteenth-century
teams played fewer games per season than today's clubs. Twenty-four times he
went over .300; three times he topped .380. He had good power for the
dead-ball days. In 1884 he slugged five homers in two games, a feat that
would not be matched until 1925.
     He wasn't much of a fielder, though. His 58 errors in 1884 is still a
record for first basemen. Even fielding with bare hands, that's a ton.
     Cap managed Chicago's NL team (then called the "White Stockings") to five
pennants between 1880 and 1886. He was a pioneer in the use of the
hit-and-run, signals, platoons, a pitching rotation, and spring training. A
big man--six-two, 220 pounds--he was a stiff-backed martinet who marched his
men onto the field in military formation and used his fists to enforce his
rules, the least popular being his no-drinking edict. Once he threw Chicago
team owner A.G. Spalding off the field for challenging one of his decisions.
     When he finally retired, the league tried to award him a pension.
He turned it down.


Luis Aparicio
Shortstop, Chi (A) 1956-62, 1968-70, Bal (A) 1963-67, Bos (A)1971-73

"Little Looie" played 2,581 games, more than any other shortstop, led the
American League in stolen bases nine times (in a row), topped AL shortstops in
fielding average eight times, and in 1984 became the first Venezuelan voted
into the Hall of Fame.  But he wasn't the be-all and end-all of short
fielders.  His lifetime batting average of .262 embraces nada power, and his
.308 on-base average is embarrassing for a guy who was almost always used to
lead off.  Small wonder he never scored 100 runs and rarely led even his own
team.  What he did on offense was steal bases--506 of them.  On the other
hand, he was thrown out over 100 times.
     He was smooth defensively--he won nine Gold Gloves.  After being among
the league leaders in total chances early in his career, his putouts and
assists declined as his fielding average went up, indicating sure hands but
the loss of the kind of range that wins extra ballgames.  But no shortstop was
ever more durable, and the amiable Aparicio helped win flags for the White Sox
in 1959 and for the Orioles in 1966.  He was arguably the best player in the
AL in 1960 when Roger Maris was named the MVP.  That year Luis hit only .277
but stole 51 bases, led all shortstops in assists and fielding average, and
knocked in 62 runs as a leadoff man.


Luke Appling
Shortstop, Chi (A) 1930-50.  Manager, KC (A) 1967

Shortstops who can hit are as rare as Chicago pennants.  Luke Appling could
hit, and he spent twenty years wearing a White Sox uniform while other teams
popped champagne corks at seasons' end.  Although he never got into a World
Series, he played in seven All-Star Games and averaged .444 there.  He led the
AL in batting in 1936, hitting .388, still the highest average by a shortstop
in this century.  He copped another crown in 1943, with .328.  His are the
only batting crowns won by a Sox hitter in spacious Comiskey Park.  His career
average of .310 came on 2,749 hits, and while he was never a power hitter (45
homers), he both scored and batted in over 1,000 runs.  In 1964, he was
elected to the Hall of Fame.
     His specialty was fouling off pitches until he got one he wanted.
According to legend, he once fouled twelve straight into the stands when the
hard-strapped White Sox management refused him a dozen souvenir balls for
friends.  According to another version, it was fourteen straight after being
turned down for two passes.
     Originally a poor fielder, he led AL shortstops in errors six times.  But
he improved greatly over his career and finished with a record seven years
leading in assists.
     Nicknamed "Old Aches and Pains" because he led the league in hypochondria
every year, he somehow survived aching ankles, pink eye, perpetual flu, a
permanently sore back, headaches, inflamed throats, chills, vertigo, a real
broken finger, and a fractured leg to play twenty years and usually top the
Sox in games played.  Among AL shortstops, only Aparicio put in more time at
the position.  At age seventy-five, he was healthy enough to slug a home run
in the first Cracker Jack Old-Timers' Game in Washington, in 1984.


Richie Ashburn
Outfielder, Phi (N) 1948-59, Chi (N) 1960-61, NY (N) 1962

Ashburn was one of the three best defensive center fielders ever.  From 1948
through 1958 he led National League outfielders in chances per game every year
but 1955 (when he finished second by 0.1).  Sure, the other Phillie
outfielders never won any dash medals, and ace Robin Roberts threw fly balls
like they'd been ordered C.O.D., but Ashburn's gift for covering center made
it all work. Willie Mays got the Gold Gloves; Ashburn got the outs--about 50
more each season.  According to Pete Palmer's analytical stats, only Tris
Speaker and Max Carey rank ahead of Richie as fly chasers, and then by a
margin so small you'd get a recount in most states.
     Ashburn's arm never got him a blue ribbon, but it got the Phillies a
pennant in 1950, when he gunned down the Dodgers' Cal Abrams at the plate to
preserve a tie in the season's final game.  The Phillies won the game and the
flag in the tenth.
     Richie broke in with the Phillies in 1948, topping the NL in steals and
hitting in 23 straight games, the rookie record until Santiago passed it in
1987.  He led the league in batting in 1955 and 1958.  He hit over .300 in
nine of his fifteen seasons.  He was a leadoff man who homered only slightly
more often than swallows visit Capistrano, but he led the NL in hits three
times and bases on balls four times.  His career on-base average was near
.400.
     He closed out with .306 for the expansion Mets, providing some
respectability to an otherwise comical outfit.  He has since gone on to become
one of the top broadcasters in the game for the Phillies.


Earl Averill
Outfielder, Cle (A) 1929-39, Det (A) 1939-40, Bos (N) 1941

After three excellent seasons with San Francisco of the PCL, Averill was
purchased by the Indians in 1929 for $50,000.  In his first major league at
bat, he homered.  He stood only five-nine and weighed just 172, but he
generated home run power.  For a half dozen years in the 1930s, he was one of
the most feared batters in baseball.  A back injury and a malformed spine
affected his swing in 1937, left him as just an ordinary hitter, and
prematurely shortened his career.
     When Averill joined the Hall of Fame in 1975, he complained that he had
had to wait thirty-four years.  "Stats alone are enough," he said.  His
numbers were impressive, all right: .318 career batting average, 238 home
runs, 1,164 RBIs, and 1,224 runs scored.  During his ten best seasons, he
averaged 23 home runs, 12 triples.  108 RBIs and 115 runs scored.  He also led
all outfielders in putouts twice.  But hitting stats were inflated by an
animated baseball during the time Averill was at his peak.  Probably a better
gauge of his ability is that he was the only outfielder selected to the first
six All-Star Games.
     The most famous incident in his career came in the 1937 All-Star Game,
when a line drive off his bat broke pitcher Dizzy Dean's toe.  Dean tried to
come back from the injury too soon, altered his pitching motion, and ruined
his arm.  Ironically it was during that same 1937 season that Averill's back
problem began to cut into his career.