#old school baseball

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World Series hero, Tigers great Mickey Lolich dead at 85

Mickey Lolich, the Detroit Tigers pitcher who achieved the rare feat of three complete game victories in the 1968 World Series, died after h

In this Oct. 3, 1968, file photo, Mickey Lolich of the Detroit Tigers pitches during the second game of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Mo. (AP Photo/File)

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Oakland Athletics’ Rickey Henderson holds up third base after breaking Lou Brock’s all-time career record for stolen bases during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the New York Yankees in Oakland, Calif. It was his 939th career stolen base. (AP Photo/Alan Greth)

Oakland As Rickey Henderson, right, congratulates Texas Rangers pitcher Nolan Ryan, left, after their game, Tuesday, Aug. 23, 1989, Arlington, Tex. Henderson struck out in the fifth inning, giving Ryan his 5000th career strikeout. Commissioner of Baseball A. Bartlett Giamatti, center, and Rich Levin also congratulate Ryan. (AP Photo/IK)

In 1989, Henderson was Nolan Ryan’s 5,000th career strikeout victim. Henderson’s response: “If he ain’t struck you out, then you ain’t nobody.”

RIP: Rickey Henderson. Henderson would have turned 66 on Christmas Day.

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Play Movie ▶ 61* (2001)

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Chicago White Sox pitcher Wilbur Wood in action during the 1968 season. (Malcolm Emmons/USA TODAY Sports)

Wilbur Wood dead at 84

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Boston Red Sox pitcher Dave Morehead throws to a Cleveland Indians batter en route to a no-hitter in Boston in this Sept. 16, 1965, photo. (AP file photo)

Dave Morehead, who pitched for the Boston Red Sox from 1963-68 and the Kansas City Royals from 1969-70, passed away on Nov. 23. He was 82.

Morehead made his major league debut at Fenway Park on April 13, 1963. That day, at 19 years old, he pitched a complete-game shutout of the visiting Washington Senators (now Minnesota Twins), propelling Boston to a 3-0 victory with five hits, four walks and 10 strikeouts. It was the first of six complete-game shutouts Morehead would throw over his eight-year career, and just the fourth such debut in MLB history by a pitcher younger than 20.

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Pirates great and World Series champion Dave Parker dies, team announces

Dave Parker will be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown later this summer. He was a two-time World Series champion and wa

RIP: Dave Parker

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#1789: “Before 1845, the bases on a baseball field were arranged in U-shape. Posts or stakes were used instead of bases as we know them, runs were called "aces," and the first team to reach a score of 21 won the game. Even by 1860 baseball was more a social event than a competitive sport. Tea was served during the many "intermissions," and the pitcher threw the ball where the batter asked him to. Bunting was considered a breach of taste.”

False. False. True. Kind of true. Plausible?

Up until the 1870s, base ball was more of a “gentleman’s sport,” played as friendly competition, so some of this may be plausible. Runs were called aces.

I found an article detailing a letter from Dr. Adam Ford, who witnessed a baseball game in Canada in 1838. He wrote that the infield was in a square shape (predecessor to today’s diamond? Definitely not a U-shape!) and bags were used for the bases, called byes. Bases were then the lines between the byes. When Ford watched the game, players agreed on how many innings to play- usually between 5 and 9. He spoke to some older men there, who played eighteenth-century era baseball, and they said in their day, they played to whichever team got 18 or 21 first. So the form of baseball described here may be from eighteenth-century Canada. This letter is the oldest-known testimony about early baseball, and there’s evidence baseball was known in Ontario at that time. For what it’s worth, some people are suspicious of this letter because Dr. Ford was seven when he watched this game and was reporting fifty-year-old memories.

The material the ball was made of also changed. In the game Dr. Ford watched, the baseball was made of yarn and wrapped in calfskin. He also wrote of a game in New York State using a baseball of India rubber that had the ball flying extremely far.