RAY PETERS, FORREST CADY and SPRING TRAINING RESULTS

     First of all, my apologies.  It has been longer than I usually like to go between articles and I don't have anyone to blame but myself.  Getting ready for the Season and sending 214 autograph requests for spring training, are a couple of excuses that I could use.  So I will. 

 

    A really nice perk one gets when one writes articles like this is feedback from someone who has actually read them.  About a month ago I got a long e-mail back from Ray Peters whom I had written about previously in an article "A Pilot, A Brewer and A Harvard Man."  He wrote to fill me in about some of the other ballplayers that I had written about that he had contact with.  He said that Sibby Sisti was one of his managers in Clinton, Iowa in 1969.  Great Guy.  Ray, too, ordered the Reford/Sisti photo from The Natural and had him sign it.  He also had him autograph a comic book devoted to Sibby Sisti and Mickey Mantle.  Sibby is short for Sebastian.  St. Sebastian is the patron saint of athletes. 

 

    Ray remembered Jim Dunegan from pitching against him in 1970 when he was with the Tacoma Cubs.  He also remembered Burt Hooten being signed out of Texas at that time and then getting to Triple A really quickly and pitching a no hitter against his team. 

 

    Roe Skidmor batted against Ray Peters in one of the first games he threw in spring training in 1970.  He remembered throwing what he thought was some severe heat off the inside corner to Roe and he pulled it right down the line and out of the park.  Ray says that this may have been the first time that that had ever happened to me -- pulling my best stuff off the inside corner out of the yard!  He says, "I remember thinking these hitters are good!"  John Noriega and Ray were on the Eugene Emeralds together in 1971.  John was blind in one eye.  Ray says that " he had to have had an incredibly flexible neck to hold the runner on first." 

 

    Ray Peters has also recommended a book that looks very interesting.  Its called "Cup of Coffee:  The Very Short Careers of 18 Major League Pitchers."  It is published by Smallmouth Press.  The book is by Rob Trucks who is Virgil Trucks' grandnephew.  If you enjoy the stories like I do of players who've just barely made it to the Majors for a brief time and wondered how that experience has impacted their life, you'll probably really enjoy it.

 

    It's funny where you'll run into interesting baseball stories.  One weekend Nancy and I were up at Bishop Hill which at one time was a communal living experiment founded by Swedish religous dissidents but what is now a historical museum, an art museum, the old church, and lots of arts and craft shops.  Picking up an advertising magazine about Bishop Hill, I ran into an article about Forrest Cady.  Forest Cady was a Bishop Hill native who from 1906-1911 played ball in the midwest and later in the east coast and in 1912 made it to the Majors when his contract was purchased by the Boston Red Sox.  What a team, he got to play with future hall of famers Smokey Joe Wood and Tris Speaker.  Forest Cady saw action in 47 games, committed only 1 error and hit .259.  In the 1912 Series, Cady started all but one of the seven games as the Red Sox beat the New York Giants 4 games to 3.  Cady went on to play 5 more years with the Red Sox collecting World Series titles in 1915-1916.  In 1914 baby face rookie George Herman Ruth joined the Red Sox as a pitcher.  In 1915, before Ruth's hitting skills were recognized and forced his move off the mound, Cady was giving the assignment of pinch hitting for Ruth in a game - an event that happened only 5 times in Ruth's career.  In October of 1917 in a road west of Galva, Illinios, Cady was involved in an automobile accident that injured his shoulder.  He was forced to sit out the 1918 season and in 1919 he came back to play with the Philladelphia Phillies.  This would be his last year in major league baseball.  He played in only 34 games but did hit his only major league homerun.  During his time in the majors, Forrest Leroy Cady played in 355 games, earned a .240 batting average, and played in 3 World Series championship teams.  This was a little piece of local history that until I had picked up the advertising brochure I was totally unaware of. 

 

    How am I doing in my Spring Training requests?  Well, as of April 8th I've gotten 116 of the 214 requests that I had mailed out back.  Just a shade over 54%.  Last year I finished a little over 65% so assuming that responses will still straggle in this summer and into next spring, I should come pretty close.  Some of the notable responses that I've gotten back this year ... Rodrigo Lopez, Geronimo Gil, Eric Wedge, Billy Traber, Corey Hart, Jose Contreras, Bobby Jenks, Tom Gordon, Nick Swisher, Willey Bloomquist, Chris Snelling, Joel Pineiro, Chad Tracy, Endy Chavez, Clint Everts, Eric Junge, Placido Polanco, Mike Williams, Brian Bullington, Jimmy Journell, Jason Simontacchi, Jeff Francouer, Jeff Francis, Renee Reyes, Jim Tracey, Mark Phillips and Brian Lawrence.  Those are some of my successes. 

 

    Failures have been surprising.  I don't write to too may established big leaguers, but the Cubs have surprised me by their lack of response.  Thus far I have yet to hear from Francis Beltrand, Bobby Hill, Angel Guzman and Nick Jackson.  Some first round draft choices have not yet resonded as well.  I'm still waiting on James Loney, Scott Kazmir, Val Majewski, Kenny Baugh, Russ Adams, and B.J. Upton.  No response from Kansas City's Runelys Hernandez, which it was a surprise since he seemed pretty amendable when I knew him from Burlington.  No response from Hideki Matsui, which perhaps wasn't a surprise.  Tampa Bay has only returned 2 of my 7 requests and I've still got 5 requests out on my Cardinals.  Again, given the fact that I don't write to the big names, I really do suspect that more of my autograph requests disappear in the club house or in the mail than are refused by the players.  Classic examples this year are Brad Hawpe and Brian Tallet.  I wrote to them last year with no success.  This year I got them both back in less than 1 week turn around time.  Now their signing habits haven't changed dramatically.  I suspect that in this case made the round trip successfully and last year they were waylaid at some point.

 

     My minor league season starts the 11th when Burlington plays their first home game, although I've gotten a head start, going to Meet the Team festivities at Burlington, the Quad Cities and Peoria already.  I'm ready for my season to start!

 

    My fantasy team is already dead.  Ken Griffey Jr., my last year's first round pick, doomed me to finish in the lower half of our league last year.  This year we all shied away from him till the 5th round, when, you guessed it, I felt he was a bargain to pick up that late.  Looks like he got me again.  Ouch!

 

Oh well, have fun with the hobby.  I sure try to.