Re: Anderson Hernandez is back

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:00:40 -0700, jonathan wrote:

On Aug 6, 11:19 pm, Ruben <ru...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:46:44 -0700, jonathan wrote:
It's like Omar just locks onto these guys . . .

They need a middle infielder...FWIW


Understood, but instead of going out and looking for someone in
somebody's system who might actually have upside, he goes and gets a guy
that he should already knows sucks. But of course, Hernandez is part of
what Omar considers 'depth', a group that includes Endy Chavez, Angel
Pagan, Argenis Reyes, Jeremy Reed, Ramon Martinez, etc. None of these
guys can hit, yet all of them have been Omar Minaya solutions to 'depth'
at some point in the last few years. For once, I'd like to see him get
someone for the bench who could actually hit the baseball. Maybe then,
when one of his starters goes down, you have a chance to have someone
get hot for a little while.


Here is the bench player your looking for Jon...and he is laying right
here in Brooklyn

James Creighton, Jr. (April 15, 1841 – October 18, 1862) was a pitcher
in baseball's earliest era. Among his many accomplishments, he was in all
likelihood the first professional ballplayer, threw the first fastball,
completed the first recorded triple play, and is considered by baseball
historians to be the game's first superstar. [1]



[edit] Early career

Before the formation of organized baseball leagues, a career in the sport
was a far different proposition than it is today. Amateur ballclubs would
form and spend much of the time playing intrasquad matches, holding
exhibitions with other clubs. Much of baseball prior to the Civil War was
centered in New York. In 1857, at the age of sixteen, Creighton helped to
form his first club, the Young America Base Ball Club. It lasted only
through the year, at which point Creighton and a friend, George Flanley,
founded the Niagara Club. [1]

[edit] Discovered by the Stars
Jim Creighton as an Excelsior

In 1859, Creighton and the Niagaras were losing a match to the
well-established Star Club when Creighton, who had to this point been used
primarily in the infield, came into the game as a relief pitcher and
proceeded to throw the ball unthinkably hard for the time; the Star
batsmen claimed that he used a snap of the wrist to deliver the
"speedball", as he called it.[1] (At the time, the rules of baseball
stated that a pitcher must deliver the ball underhanded, locked straight
at the elbow and the wrist.) Regardless of the legality of his pitch, the
Stars immediately snapped Creighton and Flanley up, and the two finished
the season with them.

The Stars were unable to keep Creighton, either, and before 1860 he joined
one of the highest-profile clubs in the game at the time, Excelsior of
Brooklyn, which considered themselves the champions of America. In 1860
and 1861, with Creighton fast becoming a national sensation, they backed
up that claim by going on the first national tour, down the eastern coast
of the United States. Creighton defeated the hometown teams wherever the
Excelsiors went, and gained such popularity that many youth teams in the
areas they played named themselves the Creightons in his honor. It was
during this 1860 tour that he pitched baseball's first recorded shutout.
[1]

Such was his dominance that after he held the famed Brooklyn Atlantics to
five runs, an extraordinarily low total for the era, the Brooklyn Eagle
dispatched a reporter to determine whether or not his pitch was legal; in
the end, it was determined he was throwing a "fair square pitch", rather
than a "jerk" or an "underhand throw." [1]

The year 1862 was business as usual for the 21-year-old Creighton, who had
become the game's greatest player as a hitter and a pitcher. During that
year, it is said that he was not put out a single time at the plate, and
only four times overall. (At the time, players out on the basepaths were
charged with the out, instead of the batter as today.) His pitching, which
had also spawned the first changeup (he called it his 'dew-drop'),
continued to be exceptional.

[edit] Death
Poster featuring the enshrouded image of Jim Creighton

However, in October 1862, in the midst of his greatest season, Creighton
died suddenly. Such was his fame at the time of his death, and such was
the grief of the baseball community, that a 12-foot marble obelisk, topped
with a large baseball, was erected at his gravesite. For the next several
years, the Excelsiors' programs had a portrait of their fallen star,
shrouded in black, featured prominently in the center.

There are several explanations for his death. The generally accepted
explanation, which has existed from the time of his death, is that he
fatally injured himself while playing baseball. At the time, players swung
massive bats almost entirely with their upper body; it is said that a
particularly hard swing from Creighton – some versions of the story have
it as a home run swing – caused an internal injury. Remarking to
teammate George Flanley that he had perhaps snapped a belt, he continued
playing but was in extreme pain hours later. A few days later, he died at
his parents' house.

In an 1887 issue of early sports newspaper The Sporting Life, a
letter-writer, who signed only as "Old Timer", sent in his account of the
event. Robert Smith (Baseball in America, Holt Rinehart Winston, 1961,
p.10,13) as well as the Findagrave website [1] reported it is a ruptured
bladder. SABR researcher John Thorn concluded ruptured inguinal hernia.
[2] Others speculate that it was some already-present injury or disease,
or that his appendix or spleen had burst after the game. Contemporary
writers were vague, only stating that he had suffered a "strain".

Regardless, baseball's first superstar was dead. Had he survived, he would
have been thirty when baseball's first professional league, the National
Association, was founded.

He was buried in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. [2]

[edit]

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