Love these old pictures of players hanging out - '37 ASG photo. Names spoilered for those wanting to try their luck, all HOF'ers. I missed #3. Spoiler: Names Seven of the American League's 1937 All-Star players, from left to right Lou Gehrig, Joe Cronin, Bill Dickey, Joe DiMaggio, Charlie Gehringer, Jimmie Foxx, and Hank Greenberg. All seven were elected to the Hall of Fame.
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27425987/guy-ball-crotch-story-funniest-baseball-card-ever-made Spoiler 'You're the guy with the ball to the crotch': The inside story behind the funniest baseball card ever made Keith Comstock played on four major league clubs as a journeyman reliever, but his professional career is most often remembered for one thing: a ball to the crotch. Thirty years ago -- in what otherwise would have been a forgotten minor league set -- Comstock appeared on one of the most memorable baseball cards ever made. Here's the story of how it came together, in his words. By the late 1980s, I'd been up and down a few times -- with Minnesota, San Francisco and San Diego. I never had a major league baseball card of myself, until 1988. That's when the Topps card company produced my first real card, like the ones I collected when I was a boy. I'm throwing a pitch in the photo. I was so happy when I saw the card, really humbled. When I got that first card, I didn't keep it. I sent it to my mom. It was like validation for everything that I'd gone through, like here was proof I was a major leaguer. The cool part of that 1988 card is it became a sought-after error card within the Topps set. There was something wrong with the coloring of the "Padres," so I got a little notoriety for that. I couldn't wait to show up in another set. *** I was demoted again. The same year I got my first Topps card, I was sent to Triple-A Las Vegas, playing for the Stars. I was 32 years old and it was sometime in the late spring when the minor league card photographer showed up. By then, I was just barely hanging onto the game. eBay currently has a few in stock, including one that is autographed. Disclaimer: ESPN gets a commission on any sales driven through this link. I had so many minor league cards of myself that I was getting bored with them. Plus, it was kind of a downer. You didn't want to be in a minor league set. You wanted to have a big league card. And, honestly, another minor league card was a reminder of how my career was going. There was absolutely zero creativity with minor league cards. You should see my old ones. There was the balance position, where the photographer tells you to raise your leg, like you're ready to throw. There was the one where you extend your throwing hand, like you've just released a pitch. There's the one where you're standing with a ball and glove, doing nothing. Like I said, zero creativity. I'd done so many of those that I was sick of it. So was everyone else. The photographer who showed up that day was shooting for the 1989 ProCards set, so we were doing this for next year's cards. He had his hat backward, like you might expect from a photographer. While that guy was setting up for the shoot, my teammates started talking about how they wanted to sabotage their own cards. Coley Harvey » One by one, they stepped up and posed. Right-handed batters tried to hold the bat like a lefty; left-handed pitchers wore right-handed gloves. They tried everything. The photographer caught every one of them. He had a sheet, or something, that had our numbers and lefty-righty stuff on it. He was really, really strict. He wasn't having any of it. Finally, it was my turn. The photographer asked me what I wanted to do, expecting I'd do one of the basic poses. I thought about it for a second, and then it came to me: "I want it to look like a comebacker hit me in the nuts," I said. The photographer didn't like that. "Sorry, man," the guy said to me. "I'm under strict rules. I can't take that picture." I pleaded with him, but the photographer wouldn't budge. *** I was a veteran on the Stars. Because I'd been to the majors, even for a little while, that was a big thing in the clubhouse. Guys looked up to me because I'd made it, even if it was just for a little while. I did what they dreamed of doing, and that earned me respect. We had a deep team in Vegas, and we ripped through just about everyone in the Pacific Coast League that year. Sandy Alomar was a kid on the team. I think his brother, Roberto Alomar, was there when we did the shoot. There was Jerald Clark, Joey Cora, Bip Roberts and Shane Mack. Bruce Bochy was our backup catcher. My buddy Kevin Towers was there. There was this guy on the team, another pitcher. His name was Todd Simmons. He was the prankster. He heard my rejected plan for my baseball card, but he loved the idea. He knew it had to be done, and he started egging me on. "Todd told me, 'You're the veteran,' and said I needed to tell the guys in the clubhouse that they shouldn't sign their card contracts unless this photographer allowed me to get a ball to the crotch."Keith Comstock on the conversation that helped make his baseball card a reality Understand this: When I got my card idea rejected, not everyone had taken their photos. The photographer got all the regular guys done first, and the potential stars would be shot last. No idea who came up with that, but it worked to my advantage. All those guys were still in the clubhouse, 30 minutes from heading to the field. Todd said I needed to tell the young guys what I wanted to do. You had to sign a contract to do the baseball card, which covered a bunch of stuff and said you agreed that your photo would show up in the set. Todd told me, "You're the veteran," and said I needed to tell the guys in the clubhouse that they shouldn't sign their card contracts unless this photographer allowed me to get a ball to the crotch. So many of those guys were future major leaguers, and it was pretty obvious the card company needed them in the set. So I did it. I went to the clubhouse, told the guys my idea about the ball and said they shouldn't sign their contracts unless I got this picture taken. They didn't hesitate. It wasn't like some movie moment, though. I didn't mandate anything from them. I wasn't Mel Gibson in "Braveheart." There was no chanting or cheering. Like I said, these guys were 30 minutes from leaving the clubhouse. They were like, "Go ahead." I'm sure they didn't really care. *** I went to the dugout, got some really sticky baseball tape and tried to stick it to the ball and then to my pants' crotch. The ball was too heavy. It kept falling off. I tried to circle the tape around my quad, but the tape blocked out the ball's seams. I went up and down the dugout, looking for anything that was strong enough to hold a ball. Then I found the Super Glue. Back in the day, we pitchers used it to cover our blisters. The trainer had the glue in his little kit, so I grabbed it. I didn't want to ruin my game pants, so Todd ran to the clubhouse and got a pair of old ones. I squeezed the Super Glue tube over half the ball. I doused it. I put on the pants, pressed the glued-up ball to them, then tried to let go. The ball was stuck to my hand. I tried to pull it off, but the ball was about to peel off my pants. I moved my hand and the pants moved. I thought, I am not taking this photo with my hand on my crotch. Someone grabbed a tongue depressor from the trainer's kit and slowly started to pry my fingers off the ball. It took a while, but my hand finally got free. Now I just had to get the photographer. I walked up with the ball stuck to my pants, and the guy was like, "No-no-no." I was expecting that. I told him that I had a clubhouse full of players who weren't going to sign their card contracts unless I got a ball in the nuts. I looked as serious as possible. The photographer stared at me for a second, trying to figure out if I really meant it. "Son of a bitch," he finally said. "Go ahead." He gave me one shot. I could feel the ball starting to fall off. "Take the picture! Take the picture!" I yelled. I threw up my hands and closed my eyes. That was it. *** The guys couldn't believe I pulled it off. I had no idea what the card was going to look like. We won the Pacific Coast League championship that year, then we went into the offseason. I forgot about the card for a bit, but then 1989 rolled around. I couldn't wait to see what the card company did with that photo. We got the little set of team cards delivered to the clubhouse one day, and we opened them. Sure enough, there I was, taking one to the nuts. The guys thought it was hilarious. I signed the card for any teammate who wanted it. I even signed one for Steve Smith, our manager. That was a great day. When I finally got a chance to show the card to my wife, I was pretty pleased with myself. I pulled it out. You know what she said? "Why are your eyes closed? That's the best you could do?" She didn't even notice the baseball glued to my crotch. I pointed the ball out to her, thinking it was super funny. She just rolled her eyes. That's all I got, an eye roll. ProCards must not have been too upset about what I did. Sometime after the set's release, I got an 8-by-10 in the mail from the company. There I am: pinstripe Stars jersey, hat on, eyes closed, mouth open. I framed the photo and for years it hung at my house in Arizona, in a place that I call my Wall of Shame. I played parts of six seasons in the major leagues, for four teams. I threw my last major league pitch in 1991. I was 35. I got right into coaching, and today I'm the rehab pitching coordinator for the Texas Rangers. I've got three kids and six grandkids. They've all seen that baseball card. Two of my grandsons are 10 and 12. Their mom showed them the card awhile back, and they loved it. Thirty years later and there's Grandpa, getting hit in the nuts. I love this game, and I have fun with it. It's hard not to when people recognize me from that card. I've had so many conversations with people about it. You're the guy with the ball to the crotch. Fans bring the card to the field and want me to sign it. We have a laugh and then talk baseball. At the end of the day, to a lot of people, this is how I'm remembered as a player. At least I'm remembered.
http://reprints.longform.org/roger-angell-stadium The Summer Game is a timeless set of essays written about baseball from 1962-1972 by Roger Angell. It’s the best book about baseball ever written.
A big theme in his Summer Game essays was the changes in baseball in the 60’s—divisional play, teams moving everywhere, AstroTurf, and the impact TV was having on how Americans relate to baseball. Not sure what his take would be today.
those are big changes but don’t really change the spirit of the game itself what manfred and the AL mongrels are doing is just completely changing the entire sport in a race to appeal to the LCD and it makes me sick
I get what you are saying, but the game is undeniably dying as the average fan gets older and older while participation is a fraction of where it was 20 years ago. Some type of change has to be made.
I still don't believe this. Nothing I have read or heard or seen has me thinking that the game is undeniably dying. Could it, and should it, change as the times change? Of course. But baseball isn't dying.
Youth participation is way down, generation over generation, from the 1990’s. That’s what I meant. I assume it’s been down generation over generation since the 1950’s though. The FC Cincinnati soccer team has outdrawn the Reds the last few years, and they’re about to unveil a new $300 million soccer stadium that will bump that even more. Maybe it’s just what’s happening here, but that’s what’s happening here.
"Between 2013-2018, the number of U.S. kids playing baseball and softball combined increased by nearly 3 million. During that same period, participation in soccer and football declined and basketball increased only slightly." Source Now, as mentioned in the article, baseball can do better...at every level. At the youth level, there needs to be more (and better) non-travel ball options. But no, little league baseball isn't dying either. I won't deny that there are cities that are seeing other sports grow at a faster rate than baseball...Kansas City has a large soccer infrastructure too...but overall the 'kids just don't play baseball anymore' narrative is completely overblown.
I would be interested to see how much of that is softball. The Atlanta paper had a story last year on the decline in Little League participation and the numbers are way off the 90’s. Would love for you to be right and me wrong on this.
If the Reds only played 15 home games, I feel supremely confident in saying they'd average more than 27k per game.
HOF pitcher Don Sutton has died. Class of 1998, he had a 23 season career in which he won 324 games (14th all time) and had 3574 K’s (7th all time). He was criticized in 98 when he made the HOF because he was never considered a dominant pitcher in his era in any one season. He only made All Star four times. Sutton never once missed his turn in the rotation in 23 years. He had 756 starts and never once went of the DL or missed a game. It’s remarkable, considering how starting pitching is used now compared to then.
On March 20, 1953, the US Dept of Justice issues a rule prohibiting major league teams from televising games within 100 miles of a minor league franchise.
I put away my winter coat as soon as I hear the ping of a baseball on an aluminum bat. It’s in the upstairs closet today.
On March 30, 1992, the Chicago White Sox traded Sammy Sosa and pitcher Ken Patterson to the Chicago Cubs for 32 year old George Bell. Bell played two seasons before retiring. Sammy Sosa was 23 at the time, with 29 career HRs in three seasons, with only .233 and .204 batting averages in 1990 and 1991. Sosa would play the next 13 seasons with the Cubs, hit 609 total HRs, and break Ernie Banks’ franchise record.
Randomly came across a video last night of babe ruth and lou gehrig taking taking practice last night
Taking growth hormone or testosterone is certainly not the same as the other 2 here. if the argument is a even playing field then that doesn’t exist naturally. Different heights, muscle insertions, cognitive abilities, etc already create an unequal playing field. if the argument is “health”, nothing about playing sports at a high level is “healthy”. They can go out there and hurt their shoulder, take prescribed opiates, and that’s legal, but it’s far from “health”.
On April 1, 1970, a bankruptcy judge declared the expansion Seattle Pilots to be insolvent and sold to a group headed by Bud Selig. The team immediately moved and became the Milwaukee Brewers.
April 8, 1966, the Astros and Dodgers play baseball’s first game on an artificial surface, Astroturf. One of the trends that is much better for baseball is the trend back to natural grass. The 1970’s and 1980’s were a wasteland of bad ball parks and turf. I played a game at Three Rivers in Pittsburgh back when it had Astroturf as hard as concrete. I hit an inside the park home run off a simple line drive to the C/RF gap that rolled to the wall and died in the dirt on the warning track. Terrible surface.
I went to a small, religious private school for a couple years in middle school/high school. Our gym floor was carpet and when baseball practice got rained out we would stand in in corner, our coach would stand in the opposite corner, hit balls down the bound line, and make us DIVE for them. His reasoning was “if you won’t dive on carpet, you won’t dive on grass”. Could not fucking disagree more, you psychopath
The NL East was the worst in the 1980’s. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. St. Louis and to a lesser extent Montreal all had basically the same Astroturf stadium. Cincinnati too in the NL West.
Not really a big part of baseball history, but I'd argue he's a top 200 pitcher of all time. In other news: I actually got his and John Rocker's autograph on the same day one day when the Dbacks were in town back when I was still in HS.
i too would argue that one of the 83 pitchers in the baseball hall of fame is likely a top 200 pitcher all time