39. Old Hoss Radbourn - The Man Who Won 59 Games

I remember watching the All-Star Game in 2002 with my old buddy Charlie Vascellaro and the game goes into extra innings... really good game, extra innings, 7-7 tie, the best players in the game at the time, how much more better does this get? Well, not much more, apparently. The teams ran out of pitchers. Everyone was already in the game, and no one wanted to let the present pitchers continue. So what did they do? The officials called the friggin' game! Why didn't and outfielder step forward and say "I'll pitch!" or an infielder, taken with the honor of being picked by the fans of this great game say "it's just so great to be here tonight, give me the ball coach, I love this game!". But none of that happened. They called the game at a tie, just like some European soccer game. The best players in the game, all on one field at the same time, and it ends in a tie. It was such a disgrace, it gives me agida (look it up) just writing about it tonight. In fact, that's all I'll say about that.

To cleanse my palette after that remembrance, let's take a look at "Charlie "Old Hoss" Radbourn. "Old Hoss" as he was known, had a respectable career going for him, winning 25, 33 and then 48 games for the Providence Grays but midway through the 1884 season the irritable Radbourn and the equally surly Charlie Sweeney, the Grays other pitcher, took their rivalry to another level when they fought violently after a game in which Sweeney showed up drunk. Sweeney was suspended, effectively crippling the ballclub. You see, back then, players had to play the whole game, when a pitcher was tired or getting hit bad, instead of heading for the showers, he switched places with an outfielder or infielder, who doubled as a pitcher. Loosing their other starting pitcher mid-season was a death sentence to the Grays who needed to win the pennant in order to stay financially solvent. With his team faced with disbanding, Old Hoss volunteered to start every game left in the season in exchange for a raise and a release from the reserve clause that bound him to his team and be given free agency at the season's end. An agreement was struck and he went on to pitch more than 678 inning and won a staggering 59 games! What a season and for God's sake, what an arm that guy must have had. When guys today pitch 5-6 innings every 4 days at the most, this guy must have been like having 3 tender modern-day pitchers on the Gray's staff.

Radbourn gained his free agency after the season, and elected to stay with Providence. Old Hoss had a good career afterwards, really showing no ill effects from his monstrous season of 1884. In a side not, if you look at the team portrait of the 1886 Boston Beaneaters, there's Old Hoss, back row, far right, giving the cameraman what is probably the earliest documented middle finger salute. After his career ended, the vain Radbourn lost an eye and was disfigured in a hunting accident and spent the rest of his life hidden away in the back room of the saloon he owned in Bloomington, Illinois, dying in 1897. He was elected to the Hall of Fame, class of 1939.

37. Judy Johnson

Teammates, opponents, sportswriters and fans all agreed on one thing, Judy Johnson was the smartest third baseman ever to grace a diamond. Johnson instinctively knew where a ball was going and how to get at it and put it where it needs to be. His baserunning gave the Hilldale Daisies an edge many other teams couldn’t compete with and his clutch hitting was legendary.

Born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore and raised in Delaware, Johnson’s father wanted his son to become a boxer and physical training was a part of his life from an early age. As a boy he was batboy for his father’s semi-pro baseball team and decided on making it a career. After working on the New Jersey docks during the first world war, Johnson played for a succession of semi-pro teams and was eventually signed by the mighty Hilldale Daisies from the outskirts of Philadelphia. Hilldale was just at the beginning of its period of dominance over black and white ballclubs and the team was stocked with old professionals and up and coming stars, of which Johnson was one.

The great John Henry Lloyd took Johnson under his wing and taught the promising young ballplayer the ropes. Lloyd’s tutelage paid off in dividends as he turned out to be the preeminent third baseman of the 1920’s and 30’s.Johnson swung a heavy 40 ounce bat and while he did not hit with tremendous power, he smacked out timely base hits that seemed to evade the opposing fielders. Time and time again his clutch hitting saved the day as Hilldale marched to top of the Eastern Colored League in 1923, 1924 and 1925. In 1925 Johnson and the Hilldale Daisies defeated the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro National League 5 games to 1 in the second Colored World Series.
Throughout his career Judy Johnson consistently batted just under .400 but it was his ability to drive in runs during a clutch and his levelheadedness in any situation that made him such a well respected player. He was known throughout the league for his fair play and good sportsmanship in an era where violence and cheating was just another part of the National Pastime. Johnson studied the game from a scientific point of view and became a world-class sign stealer, knowing exactly what the opposing team was going to do at any time. He became the rock on any team he played for, the steady, quiet influence that players like Lou Gehrig and Gil Hodges were later known for.

When Hilldale folded in 1932 he signed with the Pittsburgh Crawfords and became the cornerstone of what is now seen as the best negro league team of all time. After his playing days were over Johnson became the first black coach in the majors when he joined the staff of the Philadelphia Athletics. Later he scouted for the Phillies organization, signing future stars Bill Bruton and Dick Allen. In 1975 he was elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame, the sixth negro league player to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Judy Johnson’s great attitude and cheerful disposition was always remembered by those who played with him. I’ll leave the last words to his teammate “Cool Papa” Bell: “He would never let you down. he was always up and optimistic. He brought sunshine into your life. When things got rough for us, Judy would always say, somewhere the sun is always shining.”

35. Sammy T. Hughes

The only problem with the Baseball Hall of Fame is that Sammy T. Hughes ain’t in it yet. During the 1930’s and 40’s Hughes was the best second baseman in black baseball and perhaps all baseball.

Hughes was a true rarity for the time, a franchise player back when contracts meant nothing and jumping from one club to another was just another part of the game. Born in Louisville, Kentucky in 1910, Hughes started out as a first baseman with his hometown semi-pro Louisville White Sox in 1929 and two years later the team turned pro and joined the Negro National League. 1932 saw Hughes join the Washington Pilots where he switched to second base and when that franchise folded later that year he joined the Columbus Elite Giants. Owned by black businessman Tom Wilson, the Elite Giants started out in Nashville but were destined to keep changing home base as they searched for a good city with an appreciative fan base. Hughes was the Elites’ man at second through their moves from Nashville to Columbus to Washington, D.C. and finally in 1938, Baltimore, Maryland.

In Charm City the Elite Giants found a city with black fans hungry for a team. The great black newspaper, The Afro-American, was based in there and provided good coverage of the Elites during their tenure in Baltimore. The team thrived in the environment and the fans were rewarded in 1939 when they won the Negro National League Championship in a 4-team playoff between the Homestead Grays, Philadelphia Stars, Newark Eagles and Elite Giants.

Sammy T. Hughes was described by his contemporaries as the complete ballplayer, he was a superior baserunner, solid hitter, rifle for an arm, artful bunter and he played the game smart. Fans acknowledged his skill and he was voted to the annual east-West All-Star game 5 times in his career, more than any other second baseman. He consistently batted over .300, and usually batting second in the lineup, he was considered a great hit-and-run man.

In 1942 the Communist newspaper “The Peoples Voice” arranged a tryout with the Pittsburgh Pirates for Hughes, fellow Elite Giant Roy Campanella and New York Cubans pitcher Dave Barnhill. Hughes and the other players jumped their teams and travelled to Pittsburgh but the tryout was never held when the Pittsburgh owner got cold feet. However, writers both black and white figured Hughes to be a can’t miss candidate to break the color line.

Black Yankees player Dick Seay had this to say of Hughes: “a nice fellow. He wasn’t one of those guys that was drinking and all. He’d stay in the hotel and go get his girl and visit her.”

After serving with the army in the Pacific he returned for one last year with Baltimore and although he hit only .277 he rendered an even greater service by acting as mentor the Elites’ young second baseman Junior Gilliam, later a star for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers. Hughes settled down in Los Angeles and worked Hughes Aircraft Company, passing away in 1981. Cooperstown is not complete until Sammy T gets in there.

32. Bump Baily

Like many baseball fans, I was fascinated by the 1984 movie "The Natural" when it came out. The story was pretty mediocre and in fact it took me a few watches to realize that Glen Close's son was actually Roy Hobbs' son also. Maybe I was too busy paying attention to Kim Basinger at the time to fully comprehend such a slow curve of a plot twist. But anyway, the one thing that truly stands out is the great portrayal of baseball in 1939. I mean everything looked good, the uniforms, the outfield wall advertising, the stadiums, the way the ball players looked and talked, even the newspaper articles they showed close-ups of. It all looked absolutely fantastic. As a designer, I have to tip my hat to the artist that developed the uniforms for the fictional New York Knights because they looked like they would have been around in 1939. As someone who does graphic props for Hollywood, one of the hardest things for a movie designer to do is to get the right feel and look for a particular time period. So many details can throw the piece off like typeface, color, phrasing or style. So many movie sets fail to get the details right and it ruins the whole movie for nit-wits like me who spent way too many hours studying such minutia as typography and design history and wonder why the stupid artist couldn't do the same. But that's enough about films that didn't do it right because "The Natural" did.

I mentioned earlier about the mediocre plot. When I found out the movie was based on a book by Bernard Malamud I dug up a copy and read it expecting to read the same story as the movie. What a big shock, but it wasn't the same story. Not even close. The beginning was basically the same, young phenomenon on his way to a sure-thing tryout with the Chicago Cubs gets shot by a deranged psychopathic nymphomaniac. But now Malamud's Roy Hobbs becomes a dark, mean spirited jerk. He had a dishonest streak perhaps driven into him by the hard road he travelled after being shot and now that he has crawled his way back to the majors after 16 years he will let no one stop him in his quest to become the best there ever was. Robert Redford's Hobbs seemed like a nice guy, humbled by his experiences. Malamud's Hobbs is the opposite. He is just out for himself. Guy doesn't even like kids who ask him for his autograph. I won't spoil the rest of the book, because it will make a good, fast summer read for anyone who hasn't read it, but I will say the ending sure ain't like the movie!

Now back to the cards. I have been wanting to do a card of a New York Knights player and settled on one of Bump Baily. He was the Knights' star outfielder who died when he crashed through the outfield wall, paving the way for Roy Hobbs to get into the lineup. Bump was also a thug, womanizer and crooked. He was being bribed by the Knights owner to throw games so the team did not win the pennant. In the movie tough guy Michael Madsen portrayed Bump rather well. He had a rough voice and the proper thuggish attitude that the book described. When I decided to do a Bump Baily card, I made my depiction a hybrid of Madsen and another great slugger of the late 1930's - Joe Medwick. I leaned heavily on Medwick because he was exactly as I would picture Baily - a rough, mean and a powerful slugger. He was cocky because he was that good, he even won the Triple Crown in 1937. He was quick with is fists to the point of KOing his own pitcher during a game when he dared to criticize Medwick's error in fielding a ball. Teammate Dizzy Dean said of Medwick "Dawgonnit. That Medwick don't fight fair at all. You argue with him for a bit and then he beats you before you've even had a chance to speak your piece." (To set the record strait, Medwick was all these things BUT not a dishonest ballplayer.) For the fictional 1939 statistics on the card I went through some old newspapers and figured out what Medwick was batting in mid-May of '39, the time when Bump Baily met his demise in the outfield of Knights Field. The drawing leans heavily on the facial features of Michael Madsen combined with the scowl and slouching, cock-sure body language of Joe Medwick. The last thing was how to spell his name. In the book Malamud spells it "Baily" and in the movie it is spelled "Bailey". I like the story in the book better so I stuck with the original. Malamud must have had his reasons and who the heck am I to change it. So here you have it, Batholomew "Bump" Baily on his first and only baseball card.

Anatomy of a card

From time to time I have had people commission me to make cards for their relatives who played ball but never had a baseball card of their own or from people who thought it would be really neat to have a card with themselves on it picturing them playing for the Homestead Grays, New York Knights or some other old-time team. Here is one such request I recently did and got permission to show the process...

Gary,
I love your cards, the stories and drawings are great. I was wondering if you do custom cards, because I would really like to have one made of my grandfather Eddie. He played for a few Navy teams during the war and I'd really like a card of him back in his playing days. Would you be able to create a card of him, in the style of your card set and have some printed? We don't have any pictures of him playing baseball, but do have a few pictures of him when he was in the Navy.
Thanks and keep up the great work,
-Jay

Jay,
Yes, I can do custom cards. If you send me one or more photographs of your grandfather when he was young I can find a suitable ball playing pose that would work. I will send you a sketch of the card and when you approve it I will color it and add a background. Let me know if you would like a stadium, fence with trees, buildings, etc. I'd probably suggest a fence with trees because it would be more appropriate for a military base back during the war. Let me know what teams he played for and I will try to find out what the uniforms looked like. Once you ok the finished card, I can get 500 of them printed just like my cards and will also give you an 4" x 6" print of the card you can frame for a price of $200. Let me know if this is what you'd like to do.
-Gary C.

Gary,
Yes that would be great! I am attaching a scan of my grandfather taken during the war as well as a file with the story I'd like on the back of the card. Can you have him play for the Sampson Naval Training Station? I don't know what the uniforms looked like. He threw and batted right and played 2nd base.
Let me know if you need any more to work with,
-Jay

Jay,
Here is the sketch of your grandfather. I posed him with his hand in his glove. I could not locate a photograph showing the Sampson baseball team but I found a good uniform type that will be visually interesting and I attached it to this email. I will place an "S" on it for "Sampson". It is the second one from the left with the star on the sleeve. I think the story you wrote will work fine for the card. Please let me know if the drawing looks good to you and I will color and detail it out for you.
Thanks,
-Gary C.

Gary,
The drawing looks really nice, I can't wait to see how it looks in color! I think the uniform you picked looks the best out of all of them...
-Jay

Jay,
Here is the finished card, front and back in color. What do you think? Please re-check the story on the back and make sure everything is spelled correctly. I'd hate to print your grandfathers' first and only baseball card with his name misspelled! If it meets with your approval, I'll send it to the printer and you should have everything in a week.
Thanks,
-Gary C.

Gary,
I just received the cards today... THANK YOU SO MUCH! They look fantastic and I can't wait to give these to my relatives! THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!
-Jay

29. Eddie Cicotte

This card is the first in a series I will be doing on the Eight Men Out, the players who were banned from organized baseball after being accused of throwing the 1919 World Series. I originally had the idea of depicting the players while on the 1919 Sox, complete with their season stats and series record. In fact I actually posted the Lefty Williams and Buck Weaver cards in this format. The more I thought about it though, I decided that I wanted to focus more on an aspect that always intrigued me, what did those players do AFTER they were banned. I had heard stories back where I grew up in Northern New Jersey of Shoeless Joe Jackson playing under fake names for little Jersey town teams back in the '20's, but found no proof. At the end of Eliot Asinof's great book "Eight Men Out" he leaves us with tantalizing mention of a Black Sox barnstorming tour. Was this team real? What did these guys do after the ban? Could they have just gave up playing the game they must have loved? Through my research and with the help of many historians who generously shared their material I will attempt to create an 8 card set of these guys and the outlaw teams they played on after Judge Landis threw them out of organised baseball in the Fall of 1920.

After being banned from organized baseball, the eight Chicago players implicated in fixing the 1919 World Series spent the 1921 season playing pick-up games in and around the Chicago area waiting in vain for an appeal of Commissioner Landis' decision. The players were not actually convicted of any wrong doing in any court and the office of Commissioner of Baseball was a new institution at the time. Like many people they underestimated the absolute power the commissioner now had. By the spring of 1922 they now understood the dire situation they were in and were not likely to be let back in the major leagues for the foreseeable future. Faced with the need to make a living the players decided to capitalize on their infamous notoriety. Eddie Cicotte joined Lefty Williams, Swede Risberg, Joe Jackson, Hap Felsch and Buck Weaver to form a barnstorming team called the “Ex-Major League Stars”. Lord knows how this name must have angered the new Commissioner of Baseball. The team played a few games around the mid-west but many fans ridiculed the dirty players and most teams refused to play the them due to warnings about doing so by Commissioner Landis. Young players did not want to be tainted by the association with the banned players and to do so could have a negative effect on their eligibility to move up to organised ball. Older players understood what a terrible mark the whole affair of 1919 cast over their beloved game and local newspapers who were usually more than enthusiastic about a barnstorming team of major league players coming to town now railed against the shunned players. All was not well in the Ex-Major League Stars camp, however and the team apparently broke up when Cicotte got into a fight with The Swede over money. The rough and tumble Risberg got the best of the match and reportedly knocked two of Eddie’s teeth out. This was the last time that many of the players were together on a team. Cicotte eventually drifted back to his farm and family in Michigan where he anonymously worked on the assembly line for Ford Motor Company.

Special thanks to the people over at the great site "The Shoeless Joe Jackson Virtual Hall of Fame Web Site" http://www.blackbetsy.com/ They were very helpful answering questions and sending me newspaper articles regarding the Black Sox after 1920.

28. Willard Brown

Back in 1947 as Jackie Robinson was breaking the color line in the National League, Willard Brown and Hank Thompson, two heavy weight negro league sluggers joined the American Leagues' St. Louis Browns. While Robinson was given a year of minor league seasoning to get acclimated to white organized ball, Brown and Thompson were sent directly to the big club. This move by the Browns ultimately hurt both the players and the team as they were not able to adapt to the huge cultural difference and senseless racism they encountered. They were unable to sleep in the same hotel as their teammates who were pretty much indifferent to their presence on the club. On August 13, 1947 Brown belted a Hal Newhouser pitch into the far reaches of Sportsmans Park and quickly rounded the bases for an inside the park home run, the first by a black player in the American League. Instead of celebrating the feat, teammate Jeff Heath, whose bat Brown used, broke it in half rather than have him use it again. After 21 games and a low batting average both Brown and Thompson were released. Thompson had a second chance with the Giants a few years later and made good but Willard Brown never made it back to the majors, spending the next 10 years in the negro and minor leagues where he continued his legendary status as one of the games best sluggers.

As the mighty Kansas City Monarchs' batboy, Willard Brown dreamed of playing for the Monarchs. In 1935 he realised that dream when he became the team's starting shortstop. Soon moved to the outfield to take advantage of his speed, Brown became black baseball's most prolific hitter. He hit for a high average and was also one of the fastest ballplayers of the late 1930’s. Brown was sometimes accused of being lazy in the field, saving his strength for larger crowds and more important games but at the same time he was considered to be a superior outfielder and was voted to the All-Star Game 8 times. He hit well above .300 for his whole negro league career and led the league in doubles, triple, home runs and stolen bases many times. The Monarchs of the late '30's and '40's were a powerhouse and Brown was instrumental in their winning the pennant 5 times during his time with the team. During the war Brown played on the champion ballclub that won the European Theater World Series and he hit the winning home run of the deciding game giving Leon Day the victory over Ewell Blackwell and Patton's 4th Army team made up of major league players. He then played ball in the negro and minor leagues until 1957. Popular with players and fans, Brown was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2006.

26. "Turkey" Stearnes

Unlike today, baseball didn't stop after the World Series. As soon as the season ended, the most talented professional ballplayers followed the warm weather south to Cuba and Puerto Rico or west to California. Starting at the beginning of the twentieth century Southern California had a thriving integrated league featuring pros from the white and black major leagues. Bonafide stars like Babe Herman, Walter Johnson, Kiki Cuyler, Ted Williams, Jimmy Foxx, Bob Meusel played against the great black stars Bullet Joe Rogan, Biz Mackey, Satchel Paige, Chet Brewer and Turkey Stearnes. During the league's heyday of the late 1920's the all-black Los Angeles Royal Giants dominated the league. The Giants hitters pounded the white pitching and the Giants hurlers smoked the white batters. Blacks were barred from playing in most of the ballparks around Los Angeles so White Sox Park was built specifically for them. Located near Fourth and Anderson Streets fans of all colors showed up to see the best baseball available west of the Mississippi. Although the league was integrated at a time when blacks were being lynched in the south and non-whites were barred from many beaches along the California coast, surprisingly few incidents of racism occurred on the field or in the stands. The spectacle of darn good baseball transcended any sense of racial superiority or inequality.

One of the greatest players of any hue to play in Southern California was Norman "Turkey" Stearnes. In nine years of coming west surviving box scores show he hit for a .373 average and hit 44 homers in 754 at bats.

Stearnes got his unique nickname from the awkward, flailing way he ran the bases, described by fans as looking like a “hunted turkey”. Six foot tall with powerful shoulders, Stearnes was a star centerfielder during the 1920’s and 30’s. He was also a fast runner and led the Negro National League in both triples and stolen bases on a few occasions. Like many other players of his time, he was not shy about sliding into a base with spikes high and his aggressive play became his trademark. He often batted leadoff because of his speed and he was the consummate team player. Talking about his home runs he said "If it didn't win a game, it didn't matter." He was elected to four all-star games, batted over .400 three times and led his league in home runs seven times. Although Stearnes was a quiet and modest man his fans and players understood his value as a player and he was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2000.

24. Billy Martin

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I hate the Yankees. In fact I am a third generation Yankee hater. That out of the way, you might be wondering why the heck I would produce a card of the ultimate Yankee, Billy Martin. Respect, that's why. As much as I can't stand the team that he has come to represent, I have to admire his grit and determination as a player. There are some players who just have that natural talent for the game like Ken Griffey, Jr, Mickey Mantle and Babe Ruth. And then there are those other players that seem to get by on sheer will, pouring everything they have into the way they play the game making it seem like they are playing for their life and will do anything to win. Pete Rose comes to mind as does Eddie Stanky and Ryan Freel. These were guys who may not have been the best fielder or the best hitter. They may not have been the fastest or the biggest. They did however always seem to find a way to beat you. Billy Martin is one of these guys and love him or hate him, it is for that reason he belongs in The Infinite Baseball Card Set.

Billy Martin was brought up in the slums of Berkley, California during the depression made all that more grim when his father, always referred to as "The Jackass" by his mother, abandoned the family. An ugly and awkward kid Martin had to grow up tough in his rough neighborhood and he was reputed to be the leader of a local gang. Sports became his way out of the hood and he excelled at both baseball and basketball at Berkley High School. Oakland of the Pacific Coast League signed him upon graduation and after 2 years on their farm teams he made the Oaks at the end of the 1947 Season.

When Billy Martin joined the team it was primarily made up of older veteran players. They took a liking to the feisty young player and dubbed him “The Kid”. Casey Stengel was the manager at the time and while today he is thought of as a kindly, grandfatherly figure he was actually a rough player and a proponent of the old school way of playing the game and winning by any means necessary. He was able to channel all of Martin's inner rage towards the Oaks' opponents and Stengel encouraged his young protege to needle the other team's players. Martin ably replaced the Oaks veteran second baseman Dario Lodigiani when he was injured early in the 1948 season and later also filled in at shortstop and third base providing a valuable utility role during the Oaks championship season. When Stengel became Yankee manager in 1949 he made sure “The Kid” followed. As the manager of The New York Yankees he was expected to win and what better insurance is there than having Billy Martin on your team.

23. Alexander Cartwright

Today is Opening Day. Unlike New Years Day or my birthday, I always look upon the first day of the baseball season as my mark of another year gone by and the hopeful beginning of another. This past year, or season, had been a tough one, the big crushing blow being the sudden death of my Father in September. Today is a day that had a special meaning for my father and I, the beginning of months of friendly banter about how our favorite teams are doing, how much we both hated the Yankees and who we thought would go all the way. But this year I am left alone on this day, and I face a long season without my best friend. What I wouldn't give for one more catch with my Pop or one more minor league New Jersey Cardinals afternoon game or just one more quick phone call to talk about last night's game. But today is Opening Day, the beginning of a new year, one that always brings the possibility of great things, where it matters only what you do this season, where past failures and disappointments are forgotten and the future is up to you.

So today, Opening day, I bring you the man who probably did more than anyone else in making baseball the great game it is today. Although most think of baseball as a sport played out in the country in idyllic settings, the game as we know it actually came from the crowded streets of Lower Manhattan. Back in the 1830's and 40's successful businessmen who had always lived above or behind their businesses began to move away from their shops into the less crowded suburbs and the young men who worked for them as apprentices and clerks now had many free and unsupervised hours of leisure time at their disposal. Many joined volunteer fire companies that served the dual purpose of serving the community and providing a fashionable club environment. It was while a member of The Knickerbocker Fire Company that Alexander Cartwright learned the game of base-ball.

When he could no longer find enough open space for his team to play in Manhattan, bank clerk and volunteer fireman Alexander Cartwright formed The New York Knickerbocker Base-Ball Club. The exclusive club charged a $5 initiation fee with annual dues of $2, the proceeds going towards the rental of Elysian Fields, a grassy tree-lined park across the Hudson River in Hoboken, N.J. Cartwright had a keen interest in writing down a set of universally accepted rules for a game that had many different incarnations depending on where it was played. The distance between bases, number of fielders and most importantly batters need to be tagged out and not simply hit with the ball. The first real game of baseball was played at Elysian Fields in 1846 and Cartwright left New York in 1849 to seek his fortune in California and spread the game where ever he stopped including his final home, Hawaii.

Happy Opening Day to everyone, and I wish you all the best of seasons!