Buff Biographies: Bud Hardin

Excerpt from “Your 1948 Houston Buffs, Dixie Champions: Brief Biographies By Morris Frank and Adie Marks (1948).

If you like your MLB coffee served fast, hot, and one time only, you must be walking in the company of former  Houston Buffs shortstop Bud Hardin. The three-season (1948-50) Buffs infielder picked up one single in seven times at bat for the 1952 Chicago Cubs for a .143 career big league batting average and a small fissure spot on the wall of North Side Chicago baseball failure that is now 105 years old and still counting in 2013.

Bud Hardin’s 13-season minor league career (1942, 1946-57) resulted in a minor league career batting average of .253 and 15 home runs. After baseball, Hardin settled in Ranch Santa Fe, California where he died in 1997 at the age of 75.

As a kid, I remember Bud Hardin as a quiet kind of guy who always seemed to have time for a smile, a wave, or a head nod of acknowledgement for those of us in the Knothole Gang as he was coming out of the Houston clubhouse to take the field at old Buff Stadium. That kindness was never mistaken by us kids as ability. We never dared tell the Buffs shortstop that even the Knothole Gang held no great hope for victory whenever Bud Hardin came to bat in a crucial late inning game situation.We only cheered for results. We never cheered out of expectation until we saw a Buff player prove he could get the job done, but that never happened for Bud Hardin during his time here in Houston.

Too bad. Bud Hardin was a nice guy of considerable bravery. On the front lines in Italy during World War II, Bud earned a Purple Heart for his combat injuries. And that says far more about the man than his long-term batting skills ever did. I also like to remember too whenever the subject is a player’s particular skill deficiencies: Bud Hardin was far better than a few million others of us who only wished for the chances he got in baseball. At least, he played professional baseball. At least, he got to the big leagues, even if it were – only for a cup of coffee.

God rest your soul, friendly Bud! I appreciate you even more today than I ever could have as a kid.

Buff Biographies: Solly Hemus

Excerpt from “Your 1948 Houston Buffs, Dixie Champions: Brief Biographies By Morris Frank and Adie Marks (1948).

From the time I first saw him play during my original season of watching the Houston Buffs at old Buff Stadium in 1947, Solly Hemus was my star, my first baseball hero. He just seemed to be the guy that got everything going on offense and defense.  He played the game of baseball with a fire in his belly and a relentless hustle for whatever edge he could find. Houston writers and fans called him “the little pepper pot”  as a tip of the cap to both his game time personality and his diminutive, but wiry physique. At 5’9″ and 165 lbs,, Hemus was all muscle and momentum, leaning into action as a force to be reckoned with.

As a second baseman for the 1947 Buffs, Hemus batted .277 with 0 home runs in 140 games as a key table setting hitter in the lead off spot. After the ’47 Buffs won both the Texas League pennant and the Dixie Series crown, Solly played two more seasons with the Buffs (1948-49) and one more year at Columbus, Ohio (1950) before heading up to his eleven-season MLB playing career with the St. Louis Cardinals (1951-56, 1959) and Philadelphia Phillies (1956-58) as a key shortstop and utility infielder. Prior to coming to Houston, by the way, Solly had broken into professional baseball at Class C Pocatello in 1946 with a .363 average in 120 games. He would again surpass the .300 level in minor league ball with a .328 average for the 1949 Buffs in 109 games. Solly’s highest full season MLB average would be the .304 he posted in 124 games for the 1954 Cardinals.

Solly led the National League in runs scored with 105 in 1952. He also developed a little more pop in his bat, slugging 15 HR in 1952 and 14 HR in 1953. Whereas, Hemus only hit 16 homers in 5 minor league seasons, he ended up with 55 long balls in the majors.

Solly Hemus finished his MLB career with a batting average of .273.

Solly took over as manager of the Cardinals prior to the 1959 season, but the club finished 7th. In 1960, the Hemus-led Redbirds rose to 3rd place, but a struggle for a spot in the first division the next year led to a stumble over the word “irony” for Solly in 1961. He was replaced during that 1961 season by his old Buffs mentor at Houston, Johnny Keane, as manager of the Cardinals.

After a little time with the expansion franchise New York Mets as a coach in the early 1960s, Solly Hemus turned his considerable smarts and energies to the development of his oil exploration company. Hemus Limited became quite successful as Solly moved onto a very special place of honor and respect in the entire Houston community for his giving low profile and private  support of so many worthy causes.

Today, at age 90, Solly Hemus is still my hero.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

June 5, 2013: It Was A Dark and Stormy Night at Minute Maid Park.

It must have been a dark and stormy night. Houston Astros fans haven’t seen that much electricity firing its shocking way into Minute Maid Park since the Twelfth of Never. – If Ever! With only 15,000 faithful villagers reportedly showing up for the highly unanticipated big life-synergizing explosion,  the Cicada-dormant home boys woke up like their summer-howling namesakes last night in time to make home runs start flying out of the ballpark like they were in the final season of Jeffrey Von Frankenstein Luhnow’s seventeen-year rebuilding program.

Houston Astros GM Jeffrey Von Frankenstein Luhnow (L) and Director of Scouting Mike Elias (R) are keeping today’s No. 1 pick in the amateur draft under wraps until tonight.

In their first four innings on Tuesday, June 5th, the Astros electrified six home runs to take a dominant 9-1 lead over the visiting Baltimore Orioles. In the bottom of the first, Astros designated hitter Jason Castro belted a two-run homer, his 8th of the season, over the right-center wall off starter Freddy Garcia and then catcher Carlos Pena followed with another two-run homer over the right-center wall off Garcia for his 6th of the year.  Shortstop Marwin Gonzalez then led off the Astros second inning with a solo shot over the right-center wall, again against Garcia, for his 4th of the season. Third Baseman Matt Dominguez later followed with another lead off homer to start the fourth against Garcia. It was the 9th home run of the season for Dominguez and the last of four homers off the rightfully now departing Freddy Garcia in this shocking explosion of the Astros over the stunned Orioles.

Two outs later, second baseman Jose Altuve belted his solo-shot 3rd homer of the year off Orioles reliever Steve Johnson. Then, after Castro walked, left fielder J.D. Martinez ripped another two-run homer, his 6th of the season, off Johnson for the club’s sixth long ball of the game and a 9-1 Astros lead.

The Orioles would rally late to narrow the final margin of victory to 11-7, but their “too little, too late” try for a comeback only served to remind one and all of this franchise’s identity prior to 1954. From 1902 to 1953, these guys were the longtime losing St. Louis Browns and they sometimes play today as though that recessive loser’s gene were still in control. Our joy over the Astros’ newly found life is tempered by the fact that we know that these other historic forces are still at play in the Orioles franchise brain.

Lefty  Dallas Keuchel (W, 3-2) went six to capture the win for the Astros, giving up 1 run on 5 hits.

It’s still nice to know that the Astros have now won seven of their last eight games for a winning percentage of .875. At 22 and 38 in the win/loss columns, they also now have 102 games left on the schedule to play,

“If the Astros can keep playing at our current .875 clip. I see no reason why we cannot continue to shock the baseball world!” – Houston Astros Manager Bo “Seamhead” Porter.

Let’s see here, I don’t want to get too far ahead of reality, but, if the Astros could now get stuck in the winning percentage gear of .875 that they have found (102 games X .875), they would win 89 of their remaining games and finish the season at 111-51, .685.

What a Monster Year that would be!

(Don’t worry. I’m due to take my meds at 11. Things should be fine by noon.)

Sumner Hunnewell: Our Vintage Guy in St. Louis

Sumner “Moose” Hunnewell
St. Louis Perfectos

Every now and then I just like to write about some of the people who make life in our little close-at-hand and extended family baseball culture so much fun. These are the people who make life on these diamonds of the mind, body, and soul so much fun. I know a bunch of folks who fit this description, but the person I have in mind today is a friend in St. Louis whom I’ve known for several years now through our shared membership in the St. Louis Browns Historical Society and some work he did for Jimmy Wynn and me when we were writing the Astro Icon’s autobiography, “Toy Cannon”.

Sumner Hunnewell was our index creator – and what a great job he did. He did such a great job, in fact, that he’s now back at work with our SABR editorial team as the index creator for our 2014 planned publication, “Houston Baseball, The Early Years: 1861-1961″.

A native of Portland, Maine, Sumner and his family moved to Arnold, Missouri in the Greater St. Louis Area several years ago and quickly settled into the informed St. Louis Cardinal mode of following baseball as though they were either the club’s general manager or the “effin’” (stands for efficacious) Commissioner of Baseball. “Cardinal mode” also means that those who have it are able to think, hear, watch, feel, taste, and talk baseball without coming off as someone who is a blow-hard know-it-all. These people are not arrogant. They are just solid at the seams – and they have no need to prove themselves to anyone.

We have people like Sumner in Houston too. St. Louis just seems to have more. Maybe that’s because the die-hard Cardinal baseball fans simply don’t waste their off-season time on the NFL Rams or the NBA Anybodies. They are twelve months a year baseball fans.

Sumner Hunnewell also introduced me to my first game of vintage base ball during the 2007 National SABR Convention in St. Louis. While there, I trekked on over one block to the banks of the Mississippi River where Sumner’s St. Louis Perfectos were playing an 1860′s rules game against their top competitors, the St. Louis Unions.

And why did the Perfectos and Unions agree to meet and play their game directly under the national Gateway monument that towered over them at this site? It’s like Sumner explained: “It’s because the Perfectos and Unions are arch-rivals!”

There was a lone vintage team in Houston in 2007 called the Montgomery County Saw Dogs, but I had never seen them play – nor had I seen an 1860′s rules game played by anyone. They actually played three games by three different sets of 18th century baseball rules that day, but the 1860s package was the one that struck a chord of joy with me. The following year, 2008, some of us from our Houston SABR chapter and a few of our independent friends got together and formed the Houston Babies as the reincarnation of our city’s first declared professional team in 1888. With a nod to Sumner and his vintage company for the momentum they added to our fire, I’m proud to say that our 21st century versions of the Houston Babies are now playing into their sixth season and that they have now outlasted the life span of our 19th century brothers six times over.

May the future of vintage base ball, the heart of professional baseball, and the spiritual ghosts of the joyful old sandlot be with us forever – and they will be too – if we keep good people like Sumner Hunnewell in our lives.

Thanks for the baseball card, Sumner. I’ll put it in the same shoebox I use to protect my rare 1909 Honus Wagner card and hide it deeper in the closet. j/k

Just in case everyone who reads these words doesn’t understand “j/k”. It means: “I don’t really have a Honus Wagner card. Not even close. But I do have a loaded Smith & Wesson.

Hope your Wednesday hump is a short one, friends. And don’t let work get n the way of joy.

Bill Gilbert: Astros Finish Strong in May

Houston Astros 2013
Even though it’s not a jazz number, the young Houston Astrocats have started this month with their rendition of “June is Bustin’ Out All Over”!

Seasoned observer Bill Gilbert of the Rogers Hornsby Chapter of SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research, is our guest columnist at The Pecan Park Eagle today. Today’s thoughts are Gilbert’s second monthly analysis of the Houston Astros’ first season in the American League. Gilbert will be reporting here monthly on the Astros for the rest of the schedule, finishing the year with his take on the whole season. Enjoy “BG” ‘s more uplifting report on May and stay tuned for the June report sometime prior to the 4th of July.  

Astros Finish Strong in May

By Bill Gilbert

Bill Gilbert

The Astros finished the month of May with 3 straight wins, all on the road and extended the streak to 5 by winning their first two games in June. However this wasn’t enough to offset their poor performance earlier in the month which included a 6 game losing streak.  Their record in May of 10-18 was a slight improvement over the April log of 8-19.

Pitching continues to be the biggest problem although there were some signs of improvement late in the month.  The club’s ERA in May was 5.06 compared to 5.42 in May, the highest in the National League in both months.  Bud Norris and Eric Bedard both pitched well in 4 of their 5 starts and Jordan Lyles pitched well in 5 of his 6 starts but only picked up 2 wins largely due to poor support from the bullpen which has been very inconsistent.  Lucas Harrell, the top starter in April had a poor month in May.

The offense was not as strong in May, averaging 3.89 runs per game vs. 4.11 in April.  However, there were some bright spots.  Jason Castro came into his own in May, hitting .292 with 6 home runs and a slugging average of .573. He was the AL player of the week one week in May.  J.D. Martinez batted .299 in May, and he, Matt Dominguez and backup catcher, Carlos Corporan, also had slugging averages of .500 or better.  Dominguez led the club with 8 home runs and 19 RBIs in May.  Jose Altuve led in stolen bases with 7.

After 2 months, the Astros are on pace to finish with a record of 53-109.  Their record is 4 games better than that of the Miami Marlins and it could be a close race to see which team compiles the best record and loses the opportunity to have the first pick in the draft of amateur players.  This year, the Astros have the first pick in the draft which will be held on Thursday, June 6 where the Astros are expected to select a college pitcher with the first pick.

The Astros four full-season minor league teams continue to play well. All four are well over .500 and contending for the top spot in their leagues.

Bill Gilbert

6/2/13

Buff Biographies: Don Bollweg

Excerpt from “Your 1948 Houston Buffs, Dixie Champions: Brief Biographies By Morris Frank and Adie Marks (1948).

First baseman Don Bollweg (6’1″, 190 lb.) (BL/TL) would go on from his two years with the Houston Buffs (1948-49) to a five-season MLB career with the St. Louis Cardinals (1950-51), New York Yankees (1953), Philadelphia Athletics (1954), and the latter’s transplanted version as the Kansas City Athletics (1955).

In his ten-season minor league career (1942, 1946-52, 1955-56), Bollweg batted .275 with 215 doubles, 83 triples, and 165 home runs. As a 195-game major leaguer, Don batted .243 with 22 doubles, 7 triples, and 11 home runs. He also had two World Series times at bat for the 1953 Yankees, but failed to hit on either occasion.

Bollweg’s home town of Wheaton, Illinois was more famous known as the birthplace of the great Illinois and early NFL football running back star, Red Grange, the so-called “Galloping Ghost”. Wheaton was so big on football that their high school didn’t even offer baseball as a sports option. Bollweg had to settle for a spot on the softball team until he was old enough to tryout for the Cardinals as a regular hardball player. Don must have been pretty good in spite of his limited amateur experience. He signed as a free agent with St. Louis (NL) immediately prior to the 1942 season.

Born in Wheaton, Illinois on Lincoln’s birthday in 1921, Don Bollweg also passed away in his birthplace home town at the age of 75 on 5/26/96. Regrettably, Don missed the previous year’s Last Round Up in Houston of the surviving Buff players, but his memory was there as his name fell quickly from the lips of those who were counting heads that day of the known still living who were absent. As I recall, Bollweg was among those who claimed in declining their invitations that they weren’t up to the job of a cross-country trip to be here.

Like Johnny Hernandez before him and Jerry Witte and Bob Boyd who came after him, I will always remember Don Bollweg as our big hope for the long ball in 1948-49, even if he did only hit 23 homers during his two-season Buffs tenure. He was a first baseman – and bringing a big RBI bat to the plate was simply what we expected of our first sackers back in the day.

Come to think of it, we Houstonians were just like everyone else when it came down to our offensive expectations of first basemen. “Hit it out of here, Mr. Bow Legs! ~ Make it be gone!”

 

The Astrodome Today

The Astrodome, 12:10 PM, Saturday, June 1, 2013.

I meant that column headline literally, The above picture shows how the grand old Astrodome looked today, shortly after noon, this Saturday, the 1st of June, 2013, I was just checking into the TriStar Sports Memorabilia Collector’s Show at Reliant Center on Kirby in Houston and I couldn’t resist facing south and taking her picture.

“Smile, Old Girl!” I thought. “You don’t look half as bad today as some have claimed. Perhaps, the reports of your death have been highly exaggerated. Yeah, I know – and I see – there’s a little black cloud hanging over your head in the short-term, but you mostly always have been good at handling those and, besides, there appear to be plenty of glorious cotton candy clouds and big blue summer skies on the horizons to your south, but rolling north.”

The Astrodome, 12:14 PM, Saturday, June 1, 2013.

The chuck wagon statuary on the north side of the Astrodome may be now inviting Houstonians to “come and get it” with a new intent in mind: “Citizens of Greater Houston, if you will only come forth in numbers and help me get a new direction of service going, I’m still strong enough to handle my place in history with dignity in ways that will make each of you happy and proud that you didn’t knock out both me and the flowers that still adorn our life space just so the fat cats could replace us with a parking lot.”

“Come get it on and do it right, Harris County. The time for positive action on the Astrodome is here and now. History must be saved, – and not ‘dozed.”

Buff Biographies: Hal Epps

Excerpt from “Your 1948 Houston Buffs, Dixie Champions: Brief Biographies By Morris Frank and Adie Marks (1948).

Hal Epps (BL/TL) batted .300 with 82 home runs over the course of a 15-season minor league career that included three tours over nine years with the Houston Buffs (1936-39, 1941-42, 1947-49) that somewhere in the mist earned him the much deserved title – The Mayor of Center Field.  The experience also converted Epps to the status of home boy Houstonian for most of his adult 90 years of life – in spite of his sweet background as a peachy native of Athens, Georgia (DOB: 3/26/1914). After his total baseball labor span of years (1934-52), Hal Epps worked as a steelworker in Houston until his retirement.

Epps was a big offensive and defensive star for the 1947 Dixie Series Champion Houston Buffs, teaming with left fielder Eddie Knoblauch and 2nd baseman Solly Hemus as one of the three peskiest table setting hitters in Houston Buffs history.

Hal had a brief spin with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1938 and 1940. He was drafted from the Cards by the St. Louis Browns in November 1942 and made it into the Browns roster for the 1943 and 1944 seasons and their only pennant year, but he was sold to the Philadelphia Athletics on June 11, 1944 and missed the Fall taste of the Browns’ only trip to a World Series. In December 1946, the Cardinals drafted Epps back from the A’s and he spent the rest of his career years back in the minors.

Hal Epps was a shy, modest man who did a lot of quiet, kind things for a lot of people over the years. He lived long enough to participate in the 1995 last reunion round-up of all the living Houston Buffs alumni and he even got to see the dawn of the 21st century before passing away at the age of 90 on August 25, 2004. He was buried in the Houston National Veterans Cemetery.

God Rest Your Soul Forever, Prince Hal. In some of our memories, you are still The Mayor of Center Field.

The Gates of Gumption

Inside the Gates of the Astrodome:                                                                                           By Pecan Park Eagle Contributor Robert Copus in 2012.

Have you ever been to Gumption? It’s a very special place, a place where common sense and uncommon sense intertwine with a trait we most often today call “street smarts” and a condition we’ve always known as genius. And what is a true “genius”? In Gumption terms, it’s the elite group or singular source in any social community that both holds a vision for what is needed – and also the attention of those that he, she, or they need behind them for the sake of getting things done.

If you are old enough to ever have passed through the gates of the Astrodome  for an Astros, Oilers, Cougars, or Gamblers football game, the big 1968 UH-UCLA basketball game, an appearance by Elvis at the rodeo, an appearance by you as a Republican at that party’s 1992 National Convention, or just somebody who showed up at one of those Monster Truck Demolition Derbies they sometimes held there, then, realize it or not, you have been to Gumption.

Judge Roy Hofheinz was the genius behind the gumption-mix of the Astrodome. Common sense told him that Houston needed a venue that protected the people from our ferocious summer weather and that, without which, Houston would go wanting for major league baseball or football. The Judge also saw with uncommon sense that modern architecture and air conditioning technology could make such a functional domed stadium possible. He also had the political street smarts to know that he had to have the political and financial support of the Greater Houston power structure behind him to succeed.

He saw those things. And he did what he had to do to line up everyone that he needed for a successful operation of the larger-than-everyday-life plan for a facility that would only hatch as “The Harris County Domed Stadium” before it quickly found christening as “The Astrodome – Eighth Wonder of the World”.

Judge Roy Hofheinz was a true genius. He brought about the creation of an architectural landmark that is still, and always will be, the first of its kind – even if the abundant forces of people in our midst with no sniffing hint of gumption take over and mindlessly tear down his once proud work of art and science.

Genius is not to be confused with perfection. Grinders and extremely wealthy individuals may sometimes achieve a perfection of form by making sure they only do safe things on the way to success. Bob McNair, for example, is no genius. It took a genius to see the domed stadium importance in the late 1950s. It didn’t take a genius in the late 1990s to see that Houston wanted the NFL back. McNair saw it and he was rich and well organized enough to leverage his buying credit up to nearly one billion dollars for the sake of returning the NFL to Houston. More power to him.

As some are now proposing, however, McNair may be getting pretty good at grabbing expensive freebies from Harris County, like that dazzling new scoreboard, in exchange for the crack-cocaine-like lure of its importance to either attracting a Super Bowl – or helping the Texans reach a Super Bowl.

Could it be that McNair is now also wishing: “Gee, I sure wish you kind-hearted County People would tear down that ugly old barn standing out there to the east of my place. We could use the extra parking space.”

Bottom Line: I like what Bob McNair has done for Houston with the Texans, but I think the County needs to find the line on how many other freebie perks shall continue  going back to McNair and the Texans from the public coffers without a transparent decision-making process for deciding what they shall and shall not be. I also do not trust Mr. McNair to give a twit about the importance of preserving the Astrodome as a world class icon and artifact in the history of architecture.

Will Biggio Make It Next Time?

This also happened 284 other times during the 20-season Astros career of the great Craig Biggio.

In 2013, 569 BBWAA writers held the credentials for voting in the annual selection of inductees into the Baseball Hall of Fame. For selection, an eligible party had to receive a minimum of 75% approval in the voting process for induction. For a voting population of 569, that translated to an eligible party getting a minimum of 427 votes of approval (75.3%).

For eligible parties who fell short of induction in the vote, Craig Biggio finished at the top of the heap with 388 votes (68.2%) – or 39 votes short of the 427 total votes he needed for election on his first eligible ballot. It also means that 181 votes (31.%) of the 569 total were withheld from Biggio in 2013 for one of four basic reasons: (1) the voter did not think that Biggio was deserving; (2) the voter does not think that anyone deserves a first ballot ticket to Cooperstown; (3) the voter views Biggio’s numbers as merely the product of longevity and not the fruits of greatness; or (4) the voter was not paying close attention and did not notice Biggio’s name on the ballot.

What about the 2014 ballot? Will Craig Biggio make it to the Hall of Fame then?

Here’s where “next year” always gets interesting for candidates like Biggio, assuming that he is like all previous retired players in the sense that he is now powerless to improve upon the same career numbers that the voters examined “this year”. – If this voting process were totally a logical matter, one would have to ask: If the career numbers for Biggio haven’t changed in the past year, why should the voting numbers change at all?

The answer’s obvious. – The voting culture in baseball is not all that logical or tied to any one standard of what represents greatness.

So, if Biggio loses votes rom the 388 writers who supported him in 2013, it says what? That those voters have had a change of heart, for whatever reason, on his deservedness for the HOF? That being said, at any rate, it is unlikely that Biggio will lose any of his 388 writer votes from this year, unless they are either dead or physically unable to vote by next year.

No, the big question next year is – how many of those 181 hold-back votes this year were firm negations of Biggio or simply a show of “no hands” from those same kind of writers that didn’t vote for Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron on their first ballots.

All Biggio has to do is hold his 388 “yea” votes from 2013 and add 39 more next time and he goes into the HOF in 2014. I think he will get them next time, if something in the meanwhile doesn’t blow through the world of baseball like the Spanish Flu did to the whole planet back in 1918 to depress the urge and desire for accolading anyone new.

I keep thinking of Biggio’s 3,060 hits – and his twenty seasons as an Astro – and of the fact he was both an All Star catcher and second baseman – and of Craig Biggio and Jeff Bagwell as the “Icons in Bronze” at Minute Maid Park – and of his 285 HBP’s – and of his work with the Sunshine Kids – and of the data reality that only one of the other comparable twenty men who have already made it to “The Hall” as second basemen even came close to amassing – his 668 career doubles total. The great Napoleon Lajoie finished with 657 doubles, eleven shy of the Biggio mark.