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Insomnia...I know the results of the games....The ramifications for my teams...I don't want to mess with free agent threads until I have a clearer head...If it were the off season it would be a great time to study...Might as well bore the Hell out of those reading the Boards....What to write....Nicknames?...I remember when Richie Allen had his great rookie year, after that, he wanted to be called 'Dick'....More respectful in his mind...You know if we put Adam Dunn's nickname together with that of Richie Allen....It would leave us with "The Big Donkey Dick"...That's not nice...A little funny ,but not nice...Forget nicknames... How about a riddle?...

Nine people are trapped in a room with nine big screen tv's for 24 hours... Showing on those tv's for the entire 24 hours are taped White Sox games with Hawk Harrelson at the mike.... After 24 hours, eight of the nine people have committed suicide...Why didn't the last fellow?...

...Deaf White Sox fan...

....Did you guys know that Joe DiMaggio was a chain smoker?....He would always have a rookie have a lit cigarette waiting for him in the dugout after being done in the field...If you ever see old pictures of Joe, look at his teeth...Very dingy...Marilyn Monroe married him!...

... Moonlight Graham, just the name makes me smile...One player from each team gets to go to the All-Star game....Stupid....That was fine when each league had 10 teams...Now?... stupid...Is there a real hands on baseball owner now?... Mark Cuban would have been fun I bet...I miss the Bill Veeck's and Ted Turner's and George Steinbrenner's... They made baseball fun...Steinbrenner story...That's it a Steinbrenner story...

In the late 70's at the Tampa Hotel he owned...During Spring Training, Steinbrenner posted guards in the lobby and hallway to make sure nobody broke curfew...Yankee players were holed up on the second story.... Somebody got the idea to tie bedsheets together and make a "prison break"...A bunch of them shimmied down the makeshift rope and enjoyed their favorite beverages till sun-up...But climbing up the sheets was a larger problem than going down...Especially intoxicated....The only one able to do it was Ron Guidry...Guidry then pulled all of his other teammates to the safety of the balcony...

...They thought they had gotten away with it...That morning, Steinbrenner was on the team bus...He looked out the bus window at his grand hotel and saw the sheets still dangling from the second story window....Pisssed!...He demanded to know whose room it was....Dick Tidrow was a member of the bullpen...No security in that job!... It was his room, he thought about not fessing up, but knew that all Steinbrenner had to do was call his own hotel to find out whose room it belonged to..."It's mine", Tidrow confessed...Steinbrenner stared bullets...Before backing it up verbally..."No, it's mine"... Guidry raised his hand... Ron 'Freakin Cy Young Award Winner' Guidry...Steinbrenner paused..."I like the initiative, guys! Now, lets look sharp today!"...

...Alright...I've bored you enough...I'm tired enough to go back to bed....Insomnia makes me talk like William Shatner....Good night...

Originally posted by DOUGHBOYS:

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... Moonlight Graham, just the name makes me smile... We’ve all seen the movie, I love that movie. I watch it every February just to get me in the baseball mood.



Many people don’t realize though that Graham was a real person and not just a fictional character. Archibald Graham only played one game in June of 1905, he didn’t get to bat and he never played again. He did go on to be a doctor for nearly 45 years in Chisholm, MN from 1915 to 1959. He died there in August 1965 and is buried in Rochester, Minnesota.



Graham is known of course from the depiction of him in the movie based on the novel Shoeless Joe by WP Kinsella. Kinsella had seen Graham’s stat line in the Baseball Encyclopedia and included him in his story.



It doesn’t seem like all that long ago that I used to buy the Baseball Encyclopedia every couple years myself. In fact I still have one copy, if not more, in a box that has other baseball annuals and novels down in my basement. Back then I would usually only look up guys that I was interested in or on occasion I would just flip the pages blindly and point to a name. But to “read” the Encyclopedia and come across a guy like Graham would have been an unusual occurrence.



Today the internet, and particularly sites like Baseball Reference, has made books like Who’s Who or the Baseball Encyclopedia obsolete. If I want to look up Graham, just type in his name and there he is. But the real wonder is being able to do searches by identifying a certain stat or set of parameters.



An example would be; listing the non-pitchers that have played exactly one game in the majors without getting an at-bat. Along with Moonlight Graham, 63 other men played one game without getting a plate appearance. The earliest being Tom Maher for the 1902 Philadelphia Phillies and the most recent Brian Esposito in 2007 for the Cardinals. Esposito is currently in the Houston minor league system so he still has a chance to get his name off the list.



How about catcher Jack Feller? He played one inning of one game on Sept 13th, 1958 for the Detroit Tigers. He plays five years in the minors, gets called up to Detroit, enters the game in the ninth, catches HOFer Jim Bunning for one inning in a 13-2 Tiger win, and then never plays in the big leagues again.



Here’s one that must have been really hard to live with. In 1953, 27 year old shortstop Frank Verdi makes his major league debut for the New York Yankees against the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park. In the bottom of the sixth Verdi enters the game as a defensive replacement for Phil Rizzuto whom was pinch hit for in the top of the 6th. In the top of the seventh the Yankees get a rally going, a couple of hits and walks and three runs score when Verdi is scheduled to come to the plate with the bags loaded and two outs. But before Frank can get to the plate, Yankee manager Casey Stengel calls Verdi back and he is pinch hit for by Bill Renna. Renna grounds-out, the rally is over. Frank Verdi never plays another game in the majors again. Ouch! The Yankees go on to win the World Series 4 games to 2 over the Brooklyn Dodgers.



Frank Verdi died last month on July 9th at the age of 84.



As I said, there are 64 different non-pitchers that played in one game without getting a plate appearance and they have 64 different stories, besides Moonlight Graham, you now know two more of those stories.



And just to finish it off. There are 83 non pitchers that have made one or more appearances in a major league game without getting to the plate. The all-time leader actually played in 105 games without ever getting to the plate. I’m sure a lot of you will remember this guy. Herb Washington of the Oakland Athletics.