TODAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

March 17, 1992 — Pitcher Hal Newhouser and umpire Bill McGowan are elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.

Prince Hal - was one of the greatest pitchers in Tiger history, Newhouser is the only hurler to win back-to-back MVP Awards. The lefty won games five and seven of the 1945 World Series for Detroit. He was the best pitcher not to miss time during World War II, and he continued his mastery after the players returned from overseas, narrowly missing a third straight MVP to Ted Williams in 1946.

Best Season: 1945

With back to back MVP’s and a narrow miss in 1946 picking the best season is a challenge . . . Newhouser had a 34-52 record to show for his first five seasons before exploding to win 29 games in 1944, 25 in 1945 and 26 in 1946. For those three seasons he was 80-27, improving his career mark to 114-79. In his 17-year career, Newhouser had ten losing or break-even seasons (he was 66-85 in those ten years), and enjoyed seven winning campaigns, in which he was 141-65 (a .684 winning percentage).

In 1945 his 25 wins, 1.81 ERA and 212 strikeouts led the American League. For his career, he won two ERA titles, led the league in wins four times, strikeouts twice, complete games twice, and shutouts once (eight in 1945). In the '45 World Series against the Cubs he was 2-1 with a 6.10 ERA and 22 K's in 20 2/3 innings. He was rocked for seven earned runs in less than three innings in the opener, but rebounded to pitch complete game wins in Game Five and Seven, helping Detroit to their second World Series title.

How good was Prince Hal? In 1947, the Yankees offered Joe DiMaggio to the Tigers in a trade for Hal Newhouser, and Detroit refused.

Lucrative Offers
Early in 1946, after Newhouser won his second straight MVP Award, he was offered $500,000 to jump to the Mexican League, started by maverick millionaire Jorge Pasquel. According to Newhouser, Pasquel agreed to place $300,000 in Newhouser's bank account immediately, and pay the left-hander $200,000 over three seasons. Hewhouser wrestled with the offer, talked with manager Steve O'Neill and Tiger owner Walter Briggs about it, but decided to stay in Detroit. Briggs gave him an estimated $10,000 bonus and a fat new contract following the '46 campaign. The Mexican League, which successfully attracted a few major leaguers south of the border, proved to be a bust.

Though the actual figure of his 1947 contract was never released, it was high enough to satisfy Newhouser.

"All I can say is that it was thousands more [than the $60,000 newspapers were reporting). I've always felt I owe Mr. Briggs a lot of victories to repay him," Newhouser told columnist Lyall Smith in 1951.

The Tiger’s weren’t the only team he helped!

July 22, 1953, the Tigers released Newhouser.

Hal Newhouser officially signed with Cleveland on April 12, 1954, after spending Spring Training with the team in an effort to demonstrate that he was healthy.
“We were prone to pitch nine innings, win or lose, unless you were getting your brains beat out,” Newhouser said of a career that featured 212 complete games, “so we never looked for help.”

After joining the Indians in Spring Training following a meeting with Greenberg, Newhouser gave up six runs in his first exhibition start but then allowed just one run over his final 13 innings. With 200 wins, Newhouser trailed only Bob Feller (249) on the active wins list – but Cleveland opted to use Newhouser in a bullpen role. The decision bolstered Cleveland’s relief corps which featured rookies Don Mossi and Ray Narleski – and Newhouser shined with a 7-2 record, seven saves and a 2.51 ERA in 46.2 innings over 26 appearances.

Cleveland won 111 games and the AL pennant before falling to the Giants in the World Series.

Hal the scout!

Long before teams used videotape and analyzed pitching motions, Hal had film shot of his games through an expensive lens. He would run the movies at home between starts looking for flaws in his motion and also in his grip. Toward the end of his frustrating 1947 campaign, he purchased a second projector and ran films side by side on two screens. One film showed him during his big years of the mid-1940s. The other had his most recent starts. After hours of study he noticed a slight difference in his follow-through. He corrected the flaw and won three of his final four decisions. He later discovered that he had been playing with a broken right foot.

Hal would use this Keene sense to became a scout after his playing days for the Baltimore Orioles to sign Milt Pappas and Dean Chance. After a 20 year break he came back to scouting, served as the Michigan area scout for the Houston Astros. After following 17-year old Derek Jeter at Kalamazoo Central High School in Kalamazoo, Michigan, he implored Astros executives to select him in the upcoming 1992 Major League Baseball draft. Prior to the draft, Dan O'Brien notified Newhouser that the Astros would select pitcher Phil Nevin of Cal State Fullerton, due to Nevin's lower signing bonus demands. Jeter was selected with the sixth pick by the New York Yankees. Upset with the decision, Newhouser retired as a scout and from baseball altogether

I created a full walk through for you to take a peak at our membership site, Classic Baseball Broadcasts. Here is the link and it has several videos, how tos, what’s in side and a link to the 25 greatest moments you can listen too!

Todays highlights and Historic Days!

Born: March 17, 1917 in Pittsburgh, PA . . . Hank Sauer was a slow-footed slugger who didn't reach the majors to stay until 1948, when he was 31 years old. That season he hit 35 homers and drove in 97 runs for the Reds, but when he started poorly the next year, he was swapped to the Cubs. He found a happy home in Wrigley Field. In his first full month in Chicago he smacked 11 homers. In 1952, when he led the NL in RBI and tied Ralph Kiner for the home run championship with 37, Sauer was the NL MVP. After a broken finger slowed him in 1953, he bounced back with 41 homers in 1954.

March 17, 1921 — The New York Yankees, training in Shreveport, Louisiana, journey to Lake Charles to play a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, based in Orange, Texas. The game is proclaimed “Ruth-Hornsby Day,” but Hornsby hits only a single while Ruth lofts a home run over the short right field fence. The Yankees win, 14 – 5.

March 17, 1936 – Much-heralded rookie Joe DiMaggio makes his debut with the New York Yankees, collecting four hits including a triple. The day is marred when the St. Louis Cardinals win, 8 – 7.

March 17, 1946 Jackie Robinson finds himself a seat on Montreal’s bench as he joins the Royals for the first time in an exhibition game against their major league affiliate, the Brooklyn Dodgers. The game is played before a packed crowd of 3,100 in Daytona Beach, marking the first appearance of an integrated team in organized baseball since the 1890s. Robinson spends the 1946 season playing second base in Montreal, where he bats .349 with 113 runs scored and 40 stolen bases. A year later, Robinson breaks the majors’ color barrier, bringing an aggressiveness to the game unseen since Ty Cobb’s days and embarking on a 10-year career in Brooklyn culminates with his first-ballot election to the Hall of Fame in 1962

March 17, 1965 Jackie Robinson is hired to be an analyst for ABC’s Major League Baseball Game of the Week telecasts, becoming the first black network broadcaster. ABC provides the first-ever nationwide baseball coverage with weekly Saturday broadcasts on a regional basis. Robinson later worked as a part-time commentator for the Montreal Expos in 1972.

March 17, 1966 — Pitchers Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale play hardball when negotiating with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The duo signs movie contracts showing they are serious about retiring from baseball if their salary demands are not met.

March 17, 1992 — Pitcher Hal Newhouser and umpire Bill McGowan are elected to the Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee.

March 17, 2005 — During more than 11 hours of hearings by the Committee on Government Reform concerning major league players’ use of steroids, Mark McGwire refuses to talk about the past and does not deny taking performance-enhancing drugs. Other players testifying include Curt Schilling, Sammy Sosa, Rafael Palmeiro, and former big leaguer Jose Canseco, whose recent book, Juiced, prompted the congressional hearing. Palmeiro will be found guilty of steroid usage later this year.

TRIVIA

TRIVIA: In 1945, Hal Newhouser became the only pitcher in MLB history to win back-to-back MVP awards. What was his combined win total over those two seasons?

IF you think you know the answer and bonus points for how many respond with details and if you are right I will give you a shut out! No Googling!

Know someone who loves baseball like you do? Earn rewards by sharing the Rewind!

 ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S TRIVIA

YESTERDAY'S TRIVIA: Pie was a tremendous fielder. He set the record for double plays by a third base man, games played, assists and putouts. One NL third base man topped him piece by piece over a 4 year period. Who was he?

Answer: Eddie Mathews, Brooks was a trick name he never played in the NL

Traynor led NL third basemen in putouts seven times, in double plays four times, and in assists three times; his 41 double plays in 1925 were an NL record until 1950, and his 226 putouts that year remain the highest NL total since 1905. He set major league records for career double plays (303) and games (1,863) at third base which were broken in 1945 and 1960 respectively, and which remained NL records until Eddie Mathews broke them in 1964 and 1965; his 2,289 putouts remain the NL record, and his 3,521 assists were the league record until Mathews passed him in 1964

JOIN CLASSIC BASEBALL BROADCASTS TODAY

"Every story in today's newsletter has a broadcast behind it. They're all in the archive, exactly as they sounded on the radio the day they happened. Start your free 7-day trial and hear them tonight."

Get the FREE 7 day trial!