October 19, 1949: Three weeks after acquiring shortstop Chico Carrasquel from the Brooklyn Dodgers organization for cash and 2 minor leaguers‚ the Chicago White Sox all but steal 2nd baseman Nellie Fox from the Philadelphia Athletics for catcher Joe Tipton.
Carrasquel was not the 1st good shortstop to get stuck behind Pee Wee Reese in Brooklyn, nor the last, but he might have been the best. But the Mack family's financial situation meant that they had to sell. If they had held on to Fox? With Ferris Fain winning 2 batting titles? With Bobby Shantz winning 24 games and the MVP in 1952? With Vic Power coming in for the 1954 season? Could the A's have survived, while the Phillies would have been the team that moved? No: The Carpenter family, owners of the Phillies, had money; the Mack family had precious little.
In Chicago, Fox combined with Carrasquel, and then with an even better shortstop from Venezuela, Luis Aparicio, and helped the "Go-Go White Sox" win the American League Pennant in 1959. He died in 1975, only 47 years old, of cancer -- not of lung, throat or oral cancer, as might have been guessed, as he was often seen with a mouth full of chewing tobacco, but skin cancer. He did not live to see himself elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, which happened in 1997.
*
October 19, 1949 was a Wednesday. Lynn Dickey, quarterback for the Houston Oilers in the early 1970s, and the Green Bay Packers in the late '70s and early '80s, was born on this day.
Baseball season had ended 10 days earlier, when the New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series. Football was in midweek. The NBA season started 10 days later. But the NHL's entire "Original Six" were in action that day:
* The New York Rangers lost to the Detroit Red Wings, 6-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 7-4 at the Boston Garden
* And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.
No comments:
Post a Comment