Episode 314 - Ken Williams - The Deaball Slugger Nobody Noticed

Introduction

0:00hello everybody welcome to another edition to strike noise your mom's favorite weekly baseball history podcast my name is jeff i am one half of the show as usual joining me from the pacific northwest where apparently it's snowing for some reason right now from the chris widger studio it is my co-host mark a johnston yeah we are currently the great white north a

0:36because um it's it is it's snowing and it's sticking and i'm i'm sitting here tonight i'm going up to the stadium to work on some spring training type things that me and producer mitch need to work on and uh and i'm going up in the snow it just doesn't make any sense to me are you guys going to be scoring like the u.s canada game and are you rooting for canada after that intro right i feel like i should be because of the snow but um no i think we're just doing the mariner i think

1:06they have a night game in arizona i'm working on tuesday night which is the world baseball classic final i'm not excited about that i don't think people are going to be going to a bar to watch it but i want to watch it i know right maybe i'll have somebody else go i don't know

Baseball History

1:25but let's not talk about work let's talk about baseball and some baseball history stuff let's get right into our bp segment uh why don't we start with awesome hall of fame news we'll start at the top and work down how's that andre dawson hall of famer we like to talk about the hawk quite a bit so andre has asked the hall of fame to reconsider his cap that is on his cooperstown plaque yes currently he went in as an expo i think the last expo it was was he the only expo

1:58like i don't i think gary carter went in as a met yeah i think you're right he's like i don't want that he wants it to be a cubs hat and the hall of fame used to let the player choose but it changed its policy after wade boggs was throwing back some of those beers and he signed with tampa for the last year or two of his career and i believe there was something or there was rumored to be something in his contract that said if he went into the hall of fame that he would wear a raise hat give him props for trying to get a ray in the hall of fame is there anybody even remotely close to

2:35being a hall of famer with a raise cap on no i don't think i don't think so either i think the only one that had a chance is in jail down down the caribbean somewhere yeah exactly uh but he wanted uh andre dawson wanted to be considered a cub in the hall of fame he asked them to make the change and he was as shocked as anybody when they said yeah we'll do that kind of he's going to get a new plaque but instead of changing it to a cubs hat it's just going to be a generic no logo cap

3:07so he'll join there's a couple of those yeah greg maddox is one of the one of the big ones you think of greg maddox you think of the cubs and you think of atlanta so it makes sense but he will think mcgriff might have no logo as well not sure about that tim raines has an expose does he about it i guess so i guess that would make sense that's where i think that's your only expo if andre flips to the cubs yeah maybe randy johnson can ask to move i'm assuming randy's got a mariners hat i believe he's a

3:42diamondback really that's weird that's really weird but anyway andre's gonna get his way good for him

Ramon Laureano

3:50let's talk about somebody that is actually still playing one of my favorite players even though he is not really on any team that i'm affiliated with anymore he came up though not all the way up but he made his major league debut with the a's when i was an a's fan i still love this guy i think most a's fans still love ramon laureano oh sure he was scratched from a recent spring training start and the reason given was left shoulder from bad sleep with new dog this just makes me love ramon more

4:26no doubt he's got pictures on his instagram of him with a new dog it's a little mitch dog a little wiener dog it's adorable and i love that he sleeps with it lord knows i sleep we've my wife and i have got three dogs in between us all night it's you know the feeling interesting injury he only i think you probably only missed one game that's i think other former athletic jesus luzardo got injured playing video games last year of course something like that was it joel zamaya with the guitar hero

4:58injury where he missed actual time during the season that's a bit more than guitar hero is a great game though i understand yeah but i think you got well i guess your fingers you're on the frets you're really stressing those and for a pitcher if you're using your pitching hand i can see how that could cause

Jay Johnstone Story

5:20some discomfort you sure uh let's see here mark jay johnstone we've done a whole episode on him we bring him up quite a few times i don't think i mentioned this prank when we did the jay johnstone episode whenever we did that but spring training he was with the phillies in 1976 he had to take a physical i think everybody does when they go to spring training and he needed to provide a urine sample he went into the bathroom unbeknownst to the test provider jay also it's now known to us i guess

5:52we should just yes it's now get that out there jay also took in a cup of apple juice with him so he comes back out and hands the cup of apple juice to the nurse the nurse could tell something was off probably from the temperature it was probably a little bit cooler than a normal body temperature and ask him what is this to which johnstone did not reply he simply took the cup back from her and drank it i can see where he was going with that but he missed just a little bit of like oh yeah that's

6:23awesome a little science came back to bite him in the butt yeah i don't think i have ever urinated cold cold but i don't think i'd want to either no i think something's definitely wrong if that's coming out cold oh let's talk baseball cards we talk baseball cards here quite a bit but i want to talk about the very reverend aiden smith which i did not know the very reverend was a title apparently it is i am i am ordained are you ordained i thought you were ordained too no i'm not i'm just a sea captain

6:55oh i am i am technically a reverend if i knew that there was a very reverend that i could have maybe got for an extra five bucks i probably would have gone yeah no kidding right i could have gone with pontiff but i thought that was a little too snooty yeah i just went with the reverend but aiden smith was arrested february 27th after leaving walmart it's just outside of pittsburgh with 27 packs of baseball cards concealed under his clothing in the box okay so i i guess i how many are in those boxes

7:28these days is there 20 i'm sure it's not an odd number like 27 but sounds like a pretty full box he just grabbed threw it under his i'm assuming that he was there in his reverend gear i don't know if they wear collars or what i think that would make if you're going to steal stuff that make might make you less suspicious this is true but police say walmart security showed smith had been taking baseball cards for each of the four previous days as well and absconding with them sans payment

8:05i'll tell you what i got two comments one these cards are addicting man i there's such unique amazing card short prints and refractors and autographs okay so i understand and then have you seen the prices on them yeah come on that's the other alternative they totaled that he had nicked walmart for one thousand and ninety nine dollars and ninety nine cents so eleven hundred dollars over four days of baseball cards yeah i'll do it of which i wonder if you totaled the value of what he took

8:39if you opened them and priced them individually probably not near that a little short print autograph maybe but reading one of the stories about it they did say that it is like a dopamine rush it's like a loot box loot crate when you're playing video games that kind of stuff you just yeah oh what am i gonna get this time it could be something really cool and i get it with baseball cards i i bought my first packs this year and i was gonna open them on stream i bought them like on a friday afternoon i was gonna open them like maybe the next monday couldn't do it saturday i had

9:13ripped all four of them open so yeah i bought three boxes of uh bowman draft and i'm like i'm gonna do these slowly yeah that didn't happen yeah no it does not happen i think i think the devil made him do it honestly it's yeah el diablo mark last week you brought up the north philadelphia

North Philadelphia Honey Drippers

9:33honey drippers during your story about the clowns that's right and i was fascinated by this name i love it so i was like oh i need to revisit that and just learn a little bit about them i wanted to talk about them but this is what has happened a minor league team has adopted it as their alternate well i guess they did last year they adopted it as their alternate identity the jacksonville jumbo shrimp which in itself sounds like an alternate identity

10:03they rebranded as the jacksonville honey drippers for a couple of games last year and this promotion celebrates the honey dripper which is a traditional frozen fruity southern treat with deep roots in jacksonville's historic east side neighborhood i doubt that's what the north philly honey drippers were named after yeah you're probably right there but i was reading these because there's a couple of press releases on it and i was i wanted to see oh there is there any tie to this

10:34women's team the honey drippers and there was not it's just they're doing their own thing but somebody's taking advantage of the awesome name just i don't think it's the way that i would have hoped it would have been used but if you want a honey drippers hat you can still get them if you want just not the north philly honey drippers no unfortunately i think they sold out like they're all good they sold out like they they gave up money to the man or they just no they ran out they sold

Ken Williams Story

11:00out back in the 50s oh okay yeah all right that'll do it for our bp segment this week let's go ahead let's grounds crew come out here and do its thing and we're gonna head into the main story this week which is about a guy there's only been two guys that have been named this in major league history one went on to be a gm for the chicago white socks and the other is this guy that we're gonna talk about i'm talking about ken williams but i'm talking about the dead ball ked williams if you want

11:35more about the current the contemporary ken williams the 1988 tops podcast did a whole episode on him and that's how i know most about him as a player but i want to talk about the other ken williams and specifically i want to start talking about the 1922 season because it started strange it started with a literally a massive power vacuum full-on hoover type stuff so following the 1921 world series

12:07babe ruth and teammate bob mussel went on a barnstorming tour after the season commissioner kennesaw mountain landis looking to assert his absolute authority into every aspect of everybody's life lost it over this completely over the top display of being a baseball player he fined them both the entire world series shares from the year before and suspended them for the first six weeks of the 1922 season wow he didn't suspend them for life at least yeah so he's got yeah but that is the

12:44face of the game that's babe ruth yes bob mussel too silent bob one of his nicknames but babe ruth here is the headline so the face of baseball is essentially in timeout that leaves the door open for a lot of other players though to step up and assume that spotlight that babe ruth just inhabits by being babe ruth he was a global icon before that was even a thing he's mobbed on every street corner given hot dogs by random passerbyers cigars by adoring children which is i guess better than him giving cigars to the kids but

13:22it's still odd and filming viral workout videos with equipment that looked like it was right out of looney tunes before tick tock was even a glint in your great great great great grandfather's eyes like he would be a social media just god at this point babe ruth would be i think he would be fantastic in contrast though there was ken williams he was a lean described as gangly kid from oregon who left school after the eighth grade to follow really every little kid's dream which is to work in the local box

13:56factory yes but mark we wouldn't be talking about ken if he didn't actually play baseball you would need to listen to our box podcast don't box us in if you want any more just plain old straight box stories that's where you can find them there's some good ones yo boy never run out of content in the box podcast uh so williams big break came in 1912 when he caught the eye of local scouts and he was called up to the pcl to fill an empty roster spot on the oakland oaks this is my second consecutive story

14:32involving the oaks i'm going for the triple crown next time one more and i gotta i get i don't know what i get but i get something so he showed up in oakland wearing a homemade pair of baseball shoes with metal spikes that he had driven into the soles himself like the opposite of willie mays hayes he was good and showed up not looking the part willie mays hayes but i'm just wondering how uncomfortable those shoes must have been they i'm just thinking athletic shoes couldn't have been comfortable in

15:031912 as it was but let alone if you drive metal spikes through them yourself that's got our i can't imagine those are comfortable yeah i don't see those being helpful orthotics nor looking very no good so ken consistently hit 300 in the minors he had speed that he showed off on the base paths and cincinnati reds saw him in oakland signed him to do a big league deal he spent the 1915 and 16 seasons with them but was eventually sent down he was struggling at the plate didn't have a lot of

15:36playing time a second season and he wasn't performing in the field defensively the st louis browns took a chance on signing ken and their gamble paid off william spent the next 10 years with the browns hitting under 300 only once beyond hitting for average he had some pop as baseball was coming out of the dead ball era he stole bases and he had a great eye the final 12 years of his 14 year contract he walked more than he struck out in 12 of those 14 seasons like by a lot he was walking

16:08a lot which when you got power i guess that happens no no the browns were the browns though who likes the color brown how how can you get excited about a team called the browns yeah maybe i would have maybe got you could have gone with brown bears something charlie brown he was a sad sack encyclopedia brown was a sanctimonious little jerk i've heard someone so angry at encyclopedia i loved encyclopedia brown i just was trying to think of browns it's like the opposite of with

16:42a name like smuckers it's got to be good right that's true the browns they're not going to be good the homestead gray is the same thing but they were good though but if you're going to name your team after a color why not choose like a bright fun color like the reds the blues drunk tank pink is a scientific shade designed to reduce aggression in prisoners i also found goose turd green which this was a high fashion color in the late 1500s i'm sure why are we not bringing this back goose

17:16turd green and why are speaking of minor league teams and multiple identities why aren't minor

1922 Season

17:22leaguers using these and if so i should get credit for it but 1922 was a special season williams went on a tear to start the season hitting nine home runs in seven games browns fans were excited about the browns apparently they honored him in a special ceremony on april 30th presenting him with a phonograph this prompted the st louis post dispatch to publish a story with this incredible line having given him a new phonograph the fans expect williams to break all the old records dad humor alive and well

17:57in 1922 i guess so despite the hot start and leading the league in multiple categories and of course the proud owner of a new phonograph ken was essentially still persona non grata even his own city even in his own city with this hot start a local photographer was sent to grab some shots of ken batting but they accidentally shot an entire roll of film on his teammate bill baby doll jacobson because they did not know what ken williams looked like was it impolite to ask it could have bought

18:31a jersey or they could have bought a program seems like that solves everything you would think they were wearing jerseys at this they were wearing numbers on their jerseys at this point plus ken batted left baby doll batted right uh baby doll was three inches taller 50 pounds heavier than ken as well but you know what that photographer was just there to collect a paycheck clearly apparently yes yeah so the bambino returned on may 20th and the yankees had actually held their own well he and bob were out going 22 and 11 but williams was already on a tear in those 31 games he was

19:07hitting 336 had an on-base percentage of 434 and was slugging 682 he had 11 home runs 31 ribs and 11 stolen bases he had walked 19 times and only struck out nine times wow so just great start ruth though he's being babe ruth this is ruth in his prime so he quickly gains putting up some offensive numbers ken had a little bit of help though from a browns rookie pitcher named hub

19:38shucks pruitt pruitt got that nickname because that was the only curse word he would use shucks struck ruth out 13 times in 24 career at bats versus the bambino well mark what would your nickname be if it was your most used curse word yeah i don't drop a lot of those i guess it would be um boy shucks is up there i like that one but i have to use my most used i have to use my most used freaking freaking what are you freaking kidding me sounds like you were raised in salt lake

20:12city like i was i was not but i did pick up the habit yeah i don't swear a lot in public my wife and i swear like sailors at home but yeah i tend to not swear much in public i don't think i would friggin my or freaking freak let's get back to the story williams wasn't the only threat on the browns though george sisler hall of famer was at first he could hit a bit by a bit i mean he hit 420 nice that season joining ken in the outfield where the aforementioned william baby doll jacobson

20:47who was a fantastic contact hitter he hit 317 in 1922 now i baby doll had come up on on starting nine quite a few times while i was playing that and he earned the nickname in the minor leagues when a band struck up the tune oh you beautiful doll after he hit a home run now i have found this song and i want you just to listen to it and let's just listen to it honey dear want you near just turn out the light and then come over here

21:21nestle close up to my side my heart's on fire with love now does that sound like the kind of song that makes you want to run through a wall after you've hit a home run all right if that doesn't fire you up nothing will didn't they use this during the training montage in rocky 3 why isn't anybody using this as a walk-up song today that would be so great just to do it once at least absolutely like i back i remember when josh

21:54reddick used careless whisper like the wham version for a while yeah that was awesome why not do this and if you look at the picture of baby doll he ain't no baby doll he was 6'3 215 he was and he's got you know a rough looking face looks like he could chew nails every now and then for fun also in the outfield jack tobin was there he was another great hitter led the league in triples the year before hit over 300 again in 1922 of the eight regular position players for the browns only two of

22:30them hit under 300 that year so this browns team was actually pretty good they had some good pitching but once ruth returned the yankees and the browns were never more than three and a half games apart at the top of the american league this leads us to what was dubbed the little world series this was a highly anticipated three game series between the browns and the yankees from september 16th to the 18th in st louis heading into the series the browns were trailing the first place yankees by just a

Little World Series

22:59half a game fans were so excited for this again for the browns that they began lining up for tickets at 11 o'clock the night before the opener despite the importance of these games this series was actually marred by two very serious incidents involving fans so during the bottom of the ninth inning of the first game yankees outfielder whitey wit was chasing down a fly ball in the outfield when a fan threw a glass bottle at him that nailed whitey squarely in the head knocking him out on the field okay that's a

23:35little much yeah sometimes you see fans throw things at players but they're awful they have awful aim yeah like you never actually hit him this they hit him in the head with a bottle and knocked him out i'm sorry i don't mean to laugh what kind of an aim is that plus if he's like tracking a ball he's moving like you've got to account for that sign the guy up is what i'm thinking yeah despite this serious incident the yankees held on to win the game two to one the browns rebounded to win the second game five to one aided by a ken williams home run in that game setting up a rubber match on

24:10monday the classic saturday through monday series in the top of the ninth inning that guy whitey wit playing with a heavily wrapped head in gauze i assume that like he looked like a rugby player like just maybe one of those big ice packs underneath it from the old timey days he had a two-run single to give the yankees a 3-2 lead in the ninth inning following the hit though all hell broke loose in the sports writers section of the stand i got so excited my i went up an octave there when i said

24:45that the writers were sitting in the stands as they did at certain stadiums alongside they had a desk in front of them so they could type or write do whatever they want but the fans are right there in front and behind them just like when you have a laptop open in a public space people are curious about what you're doing regardless and that's what happened a browns fan who was reading over the shoulder of the new york tribune columnist w o mcgeon he didn't like what mcgeon was writing so the fan did what any

25:19level-headed mature adult would do he hit the writer in the head with a seat cushion and shouted send that back to new york i'm wondering if there was an expletive or something in there and at least it was a seat cushion and not a bottle yeah yeah something cushiony a little better thought out yeah well a little bit less jail time probably yes that's it another writer from new york jumped to mcgeon's defense and did what any level-headed mature adult would do he punched the fan in the face all hell breaks loose cats and dogs living together mass hysteria the police had to be called in to break up the fight in the stands

25:55as the yankees won this game and the series and held on to win the pennant over the browns

Ken Williams Career

26:00williams finished the season with 39 home runs to win the american league home run title 39 home runs to ruth's 35 becoming only one of two players to interrupt ruth's 12-year reign of long ball dominance the other being ruth's co-suspendee languid long bob musial long bob he was 6-3 he was 6-3 190 so i guess he's tall and skinny but they could have gone with high pockets well i was

26:32already taken that's a good point already taken ken led the league in rbi and total bases as well he hit 332 he stole 37 bases that was good for a war of 7.9 became the first player in major league history to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases in the same season the very first 30 30 guy a couple of other things that season he became the first player in american league history to hit three home runs in a single game on april 22nd the vinnie pasquantino of his own time that's right other

27:07highlights for ken that year he became the first american league player to hit two home runs in a single inning on august 7th he hit a home run in six consecutive games between july 28th and august 2nd and he became the first player to hit more home runs in a season than strikeout than strikeouts having cade only 31 times in 153 games compared to his 39 home runs that's amazing great i great despite these numbers ken williams received zero nvp votes

27:44zilch zilch nunca none nil not butt kiss a goose egg nada which is a light chicken gravy okay his teammate george sisler won the award that year with the aforementioned 420 average but if you didn't wear pinstripes the press did not care about you apparently not the 420 average that got their attention and got him the win but to receive not a single nvp vote is just mad

28:16yeah didn't they look at his war i'm sure they were pouring over those war numbers in 1922 despite being described as gangly williams famously swung a 48 ounce tree trunk at the plate yikes i don't know if i could lift that to swing it that's one of those those clubs that the iron chic used to roll around that's right those things are freaking heavy and it takes a lot of training and strength to do that that's what a 48 ounce bat would seem like to me ken figured out that the extreme weight

28:51combined with his strength would force the ball to travel further and that's true that's how physics works but also ken liked to cork his bat so there's that in the 1923 season the washington senator somehow obtained one of ken's bats and discovered that the end had been bored out and plugged with lighter wood williams claimed that he had simply modified the bat because it had been made too heavy it was it was it was pete browning's fault which is a refreshing change from everybody that's been

29:23caught since who claimed i only use it in bp the bat boy gave it to me a fan gave it to me it wasn't mine the good news though for ken though is that corking was not technically illegal at this point but it did tarnish his reputation it was still not looked well upon ken continued to hit 300 not 20 plus dingers drive in 80 plus every year like clockwork but then on august 14th 1925 williams was hit in the head by a pitch from cleveland right-hander by spice and if i didn't

29:57put those extra words in there i would have said he was hit in the head by by spice yes which is why i put those extra words in there podcasting yeah the ball hit him just behind the right ear knocking him unconscious he regained his senses and was getting ready to take a shower in the clubhouse when cleveland's second baseman chick fuster came into the clubhouse to check on him fuster had likewise been beamed in the same place in the head and had suffered such a serious injury that he almost died from it he warned williams do not get in the shower a minor leaguer who had taken a cold shower

30:31after a similar head injury had died from shock jeez so he you know might have saved his life there chick fuster x-rays revealed a concussion forcing williams to spend 10 days in the hospital before he was sent back home to oregon to recuperate he missed the last month of the half of the season but despite his season being cut short he still led the league in slugging this guy just had a big bat williams numbers started to taper off a bit and then in 1929 he's playing for the boston red

31:02socks at this point he suffered another unfortunate head injury on august 8th williams was charging in from center field to catch a fly ball his teammate second baseman wally gerber was backpedaling after the ball and neither heard each other calling for the ball they ended up colliding into each other at full speed both players cracking their skulls and having to be carried off the field ouch this injury effectively ended both of their major league career and played one more part-time season the next

31:36year he still hit 300 but had no power he retired back home to grant's pass where he became a local police officer and ran the owl billiard parlor where he famously had to run off a traveling salesman who claimed pool was evil and the only way to get in the only way to keep kids safe was to form a marching band oh of course i love it when i can work a music man reference into a baseball history podcast and you're nobody's better at it than you man i have i have practice on my music man

32:08podcast 76 trombones there you go ken williams passed away on june on january 22nd 1959 at the age of 68 in grant's pass he died from a heart condition that he'd been battling for many years much like his 1922 season ken got very little respect from hall of fame voters he only lasted two years on the ballot a player named burgess whitehead received more votes than ken i know nothing about burgess whitehead but with that name he shouldn't be getting more hall of fame consideration than ken

32:43williams that's all i'm gonna say yeah his name came up on a veterans committee vote in 2003 and again he didn't come anywhere close to making the cut ken was dominant for a period of time but he was so quiet and unassuming and of course played for the browns that he was often overlooked in his 14 seasons he hit 196 home runs but remember that part of his career was during the dead ball era so that number is actually pretty impressive and unlike the other ken williams this ken williams never called

33:16frank thomas an idiot good call i watched that rant from the contemporary ken williams that he when he just went off on frank thomas after the after the white socks weren't gonna resign him so he signed with

Contemporary Ken Williams

33:29the a's and he just goes off for two minutes on this hall of famer possibly the the best power hitting white sock in franchise history it just goes off on him and calls him an idiot says nobody will miss him calls him a prima donna i mean just lets him have it for a minute and a half to the press of course not to his face i don't think you'd want to say that to somebody that looks like frank thomas is called the big hurt and is all jacked up on whatever supplement he's in doug flutier pushing

33:59that's right ah but that's it that's the the dead ball ken williams i tell you what for a guy played a little bit of dead ball total of 14 seasons he his career war was 42.7 yeah not bad at all i don't know that i would consider him a hall of famer hall of a hall of very good yes yeah but i just can't believe the lack of to get zero nvp votes in that season yeah that's crazy right there that's just

34:32ridiculous i just i don't get it but he's on the browns par for the course all right mark i can see it looks like producer mitch is in studio this week since i guess you guys are gonna head into t-mobile it's nice it's actually earning his paycheck this week so he is giving us the sign that we are gonna

Wax Pack Heroes

34:53wrap up the middle part of the show and we are gonna head into the final segment it is time for wax how everybody and welcome to today's edition of wax pack heroes you know wax pack heroes backwards

35:27is so a cat sow hey the rules were simple jeff and mark are here from two strike noise long time friends of mine jeff and mark they're gonna play an old-fashioned game of war but instead of using playing cards they're gonna be using budweiser's hey what okay no they're gonna be using baseball cards that makes much more sense they'll be using war of the year of the cards and whoever has the highest

36:04war that round wins cobs win cobs win cobs win just like that but there are extra factors arnie's telling me that can add or subtract from their war totals 1980s baseball aesthetics there you go extra points hall of famer bud lover extra points and if they have a pop culture reference like they were in a

36:35budweiser commercial extra points but whoa nelly if they appeared in seinfeld the simpsons or sabrina that's the breed of the huge witch and they get a whole extra point or if nolan ryan or ricky henderson show up the round is over and we drink budweiser's hey but they can also lose points if they show up in the mitchell report or are on the do not talk about list you know who i think should be on that list

37:12and that guy's name is is too difficult they can also get more points if they lead the league in any good categories that season if they want any warrants and if they have a costacos brother poster oh boy i could go for some tacos i love tacos but if they top the leaderboard in something bad like

37:47airs or spilling budweiser's they're gonna get a minus point so no hey let's wrap this up and go get some tacos and some budweiser now let me hear you uh one uh two uh three wax pack heroes all right thank you mr carry go have yourself a budweiser sir we are gonna play some wax packs heroes mark we are

38:21tied up you've won the last couple of games we are deadlocked at eight a piece and uh let's see how intense man yeah i said last week we were going to wrap up the 2003 tops pack that i had but i found another one oh nice and yeah i think we've these are different names than the 80s late 80s early 90s packs we usually open so i think we're going to continue with these for a couple of weeks there's 35 cards in here so i don't know how beautiful we could get the good reverend on the on the phone

38:52and see what he thinks about this maybe he could go lift us some more i don't know yeah it's some real modern cards that you can steal from walmart i thought about that i thought about playing with the packs that i had bought but i'm like ah we can't it would just be last season's numbers right i don't know that would be there's too many this is a history podcast we're not going to do that all right so i've got these mark i'm going to let you go ahead and choose whether you want to go first or second i think i already know the answer it's working to go first right now so we're going to stick with it all right you're going to go first all right you have got a sporting news all-star

39:26card good news for you is he is wearing some shades also good news for you is you're going to get pop culture references you're going to get a seinfeld reference here you have got outfielder for the yankees barney williams very nice no relation to ken williams though bernie let's see 16 years in the big leagues of course all of that with the pinstripes in 2003 his age 34 season it's a good thing that you're getting all those extra points because this was the year that he ended not he still

40:02played for three years after this but i'll tell you his war here in a minute and then what happened after that in 2003 he only hit 263 a 367 on base 411 slugging for 107 ops plus he had 15 home runs 64 ribs five stolen bases and a war of 1.0 that is by far his lowest war since his rookie season where he's just he's basically averaging five war a season during the prime of his career 2003 he had

40:35a 0.1 the next year he had a 0.9 then he had a minus 1.6 and a minus 0.4 so not great you do get the seinfeld points though that's a whole point so that's good that'll bring you up to a 2.5 or a 2.0 plus the sunglasses is a 2.5 no all-star no leading the league there in anything drafted as a free agent well i'm assuming free agent let's see is there anything else that is

41:08going to help you out here of course the music career we've talked about that yeah several times participated in the world rhythms tour of beja with beja okay i was gonna say i don't know where beja it's yeah that confused me a little bit received a bachelor of music from the manhattan school of music nice appeared on episode of sitcom seinfeld as himself getting hitting tips along with jeter from that's right from the assistant to the traveling secretary as most teams generally do all

41:45right so that'll be a 3.5 for you and you are going to be going up against a looks like a rookie this is a first year card for me pitcher for the giants jeff clark i don't have high hopes here for jeff clark is that clark with an e or just nope just uh okay and the fact that he doesn't have a major league page on baseball reference makes it even worse i do get he does have real stirrups here i can see the sanitaries underneath them so that's nice but he never made it above double a

42:20but he's got a baseball card he's got to be happy about that shreveport and norwich are the only sites he made sites teams that he made looks like he's a member of the yukon hall of fame but that's all i got there is uh let's see he might have an instagram is this like he's if he does he we could have them on our 420 show that's for sure uh there is one post about baseball all of the other posts are 420 related jeff i like the cut of your jib my friend all right i'm gonna go ahead and give that

42:54one to you there's one all right oh geez you got a hall of famer again wow you have got with the houston astros craig one of my favorites the bitch yeah he's pretty good let's see of course you guys all played for the one team their entire career so far 20 years every single pitch every single inning with the houston astros in 2003 good news for you he led the league in hit by pitch this

43:27year we did you'll get a half a point for that yeah one two three four five five times during his career overall hit by pitch 285 times that's 285 hits walks same thing you're getting on base so that's good let's see overall that season he hit 264 350 on base 412 slug for a 96 ops plus he had 15 home runs 62 ribs eight stolen bases for a war of 2.6 he is a hall of famer so you get a bonus there

43:58got some eye black on so you'll get another 10th of a point for that let's see here he was first round draft pick 22nd overall in the 87 draft i don't know if he's got any pop culture references or not i don't believe so if he did i would be aware looks like he does a lot of work in the community biggio was arrested in 1989 and charged with dui in texas astros teammate ken caminiti was a passenger

44:28in the car at the time at the trial the arresting officer testified that biggio handed him 200 dollars and what he believed was a bribery attempt whoops he got two years probation 50 years of community service and was fined 350 dollars 250 hours of community service oh what did i say yeah years oh that's a steep sentence they don't take it lightly they're drunk driving you could very easily kill some very innocent people so don't do that yeah i think that's uh i think that's it not

45:04that you should be worried you've got a hall of famer let's see you will be going up okay i've got a future stars card here for the phillies oh another one yeah so one of them had a good career here but i don't know he's gonna be craig biggio i've got marlon bird or jorge padilla i know i think padilla probably had a career as well i don't remember but i'm gonna go with marlon bird here because i know that he played for quite a while in the big leagues he looks like a cheat code here his name his name is

45:37both a fish and a bird man this is true boy jeez yes he this is a cheat code 15 years in the big leagues five for the fills three for the three for the rangers and cubs two for the gnats and then one apiece for the mets reds giants red socks cleveland and pittsburgh oh so yeah cheat code what i like best about him is he came in fourth in the rookie of the year balloting in 2003 he hit 303 366 on base a 418

46:10slug and a 111 ops plus he had seven home runs 45 ribs 11 stolen bases and a 3.4 war so 0.8 behind craig biggio i'm not sure i'm gonna get anything else there's nothing on this card that's gonna help me well i have some bad news for you oh no he was suspended 162 games for his second positive ped test wow yeah i guess that pretty much does it yeah he jerks and profiled me he sure did shoot that's an

46:41easy win let's see is there anything else here that we like to talk about other than that no it doesn't look like it all right he played for a long time though had a good career but all right that's two to nothing this is quick this is ugly well at least you've got a manager card this is one of our favorite guys when it comes to his career as a player as a catcher uh specifically sitting on his butt legs spread out i think of him mainly for the bucks and the cardinals but we are talking about

47:12tony pena here as the manager for the royals so tony's got a mustache so you've got going for you there i think we just say just nothing when it comes to that right we don't that's yep that's right yeah unless he's been on tv which he i don't think yeah i don't think he's been on any shows anyway let's see here uh 18 years in the big league seven with the bucks four with the red socks three with the cardinals and cleveland and then a season apiece with the white socks and the

47:43astros overall a 24.7 career war 18 years in the big leagues though he was a starting catcher for most of that the last five six years of his career was that backup catcher role surprisingly 80 stolen bases he had back to back 12 stolen base seasons only caught only he was caught 63 times so that's not a great percentage but he's a catcher he's no spanky lavalier still he did win manager of the year once in 2003 so there's a there's i just wanted to put a manager accolade on oh you know what i

48:17will give you points for that this is the that is the year that we are oh there you go yeah i'll give you i mean that's an award so i'll give you half a point for that right on so that'll take you up to a full point uh let's see who did he beat out for manager of the year he beat out ron garden garden hire and ken maca all right yeah you said nothing pop culture wise that we no all right tony pena i've got a shot here tony pena is going up against second baseman for the new york

48:47metropolitans edgardo alfonso didn't we just oh no we had we had another fonzie last week yeah it was it was alfonso soriano that's it yeah this fonzie overall played 12 years in the big leagues eight with the mets three with the giants and then a season apiece with the angels and the blue jays in 2003 he was actually with the giants hit 259 334 on base 391 slug for a 90 ops plus a let's see 13 home runs

49:2281 ribs five stolen bases a 0.3 war now we'll need a ruling here these 2003 cards have the action shot of them but then they also down in the lower left there's a diamond baseball diamond shaped spot with a headshot of them from a different just a posed picture and he's wearing some very ugly sunglasses in that does that count as as glasses i would think so all right i'll take it i don't think

49:55it's gonna help me and i think you are in the same boat no i didn't do any math no let's see he was traded by the giants to the angels for steve finley let's see if fonzie did anything besides being inducted into the new york mets hall of fame also played one season for the yamayuri giants in 2009 coaching career personal life jeez i think this is another shutout wow i there is nothing here nothing for me it's kind of like jeff propst when he sends people home on survivor i got nothing for

50:29you or no that's when they don't win a challenge or something that's right i got nothing for you yeah all right shoot this is a slump now this is at least three in a row that you have not just beaten me shut me out i think our pitching is hot right now yeah and our bats have gone silent so now you are up nine to eight you can't fire the players so i'm a little worried about my spot here all right congratulations to you on that that's gonna wrap up our wax packs heroes for this

51:04week it's also gonna wrap up our show this week if you want more of us you can do you can look in the show notes we've got links there to all of our socials we can be found at two strike noise that's at tw strike noise on all of the platforms and just a reminder i do stream three times a week both on twitch and youtube at nine o'clock best coast time aka west coast time stream do some baseball dailies we just talk about baseball stuff and yeah it's a lot of fun this is where i get a lot of

51:35topics for uh for these shows so if you've got a good topic come talk to me there i'm all ears we also have a way that you can directly contact us through electronic email that mark likes to handle yeah stop showing up in my house okay that's totally off base there but you can email us at what's our email jeff oh yeah two strike noise at gmail.com yeah i mean you shouldn't have given out your home address and i shouldn't said you can trick or treat all year long here

52:05that was a mistake you doxed yourself on that one so totally messed that up no one to blame but yourself all right well thank you everybody for listening to us we will do this again why not it was fun we'll see you all on the next edition of two strike noise thank you god bless you have a great day so so so

52:35so We'll be right back.