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Jack Shepard (baseball)
Jack Leroy Shepard (May 13, 1931 – December 31, 1994) was an American professional baseball player, a catcher, who became a successful businessman and philanthropist after retiring from baseball at age 25 following three full seasons in the Major Leagues. A native of Clovis, California, the , Shepard attended Stanford University, graduating in 1953 after serving as the captain of the first Cardinal team (then nicknamed the ''Indians'') to play in the College World Series. He signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates upon graduation on June 16 and made his Major League debut three days later against the St. Louis Cardinals at Sportsman's Park, substituting for starting catcher Mike Sandlock and singling in two at bats against Vinegar Bend Mizell. He also made two errors in the field. He spent part of the 1953 season in minor league baseball, playing in 84 games for the Denver Bears of the Class A Western League and batting .324, before returning to the Pirates for good from 1954†... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catcher
Catcher is a Baseball positions, position in baseball and softball. When a Batter (baseball), batter takes their at bat, turn to hit, the catcher crouches behind home plate, in front of the (home plate, home) Umpire (baseball), umpire, and receives the ball from the pitcher. In addition to this primary duty, the catcher is also called upon to master many other skills in order to field the position well. The role of the catcher is similar to that of the wicket-keeper in cricket. Positioned behind home plate and facing toward the outfield, the catcher can see the whole field, and is therefore in the best position to direct and lead the other players in a defensive play. The catcher typically calls for pitches using hand signals. The calls are based on the pitcher's mechanics and strengths, as well as the Batting (baseball), batter's tendencies and weaknesses. Essentially, the catcher controls what happens during the game when the ball is not "in play". Foul tips, bouncing balls in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vinegar Bend Mizell
Wilmer David "Vinegar Bend" Mizell, Sr. (August 13, 1930 – February 21, 1999), was an American athlete and politician. From 1952 to 1962, he was a left-handed pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Mets of Major League Baseball. Six years after retiring, he was elected to the United States House of Representatives from North Carolina's 5th congressional district. He served three terms as a Republican from 1969 to 1975. Mizell was born in Leakesville, Mississippi, but started playing baseball in Vinegar Bend, Alabama, the town from which he drew his nickname. Signed by the Cardinals in 1949, he debuted with them in 1952, ranking among the Top 10 in the National League (NL) in strikeouts for two years before spending 1954 and 1955 in military service. He returned to the Cardinals in 1956 and was named to two Major League Baseball All-Star Games in 1959, but St. Louis felt like he never attained his full potential. They traded him to Pittsburgh early ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Home Plate
A baseball field, also called a ball field or baseball diamond, is the field upon which the game of baseball is played. The term can also be used as a metonym for a baseball park. The term sandlot is sometimes used, although this usually refers to less organized venues for activities like sandlot ball. Specifications :''Unless otherwise noted, the specifications discussed in this section refer to those described within the Official Baseball Rules, under which Major League Baseball is played.'' The starting point for much of the action on the field is home plate (officially "home base"), a five-sided slab of white rubber. One side is long, the two adjacent sides are . The remaining two sides are approximately and set at a right angle. The plate is set into the ground so that its surface is level with the field. The corner of home plate where the two 11-inch sides meet at a right angle is at one corner of a square. The other three corners of the square, in counterclockwise or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pitchers
In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws ("pitches") the baseball from the pitcher's mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of retiring a batter, who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball or draw a walk. In the numbering system used to record defensive plays, the pitcher is assigned the number 1. The pitcher is often considered the most important player on the defensive side of the game, and as such is situated at the right end of the defensive spectrum. There are many different types of pitchers, such as the starting pitcher, relief pitcher, middle reliever, lefty specialist, setup man, and the closer. Traditionally, the pitcher also bats. Starting in 1973 with the American League(and later the National League) and spreading to further leagues throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the hitting duties of the pitcher have generally been given over to the position of designated hitter, a cause of some controversy. The Japanese Central Leag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bobby Bragan
Robert Randall Bragan (October 30, 1917 – January 21, 2010) was an American shortstop, catcher, manager, and coach in Major League Baseball and an influential minor league executive. His professional baseball career encompassed 73 years, from his first season as a player in the Class D Alabama–Florida League in 1937, to 2009, the last full year of his life, when he was still listed as a consultant to the Texas Rangers' organization. On August 16, 2005, Bragan donned a uniform to manage the independent Central League Fort Worth Cats for one game, making him—at 87 years, nine months, and 16 days old—the oldest manager in professional baseball annals, besting by one week Connie Mack, the manager and part-owner of the Philadelphia Athletics from 1901 through 1950. Always known as an innovator with a sense of humor—and an umpire-baiter—Bragan was ejected in the third inning of his "comeback", thus also becoming the oldest person in any capacity to be ejected from a professi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manager (baseball)
In baseball, the field manager (commonly referred to as the manager) is the equivalent of a head coach who is responsible for overseeing and making final decisions on all aspects of on-field team strategy, lineup selection, training and instruction. Managers are typically assisted by a staff of assistant coaches whose responsibilities are specialized. Field managers are typically not involved in off-field personnel decisions or long-term club planning, responsibilities that are instead held by a team's general manager. Duties The manager chooses the batting order and starting pitcher before each game, and makes substitutions throughout the game – among the most significant being those decisions regarding when to bring in a relief pitcher. How much control a manager takes in a game's strategy varies from manager to manager and from game to game. Some managers control pitch selection, defensive positioning, decisions to bunt, steal, pitch out, etc., while others desig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1956 Pittsburgh Pirates Season
The 1956 Pittsburgh Pirates season was the 75th season of the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise, the 70th in the National League. The Pirates finished seventh in the league standings with a record of 66–88. Regular season Season standings Record vs. opponents Game log , - bgcolor="ffbbbb" , 1 , , April 17 , , @ Giants , , 3–4 , , Antonelli , , Friend (0–1) , , — , , 12,790 , , 0–1 , - bgcolor="ffbbbb" , 2 , , April 18 , , @ Giants , , 4–5 , , McCall , , Law (0–1) , , — , , 2,493 , , 0–2 , - bgcolor="ccffcc" , 3 , , April 19 , , @ Giants , , 3–2 , , Kline (1–0) , , Worthington , , — , , 1,922 , , 1–2 , - bgcolor="ffbbbb" , 4 , , April 20 , , Dodgers , , 0–5 , , Craig , , Hall (0–1) , , — , , 23,357 , , 1–3 , - bgcolor="ccffcc" , 5 , , April 21 , , Dodgers , , 3–1 , , Friend (1–1) , , Lehman , , — , , 8,603 , , 2–3 , - bgcolor="ffbbbb" , 6 , , April 22 , , Dodgers , , 1–4 (6) , , Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Sporting News
The ''Sporting News'' is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a print magazine. It became the dominant American publication covering baseball, acquiring the nickname "The Bible of Baseball." From 2002 to February 2022, it was known simply as ''Sporting News''. In December 2012, ''Sporting News'' ended print publication and shifted to a digital-only publication. It currently has editions in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Japan. History Early history *March 17, 1886: ''The Sporting News'' (''TSN''), founded in St. Louis by Alfred H. Spink, a director of the St. Louis Browns baseball team, publishes its first edition. The weekly newspaper sells for 5 cents. Baseball, horse racing and professional wrestling received the most coverage in the first issue. Meanwhile, the sporting weeklies ''Cl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rookie
A rookie is a person new to an occupation, profession, or hobby. In sports, a ''rookie'' is a professional athlete in their first season (or year). In contrast with a veteran who has experience and expertise, a rookie is usually inexperienced and prone to making mistakes. Throughout sports In some sports there are traditions in which rookies must do things, or tricks are played on them. Examples in baseball include players having to dress up in very strange costumes, or getting hit in the face with a cream pie; a traditional rookie's " hazing" procedure in American football involves taping players to a goalpost and dousing them with ice water, Gatorade, and other substances. In Major League Baseball, the MLB has cracked down on hazing by enacting an Anti-Hazing and Anti-Bullying Policy which prohibits players from dressing up as the opposite sex, or wearing offensive costumes based on race, sex, nationality, age, sexual orientation, and gender identify. American football In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Batting Average (baseball)
In baseball, batting average (BA) is determined by dividing a player's hits by their total at-bats. It is usually rounded to three decimal places and read without the decimal: A player with a batting average of .300 is "batting three-hundred". If necessary to break ties, batting averages could be taken beyond the .001 measurement. In this context, .001 is considered a "point", such that a .235 batter is 5 points higher than a .230 batter. History Henry Chadwick, an English statistician raised on cricket, was an influential figure in the early history of baseball. In the late 19th century he adapted the concept behind the cricket batting average to devise a similar statistic for baseball. Rather than simply copy cricket's formulation of runs scored divided by outs, he realized that hits divided by at bats would provide a better measure of individual batting ability. This is because while in cricket, scoring runs is almost entirely dependent on one's batting skill, in baseball ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western League (1900–1958)
The Western League was the name of several leagues in American minor league baseball. First, its earliest progenitor, which existed from 1885 to 1899, was the predecessor of the American League. Later, during the 20th century, there were four incarnations of the Western League, including a Class D loop, formerly the Nebraska State League, that played from 1939 to 1941, and an independent loop (outside of "organized baseball") that began play in 1995. This article, however, concentrates on the Western Leagues that played from 1900 to 1937 and from 1947 to 1958. History The league's longest-serving franchise was located in Des Moines, Iowa, which joined the WL in 1900 and played continuously through 1937, when the league shut down during the Great Depression. Des Moines then rejoined the reborn Western circuit when Colorado Senator Edwin C. Johnson founded it in 1947; this team, a Chicago Cubs affiliate called the ''Des Moines Bruins'', then played for the final 12 years of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Denver Bears
Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the United States and the fifth most populous state capital. It is the principal city of the Denver–Aurora–Lakewood, CO Metropolitan Statistical Area and the first city of the Front Range Urban Corridor. Denver is located in the Western United States, in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. Its downtown district is immediately east of the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River, approximately east of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It is named after James W. Denver, a governor of the Kansas Territory. It is nicknamed the ''Mile High City'' because its official elevation is exactly one mile () above sea level. The 105th meridian west of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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