Deja-Vu All Over Again

Today is the birthday of Mickey Vernon, born in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, 1918.

As a kid, Vernon got into the habit of hitchhiking from his home to see major league games. His father, a stillman for Sun Oil co. played in a local sandlot league, and Vernon — deprived of a high school team, played youth and American Legion ball. But it wasn’t enough. He’d head up the river to watch games in Philadelphia — or all the way up to Washington to see the Senators play in the World Series.

Even in 1941, three years into his Major League career with the Senators, he hitched a ride to Brooklyn, stood in line all night to get tickets to watch the World Series from the bleachers in Ebbets Field.

But it wasn’t until after he came back from the South Pacific after WWII that he really announced himself as a force at the plate. That year he won the American League batting title — beating out Ted Wiliams — and led the majors in doubles.

Satchel Paige would later say of Vernon that: “If I was pitching and it was the ninth inning and we had a two-run lead with the bases loaded and Mickey Vernon was up, I'd walk him and pitch to the next man.”

His fielding at first was just as good. Jack Dunn, an executive with the Orioles described him as nearly balletic, “He is the only man in baseball who could play first base in a tuxedo, appear perfectly comfortable, and never wrinkle his suit.”

What made him remarkable to his teammates wasn’t just his offensive and defensive skill, or his marathon run in the majors spanning from 1939 to 1960 — but his character. After befriending Larry Doby in the Navy, Vernon encouraged him to break into the major leagues, and wrote to the Senators owner urging him to ignore the color barrier and sign him to the team. He paid special attention to young fans as well. When driving through Chester, Pennsylvania he spotted a group of kids playing baseball with worn out equipment. He drove home, rounded up new bats and balls, and went back to the field to hand it all out.

While he’d never receive baseball’s highest honor, the combination of his character and quality of play earned him a fierce loyalty. Reporter Rich Westcott was once asked by Vernon’s roommate, Walter Masterson if, “anybody had sad anything bad about Mickey?”. He was told, no. No one had. “Well, if anybody does, you send him to me, and I’ll have a few choice words for him.”

MLB News

Acuña Isn’t Wrong, Football Scores, and the Torpedo Bat Explained

• Braves Locker Room Drama – After Jarred Kelenic slowed down to admire his own hit and was thrown out at second Saturday night, Ronald Acuña Jr. posted on X “If it were me, they would take me out of the game.” And, well, he has a point. He was benched in the exact same situation in August of 2019. But…should it have been tweeted out instead of dealt with in the clubhouse? Maybe not. Acuña has since deleted his post.

• Reds Trounce The Orioles – How can the Reds have the third best run differential in the league right now, despite a .500 record and three consecutive 1-0 losses? Well, because they nuked the Orioles in a 24-2 game on Sunday. Check out all the weird stats that were racked up as a result.

• 14-K Gem —  In what may be some cosmic balancing of the scales 26 year old Marlins pitcher Max Meyer threw 14 strikeouts against the Reds.

• Holy Homers – Over the years Nick Castellanos has developed a knack for hitting home runs the same day significant news broke. On Monday, with news of Pope Francis passing, bets for Castellanos to hit a home went 3x higher than any player. He went 0 for 4 against the Mets.

• Deja-Vu All Over Again — In a Double-A game featuring the Portland Sea Dogs (Boston Red Sox) and Hartford Yard Goats (Colorado Rockies) something very rare happened; the same exact sequence of events during a singular inning. See it to believe it

On This Day

Red Sox Keep Going & Going

• 2007 — At Fenway Park, Manny Ramirez, J.D. Drew, Mike Lowell, and Jason Varitek hit back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs off Yankees pitcher Chase Wright. It's only the fifth time in MLB history that a team has hit four homers in a row.