Saturday, June 17, 2017

Ben Oglivie honored to be part of the 2012 Latino Baseball Hall of Fame class

June 17, 2017  , ,  No comments
Ben Oglivie was caught off guard when a call came yesterday from the Dominican Republic informing him of his selection to the recently formed Latino Baseball Hall of Fame. The Colon, Panama native was one of six post-1959 era players selected as part of the 2012 class. Each Latin American country (Puerto Rico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Venezuela) had one player chosen for enshrinement, which will take place in February.

Ben Oglivie / Author's Collection
Given that this group is only their third class, Oglivie while green to its existence, was eager to learn more.

"I didn’t know exactly how it worked, but tonight I will find out a lot about it," Oglivie said via telephone "I am honored to be mentioned and to find out that I was accepted into it."  

Wrapped up in his duties as the hitting coach for the Detroit Tigers Class-A West Michigan Whitecaps, the 16-year major league veteran had little time to process his selection.

"I haven’t been able to take it in as I just got the call yesterday," he said, "but now that it is right in front of me I probably will now just exercise it. Now it’s kind of starting to sink in and it is a real honor."  

As his first season with West Michigan comes to an end, Oglivie continues to enjoy having the opportunity to guide the next wave of major leaguers.

"This is a good level," he said. "What we have here, we have a number of guys that potentially can be major leaguers. We have three or four [major league] prospects on this team and it’s good to work with them. Being that I played in the major leagues, you have an idea [of what it takes], and I want to be able to help them get there."  

For now. he hopes that the young players he is helping to mold heed the parables of the newly minted Hall of Famer.

"I’ve just been trying to make sure that they get good advice, whether it is how to be a major league player, or how to be a professional on and off the field."

* This was originally published September 2, 2011 for Examiner.com
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Yogi Berra still fresh on the mind of David Cone at cancer fundraiser

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How George Shuba inspired beyond his famous handshake with Jackie Robinson

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George Shuba gave many congratulatory handshakes in his days as a major league ballplayer with the Brooklyn Dodgers, but his most famous one was captured during Jackie Robinson’s first game in the minor leagues on April 18, 1946. The hard-hitting outfielder who earned the nickname “Shotgun,” passed away at his home in Youngstown, Ohio on Monday. He was 89.

George Shuba / Topps

Shuba played seven seasons with Brooklyn, appearing in three World Series including their 1955 victory over the New York Yankees, but his most famous moment was immortalized in a national photograph of Shuba shaking Robinson’s hand after his first home run in the minor leagues. The moment was later dubbed, “A Handshake for the Century.”

Manager Clay Hopper, who had Shuba the year prior in Mobile, installed him into the third slot of the batting order right behind Robinson. Shuba’s ability to hit the ball to the right side of the infield influenced his manager’s decision for Robinson’s debut in Jersey City.

“He put me in the third slot which is a very important slot because I was a pull hitter,” Shuba told me during a 2008 interview in New Jersey. “If someone was on first base, I had the big hole. He knew I made contact, so that's why I was lucky to be in that slot.”

His place in the order set the stage for history when Robinson deposited the ball over the left-field wall in the third inning. As Robinson rounded the bases, Shuba waited to greet him with an outstretched hand.

“When Jackie hit his home run,” he said, “I came to home plate and shook his hand.”

Over sixty years later, Shuba put the event in its proper context. A friendly gesture that any teammate wouldn’t think twice about extending turned out to be a significant part of Robinson’s assimilation into the previously all-white professional leagues.

“I realize now it was actually a historical event,” he said. “Being fortunate to have Jackie, it didn't make any difference to me if he was black or Technicolor. As professional ballplayers, we are focused to beat the other team and if Jackie helps us to beat the other team, he's with us 100%. Truth be said, he was the best ballplayer on the club.”

Shuba joined his good friend on the Dodgers in 1948, one season after Robinson broke the color barrier in the major leagues. He served mostly as a reserve outfielder, playing behind Duke Snider, Carl Furillo, and Andy Pafko. He carved his niche as a pinch hitter, a role that paid dividends during the 1953 World Series against the New York Yankees when Dodgers manager Charlie Dressen sent him to pinch-hit against Allie Reynolds.

“We got behind a few runs,” he said. “So now Charlie Dressen decided to use me early with a couple of me on base. I was ready to pinch-hit; [I was] never nervous. When I went up to pinch hit, I felt the pitcher was in trouble, not me.

"When I stepped in the batter’s box, the shadows were in between me and the pitcher. It was all day ball; the ball would come out of the sun into the shade. I turned around to get some dirt on my hand and Yogi Berra said, 'Hey Shuba, it's kinda tough seeing up here, isn't it?’ I said, 'Don't bother me, Yogi, I've gotta get a base hit.’ Reynolds threw me a fastball on the outside corner with two strikes on me and I hit a line drive over the right-field fence 355 feet away.”

Roger Kahn featured Shuba in the epic “The Boys of Summer” which followed up with the post-playing careers of many seminal Brooklyn Dodgers. He was honored to be a part of Kahn’s historical work.

“He covered each one of us at our homes,” he said. “I was very fortunate to be on that book because I had my best year in 1952 when Roger came up. We were in our early 40s when he visited us and he saw some people that might have been having tragedies in their families. I was fortunate I had just recently married. It was more than about baseball.”

The man who Bill Bingham of the Mobile Press nicknamed “Shotgun” in 1945 for the sound of his wicked line drives, used his powerful hands for a different cause when he penned his 2007 autobiography, “My Memories as a Brooklyn Dodger” with Ohio author Greg Gulas. It was an effort that he initially intended to be an oral history of his career for his family keepsakes that blossomed into a fully fledged book.

“I started out writing for my family only,” he said. “A friend of mine Greg Gulas, I asked him to be the author. He was the Sports Information Director for Youngstown State and also wrote for the Vindicator. … It covers a vast spectrum of my career as a minor and major leaguer.”

Reflecting on a career that started after being signed by the Dodgers from a tryout camp in Youngstown in 1943, Shuba shared the following words of advice in 2008 hoping to inspire the younger generation to strive towards success both on and off the field.

“Competition is good for people,” he said. “If they succeed, it gives them confidence. After they’re playing days are over, it can help them make the transfer to the regular life. … I would tell the kids to dream. The saying is, 'Dreams plus dreams equals dreams. Dreams plus action equals success.’ I was fortunate that my dreams came true. I lived my dreams and I am forever grateful for that.”


* - This was originally published September 30, 2014 for Examiner.com
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Les Layton, 92, homered in his first major league at-bat

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Getting to the major leagues is a dream for most young men; hitting a home run in their first time at bat is an even greater fantasy. Les Layton, a former outfielder for the New York Giants who made both of those scenarios a reality in his 1948 debut, passed away March 1, 2014 in Scottsdale, Ariz. He was 92.

Les Layton, Jess Dobernic and Gene Baker at home plate during Hollywood Stars vs Los Angeles Angels game, 1950
Collection: Los Angeles Times Photographic Archives
Layton was eager to contribute to the Giants in his 1948 rookie campaign, but manager Mel Ott only used Layton once within the first month of the season, filling in as a pinch runner during an early season game in Boston.

“I had a hard time,” Layton said in a 2008 interview with the author. “The Giants had so many outfielders. Bobby Thomson was coming on; Sid Gordon was there as was Willard Marshall.”

Twenty-five games into the season, on May 21, 1948, Ott finally summoned Layton to the plate as a pinch-hitter in the 9th inning against Chicago Cubs left-hander Johnny Schmitz.

“I can remember it now,” he said. “They told me to grab a bat, get up there, and hit one, and I did! It went on top of the roof in the Polo Grounds in left field.”

As Layton quickly circled the bases, he expected a hero’s welcome from his teammates. When he returned to the bench, the silence was deafening.

“I came back in the dugout and nobody said a word,” he said. “They didn't say, 'Nice going,' or anything, and then suddenly they all broke out in rapture.”

At the time he was only the 15th player in the National League to ever hit a home run in his first major league at-bat.

His role as a pinch-hitter produced another statistical oddity. His first four major league hits went for the cycle, all happening in four different parks. Layton’s first four career hits in order were a home run (New York), a triple (Cincinnati), a double (Pittsburgh) and a single (Chicago).

By the end of June, Layton was batting .350 strictly as a pinch-hitter, and Mel Ott finally inserted him into the starting lineup after Thomson and Whitey Lockman suffered minor injuries. He started eight games in a row at the beginning of July, going 10-33, which also included his second (and last) major league home run. Once the starters returned to full strength, Layton was relegated to pinch-hitting duties for the remainder of the year.

“Mel Ott called me aside later on when he was managing in the Coast League and apologized for not being able to play me so much,” he said. “The old timers that were making the money were the ones that had to play.”

Layton finished 1948 with a .231 batting average in 91 at-bats. With the emergence of Don Mueller and the arrival of Monte Irvin in 1949, there was no place for Layton on the Giants roster.

The Giants sold him to the Cubs, who sent him to Los Angeles in the Pacific Coast League. It was the best experience of Layton’s career.

“I spent three years in the Coast League with Los Angeles,” he said. “I enjoyed that more than anything else. I got to play every day."

Layton stayed in the minor leagues through 1954, serving as a player-manager for the Wichita Indians his last season.

After leaving professional baseball, he went to work for Boeing for 18 years as a production engineer, a trade he studied while at the University of Oklahoma. While at Boeing, he played for their semi-pro baseball team, the Boeing Bombers. He helped to lead them to a championship at the prestigious National Baseball Congress tournament in 1955.

The World War II veteran retired to Scottsdale with his wife Barbara. When I caught up with Layton in February 2008, he was trying to move forward from her death a few months earlier.

“I lost my wife in December and it’s pretty lonely out here,” he said. “We were married 62 years. I'm not a pretty good cook. I'm learning. You miss having her around, somebody to talk to. It's a whole different ballgame.”


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2017 Topps Archives weathers a storm of controversy to shine for collectors

June 17, 2017  , , , , , , , , , ,  No comments
Imagine opening a pack of baseball cards and pulling mint specimens of Hank Aaron, Aaron Judge, and Mike Trout one after another. While this sounds like a fantasy lineup, 2017 Topps Archives provides a wonderful array of fresh faces mixed in with veterans and legends in the design of vintage Topps cards from yesteryear.


Focusing on the themes of the 1960, 1982, and 1992 sets, this year’s Topps Archives set is one of the most exciting and controversial releases to hit the market this season. While collectors are attracted to seeing their heroes fixed on classic Topps motifs, much attention has been given to who Topps chose to be signers for their Fan Favorites autograph insert cards.

Baseball chaser Zack Hample, who gained notoriety for catching Alex Rodriguez’s 3,000th hit, was nabbed by Topps to be part of the series, which includes other debated aficionados such as Skip Bayless and Bald Vinny. Once fans got wind of his appearance in the set, they reacted with disdain to the possibility of landing his card as one of the two guaranteed autographs in each box. Some even resorted to having bids on ways to destroy the card with the proceeds going to charity.






Fortunately, the box provided for this review yielded spectacular autographs of Hall of Famer Tommy Lasorda and Kansas City Royals star Kevin Seitzer. These cards are crisp in the both their styles and signatures.





Going past the base set, the 1959 Bazooka Gum and 1960 Rookie Card designs have tremendous eye appeal that further an even greater reason to pursue Topps Archives. While on their chase, consumers will also find a career retrospective to Derek Jeter as another way to get on the bandwagon.



Despite the chatter surrounding the desirability of a few of Topps’ choices on autographs, collectors have found excitement in seeing the tremendous history of past and present stars distributed in classic Topps styles. With the opportunity to pull a future Hall of Famer alongside one already enshrined in Cooperstown, it makes 2017 Topps Archives a release that can weather all seasons.

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