Saturday, October 21, 2023

DJ Mark The 45 King Exclusive Mix From The Formula Radio Show With DJ Groove Da Moast

DJ Groove Da Moast

We take a short break from the baseball happenings to salute two hip hop pioneers, DJ Mark The 45 King and DJ Groove Da Moast. Sadly, both DJs died within a week from each other in October 2023, but we have this gem from The Formula Radio Show archives connecting the two legends.

In February 2005, DJ Mark The 45 King was the show's featured guest, masterfully spinning exclusive tracks from his personal archives. 

DJ Groove Da Moast (aka Fredy Blast) followed The 45 King with a tribute set of his own, expertly mixing up 45 King's classics. DJ Skeme Richards and Primetime provide the commentary in between the mixes, giving you a slice of the hip hop landscape at the time. 

Sunday, June 4, 2023

Roger Craig, 93, Helmed The Mound For Both The Dodgers and Mets In New York

Roger Craig, the split-fingered fastball master, who was part of Brooklyn's only World Series championship in 1955, died June 4, 2023 at the age of 93. The 12-year major league veteran later became the long-time San Francisco Giants manager from 1985-1992.

Roger Craig Throws Out First Pitch In 2012 At Citi Field / Mets
I wrote the following piece below for Metsmerized Online after interviewing Craig when he returned to New York in 2012 to throw out the first pitch at Citi Field. He celebrated his 50th year as an "Original Met" and relished discussing his playing career in both Brooklyn and Queens.

Roger Craig holds a special place in New York baseball history lore, carrying the distinction of the first pitcher to take the mound for the New York Mets, as well as being a member of Brooklyn’s lone World Series championship team. At 89, Craig has outlasted nearly all of his peers that made the Brooklyn-heavy component of the 1962 Mets inaugural season.

Growing up in North Carolina, the lanky 6’4” pitcher faced a strong pull from another sport, basketball. He spent one year as a guard on North Carolina State’s freshman basketball team playing for the legendary Everett Case. While the opportunity to learn from a pioneer such as Case was tempting, it was not enough to compete with Brooklyn’s $6,000 bonus offer.

“I went to North Carolina State on a basketball scholarship,” Craig said. “When baseball season came around I talked to my dad [and told him] I wanted to drop out of school and play baseball and that is what happened. I dropped out and signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers.”

The Dodgers assigned Craig to their Class B team in Newport News to start the 1950 season. Still a teenager, Craig quickly discovered he was in well over his head.

“I was surprised they started me there,” he said. “That was a high way to start a young guy. I was 18 or 19. I started out in Newport News, and Al Campanis was the manager; I was really wild, and he sent me down to Valdosta, Georgia.”

With Craig in the modern day equivalent of rookie ball at Class D Valdosta, he was in the proper atmosphere for his skills to grow. Judging by how he explained it, his performance was far from perfect.

“I led the league in wins, strikeouts, base on balls, hit batsmen — everything,” he said.

While he was in Valdosta, Craig made the first of his Dodgers-Mets connections when he teamed up with a 20-year-old catcher named Joe Pignatano. He immediately noted the spark of his Brooklyn-born batterymate.

“Joe was a fiery competitor,” he said. “He went to the major leagues and became a great coach for a long time with the Mets.”

Before Craig could really mend his control as well as fortify his relationship with Pignatano, Uncle Sam arrived with a new uniform. The Army assigned him to a post in Fort Jackson, South Carolina, where he stayed for two years (1952-53) while many of his peers went overseas to Korea.

“The military really helped me because I was a basketball and baseball player,” he said. “All of my buddies went to Korea, and I stayed there and played sports. I had three catchers [who helped me], Haywood Sullivan, Frank “Big” House, and Ed Bailey. They said, ‘Kid, you have good stuff and a chance to play in the big leagues.’ They helped me, worked with me, and gave me a lot of confidence. I think I was 17-2 and 16-1 in two years down there.”

Just as Craig was to return to the Dodgers in 1954 after completing his military service, he suffered a cruel twist of fate that delayed his big league dreams.

“The day before I went to spring training, I was playing basketball to keep in shape,” he said. “I intercepted a pass, and a guy bumped me; I fell and broke my left elbow. I happened to have a family doctor; I talked to him and told him I had to go to spring training tomorrow. I told him to put an ace bandage on it and let me go to spring training. Finally, I talked him into it. I went to spring training and did not tell anybody for a week or two.

“Finally, Al Campanis came over, grabbed my left arm, and squeezed it. He said, ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ I told him the fracture was small but had gotten bigger since spring training. When I played catch with my catcher down there, I told him not to throw the ball back too hard because I had a sore hand. If they threw it too hard, I’d let it go.”

His injury set off a true season beating the bushes, as Craig bounced around three teams in the Dodgers organization. He finally settled in with their Class B team in Newport News for the majority of the 1954 season.

With his impressive performance for Newport News in 1954, the Dodgers promoted Craig to their Triple-A team in Montreal for the 1955 campaign. After breezing through the league with a 10-2 record, Craig received a call to meet with his manager while the team played a series in Havana, Cuba. What happened next not only was a shock for Craig, but also for another of his future Hall of Fame teammates.

“When I got called to the big leagues, Tom Lasorda and I both pitched a doubleheader and [we] both pitched shutouts,” he said. “The next morning, the manager Greg Mulleavy called me in his office in Havana, Cuba. I said, ‘What the heck is going on? I went out and had a couple of beers.’ He said, ‘You’re pitching Sunday.’ I said, ‘I know, you already told me that.’ He said, ‘You’re pitching Sunday in Brooklyn!’ What a shock. Tommy was upset because he didn’t get called up.”

Pitching in Ebbets Field on a Sunday, Craig led the Boys of Summer to a 6-2 complete game victory. The man who went to North Carolina State with visions of hoop dreams was now standing tall on the mound as Brooklyn’s newest favorite son.

“When I first walked in that clubhouse with Jackie, Pee Wee, Duke, Furillo, and all those great Hall of Famers, I said, ‘I don’t belong here, what am I doing here?’” Craig said. “They made me feel welcome. I was lucky enough I pitched the first game of a doubleheader we played and beat Cincinnati with a complete game three-hitter victory.”

The Dodgers kept Craig on their roster throughout the rest of the regular season and the postseason. With the 1955 World Series knotted at two games apiece between the Dodgers and the New York Yankees, Dodgers manager Walter Alston called upon the rookie to give them the edge in the series.

“About the World Series, I pitched pretty well all year,” he said. “We lost the first two and won the next two. I told Joe Becker the bullpen coach, ‘I’ve gotta throw some.’ After I had thrown about ten minutes, he told me, ‘Sit down, you’ve had enough.’”

Craig did not immediately understand why his coach told him to stop throwing. That evening, after the Dodgers Game 4 win, Walter Alston made it evident why they wanted him to rest.

“He didn’t tell me then, but Walter Alston called and told him to sit me down,” he said. “We win the game. I go to the clubhouse, sit in front of my locker, and Alston walked up and said, ‘How do you feel?’ I said, ‘I feel great, I haven’t pitched.’ He said, ‘Well you’re starting tomorrow!’ I think Newcombe and Erskine were ready to pitch. I pitched six innings and we ended up getting a win. That was a great thrill.”

Fifty-seven years later when the Mets invited Craig to throw out the first pitch in 2012, all of his memories of World Series victory came screaming back as he toured New York City.

“My wife and I were here in New York and I threw out the first pitch for the Mets because I pitched the first game 50 years ago,” he said. “We stayed in Times Square and I remember the night I won my World Series game — my mother was there, my brother and my wife were with me, and I was on a TV show with Floyd Patterson.”

“After the show was over, we went to Jack Dempsey’s restaurant. He found out I was there and he sat down and talked with me. We came out and they had that big display in Times Square with the names going across it. My brother said, ‘Look up there, ‘Roger Craig beat the Yankees.’ It had my name up there. They got a big kick out of that.”

As the Dodgers emerged victorious over the Yankees to bring home Brooklyn’s first and only World Series championship, the young rookie was unaware of the moment’s significance. While he and the other upstarts were celebrating with hollered emotions, Craig noticed something different with the veterans.

“One thing about after the game was over, we were in the clubhouse and everyone was celebrating and drinking Schaefer and Rheingold beer,” he said. “All of the young guys, Roebuck, Bessent, Spooner, and myself were having a good time. You looked around, and all these guys, Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, Pee Wee Reese, and Duke Snider had tears in their eyes. I just realized that they had not won in so long and it was the first time they ever won it.”

“To get to this point and all, they all got very emotional. It was really something to witness. We just quieted down and let them be themselves.”

Craig stayed with the Dodgers as they moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. As one of the newer players on the Brooklyn team, he did not have the same attachment as his teammates who had planted their roots over a decade earlier.

“I was a young rookie and all that,” he said. “I was such a young guy and didn’t really see the total impact of guys like Gil, Erskine, Newcombe, Duke, and Campanella. A lot of the other guys did not want to leave. I am surprised that some of them even went.”

As he reflected further on the move, Craig realized how both National League teams’ westward migration opened the door for fresh New York Mets allegiances.

“I read the book O’Malley wrote about all the things he went through to build a stadium,” he said. “It was a bold move to do something like that. He talked Stoneham into going with the Giants. To move two clubs —that is why the Mets had such great fans. The Giants and Dodgers fans did not want to be Yankee fans. They were great Mets fans and it helped.”

As the Mets tried to capitalize on those nostalgic hopes that Craig noted, he and Gil Hodges were amongst the many former Dodgers that the Mets selected in the 1961 expansion draft. As sentiment has grown for Hodges’ Hall of Fame induction, Craig shared what made his late teammate special.

“He was the nicest individual I ever met in my life, on the field or off the field,” Craig noted. “He was a real professional and a gentleman. I could see why he was a great manager. He was a great hitter, but also probably, the best defensive first baseman I have seen. He was a catcher too; he could catch if he wanted to. He would have pine tar over his hands all the time. I would take a brand new ball and throw it over to him, he would rub it one time and it would have pine tar all over it. Sometimes the cover would be loose because he had those big strong hands. He was a great guy to play with.”

Craig was a mainstay in the Mets rotation during their first two seasons, pitching in 88 games, 27 of them complete games. He played an additional three years afterward, wrapping up his 12-year major league career with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1966. While he took the brunt of 46 losses with Mets, often with little to no run support, he still found happiness being in the company of familiar faces.

“It was like you had gone to a new team and all that, but with all those guys that played with Brooklyn and Los Angeles, it wasn’t that bad,” he said. “We just kinda had the good camaraderie right away, Don Zimmer, Gus Bell, Frank Thomas, Richie Ashburn, Hobie [Landrith], Felix Mantilla, etc. You think with those names that we would have won more games than we did, but it just didn’t happen.”

Tuesday, December 27, 2022

Fred Valentine | Washington Senators Outfielder Dies At 87


Fred Valentine
, former major league outfielder with the Washington Senators and Baltimore Orioles, died December 26, 2022 in Washington D.C. He was 87. 

Valentine grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, where he excelled at Booker T. Washington High School in both baseball and football. A star quarterback and shortstop, he drew interest from multiple major league organizations out of high school; however, he decided to pursue his education at Tennessee A+I (now Tennessee State University). 

At his college football coach's behest, Valentine chose to sign with the Baltimore Orioles in 1956, despite offers from NFL teams. 

Like many Black players in his era, Valentine endured Jim Crow segregation in the South while playing in places like Wilson, North Carolina. Minor leaguers frequently received gifts from local businesses for stellar play. When Valentine went to collect his rewards, he was instantly reminded of the inequities he was fighting to escape. 

"When I won something," Valentine said in Bob Luke's Integrating the Orioles, "which I did often, I couldn't go in the front door. I'd have to go around back. If it was a meal, they'd box it up for me."

Valentine persisted in the minors, receiving a call-up to Baltimore in 1959. He joined a select group of major leaguers who played through MLBs first decade of integration. His time with Baltimore was short-lived, as he spent the next four seasons at AAA trying to work his way back to the big time. 

He caught his big break in 1964 when the Senators purchased his contract from the Orioles. Valentine's hustling spirit drew manager Gil Hodges' favor, something that resonated with Valentine over 50 years later when discussing his late manager. 

“The biggest thing I remember from Gil was that when I came [to] spring training, the only thing he asked was for 100 percent," Valentine said in 2018. "Regardless of how the game turned out, he just wanted a hundred percent from his players, and I always felt I didn't have any problems with that. He was going to give me an opportunity to play, and I told him I was going to give him a 110 percent, and I think I did.” 

Valentine played with the Senators through 1968, even earning MVP votes in 1966. A midseason trade returned Valentine to the Orioles to finish his major league career. He played one more season in the minors in 1969 and then spent the 1970 season playing for the Hanshin Tigers in Japan. 

In retirement, Valentine worked with a group of former major leaguers to establish the Major League Baseball Players Alumni Association in 1982. He remained active in many charities, including the Firefighters Charitable Foundation, where he was an annual guest at their dinners and golf outings.

Wednesday, December 21, 2022

Randy Savage | 'He Was A Pretty Darn Good Little Catcher'


In 1971, Mike Vail and Randy Poffo were anonymous teenagers at the entry level of the St. Louis Cardinals farm system, eagerly trying to navigate the murky depths of professional baseball. Both would go on to garner national attention for their athletic feats. However, only one of them made their calling on the diamond. 

At the time for Vail, it wasn’t immediately clear that they would each experience success in different arenas. 

“We were both real young, 18-19 years old,” Vail said during a recent phone interview in New York. “Randy, strictly from a baseball standpoint, I thought he was a pretty darn good little catcher.” 

The Randy who Vail praises for being a quality receiver is better known to sports fans as WWE Hall of Famer “Macho Man” Randy Savage. During their summer as teammates, the younger Poffo outpaced Vail in both batting average and home runs. His later turn to a wrestling career caught Vail by surprise. 

“We were roommates when we first came in with the Cardinals,” he said. “We kinda grew up together. It was interesting that he became the wrestler he was. It was kind of funny to see him become a wrestler; I thought he would continue on in baseball, but I guess he decided to go another way.” 

As they pursued separate paths, the two lost contact, with Vail loosely following Poffo’s wrestling exploits from afar. A conversation with a teammate about the recent passing of former Tidewater Tides general manager Dave Rosenfield reminded him of a missed connection with Poffo, who died in 2011. 

“It’s like so many other things in life,” he said. “You go to places and you do things … I was just having breakfast with Buzz Capra. We just lost a person who was close to us and a lot of people in baseball, our AAA general manager for many years, [Dave] Rosenfield. That came as a real shock to me and I wanted to go meet him and I didn’t have a chance to do it. It’s kind of the same thing with Randy. It was a shame.” 

Vail made his own headlines during his 1975 debut campaign with the New York Mets, setting both a team and National League rookie record with a 23-game hitting streak. His National League record stood for a dozen years until Benito Santiago eclipsed it in 1987. The streak was all part of a whirlwind that came shortly after debuting in the heart of the Big Apple. 

“It was like a dream,” he said. “It was amazing to be in the majors to begin with coming from AAA, like a little kid’s dream, to come to New York City. I tell people this all the time, the first day that I reported, Willie Mays was in the clubhouse. As a boy in San Jose, California, we used to watch Willie Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Marichal … all of the greats back then that I grew up watching at 8-9 years old. Now I get to New York and Willie [Mays] was a coach for me. It was unbelievable. The tips he gave me were just amazing that he helped me with.” 

Vail spent ten seasons in the major leagues, compiling a .279 lifetime average for seven franchises. Despite spending only three seasons in Flushing, his return to New York for a public autograph signing brought back strong ties to the city for the 65-year-old former outfielder. 

“New York will always be my favorite town and team because I came up with the Mets,” he said. “I’ve got mixed emotions. I came here and was here for such a short time really in my estimation. I was planning to be on the team for quite a bit longer, but I had that bad injury in the off-season trying to get ready for the next season. It’s just mixed feelings; sometimes I guess I’m a little harder on myself than the fans are, wishing that [the injury] didn’t happen. I was hoping to be a bit better for New York than I was.”

* - Originally published April 14, 2017 for The Sports Post.

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Dave Hillman | Oldest Living Mets and Reds Player Dies At 95


Darius Dutton “Dave” Hillman, a former major league pitcher and the oldest living member of the Cincinnati Reds and New York Mets, died Sunday, November 20, 2022 in Kingsport, Tennessee. He was 95.

In eight big-league seasons spanning from 1955-1962, Hillman pitched for the Chicago Cubs, Boston Red Sox, Reds and Mets, compiling a won-loss record of 21-37 with a 3.87 earned run average.

Hillman’s best season with the Cubs was in 1959 when he posted an 8-11 mark and 3.58 ERA, completing four games and pitching seven or more innings in nine others. He tossed a two-hit shutout against the Pirates; struck out 11 in seven innings of relief to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers; and in the next-to-last game of the season stopped the Dodgers in their bid to wrap up the National League pennant. The Dodgers were one game ahead of the Milwaukee Braves with two to play. A win over the Cubs and Hillman clinched a tie.

“I went out there, honey, and I’ll never forget the control that I had,” Hillman recalled. “I could thread a damn needle with that ball. I was just sitting back and sh-o-o-o-m-m-m…throwing that thing in there.”

Hillman scattered nine hits and struck out seven in the Cubs’ 12-2 win. The Dodgers ended up beating the Braves in a playoff and winning the World Series. It took Hillman six years to work his way up through the minors to the majors.

Dave Hillman (r.) with Ernie Banks (l.) / Author's Collection

He started his professional baseball career in 1950, winning 14 games at Rock Hill, South Carolina, in the Class B Tri-State League. He won 20 for Rock Hill in 1951, one of them a no-hitter. He also led the league in strikeouts with 203.

Hillman won only eight games the next two seasons, but he notched another no-hitter in 1953, playing for the Springfield, Massachusetts, Cubs in the Class AAA International League. A 16-11 record in 1954 for a seventh-place team, Beaumont, Texas, in the Texas League, earned him a shot with the Cubs.

A sore throwing arm nagged Hillman in 1955 so the next year the Cubs sent him to their Pacific Coast League affiliate, the Los Angeles Angels. Despite missing the first month of the season, his 21-7 record, 3.38 earned run average, three shutouts and 15 complete games paced the Angels pitching staff. 

“Dave Hillman was Mr. Automatic,” said Dwight “Red” Adams, a ’56 Angels teammate who went on to become a highly respected pitching coach for the Dodgers. 

After the 1959 season, the Cubs traded Hillman to the Red Sox in Major League Baseball’s first inter-league trade. He pitched primarily in relief for the Red Sox in 1960-61 before ending up with the Reds and Mets in 1962.

Hillman appeared in 13 games for the Mets, with no decisions, one save and a 6.42 ERA. When the Mets optioned him to the minors in late June, he headed home to Kingsport to work in a men’s clothing store owned by an uncle. He figured selling shirts and shoes was better than being with the hapless Mets and getting kicked in the pants every time he pitched. 

Hillman was born in Dungannon, Virginia, on September 14, 1927, the fifth of seven children. He married his high school sweetheart, Imogene Turner, in 1947 and relocated to Kingsport in 1952.

Hillman is survived by a daughter, Sharon Lake of Portland, Tennessee, three grandchildren and six great grandchildren. His wife, Imogene, died in 2011 and their son, Ron, in 2017. 

*This obituary was written by author Gaylon H. White, who featured Hillman in his book, The Bilko Athletic Club: The Story of the 1956 Los Angeles Angels.