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584 SLG and racked up 3,043 hits, 640 doubles and 336 homers. But the guy could hit: in 16 minor league seasons, Jolley batted. So you can see how bad he was, especially when compared to one of the best ever. Jolley committed 44 errors in only 413 games Andruw Jones has committed 48 in 1,926 games. 305 with a 112 OPS+ because he was one of the worst fielders in MLB history. wonder what would possess someone to call their kid bump?įrom Mike Lynch, who runs Seamheads: Smead Jolley, who spent only four years in the majors despite hitting. Not necessarily rare but always liked red ruffings name and bump wills too. I remember him from the times he brought his teams into Hawai’i to play the Islanders in the early 1980s. He’s now a scout, if Wikipedia can be believed. Managed in the PCL for years, wining the title with the Edmonton Trappers once.

5 career ABs, no hits, all pinch-hit appearances with the Angels in 1967. Tragically, Ault died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 2004 at the age of 54. Much beloved by Jays fans for that glorious opening day, he would show up occasionally whenever the old timers were saluted. Later he became a coach and manager in the Blue Jays farm system. After a good opening month, reality set in for both Ault and the Blue Jays, and the home runs became rarer, and the struggles with his swing had him finished as a major leaguer by 1980. 7, 1977 he swatted two home runs on a snowy afternoon at Exhibition Stadium. When I was a kid I liked Horacio Pina (because of his unusual pitching motion) and Dick McAuliffe (unusual batting stance).ĭoug Ault, who was the first matinee idol of the Toronto Blue Jays. We discovered him via a Topps baseball card. My childhood best friend and I used to joke about him. I also like the Mets announcer Bob Murphy used always tell fans how Coco got his nickname from his grandmother for his love of chocolate milk.īoots Day. He never came close to a season like that in the next four seasons of his career. I interviewed his grandsons and wrote about him for the BioProject.Ĭoco Laboy had an amazing rookie year with the Montreal Expos in their first ever season in 1969 hitting 18 HR and knocking in 83 runs. Blazing fastball and a great spitball his only weakness was a heart condition that made him dizzy when he bent over to field a ball, so he was bunted out of the American League after 4 games with the 1919 White Sox. My pick would be John “Lefty” Sullivan – the popular strikeout king of Chicago’s semipro leagues in the 1920s. Here are some from people who responded to a posting on the Seamheads Facebook page: (I’ve also posed this question to people on the Baseball Fever website, and you can read that message board thread too.) Most of the links go to the Wikipedia pages for the figures chosen. I’m only asking for a name, but if you’ve already written something online about the person (it can be either a man or a woman, of course), I’ll link to that and if you want to write a few sentences talking about your favorite obscure baseball figure, that would be fine. If you’ve come by this post and have someone in mind, just put his name in the comments. So, I’m asking for help in bringing to light some old baseball people who are worth remembering. The idea is that time and a focus on sabermetrics and efforts to determine who should be in the Hall of Fame have left many uniquely interesting and/or appealing retired/deceased baseball people by the wayside. As the word “figure” indicates, the person doesn’t have to be a player it can be anyone employed within the game itself, by a team or by a league, including umpires, coaches, scouts, and front office personnel (but not the media). The project is described in more depth in the predecessor post, but it’s about asking various baseball fans to pick their favorite obscure baseball figure from the past.

When the initial post on this subject went over the 5,000-word mark, I figured I’d better start a new post to handle all the input I was getting.