Every other Tuesday at 9 AM a new podcast will be released.
August 7, 2018 … Continuing our summer of baseball, Dennis Snelling, author of “Lefty O’Doul: Baseball’s Forgotten Ambassador”, joins the podcast for a look back at the career of another player who got a late start. O’Doul tried to make it as a pitcher but just couldn’t cut it in the Majors. So, he turned to solely concentrating on his hitting and at the age of 31, Lefty O’Doul finally broke through. In 1928, as a full time outfielder he hit .319. He followed that by hitting a whopping .398 in 1929, .383 in 1930, .336 in 1931 and .368 in 1932. Had he not started so late, O’Doul might have found himself in Cooperstown. However, his greatest contribution to the game just might have come in Japan where he’s in their Hall of Fame. Listen to Sports’ Forgotten Heroes for a terrific look back at a simply marvelous career and life.
August 21, 2018 … Bob Allison was one of the best players for the Minnesota Twins during the 1960s. The Twins moved to Minnesota from Washington, D.C. for the 1961 season. However, before getting to Minnesota, Allison won the Rookie of the Year for Washington (known as the Senators) in 1959 by clubbing 30 Home Runs and knocking in 85 and batting .261. After the team moved to Minnesota is when Allison did most of his damage and, in fact, during the stretch of 1961 through 1964, Allison averaged 29 Home Runs a year. But, playing in the shadow of the great Harmon Killebrew and alongside such stars as Tony Oliva, Jim Kaat and Rod Carew certainly affected Bob Allison’s popularity – especially outside of Minnesota. But inside the game, everyone knew who Bob Allison was, and he was not an easy out for opposing pitchers. He also possessed speed and that helped him track down fly balls others couldn’t get to. In fact, Minnesota Twins fans voted Bob Allison the team’s greatest left fielder during its first 25 years of existence. Joining SFH once again to talk about one of baseball’s forgotten heroes is Gregory H. Wolf, the director of the BioProject for SABR. Gregory has written over 150 biographies forthe project and also authored the books, “A Pennant for the Twin Cities” and “Winning on the North Side, the 1929 Chicago Cubs”.
September 4, 2018 … While their “last” names are certainly not forgotten, very few know their “first” names and they just might be the most famous double play combination in baseball history: Tinker to Evers to Chance. They were in the middle of one of baseball’s first dynasties – 4 appearances in the World Series in 5 years, and during that stretch, the Cubs won more games than any other team in history over a 5-year period. Joining the podcast once again will be Dennis Snelling, however this time he’s here to speak about the famed double-play combo with fellow author David Rapp.