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| Jim Baxes (1928-1996) |
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| Jim Baxes toiled in the minor leagues for several years before he played one – and only one – season in the majors, 11 games with the Los Angeles Dodgers and 77 games with the Cleveland Indians. He batted .246 and hit 17 home runs.
Baxes was an infielder who divided his time between second and third base. He made 17 errors and his .948 fielding average was – by far – the worst of any Cleveland player who appeared in 70 or more games. However, he did do something special that season, as a member of the Dodgers. On April 15, he hit his first home run off future Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, something that didn't seem significant at the time. After all, Baxes was the first player Gibson pitched to in the major leagues. Gibson gave up only three more home runs that season, then went on to a 17-year career and 251 victories for the St. Louis Cardinals.
Baxes' name always stayed with me, because of the X, but I didn't know until I did this project that his full name – Dimitrios Speros Baxes – was so memorable.
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| Mike Baxes (1930- ) |
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| Younger brother of Jim Baxes, infielder Michael Baxes also spent more time in the minor leagues than in the majors. He played 73 games for the Kansas City Athletics in 1956, thn spent the following season with the Buffalo Bisons and was the Most Valuable Player in the International League. That earned him another shot with Kansas City, and he played 73 more games with the A's in 1958, but his batting average got worse, dropping from .226 to .217. Though he had hit with power in the minor leagues, Mike Baxes had only one home run in 337 at bats with Kansas City. |
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| Harvey "The Kitten" Haddix (1925-1993) |
| Haddix was a left-handed pitcher who peaked early – winning 20 games for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1953, his first full season, then coming back in 1954 to win 18.
However, he is best known for what has been called baseball's best pitching performance ever – on May 26, 1959 when Haddix retired 36 consecutive batters, which likely caused him to ask, "Just what the heck does a guy have to do to win a game?"
By 1959 Haddix was with his fourth major league team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, and coming off two mediocre seasons (with Philadelphia and Cincinnati). Suddenly, he was perfect – through 12 innings against the Milwaukee Braves. The good news: he was making major league history. The bad news: he was getting no support from his teammates who failed to score off the Braves' Lew Burdette.
Burdette kept his shutout in the top of the 13th inning. Felix Mantilla opened the bottom of the inning by reaching base on an error by Pirate third baseman Don Hoak. So long, perfect game, but the no-hitter was still alive. Mantilla was sacrificed to second base and Haddix intentionally walked Hank Aaron.
Up stepped Joe Adcock who hit the ball over the fence in right-centerfield. Game over; Haddix loses, but not without a bonehead play by Aaron, who trotted off the field after passing second base rather than run all the way home. Aaron was called out and Adcock's "home run" was reduced to a double. Final score: 1-0.
Haddix finished the season with 12 wins, 12 losses. A year later the Pirates won the National League pennant and beat the New York Yankees in the World Series. Haddix picked up two wins, including Game Seven, when he came in to pitch the final inning in what generally is regarded as the wildest, most exciting World Series finale ever, won by the Pirates, 10-9, on a home run in the bottom of the ninth by Bill Mazeroski.
Haddix kept pitching until 1965, wrapping up his career with the Baltimore Orioles. He had a lifetime won-lost record of 136-113. Later he became a pitching coach.
He was nicknamed "The Kitten" because of his resemblance to St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Harry "The Cat" Brecheen, best remembered for his World Series heroics in 1946 when he chalked up three wins over the Boston Red Sox.
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| Si Pauxtis (1885-1961) |
| Before I started poking around books and websites checking out interesting names, I'd been led to believe that baseball players around the turn of the century were rowdy country boys with little education. It's an impression formed by a piece I read about Christy Mathewson, the Golden Boy who stood out in the early 1900s not simply because of his amazing pitching ability, but because he was handsome, cultured and very well-behaved, having graduated from Bucknell College.
Well, it turns out Mathewson wasn't so unusual, after all; at least, not in the education department. I've since come across several other college-educated players from the same era. Take Smon Francisi Pauxtis, for example, who went from Lebanon Valley College to the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He was an all-American end on the football team and was still in law school when he made his major league debut as a catcher with the Cincinnati Reds in 1909. He played only four games, but his career in sports was just beginning.
He coached football and baseball at Dickinson College, was an assistant coach at Penn, then head coach at Pennsylvania Military College (now Widener University) from 1916-29 and 1939-46. I also came across an item that said he played a little professional football.
And for 50 years he was a practicing attorney in Wilkes-Barre and Philadelphia. Just reading about him made me feel like an underachieving schlub. |
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| Xavier "Mr. X" Rescigno (1913-2005) |
| I could not ignore the player who actually had an X name, albeit in the wrong place. But his nickname certainly made him the most qualified person on my entire list.
Xavier Frederick Rescigno was from a different era, but he, too, was a college man, graduating from Manhattan College in 1937. He was a pitcher who spent some time in the New York Yankee organization before joining the Pittsburgh Pirates. He spent three seasons with the Bucs (1943-45), perhaps because his age or his draft status kept him out of World War II. Whatever, he was available and the Pirates put him to good use.
He made 129 appearances, including 21 starts, in those three years, winning 19 games, losing 22. His best season was 1944 when he had a 10-8 record for the second place Pirates.
In 1946 Rescigno went to the Pacific Coast League and remained there for several seasons.
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