DAILY DIRT: Baseball fans lost a lot of legendary performers in 2024

Daily Dirt for Friday, Jan. 3, 2025

Willie, Pete, Rickey and Rocky lead the list … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 1,162 of The Daily Dirt.

1. For baseball fans, 2024 was kind of a brutal year. We lost a lot of our boyhood and young-adult heroes during those 12 months.

“The baseball community is lessened by their absence, but their memories live on with all of us,” wrote Will Leitch on mlb.com.

No argument there, Will.

All told, 94 former major leaguers passed away in 2024. Here were some of the most famous, and it’s quite a distinguished list:

• 1. Willie Mays: One of baseball’s true giants, The Say Hey Kid was the game’s preeminent five-tool player, a man who was better than everyone else at everything. A 24-time All-Star — the All-Star Game, it was once said, existed primarily for Willie Mays — he won 12 Gold Gloves, two MVPs and the 1954 World Series. MLB’s game between the Cardinals and Mays’ Giants this past June at Rickwood Field, where Mays once played for the Negro Leagues’ Birmingham Black Barons, became even more of a tribute to Mays, who died two days earlier. Mays was bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015.
• 2. Pete Rose: Major League Baseball’s all-time hit king built a legacy on the field, but also irreparably marred it with a gambling scandal that ended with him permanently banned from baseball in 1989.
• 3. Rickey Henderson: “If you could split him in two, you’d have two Hall of Famers,” Bill James once wrote. There was no other player like Rickey, the all-time leader in runs scored, stolen bases and third-person self references. The greatest leadoff hitter of all time, a two-time World Series winner and a force well into his 40s. 
• 4. Rocky Colavito: “The Rock” was a nine-time All-Star and remains both one of the best players in Cleveland history and among the best right-handed power hitters in baseball annals. He also hit four homers in one game on June 10, 1959.
• 5. Orlando Cepeda: “The Baby Bull” was an 11-time All-Star who won NL Rookie of the Year honors with the 1958 Giants, and both the NL MVP Award and a World Series ring with the 1967 Cardinals. He’s still a Giants legend, with his statue standing outside Oracle Park today. Cepeda remains revered in the San Francisco area for his humanitarian and community work.
• 6. Rico Carty: “The Beeg Mon” had the first hit in Atlanta Braves history and batted .366 in 1970, a year when he was a write-in selection for the All-Star Game. Injuries riddled his career — including a time he accidentally stabbed himself with a toothpick — but he hit .299 over a 15-year run and is a member of the Braves Hall of Fame.
• 7. Fernando Valenzuela: The left-hander from Mexico is most famous for “Fernandomania,” which the then-20-year-old Dodger inspired in 1981 by winning his first eight starts (including five shutouts) en route to an NL Rookie of the Year Award, an NL Cy Young Award and a World Series title. Valenzuela went on to pitch 17 seasons in the Majors. He remains an icon in Mexico and served as President Obama’s special ambassador for citizenship and naturalization.
• 8. Luis Tiant: “El Tiante” was one of the first great Cuban pitchers in the Majors, a strikeout maestro for Cleveland and, especially, the Red Sox. After joining Cleveland at the age of 20 in 1961, he was unable to return to Cuba and did not see his parents for 14 years. His greatest year was 1968 with Cleveland, when opponents batted only .168 against him.
• 9. Ken Holtzman: A member of those three-titles-in-a-row A’s of the 1970s, Holtzman also threw two no-hitters in his career. As a young left-hander who was also Jewish, Holtzman was known as “the next Sandy Koufax” early in his career. Somewhat ironicazlly, Holtzman ended up having more career victories than Koufax.
• 10. Don Gullett: A three-time World Series winner, the lefty was a tremendous pitcher for the Reds and Yankees. Incredibly, Gullett gave up the 660th career homer to both Hank Aaron and Willie Mays.
  

Special mention — Whitey Herzog: “The White Rat” started out as a scout and farm system director for the 1969 Mets. But his real work came as a manager, first with Kansas City, where he managed those Royals teams that kept losing to the Yankees in the AL Championship Series, and then with St. Louis, where his brand of “Whiteyball” led to three World Series appearances and one championship, in 1982. His Cardinals teams with Ozzie Smith, Willie McGee and Vince Coleman remain among baseball’s most beloved collections of speed, defense and excitement.

Note: Much of the above information was provided by mlb.com.

2. Did you know (Part 235)

That the top five songs this time of year back in 1968 were:

• 1. Daydream Believer,” by the Monkees
• 2. “The Rain, The Park And Other Things,” by the Cowsills
• 3. “Incense and Peppermints,” by the Strawberry Alarm Clock
• 4. “To Sir, With Love,” by Lulu
• 5. “I Say A Little Prayer,” by Dionne Warwick

That Don Gorske of Madison, Wis., has eaten nearly 33,000 Big Macs since May 1972.

That McDonald’s sells 75 burgers per second worldwide.

That the average McDonald’s hamburger is cooked and assembled in 112 seconds.

That the average McDonald’s quarter pounder is cooked and assembled in 180 seconds.

That scheduled to launch Jan. 20 is Pepsi Wild Cherry and Cream Soda.

3. Some medal-worthy facts about names:

Gold medal: The first U.S. president with a middle name was John Quincy Adams, America’s sixth president. The next U.S. president with a middle name was No. 9, William Henry Harrison. Middle names weren’t common in Great Britain or the United States until the 19th century.

Silver medal: Middle names as we know them today started in Italy, just as it was entering the Renaissance. The earliest middle names were Catholic saint names given to children in elite families in the hopes that saints would protect them. 

Bronze medal: Popes normally choose names that honor saints and previous popes. The last time someone bucked tradition was in 1555, when Marcellus II retained his baptismal name.

Steve Thought O’ The Day — Speaking of names, famed artist Pablo Picasso’s full name was Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano María de los Remedios de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. It’s only 39 days until the start of Spring Training.