Dazzling Dazzy

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DOUGHBOYS
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Joined: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:00 pm

Dazzling Dazzy

Post by DOUGHBOYS » Tue Oct 24, 2017 1:55 pm

When I was a kid living in Northern California, I couldn't wait for the sun to go down.
It sounds vampirellish, but the darkness meant that radio choices seemed endless.
And being a pre-teen kid and a lover of the San Francisco Giants, it allowed me my secret pleasure.
Listening to Dodgers games.
I couldn't help it.
Although I hated the Dodgers, I loved listening to Vin Scully.
Scully used one word for Sandy Koufax that he hardly ever used for others.
Dazzling.
I loved it.
It made Koufax seem unhittable. Well, he was.
BUT, it made him seem more unhittable than he already was.
"Sandy winds and throws and Aaron looks foolish trying to hit Koufax's curve. That is Sandy's thirteenth strike out.
He is just dazzling the Braves tonight!

Let's rewind through Dodger history, even before Vin Scully.
Dazzy Vance was originally named Charles. The 'Charles' turned to Charlie then to Chuck.
Chuck Vance sounds like a crappy pitcher, doesn't it?
Well, for how fast and lively Chuck threw, others must have thought so as well.
Long before Scully, he was thought of as 'dazzling' and the dazzling turned Chuck from Chuck to Dazzy.

But Dazzy Vance had problems. If he pitched three or four games in a week, his arm started hurting.
When his arm felt good, he truly was dazzling.
He reached the Big Leagues when he was 24, but his arm hurt and he ended his season without winning a game.
He pitched in the minors and had the same problems.
Three years later at 27, he got another chance at the top level, but it was short-lived and again his arm was hurting.

Then, poker changed his life.
No, Vance wasn't a great poker player and he didn't win a big pot.
Something better happened. A bad incident at the table made for good fortune for Vance's career as a pitcher.
Vance won a pot, but in his exuberance to rake in the money on the table, he banged his elbow on the table.
The pain was intense. He left the game and went home.
The next morning he woke up to even worse pain.
He went to the doctor.
The doctor discovered the problem and fixed it.
It was not known what that doctor did to Vance's arm, but whatever it was changed Dazzy's life.
He threw harder and there was no pain afterwards.
He marveled that he could throw as long and hard as he wanted.

The results manifested themselves on the field and soon, Dazzy Vance was the best pitcher in the minor leagues.
The problem for Vance was that no Major League club was buying into Vance being a good pitcher again.
Vance was already over 30 years of age and had had two tries at the top level and never looked good.
He looked doomed to be a career minor leaguer.
Then, fate stepped in again.

The Dodgers were looking for a Catcher.
They wanted Hank DeBerry. DeBerry was thought to be the best catcher in the minor leagues and the Dodgers wanted him badly.
The owner of the Dodgers, Charles Ebbets, sent a scout to New Orleans to scout DeBerry and sign him away from New Orleans in a trade.
Minor league teams liked to see trade offers from Major League teams. It usually meant more money in their coffers and they also liked to see their players make the Big leagues.
New Orleans stunned the Dodgers by only agreeing to a trade involving DeBerry, if Dazzy Vance was taken too.
The Dodgers balked.
They had seen Vance and they were not impressed.
Ebbets told the scout to say no.
New Orleans responded, "No Vance, no DeBerry."
Ebbets told the scout to just say no.
But the scout called back.
He had talked to DeBerry and DeBerry had told him the same thing. That HE would not go to Brooklyn, if Vance didn't go to.
DeBerry had reasoned with the scout that Vance had made him the catcher he was. That his fastball was truly the best and that he was a better all around catcher because Vance had made it easier on him to focus on offense as well as catching.
The Dodgers gave in.

After 133 minor league wins, Dazzy Vance, at the age of 31, was finally going to give his 'new arm' a try at the big league level.
And apropos, DeBerry became the first 'personal catcher' in baseball.
Vance took the National League by storm.
In 1922, he won 18 games and finished third in the league in strike outs.
From 1923-28, Vance would do what no National League pitcher has done before or since.
He led the league in strike outs seven straight years.
In 1924, Vance won the pitchers triple crown. 28 Wins, 262 K's, 2.16 ERA.
He bested Walter Johnson and teammate Burleigh Grimes for that mythical crown.

Grimes and Vance were complete opposites.
Vance was outgoing and full pf party life.
Grimes was dour. Pitching was a business.
But, there was one time when Vance got Grimes involved in a prank that would be talked about by the other teams in baseball for a long time....
The Dodgers were on a train to Boston to play the Braves.
The Braves, themselves, were on the same train after finishing a series in Philadelphia.
Late at night, Dodger players led by Vance and including Grumpy Grimes invaded the car that Braves players were sleeping in.
First, they had cut holes in their pillow cases for eyes and they entered the compartment of the train as KU Klux Klan members.
It's a good thing nobody had a gun!
Braves players were pulled from their beds and shocked.
When the Braves catcher was discovered, he was threatened to give up the teams signals.
He did.
News of the prank traveled fast and the Braves were given grief for years.

Vance took being a prankster serious. He was a perfect fit for the 1934'Gashouse Gang', a team he would later play for, but with the Dodgers, he started the 4 for 0 club.
It was the reverse of what we know today as going 0 fer four.
Vance even drew up bylaws for the first 'clubhouse club'.
One of those rules was 'Raise Hell, but don't get caught'.
Pitcher Jesse Petty broke that rule as he was fined by the Dodgers Manager for coming in late from a party.
Worse, in Petty's mind, was that he was summarily thrown out of Vance's Club.
Petty said "I won't back down".
No wait, that was Tom Petty.
Jesse Petty hated being out of the club.
He begged teammates to intercede on his bahalf. They wouldn't.
He enlisted the help of a sports writer to draw up a meaningful plea and apology to Vance to let him back in the club.
After Vance read the trumped up apology, he told Petty to come to his hotel room.
"Did you write this?" Vance asked.
"Yes". said Petty.
"You are so full of shit!"
"First you're not smart enough to not get caught coming in late, but then you're dumb to expect me to know what these big words mean. You are out of the club for life."


Vance was also involved in the 'three men on a base' episode.
Vance was on second base with a runner on first when Babe Herman hit a long ball to center field.
The third base coach yelled at the runner behind Vance to stop and come back to third.
Vance, thinking the advice was for him, went back to third base.
Herman never stopped running.
Three men on third base.
The only player legally touching third base was Vance.
The others were tagged and declared out.

While pitching, Vance wore a shirt that was in tatters. Same shirt every game.
He called it his 'good luck shirt'.
Hitters squawked about having to see the tatters and look for the ball.
At the time, there was no rule against the tatters.
And like Gaylord Perry later, Vance was for any annoyance with hitters.
He kept that shirt as long as possible.

Vance steamrolled through the 20's and into the 30's.
From 1922-32, Vance struck out at least 100 men every year.
This, in an era where most pitchers did not reach that number.
He won at least nine games also during that same time frame.
For a pitcher who didn't start winning games in the Major Leagues till he was 31, he made up for lost time well.
Vance ended his stint at the top level with 197 Wins and over 2,000 strike outs.
He threw 29 shut outs and completed 216 games.
Once a sore armed castaway, a poker game changed his life.

After retirement, he ran a hotel for sportsmen and a hunting/fishing lodge nearby.
When driving from home one night, he was pulled over by the Highway Patrol.
"Mr Vance, there is a cameraman at your house and a little crowd, you may want to go home.
Vance took off, wondering if everything was alright.
Upon returning, he learned that he was to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Edit- one word. It's always one word
Last edited by DOUGHBOYS on Wed Oct 25, 2017 8:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
On my tombstone-
Wait! I never had the perfect draft!

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Edwards Kings
Posts: 5879
Joined: Sun Mar 14, 2004 6:00 pm
Location: Duluth, Georgia

Re: Dazzling Dazzy

Post by Edwards Kings » Wed Oct 25, 2017 4:57 am

Great story (as always Dan) and adds so much to the boards...pleasure to read.

But don't pick on Aaron! 116 at bats, 42 hits, 6 doubles, 3 triples, 7 homers, 16 RBI, 14 walks, 12 strikeouts. .362/.431/.647 OPS: 1.077 against Koufax! :D
Baseball is a slow, boring, complex, cerebral game that doesn't lend itself to histrionics. You 'take in' a baseball game, something odd to say about a football or basketball game, with the clock running and the bodies flying.
Charles Krauthammer

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