Hall Jr. Nominee: The Hero

Posted: February 6th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 34 Comments »

Duane Kuiper
Player
Reason not in the Hall of Fame: Clueless voters.

32549.jpg

I’m probably breaking some sort of copyright laws by copying this photo from this site but I can’t help it — this is too good.

That on the left is, of course, the hero of this blog Duane Kuiper. In the center, that’s another hero, former Cleveland Browns offensive line great Doug Dieken. And off to the right, that’s a THIRD hero of this site, the absolutely beautiful Dave Garcia. He’s one of the all-time classics in baseball history.

And they were there to celebrate … Duane Kuiper’s one home run.

The words on the plaque say:

Duane Kuiper

First Major League Home Run

8 -29 – 77

Off Steve Stone, Baltimore Orioles*

* * *

Cleveland Stadium

*I was so busy using all sorts of photo enhancement tricks to to figure out exactly what it said on the plaque that I did not even notice their error — Duane did hit the homer off Steve Stone but he was pitching for the Chicago White Sox not the Orioles. It seems like they should have gotten that right. Kudos to several brilliant readers for the catch.

That seat, according to the Cleveland Memory Project, was dedicated in 1982. I love how they call it his “first” home run. There was still hope he might hit a second. Duane played three more years. But he never did hit that second homer.

Much appreciation to brilliant reader Vince for passing this along.

34 Comments on “Hall Jr. Nominee: The Hero”

  1. 1: Terry said at 5:53 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    I urge all Brewers fans who read this to raise a glass and toast Jim Gantner and that night when he took Jeff Reardon deep to win the game, his first in over 4 seasons, as Bob Uecker described.

    Here’s to your Kuiper, my Gantner, heroes both.

  2. 2: Devon Young said at 5:58 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Makes me wonder how many hits he got that found the warning track. All these years, and I never realized he ended his career with just 1 HR. I remember having his card when I was little (‘82 Topps) because I’d never heard that name before. Any idea how many balls died on the warning track? Or if any were robbed by a leaping outfielder?

  3. 3: Devon Young said at 6:00 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    PS. and yes, it just wouldn’t be a Joe P HOF if Kuiper wasn’t in it. This is where he belongs.

  4. 4: Jeff P said at 6:14 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Well if Kuiper is in then Freddie Patek can’t be far behind.

  5. 5: mike said at 6:17 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Oh, Joe. How did it all go so wrong, so fast?

  6. 6: Clinton said at 6:30 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    AGREE 100% !!!

    Kuip was fun to watch in the last few years of his career (I remember seeing him play for the Giants in that cavern called Candlestick). He’s also great to listen to as a broadcaster, both on tv and radio.

    He goes in by my book!

  7. 7: David Wintheiser said at 6:36 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Yep, the Hall Jr. has officially ‘jumped the shark’.

    Though if we could get the shark into the Hall Jr…hmmm….

  8. 8: Mauichuck said at 8:19 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Steve Stone – isn’t he from South Euclid too?

  9. 9: Mark W. said at 9:18 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    So, why is Doug Deiken in the photo? Was he so poorly paid by the Browns that he was sitting in this same outfield chair when Duane caught hold of one?

  10. 10: Graphite said at 9:38 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    So what relation is Duane Kuiper to Alan Alda? Twin? Brother? Cousin? Went to the same barber?

  11. 11: sansho1 said at 9:48 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Okay, I just found the coolest thing. The #1 post sent me to Jim Gantner’s BBRef page, and I noticed he pitched in a game. So I looked at the boxscore, and it’s one of the nuttiest things I’ve ever seen. Here’s the Brew Crew’s pitching line for the day:

    Pitcher IP R
    Slaton 0.2 5
    Cleveland 2.1 6
    Mitchell 0 4
    Bando 3 2
    Gantner 1 0
    Martinez 1 1

    Bamberger started using position players on the mound in the FOURTH inning, and ended up sending three of them out there. None of the three ever pitched in another game. How crazy is that?

  12. 12: sansho1 said at 9:49 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Here’s a link to the game, August 29, 1979:

    http://tinyurl.com/cty6r9

  13. 13: Goetzo said at 10:27 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    “Well if Kuiper is in then Freddie Patek can’t be far behind.”

    Freddie once hit 3 HR’s in 1 GAME. He should be Duane Kuiper’s hero.

  14. 14: Spud said at 10:34 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Stone was with the White Sox in ‘77. But he is from Cleveland, and I think he once told Harry Caray that his mother went into labor with him during an Indians’ game. I don’t know if she was actually attending the game (July ‘47) at the time.

  15. 15: Blackadder said at 10:47 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    Did anyone else find it amusing that it was Kuiper, with one career home run, who called Barry Bonds’ 756?

  16. 16: KM said at 11:46 pm on February 6th, 2009:

    More Kuiper-Gantner convergence: Kuiper’s HR was on 8/29/77, exactly 2 years before the above-mentioned Gantner pitching appearance. But what I really wanted to say is that the Giants’ TV broadcast plays the clip of Kuiper’s home run every August 29, and it’s always something to see. Kuiper looks shocked/happy rounding the bases, and when he is mobbed at the plate by teammates like Buddy Bell, they all look so skinny and small in comparison to modern ballplayers. And one more thing: The attendance in Cleveland that night was 6,236.

  17. 17: Mike in Hawaii said at 12:31 am on February 7th, 2009:

    For my Hall of Fame Jr inductees I nominate the Chicago White Sox DH’s of my childhood/early adulthood:

    Harold Baines, Ivan Calderon, George Bell, Frank Thomas, Bo Jackson, Julio Franco, John Kruk, Chris Sabo, Danny Tartabull, Harold Baines, Ruben Sierra and Jose Canseco. I freely admit to using baseballreference.com to pull a couple of these names.

    Reason not in the Hall of Fame: Without Frank Thomas I don’t think all those names combined get enough votes for induction into the real HOF.

    Sure, some of them played the outfield more than they DH’d, but I just enjoy that it’s such a “who’s who” list of careers ending anonymously.

  18. 18: Nate (CA) said at 12:32 am on February 7th, 2009:

    This is way off-topic and yet still completely relevant…

    I think I may have found your new favorite infomercial. I don’t know if it’s real but I really really hope it is.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the Tiddy Bear…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw1g2yKxb0I

  19. 19: 3rd Period Points said at 1:06 am on February 7th, 2009:

    I had high hopes for Ivan Calderon. Plagued by injuries, he only had more than 300 AB’s 4 years of his career. I think it’s safe to say that, with above average health, Ivan would’ve passed Pete Incaviglia on the HR list. RIP, Sr. Calderon.

  20. 20: Eric G. said at 2:02 am on February 7th, 2009:

    Mike in hawaii

    How can you mention those Sox players and leave off Greg Luzinski?
    ‘the Bull’ had to have more HR land on or go over the roof of old Comiskey than anyone else. He also happened to win a championship with the Phillies in 1980 and sells his own sausages(or something) at Citizens Bank park now a days.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Luzinski

  21. 21: Susan R said at 8:59 am on February 7th, 2009:

    “The Bull” has “Bull’s Barbecue” at Citizen’s Bank Ballpark. It’s REALLY good!! He’s also been there signing autographs both times I went. Nice guy!

  22. 22: berkowit28 said at 1:03 pm on February 7th, 2009:

    Nate, why do you (and YouTube, for that matter) call it an “infomercial” than than a commercial – which is what it is? (I guess you’re just passing on YouTube’s description, but I’m still curious.) It’s only two minutes long…

  23. 23: Chris said at 1:36 pm on February 7th, 2009:

    Graphite,

    If memory serves me correctly, Kuiper and Alda both hail from Crabapple Cove.

  24. 24: Bret said at 2:19 pm on February 7th, 2009:

    Steve Stone has some story about how he only got a couple of warmup pitches for some reason and that’s why Kuiper hit the home run – to which Kuiper’s response is, “he warmed up enough to strike out the first batter of the game.”

    I love Kuip as an announcer, especially because he makes Krukow more tolerable. Krukow has good insights and knows the game, but can incredibly annoying – Kuiper has such an amazingly calm, deep, soothing voice.

    His brother Glen, however, has no idea how to announce games. Here’s how he once broadcasted a really nice running catch by Mark Kotsay: “Kotsay Kotsay Kotsay KOTSAY! Inning over.” That’s basically how he calls games.

  25. 25: ajnrules said at 4:25 pm on February 7th, 2009:

    So wait, once Joe finishes listing all the nominees, are we going to vote on them to see if they can get to the 75% barrier?

  26. 26: Preston said at 5:58 pm on February 7th, 2009:

    I know it’s not the appropriate format, but there’s a compelling case for John Young, founder of RBI, made here:

    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dodgerthoughts/2009/02/february-6.html

  27. 27: Mike in Hawaii said at 9:14 pm on February 7th, 2009:

    The Bull was slightly before my time, I started following the White Sox around the 1990 second place finish.

    Can’t wait to read Joe’s thoughts on A-Rod. Even though I didn’t like him as a player, at least I thought he was clean.

    Here is a partial list of your MVPs since 1996: Caminiti, Bonds, Sosa, Tejada, Juan Gone, Giambi.

    Cy Youngs: A whole lot of Roger Clemens, and Eric Gagne.

  28. 28: free rape said at 3:53 am on February 8th, 2009:

    [...] Hall Jr. Nominee: The Hero » Joe Posnanski [...]

  29. 29: Matt said at 12:14 pm on February 8th, 2009:

    Where the F did Joe’s A-Rod thing go? It was up last night at like one and now it’s gone. When I didn’t read it. WHY!

    Editor’s note: There is a reason the A-Rod post is down. I’ll fill everyone in when things are finalized. It’s not a bad thing.

  30. 30: Graphite said at 5:09 pm on February 8th, 2009:

    Chris
    Of course, Crabapple Cove. It all makes sense now.

  31. 31: Kevin U. said at 3:06 am on February 9th, 2009:

    Duane Kuiper doesn’t have near the fame (name recognition) as the following player.* After all, how many players have a metric named after them? I nominate for the Hall of Fame Jr.:

    Mario Mendoza
    Player
    Reason not in the Hall: De-emphasis of traditional statistics by modern day sabermetricians in favor of things like OPS+ and Win Shares
    Achievement: Creation of the ‘Mendoza Line’

    Although the .200 batting average existed prior to Mario, he popularized it and cemented it in the minds of fans much like Magic Johnson did the triple-double. An underrated player, his career batting average was actually a full 15 points higher than the benchmark for which he is known. Mendoza managed to play in the majors for nearly a decade, despite batting so poorly. His longevity and consistency were key to gaining namesake status for his hitting (or lack thereof.) He also made the post-season in 1974, and did not disappoint, fittingly going 1-for-5.

    http://www.baseball-reference.com/m/mendoma01.shtml

    *I grew up in Seattle, so I’ll respect Joe’s hometown bias for a Cleveland player if he respects mine for a former Mariner. :)

  32. 32: Buchholz Surfer said at 12:05 pm on February 9th, 2009:

    The KC-Brewers game: 26 runs scored, many pitching changes, time of game: 2 hours, 29 minutes.

    Far fewer commercials back then of course.

    If Hargrove had played in it, it would have taken 15 minutes longer. Now it seems like every hitter takes as long as Hargrove used to.

  33. 33: David in NYC said at 1:21 pm on February 9th, 2009:

    Speaking of Mike “The Human Rain Delay” Hargrove reminded me of one of my favorite hypothetical situations:

    Mike Hargrove is batting, Carlton Fisk is the catcher, and Sid Fernandez is the pitcher.

    What’s the over/under on the time of this at bat? I say at least 30 minutes.

  34. 34: Vern Morrison said at 12:47 pm on February 10th, 2009:

    Joe,

    I work for the Cleveland State University Library, which administers the Cleveland Memory Project.

    The photo in question was taken for the Cleveland Press by Paul Tepley. The Press ceased publication after the issue of June 17, 1982. A year or two later, the editorial library of the Press–approximately one million clippings and about 500,000 photographs–was donated to the CSU Library. We have digitized approximately 25,000 of these photographs, and have put low-res versions of them online.

    We don’t purport to own copyright of the Press images, but we allow reproduction of them for “purposes of research, scholarship, teaching, news reporting, criticism, or comment.” Surely your use of this photo meets at least one of these criteria, so it’s more than OK with us that you put on your blog.

    You ought to have at least thrown us a link, though. Since you didn’t, allow me:

    http://www.clevelandmemory.org

    There’s a “find images” box in the upper right. Feel free to browse around. I think we have all of the Press photos of the Cleveland Indians, Browns, and Cavaliers online.

    We offer hi-res versions of Cleveland Memory photos for a modest fee, either as digital images, 8 x 10″ reproductions, or poster-size reproductions. See

    http://www.clevelandmemory.org/reproductions/services.shtml

    for a full list of services and fees.

    Of course, there are hundreds of thousands of Press photos which are not (yet) online. People in the Cleveland area are welcome to view these photos in person at the Special Collections unit of the CSU Library. Special Collections is open from 10 AM to 5 PM Mondays through Fridays, except for most holidays.

    Thanks for letting me plug our site, and keep up the great work.

    Vern Morrison
    Digital Production Unit
    Cleveland State University Library

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