Last week the Baseball Card Bandit (BCB) threw me a changeup and sent me this card:
If baseball--and all sports--are to continue into the future, there is going to come a time when all of the sports heroes that we loved and worshiped are going to be nothing but a collection of random letters that mean nothing to futuristic people. It's weird but it happens now.
As I've said dozens of times, one of the best things about baseball is that games are played every single day. You don't have to wait until Saturday like in football, Sunday like in other football, or get a few games a week like in hockey or hoops. Day-in, day-out with baseball you're probably getting a game--maybe two if you're lucky.
In that way, you start to "know" the players. For some guys if you passed them on the street you'd be able to recognize their faces but at the very least you know their names. Like if I said "Trevor Story" you'd say, "Oh yeah, he's the guy who plays shortstop for the Sox when he isn't hurt."
The point is, you know their names, they take up space in your brain. But brains are funny things, once you don't see someone every day you might forget who they are--no matter if you saw them every day for three seasons. This blog is littered with guys that fit that description. The one exception are our stars, you might not have thought about Wade Boggs in a long time, but you know who he is. You know what he looks like. You probably even know most of his statistics--even in a vague sort of way. Stars never dim.
But they do. At some point in the future, there's going to be a person who loves baseball but isn't familar with Boggs. Or Jim Rice. Or Roger Clemens. Or Pedro Martinez. Or David Ortiz. Or Manny Ramirez. Those are going to be funny sounding names from long ago. Their stars are going to take precedent in their skies.
That's the way life goes.
Which brings us to today's card of Sherry Magee. I'm a member of the Boston Braves Historical Association and I'm embarrassed to say that while I've heard of Magee's name (it's hard to forget a dude named "Sherry"), I don't know much about him. According to the biography on the back of this card, Magee was the Philadelphia Phillies leftfielder for 11 seasons, before coming to the Braves in 1915*, played two-and-a-half seasons before finishing his career in Cincinnati in 1919.
* I was going to say that it sucks for Magee that he came to the Braves a year too late to be on the 1914 Miracle Braves squad. But he made up for it by playing two games in the 1919 World Series and winning a ring with the Reds in his last year. If the 1919 World Series is familiar to you, that's because that was the Black Sox Series. I guess Magee was happy that these rubes sold out to gamblers to fuck owner Charlie Comiskey over. He should send a cigar to the Old Roman--though maybe Magee and Commie aren't in the same place now.
Anyway once he was done with playing baseball he became a big league umpire in 1928. According to this card*, Magee could have had a long career in blue but he died of pneumonia the next season.
* Look at this card, he was in his early 30s when this picture was taken. That face looks like it's seen some shit, doesn't it? Why does every old picture seem that way. No one looks rested or relaxed or healthy. They look like they all came out of a mine somewhere and are seeing daylight for the first time since they were nine. Are we going to look like that to future generations? I bet the answer is yes.
The question on the card says, "Why Not in the Hall of Fame?" and I can't tell you why. He lead the league in a bunch of hitting categories but not a ton. He looks like one of those Hall of Really Good dudes that you read about. My guess is that once the Hall got up and running, Magee was just one of those players who got lost in the shuffle. Maybe if he started his playing career ten years later and lasted a little longer as an umpire, he'd have gotten the call. But he didn't and he's forgotten to history.
Well at least until weirdos find his card and send them to unsuspecting, good looking people like me. Pour one out tonight for Sherry Magee, his name might suck (it's short for Sherwood, I think that I'd rather be called that) but his career was decent. And like I said, that's about all you can hope for when you shuffle off this mortal coil.
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