Members receive free or discounted SABR
publications, and there’s the opportunity to have your research
published in those. But you don’t have to do research t enjoy
reading the research done by others. Those over 65 and under 30
get a break on the membership rate. The full details are online
at
http://sabr.org/join.
Wolfman:
Next I see on your member's page you have been discussing
the stories and histories linked to six ex-major league ball
players. I only recognize the name of Dave Parker (and you were
waiting for some permission before you do your article on him).
Why did you pick these players to write about?
J.G.: Why I did the first bio I did is a long
story. While doing some research on the Far West League, a Class
D minor league that existed for just four years in the late
1940s and early ‘50s, I came across the story of how a man who
claimed to be former major leaguer Julian Wera was the business
manager for one of the teams in the league when he killed
himself, and his ruse was then discovered...since the real
Julian Wera was still alive. I wrote
a blog post
about it, and then quite by coincidence I received word through
a SABR member that the real Wera’s daughter would be open to
talking to someone. I then signed up to write
his biography
for the
SABR Baseball
Biography Project, which is trying to gather the
stories of every major leaguer who ever played.
The bios I’ve written since then were all done
as part of various SABR books about great teams. I wrote about
Clarence Heise
– whose major league career lasted two innings – for the book
about the 1934 Cardinals because no one else was interested. I
chose to write about
Tim Cullen
for the book about the early ‘70s A’s because he lives less than
a mile from me (but I hadn’t met him before we talked for the
bio). I wanted to contribute to the book about the 1965 Twins
and I was willing to do one of the more obscure players, so I
got
Frank Kostro.
I had done a little research on Buck Fausett for a blog post I
wrote about
the oldest
players to debut in the major leagues – Buck was
36 when he played his first game – so when I saw he was going to
be included in a book about World War II players I signed up to
write
his bio.
I was asked to write the bio of Dave Parker for the book about
the 1979 Pirates, but that one isn’t online yet and won’t be
until one year after the book was published.
Wolfman:
Can
you tell us some of the more interesting information about each
player, some special story or experience they had briefly linked
to MLB that was different or remarkable?
J.G.:
Wera spent the entire 1927 season with the Yankees – the
year Babe Ruth hit 60 homers – but he got only 42 at-bats. The
Yanks had high hopes for him but their lineup was too tough to
crack. He wound up being a meatcutter in Rochester, Minnesota,
and once when his old teammate Lou Gehrig was there being
treated at the Mayo Clinic for the disease that wound up killing
him, he went over to Julie’s store for a visit.
Heise never won a game in pro ball after the
year in which he pitched in the majors, as his arm went bad. One
year when he was still in the minors the Cardinals asked him to
drive the team owner’s car to spring training for him! Cullen
decided to stop playing when he was 30 because he was doing well
as a stockbroker in the offseason and decided that was a more
stable lifestyle. Kostro showed a lot of promise as a hitter in
the minors but couldn’t find a position he could field
adequately. Even though he was hurt at the end of his major
league career, a team in Japan signed him; he wasn’t able to
play much for them but he really appreciated the way he was
treated there.
Fausett had a long and very successful career in
the minors. He turned down a chance to go to the Philadelphia
A’s when he was younger because he would have lost the offseason
job he had...he was making more money in the minors between
baseball and that winter job than he would have made with the
A’s! He was an infielder but later in his career did a little
pitching; in his last major league game he was used on the mound
as a mop-up man and wound up being relieved by a 15-year-old,
Joe Nuxhall.
When Dave Parker came out of high school he was
a 14th -round draft pick; one of his high school teammates was a
second-round pick but never made it to the majors. When Parker
was still with the Pirates he signed what was widely touted as
the first "million-dollar-a-year" contract...it wasn’t, as he
never received close to a million dollars in any one year, most
of the money was deferred. But the expectations that went with
being a "million-dollar" player caused him a lot of problems.
Wolfman:
I also saw you have a wordpress blog site with a ton of
other articles and blog posts.
As I recall you have done sports writing before linked to the
Minnesota Twins, why do you like doing this type of writing?
How does your articles and reviews help others who are
interested in baseball? What pleasure do you derive from your
sharings online?
J.G.: I can’t even really put in words why I
enjoy it, but I do. I can’t even say how what I write helps
others; maybe it doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter to me one way or
another. There’s absolutely no income for me deriving from this,
I’m doing this just for my own amusement. If a topic interests
me, I go after it, and if anyone else finds it interesting, I’m
glad.
Wolfman:
Is
there any articles or features you are doing that might be
helpful in some way to a Strat Baseball Gamer? Or have you found
some other on-line baseball website that might be helpful for
our members to know about.
J.G.: I don’t think I’ve done anything that
would be much direct help to gamers, although those who want to
know more about the men whose names are on the cards will enjoy
the various SABR bios, the ones I’ve written and the many, many
others. Anyone is welcome to join the
BioProject
Facebook group where we share various bios and
talk about the biography process. Someone doing a 1976 replay
might be interested in
what I wrote
about the crazy way Ralph Houk used Mark Fidrych that year...it
was just off the wall nuts.
Wolfman:
Can you share the websites where the members can find
your articles?
J.G.: My blog posts are at
https://prestonjg.wordpress.com. I haven’t
written anything since last summer; I have a number of things I
want to work on but just haven’t have time! My writings for SABR
publications are at
http://sabr.org/author/jg-preston.
Wolfman:
Do
you have some new interesting projects coming up that our
members might find of interest?
J.G.: I really want to write something in-depth
about how the A’s used pinch-runners in the 1970s – they most of
any team ever. But I’m not going to be able to get to it for a
while.
Wolfman:
If
one of our members wanted to contact you directly with some
other questions, what is the best way to do this?
J.G.: You can email me at
jgpreston@gmail.com.
Wolfman:
Is there anything else
you wish to share with our members at this time, that I did not
ask about before in one of my earlier questions?
J.G.:
I find SABR membership rewarding if only because it
includes access to the digital archives of The Sporting News
online. That’s great reading for anyone doing a season replay,
and it’s an essential component of any baseball research. And
there’s been such an expansion of digital newspaper archives,
although there are typically fees involved, it’s a great time to
be doing baseball research.
Wolfman:
Thanks J. G. for visiting with us again and sharing your
life on-line as a baseball sports writer and analyst. You
definitely have the gift to do this!
J.G.: You’re very welcome, Wolfman.
