Well, if you guys would give up your right arm, you could be Pete Gray. One year with the Browns at the age of 30; and, for the Brownies, not so bad....gotta love Veeck!

Jim Delsing, H3. Pretty good hitting OFer, for the time. Oddly enough, my parents' other friend in the Bigs, Clint Hartung, is also a trivia question answer, as he pinch ran when Mueller broke his ankle sliding into third and was then the first one to score when Bobby Thompson hit the Shot Heard Round The World.

Sometimes discussed at length at AAABA Tournament in Johnstown PA in years gone past:

The candidates for the worst of the worst:
Frank Emmer
Steve Kiefer
Fred Buelow
Bill Bergen
Jack Nabors
Aloysius Trvers
John Gochnaur

Conclusion
Goch is the worst major league performer ever.

Few have been worse with the bat,
fewer worse in the field,
but none combined the two-way futility quite the way Goch did.

An 11-at-bat cup of coffee with Brooklyn in 1901.
In 1902 with Indians,
-batted .185 over 459 at-bats
-with 48 errors.

In 1903, hit .185 (438 at-bats)
- dubious A.L. record of 98 errors
- porous fielding percentage of .869,
worst major league season ever.

One bright moment, if you can say this, Goch was "sadly consistent."

Ending a two-plus-year major league career with
- .187 batting average,
- .258 on-base percentage
- .240 slugging mark in 908 at-bats.
- 264 major league games at SS
- committed 146 errors,
- one official miscue every 1.8 games.
- career fielding percentage of .901 (league avg .921).

- averaged 5.05 chances per nine innings, well below the league average of 5.44.

Goch was five-foot-nine, 160-pound
+ arm yet very wild.

-Suffered a broken finger during a August 5, 1902 game, vying to snare a line drive

- A month later, on September 10, Gochnaur made five errors in a DH
- a dubious AL record.

After compiling the league's worst range factor (total chances divided by games played) among regular shortstops in 1902, Gochnaur's awful 1903 performance dipped to a low no other major leaguer has ever sunk to.

In 1904, Goch returned to Altoona to play in the Tri-Sate League before PCL

After his playing days, Goch umpired in
- Middle Atlantic League,
- NY Pennsylvania League,
- International League,
- Central, Three I, and Kitty circuits.

A popular man and a friend to many.
Asisting hundreds of Altoona players.

Held jobs as
- a bartender,
- city police officer
- Penn railroad policeman.

Gochnaur died of pneumonia at young age 53
in 1929 at Altoona Hospital.

A life-long baseball bachelor leaving
- six siblings,
- nephews and nieces,
- appreciative baseball players and citizens
- and a woeful major league ledger.

Yet after all is said and done, Goch was and remains a big leaguer. Something no one can take away.



----------------------

It will be hard to beat that one!

Maybe it's just me then, but I would never want to be mentioned in the context of a discussion like this one.

quote:

Originally posted by Holden Caulfield:
It will be hard to beat that one!

Maybe it's just me then, but I would never want to be mentioned in the context of a discussion like this one.

Not exactly the same, but I liken it to Tennyson who said it best.

'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all

Teddy Roosevelt might have said it even better:

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Now that I've completely repudiated myself, I'll leave this one to the rest of you.

Not exactly an answer to my original question, but has anyone had a worse track record in big games lately than Brad Lidge?

quote:

Originally posted by Holden Caulfield:
Teddy Roosevelt might have said it even better:

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best knows achievement and who at the worst if he fails at least fails while daring greatly so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."

Now that I've completely repudiated myself, I'll leave this one to the rest of you.

You're right. That is better.