The Crane Pool Forum

Nate Colbert, the first great Padre, 76.

https://www.mlb.com/news/nate-colbert-dies

Nate Colbert was the star on my first Strat o matic play by mail team

Pony Express League, right?

Nate Colbert was once the answer to a trivia question about which player had the highest percentage of his team's RBIs in one season.
Not sure if he still holds that distinction.
IIRC, it was paired with the same question about the pitcher with the highest pct of his team's wins - which was, of course, Steve Carlton
I don't remember the format but I do remember guessing both correctly.

Awesome 1970s reliever Bill Campbell, 74.

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/01/ ... -away.html

Won 17 games in '76 and 13 more in '77, all out of the pen.

The great A’s and Brewers third baseman Sal Bando, 78.

The 1978 Brewers are a random favorite team of mine, and Sal knocked in 72 runs for them. He might have deserved more Hall of Fame support than he got, considering the number of MVP votes he accumulated.

Along with Rick Monday, he was one of the early stars out of Arizona State, where they played alongside Duffy Dyer.

Salvatore Leonard Bando, b. Cleveland, OH
From 1968 - 1978, never played fewer than 148 games in a season.

Gary Peters, outstanding hitting AL pitcher, 85.

https://chicago.suntimes.com/white-sox/ ... dies-at-85

John Adams, who banged the drum persistently from the bleachers in Cleveland long and loud enough to qualify as a local institution, 71.

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/355 ... ms-dies-71

Nationals owner Ted Lerner - 97

NBC news.com saying Former Mets minor league pitcher Matt Pobereyko - 31
Longtime minor league pitcher Matt Pobereyko, who had recently become a top hurler in Mexico, died suddenly near Chicago, officials and shocked loved ones said Monday.
Pobereyko was 31.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-mets- ... 03459.html
Later

Dan McGinn, the reliever who homered off Tom Seaver in the Expos' first game, 79.

Brooklyn's own Joe Pepitone, 82.

My brother was invited to a luxury box in YSII. Pepitone was apparently employed as a guy whose job it was to go from box to box and schmooze. My brother didn't know that, and answered a knock on the box door with, "Can I help you?" to the leisure-suited bewigged guy on the other side of the door.

"Can yoo help me? Eggscyoose me?" he answered before the regulars in the box all turned around with "Hey, Joey Pep! C'mon in!" sparing my brother and the dubious legend of Joe Pepitone any further embarrassment.

"Hey, Joe, what's up with ... " said one of the regular box denizens before they all finished his sentence with "... Hideki Irabu?!"

"I dunno," replied Joe. "I could never figure Japan out."

Edgy’s brother the exception that proved the rule that you always knew when Joe walked into a room.

My Pepitone story:
One year during high school, I was a counsellor at a summer camp. One of the six-year-old boys asked me if I thought Joe Pepitone was going to be in the Hall of Fame. I told him that since he had hit under .250 in his only year in the majors, he had a long way to go.
Thinking back, I should have tried to turn that MY fan-to-be away from the dark side to the Mets.

Later

Michael Lerner, who portrayed Arnold Rothstein in Eight Men Out (and acted in oodles.of movies besides), 81. I briefly worked with his niece.

https://variety.com/2023/film/obituarie ... 235577894/

Dick Groat, 1960 NL MVP, 92.

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pir ... 1703210157

G-Fafif wrote: ↑Thu Apr 27, 2023 10:52 am Dick Groat, 1960 NL MVP, 92.

https://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pir ... 1703210157

My friend and I rooted for that 1960 club after our team left Brooklyn. We'd listen to them on KDKA on the big radio in my friend's house. Many of the players had colorful nicknames (Arriba, Dog, Deacon, Quail, Dr. Strangeglove) but Groat didn't have one.
RIP

Later

Also a couple dozen games in the 1952-3 season for the NBA's Fort Wayne Pistons

Pretty cool that the 1960s Pirates had Hoak and Groat playing next to each other in the infield.

Also cool to recall that the Pistons seems like such a Detroit name, referencing the local auto industry, but they actually inherited that name from Fort Wayne.

Additionally cool to recall that the Ft. Wayne Pistons had a logo of a clunky, Chuck Taylor-rocking robot whose limbs were seemingly made out of paint cans, with an oil drum for a torso. Sometimes he looked fun, and other times, he looked evil.

They're cylinder heads (the top of the piston in an engine), not paint cans.

Later