RIP Whitey Herzog

[rasputin]

He was one of the most innovative people in baseball, and will be missed.

[DU82]

Adding here instead of a separate thread - there have been too many deaths of notable baseball players in the past week or so:

Jerry Grote, premier defensive catcher of the late ‘60s-early ‘70s, mostly with the Mets (including 1969.). Johnny Bench once said of him that if Grote had been with the Reds when Bench came up, he’s have been a third baseman.

Ken Holtzman, pitcher with mostly with the Cubs, A’s and Yankees, pitching two no-hitters with the Cubs, and winning four WS championships (3 with A’s, one with Yankees.)

Fritz Peterson, pitcher with the Yankees in the 60’s=70’s, more famous for his “wife trade” with Mike Kekich in 1973.

And today, Carl Erskine, the last of the “Boys of Summer”, the ‘50s Brooklyn Dodgers made famous by the 1972 book by Roger Kahn.

(I’ll also add Pat Zachary, the pitcher who was one of the four players traded by the Reds to the Mets in ‘77 for Tom Seaver. Zachary had the added pressure of directly replacing Seaver in the Mets’ rotation.)