Put THAT in your Medicine Hat: 1978 Pioneer League

Jayson Stark’s “Strange But True feats of 2013” notes the August 24th 18-inning game in which Arizona’s Tuffy Gosewisch batted twice in the final frame and made outs against two different position players. The last player to do that, says Jayson, was Brian Milner, on June 26, 1978.

Now, I played a lot of Strat-O-Matic with the ’78 set, even the last-place Blue Jays; I still remember Doug Ault, Gary Woods, even Sam Ewing. But I didn’t recall Brian Milner, so I looked him up. Turns out, he’s no kin to John Milner (or his cousin, Eddie Milner), and his big-league career was gone in a heartbeat. But a few nuggets came from the search.

 

Brian Milner — a catcher, like Gosewisch — signed with Toronto out of high school and went straight to the majors. He got a hit off Rick Waits in his debut game, June 23, 1978. Then he sat for three games (one of them started by David Clyde, the ex-schoolboy phenom). Milner’s next appearance was the June 26 game mentioned above, starting at catcher against Baltimore.

His first time up, Milner stroked an RBI single, in the midst of a 9-run 2nd that sent Mike Flanagan to an early shower. He singled and scored again the next inning, off Joe Kerrigan, as the Jays ran it up to 13-2. Next inning, an RBI triple off Tippy Martinez, scoring again.

  • The triple made Milner the 2nd-youngest searchable player to have 3 hits with a triple, after Phil Cavaretta.
  • Milner’s the last player to have 3 hits, 3 runs and a triple within his first 2 career games. The other four on that searchable list are Joe DiMaggio (debut), Coaker Triplett (naturally), Willie McCovey (2 triples in his debut, never again had 2 in a game), and Chico Ruiz (more famous for other oddities).

After 4 innings, Toronto led 19-6. Earl Weaver, having seen his team swept in Boston and now humbled by the sad-sack Jays, was fed up: outfielder Larry Harlow came off the bench to pitch the 5th inning, his first time on a big-league mound. Milner bounced out, Willie Upshaw whiffed, but then Harlow lost the strike zone. Four walks and 5 runs later, it was 24-6 Jays, and time for third-string catcher Elrod Hendricks to make his debut on the slab.

  • 24 runs remains a Blue Jays record, the only time they’ve scored more than 20.
  • No team had scored 24+ since 1955.
  • The next team to score 24+ did so against Toronto, just a year later.
  • John Mayberry pinch-hit in the game, and wound up with 2 HRs, a double and 7 RBI. That tied the known record for RBI off the bench (done one other time, by Roy Sievers). Just two players ever topped 10 total bases coming off the bench: Kelly Gruber, for the Jays 10 years later; and of course, Art Shamsky. Ten total bases after entering as a PH has been matched only by Raul Ibanez, in this 2012 epic.

Anyway, Tim Johnson singled off Hendricks (yes, that Tim Johnson). So Milner, the 9th-place hitter, came up for the 5th time in the first 5 innings, and flied out.

Milner left the game during the 7th inning, ceding the gear to Alan Ashby with 2 outs, so maybe he’d gotten hurt. He was sent down to rookie ball without another appearance, and he never got back to the majors. Those two outs in one inning against two position players were the last of his 9 big-league ABs.

And now we come to the point. Milner went from Toronto to the Medicine Hat Blue Jays of the Pioneer League. Look who else played in that 1978 Pioneer League — an 8-team, short-season rookie circuit:

That’s 14 guys with significant MLB careers, including 8 All-Stars, 2 MVPs and a HOFer. Plus these lesser lights:

  • Les Straker (3 WAR, started Game 3 of the ’87 Series as a rookie and hurled 6 scoreless frames; also started Game 6 on 3 days’ rest)
  • Geno Petralli (4 WAR, 809 games, 3-time MLB leader in passed balls as personal catcher to Charlie Hough from 1987-90)
  • German Rivera (1 WAR, moved Pedro Guerrero off 3B in 1984)
  • Dann Bilardello (1 WAR, hit first career HR off Tom Seaver, managed the 2002 Pioneer League champs)
  • Skeeter Barnes (1 WAR, great name, played parts of 9 seasons, had 2 HBP in his 1983 debut, batting between Esasky and Bilardello, with Redus leading off)
  • Ed Hearn (0 WAR, traded for David Cone)
  • Dave Sax (0 WAR, debuted ’82 Dodgers for whom his younger brother won ROY)
  • John Rabb (0 WAR, 2-for-2 career vs. Tom Henke including a walk-off)
  • Steve Brown (0 WAR, called up in ’83 despite 6.15 ERA at AAA, ended year with 2 straight CG including a shutout, never won again)
  • Paul Hodgson (0 WAR, hit his only career HR off future 245-game-winner Dennis Martinez)
  • Alejandro Sanchez (-1 WAR, holds MLB season record of 6 HRs without a walk)
  • Ben Hayes (-1 WAR despite starting off with a 1.97 ERA in 46 IP as a rookie)
  • Wil Culmer (-1 WAR, the 5th Bahamian to play in the majors)
  • Carmelo Castillo (-1 WAR, 631 games; I knew I remembered something about him — his only walk-off hit beat my Tigers)
  • Tom Lawless (-2 WAR, played parts of 8 seasons, appeared in 2 World Series and hit a tiebreaking 3-run HR off Frank Viola)

Of the top 100 players in PAs in that league, 23 played in the majors. Eleven played 1,000 MLB games, six reached 1,500 games, and two topped 2,000.

I have no frame of reference, but that seems like an historic success rate for a rookie league. Since 1978, 243 guys have played 1,500+ MLB games, and 1/40 played on those eight rookie teams.

The league’s top team was the Billings Mustangs, a Reds affiliate, who went 50-18 and outscored their foes by 2.8 runs per game (7.5-4.7). Gary Redus, just a 15th-round draft pick that June, hit .462 with a 1.346 OPS, scoring 100 runs in 68 games, with 62 walks for a .559 OBP. He continued to be one of the best players at each stop, but his advancement was slow; in 1979-80 class-A leagues, he ranked 5th and 2nd in OPS, and at AAA ’82 he was 4th, always with about 50 SB and a great success rate. He didn’t reach the majors until Sept. ’82, just before his 26th birthday.

  • From 1983-87, Redus averaged 102 runs per 650 PAs — 3rd in MLB among those with 250+ runs in that span. Just a few of his runs came from pinch-running.

Six players off that Billings team would play in the majors, and seven each from the Helena Phillies and Lethbridge Dodgers.

Oh, by the way: The Phillies manager on August 24, 2013, who made those 18th-inning “pitching” changes that got Tuffy Gosewisch and Brian Milner into Jayson Stark’s column? It was Ryne Sandberg, of course, in his 9th game at the helm.

O, Pioneers! And Happy New Year, everyone!

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no statistician but
no statistician but
10 years ago

Do you think Bill James ever peeks at HHS?

He would love this post.

The Pioneer League tangent is worthy of the man himself.

Yippeeyappee
Yippeeyappee
10 years ago

It was Bill James’ championing of Redus in his Abstracts that actually inspired me to look beyond the traditional stats!

Lawrence Azrin
Lawrence Azrin
10 years ago

@10/Yippeeyappee,

That was in the 1984 BJ Abstract, the first one I ever bought. I remember the Redus article well, it also made quite an impression on me; it also helped _me_ see beyond the traditional mainstream stats.

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
10 years ago

Redus’ season in that league had him on pace for 474 total bases in a 162 game schedule.

When he finally got to AAA, he spent a whole season there, despite stealing 54 bases behind this slash:
.333 .400 .604 1.003

Got a September call-up, displacing the warm body named Eddie Milner on a 101 loss team.

Hartvig
Hartvig
10 years ago

That’s an incredible amount of talent concentrated in one place. I have watched a lot of minor or independent league baseball in my time- mostly in the Midwest League and now in the American Association- and it would be fair to say that for every visiting team that I saw play that had someone who later became a major league player that I recognized I probably saw 4 or 5 that had none. To be fair there are also probably several that I did see play but don’t remember or who maybe didn’t pitch that day or only had a… Read more »

JasonZ
10 years ago

When reading John’s post I was inspired to provide this trivia question.

What do the following players have in
common?

Tom Seaver
Graig Nettles
Rick Monday
Andy Messersmith
Bill “spaceman” Lee
Dave Kingman
Shane Mack
Mike Boddicker
Dave Winfield
Rick Monday
Barry Bonds
Jason Giambi
Bob Boone
Jim Sundberg
Alvin Davis
Michael Young
Bret Boone
Oddibe “young again” McDowell

JasonZ
10 years ago

I expect Richard Chester to be all over this like white on rice.

Although Voomo is also a serious contender as
a daily viewer of WPIX during Nettles career.

He heard the story, does he remember…?

Voomo Zanzibar
Voomo Zanzibar
10 years ago
Reply to  JasonZ

I do not remember the story.
But through the magic of google, figured out the golden answer in 0.23 seconds

And I only eat black forbidden rice.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  JasonZ

JasonZ: I’m stumped.

JasonZ
10 years ago

Very subtle Voomo.

It was something talked about repeatedly over the
years on both Mets and Yankees broadcasts. I was not recalling any one time, just a general memory of it being discussed.

JasonZ
10 years ago

Hint to Richard.

They all played for the same team.

Richard Chester
Richard Chester
10 years ago
Reply to  JasonZ

They all played for the Alaska Goldpanners of Fairbanks.

JasonZ
10 years ago

Correct Richard.

It seems this organization no longer attracts the talent they attracted in the 60s and 70s.

PaulE
PaulE
10 years ago

The Phillies managed to trade THREE 1984 MVP’s:
Sandberg. NL
Hernandez AL
Sanchez PCL

As well as not protecting George Bell (rule 5 draftee) the 1987 AL MVP……
BTW, Julio Cesar Franco was a Carolina League MVP at Spartanburg. The Phillies organization has been a primer on how to do it right and, more often, how to totally blow it up and bury the parent club.

Doug
Doug
10 years ago

Milner is also the last player with a major league debut aged 18 or younger and who never appear in the majors after his age 18 season. He is the first catcher to do that since Tom Sullivan of the 1925 Reds (Ricky Seilheimer never appeared in the majors after catching for the 1980 White Sox as a 19 year-old).

No major-leaguers hail from Medicine Hat. In 2014, the Brewers’ closer Jim Henderson, from nearby Calgary, should become the career leader in major league games among players born in Alberta.

Doug
Editor
10 years ago

Another quiz: Which independent minor league team had on its roster, in consecutive seasons, two players who appeared in major-league All-Star games separated by 40 seasons?