Talkin' Baseball (MLB Podcast) - 129 | Players Who Only Got One Game in the Bigs with Jacob Kornhauser

Episode Date: April 10, 2020

We had Jacob Kornhauser join us to talk about his book, Cup of Coffee Club, which chronicles the tales of players who only ever got one game in the big leagues. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to talking baseball. Today we are joined by a very special guest, and we're talking about one-day players. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to talking baseball. Another episode, Friday episode. Our midday episode was on Tuesday this week because that article came out, but we are going to try and do three episodes a week now,

and we're excited about that. We've been rolling out a lot of interviews with players. This is an interview with an author, but a fun and good conversation all the same. My name is John Boy, and I'm joined, as always, by my best friend, Jake Storelli, producer BBD. Also here with us. Jake, how are you doing? Doing all right, Jimmer. Jimmer for that.

You know, living that quarantine life, starting to find somewhat of a routine. Okay. just with a little bit of recording, usually a daily W-A-L-K with noodle the doodle dog. And yeah, just chewing the fat and being the kid. Yeah, that's good for you, man. I've found a good routine for myself, living that mask life. I hate the masks.

I hate the mask, but it's kind of nice. I hate it, though. Like, I don't want to go outside. I hate masks. When I was a little kid, I wouldn't do Halloween because I, my mom would try to buy me mask even when I was really little and I just ripped them off. Yep. Just foggy in your face, gross.

Like I can't. Wet in. Oh, Katie was laughing at me because I'm like, I'm sweating. She's like, it's not even hot out. I'm like, I'm wearing a mask. Oh, I'm, I am full, full tilt with you there. My mom used to try to make me wear this skeleton Halloween costume where the mask was a face pillow. And it just had holes for the.

eyes in the mouth and I was like no you're going to kill me um so yeah it's it's a really catch 22 but it's it's better to have the mask on and breathe heavy through the mask than not have the mask on and breathe scared yeah but i hate masks so much oh yeah some people are fine in them i envy that anyway we have uh an interview that we did before we got to quarantine jacob cornhouser It's a pretty cool book. You're going to hear a lot about it. We asked them about it. It's called The Cup of Coffee Club,

and it's a collection of stories about guys who played one game in Major League Baseball, work their butts off, reach their dream, played one game. There's some really good stories. We talk about a couple. We talk about some in full. Let's just throw it right to that, right? Yeah. We'll play our transition sound.

Transition zoned. Joining us now is Jacob Cornhouser, author of The Cup of Coffee Club, book about 11 players and their brush with baseball history. Jacob, how are you doing today? Thank you for joining us. Good, just chilling in quarantine, you know. Thinking about baseball. Exactly.

Daydreaming about baseball. So do you go by Jacob? Because we have another Jake on the show with us. So big Jacob. He's not even Jacob. Don't lump us, yeah. Yeah, his birth. The Jacobs and the Jakes have tried to link up throughout time, and it just hasn't worked.

So today will be another test, and we'll see where we land. But, yeah, man, quarantine times, and we were just joking beforehand, hey, hell of a time to have a baseball book, because we all need it. We all need it. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your involvement with the game of baseball or love of the game baseball? Sure. Yeah, I just like a lot of baseball writers or people who have. cover it like you guys. I grew up just loving it and kind of liking writing about a reporting on it. My background is in journalism. So wanted to do some sort of endeavor like this to be able to

report on a book, kind of a more full-fledged story to be able to tell people. And that's all I got into this book specifically. But my background is in more of the recording realm. I was going to ask like how when did this idea spark for me this feels like a baseball reference deep dive that went into a book and I mean I say that lovingly because any baseball fan loves a baseball reference deep dive I Jake and I find ourselves on there I've made some videos about just going in there and you just find these random players and that's kind of what you're doing is taking these players you had a brush with baseball history and you kind of give their full story so we're was the spark of the idea for this? Yeah, it was a couple of years ago talking with a buddy of mine who's also a huge baseball fan. We were just throwing basically ideas about cool baseball stuff back and forth. And I kind of brought up this idea, thinking of Moonlight Graham, stuff like that. And we kind of just both looked at each other.

We were like, oh, that's a good idea. We didn't know how much there was to be done on it. But like you said, kind of did a baseball reference deep dive on it. The last 50 or 60 years, there's not that many guys like that. So I started eliminating some guys. I only wanted to obviously be able to talk to guys for the book. So anyone who's passed away since kind of took them off the list. So rounded it out to a list of like 25 or so.

And obviously, narrative back down to 11 for the guys that I actually talked to for the book. I was going to ask how many there were. there's only around 25 well that's living how many total do we have a number that had and for anyone that's that it's just one game in the ammo base they could have been called up for a period of time but the actual game log one game right so how many players are there yeah so 25 was just the list that I had of like their story was interesting enough they're alive to tell their story stuff like that So in the last 50 years or so, there's only been about 150 or so. Before that, there were a lot more.

So overall, there's roughly 1,000. Damn. Yeah, that's crazy. It's a crazy sport. And I know, you know, so you've got, well, you don't realize yet is you have two demographics right here talking to you. Is Jimmy loves reading and baseball, I don't read at all, so I will need your pitch. a non-reader on why I should do this. But Jimmy was telling me before, he's like, man, this is emotional.

All the stories and stuff, blah, blah, blah. For me, I said, yeah, obviously, because maybe the saddest thing I've seen on a baseball field, and luckily it's taken care of itself since. But a prospect named Dustin Fowler, who's now on the A's, made his debut for the Yankees. And Yankees had like a big rally in the first inning. He was left on deck.

the next half inning he's in the field and he slides into the wall. He like shattered both his knees or something. Shattered his kneecap at Kamiski or whatever it's called. Yeah. And for me, I was dead. Like I had a couple buddies that cracked cheeky jokes because that's what you do with your buddies. And I was like, yo, stop. Like this dude's career, I mean, he could go down.

He could be in the book and he could be arguably the saddest story because he just missed his at bat. Like it could be all over. Luckily, he's come back up and he's played for Oakland a little bit. He was leading off the next inning. So, yeah. So I don't know, man. Like, did I'm getting emotional thinking about it. That's not even why it was, why it's.

Do you track, were you like tracking those stories? Like, did I say Dustin Fowler and you're like, oh, yeah, we had our eye on him. He was a big prospect for us. Or how did that work? Then he got another out bat. Damn it. Get out of here. Yeah, kind of in just looking at some of these guys.

I wasn't aware of their careers when they were playing. The dates range from 1958 to 2008 in the book in terms of when they debuted. But I kind of lived your experience in reporting this of just hearing, you know, some of these heartbreaking stories of these guys who, for all intents and purposes, should have had more than one game in the major leagues. But then on the flip side of it, there were a few of them that really had no business getting to the major leagues, whether it be because there was a major injury or something else that should have prevented them and probably prevented thousands of other players from rising to the major leagues.

And they did end up making it. So there were two sides of the coin where there were some heartbreaking ones where guys should have had longer major league careers. But then the other side was there were plenty of guys who really didn't seem like they probably were going to make the majors. And so having that one game was really a blessing. And for me, like, you know, I haven't read every chapter, but I've read a handful because I just wanted to get a feel of the book and the players and the stories that were telling that you told in this. And for me, when I told Jake, it's emotional. I'm not even talking about the fact that they only got one at bad or one game in the majors. Because for them, that's the high.

That's the, you know, they reached the top of Mount Everest. You're telling human stories. I don't want to give too much away, but we'll have to talk about a little bit. But like Bannister's story, Jeff Bannister, manager for the Texas Rangers, is incredible. And then the last one,

Tupman in 2008, Jake, like, all right, I told my producer this, and I know it's your story, but can you tell Jake and the listeners the relationship to him and his father? Because I cried while reading it. And it's nothing to do with the fact

that this guy, you know, only got one game in the majors or one played appearance. It's just you're sharing human stories. And I think that is the best thing because you're making the baseball player relatable and just letting people know how much is going on in their lives. So can you share the, did you share the Tubman story with his dad if you don't mind? Yeah, yeah, of course. And I appreciate that because I was kind of the goal of all of this was to make these guys relatable.

You know, the average fan feels like they could have been in their footsteps. Obviously, you know, it takes a decade or more of work to actually do it, but to be relatable was a big goal of mine. But for Tupman, his dad was like his biggest fan, one of the guys that really was, you know, always shaping his baseball upbringing. And so his dad would come to his minor league games and stuff as he was moving up. And his dad ended up passing away, unfortunately, before he ended up making his major league. really debut. So from that point on, Matt would take a hat for his most recent call-up,

you know, whatever team that he got called up by. And he would go to his dad's grave and put the hat there. And so he ended up playing his one game for the Royals. And so obviously it kind of culminates in being able to put a Royals hat. So dad, I made it to another level like that. It was just tearjerker. And I mean, if you get the book, I mean, I'm sure that you worked hard on order, or it's in chronological order. The Tubman story is the last one because it's 2008. And it is a whirlwind

of a story. It has everything you need. It's got that. It's got Jake, do you know Trey Hillman? Does that name ring a bell? Not really. He was the manager of the Royals at time. And apparently a giant asshole. Sure. And I'm sure in the unfiltered interview that you... Matt's not a huge fan

of Trey Hillman. He refused to play him. He was up for two weeks as a backup catcher and they refused give him the at-bat and the only way he got tell him the only way he got the at-bat was because do want to share this because this is amazing as well yeah yeah so he formed a relationship with a few guys playing in like winter leagues and stuff and ended up actually getting uh someone to basically he didn't incite this but privately they basically in a double-heder i think in Miami had him make heat stroke so to speak or say he was like getting simple

symptoms of heat stroke so that they would have to put Matt Tubman in. So they basically forced Hillman's hand to have to play him. It was like a day game after a night game and Hillman still refused to play him. Just a big time jerk. He's from Boston. He wants to go put on the Red Sox uniform because the next game is in Fenway, but Buck is coming back from paternity leave and he's going to back up catcher. He begs the manager, Hillman, just like let me travel with the team.

Let me put the uniform on in Boston. They don't send him down until he's, they arrive in Boston and right before the game, Hillman tells him, actually you're not dressing up and you can't even be in the dugout. Here's some tickets to the wives section. And he watched from the wife's section. And his quote is that's just kind of how the Royals operated back then. So now I hate the Royals. Sure.

I hate them. Yeah. It's just a crazy story. He's at Fenway because he, like you said, grew up in like New England, big Redsuck fan. And then, yeah, he's sitting with his best friend who was there to see him play at the stadium that they went to, you know, growing up to get to play. And I guess, you know, we've talked enough about Tubman's story that we can kind of give, you know, more tidbits about it is that that that game that he was at was the day that John Lester threw a no-hitter. Yeah. And so he watched from the stands.

He could have been one of the guys that maybe broke it up, a pinch hit appearance late, but he was watching from the stand. He did get a pinch hit appearance He got a base hit So a lot of the guys that you did write about Were successful in their one outing, right? Yeah, yeah I would say the majority of the guys in the book Were pretty successful?

Did anyone that you reached out to To talk about their one game Were they too still bitter or angry That they didn't even want to have the conversation with you And relive it all? No, I only had a couple tell me that they didn't want to be part of it. And they didn't necessarily say that it was because they were bitter.

I'm sure it played into it. Kevin Morgan, who was in the Mets front office, he got back to me and basically said he had no interest in doing it. And there were a couple other cases where I got in touch with relatives or other people related to them. And they said they didn't want to talk about it. But there was no one who overtly said, you know, I'm still mad about all this and don't want to talk to you. Yeah. Okay. That's good.

A lot of them were, like, look back at it fondly, and, you know, there's some stories that you shared that the players themselves were like, you know, I realize that this wasn't for me. You talk a lot about the mental fortitude it takes to actually grind through the minor leagues and make it. And, you know, some guys were like, man, like, that wasn't worth it. And other guys, you know, have this very different look at, like, Tubman's walk-up song was Boulevard of Broken Dreams. because that's what he said the minor leagues was. So all those tidbits you put in there, I think it's fascinating. And I was trying to,

I was having a conversation about the book with our producer here. And there was a pitcher for the Yankees last year. What was it, Adonis Rosa? Adonis Rosa, yeah. Adonis Rosa. And he was never a prospect. He's never been on anyone's list.

Somehow he got into a game. And as Yankee fans and as sports fans, you kind of see that appearance and you're kind of like laughing. Like, who the hell is this guy? Oh, yeah, remember Adonis Rosa? And I think that's fair. Like fans can have those thoughts.

But what your book does and there's a, you know, a couple other books about minor league baseball is like, for Donis Rosa, he probably cried before, probably cried after, his parents probably cried. His whole like, you know, neighborhood probably celebrated. Like these are huge, huge moments that we kind of laugh at because we know, like, you know, we judge major leaguers compared to the 10% that are amazing and not the 80% that climb a mountain just to get there. So I really like that. There's a guy, if I can ask you to share one more. I don't know if he did a full paragraph, full chapter on him.

But I thought his story was really good at the beginning. Let me find out. I wrote his name. I'm not going to, I'm going to butcher this name. Pecoric? Sorry. The 18-year-old? Pac-Chi-R.

No, John Petchorik. Pach. Yeah, there's no way. Can you share his story a little bit because it's actually fascinating? Yeah, he's kind of regarded as the best cup of coffee player of all times. time. It's a dubious honor. Yeah.

Right. And yeah, he was a young. He was a teenager still when he was with the Astros. And so he reaches base all five times. Everyone's going crazy the next season. He's, you know, the next hot thing. And then he gets injured in spring training and never gets into another major league game. So he's kind of the best example of a what if story in terms of he basically did as well as

you could in one game and just never got back. Yeah, three hits, two walks, right? Yeah, two walks and three base hits. And I think what my mind is circling on when Jimmy mentioned it before is that a lot of people look back at this fondly because it's, you know, a special day in their life. They played Major League Baseball. That's what, you know, only that group of 20,000 people can say, you know, in history, in the history of the world. I was wondering was there relationships because there's a lot of these guys

that never got that one day in the history of minor league baseball that maybe deserved over some of these guys was there any conversation about that or was there any research on your end with any of those other Crash Davis types or anything like that? Nothing where there was a direct one-to-one comparison

within the organization. One of the things in the opening chapter I wanted to establish before talking about any of the guys was kind of how timing plays into all this. And I used the example of this guy, Chase Lambin, who was in the Mets organization. He was killing it. You know, he had kind of reached his minor league peak, improving double A, AAA, back to that years. But then Jose Reyes and David Wright are debuting, and so he's blocked. he can't get any playing time. He played on the left side of the infield.

And then you compare that to a guy like Ronnie Sedanio with the Cubs. I'm a Cubs fan. I remember him playing and he had no business playing in the major leagues, really. But he got 10 seasons because basically he got an audition with the Cubs, was seen in a major league uniform, essentially. And so he got more playing time. So I think the overarching idea of the fact that timing plays such a big role was the bigger takeaway than like direct one-to-one organizational comparison.

Yeah, being blocked, you know, if you're behind Trout, if you're behind Jeter, you know, the Yankees didn't have any short stops come up for 20 years. And there's, you know, that one guy sued the Yankees because of that. But he is a bit of a crazy person. And do we see, and I don't know if trending is the right word for any of this, but I feel like baseball is at a weird spot right now with service time and veterans where and just the way that the roster is used that, you know, we've started watching old games, and it was like a bench player is a bench player.

And now baseball doesn't really work like that. Everyone's kind of got their role on their team. You're either you platoon or you, you know, you do something on the team where back in the day it was like, here's our nine, these guys are on the bench where, you know, Yankees history, I look at someone like Ronald Torres, who is well-liked and could play every infield position that, you know, back on those 90s teams, maybe he was a Louis Soho that was just there. And, like, Luis Soho is never fighting for at-bats. Where nowadays, between the money veterans make and, you know, just giving young guys opportunities and having a bigger role on the team, like, do we think that, do you think there's more cup of coffee clubs coming or less?

Or does it not even work like that? That's a good question. Thank you. I think that maybe there might be more if for no other reason than the expanded rosters in terms of, of being able to call a guy up, send it back down. If it's a guy that is a fringe player, which obviously all the type of coffee club players are by definition, maybe they get a chance that they wouldn't otherwise.

And in September, there's more guys that maybe get a chance that never get back. But I don't know. I don't think there will be a tremendous amount more. There's been an average about three per year for the last 50 years or so. I'd say it'd probably stay around that. Yeah, at first I thought it was going to be more because the shuttle they run with the relief pitchers now is just crazy.

But they're also dropping the September callups to just 28, which that's going to lessen it a little bit. There was your Cubs fan, and this is a name that I think I should know, but I'm blanking on it. The Cubs fan. Greenbird. Yeah, they signed a one-day contract so he could come back, right? He got hit in the head.

Yeah. he played with the Marlin and actually got the play. So he, and I think he went like Oprah for in his one game. The other great thing I think that, you know, from the stories I read that you highlight is the behind the scenes and the money. Like when Jeff Bannister finally got called up, he signed his one day contract for like 97 grand. And this was in 81 or something like that. And you just, there's so much that. goes into a call-up besides just getting to pitch.

You know, you think about, you know, obviously you have your story and your day-to-day and Bannister showed up so early to the clubhouse. It's security I had to let him in and all that. And the Bannister story is insane, but I already kind of ruined a whole chapter for you or gave out the details of a whole chapter, so I won't go too deep into it. But I was like, holy smokes. I know the name. I didn't know all that.

So go read that one. His story's crazy. Yeah. Is there anything you'd like to tell us about the book? Or do you want Jimmy just to sneakily add his chapters? I think an interesting thing is kind of the last chapter, so to speak, that just has a lot of stories of guys who aren't around anymore. But whose stories I thought were interesting enough and important enough to add.

So there's one that's just kind of a comedy of errors of the 1912 Tigers stemming from Ty Cobb, getting suspended, had a bunch of replacement players having to play for the the Tigers. And then there's two World War II era guys, one of whom pitched on one leg, and one of whom was killed in action in World War II. And he was actually one of only two major league players who was killed in World War II. Wow. So all three of those stories, they range in motions. There's one like super uplifting story, one super kind of depressing but inspiring story. There's one, the top cob one, is just

hilarious because it's just one of those old-time baseball stories that you can't help laughing at while you're reading about it. You got baseball covered right there. Is Eddie Goodell considered a cup of coffee player? Do you guys familiar? Yeah, he's on the website, bro. Yeah, okay.

I'm a website guy. There's a website. You got a website for the book? Sorry. There's a website for the book? Oh, yeah. Baseballcoffeeclub.com. It's basically just supplementary little snippet stories. Okay. Of one game players.

So basically what you expect from like a normal little article rather than kind of these long form stories. Do you want to share like Eddie Goodell's story? If there's a listener that doesn't know it, I feel like they need to know that story. Yeah. So. And I have the Bill Beck autobiography sitting on my shelf. and he was a crazy kind of pioneer of promotions and different stuff. And so he wanted to run a promotion where he basically had a small person back for the team.

And so I guess there was this guy Eddie Goodell, who was sort of this performer. And he was, I believe, three foot eight, something along those lines. Three foot seven. Short Kings represent. And so yeah, they had him bat and they made him number one eighth because of his size. Times a different. And of course, he drew a walk. And I believe that they outlawed him signing long term or something like that because they wanted him to just draw walks all the time.

I don't know how they actually did that, but this was a long time ago. And basically this like this event like spiraled his life sort of. out of control in almost like a depressing way, but it's a really, really weird example of one game players. Yeah, I just brushed up on the end of his story, and it's really sad, so we'll just get off that one.

But the first half of the story is funny and wild. I mean, I think it's a very interesting book. I'm a big fan of baseball in the minor league journey, so I'm enjoying reading it. And like I said, it's actually all of the story, before they get to the majors.

That's the more interesting part for me because what you did is you found interesting stories and the path. So I think you did a really good job. I'm enjoying reading it. So thanks for sending it over. And thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. Absolutely.

I appreciate you having me on guys. Any Cubs takes this year? Jimmy's kind of high on the Cubs. Any Cubs takes? Yeah. Well, when it was going to be a 162 game season, it was going to be fun to watch them win like 84, 85 games. Yep.

So I don't know. The L. Central is not very good, but I think the Reds are probably the team to beat. They don't have much experience, but their roster is the best. So I put them as, like, a slight favorite. That division in short and season is madness. It can be awesome. It can be chaos. Basically a roulette table.

Don't even. All right. Thank you, man. We appreciate it. Thank you guys. All right. That was that. Thank Jacob for coming on.

If you're interested in the book, pick it up. Tell him you picked it up. Tell him you enjoyed the internet. I enjoyed the book a lot. I read more chapters since that interview. They're really, they're like short little mini stories about players. Jeff Bannister's story,

we didn't do a deep dive in it because I kind of gave away that entire chapter for him. So I didn't want to give away another entire chapter. Jeff Bannister's story is amazing. I still have some more to read. I'm like doing it like one at a time and then I go back to my other book. But they're really good. I mean, it's really interesting. And I gave it a lot of,

a lot of love during the interview. you, but it's good. Yeah. You basically write it now, Jake. It's tough because I'm not a reader. It's not something I do. But that was kind of the angle I played. And I mean, the one line that'll stick out.

And if anyone ever references that book to me, it'll be, I forget if it was Bannister or if it was someone else who said, someone asked them if it was worth it. And they were like, it was worth it for me. Like, it probably wasn't worth it to 99.99. 9, 99% of the rest of the population, but is worth it to me. And that shows a true baseball sicko.

It is disgusting. All right. That ends this. We hope you have a great weekend. I hope quarantine life is treating you well. Have some more interviews for you coming up next week. Hopefully there's some more news. Hopefully it's not ridiculous news stories like we heard before.

But we wish you all. Well, we love you. And we will see you on Monday. How about that? Thank you.