Memorable Teams and Players
Two Hornet teams are remembered for their proficiency. The 1931 team won 100 games and lost 37 with a winning percentage of .730. The club was managed by 33-year old player/manager Oceola Guy Lacy of Cleveland, Tenn., whose playing career spanned a quarter-century, 1916-1941. The Hornets finished 13 1/2 games ahead of the second place Raleigh, which was beaten four games to two in the championship series. The team had several .300 hitters, including Frank "What-A-Man" Packard (.366 with 21 home runs and 123 RBIs); Vern Brandes (.335 with 144 RBIs and a league high 44 stolen bases) and George Rhinehardt (.325). Jimmy Hudgens batted (.290) and was the only one of the group to play in the major leagues. The team's top pitcher was right-hander Charles "Struttin' Bud" Shaney, who led the league with a 24-10 record. Shaney never played in the majors, but won 230 games during his lengthy minor league career. In 1954 at age 54 he played in his annual Tri-State Leaguye game with the Asheville Tourists and was still good enough to pitch five innings of four-hit shutout ball for a victory.
In 1951 the Hornets also won 100 games, while losing 40 with a .714 winning percentage record. The team took first place in the league on May 15 and remained there for the rest of the season, finishing 15 games ahead of Asheville. However, Charlotte was eliminated in the opening round of the league playoffs, losing three games to one to Spartanburg, which had finished 27 games behind the Hornets in regular league play. The Hornets were managed by 27-year-old Cal Ermer, who also hit. 297 and led the league's second basemen in fielding (.971) in his last season as an active player. Later he served for nearly two years (1967 and 1968) as manager of the Minnesota Twin.
The Hornets' Francisco "Frank" Campos led the league in batting (.368) with only 20 strike outs in 566 plate appearances. Catcher Bob Oldis and outfield Bruce Barmes also were standouts. Oldis played parts of seven seasons in the Major Leagues as a catcher, and later was a longtime MLB coach and scout.
A host of major league stars played for the Charlotte Hornets including Van Lingle Mungo (1929), Early Wynn (1939), Harmon Killebrew (1956), Tony Oliva (1962) and Graig Nettles (1967). Another player, Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, appeared as a right fielder in a single major league game on June 29, 1905, but he never had an at bat, nor a fielding play. His unusual story came to the attention of author W. P. Kinsella and was popularized by his novel Shoeless Joe and the subsequent 1988 film Field of Dreams. Graham's character was played by Burt Lancaster and Frank Whaley as older and younger Graham.
In 2001 as part of the 200th anniversary celebration of Minor League Baseball, Bill Weiss and Marshall Write, two veteran chroniclers of minor league teams, researched and rated the best Minor League teams of the Twentieth Century. The 1951 Charlotte Hornets ranked 36th and the 1931 Hornets 56th.
Read more about this topic: Charlotte Hornets (baseball)
Famous quotes containing the words memorable, teams and/or players:
“Yet poetry, though the last and finest result, is a natural fruit. As naturally as the oak bears an acorn, and the vine a gourd, man bears a poem, either spoken or done. It is the chief and most memorable success, for history is but a prose narrative of poetic deeds.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not “studying a profession,” for he does not postpone his life, but lives already.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I do not like football, which I think of as a game in which two tractors approach each other from opposite directions and collide. Besides, I have contempt for a game in which players have to wear so much equipment. Men play basketball in their underwear, which seems just right to me.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)