Wally Schang

When I stumbled upon the fact that 42-year old Wally Schang had played out the string in the single-A Texas League I was amazed. I was also a bit saddened. Then I was heartened.

Wally Schang is perhaps only dimly remembered today, by avid baseball historians and his descendants, if there are any. And that's a shame. Schang, if not a Hall of Fame catcher, is probably better than many players who are in the Hall. First and foremost, he was a consistent winner. He played on World Series teams in Philadelphia (1913-14 Athletics), Boston (1918 Red Sox), New York (1921,1922, 1923 Yankees), and back in Philadelphia (1930 Athletics) again. Granted, the 1930 Athletics probably would have won with or without Wally... they had another pretty good catcher named Mickey Cochrane. But the point is, winning baseball and Wally Schang seemed to meet up time and time again... too often and in too many different settings to be a mere coincidence. Wally, who hailed from South Wales, New York, played 1842 major league games in a 19 year major league career, mostly as a catcher. He hit .284 lifetime with six .300 seasons including four straight years (1919-22). Schang also had an outstanding lifetime On Base Percentage of .393. He handled Hall of Famers such as Eddie Plank, Herb Pennock, Waite Hoyt, and a young southpaw named George Ruth with the 1918 World Champion Red Sox.

And apparently, when the major leagues were finished with Wally Schang, Wally refused to let go of baseball entirely. He began a long descent through the minors, as lots of ex-major leaguers did in those days. As mentioned in an earlier article, Schang teamed with George Sisler and fellow ex-Yankee Aaron Ward on the 1932 Shreveport/Tyler team in the Texas League. This was single-A ball. Single-A is now the lowest rung on the baseball ladder, but it wasn't back then. And alas, Wally went lower, finding himself on the Joplin Miners in 1934. Joplin was a Class C team, belonged to the Western Association, and was affiliated with his old team, the Boston Red Sox. If any of you recognize the name Joplin, it is probably because it also would later have on its roster an 18-year old Oklahoman named Mickey Mantle.

Wally continued to play parts of seasons until he was in his fifties, at classifications between A and D. As I said at the top, at first I was a bit saddened at the thought of a great catcher hanging on. But then I got to thinking... maybe he wasn't hanging on at all. Maybe , as Bill James said about old-time minor leaguers, he was just playing baseball. And what's wrong with that? What's wrong with a man playing the game he loves, simply for the love of playing? A few years back, Hall-of-Famer and all-time base thief Rickey Henderson was caught playing baseball with the San Diego Surf Dogs, an independent team. He was well into his forties. Newspaper articles lamented the great Rickey, humbled and hanging on. And Rickey was probably having the time of his life, playing in games that no one but his team cared about, the way we all did as kids when you chose up sides and played till it got dark.

I wish the minor leagues were like they used to be... taking in ex-major leaguers and all-time greats and mixing them with up-and-comers like Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams and the DiMaggio brothers. Wouldn't it be great to see a 44 year old Albert Pujols lining hits into the Missouri twilight during the twilight of his career? And perhaps mentoring a future star or two in the process? I'll bet in the old days the George Sislers, Wally Schangs and Aaron Wards acted as unofficial coaches toward the youngsters. And I venture to guess that some of those old-timers enjoyed that aspect of their careers as much as any.

I know I would. If I could.