Bob "Tex" Nelson's career a golden example of the flawed bonus rule

Imagine signing a high school slugger for a few million dollars and the following week putting him at the plate against the likes of Justin Verlander and CC Sabathia. Bob “Tex” Nelson in 1955 did just that, debuting against Hall of Famers Early Wynn and Bob Feller right after his high school graduation. He was signed by Paul Richards as one of his hyped “bonus babies” in June of 1955. He died suddenly last week in Texas at the age of 74.

Click here to read more about Nelson's career and why it never got off the ground.

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Hideki Matsui's World Series Performance Evokes Memories of Dusty Rhodes 55 Years Earlier

Hideki Matsui earning the 2009 World Series MVP as a designated and pinch hitter drums up memories of another New York World Series hero. A year before the World Series MVP award was created, and over 20 years before the emergence of the designated hitter, James "Dusty" Rhodes terrorized the pitching of the American League champions, the Cleveland Indians. Rhodes hit a pinch-hit homer off of Bob Lemon in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series with two runners on in the 10th inning to win the game 5-2. In game 2, he had a pinch hit single off of Early Wynn in the 5th inning, and then followed it up with another homerun off of Wynn in the 7th. In game 3, he had a pinch-hit single that drove in two runs in a 6-2 Giants victory. In the 3 games he played, he was 4-6 with 2 homeruns and 7 RBI. The Giants swept the series in 4 games over the Cleveland Indians.

Matsui had a homerun, a single and 2 RBI as a pinch-hitter, and was 8-13 overall as a DH / PH en route to his award winning performance. While many remember the 1954 World Series for Willie Mays' catch of Vic Wertz's smash; if a World Series MVP had existed in 1954, it would have gone to Rhodes for his timely hitting off of the bench for the Giants. The parallel to Matsui, plays out similar in their roles of "professional hitter" for their respective teams in World Series victory.

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Book Review: Early Wynn, the Go-Go White Sox and the 1959 World Series

Early Wynn, the Go-Go White Sox and the 1959 World Series"
Lew Freedman
McFarland Publishing, 2009
223 pages


A man so tenacious on the field that he threw at his own son after he hit one back up the middle, and claimed that he would knock down his own grandmother if she dug in against him, Early Wynn was the catalyst for the Chicago White Sox 1959 World Series appearance. A rare four decade player, an aging Wynn was brought to the White Sox at the end of the 1957 season in exchange for Minnie Minoso. Bill Veeck apparently thought that Wynn had one more great season left in his arm, and Veeck was correctly, as Wynn would be victorious 22 times en route to a Cy Young award and World Series appearance in 1959.

Freedman weaves in anecdotes from the few living players from that 1959 team to chronicle the season's happenings. Sadly, almost three-quarters of the team are deceased. An especially poignant moment is when the living players gather in Chicago in 2008 and they collectively acknowledge that their reunion reminds them of the many members of the team that have passed. We hear from the likes of Billy Pierce, Jim Rivera, Bob Shaw, Jim Landis and Turk Lown as they chime in on Wynn and their own ups and downs during their pennant winning journey.

Freedman does his best to merge the three topics of his book, Wynn, the "Go-Go White Sox" and the 1959 World Series by examining the roles of Manager Al Lopez, General Manager Frank "Trader" Lane and owners Veeck and Charles Comiskey Jr.. What you are left with is a solid assembly of the 1959 White Sox and how Wynn led the charges all the way to the World Series.

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