How much must it suck to be a baseball player named Frank Baker? No matter what you accomplished, you'd always be "the other one". It's hard to eclipse your predecessor when he's a Hall of Famer and a three-time World Champion. The first Frank Baker, a native of Maryland's Eastern Shore, is better known as "Home Run" Baker. While the former Athletics and Yankees third baseman did lead the league in homers for four straight years (1911-1914), he hit only 96 total dingers in his deadball era career. He actually earned his moniker by hitting a pair of clutch longballs in the 1911 World Series off of legendary Giants pitchers Christy Mathewson and Rube Marquard. Baker hit .307 in his 13-year career, and also led the A.L. in triples once and RBI twice, and was renowned as a daring fielder and strong baserunner.Meanwhile, the Frank Baker who played shortstop with the Yankees and O's from 1970 through 1974 hit .191 with one career homer and 24 RBI. He played in four career postseason games without a single at-bat. But that one lonely home run was a grand slam, so he's got that going for him, right?
This reminds me of the "other" Pedro Martinez; this is a certain Pedro A Martinez of whom I remember pulling many cards in the mid to late 90s and feeling a large amount of disappointment when I realized it wasn't "that" Pedro
ReplyDeleteI was always a fan of the "other" Steve Ontiveros.
ReplyDeleteTigers68 - I bet football fans experience the same thing with the other Adrian Peterson!
ReplyDeleteMax - You wouldn't think that Steve Ontiveros would be such a common name.
Neat connection, Home Run Baker was born in Maryland and Frank Baker played for the pro team in Maryland.
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