Pat Seerey's Last Stand
May 7, 1949: Yankees at White Sox
Pat Seerey’s Last Stand
Who in the world was Pat Seerey?
Well, thanks for asking! Seerey was a slugger with the Indians who wound up being dealt to the last-place White Sox in the middle of 1948.
He was also a legend in his own right.
Seerey’s claim to fame came on July 18, 1948:
You’d think that Seerey would be an asset to the White Sox after this. You’d be wrong. Seerey appeared in a handful of at bats in early 1949, but was deemed too unfit to play in the majors, and found himself back in obscurity in the minor leagues. He never played in the majors again.
Seerey and Dunn
This is going to sound odd, but Seerey was the sort of player who would have fit in nicely in our modern world of baseball.
You can kind of see this if you play with Baseball Reference’s similarity score system for Seerey:
Both Steven Souza Jr. and Joc Pederson are the sort of low average, high strikeout, big slugging player that you think of when you think of Seerey.
He also looks a lot like Adam Dunn, believe it or not:
In fact, I think you could be forgiven for thinking of Seerey as a sort of prototype version of Adam Dunn — or, for those of you fluent in modern memes, something like “Adam Dunn at home.”
You can also see this in a comparison of their offensive rate statistics:
Dunn created more runs per game and had a better batting average in a slightly better offensive environment. Of course, the fact that Seerey went back to the minor leagues right before his peak seasons began probably has something to do with his lack of impressive offensive numbers.
Seerey in the Replay
Anyway, Seerey showed up in this White Sox game against the Yankees, and actually did something good. No, it wasn’t a home run, but it was something:
This was part of a 2-run rally that the White Sox had in the bottom of the 7th inning, cutting what was once a 7-1 Yankee margin to a slim 9-8 lead.
Sadly, the White Sox didn’t score again, and the game ended this way.
We won’t see Pat Seerey again in 1949, unfortunately. I’m sure his legacy will live on, though. When you see modern hitters strike out in 25% or so of their plate appearances, remember the story of Pat the legend.
Note that Seerey played in the outfield for the second half of the game. I’m not sure why the boxscore doesn’t give him credit for his fielding.
Other Action
Red Sox 4, Indians 3: At Cleveland, Boston makes a huge comeback in an excellent game. Read the summary here. Watch the game here.
Yankees 9, White Sox 8: At Chicago, see above.
Athletics 16, Tigers 7: At Detroit, Philadelphia scores 9 in the top of the 6th to blow this game wide open.
Senators 6, Browns 3: At St. Louis, Washington scores 3 in the top of the 9th to secure the victory.
Dodgers 8, Cubs 6: At Brooklyn, a 4 run bulge by the Cubs in the top of the 9th comes up just short of adding on to Brooklyn’s woes. Again, the Dodgers should be beating teams like the Cubs by bigger margins.
Reds 8, Braves 0: At Boston, rookie Frank Fanovich surprised me by throwing a complete game 4-hit shutout of the reigning National League champions.
Giants 3, Cardinals 2: At New York, the Giants led most of the way in a game that was never really all that close. I declined to write this one up due to the lack of late-game offense or interesting situations.
Pirates 6, Phillies 2: At Philadelphia, the Pirates look unstoppable. Watch the game here.
Standings
The Pirates are simply amazing. I never would have thought they’d be at 16-2 at this point in the season, with the most runs scored and fewest runs allowed in the National League. Brooklyn, meanwhile, continues to flounder.
In the American League, the Yankees are starting to run away with it, though this is likely to change. Look out for the Athletics, too, with their 121 runs scored.