http://www.hockeyprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=82 Everything Else is Fluff. Wed, 19 Jun 2013 15:30:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.4 http://www.hockeyprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=82#comment-18 Wed, 13 Dec 2006 03:18:15 +0000 http://www.hockeyprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=82#comment-18 [...] If I had been talking to Nate when he formulated his last post about Akinori Iwamura (Nate, you never call, you never write… Mother and I are worried about you.) he would have opened up a similar parallel dialogue about Iwamura comp Gil McDougald and Gil McDougald and Japan. Japan made McD a shortstop. In 1955, the Yankees took a postseason trip to Japan for an exhibition series with the locals. Casey Stengel told his players to play like they were playing for their 1956 jobs. Stengel’s main goal for the trip was to find out if Billy Martin, just back from the army, could play shortstop. “I’m going to use McDougald, that army guy, and [Jerry] Coleman,” Casey said. In the event, Martin couldn’t play short, but McDougald could. The Yankees went 25-0-1 on the tour and McDougald had a new job in 1956, one that earned him greater respect in the MVP voting. [...] […] If I had been talking to Nate when he formulated his last post about Akinori Iwamura (Nate, you never call, you never write… Mother and I are worried about you.) he would have opened up a similar parallel dialogue about Iwamura comp Gil McDougald and Gil McDougald and Japan. Japan made McD a shortstop. In 1955, the Yankees took a postseason trip to Japan for an exhibition series with the locals. Casey Stengel told his players to play like they were playing for their 1956 jobs. Stengel’s main goal for the trip was to find out if Billy Martin, just back from the army, could play shortstop. “I’m going to use McDougald, that army guy, and [Jerry] Coleman,” Casey said. In the event, Martin couldn’t play short, but McDougald could. The Yankees went 25-0-1 on the tour and McDougald had a new job in 1956, one that earned him greater respect in the MVP voting. […]

]]>