Chet Coppock's Fur Coat wrote:
GoldenJet wrote:
Who actually thought carrying 3 catchers into the playoffs was a good idea?
Earl Weaver. It's one of the things I read when I was a little kid, he had written a chapter for a coffee table book called "This Great Game" published around 1973-ish. He was adamant that a third catcher was a necessity which most teams were ignoring, although he was working with 10 man pitching staffs and four starters.
A surprising amount of The Cubs Way is Weaver-esque. Not all of it, but a lot of it.
I don't remember the good Orioles teams in the early 70s carrying three, Just Andy Etchabarren and Ellie Hendricks. Although I vaguely remember a guy named Dalrymple? catching a few games for them. I don't think he was on the roster for the whole season, but maybe he was.
The great Yankees teams of the 50s had a guy named Charlie Silvera who won about eight World Series and hardly ever played because the Yankees had Yogi and Elston Howard.