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Follow-up to My Recent Essay on Jim Gentile!
As I’ve mentioned many times, we always enjoy it when we’re contacted by a relative or a friend of a former ballplayer. In this way, we’ve always learned interesting information about players from bygone eras—the type of personal information you’d never pick up from just staring at the cold stats on the pages of Baseball-Reference.
Most of us view former major leaguers with fondness bordering on awe. They’ve achieved something most can only dream about. So whenever one of us “mere mortals” is fortunate enough to befriend a former player—especially one we idolized in our youth—it’s very special. Here on Baseball History Comes Alive, we love hearing about it and sharing it with our readers.
Some of you will remember a few weeks ago I posted a write-up about the friendship between one of our readers, Everett Shockley, and the Orioles’ powerful left-handed slugger, Jim Gentile, a fine ballplayer who falls into that nebulous category of “very good, but not quite Hall of Fame.” In that essay, Everett recalled the circumstances in which he and Jim became friends. Here are a few excerpts from that post:
Everett Shockley grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where, as he recalls, “everyone, without exception was an Oriole fan.” Everett’s hero as a young boy just happened to be Jim Gentile. Back in January 2019, Everett attended “Orioles Dream Week” hoping to meet Jim Gentile who, along with other past Oriole stars, was slated to attend. Prior to the event, Everett had spoken with the event organizer who was aware of how much Everett wanted to meet Jim Gentile:
“When we got there, he pulled me aside and told me that Gentile wasn’t coming. He knew I was really disappointed, so when he got back to Baltimore, he called Gentile and told him the situation. He told me that Gentile said to send him a picture and he’d be happy to autograph it. So I did.”
“A few weeks later when I returned to my office one afternoon, I checked my phone messages and one said, ‘Mr. Shockley, this is Jim Gentile. Please give me a call when you can.’ I just sat there for 2-3 minutes with my mouth hanging open! So, I called and he answered. He told me that he had misplaced my picture and wanted to know where I bought it. I told him not to worry about it and that I wasn’t going to have him pay for the picture. His wife later hollered out that she found it. I told him that there were pictures of him at the Getty Images site that were great, which he’d probably never seen. We talked for 30 minutes.”
“Later that day I had another phone message from him, asking me to call again. I called and he told me that he couldn’t find the pictures on the internet. We talked another 30 minutes (during which his wife said, ‘Have him call you Jim.’). He then said to me, ‘Hey, we’ve talked twice today. We’re pals. So anytime you want to talk baseball, give me a call.’ Now my mouth was really hanging open! So, without wearing out my welcome, I’ll call every 6-8 weeks and we have a nice chat. His many anecdotes are really funny. He’s a great guy.”
(The featured photo was personally autographed by Jim Gentile for Everett Shockley).
Now here’s where it gets interesting. Following the posting of my essay, Everett send a copy to Jim. Then on Tuesday, Jim called Everett to thank him. Everett let me know that Jim was really pleased with it!
I have to tell you that’s one of the real perks of this “job.” The fact that Jim Gentile enjoyed reading something written here on BHCA makes all my humble efforts to preserve baseball’s glorious past worthwhile. It reminds me of something similar a few years ago when I wrote an essay about Rocky Colavito after being contacted by his granddaughter, Gina. As in this case, Gina sent the article to her granddad and wrote back to inform me that Rocky had read it and really like it!
Everett also provided more information from his recent conversation with Jim:
“He said he had fallen twice recently, the worst being at home where he fell and hit his head on the fireplace and cut his head open. He went to the hospital and had 13 staples put in!! My wife was standing near me and when she heard that, she motioned to give her the phone. I told Jim that my wife wanted to speak with him. She told him, ‘Are we going to have to come down there to take care of you?’ He got a kick out of that.”
In talking with him, I could tell that he really liked me, even though we’ve never met. He said it was so nice to have a fan like me. He gave me his new cellphone number and said, ‘Let’s stay in touch’.”
Diamond Jim’s Outstanding Major League Career
Jim played nine seasons (1957-1966) in the majors as a first baseman for six different teams. Over his career, the 6’4”, 215-pound San Francisco native hit .260, with 179 home runs, 549 RBIs, a .368 on-base percentage, and a .486 slugging average. A six-time all-star, his outstanding career 136+ mark places him well above the average of his major league contemporaries.
Jim was originally signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers back in 1952. In spite of some outstanding minor league seasons, including leading two different leagues in home runs, he languished in the Dodgers’ system for eight years due to the fact that a pretty good ballplayer was solidly entrenched at first base. You may have heard of him. His name was Gil Hodges. Jim finally got the call to the Bigs and made his major league debut on September 10, 1957. Two weeks later, he was the starting first baseman on September 24, the Dodgers’ last game at Ebbets Field.
His best season was 1961, when he hit .302, with 96 runs, 46 home runs, a lead-leading 141 RBIs, a .423 on-base percentage, a .646 slugging average, and an outstanding 187 OPS+, all career highs. He finished third that year in MVP voting behind Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. Probably the most memorable moment of his career came on May 9, 1961, when Jim became one of only thirteen players to hit two grand slams in the same game, a game I remember very well.
The Good Old Days!
People often ask me why I like the “old days” of baseball so much more than today’s game. My answer is always that the old days had a certain “charm” that today’s game and today’s players lack. I think that charm is demonstrated very vividly here today by Everett Shockley and his ongoing friendship with Jim Gentile.
Again we thank Everett for sharing this great information. Let’s hope Jim recovers nicely from the recent fall, and will enjoy many more years of retirement. Hopefully, he’ll also enjoy reading this follow-up article!
Gary Livacari
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Information: Excerpts edited from emails with Everett Shockley; the Jim Gentile Wikipedia page; and from Baseball-Reference.com
