Now, in spring training, Jake was told they weren't carrying three catchers. That meant that they had Parkman and Rube. Then Parkman got traded. I'm assuming that they would have bid for another catcher so that Rube could get a couple of days off. It would be very strenuous if he had to play every game for about 130 games or so.
THE DOVE OF AMERICA
Mr. Cellophane shoulda been my name, Mr. Cellophane....
They probably just called up a minor leaguer. As it is, with Parkman and Rube being on the team, that creates a platoon of two right-handed hitting catchers, which is ridiculous. I'd imagine that were this a real season (and not a baseball movie) that Parkman likely would have done his fair share of playing as the DH.
shareYeah, that sounds right.
THE DOVE OF AMERICA
Mr. Cellophane shoulda been my name, Mr. Cellophane....
Since Rube struggled to throw the ball back to the pitcher, Parkman would have been the everyday starting catcher with Rube being the back up.
shareHe got it under control once he stopped thinking about it, thus turning him into a serviceable catcher. Parkman seemed to be older than Rube and with his bat, you don't want to lose him from the lineup, so you play him as the DH and put him in the middle of the order. From what they showed of Rube, he didn't have much power so he'd likely be used for his abilities defensively.
share[deleted]
Sal Fasano rules!!!
shareThere is nothing wierd about having 2 right handed catchers on a team. In fact, there are almost no left handed catchers in the Majors.
shareThere are no left-handed catchers at all, here's a little info:
"Being left-handed in baseball, except in rare cases, means exclusion from the position of catcher. This is due in large part to the game's counterclockwise flow. There have only been 33 left-handed throwing players who caught in at least 1 defensive inning. If you exclude the ten men who only caught in a single game, then you're talking about just 23 players. If you count only those guys who caught a 100 or more games in a career, you're down to exactly five left-handed throwing catchers. However, if you're only counting career catchers (minimum of 1,000 games caught), then you have exactly one and that is Jack Clements."
Of course, this is on the defensive end. There are some left-hitting and switch-hitting catchers, but for the most part most teams have two right-hitting catchers. Pretty standard.
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Yeah, like can you name any of the infielders on the Indians in either movie other than Dorn?
shareI thought when they traded Parkman off, they were going to make Jake a player-manager who would be the backup catcher.
Player-managers were common in MLB up until about the 1940s.
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4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.
To be honest if a player like Parkman existed he likely wouldn't be a catcher;
only catcher has ever won an AL batting title and theres two main reasons;
-it's harder for catchers to become good hitters since they don't get as much batting practice due to needing to work with the pitchers
-catchers have shorter careers so usually strong hitters convert to other positions to extend their careers.
While it's true there are no left throwing catchers, I think the person who brought that up likely meant batting but even that is pointless;
usually if a team's starter at a position is a left-handed batter, they'll try and use a right-handed batter as his backup; so the starter plays against right handed pitcher and the backup against LHP's. But if the starter is a right handed batter, they aren't overly concerned about he backups batting side.
Sometimes the backup catcher gets assigned to a specific pitcher; for instance a knuckleballer. Rube is shown to be a strong fielder other than throwing to the mound, not sure if he's better than Parkman in that area but they might have put him with a pitcher more likely to throw wild pitches (maybe Vaughn but he seems to have gotten that under control since they gave him glasses).
Usually teams do have a 3rd catcher for the bullpen not signed to the team for regular play but one of their roles are to catch in case of emergencies. It was obvious when Parkman was there, the backup catcher was in the dugout, so they had to have someone else in the bullpen.