Every winning team has at least one or two journeymen players on the roster.
A journeyman is a teammate that isn’t in the spotlight. He comes to work and does the job he is hired to do. A journeyman usually has a long career with several different teams.
Today is Herm McFarland’s birthday.
I have Chalkhead friends that are walking baseball encyclopedias, and even they probably have to look up and see who McFarland was.
Herm was born on this day in 1870 in Des Moines, Iowa. McFarland played for seven seasons in the big leagues. He played for the Louisville Colonels, Cincinnati Reds, Baltimore Orioles, New York Highlanders and my beloved Chicago White Sox.
He played in the outfield accumulating average statistics throughout his career.
It is one at bat that puts his name in the grabber section of today’s Morning Chalkboard.
On May 1st, 1901, Herm McFarland hit the first grand slam in American League history. Home runs were not a big deal in the early years of baseball. They didn’t gain prominence until Babe Ruth started belting them.
Lucky for McFarland he hit his blast early in that ballgame. A couple innings later his teammate, Dummy Hoy nailed a grand salami. The first two four run homers occurred in the same game as the Pale Hose from the Southside demolished the Detroit Tigers.
McFarland and the White Sox won the World Series that summer. Herm only hit thirteen homers during his career, but it was the one in spring of 1901 that we remember.
The White Sox won that game 19-9, but it was ninety years later that we needed his and Dummy Hoy’s swings.
The dreaded Tigers from Detroit were the opponents in the first game at the new Comiskey Park. They clobbered the Sox 16-0 on April 18th, 1991.
I talked with my Oldman on the phone after that disappointing home opener. It was in that conversation that I first heard the name Herm McFarland.
It was when my grumpy father said, “Your Triple-A baseball team needed the bat of Herm McFarland today Moose…”
You’d figure my Oldman would know who Herm was. McFarland was a Hawkeye from Iowa and so was Big Don Shep.
Seven seasons in the big league and only a couple in Chicago, but a career of showing up and getting the job done…
… that is what it is all about.
When my career is over, I want to be known as a journeyman in the commodity world. I was never the million-dollar trader with the fancy car or the rich broker that flew to the Bahamas once a month. I wasn’t the brilliant technical analyst that charted the highs and lows of the market.
I just showed up every day and worked my butt off. That is what I want the Shepkids to hear at my wake.
I hope you enjoyed your Monday afternoon. Today isn’t going to be as lovely.
Regardless, get up to the plate and make your mark. In the end, we are all journeymen trying to get by.
