He was a skinny, chicken-chested, right-handed pitcher—about six-foot-two and 140 pounds. The kid was drawing some attention as a junior, but his coaches didn't even think he was the best pitcher on the team. Nonetheless, scout Red Murff sat in the stands baking in the Texas heat, watching and listening. And when Murff heard the whoosh of the kid's fastball explode into the catcher's glove, he knew he had found something special. A big-league prospect. When Murff submitted his scouting report later he would write: "Has the best arm I've ever seen." You don't have to see it but one time to know it's there, and Murff had seen it—and heard it—and would soon deliver Lynn Nolan Ryan to professional baseball.
Scouts like Red Murff were once essential to the well-being and sustained excellence of Major League Baseball. Their jobs of sizing up young talents across the country—and around the world—and projecting their futures was challenging, vitally important and incredibly rewarding. The search for new and unique talent motivated these intrepid men and women for well over a century, and those pursuits spawned some of the great mythology of baseball. But, in today's game, the practice of traditional scouting in Major League Baseball has all but vanished as a growing number of organizations believe that you can better scout amateur players through high-tech video and other new measuring devices. The analytics tsunami has all but claimed the profession as a victim and has cast an immense shadow over the age-old wisdom and standards woven so completely into the annals and anecdotes of baseball history.
This April, author Lee Lowenfish offers a unique view of baseball history and celebrates some of the greatest personages to ever write a scouting report in his new book, "BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES: Inside the Craft of Scouting by Those Who Lived it" (University of Nebraska Press, April 1, 2023). The book is a fascinating exploration of the "diamond detectives," "bird dogs" and "prophets of the sandlots" who evaluated strengths and shortcomings with equal acuity and brought kids down from the mountains, out of the corn fields, and from the towns so small that they're just barely there on the map. These baseball lifers were looking for "diamonds in the rough"—those players who would be able to both harness their tremendous talents and do it consistently—who could elevate their organizations for years and years.
Meet Tom Greenwade. "Birdie" Tebbetts. Billy Blitzer of the Chicago Cubs. Art Stewart of the Yankees and expansion Royals. "Pop" Kelchner, Professor Charles Chapman, and Charley Barrett of Branch Rickey's Cardinals. Tony Lucadello of the Phillies. Paul Snyder of the Braves. Gene Bennett of the Reds. And of course, Red Murff among many others. These are just some of the people who had a hand in finding and developing some of the greatest young talent in baseball history. An underground brotherhood without the secret handshakes. Sharing hard-earned wisdom. Mentoring players and others within their organizations. Staying in the game they love. Travelling thousands and thousands of miles by car, bus, train, airplane, and even a tractor or two. Building up farm systems and rosters and contending teams and, in some cases, dynasties. These men and women would never be outworked, never be talked out of their sage opinions, and would never give up on the players they believed in.
Savor these tales of a great game and bear witness to some of the greatest scouting epiphanies in baseball history.
BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES also covers:
- That "thrill of the chase" in finding the future star that nobody knows about
- How the first connections players make in the harshly competitive world of pro baseball are often the deepest
- How in the best organizations, scouting and player development are always on the same page
- The four kinds of scouts—poor scouts, pickers, performance scouts, and projection scouts—and which is the best…and rarest
- The lesser-known prospects who never reached their full potential and "the ones that got away"
- The early history of Branch Rickey and his wild idea of a "farm system" in St. Louis
- How the Cardinals farm system reached a peak at 32 teams with over 700 players by the end of the 1930s
- How from 1921 to 1957, scout Paul Krichell was just as instrumental to the New York Yankees dynasty as any of the players, coaches or managers.
- The effect the baseball draft had on scouting
- Building the expansion Montreal Expos
- How the Royals of the 1970s and 80s built their contending team and how owner Ewing Kauffman later regretted abandoning his revolutionary idea of a Royals Baseball Academy
- The creation of a Major League Baseball scouting Bureau in 1975
- How Ted Turner's PR Forays as baseball owner did not succeed until he listened to his scouts led by Paul Snyder
- How Moneyball contributed to waves of scout firings when the book was released in 2003 and then again when the movie came out eight years later
- The fact that older scouts possess such great wisdom that the missed opportunity of the young players and scouts of today to learn from them directly is a tragedy.
Lee Lowenfish wrote this book to make sure that these distinct voices from baseball's past and present will not be wholly lost. His well-researched and entertaining prose serves as a celebration of these scouts' contributions to the game. Their strategies and methods. Their adages and precepts. Their unforgettable stories. Learn how a scout looked past the collective lost interest of an injured prospect in scouting the great Joe DiMaggio. Read about the courtship of Barry Larkin. The pursuit of Chipper Jones. The rise of Pepper Martin. Learn how the Reds landed "the next Sandy Koufax…" Don Gullett. Herein are the "origin stories" of Mike Schmidt, Lou Gehrig, Tom Seaver, Rod Carew, and Greg Maddux among dozens of others.
Scouts were once the heartbeat of the game. Its heart. Its eyes. Its ears. Its soul. Many have said that without the pro scout, major league ball would soon become minor league ball. Many have also said "those who can, evaluate; those who can't, measure." This book is a song for "those who can" and did, and BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES will give readers an idea of what we've been missing in recent years.
About the Author
Lee Lowenfish is a freelance writer and cultural historian. He is the author of Branch Rickey: Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman (Bison Books, 2009) and The Imperfect Diamond: A History of Baseball's Labor Wars (Bison Books, 2010). He lives in New York City.
About the Book
Title: BASEBALL'S ENDANGERED SPECIES: Inside the Craft of Scouting by Those Who Lived it
Author: Lee Lowenfish
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Release Date: April 1, 2023
Details: Hardcover / 344 pages / $34.95
ISBN: 978-1496214812
— Joe Boesch
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