A Missing Player and Another Book

Well, let’s dip into the old mail once again.

Here’s a nice little missive:

Hello there,
I am Jim Allicotti's daughter (one of 4) and happened upon your site during a search of our family's last name. My dad is 77 and living in Yorba Linda, CA with my mom. I recently shared a printout of the baseball game that mentions his name. He definitely got a kick out of it. Thanks for posting it!
Lola Allicotti

I mention this because Jim played for the Spokane Indians, but in checking the nascent SABR Minor League Database, there’s no record of him in the W.I.L. at all. He’s mentioned in a wire service story, so he got into at least one game.

This is where this SABR project of assembling minor league data is so important. It seems some records simply don’t exist. I’ve seen plenty of stats that read “ten or more at-bats”, with anyone under that simply a non-entity, thinking that maybe they’re recorded in the official, year-end league stats. That’s evidently not the case as baseball wasn’t as stats nuts at one time that it is today.

So, Lola’s inadvertently helped add to missing data, or at least data hidden away somewhere. Which is kinda what this blog is doing about the W.I.L.

Now, about books. It seems everyone’s writing a book about minor league baseball. Except me. Despite what the newspapers say. A former player has sent me a note about his book. Okay, he didn’t play in the W.I.L., but he writes of his experiences in minor league ball in the ‘50s, and I wish more players of that era would do the same thing.

My name is Ed Mickelson. I played 11 years in professional baseball, ten of which were in the minor leagues. I played in every classification from class C up AAA and also three years in the PCL batting .308 in 55, .309 in 56 and .338 in 1957. I still hold the fielding record for 1st basemen in the PCL by fielding .9964 in 162 games. The record is for 1st basemen in 150 games or more. My book is called Out of the Park- Memoir of a Minor League Baseball All Star. It is about baseball in the minor leagues in the golden age of the minors 1945 to 1957. The book is published by McFarland Publishers. If you are interested you can buy the book from me for 29.95. Ed Mickelson, 1532 Charlemont Drive, Chesterfield. Mo. 63017. I will take care of handling and postage.
The book is recommended by
Library Journal in N.Y.
Sabr – Neil Chamberlin
New York Yankee Magazine Sept Issue 1907
Richard Beveridge former President of SABR
Tom Kayser current President of the Texas League

You can e-mail Ed if you’re interested.