He had more to do with its demise than its institution: nevertheless, Rip Radcliff is among that handful of major leaguers who inspired a change in a league's rules. The rule, established at the December 1939 baseball meetings in Cincinnati, was a bizarre one that lasted for just a short time. The owners of seven of the eight American League teams pushed through an edict that would bar their league's defending champion from making a player transaction with any of the other clubs in the league. It was a measure obviously aimed directly at the lone dissenting team, the New York Yankees, who in addition to being the defending American League champions, were also winners of the last four World Series.

Whether the rule prevented the Yankees from repeating in 1940 -- they believed it did -- they were replaced as pennant-winners by the Detroit Tigers. Thus, on May 5, 1941, when Detroit purchased Radcliff for $25,000, it was the Tigers, and not the Yankees, who were the defending American League champions. Radcliff's sale set off a wave of criticism by the league's other teams, claiming the sale violated the "spirit" of the law forbidding intraleague trades or purchases (except on waivers) with last year's pennant-winner. Although the sale went through, the acrimony it generated convinced the owners, led by Washington's Clark Griffith, that they'd made an unworkable rule and they abolished it.

Raymond Allen Radcliff, of English descent, was born in Kiowa, Oklahoma, on January 19, 1906. His father, Oliver Perry Radcliff, named after the hero of the Battle of Lake Erie, was a native of Vincennes, Indiana, who had staked out a homestead in Oklahoma when it was still Indian territory. Everyone agrees that it was his father who gave Radcliff the nickname "Rip"; there are, however, sundry versions of why he did so. In one, Papa Radcliff compared his young son's sleeping ability to that of Rip Van Winkle. In another, he got the name from a show called "Rip Van Winkle" that was playing in Kiowa. A third claimed the name had started as "The Ripper" because of the youngster's frequent tearing of his clothes and then got shortened to "Rip."

Full name Lucius Benjamin Appling
Born April 2, 1907, High Point, North Carolina
Died January 3, 1991, Cumming, Georgia
Buried at Sawnee View Memorial Gardens, Cumming, Georgia (Mausoleum, Chapel West, Crypt 140, 3rd Level from Bottom)
First Game: September 10, 1930; Final Game: October 1, 1950
Managed First Game: August 21, 1967; Managed Final Game: October 1, 1967
Bat: Right Throw: Right Height: 5' 10" Weight: 183

Selected to the Hall of Fame in 1964
Named Minor League Manager of the Year by The Sporting News (1952)
Named shortstop on The Sporting News Major League All-Star Team (1936, 1940 and 1943)

Luke Appling had the misfortune of playing for the White Sox during some of their leanest years. A decade before his arrival, the franchise had been devastated by the Black Sox scandal, when eight players conspired to fix the 1919 World Series and were banned from baseball, and the team did not compete again until the 1950s. Appling, a happy-go-lucky man and a notorious hypochondriac, was one of the Sox' few bright lights. He never got to play in a World Series, as his career was ending just as the team embarked on a period of competitiveness highlighted by their 1959 pennant.

At a time when America, along with the rest of the world, was struggling to cope with the worst depression in its history and the ominous rise of fascism in Europe, baseball provided some diversion from dark times. Appling started his major league career in 1930, just about the beginning of the Depression. The best word to describe Luke Appling is durability, a quality he showed throughout his baseball career and his life. He was emblematic of an America struggling through the Depression and digging into their psyches (perhaps unknowingly) to prepare for another world war. Appling endured and so did America.

"Old Aches and Pains," as Appling was called, was arguably the greatest hypochondriac to ever play the game. Backaches, headaches, bad knees, eye problems would torment him-and then he'd go out and get three hits.