RIP Milwaukee Brave Denis Menke

[JohnBriggs12]

Denis Menke passed away on December 1st at age 80. For those of you not familiar with Menke, he was a big time shortstop prospect in the Braves system and debuted at age 21 in 1962. What's curious is that a year earlier the Braves had traded a ton of young pitching capital

(Joey Jay and Juan Pizarro) to acquire a weak hitting Roy McMillan who had the reputation as a defensive whiz. McMillan played good defense but his bat was a huge liability and he blocked Menke. Once McMillan was traded to Mets early in 64, Menke took full time SS job putting up great numbers for the position in those days: .283/.368/.479. Injuries derailed his 65 season with Braves. Had he been able to repeat his 64 season, that team which had been in first as late as August 25th, just might have stayed in the race with Dodgers to the end and who knows, led to a World Series featuring a team playing in Milwaukee but committed to moving to Atlanta the next year. That would have focused the nation's attention on the scam being perpetrated on Milwaukee and Wisconsin by Braves ownership.

 

RIP Denis. You were one of my childhood favorites.