was there a patrick latrenta?

[rex1]

does anyone know if the st louis browns ever had a player named patrick latrenta? he would have played in the 1940's before he went into the marines. thank you.

[Bill_McCurdy]

No one named Patrick Latrenta ever played for the St. Louis Browns or any other professional baseball team, according to Baseball Almanac and the Old Time Player Data program that chronicles every minor league player since 1930. - OTPD did contain the name of another, much younger man with the same family surname. Perhaps the younger man was a grandson of the first man you asked about. Anyway, a Doug Latrenta played one season for Oneonta of the New York-Pennsylvania League in 1980, batting .294 with 2 HRs and 25 RBI. Arousing curiosity here is the fact that this Latrenta never played another season of pro ball, in spite of what appeared to have been a pretty good start. In situations of the short career, and no further information, it always makes me think that something must have happened to the guy. People who love the game and do well early don't just quit after one good season.

[EvanAparra]

Is it just me, or do people ask about old Browns players alot, and those people never played for the Browns... It seems to happen a lot with this team more than others.

[Bill_McCurdy]

Is it just me, or do people ask about old Browns players alot, and those people never played for the Browns... It seems to happen a lot with this team more than others.
-EvanAppara

I've been thinking of your very point for some time, EvanAppara, so the first question you ask is easy to answer. No, it's not just you. I think anyone who hangs around this site for long will come to ask themselves the same thing. Why do so many people bring their family stories here about grandpa's days with the Browns, only to see them shot down as little more than legends in grandpa's mind? The first part of that bigger question, I think, is also easier to answer. People bring these stories here to the Browns' website site most of the time expecting affirmation of whatever grandpa said - or had said about him - and those inglorious days with the St. Louis Browns.

Let's put the next plank of reason down on this subject as kindly as possible. Some people are just given to enlarging upon stories of their time on earth. Others just flat out lie for the sake of leaving a mark that casts what they hope will be a longer shadow upon their memory. Either way, it leaves the door open for grandpa's descendants to be sorely disappointed down the road as the direct product of one family member's diligent search for the truth - or, as I have stated, one family member's search for affirmation of the myth.

The Internet today has changed the whole legacy-making ballgame. Today we have access to facts and to each other that weren't even dreamed of in grandpa's day. The Internet leaves few places to hide from the facts about one's past. So, people who may have once felt safe building or hiding lies in dark places like the history of the St. Louis Browns, may think twice about doing so in the future. People will continue to create legends in their own minds. They will just have to do it in recognition of, or possibly with the help of the Internet. After all, the Internet practically invented the birth of "urban legends."

People will continue to build stories about themselves in connection with historical events that are also too large to verify. How many great-grandpas actually hit the beaches at Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944? Several million would not be a surprising answer on the legendary side. How many baseball fan grandpas and great-grandpas were in the Polo Grounds on the afternoon of October 3, 1951 to watch Bobby Thomson hit his "shot heard 'round the world?" My guess would be - legendarily, of course, - several hundred thousand.

Sometimes, the truth really does hurt, but I've often wondered what these people do with the truth when they hear it from us - that grandpa never played a single inning for the St. Louis Browns. Do they hold "Guess What?" meetings with other family members? Do they stop visiting grandpa at the nursing home or cemetery? Or do they simply treat the truth as though it never happened? Perhaps one of our disappointed family researchers will come back and tell us what they did in the wake of finding out the truth about grandpa. If not, we will understand.

I also hope that disappointed folks will learn to be forgiving of grandpa too, even if it had been better that he only told the truth from the start. So many big lies evolve so easily from the early failure to correct wrong first impressions. For example, how many of our Brownie legends began with a simple conversation between a grandfather and his 10-year old grandson back in the 1930s and 1940s? All it would have taken to light the fire of legend was a seemingly simple answer to an apparently equivalent simple question that was never fully explained:

Grandson: "Grandpa, when you were young, were you a good enough baseball player to play for a real team?"

Grandpa: "Well, Johnny, let me tell you. The St. Louis Browns once thought I was."

And the beat goes on. Thanks again for bringing up this subject. All I know is - I'm sure we haven't seen the end of our "Looking for my Grandpa" threads at this 2006 home of the once oblivious, but no longer so, St. Louis Browns.

[Aa3rt]

I've been thinking of your very point for some time, EvanAppara, so the first question you ask is easy to answer. No, it's not just you. I think anyone who hangs around this site for long will come to ask themselves the same thing. Why do so many people bring their family stories here about grandpa's days with the Browns, only to see them shot down as little more than legends in grandpa's mind? The first part of that bigger question, I think, is also easier to answer. People bring these stories here to the Browns' website site most of the time expecting affirmation of whatever grandpa said - or had said about him - and those inglorious days with the St. Louis Browns.

Let's put the next plank of reason down on this subject as kindly as possible. Some people are just given to enlarging upon stories of their time on earth. Others just flat out lie for the sake of leaving a mark that casts what they hope will be a longer shadow upon their memory. Either way, it leaves the door open for grandpa's descendants to be sorely disappointed down the road as the direct product of one family member's diligent search for the truth - or, as I have stated, one family member's search for affirmation of the myth.

The Internet today has changed the whole legacy-making ballgame. Today we have access to facts and to each other that weren't even dreamed of in grandpa's day. The Internet leaves few places to hide from the facts about one's past. So, people who may have once felt safe building or hiding lies in dark places like the history of the St. Louis Browns, may think twice about doing so in the future. People will continue to create legends in their own minds. They will just have to do it in recognition of, or possibly with the help of the Internet. After all, the Internet practically invented the birth of "urban legends."

People will continue to build stories about themselves in connection with historical events that are also too large to verify. How many great-grandpas actually hit the beaches at Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944? Several million would not be a surprising answer on the legendary side. How many baseball fan grandpas and great-grandpas were in the Polo Grounds on the afternoon of October 3, 1951 to watch Bobby Thomson hit his "shot heard 'round the world?" My guess would be - legendarily, of course, - several hundred thousand.

Sometimes, the truth really does hurt, but I've often wondered what these people do with the truth when they hear it from us - that grandpa never played a single inning for the St. Louis Browns. Do they hold "Guess What?" meetings with other family members? Do they stop visiting grandpa at the nursing home or cemetery? Or do they simply treat the truth as though it never happened? Perhaps one of our disappointed family researchers will come back and tell us what they did in the wake of finding out the truth about grandpa. If not, we will understand.

I also hope that disappointed folks will learn to be forgiving of grandpa too, even if it had been better that he only told the truth from the start. So many big lies evolve so easily from the early failure to correct wrong first impressions. For example, how many of our Brownie legends began with a simple conversation between a grandfather and his 10-year old grandson back in the 1930s and 1940s? All it would have taken to light the fire of legend was a seemingly simple answer to an apparently equivalent simple question that was never fully explained:

Grandson: "Grandpa, when you were young, were you a good enough baseball player to play for a real team?"

Grandpa: "Well, Johnny, let me tell you. The St. Louis Browns once thought I was."

And the beat goes on. Thanks again for bringing up this subject. All I know is - I'm sure we haven't seen the end of our "Looking for my Grandpa" threads at this 2006 home of the once oblivious, but no longer so, St. Louis Browns.

Bill, et al,

I hesitate to respond after such a well written, eloquent post. However, the question posed by EvanAppara is one that has occurred to me since I became a member here at "Baseball-Fever" as well. While not as numerous, I have read posts of a similiar nature (requesting help finding the playing records of relatives) in both the Washington Senators and Boston Braves forums too.

I'm also a member of a Washington Senators Yahoo group where we sometimes receive similar requests.

Way back in the mid-1970's, I purchased a copy of the first or second edition of The Baseball Encyclopedia. IIRC, this volume cost about $40.00 in 1970's dollars-a healthy chunk of change for a lowly E-4 in the service of the U.S. Coast Guard. One of the stated goals of the Baseball Encyclopedia staff was to document the records of every player who had ever appeared in a major league game.

I recall reading an interview with one of the editors of the "Baseball Encyclopedia" in "Sports Illustrated" that fall. He said that their efforts (to document every player who had major league experience) had garnered the staff a lot of enemies as many family legends had been debunked-that Grandpa or great uncle So and So had never appeared with the (your choice of team here).

I really can't add much else except that it is interesting that the teams that have been gone the longest (Boston Braves, St. Louis Browns and the Washington Senators) seem to draw the majority of these requests.

Thirty years ago, none of us could have forseen the advent of this thing we call the "Internet" nor the easy access to information that has followed it. As you so well stated Bill:

"The Internet today has changed the whole legacy-making ballgame. Today we have access to facts and to each other that weren't even dreamed of in grandpa's day. The Internet leaves few places to hide from the facts about one's past. So, people who may have once felt safe building or hiding lies in dark places like the history of the St. Louis Browns, may think twice about doing so in the future. People will continue to create legends in their own minds."

Certainly this site will continue to receive inquiries of relatives playing records. Some will be disappointed with the replies, others will welcome the truth and on some rare occasions we may just be able to delight someone who will learn that a distant relatve DID spend two weeks on a major league roster.

[EvanAparra]

and on some rare occasions we may just be able to delight someone who will learn that a distant relatve DID spend two weeks on a major league roster.

I really hope this happens every once in a while. It sounds like it would be really good news to give.