Stories, I have stories …
When I was a lad of twenty-six, toiling as an editor at Hart Publishing in New York City, my boss observed that my work load would be slack for the next six weeks or so. He knew I was a baseball bug with an unusual power of recall.
“Thorn,” he proposed, “why don’t you write a baseball book for me? I published Big-Time Baseball in the early 1950s, and if you could mimic the style of the stories from those annuals we could publish a book for kids, you and I.” I could, and I did, and the result was my first baseball book, A Century of Baseball Lore (1974), a book written for kids which was only about two-thirds original with me. Publisher Harold Hart was to be my co-author, as he had commissioned the earlier stories from writers like Maury Allen and Ben Olan.
When I completed the manuscript, however, he was so pleased that he thought it should be released to an adult market, under my name only. I was sufficiently naive and vain to be flattered. It sold well, and went through at least three editions (1974, 1976, 1980), but because it was only two-thirds mine, and was “written to order” in a self-consciously old-fashioned style (pitchers twirled; runners were fleet of foot), to this day I don’t like it.
But all these years and all these books later, I have come to respect, more and more, the lore of the game: the stories that may not be altogether true, but are so good they ought to be. When I created Total Baseball with Pete Palmer and David Reuther (first published in 1989), I thought there would be no place for the game’s classic whoppers in a book of rigorously researched history and statistics. I was wrong. In the book’s later editions, Eliot Cohen and then Sean Lahman added to my original grab bag of stories with good ones of their own. Today I’ll share some of them with you, and I threaten to return with more.
When the Pope came to the United States, a small boy was impressed by the abundant pageantry of the papal motorcade. He stared at the big cars, the robes, the cheering throng lining the sidewalks for miles. After the pontiff had passed, the boy asked his mother, “How’d he get to be Pope?”
“The cardinals selected him,” replied the mother.
The boy pondered a moment, then mused, “You think the Giants would do
something like that for Willie Mays?”
Classic baseball tales come in several flavors. One variety is passed down
through generations, not only in the telling from parent to child, but in
character, from Walter Johnson to Nolan Ryan, Babe Herman to Marv Throneberry.
The measure of that story may be the number of characters it is (or could be)
told about. Other tales revolve around the historic events of the game. A
third type grows out of the outstanding personalities in the game. Certain
unique figures stand out, but the folklore mirrors the transcendental nature
of the game itself. If that prospect can’t be the next Hank Aaron or Ty Cobb,
maybe he can be the next Mickey Rivers.
“I only have trouble with fly balls.” — Carmelo Martinez, outfielder
It didn’t take long for baseball fact to spawn baseball legend. The poem
“Casey at the Bat” was written in 1888, and it became an instant classic. Its
subtitle, “A Ballad of the Republic,” indicates that author Ernest Lawrence
Thayer was thinking big. The poem laid the foundation for much of baseball
folklore to come, not only because it captured the spirit of the game and its
fans, but because Casey failed to get that big hit. In baseball, failure is
much more common than success, and some of the best anecdotes and quips are made in response to shortcomings.
The great Honus Wagner had big hands to go with his bowed legs and didn’t
always discriminate between ground balls and other loose objects in the
infield. He used to tell about when a rabbit ran past him about the same time
as a two-hopper. Wagner scooped up both and fired the rabbit to first. “I
got the runner by a hare,” Wagner confided.
Catcher Bob Uecker took issue with the theory that the knuckler’s tough
to catch. “You just wait until it stops rolling, then pick it up.” The
catcher/broadcaster/actor proclaimed that he was proudest of his role in the
Cardinals’ 1964 pennant drive. His contribution? “I came down with
hepatitis.” How’d he catch it? “I think the trainer injected me with it.”
But few players can joke about their foibles. During the 1910s, Ring
Lardner invented a ballplayer named Alibi Ike, honoring a tradition that
survives among players. Pitcher Billy Loes once explained missing a grounder
in the 1952 World Series by saying, “I lost it in the sun.”
Loes also cautioned pitchers, “If you win twenty games, they’ll want you to do it every year,” so he set a personal limit of fourteen.
During the 1980s, a member of the Pirates complained, “I wish they wouldn’t play that song. Every time they play it, we lose.” He was talking about “The Star Spangled Banner.” Upon seeing the Astrodome, Gabe Paul’s first reaction was “It will revolutionize baseball. It will open a whole new area of alibis for players.”
The game has a way of revealing character and exposing flaws. Leo Durocher told the story (but it could just as well have been Connie Mack or Whitey Herzog) of a horse who asked him for a tryout after a spring training workout. Durocher obliged, sent the nag into the batting cage, and served up a fat pitch. Holding the bat between its teeth, the horse smacked the offering over the fence. The horse hit the curve the other way, got around on the hard stuff, handling the bat better than anyone Durocher had on the club. So he sent the horse to the outfield and hit it fungoes. The horse caught the ball between its teeth and drop kicked it back to the infield. An impressed Durocher began considering the steed’s potential. He called the horse in and said, “Okay, now I want to see you run.”
“Are you nuts?” the horse replied, “If I could run, I’d be at the Kentucky Derby.”
There’s a surprising range of ways to fail in baseball. Aside from imparting strategy, signs appear to be designed to give players a chance to make mistakes, judging from all the talk of missed signs throughout history.
John McGraw fined the muscular outfielder Sam (Sandow) Mertes — the story is also told about Sammy Strang and Red Murray — $100 for failing to obey a bunt sign with a runner on second, even though Mertes had belted a homer off a high and tight serving that would have been nearly impossible to bunt.
Durocher once took refuge in the press box after being tossed from a
game, then conspired with a sportswriter to give signs. The system worked
until the sportswriter wiped his forehead. “What did you do that for?”
Durocher blurted. “You just gave the steal sign.”
First baseman Rocky Nelson missed a squeeze sign with Pee Wee Reese on
third. Nelson swung away and nearly decapitated Reese. The livid shortstop
and team captain demanded, “Why’d you swing?”
Nelson replied, “Why do you think they call me Rocky?”
When Frank Howard was with the Dodgers, they used verbal signals. The player’s last name signaled a hit and run. So after the big man walked, first base coach Pete Reiser began giving him encouragement, “Okay, Howard, be on your toes. Be ready for anything, Howard.”
Howard called time and told Reiser, “We’re good friends, Pete. Call me Frank.”
After the Dodgers infield of Steve Garvey at first, Dave Lopes at second,
Bill Russell at short, and Ron Cey at third broke up after an unprecedented
run from 1974 through 1981, Tom Lasorda tried to make do with Pedro Guerrero, whose best position is DH, at third base, revolving doors at short and first, and second baseman Steve Sax, who sought help from a hypnotist to overcome a chronic inability to make the throw to first. As only Lasorda can, he cajoled, begged, and badgered Guerrero to make him a better infielder. After one galling loss, Lasorda tried to get inside his star’s head. “Okay, Pedro,” Lasorda said, “the tying run’s on, one out in the ninth. What are you
thinking?”
Guerrero answered, “I’m thinking, don’t hit the ball to me.”
“C’mon, Pete,” Lasorda chided, “what else are you thinking?”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“I’m thinking,” Guerrero said, “don’t hit the ball to Sax either.”
Lasorda is generally considered a teddy-bear type manager, but other
skippers inspire fear in their players. Playing in Houston before the
Astrodome was built, Gene Mauch’s fiery temper erupted at the Phillies’
constant complaints about the heat. “I’m sick and tired of you guys griping
about the climate,” Mauch began. “The other guys have to play in it, too.
The next guy who complains about the heat gets fined a hundred bucks.”
After the Phils’ next turn in the field, right fielder Johnny Callison
came back to the dugout and fell in a heap on the bench. “God, is it hot out
there,” he moaned. Then he saw Mauch out of the corner of his eye and,
remembering the edict, quickly added, “Good and hot, just the way I like it.”
Even the great Lou Gehrig had trouble performing on cue. He was scheduled to do a live radio spot for a Post cereal called Huskies. The announcer asked the slugger, “To what do you owe your strength and condition?”
“Wheaties,” Gehrig told the listeners.
The makers of Huskies insisted that Gehrig’s error brought them more
publicity than the script would have. But Gehrig found endorsement offers
rare after that.
Baseball Lore was originally published in Our Game on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.