Baseball bat or magic wand?
My friend Eric Zweig, principally a hockey writer who sometimes strays into baseball, sent me an odd story from The Brooklyn Citizen of February 12, 1910, that he spotted while looking for something else. “ANY chance,” he wrote, “that this would be a story that had an influence on Bernard Malamud? (Although, in truth, I only know the story of The Natural through the movie.) Probably not as big an influence as the Eddie Waitkus story, but still … Hobby? And a mystic bat? At the very least, it’s a pretty good coincidence!”
It certainly is. Here you go.
Baseball is a peculiar game in more than one respect but perhaps its strangest angle is the way players fail and make good again without apparent reason. You’ll notice that word “apparent.” A typical case is that of Dick Hoblitzell, one of the National League’s star first basemen and also one of the league’s hardest hitters. “Hobby” as the big fellow is known, didn’t look very good, early last year, and had been laid off by Clark Griffith in favor of Chic Autrey, now with St. Paul. Disconsolate because of his poor showing, he looked forward to the day when he would change his uniform for that of a minor league club when one day at the league park he spied a likely looking bit of timber, apparently ownerless.
“Hobby” picked up the bat, hefted it and carried it to the clubhouse, where he secreted it in his locker. On the handle end was inscribed the letter “H,” which to the player meant that the bat was intended for him and had come from some mysterious source.
With other Red reserves, Hoblitzell played an exhibition game, while Autrey, with the regulars, was on the road, and the downhearted one determined to give his find a try out for luck. It was a great day for Hoblitzell. He met the ball squarely on the seam every time up and amassed a fancy average. The stick couldn’t help landing the ball safe, apparently.
The power of the mystic “H” was not exhausted then and there, for the next day “Hobby” received wire orders from Griffith to join the team. He joined in Boston and spread fear in the hearts of the pitchers.
That series was one of the most eventful in the youngster’s life. The Reds played four games, and Hoblitzell cracked out nine hits, four of them the first day. He also made two more in an exhibition game at Waterbury before he went hitless.
When Hobiitzell found that stray bat, May 8, his average was .222. May 17 he had jumped to .286, and June 14 he boasted of .297. July 12 he was hitting .307 and he batted close to this mark all season.
In the final series, with Philadelphia, Hobiitzell hit the ball so hard that the club broke. Hobby made 11 hits in the six-game series, the old bat retaining its charm to the end.
Now it may be that Hoblitzell, sour on his work, took courage by his good batting in the exhibition game, and had faith in the piece of ash, or it may be the mysterious stick did possess a potent influence. Any way you look at it something worked to increase the player’s effectiveness. The question to be answered this year is, “What will Hoblitzell do with his new bats?”
Roy Hobbs and Dick Hoblitzell was originally published in Our Game on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.