Don’t Leave Home Without It!

Bruce Markusen recently wrote about George Scott. The Boomer, as he was sometimes called, battled with the scale as a player. One of his managers said that he went sight-seeing in a supermarket. He was a key member of the “Impossible Dream” Red Sox of 1967.

Folks of a certain age may remember that “The Impossible Dream” was the hit song from the Broadway musical Man of La Mancha; it’s sort of a meta-version of Don Quixote. This was not the only music associated with that Red Sox team. A psychedelic group called Earth Opera had a song called “The Red Sox Are Winning.” I’d love to hear it.

Yaz was the man that year. Put the team on his back in September and had a month for the ages. Won a Triple Crown. Got a great endorsement opportunity. Yaz Bread. Early in Yazstremski’s career he played with Dick Stuart. They called Stuart Dr. Strangeglove. He would lead the league in errors at first base seven years in a row. Across the infield from him was Frank Malzone. Malzone had been with the Red Sox since 1955. He was their when Jimmy Piersall patrolled centerfield.

Piersall was immortalized in celluloid. Fear Strikes Out was the name of the flick. It was based on the book by Boston scribe Al Hirschberg. Tony Perkins played Piersall, while Karl Malden played his overbearing father. Malden was one of those guys like Abe Vigoda. He looked the same at 45 as he did when he was 90. Fear Strikes Out came out in 1957. Malden looked the same back then as he did in his American Express commercials.

He looked the same back then as when he played Omar Bradley in Patton. George C. Scott had the title role in that film. I will always remember the trumpets from it. They were haunting. Anyways, that wasn’t the first time that Scott played in General. He starred as Jack D. Ripper along with Peter Sellers, Peter Sellers, Slim Pickens, and Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb. Pinky Higgins could’ve managed the Cold War better than that crew.

Jon Daly has been a SABR member since 2001. He has written several biographies for SABR that have appeared online or in books, including ones on Billy Southworth and Jim Willoughby. His writing has also appeared online at websites such as The Perpetual Post, Baseball Think Factory, and The Hardball Times. Jon is also the sole contributor to the blog Designated Sitter (http://designatedsitter.blogspot.com/) He Tweets @designatedsittr and can be reached at jon31768@gmail.com.