NOTES #235

NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN

Observations from Outside the Lines

By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@borg.com)

#235 JUNE 10, 2001

JUST LIKE OLD TIMES

The title of this issue does not come from the Pittsburgh Pirates team effort this season to recapture the fame of that great team of the past (thanks to Joe Garagiola), the Bucs of the early fifties — altho it might have. See “Wait’ll Next Year,” a few pages on.

Nor does it come from the reminiscing I did while reading George Will’s Bunts, reviewed on the next page and following — altho it might have. Will’s book is full of reunion stuff, and I enjoyed it very much.

Nor does it come from the baseball nickname humor, later on, which I’ve fooled around with in these pages so many times before. And it does not come from my most recent look back at Hack Wilson — altho it might have come from either.

No, I am delighted to announce that the title has more to do with the frequency of Notes, which, in its first seasons, was a weekly. I am not promising that Notes will be a weekly again, for the remainder of this season — but, in the words of Harry Caray (this issue does have a Cub flavor), it might be; it could be.

And for this I thank Sean Lahman, whose web site The Baseball Archive welcomed Notes in March 1999. Sean has come up with some technology so simple that even I — a designated writer, who sends a lot of e-mail but to whom the internet remains shrouded in mystery — can operate, and post Notes directly myself.

I don’t know if I can do something worthwhile every week, but I can report that I am tempted to give it a shot. The issues may be shorter, they may carry more items from the pre-net days. But they may also be more timely, in response to current events in the country of baseball — from Little League, where kids are dreaming of getting on The Road to Williamsport, to the bigs, where visions of October dance in the sleeping heads of fans in such unlikely places as Chicago, Philly and Seattle.

I hope that “the new Notes” — like the rookie Notes — moves readers to jump into conversation (let me know if anything you e-mail me is NOT for publication.) I have always welcomed feedback, suggestions for topics for future issues, and arguments — they are part of the fun of rooting. So, read on, write on, and root on your favorites — the summer is just heating up!

 

 

BUNTS

George Will’s book Bunts (Scribner, 1998) is aptly titled — I cannot think of a better one for this collection of Will’s columns, that stretch back to 1974. That’s two decades farther back than NOTES stretches, and Will’s memory and research actually take readers back into the fifties, when Will (and I) first got hooked on baseball.

I picked up Bunts with some hesitation. I remember reading Men at Work after I had been writing baseball myself for a few years, and that work disappointed me. I was the exception — Men at Work sold briskly. Looking back, I think I was so harsh on Will at that time, because he seemed to say so little that was original, creative, his — while he did an excellent job of reporting on the four baseball people around which his book was built. I also must have been a bit jealous, because I felt the book I had written (Dear Patrick) was proving so hard to sell (it was a learning experience), and I really thought my book had more to say — more, that is, that was original, mine.

So I was very pleased indeed that Mr Will’s Bunts was such a delightful read, which I have already recommended to my Cub fan friends. Because Will grew up a Cub fan, and remains one (although he clearly enjoys rooting for the Orioles, and not just because of Camden Yards), he articulates that somewhat unique experience better than almost anyone else I’ve come across so far. In fact, I think I’ll root for the Cubs (when the Pirates are mathematically eliminated — and this could happen next week) down the stretch this season. Of course, part of my motive has to do with watching Cub fans try to handle winning … and if the miracle happens, to handle the loss of 1908. It will be hard, I suspect.

Without any bragging intended, I enjoyed Bunts partly because it had a quality that, I believe, Notes has — that is, his columns are firmly rooted in their time. Every time that I have edited Notes, I have found that the dates of the issues are terribly important to put things in context. Each chapter of Bunts begins with a title and a date. I’m sure not everyone is like me on this, but I truly enjoy reading history that is eyewitness account, and not later interpretation.

Take Selig’s Strike of 1994-95, for example (please!): Will sees the problem coming while it is still on the horizon and there seemed to be options for avoiding it. The Strike was no asteroid requiring superhero efforts from a Bruce Willis, it was an event calculated to happen by the owners bent on breaking the union, and complicated by the growing imbalance in revenues among the teams, due partly to income from local cable deals. Will’s columns in 1992 and 1993 document the problem that was visible to anyone paying attention.

 

In August 1994, his column is titled “Tony Gwynn, Union Man” — Gwynn was one of the men at work, and Will must have felt the loss of Tony’s shot at .400 in 1994 more painfully than the average fan. In September 1994, Will writes with utter despair at the damage being done. In February 1995, his column “Babe Ruth, Replacement Player” lampoons the remedy the owners were trying (Babe, if he were alive and 100, would be out of shape, as usual, but a likely candidate to fill in.) His post-mortem column follows two months later.

I remember George Will being interviewed as The Strike was drawing close, and we were all hoping against hope that somehow, Selig would slap some sense into Reinsdorf & Co., grow a spine and spare us the loss of what was unwinding as such a marvelous summer — Maris’ record was being chased by Matt Williams and Junior Griffey and Ken Bagwell, Gwynn was flirting with .400 (he was stuck at .394 when the plug was pulled), the Expos were on top of the Braves, the Indians — well, you finish the list. And there was George Will on my TV, basically supporting the players — not exactly what you might expect a conservative to do. It was because he was a fan, before he was anything political. He retained a perspective that the owners had lost.

And that perspective makes Bunts a refreshing read. Of course he hates the Designated Hitter at first — that was the knee-jerk reaction of most National League fans (including me.) But then he changes, which is not always easy or comfortable, and for someone who has painted himself a conservative (of the caliber of Barry Goldwater — I almost wrote “Rush Limbaugh,” but I think Rush is mostly an entertainer, an actor playing a role to the lucrative hilt.) Will’s column in October 1986 has the title, “The DH: On the Other Hand….” It is one of the most revealing chapters in the book, for both its baseball and its philosophy. Will may make his living writing politics, but his heart ranks Cooperstown slightly ahead of Washington in the big picture. Read Bunts — as Jack Paar liked to say, I kid you not.

Will even includes in Bunts a rather scathing critique of Men at Work by Donald Kagan, then politely replies with a minimum of venom. That takes a big man.

To read Bunts is to take a ride all over the country of baseball, and because sometimes a year or more passed between his columns on baseball, you never know what is coming next. A thoughtful essay on the Cubs, or baseball and socialism, is followed by a plunge into the dead-ball era or a lesson in Stengelese. Will visits baseball’s stats, its literature (he somehow fails to mention Notes — my fault), the players, umpires, managers, coaches, and current events. We watch him try more than once to figure out why there are a rash of home runs being hit (we all had our conspiracy theories, then and now.) He takes on the toughest issues head-on, and I really liked that — no question about where Will stands on Pete Rose, baseball’s economics, and Selig’s Strike.

 

Toward the end, there is some repetition, as he revisits topics (enough about revenue sharing and salary caps, we want to say — but those were baseball words for a couple years, and will be again someday soon.) I confess to skimming his long essay on Jon Miller, written for this book — Miller’s own book was still fresh in my memory. But if you have not gotten to Confessions of a Baseball Purist yet, that essay will probably be fun.

Will has tremendous respect for Curt Flood and the legacy of his courage. But his review of Marvin Miller’s book was not quite what I expected (knowing his later stance on the strike.) He labels Miller a “Sore Winner” who gloats and chortles in his book over this union’s undefeated record. Of course, Will was writing that in 1991. When I reviewed the same book, in July 1996, it was on the other side of The Strike, and Miller’s shots at the owners and Commish that so bothered Will five years earlier, must have seem richly deserved.

Bunts is must-read for Cub fans who will get some consolation, and it is almost a must for Oriole fans, who need that less. Will celebrates the Orioles fans (comparing their support a bit too often to that of the St Louis Browns), and Camden Yards (amen), and the team’s success, and Cal Ripken. Will is Washington-based, of course, so the O’s are now his home team — although you get the impression that he might not object, if the Expos moved to northern Virginia. It is refreshing to read more about Chicago and Baltimore, than New York and Boston, but there is plenty in Bunts on those teams, too, as well as their heroes, like DiMaggio and Ted Williams. I’m a Pirate fan, and found lots in Bunts on my team as well (OK, it bothered me when Will seemed to not object to their moving to Virginia.) I can’t promise that there is something for fans of every franchise, I don’t think Will aimed at that, but I do think every fan will find something worth an asterisk in the margins.

So I recommend Bunts, without any qualification. And I also recommend not giving in to the temptation to start it by reading chapters with your favorites in the title, whether George Brett or George Steinbrenner. No, start with chapter one and read it in order, and see how it pulls you along, season by season. If you’ve been there before, bask in the nostalgia and compare your notes to George Will’s. If the fifties and sixties and seventies are all pre-history to you, then put on your learning cap and take notes. If you never knew that the Cincinnati Red(leg)s’ fans stuffed the All Star ballot boxes in 1957, you’ll find that out, and maybe be moved to visit the microfilm in your library, or to dig up some of the fine baseball histories around.

See if Bunts reminds you at all of Notes, and let me know if it is just me that came away with that impression. Excuse me, I have to go now and see if I can track down Will’s editors and publisher … and make them an offer they can’t refuse.

WAIT’LL NEXT YEAR

In several of the last seven or eight seasons, I have commiserated with fellow fans about this time of year about the frustration of five hundred — our teams seemed to be bobbing up and down, stuck at or near that mark, each win streak answered by a string of losses. The teams contending for a spot in the playoffs gradually pull away … the season is over all too soon.

This time around, however, it is different. My Pirates have plunged well below four hundred, seem stuck around twenty games below that break-even point, and are becoming hard to follow. You know it’s going badly when you cheer rain-outs (that could be a Garagiola line about the early 1950’s Pirates) … when you peek at the scores with one eye shut … when your team is forever trying to salvage a game in a series, to avoid another sweep … when winning one in a row feels like a roll.

Maybe by the time this issue gets posted, the Pirates will have won three in a row. They aren’t that bad, of course, they just lost much of their pitching to injuries this spring, then went into a team slump, and the fielding fell apart. They have had some exciting rallies and wins, to be sure — but it is sobering to realize that without those improbable comebacks, this team would be struggling to get back to three hundred ball.

So my eyes have strayed on the sports pages to high school ball, where I recognize the names of kids I used to follow in Little League … some are doing really well, and should get scholarships. I’ve been to the LL field a few times, too, and have noted when their playoffs start. And I’ve bought my pre-season Blue Sox tickets — 20 tickets for $35 — up $5 from previous years, but still a steal. They start play June 19.

When I do scan the major league action on TV or in the paper, I find myself rooting for the Cubs … and keeping an eye on those amazing Mariners (thank God the Pirates aren’t in their division, they’d be close to elimination … well, OK, only 27 or 28 out of it, instead of 18 or 19.) Seattle has sprinted ahead as few teams have done before, and while we don’t expect them to win 128 games any more than we expect Barry Bonds to finish with 84 homers — the very possibility dazzles our imaginations.

I almost have to monitor the Red Sox/Yankees race (I have friends belonging to each religion), and the progress of the Mets, who may finally best Atlanta in a season series, only to finish (with the Braves) behind the upstart Phillies. I keep tabs on Minnesota, too, maybe because they are financial cousins of my Pirates, not supposed to be up there with Cleveland.

All of this has made it easier to be a Pirate fan in 2001. I will visit their new park (weather permitting) later this month, and root Maz into Cooperstown in August. So there is no way 2001 will be a total washout. But is three in a row asking too much?

 

HAVING FUN WITH BASEBALL NICKNAMES

That’s the title of a book by Phil Blazovich (MLC Publications, 1996), and it’s something I do regularly here in Notes. Here are the actual, authentic untruths about the origins of nicknames familiar and un.

Mike “The Human Rain Delay” Hargrove did draw a lot of walks, but he got his tag before he was drafted to play pro ball, a change that rescued him from an embarrassing career as a rainmaker.

Dusty Baker set a record while in the minors, going eight weeks without taking a shower, before he was carried off the team bus and dunked in a creek by his teammates.

Amos “Hoosier Thunderbolt” Rusie threw hard for the Giants before they traded him to the Reds for Mathewson, and he was from Indiana, but did you know he was addicted to baked beans?

Smoky Burgess was a forest ranger in the off-season, and his preference for fur coats inspired the creation of that familiar character who insists that only we can prevent fires.

Frosty Bill Duggleby grew up here in the shadows of Cooperstown, and strengthened his arm by throwing snowballs all winter, making some money clearing driveways at the same time.

Billy “Boy Umpire” Evans did begin his career calling balls and strikes at age 22, but earned that nickname much earlier when he developed a knack of settling arguments at family dinners.

Charles “Old Hoss” Radbourn was a workhorse, one season starting and finishing 73 games, but he got his nickname from his wife for his habit of munching hay while reading in bed.

Jack “Peach Pie” O’Connor is best remember for his threat to turn Ty Cobb into a cobbler, which earned him a month on the DL.

Spurgeon “Spud” Chandler, who won nearly 72% of all the games he pitched, used to intimidate batters by taking bites from potatoes that he doctored up to resemble baseballs.

Rey “Wiz” Kremer entertained teammates on long train rides by asking them what they wished for, then giving them hokey substitutes.

Alvin “General” Crowder claimed that he earned that rank in his brief army stint in WW I, by pitching hand grenades record distances during trench warfare.

John “Bid” McPhee, a recent Hall of Fame inductee, drove his bridge-playing partners in the clubhouse crazy by his apparent inability to decide what to say when his turn came.

 

HACK WILSON REVISITED

Last issue I called attention to Hack Wilson’s 2-for-3 in a World Series game, a good day at the plate that has been buried beneath his awful day in center field. With this issue leading off with Bunts, I was in a Cubbie frame of mind again, and decided to take another look at Mr Wilson.

Lewis Robert Wilson was born in Ellwood City, PA, in April 1900. I once went on a fishing trip to Ellwood City; I don’t remember much about it, and I doubt that I knew it was Hack’s birthplace at the time. In fact, I likely had never heard of Hack Wilson — this was around 1953 or ’54. It would be a few more years before I memorized two things about Hack: 56 HRs, the NL record; 190 RBI, the MLB mark. That was in 1930, a hitter’s year.

Back in the fifties, fans did not hear or read much about the off-the-field troubles of players. So it was much later that I learned why Hack slumped off to 13 HRs in 1931 and was out of baseball a few years later, before he turned 35. Alcohol took its toll early, and took Hack Wilson’s life in 1948.

My poem on Hack, composed in December 1992 — too late for Romancing the Horsehide — appeared in Notes #21 (6/27/93.) I used to include cartoons and graphics and photos in those days, and that issue featured a picture of Hack Wilson. He is standing beside a stack of wagons, one arm embracing one of the vehicles, which rise four high. Each proudly bears the name “Hack Wilson” — the bottom wagon reads, “Hack Wilson Deluxe.” Under the photo is my own caption: “Rare photo of Hack Wilson on the wagon(s), 1930.” I was wrong; a photo of Hack off the wagon is rare. But that was the times — how many pictures have you seen of Babe Ruth boozing it up? Anyway, here’s that poem:

HACK

Shape all his own,

Wilson looked like he’d been squeezed

Bottom up from his size six shoes

So that his chest and arms bulged,

Surged with dynamite —

Did he even have a neck?

Lewis Robert Wilson entered the world

In the year of the new century —

Entered the game as a Giant of NY,

But didn’t roar in the twenties

Until he joined the Cubs.

Over five straight summers

Mr Wilson hacked increasing numbers

Of increasingly long home runs,

Peaking in that infamous hitter’s summer

Sawed-off shotgun swinger,

Chicago hit man,

Blasted two double-barrel marks

That still survive:

Fifty-six round-trippers —

Hundred and ninety RBIs —

To a National League ear,

Numbers that sound like Ruth’s sixty

Or DiMaggio’s fifty-six —

Sublime, magnificent, wondrous

Divine digits

Worth a shrine of their own.

Made folks forget

Five foot six.

Hack Wilson was human,

And battled more than pitchers —

Heavy hitter and drinker

Outside the lines he was losing

And sliding

And suddenly Hack was going,

Headed out like one of his clouts,

Going like beer spilled

Into the ivy at Wrigley.

Gone at forty-eight:

Number so much smaller

Than fifty-six

When we remember Hack Wilson.

Looking back, I notice that I had cut off the last three or so lines of the poem in Notes #21 (it ended with “Gone”) — so this is the first time that the poem has appeared in its entirety. And of course, the two lines I italicized need to be revised — his 56 was eclipsed, after 68 summers, by McGwire and Sosa; and his 190 has been corrected to 191.

When Mark and Sammy whipped each other past Hack’s record, and then past Roger Maris’ 61, I went looking for Hack in my library. The following appeared in Notes #169, in September 1998:

IN SEARCH OF … HACK WILSON

For 68 summers, his name was on top of the list of Most Home Runs, Season, National League. His RBI record still endures. Hack Wilson has been resurrected this season, and we’ve read a lot about him. Is there more to him than his numbers?

Numbers like 56 and 191, to be sure, but also 5’6″ (his height), 18″ (his neck), and 5? or 6 (his shoe size), or 48 — his age when he died, fourteen years after baseball.

Hack Wilson was inducted into Cooperstown’s Hall thirty-one years after he was gone, in 1979. Why so long a wait? Well, Hack had just five or six HOF years. Just 244 career HRs, a number surely shrunk, like his career, by a drinking problem. Bill James feels Hack was a good player, but not HOF. “His numbers, looked at without understanding the biases in them, can look awfully impressive, but if you look at the complete picture of the man — defense, baserunning, leadership, hitting in the context of time and place — it is obvious that we was not a great player.” James thinks the player most similar to Hack Wilson is Roger Maris.

In fact, James believes Hack Wilson would not be in the HOF today, but for the Veterans Committee selecting Chick Hafey and George Kelly in the early 70’s. Once they were in, it was hard to keep Hack (and others) out.

1930 was the Year of the Hitter, which makes Hack’s 1930 even more remarkable, in a way — it was hard to stand out when everyone was batting .300 and slugging away. How lively was the ball in 1930, Hack’s peak summer? Well, the National League hit .303. Chuck Klein hit .386, slugged at .687, hit 40 HRs, drove in 170 runs, and collected 250 hits — and led the league in none of these departments! (He did lead in outfield assists, with 44.) Bill Terry hit .401 on 254 hits. No wonder keeping track of offense that year was so difficult!

Hack had been the goat of the 1929 World Series. The A’s were up two games to one on Wilson’s Cubs, but Chicago had an 8-0 lead in Game 4, going into the bottom of the seventh. Then disaster struck, a ten-run rally by the A’s — Hack lost two balls in the sun during this collapse — and the Series was gone.

Fifteen days after Hack muffed those Game 4 flies in the 1929 Series, the stock market crashed. Baseball was in trouble, so the club owners decided to juice the ball and lower the height of its stitches, making it harder to grip breaking pitches. Hack must have feasted on fast balls.

Hack Wilson slugged his way to the top of the record-book lists, the top of the world. It was not easy feat. Cub fans tossed lemons on the field when he came to bat, and it took a lot of swat before he removed the sour taste from last October.

Hack Wilson had a hot temper, and in 1930, he was out for vengeance. To erase the memory of his muffs that earned him the nickname “Sunny Boy Hack.” To make up for the loss of Rogers Hornsby to injuries and get the Cubs back in the Series. And yes, to overtake Babe Ruth as the celebrity of the baseball world. Hack smacked 13 HRs in August, 10 more in September, driving in 41 runs the final five weeks. But the Cubs fell short of the pennant, as the Cardinals clinched with two games left.

Manager Joe McCarthy would say later of Hack’s role in the Cubs’ drive, “I never saw a guy win games the way he did that year. We never lost a game all year if he came up in the late innings with a chance to get a hit that would win it for us.”

According to the old Cincinnati catcher Clyde Sukeforth, Hack’s NL HR record should have been 57. Clyde and others in the bullpen saw Hack’s smash hit the screen above the wall and bounce back. The umpire thought it hit the wall. “Of course we weren’t going to say anything,” said Clyde.

Warren Brown observed, “Wilson was a high ball hitter on the field and off it.” After 1930, only Ruth was higher paid. Rogers Hornsby, one of the greatest hitters of all time but a rough personality, tried to pull in the reins on Wilson’s drinking in 1931. The new Cub manager not only forbade drinking beer, which was illegal, but soft drinks! Rogers also cracked down on chewing, smoking, eating and reading (wore out the eyes.)

Wilson hit 13 HRs for Hornsby in 1931. 61 RBI. The rabbit ball had lost some of its hop; offense was down over 20%.

Hack and Rogers were an odd couple doomed to split. “Gin was his tonic,” Al Drooz said, and Hack was soon in Brooklyn, making $16,500. Far from the speakeasies of Al Capone’s Chicago, where Hack had been bigger than The Babe. Where he could take the vaudeville stage and draw long rounds of applause. Where he was a hot personality and a magnet for endorsements.

New York had night life, too, but it wasn’t the same. The roller-coaster ride had started downhill, and all Hack could do was hold on.

When he died in 1948, a $350 grant from the NL saved him from a pauper’s grave. But ten months later, his teammates and friends dedicated a ten-foot high memorial at his gravesite in Martinsburg, West Virginia. That’s where his pro career began, in the Blue Ridge League, in 1921. Country roads, took him home.

Sources: Low and Outside and The Sluggers, two volumes in the World of Baseball series (Redefinition, 1989-90); The Ultimate Baseball Book (Houghton Mifflin, 1991); and The Politics of Glory by Bill James (Macmillan, 1994).

* * * * *

MINOR LEAGUES, MAJOR ENTERTAINMENT

With the NY-Penn season kneeling on deck, I pass on this list of recommended reading from Minor Trips Newsletter #9:

A False Spring (Jordan); Stolen Season (Lamb); Good Enough to Dream (Kahn) — I’ve read and recommended all three; Rebel Baseball (Perlstein; “St Paul Saints’ first year, very funny”); Wild & Outside (Fatsis; Northern League); Waterloo Diamonds (Panek); Minor Players, Major Dreams (Mandell); Small-town Heroes (Davis); Bush League (Obojski); and Brave Dreams (Ballew.) Fiction: Short Season and Basepaths (Klinkowitz); Long Gone (Hemphill); Year of the Buffalo (Cook); and The Brothers K (Duncan), which is one of my all-time favorite books, period.