Notes #424 — Off-Speed Pitches

                             NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
                                           Observations from Outside the Lines
                                     By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)
 

#424                                                                                                           NOVEMBER 13, 2007
                                          OFF-SPEED PITCHES
 

            Most of this issue is home-grown, from the Shadows of Cooperstown. It begins with a postscript on my recent visits to the area’s past — they started with the search to identify a photo of a local player posing with Babe Ruth, but weeks later, I’m still hooked on the Babe. This issue ends that way, too, with the Bambino frolicking not just in the shadows, but in C-town itself.
 

            A couple other items were gathered on the B-Sox trail, which happened to cross paths with my Bambino research, in October 1920. Kid Gleason talks!  And Grantland Rice’s take on the scandal. That bears some follow-up. Then a change of pace that would fit into any issue — my thoughts on A B-Sox Library — one that anyone can assemble at home.
 

            Finally, there is some serious kidding around with the question about what the Hall of Fame could do, if the voters shut them out. Like a squirrel preparing for winter, I have some acorns here that might come in handy next summer, and I’m asking Notes readers if they want to contribute any, too.
 

            That’s it. So think of Rogers Hornsby and his wonderful 1924 season, as you read #424.
 

 

THERE’S ALWAYS MORE  
 

            Last issue, I described (from accounts in the local papers) an apparition of Babe Ruth here in the shadows of Cooperstown (AKA Utica, NY). Here are a few things I left out.
 

            The day before Ruth’s visit, which was on August 20, 1924, the Yankees played an exhibition game in Syracuse (an hour west) and lost to the Stars, 11-8. Syracuse racked up 18 hits off Pipgras, OF Bob Meusel, and someone named Gardner (possibly Larry Gardner — was he a coach that year?  It is easy to look up players and managers, but coaches are another story.) Anyway, this game drew 11,000 and was the annual benefit for firemen. I like that idea — benefits for firemen and police. Maybe it will catch on again someday.
 

            Ruth stayed over after the game, as I wrote last week, so the crowds at the Utica train station (still a showpiece) and Hotel Majestic (gone) were disappointed. Until the next day, when Ruth was a guest of the local Kiwanians at the Hotel Utica, before he tossed autographed balls off the newspaper’s building roof. Then he played in the exhibition game in Utica, against his former team, the Baltimore Orioles.
 

            The Orioles took these games against major league teams very seriously — they knew they could beat many of them. And sure enough, the O’s took this one, 4-2. They were up 4-0 in the 8th, when Ruth came to the plate — “homerless” so far. There was a kind of rule in effect, though — the fans (7,000, about as good as it gets in Utica) WOULD see Ruth hit a home run, if it took all day. It didn’t, but it took a while. He took seven balls, hit a single to right, and fouled off a few, before FINALLY lofting one — no, make that poling one — into the outfield crowd. In his previous at bats, he’d flown out to center twice (the second shot was into right center) and doubled to right. Bob Meusel homered, too, but no one cared about that one.
 

            The 7,000 or so who stayed till Ruth delivered was not the biggest baseball crowd in Utica, the papers duly noted. The biggest crowd, about 8,500, turned up on the last day of the 1912 season to watch their Utes win — clinching the pennant. For the 1924 game, the Yankees were paid $2,500 dollars, the O’s $700, which seems unfair, because, after all, the Orioles won.
 

            I ALSO REPORTED LAST TIME on various B-Sox items I gleaned from the Utica papers in Fall 1920, in the scandal’s aftermath. One story, dateline October 4 out of Chicago, carried an interview with Kid Gleason that I’d not seen before.
 

            “‘The dirty work [of October 1919] was done at the plate,’ said Kid Gleason, in his first statement today. ‘Their hitting was a joke. Imagine such hitters getting six runs in the first five games.”  The Kid’s memory was correct about that. The Sox scored fourteen runs in the last three games. But it is interesting to me that he goes light on Cicotte and Williams here, suggesting that possibly he believed both were pitching to win when he handed them the ball — whether they were is a different question, but I think they had convinced — or fooled  — Gleason. Otherwise, I think they’d have sat.
 

            “After Williams’ game [Game Two] I went to the boss and told him I thought we were up against it.”  The Kid fails to mention that Comiskey had known before Game One that there was something crooked afoot, and probably the Kid did, too. But the Sox had long ago agreed on the cover story: suspicious, after Game Two.
 

            Gleason said that he felt like quitting baseball and going home, but felt he owed it to Comiskey and the Chicago fans to stay on and try to rebuild the “pennant winning machine.” 
 

            The Kid was sorry for Buck Weaver — but also a bit harsh. Buck was “an outcast” [now this is just days after the scandal broke, and Buck was protesting his innocence], and “had he played square he would have departed [baseball] a hero.” Gleason took credit for turning Weaver around, from a right-handed .100 batter to a peppy lefty, and the best third baseman in the game.
 

            Then Gleason backs up a little. He admits some friends had advised him after the first game to “be careful and keep my eyes on certain players. I had too much faith in my boys to say anything and figured someone was trying to rattle the White Sox.”
            “My disposition changed after the second game.” Comiskey said in 1924 that he had Gleason confront the team after Game One. This is a terribly important point, but I doubt we’ll ever know for sure exactly when, who knew exactly what. For the record, Gandil and Risberg both later recalled the locker room showdown with Gleason coming after Game Two. Reserve Eddie Murphy thought it was after Game Three. I believe that the team knew of the bribery before Game One, and that Gleason must have spoken individually to his starting pitchers about it, before letting them take the mound.
 

            “In the club house I called them, and what I said would not look well in print. They wouldn’t look me in the face. They just sat there taking off their uniforms and not one of them said a word.”  Swede Risberg recalled Shano Collins saying the rumors were a lot of bunk.
 

            Kid Gleason said little about October 1919 in later years. He apparently confided to reporters during the Series, but they respected the privacy of his words, and when they wrote about it later, they did so sparingly. Probably Hugh Fullerton was the most revealing, with his claim that Gleason was increasingly frustrated and by Game Eight, threaten to not just bench anyone he suspected of laying down, but to use his “iron” (his gun) on them. I have wondered if that threat was behind the belief that Lefty Williams pitched Game Eight under extreme pressure.
 

 

SUGGESTIONS FOR A B-SOX LIBRARY  
 

            I’ve now collected well over fifty reviews of Burying the Black Sox, which was released in March 2006. Many of the reviewers call Burying the new “definitive” book on the subject, but I see it more as a companion to Eight Men Out, which will always be the first B-Sox book, and will always hold a special place in “B-Sox literature” because of the way it was written. I think 8MO has a number of flaws and mistakes, but that is partly because we have learned so much more since 1963. Obviously, any B-Sox library without 8MO would be incomplete.
 

            The book I often recommend to be read on the heels of 8MO, is the book that came along just a bit later — Victor Luhrs’ The Great Baseball Mystery (1966). Luhrs book presents a variety of possible scenarios, while Asinof’s 8MO serves up just one simple version of things, Asinof’s best guess. Asinof tries to nail down why they did it and so he comes down hard on Comiskey. Luhrs asks who did what, and are you sure about that?  He makes readers think. When I first read Luhrs, and his suggestion that Cicotte may well have pitched to win in October 1919, I thought he was out of his mind. But today, I can make a stronger case than Luhrs for Cicotte.
 

            When I’m asked about Shoeless Joe Jackson, I usually recommend David Fleitz’ biography, Shoeless: The Life and Times of Joe Jackson (2001), because it is well-documented. I wish David had access to the Milwaukee trial material — I think if he did, I’d agree with more of his conclusions. But we don’t learn by reading just those with whom we agree. For more on Milwaukee, I point people toward Donald Gropman’s Say It Ain’t So, Joe!, the 1992 revised second edition, and that’s important, the early edition isn’t nearly as useful. The appendices in the second edition are worth the price of the book.
 

            There are three other Jackson biographies on my bookshelves. Harvey Frommer’s Shoeless Joe and Ragtime Baseball (1992), which I think was the first book to include Jackson’s 1920 statement to the grand jury; that alone makes it a handy reference; Frommer brings a lot together, but his sources are not clear. Joe Jackson by Kelly Boyer Sagert (2004) is a good recent overview. And the more juvenile biog by the late Jack Kavanagh (1995) needs to be read just because of the reputation of its author.
 

            The top White Sox historian I know is Richard C. Lindberg, who by now has published a small library of books himself. He’s been at this for over 25 years, and his Sox books must be consulted; if they’re in your own library, even better.
 

            For perspective, the events summed up in “B-Sox scandal” need to be placed in a context. For me, the most useful history is Baseball: The Golden Age by the Seymours, 1971 but still a wealth of information packed inside a good overview. The book is not just a dry account, but includes much serious thinking about issues like the “guilty knowledge” of the un-banned Sox, and the reason why it was reported that Jackson gave less than his best in the Series — when he never said that at all. My favorite section is when Seymour begins with, “I once asked Joe Jackson about the scandal, and he ….” 
 

            Our Game (1991) by Charles Alexander and American Baseball, Volume 2 (1970) by David Q. Voigt need to be consulted, but the Seymours’ work is superb. Voigt’s real contribution to the B-Sox discussion is the essay, “The Chicago Black Sox and the Myth of Baseball’s Single Sin,” which can be found in several places, including America Through Baseball (1976). I have used that phrase countless times, each time thanking David.
 

            Moving on to B-Sox fiction, perhaps Hoopla by Harry Stein (1983) and Blue Ruin by Brendan Boyd (1991) are the most interesting. But Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella (1982), the basis for Field of Dreams, is somewhat obligatory. Only B-Sox buffs who have discovered Hugh Fullerton will appreciate his Jimmy Kirkland and the Plot for a Pennant, a juvenile fiction from 1915 (!) in which the arch villain is a crooked pitcher named Williams. Yes, he was a lefty, and he gets a bit wild … this, from the fellow who just happened to blow the loudest whistle after the Fix, not long after Jimmy Kirkland upset gamblers in Hughie’s novel. The Celebrant by Eric Rolfe Greenberg (1983) underlines Christy Mathewson’s cameo in the B-Sox story.
 

            Moving on to the gambling side of the B-Sox tale, I recommend Rothstein by David Pietrusza (2003), partly because David also wrote Judge and Jury, a biog of Commissioner Landis, in 1998. Leo Katcher’s older biography (1958), The Big Bankroll, is a good supplement. Fanning out, I like the Dewey & Acocella biography of Hal Chase, The Black Prince of Baseball (2004) and for the Cincinnati connection, Susan Dellinger’s Red Legs and Black Sox (2006) is without competition. I don’t have The Fix is In, Dan Ginsburg’s 1995 survey of gambling, but the title alone compels you to look at it for its treatment of the B-Sox.
 

            Then there are the reporters. There is still no biography of Hugh Fullerton, and there really should be. He is so essential to the story. But his stuff is still scattered in columns and essays. Ring Lardner? Not really, he didn’t write much about the Fix. Damon Runyon may have written more. Later reporters like Furman Bisher (1989) and Joe Williams (1989) published collections of columns which include interviews with Jackson. But perhaps the best summary of how the B-Sox event went down in history, reported decade by decade, is in Dan Nathan’s Saying It’s So (2003) — it really is essential for every B-Sox library.
 

            Then there is the curious collection of essays edited by Evans and Herzog, The Faith of 50 Million (2002). This is probably too theological to be of interest to most sports fans, but Herzog’s long essay on Jackson makes it worth obtaining.
 

            Another unique and indispensable book for readers on the B-Sox trail is The Hustler’s Handbook by Veeck and Linn (1965), for its dazzling chapter, “Harry’s Diary.” Veeck teases us with excerpts from a journal kept during that crucial time by the Sox secretary (GM), Harry Grabiner, Comiskey’s right arm.
 

            One of my favorite off-beat accounts is in Nelson Algren’s The Last Carousel (1973). Algren is a rebel with the soul of a poet, and his images are memorable. They also show up, I think, in the works of others who wrote after him (including in Burying).
 

            Eugene Murdock’s biography of Ban Johnson, Ban Johnson, Czar of Baseball (1982), is a must book that I still don’t own. Because like Fullerton, Ban Johnson was right in the middle of the B-Sox story, maybe more involved than any other person. A dual (duel) biography of Commy and Ban is still sorely needed.
 

            And we could use a little book on Bert Collyer and Collyer’s Eye, too, methinx. All the Eye did after the Fix was investigate and report their findings. They were vindicated when the scandal broke, and the Eye kept right on digging and urging baseball to clean up its act. No story of the cover-up of the Fix can be complete without talking about the role of Collyer’s Eye.
 

            Let me wrap this up where I began, with Eliot Asinof. His Bleeding Between the Lines (1979) is very revealing, on how he went about writing 8MO. His 1919: America’s Loss of Innocence (1990) shows how he might have written 8MO 25+ years later.
 

            As for Burying the Black Sox — it draws from all of these books, and dozens more, and hundreds of articles, and many other sources. The keys to its success are my access to the 1924 Milwaukee trial material; to the collection of B-Sox material at the Cooperstown library, especially Ban Johnson’s correspondence; to the internet, which made possible the discovery of Collyer’s Eye; to ProQuest, which meant access to hundreds of articles in more than half a dozen different newspapers; and to e-mail, which enabled me to tap the resources of not just SABR, but the minds (and libraries) of B-Sox addicts scattered all over the country. Maybe someday, Burying will be recognized mainly for its list of sources — new information having overturned its conclusions. I wouldn’t mind if that happened. Because maybe the best books in anyone’s B-Sox library are the next ones to be written.
 

 

GRANTLAND RICE’S POST-SCANDAL COLUMN  
 

            Grantland Rice was 39 in October of 1919. His name doesn’t come up in connection with the Big Fix, or the aftermath. Doing my research for Burying, I ran into Rice here and there — he was such a force in sportswriting, that he’s hard to avoid. Hugh Fullerton was seven years older than Rice — Hughie was older than most of the reporters who covered sports in 1919, and I’ve written about that before. I’ve gotten to know, or know better, many writers and editors who were there in 1919, when the rumors were swirling (before and after the Series), and when the scandal broke a year later. But not Rice.
 

            Not till recently, that is, while I was trying to look up something completely unrelated to the B-Sox. I was innocently skimming thru the microfilm of October 1920, when a Rice column in the Utica Observer (October 14) caught my eye. I had been enjoying reading about the heroics of Speaker and Coveleski in the 1920 World Series, and speculation about whether Cobb would take over as manager in Detroit (he did) or whether Huggins would hang on as skipper of the Babe Ruth Yankees (he did). Baseball was aglow in October 1920 — the Bambino had slugged a mind-boggling 54 home runs in the season just completed. It was as if aliens had landed on earth and made it a whole new ballgame. It is an interesting question for baseball historians to ask: if the B-Sox scandal had broken two years sooner — when baseball was at a kind of low ebb, thanks to the war-shortened season of 1918 — would it have survived the shock?
 

            By October 14, another World Series was in the books. The Cook County grand jury was still digging up dirt (those pesky baseball pools!), but there would be no more major revelations. It didn’t matter what the three White Sox players who went to the grand jury had confessed to. The main message was that the fix had been in, the 1919 Series had been the object of tampering and bribery. Seven Sox were suspended. What a relief — the Cleveland team edged out the Sox, so the Series would not be a farce, the remnants of Commy’s dynasty struggling to avoid a Brooklyn sweep. Even better, the Tris Speaker-led club from Cleveland excited fans with not just a win in their first October appearance — but what a win: an unassisted triple play, a Series grand slam, and who deserved this more than Speaker, who had batted .388 that summer. Just the kind of Series baseball needed, to make fans forget the last one. And how about that Yankee slugger Ruth!
 

            Against this backdrop, Grantland Rice writes his column for the NY Tribune, which is syndicated, so it can be read in Utica, NY, too. The Sportlight is his familiar banner. The sub-head goes A Clean Sweep — or Not? and you think he’s writing about the World Series of 1920, but he’s not. Rice has come down hard on baseball, as hard as Hugh Fullerton and some others, in the wake of the scandal. “Only through a clean sweep at the top and a vital change all along the line” can baseball show its supporters that it deserves to continue receiving support.
 

            “The crooks, of course, are through forever,” Rice writes, and I believe he means the players who conspired with the fixers — not the gamblers. But banning a few ballplayers will not be enough. (Rice knows that there are more than eight crooked players in baseball — to think eight is enough, is foolish.) “Those handling the destinies of baseball have failed and have failed utterly.” The owners, the magnates, have failed to protect the game — if they have done their best, it wasn’t good enough. Their indifference has been “unbelievable.”
 

            Then Rice steps back (or down off his soapbox) and, I think, becomes realistic. “Possibly nothing at all will be done except to throw out the crooks and call it a day’s work.” He is clearly afraid that this is what will happen. Standard procedure. He points to the Hal Chase whitewash in early 1919. Rice then says that “most of those involved knew well enough last fall that something crooked had developed” in the Series. What did they do about it? “They let it slide.”  To Rice, a whitewash of the Big Fix of last October will ruin baseball for “this generation.”
 

            Rice is bothered because “a man quite close to the big interests of base-ball made this remark today:
 

They are not going to do a thing. They are going to try to stall around for a while, let the matter drop and then gamble on the public’s forgetting. They are smart enough to know that the public forgets quickly and that it doesn’t like to be bothered by any one scandal too long. A number of promises will be made but few of these will ever be carried out. There will be no change at the top. There will be no change to speak of anywhere. You can write that down as a certainty, no matter how many meetings they have.
 

            Rice’s parting shot, in reply: “If this is true, there is only one thing left to say: ‘Good-bye to base-ball.'”
 

            I’m not sure just when Grantland Rice ascended to the role of the “Dean of American Sports Writers” — but his words on October 14 may have gotten baseball’s attention. The Lasker Plan (to replace the National Commission — at the top of baseball) was in the news. So was a possible schism with Ban Johnson, his Loyal Five owners left behind as Comiskey and the owners of the NY and Boston teams joined with the National League. Into this turmoil stepped Judge Landis, calming the seas and embodying just what Rice was calling for: a change at the top.
 

            Ban Johnson had been trying to crack down on gambling, at least at the ballparks, and I doubt he’d have slapped Hal Chase on the wrist and let him play, if Chase was in his AL. But Ban Johnson had lost his clout with most of the owners, that was plain. Landis would step in, and although his paycheck came from the magnates, he forced them to report to him. Because he could, and because that was what the business of baseball needed. He was a lot of bluster and show, but baseball needed that, too, to scare away the bribing gamblers. There would be scandals after Landis was in charge, but not like the B-Sox scandal. Baseball had dodged the bullet. And how about that kid in pinstripes!
 

 

WHAT IF THEY HELD AN INDUCTION AND NOBODY CAME?  
 

            Because I live here in the Shadows of Cooperstown, many people think I’m an expert on the Hall of Fame. I’m not. I’ve only attended one induction weekend, and that was fine, thanks. I do follow the voting, of course, and that may get a few more column inches in the local papers, than elsewhere, because the players inducted will determine the turnout next summer, and the Cooperstown crowds overflow into the shadows and boost the local economy. Probably not much, but every little buck helps.
 

            Anyway, looking ahead to next July 27, I have been chatting on the internet with a couple friends about the possibility that no one will be inducted. Bill Deane, who IS an expert on the Hall when it comes to its voting history, thinks that even with the new alignment, the Veterans Committee could strike out again. If that happens, and the BBWAA is feeling stingy, we could have a shutout pitched at us this time around. There may be some awards given (the Frick & Spink, which sounds like a good name for a sub shop). But that’s not the same. And will the HOF still hold a party, inviting back all the living members of the Hall?
 

            If I was a living member, I’d vote (no pun intended) for the party. Of course, I’m a reunion freak. But really, most of the living HOFers are older than me, and only have so many trips to Cooperstown left in their formerly athletic bodies. (It boggles my mind that there are now HOFers much younger than my 61 years. Last summer’s inductees, Cal & Tony, were born in 1960!  Good grief. I don’t know when this started happening, but I wasn’t paying attention when it did — not like I was when there were finally major leaguers younger than me (long ago), and I recall rooting for one of them, Nolan Ryan (b. 1947) to hang in there.
 

            OK, let’s explore this a bit. Let’s say there are no inductees. What could the Hall do, to still make it a fun weekend?  Well, one obvious thing would be to invite the HOF members to come and play ball. Not hardball, but a softball game, or maybe even a Town Ball game — no equipment needed. That could be great fun, and those who get tired can call for a sub. Let them dress up in vintage uniforms — what a great photo-op!  AND a nice boost for vintage baseball across the country, too. In fact, why not do this even if someone is inducted?
 

            Next, a story-telling competition. That’s right, competition. Each player gets their shot at the microphone and after each round, the fans vote. Think of the hours of highlight film and outtakes!  Yogi may be a favorite, but there are some pretty funny folks in that bunch. There must be a dozen different ways this could be organized. If 50 players participated, it might be spread out in different locations. The players could form teams — panel versus panel, maybe AL vs NL. This would be so much better than listening to just the newly-elected tell their life stories. A moderator could suggest topics — your funniest … your most embarrassing … your most memorable — or there could be an open-ended face-off. The winners are those who get the most applause. Have some umpires handy to make the call.
 

            Now here’s one that might appeal to the Museum folks. Hall of Famer Show & Tell. Each player attending must bring something he owns — a bat, ball, glove, trophy, old sock, whatever — and talk about the object for two or three minutes, not longer. My guess is that many objects will stay over in Cooperstown after the competition. Again, fans vote by applause.
 

            Now here’s one that the Hall staff will not approve. Name that player. That’s right, photos of the Hall of Fame plaques will be taken, but all identifying information removed, so the player can be identified (or not) strictly from his bronze image. This would be great fun, because I would predict at least one player would not recognize himself. Probably best to make this a team competition, like the old G.E. College Bowl, let the HOFers form teams of four and go at it. This could work well as a televised event — the audience sees the image on a large screen. If no players guess it correctly, clues are revealed, one by one — clues taken from the plaque. Do these guys know their history? 
            I can go on, but I’d rather stop there and invite readers of NOTES to send me your ideas. I’ll collect them all, and will be ready, if the call comes, to save the day next July 27.
 

            But I do have one more suggestion. The dinner where the HOF members get to mix and mingle is surely one of the weekend’s high spots for them. Why not let the fans share — by hiding microphones at each place setting, and cameras throughout the room, and taping the whole thing. Understood that the players need to OK anything that is later kept in the production, and they know they are being recorded — the mikes & cameras are hidden only so they won’t feel so inhibited by their sight. I don’t know about you, but I think this could easily be edited into a full-length film, that would be better than about 90% of the films that play at my local theaters. I’d pay to see it.
 

            An old book by Ken Smith on the Hall, a 1970 revision of a 1952 work, contains the lineups and an account of a pick-up “clambake affair” game played at the original 1939 induction festivities. (Eddie Collins and Honus Wagner, the captains, chose for “first licks” by gripping hand-over-hand up a bat handle, while Babe Ruth played catch with Cookie Lavagetto, Mel Ott with Tris Speaker. Ty Cobb “enjoyed the sun and a seat behind third base” and was not on either team. That’s what I’d like to see. Give the HOF members their privacy — but not too much. Also give them plenty of time for themselves.
 

Here is something from NOTES #21, June 27, 1993:
 

HOF WEEKEND #1  
 

            HOF Weekend is to central NY like Mardi Gras to New Orleans, or SuperBowl Week to whichever city draws that short straw. We get to be the center of attention in the World of Baseball, ESPN comes, and tourists overflow C-town all the way to Utica. Not only do the living HOFers congregate as their elite grows (by one, this summer), but two major league teams fly in and out of Utica — they bus from here south to the Capitol. [Note: in recent years, the HOF Game is held earlier in the Spring, not as part of Induction Weekend. Two big crowds trump one.]
 

            I was curious about that very first HOF weekend, in 1939, when the joint opened its doors. So I checked out the Utica newspapers of the day. Headlines went to other arriving royalty  — King George VI and Queen Elizabeth de-boated in NY City. Coverage of the HOF on the sports pages was a fraction of what it is today, and seemed to be wire service stuff, not local reporters. Upstate cities can be pretty parochial — I’m not that surprised.
 

            Two future ‘Famers who did not attend were Lou Gehrig and Tony Lazzeri. The latter was just cut loose, and was trying to catch on, to stay in the game, and Tony was signed to manage the Toronto Maple Leafs in the International League.
 

            Gehrig, whose Iron Horse streak ended earlier that spring, was off to the Mayo Clinic for “a check up” — and reading this brought to mind Bang the Drum Slowly and Bruce Pearson.
 

            The media gushed over Babe Ruth, who had left the game in ’35. They reported his quip, after his arm grew tired signing his name: “I didn’t know there were so many people who didn’t have my autograph!”  The day was summed up for one reporter by a 10-year-old’s “Gee, ain’t the Babe wonderful?”  Ruth popped up in the clambake pick-up game they played — the fans called out for the catcher to drop it, so they could see a homer. Honus Wagner’s gang topped Eddie Collins’, 4-2. The box score made the paper.