{"id":8577,"date":"2010-10-13T09:28:20","date_gmt":"2010-10-13T16:28:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.seamheads.com\/?p=8577"},"modified":"2010-10-13T15:21:02","modified_gmt":"2010-10-13T22:21:02","slug":"the-only-real-sport-out-there-pie-traynors-life-in-pro-wrestling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/2010\/10\/13\/the-only-real-sport-out-there-pie-traynors-life-in-pro-wrestling\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Only Real Sport Out There”: Pie Traynor’s Life in Pro Wrestling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>If you want to see someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face light up, find a middle-aged man who grew up in Pittsburgh and mention Pie Traynor.\u00c2\u00a0 When he hears that name, he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall Traynor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sparkling play at third base or all the clutch hits he delivered for the Pirates.\u00c2\u00a0 Those are the memories of a different generation.\u00c2\u00a0 No, if you came of age during the 1960s, the name Pie Traynor is forever linked with Saturday nights and professional wrestling.<\/p>\n

From the late 1950s through the early \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc70s, Studio Wrestling<\/em> was the signature program of Pittsburgh\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s WIIC, Channel 11.\u00c2\u00a0 Every Saturday from 6:00-7:30, thousands of people throughout Western Pennsylvania cheered from their living rooms as popular heroes like Bruno Sammartino and Jumpin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Johnny DeFazio waged war against villainous heels like Gorilla Monsoon and George \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Animal\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Steele.<\/p>\n

Wrestling was different in those days. \u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Guys didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have bizarre gimmicks,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d recalled Sammartino.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see skimpy clothes like today, where women are wearing a g-string and a bra that barely covers their nipples.\u00c2\u00a0 It was fairly clean entertainment.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Surrounding the ring were a few rows of folding chairs, which accommodated perhaps 200 people.\u00c2\u00a0 But behind the last row was a backdrop on which images of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fans\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were painted in order to create the illusion of a much larger crowd.\u00c2\u00a0 To people watching on their fuzzy, black-and-white sets, it appeared that the seats extended endlessly into the darkness.\u00c2\u00a0 Despite the low-budget production quality, Studio Wrestling<\/em> was wildly successful.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When we had wrestling on, we outdrew the Steelers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d boasted longtime host Bill Cardille.<\/p>\n

Traynor was the spokesman for the show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sponsor, the American Heating Company, whose enduring slogan, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who can?\u00c2\u00a0 Ameri-can!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is etched into the minds of a generation of Pittsburghers.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0Founder Max Berger marketed his business to blue-collar working stiffs.\u00c2\u00a0 They were the kind of people who ordinarily might not be able to afford major home improvement projects \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the kind of people who loved wrestling.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Heinz family wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t calling American Heating,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d joked Berger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s son, Jack.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Back in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc60s it wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t real common to get a loan from a bank to get a roof fixed [but] my dad worked closely with Mellon Bank to let people buy things on credit.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, Traynor was a magnetic presence, an exceedingly warm man with a puckish sense of humor.\u00c2\u00a0 The wrestlers instantly treated him like one of the guys.\u00c2\u00a0 He usually appeared at the studio around 4:30 and held court in WIIC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s massive announcer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s booth that was, in Cardille\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s description, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153as big as a kitchen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 Soon after Traynor arrived, the wrestlers would stop by to say hello and kill a little time.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ninety-five percent of the time there were five to seven other people in the announcer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s booth,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d recalled Cardille.<\/p>\n

Sammartino, a native of Italy, found Traynor especially captivating.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153When I first came to this country, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about baseball.\u00c2\u00a0 So I was fascinated by all these stories he used to tell.\u00c2\u00a0 He spoke very highly of Lou Gehrig.\u00c2\u00a0 He would smile and talk about what a wild man Babe Ruth was.\u00c2\u00a0 I used to try to get to the studio early just to sit there and talk to him.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Traynor had been a fixture on the Pittsburgh airwaves since 1945, when he agreed to broadcast a daily segment during KQV Radio\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s evening news.\u00c2\u00a0 But as this painful clip<\/a> suggests, his experience didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help him much on TV.\u00c2\u00a0 The American Heating ads were simply awful, to the point that WIIC newscaster Eleanor Schano felt terrible for the old guy. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bless his heart, he was such a wonderful storyteller, but as soon as you would get him on camera he would be so stilted.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Cardille thought Traynor was too afraid of making a mistake.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take his eyes off the TelePrompTer.\u00c2\u00a0 If they wrote \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcgo fly a duck\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 on the prompter as a joke, he would have said \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWho Can?\u00c2\u00a0 Ameri-can!\u00c2\u00a0 Go fly a duck!\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00c2\u00a0 It was full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

As clumsy as Traynor was, the commercials were astonishingly effective.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those ads would routinely bring in quite a number of phone calls that would turn into leads,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d remembered Jack Berger.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Max Berger\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s enduring partnership with Traynor and Studio Wrestling<\/em> helped him grow his company into one of the largest home improvement companies in the Pittsburgh area.<\/p>\n

Soon, everywhere Traynor went in Pittsburgh, strangers serenaded him with shouts of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Who can, Pie?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 And in return he would good-naturedly holler back, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ameri-can!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 But some took a dim view of Traynor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new identity.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In a way he became almost a clownish figure because of the American Heating ads,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d sniffed his old friend Chuck Reichblum.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kids who didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know probably wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have guessed that here was a hall of fame ballplayer.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 WIIC\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Don Riggs agreed, offering that Traynor became \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a caricature of himself.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0But Traynor evidently didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see it that way.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think he was kind of oblivious,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Reichblum.<\/p>\n

Or perhaps he just didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t care.\u00c2\u00a0 Traynor relished the spotlight.\u00c2\u00a0 When he lost his job as manager of the Pirates after the 1939 season, he knew that as much as anything he would miss \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the glamour of baseball,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as he called it.\u00c2\u00a0 This was not a man who could have felt fulfilled slaving dutifully behind a desk all day, then settling down to a quiet dinner with the wife every evening.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 He thrived on attention; he liked being liked.\u00c2\u00a0 Those silly commercials sort of made him a star again.\u00c2\u00a0 To his critics, Traynor replied with wink and a grin.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wrestling \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only real sport out there.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

James Forr is the 2005 winner of the McFarland-SABR Baseball Research Award and co-author of <\/em>Pie Traynor: A Baseball Biography, released in January 2010.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want to see someone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s face light up, find a middle-aged man who grew up in Pittsburgh and mention Pie Traynor.\u00c2\u00a0 When he hears that name, he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recall Traynor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sparkling play at third base or all the clutch hits he delivered for the Pirates.\u00c2\u00a0 Those are the memories of a different generation.\u00c2\u00a0 No, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":734,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t