Notes #52

NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN

Observations from Outside the Lines

By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@adelphia.net)

#52 — AKA: Hot Stove Issue #14 February 5, 1994

WHAT MAKES FOR A GOOD HOT STOVE QUESTION?

The logs that burns longest and hottest are the kind I like in my hot stove. Trivia questions are like newspaper: OK for getting something going, maybe, but they won’t make it through the evening. No, the best Hot Stovers are those which bring out opinions, which shed both heat and light, which stick around.

In this issue, I’m tossing a number of questions on the flames of February. The “Valentine” on page 2 also asks “What is baseball?” Bring that up in the office. On page 4, Why are Third Basemen overlooked by the Hall of Fame voters? On page 5, How Would Nolan Have Done Throwing from 50 Feet? And on pages 6-8, the grandaddy of them all, Did Ruth Call His Shot?

The Called Shot, like the Scopes Monkey Trial, pits faith against reason, legend against history, believers against infidels. I call it baseball’s Santa Claus … worthy of a film all by itself … perhaps like Miracle on 34th Street .

There may be some oldies more golden than The Called Shot, but few questions stir up as many sparks. There is testimony on both sides, so we weigh the credibility of the witnesses, we look at the men involved, we try to get inside their heads. We know who started the rumor, and what he finally believed about it. And we close the case … until the next time we feel cold!

YOU KNOW ME, DON’T YOU?

I am baseball.

I’ve looked pretty much the same for over a hundred summers. That sounds like I’m old, but I feel young.

Find me in the eyes of a Little Leaguer, or those of kids out with the ballpark crowd for the first time. Some say I look best in sunlight, on grass, on a Sunday in July. But that’s me, even on a cold April night, even inside a dome.

Don’t make the mistake of confusing me with those who play the game. Baseball is not greedy, nor am I skinflint owners or TV folk who sell commercials. Players may auction themselves off, bet on or throw games, and shun the fans. They may be ignorant about my past. They may even think they are baseball, but they are not.

Look past them all. See me in the turning of a 6-4-3 double play and a rookie’s first hit. See me in the sweat on the forehead of the pitcher straining for the last out. See me in the autograph easily signed with a smile, the tip of the cap, the glance toward the stands when in a pinch. See me in the moment when suddenly everybody stands to see where the long ball will land.

I knew your grandfather when he could hardly speak English, but spoke baseball fluently with his neighbors. I knew your father when he was given his first glove, when he played in the street and in vacant lots, from morning til dusk. And I’m getting to know your son, who puts on his team’s catcher’s gear like it’s a suit of armor.

Don’t you recognize my voice? It’s in the buzz of the fans that you hear on the radio, and the crack of the bat. It’s vendors hawking peanuts and sodas, kids squealing on a playground, Moms and Dads rooting for their kids to get a hit.

I was there long before the Black Sox, and I’m still here. I was there before Jackie Robinson, in every league in the land, and I’m still here. I was there before radio and television, before Curt Flood, before the big money, and I’m still here. Tough as horsehide standing its ground against swinging wood, I am baseball, and will be here as long as people let me into their lives.

You know me now, don’t you? I am baseball ,

the summer game, alive, sturdy as a family tree.

WHO’S ON FIRST THIRD?

I had so much fun with the “quiz” a few issues ago on first basemen, that I’m at it again, this time on the Hot Corner. Identify the third basemen, from the lines of poetry below. #8 is for Pirate fans. Answers at the END.

1

Connie Mack’s

Hot corner man

In the $100,000 Infield

(Four stars for

Pinch-hitter’s wages —

Those were the days)

2

Rhymes with eye

As in batting —

Look up contact hitter

And he’ll be there

Sure as he was there

Turning the smash over the bag

From a double to a five-three

With a hunk of leather

That deserved no assist on the play

3

… played under the pressure

Of a man on a pace

After a rookie twenty-five dingers

Followed by nine straight summers

Of thirty or more —

What heavier burden than to be

“Ahead of Ruth’s pace”?

4

… prospected his gold

With ambidexterity

Panning along the line

Guarding his claim to fortune

Diving for white nuggets

Following his instincts

In the hole at short

And blasting his finds to basemen

Cutting down the enemy’s rush

5

So much of baseball’s family

Bears a strong resemblance

To this patriarch of the inside game

His genes dominant as his Giants

…

The game has his eyes

Nothing escaped them

No opportunity

For the extra base or run

6

Charlie Hustle of his day

… spiced up the show

For his Cardinal teammates

Between and outside the lines

…

No one else so far

Who has visited the Series

Has risen to that challenge

Quite so smartly

7

Sixteen summers in the heat

Of four pennant-capped races

Of Wrigley’s magnifying glass

Of .301-degree swinging

Made Cub fans smile

8

Let pilots cruise the warning track

And sailors pitch

Third is for Marines

HOT CORNER … NOT SO HOT

… that is, when it comes to the Hall of Fame. No position is as under-represented in Cooperstown than third base. The addition of Mike Schmidt will help, but he’ll be just the 8th to go bronze.

Two Cubs on the doorstep are Stan Hack and Ron Santo. “The Wild Hoss of the Osage” — Pepper Martin — is with them. Hack had four Series rings and a .301 average. Pepper had three rings and .298, to go with his lifetime .418 Series average. And he was arguably the most colorful player on the Gashouse Gang!

So why do the baseball writers who vote in HOFers ignore the Hot Corner? Is that position most often obstructed from the view from the press box? Is there a prejudice operating, that assumes any glove worth its gold is stationed at short, where the throws are longest, or at second, where fielders pivot? Or is the “New York” factor the reason: the Yankee dynasties had some good third-basemen (Was Red Rolfe tops? How about Nettles?) — but the NY writers (the biggest voting block) perhaps were used to overlooking third, in the talent shows. Your theories on this are welcome!

HOW … HOT IS THE CORNER?

“It is commonly assumed that the term [hot corner] came about because of the hot shots aimed at the third baseman, but the explanation is not universally accepted. An article on ‘Baseball Lingo’ in the October 1935 issue of Fan and Family says: ‘Third base was so named about 40 years ago when most of the star sluggers were right-handed. Nowadays, however, with so many hard-hitting left-handers, first base is equally “hot.”‘ In his Baseball Almanac , Hy Turkin traces the term to Cincinnati writer Ren Mulford, who created it during a certain game in 1889 during which third baseman Hick Carpenter ‘fielded seven sharp drives that almost tore him apart.’ Mulford wrote, ‘The Brooklyns had Old Hick on the hot corner all afternoon and it’s a miracle he wasn’t murdered.”

— The Dickson Baseball Dictionary

THE HOOSIER THUNDERBOLT

Might better have been tagged

Shooting Star:

Amos Rusie lit up the dead-ball sky

Decade before the century turned

And the famous Amos arm

Burned out

Farmer grew to size

As an iron Giant in the city

That magnifies:

Zeus hurling imprecise lightning

Crackling wild with K’s

Five hundred innings a summer

Harvesting W’s in sunny fields

Sat out one of those seasons

Refusing to throw a knuckler

In a salary dispute:

Might have changed the game

Even more

But he settled for his due

Instead of the reserve clause

Imagine Nolan Ryan

Ten feet closer to home

Allowed to work from a box,

Released from the rubber:

Not hard to understand why Amos’

Catcher fortified his mitt with lead

And why Amos Wilson Rusie

Usually stood tall and victorious

At the end of the ninth

Batters couldn’t stand the heat

So they made the mound retreat

To its present sixty feet

Six inches

A PAGE FROM THE FAMILY ALBUM

Amos Rusie is mentioned in several poems besides mine, including Polo Grounds , by Rolfe Humphries, which ends like this:

“Time is of the essence. The shadow moves / From the plate to the box, from the box to second base,/ From second to the outfield, to the bleachers.

“Time is of the essence. The crowd and players / Are the same age always, but the main in the crowd / Is older every season. Come on, play ball!”

Amos Rusie was voted into Cooperstown in 1977. In a remarkable career of just nine seasons, 1889-1898 (he sat out ’96), he won 246 games. He did return in 1901 with Cincinnati, after being traded in the winter of 1900 — for Christy Mathewson! Amos managed 22 IP for Cincy — Matty, 373 wins. So much for lop-sided trades!

Rusie’s lightning fastball almost maimed Hughie Jennings, and broke a few batters’ bones in its heyday. Amos took a line drive himself that permanently damaged his hearing. So when the mound was rolled back (in 1893), it was probably mutually agreeable.

The “Triple Crown” noted on his Conlon card came in 1894: 36 wins, 195 K’s and a 2.78 ERA (he also led that year in fewest hits per game.)

In the first Fireside Book of Baseball, we can read the account of Rusie, the top NL pitcher (in 1897), facing the pheenom Louis Sockalexis, when the original Cleveland Indian made his debut in New York … and homered into deep center! Amos Rusie returned to the Polo Grounds in the 20’s, thanks to John McGraw, as a ballpark superintendent.

THE FICKLE FINGER OF THE BABE

My poem Called Shot appeared here last October, and I’ve surely made enough references to this “event” over the past eleven (!) months, that my view of it is pretty well known: George Herman did not say Read My Finger, and the idea of the “called shot” was hype, pure and simple … OK, maybe just simple. Let’s not be that naive.

Yet here we are in February 1994, and the Fox Network is spending an hour on this “controversial” subject. I hate to sound like a Grinch, but it’s only controversial for those who haven’t done much reading of the eye- and ear-witness accounts … OK, maybe that’s who Fox is targeting. Who reads anymore?

“Apparently the story is too good to die,” wrote Joe Williams, a reporter who was as close to Ruth as anyone in that era. “So it lives on, true or untrue, depending on the version you wish to accept.” Williams could never draw Ruth out on the topic, and concluded that he deliberately avoided the question. Ruth’s manager never agreed with the legendary version. Yankee Art Fletcher stated “There was no talk about it in the dugout at the time.”

That’s what Williams wrote in 1965, but it was his story in 1932 that gave birth to the myth. Williams was the only journalist to see the miracle, and his reputation gave the story credibility. As Williams talked to more and more players, he realized that he had created — not a Frankenstein, but a Santa Claus — for a country full of Virginias.

The story is too good to die. Because the fantasy shows how Babe Ruth was regarded by America’s fans: he was that good, he might have done it. He was that cocky — yeah, maybe he did call the homer . Sixty-some years (and counting) later, what happened is much less important than what was believed . And that French proverb comes into play again: for those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, none is possible.

In 1953, Williams even reported a “deposition” by prizefighter Mickey Walker, a pal of Ruth’s. Walker and a hotel man had the Babe “nibbling on nutritious, body-building scotch” one night, when they pinned him down. Ruth: “I had two strikes on me and the pitcher was levelling with speed curves. We were kiddin’ one another and I swept my arm, motioning to the outfield, trying to rib him into a fastball. I was waiting for the pitch and when it came I belted the ball over the centerfield fence.”

YOU BE THE UMPIRE

“It will never be known for certain, but on-deck hitter Lou Gehrig insisted that Ruth had meant to call his home run and point out where it would go.”

— 20th Century Baseball Chronicle , 1991 (!)

“Gehrig said he read about it in the papers the next day. ‘And that was the first I’d heard about the Babe “calling” the shot.'” — Joe Williams, 7/14/65

“He really didn’t do it, you know. I hate to explode one of baseball’s great legends, but I was there and saw what happened. Sure, he made a gesture, he pointed — but it wasn’t to call his shot. Listen, he was a great hitter and a great character, but do you think he would have put himself on the spot like that?”

— Billy Hermanin The Glory of Their Times

“[Charlie Root] used to tell me that there was no way Babe Ruth could have done that to him and gotten away with it. Charlie Grimm told me the same thing. ‘Root would have put that next pitch right into Ruth’s ear if Babe had tried that on him,’ he said. Root was that way. He had a reputation as a head-hunter.”

— Gene Conleyin A Donald Honig Reader

“He hit two home runs in that game and so did Gehrig, but as usual Ruth was the center of things. Here’s what he said:

“‘I was out at the hospital this morning and I told a little kid I was gonna hit him a home run today.’

“Mrs Sewell told me later that when Babe came up she heard Mrs Ruth call out to him, ‘Remember the little boy.’ And that’s when he pointed out and hit the home run. He’d already hit one, but I guess he figured that wasn’t enough.

“Do I believe he really called it? Yes sir. I was there. I saw it. I don’t care what anybody says. He did it. He probably couldn’t have done it again in a thousand years, but he did it that time.” — Teammate Joe Sewellin Honig

“The next thing you know some newspapermen are saying he’d pointed to the center-field bleachers, and people are believing it. Ruth went along with it, and why not? Just to show you how some people can be led along, I had a good friend who was at the game, and he swore to me later that Ruth pointed to the bleachers. ‘Forget it,’ I’d tell him, ‘I don’t want to hear about it.'”

— Burleigh Grimesin Honig

A POSTSCRIPT ON THE “CALLED SHOT” AND MR. RUTH

The previous pages were written before I watched the Fox Front Page segment on Ruth’s “called shot,” which featured the never-before-telecast “Zapruder film of baseball.” In case you missed it, a fan named Matt Campbell had his home movie camera at Wrigley Field that day in 1932 when the legend was born, and the lens were open at the decisive moment. Unfortunately, Mr Campbell did not have box seats, so our view is from well behind third base. Mr. C. also kept a journal, by the way, and noted there that he had caught the Babe hitting two homers, on his film, but mentions no gestures.

Front Page

assembled an interesting jury. The Babe’s daughter noted her dad “had a flair for doing the right thing at the right time,” and after viewing the film, exclaimed, “He really did.”

Robert Creamer, who bio’d Babe, repeated the saying “all the lies about Babe are true,” then concluded that the argument about The Shot “doesn’t matter a damn” — Ruth homered in response to taunting, and that’s all that counts. (He noted that the crowd was wowed by the blast, as it was one of the longest seen at Wrigley.)

Several fans who were at the game, after viewing the film, were convinced that their memories were correct: Fan A, that Babe “in a very arrogant way, pointed out to where he was going to hit a home run” — “I saw it!” Fan B saw nothing like that.

Mickey Mantle and a group of ex-Yanks were shown the film, and Mantle recalled how he himself once called his shot, a game-winning homer in the 1964 Series. “I called them about 500 times — that was the only one I hit!” he added. Reggie Jackson said “it had to be a Reggie Jackson or Babe Ruth type, a Muhammad Ali type” of person to pull it off. After viewing the film, Reggie said, “He was jawing — I don’t see a called shot here.”

For some reason, Front Page did not mention Joe Williams and his World Telegram story, the seed that sprouted the legend. (The NY Times mentioned gestures, but none of the other print reports, and I think there were 16 in all, noted anything unusual.)

Cub SS Billy Jurges (who had a great view) thought at first Ruth called it, but then talked with catcher Gabby Hartnett, who told him Ruth was saying, “that’s only two strikes.” Debunking is not pretty, and Jurges went on to say that he hoped this would not be the end of the legend, which is “good for baseball”. Bob Costas had a similar sentiment: “I’d like to believe….”

Mike Lupica’s final remarks were thoughtful. Are heroes still possible? Or does the tabloid treatment eventually cut everyone down to size, because that’s what we want today? “In the golden age they only knew what they wanted to know, and what they wanted to know was that their sports stars were heroes.” Lupica concludes, “Maybe the problem is that we don’t want heroes anymore,” and we can’t blame the athletes, “we did it to ourselves.”

TEAM PHOTOS

They lounge on the grass

Some with crossed legs

Bats strewn every which way in front

Behind them are more ball players

A row or two on rickety wooden bleachers

Sagging from their weight

Usually just a single letter or word

Dots their uniform shirt or cap —

They pose proudly

Like Civil War troops

In front of pitched tents

Some hold weapons of wood

Thick handles and long barrels

Inside a few leather mitts

Are baseballs scuffed white and gray

Like the pictures themselves

In nines they huddle

Or tens or eighteens

Their bearded and mustached faces

Tilt at odd angles

Away from the camera’s stare

And the hidden photographer

Poised to flash

Eyes radiate pride and spirit

For schools or villages

Or towns growing into cities

As uneasy as they are with the wait

They are at ease with each other:

Played together as a team

Sacrificed for a common goal

Pursued an unholy grail

Applauding individual efforts

Tasting collective success and failure:

United they pose

Photos and daguerreotypes

Pieces of metal and cardboard and past

Images of early American communities:

Bridegrooms infatuated with

The old ball game

SPEAKING OF PHOTOGRAPHY

I’ve written here before of the stickpin commemorating the opening of Forbes Field (June 30, 1909), which my grandfather passed on to my father, and which now is in the Cooperstown Museum. I don’t think I ever mentioned another heirloom, which I still have, on a shelf in my home office: a team photo of the 1902 Champion Pirates. All 18 of them. It had to be my grand-father’s, too. It’s a little faded now, but not too bad.

That gang won the pennant in 1901, and repeated in 1902, winning 103 out of 139 decisions. Like this year’s SF Giants, they did not go on to post-season. Because there wasn’t any yet. They had to wait ’til next year for that innovation.

I was reminded by the Buffalo Bills’ fourth straight Super Bowl loss , of — the Brooklyn Dodgers! Why? Because Jackie and Company made it to the Series in 1947, ’49, ’52, and ’53, before they finally won in ’55 (then lost again in ’56.)

I strongly believe that no post-season stumbling should ever eclipse the success of a winning season, or tarnish the achievement of the teams that get to the final exhibition. The 1902 Pirates in my photo all seem very satisfied. Rightly so.

ANSWERS TO “WHO’S ON THIRD?”:

1. Frank “Home Run” Baker.

2. Harold “Pie” Traynor.

3. Eddie Mathews.

4. Brooks Robinson.

5. John McGraw.

6. John “Pepper” Martin.

7. “Smiling Stan” Hack.

8. Don “Tiger” Hoak.