Notes #420 — Such Interesting People

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

#420                                                                                                              OCTOBER 15, 2007
                                   SUCH INTERESTING PEOPLE
 

            The title of this issue could well serve as a substitute for Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown .
 

            Notes has been called a lot of things since its birth in March 1993, including a journal, and I suppose it is. I started keeping track of things in high school, and tried an almost-daily diary my first year away from home. In college, I filled a notebook or two with my thoughts, dating them — thereby placing them in an order, and a chronology. But it wasn’t until years later, in the summer of 1973, that I became a serious journalist. That project halted in 1977, when I got married. The next three journals revolved around our kids — they each got their own, started before they were born, with contributions from visiting grandmothers tucked in. The third one revolved around baseball, my daughter’s single season in softball, and my son’s debut in the level below Little League, that same year, 1991.
 

            I had started writing baseball as a hobby at the end of 1989. By 1992, I was consciously building a resume, a list of writing credits that might someday help me get a book in print. I had joined SABR in 1991, met Mike Schacht ( FAN Magazine ) and Mike Shannon ( Spitball ) and Elysian Field Quarterly , and my short stories and poems were getting published, along with an occasional article in Baseball Weekly . And that’s when NOTES came along — it was a way of submitting new stuff to a bunch of different editors, all at once, in an interesting (I hoped) format. If they saw something they liked and wanted to reprint in their publication, they let me know.
 

            Such Interesting People happens to be the title of a 1943 book that was recently recommended to me by Norman Macht, because in it, the author, Robert J. Casey, tells some stories about Harry Reutlinger, the reporter who interviewed Happy Felsch when the B-Sox scandal was breaking in 1920. More on that later. The title reminded me that I used to use the phrase Interesting People (or Person) frequently in that 1973-77 journal.
 

            It may seem arrogant for anyone to pretend to sort out the human race into interesting people versus others . Yet I think we all do this, unconsciously. The fact is that some folks strike us as more interesting than others, and some — not at all. I don’t think that means anything except that we have different tastes. Do I believe that given enough time , anyone and everyone will emerge as an I.P.?  Perhaps. But it’s a question that cannot ever be finally answered, at least among the living, our time on this planet is very, very limited. We meet only so many people in our lives — in person, in our reading, in movies, in our fantasies. It is simply impossible to recall them all, let along to decide where they fall along the Interesting spectrum.
 

            So we have to pick and choose, sometimes irrationally, and sometimes non-rationally. There are probably a hundred or more ballplayers for every one I’ve written about over the years. I find some interesting for what they did, and some for who they were or are, and some for both. Sometimes I can make them interesting for others, by writing about them. That’s why I say Such Interesting People could be a heading for Notes .
 

            With that long intro out of the way, I can tell you that this issue is about some interesting people. These include Eddie Cicotte, Bill Klem, Harry Reutlinger, a fellow named Tito, Bruce Markusen, Joe Torre, Charlie Jamieson, Eddie Murphy (the poem), Mike Lynch — and more. Enjoy.
 

 

ON THE ROAD AGAIN  
 

            Last issue, I chronicled my visit to Hancock, NY, the birthplace of Honest Eddie Murphy, and my search for the grave of Abe Attell. Just days later, I was on some of those roads again.
 

            What made this trip a bit surreal was that my companion was an older gentleman named Archie, and we were driving south to Cooperstown. Archie was no hitchhiker, we had planned the trip. I would like to report that we did this after we both saw a message on the Fenway Park scoreboard during the playoffs, a message that no one else saw. But that would be fiction. The fact is, however, that we had both watched Field of Dreams on television a few days before. And the fact is that we had been brought together, like Ray Kinsella, Moonlight Graham and (in the book Shoeless Joe ) J.D. Salinger, by the Black Sox scandal.
 

            As readers of Notes know, I’ve been addicted for over five years now to the mystery summed up in the phrase “the 1919 World Series.”  Archie has been connected to the story much longer — he is a relative of Eddie Cicotte. I would like to report that Archie himself had a cup of coffee in major league baseball, just one game, in right field, no at bats. But the fact is that he played pro hockey, in a whole ‘nother universe. When Archie met Knuckles, at his Livonia, Michigan farm (he gave me the address, on Seven Mile Road — but the farm is no longer in the family), he knew little or nothing about 1919. Like W.P. Kinsella, the author of the story we know best as Field of Dreams , Archie is a Canadian. Babe who?  Gordie Howe was his Sultan.
 

            Although we are from different eras, different sports, Archie and I conversed the whole time on the road, transporting us not only to and from that shrine in baseball’s mecca, but outside of time as well. So the trip felt more like a minute than an hour. If you’ve never had that experience yourself, I wish it for you. It just happens, you cannot plan for that .
 

            Archie was interested in seeing two scrapbooks, donated, we think, by Eddie Cicotte’s younger daughter, decades ago. I had told Archie about them when we first met (see Notes #417 ), and offered to take him to look at them. I had only glanced at them when I was researching Burying the Black Sox ; the books consist mostly of newspaper clippings and photographs. The clippings start before Eddie signed his first pro contract, with Detroit, but stop at the 1917 World Series. The photos are a fabulous treat for any relative. It dawns on me as I write that, that I have become part of the 1919 White Sox family. I can recognize a lot of the players, not all, but every name is familiar. And I know lots more about those guys than about my grandfathers. So I feel somehow related. With the 1919 Reds, it’s more distant.
 

            On the heels of the Eddie Murphy reunion, I witnessed again the wonder of someone looking back over many decades, to touch a person who was, in their lives, so much more than a ballplayer.
 

            Timing is everything . I am currently working on a long essay on Eddie Cicotte, that will end up, I hope, as a chapter in a book (not mine, an anthology of baseball mysteries); or perhaps as an article in a journal or SABR publication. Over the past five years, I may have written more about Cicotte than anyone else since Ring Lardner. The legend of the Cicotte Bonus … the Cicotte Muffs in Game Four … his signal HB to start the 1919 Series, thrown after he threw Strike One … his buried testimony to the 1920 grand jury, when he said he pitched to win . The more I’ve learned, the thinner the line between hero and villain, saint and sinner. Does that line always vanish in the end, if we look long and hard enough, and take a few glances in the mirror along the way?  Not just with Cicotte, of course.
 

            Some of the columns in the scrapbooks were by Joe Jackson — the oldtime Detroit writer, or, the one who never went shoeless. And now I want more than ever to read that Joe Jackson’s take on the Fix, the cover-up, and the way baseball dealt with the men involved — players and management. I feel another ILL (inter-library loan) coming on.
 

            And who knows?  Maybe Archie will let the Cicotte family know that he’s run into somebody who is looking into the cold case of the 1919 Series. Someone who would be very interested to see the old letters still in the family, maybe an old diary. How great would that be?  If I learned anything the past five years it is this: We will not find if we do not seek; and we will not seek if we do not expect to find something there. Where? Well, you know when you look in the right place, and find it. What is that something ? We are only limited there by our imaginations.
 

 

A VISIT WITH BILL KLEM  
 

            I was looking, in books written or edited by Tom Meany, for another mention of Joe Jackson’s asking out of the 1919 Series before it began — the bench being the only safe haven to avoid suspicion. (See Notes #419 , “New Yorker.”)  As it turned out, Joe Jackson’s instincts were right about that (I almost said, “right on the money” — a poor choice of images). Was Meany’s commentary in Baseball’s Greatest Hitters (1950) the only time he ever wrote about that?
 

            And that’s how I found, in a collection Meany pulled together in 1955, Collier’s Greatest Sports Stories , a tale told by perhaps the most famous umpire ever, Bill Klem, about the Black Sox. I don’t know why Klem was not on field duty that fateful October, but he wasn’t, so in a sense, his opinion is one of a fan in the stands. But Bill Klem was no average anything .
 

            Klem was such an authority figure on the diamond, that I am tempted to wonder if his presence alone might have warded off the fixers and made the players think again before accepting bribes. Klem broke into the majors in the National League in 1905. He umped his first Series in 1908, and did five more between 1911-1915. Anyone familiar with his style has to believe that Bill Klem was God when he was in charge of a game.
 

            Klem told the story for Meany’s 1955 book of how Ban Johnson tried to recruit him to the American League, out of the American Association, but Klem wanted no part of working for Johnson. He regarded Ban as such a domineering personality himself, that he made a mockery of the National Commission. Umpires at one time had been getting $400 to work the World Series, and Klem led a revolt for more money. Garry Herrmann agreed with Klem that the pay ought to be at least $1,000, but Johnson shot that down, because of Klem. The pay was raised to $650, but the NL made up the difference — for Klem only, who got his $1,000. Klem also boasted of signing the first multi-year contract for an umpire.
 

            Klem’s version of the exchange between John Heydler and Ban Johnson is a little different than most. Instead of Johnson reacting to the news of the Fix with “That’s the yelp of a beaten cur” (a response that Johnson himself denied making) — Klem has Johnson replying, “You run your league and I’ll run mine.”  The words sound Bansonian to me, but the Fix was not a league problem, and Johnson was still Czar. I think Ban knew that there had been tampering before the Series, but chose to let it play on, hoping that the mischief would soon end, and (more importantly) the rumors about the mischief would dissipate. To halt the Series to investigate fully would be bad for business, could open not just a can, but a case of worm cans.
 

            But here is what Klem wanted to say about the B-Sox, looking back from the 1950s. As usual, he had a theory. “When I umpire for a player, I think I learn whether he’s a man or not. I had umpired at one time or another for all the Black Sox and I say that the Chicago White Sox management must share the responsibility for the scandal with the fixers. The Chicago ballplayers” — all except Gandil — “were honest. But they were embittered weaklings. And they had every right to be embittered.”
 

            Klem then gives his opinion that Comiskey made a big mistake when he gave Tip O’Neill the responsibility to sign the players. I’m not sure if the ghost of Klem will permit this — but I think he means Harry Grabiner here. O’Neill was a close aide and in the Sox’ inner circle, but I’ve seen no reference to him doing any signing; on the other hand, I’ve seen lots of references to Harry Grabiner doing that. And, to Grabiner being a tightwad with Commy’s money, taking (in Klem’s words) “full and ruthless advantage of the reserve clause.” Klem has mixed feelings about the reserve clause — “it sounds inequitable” but yet it might be “essential for the growth [life?] of baseball.” Once upon a time, teams could slash salaries at will; by the 1950s, they could only deliver a maximum cut of twenty-five percent.
 

            Klem believed that the Sox players knew how underpaid they were. And some were not “smart enough or honest enough to shun the bribes.” So Klem overlooks the fact that according to both the gamblers who talked, and the players who talked, it was the players who came up with the scheme. He comes down hardest on O’Neill [Grabiner], for “serving his master [Comiskey] too well. Better, I’m convinced, than his master wanted to be served.” (I’m not convinced of that, but hey, this is Bill Klem !)
 

            Klem also told in this book a story I’ve seen elsewhere, but which bears re-telling. It involves the Cincinnati Reds pitcher from Cuba, Adolfo (Dolph) Luque, who threw some innings in October 1919. Klem wondered what Landis would have done, if Klem had reported to him, a couple incidents. In one, Luque approached Klem before a game and offered him $10 to work behind the plate that day. Luque was going to pitch, and he wanted Klem, because he knew how Klem called balls and strikes — consistently, I guess. Klem shooed him away. Two months later, Luque came back, in a different park, and offered Klem $25 to go behind the plate. Klem gave him a tongue-lashing and sent him packing.
 

            Klem understood that Luque was not bribing him, except in the most technical sense. He wanted to win and was “willing to pay for what he, in his great wisdom, considered superior umpiring.”  Clearly Klem was flattered. But he was also able to handle the problem himself. I like that in an umpire.  I mean, when they agree with me.
 

 

MOST HAPPY FELLA  
 

            Up top, I mentioned that the 1943 book Such Interesting People has some info on Harry Reutlinger’s famous (on the B-Sox trail) interview with Happy Felsch, which appeared in the Chicago American on September 29, 1920. That’s the day after Cicotte and Jackson visited the Cook County grand jury, and the same day that Lefty Williams followed them. Many books and articles state that Felsch confessed to the grand jury, too, but he did not. He told his story to Harry Reutlinger.
 

            The 1943 version in Robert J. Casey’s book contains nothing new or exciting. It pretty much confirms the versions that have Reutlinger deciding to visit Felsch because he was told that Happy was the “dumbest” of the Sox players under fire. “He’s the dumbest on anybody’s team,” a friend had advised. Casey does not understand the context of the interview — it followed on the heels of the main crack in the dam, the cover-up had ended. So Reutlinger should in no way get credit for the “expose’ of the Black Sox” — that would be a great disservice to many others, including Hugh Fullerton and the staff of Collyer’s Eye , not to mention Ban Johnson. Here is how Westbrook Pegler — whose father turns up as another interesting person in Carey’s book — described the encounter with Felsch (see NOTES #391 ):
 

Reutlinger said Felsch kicked him down the stairs, twice, when he approached him for a story. Then he decided to deceive Happy, telling him that Jackson had told the grand jury that Felsch had received $25,000. Felsch called Jackson a dirty rat, and took Reutlinger into his parlor.
 

Reutlinger’s managing editor hung up on him when he phoned in his sensational story of Felsch’s confession. But Hector Elwell, a city editor, grabbed the phone and turned Reutlinger over to a writer named Bob Casey, and the Felsch story was the lead story all day. (Back then, papers had several editions each day.)
 

            In “Bob” Casey’s 1943 version, Reutlinger told Happy, “the other guys are going to confess and leave you holding the bag. They say you’re the brains of it.”  To which Happy replies, “Naw, I ain’t the brains. But I got mine.”  Casey identifies the city desk editor who hung up on Harry R. as Eddie Mahoney, who “at the time was all tangled up in one of the periodic alcohol-ring exposures.” In Casey’s story, it was not a simple matter of “grabbing the phone” as Westbrook Pegler had it.
 

            Mahoney told Reutlinger to call back. “Call back, nuts!  I’ll call the News , they’ll take it….”  Then Mahoney hung up. And then both Reutlinger and Mahoney, according to Casey, has second thoughts. But Reutlinger had called from a phone booth — remember them, in the Age Before Cells (ABC)?  So Mahoney called all the American distribution centers on Chicago’s South Side, and dispatched as many American trucks as he could muster, to track down Reutlinger, and do their regular routes later. Harry R. was intercepted in front of an “elevated station” (Chicago’s L, their mass transit), where the truck driver apologized for Mahoney. Happy Felsch’s “confession” was soon in print.
 

            In neither young Pegler’s, nor Casey’s account, in the detail in Eliot Asinof’s account (in Bleeding Between the Lines , 1979) that Reutlinger visited Felsch with a bottle of Scotch. That opened the door for Asinof, too (he used Chivas Regal as his key).
            Whatever Reutlinger said to Happy Felsch, it strikes me as questionable journalism to open an interview with a deception. I think offering the Scotch, if Harry R. did that, was OK — if I had a bottle for every free interview I’ve given, well, let’s just say I’d be well-stocked for the approaching cold winter. For just a minute, put yourself in Happy’s shoes (almost said happy feet ). The grand jury leaks are adding pressure every day, as the pennant race is in its final week. Now you are informed by a reporter you’ve never met before, that your teammates are giving you up. How much Scotch was left, when Happy decided to tell this guy Reutlinger what he wanted to hear?  Like others, Felsch said that the fix was in, all right, but he personally did nothing to earn whatever money he might have gotten. OK, $5,000. That play where he looked so awful — nope, I was trying to catch that one . How much did Harry R. “embellish”?  We likely will never know.
 

            But with luck, we may someday be able to listen to Happy Felsch chat with Eliot Asinof — if his tapes have survived. We can hope that Felsch will recall his afternoon visit from Harry R. and that he doesn’t spend too much time trying to pronounce Chivas Regal . Asinof said they talked for several hours, “well down that bottle.” Asinof said Felsch didn’t like sportswriters. “All company men.” Under the thumb of the magnates.
 

            Asinof was not working under a deadline. He talked with Felsch about his childhood, first jobs. Felsch admitted that he was “dumb” for getting involved in the Fix. He also admitted to throwing games in 1920, but would not say it was for fear of the same gamblers. A week later, Happy’s wife told Asinof over the phone that the gamblers had threatened Happy, and his children. There were six. (It’s not clear if she meant in 1919 or 1920.)
 

            Robert J. Casey’s book sheds little light on the B-Sox story, but much on the world inhabited by the sportswriters of that era. The book starts with an old cliche’ about a reporter who meets a stranger, who says, “It must be fascinating to be a journalist. You meet such interesting people.” And the stock reply: You certainly do, and they’re all in the newspaper business.” Casey book is a huge collection of stories that seem to prove that point. Once upon a time, journalism was all about getting others to talk, and getting their stories in print, avoiding lawsuits. If the story could be improved upon by a little editing, a little embellishing, why not?  There were no tape recordings, no film or TV cameras present. The journalist was truly the medium.
 

 

IN THE MAIL  
 

            I recently responded to a post on SABR-L about Ruth’s “Called Shot” … I’m not a believer, and I included this line: I believe that there is more evidence that Ruth did not call his shot.”  Then I received the message below from a SABR member, and I reprint it here with Tito’s permission.
 
Oct 10
Dear Mr. Carney:
 

            Growing up in his native Switzerland of the 20s, Jacques Tramonti was mostly a normal boy. He loved the mountains, especially climbing them, and had respect for honor, culture and tradition. Except that unlike most his friends, he had a great admiration for the United States and all things American.
 
            So he begged and he pestered, until when the time came, his bewildered parents sent him to college in the U. S. When he graduated, he took a farewell tour of his beloved United States, and while in San Francisco, he fell madly in love with a señorita from Nicaragua named Amelie Ulvert. Since she was of French origin, they shared many interests and married, and decided to settle in the Central American country. As a gesture of good bye to his bachelorhood, and of his love for all things American, M. Tramonti took to Nicaragua the first convertible ever seen there. And when he discovered that that tiny country had more volcanoes than most continents, his happiness was complete. He decided to climb all of them, and several times the most interesting ones, and he mostly forgot about baseball.
 

            Ah yes. While in college, he had understood (no mean feat for a European) and liked very much the quintessential American sport of baseball. So that in 1932 he went to the World Series games played in Chicago. Decades passed, and whenever I encountered the older gentleman, he would ask me about the Major Leagues in a most general way, and about the New York Yankees. Finally, when I reached the age of reason, 32 or so, it came to me that this was very odd. Why was a Swiss volcano climber, married to the woman who was the soul behind the National Theater and the arrival of the great performers there (Dame Margot Fonteyn, the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra, Duke Ellington), asking me about baseball? He told me his story… including attending the 1932 Series.
 

            So I asked (I had to ask, same as every single member of SABR would have done): Were you at the game? Did he point? He said, “Yes, of course. And Ruth called the shot.”  Are you sure? “Why?” Because there is controversy on whether he did or not. “What? How can there be controversy? It was obvious, everybody saw it. I remember talking about it with my friends as we left the stadium, and nobody doubted it for a second. If somebody needs an affidavit from a witness or something, let me know.” Since that day in about 1976 I never doubted that Ruth “called his shot”. However, I now realize that whatever his gesture was, some witnesses interpreted it as a called shot, others not. Which is what I believe now. Nevertheless, the first time I went to Wrigley Field, with the Dodgers in 1990, I could not help but to try to picture a young Jacques Tramonti, up in the stands (which?), watching Babe Ruth make a gesture, and believing he was signaling a homerun. And then watching him hitting it. And then forgetting about it while climbing dozens of volcanoes.
 

 

POSTSEASON NOTEBOOK  
 

            Sometimes items about interesting people come to me, and sometimes I go out and find them myself. One web site I’ve bookmarked is Bruce Markusen’s: http://www.bruce.mlblogs.com/
Here is a snippet from a page from Bruce’s notebook of October 8:
 
Monday’s Bunts and Boots
 

            Never a big fan of FOX’s coverage of baseball, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by TBS’ inaugural dive into the postseason. Their producers have steadfastly refused to bombard us with useless crowd shots, instead keeping the focus on the field -‑ where it should remain. TBS has also compiled an excellent inventory of analysts, from the superbly keen Steve Stone to the reasoned analysis of Ron Darling to the underrated insight of Joe Simpson. TBS could use an upgrade in play‑by‑play (Skip Caray would have been a far better choice than Dick Stockton), but I’ve enjoyed the work of Don Orsillo and Ted Robinson. Now, if only TBS would be allowed to broadcast the World Series.
 

            Is it time to re‑think the playoff format, perhaps even the number of teams that qualify for the postseason? It’s a pertinent question given how dull the Division Series matchups have been thus far. Three of the four series have resulted in sweeps, with most of the individual games being one sided and/or listless. There’s been only one game that could be remotely considered a classic‑Game Two of the ALDS between the Indians and Yankees, which featured a pitching duel of Fausto Carmona and C.C. Sabathia. That’s one game out of 12, not a particularly good ratio. Although the games have not been entertaining, I don’t think the format is to blame. It’s not as if the heavily favored teams have been blowing out underdogs; for example, the Phillies and Cubs were favored to win their series, at least in most corners -‑ and both lost in three straight. For the moment, I’ll chalk this up to being a fluke, with the hope that the remainder of the postseason will give us more compelling theater. It certainly can’t get much worse.
 

 

HOLLOW HOMERS  
 

            The elimination of the Yankees this fall brought a couple things to my mind. There have been Yankee teams that I have liked in the past, but this current bunch isn’t one of them. However, I think I’ve always respected their manager, Joe Torre, and the threat by Steinbrenner — win or Joe goes — was exactly what the team did not need. It’s hard enough playing in NYC. The threat took me back to the first years of Notes , when Steinbrenner was widely regarded as a meddler.
 

            It was noteworthy that the Yankees did hit some Bronx Bombs, but they seemed to come only with the bases empty. Recalling that Joe Torre grew up playing APBA (I’m a recovering APBA addict), I wondered if the same image popped into his mind, as into mine: the roll of the 66, but “wasted,” in a sense — the HR, a run in, but nothing going , rally-wise, and you only roll so many 66s per game . Happy the manager who rolls them with men on the bases.
 

            And of course, in that last game, when it seemed clear that the Indians were serious about ending the agony for the Yankees and their fans, the last HR (by Abreau, I believe) rang hollow. I flashed back to Shoeless Joe’s long HR in the 1919 WS finale — nice, but too little, too late. (I am not surprised that Jackson later remembered the shot coming with two men on — no doubt, that is what he had hoped for.)
 

            And then I wondered if any stat men had calculated the value of a “hollow HR” — a solo shot when the team trails me more than a run — versus the value of, say, a double. Fifty years of rooting tells me the double is better — a rally is afoot , the pitcher has to go to the stretch, change signs, worry just a little more. In APBA, the reasoning goes like this — you can get a baserunner with an ordinary roll of the dice. And the 66 — the roll that can clear the bases in a hurry — is still on deck .
 

            Postscript: If Steinbrenner is foolish enough to let Torre go, the Pirates can use him. Pass on the rumor — who knows?
 

 

NOOKS-AND-CRANNIES DEPT.  
 

            I recently received a tip from Arlene Marcley that I might find something of interest in the HOF file of Charlie Jamieson. I have rooted through the files of most of the players connected with the Fix, and some of the files of the fringe players — the 1920 Clevelanders were definitely “on the fringe” as far as 1919 goes, but remember, Cleveland won the AL flag in 1920. The scandal broke right before the World Series that fall, so Cleveland and Brooklyn had a very tough act to follow. (Betting was way down.) But perhaps the AL players could shed some light on the 1920 pennant race. Were the Sox really trying?
 

            According to Jamieson — no. But he seems to think the Sox were derailed by the scandal much earlier (there were three games left). But Jamieson thought the Sox had the stronger team in 1920. His version of the 1919 Series was standard. Jamieson regarded Clark Griffith as “the tightest guy in all of baseball” (a blow to Comiskey fans). He thought Attell “caused it all” and then along came Ruth to save the game. Jamieson recalled that Connie Mack forbade cigarettes — but cigars were OK. If a group of players spotted Mack across the street, they hid their lit cigarettes and held up their cigars. Mack might fine his players a box of cigars for infractions.
 

            The long interview with Jamieson that is in his Cooperstown file is worth mentioning. Because it is a Larry Ritter interview, one that did not make it into his book (not even the enlarged edition). I asked the HOF staff if there were others — either on tape, or transcript (like Jamieson’s). And there are. I will try to find a list of them and put it in the next Notes .
 

            I’ve mentioned in previous issues how tricky it can be to track down what they said to Larry Ritter (and other oral historians, like Eugene Murdock). The tapes may be incomplete, especially if edited for a book tape like Glory of Their Times . And there may be more than one transcript, as in the case of Smoky Joe Wood. Cooperstown does not have everything.
 

SLIPPY  
 

            That’s a Pittsburgh word. Years ago, in the name of the New Ethnicity, I tried to recover my Pittsburgh accent. I have been only partly successful: Stillers , gum band, and a few more.
 

            The story about Ritter’s legacy above reminded me how slippy it will be for anyone trying to compile all of my baseball poems. A project I’ve started to whittle away at myself (more on that in a future Notes ). Romancing the Horsehide contains 125 poems, and when McFarland published it, I had not written too many more. I got up around 275 when the Strike hit in August 1994, and have composed very few since then — almost all, for special occasions. I should have done one for the Eddie Murphy celebration (see last issue). Here it is, late:
 

HONEST
 

Sometimes ballplayers
Get their nicknames
By doing nothing at all,
And sometimes that is
The hardest thing of all to do.
 

Ask Eddie Murphy,
Whose skill at hitting and catching
The dead ball
Took him far the sandlots
Of Mathewson country.
 

That skill, some college,
And a friendship with infielder Collins
Made Eddie a mainstay on Connie Mack’s
Dynastic A’s, 1912-1915,
Put him on stage in a couple World Series.
 

His long climb inspired the folks back home
To honor him with a crystal bat,
Reminding Eddie of his roots.
 

Traded to the White Sox the same summer
They acquired another outfielder,
A superstar with a Hall of Fame nickname,
Shoeless Joe.
Eddie Murphy was ready in the pinch,
And in 1919 his astounding .486 average
And an on-base percentage never matched
By Cobb or Ruth
Helped the Sox make it to October’s Game.
 

Unlike Eddie Collins,
Murphy never made it to the Hall of Fame;
Unlike another teammate named Eddie,
“Knuckles” Cicotte,
He never made it to infamy either.
 

Because Eddie Murphy’s sox stayed
As unblemished and clean as a glass bat,
“Better forgotten than remembered for a wrong,”
Said the fellow who earned the nickname
Honest Eddie.
 

            Once upon a time, my poems were neatly organized on a couple floppy disks — remember the 5.25″ ones? — that’s how long ago. I have reprinted many of them here and there in Notes , and sent copies off to people interested. When I do this, I almost always tinker with the poems — if not the content, then the punctuation. Occasionally, I’ll delete one. A harsher critic might delete a lot more. No one is more conscious than I am, that the poems fall along a spectrum, from strikeout to grand slam. The trouble is, what rates a single today might look like a triple to me tomorrow. The poem hasn’t changed. I have. So I think twice before deleting the turkeys.
 

            My baseball poetry is itself at the other end of the spectrum, from my B-Sox writings. I suppose this reflects a “for better and for worse, in sickness and in health” relationship with baseball. (But no, I don’t feel at all married to the game.) I guess the last thing I want to say here about my poetry is this: if you are trying to find it all, good luck .
 
MORE RECOMMENDATIONS  
 

            “If I had to pick a specific target group, I’d say I’m gearing the site mostly towards SABR members who appreciate the quality content that can be found in The National Pastime and The Baseball Research Journal .”  This is Mike Lynch talking about his new web site: http://www.seamheads.com/blog/
 

            “I don’t want to alienate the average baseball fan, of course, and we’ll be writing about current events as well, but I’m into well‑researched articles and blogs that hopefully will be informative and compelling.”  Mike threatens/promises to interview me sometime down the road.
 

            Mike has a couple links that I think are worth passing along. Steve Steinberg is an avid SABR researcher who is by now a familiar name here in NOTES for his generous sharing of articles related to the B-Sox that he turns up in his own excavations of microfilm mines. See Steve’s stuff at: http://www.stevesteinberg.net/
 

            Then there’s http://www.baseballthinkfactory.org/— a site I have visited a few times, but I’m not a member. I’d like to hear from others about this, and other web sites you recommend.