I usually read more baseball books in the off-season than during the summer months. Since the players and the owners are currently at an impasse with no end sight, my needs are even more pronounced. Moreover, baseball books provide me with more relaxed material in contrast to the intense fare that I have been reading lately. Books about climate (the eco-anthology All We Can Save), an explanative history of the rise of nationalism (Age of Anger) and the story of the London cholera epidemic of 1854 (The Ghost Map) have been interesting, but unsettling. None of these books are something you want to read in the evening near bedtime. That’s where a calming book of old-timey baseball stories can be most appreciated. And I miss baseball.
My solution has been Baseball: When the Grass Was Real (1976), by writer-poet Donald Honig who travelled around the country collecting the narratives of the men who played baseball in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s. Earlier Lawrence Ritter put together a similar book, The Glory of the Times (1966), which gathered oral histories of players who played in the early part of the 20th century. (Honig acknowledges Ritter’s efforts in his Introduction). To those viewers of the Ken Burns' documentary, some of the players have familiar sounding names ( e.g., Lefty Grove, Bob Feller). Honig also includes less familiar but melodic names (Big Johnny Mize, Max Lanier) made famous in Dave Frishberg’s musical paean to baseball players, "Van Lingle Mungo".
Honig allows the players to speak in their own vernacular taking advantage of their storytelling skills. But in addition to the 18 players selected, these players also include their personal anecdotes of being teammates and contemporaries of Hall of Famers, Ted Williams*, Joe DiMaggio, Dizzy Dean and Jackie Robinson to name but a few. Some notable stories include:
Billy Herman was a Hall of Famer who played from 1931- 47 mostly for the Chicago Cubs. He was an eyewitness to Babe Ruth's pointing to the centerfield stands and calling his shot before hitting a home run in the 1932 World Series. But from his position at second base Herman confirms that it is a great story but incorrect, because the Cub pitcher that day was the extremely competitive Charlie Root. Herman says that Ruth was pointing two fingers at Root (not at centerfield) and that Root only had two strikes on him. “But he didn’t point," says Herman," “Don’t kid yourself. I can tell you just what would have happened if Ruth had tried that—he would have never got a pitch to hit. Root would have had him with his feet up in the air. I told you Charlie Root was a mean man on that mound.”
Herman also was an eyewitness to boxing match-brawl between Ernest Hemingway and his teammate Hugh Casey when they visited the novelist's mansion in Havana during Spring Training in 1942.
James “Cool Papa” Bell, was a star in the Negro Leagues for nearly two decades but was kept out of the majors because of the color barrier. Bell was a contemporary of Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige and he eventually was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1974. He describes his experiences in the Jim Crow South that sound all too familiar:
"When we played the Birmingham Black Barons in their park, there were always lots of whites in the crowd, but they were separated by a rope. You could be sitting right next to a white man, but that rope was always there. That was the system they had in those days. That’s what they called states’ rights. States’ rights doesn’t mean much to the Negro. You don’t get justice with states’ rights. Which is a bad thing to happen.”
Big Johnny Mize, grew up in Demorest, Georgia and played with the St. Louis Cardinals' Gas House Gang in the 1930s. The Cardinals general manager then was the famous Branch Rickey who later signed Jackie Robinson to the Brooklyn Dodgers breaking the color barrier in the majors in 1947. (One of the chapters is on a lesser-known player Clyde Sukeforth, who after his playing days scouted Robinson and literally introduced him to Rickey.) Mize didn’t think so much of Branch Rickey who low-balled Mize in contract negotiations, which was indicative of the complete control owners had over the players' livelihoods. Mize spent the last five years of his career as a pinch-hitter for the New York Yankees, playing in a string of World Series for the World Champions. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1981.
Honig saves arguably his best for last -- the story of Brooklyn Dodger Pete Reiser, who probably would have been a Hall of Famer had he not been injury prone. At his first Spring training, Reiser’s manager Leo Durocher, was the first to recognize Reiser’s speed once bet $100 with Dodgers General Manager Larry MacPhail that Reiser could be beat the fastest man in the Dodgers organization in a foot race. Says Reiser:
“So here all of a sudden I’m running against the fastest guy in the Dodger organization, and the manager and the general manager are betting $100 on it. And all I’d wanted to do was come down there and work out in a big-league camp and mind my business.
Well, I did beat the guy. Yeah, by 10 yards."
We end this posting with a baseball lullaby, "Van Lingle Mungo" by Dave Frishberg:
P.S. The artwork at the top of the post is on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. The mixed media piece "Strike Zone" by Mike Ross was inspired by Ted Williams' book The Science of Hitting. The photograph of Johnny Mize is from the HOF archives. Thanks to my former teammate (college intramural basketball team) Tom Bowen for introducing me to this book.
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