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NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the Lines
By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@borg.com)
#296 JUNE 9, 2003
WHAT'S IN A GAME?
My research on my "Black Sox book" -- the working title I'm using now, by the way, is Never on Friday (read on for the explanation) -- is really winding down. ... My fingers are crossed that I will also be visiting soon a law firm in Milwaukee, for a long-awaited meeting with some old trial transcripts. -- from NOTES #295
First, my apologies for forgetting to explain my new working title last issue. Without further ado, here it is:
Superstitious sailors believed it was bad luck to begin a voyage on a Friday. Some oldtime ballplayers regarded it as bad luck to play their first home game of the season on Friday. And according to J. L. Brown, the White Sox players who conspired to toss the 1919 World Series all agreed early on about one thing: no money should be passed on a Friday. This would be unlucky.
J. L. Brown, wrote "The Big Baseball Scandal" for The American Mercury in May 1939. You can look it up. By the way, last time I mentioned Alan Hynd's long feature on the B-Sox in True Detective in 1938. I recently e-mailed his son for "the rest of the story" -- if there is more worth telling.
But the big news since last issue was learning from Thomas Cannon, the grandson of the lawyer (Ray Cannon) who sued the White Sox for Joe Jackson in 1924, that I will be able to read those transcripts. You may recall from previous NOTES that only two writers that I know of have been granted access (and I think both have their own copies of the transcripts now) -- Jerome Holtzman, who found the material from 1924 "incriminating," and Donald Gropman (author of Say It Ain't So, Joe! -- be sure to buy only the revised editions), who practically clears Jackson's name, using the transcripts as ammunition.
In this issue, just a couple things. Hey, it's summer, there are ballgames to watch. (I attended my first, a NY Collegiate League game at the Utica Blue Sox' old haunts.) First, my take on Sammy Sosa's corked bat affair (file under Much Ado About Nothing). Then another chapter from my first book, Dear Patrick. It's all about games. Sometimes, it's hard to remember baseball is a game. Corking bats is taking it 'way too seriously, methinx. I guess that reminds us that for those who play it as pros, baseball is also a livelihood. As true in 1919 as it is today.
THE SAMMY THING
Is it possible that a Chicago outfielder could get a raw deal from the media, become the target of exaggerated accusations, and taken off the field? Well, as my philosophy prof might put it, what has been done, can be done. Move over Shoeless, make room for Sammy.
Two things about the Sammy Sosa Corked Bat Hoopla surprised me. First, that he has 76 bats. 76 trombones, yes, that makes sense, but 76 bats strikes me as a fetish. Is he a collector? I suppose he gets a dozen or so each season from whatever company produces them (I used to know that) for him, or as many as he wants. Maybe he rarely breaks a bat, so the number keeps going up from summer to summer. I don't know. I want to see how he handles the question, if someone has the courage to ask him. Uh, Mr Sosa, doesn't 76 seem a bit excessive? Aren't you aware that there are kids in third world countries who are starving for even one decent bat? This just doesn't square with your image....
The other thing that amazed me is that in 2003, cork is still thought to be a magical substance that can make a big difference. When you can drive a ball as far as Sammy can, why cheat for a few more feet? The only explanation is those "tales of the tape" -- the computer-assisted calculations made at some ballparks these days that instantly estimate the distance of dingers.
(As a kid, my fantasy was to bat a Forbes Field. I batted righty, but could do a fair Mantle imitation from the left side, too, and at Forbes, the shortest home run available was 300' pulled down the right field line. It was 365' to left, and unless it was a dead pull, it had to clear a mammoth scoreboard. In right, it could float over a tall screen. That was the only real chance I had at a homer at home. But I confess, distance impressed me. When Dick Stuart cleared the 457' mark in center, it made my summer.)
I avoided most of the hoopla about Sammy's Corked Bat, I really did. When asked, I gave my opinion, which was that it struck me as much ado about something trivial. Not nothing -- his bat was corked, and he should have known better. But I think Occam's Razor (pardon the philosophy doubleheader here) applies: the simplest explanation is that Sammy made an honest mistake. Hey, if you had 77 bats and one was corked, how hard would that mistake be to make? I think Sammy probably dozed off, then when someone said, "Yo, Sammy, you're on deck!", he just grabbed a bat, knowing the odds were 76-1 in his favor. Why look for a more complicated explanation?
Well, here's why. It's 2003, and that's our media out there. It's not about the truth, not even for the NY Times, it's about ratings, headlines, selling products (newspapers, magazines, TV & radio talk shows, you name it.) Why bother to take a step backward and get perspective? So much more lucrative to plough full steam ahead and call it a Scandal with a capital S.
I do not know Sammy Sosa except through the filter of the media, but he has struck me over the last five years as a decent sort. I thought he handled the media crush of 1998 really well, despite my satirical take (which I reprint directly below). I grew up a fan of Roberto Clemente, whose command of English no doubt cost him many endorsement chances, and also cost him some distance with the media. He captured fans by what he did on the field -- his flair, his intensity, his sheer talent. Sammy Sosa reminds me of Roberto in some ways. Sammy has fewer tools, but oh, that power, and that great Willie-Mays-class smile that can light up a whole ballpark.
I have spent the past nine mines immersed in baseball history, watching how the media (just newspapers back then) spun stories to please the baseball establishment or to sell copies. If Hugh Fullerton thought Joe Jackson played the 1919 Series straight, then why concoct that "Say it ain't so, Joe" story that condemned Jackson, and labeled his grand jury statement a confession of guilt? Well, it was great color. It sold papers. That's what counts. And who knew it was anything that would play a role in how things went down in history? Who cares about that? Great reputations are made to be destroyed.
Sammygate? I don't think so. Personally, I could care less about corked bats. If MLB made a rule tomorrow saying it was OK to cork, I would not be upset at all. (Approving aluminum would drive me to football.) I actually would not object to the return of the spitball. (Maybe I've been reading too much about the infamous "shine ball" of Eddie Cicotte.) I'm with those who think the corked bats help the batter's head more than his at bats. I do not want to see batters have to pass thru an X-ray machine before entering the on deck circle -- does anyone? (I would like baseball to allow appeals to instant replay to help umps make the right calls; I'm not anti-technology.)
Life is too short to get too excited about the wrong things. There are bigger fish to go after. No pun intended, but let's see MLB deal with the drug problems -- how many players are "corked"? And this investigation could save lives in the process.
How would I feel if 50 of Sammy's bats were found to be corked, along with the five in Cooperstown? Yes, that would hurt Sammy's credibility and his image. (I'd still wonder why 76?) But my next question would be, OK, does anyone believe Sammy is the only player who loves cork? Do a random bat-testing and see what the situation is. If 50% of all bats used in MLB today prove to be corked, then I would change the rule, make them legal. The fans don't care, really, it's the media, making a big deal, trying to capitalize on someone with a positive, popular image. (There's some of this going on with Martha, too, no doubt, but I rank her credibility 'way below Sammy's.) Play ball. Please.
[I forgot to mention this in the intro, and almost forgot to insert it here. It's a summer re-run, from NOTES 198, 9/15/99.]
MARK & SAMMY UNCHAINED
[Considering the sheer volume of NOTES over the years, it may surprise new readers to learn that there have been darn few interviews in these pages. Marge Schott, Ken Burns, Bud Selig ... of course when these folks failed to show up, I let my imagination put the words in their mouths. I'm at it again.]
NFSC: Mark, Sammy, so glad you decided to let NOTES tell your story.
Mark McG: Thanks, this is a great opportunity for both of us, to get away from the mainstream media, all the predictable questions, the rehearsed answers ... agreed, Sammy?
Sammy S: Mark, you the man.
NFSC: Well, let's begin with a tough question. Do you guys really like each other, or is that all a show for the cameras?
Mark: Have you heard of the saying, "familiarity breeds contempt?" I think I had it with Sammy about last June.
Sammy: Mark is right, I think it was June when we started trying to crush each other's fingers when we shook hands. In July, I went to the industrial-strength joy-buzzer. No good.
NFSC: So why do you keep up the pretense?
Mark: Well, partly to cut down on the hate mail, and partly for the money.
NFSC: The money?
Sammy: Sure, Mr Selig, he offer us big bucks to do the brother act. My lawyer, agent, whatever, he get him up to ten million.
Mark: Ten million? Damn, mine settled for seven. Wait'll I see that --
NFSC: Easy, Mark, we try to avoid [expletive deleted] words here. But let me see if I heard correctly, Selig is paying you guys?
Mark: Oh, not directly, you'd never trace it to him. And he's just a coordinator, all the teams pitch in.
Sammy: We are very, very good for baseball.
NFSC: Uh, huh.
Sammy: And for television. Would you buy a used car from this man? [Knocks Mark's cap off.]
Mark: Go easy there, Sambo. Can I say Sambo here?
NFSC: Mark, you were the first to hit 62 --
Sammy: He was lucky. It was all the scheduling, man.
NFSC: -- and you were, of course, the first to hit 70.
Mark: He is green with jealousy. Nah, nah, nah nah nah.
Sammy: I catch you, Mark, you wait and see.
NFSC: Sammy, that's where I was going. If, through some quirk of fate, you happen to hit #71, and it's against the Cardinals, and Mark and his son are there, how will you react?
Sammy: First of all, I will have to get past Mark at first base.
Mark: Start practicing your high jump, you Mexican jumping bean.
Sammy: I will probably need a police escort to get past first base. When I touch home plate, I will kiss it. Lips, no fingers. Then I will invite Mark's son to take a victory lap with me around the ballpark, he can ride piggy-back.
Mark: He wouldn't go with you.
Sammy: Why not, you has-been red-headed android? Seventy is history, man, he won't want to sit anywhere near you.
Mark: You can't take my boy!
Sammy: We will invite him to live with us in the Dominican Republic, we will make him famous. You're a loser, Mark!
NFSC: Put the chairs down, guys. There, that's better. Um, Mark, so how about that 500th homer? How'd that feel?
Mark: I think you want to ask another question.
NFSC: Mark, put the chair down ... I guess you get that a lot. OK, so what's been your biggest thrill this season?
Mark: Hard to say ... maybe waking up today and realizing that we were going to finish ahead of Sammy and that bunch of losing Cubs!
Sammy: Oooo, big man on the Cardinals, battling for third! Want to see my Playoff souvenirs from last summer, Markie?
NFSC: OK, that brings up a good question. Would you both trade all the fame that the Home Run Derby brings you, if you could play in a World Series? And to which team or teams would you want to be traded, to realize that dream?
Mark: I think I could help bring a pennant to Colorado.
Sammy: Sure, head for the Coors mountains, like that's a big challenge ... I could hit eighty for the Rockies.
Mark: Well I could hit ninety!
Sammy: Ninety-three ... and some triples, too, you tortoise! Mark: (whispers ninety-four) ... Well, maybe I ought to play for the Yankees ... you know, "Mark Moves Into House That Ruth Built, Decides to Redecorate ... no, renovate..."
Sammy: (whispers ninety-five) I want to Save the Dodgers, I think, you know, like Kevin Brown!
Mark and Sammy: Heh, heh. (Wink at each other.)
NFSC: Almost out of time, guys. Mark, this year has been a bit less controversial for you, since you kicked the andro habit, right?
Mark: Wait a minute, I was never hooked on that stuff.
Sammy: Not what I heard, cokey. (Sniffs loudly, pantomimes giving himself an injection in the upper arm.)
Mark: Hey, "Mr Clean," like we all believe that -- I never used anything that was not legal and approved by my doctor.
Sammy: How about switching to Dr Kevorkian, you has-been giant!
Mark: Why don't you enroll in my charisma class, you --
NFSC: Darn! Out of time. Fellows, it's been great, let me wish both of you good luck down the stretch this time around.
Mark & Sammy: (together) Luck? Why you --
[In issue #294, I began running DEAR PATRICK: HOT STOVE DELIVERIES FROM A FATHER TO A SON, a book I started writing in 1989 and continued for a few years, till I set it aside. Some of DEAR PATRICK has found its way into NOTES before, but never the whole thing, beginning to end. Here is Chapter 3.]
CHAPTER 3
IT'S NOT ONLY A GAME
November 21, 1989
Dear Patrick,
I think you've seen the old black & white photographs of me, age four or five -- there aren't many. This was long before the Age of the Videocamcorder, and even before Super 8 films. (Unlike your mother's family, which included a professional photographer and is therefore well-documented on film several generations back, mine relied on a Brownie box camera that accurately recorded any shaking of the hands that held it.)
In one of those shots, there I am in a tyke-size gray flannel Pirate baseball uniform, swinging away with a souvenir-size bat, Kiner-like. And in another, taken the same day, my older brother Mick and I are posing like the Waner brothers, Paul and Lloyd, Pirates of the 1920s and 1930s ("Big Poison" and "Little Poison" -- the best-hitting-for-average brothers yet), ready to take on all comers.
However, as fate would have it, that was the first and last baseball uniform I ever wore!
My very earliest ball game memory? OK, you asked for it. On a family outing at North Park, where we often used to picnic and fish (we could get there in fifteen minutes out McKnight Road), my mother was in a game of hit-and-catch, with Mick and Sue, probably with a mushball -- an over-sized softball -- this was long before nerf balls.
My father was playing tennis nearby with a fellow from work. I was too small to play ball, or retrieve tennis balls, but not too small to read the Golden Book that was being used for third base. I innocently wandered away with it, causing Mom to be tagged out, when she couldn't find it! The incident has stuck in my family's lore for forty years -- why?
I don't know, but there seems to be something sticky about ball games, something that makes for memories. Your grandmother tells that story best, by the way, and insists that I swiped a comic book. We'll debate that for another forty years.
I ought to point out right here, that my family was not exceptionally fanatical about baseball. Honest. In fact, I think we were very typical and ordinary. We may have been a little overboard on games, however. We played all kinds of games together -- board games (Monopoly, Sorry, Clue -- games you know today; good games are sticky, too), card games, outdoor games like badminton. I don't know if all the games we played brought us closer together, but I am certain of one thing: you get to know people when you play games with them. For better or for worse, you get to know them!
I know from a diary that my father kept in 1926, when he was twelve, that he played marbles a lot -- "shot" them, I should say. We didn't do much with marbles. But one game that my father played, that we also played, was "mumblety-peg" -- which required a knife (everyone had one -- we were a regular Swiss Army) and a certain amount of skill, flipping it off your fingers, wrist, elbow, shoulder, and finally your head, believe it or not, so that it stuck in the ground. The loser had to pull a peg from the ground -- with their teeth. Amazingly, I don't think anyone in the neighborhood ever got hurt at mumblety-peg, but I do recall a lot of leaping to avoid the bouncing blade.
In the Alley, we shared a duplex (two houses in one building) with the Dunmyres. In their basement was a dart board, the first baseball-type game I ever saw. I think Mr. D. had a "dart ball" league, probably once a week -- we kids weren't allowed to stay up late and watch. But sometimes we got to throw a few times, under supervision -- hit the center for a home run, different circles for hits and walks, you get the idea. So before kindergarten, I knew that it was three strikes, you're out, and that nothing was grander than a "grand slam."
As you can imagine, my family also had, down through the years, some baseball games that I remember very well. The oldest one I recall consisted of a bat that one player "swung" with two fingers, sliding some "ball" around a playing field where -- as in dart ball" -- the circle in which it landed spelled the result of the at-bat. What I remember best is that the wee plastic baserunners were colored white and gray -- white for the home team, gray for the visitors. Don't tell me that red, yellow and blue are the primary colors; in this game, you're white or gray!
Another game, I think it was a birthday present of mine, selected from a catalog -- was "electric" -- meaning that the miniature players rounded the bases with "Tru-Action" on a vibrating tin "field." The real action in this game was twofold: first, a tiny pitching catapult operated by the defense lobbed a tinier square magnet (the "baseball") onto a metal backstop. The batter guessed its position, then "swung" (or took the pitch) with a mousetrap-strong plastic/spring "bat," launching the magnet into play, with the outcome of the at-bat being determined by where it stuck.
This game was popular enough with me and my best friend and neighbor Bill Lerach to merit the formation of a "league." This meant that we kept track of wins and losses in an ongoing way. Leagues in our neighborhood lasted until someone pulled so far ahead that the interest of others sagged, and at that point a new league was declared. Bill and I were both Pirate fans, of course, and played our electric baseball leagues like spring training "split squad" games. That is, we both "managed" Pirate teams, using our Pirate yearbooks to come up with enough players so we could both have a decent roster.
Another baseball game we had was simply a record, on which Yankee announcer Mel Allen called all sorts of plays, from strikeouts to home runs, as if he was broadcasting on radio. We "batted" by placing the needle of the record-player down into one of the grooves, and then listening for Mel to tell us how we did. This game never rated a league. "How about that?"
A final baseball game I can never forget was not ours, or in our neighborhood, but one we discovered in an arcade at Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio, while on vacation. It was a pin-ball type contest, for one or two players, where you "batted" by pressing a button that operated a mechanical bat, that swung at the metal marbles dished up by the machine -- at probably a dime a game. One afternoon, after Bill Lerach (who was vacationing with us) and I had racked up over a hundred free replays -- we had mastered the game until it went berserk -- the arcade manager unplugged it and banished us from torturing it any longer. We weren't spending enough dimes to suit him!
Your mother and I observed together, after meeting each other's families, that she and I come from much different family traditions. Hers is relatively free of game-playing, although they do enjoy sports (skiing, hunting and fishing.) Mine, as I said, may have been a little overboard. We still "game" a lot whenever we get together, card games or Trivial Pursuit or whatever's new and handy.
Major league baseball was, when I was growing up, just another game -- in one sense. But, in another sense, it was unlike the rest -- it was part of our culture. Our city had a team, and that put Pittsburgh right up there with New York and Chicago and St. Louis. We were Major League.
It was a stable world. The sixteen National League and American League teams had pretty much stayed put for fifty years. I still wasn't paying much attention when the Braves left Boston for Milwaukee, and Baltimore got St Louis' AL team, and the Athletics traded Philadelphia for Kansas City. At least no city lost all their teams. Could that disaster ever really happen?
Having a big league team to root for was something great, all right, but for us kids, baseball was mostly a neighborhood game.
We grew up aware of some mystical connection between the ball we played in the streets and on the playgrounds, and the baseball we heard on the radio and read about in the sports pages. Our play was fueled by "the real thing".
I must have noticed early on that not everyone paid close attention to baseball. But to most of my friends and neighbors, and to my family, it mattered -- Pittsburghers were brought up rejoicing over Pirate wins or (more often) muttering over losses.
As you know from our visits to the 'Burg, North Siders are still fond of sitting out on their porches or stoops, on summer nights, to watch the world go by, play cards, or gab. As a toddler, I shuttled glasses of ice water out to the grownups, while the radios in the background kept them posted on the Bucs. Updated scores were yelled from radio porches to those without --when Ralph Kiner hit one out, everybody knew within minutes.
My first memory of a Pirate game on television puts me at Bill's house, with Bill -- the only kids among a Sunday afternoon gathering of adults. Many families in those days had a big after-church brunch or dinner, followed by some group activity -- TV or (in my family) card games or a Sunday drive. That day it was a ball game, in black and white. Bill and I watched, and listened, and learned.
I guess we didn't know how lucky we were to have a major league team. Not every big city did. Utica didn't. Your mother's hometown, Gloversville, didn't. But even my grandparents grew up in Pittsburgh with a team at baseball's highest level.
The Pirates hadn't won a pennant since the Waners were inspiring the play of teenagers like my father, in 1927. They had come close a few times. But in the early fifties, expectations were low, and none of us kids knew firsthand what it was like to follow a winning team. The Steelers never won anything, either, until the seventies.
So my earliest lessons from baseball must have included learning how to be a good loser -- which is harder, I think, than being a good winner. If you can lose well, and keep at something, sooner or later you'll win (baseball fosters optimism, too.) On the other hand, if you are not a good winner, you can make enemies and lose friends easily. Ty Cobb comes to mind as an example here. Or those Yankee dynasties!
And I must have learned early on that winning cannot be everything, because it isn't very likely. But caring counts -- because it puts you in touch with worlds beyond your own.