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NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the Lines
By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@borg.com)
#308 SEPTEMBER 26, 2003
STRETCH RUN ... WEEKEND
In the past, I often (but not always) kept a "Stretch Run Diary" or journal, during September, jotting down my rootings as the pennant races wound down. I think I had the most fun in 1993, Notes' rookie season, and the last one without the Wild Card. When 1994 never ended at all, I was hoping MLB would rethink the Wild Card, and return to the two-winners-per-league playoff format. I still have not accepted the Wild Card fully. I grew up when teams won pennants or nothing at all, and while I came to really enjoy the division playoffs (which often were better ball and more exciting than the Series), the extra layer -- especially best-of-five -- bothered me.
Anyway, this time around, I have kept an eye on the races, but haven't kept a journal. So the final weekend of 2003 begins with things pretty well decided, except in "my" division, the NL Central ... and I find myself with very mixed feelings. I want to see the Cubs in the Playoffs, but my Pirates stand in their way. I have rooted against the Pirates only rarely since getting hooked on them in 1957 -- for some reason, I liked the 1986 Mets, and when they beat up on Pittsburgh, it didn't hurt. As I mentioned to a Cub fan friend, I probably should see this as "win-win" -- but in fact, it feels like "lose-lose." Ah well.
IN THIS ISSUE is a mixed bag ... a Commy comment or two up front, then a dip into history -- one more time: Did Germany Schaefer ever steal first? If so, can you document it? -- then one more chapter from Dear Patrick (there aren't many to go), with a few bonus poems tacked on, for fans of the Willies.
COLLYER'S EYE -- ever heard of it? The sporting (gambling) magazine published in Chicago by Bert E. Collyer, apparently ran an article immediately or soon after the 1919 World Series -- the article contained the names of the players later indicted. No other newspaper or magazine dared such an expose, for fear of libel, and for lack of hard evidence. That didn't stop Bert. Unfortunately, the Eye was disreputable, and their expose went unnoticed. Today, it seems virtually impossible to look it up. And believe me, I've asked librarians and researchers all over the country to try. So I'm tossing it out here -- anyone know how I might get a look at that issue from October 1919? I probably cannot afford to buy it -- I just want to read it! There must be some Chicago collector out there whose grandfather bought the first three issues and started a set. To the attics!
STATUE OF LIMITATIONS
Sox founder Comiskey to be honored with statue read the headline in the September 19, 2003 Chicago Sun-Times (?) over an article by Joe Goddard. "Honoring their pledge to recognize team founder Charles Comiskey at U.S. Cellular Field, the White Sox will erect an 800-pound, life-size bronze statue of 'The Old Roman' next season."
Stunning news to B-Sox historians. Yet, if the Pirates announced they were erecting a statue to honor an early owner like Barney Dreyfuss, I would not object, even though for all I know the guy was full of faults. (I am reminded of the word sincere -- literally, "without wax" -- an adjective that could be applied to a statue, for example, if it was chiseled right the first time, and there was no need to fill in the cracks and nicks and gaps.) We may recoil at the suggestion of a Comiskey statue, but he was not evil incarnate. Of course I can say that, I never worked for the guy.
"I'm trying to give him a 'he-man' look to capture his stature," [sculptor] McKenna said. "I just finished his face, and now I'm reworking his hips. His face is noble. He had a hook nose and sleepy eyes." Yes, I'd be tempted to add little money signs to the eyelids.
"Comiskey's great-grandchildren, State Rep. Patti Bellock (R-Hinsdale) and Mary Sharon Kellens of Warrenville, enthusiastically approved the small-scale model after being invited by Reinsdorf and executive vice president Howard Pizer to meet McKenna. 'We were born after grandfather had died [in 1931], but from old photos and what we've been told, the statue will be exactly the way he looked,' Bellock said.
"Comiskey will be shown leaning against an Eddie Collins Louisville Slugger bat while holding out a baseball. He will be dressed in his cape-style shoulder wrap and a bowler-type cap familiar to the early 1900s." I think a Chick Gandil autograph model might be more interesting ... and have the Disney folks help out, so when kids reach for the baseball, Commy snatches it away.
"'Grandfather wasn't anything like he was shown in that stupid movie,' Bellock said of Eight Men Out, which portrayed Comiskey as a miser in leading up to the 1919 Black Sox scandal. 'It was so wrong. His vice president produced contracts to show that his players were being paid what other teams were paying their stars.'" Huh? If you ask me, Commy got off easy in 8MO. The film did not focus on the cover-up for example. A better title than 8MO might have been The Old Man and the C -- for Cover-Up.
I am willing to concede that the Sox may not have been the worst-paid players in baseball, but they surely were the most under-paid, and that was insulting. Sometimes, however, I wonder if Comiskey even noticed much how poorly paid his players were. Harry Grabiner, the team secretary (GM today), handled the negotiations more than Commy by 1919, and if you thought Swede was a hard guy, then what was Harry? I think he was probably tighter than Commy knew, I think Harry might have even kept two sets of books, one to show Commy, and the real one. That's just a theory, no evidence. Commy was above it all, he was wining and dining celebrities and the press, police and politicians, gamblers and judges. After all, he was a CEO, who had forgotten what it was like to be just a ballplayer. That amnesia did him in.
NEWS FROM SABR THAT I MEANT TO PASS ALONG TWO WEEKS AGO
The National Pastime #23 is now being mailed from Kent, Ohio. The cover story is on the photographer George Brace and there are many wonderful Brace photographs included in this issue, courtesy of Mary Brace and The Brace Photo Collection, http://www.bracephoto.com/index.html.
Batting second in the 2003 SABR publications line up is our latest heavyweight, Deadball Era Stars: The National League. Editor and Committee chair Tom Simon and the members of the Deadball Era Committee are working hard to put the finishing touches on this 350+ page book that all 2003 members will receive, probably in December. If you have a friend who loves the Deadball Era, tell him or her that he or she has only until September 30 to join SABR for 2003 and receive Deadball Era Stars as part of membership. Beginning October 1, all new members will be considered 2004 members and get the 2004 publications schedule. Anyone can join online at http://store.sabr.org.
YOU CAN LOOK IT UP AFTER ALL
Over the years, I've written here more than once about Germany Schaefer stealing first. For example, in #130, May 4, 1996:
CAN'T STEAL FIRST
Of course we all wish we had the 1932 World Series on color videotape from nine angles, with sound on the ground, so we could tell for sure if Ruth called it. Or any game Mathewson pitched against Three Finger Brown. Or Josh Gibson up against Satchel, or both of them up against Dizzy Dean (off season), and the list is endless.
But if we had tapes of all the games of the last century (minors included), one clip guaranteed to make the highlights would be Germany Schaefer stealing first.
Germany was, of course, one of baseball's earliest Clown Princes (never Kings, although Mike Kelly could get a crowd going, too.) We've noted his antics here before (as in the Joss Game, 1911.) Anyone on the field might draw reactions from crowds, but a few players learned that the diamond was also a stage, and they acted that way (no pun intended) when the chance came.
We who are programmed to follow pennant races, tend to dismiss exhibition games as lesser events, but in fact, they may be more entertaining, since with the outcome of no great import, players (and umps and managers) can really perform, uninhibited, like Harlem Globetrotters -- top athletes, but also clowns, in the best sense. Entertainers.
"[Honus] Wagner was easily the star as far as really humorous work was concerned, and last night the whole town was talking about him. He smoked a huge cigar, played ball with a glass of beer in his hand most of the time and performed a thousand other antics ... which kept the crowd roaring from beginning to end." So went a review of a game Honus played October 16, 1898. (He also threw a ball 403 feet that day, setting a record that stood for a decade. See Honus Wagner, by Dennis & Jeanne DeValeria, page 60.) Forget leagues and betting, send in the clowns! Let them steal -- the Show!
* * * * *
And then there was this, in #214, May 30, 2000:
I am no expert on the rules, but I think there is still at least one loophole out there. I've mentioned it here before, but not for a long time. I believe runners can still steal first base.
There is no doubt that in the first decades of baseball, first base was stolen a number of times, and you can look it up. The popular understanding is that Germany Schaefer is the only player who ever stole first, and that soon after, the rule was changed so no one else ever could.
Well, Germany Schaefer, a true comedian but also a speedy runner and fair ballplayer in his day, did steal first. I believe the instance usually cited took place September 4, 1908, Detroit vs Cleveland, Davy Jones on third and Sam Crawford at bat. The double steal was on, but as Germany slid into second base safe, the Cleveland catcher Nig Clarke held onto the ball. To set up the double-steal again, Germany took off, screaming, for first on the next pitch, and dove in headfirst in without a play. This stunned the players, fans and umpires, but it was perfectly legal. On the next pitch, the double steal worked.
The story above is recounted by Davy Jones in The Glory of Their Time, but it's also true, I looked it up. (Many stories recalled by old ballplayers are embellished or inaccurate.) And I learned that Germany stole first on other occasions as well. So did other players, like Clyde Millan, the Senators' speedster. It was either Schaefer or Millan (my notes are unclear) who asked the scorekeeper for credit for three stolen bases, instead of just one, but the scorer must have figured stealing first was a negative SB, and gave the runner credit for just one.
The loophole I think exists lies in Rule 7.08. It prohibits running in reverse order "for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game." In other words, you can't steal first if your motive is to confuse the defense or make a travesty of the game ... but it would appear that if you stole first for the purpose of setting up the double steal -- in other words, as a strategy that has proven to be effective in the past -- then it is OK!
My notes are also fuzzy on another point: I believe this rule was passed not in the wake of Germany's thefts, but in 1920 -- a year after Schaefer passed away at the young age of 42, just one year out of baseball.
When I tossed this question out to the folks on the SABR-L who are experts on the rules, no one disagreed or agreed about my loophole theory. I would still love to see it tested in a game.
I like retelling the Germany Schaefer story (he pulled many other stunts in his colorful career), but this time I want to ask if anyone knows if any players today study the rule book -- looking for loopholes. A century ago, ballplayers lived, ate and breathed strategy. They talked about it on the long train rides, and during clubhouse card games. There were a lot fewer rules back then, and maybe loopholes were easier to find. But seriously, do ballplayers today look much at the rule book?
* * * * *
In that last piece, I noted that I had looked it up, and I had -- in Germany Schaefer's file at the Cooperstown library. But while I found several clippings that said he stole first, I had no dates. Those who try to look up the game mentioned in The Glory of Their Time, find that they can't. This has been a topic on SABR-L a few times, but until recently, no one had found an account that documented Schaefer stealing first.
Bob Schaefer (no relation), whom I met via SABR's Deadball Era Committee, called such an account "the Holy Grail" of baseball research, but I'm not sure that is so. But that was his reaction when I shared with him, last spring, something sent to me by Bill Dalton of Louisiana, who had seen the piece from Notes #214 (above) on the 'net and contacted me. I've lost the original e-mail, but I believe Bill introduced himself as a descendant of Germany Schaefer; if it wasn't Bill, someone else did.
In any case, Bill noticed that the Tigers and Indians did not even play on September 4, 1908, but did end a five-game series on September 3. But the game Bill had was played in Washington, DC, vs the Chicago White Sox, on August 4, 1911. Here's a description that appeared the next day in the Chicago Tribune:
[First game of a doubleheader, Walter Johnson throwing a shutout -- nothing unusual so far. Then -- ]
Washington started in the last of the ninth as if it would surely put the winning run over in a hurry. Milan began with a double and when Schaefer bunted a play was made at third base, but It was too late to get a man. With none out Elberfeld popped to McConnell and then Schaefer stole second. Gessler fanned, making two out, then Schaefer was sorry he was on second, so with Walker at bat the Dutchman took a lead off second on the other side and stole first base. This brought Manager Duffy out on the field, right out by the pitcher’s box, where he argued with Umpire Parker for permitting the play, and while this argument was going on Schaefer thought it would be a good time to steal second again. He started down and allowed himself to be trapped between the gases, then Milan began edging from third for home. Finally the latter made a dash for the plate and Collins shot home to Payne, who tagged the man three feet away. Umpire Connolly called him out and immediately it seemed all the ball players in uniform surrounded him, the Washington players protesting that the play shouldn’t go because Chicago had ten men on the field, Manager Duffy having stayed out in the middle of the diamond during it all.
Umpire Calls Man Out
Umpire Connolly waded around behind the plate trying to brush off the players as they crowded upon him, and ruled that the play should stand and the man be out. It seemed the sensible decision, too, for Washington had started the play in spite of the fact that there was a pause in the game while the managers were arguing with the umpires.
The Washington Post account has it happening pretty much the same way. In a special box, the Post notes that the Sox only had to tag Schaefer, and he'd have been out, as he had no right to any base but second. The Post headline includes this: "Schaefer Pulls Freak Play that is Day's Feature." And they played two that day. Germany's team won that opener 1-0 behind The Big Train. I will not conclude this with my poem-portrait of Germany Schaefer,
because it is based on the erroneous account in Glory; and because it suggests no one else ever did it, or will ever do it again (I remain hopeful).
[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 -- until now. Here is Chapter 14.]
CHAPTER 15
WILLIES
March 21, 1990
Dear Patrick,
When the Pirates won the NL Pennant again in 1979 -- the last time they've done it -- your mother was pregnant for Mary Ellen, your sister. "The Family" was the Buc theme and it fit us that summer, too.
The 1970's had been a good decade for the Buccos. They had won six division titles, and finished close the other four seasons. And it closed on a high note.
The half-pennant was made whole that October with a sweep over Cincinnati -- the Big Red Machine was still running, but slower by then, and the Pirates were due. After leading the Bucs down the stretch with key hits and homers, Stargell slugged out two more HRs and drove in six in the Playoffs.
In the Series, the Bucs took on the Baltimore Orioles, so it was a rematch of 1971, the last time Pittsburgh was in the Series.
Game One was on a night we had a LaMaze class (for couples to prepare for the birth of their child -- I was "Coach" that fall), making for a tough call. This was before we had a VCR, so there was a clear risk of missing something historic, by going to LaMaze. I took the risk. Your mother couldn't quite believe it when the nurses instructing us called class a little early that night so the husbands could get home for the Series. A collective sigh of relief and a cheer from the future dads!
While driving home, listening to the game on the car radio, I learned that I was too late -- the Orioles had broken on top, and would not be caught -- at least not in that game.
Baseball teaches hope. Losing a game is not losing a series, during the season or in post-season play. Winning a game shouldn't make anyone cocky, either. The Bucs were managed that year by Chuck Tanner, as positive-thinking a person as there is in the sport. Someone once said of him that if he were the Skipper on the Titanic, he'd have reacted to that ship's catastrophe with something like, "Don't worry, we're just stopping for ice." A wonderfully naive optimism, that I always enjoyed.
The Pirates did come back to win the Series in seven games and were World Champs again, for the third time in twenty years. Willie Stargell was the hitting hero again, three more longshots and seven RBIs, although the Bucs as a team had a tremendous Series at the plate. It was as if they were trying to erase from the record books all the hitting marks set by the Yankees in 1960 against Pittsburgh. The media hyped Willie as "Pops", the father (or grand-father) of the Fam-a-lee, but I couldn't use that tag myself. Hey, "Pops" was just a few years older than I was!
The following summer, I got to see that Pirate team up close -- in the unique setting of Cooperstown's Doubleday Field, near the Hall. A volunteer friend from Red Cross got the tickets and I went with Ed Jecko, a co-worker who was old enough to be my father, and full of good baseball stories.
Ed insisted that we go early, to get a convenient parking space. But I suspect that he really wanted to get to the field in time for the pre-game warmups and batting practice. He'd played some semi-pro ball himself, I believe -- I could see him as a scrappy infielder as feisty as Tim Foli or Phil Garner, who led the Pirates in calisthenics that day, putting on a good show. I think "real fans show up early" is the maxim Ed was teaching.
Doubleday Field was wonderful for fans, especially if you were looking for a suntan. But it is a nightmarish park for major league pitchers who lack a good sinker. The Bucs played the Chicago White Sox in the annual Hall of Fame game that year, and the two clubs must have hit ten home runs between them. I think the Pirates hit more, and won. Stargell conked one -- an intentional gopher, I think, so the fans could re-live his heroics of the previous Fall. I still have the scorecard somewhere.
Spring training games in Florida must be like that game at Doubleday. Athletes at the top of their sport, out strictly for an exhibition -- nothing counts. So they can laugh as they strike out, kid with the opposition, clown with the fans, put on a show. I'd like to see more of this enjoyment of the game show through in the "real" games.
Willie Mays, that summa cum laude graduate of stickball, will always be one of my favorites because although he played with intensity, as hard as anyone, Willie seemed to remember always that it was a game he was playing, that he was privileged to play. I remember his wonderful facial expressions, as much as, maybe more than his other-worldly catches and throws. We didn't have to try hard to imitate the former -- they were boyish and innocent, like we were -- and as for the latter, all we could do was exclaim our version of your "Awesome!"
Imagine being able to play your favorite game -- soccer or monopoly or Nintendo -- into your adulthood. Not just being able, and allowed to play on -- but to be paid to play -- think about that! This is the stuff of which dreams are made!
It was as hard to turn away or head for the concession stand, when Willie Mays was at bat, as it was to switch TV channels when Fred Astaire was dancing. Only Clemente on the home team was as riveting an athlete. Around the same time that I first saw Mays in person, I remember him on the cover of a magazine -- Sport, I think -- in the act of hitting a foul ball. The comment inside was right on: nothing he did was dull -- he hit fouls with a flair. He knew he was on stage, when he was on the field. And he needed no prompting. Willie was a natural.
He was on the stage of Forbes Field, and I was in the seats, when the Giants and Pirates, bitter rivals in the heat of the 1958 pennant chase, squared off in a doubleheader -- literally. Both sides were dusting off the opposition batters, and the umps issued warnings. Finally, a bean-balling, then a bench-clearing fist fight led to the obligatory ejections of the guilty or the near-at-hand. It was that hero in the wrong uniform Willie who saved somebody's skull in the heat of the brawl by a flying tackle of his teammate Orlando Cepeda who was heading toward a Pirate pitcher with a bat -- or toward the bat rack, in his own version. Willie knew the unwritten rule in the game was -- no weapons! (OK, Ty Cobb sharpened his spikes with a file, to threaten the legs of infielders and catchers; did this make him friends?)
This was one of those games that fans enjoy as spectators at the park -- although I think the Bucs were swept -- and the day after, talking about it with friends at school and at the dinner table and reading about it in the paper. No, not just the day after -- but for weeks! (It's a baseball fan's dream to be at a game that is talked about and written about forever after -- like the one Maz' Homer ended, or Haddix' jewel in Milwaukee.)
Willie Mays was the "Say, Hey" Kid, and what appealed to me was precisely the "kid" Willie was. Baseball will always be a kid's game, even when grownups play it. Willie fit baseball -- but every professional player is Peter Pan, insisting, "I won't grow up." Because everyone does, we're all a little jealous of those who can at least put it off a decade or two.
There have been others who played like boys, on into their forties. One is in the news now -- Pete Rose.
I know it is fashionable nowadays to knock Pete, because he's out of baseball, due to his tax and gambling problems. But to be honest, I never liked him, because he seemed to take baseball too seriously. "Charlie Hustle" was his nickname (thanks to Whitey Ford?) because Pete ran to first after a walk and played hard all the way home. Nothing wrong with hustling.
I respected his hitting -- who couldn't? -- but something about the way he talked about chasing records bothered me. I prefer players who let the announcers and writers look up the numbers.
Rose barreled into a catcher, the Indians' Ray Fosse, to score a run in the 1970 All-Star game in Cincinnati (he was lucky that it wasn't in Cleveland.) That's one of those exhibition games that don't count, for Pete's sake, and Rose practically ended Fosse's career with that collision. I don't care, as a fan, if it won the game or not, not at that cost. He didn't have to do it. (Pete did apologize, that time.)
Willie Mays was the kid who made the game fun for everyone. Pete played ball like that kid who had to win, at any cost. Who played rough and hard, like the old-timers -- but with an edge, like Ty Cobb, the man whose batting marks Pete wound up "chasing" and finally (in hits) surpassing. If you were choosing sides and had first pick, you'd probably take Rose, because you sure didn't like playing against him. A super competitor. But after the game, a little hard to take.
Pete was that snobby richer kid in the neighborhood who wore spikes, while everyone else had sneaks. There was no law against cleated shoes on the local sandlot, but was it right, was it fair? Going by the rules is not the same as what we used to call "good sportsmanship." It's important for someone bent on having things his way to take every advantage. Those who feel victory isn't real unless the sides are truly even in the first place -- would change into sneakers.
Willie Mays and I share the same birthdate, by the way, May 6th. I've known that since Willie was in his prime as a player and maybe that helped make him a favorite, too. No, it wasn't our common birthdate at all, it was the excitement that he brought to the game, his circus catches and his grin.
Willie Stargell had a great grin, too. I guess he's the first player I followed all the way from the minor leagues, through a twenty-one-season, four hundred and seventy-five homer career, to the Cooperstown Hall in 1988. Number Eight became a regular the summer I left Pittsburgh for good (1964), so I only saw him in person maybe eight games, including that close-up at Doubleday Field.
So I missed seeing him launch homers over the stands in right at Forbes -- I'd grown up being sure that it took a Ruth to achieve that. If you took two Green Monsters and stood one atop the other, the barrier would still be twelve feet shorter than the Forbes' grandstand. It was where Babe's and baseball's fabled number seven-hundred-and-fourteen went, his third of the game (he was playing for the Boston Braves, against the Pirates) and last of his career. Babe went out in style, summing up his career by doing what no one else had done before, what no one else had thought possible.
Willie Stargell matched that "impossible" homer more than once, and left his mark on more than one stadium around the league -- when Willie connected, look out. But distance records, like all others, are made to be broken. Maybe by Bobby Bonilla. Or maybe by someone who isn't even born yet!
Maybe of all the Pirates I've cheered since 1957, Willie Stargell is the one I'd most like to have over for dinner. I'd ask him how he came up with that twirling-windmill batting stance. How he felt as a part-Indian, part-Black twenty-one-year old kid from Oklahoma (like Mickey Mantle and the Waners), sent out on the major league stage to perform. How he managed to rise above his many strikeouts (like Mantle, again) to keep his poise and pride. Is he still active in sickle cell anemia education and screenings, something I learned about at the Red Cross?
And then I'd ask him about Pete Rose.
The hot stove league question of this winter just past, and I suspect for the next several, is: Will Rose be elected to the Hall of Fame? Or, should he be elected? When the vote comes up, we'll see what it takes, these days, to make it in. Because Rose can't be kept out, based on his performance as a player.
The baseball writers who will vote have a terrible decision ahead, in my view. They will be in the awkward spot of having to judge another person's moral character, in public. Or at least of having to decide how important that is, for admission to the Hall.
Of course they will recall that Ty Cobb was not exactly Mr. Congeniality on or off the field, and Babe Ruth was far from a model of virtue. Goodness was never really a requirement for entry, only good play. And I don't think anyone has been ejected from the Hall, given the thumb for something they did after their shining career between the lines ended. In my high school short story, I had wanted to believe that Cooperstown's Hall really was for flawless saints, instead of men like us. It's a childish hope that I outgrew somewhere along the line.
I think baseball fans are forgiving folk. If only Pete would say he's sorry, as he did to Ray Fosse. Then, maybe on the second ballot. A year in the on-deck circle, for a hitter like Pete, may be punishment enough.
POETIC POSTSCRIPT
My poem on Willie Mays made it into Romancing the Horsehide (McFarland, 1993); the one on Willie Stargell came along later.
SAY HEY
Recall Willie for "The Catch"
His four-dinger day or his 660
Or for a tackle:
His Giants were battling on the road
Sunday's twin bill was crucial
Conditions ripe for basebrawl
Just a matter of time
'Til the beanballs drew warnings
Baking dugouts spilled their contents
To converge in a dog fight in the dust
Willie sacked his teammate with the bat
As if to say
Hey, it's a game
Willie said the same thing
With every slick basket catch and
Pulled triple over third
He could excite a crowd
With a foul ball
His face lit up the field
Mays played each game
All-Star showcase
And October classics included
As if he were on the other side
Of that wall in center
Out in the streets
The biggest kid in the stickball game
The one who made the game fun
Joy to the world
WILLIE
Like fine wine
This Willie seemed to get better
With age
And wiser
Wilver Dornel Stargell
Broke into Pirate yearbooks
As a skinny Oklahoman labeled
Pittsburgh Pirate Possibility
Eyes full of "I think I can"
Left the city to the sound of
Pops of champagne
Cover story on a
Hall of Fame program
Smile shouting "I knew I could"
In between
Willie's two decades of play
Created a windmill full of memories:
Blasts up on the roof at Forbes
Third deck at Three Rivers and Busch
Over the bleachers in L.A.
Stargell was a longer version
Of another Willie's motto:
Hit 'em where nothing ain't
Caught Roberto's royal touch
Caught teammates doing things right
Rewarding them with gold stars:
Every employee's fantasy
Black native American power
Star to gel a team together
Foreman of the Lumber Company
Good provider of Chicken on the Hill
Willie left the game right:
October talent show
Fall fireworks lighting up
Starry nights and shining back
Over star-spangled
Banner summers:
Tip of the cap --
Applause
Still echoing