BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE:BASEBALL

GROUCHO MARX SEES JOE DIMAGGIO

‘P.S. I saw Joe DiMaggio last night at Chasen’s and 
he wasn’t wearing his baseball suit. This struck me 
as rather foolish. Suppose a ballgame broke out in 
the middle of the night? By the time he got into his 
suit the game would be over.”

Groucho Marx in a letter to Ace Goodman (January 18 1951) 
The Groucho Letters: Letters from and to Groucho Marx
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967)
*
CASEY STENGEL

“Then there was old Casey Stengel . In the last series
 against the Yankees that old-timer won the only two 
ball games that the  Giants took with two timely homeruns
 and got traded for his pains.
   ‘Good thing I didn’t win any more ball games for him,’
Old Casey said gloomily when he heard the news. ‘If I 
had, he’d probably had me sent to jail.’”

The New Yorker (March 28, 1925)
**

BOB "Sugar" Cain & EDDIE GAEDEL*

Bob "Sugar" Cain--"...one of his best-known moments 
waspitching to Eddie Gaedel,  the midget that Bill 
Veeck sent up to pinch hit in 1951 Cain told the 
story hundreds of times and was appreciative of 
how this was part of baseball lore."

Burnham Holmes. One Shining Moment: Sports Heroes
For a Day (New York: HarperTorch, 2003)

*Standing at 3' 7" Edward Carl Gaedel , when he was 
sent up to bat in the second game of a St. Louis 
Brown/Cleveland Indians doubleheader, became the 
shortest player in major league history. He walked 
on 4 straight pitches.

Burnham Holmes, in One Shining Moment, notes that
when Gaedel died in 1961 Bob Cain was the only major 
leaguer to be present at the funeral.

**
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2021/
burdick-collection-baseball-cards
**
From 1907 to 1912, Boston's National League Team was
named The Boston Doves. The team was named after its
owner, George Dovey.
**
EDDIE GRANT & WORLD WAR I

     From 1907-1915 Eddie Grant was a journeyman 
infielder for three National League teams –-Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and the New York Giants.. Since he was
 a graduate of Harvard College, he was known to teammates
 and fans  as ‘Harvard Eddie” and as “I have It Eddie“
because, as Karen Markoe notes in her recent book
about Eddie Grant and World War I, “When camped under
 a pop-up, he would not call out, ‘I’ve got it,’ as most ballplayers of his era would. To his educated ear, 
‘I have it,’ sounded right.”
     Better known for his fielding than for his hitting
 (his l lifetime batting average was .249 ) Eddie retired
 from the game in 1915 to join a Boston law firm.
      On April 6, 1917 the United States declared war against Germany. Grant was too old to be drafted, but he enlisted 
and was eventually promoted to Captain in the 77th Division.
 On October 5, 1918 in an attempt to rescue the men of the
 so-called Lost Battalion,  Grant was killed on the Argonne battlefield.

see EDDIE GRANT: BASEBALL AND THE GREAT WAR by Karen Markoe 
(NY: Fort Schuyler Press, 2022)

**


THE OLDEST MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYER

 The oldest player to appear regularly in the major 
leagues was Jack Quinn, who ended his last season 
at age 50, having made 14 appearances as a relief 
pitcher in his final season.
**

**
NY YANKEE GREAT LOU GEHRIG AS MOVIE ACTOR

"Rawhide is a 1938 American Western film starring 
Lou Gehrig and made by Twentieth Century-Fox Film 
Corporation. The movie was directed by Ray Taylor 
and produced by Sol Lesser from a screenplay by 
Jack Natteford and Daniel Jarrett. The cinematography 
was by Allen Q. Thompson. This is the only Hollywood 
movie in which baseball great Lou Gehrig made a screen appearance, playing himself as a vacationing ballplayer 
visiting his sister Peggy (played by Evalyn Knapp) on 
a ranch in the fictional town of Rawhide, Montana.
 The film remains available on DVD and VHS formats."

Wikipedia

The music for 2 of Rawhide's songs was written by 
Albert von Tilzer. He is better known for being the 
composer of baseball's most famous song, "Take Me
Out to the Ballgame".

ImdB Trivia
*


THOUGHTS UNDER A BOWER

Hank Bauer
Sd to Frederic Baur,
"One of us invented a container for Pringles,
The other hit 974 singles."Y
**
EARLY WYNN

Early Wynn
Wd win & win & win.
With Robert Feller -- what a twosome!
Every once in awhile they wd lose some.
**

OF WITCHES BREW AND BASEBALL

Bubble bubble toil & trouble --
That's what it was like
To face Carl Hubbell.