BITS & PIECES OF A MISPLACED LIFE: BASEBALL #3

"I can throw out any man alive."
                Johnny Bench
                Catcher, Cincinnati Reds 
**
 JUDGE KENESAW MOUNTAIN LANDIS
 
 "Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, baseball's seventy-
eight-year-old comissioner is the only successful
dictator in United States history. There is no recourse
from his decisions; answerable to no one. he can impose
any fine or punishment he wishes for failure to obey any
rule he sets for the industry which employs him."
  
CURRENT BIOGRAPHY (May 1944)
**

The first baseball player to hit 25 home runs in a season
"was Bucky Freeman, outfielder of the Washington club of
the National League who hit 25 home runs and 27 triples in
1899."
    FAMOUS FIRST FACTS, 5th edition, edited by Joseph Kane, Steve Anzovin,nand Janet Podell (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1998)
**
ON PITCHING TO STAN MUSIAL

Carl Erskine: “I've had pretty good success with Stan by throwing him my best pitch and backing up third.”
**
YANKEE GREATS IN A 1960 FILM
Cary Grant was a huge fan of the New York Yankees, which likely made it easier for the producers to get Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris to appear in the film.

iDMb Trivia for the 1960 film THAT TOUCH OF MINK, starring
Doris Day and Cary Grant
**

FROM  COMPOSER JAMES D'ANGELO

Thanks for all of these quotations and the great Ted Williams poem.  It was pure nostalgia reading it because i was such a follower of baseball as a boy, at least until 16-18. I was a follower (not a fan =fanatic) ofthe Cleveland Indians.  In the autumn of 1948, the PE teacher who came into our grammar school said, “Today we going to listen to the World Series on the radio.  It could have been the final game of the  Boston Braves
vs. Cleveland Indians, an all-tribal affair.  And Cleveland won that series. It was my introduction to baseball and  I decided that Cleveland would be my team. It never crossed my mind that I had to support a NY team. So I could only see my Indians when they played the Yankees, the dominant team of that period. But, in 1954, Cleveland bested the Yankees and played the NY Giants in the WS.  And wouldn’t you know it?   They lost 4 straight.  Willie Mays was sensational.    I never entered the
Polo Grounds. Only once at Ebbets Field, home of the Dodgers.  Only Yankee Stadium.  The 1954 first base man for the Indians had the wonderful name of Luke Easter.
**
“I’ve seen a lot of powerful hitters in my time but for sheer ability to knock a ball great distances, I’ve never seen anybody better than Easter — and I’m not excepting Babe Ruth.” — Del Baker
**
      
LUCIOUS "LUKE EASTER"
]
Luscious “Luke” Easter was born August 4, 1915 at 8:15 PM in Jonestown, Mississippi. During his playing career and later in life, Easter would equivocate on his birth date. Indians general manager Hank Greenberg once said, “no one knows how old Luke really is. No one, that is, but Luke himself, and sometimes I’m not sure that he knows.”

https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/luke-easter/

On 29 Mar. 1979,Luke Easter was killed by bank robbers while cashing his fellow workers' paychecks.
**

"I've got the right to knock down anybody holding a bat."
      Early Wynn
**

BASEBALL PLAYERS' SALARIES FOR THE 1869 SEASON

 The first baseball team whose players received a regular salary was the Cincinnai Red Stockings. 
   "A salary of $1,400 was paid to the shortstop, 
$1,200 to the center fielder, $1,100 to the pitcher,
$1,000 to the 3rd baseman, $800 to first and the second
baseman, the catcher, and left and right outfielders,
and the substitute."

FAMOUS FIRST FACTS, 5th edition, edited by Joseph Kane, Steve Anzovin,nand Janet Podell (New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1998
**

IN 1951 BOB "SUGAR" CAIN PITCHED AGAINST THE MIDGET EDDIE GAEDEL, THE MIDGET THAT BILL VEECK SENT UP TO BAT AS A
PINCH HITTER

"Two of the most exciting things that happened, was
pitching against the midget(Cain was the only baseball
person at Gaedel's funeral in 1961) and also a game
against Bob Feller when we both pitched a one-hitter
and I beat him 1-0." This was the first time that two
opposing pitchers had thrown one-hitters since Three 
Fingers Brown of the Cubs and Lefty Leifield of the
Pirates had done it in 1906."

Burnham Holmes. One Shining Moment. Sports Heroes For
a Day(New York: HarperTorch,2003)
**
  
LOU GEHRIG IN THE 1938 MOVIE RAWHIDE    

Rawhide is a 1938 American Western film starring Lou Gehrig and released by 20th Century-Fox. It 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.[2] The film remains available on DVD and VHS formats."

    WIKIPEDIA,entry for RAWHIDE

**

 RING LARDNER'S SONNET

If Ring Lardner ever wrote a sonnet, I've never
heard about it." Adolphe Menjou

That time of year thou mayest in me behold
When rookie hurlers , some or few, do hang
A sliding curve which strikes against the cold
Bat of some hitter, where late my fastball sang;
Girlie, in me thou see'st the twilight of my day,
While my team -the Giants-- fades in the West.
Late in the season a rummer bunch takes away
Another pennant, that doth seal up all the rest.
Girlie, thou see'st the dimming of my career
That on the ashes of my dead arm do lie.
My arm is well wore out and must expire,
Doin' nothin' with that which it was nourished by.
    Well, girlie, no merriment in this tune: 
    I love this game which I must leave too soon.

Louis Phillips