Satchel Paige and The Dominican Dictator

Satchel Paige and The Dominican Dictator

By Joe Guzzardi

In 1937, the Dominican Republic’s President Rafael Trujillo, a one-time cattle rustler, forger, blackmailer, and then-dictator, decided that, in the name of national unity and to demonstrate his absolute power, he would create Hispaniola’s best baseball team. Trujillo, who preferred polo and sailing to baseball, turned over the Dragones de Ciudad Trujillo’s daily operations to Dr. Jose Aybar, a dentist. Aybar, fearful that failure to please Trujillo could lead to his untimely and permanent disappearance, reached out to the Pittsburgh Crawfords and Homestead Grays, teams which had many black American stars unfairly banned from Major League Baseball. In his book, “Satchel: the Life and Times of an American Legend,” author Larry Tye provided the details about Satchel’s decades-long baseball excellence.

Signing the Crawfords’ Leroy “Satchel” Paige was Aybar’s goal, and the tooth doctor left for New Orleans where the Crawfords were in spring training. Other Dominican teams also pursued Paige. In desperation, Aybar ordered his limo driver to block Paige’s vehicle. The agent, allegedly brandishing a pistol, offered the pitcher $30,000, or the equivalent of $675,000 in today’s money, the total to include six of his Crawfords’ teammates. Paige recalled that Aybar told him “You may take what you feel is your share.” Abyar’s offer represented more money for a month’s pitching than Satchel earned in a year of barnstorming. Rounding up other players proved unexpectedly challenging. Most Crawfords objected to Paige getting the largest cut, and others resisted betraying Crawfords’ and Grays’ owners Gus Greenlee and Cumberland Posey. Paige landed the Crawford’s Leroy Matlock, Sam Bankhead, Cool Papa Bell, Harry Williams, and Herman Andrews. Eventually Josh Gibson, recently traded to the Grays, came aboard. Greenlee, president of the Negro National League, struck back. He banned the deserters from ever returning to the Negro Leagues.

Upon their arrival in the Dominican Republic, Paige and his teammates got an abrupt awakening to Trujillo’s power and the extent to which the dictator would go to win. Provinces, mountains, buildings, and bridges were all named Trujillo. At an introductory press conference, a journalist pulled Paige aside, and told him “Trujillo won’t like it if you lose.” Trujillo assigned armed guards to follow the players around town — -at the beaches, restaurants, hotels, and at their games to assure that they follow the straight and narrow path that would culminate in a championship season.

The Dominican season consisted of forty-four fiercely competitive games, played on steaming hot weekend mornings. The police often intervened to settle fistfights among wagering fans over called balls and strikes. Satchel’s Dragones debut was inauspicious. The team prevailed, but another pitcher got credit for the victory. When Paige hit his stride, reporters called his pitching arsenal “black magic,” his curve ball “enigmatic,” his fastball “terrifying,” and his intelligence “highly developed.”

An eight-game series between Paige’s Dragones and the Santiago Aguilas would settle the Dominican championship. As Paige retold the events, winning was the difference between life and death. In a Colliers Magazine interview, Paige said that Trijillo’s henchmen, looking like “a firing squad,” armed with knives and rifles surrounded the field. Lose, Paige feared, and “nothin’ to do but consider myself and my boys passed over to Jordan.”

Paige entered the deciding game in the 9th inning and blew an 8–3 lead before the Dragones eked out an 8–6 win; local fans rated Paige’s overall performance as, at best, mixed. By the time Paige returned to the U.S, he found himself the target of bitter criticism from the NNL, and from the black press for abandoning friends and country. The Pittsburgh Courier, a black weekly, wrote that Paige was less dependable than “a pair of second-hand suspenders.” Since the NNL ban on the traitorous players was still in effect, Paige established the Satchel Paige All-Stars, and the team hit the road for a successful barnstorming tour.

In 1948 on Satch’s 42nd birthday, Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck signed Paige to a major league contract. Paige was MLB’s fourth black player; Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby, and Roy Campanella preceded him. A record night-game crowd of 78,383 fans watched Paige make his first appearance in Cleveland’s Municipal Stadium, a relief stint against the St. Louis Browns. Later, in his first starting role on August 3, he defeated the Washington Senators 5–3 in front of 72,434. During the season’s remainder, Paige posted a 6–1 record with a 2.48 ERA. He pitched two-thirds of an inning in Game Five of the World Series. At age 59, the oldest to pitch in a MLB game, Paige tossed three shutout innings for the Kansas City Athletics.

In 1971, the newly formed and controversial Committee on Negro Baseball Leagues elected Satchel Paige as its first Hall of Fame inductee. Many writers were outraged that the Hall had created a separate wing for black stars and would admit only one African American player each year. Nevertheless, Paige engaged the 2,500-strong, mostly white audience with his tales. Paige shared that he once pitched 165 consecutive days and concluded his remarks boasting that he was ‘the proudest man in the place.”

After Paige died from a heart attack in 1982, Washington Post baseball scribe Thomas Boswell wrote that through his excellence, Paige proved that “50 years’ worth of black-league players had been wronged more severely than white Americans ever suspected.”

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Satchel Paige and The Dominican Dictator

Satchel Paige and The Dominican Dictator

Ambidextrous Harry Truman Threw Out First Post-War Pitch

Ambidextrous Harry Truman Threw Out First Post-War Pitch

By Joe Guzzardi

On September 8, 1945, six days after Japan surrendered and World War II officially ended, President Harry S. Truman went to Griffith Stadium to throw out the first pitch in a game between the Washington Senators and the St. Louis Browns. No president had attended a baseball game since Franklin Delano Roosevelt tossed the traditional first pitch at the April 14, 1941, opener, eight months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The savvy Truman knew his presence at Griffith Stadium would convey the message to America that peace had returned, and that World War II had indeed ended.

Truman saw the Senators beat the Browns 4-1 during a crucial game in a four-way race for the American League pennant eventually captured by the Detroit Tigers. The Browns, Senators and New York Yankees came up short.

On April 16, 1946, Truman assumed the presidential responsibilities of throwing out the first Opening Day pitch against the visiting Boston Red Sox. Accompanied by his wife Bess and daughter Margaret, Truman became the first lefty to toss out the inaugural pitch. In his seven and one-half years in the White House, Truman attended sixteen games at Griffith Stadium, more than any other president. Ambidextrous, Truman hurled some pitches lefty and others, righty. Truman’s Opening Day record was 4-3, and, overall, 8-8.

Over the years, Truman formed a close friendship with Senators’ owner Clark Griffith. Both hailed from Missouri, both represented up from the bootstrap’s successes, and were straight shooters. Griffith called Truman “Harry,” and the president was fine with his informal salutation. A contributor to Truman’s 1948 re-election bid, Griffith predicted, against all odds, that the incumbent would beat the Republican nominee, Thomas Dewey. The October 11 issue of Newsweek stated, “Fifty political experts unanimously predict a Dewey victory.”  Truman was nonplused. “Oh, those damned fellows. They’re always wrong anyway,” he countered. As Griffith summed up Truman’s unexpected win at a post-election victory party,” “Everyone is against Harry except the people.” Truman’s surprise re-election gave him four more opportunities to throw out the Opening Day first pitch.

In his youth, Truman was a slightly-built, bespectacled boy who never played baseball. His wife Meg, however, was the quintessential tomboy. Meg had grown up with three younger brothers who she strived to beat at mumblety-peg, baseball and whistling through her teeth. She had excelled at most sports — even in throwing the shot put — and she remained an avid baseball fan all her life.

Bess watched, listened to, and scored as many games as possible. “The boss is the real fan,” Truman said about his Sunday school crush. Truman had carried Bess’ books to school and watched her play a crackerjack third base as the only girl on an all-boys team. As First Lady, Bess attended games by herself or with her daughter, but always with her scorebook which she kept religiously.

When Truman left the White House in 1953, Dwight Eisenhower assumed the Opening Day tasks. That year, however, Eisenhower asked his Vice President Richard Nixon to stand in for him. Truman hated Nixon and sent his friend Griffith a telegram wishing him well but warned, “Don’t let him throw you a curve!”

Bess and Harry, now private citizens, returned to Independence, MO., and eventually adopted the Kansas City Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals as their new favorites. “May the sun never set on American baseball,” Truman said at a Cardinals game.

The Trumans lived long lives. In 1972, Harry died at age 88; Bess followed in 1982 at age 97. The couple are buried next to each other at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum in Independence.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Ambidextrous Harry Truman Threw Out First Post-War Pitch

Ambidextrous Harry Truman Threw Out First Post-War Pitch

Cy Young Pitched until Age 68

Cy Young Pitched until Age 68

By Joe Guzzardi

The 2023 Cy Young Award winners for baseball’s best American and National League pitchers are the New York Yankees’ Gerrit Cole and the San Diego Padres’ Blake Snell. Cole and Snell are dandy pitchers, but will never match Cy Young’s credentials. Neither will anyone else.

Only a handful of dinosaur baseball bugs know how the Cy Young Award evolved. Fewer still know anything more about Young than, over his 21-year career, he won 511 games, more than anyone ever will. In 1963, Sandy Koufax told a reporter that Young’s record could be broken. Koufax, 27, had 93 victories, not that far behind Young’s 131 at the same age. Three seasons later, Koufax was out of baseball, 346 wins behind Young.

The award’s back story: since his 1951 election, then-MLB commissioner Ford Frick, a big Bob Feller fan, thought that the existing MVP voting system minimized pitchers’ contributions when weighed against everyday players. Young’s 1955 death at age 88 motivated Frick to move ahead, despite resistance from every baseball corner.

Ford insisted that pitchers be given their own. He persisted until 1956 when the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Don Newcombe won the first Cy Young Award. Originally, the award was given to only one pitcher from both leagues, but by 1967, National and American League hurlers were selected.

Contrary to what fans’ limited knowledge about the baseball icon would indicate, Young wasn’t born on August 6, 1890, the first day he toed the rubber for the Cleveland Spiders. And Young didn’t vanish on October 6, 1911, age 44, the day after he threw his final professional pitch for the Boston Rustlers. Before, during and after Young’s Hall of Fame, record-setting career, he lived a life marked by peaks and valleys common to the human condition.

Denton True Young, called “Dent” by friends, didn’t reach the major leagues until he was 23. Until then, he farmed in Gilmore, Ohio, near Canton. During an exhibition game for the Canton team, Young struck out 13, and the Canton Repository, the local newspaper, noticed his blazing fastball, comparing it to a fast-arriving cyclone. From that moment on, the press and the public called Young “Cy.”

His next game was a no-hitter in which Young struck out 18. Then the Cleveland Spiders came a-calling, and bought his rights with a $300 offer. In Young’s rookie year, he won 36 games and led the National League with a 1.93 ERA. Young was on the way to Cooperstown. By the time he finally hung up his cleats, Young had racked up several all-time records. He pitched 7,356 innings, faced 29,565 batters, won 20 games 16 times, threw 25-1/3 consecutive hitless innings, 76 straight batters, and led the league in fewest walks allowed per nine innings 14 times. Young: “I aimed to make the batter hit the ball, and I threw as few pitches as possible.”

As years wore on and the Depression took hold, Young entered his senior years; he struggled to make ends meet. Young had returned to farm life, but raising sheep and vegetables left him cash-short. Farming was the only life Young knew; he dropped out of school in the sixth grade. Tragedy struck Young when, in 1933, his wife and childhood sweetheart, Roberta, died. Young, 65, childless, moved in with friends, held odd jobs and dabbled in local politics. Suddenly, however, baseball re-entered Young’s life. In September 1933, Young took the hill for the local County All-Stars against the Cleveland Indians at a state fair. Appearing in a cameo role, he struck out the side, and the Associated Press headline blared, “Cy Young Hurls as Indians Win.”

More Young appearances, to fans’ raucous roars, followed. Young, now 67, took to the mound again, if only for a third of an inning. During a 1934 old-timers’ game at Cleveland’s League Park, Young’s team, the “Has-Beens” played the “Antiques.” The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that in cold and miserable weather, Young was “the old man in brilliant red socks…who warmed up by giving the ball an underhand toss.”

Young left the “Has-Beens” to join the “Hope-to-Be’s,” a team of 12-15-year-olds who, Young recalled, “took a hefty cut at everything I tossed to ’em, but the old arm had plenty of stuff left in it and I won a couple of games.” Before long, however, the youngsters found Young’s vulnerability – the bunt: “I tried to bend over to field it,” Young said, “but couldn’t reach it.”

Astonishingly, Young wasn’t done yet. At 68, he announced that he would head to Augusta, Georgia, for Spring Training in anticipation of joining a barnstorming tour, advertised as a “Traveling Baseball School.” Young was to earn $250 a month in exchange for one inning pitched per game. Prior to going South, Young said, “I’m all alone, and this may be sort of fun.” But fun was hard to come by. The team traveled in broken-down buses, drew poorly, earned almost nothing and eventually folded.

Young spent his final days working at a five-and-dime store, reading his fan mail and promoting the national pastime. When “Dent” died in 1955 at age 88, Commissioner Frick’s long-awaited plan to introduce the Cy Young Award was born.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Cy Young Pitched until Age 68

Cy Young Pitched until Age 68 Cy Young Pitched until Age 68

Judge Landis Winked At 1926 Baseball Gambling Scandal

Judge Landis Winked at 1926 Baseball Gambling Scandal

By Joe Guzzardi

World Series 2023 had the lowest television ratings in history. No need to belabor the whys and wherefores. Instead of listening to the ceaseless chatter of announcer John Smoltz, fans would be better off acquainting themselves with the game’s rich history. A good start: read Dan Taylor’s “Baseball at the Abyss,” which takes a deep dive into the forgotten 1926 scandal that involved Hall of Fame greats Ty Cobb and Tris Speaker, as the principal scoundrels.

Baseball has a long, unhappy gambling history with wagering playing a prominent role that dates back before the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal. In baseball’s early days, bookmakers plied their trade in the open, working the ballpark areas inside and outside, taking wagers. The 1919 World Series may have, in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, destroyed the faith of 50 million people, about half the U.S. population then, but throwing baseball games was commonplace. As Emil “Happy” Felsch, a White Sox fixer, said, “Playing rotten ain’t that hard to do.”

Author Taylor explains that the dirty deeds had their inception in 1919, when the Cleveland Indians were in Detroit to face the Tigers. Neither the Indians nor the Tigers were going to win the pennant, but the Tigers were in a tight scrum with the Yankees for third place. In the dead ball era, a third-place finish meant a small share of the post-season loot for every Tigers’ member. The Indians had second place locked up. Cobb and Speaker, the respective managers of the Tigers and Indians, huddled prior to the September 25 game to iron out the details.

Speaker assured Cobb that he “wouldn’t have to worry” about the game’s outcome. The Cleveland team preferred, Speaker insisted, that Detroit finish in third. By virtue of that finish, the Tigers were likely to make about $500 for each player. Cobb, Speaker, Tigers pitcher Dutch Leonard and Indians pitcher Smoky Joe Wood all agreed to conspire in the fix.

Years later, Leonard confessed the four had agreed that since their post-season share would be small, they might as well wager on the game. Cobb was to put up $2,000; Leonard, $1,500, and Speaker and Wood $1,000 each. Cobb suggested park attendant Fred West would be a good man to place the bets. But because Detroit was a 10–7 favorite and because the local bookmakers were unwilling to handle such large sums, West only managed to get down $600 against the bookmakers’ $420.

The Tigers won the September 25 game 9–5, plating four runs in the first two innings. The Indians committed three costly errors, and Cleveland starter Elmer Myers — perhaps tipped off to the fix or maybe acting on his own whimsy — floated pitches to the plate for the Detroit batters. Speaker banged out three hits, all of them well after the Tigers had control of the game and the outcome was clear. No one is certain whether Cobb, Speaker or anyone else actually received money from their bets. The scant remaining evidence indicates that the wrongdoers may not have been able to place all the bets they hoped to.

That winter, Cobb, Speaker, Wood and Leonard went home, but the four men exchanged letters about the incident, sharing their regret that they were unable to get their bets down in time and that their shared proposition fizzled. The letters came back to haunt the four.

Several years later, the stench from the fixing incident wafted out. A vengeful Leonard wanted to settle a score with his former teammate, Cobb, now the Tigers manager. Once, Cobb kept Leonard in a 1925 game in which the southpaw surrendered 20 runs, and the manager mocked the idea that he yank his humiliated starter. Leonard never forgot, and the memory ate at him.

Cobb released Leonard, and insiders said Ty discouraged other American League teams from signing the lefty. Dutch stewed, and in May 1926 he presented the letters he received from Cobb, Speaker and Wood — the evidence — to Tigers owner Frank Navin who turned them over to American League President Ban Johnson. To keep a lid on the percolating scandal, Johnson paid Leonard $20,000 to go back to Fresno where he owned a farm, and focus on his raisin growing. At the season’s end, Johnson forced Cobb and speaker to resign. Eventually, however, the superstars appealed their cases to Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis who, sensing that the public and the baseball writers were solidly behind the diamond, absolved Speaker and Cobb, facts be damned.

Landis read the room correctly. Baseball bugs were fed up with scandal. At least five World Series — 1905, 1912, 1914, 1918 and 1919 — were rumored to have been influenced by game-fixers. And the 1923 Teapot Dome Scandal that implicated President Warren G. Harding — considered the greatest presidential scandal until Watergate — was still reverberating among the citizenry.

Cobb and Speaker played until 1928, Speaker for one year with the Washington Senators and one year with the Philadelphia A’s, and Cobb two years with the A’s.

Better to remember Cobb as one of baseball’s all-time greats, .366 career batting average with nine consecutive titles, and Speaker, the “Gray Eagle” who holds outfielder records for assists, double plays and unassisted double plays. Balls hit to center field where Speaker patrolled were considered the place where triples go to die.

Cobb, Speaker, Wood and Leonard got off the hook, and played into their 40s. Pete Rose, however, who holds MLB career records for 4,256 career hits, 3,215 career singles, 3,562 career games played, 14,053 career at-bats and 15,890 career plate appearances, was permanently banned for his gambling infractions. In life, good timing is invaluable.

*****

Taylor’s other books include
Walking Alone: the Untold Journey of Football Pioneer Kenny Jackson and Lights, Camera, Fastball: How the Hollywood Stars Changed Baseball.

*****

Joe Guzzardi is an Internet Baseball Writers Association and Society for American Baseball Research historian. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com
On X 
@JoeGuzzardi19.

Judge Landis Winked at 1926 Baseball Gambling Scandal

1925 World Series Mystery Went Unsolved For 50 Years

1925 World Series Mystery Went Unsolved For 50 Years

By Joe Guzzardi

It took nearly 50 years to resolve one of the World Series’ most controversial plays. For the decades between 1925 and 1974, fans debated whether Pittsburgh Pirates batter Earl Smith was out when Washington Senators outfielder Sam Rice tumbled into the left field stands to hold on to a long fly ball. Or was Smith, as some cranks in the bleachers insisted, safe when the ball fell out of Sam’s glove? The dispute was the stuff that kept hot stove leaguers buzzing for many a cold winter month.

The National League Pirates were the reigning world champions, and the Senators, the American League challengers. Both squads had several players destined for the Cooperstown Hall of Fame. From the Senators, Rice, Walter Johnson, “Goose” Goslin and boy manager, 27-year-old Bucky Harris; from the Pirates, Pie Traynor, Kiki Cuyler and Max Carey. The teams split their first two games and braced themselves for a pivotal third game that would be played in terrible weather. Griffith Stadium, the Senators’ home park, was, wrote one reporter, “swept by hurricane blasts that chilled to the marrow.” In the bottom of the eighth, with the Senators clinging to a 4–3 lead, Pirates catcher Smith sent a line drive into right field. Fleet-footed Rice snared the bulb, and his momentum carried him into the stands.

1925 World Series Mystery Went Unsolved For 50 Years
Sam Rice

As Rice re-created his dramatic catch, he jumped as high as he could, backhanded Smith’s drive, but toppled into the first row. Umpire Cy Rigler raced out from his position at second base, some 250’ away, to signal Smith, rounding third, out. But Pirates fans, first-hand witnesses to the catch, protested that the ball had fallen from Rice’s glove. Rice, the fans griped, replaced the ball in his glove before Rigler arrived on the scene. Some fans were prepared to sign sworn affidavits to back up their claims. Pirates manager Bill McKenzie and team owner Barney Dreyfuss stormed over to the box seats where Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis and President Calvin Coolidge were watching the unfolding action. McKenzie demanded that Landis overturn Rigler’s call. The commissioner, deferring, said that his baseball powers didn’t include reversing umpire’s judgment calls.

The Senators won the game, but lost the series 4–3. For the rest of his years and wherever he went, Rice was asked if he truly caught the ball or if the questioning fans had really seen sleight-of-hand. Rice had a pat response: “The umpire called Smith out.” Finally, tired of being pestered, Rice announced that he would write a letter to Hall of Fame officials describing the events that could be opened upon his death.

After Rice died in 1974 at age 84 from cancer, HOF brass began a two-week search digging through their files — no letter. Finally, Rice’s missive was found in HOF historian Lee Allen’s file. Allen died before Rice, so he couldn’t point administrators to the tell-all’s location. Finally, the moment of truth had arrived. In Rice’s testimonial, written July 26, 1965, he related that Smith’s line drive landed in his glove’s pocket, that he had “a death grip on it,” and “at no time” did he “lose possession of the ball.”

Time has diminished Rice’s skills and contributions. During his 20-year career, most of which he spent in Washington, Rice achieved a .322 lifetime batting average and fell just 13 shy of 3,000 total base hits. He missed .300 only five times, never by more than seven points, and reached 200 or more hits in a season six times, including 207 in 1930, when, at age 40, he hit .349, a single point shy of his career best.

Rice rarely struck out, averaging only once every 33 at bats, and still shares the all-time American League lead with Joe Jackson for most consecutive multi-hit games, 11, set in 1925 season, and his peers considered him to be the league’s most effective baserunner, on par with Ty Cobb.

The Hall of Fame inducted Rice in 1963, a class that included Dizzy Dean, Bill Dickey and Jimmie Foxx.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Email guzzjoe@yahoo.com or X @JoeGuzzardi19.

1925 World Series Mystery Went Unsolved For 50 Years

Remembering Sal Maglie The Demon Barber For Italian-American Heritage Month

Remembering Sal Maglie The Demon Barber For Italian-American Heritage Month

By Joe Guzzardi

When Sal Maglie was finishing his two years, 1956-1957, with the Brooklyn Dodgers, he gave advice to his two future Hall of Fame teammates, Sandy Koufax and Don Drysdale. Known around baseball as “The Barber,” Sal told the future greats: “Throw that second brushback pitch right away so the batter will know you meant the first one.” Koufax and Drysdale were quick studies, and with Maglie, rank numbers 3, 4 and 8, respectively, in the Top Ten among baseball history’s most feared moundsmen. The always-intimidating St. Louis Cardinals’ Bob Gibson tops the list.

Judith Testa, in her book, “Sal Maglie, the Demon Barber,” described Maglie as “a glowering, 6-foot-2-inch, 180-pound righthander whose game-day face bristled with thick black stubble.” Although Maglie looked fearsome and his high, hard one whistled right under batters’ chins – hence his nickname – off the field, he was gentle, courteous and good-natured. 

Born Salvatore Anthony Maglie, he was his parents’ third and youngest child, and their only son. His father, Giuseppe Maglie, came from a prosperous Italian family, and he had earned a high school degree. But once in America, Giuseppe’s limited English meant he had to work as a common laborer. Sal’s mother, Maria Bleve, was from a peasant background and never attended a day of school. Despite their economic challenges, Sal’s parents worked hard. They encouraged Sal to be determined and to pursue the life that he wanted.

Sal’s first passion was baseball; he turned down a basketball scholarship that Niagara University offered him in order to play baseball at the Union Carbide plant where he worked, and also with local semi-pro teams. Along the way, Double A Buffalo Bisons’ manager Steve O’Neill, a former MLB catcher who managed four big league teams, noticed Maglie. In 1938, he added Maglie to the team’s roster.

Maglie struggled and was demoted to Class-D by 1940. In I945, he had pitched well enough to earn an invitation to join the New York Giants. After pitching in the Cuban Winter League and the short-lived Mexican League, Maglie had mastered the art of effective pitching. Banned for years from MLB because he had played for the outlaw Mexican League, Maglie returned to the Giants in 1950, where he posted an 18-4 record, followed by 23-6 and 18-8 for the next two seasons. Then, in 1955 at age 36, and plagued by back pain, Maglie was sold to the Cleveland Indians. The Indians, in 1956, sold Magie to the Brooklyn Dodgers for $100, a mistake General Manager Hank Greenberg rued for years.

Supposedly washed up, Maglie became the key figure in Brooklyn’s nail-biting 1956 pennant drive. The Dodgers edged out the Milwaukee Braves by one game, and the Cincinnati Redlegs by two. Maglie’s 13-5 record included winning two of the season’s final five games and pitching a no-hitter against the Braves. Maglie kept his hot streak going when he won the World Series opener against the New York Yankees, 6-3. In the series’ fifth game, however, Maglie faced Don Larsen, allowed only two runs over eight innings, but no pitcher could have outdueled the perfect game pitcher.

In 1957 and 1958, Maglie pitched ineffectively for the Yankees and the Cardinals before closing out his MLB career as a Boston Red Sox and Seattle Pilots pitching coach. In 1966, Maglie’s wife, Kay, died, and he became a 49-year-old widower with two young children. Sal’s life began a downward spiral. Although Sal happily remarried in 1971, his adopted son Sal Jr. became addicted to drugs and had frequent police encounters.

For a few years, putting his personal heartache aside, Maglie played golf, socialized with friends, signed autographs at card shows, and attended old timers’ games. But, Maglie’s good health ended abruptly in 1982 when he suffered a brain aneurysm. After making a remarkable recovery, Sal enjoyed several more good years. But tragedy struck again in March 1985. Sal Jr. fell from a window and died. Law enforcement, aware of the troubled young man’s drug associations, suspected foul play. After that, Sal’s physical and mental health declined rapidly, and he was placed in a nursing home in 1987 where, for five years, he struggled with dementia. “The Barber” died on December 28, 1992, at the age of 75.

Maglie is one of the most recognizable players in baseball history. He is the last to hold the distinction shared by seven others of having pitched for the New York Giants, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees. Few remember, however, how dominant Maglie was. His won-lost record was 119-62; a .657 winning percentage which ranks him 22nd on the all-time list just below Randy Johnson and just above Koufax.

The last chapter of Roger Kahn’s book, “The Head Game: Baseball Seen from the Pitcher’s Mound,” is titled “A Golden Dozen: a Listing of Armed Men.” Along with Bob Feller, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson is Maglie’s name with Kahn’s observation: “No one on any mound was any meaner. Like Iago, he didn’t know the meaning of remorse.”

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Remembering Sal Maglie The Demon Barber

Remembering Sal Maglie The Demon Barber

Christina Gehrig, the Iron Horse’s Iron-Fisted Mom

Christina Gehrig, the Iron Horse’s Iron-Fisted Mom

By Joe Guzzardi

Lou Gehrig had two women in his life, his mother Christina and his wife Eleanor. Had the two been able to get along, the personal life of the legendary New York Yankees ballplayer and Hall of Famer would have been less stressful.

During Gehrig’s youth, Christina, a first-generation German immigrant, was the family’s backbone. Father Heinrich was mostly unemployed, drank and was frequently ill. Lou was the only one of the Gehrig babies to reach adulthood. Three others died in their infancy. Understandably, Christina became overprotective of Lou and urged him to abandon baseball, which he picked up as a teen playing in neighborhood games. She wanted him to focus on his school books.

When Gehrig enrolled in Manhattan’s Commerce High School, he starred in football and baseball. After Gehrig’s Commerce team beat Chicago’s Lane Tech High in Cubs Park, later Wrigley Field, the 10,000 in attendance knew they had seen a superstar in the making. In an account of Gehrig’s game-winning grand slam, the Chicago Tribune wrote that “his blow would have made any big leaguer proud….”

The Gehrig family was poor. While in high school, Christina worked as a Columbia University housekeeper at Sigma Nu Theta. Lou often went to the fraternity house to help his mother serve dinner and wash dishes. Gehrig also worked part-time jobs in butcher shops and grocery stores to help supplement the household income. A New York Giants scout arranged a 1921 Polo Grounds tryout for Gehrig, but no-nonsense manager John McGraw screamed at his coaches to get him off the field: “I’ve got enough lousy players without another one showing up.” For the balance of his managerial career, McGraw rued his hasty decision.

Christina Gehrig, the Iron Horse’s Iron-Fisted Mom
Lou and Christina

By 1925, Gehrig, age 22, was an established Yankees starter who began to challenge teammate Babe Ruth for homerun titles. The two, despite contrasting personalities – the shy, retiring Gehrig and the bombastic Ruth – became friends, fishing buddies and barnstorming partners, the “Bustin’ Babes vs. the Larrupin’ Lous. Christina, who by this time realized that professional baseball players could earn good paychecks, loved Ruth. The Bambino gifted Christina a puppy which she named Judge, a nickname for Ruth. The extra money Ruth generated was nice too. Lou made $2,000 more on the barnstorming tour than he did during the season.

Ironically, Ruth was at the center of a lifelong feud between Lou and his mother. Christina took a dim view of Lou’s girlfriends, seeing them as threats eager to win away her beloved son. When Chicago socialite Eleanor Grace Twitchell caught Lou’s eye, Christina strongly disapproved. In her autobiography, “My Luke and I,” Eleanor described herself as “young and rather innocent, but I smoked, played poker and drank bathtub gin….” But smoking and drinking weren’t the vices that most bothered Christina.

Mother Gehrig had heard through the grapevine that on a years-ago trip to Chicago, Ruth befriended Eleanor. Christina, and the entire baseball world, knew that Ruth didn’t maintain platonic relationships with women. When Lou and Eleanor married in 1933, friends had to persuade Christina to attend.

As Lou’s career flourished, the women cheered Lou on, albeit from separate vantage points. Christina and Eleanor watched with pride as Lou closed in on the most-consecutive-games-played record, then 2,130. But the rift between Christina and Eleanor never healed. Lou’s physical condition deteriorated – “like a great clock winding down,” wrote Eleanor. A butler, a housekeeper and his mother-in-law who moved into the couple’s two-story home in Riverdale nursed Gehrig, but not Christina.

After Lou passed, tension between the in-laws deepened. The parties disputed how Lou’s estate should have been divided. Heinrich and Christina believed that Eleanor was withholding monthly payments from a $20,000 life insurance policy payable to Lou’s parents. An out-of-court settlement was reached.

Christina and Heinrich faded from the news, and died quietly. Eleanor, however, remained prominent, at least publicly. Married to Lou for only eight years, widowed for 43, Eleanor approved the final draft of “The Pride of the Yankees,” donated Lou’s baseball treasures to the Hall of Fame, left $100,000 to Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, and another $100,000 to the Rip Van Winkle Fund for ALS research.

Privately, a lonely, friendless and childless Eleanor withdrew, drank excessively and, once, passed out, caught her bed on fire from smoking. At Eleanor’s 1984 funeral, only two attended, her attorney George Pollack and his wife. And so ended the sad Gehrig family saga; Lou gone too soon, and his family unhappily bickering all the way to their graves.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

Opening Day 1923 In The House That Ruth Built

Opening Day 1923 In The House That Ruth Built

By Joe Guzzardi

Opening Day, 1923, a century ago, dawned cloudy and cold. Babe Ruth woke up in his plush Upper West Side Ansonia Hotel apartment and prepared to play the first-ever game in the brand-new edifice that would become known as the “House that Ruth Built.” Always a snappy dresser, Ruth donned his perfectly tailored suit, then around noon, hopped into his Pierce-Arrow automobile to drive to the Bronx. Had the weather been warmer, Ruth would have selected his sporty Stutz Bearcat.

A notoriously reckless motorist, Ruth had been involved in numerous minor collisions and rarely held a valid driver’s license. To avoid incidents, the Yankees’ owner, Col. Jacob Ruppert, sent police to escort the “Big Bam” safely to the stadium. Along the way, Ruth stopped to sign a few autographs and invited some kids to join him as he roared along.

The largest baseball crowd ever – 74,000, with 25,000 turned away – witnessed a pre-game ceremony befitting the stadium’s grandeur. While New York Gov. Al Smith looked on, John Phillip Sousa led the Seventh Regiment Army Band in full military dress onto the field.

Opening Day 1923 In The House That Ruth Built
Babe Ruth and John McGraw

In 1923, Ruth was on a redemption mission, and the new Yankee Stadium, the biggest and most lavish ever built, was the perfect place to carry out his undertaking. Ruth considered his 1922 season a failure. His performance at the plate, for him a paltry .315 batting average with 35 home runs and 99 RBIs, a sharp drop off from 1921, embarrassed Ruth. Moreover, during the season, Ruth was suspended five times. Worst of all, Ruth’s final 1922 baseball appearance was against the New York Giants in the World Series in which Ruth hit a pathetic .188. Giants’ manager John McGraw called every pitch from the bench. Some were slow curves that Ruth swung on, twisting himself into a corkscrew while missing by a mile. During the off-season, McGraw, a scientific baseball genius, chided Ruth whose style of play – the long ball – he disdained. McGraw called Ruth “the Big Baboon” and incorrectly predicted that the home run fad would soon die out. The media and fans got on Ruth too. The New York Sun labeled Ruth “an exploded phenomenon,” and for the first time, Ruth heard boos.

A humbled Ruth vowed to make amends, on and off the field. Over the winter months, Ruth said that liquor never touched his lips. And now the day had come, April 18, against the last place Boston Red Sox, for Ruth to regain respect and admiration from teammates and his millions of fans. Before the game, Ruth said in the locker room that he would “give a year off his life” to hit a homer in the season opener.

Red Sox starter Howard Ehmke, taking a page out of McGraw’s book, tossed junk balls to Ruth, and in the first inning the Bambino flied out. The third inning, however, was a different story. With two Yankees on base, Ruth deposited a titanic homer ten rows back in the right-field bleachers. Rush’s blast made the score 4-0, a lead the Yankees never relinquished.

As the season unfolded, Ruth and the Yankees dominated. The Yankees won the American League pennant by 16 games over the Cleveland Indians. Ruth hit .393, 41 homers, and unanimously won the Most Valuable Player award. Rules at the time prevented any player from winning the MVP more than once.

More, greater redemption awaited Ruth. For the third straight year, the Yankees would meet the Giants in the World Series. In 1921 and 1922, McGraw’s pitch calling and inside baseball strategy outsmarted the Yankees. But, in 1923, the tables turned on McGraw. The Yankees won the series 4-2, Ruth hit .368, three homers, had a .556 on base percentage, and slugged 1.000. A reporter wrote that when one of Ruth’s shots, a 450-foot job, returned to earth, “the ball was covered in ice.”

In defeat, McGraw was uncharacteristically gracious. He strode over to the winners’ locker room to shake hands with everyone – except the Babe. McGraw preferred to talk about the Giants’ hitting star who almost outshone Ruth. Casey Stengel hit .417 with two homers.

Yankee Stadium became a cash cow for Ruppert who reinvested his money in the team’s future, a decision that kept the Yankees atop the American League for years to come. The original Yankee Stadium no longer stands. In 2009, the first game at the new venue took place, and today’s Yankee Stadium is rarely referred to as the “House that Ruth Built.” But Ruth, McGraw and Stengel, despite having passed years ago, are still alive in baseball fans’ hearts.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com. This year’s opening day is March 30.

Empire State Honors Slytherins

Empire State Honors Slytherins — In a shocking development, the Empire State Building, last night, was lit in the colors of the House of Slytherin.

I’ll confess I rooted for them too.

The Bidens don’t make it easy, though.

Empire State Honors Slytherins

S N A K E S snakes

Empire State Honors Slytherins
“Dr” Dolores Umbridge with Wormtail
Empire State Honors Slytherins

Cotton Bowl QB Set Unbreakable Record

Cotton Bowl QB Set Unbreakable Record

By Joe Guzzardi

Sports’ fans love to compile lists of accomplishments that are unlikely to be equaled. Here’s a sampling. On March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain, then playing for the Philadelphia Warriors, scored 100 points against the New York Knicks. In 1946, the Cincinnati Reds’ Johnny Vander Meer tossed back-to-back no-hitters against the Boston Bees and the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 2022, pitchers completed only .01 percentage of the games they started, let alone tossing 18 consecutive hitless innings within four days. Speaking of no-hitters, Nolan Ryan’s total of seven over his 27-year career is safe for the same reason Vander Meer’s is—pitchers don’t finish their starts.

But an extensive Internet review of impressive sports accomplishments all overlooked one outstanding performance. And since football fans are reveling in the non-stop televised bowl season that began on Dec. 16, and ends on Jan. 9 when the National Championship Game will be played, 42 games total, today’s a good time to turn back the clock to the 1946 Cotton Bowl. In the match up between the University of Texas Longhorns and the University of Missouri Tigers, Longhorns’ quarterback Bobby Layne accounted for every single point scored in his team’s 40-27 win. A You Tube video of Layne’s Cotton Bowl action is here. Don’t expect anything remotely comparable to happen again. 

Layne was also an outstanding Longhorns’ hurler who posted a 39-7 record that included two no-hitters, and he drew offers from the New York Giants, the Boston Red Sox, and the St. Louis Cardinals. Choosing not to endure the long grind up from Class D to the big leagues, Layne opted for the NFL. 

That Jan. 1 in Dallas 1946 marked the beginning of Layne’s legendary college and professional career which spanned 18 years from 1944 to 1962, and produced a four-time All-Southwest Conference pick, six-time Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections, a spot on the NFL’s 1950s All Decade team, and 1967 induction into the NFL Hall of Fame. In 1995, Sports Illustrated named Layne the “toughest quarterback who ever lived” and in 1999, the Sporting News placed him #52 on its list of 100 greatest players. Layne’s gridiron success came despite his notorious partying which meant that he was often hung over at kick off, and his teammates recalled, imbibing a few quick ones at half-time. 

In Detroit, Layne is remembered ingloriously for the successful curse he put on his former team, the Lions, after they traded him to the Pittsburgh Steelers. During the early 1950s, Layne and the Lions dominated the NFL. With Layne under center, the Lions won three championships. Layne partied on, but his antics exhausted the Lions’ front office. In 1958, the defending champion Lions traded Layne to the Pittsburgh Steelers. On his way out the door, a disappointed and angry Layne predicted that the Lions wouldn’t win again for 50 years; Layne’s famous hex worked. On the 50th anniversary of Layne’s curse, the Lions went 0-16. Along with the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Houston Texans, the Lions are one of three teams that have never appeared in a Super Bowl.

When Layne retired in 1963, he owned the NFL records for passing attempts 3,700, completions, 1,814, touchdowns, 196, and yards passing, 26,768. He left as one of the last to play without a face mask, and was credited with creating the two-minute drill. Doak Walker, Layne’s Hall of Fame running back said, “Layne never lost a game…time just ran out on him.”

Heavy drinking and wild living took years off Layne’s life. Layne partied hard and died young. In 1986, liver failure took Layne at age 59. “My only request,” he once said, “is that I draw my last dollar and my last breath at precisely the same instant.”

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com

Cotton Bowl QB Set Unbreakable Record
Cotton Bowl QB Set Unbreakable Record