I was reading the sports page the other day – specifically the section dealing with baseball. After reading it, I wonder how many recall the good old days of baseball. That is, when there were only sixteen teams and all the kids knew each team’s lineup and most of the batting line-ups. Today, there are so many teams that I have never even heard of half the players that are on the various teams. I recall the time that my Dad took me to a game in Pittsburgh. It was so long ago that Honus Wagner was still around and was a coach on the Pirates. I regret to this day that I did not try and get his autograph.
Those were the days when the teams only played 154 games for the season and there were double headers. In Pennsylvania when games were played in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia there were state blue laws in effect which meant that games had to be over by 6 p.m. Obviously, there were no night Sunday games. I still recall an early Pirates outfield made up of Jack Barret, Jim Russell and Bob Elliott. Elliott was traded by Branch Rickey to the Boston Braves for Billy Herman who was at the end of his career and three others including Whitey Wietelman. Elliott helped the Braves win the pennant and was MVP. Herman is a hall of famer, but only played 15 games with the Pirates, and Whitey dropped a pop fly at short with the bases loaded and the Pirates won nothing. Even Jim Russell who I mentioned above hit a homer which should have won the game. Unfortunately, Frankie Zak had called time on first so he could tie his shoe.
Then Ralph Kiner came along, and until he did no Pirate had hit over 23 home runs. The guy who had hit the 23 was named Johnny Rizzo, but he did little after that. He was however, traded to the Reds in exchange for Vince DiMaggio. It was just the Pirates luck that Vince was the least talented of the DiMaggio brothers. Kiner on the other hand led the league in home runs for seven straight years. The Pirates had lousy teams even with him. Thus, once he had his last bat, the majority of the fans would leave the stadium. Kiner also dated young ladies like Elizabeth Taylor and Janet Leigh. However, his biggest fame was as an announcer with the New York Mets. He also had some Kinerisms while announcing like, “On Father’s Day we again wish you all happy birthday”. Still that is considerably better than you hear on the media today.
The Pirates in my very early days had a pitcher named Rip Sewell. He was famous for his “blooper” pitch. This was a high pitch that reached an arc of 25 feet and would come down over the plate. When I was young, they called it the “blooper” pitch, but now for some reason when they refer to Sewell they call it an “Eepheus” pitch. Whatever you call it, Sewell threw it to Ted Williams in an all-star game when the National League was well behind. Ted crushed it over the fence. Early in his career, Sewell got into a fight with Hank Greenburg who was considerably bigger and stronger. After the fight he was playing with the Toledo Mud Hens.
When my oldest son, Bruce came along I would take him to Forbes Field to see the Pirates play. His grandmother lived a short trolley ride away, and it was easy to get there. The first time I took him, he was just a little fellow. I bought box seat tickets right behind the catcher. Well, he was not that interested in the game, but he loved the hot dogs. Seeing that, I decided to buy general admission tickets in right field where we watched Roberto Clemente play right field a lot. My general admission ticket ran me a whole $1.50 and because Bruce was under 16 his cost 35 cents. Now those were the good old days!
Now it time for a quiz. Who can tell me for what team Lucas Duda plays this year? A hint is that he plays the same position as Elbie Fletcher played for the Pirates when I was a kid. Ah, baseball in the good old days!
Barry Evans writes about Life in The Villages for Villages-News.com
