(Hey, it’s baseball season. Everything makes me think about baseball. And I mean EVERYTHING!)
There was Hank Greenburg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hank_Greenburg of the Detroit Tigers who took a lot of guff because of his religion. Said to have been subject to the more segregation and bias than any other white man, even his teammates treated him poorly. But he was "Hammerin' Hank" before Hammerin' Hank AARON came along.
And lets’ not forget Sandy Koufax, one of, if not the, greatest left-handed pitchers of all time. Koufax once sat out a World Series game because it fell on one of the Jewish holidays. (Yom Kippur 1965 against the Minnesota Twins.) ( Art Shamsky would also be remembered for sitting out during Yom Kippur. In 1969 he was playing with the New York Mets. It wasn’t the World Series, however, just a crucial double header near the end of that fabulous ’69 season. “The funny thing was, the Mets won both ends of a double header” that day, remembers Shamsky.)
But the most unusual of all was the Kid from Roseville Avenue: Baseball's Brainiest Player...and Top World War II Spy
Moe Berg: baseball player (catcher), Princeton graduate (magna cum laude, no less),attendee of the Sorbonne in Paris, graduate of Columbia Law School (one of 33 out of 500 to pass the bar exam and with the 3rd highest score to boot), master of many languages, baseball instructor to the Japanese in 1932--in Japanese, OSS assassin/spy during WWII. Oh, and he was a Jersey boy.
He died in 1972 in the Clara Mass Hospital in Belleville. His final words, reported by a Hospital nurse, were: "How did the Mets do today?"
From the Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_Berg
As to his play, it was his action on the field that led one scout having to report truthfully to his bosses as to what Berg was like as a player to say those famous words, “Good field, no hit.”
Even converting to catcher from shortstop, things didn’t change. He couldn’t hit but he could field and throw like the dickens. He once set a record for consecutive error free games: American League record 117 games ending On April 22, 1934, when Berg made an error, his first fielding mistake since 1932.
Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball.”
"Yeah. I know, and he can't hit in any of them." — Dave Harris, [Washington] Senators' outfielder, when told that Berg spoke seven languages.
3 comments:
Sandy Koufax is a Very Big Deal in my family. OMG, they loooove the guy, even though he spent the better part of his career in LA (pfooey; and injured, to boot)...
Still, he was born in Brooklyn, went to Lafayette High School on Benson Avenue & Bay 43rd, and that he sat out on Yom Kippur, even though my family are sworn Pork Eaters (I am not), that was Huge to them.
They absolutely worship the guy. I gotta admit, he did have a sweet windup and, from what footage I've seen, was a pleasure to watch. A great southpaw, indeed.
What'd you think of the Koos? I'm surprised he never made it to the HOF; he was almost as awesome as Seaver. Another fabulous lefty.
Hey, I know you hate the Yankees but what about Ron Blomberg? The first designated hitter and a power bat for the Yanks, he was the man!
Erica, I loved watching Koosman pitch. He just wasn't consistant enough over the long haul, or spectacular enough over the short stint to warrant the HOF. (His 222-209 record just isn't going to cut it.)
Trooper, The first designated hitter? One of those "No field, can hit a little" guys, eh? Read it today "Liberals invented the designated hitter rule because they felt it was unfair to make the pitcher hit, too."
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