"A HOTDOG AT THE BALL PARK IS BETTER THAN . . ."

Humphrey Bogart, the classic American actor once said, “A hotdog at the ball park is better than a steak at the Ritz.”  Many people around the world would disagree with that, but baseball and hotdogs at the game are inseparable.  In fact, the Minnesota Twins just announced that Wednesdays are “dollar a dog night.”  How good is that! 

And then there’s the classic baseball song TAKE ME OUT TO THE BALLGAME.  It’s sung by those of us who love baseball, during the “seventh inning stretch”—near the

end of the game, when folks are getting a little antsy and want to get up and sing and go a little crazy, regardless of the score.  Jack Norworth, the man who wrote the song would no doubt be thrilled to see how popular it’s become.  He wrote the original song in 1908 and revised it years later.  He wrote many songs, but the “baseball national anthem” is probably his most famous.  In addition to being a songwriter, he was also a singer and a vaudeville performer.  He even performed in some Broadway theater productions.  Interestingly, he didn’t see his first major league baseball game until 1940, when he was over 60. 

Baseball has had many interesting stories and oddities through the years, but here are a few uniquely interesting ones.  A book called BASEBALL GOLD included a few gems:

            Under the heading “NO KIDDING”—“A wire service once reported that actress Marilyn Monroe had joined husband Joe DiMaggio (a baseball legend) for a few days at spring training.  The last paragraph said, “DiMaggio missed the workout.”

            Jim Leyland, former Pittsburgh manager was quite upset with his team after a sloppy game and found a unique way to convey that to his players. He bounded into the clubhouse and said, “You got ten minutes to get dressed and get out of here before the cops come in and arrest you for impersonating professional ballplayers.”  My guess is that his message stayed with his players for some time.

Showing his love for the game many years ago, Rogers Hornsby, a baseball legend once said, “People always ask me what I do in the winter when there’s no baseball.  I’ll tell you what I do.  I stare out the window and wait for spring.”  I almost feel the same way.

A wonderful historian and writer, Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote a delightful baseball memoir-- Wait Till Next Year-- about her love for the Brooklyn Dodgers as she was growing up.  Her father taught her the art of baseball scorekeeping, and when he came home from work at night they would go over the scorecard.  I’m guessing that even her father would have had a difficult time scoring a game between the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City in 1959.  Imagine scoring 11 runs on only one hit, as Chicago did.  That’s because there were 10 walks, three errors, and one hit batsman in just one inning.  Chicago won 20-6.  

Doris also wrote about her baseball hero, Jackie Robinson.  According to her, his great
 

 

base running often caused the opposing pitcher to become distracted.  He’d frequently throw the ball away or throw a bad pitch to the hitter. Of course Jackie played for the Brooklyn Dodgers, but at that time New York also had the Giants and Yankees.

Here are some additional stories and statistics about baseball that fascinate me, along with countless other baseball followers from different countries:

Abraham Lincoln played in a baseball game in 1860.  He must have been quite enamored with it because when a message arrived for him, he told the messenger that he didn’t want to be interrupted during the game.  When it was finally over, he learned that he had been nominated for president by the Republican Party.

The first umpires sat on rocking chairs about 20 feet behind home plate.  There were no visiting clubhouses until 1906, so teams dressed at their hotels and rode horse-drawn wagons to ballparks.  Of course if you were a St. Louis Browns player in 1933, you didn’t need to worry about much of anything since one game was seen by a mere 34 fans. What could be worse than that?  How about the 1899 Cleveland Spiders who managed only 20 wins, along with 134 losses? 

The immortal Ty Cobb used tobacco juice to keep baseball bats from getting damp.  He often rubbed the bats for four hours.  It obviously worked because he was one of the most prolific hitters in baseball.

Of course baseball is also about pitching, and I’m so glad that I got to watch some outstanding pitchers.  Sandy Koufax finished his last season with the Dodgers with a
 

 

27-9 record and 27 complete games.  Unheard of today with all the specialization of pitchers!  He won the Cy Young award that year.  Cy Young ended his career with 511 wins, 749 complete games, and over 7,000 innings pitched.  He pitched until he was 44.  To accomplish what he did in today’s game, you’d need to reach 26 wins a year and do it for over 20 years.  There are some remarkable pitchers in baseball today, but that’s one record I’m confident will never be broken. As one who loves baseball statistics and memories, I’m going to mark October 13 on my calendar.  That’s the day every year Pittsburgh Pirates fans party exactly where
 

 

Bill Mazeroski hit a ninth inning home run in game seven of the 1960 World Series.  Fans even listen to taped game replays while enjoying hotdogs and sodas.

The first baseball card appeared in 1881. Lou Brock, the super star left fielder and base stealer for many years with the St. Louis Cardinals once said, “I don’t remember my first baseball card as much as I do the gift for being on the card.  No one had ever given me a gift in baseball before, so that was very rewarding.  I got a $25 gift certificate and I used it to buy a radio.”

When I dream of owning a baseball bat that belonged to one of my heroes, I’m reminded of the cost involved.  Babe Ruth’s Louisville Slugger sold for over 1.25 million dollars.  It’s the one he used to hit his first homer in Yankee Stadium.

I’m ecstatic that baseball is the “talk of the town” again. In her baseball memoir Doris Kearns Goodwin wrote, “When I listened to the stories my father told, I could see the great players of the past—Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig and Zack Wheat—knock the mud from their cleats, settle into the batter’s box, narrow their eyes on the pitcher, and unleash their majestic swings.” For me that’s what baseball is all about, and so much more!