2025 Readings 44

    "The first time something happens out there, and you start on me," I said, "I'm taking off for Oakland City, Indiana. Why don't we stop all this horsing around and just send me to another ball club?"

   "I won't do it," he says. "I've been trying to get you back ever since I traded you away a long time ago. Now you're either going to play for me or you're not going to play ball at all. I'm sure not going to let you go a second time."

   "OK," I said, "if that's the way you feel about it. If you give me my salary, I'll try it. But I still say I'll be back in Oakland City, Indiana, in ten days."

   "How much do you want?"

   "$25,000."

   "I can't pay it."

   Well, I took my hat and started for the door. "Where do you think you're going? he says.

   "Back to Oakland City, Indiana. Why?"

   "Now, hold on," he says. "Come back and sit down. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll give you a three-year contract for $70,000."

   "All right," I said, "I'll take it."

   I signed the contract, went out to the ball park, got into a uniform, and played six innings that afternoon. Got two hits out of three times up, too.

   I play that three-year contract out, and after that I quit, and finally did come back to Oakland City, Indiana. McGraw kept to his word and never bothered me. But it wasn't like playing in Cincinnati. I missed my teammates, and I missed the Cincinnati fans.

   I've read where as far as the Cincinnati fans are concerned I'm the most popular player ever wore a Reds' uniform. I don't know about that. It's not for me to say. But - assuming it's true - I'll tell you one thing: the feeling is mutual.

Edd Roush arguing with John McGraw, the New York Giants manager

Recently I've read some wonderful books that I just plowed through in absolutely no time at all, and this morning I finished another one of them: Lawrence Ritter's The Glory of Their Times: The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It. It's considered a classic baseball book, and the praise is warranted. The story behind the book is that after Ty Cobb's death in 1961, it suddenly became very clear to Ritter, a college professor, that an entire generation of early baseball players would pass from the earth without anyone bothering to tell their story. This inspired Ritter to travel around the country and record the stories of a couple dozens players about their experience playing in the late 19th century and early 20th century. The story is presented in their own words, and it is a wonderful book. It's just a series of players, long-retired, some Hall of Famers and some who might have sadly been forgotten without Ritter's effort, simply telling stories of baseball and their lives then. It's been argued that four of the players probably later ended up in the Hall of Fame because of this book.

For example, here's the opening of Rube Marquard's chapter:

   My nickname being what it is, you probably automatically assume I must have  been a country boy. That's what most people figure. But it's not so. Fact is, my father was the Chief Engineer of the city of Cleveland, and that's where I was born and reared.

   Then how come I'm called "Rube"? Well, I'll get to that. But let me tell you about my father first. Like I say, he was the Chief Engineer of the city of Cleveland. As far as he was concerned, the only important thing was for me to get a good education. But as far back as I can remember all I could think of, morning, noon, and night, was baseball.

   "Now listen," Dad would say, "I want you to cut this out and pay attention to your studies. I want you to go to college when you're through high school, and I don't want any foolishness about it. Without an education you won't be able to get a good job, and then you'll never amount to anything." 

   "I already have a job," I'd say.

   "You've got a job? What are you talking about?"

   "I'm going to be a ballplayer."

   "A ballplayer?" he'd say, and throw his hands up in the air. "What do you mean? How can you make a living being a ballplayer? I don't understand why a grown man would wear those funny-lookin suits in the first place."

   "Well," I'd answer, "you see policemen with uniforms on, and other people like that. They change after they're through working. It's the same way with ballplayers."

   "Ha! Do ballplayers get paid?"

It sounds like every conversation between every father and every son since the beginning of time. It's also a fascinating study of the social and economic world of the time, with so many of these players making obscenely low wages working in the mines for seventy hours a week - and some of them riding the rails to get to tryouts because they had no money. I can't recommend it too highly. The funny thing is, I don't even watch baseball anymore. I used to love the game with a childlike fascination, but over the years it fell away (which is why I finish last in my fantasy baseball league year in and year out). Baseball has always played a key role in the American dream, and now it does in a terrible fashion: the gross inequality that is destroying America is played out routinely in MLB, with small market teams like the Reds acting as little more than homecoming team pushovers for the wealthy teams. That said, I still love going to see minor league or college league (like our beloved Vermont Lake Monsters) games because the game itself, in its purest form, is a thing of beauty.