As Usual, Casey Has Last Word

Enos Slaughter, who will be inducted into the Hall of Fame today, played out his career with the New York Yankees after 13 productive years with the St. Louis Cardinals.

One day, Casey Stengel was listening patiently as a New York writer expressed amazement that Slaughter still was showing the same hustle he did as a youngster.

“He runs out everything,” the writer said. “Even pop flies.”

“It is remarkable,” Stengel said. “I just wish he didn’t hit so many pop flies.”

Lou Brock, also going into the Hall of Fame, says it still annoys him that Steve Garvey was voted the National League Most Valuable Player in 1974.

Says Brock, who stole a record 118 bases that year: “I won the award. He just has it.”

That year, Garvey hit .312 with 21 homers, 111 RBIs and 95 runs scored. Brock hit .306 with three homers, 48 RBIs and 105 runs scored.

Trivia Time: The 28-game hitting streak of Wade Boggs, which ended Saturday, was the longest in the American League since 1980 when a member of the Minnesota Twins hit in 31 straight. Who was it? (Answer below.)

A lot of Yogi Berra’s friends never will forgive George Steinbrenner for dumping the old catcher to bring back Billy Martin, but Mickey Mantle thinks Steinbrenner did Berra a favor.

“Hell, the last thing Yogi needs is a job and all that aggravation,” Mantle told Thomas Boswell of the Washington Post. “Yogi’s got as much money as Steinbrenner.”

“But Billy’s different. Billy was dying. He looked terrible. When I saw him, I was worried. He needs the game. It’s his life. I think he felt like he was never gonna get back in the game again. Like the bad boy who never thinks he’s really going to get expelled from school. Well, Billy finally believed he was out for good. Maybe he’s gotten the message and this time it’ll be different.”

If you got the feeling Saturday that Enos Cabell and third base weren’t exactly made for each other, they got the same impression in Houston.

In 1980, the last time he played the position full time, he committed 29 errors, tops in the National League.

Said pitcher Neil Allen after the St. Louis Cardinals traded him to the New York Yankees: “I was going to make them forget Keith Hernandez. Then I was going to make them forget Bruce Sutter. As it turned out, the only person they wanted to forget in St. Louis was Neil Allen.”

If you regard tobacco-chewing as a disgusting habit, you have an ally in Pittsburgh third baseman Bill Madlock.

He likewise calls it disgusting and labels former Houston third baseman Doug Rader and teammate Tony Pena as the most disgusting of the chewers.

“Rader used to make me sick on purpose,” Madlock told Gene Collier of the Pittsburgh Press. He used to spit on my shoes and used to spit all over third base.

Of Pena, he said: “He chews it and spits it out of his mask. Sometimes it’s all hanging there. He’s disgusting. He’s more disgusting than Rader because I have to look at him all the time.”

Doesn’t chewing help players relax?

“The way to relax,” Madlock said, “is to get a few hits.”

Trivia Answer: Ken Landreaux.

Quotebook

Detroit pitcher Dan Petry, looking around the American League clubhouse at the All-Star game: “Bert Blyleven might be the only person in this room who hasn’t hit a home run off me.”