They Don’t Tell ‘Em Like They Once Did

They don’t write baseball stories the way they used to. Which may be a good thing. You be the judge. Here are some excerpts from the “New York Times Book of Baseball History”:

--On a 1905 World Series game matching Christy Mathewson of John McGraw’s New York Giants and Chief Bender of Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics: “Mathewson bestrode the field like a mighty Colossus, and the Athletics peeped about the diamond like Pygmies who struggled valiantly for their lives, but failed.

“Bender, the much-feared Brave from the Carlisle reservation, sought to repeat his scalping bee of Tuesday, but the Spartan McGraw laconically expressed the situation when at the beginning of the game he remarked good-naturedly to the Athletics’ pitcher: ‘It will be off the warpath for you today, Chief.’ ”

--On a 1908 no-hitter by Boston’s Cy Young against the New York Yankees, managed by Norm Eberfeld: “Did you hear about what old Young did up at the American League Park yesterday? He didn’t exactly beggar description, but he came mighty nigh it. He beggared the Eberfeld aggregation so far as runs were concerned, and he made hitless Yankees out of the whole outfit, and he smashed out singles thisaway and thataway and he scored people that he liked, and he scored people that we don’t know whether he cares much about or not, and he was the jolly old plot of the piece, and there wasn’t an inning you could lose track of him.”

--On Babe Ruth’s record 59th homer in 1921: “In the third inning, with two of his little pals stamping nervously on the sacks, the Babe extricated them from their predicament by slashing a gigantic looping hoist to the upper stand opposite right field.”

Trivia Time: Moses (Fleet) Walker is the answer to what trivia question? (Answer below.)

Forgettable Quotes: Willie Mays and Henry Aaron put the lie to the following pronouncements:

--On a catch by Washington’s Sam Rice against Pittsburgh in the 1925 World Series: “In all the future years that World Series will be played, in all the games that have been played under high tension in the past, one will never see a more thrilling catch than that grand grab by Sam Rice.”

--On a home run by Babe Ruth at Detroit July 14, 1934: “A record that promises to endure for all time was attained on Navin Field today when Babe Ruth smashed his 700th home run in a lifetime career.”

Wait a Minute: Said Ty Cobb in 1925: “The great trouble with baseball today is that most of the players are in the game for the money that’s in it--not for the love it, the excitement of it, the thrill of it.”

From a story on salaries in 1912: “Cobb has always been a bone of contention on the Detroit team, and on more than one occasion has sulked and had to be humored before he would consent to come back to the fold. As he is in baseball for the money, as he has stated often before, it would not be surprising if Cobb used the Federal League offer as a means to obtain more money from the Tigers.”

Trivia Answer: He was the first black player in major league history. Walker, a catcher, made his debut May 1, 1884, for Toledo against Louisville in a game in the American Assn., then a major league.

Quotebook

Dizzy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals, to a batter who was digging in at the plate: “You all done? You comfortable? Well, send for the groundskeeper and get a shovel because that’s where they’re gonna bury you.”