Seems as if It Has Been Awhile Since They Played Hardball

“In reality, this is the ‘soft age’ of baseball. Players are petted and pampered in a way unknown to the old-timers. While probably their equal mechanically, seldom do they devote much time to mastering the inside part of the game. Baseball was the life of a player 15 or 20 years ago.”

Sound like something you might read today? True, but it was written in 1920 by Harry A. Williams in The Times.

Williams went on to quote Miller Huggins, manager of the New York Yankees: “I can say for myself that my only thought (as a player) was to win ballgames. Salary was a secondary consideration. And that was the attitude of most of the old-timers.”

Maybe little has changed in 71 years.

Trivia time: Who was the first Southern California high school product to win the Heisman Trophy?

Good effort: Joe Malay was making the 80-mile drive from his home in Weister, Ida., to play in the Idaho Open golf tournament. Thirty miles from home, his car had a flat tire. Short of time, he started hitch-hiking to the nearest town where he could charter a plane.

Malay’s plan was to parachute from the plane and land on the first tee, but the pilot would not hear of it, so he landed at the closest airport. Malay jumped into a taxi and sped to the course. He was two minutes late and was disqualified.

“I just wish I’d chartered a faster airplane,” he said.

Add frustration: Then there is David Szewczul, an American golfer who entered the British Amateur.

First, his luggage and clubs got lost on the trip to England. Then he was supposed to tee off at Scarborough North Cliff in a qualifying round, but instead played at Ganton, the other course being used for the 36-hole qualifying.

“This is just the biggest nightmare; I’m so dumb,” said Szewczul, the Connecticut state champion two years ago. “I’ll never hear the end of this back home. I’m on a rules committee in Connecticut, and I disqualified somebody for the same thing once.”

Teen beat: After Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press spent a week listening to Monica Seles being interviewed at the U. S. Open, he wrote:

“I am drafting a petition to the Women’s Tennis Assn.: No more press conferences for girls under 18. Let them play. Let them shower. Let them go home to their Sting records. But keep them away from the microphone.”

Seles, he said, sounded “like Woody Woodpecker on helium.”

Head case: Minnesota Twin pitcher Scott Erickson says: “Confidence is a mental thing.”

Trivia answer: Glenn Davis, who set scoring records at Bonita High in San Dimas in 1942 before accepting an appointment to West Point. He won the Heisman in 1946.

Quotebook: Senior Tour golfer Larry Laoretti, on domestic life: “My wife thinks ‘Don’t Hold Back’ means to keep spending money.”