Remembering When It Was a True Fall Classic

World Series time again. The Fall Classic. Used to be America’s No. 1 sports event. Rivals have drawn abreast of it. Used to have office pools, guys missing work to go to “grandmother’s funeral,” arguments in the work place, homeroom teachers letting classes listen to the games on radio, kids stopping in gas stations on the way home (running) from school to see how the games were progressing. A big part of Americana. Apple pie, harvest moons, homemade fudge and baseball.

The game hasn’t changed, society has. Our movies don’t have love stories anymore, just sex. No plots, just exploding automobiles. We worship noise. Football and basketball have more constant noise, baseball is intermittent. You can go out for a hot dog in baseball. It’s a more leisurely game. We don’t like leisure, we’re a hyperactive society. We don’t take Walter Hagen’s advice, we don’t take time to smell the flowers anymore. Too old-fashioned.

Baseball is a funny game. There are still some verities in the grand old game. But you sometimes need a translator to ferret the truth from the lyrical in following it. Accordingly, we bring you today an interview with Dr. Baseball in an attempt to acquaint our new generation with the grand old game. The Q and A follows with the good doctor sharing his infinite knowledge of the game with us.

Question: We heard an announcer the other day describe a plate appearance of a player as a “good at-bat.” What is a “good at-bat”?

Answer: A banjo hitter has just run the count to three and two with six foul-offs, three timeouts and a trip to the dugout to select a new bat. Then he hits a sharp ground ball to the right side, moving the runner on second to third. That is considered a “good at-bat.”

Q: Is that your idea of a “good at-bat,” doctor?

A: No.

Q: What is your idea of a “good at-bat”?

A: A three-run home run. Next question?

Q: It is said pitching is 75% of the game. Would you agree with that?

A: If it is, why did they change Babe Ruth from a pitcher to a slugger? The Babe was a great pitcher. Won 23 games one year, 24 another, had an earned-run average of 1.75, best in baseball, one year, held the World Series record for successive scoreless innings pitched.

Q: So they changed Babe Ruth over because hitting is 75% of the game?

A: No. They changed Babe Ruth over because selling tickets is 100% of the game.

Q: They often say of a guy who hits, maybe, .260, bunts a lot, takes pitches and is aggressive and noisy in the field that he’s “a leader on the club, a ‘holler guy,’ the soul of the franchise.” Is he?

A: Ask any pitcher whom he’d rather pitch to with the bases loaded--Eddie Stanky or Henry Aaron? The easy way to tell who’s a leader on the club is to see who got the most intentional walks.

Q: What is a “slider”?

A: Fresco Thompson said it was the pitch that broke Babe Ruth’s home run records. He said that, in his day, they called a pitch like that a “gopher ball.”

Q: What is meant by a “gopher ball”?

A: A pitch that goes fer a home run.

Q: When they talk of a “cut fastball,” what do they mean? How do you cut a fastball?

A: Usually with this little razor you have secreted in your back pocket, but in a pinch your belt buckle will do. Spit, you should forgive the expression, is also sovereign for making the ball come up to the plate like a drunken butterfly.

Q: So a little nick in the ball can make it do funny things in flight?

A: Gaylord Perry could make it disappear altogether. John Roseboro used to say, “If a ball does funny things on the way to the plate, it might be a knuckleball. If it disappears altogether, it might be illegal.”

Q: Were you upset when that the little kid interfered with the ball hit to right field in Yankee Stadium?

A: I’ll say! I thought he got a good jump on the ball and should have caught it cleanly.

Q: Doesn’t it bother you to have the pennant series marred by an incident like that?

A: It only bothers me that the Yankees would need something like that. I mean, this is a team that used to win World Series games 18-4, 16-3, 13-5, 12-0. The Yankees scored 37 runs in four World Series games one year. They didn’t need any help from anybody’s glove.

Q: So, the team that scores the most runs wins every time?

A: Not necessarily. In 1960, the Yankees scored 55 runs in the World Series. They beat Pittsburgh, 16-3, 10-0 and 12-0. Yet, they lost the Series, four games to three, to Pittsburgh, which scored only 27 runs.

Q: What was the most important pitch of the postseason series, in your view?

A: Well, there have been many. The pitch the Cubs’ Charlie Root made to Babe Ruth just after he had “called his shot” in the ’32 World Series. But I would have to say the second pitch of the 1919 World Series when Eddie Cicotte of the White (read Black) Sox plunked Cincinnati’s second baseman, Morrie Rath, right in the back with a fastball. It looked like a mistake, but it wasn’t. It a signal to waiting gamblers to get the bets down. The fix was in.

Q: The greatest single hit in World Series history?

A: No contest. The greatest hit by all reasoning was the home run by Kirk Gibson in the bottom of the ninth of Game 1 of the 1988 Series. The hit effectively won the Series for the Dodgers. It was Gibson’s only appearance in the Series, which means it was the most devastating at-bat in Series competition and it was the first time in Series history a game had been won by a home run in the bottom of the ninth by a team behind in the score.

Q: The greatest catch in Series history?

A: Again, no contest. The catch by Willie Mays off the bat of Vic Wertz in the 1954 Giant-Indian Series. It was Game 1 of the Series, the eighth inning and the score was tied, 2-2. Cleveland had two men on base, none out, and Wertz hit a ball that would have been a home run anywhere else in the world except the Polo Grounds. Mays caught the ball over his shoulder 480 feet from home plate! It was almost as if he did it by rear-view mirror. Everyone remembers the catch, but almost no one recalls that Mays whirled, threw the ball to his second baseman and doubled the runner (Larry Doby) off. Willie broke the spirit of the Clevelands, who went meekly in four straight games. “When they start turning 490-foot double plays on you,” Cleveland Manager Al Lopez said, “it’s time to check with God and see where you went wrong.”

Ah, baseball! Ah, the World Series. What is America without it? A poorer place, surely.