120. Mickey Mantle: The Miner's Son Becomes A Miner

The Yankee organization was plenty pleased with Mickey Mantle's freshman performance with the Independence Yankees. In the spring of 1950 Mickey was invited to come to St. Petersburg, Florida where the big club training. Despite no one knowing who this teenager was, the kid from Oklahoma quickly stood out.

Batting left-handed he knocked ball after ball over the left field wall and switching sides he scattered hits all over the field. Even among the Yankee legends on the field, DiMaggio, Berra and Bauer, this kid was something else. After watching one particularly impressive blast, Manager Casey Stengel was said to have cried out "What'sis name? Mantle?" When the Yanks broke camp and headed North, Casey went back to New York dreaming of when this kid would be sitting on his bench.

The Yankee management agreed with Stengel's evaluation and the consensus was that he had the rare skills to be able to skip the many rungs of the minor leagues and go right into AA level, the highest level of the minors (now reclassified as AAA). While the temptation to do so must have been excruciating, cooler heads prevailed and it was decided to bring Mickey along slowly. He was just 18 and known to be somewhat homesick and lacking a strong self-esteem. The Yankees had a Class-B farm team in Joplin, Missouri, less than 30 miles away on the old Route 66. The youngster would have the comfort of staying close to home as well as having a familiar face in the dugout - his manager in Independence, Harry Craft, was also moved up and was taking the helm of the Joplin Minors.

At the Miners' spring training camp in Branson, Missouri Mickey continued to awe with his unprecedented hitting performance. He's beefed up since the previous season and took to rolling up the sleeves of his flannel jersey to make room for his muscles.

When Lee MacPhail, director of personnel for the organization and son of Yankee general manager Larry MacPhail came to Joplin to watch a pre-season exhibition game, he told friends that Mickey Mantle was the strongest and fastest man in organized baseball. There was talk already around the Yankees front office that this kid was going to be the usurp the mantle of the aging Joe DiMaggio.

Buoyed by one successful season under his belt and glad to be close to his family, Mickey exploded. Encouraged by Harry Craft to swing away, Micky was soon leading the Western Association in almost every offensive department. In a night game in Joplin he smashed one home run left-handed, then turned around and did the same right-handed. It was obvious to his teammates, fans and opposing players that this kid was something special.

Mickey was allowed to go home to his family after games played in Joplin. The kid had begun hanging out at a local pool hall and discovered beer. Manager Harry Craft figured letting the kid go home every night to his family would help keep him straight. But having his family close was a double-edged sword. After on game where he went 3 for 4 with a home run, his father Mutt told him that he would have got 4 hits had he hustled on a ground ball. The kid had a quick temper as well which he directed at himself, always believing he could do better.

The only problem was his fielding.

Try as he might, Mickey couldn't seem to improve his play at shortstop. Fly balls were so troubling to him that his own teammates would yell for him to stay away when one came towards short. He committed 55 errors in 137 games and his arm, though strong as hell, was so erratic that legend has it the box seats beyond first base were left empty for fear of getting hit by one of Mickey unpredictable throws.

As the 1950 season came to a close, Mickey could look back on an impressive year. He grabbed hold of the next rung of the Yankee farm system and improved by leaps and bounds over his first season. He was popular with his teammates and fans alike and could bask in all the attention lavished on him. The Yankees, on their way to a repeat pennant that year, rewarded the 18 year-old with a September call-up to the majors. For the final 2 weeks of the 1950 season Mickey watched the big leaguers from the security of the Yankees' dugout. Shy and reserved he couldn't even muster the nerve to talk to idol Joe DiMaggio, the man he was destined to replace. Though he didn't get into a single game, that first experience of being a big league ballplayer would help him get him used to what was ahead.

Like my previous post on Mickey's 1949 season, I'd like to dedicate it to my Uncle Eddie, a great Mickey Mantle fan and the guy who came to my little league games when my father could not. Nick Diunte's article in the Examiner was particularly helpful in this story, check that and his other articles out, he's quite a good writer and focuses on New York City baseball.

Memorial Day 2012

By the morning of March 4th, 1945, the boys of G Company, 2nd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division had become hardened veterans. Most had just arrived in Europe barely 3 months before and now those same freshly minted young soldiers had checked the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, chased their asses back across the Rhine and were now slugging their way into the Third Reich itself. The war was close to being over with, the Allies gaining more momentum everyday and the enemy knew it. If the Germans were only fighting the western powers they most likely would have caved in already. However, on the other side of Germany the Soviets were smashing towards Berlin and every day they held out meant more Germans could make their way west to be captured or at least get to an area occupied by the western Allies. No one wanted to be around when the Russians came so the war ground on.

The boys of G Company probably didn’t care much about the reason why the Germans still fought them tooth and nail. Each man had had his life interrupted and shipped half way around the globe and put a stop to an evil that was threatening to swallow the whole world. The boys of G Company had left pretty young wives, anxious mothers, college classrooms or good jobs and took up a Garand Rifle to do their part. Complaining about what they were missing out on was pointless - the fella next to you had the same story. Maybe even better than yours. Nah, complaining wouldn’t do any good. Best thing was to keep marching forward and get this over with. As they wearily crossed the makeshift bridge built over the Kyll River they just cared about the fight they had ahead of them that afternoon and the one after that and the one after that until these Krauts threw in the towel.

If any of the boys in G Company were still sleepy, chances are the mortar fire that greeted them as the crossed the bridge woke them up. The enemy they’d been chasing since Luxembourg had dug in around the town of Erdorf. As the German lines collapsed and contracted the enemy became more dense, more desperate. Besides regular infantry, G Company was marching right into redeployed artillery and Panzer units. As they pushed forward the resistance became stiffer and more determined. Each gain was met with vicious counter-attacks and artillery barrages.

G Company was deployed to sweep the fields around the village of Erdorf. This was pleasant farm land of rolling little green hills and blooming trees. To the boys of G Company, the area they were clearing of enemy troops looked a lot like familiar places in the northeast and Midwest United States. Perhaps more than a few were suddenly lost in thoughts of an afternoon spent in surroundings much like this. The boys of G Company thought back to little places they left behind called Sussex County, Washington Courthouse, Mechanicsburg or Crescent Springs.

To the officers of G Company, this place was just called Hill 378.

The company spread out and took a low hill like they had countless other times in the last three months. All very textbook. Regrouping and moving forward, they entered a wooded area where entrenched German troops and the Panzer tanks were waiting. This obstacle, too, was eventually beaten aside by G Company and just like every other hill and wood and field G Company had cleared in the past three months, they left behind some of their own. As the troops emerged on the other side of the wood and continued eastward into Germany, one of the 32 boys they left behind that afternoon was 22 year-old Private First Class Bill Niemeyer of Crescent Springs, Kentucky. The life he had put on hold in order to beat back the evil that darkened the world consisted of his young wife Marie, infant daughters Deanna Gail and Mary Johanna and a promising pitching career in the Chicago Cubs organization.

Even though Bill Niemeyer never made it up to the Cubs, I wanted to depict Bill in a Chicago uniform. Was he good enough to have eventually made it to Wrigley Field? I don’t know. We will never know. The same as we will never know what any of the other boys in G Company who died that afternoon in Germany would have accomplished in their lives. The one thing I do know is that is their sacrifices, all veteran’s sacrifices, made it possible for me to have a good life in the greatest country in the world. As I sit here writing this, I can see and hear my neighbors enjoying this beautiful Memorial Day weekend. The shouts of the boys next door, the couple across the street putting a pair of mountain bikes in their SUV and the girl on the corner attempting to train her new puppy on her green front lawn. In a few hours I will be going over to see my girlfriend who I love very much, and share a nice, lazy summer evening. All that I see and hear right at this very moment was possible because of men and women like Bill Niemeyer, a 22 year-old promising ballplayer who once lived right down the street from where I sit right now, the place he left to go off to war and never saw again.

Many thanks to Gary Bedingfield who is the foremost authority on baseball and World war II. While looking around for a ballplayer to feature this Memorial Day I of course consulted his amazing website www.baseballinwartime.com. Consulting a page he constructed showing the many professional ballplayers who died fighting for our country, Bill Niemeyer jumped off the screen. He was born and raised right where I was sitting. I might even pass his relatives at the market or live next door. The fact that he came from this place made his sacrife a bit more personal for me, especially as I sat there with a nice fresh cup of coffee by an open window enjoying the beautiful Kentucky scenery he never saw again. The place of his death was even more interesting as that part of Germany looks very similar to what he had grown up in. I’m glad I found Bill’s name on that website and I encourage every other baseball fan to take a look at Gary Bedingfield’s monumental work. His site features in-depth articles about hundreds (actually it might even be thousands of entries by now!) of players who found themselves in the service during the war. Gary is also an author of two indispensable books on the subject, "Baseball's Dead of World War II: A Roster Of Professional Players Who Died" and one of my personal favorites, "Baseball In World War II Europe (part of the Images of Sports series)."

119. Mickey Rutner: Man On Spikes

When I first started this blog a little over two years ago, I started receiving many requests for players to be profiled on here and given The Infinite Baseball Card Set "treatment." Out of all the emails I began to notice that it was not one particular player that was asked for the most, but rather a whole ethnic group: Jewish ballplayers. I did cards and stories on here of Sandy Koufax and Moe Berg, but I began slowly researching different players of the Jewish faith, trying to find characters who would fit in with the kind of stories I like to write. Guys with interesting stories who may not be known to the casual fan of baseball history. Mickey Rutner was one of those guys, and in fact he appears on page 15 of the Premier Issue of "21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball." Ron Kaplan, founder of the highly informative baseball book review site Kaplan's Baseball Bookshelf, told me that no feature on Jewish ballplayers was complete without including Mickey. As far as I was concerned, including Mickey was a pleasure because not only was he the inspiration for a fine baseball novel and made-for-TV movie, but I had actually met him back in 2002 and had a nice talk with him while taking in a minor league ballgame in Round Rock, Texas.

Mickey Rutner wasn’t a great ballplayer, but he was a darn good one. His entire major league career consisted of 12 games with Connie Mack’s 1947 Philadelphia Athletics but it was his long, bittersweet minor league experience that inspired author Eliot Asinof to make him the hero of his best selling 1955 novel “Man On Spikes”. The novel follows hero “Mike Kutner” as he winds his way through the minor league system battling prejudices and the exploitation of the players toiling in its farm system. In Asinof’s novel the prejudice faced by the main character was due to his wearing of glasses - the real “Mike Kutner”- Mickey Rutner, faced anti-Semitism.

Mickey grew up in Hempstead, New York and after starring on his high school baseball team went on to play the sport at St. John’s University. In 1939 while playing in a semi-pro league sponsored by major league clubs and made up of college players, Rutner was teammates with another Jew from New York named Eliot Asinof. The team was run by manager Bill Barrett and after a losing streak approached Asinof telling him “there’s too many Heebs on this club. You’re fired.” Rutner got to stay.

After graduation Mickey was signed by the Detroit Tigers. Given a $3,000 signing bonus which he was later cheated out of, he was sent to play in their minor league system. While playing for Winston-Salem in 1941 Rutner’s manager was none other than Jake Atz, famed Texas League manager now in the last year of his long and successful career. Atz, also a Jew, told Rutner that his name Mickey and degree from St. John’s must have fooled the Detroit management into signing him. If they knew he was Jewish he wouldn’t have been offered a contract. The Tigers already had one Jew on the team, Hank Greenberg.

Mickey moved up a rung to Wilmington in 1942 and batted .277 along with a spot on the league All-Star team. His career seemed to be headed in the right direction when he was drafted. Mickey spent 3 prime years serving in Europe with the 45th Division before rejoining Wilmington in the Spring of 1946. Now playing third base, Rutner exploded batting .310, 126 RBI’s and his 36 doubles lead the league. He made his second All-Star game appearance that year as well. Moving up to the Birmingham Barons in 1947 Mickey responded by hitting .327, earning his promotion to the major leagues.

Playing his first game in an Athletics uniform on September 11th, Mickey went 2 for 4 against the White Sox. In his first appearance at Yankee Stadium, Mickey had the thrill of getting a game-winning base hit off ace Yankee relief pitcher Joe Page. All told Mickey played in 12 games for Philadelphia and hit .250 including a double and home run. He was invited take spring training with the Athletics the next year but by the start of the season he was sent back to Birmingham. Veteran Hank Majeski was the regular third baseman and although Mickey was good, he wasn’t better than Majeski.

Rutner continued to post good numbers playing in the high minors- .312 for Birmingham in 1948, .287 for Tulsa in ‘49, .286 for Toronto in ‘50 - but the majors never called again. The parent team of every club he played for had a good player already manning third base. First it was Majeski in Philly then Vern Stephens in Boston, then Grady Hatton in Cincinnati and finally Willie “Puddin' Head” Jones on the Phillies. As he grew older he slipped back down the ladder into the depths of the minor league system. After 10 years in the minors he hung up his spikes for good after the 1953 season ended. His lifetime average was just shy of .300. It was two years later that Mickey Rutner’s futile plight in the minor leagues was made famous by his former teammate now novelist Eliot Asinof. The book was further popularized when it was made into a television movie later that year.

In his later years Mickey retired to Texas where he took up a job with the Roundrock Express baseball club as the team’s official luxury suites greeter. Shaking hands and telling baseball stories, the old Man On Spikes wound down his last years again working around the game he loved. While undergoing surgery for a torn rotator cuff, Mickey developed a fatal staph infection and passed away at the age of 88.

The Premier Issue of "21: The Illustrated Journal of Outsider Baseball" is finally released and can be purchased by clicking on the tab right below the arrow on the main header of this blog.

118. Cannonball Dick Redding: Clean livin' and a fast fastball

When I started to watch that HBO series "Boardwalk Empire", about prohibition and crime in 1920's Atlantic City, I kept wondering if they were going to mention the great Negro league team that once represented that resort city. As I got through the whole first season, the show touched on the large black community of Atlantic City but came up short in regards to showing anything of the baseball team that once called the town home. Originally formed in Jacksonville, Florida and known as the Duval Giants, the team was convinced to relocate to New Jersey by a couple of local black politicians. Making the move north in time for the 1916 season they were renamed the Atlantic City Bacharach Giants after the corrupt major of town, Harry Bacharach. The team had a good following due to the seaside town's vacationers looking for entertainment as well as the quality of the players the Bacharachs put on the field. Besides Negro league stars Dick Lundy, Nip Winters and Oliver Marcelle, the Bacharachs boasted one of the greatest pitchers of any color to ever stand on a mound, Cannonball Dick Redding.

Perhaps the fastest pitcher of all time, Dick Redding’s fastballs were thrown in an assortment of different deliveries from hesitation wind-ups to compact throws from the waist. His match-ups with fellow Negro league legend Smokey Joe Williams attained mythical status through their retelling. Among the major league teams he defeated were the Boston Braves and the N.Y. Giants and against the Jersey City Giants he struck out 24 men. In 1922 Babe Ruth fanned on three straight pitches from Redding and he once out-dueled Carl Mays 2-1 in 15 innings. Redding would often pitch both ends of a double-header and is reported to have thrown 30 no-hit games in his career. Though he was big and burly, Redding never argued balls and strikes and prided himself on living a clean life, no smoking drinking or cursing. When his career ended in the 1920’s he turned to managing and skippered the Brooklyn Royal Giants until 1932.

Cards, Cards, Cards

Have to have that card you see on my site? Well, now you can - I offer hand-made art cards printed on card stock and hand-cut for $5 each or 20 or more for $4 each, or all 97 cards listed below for $200 plus $4 shipping. Below is the list of cards I made so far, and some (like Cannonball Dick Redding) haven't been featured on the site yet. You can email me (info@cieradkowskidesign.com) with your list of card you'd like.

Ray White - Norfolk Tars
Basilio Cueria - Havana Reds
Jack Kerouac - Pittsburgh Plymouths
Fujio Nagasawa - Tokyo Giants
Leon Day - OISE All-Stars
Eddie Grant - Jersey City Giants
Johnny Vander Meer - Cincinnati Reds
Bill Byrd - Baltimore Elite Giants
Mickey Mantle - Independence Yankees
Mose Solomon - Hutchinson Wheat Shockers
Bullet Benson - Washington Senators
Sammy T. Hughes - Baltimore Elite Giants
Jose Mendez - Almendares Blues
Frankie Zak - Tarboro Orioles
Jake Atz - New Orleans Pelicans
Babe Yajima - Tokyo Giants
Mickey Rutner - Toronto Maple Leafs
George Halas - Decatur Staleys
Jimmie Reese - Oakland Oaks
Victor Starffin - Tokyo Giants
Bert Simmons - Baltimore Elite Giants
Warren Spahn - Milwaukee Braves
Moe Berg - U.S. All-Stars
Jimmy Horio - Tokyo Giants
Sam Nahem - Brooklyn Bushwicks
Nick Cullop - Atlanta Crackers
Guy Zinn - Baltimore Terrapins
Hank Greenberg - Brooklyn Bay Parkways
Dutch Faust - House of David
Melo Almada - Kansas City Blues
Minnie Minoso - New York Cubans
Chief Gedsudski - New York Giants
Abel Kiviat - American Olympic Team
Moe Franklin - Tampico Longshoremen
Bill Brech - 8th Air Force
Wally Yonamine - Tokyo Giants
Blackie Schwamb - St. Louis Browns
Alabama Pitts - Sing Sing
Mayday Sam Malone - Boston Red Sox
Harry Frank - Baltimore Orioles
Lipman Pike - Philadelphia Athletics
Babe Ruth - U.S. All-Stars
Russ Van Atta - New York Yankees
Slim Jones - Philadelphia Stars
Buck Lai - Brooklyn Bushwicks
Happy Felsch - Scobey Giants
Willie Mays - Trenton Giants
Joe Nuxhall - Cincinnati Reds
Vince DiMaggio - San Francisco Seals
Joe DiMaggio - San Francisco Seals
Dom DiMaggio - San Francisco Seals
Roy Hobbs - New York Knights
Chief Tokohama Baltimore Orioles
Jim Thorpe - Rocky Mount Railroaders
Billy O’Hara - Toronto Maple Leafs
Pete Gray - Memphis Chicks
Bill Rumler - Hollywood Sheiks
Eddie Bennett - New York Yankees
Roy Campanella - Baltimore Elite Giants
Billy Martin - Oakland Oaks
Bump Baily - New York Knights
Teang Wong Foo - Kiangton
Laymon Yokely - Baltimore Black Sox
Satchel Paige - Paige All-Stars
Larry Doby - U.S. Navy
Johnny Mohardt - Detroit Tigers
Dwight Eisenhower - Junction City Soldiers
Karl Spooner - Brooklyn Dodgers
Frederick Benteen - 7th Cavalry
George Bush - Yale Bulldogs
Tommy Lasorda - Los Angeles Angels
Babe Ruth - Baltimore Orioles
Sandy Koufax - Coney Island Parkviews
Cristobal Torriente - Almendares Blues
Farmer Dean - Seattle Indians
Jackie Mitchell - Chattanooga Lookouts
Al Schacht - Jersey City Giants
Hisanori Karita - Tokyo Giants
Hoss Radbourn - Providence Grays
Coon Rosen - Chicago Stars
Shoeless Joe Jackson - Greenville Spinners
Shoeless Joe Jackson - Savannah Indians
Shoeless Joe Jackson - New Orleans Pelicans
Eddie Boland - New York Dept. of Sanitation
Leon Day - Newark Eagle
Jackie Robinson - Montreal Royals
Cannonball Redding - Atlantic City Bacharachs
Paul Gillespie - Chicago Cubs
Ted Williams - San Diego Padres
Victory Faust - New York Giants
Eddie Cicotte - Ex-Stars
Chick Gandil - Chino
Buck Weaver - Hammond
Fred McMullin - Universal Pictures
Joe Jackson - Westwood
Lefty Williams - Ft. Bayard
Swede Risberg - Jamestown

117. Lee Gum Hong & Kenso Nushida: China vs. Japan

Back when I was living in Hollywood, I was browsing the baseball section of a bookstore on the Sunset Strip and came across a book I'd never seen before called The Golden Game: The Story of California Baseball by Kevin Nelson. Since I always like to learn about local baseball history where ever I happen to live, I picked up the book and was impressed by Nelson's offering. While most authors would have retold the standard Pacific Coast League stories, the Brothers DiMaggio, Teddy Ballgame's humble beginnings and the coming of the Dodgers, The Golden Game was much more because it was chock-full of little known aspects of the game's history in California. One of the neatest stories I gleaned from Nelson's book was the 1932 duel between Japanese and Chinese pitchers meant to capitalize on the ongoing Sino-Japanese war in China. Always on the lookout for interesting stories to research further I took note of the game and just recently got enough relevant research material to write this week's story...

It's the last home stand of the 1932 Pacific Coast League season. Oakland Oaks owner Vic DeVincenzi is looking at the end of yet another dismal year for his club both in the standings as well as at the gate. Unable to field a good team he knew he'd have to do something different to attract cash-strapped depression-era crowds. With the Sacramento Senators coming to town DeVincenzi knew they were sure to pitch their new attraction, Japanese-American Kenso Nushida. A late season signing, Nushida had so far appeared in every one of the PCL ballparks except Oakland and his presence on the field allowed the Senators to tap into the otherwise ignored Japanese-American fan base. While the usual white PCL fans stayed home rather than spend their hard earned money on lousy ball teams, Japanese-Americans turned out in droves to support the first ballplayer of Japanese extraction to play professional ball.

The business savvy gears in DeVincenzi's mind started turning. There had to be some angle to this Nushida business that he could build upon. Then looking at the days newspaper he saw it - Japan had recently invaded Manchuria in Northern China. Outside of Asian communities not many Americans really cared or even knew about what was happening in Manchuria but among the Japanese and especially the Chinese communities this was an heated issue. DeVincenzi turned the thing around in his head and soon had his plan - Sacramento had their Japanese pitcher - Oakland with it's large Chinese population will produce their own Chinese ballplayer and settle the Sino-Japanese war right there on a baseball diamond!

It's not known how much Sacramento's signing of Kenso Nushida was serious or publicity stunt, but I'm pretty sure Senators' owner Lew Moreing was seeing dollar signs when he sat down to get Nushida's signature on a contract making him the first Japanese-American to play organized baseball. While he may have been a legit prospect, Sacramento's rookie wasn't a spring chicken by any stretch of the imagination - he was in his early 30's and had been around. He was a "Nisei" which was Japanese for "second generation American" and was born and raised in Hawaii where he was teammates with another Japanese-American baseball pioneer, Ken Zenimura at Honolulu's Mills High School.

Known by his Americanized first name of Roy, Nushida was a pretty small guy, about 5'-2" and just over 100 lbs, but he made up for his diminutive stature with an impressive assortment of curve balls. A teammate on the Senators called him "one of the smartest pitchers he had ever seen" and crowds loved to watch the little pitcher strike out the much larger players he faced. Nushida played around the semi-pro circuit on the island and in 1922 he came to America with the barnstorming Honolulu All-Stars. Recognizing that the West Coast's burgeoning Nisei baseball circuit, Roy Nushida decided to stay in Northern California and for the next 9 years became a fixture of the Japanese-American semi-pro leagues in between working as a salesman in Stockton. With the vast Japanese market so far untapped by any Pacific Coast League team, Moreing and the Senators had a marketing goldmine. When Nushida was signed by the team, the Senators were barely holding onto third place statistically unable to get close to the first or second slot. With Sacramento about to embark on their last trip around the PCL circuit it was the perfect time to bring out their Asian rookie to create a media buzz and put those Japanese fans in the stands from LA to Seattle. Changing his first name from Roy back to his Japanese name of Kenso, Nushida began his tour of the league.

Now with the Senators coming to Oaks Park, owner Vic DeVincenzi sent out feelers searching for a talented pitcher of Chinese extraction. He didn't have to go far - two of his regulars, catcher Bill Raimondi and first baseman Leroy Anton had been teammates at Oakland High with a damn good prospect. Al Bowen was currently a 21 year-old strike out ace for the Wa Sung Athletic Club in Oakland. He'd been the star of his high school team and along with his two brothers helped form the Wa Sung ball club in 1926 which created quite a name for itself beating up on local semi-pro teams. By the time he signed with the hometown Oaks he was an inch shy of 6 feet and had been striking out between 12 and 16 batters a game. His dominance on the mound attracted large crowds from Oakland's Chinatown so along with a decent arm Bowen came complete with a ready-made fan base. The only problem was his name - Al Bowen didn't exactly bring to mind exotic images of the magical far east. As long as he was appearing in an Oaks uniform Al Bowen would be known by his Chinese name - Lee Gum Hong.

Nowadays it would be unthinkable and down right irresponsible to fan the flames of a foreign ethnic war in order to boost attendance at a sporting event. Could you imagine a modern-day highly publicised Jewish-Palestinian pitching showdown between the Columbus Clippers and the Buffalo Bisons? In 1932 it wasn't insensitive but damn good business and the newspapers played along doing all they could to sell some extra papers in the waning days of the baseball season. Besides the Oakland and Sacramento papers, news of the Sino-Japanese showdown was carried nationwide. Nushida seems to have remained silent on the whole thing but the newly named Lee Gum Hong shot his mouth off like a proto Mohammad Ali telling sports writers "this is a battle between nations. I represent China and Nushida represents Japan. And China shall win."

The "Japan vs China" game was set for Wednesday night, September 28th. The publicity spread in the days leading up to the game brought in just the Chinese fan support Vic DeVincenzi had hoped for. The Wa Sung Athletic Club alone bought 100 tickets and Oakland's Chinatown where Lee lived flocked to the ballpark in droves. All told more than 3,000 enthusiastic fans filled Oaks Park, a darn good turnout for a late season game between two lousy teams going nowhere.

With his former Oakland High catcher, Bill Raimondi, behind the plate, Lee Gum Hong took the mound in the first inning. His supporters in the crown not only voiced their approval vocally but with a liberal supply of firecrackers, the traditional Chinese method of celebration. Hong quickly gave up an unearned run through a fielding error and a hit but got out of the inning without any further damage. Nushida was hit hard from the start and by the second inning the Oaks scored 3 runs. The little pitcher showed signs of tiring and after having the satisfaction of striking out Hong was sent to the showers after 4 1/3 innings. All told Nushida gave up 3 hits, 3 runs, 3 walks and struck out 2.

After giving up the 1 unearned run in the first, Hong pitched marvelously and to the delight of the firecracker throwing fans had a 1 hitter going into the 6th inning. He was wild though and had put 2 Senators on the bases after hitting them with pitches. Now taking the mound in the 6th Hong fell victim to the Oaks lousy fielding. A cheap infield single by Cal Lahman followed by Alex Kampouris' hit put runners on first and second. Perhaps unnerved by the developments, Hong then drilled Ray French in the ribs to load the bases with no outs. Kettle Wirts hit an easy double play ball to shortstop Greg Mulleavy but he bobbled it and a run crossed the plate with only one out. Nushida's replacement, pitcher Lefty Vinci slugged a base clearing triple and Hong was taken out of the game. Hong had lasted 5 1/3 innings, gave up 4 hits, walked 4 and got charged with 2 earned runs and was tagged with the loss as the Senators went on to beat Oakland 7 to 5.

The Sino-Japanese war wasn't resolved by any stretch of the imagination that night. Hong and Nushida were pretty disappointing as they were both out of the game by the 6th inning but the crowd brought in by the spectacle couldn't be ignored. Since in the Pacific Coast League each series between teams lasted the entire week, the Oaks and Senators decided to have a rematch 5 days later on the last day of the 1932 season.

Lee's fans came through again and the stands at Oaks Park were filled for the Sunday double header. The Senators took the first game making it 5 straight over the Oaks but the crowd was really only there for the finale - the great Chinese-Japanese Battle Royale. The second game between Nushida and Hong was to be only 7 innings, tradition back then for a double header.

Hong allowed 2 hits in the first but settled down and got out of the inning. Nushida looked shaky in his half of the first but got out of it as well. In Hong's half of the second inning, Cal Lahman, the same guy who started the Senators rally that proved his undoing in the previous game, smacked a solo home run. This time however Hong bore down and ended the inning. The wheels came off Nushida in the 4th. Local boy Bobby Loane, a recent signing who had mostly rode the bench, showed what he could do by expertly beating out a slow roller sparking the Oaks offence. Just like that Oakland got 6 more hits without making an out and 7 runs crossed the plate before Nushida was sent to the showers.

As the stands periodically erupted with firecrackers, Hong cruised to an easy 1 run victory. After the game the fans swarmed Hong and the celebrations continued late into the night in Oakland's Chinatown. Presumably Vic DeVincenzi and the Oaks front office must have been celebrating as well. Their little commercialization of a far-off war paid off handsomly.

As for the real Sino-Japanese war, the Imperial Army quickly subdued the disorganized Chinese Army and installed a puppet government in Manchuria which they renamed Manchukuo. Four years later the Japanese provoked an incident with the Chinese Army at the Marco Polo Bridge which they used as an excuse to invade the rest of China. The first stage of the Second World War had begun, the results of which still negatively effect relations between the two Asian nations.

The local Sacramento and Oakland papers speculated that both Hong and Nushida would be back with their respective teams the following season but it was not to be. Neither played again in professional baseball, though both had long careers with local semi-pro teams. The reason why neither player were invited back is unknown. It was proven that the presence of a Chinese or Japanese player on a team would bring in the lucrative and so far untapped Asian market. It makes no rational sense why Oakland or Sacramento, both terrible teams, couldn't carry a player like Hong and Nushida or find more talented Asian-Americans to replace them. The signing of Hong was a publicity stunt to begin with, but he did pitch decent ball. Given the chance he might have developed into a pretty good pro ballplayer. Nushida on the other hand was a darn good semi-pro player but he was getting up there in age and his stature dictated that he just didn't have the stamina to last a whole game at the professional level. But all throughout Northern California there were plenty Nesei who could, but after 1932 no one cared to look.

Lee Gum Hong, now Al Bowen once again, organized charity efforts for Chinese refugees during the long war with Japan and served in the United States Foreign Service overseas. He remained a fixture of the Bay Area's Chinese community for the rest of his life. Roy Nushida tried unsuccessfully to catch on with a professional team and returned to playing in the Northern California Nisei leagues where he was well known. He returned to his native Hawaii in 1942 to avoid being placed in an internment camp and remained there until his death in 1983.

Besides Kevin Nelson's great book, I was greatly helped by Bill Staples, Jr. fellow SABR member and author of the book on Nisei baseball pioneer Kenichi Zenimura. When I wrote to Bill about the story I was thinking of writing but running into dead ends, he kindly pointed me in the right direction when it came to Kenso Nushida since he was a teammate of Zenimura and was included his book. Thanks again Bill!

116. Pee Wee Reese: The Name Ain't What You Think

My brother called me yesterday to ask me about Jackie Robinson. See, Jay's a public middle school teacher in Jersey City and he was having his class read a novel that mentions Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers throughout the text. That the book has Robinson and the Dodgers in it has a deeper local connection - in Journal Square downtown there is a giant bronze statue of Robinson reaching skyward, a silent but striking tribute to the day in 1946 when he stepped onto the field in Jersey City's Roosevelt Stadium to become the first black man to play organized baseball in the 20th century.

Being a big Robinson admirer I probably told my brother much more than he desired to know about his first season in the majors but I didn't care, I was on a roll talking baseball. One thing I told him was that despite the way coverage has been skewed the past couple of years portraying him as a lone-crusader, Robinson had quite a few solid and courageous teammates who helped him through that most difficult year. Manager Leo Durocher, for example, single-handedly squashed a budding team mutiny by telling the players that all he cared about was the Dodgers winning and if the white players didn't hustle and win he had no problem replacing them with blacks who could. He told them that more black players were following Robinson and they had better get used to the idea. As for the anti-Robinson petition that was supposedly circulating, the players could "wipe their ass with it." To cap it off he declared: "I don't care if he is yellow or black or has stripes like a fucking zebra. I'm his manager and I say he plays."

There was one other player that came to mind when I was telling that Durocher story to my brother. While Durocher showed his support with tough-guy talk, this one particular teammate of Robinson's showed his with a silent but far-reaching gesture.

Before he was known as "The Little Colonel" and "The Captain", they called him "Pee Wee". The nickname evokes a vision of a diminutive fella, but in fact, Pee Wee Reese was not small at all, 5'-10", and 160lbs, average size for ballplayer during the era he played in. No, the nickname "Pee Wee" came from being a champion marbles player as a kid and a "peewee" is what players call a 1/2" sized marble. Reese was such a good player that he was runner-up in a city-wide peewee marbles championship held by his hometown Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper.

Like I said earlier, Reese wasn't small by any means, but in high school he was skinny and frail looking and this kept him from playing much on his high school baseball team. His love of the game was satisfied by playing for his his church team, New Covenant Presbyterian. With pro ball the farthest thing from his mind, Reese took an apprenticeship with the local telephone company where the constant climbing of poles built up his slight body adding strength to his frame. When his church team won the 1937 Louisville City League Championship, things began to change quickly for Reese.

The Louisville Colonels were the local minor league team and a scout made sure he snatched up the New Covenant shortstop after the series. For a $200 bonus and a promise of $150 a month, Pee Wee Reese became a professional ballplayer.

The new kid did pretty decent his first season, batting .277. Reese beat out former major leaguer Ray French to become the Colonels' starting shortstop and although he was just average at the position, manager Bert Niehoff could tell he just needed to play in order to hone his natural skills. He was fleet afoot and in 24 stealing attempts was successful in 23 of them. Being from Louisville didn't hurt and the good-natured Reese quickly became the hometown's favorite player.

The Colonels played in the American Association which was equivalent to today's AAA classification. In 1938 the Louisville team was what was termed "unaffiliated" which meant that it was under no working agreement with any major league club. This left the ownership open to offers to buy their players from a variety of different teams instead of having to sell to just one. At the end of the season a group of businessmen bought the Louisville club. The identity of the members of the group which made the purchase was intentionally kept ambiguous but it eventually became known that Tom Yawkey, owner of the Red Sox was behind it. The reason for the purchase was the team's shortstop, Pee Wee Reese. Yawkey wanted to make sure no other club sunk their teeth into this kid which his scouts said had the makings of a great major league shortstop.

The next year Reese built on his rookie season, batting .279 and stealing 35 bases in 36 tries. The 19 year-old was so respected in the league that at mid-season he was voted onto the American Association All-Star team. Opposing managers described him as the best infielder in the American Association, despite his youth.

Reese was pretty much guaranteed a place on the Red Sox except for one thing - their player-manager Joe Cronin, who happened to play that very same position as the kid from Louisville. Cronin was notoriously sub-par in the field and sensitive as hell about it. The Red Sox had a decent ballclub at the time, having clawed their was up from being a perennial second-division team. With young players like Bobby Doerr and Ted Williams mixed with veterans Jimmie Foxx and Lefty Grove, the Red Sox were beginning to gain back ground and respectability in the league. The only problem was that manager Cronin was terrified of being beaten out of his shortstop job by a younger player. While other Boston scouts reported the merits of the budding superstar in Louisville, Cronin told Yawkey that Reese was just too small and sickly-looking to play in the bigs. Boston's owner listened to his manager and tried to recoup his Louisville investment by selling Reese to the Brooklyn Dodgers for $35,000.

At the time of the purchase, the Red Sox were in second place behind the mighty New York Yankees and looked like the next big powerhouse of the American League. Now suddenly Reese found himself headed not for a first-rate team but to the joke of the National League, the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Like the Red Sox, Brooklyn had been the league's bottom feeder for decades. The difference was Boston's owner Tom Yawkey spent money on his players with reckless abandon and the Red Sox had turned their fortunes around. Brooklyn on the other hand had just recently avoided bankruptcy and their record was anything but encouraging. In '38 the team finished in 7th place, 18 1/2 games out and in '39 12 1/2 games back in 3rd place. The sporting papers were chock full of the stories about the team's incompetence - 3 guys winding up on the same base, outfielders being hit on the head with the ball and crazed fans driving the opposing team's players as well as the home team's mad with their incessant heckling.

No, Brooklyn was as far away from Boston as you could get. When informed by a sportswriter that Louisville's star player was soon to be a Dodger, Reese instinctively replied: "Oh - not Brooklyn!"

Of course Pee Wee Reese went on to become one of the Dodgers' most popular and successful players, the anchor that held together 2 generations of great Brooklyn teams in the 1940's and 50's. His leadership both on the field and in the clubhouse kept the Dodgers cool and collected during some of the most competitive pennant races in baseball history. But beyond that, it was Reese that became the example for his fellow ballplayers when it came time to integrate the team in 1947. When other players chose to shy away from making any statement about Jackie Robinson's presence on the team, it was Reese, a southerner by birth, who had the courage to stand by Robinson's side during that challenging 1947 season.

Perhaps no story says it better than the often repeated one about a May afternoon at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. There had been KKK death threats before the game. A sniper was supposedly poised to take down Robinson if he dared to take the field. The capacity crowd was extremely hostile against Jackie's presence on the field and the game hadn't even started yet. As the Dodgers took batting practice the Reds players began shouting racial slurs from their dugout. In this seething cauldron of hatred, Pee Wee Reese walked over to the solitary Robinson and casually put his arm around Jackie's shoulder in a show of friendship. Legend has it the stadium responded in a single, collective gasp. With that single gesture, Reese told the world that Robinson was accepted and from here on in, they had better get used to it.

Talking to Roger Kahn, author of the classic Brooklyn Dodgers book "The Boys of Summer", Reese said: "I was just trying to make the world a little bit better. That's what you're supposed to do with your life, isn't it?"

SABR, The Society of American Baseball Researchers has compiled a comprehensive book on the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers called "The Team That Changed Baseball And America" in which every single player who wore a Brooklyn jersey that year has their own well-researched biography. While as a whole it tells the complete story of that fabled team, each individual 3-4 page biography tells the story of one man's journey to play professional baseball. If my word holds any water when it comes to suggesting reading materials, let it be known that I highly recommend this gem...

115. Victory Faust: Fulfilling a Prophecy

Another season has begun and frankly I've been stricken with writers and artist block, unable to settle on who should be next in the Infinite Baseball Card Set. After attending Cincinnati's famous opening day parade and the Reds home opener I came home and sat down at my desk, instinctively reaching for the phone to call my Pop to give him a report of the game. Then it hit me - it's been 2 and half years since he passed away and I could keep dialing all night but he wasn't going to answer. Putting the phone back down I thought about a day more than 10 years ago when I got a call from my Pop...

"Victory Faust." said the gruff voice on the other end of the phone. I knew it was my Dad, calling from work at the factory because I could hear the familiar hum of the Maimin garment cutting machines in the background.

"What?" I said.

"You heard me: Victory Faust."

It was a challenge. The Old Man and I had a long running baseball trivia contest which normally consisted of him calling me at random times during the work day, spitting out an impossible baseball history question he either read about in that morning's New York Daily News or heard on WFAN, followed by me correctly answering it and him swearing and abruptly hanging up on me.

But this time he had me. I tried to delay...

"What did you say?"

"Victory Faust - C'mon tough guy, you can't answer it, can you?"

I racked my brain searching every nook and cranny for a remembrance of that odd name. Try as I might, I knew the Old Man had me dead to rights. After a few minutes of silence, save the hum of the cutting machines in the background, he made that nasty game-show buzzer noise of his.

"Time's up! - you bastard, I got you!"

For the next few minutes my Pop told me all about Victory Faust. I can still hear the happiness in his voice knowing that he was telling his grown son something he didn't know about the game they both loved so much. So, to open the 2012 Season of the Infinite Baseball Card Set, I bring you the story of "Victory" Faust, a player I learned about from my Dad...

In the summer of 1911 a strange, gawky, 30-something year-old fella walked up to three men in the lobby of the Planter's Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. The largest of the men was John McGraw, long-time manager of the mighty New York Giants. His companions were two of the team's starting pitchers, Christy Mathewson and Red Ames. The three men quickly learned that the odd man before them wasn't your ordinary eager ballplayer looking for a tryout. No, this weird, intense man was on a mission to fulfill a prophecy. According to him, Charley Victor Faust was destined to lead the New York Giants to World Series victory.

Charley Faust was what was back then referred to as "dim-witted." Although we'll never know what exactly his deal was, it's safe to say he was suffering from some sort of mental health issues. Though apparently able to speak and write quite well, his eyes didn't seem to lineup properly and he went around with an nonstop goofy smile on his face. In other words, Charley just wasn't all there.

He'd grown up on a farm in Kansas, the oldest of six children born to a strict Russian immigrant of German extraction and like many Midwesterners of Teutonic origin, spoke with a pronounced accent (think tv's Lawrence Welk). Although by rights Charley should have taken over the family homestead, due to his state of mind his younger brothers were tapped to run things, leaving Charley free to daydream and explore the countryside aimlessly. That fateful summer of 1911, Charley's wanderings brought him to a country fair where he plopped down a five-spot and had his fortune read. Charley Faust, it seems, was destined for great things: he was going to pitch the New York Giants to the world's championship, meet a woman named Lulu and produce a long line of baseball prodigies.

After wrestling with the prediction for a few weeks he came to the conclusion that there was only one thing for him to do - hop a train to St. Louis where the New York Giants were playing the Cardinals and join the team.

The Giants were on their second western road trip of the season and stuck in second place behind the Chicago Cubs. Despite a first-rate pitching staff that included future Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson and Rube Marquard, the Giants just couldn't catch a break that season. In fact the Sporting News had run a front page feature that week speculating on the end of the great Mathewson's career. With that thought in the back of his mind, or maybe he just wanted to give his boys a few pre-game chuckles to keep them loose, McGraw invited this strange man to join the team on the field the next day - Charley Faust was going to get his tryout for the Giants.

The next day Faust walked onto the field at League Park. Taking off his suit coat and bowler hat, he picked up a glove and took the mound. John McGraw grabbed a catchers mitt and crouched down behind the plate.

Charley threw his arms back and forth in a crazed windmill wind-up, the likes of which no one had ever seen before. One writer likened it to "a worm being chopped in three pieces." Round and round his lanky arms went and then he unleashed his best pitch - a disappointingly average fastball with no movement on it. After a few of these, released only after that excruciatingly long crazy windmill wind-up, McGraw had the fella grab a bat to see how he could hit.

By this time the other Giant players caught on to the gag and began gathering around. The pre-game crowd began to pay attention as well. McGraw had him run out any ball he hit fair and Faust ran around the base paths sliding into base after base, wrecking his suit and scraping the hell out of himself. The crowd and players loved it. As a reward, McGraw let him watch the game from New York's bench. The Giants lost 5 to 2.

The next day Faust showed up at the stadium again. This time McGraw had the clubhouse attendant give Charley a uniform. Though practically child's size, it didn't matter, Charley Faust walked on the field dressed as a New York Giant. Again McGraw had him warm up and run and slide for the amusement of the crowd. Diving into bases getting bruised and bloodied in the process, Faust believed he was getting an honest chance to make the team. In this day and age it's considered bad taste to extract amusement by exploiting a mentally disabled man, but back in 1911 this was a rip-roaringly good show. In fact it was common practice for a manager to treat a country bumpkin in just that manner when he had the audacity to ask for a tryout. Usually even the most dim bulb would eventually realize he was being made fun of and just go away. Not Charley Faust.

When the game started, McGraw again invited Charley to sit on the bench. The Giants won, 8 zip. Now that the team was slated to move on to Chicago, McGraw and the rest of the Giants figured they'd seen the last of this kook. Charley Faust thought otherwise - he was destined to pitch the Giants to the world championship.

By the time the Giants swung into Boston they were still playing mediocre ball that got them no better than second place. McGraw was at his wits-end trying to find something to break the jinx his team was under when Charley Faust turned up. Still insisting he could lead them to the championship, McGraw let him sit on the bench again.

The Giants began winning.

Soon Charley was in his own appropriately-size Giants uniform and repeating his pre-game warm-ups. The players thought him a good-luck charm but were relentless in the jokes they played on the dim-witted fellow. Though he knew he was the butt of many a joke it didn't deter him from trying to help his team.

It was his destiny to lead the Giants to the world championship.

When a player got hurt he talked to them to convince them that the injury was only minor. Each morning he would sit in the hotel barber shop as the players got their shaves. Lathered up and unable to poke fun at him, the muted players would listen as Charley would launch into a one-sided conversation telling each man what great hits or plays he destined to do in that day's game. More often than not, Charley was right.

Baseball players, naturally superstitious anyway, began to look on the crazy-eyed kook as a bona fide good-luck charm. Sportswriters soon picked up on the story and fans began coming to the ballpark to catch a glimpse of this mysterious creature. From a profit standpoint, McGraw and the Giants ownership liked that Faust's antics filled more seats in the ballpark.

And the Giants kept winning.

Now firmly in first place, McGraw began having Charley, now dubbed "Victory Faust" by the press, warm up in the bullpen when the team was losing. More often than not the New Yorkers staged a rally and won. By the end of August Victory Faust was a minor celebrity around the league. The city of Pittsburgh presented Faust with an ornate medal which he pinned to his Giants jersey before every game. Vaudeville came knocking and Faust left the team for $200 a week to appear on stage and be, well, himself. Unfortunately his stage career ended prematurely as the Giants lost three games in a row. Charley took his place in the bullpen and the Giants began winning again.

Now for the crazy part: all-told, when Charley was suited up and on the field with the Giants, the team was an astonishing 36-2. But Charley wasn't satisfied with his good luck-charm notoriety - that fortune teller made it clear - he was destined to PITCH the New York Giants to the championship. John McGraw was happy to string the odd fellow along with vague promises to pitch him, but the old Oriole was a serious baseball man, unwilling to take the chance on a man who obviously had no business in a big league uniform - that is at least until after they clinched the pennant. In the 9th inning of the October 7th game against Boston, McGraw finally let Faust take the mound for New York.

The Giants were down 4-2 as Faust lumbered to the mound. The crowd laughed as Faust went through his crazed wind-up and threw to Bill Rariden. Holding back laughter, Rariden took a strike and a ball before he belted the third offering for a double. Lefty Tyler executed a textbook sacrifice bunt and Rariden took third. He then scoring on Bill Sweeney's sacrifice fly. Faust had given up an earned run but now had two out as Turkey Mike Donlin came to the plate. Laughing heartily, he grounded out to end the inning. Faust was on deck to bat in the bottom of the ninth when the game ended. Boston however was caught up in the spirit of things and stayed on the field to allow Charley, who evidently failed to notice that the game was over, to take his turn at bat. Lefty Tyler served up a slow one and Charley bopped it over to first baseman Fred Tenney, who bobbled it. Faust awkwardly ran around the bases as the Boston infield continued to misplay the ball. With the crowd screaming, Charley rounded third and began a hook-slide into home. About ten feet short of the plate he ran out of momentum and was tagged out. The fans rushed the field and all hell broke loose.

Although the crowd echoed with laughter, his teammates kidded him and the press lampooned the whole exhibition, Charles Victor Faust had appeared in a major league game, becoming part of official baseball history and fulfilled part of his prophecy. He'd pitched in a regular season game and the New York Giants had clinched the pennant. It wasn't exactly as he envisioned it, figuring that he'd have more of an active role in the Giants rotation, but still, they were champions of the National League.

For good measure, McGraw let Charley pitch an inning in the last game of the season against Brooklyn. This time he kept the opposing batters scoreless and even scored a run after he was intentionally hit by a pitch. Walking off the field after the game Faust asked his teammates: "Who's a loon now?"

But now Charley and the Giants came up against 2 things that threatened to derail Faust's prophecy: Connie Mack's Philadelphia Athletics and their good-luck charm: Louis Van Zelst.

The humpbacked Van Zelst was originally University of Pennsylvania's mascot but the Athletics stole him away for occasional games during the 1910 season. Although a young black boy was a common mascot on quite a few major and minor league teams, a real-live humpback was the penultimate good-luck charm to ballplayers back then. Batters would rub the poor man's deformed hump before stepping to the plate in order to ensure a hit. During the run-up to the 1911 World Series, the A's stepped up their association with Van Zelst in order to counter Victory Faust's good-luck mojo.

If the outcome of the 1911 series is to be used as definitive proof, let it be known that a humpback trumps a dim-wit. See, the Athletics beat the Giants 4 games to 2.

The following season Charley tried to take his former place with the team but he'd lost his former novelty. He spent spring training with Brooklyn and taught himself to pitch left-handed - he wanted to be twice as helpful to the Giants when he joined the team at the start of the season. Brooklyn even let him pitch a complete game and he surprisingly gave up only four runs.

Rejoining the Giants, McGraw grew tired of Faust and wanted to get back to serious baseball. Charley was convinced he was a real pitcher and constantly pestered McGraw to let him pitch. The manager refused to let him put a uniform on but let him sit in the dugout - for there was one thing even the surly McGraw couldn't deny - the Giants kept winning. Through Faust's time with the team over both seasons New York won over 80% of their games! Still, McGraw tried to get the loon to leave. The players eventually convinced Charley to go home to Kansas and await McGraw's call for him.

It never came.

After Charley left, the Giants started losing, barely winning the National League pennant before being beaten by the Red Sox in the series. The following spring Faust tried rejoining the team but McGraw had had enough of this silliness. After getting nowhere with McGraw he tried peppering the National League Chairman Garry Herrmann with claims of contract obligations and back pay from the Giants, all to no avail.

By the winter of 1914 he was in a Washington State insane asylum. Five months later, Charles Victor "Victory" Faust, former Major League baseball player, was dead of tuberculosis. There is no record of whether he ever met his Lulu or not.

Happy Opening Day, Pop! I miss you so damn much and I hope I never stop reaching for my phone to give you a call you...

You want THE final word on Victory Faust? Try Gabriel Schechter's unbelievably well-researched book "Victory Faust: The Rube Who Saved McGraw's Giants" - my overview you just read pales next to Schechter's great book. After I got off the phone with my Pop that afternoon more than 10 years ago, I went across the street to the public library and check it out. Track it down, you wont be sorry!

A Little Interior Decoration

For the rest of the month of April, the company who prints my posters has offered me a little discount which I'm passing down to anyone who would like to own one of my art posters. There are quite a few different themes and styles and you can see most of them HERE. I also have a store on ETSY which you can see even more HERE. The limited time pricing is for 16x24" size prints for $70 postage included. Payment is through Paypal and you can order a poster by clicking on the BUY IT NOW bar below, just REMEMBER TO WRITE IN THE NAME OF THE POSTER YOU WANT...

Name of Poster You'd Like:

Hand-Made Black Sox Art Cards

As I wrote here, I offer most of the cards on my site for $5 each or 20 or more for $4 each. I'm now offering all 8 of the Black Sox hand-made art cards printed on card stock and hand-cut for $35. Just follow the paypal link below. If you're interested in any of the other 100 or so cards I have done or would like to purchase the whole set just email me at info@cieradkowskidesign.com