Tim Ellsworth

From “More Tales from the Dugout: More of the Greatest True Baseball Stories of All Time,” by Mike Shannon:

Besides offering its fans a good brand of baseball at very affordable ticket prices, the Frontier League has always been peopled by its share of characters, none more interesting than Max McLeary, who umpires in the league despite having lost an eye in an accident. A one-eyed umpire sounds like a joke, and McLeary has certainly heard them all (and then some) about him and his brethren in blue having bad eyesight, like “Hey, ump, you’re blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other one!” Yet McLeary tries to use his handicap to his advantage by outworking, outpreparing, and outhustling everybody else, and he is actually regarded as one of the very best arbiters in the league. He also has a great sense of humor and loves to tell stories about his glass eye that show he doesn’t take himself and his unique predicament too seriously. His best story is the one called “The Mask Story.”

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From “The Cheater’s Guide to Baseball,” by Derek Zumsteg, regarding spitballs:

Some had a sense of humor about the whole thing. The Tigers’ Dave Wickersham was accused of throwing a spitball, but he insisted that while he has a good spitter, he wouldn’t throw it as long as it was illegal. “In the first place,” he said, “I think it’s cheaing. Besides, the last time I threw one, it got by the catcher.”

Here are some hilarious quotes from former St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Joaquin Andujar — One Tough Dominican — taken from the book “Whitey’s Boys,” by Rob Rains and Alvin Reid:

- “There is one word in America that says it all, and that one word is, ‘You never know.’”

- “I throw the ball 92 miles an hour, but they hit it back just as hard.”

- “There are 300,000 sportswriters, and they’re all against me. Every one of them.”

- “You can’t worry if it’s cold; you can’t worry if it’s hot; you only worry if you get sick. Because then if you don’t get well, you die.’”

- “God is back in the National League. In fact, he’s staying at my house. I’m having a barbecue for him.”

From The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract:

Early Wynn was famous for throwing inside. Somebody once said that he would knock down his own mother if she crowded the plate on him. “Why shouldn’t it?” said Wynn. “My mother was a damned good hitter.”

From “Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy,” by Jane Leavy:

“In the immortal words of Willie Stargell, trying to hit Koufax was like ‘trying to drink coffee with a fork.’”

Here’s something hilarious about Joe Morgan from The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, by, obviously enough, Bill James.

In April 2000, Major League Baseball aired a promotional spot in which Peter Gammons, pitching, struck out Harold Reynolds. Broadcasting on ESPN on April 19, Joe Morgan was frothing at the mouth about this commercial. “Harold Reynolds was a major league baseball player,” Morgan said over and over … I may be paraphrasing a little, because my VCR wasn’t running. “Harold Reynolds was an all-star. Peter Gammons does not strike him out. It’s just wrong, and I’m not going to keep quiet about it. It’s wrong. Peter Gammons does not strike out Harold Reynolds.”

Dear Joe:

Does the phrase “Get over yourself” mean anything to you? This is not to deny that you were a major league player, and even that you were a better player than Harold Reynolds, who I suppose must have been an All-Star sometime; what the hell, Dave Chalk started two All-Star games. This is not to deny that you were a brilliant player, Joe, but you are becoming a self-important little prig. Grow up, you little weenie. People make fun of one another; this is called friendship. This is life; only self-important little twits take offense at that kind of thing. Jeez, man, get a life. Preferably not on television.

Your friend,
Bill James

Joe Cantillon served as manager of the Washington Senators from 1907-1909, where he had the privilege to manage the great Walter Johnson for three years. But Cantillon excelled more as an umpire than as a manager, and the following is a story about one episode from Cantillon’s umpiring days:

Normally it took the most drastic kind of provocation for Cantillon to toss a player out of a game; he preferred putting them in their place with devastating repartee and other methods.

Clark Griffith told about the time Cantillon achieved this by relaxing the balk rule: A batter (John McGraw, according to one version of the story), after complaining nonstop about Cantillon’s decisions, singled. As the only umpire in the game, Cantillon moved behind the pitcher — Griffith — as the runner continued bombarding him with curses and epithets from first base.

Suddenly Griffith was surprised to hear a voice whisper in his ear, “Go ahead, Griff, pick him off.” Drawing the runner off base with a motion toward the plate, he quickly wheeled and rifled the ball to the first baseman instead. The baffled runner was quickly trapped and tagged and Cantillon waved him out, the indignant player screaming all the while “Balk! Balk! Everybody saw Griffith make a balk!” to no avail.

– From “Walter Johnson: Baseball’s Big Train,” by Henry W. Thomas

Pepper Martin played for the St. Louis Cardinals and was a member of the colorful Gashouse Gang back in the 1930s. He started as an outfielder but later in his career moved to third base. A prankster off the field, the joking stopped when Martin was playing the game. He was fiercely competitive.

Doug Feldmann, author of Dizzy and the Gashouse Gang, tells the following story about Martin:

As he made the switch to third base later in his career, he began to develop a sore back. Knowing this, opposing teams began to bunt on him incessantly. This continued until he became so angry he called time-out in the middle of a game, and called first baseman Rip Collins to the pitcher’s mound for a conference.

“Ripper,” he said, “the next time those bastards bunt, forget about the bag and back up the runner. I’m gonna plunk him right in the noggin.”

And sure enough, the next opponent to bunt dropped like a ton of bricks about two-thirds of the way down to first, the victim of a rocket shot to the head that came from across the infield. Word soon after spread around the league about the fate of would-be drag bunters in Sportsman’s Park, and the strategy ceased to exist.

Keep in mind this was before players started wearing batting helmets. Ouch.

Nobody ever accused St. Louis Cardinals pitchers Dizzy Dean and his brother Paul of being the sharpest knives in the drawer. But oh, could they pitch.In 1934, Paul was pitching with the Cardinals for the first time in spring training. He had impressed scouts and baseball experts with his stuff, and many expected him to be a dominant big league pitcher. But Paul struggled during his first outing that spring. Mike Ryba, a catcher with the Cardinals, picks up the story, in “The Spirit of St. Louis,” by Peter Golenbock:

We used basically simple signs, one finger for the fastball, two fingers for the curve, and three fingers for the change of pace. The first inning was kind of long, but we got out of it all right. Paul didn’t have too much. In the middle of the second, he called me out to the mound.

“What’s the matter, Paul?”

“Mike,” he said, “call for that two-finger ball more. I can get more on it.”

Then I realized that Paul had been gripping the ball with the number of fingers I put down. On the one-finger grip, which called for a fastball, he had been throwing a one-finger pitch.

Ty Cobb was a lifetime .366 hitter, the highest career batting average in baseball history. His playing days ended in 1928.

In 1959, someone – probably a sports writer – asked Cobb how he would fare against modern-day pitching. Imagine that person’s surprise when Cobb replied that he’d only hit .300.

“Are today’s pitchers that much better than the ones you faced?” this writer must have asked.

Cobb’s reply? “You’ve got to remember – I’m 73.”