Casey Stengel - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Casey Stengel

Casey Stengel was the legendary manager of the NY Yankees and Mets from 1949-1965 who was known for his pranks. My first recollection of the clown genius manager came from Hall of Fame announcer Waite Hoyt during a Reds doubleheader broadcast over the radio while Dad and I were milking the cows in the barn on a hot summer afternoon in August of 1958. I was 10 and between games, Hoyt was regaling the listening audience with baseball stories from the past. Hoyt played for the Yankees so many of his stories were about that legendary team, including Stengel.

Charles Stengel was from Kansas City, so his nickname became KC, and eventually was legally changed to Casey. He was drafted by the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1912. When Stengel came to Daytona in 1915 for spring training with the Dodgers, he had a new manager, Wilbert Robinson, who was almost 53 but still saw himself as a catcher of heroic ability; so when the new manager was reminded that in 1908 the Washington Senators catcher Charles “Gabby” Street had caught a baseball released from a window near the top of the Washington Monument, Robinson boasted that he could do even better – he could catch a baseball dropped from an airplane from the same height –525 feet. So Stengel and other members of the team bet that their manager couldn’t do it.

Plans were made for Ruth Law, a daredevil biplane stunt pilot from Ormond Beach, to fly over City Island Ball Park. It would be an easy feat for Law, an expert aviator. She had purchased her first plane three years earlier from Orville Wright, and the year before this baseball park fly-over, the New Smyrna Beach News reported that she “has given her word that she will conquer the air at night or die in the attempt.” Ruth Law was good to her word, becoming the first woman ever to fly an airplane at night. As the pilot flew over the wide Halifax River, she was closing in on tiny City Island Park which was so small back then that a home run could clear the playing field (which had no outfield fence) and roll into the river. Prankster Casey Stengel arranged to have the the pilot drop, not a 5-ounce baseball, but a huge, juicy, one-pound, ruby red Florida grapefruit from a height of at least 525 feet.

Robinson, of course, had no idea what was befalling him, so he stood his ground and positioned himself under the cascading “ball” so it would plop into his open catcher’s mitt, which in those days was small and had very little padding. Suddenly, at impact, according to the Sporting News, the “ball” smashed into his mitt and exploded with a loud bang, knocking Robinson to the ground as all the team and spectators watched. The grapefruit instantly soaked Robinson with juice and pulp and ricocheted off his face. One report says he was knocked unconscious.

The collision was so explosive that Robinson thought he had lost an eye. He felt great pain in the eye – from the grapefruit juice – and he could feel his “blood” splattered all over him. He screamed for help, yelling, “Help me, lads, My chest split open! I’m covered with my own blood.” The grapefruit “tore through him like a cannonball,” as a Tampa Tribune writer described.

Forever after this, Robinson called airplanes “fruit flies.” Two years later during World War I, Ormond Beach daredevil pilot Ruth Law became “the first woman to wear an Army Airs Corps uniform” even though she was not permitted to fly combat missions. The legend began in Daytona at what is now Jackie Robinson Ball Park, and thanks to this prank, people to this day still refer to spring training in Florida as “The Grapefruit League.”

Famous Stengel Quotes:

There comes a time in every man's life and I've had many of them.

Most ball games are lost, not won.

The trick is growing up without growing old.

The trouble is not that players have sex the night before a game. It's that they stay out all night looking for it.

All right everyone, line up alphabetically according to your height.

Most people my age are dead at the present time.

They say Yogi Berra is funny. Well, he has a lovely wife and family, a beautiful home, money in the bank, and he plays golf with millionaires. What's funny about that?

Two hundred million Americans, and there ain't two good catchers among ‘em.

Casey during Senate Testimony on player salaries: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_BveD5KgWg

Casey interview as Mets manager: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylreuvfaNgk&t=10s

Stengel is sometimes described as one of the great managers in major league history, others have contrasted his success during the Yankee years with his lack of success at other times, and concluded he was a good manager only when given good players. Stengel is definitely remembered as one of the great characters in baseball history. He definitely had a way with words. The trouble was with the way he combined them. Stengelese became the term used to describe his vocabulary and implausible double-talk. Here are some examples (with translation provided).

The tributes to Stengel upon his death in 1975 were many. Writer Maury Allen wrote, "He is gone and I am supposed to cry, but I laugh. Every time I saw the man, every time I heard his voice, every time his name was mentioned, the creases in my mouth would give way and a smile would come to my face”. Richie Ashburn, a member of the 1962 Mets, stated, "Don't shed any tears for Casey. He wouldn't want you to... He was the happiest man I've ever seen”.[ Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "God is certainly getting an earful tonight”.

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Norman Rockwell - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

Norman Rockwell

While visiting my 91 year old mother-in-law over Mother’s Day weekend, we noticed she was working on a jig saw puzzle borrowed from the Russia Gathering Place where she goes every Thursday along with many other senior ladies around town. The puzzle depicted a Norman Rockwell painting that appeared as the cover of the Saturday Evening Post on April 23, 1949. As kid I can recall my parents receiving the weekly Saturday Evening Post and enjoying the magazine. No doubt some of the articles were of interest to me but it was the photos that jog my memory the most, especially the sports-related covers by artist Rockwell. Even though I was only 14 months old at the time this cover was published, I do recall seeing it before, perhaps at a used bookstore or on eBay.

Throughout the weekend, my wife and son would help my mother-in-law fit the pieces in place, with all three concurrently doing so at one point. Meanwhile, I delved into the puzzle box cover for details and found that the puzzle depicted a major league baseball game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and home team Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field early in the 1949 season. The game was under rain delay in the bottom of the 6th inning with Pittsburgh leading 1-0.

In the foreground were the three umpires (they only had three back then until 1952 when four were implemented) assessing the rainfall and whether to call the game or not, in which case Pittsburgh would win. Behind the umpires, you could see the two managers “discussing” the matter, with the Pirates manager Billy Meyer praying for more rain and the Dodgers manager Burt Shooten pointing to a clearing sky confident the game would go on. In the background, you can see several players as well as the scoreboard and various billboards around the stadium.

The scoreboard shows the number of Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson #42 and left fielder #35, Johnny Hopp. The scoreboard also shows #20 is at bat; however, the Dodgers did not have anybody with that number in 1949, perhaps explained because Rockwell was known for hiding an error somewhere on each of his Saturday Evening Post cover photos just to bring added intrigue to the magazine. Plus the Dodgers and Pirates did not meet in the 1949 season until May, so maybe the game being depicted occurred in the prior season. For the record there were no rain-outs between the two teams in 1948. That being said, there was a #20 playing for Brooklyn in 1948 by the name of Phil Haugstad. But then there’s another inconsistency in that Leo Deroscher was manager of the Dodgers in 1948, while the painting includes Shooten and Meyer based on old photos of them. Likely it was Norman Rockwell doing what he does best, showing people in interesting and entertaining situations that were very real but somewhat surreal at the same time.

Norman Rockwell was a national treasure - admired by everyone. In 1916, the 22-year-old Rockwell painted his first cover for The Saturday Evening Post, the magazine considered by Rockwell to be the “greatest show window in America.” Over the next 47 years, another 321 Rockwell covers would appear on the cover of the Post. Here's a selection of some of my favorite sports-themed covers. During WWII, inspired by a Franklin Roosevelt speech, he painted his most famous covers depicting the four freedoms referenced by the President; freedom of speech, worship, from want and from fear. Each is shown below.

My wife talked to her mother a few days ago and the Norman Rockwell puzzle has been completed! She’s already solving the next one from the Gathering Place.

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May 15, 1971 - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

May 15, 1971

A very memorable day of my life occurred 50 years ago this coming Saturday, when my wife and I started dating. I’ve written about that special time in previous blogs but in light of the upcoming anniversary, more memories come flooding to the surface and are documented here. May 15th also happens to be my wife’s father’s birthday and the day her grandfather died, so for us, it has become an important date to circle on the calendar each year.

After my senior year in college at General Motors Institute, I returned to Dayton in mid-May to start work as an engineer for General Motors. Through the grapevine, I heard that a friend from high school was throwing a party at his place on the evening of Saturday, May 15. At the party, I ran into a girl from Russia who I had dated casually the prior summer and discovered she was now engaged to be married to a Minster guy.

She had come to the party with Debby, her best friend from high school, whom I recalled meeting during a double date at Cassano’s Pizza the previous summer on the occasion of my date's brother returning from Viet Nam. Since it was the first time the two siblings had seen each other in years, they were catching up on family matters, which gave the opportunity for Debby and me to chat and get acquainted.

Meanwhile at the party a year later, I noticed Debby setting on a big couch next to another partygoer, so I took the opportunity to sit down on the thick arm of the couch next to Debby to say hi, somewhat like this photo, but imagine me in hippy clothes and Debby in a short miniskirt! That eventful get-together began a wonderful conversation that has continued ever since! I had ridden a motorcycle to the party, so as the festivities were winding down, we took a memorable ride on that bike all over town and beyond.

It was a yellow Suzuki off-road bike that I had borrowed for the summer from a fraternity brother who had broken his leg at Mardi Gras ironically after being hit by a motorcycle. He’s the guy with the cast pictured next to me in the photo shown above. The bike was stuffed into the huge truck of another frat brother’s 1964 Chevy and hauled from college in Michigan to Dayton earlier that week after our last finals. We removed the bike’s front wheel and the car’s spare from the trunk to make room, storing both in the back seat. All his clothes and things were in my car as I followed closely behind him down I75 to Dayton.

After the party, that midnight motorcycle ride was a blur interrupted at the end by the sunrise, to both of our surprise! Somewhere along the way, Debby recalls a barbed wire fence we almost ran into! She was dropped off at her place shared with several other local girls as documented in this previous blogpost. That was a summer of a lifetime, as we toured around in that motorcycle everywhere, including a trip to Russia and Ft. Loramie to meet our respective parents. My mother-in-law Hilda grew up on the neighboring farm next to my grandparents, so she knew my dad quite well. In fact, at our first meeting, Hilda told us about my dad taking his sisters and other neighborhood girls including Hilda to Lindhaus Dance Hall on weekends during WWII. Dad had a deferment to farm the home place because his father had died during the Great Depression.

Dad also recalled Hilda’s war time story, adding that the girls road in the back of the farm truck they nicknamed the Blitz. He had to meticulously clean the truck and add two benches for sitting before each weekend dance after hauling livestock and other such farm stuff in the back over the course of the week. For sure that connection between my future mother-in-law and my dad gained me quick acceptance to Debby's family, otherwise who knows what might have happened, as my garb and hair at the time were very hippy-like! Plus I had taken Debby’s youngest brother, Ken, who was about 7, for a zippy ride on the bike around the meticulously maintained yard. He loved it, but Hilda did not!

We were engaged 8 months later and married 10 months after our engagement, living happily ever after. I’m so lucky Debby didn’t go home to spent the evening with her father on his birthday!

Want to know how we are celebrating our 50 year milestone? A neighbor’s loaning me his bike and Debby and I are going to take a midnight spin for old times sake. Right!

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#2 USA High School Baseball Team - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 50’s & 60’s

#2 USA High School Baseball Team

Last week’s blog touched on the Sports Illustrated jinx, which I hope doesn’t replicate itself into a Fish Report jinx as this week’s blog is about our local high school baseball team here in Michigan. We’ve lived in Orchard Lake for over 30 years, and our son graduated as salutatorian from the local Catholic high school St. Mary’s Prep in 1997. Over those years, the school has excelled academically and athletically, including 32 state championships in six different sports. In fact, our son played on a lacrosse state championship team in his senior year. Their current baseball team is the defending state champion, has a 40 game winning streak and is ranked #2 nationwide by Max Preps. It’s that team that I hope not to jinx by writing about them.

The team is coached by Matt Petry, son of former major league pitcher, Dan Petry, who starred for the World Series winning Detroit Tigers in 1984. Matt has a brother Jeff who plays professional hockey for the Montreal Canadians, so obviously a real athletic family.

The team has 13 players who have been offered Division 1 scholarships, with their best player, senior shortstop Alex Mooney, pictured in action above, projected to go in the first round of July’s MLB draft. His dad Joe played college ball for the University of Michigan.

St. Marys was founded on the above principles way back in 1885 and includes a high school, college and seminary on the 100 acre campus along the shores of Orchard Lake.

Many of the graduates return to the campus regularly for sporting events and alumni functions, including the annual St. Marys Polish Country Fair each Memorial weekend, supposedly the largest high school fair in the country.

And almost every weekend, an alum gets married in the shrine chapel, afterwards visiting the grotto for a wedding prayer.

Speaking of graduates, Cardinal Adam Maida attended St. Mary’s during high school and as a seminarian. And before being elected pope, St. John Paul II visited the school twice in 1969 and 1978. The shrine chapel on the campus is named in the Pope's honor. During his first visit, the future Pope was quoted as saying, “If Orchard Lake St. Marys did not exist, we’d have to create it”.

With all that prayer power, any Fish Report jinx doesn’t have a chance!

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Postscript: St. Mary’s lost this past weekend 2-1, a game I attended. A two run error in the first inning, a 3 hit complete game by an MSU lefty commit and a 20 mph hurting wind did them in. Alex Mooney, the kid that was projected to be a major league draftee hit the final out with the bases loaded. Bummer! But my wife claims it’s not a Fish Report jinx in play here, but I’m the jinx’er. She said, "Just look at the sports teams you root for, literally all routinely finish in last place; the Tigers, Lions, Red Wings and Pistons. Plus the Michigan Wolverines haven’t beaten Ohio State in almost a decade! So who’s to blame here? Maybe start rooting for the teams you hate!"

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