Babe Ruth aka Daddy

Baseball is a game of legends.

Some become legends long after they retire, after many years pass and they are finally recognized by the Hall of Fame for their efforts, given that instant status symbol of admission into baseball's most exclusive club.

Then, of course, there are those players who are so incredible and larger than life that even while they play they are already legends -- and with each strikeout, each hit, each home run, they only add to their prowess and stature.

I could rattle off so many names of players who have achieved this kind of hallowed glory while still active: DiMaggio, Mantle, Musial, Mays, Williams are just a few from the Golden Era.

But the one who was the king of baseball legends, the one whose very name could send a shiver up the spine of opposing pitchers, was Babe Ruth (just as the name of his legendary team, the Yankees, also sent opposing pitchers of the mid- to late-1920s into a state of panic).

There is nobody still living who actually played in a major league game with Ruth, but I've talked to maybe 10 or 20 players who met him one way or another. Ed Mayer, for example, was given a trophy by Babe Ruth in 1947 after an American Legion All-Star Game out in California.

With each mention of the Babe's name, I too would get a shiver up my spine, but for a different reason than the hurlers of old. For me, it was the thrill that I was talking to someone who'd actually met the great Babe Ruth.

There was one person, however, that I was hoping beyond hope to speak to: Babe Ruth's daughter Julia Ruth Stevens. Born in 1916, she was adopted by Ruth when he married her mother in the 1920s.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, I found what I thought might be the correct number for Mr. Stevens. Incredibly, she answered the phone and was happy to talk to me. We spoke for about 45 minutes about her life and about her famous father, a man she knew simply as "Daddy."

The golden rule of interviewing is never to allow yourself to become intimidated or starstruck, because that will contaminate the quality of the interview and make you forget what to ask. It wasn't easy, sitting there and talking to Babe Ruth's daughter, to not be at least a little bit in awe. For one, she was well into her 90s and still sharp as a tack and full of stories.

What was Babe Ruth really like? How did he treat people?

“People would ask him for so many things, and if he could, he’d give them to them. I mean, he would have given away every cent that he had if it hadn’t been for mother. Out of generosity, when one of the players, or someone, a friend, you know, “Babe, could you let me have so-and-so” he’d always say “Sure” But mother put a stop to that, because there would have just been no end to it.”

What strikes one about Ruth, at least in the legend, is his kindness. It seemed to be quite true. As Mrs. Stevens emphasized:

"He was always so genuine, and his love for children was very very real.”

Ruth would sign autographs for kids waiting outside his hospital window even when he was very sick, she told me. How many of today's stars would do that?

Sometimes the smallest details are the most precious, a sentence or two that paint an intimate portrait of baseball's most legendary figure. For me it was this little nugget: 

"I remember that we lived on the seventh floor and the rooftop was the ninth floor, so we could use the back stairs and we’d have picnics up there.”

Babe Ruth and family having rooftop picnics...nine floors above the hustle and bustle of midtown Manhattan. That picture is a happy and fascinating one to imagine.

More from my interview with Babe Ruth's daughter in a future post. 

Walter Johnson Through His Daughter's Eyes

By many standards, Walter Johnson (nickname The Big Train) was the greatest pitcher who ever lived (He is ranked #1 according to the Fan EloRater on Baseball-Reference.com). Sure, Cy Young had more victories. Others had more career strikeouts and lower lifetime ERA. But Walter Johnson had the most shutouts of any pitcher ever - 110. He was incredibly durable, winding up with the 3rd most innings pitched and the 3rd highest number of batters faced. Johnson put together some of the best pitching seasons in history. He was twice AL MVP, and thrice the pitching Triple Crown winner.

Walter Johnson, who died in 1946, is long gone. But his legacy lives on through his daughter Carolyn Thomas, who was born in 1923, toward the end of her father's baseball career. Her mother died when she was 7, so Carolyn was raised in large part by her famous dad.

In the course of my research, I was fortunate enough to speak with Ms. Thomas, who still lives in the vicinity of her father's old team, the Senators, at some length and get some firsthand accounts of this amazing legend.

We all know that some of the great players were not especially congenial people. So, what kind of person was Johnson?

“He was a quiet person. He just wanted to lead a quiet life. He didn’t like the spotlight very much. He realized he had to put up with some of it, and he was gracious about it, but he certainly never sought it out, and certainly he was not interested in politics, he was a county commissioner…I think the way I would describe him is good natured. He was a really nice guy. He wasn’t pious, pontifical. He wasn’t judgmental or anything like that, he was a nice guy. He had a nice sense of humor. He loved ice cream. We could always go to the store and eat as many Eskimo pies as we wanted. He tried awful hard to make up for mother’s loss.”

Ms. Thomas remembers attending baseball games with her dad: 

“We didn’t think of him as a baseball player, of course. Although we did when we went to the stadium. It always took forever to get in because people wanted his autograph. I can remember being kind of surly about that, taking so long to get into the stadium for the game. People recognized him. He never brushed anybody off. He would always stop and sign whatever they handed him.”  

Talking to the baseball players of the 40s and 50s is a great thrill. But talking to the child of one of the greats of an earlier era is a very special and different kind of thrill, a leap even further back in the baseball time machine. There is nobody alive who knew Walter Johnson better than his daughter. I am grateful that she took some time to help me get to know him, too.

A Father's Day Salute to Baseball Dads

This Father's Day, I would particularly like to salute baseball fathers, for two reasons.

Baseball fathers? you ask.

Indeed. The baseball season is very long, and most baseball fathers don't get to see that much of their kids. It was bad enough when there were only 8 teams in each league - which meant 7 cities to travel to during the season. These days, that number is much higher, and the teams are spread across more of the country (as opposed to the concentration mostly along the east coast in the old days), making it less likely for baseball offspring to see their dads on the road.

It must be pretty tough for baseball players with a family to make it through the season. Even all the money of today's contracts can't buy during-the-season time with one's kids. I mean, theoretically, one could use that money to follow dad around the country on road games, but that's simply not practical nor desirable. No, there's just no easy way to see much of your kids during the season. The one beneficial difference is that today's players don't have to work during the off season and therefore can spend some extra time with their kids while players of old were out working.

So that's the first salute to baseball dads - who have to make fatherhood work in tough circumstances, where their kids may see them more on television than in real life between April and September.

But the second salute to baseball dads rises from the many conversations I had with Golden Era players. So many of them told me that the reason they called it quits was because they were raising a family, kids were reaching school age and the baseball life was not conducive to kids having a stable and steady life. Especially in the days when you could be traded at any moment.

And so far as I can recall, none of those players regrets what they did. Playing was their boyhood dream, but once they became men, they realized they had to balance boyhood dreams with the realities of manhood...and fatherhood. So they found other work, raised their families, and still cherish their baseball memories. But they also cherish the fact that they made the right decision, the decision that put their families, their kids, ahead of the uncertain future of their playing days. Most of them went on to make far more money doing other things than they would have (in those days) if they continued playing baseball.

Happy Father's Day to all baseball fans out there, and especially to those former players who made a tough choice and cut short their dreams in favor of fatherhood.

Oh Mickey, You're so Fine

My interviews feature an approximately equal number of words of praise for Ted Williams and for Mickey Mantle. I'd have to say they were the two players in whom the major leaguers of the 1950s were in greatest awe. 

A year or so ago, I had the good fortune to interview Lou Sleater, a Senators pitcher who was a witness to the first "tape measure" home run, on April 17, 1953. Sleater has since passed away, but his memories now live on below, and in my forthcoming book (to be released next spring):

“I was sitting on the bench right next to Bucky Harris, who was the Senators’ manager. When Mantle hit it, it looked like the ball went up, straight up, and then it started going to the outfield. It just kept carrying out and carrying out, it was like an unbelievable thing. There was a National [Bohemian] Beer sign out there at the time, and it just nicked that sign going out, and so Red Patterson, who was the traveling secretary for the Yankees, he went and got a tape measure and tried to get the measurement, the footage and everything…he said that’s the first tape measure; he named it right then and there, tape measure shot hit by Mickey Mantle…It was unbelievable. It just went up, and just kept on carrying out, and carrying out, and next thing you know, it was all the way out.”

Practically all tape measure homers are disputed in some way, but there's no arguing about one thing: Mickey Mantle could hit the ball a long, long way!

The 400

I can’t even begin to tell you how many times the players I spoke to mentioned the fact that back when they played, there were only 16 teams, 8 in each league, and only 400 players in the big leagues. It was almost like a mantra. I never brought it up; it always came up somehow during the course of conversation. by "Don't forget, back in those days..."

Not only that, but there were a whole lot more farm teams back in those days. The Golden Era players are not exaggerating when they tell me it was harder to make it to the majors back then. There were tons of guys who played pro ball in the 40s and 50s, but only a fraction of them made it to the bigs. Some “D” class teams sported only one future major leaguer. Others actually had none, in certain years, on their rosters. That’s how hard it was to make it.

The pre-expansion era was, in many ways, a completely different time for baseball. Once that first expansion draft was held at the end of 1960, things changed forever. The National League lagged a year behind, but that was it. There were now 20 teams. The notion of the 400 players was no longer valid. And the quality of players on these new teams was, well, sometimes less than stellar. To begin with, the new teams were allowed to “protect” some of their players, leaving others (not their most valued ones, of course) open to be drafted. As one player explained, the unprotected ones were likely to be "long in the tooth."

The number of teams changed again in 1969, and again several times more after. Look how many teams and divisions we now have. The idea of "playoffs" was only born due to the increased number of teams. There are a lot of teams, and a lot of players.

This is not to say today's players are not excellent athletes who are deserving of their spot in the bigs. However, it is an affirmation of the difficulty of making it back in the day. A player who is drafted and signs these days, is far more likely to make it to the majors than one who signed 50 years ago.

So it follows that when asked what their best memory of their career was, many a player simply told me - "Just putting on that major league uniform and taking the field."

The Questions Not Asked

The questions not asked.

A sore point for any journalist.

In the ideal world, I'd be completely prepared, having devoured every single piece of pertinent information about a baseball player that can be found, all the statistics, the trades, the mentions in books and articles, and of course, the trivia.

Almost every player did something that was somehow noteworthy. That's the beauty of the game, and of statistics. Practically everyone gave up someone's first or last home run or base hit, played with or for future Hall of Famers, or was involved in some notable trade or notable game.

Sometimes, players bring these little factoids up to me without prompting (and thankfully, especially if it is something I hadn't known about). But a grain of salt must be applied. Several times when someone has told me "I was the first" or "I was the only" it turns out not to be quite true.

In any case, the questions not asked still bug me. Like when I neglected to ask pitcher Dick Welteroth (who has since passed away) about his part in the game where the Senators gave up 17 walks in a game, including 11 in a single inning (he gave up 4 of those). Not critical, but still irksome.

With all the research I've done, I know a lot. And yet it is only a fraction of what is to be known, what can be known, about baseball's history. So I shouldn't feel too bad about forgetting to ask a question and instead think of all the unplanned questions or conversational tangents that yielded much richer fruits than any forgotten question could bring.

A good interview is NOT just a question and answer session. If both of us stayed exactly within the lines, it would be quite a boring interview. Conversation must occur, and that's when the subject opens up and goes beyond your questions.

Here's a little gem from former Tiger George Lerchen, about his manager Red Rolfe, who played for the Yankees in the 1930s:

His wording was: "Isn’t that the way we used to do it at the Yankees?" No matter what you did, hit a home run or double, he said "Yup, that’s the way we did it at the Yankees. Isn’t that right, Charlie Keller?" Keller was on our ballclub at Detroit. And he said "Isn’t that right Charlie?" So you know, what can I say, he was a Yankee man. He lived and died for the Yankees. 

Close Encounters of the Rusty Kind

My first personal encounter with a baseball player (and actually, my first encounter with any kind of celebrity) came when I was 14 years old and I went, quite excitedly, to New York Met Rusty Staub’s newly opened Manhattan restaurant. Sure enough, there at a nearby table was Le Grand Orange himself, with a couple of other people. Now that I think about it, those others were surely baseball folks also, but Rusty was my big hero at the time, so he was the only one I recognized.
I gathered up my courage, and timidly approached, pen and paper in hand. I asked for his autograph, and told Rusty that I thought he was a really amazing baseball player (which, if you check his stats, he was) – albeit not with any eloquence, rather with the enthusiastic nervousness of a gangly teenager.

He thanked me, and signed the paper for me. And of course, in the days before iPods and cell phone cameras, that was it. No photo to document the moment. No questions or further interaction from me. I smiled and scurried back to my table, my day made. I’d been so nervous, I hadn’t even thought to grab a napkin or placemat or something Rusty-related for him to sign. Just a slip of paper. Oh well!

A few years later I visited Mickey Mantle’s restaurant, also in New York. I can’t recall the experience, but I am certain I was on the lookout for #7 while I was there. Alas, I only made it to his place that one time. For all I know he *was* actually there when I visited, and I just missed him.

In the years since, I’ve had personal and close encounters with several more players – George Foster (who gave a hitting clinic on Long Island years ago and signed my baseball cap), Reggie Jackson (I took pictures that I wish I could find!), Darryl Strawberry, and Derek Jeter to name a few.

But nothing was quite as thrilling, or nerve-wracking, as that first baseball encounter all those years ago.

A Post About Yost

When I started interviewing former players, I knew, in the back of my mind, that sooner or later...well, sooner or later one of them would pass on to the great baseball diamond in the sky. Still, though I knew it would happen, especially the more guys I spoke to, it was still a shock when it happened. And sad, also.

As it turned out, Eddie Yost was the first. He passed away on October 16th, 2012. I had only spoken to him two weeks before. It must have been his last interview.

I had been trying to reach him for some time. Weeks perhaps, or more. There was never any answer. I didn't give up. I kept trying, after a while only expecting nothing more than endless ringing.

One day, to my great surprise, he answered the phone. Eddie Yost, who debuted in 1944 and became known as The Walking Man for his tendency to draw an incredible number of walks, answered the call.

We had a great conversation, close to 30 minutes long. He told lots of stories, and encouraged me to use them in my book. Eddie Yost, who'd been a coach on the 1969 Mets. He was so nice, so friendly. And then, we hung up.

After a good call, a call like the Yost call, I retain a warm glow, a happy feeling that lasts for hours afterwards. And then, before I knew it, I was reading in the newspaper of his death. It was a shock. But I would have to get used to this...in the two years I have been talking to players, more than a handful have since died. Always very sad, but sadness tempered with a feeling of gladness that I had a chance to share in their life and in their stories.

Their memory lives on in their stories. I will never forget my talk with Eddie Yost, nor with any of the others who have passed on. Their voices dance in my head, weaving tales of the basepaths of yore.

Mike Sandlock, Oldest Living Former Player

The title of Oldest Living Former Major Leaguer has changed hands many times over the years. Only a handful of them have made it to the age of 100, including Connie Marrero, who passed away recently. The man who held the title of second oldest for some time, Ace Parker, died in 2013 at the age of 101.

What does it mean to be the oldest living former baseball player? Or the oldest living anything, for that matter?

Unlike other baseball titles – best hitter, winningest pitcher, strikeout king – the title of oldest is an honor which is at least partly based on having good genes. Clean living does not always win out over bad habits. Recent pics of Marrero show him with a cigar sticking out of his mouth.

I spoke to Mike Sandlock (born 1915), who now holds the title of Oldest Living Former Major Leaguer back in 2012, when he was #3 on the list. The former catcher had been recently honored by the Dodgers at a Mets game, honored for being the oldest living Dodger.

He expressed what I would call a keen awareness of the relative meaninglessness of that honor, that he was being feted simply for being old. Very old.  

This, I guess, does not apply to baseball players in particular, but to anyone celebrating an advanced birthday. The event takes on new and added meaning, and becomes more than just a birthday but a chance for the rest of us to gawk at the wonder of someone who has reached 90, or 95, or 100.

It’s our nature to gawk. But in doing so we should always remember the accomplishments of the person beyond their having achieved that magical age. We should celebrate their lives, not just their milestones.

And that's what my purpose has been in speaking to the oldest living players - to hear their stories, to appreciate their achievements in a byegone era, the last remaining memories of which are fading fast.  

So, Mr. Sandlock, here’s to you: 16 seasons of professional baseball beginning in the late 1930s, including 5 years during which you appeared in the majors, for the old Boston Braves, for the Dodgers, and for the Pirates. You strung together some good years for the Hollywood Stars in the Pacific Coast League in the late 40s and early 50s. And of course, you played for the legendary Leo Durocher at Brooklyn. Lots of stories, lots of history.

The oldest living former player is fascinating.

They all are, to me.

How Grady Hatton Became a Manager

What's always incredible to me, even after all this time and all these interviews, is how different people might answer the same question in such different ways. Some guys gave me one word answers, while others gave me a detailed explanation that really shed a lot of light on the subject. It's partially dependent on the person and personality, and also on the strength and quality of their memory.

Grady Hatton, who I spoke to in 2012 and who has since died, told me the story of how he came to be manager of the Astros. His reference below to being in the minors for the first time in 1957 is a reminder that he was one of those rare non-bonus players who began his pro baseball career in the majors directly after signing. It may have had something to do with the fact that it was early in 1946, and a great many wartime players had not yet returned from the service:

“I went out to San Francisco [in 1957], it was the first day I played in the minor leagues. The Boston Red Sox asked me to go out there and win a pennant, because the Giants were going to move out there the next year. I went out there, and we won the pennant and made everybody happy, and then the Red Sox called me and said “Do us a favor,” and I said “What do you want?” And they said “Go to San Antonio and manage for a friend of ours who’s got an independent club; they’re having a tough time. And people in Texas know you. So I went to San Antonio, that’s the first one I went to, to manage. I managed there two years, and then in 60 I started that year but then the Cubs called me up as a pinch hitter and a major league coach. I ended up playing about 45 games. That got me to the Cubs, and then Houston got a franchise and Gabe Paul, the general manager there, asked the Cubs would they release me and let me come down there, ‘cause I only lived 100 miles from the stadium. So I went down there. And when I got down there I did several odd jobs, scouting, coaching, all that stuff, and then they had a change in leadership; Gabe Paul left and Paul Richards came there, and of course Paul brought all his people that he had been with all these years, so he asked me to go manage Oklahoma City. I went over there and managed Oklahoma City for three years. And then when they had another change, they asked me to come up to Houston and manage the Astros. So that’s how it all got started.”

The Snowball Effect

Of course, I could have just written some questions and sent letters to selected players. I’ve seen some inspiring blog pages and sites dedicated to that type of communication. After all, a letter is much less invasive than a phone call. And a letter can be ignored, while a phone call, once answered, is harder to ignore.

Exactly.

Though some people cringe at the thought of making any kind of phone call, or talking to strangers in general, I was already an old pro. Brash, you might call me. I wasn’t afraid to confront celebrities and ask them questions. I guess it went back to my days as editor of my college newspaper.

Like the time in 1989 when I asked Sting a question at a press conference. Or 1994, when I managed to ask Kurt Vonnegut a couple of questions at a press conference. And after that, many more phone and personal interviews with many others. So for me, that was what made the most sense.

Over the last two years, many times I have thought – gee, if I had done this years ago, imagine the players I would have been able to reach, players from the 1920s and even 1910s. But back then, there was no internet phone directory, and besides that, phone long distance was a much more daunting and expensive proposition. I told myself not to regret anything. Now was the ideal time to call players, for many reasons. And of course, having a book in the works, that was the real reason for my calls, for all my research (though the project itself would eventually overshadow the book, by far).

If you would have told me then, in August of 2012, just how many interviews I would conduct, I would have shaken my head in disbelief and said it was not remotely possible for someone to do that. Or for someone to *want* to do that.

But as I said, it morphed…the more stories I heard, the more fascinated I became, the more of a snowball effect it had on what I believed to be the importance of my project. Many of these players were very old. And even as my project began, some of the players I had hoped to speak to passed away – players such as Johnny Pesky and Andy Pafko, for example.

By my calculations, only about 25-30% of the players from the 40s and 50s were still alive.

I was already up to 5 interviews, then 6, then 7. From wanting to contact a few players, my goal was now to speak to 25 or so.

And time was of the essence. 

The 100 Oldest

Anyway, back to the summer of 2012 and how I went from more or less selecting random baseball players, to developing some sort of plan. As I studied the list of the 100 oldest living former major league baseball players, I was flush with excitement. This, I thought, could be a worthy project - a theme, a focus - to document the careers of the oldest players. They were all age 87 or older, all the way up to the 100+-year-old Connie Marrero, who was at the time, at the top of the list.

As a lifelong baseball fan with a decent understanding of baseball history, I recognized many of the names on the list. But of course, there were plenty of folks whose brief appearances meant that only the most dedicated fans would know (or perhaps those who'd actually remembered watching or listening to them during their playing days).

Most of the players on the list had debuted during the 1940s. There were just a few from the 1930s, including longtime player Bobby Doerr and the lesser known Art Kenney. Interestingly, the oldest player, Marrero, had debuted in 1950. Someone born in 1911, as he was, could have in theory debuted at the age of 18 in 1929. But the Cuban-born Marrero remained an amateur player until about 1946, hence his late entry into the majors.

Determined to begin calling some of these most venerable of players, I was armed with my 1983 edition of the Baseball Encyclopedia (didn't need anything newer for my purposes anyway!).

The first phone call I would place to one of these 100 oldest players was to Grady Hatton, who debuted in 1946, but was also manager of the Astros in the 1960s. Hatton was nearing 90 when I dialed his number that August day in 2012. But had I thought this through? What kind of questions would I ask him? Was I prepared for rejection? I had not prepared myself for the possibility that some of these players may simply not want to rehash their careers yet again. And the older the player, the more times he would have told and retold his stories. I mean, for many of these men, I would be asking them to remember the events of 60 and even 70 years before. So the questions in my mind were: Would they remember? and Would they *want* to remember?

What Ted Said

The players I have spoken to played with some of the greatest legends ever to grace a baseball field. In my very first interview, where I spoke to former pitcher Paul Foytack, the name of the Splendid Splinter came up. This was only the first instance of a reference to one of my subjects rubbing shoulders with a great such as Mantle, Maris, Williams, Spahn, Feller, DiMaggio, etc. Hearing the name Ted Williams sent a shiver down my spine. I was speaking to someone who was on the same playing field as the greatest hitter in history! 

Here is what Foytack said:

Ted Williams said: “If this man here could get the ball over the plate like everybody else, he’d win 25 games a year.” 

Just a quick reference, but still. I could imagine Foytack hearing those words back in the 50's and them making a permanent impression within his memory. It makes sense. How could anyone forget something the great TW said to them personally? 

And that was only the start of my hearing stories of Ted Williams, that first call back in the early summer of 2012. I would have to estimate his name came up several dozen times in the course of my interviews since then. And contrary to the image that the press and perhaps the public saw of Williams, players raved about him. He was friendly and welcoming to not only teammates, but also opponents. He gave advice. He joked and ribbed fellow players. And boy was he serious about his hitting.

More about that another time...

At First, I Struck Out

Back in the summer of 2012, when I'd first started to interview players, I had no real plan. I'd first tried to explore other avenues that I thought would get me to speak with some folks with great insight into the game of baseball. Someone I knew had a son who was "Mr. Met" and another person I knew had a son who was the PA announcer for the Mets.

In both cases, I struck out. Neither was allowed to give interviews. I had a friend with some contacts, through a venture capital business, with some big names in baseball. I approached him and explained my cause. Strike three! The couple of players with whom he inquired were used to getting big bucks, and the concept of doing something for free was kind of alien (and perhaps amusing) to them.

My observation has been that the *more* money players made in their careers, the *less* likely they are to do anything for free, even if only to spend a few minutes to answer questions for a book.

So, at this point, I felt pretty low. What I thought, when writing my book proposal, would be a few sure-fire ways to get interviews, had not panned out...

That's when I started making calls. And then, at a local barbeque, I happened to get to talking to the host, and the subject of the previous owners of the house came up. It turned out that a guy who lived a few blocks from me had been a big league catcher on the same team as Nolan Ryan. This man, Tom Donohue, ran the local funeral home. I called and made an appointment to come speak to him.

Once again, at this point I had no theme. He was a former player, and he was local. As it turned out, the interview was great. But soon after, I came to a realization that I had to have some kind of plan going forward. Some method, some reasoning.

And it came to me the day I happened to come across a list of the 100 oldest living baseball players...

In the Beginning...

Two years ago, I set out to speak to a few baseball players for a book project I was working on. A few. You know, maybe five or ten. I was no stranger to interviews, having already interviewed more than 100 people (including WWII veterans, politicians, and notable attorneys) for other books.

How did I begin? With the equivalent of picking a name out of a hat. I perused some team rosters from the 1950s and selected a player I thought would be interesting to speak to: Paul Foytack. I looked him up, and thus (quite innocently) began my project. Foytack was terrific and interesting. He'd even played in Japan and pitched to the great home run king Oh.

I was entranced and enthused.

Next up I thought it would be neat to try to reach the man whose picture graced the first baseball card I ever owned - former Met Craig Swan, whose 1978 Topps card was my first. After some phone tag, we connected, and I conducted another amazing interview.

At this point, I really had no focus or theme. I was just interested in getting a sampling of some former players so I could give my readers an authentic feel.

Incidentally, these weren't my first baseball-related interviews. Some years back, probably around 2001 or so, I had spoken to Helen Hannah Campbell, daughter of Truck Hannah, who was a teammate of Babe Ruth's. That bit was just a tangent to the rest of our conversation, though I was tantalized enough by it to write down  what she said about her father...just in case I ever had occasion to use them:

Daddy said he was six-foot-two and weighed 225 pounds. When he was with the Yankees, a bunch of them would go to a place called Toots Shors, a favorite steakhouse in Manhattan. Well, they were walking down Fifth Avenue, and he was the smallest of the whole gang. They were all men with good appetites, and they were tired and hungry after a game. They probably made off with a half a side of beef. I’m sure I met Babe Ruth and shook his hand, because he loved kids, but I don’t remember because I was only five years old. When Daddy was with the Yankees, Lou Gehrig had not appeared on the scene yet. But in the following years, there were barnstorming teams. One year [1927] Daddy and I went to a game at Wrigley Field in Los Angeles where Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig were in uniform managing the exhibition teams. Daddy wanted me to meet Ty Cobb, who was there as a spectator.

More to come. Stay tuned...