Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [76]
One of the many occasions on which the quipsters have had a field day over Cub affairs was in 1960, when Wrigley made the celebrated exchange of Lou Boudreau for Charley Grimm. Boudreau, then broadcasting the Cubs games, became manager, and Grimm, then manager, took over Boudreau’s broadcasting job. Eying Bob Elson, who broadcasts the White Sox games, they asked:
“Does this mean that Al Lopez is up for Elson’s job?”
But let’s not forget that a ball club is more than a business office. Who can begin to recount all the wonderful stories about the Cubs themselves – the players and managers, past and present.
One story concerns big Lewis (“Hack”) Wilson, the barrel-shaped home-run champion of the National League in the late 1920s. Although Wilson’s power hitting won many games for the Cubs, when it came to fielding, he was no gazelle. In the bottom of the seventh inning of the fourth game of the 1929 World Series, when the Philadelphia Athletics broke loose for a ten-run rally that erased Chicago’s eight-run lead, and won the game, it was Wilson’s misplay of an easy fly ball that led to the disaster – and that was not his only error of the afternoon. After the game, as Joe McCarthy, who then was managing the Cubs, was stamping angrily back to the clubhouse, a small boy ran up to him.
“Mr. McCarthy,” said the boy, “do you think I could have a baseball for a souvenir? Do you, please?”
McCarthy burned silently for a few moments, then snapped:
“Come back tomorrow, Sonny, and stand out there in center field with that big fellow, Wilson – you’ll find plenty of baseballs!” Charley Grimm, known as “Jolly Cholly” because of his mischievous wit, is also the subject of many stories. To me, one of the most memorable occurred back in the era of such Cub heroes as Phil Cavarretta and Stan Hack. Charley was contesting an umpire’s decision, and getting no place. Finally, in exasperation, he marched back to his third-base coaching box. The next man up to bat was Stan Hack, whom Grimm always referred to by the nickname “Stanislaus.” Jolly Cholly tried to forget the disputed decision and get on with his ball game. He started “talking it up,” shouting encouragement down to his batter. “Come on, Stanislaus, baby, come on, big Stanislaus,” he chanted. But it didn’t work – he was too angry, and the temptation was too great. Slowly he began to raise his voice on the last syllable, and then to turn his head from the batter to the umpire as he shouted, louder and louder. “Come on, Stanis-LOUSE! Come on, Stanis-LOUSE!” It took the umpire only a moment or two to catch on. Then he stalked over to Grimm, raised an arm, and majestically thumbed the manager out of the game.
There have been many funny moments on both Chicago teams. With uninhibited extroverts such as the Cubs’ diminutive “Dim Dom” Dominic Dallesandro, who always seemed to be standing in a hole, or “Mad Russian” Lou Novikoff, or the White Sox’ redoubtable Luke Appling, who could hit intentional foul balls until a pitcher’s arm dropped off, how could it be otherwise? And then there was the extravagant character who was a Chicagoan for four unforgettable seasons in the sudden twilight of his brief, brilliant career – my old sparring partner from the Gashouse Gang, the great Dizzy Dean.
When Diz joined the Cubs in 1938 his playing days were numbered. One of his toes had been broken by a line drive back to the mound in the All-Star Game of 1937. He had stayed with the team, and returned to the pitching rotation too early. To favor the painful toe, he had lost the splendid rhythm of his delivery – and this, in turn, had caused a kink in his arm which never again quite left him. As a result of this, his screaming fast ball was gone. But not his sense of humor, nor his drawling command of his personal version of the English language.
Although it was a bitter accident which cut short his career, Dizzy can still laugh about his frequent injuries. There was the time, for example, when he really used his head to break up a double