Posted on 01/27/2015 12:35:36 PM PST by BluesDuke
* One fine day in the Polo Grounds, Marvelous Marv Throneberry ripped one to the back of the outfield and gunned it for all he was worth, pulling into third with a stand-up triple. Or so he thought. Banks called for the ball and told the first base ump, "Didn't touch first, you know." Banks took the ball and stepped on the pad. The ump jerked his thumb for the out sign. Mets manager Casey Stengel barreled out of the dugout intent on murder until first base coach Cookie Lavagetto stopped him. "Forget it, Case," Lavagetto said. "He didn't touch second, either."
The next Met batter, Charley Neal, hit one off the facade above the upper deck in left center field for a homer. Neal wasn't three steps running up the line when Stengel stopped him dead. Then, Stengel pointed to first base and stomped his foot. He did it with every stop until Neal crossed the plate without incident or mishap. The joint went nuts.
* In the same series, young Cub outfielder Lou Brock was jittery before a game. Banks remembered it to Sports Illustrated's Rich Cohen last year:
I roomed with Lou. We were in New York, and he asked, “Ernie, what does it take to play major league baseball?” I said, “Lou, all you need is one thing: You gotta relax.” He said, “I can’t relax! I don’t want to go back to Louisiana, picking no cotton.” That night he hit the longest home run he ever hit, in the Polo Grounds. You can look it up.The home run in question actually cleared the Polo Grounds' center field fence, on the right side of the old clubhouse and office structure that bisected the bleachers, and the fence was 468 feet from home plate. (Now do you understand what was so stupefying about Willie Mays's famous catch in the 1954 World Series?)
The thing of it was, when Brock hit the ball and gunned it out of the batter's box, he rounded first, headed for second full speed, and---still inexperienced as he was---took the second base umpire's home run sign to mean he had a shot at an inside the park job. Brock had no idea what he'd actually done until he crossed the plate, plunged into a mob of cheering teammates near the dugout, then heard Ron Santo hollering into his face, "Did you see where that ball went? Man, I needed binoculars!"
Brock became only the second major league player since the Polo Grounds was reconstructed in 1923 to hit one that distance in the big park. The Braves' Joe Adcock did it in 1953. (Luke Easter, in a Negro Leagues game, did it, too, in 1948.)
The day after Brock's shot, the Braves came in to play the Mets and Hank Aaron hit one to almost the same spot as Brock's!
Bkmrk
When baseball was a game. Sigh ...
A genuinely good man, a stellar representative of the game... and one hell of a great ballplayer.
Somehow I can’t help thinking Jack Brickhouse should have been in that cartoon; Harry Caray wasn’t with the Cubs broadcasters during Banks’s or Santo’s careers. ;)
Not a bad list to join. There were a some players who had more skill, but few who had more class.
Ernie Banks was so beloved and respected that even fans of the Cubs’ biggest rival, the St. Louis Cardinals, respect the class and work ethic Banks represented.
Great tribute to one of the classiest players to ever play the game. The number of players who had the same great combination of both class and skill can be counted on one hand: Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, Lou Gehrig and Ernie Banks.Actually, you can add Christy Mathewson, Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Roberto Clemente, three Robinsons (Jackie, Frank, and Brooks), Sandy Koufax, Andre Thornton, Mike Schmidt, Gary Carter, Andre Dawson, Dale Murphy, Ryne Sandberg, and Tom Glavine to that group.
Ernie Banks
I’m sure Ernie would move over and make room for them, but it is still a pretty small list.
Ernie Banks was so beloved and respected that even fans of the Cubs’ biggest rival, the St. Louis Cardinals, respect the class and work ethic Banks represented.You have to love when a player earns that kind of respect. Stan Musial had the same reputation among the Cardinals' opponents (I should have included Musial in the aforesaid list of players with skill and class!); Sandy Koufax had the same rep among the Dodgers' opponents; Hank Aaron among Braves' opponents.
A story about Koufax I still love: Thirty-five years after Koufax beat the Cubs' Bob Hendley in a perfect game that might have featured Hendley with a no-hitter on its backside (the only Dodger run of the game scored without a hit; the only Dodger hit was stranded on base), Hendley was surprised to receive a small package: a 1965 National League baseball inscribed "What a game!!" with a note attached: We had a night, a moment, a career. I hope life has been good to you. Sandy.
It happened after one of Hendley's sons saw a newspaper clipping commemorating the game and sent it to Koufax, only to have Koufax return it autographed with a note: "Say hello to your father for me."
Hendley to this day will tell anyone who asks how it felt to lose that game, "It's no disgrace to be beaten by class."
‘Let’s play two’............RIP Mr Banks. The diamond won’t see class like you for a good long time.
and add to your list my boyhood hero Warren Spahn.
Harmon Killebrew perhaps?
Yep...thinking the same thing. I can still hear Jack introducing them...."all right...let's check the lineup; Santo, Kessinger, Beckert, and Banks, the infield from 3rd to 1st....."
"It's a great day for a ball game"
Ernie Banks
Ernie's wrists go all the way up to his armpits.
---Unidentified Cubs teammate.
He swings his bat as if it were a buggy whip, striking at the ball with the reflexive swiftness of a serpent's tongue.
---William Furlong, sportswriter.
There were mornings when I'd come dragging into the clubhouse, hung over, still half asleep. Ernie would be sitting there and he'd burst into a loud announcer's voice, "Here comes Pepi! What's happening, man? Oh, look at those eyes! Open those eyes, Pepi, and see what a beautiful day it is to play baseball in beautiful, ivy-covered Wrigley Field. It's a great day to win two, Pepi! And we're gonna win two with you, Pepi! Two for the Cubs! We're gonna win two because we love baseball, don't we, Pepi? Now isn't this a great day to win two for the Cubs, Pepi?"
"Ernie," I'd say, it's a great day for two more hours f@cking sleep!"
"Oh, Pepi's got his eyes open. He is ready!"
---Joe Pepitone, a Banks teammate on the 1970-71 Cubs, in his memoir Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud.
People ask me a lot about the values I got from playing for the Cubs for so many years. The value I got out of it was patience. A lot of people these days are not very patient.
---Ernie Banks, after his playing days ended.
Spahn, Killebrew, Aaron, Musial, Gil Hodges, Roy White (the classiest Yankee during their fallow 1965-74 period), Tom Seaver, Lyman Bostock (before his tragic murder), the list could go ever onward and upward, as Billy Strayhorn liked to say . . .
Your original additions were quite good, but I just had to add Warren Spahn to the list. My parents took me to a game in 1957 in Milwaukee and Warren Spahn was pitching (he won the game). The most memorable sporting event I have ever attended.
A story about Koufax I still love
Two days later, he was loading up his car, cleaning the windshield, checking the oil, etc., to prepare for departure. The guy next door was doing pretty much the same thing. He looked over, and was taken aback. Finally, he couldn’t resist, and said “Hey Sandy, I really enjoyed watching you pitch”. Koufax was humbled by the remark, and they ended up chatting for a few minutes :)
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