[Charles Henrickson]

When Pete came through the gate he was walking like an old man. . . . it was taking him forever to walk to me, his shoulders stooped, his whole body heavier now, and Pete just slowly moving one foot ahead of the other.

That was in 1958, when Pete was 39. I used to see him about ten years later, when he was coaching for the Cubs. He'd be waiting on the El platform after the games, and he was fat and a chain-smoker. It was kind of sad.

[Artemis Webb]

THE BASEBALL PING LIST

This is a medium volume ping list during the baseball season and a low volume ping list when all life stops in late October early November.
If you would like to be on the ping list please FReepmail me.

[BluesDuke]

Pete Reiser once told a story about the immediate aftermath of the 1941 World Series. (The one that ended after Mickey Owen couldn't hold onto strike three, allowing Tommy Henrich to reach first base with two out in the ninth, and opening the door for the Yankee rally that won the game and the Series.) Reiser swore that then-Dodger president Larry MacPhail was so angry over the Series loss that he made a deal to swap the entire team to the St. Louis Browns for $3-4 million and the entire Browns roster.

Reiser was in a position to know---he lived in St. Louis in the offseason at the time.

I kept hearing rumours that the owner of the Browns, Don Barnes, was running around St. Louis trying to raise the three million dollars. The banks wanted to know what he wanted the money for. He told them, “I”m buying the Dodger ballclub for St. Louis.” They all thought he was out of his mind.

I don’t know if MacPhail really would have gone through with it, but can you imagine what would have happened in Brooklyn if the St. Louis Browns players all had turned up there one day wearing Dodger uniforms?

---Reiser, to Peter Golenbock, for Bums: An Oral History of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Here's a great story about W.C. Heinz, by the way:

How One of America's Greatest Sportswriters Disappeared