Notes from the Shadows of Cooperstown
Observations From Outside the Lines |
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NOTES FROM THE SHADOWS OF COOPERSTOWN
Observations from Outside the Lines
By Two Finger Carney (carneya6@borg.com)
#327 APRIL 22, 2004
TO THE ACCOMPLICES
The grudging departure of the snows here in the shadows of Cooperstown is always bittersweet. Nice to see the yard again, not yet green, but it's trying its best. The daffodils are on schedule, like Opening Day, and the first box scores of the new season. On the other hand, there is winter debris to rake and bag and haul and sweep ... but at least it's spring again!
The theme for this issue can be traced to the top item, and I won't say more. Actually, "the Accomplice Theory" -- nothing new to NOTES regulars -- has its roots in one of my all-time favorite poems, one that happily made it into Romancing the Horsehide. I'm re-running The Fan here for the umpteenth and first time -- first with this particular punctuation, that is, and I changed a word or two. I confess, I'm a tinkerer.
Beyond these two ditties, this is a kind of tribute to those who have been accomplices -- or companions -- on the B-Sox trail, the past twenty months (and counting). Call me old-fashioned, but I happen to believe that it is almost impossible to say THANK YOU too often (I've seen it done, though, at dinners recognizing volunteers or Employees of the Eon, and so on.)
Last issue, I mentioned the panel in Cincinnati this summer (July 16) during SABR's national convention, SABR 34, which I'm helping to organize. Since last issue, I've added David Fleitz (author of Shoeless: the Life & Times of Joe Jackson) to the roster. This should be a really fun 85 minutes!
Also since last issue, I've decided to attend the Seymour Conference in Cleveland next month (May 14-16). I haven't been to one since '99, and it's time. More info at www.sabr.org ... hope to see some of you there -- and again in Cincinnati.
THE ACCOMPLICE
In its first seasons, "accomplice stories" were practically a staple in Notes. We all have our own. These are tales that we never tire of telling ... of occasions when our personal rooting (or lack of) spelled victory (or defeat) for our teams. For example, my father often wrote letters to me while listening to the Pirates on the radio; if he sensed he was jinxing them -- maybe they were ahead when he tuned in, but blew the lead -- he'd turn the game off. At other times, he dare not leave the game, no matter how tired he was or how late it was getting -- that would be forfeiting the thing to the enemy.
Listening on radio ... watching on TV ... being at the park -- there are degrees of rooting. Our influence on the outcomes is all a matter of faith, of course. To those who do not believe, no explanation is possible; to those who believe, none is necessary.
I was reminded of "the accomplice theory" when my Pirates visited New York the weekend of April 16-17. I was late turning on my TV Friday night; I was out to dinner, but the baseball gods should not accept such a flimsy excuse; I might have planned better. So when I found the Bucs down 2-0 after seven, I blamed myself.
However, Tom Glavine's potent left arm must have felt me coming. It tightened up and he was gone. I sat down and gave the game my full attention. The Pirates proceeded to score seven runs, with a little bit of luck. And they held on for a 7-6 win. They were not on a channel my cable carries, on Saturday or Sunday, but I was thinking about them, and checked the score on line here and there. It was enough, they swept.
Considering that my powers of rooting were divided -- I had to coax the Red Sox past the Yankees, too -- I think the Mets got off easy.
I don't know why I take April games so seriously. I can trace it back to 1990, I think, when I was still a rookie as far as writing baseball goes, and just beginning to over-analyze things (thanks to Tim McCarver). Since 1993 -- the post-Bonds era for Pirate fans -- April is a gentle month, one to remember as the team tumbles later in the summer. Barring catastrophe, no one is very far behind in April. Not a cruel month after all.
But I know enough not to brag about April exploits. Fresh in mind are five-game win streaks whose boost in the standings vanished like any spring snow will now, no matter how many inches pile up.
April is fun. There are unfamiliar names on the roster, and the untested rookies are like the seeds we plant in our gardens: all potential. Some may bloom and die in a week, some may turn out to be perennial, and we'll be enjoying them for many seasons. The great thing is, it's spring -- one more time.
THE FAN
Who sank the Yanks?
Was it Maz?
Or did he merely
Swing the bat
At the opportune time?
Study all the film
As if you were looking
For assassins
Hiding in the corner
Of a frame
Featuring a Dallas motorcade --
What do you see?
Terry hurling the 1-0 fastball ...
The now-famous Pirate batter swinging ...
The collision in that
Twilight strike zone
Over the plate ...
Now you see Berra cursing
The ivied wall that
Prevents the catch --
But wait!
Back up a few frames ...
THERE!
There she is:
The lady in that weird hat,
Wearing the same kind of glasses
As my mother --
SHE'S DOING IT!
Her hands are aloft,
Fingers trembling,
Palms tilting slightly heavenward
As she follows the ball's airy path ...
She's holding her breath --
LOOK AT HER EYES!
Don't tell me she's not
Guiding the object in flight
Over Yogi,
Over the brick barricade,
To somewhere over the rainbow ...
Maz is pounded as he soars home
As if he did it himself --
But throughout the ballpark
And the city
The pounding goes on
Of his
Accomplices.
BUT FIRST, ANOTHER POEM
For no particular reason, I'm inserting here one more poem, this one a "portrait" I penned back in 1991, and it, too, made its way into ROMANCING THE HORSEHIDE. The subject is familiar, and it is interesting that I took no position in the poem on his guilt or innocence -- obviously, I was waiting for the evidence.
SHOELESS JOE
How he loved her ...
How he used her ...
She was never heavy to him
But the perfect fit --
What a pair they were
Summer after summer:
Joe and Betsy.
He called her black and beautiful;
She responded to his touch
By springing to life --
Charm for no one but Joe.
Travelled with him from Philly
To Cleveland to Chicago;
Betsy brought him luck
Until that terrible day
They were split up
By the Mountain Man:
Cut down in his prime,
Accusations hurled by gamblers --
Jackson said it wasn't so,
Betsy protested loudly --
But the hanging judge had spoken
The fatal word.
Torn from his trademark and trade,
Banished to roam the countryside
Aching with all his soul
For a reunion that would never happen ...
How he loved her ...
How he used her ...
She was everything to him ...
Betsy was never just --
Joe's bat.
CREDIT AN ASSIST TO ...
I've had so many people helping out on the B-Sox trail since I started my journey in September 2002, that it is hard to know where to start. It is like another book, The Making Of ... , is waiting to be written. OK, let's get started.
Once I exhausted the resources of my own library, I naturally turned to the Utica Public Library, where I found all the books I needed to keep me going. The UPL is tapped into the Mid-York Library System, so if the book or article I requested was not handy, it usually was just a day or a week away. Back at the beginning, even going outside the Mid-York system was free of charge. Since then, patrons pay up to $5 to mail books back to where they came from. The friendly cooperation I received at the UPL was accompanied by a genuine interest in my project, and I often felt they were as interested in tracking down a source as I was. Most of the UPL staff now know me by name (and I know some of their names, too), so when I approach the desk to claim a book or article, they are going for it before I ask. In my long list of Acknowledgements are the names of many librarians from across the country, but none are more deserving than "the home team."
Except maybe my home-away-from-home team in Cooperstown. The staff at the National Baseball Library has been not just helpful, but encouraging as well. Gabriel Schechter, who loaned me course materials on the B-Sox (from U-Mass professor Ron Story) soon after I got hooked, was one of the first to notice that I was onto something that could easily become a book -- as it did. I cannot understand how anyone can write a baseball history without spending time in the Cooperstown files. Finding the Ban Johnson (American League/Black Sox Scandal) Papers there was an exciting moment on the trail; new territory explored.
Of course, at the top of my Acknowledgements page is SABR. The book simply does not happen without SABR. Early posts to the SABR-L steered me to Hugh S. Fullerton (and later, HSF's grandson, and HSF expert Steve Klein); to Tom Cannon and the transcripts of the 1924 Milwaukee trial; to Eliot Asinof; to SABRites who had been on the B-Sox trail for years, and collected some helpful maps (articles) -- especially Bill Dunstone, but many others, too. SABR's publications suggested more places to look ... SABR's own Lending Library contributed ... I gleaned from papers presented at SABR national conventions, then discovered ProQuest and Paper of Record to open up whole new world to explore on line. SABR's membership included experts on Jackson, Happy Felsch, Chick Gandil, the 1919 Reds, Mathewson, Comiskey, and a whole committee devoted to The Deadball Era.
If SABR was a sine qua non, the internet was also indispensable. I got into the habit of contacting authors after reading their books, and many agreed to join in an e-group focused on the B-Sox. SABRite Rod Nelson transformed that group into a Yahoo! group last summer, opening up the discussion to more folks. The internet enable me to work with others (and the librarians come into play again here) to track down Collyer's Eye and many less elusive and obscure sources, as well as videos, including the Witness episode from January 1961. (Think about it: until Eight Men Out finally aired on TV -- around 1990? -- for almost three decades, Americans who learned about Joe Jackson and the B-Sox from TV, had only the image of Biff McGuire going for them. Say it ain't so, indeed!)
The 'net also was a place to do research -- in my list of sources for my book are about thirty web sites. I've become friends with the creators of some of them, and some of them now link to NOTES. Of course, I cannot pass up the opportunity to thank The Baseball Archive's creator, Sean Lahman, who got me on his web site some five years ago. Being able to post my findings as I went along proved to be beneficial in so many ways. First, it helped me organize my thoughts. Next, it exposed my thinking to those with different views, not always opposing, but often correcting my errors. And finally, being on the www meant that I would be found by others with similar interests -- including the relatives of some of the folks I'd been writing about! I've noted this before -- it's one of the most rewarding things about what I've been doing.
As I scan the list of individuals in my Acknowledgements -- there are over a hundred and counting -- I see names of friends that go back to my high school and college days ... total strangers ... names most people would recognize (authors) ... many NOTES regulars ... many SABR members ... old folks and young (both are increasingly relative terms as I move on toward 60). I see friends who have volunteered to proofread chapters, or to check out leads; friends who offered to send books or articles or to copy them; friends who visited libraries out of my reach, to find bits and pieces of the big puzzle; friends, many friends, who were not at all friends two years ago.
The people on the list are scattered all over the country and Canada, even Hawaii. In fact, my first step on the B-Sox trail was taken in Hawaii. Some of you know the story. I was over there in paradise celebrating my 25th anniversary (you can look it up, in NOTES #261), and on our last day in Maui, Barb and I were guests of James Floto, editor (since before NOTES was born) of The Diamond Angle. We had a delightful lunch at James' house and were talking family with him and his wife, when I remarked that our daughter, back when she was college-shopping, wanted to check out Skidmore, because she liked the city of Saratoga.
Saratoga? James has been interested in baseball and 1920 for many years, and the word "Saratoga" rang just one bell for him. Rothstein. Saratoga, the place where the Fix was hatched, maybe, August 1919. In another minute, James had placed in my hands the paperback by Brendan Boyd, Blue Ruin. I took it home. That was in early June. I finished the book, skimming some, by late August, and mailed it back. But it left me with a question about the Big Fix: how come Woodward & Bernstein are household names for uncovering the Watergate scandal ... but no one knows the who and how about the Black Sox. At least I didn't.
Now recently, with Bob Woodward back in the news, I found out that he is not a household name after all, not with those who were born after Watergate, anyway. But that didn't matter, I had a question that I'm still answering. It's taken a book, and more.
I've come a long way from Saratoga. And miles to go, before I call it a wrap. I've always looked forward to the next issue of NOTES ... and who knows what friends are still ahead, what accomplices ... as the search continues.