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1948 • Baseball Clip • Dizzy Dean Show - Radio · Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History

• 0:00
  This is RetroSports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.
• 0:07
  Well, here he is again, folks. Dizzy Dean, brought to you by the makers of Johnson's Wax for Carnew,
• 0:15
  the wax-sportified auto-polish that cleans and polishes your car in one easy application.
• 0:21
  Howdy, folks. Say, Frank, I wish you'd explained something to me. What does that wax-sportified mean exactly?
• 0:27
  Well, I'm glad you're curious, Dizzy. And this is Frank Ashen, happy to satisfy Dizzy Dean's curiosity.
• 0:33
  It means the polish is fortified or made more effective, Dizzy, by the wax that is one of the ingredients.
• 0:39
  And that means fortified, Frank.
• 0:41
  Yes, Dizzy. And here, perhaps, is a better way to explain it to you.
• 0:44
  You remember when you were a youngster, you probably could throw pretty hard.
• 0:47
  You probably were a good pitcher right from the start with that strong arm.
• 0:51
  Yes, Frank, it was some arm. But don't worry, I'm not going to tell you that I knocked squirrels out of trees left-handed so I wouldn't bruise them up too much.
• 0:59
  Ah, thanks for passing that one, Jerome. But we were having a lesson on the word fortified.
• 1:03
  Well, even with that strong arm, you became a better pitcher when you learned to throw a curve.
• 1:07
  In other words, the acquisition of a curve fortified you as a pitcher. Fortified. See, Jerome?
• 1:12
  Now I know what you mean, Frank. I like to learn them things.
• 1:15
  But I was pretty well fortified, Frank, with that just fast ball. If anybody should drive up in a nice, slick, shiny car and ask you, then you really were fast, Dizzy.
• 1:24
  I'll say I was fast. Boy, I wish I could throw that hard one now. I'll never forget a game back in them good old days.
• 1:31
  This story will give you an idea of how fast a man can be, Frank.
• 1:34
  An anecdote, I dare say.
• 1:36
  Right you are, Frank. We was playing the Phillies in late season doubleheader, and along about the eighth inning of the second game, it was a Saints the umpire that would call the game.
• 1:44
  Bruce Ogredoski was my catcher, and he kept telling me he couldn't see the ball in it too good himself, and he didn't figure the batters could see it either.
• 1:52
  Well, we had a one-run lead, but with two out, the Phillies get a couple of bloopers, and Dick Bartell comes to the plate.
• 1:58
  He was a tricky hitter, a guy with a lot of courage, and he was swinging from these heels up there.
• 2:04
  I got a couple of strikes on him, though, and then Ogie comes running out to the mound and says, I got a 90, Dizzy.
• 2:11
  I'll keep this here ball after just pretending to give it to you.
• 2:15
  Then you rad back and go through your pitching motion, and I'll do the rest.
• 2:19
  I told Ogie, umpire Sioperman would call a bulk on me, sure.
• 2:24
  But Ogie says, what's the difference?
• 2:27
  They're only move three runners to second and third, but I've always wanted to try this here trick.
• 2:32
  Well, old days was never one to tell anybody they couldn't have no fun as they went through life.
• 2:37
  So I take my position, look back at second and over to first, take my stretch and wham.
• 2:43
  I pretend to let go of the fast one.
• 2:45
  Ogie pops the ball into his mitt.
• 2:47
  Umpire, Furman, kind of blanks a little, but he calls her, strike three and you're out.
• 2:52
  Bartell starts to kick up a fuss, but Furman interrupts him.
• 2:56
  Dick, that was right through the middle.
• 2:58
  Furman tells him, and then Bartell says, Si, I know Doug going well now that you are blind.
• 3:04
  That pitch was a put outside.
• 3:07
  That settles it, Diz, that settles it.
• 3:09
  I'll admit that you must have been well fortified as a pitcher in those days with that fastball.
• 3:13
  Right now, how are you fortified with information for rising young America on the baseball diamond?
• 3:18
  It's time, Coach Dean, to give out with counsel for the kitties.
• 3:22
  I always enjoy this part of the program, Frank.
• 3:25
  It takes me back to the days when I was playing sandlot ball and blaming up the big legs.
• 3:29
  I'm going to talk to the boys about hitting today.
• 3:32
  Dizzy Dean, the pitcher, talks about hitting?
• 3:35
  Well, I'll admit you were a fair sticker, Jerome.
• 3:37
  Yes, and I'd have been a better hitter, Frank, if I hadn't been a pitcher.
• 3:41
  You know, pitchers don't get a chance to play every day.
• 3:44
  It takes daily practice to develop batting power and skill,
• 3:47
  and that's exactly the point I want to make for you young ball players.
• 3:50
  Right now, just one point today, boys today are just the same as they were when I was a youngster.
• 3:56
  They go out to the ball field and they're so anxious to get that game started
• 4:00
  that they don't bother to take no practice at all.
• 4:03
  Did you ever see a bunch of kids go to the trouble of having batting practice before a game?
• 4:07
  They may warm up their throwing arms a little and have feeling practice,
• 4:11
  but not much of that and very little batting practice.
• 4:14
  You ain't going to develop in two hitters that way.
• 4:17
  Here's what I want you to do.
• 4:19
  If you've got a game schedule for next Saturday,
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  I want you all to get together Friday afternoon and take one hour of batting practice,
• 4:26
  or two hours, or maybe three hours.
• 4:28
  Just hit till your plumb worn out.
• 4:30
  There must be a couple of the boys with pretty good control.
• 4:33
  Let them do the pitching.
• 4:35
  They don't have to be pitchers.
• 4:36
  Control is the main thing.
• 4:38
  Just have them throw the ball over the plate with some speed.
• 4:41
  Not too much.
• 4:42
  Don't try to throw curves.
• 4:44
  The idea is practice hitting that ball.
• 4:47
  And don't try to hit home runs every time up there.
• 4:50
  Just practice meeting the ball.
• 4:52
  Practice swinging only at the strike.
• 4:54
  In that way, you'll sharpen that batting eye and get better acquainted with that strike zone.
• 4:59
  As far as young batter's stance is concerned, don't worry about that.
• 5:03
  I have talked to some of the best hitters in the big leagues ever seen.
• 5:06
  Roger Hornsby, Joe Medrick, Bill Terri and Stan Musil.
• 5:10
  And they'll all tell you the same thing.
• 5:12
  Be comfortable up there at the plate.
• 5:14
  You may want to spread a little,
• 5:16
  or you may want to be back far in the batter's box.
• 5:19
  When it comes to batting, just be natural up there.
• 5:22
  In other words, the way you feel good hitting, that is the way for you to hit.
• 5:26
  But practice is the big thing.
• 5:28
  And if you boys would just take about two days a week at batting practice,
• 5:32
  you'll find you're getting a whole lot more fun out of your actual game.
• 5:36
  Because you'll be hitting that old apple against the fences, and a lot more often.
• 5:41
  Well, there's, I know, you enjoy giving that advice to the youngsters.
• 5:43
  I see a twinkle in your eye.
• 5:45
  Yes, Frank, when I was saying the kids would get a lot more fun out of their game,
• 5:49
  the story popped into my head.
• 5:51
  And when a story pops into busy deans here, they just must pop out.
• 5:55
  So pop away, Jerome.
• 5:57
  We was playing an exhibition game in Florida, Frank,
• 5:59
  and it was really too early to schedule any games.
• 6:01
  We'd been in a camp only a few days,
• 6:04
  and the pitchers weren't putting nothing on the ball.
• 6:07
  It was over at Avon Park, where the fences was about a mile from home plate,
• 6:11
  and if a ball happened to get past an outfielder, it just rolled and rolled.
• 6:15
  Well, I was pitching and just lobbing the ball over the plate.
• 6:18
  We were playing a farm club, Plumbus, or Rochester,
• 6:21
  and was having a lot of fun seeing the kids hit.
• 6:23
  Terry Moore was out in center field, and he really was having a workout,
• 6:27
  chasing him to right center and then to left center.
• 6:29
  Finally, after retrieving one of them long ones,
• 6:32
  and stood up throwing the ball in, Terry just carried it.
• 6:35
  He walked all the way into second base and then to the mound.
• 6:38
  He handed me the ball and said,
• 6:40
  hey, Dears, please walk a couple of them guys, will you?
• 6:44
  I feel like I get my win back.
• 6:46
  I'm sitting busy the way it looks to me.
• 6:48
  You were trying to give Terry and the other outfielders a real workout.
• 6:51
  You know, you had a reputation of not barring your friends
• 6:54
  when you were looking for a chance to play a joke.
• 6:56
  I heard all about what you did to your radio engineer in New York last summer.
• 7:00
  Did you hear that one, Frank?
• 7:02
  Well, I might as well tell it before you do.
• 7:04
  We were traveling with the Browns, broadcasting their ball games, play-by-play,
• 7:08
  and we had to take our engineer along with us on this trip.
• 7:11
  I guess maybe that was because they didn't have none in Boston or Philadelphia
• 7:15
  who could talk my kind of English.
• 7:17
  Anyhow, we had a fine young fellow named Stingel as our radio engineer,
• 7:21
  and we nicknamed him Casey after my old friend.
• 7:24
  Well, we put Stingel up in fine style with a private room in the New Yorker Hotel.
• 7:29
  Casey was bragging about having a fine room, but said he wasn't used to being that high up.
• 7:34
  He was on the 32nd floor.
• 7:36
  Well, a big storm come up that night.
• 7:39
  It was boring to beat the band, and the lighting was flashing, the thunder was rolling.
• 7:43
  Me and Johnny O'Hara was rooming together, and the storm woke us up,
• 7:47
  and we knew dog gone well, this Stingel was woke up.
• 7:50
  Two, so Johnny gets on the telephone, changes his voice, so it sounds like a room clerk
• 7:55
  and tells Stingel that on the count of the severe electrical storms and the danger and bobb,
• 8:00
  all gas above the 25th floor was requested to kindly get dressed
• 8:04
  and spend the balance of the night in the lobby.
• 8:07
  We didn't think Casey would fall for it, but he did.
• 8:10
  The next day he told us how he spent most of the night on a divine in the lobby.
• 8:14
  Jerome, Jerome, that's not a kindly way to treat a friend.
• 8:17
  But if you want to reverse that and really be of service to all your friends, I've got an idea.
• 8:22
  What's that, Frank?
• 8:23
  Well, do you know who some of your biggest fans are?
• 8:26
  Who you thinking of, Frank?
• 8:28
  Automotive and hardware dealers and service station men.
• 8:31
  A lot of them are able to hear this program and listen in on ball games while they're working or between jobs.
• 8:37
  They're real friends of yours, Diz, and real friends of Johnson's Carnot, too.
• 8:41
  Well, I reckon they know most of us are about cleaning up the old family car wagon.
• 8:46
  We like Sunday's shine, but we don't like Saturday's shining, that's the ticket, Diz,
• 8:51
  and they know that Johnson's Carnot solves that problem.
• 8:54
  You see, men, Johnson's wax-fortified Carnot cleans and polishes your car in one easy application.
• 9:00
  Just rub it on, let it dry into a white powder, and wipe it off.
• 9:04
  When you rub it on, Carnot's five cleaning ingredients cut right through that sticky road film that water won't touch.
• 9:10
  You know that road film made up of oil, bugs, exhaust fumes, and all the other things that stick to the finish of your car.
• 9:17
  Then when you wipe it off, wax-fortified Carnot polishes your car,
• 9:21
  gives your car a high, bright luster that sparkles from bumper to bumper.
• 9:26
  So if you like to tool down the road in a car that glistens in the sunlight,
• 9:30
  if you like to, how did you say that before, Diz? If you like Sunday's shine, but you don't like Saturday's shining.
• 9:37
  That's it. Just ask your service station attendant or other dealer for Johnson's wax-fortified Carnot, that's C-A-R-N-U, Carnot.
• 9:47
  And now, Dizzy Dean, we come to the mailbag.
• 9:50
  Frank Winschel of Jacksonville, Florida recalls that the Cardinals of your day were about the most colorful and baseball history.
• 9:56
  He wants you to tell him a little about that color.
• 9:59
  Frank, there was so much color on that bald club, I don't know where to start.
• 10:03
  I'm afraid I'll have to divide this up in a couple of installments.
• 10:07
  First of all, when you talk about color, I think of Pepper Martin.
• 10:10
  I guess he really was the top man in that gashouse gang business, Frank.
• 10:14
  He looked like a gas-houser. You could pretty him up in the clubhouse, but after five minutes on the field, he'd be dust from head to foot.
• 10:22
  Life was just one laugh after another, Pepper. He'd be sitting on the bench and all of a sudden he'd start laughing, and then he'd tell us what he'd done.
• 10:30
  One of his tricks was to carry a sneeze powder around with him.
• 10:33
  One night in New York, he saw a nice old couple setting together in the lobby, mining their own business.
• 10:39
  The old gentleman was reading the paper, so Pepper goes up on the mezzanine. That's the balcony above the lobby floor, Frank.
• 10:46
  Yes, I saw one once you're all.
• 10:48
  Now, Pepper dropped some sneeze powder so it lands on the old gentleman's paper.
• 10:52
  In a few minutes, the man is letting out one sneeze after another.
• 10:56
  It was red hot July weather in New York, but the man's wife turned to him and said,
• 11:01
  I told you, Roscoe, that you should have put on a heavier suit than that, and that made the evening perfect for Pepper Martin.
• 11:08
  And another time we was on our way to Brooklyn in the subway, Pepper edges toward the front of the car,
• 11:14
  and he opens the door, letting in a big windy drought. He flipped some sneeze powder up in the air.
• 11:19
  Before you know it, the whole car is sneezing. Boy, that Pepper would drive you crazy.
• 11:23
  He sure would.
• 11:24
  Now, this wasn't a bag of water another of the Pepper Martin tricks.
• 11:27
  It sure was, Frank. One evening in Boston, we was all standing outside the hotel on the sidewalk,
• 11:32
  and Pepper tries to douse us with a big laundry bag full of water.
• 11:36
  Just as he threw it, Coase, Buzzy Wares and Manager Frankie Frish walked out of the hotel,
• 11:41
  and a bag of water exploded on the sidewalk right between them.
• 11:44
  Brother Frank and Buzzy could have dried off by jumping into the Charles River.
• 11:49
  What Frish knew about that?
• 11:50
  He went straight up to Martin's room and told Pepper that would cost him $50.
• 11:54
  But Pepper pleaded with Frank that it was a mistake, that he wasn't trying to hit his dandy little manager.
• 12:00
  I'll tell you what I'll do, Mr. Frish said, Martin, real polite lack.
• 12:04
  To show you the high respect I have for you as a gentleman and as a manager, I will win the Mars game for you.
• 12:10
  And I know then that you won't find poor little Johnny.
• 12:13
  And dog-garner, that wasn't just what Pepper done.
• 12:16
  We got only about three hits off of Danny McFadden, but one was a home run by Pepper, and we win, one to nothing.
• 12:23
  And did that $50 fine stick dizzy?
• 12:26
  What do you think, Frank?
• 12:27
  Well, I think it's time for you to cast your eye on the big lead picture. What do you see today?
• 12:32
  Okay, Frank, and I think I've got a good fasten right through the middle of the plate.
• 12:36
  Let's pass the two penant races this time. They're still red hot, and it's anybody's race.
• 12:41
  We got time for that next week.
• 12:44
  Baseball lost a great figure this week, Frank.
• 12:47
  I'm not going to add anything to what already has been said about Babe Ruth and what he meant to baseball.
• 12:53
  What I want to talk about is what he will always mean to baseball.
• 12:56
  Frank, I hear there's a Babe Ruth Foundation to do things to help untrived kids.
• 13:02
  Well, I got a suggestion, and I am talking now to the fathers and big brothers of the country,
• 13:07
  to the board of aldermans and the city consums all over the America.
• 13:11
  Let's form a Babe Ruth Memorial Committee in every city and town and village.
• 13:15
  And here's the idea. Build an extra baseball dam in every city and town and call it Babe Ruth Memorial Field.
• 13:22
  That field will be for the kids to use.
• 13:24
  If a city has 20 diamonds, one more will help.
• 13:27
  Call it Babe Ruth Field, and if a town ain't got any baseball field at all for the kids, bill one, and call it Babe Ruth Field.
• 13:35
  It'll be a big job, but it can be done.
• 13:38
  Let's all get together.
• 13:39
  Somebody in every town appoints himself chairman of a Babe Ruth Memorial Committee, call a meeting, and let's get going.
• 13:46
  That's a good idea, Diz, and let's get going now.
• 13:49
  Folks, we hope you'll be right back with us at the same time next week to listen to Dizzy Dean.
• 13:54
  He's brought to you by Johnson's Car New, a wax fortified auto polish that cleans and polishes your car in one easy application.
• 14:03
  Rub it on, and Car New cleans your car.
• 14:06
  Penetrates road film that water won't touch.
• 14:08
  Desolves road film right before your eyes.
• 14:11
  Wipe it off, and your car is polished.
• 14:13
  Car New makes it look as bright as day, and as smooth as silk.
• 14:18
  Get some Johnson's Car New today, and get a high polish without hard work.
• 14:23
  Because remember, to give your car that Sunday shine, rub it on, and wipe it off is all you do with Car New.
• 14:30
  And this is Old Diz. Hope all you folks understand this time next Saturday.
• 14:34
  I'll be pitching them across again for Johnson's Car New.