Latest / Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History / 1947 • Baseball Clip • Hank Greenberg & Groucho Marx - Radio

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1947 • Baseball Clip • Hank Greenberg & Groucho Marx - Radio · Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History

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  This is Retro Sports Radio.
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  Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.
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  Let us fly backward in fancy.
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  The place, the lobby of the Edgewater Beach Hotel.
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  The time, shortly after the first game of the season.
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  You remember Warren, I was huddled over a radiator,
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  reading your account of the ball game
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  when you stepped up to me and said,
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  Frank, can I see you a minute?
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  Well, Warren Brown,
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  what are you huddling over the steam for?
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  Boy, I'm cold.
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  It was freezing at that ballpark.
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  Wanna pull up a radiator and join me?
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  No, not me, I'm hot.
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  That show off Greenberg would have to hit a double
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  with two men on base.
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  Oh, he really took a hold of that one, didn't he?
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  The wind hadn't been blowing so hard,
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  that ball still be going.
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  Well, he sure caused me a lot of extra work.
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  What do you mean?
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  Well, I had my story written the night before
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  that the Cubs had won.
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  Warren, you're so imprudent, you should check with me.
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  Every time that Greenberg comes to Wrigley Field,
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  he upsets everything.
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  He did it in the World Series in 1945, he always does.
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  He haunts the Cubs.
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  Well, I hope it's nothing temporary.
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  It really looks though like Wrigley Field
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  is lucky for Greenberg, doesn't it?
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  Well, Bing, if you get rained out 153 more games,
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  your Pittsburgh team will probably win the pennant.
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  I just want you to know, Warren,
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  that I bear you no antipathy for your biased attitude.
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  And you know what I did for you?
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  I went out and bought a copy of your book,
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  The Chicago Cubs.
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  I bought it out at the ball game yesterday.
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  Did you read it?
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  Well, when I got to page three,
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  then I made a bond file of it to keep from freezing to death.
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  I noticed that smoke.
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  I thought it was Bob Hope sending up signals
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  to the Cleveland Indians.
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  Ha.
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  Ha.
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  Ha.
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  Ha.
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  Ha.
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  Ha.
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  By the way, Bing, do you know that all the time
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  Cleveland was training out in California,
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  Hope didn't go out to see the Indians play one game?
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  Well, Warren, Bob didn't know that he'd bought a ball team.
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  He thought he purchased the blanket concession at Albuquerque.
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  Besides, he's afraid to go out to a ball park.
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  He was hit with a baseball when he was a child.
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  His Indian name is Chief Lump on the head.
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  Oh, that explains everything.
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  You are so right, Warren.
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  So right.
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  I'm glad you see it our way.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, let's get back to you.
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  How did you ever happen to sell Greenberg
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  the idea of going to work for the Pirates?
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  Why, it had nothing to do with that.
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  No?
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  Well, let me ask you this.
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  Is it true that after every ball game,
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  you have to run up to his room and give him a rub down?
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  Oh, that's so much fiddle faddle, Warren.
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  I know.
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  I know.
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  I never did fiddle faddle, Warren.
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  I never did.
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  This is merely a vicious rumor
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  started by old Chief Lump on the head.
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  Oh.
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  Is that so?
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  Well, it's a fact, isn't it,
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  that you personally knit all of Greenberg's sweatshirts?
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  Oh, this is the grossest libel I've ever run into.
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  You may lay that report too to old Bulge on the Bean.
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  I'm not so sure.
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  Isn't that Greenberg coming across the lobby now?
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  Well, it's either Greenberg or the Palmolive building.
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  Hey, Hank.
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  Hank.
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  Oh, hello, Warren.
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  Hello, Vice-President.
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  How are you doing?
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  Well, Hank you sure played a great game today.
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  Oh, I did nothing, Bing.
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  Yeah, we got to nothing.
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  What does he churches are always doing
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  how much would you state take to stay away from Chicago.
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  Stay away from Chicago?
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  I love Chicago.
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  So do I.
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  That's why I want you to stay away from him,
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  You know, Hank, Warren is really a ardent cub-rooter.
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  Well the cubs are a great team.
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  You know, Warren, every time I step up to the bat here, I say to myself, wouldn't it
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  be wonderful if I can do it again?
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  You sure did it today, Hank.
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  Well, it was nice to see you, Warren.
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  Come on, Vice-President, let's get upstairs.
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  I'm really stiff from the cold weather.
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  I need a good rubdown tonight.
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  Rubdown?
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  Just a minute, Crosby.
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  I just had a few bottles of liniment left over after I sold the horses, you know what
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  I mean?
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  Say, you better not mention horses in front of a ball player.
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  Happy Chandler might be listening.
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  Horses?
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  What are they?
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  The ball players, Hank.
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  Horses are four-legged animals that pull milk wagons.
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  Especially yours.
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  Well, Hank, shall we get going upstairs?
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  I've got to keep you in shape.
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  By the way, Bing, I meant to tell you, I have plenty of sweatshirts.
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  I wonder if you'll start knitting socks now.
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  Anything you say, Hank.
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  What's your foot size?
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  Eighty-five and a half.
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  What Greenberg won't do to keep a good ball player?
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  Why don't the Cubs have a Vice-President who can sing, knit, and massage?
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  Would you fellas mind getting away from that radiator?
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  I'm expecting guests for dinner and I've got to steam a sack of clams.
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  Well, well, well, you're Groucho Marx or I'm greatly mistaken.
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  Glad to know you greatly.
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  How's Mrs. Mistaken and all the little mistakes?
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  Groucho, this is Warren Brown and Hank Greenberg.
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  Which is Greenberg and which is Brown?
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  I'm colorblind.
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  You know Warren Brown, he's a newspaper man.
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  Well, tell him to leave one of my house every morning.
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  No, no, he's not that kind of a newspaper man.
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  Warren sees the Cubs play every day.
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  Well, I guess a man will do anything to make money.
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  Go ahead.
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  Greenberg, I want to see you about signing up with my ball team.
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  Now wait, just a minute Groucho, just a minute here now.
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  Wait a minute.
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  Don't worry, Crosby, he's never been able to out-knit you.
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  Have you got a ball team, Groucho?
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  I had a ball team when you were just a babe in Ruth's arms.
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  I was a big man in baseball when Happy Chandler was known as Sad Sack.
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  Groucho, your team has got to be nothing.
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  Listen, Crosby, the Pittsburgh Pirates couldn't even get in the same shower with my team.
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  Oh, I don't know about that.
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  Well, I do.
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  I've got a girl's team.
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  Well, not only that, but I'm one of the scrub players.
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  Well, that changes the whole picture.
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  I'm owner, manager, and trainer of Marx's Bloomer Girls, better known as the Nylon Socks.
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  Why Nylon Socks?
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  Well, you get more runs that way.
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  What a team I've got, a cave on every bag.
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  You sign a new picture?
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  I just signed a picture.
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  I just signed a picture who's a sensation.
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  Is she fast?
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  I think so.
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  She gets in around three o'clock every morning.
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  Well, I want to tell you something, Groucho.
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  You can't have Greenberg.
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  He signed with the Pirates this year.
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  Well, he can play for both of us.
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  My girls only play night games.
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  I'll bet your girls look good in night games.
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  Actually, they don't wear night games.
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  They wear pajamas.
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  Well, Groucho, thanks for your offer, but I don't think I could play with your team.
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  Why don't you try to get Hildegard?
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  She's on second.
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  You better run along, Groucho.
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  Hank plays every afternoon baseball for Pittsburgh.
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  Your girls play at night.
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  Look, an afternoon game at Pittsburgh is like a night game anyplace else.
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  All right, Hank, come on, sign this contract and so you'll feel at home is a ballpen.
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  Well, that's very flattering, Groucho.
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  But wouldn't I look silly playing with a team of bloomer girls?
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  My team plays in Snuggies.
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  One season with my team and you'll be known as the Eddie Canner of baseball.
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  Of course, playing on a girls team, you can't call yourself Hank Greenberg.
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  We'll have to change that.
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  What did you call me?
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  Bob Feller.
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  No, that's no good.
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  You couldn't have a fellow on a girls team.
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  Hank, I'm going out to the ballpark tomorrow and watch you some more.
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  Have you got a box seat?
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  No, that's just the way my pants hang.
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  Say, Groucho, I suppose a lot of your girls got married last year.
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  So many of them got married, we ought to have spring training at Niagara Falls.
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  Next season, I'm going to let them train in Reno.
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  That's a separation center.
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  Well, it's a Broughton Barney one.
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  It's none of my business, Bing, but I think a girls team would be too slow for Hank.
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  Yeah, he's got to have action.
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  Action, why in one game, I heavy hitter slapped the ball in the center field.
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  He ran it first, slid it in the second, slid back the first, made it the second again,
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  then slid back the first and back the second.
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  What was the idea?
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  Her guidle was caught on first.
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  Well, Groucho, I'm afraid I hate to tell you this, but your mission here tonight is
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  futile.
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  We've got Hank tied up for a year.
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  Tied up for a year?
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  He won't be able to brush his teeth.
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  Anyhow, I have in my pocket a copy of a song I want you to sing.
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  Something clever?
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  Yeah, it could be.
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  I didn't write it.
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  It was written by Bill Coram and Harold Smith, and if this song goes over, I'll make a fortune.
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  Well, your name isn't on the tune.
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  How are you going to make a fortune?
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  I've got to take it on the Irish sweepstakes.
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  Oh, I'm sorry.
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  Anyhow, Bing, this is a song about Greenberg, and if you don't mind, I'll teach it to you
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  and vice versa.
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  Okay, let's break into song.
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  Why not get the key from John Scott Trotter, and we won't have to break it in.
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  You're so smart.
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  We've heard about those old time dangerous pirates of Captain Kidd and Silver John the
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  Long.
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  But we prefer those modern dangerous pirates.
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  As our victims walk the plank, we sing this song.
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  Oh, goodbye, Mr. Ball, goodbye.
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  You are going to see an awful lot of sky.
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  Don't hang around for Richard to open up that door.
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  When Hankus Pankus hits you where you've never been hit before.
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  Oh, goodbye, Mr. Ball, goodbye.
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  You had better kiss your relatives goodbye.
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  When Hank comes to the plate, ball, you're going to be out late.
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  So goodbye, Mr. Ball, goodbye.
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  Goodbye, Mr. Ball, goodbye.
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  Say hello there to the sun up in the sky.
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  A plate is mighty handy to eat the lean and fat.
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  But not when Hank the Greenberg serves it up with his big bat.
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  Oh, goodbye, Mr. Ball, goodbye.
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  Go fly till the blue has met the dawn up there so high.
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  When Hank gets home run itch, ball, you're going to drop a stitch.
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  So goodbye, Mr. Ball, goodbye.
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  And that could be finer than a partner like Ralkon are in the outfield.
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  And I am confirming that I'll work for Billy Herman in the infield.
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  Oh, goodbye, Mr. Ball, goodbye.
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  You had better kiss your relatives goodbye.
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  Wait a minute.
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  When the count is two and oh and I let that third one go, what happens then?
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  You're out.
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  Oh, goodbye, Mr. Hank, goodbye.
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  And furthermore, when I think I've got a hit and it winds up in Slaughter's Mitt, how about
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  that?
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  Too bad.
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  Oh, goodbye, Mr. Hank, goodbye.
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  Oh, Mr. Greenberg, goodbye.
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  Mr. Hank, goodbye.
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  There we go.
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  That's it.
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  Anybody hurt?
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  Bing, I think you ought to play ball for Pittsburgh and let Greenberg do the singing.
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  I think we'll arrange that first thing in the morning.
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  I think Bill Corham did pretty good with that.
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  He picks songs like he picks horses.
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  I don't know if that's a compliment or not, Warren.
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  But I think goodbye, Mr. Ball, is destined to be a big hit, at least in Pittsburgh.
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  Okay, Bing, but no matter how far Hank socks Mr. Ball, you can always catch the play with
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  a Philco radio.
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  Oh, you would bring me.
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  Remember any Philco you buy this year has got to be tops.
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  It's brand new from the circuit clear through to the cabinet.
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  Not just a face lifting job, but scores of vital improvements in power and performance.
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  Yes, even the smallest 1947 Philco table model is designed and built with all the resources
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  of the world's largest radio manufacturers.
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  And you can hear the difference, the miniature dialing.
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  Always thinking ahead, Philco gives you tomorrow in your radio set today.
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  So when you buy your new radio or radio phonograph now, look at the leader.
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  Look at a Philco.
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  Famous for quality, the world over.
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  Well, it appears to be about time to batten down the hatches for this session.
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  But before shoving off, I want to say that we enjoyed our visit out here at Great Lakes.
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  Meet all you wonderful fellows.
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  You've been a wonderful audience.
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  I want to thank George Barnes, Warren Brown, Hank Greenberg and Groucho Marx for coming
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  to bat for us tonight.
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  Good luck, fellows.
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  And good night, folks.