Latest / Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History / 1958 • Baseball Clip • Frankie Frisch Interview - Radio

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1958 • Baseball Clip • Frankie Frisch Interview - Radio · Retro Sports Radio: Classic Games from History

• 0:00
  This is Retro Sports Radio. Visit RetroSeasons.com for more sports history.
• 0:07
  This is Frankie Frisch, the old Flash, and in a few moments I'll tell you about my greatest sports thrill.
• 0:14
  This is Harry Wismer. What you're about to hear is a transcribed story of one of baseball's outstanding players and an event our special guest, Frankie Frisch, considers his greatest sports thrill.
• 0:38
  And Frankie himself is here to tell us all about it. But first, here is Bill Reddick with a message of interest from your United States Air Force.
• 0:47
  In every sport, the importance of initiative cannot be overemphasized.
• 0:52
  Recent servicemen, be sure you take the initiative today concerning your career.
• 0:57
  It will really pay you to take a new look at your future in the United States Air Force. Here's why.
• 1:03
  The new age of space is just beginning. It will be an exciting era full of challenge and promise.
• 1:08
  Quite naturally, the Air Force will be on top of many new space age innovations as they're developed.
• 1:14
  For this reason, the Air Force needs skilled technicians now.
• 1:18
  If your specialty is needed, and it may be, you'll have an important job with a guaranteed future.
• 1:24
  You'll find the Air Force is anxious to advance you according to your abilities.
• 1:28
  Remember, your service-gained skills are more important now where the age of space is now, in the United States Air Force.
• 1:37
  See your local Air Force recruiter for full details on a great future in the new age of space.
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  And now, back to Harry Wismer.
• 1:46
  The story of Frankie Frisch is the story of a fabulous baseball player, a player who was best in a pinch,
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  a player who came up in 1919 and for 19 years was one of the most colorful stars in the game,
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  a player who was the mainspring of four consecutive championships for the New York Giants of 1921, 22, 23, and 24,
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  and the spark plug of four championships for the St. Louis Cardinals in 1928, 30, 31, and 34.
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  Frankie Frisch was a fiery competitor who slammed out a total of 2,880 base hits, scored over 1,500 runs,
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  wound up nearly 500 doubles, and stole more than 400 bases in a career that was climaxed when he was voted to Baseball's Hall of Fame in 1947.
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  Frankie Frisch was a money player who played his best when the biggest chips were at stake.
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  As witness is four Giants World Series batting averages of 300, 471, 400, and 333.
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  It is the story of a shrewd and calculating manager who directed, among others,
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  the famous Gas House Gang of St. Louis to a 1934 pennant and world championship.
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  It is no mere accident that Frankie Frisch played in more World Series than any other National League player.
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  He was the best second baseman the National League ever saw. He could do everything any other second baseman ever did.
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  There was never a fiercer competitor than Frisch, a money player and clutch performer without peer.
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  He could hit for a high average and great distance. He covered more territory afield than a space cadet.
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  He was a swift and daring baserunner. He was a player without a weakness.
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  Frankie Frisch was never a believer in the law of averages or the percentage table that you can't win them all.
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  He always played up to his ears right from the first time he appeared in a Major League lineup in June 1919.
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  That year the baseball public was amazed when John McGraw announced that Frankie Frisch,
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  just two months off the Fordham campus, was Larry Doyle's replacement at second base.
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  Such was McGraw's way. If a player couldn't take it when the going was tough,
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  then McGraw wanted to find out about it as soon as possible.
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  He found out soon enough in Frisch's case, but a kid from Rose Hill could not only take it, he loved it.
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  And from that afternoon, Frank Frisch was a regular until bad legs forced his retirement
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  as non-playing manager of the Cardinals 18 years later.
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  Even though he was a 340 hitter and a fielding wizard, Frank Frisch in those days had his frequent tiffs with McGraw.
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  The Giants manager was an absolute matenet, managing the ball clubs every move from the bench.
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  He called every pitch his twirlers through. He placed every fielder where percentage and his experience dictated.
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  He asked of his players only that they be effectual, not intellectual.
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  In 1926, when the Giants were battling the Cardinals for the flag, the break between McGraw and Frisch occurred.
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  Frisch lost a signal. McGraw lost his temper.
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  There were harsh words, as there always were when a McGraw team lost, and Frankie got the next train back to New York.
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  That hurt McGraw because he was grooming the Fawdham Flash as his successor.
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  In December of that year, McGraw, still bitter at Frisch, traded him along with pitcher Jimmy Ring to the Cardinals for the great Rogers Hornsby.
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  The St. Louis fans incensed that owner Sam Braden for trading away the world's champions manager were cool toward Frisch.
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  But it didn't take him long to win them over.
• 5:25
  That season began a pleasant and stormy 11-year soldiering for Frank Frisch and St. Louis, in which Frankie endured himself to the Mound City citizens.
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  He was a fighting second base captain under Bill McKechnie on the Champions of 1928 and on Gabby Street's pennant winners of 1930 and 1931.
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  Frisch was elevated to the managership of the Cardinals on July 24, 1933.
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  The Flash guided the reins of the Redbirds until the closing weeks of the 1938 season and later managed the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Chicago Cubs.
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  Frankie Frisch's greatest accomplishment was to lead the 1934 Cardinal Club, the famous Gas House Gang, to an Astor League pennant and then to an uphill victory against the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.
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  Baseball men who know will tell you that no other ballplayer ever played the game harder. No other player ever got as much fun out of the game as Frankie Frisch got out of baseball.
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  A boy at heart, but a man among men. That's the story of Frankie Frisch, the Fordham Flash.
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  Now before you meet our special guest, Frankie Frisch in person, and hear about his greatest sports thrill, here is a message of interest to all young men with an eye to the future.
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  Former servicemen, did you know that some Air Force jet fighters contain 15 times as much electrical wiring as did World War II aircraft?
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  It's true, and it points up the fact that today's Space Age Air Force is a highly technical organization.
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  Naturally, technical experts are needed to keep the many Air Force jets, rockets, and missiles operational.
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  Trained men, men like yourself, are needed right now.
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  If there's an opening in your field, you will have an important job with a guaranteed future.
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  Regular pay boosts, tax-free allowances for food, quarters, and clothing, and many other Air Force benefits.
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  Take advantage of your experience and background now.
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  And by the way, former service women are also needed by the Air Force.
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  So all you recent servicemen and women, see your local recruiter about joining the Space Age Air Force soon.
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  An important job in a promising career field could be your reward.
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  Now back to Harry Wismer.
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  Frankie Frisch, what was your greatest sports thrill?
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  Well, Harry, there have been quite a few of them.
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  I don't mean to say that in a braggadocio way, but I think the one that stands out with the old flashes in the 1934 World Series,
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  when I often say that I stretched the triple into a double.
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  You know, I always read part of that because the bases were loaded and I got a two-base hit.
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  And it should have been a triple because I was so happy and elated to get this base hit.
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  I got the second base and I stood there and I watched those three guys score, and I said,
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  well, that's enough runs for old days. Now if he just bears down, he's got the game won.
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  What you know in a series like that, you know, they forget the guy that got the base hit.
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  It's that guy that wins the ball game, you know, out of the mound.
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  Then the next one was also in the World Series.
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  Let's see. My first game in the World Series, Giants and the Yankees.
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  I sound like a pop-off guy or a braggadocio guy when I talk about this, but these two were real thrills.
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  I was in the foul maze pitching against the Giants. We got five hits and I got four of them.
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  Little kid said to me one day, who got the other one? I couldn't recall who it was,
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  but later on I looked it up and it was Johnny Rawlings.
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  And Harry, I think I could say they, both those incidents were my greatest sports thrills.
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  Do you recall your first appearance at the plate in a Major League game?
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  Harry, why do you bring that up? I mean, now this was a nice, pleasant conversation.
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  I mean, I thought he was going to smile. I thought he was going to have a little laugh.
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  I was in Pittsburgh and I joined the ball club and my mother thought I was going to Europe, I think.
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  They packed the bag. They must have had everything they could find in it.
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  I think they even had a blue plate lunch in there, vegetable soup and everything else in this bag.
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  It weighed about 4,000 tons.
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  Well, anyway, I got to Pittsburgh. That's where I joined the Giants.
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  I finally got acquainted with the ball club and one day Mr. John J. McGraw said,
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  young man, grab a bat, go up and hit.
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  And right there the bat fell out of my hand three times, you know, going up the home plate.
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  I finally got up there and there was a guy named Frank Miller.
• 9:47
  I never had seen curve balls like this. These things exploded.
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  Boy, they like dropping off a table. I didn't even swing at them. I couldn't.
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  I didn't know where they were going. I'd go oomph and go to swing, you know, and that thing would snap.
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  Well, I took three beautiful curve balls and I was back on the bench.
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  Frank, what was it like playing under John McGraw?
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  Very interesting if you could stand it, Harry.
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  I mean, he was severe, strict, and you had to play his system of baseball.
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  In other words, I say, you had to know how to punt, you had to know the fundamentals.
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  He was a strict disciplinarian.
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  Brother, you better learn how to punt.
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  You had to know how to touch the bags, don't run over them, and a little fine now and then, but you might get it back.
• 10:28
  He was very kind. That way if he finds you 25 and you're knocked in the winning run,
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  you might get 50 if you were up in the race fighting for the pennant.
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  I can recall one day I knocked in two runs and I hit a ball right off the ear of the third baseman.
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  Hit a line drive, one of the hardest balls ever hit.
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  And a two run scored, and that'll cost you 25, young man.
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  I said, what? I told you to hit the right field.
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  I said, Mr. McGraw, the ball was outside.
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  He said, next time you get up the plate, wait till you get one inside and pull it to right field.
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  I am managing this club and you do as I say.
• 11:01
  Frank, what made the 1934 St. Louis Cardinal Gas House Gang such an outstanding ball club?
• 11:08
  Well, Harry, it wasn't what I'd say a rough-neck ball club, but I could say they played rough on the field.
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  I don't think they would intentionally spike anybody, try to injure anybody, but it was a ball club that was colorful.
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  I say out of the eight World Series teams I've played for, this was the most colorful,
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  the most interesting, and the one I got the most enjoyment out of,
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  despite the fact that a lot of people say, oh, they created a lot of headaches for me.
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  To be with a ball club like that and have the honor to manage it, it was outstanding.
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  Frank, did a pitcher ever talk you out of taking him out of the box, and with what results?
• 11:51
  Oh yes, that happened when I was managing Pittsburgh.
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  And we're leading by two runs, I think it was a seven-nilling, and I had a good curveball pitcher out of the mound,
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  Johnny Lanning, and John was getting tired.
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  And I walked out to the mound, the Braves had the bases loaded, one out,
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  and I said, John, I think you're getting a little tired. It's about time you got out of there now.
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  Let so-and-so come in and finish this up, and I'm sure he'll do a good job for you.
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  And Lanning looked me in the eye, and he said, Frank, this guy never hits me.
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  All I'll do is throw that curveball low, and I'll get him to hit the ball on the ground, a double play and it'll be over with.
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  I said, all right, be sure you get that curveball low now.
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  So I started back to the bench, and just as I reached to get a glass of water, I heard balloon.
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  And there she goes. The ball wound up in, I think, the room of the professor of mathematics
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  in Carnegie Institute of Technology, about 800 feet away out over the left-seam of the offense.
• 12:47
  And when John came back, I said, what happened?
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  He said, the ball hung. It didn't break. I said, yes, that's it.
• 12:56
  Frank, what good does it do a ballplayer to argue with the umpires when they know they just can't win?
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  Well, you can win once in a while. You might wake an umpire up. You might get him to bear down a little more.
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  But I still contend that arguing too much will upset yourself, upset your ball club,
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  and I think you're better off to walk out gently and say, good morning, my little arbiter.
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  Would you kindly change your decision? And he'd possibly say, go back and up bench a big meathead or something of that kind.
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  But I often say, no, it doesn't do any good to argue.
• 13:35
  Frank, of all the pitchers you've seen or managed, if you had one game to win, who would you have to go with?
• 13:42
  Well, if I had to pick a pitcher to win that one big game, I'd have two guys in mind.
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  One would be Dissy Dean and the other would be Carl Hubbell.
• 13:51
  Thank you very much, Frankie Frisch, All-Time Baseball Great, and a member of Baseball's Hall of Fame.